My Life as a Bipedal Quadruped

by Snakeskin Ducttape

Knights, Rogues, and Mages

Magic can influence the physical world, but rarely does so without the guidance, conscious or otherwise, of agents able to control it.

One of the easiest ways for the people of Equestria, and all who know them, to see magic in use, is to observe the unicorns and their horns, but all their pony siblings have magic. Because of their mostly overt displays of magic, there sometimes crops up notions that unicorns are more magical than other types of ponies, but that is simply not true. Earth ponies and pegasi both will have an equal chance of having more capacity for magic power as a unicorn as having less.

Then sometimes an additional notion crops up: that earth pony and pegasus magic is in practice less potent because they don’t have as many opportunities to train and hone the magic bestowed upon all of ponykind. While it is true that an individual’s magic is improved much like proper physical exercise improves the body and proper mental exercise improves the mind, this notion is equally false.

Pegasi can fly extraordinarily fast with wings that gryphons often describe as “cute” (and do so affectionately as often as derisively). Earth pony magic in particular tends to be more subtle, but not less potent. Which is not to say that there are no subtle unicorns, and when a pony is asked, they almost always know an earth pony with very obviously magical capabilities.

Then, of course, there are the alicorns.

Alicorns are not born all-powerful. In fact, associates of a pegasus who ascends to an alicorn might be a bit confused by their new flight capabilities. A newly ascended pegasus will fly faster and longer than they did before, but surely they would have improved more than that? The horn and the earth pony magic is neat of course, but this is a god or something close to it in the making.

These ponies have not grasped the enormous potential in mastering all three forms of pony magic. It’s not an easy thing, and alicorns often need to use their new agelessness to make good use of it, but when an alicorn digs their hooves into the ground to feel the earth underneath them, spread their wings and feels the breeze flowing through them, and lets their horn sense the arcane energies swirling around them, they do not scoff when they see glimpses of the understanding of the world they will one day have.

Until then, their expanded capabilities will serve them well in all they do.

The blue and white mare took a deep breath as she stood with her eyes closed on a rocky cliff, a vantage point revealing the landscape around her far and wide. The breeze caressed her coat and the earth rested comfortingly under her hooves, but she didn’t have time to admire nature. Somewhere, out there, residues of the Dark King’s magic still echoed faintly, and she had to find it before the trail went cold.

She suddenly inclined her head, as if picking up a peculiar sound in the distance.

She let out her breath and opened her eyes, looking towards the distant landscape where her quarry was.

Night was approaching, and her destination was particularly dark.

She calmly spread her wings, then soared down the steep hills.

The phrase “story of my life” is very relativistic.

People go to sleep every day, but if someone told their friend that they slept yesterday, the friend would naturally not respond by saying, “yeah, story of my life.” It has to refer to more uncommon events. Being unlucky in love is a popular one. Even a small number of failed relations can feel significant enough to warrant saying, “story of my life”.

That’s why the phrase felt appropriate when I slowly regained consciousness, not knowing where I was, how long I had been out, or what state I was in. I could count the number of times it had happened on two hands, though I hadn’t had hands, much less two of them. For ages now.

I opened my eye and saw only blurry shapes. Then I tried blinking the fog out, but even so my vision remained the same, until I realized that I was seeing snowfall in darkness.

That’s when my eye widened, and the memories came flooding back. I immediately sprang up into a sitting position, vaguely registering that I didn’t feel any needles of pain shooting through me, then took in my immediate surroundings.

All around was nothing but snow, and darkness. Snow was all there was to see. It blanketed the earth and rushed through the air, limiting my sight to only a few steps ahead of me.

That particular sound of howling wind, muffled by fine snow well below the freezing point, was the only thing I could hear.

In all directions that was all I saw, and all I heard.

My breath quickened, and my heartbeat sped up.

“ARMOR!” I called out into the emptiness.

I looked around, desperately angling my ears for an answer, or a grunt, or the sound of muffled clopping of hooves on the ground.

“ARMOR! WHERE ARE YOU!?”

I looked all around me again, desperately double checking every direction so as to not miss the shape of a pony fighting their way through the snow, or coming in for a landing.

“ARMOOOOOOR!”

Stillness, except for the fine flakes of snow, caking in my mane and bouncing off my coat, and silence, except for the ceaseless howling of the wind.

I collapsed heavily on my haunches, the exhaustion from before catching up to me.

I had been woken up from a long day in the middle of the night. I didn’t know how much sleep I had gotten. I had been magically controlled by a very powerful magician, then forced to use magic powerful enough to open a portal to another world.

Add to that the stress from the fear and desperation from the whole experience, and it was a wonder I had woken up at all.

The temperature was starting to make itself known, gnawing at the tips of my ears and the edge of my nose, promising me that it wouldn’t stop there.

Dipping my head forward in defeat, my vision became blurry with a tear.

I knew I was tired and confused, but it still took several moments to register that nothing was pouring from my eye. I had resigned myself to the painful catharsis of crying over my desperate situation, but nothing was coming. No sobs, and no wails.

An ache settled in my chest, but it was small, and something inside me told me that that was all I was going to get. I lifted my head back up, and examined my thoughts.

‘Think now, act after that, cry some other time.’

I raised my head again, my face hinting to the form of numb determination driving me.

I took the eyepatch I was still wearing, dried off the half-formed tear from my eye before setting it back, and started patting myself down for injuries.

When I was certain that I was physically unharmed, I projected myself into my horn. The ache from doing so told me that I should take it easy on the unicorn magic for now, but I had to do a quick scan first.

I sensed nothing around me, other than ambient magic flowing across the landscape. No magical signs of Armor anywhere around. Not even the weaker ones of animals sleeping in burrows.

Armor obviously wasn’t where I was, and while I had learned in school that if you’re lost you should stay where you are so that people looking for you can find you, I think whoever came up with that idea obviously hadn’t been in this situation.

So I raised my prosthesis, lit up the searchlight in it, and began hobbling forward, lighting up the powdery snow falling from the sky and sweeping across the landscape.

There were a few bushes here and there, some leafless, and one or two evergreen, but other than that, there was just snow-covered plains.

The snow was of the colder, powdery variant, so the depth of the snow varied as it filled the gaps between the gently rolling hills. It reached up to my fetlocks, though suddenly I could find myself walking into a deep drift reaching up to my neck. Then I had to turn around, and navigate around the drift, while trying to not turn away from my path, and make me go in circles.

I sighed in frustration. I would’ve tried leaving marks if it wasn’t going to be a huge waste of energy, as it was going to be covered in snow soon anyway.

I had only been walking for a minute or so through the endless snow before I got two ideas. I would periodically wave my hoof slowly into the sky, signalling to everything around me in an admittedly limited way, especially considering the snowfall that was going on, but I figured that it wouldn’t hurt. Then I removed the textile covering of my prosthetics, tying them around my head to help keep my ears warm, and hoping that my metal prosthetics wouldn’t drain too much body heat. ‘Thank Celestia for coats, and an extraordinarily poofy mane.’

Then I kept walking.

Worrying thoughts, to say the least, were of course terrorizing me. That perhaps Armor was hurt somewhere and I was moving further away from him. That he was desperately looking for me and he just missed my trail under fresh snow. That I didn’t move fast enough and just missed his trail. And of course one of the more disturbing one, that I hadn’t ended up in an actual world, and this was just an endless, lifeless limbo somewhere in the emptiness of the cosmos.

So the relief was very deep, after a moment of fright, when I stepped on something hard that shifted slightly under me.

I stepped back and started digging through the snow, revealing something I marvelled at my happiness from discovering.

A broken wagon wheel.

It was fairly large, broken pretty thoroughly, and had obviously been here for quite a while considering how rotted and dirty it looked.

It wasn’t of any use in itself, but it did confirm that my walking through this cold night might not be without purpose. It was constructed by intelligent beings, who had used it here. So I was not wandering aimlessly across undiscovered wilderness. This place obviously wasn’t densely populated, but there were people within wagon distance.

It also meant that I was probably standing on a road.

I squinted my eye, before shining with the light from my hoof ahead of me. Sure enough, there seemed to be something of a path that was free from shrubs and rocks outlined in the darkness.

Stopping myself from feeling too smug about this turn of events, I took a moment to shine the light into the sky a few more times for good measure, before continuing forward.

After a while, the triumphant elation of my road discovery was wearing off. There were no signposts, no lamps, no camping travellers of course, and absolutely no inn by a crossroad. I hadn’t even asked if I could graze grass throughout all the time I had been living in Equestria. Not that that would help here and now, and there were no fresh pine buds to eat either.

There was also no way to make a fire. I was vaguely aware that logs should lie around for quite a while after being chopped before they were fit for being firewood. The wagon wheel had been too rotten, and there was no metal on it to help me, though that didn’t matter since I could strike stones against my prosthetics if I wanted to make a spark.

No spark would start a fire here though, and after a while, I would’ve been getting desperate if I was in a normal state of mind. I wasn’t though, and I knew it would be certain death to stop here, so I just kept walking, worry building up along with the uncomfortable prickling digging slowly deeper into my nose, and the stinging around my eyes.

One of the good things about being a quadruped was that it was easier to keep my balance without a sense of touch in half my legs. Even so, making my way forward was becoming frustratingly slow, as I was now losing my sense of touch in the two remaining organic hooves I had.

Eventually, it paid off, though not as well as I might’ve wished.

The ground suddenly angled upward a few degrees into a small slope, and digging through the snow revealed that I was standing on a bridge over a small, frozen rivulet.

It would have to do. This snow was far too cold and fine to build shelter with, so I stepped off the bridge, and used my prosthesis, not limited by my waning strength, to rip the branches from the largest softwood brush nearby, and jammed them into the ground by one of the opening under the bridge. I tried punching through the ice of the rivulet, but it was frozen solid and wouldn’t help me build anything, so I resorted to caking the needle-covered sticks of the bush with snow as best as I could, making it fairly windproof.

I was using much of what precious little energy I had left doing that, but it was the safer option. I crawled under the bridge, and curled up tightly, hoping to fall asleep and conserve my strength for daytime and hopefully better weather. A pony’s hooves resisted low temperatures really well, but the chill had started setting in there too now, as well as the places where my prosthetics were attached. I covered them as best as I could with my tail, and let out a sigh.

I had plenty to worry about right then, but not being able to fall asleep was not one of them.

And then it was that time again. Waking up not knowing where I was or what had happened.

I slowly opened my eye, and to my immense relief, found myself looking up into a wooden ceiling.

I tried letting out a sigh, but was interrupted by my mouth being held closed. I glanced down my muzzle, and felt my relief being replaced by alarm as I discovered a mask covering my muzzle, holding my mouth shut.

Trying to sit up didn’t work either. I angled my head down and saw that I was lying in a bed, covered by a thick blanket.

Wriggling around under the blanket showed that I was clearly tied to the bed, in a very thorough manner too, with my forelegs tied to my side and my hind legs held together. My prosthetics were still attached to me though.

Before I tried doing something else, I looked around me.

It was definitely indoors. The bed I was in seemed to be in a corner behind a foldable screen of some sort, with a beautifully painted nocturnal landscape on it, fitting well together with the soft, orange light flickering across the ceiling.

Beyond that, I couldn’t see the rest of the room. The ceiling was only slightly lower than I was used to in Golden Oaks, and everything was covered in a soothingly covered wood panels, catching most sounds and echoes, making it difficult to get a sense for the size of the place.

The only sound was my own breathing, and the gentle crackle of a fire. It was clearly from a fireplace, judging by the calming scent I felt through the opening in the mask, perhaps from burning cedar wood.

It really didn’t add to the scariness of waking up tied down, when you do it in a soft bed in a comfortable room. In the right circumstances, and with the right company, this wouldn’t have been so bad.

I tried experimentally reaching out with the magic from my horn to gently tug at the cover I was under, only to find that that didn’t work either. It was like my magic was a limb and someone had wrapped it in a blanket, then tied ropes around it and chained it to my head. It was like, magically, I was trapped inside a giant cotton cocoon.

Frowning, I jostled my head around gently, and felt a weight of something around the base of my horn.

My phantom fingers couldn’t do anything other than scratch my flanks, and looking to the side revealed that all the tools I had installed in my prosthetics were lying on a bedside table next to me, including my harmonica and magic boombox, and the coverings I had tied around my head before I went to sleep. ‘Wow. Whoever did this was really thorough, but I still have one trick up my sleeve’

I wriggled with my foreleg prosthesis, before attempting to break the ropes with brute force.

I didn’t pour a lot of energy into it before I had to stop, as it painfully tightened around my stomach and other foreleg. ‘Oooh! Owowow. Okay, new plan.’

I never found out what that new plan might’ve been, since I immediately froze up from the sound of cutlery somewhere beyond the screen, and someone, a pony, approaching with gentle steps.

I closed my eye and pretended to be unconscious, when this mystery pony stepped around the screen. Clearly a unicorn from the light chiming sound of magic, setting down a tray on the nightstand.

I tried keeping my breathing slow and deep, and my exhales tired-seeming, as I felt the blanket I was under gently being partially lifted.

The pony poked at my prosthetics with their hoof, and I had to wrack through my brain for what might be the most plausible reaction sleeping me would have when they started inspecting where my prosthetic hind leg and the residual limb met. They were clearly curious about the invisible force that held my leg in place,

The pony stopped when I grumbled slightly, and after a moment of waiting, I felt them lift my eyepatch, then my eyelid, under which was a pearly white prosthetic eye I had forgotten to take out. It was featureless since the eyepatch had been part of Rarity’s ensemble, and the ones with painted pupils tended to start to tickle the inside of my eyelid after I held it closed for long enough.

“What happened to you?” I heard a raspy mare ask herself.

She put my eyepatch back, making me stir just a little bit.

After about a minute, she was still standing in the same spot as before, and just as I thought she was going to leave, she spoke up.

“Have you been awake for long?” she asked.

I let out a small sigh through the opening for my nostrils in the mask, and opened my eye, turning to see a sky blue unicorn with a silvery mane looking at me.

Not really being able to respond, I instead inspected her.

She returned the favor, and didn’t flinch like most do when I stare at them with a single eye. The statue of Sombra from my Equestria had just screamed “powerful and malevolent”, and the one from this Equestria (for I was now sure I hadn’t ended up somewhere else) had absolutely oozed with dark magic.

This mare looked neither intimidating nor powerful. At least that’s what I thought until I noticed she was a little bit on the tall side, and fit-looking for someone with such a pristine coat and mane, much like Twilight, which then led me to look at her body.

My eye widened when I saw the wings on her back.

She didn’t seem to care about my reaction though. Instead, she asked me, “How are you feeling?”

I paused and gave this some thought. I was now warm and possibly even safe, but I was worried about Armor.

That was just the immediate thought of course. This whole situation, being ripped from my new home and family, the exhaustion and general stress of having been lost in a snowy wilderness in a dark night, perhaps even in mortal danger, came back to me as I thought.

My expression fell as a general sense of weariness came over me, and I just gave a noncommittal grunt in response.

“Nod if you’re still feeling fatigued.”

I did.

The mare hummed in consideration, and put her hoof on my forehead. “Let’s hope it’s not hypothermia,” she said. “Well, it doesn’t look like anything you wouldn’t be safe from so long as you stay warm.”

That was a strike against her having malicious intent for me, which helped a bit.

My eyelid wasn’t convinced it was worth the effort to stay up, and started protesting.

The mare’s expression took on a soft quality, before it hardened a bit as she leaned forward to look me in my eye. “Do you know King Sombra? Have you helped him?”

That woke me up a bit. I looked at her for a moment with a surprised expression, before I just averted my gaze and nodded. I wasn’t sure what I should’ve felt about this, but at that moment, I just felt ashamed.

“Willingly?”

I looked back at her, and shook me head in small motions.

Her expression softened again, and her posture relaxed as she straightened the blanket over me with her magic, and nodded. “Just rest. I’ll keep this warm for when you wake up,” she said, probably referring to the lightly steaming teapot on the tray.

‘Great. That should mean that I’m gonna get the chance to open my mouth again.’

I had gone through the events of my ending up here several times now. At first I had been worried sick that Armor might’ve been injured by the collapsing portal, that he also had ended up in that frozen wasteland, with his hind legs cleanly severed or something horrifying like that, and I had moved away from him, but the more I thought about it, the more unlikely that seemed from how I remembered those last few moments.

