The next few weeks were a blur of metaphorical hurricanes and earthquakes. Applejack was quickly given a clean bill of health from Zecora, and I gave her and Rainbow a few exercises to practice their control. In theory, they were easy techniques that I wouldn’t need to monitor. In practice, however, not even the simplest techniques proved to be without complications.
“Mo… are you sure there isn’t a way to turn this darn thing off? It just caused me to crash into the swimming pool… again….” A sopping wet Dash wobbled into my room rubbing the bridge of her snout.
“Hmm?” I thrummed, looking up from my scroll. “Odd. By our count, that makes ten pools, two lakes, five fountains, and one impressively large pet aquarium full of turtles and remora. Ve’d normally advise that it is trying to get you to take a bath to get it to stop, but I have it on good authority that you shower daily.”
Rainbow’s hoof paused. “Do I want to know how you know that?”
I shrugged. “The Echo triplets told me.”
A cyan ear flicked. “And they learned that how?”
Standing, I rolled up my scroll, and moved to put it away. “Well, you sleep at Sweet Apple Acres more than you sleep at your own home. You should know how much time they’ve spent helping with chores on the farm since I started teaching you.”
Rainbow snorted. “Yeah, yeah. We all can see how much they want to jump Big Mac. That still doesn’t tell me anything, though.”
“My apologies for that, by the way. Ve aren’t sure they’ve ever been rejected before.” I bowed my head momentarily. “Regardless, if you must know, they learned of your bathing habits when Big Mac had them clean the house. Apparently, the shower tastes incredibly filthy—far too filthy for it to not be shared daily. Perhaps that is why the wind wishes you to bathe? Their exact words were that it was—” I shifted my voice into the chittering chorus of the three harvesters “‘—like a blood-crusted, sweat-soaked, whip lashing places no whip ought to lash.’”
“Eww…” Rainbow turned green. “That just sounds horribly wrong.”
Smiling, I whopped her on her withers. “Nonsense! That’s just high quality lust for you, and it means you have a really healthy relationship with Applejack right now. Not counting Cadance and Shining Armor—because it’s just not fair to compete with the goddess of love—the last time ve tasted a relationship with such passion and devotion was almost half a century ago.”
“You said it tasted bloody, though.” Rainbow gagged.
“Of course it did!” I laughed. “Blood is rich in iron, making it one of the most primal forms of devotion. You and AJ would do anything for each other no matter what happens between you. You are family, and—even if you two somehow broke up—you will always remain so at heart.”
“In other words, we’re awesome.” Rainbow slugged me in the shoulder and gave a cocky grin. “You should tell Twilight about the blood thing, though. I would totally pay to see her face for that conversation.”
“We already had it when we discussed various emotional tastes.” I shrugged. “Wasn’t really all that amusing given how easy she can be to fluster. I mean, it was way too easy for it to be funny with her.” I bared my fangs in a grin. “You on the other hoof? Your reaction to this is perfect. Now that your initial disgust is gone, all that’s left is the nice rubbery taste of calamari.”
“I’m not flustered!” She stomped a hoof and flared her wings aggressively.
I chuckled. “You might be good at putting on a facade, Rainbow, but your emotions are always an open book—much more so than most ponies.”
“Whatever.” She huffed. “So do you have a way to turn the wind sense thingy off yet?”
“I already told you no.” I sighed. “Webber is trying to figure it out, but it’s bound to take at least another week. Look, I’m sorry it won’t turn off, but ve didn’t expect your initial connection to completely smash the subconscious barrier between you and the wind. Ve didn’t fully realize the implications of your pegasus magic being much more naturally automated than a changelings. I need to manually control my wind sense or it just fades.”
Rainbow poked me with a hoof. “Well, you better fix it fast—for Applejack if not for me. Every time she bucks a tree its life story passes in front of her eyes.”
“Guess that means the exercises are working for her then, if she isn’t mapping the whole orchard anymore.” I scrutinized my shelf for another scroll that might be pertinent to the situation. They were many and varied, but none of them spoke to me. None of them felt as if they held the answer, so I merely selected a favorite hoping it would help.
“How have they been helping you? There’s clearly still some issues, but are you finding things easier?” I returned to my desk and unfurled the scroll so I could read it, glancing up at Rainbow every few seconds so she’d know I was still paying attention.
