//------------------------------//
// Confession Time 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

"I hope I... know where... I'm going..." Maple panted, her legs thudding along the metal mesh floor of the Flame District corridors as Starlight bounced on her back and Gerardo raced along beside her. "Ohh, I'm still sore from this morning... Scratch that, I just hope we don't have to stop so I can rest..."

"Then slow down!" Starlight growled, hanging onto her mane. "Pace yourself better! I know about not pacing yourself! I spent a week sick in a cave because I didn't!"

Maple folded her ears and narrowed her eyes. "Not until we're safe. We need to find... somewhere. We need to keep going..."

"In Maple's defense, you were not potentially being chased by an army of irate pegasi," Gerardo replied, easily keeping pace. "Right now, there is more of a downside to resting than merely taking longer to reach our goal. Collapsing in safety is preferable to having a comfortable escape." He sniffed. "Though, you very much do have my sympathies."

They exited the tunnel into an employee break room, a sturdy window with triangular metal braces showing the Flame District core to their left. The floor was still hot, uncomfortable metal, but there were two tables along with a row of countertops that sported a sink, refrigerator and stove, alongside countless cupboards. The stove looked exceptionally new and shiny, its curved chrome trim polished to a mirrorlike state, and its cardboard packaging still sat in a corner.

"Shh!" Gerardo abruptly halted them, letting the Flame District's usual din fill the air... and hoofsteps sounded from the tunnel ahead. Without hesitation, he grabbed Maple and Starlight and darted behind the empty stove box.

A trio of pegasus mares strode into the room, two with flash clubs strapped to their backs and one holding hers in a wing. Briefly, she strobed it around the room, grunting. "There's someone in here. I heard someone coming, and then they stopped!"

Another looked at her curiously. "How much noise do you think Valey would make if she got past everyone? Wouldn't she try to do it as quietly as possible?"

The third shrugged. "Well, we heard something. Check, maybe-"

At that moment, Howe and Neon Nova skidded into the room from the direction Maple had came, both panting heavily and holding their sides. "Urgh... did you..." Howe glanced up at the pegasi. "Good evening, ladies! Has our elusive target passed this way? I swear, we were just on her heels!"

"Howe?" The three mares frowned in unison. "I thought you got fired!" one said, pointing.

"And Neon, aren't you stationed in the Earth District?" another asked, confused. "The boss said it was only pegasi on this mission, since we didn't want to give the impression that the other districts were interfering!"

"I still don't get that, by the way," the first grumbled. "We get all these jobs from Herman raising tensions between the districts, and now suddenly one with a really big potential to do that and he wants us not to? Imagine how much easier this would be if we had a proper number of unicorns! But no, all we get is one sniper..."

"No questioning orders," the third said. "Howe, Neon, what are you doing here?"

Howe slapped a wing across his chest. "Trying to restore our glorious reputations! We were... in the area and thought we'd help out. Anyway, the rest of the team has been attacked and set upon by Selma's Defense Force. We felt it incomprehensibly wise to continue searching for the target instead of helping them out. I'm sure they'll be fine on their own."

Behind the box, Maple bristled. Through a pinprick hole in the cardboard, she could see Howe shoot a glance straight at her.

"Specifically?" Neon Nova grinned. "We teleported out. Having a unicorn is useful!"

"Okay. Right." The lead pegasus ran a hoof along her face. "So she was between us and you missed her. Is that it?"

Howe shrugged, noncommittal. "Technically, I think she was behind us. We were trying to reach the exit and head her off."

The mare raised an eyebrow. "You were trying to escape. The Defense Force attacked and you chickened out."

"Hey, it's not like we were being paid to do this, or anything!" Neon Nova protested.

"Ugh..." The lead mare unhitched her flash club with a sigh. "You cowards. Go on. Escape. We don't need you to deal with this, anyway. Boss says it's our last job, so when it's over we're leaving. You can stay here in Ironridge for all I care."

"Eh heh heh..." Howe nervously giggled. "In that case, maybe we'll be... sort of helpful? We'll hold down this room. Now go get her!"

With a snort of disapproval, the lead pegasus flapped past them, the other two trotting swiftly along behind her back along the tunnel to the elevator. Howe and Neon took up seats at a table, not leaving the room.

"Look," Howe said to no one a minute after they were gone, "I know that wasn't exactly flattering for us back there, but they were about to find you. You could at least say thank you."

Maple rose from behind the cardboard packaging, silent, offering the stallions a chance to explain themselves.

"We were cowardly, okay?" Howe looked cowed and slightly desperate. "You haven't fought with our band. Every one of them is a hardened warrior of unspeakable strength! Well... every one they'd send on a job like this. Which isn't to say the two of us are pushovers, but we could maybe take one on together and it would be a fair fight. If Neon wasn't already busted up. Besides, they did not intend to hurt you! We just needed to cover our rears, and..."

Gerardo fixed them with a sharp stare. "Somehow, I did not receive the impression you knew them very well back there, judging by their reaction to your perceived treachery."

