With the size of the city shown on the map, he did his best to calculate how far he needed to go. As he trekked through the bowels of the city, he kept a mental track of his general position. Occasionally, he took a peek through the gutters of the streets above, seeing the horses walk by.
The sewers served as the perfect path for E-30. Unseen by the public, he made his way for 9th Avenue, where he could hopefully find his new source of metal. Once or twice, he saw horses down in the sewers, but they were too busy performing maintenance to notice him. In the cover of darkness, he slipped by them and continued on.
Eventually, his journey led him to a door in the darkness. 'Probably a maintenance room.' Slowly, he peeked through the door and entered. The room was dimly lit, cluttered with boxes and trash. It looked more like a camp for some homeless horse. Fortunately, that horse wasn't present. He picked through the various boxes, but only found more trash and other useless items.
He searched deeper into the mess, and found a small clearing with seats, like a campfire. Off to the side, there was a bulging bag leaned against the wall. He opened the bag, and found gold. It was filled with gold coins, all stamped with the image of the queen he had met.
"I don't know how much this is worth, but I could definitely use it." E-30 grabbed the bag, throwing it over his shoulder. At that moment, he heard a voice behind him.
"HEY! WHO ARE YOU?"
Slowly, he turned around with his ill-gotten loot. He saw three horses in the doorway. Each one was a different type of horse, having a horn, wings, and neither. One of them kicked the door, slamming it shut.
"And what are you doing on our turf?" the normal horse said, glaring at him.
'Great, it's a horse gang.' He slowly put the bag on the ground, raising his hands to calm them. "I didn't know. I don't want any trouble."
The unicorn smirked. "It's a bit too late for that. You tried to take our money. Can't let you get away with that, can we?"
E-30 glanced around, looking for a way out. Through the trash, he could only see one way out, and that was the door right behind the horses. Before he could try anything, he was covered in the glow of magic, coming from the glowing horn of the unicorn. He floated in the air, before being flung into a wall.
As he fell to the ground, he saw the pegasus zip towards him, hooves extended. He dodged the attack, making the horse slam into the wall before E-30 tackled him to the ground. He grabbed the pegasus, putting his arm around his neck. They tried to pull his arm off, but he couldn't even make E-30 budge. Behind him, the normal horse reared up, and slammed his hooves into E-30's back. There was a surprising amount of force behind it, and the distraction gave the pegasus a chance to worm his way out of the hold. Once the pegasus escaped, the unicorn used his magic again. Only this time, he cast a bolt of lightning.
E-30's body seized and jerked as the electricity coursed through his systems. He could feel parts of his body melt, causing further damage. As the arcs died down, he slumped to the ground. The horses gathered around him, poking him with their hooves.
"What even is it?" The normal horse asked.
"It's made of metal, so it's probably a golem of some kind. Though I can't sense any animating spells..." The unicorn puzzled.
The pegasus lightly shoved the unicorn. "As if you could tell. Didn't you drop out of that magic school?"
"Shut up!" As the unicorn turned away, E-30 leapt back into action. Despite the damage, he managed to turn his hand into a wicked looking knife. He wrapped his arm around the unicorn's neck, and held his knife under his chin. He made sure to press it against the fur, so any sudden movement would spell doom for his captive.
"Alright, everybody stop!" The two other horses backed up with wide eyes. He could feel his body being repaired, but only slightly. Clearly, even his little robots got decimated, and needed to replicate. He needed to make this quick.
"You can have the money! Just take it! Just take it!" The unicorn said, wisely not trying to move.
'I don't want to kill them, but they might bring the rest of their gang.'
"How do I know you won't get the rest of your gang to hunt me down?" He asked his attackers. The normal horse rapidly shook its head. In his arms, the unicorn openly sobbed.
"This is our entire gang! Look around, we live in a DUMP! We're nothing!" He choked out.
Looking around, E-30 believed him. Nobody would live in this place unless they had to. But he couldn't just let them go, and now he definitely didn't want to kill them. He needed to keep them around for a while.
"If you want to live, you are going to help me with something." He looked at the pegasus. "You. Take some money. Go to The Night Crucible. 9th Avenue. Buy some of this metal." His robots brought the metal from the helmet to the surface, forming a bar. He tossed it to them, quickly bringing his knife back to the unicorn's neck.
The pegasus nodded before taking the bar and quickly flying out.
E-30 scooted over to the circle of seats in the room, sitting down with his captive in tow. The normal horse slowly walked over to his own seat before sitting down as well.
