//------------------------------// // The Disclosure // Story: The Winds of Change // by AgentSnail //------------------------------// The Disclosure "Hey, Jason, I'm back!" A slight echo rebounded off of a building wall down the street. "Jason?" She looked behind her, checking to make sure that he wasn't sneaking up on her. If he was, she wouldn't necessarily hear him anyway. He was quiet when he wasn't being all clumsy. She smirked. "Well I'm just going to go back to town then, if you aren't going to show up, and--" her eyes froze, caught on the ground. She started for several minutes at the discolored ground, attempting to derive more information from the flickering firelight. A knot started to gather in her gut. Eventually her curiosity got the best of her and she carefully trotted over. She raked a hoof through the goo, lifting it towards her face. After realizing that she still couldn't see it, she sighed and quickly hobbled over to the lamp on three legs. The dark grey on her hoof turned scarlet red as she approached the light, and her nervousness grew. "Maybe it's just ketchup or something..." she muttered, taking a lick of her hoof without another thought. It wasn't ketchup. Ew. That meant that Jason was in trouble, and could already be a bloody mess. She galloped back over to the blood, finding a few scuff marks in the cobblestones, with a few scratches leading away. She trotted after the scratches as fast as she could find them, watching as they suddenly disappeared. She double checked the area for anything else, but the trail seemed to die as soon as it started. "FUCK!!!" She turned around and bucked at the nearby bench, sending splinters flying in every direction. She threw a punch into a brick wall, cracking one of the bricks. She pulled her arm back and repeated the process, chipping off the corner. She continued the process several times yelling the whole time. "Shit, Shit, Shit!" She finally stopped, looking at her hoof, which now had almost as much blood on it as the other one. She felt tears well up in her eyes. Things had just began to get easier, and now here they were, Jason was off somewhere, either dead or in really bad shape, and nopony could do anything about it, especially her. A tear hit the ground, making a faint sploosh noise. Sure, she could hold her own in battle, she could watch his back, but she couldn't always be in the right place at the right time. She wiped the still flowing tears from her face as best she could, and took off towards town. Who should she get though? She couldn't get Applejack, Rarity wouldn't want to, and Fluttershy was out of the question. Pinkie would probably think they were playing a game, so that left Twilight. Why she hadn't thought of Twilight first was beyond her. She put on another burst of speed, feeling her tears freeze in the wind. She changed her aim to an open window in the trunk of the library and blasted through, startling Twilight and the foals she was handing out candy to. Twilight took a moment to compose herself before clearing her throat to speak. She could see that Dash wasn't particularly able to get anything out, although she wasn't sure why. "Dash, I see you're wearing that costume from last year again, what'd you call it? Nice touch with the fake blood." She said. Dash looked at her hooves. "Listen, Twilight, this isn't fake blood. Jason's gone, there was blood where he used to be and signs of a scuffle, and I'm just so..." Gotta keep it together, Dash. "Worried." Twilight's eyes widened, and the bowl of candy dropped to the floor as her magical grip lost it's focus. "You mean like that stallion that tried to kill him the other day?" "Probably. We gotta go see what we can do, Twilight, before it's too late." Dash turned and galloped out the front door. Twilight caught up a few strides later as a saddlebag that she had somehow packed up with stuff attached itself to her back. "Did you...see anything Dash?" She asked. "No, I was gone for maybe five minutes to get my costume, and by the time I got back he was gone." "Any sounds of a skirmish?" "None that I heard, but there were obvious scuff marks and the blood." She took a hard right onto the street, clamoring for purchase among the slippery cobblestones as she tried to slow down. Twilight pulled up behind her, lighting up her horn and covering the walls and ground in a bright purple light. She immediately caught sight of the blood and trotted over, briefly enveloping it in her aura. "Well, this isn't changeling blood, so either he was disguised and is tricking the spell, or it's not him." She levitated a few drops into a vial and put it away. "We can test to see though. What's this?" She floated a small black shard off the ground, twirling it around in front of her face. "Can I see, Twilight?" She nodded and floated the shard over. Upon closer inspection, Dash knew that it was part of Jason's armor, which meant that that wasn't his blood, because he must've been undisguised. Her heart did a little leap. But then again, it wasn't easy to chip his armor off, this