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Terminal World

by Erol carstein

Chapters

I: A hidden past and an uncertain future.

And in that time, before the gates of paradise were closed to them, mares and stallions were as foals, and so bountiful were the treasures and fruits of paradise that they lived four-score years, and some lived yet longer.

And Equestria was warm and blue, and many were its provinces.

So it was that the Pre-Equines came together and built Canterlot, so that they might transcend the mortal plain and become one with the Divine. Up and up they built, until so vast was the spire, so majestic in its grandness, that it pierced the heavens themselves. Drawing her attention, Faust herself did turn her eyes to the Godscraper, and sent her alicorn's to watch over it.

For none who are mortal may possess the key to becoming immortal.

But the Pre-Equines of that day knew no honour, no loyalty, only greed. And it was in their greed that they rebelled against the alicorn's, and waged war on one another for control of the Godscraper. Unknowing, even as brother fought brother, that the Divine lay watching.

Seeing the failure of the Pre-equines with her own eyes, Faust knew that such creatures were not fit to be permitted the bounties of paradise, and in her fury did turn on Equestria, reaping a bloody harvest in recompense for the mortals sins.

The shattering came to Equestria, and so it was that the Eye of Faust burnt through the world, and the gates of paradise were sealed.

They have not opened since.

The Testament: Chapter 20, verses 17 through 28

II: Joes Donuts.

The call came in to the Department of Public Hygiene sometime near eight in the evening, something about a mess way out on the eastern ledge. No one was quite sure where it had come from. Maybe it had come from the fourth ledge, or maybe even as high up as Circuit City?

But, since it was their job over at the Department of Public Hygiene to deal with stuff like that, a dispatcher wearily glanced at the decade-old tracking map on the wall and noted that one of the clean-up crews on duty was close enough to make the call.

It was one of the older vans, and he knew the ponies who worked it well. Taking a drag on his cigarette, the dispatcher lifted the phone with a wing whilst his hoof spun the dial, listening to the clunk of the building's switchboard as it patched him through.

≤ΘΘΘ≥

With a faint whirring and the drawling metallic noise of metal against metal the phone began to ring loudly, causing the dashboard to shake ever so slightly. Sighing loudly with apparent exasperation, Thunderlane reached across the dashboard with a wing and picked up the receiver of the phone, bringing it up to his left ear without taking a hoof off the wheel.

“Three-oh-seven here,” he drawled in a tired voice, scratching at the stubble on his cheek with a hoof. Beside him, his partner in crime, Windfree, pulled his face out of his customary bag of doughnuts, his eyes glancing over to Thunderlane before realizing that it was just another office call and turning his attention to a more pressing and interesting matter: the consumption of his Sugar Cube Corner doughnuts.

“Thunder, it's Tombs here,” a voice crackled in the receiver, its harsh scratch causing Thunderlane to pull the phone away from his ear slightly. “I've got another one for you: a faller. The guy came down on the eastern ledge, just short of the waterworks. You should be able to reach him if you take the service duct under Seventh and Electric out to the ledge. There's not a whole lotta stuff out there, so he should be real easy to find. The blue key on your jumpsuit should get you through any municipal locks in the way.” Thunderlane sighed again and raised a hoof to scratch at the bridge of his muzzle, closing his eyes. His other hoof tapped irritably at the steering wheel of the van as the pegasus vented some of his frustration.

“Come on, Tombs. Don’t do this to me. We’re fully loaded in the back and only a couple of minutes from coming off shift. Can’t you pass it over to another van?”

“Sorry, Thunder, that’s a no can do. At this time of night it’ll take another van at least a half hour to get out there, and if we leave the body any longer it’s gonna start stinking up and drawing a crowd, not to mention rigor mortis could begin to set in. Just suck it up and earn some overtime.”

Thunderlane groaned lightly and massaged the bridge of his muzzle. “Fine, we’re on our way. But we’re seriously loaded up in the back; make sure another van meets us there or we’ll have to stick him in the back with the others, and I'm not gonna make any promises that he’ll keep.”

“I’ll get on it. Call back in once you've peeled him off the floor; I’ll get started on the paperwork. Oh, and watch your step out on the ledge. It’s a long way down and I don’t wanna have to call our counterparts in Geartown and tell ‘em they got a couple of fallers of their own they need to deal with,” with that the dispatchers' voice was replaced with the monotonous sound of the dial tone. Thunderlane returned the phone to its holster on the dashboard and sunk into his seat, sighing as he contemplated at least another half-hour on the job.

“Another faller?” Windfree asked, pulling out yet another doughnut from the paper bag in his hooves. He eyed the piece of baked confectionery with an appraising look before shoving it whole into his maw and biting down on the soft pastry, sending a jet of strawberry jam flying to land with a splat on the mucky dashboard.

Thunderlane rolled his eyes at the display as Windfree leaned forward and ran a hoof through the trail of jam, raising it to his mouth and licking his hoof clean. “Yeah, some guy landed out on the ledge by Seventh and Electric.” The pegasus leaned over to Windfree. “Gimme one of those,” he said, plucking a chocolate doughnut from the paper bag. Windfree shot him a dirty look before returning to chewing on his own doughnut, which had left a sugary frosting all along his lips. “Another fucking ledge job,” Thunderlane grumbled as he took a bite out of his pastry treat. “And they know how much I just fucking love ledge jobs.”

“Come on, Thunder; suck it up and earn some over time like Tombs said. A job’s a job, and over-time rates ain't too bad.”

“You're only saying that because you've got a sweet tooth for doughnuts and expensive marefriends.”

“It’s called having a life outside of peeling meat-pancakes off the street, Thunder. You should really try it sometime. It’s one hell of a party.”

Muttering something derogatory to himself, Thunderlane reached down with a wing tip to pull on the flywheel switch, before backing the van up into a pick-up slot and driving out onto the main road. As Thunderlane engaged the vans capacitors, traffic was indeed beginning to thicken, vehicles stacked up almost nose to tail on the roadways as traffic moved sluggishly around the cities spiral, drifting like some great, lazy river of metal. Far above them the crescent slashes of Luna's two halves were on the rise, surrounded by a gently twinkling field of stellar debris.

Being in a municipal vehicle, the two ponies could engage the vans electric engine and go off-slot if they wanted, but that would still require detailed knowledge of the flow of traffic at this time of night to prevent getting snarled up, not to mention the damn thing had been on the blink for months now. Sometimes Thunderlane liked to think that he should quit working in a clean-up crew and become a taxi driver; it would probably make him a lot more money. Except corpses didn't require any need to make conversation, and Windfree, who often had his muzzle shoved in a bag of doughnuts anyway, didn't particularly count.

It took them twenty minutes to reach Seventh and Electric, the flow of traffic conspiring at every red light to hold them up just a little longer. The service duct was accessed via a sloping ramp between two decrepit buildings facing out from Canterlot. Disengaging the pick-up line that connected them to the slot, Thunderlane switched to the vans flywheel to take the vehicle down the slope, though he wasn't sure if he’d have enough spin left in the axle to get them back up once the job was done.

Climbing out of the van, Thunderlane reached back in to grasp a ring of keys off the dashboard before closing the door, the vehicle rocking slightly as he did so. Windfree emerged from the other side of the van, a heavy, police style torch strapped to his head and a camera on a loop around his neck. Across his back was a saddle bag stuffed full of all the necessary equipment needed to document anything they might come across.

Normally the police would be on hoof for situations such as these, but recently they’d been falling behind after Mayor Mare had declared a greater effort was needed in tackling street crime. As a result law-enforcement was perfectly happy to let the clean-up crews deal with any fallers; just so long as everything was documented and the paperwork filled out correctly. If anything fishy showed up in the report the police would get involved further down the line, but mostly the fallers were just victims of unfortunate accidents.

Thunderlane had no reason to suspect anything different this time round.

Unlocking the municipal gate with a key from the loop, Thunderlane and Windfree made their way down the dank service duct. The place reeked like a sewer, water run-off seeping down cracks in the floor to form a foul smelling little stream. Bits of cladding were peeling off from the roof, lying in small piles here and there every few meters or so.

At the end of the duct was a half circle of indigo sky, a faint breeze flowing through the opening occasionally to blow away the ripe smell of decay in the tunnel. Emerging out from the tunnel, Thunderlane took a deep breath of fresh air, his wings opening slightly at the sight of so much empty sky.

This far out on the ledge it didn't take a whole lot to absorb the sounds of the city; the rattle of commuter trains as they wound their way up and down the cities lazy tapering spiral, or the whine of police sirens as they sped from one crime scene to another. It was a lot quieter out here, and a whole lot fresher, with the wind blowing straight in from the open plains that surrounded the city; completely free from pollutants or vehicle exhaust.

Beyond the service duct, the concrete gave way to Canterlot's underlying fabric. No one had ever bothered to really give the plain, jet-black substance a name, for it was as ubiquitous as air in the last city of equine kind; but for the sake of municipal purposes it was known as Megastructure.

From the point where the two ponies stood the ledge was seemingly flat. But over to the left it began to rise and curve round with the cities spiral, and to the right it gently sunk downwards. Thunderlane watched his footing warily as he stepped out onto the Megastructure. The stuff was treacherous, everypony knew that; it could feel as firm as rock one moment and then become as slippery as ice in the blink of an eye.

Windfree slowly stepped out beside Thunderlane, his torch scanning all around for the faller. There was about fifty or so meters between the backs of the buildings and the sheer drop of the ledge, a bleak, featureless no-pony’s-land where anything stuck out. “There’s our guy,” the earth pony said, tapping on Thunderlane's shoulder and pointing off to the right, down the gentle curve of the spiral. “Unicorn by the looks of him.”

Thunderlane nodded in recognition. “I see it.”

They walked in steady, sideways steps as the structure sloped downwards; both uncomfortably aware that one slip was all it would take for them to land flat on their backs and slide helplessly down the curve and over the edge.

As they neared, Thunderlane glanced over at the body, just able to make out some features in the dimming light of the setting sun. He spied a horned head and four legs, all where they should be, and something crumpled underneath the body, like some kind of delicate gossamer cape.

You could never be too sure with fallers... but this guy didn't look like he had fallen very far.

Dismemberment was commonplace amongst fallers, since heads and legs had a penchant for popping free from the body; either from impact with the ground or glancing collisions with the sides of buildings as the body bumped back and forth before coming to a messy, bone crunching halt.

This jigsaw, however, seemed to come with all the pieces put together.

Thunderlane glanced upwards at the gleaming sky, lit up with distant stars and the distinct glow of the advertisement boards of Neon Heights. As far as he could make out, he couldn't see any buildings or overhangs that the body could have fallen off, and even if this guy had taken a running jump from the nearest ledge there was no way he would end up all the way out here; there was at least a league or so of drop-back before the next ledge came rearing up out of Neon Heights. Plus there should have been a lot more damage, a whole lot more. Something about this just didn't sit right with the pegasus.

“Something’s seriously screwed up here,” Thunderlane voiced, glancing over to Windfree.

“Just starting to feel that way myself,” Windfree replied, raising the camera to his eye with a single hoof and snapping off an exposure. The two ponies slowly crept further forwards, hardly daring to breathe as the corpse came closer and closer. When they were about ten or so meters out Windfree directed his torch at the body much more steadily, the beam illuminating the faller in his entirety.

That’s when Thunderlane realised what they were dealing with here. That wasn't a gown crumpled under the faller’s body; it was a pair of feathered wings.

“It’s... ” Windfree began.

“Yeah.”

The creature that lay sprawled on the floor wasn't a unicorn as they’d first believed; it was an alicorn, a Post-Equine.

Thunderlane looked up again, but higher this time. He looked up beyond the nearest line of buildings, beyond the electrical flicker of Neon Height. Up beyond the shimmering holographic mirages of Circuit City. Up past the cold plasma aura of the Cyber Polities. He could just make them out against the twinkling backdrop of deep space, circling and wheeling leagues overhead as faint pastel-hued specks around the tapering needle of Canterlot's spire, like insects around a bug zapper.

And as he saw them flying up there, as he saw the Post-Equine alicorns dance and caper so high above the realm of mortal ponies; eternal creatures who were destined to see the entirety of time in all its immeasurable glory, a single thought ran on a repeating loop in his head, spinning like a record.

How the fuck did one of you lot end up all the way down here? And why the fuck did it have to happen on my shift?

“Let’s bag, tag, and get the hell out of here,” Windfree said, a grim look on his face. “That thing’s starting to freak me out already.”

“You ever dealt with one of these... creatures before?”

“Nope, first time. You?”

“The first time I ever saw one up close like this was about ten years ago, when I was new on the job. The bastard came down on the green-line elevated, right onto the live-rail. The current had turned the thing into toast by the time we managed to get up there and scrape it off. The second time was about four or five years later, when one of them came down over in Cheapside. Not much left from the impact though, just some bloody shreds. Nothing much you could recognize at first glance.”

Windfree gulped and nodded again, raising his camera once more to snap of a couple of exposures. In the flash of light that followed, Thunderlane had the freakish sensation that the corpse had just twitched, shifting almost subliminally from one position to another to give its photographer the best shot.

Thunderlane steadily approached the alicorn’s body, kneeling down beside it and pulling his equipment from the pockets in his jumpsuit. The pegasus examined the creature beside him, taking in its alien form. Surprisingly, it seemed that the alicorn’s wings were the only broken part of its body. It had come to rest with its head lolling to one side, huge cyan blue eyes staring up at Thunderlane. It could have been alive if he didn't know any better, but there was no movement behind those eyes, no life; there was only death.

Death and silence.

“Damn alicorn must have been alive for the whole trip down,” he said. “This was a controlled landing, not a crash landing. It's the only way to explain the lack of blood.”

Windfree looked over at his partner before raising the camera and taking another shot. “You reckon this was a suicide?” he asked, lowering the camera. “I don’t know much about taking your own life, but I’m guessing that going through at least three or four transitions in one night isn't exactly the most peaceful way to go. You think maybe it just... you know, lost its way?”

“I... I doubt it. Alicorns spend their whole lives up in the Celestial Levels. They do more flying in a month then most pegausi do in their whole lives.” Thunderlane gently lifted one of the creature's wings, marvelling at how light the organic construct was. Compared to the alicorn's, Thunderlane's wings felt like they were made out of granite. Shrugging, he looked across to his partner, his brow furrowing slightly. “Hell, who knows how it got down here? Let’s just bag him, tag him, and get the hell out of here; the sooner he’s out of our hooves the better, I say.” Thunderlane stood up, groaning slightly as he stretched his wings. “Sweet Celestia, I need a stiff drink.”

Opening up Windfree’s saddlebags, they had the alicorn bagged and tagged in good order, ensuring to shoot a decent amount of exposures for law enforcement once they got involved. Taking care not to worsen the damage or break any of the alicorn’s twig-like bones, Thunderlane hauled the now body-bag encased corpse across his back. The sensation of the creature’s weight on his back – or more rather, the lack of the sensation – unsettled Thunderlane to no end. Carrying the corpse of an alicorn was like carrying a sack of bones and little else. They didn't even need to hose down the ground when they were done; not a single drop of whatever passed for blood within the alicorn’s body had been spilt.

There was no sign of another van waiting for them when they got back, annoying Thunderlane to no end. Climbing up into his seat, the pegausi leaned across the dashboard and plucked the phone from its holster with a wing tip, whilst his hoof spun the dial.

"Department of Pub-" Tomb's began on the other end of the line once the receiver had been patched through.

"Thunderlane here."

“Talk to me Thunder,” came Tomb’s scratchy voice. “Have you got the faller?”

“Yeah, we got him, but I don’t see another van anywhere. I told you that we’re loaded up in the back; we don’t have any more room for another body.”

“Sorry Thunder. I had Blinker on standby for you, but I had to send him down to the boundary with Geartown. There’s been a report of a zone shift and we needed a clean-up crew on hoof in case of any fatalities.”

“Well, you might wanna rethink that decision,” Thunderlane spoke, glancing across at Windfree. “Turns out that the faller was an alicorn, no joke.”

The silence that followed could only be described as sceptical.

“We've had no reports of anything falling from the Levels. Circuit City would have given us a notification if something had, and the Cyber Polities would be up in arms by now if an alicorn had passed through their airspace.”

“This one didn't fall, he flew down.”

“As they do.” The scepticism in the dispatch’s voice was plain to hear. After all, this wouldn't be the first time that somepony had faked an alicorn’s corpse for their own twisted amusement. For all Thunderlane knew this body could have been a prank played on him by one of the other crews to test how gullible he was.

But no, one look was all it took to convince him that this one was the real deal.

“Look, if you want us to squeeze the alicorn in the back with the rest of the bodies, we will. But you've gotta understand that I'm not taking any responsibility for any breakages that might occur. So, you want us to ship this thing over to Third?”

“If you think it’s the real deal, then that's the only place to send it.”

“I’ll take the fall if it’s not.”

The dispatcher sighed, the voice transmitting through the connection as a rustling spit of static. “Alright, take him over to Third. Just make sure that anything technical gets bagged up separately. Once you've dropped the body off at Third, we’ll box it all up and send it over to imports for shipping back to up the Levels. Now get to it, I’ll phone ahead and tell the morgue to prep one of the surgeries.”

Thunderlane hung up the receiver.

“Why Third? We never deal with Third,” Windfree asked, a frown on his face.

Shifting aside the frozen bodies of other fallers that they had picked up during the day, Thunderlane and Windfree stowed the alicorn’s body on a shelf in the back of the van before climbing back into its cabin. Thunderlane fly-wheeled the van back up the ramp and onto a pick up slot, once more becoming absorbed into the flow of traffic that ran the length of Neon Heights.

It was a twenty minute drive to Third District Morgue from Seventh and Electric, the van filled with a tense silence. The minds of both ponies were fixed on the Post-Equine entity that was currently stiffening in the back of their van, separated from them from only a few sheets of metal, some coolant pipes, and the thin fabric of the body-bag.

≤ΘΘΘ≥

Third District Morgue of Neon Heights was a drear building to say the least. Situated towards the centre of the ledge, the building was an ash-grey slab of concrete, its monotonous surface punctured occasionally by the yellow glow of light escaping through one of the windows. It sat lower than the buildings around it, hunched over like some small foal, whilst the apartment blocks and offices on either side loomed over it, jostling with each other for space.

Thunderlane circled the van round to the back of the building and pulled up into one of the delivery bays, the engine cutting out with a grating cough as he pulled his key from the ignition.

Waiting for them was a unicorn clerk in a white lab coat, a notepad telekinetically held in his grip. “A dispatcher from the Department of Public Hygiene phoned in a couple of minutes ago,” he informed Thunderlane, as the pegasus circled to the back of the van and unlocked the rear double doors. “Said you had something juicy for Twilight?” The stallion scratched his nose with the pen. “Twilight was starting to think that maybe you lot had forgotten the arrangement.”

“As if anyone could forget an arrangement that weird,” Thunderlane snorted, taking the pen and scribbling his name on the delivery form.

“Erm, what are you two on about?” Windfree asked, hopping up into the van and gently lifting the body-bag containing the alicorn onto his back.

“Twilight likes to have first dibs on anything freaky that falls into Neon Heights,” the clerk explained. “It’s just this weird little hobby that she has.”

“To each their own,” Thunderlane muttered, shrugging.

“Plus is saves the other morgues from having to wade through a mountain of paperwork; there’s always a lot of triplicate to do when one of these things makes it down here.” The clerk peered at the bagged form as Windfree lowered it down to Thunderlane, who set it gently across his back. “So... do you mind if I take a look?”

“Knock yourself out.”

The clerk leaned in and unzipped the body-bag, peeling it back to reveal that the alien creature’s features were serenely calm in death “They look so beautiful don’t they? When they’re flying about so far up there in the sky, glowing and all.” The clerk zipped the bag back up, hiding the alicorn from sight.

“Give the guy a break,” Thunderlane said. “He’s had a rough day.”

“You’re sure it’s a he?”

“Well, now that you mention it... ”

“Twilight is just outside the surgery, so head on in. I gotta stay down here and take more deliveries.”

“Rough night?”

“Rough week’s more like it. The boundary's getting shifty again, it’s causing all kinds of trouble."

“Yeah same here,” Thunderlane said, nodding in agreement. “The department's been running errands around the boundary zone for about a week now. Guess we better batten down the hatches and get our watches wound.”

Nodding goodbye to the clerk, they stepped inside the building through the back door. The morgue was all green walls and white tiles, the air filled with the eye-watering chlorine reek of industrial strength cleaning fluids. The lights in the ceiling had been dimmed down, casting dark shadows at every corner. Thunderlane hated the morgue – how the hell could anypony willingly work in a building where they cut open dead bodies? At least being in a clean-up crew meant that he got some fresh air.

They laid the body-bag out on a wheeled stretcher and took a freight elevator to the third floor. Once the machine had come to a grumbling stop, Thunderlane pulled back the trellis work door and pushed the stretcher out into another dark corridor. Twilight was waiting for them at the far end by a pair of double doors, flicking a cigarette butt at a wall-mounted ash tray.

It had been four years since Thunderlane had last seen Twilight Sparkle, but he recognized the mare instantly. There wasn't a whole lot about the unicorn that ever really changed.

“When I heard that there was a delivery coming, I was hoping for some more medical supplies,” Twilight said in her calm, measured voice. “If the cupboards were any barer, we’d have to start turning away dead bodies.”

“Be nice, Twilight,” Thunderlane replied. “We've brought you a present.”

“How’s work, Thunderlane?”

“Up’s and down’s, Twilight. Up’s and down’s. But whilst there’s a city and it’s full of ponies, something tells me that you and I won’t have to worry about losing our jobs any time soon.”

Twilight had always been thin, slightly gaunt on the edges; but now she looked like she had opened her eyes and just crawled off one of the dissection tables herself. The white surgical coat seemed to hang off her frame like it was on a coat hook, and her purple, fringed mane, complimented by a single pink stripe, was covered with a white surgical cap, her horn peaking out through a hole at the front. She wore tinted glasses, even though the lights of the morgue were far too dark anyway. The hooves on her forelegs were covered in green latex gloves, the hooves themselves looking gaunt and skeletal underneath their taut coverings. The shadows under her cheeks bones seemed deeper than last time, giving her face a sort of sunken, skeletal look.

Everything about the mare seemed to evoke the image of a corpse.

No getting away from it, Thunderlane thought to himself. The girl’s found herself an ideal place for employment.

“So what have you got for me?”

“We've got an alicorn for you, my friend. He’s just come down on the ledge.”

Twilight's reaction was hard to judge behind the glasses, any flicker of emotion hidden behind their tint. The rest of her face didn't seem to move much, even when she spoke. “All the way down from the Celestial Levels?”

“That's what we figured. Funny thing is though, there doesn't seem to be much sign that it was going fast when it crashed. From what we could garner at the site, seems like this guy made a controlled landing... or at least a controlled descent.”

“That’s interesting,” Twilight said in the uninflected tone of someone who would be hard pressed to think of anything less interesting. But Thunderlane wasn't sure.

“What you've got is essentially a naked corpse with wings and a horn.” Thunderlane smirked slightly. "I'm sure you'd find that interesting enough."

“That is what we deal with here,” Twilight said, either oblivious of the joke or just ignoring it outright.

“Do you... erm... cut many of these things open?” Windfree asked.

“The odd one or two, I can’t say that they drop in with any great amount of regularity. Have we met?”

“I don’t think so,” Windfree replied “What is it about alicorn's that you like so much?”

At that Twilight paused, her mouth twitching slightly into a faint smile. “I wouldn't say that like comes into it, more rather that cutting open alicorns is a sort of speciality of mine. That’s all it is. We’re set up for it down here after all. We've got the positive pressure room in case anything toxic boils out of them and blast-proof doors as well, just in case things really do go south. Plus, when you’re all done, the paperwork is fairly routine.” Twilight shrugged. “Way I see it, an alicorn isn't that much different from a regular pony, the only difference is that down here they’re a rarity.”

“Takes the pressure off other morgues as well,” Thunderlane added in. “Not everyone likes to deal with Post-Equines."

Twilight flexed her scrawny neck, a faint popping sound emitting from under the skin. “Everypony’s a winner.”

There was an awkward moment. The two of them by the trolley, Twilight with her green gloves and Thunderlane fidgeting slightly.

“Well I guess we’re done here,” Thunderlane said, passing Twilight a file from his jumpsuit pocket. “The docket has everything you need to know. Most of it’s fairly routine, usual details and all. Sorry about the stains though, that's Windfree's fault. Once you’re done with the bag send it back to the Department, but make sure you hose it down first.”

“I’ll see to it,” Twilight replied, taking the docket in her telekinetic grip and flipping through a few pages, glancing at several of the notes present.

“Well then, until next time.” Thunderlane said, nodding his goodbyes as he backed up into the still open elevator.

“Until next time,” Twilight nodded, raising a hoof in farewell but failing to look up from the docket in her grip.

“It was great meeting you,” Windfree added, raising his own hoof.

Thunderlane pulled the doors shut with a screech, and the elevator began to descend, the motor rumbling at the top of the shaft like some grumbling beast stirring in its sleep.

≤ΘΘΘ≥

Twilight stood still in the corridor until the display above the elevator told her that it had reached the ground floor. She slowly trotted up to the stretcher, gave the docket another brief inspection, and then wheeled the stretcher into the surgical room, donned a surgical mask and transferred the body-bag onto the dissection plinth before carefully magically removing the alicorn from the bag.

It seemed to Twilight that even in death the alien creature that was the alicorn seemed unnaturally beautiful. She placed the alicorn on its back, its eyes closed. Its wings hung listlessly over the edges of the plinth, their tips gently brushing against the tiled floor. Under the hard lights of the dissection plinth, its white coat was ghost pale.  

Not expecting to be disturbed, she removed her glasses.

Taking a moment before the autopsy began; Twilight gave the creature a look over, her eyes running up and down its body. The alicorn was thin, as was all of its kind. The limbs were spindly and skeletal, the skin seemingly pulled taut over the bone, with only small groups of muscle standing out with any real definition. The alicorn’s mane was a thick mixture of light and dark blues, the bands of colour organised into stripes. For a few moments more she admired the creature, its alien body and unusual aesthetics, before sighing and getting back to work.

After all, a corpse was just a corpse. And like all corpses that were brought to the morgue, it needed to be cut open.  

She pushed a squeaky wheeled trolley to the side of the dissection plinth, pulling aside the green cloth covering to reveal a selection of medical tools. There were scalpels, gleaming forceps, bone saws, sterile scoops for removing tissue, spatulas, and a multitude of glass receptacles for storing tissue samples in. Once she would have found such implements as laughably crude, but now they came to mind with a comforting familiarity.

A microphone dangled from the ceiling, Twilight tugged it closer to her face and threw the heavy rocker switch on its side, activating the microphone with a deep clunk of metal on metal. Somewhere beyond the room in one of the buildings technical bays, a cassette-tape recorder began to run. She cleared her throat, glancing to the row of clocks on the wall.

“Doctor Twilight Sparkle speaking, the time is now nine-fifteen pm. Beginning autopsy of corpse, docket number is one-zero-zero-one-nine. Recently delivered to the Third District Morgue by the Department of Public Hygiene.”

She paused and cast her eyes over the corpse; the appropriate observations springing to mind with minimum conscious thought.

“Initial indications suggest that the subject is an alicorn, probably an adult male. The alicorn appears to be undamaged, apart from impact damage to the wings. There is some longitudinal damage to the limbs and some sub-dermal swellings, recent enough to suggest that they might be contributing factors to the alicorn’s death. However, the limbs are otherwise uninjured with no signs of any major breaks or dislocation. Indications are that the alicorn’s descent was controlled until the last moment, at which point it fell with enough force to inflict damage to the wings but not to cause any visible damage to the rest of its body. Reason for the descent is unknown, however, the cause of the death is likely to be due to massive maladaptive trauma through exposure to multiple zones, rather than impact with the ledge.”

She paused again, letting the tape keep recording, whilst she reached for a syringe with a hoof. She plunged the needle into a small rubber capped bottle, one of the last dozen such bottles in the morgues inventory, ensuring not to take more then was strictly necessary.

“In accordance with protocol, I am now administering a lethal dose of Morphax-55, to ensure final morbidity.”

She leaned over the alicorn and lowered the needle until the tip was just over its chest, millimetres away from piercing the white coat. In the nine years that she had been working as a pathologist Twilight had cut open hundreds of Pre-Equine bodies. Some had been victims of accidents, medical negligence, or homicide. But she had only dissected eleven alicorns.

That was still more than most pathologists ever did in their whole career.

“Commencing injection of-” she began.

The alicorn’s left hoof suddenly whipped over and seized her hoof, moments before the needle entered its body.

“Stop,” it said.

There was a moment of silence, before Twilight continued. “The alicorn is still alive,” she spoke into the microphone, not taking her eyes off of the creature. “It has expressed visual awareness, comprehension, and fine motor control. I will now attempt to alleviate the subjects suffering by... ”

She hesitated and looked into the dying creature’s eyes, which were fully alert and terrifyingly focused on her own. The alicorn still had her hoof in a vice like grip, the needle hanging like a dagger over its skin.

“Let me do this,” Twilight told the creature. “It will help ease the pain, stop your suffering.”

“You mean it’ll kill me,” the alicorn said, speaking slowly and with visible effort, as if it had barely enough air in its lungs to make a sound.

“You’re going to die anyway.”

“Break it to me nicely, why don’t you?”

“There’s nothing nice to break, you've fallen out of the Celestial Levels and into Neon Heights. Your cells can’t take it, and even if we could get you back home the damage has already been done.” Twilight paused for a moment before deciding to say what she knew both her and the alicorn were thinking. "You're a dead pony."

“You think I don’t know that?” The alicorns voice was little more than a wheezing grumble, the creature's chest barely rising and falling. “I know what’s going to happen, but I don’t want your medicine. Now then, will you answer my questions truthfully?”

“If you have any to ask, then yes I will,” Twilight replied.

“Are you Twilight Sparkle?”

Twilight was silent for a few seconds. She had often wondered how it would happen when her pursuers finally caught up with her; though she had never imagined that the encounter would take place in the morgue. She had always assumed that the time would come in some dark alley or in her own apartment as she arrived home.

A shadow moving into view, a glint of metal; the sound of a blade as it sliced through the air, and then... that would be the end of it.

“Of course,” she said with as much dignity and calm as she could muster, trying to prevent her voice from trembling.

“That’s good; I was hoping I would be brought to you.” The alicorn grinned weakly, evidently pleased with its triumph.

“Why?” Twilight asked, acutely aware of the painful grimace behind the alicorns smile. As his cells began to denature and lose function, she knew, the alicorns body would begin to slowly devolve into a cancerous mass of maladaptive tumours. The pain such a transformation would induce wouldn't be anything less than excruciating.

She was very happy to not be in the alicorns hooves.

“Because I have spent the last nine years searching for you. It wasn't easy, I’ll admit. After you went rogue the princess ordered the destruction of all data pertaining to the Adaptive-insertion Initiative, every shred of evidence that could have proved you even existed.”

Twilight had only a vague recollection of her past life; flashbacks and snippet images of existence in another world. Yet she knew enough to know that if somepony up in the Levels was looking for her, it was far from good news. She thought about killing the alicorn then and there. She still had the Morphax-55 in hoof, poised to deliver its deadly payload, but the Post-Equine knew she was capable of that and yet it was still talking. Twilight had no idea what its end game could possibly be, but something told her she should hear the creature out. So, she decided to ask the most obvious question.

“So then why did you fall?”

“Because I chose to. This was the quickest, if not least risky way of reaching you.” The alicorn shuddered, bloody flecks leaving its mouth as a raking cough overcame it, when it came around the creature continued. “I was under no illusion. I knew this was a suicide mission, and that I would not be returning to the Celestial Levels. But still I fell, and stayed alive long enough to reach you. I heard that when an alicorn falls into Neon Heights, it gets brought to Twilight Sparkle for autopsy.”

“Most of the time.”

“I can see why that would work for you,” The creature quipped, smiling faintly. Its lips quivered slightly as the muscles struggled to maintain the expression. “Though I'm pleased to find out my information was accurate.”

“Can you?”

“Yes, Twilight Sparkle, yes I can,” the creature said, its voice suddenly becoming more serious. “I know who you are; I know what happened to you. You were once one of us, a true alicorn of Canterlot. Yet now you live here, down amongst the Pre-Equines, with their dull electric lights, their stinking factories, and their polluting cars.”

“Do I look like an alicorn?” Twilight asked; a note of derision in her voice. "I'm not sure if you can tell, but there are no wings on my back, only a horn on my head."

“I know what happened to you, Twilight. Don't try to play that game with me. You were remade to look like a Pre-Equine. Your wings were removed, your body reshaped, and your blood purged of machines. You were sent to live amongst the Pre-Equines, to prove that it could be done. There were others as well, a whole team, then something went wrong, and now it’s just you; now you can’t ever go back home. You knew you would be safe here, since alicorns can’t leave the Levels and survive. But it seems you've grown slack, Twilight, complacent in your isolation. If I was an agent of the Celestial Levels I could have crushed your skull by now.”

“It's just you and me in this room,” Twilight said slowly. “If you’re one of these agents, why haven’t you killed me yet?”

“Because that’s not what I came here to do,” The alicorn stated. “I came to warn you. Things are moving up in the Levels, Twilight, events that haven’t occurred in millennia are about to unfold; and unfortunately for you, that means you’re back on the agenda.”

“What do you mean, 'things are moving'?”

“Signs and portents, Twilight. There're indications of unusual instability within the Mire, or the Eye of Faust, if you are religious. You’re not religious, are you, Twilight?”

“Not really.”

“If you were, you’d say that Faust was getting restless again. You've probably noticed the pre-shocks down here already, boundary tremors, warnings of zone slippage, and so on. There’s something happening inside Canterlot, something not even the alicorns understand, and it’s got a lot of us in the Levels rattled. The ponies who sent you down here, the ones you’re hiding from, they want you back.” The alicorn frowned, his facial expression twitching as a muscle spasm ran through his cheeks

“I'm useless to them now,” Twilight told him in a flat voice. “They’d have no need for something like me. I'm an outdated model, a ninth generation; by now the project will be at least three generations further ahead.”  

The alicorn shook its head, the movement seeming weaker than before. The damage caused by the zone transitions must have been starting to take greater effect. “Unfortunately, Twilight, that's not the case. There’s information in your head they’d very much like to suck out, and if they can’t, well... they’ll kill you just to make sure no one else can get at it.”

“Then I’ll hide,” Twilight replied, licking her lips. “I've been hiding for nine years; I'm pretty good at it.”

“You've already tried hiding, and that hasn't worked. I, a single alicorn, tracked you down easily enough once I put my mind to it. As for your employers, I cannot say, though it’s likely that by now their agents probably already have a trace on you, sniffing out your forensic trail. Running is your only option. Being here is already pushing them to their limits; they won’t be able to track you if you cross zones.”

“Leave Neon Heights?”

The alicorn licked his lips. His eyes, the cold cyan blue of twilight verging on true night, were devoid of any visible structures. “Leave Canterlot, go all the way down and into the great wide open, the Outzone. It's safe to say that’s your only shot at survival.”

“There’s nothing out there,” Twilight said, shaking her head. "And even if I made it past the Everfree, it's nothing but ruin beyond. I'd never survive the wastes, not even pegausi can fly across them."

“There’s enough out there for survival," the alicorn snapped irritably, his brows furrowing in anger. "If you've survived down here, then you’ll cope out there. What matters the most is that the information inside your head mustn't reach your hunters. I didn't take on a suicide mission to hear you say that you wouldn't even bother to try.”

Twilight frowned back at the creature. “And why do they care now, hey? You never gave me an answer.” Twilight's hoof, though still in the grip of the alicorns, lowered a fraction of an inch. The needle coming that bit closer to piercing the alicorns coat.

Feeling the mare exert her strength, the post-equine tried to push back on her hoof. However, the zone damage had taken its toll, and he was too weak to stop Twilight from lowering the needle. “The work you were involved in was only ever the tip of the iceberg," he said, his voice strained from trying to push her back. "It was part of the Adaptive-insertion Initiative, a covert program designed to create an occupying force of alicorns with sufficient built in tolerance to different zones to occupy the entirety of Canterlot.”

“I know that,” Twilight dead-panned. “I believe there was a reason I was assigned to the initiative.”

The alicorn gave her a humourless bark of laughter. “True, true, but now’s not the time to get bitchy. Without you, the work stalled. But now, with the prospect of the realignment, the initiative has been revived and accelerated. They want that occupying force and they want it soon, which means they want your knowledge.”

“And what do you want? For all I know, you could want the exact same thing, except a different ruler on the throne."

The alicorn smiled again. “True, I desire the same thing, your knowledge. However, I would see my faction use it for a different purpose.”

“It seems to me that the safest thing to do what have been to kill me.”

“That was... considered, I won’t lie to you about that.” The alicorn gave Twilight a weak, pitying smile. “But in the end, it was agreed that you were simply too valuable for that. I cannot see your knowledge wasted, not with all the potential it has.”

Twilight lessened the pressure she was putting on the alicorns hoof, raising the needle slightly. “Then help me get back home.”

“That’s not an option. The best I can do is to warn you to get out, after that you’re on your own. Can you leave Canterlot without being followed, Twilight?”

“I don’t know.”

The alicorn frowned again. “If you cannot be certain, then there is very little point in even trying. If they know that you've left it's only a matter of time before they send a newer model after you. Is there anyone else you can turn to? Anyone else who can help you?”

After a moment of thought, Twilight answered. “Yes... there is somepony who could help.”

“A pre-Equine?”

“A pony who has helped me from time to time, yes.”

“Can they be trusted?”

“He knows what I am, he’s never betrayed me.”

“And now?”

“I see no reason to assume otherwise.”

“If this pony can help you, then go to him. But only if your trust in him is absolute, if not then you’ll have to go on your own.”

“How long am I supposed to be away?”

The alicorn gave her a weary grin. “You’ll know when it’s safe to return, trust me.”

“I can’t just drop everything and leave; I've got a life down here.”

At that the alicorn genuinely smiled, chuckling slightly until he began to cough. “My intelligence says differently, Twilight. No special somepony, no family, just your work. You cut open corpses day in and day out, and lately you've started to look like one as well.”

Twilight stared at the alicorn. “And you sacrificed yourself for this?”

“To reach you, Twilight? Yes, yes I did, even though I knew that my death would not be an easy one. But I also knew that if I could reach you, and persuade you to take your own survival seriously, that some good might come from it. Something that would make my own demise seem a small price to pay.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

The alicorn smiled one last time, his face sad beneath. “I’ll take that injection now, if you have no objections. You don’t have to feel bad about this; it was my choice to come here. Just don’t waste this chance.”

“I won’t.” Twilight tapped the needle to make sure that the syringe was still free of air, before gently piercing the alicorns coat with the implement. “Hold still, this won’t hurt.”

She pushed the syringe in and squeezed the plunger.

“How long?” the alicorn asked, smiling weakly as he released her hoof and lay back on the dissection table. The creature sighed weakly, a contented sort of noise as he visibly sagged.

“A couple of minutes, maybe less.”

“That’s good.”

“I never got your name, you know,” Twilight said, feeling odd that she had just delivered death to another creature, even one as alien as an alicorn.

The alicorn looked up at her, the smile still on his face. “In another time, another place, you and I were very close, Twilight, very close indeed.”

“We were... lovers?” Twilight asked hesitantly. How could she be lovers with this creature? She didn't even remember her old life, let alone something as significant as who her mate was.

“No, no, Faust forbid!” the creature said, smile still in place. “My name is Shining Armour, and I was... I was... ” the creature shook its head slowly. "No... Never mind, you probably won't even remember me."

“It’s nice to meet you, Shining Armour,” Twilight said, taking one of the creature's hooves and shaking it gently.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Twilight Sparkle,” the alicorn replied, his eyes suddenly widening. “Oh, that reminds me. There’s something I forgot to tell you.”

Prologue.

Gears whirred. An electromechanical telephone exchange hummed with the half-caught sounds of a hundred different conversations. Relays tapped in and out, jumping from line-to-line until – with a final clunk of something sliding into place – the dial tone came to life, purring like a cat bathing itself in the summer sun.

However, it didn't help that Doughnut Joe didn't pick up until at least the eleventh ring.

“Who the fuck is this?”

“Twilight.”

“Ah, Twilight. My favourite little freak,” Joe chuckled down the line. In the background could be heard the usual accompaniment of bar noises. The clinking of cider mugs, the coarse and harsh laughter of drunks. Somewhere a time-bell for a boxing match began to ring, the sound distorted as if it were being fed from a television or a radio set. “It’s a bit early in the year, isn't it? I don’t think I've got the sewing kit on me right now. One second, let me ask Caramel.”

“Joe-” Twilight began, before she was cut off by the boom of Joe’s voice.

“CARAMEL?”

“WHAT?!” came the aggravated reply, the response made even harsher by the spit of static it produced when it was translated down the phone line.  

“DO WE HAVE THE SEWING KIT? TWILIGHT’S CALLING!”

“IT’S A BIT EARLY IN THE YEAR, ISN'T IT?”

“THAT’S WHAT I SAID!”

“Joe, seriously! I'm not calling about that!” Twilight half-yelled into the phone, glancing warily behind her.

She was currently hidden in a semi-secluded back room of the Sugar Cube Corner bakery, one hoof cupped around the speaking end of the telephone. Behind her, through the open doorway that led out to the bakery proper, Mrs Cake, co-owner and operator of the establishment, watched her with a mixture of confusion and mild curiosity.

The Cakes had been only too happy to let one of their more regular customers use their phone, but Twilight knew that she had to be careful on what she said. The Cakes were lovely ponies, but she couldn't trust anyone at the moment – for all she knew the agents of the Celestial Levels could be watching her right now.

On the other end of the phone, Twilight’s interruption had gone unheeded.

“YEAH, WE'VE GOT THE SEWING KIT! BUT WE’RE ALL OUTTA ANTI-SCEPTICS!” Caramel was shouting, his voice barely recognizable over the spitting static of the connection and the rowdy shouts of drunk patrons as the boxing match’s time-bell rang out again.

“I THOUGHT I SENT YOU TO GET MORE THREE DAYS AGO?!”

“BULLSHIT! YOU TOLD ME YOU WERE GOING TO DO IT!”

“LET’S NOT GET INTO THIS RIGHT NOW! I'M SURE TWILIGHT CAN BRING SOME FROM THE MORGUE.” Twilight face-hoofed as Joe returned his attention to the call “Yeah, we got the kit. But the problem is that we've run out of anti-sceptic formula. We can do this if you want, but you’ll have to bring some from the morgue.”

“JOE!” Twilight hurled down the phone, capturing the stallion’s attention “Will you just listen to me?”

“Ok, Twilight, I'm listening. Just keep a lid on it, ok?”

Twilight sighed, her hoof cupped at the bottom of the phone coming up to massage the bridge of her muzzle “Joe, I'm not calling about the surgery. It’s the other matter.” Twilight glanced behind her again, relieved to note that Mrs Cake had gone back to kneading dough with her husband, and that the mare was not listening in on her conversation. “I've been found out, they’re looking for me.”

As quick as that, Joe was all business.

“Do you know, or do you think you know?” Joe didn't need to tell her there was a big difference. On a matter as shaky as her heritage, there was no margin for error.

“I know for certain, something… happened today, down at the morgue.”

“Where are you calling from now?”

“Sugar Cube Corner.”

“Right. Twilight, listen very carefully to me,” Joe said, his voice calm in the way only a pony who had a fair amount of expertise in shady dealings down a phone could be. “This is big shit, and I know you’re not the kind of filly to go jumping at shadows unless you've got a reason to. Don’t bother going home; chances are they've already got the place under surveillance if they’re really looking for you. Do you think you can make it down to the bar without being followed?”

“I think I can.”

“Good, I’ll send a message to one of my extraction agents. Everything should be ready by the time you get here.”

“Thanks, Joe.”

“No problem. Just remember, it’s important that you stay vigilant and alert, but you’ve also got to look calm and relaxed, too.”

“Wow, Joe,” Twilight dead-panned “Sounds like a real easy trick to pull off.”

“You used to be pretty good at this, Twilight. Just get back into the groove of things, it shouldn't be too difficult. Oh, and Twilight? One more thing.”

“What?”

“Be a dear and buy me one of those sugar-frosted cupcakes they sell down there, I haven’t had a decent Sugar Cube Corner cupcake in ages.” And with that, Doughnut Joe hung up the phone.

Twilight stood there, the phone receiver still pressed to her ear, before sighing and returning it to its wall-mounted holster. She felt struck by the feeling that she had just put into motion something that would be impossible for anypony to stop. Joe was a mountain, an avalanche waiting to happen. It took the tiniest nudge to get him rolling, but once he had started he couldn’t stop. The only option left open to him was to gain momentum, rumbling and roaring towards some cataclysmic, landscape-altering event.

Things were about to get interesting to say the least.

“Thanks for that, Mrs Cake,” she said as she returned through the door and back into the bakery. As she passed by the counter she laid a few bits down and levitated a sugar frosted cupcake over to herself from one of the display baskets.

“Cheer up, dear,” the mare replied, smiling warmly at her as Twilight slipped her saddle bags back on and opened the door to the bakery. “I'm not sure what your problem is, but I'm sure it’ll sort itself out in time, you’ll see.”

Twilight smiled weakly at the mare and stepped out, closing the door behind her with the faint tinkle of a bell.

“What an odd girl,” Mrs Cake mused to herself. Her husband only grunted in response, his hooves kneading the dough beneath them with furious energy.

≤ΘΘΘ≥

The bus came to a rolling halt whilst on the slot, pausing just long enough for Twilight to hop off before the doors squeaked shut again and the vehicle returned to the flow of traffic. Taking a moment to get her bearings, Twilight adjusted her saddlebags, sighing slightly as the weight redistributed itself.

The saddlebags had been in her possession since she had first arrived in Neon Heights. Originally, they had been part of her infiltration gear, but since she’d gained employment at the morgue they’d served a much more mundane purpose as her day to day carry bags.

The bags themselves were made out of black cloth, scuffed and faded towards the edges where wear and tear had done their work. Situated in the centre of the strap that ran across her back was an embroidered label that read Dr T. Sparkle. Both of the bags were secured by golden clasps and they both opened like a concertina, disclosing an assortment of padded pockets and receptacles she frequently used to carry medicine or paper work.

Twilight looked further back up the street and adjusted her spectacles, her modified eyes negating any restrictions their tint would have imposed on her vision. Fifth was a bad neighbourhood, even by the standards of Cheapside, the area of Neon Heights closest to the boundary with Geartown. Further up the spiral, social conditions continued to improve until you hit the centre of the zone, where the zone was at its most stable, and the who’s who of the Neon Heights socialite class could be found.

Joe’s Doughnuts, as Doughnut Joe’s establishment was imaginatively dubbed, was an easy place to miss. It was located at the end of a blind alley that terminated in the rising black wall of Canterlot’s underlying fabric, a jet black cliff of Megastructure that rose up and up into the heavens until it was promptly jogged back to form the next ledge.

Propped up on one side of the establishment was a three-story-tall derelict that had once been a fairly successful taxi company, until a raid by local law-enforcement had exposed the entire company as an equine trafficking operation. On the other side was an electrical appliance store that had closed for the night, though it was pretty safe to assume that every item it had for sale had been acquired by dubious means.

Twilight knocked thrice on the door in rapid succession. After a moment it opened a fraction of an inch, just wide enough for somepony inside to stare out at her. Warm yellow light spilled out of the gap, accompanied by a thick cloud of trapped cigarette smoke.

“Yeah?” asked the pony behind the door, a stallion by the sounds of it.

“I'm here to see Joe.”

“You’re Candy?” The single eye that peered out through the crack looked her up and down. “You’re a bit thin for a lap dancer, ain't ya?” Twilight simply rolled her eyes.

“I'm the Cutter.”

That got a response. The stallion behind the door looked her up and down again before pushing the door wide open for her, respectfully holding it open as she stepped inside. “Sorry, Miss,” he said as she stepped through into the choking atmosphere of the bar. “Didn't realise you were one of Joe’s acquaintances, I didn't mean any disrespect.” The stallion closed the door behind her, securing the dead-bolt lock and pointing over to the bar. “Caramel should know where he’s at.”

Nodding her thanks, Twilight made her way through the press of ponies to the bar that ran down one side of the room. The main room of Joe’s Doughnuts was long and narrow, the ceiling low overhead. The air was filled with cigarette smoke, the humidity instantly fogging up her glasses, and the rowdy shouts of patrons as they gathered round an old television that was mounted in a small nook on the wall, seemingly all of them yelling at the top of their lungs at the two stallions on the screen as they traded blow for blow.

Twilight slid off her saddlebags and hopped up onto a stool by the bar, her tail batting away at the face of an inebriated stallion as he attempted a pick up line that wouldn't have worked even if she were drunk out of her mind. The drunk, upon realising that his attempt had failed, muttered something to himself and promptly passed out, his head impacting with a meaty thud onto the surface of the bar.

“Well, well. Seems like the Cutter’s decided to grace us with her presence,” came the voice of a stallion from behind the bar, Twilight’s head turning to find the source. Trotting up to her from behind the bar was none other than Caramel, co-owner of Joe’s Doughnuts.

When he reached her, the stallion reared up on his hind legs, empty cider tankard in one hoof and a cleaning rag in the other. Caramels build could only be described as scrawny, no matter which way you looked at him. Rake thin, his hooves were entwined with cryptic tattoos that looked like they had been inked in with a piece of rusty metal and a bottle of low grade transmission fluid.

His mane was thick and unruly, a tangled mass of brown that fell well down his back from his current standing position. Around the base of his neck was a near-invisible scar where, Twilight could only assume, he’d survived being garrotted. There must have been some lasting damage to his larynx though, as his voice permanently had a slight growling edge to it; as if he were constantly ready to rip out the throat of any pony who so much as looked at him sideways.

“So, it’s that time of the year again, is it?” Caramel growled as he finished polishing the tankard, carefully setting it down on the workspace behind the bar next to the cider taps. “Shit must be getting bad if you’re visiting us again so soon. When was the last time you visited – June, June Prime? I know it definitely wasn't that long ago, to be sure.”

“August Minor,” Twilight replied, keeping her voice down as she scanned the low hall, her eyes settling for a few moments on each occupant before moving on again. “And that’s not why I'm here.”

Caramel simply shrugged, reaching under the bar with a hoof to grab a bottle. “Oh well. You know you’re always welcome to drop by, right?” Caramel pulled out the bottle. Within was a thick brown liquid that had the same consistency as congealed blood. “The usual?”

“No ice.”

Caramel pulled out the stopper with a pop and grabbed a shot glass, pouring out a generous measure of laced cocoa. “Doughnut?”

“I'm trying to watch my figure.”

“So, how’s life been treating you?” he asked as he pushed the drink forward, the contents within sloshing about lazily. “I heard you were still working down at the morgue. Have you cut open anything interesting recently?”

“This and that.”

“Nothing... specific?”

Twilight paused. Could Caramel know? Joe had always told her that the secret regarding her... unorthodox nature was something that was well kept between the two of them. He wouldn’t tell Caramel, surely?

“No, not really.”

The stallion behind the bar seemed to deflate slightly, his face falling as he sighed and reached for another glass. “Really? Oh, well that’s a pity.”

“And why’s that, Caramel?”

“Got a cousin of mine who works in the Department of Public Hygiene, and he told me that the other night he got taken out on an extermination job. There have been rumours of mutants down by the boundary, so I've heard. Creatures that used to be ponies like you or me until being so close to the boundary twisted their insides up, you know, like the way that glowing waste stuff in movies turns ponies into freaks.”

“And your point being?”

“Well he told me that he’d shot one, and that the Conversion Bureau came along and sealed off the whole area.”

“I'm pretty sure that mutants turning up near the boundary would have been in the papers, Caramel,” Twilight replied dryly, taking a sip of her industrial strength cocoa and wincing as she felt fiery rivulets scorch the inside of her throat. “It probably would have made front page news. But as far as I can remember, I haven’t read any articles about zone mutants recently.”  

“Yeah, I told him the exact same thing. But he said that a bunch of these shady types in suits showed up and made off with the corpse. He hasn't heard anything about it since.” the stallion shrugged, returning the bottle of cocoa to its place under the bar. “I was just thinking that since you work in a morgue that there was a chance that they brought it to you.”

“Sorry, Caramel. I'm afraid I haven’t cut open any mutants recently.”

The stallion chuckled to himself, reaching for the empty glass in front of the inebriated stallion sitting next to Twilight, who was now snoring quietly. “Never mind. Still though, has work been keeping you busy?"

"As long as ponies keep dying, Caramel, my job is never finished."

Caramel chuckled at that, a grin of black humour crossing his muzzle. "You know, me and Joe could always use someone who’s a steady hoof with a blade. Somepony who knows their way around the anatomy, so to speak.” Caramel favoured her with a devious grin. “What to cut, what not to cut. Stuff like that, if you catch my drift. What kinda injuries you can live with for a few hours and what you can’t.”

Twilight simply shook her head. “Something tells me that you and Joe know plenty of ponies with those kinds of skills already.”

“Maybe we do, maybe we don’t. But Joe isn't as good as he used to be, the damage is getting worse. As for me, my problem is I like to make them squeal, you know? I go too far too fast.” the stallion shrugged, as if he expected some sympathy for being overzealous in his interrogation techniques. “All I'm saying is that there’s room in the enterprise for someone with your level of restraint. Trust me when I tell you, and I know I can speak for Joe on this matter, that there’s potential employment in this business for you.”

Caramel lifted up the now clean tankard to the dim light, spinning it as he searched for any blemishes he might have missed. Content with the job, he set it down by its companion. “I know ponies as high up as the Cyber Polities who’d pay good money for a pony with your skills to help them with their... inconveniences.”  

“If I took on a job like that I’d be no better than Joe in a month.”

“True, but at least you’d be set for life. Just remember, if work ever dries up at the morgue, you know where to find us.”

“I don’t think that’ll be happening any time soon.”

“You've got a point there, with it being a morgue and all.”    

“Besides, I'm not looking for any alternative employment at the moment.” Twilight smiled, giggling slightly before finishing the rest of her drink. Alcohol had no effect on an alicorn's physiology, but the taste wasn't so bad and the drink helped her to blend in with the rest of tonight’s patrons, and as far as she could tell, no one seemed to be paying any particular attention to the skinny mare at the bar talking to the scrawny stallion behind it.

“I see.” Caramel looked left and right before leaning across the bar, his voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “So what’s your deal? You in trouble or something?”

“To the best of my knowledge, Caramel, I've never been out of it.”

Caramel rolled his eyes. “I'm talking about something other than whatever shit brought you into Joe’s sphere of influence.” Caramel fixed her with his blue eyes, one eyebrow lowered in a half-frown. “Which, by the way, I've never seen fit to pry about, just as I've never seen fit to pry into whatever it is you and Joe get up to when you go into the back-room with that sewing kit. Nope, Momma taught me to not go sticking my muzzle in other pony’s business.”  

“That’s good,” Twilight told him with a sweet smile, her voice taking on an innocent tone. “But I'm assuming that there’s no need to start now, is there?” Caramel was a part of Joe’s organisation – a big part if her suspicions were correct. But to the best of her knowledge – of which she had a considerable amount – the stallion had no idea about the truth of her identity. As far as she knew, Joe had never told another living soul anything of what he knew.

Caramel’s features darkened for a moment before he began to chuckle, starting as a low, guttural rasping before slowly rising to a just as animalistic crescendo. “Nope, Twilight, I guess there isn't.” The stallion leaned back and got back on all fours, taking one of the tankards he’d polished and bringing it up to one of the cider taps, pouring himself a large glass of the golden liquid. “After all, we've all got our own dirty little secrets to keep, don’t we?” He winked at her before chuckling again. “Joe’s round the back, in his usual haunt,” he told her, raising the tankard to his lips and proceeding to down his drink.

Twilight hopped off her stool and slipped her saddlebags back on. But as she reached for some bits to pay for her drink, Caramel raised a hoof. “No need, it’s on the house. Least I could do, with you coming to visit and all.”

Joe’s haunt, as Caramel had so eloquently put it, was a small alcove set back from the bar by an arch so low that Twilight had to stoop her head slightly to pass through. The tiny enclave was just about big enough to fit a table and the chairs around it, leaving little room for anything else. This lack of space, combined with its narrow entrance, gave the nook a claustrophobic sense of entrapment to it.

Today the stallion was nursing a cigarette, a half-empty shot glass containing his usual dosage of laced cocoa, and, as was in accordance to his usual custom, was sitting alone. There was something about the unicorn’s demeanour, some subtle, hard-to-articulate expression and posture that seemed to naturally repel other ponies.

He was a big stallion, the complete opposite of his business partner Caramel; the stained white uniform he wore barely fitting his bulky frame. His beige coat complimented his chocolate brown mane, through which the thick mass of his stubby horn stuck up. A pair of intelligent green eyes watched Twilight as she approached, noting in only a few moments every tell-tale feature he could.

“I was starting to think I’d imagined that phone call,” Joe said, his voice a deep, threatening rumble that sounded suspiciously like that of a dragon. He blinked and then twitched. “Traffic in Cheapside’s a bitch, ain't it?”

“I made it here in one piece.”

“True, now take a seat. At least look like you’re going to be in my presence for more than five seconds.”

Twilight eased into the seat opposite the bottled-up force that was Doughnut Joe, depositing her saddlebags on the floor next to her. “Thanks for agreeing to see me,” she said, feeling slightly more relaxed now that she was around company that she could trust. Joe took a drag on his cigarette, the orange glowing tip the only bright object in the dim illumination of Joe’s little hidey-hole. His hoof shook terribly as he lowered the cigarette to the ash tray, as if somepony had stuck a hook in it and was jerking it on an invisible string.

“Given the nature of what we’re about to deal with, I took the liberty of calling Rainbow Dash in advance. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Who’s Rainbow Dash?”

“She’s one of my extraction specialists, a good one, too. You’ll like her, trust me on that one.”

Twilight blinked in confusion. “Extraction? Who said anything about extraction?”

“I did,” Joe stated in a matter-of-fact voice, taking another shaking puff on his cigarette. “And we’re doing it, no buts. All the pieces are already falling into place, nothing to do now but sit back and let the current take you.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Twilight said, raising her hooves slightly. “Joe, aren't we jumping the gun a little here?”

“You told me enough of what was going on during our little telephone conversation. Joining up the dots is one of my specialities, Twilight. I thought you knew that? I joined up the dots where you were concerned, didn't I?”

“That’s because it was your job back then,” Twilight said, still a little befuddled by the speed at which things had advanced. One moment she was just coming to talk Joe about going into hiding some place, and now she was waiting for an extraction specialist to come and pick her up. “That was back before you hung up the badge and quite the force.”

“Eeyup, sure was,” Joe said in a nostalgic tone, downing what was left of his drink in one go. “Sometimes I think quitting the force was the worst mistake I ever made. That and not turning you in, of course.”

“Do you want to know what happened, or not?” Twilight snapped irritably. Without waiting for an answer, she told him about the alicorn and the conversation she had shared with it during its own autopsy. “It said its name was Shining Armour. Do you have any idea who that is?”

Not surprisingly, Joe shook his head “Sorry, Twilight. I'm a bit out of date with my knowledge when it comes to the who’s who of the Celestial Levels.”

“Well, after that I gave it the Morphax-55. Look, I know you told me not to, but on the way over I took the bus past my apartment. I know you told me I shouldn't go back home, but I didn't slow down or anything.”

Joe gave her an emotionless look before taking another drag on his cigarette. “Told you not to do that, Cutter.”

“Nopony saw me. I don’t think even an agent from the Celestial Levels could have spotted me when I went past.”

“We can only hope. Did you see anything suspicious when you went past? Anything that shouldn't have been there?”

“The only thing I saw was a van from the Boundary Commission that was badly disguised as a van from the Department of Public Hygiene. But, given the nature of the situation I'm in, I'm assuming it has nothing to do with me.”

“Right now I wouldn't make assumptions on just about anything. But that business with the van, it’s not just Mayor Mare’s administration getting twitchy. Word on the street is that the Tectologists up in the Levels are detecting twitches in the Mire, signs of some serious instability. Admins up and down Canterlot have been hoarding pharmaceuticals for weeks now.”

“There have been some serious shortages in the morgue; deliveries keep getting later and later,” Twilight admitted, her mind imaging the morgue’s dwindling inventory with its empty, dust covered shelves. “But I just thought that was to do with issues in the supply chain, or that something had gone wrong with production.”

“Nothing’s wrong with either of them, according to my contacts. Besides, all you have to do is just look at the pattern that this trouble is causing. These shortages and delays, your morgue isn't the only one with those kinds of problems, Twilight. This is too coordinated to simply be a scare, too deliberate. Word is that even the Celestial Levels are bracing themselves for a storm, and if the alicorns have something to fear, then we’re all fucked.”

Joe took a final drag and stubbed out his cigarette, his horn igniting with an aethereal glow as he magically pulled a cigarette packet from a pocket in his uniform and lit it, placing the item on his lips. “When you get past all the scare-mongering that’s going on, the message is simple. There’s a big shift coming, a realignment so major that it could hurt the alicorns just as badly as it could hurt us.” Joe shrugged and gave Twilight a smile that was somewhere between pitying and sympathetic. “Hate to break it to you, Twilight. But it sounds to me that with the alicorns bracing themselves and all, somepony up in the Levels has decided you’re a loose end that needs to be cut.”

Twilight paused for a few moments to digest this information in her mind, every cell processing the implications of what Joe had said and how it could affect her. Eventually, her mind came up with a response. “Given what Shining Armour told me today in the morgue, something tells me that they've got something a little more extreme than tidying up in mind”.

“What, you mean those buried memories of yours? Doesn't it strike you as a bit of a coincidence that after all this time the alicorns have finally decided to get at the information about the infiltration process that’s in your head, just as they’re preparing for a zone shift? Call me a sceptic, but I'd call that a bit of a long shot.”

“Well, for all we know there really is something in my head that could make all the difference. After all, neither of us know what my previous life was like, so it can’t be beyond the realm of possibility can it?”

Joe nodded in agreement. “Did the alicorn tell you how long you had to lay low for?”

“Not really. He said that something was about to change up in the Celestial Levels, that some kind of coup was being prepared. I'm guessing that if it works I can return, and if it doesn't, well... it was always dangerous for me to be here and for anyone who tries to help me.”

“This coup that the alicorn mentioned. Are we talking about something imminent, or something that’s going down in a couple of years or so? Remember that alicorns are immortal after all, their version of soon might be a little bit different from ours.”

Twilight shrugged apathetically, knowing full well that what Joe said was right. “You’re right; it could be months away for all we know, years even. But however long it takes for civility to be restored in the Levels, that’s how long I need to be away for."

"Did this Shining Armour tell you anything else about the coup? Any names or dates?"

Twilight shook her head. "I'm afraid not, all he gave me was a name.

"And that is?"

"Lord Sombra; the Usurper."

"Damn," Joe muttered, his hoof twitching violently, involuntarily tapping against the table. "Sounds to me like you could be getting involved with some real nasty fucks, Cutter."

"From what Shining Armour told me, this isn't just about me saving my own neck. If I’m valuable enough to someone up in the Levels that they would sacrifice one of their own to come warn me, than for all we know I could be the key to saving Canterlot from the alicorns.”

“Look who’s jumping the gun now.” Joe gave her a half-smile, the cigarette tip illuminating half of his face, exacerbating the bags under his eyes. “But still. All jokes aside, how do we know we can trust the motives of the ponies who came to warn you? For all we know this could all be part of some sort of elaborate trap.”

“They gave me a weapon, Joe. I don’t think they would have done that if they hadn’t had my best interests in mind.”

“This weapon which you still haven’t shown me.”

