"—forth with the blessings of Harmony, foals of Emeraldine. Our weary eyes rest upon the—scrkkkkkkkk—forth with the blessings of Harmony, foals of Emeraldine. Our weary eyes rest upon the—scrkkkkkkkk—forth with the blessings of Harmony, foals of Emeraldine. Our weary eyes rest upon the—scrkkkkkkkk—"
"You know..." Twilight Sparkle scratched her chin, squinting at the translucent face of Onyxxus being broadcasted against a wall between adjacent doorframes. "...I'm a bit surprised he doesn't have an accent."
Pinkie and Rarity looked over Rainbow's body while their anchor rummaged through a pile of debris. "An accent?" Above them, manalights flickered to life one after another as Flynn continued powering up the entirety of Darkreach.
"Yes!" Twilight nodded. "Or a different language entirely!" She gestured at the alicorn image. "This was recorded... what... countless centuries ago. Even Old Equestrian Basic had several different modifiers, spellings, and verbage in the days of the Neo Classical Era."
"But these fellers were Emeraldinians," Applejack said.
"I don't see how that makes it any different, Applejack," Twilight said with a slight frown. "Language is language... a highly evolving and naturally malleable thing. It... it just doesn't make sense for a culture to speak in the same way for the better portion of a thousand years!"
"Maybe the history books are wrong!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed.
"Pfffffft!" Twilight nearly spat her tongue out. "The Royal Archives of Canterlot are anything but wrong."
"Live and learn, egghead." Rainbow Dash sat up with an object in her hooves. It was metal, slender, and housed a narrow central chamber. "By the time we're done with the Dark Side, I'm betting you'll find that almost all of the 'history books' are wrong to some degree."
"What did you find there, Dashie?" Pinkie asked.
"Mmmmm..." Rainbow pivoted away from the repeating hologram so her response could be better heard. "I've been through enough warring countries to recognize a crossbow when I see one."
"Even one that's so glossy and streamlined?" Applejack smirked and tilted her hat back. "Reckon you found yerself a space crossbow!"
Pinkie Pie giggled.
"Thing is..." Rainbow looked at the concrete corridor she was in. "...this doesn't look like the armory. I wonder if it was just left here by accident and... there could be more elsewhere in this place."
"Could be a mite bit useful, sugarcube."
"I... I-I'm not sensing an armory," Rarity said.
"Could you try and 'feel around' for a room that has more of this thing?" Rainbow asked her.
Rarity whimpered slightly. "I don't know... but I will certainly try, darling." She pressed two hooves to her pale forehead and clenched her eyelids shut. "Crossbow... powers... a-activate!"
"Maybe this is a discovery to bring to the others," Twilight said.
"Right." Rainbow balanced the weapon on her back and briskly trotted up the nearby stairs. More lights came to life as she ascended. "Hopefully they found more useful things than I did."
Wildcard whistled.
Ariel and Logan spun about from where they stood before the grand Verdestone mosaic of the common room. The flickering face of Onyxxus loomed above them, speaking on repeat.
"What is it, boy?" Logan grinned at the three limb'd griffin. "What did you find?" Ariel's hoof swatted his big forehead, but he didn't stop grinning like an idiot.
Exhaling, Wildcard crossed the distance between them, dragging a large metal crate with his tail. With a breathy grunt, the Desperado swung the container so that it slid to a stop between the other two Heraldites.
"Nuts," Logan droned. "Metal nuts."
"Whoah! Wildcard!" Hovering, Ariel reached down and dragged her hooves through a mess of metal bits, levers, bolts, and rods. "It's like a metal junkie's wet dream!" She looked at him. "Was this the only one that you found?"
Wildcard shook his head. He held all five talons out, then clenched and unclenched his fist four times.
"Wow! Talk about the motherload!" Ariel grinned from ear to ear. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
Wildcard smirked. He looked towards Logan. With his one talon, he smothed his headcrest back and mimicked a horn coming out of his forehead.
"You really think Flynn can make you something out of this?" Logan raised an eyebrow. "We're already overworking the bugger as it is."
"Pffft... Big Show..." Ariel swatted the stallion with her tail. "For Wildcard, Flynn would do anything... even turn a box of nuts and bolts into a new prosthetic."
"Hrmmmf... wish he loved me nearly half as much," Big Show muttered, polishing off a golden sphere he had found. "I sure could use a refrigerator."
"Harrk!" Kepler shuffled briskly into the room, grasping a slender golden object in his claws. "Look, brrotherrs! Sisterr! Gaze upon that which I have acquirred!"
