Chapters
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The boat barely rocked beneath Amie by the faint light of dawn. The lake water was crystal smooth, like a single sheet of glass not yet broken by wind or recreational swimmers. Her nesting place was similarly comfortable, tucked inside the sleeping bag with Tailslide beside her. She no longer smelled much like a bat anymore—but she also didn't want to.She lay there for a little while, feeling the rocking boat beneath her, and listening to the songs of morning birds. Her bat body wanted to keep sleeping,…-
195.0 K •
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Amie could not fly back to the city, even ignoring the boat she had to return. When she was sure nopony was watching—besides the little group of “pegasi” gathering by her campfire—Amie changed again. This time it was the bat self that seemed the more natural. In some ways, she'd used this body more in one night than any other since the Transit. Maybe she should try to talk Pachu'a into letting her bring a pony with her to the Elders?But that wouldn't be safe for him, a juicy steak surrounded by…
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195.0 K •
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Amie left Agate less than an hour later, traveling with her brother. She'd pushed things so late with Tailslide that they very nearly had to sneak past the gates and get around the curfew.Wes surprised her with a new body just before they left, a pegasus similar to the form she'd given Rick. She suspected he had copied it from him, only changing the color of his coat. "You didn't want to keep using the unicorn?"He nodded. "He didn't seem like the kind of pony who would go on adventures like that. He wants…
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195.0 K •
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A queen? Amie turned over the word, baffled. But she said nothing, just closed both of her wings and waited. The last thing she wanted to do to a group of armed, frightened people was give them a reason to fear her. Another reason, anyway."I sensed strange emanations from her," Pachu'a shot back, defiant. "But nothing like this. It must be a change. We see history unfold before our eyes—the emergence of the Queen of all their tribe. And we are the first bugs to witness her. We may be recorded in that…
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195.0 K •
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The trip to Sonoma took days. They encountered very little civilization during the trip—a handful of hikers and adventuring ponies, or miners scouting out their own claims for future excavation. Any of those meetings might've turned tense, with Pachu'a's group content to intimidate them out of interaction.But Amie knew ponies better than that. They just wanted a little friendly small-talk, maybe to stop and share lunch and gossip for a while. While the hunters might've raised suspicion, at least as a…
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195.0 K •
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“Captain Felicity.” Chorale’s voice was gentle in her ears, gentle enough that she might’ve missed it completely if she wasn’t already prepared for some disaster to come upon them. But being a citizen had imparted her with many enhancements, and one of those was incredibly light sleep.She sat up, shaking her head once to clear the bleariness away. “Go ahead, Chorale.” She was back in her quarters. She couldn’t have said exactly how she got there—maybe she had fallen asleep on duty at some…-
84.8 K •
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Felicity was asleep when the Alcyone started to shake. It only took her a few seconds to wake up, shrugging out her wings and hopping to alertness. Whatever she’d been dreaming faded away, and she was back at her desk.The Alcyone shook again, twisting violently to one side. A string of emergency warnings piped directly into her head joined the blaring sirens from outside it. “Battle stations! All hands, report to the bridge! Battle stations!”This planet doesn’t even have a space station. We sent a…
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84.8 K •
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Felicity drifted through the void.She couldn’t have said how long she floated there, with only her fears for company. In the infinite theater of her mind, she played back the siege that had taken the Alcyone, over and over again. Chorale’s desperate face, watching her with certainty of death that could not be escaped. It didn’t matter that Chorale had always been the one meant to protect them—Felicity felt that job ought to be hers, even for the computer.She failed. If she had a body to occupy, she…
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84.8 K •
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Felicity did her best to be as polite and cordial as possible with the Pandemonium’s strange officers. Even so, she found her mind wandering during most of their meeting. There she was, Upstream, her mind apparently transferred into another level of simulation. Despite what Harmony said about the different paths that life could take, it looked to her like life had chosen the exact same path over and over.Within their simulated space, the Pandemonium’s crew had set up everything their real ship was…
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84.8 K •
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Captain Atilla had sent one of his own shuttles down to New Canterlot, its own kind of technological wonder. The shuttle was like a dragonfly made of glass, entirely transparent except for a spine that ran laterally above her. The floor and seats appeared whenever she walked, before fading away to slight distortions again as soon as she was in place.“I still don’t understand these… what do they call themselves?” Escape Gear began from the seat beside her. “Varch’nai,” Felicity supplied.…
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84.8 K •
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