“I’ve got it with me.” Twilight leaned back in her chair, hooves crossed. “You mentioned an extraction specialist. That’s new news to me, Joe. Whenever we talked about this it was always you who were get me out of Canterlot, not one of your cronies.”

Joe gave her a bland look, smoking snorting from his nostrils as he took a drag on his cigarette. “This may have escaped your notice, Twilight, but I’m getting a little frayed at the edges recently. Morphax-55 doesn’t do anything for me anymore, not unless I dial up the dosage, and it’s already pretty high.”

“Looks to me as if you’ve dialled it up as high as it can go without killing yourself.” Twilight said, shaking her head. It was true, the decline in the state of Joe’s nervous system since the last time they had met was much worse then she’d anticipated.

Joe accepted the pathologist’s diagnosis with a powerful, twitch-like shrug, reaching up with a hoof to scratch at his temple. “The damage’s taken its toll. I can’t go any deeper than Geartown; much less survive beyond the border of Canterlot. I’ll be able to take you as far as the Midtown train station, but after that you’ll be in Dash’s hooves. Sure, she’s got her quirks, but she’s a damn fine operator with nearly two dozen successful extractions under her belt.”

“Out of how many attempts?”

Joe snorted; smoke belching from his nostrils like he was some sort of demon. “Come on, Twilight, You’re getting twitchy again. What matters the most is that she can get the job done and that she’s ready to go. Now then, are you going to show me this weapon that the alicorn gave you?”

Twilight looked back over her shoulder. Through the cramped archway the bar was still as lively as ever, but it seemed as though everyone was engrossed in their own debauchery. “Are you sure it’s safe here?”

“Provided that whatever the alicorn gave you doesn’t explode, then yes.”

Twilight leaned down and grabbed her saddlebags, hoisting them up onto the table. “I suppose that if the alicorn was sent to kill me, he would have had ample time to do so at the morgue,” she told Joe as she sprung one of the golden clasps that held the bags shut. “But he didn’t. It’s not much, but that’s what my theory of their support is based on.”

“We’ll roll with it for now.”

The final clasp came undone; Twilight pulled the bag open and stuck a hoof in, digging for something. Shortly afterwards her hoof emerged gripping a heavy bandaged object, the linen it was wrapped in stained with some sort of sticky fluid, evoking the image of a severed hoof wrapped in bandages.

Twilight laid the linen down on the table and slowly unwrapped the sticky material, moving with slow, deliberate movements to ensure that she didn’t damage any of the contents within. The final strip came loose, revealing twelve smaller packages, each wrapped in their own bundle of cloth. “This is how it came out of him,” Twilight explained as she bundled up the sticky linen. “In pieces.”

“What do you mean out of him?”

“Each of these pieces had been surgically implanted into alicorn. I noticed the bruises the procedure left behind as soon as I unwrapped him on the plinth. Surgery must have been the only way to get the weapon down here. If anything that was obviously advanced technology had been found on his body, the clean-up crew would have boxed it up and sent it to the Conversion Bureau before I even had a chance to look at it.”

“Well, at least it proves that the alicorns were serious about getting a weapon to you. Going so far as to surgically implant a weapon into one of their own shows that this was more than just an afterthought” Joe's hoof gently prodded one of the parcels, his features grimacing slightly as a string of the alicorn’s bodily fluid stuck to his hoof when he pulled it away. “There’s only one problem though. This is celestial technology from the Levels, and this is Neon Heights. Why would they go through all that effort to send down a weapon that can’t function within our zone?”

“I don’t think the alicorns would have gone to such extreme measures if they knew that sending this was nothing but a futile gesture.” Twilight began to gently unwrap the pieces one by one, wiping off any spare residue before setting them down on the table with the cloth underneath them. The bandages had been a pristine white before, but now it had stained a sickly yellow and pink discolouration. None of the components were any bigger than Twilight’s hoof, and, despite her best efforts, each was still covered in a thin film of blood and slime.

Joe eyed up the pieces with an inquisitive eye, one hoof tapping on the table rhythmically, as he was prone to do when thinking. “Are you sure you didn’t miss anything?”

“I’m sure. Shining Armour told me exactly where to cut and how many pieces I’d find.” Twilight made a sweeping gesture over the pieces. “This is all we have to work with.”

Joe, grimacing slightly as he touched the alicorn artefact, picked up one of the pieces and wiped off the residue with a piece of cloth, holding the part up to his eye with a trembling hoof. Like the other pieces, it was made out of a hard, matte-silver metal.

“I didn’t know what I was expecting, but I thought it would be... heavier.”

“Everything the alicorns make is light” Twilight told him “They’re very good at it.”

“Tell me, Twilight. How long did it take you to say them instead of we?”

“It’s inbuilt cerebral camouflage. But just because I don’t associate myself with them doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten what I am.” Twilight pulled out a fresh sheet of linen from her saddlebags and set about giving the pieces a proper clean up, wiping away the slimy residue coating each segment of the weapon. All the while, Joe watched the proceedings with growing interest, as if he were studying the opening moves of a high-stakes card game and not his friend cleaning up alien goo. One by one, Twilight cleaned up the parts and set them back on the table, the pieces so light that they barely made a sound as they were put down.

“So... anything particularly jumping out at you?” Joe asked once the cleaning had been finished.

Twilight sat back on her chair, staring at the pieces in confusion. “I honestly have no idea where to start.” Twilight sifted through the parts, picking up each in turn and examining it with a critical eye. The alicorn had given her detailed instructions on what to do with the weapon, but with all the jargon he had used Twilight was still as hopelessly lost as if she hadn’t been given any instructions at all. “Joe, you wouldn’t by any chance know what a fusion module looks like would you?”

“Sorry, Twilight. I dropped engineering back in college.”

“You went to college?”

“Shut up, Twilight.” Joe stared at the pieces for a moment longer, before he jabbed a hoof forward at four of them. “Just a guess on my part, but it looks like those pieces slot together to form some kind of ring.”

Twilight picked up two of the pieces, examining them. Joes guess could have been right; from the looks of the pieces they would have formed a semicircle if joined together correctly. Twilight slid the two pieces together and felt a tiny, microscopic click as they locked together.

That was far too precise to be an accident.

“Good call Joe; we’re a sixth of the way there.”

“Anything started ticking in that head of yours?”

Twilight said nothing. Taking the two other brackets, she joined them together to form another semicircle and then joined the two pieces together. Again she felt that tiny click. She tried pulling the pieces apart, but they were solidly fixed together. She couldn’t even spot a visible joint line; it was as if the segments had fused seamlessly together the moment they had been joined.

Twilight held up the complete ring and then slid it over her hoof. It fitted perfectly, as if the measurements had been made specifically for her. Glancing over at the other pieces, she saw an elongated pipe, a helical double spiral running down its entire left side. Another piece, a thick, featureless cylinder, had a single hole on one end that looked roughly wide enough to accommodate the pipe. She picked it up and slotted the pipe into the hole, again feeling that click as the two pieces engaged.

From what she could make out, she was holding some kind of focussing device. However, when she pressed it to the ring, the two pieces didn’t match each other- she was still missing something.

“Wild stab in the dark here, Twilight. But something tells me that we’ve got a gun here.”

“I’m not fond of guns.”

“I am,” said a new voice. “Especially when they’re nice and shiny. So Joe, I’m guessing this is the new package, right?”

Twilight turned away from her little model kit as a mare trotted through the arch of the alcove and into the nook. She was short enough that she didn’t need to duck when she passed through the arch. Her coat was a cyan blue, the same shade as the sky on a fine summer’s day. Her eyes, a bright magenta colour, seemed to sparkle with some kind of hidden mischief.

However, her mane was her most prominent feature by far. Like Caramel’s, it was thick and unruly. But what really set it apart was its colouration, as it was banded by six streaks of vibrant colour: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple, in that order. She was clad in a heavy olive green coat that was several sizes too big for her, a pair of wings emerging from two holes in the back. If Twilight had to guess her age she would have put the pegasus somewhere between fifteen and twenty.

“Ah, Rainbow Dash, I see you’ve finally arrived.” Joe gestured to Twilight. “I’d like you to meet Dr Twilight Sparkle, a personal friend of mine. She is, as you correctly guessed, the package you’ll be smuggling. I was just reassuring Miss Sparkle on what a fine job you were going to do of getting her out of Canterlot.”

“I hope you told her that this isn’t going to be some kinda joyride.”

“I’m under no illusions,” Twilight said.

“Looking at three hard days to get you out, if everything goes as planned. Which, of course, it mostly won’t. Three days of roughing it up. I’m talking about sleeping in the dirt and getting less rest than you’ve ever had in your whole life, and a shit-ton of anxiety as well. Of course, once the easy parts over all we have to do is find Joe’s contacts and hope that they’re still willing to take you to Manehattan.”

“Oh, don’t forget the danger as well.” Joe added. “Cutter here’s ticked off some powerful ponies up in the Levels. They’ve got deep-penetration agents in Neon Heights and they’ll be looking to intercept our friend here before she skips town.”

“Haha, deep-penetration.” Dash chuckled to herself, a foalish grin in place.

“Dash!” Joe scolded. “Please, you’re in the company of polite society!” Joe shook his head as he rolled his eyes, turning his attention back to Twilight. “Dash here is one of the quickest extraction specialists in the business, even if she does have the sense of humour of a foal. She once got a guy all the way from Circuit City down to Ponyville in two days flat.”

“Yep, that’s me,” Dash said, examining her hoof with a smug smile. “Rainbow Dash, the fastest pegasus ever.” the mare’s expression then became noticeably more serious. “Still though, you didn’t say anything about alicorns on the phone, Joe. You said that it was local heat I’d have to deal with. In my mind there’s a big difference between the Neon Heights police force and deep-penetration agents from the–,” the mare suddenly grinned widely and began to giggle loudly to herself. “Oh man, I can’t believe that! deep-penetration!” she said in a mock impression of Joe’s deep voice. However, when she noticed the unimpressed look on Joe’s face she soon calmed down. “Yeah, all serious now. It’s not the same thing, Joe.”

“One day I’m going to lose my patience when it comes to you and your jokes,” Joe said, twitching slightly as he stared the pegasus dead in the eye. “Anyway, you’re not saying a little thing like a bunch of alicorns is gonna scare you off the job, are you?”

“Fuck no!” Dash said, stamping a hoof. “I’m not scared of a bunch of alicorns. They can bring all they’ve got; I could still kick their flanks!”        

“What I figured. The bonus is Cutter here’s come into a little inheritance from a friend of hers.” Joe gestured to the pieces. “Only problem is... we have no idea how to put it all together.”

Dash stared at the gore stained puzzle on the table, her muzzle scrunching up slightly as she caught a whiff of the smell. “This is the weapon you two were talking about?”

“It’s alicorn technology. Just a little something to give Twilight the edge, so that she can make it out of town with her coat intact.”

“Looks like something Winnoa sicked up.”  

“Dash!” Joe chided.

“What? It does!”

Joe twitched.

“Well, whatever it looks like, you don’t want to know where it came from, trust me on that.” Joe reached up and ran a hoof through his mane, magically pulling out another cigarette. “So, any new insights yet, Cutter?”

Twilight stared at the as-yet-unassembled weapon. For a moment, the parts remained a puzzle that was impossible to reconcile. Then, with a shudder of intuitive understanding, it all made sense. That piece over there combined with another element to form a kind of aperture she could slot the focussing array into. The rest of the pieces joined together into some kind of retracting deployment assembly, which would attach the focusing array to the ring around her hoof. Combining the pieces, she attached the focusing array, and then slid the deployment assembly into place.

As the anticipated click arrived, the weapon suddenly came alive around her hoof.

A tracery of luminous blue lines branched out across the surface of the weapon, meshing together into a kind of spider web as if the weapon were validating its own operational integrity. The change was so sudden that Twilight nearly flung the gun across the room in fright, squeaking as the weapon flared into life.

“Well... looks like I was right on that one,” Joe stated.

“Yeah,” Twilight said in a shaking voice, hesitantly twisting her hoof to watch as the lines flickered across the surface of the weapon. “Sure looks that way.”

“What I said earlier still stands though. That’s celestial technology; chances are it won’t even function down here.”

“If it does then we’re all–” Dash began.

The gun spoke.

“Thank you for reassembling me. Please be advised that I am programmed to form a singular blood-lock with the individual now holding me. If you wish for the singular blood-lock to be formed with a different individual, then he or she must handle me within the next thirty seconds.” The voice was hard and metallic, a slight feminine edge to it. “Please be advised that a blood-lock may only be assigned once to a single individual. I am now initiating a thirty second countdown. You will be alerted once the blood-lock has been established.”

“Guess that’s you, Twilight,” Joe said to the mare, her face visibly pale. He had a sly smirk on his face, as if he was enjoying every moment of the proceedings.

“Maybe I should have it,” Dash said, frowning slightly at the weapon. “After all, I’m the one who’s going to be doing all the damage.”

Twilight held her hoof at a distance, even though half of her mind was screaming at her to drop the weapon and hand it to Rainbow Dash. “There’s... intelligence in this thing, I can feel it,” she said “That shouldn’t be possible, machines can’t think down here!”

Joe shrugged. “Things do have a tendency to keep working for a while after they’ve crossed in a new zone.”

“Not when they’ve been taken apart, sewed into an alicorn, and then put back together they don’t.”

“Sewed into a what now?!” Dash exclaimed, her nose scrunching up in disgust as she took a half-step back.

“I’ll tell you later.”

“Well... fine, whatever. Just give me the gun.”

“Nope. Sorry Dash, but that’s Cutter’s toy now.” Joe looked to Dash and gave her an expression that just dared her to contradict him.

“Blood-lock has now been established, thank you for your patience,” the machine spoke. “Please be advised. Ambient conditions are such that my operation effectiveness in energy discharge mode is eighty three percent and falling.”

There was an awkward silence. “What?” Joe asked.

“Based on the theory that current zone conditions will remain stable, I will become inoperable in energy discharge mode in approximately five hours and twenty two minutes, with an error margin of plus or minus eight minutes. Functionality will become severely compromised in three hours and forty five minutes.”

“It’s already beginning to fail,” Twilight said, slipping the weapon off and turning it over in her hooves.

“Five hours, that’s not a whole lot of time.” Joe turned to Dash. “What time do you make it?”

Dash pulled back on a sleeve of her coat to expose a silver watch and raised a foreleg to examine it. “I got nine on the dot, last outbound train for Geartown leaves at ten fifteen.”

“Still doable then.”

“Haha, doable.”

“Dash!”

“Sorry. But in all seriousness, yes. We have to leave now though.”

“Slow down!” Twilight exclaimed, feeling like she was stuck in a rapid current that was accelerating faster and faster. “I came here to discuss the possibility of leaving Canterlot, that’s all. I thought we’d be making preparations for tomorrow or the day after, not leaving right now!”

“Things just went up a notch,” Joe told her, giving her a look that showed he thought it should have been obvious “Besides, that alicorn told you not to hang around. For all we know the Celestial Level’s agents could try and make a grab for you tonight, let alone wait for tomorrow.”

“I don’t know Dash. How can I trust that she’s any good?” Twilight glanced over to Rainbow Dash. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

“Dash works for me, which should be all the recommendation you need.” Joe looked over expectantly at Rainbow Dash. “I trust you came prepared?"

Dash made a face. “Shit, I forgot.”

“Dash!”

Dash smiled before rearing on her hind legs and pulling her coat open. Stitched to the insides of the coat were an array of armaments and equipment, each item assigned to its own little pouch. There was a sub-machine gun, a revolver, an automatic, a pistol, some kind of miniature crossbow type device, and an assortment of blades, some for throwing and some for close combat.

There were also bullets, magazines, powder boxes, and an apothecary’s wet dream of colour coded vials and stoppered bottles.

“I didn’t forget,” Dash said with a grin.

“Told you she was good,” Joe said with a smile, pushing his chair back and standing up to his full, considerable height “And now, Cutter. It’s time to let you in on a little operational secret of mine. I trust that it has occurred to you how foalish it would be for a stallion in my position to let himself get trapped in a room as small as this?”

“Now that you mention it... ”

Joe produced a ring of cast iron keys from the pocket of his uniform and then bucked the section of panelled wall behind him, the bang it produced echoing around the tiny alcove. For a few moments nothing happened, and Twilight was about to say how stupid Joe’s action was when a seemingly secure section of the wall opened inwards with a creek.

“What’s that?” Twilight asked, staring at the wall of inky blackness beyond the small partition.

“Exactly what it looks like, of course, a secret tunnel.” Joe handed the keys over to Dash, who promptly stowed them away in a pocket of her jacket. “You go on ahead; I’ll bring up the rear.”

“I bet you will!”

“Dash!”

Dash grinned; Joe made a threatening growl at the back of his throat. Hoping to prevent a fight and diffuse the situation, Twilight spoke up before Joe vented his frustration. “Joe, you don’t need to come with us. I’m sure Dash will help me out just fine.”

“I don’t doubt that she will,” Joe said, glaring balefully at the pegasus mare before relenting. Twilight sighed inwardly. Crisis averted. “But I still promised I’d take you as far as the train station, and I keep my promises.” Joe seemed to direct that last part at Dash, who just grinned all the more.

Dash pushed the section of panelling inward, turning the small hole into a gaping maw, the darkness beyond swallowing her up as she stepped through. Twilight, pausing long enough to slip her saddlebags back on and check that the alicorn gun was secure around her hoof, quickly followed after her into a narrow tunnel, the ceiling clearing her horn by only a few inches.

Ahead of her, Dash had pulled out a small electric torch from somewhere, and in the small beam of light it produced Twilight could see another door blocking their passage.

This one was a thick plate of metal that look strong enough to stop a train dead in its tracks, or at least a very determined safe cracker. Dash took the jangling ring of keys and pushed one hard into the lock, grunting with effort as with an audible clang the door opened. She pushed the door open, a heavy draught of thick, humid air blowing out of the passage beyond to smack Twilight in the face.

“Where does this tunnel lead to?” Twilight asked, squinting in the faint light of Dash’s electric torch.

“Out.”

Behind them, Joe pushed the first door closed until there was only a tiny beam of light, only an inch or so wide, to indicate where the entrance was located. When he stepped through the second door, he produced another set of keys from somewhere on his person and locked the door. The sounds of the bar, which had been only muffled before, were now completely silenced as the metal plate swung shut, its internal mechanisms grinding as the lock was slid back into place. All that could be heard now was the faint sounds of their breathing.

They advanced into the darkness, the thin beam of Dash’s torch their only protection against the encroaching shadows.

Twilight reached out with a hoof and brushed the black, marble-like surface of the Megastructure that surrounded them; it was ice cold. She had heard rumours of tunnels such as these, from her colleagues at the morgue and even in the newspapers she picked up on the way home from work. They all talked about tunnels cutting through the fabric of Canterlot, their entrances hidden away in forgotten buildings or covered by refuse in the dirtiest back alleys. It was so dark that even the enhanced vision that her Post-Equine eyes offered her did little to improve the situation.

The tunnels, she could only presume, must had been bored at an earlier stage in Canterlot’s history, back in a time when the zones were aligned in a different order and advanced mining machinery such as plasma lances could function this far down the spiral. But that could have been centuries, possibly even millennia ago. Nothing even remotely like that could function within the boundaries of Neon Heights today, and local machinery couldn't so much as scratch the surface of the Megastructure, let alone bore a tunnel.

It would have taken lifetimes to dig this far manually.

“You never told me about these tunnels,” Twilight called over her shoulder to Joe, who only made a sort of mocking snort in reply.

“That’s kinda the whole point of a secret, Cutter. You keep it to yourself.”

“I didn’t think you and I had any, Joe. Given what you know about me. Now I’m starting to wonder what else I don’t know about.”

“Joe’s a business-stallion by nature,” Dash said, butting into their conversation. “He might have made you think that you and he had a special relationship, that you were more than just a close customer, but in the end you’re nothing more than just another one of his clients. Isn’t she, Joe?”

“Cutter’s way more than a client, Dash.”

“I bet she is!”

“Dash!

“Sorry. But seriously, what’s up with that nickname?”

“Cutter is Joe’s idea of wit,” Twilight said, stooping slightly to prevent her horn from scraping rather painfully against the roof. “I work as a pathologist in the morgue, I cut things open, so he thought it made a good joke. The positive side of it is that he doesn’t have to use my real name in public, but I would really prefer it if you could call me Twilight.”

“If Cutter is good enough for Joe, than it sure as hell is good enough for me.”

“Thanks. Is it going to be like this all the way to... where was it again?”

“Manehattan, that’s where I’m taking you.”

“I’ve heard of it before.”

“Manehattan’s on one of the semaphore lines” Joe said, easily keeping pace despite his large bulk in the confines of the tunnel. “Way, way out west. Don’t worry, Cutter, we’ll keep in touch.”

“So is Dash coming with me the whole way?”

“Piss off!” the mare said indignantly.  

“Dash!” came Joe’s expected reprisal.

“Sorry,” Dash muttered, looking back at Twilight. “Nah, I’m only taking you to the borders of the Everfree, right up to the Abstraction. After that you’ll hook up with a bunch of traders and they’ll take you the rest of the way. Mind you though, keep an eye out for the Skulls and Diamond Dogs.”

"Skulls, Diamond Dogs, and the what now?"

"Nothing you need to worry about, Cutter."

“So these traders, they’re ponies I can trust?”

“They’ll see you right. But once you reach Manehattan you’re on your own, have to find your own lodgings and employment. Though, with you being a medicine mare, I don’t think that’ll be a problem for you.”

“Just so long as it isn't the employment Caramel had in mind for me.”

“He does get carried away with the whole torturing business, yes,” Joe admitted from the back. “But you’ve still got to admire a stallion who enjoys his work.”

“By the way,” Dash cut back in. “what’re you going to do if they've already got the pathologist job covered?”

“I've got medical training,” Twilight explained, patting her saddlebags. “I can give a diagnosis, prescribe drugs, and perform basic surgical procedures.”

“That’s good,” Dash said with a smile. “Plenty of disease out there to treat, provided it doesn't get you first. I saw this one guy who got bitten by this tiny little insect, the next day his tongue had burst open and the larvae had eaten his cheek!” the pegasus made a chortling sound.

“Well aren’t you just a ray of Celestia’s sunshine? I can see that these next three days are just going to fly by.”

“Thank you! I’ll be here all week!”

“Haha, don’t let her get under your coat, Twilight.” Joe chuckled. “She’s an acquired taste to be sure, but she’ll grow on you. Dash likes you really, I can tell. She’s just keeping her distance, making sure she doesn’t get too closely acquainted with the package.”

“Well, that might have something to do with how most of them tend to never show up again,” Dash added. “I don’t think I’ll ever really see Doctor Sparkle again after this.”

“Joe seems to think I’ll make a comeback.”

“Of course I do,” Joe called from the rear. “No doubt about it.”

“That’s because Joe’s an optimist,” Dash said scathingly “Always did tell him it was his biggest flaw and that he shouldn’t keep getting his hopes up. Especially in a business like his.” But there must have been that flicker of curiosity there, some realisation that Twilight was more than just another client, because a few moments later she spoke again. “So, how’d you get roped up in Joe’s business? You another of Joe's insurance scheme participants?”

“It’s not a protection racket!” Joe called out indignantly. “I don’t do protection rackets, there’s no finesse, no class!”

“But you’re not above setting your enemies on fire.”

“That’s a completely different matter altogether and you know it, Rainbow Dash!”

Twilight stooped even lower, her mind filled with the odd sensation that the tunnel was getting tighter the further they delved into the depths of Canterlot. “How far are we going? This tunnel seems to be going on forever.”

“We’re going as far as we need to go,” Dash told her, her torch flickering slightly. “There’s the boundary line, we must be cutting close to one of the lower divisions. Come on, you two, we need to keep up the pace or we’ll miss the train. Joe, you holding up back there?”

“I'm fine,” Joe called.

But Joe clearly wasn't’t fine. From the way his breathing had started to become laboured, and how his voice had begun to weaken, Twilight could tell that his body was reaching the limits of how close it could carry him to the boundary.

The tunnel began to slowly bend to the right, the gradient beginning to drop ever so slightly. Twilight suddenly became conscious of an open shaft to their left, warm, dank air gusting from it which signalled that somewhere it was connected to the surface. She had the sensation that they were an incredible distance into the fabric of Canterlot, and she could sense the weight of the ancient Megastructure above her, resentful of the intrusion of the tunnels and wanting nothing more than to come crashing down and seal them up for an eternity.

For all the dangers that were waiting for her in Neon Heights, Twilight was very keen to leave this place soon.

“I’ve heard about these tunnels before, but I always thought they were just another urban myth, like the zone mutants and giant rats in the sewer lines.”

“Oh, the rats are real enough, believe me on that,” Joe said grimly, a hard edge in his voice inferring that he had seen such creatures with his own eyes “As for the mutants, well... Queen Chrysalis doesn't like visitors very much.”

“So the rumours are true, all of them?”

“Been using these tunnels since I was a filly,” Dash said up front, tapping her torch as the beam fluttered again. “I’ve been deep too, real deep. Down to where it’s so dark that nothing seems to give any light. But in all that time, I’ve never seen anything I couldn’t explain. Been scared shitless a few times, but apart from that... ” Dash fell silent, as if she had revealed a little too much of herself by admitting she had been frightened before.

“We’ve all been spooked, Dash. There isn’t any shame in that,” Joe said softly, his breath audibly heaving. “These tunnels aren’t exactly a secret, mind. Back before I quit the force, I’d been down here with a few of suspects for interrogation. We’d use the tunnels to intimidate them, scare them into talking. It helped to spread a few stories, get ponies afraid to come down here to keep the tunnels clean.”

“Stories?” Twilight asked.

“Bad stuff goes on down here, stuff that they wouldn't even put in horror films,” Dash said, just as her torch shut off and plunged them into darkness.

"Shit!"

"Dash!"

"I'm working on it, Joe!"

The blackness seemed to have a weight behind it, something that made the absence of light itself palpable. “You can get lost down here without even realising it, happened to me a few times. Plus you can bump into ponies you don’t really want to bump into, which would be Joe on a good day,” Dash continued, a metallic rattling sound indicating that she was fiddling with the torch.

“And on a bad day?”

“They didn’t call Snowflake the Wing Ripper for nothing. But still, for the most part, all the stories you’ve heard about these tunnels are just a steaming pile of manticore shit.”

“Couldn’t have put it more eloquently myself,” Joe added.

“And the Mad Machines?” Twilight asked, uncomfortable at the fact Dash hadn’t got the torch working again yet.

“You’ve been reading too many bedtime stories,” Dash said, a banging noise ringing out as she whacked the torch against the floor. Each time the light would flutter into existence for moments before the darkness snuffed it out yet again. “There aren’t any machines down here, Cutter, big or small. Just because these tunnels are real, doesn’t mean that the shit that ponies say fills them is real.” Dash whacked the torch one more time, the clang resounding down the passage as the light weakly switched back on.

“So... neither of you two have seen anything strange down here, in the entire time you’ve been using the tunnels?”

“Seen a few dead bodies,” Dash said nonchalantly, examining the torch before continuing onwards. “Seen a few things that could have been practically anything given the way they were cut up, but big, bad machines that wander the tunnels looking for souls? ‘Fraid not, Cutter. Canterlot’s just some big old dildo that they shoved into the ground thousands of years ago, nothing changes down here.”

“Dash!”

“Oh, come on Joe! Are you saying I can’t pull any jokes whilst I’m with the package?”

“Yes!”

“Fuck!”

“Have you ever been lost down here?” Twilight asked, trying to steer the conversation away from Dash’s rather immature sense of humour.

“Once or twice, especially when the package has been too busy yammering to let me think.”

“Hint taken.”

Dash didn’t seem to be finished though. “At least being lost is a problem that you can fix. If you cross a zone boundary down here, oh man is that a different story.”

"You’d hardly fail to notice if you’d crossed a zone boundary.”

“Yeah you’d notice, but normally you can feel them coming, or be able to cross back over if you wanted to. You think you know about the zones in Canterlot pretty well, Cutter. But all you really know is life on the ledges, out in the open. Down here in the depths it’s a different story. On the outside the zones are big enough to fit a whole city in them, but in here they just keep getting closer and closer together, all packed around the Eye of Faust, or the Mire, whichever name you wanna call it. Shit gets blurred together before it all jumbles together at the Eye, the boundaries get so close together that you can have zones only a few inches across. Makes things real hard to map, and has a tendency to kill anyone who gets in too close. That’s why my lights on the blink, the mechanism can sense that we’re getting close to making a transition.”

“Do we have to make any crossings?”

“Not until we leave the tunnel and get on the train, the line’ll take us all the way down to the border with Geartown. Of course that’s only if things are the same as they were last time, which they might not be. The Clock boys are already getting wound up about it–"

“Pun intended?”

“Yes, pun fucking intended! Anyways, they’re seriously getting worked up by it, and they’re not alone. It’s not just Neon Heights that’s seeing tremors. The rest of us in the business saw it coming way back, two or three years at the least. Serious movement in the mire, some big shift coming. You don’t need to be an alicorn with some fancy computer gizmo to know that some serious shit is going down. Faust ain’t happy, not by a long shot.” Without waiting for Twilight to state an opinion she added, “Blame the alicorns myself. Anything unexplainable, those Post-Equine motherfuckers are at the top of my shit list!”

“I see,” Twilight said, swallowing hard as she realised she was going to be spending the next three days with a xenophobe, not exactly ideal for a mare in her position. “And that theory is based on... what, exactly?”

“Alicorns fucking piss me off!”

“Brilliant.” Twilight muttered under her breath.

“Try to ignore her,” Joe called from the back; he was starting to lag. “Dash just isn’t a fan of the unexplainable.”

They walked on in silence, Twilight not wanting to press the matter for fear that Dash might start asking questions. Still though, Dash’s xenophobia told her one implicit thing, Joe had kept her secret mutual. Unless she was lying for reasons of her own, Dash had no idea about Twilight’s true nature.

From what she could tell about the limits of Dash’s tolerance, Twilight was keen to keep it that way.

“How close to the boundary will this tunnel take us?”

“About half a league of so, maybe a bit less,” Joe said from the back, really starting to fall behind now. “Can’t be much further out than that I would reckon.”

Twilight had a sense of the tunnel widening in all directions, and when she reached out with a hoof to touch the wall, she could only feel empty space. “Keep to the right,” Dash called back. “Shit gets a little tricky here.” Twilight gulped, she could make out nothing except the wavering spot generated by Dash’s torch. Implicitly, she realised they must be passing some huge shaft that sank further down into the depths of Canterlot.

In the darkness, she heard what sounded like the faint rustle of fabric. There was a sudden, intense burst of yellow light and a loud bang the seemed to echo and reverberate from every direction, its volume increased tenfold by the confines of the area. In the after-image the light had burned into her retina, Twilight saw Dash’s hoof gripping a revolver tightly, the barrel pointed downwards into the depths of the shaft.

Twilight steeled herself, her mind conjuring up the image that the three of them were about to be engulfed in a swarm of twisted, malignant creatures that lay hidden down here. But when Dash redirected the beam of her torch at her target, all that was there was a blackened carcass of a rat, a smoking hole in it.

There was a click as Dash put the safety catch back into place and the rustle of her coat as she stowed the gun away again.

“Nothing to see here, move along.”

“We must only be a few hundred spans from the exit,” Joe wheezed, his breathing heavier than ever. "Reckon I’d better... turn around now, or I’m just... gonna be slowing you down.” Joe nearly bent double, gasping. “Oh, sweet Celestia, I need a stiff drink.” He looked up to Twilight, his eyes showing he was in a fair degree of pain. “Twilight, you go ahead without me, Dash’ll take care of you for the rest of the way. Make sure you... send me a postcard when you get there... ok? Anonymous of course, don’t want you to get there and... cock it all up.”

In the gloom of the tunnel, the two unicorns shook hooves, Twilight gripping Joe tightly. “I’ll be sure to, and thanks for coming this far, Joe. I know it can’t have been easy for you.” Twilight paused, remembering something she’d meant to give to Joe earlier “Dash, shine the light over here,” she said, slipping off her saddlebags and pulling one open, revealing a motley collection of bottles and white packages. She removed one such package from a small pocket near the top and passed it to Joe. “Supplies have been down at the morgue recently, but I managed to spirit away some of the goods for you. It’s not much, but I’m afraid it’ll have to do you until I can find another source of antizonals.”

Joe gripped the Morphax-55 in his hoof like it was made out of pure gold. “Did you save some for yourself, Cutter? You’ve got a big journey ahead of you.”

“I’ve got enough, I can promise you that much.”

Joe paused for a moment and then handed back the package, his hoof visibly shaking as he did so. “Take them, something tells me you’re gonna need them a whole lot more than I am. I’m not going anywhere, but you are, so hold on to them and I’ll find myself another supplier.”

“I’m sure you’ll find someone. Knowing all of your contacts I’d be honestly surprised if you didn’t.” Twilight took back the antizonals and stowed them back in her saddlebags, secretly grateful that Joe had turned them down.

“Don’t you worry now, I’ve got my cigarettes if all else fails.”

“I’d hate to break up your sweet moment,” Dash called back to them. “But me and Cutter have a train to catch.”

“Go,” Joe said, gripping Twilight’s hoof firmly one last time before letting go. “And enjoy the scenery.”

Twilight nodded and turned away, but then Joe called out again. “Twilight?”

“Yes, Joe?”

“Where’s my cupcake?”

III: We're coming.

When I was typing this, I thought this little D'n'B remix of Witchcraft described Twilights situation pretty well: Witchcraft - Netsky remix

They emerged from the tunnel into a small, stuffy supply closet, which in turn led out into the back of an all night laundrette. With its pale, lime green walls, sacks filled with dirty clothing and rumbling machines that churned away at a relentless pace, the laundrette was a humid, steam filled oasis, the lights blindingly bright in comparison to the dark and cramped confines of the tunnel from which they had just emerged.

Despite how late it was, two ponies were sat on the wooden bench that ran between the rows of machinery as they waited for their washing cycles to finish, both staring at the hypnotic vortex’s created by the machines as the coloured items within revolved around and around.

In that one moment, Twilight could have easily switched places with them. Choosing an ignominious life here in Canterlot rather than risk the uncertainty of what lay beyond the spirals base. In the great, wide open plains of Equestria.

Dash grunted by way of greeting to the two ponies as they past, but said nothing else. Pushing open the door to the establishment, they found themselves on the curb of a busy street towards the back of the ledge. During their time in the tunnel night had properly fallen, blanketing the city in its indigo gloom. It had also begun to rain heavily; fat drops of water smacking the pavement loudly.

Twilight scanned up and down the street with a studious eye, looking for any potential threats or assailants. However, she failed to spot anything out of the ordinary among the citizens of Canterlot, but she no idea if that meant that there was no immediate threat or if the enemy was too well hidden for her to spot.

“Word of advice, Cutter,” Dash said to her as they walked down the street towards one of the tram slots. “Try not to act like you’ve got a bull’s-eye painted on your head, it’ll help you blend in.”

They waited for one of the public transport trams for about ten minutes, thankfully shielded from the elements by a tin roof that had been placed over the stop, the rain deafeningly loud as it impacted with the thin sheet metal.

Once aboard, Dash slipped a few bits into the conductors hoof and took a seat towards the back of the vehicle, pulling her coat tightly around her. The slot-tram coughed out a cloud of black smoke as it lumbered into motion, proceeding on its course further down the spiral.

“How many rotations do we have to make?” Twilight asked, staring out of the window at the commuter traffic as it zoomed past in a flash of blue and red lights, rainbows dancing through the air as the headlights of the cars were refracted through the rain.

“Station’s about one and a half, maybe one and a third,” Dash said, pulling out a pocket watch from one of the pockets of her coat. “Neon Heights runs for another eight or so after that, way too long for me to walk you down.”

They lapsed into silence after that, Dash sat with her eyes closed and Twilight returning to watching traffic. Outside, the darkness of the night was kept at bay by the lights of the city, huge animated neon advertisement boards illuminating the streets. From one board that stretched across a whole tenement block, Vinyl Scratch, Neon Height’s greatest music prodigy to date, spun a set of vinyl records on a mixing deck whilst taking occasionally puffs from a cigarette, the brands golden logo pulsing in time to the beat of her music.

"Hey, Cutter?"

"Yes, Dash?"

"You see that mare up there?"

"You mean Vinyl Scratch, what about her?"

"I'd clop the shit outta that mare."

Twilight didn't really know what to say to that.

Slowly the amount of pedestrians out on the streets began to dissipate as the hour grew later and the rain became heavier, the few that remained protected by umbrellas or thick coats and wide brimmed hats. Twilight couldn’t help by feel conspicuous, worrying what kind of excuse she could give if anyone asked about her association to the scowling, illegally armed pegasus sitting next to her.

But despite her fears, no one in the passing slot-buses turned to stare at her, and the pedestrians couldn’t really seem to care any less as to what the unicorn mare was doing, being far more concerned with avoiding the puddles and potholes in the pavement rather than noticing what two ponies in a slot-tram were getting up to.

By the time the slot-tram arrived at the station it was approaching ten o’clock. Stepping off the tram, Twilight paused to adjust her saddlebags and look up at the golden cluster of clocks mounted over the stations entrance, huddling together like metallic pigeons over the arch.

“Are we going to make it?”

Dash nodded in reply, pointing with a hoof to one of the various all-night diners that squatted opposite the station on the other side of the road. “Wait in there, Cutter. I’m gonna go get us some tickets,”

“Shouldn’t we stick together?”

“Bad idea. If the alicorns want you as badly as Joe made out, they’ll have every station from Circuit City to Geartown scoped out. We shouldn’t be getting you into the station until the very last moment, reduces the amount of time they’ll have to spot you out. In and out like clockwork.”

“Understood.”

Twilight waited until Dash had vanished inside the train station before trotting across the road and entering the butter yellow glow of the diner, water dripping onto the floor from her sodden mane. Momentarily worried, she checked on the alicorn gun, knowing that there was no way she would get service if she walked in with a weapon. However, it seemed as if the weapon had retracted into itself, leaving behind nothing but a silver band of metal that looked vaguely like a fashion accessory.

A zinc-topped bar ran the length of the building, a trio of customers sat huddled together at the end, nursing their drinks and talking in low voices. None of them acknowledged the unicorn as she walked up to the bar and took a seat. Knowing that she should purchase something to blend in with the crowd, Twilight ordered a coffee and a donut from the bartender, who gave her a decidedly noncommittal look.

Reaching into one of her saddlebags, Twilight fished out a crumpled cigarette and lit it with a spark of magic, sighing slightly as she exhaled a cloud of smoke. Like alcohol, tobacco had no effect on an alicorn's physiology, but the sensation of it helped to remove some of the tightness in her lungs.

They were changing after all, just like the rest of her.

When the coffee arrived she downed half of it in her first sip, uncaring that the hot liquid scorched the inside of her mouth. Once the donut arrived she got it down with several dutiful mouthfuls, wiping away the sticky frosting residue from her lips with the back of her hoof whilst she studied the entrance to the station, waiting for Dash to return.

“Hello, Cutter,” a voice said by her side, causing Twilight to squeak slightly. Turning around, the mare found Rainbow Dash sat on the stool next to her with a cup of coffee in her hoof.

“How long have you been here?”

“About a minute.”

“How did it go?”

“Just finish your drink.”

They sat in brooding silence after that, like a pair of lovers after a public argument. Occasionally, Twilight would glance up towards the clock mounted on the wall behind the bar, or check her own watch, and even glance towards the time pieces mounted above the entrance to the station. The whole while Dash simply sat in silence, as if she had phased out of the world altogether.

Twilight checked the clock on the wall again. It was ten minutes past the hour, with only five minutes to go until the train was scheduled to pull away and begin its trip. It must already be in the station right now, waiting for the order to depart.

“Shouldn’t we get going?”

“If you want to do this on your own, Cutter, then be my guest.”

Twilight didn’t say a word, though it didn’t need to be said that she was worried about how fine Dash was cutting this whole operation. “Did you see anypony inside?”

“One or two. There was this guy who sold me tickets, he was kinda cute.”

“I mean did you see anypony who looked suspicious?” Twilight caught the bartender’s eye and pulled out a small pile of bits from her saddlebags before depositing them on the counter, waving away the need for any change. “Like they might be after me?”

“Well, there was that one group of alicorns with dicks that were two feet long who were waving a sign saying ‘die, Twilight Sparkle, die'.”

“Really?!”

“Fuck no! You really think they’d be that obvious?” Dash snorted and gave her a sidelong glance. “Trust me, Cutter. If these guys are a good as Joe hinted at then there is no way to tell who they are. Sorry to tell you this, but there’s no such thing a certainty when it comes to extraction. The only thing we’ve got arranged is Joe's contacts, for all the bits inbetween we’ve just gotta wing it.”

Twilight glanced up to the clock again. “Well then, looks like we can do nothing more than simply hope for the best.”

“That’s the smartest thing you’ve said all night.”

“Still, isn’t it time to leave?”

“Train ain’t leaving for another three minutes.”

“It’ll take us at least two minutes to make it to the platform.”

“Cutter, if I really wanted to I could clear that platform in ten seconds flat,” Dash said with fierce certainty. “We do it my way or not at all.”

They waited in silence for another half-minute before Dash stood up, nodded, and then they were moving again. Twilight could feel a prickling in the back of her neck, knowing full well that the bartender was watching her, as well as the other three patrons, with expert disinterest.

Crossing the street and entering the station, the two mares passed through the stone arch. Above them on the faces of the clocks, the minute hands paused on the hour, as if the mechanisms inside were holding their breath. Then the hands resumed their march across time and the minute hands all swung forwards, leaving less than a minute for the pair to reach their train.

Twilight followed after Rainbow Dash through the dim interior of the station with a quick step, the pair of them never quite breaking into a run. Taking a flight of blue-tiled stairs down onto the wooden platform, the smell of steam, oil, and ozone hung heavily in the air.

Dash had cut their departure down to the minutest fraction of a second, meaning that there were no crowds to hold them up at the boarding gates. Dash flashed her tickets at the clerk as they approached and he simply waved them through, closing the gate behind them and locking it with a thick metal padlock.

The platform was empty, the other passengers and luggage having already been loaded up onto the train. The only ponies left on the platform were the station staff. Guards in pillbox hats and with white gloves on their hooves stood with whistles at the ready, porters stood by their trolleys chatted amiably amongst themselves.

At the head of the train was an internal-combustion powered locomotive, painted in the fiery red of a transistor radio. On the opposite platform sat the large, black form of a steam engine wreathed in smoke, waiting to be relieved of its burden of freight cars having ascended all the war from the next zone down, Geartown. The engine was hissing and spitting, smoke pouring out of the funnel in its roof as if it were about to explode under its own internal pressure.

They boarded the red train, climbing into a vestibule at the end of one of the middle carriages. As Twilight hopped aboard, Dash hovered around the entrance until the very last second, warily looking up and down the length of the platform. One of the guards blew his whistle, and the locomotive answered with a roaring blast in return.

As the train began to inch forwards, Dash pulled the door shut.      

That was when Twilight saw the figure, not a moment after Dash had locked the door with a faint click. The stallion, so thin that he was little more than a walking silhouette, emerged from the dense white fog that was beginning to shroud the platform.

He wasn’t wearing a uniform to signify that he was a member of the stations staff, all he wore was a large hat that was tilted at an angle to hide his face, and a large brown coat the hung well down past all four of his knees. From the looks of him he could have just been a normal evening commuter, an earth pony waiting for the next train home. But as the train began to pick up speed, and the angle at which Twilight was watching him changed, something around the silhouettes hoof caught the light of a signal lamp, causing it to gleam a bloody scarlet.

“Shit... ” Dash said, experiencing the same horrible realisation at the same time as Twilight. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!”

Both of them couldn’t help but stare at the figure. What was he going to do? Was he going to attempt to board the train? Or was he going to wait until it had left the station, picking up speed as it hit the descending grade and began its journey down the spiral to Geartown?

That one moment seemed to stretch out for an eternity.

Twilight wanted to do something; she wanted to force herself to act and to seize the initiative before her opponent. But it had simply been too long since she had faced a similar crisis, and the certainty of reaction she had once relied on was no longer present.

She watched, her mind in a state of numb indecision as the stallion reached with a hoof, grabbed the passing hoofrail of one of the carriages further down the train and swung himself onboard before opening the door to let himself into the carriage and closing it again.

The sequence of movements would have been difficult to pull off, even for an expert. But the stallion had managed it with such weirdly alien elegance, as if he had been living in slow motion during the whole event. Twilights shocked mind was still mystified over how anypony could have completed such a difficult task when the realisation hit her.

They were onboard the same train as an agent from the Celestial Levels, and he was no further than five carriages away from them.

“We’re leaving, right now!” Dash said, pulling the door open again.

Twilight looked past Dash at the platform beyond the open portal, the wooden planks speeding by faster and faster with every moment she delayed. The train was already going fast enough that she had no guarantee of landing uninjured if she jumped.

“It... it’s going too fast!”

“Do it, Cutter!”

“I can’t!”

“Do it!”

She couldn’t, there was no way she could do it. Twilight was paralysed with fear and indecision, one part of her mind wanting to trust Dash completely and to simply jump, the other part unable to surrender itself so easily.

Dash grabbed her hoof, and for a moment Twilight had the dread image that she was going to launch herself out into the open space, pulling the unicorn with her. The train was rocketing past now, the front having already hit the descending gradient and beginning to pick up speed at an alarming rate. Twilight’s only instinct was to grip the hoof-rail next to her even tighter, refusing to move even so much as an inch.

“It’s too fast!” Twilight said, this time her voice trembling with fear. Dash made an aggravated growling sound, and looked as if she were about to jump, when suddenly the platform was gone from beneath them, leaving nothing more than empty space and a very long drop down to the next ledge.  

“You blew it,” Dash said, her voice quiet with disbelief. “Less than a minute into the extraction... and you fucking blew it!”

Twilight suddenly felt something deep within the core of her soul break, snapping like steel under pressure and fracturing into hundreds of pieces. With an animalistic roar, her horn glowed an iridescent purple and she seized Rainbow Dash with it, picking the pegasus up as if she weighed less than one of the feathers in her wings and hurling her into the far wall.

Dash yelped as she smacked muzzle first into the wooden panelling of the carriage, Twilights magic flipping her round so her back was to the wall were it held her there. Next thing she knew Twilights hooves were at her throat, constricting her trachea. Twilights eyes brimmed with barely suppressed violence, the unicorn herself surprised with the suddenness and ferocity she had just released.

“Now you listen, Rainbow Dash, and listen well,” she growled through gritted teeth, her chest heaving. “I may seem meek and mild to you, and maybe I really am. But let’s get one thing perfectly clear.” Twilights hooves pressed harder against her captives throat, their grip tightening with a savagery the unicorn hadn’t known she’d possessed. “I’m not some Faust damned, fucking package, understand? I’m a unicorn who has spent the last nine years alone; nine years surviving after I killed two of my colleagues because they killed the mare I loved!”

Twilight leaned in close, her teeth bared. Dash gasped for breath, her eyes widening as she felt a pounding begin to rise in her head.

“And when I say killed, Rainbow Dash, I mean that I tortured them until they were begging for death. Slowly, painfully, that was how I did it. I pumped drugs into their systems until they couldn't take it anymore. I burned them from the inside out until they were just lumps of flesh, mewling like newborns and begging for me to give them the sweet release of death. And do you know what, Rainbow Dash?” Twilight pressed harder, the pegasus kicking weakly beneath her.

“I didn’t give it to them. No, I didn’t give it to them at all. Have you ever heard of Tartrazine, Rainbow Dash? It’s a drug that fries the brain stem, leaving you paralysed from the neck down, and that’s not all it does. It triggers an inflammatory response in the pain receptors, causing them to swell until they burst. Do you know what that does to the body? It leaves you as nothing more than an empty shell. You can’t move, you can’t speak, and you can’t call for help. But you’re still alive, oh yes you certainly are, and your whole body is left in agony until you starve to death!”

Twilight growled. Up against the wall Rainbow Dash was beginning pale, her breaths becoming shallower. “I left them like that, Dash, and do you know what? I. Fucking. Enjoyed. It. That’s what happens when you get on the wrong side of me, you fucking pegasus. I’ve been here for nine years, amongst you stinking, ignorant, disgusting Pre-Equines, and all I’ve ever done is minded my own business until today, when my whole life got turned upside down. I’ve gone from having a simple life to running to save my very existence in the same time to takes a couple to pick a nice place to eat. I left work, and now – only a few hours later – I’m on the run from creatures I don’t even truly know. So I’m fucking sorry if I’m not adjusting to it all as quickly as you’d like me to. But do you know what? You’ll just have to fucking deal with it!”

Twilight gave the mare’s throat one last squeeze before she stepped back and released her magic. Rainbow Dash fell to the floor in a heap, gasping for breath and coughing as her deprived lungs sought the oxygen they so desperately needed. For a few moments the pegasus could do nothing but gulp down air, but presently she wiped her mouth with the back of a hoof and glared up at Twilight, her eyes narrowing.

“You all done, Cutter?”

“For now.”

Dash gave her a final glare before sighing and adjusting the collar of her coat were Twilight had pressed against her throat. “For something that looks like it crawled out of the dirt, you’ve got some strength in you, Cutter, I’ll give you that much. It felt good, didn’t it, getting all of that anger off your chest?”

“For the most part, but just remember what I said, Rainbow Dash. It’s a bad idea to get on the bad side of me, especially when I know which buttons to press.”

“So ... you were serious about that torture thing?”

Twilight closed her eyes, trying to block out the resurging images of the handiwork she had been forced to perform. On the peripheries of her mind she could still hear them, screaming like the souls of the damned.

“Yes ... yes I am.”

Twilight grabbed the still open door and slammed it shut, the air rushing past the train as it sped onwards grabbing it and doing most of the work for her. Outside, the tracks rattled as the train passed over them, snaking in and out across a junction yard before it reached one of the elevated lines.

“Well.” Dash began, picking herself up from the floor, the weapons in her coat clicking with metallic sounds as they banged against each other. “Looks like we’re stuck on the train whether we like it or not.”

“Apart from the one who got onboard, we have no idea how many could have been at the station,” Twilight said, pulling the window open and leaning out to look back across the length of the train. She couldn’t see anything ... yet. “For all we know some more of the things could have ambushed us when we landed on the platform. We could have been dead by now, there’s no guarantee that we would have made it.”

Dash looked down the long corridor running down the left hand side of the carriage, were it terminated in another vestibule at the other end. “True, but one thing’s certain and that’s there is an alicorn onboard this train.”

“We don’t know if he saw us or not. There is the chance that he simply got on the train in the off chance that we were onboard as well.”

“He saw us. He saw you at the very least.”

“Maybe we should head to the front of the train, up to the engine. Maybe he won’t have time to reach us before we hit Geartown.”

“The next stop’s twenty minutes away, at Trottingham Court, and when we get there we’ve got to switch engines to a lower grade machine so that we can get closer to the boundary. Trust me, Cutter; he’s got time to reach us.”

“But that doesn’t mean we should just sit here and wait for him to reach us.” Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself of all the excitement. “We’re not defenceless. You’ve got your weapons; I’ve got the alicorn gun. There’s two of us and only one of him.”

“Just the one we saw. It’s like you said, Cutter. For all we know there could be a hundred more alicorns onboard this train.”

Rainbow Dash leaned out again to look down the corridor. From their current position, they could see down the entire length of the carriage until the corridor jogged back to pass through the connection bellows that connected this carriage with the one coupled behind it. Four or five carriages down, Twilight knew, there was an agent of the Celestial Levels making his way towards them with the expressed purpose of ending her life. If they stayed put the first and only warning they’d get was when he came round that corner.

“So you wanna take this guy on?” Dash asked, glancing back at Twilight. “Well, after your little performance I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt on this one. You ready with that alicorn gun of yours?”

Twilight raised her hoof, the metal ring still in place. She swallowed and licked her lips. “Do you still work?”

The gun beeped. “Operational effectiveness is at sixty-three percent and falling,” Its voice quiet enough that it couldn’t be heard in the neighbouring compartments, almost as if it knew it had to keep its identity a secret. “I will become inoperable in energy-discharge mode in four hours and three minutes. My functionality will be severely compromised in two hours and twenty five minutes. If you like, I do have error margins available for these estimates.”    

Twilight briefly considered taking the machine up on its offer before deciding against it, lowering her hoof to avoid looking conspicuous. “Four hours ... four hours is good, isn’t it? Once we’ve lost this guy we’ll be ok, won’t we?”

“Yeah, we’ll be sitting pretty alright.” Dash pulled open her coat and briefly perused her selection of weapons before pulling out a bulky, utilitarian machine pistol, a long rectangular magazine protruding from the construct. The device itself was then hooked around her hoof with a thick strap of hemp, the firing mechanism attached to a pressure plate that was set against the mares hoof. Dash flicked the safety on and then fiddled momentarily with a hoof on a lever on the side of the weapon, switching it to its third setting. The pegasus gave Twilight a side on glance.

“Need any more assurance, Cutter?”

“No, I think I’ve had all the assurance I need.”

“Good, because I wasn’t going to give you some anyway.” Dash leaned out once again to look down the length of the corridor. “Ok, here’s the game plan. We can either camp it out here and wait for him to reach us, which he will sooner or later. Or, we take that risk and go find this guy ourselves.”

“I’m guessing you like the second option best.”

“Fuck yes I do!”

Dash pulled down the sleeve of her coat to conceal her weapon, the safety catch preventing the gun from discharging when her hoof touched the floor. “Stay behind me, keep your eyes and ears open, and for fucks sake don’t shot anyone until I’ve shot them first.” Twilight could do little more than nod in understanding and gulp.

They started down the corridor, the doors to each compartment on their right. The first two were completely empty, and the third contained a mare who didn’t even acknowledge their presence, continuing to stare out the window even as they left.

Beyond the glass portals of the windows, Neon Heights had become a rained smeared blur of colour, rushing past at an incredible pace. The successive rows of electrical advertisement boards, though each was coloured in their own unique way, were all washed together into a rush of electrical white as the train sped by.

The next compartment was empty, and in the one following it were two stallions who were both puffing happily at cigars, bellowing laughter erupting from them as Dash closed the door. The final compartment of the coach was empty, though someone had left the window open, letting the rain blow through and soaking the seats to the right.

Twilight could feel the descending grade now as the train began to wind in an anticlockwise direction down the gentle curving spiral that had been cut into the side of Canterlot, losing a league of altitude for every thirty leagues travelled along the tracks.

There was still a long way to go until they reached the ground, and Twilight didn’t want to think about how far that was.

Dash paused at the corner, revealing her gun and counting under her breath to three before she spun round the blind corner, weapon at the ready. Twilight waited with her eyes shut, dreading the sound of gunfire. But when Dash called the all clear, she followed after the mare readily. They crossed the connection between the two coaches easily enough, Dash once again swinging round the corner at the other end.

“All clear,” came her quiet whisper.

They continued with their inspection of the compartments, but most proved to be either empty or only partially occupied. The only one that came anywhere near to being full was the second one down, filled with five business-stallions with loose ties who were laughing amongst themselves, the smell of a hard nights drinking hanging thickly in the air.

The next compartment after that contained a mare and a filly, clearly mother and daughter. Both were sat bolt upright, the filly wearing a bonnet and the mare with a veil that covered the top half of her face, but left her muzzle exposed. Their elaborate and formal clothes marked them out as respectable citizens of Geartown, out on a costly excursion beyond the boundary to Neon Heights.

The mother sat with a large brown envelope on her lap, her grip on it tight as if it were the most precious artefact. The filly beside her was pale, and far thinner than a foal of her age had any business being. She trembled, as if constantly in the grip of a shivering tremor.

The family probably couldn’t have afforded the complex operation in Neon Heights, but were affluent enough to secure a set of X-rays to guide the hoof of a more affordable surgeon back in Geartown.

Twilight wanted to talk to them. She had the tools in her saddlebags to do a basic test of neurological function, and even if she couldn’t do anything for the filly, she would still be able to settle the mothers doubts and reassure her there was nothing more she could have done.

Dash nudged her to keep moving. But Twilight must have hesitated, because the filly turned to stare at her through the glass partition set into the door. Her eyes were wide, the pupils dilated to give them a witch-like look. The mother turned as well, her gaze looking with Twilights, though her eyes were unreadable behind the veil. Nothing past between the two of them, but the inexpressible sadness was plain to see, the mares hooves trembling as they gripped the envelope and its fearful cargo of truth.

‘I’m sorry,' Twilight mouthed through the glass.

As if it made any difference.

Suddenly, movement appeared around the corner at the top of the carriage, beyond Rainbow Dash. The pegasus twitched, ready at a moment’s notice to whip out her pistol and unleash a hail of lead-based death.

However, it was only a stallion. A railway worker clad in a navy blue waist coat with a cap on his head, metal ticket punch gripped between his teeth. He was much shorter than the silhouette they’d seen out on the platform, and much stockier too. “I’ll be with you in a moment,” he called down to them, sliding open the compartment door at the top of the coach and disappearing inside. Dash kept moving regardless. There was no one in the fourth compartment, and the only occupant of the fifth was deep asleep, his snores audible over the clack of the rails outside.

The guard spoke to whoever was in the sixth compartment, punched their ticket, and then emerged back out into the corridor where he was met by Dash, her hoof lowered and weapon concealed. Behind her, Twilight hoped that the silver band around her hoof didn’t look too conspicuous.

“Tickets please,” the stallion said, looking at Dash expectantly. Dash dug into a coat pocket with her free hoof and pulled out the ticket stubs. The guard took them and squinted at them down the length of his muzzle, eyes narrowing. “I think you need to turn around. Looks like you two overshot your compartment back in the third coach. Have you come down here for the dining car?”

“Yes we have,” Dash lied, her voice smooth.

“Yeah, well everything behind me is first class, right up to the end of the coach.” he raised the stubs to his mouth and punched a hole through each before handing them back, beaming with the satisfaction of a job well done.

“We need to get past you,” Dash said plainly.

The pleasant demeanour cracked slightly. “I’m sorry, Miss, maybe you didn’t understand. These tickets of yours are for second class only, not first. I’m afraid you’ve got no business going into the first class section.”

“And you would know about our business... how?”

“Haha. Look, Miss, let’s not make an issue of this. All you’ve done it miscounted the number of coaches, it’s an easy mistake to make. You just need to turn around and–”

It all happened too quickly for Twilight to follow. One moment the guard was smiling weakly at Rainbow Dash, the next the pegasus had shoved the barrel of her gun under his muzzle, gripping his shoulder with her other hoof. The guard gasped, his ticket punch dropping to the floor with a clatter. Dash growled and shoved him back against the wall of the coach.

“You should have just shut the fuck up!” Dash said, nodding to Twilight, who promptly opened the door to the empty fifth compartment. Dash dragged the guard over to the opening before promptly spinning and bucking him in the face, sending him careening through the door to land heavily on one of the stained seats inside.

“D-Don’t shoot, please!” the guard mewled in a quivering voice.

“So you think I can trust you to sit there all nice and quietly whilst we go on our way?” Dash snorted loudly. “Bullshit, I know full well you’ll pull the emergency brakes on this coach the moment we’re out of sight!”

“I ... I wouldn’t!”

“Fuck off!” Keeping her pistol raised, Dash leaned against the door frame and dug into her coat with her free hoof, producing a silver plated device that looked somewhere between a miniature pistol and a needleless hypodermic. She tossed it to the stunned guard, who squeaked when it landed on his barrel. “Pick it up,” she said flatly, her pistols aim unwavering. The stallion fumbled for the contraption, failing to pick it up as it tumbled between his hindlegs.

That was when Twilight noticed the growing black stain on the bottom of his waist coat.

“What do you wha–”

“Shut up! You’ve got two choices, either pick that up and shot yourself in the neck with it, or a shoot you with my gun. So, what’s it going to be?”

“Wh-what?” the guard managed, his words almost unintelligible through his fear. “I don’t know what’s in it, it could kill me!”

“I’ll kill you if you don’t.”

“I’d do it if I were you,” Twilight added from the back, praying that the device only contained some form of tranquilizer.

“Trigger-hoof’s getting itchy.” Dash said ominously.

That was when the guard must have realised that he didn’t really have much of a choice, as with shaking hooves he picked up the device and pressed it against the flesh of his neck. He whimpered one last time before squeezing his eyes shut and pressing down on the pressure trigger. The device jumped slightly, clicking and hissing as it delivered its chemical payload.

The effect was near instant.

The guard groaned as his eyes rolled back into his head, his tongue lolling out obscenely. He slumped back against the seat, a trail of drool running down his chin as the anaesthetic device fell off him onto the floor. Now, the only thing to distinguish him from another boozed up commuter was the uniform he was still wearing.

“Please tell me that telling him to use that thing was the right move.”

Dash didn’t respond, ducking down to retrieve the device and stow it away in one of her coat pockets. “Don’t worry, he’s just tranked. It’ll wear off in about half an hour, and he won’t remember any of this afterwards.”

“Are we just going to ... leave him? Shouldn’t we remove his uniform, make him look like one of the other passengers?”

“Yeah, you do that. Whilst the fucker on his way to kill you gets even closer.” Dash slid the partition door shut.

As she spoke the adjoining door opened, a stallion poking his head out through the gap. “Is something the matter here, ladies?” the earth pony asked in a low, threatening rasp. He had the thickset face of a born trouble maker, his beady eyes watching them questioningly. Clearly, this was the type of stallion who didn’t consider the night complete unless he’d punched at least three ponies teeth out.

“No, we’re fine,” Dash said in a half-flirty voice, a cute smile appearing on her face as she stowed her gun away. However, it seemed as if the cuteness tactic wasn’t going to work on this particular stallion, odds were he was too thick to even pick it up.

“Where’s the guard at? He was here a minute ago.”

“We didn’t see anyone, he must have turned back and gone the other way.” For a moment it seemed as if Dashs lie was going to work, the stallions features wavering slightly as his brain almost accepted the information. However, after a few moments his features darkened again.

“Wait a minute, if you didn’t see him... how’d you know which way he was going?” the stallion emerged fully, the features on his dim face deepening in a comical look of suspicion. Despite his slight height advantage, he couldn’t quite see over Dashs shoulder as he tried to see past her into the compartment behind her. “Who’s in there, what’ve you two been up to?”

“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” Dash said, the flirty edge in her voice intensifying as she tried to distract the stallion. “Why don’t you just go back into your compartment?”

“Let me past.”

“I think you shoul–”

“Let me past!”

The stallion grabbed Dashs shoulder and made to shove her against the far wall, Dash didn’t even give him a chance. Quicker then Twilight could blink, she produced her pistol and whipped the stallion with it, causing him to shriek as she rammed it up under his muzzle.

“I told you it was nothing you needed to worry about, didn’t I?”

The stallion made a choking noise, the apple in his throat bobbing as he gulped.

“It would probably be a good idea to get back in your compartment.” Twilight told him, idly wondering to herself if Dash had enough tranquilizer to knock out everypony on the train if necessary. The stallion, though he had been itching for a fight only a few moments before, seemed to be bright enough to know that it wasn’t a smart idea to argue back if you had a gun pressed to your cheek.

Nodding in agreement with the unicorn, the stallion began to awkwardly shuffle backwards, his eyes straining to keep a bead on the pegasus before him as she used the gun to force his head up at an unnatural angle.

That was when a hatted figure appeared from around the corner at the top of the corridor. Twilight looked at him past Dash and the stallion she was holding at gunpoint, only taking a fraction of a second to recognise him as the silhouette from the platform.

In the dim light of a train station during the graveyard shift, he just about passed as normal, albeit somewhat skinny. But here in the brightness of the carriage, with its electrical lights burning with a suddenly unreal level of intensity, there was no way he could ever have passed for normal.

As Dash would have put, there was nothing fucking normal about him.

