//------------------------------//
// Unslayable Foes, Part 1. 
// Story: Meta Gamer in Equestria: Champion's Folly 
// by reflective vagrant 
//------------------------------//

We didn't stop in the village. We simply made haste to grab Fluttershy and Mandible, then go.  We didn't want any problems when they found out a figure they had seen as a healer was suddenly gone.  When Scraps was spooked that we might have been followed underground, we sprang to the air to get that last spurt to the train station.
After I transformed into a mouse for Archimedes to pick up, he chimed in.  "I've been talking to Sunburst about your growing power as a druid.  If his chart is not mistaken, the Toril roots in the art should allow you to have the ability to fly yourself by now.  Why didn't you?"
I could. I had just unlocked the level eight needed for flight based transformations.  I could just wince to myself as I responded, "Kinda forgot, but should probably practice before I do it in the field if I can."
Speaks With Talons was still looking in pretty bad shape after the battle.  Even with his reputation of being the strongest on the team by actual muscle power, and greatest stamina, carrying Tempest through the air wasn't doing his already taxed form any more favors. 
With a quick pace we returned to the train station after leaving diamond dog territory and returning to the ground.     Surprisingly, despite it being late, the train was primed and ready to go.  We were afraid we would have to make camp on the station's platform until the morning.
Apparently, they had been given orders hours before to seek us out and keep the train ready for us.  They were ordered to wait around the clock for us and to get us on that train to return as soon as we arrived at the station.  Indeed, they were surprised we had returned only half an hour after they arrived back at the station again.





The train ride back had everybody a little spooked.  On our way back, we were confined to a single train coach.  The staff were kind enough to give us some food and water when we asked but it was how they did so that made us on edge.  They were insistent on simply dropping it off at the door of our coach and letting us pick it up when they were gone.  They even refused to take the tray back, telling us to just put it in the corner when we were done.
Tempest seemed to not be too worried, though.  It was odd, but nothing seemed too off to her.  She'd seen a situation like this once or twice in the past.  She simply figured something had probably stirred back in Ponyville and the train needed to keep us isolated for some reason.
Speaks with Talons simply swigged as much water as he could, munched unceremoniously on the crackers, gave that trusting nod to Tempest that they had managed to form over their adventures, collapsed on the largest sofa in our coach and promptly fell into an exhausted sleep.
Scraps, while not super tired, made a point to stay close to Tempest's side the entire way, yawning himself into a nap once we were seated.
Fluttershy and Mandible, however, were nursing their poor weak wings from having to team lift a diamond dog that was about their size for so long.  Tempest had refused to let either her or Scraps ride in the bag of holding.
To keep my mind from going crazy with questions, I focused on just one that I thought I might get an answer to. I tried to ask about the situation with Scraps, and why he had called out the name "Nicknack" when he had seen Tempest fall.
She went into a bit of indirect elaboration as she explained how Scraps had been arrested in the first place.  It turned out that he was caught with a small amount of a drug, commonly known as "happy powder," and admitted he had made lots of it in the past when he was arrested.  With the authorities not really understanding his past, and him being too heartbroken to do anything but just admit everything during his trial, he was sentenced far more severely than he should have been.
Nicknack was his big brother before then, both being the largest of his litter, and being the prior Alpha of his pack that protected him.  It was actually Nicknack that asked him to make the drug with how smart Scraps was with chemicals.  Through discrete transactions, Nicknack would then turn around and sell it to ponies and other races.
Scraps had since learned that Nicknack wasn't as good as he seemed to be, but his heart still mourned his death none the less.  It was Nicknack alone that had made sure Scraps was never picked on, always fed and always protected.  Scraps was still an omega and was appropriately humble, but he was the best treated omega because he had the favor of an alpha.  In some ways, the way he was treated rivaled even that of a beta.
But all that changed when the current alpha bested Nicknack in the circle and killed Nicknack.  It was done right in front of Scraps' eyes, but Scraps was powerless to protest back then, much less stop it.
From what Tempest surmised, when Scraps saw her fall, his mind was reliving those moments due to the similarly close bond he had with her.

At this point, Tempest closed her eyes.  "I only saw about the first minute of the second half of the fight, since I had to focus, but from what Speaks with Talons said, Scraps had his blade to his throat at the end and could have killed him."
With a strong inhalation, she recomposed herself.  "I am proud I was able to teach him enough tactic to know not to break the chain of power, since he knew they would never follow him if he did."
She looked at the napping diamond dog at her side with a flat expression and gave a pained, yet relaxed sigh.  "But he was also able to hold back his desire for revenge.  He really does have a good heart."
I looked at the drooling mutt and cracked a weak smile myself.
"He really does have an innocent mind, and a brilliant one too.  But I think some of that strength of heart was rubbed off from you."  I turned to Tempest and gave a proper smirk.  "Like him, you also have a good heart underneath all those scars from your past too, and he's been helping bring it back to the surface."
She rolled her eyes at my statement, shook her head dismissively and deflected her gaze from me to look a the ceiling.
"I think you're right.  I saw Princess Celestia slipping back to a back room before my trial.  I couldn't put the pieces together then, but now I think she was slipping in to give advice to her niece.  This was probably Princess Celestia's plan all along."







