//------------------------------//
// Episode 2-2 :: Poached 
// Story: Romancing the Clouds 
// by KitsuneRisu 
//------------------------------//





"N-n-n- no! Please! Please!" she gasped, screaming at Emberkite. He had his hoof raised, ready to dish out justice.

"Who are you?" he hissed again, shoving the mare, only slightly younger than he was, against the dumpster once again.

A cough escaped from a wincing face, a jolt of pain coursing through her left wing. The sound of it echoed down the empty streets, not a single pony around to bear witness.

"I'm sorry! I'm s- sorry!" she begged, holding her hooves up in front of her face. "Don't hit me! I was just curious! I was just-"

"About what? About us? Who are you working for?"

"Nopony! I'm working for nopony!"

She peeked out from between her legs, and suddenly the hook jerked forward, coursing towards her face. She grimaced, shutting her eyes tightly, but the impact never came. Rather, she squeaked and jumped as a heavy hoof rammed into the dumpster, just next to her ear. It had left a dent. She just knew it.

"You lying? I don't like liars!" Ember yelled in her face.

"Pleaassseee!" she sobbed, sliding down the metal wall, her legs giving up.

Emberkite let her fall. She landed in a heap, shaking, eyes staring at Ember's hooves.

"What's your name?" Ember asked, sternly, but no longer shouting.

"Ch- Champagne," she stammered. "Champagne Satellite."

Ember peered around the side to get a close look at her cutie mark. Three red balls and an orange star were placed firmly on a light pink flank, joined by a hoop of yellow. It didn't mean anything to him.

Her silvery-blue braid told him that he was dealing with some sort of kid with wealth. He'd always noticed that fancy manes meant generous hand-outs back at the boardwalk. She looked very much unlike a pony who would normally be found hanging around in a dumpster, and after his delayed cursory examination, he softened his guard.

"Why were you following us?" Ember asked, stepping back and spreading his wings for show.

Champagne tightened hers.

"I've… I've seen you in the papers," she said, with a rather uppity accent. "I was… just… I thought to learn from your ways."

"Wha?"

"I… I thought to emulate your actions…?" Champagne looked up, slowly and carefully.

"Uhh… you… wanted to be like us?"

Champagne's head bobbled a tiny bit. "Yes… yes I do."

"Right. Kid."  Ember rolled his eyes and folded his wings. "Go home, and stop breaking into daddy's liquor cabinet, alright?" 

"I.. I have never-!" gasped Champagne.

Ember had to stop himself raising a hoof to his face. "Kid! Just go home! I don't know what you're trying to prove, or who dared you to do this, or who convinced you this was smart, but go home, alright? I had enough of strange idiots dropping in on me today."

"But… oh… but you think… you think this is in pretence!" Champagne uttered, picking herself up off the floor as Ember walked slowly back across the street. "No! No, kind… kind sir, I assure you…"

"Kid, are you some kind of princess or something?" Ember swivelled in place. Now he was just getting annoyed. "'Kind sir'? You wanna spy on us and you don't even know my name?"

"I… I only know what the newspaper has told me, sir," Champagne looked down, guiltily.

Ember paused, rocking his head back and forth as he thought. "So how'd you find us, then? You working with that… uh… Gale mare?"

"G- Gale? Th- the reporter? No, I'm af- afraid I'm not…"

"Then?" Ember stepped closer.

"I…"

The firey mane shook back and forth, exasperated. He made back to the building, pace even faster than before.

"No, wait!" came the voice from behind him. "Please! I mean, I found you from the papers! I just had to plot a graph! A graph!"

"What, like… math?"

"No, not math! Just… maps! Simple triangulation! Anypony could have figured it out, really!" Champagne stepped towards Ember, rushing halfway across the street before skidding to a halt.

Ember was facing her again.

"Not… really my department." He rubbed his temple. "Look, I guess… I guess you're legit, but really. This isn't a game, alright? This isn't some sort of stupid play-house let's pretend bullcrap. You could've gotten hurt. You were about to get hurt! You ain't exactly good at staying unnoticed! And why, in all of Equestria, were you sleeping in a dumpster?"

"I… I was sleepy…" she whined.

Ember threw his leg up, shaking his head furiously. "No. Nope. Not going there. Go away, kid."

