Romancing the Clouds

by KitsuneRisu

Episode 4-1 :: Scrambled

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12:11 AM

"There's something I want to say to us all before we move in," Egg said, in his usual calm demeanour. It was an odd tone to be speaking in compared to the intention of the small speech, but still, it was Egg. Everyone knew that. And that was enough of a reason.

"We've been together for about two weeks. This is a rather dangerous situation that we are heading into – one that we are severely unprepared for, as well as undertrained. All we have is a layout that I hope we all memorized, a target that we need to find, and our wits.”

The night broke his speech with a whisper of the wind. A ruffling of feathers chimed through the air as Eternia huddled up against the cold of a dark sky.

"This is… something that I would not have expected that we would be doing so soon in our efforts as a crime-prevention team, and I would just like to say…" Egg looked from left to right.

There they were. His group. His team.

"… I would just like to say – everything that we have gone through up until this point, and all our time spent together… well. I would just like everyone to know that your performances have been… acceptable."

Cookie gripped her claws tight against the cold wooden sidewalk.

Ember nodded, his face tightened into pinpoint focus, his mind on the mission and what he had to do.

Champagne sniffed, her lower lip quivering.

"Is everything alright, Champagne?" Egg asked, looking over to her.

"Y-yes," she replied, pre-emptively wiping at her damp eyes. "But that was… that was a brilliant speech, sir."

Egg nodded, turning his head toward the building behind him, acknowledging his verbal contribution as a positive one. "Yes."

The four of them huddled, quite out of place, in front of an old, abandoned building that had definitely seen better days. Under the cover of night, they remained partially in stealth, but anyone walking by would have easily picked up on them for acting suspiciously.

"Alright. Miss Eternia and Champagne? Please head to the rear and give us the signal once you are about to enter. Ember, with me." Egg stood up from his crouched position in the bushes, staring down the building like a tamer at a lion. "Everyone, remember the plan and stick to it. No theatrics. That means you, Emberkite. Miss Eternia and Champagne, try to make sure you are not seen. Once we clear the base, we meet outside her lab, and we get in, grab her, and get out."

Two ponies and one gryphon nodded back.

"Good luck, everyone. This will be the first crippling blow to Unity."

Champagne and Cookie took off, flying at low altitude and making their way to the rear of the building as quickly and silently as possible. There was no real danger of being caught; if they were going to be seen, they'd have been by now. They were not exactly the paragons of stealth, and Egg knew where their weaknesses lay.

He had tested the area earlier, walking casually by the front and back a few times in an overly suspicious manner. If anyone were keeping watch, he most certainly would have been stopped.

And that left him and Ember at the front, lurking in the bushes by the main double doors.

"You okay, old stallion?" Ember whispered.

"Acceptable," Egg reasserted.

But his eyes darted to the side for a fraction of a moment as a memory stirred up from the front of his mind. Certain facts had caught up with him, and he found himself lost in the weight of that which had not yet been internalized.

"Actually, no." Egg corrected himself. "I am quite apprehensive. After the other day's events, I have been filled with… strange feelings."

"I think they're called emotions, old stallion."

"Yes. Well, of course. But all things considered…"

"You scared or somethin'?" Ember smirked.

"No, not so. I suppose… I am having similar sensations to the ones I had while I was chasing down that thunder goose. A sort of rush of energy. Quite like the feeling of anticipation, but with, ahhh… more expectancy. Do you know what I mean?"

"Excitement, old stallion. It's called excitement." Ember looked away, peering at the closest window. Old newspapers had been plastered over the panes of glass from the inside.

"Ah yes, of course. I am… excited." Egg nodded, stating the facts.

"About what?"

"Well. I'm just happy that I'm finally about to meet this elusive pony. It's rather fascinating, isn't it – what would drive one to… do all this. It shall be rather interesting, talking to her."

"Yeah, it will, man. I wouldn't mind giving her a talking to myself, if you know what I mean." Ember frowned, stretching out his leg.

"Miss Eternia would not approve of that."

"Well, she can take her approval an-"

A bird chirped in the distance. A rather loud bird. A rather large bird.

Half of one, at least.

"They’re in. Won’t be long before the second signal."

"Yeah, can’t wait," Ember muttered, rushing to the door ahead of his partner.

Egg slowly closed the gap, walking straight at the ominous edifice, head held high and words under his breath.

"Let us meet in the field of battle," he intoned to himself, as he stepped up to the door.

"Professor."

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Nine hours earlier

It was 3:28 in the afternoon, a time when most eateries were still open – a time just after the lunch rush, so it was common to find a couple of stragglers left in the reeds of their dwindling plates.

But even then, it didn't much matter to her, for when she said the diner was closed, by the Stars the diner was closed and you'd better finish your plates of whatever and get out within the next five minutes or else.

The customers from around the are were rather used to that by now and paid it as much heed as the rumours that arose from it.

When the diner shut in the afternoon, they said, it meant she was receiving guests. Oft times this was mentioned with a wink and a nudge, and oft times no further proof was necessary for everyone to play along.

There were many rumours about the diner and her owner.

But rumours normally held their origins in a slight sliver of truth, and in this case, the mare in question was, in fact, receiving guests of a certain nature.

In the barren and empty floor of the diner, coated by the gentle lights that bloomed from above, stood a little diner-owner and a rather uncomfortable head of marketing.

The head of marketing scratched his head.

The diner-owner tilted hers.

An uncomfortable silence ensued, broken only by the endless patience of Mocha Leche.