Twilight didn’t even have the sense that she was looking at another alicorn. Whatever medical procedures this alicorn had undergone before he had descended from the Celestial Levels, it had left him as nothing more than a sickly, gray coated ghoul.

He wasn’t an alicorn anymore; he was a walking corpse. Devoid of wings or a horn, he was nothing more than a sickening, mocking parody of life.

Dash didn’t so much as blink. Before either Twilight or the ghoul had reacted she pistol-whipped the stallion she had held at gunpoint, causing him to reflexively rear on his hind legs as he howled in pain. Spinning one hundred and eighty degrees, Rainbow Dash then delivered a devastating and eye wateringly powerful buck to the stallion’s testicles, making him shriek like a filly and sending him careening backwards into the ghoul.

“Crotch shot, Mother Fucker!”

The ghoul looked too thin to support his own weight, even under the thick padding of the brown coat he wore, but he seemed to have an unexpectedly high level of strength and balance. In what seemed to the two mares as slow motion, he raised his hoof towards them, the silver band around it seeming to unfold as it was brought to firing position. With the same slowness, Dash raised her machine pistol, the safety switch seeming to flick off of its own accord as she aimed it squarely at the alicorns chest.

The ghoul, however, was still hidden behind the main bulk of the stallion that had just been kicked towards him, Twilights eyes widened as she realised that the alicorn had him propped up as a improvised shield. Reacting without thinking, she began to raise the alicorn gun.

The ghoul was the first to fire. With what seemed like deafening volume, his weapon punching a red rimmed hole through his shields chest, propelling a thick lead slug towards the two mares. Some subconscious part of Twilights mind sighed in relief, at least they weren’t facing an opponent armed with celestial weaponry.

The unicorn flinched away as the splatter of gore displaced by the alicorns shot fell on her and Dash like a warm drizzle of rain. Blood, bone, muscle, and lung tissue erupted from the wound, staining her coat. The bullet literally whipping through her mane as she dodged it by the tiniest fraction, saved by her dislike of having bodily fluids sprayed on her face.

The ghoul had missed Twilight, but only by a slight margin. But as he lined up for another shot, Dash sprang into action with grim determination. For a long moment there was a pause as each party prepared to shoot, and then the moment was shattered as Dash fired, sending a torrent of bullets towards the ghoul.

The mouth of her weapon spat a tongue of blue fire, bullet casings flying wildly from a hole in the side of the firing chamber as the pegasus unleashed a full barrage, her hoof not leaving the pressure plate trigger until the magazine had emptied. The body of the captive stallion, who had died the moment the alicorn had opened fire, swiftly degenerated in red chaos, lumps of blood and flesh sent flying as the corpse seemed to dissolve under the withering hail of metal it was being subjected to.  

The alicorn let out some kind of piercing shriek as the bullets dash was firing began to break through the meat screen it had set up and impact directly with its body. The force of the blows sent him thudding into the wall at the end of the corridor.

For a few moments he was still, but as his head began to slowly rise the hat he was wearing came loose and fell to the floor, revealing a hideous smile underneath, the gums behind it lined with serrated jags of bone in the place of teeth and a long, serpentine tongue of black flesh, which lashed out at the two, as if the ghoul could taste them in the air itself.

“We’re coming, Twilight,” the... thing hissed at her, its voice like wind whispering through dead trees. “I am but one of many, you are only one.”

“Did you come alone?” Dash said with a surprisingly serious voice, her pistols empty magazine clattering to the floor as she swiftly replaced it with a new one.

“Of course I didn’t, Pre-Equine.”

“So where are your freaky friends at?”

“All around you, little pegasus. You cannot stop the Celestial Levels, Lord Sombra is not to be denied.” The creatures leering smile faltered slightly as it sunk to the floor, black blood as thick as treacle drooling down its chin. “There are hundreds of us, Twilight.” The creature turned its gaze to the unicorn, its eyes eerily devoid of any visible structures, leaving it a mass of poisonous green rimmed by a thin ring of ghost white. “We’re coming, Twilight, we’re coming.”

The alicorn seemed to slink forwards into a pouncing position, its body low to the floor of the coach as it watch, like a cobra ready to strike. Without warning the smile on its face suddenly became sickeningly exaggerated, as if the extremities were being pulled taught with hooks; the ghoul raising its voice into a piercing shriek. “We're coming! We're coming! We're coming!"”

The ghoul pounced; Twilight fired the alicorn gun.

Time seemed to slow as the weapon began to unfold, the alicorn left hanging in midair as the ring around Twilights hoof came to life. Two of the bonded segments unfurled, the deployment assembly seeming to bloom like some kind of origami construction as the focussing array assembled itself, slid out of the ring, and locked into place.

A flash, a beam of crimson light, the sound of an alien creature screaming in agony as the very blood in its veins boiled into steam. In the after-image left imprinted on her retina, Twilight watched as the beam reached out and enveloped the alicorn, turning half of its body to black char in no more than a second.

The smell hit her the instant afterwards.

The alicorn collapsed to the floor, its breath an audible wheezing noise and some kind of black slime began to excrete itself from the charred sections of his body. “I... impossib-” it managed to get out, a choking noise cutting it off as what appeared to be its larynx collapsed in on itself. “That... shouldn’t work... down... here... ”

Rainbow Dash stood over the alicorn and raised her machine pistol, a single bang ringing out as she fired a solid slug of metal into the creatures skull, sending a polluted spray of gray matter across the walls.  

“Believe it, Mother Fucker!”

IV: Crossing the boundary.

“Oh sweet fucking Celestia, this thing smells bad!”

Twilight nodded in agreement as she and Dash hauled the alicorns body towards the closest external door of the train coach, a slick trail of black blood following behind them as whatever fluids that had been in the alicorns body discharged themselves onto the floor. But the smell wasn’t the only discomfort they had to deal with. Pieces of burnt skin kept flaking off of the alicorns body, like charred newspaper.

As they reached the door Dash pulled the down and then leaned out, gripping the handle in her hoof and opening the door, fighting against the force of the wind. Twilight took a moment to wipe her brow.

“Shouldn’t we check its pockets?” She called over the roar of the wind as it sped past, Dash shook her head.

“There’s no time, Cutter.”

“But it might have something we could use!”

“There’s no time!”

The train was passing over a lattice work bridge, passing one of the points where some impossibly ancient cataclysm had chipped an enormous crevasse into Canterlots megastructure, ripping open a tapering cleft that ran all the way down to the next ledge below them.

Dash hopped over the alicorns body and together the two mares pushed the creature out of the open doorway. The body tumbled like it was a bundle of rags, all four legs flailing as the trains forward momentum snatched it away from them. Twilight had just enough time to watch as the alicorns body slipped between the rails and began to plummet into the dark void below them, the night swallowing it up entirely.

There would be precious little left to recognise once the body hit the ground again, of that Twilight was sure. She’d seen the corpses of enough fallers to know that as soon as the alicorn impacted with the next ledge, leagues below them, the force of the blow would send its limbs popping out of place like some sort of grotesque jigsaw puzzle. Briefly, she imagined that body of the alicorn would paint a confusing picture for some counterpart of herself down below, a striving young pathologist working in whatever was Ponyville’s equivalent of the Third District Morgue.

They were dealing with the body of the dead stallion when one of the partition doors down the length of the coach slowly opened, the heads of two of the rowdy business ponies cautiously peeping out. They were followed shortly after by the mare who had been sitting with her filly in the next compartment down.

None of the three said anything.

They simply looked from Rainbow Dash to Twilight, at the remaining dead body with a hole punched straight through its chest, and then at the gory display of carnage that had been painted on the walls and floor of the coach.

“Nothing to see here, Folks,” Dash said.

As one, all three returned to their compartments.

“Perhaps ... perhaps we shouldn’t throw this one overboard.” Twilight spoke quietly, tapping the stallion’s body. The pony had died with his eyes wide open, and those self same eyes now seemed to look up accusingly at her, as if even beyond the grave the stallion held her responsible for his death.

“What do you care?”

“He was innocent in all of this, just a pony in the wrong place at the wrong time. If we throw him down to the next ledge, nopony will ever know what happened to him. He might have friends and family for all we know. We should leave him here and just let someone find him.”

“Yeah, great idea, Cutter, and when they find him your hoofprints are gonna be all over him.”

“Rainbow Dash, trust me when I tell you that’s the least of my concerns right now, Twilight told the mare, purposely omitting the fact that her hoofprints had been deliberately altered to make them nonspecific, making a true match hard to prove.

They pulled the stallion into an empty compartment and hefted him up onto one of the stained seats. Propped up in one corner, eyes still open and with a gaping hole in his chest, there was no way that the stallion could be taken for anything else than a corpse. But at least he wasn’t lying face down in the corridor anymore.

“Still another ten minutes to Trottingham Court,” Dash muttered, pulling up her sleeve and examining her watch. “After all the commotion, something tells me this coach ain’t the safest place for us to be right now. We need to find an empty compartment and lay low, and I mean real fucking low.”  

“Do you think there are anymore alicorns onboard the train?”

“Cutter, if that thing was an alicorn it sure as fuck wasn’t like anything I’ve ever seen before. I mean seriously, the fucker didn’t even have any wings! And where the fuck was its horn?” Dash gave Twilight a sidelong glance. “Cutter, are you really sure you know who’s coming after you?”

“It was an alicorn,” Twilight told her as they began making their way to the back of the train, attempting to look as inconspicuous as a pair of ponies could when they had bodily fluids staining their faces. “It just wasn’t like the ones we’re used to seeing when they’re flying around up in the Celestial Levels. The alicorns have been trying to find a way for them to survive outside the boundaries of the Levels for decades now, possibly even centuries. That thing – the ghoul – was one of their deep-penetration agents, surgically altered and genetically adapted to be able to function down here.”

“Haha, deep-penetration.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“Oh yeah, that’s right, Joe’s not here to tell me to shut up!”

“Dash, this is very serious!”

“Never mind,” Dash sighed. “Look, Cutter, I don’t really know a whole lot about genetic alter-whatever, but that thing looked half-past dead to me.”

“That alicorn was dying the moment that he crossed the boundary out of the Celestial Levels. But just the simple fact that they managed to create an agent who can operate this far down is a very significant advancement for the alicorns.”

“You seem to know a lot about these Post-equine fuckers.”

“When they’re trying to kill you, you make a point of studying your enemy.” Twilight paused momentarily as they passed a washroom. “Dash, I need to get this muck off my muzzle before we go any further, do you mind?”

“Just don’t take all week, Cutter.”

Nodding, Twilight pulled the door open and slipped inside, locking the entrance afterwards. A light in the ceiling automatically flickered into existence, bathing everything in a sickly yellow. She took a moment to steel herself before she hesitantly reached up and removed her glasses, staring at herself straight in the mirror. She tried to match her face against that of the ghoul’s, trying to tell herself there was a whole world of difference between her and that thing.

When Twilight had first come to Neon Heights, all those long years ago, she’d been able to pass for a regular pony in daylight. But now, after she had been forced into exile and cut off from home, she was beginning to revert back into an alicorn. At first it had just been the little things, like small lumps of mane falling out that she’d been able to comb-over, and when the purple tint of her eyes had began to deepen unnaturally she’d taken to wearing glasses.

Turning the tap on, she dabbed away at the blood and gore with some soap and a few scratchy paper towels. Her skin felt as if it was stretched perilously tight over the alien bone-structure of her skull hidden beneath, and that it might snap at any moment. Twilight had been around Pre-equines long enough to know that she was starting to look more than a little bit weird.

Half-past dead.

Taking a deep breath, she reached behind her back and began to slowly feel her way across her coat, searching for where the hard ridge of her forelegs formed her shoulder blade. It wasn’t there. Instead, she felt a soft, cancerous bud of flesh. There was one on the other side as well, the two perfectly symmetrical with one another.

For now the buds weren’t likely to give her any trouble, as to the untrained eye of the casual observer they would look like nothing more than just a bit of excess fat on her shoulders. But Twilight knew full well that within little over a month’s time they would become noticeable and that it wouldn’t take much longer afterwards before the pinions began to properly develop.

But that wasn’t to say she hadn’t tried to stop them

For years she’d practised a kind of chemotherapy on herself, dosing herself with a potent cocktail of drugs in an attempt to hold the reversion process at bay, and when the drugs had begun to fail she’d been forced to go back to Donut Joe.

Black-market surgery, performed in a squalid, filthy annexe of Joes Donuts, had kept the wing buds at bay. Every twelve months, the buds had been meticulously cut away, the wounds stitched and bandaged. Then, it had been jumped up to every six months as the growth rate had begun to accelerate. Then every three.

Now she was overdue.

≤ΘΘΘ≥

By the time Twilight and Dash had disembarked the train and made it to the platform a steam train, forged in the likeness of a snorting iron black dragon, was already being backed up into place where previously the internal-combustion locomotive had been. The machine snorting smoke as its boiler was heated and the coal fire stoked, preparing for the next leg of the journey towards the boundary.

Everything happened with stopwatch precision, fixed to a routine that hadn’t changed in centuries.

“Maybe we should have stayed onboard,” Twilight said to Rainbow Dash in a hushed voice as they followed a group of other disembarking passengers away from the platform and into the station hall.

“Either way it’s a risk we’ve gotta take, Cutter,” Dash muttered back, her eyes subtly glancing across the hall, searching for any signs of danger. “Yeah, we could’ve stayed on the train, but at least now we aren’t trapped with nowhere to go if another ghoul shows up.”

From somewhere behind them came the shrill scream of a mare, followed by shouting and the growing commotion of hooves as guards rushed to the source of the disturbance.

“Sounds as if they’ve found the body,” Twilight muttered, more to herself then to her companion, as she made a conscious effort to alter her stride.

“You can look back if you want, Cutter,” Dash told her in a low voice, her eyes still looking all about them. “Everypony else is, after all.”

Twilight nodded before she snatched a wary glance back over her shoulder. Passengers and station staff were gathering around the carriage where their confrontation with the ghoul had taken place, including some of the rowdy business ponies they had seen earlier. Though she couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying, Twilight could see that there was certainly a lot of enthusiastic shouting and hoof-pointing going on.

An elderly pony, white whiskers on his muzzle, began to blow loudly on a metal whistle, the blasts seeming to form some sort of code as they echoed off the vault-like height of the stations metal roof. As she watched, Twilight saw two stallions emerge from the coach, carrying between them the barely conscious form of the guard, his head lolling from side to side in a comical manner.

“That’s them!” came a loud cry, Twilight feeling her blood chill as she saw one of the business ponies pointing towards her and Dash, singling them out from the crowd. “They did it! They killed that stallion! I saw them!”

Twilight turned around slowly, trying to look agreeably perplexed as if she had no idea of what she could possibly be accused of. “Is something the matter?” She began, but her voice trailed off as she realised she didn’t even sound very convincing to herself.

“Stop there,” Another stallion called out, a black bearded, uniformed figure who might have been some sort of senior guard, or perhaps even the station master. That was when she noticed the insignia set into the button on his uniforms lapel.

“Shit!” Dash hissed. “The Conversion Bureau!”

The stallion began to unbuckle some sort of object from his belt, advancing steadily on the two mares with a grim look in his eyes. As he pulled the object free it was revealed to be a long nosed service revolver, which the stallion began to level at his targets, the gun unwavering in his grip.

“Stop!” he proclaimed in an actorly fashion, his voice raising to a deep boom. “Stop or I will shoot!”

“Well, this isn’t going to end well.” Dash muttered as she began to pull up her sleeve.

“Dash, no!” Twilight hissed, grabbing the mares hoof. “No more killing, please!”

A single, echoing shot rang out through the station as the stallion with the revolver fired a warning shot up into the vaulted roof, disturbing the night’s audience of roosting bats and birds, causing an explosion of sooty wings to fill the space above them. “This is your last warning! One more step and I will shoot!”

Faster than Twilight could think, Dash whipped her hoof free and flung something towards the stallion. For a brief moment Twilight had the absurd notion that she’d thrown a piece of candy or some sort of glass ball at the bureau agent. But when it landed at his hooves it exploded in a bright flash of light, the concussive boom it made even louder than the earlier revolver discharge.

The air began to fill with a thick, choking cloud of blue-white alchemical smoke, blocking off the stallions line of sight as those caught in the gases blast-radius began to hack and cough. Dash tossed a few more into the melee for good luck before she spun on her hooves and bolted for the door.

“Fucking peg it!”

Twilight followed behind the pegasus, her saddlebags suddenly seeming a lot lighter as the slapped against her flank. Around her hoof the alicorn gun made a noise that sounded like a cross between a bleep and a harsh whine, as if it sensed the threat of combat.

The two companions fled from the platform area and passed through a wide double doorway into the ticket office, their hooves ringing loudly on the black-and-white tiled floor as they galloped past late night commuters, who were only just beginning the register that something was going on by the platforms.

A station official, more alert than most, spotted them as the dashed across the room angling for the door that led outside. Slamming down the hoofset he had been holding back into the holster of a wall mounted telephone he bolted across the room, bravely attempting to interpose himself between the two fugitives and their escape route.

Growling, Rainbow Dash drew out her machine-pistol and fired a burst from the fresh magazine she had loaded on the train. The weapon spat out a tongue of blue fire, and a hail of bullets smashed into the tiled mosaic set above the door, directly over where the guard was standing. A hail of shards and ceramic chips rained down on the stallion, who was forced to shield his eyes from the fragments for fear of becoming blind.

Twilight risked another glance over her shoulder.

The bearded agent from the Conversion Bureau wasn’t far behind them, his gait stumbling as he still attempted to wear off the effects of the smoke grenade. He paused for a moment; head lowered as he wiped his brow and tried to catch his breath, before resuming his pursuit. Other officials – not to mention several passersby – were hard on his heels.

Just then, Twilight registered something odd about one of the passengers sitting in the waiting room.

With elegant, unhurried calm, the earth pony folded up the newspaper he’d been reading and placed it down onto the vacant chair next to him – nopony else was sitting anywhere near him – and slowly rose to his hooves. He was clad in a long grey trench coat that was cinched tightly around him, covering up most of his grey-white coat. A wide-brimmed hat sat on his head, tilted to prevent anyone from getting a clear look at his face.  

The ghoul slowly reached into one of the pockets of his coat with a black-gloved hoof, as if he were searching for a cigarette lighter.

Twilight felt some part of her mind seize up, even as her legs propelled her forwards. She still had the alicorn gun strapped tightly around her hoof, the weapon emitting a faint bleeping noise every few moments, but she daren’t risk taking a shot at the alicorn. As sparsely populated as the waiting room was, there was still a chance that she might hit someone. Also, the growing crowd of ponies chasing after her was beginning to block off any chance of a shot at the ghoul, who was now beginning to walk out of the room with a leisurely pace, his spindly legs giving him a long stride.

From underneath the brim of his hat, a black-toothed smile began to appear.

“What the fuck are you doing, Cutter?!”

Twilight was snapped back to the current situation as she felt Rainbow Dash seize her hoof and drag her out through the stations double doors and into the night. But before the two had even felt the cold air on their coats, the service revolver roared once again.

Rain fell down on Twilights face, clear and cool where it had fell from the sky, dirty and muddy from where it had sluiced down from one of the higher levels. For a moment the world was a massed confusion of cars, cabs, trams, and slot buses. The air was filled with the patter of rain, the honks of cars on the slots, the loud, electronic voices emanating from the neon advertisement boards high above, and the shouts of the mob chasing after them.

Twilight stood transfixed, seemingly unable to even will her body to move.

Rainbow Dash didn’t seem to be having the same problem. Singling out one of the cabs that was pulling into the pick-up zone outside the station, she ran straight for it, forcing the driver to slam down on his brakes to avoid running her over. The pegasus flung open the passenger and stood by it, yelling obscenities at the top of her voice until Twilight had dashed over and climbed inside before climbing in after her and slamming the door shut.

“Drive!”

“Where are we going?” the cabbie asked in a calm voice, spinning round in his seat to look back through the glass panel that separated him from the back of the cab.

“Just drive!”

“Dash!” Twilight panted, unused to so much physical exertion. “I think I saw another ghoul.”

“Fuck me! This day just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it!?”

As the cab began to pull away, Twilight glanced through the back window of the cab. As she watched, the ghoul emerged from the station, taking less than a second to notice which cab she was in before beginning to slowly make his way to one of the other taxis lined up outside the building.

Then a slot-bus swerved up behind them, blocking off her view. When it had cleared, all the unicorn could see was a confusion of blindingly bright headlights.

Upfront, the cabbie was still pestering Dash with questions on their as of yet unspecified destination, and the mare was still replying with the same answer. “Just get us away from the station.”

Knowing that if Dash refused to give an answer the cabbie might begin to ask questions, Twilight reached into her saddlebags and fished out a small bag of bits. “We can pay you. Just take this up front.” She reached up to the small partition in the glass panel

The driver snatched up the bag without any protest. “Sure thing, Miss, but it’d still be nice to know where exactly we’re headed.”

“Hit a right here,” Dash answered.  

The driver yanked hard on the steering wheel, directing the guide wire of the vehicles pick-up shoe into the diverging slot. The cab jerking sharply as it followed the shoe. The cab sped down a small side road, lined with cheap hotels and low rent tenement blocks. This wasn’t a prosperous area of Neon Heights by any standard, being as close as it was to the boundary with Geartown and the edge of the zone. Nopony lived here if they could afford to live further up the spiral, away from the boundary and the risk of being caught in a zone shift if the boundary went into flux.

“Take a left,” Dash told the cabbie, looking out of the back window of the taxi.

The cab veered sharply in response, swinging out of the side road and back into thicker traffic. As they cleared the bend, Twilight saw a set of headlights swing onto the side road. “Dash, I think we’re being followed.”

“You fucking think?”

“I saw the ghoul going for another cab, and someone’s just come down the alley we’ve just been in.”

“Shit! You, hit another right!”

Ignoring the pegasus mares language, the stallion simply shook his head. “Nope, can’t do that. It’ll take us too close to the boundary.”

Rolling her eyes, Dash pulled up her sleeve and tapped the barrel of her gun against the glass partition. “Just do it!”

The cabbie turned around, and upon seeing the gun gave Rainbow Dash an unimpressed look and simply shrugged, as if he probably saw this kind of thing once or twice at the least every shift. “Look, Lady. I don’t care what shit you’re gonna point at me, but there’s no way I’m taking this cab closer to the boundary. Besides, it’s not like you’ll get anywhere, we’ll be off the grid in a couple of block.”

“Has this thing got flywheels and batteries?”

“Of course.”

Dash flicked off the safety switch on her gun and pressed the snubbed nose of the barrel against the glass, right behind the stallions head. “Then do what I say, Crotch Stain.”

Deciding not to risk taking a bullet to the back of the skull because of some crazy mare’s demands, the cabbie shrugged and took a right at the next intersection they passed through, taking the cab down a long, dark street lined on either side by abandoned tenement blocks, windows boarded up and doors locked tight.

The ride became rougher as they progressed, and not just because of the poor condition of the asphalt under the tires. Years of dirt and garbage, combined with a lack of enthusiasm on the behalf of the Public Department of Waste Management, had caused the slot beneath them to become filled with compacted garbage cluttering up the electrical path.

The vehicle kept surging in spastic bursts of speed as the pick-up shoe beneath them kept loosing contact with the traction current, the flywheel coming to life with a coughing spit of jerks and squeaks. Twilight glanced back. They had already come a fair way down the street, and so far nothing as of yet had turned off the main thoroughfare behind them, perhaps she might have been wrong about them being pursued. She sighed with faint relief, half-believing that she was right.

A pair of headlights swung onto the street.

“Dash!”

“I know!” the mare tapped on the partition with her gun. “Oi! Which way is the boundary?”

“Straight ahead.”

“Then keep going. Cutter, see if you can take them out, prove to me what a badass you really are.”

Twilight nodded and began to wind down the window of the cab before halting. “Dash, I can’t do it! What if I hit the driver?”

“Then fucking improvise!” Dash glared at her, eyes wild and angry with suppressed emotion. “Aim for the slot, see if you can burn it out.”

Twilight twisted round and leaned out of the window, raising her hoof slowly. The alicorn gun – which had been beeping the entirety of the ride – unpacked in the blink of an eye, emitting a faint whining as it did so. Further down the street the other cab was slowly gaining on them, headlamps flickering every time the pick-up shoe hit a blockage in the slot, blue sparks lighting under it as the current in the slot jumped the gap.

With the unsteady, surging motion of the cab, Twilight had problems keeping her aim, the unpredictable leaps in speed meaning that every time she lined up a shot, she would suddenly be jerked out of position. Gritting her teeth and steeling her nerves, Twilight aimed one more time for the slot and fired the weapon, expecting another brilliant lance of crimson energy.

Nothing happened.

Twilight felt her heart seize up as it seemed her best form of self defence had finally ceased to function. Squeezing the trigger again, the gun fired and sent out a lance of energy. The unicorn mentally sighed to herself, but she couldn’t help but notice that there seemed to be less brilliance in the beam this time.

However, none of that seemed to matter, as her shot had missed the slot, instead blowing out a manhole-sized crater in the tarmac. Twilight re-centred her aim and tried again, but once more the weapon remained unresponsive. With a growing sense of dread, Twilight pumped the trigger a few more times, but to no effect. On her final pump the gun fired once more, but the beam seemed to sputter out of existence as soon as it had appeared.

Twilight pulled herself back into the cab, hoping that the hole she’d blown in the tarmac might slow the other cab down. But as the vehicle passed over the hole it continued forwards, its own flywheel and momentum carrying over the empty stretch.

“Dash, something’s wrong with the gun!” she half-yelled, shaking her hoof as if it might make a difference. “It’s dying on me, but there should still be at least a few hours of life left in it!”

“Ask it what’s wrong,” Dash said, her voice baffling calm given the situation. The mare leaned out of her own window and took aim, firing a long burst from a pistol, uncaring about whether she hit the slot or the cab. She exhausted the magazine in one burst and then slumped back into the cab, pulling a fresh one from one of the many pockets in her coat.

A single shot from the following cab rang out, puncturing a perfect hole dead-centre in the rear window and the glass partition before exiting out of the front window.

“Oh shit!” the driver shouted, ducking down low against the wheel. “Who the fuck did you two piss off this much!?”

“Shut up, I’m trying to shoot here!”

“Look, Lady. This ain’t my problem, just get the hell out of my cab and you don’t have to pay. I’ll even give you your bits back.”

“If you stop driving, I will do a fucking pile-driver on your nuts and then shoot them!” Dash shot the stallion a look in the rear-view mirror before she leaned back out the window and resumed firing, the fact that she was holding the weapon out of the cab being the only thing that stopped Twilight from being deafened.

“Come on, you stupid thing!” Twilight cried, waving her hoof around. “You’re not working, why?!”

“My earlier estimates were based on the theory that the current zone conditions would remain stable.” the weapon responded, its voice slower and much more mechanical-sounding than before. “I have detected that we are about to make a transition into a lower-state zone. Because of this my operational effectiveness in energy discharge mode is now... twenty-two percent and... falling. I will become inoperable in... thirty-five... minutes. Functionality will be... severely compromised within... eight minutes. In order to preserve optimum functionality... I am now sacrificing... all... nonessential... all nonessential functions... nonessential fun fun fun...”

The gun fell silent.

Two more shots rang out from the following cab, Dash replying with another vicious burst of bullets. Twilight, unsure about what to do, took a gamble and leaned out of her window and pumped the trigger repeatedly until the gun emitted a single pulse of the crimson beam. This time Twilight didn’t care about what she hit. Someone in that cab was trying to kill her.

Twilight thought that justifiably eclipsed all other considerations.

Suddenly the cab swerved hard to the left, sending dash flying back into the vehicle where she slammed into Twilight flank. “Did I tell you to make a fucking turn?” she growled, swapping in another magazine.

“I had to, the slot was about to end!” the cabbie replied.

Dash cursed something unintelligible and fired a single shot through the partition, just missing the stallion’s ear. “Make a right turn.” she said, before leaning back out of the window and firing again. The stallion whimpered and turned right, the pick-up shoe disengaging from the slot as the cab surged forwards on the stored energy in its flywheel. Two more shots clanged loudly against the right-side door and then they were in the shelter of another dark street. At first the flywheel gave them an edge of speed, but the contraptions slowly dying screech attested to the fact that it was losing power all the time.

Twilight looked back again and was unsurprised when she saw a pair of headlights appear at the top of the road, the headlights themselves dimming as the following cab came off-slot and lost current. She leaned back out of the window again and tried firing the alicorn gun again, but nothing happened until the fifth or sixth pump, and even then all she got was an ineffectual flash of crimson and little else.

The cab slowed, the tires beneath it screeching as the driver was forced to swerve around the abandoned husks of cars that had been left parked on the abandoned street, metal kissing metal as the fender collided with the other vehicles in a storm of sparks and a series of agonised squeals.  Each time they lost momentum the flywheel seemed unable to push them back up to their previous speed.

Twilights only consolation was that the following cab had to go through the exact same thing.

“We can’t go any further!” the stallion up front called, desperation beginning to taint his voice. “Shoot me if you want, but we’re about to hit no-pony’s-land. From now on we’re gonna start feeling the boundary.”

“Keep driving, Crotch Stain,” Dash said, leaning back in to reload her gun.

“I’ll black out; I’m no good with zone shifts!”

Twilight leaned back in and dived into her saddlebags, digging around through the contents until she produced a stoppered bottle of white pills. She tipped out six onto her hoof and passed two through the hole in the partition to the driver. “Take these,” she said in the most commanding voice she could muster.

“Are you trying to poison me or something?!”

“They’re antizonals. You’re going to cross the boundary with us anyway, so you may as well take them.”

Dash swept up two of the pills and shoved them into her mouth, swallowing them in one gulp. “Do what the pretty mare says, Crotch Stain, you’ll live longer.”

With one hoof on the steering wheel the stallion held the pills up to his lips, hesitating for a moment before he popped them in and swallowed.

“We just need to get to the other side of the boundary,” Twilight told him as the stallion gulped down the pills. “After that you can make your own way back to Neon Heights. The pills should help you stave off the worst of the effects of the zone transition.”

“I feel weird!”

“That’s the transition, not the pills. It’ll take a couple of minutes before they come into effect.”

As she spoke, one of the electrical watches on Dashes hoof began to buzz loudly, alerting them to the imminent transition about to occur. Twilight glanced back, feeling a knot tighten in her stomach. She could already begin to feel the physiological effects gaining strength. She felt lighted heated and was beginning to sweat, her heart racing in her chest. At the edges of her mind she began to feel untethered inside her own skin, as if the anchor that kept her soul in her body was threatening to snap.

The transition between Neon Heights and Geartown was mild, she knew, especially compared to the one Shining Armour would have had to have gone through when he had plummeted from the Celestial Levels. All Twilight could do was hope that the transition might have a similar effect on the ghoul in the following cab, who must already be stressed from his own descent from the Levels. But if Twilight had once been an alicorn then so to was the ghoul, which meant that if she could take the transition, chances were that so could her pursuer. It seemed to her that the only thing she could do was put her faith in Faust, her physical resilience, and her medical judgement coupled with the arsenal of chemicals in her saddlebags.  

It wasn’t much, but it would have to suffice.

The high pitched whine of the flywheel began to die into a low, complaining moan, the cab now only maintaining half the speed that it had possessed when it had come off the slot. At the end of the road, the buildings began to thin out into a desolate no-pony’s-land. Almost nothing still stood intact; any buildings that had once been here before the last zone shift having long since succumbed to weather, rot, and fire – not mention the occasional intrepid pillager – leaving only the barest shells remaining.

Twilight felt a slight shiver in her spine as she remembered Caramels stories of zone mutants.

On the other of the wasteland – the strip of land now curving away in either direction, following the gentle curvature of the spiral – was Geartown, a tentative margin of low, dark buildings lit by the warm orange-yellow of gaslight lanterns.

Twilight looked through the back window, hoping to see some sign of the other vehicle abandoning the chase, but it was still behind them, and seeming to gain ground as well. The rutted, barely serviceable road beneath them had reduced their speed to little more than a brisk jogging pace. Twilight wasn’t really surprised by the condition of the road. Vehicular traffic between the zones only really occurred further up the spiral, at locations like Circuit City and the Cyber Polities where the modes of transportation were similar enough to allow such movement. In locations like Neon Heights, the populace preferred to use public transportation services such as trains and elevators, all of which had been painstakingly engineered to withstand multiple transitions during their operational lifetimes. Twilight felt the knot in her stomach suddenly tighten as the sensation of the transition began to increase, nausea sending her head whirling and bile threatening to rise at the back of her throat.

Then it came.

There was a single moment of absolute soul-rending chill, as if billions of tiny doors had opened up inside every cell in her body, letting in the icy draught of creation.

And then they were through.

The cab lurched and stalled under them, the engine coughing and screeching before resuming its ailing progress. Twilight felt the sensation of the transition begin to ease, but even as they slowly ebbed away she couldn’t had but shake the feeling that something profound her changed within her. After all, this was the first time she had left Neon Heights in nine years.

“I ... I don’t feel so good,” The driver said, his face visibly paling.

“It’ll pass, for now just keep driving,” Twilight told him. From somewhere under them came a heavy, metallic crunching sound, followed by a violent shuddering that caused Twilights muzzle to smack against the partition.

“Rainbow Dash!”

“I know.” The pegasus leaned back in through the window, seeming none the worse despite the transition. “Relax, Cutter. The flywheels just seized up, it probably couldn’t handle the transition is all.” The mare banged on the partition. “Oi! Switch to the batteries!”

The cabbie threw a switch on the dashboard, another clunk emitting from under them as he did so. “I switched, but they’re not gonna get us very far.”

The engine resumed its hesitant progress, the electrical transition system in the batteries emitting a shrill whining noise. Another shot smashed through the rear window, punching another hole through the partition. Dash leaned back out, yelling some obscenity that Twilight couldn’t understand as she fired back at the following cab. This time the burst from her machine-pistol abruptly ended with a grinding sound, the tongue of fire coughing once before disappearing.

“Shit!” Dash leaned back into the cab gritting her teeth as she fiddled with the safety switch and banged the weapon against the door before trying to fire again. The gun gave one final, short burst before it jammed once more. “Everything’s quitting on us!” Dash growled, pulling the weapon off her hoof and chucking it out the window. “And that was my favourite gun as well!” muttering to herself, the pegasus reached into her coat and pulled out a long nosed, black revolver.

“Dash, I think they’re slowing down.”

“Try the alicorn gun again.”

Twilight leaned back out and pulled the trigger, but no matter how many times she pumped the mechanism the gun refused to fire, the weapon seemed to be totally inert. Twilight thought about chucking the weapon away, but some impulse told her to hang on to it and she leaned back into the cab. Most technologies malfunctioned when they passed from a high state zone into a low state zone, but for all she knew the celestial weapon might have some function that allowed it to heal itself, or at least affect some kind of temporary recovering at the least.

“Dash, the cab’s stopping. Maybe the ghouls decided to–” Twilight didn’t even have time to finish her sentence before one of the pursuing cabs front doors was flung open, ripping off its metal hinges and flying loose as the ghoul emerged, its spindly legs coupled with its grey trench coat evoking the image of some monstrous spider emerging from its burrow.

There was no sign of the other cabbie.

“You were saying, Cutter?”

The ghoul paused to reach back into the cab for his hat, pressing it down on the bald, grey-white dome of his head. He started walking, taking determined steps away from the abandoned cab, his long legs rising and falling in exaggerated, puppet-like strides. After a few steps he raised a hoof and shot at the cab with a revolver.

“He’s gaining on us,” Twilight said.

“Crotch Stain, stop the cab,” Dash told the driver, her voice calm yet determined.      

The cabbie looked back at her, his expression incredulous. “Stop?”

“Stop.” the stallion was about to protest, but before he could open his mouth, Dash brought up her revolver and shot through the glass partition, punching a smoking hole into the dashboard to emphasise her point. The cabbie snatched his hooves away, yelping as the cab came to a jerking halt.

Dash booted open the passenger door on her side, climbing out as proceeding to empty the revolver into the ghoul, the revolver barking over and over with each metal slug that left the barrel. The figure of the ghoul stumbled back, raising a hoof to his face as his hat blew away in the wind but he only paused for a moment before resuming his advance, raising his head to show that one of Dash’s shot had gouged a bloody furrow through the right side of his muzzle.

Cursing, Dash fired once again, but the ghoul just wouldn’t go down. He kept coming on, limping on one side as his right hindleg dragged across the floor, the ankle twisted at a sickening angle. Raising a foreleg, he fired at Dash, the shots chiming discordantly against the open door and smashing the rear window to pieces. All the while Rainbow Dash seemed oblivious, calmly swinging open the revolvers cylinder to reload, even as one of the ghoul’s bullets whipped through her mane. Halfway through her task she paused and dug into a pocket of her coat, pulling out a small, feminine revolver that she passed to Twilight.

“Is it loaded?”

“Push the trigger and find out. You do know where the trigger is, right?”

“I’ll manage.”

Through the remains of the screen, the cabbie called out. “Lady, you got anything for me?”

“Advice, shut up and keep your fucking head down!” Dash said before she began to empty the revolver again, the long nose of the barrel jerking with every shot she fired. The bullets ripped holes through the alicorns coat and flesh, yet the Post-equine seemed to absorb the shots like the pegasus was doing nothing more than chucking gravel at him.

Twilight leaned out of her window and fired her own revolver, the weapon kicking back with fierce recoil that was belied by the guns small exterior, but even then she got nothing more than the impression that she was shooting at a mirage, some insubstantial figment of her imagination that had never been real.

Then – just when she was starting to think that nothing they had was going to anything more than slow the ghoul down – the ghoul staggered again, a savage shriek tearing from its throat as one of Dash’s shots blew away part of his hoof, the same one that had been holding the revolver. The ghoul tumbled to its knees, reaching out with its good foreleg to grab the gun before staggering upwards and onwards, continuing to shoot.

He had now crossed half the distance between the two cabs.  

“Cutter?” Dash asked her voice near flat as she took aim again. “What the fuck is that sound?”

“What sound?”

“The one coming from the gun around your hoof.”

Twilight really had too much going on in her mind to notice the noise until Dash had pointed it out, but now that Dash had drawn her attention she found it impossible to ignore. The weapon was beginning to buzz around her hoof, and the buzzing was getting louder, as if some increasingly angry wasp was rattling around inside, furious at its imprisonment. Suddenly the weapon became hot, so hot that Twilight yelp and shook her hoof, trying to fling the weapon away. There had been no transitional phase, one moment the metal had been cool around her hoof, the next it was threatening to sear her coat if it was left on for even another moment. As she watched a pink glow had begun to leak from the previously invisible seals where the weapon had fused together.

“Cutter, I think you better do something about that gun.”

“I can’t, it won’t come off!”

Twilight dropped the revolver as the weapon suddenly became hotter around her hoof, a sear pain shooting through her foreleg as if the gun was trying to consume her. She cried out loudly, falling through the door as it collapsed under her, depositing the mare roughly on the hard ground. The weapon was beginning to rattle around her hoof, as if the mechanisms inside had malfunctioned to the point of self destruction. Twilight raised her hoof and was about to slam the gun against the side of the cab when the rattling came to a halt and a cool, soothing sensation began to work its way into her hoof.

“Cutter!” Dash snarled, as another shot punched the ghoul in the chest with little effect. “Chuck that damn thing before it blows us up!”

Twilight still had her hoof raised, and was about to smack the gun against the metal of the cab before something made her stop. With an unsettling sense of dynamism, she felt the weapon change around her hoof, its form altering into a subliminally new, but profoundly different form. Twilight felt suddenly struck by a conviction that the weapon had just completed some sort of larval transformation from an energy-discharge device into a more primitive state of being.

What was unsettling was that this sudden realisation didn’t seem to come from anywhere except the gun itself.  

She raised her hoof, gritting her teeth as a spasm of pain from her rough landing danced up her spine. Taking the ghoul in her sights, she took a breath and squeezed the trigger.

There was no lance of crimson, but there was certainly a result.

Even though her aim had only been approximate, most likely off by a few inches, Twilight could have sworn she felt the gun twist her hoof, correcting her inaccuracy. There was the sudden, numbing blow of force as the recoil travelled up her foreleg, followed by the crash of thunder of a bullet as it was released from the weapons firing chamber. For a few moments afterwards Twilight could hear nothing but ringing, but as the noise faded she was greeted only with silence.

And as for the ghoul, well, he was certainly not coming any closer.

Silence settled over them, until it was suddenly broken by the crunch of Dash’s hooves on the gravel of the road as she slowly approached the point where the ghoul had been standing, her revolver raised as she warily scanned the ground in front of her. Twilight got to her hooves and pulled her saddlebags out of the cab, putting them back on before trotting to catch up with the pegasus.

“Do you think he’s dead?” Twilight asked as she approached Dash, who had come to a standstill. But when the Unicorn reached her, she saw that there was no need to vocally answer her question.

Scattered in front of them, like some sort of jigsaw of spoilt meat and grey, gristly flesh, was all that was left of the ghoul. The pieces spread out in front of them in a clear funnel pattern, each nothing more than a chunk of pink-grey meat. All of them were faintly steaming, and Twilight could see no sign of bodily fluids anywhere. The safest bet was that whatever projectile that had been fired at the ghoul had simply evaporated all his internal bodily fluids on impact.

Dash prodded one of the chunks with her hoof before stomping on it and grinding it into the dirt. “Yep, Cutter, I’d say that’s a fair bet.”

“I... I didn’t expect him to get as far as he did” Twilight muttered as she glanced across at the scattered remains, mentally reassembling the parts that hadn’t been totally blown out of all recognition. In her mind’s eye, she could see how the ghoul was able to function, how his body had been able to cope with the stresses of an alien zone.

The ghoul had been an alicorn once, before knives and genetic intervention had remodelled him for life below the Celestial Levels, down with the filthy Pre-equines. It was the same kind of forced adaptation that had been worked on Twilights own body, but with far less elegance and refinement.

If Twilight had been remade with watchmaker precision, the ghoul was a disposable cigarette lighter by comparison.

“You think this was a suicide mission?” Rainbow Dash asked, holstering her revolver back inside her coat.

Twilight thought back to Shining Armour, the alicorn who had sacrificed itself in order to warn her of the dangers that hunted her. She looked down at the alicorn gun. Her hoof was shaking. “Most likely, yes.”

“What made them come down here if they knew they were going to die?”

“Belief, I suppose, the burning conviction that they were acting correctly, serving the true cause. But I don’t think it was just belief alone that made them do this, they probably also had their minds reconditioned with psychosurgical brainwashing in order to overcome their survival instinct.” Twilight paused, glancing to Dash to find that the mare was staring at her. She studied the pegasus’ expression, searching for the slightest clue that she knew about her true nature. “It’s all entirely feasible, Rainbow Dash. You’d be amazed at what they can do up in the Levels.”

“You know a lot about how they operate for a pony who’s never been to the Celestial Levels.”

“Like I said earlier, it helps to know them when they’re hunting you.”

Dash found another piece of meat and kicked it idly with her hoof. “Good call about the gun, by the way. You were right not to listen to me.”

“I didn’t really have much choice; I can’t seem to get the thing off my hoof.”

“But still. Good job, Cutter.”

“Can I get that in writing?”

“Quit while you’re ahead, Cutter.” Then Dash doubled over and wretched a thin stream of vomit over the ghouls remains. “I fucking hate alicorns!”


V: A trip to the spa-house

Twilight clutched her saddlebags to her chest as if they were the final, tenuous link to her previous life, a life which, in the space of a few hours, had gone from normality to what felt like insanity.

The unicorn and Rainbow Dash were seated on the upper deck of a rumbling, rattling steam-coach that was ponderously making its way through the higher districts of Geartown, their rumps sat on mercilessly hard wooden seats. They had walked for an hour through the settlement before they had found the vehicle, leaving the confused and disorientated cabbie to make his own way back to Neon Heights, this time lacking his cab.

The coach was gas-lit, the few other occupants aboard the upper deck huddling under thick coats and woolly scarves, doing their best to shield themselves from the frigid blasts of wind that were gusting in from the Outzone that lay beyond Canterlots boundaries. Above the top-most windows of the flanking buildings on either side of the road were monochrome advertisements for brands of soap, bleach, and cold remedies that Twilight didn't even recognize.

She was only a few leagues from Neon Heights, but Twilight already had the distinct impression she was travelling through another world.

"We've got a slight change in plan," Dash muttered to Twilight through the collar of her olive green trench coat, which she had fastened all the way to the top to try and ward against the wind. "After that fiasco on the train, I'm not risking using the rail services anymore, so we'll have to find another way down to Ponyville."

"And how exactly do we find this alternate route?" Twilight asked, her gripping on her saddlebags tightening as the steam-coach suddenly rocked, the sound of a horn and profanities echoing into the night.

"Simple, we take a little trip to the spa-house. There's a stallion there who goes by the name Big Macintosh. He's a friend of Joe's, but associate would be a better description, I guess. He's Joe's right hoof stallion down here in Geartown, looks after Joe's interests round these parts now that Joe can't leave Neon Heights.

"And we can trust this Big Macintosh?"

"Why shouldn't we?"

"In all the conversations I've ever had with Joe about leaving Canterlot, I don't think the name Big Macintosh has ever cropped up in any of them."

"Cutter, trust me when I tell you that Mac's a reliable pony. He won't fuck us over."

Twilight felt slightly more secure after that. If Rainbow Dash, a pegasus who got by in life by suspecting everyone to be her opponent, could consider a pony to be reliable, then Twilight knew that they were in safe hooves. Nodding with acceptance, the unicorn turned to stare the window of the steam-coach, abject tiredness and the vestiges of zone sickness dulling her will to continue the conversation any further. If worst came to worst and she really did have to trust this Big Macintosh with her life then so be it. It was only one step below Rainbow Dash, or Donut Joe for that matter.

Sweet Celestia, she'd never felt so hopeless.

Beyond the grime-tinted windows of the steam-coach, buildings passed by at little more than a brisk walking pace, their architecture not unlike the tenement blocks of Neon Heights. But the lights were orange-brown down here, flickering with the random uncertainty of gas flames, and nowhere was there the cold, harsh electric radiance of television, the pink auroral glow of neon lighting, the brilliant flash of slot-cars of electrical trains.

Electricity existed in Geartown, the continued functioning of Twilights own central nervous system attested quite admirably to that, but the machinery needed to generate and distribute such an energy source on a useful scale couldn't be made to function reliably. Steam and gas based power sources, on the other hoof, were still quite readily applicable technologies.

There had been efforts, Twilight knew, to pump electricity into the zone from Neon Heights, as well as to create machinery that was rugged enough to continue functioning once inside the zone. But all these efforts, along with similar efforts elsewhere in Canterlot, had come to naught.

There was an old adage amongst the ponies of Canterlot: what works, works.

As the steam-coach trundled from block to block, so did the signs of habitation and civilisation grow steadily more apparent. The seedier tenement blocks gradually gave way to long rows of well-maintained facades, each frontage bathed in its own pool of lemony-yellow gas-light that emanated from  the tall iron lanterns that lined the avenues. They passed throngs of pedestrians, all of them going about their business even at such a late hour.

Picking up on recurring trends amongst the pedestrians fashion choices, Twilight mentally concluded that Rainbow Dash had made a fine choice with her clothing: her trench coat had looked unremarkable in Neon Heights, and remained exactly the same down here in Geartown. Twilight herself was dressed in a thick black coat and wide-brimmed hat of the same colouration that Dash had 'borrowed' off of the cabbie before they'd abandoned him, and though it seemed as if her garments were having a similar affect as Dash's, Twilight knew that was more down to coincidence than anything else. With her black coat, black hat, tinted glasses and black saddlebags, Twilight fancied that she came across as some sort of clerical figure, perhaps a minister or some priestess of Faust.

"Cutter, show me the alicorn gun," Dash muttered under her coat.

Glancing about her, Twilight slowly raised her hoof and rolled her sleeve up, exposing the band of matte-silver metal around her hoof. The material of the gun was still warm to touch, but it was now nowhere near the searing heat it had been before. Extending her hoof towards the pegasus, Twilight let the extractor examine the weapon whilst she furtively glanced around the deck, checking to gauge whether they were being watched.

"When it fired, it shot something," Twilight said quietly, trying to remain inconspicuous. "It definitely wasn't any type of energy beam, it seemed to be some kind of bullet."

"Well, whatever it fired, it sure as hell fucked up that ghoul. Must've been some sort of high-explosive munition."

"I don't think there's any intelligence left in it now, not after its metamorphosis. It's probably just inert metal now. It probably won't change anymore, either, and I don't know how much ammunition is left."

"Even if you hate 'em, you've still gotta hoof it to those alicorns. They're possibly the cleverest bunch of fucks to ever walk the face of Equestria, but why can't they just use all of that intelligence to make life better for the rest of us?"

"The alicorns of the Celestial Levels are not as clever as you think, Rainbow Dash," Twilight said, choosing her words carefully. She'd already slipped up a few times, mentioning to the pegasus that she'd be living 'down here' for nine years. Dash didn't seemed to have picked up that anything was amiss with her package, but Twilight knew she had to be wary of making any similar mistakes in the future. After all, there would surely be a point in the future when Dash would begin to realise that there was something out of the ordinary with her companion.

"They're good with gadgets, that's true," Twilight continued, though Dash didn't give any hint that she was listening. "They can make some pretty neat toys, like this gun. Sometimes, it even seems like they're made something that's genuinely new, something that hasn't ever existed in this world we call home before. But that's never the case. Nope, all they do is just dig back through the past, hundreds of thousands of years if necessary, and find a solution that someone has already come up with. There's nothing new under the sun, as the old saying goes, and if you were to ask and alicorn about this gun around my hoof, about how it locked with my blood, or about how it morphed into a new shape once we'd crossed the zone, you probably wouldn't be at all satisfied with the answer it would give you."

"So basically, alicorns are just as dumb as the rest of us, except they've got some shinier toys?"

"If you want to say it like that, then yes, yes they are and yes they do."

"You ever been up there, Cutter?"

"All the way up to the Celestial Levels?" Twilight was surprised by the blunt directness of the question, and she found it more than just a bit unsettling. "No, I've had no cause to ascend."

"Never been sick enough to need their medicine then?"

"Dash, I may look like nothing but skin and bone, but I'm healthier than I look." Twilight rolled her sleeve back down to cover the gun, glancing sideways towards Dash. "What about you, have you ever made the ascension?"

"Nope, ain't ever needed their medicine. If I did, I'd spit it back in their faces is what I would do. I'd rather die before I let any of those fuckers tinker with my body."

"And does Joe share this view with you?"

"You know him well, Cutter. Why do you just go and ask him yourself?"

"That's not really an option for me right now."

"I guess it isn't. But still, you knowing him for as long as you have... exactly how far do you two go back?"

"Rainbow Dash, don't tell me you've suddenly actually developed a real interest in me. I thought you preferred not to get to close to the package?"  

Dash grunted before replying. "I'm interested in Joe's past, what really happened to make him quit the force when he did. You're just a piece in the puzzle, Cutter. A piece who knows more than most, but still just a piece. You're one of his anitzonal suppliers, or one of them at the least, I've managed to figure that much out. But that still makes me wonder; how exactly did you get mixed up with a stallion like Joe? And what has he got on you that keeps brining you back?" Dash gave Twilight a long look, her brows furrowed slightly in concentration. "So what's the deal, did he fuck you or something, you two got some little foal together?"

Twilight grimaced, though she expressed it more than she would have liked to. Exactly how much did Dash really know about her past and heritage? She had no real idea about how much Joe had informed Dash, only that he'd supplied her with the bare essentials in order to help her with the job. Twilight knew that if Joe had told the pegasus anything else it would have constituted as a grievous betrayal of trust between them, one that would be unlikely to fix.

"I'm guessing from your earlier comment that you know about Joe's old line of work?"

"Him being a detective in the force? Yeah, I know that, a lot of us extractors do. Besides, it's not exactly the biggest secret in the business, especially since Caramel keeps his badge hung up behind the bar like some kind of trophy. You two meet during one of his cases?"

"Something like that." Twilight sighed, knowing that such a thin sliver of information would not be enough to prevent Dash's probing. The pegasus seemed to be inquisitive by nature, a fact that Twilight wasn't very keen on. "Joe was working on a murder investigation, one that had been dropped by the rest of his department after they been unable to find any evidence. A body had been found in an elevator shaft in a pharmaceuticals warehouse in Second District. I happened to be a feature in that investigation."

"Suspect, or witness?"

"Both. I didn't kill the mare in the elevator shaft, but Joe was right to have his doubts about me. After all, I had killed two ponies." When Dash made no reaction, neither dismissive or admiring, Twilight coughed and carried on. "But I only did so because they had killed the mare. Somepony who had mattered a lot to me."

"And Joe found all this out?"

"He'd worked out what had happened. I stated my case, explained my motive, and from then on it was really just the two of us. No one else knew how far he'd carried the investigation, Joe wasn't the type to file reports if someone else could do it for him.

"You think about killing him?"

"There'd been enough killing already." Twilight gave her companion a serious look. "I'm a doctor, Rainbow Dash, a healer. It's my job to patch thing up, put lives back together, not end them."

"Which's why you were so keen to keep your hooves on that nice shiny toy of yours."

"In case you didn't notice, I didn't really have a lot of time to properly think things through. If I made the wrong decision by keeping the gun, I apologise." Twilight waited for a moment, in vain, for Dash to at least give her some crumb of acknowledgment before she continued. "Joe quit the force soon after. When he started expanding his activities, so to speak, he found he had to start making transitions into other zones more than usual. I was able to supply him with industrial strength Morphax-55, a lot more stronger and purer than anything he would have been able to acquire off the street."

"So that's all you've got. It's a protection racket, just like a said. You fleece him the drugs or he turns on you."

"No." Twilight said slowly, composing her thoughts carefully. "There's more to it than that. Joe helped me at time when there was no one else, and he's continued to help me. I owe him more than just my freedom, that's why I came to him when I needed help."

"Helped you how?"

She couldn't tell Dash about the wings, that much was clearly obvious. She couldn't tell Dash how Joe had cut them away, or stitched the wounds closed whilst the pain of the surgery, which could only be performed with weak local anaesthetics, caused her to writhe and thrash on the grimy operating table where Joe performed his knife-work. Or how, through the whole procedure, she was haunted and tormented by the knowledge that the wings would almost instantly begin regenerating, and that the whole painful process would need to be carried out again in only a few months, and that the intervals would continue to grow shorter and shorter.

No, she couldn't tell Rainbow Dash any of that.

"He's helped me stay ahead of the ponies who are after me, that's all he's done."

"Sounds like he got the good side of the bargain."

"Trust me, he didn't."

They exited the steam-coach a few blocks further on, Dash leading them through what appeared to be a bustling red-light district as revellers, drunk and intoxicated with the entertainments of the night, spilled out of bars and bordellos and gambling dens. The pegasus seemed to have no issue with making her way through such a lively crowd, barging aside any who got in her way and delivering more than one eye watering buck to the crotch of anypony who then had the gall to complain.

The whole while Twilight followed in her wake, watching as jugglers and fire-breathers dazzled the crowd with the spectacles whilst a group of mares laced up in clothes that were far too tight and who were wearing far too much makeup stood on a calliope nearby and shouted bawdy songs to the tune of a steam organ. The calliope was wheeling its way down the street on four iron wheels, the organ piping its way through a punch-card whilst the mares on top flashed their flanks and the operator at the back shovelled wood chips into the boiler beneath, stoking the engine to keep both the contraption moving and the organ playing.

More than one besotted stallion followed in the machines wake.

It took Twilight a few moments to realise that she recognised the song as belonging to the artist Vinyl Scratch, but when she pitched the idea to Rainbow Dash the pegasus snorted in derision.

"You've got rump over tit, Cutter. That tune there has been doing to rounds here in Geartown for years now, way back to when I was just a little filly. Vinyl Scratch has just picked it up, turned it into electricity and then blasted it out of a pair of speaker so loud that it sounds like someone is breaking a window with a box full of rusty nails."

Twilight smiled at her own ignorance. "I'm sorry, Dash, I didn't realise."

"This city's more complicated than ponies figure. It ain't just shit and bricks that gets moved between the zones. If you spend some time going around the zones and seeing all the sights you begin to realise that Canterlot's more of a living thing rather than some giant spike. Things are moving in all sorts of directions, even I don't think I have to tell you how muddled up bodies get on the inside."

"No, you shouldn't," Twilight agreed, following closer behind as she felt somepony pinch at her rump through the padding of her coat. "You like here, don't you Dash. In Canterlot, I mean."

"Damn right I do. I've left this shit-hole more than a few times, so there's got to be something that keeps dragging me back."

As Twilight watched, the calliope came to a rolling halt before a building, the occupants aboard jumping off and entering inside, drawing their crowd of suitors with them. The building itself was built of wooden boards that had been painted a faded shade of emerald green, and elaborate portico set at the front whilst many purple painted balconies jutted from the upper stories.

Chains of pastel coloured lanterns, each with a set of complicated shapes of indeterminable nature, illuminated the front of the building, whilst a carved serpentine dragon lorded over the entrance, entwined around a sign that identified the premises as the Purple Dragon Spa-house. Evidenced by the lights that were on inside the windows, and the amount of smoke that seemed to be seeping from just about every crack in the building, the spa-house was still open for business.

"This is it." Dash said.

"How do you know Big Macintosh is going to be inside?"

"Mac's always in. Being in is what Mac does. It's sort of his... party trick." Dash chuckled darkly to herself on that last part being turning to Twilight. "You got a strong stomach, Cutter?"

"I'm a pathologist."

"Enough said. Let's roll."

Dash walked up the wooden steps to the entrance and spoke a quiet word with the burly stallion standing guard under the portico. The pony gave Twilight a quick glance, his face scrutinizing, before he gave Dash a quick nod and stepped aside, admitting them into the establishment.

Once inside it was more than clear that Dash knew her way around perfectly well, leading Twilight down several long and winding corridors that branch off into various steaming chambers, bathing rooms, and changing rooms. The air was humid, oppressively so, and reeking with scented oils and perfume, most of which seemed to stink of lotus flowers. Twilight already felt stifled by the heat under her thick coat, sweet beading on the back of her neck and on her brow. She removed her glasses, wiping the condensation from them and returning them to place before Dash had a chance to look her in the eye.

Every now and then they passed by a towelled patron, usually a stallion, amiably making their way from one room to another. Every single one of them was accompanied by at least three mares, themselves garbed in long silk dresses, their manes pulled back from their eyes and fixed in place with jewelled pins. The mares always seemed to be giggling, their tails, braided through with what could either have been real or fake flowers, constantly swishing from side to side in excitement.

"I'm guessing that this establishment has other functions as well as being a spa-house." Twilight said after they'd passed yet another group of mares, all of them reeking of lotus perfume.

"Hit the nail on the head with that one, Cutter. Aloe and Lotus own some of the best damn girls you can get in the whole of Canterlot. Mind you though, I found this place up in Circuit City that comes pretty close, and they got boys as well as girls." Dash smiled to herself. "Circuit City's a great place, especially with the whole 'personal realisation' thing they've got going on."

"I have been told they're a free society."

"Best legal excuse for an orgy, ever."

Eventually the seemingly endless twisting and turning terminated in a lone wooden door, this one paint a deep, rich purple and decorated with a carving of a dragon that had been etched into the border, circling the whole construct as it devoured its own tail. From behind the door emanated the sounds of activity, and although Twilight couldn't clearly discern what was going on beyond the portal, the obvious sexual tone of the noises told her that something rather... intimate was going on.

"Sounds like Aloe and Lotus are at it again." Rainbow Dash chuckled, after one particularly loud shriek made itself audible to them. "Sometimes I think those two could run the whole place by themselves, given how much business they bring in."

Another round of moans made it past the door, causing Twilight to cringe slightly. "I'm guessing we should come back later?"

Dash gave her an incredulous look. "Watch out there, Cutter. Your virgin is starting to show through." The pegasus grinned as a blush made its way up Twilight muzzle. "Nahh, let's see who they've dragged in this time." Twilight barely had a moment to steel herself before Dash gripped the handle of the door and pushed it inwards.

In an instant the whole scene was laid bare.

On a desk over by the far wall of the luxuriously decorated office, a mare with a pale-rose coat and a cerulean mane lay flat on her back, hindlegs spread and eyes closed as a familiar pegausi stallion, possessing a granite grey coat that bordered on black and a short cut mane streaked with white and some shade of light blue, shoved his muzzle into her sex. On a chair beside the desk another mare, this one with a cerulean blue coat and a pale-rose mane, smoked on an elaborate pipe that was connected to a bubbling contraption made of delicately wrought glass with gold inlays.

All three of them failed to notice the two mares standing in the door way until the door that dash had opened made contact with the wall, the slamming of wood on wood loud enough to capture their attention. The mare on the table opened her eyes slowly, a faint smile flickering on her lips as she spotted Rainbow Dash, whilst the mare on the pipe simply continued to puff away, her bedraggled mane plastered to her neck.

"What the fuck's going on?" the stallion began as he raised his head from between his partners hindlegs, a look of serious annoyance on his face. The expression, however, faded away once he made eye contact with Twilight. "Twilight?" the pegasus managed, his voice sounding more than a little bit confused.

"Thunderlane?" Twilight replied, feeling equally confused. Dash turned to Twilight, a look of confusion on her face as well.

"You know this guy?" she asked. When Twilight nodded the pegasus looked back to Thunderlane with a much more serious expression in place of her confusion. "You little shit. Sleeping around, are you?" Dash began to reach into her coat, her teeth bared.

It didn't take a genius to know what was coming next.

"Dash, no!" Twilight shouted, grabbing the mares hoof before she had time to withdraw one of the myriad weapons she had in her possession. "It's not like that, not at all. Thunderlane just does deliveries for the morgue!"

At that Dash paused, her brow still furrowed towards Thunderlane, but she slowly withdrew her hoof from her coat, Twilight sighing in relief when she saw that the mare wasn't holding a gun.

Thunderlane looked equally relieved.

"Right, clear out, Crotch Stain. Mommies got some business to discuss."

Thunderlane didn't need telling twice. wiping his muzzle with the back of a hoof, he quickly gathered up an old jumpsuit that had been hurriedly thrown over the back of another chair and made a swift departure, sparing Twilight a quick nod as he passed Rainbow Dash and then disappeared round the bend at the end of the hallway.

"Come back soon," the mare on the table called after him, her voice soft and breathy after her previous exertions. languidly, she rolled herself off her back and got down behind the desk, seating herself in the padded chair behind the desk. Her face was flushed and she continued to pant slightly, her eyes half-lidded as she slowly tidied up her mane and put on a white head band to keep it in place.

"Keeping busy then, are you?" Dash began, stepping into the office proper and leaving Twilight to close the door behind them. The mare behind the desk simply giggled, the flush on her cheeks rising slightly.

"Oh, of course we are, Dashie, my dear," she answered, leaning back into the soft padding of her chair. "After all, being an owner and operator of this venture, I have a responsibility to make sure our clientele are worth my girls time."

"Aloe, you and I both know that's bollocks."

"As judgemental as ever, I see." The mare named Aloe shook her head, the smile never leaving her face. "But, it is good to see that you are in good health, Rainbow Dash, despite your habit of threatening my customers and make an annoyance of yourself. I know I speak for all the girls when I say that your charming presence has been missed around the establishment."

The second mare, whom Twilight assumed to be Lotus, took a puff on her pipe, the elaborate network of glass tubes and beakers that it was hooked up to gurgled loudly. Exhaling a cloud of scented smoke, the blue coated mare gave Dash a tired look before her eyes settled on Twilight, her expression placid, and unmoving.

"Who's your friend?" she asked, taking another puff on the glass pipe. Twilight had the sudden impression that this mare was one to watch out for, something about the way she seemed so... apathetic pointed her out as clearly the brains of the operation.

"Name's Twilight," Dash answered before Twilight had time to.

