Time heals all wounds, they say. This, of course, is not true. Bad memory does... and good surgeons.
I've been wandering around Drachenberg for some time. It's finally dark out here, and I'm just a white robe among many others scattered around the streets. To take my mind off of things, I decided to visit the bazaar. As was one of my earlier guesses, it indeed spans a circle surrounding the city center. There are wares sold here ranging from obvious tourist traps -overly expensive and poorly made 'indigenous' items- to actually useful stuff for desert expeditions, long-distance caravans, and even various job boards at the more frequented places.
Watching the area with my tracing spell, darkness means nothing in the black world of white outlines. It's easy to spot a fat griffon taking a bundle of assorted food stuffs from one stall owner and turning to leave without a payment. It's clear he took something special because, while I'm not an expert on griffon expressions by far, the griffoness the stall belongs to clearly wants to say something but stops herself.
If I don't help with this minor incident, how can I look into the eyes of someone like Crom who did so much for Manehattan ponies after griffons took over?
"Hey, buddy, didn't your mom teach you stealing is wrong?" I forcefully turn the griffon around. That I've just made a mistake comes to me when my tracing spell shows the stall owner facetaloning and hiding behind the counter.
The fat griffon smiles. My real eyes show he's wearing tasteless amount of jewels all over. Two other burly griffons appear by my sides from the crowd around.
"Don't try to shove your muzzle where it doesn't belong, little unicorn, or someone might want to claim that horn of yours as a trophy."
"Too bad a fatass like you has nothing valuable of his own to claim and needs to use golden underwear to be worth something. Or are you trying to lose weight?"
"The wannabe heroes never learn," the griffon leans back and opens with a wide punch. He's clearly not in a great physical shape, but the blow would have hurt just from the sheer amount of gold rings on his talons.
I dodge easily, immediately throwing myself at one of his cronies by my side and kicking the other one. I realize I've just probably picked a fight with some local mob boss, but it's too late now, is it? With the henchgriffons on the ground, I punch the everliving snot out of the leader, breaking his beak.
"Now, will you return-"
SMACK!
I see double...
My legs give out and I kiss the ground. A foreleg hits my barrel, further kicks follow. I cross my forelegs in front of my muzzle on instinct, just in time blocking a fistful of talons going my way. I'm stomped on and kicked more and more as the previously stunned griffons join in.
Of course a sly bastard like him would have more than two bodyguards around. I was too focused on him to notice others coming. Thankfully, with everyone milling around, I roll on the ground and take far less damage as they kick one another by accident or just graze me. The moment I stop I'm getting another pipe to the head, though. I'm sure of it.
Another roll around shows the stall owner herself is in the circle of kickers, unsure about what she's doing but doing so anyway with nervous expression. Yeah, she's just terrified of the mobsters and my intervention only caused more trouble. As usual...
"Alright, ENOUGH!" roars an authoritarian female voice, "What's going on here?"
After few more reluctant kicks, the griffons around give me some space. Groaning in pain, I attempt to stand up, checking for broken or chipped bones. I say attempt, because I'm rapidly helped by incredibly strong grasp grabbing my belt with saddlebags and pulling me up. The griffon who helped me and is currently pointing the sharp end of a halberd at my neck is an armored female, coated in dark blue with sandy blonde head feathers. She's a little taller than I am, well-built, and obviously either a police griffon or a Legion soldier.
"The pinhead attacked me, unprovoked, after I finished my completely legal transaction with this here vendor," the mobster, or chubster, heh, says sweetly, wrapping his foreleg around the terrified griffoness trying to push herself away, failing, and withering under the bodyguards' gazes, "Thanks to the helpful shoppers around he's been apprehended before he could cause more commotion."
"Yes yes, I know about your 'legal transactions', Claus," the clearly annoyed guard rolls her eyes, "Can anyone tell me what really happened here?"
"It is exactly as mister Claus said," the stall owner takes charge, "Mister... mister Claus b- bought my deluxe mix package and was about to leave when this, umm, unicorn attacked him. He clearly has not seen mister Claus pay me or something, heheheh," she laughs nervously in the end, looking at me with pleading in her eyes.
I get it, I get it.
