The sun had set completely by the time the two mares left the Aerion Technologies building, heading back to the Maneway Station triumphant. The streets were completely dark, as all the streetlights were powerless and idle, but the full moon peeking through the clouds above provided enough light for them to get by. Rainy took point with her rifle raised. Aerion following close behind while burdened down by saddlebags, filled to the brim with MagiTech devices she'd insisted on bringing.
"Calm down, Agent Awesome," Aerion said as Rainy kept her rifle raised and trained on the buildings towering over them. "There's no one around."
"There's nothing wrong with being careful, ma'am," Rainy replied simply, not taking her gaze off her sights as she scanned the dark windows above.
Aerion rolled her eyes. "Trust me, nopony in these parts is smart enough or brave enough to set up an ambush for a Division Agent. Don't have the firepower for it either. All that's left here is the occasional looter. Further midtown, though, that's a different story."
Rainy sighed and lowered her rifle, falling in beside Aerion as they walked. "How do you know so much about the Division? You seem very... opinionated about us."
Aerion gave her a glance before looking forward, responding softly, "My MagiTech company was in the running to be the equipment supplier for the Shadowbolts. The deal fell through."
"Really?" Rainy asked. "What happened?"
"I got outbid," Aerion replied with a huff, obviously still annoyed at the memory. "The crown always goes for the company that promises the most features for the lowest price. Well, guess what? You can't do more with less. Now you're stuck with shitty equipment that more than likely killed your first wave friends, and some big tech company is lining its pockets."
"And you weren't trying to line your pockets too?" Rainy retorted.
"Of course not," Aerion hissed, looking insulted at the accusation. "I'm a goddamn patriot. If they really insisted on making this thing a reality, they should have done everything they could to do it right. And they didn't, and now everything is going to hell."
"Hindsight is 20/20, ma'am," Rainy replied, glancing down at her rifle. "If you really do know your way around my tech... maybe you can tell me what's wrong with it."
Aerion just shrugged. "I could tell you a couple reasons right off the bat, but go ahead."
"Well, as soon as I got into the city, I started encountering glitches with my systems. My motion tracker stopped showing targets, my crosshairs lagged behind or moved in different directions entirely... It was like I was hacked or something."
Aerion nodded along as Rainy explained, before biting her lip. "I can't know for sure until I can look at it with all my equipment, but my best guess... your gear doesn't have a filter on the power supply."
"Oh yeah? What's that?"
"MagiTech, like the name suggests, is powered by magic. This type of equipment is charged by absorbing magic from the environment, much like how ponies absorb magic when they cast spells or fly. It allows for on-the-go recharge and reuse, rather than having to return to base for a resupply. So, just like with ponies, when a foreign virus is absorbed into the equipment with the magic, it can cause malfunctions. You need a special filter to block potential contagions like the virus from entering, and your supplier cheaped out on putting them in."
"Great..." sighed Rainy, running a hoof through her black and orange mane. "So this stuff is busted now?"
"Mmhm. Though, luckily for you, I grabbed some of my Division gear prototypes on the way out the door, so I can give you some working equipment with filters provided. HUD goggles and contacts, earpieces, commlinks, more equipment... You're the only one around who can use them, so I might as well give them to you."
Rainy blinked in surprise. "Well, if you're offering... thank you."
"Yep! Trust me, I wouldn't be lugging all this shit around if I didn't have a good reason to," Aerion said with a chuckle, tilting her head. "Looks like we're here."
The Base of Operations was indeed on the street in front of them, the lights now on inside, visible through the stained-glass windows. It still looked intact and secure, so it wasn't attacked while she was gone. Rainy tugged the heavy main doors open to let Aerion inside before stepping in as well, closing the doors and locking them tight.
Inside, the lights illuminating the place were stunning. The standard lighting combined with Hearths' Warming lights decorating the place gave the Maneway Station an impressive atmosphere. The audible whir of heaters from the basement below them actually made the air not completely freezing, a major improvement to the bone-chilling wind outside. Injured EUP soldiers loitered in the lobby, some of them trying to sleep, others engaging in idle chatter in small groups. When the two mares entered, all of them looked up to stare at the new arrivals, and Rainy raised her rifle above her head in response.
"Mission accomplished," Rainy said with a grin, gesturing to Aerion beside her.
A soft cheer went up among the soldiers, and they turned back to their conversations, at ease now with the Division Agent back.