"Keps, Big Show already found a spear," Ariel remarked.
"Oh ye of little ingenuity!" Kepler gestured. "Obserrve!" He then twirled the object in his grasp and proceeded to scrap the small of his hairy backside. "Mmmmmmmmm... ha-hah! Most heavenly indeed!"
Wildcard gave a thumb's up.
"Heh..." Ariel rolled her eyes. "We're all glad for you, Keps."
"Dude... a backscratcher?" Logan grinned at the wyvern. "Why not just use your scorpion tail? You were born with a natural one!"
Kepler gave him a shocked expression, his spectacles nearly falling off. "You darre suggest that I would stoop to being so barrbarric?!" He gestured. "How about you prrocurre the harrdened mucus frrom yourr nostrrils with yourr prrehensile limb!"
Logan and Ariel chuckled. Wildcard smirked.
Then... from the far end of the room:
"What... am I even looking at?"
The Heraldites looked over.
Seraphimus sat with a dumbstruck expression. Handcuffed to pipework, she kept her twitching hawkeyes glued to the holographic image of Onyxxus on repeat.
"Silly bird," Ariel hummed. "They don't have stuff like that back in Rohbredden, do they?" She placed metal bits back in Wildcard's box and yawned. "Oh well. Just have to chalk it off to 'infidels' and 'Blight' and whatever."
"There... are no ponies like that in any of the prefectures..." Seraphimus' charcoal brown eyes fixated on the horned stallion's coiled wings—occasionally showing beneath his neck and shoulders. "Nor in the Seven Seas." She squinted at the Herald. "Precisely what is this place?"
Logan rolled his eyes. "Weeping chickens of the world, unite..."
"Now you want to know the truth?" Ariel stammered. "Even after we told you so many friggin' times?"
"Now now, frriends..." Kepler shuffled between them. "That is no way to trreat good and prroperr curriosity. Adverrsarries orr not, we arre still in this togetherr, yes?" He cleared his throat and faced Seraphimus. "You see, King Onyxxus of Emerraldine was one of severral extrraterrrestrrial equines who descended frrom the heavens long ago beforre—"
Logan let loose a loud whistle. "Yo, Keps." He yanked the small wyvern back by his scorpion tail. "Save it."
"But I was merrely wishing to educate—"
"You can't teach a frog how to hop if it's already proven itself to be stupid!" Logan frowned at Seraphimus. "Ignore this momemtary lapse of raisin baskets. She's still as murderous as an owl with rabies. You think she's going to want to kill us any less once she knows the truth" He shook his head. "Wait until the turkey really really wants it."
"Yeah..." Ariel threw Seraphimus a cold-hearted glare. "What he said."
Kepler squinted at them both. "Arre we not wishing to illuminate this poorr soul? Do not forrget what the Rrainbow One wishes—"
"Rainbow wants to keep her alive," Logan grunted. "If she wants to play ball on our team, then she has to prove it." He glanced aside. "Right, Double-Yoo?"
Wildcard stared at the Verdestone mosaic. He merely sighed.
Seraphimus clenched her beak angrily. "It's a wonder that you misguided cretins eluded Chandler for so long."
"Some shit in life is easier than you think, toots." Logan pointed. "And as defeating for your screwball of a 'Defense Minister,' we have one selfless badass to thank for that! And unfortunately, you self-righteos bucktard, he's no longer with—"
Thwap! A sharp talon clenched Logan's shoulder, instantly silencing him.
Logan blinked over at Wildcard. "... ... ...what? Too close to home?"
Ariel face-hoofed. "Dammit, Big Show..."
"What? Somepony's gotta read her the riot act! Bard would have gotten a hoot out of it! Don't you deny it!"
It was precisely then that Rainbow Dash bounded up an adjacent set of steps with the crossbow in tow. "Okay guys, I found something we might be able to use. Right now, I've got Rarity 'scanning' for others in the compound and—" She froze in place.
Everyone stood, shifting about awkwardly. Frowing faces and downcast eyes avoided each other. Onyxxus' voice continued repeating eerily in the background, piercing the tense silence.
Rainbow arched an eyebrow. "... ... ...well if this place isn't a warm fuzzy bucket of kittens."
"Everypony seems..." Pinkie grimaced. "...pony poop'd."
"AJ?" Rainbow tilted her head aside. "Your honest thoughts?"
"Ahem." Applejack adjusted her hat and gestured at Seraphimus. "Reckon it stems from her... but not entirely."
