Prey and a Lamb

by Lambs Prey

60.4 Try to make it Count

When disaster came, it came all in one rush, like the rising tide, and Prey was left kicking to keep his head above water.

"Uh huh." Gloom answered Carton Juice, only half listening. He was finding the chessboard in front of him more interesting than the chatter of Scenic's marefriend. Which wasn't saying much, really. Prey wasn't even sure which famous so-and-so pony Carton was nattering on about now.

Gloom, sitting across from Scenic, was of much the same opinion, '-why does everypony fixate on events happening outside their own lives which they have nothing to do with? Hmm, should I move the knight or the bishop?-'

However Scenic was still being a good conversational partner to his marefriend, meaning he was nodding and saying "Yes" at all the right intervals, while still managing to beat Gloom quite easily on the board. Scenic was off the crutch now, and could hobble along by himself.

'-go on, take the pawn, take the pawn, you know you want to-', Scenic thought. "Yes dear. I wonder how all that even happened?"

Carton Juice shrugged her broad shoulders, happy just to be talking and socialising and not at all bothered by the notion that everyone may only be half listening; "There's all sorts of extraordinary ponies out there, living extraordinary lives. It's exciting to hear about what some ponies who can live their dreams do."

Off to the side, Prey rolled his eyes. 'Fame, newspapers, ponies, yadda yadda. For every success story sensational enough to grab your jaded nation's attention, there are a hundred, no, probably a thousand more which aren't, but that are much more important. A foal taken by timber wolves, a prairie fire which decimated a community's crops, or a pirate ship ravaging the coasts.'

Prey was a cynic at heart. For him, every castle-in-the-sky not only had a mortgage but a dungeon as well.

"Yes, I see." Scenic nodded to Carton Juice as Gloom finally moved his bishop up to take the pawn. Scenic's rook immediately swooped down to take Gloom's now unprotected queen.

"Check." Scenic added, trying not to be too smug.

Like Prey, Crimson was not a fan of chess and was sitting off to the side on a floor cushion. He seemed to be studying a painting hanging from the wall, or perhaps he was just blindly starting at the garish mish-mash of colours wishing he were elsewhere.

They were all in Scenic Paint's apartment. It was the first time anyone here, (aside from the sappy Earth pony couple), had been to Scenic's abode. 

It was a lot nicer than Prey or Crimson's apartments, hence why they were here instead of there.

To be more specific, this was a semi-detached apartment, built in the middle class district of Canterlot, with its own small garden outside. Inside, it was outfitted with all the trappings of Canterlot life. Bookshelves, pictures, curtains, a welcome mat, sofa, floor cushions, wardrobe, a dining table, etcetera.

Scenic may not get on with his parents, but apparently that didn't extend to their money, since Prey had doubts about whether Scenic could've afforded this place on his Guard wage alone.

Prey had not wanted to come along on this visit when invited, and was uncomfortable here, but Gloom had asked Crimson to come, and Crimson had asked Prey to come, so here Prey was.

Prey had refused the refreshments offered to him, saying he wasn't hungry, ("No, I'm not thirsty either thank you"), and had just as resolutely refused any offers to play chess. Carton was particularly persistent in her kind entreaties, but Prey hadn't budged.

The bulky mare was spending all of her free time with Scenic outside of her beekeeping job, helping to facilitate his recovery. And trying to help Lilly too. Carton Juice had taken it as a personal challenge to help the hospitalised unicorn, (or ex-unicorn since she couldn't use magic anymore), to recover. Carton, Scenic, and their new friend Saffron had formed an impromptu support group, and were dedicating themselves to trying to lift Lilly Blossom out of her depression.

Prey didn't rate their chances highly, but they probably saw far more of Lilly than the original ISND members did. On Prey's behalf, this was because he was avoiding Lilly, and for Gloom and Crimson, because Lilly refused to see them whenever they tried to visit.

'Finally a problem that doesn't default to being mine.' Was Prey's take on the situation.

If Scenic, Carton, and their new friend Saffron could help Lilly, then fine. Good for them. If they couldn't, well, then it was no wool off Prey's back. 

They were supposed to be celebrating Crimson's acquittal. For a second time. Scenic was sorry he'd missed the first one, so he'd declared a little party here at his house and invited them. Prey however could tell that it'd actually been Carton Juice's idea.

'-they need to smile more. All of them do, my dear Paint Spot included-'

Carton Juice really didn't know Prey for who or what he was. Even after Scenic's warning words, she still only saw Prey as 'the little lamb'. Prey had refused the slice of hot fruit cake she'd offered him, no matter how tantalising it'd smelled.

Of course, on the flip side, Carton Juice was still a bit apprehensive around Gloom and Crimson, the visually intimidating ones, which manifested itself in just the slightest things. Like not looking them in the eye when she welcomed them at the door, or that trace of reservation in her chuckle, her hesitation when telling a joke, and subconsciously sticking close to Scenic for reassurance, (despite her being the uninjured one and far bigger and stronger than her colt friend).

"Check."

"Check."

"Check again."

"And that's checkmate." Scenic declared, placing his white bishop down with the satisfaction of victory.

Gloom studied the board, not really bothered, "Checkmate. Hmm."

"Thanks for the game." Scenic beamed. 

"How about a change of game now?" Carton suggested brightly, "Something that everypony can play together. How about UNO? Or perhaps Banana Town, or Butterfly Catcher?"

Crimson blinked and looked away from the painting, "Pardon? What?"

Carton Juice repeated the options, along with a few more boardgames that Prey didn't care about, since he'd never even heard of them, and had no interest in playing anything the mare suggested anyway. He understood that it was just a pastime, as acceptable as going for a walk, playing a sport, or just chatting with friends, but damn if they weren't all boring to him. Not that Scenic could've done the physical activities on that list with his still healing legs, though.

Prey wouldn't have minded reading a book instead, but his idea of reading wasn't one of the Daring Doo novels Scenic had on his shelves here, Prey's idea of reading was more what others would have called "boring study". It took a certain type of person to find a scroll on unstable crystal forms 'interesting'.

'What am I even doing wasting my time here?' Prey asked himself yet again. First, he didn't like being around people, doubly so with ponies, second, he didn't feel safe here, and third, he had far more important concerns he could be working on. Why he could be doing-

Prey suddenly felt sick, a pain in his stomach, and a headache behind his eyes. He gasped, hastily steadying himself on the wall.

The headache vanished as swiftly as it had arrived, but the unpleasant twisting in his stomach remained.

The sudden bout of sickness had nothing to do with Scenic's house.

Prey jolted to his hooves. Something had happened down in his lair! Danger, magic, death. Which, Prey didn't know, but something had happened.

'Who? Why? Is it the Mimics or the person who wants to keep them secret? The real thief? Who?' Prey's mind raced, his stomach a cold knot of worms. His lair had been found, infiltrated, compromised! His runic arrays weren't finished, he wasn't properly prepared to defend against intruders yet.

'Zoma'Grika. Why'd it have to be now?!'

He didn't know what had happened down there, or what was still happening. A cold sweat was prickling his skin.

"Prey? Is something wrong?"

Prey jerked, returning to his surroundings. Crimson was looking at him.

"I... It's nothing that can't wait." Prey said, and sat back down, forcing his features back into boredom.

He had to wait, he couldn't go rushing off. It would be too suspicious. And he could be running straight into a trap, but at the same time, what if they were taking his inaction as a chance to set up a trap instead?

'No, stay. I can't run off. Don't let them know I know in case they're watching Scenic's house right now. This could be a test. But how on Equis did they even find the cave? Did they follow Lemon Pink?'

If whoever they were could find Prey's secret lair, was there any reason they couldn't also find Prey too? It was possible they were on their way to attack Scenic's flat right now. But if he broke cover and ran away, what about Crimson and the others?

Prey's stomach continued to work itself up into an ever increasingly painful knot. But he had to wait. He had to stay.

He sat there through the entirety of Carton's suggested game of Butterfly Catcher. He didn't protest at Scenic's follow up game of Rummy Cub. He sat there in his corner, unmoving on the outside but mind churning on the inside.

He waited with agonising patience all the while internally worrying, trying to figure out what could've happened, and what he was going to do about it. His lair had been invaded. The veropedes were there, but what if the invader or invaders had escaped and taken back the news? He hadn't finished the memory suppressing runic defences yet. What if it was actually just some incredibly unfortunate geologists exploring the caves who'd go running straight to the Guard? Then what?

But Prey sat on his cushion and waited. He smiled at Crimson, coolly ignored Carton Juice's continued entreaties for him to join them in a game, answered Gloom's odd question, and wore his mask.

He couldn't let them know anything was wrong. He couldn't.

So Prey sat and waited.

It was approaching dusk. Not too long now, and the crystal street lamps would light up.

"Is something the matter Prey?" It was the second time Crimson had asked. They were almost back to their flats, and it was just the two of them, Gloom having said goodbye and flown off. The red pegasus had chosen to walk, and was looking at Prey out of the corner of his eye.

Prey knew Crimson hated lies, but this was Prey's problem. Crimson would be safer off staying out of it. Prey shook his head, keeping his eyes straight ahead:

"No, I'm just worried. Nothing major, and not the sort of thing you need to be concerned about anyway."

Nothing further was said on the return to their flats. Prey didn't know if Crimson had believed him or not.

Two hours, and twenty-one minutes. 

That is how long it took Prey and Lemon Pink to progress down the dry overflow pipe, stopping after every step to search for traps, to listen for an ambush, and scan for magic.

Two hours, twenty-one minutes of gruelling, mind grinding tension in the dark. Lemon Pink went first, and levitated a cloak over a wire frame shaped like a pony ten hooves in front of them as a decoy.

Lemon wore a thin metal clasper around her throat. If there had been any light in the tunnel, it would've looked like dull silver. It wasn't, not on the inside. The outer shell was silver leaf. Inside, it was electrite. The clasper was a weapon, bearing runes. Not enough runes. The necklace wasn't actually finished. It was meant to be Lemon Pink's weapon, but there hadn't been enough time to complete it.

Two hours and twenty-one minutes at their crawling pace to pass down the pipe. But Prey did not want to dwell on that. They weren't ambushed, nor did they uncover any traps or tracks along the path, meaning this was almost certainly not the route the intruders had taken to reach his lair. 

That was all that was important, and let that be enough said about the two hours and twenty-one minutes of nerve humming tension. 

It was always the smell that reached you first. A sour acidic scent wafted out of the darkness as they crept up the tunnel. Then, when they got closer, another sickly cloying stench oozed from underneath the first. Burnt fur and flesh.

Prey stopped just outside the gaping black mouth of the cavern entrance. He focused, feeling out into the dark lair, runes inside the crystal cavern responding to his command. He felt no intruders. Whoever had attacked, they were long gone.

"Light." Prey ordered. The sharp acrid stench was stronger than ever.

Lemon's horn glowed silver, and a ball of white light lifted off from the end of her sharp horn and floated up. It grew in brightness as it ascended towards the cavern's peak, getting captured and refracted inside crystal formations hundreds of times. Prey squinted against the sudden illumination and looked around.

There was surprisingly little damage. The runic defences Prey had created might not have been complete, but they were still defences. Runes were not merely physical things, and while the cavern was rock and crystal, such things did not break easily. The invaders had come up through one of the two unmapped tunnels leading down into the winding depths of Canterlot Mountain. There, however, they'd encountered the veropedes and the runic defences he'd completed.

Prey's breath stuck in his throat, but it had nothing to do with the scorch marks, tufts of burnt fur and flesh, or the blackened outlines situated around the two tunnels. The cause of those was a large scale flare trap, with a secondary bone shattering pulse on contact, but the remains weren't what had Prey's wide eye'd attention.

"No!"

The veropede, Prey's veropede, lay in a slaughtered heap. It's armoured carapace had been carved through like bread, huge cross sections of dense muscle exposed to the air, glistened in a pool of spikes, jointed legs, and dark blood. 

Prey dashed forwards. The acidic stench was coming from the gallons of spilled veropede blood. He saw lightning scar cracks riddling the carapace, the giant monster having not died easily. The invaders had tried to use normal weapons at first, Prey saw broken off spear heads uselessly embedded in the armour of the veropede's head, a saber crumpled like paper on the ground.

Prey skidded to a stop at the edge of the viscous blood pool. The sharp stench was almost overpowering.

His weapon was dead. Its enormous carcass lay before him like a mocking taunt. There was fur and shreds of flesh caught in the veropedes open maw, but its savagery hadn't been enough to save it in the end.

This close, Prey could see that the huge slices which'd bisected his veropede weren't done by any blade, but by magic. How many had the veropede killed before it had been brought down? It didn't matter, because whatever the number, it hadn't been enough to win.

His weapon was gone, dead, utterly destroyed, but where was the second veropede? Where had it gone?

Prey reached out with his mind. Where was it? 'Come! Here. Come.'

A patch of stone and darkness uncoiled jerkily from behind a large cluster of milky quartz, and the second, smaller veropede emerged. All four of its antennae were gone, severed at different lengths, and deep gouges and cracks were dug into the carapace around its head. A whole section of legs down one side were gone, burnt to charcoal, and its mandibles and many teeth were broken, as if it'd tried to bite through something truly unbreakable.

'Stop. Rest. Stay there.' Prey ordered in relief. One of his weapons was still alive. Prey galloped towards the surviving veropede as it curled up and collapsed. He saw the smeared trail of blood left behind it.

"Search the place." Prey cried to Lemon as he ran up.

He ignored the oozing blood and sharp stink, quickly beginning to assess the giant insect's state. After all the veropedes had cost him, he didn't want to lose another one. They were his tools. They belonged to him. No one stole from him.

'I should've placed runes on them. I should've warded them against magic sooner!' Prey berated himself. But he hadn't finished the runic defences on the lair, he'd wanted to do those first, and then plan out the best runic combinations to inscribe on the veropedes.

'There wasn't enough time. But there's just. Never. Any. Time!'

Up close, the frightening force that must've been necessary to cleave into the veropede's armour became clearer. The carapace was stronger than steel, able to deflect a hydra's teeth. An enchanted edge with huge force behind it must've been required to cleave through. Prey's mind whirled, piecing together what must've taken place here:

'The wounds and damage are different on each veropede. Two different sets of enemies engaged each veropede. Powerful magic was used in each fight, but the first group wielded the magic better suited to slay my first veropede. They only had the power to nearly kill my second.'

But what about the invaders the veropedes had managed to kill? It was obvious the invaders had eventually been forced to retreat, but who had they been? How did they find his lair? They'd obviously come prepared for a fight.

