Chapters
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Flynn could hear many sirens in the distance. They were coming frequently now. He could hear at least one helicopter, as well as the distant sound of people moving through the trees. A search party had finally been mobilized.“Transfer complete,” Agent announced, indicating Caroline. Flynn was now sitting in a car with a pair of corpses. That’s probably the wrong word if emigration really works. Shells. They’re shells. His friends weren’t dead, they were somewhere else. Somewhere away from all…-
24.5 K •
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Flynn woke up.Immediately he was assaulted with strange details—his image of the world, which had served him through his short years, was now presenting him with error. Nothing felt right, and for a long time it was all he could do to lay there twitching, as he tried to wrap his head around what had happened to him. I’m having another fit, he thought. The nurses must’ve messed up my medication again. I just have to wait until it wears off.Though he could perceive very little except for something soft…
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24.5 K •
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Some time passed. There were reunions, and adventures, and many other things besides. Some questions went unanswered—Flynn could never know, after all, if he were indeed the genuine article of himself, or some imitation spawned at the moment of his creation. He knew only that he felt like he was the original, and that was enough.Some time passed, and he was aware only dimly of affairs outside his world. There were many other worlds within Celestia’s domain, and only one that was not. In time, remaining…
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24.5 K •
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Hayden could not have easily described what about this pony made him so attractive. A month ago, she might’ve been so disgusted she rejected the feelings outright, or worse, made it clear just how she felt right in front of him. Lord Golden Glow was taller than she was, more muscular as well. He wore a tailed suit like the other stallions, only he didn’t seem like he cared about how he looked.Instead of fluffy and loose like most of the other suits (including the one his butler was wearing), his was…-
141.3 K •
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“There,” Nightbreeze proclaimed, after twenty minutes of painfully slow work. “Not that you’ll wear that again. But if you did want to, you’d be able to.” She carried the last of several hangers into the wardrobe.“Thank God.” Hayden stretched each of her limbs in turn, feeling as though she’d just had shackles removed from all over her body. “Every time I moved I thought I was going to tear something.”“Well… you did. Damage the dress, I mean. Not that it matters—one of Luna’s…
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141.3 K •
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By the time Hayden returned to her room, she found a pair of Lunar Guard soldiers standing in the hallway on either side. Even the guards seemed a little intimidated by her strange appearance, though. They got out of the way as she approached, bowing, and scraping and moving so quickly it looked like they were afraid she might attack them.She was too upset with herself to let that feeling spread to anyone else. I ruined it. I can’t believe I was so stupid! She was an animal! I’m an animal! None of this…
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141.3 K •
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Hayden found herself alone on the roof of her tower that night, staring up at the stars. She hadn’t bothered with clothes, hadn’t bothered with a blanket or even a pillow for resting on. She just sat on the floor, with the phone in front of her. She’d rigged a stylus for it by wrapping a thin rod in a little metal foil taken from a gum-wrapper, and that worked well enough so long as she was careful. Her solar charger still worked, though she knew even that had a limited lifespan. If she stayed in…
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141.3 K •
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As it turned out, the keep had survived. Whole sections of its eastern walls had caved in and the glass windows had been reduced to splinters, but other than that the building was intact, with Hayden’s own soldiers waiting outside. They stared out on the desolation of Icefalls with bleak, empty eyes. Demographics had shifted too—there wasn’t a single bat here.I shouldn’t have tried to keep you, Nightbreeze, Hayden thought to herself as she strode out of the ruins. Instead of saluting her, one of…
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141.3 K •
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The nightmare that had been Princess Luna cut a devastating path across Equestria, cutting scalpel-precise through the most important lines of trade. Her army had no airships, but they didn’t need them. Half of them weren’t even alive.Hayden was no longer leading the military opposition, so she had little to do with the conflict as it happened. Princess Celestia might’ve decided not to kill her after all for practical reasons, but that didn’t mean she trusted Hayden. Mostly she spent her time in an…
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141.3 K •
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Outside the castle, Hayden could hear the sound of war. The steady crack of her own arquebus weapons, answered by volleys of crossbow bolts. Tonight’s rain was not of water, but of blood.But those soldiers weren’t meant to keep princess Luna from entering the castle, not really. At the first sign of serious resistance, the fleet was to retreat to the outpost of Canterlot, leaving Celestia and Hayden behind surrounded by the enemy.Princess Celestia sat by one of the windows near the thrones, watching…
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141.3 K •
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