"You… didn't have to close the whole shop, did you…?" Survey asked, scuffing his hooves on the linoleum.

"You said you needed privacy."

"Well, not… not this private! I mean… maybe you had a back room or something…?"

"Do you know what happened to the last stallion to go back there?" Mocha asked, eyeing the space behind the counter.

"Um… no?" Survey squeaked.

"Well, neither did he."

"Right. Point taken. Tell you what, I'm gonna get a meeting room at the office, then. Once Egg swings by, just tell him-"

"I already closed the diner for you two. Least you could do is stay, Survey." Mocha smiled gently.

"R-right. Third from the left, then, eh? Eh?" Survey stumbled both on the words and his own four hooves, making a little dance to the booth before sliding himself onto the fluffy seat.

Mocha stood in the middle of the room, watching him with that bemused smile still plastered on her face.

"R-right then," Survey said again as he finally reached his seat, removing his tools.

The newspaper came first, aligned perfectly with the bottom right corner of the table, about an inch from the edge in both directions. Nice and neat.

Next to it was placed a stack of papers, all held together with various paperclips and coloured sticky notes.

A simple quill and inkpot bordered the top.

The space directly in front of him was kept clear; he had to have working space, after all.

On the left, aligned perfectly to the rest of the items, was a small, folded map. He had made sure to fold it according to regulation folding instructions.

It was a curiosity – Survey was incredibly messy at home, deep in his dark, dank cave where he never turned the lights on. But in public, he was as neat as could be, always making sure the quills were sharpened and everything was perpendicular. He couldn't help it. It was something he had to do.

His compulsion came from his nervousness, and today, that came from being in public and being stared at by creepy little diner owners who didn't have anything better to do because they closed the damn shop.

On a normal day… well, on any day, Survey would never step hoof in the diner alone, and the only reason why he ever came here was because Egg made him. But today, he had arrived here early, and he had to contend with… all this.

He took a deep breath, staring at the back of the couch across from him. His eyes focused on a loose tuft of cloud and attempted to pay no mind to the strange, brown pony who was watching him from the corner.

He flicked his head downward, looking over the papers, flipping through them once again to make sure everything was placed neatly in the order that he would present them in.

His eyes flicked back up again.

"Hwuargh!" he screamed, a hoof flying to his chest as he jumped back in his seat.

"We never talk, you and I," Mocha said, leaning forward over the table, her front hooves cusped together.

"When did… how did you get here?" Survey blubbered.

"When… you weren't looking, I suppose?" Mocha pulled back. She observed Survey with a sense of reckoning, an attempt to figure something out.

She casually reached over to her right, pulling a cord by the window. All at once, narrow blinders made out of thin, airy wood folded shut, throwing the booth into shadow.

"Seems like you might have needed a little more privacy," Mocha said, observing the blinds as if it were the first time she had ever done so, with a childlike curiosity and wonderment. "Egg told me that you preferred it dark and musty."

"He… he told you that, did he?"

"Well, not really. He said you were sort of like a worm. But I understood what he meant from context."

"You… you know what a worm is, then, eh?" Survey kept on muttering.

"Yes. Yes I do."

"Many worms up here in Clouds… ah… Cloudsdale?"

"Not really, no."

"So how do you know… about… about worms?" Survey chuckled, the hole getting bigger as he dug.

"I read." Mocha shrugged, raising her eyebrows at him. "I have an education. Things like that."

"Ri-right! Of course! Well, that's just…" Survey licked his lips, letting the nervous smile drop off his face and his discourse trail into nothingness.

Mocha blinked at him. "Beginning to see why we've never talked before. You seem rather alright with Egg, though."

"I'm just nervous, Miss Leche. I can't help it, alright?"

"Afraid of the ladies?"

"No! I love… ladies. And lady-things. All of the ladies!"

"Smooth."

"Like water off a duck." Survey sighed, tilting his head back and letting his eyes glaze over. Where was Egg? Where was he?

"You work in advertising, don't you?" Mocha asked, turning again to stare at the wooden blinders, propping her head up on a hoof. She didn't need anything more than her imagination to look out of a window.

"Marketing, really. Yes. Stuff like that."

"And how does a stallion like you come to work in this sort of profession?"

"Wh-what do you mean?" Survey asked, adjusting the nothing around his neck.

"Well, clearly, you don't like attention. And marketing is all about… attention, is it not?"

"Ah well. I see. Ah…" Survey nodded, even though Mocha wasn't looking. He was rather thankful for it, if he were frank. The fact that she wasn't trying to maintain eye contact was instrumental in his ability to continue this conversation without devolving into extremely bad comebacks.

He wondered if she were doing it with a rather calculated intention.

"Well, it’s about distractions, really. Ponies like to stare at other ponies. So I figure… I figure if I can make things that are more interesting than I am, then I've done a good job, haven't I? Then they won’t look at me and only at the thing. If that makes sense."

"I'm sure it does somewhere." Mocha smiled.

"W-well. I really don't know. I mean, I haven't really thought about it, have I? There's a lot of other facets of marketing, you know, other than just advertisements. There's market research. Interviews. Understanding target demographics… and yes, I've heard the 'Survey' joke, thank you very much. I have no idea what my folks were thinking of, naming me this, really."

"I rather like it. It's a… curious name. And one that seems to befit your line of work."

"Ah…well then. I-I mean…" Survey rolled his hoof in the air, struggling to find a better comment, his eyes wandering all over the diner.