“They’re so lame.” Rainbow slowly rolled the word off her tongue as if delaying the execution might change the fact.
Two could play at that game.
“I take it that’s a no?” I shifted the position of one eye such that it lazily rolled up to give Dash a penetrating stare while the other continued diligently reading the scroll. The rotting taste of cold, dead, horror crept through my veins. Not enough to elicit any fear, thankfully, but just enough to make my point.
“Urgh…. You want me to say it, then fine….” Rainbow tossed her hooves in the air. “They aren’t doing anywhere near as much good for me as you said they should. They’re just so boring.”
I looked up and shrugged. “You had to do plenty of boring stuff to reach your current spot in the Wonderbolts reserves.”
“Hey! I made it to the Wonderbolts themselves, thank you!” Rainbow bristled, feather tips twitching.
“You transferred back to the reserves last ve checked.” I shrugged again. “Not that I can fault you for it. Ve saw the transfer request and wholeheartedly agree with you.”
“Do you have any concept of boundaries?” Rainbow arched her brow in a way that’d make Applejack proud.
“Of course.” I tilted my head to the side. She should know this by now. “I make it a point to keep other ponies secrets unless it becomes necessary to reveal them. Why? Are you worried the others will—”
“No, I’m not worried the others will feel guilty!” She snorted. “I’m just ticked you read my very personal letter to Spitfire.”
The sourness to her emotions claimed otherwise, but ve decided it was best to let it slide before I agitated her further. Time to stroke her ego, then.
“Well, regardless, try to think of the exercises as a means of flight training. The fact is, if you gain control of your wind sense, then you will be able to fly with a precision most pegasi only dream of. You’re already the fastest pegasus in Equestria, of course, but even you must admit there are quite a few Wonderbolts who have more finesse when flying. Imagine being the greatest pegasus Equis has ever seen, because that’s what’ll happen if you practice these diligently.”
“Alright, alright. I get it.” Rainbow waved dismissively. “By the way, how are you hiding what we’re doing from Twilight? Even she’s not oblivious enough to miss that something's been going on with me and AJ.”
“Simple.” I tsked. “I just told her exactly what I was doing sans the part where I’m doing it to protect her. She thinks it’s a fascinating experiment, and is eagerly awaiting for us to refine the teaching process enough so that she won’t map all of Equis with an accidental misstep.”
“Oh, Twi….” Rainbow sighed. “Never change.” Turning, she headed for the door, only to pause and look back. “Whatcha reading anyways?”
Ve debated giving a misleading answer before deciding that Rainbow was most likely mature enough to not laugh at us.
“It’s one of the friendship reports you girls wrote. Webber was nice enough to smuggle my collection out of the hive, and I find it sometimes helps me think to go through them.”
There was a snerk. Of course there was a snerk. What possessed us to think that Rainbow could be mature for even a moment?
“Nerd!” With that parting remark, Rainbow giggled her way out of the room.
“For somepony who may or may not have a certain limited-edition Daring Do children’s card game locked in a secret box under bed, you’re one to talk!” I shouted out the door knowing my voice would easily echo through the hall.
“You mean the one Tank bought with some bits he conveniently picked up off the ground?! Totally his! It’s got his name on the receipt and everything!”
I snorted. “And I’m sure you play it with him just so he gets a chance to use it!” Crafting a small breeze, I sent it chasing after her to silently remind her to keep practicing until I met her for next week’s training session.
“Alright, then!” I bared my fangs in a grin as I felt a wave of tremorsense pass peacefully beneath me. “It seems you’re both getting better with control!” I noticed Rainbows wings twitch, but said nothing when the rest of her failed to follow suit. She was trying, and that was really all I could ask for at this point. “Webber isn’t quite done with the custom filter yet, though, so today will be more combat training, and this time I want to see if you can use your respective senses despite the fact you lack full control.”
Hera rolled her shoulders as she lumbered forward. Rainbow was bouncing from hoof to hoof, ready to jump into the fray, but I gestured to Applejack to step forth. Stretching, the farmer cracked her back several times before stepping up without complaint.
“You sure about this, sugarcube? Ah don’t want a repeat of last time we did this.”