'That information doesn't matter right now, it can wait.'

Prey was frantically searching over the veropede by this point, acrid gore coating his hooves, his mind as calm as a stone even while his body was pumping with adrenaline. The damage he found was great. The veropede was a monster among monsters, an apex predator, but even it had its limits past which it would die. He got down to work immediately.

"Prey, the tracks lead back into the mountain."

"It can wait. This comes first." Prey snapped, attention riveted on preserving his last veropede's life.

"I do not know when or if they will return. It is feasible they are returning with a larger attack force right now." Lemon warned.

"I don't know either, but there's nothing we can do about it. So we do what can be done first."

"Yes, Prey."

Someone had broken into Prey's sanctuary. Someone had openly declared themselves his bitter enemy with no chance of reconciliation. And the worst of it? Whomever they were, they were powerful, with enough magical might behind them to get away with it too.

The veropedes had destroyed the reaper king, but even they fell prey to magic.

Somewhere above the ceiling of dark stone, the moon was setting, but that didn't matter to Prey. He worked on.

Crimson would probably wonder where Prey was come morning. He should've left a note, but what could a note say? 'Gone to secret lair to fight intruders. Don't worry. Back soon'?

Prey knew he was breaking the probation rules placed on him by not having informed anyone about where he was, but he could only hope neither Gloom nor Crimson would report him. If they were worried about him, they just might. He hoped they were circumspect enough to trust him to get on with it, because he couldn't go anywhere right now.

If he left, then the veropede would die. It was already dying. Soon it would be dead, but Prey worked frantically on.

The morning sun above the rock seemed a million miles away from the atmosphere down here.

The cavern was cold and dark, despite the two still mostly functioning crystal lanterns Lemon had recovered. They only served to add depth to the shadows. Prey burned through the jars and boxes of materials and plants Lemon Pink had been gathering to stock the lair with.

There wasn't much, just the beginnings of a properly stocked lair. Herbs, some poisons, some magically stable powdered compounds, like copper and nickel. He broke into the precious, tiny store of stolen electrite, but by itself the magical superconductor wouldn't do anything. Bundles of poison oak branches, grasses, and cloth. Things Snake had used in his foul concoctions. Needle and thread Prey had in abundance, for a lair always had need of those, but it wasn't enough to save the veropede.

Prey sent Lemon out into Canterlot to gather for him; "Get me two, no, three of the pigs. Alive."

Greater runes, that was what Prey needed to bind the veropede to life, but there were only so many greater runes Prey could make in time, and only so many times he could pay the required price. There were also only so many the veropede could carry and survive. But it was dying anyway, so he had nothing to lose by trying.

He ruthlessly pillaged from the slain veropede, its dead flesh and organs providing grisly fuel. It felt like salvaging shards of broken hopes and shattered plans.

And finally, when he was ready, Prey braced himself and bent his mind to drawing out the greater 'The'thos' rune on the dying insect's head.

The strength drained out of Prey like water poured onto dry earth, and sharp frost formed, misting the air. His teeth chattered and his vision swam. The bucket of blood from his dead veropede he'd hauled over curdled and bubbled, then all at once turned into a solid lump. Prey lost consciousness for a few seconds as the higher rune finished forming, but it did finish without failing.

He lay on the cold stone of the cavern floor and weakly panted for a few minutes, but finally some strength returned to his limbs. It was his internal strength that was slower in recovering. He felt cold and empty, like a frayed bow string which might snap any moment under the strain. It was a sure sign of pushing himself too far.

Slowly, the frozen beads of sweat on his wool unfroze.

He'd overdone it, but he'd always been over-expending himself, because the only safe level of creation from the old runic alphabet was none at all. Shakily forcing himself to stand up, Prey got back to work.

Prey poured his anger, his fear, and his frustration into his work, and at the end he was left hollow. The runes hungrily took his emotions and kept grasping for more.

Prey worked through the buzz of mental exhaustion, fighting back the grey fog gathering in the corners of his vision. The acrid stench of veropede blood began to turn rotten. It stained his wool and hooves, and at one point a smear even got in his mouth and burned his tongue as he tried to spit it out.

'The mimics. Strange Happenstance. The Solar Guard. Luna. The real thief. The Sun Wolf.' In the back of Prey's head, the list kept repeating itself over and over. All his enemies, all people who just couldn't leave him in peace. He should've been more upset, but it all rang hollow. The emotions weren't where they should've been. He was empty.

'The mimics. Strange Happenstance. The Solar Guard. Luna. The real thief. The Sun Wolf.'

Who had done this? Who had invaded his lair? Who had stolen from him?

Lemon Pink returned with most of the materials he'd sent her out to get. Prey immediately had the veropede eat one of the three pigs she'd returned with, and got to work using the others she'd brought back in conjunction with his runes to patch up the veropede's dire injuries.

"Now go back. Go to my flat. Use illusion magic. Pretend to be me. Reassure Gloom and Crimson I haven't run away." Prey ordered, throat raspy.

"Yes, Prey. What shall I tell them if they ask?"

"I don't care. Make something up."

"Yes, Prey." Lemon Pink agreed and hurried away.

Later, he sacrificed the remaining two pigs in a crude blood magic ritual.

There were no two ways about it. What Prey was doing down here was dark. 

Dark magic. Black magic. Voodoo magic. Blood magic. Call it what you will. Bits and pieces all tied together. Things taken from the experience of Snake's memories. He should've been more worried about what he was doing. He wasn't.

Prey created a second greater rune, pushing through the resistance and forcing it into existence. Then a third, and finally, after a long teetering battle of back and forth, a fourth greater rune.

Through the gathering black fog, his list enemies kept going around in the back of his head, fading in and out. Except it had changed when he wasn't paying attention:

'The mimics. Strange Happenstance. The Solar Guard. Luna. The real thief. The Sun Wolf. Big Fields. Garrow. Hard Baked. Night Watcher. Valour. Snake, Razor, Stinger,Torment,RuinFireStrikeYarn... Prey.'

Prey woke up. He was on his belly on the stone floor. A quartz node was digging mercilessly into his ribs. His head felt woolly, both on the inside and out, and his legs felt as sturdy as a fresh grass frond.

He'd been aware of himself slipping into unconsciousness after creating the final greater rune, but he didn't remember if he'd succeeded in laying down first or if he'd just fallen.

His bruised ear where it was squashed under his sore jaw indicated it had been the latter.

Prey blinked. Where was his ribbon-? Ah yes, now he recalled. It was draped over one of the motionless veropede's broken mandibles.

But he'd done it. His weapon was stable. For now. There was still lots he would have to do, but for now he'd done all he could. He'd succeeded. The veropede was still his tool, but now just in a different way. A sword and a spear are both still weapons, but each is wielded differently.

With great effort, Prey stiffly rolled onto his side and off the jabbing quartz node, but that was as far as he got. He tried to get his legs under himself, but the attempt ended in abject failure and his jaw meeting the floor again.

Prey lay there, for the moment rendered helpless as he struggled to breathe. He couldn't get up. He was empty.

"Damn," Prey announced with startling clarity to the empty cavern, "I should have told Lemon to hurry back."

Prey woke on the ground to a raging headache, thirst, hunger, but worst of all, cramp.

He'd known it was going to happen, taking a nap on the hard stone of the cold cavern floor, but he hadn't possessed the strength to move.

So Prey lost an uncertain number of minutes to writhing on the rock as the back cramp ran its course. Prey hated pain, it cut through the empty hollowness like a red hot knife. The whip scar cramp was every bit as terrible as it always was in Prey's memory. Worse. The same as always, really.

'I hate you Stinger, I hate you Stinger, I hate you Stinger!'

When the damaged muscles of his back had finally stopped quivering and Prey lay sweating and gasping in the blessed relief of the aftermath, he found the copper taste of blood in his mouth. He'd bitten his cheek.

Prey groaned and weakly levered his hooves under himself to stand up. He'd recovered enough strength for at least that. His ribbon was back in place behind his ear somehow. He didn't remember retrieving it. Prey turned his head and briefly scrubbed his face in the wool of his shoulder. 'I hate you Stinger.'

Prey knew he hated Stinger, but with the horrible pain gone, he was having trouble holding onto that hate. The empty apathy was already creeping back in. He felt almost physically brittle.

From the feel of it, Prey estimated he'd been asleep for a little over two hours. He still felt hollow and drained, but he was standing, so that was something.

Now to do something about his hunger and thirst. Prey looked around the cavern. There was dried food and water stored in here of course, but he hadn't had time to check if it'd been destroyed by the intruders or not yet. And he didn't want to drink from the sinkhole pool.

'Ah, good. Still here.' Prey shuffled weakly over to the crate, set against one of the largest crystal formations emerging from the floor, and with what felt like great effort in his weakened state, pushed off the lid.

Prey pulled out some of the unappetising but filling oat cakes along with a water canteen, and sat himself down uncomfortably to sate his complaining stomach and parched throat. After checking for poison, of course. It didn't matter if this was his own lair, intruders had breached his defences looking to kill him. Prey was ruling nothing out.

The two recovered crystal lanterns were still the only sources of illumination in the cavern, Lemon's light globe spell having left long ago when she did. The walls were steeped in shadow. Prey blankly studied his lair again as he chewed. Lemon had not returned yet. If she'd been here earlier while he was unconscious, the runes would've still recorded her presence, plus, she would've left a message. She hadn't been attacked, had she?

He should be more concerned about that.

In the dimness at the edge of the circle of light the lanterns cast, the gory remains of Prey's first veropede lay utterly still. This was a recent battlefield Prey was sitting on. Desperate violence and death had happened here. His living weapon had been taken from him. Gone, dead, stolen away by intruders.

'No one steals from me.'

Prey had one veropede left to him, but it was only still alive because of his frantic salvaging and rune work. The intruders had been driven off, but Prey wasn't counting it as evenclose to a draw. This was a complete loss. He had only two veropedes, now one, while the invaders had who knew how many warriors left?

His weapon was dead. He had one left, but it had already been defeated once by powerful magic.

'My first veropede was scarred by lightning magic, but was ultimately slain by some kind of ridiculously powerful severing magic. The magical power output needed to cast a spell like that freeform over and over again would have to be...'

Prey estimated, and even though it felt like this was all happening to someone else, shuddered at the answer he came to:

'Assuming it was the same unicorn casting the spell each time, they must be tier eight. Maybe even nine. A magus, one who can fight and isn't just a scholar. A battle mage, a real one. That's, no, that can't be right.'

Prey frowned. Surely that couldn't be right. If there was a magus with that kind of power, why hadn't they been able to kill his second veropede in the same manner too?

'No, it couldn't have been the same attack spell getting cast over and over.' Prey realised. Prey wasn't a unicorn, but he still knew it took more mana to cast a spell multiple times than it took to just maintain the same spell, within certain bounds and exceptions. However if it wasn't a unicorn of that tier with magic reserves to match, then they wouldn't have had the power to sustain a magical edge strong enough to cut apart a veropede for long enough. While unicorns could pool their magic into a group spell, it wasn't the sort of thing they could've done in the midst of a battle, so that ruled a group casting out.

But if it hadn't been one ridiculously powerful unicorn, then it certainly couldn't have been a lesser one either. It hadn't taken only one or two blows to fell his first veropede, it had taken a multitude. Prey felt a sliver of pride before that too faded. The veropede's vitality had been beyond even other monsters.

So if it wasn't a battle mage or a group casting, then the next logical explanation wasn't just a spell, but a physical edge amplified with magic instead. Like an enchanted blade, or something like how the jade necklace had laced energy up and down Crimson's wingblades. Or, perhaps multiple mages armed with enchanced blades?

Prey also knew that one of the rules of magic is that it's easier to empower a physical object than it is for the magic to take the place of that object in the spell. As a prevalent and simplified example, it was easier for a unicorn to simply levitate a knife and fork than to use their magic itself to cut up their food.

Prey started to draw up a list in his head, 'So there was a powerful unicorn armed with either a magical blade, an artifact, or both. Plus whomever was casting the lightning, making it at least two unicorns.'

Add in whomever had been fighting and holding off the second veropede at the time made three, but probably more like five or six. There were of course those intruders who had been slain, but they were a non-factor to Prey now, being dead and all. It was the survivors Prey was worried about. They'd retreated back into the mountain, taking the with them remains of those who'd died to his runes, so he couldn't even get any information off the carbonised corpses. Proof that at least half of the attackers had gotten away, an utterly depressing relisation.

'So that tunnel leads to the outside.' Prey thought grimly, looking at one of the two pitch black tunnel mouths, the one where the scuffed tracks led in and out from.

The mountain's innards were a twisting maze down there, all darkness and pressing rock, but the intruders had managed to make it. They could do it again. They'd survived the first time, they'd learn, improve, and come back. Damn it, he had to abandon his lair, right now! But would his remaining veropede survive being moved so soon?

Prey's eyes flicked back to the source of his desperate labour these last dozen hours. The veropede's form was obscured under a tarpaulin and shadow, making a canvas hill of dips and contours. Every so often, the mass would twitch. His second monster was alive, for a given definition of alive.

Whereas the first veropede had faced lightning and severing magic, the second had faced a different set of spell casters entirely.

As Prey had frantically worked on the veropede, he'd felt the cracked and outright smashed carapace in places. Its mandibles and teeth had been broken, spent in trying to bite through something invulnerable.

'Invincibility, or a type of completely impervious shielding spell.' The kind of magic once again needed to pull off something of that power and magnitude...

'Zoma'Grika,' Prey realised numbly, cursing because he knew he normally would curse, but unable to feel the necessary emotion behind it at the moment, 'All of these ponies must've been armed with magical artifacts.'

And the jade necklace had been stolen from House Time following Vanish stealing it from Crimson. What were the chances this was all some big coincidence?

High, very high actually. Prey estimated it was about eighty percent actually. But he didn't believe it for a second.

Prey knew, just as he'd known that Garrow was really hiding in the lumber yard and that fire was the only way to survive the night in the ruins of Mayflower, that this was all connected.

'The invader's leaders all had artifacts. Not those who died to my traps or the veropedes, obviously, since if they'd had artifacts they wouldn't have died. They were just common soldiers armed with normal weapons.'

Prey had pulled a broken spear and some arrowheads out of the veropede's carapace. Just common iron or steel. Those soldiers hadn't stood a chance.