I often took pride in my rationality, so I knew that I wasn’t in a state to look for him, and that I should rest up before attempting anything. Even so, I was almost happy for being so tired I couldn’t keep my eye open. Anything less than that and my worry would keep me from resting properly.

‘You better be alright, Armor, and if you’re not, I’ll patch you together again– no matter what’s happened to you.’

I woke up very cleanly as the mare from earlier had her face next to mine, fiddling with something behind my head while her mane tickled my nose.

Her face came into view, the strap that held my mask behind my head in her mouth, and she noticed I was looking at her.

“Well, good morning,” she said, and gently pulled the mask off my muzzle. “That’s quite a mane you got there. I tried brushing it, but it seems to insist on looking like that.”

Not quite giving her the stink eye, I looked at her with a guarded expression for a moment, tested my now fairly stiff jaw, noticed that I was still bound to the bed, then wiggled my hooves to try and work out some of the kinks that had settled into them.

“Good morning,” I said in a neutral voice, noticing the hunger setting in my stomach.

“Hungry?” she asked.

My stomach rumbled in response.

“You were out of it for quite a while,” she continued, as she threw the mask over the screen. “I’m curious about what you were up to.”

“... Why?” I asked.

“Because it’s my job to find out.” She backed away two steps and made a small, but regal, bow. “Bellatrix Lulamoon, at your service.”

I said nothing, just trying to roll my left shoulder as well as I could.

Lulamoon magicked a cushion from behind the screen, then sat down on it with a slightly rueful expression.

“I really do apologize for this,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll release you in just a little while, but even if I don’t, I’ll make sure you get something to eat.”

My expression was slowly morphing into a scowl from what I perceived to be teasing from her side. “Thank you,” I said, after a few moments, keeping my tone neutral.

“I have some questions,” she said, consulting a roll of paper from beneath the bedside table. “Who are you?”

I let out a sigh, for some reason getting the feeling that this would take a while. “My name is Gabrielle.”

Lulamoon raised an eyebrow at me. “A gryphon name? Interesting.”

I let another, tired sigh, just before my stomach loudly cried for something to distract itself with.

Lulamoon looked a bit sad as she turned to the tray on the bedside table. “Perhaps I’m not being reasonable,” she said, and lifted the tray up to me. “Maybe some food is in order. Cheese toast and some hot tea?”

My will to sulk at her in response crumbled before I even got a chance to start, and my expression mellowed in resignation. “Sure,” I said. “Though it’s getting kinda warm under here.”

Lulamoon’s expression lit up slightly. “Oh, that’s good,” she said, and partially pulled the blanket from me, which left the top of my artificial side exposed. “Then I don’t think we need to worry.”

She lifted a hoof to touch my prosthetic foreleg, before stopping herself, and started cooling the tea with the spoon for a few moments, before setting it up to my mouth.

With her help, I managed to down a nice blend of berry flavored tea, and get a large bite of toasted sandwich in my mouth. Lulamoon was savvy enough to hold off on the questions until I had a full sandwich in me, and I felt large chunks of stress drain away from me as Maslow approved of getting some basic needs fulfilled.

“As I’m sure you’ve figured out by now,” she said, helping me with another sip of tea. “I’m not here to hurt you. You don’t have to be afraid.”

“So why am I tied up?” I asked, after downing the last of the tea.

“I just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t try to hurt me,” she said.

I narrowed my eye in confusion. “Why would I want that?”

”Just see it as a… a threat assessment,” she said, as something somber settled over her. “I knew Sombra was up to something, and when I investigated, I found you, a filly who acts like a field agent, sporting metallic legs like I’ve never seen before, absolutely drenched in residues of powerful magicks.”

‘Acts like a field agent?’

My rationally fueled annoyance was quickly being put out, leaving mostly interest. “So you’re… on a mission to stop Sombra?”

“We all are,” she said, looking down, before focusing her magic on helping me eat. “I’m guessing you’re not from Equestri–” she stopped herself “– this world?”

“I suspect so,” I said, after swallowing another piece of toast. It actually made me feel a bit down, but in a very deep way. Even though the last meals I had there were still sloshing around my system, Equestria, my Equestria, felt so very far away. “I, and another pony, went through a portal leading to an alternate Equestria, where Sombra had once ruled as a king.”

“Another pony?” Lulamoon asked.

“My friend and helper, a royal guard in Princess Celestia and Princess Luna’s castle,” I said.

Lulamoon looked at me with open curiosity, before smiling sadly. “I see. I suggest that we explain who we are and what we’re doing. I can start.”

Seeing as I was busy eating, I thought that was a good idea, although I had one question.

“You looked down just then. Has something happened to the pony I came with?”

That seemed to catch her off guard. “Hm? Oh, no. I didn’t know I was looking for several beings. I was just thinking of the princesses, and of course… my king.”

“So no indication that he’s hurt?” I pressed.

She shook her head. “None that I’ve seen. He’s a royal guard, you said?”

“Yes.”

“Then he knows how to take care of himself,” she noted, encouragingly, rather than dismissively.

I nodded to myself. That was a good point. Being a pegasus, he was also really resistant to the effects of the weather. He might be worried sick about me, like I was with him, but that damage would already be done by now, and seemed secondary to just being reassured that he was okay. The biggest risk now seemed to be that he would do something foolish in his search for me, but I was willing to be patient for now for the chance to search for him later.

“Okay. Go ahead then,” I said.

Lulamoon nodded.

“Luna told me about this,” she said, and I noted how she skipped the title, which along with her alicorn status, spoke volumes about her. “Long ago, when she abandoned her sister to join Sombra as guardians of Equestria, he encountered travellers from another world.

“It was a parallel Equestria, and a kind and benevolent version of her sister, along with an admirable version of Starswirl The Mad, had come in peace. They quickly became friends, and both versions of our worlds benefitted from leaps forward in magical lore, which your Equestria had in abundance, and technology, which this Equestria provided.”

I listened intently, forgetting to chew my toast as Lulamoon forgot to keep feeding me.

“Starswirl The Bearded, as your version of him was known, noticed that the veil between our worlds was wearing thin as time passed, and advised against frequent visits, but Celestia and Sombra were by now deeply in love, and opened the portal to see each other frequently.

“Then, about a year ago, after Luna had rejoined her sister, the Celestia from your world visited ours again, and, knowing all that had been going on all this time from her sister, the Celestia from our world tried to usurp the thrones of both worlds.

“So, your Celestia sent six ponies, and a dragon, with powerful magical artefacts to help. There was a great battle between them, your Celestia and Luna, our Celestia and Luna, and Sombra.”

This is where I stepped in, because I had been told this story before. “The Elements of Harmony, they’re called,” I said, making Lulamoon widen her eyes in surprise. “They were about to seal away your versions of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, and what would happen to them would also happen to the other versions, so in the middle of the battle, Sombra took the elements from Twilight and the element bearers, and transferred everything dark and malicious from your Celestia and Luna into himself. Everyone quickly returned home before the worlds collided, and Celestia and Sombra didn’t get time to say goodbye.”

Lulamoon sat stunned for a moment, before nodding. “That’s right,” she said, and contemplated me for a while before her eyes became focused again. “I believe it’s your turn to share.”

I nodded, now convinced that this alicorn could be trusted. “Think you could let me up first?”

She nodded, and started untying me from the bed, and removed the ring I had around my horn. “I hope you’ll include how you got these,” she said, and poked at my prosthetic foreleg as she undid the knots.

“Sure,” I said, then sat up and stretched my legs good and long, before looking suspiciously at Lulamoon. “Was the gag really necessary though?”

She just shrugged. “Well, you do have fangs,” she said. “I didn’t want you chewing through the ropes.”

“Ugh,” I said, and rolled my eye. “I guess that’ll be one of the things that I should cover.”

I told Lulamoon the long version: me being a human, how I ended up in Equestria, what that Equestria was like, the people I had gotten to know, the Elements of Harmony, Sombra, my prosthetics, the circumstances of me getting here, Armor, and so on.

Lulamoon nodded as I talked about my worries about him. “I can’t say for certain he’s safe, but I doubt going here would’ve caused him any harm. I’m pretty sure he would’ve ended up in the same state as you.”

I sighed in relief at that. “That’s nice to hear. I was just exhausted from doing too much magic so he should’ve been fine, though I’m worried he’d do something reckless to find me.”

“Possibly,” she said, then gave me a somewhat impressed look. “Still, a Stranger, eh? Not a bad amount of luck for his majesty.”

“Sounds like it,” I sound, feeling a bit down about that whole thing. “So what happens now?”

Lulamoon rose up from her cushion. “Hmm. My plan was to get you to Princess Luna, to try and figure out what to do from there, but if there is somepony else out there involved in this whole thing, we need to find him.”

“Good,” I said, the weight in my stomach still being there, but now feeling better when I had something to aim it towards.

“So,” Lulamoon started. “No hard feelings for tying you down?”

“I’m gonna say yes, just to get you to help me find Armor,” I said, with a hint of smarm on my face.

“Deal,” she said, and held out her hoof. “Let’s start over. Bellatrix Lulamoon, Knight of Equestria, but my friends call me Trixie.”

I shook it with a determined smirk. “Gabrielle Eleanor Desrocher, likewise, and my friends call me Gabe.”

Lulamoon, or Trixie, mirrored my expression. “Well, you might as well rest up,” she said. “We’re hours from civilization. Make yourself at home while I carry this place to a town, and we’ll start our search from there.”

I nodded as Trixie turned around and walked off, and slumped against the bed, intending to grab a few more bites of my sandwich before heating up the tea again.

‘Trixie…? Why does that name sound familiar? Wait– carry this place?’

Trixie’s home looked like a windowless ski lodge. It consisted of two levels, I was up on a large alcove, in a corner hidden by the aforementioned screen. A study was on the other side, with some bookshelves, a desk, and cushions large enough to sleep on.

Two stairs led down to a lower level, with a kitchen in one corner, with serving bars leading out into a fairly large lounge, again with bookshelves, but also with more couches and a large sofa. The whole thing was lit up in large parts by a set of fireplaces, together with candles, all enchanted to not be a fire hazard, last for a really long time, and to give off more light. The lack of windows first made me think it was underground, especially since it was so cozily made, with the wooden decor and the scent from the fireplaces adding to the homey feel of it.

The alcove was built on top of what I discovered was the bathroom. It, like the rest of the place, was curiously windowless, and the only door that didn’t lead to the bathroom was clearly the front door.

I had reattached the coverings for my prosthetics, reinserted my equipment in them, including my harmonica, and put on my eyepatch since I didn’t have any spare eyes, then I went for the front door.

Opening the door revealed a strange arrangement. A space, like a small antechamber, was on the other side, with cushions and ropes for gripping adorning the walls.

The most curious thing though, was the enormous cotton canvas stretched across the side opposite the door, tied shut with strings, like someone had crammed Trixie’s house in a huge bag. The sounds of the great outdoors were vaguely audible through the opening in the middle, and a hint of cool air blew in through it.

I scratched my head as I took in the strange sight before me, before shrugging and started unraveling the opening of the canvas.

I hadn’t realized before now how accurate I was with thinking that Trixie’s house was inside a bag.

As I poked my face out through the opening, I let out a startled sound as I felt gravity switch for my head, while remaining unchanged halfway down my neck. Now I realized what the handles were for, as I felt my head slightly pressing my body back towards the house.

There was a flap of cloth over the opening, which my horn lifted enough of for me to be able to see outside.

What I saw was a close up of Trixie’s neck, as she was magicking berries from a large bush in front of her into a bowl while humming softly to herself.

She turned her head to face me, smiling at me.

“Blackberries,” she said, turning back to the bush. “I mostly bring nonperishable foods with me, and when you’ve been out in the field for a few weeks, variation in taste can become important.”

I looked around to see I wasn’t imagining things, and indeed I was not. I was poking my head out of Trixie’s saddle bag. I peered over the edge, and that the bag wasn’t big enough to fit me inside it closed, much less a small house.

“I assume that this is some sort of magical arrangement?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” Trixie said. “I’m a bit proud of it.”

“You’re an inventor too then? You bring your whole house with you?”

“Well, a house,” she said. “I also have one where the post rider can find me, but yes I am a bit of an inventor. Here, let me help you out of there.”

Trixie’s horn lit up, and her magic enveloped me, then lifted me out of the bag, placing me on the forest floor. Chilly, but not covered in snow. ‘This is the second time I’ve traveled to a new world and woke up inside a bag.’

“Want to help?” she asked.

“Foraging? Sure,” I said.

Trixie poked her head in and out of her saddlebag, floating out another bowl. “We’re heading southwest,” she said. “Depending on how far we get today, we’ll reach Hollow Shades, or set up an early camp by a water source. You can never bring too much water, and we’ll want time to boil as much as possible.”

I took the bowl in my right hoof. “What’s in Hollow Shades?”

“Ponies,” she said, simply. “It’s a small town, but we’re looking for your friend, Armor, and the magic that brought you here has dissipated too much to track him by, so we’re going to have to do it the traditional way: by looking.”

I let out a reluctant sigh of disappointment, as I started gently picking out the ripe berries from the unripe ones.

“Don’t worry. We’ll find him,” Trixie assured me. “I didn’t see it, but judging from the sheer power used, you two arrived in spectacular fashion. Somepony will have noticed something.”

That was encouraging, but it took a few minutes of quiet berry picking before it started feeling encouraging.

“How far are we from where you found me?” I asked.

“Almost one day of walking, so about halfway to Hollow Shades.”

I looked at the forest around me, it was midday, and was almost free of frost except for a few spots where the sun hadn’t shone. “It seems further than that, considering the weather I was in.”

Trixie looked at me for a moment, before nodding. “Hmm? Ah, yes. The Equestria you come from would probably have better weather service, if your princesses have been good rulers this whole time and your villains were defeated.”

“Actually, I’m more used to the weather doing what it wants than it being controlled,” I pointed out. “And in that experience, judging from the amount of snow I was in, we would be pretty far away from where you found me.”

“Hmm. That’s interesting,” Trixie said, then looking a bit downcast. “Anyway, he did a good job considering he was busy protecting us from the princesses, but there were still a lot of bad weather between the settlements from neglect.”

“‘He’?” I said. “You mean Sombra?”

Trixie’s face fell a bit more. “Yeah.”

“You knew him?” I asked, although I had already figured that she did, being an alicorn and all.

“Yes,” she said. “I knew him. I’d like to think that I still know him.”

I could see she was hurting from remembering him, and decided to play a hunch. “What was he like?”

“Noble, brave,” she said, the somberness on her face melding with pleasant memories. “Kind, funny… handsome.”

I saw an opening to cheer her up, and took it. “Oh really?” I said, giving her a smarmy smirk.

She gave me a smirk of her own in response. “Very, but don’t get any ideas. He was only interested in your Celestia,” she said, then was about to continue, when the snapping of a twig sounded through the woods we were in.

We whipped our heads around, and gently set down the bowl with berries on the ground as we looked around. I slowly raised my prosthetic hoof to where the sound had come from.

“Calm down, you two,” a stallion’s voice called from somewhere among the trees. “I come in peace.”

At least I had first assumed that it was a stallion’s voice, but out of the trees walked a creature I had never seen before. It looked like a pony in profile and posture, but was covered in a shiny, black, chitinous exoskeleton. Pointy fins and ridges made up ears, tail, and a small mohawk-looking thing on the neck, a pair of large fangs jutted out of the mouth, and a pair of glowing, pupilless, turquoise eyes looked at us.

I didn’t know what to make of the creature, skulking around in the woods, yet openly making himself known, his appearance being kind of intimidating, yet having such a friendly expression.

Trixie openly calmed down when she saw what exactly had come out of the woods though, and even smiled at it, which helped. I slowly lowered my prosthesis.

“Ah,” Trixie said, happily. “It’s okay, Gabe. It’s one of Queen Chrysalis’ changelings.”

That almost jerked me into a defensive stance again, before I remembered how this world worked. I had only heard stories about Chrysalis and the changelings back in my Equestria, but considering what a bad reputation they had there, they should have quite a good one here.

“Indeed,” the changeling said. “And you are–” it, perhaps he, started, until he got a good look at Trixie, and bowed down “– Ser Lulamoon!” he said, before looking up at her. “What are you doing here?”

“No bowing,” she said. “We’re looking for somepony.”

The changeling rose up.

“Well, say the word and I’ll help,” a female voice said from the side.