couldn't be a good sign. "Do you know what it is, Dash?" Dash was jolted out of her thoughts by Twilight's words. "Yeah, it's part of Jason's armor. Means he must've been undisguised himself after I left, so that's probably not his blood, and he got hit really hard somewhere." Twilight nodded and moved onto the scratches and slight hoof prints in the dust, coming to the same conclusion that Dash had. The blood trail stopped, along with the hoof prints. She fanned out from the scene, quickly making her way past the bench and stopping for a moment. "Dash, does this look familiar?" She floated a knife out of the high grass and over towards her. "Not to me, but the last stallion had a knife, maybe one of these guys did too." She grabbed the knife out of the air, turning it around in her hoof and feeling it's weight. "This isn't a very good knife. Either the stallion that had this is unimportant or this operation isn't very large scale." "Probably good to know. Let's get back to the library. You can crash with Scoots there until tomorrow, if you want." A few more tears welled up in her eyes, realizing the emptiness in the house Jason left behind, the feeling of his hooves around her at night that she may never be graced with again. Twilight saw the grief on her friend's face. "We'll find him, Dash, don't worry." "But what if we don't, Twilight? What if we're already too late?" "Dash, if they only wanted to kill him his body'd still be here. You're not going to be able to do anything if you don't get some sleep. " "I don't need sleep, I just need a lead." "Don't make me drag you back there. We'll get everything going in the early morning." "Twilight..." "No, we can't do anything here!" She yelled back. Dash hung her head. She promised herself that she wouldn't let herself get into the same situation as when Jason had been injured, but here she was again, probably worse off now. She hated feeling useless. "Fine, we'll go back." A tear slipped out of her eye, not unnoticed by Twilight as they turned to leave. She couldn't seem to stem the flow from her eyes, no matter how hard she tried. "I'll just meet you there Twilight." She nodded as Dash took off into the star studded sky, quickly coasting over a low roof. "You idiot, Dash." She chided herself. "You knew that there were ponies after him, and you didn't take it seriously enough. What's wrong with you?" She couldn't answer her own question. How could she let this happen, from right under her nose? She flew through the same window as before, and landed in the middle of the library. She could've got back faster, she could've done so much more than she did. She realized that she needed to tell Scoots where she'd be staying tonight. There was a knock at the door, and she got up to open it, wiping her face clear of tears. Twilight was on the other side of the door with Scoots, neither of them looked particularly happy. "Scoots, come back here tonight, we're staying the night." Dash said, her voice wavering "Is there a problem with the house?" Scoots asked. "No Scoots, I'll tell you tomorrow. Just come back here when Nightmare Night is over." "Okay. Don't be sad Dash." Scoots turned and trotted back to her friends, and they talked for a moment before moving off. Dash let her attention drift to Twilight, who was studying her features intently. "Dash, go get some sleep. I'll get anything done that I can." She saw Dash's unconvinced expression. "Dash," She laid a hoof on her shoulder. "We'll find him." Dash sighed and walked upstairs, into the guest room. She sighed and sat down on the edge of her bed, head in her hooves. At least last time Jason had any risk of death she was able to stay by his side. Now, though, she had somehow become even more useless. She couldn't give him love to help him stay alive, he was on his own. She pulled a blanket over herself, staring out into the darkness. Why was she never fast enough, never strong enough to make a difference? She bumped her hooves together, her anger steadily rising. This one was all on her, Jason had evidently fought the stallions, and apparently lost, although he had managed to stab one when he didn't actually have any weapons to start out with. He had to be alive, he just had to be. If he had gone through all this, he could make it through some more, right? She hoped so, but he hadn't been captured by criminals that seemed hell bent on wiping him out before. Her exhaustion was starting to catch up with her as she began to drift off, the word 'failure' spinning around in her head as she finally found sleep. _________________________________________________________ Dash awoke to the quiet muttering of voices from downstairs. As her ears tuned into the voices, she could differentiate at least a few, although she wasn't sure exactly who was talking. She looked around, trying to figure out why she was in Twilight's room, until the events from last night finally came back to her. She swung her legs around to the side of the bed and rested her head in her front hooves, trying to keep herself from breaking down