Battle Brew had returned home, she closed the door behind her and sat at her tiny dining room table, staring down at the wood and her own hooves. The alcohol in her system had faded and she was back to herself now. Minty didn't really understand why she had told Twinkle that name, maybe the potion she had carelessly drunk made her confused. “Battle Brew, what kind of name is that? What kind of mother would name her daughter Battle. That's no name for a pony, let alone a poor filly. A filly doesn't… doesn't belong in battle.” She thought to herself. Tea… She needed some tea right now. She got up and quickly ran to grab her favorite mug, checking the fridge she grabbed the gallon of sweet, iced tea she’d always make at the start of the week and filled her mug to the brim, quickly drinking down the sugar elixir. She didn't really care about how she had absolutely started putting on a little bit of weight, brewing her teas always made her happy. Santa probably expected her to- “Santa?” She thought to herself abruptly as she was pouring her second mug. She held it in her hooves as she began to think about it. She had found that oversized potion bottle in the river just a few days ago, she knew Tool Belt liked to wander outside of town for things a little bit for his new ‘innovations’ as he called them. Mostly they were things to improve the town, like when he found out they could take all those little metal cylinder things they dug out of the ground and melt them into spoons and forks. Of course, he was in for a little surprise when he tried to melt down one of the ones with the metal tips on them. After that they learned to leave those special cylinders alone and hide them. They made Battle feel fuzzy when she saw them. Minty finished her second mug and placed her tea back into the fridge. It was getting late, but she figured there was no harm in seeing what Tool Belt was up to right now.
“Tool Belt, are you home? Tool Belt?” Minty asked as she knocked on his door, suddenly she heard a noise of metal scraping as she watched the big garage door open.
“How are you doing tonight, Miss Brew?” The orange unicorn asked, he waved to her behind his desk with another one of his ‘prototypes’ sprew across it. The loud sound of a generator made Minty’s ears hurt a little as stepped into the workshop.
“I needed to talk to you, Belt. I know you like to go out and explore. You bring stuff back for us sometimes and…” Minty stopped as she watched him walk over and turn off the generator. His expression changed to one of skepticism as he looked at her.
“You have never shown any interest in my things before.” He said in a sour tone.
Minty rubbed her mane awkwardly. “I know, I know but… it's just, me and Twinkle found this old potion bottle, it was big. Like about three times the size of the ones we got from Santa. I was wondering if you might have ever found something like that?”
“Come inside, Miss Brew.” Tool Belt pressed a button on the wall next to the door leading into his home. Minty watched as little cogs and pulleys began to spin around and slowly shut the garage door behind her.
“How did you do that… without the generator?” She asked with an impressed smile on her face.
“That's just the thing, Miss. I don't have a single idea.” He opened the door and Minty followed him into his home. It was a mess with metal and tools everywhere, tossed into piles or half-finished projects with just enough room on the floor to form a tight trail as he led her deeper into the maze and down into a basement.
“Minty, I saw you and Twinkle leave earlier today. Did you see any other ponies when you were out there?” He asked as Minty followed him down the stairs, she was starting to think this might be a bad idea.
“No, we just found a little metal circle hole that led us into a room in the ground. It had a bunch of big potion bottles but they were empty.” Minty kept her eyes open and walked slowly. “Why do you ask?”
Tool Belt turned around and looked her over. “Yes, I um… found a few of those myself. All were mostly empty. Did you happen to find any old… trinkets inside it?”
Minty rubbed her ear with a hoof. “Just some old thermometers and… a bean bag. Oh, and those empty bottles I told you about.”
“Then that means it hasn't come for you yet…” Tool Belt guided her deeper into the basement and soon they came to a wall. The orange unicorn put his hoof over the concrete and pushed, slowly, the wall rotated revealing a secret room. He lit up a few candles inside and led her in.
“There's something out there Minty, it's stalking us. I have seen it looking at our little town through the tree line.” He pointed to a little photograph showing a yellow blur in the trees.
“What is that thing?” Minty asked as she stepped into the room, she looked closely at the photo and then back at Tool Belt. “Why are you showing me this?”
“I don't know, a few weeks ago I woke up on my couch with a migraine; I stumbled to my garage to find some of my things were missing. I don't really know if I can trust you but… I don't know who else to tell.”
“Missing? I mean… Tool Belt this place is kind of a mess.” Minty said looking around at how even the room they were in was covered with more blueprints stapled to the walls and bits of junk.