Trixie and I looked to our side, and saw another changeling step out of the woods, and I couldn’t help but notice that the changeling in front of us didn’t react in the slightest at this.

This new changeling stepped up to the first one, who didn’t seem to acknowledge her presence, before they stepped into each other. I took a step back in alarm as a flash of green flames (green flames!!) engulfed the two, but the flames vanished as suddenly as they began, and then there was just one of them left.

“You made a diversion?” Trixie asked, one of her eyebrows raised.

“In a sense,” the changeling answered in a male voice. “My name is Poly.”

Trixie’s expression widened in realization. “Ah, I’ve heard about you,” she said, and turned to me. “Gabe, this is Poly. Poly, this is Gabrielle Eleanor Desrochers.”

“A pleasure,” Poly said, and smiled at me.

I felt the conversation was kinda leaving me behind, so I just nodded at him.

“What are you doing here?” Trixie asked.

“I’m my hive’s agent in Hollow Shades,” the changeling said.

“Oh, so we’re close to the town then?” Trixie asked.

“It’s less than an hour’s walk from here,” Poly said.

“Then I say we go there right now,” Trixie said, happily. “It’s still day. We should have time to ask around, and it wouldn’t hurt to resupply.”

I shrugged. “I’m all about moving fast right now. Lead on,” I said.

“Are you okay with flying?” Trixie asked.

“Uh, yeah,” I said.

Trixie shifted her saddle bags to make way for her wings. “Then climb on. Flying will get us there in no time,” she said.

I did so, and saw Poly stretching out a pair of dragonfly-like wings, before hovering above the ground with a loud buzzing.

We flew off to a road, the one we had gotten to where we were, I assumed, before ascending above the treeline and following it from the air.

“So, Ser Lulamoon,” Poly started, loud enough to be heard above the wind, but not needing to shout.

“Just Trixie is fine, and if it’s not, please skip the honorifics,” Trixie said.

“Trixie... Phantoms, it’s so strange to say it like that,” Poly said. “So, Trixie, Can you share some more about why you’re here?”

“You heard about the transdimensional magic his majesty was involved in?” Trixie asked.

“Yes,” Poly said, nodding. “Have you found anything?”

“I have. I’ve found the great, otherworldly threat he summoned,” Trixie said, and looked back at me with a small smile. “She’s sitting on my back.”

The changeling’s head looked at me for a moment. He was about to continue the conversation when Trixie’s words registered with him, and he whipped his head back to gaze at me. “This is…? Wait, how are…? Who…? … What?” he asked.

I found myself flustering about as much Poly about what to say to that.

Trixie chuckled at him. “Turns out there was no cosmic horror he was talking with. Gabrielle here is a Stranger.”

“Oh. How does that help though?” he asked.

“Gabe comes from the other Equestria. As always, he’s trying to get back to that Celestia,” Trixie said. “Since Gabe is a Stranger, she doesn’t have a counterpart over here, so he could control her and use her to open a portal from the other side.”

Poly’s eye ridges raised as he, or she, looked at me. “I see. I didn’t see that coming.”

“Everyone seems to be familiar with that term,” I noted. “I’ve never heard of it until recently.”

“It’s not a common subject,” Trixie said. “But people like us, associates of Sombra, know a thing or two about travelling between worlds.”

“He was very close to us. We were loyal to him for a reason,” Poly said. “So, Gabrielle–”

“That would actually be Ser Gabrielle,” Trixie noted.

“Really?” Poly asked.

“Uh, I guess,” I said. “Don’t worry though. I got knighted just before I got here, so I’m not very used to it. Besides, I might as well keep a low profile.”

“Alright,” Poly said, shrugging. “Phantoms, no knights these days like their titles. Anyway, who are you? Your scent is very mature.”

“Uh, what?” I said.

“Never met a changeling?” Poly asked.

I shook my head. “No. They have a very bad reputation where I’m from.”

“Oh. Of course,” Poly said, considering this for a moment. “That’s pretty flattering for us changelings over here I suppose.”

“If this world is mirrored in the way I understand, I guess so,” I said. “What do you mean I smell mature?”

“You might not know this, but changelings feed on emotions, mainly love,” Poly said.

“I’ve heard that part,” I noted.

“Right. Well, you have the scent of an adult pony,” Poly said. “You smell much older than you look. Deep and heavy, like when you stick your muzzle into an emptied keg of cherry.”

I looked askance at him in puzzlement. “Okay? It probably has something to do with me being turned into a pony from a human, which has an average lifespan of less than a hundred years.”

Poly and Trixie looked at me. “Oh,” Trixie just stated.

“Yeah. No trouble believing that?” I asked.

“I’ve never heard of a ‘human’ before,” Trixie said. “It makes sense with you being a Stranger.”

“And I have no reason to doubt my senses,” Poly said.

In the distance, a small town peeked out of the woods, which seemed smaller than Ponyville, if perhaps a bit more compact. Only one or two houses rose above the trees, while most others were much more humble. Almost all of the houses had plumes of smoke gently rising from the chimneys and drifting away into the surrounding forest.

“Here we are,” Poly said. “Ponies should start getting off work about now.”

“Have anyone of you looked for missing people before?”

“Not really,” Trixie said.

“Yes, but only ponies who’ve gotten lost in the woods,” Poly said.

“Does anyone of you have any general adventuring experience?” I asked.

“Some,” Poly said. “I’m helping to protect the town, so there’s been a few scuffles here and there.”

“I’ve been on a few journeys,” Trixie offered.

“Now she’s being modest,” Poly said to me. “The exploits of Ser Lulamoon are legend.”

“Really?” I asked.

“It’s all relative,” Trixie said, evenly, and shrugged.

“But you guys don’t know how to start looking for someone that you have no idea where they are?” I asked.

“We have a few leads,” Trixie asked. “Like I said, you two must have made a splash wherever you ended up, and we’ll send word to Canterlot to have Luna inform her network on what to look for. What do you think?”

“Uhm… the only stories I can think of starts with the leads nestling themselves into the local fishing tavern and trawling for rumors,” I said.

“We don’t have a lot of gryphons around here, so nopony fishes, but I was just about to suggest the same thing,” Poly said, as we descended into the edge of the town.

Hollow Shades lived up to its name. The surrounding woods were thick and made up of dark examples of trees, with dark green leaves that had muted hints of silver in them, and deep brown bark. The houses were nestled closely together, with additional mighty trees with thick crowns of leaves between them.

It all gave the town a shaded, yet cosy, feel to it.

I also detected a sense of wariness from the ponies walking on the roads, but that quickly dissipated when they saw Poly.

We, and several others, seemed to gravitate towards a large building, the insides of which were brightly lit.

We stepped into a welcoming aroma of food, drink, and candlelight. This was the inn, with tables, booths, a bartender and waitress, and some ponies setting up a few instruments by a large fireplace along one of the greater walls.

Like actual saloons in the old west, and not the ones you see in the movies, this tavern was active, lively, smelled of good food, and not filled with the sounds of drunken brawls and the stench of drying drinks and vomit. The ponies that were coming here to relax after a day of work were neighbors with the place, and, even if they did feel rowdy, didn’t have a spare inn to go to if they broke this one

The ponies in the room as a whole gave us a look as we entered, but this was obviously the standard treatment for newcomers. There were plenty of spare seats in the large room, as the regulars were still trickling in. Some stares lingered on me though, probably because of my eye patch. I also took it as a good sign that it didn’t feel like the Mos Eisley cantina.

An earth pony mare sat by a round table next to a unicorn stallion, twiddling with a deck of cards. “Hey, Poly,” she said happily. “Hungry?”

“Actually, yes. Are you offering?” Poly asked, as we walked up to her.

“Yes. I was starting to think you were trying to starve yourself,” she noted.

The stallion’s face fell a bit. “I was kinda hoping…” he started.

Poly answered him with a suddenly very female voice. “Actually, we might be able to arrange something.”

His face lit up with a small and slightly abashed smile. “I’d like that.”

I stared at the big bug pony my eye wide, but no one else seemed to think this was strange.

Changelings fed on love, so I was a bit curious about what they were planning. I had to admit though, for a giant bug, Poly looked very appealing.

‘Tihi… cuddlebug.’

By now, they had noticed Trixie being an alicorn, and looked at her in awe.

“Are you… Ser Lulamoon?” the mare asked.

Trixie nodded at them with a tired-looking smile. Poly seemed to notice this, and whispered conspiratorially to them, this time in a male voice, “Let’s keep this to ourselves for now.”

The two ponies nodded, and the mare pulled an imaginary zipper over her lips. They gave me one more curious look before Poly led us away to an empty booth.

We slid into a pretty spacious booth, far larger than what the three of us needed, and at first I was a bit curious as to why we picked this one.

“You know this town pretty well,” Trixie noted to Poly.

“I’d like to think so,” he or she answered in a female voice, before catching the attention of the waitress, a pegasus mare.

Poly nodded towards the bartender, a pegasus stallion, and then towards the booth we were sitting in. The waitress returned the gesture, and went to collect the bartender. I was kinda impressed by the pull he or she seemed to have in the town.

The bartender and waitress came over a few moments later.

“Hey, Poly,” the apron-adorned bartender said, holding a large mug in one wing, and rubbing the inside of it with his other wing covered in a rag. “Who are your friends?”

“This is Trixie and Gabe,” Poly said.

“A pleasure to meet you,” the waitress said, and smiled at us.

“Likewise,” Trixie and I said at the same time.

The pegasus’ eyes widened in realization. “Ah, Ser Lulamoon,” the bartender said, and nodded towards Trixie.

Trixie shifted slightly uncomfortably at this.

“I think…” Poly said. “That we want to keep this focused.”

“Of course,” the bartender said. They leaned in and spoke in low voices. “You’re here on business?”

“We are,” Poly said. “Is Wood Fiber in town?”

“He sure is,” the waitress said.

“Great,” Poly said. “Anypony else new in town?”

“You got two sitting next next to you,” the waitress pointed out.

“Other than that,” Poly said.

“There was one mare,” the bartender said, slowly, as she thought. “I think she came in from the southeast, but I’m not sure whether she’s left or not. She probably knows somepony in town, because she didn’t check in.”

Poly nodded. “Right. Thanks, you two.”

“No problem,” the waitress said. “Would you like to order anything?”

The bartender and waitress went back after we ordered our food, and Poly turned to me and Trixie.

“This other pony we’re looking for, are they also from the other Equestria?” Poly asked.

“Yes,” Trixie said. “His name is Studded Armor. He came here at the same time as Gabe.”

“A stallion then,” Poly said to him or herself. “Wood Fiber is a post rider, it could be worth checking with him if he’s seen anything lately. Then there’s Dandelion. She’s the local bailiff, she tends to keep track of new arrivals, and always keeps one ear to the ground in general.”

“Oh, uh, good,” I said.

The waitress came by with our food right then, and I eagerly dug into my sadly ham-free grilled cheese sandwich.

“So, would you two like some help in looking for this Armor?” Poly offered.

Trixie looked up from her fruit bowl and considered this for a moment. “What do you say, Gabe?” she asked.

“I uh… I guess,” I said. “I don’t feel uh… I… I feel a little lost right now. I’m just going with the flow.”

“We can get to know each other for a bit before you decide,” Poly offered.

I was certainly curious about some things. “Okay,” I said. “I kinda wanna know if you’re a… I don’t even know if it’s mares or stallions when it comes to changelings, but… what are you?”

Poly looked at me uncertainly. “You did know about changelings,” he/she pointed out.

“Yeah, but I didn’t hear anything about them using multiple voices,” I said.

“Oh! Right,” Poly said, looking a bit abashed. “We’re Poly. I’m Polyus,” he/she said in a male voice. “And I’m Polyusa,” he/she continued in a female voice.

Here’s where Poly somehow spoke with both voices simultaneously. “Usually only one of us talks at once. A lot of ponies get confused when we both talk at the same time.”

I slowly put my sandwich down on my plate, and slowly inclined my head at the changeling with a disbelieving expression.

“I’m not actually a changeling,” Polyus said, and scratched off a small chip of exoskeleton from his back.

He placed the chip on the bench beside him, and with a green flame (green flames!), it grew into an almost identical changeling.

“We’re two changelings,” Polyusa said, then the two changelings melded together in a green flame (... green flames).

“In the body of one changeling,” Polyus finished happily.

“... Oh,” I said. “Doesn’t it get... cramped?”

“Sometimes,” Polyusa said. “But we’re also never alone.”

“Good thing when we work by ourselves out in the woods,” Polyus said.

The entity known as Poly looked away from me and Trixie, raised its head and stared into the ceiling.

“It wouldn’t hurt with some more company,” Polyusa said.

“Oh, am I not good enough for you anymore?” Polyus said, and chuckled.

“That’d be the day,” Polyusa said, smirking. “You’d probably get to choose weapons, and I’d chose the time and place.”

I glanced at Trixie, who just shrugged at me. “I kinda knew about this already,” she said. “Chrysalis told me.”

I nodded a bit absentmindedly at her. “Would you like a glove, or perhaps that would be a sock around here, to slap yourself with?” I asked.

“Oh, don’t worry. I have one ready,” Polyusa said.

“She’s really selling you on whether we should join you, isn’t she?” Polyus asked, and I was pretty sure he was talking to me.

“I, uh… I just want Armor back,” I said, looking down into my lap.

Worrying about him was starting to take its toll on me. I hadn’t even been up a full day, and already I felt fatigue taking hold of me. My stomach knotted, and looked miserably at my half-eaten sandwich. Just like that, my appetite was gone.

Trixie and Poly looked at me, then Trixie scooted closer to me and put her foreleg around my shoulder. “We’ll find him,” she said. “Try and eat. Get your strength back. Maybe he’s heading here, looking for you, and if he’s in trouble, we’re going to help him, and to do that you need to eat.”

I nodded, and forced another bite into my mouth. It didn’t taste much but I made myself keep eating.

“I’m curious,” Poly said. “Your legs… they’re not real, are they?”

“Uhm, they’re not flesh, if that’s what you mean,” I said.

“Would you… mind if I ask how you got them?” Poly said.

“No, it’s fine,” I said. “I already told Trixie. I was in an accident when I was a human. Humans… don’t really have magic, so when I came to Equestria, and became a unicorn, I made these. It took awhile, but I finally did it.”

“That sounds… harrowing,” Trixie said, sympathetically.

That just made me think of the real casualties. My parents. I stared unseeingly out into the crowd, before trying to stop the silence from becoming awkward. “It was… “ I started, before shrugging, and continued, “My friend from the other Equestria, Rainbow Dash, had such a great vocabulary for this. Lame, uncool, totally dis-radical, absolutely and horrendously deplorable… no, wait, that was Rarity.”

“You seem to have come out on top,” Polyusa noted.

I nodded half-heartedly at that.

“She means that in a good way,” Polyus said.

“Everything was great up until so recently,” I said, starting to stare out into nothingness again, before my eyes hardened, and I looked at Poly.

“I’m not losing him too,” I said, almost shocking myself with the force I said it with, and annihilated the last of my sandwich and drink.

“We believe you,” Polyus said, and sniffed the air. “We really believe you. We’ll help if you’ll have us.”

“Welcome aboard then,” I said, around the last bit of sandwich still on my mouth, nodding at Poly. “What’s next?”

“We stock up on supplies and look for clues,” Trixie said.

“Right,” I said, nodding. I might’ve wanted to get on with it, but I remembered when I had been a private detective, sort of, and how much time I spent just looking for things and thinking about what to do next.

I turned to Poly. “So, do I call you a ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘they’?”

Poly shrugged. “Any you like,” Polyus said. “We usually let ponies talk to the one they’re most familiar with, or at least their voice. Both of us can mimic any voice we want.”

I thought about this for a moment. “Male then,” I said, shrugging. “I hang around with enough women.”

“What’s a women?”

“Uhm, mares,” I clarified.

“You never said what happened to your eye,” Trixie said.

“I didn’t? I lost it at the same time I lost my limbs,” I said, lifting up my eyepatch. Trixie had already seen the blank eye I had underneath, but Poly took a close look at it. “I have several of these back home, but they keep falling out and getting dirty, so I’m keeping my patch on until I can enchant this to stay in there.”

“Does it work? Like your leg I mean,” Polyus asked.

“No. I managed to make lenses that partially restored sight right before I got here,” I said. “But that doesn’t work with these, so I’m gonna start looking into that.”

“Why make lenses that doesn’t work with you?” Trixie asked.