again. After a few minutes of trying to control her breathing, she finally gave it up as a lost cause, and moved to leave. The clock read seven forty. Scoots had apparently gotten back, and was still huddled under a small pile of blankets. At least she didn't have to worry about her; she probably couldn't handle losing both of them. Scoots' hoof twitched, and she mumbled something in her sleep. Dash trotted over and ran a hoof through her mane, watching as she subconsciously pushed her head into Dash's hoof. She broke a smile, slightly surprising herself. She wiped away her residual tears and went downstairs, finding Applejack, Twilight, Fluttershy and Rarity. "What'd you find, Twilight?" "Oh, Dash, you're awake!" She quickly turned around. "I didn't find much." She sighed. Dash hung her head, the previous joy quickly forgotten. "What did you find?" She gathered up a few papers from the desk. "Well, the blood wasn't Jason's, and I went back to the scene, but I couldn't find anything new. I got the serial number off this knife, and apparently it came from this company that went out of business a few years ago. The company was based in Manehattan, but I doubt that's where they went with Jason." "And why's that?" "Manehattan is currently under lockdown from a string of murders that occurred. They're not letting anypony in or out until they get the thing solved. With the new drafting for the military, that's actually a plausible thing to do. They've got a lot more ponies to distribute. I went by the police station late last night and had them file a report, that should be all over the nearby cities by midday. Speaking of the police station, I'm going to go by there right now and see if they got anything new out of the criminal Jason captured the other day." "Can I tag along, Twilight?" "Well," She seemed briefly lost in thought. "I'll go by and see if we even can interrogate the pony, then I'll come back and get you if it's a go ahead. You can stay here for a while, right Dash?" "Yeah, I guess." There was that useless feeling again... "Okay, I'll be back in a bit. Oh, that reminds me, I sent a letter to Celestia, she says she's dispatching somepony to help. She didn't say who though." She trotted out the front door, breaking into a faster pace once she got outside. Dash turned back to her friends, trying to smile but grimacing instead. She heard the tail end of one of Applejack's comments. "Probably just left." "What was that, AJ?" "Ah said, he probably just took his leave, just made it look like he got taken away." "And why would he do that?" she crossed her hooves over her chest. "If ah had any idea, ah would've acted on it by now. We can't trust him, Dash." "After all this, that's all you can say?" "Bu--" "No! He saved you ponies from the griffins, he almost died for you!" "But D- "Shut up! He came back here, and you couldn't even act like you trusted him, you couldn't even give him the benefit of the doubt! He won the drinking contest just so you would be forced to trust him! And now--" She started to get choked up, and her tears started to flow again. "And now he's gone, and we don't even know where he is. And all you can think about is that he betrayed us by leaving. Betrayed us? Half the town doesn't even want to go near him! He did all this stuff, and the only one of you that remotely cares is Twilight, the one with the most reason out of all of us to distrust changelings! Even Celestia trusts him." She went silent, having run out of things to say. "Dash, he was just yer war buddy, why do ya care so much anyway?" "Because I love him!" Well that slipped out. She would have face hoofed if it wouldn't have distracted from her argument. The other four gasped. "And this is why I didn't want to tell you, I'm just the mare-friend of a piece of shit in your minds." "You could have just told us, Darling." Rarity said. "No I couldn't! If I had you would've said I was under a spell. I know you're all thinking it now, but it was my decision, and I made the first advances. Changeling spells like that don't even exist anyway. He didn't want to tell anypony, not just for my sake, but because he was trying to keep me and Scoots safe, keep us unattached so that those stallions would only focus on him." She took a breath. "That's another thing! It was his idea to adopt Scoots, he was the one that finally gave her a home. And after all that, you still can't see through the fact that he's a changeling. Your sisters can, for fucks sake!" She could see that that last one had struck home, but she honestly couldn't care what happened next. She turned and calmly walked over to the door, slamming it shut behind her. Dash took off into the air, immediately climbing in altitude until the ponies looked like specks, happily going around their business. If the news was out, she imagined that quite a few of them were happy about the abduction of Jason, which pissed her off even more. She landed on a small cloud, steadily growing angrier as she looked down at the townsfolk. Those little, ungrateful specks. Her interest