Twilight Sparkle has spent the last three months developing a new weapon for the Celestial Forces in their fight against the Lunar Coalition, a mobile suit fueled by the power of Harmony, known as the "Gundam".
It is the year 0211 of the Celestial Calendar, two centuries after the Solar Unification War which brought all the nations of the Earth under the rule of high sovereign Princess Celestia. Technology has advanced greatly under the guidance of the immortal monarch, and humanity has taken its first steps into the stars.
After generations of relative peace and stability, the Earth Sphere is embroiled in a new conflict when High General Luna, dissatisfied with the complacency of her sister, forms a coalition of space colonies vying for an independent government on the moon. The rising tensions between the two sisters finally culminates in the bloody Selene Revolt, sparking the great and terrible Sister's War.
Twilight Sparkle is a graduate and prodigy of the Celestial Institute of Technological Research, and has spent the last three months helping to develop a new weapon for the Celestial Forces. A Mobile Suit utilizing the Compact Harmony Engine of her own design. When the Coalition launches a surprise attack on the project's research facility, Twilight is forced to sortie in the newly completed "Gundam", and discovers that this weapon- and this war- hide more secrets than she knows.
There were a dozen of us gathered together in the facility’s Observation Deck, the principal researchers of this pet project Princess Celestia had pushed to meet the demands of the war. Each of us stood at our stations, computer screens in front of us, each showcasing a flood of data being beamed into our system. Mine was busy keeping track of the stability and performance of the newest model engine we’d installed into our little pet project, the engine I’d spent my entire expedited college tenure researching.
We were all busy taking notes, reviewing where our design faltered, where improvements could be made. I was pleasantly surprised throughout the test flight how high I had managed to push the efficiency of my Harmony Engine, only stressed within acceptable parameters when the mobile suit was using it’s beam saber, but ‘acceptable’ could be pushed further, and I wanted to make sure I’d earned the spot the Princess had so graciously afforded me.
So I watched the numbers on the screen, the fluctuating graphs denoting when synchronization of the quantum elements seemed to rise and fall, and I wrote down the ideas that were flying inside my head a mile or minute on how to make that synchronization rate as flawless as it could be. Mom always said my hands could never keep up with my mind, she said it meant I was a genius.
Occasionally, though, I looked up. At the giant monitor trained on our test subject, the 60 ton thing of metal and rubber and wiring that flew outside the colony at record speeds for a machine of its class. I’d never been big on the Wonderbolts, or any of those flight show type things, but looking now at our design outpacing the Mass Produced Siphons from Baltimare’s acclaimed production lines, leaving behind a lilac trail in its path, I could begin to see the appeal.
“Eynhorn Unit-1.” Said our lead director, a thin man in middle age by the name of Perfect Pace. Standing a few rows behind me, he spoke into a large microphone. “How is the machine holding up?”
“Perfectly, sir.” Came the voice of the Eynhorn’s test pilot, a young man I’d seen once or twice around the facility but who’s name escaped me. There was an F in there, I was sure. “I don’t think I’ve ever handled a mobile suit this smooth before, especially not one this fast. You guys could give those Cloudsdale Pegasus units some serious competition!”
Speaking away from the microphone, Director Pace addressed me. “Miss Twilight Sparkle, how long has Lieutenant Sentry been out there?”
“22 minutes, sir.” I answered with the practiced professionalism I’d learned on this project. Just enough power behind my voice to make up for my natural affinity for silence. “The Harmony Engine has been stable so far, synchronization rates are at acceptable levels and showing no signs of decay.”
“A round trip of the whole colony in under half an hour…” Director Pace maintained a neutral expression, but even I could feel the ember of pride behind his silence. Once again, he spoke into the microphone. “Lieutenant Sentry, we’re about to perform tests on the Eynhorn’s Beam Rifle, please engage the weapon in Burst Mode so that we may begin.”
“On it, sir!”
The image on the room’s giant monitor shifted then, to the feed of one of the Siphons moving in slowly towards the horned mobile suit, watching as the Eynhorn drew its Beam Rifle from its attachment point on the thruster pack. A long bulky weapon with gold accents shimmering against its dark purple hue.
“Lieutenant Sentry, standby as we set the target in place.”
The Siphon turned, and following its line of sight was a dummy target prepared for the occasion by its fellow. The hollow shell of a captured Lunarian Cyclops, stripped of weaponry and its armor painted a bright orange to serve its new brief role as target practice. I didn’t see the Eynhorn grasp the Beam Rifle’s handle, nor did I see its massive mechanical fingers curl around the trigger, but I saw for a split second the numbers on my screen rapidly increase and decrease as the lines of synchronization met for one moment in pure unity.
And in the next moment, a streak of bright purple energy slicing through space.
I couldn’t guess how fast the beam was traveling because I blinked and in the next moment the dummy Cyclops was nowhere to be seen, reduced to its base components in the path of the shot. My eyes snapped away from the monitor and towards my readings. Despite myself, a giddy smile crept on my face as I saw the data. “Synchronization levels stable after firing, the new Harmony Engine is fully capable of supporting the Beam Rifle’s Burst Mode!”
Chatter erupted among our small team, relief and excitement filling the air. Director Pace nodded, seeming as satisfied as I’d ever seen him. “Lieutenant Sentry, can you confirm the status of the gun?”
“In one piece and ready for another shot!” Came the test pilot’s voice with a slight tremble. “I almost thought it would melt the barrel.”
“Have a little more faith in the Princess, Lieutenant. She chose only the best of the best for this endeavor.” Director Pace said.
Lieutenant Senty laughed. “I’ll believe it, nothing in the Coalition holds a candle to this beauty.”
“We’re glad to have your approval, Lieutenant. This concludes the final test flight of Eynhorn Unit-2, please return to the hangar bay Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir!”
Director Pace turned the microphone off and looked out to the rest of the team, who turned to him with expectant stares. “And this concludes our months-long work on the Harmony Project.”
Polite enthusiastic applause filled the room and congratulations passed around as the weight of our work slowly lifted from our shoulders. For many of us, this had been a precious opportunity, but at the same time working for the past three months at a nearly dead colony was beginning to weigh on all of us.
Well. Some more than others. I wasn’t exactly a social butterfly even when I was in Canterlot.
Director Pace continued. “In ten hours time, the Celestial Kingdom’s newest MS Carrier, the Alicorn, will dock in Dodge Colony for pickup of the Eynhorn Gundam. The fruit of our labor here will be escorted to Hollow Shades Earthside, where the advancements our team has made here will help the war effort immeasurably. All of you have served your sovereign and your people admirably, and it has been an honor and a pleasure to have worked with all of you. Tomorrow we will all depart back to our homes, but for tonight, rest and relax everybody. You’ve earned it.”
A more spirited applause followed our director’s speech, the volume of it a little uncomfortable but the spirit of the moment compelled me to join in with a few claps of my own. I was proud, really, of all I had accomplished here, and it would be nice to spend the last night here in Dodge in restful sleep.
While the rest of my team talked and gathered in small celebrations, I quickly gathered my notes and tried as best I could to slink away from the conversation, avoiding the notice of my colleagues as I walked in the direction of the MS Hangar.
I walked through the quiet sterile halls of the Harmony Project, halls that only a few months ago seemed so alien. Newly constructed under fake names and layers of government discretion, this building was a far cry from the campus labs where I had first begun studying the process of Harmonic Fusion. It lacked that old world elegance that seemed to live immortal in the buildings of Canterlot, but hard edged modernity and steel were well enough stages for the work we conducted here.
In little time, I reached the doors to the hangar and placed my work ID against the scanner, opening them and revealing the cavernous room that lay within.
The Hangar crew were busy at work, crowded against the 19 meter tall machine that was the centerpiece of the space. The Eynhorn Gundam, flanked on either side by the lended Siphons, stood held within its cage. A titan of Equestrian Alloy, painted in pearl white with purple accents around its torso and gold trimmings around the whole body. Its silver horn protruded from its head, above the two eyed face that had always seemed as if they were staring directly at me.
A ridiculous thought of course, the Eynhorn was an inanimate machine despite all the ways it was styled to look the opposite. But sometimes that irrational part of my mind still made me tread lightly around the Gundam.
“Hey, Miss Sparkle!” One of the mechanics called out to me from where he stood on the Eynhorn’s chest. It was one of the few whose name and face had stuck with me in the months working here. The head mechanic himself.
“Hi, Hard Hat.” I greeted him casually. “Are you guys still busy?”
“Nah, the Suits are all settled here. Why?”
“Just wanted to do an inspection of the Harmony Engine. Director Pace seems satisfied with its performance but I wanted to take a look and see what kind of shape it’s in.”
“Looked fine to me Miss Sparkle, but you are the expert. Boys, pop open the hood on this thing will ya?!”
Just above the Gundam’s cockpit where the sternum would be on a human body, one of Hard Hat’s men pushed a button and a large hatch sprang open. I stepped aboard an elevator platform at the bottom of the cage and let it carry me up towards the Mobile Suits chest where the men helped pull me up over the edge to stand atop the vents. There, embedded in the machine, was a cone protruding from a port that connected the relatively small structure to all of the Gundam’s systems.
“Relatively” was the operating word. While the new Harmony Engine designed for MS use was a wildly successful downsizing operation compared to the Harmony Engines found on battleships, the actual device itself was still about half the height of the average adult man and was as wide as I was. Approaching the port, I clicked a button located at the base of the cone, and watched as it rose up from its resting place.
Hard Hat and his men backed away as I went to work. Opening a panel at the bottom of the engine gave me access to a keyboard and screen which housed the controls for the engine’s software, the system in charge of regulating the interaction of quantum elements in the pillar. It was this regulation that was absent in previous generations of the tech, resulting in a design which ate up Seedling Crystals at a rate that made it impossibly wasteful on any sort of mass scale. With the changes in structure of the engine itself and its new code however, the Eynhorn could sustain performance for half a year with only one crystal, given that appropriate charging times were permitted of course.
“Just change the x variable here… limit the angle of approach here…” I was so caught up typing away my adjustments on the computer panel that I failed to notice the footsteps slowly approaching me.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“Ah!” I turned around in surprise at the sudden voice, startling the man standing behind me. He was a younger man, in the yellow pilot suit of the Celestial Space Force sans the helmet, with spiky blue hair and a strangely boyish face like some singer I would’ve heard about in my high school days.
“Uh, sorry!” The man apologized. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you with the Harmony Project? I’m Lieutenant Flash Sentry.”
“Aren’t you pretty young for a Lieutenant?” I blurted out the first thought in my head before smacking myself for my rudeness. “Sorry. Sorry. Shouldn’t have asked. Uh, yes, I’m with the Harmony Project. My name is Twilight Sparkle, I’m the Project’s lead researcher on Harmony Energy Generation.”
I hold out my work ID to prove my credentials, and he smirks. “Aren’t you a little young for that?”
I flushed in embarrassment, but the Lieutenant laughed jovially. Thankfully he doesn’t seem mad. “It’s fine, really.” He said. “You’re right, I am pretty young for my station, but with the war the way it is, well… sometimes battlefield promotions lead to some strange situations.”
“I… see.” Vaguely, I knew how badly the fight was going. Hard to wage a war when your Commander-in-chief of the last two centuries was leading the enemy team. Every time I got the chance to talk to Shining and the subject inevitably shifted to the conflict, it always seemed like the Lunar Coalition was gaining more territory, with more and more colonies falling under their sway. There was a reason they had rushed the Eynhorn’s development in only three months.
He shook his head. “Nevermind. What are you doing with the Gundam? Is there a problem?”
Glad for a chance to move away from the somber topic of combat, I turned back to the pillar to complete my changes. “Not really, I’m just doing some last minute adjustments to the engine’s software. As it is, it's already a very efficient power source for a mobile suit, but I’m trying to give it just that little extra push.”
“Adjust away then, that kinda thing flies straight over my head.” Lieutenant Sentry said, though he did not leave me to my devices, opting instead to hover over my shoulder as I typed.
“Is there… something I can help you with?” I asked, trying not to sound irritated.
“Oh, no. It’s just… Twilight Sparkle, huh? That name sounds familiar. Are you by chance familiar with Captain Shining Armor?”
“He’s my brother.”