“As sure as ve can be.” I shrugged. “Ve’re about eighty percent sure you’ve gained enough control to actually manage a fight. Sure, you’ll be at a disadvantage without the filter, but it’ll be good practice for you. Changelings aren’t the type to fight fair anyways, and I doubt you’ll always be able to use the filter even after it’s done. Any foe worth their salt is going to try and dispel any spells on you the first chance they get.”
“We ain’t unicorns, hon.” Applejack rolled her eyes.
“A unicorn can still cast a spell on you, though,” I tsked, “and it’s better to be safe than sorry. That’s why I always dispel my foes—whoever they are. It’s the same reason you should practice without the filter now rather than waiting until it’s suddenly gone.”
“Well, alright then.” Applejack hacked an enormous glob of spit a good two meters into the creek beside us. “Don’t say Ah didn’t warn y’all, though. Ah’ve been taking notes.” Rearing up, she slammed her forehooves into the ground, and I felt a massive pulse burst forth.
“What are you doing?!” I quickly flew into the air and signaled for everyling to do the same.
“Well, fancy mathematics ain’t really mah thing—” Applejack jumped as the pulse came back, and it passed beneath her to surge out into the distance once more “—but Ah think y’all’d call this ‘controlling variables’ or something like that. Y’all can’t really touch the ground while that tremor thing is moving in and out, or y’all’ll just get overwhelmed like last time, so all ah gotta do is play jump rope until Ah make you touch it.”
She hopped again as the pulse returned for the second time, twisting to pull a lasso from under her stetson, and quickly fixing it into her tail. “Just like hogtieing a bull, really.” Just as she fixed the lasso in, she jumped a third time and wound it up before slinging it at Hera.
All of us had just been staring—absolutely stupefied—at the display, yet training kicked in, and Hera still managed to buzz into action before the rope slipped around her. Under. Over. Under. Over. She barely managed to dodge the constraint each time as Applejack whipped the lasso forth every couple of pulses. With each miss, she’d spend time regaining the rope’s momentum as she ran and dodged around Hera’s charging swoops. The shrill shriek of Hera’s wings filled the air each time she made a pass, yet Applejack stubbornly refused to fall for the same trick twice.
Finally, Applejack seemed to give up on the lasso, charging Hera head on with a cry. Hera obliged her, but just as they were about to meet, Applejack jumped over and onto Hera, using her as a platform to jump a second time, driving a disoriented Hera into the ground and buying enough air time to miss the return of the pulse.
Poor Hera went all but comatose from the the full flood of information, while Applejack landed onto the now safe ground to go pin the hapless, glassy-eyed, warrior.
Everyling continued staring as Rainbow cheered from a nearby cloud.
With a final ponderous blink, the absurdity of what I’d just witnessed sank in, and I couldn’t help but cackle. “And Mother sent mere conscripts after you at the wedding. You’re already starting to beat Hera’s lifetime of training after just a few weeks, and Mother thought recruits would be enough? Ve’re curious to know how many you took out before you were captured now.”
The pair of ponies shrugged. “We both messed up each other’s count somewhere in the high four hundreds.”
“Nearly five hundred each: potentially more.” I was gasping for breath as I chittered madly. “Did we ever truly stand a chance? Even if we had stopped Shining and Cadance? Oh, it pains us to think about it, but I can’t stop laughing.”
“Well, shucks.” Applejack kicked the ground. “It ain’t no big deal, really. Ah just took initiative and turned the tables on y’all like ya did when we first started. Ah doubt that trick’ll work twice.”
“Flukes count, Applejack.” Hera blinked first one haw than the other before getting back on her hooves. “If this had been an actual fight rather than just practice, I’d probably be dead right now, so don’t underestimate what a cheap trick and some mind games can accomplish.”
The warrior turned a stony-eyed gaze on her opponent. “That said, ve have finished analyzing your strategy and have determined a critical weakness. Would you care for a rematch?”
Applejack took a hesitant step back as Hera bared her fangs in a lifeless grin. Muscles rippled, causing a series of clicks and clacks as several plates hissed into a new alignment, and the hulking changeling soon towered even more above the farmer as synthesized chemicals far more potent than mere adrenaline began to course through her veins. Most would look upon her and assume she carried the intent to kill, but I knew Hera to be more disciplined than that.
“Woot! Go Applejack!”
I glanced at Rainbow as she cheered Applejack on from a nearby cloud. Ve wondered if she actually saw the truth behind Hera’s facade or if she just relished that Applejack was about to face a far greater challenge. Surely, she wasn’t oblivious to the tension below us…. Still, Applejack was easing back into position with the pressence of her marefriend’s carefree support.