No. Once again, there was something not adding up there. Arrows meant bows, and bows meant people capable of drawing them. The broken shafts had come from normal arrows, not the much shorter and thicker bolts of crossbows. That ruled out Earth ponies, and a pegasus usually needed to be flying to be able to draw a normal bow. No, bows were best suited as a unicorn weapon, but if you were a unicorn then you already had magic, so why use a bow?

While it could've been pegasi, Prey didn't feel there was enough room to take off down that end of the cavern, and the invaders hadn't gotten in any father.

'So in that case it still means... what?'

Prey put down the nearly empty water canteen and stood up slowly, back muscles still painfully stiff. He walked a ring around the pool, towards the open tunnel mouth. He stopped and bent down by the first deeply scorched patch of stone. The thick soot was made from carbonised fur and flesh. Prey could still smell the cloying scent. He knew it well.

Someone had died here, never knowing what had killed them. That he'd killed them.

They had invaded his place of safety. This was the price for their aggression. But it was still his fault they were dead. Brushing back his ears so they didn't drag, Prey bent even further down, bringing his face right up close to the scorched remains. 

'As I thought.' Prey thought, mouth set. Why use a bow if you were a unicorn? Because you weren't a unicorn. Or a pegasus, or an Earth pony. There were many other races out there, plenty of which could use a bow just fine and regularly did. Minotaurs, griffins, and...

'Diamond dogs.'

When you looked closely, the scorched outline around where a hoof had been placed wasn't a hoof but a paw. You could make out the pads where in that instant the flare had blasted up between the dogs toes. Prey had just been too busy to come over and look until now. Diamond dogs were people. Skin, fur, fat, muscle, blood. They burned just the same as ponies.

They may be a simpler and more tribal people, but all people have one thing in common. They scream.

Lemon Pink had coerced a splinter pack of diamond dogs to act as her guides across the Ridgeback mountain range. Later, she'd drugged and then sacrificed the diamond dogs to act as her veropede's awakening meal.

Prey had made his own sacrifice of the townspeople of Alfalfa Dale, which Hard Baked had captured. 'They were going to die anyway. If I hadn't, Hard Baked would've merely sacrificed them himself.'

That did not make it any better.

And then, what were the chances, but Lemon Pink had reported finding fresh tracks where she'd left with her diamond dog guides. The rest of the original pack the diamond dogs had splintered from. Their family.

'So that's how they made it up here through the maze of Canterlot mountain.' Prey thought. He felt very tired and empty, and it wasn't just the headache and exhaustion from over reaching. He stiffly sat down on the hard stone, looking at the blackened scorch marks.

It was all like a template, or a story, one he could see now.

These diamond dogs had back tracked along Lemon Pink's original path. They'd followed the cold trail, how Prey didn't know, but they must've managed it, and found the remains of their brothers and sisters. They'd then somehow tracked Lemon Pink back here next, and come for revenge. Somehow they'd managed to either hire or convince some powerful unicorns equipped with magical artifacts to help.

Or maybe it was the ponies who'd done the convincing? They were the unknowns in this disaster after all. It didn't really matter though, the outcome had been the same.

An attack on his secret base, a trap, a fight, perhaps most of the dogs' deaths, and the unicorns had eventually retreated.

Prey sat in the half light, thinking of what had happened in the past and what might happen in the future. 

The law of the harvest. 'You reap what you sow.'

Good for good. Evil for evil.

Lemon Pink finally returned, climbing back up the ladder from the breached overflow pipe. Mechanically, Prey filled her in on what he'd discovered, about the invaders and their origins tracing back to that pack of diamond dogs who'd been driven out from the lands near Ponyville by the Royal Guard. There was a dark joke in there somewhere. In the end, both the original pack and the splinter pack of dogs had run afoul of him and Lemon.

Prey didn't know how their story had begun, but through one method or the other, he'd been the cause of most of their ends.

Lemon slowly blinked her deep violet eyes, face empty as she received the news. She didn't feel anything. That was the way Prey had made her. When she was done thinking over the implications, she just asked, "What are your orders now, Prey?"

Prey got up, limbs stiff and cold. The headache was still there, still dully pressing away behind his eyes, but he'd recovered enough strength to begin creating some of the minor, lesser runes again.

Prey didn't answer her right away. Instead he asked after Gloom and Crimson first; "Was there a problem covering for me up above?"

"No, Prey."

"What did you tell them?"

"Disguised as you, that I was out in Lower Canterlot looking for a table to buy, and got distracted browsing book stores. Both seemed willing to accept that answer."

"Good."

Prey hadn't looked away from the deep dark of the tunnel once while speaking with Lemon. Now he jerked his head, and Lemon Pink stepped up alongside him. Her much larger profile cast a shadow over Prey.

Prey raised one gold ringed leg and pointed with finality at the tunnel mouth, "There. That is how they got in, and how they got out. And how they could yet return to attack again. If even one diamond dog survived, they should be able to guide the magic artifact wielders back up here again. My lair is no longer safe. The runic defences aren't finished. If they were..."

If they were, they wouldn't be having this conversation. Not only would not even one of the raiders have survived, but even if they had, Prey had planned to have runic arrays to wipe this place from the memories of any who visited without being keyed into the lairs defences. But he hadn't finished, and now...

"It's biggest strength was secrecy, and now it's been compromised. We can't stay here." Prey finished. The headache beat away in his skull.

"Will they go to Celestia?" Lemon asked, lip twitching and curling for a moment.

"We'd already be dead if they had." Prey said flatly, "But they are criminals themselves, so they won't. However, they might just give an anonymous tip off to the Guard instead."

Lemon nodded, understanding. "We cannot stay here. Where shall we go, Prey?"

Prey did not want to abandon his lair. It was perfectly located, and he'd poured so much time and effort into the runes and defences. But the intruders knew of his base's location now, and they still had their memories. To stay here was to invite another attack. That was not the way Prey fought, it was not the way of the Resistance.

If a camp was compromised, you moved, you abandoned it, but you left behind a nasty surprise or two.

"First we trap the inside of the tunnel," Prey began, "Deeper in. They'll be expecting more flare traps, so it'll need to be something special. Then we fall back to the sewers. It's the only place the veropede will fit that's still hidden. I have a back up plan, although it isn't much. But beggars can't be choosers."

If Prey had time, he could build a runic trap array that would shred the invaders into itty-bitty pieces, no matter their shielding spells. But that would take at least thirty hours minimum, even if he was in peak condition, which he wasn't, and then another fifty hours to finish the defences on top of that. That was five days. If the raiders were going to return, it would be far sooner than that. Twelve hours had already gone into saving his veropede, and he didn't have any more time to spare.

"Fetch the three bone rot mines I've made, the ones with the null magic runes on them. You'll have to carry them on your back. Then get me the lockbox with the kinder sapling."

You reap what you sow.

As a city filled with herbivores, the sewers of Canterlot did not reek. They certainly stank, but it was within tolerable levels. In the past, Prey had waded through the remains of a battlefield, crying, gagging, and struggling to breathe rotten air filled with death. In comparison with the swamps of the Deeper Green, the sewers might as well have been fresh hay.

Lemon was walking in front with the crystal lantern. Prey came behind, the solid lock box containing the wickerwatch sapling he'd created carried on his back. Their hooves clopped and echoed loudly up and down the passageway at every tired step.

It was better than what they'd been plodding through two tunnels back, where their hoof steps hadn't echoed. The fur of Prey's fetlocks were matted with unmentionable filth, but, again, Prey had waded up to his chin through worse in some of the mires in the Deeper Green.

Somehow though, the two golden tracer bands were still completely pristine. The grime just seemed to slip off like oil.

*Clop-clop, Clop Clop, clop-clop*

Their pace was slow, too slow for Prey's anxious tastes, but it was because of him they were having to set this pace. He just didn't have the strength to go any faster right now.

The lantern threw long shadows ahead of them down the circular tunnel. Just behind them however, was a wall of following blackness, plugging the tunnel. It was the veropede, squashed into the passageway, its many backwards facing spines squashed flat against its carapace by the walls and ceiling.

Prey turned to look back at it. The monster's head was less than a hoof's length from his tail, but the normal sight of its horrifying circular maw of teeth and mandibles did not greet him. Prey would have preferred seeing that. Instead, he just saw the hood of coarse sacking cloth he'd used to bind over the damage.

His weapon was alive and able to move, but it would never be the same again. Not least because of the runes he'd placed on it. If the veropede had been a person, the pain of carving those runes down into the beast's essence would've driven her insane.

Prey focused his attention forwards again, following Lemon Pink's black, yellow and silver tail, which was tied in a bun to avoid trailing in the sewage. He still had one of his weapons, that was as good as he was going to get. Life wasn't fair, so you had to take what the damned ponies left behind. The tightly shut lockbox was uncomfortable and heavy on his back. 'Shortly to be two weapons.'

"Take the fork on the left." Prey spoke thickly, throat dry from trying to only breathe through his mouth.

Just as he'd said, there was a fork in the tunnel coming up. They took it. The splashing sound of falling water came from somewhere ahead in the dark, winding, underground network. Everything down here was artificial, having been built at some point in Canterlot's past. Somewhere beneath them, below all the cement, tunnels, brick, and finally the massive city supports, there was nothing but empty sky and a mile long fall to the base of Canterlot Mountain.

All of what Prey was guiding them through had been built, and therefore mapped in the past. Maps of the sewer and waterworks he'd memorised, having taken them from the relevant, unsuspecting public maintenance departments.

It was horribly cliche, in keeping with all the trashy pony adventure novels where the villain had their secret lair hidden in the sewers. It was a stereotype which subconsciously just 'clicked' in a pony's head. It was right from their point of view that villains should lurk somewhere so disgusting, drawing a nice parallel between the villain's own evil scumminess. In all those inaccurate and unrealistic novels, the sewers also made for a good dramatic setting, with the hero having to brave the dark tunnels, and survive the jump scares on their path to inevitably defeating the villain inside their secret lair.

But it was for that very reason a pony would scoff at there really actually being a secret lair down in Canterlot's sewers. Because when it came down to it, who'd actually want to live in the sewers? What's more, who was going to double check?

In the stories, the hero got lost in a maze of pipes, but this was reality. And while on the ancient blueprints, Canterlot's underground sewer works might look like a giant spider web, in actuality, there were only a hoof full of tunnels large enough for someone to move in, and even fewer that could accommodate a veropede. But there were enough of them, and Prey had read and memorised the blueprints.

At points along their journey, the architecture of the pipes changed, new sections appearing in the lantern light and fading back into darkness as they passed. The changes ranged from the colour, size, and type of bricks, to the depth and thickness of the mortar. Sometimes it was the tunnel shape itself which changed, from square to round to oval, to even an upside down semi-circle at one point. Decades or possibly even centuries old water lines marked where the sewers had once flowed in the past, before an addition to the architecture over the thousand years of Canterlot's history had diverted it. Yet somehow, the stench had never faded.

Canterlot was old, and where you found a city which did not fall to plague, there you would also find sewers.

And in a thousand years, a lot can change, be added, and rebuilt. Or simply forgotten.

Prey guided them into the oldest part of the sewers, the tunnels which had first been created along when Canterlot, the New Unicornia, was built. And much like that old name, this part of the original sewer system had been forgotten. The bricks of the tunnel walls here were real stone, worn slippery and smooth in patterns, while the roof where the water had not ever reached was pitted and rough.

"This is it." Prey said, halting Lemon Pink. His words weren't really necessary. As Lemon levitated the lantern higher to better reveal the area, you would've had to have been deaf, dumb, and blind not to sense that this was their destination.

They had stepped down out of the long dried tunnel and into a circular sunken room, of sorts. It was not large, not by any definition of space above ground, but compared to the tunnels they'd been walking or wading through, the circular room was large, cold, dry, and empty. Above the circular basin of the sunken stone floor, shadowy pipe mouths fed into the room, leading off in every direction.

Now this really was a room worthy of all those badly written villain's lairs. It was chilly down here, very dark, and even more silent. The dark, empty tunnels leading off from this room were like the long shrivelled capillaries of a dead heart.

That was what Prey was going to call this area. The Sewer's Heart.

Prey took this chance to remove the heavy lock box from his back and set it down. It wasn't really heavy, it only contained one thing, but for a tired runt lamb, it was heavy.

'Come here. Come. Lay down.' Prey mentally commanded.

From out of the pipe they'd just exited, the veropede crawled. Most of its remaining legs still worked like normal. Some were missing entirely, and some others had been repaired by Prey. The veropede encircled the circumference of the room almost entirely, with only about a four hoof gap between its rear end and head, leaving Prey and Lemon in a shrunken spiky circle in the room's center.

Prey was tired. He sat down on the flat stone, ignoring the filth on his legs. There'd be clean water for a wash soon enough. He tipped his head back, ears flopping, and squinted tiredly up.

The ceiling was solid, no convenient shaft and ladder leading straight down here from the city above, which was why Prey had selected this place. There was no easy way in, no direct, easy access invaders could exploit. To get in here, or out of here, you had to follow the twists and turns of the tunnels.

Still staring up at the ceiling, Prey stuck one grimy hoof out sideways to Lemon Pink. "Here's the map."

Without needing any prompting, Lemon brought her own filthy hoof over, but let Prey close the last inch and initiate the contact. Their mindscapes connected in the familiar vertigo-inducing rush of grey ash. Prey prepared a bundle of memories from the maps he'd read and pieces he'd put together, and pushed them across the connection to his servant.

Prey remembered the lessons of the past however, and remained completely focused and unwavering until he was absolutely certain Lemon Pink had the memory package, and then a bit longer just to be safe. It was hard. He couldn't seem to care about the outcome even if the transfer went wrong, but he knew intellectually that he did, because a mistake in the mind could be dire, even fatal.

'See here?' Prey instructed, bringing the correct sections of map memory to the forefront of his own mind, Lemon Pink quickly finding the matching sections in her own newly acquired memories, 'There are three paths to get down here to the Sewer's Heart.'

Prey's mind flashed through the three different routes, junctions, and side tunnels to take.

'Getting the veropede here through tunnels wide enough was the hard bit. Our own movements up and down should be comparatively faster. And harder to track back here.'

'Yes, Prey.'

'The veropede does not need so much food anymore. You will not need to bring pigs every three days. I've changed it. Perhaps it might even be best not to consider it a veropede anymore.'

The invaders had taken one weapon from him already, and almost taken the other. Nobody stole from him.

They might even yet find him here, since all his hard made runic defences were left behind in the crystal cave. His stomach twisted at the thought of what he'd been forced to abandon, but to stay still and in one place was to be trapped, no matter how good your defences were. And the point was, his defenses weren't finished.