"Alright, is that what really happened?" the guard looks around, much to the nodding and humming of all onlookers, "Fine, one count of assault. I'll deal with it. Forelegs up, unicorn!" she orders.
As I comply, shackles click around my fetlocks. They are allowing me only short steps due to being connected with a chain. Plus, another long chain leads from them to the guard's talons. Still recovering from the beatdown I recieved few minutes ago, I quietly walk by her side when she tugs on the chain she's holding.
We leave the bazaar quickly with her taking narrow alleys in one particular direction. My expectation of being led into a guard station breaks when I'm ushered into a usual Drachenberg box house, one of numerous unremarkable residences.
The door leads to a very short hallway with trio of other doors. The halberd jabs me in the side when I stand and examine the place for a little too long.
"Inside," she says, "Door to the left."
Expecting some sort of house arrest cell or something, I'm pleasantly surprised the door leads into what says living room in any civilized language ever. A coach, a radio, table in the middle. a shelf with books, binders of documents. Okay, so possibly a living room combined with a home office.
The griffoness pokes me again, pointing one talon at a strange padlock in the middle of the floor. She walks over, unlocks it, fastens the chain she's been holding previously onto it, and locks it again. After that, she cautiously takes off my saddlebags and locks them in a corner cabinet without looking inside. Then she nods towards me.
"What happened at the bazaar? Your words."
"I saw the fat Claus guy harrass the stall owner, she was clearly scared of him, he took something either expensive or important to her without paying, so I came over and told him to give it back. He attacked me along with two of his cronies, I took them out but didn't notice two more behind me. One hit me with a pipe, I think," I rub the back of my head which is pretty difficult with shackled forelegs, and hiss as I touch a painful bulge, "Then everyone started kicking me, and then you arrived."
She sits down on the couch, sighing.
"My name is Flora, and you, noble stranger, have picked the wrong target to protect. Claus is a big local fish. He owns a mansion in the city center and poses as an import-export long-distance trader. In short, he's a smuggler, mob boss, a criminal, and a very powerful griffon here in Drachenberg."
I lay down on the soft carpet, exhausted and trying to spare the bruises all over. My eyes close on their own as Flora keeps talking.
"The Legion has him under observation, but he's smart enough not to do anything obvious. That's why I brought you here rather than to the official guardhouse. Now, I'd like to know some things about-"
Her voice drifts off with my consciousness.
Waking up, shockingly without anyone jabbing my aching ribs, I hear a voice quietly talking about some political problem in the Griffon Empire I know nothing nor care about. The lights are off and my tracing spells shows Flora nowhere around.
Huh, she chained me up, I fell asleep without telling her pretty much anything, she's not around, and I'm still in the living room. Is it my birthday?
I telekinetically flip the light switch by the door, flooding the room with light. The chain binding me to the floor is much longer than I recall, which means I can move around with absolute freedom, albeit slowly. There's a pitcher of water on the table along with some fruit and a note. Accompanied by the radio quietly droning on and on, I check the piece of paper.
"Finishing patrol. Food and water is for you. Toilet's in the back. We'll talk later."
Ah, that's why the longer chain. Should I burn it off and just leave? True death works on every material and living or unliving being. Nah, I still need to talk to Crom.
So, have you decided what to do?
Yeah, just like with all my panic attacks, there was something true to what I said about possibly ruining Crom's family, but you were right. Crom must have changed during the years, and he's the one who has grown up, not I. When I sort this out I'm heading straight there and talking to him. Maybe little Feenie will like the stories about Frostfire from a second point of view.
I knew you'd do the right thing Blazing, eventually, when there is no other option.
Chokey said that if I recall correctly, right?
She did mention it once or twice, yes.
So you knew her. Gotcha!
The voice doesn't answer, but that's all I need. I think I know who it is. I have no clue why or how that is possible, but I think I know. I just need few more careful questions. However, if I'm correct then the voice is completely trustworthy in its decisions but not in its knowledge. That means that while it has my good on its mind, it can easily make the same mistakes I can do.
Oh well, no point in dwelling on it. Time to check this Flora's house. The stuff on the table is smiling at me invitingly.
After having dinner then.