With every word her mane drooped a little bit more, until the very tip of it was brushing the floor, kicking up little cloud-clouds.

"I… I can help."

Ember looked up to the heavens, hoping somepony would come down and shut her up.

"How. How can you help. How could you possibly, possibly help? How?" Ember rushed up to the little filly and started rubbing his forehead into hers. "How?"

Her head dipped into her shoulders.

"The fire… I saw who did it," she said.

And then, Ember did the only thing he could to respond to that. 

He blinked.





She sat on the cold, hard floor, the thickness of it only compressing slightly under her girth. Gryphons normally had to tread lightly in Cloudsdale, and it was quite a nice feeling to be able to not have to worry about it there in the room.

It was nice enough that it overrode the other disasters that the room bore, like the flickering light and the wonky furniture and the grime all over the walls.

It had been cleaned up somewhat by Egg (mostly) and Ember (sat back and had a drink), during their free time over the past week, but it was still, all in all, an abandoned room in an old, dingy warehouse.

The gryphon felt a bit comfortable, ironically.

"I'm sorry, if you could repeat that for me?" Egg asked, politely.

"Cook-yeh," she said, again, slower this time. "But it's spelt, ah… k-o-e-k-j-e."

She tapped her claws together with every letter, beating them out, returning her talons to a clasp on top of the table immediately after. She seemed to be doing much better than before, lightening up within a half hour of arrival.

"Eternia van der Koekje," Egg said, rolling the full thing around in his mouth. "Very much a gryphon name."

"I am, of course, a gryphon." She smiled, looking down at a flake of varnish on the scratched tabletop. "But, my parents… they could never get their mouths around it. They used to call me 'cookie', which is what I found out my… family name means in gryphon tongue."

She had a rather curiously fun way of pronouncing the word 'cookie', as if it were two sharp sounds separate from each other than a complete word. It was a pleasure to hear it being said with that slight accent. In fact, most of the things she said sounded slightly sharper than normal, as if she was speaking through a mouth kept tightly together, and she said things very slowly and deliberately, much like she were singing a song with each word.

"Ah… your… parents? Didn't know? And didn't explain…?" Egg asked, confused at what Eternia had just said.

"Oh, pardon me! I grew up in Cloudsdale, actually," Cookie said with a slight nod, "to pegasus parents. I was adopted!"

"I see," Egg said, nodding, not giving the subject any more reaction than usual. "But you still have the accent…"

"Oh! That is… just limitations of…" Cookie chuckled, tapping the side of her beak. "I was left here before I was even talking, and… I actually don't speak gryphon. Or, at least, Western gryphon, as my name would suggest."

"They left you a name and left you here?"

"They left me with this." Cookie smiled, holding up a small locket on a chain that hung around her neck. She had to burrow into her feathers to get it out; it was invisible otherwise, underneath her thick plumage. But back into the pit it went, before Egg could get a close look at it. "It had my name, or at least, what was then taken to be my name, on the back."

"Well, Miss Eternia, very nice to meet you."

"Oh, it is my pleasure, Mister Egg. Thank you for the hospitality."

The room fell silent for a while, with Egg standing there, absolutely expressionless, like a statue gone wrong.

"Mister…Egg?" Cookie asked, tilting her head to the side. "Is everything okay?"

"Yes," he said, snapping his eyes forward. "Pardon me. I was just thinking."

"About what?" She smiled, a gentle, innocent, harmless smile, that loitered behind a razor-sharp yellow beak.

"Your name is 'Cookie'. You have a rather interesting pattern on your… tuft there." Egg motioned toward Cookie's chest. Upon its otherwise white feathery fan were three odd brown markings that looked exactly like chocolate chips. If gryphons had anything close to a cutie mark, that might be it.

"Yes!" she chittered in delight, clapping her hands together. "Just like a… cookie, no?"

"And you're a baker."

"Oh, yes, yes, very much so. I make quite the biscuit, I have been told!"

Egg thought about Eggbeaters. He didn't have to think much more about it.

"Hm," Egg hummed.

"Although, I suppose… I am one no longer," Cookie said, with a soft sigh. It was a very optimistic sigh, though, the kind that a coach gives after his peewee team loses the baseball game because none of them could hold the bat at the right end.

'Oh well,' he'd say, with a sigh, and perhaps a small shrug, 'maybe next time!'

"You don't seem to be affected by what happened very much," Egg observed.