That the invaders had been able to find his lair at all despite all the runes and preparations against magical tracking was because of how the diamond dogs had led them. Prey had seen the remains, or rather the remains of the remains, and knew not many of the diamond dogs could be left alive by now. Prey hoped their path through the sewers would counteract the last few surviving dogs' sense of smell.

They might be able to track him and Lemon to the sewers, but not inside the sewers. Prey's opponents would have to comb the tunnels one by one, either through magic or mundane means. Either way, it would still take them time. Days at the least, even if they were incautious and rushed in looking for revenge.

Would that be enough time? He'd have to make it enough.

'I don't know what's going to happen next,' Prey mentally confessed to Lemon, still connected across the link, 'But to be prepared, first we need water. Follow this route. There should be an old sluice gate according to the plans. If there isn't, come back. If there is, half open it. The water will flow down to here. But not too much, we don’t need anyone looking for a leak.'

'Yes, Prey.'

Lemon Pink removed the second unlit crystal lantern from her back and coaxed it into life. Then, levitating the second lantern out ahead of her, she clambered up over the veropede's carapace using the unbroken spines as hoof holds. Then, regaining her balance, Lemon ducked down the tunnel Prey had pointed out. Her firefly of light was gone ten seconds later as she climbed upwards, only her hoofbeats echoing back. A minute later, those were gone too.

An old crank handle beneath Canterlot began to move, turned by a silvery aura. Gears which hadn't moved in over three centuries screamed in protest. A steel gate began to slowly rise into the ceiling. An inch later, rust hopelessly locked up the gears and jammed the mechanism, but it was enough.

Water began to gush from under the thin gap. It was the merest trickle compared to the quantity rushing past on the other side of the sluice gate, and the diverted amount would never be noticed, but an inch was still over ten gallons a second as it gushed down the old disused pipe.

A rim of dust was washed ahead of the spreading tide as it sloshed down the dark tunnels, following the path of least resistance until it emerged into lantern light and spilled into the basin of The Sewer's Heart.

The lamb inside of the sunken basin took a step back from the pipe mouth now flowing with water. It ran in rivulets over the veropede's carapace in gleaming contours, and some soaked into sack clothing, but it all ended up splashing down into the basin in the end.

The old basin began to fill up. The water was cold and not exactly clean, but was still far cleaner than the sewage Prey had waded through to get down here. The water soaked into his fur and gradually washed the disgusting remnants of his trip away. He waited. The veropede shifted, sending a cascade of water spilling in a new direction, but did not move to get out of the rising water level. A veropede could swim without issue. The water rose up Prey's ankles, then his legs, and before long the chill water was lapping at his belly. He shivered, but stayed put.

The water stopped rising there, not because it ceased to flow, but because the level had risen high enough to start flowing out down the multitude of other pipes branching off from the Sewer's Heart. Prey felt the plucking drag on his wool as the water flowed past, gurgling noisily off down the new pipes.

Prey listened to the gurgling, tested the water depth in the basin with his hoof and judged it to be enough.

Sloshing, Prey waded over to the middle of the basin. Obscured beneath the slightly murky surface, the heavy lockbox lay submerged.

'Up. Raise higher.' Prey commanded, sending a clear mental image for the veropede's instincts to follow.

In response, the veropede lifted the crystal lantern higher, spreading the light over the flowing water surface better. It wasn't an antenna that lifted the lantern anymore, all four of those had been severed by the attackers, but they'd been replaced by something leathery and black instead, covered in barbed metal hooks.

Without any effort, the veropede held the lantern there, positioned directly in the center of the ceiling. It was a magic glow crystal, not a flame. Even if it were to be dropped into the water, it wouldn't be a problem.

Prey felt about along the lock box's side under the chill water, locating the metal twist lock by the glint in the swinging lantern light. It was hard to turn it, but it did turn and Prey felt the vibration click of it unlocking.

The lid was dragged open and a big bubble of displaced air burst in front of Prey's face. He blinked the splash droplets from his eyes and looked in.

Inside the now open lock box, unclear under the water, something brown and wavy started to flow out of the box like river weed, but it didn't just follow the water flow if you looked closely enough. Those twitches didn't always align with the current.

Laboriously, Prey waded back, carefully grabbing hold of one of the lower, unbroken spines along the veropede's side, and used one of its legs as a step. He didn't currently have the strength to pull himself up, but he could still instruct/guide the veropede to raise its leg and give him a boost.

From there, he could clamber up and then over back into the tunnel. The lantern floated behind him on the hooked appendage, the lantern illuminating his path as he started wading back up the tunnel through about four inches of water.

Behind him, the veropede heaved its armoured bulk out of the basin and fed its length into the tunnel after Prey on rows of insectile legs. It filled the tunnel, blocking off the Sewer Heart.

Left behind in the dark, the wickerwatch sapling slowly spread out from the discarded lock box.

Prey blinked rapidly as he emerged from the sewers. He'd been working underground for an entire night and half a day. The sun had set and returned while he'd desperately been working down in the caves and tunnels.

It was only evening, but after the darkness of the underground, the evening sun was too bright for his damaged eyes. He felt like he was Gloom, always wincing and squinting in the sun, wishing for some shade. It was at times like these that the damage caused by the reaper king's poison became the clearest. Prey's regrown fur did a good job of covering up the scars under his eyes by now, but there was no helping the real damage.

'I hate you Hard Baked.' 

And Prey hated that he himself had inflicted worse on others before. Well, he knew he hated it, but just not right now. He was too horribly hollow and distracted to summon up any feeling of proper hate.

Lemon Pink had her orders. She was to maintain a low profile and remain on guard against any sign or whisper of a threat. Also in her possession were some of the more lethal plants they'd bought all the way back in the underground market, and she would be extracting and refining some of their poisons in addition to preparing some of her own runic defences. Her runic work speed was pitifully slow compared to Prey's, but Prey could not be everywhere and they needed every little advantage they could get.

Their enemies were powerful unicorns, with equally powerful magical artifacts at their disposal.

Prey was as tense as a bow string as he hobbled down the streets of Lower Canterlot, sticking close to the crowds, regardless of the headache the noisy din of their thoughts gave him. Prey was weak and drained, and he didn't think that even if he was being followed right now he would be able to tell, but if he was, then he was. There was nothing he could do about it.

Paranoia, fear, emptiness, weakness, and cold. None of it rests lightly on the shoulders.

That yellow pegasus who suddenly appeared over the buildings and looked like he was going to swoop down. That roast chestnut vendor who seemed to be looking in Prey's direction for too long. Those two unicorns walking down the pavement towards him whose horns were glowing with an unidentified spell to name a few.

Each one of those situations left Prey breathing hard with the blood pounding in his ears.

It was an unwelcome reminder and wake up call to his precarious position here on Luna's mercy. 'I hate alicorns. I hate this whole place.'

He hated how he couldn't properly even feel that hatred. He felt hollow, he wanted his hate back. Any feeling was better than the cold numbness from over draining himself. From experience Prey knew it would pass, he really did, but right now when he couldn't even feel-

A startlingly loud caw of raucous laughter from some unicorn teen and his friends made Prey flinch and stumble. The group of teenagers shoved and joked with each other, oblivious in their own bubble of existence that anything in Equestria could possibly be wrong. 'I hate Canterlot. I hate unicorns. I hate ponies.'  

'I hate being afraid.'

Overdoing it earlier when creating those greater runes had consequences. Prey's energy drained out of him faster than expected, leaving him all in one rush almost before he could notice.

Suddenly he was leaning against a wooden fence, gasping for air as his legs shook. People kept passing by, unawares as Prey struggled to stay standing. Some excited dog ran up on the other side of the fence and began yapping aggressively at him, but he couldn't move. It was all he could do not to fall to the pavement as he lent there and gasped. It was scary how fast his strength had fled.

The stupid dog's barking attracted some attention, though.

"Filly, are you okay there? Have you lost your parents?"

There was a concerned older stallion leaning down, an utterly stupid hat atop his head.

Prey forced a smile, "I'm fine."

"Do you need help finding your parents? What're their names?"

Prey shakily reached up and managed to grasp at the end of his ribbon, "I'm fine. Please go away."

"Oh." The stallion blinked hazily a couple of times, then simply resumed trotting down the street.

Twice more Prey had to stop and rest, head swimming and legs as weak as water.

He took the apartment block's stairs slowly and one at a time, up to the second floor. He didn't know what he was going to say to Gloom or Crimson if they asked questions. Lemon Pink's performance as him had better have been good, or he might be in trouble.

"Prey, there you are." Came a surprised voice ahead of him.

Prey raised his head. Ahead of him at the top of the stairs, Gloom stood, his long black scarf looped loosely around his neck and over his chest scar. Gloom beat Prey to speaking first; "Where were you Prey?"

Prey sucked in his breath sharply. Gloom had noticed something. If he was here, that must mean he'd just been searching for Prey. Was it Gloom's special talent? And when had he noticed Prey was missing? What excuse should Prey use?

"I was-", Prey made himself stop and listen before he blurted out the first excuse that came to mind. 

'-better late than never. Looks like we won't be late after all-'

Gloom's thoughts did not show any panic or suspicion. Prey breathed out and finished his sentence, "...Just out in Canterlot, obviously. I was going to go to see what this park is supposed to be like but stepped in dog crap which some selfish person-"

"-Pony."

"-Person didn't clean up. Had to wash it off in the fountain." Prey finished.

"Unlucky." Gloom said, taking a sniff and lightly wrinkling his nose, "Ugh."

"Quite," Prey said flatly, starting up the stairs again, "So excuse me, but I'm going for a proper shower. Whatever you were looking for me for will have to wait."

Gloom halted him with a wing in his path, but without actually trying to physically touch him. Prey raised a single questioning eyebrow up at Gloom, "What?"

'-I'm getting a feeling... what are you trying to tell me about this path, talent?-'

Gloom briefly chewed on his lip with a fang, "Has something gone wrong, Prey?"

"Yes. I've stepped in dung and I need a shower." Prey repeated.

"No, not that. Has something serious gone wrong?" Gloom pressed.

Prey's body language screamed tired annoyance, "Why all the sudden questions? Is there some reason I should be wary? Are the Solar Guard out to arrest all of us too or something?"

'-he's hiding something, I know Prey by now-', Gloom thought. "One question then; you're not trying to get some kind of revenge on Lord Vanish are you Prey?"

"No."

"Wait, it's not the Solar Guard either then is it?"

"No. And that was two questions." Prey saw the ugly pink scar tracks under Gloom's yellow eyes crinkle in concern. 

"I'm just worried, Prey. Worried about you getting caught breaking the terms of your restrictions." Gloom clarified.

Prey silently regarded Gloom.

"Don't give me that look Prey," Gloom sighed, "You know I don't agree with those parole restrictions. I already promised I'd stand by you and Crimson, not the rules, remember?"

Prey had been going to subtly remind the thestral of his promise, but it obviously wasn't needed. Prey was tired and drained, but he still had enough focus for his mind to raise a red warning flag. Why had Gloom felt there was a legitimate reason to worry he might've broken his parole restrictions?

Prey purposefully paused before answering, dragging out Gloom's full concerns.

'-Crimson said you weren't answering your door this morning so he went in. You weren't there, so where were you really Prey?-'

'Zoma'Grika.' Prey cursed himself for being sloppy. He was just making one stupid mistake after another. Apparently Crimson had been worried when he didn't answer the door. A sensible worry, what with all that'd happened and Prey's own dire warnings, so Crimson had used his set of keys to unlock Prey's flat and check.

It was a very good thing the runic defences on the flat were currently unfinished, so were set not to trigger when anyone came in through the doorway by the normal methods. Meaning, with a key.

'Quick! Make something up, Gloom's still waiting for an answer.'

Despite his budding internal panic, Prey didn't let his mask slip, "Those restrictions are arbitrary, stringent, and just plain insulting. If I have something I need to do and it hurts nobody, why shouldn't I just go do it?"

'-it was just a simple act of rebellion? Well, okay, he is still young-', Gloom wondered in surprise. But it was also reassuring since that was all it was. "I'll say it again, I just don't want you to get in trouble. Nighthawk's hooves are tied in this if you get caught, Prey."

"If. All I'm hearing is, 'don't get caught'." Prey grumbled.

Gloom winced, "I, sort of? No, I mean, don't break the restrictions, but even more so don't get caught. Actually, what's there even to do past your curfew out there? I thought you didn't even like Canterlot."

"That's not right. I don't dislike Canterlot." Prey corrected.

'I actually hate Canterlot.'

"But no, it's not the place. It's mainly the people I can't stand."

"Ponies." Gloom absentmindedly corrected, thinking:

'-so the glass is half full at least. Can't say I think any differently either, at least for some of the ponies here. How Her Majesty stands it I don't know-'

*Ehem*, Prey pointedly cleared his throat, nodding at the leathery bat wing still blocking his path, "If you wouldn't mind. I have an appointment with my nice hot shower, with heated running water."

"Oh." Gloom quickly refolded his wing, withdrawing the taut sheet of membrane from Prey's path.

And that should've been an excellent place to leave it. Gloom was placated, Prey needed to get back inside to the safety of his flat to rest, and also continue trying to work on the runic defences he so desperately needed.

It shouldn't have been any more difficult than that, just finish walking up the last of the concrete stairs. But of course it was.

A wave of weakness made Prey's vision go blurry and he missed the next stair, and Snake's remnant just had to step in sideways to fill the lapse in that moment.

The cold sibilant words were echoes of ones Snake had once spoken in life; 'All enemies are to be killed. Nature is never weak. A predator does not hesitate. If you are weak, I will dispose of you and fulfil the cycle of nature.'

"Woah, what's the matter." Gloom reached out as Prey nearly fell, then quickly snapped his hoof back when Prey flinched away. 

"Nothing," Prey said, "Just tired."

'-then why've you gone so white I can't even see those scars anymore against your face?-', Gloom thought, not believing Prey.

"I don't think you should go back to your flat alone. Come along with me Prey." Gloom said.

"No." Prey immediately refused.

"Yes," Gloom pressed, "Come with me."

"No, I'm going for a shower and to eat some dinner."

"Forget the shower, it's not that bad. Really, you can hardly smell anything and they won't notice. Come on, you don't look well, and there'll be food, Mr. I-endlessly-Hunger." Gloom tried to joke.

"Who's 'they'?"

"Well, since I found you, we're going to Scenic marefriend's house for dinner. She formally invited us. They want to hold a chess night again." Gloom answered.

