“Ten.” Control’s voice boomed over the headset. 

Twilight was keenly aware that she was sat atop the largest bomb Equestria had ever built. Practice kept her moving, her eyes dancing between panels as preflight checks turned the lights green one by one. The fear still clutched at her heart, however. 

“Nine.” 

She glanced over her shoulder at her friends who lay reclined in their seats, strapped into pressure suits. They all had their duties, Pinkie and Rarity were pouring through checklists, Fluttershy kept up a soft whisper over the communication crystals, and Rainbow Dash and Applejack shared the helm. Only Twilight had no pressing duties, her own fault she’d declared herself Commander months ago, and that left her with nothing but worries to attend to. 

“Eight.” 

There’s been more than enough worries to attend to. Beyond the metal walls that enclosed them Equestria was dying. For nine months Celestia’s sun had blazed down constantly and it was doubtful that the planet would survive another nine. Storms raged unchecked across Equestria, crops withered in the fields and rivers ran dry beneath the immobile sun. 

“Seven.” 

“You okay, Twi?” Applejack interjected. 

Twilight gave a shaky nod. “Yes. Just... wool-gathering.” 

“Six.” 

“No worries, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash added. Her grin was alarmingly wide. “Discord’s not going to win this one.” 

“Five.” 

Twilight swallowed a lump. She wished she had Rainbow Dash’s confidence. After Discord’s reign of madness, after they’d discovered the loss of the Princesses, there had been a great many ponies that believed all was lost. For a while Twilight had been one of them. If not for a single mad idea of Pinkie Pie’s she might have just laid down and died along with Equestria. 

“Four.” 

“Main engine start,” Pinkie chirped. “Hold on girls!” A thud echoed through the capsule followed by a roar of escaping gas. 

Twilight ground her hooves against the seat. Three thousand tones of liquid hydrogen and oxygen lay beneath them. An inconceivable amount a year ago but Equestria had built a chemical industry at a terrifying pace. It seemed every ounce of the nation Twilight loved had been hurled into an ever hungry maw, it would never be the same again. 

“Three.” 

“All spell patterns clear,” Rarity added. “Guidance is go.” 

The whole ship was inconceivable, and Twilight struggled to believe that it had ever been completed. The hull was made of cloud foamed aluminium, something that hadn’t existed before ship had required it, just one of a host of technologies that had been thrown together. Self regulating spells, lifting charms, transmission crystals, as Equestria had demanded critical breakthroughs had come crawling out of the woodwork with mad-ponies to champion them. Somehow, despite the dying world, the ship had been built. 

“Two.” 

“Communications, go,” Fluttershy said, her voice quavering. 

“Navigation, go,” Applejack drawled. 

“One.” 

“Piloting, go. Come on Twilight, let’s light this firecracker!” 

Twilight couldn’t breathe. It was insane right? A fever dream of how they might have saved Equestria. No sane mare would consent to being blasted into space at speeds unimaginable by even the fastest pegasi. She wanted to scream. She wanted to run. She wanted to be anywhere else. 

Instead, she heard her voice say. “Ignition.” 

The explosion was deafening, a roar that blanked out all other sound and rattled the ponies around in their tiny capsule. 

“Tower’s free!” Rainbow bellowed, her voice barely a whisper over the all consuming noise. 

Twilight groaned as the acceleration pushed down on her, a lead weight on chest. With a howl the ship began to tear its way into the sky. Clouds roiled and boomed with lighting far above them, but the pegasi had torn a hole in the everlasting storm and the ship accelerated towards the patch of blue. 

Through the tears pooling in her eyes Twilight could make out Luna’s moon high above, emblazoned with the face of a vengeful alicorn. Discord must have thought it funny to seal her back in her old prison, and ironic to deal with the rest of the Princesses in the same way, but if he’d sought to destroy Equestria he’d made a fatal mistake. 

Twilight engaged her microphone as the ship rose ever higher ever faster. “This is the Ascension!” she boomed, her words broadcast across a desperate nation. “We’re on our way.”  

Twilight touched a hoof to the Element of Magic on her brow. Ponykind could not reach the sun, nor touch Cadence while she was frozen out of time. The moon, however, was within their grasp.