"Oh, I was in a terrible state!" Cookie declared. "I was quite… quite miserable. I still am rather in a sad way, but… these things happen, yes?"

"No." Egg shook his head. "I'm not sure they do."

"Well."

"Well."

They stared at each other for a while.

"Who do you represent, Mister Egg?" Cookie asked, innocently, looking up at the room.

"We don't really have a name yet, I suppose," Egg explained. "We're quite new to this business."

"Just the two of you?"

"Yes. For now."

"And your business is…"

"Yes," Egg went on to answer, not waiting for the question. "We will find out who committed this crime against you and your shop, and bring him or her to justice."

"Ah!" Cookie held up a talon. "Just like the… ah… police! Of Canterlot, yes?"

"Yes. Something like that. But please, have no worry. We will do our best to catch whoever did it."

"That is of some comfort, Mister Egg, yes." Cookie nodded, with a rejuvenated smile. "I must admit that I am quite curious, too, as to why this has happened. But what makes you so sure that this was not an accident?"

"Clouds don't burn." Egg shrugged. "It might have been an accident, but that is also our responsibility to figure out. So, one way or the other, you'll have your answer."

"Thank you, Mister Egg! But I am afraid…I… ah…" Her face fell, the first real time during the conversation that she looked genuinely sad. "… I am unable to compensate you for this service."

Egg stood silent for a while, more wheels turning. He hadn't even considered this subject. He hadn't expected someone else to approach it before he had.

"Payment's not necessary."

"Oh, am I to take it that this service… is a kindness?" Cookie's eyes lit up.

"Yes."

"Oh, I am… so much in gratitude!" Cookie cried, standing up on her large rear legs and clasping her hands in front of her as if in prayer.

"Al…right." Egg nodded, eyebrows raising at the sight. "Also, will you have a place to stay?"

"Yes, of course. I can move back in with my parents. It is no trouble. They were quite distraught when I told them I was moving out. They will be happy that I am moving back in."

"Alright. Now. Let's get started. I'd like to ask you a few questions about th-"

A sharp bang on the door caused both of their heads to turn in its direction.

"Hey, old stallion," Ember said, pushing his head around the side of the frame. "I… got a sitch' here. Kinda… weird. I don't really… um… hey there."

Ember blinked at Cookie, who was smiling right at him. Celestia, those gryphons! Freaky-ass beaks and… and…

"Hello," Cookie said. "I am Eternia van der Koekje, but you may call me Cookie."

"Uh…. Egg? Egg!" Ember called out, locking eyes with his team-mate. "Need you out here, man!"

"Alright. I won't be a moment," he told the gryphon, following his partner out of the room.

The door closed behind him, and he came face to face with a pony that looked to be around Ember's age, but… perhaps younger. She was standing there, quite wide-eyed in what could only have been amazement. Her eyes went everywhere in the room, pure concentration on her pursed lips, as if she were studying the warehouse.

"And… who is this?" Egg asked.

"This… right, this is that pony who'd been following us. I was right, old stallion. I told you. I was right!"

"I see." Egg looked past his spectacles at the newcomer. "And why has she been following us?"

"Right, no, wait, listen," Ember said, bumping up against Champagne, who suddenly snapped back to attention, refocusing her gaze on Egg. "I got the skinny, right? This girl's name is Champagne. Champagne something… light, or something."

"Satt'lite," she mumbled.

"Yeah, whatever! Right, so she's been following us because she said she sort of likes what we do, kind of got a bit of a weird thing for it, I guess?"

"I've studied all the books!" Champagne cut in suddenly, lurching forward, desperate to make that impression. "I had them brought up from all the other cities! Fillydelphia! Canterlot! Los Pegasus!"

"Books?"

"On… on crime! I want to be a policepony!" She suddenly made the declaration, much to Egg's muted surprise.

"We… aren't policeponies," Egg said, plainly.

"No, but you are, sir! You are!" Champagne stamped her little hooves, the tempo creating a soft mushy rhythm on the ground. "It does not matter what you call yourselves, but you certainly are!"

Her rapid-fire hoofbeats drew to a slow stop as she cast her face toward the floor. "And I want… I wanted to do it too. So I thought I'd follow you and watch and learn a bit, and then… I don't know."