"No. I don't want to go, I don't know her house, I don't like chess, and I don't want her food."

"This is the first time I have been invited over by anypony in Canterlot. And she invited all of us as guests." Gloom repeated, stressing the term 'guests'. It was bigger than Gloom was saying. 

Despite all hopes and efforts to the contrary, thestral acceptance back in pony society was in a spiral of decline. The Princess's intent had been for their integration to happen through familiarity and patience, and mainly by just being present. During the first month, it had been working, but only in official events and meetings. None of the general populace outside of the Guard and government wanted anything to do with the night ponies.

And after the Gala, Wheat Plow, the lumber yard, the royal inspectors, the dragon, and everything else, even that process of osmosis wasn't working anymore. Hostility towards thestrals and by extension, the Night Guard, was only increasing.

Thus, Carton Juice's invitation to them was one that Gloom, as a conscientious member of Clan Chilldara, couldn't let pass.

But again, it was more than Gloom merely taking an opportunity, this was personal. Carton was Scenic's marefriend, and she was trying to extend a friendly hoof to them. It was an invitation of trust into a private bit of their lives.

"Then you can go. I don't want to." Prey repeated.

But Gloom insisted, "We've all been invited as guests. Me, you, Crimson, and Carton Juice even took an invite to Lilly despite her still being in hospital. Come on Prey. It'll do you good."

"So what?" Prey wasn't persuaded. He didn't care if it would do him good. He needed to get to the flat.

"So come on," Gloom sighed, "This is more than just getting some free dinner. Scenic is a member of our squad deserving of our respect, and, there's also something we need to discuss."

'I don't have the time or energy to be wasting on this.' Prey thought. Interacting with people was the last thing he should be doing right now. He was still far too drained of emotion and energy, he was struggling to even hold this abrasive conversation with Gloom.

"Can't you just leave me and go by yourself?"

"Oh come on Prey. Seriously, think about somepony else for a change. Just come to the dinner. It's less than ten minutes away."

That was not a good enough reason for Prey, but he was just too tired. He was just so empty from all the energy he'd poured into the runes that he just didn't have it in him to argue the point. Prey sagged.

Gloom was mistaken. It might've been less than ten minutes as the crow flies, but Prey didn't have wings like Gloom did. He had to walk. It did not engender any more good feelings from Prey about this trip in any way.

He had far larger concerns he could be attending to rather than this dinner, so what was he even doing? But he was so empty of energy, now that he'd given in, it was a struggle to care anymore about the very real level of danger he intellectually knew he was in, and the time he was wasting.

Carton Juice's house wasn't as big as Prey would've expected for someone of her size, what with her being the largest living Earth pony Prey had ever seen. Her home was just normal sized, so it must've been quite snug to her.

Out back in her small garden, but still bursting with a multitude of flowers, Prey could hear the near insentient dull buzz of Carton's personal bee hives. She'd told them there were a lot more hives she also tended to, but those were with a dozen other beekeepers also, the business providing for nearly half of Canterlot's everyday market. Richer, snobbier ponies still went upscale for the special blends of honey which graced their breakfast tables, but whatever.

None of that Prey needed to know. None of that Prey cared about. Carton Juice told him anyway, jabbering away cheerfully as she welcomed him and Gloom inside, seeming to think that he, as a child, simply must be interested in bees and her special talent.

'-all foals are interested in getting their cutie mark at that age-'

Carton completely missed the obvious point that Prey wasn't a pony. It was a bit strange that someone so big would have a special talent working with animals so small. But, that was ponies for you. If it was too stupid to be believed, nine times out of ten they would do it.

Scenic was already seated in Carton's living room on a floor cushion, supposed to be resting his still healing legs, but he still rose as they came in; "Good evening sir-I mean, Gloom. Thank you for coming."

"Thank you for inviting us." Gloom responded, looking around the brightly decorated living room with some interest. There were bee and honey themes everywhere. Wax candles, little painted bees, yellow hexagon patterned curtains. Gloom was sensing a theme. Carton Juice was definitely a mare who lived by her cutie mark.

"Where's Crimson?" Prey asked sourly, not seeing the red pegasus in here.

Even the thought of venturing into an unknown, unsecured, and undefended building was enough to get Prey's skin crawling, and here he was actually standing in one. Again. When there was the very real danger of someone hunting Prey right now. Again. But here he was, being forced into it. Again.

"Oh, Crimson just went to the toilet I think." Scenic said, sinking back onto his belly atop the floor cushion.

"He arrived before you two, he even offered to help me in the kitchen if I needed any assistance. A real gentlecolt. It really is too bad we couldn't get Saffron here too, but she said her agent had booked her in for a show she couldn't avoid." Carton said as she bustled around, plumping up additional floor cushions for the rest of them.

Prey immediately dragged his cushion off to the side of the room and out of the line of sight from the window. Manners be damned, he wasn’t going to get shot at through a window.

"Thank you for inviting us into your house." Gloom repeated again, very aware of formalities.

'-we've been invited into her home in goodwill. Don't mess it up-'

"Oh it's nothing. Oh, please take any seat you want." Carton replied smiling, but her eyes skittered around rather than looking Gloom in the face as she spoke.

"Thank you. We'll just-"

Crimson came back into the room, interrupting; "Gloom, Prey. Hello."

Prey's automatic health check of Crimson showed his wings were in pristine condition, and he'd even bundled up and braided his mane into a thick knot in an effort to appear more presentable. The braid looked mightily weird to Prey as a non-thestral, and Scenic and Carton couldn't help but think so too, but were much too polite and unsure to even hint at how out of place it looked on a stallion.

Carton Juice was determined to be a good hostess. '-c'mon Carton, step up. You invited them here to make better bonds of friendship, so step up girl. They've done so much for Scenic and all been through so much too-'

She still couldn't help but gulp though; '-but Celestia I just hope I don't put my hoof in my mouth and do something offensive to their culture-'

"Would anypony like some mango as an appetiser? I heard it's supposed to be a favourite for, erm, thestrals?" Carton Juice offered a bit hesitantly.

Crimson blinked slowly, "Ah. I believe that is a stereotype."

Carton flinched, "I-"

"You are most kind. Yes please."

Rather than eat around Carton's table, instead the meal was served and eaten off trays as they sat on the floor cushions. It was a bit of an unexpected arrangement, but it wasn't bad. Gloom definitely thought it a novel way to eat, to dine and talk informally while still in a formal setting.

'-wouldn't mind doing it again actually-'

Honey roasted carrots, parsnips, and sweet potatoes. A hearty, filling meal, to be expected of an Earth pony host, especially one of Carton's enormous stature. Prey checked it for poison just the same as with everything else. When Crimson noticed, he sent Prey a look, but didn't try and get him to stop.  

Carton was making a very obvious effort to try and keep a lively conversation going, chatting, laughing, and forcing herself to think up lots of questions to ask throughout the meal.

"The weather's been lovely hasn't it?", "That's a lovely scarf Gloom.", "Have you heard of the new magic show on Manestreet?"

She was a pony. In her mind, if no one was talking, it was because they weren't comfortable.

It was the exact opposite of the thestral viewpoint, to whom silence was perfectly fine. Prey, despite not having the excuse of coming from the clans, was emulating Gloom and Crimson. He had zero interest in making small talk, no matter how many times Carton Juice tried to engage him in conversation. Scenic tried to do his part too, but he was mainly trying with the other two, guiltily avoiding Prey's eyes.

That was the dinner. Informality of formality to two of the company, and overly formal informality to the other pair. And Prey on the sidelines, who just didn't care either way.

But apparently being polite enough to sit through dinner wasn't enough to satisfy Carton and Scenic. Oh no, they wanted their guests to get involved after the meal too. How? By playing chess.

'Stupid ponies.'

Carton Juice had scarcely taken their empty plates away before Scenic was breaking out the chess boards to set up over on the table. He tried to smile and not sweat as they looked askance at his over keenness, "So who wants to be white?"

Carton Juice mentally sighed in relief despite the breach of social etiquette, '-sweet Celestia thank you Paint Spot. I don't know how much longer I could've kept that up-'

Chess was a game where it was acceptable to be silent as you played, supposedly so you could think deeply about your strategy. 

'What strategy? It's just a stupid boardgame.' Prey thought. He had a growing headache now to go along with everything else.

"Sure. I don't mind starting white." Gloom said, shrugging and getting up to move to the table, but not before exchanging a glance with Crimson.

'-if this is what you're supposed to do when invited to dinner, then sure. Seems a little weird though, but I guess Scenic and Carton just really like chess-'

Scenic, Carton, Gloom, and Crimson played a few rounds of chess like this, rotating through opponents to try and keep things interesting between themselves, Scenic winning all three of his games. Prey refused once again to play, just laying dispondantly on one of the floor cushions, worrying and trying not to fall unconscious.

'How much do the invaders know? What if they track me down? Will my runes be enough? How can they be, when I never get to finish them?' He was worrying over the same things, and still not having any of the answers.

"Go on, do it. Be nice." Carton whispered gently to Scenic, probably not realising the others had excellent hearing.

"Okay okay, but he won't want to." Scenic whispered back. He cleared his throat loudly, "Prey, uh, how about playing a game? It'll be fun."

"No. Thank you."

"You haven't played even once. Why not give it a go?" Scenic tried.

"I have no interest in playing." Prey told him, and then, because Gloom was giving him a look, added; "But thank you for asking."

"It's fun," Carton tried joining in, "Don't worry if you lose, it's just a game. We don't take it seriously, I promise."

As if Prey cared about losing a boardgame. "I'm fine."

"Try it just once at least Prey, please." Scenic tried.

"We're just trying to keep everypony included." Carton added.

"One game. You know you want to~"

"C'mon Prey. I'll let you be white."

Prey usually wouldn't have given in to such pathetic peer pressure, but he was tired and empty, with a headache to top it all off. He had far more serious concerns but here he was, being forced to waste time on this dinner invite because Gloom had made him come.

"Fine. Fine. One game, but that's it. And we play down here."

"Yay." Carton gave a little cheer and beamed at Prey, "I'm happy you're getting involved."

Prey ignored her and sat up on his floor cushion as Scenic brought the chess board from the table and set it between them, pushing it closer so Prey could reach with his shorter legs. Gloom and Crimson, who were playing their own chess game with a rather listless back and forth, looked up.

The board was already set up. "You can go first." Scenic said, smiling.

Caught up in the enjoyment of his board favourite game, Scenic Paint's wariness and uncertainty was gone. He wasn't the self conscious, slowly healing stallion who was scared of the scars under his own eyes. He was more confident, more outgoing, and happier. The only time Prey remembered seeing the Earth pony like this before was when he was talking about his passion for art.

"Just one game, right?" Prey repeated.

"Sure, if you don't like it then that's totally okay-"

Prey reached out and flicked over his white king, "I surrender. You win."

"Oh come on."

"You said one game."

"That's not what I meant and you know it. I meant a proper game."

"Why? You're now four for four. The reigning champion. Congratulations."

"Hey, no. Play a real game Prey. That's not a victory if I didn't do anything."

"It's the best kind. That was one game-"

"That doesn't count and you know it," Scenic interrupted, "If you want to lose just to get your one game over with, then fine. But we're at least going to play it properly."

Scenic really was like a different person, or pony. In a moment of annoyance, he'd quite overlooked his normal cautious view of Prey. Prey looked at him emptily.

"Fine." Without another word, Prey nudged a white pawn forwards, not caring which one he'd picked.

"Ah. King's opening, tried and true." Scenic said, leaning over his own side of the board, eager now that a proper game had begun. He moved one of his own pieces, and without bothering to think, Prey pushed another pawn forwards to block it head on.

The game progressed like that, Scenic naming moves and commenting on pieces, while Prey ignored the game almost entirely, only pretending to think about his moves before he made them.

Prey didn't care. It was just a boardgame. Soon he was down ten pieces to Scenic's three, and a while later, Prey was down to two pawns, one bishop and his king.

"Check." Scenic said with a frown, sliding his rook up the board.

Prey nudged his king to the right.

"That's also check."

Prey nudged it to the left instead.

Scenic narrowed his eyes, and moved his queen all the way up from the back of the board, "That's checkmate."

'Finally. That took way too long.' Prey thought, taking the opportunity to knock his white king over for the second time.

"You weren't even trying." Scenic accused, angry. 

"You got your win. Take it or leave it." Prey said. He'd have enough of this. It wasn't his problem Scenic had let himself get carried away and actually gotten upset over the results of a game.

"You could be good at chess if you just tried Prey, you're just the sort to thrive on strategy games. Chess is a good game, why won't you even try?" Scenic snapped.

"Paint Spot..." Carton said uncertainly, putting one huge hoof on Scenic's withers.

"What strategy? It's just a game. It doesn't mean anything." Prey said.

"No it's not. It makes you consider and plan, it improves your forward thinking. All the greatest chess masters in the past were geniuses. My grandpa was the smartest pony I know and he was the best chess player in my family." Scenic argued back.

'-and if we were better at strategy, Lilly wouldn't be crippled and all those ponies wouldn't have died-'

'Ponies?' Prey thought, a flash of anger sparking in the empty apathy caused by the rune overuse, 'What about all the other villagers? The goats, cows, donkeys, and sheep?'

Scenic hadn't meant it like that, Prey knew, but the unintended cheapening of those deaths and thinking that maybe if they'd been better at chess it would've somehow helped... That grated on Prey.

"You think that chess is oh so wonderful? That it can teach you anything about real life? It's just a worthless game. What good would chess have done against the kindersnatches, hmm? It's a board game, with little wooden pieces. In real life, there are no turns or balanced playing fields, you don't know your opponent, and you don't have all the time you need to think. When the stakes are live or die, what use is chess?" Prey waved his hoof in disgust at the checkered board.

By that point in his impatient rant Carton had already withdrawn, rubbing her huge hooves together, eyes big and worried. Crimson and Gloom had also stopped their own unenthusiastic chess game. They were holding their peace because it was Prey and Scenic's business, but they were definitely agreeing in the silent thestral way:

'-it is not even a form of training. This can only be counted as a form of relaxation-'

"Fine. Set up the board again," Prey snorted, "Apparently it didn't get through to you the first time, but this is just a game. A pastime. A hobby."

"Fine. As you wish." Scenic returned. His happy glow from playing had rapidly faded. Scenic subconsciously realised he'd made a big deal out of the game to someone who obviously thought it was meritless, but despite that, Scenic's competitiveness for his favourite game wouldn't let him just give up. So what if Prey had a point? Scenic also had a point. They both did.