was immediately shifted to a small purple form moving down the street towards the library, so she took off and flew downwards, hoping to intercept Twilight before she got to the library. She landed hard, cracking a cobblestone in her anger as she came down in font of Twilight. She took a moment to calm herself before speaking. "What's the situation, Twilight?" Her voice still had a tone of hostility to it, much to her annoyance. She didn't really have a bone to pick with her. "We can go over there, if you're up to it. The police pony says that he still has full rights to intervene, though." The last part of her sentence was lost on Dash, who had already started galloping away towards the police station. Twilight sighed and started after her. She still didn't see why Dash cared this much. Even she hadn't gone this insane when she was investigating the disappearance of Dash, so why was she acting like this? She knew that Dash had seen something in Jason, but that was just in his tendency for good, right? She couldn't say she really trusted the guy, but she definitely didn't act outwardly like she was against him. He hadn't really done anything before now, though. As far as she could tell, this was just another trick. She didn't want to jump the gun and assume like she did last time with Cadence; she may have been right, but she wanted to make sure she was totally correct before she made a move. He was resourceful, and that's what made him so dangerous. That begged the question though, why the sudden capture? Was it staged? That was doubtful, there was a lot of blood. But if he had committed a crime, then that would mean there was an innocent stallion involved, but given the number of different hoof prints, he was probably the victim. She felt sorry for the guy, he just got out of all this war stuff, and even with all his heroics he still couldn't fit in here. Celestia trusted him enough to position the troops, maybe she should try to have more faith. Twilight finally caught up to Dash, who was already waiting outside the police station, only slightly winded. She was further confused when Dash proceeded to simply push the door open and enter, without even an attempt at a competitive statement. Jason must mean a lot to her, which was a strange thought. A police pony saw them, eyes bulging a little when he saw Dash, and quietly ushered them into a room, one side covered in mirror, with a table in the middle. They both took a chair, watching as the police pony entered through another door with the criminal. The orange suited pony sat down, and the police pony left. "So you gunna try ta get information outta me? Hah. I aint tellin' you squat." He tilted back in his chair and put on a smug expression. Dash leaned over to Twilight. "Put an illusion spell on the room. Make that police guy think we're playing nice. I don't care how you do it. I'm going to get the information out of this guy." She whispered. "No!" Twilight whispered back. "I'm not going to let you beat him up!" "We're talking about ponies' lives here. You can't think that these ponies are going to stop at Jason?" "How would we explain injuries?" "Make it look like he tilts back in his chair too far, and then hits his face on stuff." "This better work, I'm not taking the blame." She crossed her arms, while a quick burst of light came from her horn. "This spell is really tough to maintain, so don't distract me. You've also only got a few minutes, so you better hurry." Dash pushed herself up from the table, walking over to the side of the pony. "So where's your little criminal base?" "I don't know wat you're talkin' 'bout." Dash threw a hoof into his face. "Wrong answer, you want to try again?" The stallion worriedly looked across the table at Twilight, who had a disitant look in her eyes. He jingled the hoof cuffs around his front hooves nervously. "U-uh, nope." Another punch, this time to the other side of his face. She noticed he'd dropped the accent. "You sure? I could do this all day." "Y-yeah, I'm s-sure." His head cracked to the side as Dash swung again. "All. Day. Long. Think about it." The stallion squirmed in his seat as Dash paced back and forth behind him. She rather liked playing the role of the bad cop. She swiped at him, planting another blow, this time glancing into his nose. "Think faster." "You're insane!" She threw another punch. "I'm not doing this for fun. You tell me, and I'll throw in something nice, more food, a couple blankets, shorter sentence..." "F-fine. I cave, just stop with this." Dash sat back down, tapping Twilight on the shoulder, hopefully giving her the sign to make the stallion look like he injured himself. She waited a few more moments in silence, assuming that Twilight had run footage of them picking the pony up. She twirled her hoof, motioning for the stallion to continue. He contemplated how to start talking before he actually began. "I was pulled into this whole thing years ago, because I got a loan that turned sour. He said he'd take my daughter if I didn't go with him, so I did." He sighed. "Who