“That’s where I’ve heard that name before!” Lieutenant Sentry exclaimed. “I served under Captain Armor for a while when the Coalition first made landfall. He mentioned one time his ‘darling little sister’ was close with Princess Celestia herself, would’ve never guessed this is what he meant by that.”
I cringed a little at hearing Shining’s descriptor for me, but the memory of first meeting Princess Celestia crowds that thought out just a little. “The Princess took an interest in my thesis paper about the Harmony Engine, it’s why I’m here today.”
The memory of the Princess was burned in my head. Radiant, ethereal, beautiful, she didn’t fit at all in the musty old classroom where she had asked for us to meet, surrounded by photos of dead scientists that had come and gone during the Princess’ lifetime. I had seen her before on news broadcasts and in photographs of course, Celestia’s face is plastered on every media source within the Earth Sphere. None of it compared to being in a room with her. A walking piece of divinity through the halls of mortals with a voice that seemed to soothe all worries and imbued the listener with courage beyond anything else.
“I do not say it lightly Twilight Sparkle, when I say that you are among the brightest minds I have met in my years on this Earth.” She had said to me, and I would’ve died happy right there.
In the present Lieutenant Sentry whistled, apparently impressed. “You must be some kind of prodigy, then.”
“Maybe.”
By the time I was finishing up the last of my software modifications and had sent the pillar back inside the Gundam, I realized that Lieutenant Sentry was still standing right there, his eyes having never left me. I stood up and turned to him. “Sorry, really. Did you need something?”
“Oh, sorry. I just- Well.” He turned sheepish, scratching the back of his neck. “You’re gonna be here until tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah…? The transport ships for staff are scheduled to arrive at early morning.”
“Oh, great! Um, then- would you like to have dinner with me?”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“You know, out on the town? You don’t have any more work to do now, so I thought maybe you’d wanna get out of this place and have a little bit of fun? I know Dodge isn’t the liveliest colony but I saw some nice looking restaurants out there.” He flashed me a smile. “What do you say? I’d love to get to know you better.”
“Uh.” My eyes avoided his gaze, my hands wrapped around each other. “Sorry, no.” I said, and his face fell immediately. “Sorry. I have- I do a call with my family every week, and I’d promised them I’d call today after work, I don’t wanna- You know cut into that time.”
It wasn’t a lie really, I did do a video call with Mom and Dad and Spike every week, and now was probably as good a time as any to tell them I was coming home. But it was also a convenient out to reject a date from a stranger I wasn’t really interested in.
“Nah, it’s okay. Trust me, I know what it’s like to miss family. I’ll uh- get out of your hair.” And off he went like a kicked poodle, climbing down the Gundam’s chest and hopping onto the elevator platform. I felt a little bad watching him scamper off, but not bad enough to subject myself to what would be an awkwardly forced round of social interaction.
After swinging by the facility cafeteria to pick up a sandwich and a cup of water for the night (and ignoring some of my colleagues engaging in late night celebratory drinking), I made my way to my quarters. All of the researchers of the Harmony Project were provided their own room, which was lucky for me because the thought of not having any sort of private space for this long of a time sounded like a nightmare to me.
It was a fairly spartan arrangement. A bed, a desk with a computer, and a shelf to hold the collection of literature I had brought with me from home. Very few decorations save for a poster of the Celestial Institute of Technological Research, taped next to the window, showing a night sky outside.
Time was strange on a space colony. Unlike on Earth, day and night were not naturally occurring phenomena, but instead the scheduled opening and closing of the mirrors which surrounded the giant O’Neigh Cylinder. Even as someone who admittedly had a problem with tracking time, the first week in space really messed with my circadian rhythm.
I booted up the computer while I unwrapped my tuna sandwich, taking a few bites of tangy fish and cucumbers as I waited to receive a notification. Halfway into my dinner, a rhythmic pinging played from the computer’s speakers and I clicked on the green button to accept the call.
“Hi Mom! Hi Dad!” I said with a little bit of tuna sandwich still in my mouth.
“Twilight!” My mother answered with that same enthusiasm she’s had every time I called. She was a woman in her fifties at this point, mother of three and having beared two of them. She wasn’t enthusiastic for much nowadays, but she always seemed to brighten during our calls. I couldn’t remember her doing that before I went to college.
Dad was standing right behind Mom, both of them looked like they were at the dinner table, they’d probably just finished up. He was always the more outwardly emotive of my parents, with a youthful energy that seemed to hide the wrinkles and the smile lines. Me and Shining were always thankful he was just a little too old to qualify for the draft, I couldn’t imagine my dad thriving anywhere on the battlefield.
“Spike! Come here, your sister’s calling!” he called out before turning his full attention to me. “How’s work going, sweetie?”
“It’s going good.” I said then took a sip of my water. “We actually just finished the final testing on the unit. It’s getting sent out tomorrow.” My parents already knew that I was working on some sort of mechanical project for the kingdom, though I wasn’t allowed to share exact details. Anything pertaining to the technology of the Compact Harmony Engine or even that the machine was a mobile suit was on a need to know basis.
“Oh, that’s wonderful sweetie!” Dad congratulated me excitedly, his smile widening.
Mom leaned in slightly. “Does that mean you’re coming home soon, dear?”
“Yeah. The director said we’d be departing tomorrow, probably once the unit’s been properly sent off. It’ll be a two week trip, but-”
“Did Mom say Twilight’s coming home?” A young boy’s voice sounded just offscreen before footsteps echoed through the house. Spike came up to my mother’s side and my eyes crinkled in fondness seeing my little brother on the screen. He was a year older than when I last saw him in person, a twelve year old boy, short for his age with puppy dog eyes he never seemed able to turn off even when he was trying to look serious.
My parents adopted Spike when I was 10. I didn’t quite understand at the time but I would learn later he’d been cycled in and out of foster homes most of his life.
“Heya, Spike!” I waved at him and he waved back somewhat bashfully before crossing his arms. “How’s school going?”
“Uh, pretty good. Biology’s been pretty tough, remembering all the names and stuff.” Spike said, rubbing his arm. “And there have been some jerks in my new classes, but I mean, I’m tough enough to deal with em’!” As if to prove his point, my brother flexed his fairly skinny arms.
I rolled my eyes at him but nodded along anyway. “I’m sure you can.”
Spike’s faux confidence seemed to drain away as he leaned against Mom to get a better look at me. “Um, are you really coming home?”
It had been almost half a year since I’d seen my little brother face to face. In the brief month I had stayed at home after the beginning of the war but before I received my letter asking me to join the Harmony Project. Everything had seemed so uncertain then, and despite the brave face Spike tried to put up, he was just as scared as the rest of us. At first for Shining who would be on the frontlines of the conflict, and then for me who would be leaving the family behind for space.
I missed him, and I felt awful hugging him goodbye when I left that evening in February.
“Yeah. I’m coming home.” I tried to soften my voice and sound reassuring. “I’m leaving tomorrow. It’ll probably take a week for me to actually get to Canterlot though. Gotta admit, I’m grateful for the opportunity and everything, but I’m happy to get the heck out of Dodge. There’s not much here outside the project facilities.”
“I can’t wait for you to be back!” Spike said with a fistpump. “The guys in my class are nice and all but they’re not really into the same stuff I am. We could play O&O again! I mean, I guess it’d just be you as the DM and me as the player, huh…”
I laughed warmly. “That could still be fun. We’ll just have to find ways to entertain ourselves while Shining is off being a hero.”
“Speaking of, sweetie,” Dad spoke up, sounding a bit more serious than before. “Shining says that the Coalition has gotten bolder lately, ever since they made landfall.”
Mom nodded. “These are dangerous times, dear. It would be awful if something happened to you because you were working for the Princess.”
“I understand, Mom. Don’t worry, they’re probably going to have MSs escort us on our way out, I have full faith the Princess has done what she could to guarantee our safety.”
That didn’t seem to assuage my family’s fears completely, but none of them seemed comfortable pushing that topic any further.
So instead, we caught up on the small things. Dad’s frustrations at the food rations being imposed, Mom’s first draft on the new novel she was writing, some more of the classes Spike was taking in his new grade. The conversation went on for a little while longer, with Spike eventually leaving the room to catch up on some homework (though knowing him, he probably had a stash of Power Ponies comics right next to his textbooks).
“Alright, I think it’s about time we ended the call, Velvet. Twilight needs her rest for the trip tomorrow.” Dad said.
Mom’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, alright. Well, you heard him, Twilight. Make sure you get enough sleep tonight, and remember to pack everything you need to bring home!”
“Understood, ma’am.” I gave an obedient nod. “Don’t worry I can deal with myself just fine.”
“When you come home we’ll take you to that Donut shop you and Spike like!” Dad said with a thumbs up. “Goodnight Twily!”
“Goodnight you two.” I said with a wave.
With a click, the call ended, and I slumped back into my chair. I probably should’ve followed Mom’s advice and started packing, but it had been a big day, and right now there wasn’t much that felt more inviting than my small bed.
I shut the computer off and did the bare minimum of brushing my teeth and tossing my garbage into the bin before ditching my lab coat and turtleneck for a Daring Do T-Shirt and a comfy pair of shorts. With my work clothes discarded as a heap on the floor, I flopped ungracefully onto the mattress, rolling around for a moment before settling on my side, towards the wall.
Tomorrow, I was leaving. Tomorrow, I could start the journey back to my normal life. Or, as normal as things could get, given the circumstances.
Sleep was usually a dreamless thing for me. A surrendering of my consciousness to the blank void while my body rested. I think as a child I had dreamed more, but by my high school years and especially through college, I hardly dreamed at all. Or at least I struggled to remember them. Maybe that reflected a lack of imagination on my part.
It was nice in its own way. In the waking world my mind always ran faster than I could keep up with, with research and anxieties and goals to strive for. On the good nights, when none of those things could overpower my desire for rest, I could cease being a thinking creature. Only a bundle of nerves and synaptic signals.
Deep, deep I slept. Mouth agape and curled on myself like my most prized instinct was the desire to develop spinal issues later in life. Dead to the world, shrouded in the dark, in the far corner of the Earth Sphere where nothing but quiet and a failed grassland reigned. This was peace. This was tranquility.
There was something else.
I couldn’t tell when, but my eyes would no longer let themselves stay shut, despite all of my groggy protests. The surrender of my limbs was replaced by a tension in my joints and a small but persistent feeling in my head that something was wrong wrong wrong. I rolled around my uncooperatively uncomfortable body, struggling against the bedsheets and suddenly finding the mattress too warm and the air around me too cold. Eyes half-open and vision blurry, I wondered if maybe I was coming down with something, my immune system compromised by the rush of the last few days of work.
But at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel like this was something different. Something more… fundamental.
I stood up on the bed, reaching for my glasses on the nightstand and rubbing my eyes, grumbling muted sounds of frustration as it became increasingly clear that whatever this bad feeling was was not going to allow me rest.
And that’s when the sound hit me. The sound of whistling.
KABOOM came the deafening, echoing cacophony that rocked the ground beneath my feet and shattered the quiet of Dodge. The shaking knocked me out of my bed and onto the floor, where I landed painfully on my side as my ears rang from the assault on my senses. My eyes were no longer bleary and tired, instead darting around the room while my breathing quickened. I scurried to my feet like a cat after being hit in the head, standing despite the newfound unsteadiness in my legs.
Another explosion rocked the colony, a test for my body to see if it could endure the shaking, a test it failed when again I collapsed to the floor like a whole row of the books on my shelf. Some part of me recalled the safety drills of my childhood, old memories that were burned into my muscles, and I ducked my head against the floor as if it was possible for a space colony to have earthquakes.
The sirens came with the sound of gunfire, and finally my thinking mind caught up with my animal flesh.
“We’re under attack.” I whispered to myself.
Under attack. Under attack. Under attack. The thought repeated itself in my mind again and again. It was that singular thought that carried me on my feet and out of my bedroom door, into the hallways where just over the gunfire and the explosions outside I could hear the panicked yelling of others in the building.
Out in the hallway which contained all of the researcher’s rooms, we scrambled amongst each other in panic and confusion. I felt arms wrapping around my side as a smaller woman crashed into me, yelling my name as her body shook.
“Twilight!” Yelled Twinkleshine, an acquaintance from college and head researcher of the Eynhorn’s sensor system. “What’s going on!?” We never talked much, but I’d always observed Twinkleshine to be a confident and easygoing girl, none of that was present in the cowering animal before me.