"Anything you've done that I'd have seen before?"

"Beg your pardon?" Survey asked, his ear flicking toward the sound, his head following shortly.

"Anything you've done that I'd have seen before?" Mocha repeated.

"Well… I guess. I mean. We sub-contracted for L'Aérial once. You know. That cosmetics thing."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Um… the whole… you know the fruit range of things that they had once. There was a series of ads that went up in all the major departmental stores, yeah?"

"I think I've seen those. The one with the really big close-ups…"

"… And the juice that was the stuff and all that. Yeah."

"Yeah."

"We… we did those."

"Really? Impressive."

Survey nodded again to the uncaptive audience.

"I didn't know that Stackford and Sons took contracts," Mocha continued.

"Oh… oh, he does… everything, really. He does a lot of things, Mister Stackford does."

"You know, I've known Egg for a rather long time now, and… I have no idea what the company does."

"Oh… owns stuff, mainly," Survey said. He was not being sarcastic.

“Oh.”

"Well, nice to see you two getting along." A voice came from behind.

"Hwuargh!" Survey screamed again, flying into the corner of the booth, squashing the blinds up against the window.

"Was it something I said?" Egg asked, sweeping around to the front of the table, nodding to the other inhabitant. "Mocha."

"Egg." Mocha nodded back. "No. He's just… flighty today."

"When… when did you even get in here?" Survey asked, pointing a hoof at his emotionless friend.

"Just… a while ago? Before I walked over to the table."

"He didn't notice," Mocha tittered.

"Well, did you?" Egg asked the mare directly.

"Of course." Mocha nodded.

"What… what is this?" Survey yelled. "Alright, alright. Enough of all this tosh. You're here. Good. We can get on with it."

"Seems like a lot of stuff here." Egg observed.

"Yeah. You won’t believe the stuff I’ve found out. For you. Hope you're grateful," Survey chided, getting his temperament back. "I managed to get something interesting.”

"Interesting?"

"Interesting. But I'm not sure you saw, Egg. Did you get the morning edition?"

"Yes. I did."

"Right, good then. Here's a copy anyway." Survey pointed to the newspaper in the corner. "Happened again last night."

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BANKS OF A FEATHER, ROBBED TOGETHER
Strange red markings left at crime scene! Reports of burning clouds!
‘WHERE ARE THE WONDERBOLTS’, ask citizens!

by Gale A. Mezzo

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"Yes. It was one of those jewels again, wasn't it? Strange burns… Clouds catching on fire."

"Three branches of the First National Gryphon Bank, Egg. I'm telling you. It's two birds with one stone. If you'll pardon the expression,” Survey said.

"Won't even steal pegasus money," Mocha muttered. "Well, gentlemen, I'll leave you to it."

"No, wait." Egg held a hoof up. "I think… I think I'd like an extra head for this. Please stay, Mocha."

"You're including me, Egg?" Mocha asked.

"You're including her, Egg?" Survey wailed.

"Yes," Egg replied.

Survey rolled his eyes, darting his head to the side. Mocha stayed where she sat, looking straight at Survey.

"Well, come on, then, let's not waste time. I had this whole thing set up for a one-on-one, too! The layout's ruined!" Survey complained, pointing to his carefully positioned items.

"Then… I suppose you should sit down now, Egg." Mocha smiled, staying put.

To his left, his best friend sat, and to his right, Mocha Leche gazed upon him with an unreadable expression.

One seat to take.

Egg looked toward the floor while both of his friends watched curiously, and finally, he slid into place.

Mocha smiled to herself, shuffling aside to give Egg a bit more space.

"Right, Survey." Egg locked gazes with him in the most steely look that Survey had ever seen him give. "What have you got?"

12:21 AM

“Hey!” Ember yelled, breaking the still of the night as his voice pierced through the door that he was banging on. “Whaddaya guys got for me, huh? Come on!”

It was a determination that he made a long time ago, but there was a simple necessity to the matter – in order to truly be effective, one had to let Emberkite be Emberkite.

You couldn’t keep a thundercloud in a jar and still expect it to shock everyone.

No.

You had to let it free, let it go where it wanted, and let it do what it wanted. That didn’t mean that you had to be slave to the cloud; you needed to be like the wind, gently wafting it around and letting it unleash its high-voltage fury upon the fields below, setting fire to the corn and scorching the farmers.

Alright, the metaphor required work.

No matter, though, Egg figured. That was the general idea, and only he had to understand what it meant, anyway.

Already, his partner in crime-fighting and other incidental roles was banging away at the door, hammering upon it with the fury and the temper of a cloud unbridled. It had only been mere moments after the second signal, but already, he wanted in, and he wasn’t about to let a simple door stop him.

Egg calmly walked to the side of the door – a large thing made of compressed cloud and reinforced with thick planks of heavy oak – and stood nonchalantly by the side.

What felt like half a minute of continuous pummelling had gone by, plenty of time for anyone inside to recover from the shock of surprise, ask their compatriots what was going on, and decide on an action, which would, given the length of time in which to work with, be the wrong choice altogether.

The door flew open.

And Ember kept knocking.

His entire body was a hoof. It was the way he straightened his back just so, lowered his head just right; and one single flap of his powerful wings rocketed him forward like a punch. The door itself had barely been opened all the way, and Egg had positioned himself to keep it ajar as Ember crashed head-first into the chest of the goon who had foolishly come out to check on the disturbance.