"Hm. You're a hero already." Aerion remarked as she trotted down into the lobby, though Rainy couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not.
"Hey, we've gotten this far... a little hope never hurt," Rainy replied as she followed the other mare. "Let's find Agrippa, let her know you're here."
"Fine with me."
The two mares made their way over to Agrippa's medical area, where she was visible on her cot-turned-makeshift-bed, her jacket draped over her head to block out the light as she tried to sleep. Aerion immediately walked in and prodded Agrippa on the side, paying no mind to her obviously tired state.
"Urgh...five more minutes..." Agrippa groaned as she rolled over onto her side, the small gurney not giving her much room to escape to.
"Nope, I made it back in one piece, you owe me ten bits!" Aerion joked as she continued her incessant poking.
"...Aeri?" Agrippa said after a moment of realization, rolling back over to look at the two of them.
"In the flesh," Aerion responded with a grin.
Agrippa gasped and sat up to hug Aerion tightly, which made Rainy roll her eyes and look away. "I can't believe you survived, you crazy mare. I started getting all your emergency messages as soon as the power came back on. I was worried sick... How did you do it?"
Aerion chuckled and hugged Agrippa back. "Well, I did have the situation under control... but you can thank Agent Awesome here for helping me out."
Rainy shuffled in place as Agrippa looked over from Aerion to her, the doctor’s eyes instantly growing darker at the sight of the Shadowbolt. "Do you get some sleep, Doctor?" she asked awkwardly.
"I got a couple minutes in... until the lights came on and blinded me." Agrippa grumbled, rubbing her eyes with her hooves. "The heaters are nice though. Thanks for getting the power back on, you two."
Aerion chuckled. "Well, it was mostly me, but you can thank Rainy for the last few steps. And also for breaking me out. We should probably get started on that cure, huh?"
"Yeah, good idea... and luckily for us, we have a lab rat now." Agrippa responded, gesturing towards Rainy with the tilt of her head.
Aerion turned and looked at Rainy with a disappointed look. "You got yourself infected? I thought you were one of the smart ones, Agent."
"I didn't realize!" stammered Rainy, trying to salvage her reputation. "No one told me that flying infected you..."
Aerion huffed. "Huh, I would've thought that your commander would have told you. Maybe they didn't say anything on purpose."
"That's what I said," Agrippa interjected.
"Girls, I'm sure there's a good reason why they didn't say... " Rainy said, trailing off hesitantly.
"Whatever you say, Agent Awesome," Aerion said with a playful roll of her eyes. "C'mon, this way, let's run some tests on you."
Rainy blinked. "W-What? Tests? I'm not your guinea pig, I have work to do!"
Agrippa quickly stepped between the two ponies to mediate. "Rainy, you're the only recently-infected pony we have, seeing how the virus develops inside you in the early stages would be hugely beneficial. It won't take long, I promise."
Rainy sighed and looked down. "...Fine. Where is it?"
"Follow me." Agrippa responded, waving her to follow.
Agrippa and Aerion led Rainy to one of the adjacent stores in the lobby of the station, where the virus analysis equipment was stored. Now that there was power, the devices whirred and beeped intermittently as they stood idle, covered with flashing status lights and feedback screens. In the middle of the room was the largest piece of equipment, which Rainy immediately assumed was the scanner. It was shaped like an arch, or a semicircle sticking out of the ground, tall enough for her to walk under, the underside covered with strange cameras and scanning equipment. A large screen for controlling it was at one of the two bases, which Aerion immediately walked to in order to turn it on.
"Just step underneath the scanner and try to relax," Agrippa instructed as she moved to join Aerion. "Have you felt any symptoms, anything unusual?"
Rainy nodded and stepped underneath the arch, thinking before answering, "No, nothing. I've felt normal so far."
Agrippa nodded. "Alright, that's normal. Ponies don't usually report symptoms until a week after initial exposure. That's what makes it so dangerous, as asymptomatic ponies are still infectious. Spreads like wildfire."
Aerion pressed a few buttons on the control panel, and a soft whine emanated from the device. "Alright Agent, the scanner's going now, should only take a couple minutes. Just hang tight."
Rainy nodded, standing still for a few seconds before breaking the silence once again. "Can I ask you two some questions? About the virus?"
Aerion shrugged. "Sure, just don't move too much."
"What...is it?" Rainy asked.