'-I'm in the right just as much as him. I'm not going to go easy on Prey just because of that-'

"Umm..." Carton Juice went completely ignored as Scenic swiftly reset the board.

"You're white. Your move." Scenic said, a challenge in his tone.

Prey moved forwards the exact same pawn he had last time.

Scenic's brows snapped together, '-if he's just going to replay last game after all that fuss...-'

Scenic decided he wasn't going to take that. He instead went for a bolder start, skipping his pawns entirely and moving out his knight. '-there. Now's he's got to actually think-'

Prey just moved another pawn. Scenic matched it, opening up the way for his bishop. Prey barely glanced at the board as he moved a third pawn. 

'-is he even trying?-', Scenic thought, moving out the bishop he'd cleared the way for the turn before and taking Prey's pawn.

'-there, and that'll also open the way for either threatening his queen or taking first his pawn, then his knight when I move my own knight forwards again next turn-'

Prey moved his first pawn forwards one space. Now, it was blocking the bishop's path of attack. Scenic could take it, but if he did, Prey's white queen could take it in return.

'-never mind then. I'll just wait and move my own pawn out of the way-', Scenic thought, already planning on how to bring his rook into the game in two turns' time.

Too bad Prey immediately jumped his knight out to put in position to take Scenic's rook if he did.

Scenic paused, '-was that luck or did he actually know?-'

"It's your move." Prey reminded him flatly.

Scenic decided to leave the rook plan for now, and instead go with setting a trap with a pawn and his second bishop. Prey completely ignored the bait and instead moved his knight up again, threatening the first bishop. Scenic quickly retreated, but Prey took the pawn it'd been beside anyway as a consolation prize.

Again, Scenic paused, and looked more closely at the board.

'-okay, what should I do now? Trade my knight for a rook maybe? Yes, then I can use my queen to take over afterwards-', Scenic offered the trade. Prey ignored it and instead made space for his rook to take Scenic's queen if he did decide to bring it out.

For the third time, Scenic paused. '-...now what do I do?-'

The game went on from there. It was not a clean game by any means. It was a mess, Prey's approach changing every time Scenic changed his strategy to match. Pieces fell from both sides, but it was clear right from the get go that each trade favoured Prey.

Two black pawns lost for one white.

A pawn and a bishop for one knight.

A white rook for the black queen.

At the end of it, Scenic's king was backed into the corner of the board, his few remaining pieces also locked down into helplessness. Scenic stared down at the board in dismay. He'd been utterly picked apart. It'd been a losing game right from the get go and Scenic knew it.

Roughly, and without any flourish or finesse, Prey slapped down his queen onto the last square, "Checkmate."

Prey was not any sort of chessmaster. How could he be, when he'd barely played? It wasn't any kind of genius strategic planning coming to the forefront either. Chess wasn't some higher indicator of a master or a prodigy. It was just a game.
Prey wasn't any of those things, but he was a mind leech and he knew how to cheat.

"How'd you do that?" Scenic demanded.

Prey ignored the question, asking his own instead; "Now you've had your one game, what does it prove? I won, does that somehow make me better than you? Does being able to play a game make me not a runt? Am I suddenly a master general? Can I change the past? Will it undo the events of Mayflower? Does it help me in any way whatsoever?"

Prey reached over and slapped over his white king, "No. Because it's just a game."

Scenic seemed to have gotten the message. He wouldn't look up, and his shoulders were hunched. Instead, he played with a board with the edge of his hoof. Reality had reasserted itself, and Scenic had remembered his position within it.

'-just like mom and dad were always shouting. Were they right about me?-'

Carton Juice didn't quite understand what was going on, but she didn't like it, however she also wasn't brave enough to intervene despite this being her own home and her being the biggest person in the room.

"I think he gets your point, Prey." Gloom blandly observed, still reclining on his honeycomb patterned floor cushion. He and Crimson had completely abandoned their own game to watch Prey's. Crimson just shrugged his wings in agreement, as if to say; 'That's right. It was just a game'.

The silence dragged out.

'Zoma'Grika, I'm so done with this.' Prey thought.

He stood up, only swaying for a moment as his drained body protested, "I'm going back to the flat. I don't feel well."

"Unwell? Should I come with you?" Crimson immediately asked.

"Only if you want to. But if you don't, please stay. I'll be fine."

Crimson considered, "If you're sure you'll be okay, then I'll stay." He decided.

"Prey." Gloom tried not to hiss. '-he can't just walk out. That's rude to our host-'

"No no, that's okay. If you're feeling sick, you should be lying down. You didn't have to come if you were feeling sick Prey." Carton quickly waved down Gloom's concerns, her protective mare instincts pushing aside her previous timidness.

"If you need to go Prey, that's fine I promise, so don't worry about it. But you really should go with him too, Crimson. A foal shouldn't be out this late by themselves, and what if he needs you to carry him?" Carton Juice fretted to Crimson.

Crimson blinked slowly at her, "Carry Prey? If I'm carrying Prey something has truly gone wrong. Like an invading flight of wyverns."

Crimson had touched Prey twice in all the time they'd worked together. Once to prevent him from falling to his death in the lumber yard, and once to carry him from out of the abandoned Mayflower, unconscious and injured. Thinking back, even though it'd been to save his life, and even though it'd only been Crimson, a shudder of revulsion still went up Prey's spine.

"But what if Prey needs-"

"Carton dear, it'll be fine. Prey can look after himself. Trust me." Scenic spoke up to calm his marefriend, still looking fixedly down at the chess board.

Prey hastily summoned up a smile to show Carton before anyone else could think to delay him further; "Thank you for having me around for dinner. Have a good night." And then he was trotting for the front door.

Prey wasn't prepared to wait around while Scenic and Carton sorted out their sensibilities or worried about being good pony hosts. He didn't care and wasn't willing to try either. He just wanted to make it back to the flat and collapse into bed. And that meant sneaking back through Canterlot, while avoiding any notice in case he was being followed. A heavy groan slipped out from Prey without him even meaning to.

There was just so much hanging over his head like an axe.

Prey heard Carton Juice and Gloom coming along to see him off as he reached the door. He reached up and pulled down on the handle, ignoring the jangle of wooden beads from the homemade dream catcher as he swung the door open.

Out on the porch, Prey found the crystal street lamps were just beginning to light up as the sun dipped below the orange tinted rooftops. Carton Juice had a seashell wind chime outside her door, and it clinked faintly as a breeze stirred it.

Prey cautiously looked both ways up and down the street, then up at the roofs and deepening sky. There was a white mare in a raincoat coming this way down the street, and a father and his colt just crossing the road further up, but Prey saw no one who was obviously watching this house-

Prey's eyes snapped back to the coated mare as she stopped in front of the low front gate. There was the tip of a horn poking up from beneath the hood. Prey took a step back, reaching up for his ribbon. The unicorn's head was lowered and hidden. There was movement, they were reaching for something under the rain coat. Prey's heart leapt into his throat.

The mare pulled out a slip of paper, dropped it into her hoof, and checked it. Then she looked up. Thick bunches of golden ringlets were packed under her rain hood as she checked the house's address.

Prey recognised her. It was Saffron Swirl, the magicless unicorn. And she recognised Prey in return.

"Oh." She exclaimed in surprise, rose pink eyes going wide.

"Who is-? Saffron you came!?" Carton Juice exclaimed, coming up from behind Prey in the doorway. Behind her, Gloom peered past Carton's muscled bulk, looking out.

"Oh Carton Juice, wonderful. I'm so glad I found the right house." Saffron said, a relieved smile softening her heart shaped face.

"Come in, come in. But I thought you said you had a show to attend?" Carton asked happily, trotting out and waving at Saffron to open the gate.

"Thank you. I managed to get out early after the show, dodging the reporters." Saffron said, but her eyes had gone back in interest to Prey.

Gloom noticed her beauty. He wasn't blind, '-Scenic said she was a Canterlot model of some kind. I can easily see that-'

Saffron was being ushered in by Carton, the much larger Earth pony dwarfing the other mare despite the slender model being taller than an average unicorn. Her head kept turning to follow Prey though as she was led up the short path.

Her thoughts were also filled with surprise, '-wait, so the sheep Lilly and Scenic were talking about is the same foal I met all along?-'

Carton was meaning to usher Saffron inside like a good host, but Saffron halted as they were passing Prey.

Saffron leaned down and smiled at Prey, "Hello there Prey. I don't know if you remember me, but we met before up in the Royal Palace."

Gloom's ears went straight up in surprise, but aside from leaning in closer to listen, he didn't interrupt.

"I remember, yes. You were sitting on the stone bench." Prey said woodenly, 'Sitting and trying to decide on how best to commit suicide. And somehow instead of encouraging you, I dissuaded you. Damn my luck.'

Saffron Swirl's smile grew, and her pink eyes glimmered, "I was sincerely hoping I would get to meet you again Prey, to say thank you. What you said that day deeply touched my heart."

"It did?" Prey blinked. What was she talking about?

Gloom's eyebrows had also shot up to match his ears, '-wait, Prey said something nice to somepony? How did that happen?-'

"Yes it did," Saffron assured him, "I really needed somepony to talk to, and you came along right then and touched my heart. If I hadn't talked to somepony just then, I'd, I'd have... Oh that's not important now. What is important is that you helped me."

Prey was bewildered. He hadn't helped at all. In fact, he distinctly recalled doing the opposite, getting Saffron to mentally torment herself by digging at her insecurities. 

"You're... welcome." Prey said suspiciously. Saffron Swirl's thoughts were showing she was being completely sincere too, which made it all the more confusing. This was all just making his headache worse.

Saffron beamed at him as beside her, Carton Juice 'd'awwed'. She sniffed delicately, and the corners of her eyes were swimming, "Thank you for what you said. You were wonderful."

"Don't touch me." Prey darted away from her hoof as she reached out to try and pick him up in a hug. 

'-aaaaand there's the Prey I know-', Gloom thought to himself in dry amusement.

Saffron looked surprised, but then she was back to smiling angelically, the smile which had no doubt captured the hearts of many an audience, but it was a real smile, brimming with positive emotion. "Aww, that's okay. I'm just glad I could meet you again to say thank you. Are your parents here at Carton Juice's?" She asked, looking to the open door.

Carton's ears fell, and Gloom swiftly stepped in, "No, that's, ah, no, Prey's mother is not here in Canterlot at the moment."

"Oh, you must be Dusky Gloom. I apologise if I have you at a disadvantage, but Scenic Paint and Lilly Blossom have told me lots about you." Saffron curtsied prettily, despite her only wearing a raincoat and not a dress, "You must work with Prey's father in the Night Guard then. Thank you for the job you do defending everypony."

Gloom stalled, confused about how she'd come to that conclusion, "Uh, no. That is to say-"

Gloom shot a furtive glance to Prey, and winced, "Not... as such. Listen, perhaps you should come inside. Ah, it's Carton Juice's house, I shouldn't be speaking for her, but-"

"No no, that's fine. Please, do come in Saffron." Carton agreed, chuckling nervously.

'-oh gosh this is awful, Paint Spot told me about how Prey's dad tragically died earlier this year-'

"Please, after you Saffron. No no, really. I insist."

"Ah? Were you just leaving Mr. Gloom-?"

"Me? Ah, no, just Prey. He's not feeling well."

"Should somepony not accompany-?"

Gloom's eyes kept darting to Prey as Carton shuffled Saffron inside, "Don't worry about it." He said.

Prey's empty headache was pressing behind his eyes, and every time someone opened their mouths they made it worse

'That's it. I've had enough of this. I'm done.' Prey thought. Without a backwards glance or parting comment, he stomped off.

He completely ignored everything behind him; Saffron's innocent questions, Gloom's awkward answers, the annoying wind chimes clinking, he ignored all of it. He was just so done with today.

It was empty in Prey's mindscape that night. Up above, in his outer mindscape, Snake whispered unintelligible words over and over, the last remnants of a dead zebra not even knowing he was only a memory.

Down in the depths of his inner mindscape, the ocean was grey and cold, but above all, empty. Prey hung there, a ball of nothing in a horizonless sea of nothing. In the vast, depthless emptiness, Prey drifted in uneasy sleep.

"Prey!"

A jolt of fear shot through his system. That was Crimson. Something was wrong.

For a moment of stillness, the realisation was delayed in Prey's brain as his mind processed itself, and worked out it was still asleep and lying down.

'Asleep. Lying down.'

Prey shot up in a fail of waving hooves and flying blanket, as his mind finally reconnected itself to his body. Then he let out a choked scream and fell over.

"GaKhaa-!" Prey writhed in an undignified heap on the apartment floor, spine bent back like a bow, hooves desperately trying to reach around to relieve the burning scar cramp.

Unfortunately, Crimson had heard his cut-off shriek of pain. "Prey?!"

Even though Prey only half heard Crimson over the blood pounding in his head, he still tried to shout; "It's fine, stay out!"

That's what Prey meant to shout. What actually came out was more along the lines of a high pitched squeak, sounding a bit like, "Ay hiinee! Hee' hoot!"

If Prey hadn't been in crippling pain, it would've been almost funny. But he was, and it wasn't funny. Crimson apparently didn't think so either.

The door shook as Crimson tried to kick it open, but it was reinforced with runes. It could withstand a charging rhino. The cramp was rippling higher and higher up Prey's spine, radiating out in burning waves from each ridge of scar tissue. 'IhateyouIhateyouIhateyouStinger!'

Giving up on kicking down the door, Prey heard the scrape of a key in the lock from Crimson. The runic arrays on the door weren't yet set up to differentiate between when to open for a key in normal circumstances, or hostile circumstances.

'No!' Prey didn't want Crimson to come in and see him. Prey managed to get to his hooves for a second, but then a violent muscle spasm drove him back to his knees.

The door slammed open and Crimson came through in a red blur of feathers, wings spread low, ready to sweep and strike.

He saw Prey on the floor, and all Prey could feel was hot shame. Crimson drew up, finding no enemy, just Prey, straining to stand back up from his knees on the floor.

Crimson's eyes darted around the flat, "Are we under attack?"

"No," Prey managed to grit out. He wanted to tell Crimson to go away, but all he could get out was another squeaking hiss. The cramp really was going the whole hog this time. 'Hateyouhateyouhate youStinger!'

"Is it poison? Magic? What should I do?" Crimson demanded in alarm. Instinctively he reached out to try and steady Prey, but Prey jerked away from the touch, just as he always did.