One expects cries of pain. One thinks they might hear a groan or an interjection of displeasure. In reality, as Ember had told Egg once, ponies produce some very different noises upon having their ribs broken. Don’t believe the movies.

This one had flown across the darkened foyer of the building, skidding on his back and rolling a few times before ending up in the fireplace.

A high-pitched whine passed by his lips, like the sound of a puppy whose tail had been trodden on, intermixed with the breathless gasps of his shuddering lungs as his mind tried to comprehend the pain.

It was rather unnerving.

Ember turned to Egg, a cocky smile on his face, as he quirked his eyebrows twice, as if to say I told you.

Egg raised his own eyebrows in return.

I didn’t really need the demonstration.

Ember jerked his hoof toward the entrance.

Egg nodded as they both intruded upon the property, sweeping their bodies into shadow and blazing forth like a lamp in the night.

It wasn’t a casual decision that led to Egg working with Emberkite that night.

The accountant’s sharp eyes swept across the stallion in the fireplace. The gangster was still wheezing, like a set of bellows that certainly wouldn’t be out of place there, but the noise was overlaid with the soft hisses of a pony trying desperately to not burst out crying like a three-year-old child.

Every once so often his wings would flutter, scraping against the clouds of the chimney, much like a moth does on the floor when swatted – a futile effort, but one which showed the struggle.

Champagne would probably have kept her eyes on the figure for minutes, trying to comprehend what she was looking at.

Miss Eternia would probably have stopped all actions to try to help him, or chide Ember for his more… savage methods.

But Egg, being Egg, was the only one of the three of them who could do what he did next.

He raised an eyebrow and looked away.

The foyer was dark and silent, more than it should have been, given the circumstances. Everything was covered with stray tufts of cloud, from the door they had just passed through to the seats that were pushed up against the far wall.

Empty, discoloured rectangles lined the walls where paintings used to hang, and, besides the couches, there was nothing left in the room that even resembled furniture.

A darkened corridor led away to the depths of the building. A quick assessment told Egg that the room he was standing in must have been a antechamber of some sort when the building was still operational. It was all very formal indeed.

The fireplace had seen its first stirring in many months, and old lamps hung from the ceiling. But unlike other buildings, the whole place was made of wood, from the floors to the walls to the roof, and Egg was reminded of groundside architecture.

It was too cramped to fly in there, something rather unique to Cloudsdalian buildings, and Egg didn’t even need to lift completely off the ground to touch one of the lightbulbs that lay socketed inside a gently swinging shade.

The bulb was still warm.

He lowered his front hooves back to the ground, turning to Ember and giving him a nod.

Ember nodded back.

He then looked to the floor. Dust had been moved in a specific pattern. Trails and lines gave themselves up, and all in a second did Egg understand.

The dust told him of their activities. Guards, and nothing more. here to stand guard, patrol a defined path and leave everything else alone. The lights told him that they had abandoned those posts in a hurry.

Grunts did guardwork, not anyone of importance. The one now struggling to keep himself from falling unconscious was probably a member of the lowest tier, and if there was anything Egg knew about anyone working on the lowest tier is that they never worked alone.

They were either paired up with other grunts or worked directly for a superior. Usually, that superior made them fetch a lot of coffee.

Opening the door head-on was a very stupid thing to do.

This meant that these guys had no one else but each other to report to, and that meant that most of them were probably working in groups that had no clue what they were doing.

It was almost enough for Egg to pity the pony in the fireplace.

“About the um… young gentlecolt…” Egg started, still scanning the room.

“Yeah, he’ll be fine. You know I’d never…” Ember waved his leg in the air to elaborate.

“Indeed,” Egg replied. “Where do you think his friend is hiding?”

Ember didn’t miss a beat.

“He’s hiding right there, yo,” he said to the room in general.

The couch in the corner shifted as something bumped into it.

Ember smirked.

Egg nodded stoically.

Ember shifted his weight as he leaned forward, ready to leap.

“Alright,” Egg said, a little louder than necessary for a simple command, halting his partner in his tracks. He raised a hoof and pointed toward the darkened corridor, toward which Ember swivelled with an understanding grin.

“Kill him if he struggles,” Egg declared, loudly. Deliberately.

Egg calmly walked toward the upturned seats in the other corner as two more guards burst out of the hallway with screams of ‘hey!’ and ‘stop!’. They were hopefully just idle comments, just like Egg’s had been, but either way, he had faith that Emberkite was fundamentally suited for resolving these sorts of confrontations. This allowed him to stroll to the chair and look at it, staring at the shadows that engulfed it.

The newspapers that covered the windows were enough to block out half of the moonlight, but it seemed that Ember was quite happy tussling in the dark.

There was a thump as a body hit a wall.

“Come out,” Egg called at the chairs.

The scuffling behind him got louder. Something made of glass – probably one of the light bulbs – broke.

“You know, we know you’re hiding there.”

One of the corridor ponies screamed. Egg resisted the temptation to turn around to look.

“It really isn’t polite to hide while the rest of your team fights, is it?”

The couch shot forward a short distance as it was kicked away. Egg stepped back, the couch skidding to a stop a few hooves away from him. From behind it emerged the final member, who wiped the moisture from his face with a leg and stood up, glaring at the invader.

“Now, listen,” Egg told him. “I just want to meet the professor. If you cooperate, I won’t hurt you. Does that sound like a reasonable compromise?”

There came a series of thumps now, from the gloom in the back, the rhythmic beating of a drum.

The guard said nothing, did nothing. He stood there, eyes narrow, breath heavy. He was nervous. It showed, even without needing to see his face all too clearly. He was as a fish on an unfathomable dry land.