"And is he on his way up, or down?" Twilight felt under the impression that the mare was scrutinising her carefully. "Down, I believe; this mare certainly doesn't look as if she's come from the Outzone, especially with a pair of saddlebags that nice. You may remove your hat now, Miss Twilight, and it must be awfully hard for your to see with those tinted glasses on, especially in a building as steamy as this."

"I'm fine, thank you," Twilight responded, though she did reach up and remove her hat, giving her mane a quick shake to clear her head. As for Lotus, she simply gave an imperceptible nod, as if she had already found out everything she'd needed to know.

"As you will."

"Look, as much as I love the catch up talk, me and Twilight need to speak to-"

"Macintosh, of course." Aloe spoke, interrupting the pegasus midsentence, much to Dash's chagrin. "Why else would you grace our humble abode, unless you and Miss Twilight would like a quick soak before you continue on with your journey?" Aloe turned her gaze to Twilight, the contented smile on her face picking up at the corners to give her expression an almost lavacious look. "The girls here are rather skill, I think you'll find, Miss Twilight. We ensure that they are properly trained, of course. Why not try a massage? One touch of their hooves and you'll find all your problems just... floating away."

The mares smile became more devious. Twilight gulped and backed up slightly, unsure what to say until Dash came to her aid.

"Keep your head band on, Aloe. Me and Cutter have a long way to go and not a whole lot of time to get there, so let's skip fucking each other's brains out and save that for when I get back?"

Aloes smile was definitely devious by now, her eyes turning to Rainbow Dash with obvious longing. "Have it your way, Dashie. I'll have a room made up for you for when you return." Aloe pointed to a door behind and to the right of the desk. "You'll find Mac down in the boiler room as always."

"Cheers."

They crossed the room, Twilight uncomfortably aware of Lotus scrutinizing gaze still following her, not to mention the unsettling attention of Aloe, who seemed fixated with her flank. Dash pushed the door inwards and descended down the flight of stairs beyond, disappearing into the gloom of the weak gas lighting. Twilight made to follow after her, but a delicate feminine cough made her turn her attention back to the two spa ponies.

"I hope you have a robust tolerance for profanity, Miss Twilight, if that is your real name." Lotus informed her, examining her well manicured hoof as she took another puff on her ornate pipe. "Dash has quite the uncouth tongue, though I will say in her defence that she was not always that way. Once she was actually able to function in polite society, if you'd dare to believe it." Lotus sighed, shaking her head before looking back to Twilight. "Of course, all that was before her beloved died. Such a terrible tragedy. Though, I must say, it's a pity really." Lotus lowered the pipe and returned it to a holster on the glass work, her eyes fixed on Twilight's as her voice lowered to an almost conspiratorial whisper. "She's hated alicorns ever since."

Twilight felt part of her brain seize up with fear. Had Lotus worked out what she was already? No, it was impossible, alicorns hadn't even been part of the conversation. Knowing that any hesitation would show Lotus that her suspicions were right, Twilight goaded herself into action.

"Duly noted, I'll remember that well." Twilight turned away and began down the stairs, but as she closed the door behind her Lotus's voice sounded out once again, though this time, the words delivered seemed more ominous than they had any right to be.

"Have a safe trip, Miss Twilight."

≤ΘΘΘ≥

"What the fuck kept you?" Dash asked when Twilight reached the bottom of the stairs. They were in a dimly lit corridor that ran both to the left and the right of the stairs. Overhead, tallow candles set into small alcoves in the wall provided flickering illumination, causing shadows to pool at the intervals between each alcove.

"Lotus was just wishing me good luck," Twilight answered, but it seemed as if Dash wasn't paying her any attention. Instead she was briskly striding down the right-hoof corridor, forging ahead despite the lack of light.

"Yeah, yeah. Cool story bro, tell it again."

Two rights turns, two left turns, and three flights of stairs later, the two ponies found themselves standing in front of a heavy looking metal door, adorned with hazard symbols that Twilight didn't even recognise.

And she'd worked with some lethal stuff too.

Overhead the gas-light seemed even weaker than it did on the surface, as if the weight of the building above them somehow compounded the darkness, increasing its intensity to an unnatural degree. The humidity was intense as well, far more oppressive than up in the office. Regardless of it all, Dash trotted across the raw Mega-structure of the floor and hammered on the door with a hoof, each blow deafeningly loud in such cramped confines.

"Macintosh, you ugly fucker! Get over here and open the bloody door!"

With a clank, a slit in the door that Twilight hadn't noticed before suddenly flipped open, leaving a black gap in the rusted surface. Beyond the viewing-slit came the noise of what sounded like a pair of bellows wheezing on and on, and when the figure raised a lantern to the slit, she got the impression the pony holding it was large, very large indeed.

"Well ah'll be. Ah wasn't expectin' yah to pay lil ol' me a visit tonight, Miss Dash."

Twilight instantly recognized the as belonging to Geartown, especially given the lilting tone with which it was uttered. It was softer, and much slower, than the dialect of the residents for Neon Heights.

"Shit got fucked up and we had to make some different arrangements," Dash explained. "Now are you gonna let us in, or not?"

"Do ah have a choice?"

"That depends on whether or not you wanna keep yourself on Joe's good side."

"It's always an idea."

The speaker slid the viewing-slit closed with another clank and pulled the door open a fraction, a small chain jingling between it and the frame. A face, sinisterly under-lit by the light of the lantern that the figure held between its teeth, hovered in the darkness. Twilight caught sight of one emerald green eye directed straight at her, the colouration fierce in its intensity. As for the other, it remained lost in the shadows. The rhythmic sound of bellows, which she had originally assumed was the stallion breathing, she now realised to be nothing of the sort.

It was definitely coming from the stallion but it continued even as he spoke.

Big Macintosh scanned both of the mares before grunting and closing the door once more. For a few moments there was nothing, and then the chain was pulled loose with a faint tinkling and the door swung open, creaking loudly on rusting hinges.

"Come on in, ladies. Make yerselves comfortable."

The heat was even worse in the boiler room. Through the steam, Twilight could make out the hulking shadow of the boiler, a squatting black behemoth the size of a small house. The shadow it cast reminded her of some absurd dragon, a monstrous, devouring creature that could never be truly sated, no matter how much material was stuffed inside it. Above the construct, a labyrinth of rusted tubes and stained pipes branched out up to the ceiling, distributing steam to all corners of the Purple Dragon spa-house.

Macintosh closed the door behind them as they stepped in, the steam blocking off Twilight's view of their new host.

"Ya'll been busy tonight?" Macintosh asked, his voice flat and monotonous, and above all slow.

"Now Mac, what could possibly give you that idea?"

"It's all over town, Miss Dash. Somepony done found a body on the train, and ah've been hearing talk 'a some kinda ruckus goin' on at the station on the other side 'a the boundary."

"Fancy that."

"Ya'll 'r telling me that ya had nothin' ta do with it?"

"Alright, we may have killed a few ponies, but nothing too serious. Let's just say me and my companion ran into... unforeseen difficulties."

The emerald eye focussed on Twilight. "Ya'll mean this mare here?"

"Yep, Cutter here has half of the Celestial fucking Levels riding up her plot."

"Ahh, a special customer." The eye glimmered approvingly. "What's a lil thing like this done ta get on the wrong side 'a the alicorns?"

"You should ask her that, Mac. These aren't your average Post-equine fuckers we're dealing with."

"Ah've dealt with a few 'o the stranger variants in mah time," Mac spoke as he led them past the boiler, a fierce heat bleeding off it even though the stoking hole was currently shut. The stallion paused and reached up with a hoof to tap against a pressure valve until the phosphorescent dial above it quivered back into position. Twilight noticed the hoof made a dull noise with each tap, as if it were wood on metal. "But that was a long time ago."

"They're infiltration units," Twilight told him, feeling a prickly uneasiness run up her neck. "That's my understanding of them, anyway. From what we've seen, they appear to have been modified to be able to function beyond the boundaries of the Celestial Level. As far as I can tell, they don't seem to have any machines in their blood, and all of the ones me and Dash have seen have had their wings and horns removed as well. It seems they are unable to remove one without needing to remove the other. Unless you manage to get up close and take a proper look at them, they appear normal enough to be able to blend in." Twilight paused and swallowed, her mind suddenly back tracking to Big Mac's last statement. "You said you've had experience with dealing with alicorns?"

"Ah've fought and killed a few in mah time," Big Mac said off-hoofedly.

"You were some kind of soldier?"

"A kinda soldier," Big Mac echoed. "Ah'm guessin' that Miss Dash here hasn't exactly filled ya in on the details about me?"

"Not exactly, no."

Macintosh chuckled to himself. "Don't ya'll fret now, Miss Cutter. Ya'll get the full picture soon enough. Mind ya'll don't trip over the cable."

"What cable?"

"That there cable that's comin' outta me."

Big Macintosh led them out of the boiler room and into a separate annexe that seemed to serve as his personal quarters. He swung the door closed behind them, but didn't shut it completely, leaving a thin gap. He took the lantern from between his teeth and placed it on a table in the centre of the room, before lighting a slightly brighter on that hung from the ceiling. The filament flared brightly, doing a little to dispel the gloom.

Beside the lantern, on the table, there sat what looked like a pack of cards, arranged in the depleted rows of an unfinished game. accompanying them was a glass and a tall bottle of liquor with a sepia label that Twilight couldn't quite make out. The room was fractionally cooler then the boiler room, aided by a small, steam driven ventilation fan on the ceiling that rotated in slow circles. There was a serving hatch in one corner that presumably led to the spa-houses kitchens, and a neatly made bed sat in the other.

"Mah humble lil abode," Big Mac told them, a faint smile on his face. "Please, take a seat."

"Mac, we don't have a lotta time to talk," Dash began. "If me and Cutter are gonna make the next connection to Ponyville we–"

"Have a seat anyways." The eye turned to fix itself on Twilight. "You too, Miss Cutter. Ah wouldn't have it be said that Big Macintosh didn't act the gentlecolt to his guests."

"It's Twilight, actually," Twilight told him as she sat down, slipping off her saddlebags and setting them down beside the chair. Her mind was reeling at the fact she was sitting opposite a genuine alicorn killer, but she tried not to let the consternation show on her face. Meanwhile, Macintosh had made his way over to the serving hatch, and as he returned he was accompanied by the chinking of glass on glass. Taking a seat opposite Twilight and Rainbow Dash, he lined up all three glasses and began to pour shots of whatever liquor was in the bottle.

"Line of work, Miss Twilight?"

"I'm a doctor, a pathologist from the Third District Morgue in Neon Heights."

"And how did a doctor get all mixed up in somethin' that'd mean she'd have to get her lil tail outta Canterlot?"

"It's a long story."

"Nopony's going anywhere any time soon." Mac pushed one of the glasses towards Twilight and the other to Rainbow Dash. "Drink up now, ah'm sure you two could use a stiff drink."

"I'm afraid we can't, we've both taken antizonals," Twilight explained, even as Dash downed her drink in a single gulp.

"So am ah. The liquor ain't gonna kill you." With some menace, Macintosh added. "Bottoms up."

Big Mac pulled out his own chair and sat opposite them, giving Twilight her first chance to get a proper look at him. She controlled her reaction as best as she could, but Big Mac wasn't something for the faint hearted.

Mac was a big stallion, and clearly older than Twilight or even Joe. His coat, a rich red tone, seemed to be slightly grimed and sooty, probably from all his years working with the boiler. Atop his head sat a short cropped mane of ginger hair, and his eyes, or more rather eye, were a fierce emerald green, though only one was visible, as the other was hidden behind a patch of black metal that looked as if it had been bolted straight into his skull.

The patch extended across Big Mac's muzzle, reached down his right cheek and up to his temple, studded through with large metal bolts. On either side of his skull were metallic plates of the same black metal, held in place with screws. Only his right hoof was made of flesh and bone, the other was a mechanical prosthesis connected to his body by a heavy shoulder harness of wood and metal. The prosthesis was hoof shaped, but it terminated in a set of five digits arranged in a ring at the top, with tensioned wires running along the length of each through a set of grooves that had been carved into the wood.

Mac wore a white blouse shirt, unbuttoned half way down his chest. Covering up most of his barrel was some kind of apparatus that, like the patch and the rectangular plates, seemed to bolted straight onto his body. The construct was made of a metallic chest plate mottled with rust and peeling red paint that was roughly the same hue as his coat. Across its surface was a set of steam pressure dials, needles flickering and twitching under thick layers of protective glass.

The sound of bellows, Twilight now realised, was coming from inside the machinery. A thick, segmented copper hose emerged from his right flank roughly where his cutie-mark should have been, and trailed off across the floor and out of the gap that stallion had left in the door way.

Twilight swallowed once and regained her composure. "Do you mind if I ask what happened to you?"

"Take a guess, Doctor Twilight."

"If I knew nothing about you, I guess my first speculation would be that you were the victim of some sort of industrial accident. But that wouldn't account for the symmetry of the metal plates on either side of your skull, nor the fact that you mentioned that you'd killed alicorns before. You said you were a soldier, Big Macintosh?"

"What do you think, Doctor."

"It's been generations since anyone went to war with the alicorns, centuries even. But still, even then it was only one or two of the Cyborg Polities, and that was a long, long time ago. But they say that cyborgs live nearly as long as alicorns. Is that what you used to be, Big Mac?"

"Speculate, Doctor."

Twilight reached for her glass and took a sip, leaning back in her chair. "You probably would have been neurally integrated into your battle armour, with the majority of your nervous system directly hardwired into the armour's sensory interface. Those plates in your head are probably covering up the primary input sockets were the data-feed cables would've fed straight into your cerebral tissue. The missing eye might just have been some sort of injury that was never fully repaired, but if I had to guess I would say that you had your organic eye replaced with some sort of cybernetic targeting system. I don't know how you lost your hoof, whether or not it was an injury or amputated purposely to be replaced with an augmentation. What I do know, however, is that your internal organs would have been extensively modified, with your heart and lungs replaced with a more efficient, artificial oxygen-exchange system whilst the rest of you was bonded with the armours recycling system. Inside your battle armour you would have been able to live indefinitely, but without it you'd be dead in seconds, even in the polities."

"Ah seem to be clingin' on prutty well."

"Only because somepony was very ingenious. Someone found away to keep you alive, made even more impressive by the fact you exist in a zone where even the simplest electrical device is unable to function for very long. From the look of the tube coming out of your flank, I'd say that your internal systems are running on steam from the boiler."

Macintosh smiled, a lazy, sleepy smile. "Ah like this one, Miss Dash. Ya'll should associate with more like Doctor Twilight here." The stallion leaned back and began to unbutton the rest of his shirt. "Would ya like a closer look, Doctor Twilight, see what really makes me tick?"

Dash make some sort of wrenching sound inside her mouth and looked away. "No offense, Mac. But you're hard enough on the eyes as it is, I don't really need a guided tour of your guts."

Twilight nodded and raised a hoof. "Dash is right, this isn't really necessary."

"Come now, Doctor. With ya'll bein' a mare 'a medicine an' all, ah thought you'd 'a jumped at an offer like this." Mac finished undoing the last of the buttons and pulled his shirt open, exposing a rusted inspection panel that curved across his barrel just below the dials. He reached down with his prosthetic hoof, the digits beginning to undo the catch. "Ah ain't ashamed 'a what ah am. Ah was proud to be a soldier, proud 'a bein' given the honour 'a defendin' the polities against the alicorns. So what if war took half mah body away? Ah earned these scars, make no mistake."

"I really still don't need to see inside you."

"Not even a lil bit curious?"

"Of course I am. I would help you if I could. But I'd have to examine you properly, and there wouldn't be any point in doing that until I've returned to Canterlot. At the moment, these saddlebags contain all the medical supplies I've got." Twilight paused, realising she was about to broach a delicate matter. "I take it you've been like this for a while now?"

"Longer than ya'll would think."

"Then you're probably not going to catch anything before I get back."

Macintosh nodded, his digits refastening the catch and beginning to button his shirt back up. "Ya'll would do that for me?"

"You're a friend of Joe's. That's all the recommendation."

Mac's eye glimmered with unveiled amusement. "Friend, is that how ol' Joe described me?"

"That's what I said," Dash butted in. "Cutter's just repeating what she's been told."

" 'Underlin' woulda been a more appropriate term to describe mah relationship with Joe. Wouldn't ya think, Miss Dash?"

"That's between you and the colt upstairs."

"Ya'll shouldn't speak 'a Joe as if he's Faust," Macintosh said disapprovingly. "Especially you, Miss Dash, bein' as religiously inclined as ya'll is. She's never without her Testament, Doctor. Carries the thing around with her everywhere, if ya'll would believe it. Ya'll would never think it, would ya, with a tongue as filthy as hers?"

Twilight thought about saying something, but then decided better of it.

"Joe's been good to you," Dash said, her eyes narrowing into a glare. "He set you up down here, didn't he, when you became an embarrassment to your own polity? He gave you a nice, cosy place to hide, and plenty of steam to go with it."

"He gets his cut from Aloe and Lotus, that's about as far as his philanthropy goes. Do ya see him payin'  me any visits, checkin' in on mah welfare, askin' if there's anythin' else ah'd rather be doin' with the rest of mah time in Equestria then just shovellin' coal for a bordellos boiler?"

"You know he doesn't get out any more than you do, Mac."

"At least Joe gets outta the basement every now an' again."

Twilight finished her drink and put her glass back on the table before turning to Rainbow Dash. "We shouldn't really be taking too long before we move on, should we?"

"Oh, don't ya'll mind us, Doctor Twilight," Mac said, breaking out into another of his lazy smiles. "Miss Dash an' ah fight like barnyard animals over prutty much anythin'. But don't let the act fool ya, us two go back a long way."

"Although sometimes it starts wearing thin," Dash said through gritted teeth, eyes glaring balefully at Mac.

"Calm down, Miss Dash. Ah've just had a bad day is all. We're down a consignment 'a wood, which means that steam pressure for the boiler has done dropped. That hurts me as much as it hurts the spa-house. Ordinarily ah'd just send out the boys to go round us up some more, but it's not like anyone else is rollin' in the timber. Been like this all winter. Supplies are runnin' low, havin' to be dragged in from further and further away, and what ya get ain't exactly best quality either." Mac shook his head, a disapproving 'tut' making its way past his lips. "They've gone an' cut Everfree too far back. Used to be a full three leagues 'a forest between the base 'a the city and the Abstraction. Now it's down ta less than a league. Firesap's startin' to be in short supply, and the winter ain't exactly mild either. Things are only gonna get colder, ya'll mark my words. You'd think ah don't feel it, livin' down here like ah do, but ya'd be surprised." Mac gave a philosophic shrug, as if this were a point he'd pondered on meticulously, but had yet again failed to reach a conclusion on the matter. "Still, it's good for business. But mind yerself, Doctor Twilight, if ya think this is cold, just ya'll wait til yer in the Outzone." Mac's eyes looked over Twilight skinny frame. "Ah hope ya'll got the constitution for it. Down there in the Outzone, the windigos always take their toll."

"Speaking of leaving," Dash said. "I don't think it would be a very smart idea for me and Cutter to take the train any further.

Macintosh nodded in agreement. "Eeyup, after all the trouble ya'll caused last time, there'll be more than just alicorns on yer tails. The police force up in Neon Heights will have already telegrammed down a description of the culprits down ta the Geartown constabulary by now. They're probably got every station from here to Saddleback scoped by now."

"Then we'll have to take one of the alternatives. Is that an option?"

"Ah'll sort somethin' out, don't ya fret. In the mean time, given the amount 'a ammo ya'll probably used up on yer way down, yer welcome to restock yer supplies." Mac stiffly jerked his head backwards. "Through the backdoor, ya'll find what yer lookin' for. Take what ya need and leave anythin' that ya don't."

"Cheers, Mac."

"Don't forget ta get yerself some new watches. Ya'll good for antizonals?"

"We have all we need," Twilight said, patting her saddlebags.

"Fine then." Big Mac refilled his drink before offering the bottle to Twilight, who politely declined with a small shake of her head. "While yer in there, there's some medical issues ah'd like ta discuss with Doctor Twilight." Mac said over his shoulder, as Rainbow Dash's tail disappeared through another door on the other side of the room.

"Too much information!" Dash called back.

Mac chuckled slightly, waiting in silence until Dash was definitely out of earshot before leaning forward on the table, his lazy smile fixed in place. "Yer good at hidin', Doctor Twilight, ah'll give ya that."

"Good at hiding what?"

"Good at hiding what ya really are. Unless ah'm wrong, Miss Dash ain't got the darndest clue 'a what she's escortin' outta Canterlot. Probably better for ya that way. Miss Dash ain't so keen on alicorns, Doctor Twilight."

Twilight coughed slightly. "I'm sorry, Big Macintosh. But you seem to be under some sort of misapprehension."

"Eenope, ah don't think so. It's all about the smell, ya see." Mac tapped a wooden digit against the side of his muzzle. "Ah could smell an alicorn from across the street, don't matter what they look like. Sure, yer made ta look like one 'a us Pre-equines, and prutty damn well, ah'd have ta say. But they didn't get it quite right, did they? Because ya reek 'a alicorn, Doctor Twilight, ain't no mistaken it." Mac frowned, his smile slipping away as a grinding sound emanated from the patch in the side of his skull. "Tell me, did Joe know what ya were when he set up this extraction? Oh, horse-apples, what am ah sayin'? of course he knew, how could he not know?"

Twilight looked down at her hooves. Part of her wanted to continue her denials, but a shrewder part of her mind knew that the gig was up, and that there was no point in denying it any further.

"Joe knew," she answered quietly.

"What ah figured. And Miss Dash?"

"Not as far as I'm aware." Twilight stiffened in her seat, every fibre in her being simply screaming at her to shut up. After all, she was sitting directly opposite a genuine alicorn killer, and although Mac looked like her was in bad shape, Twilight knew she wasn't exactly in her physical prime either. "I'm sorry that we've ended up in this position. No deception was intended, I assure you."

"Yer a walkin' deception."                    

"What good would it do for the truth to be revealed? I'm running from alicorns, this cover is the only form of protection I have. Do you think I'm going to walk around advertising what I am?"

Mac paused for a moment, contemplating the information set out in front of him before nodding. "Ah do understand yer situation, but, Doctor, a word of advice." Mac reached for the bottle and began to pour himself and drink. "Let me tell ya about Miss Dash. She weren't always like the way she is. She likes mares, that's her thing. Ah ain't makin' any judgements or nothin', just telling ya how it is. Once upon a time, there was somepony special to her, somepony that she really loved. But that mare... she got sick with somethin' they can't treat down here, or even in Neon Heights."

Macintosh took his now filled glass and leaned back, staring at the brown liquid inside as it rolled about. "But the alicorns? Maybe. They can work wonders up in the Celestial Levels, yerself being livin' proof, Doctor. So 'a course they petitioned, we got channels fer stuff like that down here, and asked the alicorns for consent to see if they'd fix this mare up, make her better. They do that, ya know? Take a couple of deserving cases each year, just like the same way it works on Ascension Day." Mac paused, a solemn yet angered expression on his face.

"Go on," Twilight urged him.

Mac smiled again, but this time his smile seemed more... sad, the flair of laziness about it was gone. Taking a swig of his drink, Mac took a moment to compose his thoughts before continuing. "But the mare, her name was... Fluttershy, she couldn't afford to go all the way up on her own, and neither could anyone else around her." A dark look crossed Mac's face as he paused and finished the rest of his drink. "The alicorns said they couldn't help: they weren't really interested, ah think. They suck out yer soul up there, read yer mind and find out yer secrets, but that's only 'a use to them if yer mind hasn't already been half eaten away."

"So, Fluttershy got worse. Miss Shy's friends tried to find some means 'a gettin' her up there, but by the time they'd scraped enough together, it was already too late. They dosed her up with plenty 'a antizonals, but it just weren't enough, she didn't get any further than Circuit City. Miss Dash was there. Died in her hooves. That's why Miss Dash don't take kindly to alicorns. That's why Miss Dash won't take kindly to you is she finds out." Macintosh was silent for a few moments as he studied Twilights reaction. "So, what do ya thinks' gonna happen now, Doctor Twilight?"    

"I... I have no idea."

"Take a stab at it."

"Perhaps you're going to kill me, or reveal my true nature to Dash, or hoof me over to the authorities, or keep me hostage until you can hoof me over to the alicorns."

"An' get on Joe's bad side? Ah'd have ta have a screw loose ta do that. Joe would end me if ah betrayed him, ah can't deny that. Even if he is a stupid, unimaginative fuck of a unicorn who wouldn't recognise opportunity if it snapped his horn off."

"He's been good to me," Twilight murmured.

"Then we're both in the same boat, aren't we, Doctor Twilight? Both hidin' from somethin', both owin' Joe our lives. Ah'll admit, there are few things ah'd rather do than reach across this table and strangle ya with my bare hooves. But as the old sayin' goes, the enemy of mah enemy is mah friend."

"But there's something you need to understand, Mac. We're not all monsters up in the Levels. I made my enemies purely because I refused to countenance an evil deed."

Mac looked over his shoulder towards the back room, where Dash still seemed to be busy rifling through the ammunition stock pile. "What kinda deed?"

"There was an experimental programme. The stated intention of the operation was to modify alicorns to be able to function under conditions similar to those of the Neon Heights zone. The theory was that we'd be able to artificially engineer a higher degree of resilience to act as a barrier against future zone shifts, so that, should an event similar to a catastrophic zone shift occur, the alicorn race wouldn't face extinction."

"So, the alicorns 're nervous as well."

"About what?"

"The big one. Ah'm sure ya noticed the signs? Ponies round here are gettin' more 'n more jittery by the day."

"It might not happen for a hundred years, or a thousand, even."

"Well, some folks seem ta be thinkin' otherwise. Yer alicorn programme suggests that more than a few in the Celestial Levels have grounds for concern."

Twilight leaned forward in her chair, her voice lowering even as she spoke with more urgency. "That's the point though: the programmes stated objectives were nothing more than another deception. We were sent to Neon Heights to test our ability to survive inside a different zone, with only the simplest medical assistance to support us. Obviously those conditions couldn't be simulated up in the Levels: it had to be done covertly. I understood that, just as I understood that we needed to maintain maximum levels of secrecy at all times. But there was more to it than just a proof of concept. The ultimate purpose of the programme was to design and create an occupying force, a division of zone-tolerant alicorns who would be able to conquer the rest of Canterlot, or at least as far down as Neon Heights. There were four members of the infiltration party, myself included. Two of us didn't know anything about the projects ulterior motives, but when one of us found out... the other two had no choice but to silence her, but by the time they had done so she'd already shared her worries with me They'd have silenced me eventually, but I chose not to give them the opportunity. I killed both of them, using the drugs I'd been given to keep them alive. That's why I'm hiding down here, Macintosh, because I'm not a monster."

"At least yer built for the terrain," Mac said with a shrug.

"It's been a lot easier for me than it must have been for you. But there's something else you need to understand. When they sent me down to Neon Heights they equipped me to live undetected. They suppressed my real memories with psycho-surgery, and replaced them with those of somepony who had been born and raised in the Heights. I've been wearing that mask for nine years now, long enough that it's actually begun to feel like a part of me. I still care about the Celestial Levels, but I also care about Neon Heights, and the rest of Canterlot for that matter. If there really is something big coming, then we should be uniting together, not fostering divisions between our different enclaves."

"An' if ah kill ya, or turn ya in, that's what ah'll be doin', is it?"

"All I know is that the knowledge I carry, at least the knowledge I'm told I carry, could be a force for good, as well as for evil. I really don't care about my own life anymore, existence has long since lost its savour for me. But I do care about Canterlot, and if my continued survival benefits it, then I have a moral obligation to see to it that I remain alive."

"This mare that they killed, the one who got too close to the truth, she wasn't just a colleague, was she?"

"No," Twilight said, shaking her head slowly. "No, she wasn't."

"She have a name?"

"Redheart. That was her cover. I don't remember her real name anymore."

"Ah lost somepony special once. Ta the alicorns, as well. Ah don't know if that means ah should empathise with ya or hate ya even more."

"I'm afraid I can't help you there."

Big Macintosh leaned back, only the wheezing chuff of his life-support systems filling the silence. After a few moments Mac reaches up with his prosthetic hoof and tapped a wooden digit against one of the dials, gauging its reaction. "Ah better put some more wood in the boiler soon, the needles beginin' ta drop."

"Does that mean you've made your decision?"

Dash came back through the door, her trench coat hanging visibly heavier over her small frame. Twilight imagined very one of her pockets to be filled with some implement of bloody death and dismemberment. Somehow she didn't think that the pegasus had lingered overly long on the watches.

"What decision?" She asked, a metallic clinking emerging from her coat with every step she took.

"About when ah should see ya off," Mac said breezily. "Ah was just tellin' the good doctor here how we get the wood for the furnace." Mac's face darkened with an eerie smile. "An' what we send back down in the empty hoppers."

"Right," Dash said, nodding with disinterest. She dropped six clockwork watches loudly on the table, one of them rolling over to Twilight. "So, we're taking the bloody meat-wagon again, are we? I can't tell you just how fucking delighted I am about that!"

VI: In the Celestial Levels

The funicular had little in common with the swift, efficient electrical services that connected the different levels of Neon Heights, very little indeed. Up at the top end, planted firmly into the Megastructure of Geartown, stood a wood fired, stationary steam engine. This engine in turn drove a giant winding wheel, which in turn was connected to a length of haulage rope that was long enough to be lowered down to the receiving terminus so far below in Ponyville.

About half a league beneath the ledge of Geartown a boundary that marked the transition between the Geartown zone and the Ponyville zone meant that any platforms that were ascending from, or descending to, Ponyville were essentially reliant on a propulsion system that existed in another state of existence.

Naturally, the whole operation was fraught with danger.

The enterprise, one of a dozen such operations that sat dotted around the lowest ledge of the Geartown zone and Canterlots base, was slow, unreliable, and prone to the occasional appalling, limb-shattering accident. But as damn-right dangerous as such a method of transportation proved to be, it was still the most efficient way of moving goods, and occasionally ponies, between Geartown and Ponyville.

Once Mac's contacts had delivered them to the upper terminus, there was some minor bribery to be done before Dash manage to secure them two seats on the next shipment, a dozen or so cars of a down bound corpse consignment.

The pair found themselves shivering inside a wooden cabin that was mounted on the steeply angled chassis of one of the funicular carriages, with hatches set into the floor where ice could be shovelled onto the dead below to stop them from defrosting. The sole source of illumination was a flickering candle, that sat, half melted, in a metal lantern hanging from a nail in the wall. In the car below them, the bodies of the deceased were stacked on horizontal racks, covered with begrimed white sheets that were soon to be reused on the next lot of bodies later.

It wasn't much, but it was the best that could be done to give the ponies below some dignity in death.

Big Mac had found them extra coats and scarves, the Purple Dragon spa-house always kept a well stocked supply of lost clothing. But, as Dash had so vehemently put it, more layers wasn't always a guarantee of keeping warm.

"Fuck, I'm freezing! This jacket doesn't do shit!"

Twilight simply nodded in silent agreement, afraid that if she opened her mouth the cold would freeze her tongue. Unlikely, but she wasn't willing to take the risk.

The descent itself would only last a dozen or so nerve-shattering minutes, but there was still a half-hour wait at each terminus as the procession of cargo cars was loaded and unloaded. Twilight struggled with a pair of gloves, trying to sort through her saddlebags for the right type of antizonals for the crossing that was about to come, a dose that could be safely taken on top of the drugs that were already pumping through her system.

She knew she  was off-chart by now in prescription terms, treading that fine line between too little, which meant exposure to zone sickness, and too much, which meant a slow, wasting death as the drugs in her body began to shutdown her organs one by one. The best she could do now was navigate by her instincts and trust in Dash's past experiences.

"Just dose me up, Cutter."

That was all the mare had to say on the matter.

The faint spark of triumph warmed Twilight for a brief moment as she withdrew her hoof to find that she was death-gripping the right bottle of pills. Unscrewing the lid, she doled out two pills, passing them to Dash. "Take these now, " she muttered through her scarf.

"This is all you got, Cutter?"

"Too much is as dangerous as too little, Rainbow Dash. I can only estimate the cumulative damage your nervous system must have sustained from our journey so far, and have to prescribe in accordance with my results regardless of hei accuracy."

"The damage is already done, Cutter," Dash said with sullen grace, pulling down her scarf and throwing back the pills. Twilight was thankful at the least that the pegasus hadn't attempted to supplement the dose with some of her own drugs, one could never be sure exactly what was involved when it came to illegal antizonals.

"Be that as it may, Dash, I don't want to risk causing any additional damage. You know what Joe's like, you can see it as plain as I can. For all we know, you could only be only one miscalculated dose away from ending up like him, and something tells me that there's no room in the business for a extractor who can't even leave their own zone."

The cabin lurched into motion beneath them, the floor rocking as the platform was slowly slid forward onto its guide rails. Both of the mares sat in silence until a loud creak from above signalled the start of their descent and, with an all too ominous squeal of strained wood from the crane above, the platform began to slowly descend, beginning its journey to Ponyville far below. Twilight held her breath, whilst across from her Rainbow Dash sat leaning back against the wooden wall, her forelegs crossed and her head lowered like a filly after a hissy fit.

Outside the wind whistled, sometimes picking up into a deafening roar or lowering to a chilling whisper, but never truly dying down. Above them, the ropes that held them continued to creak and squeal under the strain, accompanied by the harsh grate of metal on metal as the platform shifted on its guide rails.

Twilight and Rainbow Dash were sharing the carriage with corpses making their final downward journey after Ascension Day, travelling the final few leagues down to the very base of the Canterlot Godscraper for internment in the sacred earth of Equestria.

Those who didn't adhere to the age-old custom often referred to the practitioners as ghost-riders, Pre-corpses or, less charitably, alicorn-meat. Of course, Twilight knew the last insult to be a mere speculation and urban-legend. Alicorns had no more desire to eat flesh than any of the three Pre-equine subspecies, despite the fact they possessed canines, natural tools perfectly designed to rend flesh and tear meat from the bone. Twilight had once had such implements, but they had been removed before her insertion into Neon Heights.

While advanced medical services were unavailable to most of the citizens of Canterlot by dint of the conditions of their zone of birth, there was one exception that had transcended even the quandary of the boundaries.

Ascension Day.

Those who were sufficiently close to death that they had little to lose could submit to being scanned, and possibly even healed, by the technological miracles of the Celestial Levels, ancient devices known only to the alicorns since time immemorial. To do so they would have to leave their own zone and travel as rapidly as possible through the intervening enclaves of Canterlot, moving up and up until they reached the domain of the alicorns so far above.

Most citizens could only hope to take on such an endeavour alone, after many years of meticulous saving. If the sudden onset of a massive maladaptive trauma hadn't killed them or left them mentally incapacitated by the time they reach the Celestial Levels, then those few who were lucky enough to survive stood the chance of having their consciousness being preserved after death, kept in stasis for the rest of time within the massive data-storage programme of the Celestial Levels primary cogitator engine, the Eternity Matrix.

In most cases something could be recovered, and with a few cases the cumulative damage, perhaps even the underlying illness or malady that had facilitated the journey in the first place, could be made good; patched back together to function once more. Nonetheless, less than one in a hundred souls who ever dared the arduous task of Ascension Day ever reached the Celestial Levels, and fewer still was the number of those who ever returned from the realm of the alicorns. As for those who died on the way, their remains were taken down to the base of Canterlot, to the fringes of the Outzone where they would be buried in the sacred earth of Equestria.

The priestesses of Faust taught that in its most basic sense, Ascension Day was a one way trip, a holy pilgrimage ordained by Faust to test both the strength of the body and the tenacity of the mind. For those who made it to the Celestial Levels, immortality was theirs. They became Post-equines, transcending the limits of their flesh to reach an accord with the servants of the divine. For those who failed, a return to the earth was the only way to guarantee safe passage into the realm beyond. They had failed in their quest to ascend, but by no means was this ever considered a defeat, as Faust had created them all, whether they were an earth pony, a unicorn, or a pegasus, and would accept them whether they had succeeded in their quest for ascension or failed.

Certainly for the majority participants, Ascension day was a one way trip. Unless coming back down as a corpse counted.

Twilight shivered under her cloths rubbing her hooves together and pulling her thick coat tighter around herself. Her breath was a jet white vapour trail. Ice crystals had already begun to form on Dash's eyebrows. Seeing them, Twilight began to internally berate herself. She'd made no consideration for how the cold would affect either Dash's metabolic rate or her own, whether it would impede or accelerate the uptake of the antizonals. Nothing could be done now; it would have been nothing short of guess work, even if she had taken the cold into consideration.

She checked the watches strapped around her hoof and found that they were beginning to read different times. How much of the difference in tolerances was caused by the imminent transition ahead of them or, more likely, cheap manufacture she couldn't guess.

"Dash, do you mind if I ask you something?" she ask, as much to keep her teeth from chattering together as a desire for information. "Back in the spa-house, Lotus, I think that's what she was called, she mentioned something about you not always being the way you are now. And then... what Macintosh said about the Testament and that tongue of yours."

"Two different thing, Cutter."

"Would you care to enlighten me? Our trips still got a fair way to go from what I can tell, and I still don't even know the basics about you, apart from your name."

"Call me retarded, Cutter, but things seem to be working out just fine the way they are."

"I'm still entitled to my curiosity. I've done some research in the past into different types of long-term neurological trauma: brain damage associated with repeated zone crossings, and the frequent use of high-strength antizonals. In some cases the damage manifested itself as unusual impairments or idiosyncrasies in the subjects speech-patterns. My results did suggest that there was a correlation between ponies with... profane tendencies and severe neurological damage. Is that what happened to you?"

"Congratulations, Cutter." Dash said sourly, her forelegs tensing. Twilight realised she may have over-stepped a very obvious line. "You hit the fucking nail on the fucking head with that one."

"There's no shame in it. You can't help it if the transitions across the boundaries caused the problem."

"Who the fuck said anything about shame?"

"My apologies, Rainbow Dash. I just assumed that it may occasionally lead to situations of... social awkwardness. But what you have is a simple medical issue, nothing more and nothing less. With the right therapies and drugs it may even prove to be treatable."

The mares voice was thick with sarcasm. "Thanks, Cutter. I'll be sure to look them up when I get back. I feel excited already."

"And, on the other matter. Macintosh said something about the Testament?"

There was a pause, Dash took a sharp breath. Leaning forward, she let her coat blow open in the wind, giving Twilight an eyeful of the various sharp implements she had stored within. "Listen, Cutter. My faith is my fucking business and my fucking business alone, so shut the fuck up before you see how damaged I really fucking am."

Twilight gulped.

The transition came moments later, arriving more quickly than their previous crossing from Neon Heights to Geartown. The platform continued to descend at a steady rate, carrying them smoothly across the boundary and into the Ponyville zone. Twilights eyes met Dash's own, both acknowledging the moment when it came. Twilight was cold already, but as she passed through the boundary she felt that the icy draught of the transition made the carriage snug and cosy by comparison.

The fierce, shattering cold of the transition lingered in her bones for a few minutes after they'd made it across. Then she began to feel the zone sickness as it took hold. It wasn't any worse than she'd imagined it, but she still felt her skin perspiring and her body shudder as her vision went spinning.

But such unpleasantness was nothing more than was expected from residual zone sickness. If Twilight hadn't administered medication to herself before to cushion the blow of the transition, she would most certainly by now be bent double and vomiting her guts up.

At least the fact she wasn't proved that she guessed the dose right.          

"Is it always this harsh?" she asked Dash after the wheeling sensation had finally abated and the chill in her bones had begun to subside. She opened her eyes, having pressed them shut during the transition, and found that even the dull light of the carriages single candle lantern was too harsh for her to look at.

"The first few hundred times, yeah. After that it gets a bit easier." Dash sullenly replied, scratching the back of her head.

They lapsed into silence for the rest of the journey, Twilight feeling too ill to continue the conversation and Dash seemingly too brooding to be roused. Even as the dull thump of wood on wood signalled that they'd arrived at the Ponyville terminus the pair remained silent, and it was only after their half-hour wait, when the guards needed bribing to allow them safe passage, that Dash spoke again.

Twilights first thought, after they'd managed to leave the transhipment dock unmolested, was that there was nothing about Ponyville that she had not already seen Geartown, half a league up Canterlots tapering needle. The warehouses and clerical offices bordering the funicular terminus were, at least in Twilight's eyes, architecturally and functionally similar to those at the upper terminus. The lamps here burned wood resin instead of gas, making their illumination sparse and more subdued in its effect, but she still felt surprised by how fundamentally civilised and well ordered the community seemed.  

Looking down from Neon Heights at night, Ponyville was little more than a thin, dark margin that marked the boundary between the base of Canterlot and the Outzone, a place that seemed to have no nocturnal existence whatsoever. Now though, she saw just how inaccurate that impression had been, and shuddered as she felt that small, visceral tingle that always came with shifting preconceptions.

But when her eyes had begun to adjust to the dark light of the resin lamps, the darkness in-between begun to yield its secrets, she only had glance up to have the wild, shimmering electrical haze of Neon Heights burned back into her retina.

It was, she slowly realised, the reason why the denizens of Ponyville favoured wide-brimmed hats, even at night. They didn't want to have to keep looking up, they didn't want to be permanently reminded of a place of swift machines and electronic miracles; a place only a few would ever know, and even then only when they passed through it on Ascension Day.

Beyond the transhipment dock, Twilight slowly revised her initial impressions of the settlement. Only a minor few buildings were made of anything other than wood, with brick being reserved only for civic and corporate centres of obvious importance. As for everything else, it seemed that nearly every building in Ponyville possessed a ramshackle air, as if all of them had collapsed and been rebuilt many times over, with any of the relatively few new structures perched on the sagging, decayed remnants of the old.

The street and thoroughfares were ludicrously narrow, even when taking into consideration the fact that the only form of motive energy was pony power, made to move with sweat and hard work. Nowhere was there a building any taller than four or five storeys, but the manner in which they sagged over the street, with opposing buildings almost touching overhead, gave Twilight a greater sense of vertigo than she had ever felt when staring up at the fifty-storey blocks of Neon Heights, or the towering crystal wonders of the Celestial Levels, embedded so faintly at the back of her memory.

Everywhere the inhabitants of Ponyville had attempted to make travel easier for themselves, and their efforts were more than clearly visible. Threading the buildings together like wooden vines, bridging between buildings and tentatively hanging across streets, were covered and uncovered walkways, all of which and an unsettling sense of flimsiness to them.

The buildings themselves had their walls criss-crossed with black timbers, buff-white rendering stuffed into the gaps between. Through the occasional gaps in the buildings Twilight managed to steal a few brief glimpses of the great plains that stretched on for miles away from Canterlot's base, a harrowing blackness that seemed to be intensified by the lights of the tiny, huddled communities that dotted the land all the way up to a thick, menacing bar of solid black that signalled the start of the Everfree Forest.

They were near the base now, Twilight knew; the winding spiral of the cities Megastructure terminating into the ground less than half a turn from their current position.

The smell, however, was by far the worst aspect of the bottom rung of Canterlot society. It hit Twilight full in the face mere moments after they'd cleared the ordered precincts of the transhipment depot. It came upon them in slow, choking waves, each blast a few increments worse than the one before, playing upon her sense of smell like a discordant symphony. Running beneath the myriad stenches was the profound reek of open sewage, the dull, permanent stain of effluence clear for all to smell.

Above that, and only a fraction more tolerable, was the heavy chemical shroud of the various processing industries that scrounged a living on the waste of Canterlot. Processing plants, situated at the mouths of the sewage outlets dotted around the base of the city, that used basic chemical reactions to harvest useful elements and substrates from the refuse of those above. With every frigid breath that Twilight sucked into her lungs she could taste wood smoke. The chill in the air was sharper down here, given Ponyville's proximity to the Outzone.

"You thought it was gonna get warmer closer to the ground, didn't you, Cutter?" Dash asked as Twilight pulled up the collars on both her coats. "Maybe that's how the world used to be."

"And now?"

"World's been getting colder beyond Canterlot for years now. Only reason you don't feel it up in Neon Heights is because you've got the thermals coming up from the levels below, warming up the air, and giving the alicorns some decent currents to ride on. Down here, though? No more levels to go from here. This is what life's gonna be like for you now, Cutter, and believe it or not, we're the lucky ones. Being bang on top of the equator like we are, we've got the best of it. But head further north and further south, the wind gets cold enough to freeze a witch's tits."

What if Equestria really was getting colder? Twilight wondered. And what if no one in the warm, illuminated levels of Canterlot was bothering to pay any attention?

There would be no chance of getting out of Canterlot until the morning, since the border patrols forbade either the entrance or the exiting of Canterlot to all parties once Celestia's sun had descended. Knowing that this would be the last chance to get some decent sleep before they left Canterlot, Dash found them a room above a gaming house that wasn't far from the border point that she usually used.

Twilight sat on one of the two metal framed beds, grimacing at the state of their surrounding accommodations. The mattresses where stained with substances only Faust could know, and the thin white sheet reminded her all too much of the shrouds covering the corpses of those who had attempted Ascension Day. The window was cracked and draughty and something kept scuttling under the floor boards, rushing back and forth from side of the room to the other as if it had a long list of errands to complete.

None of it seemed to matter to Dash though, who washed her hooves in a small rusty basin in the corner of the room, removed her thick, olive green coat, lay down on the bed, and promptly fell asleep, snoring contentedly. Twilight extinguished the oil lamp, removed her own layers and took off her tinted glasses.

Exhaustion took her like a velvet vice.

She woke to a colourless, wintery day, the watery light pressing at the thin curtains. Dash was gone. Sitting up Twilight could see the imprint her body had left on the bed opposite her. The room key was still on the nightstand with her glasses, her saddlebags propped up against the side.

She rose from the bed, stretching the stiffness from her hooves. Trotting over to the basin, she tolerated the cold long enough to give herself a quick wash before rubbing dirt off the surface of the cracked mirror that was mounted on the wall above the basin.

It seemed as if she'd gotten thinner since the last time she'd checked on her wings, and her spinal column rose from her back like a mountain chain, the gray light showing everything with a stark, anatomical clarity. Her wing buds, soft and obscene, protruded from the top of her back like a pair of hooves was trying to push out of her body. She dressed again, and was settling her glasses over the bridge of her muzzle when she noticed the little black book on Dash's nightstand, a horse-shoe of gold paint imprinted on the cover.

She wasn't sure what, but something compelled her to pick it up. The testament was bound in worn black suede, the cover rough to touch, creased and worn like her own saddlebags. She opened it gently, half-expecting some sort of trap to go off in her face.

The pages of Faust's holy book were translucently thin, the ink on one side showing on the other. Dense columns of scripture, with minute numbers at the start of every verse. Some parts were in plain font, whilst others, most likely quotes or important passages, were laid out in italics or printed in bold.

The book looked older than Dash, though Twilight couldn't pin exactly what made her so certain of this. she flipped the page, a furtive edge in the sound of the pages as they whisked against one another.

And in that time, before the gates of Paradise were closed to them, mares and stallions were as foals, and so bountiful were the treasures and fruits of Paradise that they lived four-score years, and some lived yet longer.

And Equestria was warm and blue, and many were its provinces.

So it was that the Pre-equines came together and built Canterlot, so that they might transcend the mortal plain and become one with the divine. Up and up they built, until so vast was the spire, so majestic in its grandness, that it pierced the heavens themselves. And Faust did turn her eyes to the Godscraper, and sent her alicorns to watch over it.

For none who are mortal may possess the key to become immortal.

But the Pre-equines of that day knew no honour, no loyalty, only greed. And it was in their greed that they rebelled against the alicorns, and waged war on one another for control of the Godscraper. Unknowing, even as brother fought brother, that the Divine lay watching.

Seeing the failure of the Pre-equines with her own eyes, Faust knew that such creatures were not fit to be permitted the bounties of paradise, and in her fury did turn on Equestria, reaping a bloody harvest in recompense for the mortals sins. So it was that the Eye of Faust burnt through the world, and the gates of Paradise were sealed.

They have not opened since.

Twilight closed the book, hearing hoofsteps coming up the creaky staircase from below, then along the landing. There was a knock at the door. Twilight put the Testament back down on the table as Dash entered. Subtly conscious that it was not quite as she'd found it, and that Dash would not fail to notice this.

"Time to ship, Cutter," she said. "I've got our papers sorted and supplies secured, let's blow this joint." Dash pulled out a small metal box from a coat pocket. "I know I will," she said with a faint grin.

Dash reached from the Testament, slipping it into a deep pocket on the inner lining of her coat without giving it a second glance.

≤ΘΘΘ≥

As the first weak rays of Celestia's sun began to light up the chill morning sky, four alicorns stood in waiting.

Before them stretched the derelict stretch of no-pony's-land that separated the Celestial Levels from the Cyber Polities. The wasteland was an industrial ruin, the remains of once proud structures now nothing more than shattered blocks of ferrocrete and duraplast. It was easy to separate the blunt, plain architecture of the Cyber Polities from the delicate finesse and grace of the Celestial Levels. On the other side of the boundary, the outermost buildings of the Trottingham Polity gleamed a dull grey in the morning light, their sharp corners and plain aesthetic sending dagger-like shadows scattering across the ledge.

In the Celestial Levels structures of luscious crystal, wrought with such delicacy as only the artisans of the alicorns possessed, reached skyward, their inner glow mirroring the dying light of the few remaining stars. They were a riot of colour, some a soft cherry-blossom pink, others cyan and cerulean blue, but for the most part they were stark white, reflecting the growing light of day to unreal intensities.

Tiberius, newly declared patriarch of the Celestial Guard, surveyed the boundary with a hawks eye, wary of any trickery as a party of cyborgs from the polities performed a stately procession across the boundary. In their midst he could make out the white gleam of a casket, levitating in the air on a set of primitive anti-grav generators, and he breathed an internal sigh of relief.

Captain Shining Armour was being returned to them.

The alicorn himself was resplendent in the ancient power-armour of his station, golden ceramite forged in millennia past. It covered the pure white coat of his barrel, segmented plates running down all four limbs to offer maximum protection, whilst a golden helm crowned his head, complete with a thick plume of phoenix feathers that were, even centuries after the creatures death, ablaze with crimson fire. Roundels shored up any gaps left in the plating, and strapped to his side was the ancient power-axe Starlight Wrath, a venerable weapon that had been forged in a time beyond living memory.

Behind him, the three alicorns of his squad stood in brooding silence, drawn up in a phalanx formation behind their patriarch. Each wore power-armour of the same golden colouration, though they were lass baroque then their leader. Armed with tall halberds, tipped with gauss weaponry and pennants of the Celestial Levels, the warriors were a forbidding sight, their expressions grim and their eyes dark with brooding countenance.        

The cyborgs came to a halt at the centre of the boundary, their crude implants and cybernetics wiring and straining as they struggled to cope with the state of flux brought upon them by proximity to the gulf between the two zones. One of the group, presumably the leader by the ornamentation on his battle armour, began to issue orders to his squad, but from this distance Tiberius found himself unable to interpret anything.

"Celestial Guard," he barked. "Form up." The three alicorns behind him snapped to attention with the deep, uniform growl of their power-armours internal nova reactor. "Our captain awaits us. Let us not leave him a moment longer with the barbarians of the Polity."

"Yes, Patriarch." Came the unison reply. Tiberius began the march, and behind him came the reassuring tread of his soldiers as they began to enter no-pony's-land.

Though he did well to keep it from showing, Tiberius felt edgy as they began to approach the boundary. For alicorns, there could be no life other than that of the Celestial Levels, for nowhere else either in Canterlot, or even the whole of Equestria, did there exist another zone that was capable of supporting Post-equine life. Even the conditions of the Cyber Polities, a mere seven millennia of technological development behind the Levels, were inimical to the alicorns.

Naturally, this led to all alicorns developing an almost inherent fear of other zones, but Tiberius knew that in the face of the cyborgs he couldn't show any weakness. Even the slightest hint of fear could give the cyborgs a dangerous advantage in the approaching exchange.

That was something Tiberius wouldn't allow.

They were closer now, close enough to begin picking up more discrete details about the cyborgs. Tiberius counted four shock troopers in their midst, creatures that seemed more machine then pony, positioned, two aside, around the floating casket.

Like the soldiers behind him, each trooper was encapsulated in heavy duty armour, but that was where the similarities came to an end. It never failed to disgust Tiberius how far the citizens of the Polities were willing to rend their bodies in order to surpass the limitations of their own flesh. All four of the shock troopers had had their legs amputated and replaced with military grade augmetics, armoured with the matte gray of the titanium alloy so favoured by the polities.

On top of the near sacrilegious alterations they'd made to their own bodies, the troopers eyes had been removed and instead replaced with cerebral enhanced targeting arrays, leaving behind sunken pits in their skulls, two dots of crimson red light being the only indications that they were still capable of sight. Along the ridge of their spinal columns, fins of metal protruded through their coats, acting a sinks for the incredible amount of heat that was produced by the internal machinery that powered their bodies.

The extent of their enhancement was only compounded by the fact that all four were identical in form and aesthetic.

Towering behind them was the monstrous form of a Centaur. Armoured head to hoof in the same gray alloy of the shock troopers, the lower half of the pony's body had been amputated and instead replaced with a completely artificial construct that stood on four mechanical hooves. What was left of the pony's torso had been biomechanically fused to the construct, with his forelegs replaced with formidable weaponry. His right hoof swapped out for a multi-barrelled autocannon, and his left replaced with a deadly electro-flail, a glittering cluster of ligaments that hummed with barely contained energy.

Tiberius brought the squad to a halt a mere twenty yards from the boundary, dangerously close by alicorn standards. Since the zones of both the Celestial Levels and the Cyber polities were much higher state than those of Circuit City or Neon Heights, the spread of the boundary was very thin, meaning that even this close to an alien zone Tiberius still wasn't feeling the adverse affects of such proximity to the boundary.

The leader of the cyborgs stepped forward, moving closer to the boundary until he was a bare three feet away from the metaphysical division. He was the most equine of all the cyborgs, with only his right foreleg swapped out for an augmetic enhancement. One of his eyes had been replaced with a glimmering holo-projector, which currently seemed to be projecting some kind of schematic, most likely the latest treatise of co-existence that existed between the polities and the Levels. The rest of his body was clad in a mechanical exoskeleton of scarlet metal, a pair of exhaust ports growling quietly over his flanks.

"Come, good sir," he called to Tiberius, a faint smile crossing his features. "Standing so far away. Surely this is no way for an exchange for the Pre and Post equines of Canterlot to take place?"

Tiberius kept his face passive. By the terms of the treatise, any Pre-equines who weren't participants of Ascension Day were barred from entering the Celestial Levels. Naturally, the same applied for the alicorns, but such a term was rendered moot when the Post-equines couldn't function beyond their own zone. Flicking his tail left and right in a silent command to his soldier, Tiberius steeled his nerves and began to approach the boundary.

As soon as he was within ten yards of the boundary, Tiberius' body began to feel the effects of the transition, though through strength of will he managed to keep his mind aloof from such sensations. A feeling of numbness was beginning to spread its way through his barrel, slowly diffusing into his limbs. As it expanded Tiberius had to fight harder to show the discomfort from showing on his face. It was the Nanotrites in his body beginning to fail, their delicate inner-workings beginning to fail under the stress that the flux of the boundary was applying on them.

The damage was repairable, the nanoscopic machines would soon be able to construct new replicates from the ions and minerals in his blood stream, but prolonged exposure would cause the Nanotrites to denature to an inoperable state. If he were exposed to the boundary for too long or, Faust forbid, forced into another zone, the damage the flux would cause to his biomechanical nervous system would be catastrophic.

First the machines in his blood would be rendered useless as their minute internal systems were destroyed due to the lower state of existence in the opposing boundary. Without the machines the naturally occurring mechanical elements in his vital organs would be without maintenance, and that would be when the true pain would begin. The organs would soon collapse without the careful monitoring of the mechanical components within, which in turn would cause them to shut down one by one as they simply deteriorated into cancerous, maladaptive tumours. Just like what happened to all alicorns that fell from the Celestial Levels. Just like what had happened to the captain.

Tiberius tried not to think about it.  

Roughly five feet from the boundary he came to a halt, unsure if he could will his body any further. The chill in his barrel had spread to all corners of his body, and even in his mind Tiberius could feel icy trendils slowly stretching across his consciousness. The cyborg must have sensed his uneasiness, as the faint smile on his muzzle grew a fraction larger, a wicked gleam flashing across his one eye.

"I am Tiberius, Patriarch of the Celestial Guard and warden of the boundary," Tiberius introduced himself, inclining his head slightly. The scarlet cyborg nodded before bowing with a flourish.

"I am Scarlet-beam, commander of the cybernetic cohorts of the Trottingham Polity." The pony righted himself, an electric flicker in his circuitry causing the muscles in his muzzle to spasm slightly. "I had the grace of sparing with you former commander in my time. How unfortunate that your Goddess saw fit to give him such an ignoble death."

Tiberius felt his jaw clench. Shining Armour had been a paragon of duty, a true example for any soldier to aspire to, even as one as verminous as a Pre-equine. Tiberius wanted to strike the cyborg for his comment, but knew that such an opportunity would never present itself. So long as the pony remained on the opposite side of the boundary Tiberius would be denied the satisfaction of breaking his muzzle.

But, no. With such an option unavailable, there was nothing he could do but simply grit his teeth and allow the cyborg his cheap insult. "The Patriarch was a good pony," he said, a murderous expression briefly flickering across his face. "Easily worth twenty of your mechanical monstrosities."

The cyborg simply laughed.

"True, true. I remember the Vermillion War, your commander gave me quiet a fright. For two hours we fought, until we'd managed to grind each over to a standstill." The pony flexed his augmetic leg. "He took my leg that day as well. I managed to give him a scar in return, but such an injury is far from the same league as mine."

Tiberius nodded. He remembered the Vermillion War, when the Polities had banded together to invaded the lower ledges of the Celestial Levels, taking a brief pause from their near constant infighting to untie against the common foe of the alicorns. It had been the greatest incursion into the Celestial Levels for over two thousand years, and it was only by stint of the boundary that separated them from the Levels that the cyborgs had been spared a brutal reprisal.

"But enough of talking." The cyborg emitted a series of high pitched squeals from somewhere near his flank, and behind him the enormous bulk of the Centaur roared into life as the pilot within was roused from its drug induced stupor. The construct gripped the casket with a set of ligament mechadentrites that emerged from a grill just below its organic torso, marching forward with thumping hoof-steps, pushing the casket before it. "Despite our differences, Shining armour was respected amongst the warriors of the Polities for his courage and valour. In Trottingham, it is an ancient custom to bequeath the weapon of a foe to the deceased, as a token of their fighting prowess."

The casket pulled alongside the commander, the anti-grav generators beneath it humming dully as it floated on a cushion of zero-gravity. The cyborg augmetic leg whirred, and the plating around the knee joint retracted to reveal a small compartment. Within lay a simply dagger, the blade gleaming with a dull inner light. Removing it, the commander spun the blade on his hoof, watching as the weapons edge caught the light of the rising sun.

"This is the blade I used to scar your Patriarch, but I believe it's safe to say that he was the one who won the dual that day." The pony glanced across to Tiberius. "Would you begrudge me if I bequeathed it to you Commander? I can assure you, in my Polity there is no greater honour."

Tiberius shook his head.

Turning to the casket, the cyborg to a moment to stare at the blade one final time before sighing and placing onto the flat surface. "Goodbye, Shining Armour. Faust knows you deserved better than this. Hell, if I'd had a say in this I would have taken revenge for my leg, you old fool." Stepping back, the cyborg emitted another electrical squeal and the casket slowly made its way across the boundary, bobbing slightly higher as it entered the higher state zone of the Celestial Levels, tolerances slackening as it made the transition. "Give my respects to his wife, I've been made to understand that this loss will be dear to her."

"You were close to the Patriarch?"

"Young buck, I was crossing force-blades with your commander whilst you were a stripling of a mere three centuries. They say one should keep one's friends close, but one's enemies closer." The cyborg gave him a weary smile. "With your commander gone, I fear the council of the Polity will have no further need for an old ninth generation model like me."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me, young foal. I may have been close with your commander, but what I've done here is nothing more than follow the codes of honour. This doesn't change anything between our two worlds." The smile on the cyborgs face dropped. "The blood and oil of many a loyal citizen has been spilt by your former Patriarch, such transgressions are not forgiven lightly. The Polity never forgives, the Polity never forgets."

Tiberius nodded in recognition. "Of course."

"Again, my respects to his wife." And as simple as that, the exchange was over. Scarlet-beam of the Trottingham Polity bowed once more before turning and returning to his squad, a shrill whistle emanating from somewhere beneath his throat. With the uniform precision of machines, the shock troopers saluted their commander as he passed, performing an abrupt one-eighty spin and marching away. The hulking form of the Centaur made its own ponderous way behind them, tremors travelling through the Megastructure beneath them every time one of the constructs trunk-like hooves touched the ground.

Tiberius remained at the boundary, watching for any signs of trickery as the cyborgs departed. But even after the cohort was long gone without the slightest inclination of trouble the Post-equine remained, wrapped up inside his own thoughts. Behind him, the alicorns of the Celestial Guard stood in resolute silence, pennants snapping in the thermals that were rising up from the lower levels of Canterlot.

"You... you were a fool, Sir," Tiberius muttered to the casket beside him. "Throwing away your life like that, jumping blindly into the dark, and placing your trust in mere hear-say and rumours. Tell me, Sir. Did you find her, the fallen alicorn?"

The casket didn't reply.

"No... I thought not."

He sighed. Alicorns were immortal, years, decades, and even centuries were capable of slipping past in the blink of an eye for those creatures who would never age. But for Tiberius, these past dozen or so hours had been the longest of his life. The agony of indecision still burnt raw in his heart. What was there to do now? With Shining armour gone, Tiberius was now left to defend the true princess of the Celestial Levels from the forces of the usurper.

Protect the princess, follow your orders, duty and honour; these were the virtues that had been impressed upon the alicorn since his induction to the Celestial Guard at the tender age of one and a half centuries. Once, it had all seemed so foalishly simple, but then the Patriarch had sacrificed his life in such a desperate gamble, and now the prerogatives of duty were becoming blurred. The stark contrast between friend and foe, the clear line that separated ally from enemy, was becoming harder to discern, the boundaries becoming as blurred as the metaphysical divisions that segmented the different enclaves of Canterlot.

"You were a fool, Sir."

Turning back to his squad, Tiberius cast a simple tether spell. His horn momentarily glowed an ultramarine blue as an invisible, ectoplasmic trendil of magic energy reached out from his fluted appendage and burrowed itself into the casket. "Celestial Guard, form up," he barked to the call of armoured hooves snapping to attention. "The commander has been returned to us. It is now our duty to ensure that he is returned to the catacombs for a burial fitting for a Patriarch of the Celestial guard."

"Yes, Patriarch."

They formed up two aside, Tiberius and one of his squad on the right, the other two on the left. "March," he called, and with the uniform thump-thump of power-armoured hooves on raw Megastructure, the four alicorns began their return to the Celestial Levels; Tiberius feeling none the worse for leaving the boundary.

The Patriarchs death, he knew, was only the first of a new set of trials that were about to face the Celestial Levels, the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Daily, it seemed, the situation was becoming worse and worse. Whilst tectologists working the Eternity Matrix continued to calculate ever more disastrous conclusions for the coming zone shift, processing calculations and equations in their thousands to find even so much as a sliver of hope for the Post-equine race, the politics of the Levels were becoming dangerously perilous.

The princess was struggling to maintain order in the face of what seemed to be near impossible odds. With the prospect of a massive realignment fresh on everyponies lips, the last descendant of the ancient bloodline of Canterlot was struggling to maintain social order amongst her subjects whilst at the same time trying to ensure that sufficient precautions were in place to guarantee the survival of as many of her subjects as was equinely possible.