"We don't know much about it," Aerion replied simply. "All we know is that it piggybacks onto naturally occurring magicka in order to infect the body. For us pegasi and for unicorns, it's easy to avoid getting infected, we just stop using magic. However, it's extremely dangerous to earth ponies, who passively absorb and release magic energy into the environment to power their connection to nature. And since the large majority of ponies living in Manehattan are earth ponies, it's a gigantic problem. We have no idea how it works, what it does, or where it originated."
Rainy processed the information for a second before asking, "Who do you think created the virus? Is it some sort of attack by a foreign nation?"
Aerion shook her head, "Not very likely. The griffons, dragons, yaks, they all aren't advanced enough to create something like this."
"Hey, that's racist!" Agrippa interrupted.
"It's true!" Aerion huffed. "Have you seen the state of Griffonstone? They're too busy fighting over bits in the street to bioengineer an illness this deadly."
"What about the nations to the south?" Rainy asked. "Klugetown? The Storm King's former territory? The Kirin?"
"Same reason. Klugetown's a dump. The Storm King's Kingdom is in disarray following his death. Kirin? Seriously? They're just now learning how to talk again," Aerion said with a roll of her eyes. "My guess? Some rogue pony scientist put it together."
"It just doesn't make any sense..." Rainy wondered aloud. "Why would anyone want to do something like this?"
"It doesn't have to make sense. There are crazy ponies in the world, Agent. It only takes one crazy pony with access to a lab to make something this deadly."
"Aren't you quite the pessimist, Miss Featherquill..." Rainy snarked.
Aerion glared. "I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist... Hey Agrippa, come look at these scans."
The two mares huddled together to examine the readings that popped up on the control screen, with the monitor turned away from Rainy. Rainy shuffled her wings impatiently as they talked in hushed tones, annoyed at being left out.
"...Well? What do they say?" Rainy finally asked.
Agrippa sighed before responding, "They look pretty standard to me. You do have the virus, but the flareups are small and concentrated around your wings, where it was able to enter your body. You shouldn't start feeling symptoms for about a week, and it won't get serious for about 2 to 3 weeks, depending on how your immune system reacts to it."
"Okay..." Rainy responded. "What's the fatality rate?"
Agrippa paused for a second. "We don't have an exact number... But it's not good. There's definitely more deaths that recoveries."
"So I guess we'll just have to find a cure then," Rainy said, determined.
"That's the spirit," Aerion chimed. "We're gonna need to take another scan to get a few different readings, and then we'll be done with you for now, Agent."
"Fine," Rainy consented. "While we wait this time... I wanna hear what you know about the first wave."
Aerion tilted her head. "The first wave? Didn't your overlords tell you about them?"
"They're not telling me a lot of things, apparently..." Rainy grumbled.
Aerion snorted at that before starting. "Well, when they first got here, everything was going well. Division Agents and EUP were working together, quelling riots, distributing supplies, generally doing a decent job. Then, one day, shit hits the fan. Huge movements of resistance downtown, and the Division can't hold them back. What does the Crown and the EUP do? They immediately walled off the entire neighborhood. Called it the Dark Zone. Trapped the Division Agents in there with whatever was attacking them. That's the last time anyone heard from them."
Rainy blinked. "They just... left them?"
"Mmhm. Fucked, isn't it? And the rumor is, some of the Agents managed to survive in there... and they're not too happy with the EUP for what they did. They went rogue, and they're wandering the Dark Zone looking for revenge."
"Wow..." Rainy trailed off, now lost in her thoughts as she absorbed the information.
"It just makes you think... would they do the same to you? To us? Are we all expendable to them?"
"Aeri, stop with the doom-and-gloom talk," Agrippa huffed. "Rainy, you can step out of the scanner now, we're done."
Rainy nodded and stepped out of the scanner, but her mind was racing. What if Aerion was right? Command had sent her into an infected city, more than likely knowing she would be compromised, and didn't say anything. Was she really expendable like that, after everything she'd done for them? She was a top-secret agent for Equestria, risk was always part of the deal... but not like this, not a blatant disregard for her well-being. If they were willing to lie like that, what else are they not telling her? Her confidence sank lower and lower as she thought about it, anxiety gripping her chest tightly like a vice. She needed answers.
"Rainy? Are you okay?" Agrippa asked when she noticed Shadowbolt’s thousand-yard stare.
Rainy shook her head to clear her thoughts before responding. "I need to report back to command."
"Go right ahead. Me and Aeri are gonna look these readings over a bit more, see if there's anything we missed."