“Well, I assume she’s in the back somewhere,” Egg continued. “I mean, we’re going to find her anyway. You’d just be helping us out. And I like helpful ponies. They make my life easier. And that makes everyone’s life easier.”

The rapid thuds died down, the room returning to a semi-state of silence. The low hum of groans and wheezing floated through the space, but other than that, the only sharp, punctuated noise left was the sound of four hooves stepping toward Egg’s side of the room.

The young pegasus guard pushed himself back up against the wall, his eyes flicking from Egg’s face to the face of the one who appeared beside him like a terrible monster revealing himself from the veil of night.

“Well,” the bespectacled stallion said with finality. “I gave you a chance. Can’t say more than that. But I do admire your tenacity. I apologize for the way in which my associate will treat you now.”

The other one, the one with the blazing red mane and the small trickle of blood that ran from the side of his mouth, smiled at him as he leaned forward, placing his weight on his front hooves. The one with the glasses had turned to go, trotting with an eerie calm toward the dark.

The guard let his eyes wander. Something bad was going to happen. Perhaps he knew it, but didn’t want to see it coming. When one doesn’t face things head-on, one still has the illusion that things might end up differently. One still has hope.

But with a blooming of feathers and an extension of wings did the red streak fly forth, and all sight was taken away from the guard’s eyes against his will.

The whole ordeal had been particularly noisy. But that had been part of the plan.

The stallion in the fireplace had decided to take a nap, much like his friends had as well. They were all still breathing, but they weren’t in any state to get up and do anything. In fact, getting up would have been quite a task by itself.

One of the others laid face-down in a corner. A thin liquidy streak trailed from a much larger smear on the wall to where he lay, and the lack of light was the only thing hiding what the liquid was. It was a good thing Egg didn’t have any sort of active imagination.

His friend lay in the center of the room, one of the ceiling lamps wrapped around his head like a tin-foil helmet. All Egg could see was his gasping mouth, the entire top of his cranium obscured by his new face-wear.

Egg shook his head to himself, walking back to Ember, who was panting heavily, but could not wipe the adrenaline-fueled smirk from his expression.

The four legs of a segment of couch had been driven into the wall. The seat, however, was not flush all the way with the wood because there happened to be a pony sandwiched between the two.

“Is that your blood or theirs?” Egg asked, tilting his head at the splotches of liquid that stained Ember’s cheek.

“Bit of both, I think.” Ember said.

“We… really must talk about your methods,” Egg commented, frowning at the spider squashed by the chair.

“What? Fast? Effective? Efficient?” Ember chuckled, wiping the blood off his face and taking in a few deep breaths to wind down a little. “Haven’t done this for a while, Specs.”

“Yes, but still. Perhaps Miss Eternia has a point. There is no need to use more force than necessary.”

“Are you kiddin’, old stallion? These guys? You do remember what they do, right? Bombing things? Weird cloud fires? Hurtin’ everyone? Theft?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then why are you protecting them?”

“I’m not,” Egg said, flicking his eyes toward Ember’s. “I’m protecting you.”

Ember stared back, an eyebrow raised in confusion. “I don’t get it, bub.”

“We’ll talk later,” Egg said. “Let’s make sure there are no other guards in hiding around here, and hopefully any stragglers will press on toward the rear.”

“Alright.” Ember shrugged, huffing. “You always talk in weird, old stallion.”

“Yes. Perhaps I do. And if we stumble upon anyone else, please do me a favour.”

“Be gentle?”

“Be gentle.”

3:44 PM

“Hey, hey, be gentle!” Survey snapped as Egg pulled the maps toward himself. “You’re putting creases on them!”

“Right,” Egg responded, flicking the maps upward with a thrust of his hooves before spreading them over the table roughly. “What am I looking at?”

“The maps, Egg! Don’t… do… ugh.” Survey gave up, rubbing his temple with a hoof. “Right. You’re looking at CDU right there.”

“The entire campus?”

“The entire campus,” repeated Survey. “Now, we have a lot to talk about, and I figure I should start by telling you about this little thing I found down at old Cloudsdale University. Please direct your attention here, if you will.”

The main grounds of the campus were made up of twelve-or-so smaller clouds that circled a larger administration building. The area on the map that Survey was pointing to focused on a small white island that floated by itself in the middle of the sky, far away from the rest of the cloudlets.

The map displayed four rectangular buildings that sat in a cluster in the middle of the cloud, which wasn’t more than half a kilometer in diameter itself.

“What’s this?” Egg asked, flicking his eyes toward the companion section.

Maps in Cloudsdale came divided. Along with the regular top-down view, sometimes a side view was provided as well, just to show relations along a different, yet relevant, axis.

The cloud was not only far away, but also much higher up than the others. It seemed to have been placed in a rather unobtrusive location and was small enough not to warrant any unneeded attention.

“Some old abandoned labs, they are. The university’s old research department used to be set on this cloud,” Survey explained.

“Why’s it so far away?”

“Well, you see, it was built ages ago, when clouds were still more brittle. They decided to construct it far away just in case of accidental spills or explosions or what have you, which occurs a little more often than you would think.”

“I see.” Egg nodded. “But they’re abandoned now?”

“Right. With the relatively recent innovation of dynamic cloudproofing, a little more than two years ago, they decided to move the whole faculty to a new building upwind. That’s this one, right here.”

Survey poked the other side of the map.