“There was this mare back home who had been blinded in… a changeling attack,” I said.

“Changeling attack?” Polyus said, skeptically.

“Apparently, changelings attacked during a royal wedding,” I said.

Trixie and Poly just looked at me in disbelief.

“Why?” Trixie asked.

“To capture everyone and feed off their love,” I said. “Or that’s what I heard. It happened before I came to Equestria.”

“Who came up with that idea?” Polyus asked, in disbelief.

“Uh, Queen Chrysalis,” I said.

Trixie and Poly deflated and stared into the distance as they contemplated this.

“Wow. Your Equestria really is different,” Trixie said, shifting a bit uncomfortably. “Makes you wonder.”

“Yeah… have any of you ever heard of Twilight Sparkle?” I asked

“No,” Polyus said.

“Don’t think so,” Trixie said.

“Pinkie Pie?" I suggested, and they shook their heads. “Rainbow Dash? Applejack, Rarity, or Fluttershy then?”

“Oh, right,” Trixie said. “They were some gang of troublemakers who got ran out of Ponyville. I think they’re serving a few weeks in Canterlot’s prison.”

“... Wow,” I said, feeling both relieved that they didn’t seem as capable as the ones I knew, and that I’d probably never meet them. “They’re actually heroes in my Equestria, and Twilight is an alicorn.”

“Really?” Polyus asked.

“Yeah. She’s the Princess of Friendship,” I said. “... And if they’re not good friends, I guess they wouldn’t be able to accomplish what they did back home.”

I looked at Trixie, and her wings. “Hey, what are you princess of?”

Trixie looked taken aback by this. “Oh, nothing,” she said,

“She’s the Paragon of Modesty,” Polyus helpfully provided.

“It’s… nothing special,” Trixie said, sinking deeper into her seat a bit.

“You… would say that though, wouldn’t you?” I asked. “Is that a title you have? Paragon?”

“Yep,” Polyus said. “My queen, Chrysalis, is the Paragon of Love.”

“Oh. That sounds nice,” I offered.

“She is. Everypony loves her, and I mean everypony. She loves everypony back too,” Polyus said, and suddenly spotted something over at the other side of the room. “Aha. There’s Wood Fiber and there’s Dandelion. Sit tight, I’ll get them.”

Trixie and I remained in our seats as Poly got up and walked away.

“That’s progress, don’t you think?” Trixie asked. “We’ve found help, and we might even get a lead now.”

I nodded silently, looking down into my lap.

“Do you think he can be trusted?” I asked, looking up at Trixie.

She smiled comfortingly at me. “Chrysalis is a loyal ally to Luna, and the changelings are loyal to Chrysalis. They’d know if one of them, or two in this case, weren’t.”

I nodded, and let my head fall again.

“Is something bothering you? That I don’t know already I mean,” Trixie asked.

“Do… do you think he can control me again?” I asked.

Trixie shifted a bit. “Oh, I see. Ehm, I don’t really know. Controlling somepony like that isn’t exactly written in textbooks, but maybe?”

“I’m… worried,” I said.

“Hey, Luna will know,” Trixie said, putting a hoof on my shoulder. “And she can teach you to protect yourself.”

“I haven’t met this Luna though,” I said.

“I’m taking you to her after we’ve found Armor,” Trixie assured me. “We’ll think of something until then.”

“I… already have,” I admitted. “This is uh, kinda embarrassing, but… can you… make sure I can’t try anything when I sleep again?”

Trixie looked questioningly at me for a moment before she realized what I was talking about. “Sure,” she said, smiling at me.

“But perhaps skip the mask?”

“No problem.”

“And don’t tell anyone?”

“Not a soul.”

That made me feel a little better. I figured that if I removed my prosthetics there shouldn’t be any risk left.

Poly was talking with not two, but three ponies, on the other side of the room. A unicorn stallion, an earth pony mare, and one whose tribe I couldn’t be sure of since they were wearing a travel cloak. I couldn’t quite hear what they’re saying, even with my sharpened hearing, but the pony in the cloak seemed to be an interesting surprise for Poly.

The stallion said something, and the three ponies held a short conversation. The mare and the stallion excused themselves shortly afterward, and Poly asked the cloaked pony a few quick questions before he led her towards our table.

“It turns out that both Wood Fiber and Dandelion had heard about some strange phenomenons going on down south,” Polyus said, and gestured towards what I could now see was a white-coated mare underneath her hood. “... From Miss Tulip here. White Tulip, Ser Lulamoon and Ser Desrochers. Ser Lulamoon and Ser Desrochers, meet White Tulip.”

The mare looked a bit uncertain at the whole situation, seeing an alicorn and a filly with an eyepatch and metallic hooves, but gave a ready smile at us, and nodded respectfully. “Good evening.”

“Good evening,” Trixie and I answered.

“Have a seat,” Trixie said.

“Thank you,” Tulip said, sitting down beside us.

She was a fairly lanky mare, in that way that I had now figured out was considered beautiful by ponies. I also sensed quite a bit of poise beneath her uncertain behavior, like she was a model: comfortable in most social situations, or at least good at making herself seem that way.

“Like I said before, we were wondering about strange, magical phenomenons that might have occurred during the last two days,” Polyus said.

“Indeed,” Trixie said. “It might’ve looked a bit like a localized aurora, but short-lived. Powerful magic going off, and I believe it was green in color.”

Tulip nodded. “Yes. I was heading east towards Dodge City, circling around Rambling Rock Ridge, when I saw it.”

The three of us leaned in. “Where was it?” I asked.

“Uhm, south. Somewhere west of Dodge City,” she said. “There were a few clouds out, and the lights reflected very clearly off them. A bright, green shimmer, and what looked like lightning close to the ground.”

“Did anypony else see this?” Polyus asked.

“Yes. I heard some ponies in Dodge City talk about it the next day,” Tulip said.

“Nopony near you?” Trixie asked.

“No, there were nopony around me at the time.”

Trixie raised an eyebrow at her. “You were travelling to Dodge City all by yourself?”

A pair of wings suddenly, but gently, lifted up White Tulip’s cloak. “I’m a stronger flier than I look. Though I was still running a bit late.”

Trixie nodded, seeming convinced, and I had to leave the scrutiny of wings to her.

“How was it like around there?” I asked. “Bad weather? Beasts?”

“Where the lights shined?” she said, and shrugged. “Nothing in particular. A bit desolate, but nothing to worry about. I didn’t fly over to look closer though, I wanted to get to Dodge City.”

“Hold on,” Trixie said, and shoved her head into her portable house, before emerging with a map and a pencil in her magical field. “Can you mark on this where you saw it?”

“I think so,” Tulip said, and took the pencil in her mouth, drawing a line west of Dodge City, and a circle a small distance south of that. “I must’ve been somewhere along here, which means that I saw the lights from somewhere here.”

The twin feelings of exhilaration and trepidation settled in my chest. We now had something to commit to, and with it, the risk of losing progress if anything should go wrong.

I fought down the negative part of the sensation, and turned from the map to Tulip. “And there were no one else around?”

The mare shrugged and shook her head a bit apologetically. “There were trains heading back and forth down there, but I can’t say if anypony else saw anything.”

Trixie and Poly exchanged a glance, seeming satisfied. I couldn’t think of anything else to ask either.

“Well, thank you,” Trixie said. “I don’t know how to repay you for this, but perhaps something from the menu?”

“Oh, no,” Tulip said, and shook her head. “I’m quite satisfied, and happy to help. I’m thinking of retiring right about now, but I wish you luck.”

“Thank you,” I said, giving the mare a grateful smile.

“You’re welcome,” she said, smiling back, before giving off a happily surprised sound as Poly offered his hoof to her as she rose from her seat.

“Yes, retiring,” Trixie said. “What do you say about that, Gabe?”

“I could do that,” I said. “... Although.”

Trixie smiled at me. “Don’t worry, I got it. I’m going to talk to the innkeeper. I need to stock up on water, empty the septic tank, other things like that, but we can do that tomorrow.”

“Do we take a room or do we use your place?” I asked.

“Which one do you prefer?” she asked.

“I… really don’t want to lose these around here,” I said, gesturing with my prosthetics.

“Alright, climb in, and we’ll get you set.”

“And I have a buffet to get to,” Poly said happily, walked over to the ponies we first saw when we entered the inn, and put his hooves around the two of them, who looked up at him with smiles on their faces.

I climbed into Trixie’s home, with her following behind me. “We’ll get another bed tomorrow. For now, would you like my bed or do you want a spare cushion?”

“Uhm, cushion,” I said, knowing that I hadn’t washed properly in two days.

Trixie collected a cushion the size of a small bed, and placed it behind the screen up the stairs by her bed. “I’ll be putting the house in a room,” she said, floating over some rope to us. “But I’ll be here in case you need to get up.”

“Thank you,” I said, removing half of my limbs and offering the rest of them to her. “Can I get some pen and papers?”

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll light the candles too. What are you gonna do?”

“I need to start working on this eye,” I said, as my hooves were being tied together.

“I see,” Trixie said, putting the ring I had over my horn before on the nightstand beside me. “Just slip this onto your horn when you’re ready.”

“Got it,” I said, and magicked my limbs in front of her. “I don’t want to lose these, can you put them somewhere safe?”

“Of course,” she said, and magiced over the pen and paper I had asked for. “Do you have everything?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Trixie?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. For everything.”

She smiled comfortingly at me, and put a pillow under my head and a blanket up to my neck. “Don’t mention it. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

I nestled into the cushion with surprising ease, and started working on my next project. I was both tired from the massive exhaustion from when I had gotten here, and fired up from making some progress in finding Armor, and I was planning on directing that energy at something and tire myself out at the same time.

Half an hour later of intense, but reasonable, use of magic energy, I had tired myself out, and magically anchored my prosthetic eye in my socket.

I gave it a few magical yanks, but it stayed put, painlessly.

Satisfied, I floated the ring over my head.

Aiming carefully, I let it drop right over my horn, and I was suddenly very helpless. With that helplessness, my resolve to find Armor simply increased.

‘I’ll find you, I promise.’

I was under the impression that I woke up early. There were no windows though, so it was hard to say, but while I couldn’t see her from my spot down on the cushion, I could hear Trixie still breathing calmly on her bed.

By now, I felt fully recovered from the night I came here, and that it was going to be a pretty good day. I had allies and clues, and, as soon as Trixie woke up, limbs as well.

I tried to magically yank my prosthetic eye, just to make sure it was still working, when I felt my magic bound inside that fuzzy feeling from the ring. ‘Oh, right. Duh.’

I made myself as comfortable as possible with my legs tied together, snuggled into my pillow again and closed my eye.

“Morning,” Trixie said.

I looked up at her, looking over the edge of the bed. “Morning.”

“Wow, you’re a light sleeper,” she said. “I didn’t keep you up, did I?”

“No, I was already awake.”

“Alright, hold on,” she said, yawning, as she struggled out of bed. “I’ll get you out of that.”

“Thanks,” I said, as she started magically untying the rope.

“You want your legs too, I take it?”

“Yes please,” I said, and pulled the ring off my horn.

Trixie slipped out from behind the screen, and reappeared with my prostheses in her magical field.

I took them in my hoof, and couldn’t help but smile at how intensely Trixie looked at what I was going to do next.

“You just turn this bracelet-looking thing up here to turn it on,” I said, before doing so with my foreleg and simply slapping it on, neglecting to mention that that’s not how you turn them off as well.

“Interesting,” she said, looking on with interest as I attached my hind leg as well.

I stood up and stretched. then we walked out of Trixie’s bag, into a room at the inn.

We saw Poly coming out of the door to the room beside ours, giving a smile and a small wave to whoever was still in there.

“Mor– Oooof,” he said, sounding a bit bloated as he wobbled down to hall to join us. “Morning.”

“Good morning. Filled up?” Trixie asked, with a knowing smile.

“Very,” he half said, half groaned, and closed his mouth to burp. “Phantoms, I might’ve had too much. This ought to last me for a while.”

“That word,” I noted, as we walked down the stairs to the main room. “‘Phantoms’, you said that yesterday as well. What does it mean? I mean, I know what a phan–.”

“Mm, let’s order breakfast first,” he said, holding up a hoof placatingly.

I thought that was a strange thing to say for someone who looked and walked like him, but I shrugged it off.

We were the only ones in the main room, except the bartender (who I figured was also the innkeeper) who took our orders before going back to cleaning the bar, and the waitress who had now switched over to making breakfast.

Once I had my waffles in front of me, Poly spoke up again.

“The Silver Phantoms,” he started in a voice low enough to not be overheard, “were a mysterious people from somewhere in the frozen north. At least so we think.”

I started listening intently, happy to have some entertainment with my breakfast. “... Okay,” I said, after swallowing down a large bite. “Like, from the Crystal Empire?”

Trixie and Poly immediately shook their heads. “No,” they said, before stopping and nodding a bit uncertainly.

“Actually, that depends on how you look at it,” Trixie said. “The ponies of the Crystal Empire were ruthless conquerors, who used the powers of the Jagged Heart to fuel their conquest.”

“... Really?” I said, between chews.

“Yes,” Poly said. “All of Equestria lived in fear of them. Terrified that they were going to be absorbed into the Empire, forced into a life of servitude, or be soldiers in their conquering armies.”

“But then,” Trixie said. “The Silver Phantoms appeared to defend Equestria from the Empire. The legends say that they were some form of ghostly ponies, that shined with a beautiful light, and had magical capabilities never seen before or since.

“We don’t know exactly who they were, or what happened, but after a long time they defeated the Crystal Empire. Then, for some reason, they vanished, leaving behind only one of their kind, a foal, closer in form to a pony, who the ancient Equestrians crowned their king, and who defended them from evils for millennia.”

I leaned back when I caught up with the story. “You mean it was…?”

“Sombra,” Trixie said.

I sat back to contemplate this. It made sense. Ponies were long-lived, and legends said that Starswirl may have cheated death in some manner, but still, thousands of years and looking like he was in his prime was reserved for alicorns, and apparently other higher beings.

“And you’re out to fight him,” I noted carefully.

Poly and Trixie nodded sadly, as Trixie poked at her food, and Poly looked down at the table.

“How… is the situation?” I carefully asked. “With Sombra I mean. Is there any contact with him? Where is he?”

Trixie seemed to steel herself before answering. “There is no contact,” she said. “He’s in the old Crystal Empire stronghold up in the north. Equestria is still reeling from all the… ‘loyalists’, who joined him, but he hasn’t done anything yet.”

“So he’s… biding his time or something?” I asked.

“Or something, yes,” Polyus said. “There’s been a lot of worry about who is loyal to Equestria and who is loyal to Sombra, but Luna still has the people’s love, and she’s been urging caution. This isn’t the time for neighbors pointing hooves at each other.”

“And Sombra hasn’t acted?” I asked.

“No,” Trixie said. “Whether it’s because he’s preparing, forming a new country from the ground up, or because he doesn’t want to, we don’t know, but a lot of people think that’s encouraging, and means that he doesn’t want to do anything to Equestria. Perhaps he doesn’t, but we know he has agents everywhere.”

“And what about Celestia?”

Trixie took a moment before answering. “We don’t know that either,” she said. “Luna might, but when Celestia was purged from the evil in her, she didn’t take the throne. According to Luna, Celestia feels that she’s unworthy, but we don’t know where she is. I’ve barely seen her myself, so I don’t know much about her, but Luna says that she’ll make a good princess one day.”

I nodded to that. “I think so,” I said. “She’s the princess where I’m from, and that Equestria is, like, practically a utopia as far as I’m concerned.”

Trixie and Poly contemplated this, and small smiles seemed to sneak their way onto their faces.

“That does sound great,” Poly said.

“How was Luna before she…” Trixie started, and paused to consider something. “Okay, uhm, so millenia ago, Luna was out to conquer Equestria along with her sister, then she joined Sombra for a thousand years to help him rule, which is why everypony loves her. Where was your Luna during that time?”

“Banished to the moon, as I understand it,” I said.

Trixie and Poly looked at me in disbelief at that.

“Wait,” Polyusa said. “How does… why–”

“I think what she means to say is,” Polyus said. “Who was powerful enough to do that?”

“Remember those Elements of Harmony I told you about?” I asked Trixie, who nodded. “And you know of them too?” I asked Poly, who shook his head.