A few moments of calculated silence passed before they started circling each other at some unseen signal. Still, each was too cautious to take the initiative, and so they stalked each otherwell, looking for weaknesses.
“Aw, to tartarus with it!” Applejack reared up and slammed her hooves into the ground once more. An enormous pulse of tremor sense rocketed forth—causing Hera to take to the air—and the farmer pulled her lasso forth once more, jumping over the pulse as it came back.
For a brief time, the match carried on like before. Hera dodged the lasso and made a few charges whenever it missed. This time, however, ve noted that the movements to her charges were measured. Hera always came in from an angle that would herd Applejack closer to the edge of the clearing, away from the center of the pulse. After reaching the edge, she kept her distance, forcing Applejack to throw the lasso farther and farther each time.
Then, one of the lasso tosses hit home.
I saw Hera fly straight into it in a way that must have been preplanned. Her momentum carried her forward and upward such that she was straight above Applejack just as the farmer landed from her jump, and, with a quick burst of speed, Hera tried to yank Applejack off of the ground.
From most angles, such a tactic would be unthinkable. Applejack would merely dig her hooves backward and pull harder than Hera could ever have a chance of overcoming. From straight overhead, however, the rope was orthogonal with the ground, and Applejack couldn’t resist Hera’s pull with any horizontal force from the infamous Bucky McGillicuddy and Kicks McGee. Such an advantage would last only a brief moment—until Applejack moved enough to get some ground between her and Hera—but it would be enough to pull her into the air.
Of course, the obvious answer to Hera’s tactic would be to let go of the rope and regroup, but that was most likely what Hera was after.
Applejack had forced herself into the unfavorable position of out counting a changeling. She was forced to keep in rhythm with the pulse oscillating beneath her, and the sudden, disorienting, upwards yank would throw off all of the hard work Applejack was putting into keeping track of her tremor’s return trips.
Combine this with the added distance Hera had herded Applejack from the center of the blast, and even a changeling would certainly lose track of when exactly they had to leave the ground.
Thus—although Applejack did indeed keep enough wits about her to release her tail’s grip on the lasso—she found herself collapsing as she rolled to her feet and pulled another lasso out. The pulse came back sooner than she expected, allowing a single, panicked, whiny to escape her throat before she was caught in her own trap.
This time, it was Hera who landed to pin her hapless opponent. I was just about to applaud her when I heard the ruffling of nearby wings. A quick glance to Rainbow, Dash saw her muscles tensing as she fought not to rush to her marefriend’s aid, and, deciding speedy action to be the better option, I dropped from the air to begin sorting data for Applejack.
“Excellent work, Hera,” I hissed softly as I passed her, “but did it occur to you to simply distance yourself until she miscounted?”
“Of course, My Lord.” Hera thrummed in quiet appreciation. “Ve deemed it a better risk to take a controlled hit, however. Had she managed to catch me in an unfavorable position before the miscount occurred, the best ve could have managed would have been forcing a draw.”
“At ease, Hera.” I chuckled under my breath as I bent towards Applejack. “You hardly need to defend yourself to me.”
This time, the data was mixed and muddied from all the repeat passes. There were several duplicates of some data, while other pieces of info merged into an untranslatable mess. Still, ve did manage to parse everything faster this time around. It helped that we were roughly in the same spot as before, but the real clincher was from Hera bending down to lend help. Progress went from fast to ludicrous as the data parted like water for her.
As we finished, I leaned back to scrutinize her. “What was that?”
“Training, My Lord.” Hera rumbled, stoic as ever.
“Don’t you go trying to pull the silent guard act on me, Hera.” I tsked.
She hesitated. “Ve may have spent more time than necessary to plot out the tactics Applejack was likely to use in a sparring match. Weaponized tremors were on that list, and it was a simple matter to practice parsing the first wave of info we got over and over to the point where ve could do so almost blindfolded. Unfortunately, ve were banking on that fact to win us the match the first time, but underestimated the extent to which her tremor would be warped from multiple passes.”
She bowed her head briefly, giving off a single mournful chirp. “It shames me to admit that I adopted such a cheap ploy—especially when it was bound to fail in all but the most conditional of circumstances.”