To make matters worse, the Cyber Polities below were becoming increasingly agitated and even overtly aggressive. The Polities didn't possess tectological technology that was in the same league as that of the Celestial Levels, but even the few primitive instruments they had were predicting nigh-apocalyptic readings. So, in a manner that was tiresomely typical of all Pre-equines, they were lashing out at those they held to be responsible, their mundane minds failing to realise that the alicorns had as little control over the zones as anypony else did.

Then there was the usurper.

Few beyond the boundaries of the Celestial Levels knew it, but the Post-equines were primed for civil war. In the face of the growing social unrest a powerful and twisted alicorn named Sombra, a foul practioner of forbidden necromancy and the black arts, was calling for a war of conquest, a crusade that would sweep away the filthy Pre-equines and install the alicorns as the rightful rulers of the Canterlot Godscraper. The treason of the alicorns words were only compounded by his claim that he was a descendant of the rulers of the mythical Crystal Empire, an ancient and forgotten realm that was said to lie far to the north at the heart of the Bane itself.

Tiberius wasn't one for vulgarity, but, as the citizens of Neon Heights were prone to say when faced with such blatant lies, he called bullshit on that one.

And at the root of all the chaos was the one thing that had every Pre and Post equine in Canterlot, from the humblest farmer at the outskirts of Ponyville to even the princess herself, worried sick to the bone.

The zone shift.

They'd seen it coming for centuries, ever since the tectologists of the Eternity Matrix had detected the first twitches of instability during the Vermillion War. At the time, the Eye of Faust was prone to near constant minor fluctuations, with the boundaries up and down the height of Canterlot readjusting themselves on a monthly basis. But even decades later the twitches were getting worse, becoming more erratic. Not only that, but the shifts were occurring deeper inside the Eye, meaning that each new flicker, each new shift, would be capable of causing even greater damage. Estimates from the tectologists had placed the next major realignment years ago, and now Canterlot was three centuries overdue.

What they were about to face would affect all citizens of Canterlot, not merely the Post-equines. With the prospect of a major realignment engrained into everyone's minds, combined with the rising threat of the Cyber Polities and the slander of the usurper, the coming storm was set to be the greatest the last city of equine kind had ever faced. Whether or not they would be able to weather it or not, Tiberius was unable to say, but of one thing he was certain; he wouldn't be able to do it alone.

What he needed was a mentor, somepony whose experience far outstripped his own. Somepony who would be able to show him how to defend the princess from both the aggression of the Polities and the ruthlessness of politics. An alicorn, a leader without peer, somepony respected beyond measure, who had never failed in both the execution of his duty and the upkeep of honour. For Tiberius, only one pony came to mind, only one pony possessed the raw skill and charisma necessary for the monumental task he was about to face.

And that pony was lying dead in the casket next to him.    

VII: A day in court.

Four alicorns marched, in their midst the casket of Shining Armour.

Tiberius stood to the right of the casket, proceeding onwards in stoic silence, accepting the death of his patriarch with a grim heart and unspoken prayer. Above him, high in the stone-wrought vaulting of the roof, sunlight shone gloriously through panes of stained crystal, illuminating this part of their path with a soft, gentle glow. Starlight Wrath, the hereditary weapon of office for the patriarch of the Celestial Guard, weighed heavily against his flank, its bulk unfamiliar and alien to Tiberius, who had grown accustomed to the top-heavy mass of his gauss-halberd. They were marching, lockstep, down the long, twisting gallery that led to the throne room, the sound of armoured hooves on lustrous marble all that accompanied them. Lining the walls on either side were the armoured forms of the Celestial Guard, heads bowed in deference to the casket.

Above the soldiers, stretched from pillar to pillar, hung the banners of the Celestial Guard, golden relics from times long past. As the casket passed, the armoured alicorns fell in behind, a double file forming behind the patriarch. It heartened Tiberius to see his brothers in arms, the sight of such military might stirring the martial pride that had been fired in his heart since his birth.

Ahead of them, and approaching with every step he took, loomed the entrance to the throne room. It was an enormous thing, an arch of marble standing twenty meters tall. At the summit, carved as if it was bursting fully formed from the wall itself, was a carved a fully sized likeness of a female alicorn, her wings spread and head lifted in a fittingly regal pose, form-fitting golden plate metal, mimicking that worn by the Celestial Guard below, covering the mares sensuous, elegant figure. Marble eyes stared blindly towards the vaulted roof, lips carved lush and full from cold stone whilst her mane was brought to life by the combined glow of a dozen stained panes above, the converging beams striking in such a way as to animate it, as if the marble strands were flowing in some aethereal breeze. The expression on the statues face was one that Tiberius had long sort to decipher; the slight parting of the mares lips and the vacant expression of her sightless eyes evoking the images of both numbing ecstasy and soul-consuming dread.  

Beneath the statue, dominating the archway itself, were two heavy blocks of stone which formed the bulwark between the gallery and the throne room. Each was six meters wide and three feet thick, hewn not from pure marble or precious crystal as was so much of the Celestial Levels, but from milky granite, shot through with black spots of feldspar. Both were chiselled with finely detailed carvings of the legendary royal sisters Celestia and Luna, the first rulers of Canterlot who were said to rule in a time before the zones. The images mirrored each other with incredible accuracy, testament to the artisans who forged the Celestial Levels. Each granite block showed a full body profile, Celestia on the left and Luna on the right, their horns meeting at the centre of the two blocks where a fierce emerald, split down the centre, had been set into the raw stone. The column of guards came to a halt as one, the final, sharp sound of hoofsteps echoing into silence.

Tiberius brought to mind the correct magical sequence required to open the door, tapping into the  repository of arcane energy in his soul. It was a widely held belief amongst the citizens of Canterlot that no Pre-equine was capable of matching the potency of an alicorn when it came to the manipulation of magic and in a way, Tiberius reflected as he began to channel the magical energy into his horn, they were right. It wasn't so much that alicorns were more powerful, more rather their cybernetically enhanced minds were capable of perceiving a larger fraction of the magical spectrum, thus allowing a greater degree of control. It was possible for a Pre-equine to reach the same level of magical control as an alicorn, but more often than not, this was due to natural aptitude rather than training or practice.

With little effort, an ectoplasmic trendil of aethereal matter reached out from the tip of the patriarchs horn towards the gem at the centre of the gate, its surface undulating in a hypnotic pattern reminiscent of viscous fluid being poured. Making contact with the emerald, it took Tiberius mere moments to synchronise the bound energy within with that of his soul. A high-pitched ringing began to emanate from the emerald, resonating with the eerie moan that only magic could produce; a low, mournful sound that seemed to tug on the soul with great weight.

Disengaging the spell, Tiberius watched as the emerald began to glow, the neon green light slowly beginning to pulse like a heartbeat. The seconds passed by, the column of guards standing in complete silence, until the quiet, near-imperceptible grinding of stone on stone signalled that the patriarchs spell had succeeded in unlocking the throne room. With a muffled, sweeping whoosh, the two granite blocks began to slide inward, opening the portal for passage. As they came to a halt, Tiberius started forward, nodding, and from behind him came the always reassuring sound of four hundred hooves as the Celestial Guard fell in.

As he passed through the enormous archway into the throne room, the monolithic scale of the Celestial Levels once again impressed itself upon Tiberius. The throne room was an enormous octagonal pantheon, more than two hundred meters across. As with the gallery behind them, the vaulted dome of the roof soared high above them, lost amidst the blinding brilliance of the crystal panes so far above. Banners depicting the long and illustrious history of the Celestial Levels were draped from the supporting buttresses, each richly embroidered and woven with artisan skill. Like most treasures of the Levels they were ancient beyond reckoning, a link that connected the alicorns with a history that had long since been forgotten, save for by the princess herself.

Beneath the hooves of the Celestial Guard, the floor was paved with white marble, veined through with pink and gold minerals. Cutting through the stark white were lines of jet black Megastructure, the black glass-like material outlining an enormous geometric rune that formed the silhouette of a radial sun. Ancient lore insisted that the pattern was the image of Celestia's cutie mark, a holy symbol of Faustianism and one of great repute amongst the denizens of the Celestial Levels. The air was thick with the heady scents of incense, trails of white smoke rising from braziers that were set into the wall. Tiberius breathed deeply, taking in the rich, cloying fumes, and sighed. Shining Armour had always enjoyed the scent of the braziers, reminiscing with Tiberius many a time on stories from his foalhood that the incense brought to mind.

Shaking his head, Tiberius chastised himself. It was unlike him to be so melancholy, quite unlike him indeed. Sweet Celestia, he was an alicorn! Patriarch of the Celestial Guard and warden of the Levels, he had greater and more pressing issues to concern himself with then memories of the past. As heavily as the loss of Shining Armour weighed on his soul, Tiberius knew he couldn't afford the dalliance of idle reminiscence; with the patriarch gone it now fell to him to protect the princess and keep her safe, and a soldier who was too caught up in his own woes to perform such a duty was no fitting guardian for the last princess of Canterlot.

Behind him, at the back of the column, the last of the Celestial Guard filed into the throne room, the great granite doors swinging shut and sealing themselves silently. With the doors barred, Tiberius knew, the ancient wards inscribed into the very walls of the throne room were once again complete, allowing for the projection of an immense - if invisible - protective barrier that was proof against all but the most dedicated and concerted assaults. The patriarch briefly sent out a pulse of magical energy to test the validity of the barrier, smiling to himself when the wave of power was instantly reflected back towards him.

Though there had never been an attempt in the history of Canterlot to assassinate any descendent of the royal lineage it had always been the duty of each patriarch to maintain the barrier that encased the throne room, empowering the intricate enchantment with energy extracted from their very souls. Shining Armour, ever zealous in his duties, had spent an hour each night charging the shield, filling the binding runes with as much magical aether as they could contain, emerging ashen faced and exhausted every time. Tiberius knew that the duty would fall to him now, and that now more than ever the barrier would need to be maintained like never before. With the threat of the usurper becoming more real by the day, the necessity to ensure the continuation of the princesses most powerful form of defence – barring, of course, the Celestial Guard – was of top priority.          

Tiberius felt something in his heart tense at the thought of the usurper, gritting his teeth in anger. Lord Sombra had ever been an opponent of the princess, and for Tiberius a foe of the worst kind: one that couldn't be fought in combat, but had to be engaged at the debating table. Sombra had been the enemy of the royalty of Canterlot since before Tiberius's birth, and many of his acolytes – the word 'follower' implied too much free will – claimed that the dark alicorn had been born in a time before the Eye of Faust had burnt through the world, and the zones had ripped Equestria apart.

Regardless, Lord Sombra was a powerful adversary, and one that was not to be dealt with lightly. Although he had yet too openly challenge the princess for rule of Canterlot, Sombra had built a formidable following amongst the dejected and bitter weaklings that clung to life at the bottom rungs of the Celestial Levels, alicorns who had long since fallen from grace and been forced to eke out a miserable existence perilously close to boundary. For those fallen, Lord Sombra was a messianic figure, one who promised the restoration of their past glories and their reinstatement into the court of the Celestial Levels, something that they had been denied for generations. This army of devoted sycophants, though nowhere near as competent and capable as the Celestial Guard, was a force to be reckoned with, a blighted host of damned and misbegotten souls.

Yet Sombra's powers weren't limited to a simple army of followers. Rumours circulated amongst the courtiers that the alicorn was alleged to practice necromancy, an art that had been declared anathema to existence by Celestia herself. His residences, a cluster of ruined towers that rose from the lowest eastern ledge, were haunted, silent abodes, where the wind that swept in from the Outzone screamed and moaned like the gates of Tartarus. Phantoms were said to stalk the black corridors within, the spirits of Sombra's victims bound by infernal enchantments to hunger for the warmth and flesh of the living. The servants avoided the place at all costs, leading to no shortage of apocryphal tales of what was said to be the fate of any who dared penetrate the outer wards of the ruins. Tiberius grimaced at the thought of such a place; it was his duty to protect the princess, but Sombra was an opponent who promised to be unlike any he had ever faced, and Tiberius could sense that the impending conflict between himself and the necromancer was fast approaching.

Ahead of him, rising on three shallow tiers of stone, lay the dais, a fat crescent that followed the curvature of the wall it was set against, and atop it, forged from a single block of impervious Megastructure, sat the throne of Canterlot itself. The great chair rose upon a dais of its own, five steps of Megastructure leading up to the elegant, if imposing throne. Chiselled into its surface in minute detail, swirling lines and sinuous spirals caught the dazzling light above, the Megastructure catching and refracting before expelling vibrant shafts of exotic colour, which, in conjunction with the scented smoke of the braziers, caused a wreathed rainbow aura to enshroud the throne. The high back rose a full ten meters, yet more chiselled ornamentation forming the silhouette of an alicorn, wings spread and horn raised, the surrounding aura hinting at both a male and female form. Behind stood an enormous archway that opened up into the vast, empty void of the open sky, the light that streamed through silhouetting the throne. The whole construct was priceless, the result of generations of painstaking commitment and dedication, designed to instil both awe and fear in any who looked up it.

Yet regardless of how magnificent or imposing the throne could ever be, it was nothing compared to the creature which sat upon it: Mi Amore Cadenza, the last princess of Canterlot.

"Patriarch Tiberius." The princess inclined her head by way of greeting as the column of guards came to a halt before her, the double file switching to a square phalanx with Post-equine precision. Her crown, a simple circlet of gold that rose at the front to include a purple gem that was said to have been worn by Celestia, glinted in the light. Her mane, comprised of glorious locks of purple, pink, and gold, danced like liquid, trailing out to her right in a non-existent breeze, whilst framing the perfectly symmetrical features of her face, where a pair of intense pink eyes shone with kindness and compassion. The very air around her resonated with dignity and authority, instilling both respect and admiration in all who gazed upon her. She was, in every sense of the word, pure blooded royalty.

Surrounding the throne were the courtiers of the Levels, functionaries and adepts who served as advisors to the princess. To the right of the throne stood Hyperion, master of augments and the greatest Technomancer in Canterlot, his body more machine than equine. All four of his hooves and a great deal of his organic flesh replaced with mechanical prosthetics of his own design and manufacture, the gray-black metal gleaming like oil. With him stood Urial, the courts Aethermancer, robed in the olive green vestments of a tectologists; one of the rare individuals allowed access to the Eternity Matrix, the massive and ancient cogitator engine that resided deep within the Megastructure of Canterlot. Whilst Hyperion stood tall and proud in his synthetic flesh, Urial's thin frame twitched with a constant shiver, the result of such intense exposure to the exotic matter and harsh radiation given off by the Eternity Matrix's supportive data banks. Both were accompanied by attendants of their own, Hyperion with his vat-grown servitors and Urial flanked by two rake-thin junior adepts, both quivering on their hooves.

To the left of the throne stood only one party; that of Emmanuelle, the high priestess of Faust. The mare was swathed horn to hoof in snow-white cloth, layers of gossamer thin fabric shifting and stirring in the same aethereal breeze that flowed through Cadence's mane. Tiberius, and for that matter no Pre- or Post-equine in Canterlot, had never seen even an inch of the high-priestesses coat; each priestesses was said to be a creature of divine beauty, yet dedicated to their Goddess in body and soul, and as such they hid their bodies away beneath their veils, to ward against the temptation of those who would defile them. Although as princesses Cadence served as a primary object of veneration for practitioners of Faustianism, believed by millions to be Faust divinely appointed ruler, it was Emmanuelle who was the true leader of the faith. Behind her stood four hand-maidens, they too hidden away beneath white veils. Each carried a tool of faith; one with a brazier mounted on her back which swung back and forth as the mare gently rocked, another; a lectern upon which an enormous edition of the Testament lay open. The final two each bore chalices filled to the brim with holy water, the surface of the liquid within still and serene.              

The patriarch bowed low, his armour humming as the synthetic ligaments with the ceramite relaxed and contracted to accommodate the movement, until his muzzle was mere inches from the floor. "Princess Mi Amore Cadenza," came his reply, voice respectfully quiet. The seated alicorn smiled, her luscious lips curving at the edges. Though Tiberius had served in the princesses bodyguard since the Vermillion War, formalities could never be violated in as public a place as the throne room. Perhaps in a private audience Tiberius could address the princess by her personal moniker of Cadence, but for now tradition dictated respect, something he had no qualms adhering to.

Rising, the patriarch watched as the princesses eyes slid past him to rest upon the anti-gravitic casket behind, a flash of sorrow crossing the two orbs before disappearing as suddenly as it had appeared and her gaze returned to his. As all knew, emotion was something an alicorn kept reserved at all times, any public display of affection would have been taboo.

"My husband has returned." Cadence's voice was flat and cold, devoid of the heartache one would expect if ever faced with such a situation. Though she kept an immaculate posture, back straight and head raised, Tiberius could see the hints that were too subtle for any others to pick up; the near-imperceptible twitch in the corner of her eye, and the slight flicker of movement in her tail. He had to nearly force himself to hold her gaze, such was the guilt inside him.

None, and certainly not Tiberius, would have ever suspected that Shining Armour would depart in such a way. The patriarch had been a paragon, something to aspire to. His virtue as an alicorn and dedication as a soldier had long been marked as superior to all around him. Indeed, Shining Armour had lived in strict, unwavering compliance to the codes of chivalry and conduct expected of a Celestial Guard. For him to die in such a way, for suicide to be his choice, was something that shocked Tiberius to his very core.

He just... he just never thought the patriarch would die.

The full weight and consequence of Shining Armours death struck him more intensely than ever before. True; he had known of the patriarchs death mere hours after his disappearance from the Celestial Levels, and true; the implications it entailed had been revolving in his mind ever since, turning over and over as he attempted to find some logical way to come to terms with the event. But standing there, beneath the gaze of his monarch and charge, seemed to exacerbate the importance of the position he was stepping into. The seed of self-doubt flourished inside of him, working its way through his mind and undermining the confidence that centuries of training and duty had instilled within him.

He couldn't do this, there was no way he could do this. Shining Armour had been his idol, his role model, what he had aspired to be since his very induction into the Celestial Guard all those years ago. How could he ever possibly be expected to command the same level of respect and dignity that Shining Armour had exuded from every pore? He was far from the same young, naive stripling of three centuries that had been ushered into the barracks all those years ago, as was testified by the list of honours that were etched into the very ceramite of his armour. But neither was he the same millennia old, battle hardened, and unsurpassable warrior as his predecessor had been. Though he forced himself to maintain the quiet, dignified air that was expected of him, Tiberius felt the uncertainty within himself pulse throughout his body, his right hind-leg twitching ever so slightly, as he was want to do when troubled. He schooled his features into an unreadable mask, but the subtle shift in Cadence's posture told him that his princess sensed his doubt.

"Patriarch, walk with me," Cadence said, once more tilting her head back a few millimetres. Unfolding from her seated position with unhurried, elegant grace, Cadence rose from the throne and descended the stairs of her throne. The courtiers and the Celestial Guard bowed as her fore-leg touched the stone floor of the dais, all save for high priestess Emmanuelle and her hand-maidens, who were beholden to none save Faust, and Tiberius himself. Turning, Cadence beckoned with a flick of her tail for the patriarch to follow, her long, willowy legs crossing the marble floor in complete silence as she stepped past the throne. Conversely, Tiberius's own gait sounded awkwardly loud as he moved to stand by the princesses side, the synthetic ligaments within his armour whirring with movement to the deep backdrop growl of the nova reactor within.

The princess led him towards the archway that lay behind the throne, the scent of incense slowly weakening as it gave way to cool, crisp air of extreme altitude. The archway opened up onto a large, sweeping balcony that swept across the curvature of the throne room, Tiberius inhaling the fresh clean air deeply as he passed through the portal and out onto the open expanse, his wings unfurling slightly as the pegausi instinct in him felt the urge to take to the sky. Cadence, however, kept her faculties in check and proceeded forward to the ornamental railing that followed the edge of the balcony, a line of miniature alicorn statues where each individual supported the weight of the stone banister on their wings. Tiberius joined her in short order, leaning his head out to look below.

In the radiance of Celestia's holy sun, the Celestial Levels shone.

The throne room was situated in an enormous, fat tower that rose tall and proud into the cold of the Thermosphere, soaring above the rest of Canterlot like a raptor hunting for prey. Beneath them, the Celestial Levels glowed in the pure and unpolluted air, crystal-wrought structures of blinding white blazing like flares. All around them, alicorns capered and danced with arrogant ease; swooping, gliding, and diving on the thermals that rose from the zones below, flitting to and fro like a living snow-storm. Beneath, just about visible from his current vantage point, Tiberius could make out the higher echelons of the Cyber Polities, swarming with anti-gravitic vehicles that were so minute he could have reached out and crushed them with a hoof.

As for the rest of Canterlot; Circuit City, Neon Heights, Geartown, and Ponyville, there was no sign, not even any inclination that they actually existed. Instead, it appeared as if the Cyber Polities simply gave way to the epic vastness of the Outzone, of the rest of Equestria. The base of the city was surrounded by a ring of vibrant green, criss-crossed and divided by multiple patchworks of fields, orchards, vineyards, ranches, and farms; all working day and night to feed the ravenous hunger of the last city of Equine-kind. Surrounding the verdant ring of agriculture was the Everfree Forest, a full league of wild and untamed woodland, infested with unnatural creatures spawned by the arcane energies that saturated the place. Rising from the verdant canopy were the stumps of ancient stone fortifications, so old that even the princess herself couldn't say with any certainty who had ordered their construction, or for what purpose.

Beyond there was nothing, only empty wastes of lifeless, rust-red dirt that reached to the horizon in every direction.        

They were fifty leagues above the ground, an incredible altitude in itself, but nothing compared to the enormity of Canterlot in its entirety. Whilst the throne room was the penultimate sign of habitation to mark the Megastructure, the vast bulk of the Godscraper itself rose higher still, a thin needle no more than a third of a league across that pierced the Exosphere itself, reaching into the great void above. The view afforded by the lofty perch was breath-taking, but for Tiberius it had long since lost its all-consuming sense of majesty, not a single day went by when he did not soar through such skies. Turning his attention from the panoramic landscape below, Tiberius turned to face his monarch.

Cadence stood statue still, as ever the very picture of royalty. Her beautiful eyes gazing out below onto Canterlot; her city. Behind her eyes, Tiberius could see the riot of emotion that she struggled to suppress; the confusion, anger, sorrow, and loneliness. If the death of Shining Armour had been difficult for Tiberius, a simple solider, to come to terms with, he could only imagine the depths of grief that threatened to consume the soul of the princess. Alicorns were an immortal species, capable of watching the rise and fall of empires and nations in the blink of an eye in circumstance demanded. Yet whilst many a Pre-equine would consider such eternal youth as the greatest boon that could ever be bestowed, all alicorns knew that immortality carried its own horrendous curse.

Eternity, meant eternity.

A Pre-equine wouldn't have even been able to begin to comprehend the vast scope of immortality, constrained as they were by notions of time and its passage. For a being that lived forever, there was no difference between a day or a year, a second or a century. What use was there in measuring a factor that literally had no relativistic influence in their existence? Living for such an extended period would drive any creature insane, regardless of lifespan, watching their loved ones grow from foalhood, to adolescence, to old age, to death. In order to prevent such a fate themselves, alicorns bonded for eternity, taking a monogamous mate with which to share the endless plethora of experiences. Cadence and Shining Armour had been bonded for over seven thousand years, as the patriarch had once told Tiberius, forming their unity in a time before the Eye of Faust had burnt through the world.

"Princess Mi Amore Cadenza..." Tiberius began, but stopped when he realised he had nothing to say; what words could possibly console a loss so great? His princess turned to him, and Tiberius felt his stomach flip when he saw a single tear of crystal clear liquid roll down her cheek from the inner corner of her right eye, winking like a diamond. His heart seized in his chest at the sight of such a beautiful, compassionate alicorn in such misery. For Cadence to actually be crying, for the princess herself; who bore the weight of millennia of tradition and responsibility, to actually be expressing such outward emotion. It simply... it simply killed him.

"My husband is dead, Tiberius, this I know. I knew as soon as he..." Cadence told him, her voice hushed with suppressed sorrow and edged with the threat of more tears. "When he fell from the Levels I... I felt him die, Tiberius. I felt the shard of my soul I had given to him gutter and die, just as the shard he had given me crumbled into nothingness." Cadence closed her eyes, turning her head away from Tiberius to take a deep, calming breath.

Tiberius felt his heart ache; he wanted to console her, wanted to reach out and comfort her. To take her in his hooves and protect her from any who would ever wish to harm her. He felt anger flare in his chest, rising as a wave of adrenaline through his body. That was the duty he was now charged with, to keep her safe, and if it was demanded of him he would fight to the death to ensure she stayed out of harms way. Cadence raised a hoof to wipe away the tear, and when she turned her head back, Tiberius could see a fire like his own burning in her eyes. Like him, she knew now was no time for sorrow, now was a time of action.

Mourning would have to wait.  

"Where do we stand?" Cadence asked, her voice firm with the characteristic, reassuring determination she had always shown. Tiberius felt his confidence rising, hearing the steel in her tone. His princess wasn't down and out, not yet.

"Princess; with the patriarch dead, I suspect that Lord Sombra will be making his move in short order, perhaps even within the year," Tiberius stated, a scowl flashing across his face. "With such limited time, I am afraid that we may not have the resources available necessary to meet him in combat, let alone wage a war. My Celestial Guard will fight to the death, but they are few, and our enemy legion."

"No pony is talking of war yet, Tiberius. True, Lord Sombra has long been an opponent of my rule, but there have been many instances far more dire than this in the past when he could have attempted his coup. I do not doubt that he will make an attempt, Shining Armours death presents an opportunity too ripe for the taking. But it is not Lord Sombra that truly unsettles me, Tiberius, it is the matter of the coming storm." The princesses eyes glimmered with both fear and compassion, and in his soul, Tiberius felt something reach back to her with empathy. "The realignment, will we... the alicorns... survive?"

For several long seconds Tiberius was silent, his mind reviewing every eventuality, before, in a tone of both fear and uncertainty, he gave the most honest answer he could muster.

"I do not know, Princess. Before his death, the patriarch had been making all efforts to ensure that there were sufficient contingencies for us to fall back on in the event of a major shift. But I'm afraid that his departure was too sudden for me to ascertain to what extent his emergency protocols had reached completion. Statistical analysis of the barracks inventory suggests he has stockpiled sufficient supplies of antizonal medication and consumables to last for no more than two decades in the event of total collapse of celestial society. Aside from this and some small caches of weaponry and food that have been secured across the Levels, I have limited available information to offer you. In keeping with the need for discretion, the patriarch ensured that all such preparation operations were of the utmost secrecy, and as a result much of the knowledge he had was lost with his death."    

Cadence nodded with grim acceptance. "Two decades... for a Pre-equine, I imagine such time would be an incredible boon..." her voice trailed off, the unspoken words still to come hanging heavy in the air. It didn't need to be said that for a Post Equine, two decades was nearly nothing. Tiberius himself had been alive for nearly fifteen hundred years, and was still considered youthful by the standards of alicorn society.

"It is not much by any means, princess. But I am afraid it is all we have."

"Unless we were to take the route proposed by Lord Sombra," Cadence said bitterly, as if even saying the name of such a creature left a foul taste in her mouth. The alicorn in question had never made any attempt to hide his obvious distain for the mortals below, stating in court on many occasions that it was the manifest destiny of the alicorns to hold dominion of Canterlot, and by extension the whole of Equestria. Though many in the Levels sneered at the impossibility of such ideas, Sombra's cries for a war of conquest were eagerly answered by the fallen alicorns who swarmed to his banner, drawn by promises of the restoration of their former glories and their instalment as rulers of the vassal realms Sombra would carve out with his war. Of course, regardless of how much rhetoric the dark alicorn employed and how much support he garnered, there lay in his path one obstacle that nothing could clear.

The zones.

The metaphysical divisions, neither aethereal nor material in nature, had long been the force that had locked the alicorns within the Celestial Levels. Post-equine life, for all the raw magical power and longevity it offered, could only exist under very specific conditions; conditions that existed nowhere in Equestria, save for the peak of the Godscraper. It was these limitations that blunted Sombra's ambitions of conquest, and kept the Pre-equines of Canterlot safe from his predations.

Of course, efforts had been made on the part of both Sombra and the princess to attempt to find ways in which the alicorns could exist beyond the confines of their lofty cage, but for the most part such exodus's had met with failure. Despite decades, centuries even, of research, digging deep into the very threads of life itself, the Biomancers of the Levels had failed to craft a form in which a Post-equine could survive beyond even the Cyber Polities.

There had only ever been one successful attempt, nine years ago, when Twilight Sparkle, the greatest Biomancer in the history of the Celestial Levels, and three others had been adapted and inserted deep into Canterlot, to the harsh, electrical world of Neon Heights. It had been for Twilight Sparkle that Shining Armour had sacrificed himself, throwing himself from the Celestial Levels for a mare who was by all accounts dead, and simply placing his faith in a handful of patchy reports gleaned from prescient visions inspired by the Eternity Matrix. But perhaps that should have been expected.

After all, she was his sister.        

Tiberius shook his head. "If we were to follow Sombra's path of conquest, our own survival would be at the price of the pain and suffering of the Equines you were sworn to protect. You are their princess, Mi Amore Cadenza, from the lowliest farmers of Ponyville to even the proudest of us alicorns, whether they are aware of the fact or not. To subjugate your own ponies would be no better than abdicating and letting Sombra take the throne." He knelt, his head bowed low enough to see himself in the eyes of his own reflection trapped in the marble floor. "You are my princess and I will serve you with every fibre of my being. If Sombra wishes to bring you harm, I will see to it that he will burn in the fires of Tartarus before he even sets hoof in this throne room. What course of action we pursue is your choice to make, princess, but no matter which path we tread, know that I will serve you. Always."

"Rise, Tiberius," Cadence commanded, her tone soft and gentle. Obeying, Tiberius rose to find himself gazing into the eyes of his princess. Cadence smiled gently, raising a hoof to slowly stroke his cheek. "You're a fine soldier, Tiberius. Your honesty and Loyalty is all I shall ever ask of you." Cadence's smile seem to flicker, another tear building up in the corner of her eye before slowly rolling down her muzzle. "Shining Armour chose you to be his successor because he saw those qualities in you, and I know he did well in his choice. You'll make a fine patriarch."

Tiberius had no idea what to say, a faint flush staining the white coat of his cheeks a pale rose-pink. He tried to open his mouth, but no words came out, only a strangled gasp. How could he articulate the sense of pervasive doubt that ran through him, how could he explain to the princess that even if he had a thousand more years to prepare he would still feel unworthy of such a position? He turned his head away, looking to the clear skies above them. Oddly, it seemed the swooping alicorns had disappeared. "Princess... I..."

Something pulsed.

Tiberius snapped his head, pulling away from Cadences hoof; eyes open, senses alert. The pulse came again, like a rush of blood through his ears, throbbing painfully before disappearing. For several long seconds, Tiberius couldn't identify exactly what it was that he had felt, the sensation was one that he had never encountered before. A quick scan of his nanotrite conduits revealed that whatever he was experiencing wasn't physical in origin. The pulses, whatever they were, were coming from an external source. It came again, this time sending a sharp lance of pain through the back of his head and causing a high-pitched ringing to echo through his mind. It was only then that Tiberius achieved a modicum of familiarity with the sensation. The pulse, it was the same he felt training with aethereal kinetic shields.

He felt his heart seize.

"Tiberius?" Cadence tapped the alicorn on the shoulder, alarmed by his reaction. "Patriarch, are you alright." Tiberius didn't respond; instead his horn became suffused with a golden aura of magic, his eyes glazing over slightly as he accessed his witch-sight, allowing his to perceive the currents of magic flowing about them.

This time, his heart stopped entirely.

With his augmented senses, and the now instinctive bond he shared with the barrier as its maintainer, Tiberius was able to perceive the incredible magical shadow cast by the protective field that encased the throne room, the immense arcane construct generating a nearly overwhelming aura with the amount of magic it displaced. But what concerned him was not the size of the shadow, but its condition. The surface of the barrier was scored with fissures, spreading out across the gleaming shield like cracks in a mirror. Even as he watched, another pulse resonated off the barrier, several small shards of the arcane construct splintering free to dissolve into a fine mist of swirling energy before disappearing entirely. It took the patriarch a few moments to rationalise what his senses were telling, such was the impossibility of what he was witnessing.

The barrier was beginning to decay.

"Patriarch Tibe-" Cadence began, her voice filled with much more concern, before Tiberius interrupted her with a single, blunt word.

"Move."

"Pardo-"

"Move!"

Cadence didn't react, staring at him with dumbfounded shock. However, her expression quickly changed when Tiberius grabbed her hoof and began pulling her back towards the throne room. "Patriarch, what is the meaning of this?" she demanded as they passed through the archway once more, entering the cavernous space beyond. Tiberius didn't reply, already barking orders with practised ease.

"Celestial Guard! Form up! Phalanx formation epsilon-thirteen, gauss-halberds to the front! Protect the princess!" Instantly, the soldiers below the dais, still standing patiently in their square formation, moved to react. The air began to fill with the rasping of metal on metal as blades were pulled from their scabbards, and the dull, moaning whine of gauss weaponry as plasma conductors charged and ionisation pathways began to warm up. Running underneath were the confused whispers and shouted questions of the courtiers, eyes wide with confusion and panic as the situation went from normality to what seemed like a combat drill.

"Tiberius!" Cadence cried, pulling her hoof away. "What is the meaning of this? You are acting hysterical and sowing fear amongst my court, I demand you tell me what is going on immediately!" Tiberius spun round, his face grim and his eyes pained.

"Princess, something is att-" The pulse came again, so intense that his caused the alicorn to cringe, raising a hoof to his head, hissing like a wounded animal. "Something is attacking the barrier!" The patriarch spun, pointing to two of the Celestial Guard as they fell into position. "Titus, Dominus, take the princess to safety. We shall hold the line whilst you retreat."

"Yes, Patriarch!"

Cadence turned to Tiberius as the two soldier approached, the confusion and fear plain to see on her face. Tiberius didn't fault her for such an open display of emotion, the intensity of the situation in such a short time had also thrown him as well. He was not prepared, there had been no time to survey the location, or to draw up a strategy. All he could do was trust in his training and pray to Faust that it would be enough. "Patriarch, I will not leave my court at a time like this." Cadence gestured to the courtiers on the dais, bunched together like sheep in pen of gleaming armour and sharp blades.

Hyperion and his attendants looked ready for a fight, the barrels of the mindless servitors opening like blossoming flowers of vat-grown flesh to expose a multitude of powerful weapons, the skin around their hooves bulging as bone-grafted weapons were activated, pushing their way through the skin. In stark contrast, Urial and his two striplings stood huddled together behind the imposing bulk of the Technomancer, shivering and shaking like always as they looked about them with wide eyes. Only Emmanuelle and her priestesses seemed to be aloof from the surrounding tumult of activity, passive and serene as always.

Tiberius ground his teeth together. "Princess, that was not a suggestion; that was an order." He made to turn away, more orders already flying from his mouth. "Set gauss-halberds to level three intensity. Aethermancers, I want telekinetic shields in ten seconds." He turned back, Cadence still standing and staring at him. "Princess, I ordered you to le-"

Cadence slapped him.    

The words died on his lips, his mouth agape. It was now his turn to stare. Cadence glowered at him with a look of indignant anger burning in her eyes, the aura of authority she radiated suddenly incredibly palpable. "Patriarch." Her voice was quiet and controlled, reminiscent of the calm before a storm. "This is my court, my inheritance, my home. I understand that as patriarch of the Celestial Guard it is your duty to defend me, and I admire the swiftness of your response." The glint in Cadence's eyes became colder, more fierce. "But I will not give, whoever my assailant may be, them the satisfaction of seeing me flee my own abode. I will not retreat, regardless of what you order." She turned away, pushing past Titus and Dominus, to ascend the stairs of her throne and seat herself upon it. The two guards turned back to their patriarch, eyes wide with disbelief and a hint of fear.

"Orders, patriarch?"

Tiberius could only gaze blankly at the space where Cadence had been standing, before another aching pulse ran through his mind, causing him to hiss again. The pain was a hundred-fold that which he had first experienced, and on some instinctive level, he knew that the barrier was coming close to collapse. Even know, the idea of such a thing seem ludicrous in its impossibility. The shield had stood for centuries and had never been breached. Even during the Vermillion war, when the Cyber Polities had seized control of the lower ledges of the Celestial Levels and bombarded the barrier with macro-cannons for five continuous days, the defensive bubbled had not faltered, shirking each blow like a pebble against a mountain of steel.

Whatever was on the other side of the barrier wanted to get inside very badly, and Tiberius had more than a sneaking suspicion as to who or what it was. "Return to formation, and prepare for combat," he managed, the throbbing in his mind lessening slightly. Nodding, the two soldiers turned and took up positions, their patriarch falling in behind them.

The Celestial Guard had formed up into defensive barrier in front of the dais, all one hundred soldiers arranged in a rectangular formation twenty five across and four deep. The front two ranks were comprised of soldiers armed with gauss-halberds; spears as long as Tiberius was tall, tipped with gleaming blades underneath which was mounted a gauss-rifle, a weapon capable of flaying its target at a molecular level. In the third rank were the duellists, monofilament blades held in the guard position, sharpened on an atomic level. The final rank was the Aethermancers, specialised in the use of combat magic, a potent and deadly form of arcane energy that had to be wielded with great care, as it was capable of harming the user as much as its intended target. Tiberius took up position at the front of the Celestial guard, armoured plates of ceramite crawling up his exposed neck to shield it before another assembly rose from his back, unpacking to form his helmet, the plume of phoenix feathers mounted atop still ablaze as ever. As patriarch, he was expected to lead from the front, as should have been expected of any true warrior.

For several long minutes, nothing happened, save that the pulsing in his head grew worse every time it came upon him, washing up in waves of sharp pain before briefly receding. The Celestial Guard remained at attention, a glittering host of gold and steel, ready at a moment's notice to throw themselves and at any enemy. The pulsing came to a sudden stop, the sharp agony in Tiberius's mind slowly disintegrating into the dull undercurrent of a latent headache. The throne room was silent, as every equine held their collective breaths.

Boom.

Tiberius nearly screamed as the two granite doors on the opposite side of the chamber shattered into a thousand shards, sending a wave of dust billowing outwards to enshroud the entrance. His head felt as if it was on fire, the resultant backlash of aethereal energy created by the destruction of the wards carved into the door threatening to drown him, as a fierce ringing filled his ears. He stumbled, his vision swimming as he tried to focus his witch-sight, eyes closed and teeth grit. Somewhere behind him, he heard somepony shout what could have been his name, but as he opened his eyes, what awaited him killed the words on his lips.

The throne room was awash with raw magic, ribbons and trendils of energy saturating every surface as they were released from their arcane prison, surging in a vortex of power. Each was alive with a riot of colour, so intense and vibrant that he was forced to closed his eyes again for fear of going blind. Opening them a fraction, Tiberius was able to make out the archway entrance, silhouetted as a dense cloud of soulless black. A pair of hooves gripped his sides, pulling him from the floor. Pulling his vision from the witch-sight; Tiberius got to his hooves, staring blank eyed at the cloud of dust beginning to settle opposite him. The pair of hooves tried to pull him back into the ranks of the Celestial Guard, into the safety of his brothers in arms, but he battered them away, instead stepping a few feet forwards. "Show yourself!" he roared towards the shadows, his head spinning as he struggled to stay on his hooves. "Show yourself!"

From the shadows came a Daemon.

A blunt, scarred muzzle emerged from the wall of darkness, followed by a leering smile of stark white fangs. Accompanying the hellish grin came two blood red eyes bleeding streams of purple fire, and horn of red ivory that had more in common with the brutish form of an animal than the delicate, fluted spire of an alicorn. Tiberius felt anger and fear rise in his chest in equal measure; the creature before him was unmistakable, and one he both hated and feared.

Lord Sombra.

Stepping fully from the shadows, the dark alicorn revealed himself in his formidable entirety. He was armoured in full suite of oily black-gray metal, the plates fully encasing his body to leave only the ash-gray coat of his neck and head exposed. It was covered by a cape of thick, vibrant red fur, trimmed on the edges with ermine-white that was speckled with black blots, which Tiberius knew hid bat-like pinions. His mane was a thicket of black hair, and atop his head was sat a mocking parody of the celestial crown; a circle of silver metal with a gem of sickly yellow mounted at the front, flanked by wings of silver and red metal. Sombra was massive, his body a mass of muscle and raw power; a far cry from the naturally thin and lightweight frame of most alicorns.

As Lord Sombra advanced, the conjured shadow followed behind him. It seeped forward like liquid, a knee high lake of impenetrable darkness. Tearing his eyes from the very obvious threat in front of him, Tiberius looked past the alicorn to the hole he'd rent in the wall; easily over twenty meters wide, the breach gaped like a maw into the heart of darkness.

But what concerned the patriarch wasn't the breach itself; it was what was marching through it.

Pouring through the gaping hole was a horde of alicorns, a raucous, seething mass of metal, flesh, and armour. They were a far cry from the proud and regimented unity of the Celestial Guard, the host a riot of clashing colours and hued pennants. It seemed that rather than fighting in a cohesive unit, Sombra's followers marched to war as a conglomeration of noble houses under the banners of their disgraced lineages, each bearing the relic-banners of their households. Groups were clustered around what Tiberius knew to be the more dominant houses amongst the fallen, spying even in his condition the marks of the Dashwoods, Rancourts, and Night-reapers. Each were households that had committed grievous and unforgivable sins against the crown, and as punishment for their actions had been cast to the lowest rungs of the Celestial Levels.

Lord Sombra had crossed fully two-thirds of the distance from the dais before coming to a halt, his warriors coming to a halt thirty feet behind him. The dark alicorn surveyed the Celestial Guard before him, a mocking sneer on his muzzle exposing his gleaming fangs. From the mass behind him stepped a mare, gliding forwards silently to stand by the side of her lord. She was, perhaps, the most strange and repulsive aspect of the whole throng, differing from the host in a most fundamental way.

She was a unicorn, a Pre-equine.

In comparison to the alicorn beside her she possessed a minuscule stature, the tip of her horn only  reach Sombra's chin, yet there hung about her an aura of immense aethereal strength. Robed in a thick, hooded cloak of dark purple embroidered across the back with three cornflower blue stars; cunning, half-lidded violet eyes gazed across the divide between the two groups. Tiberius watched as she glanced across the royal court, dividing her attention between the soldiers of the Celestial Guard and the civilians on the dais, sparing Cadence a few moments attention before she looked her gaze on Tiberius himself, fixing upon him with an intensity the alicorn found unnerving. Around her neck lay an amulet held in place by a length of silver chain, forged from the same black-gray metal as her lords armour; an inverted triangle of metal with a shining ruby set into the centre. Above the gem rose the profile of an alicorns head, slit like eyes marked with the same precious gem, with wings of gray and red rising on either side.  

There was something in the mares eyes that seemed to tug on a deeply suppressed part of his soul, something that called out to the more base instincts of want and lust in his heart. Desire was something Tiberius had long since abandoned for the sake of duty, but the females evocative gaze threatened to overcome his self-control. The unicorn herself seemed to radiate perverse sensuality, her toned legs and deliciously plump rear a combination for which many a mare would kill to posses. Tiberius felt himself twitch slightly, the movement near-imperceptible, yet a lavacious smile slowly spread across the mares face as she batted her long eye-lashes in mock flattery. She leaned in close to Sombra, who brought his head low enough for her to whisper in his ear. The exchange was brief, the dark alicorns attention flitting briefly to Tiberius before the mare pulled away, smiling like a foal on her birthday as Sombra nodded and pulled himself back to his full, imposing height.

Silence settled as the two groups faced off, the glittering phalanx of the Celestial Guard against the undisciplined mass of Sombra's forces. The dark alicorn spent a few moments analysing his opponents before speaking in a deep, booming voice. "Your most royal highness," Sombra began, bowing low even as the mock sneer remained fixed in place. "I, your most humble servant, offer my most deepest condolences for the death of your husband. The patriarch was the greatest example for any one of us to live up to, may Faust accept him into the gardens of paradise."

"Don't speak of such things, blasphemer," came the reply, gentle in sound but harsh in tone. The voice belonged not to Cadence, as Tiberius knew, but to the high priestess Emmanuelle. "What would a Necromancer know of such things as Faust's holy realm?"

Sombra rose, his sneer replaced with a wicked smile. He chuckled, the deep, harsh rasp carrying easily in the deathly silence. "My dear priestess," he replied as his mirth died, his smile somehow managing to grow more devious still. "Should you ever converse with as multitudous departed souls as I have, than you will know that a Necromancer such as I possesses more knowledge of what lies beyond death than any member of the your false order."

"Blasphemy! Blas-"

"Enough!"  

All eyes turned to Princess Cadence, save those of Tiberius and the Celestial Guard, who stayed resolutely fixed on the enemy before them, ready to die in defence of their princess. The alicorn stood on her throne, silhouetted by the blazing light of the mid-day sun outside. A corona of eldritch energy encased her body, concentric halos of dazzling power circling the length of her horn. The fire of authority in her eyes had been replaced by a searing inferno of outrage; a look that could kill. Her anger was palpable as the silence returned, every occupant of the chamber, even Sombra himself to an extent, listening with instinctive obedience. "Sombra, you have finally chosen to reveal the treachery in your heart?" Her voice was cold, completely at odds to the smouldering fire of her eyes. Sombra snapped from his hushed trance in an instant, his wicked grin returning.

"Come, come, my princess. I never attempted to deny it." Tiberius growled at the mocking edge in Sombra's voice, though his anger at the mockery of the princess remained impotent for now. "Long have I waited for the joyous day I could reclaim what was mine by birth right, and now your foal of a husband is dead, the only 'obstacle' standing between me and my destiny is you. As you can see, I have an army; I have made strong those you deemed weak. Dashwood, Night-reaper, Rancourt; what you have cast aside I have made anew. Their hatred for you, for your soft, decadent kind is mine to command, mine to control. My forces out number you four-to-one, little princess. Surely even royalty can tell those are hopeless odds." Sombra gestured to the assembled host behind him, his fallen warriors snarling at the enemy in pent up bloodlust. For them, vengeance was at hoof.

"But I will not have it said that my reign began with an act of cruelty, I intend to play the good king. So to you, my fair princess, I extend this offer. Relinquish your throne, your power, and your inheritance to me, and I shall let you live out the rest of eternity as my favoured concubine. I shall lavish you with the attentions and affections you deserve, and in time allow you the privilege of bearing my heir. Refuse..." Lord Sombra's horn began to glow an intense violet, and from the empty air in front of him sprung an Arcane Blade of bloody-scarlet, a weapon comprised of pure energy. Such a thing spoke volumes of Sombra's abilities as a wielder of magic; an Arcane Blade being one of the most impossible forms of combat magic to master. The alicorn didn't dean to finish his sentence, the summoning of the blade sufficiently eloquent to get his point across.

Cadence laughed in return, heedless of the threat. "Sombra, I would rather have my head severed from my body and cast to the Pre-equines below, than let you place a single hoof upon me." She shoot the alicorn a look of utter and complete disgust. "You shall never have my throne, or me."

Sombra narrowed his eyes, his expression grim as he nodded in acceptance. "Very well then..." He brought his blade down, signalling the assault. With a blood thirsty roar that reverberated to the greatest heights of the throne room, the horde of fallen behind him surged forwards, ravenous in its need to get to grips with the hated foe. War-cries and vicious oaths filled the air as the fallen host surged past its master, weapons brought to bear and ready. As the Aethermancers of the Celestial Guard raised their kinetic shields, the front ranks began to fire their gauss-halberds, surges of emerald green energy lancing forward into the coming foe. Sombra remained fixed in place as his warriors charged forwards, his harsh laughter resonating above the cries of his army and the screams of those who were already dying.

"It has begun."            

VIII: Anathema.

This chapter's theme tune brought to you by Noisia. Noisia: for all your Neurofunk needs.

The enemy came forward in an undisciplined and frantic charge, the warriors of Lord Sombra's host jostling and shoving against each other in their haste to draw the blood of their foes. Lances of brilliant emerald energy scythed through the horde, cutting down those unable to dodge the intense beams. Those that were lucky were killed outright, the atoms of their being flensed away upon impact to leave bloodless, but bone-deep wounds; Those who survived could do nought but tumble to the ground to be crushed beneath the hooves of those they had called allies, leaving the pristine marble beneath stained with a bloody paste of flesh and bone.

Behind them, an island of cold intellect amidst a sea of hatred, Lord Sombra watched without empathy as the gap between the host and the Celestial Guard continued to close, alicorns dying with each step taken. Though the dark alicorn himself gazed with passive, expressionless eyes, those of his witch beside him gleamed with dark obsession, a flush of excitement blooming on her azure cheeks.

The Celestial Guard only managed to let off three volleys of gauss fire before the enemy was upon them, the host descending like a tide of maddened beasts, screaming with barbaric ferocity. As the first warrior reached him Tiberius draw Starlight Wrath from his flank, the blades of the twin-headed axe flaring to life with an incandescent bloom of cyan power. The opposing alicorn before him, clad in emerald green armour, roared with hatred as he brought his fat-bladed falchion down upon Tiberius, close enough that the patriarch could make out every minute detail etched into the mask of blood-lust he wore.

It was an ineffective attack, one powered by hatred rather than strategy. Tiberius side-stepped it easily, the errant blade missing completely and embedding itself deep into the marble floor beneath. Before his opponent had time to recover, Tiberius swung Starlight Wrath in a vicious arc, the mono-filament edge of the axe's head slicing cleanly through armour, flesh, and bone, to completely hew the alicorns neck from his shoulders. The decapitated warrior remained standing for a moment, supported by the final death-grip it had upon the buried blade, before collapsing gracelessly, ultramarine blood pouring from the stump that remained.

Tiberius didn't have time to savour his victory before the enemy collided into the first rank of the Celestial Guard, and true battle began.

The Celestial Guard weathered the initial onslaught well, both the first and second rank dropping their halberds to present a bristling array of gleaming blades. Screams filled the air as those alicorns at the front of Sombra's host were impaled upon the weapons, their speed and the momentum of those pushing from behind rendering them unable to stop. A ripple ran through the front rank as they met the full force of the enemy charge, the weight of the assault pushing them back. For a few long moments the Celestial Guard were pushed back, the pressure of the attack forcing a brief alteration in position. Tiberius snarled as Starlight Wrath brought down another foe, this time burying deep into the alicorns flank to sever its spine. "Celestial Guard!" he roared over the din of combat. "Dig in!"

As one, the front row of the phalanx dug their hooves into the marble beneath them, synthetic ligaments within their armour pulling taught to hold them in position. Slowly, inevitably, the enemy assault was blunted, the stoppable force of their charge now matched with the immovable fortitude of the phalanx. The battle-line ground to a halt, the momentum of the host lost.

"Aethermancers, push!"

A crackling wall of energy burst into existence, a scintillating barricade of raw power between the Celestial Guard and Sombra's host. The wall held for the briefest second before it collapsed with an eerie howl, releasing a burst of energy that repulsed the warriors at the fore of the enemy, creating a gap of two meters between the opposing forces. Tiberius raised Starlight Wrath, his lips pulled back to reveal wicked canines.

"Celestial Guard, charge!"

With a roar that reverberated into the heights of the vaulted roof above, the alicorns of the Celestial Guard advanced into the gap, the whole phalanx moving as a cohesive unit. In a heartbeat they had reached the foe, the halberds of the first two ranks stabbing forwards, exploiting openings in their foes armour to cripple the front of the enemy battle-line. Howls of pain filled the air as the fallen alicorns collapsed under the attack, survivors pushing back to retreat even as those behind pushed forward to engage the Celestial Guard, crushing those who couldn't escape against the deadly wall of halberds. Another row of opponents fell before the Celestial Guard broke ranks, readjusting formation to take advantage of the new situation.

The front two ranks parted, the alicorns spacing out from each other to allow the duellists of the third rank to rush forwards, the twin blades of each weaving a web of death as the specialists took to the field, pirouetting with surreal grace into the foe. In moments they were absorbed into the maelstrom, lashing out at their opponents with surgical precision. With a bestial roar of his own, Tiberius broke ranks and advanced, his wings unfurling as he reared up, Starlight Wrath aglow with a nimbus of power. Another alicorn, one who had survived the ballet of death brought on by the duellists, leapt to meet him, his eyes filled with feverish light as he swung his blade at the patriarch.

Tiberius countered with ease, raising the haft of Starlight Wrath to parry the blow. These were the whelps, he realised as he traded one blow for another, severing the alicorns right foreleg with an undercut before reversing his swing and slicing through his opponents horn. Sombra would of course know that regardless of what numbers he could muster to his banner, that the Celestial Guard was the deadliest fighting force in the whole of Canterlot, a single member alone more than equal to twenty other Post-equines. Anticipating this, Sombra had deployed the young-bloods to the fore of his host, those youths whose hatred for the one who had destroyed their houses far outweighed their fighting skill. These weaklings were a shield, a crumple-zone of chaff designed to tire the Celestial Guard before Sombra let loose his veterans, who presented, if not an equal foe, a challenge for the Celestial Guard.

Tiberius growled. Sombra would find no use in such tactics here.

Ahead of him, the duellists were well into the thick of the fighting, where their superior skill and agility could be best put to use. They leapt through the enemy host, swords reduced to blurs as their incredible speed felled an enemy with each sweep and jab. Even as Tiberius watched, a single duellist overcame four foes simultaneously; dodging the heavy blow of a hammer to strike out at the hoof that wielded it, severing the limp before continuing the elegant sweep to decapitate another foe. The other two alicorns leapt in to slay the duellist, but barely had they raised their weapons in attack before the duellist was upon them, a flurry of violent movement that disembowelled one and left the other a limbless cripple.

Beyond the young-bloods Tiberius could see a second battle-line forming, one very much different from the savage mob that had led the charge. Sombra's veterans were a panoply of war, each alicorn bedecked in weathered, archaic plating. Whilst the youths had behaved like animals, screaming and cursing their hatred as they rushed forwards the second battle-line was silent, not a horde but a disciplined formation of blooded warriors. Behind the patriarch, the Celestial Guard continued to advance. Each time they came into contact with the enemy, the Aethermancers would once more repel their foes with a barrier of aethereal substance, before the halberds marched forward and killed those who had been stunned before they had a chance to recover. the whole formation moved with clockwork precision, not a single casualty yet incurred.

Realising  they stood little chance against their foes, the survivors of Sombra's initial assault began to pull back, a ripple of fear passing through them each time the Celestial guard advanced. A quick magical divination revealed to Tiberius that roughly a hundred and fifty of the first wave had been slaughtered, with the rest now put to flight, leaving behind a solid core of two hundred veterans in Sombra's force. With a vicious snarl, Tiberius crippled a fleeing opponent, Starlight Wrath throbbing in his hooves as it split the alicorn from wing joints to hindlegs. For a moment Tiberius and the duellists were the only ponies left standing amidst a quagmire of pulverised flesh and congealing ultramarine fluid, before they were once more surrounded by the Celestial Guard, each alicorn returning to their position within the phalanx.

The front ranks brought their halberds down, and once again a bristling wall of sharpened blades stood between Sombra and the dais. Before them, the fifty-or-so survivors of the first wave had reached Sombra's second battle-line, their relief palpable was they returned to safety.

How quickly their relief turned to horror as the first to return were laid low.

"Dereliction of honour shall not be tolerated," Sombra said over the screams of the whelps as they were cut down by their own allies, the veterans of the second battle-line hacking apart those cowards who believed it was safe to return. "The new order has no place for those too weak to follow the commands of their liege." With their now traitorous allies ahead of them, and the thicket of the Celestial Guard at their backs, the first wave reduced into a panicked mass. Trapped between two walls of death, most dropped their weapons in an attempt to flee, whilst a few others took to the air hoping to fly over Sombra's host and out into the gallery beyond the breach.

How wrong they were.

Throughout the assault of the first wave Sombra's witch had simply stood by her lord and observed the flow of combat with a devious eye, but as the retreating alicorns attempted to pass overhead she seemed to return from her trance-like state, a wicked grin passing over her luscious lips. Around her neck, the alicorn head wrought into the amulet she wore began to glow with blood-red energy, the ruby eyes springing into life as the saturating energy began to consume her horn. With an intense scream of both pain and pleasure, the mare vented the building magic, scintillating bolts of crackling lightning bursting from the tip of her fluted, elegant horn to lash out at those who were fleeing. Each time one of the bolts came into contact with a living body it reduced its target to a cloud of glowing embers, disintegrating the deserter into nothing but dust.

It was over in moments.

As the last of the survivors was reduced to nothing the mare ceased her spell, an expression of rapturous ecstasy contorting her perfect features. She was panting heavily through parted lips, her violet eyes half-lidded as the flush on her cheeks intensified. Lowering her hindlegs so that her rump was pressed against the chill floor, she let off a gentle whine as she began to grind herself against the cold marble, eyes now closed and her head tilted back.

Sombra let a brief smile pull at the extremities of his mouth.

"Well done, my dear Trixie," he acknowledged, briefly lowering his muzzle to gently bite the tip of the mares right ear. The witch let out an even greater whine, her body shuddering as it came into contact with that of her lord and master. Opening her eyes, she gazed up at the alicorn, her pupils dilated and unfocussed. Grinning, Sombra raised his head to lock his gaze with Tiberius, a much darker gleam appearing in his eyes. "A fine display, stripling," Sombra mocked, his words causing Tiberius to grit his teeth in anger. "It would seem that Shining Armour wasn't a foal when it came to the matter of succession, I shall take great pleasure in your defeat." The dark alicorn chuckled. "I would slay you outright, and mount your skull upon my throne, but it would seem that my witch as taken a liking to you. So for now, I will have to satisfy myself with your humiliation."

Tiberius glowered back at Sombra, his brow furrowed in anger. In his chest the burning incandescence of righteous fury began to built, the pressure in his soul climbing higher with each passing moment. Around him, the Celestial Guard bristled, the edicts of honour allowing no slight to the patriarchs valour to go unpunished. Tiberius glanced briefly from Sombra to the witch by the alicorns side, who was once more staring at him with her brilliant, evocative eyes. Again he felt the perverse tugging at his soul, the clarion call of desire stirring from its long dormancy. He growled, the deep rumble of an impending landslide, but the mare did nothing but smile back at him, the feverish light once more burning in her eyes.

Though he hid it well beneath his fury, Tiberius felt an undercurrent of trepidation in his soul. Sombra's blatant act of cruelty was a precursor, he knew, a glimpse into what would become of the princess and Canterlot if the Celestial Guard fell; Cadence possessed no offensive magical skills, nothing to provide her with a modicum of self-defence. If he was defeated here, Tiberius knew, the princess would have no hope of defeating Sombra, and would swiftly fall, with Canterlot following after her in short order.    

"Your tactics betray you, Sombra," Tiberius returned, bringing Starlight Wrath back up into a guard position. "The good king? I've never heard such blatant lies." Tiberius gestured to the carnage surrounding the Celestial Guard with a sweeping arc. "If this is the destruction that you would visit upon even those who would follow you loyally, than the terror that you would unleash upon the Pre-equines of Canterlot will be nothing less than Armageddon." The alicorn pointed Starlight Wrath towards Sombra, the duel-headed axe held steady in his firm grip. "If you wish to possess my skull, Sombra, than come and get it. Whilst even a single breath of life still resides inside my soul I shall never yield to you. I am Tiberius, patriarch of the Celestial Guard, and as long as I stand my brothers and I will fight to the bitter end."

The silence was deafening.

Sombra began to chuckle. It started as a near-imperceptible undertone of bass, like the grinding of tectonic plates; deep and powerful. For a few moments this was the only noise to permeate the air, before it began to rise in volume. Sombra's chuckle became a mocking laugh, growing louder and louder until he was roaring like a beast, his head thrown back and his fangs gleaming stark white against the charcoal black of his coat. "Really, whelp?" he managed as his mirth died, a vicious and predatory grin spreading across his features. "You believe that a speech and a threat is all it will take to make me tremble? No. " Sombra chuckled again, malevolent in every sense of the word. "Tell me, Tiberius. Do you honestly believe you have even the faintest glimmer of hope of defeating me?"

Tiberius snarled, his blood boiling in anger. "Come test my ceramite, Sombra, and we shall see who walks away victorious." The tension in the air was unbearable, the silence alive with a deadly undercurrent of violence. Tiberius held Sombra's gaze, Starlight Wrath firm in his grip. His opponent merely sneered.

Then Sombra exploded.

A searing burst of violet fire, roaring like the beasts of Tartarus, leapt from Sombra's scarlet eyes, turning them into a deadly inferno of black magic. The air itself became permeated with the shrill screams of the damned, wind whipping through the dark alicorns mane as a vortex of energy formed around him. Above him, swirling and coalescing from nothing came the aethereal forms of departed souls, clouds of iridescent smoke wrought into unholy visages of agony. An agonised wailing rent the air, eerie and tormenting screams that clawed at the fringes of Tiberius' mind. Sombra's muzzle opened, and from within came a savage, piercing roar; scarlet fire pouring from his throat. The Daemon leapt forwards at blistering speed, little more than a blur. With a unified cry, the second battle-line began its charge; teeth bared and weapons ready.

Tiberius had the merest fraction of a second to bring Starlight Wrath back into a guard position before Sombra was upon him, an avalanche of fire and raw power. Sombra's Arcane Blade whipped downwards, striking a ringing blow against the haft of Starlight Wrath, and forcing Tiberius to leap backwards. Raising his axe, the patriarch yelled a battle-cry and returned the blow, swinging his weapon in a devastating arc strong enough to shatter ferrocrete. Sombra didn't even flinch, His Arcane Blade dying only to reappear on the other side of his body, blocking the mortal blow. Tiberius could on stare in disbelief for a fraction of a second before Sombra raised an armoured hoof and smashed it into his face, sending blood flying as he shattered the alicorns muzzle.

Tiberius shouted wordlessly, pulling his weapon back into the guard position once more. His muzzle throbbed with a sharp pain, blood running freely from his split skin. Around them the world was alive with unseen movement, yet Tiberius couldn't spare it even a moment of his time; locked into the unfolding violence he found himself in. Despite the lack of an audience, the shades continued to dance, accompanied by dull screams and curses. Across from the patriarch, Sombra stalked as an abomination; eyes burning like the forges of Dis whilst tongues of bloody flame rose from his fanged muzzle. The Daemon didn't even seem to posses even an inkling of Equinity, fire snorting from his bellowing nostrils in a murderous parody of a Hellhound. The abomination growled; its Arcane Blade raising in challenge.

Tiberius accepted in a heartbeat.

Roaring with righteous fury, the patriarch charged forwards. "For the princess!" he cried, Starlight Wrath poised above to deliver a killing blow. Sombra stood his ground, his flaming eyes narrowed at Tiberius as he approached. With all his force, Tiberius brought Starlight Wrath down in a devastating slam, the blade itself powerful enough to split ceramite. But even as he brought the axe down, Sombra suddenly reared, his wings unfurling to reveal membranous, torn wings, more like those of a bat than a Post-Equine, or even a Pre-Equine. With a powerful beat of his wings, Sombra leapt skyward, Tiberius releasing a frustrated curse as Starlight Wrath became errant and buried itself into the marble where the dark alicorn had only just been standing. Ripping it free, Tiberius roared and opened his own majestic wings, giving chase.

Sombra was waiting.

"You disappoint me, Tiberius," Sombra mocked as Tiberius came level with him, the two floating barely ten meters apart. "For all your bold words I assumed you'd be a competent and, dare I say it, even a worthy adversary. But I find your performance somewhat amateur." Sombra shook his head, tutting to himself. "Oh, Shining Armour, what have you done, giving your most prestigious mantle to this stripling."