We finally got our answers to the spooked train staff when we pulled into the Ponyville station around midnight.
Starlight Glimmer and Sunburst was there, practically in a panic.
Starlight called out to us just as Tempest was about to step onto the platform, "Stay on the train!  I know it is weird, but we need you to trust us!"

They called out to me in an uneasy, concerned tone.  "Moss..?  Are you... There?  We would like to examine you if you're feeling up to it.  We have some suits to come in there and check on you if you need."
When I finally got up from my seat in the coach, I could have sworn I heard a collective gasp from the ponies that had come to meet us.
"Sweet Celestia! You're alive!"  Starlight called out as she galloped forward to meet me, only to have Sunburst yank at her tail to stop her before she got close to the coach.
When she looked back, she saw Sunburst shaking his head at her.  "R-right, precautions.  Shield up."
Starlight put up a shield similar to the one they used to protect themselves when we had done the most recent tests of my magic missile spell.  After this, Sunburst pulled out a clipboard, quill and ink well and set them aside, ready to be picked up and used.
With this, she gently gestured me to step forward, showing an extra sign of worry as I made the small gap from the train to the platform.
It was only after this that we noticed a medical pony come out of the train station and stood beside them.
I recognized the doctor.  He was the doctor that had worked on me in the past when I was needing medical attention when I first arrived.  The one doctor that would have any insight to my particular anatomy, being so different.
With a few minutes of poking and prodding, the doctor slowly filled out the items on the clipboard.  I couldn't really ask what was going on, given the tongue depressor in my mouth and other tools, but I knew something was up.
"Given his past records, as far as I can tell, he's as healthy as he can be, save maybe a little sleep deprivation and overworking himself."  The doctor looked to Glimmer.  "He's clear to lower the shield for a scan.  But stay up wind and as far back as you can.  Follow up with a closer scan after the first clears if you must, but keep your distance.
With a pace backward to help her keep her distance, she dropped the shield and scanned me like an office printer doing a detailed pass for a high quality copy.  Slow and meticulous.
I wanted to talk now, but once again I felt I needed to hold off, not wanting to mess up the scan.
When she was finished with a smile, She turned to the doctor.  With an expression like a great burden had just been lifted, she called out, "He's clean!"
Without even being able to respond, the doctor nodded and looked at Sunburst's clipboard.
"Alright then, Captain Tempest. You're next.  Moss, I need you to step aside."
The others were examined by Sunburst's levitation of medical tools, guided by the doctor's expertise.   After that, each of them were thoroughly scanned by Starlight as she stood at a few meters upwind from them on the platform.


* * *


Once Mandible was confirmed to not have a clean scan due to his insect biology and agreed to stay on the train until his own kind could scan him properly, I was finally able to press on my amulet and ask a question.
"So... Something is up.  What has you so riled to meet us out here and do a checkup?"
Starlight turned to me and finally let out the tears she had been holding back.   They weren't too impressive waterworks, barely coming out, but I could see they were genuine.
"Oh, it was horrible, Moss!"  She called out as she briefly galloped towards me, stopping just short of a hug to ask for permission.
With an unsure nod, I knelt down and met her embrace.  I wasn't too surprised when I noticed Fluttershy quietly join in too in an attempt comfort her friend.
"All the invad..."  She paused, then mimicked a word of English.  "All the 'humanoids' we had captured and were deciding what to do with.  They're dead.  Every last one of them.  They're all dead."
I was already on one knee to kneel, but upon hearing that I had pull her back with me a little as I fell on the other to take that statement in.
After Sunburst nodded to the doctor to let him go, he turned in kind and gave a similarly worried expression.
"And that's not all.   They didn't just die.   They all died at the exact same time and in the exact same way.  They exploded into a cloud of disease.  We had to quarantine the jails, forcing the guards to stay in to protect the rest of Equestria, but we didn't manage to stop all of it."
Starlight pulled out of the hug with Fluttershy and looked at me. "We're in the early stages of managing an epidemic now, Moss.  We were so afraid you had suffered the same fate as the rest of your 'humanoid' kin."
Mandible, overhearing from the train for lack of better thing to do while he waited, called out, "What is the illness that caused it?"
Sunburst shook his head and turned in an attempt to speak toward Mandible to let him hear from the train.  "That's just it.  It's not just one illness.  It's many.  Not counting small ones that can be treated easily when caught early like hoof and mouth anthrax, or gangrene, we have five confirmed serous illnesses in this epidemic so far.  The investigators fear we might have as many as a dozen different serous illnesses slipped past the quarantine that we will have to deal with by the time the ponies already exposed show symptoms for us to track, and that's presuming there weren't any more rogue 'humanoids' out there when it happened.  We will probably have to quarantine more areas as they pop up."
Starlight shook her head and stomped in a fit.
"If we only knew what caused it, we might be better prepared to fight it!"
Tempest came up and kept Scraps from opening the bag of holding at her side.
"Did this event happen about sixteen and a half hours ago?"
Starlight looked at her in shock, then checked the clock on the station.  Turning back to Tempest, her mouth was agape.
"Almost on the dot!"
Tempest closed her eyes for a moment as she made a solemn nod.
"We need to get to a debriefing then.  Because I think we might have some information that would be able to help with that."