Full and sleepy, I still have enough energy to look around. My bags are safely locked along with my sword in the reinforced cabinet, keys nowhere to be found. There isn't anything unusual around aside from some spare pieces of armor and-
"AH HAH! Normal guard grunts are never this smart," I laugh triumphantly after searching Flora's wardrobe.
The black, gold-trimmed jacket hidden behind mostly white clothing and some strangely risque underwear shows my captor is a Black Ops member. A normal pony nor a griffon wouldn't understand their find, but I lived with a high-tier member and can read even the ranking symbols on the jacket... mostly. Flora is a low-tier member, but it still means she's above any Legion or police guard. With how much she shared about this Claus, he might be under investigation from the Intelligence Service, or maybe her presence in Drachenberg has something to do with Crom being here as well. On the other hoof, Black Ops have agents scattered pretty much everywhere to keep tabs on things so the Claus thing is more realistic.
Further investiation leads to nothing interesting in particular, and I'm falling asleep on my hooves already, so I just lie down on the couch and close my eyes.
"-ke up."
"Five more minutes..." I mumble, drooling on the fabric, and open my eyes, "Yeah, yeah, I'm up."
Strangely enough, when I wake up early I feel fresher than after a full night's sleep, and my usual morning confusion is nowhere to be found. A quick look around confirms my body was right and that it's still dark behind the curtains.
"I thought about what to do with you, and I've got an idea."
"Hmm?"
"You aren't from around here, clearly."
"What gave it up?" I interrupt her.
"Shut up," she rolls her eyes, "What are you doing here?"
"Came to visit a friend."
"Does your friend have a name?"
"Yes, he does," I give her a firm stare and don't continue.
"I see. Well, I've gone through your belongings and some show you are quite a rich pony. Golden tickets, open credit cards, an excellent sword. On top of it, you showed you can handle yourself in the scuffle with Claus' henchgriffons. How about we make a deal? You help me get something I want, and I return all your things to you, don't pursue any charges, and don't investigate duke Redtalon's daughter being here with a bunch of mercs at a coincidentally same time as a certain mysterious newcomer. Of course, for your own safety you'd have to leave Drachenberg."
"I still need to visit my friend."
"I said for your own safety. Whether or not you heed it I don't really care. The sewers under the town can make a pony corpse disappear soon enough."
"Fine," I shrug. The sooner I do whatever she wants, the sooner I get to fix yet another of my idiotic mistakes, "What do you want from me?"
She sits down on the couch next to me, clearly sure that she can deal with anything I might do to try to escape.
"As I told you before, Claus is a local mobster and a smuggler. He owns a well-guarded mansion near the town center. Normally, smuggling is mostly overlooked but he's been getting some extremely strange and suspicious shipments over the past year. We would like to know what was in those shipments, because according to the official paperwork-"
"Who wants to know, local force or the Black Ops?" I ask smugly.
"What are you talking about?"
"I had a look around. Trust me, I've had my dealings with the Intelligence Service, and the friend I'm here to visit is a member."
"Aaaah, agent Cromach then."
"Seems we know more about each other than we should. As for Crom, I really don't want to cause any trouble for him so let's leave him out of this for now."
"Well then, mysterious and very knowledgeable newcomer, Black Ops have been watching Claus for a while. It's not my only job here but it's the most important one. The stuff his goons brought here was extremely weird lab equipment, high-tech stasis units, and a ton of chemicals no one had been able to determine the use of. No weapons, though, which makes it only stranger. I need someone expendable and with no ties to either me or the Intelligence Service to get inside Claus' mansion and bring back some real shipping documents or eyewitness of what's going on there."
"Are you sure the stuff is inside his mansion?"
"Yes, I've been tracking the deliveries. The stuff only came in but nothing came out. Whatever it is, it's still inside."
"Alright, as much as I don't want to, I'm in. Anything else? Stealth, security, any info that could help me?"
"As long as you get me some accurate paperwork, I don't care. I'll show you where the place is but you have to get inside on your own. Of course, if you get caught or anything I'll say you used unicorn magic to escape and deny any ties to you."