is he?" Twilight asked. "Nopony really knows. He was scheduled to come into town yesterday, and I was just the test fire, so to speak. Anyway, I've been stuck with him ever since, and was told to kill that changeling, because he was going to get in the way." "Get in the way of what, exactly?" "I don't know, I just had my orders." "Where did you come from, I mean just before you attacked Jason?" "There's this building over there, but as far as I could tell, it's filled with traps and stuff, there's really no way to get in." "Where's the entrance?" "It's inside the alley, and there's a metal door. It has a spell that sets you on fire, I'm not sure how that works, so don't even try to touch it." He shuddered. "I've seen it firsthand. It's not pretty." "Weird." Twilight said. "What?" Dash asked. "Oh, just that that's the building that's been under construction for twenty years. Nopony ever really asked why it wasn't ever getting any closer to completion, with it being towards the outside of town and all. Nopony really knows what it's for, either." "Yeah, that is weird." She turned to the stallion. "That's all you know?" "Sorry, but yeah. Don't act like you got information from me, he might send someone to 'finish the job'." He looked around nervously. "Yeah. As far as I know, you didn't talk. A tip from a ponyvillian got us the info." Dash knocked on the mirror, and a few minutes later the cop walked in. "Jeez, I've never seen somepony hurt their face like that from rocking back in a chair. It was almost hard to watch. Good job getting him to talk though. I'm assuming this is about the Boss, eh Boss?" Dash scrunched her face up in confusion. "Uhh...Yeah, this's about him." "Oh, figures. Buncha ingrates in this town huh? Name's Heavyweight, by the way." "Yeah, I was just thinking that. I mean, you'd think they'd at least give him some respect, but no! It's all 'He's a changeling he must be evil.' I'm sick of it, and I'm sure he is too. Or maybe was..." Her eyes started to tear up again. Goddammit brain! You have a lead now, pull yourself together! "I can get a few of the police on this, make it out to be a gang against the general public. It's worth it to save him. From the report your friend filed, I heard there were a lot of ponies, eh?" "From what we could tell." "Yeah, you're going to need more than a few ponies to take him out. Hold on, I'm going to get a few cops together, a couple of forensics guys, a little of everything." He left the room with the convict. "Dash, what do you mean ungrateful?" Twilight asked. "What do I mean?!?! The ponies move to the other side of the fucking street when he goes by! I can count the number of ponies that like him without using a two digit number. He did all this for what, eight ponies to accept him?" "Why the sudden attachment to him, Dash?" Dash facehoofed. "I love him." She wasn't even trying to hide it anymore, with her prior screw up she was going to find out pretty soon. Twilight gasped. "Funny how you all react the same way. Now I know I made the right decision to leave Ponyville with him, I'm the only one who would've ever listened to his story without complete bias." "Why would you believe him? He could just lie to you!" "But he didn't! Dammit Twilight, he's not like the rest. Everything he's ever done goes to show that, but you can't even figure that out?! If you ignored the fact that he was a changeling, you'd see that he's just like the rest of us! You acted like you trusted him, and his story made sense; the stuff from his country, the knowledge... Get out of your little bubble Twilight, the real world isn't all black and white." Twilight let her mouth hang open as Heavy walked back in, as if on cue. He gestured to Dash, who walked past Twilight and out the door. Eventually he spoke up. "So far we've sent some ponies to the general crime scene, just for reconnaissance type stuff, so this'll be the first real investigation. I would've had ponies there sooner, but my higher ups wouldn't let me take any ponies off of their other jobs. What annoys me about that is the fact that forensics was checking the crime scene for leads on a shoplifter and the rest of the police were out patrolling for him. What a stupid bias. A pony that could be dead, and they keep the police on shoplifting." "I'm just glad there's somepony in this town that thinks the same things I do." "Yeah, most of the ponies that were in Canterlot do also." He gestured for the waiting ponies to follow him as they exited the building. They quickly trotted down the street, the lack of conversation giving Dash what she wanted least, time to think. She realized that she had, in only a few hours, made all of her friends angry with her. And Jason was still missing. They stopped in front of the alleyway a few seconds later, exchanging looks before moving inside. The morning sun couldn't reach the bottom of the alley with the tall brick buildings on either side, creating an artificial dusk. The forensics team was already huddled around the dried blood and hoof marks, doing, well, they were