It took a moment of consideration before Egg turned ruefully towards his partner. "Ember, could you find this young filly's parents, and-"

"No!" she shrieked, causing the other two to wince in pain. "Father said it was acceptable under the terms and conditions I had laid out!"

"Pardon me?"

"And I am not a filly! I'm… I'm a young adult!"

"I… see," Egg said, wiping a fleck of spittle out of his eye. "Ember? What do you think?"

"I dunno, old stallion. She's kinda cute." He grinned from ear to ear. "Full of energy too."

"I am cute and full of energy!"

"Right," Egg replied, sizing up the little creature. "Let's see."

He leaned down, coming face to face with Champagne, staring her right in the eye. He gave the slightest ever tilt of the mouth upward into something that vaguely resembled a smirk, but even that was controlled and precisely to the amount that he needed.

It was the kind of look that a condescending adult gave to a young kid when trying to placate them. But his intention was not one of looking down upon her, no; he had brought himself down to her level in order to ask her a very simple question.

"Why are you here?" Egg asked.

"I… I told you, kind sir," Champagne said, worry crossing her brow. She began to feel a tad uncomfortable at this. There was something about this stallion. "I was following y-you to learn about the trade… the trade…"

"No. I'll ask again. Why are you here?"

He didn't even blink once. All of a sudden it felt like there was more to this simple question. It felt like a test. But it also felt like he was trying to find out something. The other one, the one he had called Ember, was remaining very silent, so this must be something only she could answer, right? Was this… was she supposed to say… what was it that she was supposed to say?

A million answers raced through her mind, but she could only focus on the one single fact that her future would depend greatly on what she said next.

She stared back into Egg's eyes, searching. Searching for a single clue, a single twitch, something that would help. But body language wouldn't help her here, no. This was a simple test of the mind.

It was something that he needed to know. It was something that would also explain her situation. Why was she here? Where was she? In their base. Which meant that this Ember pony had let her in. Which means there was a reason why.

And that reason was both what he needed to know and the reason why she was, currently, allowed to stand inside their base!

"Because I know who started the fire!" she blurted out.

Egg withdrew his head, all too slowly, and nodded to himself.

"Not what I was expecting," he said, finally.

"Yeah, I know, right? Came as a surprise to me, too," Ember chipped in.

"Did… did I pass your test?" Champagne asked, hopefully.

"Test?" Egg repeated. "What test?"

"Wasn't that… a test?" Champagne smiled. "And… I must have passed, right?"

Egg looked at Ember, who gave a small shrug, which was enough for Egg to turn back to Champagne and give her a line that all but wiped the smile off her face.

"Don't think so much," Egg commanded.

Champagne burned red, the light salmon pink of her cheeks racing with blooms of colour.

"Hey, listen," Egg said, placing a hoof on her shoulder.

She turned to stare at it, almost as if it were a tiger that decided to lay a paw on her flank.

"Don't think so much. That's all I'm saying, and now you're thinking too much about that too. Just don't think so much."

Egg removed his hoof.

"But now," he continued, "we have an interesting new development. Champagne here, it was 'Champagne', right? Yes. Champagne here has said that she knows who set the building on fire. I hope you weren't lying. Were you?"

"I…"

"Of course not. And so, Ember, the course of action is clear. I will be taking Miss Champagne here out for a talk, and you will stay here and hold the fort with our dear gryphon guest."

"Aww, man! Do I have to?" Ember grumbled.

"Champagne?" Egg gestured for her to leave the warehouse. "After you."

"W- wait!" Champagne protested, walking towards the door anyway. "W- why are we going out right now? With you? L- like this?"

"Because, Miss Champagne, you wanted a test? Well. My name is Egg. And your test," he said, sweeping her out the entrance, "starts now."





Ember swallowed, trying to drive away the dryness in his throat. His tongue scraped against the roof of his mouth, and wouldn't stay still.

He stared, restlessly, running a hoof against the side of his cheek.

"Hello, my name is Eternia v-" she said, again, smashing the ice with a brick.

"Yeah!" Ember yelled, calming himself down instantly after. He didn't want to come across as rude. "I mean… I know. Cookayeh, right?"

Her head bobbled. "Close enough. Please, though, call me 'Cookie'."

"No, I really… I mean, al- alright, um… Cookie," Emberkite forced it out, just about having given up arguing for today.