“The Coalition.” I said without thinking, the words spilling out as if on autoplay. It was the only logical conclusion. “They’ve found out about this place and are launching an attack.” It was the Eynhorn. Somehow the Lunar Coalition knew about the Eynhorn.
“They can’t do this to us!” A frightened male voice screamed over the noise of the crowd. “We’re civilians!”
“Tell that to them!” A woman yelled back. “We gotta get outta here! Where’re the exits!?”
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” A familiar voice of senior authority prevailed over our anxious chatter. Director Perfect Pace stood at the end of the hallway, flanked on either side by an armed guard. “I suspect all of you understand the situation we find ourselves in. All of you follow these men if you wish to live. There are panic rooms situated throughout this compound that will guarantee your safety. With any luck, our Princesses’ new battleship will arrive before the Lunarian Cyclops’ can breach the walls.”
Despite the chaos of the situation, the researchers meekly sorted themselves into lines behind the guards and followed along as they began their trek through the labyrinth of halls. Twinkleshine left my side to follow suit, but as we walked, I did not follow the guards. Instead I followed Director Pace.
“Sir.”
“Miss Sparkle, can I help you? We’re in a bit of a rush here.”
“What’s going to happen to the Eynhorn? Are we sortieing the mobile suits?”
“The Siphons are already taking to the field, Miss Sparkle. Though, our security detail tells me that no one has seen Lieutenant Flash Sentry since this attack began. Apparently he had decided to head out into town and hasn’t come back. We aren’t risking the Eynhorn in battle with the other pilots, so unless he decides to show his face, we must have faith the privates can buy us enough time.”
I grimaced at that. The Siphons were half a decade out of date compared to the Cyclops’ and our pilots were spares that could be taken away from the frontlines without much thought. They were sacrificial lambs at best, pawns to stall out the inevitable. Something in my gut told me that relying on them was a fool's hope.
There was another feeling that gripped me, the same kind of feeling as when I laid in my bed. The tension in my joints and something in my brain saying wrong wrong wrong wrong . We weren’t safe. We weren’t safe.
I heard it again. The whistling.
“EVERYBODY STAND BACK!” I yelled suddenly, pulling Director Pace along with me as I stepped back away from everyone else. He looked at me strangely, but before he could ask what I was doing, something collided against the roof and tore it apart. An explosion demolished the layers of steel and concrete that held up the building, sending it raining down on the group walking in front of us. Their screams were drowned out by the echoing crash of raw material, concrete dust kicked up in front of us as I fell once again to the floor, dragging the Director down with me.
“TWINKLESHINE!” was the first thing I heard after the ringing in my ears had subsided. I looked up to see a woman with tears in her eyes, held back by a guard as she tried to run towards the rubble. Wet with red blood and lifeless limbs.
‘Lemon Hearts’, my memory supplied me. Another acquaintance from the Celestial Institute.
Ignoring the scene, I got up on my feet, leaving a disoriented and shellshocked Director Pace speechless on the floor. The Siphons were failing. We were all going to die here.
Unless…
I ran, away from the researchers, away from the scene of death. Perhaps I heard Director Pace call after me, but I didn’t spare him any attention. No, my mind was set on one place, one thing. I couldn’t let the Compact Harmony Engine be lost in a senseless attack. I couldn’t leave my work to die like my colleagues had.
On instinct and adrenaline, I made my way to the hangar bay, hastily scanning my card to open the door. Within, I found a similar atmosphere of chaos and confusion, the crew looking bleary eyed and exhausted, propelled only by that same fear and grim determination that propelled my steps. At the center of it all, the Eynhorn stood high, safe for now.
Scanning the room, I found Hard Hat on the bottom floor, swamped on every side by men seeking assurances of their safety. No one seemed to pay much attention to me as I ran down the steps built into the wall and marched towards him.
“Hard Hat!” I yelled, relieved when that seemed to catch his attention.
“Miss Sparkle? What in Tartarus are you doing here!?”
“Lieutenant Sentry! Where is he!? Why hasn’t he sortied yet!?!”
“Lady, if I knew, I’d tell ya! No one’s seen him since last night!”
I scoffed at him, the fear and anxiety that had been filling my veins replaced by a mounting frustration. I looked past him, past the crewmen, up towards the machine that had been our sole purpose. The Eynhorn stared down from on high, the toil of my research, the future of this war, the faith that Princess Celestia herself had bestowed upon me. All of it would be wasted. Our duty would be burned in the fires of Dodge.
Everything fell away as I stared at the Gundam. Its golden eyes looked as if they were commanding me, the striking image of Princess Celestia’s gentle stare filling my mind.
I was transfixed by it, a force deep in my bones pushed me towards it. In my mind I could hear the hum of the Harmony Engine, drilled into my subconscious after months of testing and development and construction. The sound of the universe snapping into position.
I couldn’t let it die. It was all that mattered.
“Listen, Sparkle, you need to get your ass to the- Wait! Whaddya think you’re doing!?”
Before I knew it, I was standing on top of an elevator platform, ascending towards the Eynhorn’s cockpit. “SOMEONE GET HER DOWN FROM THERE!” Hard Hat yelled, but it was already too late. I had pulled open a compartment built into the cockpit hatch and pressed a red button labeled “OPEN”. Soon, I could hear the sounds of pistons shifting as the mobile suit’s innards revealed itself to me. The Eynhorn was equipped with a linear seat cockpit first installed in the Pegasus type Mobile Suits. A chair suspended in a large orb of screens with controls to either side of the armrests. Before any of Hard Hat’s men could draw the elevator back down, I hopped into the cockpit and crawled onto the seat before pressing a button on the chair that closed the hatch shut.
The instant it did, the Eynhorn’s screens came to life, producing a high fidelity video feed of the entire 360 degree area around the Mobile Suit, which gave me a good view of Hard Hat and his men yelling at me to get out of here.
“Made it this far…” I muttered to myself, scanning over the controls to give myself a proper bearing. I had never actually been inside the Eynhorn before, I had however studied up on the Celestial Standard MS Controls built into almost every Suit of the Celestial Forces, including the Eynhorn. I knew theoretically what every button and lever in front of me did, and I knew for certain that the three levers to my left initiated the startup sequence.
I clicked each one in sequence, hearing the hum of the Harmony Engine reverberating throughout the machine. Not long after, a mechanical feminine voice filled my ears.
“EYNHORN GUNDAM. SYSTEMS ENGAGING. HARMONY ENGINE AT OPTIMAL OUTPUT.”
My brow furrowed, and my hands found their grip on the control sticks built into the arm rests.
“ELEMENTAL PILOT DETECTED.”
I pulled back, confused. “What?”
“REQUIREMENTS MET. ASCENSION SYSTEM PHASE 1, ENGAGING.”
The hum of the Harmony Engine intensified, and a dam of pain broke inside my mind. I grasped my hands against my skull, groaning in agony as I was bathed in the cockpit’s red lights. My pupils dilated, my muscles contracted, hairs stood up against my skin as waves of this new and exquisite pain assaulted my senses. Everything was too much. Even the back of my eyelids were too stimulating for my brain.
And then, as quick as the pain arrived, it had left. My breathing, which I hadn’t realized had quickened, was already back to normal. No, the pain had not merely left, it had left me with a clearer mind than I had ever had.
Fight. Escape. Survive.
With my newfound intent came also the sudden movement of the Eynhorn Gundam, the machine creaking and groaning as it broke through the cage that surrounded it. The hangar crew all skittered away from the Mobile Suit, like mice fleeing towards their hiding holes. They looked at me- at the Gundam with fear and awe.
I looked down at them, and it only hit me then that I had not moved the control sticks.
“How did I…?
Outside the walls of the hangar bay, I heard another explosion.
Right. No time for questions.
Grasping at the controls, I turned the Gundam’s head around the hangar until I spotted the Beam Rifle hanging from the wall. I reached out the machine’s hand, at which point it automatically grasped at the weapon’s handle and pulled it off its rack.
“Open this door!” I yelled into the Eynhorn’s open comms, my voice ringing through the Mobile Suits speakers. When no one seemed to comply with my request, I raised the Beam Rifle and aimed it at the large metal door blocking my way. That seemed to get the message across, as not half a minute later did the door pull itself aside to reveal the starlit battlefield. With heavy steps, I pushed the Eynhorn into the fire.
The city of Dodge was a smoking wreck in the distance, black plumes billowing from the old western style buildings that held the colony’s permanent residents. I had rarely visited the city myself, but seeing the destruction still felt disquieting.
My attention was stolen by the sound of something heavy crashing towards the ground near me. Bisected through the torso, a mangled Siphon unit laid crumpled on the asphalt, a sizable chunk of its chest blown off.
Standing above its fallen foe was a Lunarian LMS-09 Cyclops, the standard unit of the Coalition army. A stocky mobile suit painted in midnight blues with large powerful legs housing high performance thrusters, a shield bolted to its left shoulder with a spiked pauldron on the other, and a head that housed its high fidelity monoeye camera unit.
In its right hand was the fairly thick Cyclops Beam Rifle, and in its left hand was the fearsome Lunarian Beam Axe, a weapon with a shaft nearly as tall as the machine carrying it with beam emitters powerful enough to slice through most mobile suits.
Its colors made the Cyclops blend into the night of the colony, illuminated in orange glows by the burning wrecks of cars that surrounded it. Its glowing blue eye turned in my direction, and the Cyclops brandished its axe at me.
No chance for diplomacy then.
Before I could finish raising my rifle, the Cyclops dashed forwards and upwards with a thruster boosted jump, leaving me to scramble to adjust my aim towards the sky. In the dark of the night, I struggled to get a bead on my target, but when I saw the green beam of the axe ignite, I took my shot.
It was different, watching the beam fire from the comfort of an observer deck, away from the crackling noise of burning air or the bright flash of the beam itself as it spewed from the barrel of the gun. All the fire and fury of our physical world condensed and sharpened into a single phenomena of destruction.
I watched and waited for the beam to slice through the Cyclops and end this fight in one fell swoop, but before the shot could make contact, the enemy Mobile Suit dashed out of the way, the beam only making grazing contact with its right arm.
“They dodged it?!”
That arm succumbed to the Harmonic Energy of the Eynhorn’s beam rifle, lost in a fiery explosion. Unfortunately for me, the enemy pilot seemed to use the momentum of the blast to propel themselves downward, helped by the thrusters mounted to their backpack.
I backed away, hoping to take another shot, but the Cyclops came down faster than I was expecting and slammed its axe against the Eynhorn’s chest, too close to comfort to the head.
The Eynhorn shook from the impact, my head slamming against the back of the pilot seat as I let out a yell of pain. Any other Mobile Suit would have been cleaved in two by the attack, but the high melting point of Equestrian held the beam at bay.
“That’s one hell of a Mobile Suit you got there!” An unknown woman’s voice rang through the Eynhorn’s comms channel. Was this… the enemy pilot? “But it doesn’t matter how tough your armor is if you can’t aim!”
“B-Back off!”
Again, without moving the controls, the Eynhorn seemed to act in accordance with my will as it dropped the beam rifle to the ground and grabbed the shaft of the beam axe, lifting it up in defiance of the Cyclops’ pushing. I sat stunned for a moment, but discarded my curiosity. This was my chance!
I ripped the axe from the Cyclops’ hands, tossing it aside as the enemy stumbled back. The Gundam stepped forward, raising a fist to strike at the Cyclops’ head, but before I could swing the Cyclops’ thrusters roared to life before the machine dashed forward and tackled me with its spiked pauldron.
I jostled violently in my seat as the Gundam was sent back by the impact, tripping backwards as the machine lost balance before slamming to the ground. Again my head crashed against the back of the pilot seat, my mind dizzy and my body reeling from the G-Forces. My hands twisted the control sticks either side of me to try and set the Gundam upright, but my efforts were halted by the Cyclops stomping its feet on the Eynhorn’s cockpit chest.
The armor creaked as the Cyclops raised its recovered beam axe and ignited it again, raising it high. “Sorry to do this, Kid.” The enemy pilot said. I couldn’t tell if it was an earnest apology. “You sounded young.”
Her words fell on deaf ears. I was spiraling inside the cockpit, my mind racing for anyway I could fight back. Any way I could survive.