Tiberius had felt furious enough as it was, both Sombra's previous mockery of the princess and the adrenaline of combat pushing his heightened emotions to primordial levels. But the fact that his opponent dared to question his abilities, and make mockery of Shining Armour, his mentor, was more than he could stand for. With another beat of his wing, Tiberius propelled himself forwards, anger fuelling his strike. Sombra dodged however, spinning through the air with grace that bellied his muscular stature. As Tiberius rocked past, Sombra nicked him with his Arcane Blade, the ethereal weapons lashing out to slice through the gaps in the patriarchs battle-armour.

"Good, anger!" he shouted as Tiberius swung about, azure blood leaking in a thin trail down his armoured right hind-leg. "Let us see if your fury provides a satisfactory foe." Sombra's Arcane Blade shot forward like a bolt, moving too fast for Tiberius to block. Spinning, Tiberius altered its angle of approach to ensure it would bounce harmlessly off his armour, and yelped in shock when instead the bound energy gouged a furrow through the metal, sending showers of sparking flying as the internal circuitry was disrupted. Continuing his spin, Tiberius flipped away and returned the attack with one of his own, his horn becoming infused with golden fire as he released a lance of gleaming magic.

Sombra grunted as the beam hit home, the beam diffusing across the black-gray surface of his armour. As his Arcane Blade returned to him, Sombra launched himself towards Tiberius, his blade held low for an attack on his enemies flank. Thrice Sombra lashed out, and thrice Tiberius blocked, Starlight Wrath parrying each blow. It seemed that the weapon was impervious to whatever chaotic energies comprised Sombra's own armament, though whether this was due to some binding rune or a feat of ancient technology Tiberius couldn't say. He repaid Sombra blow for blow, swinging a vicious uppercut that forced Sombra to dodge back before following up with a reverse swing that caught the back of Sombra's membranous wing as the dark alicorn tried to pull back, the atomically sharp blade cutting through the flesh with ease.

Sombra didn't even seem to register the wound, pulling back fully in order to gain a brief respite; or so Tiberius hoped. A predatory smile crawled across the dark alicorns muzzle, wisps of fire escaping from between his fangs. "Not bad, patriarch, not bad. You were a bit slow on the uptake perhaps, but it would seem your fury gives you true strength." Tiberius frowned, narrowing his eyes at Sombra. "Now then, shall we begin?"

Begin?

Faster than Tiberius could comprehend Sombra was upon him, grunting as the dark alicorn bodily collided into him, knocking the breath from his lungs and causing his armour to shriek as it caved under the enormous force.

Then, the world became anarchy.

The two alicorns tumbled through the air together, locked in bitter combat. Sombra seemed to be everywhere at once, striking from unseen quarters with his Arcane Blade or snapping at Tiberius with his fanged maw and beating him with powerful, armoured hooves. Tiberius fought back with the ferocity of a caged animal, Starlight Wrath hammering dolorous blows against Sombra's armour. "Do you know who I am, you foal?" Sombra roared as he smashed his hoof into Tiberius' gut. “Do you?!”

"I am Sombra!"

Gripping the flailing hoof that held Starlight Wrath, Sombra gripped Tiberius' neck in a telekinetic choke-hold; forcing the patriarch to watch as he raised another armoured hoof. "I have watched Equestria burn thrice over and thrice again!" The hoof struck Tiberius across the lips, splitting the skin and forcing loose a few teeth, which rattled inside his mouth. "I have waged war against Celestia and Luna themselves!" The hoof struck against, this time against the armour of Tiberius' gut, the blow so powerful that the metal beneath dented, synthetic ligaments and servo-motors faltering as they were twisted out of shape.

Tiberius felt winded at the blow, the ethereal chain around his throat tightening. He was choking, black spots spreading like embers across his vision as epoxia threatened to overcome him. Sombra's hoof struck him over and over, Tiberius' muzzle collapsing under the weight of each blow. "I have stood at the Eternity Gate, seen the Realm of Magic in all its insane glory, and watched the wrath of the Divine shatter this world in an Apocalypse beyond anything you can imagine!" With one final blow, Sombra released Tiberius, the patriarch falling through the air like a rag doll; his limbs numb and his mind reeling in dull pain. His body impacted with the marble floor with the disgusting crack of bone shattering.

Tiberius screamed; fire coursing throughout his being as his pain receptors began firing impulses with even the slightest twitch. Raising his head, Tiberius hissed through gritted teeth, opening his swollen eyes to watch as Sombra slammed into the ground on all four hooves with the strength of a comet. Such was the force of his landing that he created a shallow crater upon impact, though Sombra didn’t spare it so much as a glance as he stepped out and towards the prone form of the patriarch, the daemonic fire that had possessed him dying and returning him to his Post-Equine form. “All these and more I’ve seen with my own two eyes, patriarch,” Sombra growled, his Arcane Blade shimmering back into existence before him. “But the horrors I’ve witnessed, the crimes and torments I’ve perpetrated, are nothing compared to what the Goddess did to this world...”

Groaning, Tiberius pulled his unwilling body back to its hooves, rising on trembling, weak legs. Somewhere inside him was a pain more agonising and deep than anything he’d ever experienced. Tiberius was no stranger to pain, his duty as a member of the Celestial Guard placed him at the forefront of every battle and drove him into the bloodiest melees; but none of the wounds he’d ever sustained matched the sensations that twisted inside of him. From his broken muzzle to the small nick Sombra had placed on his flank, the wounds seemed to sting at him with a disturbingly sentient malice, as if they were alive and deviously inflicting their own pain upon the body of their host. His head was spinning, the black marks on his vision growing and popping and growing and popping.

The world swum in a haze of blood and weakness.

“What the hell did you do to me?” he spat, blood drooling down his muzzle. Sombra grinned maliciously, bringing his Arcane Blade up and inspecting its scintillating, aethereal surface.

“The Anathema is a blade unlike any other, young stripling. Yes, it differs from most in its lack of physical form, but what truly makes it unique is its malignance.” The blade gently rotated in the air as Sombra spoke, as if it were some horrendous market item up for sale. “The Anathema has been in the possession of my bloodline for generations. The legends of my house say that in ages past, before the Shattering, Nightmare Moon, or even the Windigo’s, the first stallion of the House of Sombra swore a pact with an entity beyond even my ken, selling his soul beneath a moon of blood for the power to crush nations and dominate empires. What truly transpired between my ancestor and the entity he aligned himself with is a mystery that has long been lost to history, but the pact bore its murderous fruit in the form of this weapon.”

Sombra was interrupted as an alicorns scream pierced his soliloquy, drawing both his attention at that of Tiberius. Through the haze that warped his vision Tiberius made out the armoured form of a Celestial Guard, Dominus, as he charged forward in defence of his patriarch. To Tiberius’s infected eyes the alicorns golden armour seemed to be impossibly bright, its phantasmal aura dimmed only by the azure fluids that drenched it.

Sombra didn’t even bother to parry.

“Tsk, tsk. How rude,” he said in an indignant voice, dodging the blow. Sombra didn’t lean more than a fraction of an inch, but the blade Dominus held in his aethereal grip fell short of its mark, the alicorns own momentum pulling him in front of Sombra as he willingly imposed himself between his patriarch and the dark alicorn, curving the blade paths through the air to strike with a backhand. “I was engaged in reminiscence with your patriarch, if you don’t mind,” Sombra continued in a calm and steady voice, even as the Arcane Blade leapt from nowhere and parried the incoming blow, forcing the attacking weapon to come for a complete stop, locking its master and his opponent together in a deathly standoff. “Surely even the fine elite of the Celestial Guard are educated in polite etiquette and discourse, are they not?”

Dominus replied with feral roar.

“Hmm, I guess not.”

Tiberius could do nothing but cry out helplessly as the Arcane Blade pushed back against Dominus’ weapon, splitting the length of ceramite in twain before re-orientating itself and thrusting into Dominus’ barrel. The skewered alicorn let out nothing more than a mute, strangled scream before he disintegrated into ash.

“Now then, where were we?” Sombra asked as the remains of the Celestial Guard fell to the floor, a few stray flecks scattering into the air. “Ah yes, I remember, the pact. The Anathema gave my ancestor the power he desired and, in typical fashion for the stallions of my house, he proceeded to butcher his way through the northern realms, striking down those who opposed him and offering up those who surrendered as libations of bloody sacrifice to the one who bestowed such power upon him. Thus the Crystal Empire came to be, and was ruled by the House of Sombra for aeons, until, of course, the celestial sisters came along and snatched away what was rightfully mine by blood and inheritance.” A poisonous scowl briefly flitted across Sombra’s muzzle. “But enough of ancient history; let us move on to the weapon itself, shall we? The Anathema is bound to the House of Sombra through blood and corruption, a weapon that can be wielded by no other pony on the face of Equestria. Of course, no pony has been foolish enough to try, but I have been told that should one who is not of my house attempt to cast the summoning call their soul shall be sucked from their body and offered up as compensation to the entity that gifted it so long ago.”

Sombra took a few steps closer to the patriarch, stalking in ever tightening circles around Tiberius. “But don’t be foolish enough to assume it is merely a magical construct of immense power; the Anathema is alive, young stripling, and actively seeks to spill the blood of both the innocent and the damned. It cares not which, so long as its blood-lust is sated. Even a minor, glancing blow is enough to infect its target with a shard of its own malicious spirit, as your wounds currently demonstrate, and as for a killing blow, well…” Sombra’s voice trailed off as a fanged smile crept across his muzzle. “I believe the death of your comrade served as a sufficiently eloquent lesson.”

“You… monster,” Tiberius weakly cursed, trendils of surgical agony creeping through his nervous system, seeping into his body from the wounds the Anathema had inflicted. “You absolute… fucking… monster!”

“Come, come, young stripling,” Sombra replied in a voice of mock offense. “We may be locked in a duel of mortal import, but that doesn’t warrant the use of such appalling language.” The Anathema pulsed as it was levelled at Tiberius. “So why not pick up your weapon and prove to me you’re a warrior of at least some calibre, you little cunt.”

Somehow, even through Sombra’s chokehold and the ensuing soliloquy, Tiberius had kept his hoof gripped around the haft of Starlight Wrath, and with a bestial roar that pulled his lips taut to reveal his fanged canines he lunged forwards, pulling the axe from the gouge it had dug into the marble floor. Sombra spared one last rictus grin before flames once more engulfed his form and he charged forward, Anathema thrust out before him. For a brief second the two alicorns were frozen in motion, two opponents locked in a struggle of titanic proportions with the fate of Canterlot held in the balance.

The Anathema lashed out in a swift side-swipe, Sombra aiming to take off Tiberius’s legs with a single blow. His strike missed however, as his target ducked beneath the blow. At the last possible moment Tiberius leapt forwards, spinning to ensure that he landed on his back, a shower of sparks blazing behind him as he lid along the marble floor and between the larger alicorns legs, Starlight Wrath raised and catching Sombra beneath his barrel, shearing through his ash-gray armour to carve a continuous, deep gash through the soft flesh beneath, before emerging out the other side, slicing a few errant hairs from Sombra’s tail at Tiberius emerged, the muscles in his wings tensing to allow him to flip over onto his hooves.

Sombra reared back, his fanged muzzle split in a piercing scream that seemed to lance its way straight through Tiberius’s mind, causing the Anathema inflicted wounds to flare up in an intense burst of fresh agony. Turning, the Daemon fixed its baleful glare upon Tiberius, snorting fire as it opened its fanged maw and shrieked.

It was on him in a moment.

This time Sombra discounted his weapon; he didn’t even draw it into and attack position. Instead the Anathema faded from existence as Sombra charged forward, slamming his bulk into Tiberius. Sombra’s maw snapped at Tiberius’s muzzle, razor fangs coming within inches of biting deep into his flesh. They tumbled to the ground in a confusion of clattering metal and screaming sparks, Sombra growling like some hellish Timberwolf as he sought to seize Tiberius in his jaws. Grunting with the force of the blow, Tiberius felt Starlight Wrath fly from his grip. The two warriors rolled across the bloody marble floor, azure fluids and thick paste staining their armour as they came to a skidding halt, Sombra pinning the patriarch beneath his bulk.

He was too heavy for Tiberius to move, the alicorn grunting with effort as he reached up with his hooves and seized Sombra’s muzzle mere moments before it grasped him, forcing the ravening maw open. Sombra’s eye were already eerie enough as they were, two blaze infernos that seemed to gaze deep into the patriarchs soul, but from this close they were terrifying. Tiberius felt his heart seize as he locked his gaze with that of the Daemon atop him, feeling as soul-consuming chill wrap around his very core. As he struggled, prescient visions flashed before his eyes with disturbingly vivid detail.

For one moment he saw the throne room become as wasteland, littered with rubble and the bodies of the fallen. Through the wreckage stalked Sombra, his eyes aglow with witch-fire as he slowly advanced on the throne, were princess Cadence sat; isolated and alone. Sombra’s fangs closed, trapping a hoof between them, though for now Tiberius could feel his armour hold. The vision changed, warping and fluxing into yet another snap-shot image of what could be.

Canterlot was burning.

Vast pillars of concrete, the clustered high-rise blocks of Neon Heights, rose above a sea of roiling flames. Through the shattered ruins below terrified Pre-Equines fled for their lives, stallions, mare, and foals, galloping as fast as their hooves could carry them. What stalked them was a hoard of alicorns, growling and snarling like beast whilst above them flew the standards of standards of the House of Sombra, a six-point snowflake framed on a background of royal purple. Leading them was the dark alicorn himself, his witch stood by his side, both revelling in the destruction; Sombra cold and aloof, the witch blushing with perverted delight.

Sombra crushed his jaws together, Tiberius roaring with pain as his opponents fangs pierced through his armour and into the flesh beneath, pinpricks of agony shooting up his leg. Snarling in the manner of a rabid dog, Sombra shook his head, worrying the flesh in his grasp. Tiberius pulled back his other hoof to punch Sombra in the muzzle, but the blow was weak compared to any of the others he had thrown. It was the wounds of the Anathema, some detached and analytical part of his mind realised, they were slowly sucking the life from him until he was a weak as a Pre-Equine. The vision shifted again, somehow made more real by the pain that shot through his body.

A purple mare stood on the edge of a great plateau, gazing out at Canterlot in the far distance. Though she had only a horn atop her head, some deep-seated instinct told Tiberius that she was a Post-Equine, despite her lack of pinions. Beside her stood another mare, a cyan pegasus with a mane that was a riot of colour. Both wore looks of complete dread. The perspective of the vision shifted to Canterlot, blurred by the faint aura of the Abstraction. Even from this distance the plumes of smoke rising from nearly every ledge were easy to see, sharply defined in the thin, unpolluted air of the Outzone, the acrid stench of burning materials permeating the atmosphere. For a few moments nothing happened, save for the plumes rising higher and higher, then, suddenly, Canterlot pulsed. A ripple ran through the vision, radiating from Canterlot like waves in a pond. As it washed over the two mares they ducked down, forelegs raised as it to protect from some invisible force. Beyond them the Abstraction shimmered, before slowly, with a terrible inevitability, it began to crack.    

The visions came to a sharp, grinding halt as Sombra gave his jaws one last squeeze, causing Tiberius to yelp, before releasing the hoof. Tiberius, his vision swimming and his mind dulled with pain, could barely react as the dark alicorn above him snapped his maw down on his neck just above his shoulder.

He screamed.

It was as if Sombra was forcing some kind of hideous poison into his body. Lifting the screaming alicorn like a ragdoll, Sombra shook his head, goblets of flesh tearing off in his muzzle as Tiberius could to nought but weakly pant for breath. Giving his head was final, intense shake, Sombra released Tiberius from his grip, the patriarch tumbling weakly to the floor, using the last reserves of his strength to roll himself onto his stomach. Through the haze and pain, Tiberius managed to make out the form of Starlight wrath a few meters ahead of him, though it was little more than a faint silhouette in his dimming vision. Gritting his teeth, Tiberius groaned as he reached forward with a hoof to drag himself to his weapon, groaning as a lance of pain shot up his side.

Behind him the flames that wreathed Sombra’s body died down, replacing the Daemon with a Post-Equine. For a few moments Sombra watched the patriarch struggle forward a few inches before he reached up with an armour hoof and wiped the back of his across his muzzle; it came away slick with azure fluid. The dark alicorn idly gave his soiled hoof a look over, his tongue flicking loose a shred of meat caught in his fangs, which he began to lazily chew, savouring the taste of vitality on his tongue. Swallowing the lump of meat, Sombra raised a fore-leg and ran it down the jagged gash that Starlight wrath had sheared through his armour, the hoof coming away sticky with black fluids; even his blood was corrupted.

Sombra paused for a few moments as he contemplated the fluid on his hoof, gazing at it with intense curiosity as it mixed with the residual azure of the patriarch’s blood. “Nobody’s made me bleed in over eight thousand years,” Sombra recanted in a calm, almost bored voice, his eyes flicking over to Tiberius, who was only a few meters away from Starlight Wrath, his hoof stretched out towards the venerable weapon. “Perhaps you aren’t as weak as I believed, young stripling. This armour I wear is a relic from a time before the zones, much the same as my Anathema; a masterpiece of high technology, just as your axe.”

Tiberius couldn’t make out a word of what Sombra was saying, a fierce ringing in his ears blocking out everything save for the slow pumping of his heart and the rattling of his own laboured breaths. Starlight Wrath was just in front of him, almost close enough to touch. With a final push of effort Tiberius reached a hoof forward, hissing as agony took the opportunity to run riot through his body. Pulling himself forward with the dying vestiges of his strength, Tiberius finally gripped the haft of Starlight Wrath.

Though his body was in agony and his mind wracked with pain, he refused to be cowed by Sombra. He was the patriarch of the Celestial Guard, and duty demanded he fight on until his body had nothing left to give. Duty and honour… duty and honour. Those were the two words that had defined his entire existence. From the moment of his birth, when he had been taken from his mother in the custodian halls, to his elevation to the status of patriarch, those two synonymous concepts had defined his very existence. Tiberius had never known his mother, or his father, he had been bred solely for the purpose of serving in the Celestial Guard. Service to the princess was the only existence he had ever known, and for it he had sacrificed the basest concepts of family, friends, and even lost the only mare he’d ever loved so as to better shoulder the burden of his responsibilities.

He’d come too far and given up too much to fail now.

What would Shining Armour have to say if he gave up? How would he ever be able to live with himself if he turned to cowardice now? The protection of the princess was his one and only purpose, his sole reason for existence. If the princess fell here because he failed in his duties than he would have no reason for which to live, rendering even the concept of self-survival worthless. If this was where he died then so be it, but he would only go with his axe in hoof and a hymn of battle on his lips; there was no other way this would end.

A hoof placed itself upon his own.

Lifting his head with slow, pained movements, Tiberius came muzzle to muzzle with Sombra’s witch. The mare gazed down at him with smouldering, half-lidded eyes; the blush on her cheeks as full and fresh as when she had disintegrated the survivors of the first battle-line. The air about her was permeated with the thick scent of her arousal, the delicate, alluring fragrance cutting through the miasma of pain that dulled his wits. With graceful, fluid movement, the mare lowered her muzzle and licked the blood from Tiberius’s muzzle, the alicorn shivering as she came into contact. Even the mare’s presence sent thoughts of a most intimate and base nature through his mind. Pulling away, the mare closed her eyes as she savoured the taste of the patriarchs blood on her tongue, moaning softly as a shiver ran up her body. Behind her stood two alicorns, both armoured in heavy plate-metal. One tall and lanky, the other short and squat; both stared at Tiberius with looks of blatant envy, as if they were jealous of the attention he was receiving from the witch.

“You kept my dear Trixie safe I trust, Snips and Snails?” Sombra asked as he approached the small group, stamping a hoof down on Tiberius’s back as soon as he was close enough. The patriarch could do little more than grunt weakly, his strength all but gone, leeched away by combat with Sombra and the wounds of the Anathema.

“Yes sir!” the two replied in unison, raising their hooves in salute with perfect synchronous. Sombra smiled faintly at the display, stamping his hoof again when he felt Tiberius twitch beneath him. The mare, Trixie, looked to her lord and master with a pouting expression.

“My lord, please; if you hurt my little patriarch too much than I’ll have to wait months before I can enjoy the pleasure of his company!”

“Be calm, my dear. I have no intention of denying you your wishes. It is simply a matter that the Celestial Guard can be quite a hand full if not dealt with properly. I would hate for Tiberius here to bring harm upon you, though rest assured that if he did, the consequences of his actions would be… severe.”

Grinning from ear to ear, the mare took a few brief moments to take another lap of blood from Tiberius’s muzzle before her horn began to glow a bloody scarlet hue, a collar of the same coloured energy springing into existence around Tiberius’s neck, snug against his flesh. The patriarch prepared to move, his grip tightening around Starlight Wrath as he prepared for a surprise attack, but the moment the collar settled around his neck the fight seemed to drain out of him and he was left paralysed, unable to move his body even an inch. Smiling, the mare giggled like a foal. Sombra smiled also, but his was the cold grin of a victorious predator.

“Now, if you will excuse me, I have some royal issues to attend to.” Sombra spun on the spot, heedless of the way the movement caused black fluids to drip from the deep gash that Tiberius had opened in his barrel. As the dark alicorn turned away, Tiberius collapsed to his side, his hoof falling limply from Starlight Wrath. Unable to move, his eyes followed Sombra as he made his way through the wasteland that now was the throne room.

All around were the hallmarks of death and destruction.

The Celestial Guard had been wiped out, eradicated from the face of Equestria. Their corpses dotted the throne room, glinting gold where their armour wasn’t caked in congealing blood. Almost all the corpses had been hacked apart into a bloody confusion of stray limbs and fleshly lumps, pools of azure fluid staining the once pristine marble floor. Tiberius felt a small shard of his soul die for each fallen brother he saw, the only consolation offered to him being the fact that every desecrated body was surrounded by heaps of Sombra’s soldiers.

The dark alicorn had won, but it had been a highly marginal victory.

His vision spinning, the sweet emptiness of oblivion calling, Tiberius felt one last burst of clarity fill his body before he sunk into unconsciousness. Sat on her throne, surrounded by the dead bodies of twenty of the Celestial Guard and her courtiers, Cadence alone remained; isolated and alone. She hid her fear well, her face a mask of disgust as Sombra advanced, but Tiberius could see the twitching in her tail, the slight flicker of emotion across her muzzle. Briefly, Cadence turned her gaze from that of Sombra to Tiberius, meeting the alicorn eye to eye. Disgust ran through Tiberius; disgust for himself and his failure. He hadn’t been strong enough to protect his princess, he had failed in his mission to keep her safe as he had promised to do.

Tears began to well up in his eyes and he closed them, unable to bear the shame the princesses gaze placed upon him. As the first drop of clear liquid ran a trail through the azure stains on his muzzle Tiberius felt something inside him snap, something so deeply rooted in his instinct that he couldn’t even give it a name; so integral was it to his existence. Above him, he sensed the mare stir, and a hoof place itself on his cheek, the mare lowering her muzzle until Tiberius could feel her hot breaths in his ear.

“There, there, my little pony. There’s no need for tears. You’re mine now, and by the time I’m done with you, you won’t ever have to worry about feeling pain ever again, or anything for that matter.” The mares warm, smooth tongue lapped at his cheek as she removed her hoof, shivers of dormant desire running through the patriarchs body as she did so. Tiberius could do little but simply lay there and weep. He’d failed, for all the horrors the future now held it was the knowledge of his failure that troubled him most. As his slipped into blessed oblivion as single thought managed to make it to the forefront of his mind, hanging in the blackness as a final prayer for salvation.

Shining Armour, please forgive me.

IX: Beyond the walls.

Time had lost its meaning.

Tiberius awoke once more to darkness on all fronts, his body suffused with a dull agony that sapped at his vitality. Images from a half-remembered dream slipped through his mind, at once frighteningly vivid and frustratingly vague.

He had no recollection of how he had come to be locked within the null-chamber. All he could summon from his sub-consciousness was a few fleeting images of his defeat; Sombra's horde marching into the throne room, the sound of weapons clashing as the Celestial Guard engaged, a Daemon of violet fire savaging his flesh, and finally the perverse thrill of desire brought on by the witch's caress before he succumbed to exhaustion. After that there was nothing, only his dreams.

He was stood on a small disk of Megastructure six meters in diameter, a thin walkway connecting the disk to an access bulkhead that sat hidden by the shadows. The air was chill and there was little light in the chamber, save for the gentle heliotrope glow of his aethereal bindings which did little other than illuminate the immediate area. Four rings of the numbing energy secured his hooves to the floor, a further two locked around the base of his wings, forcing him to keep them unfurled to their fullest extent, whilst finally a sheath of the same power clung to his horn, neutralising his innate magical abilities.

For all intents and purposes, he had been rendered impotent.

He couldn't tell how long he'd been here, the null-chamber had been purposely designed to radiate an aura of permanent darkness with the intention of denying the occupant within any way of marking the passage of days. Deep within himself, Tiberius found the concept intimately terrible; the idea of an eternal existence defined by nothing but perpetual shadows causing an instinctual fear in him. The only events that punctuated the monotony being the dreams that awaited him whenever he slipped once more into unconsciousness.

They were different each time, some unintelligibly vast, others minute, confined to his senses. All inspired dread. His most recent had been one of the worst; he had been confined to his disk and rendered blind whilst forced to listen to the cries of his brothers as they were cut down one by one, Sombra's forces baying like Timber Wolves with each victory as the patriarch struggled to break free, to go to the aid of dying. The intimacy of each death, painted out in a canvas of audio stimulation, combined with his lack of sight, had sent his imagination reeling, spitting out terrifying and bloody images of destruction. It had only been at the end, when an unseen assailant had thrust a keening blade through his barrel that Tiberius had been released from his nightmare, though what he awoke to brought him little comfort.

Wisps of cyan energy crawled across his body, slowly reviving and restoring his shattered form. The healing process was the only factor that marked the passage of time, occasionally punctuating the stillness with needles of pain as broken bones were fused back together and desiccated wounds slowly knitted shut. Already much of the worst damage had been reversed. His ribs were once more whole, and he was able to stand with only mild discomfort. His muzzle had also been healed, reinflating like some macabre balloon, though the bruising had yet to die down. Internal stability had been restored and the bleeding staunched, but there was still a long, painful way to go yet.  

"You've returned, my dear."

His ears flicked upright, his body tensing. The voice was feminine, soft and gentle, yet marked with an insidious undercurrent of desire. Though he knew its bearer instantly, his dazed mind took a few seconds before he was able to reply in a hoarse, yet defiant tone.

"Witch..."

From the shadows that blanketed the walkway before him emerged Trixie, Sombra's witch. In the half-light of his bindings Tiberius could only make out the smudged outline of her silhouette about four meters away, petite and delicate, yet some part of him knew that she bore a lascivious grin as she looked upon her prize. The mare stepped forward into the light, confirming his suspicions; her eyes dancing with obvious glee.

"Now, now, my dear. Don't tax yourself with defiance, you're weak enough as it is." Trixie trotted closer, each step a balletic expression of grace. She moved with a sinuous dignity, her flank bobbing lightly with each step, sensual and tantalising. Tiberius felt a twitch run through his body, causing him to hiss as the sudden movement – the first he'd made since he'd passed out in the throne room – caused his partially healed wounds to rip open once more, thin trails of ultramarine fluid seeping from each tear in his skin. The witch's grin seemed to deepen, her tongue wetting her lips as she took a silent inhale, shivering at the scent of blood. She was much shorter than him, so short that he had to lower his head to look her in the eye.

"Why are you here?" Tiberius whispered, his teeth grit as each wound began to burn with a bone deep fire. The shame in his soul was already self-destructive enough, the humility of his failure to execute his duties weighing heavily on his mind; what more could they possibly want from him? Barely a day had he been patriarch and already he had brought shame upon himself, upon the Celestial Guard. What would Shining Armour think of him, what would Cadence? The thought was too much to bare. Trixie smiled at him before taking another step closer, the gap between them barely five feet.

"Your welfare is a priority of mine, as your death would be an... inconvenience to my research. I'm simply here to oversee your healing." Trixie's horn began to glow a bloody scarlet, the heavy amulet around her neck igniting with the same livid hue, casting a dull light over their surroundings. Tiberius felt a wave of invisible force wash over him, probing his body. An agonised groan passed his lips as he felt the force press into his wounds, aggravating the already dominating pain.

For several long, painful seconds the inspection continued, the force travelling the length of his body before retracting, taking the chance to perform one final stab into his wounds before it was gone, the worst of the pain with it. "You're doing well, much better than earlier." The bloody aura that surrounded the Pre-Equine dissolved, the shadows creeping forwards once more to reclaim what the light had taken. "I must admit, when they brought you in I was so very terrified that you would die."

"You've been... here... before?" Tiberius panted, wincing as residual bolts of pain twitched inside him.

"Oh, my dear, I never left your side. I've been watching, guiding your healing myself." With a flourish of her mane the witch closed the gap between them, raising one hoof to gently cup his bruised cheek. "Why else would your muzzle be in such a good condition? I wouldn't want any harm to come to such a beautiful specimen as yourself." The mare leaned in, planting a faint kiss upon his other cheek.

When the mare had placed her hoof upon his cheek, Tiberius had felt a disturbingly numbing sensation radiate from the point of contact, much like the effect the bindings generated yet stronger. However, when the mares lips ghosted across his skin he felt what little strength he had flow from his body. An electric flicker shot from the mares lips, tingling his cheek before sending a shiver run up his spine, causing his wings to twitch in perverse delight.

As in the throne room, the physical contact send a flurry of lewd thoughts and desires running through the patriarchs mind, conjuring images of a nature Tiberius had never experienced, but knew were of an intensely sexual nature; Trixie bent forward with her tail raised and core exposed. Himself mounting her, pushing the submissive mare to the ground as he rutted her. The mares cheeks flushed with an intense blush, panting and moaning in the sweetest cadence.          

Trixie pulled back, and the images vanished.

The patriarch was breathing hard, shallow gulps of air, wincing as the internal bruising in his barrel flared with each snort There was a heat beneath his skin, something raw and instinctual and as alien to him as the sensation of soil beneath his hooves. He closed his eyes, shaking his head loose from the mares hoof as he suppressed the images, forced them away to a place where they couldn't come back. A harsh blush stained his cheeks, stronger than roses.

"Oh my..." Trixie mused, giggling lightly to herself. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say someone was getting excited..."

"W-what black magic is this?" Tiberius managed, forcing the words from his mouth. The heat beneath his coat refused to die, perpetuating from one second to the next incessantly. He shook his head, heedless of the way the movement caused his bruising to flare, he had a much more pressing concern to deal with.

"Magic?" Trixie giggled once more, her cornflower tail slowly shifting left and right, rippling like liquid. "Tiberius, my dear, you don't know the half of it." Raising both hooves, Trixie seized Tiberius by both cheeks, forcing him to look her in the eye once more. "What you feel is simply your own instincts. True, I may have augmented their intensity, but in principle they remain your own impulses. What you're feeling is desire, patriarch, the lust that a stallion feels for a mare."

"Get the hell away from me."

"Hmm," Trixie mused thoughtfully, her eyes gazing into his before, without prior warning, she leaned in and kissed him. Tiberius didn't have time to react though even if he did he would still have been too weak to pull away from the mares surprisingly strong grip. Her lips met his, and once more he felt his vitality being sapped away. Trixie's lips were soft and gentle, their skin supple as velvet. For a few moments she held him in her embrace before deepening the kiss, her lips parting as her tongue pressed forward, with Tiberius being too weak to resist. Their appendages mingled, and flush of sensory stimulation rushing through the alicorn's mind.

Trixie tasted sweet, deliciously so. The air about her was pervaded with a thick, musky perfume, the scent of an excited mare. With each breath he took, Tiberius felt the scent diffuse into him, and felt his body respond in kind. From somewhere inside him, somewhere deep and primordial, a place of instinctual reaction, came an overwhelming drive to push back; to rise up, match, and then dominate the mare at her own game. It was this stallions instinct that made Tiberius push back against the kiss, his own tongue fighting hers, attempting to overcome and suppress even as she slipped from his grip.

Trixie giggled to herself, the motion translating into a faint vibration on her tongue. For a few moments longer she let the colt in her grasp play his game, letting him attempt to gain the upper hoof, before pulling away. Tiberius followed after her, leaning forwards a few inches before his restraints brought him to a sharp halt, briefly glowing a deep scarlet as they punished their charge for violating the area of confinement. With half-lidded eyes, Trixie watched the animal instinct within Tiberius rage for a second longer, driving him onwards, before the patriarchs more rational self reasserted its control and suppressed the urges. Her tail flicked from side to side in excitement, fanning the scent of her arousal.

Trixie found herself impressed, none of her specimens had ever exhibited such mental fortitude before.

On the other side, Tiberius felt a mixture of anger and shame swirl through his gut. What he had done was incomprehensible to his mind, the strength of the desire he'd felt completely overwhelming. These sensations were so alien to him, so strange and surreal. Never in his whole existence had such an animalistic fervour gripped him as it had just done. By ancient tradition every member the Celestial Guard was celibate, so as to better focus on their duty as the primary guardians of the royalty of Canterlot. There were some exceptions of course, Shining Armour had been bound to princess Cadence for over seven thousand years; nowhere in any of the royal edicts was it stated that the Celestial Guard were forbidden from pursuing more secular interests.

But for Tiberius, life and duty had always been synonymous. The product of selective breeding, his mother had been one of the most beautiful and elegant creatures to ever grace the face of Equestria, he'd been informed, whilst his father had served in the Celestial Guard for thousands of years. Tiberius had never known either of them, and never would; they would always be unknown ghosts to him, faint recollections of blurred forms at the back of his mind. Perhaps his father had been amongst the fallen, another of the corpses that had littered the throne room, bearing in his heart silent pride for the son he could never openly accept.

Now he would never know.  

Coming from such pedigree gene-stock as he did, Tiberius was the ideal warrior, gifted by heritage with strength and endurance, and raised to wield such abilities with instinctual skill and unyielding fortitude. Though it was clear that even armed with such gifts he had been no match for Sombra. Coming from such a background and charged with such duties, Tiberius had never even considered the concept of bonding with a mare, much less breeding one. To the patriarch life had revolved around the execution of orders and upholding the honour of the Celestial Guard. Only once, as a colt, had a mare ever caught his eye, but that had been so many years ago, and the memory of her had begun to decay; all he could recall of her was the scent of roses.

And now, this mare was dragging to the forefront of his mind the very instincts he had suppressed within himself. The heat under his coat had condensed into an inner sheen of molten fire, buried just beneath his coat and at complete odds with the pervasive chill of the null-chamber. Blood pumped through his body, his senses heightening. He was enveloped by the alluring fragrance of the mare before him, painfully aware of the particulates as they filtered into his system, pushing his dominant drive to yet further heights. He snorted, his breath steaming before his very eyes. Across from him, barely a few inches from his muzzle, Trixie monitored him with half-lidded orbs of violet, enticing and seductive.

One hoof still cupped his cheek.

"Tell me, Tiberius, do you know why I saved your life?"

"Ha!" Tiberius managed weakly. The embrace he had just shared with the mare had left him vulnerable, as if her very touch could sap the vitality from his soul. Even forming a reply was becoming difficult; he lacked the strength to push it from his lungs, and his mounting desire throw a haze up on his mind, making the formulation of any response a challenge. "Saved... my life? This isn't existence, being trapped in a... null-chamber for the rest of eternity." Trixie smiled warmly, completely at odds with the deviant glimmer in her eyes.

"Oh, resistance, so few of my specimens have ever put up a fight. Something tells me that you and I shall become much acquainted with each other, but for now humour a little filly, my dear. So tell me: do you know why I saved your life?"

"No."

A flush rising on her cheeks, Trixie leaned into Tiberius until her breath was tickling his ear, a few millimetres distant. "I saved you... because I wanted you." She closed the gap, taking the nip of his ear into her mouth and nibbling delicately on the soft flesh. Tiberius felt his legs weaken, and it was only the threat of punishment from his bindings that prevented him from collapsing to the ground. Instead, a hoarse, breathy moan leaked from his mouth, silent and submissive in comparison to his earlier aggression. "The moment I saw you, I knew I had to have you. It was the sight of you, so strong and beautiful, clad in gold; like an Angel of Faust." Trixie bit hard, Tiberius gasping from the sudden sensation, becoming aware of the unsettling fact that her teeth were unnaturally sharp.

The wound was minor, but deep enough for a small trail of ultramarine fluid to leak out. Moaning with delight Trixie began to suckle on the wound, her tongue lapping at the thin trail of blood. Tiberius breath caught in his throat; if what he'd felt earlier had been alien to him, what he was experiencing now was absolutely perverse. With each lick of Trixie soft, wet tongue, a thin needle of pain ran from his ear causing him to wince. Ordinarily he'd think nothing of it, but in conjunction with Trixie's physical contact each needle translated itself from a wincing pain to a deep twitch of pleasure. Once more a hoarse groan passed his lips, which only saved to spur the mare on.

"W-why..." he managed as Trixie took another bite into his ear, the trail of blood thickening slightly. "Why me?"

Retreating from the bleeding ear, Trixie took a moment to like her lips, wiping them clean of any staining fluid. Smirking with half-lidded eyes, she began to slowly circle Tiberius, her tail brushing against his muzzle as she passed, filling his senses with the thick musk of her desire. Circling round to beneath his wings, Trixie inspected the feathered pinion, her hoofs running across the downy feathers. "Once, there was a little filly who lived on a little farm, a farm far, far away at the base of a great city. That filly had few cares in life, save for her friends and her loving family." Trixie reached up, her hoof brushing against the feathers.

"And as the years passed that filly grew from a cute little foal into a budding young mare. She was the prettiest filly in her village, and all the colts would line up to watch her as she walked by. Then, one day, as that little filly was trotting home after a day out in the village, she passed a stallion on the road. A drunk stallion." Something about Trixie's demeanour changed, nothing physical; her ministrations on her captives wings retained their soft, petting embrace. But her voice... her voice seemed darker, haunted.

"The stallion knew who the filly was, and how she was the prettiest filly in the village. So, knowing there was nopony about to stop him, he grabbed the filly by her mane and dragged her into one of the fields. The filly struggled and cried and pleaded for the stallion to let go, but he kept dragging her until they were so far from the road and the village and the filly's farm that no one would be able to hear them. And then, he raped the pretty filly."

With a sudden, manic strength, Trixie gripped a feather in her hoof and tore it free, causing Tiberius to grunt sharply. Instinctually he tried to retract the wing, but his binding's wouldn't allow such a movement, and the null-chamber filled with a harsh scream and scarlet light as they punished the recalcitrant pony.

"He was much too big and heavy for the filly to kick off, and there was nothing she could do as he pushed her into the dirt and violated her. The filly screamed and cried but the stallion didn't listen, he just kept fucking her. In. Out. In. Out." Each word was punctuated by the faint ripping of another feather being pulled free, followed by a much louder scream; the two ponies bathed in bloody light.

"The filly felt so helpless, and had never been hurt so before , it felt like the stallion was ripping her apart. So she cried and cried until suddenly the stallion grunted, and quick as that it was all over. The filly felt something hot and sticky fill her up, and as the stallion climbed off her she felt it leak out of her, staining her beautiful body. The stallion stayed long enough to threaten the filly to never tell anyone, or he would come back and hurt her again. And the little filly promised not to through all her tears, before falling to the ground and crying some more."

"She cried and cried, and felt so scared and hurt that she never wanted to ever see another pony ever again. So she ran as far and fast as her young legs would carry her, until she reached a huge forest, and then she kept running. Things chased her, and monsters howled, but the filly never stopped, not until she reached an old castle deep in the forest, nothing more than broken towers and crumbled stone. Inside the filly went, wandering through old and decayed halls, followed by the castles ghosts, until she found a huge chamber with a chest inside."

"The chest was big an old, and on top of it was a warning to never open it. But the filly was young, and the chest seemed to old, so she opened it up and found inside a necklace. The filly had never worn jewellery before, her family were farmers and didn't have expensive things, and so she put it on, and the necklace made her feel pretty again. But the necklace did more than that, the necklace spoke to her, comforted her, and showed her why the stallion did what he had. That was when the filly learnt the weakness of colts and stallions, and how easy it was to bend and break them to her will, so that she would never have to feel helpless again."      

Trixie circled round to Tiberius' other wing, the previous object of her affections now ragged and worn, feathers covering the disk beneath it. "But that wasn't all the necklace taught the little filly. It reached into her soul, and saw the pain of what the stallion had done inside her; how she was pained to her core, and that's when it taught her the most valuable lesson of all..." Trixie reached up and began plucking feathers once more, though this time using a different technique. Unlike before, where she had ripped and torn the feathers loose with a savage violence, this time she prised each feather loose, pulling and teasing with disturbing delicacy; Tiberius was caught on a knife edge. Each feather plucked sent a twitch through his wing, triggering the reaction to retract it, but this time each pluck came slowly with surgical precision; enough to bear yet still painful.

He was forced to keep his wing held out as the mare worked, or else retract it and face discipline from his bindings.

Regardless, Trixie carried on. "The necklace showed the filly how pain and pleasure were so intertwined, how intrinsically linked they were, how at their greatest extremes there was no boundary between agony and ecstasy. Of course such a lesson couldn't simply be taught, and the necklace subjected the filly to sensations beyond endurance. But as the sun rose the next day, that very same foal left the castle. No longer a sweet and innocent filly, but a mare of instinct and passion." Plucking another feather, Trixie twirled the item in her hooves before taking in her magic. engulfed in a scarlet aura, the feather whisked through the air to beneath Tiberius' barrel, where it traced a trail of phantom sensation down his skin, causing the patriarch to shiver.

"I killed the stallion who raped me," Trixie stated bluntly, plucking away yet another feather. "I found him in a small cottage on a farm not too far from that of my family. All I had to do was wait until he went to sleep before I made my entrance. I bound him with my magic before I woke him up. The look that passed over his face, as if he'd seen a ghost. He was so pathetic when I cut him, crying like a foal as I slit his arteries and let him bleed out. That didn't stop him from engorging when I took his cock into my mouth though. The last thing he ever felt was my climax clenching around it, even as I drove the knife in my hooves through his heart." Another feather was plucked, Tiberius groaning as he felt a small part of his being torn away from him. Trixie was heedless.

"He was my first specimen, but he wasn't the last."    

"You... you monster... abomination..." Tiberius forced through grit teeth. His right wing, the first recipient of Trixie's affections, felt sore and brutalised, ultramarine blood dripping like rain from between ruffled, damaged feathers. He'd shed before, grooming was a daily ritual, but this was different from the slight itch he always felt when preening, this was bone deep, as if each feather removed was a discard piece of his soul. His left wing was not faring any better. Here the pain was more focussed, targeted at specific points along the pinion with clinical methodology. Trixie hummed appreciatively at the comment, plucking one final feather before slipping beneath his barrel and standing beneath his body, the tip of her horn poking at his flesh. She was so small that she was able to stand at full height beneath him without any discomfort, though it was quite the opposite for Tiberius, who grunted faintly as the unicorns fluted appendage nicked at his skin.

"After I was done, I thought the same of myself, my dear. When I climbed off that pathetic excuse of a stallion I couldn't believe what kind of suffering I had wrought with my own two hooves. The sickness I felt for my own existence was so wretched I even considered ending my own life. But as I held the blade against my throat I realised that, deep down in my soul, I had enjoyed making him suffer." The sheath around Tiberius' horn suddenly clenched around the ivory protrusion, forcing him to bend his neck until his head was nearly pressed against the floor. Trixie's muzzle came along side his, the mare nuzzling him in a perverse reflection of an affectionate embrace.

"You see, my dear, in this life there is only one difference between all ponies in Equestria, whether they are dominant or submissive. Many, yourself included, fail to see it, blinded as they are by concepts of equality and co-existence. It seems as if they actively go out of their way to prevent facing the truth, swearing oaths of fraternity and commemorating each other's acts, as if by sharing in mass exultation they ensure that none are superior. But the truth of the world still bleeds through; what the conscious cannot accept the sub-conscious will always act upon. Dominance and submission is intrinsic to existence, whether in a form as simple as a stallion taking a mare, or as complex as the formation of government. My lord Sombra understands this; he knows that the strong govern the weak by birth-right, it is simply a law of nature. Even you are a submissive, my dear. Dedicating your life to the service of your princess, throwing aside your own desires and hopes to accommodate those of one who is above you."

Purring to herself, Trixie stretched her body, her rump raised in the air and pressing against Tiberius's leg as she pushed her fore-legs forward. Tiberius could feel the heat radiating from between her hind-legs, invasively diffusing into his body. Trixie moaned appreciatively, wiggling her rump against him.

"It is this universal mandate that drive's me, Tiberius. It is what makes me the creature I am. That is why I saved your life, my dear, because I am a creature of impulse and passion, driven by my urges and the need to act upon them, and in you I have found the perfect specimen. One who is strong enough both mentally and physically to bear my affections, yet blessed with a natural disposition for submission. I trust that I will find you a most pleasing playmate."

Trixie pressed harder against Tiberius, bleeding warmth. The null-chamber seemed to have become even colder than before, the chill biting at his now exposed wings, nipping at the sensitive flesh beneath. In comparison Trixie's body was a furnace, radiating heat and vitality. Tiberius found himself breathing hard, his heart hammering in his barrel. Though he fought against what the mare was saying, tried to disregard the implication of her words, a small part of him understood the mare's perspective, and, most disturbingly, it agreed with her. The mare's ministrations hadn't eased the confusion in his mind; the splintering needles of pain in his ear, the soreness of his wings of his wings, both combined with the mare's touch and the burning heat he felt from between her legs, translating his bodies impulses into phantom undercurrents of masochistic pleasure. The pain in his ear a delightful lance that made him twitch, whilst the bone-deep ache in his wings caused a near-imperceptible moan to emanate from his lips.

Trixie smiled.

"Good, you're learning already." Emerging from beneath Tiberius, Trixie planted one parting kiss upon his muzzle. "In time I will teach you many secrets of the body, the many different ways in which to impart pain and pleasure and derive ecstasy from both. Until then rest, my dear, the path to true enlightenment is an difficult one, and you will require all your strength if you are to endure." Turning away, Trixie let her silken tail whisk across her captives muzzle, raising slightly as she departed to give him brief, tantalising glimpses of her core. Disappearing into the shadows, she spoke but once more as the exhausted and confused alicorn behind her succumbed to his dreams.

"I can't wait to get started."

≤ΘΘΘ≥

The barricade was little more than a palisade fence some two meters tall that circled the base of Canterlot, more used to delineate the boundary between the city and the surrounding farming communities rather than to actually provide any defence. On the inner side of the wall was a large mound of packed soil that allowed the guards to patrol along the ramparts, whilst each thick stake of timber had been sharpened into a crude, splintered point. Dotted along the length of the wall were several large gates, set at major junction points to provide optimum access to the city for arriving caravans of supplies. It was on the approach to one of these gates that Twilight found herself.

"So how does this work?" she asked as she watched Dash pull out a hoofful of folded and dog-eared papers from one of the inner pockets of her thick jacket. The cyan pegasus grunted in response, the cigarette in her mouth bobbing up and down as she fumbled to close her jacket back up again, lest she flash some unsuspecting passer-by or, Faust forbid, one the guards the numerous weapons she was carrying.

"We turn up, I show the guards our papers, you keep your fucking mouth shut, and then we're outta this shit-hole," Rainbow Dash replied, her wing flicking irritably at one of the innumerable flies that inhabited the shanty-town that was Ponyville. In the dark of the previous night Twilight had believed that the settlement was in rough shape, but in the sharp, breaching light of the noon sun she saw that her previous judgement had been a great understatement.

Above them, the rickety buildings and sagging tenant blocks had leant so close together that only a thin bar of light roughly a meter in width could push through, leaves the outer extremities of the street and the recessed doorways to the buildings swathed in shadow. More than once a half-caught flicker of motion at the corner of her eye and the faint, indiscernible outline of a blurred silhouette had caused her to twitch, though Dash never so much as batted an eye. It was only after she'd been spooked for the tenth time that morning that the pegasus deemed to comment.

"Calm the fuck down, Cutter. You want every low-life and two-bit mugger in this town to swarm us?" As ever the mares tone was nonchalant, bored even. Twilight turned to her companion to find that Dash was watching her with a faint expression of amusement.

"I think somepony's following us," she whispered, turning her head to look behind them. Once more she could make out little beyond the faint bar of sunlight that traced back along their path until the street veered abruptly to the left a few dozen meters back, blocking off anything else. Twilight wasn't exactly scared, the events of the preceding night had somewhat dulled her fear of dying, especially given how she had been chased by not only one, but two mutilated agents of the Celestial Levels across two zone boundaries, been shot at, engaged in a high speed car chase, a train shoot out, come face to face with a genuine alicorn killer, and forced to take an elevator with a half-dozen carts loaded with frozen corpses before crossing one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in Ponyville to collapse in a bed that felt like it had been made out of razorwire.

No, Twilight wasn't scared at all. But she still didn't fancy being knifed to death in some squalid back-alley for the few bits she kept in her saddlebags.    

"Of course somepony's following us, this is Ponyville! What the hell were you expecting? Bright sunny skies with ponies skipping and hugging whilst little foals go running around looking for their cutie marks? Cutter, this place is the lowest of the low, I've seen wasteland communities that are safer than Ponyville. Here you can get murdered for walkin' down the wrong side of the street!" Dash chuckled at the slight paling of Twilight's face. "So yeah, somepony's following us and probably waiting for the right time to strike, but you've got no need to worry."

"And why's that?" Twilight asked dryly.

"Because you're with me, retard. Nopony in this town fucks with Rainbow Dash!" The pegasus grinned broadly, chuckling to herself. "Except for this one mare I know in Cherry-Tree, she can fuck with me any time."

Twilight sighed.

Briefly, the tight enclosure of the street broadened out into a wide, open field of dirt and grass clods roughly a hundred meters wide. Here and there dotting the waste were small warehouses and storage bays, surrounded by busy traders and work teams loading up out-bound carts for the next leg of their journey, where-ever they were going. The road there were travelling on, little more than a trail of compact dirt about ten meters in diameter, threaded through the commotion up to the opposing gate, just visible through the tumult. The sudden surge in noise and activity compared to the hushed darkness of Ponyville's streets caused Twilight to falter for a moment, the sensory overload forcing her to come to a halt and take a few seconds to process it all.

Rainbow Dash continued on regardless.  

Trotting to catch back up, Twilight distractedly managed to keep pace, her eye caught by the bustling goings on of the depot. To their left stood a storage yard, a small central office in the centre of large expanse of earth, enclosed by a rickety fence. The yard was filled with stacks of crates and barrels covered by waterproof tarps to keep the worst of the weather away from the goods. Standing at the door was a work-team taking a brief rest from their labours, whilst from inside came voices raised in a heated argument over what sounded like commission rates. To their right was another work-lot, this time filled with an assortment of carts in varying states of repair, to one side of the enclosure were a group of sheds, each filled with a cart and repair team working away. Compared to the poverty-ridden lethargy of the settlement, this expanse seemed impossible industrialised .

"Impressive, isn't it," Rainbow Dash said from up front, veering to the side to allow a large wagon laden with timber logs to trundle past, drawn by a team of six burly stallions. "Most of Ponyville relies on the depot's for employment, either that or the sludge factories around the sewer outlets. Pony's from all over Equestria come here to trade their wares. Most of them are just from the farms and villages just outside the city, but a few of them will be from some faraway place. There might even be a few traders from Manehatten walking about, you never know."

"So how come we've got to leave the city before I can hook up with the traders Joe mentioned?" Twilight asked, dodging a porter who rudely jostled past here. It seemed that unlike in Geartown, where Dash had been able to part the crowd with a look, no one in the depot was even aware of their existence, going about their tasks with single-minded efficiency forcing the mares to duck and weave their way through an ever shifting maze of loud cries and sweating bodies.

"Because this is obviously the first place those Post-Equine fucks would send an agent if they were looking for someone who's trying to get out of the city. Come on, Cutter, you're smart. If Joe's gone through all the effort he has to set up your escape he's not going to fuck up at the last minute. Caravans leave from Ponyville every day, so it stands to reason that if someone wanted to leave this is where they'd come. Nobody would stop to think that someone who wanted to hook up with some traders would leave the city by hoof."  

"But what if the Celestial Levels calculated for that?"

"No extraction is easy, I'll be the first to admit that most of my job is just blind luck. Maybe one day fortune will prove to be the fickle bitch she is and give up on me, but she's done me well so far."

"Thanks, I feel so much better."

"Don't mention it."

Dodging another work team, the mares pushed their way through the crowd to reach the gate. One of the multiple entrances into the city, the palisade defence was flanked on either side by two tall watch-posts also constructed of timber. Compared to the hustle and bustle of the depot the area surrounding the gate was calm and well ordered, a small queue of carts and wagons lining up on either side to be let in. Guards dressed in the golden livery of Canterlot patrolled, ensuring compliance with the law and monitoring the flow of traffic. As each cart pulled up to the gate, the work-team hauling it had to stop and each pull out a small slip of paper, which one of the guards would inspect and clear whilst another checked on the cargo the wagon was carrying.

A smaller side gate was in use for the pedestrian traffic, currently unused. Though it wasn't uncommon for ponies to walk into the city, the majority of farming communities in the agricultural belt surrounding Canterlot were far enough away to ensure that such an excursion was always an undertaking, and never something performed lightly. Through the open gate came a soft breeze, not a chilling as the one that had blown across Ponyville the night before. As they arrived at the pedestrian gate a guard imposed himself between the two mares and the portal, his eyes fixed inquisitively upon them.

"Papers?" he asked in the soft, lilting tone that seemed to be the primary accent for ponies living around the base of the city. Dash passed the wad of folded documents she'd taken out earlier, standing in silence. The guard unfolded the paper, pocketing the two bits he found nestled inside without batting an eye. As he scanned the documents Twilight noted that he seemed to be a bit scrawny for a guard, his armour seemed to hang off him, and his helmet was so loose that it had been fixed into place with an impromptu buckle made of string. His only armament was a spear, as was that of the other guards, one of whom eyed the two mares from atop the palisade mound.

Briefly Twilight questioned the need for such security around the base of the city, even if it was only a formality. In its whole history Canterlot had never faced an external threat from beyond its borders; the great city of Equine kind had always been paramount in its strength. Nothing had ever emerged from beyond the borders of the Everfree, even the communities that tended to the fields lived in idyllic safety. But even as these thoughts turned in her mind Shining Armour's warning came back to her. Things were changing in Canterlot, the next great realignment was coming, and the potential ramifications of such an event would have lasting consequences for the whole of Equestria, not just Canterlot.

The mare looked back to the guard, who was now flicking to another paper. Had the colt ever used the weapon he carried? Furthermore did he even know how to use it? Perhaps the guard himself had never even considered such a thing, or even the whole of contingent. The weapons and armour they wore were ceremonial, simply a part of the job. There'd never been any need to know how to wield their weapons, how to act in formation; the chances of ever needing to were nigh-on zero. But perhaps if Shining Armour was right, and the world really was only a step away from plunging into chaos, what would happen then?

When the time came, would the defences of Canterlot hold?

Finishing his inspection, the guard refolded the papers and gave them back to Dash, who swiftly pocketed them before another official came over and realised they were cheap forgeries she'd bought with some spare change earlier that day. Twilight knew the whole act had been a sham, the stallion had been prepared to let them pass the moment he'd received his cut, but smiled sweetly anyway when he stepped to the side, allowing them passage. "Everythin' checks out, ya'll have a good day now and travel safe."

"Cheers," Dash replied, sparing him a nod before she stepped past. Twilight followed after her, pushing her glasses further up the bridge of her muzzle as the guard looked her way.

And then she had left Canterlot, it was as simple as that.

Beyond the palisade the breeze blew a little stronger, bringing with it the scents of wild-flowers, apple trees, and the faint rustling of wheat fields. The fields and pastures of the agricultural belt stretched for a full five leagues before reaching the border of the Everfree Forest, a riot of gold, green, and vibrant autumn red. Here and there were small farming communities, their buildings to small that the only way to pin-point their exact location was by the thin plumes of smoke rising from their chimneys. This was the breadbasket of Canterlot, an enormous ring of fertile land that had for generations fed the last city of Equine-kind.

The dirt road stretched on ahead of them, its path as straight as an arrows flight. Produce grew right up to the verge, hemming them in with walls of gold. The serenity of the place struck the unicorn as profoundly different to anything she'd ever experienced before. All her life Twilight had lived in a world of neon lights, growling cars, and screeching commuter trains. There were no parks up in Neon Heights, no open expanses that even came close to enormity of what lay before her. It suddenly hit her that, for the first time in her life, she was actually walking on the face of Equestria, not an artificial layer of concrete, but the soil of the world itself. She lifted a hoof, staring with awe at the granules of dirt that fell from it. Why it had taken her so long to realise she couldn't fathom, but now it was unlikely this was an experience she would ever be capable of forgetting.

"Cutter! Get your rump over here!" Rainbow Dash called back to her, the pegasus already some distance ahead of her.

Cantering back to her side, Twilight found herself distracted by almost everything around her. This world was so different from hers, so... organic. The way the wheat stalks rippled and bent in the breeze struck her as beautifully hypnotic, and as they continued on down the road she found herself falling behind more than once. Eventually, Dash chuckled openly. "Eeyup, I remember the first time I came out here too. Way, way back when I was a little filly, my mum used to bring me out here for flying lessons with some other foals from one of the villages. Man, those  were the days. Fasted in the group I was, zipping everywhere. I even won a few junior trophies too. Than some filly the next village over went missing and this guy turned up dead in his home. Really weird to, if I'm remembering it right he was raped whilst he was being killed. Mum didn't really bring me out here much after that."

That knocked Twilight from her reverie, the mare shaking her head to dislodge the unsettling image Rainbow Dash had placed there. Finally succeeding a few seconds than was comfortable she returned her attention to the road, and in turn her ultimate destination. "So now what? How far are you taking me before we reach the meeting point with Joe's traders?" Privately, Twilight hoped that there was still some way to go before she and Dash parted company. She hadn't known the mare for more than a day, and Dash was an expressed xenophobe, but Twilight still found herself somewhat attached to the pegasus. Perhaps it was Dash's brash confidence, or her gung-ho attitude to life, but Twilight felt like she was in good hooves when she was with the pegasus. Perhaps Joe had been right, and Twilight was now fairly certain of it herself; Dash really was the best extractor in the business.

"We've still got a fair way to go before we split up, no need to worry about that, Cutter." Dash raised a hoof, pointing just slightly to the left of the road. "We follow this road for about four leagues until we reach a village called Appaloosa where we'll be stopping for the night. The place is run by a stallion called Braeburn, he's Macintosh's cousin, and he'll give us a place to rest up. After that all we've gotta do it get through the Everfree and head through the Outzone just a little further before we reach the meeting point. Should take us another three days, two if we put the pace on. Oh, and don't ask me how the two are related; the apple family tree's got branches all over Equestria."

Three days.

That was all that was left between now and the true beginning of Twilight's journey into the unknown. Objectively, seventy two hours was still a long period of time, but inside the mare knew that the days would be sure to fly by. Already she had experienced so much that over the past nine years she wouldn't even have dreamt in her most ludicrous fantasies, and yet the clock was still ticking, winding down tick by tock towards her inevitable departure with unstoppable finality. What would it be like, she wondered, to see Canterlot, her home for both the past nine years and unknown life in the Levels, slowly disappearing over the horizon? What would it be like to walk in the red wasteland of the Outzone, to feel the gales of that bleak world whipping through her mane? There was so much about the world she had yet to experience, so many places to be visited and sights that had yet to be seen.

And yet, for all that she had been through, and all that she had yet to face, Twilight found that, deep in her soul, she was not afraid.

She was more ready than ever.

X: Welcome to Appaloosa.

Welcome to the precinct of Appaloosa.

The sign was rough and old, cobbled together from four planks of dark brown wood that had been smoothed over by generations of exposure to the elements. There was little of note about it, it simply sat at the side of the dirt road, some wild flowers springing into life at its base, but it made Rainbow Dash smile all the same.

They'd been walking for most of the day, following the road as it led out from Canterlot towards the Everfree Forest, mostly straight but occasionally weaving past fields and bridging over irrigations ditches that criss-crossed the fields. Overhead the sun was beginning to lower, the sky turning a faint burnt orange as the celestial body sunk towards the horizon. Though the evening was still early the two halves of Luna's moon were faintly visible, two crescent slashes of silver hung so far above in the cold void, circled by a vast field of debris which twinkled in the dying light.

For the entirety of the trek, Twilight had found herself deep in contemplation, reflecting on how different the world seemed down on the surface. From the ledges of Neon Heights the fields of the agricultural belt were a patchwork of gold's, green's, and autumn red's, spread out in a vast ring around the base of the city, divided up into blocks by the eight main tracks that led out from Ponyville and enclosed by the radial-road, which was in turn enveloped by the Everfree. From above, where she had been afforded a bird's eye view of the surrounding lands, Twilight had always enjoyed the strange, geoglyphic geometry of the agricultural belt, neatly segregated and ordered as if Faust herself had reached down from the heavens and imparted some minute fragment of her celestial order to the rural land.

But down on the surface, the orderly geometrics of the agricultural belt seemed to disappear entirely. Though Twilight knew that beyond her sight the fields and farms were neatly divided different precincts, each specialising in a different form of production, on the ground it was another matter entirely. Here the urban planning and controlled layout's she'd been so used to were replaced with a wild, unrestrained randomness that she had trouble equating with. For a mare who was used to her environment being carved up into housing blocks, boulevards, and grand magisterial buildings, the sudden absence of artificial structures left her feeling exposed and so very, very tiny; a moat of dust against the sheer enormity of the world. She'd considered voicing her thoughts to Dash, but held back on account that the pegasus would most likely mock her for it.

Dash herself seemed immune to the culture shock that Twilight was facing. If anything, it seemed as if being out amongst the wide, open spaces of the agricultural belt filled the pegasus with an increased vitality and newborn zest for life. Unlike in Canterlot, where she'd remained firmly grounded on all four hooves, the mare had now taken to the skies with abundant glee, unfurling her wings and rising up into the clear skies to swoop and soar to her heart's content. There was something foal-like about her actions, in her wide-spread grin as she tumbled through the air, spinning and twisting with balletic grace, that reminded Twilight of just how young the pegasus probably was.

She knew that Rainbow Dash was far from the most physically mature pony; her stature was lean, whip-cord thin, not to mention short, and she didn't look much older than roughly twenty, twenty two at a push. But the way she carried herself, with such natural, assertive confidence, and the way she'd acted over the past day or so, calm and level headed, even when firing from a high-speed cab at a genetically engineered agent of the Celestial Levels hell-bent on killing both her and her package. Macintosh's words came back to here, about the mare Fluttershy, and her untimely death even as she journeyed towards salvation. How much had Rainbow Dash truly been through, what forces had acted upon the mare to shape her thus. Life, it seemed, had matured Rainbow Dash beyond her years, possibly far beyond them, and yet even then glimpses of the young filly within continued to shine through.

Past the sign, the road was flanked on either side by apple trees, each at least more than ten meters in height and in full bloom with juicy, ruddy red apples. In the orange light of the setting sun dappled shadows slanted across the road, bathing it in an arboreal glow. It was a great difference to the endless golden sea of wheat fields they had passed throughout the day; where the wheat shivered and flowed in the gentle breeze that came in rolling waves across the fields, the apple trees stood tall and resolute against the elements, their leaves rustling only faintly. Approaching the sign, Dash came into landing, her hooves returning to the surface of Equestria.

"Well, this is it. Appaloosa's only about another half hour or so from here. If everything went according to plan than Braeburn should know we're coming," the pegasus said, giving her wings one final stretch before tucking them back into place. "No more flying from here on out, the tree's here grow thick as fuck and don't take shit from anypony; last time I crashed into a branch and had my left wing out of action for four fucking months."