I mean, what was this? A gryphon named Cookie? That was just… I mean, no. If you had a Diamond Dog barrelling down upon you, what would you call it? Fluffy Butter McSquashyson? No.

Something was terribly wrong about a gryphon named Cookie.

"Are you… alright?" Cookie asked, watching Ember rub his face roughly with a hoof.

"Yeah! Yeah!" He held his other hoof out, shaking it towards Cookie, as he slumped down in the corner and continued massaging his eyes. "I'm just tired. A lot of weird things happenin' today, alright?"

"Oh yes, I know." Cookie nodded, patiently. "My home was burnt down today, you know."

Ember felt a lead ball slide into the pit of his stomach.

"Look," he said, turning back to the gryphon. "Let's… let's start again, alright?"

"Of course," Cookie said, slightly surprised. "My name is Eterni-"

"No! Noo!" Ember shot up, legs flailing. "No! Look, I'm… I need to get some fresh air. I gotta get out of here for a while. Just… just make yourself at home, ok, lady? Just don't…"

Don't what? Break anything? Hurt yourself? Fight with the other ponies in the building?

Ember let himself trail off, leaving the room and leaving the door open behind him.

He quickly squeezed past the broken door back outside, cradling his bag while muttering about stupid babysitting jobs and dumb gryphons giving him a hard time.

Well, he didn't really want to do the investigation stuff, anyway. It was as boring as all hell. But he sure didn't want to be stuck with taking care of the peanut gallery. This weird-ass gryphon with her calmness and her happiness and her feathers and her sharp, evil claws… it got to Ember. It grated on him, for some reason, and he couldn't really tell why.

Why couldn't he just go on patrol, or something? That's what he did best. That's what they'd been doing for the past five days, and it got them into the papers each and every time! That's what it was about!

Why was he even listening to Egg anyway? He should have said something. He should have voiced his opposition from the start, and-

And…

The dark shadow flew overhead, blocking the sun for a moment or two. Huge clouds billowed out from underneath constantly, like a fog machine gone wrong. On top of the constant clouds was a building. But it wasn't a normal building. No. It was bricks. Glass. Steel. Iron. Earth-borne things. And there it was, floating across the sky on wave after wave of clouds generated from two machines that were attached to the bottom of the whole shebang.

Ember watched the whole thing go until it disappeared out of sight behind the warehouse, his mouth hanging open throughout. He was too tired to close it.

"Hey!" came a voice from above.

Ember turned his head.

"Um…" said the Earth Pony, smiling from the back of a Chariot P-37 type Taxi-cart, "little… little help?"





"So, tell me who did it," Egg requested, as they walked back down the street. They'd flown a little way, but landed back in the same quiet side street that Egg had passed through earlier that day. It was there they stopped, and where Egg decided to have a talk with the enigmatic Champagne Satellite.

"I… um… I guess I don't know, really. Not exactly." She turned her face down, rubbing her hooves together.

She was waiting for the backlash. What she didn't expect was a calm and logical follow-up question to her admission of guilt.

"But you know something. Otherwise you wouldn't try to bargain with the information."

"Oh… um… yes. But it's rather long of an explanation…"

Egg looked on.

"Oh! Of course." Champagne caught up, filling it in herself. "I… um… I can tell what ponies are thinking."

"You… read…. minds?"

"No, no, of course not. I simply meant that… ah… I don't know how to explain it, really. But when I look at a pony, I can… I can sort of tell what they're… um… thinking. So that… that didn't really explain anything, did it?"

Egg shook his head.

"Ah… I don't…" She was thinking too much again.

"Did you learn this from one of your books?" Egg asked, rolling a hoof around in the air.

"No. It was something I was just always able to do. I overhead Father saying to others that I have a skill called… called… um… hyper-kine..si… something, but I don't know what it means. He mentioned it when I was very little."

Whatever Champagne was trying to say didn't ring any bells for Egg, but it seemed official enough.

"How does it work?" Egg asked.

"I dunno."

"Then… how do you do it?"

"I dunno."

"Not helping."

"I really don't- ah! I… Father once said, when I asked him about what my cutie mark meant. He told me… we may observe all the stars in the sky, and each of them moves around in the universe individually. But once we start to see them together, then are the constellations born." Champagne nodded, proud to have remembered at least that much. "Does… does that help?"