"I expected that," I nod. Obviously. I wish I could visit Crom first, but I doubt she'd give me the liberty, "Can I at least get my sword?"
She opens the cabinet using a key on a keyring hanging on her belt, pulls out the scabbard with the blade, and locks it again.
"I'll unlock the shackles, but don't try anything."
I nod. The shackles drop on the floor and Flora jumps away, watching me cautiously as I levitate the weapon.
"You do realize that me being shackled had nothing to do with me being able to levitate a sword, right? Next time use a suppression ring or something."
She narrows her eyes as I fasten the belt with the sheath on my waist.
"Anything else before we go?"
"Toilet," I rush off.
I really don't want to get involved, but freedom is freedom.
***
Alright, it's still dark. Must be really early morning. Street lamps around Drachenberg's center are scarce, and Claus' mansion stands in the center of a walled off plot of land, shrouded in complete darkness.
Flora circles in the sky above, invisible thanks to her colours, and lands next to me.
"Two guards outside with flashlights. At least one on each floor of the house. It's completely dark, otherwise. Seems Claus likes his place quiet when he's asleep. I can fly you over the wall, but then you're on your own."
My robe is kinda 'lived in' at this point, but at least it covers the fact that I have wings really well. I'm not willing to show my alicornhood now, especially to a Black Ops agent.
"Please do."
Strong griffon lady. I like strong ladies.
Smack!
Strong griffon lady didn't have to let me go that soon.
Lying quietly on the grass and listening to the flapping of Flora's wings getting further and further, I try to catch anyone coming to investigate my sudden drop. Thankfully, the area is clear so the patrols must be on the other side of the opulent white, four-story mansion. It's pretty much a bigger replica of anything where unicorn nobles lived in old Canterlot.
So, I'm alone. All I need to do is find a bush aaaand wait.
A beam of light alerts me about an incoming patrol before I can hear the griffon or before my tracing spell shows him. Big, burly, wearing an headlight cap.
Just few more steps. I know you want to.
Aaaand-
I pounce at the griffon, ramming my hoof against his beak before he can make a noise. My other forehoof presses hard against his windpipe.
"There are two ways you can get out of this," I whisper, "and only one leaves you alive."
He glares.
"I'll take that as a yes," moving my hoof away from his beak, I feel him taking a deep breath and punch him, "Strike one."
The next negotiation attempt is marginally more successful.
"Fuck you," he hisses.
So much for diplomacy.
Do I just knock him out and leave him here? Hmmm... how about killing two birds with one stone?
Suitie, can you hear, feel, sense, whatever you do, me?
The black gooey socks around my legs shift.
You hungry?
Black tentacles sprout from my foreleg, making the griffon whimper and lock his eyes on them.
Don't eat him, just give him a little taste of taint.
Dark goo drips over the griffon's barrel, seeping into him and turning the hair on his chest black and oily. His expression turns into complete confusion as he starts looking around, likely for the source of new voices inside his head. I know the feeling.
"Talk!" I growl, "Before I let it dissolve you."
"W-w-what is that?"
"Talk!"
He nods, staring in horror at the wiggling tentacles on my foreleg that isn't pressed against his neck.
"How to get inside the mansion?"
"T-the main door is unlocked."
Note to self - avoid the main entrance like the plague. It's likely guarded from the inside and there has to be an alarm on it.
"Alright, what was in the big shipments coming to the mansion."
"I don't know, it's some secret stuff in the basement. I'm not allowed in there."
Well, it was a long shot.
"Where can I get some shipping manifests?"
"There's a main storage room in the basement, and I guess the boss must have the most recent ones in his office."
"How many guards are there right now?"
"Two out here in the gardens, two on each floor, and ten on standby."
"Civilians?"
"The boss, some of his assistants, I don't know how many."
Anything else? Probably not.
"Thank you for your cooperation."
I turn him on his stomach and slam the back of his head with the hilt of my sword. Giving him a quick patdown rewards me with a keyring I was hoping for. When he's safely tucked away in a decorative bush, I rush around the mansion, knowing I'm now on an unknown timer.
The familiar whispering at the edge of hearing I haven't felt since leaving Equestria returns as I sneak past the main entrance.