I had to live. Spike was depending on me! The Harmony Project was depending on me! Princess Celestia was depending on me! I couldn’t die!
I started jostling the control sticks at random, hoping to throw the Cyclops off of me, but only succeeding in momentarily unbalancing my enemy before I was stamped down once more. “Come on come on come on come ON!” I screamed at the control panel, sweat beading down my forehead. “Something here has to work!”.
Suddenly, I could hear gunfire echoing from above. Looking forward, I saw a stream of bullets shooting up at the Cyclops’ head, most of them missing but some of them finding their mark inside the suit's sensitive monoeye. I looked down at the screen in front of me, flashing the words “VULCAN GUN AMMO - DEPLETED” over a silhouette of the Eynhorn. Slowly, I realized my thumb had pressed hard on the left stick’s fire button
Startled by its sudden loss of sight, the Cyclops stumbled back and I wasted no time capitalizing on this chance. Steadily, the Gundam rose to its feet, cameras trained on my enemy, now blind but still armed.
“You think this is enough, Kid!?” The enemy pilot yelled, flailing its axe around like a club. “I can take you out just fine with my sub cameras!”
Again, the Cyclops charged at me, relying on pure chance for the axe to strike the Gundam. A swing nearly did make contact with my head, but I managed to maneuver the Eynhorn quick enough to dodge the attack. The Gundam pulled its right fist back, ready to swing forward.
“DIE!” I screamed with the full force of my lungs, and as I did, the Eynhorn’s built in beam saber ignited into a long purple blade.
The beam cut through to the back of the Cyclops chest. For the briefest moment I could hear the blood curdling scream as my enemy was hit with the beam saber, her skin boiling to nothing as a heat as hot as the sun tore her body apart. The moment passed quickly as her screams abruptly stopped, replaced only with the static hiss of the Eynhorn’s comms.
Everything went still as the Cyclops’ limbs turned limp. I was left there with nothing but that awful hiss and the hum of the beam saber, watching the purple light fill up and burn away the space inside the enemy machine that had moments before housed a human being.
I could feel the adrenaline slowly begin to leave my body, and I became cognizant of how heavily I was breathing, how badly my lungs burned. I pulled the Gundam back, and drew the beam saber out of the hole. Inside the Cyclops’ cockpit was nothing more than burnt metal and dark ash. After a while, its legs ceased to support its weight, and the machine fell backwards, sprawled upon cracked earth.
The realization did not hit me strongly in one wave. No, it was more like a gnawing understanding blanketing me. My grip on the Gundam’s controls loosened as I looked down at the fallen Cyclops. It was metal and rubber and wires strung together into a high tech killing machine, yet laying there with its head laid on its side and its limbs so flimsy, it looked less like a machine and more like a corpse. The beam dissipated.
I had killed someone.
That didn’t matter. It was self-defense. It was justified. Morally, legally.
She was an enemy! A traitor to the kingdom. In defense of the interests of Princess Celestia, what was the life of one stranger who had so brazenly rejected the immortal kindness of their benevolent sovereign? Why should I have cared about snuffing out such a foolish existence?
It didn’t matter. I could ignore the churning in my stomach.
I slouched against the seat, rubbing the back of my head. Yeah, that was definitely going to be a lump. A fatigue spread within me, my head lulling to the side and my eyes closing as my shoulders slackened, this momentary rest encouraged by the gentle hum of the Harmony Engine, almost like a soothing wind.
I was-
Something fast and heavy exploded against the Eynhorn, breaking my reprieve before another volley of explosions rocked the ground beneath the Mobile Suit and tearing to pieces anything less resistant than the Gundam’s own armor. I jolted as the Gundam crashed into the Harmony Project building behind me, embedding itself through the glass and concrete and steel.
Dazed, I moved the Gundam’s head up to see what had struck me.
In the distance, I saw a mobile suit coming towards me, carrying a large bazooka over its shoulder. It was another Cyclops, identical to the one I had just defeated, though this one had apparently traded its beam axe for a more long range option.
This one must’ve taken care of the Project's other Siphon.
I needed to move, needed to fight back, but something in me failed to respond. I was frozen out of- fear? Shock? Exhaustion? I didn’t know, but whatever it was that kept me in place was going to kill me. My mind screamed at my body to cooperate, to do its part for our survival, but it was useless.
The Cyclops raised its beam rifle at me and I closed my eyes shut.
I heard the sound of a beam firing, but I never felt the impact of the blast.
Hesitantly, I opened my eyes, and saw that the approaching Cyclops was no longer approaching. In fact, it seemed to be occupied with shots coming from the sky.
I forced the Gundam to stand once again and looked up at the artificial horizon. There, up near the center of the colony’s diameter, I saw a sleek fighter craft painted in an electric cyan. The fighter expertly dodged the salvo of fire coming from the Cyclops, effortlessly weaving through the beams and the rockets while giving back suppressive fire that forced the Cyclops to remain constantly on the defensive.
As the fighter descended, I finally noticed the mark emblazoned on the craft’s left wing. A stylized cloud, with rainbow colored lightning spewing from its bottom.
The fighter dove closer to the Cyclops, with speed that would lead one to assume it would crash into the mobile suit. But before the nose of the fighter could make contact with the lunar steel, the parts of the fighter shifted in mid air. Thrusters turned to legs and wings inverted as its chassis grew arms and sprouted a head. From the fighter craft emerged a menacing angular mobile suit that drew a beam saber from its wrist that slashed the barrel of the Bazooka, forcing the Cyclops to abandon it as it retreated.
Dawn rose on Dodge as the Pegasus Custom fired shots at the fleeing Cyclops, seeming for a moment ready to pursue, before pausing to look my way.
The variable mobile suit hovered towards me, until finally it was in range of the Eynhorn’s comms.
“LIEUTENANT FLASH SENTRY! What the hell happened here!?” Came the high pitched voice of an irritated sounding woman. “What kinda amateur manages to blow a hole inside a colony!? I got held up patching up your fuck up!”
“I- Uh, sorry, who are you?” I asked.
“...You’re not Sentry.” The Pegasus’ pilot said as the mobile suit landed before the Eynhorn. The two machines stood face to face. “Identify yourself. Now .”
“Um, I think… it might be easier to explain off comms.” With no small amount of apprehension, I pressed a button on the control panel and watched the Eynhorn’s cockpit open. Despite the shakiness in my legs, I stepped out onto the Gundam’s waiting hand, subjecting myself to the judgment of the Pegasus.
After a few moments of tense silence, the Pegasus’s own cockpit hatch also swung open, and out from within emerged the newcomer dressed in the full white ensemble of a proper pilot suit. She pulled off her helmet, revealing the face of a woman with sun kissed skin and a head of rainbow colored hair.
“My name is Twilight Sparkle.” I said, giving a weak salute. “I’m the Harmony Project’s Lead Researcher on Harmony Engine Generation.”
She eyed me with confusion and apprehension, before breathing out a sigh.
“I’m Lieutenant Commander Rainbow Dash.” She said, then surveyed the destruction all around her. “I’m gonna have to take you in for questioning.”
Dodge was not a lively city at the best of times. The colony was home to only a few thousand residents, those who on Earth had been the poor, the criminal, and the displaced. Little economic activity occurred in the colony outside of the bare necessary production needed to maintain the population.
There were a few shops in the western themed areas, a few restaurants here and there (not that I ever visited one). It was a place that held nothing of real significance, which I assumed is why it had been chosen for the Harmony Project in the first place.
It was now a ruin.
Buildings had been demolished. Rubble lined the streets alongside burn marks that were as big as cars. The mangled body of a Siphon mobile suit laid in a crushed market with its chest blown away.
The people of Dodge- lost, confused, and scared- looked up in awe and terror as our mobile suits walked down the roads that were almost too tight for our machines to pass through. Some sat and stared at our procession, perhaps too overwhelmed to do anything else. Others merely glanced up for a moment, before returning to search through the debris.
Lieutenant Dash did not speak to me much during our walk, leading the way as we passed through the ruined plaza towards our goal at the far side of town.
Behind the meager buildings of Dodge sat a vessel I’d only seen before in snippets of development documents. It loomed tall over even the city’s most impressive structures, its shining white body glimmering in the morning sun. The silhouette of the thing reminded me strangely of a sphinx, with two large blocks jutting out the bow like a quadruped laying its two front legs in rest. From its deck protruded a long tower that was topped by what appeared to be the ship's bridge, giving me the odd impression of a long neck with a head at the end of it.
“Alicorn, this is Lieutenant Rainbow Dash.” My escort finally said as we drew nearer to the battleship. “Yeah, I’ve got the unit with me. Tell Captain Bon-Bon to get her ass to the hangar bay. We’ve got another surprise she needs to hear about.” The Lieutenant paused for a moment before scoffing. “Get over it Rares! You’ve heard me say way worse than ‘ass’.”
When we reached the base of the Alicorn, the door on the ship’s right “leg” had opened up to reveal the hangar bay stored within. Military E-Trucks filtered in and out of the cavernous hall, some marked with medical crosses as they drove out into town. I turned the Gundam’s head to track them as they left, my vision momentarily falling on the distant crumbling front of the Harmony Project. Briefly, I wondered if my colleagues were still cowering in the dark of the bunkers, or if perhaps they had ventured outside and seen the aftermath of my… battle.
“Hey, Egghead!” Lieutenant Dash yelled through the comms. “Get in there!” She said, her Pegasus Custom gesturing to the hangar. “We don’t got all day.”
“I told you my name already.” I grumbled, but complied with her orders.
For as large as the hangar bay of the Alicorn was, this wing of it seemed to house very little. At the center of the long hall was the system for the MS catapult built into the floor of the hangar, on one side sat a myriad number of crates with logos from various arms manufacturers I was passingly familiar with, and on the other side were the trusses that were meant to hold the ship’s suits. There was only one standing in reserve at that moment, a bulky one with heavy armoring all around its body and two long canons attached to its backpack. An APL-04 Stalwart, my memory supplied me, though this one was painted a warm orange color, with milder yellow accents all around. On its front skirt armor, I saw another symbol like the one emblazoned on Dash’s Pegasus, but this time it was an illustration of three apples.
“Eyes down here big girl!” A high pitched voice screamed from down below, with that familiar peaking quality that came from a megaphone. Angling the Gundam’s head downwards, I spotted a heavyset woman with a mass of curly pink hair below, holding a megaphone in one hand and a pair of glowing orange marshaling wands.
The hands that grasped the wands waved at me, then when the woman seemed convinced I was paying attention, she holstered the megaphone on her belt and started waving the wands in both hands as she walked to one of the mobile suit trusses.
Following her guidance, I maneuvered the Eynhorn carefully to its holding area. In such a tight space, I was pleasantly surprised at how precisely I managed to move the Gundam. Despite my theoretical knowledge on piloting, the motions I made with the control sticks were really more educated guesses than anything.
I hadn’t worked that closely with the division in charge of the Eynhorn’s control scheme, but I was becoming increasingly curious what exactly Piston’s team had been developing.
Soon enough the Gundam was in place, its beam rifle hung up on the truss that bound it, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I pressed a button and saw the Eynhorn’s cockpit hatch swing open.
“Helloooooo!!!!” Waiting just outside on a motorized platform lift was the woman with pink hair, who’s cheerful smile seemed altogether out of place aboard the Celestial Forces finest battleship.
“My name’s Pinkie Pie! It's so good to meet you! This is the Eynhorn Gundam right? Oooh! I can’t wait to work on it! Is the big gash on the chest built in or was that because of a fight? Captain said there’d be a fight but then she said we were on alert and not battle stations so I guess the fight is over? Oh wow you must have won your fight then! I don’t know how good it is that you got hit so much I can see inside the armor but I guess that’s better than having the whole thing cut off! What’s your name by the way?”
We looked at each other in silence, my brain struggling to process all the words that had come spilling from her lips at an inhuman tempo. Did she even breathe during that whole thing?
“Mysterious pilot lady?” Pinkie Pie asked, her smile still present though somewhat lessened.
“I’m not a pilot.” I blurted out.
To my surprise, Pinkie, honest to Celestia, giggled at me. “That’s silly! Why would someone who’s not a pilot be inside a mobile suit?”
“I-”
“What was that Officer Pie?” A new commanding voice spoke from below, snapping Pinkie’s attention away from Twilight.
