"Okay..." Flynn leaned back from the Desperado. "Now... try making a fist."
Wildcard sat up on his cot. His upper muscles tensed around his beak.
Between them, a rickety skeleton of metal digits and hydraulic activators wobbled, pointed towards the ceiling. The joint below the prototype prosthetic glowed with mana power. Hissing sounds filled the common room, and slowly... gradually...
...five talons closed tightly together. The gesture was slow, but it was still a gesture.
Wildcard relaxed his muscles, exhaling heavily. He turned with a surprised expression, his goggles reflecting Flynn's smiling face.
"Pretty boss, right?" Flynn slicked back a mane that wasn't there. "Whew! I am on a roll!"
Wildcard nodded back.
"Now..." Flynn leaned in again. "Spread all your fingers out and put your palm flat." His eye narrow. "Pretend that you're... playing that weird, mystical game griffin kids are obsessed with. What's the name...?"
"'Rocks, papers, scissors?'"
Flynn blinked. He looked over his shoulder at Seraphimus in a distance. "Right... pffft, griffins..." He turned to look at Wildcard again. "Can you do that?"
Wildcard licked his beak. His shoulder shifted.
With a rattling noise, the prosthetic twisted. The levers and digits attached to them rotated. Soon he had flattened all of his talons into a straight plane. A cloud of manasteam spontaneously vented from the lower joints.
"Whoops! Excuse you!" Flynn chuckled, reaching over to pat Wildcard's shoulder. "I know it's pretty cruddy and slow now, but that's because I've yet to power it all the way. I just wanted you to get a feel for it. I mean... errr... y-you know what I mean."
Wildcard slowly nodded.
"Double-yoo, I don't have the tools here to make it nearly as awesome as the one you had back on the Light Side," Flynn said. "More specifically, you're probably going to lack the same spatial recognition system that used to grace your senses. But... you're skilled enough to make a calculated guess about your limb placement, right?"
Wildcard used the new skeletal hand to wave from side-to-side.
"Right. But I promise you that it'll be articulate enough for you to fully 'speak' again," Flynn said. "What's more, I just might be able to add a few new bells and whistles to it." He smiled, pointing at a narrow thread of pulsing conduits running the length of the forelimb. "You see this cable?"
The Desperado nodded warily.
"It extends from the prosthetic's mana core. With the right discharge of pent-up leyline energy... well..." Flynn grinned wildly. "It just might be able to give your fist some extra punch."
Wildcard nodded. He curiously gestured with his right hand, drawing a "compass" with his fingers against the cot.
"Sorry, bud..." Flynn shook his head. "That badass magnetic core is gone for good." He shrugged. "I just don't have the proper equipment to recreate it here. But... I'm hoping to give you some better improvements anyway."
A sigh escaped the griffon's beak. He nevertheless gave a thankful nod.
"Once you're fully back on your feet, I'll let you give the limb real practice at full juice. How does that sound?"
Slowly, the metal digits turned, pivoted, and formed a shivering thumb's up.
"There we go!" Flynn grinned wide. "That's the spirit!"
"I don't see why Jordan has to have his hand back," a contemptuous voice droned from the opposite end of the Common Room. "A blighted traitor like that should live with a constant reminder of what he's given up."
Wildcard clenched his beak. His left limb clicked and clacked as the inner parts struggled, grinded, and eventually—with much effort—shot a lone middle finger towards the ceiling. The Desperado raised it high and proud.
"Hrmmmfff..." And Seraphimus was silent.
"Heeeeeeeeeeey..." Flynn patted Wildcard's shoulder again. "That's some even better spirit!" He got up with a mild groan. "Ooooookay. You starving?"
"Ta-daaaaaaa..." Logan droned, lethargically gazing into the glowing blue compartment.
Ariel stood in place, blinking blankly. Her eyes reflected rows upon rows of otherworldly mushrooms.
"Well?" Logan scratched his stubbled chin and looked at her. "What do you think?"
"Uhhhhhh..." Ariel smiled crookedly. "Wow, Big Show! It all looks so..." A gulp. "...edible?"
"Hrmmmffff... we already know that it's edible," Logan muttered. "The stuff ain't poisonous."
"Right. Wildcard hasn't keeled over." Ariel gulped. "I think."
"The problem here is that there isn't enough of it," Logan said.
"Are you sure?" Ariel pointed into the illuminated half of the dim compartment. "It's covering the entire wall, corner, and part of the ceiling!"
"This is a month's worth of cultivating," Logan grumbled. "And not a single one of us has been eating from it." He turned about and trotted out the room with a sigh. "Let's face reality. This shit's ain't gonna sustain us."
"Yeah? So?" Ariel pivoted and followed the large stallion into the room where he had assembled his arsenal. "Once Rainbow's done resting her flank, the two of us will fly Omega again and grab some more! There's a whole field of the stuff!"