"Not really, no." Egg shook his head. "Could you… show me?"

"Yes! Of course!" Champagne bubbled, skipping to the edge of the street that Cookie's bakery used to be on. The two of them looked out upon the crowd, and the rows of shops that lined it. "Um… well… I…"

Her eyes fell upon one of the shops, a 'open store' concept that had a multitude of lifestyle goods laid out on tables in front of the shop itself. It mainly sold artistic bric-a-brac, the kind that served more aesthetics than function. These were the goods that attracted the middle income; they weren't cheap items, but they were still very much 'affordable art'.

A stallion customer picked up a small clock in the shape of a stick of butter and stared at it quizzically. It had a wrapper and everything.

"Th- those three. There." Champagne pointed at the customer and his two shopping compatriots. "That one, with the, uh… butter-clock? He's gonna put it down and leave soon."

"The mare on the far right is going to buy something on the other side of the table," Champagne continued, "and… um… I dunno about the third one. I can't see his wings from here."

"You have to see their wings?"

"Not always, but it helps," Champagne said as she watched the stallion in question shift slightly. "Oh! Ah… yeah, oh. He's with the mare."

They were incredibly bold statements for just having had observed them for a minute or so. In fact, she was oddly specific, too. Egg held his tongue, not willing to ask the burning question until it was either proven or otherwise.

Within a few minutes, the first pony, who had been picking up the butter clock over and over again, had left it on the table and had swept away with the crowd. The second pony, the mare, had travelled back to the other side of the table, and had indeed picked up what looked like a set of rubber pot holders in the shape of wings. As soon as she had entered the shop, the remaining stallion dropped whatever he was looking at immediately and joined her by her side, getting his wallet out to pay.

"Hm," Egg intoned. "How?"

Champagne's eyes had caught it in the minutes that passed. The first stallion had been picking up and putting down the clock over and over, but had never looked upon it for more than a few seconds at a time. It was also always the same item, and never something else. Clearly, he hadn't been shopping or browsing for clocks. And clearly, he was not just interested in that one single clock, because ponies who are trying to make a decision tend to stare a bit more.

If he wasn't looking at the clock itself, then there was only one other reason that he would keep looking at a clock for. He was looking at the time. And if he was looking at the time that much, he was either waiting for somepony or something. And either way, it probably meant he was going to leave.

The mare had positioned her body just so, and just right, and had turned to face things a certain way. No matter where she went to around the large table full of goods, she kept her body slightly tilted in one precise location, at the corner where the pot holders were. She also kept stealing glances up at it in between browsing the other goods. This all told her that the mare was interested in something in that corner, and it wasn't too far of a leap to guess that it was about an object she was excited about purchasing.

The third pony had just been bored, showing classic signs of restlessness, like the shivering of the third secondary coverts in either wing, or the rhythmic shifting of the tail. What had finally tipped Champagne off was a combination of the slight loosening of his jaw, and this rather unobtrusive lean toward the mare, as if he had wanted to say something but withdrew at the very last moment. Champagne would also have been able to tell that he was entirely whipped, if she had known the term.

All this, like the stars, swirled into Champagne's eyes, and caught her attention. But at the moment it all started to make sense, the only things left she could see were the constellations laid out bare in front of her, and no longer did the individual lights exist.

"I really don't know," Champagne said, truthfully. "It just comes to me. I'm sorry."

"Hm," Egg muttered again. "Curious ability."

"Thank you! Father does think so, as well." Champagne grinned happily.

"Who is 'father', by the way?" Egg asked, offhandedly.

"No one," Champagne said, suddenly much quieter and much more lacking in enthusiasm.

"Right. I actually don't really care too much. I just want to know one thing. You said he'd allowed you to do this. Correct?"

"Yes. He did. I wrote a letter, and it was accepted."

"The… oddness of your methodologies aside, you aren't lying to me, are you?" Egg kept watch on the shop. The couple had now left the store with their new purchase. The mare looked rather happy, and the stallion looked the opposite.

"No," Champagne said, solidly, without hesitation. "I am not, sir."

"Right, then!" Egg belted out suddenly, placing a leg on Champagne's shoulder and swinging her out into the street. "We still haven't discussed why you know who burnt down the bakery, and you're going to tell me on the way there."