“Oh, hi Captain Bon-Bon! I’m just talking to the Gundam pilot! This one’s a real jokester, she says she’s not even a pilot! Can you believe that!?” Pinkie shot me a wink before turning back to yell at her apparent superior. “I like her already!”
“Yes, Pinkie, she sounds like an interesting one. Help get her down from there will you? I’d like to talk to her.”
“Okie dokie!” Pinkie gave the Captain a thumbs up before turning back to me. “Well, you heard the lady! Hop on!”
Stepping out of the cockpit and onto the platform, my thoughts were primarily fixated on how weak my legs felt. Shakily, I stood next to Pinkie Pie as we descended, the woman being gracious enough to hold on to my shoulder and stabilize me. The adrenaline from the fight had well and truly left by now, and its place was rapidly being filled by the instinct to run away from the judgmental stare the Captain was giving me.
She seemed about a decade older than me and Pinkie, impressively young considering her station. Her arms were crossed over her decorated uniform, and despite her relatively short stature, an aura of control exuded from her.
Just as our platform reached the bottom, a flash of multicolored hair entered my peripheral vision, and a moment later Lieutenant Rainbow Dash strode to join the Captain’s side, Saluting briefly before turning her attention to me.
“Hi Rainbow!” Pinkie Pie waved at the pilot as she wrapped her arm around my shoulder and dragged me towards the two high ranking officers.
“So, Lieutenant Dash. I’m guessing this was the ‘surprise’ Rarity referred to?” The Captain asked.
“Figured this warranted your attention.” Rainbow said.
“You figured right.” The Captain sighed. “Either high command sent me some very inaccurate files on Lieutenant Flash Sentry, or we have some more complications on our hands. Just what we needed.”
Hurriedly, I disentangled myself from Pinkie Pie’s hold and offered a hasty salute towards the Captain and the Lieutenant. “I-I’m so so sorry for causing you trouble ma’am! If you give me a chance I can explain myself!”
Captain Bon-Bon rolled her eyes. “Calm down, kid. We aren’t gonna throw you in the brig.” She narrowed her gaze. “If you can answer my questions. Starting off with a name and an explanation for why some civilian was piloting the Kingdom’s highly experimental top secret mobile suit.”
“O-Of course.” I took a deep breath, which helped little to calm me under the scrutiny of the three- Well, two military officers. Pinkie seemed more interested in the Eynhorn considering she was once again boarding the platform lift. “My name is Twilight Sparkle. Like I told Lieutenant Rainbow Dash, I’m a researcher with the Harmony Project.”
I relayed to them an abridged version of my eventful morning. The first explosions, the damage to the research facility, Lieutenant Sentry’s disappearance, and my… acquisition of the Eynhorn Gundam.
“So… you stole it!?” Lieutenant Dash said, and instinctively I shrank away from her.
“No! No! I mean- Yes, I launched without authorization but I wasn’t intending on running off with it! We-We were being bombarded and the Siphons were being slaughtered! If I hadn’t acted we would’ve all died!”
Lieutenant Dash seemed unconvinced by the arguments to my innocence. Captain Bon-Bon for her part seemed more curious about another thing entirely.
“So you launched in the Eynhorn to engage the enemy in combat. What happened next?”
“I… defeated one of them.” My voice turned quiet, that awful noise and stillness ringing in my mind. “J-Just one. Lieutenant Dash took care of the other one.”
“Well, I can vouch for that. I saw what was left of the Cyclops she engaged with.” The Lieutenant said, begrudgingly. “Though I didn’t take out the other Cyclops, I only made him retreat. I figured confirming the status of the Eynhorn would take precedence.”
“We haven’t detected the Cyclops’ presence either way. We’ll assume for now that it fled the colony for its mothership.” Captain Bon-Bon said, resting her hand on her chin in ponderance, muttering to herself. “No other holes in the colony’s structure and no reports from the local ports. Maybe they found an old maintenance hall to get in and out?”
She was occupied in silent contemplation for a moment before fixing me with an incredulous look. “And there’s the matter of you. Your first and only sortie in a mobile suit and you manage to take out an enemy with nothing but theoretical knowledge on piloting? Seems very unlikely.”
“That’s…” I hesitated. Should I tell her about the strange sense that guided me throughout the chaos? The unknown mechanisms with which the Eynhorn bent to my will? I didn’t want to lie, but I didn’t want to tell her the truth either because I knew it sounded insane! “...I guess that just goes to show how effective the Eynhorn is then! It managed to get good performance out of someone like me!”
“Uh huh. Sure.” Captain Bon-Bon said. “Well, it’s not like I can’t disprove anything you’re saying, and you don’t look like a Coalition spy to me.”
“Oh! Does that mean I can- uh, leave? I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be on the civilian transports out of here by now.”
“Sorry, Miss Sparkle.” The Captain crossed her arms. “We haven’t authorized those transports to get close to Dodge considering there’s still a Coalition battleship somewhere out there. Until we can confirm the situation is clear, nothing leaves or gets in. Plus the supplies we’re meant to get from the Harmony Project have yet to be delivered to us, and I still need an answer for where in Tartarus Lieutenant Sentry went off to. Until I can confirm the safety of either of those, I’d be more comfortable having you onboard the ship than out of my sight.”
“If worse comes to worse we can just wait for the supplies and ditch Sentry.” Lieutenant Rainbow Dash said. “Minty hasn’t been in a real piloting situation yet but she’s gone a few rounds in the simulators, and apparently you don’t even need that to make this Gundam thing work.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. The longer we have to sit around here, the more of a problem the Coalition can make themselves.” The Captain put a hand on my shoulder, fixing me with a glare that gave nothing away. “You stay here, I’ll send for someone to keep an eye on you. Am I understood?”
I gulped. “Yes ma’am…”
And soon, they were gone, running back to what I presumed was the bridge while I was left to find a place to sit. I really didn’t feel like standing for however long I was supposed to wait.
Luckily for me, one of the crewmen noticed my predicament and was kind enough to grab a foldout chair for my convenience. I set it up beside the Eynhorn and sat, awkwardly and uncomfortably as my eyes wandered the room looking for something- anything.
It wasn’t all that different from the hangar bay of the Harmony Project, though with more generalized equipment for maintaining the wider variety of machines they had to service compared to the two models of Mobile Suit that the Project housed. It was also fairly quiet, outside of the few crewmen who were busy doing basic diagnostics on the Lieutenant’s Pegasus Custom.
Strangely enough, it seemed that no one except for Pinkie Pie had taken to checking on the Eynhorn Gundam. The warrant officer herself was perched on top of the machine's chest where the axe had sunk into it and was surveying the damage. I couldn’t see her very well from where I sat, but as she surveyed the woman kept making strangely excited noises to herself. Various “oohs” and “aahs” and things of that nature. I could swear for a second that I even heard her sniff(?) the damage.
“What on Earth is she doing…?”
“Best not to ask questions about Officer Pie, Missy.” A woman said from behind me.
I turned around to see a taller woman with blonde hair and a handsome freckled face approach me. What immediately drew my eye was the large cowboy hat she wore that was certainly not uniform standard. The second thing that drew my eye was how well built the woman seemed underneath her Celestial Forces officer uniform, clearly someone who had spent much of their lives doing hard physical labor. The twang in her voice led me to believe she must’ve grown up rural.
“Uh, hi.” I said dumbly, looking her up and down.
She tipped her hat at me. “Howdy, Miss. You’re Twilight Sparkle, ain’t ya? I’m Applejack- or uh, I guess it’s ‘Petty Officer Applejack’ nowadays. The Cap’n asked me to keep you company till we get your situation sorted out.”
“Oh. Oh yes she mentioned you were coming.” I brushed a strand of hair out of my face, subtly attempting to avoid eye contact with the woman. She seemed nice. Much nicer than I expected a junior officer to be and certainly nicer than Lieutenant Rainbow Dash had been. “Sorry to take up your time Officer, I’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”
“Now don’t you worry yourself any, I don’t mind meeting new folk. Not a whole lot else to do but waiting after all.” She went to lean against the foot of the Eynhorn. “So, where you from?”
“Canterlot.” I answered simply.
“Oooh, big city girl, eh? Should’ve figured what with you working on something like this.” Applejack tapped her knuckle against the Gundam’s foot armor. “Well, I’m from somewhere a little less fancy. Ponyville. Born and raised.”
“Ponyville?” The name sounded familiar to me, like I had come across it before. “Oh, wait, isn’t that where the old capital used to be?”
“If we’re talkin’ bout the same Ponyville. Though I figure most people wouldn’t know it just looking at the place. It’s mostly farming communities that live there nowadays. My family owns an apple orchard there, granny tells me the first seeds were planted even before Celestia was in charge.” She didn’t frown per se, but something bitter shadowed her neutral gaze. “The rest of my family’s still back there.”
“...I told my family I was supposed to go home today.” I said, quieter than I had expected. “My little brother. I haven’t seen him in person in forever, I was- I was really looking forward to it.”
Now Applejack frowned, and for a moment I was worried I had said the wrong thing as she approached me. Instead, she put a comforting hand on my shoulder, comforting instead of dominating like the Captain had been. “Now don’t start talking like that. I’m sure you’ll see em’ real soon, just count on us to make sure everything’s safe.”
“I- Thank you officer.” I hid away from her gaze, which seemed at the moment too earnest for me to handle.
“Ain’t nothing.”
She pulled her hand away, and a small part of me missed the comforting touch. Applejack stayed beside me, leaning her hip against the chair and looking up at the Gundam.
“Y’know, Lieutenant Dash told me you actually got in that thing and fought a Cyclops with it. That true?”
“Yes. I know it seems improbable, but it’s what happened.”
She whistled at that, seemingly impressed. “Mighty brave of you. You don’t seem like the fighting type.”
“I’m not. Today was my first time piloting a Mobile Suit.”
“Well that’s even more impressive. First time I piloted one of these things was after a month of sim training and I still felt like I was moving slower than molasses!”
“You’re a pilot?”
“Sure am.” She gestured at the Stalwart on the far end of the hangar bay. “That there’s my ride, haven’t taken it for a spin in a real brawl though. First week I was assigned to the Alicorn, Pinkie was darn excited to paint the thing. She reckons it’s good for morale.”
“Awww, you don’t like my deco Applejack?”
I blinked and somehow Pinkie Pie seemed to just appear besides Applejack, despite me being fairly certain she was still up checking out the Eynhorn. Applejack for her part seemed far less startled than I was, fixing the engineer a tired smile.
“Now I never said that. It is a little much though.”
“But it’s fun!” Pinkie said with a smile.
“Um, excuse me.” I said to catch Pinkie’s attention. “How is the damage on the Eynhorn, Officer?”
“Oh it’s fine! The axe- I’m guessing it was an axe those things are mean! Anyway, the axe didn’t sever any of the important bits, all that needs patching up is the armor but I can’t do it without the stuff the Harmony Project’s supposed to give us. Equestrian Alloy is wayyyyy more resistant than normal Solar Titanium so I need some real special toys to patch it up.” To my surprise, the smile slowly seemed to slip off the officer’s face. “Honestly, the damages aren’t what I’m really worried about, it’s-”
She was cut off by the sounds of engines blaring. From the hangar bay's entrance, I could see the convoy of e-trucks from earlier returning to the nest, the ones in the lead carrying with them stacks and stacks of crates filled with what I could only assume was the spare parts and “toys” Officer Pie had mentioned. The trucks in the back, however, carried some far more fragile load.
“Alright get the research team to the mess hall while the captain figures out what to do with them!”
The survivors of the Harmony Project huddled together in a dazed mass of human misery. The Alicorn’s soldiers had to practically drag them out of their spots in the truck bed, the fatigue and the fear not yet having left their bodies. It felt… odd seeing all of them march to the soldier’s orders, listless and anxious.
I saw Lemon Hearts walking in the procession, leaning on another woman for comfort. She did not seem to notice me.
Director Pace however, did. The man seemed more frazzled and out of his comfort zone than I thought was possible for someone who always seemed so unshakable. Our eyes met each other for a moment, a strange sadness passing over him, before he shook his head. His eyes instead wandered to the Gundam.
“Miss Sparkle.” He said as he approached me, his voice wavering.
“Director Pace.” I answered back, uncertain.