“They were powerful magical artefacts that Celestia and Luna wielded a thousand years ago,” I said. “Luna was possessed by some dark entity called ‘The Nightmare’, who tried to rule Equestria through her. Celestia used The Elements to banish Luna to the moon, and when she broke free a while back, Twilight Sparkle and her friends had gained control of The Elements, and used them to purge Luna of The Nightmare.”

Trixie and Poly sat back, looking stunned.

“Wow,” Trixie said. “We got the better deal in that regard. We got to have Luna with us all that time. How is your Luna now?”

“She’s fine,” I said. “At least as far as I know her. She wasn’t actually conscious while The Nightmare controlled her. Although she still has trouble not speaking in a very old-timey way.”

Trixie and Poly seemed amused by that.

“This is pretty… encouraging, don’t you think?” Poly asked Trixie.

“Yeah,” Trixie said. “With any luck, Equestria, our Equestria, will be just as good one day.”

I was soaking in the Inn’s bath on the second floor, scrubbing my back as I watched what was happening outside the window. Trixie’s head was sticking out of her bag, keeping an eye on the piping they had connected between her house’s water tank and the water tower across the street.

Poly and the innkeeper walked up to her, Poly rolling a wooden barrel along and the bartender with sacks on his back, and stopped by the bag, continuing a conversation.

Trixie joined in, and started magicking the sacks and the barrel into her house. I figured that they were discussing supplies and traveling, while also saying goodbye to Poly, considering how the innkeeper threw his forelegs around him, or them, slapping the changeling on the back and wishing them luck.

I was about ready to join them, but I still took half a minute to let the warm water soothe me before getting out and drying myself off. Not very thoroughly, since that takes ages with a coat and a mane like mine.

I walked out to see the makeshift pipeline to Trixie’s bag being disassembled and shaken out by some townsponies.

“Are we ready?” I asked.

“Just about,” Trixie said, and looked closer at me. “We were planning on flying, but you’re practically soaked.”

“Oh,” I said, sheepishly. “I guess I should’ve realized.”

Trixie shrugged, crouched down, and opened her bag. “Well, hop in and wrap yourself in something warm, but be careful when you stick your head out again.”

“Is it safe for me to be inside there while we’re flying?” I asked.

“It’s safer for you if the house falls off with you in it than if you simply fall off me,” Trixie said. “Just use the hammock by the entrance.”

“Got it. How long is it to Dodge City?”

“About seven hours if we don’t want to tire ourselves out,” Trixie said. “What about you, Poly? You guys are not gonna get a stitch from flying after your feast are you?”

“If we do, I’m letting her take over,” Polyus muttered. “It’s mostly her fault, and ask her how hard it is to clutch your side when you have an exoskeleton.”

“How hard is it?” I asked.

“... Hard,” Polyusa said, sounding a bit embarrassed.

“Climb in if you need to,” Trixie said.

“Thanks,” Polyus said. “We just need to work out some kinks.”

I smiled slightly to myself as I climbed into Trixie’s house. I went to the bathroom and collected a large towel to wrap around myself, then walked back and strapped myself into the hammock-like thing by the entrance before poking my head back out.

Hollow Shades was vanishing beneath us as the wind caught my mane, making it wave behind me like a flag on one of those little flagpoles people sometimes puts on their motorcycles.

“What’s Dodge City like?” I asked.

“Uh, desert town,” Polyus said. “Don’t know much about it ourselves, which ponies sometimes assume we do.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Changelings aren’t bothered by warm climates,” Trixie clarified.

“Oh,” I said, and peered down at the landscape passing by beneath us.

I missed flying with Armor, and it wasn’t even rose-tinted glasses that made me think back on when I did, and how every time I sat down on his back it was like that scene in The Two Towers, where Gandalf is all like, “I get to ride the best horse,” and then we see his horse running up to him in slow motion like it was Baywatch.

I picked out my harmonica from my hind leg prosthesis. “Hey, you guys mind if I play?” I asked.

“Sure won’t,” Polyus said, and flew beneath Trixie to the side where I was hanging out from.

Maybe it was a subconscious desire to start off our quest similarly to one I knew that had a successful conclusion, or maybe it was just what I felt like playing, but I started off with She Caught The Katy.

My harmonica skills needed some work, but after a while I was getting the hang of it again and it sounded fine enough for travelling, especially since it was just me and my single instrument.

I couldn’t sing while playing though, which was just as well considering the lyrics and where I was at the moment.

“Aaw, finished?” Polyus asked when I stopped playing.

“I can continue later,” I said. “But I’m getting tired. I need to continue working on my eye.”

“You said that you were knighted back in your Equestria for donating your discoveries,” Trixie said. “I hope you’ll consider doing the same here.”

“Natch,” I said. “As soon as we find Armor.”

“So is your eye working?” Polyus asked.

“Yes and no,” I said. “Like I said before, I managed to make lenses that worked with scarred eyes, but that means I only have to bypass the outer parts of the eye. If the inner parts are still there, I have a bunch of eye left to work with.”

“Whereas yours is missing altogether?” Trixie asked.

“Yep, and I tried some stuff last night, but it was like the whole surface of the eye was one big pupil.”

“Do you think we could help?” Polyus asked.

“I’m sure there’s stuff to learn in this world, so yes,” I said.

“No, I meant me and Polyusa,” Polyus said.

I cocked my head a bit. “Are you two enchanters as well?”

“No, but we are shapeshifters,” Polyus pointed out. “If you need a surface for your eye, one of us could be that.”

“That… sounds intriguing,” I admitted, before falling silent for a few moments. “Can you incorporate changeling magic into objects?”

“Sure,” Polyus said. “That’s how we make our hives.”

‘The possibilities are endless!’

“Yeah, I think I’ll take you up on that.”

Within the span of fifteen minutes, I had tried working on my enchantments, given up on that and considered playing something, dismissed that, and just hung around in the hammock. I couldn’t think up anything to talk with Trixie and Poly about, and had just started thinking up horrible scenarios that Armor might’ve been in.

That probably doesn’t sound very healthy, but I was worried, I couldn’t help myself.

Then my thoughts slowly turned somber.

I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be back home in my Equestria, where I had a bunch of friends, Armor, whose friendship had been slowly but steadily growing deeper and never seemed to stop doing so, a princess who looked after me, a nurse-friend who always said the right thing.

I had things to do. Classmates to explore the forests with, enchantments to work on, inventions to make, that deep and warm feeling from giving prosthetics to people who needed them.

There was even a classmate with a crush on me. That would’ve given me an ulcer in any other situation, but now, I longed for that. I would even jump at the chance of that becoming an eyeroll-provoking daytime tv drama-situation; It would mean that I was back home.

… But I wasn’t.

I let out a long, forlorn sigh. One of my longest yet, and I had experienced many of those in my days.

‘... Well, would you look at that; I suddenly got the focus to work on my eye.’

I deactivated the magic keeping my eye in place, plucked it out, and began working on it again. I had gotten it to do something, but it wasn’t useful in any way so far except possibly telling if there was light or not around me.

After I had infused the eye with what I felt should’ve been an enchantment to get the pearly white orb to work as an eye, I plopped it back into my socket and activated it.

I let out a hiss, and immediately closed my eye, holding my hoof over my eyelid.

“... Ouch.”

It hurt, but that meant it had at least done something. It was wrong though, and I wasn’t sure what that the problem was. Looking with it was like putting a telescope up to a fisheye spyhole, possibly the wrong end, and it hurt like someone had shone a laser pointer in my eye.

I put my eyepatch back over the blank eye, deactivated it again, and let out a contemplative sigh.

‘Let’s see, it reacts to light, then it talks to my brain through my nerves. How is this different from my real eye, that one’s… Oh.’

I almost wanted to smack myself for that oversight, but figured that the sting from the experiment would do.

‘Dhuuur! Of course! The back of my eye socket is healed over, the nerves there haven’t had any stimuli in ten years, and are probably tangled up in ways they were never meant to behind the scar tissue. Sandstone’s eyes were intact, all they needed were functional surfaces. Alright, that won’t work with me. I’m gonna have to adjust the magical signals the eye is sending to play nice with my nerves, or I’m gonna have to bypass it entirely. Then of course comes the part where the brain passes instructions to the eye, but translating brain impulses into physical movements is something I know pretty well by now. This is starting to sound promising.’

“How are you doing in there, Gabe?” Trixie asked.

I stuck my head out of the bag, the wind catching my mane again, and the sun this time stinging my real eye, though thankfully not as harshly as my recent experience.

The landscape had shifted. We were not surrounded by vast tracts of semi-desert. Not quite desert sand, but more like dried dirt, hosted sharp-looking shrubs and the occasional cactus, with little in the way of grass and trees.

I found myself strangely uncomfortable in this alien landscape.

“Fine. Just working on my eye,” I said.

“Any progress?”

“I suppose. I’ve figured out some more stuff that I need to consider in the future.”

“Oh, well that sounds good,” Trixie said. “Anyway, we’re coming up to Dodge City. You can see it there.”

She pointed towards the distance, and I couldn’t really make anything out except more desert. Trixie was an alicorn, so she’d have the eyesight of whatever tribe tended to have the best of that. Pegasi, probably.

“I can’t see it,” I said, squinting my eye.

“Well it’s there. We’ll be there soon,” Trixie assured me.

I turned towards Poly. “Can you see it?” I asked.

“We can see it,” Polyus said.

“How is the desert for you?” I asked. “As a changeling, I mean.”

“It suits us fine,” he assured me. “We’re not exactly immune to heat, but we can stand high temperatures better than a lot of ponies. Which is good considering we have a black exoskeleton and we don’t sweat. Also, sand doesn’t bother us. How about you?”

“I’m not sure I like it,” I said. “Humans are originally from very warm climates, but the race I belonged to was more adjusted to colder regions.”

“Like pegasi?” Polyus asked.

“Well, humans don’t have wings, and the only way we could control the wind was by breaking it,” I said. “Okay, I’m starting to see it now.”

Dodge City looked like an old western town. Unlike the tavern in Hollow Shades, I did expect a saloon here to look like it did in the movies, but perhaps that was just me. There was a wide street flanked by businesses, and a sort of mix between a sidewalk and a series of porches on either side. There were smaller offshoots from the main road, presumably leading to places that didn’t require as much attention from people on the main street. Then there was a train station and a wharf with a pair of steamboats anchored, and a twin pair of tracks leading out into the horizon along a wide river.

“Let’s land out of sight of town,” Trixie said.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Polyus said, and started descending towards the side of a road.

“Why?” I asked, curiously, rather than questioningly.

“General subterfuge,” Trixie said. “Hollow Shades was Polyus’ home field, we didn’t have much to worry about there, but like we said yesterday, we don’t know where Sombra’s agents are. Since he brought you and Armor here, he might very well be involved here.”

“His agents, you mean?” I said.

“That’s right,” Trixie said, and touched down.

“And Hollow Shades didn’t have any of them?” I asked.

“We don’t know for sure,” Polyus admitted. “But I know most everypony there, and the only new pony in town was that White Tulip mare.”

I was about to start climbing out of Trixie’s bag, when she instead took it off and placed it down on the ground, making me seem even smaller than I usually was next to grown ponies.

“What are we doing?” Polyus asked.

“I was thinking of some disguises,” Trixie said. “Something that doesn’t shout ‘alicorn and unicorn’.”

Poly knocked lightly himself on his head. “Right, I always forget that ponies need costumes to disguise themselves.”

I hopped out of the hammock and made way for Trixie and Poly as they crawled into the house.

“Okay,” Trixie said, pulling a tapestry aside to reveal an overflowing closet. “Hats, cloaks. Casual, not mysterious.”

“Maybe a poncho to hide your wings?” Polyus suggested.

“I don’t have a poncho,” Trixie said. “Maybe the bathroom rug would work?”

“I don’t think it’s big enough,” I noted. “You have pretty big wings.”

“Oh, uh, thank you, Gabe,” Trixie said, blushing a little bit for some reason. “Maybe we should get you a pair of horseshoes? You make a pretty distinct sound when you walk.”

“Uhm, okay, but I always ending up losing my grip and they sound like metallic flip-flop,” I said.

Trixie and Poly gave me a blank look.

“It’s a human thing,” I said.

“Also, which tribe do you think I should be?”

“Earth pony,” Trixie said. “Mostly earth ponies around here, and we stick out enough.”

“Got it,” he said, and changed shape into a fit-looking, redwood red earth pony stallion with a dark brown mane.

Something enveloped my head, and it turned out to be Trixie plopping a bonnet down on it.

I looked at her in surprise, and she just shook her head after scrutinizing me for a moment.

“No. It doesn’t work with the eyepatch,” she noted, and placed a boater on my head instead, or at least resting it on my mane. “That’s better. Goes with the nautical theme.”

“Oookay,” I shrugged, adjusting the hat to align the holes in the screen with my ears.

“No poncho, and everypony can see a pair of wings under a duster. Pegasus it is, and pegasi don’t wear bonnets,” Trixie said, putting stetson that was high enough to hide her horn if she angled it right.

“Do we have any relations?” Polyus asked. “I mean, do we create characters with our disguises?”

“Do you have any ideas?” I asked.

Poly pointed at me and Trixie. “Cousins,” he said, then pointed between himself and Trixie. “Colt and fillyfriend.”

Trixie and I raised a set of eyebrows and smiled at him.

“I’d be a bit suspicious of that,” Trixie said. “... if it didn’t look like you were gonna throw up on the way here.”

We each got ourselves a set of horseshoes, and walked out into the sand again. Trixie put her saddlebags back on, and we walked out from behind the bushes separating us from the road, and started walking in the afternoon sun into Dodge City.

I kept my eye on the ground, being vaguely aware that on Earth, people who live in the desert wear boots to protect themselves from scorpions and vipers. At least two of my legs were always safe from that.

That worry mostly vanished when we entered the town.

“So, our lead is the green light which would’ve been southwest of here,” Polyus said. “Any ideas on where to start looking?”

“Tavern worked last time,” I noted, looking around. “I haven’t seen a saloon yet but I assume there’s– whoa,” I said, stunned into silence.

“Gabe?” Trixie asked.

“Is that Diamond Tiara and Filthy Rich?” I asked, looking at the earth ponies walking out of the sheriff's office, looking displeased.

“You know them?” Polyus asked.

“I… know their counterparts,” I said. “Diamond Tiara doesn’t like me, I think. They live in Ponyville. Filthy Rich has a business chain, and I think he owns land south of Ponyville.”

“A landowner?” Trixie said. “Do you know where?”

“Uh, no,” I said. “How so?”

“He might keep an ear open for the kinds of phenomenon that happened when you two got here,” Trixie said. “Nice catch, Gabe.”

“Oh, uh, Yeah. I guess. I didn’t think about it that way,” I said. “Should we go talk to them?”

I don’t know what Diamond and Filthy had been talking about when we plopped down at their table in an unintentionally synchronized way, but they did give us some very surprised looks.

Poly, Trixie, and I, were seated on the opposite side of their table in the saloon, which apparently wasn’t very active during work hour.

Then there was silence, and in two seconds it had reached peak awkwardness and stayed there.

I looked around at Poly and Trixie and saw them looking expectantly at me. I had said that I was familiar with their counterparts, so I guess they expected me to lead this conversation.

“Uh, hi,” I said, deciding to shoot straight. “We’re three unusual characters looking for somepony.”

Diamond Tiara and Filthy Rich glanced at each other, Diamond’s spoon with ice cream an inch away from her mouth and Filthy’s pint an inch away from his. “I… see,” Filthy Rich said.

“My name is Gabrielle. Filthy Rich, Diamond Tiara, this is Poly, and this is Trixie,” I said, gesturing at the ponies on either side of me. “Poly, Trixie, this is Filthy Rich and Diamond Tiara.”

After a moment of confusion, Filthy Rich’s expression darkened, and he took that mouthful of drink that we had interrupted.

“Did that ‘Baron’ Braeburn send you?” he asked, bitterly, the air quotes in his voice being the stuff of legend.

“Uh, no,” I said.

“No, no. Of course he didn’t,” Filthy said. “What does ‘not Baron Braeburn’ want then?”

“Uuh,” I said, looking back and forth between Trixie and Poly for some support, and only getting uncertain shrugs. “Well, I guess I’m a ‘not Baron Braeburn’, and I want my friend back.”

Diamond Tiara looked at her father, obviously putting effort into keeping a neutral expression. Filthy, meanwhile, narrowed his eyes just a smidge.

“I haven’t done anything,” he said. “I’m not the kind to abduct ponies, and neither is anypony who works for me.”