Nodding absently, Twilight didn't stop her pace, Rainbow Dash falling in beside her as they passed the sign and entered the shadows of the apple trees. The trees themselves were grown in uniform rows, spread from each other with exacting precision, creating shadowy avenues that led off from the main road deeper into the orchards. The air was still and silent, save for the motion of the leaves. Overhead the branches had grown together to create an interlocking arch over the road, leaving it swathed in dull green shadows. Compared to the previous vastness of the wheat fields the sudden enclosure gave Twilight a faint sense of claustrophobia; even Rainbow Dash seemed a little deflated now that the open sky was no longer visible above.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, both mares privately adjusting to the silence of the orchard, before Twilight attempted to rouse up a conversation with Rainbow Dash. They'd spent most of the day in silence, Twilight trekking onwards whilst Dash had capered in the skies above, and in all honesty the mare had been fine with the arrangement. But now, as they were closing in with their destination for the evening, Twilight began to feel a sense of unease begin to worm its way through her mind.

Though she had done her best to disguise her true nature from Rainbow Dash, her encounter the night before with Big Macintosh had planted a nagging fear at the back of her thoughts. Twilight hadn't spoken or acted out of the ordinary, and yet it had taken Macintosh moments to figure out her true identity; what if Dash did the same? Granted, the pegasus wasn't a former cyborg who'd spent a great deal of her life fighting and killing alicorn's, but she'd already revealed herself to be incredibly xenophobic, against alicorn's specifically. Should Rainbow Dash ever discover her true identity, Twilight had the suspicion that her life would be ending shortly, if not instantly, afterwards. Of course she couldn't fault the pegasus for her opinions, she bore a terrible loss thanks to those in the Celestial Levels, a loss that had changed her whole world, but that still didn't make the mare any more keen to be the object of Dash's anger.

"So, Rainbow Dash..." Twilight began, then mentally face hoofed herself; the words had come out forced and awkward. She briefly entertained the notion that her facade had slipped before chastising herself. She was being paranoid, no way would one awkward sentence be the death of her, Macintosh had just put doubt in her and nothing more. She'd lived for nine years without anyone discovering her true identity, and besides, she'd only known Rainbow Dash for a day at the most, of course the conversation wasn't going to flow easily; she barely knew the mare. Clearing her throat Twilight began again, which was good given how it seemed that Rainbow Dash hadn't heard her the first time. "Dash, can you tell me a bit about this Braeburn pony we'll be meeting?"

"Hmm," Dash responded, lost inside her own head. "You say something, Cutter?"

"Can you tell me about Braeburn?"

"What ya wanna know?"

"How'd a farmer in the agricultural belt get involved in a criminal syndicate?"

"Syndicate's the wrong word for Joe's organisation, Cutter."

"You know what I mean."

Dash gave her an odd look before shrugging, evidently not many packages asked questions. "Braeburn's a cousin of Macintosh, or something like that, he's never exactly clear. The apple family tree's got branches in just about every region of Equestria, and they're a fucking tight knit bunch too. Most folks don't mess with the apple family; if you think Joe's a dangerous pony to cross then you do not, and I will repeat that, you do fucking not wanna mess with one of the apple family. Earth ponies, the whole lot of 'em, and fucking strong ones too. Braeburn's got a buck that'll smash your teeth to fucking bits, and Macintosh is even stronger than him if you'd believe. That's another reason Joe keep Macintosh around; whenever some dumb-fuck is stupid enough to try and cross him, he'll just round 'em up and send 'em down to Macintosh for some... dissuasion." Rainbow Dash shook her head. "Poor fuckers, doesn't help that Mac usually takes it too far and has to send 'em down to Ponyville to get rid of the evidence."

Twilight grimaced, very thankful she hadn't been on the receiving end of such a buck, though it sent a shiver through her body thinking of just how close she'd come to getting one.

"Anyway, the reason Braeburn's in on this is because he does a service for Macintosh, and a pretty big one too. You see, Mac's got a sister, cute little thing called Applebloom. She used to be a cyborg like Macintosh was, but after he got exiled from his polity for war crimes, or maybe something else, Mac's never told me, he had brought his sister down with him. Of course Mac didn't want his sister living in a brothel with a bunch of whores, and I get that, I sure as fuck wouldn't want my little sis growing up with a pervert like Aloe walking about under the same roof. So, he sent her out to live with Braeburn in Appaloosa. That's where most of his cut from Joe's business goes, he sends it out to cover the bills." Rainbow Dash made a strange expression, a mix between a frown and a melancholy smile. "He's a good colt, Macintosh. A fucking ugly one, but at least he's got his heart in the right place." There was a pause. "Well, most of it."

"I see," Twilight replied, nodding. She'd seen Macintosh pass Rainbow Dash a small bag of bits before they'd left his basement abode, but she hadn't really lingered on the reason why; she thought it had just been to bribe somepony at a later point in their trip.

After that they lapsed once more into silence, the only noise being the faint movement of the leaves above them. Other than that there hung an oppressive, almost eerie silence. Twilight had seen trees before, the few small potted shrubs kept at the entrances to municipal buildings and hospitals, but never one's on such a scale as those that surrounded her now. They soared above her, tall, thick, and strong, as if nature had decided to given the word 'bulwark' a physical form. It was as if the orchard were populated by silent giants of timber, slumbering through the seasons. Even the air about them seemed stilled, as if in awe of the organic constructs.

Yet Twilight knew that by the standards of what was yet to come, these trees were miniscule. In the Everfree the calm, regulated order of the orchard would give way to true nature, in its most wild and unbridled form. There, the trees wouldn't be set out in neat rows. There, creatures of independent will and animalistic thought would prowl and stalk her, waiting for a moment to attack and seize her as prey. A shiver of instinctual fear ran through Twilight at the thought of unseen predators watching her, setting out their ambush, steadily moving closer and closer, inch by inch, until they were close enough to lock their jaws around her delicate neck and wring the life from her as she choked on her own blood and gasped for–.

"RAINBOW DASH!"                  

Twilight nearly leapt from her skin, squealing with fear as a loud, high-pitched voice suddenly disturbed the graphic revelry of her thoughts. Snapping her head from left to right, Twilight became aware that without even realising they'd left the gloomy avenue of the tree-lined road, emerging into a small, fenced clearing dominated by the hulking form of a large, red barn. Charging towards them from the barns open doors was the small form of a filly, moving much faster than any young pony her age had any right too. Though she moved at nearly a blurring speed, Twilight could make out the light, olive yellow shade of her coat, whilst her mane and tail were both a carmine red, the mane bound up by a bow of light pink fabric. Barely twenty feet away, the filly leapt into the air, aiming straight for Rainbow Dash.

The living missile made contact at full force, the young filly wrapping her hooves around the pegasus' neck and gripping tight, sending both of them tumbling to the ground before rolling into the grass on the other side of the road, a thick cloud of kicked-up dust obscuring them. "Rainbow Dash!" Twilight cried out, her hoof raised; unsure about whether or not the mare was in danger. But as the dust settled, what she saw surprised her. Dash and the young filly were locked together in a tight hug, both wearing grins of absolute happiness. The filly had her eyes closed, her cheek nuzzling against the mares barrel as Dash petted her hair in a surprisingly maternal fashion. They held the embrace for a few moment longer, Twilight uncertain about whether she had any right to intervene.

In short order, the filly raised her head, bright, golden eyes twinkling as she beamed up at Rainbow Dash. "Rainbow Dash, ah thought you weren't ever gonna come back!" The filly gripped the pegasus again, nuzzling one more. "Ya said ya'll would be back sooner, ya were gone for so long. Ah missed ya."

Chuckling, Dash rolled over, the filly dislodging herself to stand back on all four hooves. "I've missed you too, Applebloom. Have you been behaving for Braeburn and keeping outta trouble?" The mare lifted a hoof, ruffling the filly's mane, causing her smile to broaden.

"Bein' good's no fun," the filly pouted. "And ah still ain't got mah cutie mark, ah've been workin' on it since ya left and it still ain't come out!" To demonstrate her point, the filly turned to show that her flank was completely bare, devoid of any marking.

That was when Twilight realised that the filly was missing two legs.

Both Applebloom's right fore-leg, and left hind-leg, were gone, replaced with prosthetics made of wood, just like those of her brother. They'd been immaculately carved, not simply chunks of wood bound together with bolts of steel and articulated by tensioned wires, but works of commitment and dedication. They were different from Mac's prosthetics, made of a light brown wood that more resembled the hue of her coat rather than the dark oak Mac had used. There was no hint of any visible wires, leading Twilight to suspect that they'd been hidden beneath the outer layers, whilst the surfaces of both had been engrained with intricate, looping networks of interlocking spirals, highlighted by a wood stain the same shade as her mane. In summary, they were much, much different than Macintosh's prosthetics, leading Twilight to believe that when it came to his younger sister the stallion spared no expense.

The filly didn't seem to have any issues with using them, as had been attested by both her speedy dash and great leap that had caught Twilight by such surprise, and she was practically bouncing with excitement as she chatted with Rainbow Dash. Both prosthetics were extensive; it seemed as if both the legs in their entirety had been removed, along with both her right shoulder and most of the left side of her flank. Still though, Twilight couldn't see any signs of the steam-pump that Macintosh had employed, satisfying her curiosity as to the extent of Applebloom's modification. Clearly the young foal had never been augmented to the same degree as her brother, and still possessed all her internal organs and vital functions. Twilight was so deeply engaged in an anatomical analysis of the filly that she didn't even realise she was being addressed by the foal in question until she began waving a prosthetic hoof in her face.

"Hello? Miss, are ya'll ok? Ya seem a bit... far out?"

Twilight snapped back to reality, shaking her head slightly to clear her thoughts before smile warmly at the filly. "Yes, thank you. I'm quite alright."

"What's ya name?" the filly asked, gazing up at her quizzically. Twilight was uncomfortably reminded of Macintosh's ability to immediately discern her true nature by scent alone, shuddering silently at the possible implications of such a thing. Surely Macintosh only possessed such a capability due to his military training; there was no way that Applebloom would be able to tell that she was what she seemed, was there? Realising that she was spacing out again, Twilight clear her throat and was about to reply, when Rainbow Dash beat her to it.

"This is Twilight, Applebloom. She's a friend of your brother's." At the words the filly's eyes seemed to brighten with curiosity, her excitement peaking.

"Wow, really?" The filly held out a prosthetic hoof, which Twilight shook. "Mah name's Applebloom, and ah'm nine years old. So what are ya'll running from, is there somepony in the city that wants to git ya?!"

Twilight found herself taken aback by the bluntness of the question. It had never even occurred to her that this filly would even be aware of activities her brother engaged in, much less actively go about collating data on it. A flush rising on her cheeks, Twilight tried to put on her most convincing air of ignorance. "I'm sorry, Applebloom. But I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about." The lie was paper thin, and the filly merely giggled, raising a hoof to her mouth.

"Aw, shucks, miss. Ya'll don't have to worry about me, Miss Dash brings ponies through here all the time, ah know what's goin' on."

"Really?!" Twilight looked from Applebloom to Rainbow Dash, who wore the most devilish smile.

"Sure ah do! What were ya thinkin', that ah don't know what mah own brother gets up to?" The filly snorted, rolling her eyes. "Ah'm nine years old, Ah ain't a little filly any more. So, spill the beans, Miss Twilight. Who's tryin' ta git ya?"

Twilight was dumbfounded by what she was hearing, so much so that she was unable to even begin to formulate a response. This filly was only nine years old, but she was aware of what her brother was involved in, and even curious about it. Briefly Twilight pondered on her situation; how was she supposed to react to this? Her interrogator was nine years old, nine! How many other packages had faced this same surprise, Twilight wondered, before she reached a sudden epiphany. True it was surprising that a filly so young could be knowledgeable about a criminal organisation, but that was only from the outside looking in.

Twilight had known Joe for only seven years of her life, the first two being during the time when the rest of her infiltration team were still alive, and during that time she had only ever approached Joe when she'd needed removal surgery for her budding wings, or dropping off supplies of antizonals. The rest of the time she spent actively avoiding the spiders web of intrigue, deceit, and gang-warfare that Joe thrived upon. It was because of this outlook that she was surprised by the filly's knowledge of the underworld; she'd believed that such a young foal would have been ignorant to the seedy goings on of the Canterlot underworld, when in reality she was the one who was ignorant. Twilight had never been one to ask questions about crime in the city, and she'd certainly never asked Joe the true extent of his operations. With ignorance like that, who was she to be surprised by who was entangled in the spiders web? Armed with this sudden paradigm shift, Twilight felt the apprehension leave her body.

"Cutter here's running from the Celestial Levels," Dash informed the filly, causing Applebloom's eyes to widen. "Me and Twilight have been through some serious shit, ain't we, Cutter?"

"Is that why she smells funny?"

Twilight froze. She could tell, Applebloom could detect the pheromone scent that differed her from Pre-Equines; the by-product of a metabolism designed to flush out the chemical waste of nanotrites. Though she tried to hide it as best she could, the unicorn could sense the slight change in her posture, the way her back stiffened and her breath catching slightly. She did well enough though, as Dash gave Applebloom a curious look, one eyebrow raised. "What are you talking about, Applebloom?"

"Miss Twilight smells like an alicorn," Applebloom replied, leaning forward as she sniffed the air, a confused frown passing over her face. "Smells like blood an' metal."

"Really?"

"Uh-hu, mah brother taught me how ta sniff out an alicorn. Said they all smell like that, 'cus they spend all their time killin' foals an' eatin' the bodies!"  

"That's... interesting." Dash looked to Twilight, who did her best to look as confused as possible. "And Twilight smells like an alicorn?"

"Yeah, ya both do!"

Oh, thank Faust!

Dash's muzzle scrunched up in a disgusted sneer, raising a fore-leg and giving it a sniff. Not detecting anything, the pegasus shrugged, but the sneer didn't leave her face. "Me and Twilight had a run in with an alicorn on a train back in Canterlot. The fucker had us cornered, but thanks to Cutter's little toy we got by pretty well."

"I thought grown-ups didn't play with toys?"

"Oh, we do, just not your kinda toys. Ours are for a... special kind of fun."

"Rainbow Dash!" Twilight admonished. "Not in front of a foal, please!"

Dash gave her a wicked grin, chuckling to herself. Applebloom just looked between the two, a curious look on her face.

"What are ya'll talkin' about?"

Dash chuckled once more, ruffling the fillies mane, much to Applebloom's annoyance. "You'll find out when you're old, squirt. Anyway, me and Cutter need to be heading on. Your uncle Braeburn is expecting us."  

"Really, Are ya'll gonna be stayin' for long?" Applebloom asked excitedly, once more beginning to bounce on the spot. "There's so much ah gotta show ya, Dash. Me an' a few a' the other foals made a fort outta the old wreck in the village, ya gotta see it, ya just gotta!"

Applebloom lead the way as they turned and continued on down the road, a light skip in her step that was absolutely adorable to Twilight. Like everything else she'd encountered upon leaving Neon Heights, Applebloom was so very different from the foals of her zone. She was much more vibrant, bursting with a life and vitality that she rarely saw back home. That wasn't to say the foals of Neon Heights were a drear lot; they had their concrete playgrounds and even the municipal sports stadium. But they hadn't been raised as Applebloom had, with such wide open spaces and fresh, unpolluted air. How different did she come across, Twilight wondered. Was she as alien to Applebloom as the foal was to here?

"Sorry, Applebloom, but me and Cutter will be leaving tomorrow. Cutter's gotta get across the Everfree and then meet up with some traders heading west. Besides, the Post-Equine fuckers hunting her are pretty dangerous, these guys don't mess around. Cutter can't stay for long or something might come looking for her." Dash spoke with sincerity, but looked across to Twilight, who shrugged.

The truth was that she had no idea whether the Celestial Levels would be able to send someone this far out looking for her. In all honesty, Twilight was still trying to get her head around the fact that they'd even made it as deep as Neon Heights. The alicorn's had been confined to the eyrie of the Celestial Levels for thousands of years, locked in by a combination of anatomy and tectological alignment. True, she herself was a former Post-Equine, genetically remodelled to be able to survive in the more primitive conditions of Neon Heights, and function without the presence of nanotrites in her system, but she was the result of thousands of years of research and experimentation; a one off product whose precise construction was unlikely to ever appear on the face of Equestria.

Yet still they'd managed to adapt and copy her genetic template into other alicorn's, albeit at a much lower level of efficiency, as was attested by the skeletal, freakish ghouls that she'd already encountered. Twilight had already demonstrated incredible resilience, isolated from the Levels for nine years and yet still functioning. If she was capable of such a feat, than it stood to reason that so could others. That meant it was entirely likely that somewhere out there, another ghoul was already stalking her. Perhaps he was on his way right now, following her forensic trail out of the gates at Ponyville and across the agricultural belt, stealing ever closer to his prey. Even worse still, if her hunter really was out there, it meant the alicorn's had advanced to the point where the tectology of the Celestial Levels was no longer a hindering factor. They were already capable of leaving, and surely it would only be a matter of time before they refined the process, made it more efficient, and began their mass exodus. They were already so close, they only needed one more piece of the puzzle.

Twilight herself.

That was the reason Shining Armour had fallen, she realised, stringing together for the first time the immense gravity of the situation she found herself in. She was it, the key, the one thing that stood between Canterlot and the alicorn's conquest. Twilight remembered so little about her past life, of that time when she'd soared so high above the world on the thermals of the zones below, wheeling and diving with an impetuous ease that would have put even Rainbow Dash to shame. But she remembered enough to know that she had once been an important figure in the hierarchy of Celestial Levels. A single word floated at the back of her mind: Biomancer. She knew what it meant, not consciously, but on a spiritual level, as if the designation had been bred into her. A Biomancer was a sculptor of flesh, an alicorn who reshaped life, tailored not just its form but its genetics to whatever criteria needed to be met. That was the reason she'd been assigned to the Adaptive-insertion initiative; she had been the best, and it was for her knowledge that they required her once more.

They walked for another twenty minutes, Twilight silently reflecting on her situation as Applebloom and Rainbow Dash caught up on the events that had occurred since they'd last seen each other. Applebloom expressed a great interest in Rainbow Dash's line of work, listening with wide eyes as the pegasus recanted the events of the past thirty six hours; their first meeting in the back room of Joe's Donuts, the shoot out on the train, the high-speed car chase across the boundary, and everything else, right up until they left Ponyville. Applebloom's interest piqued when her brother was mentioned, the filly eagerly asking after her brother and his condition. Dash chuckled and told the filly all she knew, but it seemed that was not enough to sate the filly's interest.

"When is Mac gonna come see me?" the filly asked as they emerged from the orchards once more into another clearing, much bigger than the previous one that housed the barn. The village of Appaloosa was situated in its centre, surrounded by a palisade wall roughly ten feet in height. The road ran right up to the wall and up to the open gate, through which Twilight could make out the main street of the two, two storey buildings flanking the trail on either side, with smaller buildings back up behind them right up to the wall. Small plumes of smoke rose from the few stone chimneys present, trailing white clouds up into the sky. Dash smiled at the young filly, a sad, melancholy smile.

Twilight suddenly became aware that Applebloom had no idea of her brothers condition, of the fact that Macintosh was permanently hooked up to a boiler that pumped the steam into his body  he required to live. How long had it been since Applebloom had seen her brother? How long had it been since Macintosh had been able to walk freely underneath the open sky, instead of being confined to the basement of a bordello with a roof permanently over his head? "Mac's still very caught up in his job, Applebloom. He has to work very hard for his bosses, so he can send money for you. But just because he hasn't visited in a while, that doesn't mean he doesn't loves you."

"Really?" the filly asked dejectedly, scuffing the ground with her hoof as she hung her head. Twilight felt something in her heart ache at the sight of the young foals sadness.

"Hey, kiddo." Dash suddenly stopped and picked up the filly, placing Applebloom down on her back between her wings. "Your brother loves you more than anything, Applebloom, that's why he works so hard. And one day, when you're old enough, I'll take you to see him in Canterlot."

Applebloom perked a little, a small smile spreading across her muzzle. "Really, ya'll take me to the big city, promise?"

Dash gave the filly a solemn nod in reply. "I promise."

They came upon the village in short order, walking through the open gates into the main street. Appaloosa was a clean and orderly community, Twilight concluded as they past the first buildings of the village. The streets were well maintained, given the conditions main road and what she could see of the smaller path that ran in a radial circle along the inside of the wall; well maintained and devoid of ruts or pot-holes. The same could be said for the buildings of the main street, each presenting a uniform facade of clean-cut timber that radiated an aura of simplistic dignity. The ponies of the town were going quietly about their business; some trotting from store to store picking up supplies, others simply taking an evening stroll before the sun fully set, and a final few gathered at the entrance to what seemed to be a saloon on the left side of the street, sat right in the centre of the through-fare.

Few ponies paid them much attention, save for the few who seemed to know Rainbow Dash, as they nodded by way of greeting as the pegasus passed. Rainbow Dash nodded in return, projecting an air of civility that was completely at odds with the mare who'd been screaming profanities whilst firing a machine pistol from the back of a speeding vehicle only two-dozen hours ago. Twilight herself received a few odd looks, it seemed that Appaloosa didn't receive many strangers, though the residents were far from hostile. It was her attire, she summarised, after a passing stallion removed his Stetson hat and bowed to her as she walked by. Out here Faustianism had a much stronger influence amongst the simplistic rural communities than it did back in Canterlot, and with her thick black coat, black hat, tinted glasses, and saddlebags, she must have across as quite the clerical figure. Maybe the populace thought she was a missionary, or perhaps a confessor sent from a priory in the city to administer to the villages spiritual well-being.

Rainbow Dash and Applebloom made a bee-line straight for the saloon, the young foal leading the way. Standing on the covered veranda by the two double doors was a pack of four adolescent colts, taking swigs from tankards of apple cider. As Applebloom trotted up the stairs they parted, greeting the young foal with easy smiles and warm welcomes, though as Dash passed their attitude became one of respect, falling silent as the mare trotted passed. When Twilights turn came to pass through the doors all four of the colts executed shallow bows, murmuring "Evenin' ma'am" in unison with low, reverential tones.

Eeyup, definitely a confessor.

The inside of the saloon was lit with the warm orange glow of tallow candles, the light emanating from a great steel chandelier that was fixed to the centre of the cavernous roof; Twilight counted forty candles in the chandelier alone, with still more located in small wall mountings around the room. To the far right a flight of stair hugged the wall, leading in turn to a thin balustrade on the level above, lined with doors of a deep brown wood.  The room was filled with round tables surrounded by stools, with booths lining the walls. At the back was a bar that ran the length of the room, with high-stools running its length. Behind it was an assortment of shelves filled with bottles, and several large wooden kegs. Most of the seats in the saloon were taken, various ponies, mostly the colts and stallions that tended the orchards, sipping on their refreshing beverages at the end of hard day of work. Dotted about were a few married mares with their husbands, however; Appaloosa was certainly too moral to allow pre-marital sex, let alone tolerate the presence of a brothel in the village.

Most paid her no mind as she threaded her way through the tables towards the bar, where her two companions had already taking their seats upon two of the high-stools, Applebloom's hind-legs kicking at thin air as she attempted to scale the edifice before Dash helped her up, taking her own place with a brief flutter of her wings. There wasn't a single individual in the room who wasn't an earth pony, Twilight noted with mild surprise, though the lack of one particular sub-species of the Equine race in a populated area wasn't an unknown phenomenon; in Canterlot there were the same differences in population demographic. The majority of the population in Ponyville and Geartown was mostly dominated by earth ponies, whilst those of Circuit City and the Cyber Polities were comprised primarily of unicorns, with Neon Heights serving as the middle ground, whilst the Celestial Levels was populated solely by alicorn's. It had been theorised that the reason for this segregation was due to the natural predilection of the earth pony sub-species to live as close as possible to the surface of the world, leaving the higher levels for those who had a better tolerance for heights, thought no conclusive results had ever been achieved.

Like so many things in Canterlot, that was just the way it was. There was no need to ask further questions.

Oddly enough, however, there was a distinct lack of pegausi in the city. Although the winged sub-species was encountered in every single zone of Canterlot, there was no single location where they formed the main bulwark, not even in the higher ledges. There was no known reason for the pegausi shortage, though several esoteric sources cited the cause as being an exodus of the sub-species at some point in the cities past, when they'd broken away to form a separate nation ruled by a governmental collective referred to as "the Flock". Whether the venture had ever succeeded or failed wasn't mentioned, but not once had Canterlot ever come into contact with the rumoured pegausi nation, meaning that in all likelihood they had failed, or such an exodus had never occurred, and the low numbers of pegausi in the population was simply a natural phenomenon.

Reaching the bar, Twilight slipped off her saddlebags took her own seat beside Rainbow Dash, resting her fore-legs on the polished surface of the counter. She sighed inwardly at the sense of relief from finally putting down the saddlebags she'd been carrying all day. She hadn't been allowed to take them off for the whole of her journey away from the city to Appaloosa; Dash had set a constant pace, insisting that being in the open as they were it was necessary for them to put as great a distance as possible between them and the city. Dash took a few moments to make herself comfortable before tapping out a short, jumpy code on the wooden surface of the bar. A small wooden door behind the bar at the left end, a stallions head popping through.

A pair of bright green eyes, not too dissimilar from the fierce emerald of Mac's though less intense, scanned the length of the bar before settling on Dash, causing a smile to creep across the stallions face. Emerging fully from the doorway, he trotted up to them, pulling a wooden tankard from beneath the bar. His golden coat contrasted well with the caramel and amber tones of his long, thick mane. The stallion's attire was typical of the farmers of the agricultural belt; a stitched jerkin cladding his body, complemented by a roughed-up Stetson hat. On his flank sat simple red apple, marking him out as a member of the Apple clan. This, Twilight concluded, must have been Braeburn.

"Well, howdy there, strangers. Welcome to Appaloosa!" the stallion greeted enthusiastically, rearing on his hind-legs to place his fore-legs on the counter. "What can ah get'cha today?" Dash rubbed her chin in mock thought, a barely hidden grin spreading across her muzzle.

"I've heard the cider out here's good."

"Good? Little lady, that there's an understatement if ah ever heard one, Appaloosa makes some a best darn cider in the 'belt; we even get ponies from the big city comin' out here for a little sip." The stallion held the tankard beneath the metal tap of one of the kegs, pulling up on the valve to allow a stream of shimmering, golden fluid to fill the mug, a thick layer of white foam forming on top. "This here beverage's been brewed by the Apple family for generations, usin' the finest apples, the best barrels, and a heart-full 'a dedication." Turning back to the counter, the stallion placed the foaming tankard before Rainbow Dash, a thin stream of the golden liquid trailing down the side. "So how about ya'll give it a taste and see if them rumours do this drink justice?"

Without a further word, Rainbow Dash picked up the tankard and brought it to her lips, throwing her head back as the liquid passed her gullet and into her stomach. Twilight watched in disbelief as the mare finished the beverage in one fell swoop, the only sound audible from the pegasus being the deep glug, glug, glug, as she swallowed. It was over in moments, Dash slamming the tankard down before wiping away the thin moustache of foam on her upper lip with the back of a hoof. Grinning, the mare nodded to the stallion behind the bar, who bore his own cheerful smile. "Damn, Braeburn, you Apple's know your shit when it comes to brewing."

Braeburn chuckled mirthfully, reaching for the tankard and stowing it beneath the bar. "Aww shucks, Miss Dash, ya'll are gonna make me blush." laughing boisterously, Rainbow Dash reached across and clasped hooves with Braeburn, the pair emitting an air of fine camaraderie. "Good ta see ya again, Miss Dash, it's been too long since ya'll last rolled into town."

"Same here, Braeburn. I'd have come by again sooner, but Joe's been keeping me busy," Dash replied, flicking her head in Twilight's direction.

"So ah see," Braeburn acknowledged, turning to the unicorn and taking his Stetson from his head, holding it to his chest. "Preacher, ya'll are most welcome here in Appaloosa. We're good folk all, and it'll be nice to hear a priestess give us all some sermons in church; it's been a mighty long time since we last had somepony who knew the scriptures in town." At that, Dash chuckled slightly, whilst Twilight felt a faint blush colour her cheeks.

"I, err, thank you for your hospitality, Mister Braeburn. But I'm afraid you're slightly mistaken; I'm not actually an ordained priestess." Twilight reached up and removed her hat, placing it down on the bar. "My name's Twilight Sparkle, and Miss Dash is just an associate of mine."

"Huh?" the stallion replied, a confused frown passing over his face.

"You're barking up the wrong apple tree, Braeburn," Rainbow Dash clarified, still chuckling under her breath. "Cutter here is the package I'm taking out of the city."

A flash of comprehension crossed the stallions face, an embarrassed flush staining his cheeks as he returned his hat to its former position atop his head. "Ah, mah mistake. Ah meant no offense, Miss Sparkle."

"None taken."

"So, ya'll are the package cousin Mac was talkin' about." Braeburn looked her up and down with a critical eye, and Twilight was suddenly hit by the frightening possibility that maybe an uncanny level of perception ran through all members of the Apple clan. "When cousin Mac was goin' on about somethin' valuable, ah thought  big-boss Joe was gettin' ya'll ta smuggle more diamonds outta Canterlot. Never thought it'd be a mare, or such a skinny one while ah'm thinking about it. No offense, Miss Sparkle."

"None taken."

"Do you mind if we head round the back?" Dash interrupted, scanning the saloon with her usual suspicion. "I wanna run through tomorrow's itinerary with Cutter before we carry on. You should see it, Braeburn, this one actually asks questions."

"Sure, no problem at all." Moving down to the end of the bar, Braeburn opened a small catch-door, allowing the two mares to slip off their stools and join the stallion behind the counter. Applebloom moved to follow, but Braeburn raised a hoof. "Sorry, Applebloom. This is private business ah gotta go over with Miss Dash."

Applebloom pouted, her ears pressing flat against her head. "Uncle Braeburn! Ah already know what Mac gets up to, and Miss Dash told me what Miss Cutter was here for! Please, can ah come with ya'll and hear the plan? Please?" Braeburn chuckled at the fillies pleading expression, but still shook his head.

"Ah'm sorry, Applebloom. But ya'll are too young for this stuff. It's mighty dangerous too, an' cousin Mac wouldn't appreciate it if ah got you hurt. Now run along, little filly. Go find Miss Jubilee, she's got a new dress for when ya got to church she wants ya to try on."

Muttering under her breath, the filly hopped off the stool, threading her way back through the clustered tables and out the double doors, where the four colts wished her farewell. Braeburn stayed long enough to make sure the filly had left the building before leading Twilight and Rainbow Dash along to the door he'd emerged from earlier, pulling it open and stepping back to let the two mares enter before following after them, pulling the door shut behind him with a loud creak.

As Twilights eyes adjusted to the darkness, she found herself at the top of a flight of wooden stairs in a narrow corridor, lit by a few candles mounted in metal holders on the wall. Pushing his way past her and Dash, Braeburn led the way down the stairs into a gloomy room that seemed to be a storage area. Rows of stacked barrels lined the walls of the large, rectangular basement, each the size of a full grown pony, with still more forming neatly stacked rows that lead all the way back to the far wall. The air was cool, the perfect temperature for storing any alcoholic beverage. Disappearing down one of the rows, Twilight followed Braeburn past lines of barrels before reaching another door, this one made of thick, darkly coloured planks, and reinforced with metal studs.

Removing a ring of iron keys from a pocket inside his jerkin, Braeburn picked out a thick iron key and slid it into the lock, unlocking the door with a heavy clunk. The door opened inwards, swinging silently on well oiled hinges to reveal another room, much smaller than the basement. "This here is where ah discuss business with cousin Mac's clients," Braeburn explained after they'd all filed in and he'd relocked the door. "Used to be we kept miscreants here, but Appaloosa ain't had a crime in years, so ah've put it to good use."

The room was well lit, a cluster of fat, half-burnt candles set in the middle of a large wooden table that dominated the space. Pulling out two stools for his guests, the stallion motioned for the mares to sit as he went over to a locked cupboard and opened it, digging around inside for a few moments before pulling out a thick scroll of dusty parchment. Relocking the cupboard, the stallion returned to the table, placing the scroll down and rolling it, a thick plume of dust rising from the inner surface as he did so. "This here's a map a' the Appaloosa precinct and the surroundin' areas," Braeburn explained as Twilight tried to swat away the dust cloud with a hoof.

The map was old, painted down on thick, yellowed, and crumbling paper that looked as if it had been stashed away in the cupboard for at least a decade. The actual map itself seemed to be hoof painted in an archaic style with the village of Appaloosa at its centre; marked out by the symbol of a red apple with the settlements name written underneath in spidery script. The village was surrounded on all sides by a long triangle of dark, greenish-brown paint, covered with stylised representations of apple trees. A thin black line ran from the village, all the way to the right of the map, were a small footnote read: To Canterlot; the last city, whilst on the other side, where the line met the left edge, another footnote read: To the Outzone, and the red wastes. Dotted amongst the trees of the precinct and the surrounding areas were small black triangles representing farms, barns, and cottages, each connected to Appaloosa by their own lines of small dashes; there were no other villages or settlements present. In the top right corner sat a stylised compass pointing in all four directions; the celestial sun, one of Faustiansim's most holy icons, dominating the centre.

"The plan for tomorrow is mighty simple, Miss Sparkle," Braeburn explained as the dust settled, placing the tip of his hoof over the artistic rendition of Appaloosa. "Ordinarily, ah'd just take ya'll down the road up to the Everfree," Braeburn's hoof followed the black line of the road right up to a thick margin of dark-green paint that sat just before the edge of the map, thick tangles of thorns denoting the presence of the Everfree. "However, since ya'll are so important to cousin Mac, ah'm gonna take ya'll through one of the orchard paths to the southern barn, before cuttin' across to the edge a' the precinct up to the Everfree." Braeburn's hoof followed one of the dashed lines to a small, black triangle at the edge of the green-brown triangle denoting the boundaries of the Appaloosa precinct, before skirting the boundary line up to the thorny mass of the Everfree. "From there, we'll head across the forest usin' and old trappers trail that'll take us past the old ruins." the colt pointed to a cluster of three towers in the centre of the Everfree band. "After that, you'll be in the Outzone, and Miss Dash will be takin' ya the rest of the way. So, what'd ya think?"

Twilight stared at the map for a few moments longer, her eyes tracing the route Braeburn had proposed. The truth was she had no idea what she was looking for, this whole area was wild-country for her. But it helped snuff out the sense that she was completely helpless, and totally reliant on the aid of those around her, and it was satisfying despite only the brief respite it gave her. Tiring with the charade, the unicorn nodded her consent. "Thank you, Braeburn, it's an excellent route."

"We shouldn't have any bother, but ah'll bring mah old' pa's repeater with us, just in case," Braeburn replied, smiling with satisfaction at his plan. "Ah'll write an armoury chit for ya as well, Miss Dash. Feel free ta take what ya need."

"Won't be necessary, Braeburn. Macintosh sorted us out before we left Canterlot. Thanks, though."

"Well, it seems that there's nothin' ta do except wait for tomorrow," Braeburn said, rolling the map back up and returning it to the cupboard. "Ya'll can stay in the saloon tonight, ah'll get a room set up for ya. Other than that ya'll are free ta have a drink with me. On the house, a' course."                                    

XI: Bane of the faithful.

Sombra stood at the edge of the Celestial Levels, shielded from the elements by the enormous arch that rose before him; a portal from the shelter of the Levels out into the wild, and untameable fury of the world.

Before him, a long, thin bridge of Megastructure was all that separated the Temple of Faust from the main mass of the Celestial Levels; exposed to the elements, it was a arrow-straight walk of five hundred meters across a beam of dubious material, held suspended in an empty void of pure sky. The architecture of the temple, a lone spire of purest crystal, isolated from the Celestial Levels through the bridge, had always formed an allegory that, to the dark alicorn, reeked of both enlightenment and black humour; that one must suffer to reach true spiritual freedom.

Another lie of the false Goddess, the only reward of such a path was slavery under a different master.

At the alicorn's hooves a Temple Guardian lay choking in his own blood, his gurgling, dying pleas for salvation going unhindered by the malevolence that stood before him. The mewling of the animal beneath to him served as a satisfactory back drop for Sombra, who idly flicked away at the guardians hoof when, in his desperation, the stallion had decided to plea for mercy from his conqueror.

Such a foalish notion.

Without glancing away from the temple, Anathema sprang into life beside its master, floating motionlessly in the still air. With a flick of its masters ear, the blade swung down sharply, embedding itself deep within the throat of the Guardian; the blow not strong enough to decapitate the stallion entirely, but enough to fully severe his trachea and oesophagus. The Guardian twitched faintly as he died, blood pouring from the wound and down into his lungs; drowning him in his own vitae.

All about him, Sombra's elite forces culminated their assault upon the guardians, cutting down any who'd raised a weapon against the will of their lord. Though the air was no longer filled with the pitched screams of battle and death, the dark alicorn had long since learnt to savour the cadence of victory; the pleas of the defeated, the moans of the dying. They meant that he'd won, that once again he'd proven himself to superior to the foals around him, and for the dark alicorn, there was nothing in the world quite as satisfying as asserting his dominance over those weaker than him.

The guardians had been mediocre opponents at best, though Sombra knew it had been wrong of him to expect any real skill from such warriors. Far from the same league as the Celestial Guard, the Temple Guardians had only ever been a simple garrison force, and as such had never been truly trained in the finer arts of combat. True, dotted amongst them had been a few rare gems, those few token individuals who'd displayed even a modicum of prowess and grace; but for the most part, the Temple Guardians had simply been a band of colts who'd sworn themselves to the protection of a false deity, a formality on the temple's behalf and little more. Yet despite such weakness, the dark, soul-binding malice in Sombra's heart had still found it extremely gratifying to slay the servants of the false Goddess, even if such a task had required minimal effort on his part.

Already the battle-line was forming up behind him, each warrior falling into position without a moment's hesitation and in utter silence. Unlike before, during the battle of the throne room, there were none of the raucous screams and bloodthirsty howls that had filled the air; such behaviour was for the colts and juveniles and not befitting those who now accompanied their lord on this mission. These were Sombra's true warriors, the elite core of his army, and they wouldn't sully their martial pride with the foalish behaviour the striplings eagerly indulged in. Turning to look upon them, Sombra felt the stirrings of what could have perhaps been paternal pride for the warriors deep within the twisted wreck of his soul, a faint flicker of Equinity shining through the corruption that ravaged him, but crushed it flat before it ever had time to truly be expressed; the dark alicorn refused to acknowledge anything of his soldiers, they were tools for use and disposal, valuable for little else then their steel and willingness to die for him.

Singling out the few key individuals of his lieutenants from amongst the battle-line, Sombra's razor-keen mind took mere seconds to calculate losses and attrition ratios, and, finding the sustained casualties of his force to fall within an acceptable margin, he raised Anathema on high before bringing the Arcane Blade down in a glittering arc of scintillating energy. In complete silence the force began its march, the air only broken by the uniform stamp of armour hooves as the warriors pressed forward in perfect synchronous, their lord marching before them.

The wind clawed at them as the warriors emerged from the great chamber and out onto the bridge, whipping through feathered wings and snatching at Sombra's scarlet-furred cape. A product of either accident or design, the winds had always shrieked across the bridge, stirred up by the culmination of the great spiralling ledge that climbed the heights of Canterlot, which captured the thermals of the city below and funnelled them up into the high atmosphere, resulting in such great gales when the warm air of the near-surface collided with the chilled stratus of the Thermosphere. The faithful often proclaimed the gales were the result of the divine architecture of Canterlot, and that the winds were a representation of the hardships one must face on the road to enlightenment, but for Sombra they were nothing more than an annoyance.

There was no divinity in these winds, and there certainly wasn't any divinity in the architecture of the last equine city. Though many, and even history itself, had long since consigned the legendary golden era of Equestria as mere fable and myth, Sombra remembered where others forgot. He remembered a time before the Shattering, a time when Equestria had been warm and blue, and Canterlot had been more than a mere city.

But now was the time for vengeance, not reminiscence.

The host was roughly a third of the way across the bridge before the few remaining Guardians within the temple itself began to fire upon them with gauss-lances, brilliant bolts of emerald energy lashing out from the lone spire. Sombra's forces broke formation with practised ease, warriors taking into the air splitting off into their individual units. In moments the host had devolved into twenty squads of five warriors, each moving away to carry out the next phase of the operation. But despite the quick reformation of the host there had still been those who'd been unable to dodge the initial gauss-lance volley, and even as Sombra's forces reorganised to tend to their set objectives a few limp, flailing bodies had already tumbled over the edge of the bridge and begun to long descent to the next ledge bellow.

Of course, Sombra had expected such a barrage to come. With the enemy out in the open as they had been on the bridge, any commander with a basic grasp on tactics would have understood how vulnerable such exposed troops would be. But with foresight came forewarning, and as such Sombra had devised a strategy that would divide the Guardians firepower and render it impotent in the face of the assault. Summoning Anathema with but a thought, Sombra swept the blade out to his right. Instantly eight of the squadrons broke away from the bridge, a full forty five warriors beginning their ascension up the height of the spire, from the top of which they would then move down floor by floor, eliminating all they found. Thrusting Anathema out to the left, another forty five warriors broke off from the host, this time diving to seize the lower areas of the temple. All that remained upon the bridge itself was Sombra and the ten alicorn's of his bodyguard, all of whom then began to charge and full gallop towards the great double doors of the temple.

Though the rate of fire from the assaulting gauss-lancers was deadly, it was nothing compared to the possible level of fire-power that could have been used had the majority of the garrison still been among the living. With the main bulk of the Temple Guardians now staining the floor of the main entrance chamber, Sombra calculated that only a mere thirty percent of the garrison was still alive within the walls of the temple, roughly ninety, maybe one hundred, individuals in total. Though of course, simply because numerically the two forces were in equilibrium, that didn't at all imply that the Temple Guardians actually stood any chance of mounting an adequate defence against the elites of Sombra's forces.

As they closed with the door, Sombra sent out a magical pulse, waiting a fraction of a second for the aethereal burst to return to him with status updates on the two squadrons. From above, the alicorn's of the first squadron had succeeded in taking control of the upper-most levels of the spire, with a kill-ratio of thirty eight to one, and were now beginning their capture of the three hundred or so descending levels before regrouping with their commander. Second squadron had met similar success, and had already moved a full ten levels up from the base of the spire, with a generous kill-ratio of fifty two to one. Allowing himself a feral grin of victory, Sombra felt a savage howl rip itself from his throat, his fanged muzzle opened wide and his formidable canines on display.

How long had it been?

As the dark alicorn barrelled towards the great doors of the temple, the single, fluttering thought briefly made its way through his mind; not a product of his current engagement but from somewhere deeper in himself, from whatever twisted and ravaged wreck that passed for his soul, buried so far from his mind. Isolating the thought, the philosopher in Sombra briefly pondered the question as he closed with the door, allowing his body to move on instinct as he retreated into himself to consider the inner mechanics of his own chronology.

Eight thousand years, that's how long it had been; eight thousand years since he'd awoken to the true horror and brutality of the universe.

Once, perhaps, he'd been something different. Once, he'd been a leader, a ruler. Once, he'd marched across frozen tundra's and dived through the darkest caves. Once, he had been a true warrior, a stallion of valour, courage, and honour. Once, he'd been a father.

Yet alas, nevermore.

Once he'd been all those things and so much, much more. But now, there was little about him that could ever be linked back to that stallion who came before, who'd known a life beyond the confines of the Celestial Levels and had ruled one of the great nations of the world. Now, he was something much darker, something much more terrible. For over eight thousand years he had been planning, for over eight thousand years he had awaited for his moment to come, for Fortune to turn her fickle gaze upon him and allow him his chance for vengeance.

Eight thousand years spent waiting for a single moment; the death of Shining Armour.

Sombra pulled himself from his thoughts as he came upon the entrance to the temple, placing his muse on hold as Anathema tore into existence and was thrust forward like a scarlet thunderbolt, racing ahead of its master and embedding itself hilt-deep in the thick marble doors. Instantly cracks began to radiate from the embedded blade, bloody scarlet light trickling out from the fissures as they began to propagate across the surface of the marble until the entire surface was covered in a infinitely fine mesh of cracks. Holding its position a moment longer, Anathema waited until the structural integrity of the duel marble slabs had been fully compromised before pulling out and returning to its master, the doors crumbling into dust as it returned to his grip.

With a baleful howl, Sombra unleashed the corruption within himself, snarling as sharp, agonising lances of chaotic energy began to infuse with his body, spreading from his core to every cell of his being. Violet fire burst from his eyes, the two pits glowing with infernal energies. Opening his maw, Sombra felt not just his canines, but every tooth in his muzzle begin to extend and sharpen, each and every one filing into deadly, piercing needles. With a feral shriek, Sombra threw back his head, scarlet fire pouring from his throat as the corruption drowned his soul in a tide of the blackest magic. Within himself, Sombra once more felt a minute sliver of his soul slip from his being, simply crumbling into nothingness as the corruption rotted it from within; as occurred whenever he embraced the true darkness of the aether.

Screaming with the howl of a damned soul, Sombra led his bodyguard through the entrance and into the temple of Faust; wolves amongst the sheep.

The air was filled with the thick, cloying scent of incense, trendils of sweet smelling smoke twisting through the air with sinuous, almost sentient grace. Light was everywhere, pure, bright, and unadulterated, almost too intense for one to even open their eyes. The eleven alicorn's found themselves within a cavernous chamber at least two hundred meters in height, beams of intense light ricocheting off every faceted surface. Stood upon a raised dais at the far end of the hall rose a great statue of the holy Goddess herself, an incredible, fifty meter construction of gold, crystal, and precious gems, reared on its hind legs. Clustered at its base, their bodies knelt in supplication, were the priestesses of Faust, all swathed horn to hoof in snow-white robes of gossamer. In their hour of darkness they had raised their voices in song, the air alive with the high, delicate notes of their hymn as they offered their souls to the deity they served.

Stood before them were no more than twenty of the Temple Guardians, their gauss-halberds raised and ready to fire. But these were no elites, these were all that could be spared in the defence of the priestesses. Before Sombra's elite they were nothing, chaff before the scythe, and each knew it, but still they prepared to sell their lives dearly in defence of the sisterhood, and their beliefs.

Perhaps, that in itself made them greater than the strongest hero's.  

For the Daemon that wore Sombra's coat, the presence of such divine purity, of such weak, hollow lies, caused it to release an enraged shriek, the infernal beast rearing on its hind-legs in a mocking, daemonic mirror image of Faust's holy manifestation. Anger flowed through it, anger and hatred. Anger for the hypocrisy of the Goddess, and hatred for all that he had lost under her false guidance; words alone couldn't convey the sheer disgust he felt in his heart. Acting on instinct, the Daemon began to stalk forward, its smouldering eyes fixed upon the rearing statue of Faust, and its mind craving nothing more than to bring it crashing down, to topple such hypocrisy to the floor and stain its very crystal with the blood of its venerators.

Bring its hooves back to the ground with enough force to shatter the marble beneath them, the Daemon summoned Anathema, the blades scintillating edge glowing all the brighter as the chaotic energies of its wielder flowed into the blade. Thrusting the blade forward the Daemon screamed in a high, shrill voice, its cry momentarily drowning out the supplications of the priestesses. "Destroy it all, let no icon of the false Goddess stand!" Behind it, the ten alicorn's of Sombra's bodyguard nodded in ascent, each bring their blades up into an assault position and charging forwards. Beneath the inanimate hooves of the holy icon, the priestesses continued with their benedictions, unaware, or perhaps, uncaring, of the creature that had split the air with its venomous shrieks.

The Daemon tore across the chamber at full gallop, its hooves crushing the marble beneath it as it struck forwards, eyes alive with fire and hate. In mere moments it had already far outstripped the ten alicorn's of Sombra's bodyguard, leaving them lagging behind in its eagerness to fall upon the followers of the false Goddess and rend their flesh. The first of the few remaining Temple Guardians that it met in combat was nary more than a colt at the most, a stripling who couldn't have been more than half a millennia old; a colt who should have been living a true foalhood, instead of dying in fear for the sake of a false Goddess.

The mere sight of him stoked the rage in the Daemon's heart.

Falling upon the colt, the Daemon shrieked in pure hatred at it brought Anathema down up its target, the aethereal blade severing the colts left fore-leg from his body with deft ease. The limb went flying, the colt screaming for his mother as he tumbled to the ground, his gauss-halberd falling to the ground with a clattering as he curled up and began to weep.

Such weakness!

Disgusted by the foals lack of fighting spirit, the Daemon gave him the mercy of a quick death, Anathema piercing his skull with a single thrust to the temple. Already searching for a new target the Daemon looked about itself, and, finding that Sombra's bodyguard had already dispatched any remaining foes, released one final, soul-piercing shriek of fury before, with a final burst of scarlet fire, Sombra once more regained dominion over his own body, forcing the malevolence of the Daemon away into the depths of his soul. For a few moments longer Sombra found his vision slightly unfocussed, though the issue was resolved with a swift shake of his head.

The first time he'd allowed the corruption to embrace him in such a way it had been days before he was once more able to reassert dominance over his own body, whilst the Daemon had run amok through his personal quarters and butchered the few indentured servants that he kept at his residence. The second time, it took two days for his mind to retake command. Though time, mental discipline, and a strong will, had given him the ability to control the Daemon within himself, Sombra knew that he was still in no way immune to its infectious malevolence and hatred. After all, the creature wasn't one of this corporeal world but a denizen of the Realm of Magic, and a servant to Sombra's own deity, the true ruler of existence; it stood to reason that there was never any chance of him truly comprehending what motivated it.

"Halt and reform!" he called to his soldiers as he reasserted control, his tactical mind once more examining the situation and each variable present. Whilst he was himself, like this, he could devise, formulate, and execute any plan that helped further his own ultimate goal. But as the Daemon he was incapable of reason and understanding, instead, he was a creature who only understood killing, and the dark ecstasy it brought. Though Sombra had uses for such killing ability, he knew that to blindly give in to such vices would mean he would be led by them, unable to control his own impulses. It was the worst kind of weakness, not physical, but spiritual, a weakness that defined the soul.

And Sombra hated weakness.

His bodyguard forming around him, Sombra drew forth Anathema, using the tip of the blade to part the assembled priestesses as he and his bodyguard made their way to the dais before them. There was no singing now, the sisters had dropped their heavenly choir the instant the Daemon had slain the young colt. Now, they simply watched him pass, shapeless, inscrutable figures hidden from the world beneath their robes. Parting before them, the priestesses stepped back on either side, forming a clear path up to the dais. Stepping up onto the dais beneath the marble hooves of Faust's manifestation, his bodyguard forming a semi-circle beneath him, Sombra surveyed the fully gather convent, perhaps four hundred individuals in total. Not one face could be seen amongst the crowd, but Sombra knew that each mare present bore both a scowl of disgust and more than a hint of fear; he could hardly breath for the stink of it.

"Daughters of Faust, allow me to extend my deepest apologies for dropping by like this, I understand that those of your faith show, shall we say... an aversion to killing?" Flashing a quick, victorious grin, Sombra allowed himself a moment to savour their hatred before continuing on to more pressing matters. "The last princess of Canterlot, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, has officially abdicated from the throne, and by right of conquest I am now the ruler of Canterlot."

"Murderer!" came a high-pitched voice from somewhere near the back of the crowd, followed by mutters of agreement. With a single nod, Sombra dispatched two of his bodyguard into the crowd to find the dissenter.

"As of high-sun yesterday, I have been declared king of Canterlot!" Sombra spoke in a loud, deep voice, accompanied by the echoing declaration of his bodyguard: "long live the king!". "For over twenty four hours this temple and its occupants have refused to present themselves to my being in the throne room in order to reaffirm their oaths of loyalty to the ruler of Canterlot; such an act is treason!" Spying his two bodyguards leading a struggling priestess towards the dais, Sombra allowed a wicked smile to slowly creep across his muzzle. "But I may yet prove merciful, should my demands be met."

"First!" Sombra declared as the priestess was pushed forwards by the two bodyguards to go sprawling at his hooves. "This temple and its occupants shall break their bonds of loyalty to the ancient lineage of Canterlot and swear new oaths to the House of Sombra! Second: you are to cease your prayers and abandon your faith. The temple shall be destroyed, its riches gifted to the crown, and the priestesses shall be divided as gifts amongst my lieutenants. Any caught mentioning of the false Goddess shall from this moment onwards shall bear the crime of treason! Third, and finally!" Sombra smashed a hoof down on the back of the priestess beneath him, the mare squealing in pain as cracking of bone emanated from beneath her robes. "You are to surrender the Harmony Core!"

Silence.

"And if we refuse?" came a single, quite voice in reply. Sombra grinned, flashing his razor-sharp canines.

"I'd thought you'd never ask."

Lifting his hoof from the mares back, Sombra knelt down beside the priestess on the floor and gripped her robes, taking a moment to savour the sheer blasphemy of his actions before tearing them free from her body to the combined shock of the assembled priestesses and the licentious grins of his bodyguards.

The legends did not lie, beneath her robes the priestess was truly a creature of divine beauty. Her figure was willowy, and elegant; long, beautiful legs rising from the ground on pristine hooves, her teal coat practically glowing with an immaculate sheen. Though her rump lacked the same curvaceous figure of Trixie, it was still well toned and defined, complimented by the white streak that ran through her blue-grey tail. On her flank was imprinted the image of a golden lyre. The mare recoiled from Sombra as he disrobed her, golden eyes cast-over with fear as she met the gaze of her conqueror. Briefly, Sombra wondered how many years it had been since the mare had last been exposed like this. Many, was the only answer, there was no other way to explain the rank stench of fear she gave off.

She reeked of it.

"Tell me, my dear," Sombra began, his voice calm and gentle, one could say even charming. "What's your name?" Reaching down with a hoof, Sombra gently cuped the mares cheek, tilting her head so that she fully gazing into his eyes, leaning forward until there was only a foot of distance between them.

"L-l-ly... Ly... Lyra..." the mare managed as her breath caught in her throat, paralysed with fear. She was frozen in place, unable to will herself free from the gaze of the tyrant above her; prey before the predator.

"Lyra... Lyra." Sombra repeated the name, letting it roll off his tongue, "Yes, Lyra, such a melodious name. And tell me, Lyra, do you know what the punishment of treason is?" Lyra nodded, her muzzle barely bobbing an inch as she found herself forced to maintain eye contact. There was something almost... bewitching about those blood red eyes, something that compelled her to hold his gaze. "Come now, there's no need to be shy. Just tell me, loud enough for everypony to hear."

"T-the... the punishment for treason is... is... the punishment for treason is..."

Sombra leaned closer, tilting his head so that his ear was just a few inches from her muzzle, close enough to hear the mares silent answer.

"Yes?"

"Death..." Lyra mutely whispered.

"Yes, my dear. You are right." Sombra agreed, turning his head and standing up to his full height, towering over the mare beneath him. "The punishment for treason is death!" Summoning Anathema, Sombra held it high for the assembled mares to see before plunging it through the bridge of Lyra's muzzle, the mares body falling limp. A ripple ran through the crowd, dozens of mares crying out and the same again sobbing beneath their veils. One priestess even had the audacity to attack one of his bodyguards, though she paid for it with her life. "And the new order... has no tolerance for treason." Sombra pulled Anathema from Lyra's body, ultramarine fluid soaking into the blades scarlet surface as it sated its bloodlust with the vitae of the innocent. Looking over the assembled convent, Sombra dared any more to question his authority.

No challenge came, in complete unison the mares bowed before their new king, the only sound present being their hushed whimpers.    

For a few moments, Sombra simply savoured the moment, capturing the memory of his triumph and crystallising it forever within his mind. Once more, he had gained victory, and once more he had take another step nearer to achieving his ultimate goal; Equestria had come that little bit closer to learning the truth of existence, and the ponies their place in the world. He gazed out over the mares, his mind already working. Perhaps another stallion would have been enamoured with the concept of having complete control over a four hundred strong herd of beautiful mares, but for Sombra the physical perfection of the females had little real value, save as rewards for his closest lieutenants. In his youth he may have thought differently, but that part of him had died millennia ago, along with his hope and faith.  

And his daughters.

As he gazed over the herd, a force of alicorn's suddenly emerged from two arches further down the length of the chamber towards the entrance, one group from the right arch and the other from the left; the two squadrons that Sombra had dispatched earlier. Nodding, Sombra gave both squadrons a look over, pleased to find that of the total of ninety alicorn's he had dispatched, only three had fallen during combat.

"Who is prioress of this temple?" Sombra boomed as the two forces moved towards him, encircling the captive priestesses in a living wall of flesh and ceramite. "Who here will step forward as leader of the faith?"

Another ripple ran through the crowd.

For the past five thousand years, the faithful of Canterlot had been led in their prayers by Emmanuelle, the high-priestess of Faust and one of the most elegant mares to ever greet the face of Equestria. A creature of grace, patience, and incredible intuition, she had led the cult of Faustianism for millennia, imparting to her follow believers generations of wisdom, theological belief, and religious teaching through the Testament, a text so ancient that its true author had been lost to the mysteries of time. Truly, Emmanuelle was a corner stone in the society of Canterlot, or anywhere else in the world where Faustianism found influence; the spiritual guide for millions of faithful from all walks of life.

And she had been butchered no more than a day ago.

Given how long it had been since the last high-priestess had been elected, there were very few out there who truly knew which path for the faith to follow now. In its past the daughters of Faust would have meditated on the issue, devoted years, maybe even decades, to selecting a worthy candidate to take the position as head of the faith. But for a Post-Equine, twenty four hours was nothing, even less than nothing; less than even the blink of an eye for creatures that would exist forever. In such a short period there was little chance that the daughters had even begun the proper rituals of mourning and burial, much less moved on to the selection of a successor, but Sombra was no fool, and knew that by now one of the priestesses would have already taken on a position of authority amongst them.

A lone mare stepped from the crowd.

"I speak for the daughters of Faust," she said in a calm, serene voice, the result of years of meditation and deep personal reflection. Sombra gave her a look up and down before nodding. Though he could make out nothing of her features, robed as she was, Sombra could easily tell from her physical stature that she was an exquisite creature. Only a few inches shorter than he was, the mare moved with natural grace, her movement like liquid. Suddenly tiring of the guessing game, Sombra looked back to the assembled convent, who watched both him and his soldiers warily, clustering together like sheep in the face of such a deadly threat.

He'd had enough of this.

"The laws of the crown are now in effect!" Sombra's voice boomed throughout the chamber, catching the attention of all present. "In accordance with the dissolution of the faith, all items and possessions relating to the worship of the false Goddess are to be removed and destroyed. Failure to do so is treason!" Anathema burst in existence above him, bathing the congregation in malevolent scarlet light. "And we all know the punishment of treason."

For a few moments there was silence, until, one by one, the priestesses began removing their robes; they were all so heartbreakingly beautiful.

"Captain," Sombra called out to his bodyguard below, one of the alicorn's, a thick-set, muscular stallion turning in acknowledgment. "Have these mares taken to the dungeons for storage before distribution. Take the soldiers with you, I have no further need for them."

"Are you certain, my lord?"

Sombra looked from his captain to the priestess stood before him, who had yet to remove her robe. "She is just a priestess, captain. Nothing that I shall not be able to handle." As his captain nodded and began to rally the soldiers for the next phase of the operation, Sombra fully turned his attention to the priestess, who stood calm and still despite all that had just occurred. "Remove your robes, priestess. Your king would look upon your true beauty and marvel at it."

For a moment the mare regarded him passively, her features inscrutable behind her veil before, with a single, swift movement, she reached up with a hoof and slowly pulled it from her body, depositing it on the floor beside her..

Sombra felt something in his heart ache.

It was as if some divine artist had taken it upon themselves to see beauty and grace wrought in flesh and bone, a living creature of impeccable elegance. Her coat was a pure, unsullied snow-white, complemented by a mane and tail of incredibly pale magenta, all of which was further unified by her violet eyes, their colour so intense and rich that for a few brief moments Sombra found his control slipping, his most base instincts threatening his authority from the very edges of his mind. Her body was lithe and toned, her coat gleaming in the dazzling light of the chamber. Turning slightly, the mare presented her flank, displaying a fleur-de-lis cutie mark of gold, flanked on either side by ones of purple.

She was truly a stallions dream; Sombra knew that he would be claiming this mare for himself, whether he truly desired her or not.

"Your name?"

"Fleur De Lis, my lord," came the reply, her voice fine and melodic. Was there nothing about this mare that couldn't attract a stallions gaze? No wonder the priestesses wore such covering robes.

"Fleur De Lis, from this moment forth I claim you as my own, and in this capacity you shall serve as a concubine. You will submit to my commands, present yourself upon my orders, and at all times obey. Others may call me what they wish, but I am a fair stallion, and should you follow my orders I will provide you a life of luxury beyond anything you can imagine. But fail me, disobey me but once, and I shall not hesitate to end your life. The new order does not tolerate treason. Do you understand?"

"Yes, my lord." The response was unhurried, but emotionless and blank, spoken for no reason other than to provide a response. What thoughts revolved within the mind of such an Angel, Sombra wondered. Perhaps it would be best to keep this one monitored at all times.

"Very good. Now, lead me to the Harmony Core."

Nodding in understanding, Fleur De Lis began to circle the base of the enormous statue they were beneath, her pace slow and steady as Sombra followed behind her. The temple had emptied by now, his soldiers leading the former-priestesses back across the bridge and into the Celestial Levels proper, and in their absence the chamber was eerily silent, save for the light trotting of hooves on the cold marble floors, which echoed and abounded across the empty void of the inner space. Looking back towards the arch, Sombra felt something odd, a disquieting in his soul, almost as if he was being... rejected from this place. He turned his gaze to the great statue above him. Once, he had followed that Goddess. Once, he himself had believed so readily in the lies that the priestesses preached to the masses.

How times had changed.

A full fifty meters tall, the manifestation towered over the two alicorn's, a testament to the power and strength of the Goddess. The figure itself wasn't one of beauty, as was the bodies of the priestesses, but one of a warrior, a pony of strength. Fashioned in the likeness of a pony rearing, two powerful legs, carved from the purest crystal, rose up from hooves of gold, whilst the two fore-legs pawed at thin air. The Goddesses expression was one of serene tranquillity, but beneath it, Sombra could feel an undercurrent of raw power and unmatched divinity, as if he were standing before an inferno. Her mane and tail had been carved from white marble veined with streaks of bloody scarlet, but her eyes were closed, save for the right eye, which had been sculpted from a tick ruby; a representation of the Eye of Faust, buried at the heart of Canterlot. The whole construct was glad in golden armour, not all too dissimilar from that of the Celestial Guard, but tailored for the female form. Finally, a pair of gossamer wings at full spread rose from the statues mid-section, each faceted crystal feather gleaming a riot of refracted colour.

Looking upon it, Sombra couldn't help but feel incredibly minute compared to the full power of the deity depicted before him; a moat of dust before the infinite vastness of creation. But of course, that was the desired effect. For all that it taught, for every sermon on peace and harmony, and the value of co-existence and co-operation, Faustianism was a lie, a hypocrisy that he would not stand to see exist in the world a moment longer than could be helped. The faith wasn't a positive influence, not a pillar that upheld society, but its greatest weakness. It took in those who were too weak to make their own way in the world and fed them lies, filled them with the false belief that Equestria was a place of peace and harmony, where all stood equal before the judgement of the Goddess.

And that was the greatest lie of all.

The world was no place of equality, Sombra growled as he followed Fleur De Lis behind the statue before descending a wide flight of stairs that sank into the dais, the world was a place where only the strong survived and the weak perished. In this world, only those who had the will and drive to succeed truly deserved the bounties of life, not those who were cowards before the hardships of existence. Yet thanks to the faith, those cowards continued to press onwards, rather than following the true course of nature and dying off, leaving only the strong still standing. It was in this way that the faith weakened the Equine race, by sheltering those weaklings who had no right to exist, to breath the same air as the strong.