Rainy just nodded and stepped out of the makeshift lab while the other two mares flipped through the scanner's findings. She found a quiet corner in the station before turning her commlink back on, using her SPARK to reestablish her severed link to command. Hopefully, it would still work; Aerion's warning about her malfunctioning equipment was worrying her more than she was willing to admit.
"Agent Rainy to Command," she started cautiously once her comms blinked green.
There was several moments of silence, followed by a soft crackling noise as command accepted her hail. "Agent. You're still alive."
"Yes. I've successfully retrieved high-value targets Agrippa Glimmershine and Aerion Featherquill, and they are working on continuing cure research while I am preparing to attack the spellcaster. It should be down before dawn."
"Very well. Know that once the spellcaster is disabled and we can send more Agents in, you will be pulled out and dismissed for desertion."
Rainy blinked. "Wha-... Desertion? Why? I'm reporting back to you right now!"
"You cut comms and ignored orders to go on a ridiculous, unnecessary side quest. We can't afford having agents taking such risks when so much is at stake."
"It wasn't unnecessary. Aerion was critical to the reestablishment of power to the base and the development of a cure. Besides, I'm a Shadowbolt! It's in the Directive that I can be fully autonomous!"
"You still disobeyed a direct order from command, which is grounds to label you as rogue. We've had enough problems with rogue agents already."
That made Rainy's ears perk up. "So the rumors about the first wave are true then, huh? You abandoned them, and now you're mad they're rogue?"
"Agent-"
"What about the virus, is that true too?" she continued, a biting edge to her words. "Did you really send me in here knowing I'd get infected in the process?"
Command fell silent, and that was all the confirmation that Rainy needed.
"You twisted motherfuckers, you knew!" Rainy yelled. "You fucking knew flying in would kill me, and you told me to do it anyway. You turned me into a dead mare walking!"
"We couldn't risk you backing out if we told you the truth," Command interrupted. "You’re a soldier. Think of it as a necessary sacrifice for the greater good."
"You lied to me!" Rainy spat with venom, the edges of her vision starting to turn red.
"Perhaps we were… economical with the truth, yes... But what choice did we have? What choice do you have now? This virus, this civil unrest, it will destroy all of Equestria if we don't stop it here. Your death, our deaths, it's all irrelevant now compared to what we will lose if we fail. This is bigger than you, Agent. We are all dead mares walking."
As Command spoke, Rainy's vision turned crimson. In a flurry of rage, she ripped the earpiece out of her ear and the commlink off her uniform, throwing them to the marbled floor. She smashed the devices underhoof, splintering the devices into shards of plastic and wiring and sending them skittering across the ground. She screamed, but she couldn't hear herself; her ears were ringing too much to register. She didn't stop until her equipment was reduced to tiny pieces below her, her only link to command severed for good.
As she stared at her trembling hooves, Agrippa and Aerion quickly galloped out of the lab over to her.
"Rainy? What happened?" Agrippa asked with a concerned look on her face.
Rainy took several deep breaths to calm her shaky voice before answering, "Command lied to me... They let me get infected on purpose. And now they say I'll be pulled and investigated for desertion..."
"See? I told you," Aerion added unhelpfully.
"Please don't," Rainy said, her eyes squeezing shut.
Agrippa shot a glare at Aerion before turning her attention back to Rainy. "Well... what are you gonna do now?"
Rainy sighed. "Well, I'm gonna have to take down the spellcaster so you guys can get supplies and help, but after that... I don't know."
"If you get pulled, we won't have any way to study the virus. Unless one of us gets infected as well. And you'll probably just die in containment..." Agrippa said with a frown.
"I'll figure something out. But right now, that spellcaster is our priority," Rainy said as she straightened up. "Aerion, I'm gonna need to borrow some of your tech... if that's okay."
Aerion nodded. "Right this way..."
"...The comm just went dead."
"For fuck's sake. Is everyone in this Division a hotheaded maniac?"
"She was one of the best we had... I don't know what went wrong."
"It doesn't matter what went wrong, what matters now is that we have yet another rogue agent running amok in downtown Manehattan, and we can't find one pony willing to stay loyal to us. It's a damn joke at this point."
"Ma'am, if I may-"
"Can it. Send someone else in, before we lose this city completely. And for Celestia's sake, make sure it's someone loyal this time! I'm getting really tired of these traitors."
"...Of course. Contacting potential agents now..."