Chapters
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The pony who had called herself Carol cut through the chilly air above the human planet like a nightmare. She had no source of illumination, but did not need it. Her sharp eyes pierced the night, and what they could not see she could pinpoint with the sensitive ears constantly swiveling about atop her head. She wore nothing but a light satchel, and in the startling chill of an Earth night there was nothing in any world that could take away her joy. Odium permitted her this, as it permitted all joys that…-
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Somewhere above, great birds circled on glacial winds. Eyes flickered like dead stars, all fixed on her. When their mouths opened, sounds that were not sounds glided down towards her. It was hunger, but not hunger as any mortal understood it. It was the ravenous sound the starving might make after going without food for thousands of years, knowing that they might not find it for thousands of years more.She couldn’t say what she was; whether she was a pony or human or something in-between. Whatever she…
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In her youth, Alex had read about the meetings of the “Big Three” during the second world war, as they made sweeping plans to end the Axis powers, plans that would have consequences stretching long past their own lifetimes. Yet now, as she sat in the cargo area aboard a loaned HPI Hummingbird, she imagined she knew a little of what those men might’ve felt.There were no nations at stake; all of those were already gone. Alex was no Alicorn, she couldn’t imagine the scales of time the Equestrian…
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“Was it really smart not to bring the unicorn with you?” Taylor’s voice in her earpiece didn’t sound petulant, or even all that questioning. Just curious. “They might or might not find resistance in the house. You already know most of them are waiting for you. You said they’re armed, and at least some of them can still shoot.”“Yeah.” Alex shrugged. She was putting her life’s worth of confidence into the strange transformation the ponies of Equestria had worked on her. The magic was…
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Behind her, Alex’s friends made their way into the library. First came Joseph. One of his legs looked broken, and he had burns up and down his side. Yet his face made no sign he registered the pain. His steps were rigid and mechanical. Moriah came behind him, moving forward with great resistance in every step, as though she were battling an army of invisible ghosts. She dragged Alex’s saddle bags behind her along the ground, though she looked very much like she didn’t want to. Behind them were…
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Form and meaning unraveled in the void, where symbols were as true as the things they represented. Time ceased to matter, just as space did. A battle raged; a battle she could not possibly win on her own.The other wished to frame it in terms of Equestria, of ponies and spirits and magic. Alex refused, and so gave the duel form in another way. A human way.Archive saw a roadside diner, right out of any number of 1950s era movies. It was late at night, and she pulled up to escape the wrath of a torrential…
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Last night, little Riley had learned that the information Alex had shown her from the library hadn’t been wrong after all. Just as the Equestrian books said, she could will herself into new forms. The effort was exhausting, and she had very little idea of what she was doing. Yet the instinct was there. With the original pony helpless before her, she had all the time in the world to make sure she got every detail exactly right. The pony who called herself Carol, whose real name was apparently True Sight,…
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Adrian was alone in a world of pain. The spirit called Odium pressed down upon his mind, trapping him in his worst moment, stretching into forever. Thousands and thousands of times Adrian watched that memory replay. The pain of the crash was bad, but it wasn’t even close to the worst part. He saw the mare on the roof of the hotel. He heard her over and over, a hopelessness crushed by the weight of an uncaring universe. Nothing he could say made a difference. Eventually, when she thought he wasn’t…
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Cloudy Skies did not return to Alexandria until near nightfall. Her mission, though important, felt hopelessly mundane. Without knowing when Lonely Day and the other ponies would return from Philadelphia, and with no way to call and tell them, it was her job to find a satellite phone, make it work, then report on what they had learned.It would’ve been far worse than boring to travel off on her own when Blacklight was putting herself into danger with all her other friends. Except Cloudy Skies had company,…
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They were all there, the day they had the vote. Everyone but Alex, unconscious as she was in a hospital bed. There were no more attempted suicides; not now that the shock of having Odium gone for good was finally over. That left Alexandria with a problem, of course. What could they do with a dozen ponies that had tried to take over? Moriah participated in several of the proposals that were made, just as all of them did. Rather than keep all of them locked up in little cells during the week or so it took…
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