“Now wait jush a darn shecond….” Applejack slurred as she stirred. “Are ya telling me ya cheated and still lost?”
“Ve simply prepared for an enemy I knew I’d be facing ahead of time.” Hera tsked. “Calling it cheating assumes it’s against the rules of the game. Did we ever establish those? No. For the most part, all the ‘rules’ we are following are just implied guidelines. For example, I could technically win far more easily if I just elected to kill you. It was never stated that nonlethal means must be employed, but that would defeat the purpose of this being a learning exercise, so I force myself to avoid certain tactics.”
“An important lesson for you both, Applejack and Rainbow.” I thrummed, looking pointedly at Hera. “Though, I must admit there was a certain lack of tact in the delivery. Now, shall we proceed to the next match? Ve believe it may be time to introduce Spi into the mix.”
“Aw, yeah!” Rainbow leapt from the ground to do a quick loop. “Just you watch, AJ. This is how you fight a changeling!”
“Dead.” Spi was pressing his blade-like foreleg into Rainbow’s throat when I arrived. That was thirteen loses in a row, and Rainbow still seemed raring to go. “Are you ready to give up yet? The wind clearly favors me this day.”
Oh, low blow, Spi. That was such an ancient turn of phrase that ve doubted Rainbow even had the slightest inkling of how much she was just savaged.
“Never!” Rainbow squirmed in defiance, almost managing to free a limb from the sticky web ensnaring her before it schlorped back into place. “Argh! What is this even made of, and how do you keep finding time to make these?”
Spi buzzed back a little so he could start cutting the strands at the edge of the web. “Well, your first mistake is assuming you’re always on my tail. I just need to run long enough for an opportunity to get away to present itself. At that point, I slip a phantasm into your mind to keep you busy, which leaves me free to construct my traps from the various debris littering the ground.”
“Uh, dude? This ain’t exactly sticks and— Oh! Ewww! It tastes like muddy snot!” Rainbow spat out a glob of web that trickled into her mouth.
“Yes, that would be the debris.” Spi clicked disapprovingly as one particular strand stretched slightly before giving way to his claw. “Ghastly stuff, but I ran out of standard webbing somewhere in the middle of round three and had to start improvising.”
Grabbing a clump of dirt and several sticks and leaves, he began demonstrating the creation process. “I just take some organic material and some form of minerals, consume it—” He did so and Rainbow gagged. “—and process it into the material I need.”
“I think I’m gonna be sick.” Rainbow’s squirming had become much more frantic.
“Be glad it tastes better on the way back up than on the way down.” Spi shrugged. “Believe me, I know how you feel. I have no idea how drones manage to do it for a living—even with their altered taste buds. Some just keep eating and regurgitating for hours at a time.”
He shivered. “It’s madness I tell you.”
I tsked, causing them both to jump. “Are you still— Really, Spi? I’ve been here for awhile.” I rolled my eyes. “Regardless, are you still sore about when you went deep cover as a drone? It can’t possibly have been worse than your cover as Mean Norm. I mean, Mean Norm was stuck behind a desk doing nothing but tax reports all day, every day. Antoinette got to sneakily synthesize explosive compounds into her work.”
“You can regurgitate explosives….” Rainbow mumbled—face green—as her stomach continued to gurgle. “That would be awesome if it weren’t so disgusting….”
“We can only make relatively weak ones,” I shrugged, “but they’re enough for basic sabotage.”
I had had to discreetly get rid of some siege creatures a while back from this one lord who was just as determined as Mother to start a war—not that Rainbow needed to know that. A little explosive carapace cement went a long way towards convincing House Scorpio that experimentally breeding and maintaining war beasts was an infeasible action. Thanks to Spi’s hard work, they never even suspected that it was the carapace cement—and not the living weapons—that was unstable.
“There wasn’t even a proper explosion, just a bunch of little, almost imperceptible, ones that caused more cracks in the chitin….” Spi gave a whistling whine. “If I’d gone with anything bigger, they might have started looking into bug bombs again, and I spent ages as an analyst falsifying the results of those abominations.”
“It was only a few weeks.” I chided.
“A few weeks of taking shelter in a lead lined refrigerator to avoid detection while I regularly snuck out to neutralize thirty hive forsaken tests!” Spi’s echo fractured. “Thirty! You’d think those little bug brains would learn after the first few duds, but no! They wanted to keep on going and get the full statistically significant sample size! Talk about the most nerve-wracking assignment ever!”