“I know, it's a lot but… Minty my couch has had junk on it for the past year. I use it specifically for stuff I know has grease on it so it leaks into the cushions and not on the floor… huh... Maybe I should invent something for- no no, wait… gotta focus.” He walked over to one of the blueprints on the wall and pulled it down. “Look, this is a machine for making electricity using sunlight. I got it after I used a magnifying glass to boil water to cook noodles in. But I don't have a single part on this paper!” Tool Belt exclaimed after he handed her the paper. Which Minty looked over and pretended to understand. “I have gaps in my memory, weeks where I apparently didn't invent anything at all and parts and things that go missing… I thought at first I was rightfully losing my mind, I am getting older but… just the other day I saw it. I was out looking for that metal beam for the lamp post idea I had when I saw it shoot across the sky. I was barely able to grab my camera and snag that photo. I knew I had seen it somewhere before, so I ran back home, grabbed my pencils and drew… this.” He pointed to another picture of the wall. It was a tall pony, judging by the little stick figure mare next to it, with huge wings twice the normal proportion and a unicorn's horn. “I'd have gotten some crayons to color it in but, I know how Flipper likes her yellows.”
Minty stared at it for a moment and stroked her chin. “You know… the other day I asked Twinkle what that Santa Claus is supposed to be exactly like some spirit, or ghost, or whatever and she says ‘No, he is a pony just like us, Telescope saw him and he's big and yellow.’”
Tool Belt flushed as he walked over and looked her in the eyes. “That's… Oh now it makes sense! I have been wondering where the connection is to this thing all this time, the little foals! They probably see more than any of us, hell they seem to always be filled with questions and they always come to me to ask-'' He paused his ramblings and trotted away and grabbed a small chunk of plastic from a desk. “For Christmas last year I got this, a small little yellow duck. I thought there must have been a mistake, maybe this was meant to go to Flipper. I mean, her cutie mark is a little duckling after all.” He squeezed it as he looked into the little plastic duck with a smile. “I meant to give it to her, but I was busy playing with the toys I had gotten, to be fair uh… anyways, a few days later we found another present we ‘missed’ under the tree. We open it up and it's another little plastic duck except it has sunglasses on it. And I thought that was weird, why would Santa go through the trouble of adding the sunglasses but then I realized… Santa isn't making these things!”
Minty looked at him confused. “Yeah, doesn't Santa have like… elves or something?”
“No, I mean, I don't know about that. But this stuff is old. I mean, the toys have cracks in them, some have chipped paint. I think that not only is Santa slowly bringing us old stuff, But it's deliberate. If we go out too far beyond the village, we are all scared we might get lost, so we don't, even the foals have that basic instinct yet need to be taught not to touch a hot stove. And then when I do anyways, I wake up on my grease covered couch, that's- I mean… I think somethings wrong, Brew, really wrong.”
The group sat together in the woods around the campfire, Tide Turner was eating beans from a can while Yellow was setting up the lean-to using the net Cake had for their bike and what leaves and sticks, she could tie together with twine. Cake was sharpening sticks with her metal spear tip while watching the embers of the fire silently. The weather had improved slightly, and the snow was now falling at a medium pace instead of the rapid downpour it was before. They would still not need to linger with the rapidly dropping temperature.
“Hey, didn't you used to have some kind of super enchanted spear or something, commander?” Tide asked in between bites.
“Used to? I still have it on my wall back at my little cabin. I made the mistake of packing light for this journey. I could have brought it with me if I made Yellow fly all the way…” Cake said, watching the work horse ignore her as she finished up the tent.
“I’m fucking exhausted, why didn't you set up the damn tent!” Yellow said, flying down beside Cake.
“Because, miss bright yellow and tall, you are going to be able to rest all day tomorrow. I’ll handle the ambush myself. I don't want any of them escaping and getting too close to site zero,” Cake said, looking up at Yellow who sat down next to Cake beside the fire.
“Hey Tide, what did you do before the great war?” Yellow asked, looking over at the earth pony.
“I was a sailor, as you might have guessed, and by the sea I did abide…” He sighed and looked at the tree line for a moment and smiled as if he was recalling some fond memories. “I sailed a schooner around the gulf of the Lunar Sea. I smuggled goods into Olenia for nobles and planned to buy a little home with a big dock in Tall Tale. Well, then the war broke out and Tall Tale ain't there anymore…”
“How did you meet up with Cake?” Yellow asked as she dug her hoof into the snow looking for flowers under the snow.
“Well… not much happens in Equestria that Smile doesn't know about. One day I get offered a barrel of bits to smuggle this little unicorn guard to the capital, um… must have been a year or two before the Changelings pushed into Olenia.. Anyways that's when I met Cake and helped her bring back the princess. I was very embarrassed that I hadn't cleaned up my boat, the Simpukan Helmi for Princess Velvet, but… she did insult my ship a lot, so I guess that's fair. Whatever happened to her?”
Cake shook her head and placed the newly sharpened stick to the side. “Changelings put a bullet through her head when they found her.”