Helplessly, Crimson withdrew his hoof. Prey was starting to pant, " 'M fine, Ghaa! Don't nee-eeek! Go away."

The cramp was peaking, Prey could feel it in the way his muscles were straining to what felt like their breaking point. Just a few more moments and it'd finally stop. Why couldn't Crimson just have waited outside?!

Prey didn't want anyone to see him like this, not even Crimson. It meant that Stinger had won once again.

"Prey, what should-?"

"Nothin-hinG! J-just. Stay. There!"

'HateHateHateHATEStinger!'

 A few long moments were drawn out as long as possible by pain, with Prey panting and Crimson standing helplessly by, feathers bristling for a fight. And then, as Prey had known it would, the cramp finally ended.

Prey slumped with a moan of relief as his back muscles finally went slack. He could feel clinging sweat as he rested his head against the wood of the floorboards. He felt sore and bruised, even muscles which should in no way be connected to his back now ached. But at least the hated cramp had ended.

"Prey?" Crimson quietly asked.

Prey opened one bleary eye to look up at Crimson. The red pegasus was leaning over him, but keeping just out of reach to respect Prey's wishes. His amber eyes shone with concern. And from his body language, he was upset.

Prey looked away in embarrassed shame as he forced himself to sit up. He turned his back. He hated being a runt and so much smaller than Crimson. He surreptitiously wiped his watering eyes. 'Never show weakness. This isn't Crimson's problem to deal with, it's mine.'

After a long silence, Crimson asked, "What happened?"

"Whip scars acting up. Happens sometimes."

"Oh. I see. I won't say sorry."

Prey turned back around in stark surprise, tilting his head up, "Huh?"

"I'm not saying sorry because you don't want my apologies. I mean, I know I wouldn't in your place. Whenever I tell you about my past, it's not because I want pity. It's so you can understand where I come from." Crimson spread one wing and held it up, glossy red pinions the length of Prey's leg splayed out.

Prey understood what Crimson meant. He'd grown up an outcast within his own clan, the initial reason all stemming back to him having been born with feathers instead of membranes. He didn't want Prey's pity for being who he was.

Crimson peered down his open wing's length, "I'm only sorry I will never get to meet the person who whip-who did that to you."

"Oh, er, erhm." Prey coughed, "Thank you."

In his head, Prey was repeating over and over, 'Please don't let this become a big deal, please don't let this become a big deal.'  

They both went to speak at the same time:

"Yes well-"
"-It's alright."
"-Er, you go first."
"-No, you go on."

They both stopped talking and looked at one another.

Crimson cleared his throat and spoke first, "I, uh, might've damaged your door Prey. Sorry about that."

Prey seized upon the offer to change the subject like it was a life raft, "Oh, well if it's still standing, I don't think you need to worry about it." 

‘And if the landlord dares to complain….'

It would take a lot more force than Crimson just bucking his rune reinforced door to break it down. If he'd still had the jade necklace though... Prey dismissed the thought, since it was now impossible and did no good to dwell on. Except it wasn't so impossible, because the thieving invaders had the jade necklace themselves now. And likely many more powerful artifacts to hoof. They could theoretically break down his door.

"What made you so worried just now, Crimson? You were trying to find me for something, weren't you?"

Crimson shuffled his wings, "That. It's not, I mean, it doesn't seem nearly so serious after all. I shouldn't have barged in, I know you were... I mean, I was looking for you because I had a bad feeling."

"A bad feeling?"

"Yes. I didn't think to check that you had made it home last night. And then, when I went to go flying, I saw a newspaper stand with it in the headlines."

"What headlines?" Prey asked.

"'Attack on Vanhoover Guard Station'. There was a break in, and one of the prisoners was broken out. It didn't say who, but I know it was the thief, the one who really stole my-I mean, stole the jade necklace from Vanish." Crimson said.

"What do you mean?" Prey asked, very carefully.

"The newspaper said the City Guard had already re-captured the escapee back at their home. But no one else. Just the escapee."

"Just the esc-? Hang on, that makes no sense." Prey exclaimed, "There's obviously more than one. Someone must've broken them out for a start. And why'd they just abandon the prisoner after going to all the effort to free them? And why would they go back to their own house, anyway? That's the first place any City Guard would look. There's no way-"

Prey broke off. This wasn't making any damned sense! Prey knew Warm Hearth wasn't really the thief, he'd been the one to frame her to take Crimson's place, after all. But the real thieves would also obviously have known that too, so why'd they rescued her? And then just let her go? Prey couldn't understand their reasoning.

Maybe they were just trying to work out if they'd somehow left loose ends behind? But if that was the case, why let Warm Hearth walk free afterwards? Why not silence her, since she might be able to identify her would-be rescuers later?

'What's happening? What are they trying to achieve here?!'

"Wait, when did you say this happened?" Prey hurriedly asked.

"The night before last." Crimson answered.

'The night before last. That puts the break in at-'

At right after they'd made their assault on Prey's lair. Setting aside the time it would've taken for travel, they must've gone straight to Vanhoover. Prey's mind raced. How did they know the framed Warm Hearth was linked to his lair? Did they know? No, there was no way. There was no evidence which could've clued them in.

No, that wasn't quite right, there was no evidence Prey knew of.

But no matter how carefully you planned, there was always an angle you couldn't foresee, witnesses you couldn't account for, dumb luck you couldn't predict.

A chill settled in Prey's stomach, liked he'd drunk a gallon of ice slush.

They knew. Somehow, the thieves knew the person behind the lair was the same one who'd framed Warm Hearth.

How? That was a silly question. The answer was, of course, 'magic'.

'Zoma'Grika. They also now know I have mind magic too.' Now Prey's stomach was twisting into frozen knots.

They would know because they would've interrogated Warm Hearth, and Prey, in his cleverness, had implanted false memories in the mare's head which convinced her she really had been the thief. Except the real thieves knew she wasn't, because they'd been the ones to carry out the theft, not her. They knew she'd been tricked. It shouldn't have mattered, if only the thieves hadn't somehow met up with the remnants of the diamond dogs, then-

But they had, and now they knew.

Prey was running through a long, detailed string of curses in his head. If only it weren't for those diamond dogs!

...If only Lemon Pink hadn't murdered their brothers and sisters. 

Actions have consequences. There is always a price to pay.

But there was another, much more immediate worry and question in Prey's world.

"Why'd you come straight to check up on me Crimson? Even before... the cramp attack, you were ready for a fight." Prey asked.

Crimson's wings hunched on his back, "I wish now that I'd never received the jade necklace. It was your gift, and it was mine, I paid the price for it, and I want it back. But now all holding on is doing is bringing harm. Vanish, and all the rest of it, I mean. Not just to me anymore, but all of us."

"You're not making any sense." Prey said, now even more worried if that were possible.

"The necklace. Vanish took it-"

"Stole. He stole it from you."

"Princess Luna made the final decision, Prey." Crimson corrected, or perhaps just to convince himself.

Prey closed his mouth.

"Vanish took it," Crimson went on. He didn't add the lord's title, "But when his maid was blackmailed into stealing it on behalf of someone else, he also lost the necklace. But now a fourth person obviously wants the artifact too, and wants it badly."

"But, I'm still not following. Why then were you worried about me? Shouldn't you be more worried about yourself?" Prey asked nervously. Did Crimson know something about Prey's illicit activities and this was his way of warning Prey?

Crimson shook his head, "Don't you see Prey? This fourth group attacked the Vanhoover City Guard to get to the last pon-I mean, the last person who had the necklace and might be able to tell them something about who now has it. It must be even more powerful or important than Vanish let on. And the last person who had the necklace before Warm Hearth was me. If they were prepared to attack the City Guard to get to that witness, then they could easily come after me too."

He lowered his eyes to the ground between Prey's hooves, "I don't know what they're after, but to get to me, they might try to use you as leverage, Prey. And I didn't think to check if you'd made it back last night, so..."

"So you came rushing to check I hadn't been kidnapped." Prey finished. He felt numb. Crimson thought he himself was the one to blame for this.

He wasn't. It was Prey's fault. This was all his fault.

"I, we..." Prey searched for words, for some way to solve all of this. But there wasn't any, and Prey knew it. He'd known that the moment he'd seen the devastation wrought in his lair, and how the invaders had still walked away despite all his defences.

"Vanish should've been the end of it. Getting arrested by the Solar Guard should've been the end of it too. And when they caught Warm Hearth too. And after what we just survived in Mayflower-!"

Crimson drove his hoof sharply into the floor. Prey jumped.

"Sorry," Crimson hastily apologised, "We just, I mean, we're under attack yet again!"

Crimson was so right and he didn't even know the full extent of it. The danger these opponents posed and the threat they represented was greater than Crimson realised. Crimson was only seeing what was on the surface. Prey hadn't meant for anyone else to get involved, least of all Crimson. This was all his fault. Yet Crimson thought the fault was his.

And all this had been started a long time ago by Prey when he'd first bought a stolen heirloom to give to Crimson.

But here Crimson was, taking the blame, and worst of all, he was right in worrying about being a potential target, although not for the reason Crimson thought. If the invaders found out Prey's identity, Crimson could be next on their list.

Had the invaders gone back to Prey's crystal lair to have another crack at it? It was possible. Prey had no way of knowing. He'd abandoned the lair because the location was compromised, but what if he'd overlooked and left something behind?

He'd hidden his surviving veropede deep in the sewers, but now it didn't look like that would be enough. It seemed he'd been laying traps and protection in the wrong places, because Crimson was the one in danger now.

"You need to go to Gloom," Prey exclaimed, the words slipping out almost before he'd worked out what he meant by them, "You need to tell him you're going to be targeted. He'll tell Nighthawk. The Night Guard will have to do something, set a watch, witness protection, protective custody, something!"

"These people have already attacked the City Guard. They could just as easily attack the Night Guard here." Crimson protested.

"No that's not the same. That was Vanhoover. This is Canterlot. This is the Sun-I mean, Celestia's capital, the New Unicornia. It's not the same, they can't get away with such blatant actions here."

"Prey-"

"There's no hard evidence we can show Nighthawk, but it's obvious you'll be a target. If you explain it, then he'll understand too." Prey's voice was rising higher and higher in pitch.

Crimson was going to be targeted, but not because of anything he'd done. It was far worse than Crimson realised. They were going to come after Crimson for information, but armed for a fight against Prey. 

'They're going to come after Crimson!'

"Prey you need to calm down. Listen to me." Crimson all but shouted.

Prey finally stopped and looked back up at Crimson. He was breathing too fast. Crimson settled back down, "Calm down, Prey. Be calm, and listen to me."

Prey tried to do what Crimson said, he really did, but it was hard. Crimson didn't realise the danger he was in.

"Listen to me Prey. I will tell Gloom and Nighthawk, because they deserve to know what is happening. Scenic and Lilly too, don't worry about that. But I will deal with this. It's me the thieves are really after, so as long as you are careful, you'll be fine."

"It's not me I'm worried about." Prey snapped.

Crimson just looked at him. 

"Okay, a little bit, but it's you who's in real danger here!"

"I know," Crimson said calmly, "What of it? I mean, this is nothing new. We're always in one danger or another. It's part of the job. You yourself warned me danger was coming. So it's here now, what of it? There is nothing I can do but face it."

"But-"

"But what, Prey? What else can I do?" Crimson challenged, but not harshly. More like he was resigned.

"But what if it's not enough this time? What if-?"

'-What if they kill you? You're my first friend, what if you die and leave me alone?' Prey couldn't finish. He felt ridiculous, and he knew he was panicking. This wasn't how you solved a problem.

"It's me they want," Crimson told him again, "I will deal with them Prey. You'll be safe."

Prey couldn't meet Crimson's eyes. The warrior pegasus had no idea he was sitting beside the real cause of all his problems. It was Prey's fault, yet Crimson was trying to shoulder the burden. Prey felt ashamed.

'This isn't what a real friend does to his friends.'

"But I don't want you going into danger." Prey whined.

That was a pointless statement. Life wasn't fair or safe. Prey knew that. Crimson knew that. Whining wouldn't change a damned thing.

Crimson could only shake his head, then push his lanky mane back out of his eyes, "And I don't want you in danger either, Prey."

And that was that, wasn't it? If wishes were oatcakes and words could change anything, neither of them would be here in Canterlot.

Prey scuffed at the floorboards, "So... what, what do you want to do?"

"There is nothing to do. Except wait. I had the necklace last, this is my responsibility to deal with."

"I was the one who gave you that necklace." Prey mumbled.

"But it was me who unlocked it. If it'd just stayed as a ring, no one would be any the wiser." Crimson said.

They were talking in circles, but Prey couldn't think of what else to say. 

"What's that on the back of the door?" Crimson unexpectedly asked, blindsiding Prey.

"Huh?"

Crimson pointed at the flat door, "There. If you tilt your head like this, and the light hits it like that, you can just about faintly see some words."

"You can see those?" Prey blinked.

"Yes. You wrote them? What's it say?" Crimson asked, trying to step closer to see, but when he did he lost the angle and the faint writing disappeared.

"I, yes. It's, well, it's the reaper king rhyme." Prey admitted.

Crimson stopped trying to get the right angle to catch the words again. "Oh."

Prey began to recite, "Raven magpie, fly away, Scarecrow, keep at bay~"

"I remember it." Crimson interrupted, but quietly. A shiver went up the feathers of his wings, "You put it there on purpose?"

"Um, yes?"

"I do not know if I could sleep soundly at night with that written on the inside of my door." Crimson said.

"You sleep soundly at night?" Prey asked.

Crimson shrugged. It was a very Crimson response, "Rarely. You know how it is."

Despite everything, Prey had to half smile. It didn't have any humour, "Yeah, we both know how it is."

He wanted to add something more profound or meaningful, but he couldn't think of anything. In the end though, it wasn't needed. They both sat there quietly for a minute, looking at the door and remembering the warlock and his dark creations. But they were still here. They'd survived, despite Hard Baked and the forest's best efforts.

"I should go and inform Gloom and Captain Nighthawk of the situation, like you said. The Captain might've thought of all this already." Crimson said, standing up.

Crimson was right. Sitting here doing nothing wouldn't solve anything. If he wanted to survive the coming storm, as always Prey would have to save himself. The real thieves were slowly closing in, learning more information every hour. There was no chance of hiding anymore, because they now knew about Crimson. They had a name and someone to follow.

"Crimson," Prey said suddenly, "Can I, er..."

"Yes?"

Prey took a deep breath, "Can I please have one of your primary feathers?"

