Luna led her two comrades into the Archives, her azure eyes focusing on the machines in the center of the room. As the three equines held their weapons ready, the Princess of the Night turned to the blue Pegasus on her left.

"Rainbow Dash, scout ahead. I don't want us to be caught in an ambush," Luna ordered, Rainbow Dash nodding and flying off, leaving her and Lyra to approach the devices and download the data alone. Behind them, though, the Archive hologram began to fade and morph into something else. Luna caught a glimpse of this in the corner of her eye and rapidly turned around, only to look into the synthetic eyes of the one pony she hoped to never see again.

"Luna," the Illusive Mare simply said. Lyra, who just started decrypting the files, quickly spun around and charged her horn with a magic blast.

"Illusive Mare," the green Unicorn spat, her horn dissipating the energy.

"Fascinating race, the Humans," the Illusive Mare said as she took a drag from her cigarette, "They left all this for us to discover, but we squandered it. Celestia has known about these Archives for thousands of years, and what has she done with them?"