Chapters
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It began near dawn, when Ponyville was at its quietest. Second Chance rested soundly in bed, sleep no longer light or troubled with nightmares. There would not have been very much for her to hear even if she had been awake. Chance couldn’t hear the grinding sound as lasers sliced clean through the glass and shutters of her lab. There were none awake to see the hoof-full of drones that poured in through the opening, each smaller than a football. Thick cable spooled out behind the last of the group, even…-
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There were only a few Royal Guards along for the ride to Canterlot, far less than the number who were staying in Ponyville to keep an eye on the newcomers and reassure the populace that life was going to continue as normal. It was a good idea, but that didn't mean Princess Twilight trusted herself and her friends alone to protect their important guests.|Amber Sands was one of the few that had been assigned to come along for the journey, and from the outside she was almost exactly what might be expected…
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The ground shook with the force of distant thunder, though there were no clouds in the sky and no inclement weather scheduled. Each blast brought distant flashes of light from below, accompanied by a sound that could only be distant screaming. Chance did not know how an enemy could have penetrated this far into Equestrian territory, didn't know for sure who was even attacking or why. But it didn't matter. She had to do something."Spike!" She called, breaking their stunned silence. "Get close to me! You're…
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Maybe it was wrong of Richard to expect Celestia to react the way he would have, had his commands been disobeyed. She landed beside him, body tense as she watched the opening for the return of their enemy. But she did not repeat herself or chastise. Perhaps she understood as he did that one ruler need respect another. "That is a very fine sword," she said, with one gentle inclination of her head. How she could be so fierce one moment and so calm the next baffled Richard. Despite all his focus, all his…
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"Equestria has lost enough of its heroes already, Avalon." Luna's voice was firm, and her expression would brook no argument. Not that anyone tried. Chance could tell with her supernatural senses that the spell was completely undone. She had no idea how Luna had come to be here, though she had less confusion concerning how she had managed to dispatch the demon so quickly. Luna was positively ruthless when it came to outsiders. "Unfortunately, I cannot stay. Chance will explain." She tilted her head toward…
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The ride to the Crystal Empire was surprisingly uneventful for taking place during the middle of a war. The Albatross Carriers were nothing like pony airships that depended on the magic of the planet, and on the air for breathing. Not that Applejack fully understood how they worked; she had family who worked the railroad, and she had seen how long trips consumed whole cars full of coal. The carriers were easily as large as a train; where was all the coal they burned to stay afloat? Would they tumble from…
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A heap of broken images, where the sun beats. Time stretched and twisted in Chance's mind, overwhelmed as she was with radiation and drugs. She dreamed strange nightmares, and for once there was no Princess Luna to comfort her. Corpse-cities rose across the surface of a dead planet, a planet of browns and grays where there once had been greens and blues.And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief.It was an old nightmare, the same one she had experienced almost nightly when she had first…
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The Ghost transport was true to its name and was practically invisible and silent until it was upon them in the air. The active camouflage disengaged in a single fluid wave of light and color, revealing an aerodynamic craft swept closer to a bullet than an plane. Ghosts were the latest in Tower engineering and did not rely on conventional engines. To call the gravity lens that drove the airship an engine was about in line with comparing modern quantum computers to slide-rules. The Ghost was perhaps a third…
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"Sir Gray." The voice was loud enough to rouse him, yet quiet enough to be respectful. Charles opened his eyes, blinking the sleepiness away. "We've arrived." It was Ayyubi, armored and armed, standing a respectable distance from the bench Charles had fallen asleep atop. "His grace requests an audience. We should not keep him waiting."That got his attention, and Charles was soon on his hooves. Much to his chagrin, he was now the only one aboard. Rainbow Dash had evidently been carried from the bed, and…
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Applejack rested uneasily in one of the copilot seats of the Atlas, and not just because the chair had been designed for a human pilot. The engineers had already done their best to compensate for that, removing the seat-back and adding some extra padding. Even so, Applejack found the constant vibration of the Albatross made her underbelly sore. Somehow she doubted whoever had designed the pony version of the armor had any sense of how their anatomy actually worked.That wasn't what made her uneasy, though.…
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