"Um… Brilliant Cut!" she said, holding out a hoof, and leaning out the side of the cart. The whole thing tipped unsteadily as she did, much to the annoyance of the taxi driver.

"And… what's going on?" Ember asked, not taking her hoof.

"Um… don't know, really! Long story…"

"Hey, meter's runnin', lady!" the driver yelled, gruffly.

"Shhhh! Alright? Shhhhhhhhhh!" Cut withdrew her hoof and held it to her lips. "You'll get paid! I'll give you more, alright? That shop is full of gems! I'll give you one or something! Sheesh! Alright. Where was I?"

She leaned back over the edge of the painted wooden box and draped her front legs over the side.

"Right. So, if you could maybe help me out a bit, I'd be really, really appreciative. You're, like, the first pegasus who's even bothered to stop to talk, you know? Everyone else just runs away."

"Did you say gems?" Ember asked, still a bit dazed.

"Yeah, I did. That's my store, getting away." She pointed. "Well, alright, not my store, it's my boss' store, technically. And I kind of wanna get it back by six, because I don't wanna work overtime."

"Over…time?"

"Yeah, it's just a hassle to fill in the paperwork, and… yeah, I know. I tried just catching it, but there's a bunch of pegasi in there, or something, and they have like, a gun, so…"

"What's a… gun?" Ember asked, scratching his head.

"Oh!" Cut slapped herself in the forehead. "Earth Pony thing. Guess you guys don't really need them up here. It's like… it's a thing you wear on your back, right, and it's like two sticks coming up around the side, and you like, tie a sort of like hammock to some elastic and tie that to the sticks and use it to whip rocks all over the place?"

Brilliant Cut's legs flew everywhere as she tried to describe the thing.

"So…a really large slingshot?" Ember clarified.

"Yeah! A gun! That's what I said!" Cut rolled her eyes.

"Why do they have that, even? You just said they're pegasi, right? We don't…"

"Oh, it's… um… it's mine. It's the store's. We keep one in the back just in case. Oh… oh Celestia, they had better not have been using my stock for ammo. I am going to…"

"Lady!" Ember shouted, snapping her out of it.

"Yeah?"

"A bunch of pegasi with one of these gun things stole your shop?"

"Yeah."

"From?"

"Fillydelphia."

"Wow."

"Yeah, I know, right? It's unbelievable. I almo-"

"No, I meant, 'wow, that's the most normal thing I've heard all day'."

"I can pay you!"

Ember dove back into the base, heart racing, blood soaring through his veins. Now this was more like it! If he couldn't go to the crime, then… maybe the crime just had to fly right over his head. And the allure of some delicious money kicked him into action. But… oh, Celestia. What to do with…

"Mister Emberkite, I did not know that you had-" Cookie said, coming out of the lab on the far end of the building. She'd been exploring.

"No time!" Ember screamed. "No time! No time! Uh… crap! Manure! All of that! Listen, Cookie!"

"Yes, mister Emberkite?" She padded over, watching curiously as the young stallion gyrated on the floor.

"I can't leave you here because then Egg will kill me!"

"And…?"

"Well… what I'm saying is…" Ember huffed.

"What is it?"

"How would you like to help me stop a crime?"





"You saw him?"

"Yes. While I was… um… watching you from afar. I was hovering up there." Champagne motioned to the sky some ways away from the bakery. "I was unable to see his face or his cutie mark clearly. He had a brown coat, though, and I can't remember the mane. I was… a bit distracted by…"

"Yes, I understand."

Champagne had actually stopped them before they had reached the bakery itself, which was now something of a sideshow. Ponies were halting and staring for a while, chatting and contemplating what had happened, before going on their merry way. The little salmon filly was rather insistent on not going too near, for which Egg accommodated by letting them loiter outside a quaint little café.

"Um… I only just caught a glimpse of it, but there was one stallion in the crowd who was acting differently from the others."

"Different how?"

"He wanted to be there."

"But there were plenty of ponies…"

"But they didn't want to be there. They can't help but stop. It's a horrific thing that happened, sir. I still can't understand how it occurred. This brown stallion was… happy to be there. As if he needed to. I also got the impression that he was trying to find something, or look for something, and when he found it he left instantly."

"When was that?"

"When the three of you left for your base, sir."

"He must have panicked when he saw us escorting Miss Eternia away," Egg mused, rubbing his chin with a hoof. His brow furrowed and his mind started ticking again.