“Look, I’m serious,” I said. “We don’t have anything to do with this Baron Braeburn. I don’t even know who he is.”

“Then how did you know our names?” Diamond Tiara said, scowling slightly at me. Filthy put a hoof around his daughter's wither.

“That’s kinda of a long story,” I said.

“And we’re trying to enjoy a meal,” Filthy said, pointedly.

“Look,” Trixie said. “I assume you have a tense relation with this Braeburn fellow.”

“You assume correctly,” Filthy said, and took another drink, the hostility slowly draining from his face, and being replaced by indifference.

Diamond Tiara followed Filthy’s lead and refocused her attention on her ice cream.

“We are not associated with him,” Polyus said.

“Good,” Filthy noted. “I’d advise you to keep it that way.”

“Is he… an unsavory character?” I ventured.

“I try not to be the type to talk poorly about my fellow pony,” Filthy said. “So I’ll just say nothing about him.”

I looked at Trixie and Poly again. “Have you guys ever heard of this Braeburn?”

Trixie shook her head. “I haven’t been around here in years.”

“I haven’t been this far south since I was a nymph,” Polyus said, before putting a hoof over his mouth as his choice of words caught up with him.

Diamond and Filthy looked at him in surprise, before Filthy’s expression gained a hint of curiosity.

“That was very convincing,” he said. “I can’t see a changeling working as hired muscle for a pony like him.”

“And if I convince you that I’m a changeling, you’d be more inclined to believe us?”

Filthy considered this for a moment, before nodding in acquiescence. “It should be easy for you to prove,” he noted, smiling a bit to himself.

Poly held his foreleg above the table, and transformed it into its changeling shape before shifting it back.

Diamond Tiara looked on in interest as she finished off the last of her ice cream, and Filthy looked mildly impressed.

I was wondering if Trixie was going to show that she was an alicorn as well, since that’d help too, then I remembered what she was a paragon off.

“Also,” I said, magicking Trixie’s hat of her, revealing her horn and making her look up in surprise, but not making her protest. “I doubt just anyone has alicorns working for them.”

By now, Filthy and Diamond’s expressions had shifted into more appropriately surprised ones.

After a moment, Filthy Rich started pushing his chair away. “Ser Lulamoon,” he said.

“Ah-ah, don’t get up,” Trixie said, pulling her hat down over her horn again. “Let’s keep this discreet.”

Filthy slowly sat down again, his eyes fixed on Trixie.

“Like I said,” I started, drawing his attention. “We’re looking for someone.”

After a moment, the words registered with Filthy, and he and Diamond leaned in conspiratorially. “Yes?” he asked.

“Did you see a great, green glow in the sky a few days ago?” Trixie asked, lowering the volume of the conversation.

Filthy shook his head. “No, but some of my employees did,” he said.

“Where?” I asked.

“Over Braeburn’s land, just beyond the borders of my land,” he said.

Trixie, Poly, and I, looked at each other.

“That’s interesting,” Poly said. “Why are you here?”

Filthy and Diamond casually glanced around the room, but we were alone, as the pony who manned the bar had stepped into the kitchen after it was clear that Trixie, Poly, and I weren’t going to order anything.

“You said ‘someone’. Is it a pony?” Filthy asked.

I leaned in at that, bracing myself for the worst kind of disappointment, but eager to hear what he had to say nonetheless. “Yes.”

“One of my field hooves snuck into Braeburn’s lands, and saw several of his goons hauling something away,” Filthy said

“Hauling what away?” I asked, feeling the frogs in my hooves starting to sweat.

“I don’t know for sure,” Filthy said, and shook his head. “But I think it’s important.”

“What makes you say that?” Trixie asked.

“We went to Appleloosa to find out what’s going on,” Filthy said. “We disguised it as just passing by to inspect our lands, while we investigate what my employees found so suspicious.”

“And then?” Polyus asked.

Filthy shook his head. “When we asked around, we found one mare who said she had seen ponies prepping a train to head here, not loaded with any produce, but plenty manned.

“I asked her all the details she could remember, and it fits from what we’ve seen here. Baron Braeburn took half the ponies on his payroll, and came here with his personal train shortly after that green light that everypony is talking about. I haven’t seen whatever it was that they were moving, but my employee said that it was a sack the size of a pony.”

Three sets of ears perked up at that. “And that’s why you came here?” I asked, fighting a bit to keep my breathing steady.

“That’s right,” Filthy Rich said, leaning back in his chair, still keeping his voice low. “The law in Appleloosa is in Braeburn’s pocket. I tried talking to the sheriff ‘round these part, but she weren’t interested. I got plenty of clout in Ponyville, but nopony there has jurisdiction down here.”

Our side of the table leaned back as well, soaking in this new information.

Diamond Tiara looked back and forth between Poly and Trixie. “You’re not worried about jurisdiction, are you?” she asked, then turned to Trixie. “You’re an alicorn knight,” she said, and turned to Poly. “And nopony can outsmart a changeling ranger. You guys can make sure Braeburn’s going down, can’t you?”

Trixie sighed, looking a bit down. “Looks like the south is a bit neglected.”

Filthy smiled tiredly at her. “We don’t pass any blame,” he said, reassuringly. “Things were never all that easy, and it got even harder when his majesty left us.”

“But that Braeburn’s a bad egg!” Diamond said, passionately. “He’s gonna get what’s coming to him.”

Part of me wanted to rush out and tear down the door to wherever this Braeburn was holed up, but fools rush in. Another part of me told me that all of this might be a snipe hunt, and just made me feel tired. The conflict between my tired side and my fired up side was causing my frogs to sweat pretty profoundly from the frustration.

“Who was this mare that told you about the train?” I asked.

Filthy glanced to the side as he thought. “Pegasus, lanky, white coat,” he recounted.

“Was her name White Tulip?” I asked, surprising the whole table.

“How did you know?” Filthy asked, as I carefully measured his reaction.

It probably didn’t matter much. I was never all that great when it came to tells, even on ponies with their ears. I mostly relied on verifying information.

“We met her,” I said. “Up north.”

Filthy nodded. “She did say that she was travelling.”

Whether or not he was telling the truth, I thought it was best to just follow through with this conversation. “You said that you’ve seen the train here?” I asked

Filthy nodded, then Diamond gestured out a window with her head. “It’s right out there, by the loading platform,” she said.

“How long has it been here?” Trixie asked.

“Can’t rightly say…” Filthy said, slowly. “Can’t have been long. Probably arrived in the morning.”

Trixie, Poly, and I looked at each other. “This thing that they’re transporting, have you seen them unloading it?” I asked.

“We don’t rightly know what to look for,” Filthy said. “We haven’t seen anything, but we haven’t looked very close either.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Polyus asked.

Filthy’s gaze swept across us for a few moments, letting us know he was serious. “‘Baron’ Braeburn might talk pretty when he feels like it, but don’t let him fool you. He cares nothing for Equestria, including alicorns, changelings, or fillies. Be careful around him.”

Poly, Trixie, and I, looked at each other, before we got out of our seats, giving the two earth ponies our thanks.

Filthy nodded to us, taking another sip of his drink while Diamond said, “Good luck,” and started scraping the bottom of her ice cream bowl.

We walked out of the saloon, and down two houses before Trixie led us down a deserted side street.

“What do you think?” Polyus asked.

“It’s very convenient, and yet plausible,” Trixie said, mirroring my own thoughts.

“Plausibility is key in deception,” I noted.

“Plausibility works best when it’s derived from fact,” Polyus said. “You know their counterparts, Gabe. What do you think about them?”

That was a good point. “Uhm. Back in my Equestria, Diamond Tiara is a spoiled and petty bully... or aspiring bully, she’s harmless to me. Filthy is… polite, and seems okay from what I’ve seen of him. A bit oblivious about his daughter, I guess. He’s really rich and always tries getting more rich. Make what you will of that.”

Trixie and Poly considered this for a few moments, before we glanced around the corner of the building we stood by, at the trains by the station down the main road.

“Polyusa thinks we should try and look closer at that, and I agree,” Polyus said.

Swallowing back a remark about how I just wanted Armor back, I gave this some thought. “I think that’s the best idea,” I said. “Rules out a lead or confirms it. It’s comfortingly non-committal too.”

“So what do we do?” Trixie asked. “Do we just mosey over there and look around?”

I felt some pride building in me for having some experience to share in this. “Yes. We find ourselves at the loading area, and we’ll look around innocently. Don’t signal that you’re doing it innocently, just look around: the idea that some people might not like it haven’t even crossed your mind.”

“You’ve done this before?” Trixie asked, raising her eyebrows at me.

“Twice,” I said. “It’s a long story, ask me some other time.”

“Do we split up?” Polyus asked.

“I don’t know,” Trixie said, and turned to me. “I need to get you to Luna in one piece.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I got a few tricks up my prostheses.”

“Yeah, I saw them,” Trixie said. “Alright, are we ready?”

“Yes. Can I have some bits?” I said.

My right legs were covered in cloth that looked fake when you inspected them closely, their hooves were metallic, I had an eyepatch over a milky-white, blind eye, and my mane was almost as large as the rest of me.

I didn’t exactly look like the most average little filly, but I did my best. The hat helped a bit in distracting from my more prominent features, as did the bottle of lime soda from the candy store that I held on my left hoof.

The train station was a pretty simple affair. A large room with benches made up the core of the building, with an information kiosk at the side connected to what I assumed was an office, or two, most likely containing archives of manifests and ledgers and boring things like that.

The other side led out to a single platform for passengers, but with something of a rail yard to the side, the wharf on the far side of the rails running parallel with each other.

Some of the tracks had trains on them, crates were being loaded between boxcars, and a steamer anchored at the wharf. Ponies, mostly earth ponies, were hauling crates, often onto large pallets that were then lifted by a number of wooden cranes, taking breaks and talking with each other, or looking busy while discussing where crates should go and when, pointing between pallets and specific areas of the ship, and nodding between each other.

I started out staying away from there, as my lack of head protection might’ve drawn attention to me, and instead inspected the ship.

The ship was apparently taking both passengers and cargo. A few couples were walking next to each other underneath sunbrellas and talking among themselves. I didn’t blame them, the sun was killing me. I pulled my boater down as well as I could over my eye and took another sip of my drink.

There was one train in the distance that was starting to catch my attention, but upon closer inspection, it turned out to be filled with crates, with a bunch of decidedly non-vigilant earth ponies resting and making slow work of inspecting the locomotive and the fuel cart.

I caught sight of Poly inspecting it as well in the distance. We looked at each other, and when I gestured towards the train, he just shook his head.

There was a pegasus stallion standing by the gangplank leading up to the steamer, with an orange coat and a blonde mane blasted back tightly against his skull, looking both tense and bored.

“What’cha doin?” I chirped, sitting on the railing by the water, exposing mostly my left side to him.

He glanced over at me, surprised, his expression having an annoyed streak before it quickly vanished, and he looked back over towards the loading dock, and the town beyond.

“I’m… waiting,” he said.

“Waiting for what?” I asked, sounding cheerful.

“My friend,” he said.

“What’s he doin’? Is it a he?” I pressed.

“Y– yes, it’s a he,” the stallion said.

“What’s he doing then?”

“He’s… talking with ponies.”

I tilted my head in consideration. “Well, you look really bored. He must either be really good at talking, or really bad.”

The stallion let out a small, humorless snort. “I guess so,” he said.

“How long are you gonna wait for him?”

The stallion took a deep breath, and turned to me. “Look, I’m not doing anything exciting,” he said, and fished out some coins from his vest and tossed them to me. They clacked loudly as I caught them in my right hoof. “Why don’t you run along to the candy store and buy another soda? You look like you need it.”

One of the coins had gone up the empty space where ponies normally have their frogs, I quickly turned my hoof away from him as I put the bottle down on a pole, shook the coins out into my other hoof, and inspected them. “Wow, thanks,” I said, struggling a bit to keep my voice cheery. “You want one too? I can buy four or five with this.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said, smiling. “There’s… a kiosk on the ship.”

“Alright,” I said, put the coins under my boater, and hopped down from the railing, trying to walk in a way that didn’t expose my right side. “Does your friend want one?” I asked, glancing back at the stallion.

He nodded. “He might.”

I shot him the best smile I could, before walking calmly toward the town, letting out a sigh of relief and speeding up as I rounded a large pile of planks.

That was the third pony around here that I questioned in my “curious little filly” act. The first one had looked at my prosthetics funny, the second one had been too busy with her ledger to look at me, but I had them completely convinced I was nothing to be concerned about.

This stallion though. I had to disengage with him pretty hurriedly, as I got the distinct feeling that he was learning more about me than I was about him.

I stayed low and weaved back and forth between barrels and crates, staying out of sight from where the stallion had stood, until I found a spot where I felt I could peek out at him without him looking straight at me.

I looked around the corner of a crane, and saw the spot where he had stood being empty.

This was worrying. Halfway through our conversation, he had seemed like he was trying to hide that he’d learned of a pleasant surprise. I glanced around in all directions, including the air, since he had been a pegasus.

‘Calm down. He can’t have followed you this quickly without being seen. This isn’t the time for subterfuge, now it’s time for skulduggery.’

I slipped underneath a parked train, hiding behind a set of wheels, glancing out in both directions before scurrying to the next set of wheels.

I had to find Trixie or Poly, preferably unseen, and tell them to find that stallion. Then I’d retreated and try again once he was out of the picture, or found out to not be a threat.

“So where is he?” I heard a stallion, though not the same one from before, ask.

“He’s with us,” another stallion, again, different from the one I met by the ship, answered.

I looked out from behind the wheels to hear what was going on. Partway down the length of the train I was hiding under, and the one along with it, stood a single stallion, talking with five other ponies, all of them facing the first one.

He was a fairly lanky earth pony stallion, with a light brown coat and a dark brown mane that hung on the side of his head.

The other ones, that I could only see the backs of, were all earth ponies as well, and all except one wore dusty vests and worn hats; the one in the middle had an expensive-looking black hat and an equally expensive looking black suit.

“And the plan was for us to get him. Has that changed?” the lone earth pony asked.

I angled my ears to be certain that I could pick up the whole conversation. A few moments ago, the pegasus seemed like the most important factor. Now, it was this exchange.

“That depends,” the black hatted one said. “Nopony’s told me what’s in it for me yet.”

“Rewards and riches from his majesty,” the lone pony answered calmly, but with a taste of condescension. “You know this already.”

“And how am I supposed to know that I’m getting something worth my effort?” the black hatted one countered. “‘Rewards and riches’ can mean anything.”

The lone stallion raised an eyebrow at the black hatted one. “Do my choice of words hint of deception to you? If I were trying to trick you, I could be very specific in my promises, and it wouldn’t matter the moment I have my price, but I’m not. I don’t know how his majesty plans on rewarding you, but I’m certain it will be substantial.”

“Perhaps the princesses would offer more?” the black hatted one pushed.

“Perhaps,” the lone stallion admitted. “If you’re trying to improve your end of the deal, I’m not at liberty to negotiate. I can however advise you to be careful in how you try and pressure us. Private Studded Armor is a means to a very important end. Turning him over to the princesses, or hurting him, will displease his majesty very much.”

To me, the world stood still at the mention of Armor’s name, and I barely noticed how I was being manhandled until I was off the ground.

The blonde pegasus stallion from before had come up on my blind side, grabbed me, and dragged me out from beneath the train car, behind the group of earth ponies. I let out a startled yelp as he shoved me against the train opposite the one I had been hiding under, and pinned me against it with his forelegs.

The group of earth ponies spun around at the sound of me yelping. They, along with the lone stallion, looked at us in surprise.

The blonde pegasus who held me quickly brought a hoof up to my face, and lifted my eyepatch, forming  a predatory grin on his face when he saw what was beneath.

“Star?” the lone stallion asked. “What are you doing? I was supposed to do this deal–”

The pegasus apparently known as Star looked at the other stallion. “Forget the deal!” he barked. “Do you know who this is!?”

I looked at the stallion he shouted at, and his eyes widened in realization when he saw my face.

Before anyone could do anything else, the black hat-adorned stallion spoke up angrily, facing the lone stallion. “I should’ve known you’d stab me in the back, Rosen Wreath!”

“Believe what you will, Braeburn,” Rosen Wreath said dismissively, his eyes fixed on me. “Just stay out of our way.”

“Oh no! I’m getting paid one way or another,” Braeburn said, and looked at me. “If I’m leaving empty-hoofed, then so is everypony else!”