“Since then, the old lab cloud has been decommissioned, and it’s been removed from all the newer school maps. This is an older map here. But due to the fact that it’s terribly hardy, the government in all their wisdom has not been arsed to break it down. So it’s left there. Floating. Alone, by itself, with all those tasty buildings.”

“Tasty,” Mocha repeated.

“Yes. Tasty.” Survey glared at the bemused mare.

“Why can’t it be broken down?” Egg asked, still staring at the spot on the map.

“Ah, we’re getting into the interesting things now, Egg,” Survey replied with a smirk. “When the university first commissioned it, they needed something hardier than regular buildings by the standards back then. They noted that the school of magic in Canterlot is always blowing up for one reason or another, but still hasn’t fallen down yet, and they decided to work jointly with Canterlot architects to build the labs.”

“You’re not saying it’s made of stone, are you?” Mocha asked.

“No, nothing that heavy. It’s wood and light metal, mostly. But there are actual trees and bushes on the cloudlet, too, because Unicorns like those kinds of things. Rather insipid, compared to groundside, but… still. Anyway, point is, it’s pretty tough. It’s a secure place, like a small fort. It’s possible to break down, but not worth the government bit, apparently.”

“And what is the significance of this building?” Egg asked, bluntly.

“Right. See, what I figured, right, looking into this whole thing, was that Unity operations need some kind of power. There’s no clandestine scribe-by-moonlight nonsense going on here. There’s a right proper thing what’s being done. Now, you know that Stackford does power polling on the side for the Bolt-farms, right?”

“Yes,” replied Egg.

“Well,” Survey continued. “I… ah… liberated some of the records. According to the guy I… um… borrowed them from, the power company only cares about the ponies who can actually pay, right? So when we give them the polling reports, we’re told to omit data from decommissioned sectors. The Bolt-farms make excess, so this isn’t really their concern.”

“And these buildings have been using power?” Egg filled in the gap.

“For the past five months, yes.”

“And you think that…”

“Unity is using it as a base of operations,” Survey said.

“And I assume you have some further correlation to substantia-”

“I’m getting there, Egg! Cripes! Spoil my reveal, why don’t you!”

Egg closed his mouth, bobbing his head as he let his friend take the stand.

“Anyway,” Survey continued, stroking back his mane with a casual hoof. “Well, I thought, right, this is rather curious! So on a hunch-”

“A hunch?”

“Oh, give him space, Egg,” Mocha chided mockingly, nudging him in the shoulder.

Egg tilted slightly at the bump and moved back into place, returning to his silence under protest.

“Thank you.” Survey held a hoof out to Mocha. “See, Egg? That’s what you call manners.”

“I am full of manners.” Mocha bowed slightly, front hooves outstretched to her sides.

“So get this, right? I was going to send someone to check it out, but you’ll never guess who comes right up to me and says, ‘Mister Survey, I know whut yer doin’. I wants ta’ help’, and he goes right off on his own and checks out the building for me, no questions asked. None needed, really.”

“Punk?” Egg asked.

“Punk.” Survey said.

“That’s… not his name, is it?” Mocha inquired.

“Doesn’t matter!” Survey cried out. “But Punk! I mean, he comes up to me, and he says he knows that I’m working with you, and he wants to help in any way he can! I thought he was havin’ a laugh! But no, turns out he’s had a small niggle in his head ever since you set him straight. Full of guilt. He’s really, genuinely upset about what he did. I think it’s slowly starting to sink in, you know?”

“Are you sure about that?” Mocha asked, eyes tilting down a little.

“Absolutely. He was sincere. And he asked me by himself if he could go. He wanted to do something to get all this bad air off his chest. Offered his services.”

“And that’s not the slightest bit suspect?” Mocha continued.

“Well, you have to give him the benefit of the doubt, don’t you?” Survey said back, a hint of annoyance on his breath.

“In light of what he did?”

“That’s in the past! Forgive and forget! Mo-”

“Ladies,” Egg interrupted, sternly.

Survey and Mocha both stopped having things to say.

“I… believe in him, Mocha,” Egg said slowly. “I wouldn’t have sent him to Survey otherwise. I would not do something that would willfully endanger another.”

“Honestly, I was a bit… worried at the start,” Survey chipped in as well, “but he’s a very hard worker, and he’s actually got a good head on his shoulders. He’s always telling others how thankful he is you bluffed him. I really think he’s turning it around.”

“If you both say so,” Mocha relented. “But Egg. Don’t forget.”

“What?”

“You’ve been wrong once.”

“Yes. Yes I have,” Egg responded and left it there.

A short breath fell across the table as the three of them collected their thoughts.

“What did he find out?” Egg asked, skipping back to the topic at hand.

“Right. Well,” Survey continued, much softer now. “He… um… I told him about it. That the building was suspicious. He didn’t know much about what I was looking into specifically, but he volunteered to go check the place out. We worked a cover story, and we figured we could use his history as part of a cover story. If anyone were to question him or recognize him, at least he can fall back on the whole ‘I-once-tried-to-join-Unity’ thing.”

“Things went well, I assume.”

“Better than I’d hoped. He identified the exact building they were holed up in. Pretended to be a lost student. But he confirmed it. They’re all wearing some sort of Unity feather-band or something. He tells me with high confidence that Unity, is in fact, in this building as we speak.” Survey pointed to a specific rectangle.

“But what are they doing there?” Egg asked, staring at the tiny words written under the building. “Department of Applied Luminescence?”

