//------------------------------//
// The Finish Line 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

Slowly, Valey raised an eyebrow. "Say that again?"

"A pleasure to find ourselves as allies!" Wallace boomed, extending a muscular talon for her to shake. Valey blinked at it; his arm was thicker than her barrel. "I've been stymied so far in my efforts to meet most of the westerners following this Ironridge business, but your name is one I've heard oft spoken fondly! Kero painted quite a heroic picture of you, young sarosian."

Carefully, Valey moves so that she wasn't standing too close to either Wallace or Gazelle, once again wishing she had the faintest idea what was going on in the Griffon Empire. Kero, praising her? Had he left Ironridge before realizing she wasn't dead in the tunnels? She swallowed, glancing to Gazelle. "He's not pulling my tail, is he?"

Gazelle's chin wobbled sadly. "Asking me for advice? And here I thought you were ignoring me! Valey, shouldn't you first be asking whether I knew about you in advance, too?" His eyes flashed. "If you're curious, I've had my suspicions ever since we met on that pirate ship."

Valey felt her eyes betray her, and Gazelle perked in victory. "Ha! I wondered if that was you." Standing, he prowled fluidly closer, sending Valey instinctively backing toward Wallace. "Since you asked, yes, Kero talked you up so much, I had to see for myself what you were capable of, and yes, I knew you were going for your friends. And my verdict is..." He scratched his throat, flicking his rounded ears one by one before brightening into a genuine smile. "A bit cowardly, but that can be fixed! Perhaps I said it before, but I like you! Let's be chums, chum." He quirked an eyebrow and added, "How are you with titles? Should I be calling you Admiral?"

"First, I quit that job, and second, knock yourself out," Valey huffed, folding her forelegs. "Bad mood bat, here. Do you mind giving me what I want and then pestering me later? Like, you're not hostile, cool. But sitting here in the middle of a hallway when I've got stuff to do is driving me up a wall!"

Gazelle and Wallace both looked about to say something, until a hot rush of air blew in along the hallway, in seconds changing Valey from uncomfortably chilly to comfortably warm to uncomfortably hot. "What the...!?" She blinked, spinning, wondering if something had gone wrong with the abandoned lamp coil.

"Speaking of driving ponies up a wall..."

"Uh-oh." Gazelle gulped, slipping next to Wallace and leaving Valey between him and the unseen source of the heat. "Wallace, old friend, take this fall for me and I'll be sure to rag on old Chauncey for you next time I'm in Izvaldi. Deal?"

Something appeared around the corner, a suit of misshapen metal that belonged to a realm of fire and slag. Orange-glowing hoses laced their way between racks, spikes and blades of thinly-separated metal fins, five hissing fan turbines mounted on the back and sides of the mechanical monstrosity, and Valey was highly suspicious they were radiators responsible for the heat. Locked tightly within the suit was a smoke-gray earth pony mare covered head to tail save for her face, with orange eyes and a curved muzzle and a worried, angry frown.

"Gazelle!" she demanded, hitting the floor with a metal stomp as a disciplined force of green-and-purple guards marched along behind her. "The entire castle is up in arms. A chef with a hairpin temper went on a rampage downstairs, saying he was set off by a sarosian in his kitchens. Geribaldi is scared senseless, and says a sarosian replaced one of his guards flying his chariot up here. Half the soldiers on this level say they found you in this hallway with a sarosian doing some pointless stunt before Wallace Whitewing chased them away, and now here the three of you are, exactly as described. Please, please, please tell me this isn't what it looks like."

Gazelle shrugged with the proud innocence only a cat could muster. "In my defense, it was quite entertaining."

A protective snowy wing covered the prince, simultaneously hiding him and restraining him from the metal mare's sight. "Ahem-hem-hem-hem-hem!" Wallace importantly cleared his throat, then bowed low to the ground. "Greetings again, fair Meltdown. Is there a problem I as a champion of citizens everywhere can assist with?"

"I surrender!" Valey announced before the conversation could go any further... or, more importantly, before her fur began to curl from the heat. "Yo, lady. My friends are up here. Maple, Shinespark, Starlight, Gerardo... ring any bells? Take me wherever they are and let me take a nap, and don't try anything funny or throw any of us in a dungeon or anything or I'll clean your clock. I've tried sneaking around, I'm trying asking politely, and I'm very frustrated and close to giving up on that too."