doing something. Dash looked back into the alleyway, drifting back into her thoughts. __________________________________________________________ The afternoon rays graced Dash's face as she exited the alley. She didn't know how long she'd been around this building looking for clues of any sort, but by now it seemed a lost cause. The forensics team had extended the trail by a couple feet after an hour of work before deciding that the ponies had been teleported. Things didn't look like they were going anywhere fast. Maybe they'd never actually find Jason. In the beginning, she thought the only trouble would be getting him alive, but seeing as there was no entrance to this building besides the metal door and the whole thing apparently had spells all over it, things looked grim. The worst part was that she didn't know what was happening in there, he could be being tortured or beat up, and there was nothing she could do. She continued to stare into the alley, still lost in her thoughts. "Rainbow Dash, it has been quite a long time!" Dash jumped and looked over towards the source of the voice, taking a second to recognize the pony before bowing down. Luna laughed. "There is no need, Dash." Her face quickly took on an air of anger. "My sister tells me that Jason was captured by a gang of ponies, or something of the sort?" "Yeah, last night he was just, gone. I was away for maybe five minutes. It hasn't been fun." "I see. I know what you're going through." "Whoever it is, they're in that building, but it's protected by all manner of spells, so you aren't able to break in." Luna nodded and walked over, enveloping a corner in her dark blue aura. "You're right. I could break through those spells I suppose, but it would take time. Another of those spells sends a warning that the spell's being attacked." "By magical means only?" "Yes, but from what I can see these walls are at least a foot and a half thick anyway." she saw the look on Dash's face. "What're you planning?" "I'm going to make a bomb to go through one of the walls. It's a good thing that this building's not in Ponyville proper, then I couldn't really do anything." She smiled for the first time in hours, a plan finally coming into place. "I'm going to go prepare this, we can still get him out!" Heavy came out of the alleyway, shaking his head. "We're going to have to do this tomorrow. Nopony's going to stay, and we need them if we're going to fight whatever's in there. As soon as their shift is over, they're outta here." "No... We can still do it, we can just go in there, you me and Luna." "And you look like you were hit by a train today. You need sleep, Dash." "He's still in there, he could be being hurt right now, how do we know he'll even be alive tomorrow?" "If we aren't ready, we'll be dead too. Be logical, Dash." "Ugh! Fuck this shit!" There was a thunk on the wall. "AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!" She pulled at her mane." I'm at the end of my rope here. I can't handle all these delays!" She could almost feel her sanity slipping away. How could she sleep, full well knowing the possible consequences? She hung her head. She'd have to get the explosives together first anyway, she might as well get on that. She took off towards the blacksmith shop, eyes burning as tears tried to follow all the ones she'd shed already. These weren't tears of grief, however, they were tears of frustration. Nothing was going her way, right when she needed it most. It just wasn't fair. They should be on favorable terms here, but as usual, things went wrong and they were the only safety net. And now half of that net was gone. She landed in front of the blacksmith, quickly pushing open the door. She stopped in front of the counter, trying to slightly repress her rising anger. Eventually the pony came out from the back room, keeping a neutral expression when he saw her. "I need some of the stuff Jason's been getting here, you know the changeling. He gets the saltpeter, charcoal and sulphur mix?" "Yeah, I heard what happened." he threw a few sacks onto the counter. "I figured you'd need this. Stay here for a second." Dash looked through the bags, checking that there were the correct amounts of material in each one. Satisfied, she composed herself to wait as a grinding stone made some noise in the other room. The pony returned a few minutes later with a small box. "Your colt-friend had these made for you. They were probably supposed to be a surprise, but it sounds like you need them now." She raked her brain for any time she had even hinted at being Jason's mare-friend. "How did you..? "I'm old. I read ponies pretty well." He chuckled, stroking a hoof through his short beard. "Now, the 'gift'." He slid the box across to her, watching intently as she undid the latch and carefully opened the lid. She took a small step back in awe. She didn't know how much of the process was Jason's ideas or just the Blacksmith's skill, but the blades definitely looked amazing. Black blades protruded from a simple hilt, one that was curved to fit around the