“Armor! Now!” I shouted, looking at the sky behind Rosen Wreath.

As everyone turned to look at the empty sky, I smacked Star’s forelegs away with my prosthesis, making him grunt in pain. I grabbed him by the neck next as I landed on my hind hooves, then threw him hard against Braeburn’s posse before standing down on all fours.

I didn’t look to see the result of my swing, instead I immediately rolled under the train and quickly darted to the other side, then again under the one after that. The grunts and yelps I heard told me my toss had the desired effect.

I paused behind a set of wheels, making some more honest ponies look at me in surprise, and listened.

“Get off!” I heard someone, probably one of Braeburn’s ponies, yell.

“Star! After her!” Rosen Wreath shouted.

“Get back on the train!” Braeburn ordered, and I set of hooves galloped down the length of the space between the trains. “We’re going back to Appleloosa! Now!”

I had heard enough to be sure where Armor was, and ducked under the train I was by, keeping low and moving alongside the five earth ponies, the whistles and puffs from the locomotives, and the clanks and chatter from working ponies, masking the clacking sound my prosthetic hooves made against the rails.

“You three,” Braeburn said, as they reached the last car before the tender. “Get on the train and check on the prisoner.”

I saw three sets of hooves vanish into the train, while Braeburn’s and another pony’s hooves vanished behind the tender’s low ground clearance.

I snuck ahead a little bit more, my heart beating like a jackhammer.

“Get this thing moving. We’re going back,” Braeburn growled from the far side of the train.

“Is everypony onboard?” someone asked in response.

“I don’t care, just do it. Now!” Braeburn barked.

After a few seconds, a slow chugging started sounding from the train, which rapidly grew in speed. Braeburn and the other pony hopped onto the car behind the tender as the train slowly gained speed.

I was short enough to run with a crouch underneath the still train I was hiding under, but pretty soon I reached its tender, and couldn’t follow anymore.

I watched in horrid desperation as Braeburn’s train picked up speed like a full gallop, and headed towards the twin set of tracks that ran alongside the river.

I peeked out from under the car to inspect the space between my train and Braeburn’s train, then quickly ducked my head back in when I saw Star circling above, looking for me down below.

Looking towards the other side revealed only tracks, wares, workers, and steam. No Trixie and no Poly.

I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths.

‘What to do? Maybe I should jump out and yell that Star and Rosen Wreath were trying to abduct me?’

I saw a scenario in my head. A bunch of burly dockworkers and train operators asking what the yelling was about, two ponies denying the accusations in a lengthy back-and-forth as everyone tried to figure out what was going on.

‘It could be minutes before Trixie and Poly notices anything, and Armor would be long gone.’

I opened my eyes and tried peering out from beneath the train again, but this time Rosen Wreath was walking alongside my train, peering underneath it, as the caboose of Braeburn’s train went past.

That’s when I noticed that the train I was under was uncoupled from the tender.

It was a crazy idea, but in my situation, I’d try anything to yank the hopelessness and desperation from my mind.

I slipped out from underneath the car, opposite the side that Rosen Wreath was, and ran up towards the locomotive.

There were two operators in the hut, a mare and a stallion, chatting amongst themselves, when I jumped in through the window. They were dressed in berets and loose jackets, and were covered in soot and oil stains except for around the eyes where they had been wearing goggles, which were now dangling around their necks. I felt a small ache in my chest as I thought back to the goggles Rainbow had given me.

They turned around at the sight of me, eyes wide.

“Is this thing ready to move?” I asked, forcefully, adjusting my boater and accidentally piercing it with my horn.

“Uh, euh, yes?” the mare said.

“How does it work?” I asked, as I walked up towards the levers and knobs, and felt the heat from the boiler. “Is it hot enough?”

“Uh, hot enough for what?” the stallion asked, as I reached for the handle for the firebox. “Wait! Don’t touch that!”

His fears were unfounded, as I didn’t burn myself by opening the firebox with my prosthetic hoof.

“Don’t worry about that,” I said, turning my face away from the flames spewing out, and closing the hatch again. I turned to the operators, and pointed towards Braeburn’s train, still picking up speed. “I’m going after that train, and I’m using this locomotive to do it.”

The operators recoiled at that. “Now hold on, little filly,” the mare said. “You can’t just–”

“On that train–” I said, interrupting her and pointing to where Braeburn’s train was vanishing behind the clutter of the loading area, “is my friend. He’s been abducted by someone called Braeburn, and I am going to rescue him.”

I started looking at all the levers and knobs, and the gauges and wires. There were a lot more of them than I expected. “I’m looking for him together with Ser Bellatrix Lulamoon, and changeling rangers Polyus and Polyusa. They’re here, in Dodge City, but I don’t have time to find them, I need to do this now.”

“But... the sheriff... “ the mare started, sounding very unconvinced of her own words.

“Did you say Braeburn?” the stallion asked.

“Yes. ‘Baron’ Braeburn,” I said, looking at a large and important-seeming lever.

The stallion gently pushed me away from the lever, and took it in his hooves instead, bringing it gently forward.

“How’s the water?” he asked the mare, who now seemed onboard with leaving.

“Filled up and disengaged,” she said, as the train started slowly moving forward with a small start. “Lubrication?”

“All done,” the stallion said, turning knobs and checking gauges. “Did you check the compression on the cylinders?

“Decondensed and running. Everything looks solid,” she said, also carefully adjusting knobs.

The stallion knocked the hatch to the firebox open, and handed me a metal rake. “Take this, and push the coal we’re tossing in there to the back, then try and even it out across the bottom when we say.”

“Got it,” I said, as the train starting picking up speed.

“Hey, what’s your name, kid?” the mare asked, as she opened a large hatch at the front of the tender, revealing tons of coal.

“Gabrielle Desrochers, Or just Gabe,” I said. “What’s yours?”

“Coal Fire,” she said, and gestured with her head to her partner as she tossed a shovel to him. “And this here is Oil Puddle, or ‘Slick’.”

“Nice to meet you, Coal Fire, Slick,” I said, as the train noticeably picked up speed. “And thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Coal Fire said, a bit uncertainly, as ponies further back started chasing after the locomotive and yelling in confusion.

“So what’s the play here?” Slick said, now almost yelling because of the sound from the boiler combined with the movement of the train. “What are you gonna do when we catch up?”

“Try and bust out my friend,” I said, as they shoved a load of coal into a crate.

“And you know how to do that?” Slick asked.

“I have some experience with that,” I said, as the two of them started shoveling coal into the hatch.

“Where are Ser Lulamoon and those changelings?” Slick asked.

“Hopefully catching on that we’ve left, and flying after us,” I said.

“What happened to your legs? Your eye?” Coal Fire asked.

“Lost them,” I said, and waved with my foreleg. “Don’t worry, these works just fine.”

“Never seen anything like that before,” she continued.

“Yeah. I came up with them recently. That’s why I was knighted.”

“Huh. Okay, push it,” Coal Fire said.

I took the rake and started shoveling the coal to the back of the firebox. The heat would’ve been unbearable if I was doing anything else, but now, it was nothing.

“Not that I’m not grateful,” I said, as Coal and Slick started shoveling in more coal into the firebox, “but why are you two going along with this?”

“Just doing our civic duty,” Slick said.

“And because Slick’s not exactly fond of Braeburn either,” Coal said.

“Mm, yeah, well… just be careful,” Slick said. “You’re not gonna hurt anypony on the train, are you?”

“I hope not. At least not irreparably,” I said, and turned to Coal. “What about you?”

Coal shrugged. “If Slick is along going along, so am I. We served together.”

“Oh,” I said. “No permanent injuries on any of you?”

“Uh, no,” Slick said.

“Mm. Well, say the word and I’ll try my best and patch you up,” I said, waving my prosthesis demonstrably.

Coal and Slick went back for another load of coal. Slick put his hoof on my withers after they had started shoveling it into the firebox.

“Don’t worry,” he said, looking out from the side of the locomotive, then budged the large lever forward a few steps more. “We’re running hot, and they have a full train. We’re already catching up.”

Another set of coal was shoveled into the firebox, then Coal and Slick went back to adjusting the levers while I evened out the coal.

“Looks like she’s right,” Coal noted, as she leaned out of the cabin’s right side. “Those ponies look awfully skittish for just seeing another train.”

I leaned out alongside her, my mane flowing in the wind, and indeed, there was Braeburn’s train, steaming along on a track running parallel with ours, right beside the river. There was a lot of activity there, with ponies looking out from the windows, through the back door, and out of a hatch in the roof.

“Can you place the boiler next to the back end of the caboose?” I asked.

“Easy,” Slick said. “But what are you gonna do?”

“Board them,” I said, and partially pulled the grappling hook out of my prosthesis, giving it a yank to make sure it was secure.

Coal and Slick looked at me in surprise before going back to speeding up the train. “That’s some neat hardware you got on you there,” Coal noted.

“Magically forged bronze and steel helical compression smithing. Immune to rust, and never has to be painted,” I said, and looked out at the other train again. “Okay, they’re bringing out crossbows. You two keep your heads down when we get close.”

“That’s a little filly telling us that,” Coal noted to Slick.

“She looks like she knows what she’s doing,” Slick answered.

“Well, that’s always something,” I said, not really sharing the sentiment. “They can’t board you from across the boiler can they?”

“Earth ponies and unicorns?” Coal asked, and shook her head. “No way. Not unless they’re covered in dragon scales.”

“Good,” I said, spooling my grappling hook in again.

“Hey, be careful, alright?” she said.

“If the situation calls for it, sure,” I said.

I glanced out at the caboose again, seeing the door opening, and one of the ponies taking aim.

“Alright, they’re getting ready to shoot. Keep down,” I said.

I teasingly peered out from behind the cabin, before retreating back in again, then sticking my prosthesis out, presenting a clear shot with it.

My metallic foreleg was rattled, but otherwise completely unharmed, as a bolt struck it above the elbow. That was more intimidating than I cared for, and if I had had my head turned to my right, the bolt might’ve taken my horn off.

This was real. I was really fighting people. People who had abducted my friend for money and who were willing to actually hurt me.

After a few seconds though, that just steeled my resolve, and my eye darkened with anger. They had taken Armor from me, and if he was anything other than unhurt, I would pay that back, disproportionately.

“Are you okay!?” Slick asked, sounding worried.

“I’m fine,” I growled, and stuck my head out again.

The pony was standing partially hidden behind the doorway, reloading the crossbow, which was in the open.

I aimed my grappling hook, and fired it at the opening. It grabbed the crossbow by the string, and I yanked it out of his grip, pulling it back to me.

“Whoa!” Coal asked. “That’s uh, nice going. Do you know how to use that?”

“No, but that doesn’t matter,” I said. “You don’t have any bolts do you?”

“No,” she said.

“But they don’t know that,” I said. “Do you have anything to cut this with?”

“Here,” Slick said, handing me a filthy knife.

I took it, and held the boater between the crossbow and my face as I cut the string.

“Thanks,” I said. “My friend’s a pegasus, and they better hope he’s able to fly, but keep this thing steady back here.”

“Got it,” Coal said, before looking at me in disbelief. “Wait, are you gonna board them from here?”

“You bet I am,” I said, before sticking my head out again, pointing the crossbow at the end of the caboose.

The ponies there yelped and took cover. I gripped the crossbow by the back of the stock, and waited for them to peer out.

When they did, I tossed it hard with my prosthetic foreleg. It looked like a cross wrench as it sailed through the air.

It hit the frame of the door, bouncing off it and striking the pony who had shot me on the nose, causing him to let out a loud yelp.

I shot my grappling hook, gripping the rail, and quickly jumped as high and as far as I could with my metallic hind leg, while reeling in my grappling hook, catching up with the other train before I could land on the tracks.

I heard Coal and Slick shout in surprise at my action, but I didn’t look back to signal to them to stay inside. I was busy with the ponies inside the caboose, and they were busy with me.

The door slammed shut the moment I landed on the right side of the railing. I looked around for options. There was the roof, and the car had windows on the side, but the door was also an option.

I knocked on the door three times, like I was coming to visit, and tried the handle. Naturally, it didn’t open.

“Hey!” I shouted at the door. “Your door is stuck.”

“What are we gonna do now!?” I heard a muffled voice inside shout.

“Don’t worry!” I said, and threw my foreleg back for a navvy swing. “I’ll fix it!”

I threw my foreleg as hard as I could, throwing the door open and almost yanking it off the hinges as I left a deep dent in the door.

One of the stallions on the other side flew back into the car, landing on his back.

The one who had shot me had been toppled by the now dented door, and pressed into the wall. I did an Arnie, and flattened him against the wall with the door, before grabbing him by his upper foreleg, and slamming him into the only pony still standing, a mare who had stood absolutely still, stunned by my entrance.

When the stallion collapsed on top of her, she tried to get up from under her, but she didn’t make a lot of progress before I shot her on my way further into the caboose.

The stallion who had shot me was groaning on the ground, as did the one I had used to the door to catapult into the car. I quickly walked up to the latter one, lying on the floor, and grabbed him by a foreleg to drag him back to the rear of the car.

I opened the door to the small, one-man restroom, and tossed the three ponies in, one at a time, before jamming it shut with a chair under the door handle, braced against the opposite wall.

The first one I shoved in there had started coming around as I shut the door, but the following knocks from the inside seemed a bit feeble, so I just kept walking.

As I stepped out between the cars, the door to the next car opened and a stallion stepped out, loudly asking, “That train is still after us, what are you–”

He stopped when he saw me, and was about to take a swing at me, when I slammed the half-open door so hard the hinges fell off and launched the stallion back into the car with the door on top of him.

I braced my hind leg prosthesis, and jumped up to the roof of the car, and started running along the roof. The wind would’ve been strong enough to blow the boater off of my head normally if it hadn’t been pierced by my horn.

The tracks were now close enough to the river to be within jumping distance of an unaugmented pony.

The river reminded me of Star and Rosen Wreath, and I looked behind to make sure they weren’t catching up somehow, but I didn’t see anything in the smoke from the locomotives.

As I reached the space between the cars, the door of the one I was on opened, and the same stallion I had slammed back into it just moments ago came out as well. He jumped up and grabbed the ledge, and before I could react, he swiped my legs out from under me.

I fell sideways against the slightly sloped roof, and had to grip the ledge of the short side to not slide worryingly close to the edge.

I let out an angry snarl and pulled myself over the edge to the space between the cars, landing on the stallion.

He wasn’t exactly toppled by my weight though. I grabbed him by his neck, and tried wrestling him down. That didn’t work out very well, and instead he grabbed me with a forehoof and tried pulling me off.

He wasn’t strong enough to dislodge me with my prosthesis though. I looked back to see a mare come up towards us from inside the car, and kicked the door shut in her face. The door bounced off her muzzle, and she let out a yelp.

I kicked the now ajar door shut with my prosthetic hind leg, causing us to shoot forward, the stallion’s neck first, into the opposite door.

He let out a deep grunt, and I reached up to punch the door handle hard enough to leave it dangling uselessly.

I jumped off of him, and did the same for the door he had come out of, before turning around and facing him just in time for him to swing at me after standing up.

He was obviously right-hoofed, and I had to parry the blow awkwardly with my prosthesis, throwing me against the railing. When he came in for another swing though, I was in a better position.

When his organic hoof met my metallic one, it stopped like he had tried bucking a cliffside, and I grabbed the outstretched limb with my nifty magic fingers, slid on my back towards his hind legs, and kicked them out from under him.

I had to quickly throw myself to the side to not have him land on top of me, but now I had him. I grabbed both of his forehooves, and held them above his head, against the railing.

The anger quickly drained from his face at the situation, and he looked at me with more confusion than alarm.

“What are you?” he asked.

“Determined,” I said. “Where is Armor?”

“He’s…” the stallion started, before stopping himself.

“Hold on, this might be motivational,” I said, and kicked back with my prosthetic hind leg against the plate wall behind me, leaving a noticeable dent.

The stallion looked at it with wide eyes, before turning to me. “The car after that one,” he said, nodding towards the next car.

“Good choice,” I said, and let him go, only to blast him with my stun gun, leaving him unconscious on the platform.

I climbed up on the roof of the next car, and this time I darted to the other side, before jumping down and breaking the handle again. Then I turned to the next car.

Armor was in there.

I was starting to feel winded, but didn’t slow down. I was too close.