I bared my fangs in a grin. “Is that including the time I sent you into Mother’s personal dungeon?”
“I was just a nymph! That one doesn’t count!”
“It does too count! That little stunt earned you your Chrysaling.” I cackled as Spi flushed emerald. “Oh, the look on Mother’s face when she brought me down for interrogation lessons and found you…. It totally made up for the fact that she gave me a week at quarter-rations for making you feed the prisoners.”
“I got quarter-rations too, you know.” Spi pouted, tears gathering at the corner of his eyes, and I wondered if I’d gone too far. It was so hard to tell when he still refused to share his emotions.
“It’s just awesome that I’m dangling here and trying to figure out what the hay you two are talking about—” Rainbow’s rasp just dripped with sarcasm. “—But if you don’t mind, I’d much rather be flying on my two wings right now.”
Horseapples and bugbits. How much confidential info did I just accidentally spill to have a normal conversation with Spi? I didn’t mention the war beasts aloud, and Spi only mentioned their chitin, but he did mention the bug bombs. By the First Father, the bug bombs. If Twilight got wind of how deadly those would have actually been….
No. I was safe on that front. All Rainbow heard was that the tests took place in a mock town, and that I’d made sure they were all duds. She had no way of knowing the magnitude calculated for a successful blast nor did she seem interested in her currently sticky state. All we had to do was avoid the subject and she’d probably forget it.
“He’s got that look Twilight gets when she’s about to have a panic attack.” Rainbow tilted her head as Spi went back to cutting her down.
“Don’t worry.” Spi tsked—the tears from a moment ago suspiciously gone. “My Lord just realized the horrible dangers that come with teasing me about my work in front of you. In fact, there are many horrible things that are liable to happen if certain projects I’ve been a part of came to light. You know how Daring Do writes her work as fiction to avoid ponies abusing the artifacts she finds?”
“Yeah?” Rainbow licked her lips.
“Well…” Spi echo fractured into a quiet, omnipresent, hiss that skittered down my ear tubes. “...I also like to make sure my work isn’t noticed. There are quite a few lords who would kill for snippets of what you just heard—and I don’t just mean they’d kill you, you little daredevil. They’ll kill your friends if they learn you know something, because that’s the easiest way to make you talk, capiche?
Rainbow gulped. “Alright then…. I’m just gonna pull a Rarity and say we never speak of this again.”
Oh, thank the hive. Problem averted.
“There’s a good girl.” There was one last snip as Spi cut through the web, and Rainbow plummeted to ground with an indignant yelp.
Sitting up on her haunches with a groan, the pegasus spread her wings to examine them. “Eww! It’s all over my wings! This is gonna take forever to clean, and the taste is gonna be in my mouth the whole time…. There’s no way I can let anypony else preen this either now that I know where it’s been….”
She tentatively stretched her tongue out. “Blech! Yeah, no. I’m not doing this now. Shower first. Preen later. Where’s Applejack?”
“She’s with Lyra, learning about all the super secret ways the Everfree Hive has to fool her tremor sense.” I sighed. “It’s something which she absolutely refuses to share with me.”
“For good reason.” Spi began to hack up a dissolving compound on the web.
“I know it’s for a good reason!” I tsked. “It’s still annoying that she doesn’t trust at least me with it.”
“You know very well that she trusts you with it, sir.” And here we were, fully back to business like usual. “It’s me and the others she doesn’t fully trust, and she knows you’ll teach us if she teaches you.”
“Semantics!” I scoffed in Chitri.
“There is nothing sweeter than the subtle victory of semantics.” Spi responded in kind. “Neither love nor joy nor happiness compares to the euphoria of a foe failing to see just how deeply they’ve stumbled into your web.”
“I still think you sound like chipmunks when you do that.” Rainbow grumbled, trying and failing not to stick to the ground.
“Spi, you did use the compound that makes your webs sweat soluble, right?”
“I had to stop that around round seven because she was so sweat-soaked that the traps weren’t working.”
“How did she even stay flight capable this long, then?”
“I don’t know, sir. Whenever I asked, she just claimed it was through a mix of twenty percent coolness, ten percent radicalness, and seventy percent awesomeness.”
“And Mother sent the conscripts after her?”