“Now that. That’s the million-bit question, sir.” Survey grinned, pointing repeatedly at Egg in some sort of playful gesture. “And that’s what’s going to blow your mind. We don’t know what they’re doing there, exactly, but we know why they chose that place. She’s there, you see.”

“Wait. ‘She’?”

“The professor.”

That made Egg react. That made him sit up a tiny bit straighter, crumpling the map with a wayward hoof. That made him raise not one but both eyebrows in a strange burst of expression.

“This… information would have been pertinent at the start of the conversation…” He motioned, giving Survey a look.

“What, and ruin the story progression? Nonsense. There’s an art to the careful and technical revealing of information, Egg. You must learn to appreciate that.”

“Yes, but this isn’t really a story we’re talking about, is it? This changes a lot of things, Survey. Look. You’ve upset me.”

“Good,” Survey said.

“You’re sure she’s in there. Absolutely sure?”

“I can’t be a hundred percent, Egg, you know that. But I’ll tell you later why I think she is.”

“Well then. If you’re so sure,” Egg said, looking toward the ceiling, “it will have to be tonight.”

“Excuse me?” Mocha exclaimed.

“Tonight? What’s tonight?” Survey joined in.

“I’ll have to go over tonight and extract her.”

“Extract? That sounds a bit… rough,” Survey said.

“Wait.” Mocha put a hoof over her tired eyes, shaking her head back and forth. “Are you saying you’re going to go over to this place tonight?”

“Yes. What is the problem?”

“Well… preparation?” Mocha raised her voice slightly.

“I can do that right now. But the longer we wait, the smaller our window gets. There will be no noticeable difference between doing it tomorrow or a few days later, but time is a resource that we cannot reclaim once gone. No. It has to be soon. We must make a move on this base tonight. And knowing Survey, he would have already prepared enough information for me to do so.”

“Well, I have some things,” Survey said, eyeing the giant pile of papers in front of him.

“Floor plans?”

“Right here.”

“Do you know roughly how many ponies are in there and their armaments?”

“Generally.”

“Information on the Professor?”

“Just about to get to that.”

“Hmm,” Egg concluded, the room fading from his view as he returned to a very familiar place of thoughts and plans and lines.

“Egg!”

The yell snapped him out of his stupor. He turned slightly, facing a less-than-pleased mare, a few strands of hair unravelled from her bun.

“L-listen. You know I don’t… I don’t agree with this. I couldn’t possibly.”

“Oh, give her something, Egg,” Survey told him, equally annoyed, albeit for a different reason.

Egg opened his mouth slightly as a soft sigh of reluctance flew out from between troubled lips. He squeezed his eyes shut, readjusting the glasses on his face.

“Mocha?” he said, finally.

“Whut?” she grumbled, front legs wrapping themselves around her chest.

“I’m going to be fine.”

“How?”

“I’ll do things differently.”

“How?”

“I’m not going to be alone.”

“Hey, don’t look at me,” Survey said, leaning back in his seat.

Egg hovered on the next thing he was about to say for a while as he gave his overly supportive friend the faintest of regards.

“Yes. Well. I have a team now. Everyone’s going to have a role. We’ll do everything in accordance to our strengths, and none of us will have to take unnecessary risks.”

“So, two of you against a bunch of gangsters. That doesn’t seem to even up the odds,” Mocha complained.

“No. Not just me and Emberkite. We have two more as well.”

“You know, I’ve never really gotten to know them,” Survey pointed out.

“I’ll… introduce you later,” Egg said.

“One’s a young girl of fortunate upbringing who has not much… street sense or physical ability.” Mocha turned to Survey. “And the other is a gryphon.”

“Well, a gryphon could certainl-” Survey raised a hoof.

“She’s a pacifist.”

“Well, when you put it that way…” Survey mumbled. “What can they do?”

Egg stared straight ahead, gears clicking.

“They will be prepared.”

Continued in Part 2 ->

Comments

[Twifight Sparkill]

“Some old abandoned labs, they are. The university’s old research department used to be set on this could,” Survey explained.

SO EXCITED FOR THESE CHAPTERS!

[Borg]

Well, as promised, here I am. It certainly took long enough.

"We've been together for about two weeks. This is a rather dangerous situation that we are heading into – one that we are severely unprepared for, as well as undertrained. All we have is a layout that I hope we all memorized, a target that we need to find, and our wits.”

You know, I'm totally blanking on who "we" are. Well, okay, there's Egg, of course. Can't forget the character who started this whole plot of fighting crime. And then I mostly remember the coffee mare. Mocha, right? But she's not here, of course. And that homeless colt who was fighting crime before it was cool, whatshisname. Or his butt. It would be helpful to remember his butt. The lightning bolt skull, was it? And then the cover art is reminding me about the griffon--she's a baker, right, and her house was burned down, yes? And the rich filly. I forget how much we know about her. But I can see her butt.
Anyway . . . let's hope your promises that it's episodic and that it would all come back to me when new episodes came out holds true. Because, seriously, what is his butt?

Cookie gripped her claws tight against the cold wooden sidewalk.

Ember nodded, his face tightened into pinpoint focus, his mind on the mission and what he had to do.

Champagne sniffed, her lower lip quivering.

Names! Huzzah!
Except I still don't remember who Eternia is. That mare on the cover I don't at all recall, I suppose? Ah, well, I'm sure I'll remember what her deal is eventually.

Miss Eternia and Champagne, try to make sure you are not seen. Once we clear the base, we meet outside her lab, and we get in, grab her, and get out."