Nobody spoke. E-30 stared at the horse across from him, while the horse looked anywhere but at him. The unicorn's sobs had died down to sniffles. 'I probably look like some kind of monster to them.'
Even though he needed them to be obedient captives, he tried to make conversation. "What are your names?"
The horse across from was silent for a moment before answering. "Brisk." The unicorn quietly said "Comet."
E-30 nodded. "And why do you live down here? Where did you get the money?" He assumed they had stolen it, but he wanted to hear it from them.
Brisk spoke up. "This is our hideout. Despite the garbage, it's a good place. Hidden. And we, uh, we found that money in this room."
E-30 narrowed his eyes. "No you didn't." Comet quietly spoke next. "We stole it. Are you going to turn it in?"
'Hell no. I need that money too.'
"It's probably too late for that." He said. Brisk shuffled his hooves. "So you're going to turn us in."
E-30 sighed. "No. I probably won't be welcomed with open arms, if news about me has spread here. That's why I was going through the sewers."
Brisk's eyes widened. "Wait, are you that creature that escaped from Canterlot!? The one that jumped from Princess Celestia's bedroom!?"
'Really, is that what it's called? Canterlot?'
"Yeah. Though I thought they would keep the details from the public." E-30 said.
Brisk snorted. "As if. If there was anyone to see it, the news probably spread before you could even finish escaping. Speaking of which, why were you escaping the Princess's room? Were you..."
The door opened with the pegasus flying through, saving him from an explanation. They dropped a bag in front of him, making a clanging sound. E-30 nodded to the bag. "Open it."
The pegasus did as instructed, revealing 3 more bars of the dark metal, along with the original one. "This was all i could get." He explained. "They said most of the Moon Steel is reserved for the Night Guard."
'That will have to do for now.'
He looked down at the unicorn. "Alright, I'm going to let you go. I don't want to kill you, so don't do something stupid." Slowly, he brought the knife down, releasing his captive. The unicorn, rather than rushing, moved slowly as well, shuffling over to another seat.
Keeping his eye on them, he grabbed the metals. Immediately, his robots swarmed from his body. There were significantly less than before, but they devoured the metal the same. He felt his systems being brought back to efficiency, reversing the damage done. Based on the parts that were exposed, he could tell this metal was definitely stronger. But he didn't have enough of it.
The horses around him stared at his body, watching the robots repair him. Clearly, they wanted to say something about it, so he changed the subject. "If this is all they will give you, then someone else go get more."
The pegasus shook his head. "That's all they will give out the the public as a whole. They have a limited supply for the public, and I managed to give them enough bits to give it all to me." E-30 looked at the sack of "bits". It definitely looked much lighter than before.
"Do they make this Moon Steel on site?" He asked. The pegasus nodded. A haphazard plan formed in E-30's mind.
"Hey, what's your name?" The pegasus answered, "Blue Wing."
Brisk chuckled, mumbling "Blueberry Wing." Blue Wing glared at his friend before looking back at E-30. "My parents like to name us based on the color of our wings."
E-30 clapped his hands together. "Well, Blueberry Wing. You and I are going to go up there and see if we can, acquire, more Moon Steel. You can sneak, right?"
Blue Wing raised his eyebrows at that. "You're gonna steal it?"
He shrugged. "I've got no choice."
'This metal is too good to pass up.'
"You have an issue with that?"
Blue Wing smirked. "Not really." The two of them made their way to the door. Before they left, Comet called out to him. "Hey, what's your name?"
Not looking back, he said "E-30." before closing the door. Muffled by the door, he heard Comet say "What kind of name is that?"
Together, E-30 and Blue Wing trekked through the sewer to begin their hunt.
................................................................................................................................
Twilight searched around for the trail, but it had disappeared. The six of them had followed it to this train station, confirming her prediction that the creature was headed to Manehattan. Unfortunately, the trail had dissipated, never leaving the station. They all searched around, hoping to find the creature hiding nearby, but nothing was found. That is, until Rarity levitated something to the rest of the group.
"I saw this underneath the platform." She promptly dropped it on the ground. It was a paper soaked in mud and some kind of juice, and crawling with ants. She didn't even want to touch it with her magic more than she had to. Twilight scanned it, revealing it to be the source of the trail.
"They may have left the map behind, but there's no doubt that they went into Manehattan. From here on, we'll have to find them without a trail." Twilight pointed at the city in the distance.
Pinkie zipped over to look at the city. "Oh, this is exciting! Detective Pie is on the case!"