Seraphimus looked at Rainbow Dash. Her beaked expression was strangely neutral.
Rainbow blinked at that. A sigh, and she looked lethargically at the Heraldites. "Look... can we work on one thing at a time? Right now, we should be scouring Darkreach for useful tools. Let's save group therapy for another occasion... preferably when Flynn or Kepler could figure out how to conjure peanut butter snacks from the ether."
"Look..." Logan gestured at Seraphimus. "She started pretending to be interested in—"
"Another. Time." Rainbow glared daggers at him. "If you can't be useful here in Darkreach, then trot outside and make us a bridge across the ravine with your butt."
Logan crossed his forelimbs and pouted in silence.
"Whew-wee, Dashie!" Pinkie grinned. "You can really be like Lime Pie when you wanna—"
"Shhhh!" Rainbow hissed at the ghostly mare. "You too. I'll say when it's time to chillax and gargle nonsense."
"Hrmmmf." It was Pinkie's turn to fold her forelimbs. "All of those sunrises have burnt your jollies!"
"Uh huh." Rainbow looked at the Herald. "What did you guys find?"
"Uhhhhhhhhhhh..." Ariel squirmed in midair. "Uhhhh... eh heh..."
Kepler gulped and held his tiny pole up. "Behold! A scrratcherr of the back!
Wildcard face-claw'd.
"And... erm..." Ariel pointed at the crate. "The makings of a new prosthetic for Wildcard." She gulped. "We hope."
Rainbow exhaled. "Well, cool beans." She gave her flank a shake, caught the crossbow in midair, and brandished it. "The girls and I found this. I'm not one hundred percent certain... but I think it might be manapowered. Like... you fit it with a manacrystal and it fires energy pulses." She turned the thing over. "I say this because it kinda resembles the rifles that I saw back in Ledomare—"
The glossy surface of the crossbow's stock reflected a pair of red-on-yellow eyes. "Do you really intend on dragging their useless fannies all the way to your destination?"
Rainbow Dash froze in mid-speech. Her muzzle hung open.
A fang glinted as a smile formed above a tuft of goat hair. "Lock and load this thing up. You can off them in their sleep. I'm certain the big one can feed you for a year at least."
"Uhhhhhhhhhh..." Rainbow paled.
Ariel squinted. "Rainbow? Is something the matter?"
Chaotic chuckles. The voice rang off the crossbow's metal structure. "I bet you'd want to gobble her up first."
"Guh!" Rainbow tossed the crossbow out of her hooves.
"Rainbow?!" Twilight gasped.
"Whoah!" Pinkie's gaze followed the thrown weapon. "From downtown—!"
Swoooosh! Wildcard glided towards the ceiling and—Snatch!—caught the weapon in a single talon. He descended with softly flapping wings. His goggled eyes looked at the weapon, then worriedly at Rainbow Dash.
Rainbow shivered in place. She caught Seraphimus' curious gaze in her peripheral vision. "I... uh... I was th-thinking that if we found more l-like that thing... uhm... we could stock ourselves for the j-journey to come..."
"Buck the journey," Logan muttered, squinting at her. "What the heck's the matter with you."
"She's mad," Seraphimus droned. "I've told you all this."
"Rrrrrngh..." Logan stomped a hoof and leaned angrily in her direction. "How would you like to have every feather plucked off of you with tweezers?"
"It would be less torturous than listening to you defend her fractured, flimsy mindset."
"Don't push it, death eagle."
"Guys, can we not—"
The overhead manalights flickered brightly. Flynn's voice hollered down from a descending staircase.
"I think I've got it!"
Onyxxus' image shook and rippled. "Bzzzzzzzzt—Rrkk-Rrkk-Rrkk-Rrkk-My-My-My-My-My little poniessssssss—" The hologram inverted, flickered, then re-manifested itself as a stately alicorn with a powerful stare. "My little ponies, brothers and sisters of the Verdestone Council... all of us are gathered here in honor to send you forth with the blessings of Harmony, foals of Emeraldine. Our weary eyes rest upon the final dawn's precipice where the golden bridge has been built to sustain you, the lifeblood of Darkreach, our most ambitious venture of hope for this age and the ones to come..."
"Well..." Fluttershy shuddered. "...the timing couldn't be better."
"Ooh! A movie!" Pinkie beamed. "Did anypony bring ghost popcorn?"
"Pinkie..." Rarity sighed.
"Heehee! It's okay! I forgot to bring ghost butter!"