I know it's not Suitie, I'm used to her presence just outside of my head by now. It makes no sense to me but there are Corrupted nearby.
It hits me just as I open a smaller door leading to the mansion's left wing with the guard's keys. Stasis units. Corrupted bodies disappear almost instantly after death, the only way to keep them fresh is time stopping magic.
Someone in the Empire actually managed to capture Corrupted and bring them this deep into Imperial mainland.
Alright, I'm in. Now to find the freshest documents inside Claus' office-
Oh for fucks sake, am I completely braindead or what? I forgot to ask where it is.
Nevermind, nevermind. The basement storage will have to do then.
Thankfully, there's no light inside which means nothing to my tracing spell. With every pulse, I see the black and white layout of the hallways clearly while still having my eyes peeled for any signs of flashlights. With my hoofsteps barely audible on the carpeted floor, I quickly find a staircase down.
Standing on the stone floor of the cellars, I listen for any scratching of talons. Nothing resonates through the much wider hallways in comparison to the mansion. The underground part of the mansion must be at least as big as one entire floor, possibly even bigger. Maybe the complex underneath isn't guarded?
Suitie, cover my hooves with a little more padding, please.
I'm suddenly slightly taller.
My hoofsteps can be heard as opposed to upstairs, but it's better than nothing. There are a bunch of rooms, most of them locked and the unlocked ones filled with various cleaning supplies and other non-evil stuff. However, there is a large double door behind a ramp sloping downwards at the end of the corridor.
Ah hah! Just like with the main entrance, there is a normal doorway which clicks open after going through half of the guard's keyring. Not allowed to go down here my ass.
The hallway behind the door is clean, well-lit, and dotted with high-tech numbered metal doors on both sides. There's a small latch in each one I can slide open and look inside. The Corrupted voices inside my head get much stronger, but not aggressive at all. When I look inside the first cell I realize why. There aren't Corrupted inside, but heavily tainted ponies. Exclusively ponies.
The shipments were lab equipment, and pony slaves to experiment on. However, there has to be a real Corrupted around somewhere, the original source.
Strangely enough, while the door is like that of a vault, it is not locked and opens when I push a button on a pad next to it.
The earthpony inside stops beating his, I guess, head against the wall and looks at me. I think it's a stallion only by the shape of his black, dripping muzzle. Over half of his body is just a puddle of semi-living goop. His completely black eyes with yellow pin-pricks in the middle focus at me, a foreleg crystallizes from the formless blob of goo that is his body, and drags the slippery mass towards me. Strangely enough, I don't feel any enmity or threat from him. I just stand there while he crawls close, then his mouth tentacles wrap around my foreleg along with both of his own.
"Help me," he gurgles, eyes dripping gooey tears looking up at me, "Pleeeease."
"I- I don't know how. I don't know anypony who can. What did they do to you?" my voice is shaky.
"Voices. Pain. Hunger. Feed tainted meat... other prisoners. Eats from inside. End this. Please..."
The mass of his body starts quivering, dissolving back into a fleshy puddle and leaving only the head staring at me.
The alicorn of Hope. What is the final hope for the hopeless? Exactly...
I sit down and pat the drippy head. Reaching deep inside myself, I draw out the freezing touch of true death. Like icy water running through my veins, the power gathers around my right foreleg. I feel Suitie's panic and pain as the Corruptor shrinks into a thin belt straddling my waist. The black fire burns, bringing exhaustion with each passing second. The refined power capable of ending everything and anything, something I can't control, the inevitable death and entropy.
But that's not my reasoning, right? Divine power takes on the characteristic of its user, so why is it still dark and menacing? I know it's stolen, but I'm the user and I use it for good, broadly speaking, I use it to help, to ease pain, I would never kill for myself... again. I'm not worth it.
The reflection of the flames in the tainted pony's eyes turns pink. Golden pink fire is burning around my hoof, tipped with new but familiar black and dark purple of Void's power. For the first time since my resurrection, I feel... whole again. I was never an alicorn, I was just a thief who used others' power as his own. Closing the pony's eyes with my burning hoof, I let the power flow through him. I hear a sigh of relief as the quivering biomass loses its form and dissipates.