Meltdown's fans slowed, and the temperature in the hall gradually lessened. "Wallace, Gazelle, go away. I'll deal with this. You." She pointed a hoof at Valey. "On record, because I'm recording this: why did you break into a restricted area of Stormhoof Castle?"

Valey stiffened, lifting a hoof of her own. "Okay, by 'restricted', do you mean this tower thing in general, or specifically the upper bit? Because early on, I was-"

"The upper reaches," Meltdown interrupted. "This floor. Was it in search of your friends?"

"Nah." Valey glanced over her shoulder at the retreating griffon and sphinx. "Your prince dude... Geribaldi... kinda yelled at me and told me to haul his wagon. Then I figured it wasn't worth it and tried to bail, but the other prince dude Gazelle knocked down all the guards at the entrance and basically dragged me in here for fun. I'm seriously tired of this, tired in general, and want to see my friends and be left alone."

Meltdown considered that for a moment, then mechanically nodded, the orange hoses along her neck twisting with the motion. "Good enough," she decided. "Name your friends and yourself."

Valey licked her lips. "Valey, and Maple, Starlight, Shinespark, and Gerardo. Oh, and Slipstream. And maybe a filly called Jamjars."

Meltdown nodded. "All six of those are being held in relative luxury for possessing knowledge that could be used against House Stormhoof, and will be free to depart once Stormhoof officials are confident they've had a chance to react to everything these creatures know. You match the profile of someone with strategic information with Ironridge as well, and will be taken to join them. I'll escort you myself to ensure nothing further goes wrong."

"...Wait. Seriously?" Valey blinked several times, sitting back on her haunches. "You're actually being reasonable about this? Not going to pick a fight with me for being a bat, or drag me around on some game I'm too tired to play? Like, I'm really finally getting my way just because?"

"Did you expect otherwise?" Meltdown looked faintly concerned, but at Valey's deadpan expression she quickly stopped, flicking her mechanical tail. "I see. Well, I advise moving to a more hospitable area as soon as you're able, and I'm sorry the Empire hasn't been as hospitable as your ideals. Stormhoof's policies are not my domain. Guards." She motioned to the griffons behind her. "Form a procession and march."

Valey fell into step behind Meltdown, sagging low to the floor in exhaustion and passing a curious guard poking at her abandoned, heavily-burnt squash. "Never thought I'd be able to say finding someone reasonable and professional would be the highlight of my day. Would you be offended if I said I could kiss you?"

"Don't," Meltdown said, a hot wind blowing off the fans on her armor. "You wouldn't be able to handle the heat."

Surrounded by clanking, shuffling armor, Valey dragged herself along, wondering if she had just been flirted with, or if Meltdown was far too literal for her own good.





"Open," Meltdown requested, standing before a doubly-guarded door in an ornate upper hall several floors higher than Valey had entered the keep at. The guards bowed, reacting without any password or credentials... though Valey supposed the armored mare's appearance would be very hard to duplicate.

With a click, the door was allowed open, Valey positioned to be the first one through. It was a multi-bed suite, with fancy tables and curtained windows and plenty of space for everything, but what caught her attention above all else was the ponies inside: Maple was curled around Starlight on a bed, reading aloud from a book, while Shinespark and Gerardo engaged each other in a tabletop game with Slipstream acting as referee. She blinked. They all blinked back. And in that moment, Valey forgot every concern about Kero, every worry that her friends had abandoned her at sea, every circumstance and trial around her ascent of the tower, everything except her long-anticipated goal and the fluffiness of those beds and the fact that her cutie mark wasn't warning her of traps and strolled forward with sure confidence, grinning. "Hey, ladies. Did you miss me?"

"Valey!"

A tide of equines surged forward as Meltdown and the griffons looked on, Maple reaching her first and clinging tightly. "You made it back!" Maple sniffed, wiping her eyes on Valey's coat. "The ship ran out of power while you were away, and then... and then..."

"You, uh, might not wanna do that," Valey said, pushing Maple a few inches back. "I crawled through a sewer on the way here. And seriously, I'm really... nngh... zzzzzzz..."

Maple didn't let go, and others soon pressed around, but Valey didn't care, pretending to sleep and more quickly than she expected falling into the real thing.