“That was a very foolish thing you did.” The Director seemed to hold no anger as he said it, only a distant fear and… pity?
I stood up, frowning at him and hardening my gaze. “It’s what I had to do.”
“I know, child.” He sighed, then took a deep breath. “And I’m very sorry.”
“I-I don’t understand sir. What on Earth are you sorry for? I- Is there something you aren’t telling me?”
“Yes. Though to be fair to myself it’s something very few people in the Harmony Project were told about, under orders of Princess Celestia herself. I suspect she always had an inkling you would need to be let in on that knowledge one of these days. She always told me she saw something special in you, though I never would have guessed this is what she meant.”
“What are you- what are you talking about!?” My voice turned suddenly loud, catching the Director and myself off guard, but that surprise quickly hardened into a stress fueled anger. “What secrets have you been keeping from us!? The Eynhorn- It did something to me. I know it did! When I got into it, it hurt me. Worse than any kind of pain I had felt before. And afterwards- it was like some new part of my brain was suddenly waking up. What is in that thing!?”
“Twilight! Calm down!”
A rough hand pulled me away from the Director, and I turned to see Applejack behind me, fixing me with a stern glare. I felt myself deflate slightly, but the anger still coursed inside me and I ripped myself away from her grasp.
The four of us stood there in awkward silence, the Director refusing to meet my gaze, Pinkie Pie frantically looking between us with worry, and Applejack staring me down with a look that reminded me of my mother when I misbehaved as a child.
“Director Pace.” The voice of Captain Bon-Bon cut through the silence. I looked to see her and Lieutenant Rainbow Dash approaching us, accompanied by an officer of lower rank who had mint green eyes and a head of pastel pink hair.
“Captain Bon-Bon.” Director Pace greeted with more of his usual composure. “I trust you’ll find we’ve delivered on all the equipment necessary to maintain the Eynhorn.”
“I believe you.” She breathed in, steeling herself. “Officer Swoop told me you found him?”
“Oh yes. On our way here, trapped underneath a destroyed building. He’s in the last truck with the rest of the dead.”
The dead.
“Who? Who are you two talking about!?” I demanded to know and the two of them gave a look at me before Captain Bon-Bon walked off towards that last truck, motioning for me to follow. All of us who were gathered did so, walking just behind the Captain as we approached the truck bed, where a handful of body bags were being loaded off. Heading the macabre task was a young man in a similar outfit to Pinkie’s, indicating similar rank.
“You know what I’m going to ask. Which one is his?”
Officer Swoop nodded, and walked towards one of the bodies already on the floor. He reached down to where the zipper covered his face and pulled it down.
Captain Bon-Bon looked impassive at the sight, but the rest of us did not share her ambivalence to the corpse. Lieutenant Dash winced at the crushed state of his head, Pinkie Pie almost immediately averted her eyes and held herself against Applejack, who only whispered a muted “Sweet Celestia.”
I felt my stomach drop and the breath punched out of my lungs as I looked down at the cadaver of Lieutenant Flash Sentry, his head caved in.
“We found him in what was a hotel, next to a woman we couldn’t identify.” Officer Swoop explained. “We left her body for the Dodge authorities to sort out.”
“Understood.” Captain Bon-Bon said. “Continue on with your work.”
The officer once again saluted her before continuing to direct his men in hauling the bodies away.
“Poor guy.” Lieutenant Dash said, sounding genuinely pitying towards the body that just last night was fumblingly trying to charm me on a date. “This is- This is bad, but it’s not the end of the world. Sentry would’ve been a better pick for pilot but I’m sure Minty’s up for the job.”
The officer who had been following us- Minty, now I knew- saluted. Though it was a less enthusiastic salute. “Yes Lieutenant Dash, ma’am!”
“Um Dashie?” Pinkie Pie gingerly raised her hand. “I don’t know if that’s really possible.”
The Captain gave her an incredulous look. “And why is that Officer Pie?”
“Um, okay. So I was looking at the Eynhorn’s system files to get some data on the suit so that I could get to know it better- it’s fancy new tech, so I gotta know everything I can about it! But uh- when I did, it told me that uh- And Twilight this might come as a shock to you but uh-”
“Spit it out Pinkie!” Lieutenant Dash yelled. “You never usually have trouble talking!”
“It told me the Gundam’s controls are biolocked to Twilight’s signature and I don’t know if I can change it!” Pinkie screamed, and I felt like I could vomit.
“...What?” I whispered. Pinkie looked at me apologetically and nodded, and suddenly I felt all of their eyes on me. Lieutenant Dash’s flabbergasted look, Applejack’s surprise, the Captain’s dead eyed stare, and the distant mournful look of the Director.
“I’m sorry, Miss Sparkle. I’m afraid the Eynhorn has chosen.”
I stared at him, desperate.
“You- You can change it right…? I can’t- I mean, I can’t-!”
“I can’t. No one can.”
My heartbeat hastened, my stomach churned, and my vision was suddenly blurry as my body grew unstable. I breathed in and out and in and out like the air itself had suddenly become like slime in my throat.
“Hey, Egghead! Look at me!” Distantly, I could hear the Lieutenant’s voice and feel her shaking my body, but it was both muted and entirely too much.
“Celestia’s sake, Dash! She’s having an episode!”
I felt nauseous, visions of Spike and my parents flitting through my mind. The eyes of the Gundam staring down at me. The hum of the Harmony Engine in my ears. The scream of my enemy as the beam saber incinerated her body. The smell of ozone and ash filling my nostrils as the Eynhorn’s tendrils stabbed into my mind again and again and agai-
My legs gave out as I vomited on the floor. I could feel someone supporting my weight on their body as consciousness quickly abandoned me.
Something soft and light rattled me from my haze of unconsciousness, furry too if the feeling of it brushing against my nose was any indication.
Slowly, still feeling unmoored from my own body, my eyes fluttered open and my muscles ached as I sat up from the bed I had apparently been laying on. The soft furry thing on my chest scrambled at the movement and I could feel a paw slap against my left cheek as it hopped off and scurried away.
The room came into focus. Sterile white walls with seafoam green cabinets lined with pill bottles and bandages, that distinct artificial smell of medicine strong in my nostrils. There were about a dozen beds like the one I was sitting on, though it seemed none of them were occupied. I sat on the bed closest to the room's entrance, currently blocked by a woman I hadn’t seen before.
She was dressed in a white doctor’s coat which enveloped a minty green shirt underneath. Her light pink hair laid long and flat down her back and down her face, partially obscuring one of her cyan eyes. In her arms, the woman was stroking the back of a small white bunny, which really did seem tiny in comparison to her tall and lanky frame.
“Oh. Hello.” The woman said in what must’ve been the softest voice I’d ever heard. I might’ve assumed I’d imagined her voice if she hadn’t kept talking. “I-Um. How are you feeling?”
Before I could answer, the bunny in her arms thrashed about in seeming annoyance and hopped out of her embrace, dashing inside a nearby duffel bag. “Oh. Sorry about Angel.” The woman turned even more bashful than before, which I didn’t think was possible. “Um, please don’t mention him to the Captain. I think she already knows but I don’t think she could let it slide if she actually saw him.”
The Captain
“I’m still on the Alicorn.” I said, voice flat.
“In the Alicorn’s infirmary, yes.” The woman slowly approached me. “I’m the ship’s physician. My name is F-Fluttershy.”
“Twilight…” I offered as an introduction before clutching my head. “What happened to me?”
“According to what I was told, you passed out from a stress induced panic attack.” Fluttershy answered, her voice affecting calm and assurance as she stood beside my bed. “Not helped by the several blows you sustained to the head prior, though I don’t know how they got there.”
I touched a lump that I only now noticed had formed on the back of my head and winced in pain. “I think I got these from piloting…”
“You hit your head on the seat? Oh dear, you should’ve been wearing a helmet.”
A mirthless laugh escaped my lips. “Well, I didn’t exactly have the time to go looking.” I stared at Fluttershy, suddenly anxious to know but nervous to ask. “How long was I out?”
“An hour. Just about.” Fluttershy said while she located a nearby swivel chair for herself to sit beside me. An hour lost was… not fine per se, but that was manageable. It had only been an hour since the revelation that the machine I had helped build for months had secrets I had no inkling of. That my ignorance and rashness had somehow- somehow locked me into this dreaded all encompassing something that lurked around me.
Biolocked. What did that even mean? And surely the Director could reverse it somehow.
Surely.
My attending physician snapped her fingers in front of my face to catch my attention, apparently it had begun to wander as my mind spiraled pondering the situation. “Good, you’re still responsive.” Fluttershy said. “I’d like to ask you some questions, Twilight. Just to make sure you aren’t suffering from a concussion.”
The questions she asked were simple. How did my head feel? (Bad. Dizzy. Though nothing debilitating, just a general Bad feeling in the brain.) What did I remember? (Everything. Unfortunately. None of it had been a dream.) If I had a history of panic attacks. (Many. Mostly in high school. I’d almost forgotten what they felt like until now.)
On that last one she seemed to sympathize. “High school was hard for me too. I spent too many afternoons hiding in toilet stalls and hyperventilating.”
My mind conjured the image of this woman’s calm and gentle face contorted into panic over a toilet bowl in a dirty high school restroom with no one to come looking for her. The thought made me viscerally uncomfortable. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “I do better now. Do you have any medication to help with your anxiety?”
“Never got diagnosed, so no meds.” Dad had really pushed for it. Thought it would help, and it’s not like I necessarily disagreed. The idea of actually going to a psychiatrist to get the diagnosis never sat right with me though. “I don’t think it’s anxiety. Probably more like ADHD.”
“Well, I’m not a psychiatrist so I’m not really qualified to say either way.” Fluttershy left her chair for the medicine cabinets, seemingly satisfied with her questioning. From the cabinets she extracted a pill bottle, and from the shelves below she grabbed what looked like a candy bar and a plastic cup that she filled with water.
“I don’t think you have a concussion, so I’ll just give you some pills to help with the headaches, okay?”
When she returned to her seat, she handed me the wrapped bar. “You haven’t eaten anything today, have you?”
“No.” I said, accepting the bar which I now saw was a general ration bar, the kind of bare minimum bricks of sustenance that hadn’t changed much since even the pre-Celestial era of space living. I’d had a few of these in the past, largely as an exercise in academic curiosity, and the textural experience of the meal was about as gritty as I remembered it being.
By the time I was done with the ration bar and was now busy with the pill, Fluttershy’s bunny had apparently become bored with its duffel bag abode and hopped towards the woman’s lap, eliciting an alarmingly adorable giggle from the physician. The room fell into a comfortable silence as she tended to her needy animal companion, showering the little thing with affection.
“Is he your emotional support animal?”
“Oh, no. Angel’s not certified as one.” Fluttershy said while petting the bunny, the small thing clicking its teeth in contentment. “That’s why I really shouldn’t let him come on board. I-it's selfish of me but I couldn’t just leave him behind. He… makes things easier.”
I smiled, small but genuine. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”
Fluttershy returned my smile, though it was obvious she wasn’t used to smiling at people much. The expression sat a little awkward on her face, hesitant and reserved, but on her features it was also disarmingly pretty. It reminded me a little bit of Moondancer and I wondered for a moment what she’d been doing since we lost touch in high school.
The relative peace that I found in the infirmary was punctured when I saw the door slide open.
Stepping through was a woman dressed in an officer’s uniform, about as short as I was yet carrying herself with the kind of self assuredness I could never dream of. Her indigo hair was carefully styled to frame a face that belonged on a model, the overall effect made her reminiscent of my mom in her bachelorette days.
“Fluttershy, how is- oh! You’re awake.” The woman said, locking eyes with me. “Hello Darling,” her smile was practiced and her faux-Cantelor accent rehearsed, “sorry to be a bother after the morning you’ve had, but I’m afraid our dear Captain wants to see you on the bridge. Is she good to go, Doctor?”
“Can you stand?” Fluttershy asked me.
“I think so.” I said, gingerly lifting my legs off the bed and making an attempt. Despite an initial wobbliness, I did find that my footing was ultimately stable, not in any near threat of toppling over like I had an hour ago.
“Wonderful, Darling. Come now, follow me- It’s Rarity by the by- Officer Rarity at your service.” She spoke like a particularly genial perfume saleswoman, and she boasted a truly exemplary customer service smile. If I’d been less skeptical of the whole damned situation I might’ve let myself be made comfortable by it.