Two ponies and one gryphon nodded back.

Well, then, I guess my opinion is that you shouldn't refer to the same character by multiple names while the reader might be having trouble remembering the characters precisely, unless you can immediately clarify that they're multiple names for the same character. And that it's kind of unusual for the narration itself to refer to the same character by two disjoint names in quick succession, like you did above.

"Let us meet in the field of battle," he intoned to himself, as he stepped up to the door.

"Professor."

I don't remember much about her. I wouldn't even remember what she looks like, were she not on the cover. But I remember I too am eager to meet her.

"You… didn't have to close the whole shop, did you…?" Survey asked, scuffing his hooves on the linoleum.

Ooh, I think that was the last name I was looking for. Now I just need to remember everything else.

"Seems like you might have needed a little more privacy," Mocha said, observing the blinds as if it were the first time she had ever done so, with a childlike curiosity and wonderment. "Egg told me that you preferred it dark and musty."

"He… he told you that, did he?"

"Well, not really. He said you were sort of like a worm. But I understood what he meant from context."

Egg really does have quite a manner of speaking, doesn't he.

"Oh… owns stuff, mainly," Survey said. He was not being sarcastic.

A perfectly valid source of income, although in some cases somewhat unethical. Would there be any anti-trust laws being broken were we in the Earth nation of your choice?
You know, I have no idea how antitrust laws vary from country to country. None at all.

Egg looked toward the floor while both of his friends watched curiously, and finally, he slid into place.

Mocha smiled to herself, shuffling aside to give Egg a bit more space.

That felt significant.

You had to let it free, let it go where it wanted, and let it do what it wanted. That didn’t mean that you had to be slave to the cloud; you needed to be like the wind, gently wafting it around and letting it unleash its high-voltage fury upon the fields below, setting fire to the corn and scorching the farmers.

Alright, the metaphor required work.

That entirely depends on how much you like farmers.

What felt like half a minute of continuous pummelling had gone by, plenty of time for anyone inside to recover from the shock of surprise, ask their compatriots what was going on, and decide on an action, which would, given the length of time in which to work with, be the wrong choice altogether.

The door flew open.

And Ember kept knocking.

See, this is why you get one of those chain locks on your door. That way, when this happens, you at least get a lock ripped out of the door to show for it. That makes your injuries look much less like your own fault.

A high-pitched whine passed by his lips, like the sound of a puppy whose tail had been trodden on, intermixed with the breathless gasps of his shuddering lungs as his mind tried to comprehend the pain.

It was rather unnerving.

Ember turned to Egg, a cocky smile on his face, as he quirked his eyebrows twice, as if to say I told you.

It's the little things in life that make you look like a complete psychopath, I've always found.

The foyer was dark and silent, more than it should have been, given the circumstances. Everything was covered with stray tufts of cloud, from the door they had just passed through to the seats that were pushed up against the far wall.

Empty, discoloured rectangles lined the walls where paintings used to hang, and, besides the couches, there was nothing left in the room that even resembled furniture.

I rather think you are a bit tardy.

“Well,” the bespectacled stallion said with finality. “I gave you a chance. Can’t say more than that. But I do admire your tenacity. I apologize for the way in which my associate will treat you now.”

The whole "good cop, bad cop" routine really does work so much better when you're not bound by pesky things like laws, don't you think? I really don't know why Earth police even bother trying.

“So get this, right? I was going to send someone to check it out, but you’ll never guess who comes right up to me and says, ‘Mister Survey, I know whut yer doin’. I wants ta’ help’, and he goes right off on his own and checks out the building for me, no questions asked. None needed, really.”

“Punk?” Egg asked.

“Punk.” Survey said.

“That’s… not his name, is it?” Mocha inquired.

“Doesn’t matter!” Survey cried out. “But Punk! I mean, he comes up to me, and he says he knows that I’m working with you, and he wants to help in any way he can! I thought he was havin’ a laugh! But no, turns out he’s had a small niggle in his head ever since you set him straight. Full of guilt. He’s really, genuinely upset about what he did. I think it’s slowly starting to sink in, you know?”

Okay, now you've got me completely at a loss. I do not remember Punk at all.
Ooh. Now not only do I remember, but I have also been reminded of "essor Polyc," and if I am not misremembering, my theory that she is "Professor Polychromatic" has yet to be confirmed or denied. So that's nice to be reminded of that.

“If you both say so,” Mocha relented. “But Egg. Don’t forget.”

“What?”

“You’ve been wrong once.”

“Yes. Yes I have,” Egg responded and left it there.

Am I supposed to remember something about this?

“What, and ruin the story progression? Nonsense. There’s an art to the careful and technical revealing of information, Egg. You must learn to appreciate that.”

“Yes, but this isn’t really a story we’re talking about, is it? This changes a lot of things, Survey. Look. You’ve upset me.”

Everything's a story. It's just a question of how much effort you are willing to put into straightening out the narrative.

3883336 Have I ever complimented your avatar? It fits your name so very well.

[Phazon]

“Punk?” Egg asked.

“Punk.” Survey said.

“That’s… not his name, is it?” Mocha inquired.

“Doesn’t matter!” Survey cried out.

I get the feeling that Survey already knows 'Punk's' real name (since 'Punk' works in the same office as part of the same team as Survey) but doesn't bother to tell Egg what it is, and that Egg has never once asked or wondered what his name is, wouldn't commit it to memory if he was told, and doesn't really care what it is one way or the other.