"Well..." Howe wilted. "We really want those hearts, okay? We thought, maybe, if you got captured, we could play along and get you to give them to us in exchange for letting you out..."

"Yes," Gerardo mused, "you really do want those hearts. In fact... and I feel like I should have put my talon on this earlier... Maple, have you noticed any change in Howe's demeanor since you met up with him in Grand Acorn? I wasn't there for much of the time, so cannot say myself..."

Maple thought, then shook her head. "I don't think so. Not significant, at least. Why?"

"Because I have," Gerardo stated. "Between our separation in the Defense Force fort and reunion in Gnarlbough this morning. An absence coinciding with your discovery that the hearts were not beyond reach, as you had thought. Before, you were penitent, silly, and slightly too aggravating for your own good. Now, you're... shall we say, much more intense."

"And I never spent more than a few minutes around you before that, so I wouldn't know..." Maple's eyes widened. "Gerardo, where are you going with this?"

Gerardo held up the windigo heart, glowing like a star with internal pink flame. "You want this, don't you? Badly enough that you'd do anything for it?"

Howe and Neon Nova watched it like dogs salivating before a meal.

"Valey said..." Maple's heartbeat increased in worry. "She said the windigo hearts could make ponies fight over them. And these two had the hearts as heirlooms. You're not saying having them that long... changed them, are you? Made it so they aren't themselves when the possibility of getting these back is on the table? That there's something unnatural going on here?"

"Hmm?" Gerardo glanced over at her. "Oh, hardly. I was merely thinking it was time for a very honest question-and-answer session, since they've been in dire need of a chance to show their true colors and that display back there wasn't the most inspiring."

"Name your proposition," Howe said dully. "We're not cursed, all right!? We just want our legacy back! And we're so close, yet so far, and it's making us incredibly nervous!"

Starlight crawled towards the door, glancing down the tunnel. "Is this really the best time for this? We're staying in one place too long!"

"You wanted me to rest, didn't you?" Maple smiled tiredly at her. "Well, here we are."

Gerardo nodded at Starlight. "Indeed, we should keep moving," he agreed. "As such, I have only one question: how did these orbs become a family heirloom? What is your initial claim to them?"

"Uhhh... Well, that's..." Howe scratched at the back of his neck. "It's not something we usually talk about because it's very hard to prove, but we were given them by our father. And he obtained them during the adventures of his youth, when he... slew their original hosts?" He grinned hopefully.

Gerardo gave him a careful stare. "You father found two live windigoes and killed them. Is that how I'm supposed to be reading this? Wherever did he manage to do that?"

"I'm not certain on the details..." Howe fumbled for words. "Apparently the windigoes lurk in a creepy castle like that one, uh, far beneath the ice under the yak capital of Infinite Glacier. As for how, he was one of the original companions of Blazing Rain forty years ago. All the stories say that war failed to dredge up the windigoes of old, but... it did. She and her friends were able to stop them in time, though, and since then the church was able to cover up their existence and keep it as a legend. In case anyone wanted to get at them again and use them for evil. And believe me, as bad of an idea as it sounds, there are ponies who would." His posture firmed, and he returned Gerardo's stare. "You want to know why I wear my hair like a supervillain and talk about darkness and chaos all the time? As bait! So those ponies will approach me and think I'm one of them, and I can shut them down before they dig too deep! That's what we spent our lives doing before our hideout was raided and the yaks stole back our windigo hearts..."

He finally sighed. "And if you want to know why I was acting different, that's how I usually am when I'm not acting. Losing all hope of getting the hearts back has this way of taking the wind out of your sails, you know?"

Maple's eyes were wide. "Really?"

"By my own blood, yes." Howe slumped. "The hearts and the secrets they protect are ours to guard, and our forgotten legacy they serve to remind us of. For a time, the yak church aided with passing Blazing Rain into legend so that the details surrounding her quest would be forgotten. Those hearts are not only dangerous artifacts, but our last proof of that which wasn't wiped away. That is why we want them back."

Gerardo glanced to Maple. "Should we trust them?"

"Why do I have to decide!?" Maple pulled on her mane, ears tucking against her skull. "Why can't we... ohh..."

"Maple?" Starlight asked from across the room. "There's a map here, on the wall. It shows that we're right by that lift. Are we going up to the Water District, or going out to the Stone District? We need to decide!"

"I know I'm going up," Neon Nova added sagely.

Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And why is that?"

Neon shrugged. "Because the Water District is where the surveillance center is, and I just realized someone let all that slip on camera!"

Howe's eyes constricted. "What!? But... but... Oh, I did! Neon, why didn't you stop me!?"

"Because I only realized just now!" Neon yelped as Howe slammed him back against a wall.

"What?" Gerardo's eyes were pinpricks. "But Selma said the surveillance system was video only, and lacked an audio feed! That..." He drooped. "He was lying, wasn't he? That scoundrel. Well, that's one less choice we need make, at least. In the event that these two are telling the truth, I see no good coming of Herman having access to a confession involving underground castles and the existence of windigoes."

Maple got to her hooves, following him along and whispering under her breath. "I'm just worried he already knew..."