"Sleep. No more voices. No more confusion. No more pain."
I did something good.
My head is spinning, I can barely breathe from the use of true death, and I'm shaking, cold as ice, but I did something good.
I leave the cell, checking the other ones as I walk down the hall. There are other ponies in various stages of taint, none looking even barely sane. Some cells are empty, and some don't have a slot I can look through. However, there is a different door, normal-looking, which I fail to open with my trusty keyring. Risking further, I summon true death again and send it against the lock which immediately turns to ash. The new fire is comforting, but definitely not considerate.
Losing control over my body, I keel over. It takes me more than a minute of just lying there and shallowly breathing before I can get back up.
The door leads to a cramped office filled to the brim with binders and screens. Thankfully, there is a conveniently open book on a table by the wall. A quick skim through it makes me think it's a research journal. Page after page is filled with technobabble I'd never understand in a thousand years, but some information comes up.
This operation definitely isn't the doing of some small town mob. Someone managed to smuggle a female Breeder into the Empire. Powerful unicorns using stasis magic were involved. They did it for two reasons - one was that Breeders are the second most 'corruptive' kind, and the other one was that they are the most docile. They fed her ponies during the trip and the stay here, mainly some hobos from Manehattan nopony would miss. However, they did something weird to them afterwards. Instead of letting them fully transform they killed them and harvested their tainted parts for... something called Project Blight. The semi-corrupted ponies in the cells outside are some of the not harvested ones. If the dates in the journal entries are correct, then some of them have been here for months. Their corruption is the result of controlled, repeated matings with the Breeder.
That part of the experiment ended some three months ago where they let a griffon have fun with the Breeder. He turned into a Corrupted nearly instantly, giving into his primal desire and hunger. There are some quite graphic descriptions of the griffon transforming, killing the Breeder, and eating her while violating her corpse as well as several guards sent in to stop it. Strange, corruption changes the biology of an individual from mammal into more of an aggressively spreading fungus or mushroom, which explains their connection with territory and soil.
Brrrr...!
What is more chilling than disgusting, though, is the observation I read:
Griffons fall faster, are vastly stronger, but unstable and hard to control. Practical army use is impossible, but they can be unleashed to quickly wipe out whole settlements like violent plague.
This is definitely a military operation. My first guess would be the Black Ops, but considering they are investigating it, then it might be a rogue operation like in Crowley's case, or possibly Imperial Legion performing something without the other goverment branch knowing. However, this is organized, highly dangerous, and extremely well-financed thing. The reason why Flora couldn't find anything suspicious in the official documents is that there must really have been nothing there and there is no written agreement.
"Oh hello, what is this?" I mutter when after taking the journal a letter falls out of it. Thankfully, while Flora didn't give me my saddlebags, she provided me with an empty one.
Another batch of subjects will be arriving within a week. This time we're sending both ponies and griffons for further testing. I don't care about casualties but make more raw material for Project Blight. If the Corrupted doesn't cooperate and only destroys, use the tainted remains for all I care. Save those who survive the contact at all costs and cultivate their taint. According to your reports the recovery capabilities of those creatures are astonishing, so keep them alive for more experiments. If you manage to make another Corrupted subject, inform me immediately. Among the ones we'll be sending are some prisoners and Legion deserters. Use them to assess combat abilities and the thinking of the Corrupted both against groups and individuals.
Burn this communique.
L.
Well well well, it seems like Claus knows he's being used and is keeping the official communication between him and whoever his employer L is.
Several minutes later, I have lists of raw 'materials' in my possession, the research journal, and the letter. Time to go.
Or not...
If I just leave then the Black Ops might simply take over. Research like this will never be willingly abandoned. Nopony will help the tainted prisoners in their cells. Or maybe the police forces will act too late and this site will already be moved somewhere else. Doubtlessly, they will bury all proof about this after Claus learns of my intrusion.
I don't want to do it, I'm not a hero, but I'm right here and now, the only pony who can stop it before it becomes even worse. The wrong pony in the right place at the right time.
I sigh.
I gotta find the corrupted griffon, kill him along with all prisoners suffering like the last one, and release anyone I still can.
One last thing to do, one final duty to fulfill.