"T-This is..." Gerardo's beak chattered as he danced back from the cold, collapsed snow spilling about his talons as more heavy flakes flurried in from above.
"What happened to the ceiling?" Blast Furnace asked, staring upward into a wall of bluey-gray. "It's gone..."
Muffled winds echoed down from high above, but for the moment the interior of the hangar was still, the incoming snow drifting and spiraling lazily, barely being tossed. It was a deceptive calm that disguised the intense cold, as if the storm wanted to offer the spot in refuge to battered ponies, then freeze them to death while their backs were against the wall.
The retracting door let them out at the bottom of an industrial gully that was rapidly filling with a blanket of white, stalls holding docked airships lining the walls to either side. The ships were separated only by raised catwalks for maintenance and boarding, and many were askew, crushed or damaged by twisted chunks of fallen steel and glass and other debris.
"We're too late..." A Defense Force stallion started shaking. "Look at this place! Everything's snowy, and there's metal and garbage laying everywhere, and some of the ships look trashed, and..." He trailed off, pointing a wing at the detritus littering the ground between damaged ships. "Those terrorists!"
"Hey." Mosswater shot him a consoling look. "We just had our home violently destroyed. As much as we need to stop them before they can do more... they have good reasons, and are our friends. Empathize, if nothing else."
Suddenly, as if in welcome, the calm air became a raging gale just above their heads. It caught the massive dirigible of one ship, dragging it sideways, turning it and smashing through a catwalk until the ship's prow rammed into the side of the one moored next to it. Their hulls collided, metal ground, splinters and sparks flew everywhere... and then the wind dissipated back to nothing, leaving two ships twisted into one as a show of its power. The rest of the room appeared to be untouched.
"Now that's just creepy," a Sosan who had lost an ear and a decent amount of fur around it muttered. "The door was closed, so you wouldn't think they've been here yet. But where'd the roof go? And how's this place exposed to the storm without instantly getting wiped away?"
A deep boom echoed in the distance, accompanied by the howl of wind. "I don't like this either," Gerardo replied, still staring down the snow-coated tarmac between the rows of parked ships. "It feels less immediately lethal and more like a trap, though who a trap in a place like this would be set by and for completely elude me. However, if this room being unsealed is pony-made, it implies that our Sosan friends are indeed in play here. I recommend falling back into the tunnel where it is warmer and trying to intercept them should they leave and move on to another target."
Mosswater sighed. "If they were even here in the first place, and didn't do this remotely. Would you want to be in a room you were planning to open up to the storm like this?"
"Oh, hardly," Gerardo laughed. "Though I fail to see how they could do this remotely with the power... off..." He trailed off, squinting. "I say, does that look like a pony to you?"
A dark silhouette was visible in the distance through the falling snow, though he couldn't make out how far. Or maybe it was two... or three, huddled close together? His companions paused to look for themselves, before one opted to give away their position. "Hey! Over here!"
Blast Furnace and Mosswater both turned to silence the offender. Gerardo, however, grimaced. "As the fittest of us, I think I'm going to take a peek ahead. Everyone who is injured, stay near shelter."
Without waiting for objections, he spread his wings and soared out into the snow, icy air enveloping him. It was at the perfect temperature to be harsh and painful without impeding his ability to fly, and he skimmed low to the ground, dusting the snowdrifts with his feathertips. His target quickly came into better view.
Three ponies, all pegasi, trudged along together, not flying over the belly-deep snow. Two were stallions, the third was a mare, and they walked with their sides touching and wings over each others' backs to conserve body heat. In fact, the mare looked barely able to keep her head upright, sandwiched between the others and on the verge of passing out.
"Pegasi?" Gerardo asked, eyeing them curiously. "I was expecting Sosans. You didn't perpetrate this, did you?"
"No," one pegasus growled, coat fluffed against the cold. "We were here earlier, and then the roof tried to open... It blew away. We've been stuck here and are looking for a way out. How did you get in?"
Gerardo nodded over his shoulder. "A tunnel from one of the main terminals. Myself and a group of survivors are here with an airship, attempting to track down and neutralize any Spirit remnants attempting to take revenge for the loss of their own district. It's not far, and is a good deal more survivable than these conditions."
"So cold..." the mare murmured, slumping.
One of the stallions glanced down at her, propping her head back upright with a nudge. "It'll be okay, Rainstorm. Gerardo says we're close to a way out..."