front of her hoof. She picked it up, inspecting it closer. The blade had several outlandish characters on it, and was backed by a shiny metal edge. She swiped the blade through the air, creating a whistling sound as it went. She turned back to the blacksmith, hinting at a smile. "How much do I owe you?" "Nothing. You need it more than I need the money." Dash sighed and took out a hoofful of bits, setting them on the counter. "At least take something. I'm glad some ponies don't hate him." "Fine, now go save that guy." "No problem." She tipped an imaginary hat to the blacksmith before carefully putting the box on her back and taking her leave, immediately flying up to her house with the bags in her mouth. She missed Jason carrying things for her. She also missed the times where she didn't think about Jason every two seconds; she was just making herself feel worse. She landed in the front yard and hauled the bags over to the table where they had made their first set of explosives. Jason had overbought on the flint and canisters, so at least that wouldn't be a problem. As she started grinding up the mixture, she started to think about her plan. Finding the giant thing she needed to put this bomb in was going to be a problem. Oh wait, that would work. She grabbed the metal trash can she had bought a few days ago, to keep food from falling through the floor, and quickly filled it with gunpowder. She sealed it with a bandage that she had soaked in glue, tethering the lid to the rest of the can. That should hold, if she gave it time to dry, anyway. That meant more waiting. Great. Oh well, at least she had something that should work, hopefully. She only had one chance at this, so it better work. She face-hoofed, realizing that she needed a fuse of some sort. She grabbed some twine that was still laying around, and tied a rather long fuse, sticking it into the trash can and resealing the lid. Twine should act as a pretty long fuse, that would give them time to clear out. But when they did get inside, they'd need weapons to fight with, but more importantly, they'd need an advantage. She pulled out a few more canisters and got to work on more flash bangs. They were almost out after that whole time away, but it had never crossed her mind to make more. She hadn't really thought that Ponyville would be dangerous. She could feel herself growing more sleepy as the monotonous process of making the bombs went on, and pretty soon she decided that a nap wouldn't hurt. If she had this much time before zero hour, she might as well get through it as quickly as possible. She didn't really feel like going up the stairs; after a day like this, the stress had really tired her out. She flopped down on the couch, the grumble in her stomach telling her that she still hadn't had anything to eat today. She groaned and rolled off the couch, trotting in the kitchen. She grabbed a few apples out of the cabinet, immediately munching on the first one. She looked around, eventually focusing on a picture of her on the wall, slightly blurry as she streaked through the air. She realized that the only pictures around here were of her or her friends. If she got Jason back, she was going to get pictures of him and Scoots. She couldn't imagine not being able to see his face again. It pained her to think about it, but one day she'd forget, one day she wouldn't be able to recall what he looked like. Sure, she could just look at a picture of a changeling in a book, but they didn't really look the same. Besides the small differences he already had, there were the scars criss crossing his face, the subtle chip on one of his fangs. And she'd forget all of that, one day. One day, she'd forget his smile, she'd forget his laugh. She looked down at her apple and threw it into the trash can, having lost her appetite. It sailed through the floor as she realized that she had taken away the metal trash can for bomb production. She sighed, turning to walk back into the living room. Dash kept the tears out of her eyes until she laid down and gave up, letting them flow. She would've loved to have a picture to look at around now. Hopefully in a few hours after this nap she'd feel better. That sounded like a pipe dream though, considering how she felt right now. She shivered, unused to the normal heat that she received from Jason when they'd been huddled together under the blankets. She hadn't ever needed to sleep alone since they'd started 'dating' and it was something she'd become accustomed to. She pulled a picture off of the coffee table, briefly looking over herself as a filly. She looked a lot like Scoots, albeit with larger wings. At least she still had her. She wouldn't if it weren't for Jason. She smiled, realizing that there was still something he'd done, something tangible, that he'd left behind. Somepony, that is, somepony that she loved as much as he did. She managed to get to sleep in the brief reprieve from the storm of pessimistic thoughts and accusations of blame that were racing around in her head that was created by her sudden realization.