I jumped onto the roof again, just as I heard the whistle from Coal and Slick’s locomotive honk.

I leaned out over the track they were on, to see Coal waving at me as the whistle honked urgently again. For some reason they had accelerated, slowly moving up towards me.

She caught sight of me, and leaned out of the cabin, making slow, flapping gestures, like wings, then pointed behind her.

I gave her a wave and a deep nod, saying that I understood. She waved at me in response and stuck her head back into the cabin.

People were coming in from the rear. It was either Trixie and Poly, or Star and Rosen Wreath.

If it was the latter, then I needed to get Armor fast. It needed to be done right though. If this turned into a stand off, it would give the flyers time to catch up, which could be very bad.

So instead of knocking down the door, I again climbed onto the roof, but this time, instead of running noisily across it, I walked softly to the edge.

Luckily, there were plenty of little ledges to grab onto, as I carefully leaned over the edge to look through the windows.

The first attempt yielded nothing, only stern-faced ponies walking around, arguing amongst themselves, and looking out through the window. It was sheer luck that saved me from leaning down right in front of the eyes of one of them.

I did notice one of the ponies looking back further into the car, and saying something angry in response to something.

I quickly pulled myself up again, and walked over a few windows, then leaned over the edge again.

My heart skipped a beat at what I saw.

Armor was tied up to a chair. Forelegs bound behind his back, his wings lashed together, and his hind hooves tied to the legs of the chair.

He was looking at something to the side, and I could only see the side of his face. I pulled myself back onto the roof, laid down on my back, and breathed a series of relieved sighs, getting some energy back.

I had spent months practicing and expanding my magic moxie and magically adjusting to my prostheses, making them drain less and less, which was good because if I had tried this right after I had made my first pair, I would’ve passed out two or three times over by now.

Armor looked angry, his wings needed some serious preening, his mane and tail were messy, and he had bags under his eyes, but he looked unharmed.

I leaned over the edge again, only enough to just see Armor, and used magic to slowly start undoing the knots that held him.

He perked up, and looked around in small motions, before I gently rubbed him behind an ear with my magic, then went back to loosening the knots when he settled down with a nod.

I didn’t throw the ropes off from him, as that would make all the goons in the car gang up on him immediately. Instead, I loosened the knots, so that he could wiggle out of the ropes in a few seconds when the time was right.

After a few moments, I felt it was loose enough, and I put a gentle pressure on his neck. He glanced around the car, then nodded once, satisfied.

I almost had him now. Grinning in both determination and satisfaction, I walked over to the middle of the car. There, I pried open a hatch, making it fly up with a loud clanking sound.

There was a particularly burly earth pony down there, looking up in alarm, with a set of confused “Huh?”s sounding from further into the car.

I quickly but calmly aimed to prosthesis against him, and shot the grappling hook at him, angling it in midair to lash it around his barrel, and pulled.

“Hop it, slim,” I growled, as I tossed him over my shoulder out into the river. His alarmed scream was cut short by a splash loud enough to be heard over the sound of the train.

Suddenly, there was a clanking sound from beside me. I looked towards the rear end of the roof of the car, where the earth pony stallion from before, Rosen Wreath, dropped down, stance wide and eyes focused on me.

I backed away from him a few steps as he approached, before I heard another clank, as his compatriot, Star, landed near the edge of the roof behind me.

“Gabrielle Desrochers,” Rosen Wreath calmly announced. “Come with us.”

I looked between him and Star, fighting down a sense of panic as I tried to think of what to do next. I was too close to getting Armor back, I couldn’t let them stop me.

I had dispatched several ponies just as I moved ahead on the train of course, but these two were obviously not brutish thugs. From the way they carried themselves, they knew what they were doing.

“Why?” I asked, trying to sound brave.

“Because our king wishes it,” Rosen said. “He needs you.”

I filed that information away for later. “I’m busy,” I said, dismissively.

“Reuniting with your friend?” Rosen asked. “We can see that. Very impressive. He’ll be coming with us. The two of you will be together and unharmed.”

“Not unless I’m paid!” Braeburn shouted. I looked towards the front of the train, where he, and several other ponies, had clambered out the windows and hatches onto the roof, and lining up next to Star. “Where are my workers?”

“Check the river,” I said, sneeringly.

“You’ll get yours,” Rosen Wreath calmly called to Braeburn. “Just help us get this filly.”

Ponies had started climbing out of the windows of the car that I broke the doors of, and were similarly joining Rosen Wreath, then they even started climbing out of the hatch I had tossed their friend out of.

“You’re outnumbered, Gabrielle,” Rosen said, as the two lines of ponies, now numbering at least ten, started slowly converging on me. “Don’t try and fight. King Sombra knows you’re not a killer, and you’ll be pleased to know that neither are we.”

Coal and Slick’s locomotive was steadily catching up with us, but that wouldn’t help when there were this many ponies to try and evade, one of which could fly.

That’s when the line of ponies on Rosen Wreath’s side was broken from the last pony climbing out of the hatch being launched up into the sky, out towards the river, from Armor shooting out of the hatch, having freed himself when no one was looking.

“You!” Braeburn shouted.

“Braeburn!” Armor shouted, hovering above the reach of the other ponies.

“Armor!” I shouted.

“Gabe!” Armor shouted, looking at me in surprise.

“Rosen Wreath!” Trixie suddenly shouted from the rear, standing wide-stanced next to two identical ponies, Polyus and Polyusa, in pegasus form.

“Lulamoon!” Star shouted from the far side of the car.

Trixie’s eyes widened at the sight of him. “Golden Star!?” she said, a surprised expression on her face.

“Mom!” Slick shouted from the approaching locomotive.

We all looked in confusion towards the locomotive engineer, who had his eyes locked at a mare beside Braeburn, who similarly looked at Slick in shock. Then we just shook our heads and went back to what we were just doing. Except for Slick and the mare in question of course.

“‘Baron’ Braeburn,” Golden Star said. “Help us get that filly, alive and unharmed, and your reward will be tripled.”

“That seems like the only way to get something out of this,” Braeburn growled, before shouting loudly. “You heard it, colts and fillies. Get her!”

Braeburn and the goons flanking him rushed past Golden Star. As did one of the ponies that had come up out of the hatch, but Rosen Wreath turned the other ones around to face Trixie, Polyus, and Polyusa.

I crouched down, and just as they were about to pounce me, I jumped as high as my prosthetic legs could launch me. Armor, naturally, was there, ready to catch me.

He came in underneath me, and I landed perfectly on his back. For just one short moment, all was well in the world. Then it was time to deal with all the ponies around us.

Our side had three or four flying ponies, depending on how you wanted to look at it, while our opponents had one, and we were looking to get out of there. This wasn’t as easy as it might’ve seemed though.

I took off my boater, and quickly retrieved the coins from it. Star was about to take off and chase after us, but just as he kicked off, I tossed the coins he had given me at him with my prosthesis. He grunted an alarm as they clanked loudly against the roof, ricocheting up into his face, forcing him to jump towards the river.

“I’m not in great shape, Gabe,” Armor said shortly to me.

“The other train is with us,” I said. “Set us down there.”

Armor immediately turned to do so, and I had to lean forward and rub my cheek against his neck, which he reciprocated.

We immediately flew over towards the other locomotive, to land on the tender loaded with firewood.

“I think we can get out of here,” I called to Coal and Slick.

“Sure, sure,” Slick said, waving a hoof placatingly, while looking at Braeburn’s ponies. “Just… a moment.”

Trixie had shot a blast of magic against Rosen Wreath and the approaching goons, only to have her shot be deflected by one of Rosen’s hooves. She and Poly were slowly backing away from the approaching wall of ponies, but when Polyusa looked back to see us on the other train, Poly charged them head-on.

Polyusa and Trixie took off to join us on our train, but just as they did, I was swept up from behind.

Golden Star had come out of the smoke cloud, and picked me up, hooking his forelegs underneath mine.

Golden was a shockingly agile and fast flier. Before I had time to react, we were already past the point I had jumped from the other train.

That meant that I had my prosthetic hoof placed rather conveniently though. I aimed it between two cars, and hooked it on the roof.

Golden Star let out a frustrated growl as we were suddenly swung downward from the sudden tethering, and started tugging harder, his forelegs around my barrel. Of course, it wasn’t nearly hard enough to detach me from my foreleg.

Polyus, who had charged the mass of ponies, had been knocked away. He might’ve been an effective distraction from getting everyone to follow us to the other train, but that wasn’t relevant now that both Armor and I weren’t on it anymore, as Armor had obviously launched himself off the train again to get me.

My favorite way of knocking people out being occupied, I instead powered up my horn to try and blast Golden Star, but I wasn’t nearly fast enough to weave a stun spell with my horn, and he quickly slapped it, interrupting me and making me feel like my brain had hiccuped hard enough to spin around inside my head.

Next thing I saw Armor hovering in front of me, looking furious.

Star was hiding behind me, me still being in his grip, and tethered to the roof of the train car.

“Be careful,” Star said. “We don’t want to drop her, do we?”

We were indeed a little too close to the speeding tracks for me to feel confident about my ability to reel myself in fast enough.

Two ponies were about to jump Polyusa, but the one in the rear broke off her attack, and instead ran towards the other locomotive. It was the mare that Slick had called to. Polyusa easily wrestled down the suddenly lone pony.

Trixie was wrestling with several burly earth ponies, doing a good job of dispatching them in an almost orderly fashion, and Poly was dragging himself up from the edge of the car they were on.

Suddenly, Polyus and Polyusa got wide grins on their faces, and Polyus kicked off from the ledge of the train, and flew towards us, fairly slowly.

One of Braeburn’s goons, standing near Rosen Wreath, suddenly raised a crossbow towards Polyus, who smiled mischievously.

Rosen Wreath’s eyes widened, and he disengaged from fighting with Trixie, to throw himself towards the armed pony.

“No crossbows!” he yelled, eyes wide, but he was too late. The bolt flew towards Polyus.

Armor had turned around to see it, his eyes widened in shock, while Star gasped.

The bolt struck Polyus in the side, and he fell towards the tracks.

I too, was a bit surprised, but something was wrong.

Polyusa had seen the shooter, and if Polyusa knew, then Polyus knew, and Trixie had not reacted at all to him being shot, despite seeing it plainly.

Then we all realized what was up. Polyus’ body fell toward the track, tumbling on the ground, and just as it seemed like it was about to meet a gruesome fate underneath the oncoming locomotive, it vanished in a green fire.

Polyusa now rushed forward, past an opening that Trixie had made, and sunk her teeth into Rosen Wreath’s neck.

Rosen Wreath’s eyes widened, before he desperately threw Polyusa off him.

Polyusa made no effort to stay on, and let herself be thrown off, righting herself up in midair beside the train.

Trixie and Polyusa had disengaged with Braeburn and his thugs, who stood, looking confused by the fate of Polyus’ body.

Rosen Wreath looked lividly at Polyusa, as he held a hoof up to his strangely non-bleeding neck, before he stumbled forward.

Star growled behind me, and then threw me into Armor’s forelegs. I had to reel in my grappling hook fast as it loosened, to not have it fall on the tracks and stick there.

Star flew up to Rosen Wreath’s stumbling form, holding him up the same way he just had me, and fell back with his back towards the river.

Rosen Wreath looked at us, his conscious quickly fading.

“This isn’t…” he said, before his head slumped over.

Golden Star growled at us, then turned around and flew off as fast as his wings could take him.

We remained where we were, and Armor set us down on the side of Braeburn and his remaining ponies opposite of Trixie and Polyusa.

They looked back and forth between us, half their number lying unconscious, the two most capable on their side just having retreated, and us still at full strength.

Braeburn growled in the direction that Golden Star had flown off with Rosen Wreath, slowly sat down on his haunches, and raised his forehooves, letting out a deep sigh as his head slumped forward.

It was more than a little awkward, having very angry people, who knew they were in the wrong, let themselves more or less willingly be bound together with rope, as half their companions lay passed out around them.

We had made a sweep of the train, arresting the last ponies, and we had to show off a scowling and tied up Braeburn to in order to avoid another fight. There were a few that I had knocked out spread out across the train, including three ponies locked inside a small restroom, doing their best to nurse a pair of bumps in their heads, and two of Braeburn’s goons were last seen falling somewhere in the Dodge City river.

We had stopped in Appleloosa, having arrived there as the sun was setting. Coal and Slick’s locomotive had to pass Braeburn’s and speed ahead to a switch track, to not risk meeting any oncoming trains. Then they had turned around, and we were saying our goodbyes as they needed to speed back to Dodge City to their no doubt confused coworkers.

Trixie rubbed her temples and said that she promised to compensate them if they needed it, but Slick said that it was no trouble. His mother stayed in the background, looking more than a little awkward. Trixie had a word with her, and then seemed okay with her leaving with Coal and Slick. I’m just glad someone who helped me got something out of it.

Then we commandeered Braeburn’s train, and rode on towards Canterlot. Filthy had said that the law was in Braeburn’s pocket, so Trixie felt it best to deliver him directly to the capital, and send someone down to investigate without the targets of the investigation knowing what was going on. There was however, some confusion as the two ponies who had ended up in the river had wobbled back into Appleloosa some time later, only to be promptly arrested when they came looking for their employer.

The engineers of Braeburn’s train had been oblivious to everything that had been going on. They had noticed another train coming up next to them, but nothing more than that.

Since they had been largely uninvolved in the whole affair, we simply had them continue the train to Canterlot.

“I’m having some trouble wrapping my head around being allied with changelings,” Armor said, as he preened his feathers, and I brushed his mane. “No offence.”

“None taken,” Polyus said, shrugging. “I still have trouble wrapping my head around Celestia being a good pony, and our Celestia is a good pony.”

Both Polyus and Polyusa were, of course, completely unharmed. The bolt from the crossbow had hit a temporary construction made from a flake of chitin, controlled directly by Polyus.

Armor had been a bit wary of Poly at first, but they had put on their best face, and seemed to be winning him over.

“What happened to Rosen Wreath anyway?” I asked, clinging to a now newly bathed Armor (who hadn’t had the most pleasant of odors right after he had been freed). “You didn’t hurt him did you?”

“No. Just a tranquilizer,” Polyus said. “He’ll be fine.”

Armor went back to his soup. His appetite was all over the place from only having been spoonfed once per day, and ate his food very slowly to not upset his stomach.

“So,” Armor said, looking around Trixie’s house, as she was out with the engineers in the locomotive. “Back in a bag.”

“Did Braeburn’s goons put you in a bag when you got here too?” I asked.

“Yep, and it stank,” Armor said.

“Hey, so did the diamond dogs when I got to our Equestria,” I said.

Armor and I chuckled. “If this happens when we get back as well, I’m gonna be suspicious.”

We finished our meal, and prepared to go to bed. Trixie had gotten another large cushion for Armor, while I realized that I hadn’t noticed where Poly slept.

That was answered when I saw that the barrel, the one that Poly had rolled into the house back in Hollow Shades, had been placed on top of a bookshelf, lashed in place.

Armor and I looked on in fascination as Poly scampered up the bookshelves, and slipped into the barrel.

“Goodnight,” Polyus and Polyusa said at the same time.

“Uh, yeah… Goodnight,” Armor and I said.

So I went to bed, removed my prosthetics, gave them to Armor to keep safe, and lied down to rest.

I wanted to sleep. I should’ve been able to sleep, but too much kept me awake.

I asked myself what would’ve happened if I hadn’t found Armor. What Sombra wanted with me. How I was going to get back home.

I tried thinking back to everything that Star and Rosen had said, everything I knew of Sombra, and all the time we had spent together, as I dreamt.

Tossing my cover off slightly, I looked over at Armor. He lay facing me, his eyes first being closed, then immediately opened when I looked at him.

He smiled questioningly at me, while I considered him slowly.

Then I tossed my cover off completely, and slipped down from my cushion.

Armor raised his head questioningly, but I just raised a hoof placatingly. Then I dragged myself the few steps he was from me, clambered up on his cushion, and snuggled up against him.

He smiled silently at me, and nuzzled my cheek. Then he turned me around, and held me protectively in his forelegs. He had to struggle a bit to not have my mane envelop his entire head though, before he got comfortable.

I gave the foreleg he draped over me a squeeze, and closed my eye.

Now, I didn’t want to fall asleep. I wanted to relish having Armor back, to have someone from my home keep me company in this crazy world, and to make me feel safe again.

Two breaths later, I was out like a light.

Gaiden