Gerardo blinked. "I say, you know my name? Has my fame really spread so... rapidly...?" He blinked harder, and his eyes narrowed. "Wait a moment... Your face... Rainstorm... Do I know you?" He jabbed a talon at her. "I remember you! You blocked our path while we were escaping from the Flame District! You three are with those mercenaries that accosted us!"
"Mhmm..." Rainstorm whimpered, starkly defeated and helpless next to Gerardo's memory of the unflinching combatants from the caves.
"Yes," one of the stallions acknowledged, "we are. It was business, not personal, and that contract is over. We aren't going to fight you now. But if that means you won't help us..." He gave a sorrowful glance at Rainstorm and the other stallion. "We... understand."
Gerardo swallowed, feeling a bubble of anger welling up. "You are aware of how highly you inconvenienced myself and my friends?" He shot them a hard glare. "In stopping you, one of my companions grievously wounded their horn, and another may have permanently broken their brand! What's more, you effectively herded us straight into the middle of an exceptionally lethal battle, and now that we're here, I find myself well within my rights to-"
He was cut off as the wind howled again, gaining a sudden burst of intensity. Snow whipped past their faces, and a great groaning echoed down the corridor... followed by a metallic boom from the direction he had came. Gerardo whirled, looked, and as the wind vanished and died, saw two ships from opposite sides of the corridor that had been dragged out of their docks and rammed together like an elevator door, cutting off the path by which he had came.
"...Did two ships just get blown in opposite directions at once?" His jaw dropped. "If I wasn't seeing it with my own eyes, I'd... I'd..." He gulped. "Well, regrettably, that was the way out. I don't suppose flying over any obstacles is an option?" He glanced hopefully at the pegasi, all of whom had their wings occupied in staying upright and warm.
They shook their heads. "It doesn't look like it, but there's wind," one sighed. "Bad wind. There are obstacles like that all over this place. It's practically a maze. And every time we try to fly over them... That's why Rainstorm is in as bad of shape as she's in."
"Regrettable and annoying," Gerardo huffed. "Still..."
He trailed off, vision switching between the freezing mercenaries on one side and the wrecked airships on the other. "It seems forgiveness and cooperation in the name of survival are in order. I'll be very interested in exchanging words and explanations later, but for now, let us focus on reaching that exit alive." He extended a frozen talon. "Does anyone have a floor plan for this place?"
One pegasus took it with his wing, giving a single shake of agreement. "Wouldn't do much good, what with how much can and has changed. It's like a maze that rearranges itself in here. But if there's a way out, we at least need to get back to the others and let them know."
"Others?" Gerardo tilted his head, already following the pegasi's lead. "The rest of you are here, as well?"
"For a given definition of rest. Sixteen of our eighteen pegasi are here, counting us... or is it seventeen, now that Howe got kicked out?" He scratched his head. "The same team that fought you, pretty much: every pegasus we had that could be mobilized. Couldn't send any earth ponies or unicorns because we had to fly up here." Sighing, he looked aside at the other stallion, who was still trying to keep Rainstorm awake. "I'm Darkwind, by the way, and this is Avalanche. If you notice a pattern, it's because we're all from the same tribe in Yakyakistan."
Gerardo nodded, the snow offering slightly less resistance as he fell into the groove of walking. "I see. Is the entire company like that?"
"Most, but not all." Darkwind shrugged. "It's where we got the company started, back when it was a smaller, all-pegasus group without Kero or the warm-weather ponies. In Yakyakistan, the weather is like this a lot more often, so we're at least used to it. Doesn't mean it can't beat us, though." He shot another look at Rainstorm, who was still awake. "Hmmmmmph..."
Gerardo had been to Yakyakistan before and wasn't surprised by many of the pegasus's statements, but kept that to himself in the name of sustaining friendly conversation. He had to hand it to Darkwind: now that they had a working alliance, he was doing better than necessary to be pleasant. "Sixteen of you are here, you said, out of seventeen? What happened to the last one?"
"Bourbon? Same reason she wasn't in the tunnels," Darkwind grunted. "Just far enough into her first foal that it would be bad if she suddenly got dizzy or nauseous in a fight. And it could be real bad if she took a hit the wrong way to the gut."