Yellow Diamond frowned and took a little daffodilly in her hoof and looked at it. “I felt like after all they did to us, what we did to them was a mercy.”
“It was.” Cake said, starting on the next stick. “By my account, they are on foot. They probably are about 5 hours behind us, we didn't find them on the road, so they are not using the roads. Site zero isn't far from Daffodilia so we are going to stop in and get some supplies. Tool Belt still giving you trouble, Yellow?” Cake asked with a grin.
“Yeah, I caught him just a while ago stumbling across a tank, he even was writing down a blueprint of the treads to use to make a car, or half-track from it.” Yellow explained, she decided not to eat the daffodilly and laid it on the ground besides, looking at it solemnly.
“Hehe… you know, he really didn't seem like the pony who would want to forget…” Cake said as she began to hum a tune. Diamond looked over at Cake like she was going to say something before looking back to the fire. “We are going to need to do another full reset, but I am confident this may be our last one. Once we cut the head off the snake, maybe send a little gift back too southern commune, they won't be back here for some time… and if they do, well… we are going to fucking die to their stupidity.”
“Another reset? What are we up to now, 3?” Tide said as he tossed the empty can of beans behind him.
“This will be our fourth, I am going to get some shut eye, Tide you’re on watch, wake me up in two hours and we’ll swap.” Cake said, walking over to the tent.
Tool Belt and Minty made their way through the snow in the dark to the library. Minty pushed open the door and the scene in front of her left her in shock for a moment. Dozens of books lay scattered on the floor, Twinkle was dancing to the sound of a record player, singing along to the tunes with her back turned to them as she twirled a paintbrush over a large canvas in her magic.
“Twinkle, is that you?” Tool Belt asked, surprised to see this once shy shut in now acting a bit like himself when he had an idea.
“Huh? Oh, hey! What are you two doing here?” Twinkle turned around, turning the music down, but not quite off, as she smiled at them.
“We came here too uh…” Mintys eyes drifted towards the canvas like a moth to a flame. It called out to her with the bright colors and cartoon-esque depiction. like some kind of cereal box, or one of the old VHS taped cartoons the foals had. “What is that you’re working on Twinkle?”
“Oh, I asked Sea Green for a canvas, and she decided to just… give me all her art supplies! I have been working on this for about an hour now. I know, I'm not very good but it's been so much fun!” Twinkle grabbed Mintys hoof in her own and led her closer to the canvas. “I read this great little comic book about superheroes, and I wanted to make my own. Of course, I didn't have any paper on hoof, so I decided to just paint the cover!”
Minty reached her hoof out and pointed at the large, imposing villain looking down at a few not quite finished yet pony blobs. “What's that thing?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.
“That's a dragon! I read about them; they breathe FIRE!” Twinkle said as she grabbed a different paintbrush and added some orange streaks coming from its mouth. “And these ponies are going to save the city by stopping him! This one's name is Apple Attack! And this one over here is called Rainbow Crash!” Twinkle looked at her little characters proudly.
Tool Belt seemed to get drawn into it as well as he quickly rushed over. “What's their abilities? How do they stop this evil ‘dragon’?”
“Well, Rainbow Crash is a pegasus and she's really fast, but she's also really, really nice! She’s going to try to talk to it while Apple Attack sets a trap for it! AA is a bit of a jerk, but she’s really a great friend.” Twinkle explained while doing hoof gestures to try and show them how the scene would play out. “But there's going to be about 5 of them, I think. I’m still brainstorming ideas… um… what did you two come over for?”
Tool Belt blinked his eyes while Minty looked up at the ceiling. “Hmmm… what was it uhm- Oh! Yes, now I remember! We need you to come with us to hunt Santa Claus!” Minty exclaimed.
“Uh… why would you ever want to do that? He left us that note to not do that…” Twinkle said with a frown. “He said he wouldn't give us any more presents. Please don't make Santa Angry…” Twinkle pleaded.
Tool Belt cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Miss Shine, um, Twinkle. Santa has been erasing memories from our minds! It's terrible! Can you remember anything from last year?” Tool Belt asked, bracing himself for Twinkle’s reaction as if he had just awakened a sleeper agent.
Twinkle blinked at him like he was explaining a joke and was waiting for the punchline. “Yes, I do. Is there something specific from last year I'm supposed to remember?” the unicorn asked while placing her paint brushes back into a cup of water beside her.
“How about your…” Tool Belt paused to think, or for dramatic effect. Twinkle rolled her eyes. “Birthday!”
“Yes, I remember it, not the exact date because Limey is the one with the birthday book and sets up the parties, so no pony knows when it's their birthday and it's always a surprise hehe… But yes, I remember the party.”
“Well… tell us some details then.” Tool Belt said with a smug look on his face. This was starting to make Twinkle feel a lot less guilty about not going out to check on him when she was at the diner the other day.
