Chapters
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Several months later…Lonely Day extended a hoof, and Dr. Clark leaned down to shake it. The shackles made it difficult to lift the hoof to any meaningful angle, but she did her best. Human fingers felt warm and strange, like little squishy spiders. They had no analogue in her life anymore, even if she had possessed some of her own over a year ago. Before everything had fallen apart, and the dream of human society ended. He towered over her, a sturdy man with slowly graying hair. He wore a uniform, like…-
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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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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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“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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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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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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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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It took twenty minutes or so to clear a large enough swathe of the library that he had room to work, hanging sterile sheets and turning reading tables into operating tables. He had the help of all his “guards” except Abrams, who kept his distance and watched everything he did with passionless eyes. Oliver had never seen eyes like that before, not in the week or so the immigrants had been in Alexandria. Why had it only happened now?Oliver felt the solution must be in whatever had happened once Adrian…
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Oliver had no weapons as he made his way into Alexandria. He slowed his ATV as he neared the square, not wanting to seem hostile. Being a doctor often conveyed protection (at least when dealing with an honorable enemy), but taking advantage of that protection required that you make yourself obvious. The enemy couldn’t even be blamed if you didn’t make it clear enough, and they mistook you for a combatant.So he wore the white jacket he had come in, smeared as it was with ash and smelling like charred…
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Oliver had many reasons to dread using the phone. Talking with strangers was near the top of the list, though it wasn’t quite at the top. There was not yet an entry on the list for “negotiating with the possibly insane for the return of his friends.” He didn’t say anything, just stared at the screen, trying to figure out what he should say.The speaker on the line sounded familiar, though he still couldn’t put a name to the voice. Maybe it would come to him as he spoke. “When will you be…
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