Without a word I followed Rarity out into the hallway, leaving Fluttershy who offered me a farewell wave before the door shut behind us.
We walked in relative silence through the largely identical halls of the Alicorn, light purple walls of steel illuminated by warm yellow lights stretching long into a labyrinth, made comprehensible only by the subtle signage. Rarity seemed to navigate the space with ease, and happily greeted the other uniformed soldiers we passed on our way to the bridge. It wasn’t all soldiers though.
We passed by Harmony Project members too. Ambling through the halls, unmoored. Some tried half heartedly to catch my attention while we walked but I paid them little attention. Every lab coat we passed by was just another reminder that the transports had not arrived. None of them were going home safe.
“Those are your friends, Darling?” Rarity asked as we walked past a gaggle of Harmony Project members, one of whom gave me a small wave. Some low level data analyst from the armament team I couldn’t remember ever speaking to.
“Colleagues.” I answered.
“Ah, a consummate professional I see.” I couldn’t tell if she was mocking me or not. “You know, the rumor mill goes around quick in a place like this. A little birdie told me you were to be replacing Lieutenant Sentry as the pilot for that new Mobile Suit.” She gave me a proper look up and down, stroking her chin in assessment. “Forgive me for saying this, dear, but you don’t strike me as the frontline fighter type.”
Apparently the Eynhorn hadn’t agreed to that assessment.
“I guess we’ll find out.” I answered because really, I was as much in the dark as she was.
We stepped through a pair of sliding doors into the bridge of the Alicorn, a large dense room that housed walls of monitors and control panels . At the center of the room was an elevated seat positioned behind the shipwheel at the bridge’s front, currently manned by a woman with long raggedy blonde hair.
On the elevated chair, Captain Bon-Bon sat. To one side of the Captain stood Lieutenant Rainbow Dash, who’s glare was immediately on me when I walked into the room. On the other side was Director Pace, who was currently speaking to the Captain in hushed tones. Whatever conversation was between them died down as I came into their view.
“Captain, I’ve retrieved Miss Sparkle for you.”
“I can see that, Officer. Return to your station.” The Captain said.
“Yes ma’am.” Rarity said with a half hearted salute before walking away, muttering something just loud enough for me to hear. “Positive reinforcement can do you wonders, Captain…”
“Miss Sparkle.” My attention snapped towards the tribunal that stood before me. Captain Bon-Bon regarded me appraisingly, hand cradling her head as she leaned into her seat. “It’s good to see you with us. I was worried you’d be out of commission longer. As you can imagine, the Eynhorn will be a valuable asset to our operations, and it’d be a shame if we couldn’t use it on your account.”
Swallowing back a pang of dread, I asked “Is it really true? It… has to be me?”
“Minty tried it.” Lieutenant Rainbow Dash said, her tone attempting professionalism but underneath I could feel the harshness. “Came out of the cockpit looking like someone stuck a car battery to her tongue. Couldn’t even get the damn thing to move. Pinkie Pie’s been working on the clock to break the lock, but no dice.”
“It’s a fruitless effort.” Director Pace piped in, no longer avoiding my eyes. “She doesn’t have the authority, and neither do I. The only one who has the authority to break that seal is Princess Celestia herself.”
“I don’t understand.” I said, stepping closer to the Director. “Sentry was the test pilot, right? The unit was assigned to him. Why didn’t the biolock activate then? Why was I able to pilot it?”
The Director grimaced. “Lieutenant Sentry lacked the quality necessary to activate the biolock. Put simply, the Eynhorn didn’t choose him, but it saw potential in you.”
“How does that make any sense?” Lieutenant Dash protested. “Sentry was an experienced pilot and a soldier at the prime of his life. Sparkle here’s an emaciated nerd whose never even stepped into a piloting sim! How does she have more potential!?”
“The potential that the Eynhorn searches for has little to do with one’s skills as a pilot, or the capabilities of their physical form. It’s… difficult to explain, but the qualities that the Gundam searches for reside more in the realm of the mind and the soul.”
“Sounds like some bullshit.” The Lieutenant seemed more and more irritated at the old man.
The realm of the mind and the soul… I agreed with the Lieutenant that it sounded ridiculous, but my thoughts dragged me back to this morning. How did I feel those explosions coming before I reasonably could? How did the Eynhorn move when my hands weren’t pushing on the controls? It would’ve been impossible for me to move the Eynhorn as proficient as I did, no matter the standardized and simplified control system, no matter the adrenaline pumping through my veins.
“Director… What is an Elemental?” I asked, and the Director’s gaze turned distant.
“It… is a theory that the Princess has long held. I’m not versed in all the details, I was given only what I needed to know to implement it in the Eynhorn’s design, but the Princess believes that there are those among the population who possess the ability to transcend the limits of humanity. These individuals she dubbed ‘Elementals’.”
“The Eynhorn is more than just a Mobile Suit. It was a machine the Princess had me design to find and incubate those who had the potential to become true Elementals. I believe she had several candidates in mind when she requested this feature of the Gundam, candidates who would be tested once it had reached Hollow Shades.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I can’t be sure if you, Miss Sparkle, were a candidate she had accounted for, but it seems you’ve passed the evaluation regardless.”
I didn’t know what to say, and apparently neither of the other two did either. Captain Bon-Bon seemed to receive the information rather impassively, like it was a surprise she had been otherwise prepared for. Lieutenant Dash looked at the Director like he was someone crazed, seemingly struggling to make sense of what he just said.
For once I could sympathize with her.
“So- Okay. Because of that, Sparkles is the only person who can pilot the Gundam now?” Lieutenant Dash asked.
“For now, yes.” Director Pace answered. “I believe she’ll have a smoother time adjusting to the pilot seat than most, the Eynhorn’s systems respond directly to her brain waves, theoretically its the most intuitive and responsive control mechanism possible, though as evidenced by Miss Sparkle’s earlier condition it’s quite the shock to the system.”
“Will that be a problem the next time?” Captain Bon-Bon asked.
“I don’t believe so.”
“Then it’s settled.” The Captain said as she leaned into her seat and crossed her legs. “We’re getting out of Dodge.”
“Right now!?” I nearly screamed, drawing some brief glances from the Alicorn’s bridge crew. “But the Harmony Project members! We have homes to come back to!”
The Captain rolled her eyes at me. “The Coalition ship is still likely in the area, and there’s no way civilian transports are crossing the Colony’s territory while they’re still in the area. Director Pace and I both agree that it’d be better to have the Project members leave onboard a heavily fortified battleship than a vulnerable travel cruiser.”
“It’ll mess with our delivery schedule, but we’ve already agreed that the Harmony Project members will be dropped off at the nearby Stratusburg Colony to await transport. There’s no more time for arguing.”
Stratusburg… yes, that wasn’t too far from here. It would take a day on a civilian transport, probably less time on a ship like the Alicorn. For a brief, idiotic moment, I allowed myself to entertain the possibility that I was finally getting out of this nightmare, until Lieutenant Dash stepped in front of me with a scowl on her face.
“Follow me, Sparkles.” She grabbed my arm and yanked me forward.
“What? Where?” I asked, new dread filling me.
“The changing rooms. We need to see if there’s a pilot suit that’ll fit your scrawny ass.”
“Hold on! I didn’t agree to this!” I tried pulling away from her grip, but the Lieutenant’s hold was unwavering, and her expression screamed ‘unamused’.
“Hey, don’t look at me, Sparkles! If it were up to me, Sentry would still be alive, and you’d be splattered under a roof somewhere I’d never even see you. But too bad for us, we’re down an actual pilot, and you’re the only person in this damn dust bowl that can actually move that Gundam! So you’re coming with me and that is an order!”
“You can’t do this!” I yelled. “I’m not a soldier! I never signed up to be on a battlefield!”
Lieutenant Dash shot me a withering look, one of unmitigated contempt and frustration. I stepped back from her instinctively, but her hold on my arm locked me in place. With a tug of my wrist she pulled me off my feet, and I scrambled for fear of face planting on the hard metal floor, but right as I tumbled she grabbed me by my collar and drew her face close.
“A lot of soldiers don’t. Guess what, Sparkles? You’ve been drafted.”
She shoved me to the floor, where I fell on my side. A brief scan of the room quickly informed me that everybody on the Bridge had watched what just happened, and I felt myself shrivel under their gazes. Lieutenant Dash towered over me, staring me down.
“Now follow me and don’t talk back. And that’s an order, got it?”
I looked to my side and saw Director Pace looking away from the scene we had made, trying to look discrete. Beside him, Captain Bon-Bon caught my gaze, raised an eyebrow then tilted her head towards the Lieutenant.
Wordlessly, I nodded, and Lieutenant Dash groaned before walking away.
“Get up, come on. We don’t have all day.”
I silently followed the Lieutenant out of the bridge.
Our walk through the halls was terse and mostly silent, me following behind her as the ship’s crew walked pass in anticipation for the ship’s launch, each giving a brief salute to the Lieutenant. When we reached the changing rooms, not dissimilar from the gym locker rooms of Canterlot High (if slightly less nice) did I feel a slight shaking of the floor. A rumbling that reminded me of that first shuttle trip leaving Earth.
“All personnel stand at the ready, Her Majesty’s Crown Jewel, the Alicorn is taking flight and departing from Dodge via Spaceport A.” Rarity’s voice crooned over the speakers.
For a brief moment, I marveled at how smooth the flight was after the initial rise. The ship, I knew, was suspended in the air not through lift, but by an immense lattice of Discord Particles trapped in an electromagnetic field, pushing the ship away from the surface and allowing it to hover. Such technology still remained out of the reach of most commercial vessels, and even on military ships it was an uncommon and expensive feature.
The moment ended when Lieutenant Rainbow Dash aggressively knocked on the door to my stall.
“What’s the hold up!? Can’t even put a pilot suit on!?”
“Just wait a second!” I yelled back, hastily zipping up the white suit that almost fit. It hung just a little loose, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Certainly not me. If I had a choice I’d be in Canterlot overdosing on sugar at Donut Joe’s.
I wondered, looking at the mirror, what my parents were doing. What Spike was up to. Were they thinking of me? Waiting for me?
My longings were quickly pushed aside as the door behind me slammed open and Lieutenant Dash stepped inside. “Mind in the present, Sparkles. We’re moving into hostile territory, I can’t have you being distracted.”
“I get it.” I mumbled, but that did not seem to satisfy the Lieutenant.
“It’s ‘yes ma’am’ while you’re onboard this ship. That’s your one warning.”
We locked eyes for a moment, her glare meeting my own as we traded another small jab of mutual frustration. Eventually, I breathed in, and offered a salute I was fairly sure wasn’t proper form.
“Yes ma’am.” I said.
Lieutenant Dash smirked. “I’ll school you on proper respect later. Come on, we’re wasting time.”
It was not long after that the two of us made our way to the hangar bay, bustling with activity as the Alicorn’s mechanic crew were busy doing last minute diagnostics and maintenance on the ship’s three Mobile Suits. Stepping out of the hall and into the large room, my eyes instinctively found the purple hues of the Eynhorn, all major signs of damage gone. At the Gundam’s feet, I saw Pinkie Pie chatting with a familiar figure I hadn’t expected to see again.
“Hard Hat?” I called out somewhat nervously to the man.
“Ay! If it ain’t the little thief!” Hard Hat turned to me with a smile, a far cry from the anger I was expecting. “Knew you didn’t die out there but it’s nice to see it.”
After a moment’s inspection, the man raised a brow. “Woah. New digs? What, did they let you keep the Gundam for yourself?” He said, clearly joking, then his smile slowly began to drop when he realized he was closer to the truth than expected. “Wait, seriously?”
“Ooohhh, did I not mention that?” Pinkie Pie asked, sweet and innocent.
Hard Hat blinked. “This place must be more short staffed than I thought.”
Before either me or Pinkie could explain the situation, a sudden weightlessness overtook me, my feet floating off the ground along with everything and everyone that was not magnetized or bolted to the ground. It was a weightlessness I had only experienced a handful of times.
Rarity’s voice once again sounded over the speakers.
“Attention all crew, we have departed from Dodge and are now in its airspace. We’re likely to encounter enemy forces as we depart, so all crew are to stand at battlestations. MS Pilots please stand at the ready for launch, you are to escort the Alicorn and defend it until confirmation that the threat has subsided. Over.”