“Okay… I woke up and went to the diner as per usual for my morning breakfast. When I sat down, Doodle brought me a stack of pancakes with fresh blueberries on top, before I ordered, which was very nice of her! but I wanted a croissant, and the pancakes were way too heavy, but I didn't say anything. After I ate, I went home where Minty, Daisy Chain, and Carrot Leaf were waiting for me, and each gave me presents. You gave me my favorite purple scarf, Minty.”
Tool Belt’s smug expression changed to a smile. "Exactly! You can recall the day perfectly, like it was just last week. You even remembered the blueberries on the pancakes. Isn't that a little strange, I bet you can even recall what music Doodle had on the jukebox!”
“Yes, I… I can. She was playing that nice instrumental piece, with the piano. B- but that was a very important day, it was my birthday after all! What are you even implying, that Santa Claus messed with my memories so I couldn't forget my birthday?” Twinkle stammered, looking at the duo of ponies in front of her like they were trying to pull some kind of prank on her.
“Do you remember your…” Tool Belt looked over to Minty for help, the mare was still staring at the canvas until she felt his gaze drawn onto her, making her phase back into the conversation.
“Oh, oh right um… your mother’s birthday! No wait, um… or was it her name?” Minty scratched her chin again.
“My… my mother…” Twinkle put a hoof to her head, she was starting to feel sick again.
“Do you even remember what she looked like?” Minty asked with a sympathetic frown. “I couldn't remember mine…”
Twinkle's confusion was turning into a simmering rage. Her mother, she had no idea what her name was, what she looked like, all she remembered was that… she felt like the worst pony in the world that she had forgotten her. How could she have forgotten her own mother? And now here were these two so-called friends, rubbing it in her face.
“Get. Out.” Twinkle Shine demanded.
“Um, what?” Minty asked, confused.
“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY LIBRARY!” Twinkle shouted, both of the ponies looked at each other in shock, this was not the reaction they were hoping for at all. Both of them quickly turned and ran right back out the door, leaving twinkle alone again.
Twinkle watched them leave in a hurry and quickly slam the door behind each other. She took a few deep breaths; she had really overdone it. She was already starting to regret what she had just done, and… it wasn't like they were wrong. Twinkle just… no, now was not the time for thinking. She turned her music back up and turned around, grabbing a paintbrush and drying it off then putting some new paint onto it. Now she just had to paint. Something. No, wait, the painting was all wrong. The dragon should be purple with green spikes not… and the pegasus should be yellow and… no. It was wrong, all wrong. “No no NO!” Twinkle exclaimed as she grabbed the canvas in her magic and ripped it in half, both pieces falling off the stand and onto the wooden floor, the wet paint already mixing to form a puddle.
“Fire! Fire!” Cake screamed as she jolted awake, along with Yellow and Tide, the duo quickly jumped out of their sleeping bags and into the snow in front of them before realizing there was no fire. Cake had a hoof over her chest and was breathing heavily before shaking her head.
“Damn it Cake, What the hell!” Yellow shouted as the little unicorn flopped onto her back, still breathing heavily.
“I- I was…” She looked around and took one last deep breath. “Hey, you were supposed to wake me up, Tide!” Cake shouted, tossing the blanket off herself.
“I- in my defense, we are all up now.” Tide said, shaking off the snow and walking back to the lean-to.
“Tide, I don't know when the last time you went hungry was, but the ground is covered in snow! If we don't take this seriously the last of pony kind is going to EAT EACH OTHER AND DIE!” She jumped up out of the makeshift bed and blocked his path to the ramshackle tent, getting into his face. “I do not have time for another fuck up from you. I overlooked the ‘Alicornia’ incident but if you fuck up again I will…” Cake bit her tongue and screamed with her mouth shut. Before refocusing back onto Tide Turner. “Go the fuck back to sleep.” She commanded.
Tide’s eyes went wide, and he nodded, Cake brushed past him and out into the snow and quickly disappeared into the tree line. Loudly cursing under her breath. “She… she still has them, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I still do.” Yellow commented, trying to ease the tension.
“W- what the hell was that?” Tide asked as he sat down in his bag.
“Someponys, we were made for it, you know. Our cutie marks, our foalhoods. We never really leave the battlefield.” Yellow explained as she flopped back down into her bag and folded it over herself. “Sometimes… I still see my friends, I think Cake does too.”
“I guess I should consider myself lucky I never saw a battlefield. And here I was trying to sound like I had experienced pain because I lost my old ship.” Tide sighed.
“We all lost something, I think out of everypony, Cake lost the most. She… She lost pieces of herself. One friend at a time.” Yellow whispered as she rolled over and shut her eyes, Tide didn't know what to say, so he followed her lead.