"Yeah? And what about when that crud runs out during our inevitable trip Curveside?" Logan snorted reaching over to a table to continue polishing a sword and shield. "There's no telling if these little buggers grow out beyond the parallel."
"From the sound of things, there's lots of flora out there..."
"You call that carniverous stuff 'flora?'"
"Well... organic stuff." Ariel stuck her tongue out. "Stuff not affected by the impact of the Sundering. We're just bound to find something to forage! Or hunt!"
"Uh huh. Did the old Cylindrimanian spheres find any living game out there beyond the mesa?"
"Errr... no. But then again, everything within five kilometers of the mesa is wasteland."
"Then we'll have to do our hunting while dodging living death grass for our lives," Logan muttered.
"I'm certain we can find some meat to sustain us."
"Don't you see the problem?" Logan sighed. "Rainbow Dash."
"What about her?"
"The damned girl would rather eat her own mane hair than dine on a roast beef sandwich. The rest of the Herald? We're just fine and dandy. But our illustrious leader has to be a vegetarian!" Logan dropped the weapons angrily to the table.
Ariel winced. "I... I'm sure we can eventually convince her to do what's right to survive."
"Oh yeah? And who's going to convince her to take the first bite? You?" Logan glared before brushing past the mare. "You've been hitting on the Austraeoh since she first fluttered past your gaze, and she hasn't given you the friggin' time of day."
Ariel squirmed, running one forelimb across the other. "That's got nothing to do with anything..."
"Doesn't it?"
"No!" She frowned. "It doesn't!" Ariel stomped a hoof, angrily. "Sure, maybe it's obvious to everypony that I have feelings for the mare, but I'm an adult, Logan! I can set them aside when I know there's something far more important at hoof!" She exhaled slowly, her ears folding somewhat. "Just how... she's learned to do... s-some time ago..."
Silence.
Logan shifted awkwardly. His voice was low, but still apologetic: "That sucks balls, Ariel. I... I shouldn't have said that." A cough. "Sorry."
"And you're forgiven. But I wish you wouldn't let it come out like that." Ariel trotted over and rested a hoof on her shoulder. "Something's been bothering you. I know it. Instead of being full of farts and comebacks, you've been nothing but glum and grim."
"It's the Dark Side, Ariel," Logan grumbled. "It's hard to be sunny over here."
"You don't think I know that?" Ariel shook her head. "It's something else. Something's been eating at you since we first came into Darkreach and encountered the changeling."
"It's not friggin' important, alright?"
"It obviously is to you." Ariel bit her lip. "Okay... so I never got as chummy with you as Flynn has. And maybe your old adventures with my mom have made it really awkward to level with me. But over here, Big Show, we're all that we have! And... and if we're gonna trust each other while in combat... can't we trust each other out of it? I wanna get to the Light Side and put all this behind us as much as you do, but... but what if we don't make it? What are we gonna do to resolve all our problems beforehand?"
Logan stared into the distance of the room. Eventually, he droned: "I already put things behind me, Ariel. That's what I'm trying to say." He glanced down at her, eyes narrowing. "I'm good to go. Honest."
Ariel bit her lip. At last, she nodded. "You are, aren't you?"
Silence.
"How... how much of the Bleakweed do we have left?"
"Another week if we ration it," Logan said. "Between that and the 'shrooms, we'll last through the trip to the parallel. But beyond? When we're gonna need the energy to sweat and fight the most? We'll have to come up with something new."
"How long will Rainbow Dash last if we ration the vegetarian food exclusively to her?"
Logan brushed his bangs aside, exhaling slowly. At last, he shrugged. "Four weeks? A month? She's a light pony, after all."
"Then maybe that should be the plan?"
"We can't survive on meat alone... heh... as much as I'd love to." Logan turned to look at Ariel again. "You'll need to work some charm on her. Get her to change her ways for her own good."
"Uh huh..."
"Don't 'uh huh' me, kid. This is super friggin' important."
"I know! I know!" Ariel tossed her forelimbs and groaned. "I'll see what I can do." A bitter smirk. "Heh... what irony."
"Yeah? What?"
"Out here... flying and adventuring with the hottest mare under the starlight... and I'm having to talk her into taking meat."
"See, there we have it. You can handle all the farts and comebacks for us."
"Heeheehee..."
"Hrmmm..." Logan resumed examining his weaponry. "One of these days, we'll get the musical lilt back in your giggles."
"Not exactly the top of our list."
"Nope. It isn't."
Ariel cleared her throat. "Speaking of rations..."
"It's about time, isn't it?"
"You've been hard at work on the arsenal." Ariel trotted off. "I'll do the rounds."
"No you're not." Logan held her back.
"Huh?"
"Feeding everyone means you're going to have to to feed her," Logan said. He trotted off in the same direction with a determined look on his face. "I don't want anyone near the bitch."
"And just why not?"
"Because it takes one to know one."