“You heard the lady! Get this place ready for launch!” Lieutenant Dash yelled at the assembled crew, who doubled and hastened their efforts. She turned to Pinkie Pie. “Is my Pegasus all set?”
“Juiced up and hungry for action, bosserino!” Pinkie answered with an enthusiastic salute.
“Good. Get her up to speed,” The Lieutenant gestured towards me as she walked towards her variable MS, “I’m strapping in first.”
Hard Hat nervously scratched the back of his neck. “Well, I think this is my cue to go hide somewhere. Good luck, kid.” He said as he gave me a pat on the back that was a little too hard. “Talk to you later Miss Pie!” He waved at the head mechanic, before retreating into the Alicorn’s cavernous halls.
“Later!” Pinkie returned his wave with ten times the enthusiasm. How she managed to stay so cheerful as we entered into the unknown alluded me, my eyes fixated on the imposing titan of Equestrian Alloy that had chained itself to me. I didn’t move at first, even though I knew I should.
I might’ve stared at it forever, if it weren’t for something new being shoved into my view. A white pilot’s helmet to match my suit, shoved into my hands by a Pinkie Pie who regarded me with a subdued confidence that felt strange for the woman. “You’ll need this. Wouldn’t wanna add any more booboos to the back of your head!”
Booboos? To my surprise, a small laugh escaped me, and that seemed to brighten Pinkie quite a bit too. “Thanks. Well, might as well get this over with.”
I pushed myself off the hangar bay’s floor and ascended up to the Eynhorn’s open cockpit, unmoored by any sort of gravity. I stepped inside into that spherical room and strapped myself onto its pilot chair. I went through the motions of booting on the Gundam’s systems, apprehensive at every step- expecting a jolt of pain with every switch flipped, but thankfully the Director seemed to be correct that my physical mind at least was safe the second time around. Gradually, as the camera screens around me flared to life, the hum of the Harmony Engine filled my ears once again. Briefly, I felt some of the tension leave my body.
“MS Catapult Deck all clear!”
“Rainbow Dash, Pegasus Custom - Launching!”
The blue blur of Lieutenant Dash’s MS sped past me out the open maw of the Hangar Bay doors and into the inky abyss of space. Shortly after, a window popped up on the Eynhorn’s panoramic view.
“You’re next, Darling.” Rarity said, twirling a lock of her hair in her finger. “I suppose the rumors were true then.”
“Like you have to ask.” I said as I maneuvered my mobile suit on the Eynhorn’s MS Catapult, the two clamps built into the floor locking themselves tight on the Gundam’s feet. “You were on the bridge, you saw the whole thing.”
As two mechanical arms moved around me, carrying with them the Gundam’s Beam Rifle and shield, Rarity grimaced. “Yes, terrible sight that was. Do forgive Lieutenant Dash for her rudeness, it seems the norm for the Forces’ Ace Pilots. I imagine such a title quickly goes to their heads.” She paused for a second, looking over her shoulder before returning her attention to me. “Ah, it seems the Captain would like to confirm your status?”
I looked down at the helmet sitting on my lap, my reflection staring back at me as the Harmony Engine’s melody continued to play.
Donning my helmet, I gripped the controls.
“Twilight Sparkle, Eynhorn Gundam - I’m ready to launch.”
The moment I said those words, the Eynhorn was sent forward at the speed of a race car towards the hangar bay’s open doors, the Catapult’s momentum launching me outside into space where I frantically activated the suits thrusters to break my forward momentum.
I turned Gundam’s head back, and saw the Alicorn flying beside me, the sun’s distant rays shining against the white battleship. Dodge was becoming slowly smaller behind us, its tranquil exterior betraying the destruction and death that it now held within.
Everything else was the stars and the dark. The void in all directions.
Soon, I could see something else speeding outside of the hangar doors, a bulky orange mobile suit armed with a long range beam rifle that was quickly approaching me.
Applejack’s Stalwart was soon enough flying to my left, both of us keeping pace with the Alicorn and sticking close to it. “Miss Sparkle, that you?” Applejack’s voice came over the intercom, and I admit it was a relief hearing it.
“Sorry to say.” I answered back, and heard the other woman laugh lightly at the remark.
“Take it the Lieutenant wasn’t too happy about that, then.”
“Not in the slightest. I think she hates me, I might be more scared of her than whatever enemies we run into.”
“Well don’t let that get you down too bad. Dash is just full of hot air, but when the cards are down I’m sure she’ll have your back.” I could hear the smile in her next words. “And if she don’t, then you best believe I do.”
“Alright ladies, enough chit chat!” Lieutenant Dash barked through the coms. “Applejack, you stay close to the ship, keep an eye out for any enemy units and provide supporting fire if anything comes close. Sparkles, form up with me at the front of the Alicorn. We’re the ship’s first line of defense, got that!?”
“Yes ma’am.” Applejack answered back, less enthusiastically than I was expecting.
“Yes, ma’am” I echoed, before breaking off from the Stalwart to fly towards the Pegasus far at the frontlines.
“Hate to admit it, Sparkles but you’re flying pretty smooth for your first time out here.” Lieutenant Dash said as I joined up beside her.
“I think it's mostly the Eynhorn that’s doing the heavy lifting.” Whether it be the “brainwave” technology the Director had mentioned or merely the Eynhorn’s conventional directional systems at work, the suit was flying exactly how I wanted it to. “I’d guess in a Siphon I’d be doing a lot more work correcting my trajectories.”
“Lucky you, then. Hopefully you won’t slow me down too much.”
At impressive speed, the Pegasus Custom shifted and turned from its mobile suit configuration to its fighter mode and blasted off, the Lieutenant calling out for me to “Stick close to the Pegasus!”, leaving me to push the Gundam’s thrusters to max to catch up. The Eynhorn was fast by the standards of most mobile suits, but it couldn’t compete against a variable MS like Dash’s.
“Hey look at you! You’re catching up! Keep your eyes peeled, Sparkles, you never know when something’s gonna-”
Lieutenant Dash’s audio signal abruptly dropped off into a stream of unintelligible noise. “Lieutenant?” I called out, but nothing came through the static. “Lieutena-”
Before I could finish, I saw a golden flash on my right that grew bigger and bigger before my mind finally caught up with what it was. With a jolt of the controls I dodged out of the way of the incoming beam, making space between myself and Dash’s Pegasus. Another volley of shots came pouring down on us, the Lieutenant weaving through the shots like the well seasoned professional she was while I managed to dodge a few and block the rest with my shield, each impact of Discord Particles against Equestrian Alloy sending shockwaves across the machine.
In the moment’s breath after the onslaught, I saw them.
One of the units was a Cyclops, similar or perhaps the same as the one that Dash had engaged with back at Dodge. The other was a different matter entirely. Larger and taller than the mobile suit beside it, taller than the Eynhorn too for that matter. It’s intimidating, broad figure painted black and fiery orange with deep red highlights accentuating the pink glow of the Mobile Suit’s monoeye. Armed with a high precision beam rifle and carrying a massive thick shield, the Eynhorn’s visual sensors confirmed my suspicions.
That was a Lunarian Commander’s Phemos.
In the corner of my vision, I saw Dash’s Pegasus shoot out a flare from its folded arm before it turned and flew above me, reaching out that same arm for me to grab onto. I caught it with my shield arm just as another wave of incoming fire approached, narrowly missing its mark as we sped back in the direction of the Alicorn.
“Discord Particles are at combat density.” Lieutenant Dash said, our communications restored by the suit's touch. “That means they have a battleship nearby, we’ll need the Alicorn’s firepower.”
Beams whizzed past us, the enemy units chasing our retreat and forcing Dash to engage in evasive maneuvers, slowed down by the added mass of the Eynhorn she was carrying.
“Damn it! Why’d it have to be her!?” She yelled in frustration. “Sparkles, don’t just sit there! Return fire!”
“Right! Right!” I raised my Beam Rifle and pressed down on the trigger button over and over again, firing blind shots that did little more than occupy the nimble Lunarian Mobile Suits pursuing us, whose shots were quickly hitting much closer to home.
Lieutenant Dash groaned. “Sparkles, listen to me. Let go of the Pegasus, we’ll be harder to hit separate. Don’t die on me yet!”
Leaving little room to argue, the Pegasus’s grip loosened and I found myself flying backwards through the void carried by momentum as Dash’s MS rose up and away from me. Immediately, the enemy Cyclops pursued the blue fighter craft, while the Phemos focused its fire and speed towards me.
When I couldn’t dodge, I blocked with my shield, dread creeping in as the blasts began to dent and blow holes into the structure of the metal. Seeing my panic, the Phemos holstered its beam rifle and drew the twin bladed beam sword from its back, crashing the ignited blade against the Eynhorn’s shield which sizzled and frayed over the intensity of its heat.
“That design… I knew it.” the voice of an unfamiliar woman blared through the speakers. Low and seething. “I guess Celestia finally got what she wanted, a real next generation Gundam.”
With a flick of the control stick I used what remained of my shield to push the Phemos away from me then aimed my rifle at the enemy and fired, my target dashing to the side and only mostly avoiding the blast, only suffering a graze to her shoulder armor. Quick as a whip she tossed her sword aside and drew her beam rifle, firing another shot that finally turned my shield into shiny metallic debris.
“You know. By all rights that thing should be mine. Celestia herself promised it to me. So I’d rather not have to destroy it. Hand it over and I might just forget this ever happened.”
“And just who are you!?” I yelled back, throwing my shield aside and firing another round of shots that my enemy avoided almost casually. “How does some random Lunarian commander know about the Gundam? This machine is the hope of the Princess herself, and there’s no way in Tartarus am I giving it up to you!”
Before I could react, the Phemos leapt forward and grabbed the stock of my beam rifle with its free hand, wrenching control of the weapon away from me, then pushed its own rifle against the Eynhorn’s head. “Celestia must not have told you then. Figures she’d want me best forgotten. Well let me be the first to tell you. The name is Sunset Shimmer, and that Gundam is-”
Her rant degraded into static and noise.
From up and behind me I saw the light of a massive purple beam flying towards us. With a violent kick to the Gundam’s chest, Shimmer’s Phemos put space between us for the beam to pass through and for her to open fire on the new attacker. With my newfound breathing room I aimed my rifle at the evasive enemy mobile suit and breathed. With an exhale, I fired a blast straight at the Phemos, confident the strength of the beam could pierce even its thick shield. In a stroke of sheer luck, the beam connected.
I gasped in relief at the explosion that followed, but that quickly soured when I saw the silhouette of the Phemos dashing away, and I quickly realized that the beam had only destroyed the shield. Sunset had abandoned it as a decoy.
Shortly after I saw an explosion in the distance, then the retreating form of a heavily damaged Cyclops. Behind us was the massive form of the Alicorn slowly encroaching, and Applejack’s stalwart flying towards me.
The Stalwart placed a hand on the Eynhorn’s shoulder armor. “You okay in there, sugarcube?”
“Y-Yeah. Lost a shield though.”
“Lucky you didn’t lose more! Captain Shimmer ain’t nobody to trifle with.”
“You’re familiar with her?” I asked.
“Kinda. Dash could tell you more, though. All I know is she’s one of Luna’s top dogs, the ‘Butcher of Selene’, they call her. “
Butcher of Selene. So an Ace Pilot of the Coalitions founding, and someone with a history and a grudge with Princess Celestia.
You know. By all rights that thing should be mine.
In what universe. somebody who had turned against the Princess like that deserved nothing but misery and death. The Eynhorn didn’t belong to her, it belonged to-
It belonged to Celestia herself.
And it had chosen me.
“We’re ordered back to the ship.” Lieutenant Dash’s voice joined the channel. I turned the Gundam’s head to the side and saw Dash’ Pegasus in mobile suit mode, one of its wings heavily damaged, the tips blown off. “Don’t relax yet, we’re not out of the woods. The bridge crew is saying Shimmer’s Sleipnir is coming close, we have to resupply quick.”
Without another word, Lieutenant Dash flew off to the awaiting hold of the Alicorn’s hangar bay, with Applejack shortly following. I stayed there for a little while longer, watching the enemy mobile suits grow smaller and smaller, until they were gone from the Eynhorn’s visual sensors.