"That... does indeed sound like a valid reason to sit out a fight," Gerardo said, wincing in pre-emptive empathy. "If you don't mind my curiosity, though, what's a member of an elite mercenary group doing engaging in these family affairs? Given how lengthy such incapacitations tend to be..."
Darkwind exhaled, the wind around them keeping its silence for the time being. "We're more than just a band of fighters," he settled for, thinking slowly about his words. "For everyone with us, this is their home. It's not just where we work, it's where we live... all aspects of life, including families. We have friendships, courtships, married couples. We have ponies who joined up based on a relationship with someone already here. We have ponies who can't fight, whether by disability or career, and even foals, and we take care of them as long as they need it."
"Rainstorm has a foal," the other stallion, Avalanche, offered, still trying to rouse the barely-conscious mare. "Stormy, talk to us. Tell us about your foal."
"He's a colt..." Rainstorm murmured, flicking her ears and struggling to move her dragging legs. "He'll be six this summer... His name is Swift, and he's going to be a great flier..."
"That's it," Avalanche urged. "Keep talking. Stay awake..."
Respectfully, Gerardo held his silence, letting the stallions tend to their frozen companion. Darkwind, however, cracked a sly smile and said, "Tell Gerardo about everything we did to support you in having him, like that one time I saved you in Varsidel. He's very curious."
A touch of pink somehow made its way to Rainstorm's pale cheeks. "Nooo..." she protested, struggling weakly. "That was so embarrassing..."
Gerardo raised an icy talon. "If I'm intruding on anything private..."
"Hush." Darkwind cut him off. "Focus, Rainstorm. Better to be awake and embarrassed than asleep in the cold."
"Fine..." Rainstorm grumbled, staying pink. "I'm small, so I usually... do reconnaissance..." She yawned, but kept talking through it. "And I had stayed at the ship for so many months, and badly wanted some action, and then we got an easy job where I could just get information and stay safe, and..." Her ears folded, and pink turned to red. "I underestimated how big I had gotten, and... got stuck in an air duct..."
Gerardo's eyebrows both rose. Darkwind grinned, nudging her to go on, and Avalanche looked torn between glaring at him and being grateful.
"It's not funny!" Rainstorm protested, voice strengthening. "Really! The duct got narrower and I couldn't turn around or back out! I was scared in there!" She glared at Darkwind. "You're terrible!"
"But it livened you up," Darkwind said, and Gerardo had to agree. Rainstorm wasn't sagging nearly as much as she had earlier; it looked like she was actually recovering.
Rainstorm huffed, suddenly shivering. "Now I have to survive just so I can tell him about the time you got arrested in Mistvale for making eyes at a sarosian and we had to-"
"Yes, yes. Survival is good," Darkwind interrupted her by saying. "You should definitely do that."
"Well, you certainly torment each other like a family," Gerardo admitted lightly as Avalanche almost laughed, measuring his own stamina and deciding he still had a decent amount of time left before being incapacitated by the cold, so long as the present conditions held. "I heard mention of you being on a ship, though? What's this?"
"We have an airship," Darkwind said, nodding. "It's our company base when we're on the go, and for short-term jobs. Ironridge is a lengthier assignment, so we've had a roomier facility rented in the Stone District to use instead, near the yak embassy on the western edge. It's also the reason we're here." He glared up at the heavily-snowing sky. "Kero said capturing Valey, dead or alive, would be our last assignment, and that we were leaving Ironridge and heading for the Griffon Empire once it was done. After that magic teleported us out of the caves while we were fighting you, we made the decision as a group that the job wasn't worth it and we were leaving right then. Everything exploding made it a lot easier. Some of us flew up to get the ship, since we knew the power outage would close the skyport and we didn't know when it would re-open, but when we got here, it was gone."
Rainstorm took over for him, heeding the importance of staying awake. "Its stall was empty," she said, shivering between the two stallions that carried her. "We went back to let everyone know, and decided to send all the pegasi who could up here to look for records or clues. But then the storm got bad while we were here, and eventually someone tried to open the roof. I have no idea how, since the power was out. It was a good ship, too, freshly repaired and kitted and designed to be ran by a skeleton crew for emergencies. Now we're stuck here, just hoping we survive the storm..."
"We will survive," Avalanche assured her. "Don't you worry, Stormy. We'll see Swift again."
Darkwind nodded. "Yes, we will. The place where we left the others is just ahead."