"W-?"

"I mean when one falls out! Not just pull one out, obviously. Can I please have the leftover feather then?" Prey hastily corrected, wincing.

Crimson was visibly confused, one ear straight up, "I... suppose? I mean, it's a pinion feather, but once it falls out I don't need it anymore. What do you need it for though?" He asked, but there was an edge of caution in his tone.

"The feather itself? Nothing. I just wanted the measurements. A feather from any pegasi would do, but since you're the only one I really know..." Prey trailed off with an apologetic shrug.

"I don't see a problem, but... I won't come to regret this in some way, will I Prey?" Crimson asked seriously.

"No. Why? What do you think I could do with a feather?" Prey asked, not mentioning all the things you could do in voodoo magic with a feather willingly given.

"I don't know, that's why I'm asking. Not that I don't trust you." Crimson quickly added.

"What do you mean?"

Crimson hesitated for a moment, then just shrugged and bluntly stated it, "Apparently here, in Equestria I mean, pegasi give a feather to those they are courting and receive one in return."

"Oh. I see." 

Crimson shrugged again, a mixture of uncomfortable and perplexed, "I have no idea why. It seems a stupid custom to me. I mean, we didn't do it in the clans."

"Well, exchanging a piece of wing membrane is probably more creepy than romantic I would imagine." Prey tried to joke. It wasn't funny, not after Crimson's revelation about the thieves, but it was better than panicking again. 

"Ah. Right." Crimson blinked slowly, "Of course. How silly of me. That would be a rather disturbing custom alright. Not to mention painful."

"Nighthawk and Gloom," Prey reminded Crimson, "They need to be told all this right away. You need to go tell them. The sooner the better." He urged.

"You're right." Crimson said briskly, straightening, "I had to come check you first, but you're safe. I overreacted. But the others must be informed."

"You should fly there. Stay above open populated areas. You're fast, it'll be the safest." Prey said. Hitting a flying target above you with a crossbow was much harder than anyone thought.

"I was planning to."

"Of course, I didn't mean-of course you are. You've got the wings, not me." Prey knocked his hoof against the side of his head. Worry was making him a moronic fool. But this was all his fault.

"I know what you meant Prey. You're just worried, like I was. About you, I mean. But about me, I mean. I mean, er, thank you." Crimson awkwardly stated.

"Don't thank me, really. There's no need. Really."

"Right. Well..." Crimson dithered for only a moment more, then he decisively pulled the door open after a quick glance at the near invisible rhyme scratchings, "It'll be fine Prey. You helped with everything else, so I'll deal with it this time. Stay safe."

Prey followed Crimson out into the hall to watch him launch off over the balcony. Crimson's wings snapped open with a wuff of air, his powerful wings swiftly lifting him up into the sky, legs tucked in close and head driving forwards for the best aerodynamic posture. Within seconds, he was already a fading red bird sized shape in the sky. Prey so wished he had been gifted with wings and Crimson's skill.

But he hadn't, he wasn't a pony, he was just a triple cursed runt lamb. And he was in danger. Prey started, hastily glanced around, then slammed the front door and rushed back to his flat.

Runes weren't going to create themselves, and now, more than ever, he needed those defences. Not just for himself anymore, but for Crimson too. What if the thieves were bold enough to come and raid Crimson's flat directly? It was the middle of the day, but would that stop them? What if they found something in there to make them think Crimson really was their one target?

This was Prey's fault. It was all his fault.

Crimson came back about mid afternoon, a worried Gloom accompanying him, along with a pair of Night Guards flying in behind them, and all of the thestrals squinting badly in the midday sun.

"Prey? Ah, good. Crimson's already filled you in, yes?" Gloom asked, worried and distracted.

The pair of Night Guards, both of whom looked very tired and who must've been two of the only few available at this hour, were talking to Crimson about security in his flat:

"Only you and the landlord have a key, right?"

"Not having a key won't stop any determined pony."

Prey nodded in answer to Gloom's worried question, still half listening to what the on duty Night Guards were discussing with Crimson.

"Prey has a key too? I guess that's fine."

"How about other entrances? Only one window, you say?"

Prey noted Crimson had his wing blades attached once again. They were supposed to be locked up safely under Nighthawk's care, the only place Crimson could be persuaded to leave them. Nighthawk must've changed his mind after hearing Crimson's bad news.

The laws were clear about non-Guards, including off duty Guards, carrying any type of weapon within Canterlot. It was worrying how Nighthawk had obviously felt it prudent to waive this law.

'But there's no such law restricting unicorns who all walk around with a lethally dangerous weapon sticking out of their foreheads.' Prey thought sourly, but it was in the back of his mind. He was much more focused on the problems of here and now.

"What's Nighthawk decided? What's being done to protect Crimson?" Prey asked.

Gloom pursed his lips, "There isn't much that can be done." He admitted.

"Why not?" Prey immediately demanded.

Gloom looked at him askance, "You must know why."

Prey could work it out, but he'd asked anyway in the hopes of changing it. They couldn't prove an attack was actually coming after Crimson, and if one did come, it was unlikely having a couple of Guards protecting Crimson would make much of a difference. The thieves hadn't balked at taking on a full Guard Station in Vanhoover, after all.

'-on top of which, the Night Guard just doesn't have the ponies to spare on twenty-four/seven witness protection-', Gloom thought, unhappily thinking of the thestral minority in Canterlot.

"But those two were still assigned here, that's got to mean something right?" Prey asked, jerking his head towards the Night Guards who'd accompanied Gloom and Crimson back.

"Short term. Until something better can be worked out, or the threat has passed." Gloom said.

"How are you supposed to know when it's passed? What if the thieves simply wait until the Guards leave and then attack the moment they're gone?" Prey said.

"If you've got a solution, I'm sure they'll be happy to hear it, by all means." Gloom said in exasperation, waving his wing towards the two Guards whom Crimson was taking inside, after only a brief hesitation, to check his flat for security risks.

Gloom's exasperation was caused by worry though, not real annoyance. If Prey had a good idea, Gloom genuinely wanted to hear it. Prey's ideas usually had merit, even if they were almost all equally unfailingly unpleasant. Gloom didn't want any harm to come to Crimson, or any member of his squad.

'-I don't want to fail them again-'

Prey was glad he'd added a few runes to Crimson's flat. But there were only enough in there for a distraction, not actual defence. It would be safer if Crimson was to stay in Prey's own flat instead, but there was no way he could explain why that was the case to Gloom and Crimson. Prey tugged at the end of his ribbon, trying to think up some way to sell the idea anyway.

Well, he could pretend to be scared and ask Crimson to stay with him. But unless he revealed all his runework, he wouldn't have any explanation they would accept about why that was any safer than Crimson staying in his own flat. They literally lived opposite each other, afterall.

'So maybe it would be better if Crimson stayed somewhere else altogether.'

Canterlot was a big place. As much as Prey hated the Palace and all it represented, it was still well guarded, plus Prey knew it sported its own magical protections. They weren't active or specialised defences like Prey's own, but the Palace still had a lot of passive anti-fire enchantments, anti-teleportation, dark magic detection alarms, and the like.

Prey was also certain beyond a shadow of a doubt there were some other enchantments even the Guard weren't told about. It was the Sun Wolf's home, after all.

'Actually, why hasn't Nighthawk moved Crimson back to the Palace?' Prey frowned. He turned to face Gloom.

"Surely it would be safer back in the barracks room in the Palace? You know, where we first started?" Prey asked.

Gloom grimaced, face sour, "I had the same idea, unfortunately there's one problem. The royal inspectors." He almost spat.

"You mean to tell me they're still here?" Prey asked in disbelief. It was over two weeks past the date by which the inspectors investigating the Night Guard were supposed to be finished.

"They should've left long ago, yes," Gloom agreed, "But they haven't. They're still hanging around."

"Why? Shouldn't Nighthawk have all the evidence he needs by now to prove they're just lingering to manufacturer evidence, and force Shining Armour to withdraw them?" Prey asked. This was completely ridiculous, even by the standards of the petty Canterlot politicking which seemed to be accepted as normal around here.

But the Night Guard command structure was not from around here, and Prey could not see them accepting it as normal.

While these royal inspectors had been set on the Night Guard as an indirect retaliation to the ISND's own investigation for salt dealers and other corruption within the Royal Guard, Prey had never considered it personal. He'd never met or even seen one of the inspectors, (unless Strange Happenstance was actually one in disguise), but now their actions were putting Crimson at risk. And that was personal.

"This is just beyond ridiculous by now." Prey exclaimed.

"I completely agree. It's ridiculous." Gloom said, turning to glower in the direction of the distant Palace, then immediately regretting it as he got an eyeful of sunlight. He hissed and rubbed at the scars around his eyes, "Luna that stings. But yes, they should've been kicked out weeks ago."

"So why're they still here? Something's obviously changed to allow them to stay, but what?"

"I don't know the exact details," Gloom said, blinking rapidly and scowling, "But Captain Nighthawk said the details were restricted. Just that it's to do with the after effects of the Grand Gala, and that it involves some of the nobility."

'-those sycophantic leeches. Oh, and the other nobles too I guess-' 

"Ah, I see why now." Prey said, keeping the anger from his tone. And it was the truth, he could clearly see Nighthawk's reasoning now.

The nobles Nighthawk had referenced were those who'd made a move to try and blackmail Luna at the Gala. The job title was 'Royal' inspectors, meaning they worked for the government. And that meant they worked almost directly for both alicorn princesses too.

The inspectors were still here because they weren't just reviewing the Night Guard anymore, but also those nobles who'd made themselves Luna's political enemies. And the thestral officers of the Night Guard took the attempted blackmail of their princess very personally indeed.

'What kind of suicidal idiot do you have to be to try and blackmail an alicorn, anyway?'

But Nighthawk was holding a snake close to his chest. The inspectors were still here to investigate the Night Guard after all, and they were especially after the ISND. If it weren't for them all being on an extended leave of indefinite medical absence, no doubt the investigators would've come after the ISND already by now.

The Captain had weighed the scales, and as a result of his choice, the ISND were now stuck here outside of the protection of the Palace when they needed it most.

Nighthawk had chosen his Princess over them, just as any thestral would've, but Prey knew Luna would never even think to thank them for it. Because she simply didn't care, did she? She'd already proved her indifference very clearly to Prey, on a whim choosing to let Vanish take the jade necklace from Crimson.

'So we're on our own again, is it? Throw us to the wolves why don't you Nighthawk?'

No doubt Nighthawk didn't see it like that. There was no real way for them to get rid of the royal inspectors now, and he'd probably estimated any potential threat to Crimson was low at best, but that was only because they didn't know the full extent of the threat. They didn't know about the other powerful artifacts these people had. But Prey did know. They'd breached his lair, slain one veropede, nearly killed the other, and the non-diamond dog portion of them had gotten away.

It was remotely possible that even Scenic or Gloom might be targeted, although Lilly Blossom, crippled and disabled in the hospital, would probably remain untouched.

It wasn't her Prey cared about though, or Scenic. They weren't direct targets, and even if they were, they could look after themselves. Only Crimson was important.

A pair of Guards following Crimson around for a couple of days wasn't going to be enough if something did happen. Instead, the ISND were unknowingly being left to fend for themselves. Again.

There would be no help coming from the Night Guard. Again.

'So much for gratitude.'

Deep beneath the finely paved streets of Equestria's capital city, the sewers and waterworks of Canterlot ran, a network of pipes keeping the citizenry of Canterlot, rich and poor alike, well watered.

That wasn't all though, far from it. Also supplied were the numerous fantastical water features, public drinking fountains, swimming pools, and decorative water features, such as Canterlot Park's five different ponds, home to many a happy duck, and the occasional waterway which flowed through Canterlot and under small bridges.

These waterways were kept clean through routine trawling by maintenance ponies, the same ones who managed the park and all those decorative trees in little metal cages running alongside the main roads.

Theirs wasn't the most glamorous or respected job within the gleaming city of Canterlot, but it was a stable sort of job and decently paid for all it was unskilled labour. It was a job filled almost exclusively by earth ponies, since Celestia knows there were only so many posts within Canterlot which called for an earth pony's natural talents.

But that wasn't really important, unless perhaps you were one of those employed earth ponies, keeping the park and waterways clear. But what if, say, you weren't one of those ponies, and were instead, say, a minnow from the park pond.

If one happened to be such a minnow, one might just swim down to the pond bed, and there, one might find a pipe, pumping in freshwater.

And if such an inquisitive minnow existed, it might just swim through the grate and up the current. If there existed a minnow with enough strength to swim against the current all the way up the pipe, it might find itself passing through a valve.

And if, say, this theoretical minnow existed, and it passed through the valve, it would find itself inside the fast flowing underground waterworks of Canterlot.

And if this minnow wasn't swept away as it was battered first this way, and then the next in the rushing water pressure, it might, just might, find its way into another pipe if the valve happened to be open.

If a minnow could do all this once, then it would be reasonable to assume it could repeat the performance a second time, and get into another pipe, and then another, and another. If all this aligned, and the minnow kept swimming deeper, it would find itself travelling through older and older pipe networks.

Not that a fish could know such things as age and architecture, since it was a fish. But if it could, and it kept heading into the older networks and pipes, it might, by luck or grand design, find its way all the way down to the Sewer's Heart.

And there the minnow might stop, finding itself in a still patch of water, caused by a submerged basin beneath a turbulent surface where water was pulled in a dozen different directions by a dozen different open tunnels. Each pipe was only filled by half a dozen inches of fast flowing water, but to a minnow, that would be plenty.

And in this still patch of water, just underneath the currents tug, this little fish might find something.

Something which appeared like brown pond frond, or perhaps seaweed would be a better description. But if so, it stretched far longer than any piece of common seaweed. It was like a mat of thick netting, or maybe rope. The multitude of ends trailed up from the bottom of the sheltered basin, up into the turbulent surface water, whereupon the stands were taken off in every direction down every pipe.

The slimy fronds didn't extend far down these pipes, at least not yet. It was still growing. This strange plant like thing had only been down here for two days, but already, the longest strands were over eleven yards in length.

There were no leaves or root hairs, just limp brown rubbery tendrils, however if someone had been there to try, they would've found it nearly impossible to pull a piece of the slippery plant thing off. Perhaps cut, yes, but break? No.

But there was no one down there in the sewers' heart, no one who could catch the wickerwatch sapling in time to try, and the minnow didn't exist.

But if it had existed, it might've been drawn to the glow of lantern light in the darkness. It would have regretted it.