That was the universal mandate that drove the dark alicorn, the truth that burned within his heart day in and day out; that the strong were born to crush the weak. It had been for that reason he had embraced the corruption, and tainted his soul for the power to bring about a most fundamental change within this world. A change that he had waited over eight thousand years to bring about, and now that it had been set in motion, he had no intention of letting anyone prevent. Trixie understood the concept in her own form; that of domination and submission. But she would never truly be able to comprehend the exact nature of a such a philosophy. Not in her condition, not as a Pre-Equine. Perhaps when this business was done he would elevate her to the rank of Post-Equine, but for now he was content to let the mare play her games and torture the patriarch Tiberius as she wished.

A worse fate he could scarcely imagine.

Shuddering, Sombra cast the imagery such a thought conjured from his mind, not wishing to dwell upon the madness that had enveloped the mind of his witch. Looking about himself, Sombra realised that Fleur De Lis had already led him deep within the catacombs beneath the temple, though he was hardly surprised. The item he sought, the Harmony Core, was more than merely an item of faith, it was one of the most potent weapons to have ever been forged. Some whispered that it had been the cause of the Shattering, others, that it was a minute fragment of Faust's divine wrath given physical form.

Foals, how little they truly knew.  

Eight thousand years ago, before the Shattering, he'd learnt this himself first-hoof, when the royal sisters of Canterlot, Luna and Celestia themselves had ransacked his empire and forced his nation into slavery under the tyrannical hoof of Equestrian imperialism. Sombra had fought for the freedom of the Crystal Empire, for its pride and heritage, but ultimately he had lacked the power to save his nation; he had been weak, and it was because of his weakness that he had been unable to save those he had been charged with protecting; the elderly, the mares and foals of his realm.

His own two daughters, executed before his very eyes.

It had been in the aftermath of the conquest, as he had languished within the confines of his cell awaiting trial, that he came to achieve enlightenment, when the curtain of falsehood had been lifted from his vision, and the stark reality of existence exposed for him to see and know. He still remembered it all; the dank stink of the cell, the stale taste in the air, the accusations of his comrades as they called him weak, worthless, a leader who had failed in his duties; but also the hatred. His hatred for Luna and Celestia, and all they had done. His hatred for Faust, and the lies that the faith had taught him about the truth of existence. But most deep was his hatred for himself, for his failure, as a sovereign and warrior, but also as a father. In the end, he had not even possessed the strength to defend his own flesh and blood, and despite all his failings, it was this that haunted him the most. Not a day went by when he failed to remember the tears that fell from his daughters eyes, nor their pleas for mercy, nor the dull 'thunk' of the executioners axe as it bit into the head-block.

He had failed that day, and waited eight thousand years as penance, but now was his time to rise, and there nothing that could be done to stop him. Celestia and Luna were both erased from existence; Luna having been killed during the Nightmare Heresy, when the moon had been split in twain, whilst Celestia had been confined to the Eternity Matrix, the former ruler of the globe reduced to little more than dying electrical flickers and decrepit circuitry. Truthfully, he had greatly deliberated how to remove Shining Armour from the picture, but Fortune had finally favoured him, and the patriarch had committed suicide in a vain effort to save the life of his sisters, leaving a mere stripling charged with the defence of Mi Amore Cadenza. It had been the easiest thing to grind Tiberius into the dust and take the throne for himself, and now that the foundations were all in place it was time to set in motion a chain of events that would change the face of the world forever, make him the rightful king of Canterlot, and grant him vengeance after eight thousand long and bitter years of waiting.

Before he was done, Sombra would see to it that Equestria would burn.

"We are here, my lord." Fleur De Lis voice pierced Sombra's brooding, returning the dark alicorn to the immediate reality surrounding him. The two alicorn's were stood before a simple circular door, now deep within the catacombs of the temple, the only lighting coming from the faint glowstones embedded in the ceiling. There were many things down here that Sombra could have used, dangerous and terrible weapons that would allow him to reap a bloody harvest of life in compensation for his sufferings. But for destruction on a truly epic scale, only the Harmony Core could possibly sate the dark alicorn's desire for vengeance and death. Though the item it protected was of incalculable value, the portal that guarded the Harmony Core was a plain, austere construct of metal, no more than four meters tall. Set in the centre was a small, hoof-shaped depression, a biometric scanner designed to only respond to the touch of high-priestess.

Though he could have easily penetrated locks that kept the Harmony Core secure, Sombra was no foal. A simple Aethereal scan revealed a spell of simple, but potentially destructive power lay over the chamber, one that was woven in such a way that should the vault be opened by any means other than a positive biometric match, the chamber would collapse in on itself at a quantum level, annihilating both everything inside as well as the entire temple complex. The daughters of Faust may not have truly understood what the weapon held in this vault was, but they were knowledgeable enough to know that, in the wrong hooves, it could spell death for the whole of Equestria.

Of course, the high-priestess had been slain during the battle for the throne room, and with the faith now dissolved the prospects of a new candidate being selected any time in both the near and far future were beyond slim. But no matter, he had prepared for the scenario, he was prepared for any scenario.

Running a hoof over the plating on his barrel, Sombra opened up a small compartment within his armours chest-plate, pulling from within a small package wrapped in blood-stained cloth. Unwrapping the item, Sombra held aloft the bloody severed hoof of the high-priestess Emmanuelle, the slab of flesh still dripping ultramarine fluids. In truth, there was little flesh actually present, he'd had little need for the mares whole limb, merely her hoof. Sombra gave Fleur De Lis a side-long glance to gauge her reaction, and found himself surprised that she'd managed to maintain her placid expression, though the horror in her eyes told him everything that he could have wanted to know.

Discarding the bloody cloth, Sombra raise the slice of flesh and pressed it into the depression of the biometric scanner. For a few moments there was silence, before, with a near imperceptible click, the scanner accepted the proffered genetic code and began to slowly roll from its position, moving aside to reveal the vault of the Harmony Core.

The vault was a cavernous place.

As with a null chamber, the outer extremities of the vault were hidden by shadows, even the light from the open portal doing little to dispel the darkness. From the entrance, a single gantry of Megastructure jutted out into the darkness, its length so great that it extended far beyond sight, disappearing into the blackness of the vault. The only illumination available emanating from two thin strips of glowstone embedded into the gantries surface.

"Wait here." Sombra ordered before stepping out onto the gantry, and then into the darkness.

The light of the doorway was swiftly consumed by the shadows, leaving Sombra isolated in a world of darkness. An oppressive silence filled the vault, as if the full weight of the Harmony Core's destructive potential caused even existence itself to be hushed in fear and awe. Regardless, Sombra pressed on. Though he moved in silence, with nary a sound nor a breath of wind, Sombra had the sensation that he was suddenly suspended over a great abyss, and that were he to fall in, there would be no return. In an attempt to illuminate his situation, and thus gauge how large the vault truly was, he fired his horn, bathing the area around him with violet light, yet no matter how brightly his magic flared he still could not see the extremities of the vault. Powerful magic was in effect here, Sombra suddenly realised; not a mundane spell of protection, but something that warped at the fabric of existence. That explained the similarities the vault shared with a null chamber; this was a place built not to prevent something from getting in, but something getting out.

Finally, he came upon the Harmony core.

The gantry terminated in a small disk of Megastructure no more than six meters in diameter, its perimeter lined with rings of heliotrope glowstones. At the direct centre of the disk was a small plinth, no higher than its barrel, and atop it, resting upon a plush pillow of royal purple silk, lay the Harmony Core.

It was... smaller, than he expected.

The Harmony Core was a multi-faceted gem of scarlet crystal, carved in the likeness of a heart. Though it look like little more than a jewellery trinket, as Sombra reached for the Core he suddenly felt something wash over him. At first Sombra believed he had only breached some sort of stasis field that encapsulated the plinth, but it was only when the presence began to run across his body, following the contours of his armour and sinking through the gaps to caress his coat, that it occurred to Sombra that  the energy wasn't being emitted by a stasis field; it was coming from the Harmony Core itself.

It was analysing him, Sombra realised, as he felt phantom trendils drift across his mind. It was scrutinising not just him, but his purpose, his reason for entering its vault. For a few seconds the touch was delicate and benign, but in a single horrible instant Sombra screamed as he felt the presence pierce deeper into his psyche, pushing deeper and deeper, searching for something. Visions flashed through his mind, memories that he'd never wished to see again suddenly being forced to the fore of his awareness; snap-shot images of his defeat.

He saw himself lying on the ground, bloody and broken, as the two royal sisters stood over him, at once radiant and terrible in their battle armour. He saw himself being dragged from the battlefield, a slick trail of blood marking his passage as he was taken into confinement. He saw himself huddled in his cell, the cries of his defeated warriors filling the air as they damned him for his failure, and cursed the day they'd sworn loyalty to such a mockery of a king. He saw himself upon the scaffold, chained to the floor as his daughters were brought forward and executed one by one, the royal sisters watching on with dispassionate smiles of victory. Hatred surged within him, hatred that gave him the strength to break spirit and crush bone.

What do you wish?

"I wish for vengeance!" Sombra cried, raising his head and baring his fangs. The question had emerged from nothingness, still no sound was made in the chamber save that of his own cry, and yet Sombra knew by some deep instinct that it was the Harmony Core that he spoke to. "I wish to see destruction brought upon those who shamed me! I wish to see the weaklings of this world perish!" Sombra threw his head back, his voice raised to a vicious roar of hatred. "I wish to see Equestria burn!"

His voice disappeared into the blackness, and at last Sombra lowered his head, panting for breath. It took him a few moments to suddenly realise that his hoof had been touching the Harmony Core the whole time, and it was not without some trepidation that the dark alicorn took the crystal within his grasp. Yet despite that he waited, no more question came, and it wasn't until a full five minutes had passed that he realised that no more questions were coming. His coat was drenched with sweat, and as he safely stowed the harmony core within his chest-plate Sombra came to realise just how cold he was; ice cold, as if his soul had decayed to nothing. Turning away from the plinth, Sombra couldn't help but shake the notion that something both terrible and irreversible had begun. But no matter, he had the Harmony Core now, and was only a single step away from bringing this world to its knees. As he stalked back along the gantry, the dark alicorn chuckled to himself.

The time had come; this very night Equestria would burn.

XII: The Shattering comes once more.

Tiberius had never felt such humiliation.

"Mmm... good boy..." Trixie groaned in appreciation as she pushed the alicorn's muzzle deeper into the moist warmth of her sex, his tongue pushing further into the mares core as it lapped at her inner being. The unicorn herself was sprawled out across the ice cold surface of the Megastructure disk, hind-legs spread, panting lightly with flushed cheeks, whilst her mane lay spread out beneath her in waves of cornflower blue. Her chest rose and fell in shallow movements as she petted Tiberius' mane with a hoof in a manner that could almost have been described as affectionate. Tiberius made no response, distracted as he was by the sense-dulling musk of the mare's arousal, his heart burning with shame as the witch gripped his fluted horn with her telekinesis and pressed him even closer to her body.

How long he had been forced to carry out this degrading task he was no longer sure, Trixie had blinded him from the outset with a simple strip of blue silk that had matched the hue of her own coat, whilst the oppressive stasis fields of the null chamber negated his bodies innate ability to determine the passage of time, confining him to an existence of immeasurable, eternal silence punctuated only by the visits of his warden. Save for Trixie's visits, he had no way of telling the passage of time; for all he knew years, decades, or even centuries could have passed beyond the walls of his cell, the eons drifting past with unstoppable motion as he remained trapped within a stagnant life of darkness.

Finding the ministrations of her captive losing their lustre, Trixie let a sadistic, yet seductive, smile spread across her muzzle, recognising another opportunity to administer discipline to the alicorn held between her thighs as she slowly raised her hoof to Tiberius' horn, resting her limb against its tip ever so gently. Instantly Tiberius tensed, his tongue lapping at her sex with increased fervour as he sought to avoid the disciplinary action from his new mistress that he knew such a caress implied. Already had he partaken in Trixie's own form of encouragement, and already had he found it to be far from his liking.

Using her enhanced aethereal talents, Trixie fashioned a simple bar of arcane matter in the air above Tiberius' horn; an incorporeal file, lined on one side with fine, barbed teeth. The mare took a brief moment to look down upon the blinded face of her captive, savouring the sheer erotic thrill the manipulation of another equine gave her; the knowledge that at a whim she could deliver him to ecstasy or wrack him with agony, that she had absolute control over fellow being. Resting the aethereal file against the base of Tiberius' horn, Trixie gave the alicorn enough to time to realise what was coming and to know fear of it before drawing the construct up the ivory appendage in a single, fluid motion.

The effect was instant.

Tiberius moved to pull away, instinct telling him to flee from the source of the pain as the file scraped across the sensitive surface of his horn, sending a nerve-searing wave of pain through the base of his skull and racing down his spine; even his wings twitching within the boundaries of their confines. Seizing his horn once more in her telekinetic grip, Trixie denied the alicorn his break for freedom, instead forcing him even deeper into her sex as he gave a muted scream of agony. Hearing her fallen angel scream thus, Trixie once more felt the seductive thrill of sadism run through her; the simple imagery of a once mighty warrior of the Celestial Levels now bent to her will and breaking beneath her attentions causing her sex to clench around the invasive tongue which lapped at her inner core, a release of musky fluid accompanying the mare's climax as she wrapped her hind legs around the alicorn's neck, forcing his tongue even deeper into her being.

His mind still reeling from the sheer agony brought on by the reduction of his horn, Tiberius could do little more but continue to tend to his mistress's needs as the mare discharged into his open mouth, the wash of fluids forcing him to continuously swallow Trixie's release, lest he bring upon himself yet another lesson in discipline. For a subjective eternity his world was condensed into the sounds of Trixie's moans as the mare rode out her climax, grinding her tender sex against his muzzle as she sought still further pleasure from him, before, with an appreciative sigh, he felt Trixie's hind-legs fall away from their death-grip around his neck, the mare simultaneously releasing her telekinetic hold on his horn. Though now free, Tiberius didn't pull away from the mare instantly, his tongue remaining voluntarily buried inside of her for a few seconds longer than he was comfortable with before he was able to summon the energy to at last withdraw from the mares sex.

The taste of her lingered on his tongue.

The confusion within him was a maelstrom of emotions that induced more fear within the alicorn than any amount physical suffering could have ever imprinted on his consciousness. Anger, shame, hatred, humiliation, and arousal; all clamoured for his attention as the alicorn returned to his standing position, remnants of Trixie's release running down his muzzle and dripping from his chin. He hated the mare to his core for what she was doing to him, for the way she twisted and befuddled his mind with her false insistence of his desire to submit to the will of one who was stronger than he could ever be. Not only that, but the physical degradation as well, the mare forcing him, patriarch of the Celestial Guard and warden of the Celestial Levels, to service her vile needs and provide her with the satisfaction that her lurid body seemed to continuously crave, employing him as little more than a toy with which to occupy herself.

And yet, deep inside of his soul, Tiberius felt some unknown instinct respond to his humiliation, and worse yet draw arousal from it. Beneath him, the alicorn's cock stood at full attention, a fine display of male virility that Trixie had been all too keen to play with. In all his fifteen hundred years, Tiberius had waged wars, killed hundreds, and fought on the frontlines of combat in accordance with the demands of duty, courage, and honour; he was a strong stallion, forged so by the hammer of brutal training against the anvil of war. And yet, when Trixie had taken his cock into her mouth, and he had released not a moment later, Tiberius had never felt so weak and defenceless. The sexual insecurity, the unknown yet omnipresent humiliation that his lack of stamina brought to the forefront of his psyche, was one of the most unsettling sensations that he'd ever had the misfortune of experiencing; something that pierced through his perception of his own masculinity and made the stallion tremble before the devious talents of his tormentor.

And yet still the aberrancy within him craved it.

Trixie continued to lay before the alicorn, basking in the soothing afterglow of her release. It was addictive; the sense of power and control she drew from dominating the alicorn in such away, emasculating him and exposing the weaknesses of his body, slowly wearing away at his preconceptions of himself until all that remained was the fragile, malleable core of his soul, simply waiting for a mare like herself to reshape him into a much more pleasing individual; one who, though unable to sate her needs, would certainly be able to accommodate her desires. The mare let a hoof drift between her hind-legs, gently running over the sensitive flesh of her sex, sighing as phantom twitches of her dissipating climax ran up her spine, saturating her being with the sexual stimulation it demanded.

From somewhere in the darkness, beyond her sight at the end of the gantry, came the dull grinding over the null chambers access bulkhead opening, accompanied shortly afterwards by the sound of two individuals making their way down the Megastructure gantry. Trixie paid no mind to the encroaching intruders, but Tiberius tensed once more, wanting to retreat away from whoever was approaching. He didn't want to be seen like this, stripped of his pride and blinded, the sexual fluids of his warden dripping from his chin, whilst his shame remained exposed for any observer to witness. The fear of such exposure bordered on primal, and for a brief moment such instinct to flee briefly took control of his body, disregarding the constriction of his bindings and forcing him to move.

It was a foalish mistake.

The hollow of the null chamber rang with the patriarchs screams, the immediate area surrounding the alicorn becoming bathed in a bloody scarlet glow as his bindings punished him for attempting to escape, lances nerve-shredding fire coursing through his being. Returning to his area of confinement, Tiberius gasped for air as the pain began to die away, his lungs burning as his brutalised body twitched and shuddered with lingering currents of agony. From the shadows emerged the short, squat form of a young, chubby alicorn, clad in grey-blue armour, followed by the tall, gangly form of another, this one covered by armour of an amber-yellow colouration. The foremost of the two, the squat alicorn who went by the name of Snips, looked from Trixie, sprawled on the floor and panting lightly, to Tiberius, a pitiful, wretched sight of a once proud warrior, and back to Trixie, a jealous scowl marring his stubby muzzle.

"Lord Sombra requests your presence, my lady," Snips stated, his voice oddly high pitched for a colt his age. "He says that the time has come." Trixie groaned slightly in annoyance at the intrusion of her specimens education, but nonetheless rolled over onto her stomach before stretching her hind-legs; her rump pressed into the air only a few inches below Tiberius' muzzle, the scent of her excitement once again filling his senses. Standing fully upright, Trixie shook her head, her mane a cascade of silken strands as it fell back into its customary position. Moaning lightly as the burst of movement stimulate the still sensitive flesh of her sex, the mare turned to her captive, stepping up to him and placing a hoof on his cheek, telekinetically gripping his horn and pulling his head down until his muzzle was on level with her own.

Simultaneously, a collar comprised of bloody scarlet energy formed around the patriarch's neck, locking into place to form one continuously seal, a leash of the same energy sprouting from the collar's front and moving through the air with serpentine grace to wrap itself round Trixie's right fore-leg. Though blind, Tiberius could feel the collar lock itself around his neck, its presence causing the sense of shame in his soul to flare. It was humiliating to say the least, a Post-Equine such as himself tethered by the whims of a filthy Pre-Equine, a creature that was evolutionarily inferior to himself. Furthermore the concept of being controlled by a mare rankled what little masculine pride he had left, wearing away still further his own sense of self. He was Tiberius, a warrior of the Levels, and he was beholden to none save Faust and the princess he was charged with protecting.

But you failed, didn't you? You failed and this is your penance.

The errant thought skittered through his confusion, serving only to exacerbate his shame. No matter how much he wanted, or tried, to deny it, ultimately he knew it was futile to resist the truth; he had failed, failed in his duties, failed in his orders. Barely more than twenty hours had passed after the death of Shining Armour that he ascended into the rank of patriarch, and already he had failed in a most fundamental way; Cadence had fallen into the clutches of Sombra, the Celestial Guard had been massacred, and the royal bloodline of Canterlot had been removed from power. His defeat was so utter, so all consuming, that even the mere thought of it sent his stomach churning and his mind weeping. Tiberius didn't want to surrender, he didn't want to accept defeat. He wanted to run, to find a place where none of this could ever possibly return to him and live out the rest eternity hidden from the rest of the world.

But even in thoughts of retreat he could find no solace from his shame. What kind of patriarch would he be if he turned tail and fled? What would Shining Armour think if he saw he successor flee from his duties and hide like a foal fleeing parental discipline? As patriarch he could never surrender, never stop fighting; he was honour bound to war on until the bitter end, until the last breath of life left his body and his soul finally guttered and died. But what use was there in continuing to fight? Sombra had complete control of the Celestial Levels, and Tiberius had more than a sneaking suspicion that the dark alicorn also had designs for the rest of Canterlot. There was nowhere to flee to, no way to fight back, it would have been a suicidal fight, but he couldn't surrender either, or bring even greater shame upon himself, and by extension the Celestial Guard and even Cadence herself.

The confusing mass of thought and fear tumbled over and over in his mind, and deep within himself Tiberius knew that such discord would prove to be his undoing.  

Trixie began to lap at the remaining stains of fluid that coated his muzzle, her tongue soft and warm against his coat, her touch once more filling his body with the perverse thrill of desire. The grooming only took a few moments, Trixie's caress soft and delicate, and at complete odds with that of the sadistic nymph who'd occupied her body not a mere minute before. There was almost something maternal about the way she licked him clean, as if she regarded Tiberius as something to be raised and nurtured into its true form, and it only served to compound his shame. Finishing, Trixie smiled happily to herself, Leaning up and giving Tiberius' ear a small nibble before promptly turning and tugging firmly on the leash, causing the alicorn to stumble forwards a few halting steps. He tensed, awaiting the punishment for leaving his confinement, yet the agony failed to materialise, and it was only after Trixie gave the leash another harsh tug that he realised he was being led out from his cell, back into the reality of the world.

His steps were slow and hesitant at first, his lack of sight preventing him from taking the long, confident strides he was used to. Not only that, but Tiberius was painfully aware of just how narrow the gantry leading to his disk was, and that in his condition a fall from said gantry, whilst not fatal, would be a painful experience to say the least. Trixie, however, didn't seem inclined to allow him to acclimate to the situation, yet another prompt tug pulling him forwards. The two alicorns of Trixie's bodyguard spun and returned the way they came, Tiberius only being able to make out their movements from the light growl of their armour, as synthetic ligaments thrummed into life and the idle internal reactor cycled back up. The going across the gantry was thankfully slow paced, as they had to walk single file, the dull grinding of the access bulkhead alerting Tiberius that they were approaching the end.

A gentle, warm breeze caressed the patriarch as he was led from the null-chamber, the atmosphere of the Celestial Levels being much warmer than the interior of the null chamber. Tiberius shuddered slightly as he emerged, goose-bumps rising across the back of his neck as he finally returned to the world. He breathed deeply of the fresh air, taking as much of it into his lungs as possible, feeling it cycle out the stale, frigid air of the null chamber and fill his body with a soothing warmth. Alas, he wasn't given time to savour his brief exposure to freedom before the leash was tugged once more, and he was forced to stumble on after his mistress, being led onwards to an unknown destination.

The journey was one of stumbling confusion and rushed progress, Trixie leading him through the darkness with deft tugs on his leash, drawing him around any corners and obstacles.

It was only after Trixie had halted him on what was revealed to be some sort of moving platform that Tiberius realised, with some trepidation, how deep into the labyrinth they were going. Blind as he was, Tiberius had spent all of the fifteen hundred years of his existence in the Celestial Levels, and such an existence had bred in him an intuition with the structure of his habitat. It was this sense of understanding with the very fabric of the Celestial Levels that informed the patriarch he was being led deeper into the city's super-structure, minute changes in air pressure and temperature informing his finely tuned instincts that step by step he was pressing deeper into the fabric of the Levels, into the abandoned and haunted chambers of the Inner City.

Once, it was told, the Celestial Levels had housed more than the mere ten thousand or so alicorns that comprised celestial society. Legends spoke of a time before the Shattering, a time when the Celestial Levels had teemed with Post-Equine life, and even the deepest halls had hummed with the bustling activity of immortal life. Of those ancient days, little was now known, save by those few rare individuals who had lived through such times; Princess Cadence and Lord Sombra. But the legacy of the Ancient Age still remained in Canterlot, forged into the very structure of the Celestial Levels. Beneath the surface of the Levels, where the remaining alicorns made their homes, were miles upon miles of dark halls and abandoned chamber, empty, silent, and inhabited only by the lingering ghosts of those who had come before.

Such places were shunned by any sane individual, and all knew that only the mad or deranged would ever dare to make a permanent residence amongst the bones of the dead. Innumerable stories circulated the Levels about the true nature of the Inner City, of what really lurked beneath the shining veneer of the outer facade. Nought but dust, said some; the Inner City had been abandoned for thousands of years, there was nothing that still could survive amidst the decayed remains of its former inhabitants, even alicorns required food and drink. Ghosts, said others; the spirits of those who still clung bitterly to the last remaining vestiges of their former lives, driven by the emptiness of their wretched existence to seek the warmth and flesh of those who yet lived, stalking through the shadows in search of sustenance their incorporeal bodies no longer required. There was certainly no end to the apocryphal tales that circulated the Levels, but all agreed on one thing.

That buried within the Inner City were relics from the Ancient Age.  

In comparison to every single zone that existed upon the face of Equestria, the Celestial Levels were paramount in terms of technological advancement. Here, science and technology were at their greatest extremes, pushed beyond the boundaries of what even the most intellectual of the Pre-Equines could begin to fathom. Nowhere else in the world did there exist such miracles as there did in the Levels; aethermancy, biomancy, atomancy, and even more beyond that. Whilst in the Cyber-Polities, the most advanced of the Pre-Equine enclaves of Canterlot, these schools of knowledge did exist, they did so in much more primitive forms, barely understood by the mortals who dabbled in them. Aethermancy in particular, the blending of magic and technology, was the one true science that could only be understood by the Post-Equines of the Levels, brought to its pinnacle in the form of the Eternity Matrix; the massive and ancient quantum cogitator, the network of which delved deep through the Megastructure of Canterlot, reaching as far as the Eye of Faust itself.              

And yet, despite the plethora of knowledge they held in their hooves, the Post-Equines lived in ignorance of the inner workings of their technology. Whilst they were in possession of a great many standard construction templates and accurate replication engines, the actual process of the creation of such devices was little more than a copy and paste procedure, played out on a highly advanced scale. In truth, for all their grandiose claims of supremacy, the alicorns were little better than any of the Pre-Equines they looked down upon, just as ignorant as any of the ponies that inhabited the zones of Equestria. Who actually knew what arcane process allowed a gauss-lancer to produce such destructive beams of energy, and it was all but a mystery as to what atomantic energies permeated the venerable weapons of the Levels, such as Starlight Wrath, and gave them the ability to split their targets with a nanoscopic level of precision.

Over the centuries, this ignorance had lead to the loss of many ancient and highly arcane devices, their means of replication lost and they few remaining models so valuable that they could never be exposed to testing. Such devices were incredibly rare and incalculably valuable, and it was rumoured that deep within the Inner City there still remained caches of such treasures, locked behind doors of adamantium and sealed with aethereal wards of terrible potency. Once every few decades it was common for parties of hunters, usually scavengers from the weaker houses, to launch expeditions into the interior of the Levels in search of such things, seeking the terrible relics of the Ancient Age. Most never returned, becoming lost within the haunted darkness of the Inner City, and those few that did return usually came back insane, babbling incoherently about lightless depths and ancient, malign sentience. Yet still there were those who not only returned sane, but had also succeeded in their quest, bringing with them dust-laden engines and stasis-preserved tomes. Always these rare individuals were highly praised for their efforts, and elevated to positions of extreme rank and wealth, but they were still few in number, and their retrieved relics too little to prevent the gradual decay of the tech-pool.

Their journey upon the moving platform wasn't a swift one, though through his own intuition Tiberius could tell they were moving at great speed. After the Inner City had been abandoned, the enormous ventilation shafts that had supplied the area with fresh air from the surface had been sealed off, causing the dark atmosphere of the urban labyrinth to stagnate, with nary a breath of wind nor the slightest hint of even a draught, and yet he could sense in his soul that with every second that passed he was sinking deeper into the winding maze, being drawn further from the comforting light of the holy sun. Tiberius suddenly became painfully aware that even if he were able to effect a successful escape at this very moment, such freedom would prove of little use to him. He had no idea of how deep into Canterlot's super-structure he'd been led, and, being blind as he was, would be unable to trace his route back to the surface. A forlorn sense of hopelessness settled over him, cutting away at the few glimmers of hope he still tended in his heart.    

A weight pressed itself against his side, bleeding heat into his body, and it wasn't until Tiberius felt a muzzle brush against his fore-leg that he could confirm that it was Trixie who was pressed against his flank, nuzzling him affectionately. The mare was a contradiction to Tiberius, at once a vicious sadist and a caring, almost maternal individual. Already during his education, Trixie had cut open his skin more than once, and had derived a sick form of sexual pleasure from watching ultramarine fluid leak from his body, even going so far as to let the vitae soak her hoof before rubbing it across her body, being certain to give a fair coating of the fluid to her sex as well. His horn had received similar treatment, its once magnificent helical spiral now marred by deep gouges and worn smooth where she'd put her file to use.

Trixie had certainly not been halted by her inhibitions.

Yet after each wound had served its purpose, and the agony had faintly subsided, the mare had been prompt to patch him back together, using her aethereal talents to knit his wounds shut and to dull the pain, all the while whispering soothing words and reassurances to him, which disturbed Tiberius to no end. After each session the mare even insisted she lay with him, allowing Tiberius to collapse to the floor before folding her body against his and resting in silence for an indeterminate amount of time, nuzzling against him like a close lover, before she would pull him from the ground and the cycle of agony and ecstasy would begin anew. The mare was certainly a creature driven by her passions, and already Tiberius had contemplated on the notion that so great was her sexual drive that the mare's consciousness had separated into two components; that of the sadistic aberrant, and the caring, maternal mare, both cycling in and out of control once their subjective urges had been satisfied.

The immense weight of the psychological trauma necessary to drive a mare to such a fragmented, unrestrained existence was something that Tiberius feared to consider, and a fate that he dread for himself. Trixie had already revealed her foalhood rape as being the cause of her initial trauma, but Tiberius, though lacking any advanced knowledge in the field of psychology, suspected that such an event, though traumatic in itself, would not be enough to drive the mare to such insanity. No, Tiberius suspected that the item she wore around her neck, the Alicorn Amulet as she'd referred to it, was the true cause of Trixie's deviancy. He had already seen a demonstration of its power during Sombra's assault when the mare had simultaneously vaporised fifty alicorns in the blink of an eye; a feat that required an aethereal capacity not a single Pre-Equine in existence could naturally possess. There was a malignancy that hung about the item, an aura of veiled evil that hinted at the amulets true alignment and function. Not only that, but the necklace shared many aesthetic similarities with Sombra's crown, arousing Tiberius' suspicions to no end as to the origin and true loyalty of the Alicorn Amulet.    

He felt the platform come to a halt, though the air remained deadly silent, a sharp tug on his leash not a moment later confirming his suspicion that they had arrived at their undisclosed location. Once more his steps were slow and uncertain as he was led forwards, fumbling blindly in the darkness, and praying that he wasn't being led to his execution; an irrational fear, perhaps, given Trixie's apparent attraction to him, but not a notion he could simply discard. As the group fully stepped off the platform their combined hooves sent eerie, haunting echoes reverberating through the empty halls of the Inner City, Tiberius' ears listening as the echoes travelled further and further away, gradually growing more dim. To him it seemed the sound had travelled for miles, and an image formed in his mind of ancient, tortured things amidst the dust-laden chambers raising their heads, disturbed from whatever dark activities had possessed them by the sound of intruders in their twilight realm.

Proceeding onwards, Trixie trotted happily through the empty halls, flanked on either side by her loyal bodyguards, as she led him, her new acquisition closer to their destination. Their journey was thankfully uneventful, Tiberius listening intently over the echoes of their hooves for any signs of movement, anything that might indicate that something was stalking them. More than once a faint flicker of noise had caught his attention, his senses straining to pick up any additional information. Post-Equines were born with naturally heightened senses in comparison to those of the Pre-Equine population, able to experience life on an elevated plain of sensory awareness. Though his magic was blocked, his sight blinded, and the air too laden with dust to allow him to smell the presence of a stalker, Tiberius had long learnt to trust his instincts, and as he heard what sounded like the swish of fabric moving through a faint breeze for what may have been the third or fourth time, he knew that someone, something, was following them.

Snips and Snails could sense it to, the faint hum of their power armour cycling up as obvious as a war-cry to an experienced soldier like Tiberius. They were steeling themselves, preparing for combat in the event that whatever trailed them suddenly became too bold and decided there was no further need for deception. Once more the image of decayed, ghoulish beings coming to the fore of his mind. Prickles ran across his skin, an instinctual response that informed the alicorn he was being watch, and the image shifted to that of a skeletal Post-Equine muzzle, its grey coat pulled taunt over its skull, the two sunken pits of its eyes glowing with cold witch-fire.

Suddenly they came to a halt, the abrupt finish of the loud tread of those upfront informing the patriarch to stop. Casting the image from his mind, Tiberius focussed on his immediate surroundings, though the fear of the unknown still lingered within him at the back of his thoughts. The air was different here, not stagnant and heavy with the dust of antiquity, but charged with a subtle undercurrent of aethereal power, as if he were stood on the precipice of a great well of power. Even the floor beneath his hooves was warm, sending faint thermal currents tickling along the underside of his barrel. His ears twitched as he heard somepony step forward from the group, Trixie given the lightness of their tread, and deactivate some form of protective ward, the air ringing with the faint, high-pitched thrum of power. There was a moment of silence, and then it was as if someone had opened the gates of Tartarus .

An intense wave of fierce heat washed over him, so hot that even taking a breath felt like his lungs were being scorched. Over the sound of himself gasping for air, there ran a deep, throbbing note of bass, pulsing through the air in long, drawn out oscillations. His wings flittered in agitation at the sudden change in temperature, Tiberius trying to pull back before a sharp jolt of energy emanated from the collar and shocked him into submission. Pulling on the leash, Trixie signalled that they were continuing onwards, though Tiberius only followed unwillingly. Passing through whatever portal Trixie had opened, Tiberius heard it close behind them with the dull grinding of ancient gears, a heavy clunk signalling that the access bulkhead had sealed itself with some rather formidable locks.

Within the chamber, the silence of the Inner City was replaced with the constant note of bass that had begun not a moment before, pulsing like the beat of some monolithic heart.        

Whatever great hollow they had entered must have been enormous, as there were no echoes to be heard as they continued onwards. Beneath his hooves Tiberius felt the temperature of the floor rising rapidly, this time not a general heat, but much more precise and fine, as if it were following set channels rather than simply diffusing through the ground. The continuous pulse began to hurt his ears after only a few seconds, each beat causing his brain to ache, as if someone had beaten his skull against the floor with a force-hammer. The size of the chamber was only impressed upon Tiberius even further as they walked for nearly a full two minutes before they came to a stop, their final one if Tiberius' suspicions were true. Coming to a halt he paused for a moment before feeling Trixie place a hoof on his cheek, gently stroking him before reaching up behind his head and pulling on the knot that held his blind in place. "You may want to see this, my dear," she whispered in his ear before, with a final tug, she removed the blind with a flourish. It took several seconds for Tiberius to acclimate to the harsh, pink light of the chamber before he fully realised where he was; both confirming his suspicions and causing his heart to leap into his throat.

He was at the very heart of Canterlot, stood before the Eternity Matrix itself.

The chamber Trixie had led him into was an enormous circular shaft a kilometre across, lit only by the pulsing glow of the Eternity Matrix: a thick trunk of black-grey metal and pulsing, bloody pink light, which sunk down into the depths below and rose up into the darkness above. The Eternity Matrix itself must have been two hundred meters in diameter, suspended in the very centre of the shaft, and accessed by six broad gantries that were spread apart at equal distances around the chamber, radial spokes that terminated in another ring which surrounded the core. The cogitators surface was a confusing mass of black, silhouetted panels and blinding rays of light; the panels covered in intricate patterns of circuitry that glowed the same harsh pink as the rest of the machine. Looking up, Tiberius' eyes followed the Eternity Matrix as it rose higher and higher, its pink glow illuminating the shaft as it climbed until it once more disappeared into the darkness, its light too weak to be seen by the naked eye.

Turning his gaze downwards, Tiberius saw that the strange patterns of circuitry were even engrained into the surface of the gantry he was stood upon; most likely the cause for the strange precision of the heat he felt through his hooves. As it was above, it was below, and the Eternity Matrix sunk deep into the depths of the shaft, until once more it was consumed by shadows. The patriarch felt an incredible sense of awe overcome him as he realised that he was standing before the very heart of Canterlot, the single most valuable piece of machinery in the entire city. The shaft he was stood in ran all the way from the subterranean hollows beneath the city, where the Eye of Faust resided, all the way up and out into the great void, with the Eternity Matrix running nearly its entire length. A sensation of inferiority settled over Tiberius, not the sexual weakness that Trixie had impressed upon him, but one that reminded him just how minute and inconsequential he was before the epic scale of creation; a drop of water in the vast ocean of existence.

Though a high-ranking individual in celestial society, Tiberius had never actually dreamed of coming so close to the ancient cogitator, much less stand before it and feel its roaring heat upon his coat. Access to the machine was severely restricted to the aethermancers of the Levels, the few individuals who were actually capable of comprehending even a fraction of the quantum engines unlimited potential. The Eternity Matrix was an incredible fusion of science and magic; the roiling, raw power of the arcane contained within a shell of circuitry, metal, and technology. Its computing capacity was virtually limitless, powered as it was by energies that could never been truly comprehended. Because of this, the aethermancers, and their ability to interface with the machine, were highly valuable assets to the courts, treated with wealth and status that outranked even his own.

But of course, such riches came at a terrible price.

Though not essentially diametrically opposed, magic and technology were still two opposing factors, and it was not without some difficulty that they could be bonded together. Enchanting was simple enough, the application of a certain trait to a physical item using magic being quite common. But actually intertwining the two, either generating aethereal energy via some artificial means or producing a machine that could channel the incredible power of the aether, was an incredibly difficult task. The Post-Equines of the Levels were still capable of such a feat, mostly in the form of rare venerable weapons, but something on the truly vast scale of the Eternity Matrix was beyond their ability to manufacture. Not only that, but the combining of such dissimilar sciences often led to the creation of incredibly toxic, and often highly unstable, bi-products of exotic matter, neither physical or magical. The image of Urial, the courts former aethermancer, as his skeletal frame stood trembling and shaking, poisoned by the very engine he was charged with maintaining, came to the fore of the patriarchs mind, making him cringe inwardly. Urial had always been a sickly creature, and such a fate through similar exposure was something he was keen to avoid; dying of radiation exposure was no way for a warrior to die.            

But then again, an eternity of serving the sexual desires of a maniacal witch was no way for a warrior to live either.

"My lord," Trixie's voice called out, drawing Tiberius back from his contemplation and turning his attention to his immediate surroundings. Bringing his head up from the floor, Tiberius felt a sharp jolt of fear run through his being as he saw the mare bowing before Lord Sombra, the dark alicorn nodding in recognition of the mare's greeting, followed quickly by a rush of hatred and shame. The dark alicorn was resplendent in his battle armour, a terrifying visage of strength, power, and violence. The plates of his armour gleamed with the shine of newly forged ceramite, clearly replacements for those that had been ruptured during  his conquest of the throne room. The cape on his back also appeared to be a new edition, the scarlet red fur and ermine white trim providing a fittingly regal countenance to his utilitarian battle armour, completing the image of a warrior-king. Sombra's attention flitted from his witch to her captive, his fanged maw splitting in an evil grin as he gazed upon Tiberius.

"I see you have brought the patriarch with you. Good... I would like him to see this." Sombra stepped past Trixie and over Tiberius, stepping only a mere two feet away. "How has my witch been treating you, honoured patriarch?" he asked in a mocking tone, the very sound of it causing Tiberius to grit his teeth, the fire of hatred seizing his heart. "I trust she has not been too... unethical, in terms of your education? I must confess, even I flinch at the concept of being subject to her whims; she is a sadistic creature, and more than one stallion has been driven to madness by her... affections." Sombra's grin spread wider still, a devilish glitter in his eyes. "I had not thought to make you privy to what is about to unfold. But now that you are present, I find your presence at such a historical event quite fitting. It had been a dream of mine to make Shining Armour bear witness to the death of his beloved world, and the rise of the new order, but in his stead as patriarch you make for a worthy substitute." Sombra chuckled. "True, it shall not be husband and wife who shall bear testament to my final victory, but it shall be satisfying all the same."  

Tiberius growled, fury and pure, unadulterated hatred building within him. As Sombra turned away, the patriarch replied, his voice little more than a seething hiss. "Murderer!"

"Perhaps. Others would say my actions are righteous."

Glaring at him as the dark alicorn stepped away, Tiberius felt the uncontrollable urge to attack seize his body, compelling him into motion. He wanted nothing more than the wipe the smug grin of victory from Sombra's face, and smash his muzzle into the gantry beneath them until his teeth shattered and the dark alicorns features were nothing but bloody pulp. He wanted vengeance, both for his defeat and his subsequent humiliation. He wanted justice for the atrocities that the stallion had perpetrated. The riot of emotion clouded his judgement, and Tiberius had failed to take even a single step towards his target before the collar around his neck suddenly flared with energy. A vicious, numbing pain ran through his body, every nerve screaming as he was saturated with liquid fire. He hooves became locked to the ground, and when he opened his muzzle to scream, all that came out was a muted whimper. Instantly Trixie was by his side, a sadistic grin on her face. "Ah, ah, ah, my dear. Surely you must know it is rude to attack your superiors.

The words only inflamed his hatred, not only for Sombra but for himself. Here was the stallion who had brought about the downfall of all he had been sworn to protect, and yet he was unable to even take a single step towards him in vengeance. The impotence of his fury caused his sense of shame to magnify exponentially, humiliated at his inability to take action whilst Sombra achieved his final victory before his very eyes. His gaze followed Sombra, trailing before the dark alicorns path to settle on his bodyguard: ten large, heavily armoured stallions, each most likely heads of the ten most loyal houses that marched under Sombra's banner. As his attention switched between each of them, his soldiers instincts noting their weapons, armour, and combat potential, he noted that there was an eleventh individual amongst them, one who was much smaller than the alicorns who surrounded her. Tiberius felt his burning shame rise to a searing inferno.

It was Princess Cadence.  

Though she had lost her husband, witnessed her courtiers being massacred, been forced to abdicate from the throne that was rightfully hers, and made a concubine of her conqueror, the princess still radiated an aura of power, one that spoke of authority and that commanded respect. Even here, hold hostage by Sombra's bodyguard whilst forced to watch the end of her world, she stood tall in the face of her defeat, regal and majestic as ever. Even the alicorns surrounding her, soldiers who had willingly followed Sombra into rebellion, and who had long since despised her for the displacement of their houses, were respectfully silent as they stood about her, the age old instinct of compliance to the royal bloodline still strong within them. As if she could sense his eyes upon her, Cadence turned her attention to Tiberius, gazing at him with a steely intensity he found unnerving.

There were many emotions behind her eyes, things that only one who had spent an extended amount of time with her could have truly spotted. Anger, humiliation, fear, determination, resignation; Tiberius had never seen his princess so internally conflicted. Yet there was one thing that was absent, something he had expected and was shocked to find missing; accusation. It had been his fault that she had fallen, he was the one who had been charged with her defence, who had led the Celestial Guard into combat against Sombra and been defeat. As odd as it was, he needed Cadence to realise that, as if her blame would provide him with some aberrant form of closure. But there was no such emotion in her gaze, no blame or hatred of him for his failure, and that only served to compound the shame that already threatened to snuff out his soul.

Unable to hold her gaze, he looked away, sickened with his own lack of conviction. Perhaps if he had been stronger, if he had been more committed and given his all he might have succeeded. It had been his duty to defend her, and if necessary sell his own life to see that she came to no harm, and yet here he was, collared as a pet for a sadistic deviant for her own satisfaction; alive. Words couldn't properly define the level of self-disgust that filled him, the hatred he felt for his continued existence blacker than the most virulent poison.

Stepping up to the edge of the wide ring that circled the Eternity Matrix, Sombra turned back to survey the small congregation before him, his eyes resting on each individual before he began to speak. "For seven thousand years, the alicorns of the Celestial Levels have been locked within a gilded cage, trapped by the tectology of the Levels and our own physiology. Once, we ruled as Gods over the Pre-Equines below; not merely the populace of Canterlot, but of the whole world. There is not a single Post-Equine here who has not heard tales of the ancient days, and longed for a return to the time when we held Equestria in our hooves, and our every whim was catered to by those who knew their true places in the grand order of existence."

"For seven thousand years, we have dreamed, and yet all this time we have already had in our possession the power to restore ourselves to our rightful positions as rulers of the globe. Yet, the one who called herself our princess hid such means from us, and left us to stagnate and die whilst the vermin below have spread and multiplied. For too long have we been forced to watch as our inferiors violate the mandates of creation, as their knowledge of their subservience has slipped from their mind. No more!" Sombra glared towards Cadence, the mare's expression dangerously passive. "It is the obligation of a ruler to ensure that their ponies survive and prosper, and for too long has our princess failed to fulfil that obligation. What I do now, I do because it must be done. The old order has failed, and in its place a new one must arise. It is the duty of the strong to govern the weak, and there are none stronger than the alicorns! The Post-Equines of Canterlot shall rule Equestria again, and with this first act I shall lead us on the path that shall lead to our rightful reinstatement!"

The shaft filled with the roars of Sombra's supporters, their voices raised to echoing cries as they stamped their armoured hooves against the Megastructure surface of the gantry. Turning his back on the gathering, Sombra's horn began to glow a bloody scarlet, pulling an object from his flank that, in his anger, Tiberius had failed to notice: Starlight Wrath. Once again his hated surged, the patriarch opening his muzzle to decry Sombra, and how he had no right to be in possession of such a weapon, but before a single syllable could pass his lips the numbing agony returned, nothing but a mute whine emanating from his throat; against his side, Trixie purred in content at the sight.

Taking Starlight Wrath in his grip, Sombra raised the venerable weapon, which sprang to life as he held it out parallel to the floor, scintillating flickers of cyan lighting skittering across the surfaces of its twin head. As the weapon cycled up a sudden change swept through the atmosphere of the shaft, the deep throbbing of the Eternity Matrix increasing in tempo as the harsh, pink light of the core began to pulse. Beneath his hooves, Tiberius could feel a current of power running through the engraved circuitry towards Sombra, the floor beneath the dark alicorn beginning to glow brightly, becoming so hot that a shimmering haze began to rise up all around him, distorting his image. The rest of the chamber seemed to dim, as if something within the cogitator, perhaps an ancient form of artificial intelligence, of a semi-sentient data-spirit was focussing its attention upon the dark alicorn. The very air itself seemed to shift, something unseen stirring itself from millennia of lethargy and awakening to find intruders within its realm. Tiberius had the sudden, highly uncomfortable feeling of being watched.

The surface of the Eternity Matrix abruptly cracked, the disjointed mosaic of black panels covering its surface readjusting themselves to form a three meter wide portal, big enough for Sombra to step through, that led into the inner workings of the machine, through which poured blinding pink light. From the portal there came a beam of intense energy, much brighter than the light surrounding it, and tinted a deeper shade of pink. The beam focussed on the bridge of Sombra's muzzle, remaining fixed there for a full three seconds before splitting into a much wider funnel of laser-light, running along the full height of dark alicorn's body as it scanned every detail of his being, before focussing on Starlight Wrath; Sombra remaining motionless for the whole process. The atmosphere about the onlookers became tense, every individual, even Cadence herself, aware that they were watching a procedure that had not occurred in millennia, and most likely would never be repeated in their immortal lifetimes.

Suddenly the beam simply dissipated, shutting off in the blink of an eye. Tiberius knew that what he was observing was completely uncharted territory, and that it was more than likely that even the aethermancers never had this level of interface with the Eternity Matrix, though he had more than a sneaking feeling that Sombra knew exactly what he was doing. Following the dissipation of the beam nothing of any note happened for several long, drawn out seconds, the whole party waiting with baited breath for what would come next. The blinding portal into the machines inner workings remained open, however, and Sombra remained motionless before it. He was waiting for something, Tiberius realised; Sombra was waiting for confirmation from the machine, waiting to see if it would accept the access code it seemed that Starlight Wrath had provided.

Access key accepted.

The words that echoed through Tiberius' head came from no physical source; no new speaker presented themselves to the assembled onlookers. Instead, it was as if the words were being projected into his mind, the Eternity Matrix forgoing a physical interface and instead establishing a direct uplink with minds of all who were present. Glancing about, Tiberius noted that everyone save Cadence and Sombra wore looks of surprise and confusion on their faces, even Trixie, all of them looking about for the words origins. Realising that a key event was about to unfold, Tiberius fixed his gaze on the gaping hole in the surface of the Eternity Matrix, forcing himself to gaze into the depths of the ancient machine.

From the blinding portal emerged an alicorn.

The imitation was so realistic that Tiberius didn't realise he was looking at a machine until it had fully stepped out of the opening. Though the alicorn seemed real enough, possessing the form of a tall, elegant mare with a coat of unadulterated white and a pastel pink mane, her skin was merely a facade; a hologram formed of solid-state light. Beneath the mare's insubstantial outer layer was a pony shaped construct of the same black metal of the plates that covered the Matrix: a small, boxish head supported by a thin pipe serving as a neck, which in turn was attached to a angular, sharp-edged cuboid, with the whole machine supported by four thin, needle-like legs. The accuracy of the hologram, the sheer realism of its outward projection, was simply staggering in its authenticity. Save for a few subtle giveaways; the dark outline of the internal components, the slightly animatronic sway of its movements, the illusion was so life-like that Tiberius would have had trouble distinguishing the difference between the machine and an actually pony.

The walking machine slowly turned its gaze upon the assembled ponies, its eyes, bright orbs of iridescent, flaming pink energy, taking note of all who were present before finally focussing on the one who held the access key in his hooves. The machine's projection radiated a similar air of authority to that of Cadence, something about its terrible gaze causing a disquieting in the patriarch soul as he briefly became the item of its attention. Briefly he wondered at how a machine could possibly command such power, but as it refocused on Sombra a symbol on its flank caught his eye, his attention shifting to it. What he saw there inspired awe, terror, and wonderment, the alicorn instantly dropping to his knees, the others doing so near simultaneously as they came to the same epiphany.

Marking the creatures flank was the radial sun; the cutie mark of Celestia herself.

Many tales were told of the celestial sisters and their exploits, of how they had been present at the birth of the world, and stood by Faust's side as the Goddess had shaped creation to her own liking. To the ponies of Equestria, the two served as objects of intense reverence, the sisters themselves being the primary saints of the Faustian faith. Across the face of the world their exploits were legendary, immortalised both in the holy scriptures of the Testament and in the minds of the entire equine species. To the ponies of Canterlot in particular, the two were venerated for a very specific reason: it had been they who had laid the first foundation stones of the Godscraper. From the fields of the agricultural belt to the peak of the Celestial Levels, there wasn't a pony alive in the city of Canterlot who refused to pay their respects to the holy saints, even those who were of an atheistic outlook acknowledging their importance in the city's foundation.

However, for all the veneration that they received, it remained unknown as to how the two most powerful alicorns in the history of existence had met their deaths. There were few records amongst the archives of the Celestial Levels that could provide an accurate account of the world before the Shattering, and even those that did survive often contradicted each other regularly as to the state of the world. Some records whispered of an event known as the Nightmare Heresy, when Luna had fallen victim to a darkness of the soul and swathed the world in a cloak of darkness for nearly three centuries before dying by the blade of her own sister. Others stated that upon the eve of the Shattering, Faust had warned her true daughters of the fate of the world, and had lifted them from the entrapment of physical existence to become a part of her holy realm. Regardless, it was clear it had been millennia since the demigods had walked upon the face of Equestria, and in the seven thousand years since the Shattering no one had ever been able to replicate the sheer scope and impact of their actions in shaping the fate of the equine race.

Despite the aura of intense religious reverence that surrounded him, Sombra remained unbowed along with his witch, a predatory grin slowly spreading across his muzzle as he took in the sight of his ancient nemesis; the very pony who had destroyed all he had ever held dear reduced to little more than a decaying data-spirit, locked away within the circuitry of the Eternity Matrix and unable to physically interact with reality. The irony of the demigod's fate was not lost on the dark alicorn: once he had been helpless before the mare, forced to watch as Celestia had ordered the execution of his daughters and ordered the enslavement of the crystal ponies, destroying all that he had been sworn to protect. Now the tables were turned, and Celestia was helpless before him, her physical prison, the Eternity Matrix, soon to become the very engine of destruction that would bring the world she had loved to its knees. The rush of exultation that ran through him was one that he had waited eight thousand years to feel, and as it poured through his body Sombra threw his head back, muzzle open as he roared with laughter; a harsh, animalistic expression of victory.

As the laughter died, its echoes reverberating up and down the monumental length of the Canterlot's central shaft, Sombra's grin returned even more vicious and savage. Within his eyes gleamed an expression that spoke of a mixture between electric thrill and soul-scourging hatred. The dark alicorn looked the machine up and down, chuckling deeply to himself. "Behold, that demigod Celestia!" he told his followers, the alicorns raising their heads from the ground. "Behold the founder of Canterlot and the true daughter of Faust!" Another burst of cackling laughter tore itself from Sombra's throat. "Tell me, Celestia, are you still in there? Do you still recognise me? Do you remember what you did to me?" Sombra asked as his mirth died once more, though his grin remained as strong as ever. The hologram made no move to show its recognition of his questions, its auroral eyes simply remaining locked on him, its features passive and serene.

Command not recognised.

As the words echoed through the minds of all present, the air was split again by Sombra's maniacal vocalisations of his victory, the dark alicorn practically howling. Tiberius felt unnerved by the whole exchange, the premise of it troubling him to his core. The way Sombra acted, and the questions he'd asked, as if he knew Celestia personally, gave him a deep sense of disturbance, and the dark alicorns roaring cries of victory certainly weren't helping either. On every occasion that he and Sombra had met face to face the dark alicorn had always been calm and composed, his every action calculated and every word uttered in exact adherence to an internal pattern that only he would be able to divine. To see such a composed, brooding individual express such vocal emotion only served to enhance the feeling of trepidation that had settled like a lead weight in his stomach.

"How the mighty have fallen!" Sombra cackled, the hologram continuing to watch passively. "Once you ruled the globe, Celestia, and look at you know! I wonder how little of your true self remains, how much of the divine bitch in you bitterly clings on?"

Command not recognised.

Giving a final, mad roar of laughter, Sombra finally composed himself, letting his laughter die to a rumbling chuckle before fading away completely, though his grin remained as always. He'd had his fun, and though the delicious rush of victory still flowed through him, he knew there was still work to be done. Equestria was burning yet. His features returning to their usual, fearsome expression of authority and inner discipline, the dark alicorn lowered Starlight Wrath before clearing his throat. "Initiate Harmony Protocol, user access code: S-A-M-A-C."

The hologram flickered momentarily, behind it the Eternity Matrix flaring slightly brighter for a split second, as decrepit conduits cycled up and information pathways that had been engaged for millennia began to fire up.

Access code accepted. User now has five hundred seconds of unrestricted access.

Sombra grinned; he was in. "Prepare to deactivate Abstraction Generation Engines."

Acknowledged, deactivation of Abstraction Generation Engines, ready.

"Prepare Tectological Realignment Protocol, execution pattern: Prime-Unity."

Acknowledged, execution of Tectological Realignment Protocol, execution pattern: Prime-Unity, ready. Warning, execution may not be performed without official sanction. Required access key: Harmony Core.

Reaching down against his barrel, Sombra brushed a hoof across a chest plate of his armour, the metal plate depressing into the armours surface and splitting in two to reveal a hidden compartment, a small heart of scarlet hued faceted crystal lying within. Gripping the crystal in his hoof, Sombra contemplated the item for a more before it was encased within the black-violet aura of his telekinetic grip and proffered to the hologram before him. The machine remained as expressionless as ever, before a small, dexterous pincer of the same black metal as the rest of the construct, emerged from beneath its holographic coat and plucked what Tiberius assumed to be the Harmony Core from the air, the articulate limb refolding itself back into place beneath its outer layer, taking the crystal with it. Again there was a momentary flicker, before the machine spoke again.

Access key: Harmony Core, accepted. Now proceeding with Execution of user commands. Estimated time until execution is complete: two minutes.

Instantly the pulsing of the Eternity Matrix began to increase, rapidly firing up from its previous, dull heartbeat until it was flashing like some epically scaled strobe effect. The machine didn't retreat back into the Eternity Matrix, instead remaining fixed in place as it began a countdown, the numbers echoing through Tiberius' head.

One-hundred and twenty seconds. One-hundred and nineteen seconds. One-hundred and eighteen seconds.

It didn't require any explanation that once zero was reached, something very, very bad was going to happen.

"It is done!" Sombra screamed in victory, the dark alicorn rearing on his hind-legs as a savage roar tore from his throat. "I am victorious! I have defied the Goddess herself! This world shall be mine to rule!" Against the flashing strobe background of the Eternity Matrix, Sombra's silhouette was that of a Daemon, his fangs glinting in the blinding light whilst his luxurious cape was thrown out behind him, his bat-like wings spread wide, the light of the cogitator shining through their thin membranes to reveal a canvas of veins and arteries. "You have failed, Celestia, Luna, failed to stop the inevitable! Your world shall burn, and from the ashes shall arise the new order, my new order!"

Eighty seconds, seventy-nine seconds, seventy-eight seconds.

"No!"

Cadence's voice rang out above screaming crescendo of Sombra's victory cry, her voice fine and melodic compared to that of the dark alicorn, even when it was raised in anger. Too awes-struck by what they were witnessing, Sombra's bodyguard failed to notice the mare's insurrection until it was too late, Cadence charging her horn before releasing the pent up energy in a burst of aethereal force that scattered the alicorns around them, rendering all unconscious and propelling several over the edge of the gantry, their bodies falling limply into the lightless depths below. Panting with exhaustion, unused to utilising her abilities in such a violent and forceful manner, Cadence raised her head towards the holographic display of Celestia, her voice a cry of desperation. "Initiate hyper-bridge teleport sequence, number of travellers, one!"

As if it could sense the mare's gaze upon it, the machine turned its head, its vibrant eyes glowing as it settled upon Cadence. With a flicker the machine processed the command and acknowledged it, a harsh whine filling the air as hidden machinery that had lain dormant for eons began to fire up once more, energy pouring into its conduits.

Acknowledged, please designate traveller and specify destination.

"Destination; the Crystal Empire. Traveller; Tiberius!"

Tiberius watched the surreal scene before him without conscious thought, the events unfolding about him to strange, so... odd, that he didn't even know where to begin in his comprehension. Here he was, at the heart of Canterlot, stood before the Eternity Matrix, watching as Sombra destroyed the world he knew with but a single command, given to the holographic manifestation of a demigod that had been dead for seven thousand years, and now being saved by his princess, who was sending him to a place he'd only ever read of in the most esoteric tomes of lore. For his whole existence, life had been defined by a strict regime of protocol, training, patrols, and exercises of both body and mind. For fifteen thousand years nearly each day had been a mirror image of the one before. And now, in the space of little more than forty-eight hours, his mentor had committed suicide, he'd been defeated in battle, enslaved to the sadistic whims of a nymphomaniacal mare, and was about to be flung from the Celestial Levels, a place he had never left in his whole life, out into the great unknown of Equestria.

The sheer drama of it all simply boggled his mind.  

The portal from which the machine had emerged began to glow, not the harsh pink light of the Eternity Matrix, but that of a much darker hue, a strange membrane of energy spreading from the circular rim to for a gateway to his destination. Time and space began to twist, the passage of seconds seeming to slow to an infinitesimal fraction of its regular speed, as if time had grounded down to a near halt. His vision began to tunnel, focussing purely on the teleportation gateway before him. A surreal sensation began to crawl across his flesh, burrowing beneath his coat and reaching into his soul. It was as if he were at once being pulled towards the portal and simultaneously pushed away, unable to resist as an invisible trendil of power scooped him up and began to drag him closer to the gateway.

Realising what was happening, Sombra turned from the machine to face Cadence, a fierce snarl rending his features as he opened his maw and roared at her. "No! I shall not be denied!" The dark alicorn prepared to pounce on the mare, his grip on Starlight Wrath tightening as he sought to lash out at the one who had been insolent enough to intervene in his final victory, the axe's twin head glittering with iridescent cyan energy and scintillating flickers of lightning began to crawl across its surface. Tiberius had begun to accelerate towards the portal at a much more rapid speed, his hooves fully lifting from the floor as he tumbled through the air, his limbs flailing wildly. As he passed Sombra he collided bodily into the dark alicorn at full force, his hoof gripping manically at anything he could get a hold of. He felt something hard and metallic brush against his hoof, the haft of Starlight Wrath, and he seized it within his grip. Yet the portal was not to be denied, and with a final shriek of power it sucked him in like a vacuum, pulling Tiberius into its raging depths, his grip on Starlight Wrath so great that the venerable weapon came loose from Sombra's grip and was drawn in with him.

For a few moments longer the world was a violent storm of warping energy, and then he blacked out.

≤ΘΘΘ≥

She remembered the pain of bringing him into the world. how he had torn her apart as he was freed from her womb and unleashed on existence; a young, wailing foal whose first instinct had been to cry for its mother.

She remembered the pain of having to watch him go, as the mid-wife had taken him into her hooves and left her and Shining Armour alone, giving them solace as she'd wept for the loss of her foal.

She remembered the pride in her heart when she'd seen him playing with the other younglings of the Levels, the first time in three decades she'd laid eyes on him. He was so like his father: his mane a long, thick mass of ultramarine blue, striped with his mothers gold, his eyes a light, cerulean blue, flecked with faint tints of violet. He'd looked so happy as he tumbled and rolled, laughing, and playing, and smiling. It had torn her apart that she hadn't been allowed to raise him, but she'd known her duties, and the strictures of tradition: a princesses duty was to her ponies, not her own desires.

She remembered when he'd been inducted into the Celestial Guard, one of the proudest moments of his father's life; when his son had bowed before the throne and sworn himself to the service of the crown. She'd never seen such love on Shining Armour's face as he'd present his son with his gauss-halberd, and he'd risen a member of the Guard. Shining had even shed a tear when they'd returned to the privacy of their chambers.

She remembered how scared and alone he'd been, when Shining Armour's body had been returned to the Levels; how unsure he was of himself, a young colt alone in the world with no one to guide him. It had been hard to repress her maternal instincts, and resist the urge to cradle him in her hooves and reassure her only son that everything would be alright.

She remembered how painful it was to watch him fall when he'd been defeated at the hooves of Sombra, how battered, bloody, and broken he was, even as he crawled for Starlight Wrath, his father's axe. He blamed himself, she knew, blamed himself for failing to protect his princess. But the truth was that she'd failed him.

She'd failed as a mother.

As she watched Tiberius hurtle towards the portal and safety, Cadence felt some of the guilt in her soul lift, easing the pain in her heart. She'd never been able to raise her son, to tell him just how special he was to her, or how much she loved him, or how proud she felt seeing him follow in the hoofsteps of his father. She'd wanted to tell him for so long how she felt, and now, as she watched him disappear into the storm of energy, Cadence felt overcome with the premonition she'd never be able to.

She'd failed as a mother.

But she'd succeeded in at least one aspect; he was safe now. As Sombra's hoof cracked across her muzzle, and she fell to ground, the dark alicorn reaching with his hooves to choke the life out of her, Cadence allowed herself that one thought to serve as he solace. Closing her eyes, Cadence held the image of that young foal laughing and playing in her mind, allowing a small smile to grace her features; Tiberius was safe now.

And that was all that mattered to her.  

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Terminal World

Mature Rated Fiction

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