"What does that mean, sir?"

"It means that his target might have been Miss Eternia. It's a reasonable response, given the circumstances. Logically, if you were to hang around to watch the store go down, and then bolt suddenly, it means you saw something that shocked you, right? So why would he have been shocked at the sight of the gryphon?"

"Because he didn't expect to see her?"

"That's right. She was supposed to be in her shop. The place was set on fire after opening time. I know this because I was going there to get a bagel. So…"

"Sir, I don't like this very much," Champagne mumbled, sounding a bit more miserable than the seconds before.

"No. It's just a hypothesis. Nothing can be confirmed until we find this pony, which brings me to ask why we're not going near the bakery."

"Um… because criminals return to the scene of the crime, sir."

"What makes you say that?"

"It's… I read about it in one of the books, sir. They said that a criminal who takes pride in his deed always goes back to watch other people. They like the reactions."

"So, which one is it?" Egg lifted his head to look into the crowd, already one step ahead.

"The one on the left, sir. There are three brown ponies in the area right now. Only one of them is actually looking at the crowd and not the building. In fact, he's the only one, brown or otherwise."

"Right. Best we go have a talk with him then, hmm?"

"J- just like that?" Champagne sputtered.

"No, of course not. We're going to bring him back to the base, aren't we?"

"And h- how will we do that?" Champagne asked unconfidently.

"I… have a plan," Egg said, putting his hoof into his bag and taking out a small, familiar bandage.





Three pairs of wings stretched out fully against the late afternoon sun. Eternia was having no trouble at all keeping up with Ember and the taxi. In fact, it was almost lazy in the way she took those broad, wide strokes, swimming through the sky with the lack of rapid wing beats that the pegasi required.

They were heavier, larger, and far more powerful, but yet, the flight of a gryphon was very propelled in the way that it did not take them much effort to keep going in one single direction once they were already moving. They weren't as good with the sharp turns or the sudden stops as pegasi, as a result, and it was just the difference between finesse and raw strength. It was the difference between a jet plane and a helicopter.

The wind kicked up their feathers and blew through their manes, each feather vibrating on the air. Brilliant Cut was having a bit of trouble holding her stomach every time she accidentally looked down. It was lucky she left her sandwich on the sidewalk back in Filly.

How did they even talk like this? The wind was so strong, so powerful that it invaded every one of her senses – from the low rushing hum in her ears to the shallow breaths that she had to make to even catch the air going by. If she had a hat, she wouldn't have had it for long, and her eyes dried out seconds after each forced blink.

She squinted at Ember as he pulled alongside, pointing ahead and mouthing something.

"What?" she yelled, at the top of her lungs, pointing to her ears. "I can't hear you!"

Ember rolled his eyes and spun towards Cookie, who was flying with her arms folded in front of her chest.

"She can't hear a word I'm saying," Ember said.

"Ah yes, it is the fault of the ones not of the sky, yes?" Cookie nodded. "The earth ponies and the unicorns, they aren't able to hear well in wind. It is a curiosity!"

"Yeah, whatever it is. How are we going to talk to her now?"

"Perhaps we could stop, if we needed to converse."

"And her building'll keep going! We can't do starty-stoppy like this! We… you know what we gotta do? We gotta stop the building!"

"We?" Cookie asked.

"Yeah! C'mon! You're a gryphon, right? You're pretty… strong, right? I could use a bit of help!"

"Ah, I am just a humble baker…"

"Yeah but you like, tear stuff up with your hooves, right?"

"They are called… talons. And no, I don't tear-"

"C'mon!" Ember yelled, grabbing onto Cookie's arm and pulling her along. Boy. She was heavy.

The duo zoomed toward the building. They'd been keeping their distance because of this 'gun' thing that Brilliant Cut had spoken of, but if they never approached it, there wasn't going to be any progress. Now was as good a time as any.

A face appeared at the door. It was a pegasus. It looked around for perhaps three seconds, before its eyes suddenly bulged out at the sight of a gryphon charging at them.

It was replaced a moment later by a full body, a pair of sticks poking out of a contraption on his back. This must have been that gun thing, and it looked just as Ember had thought. It was really a large, curved pair of horns that were attached to a saddle that was then tied down onto the back of one of the pegasi. On the other side was a cup, or something, tied onto the horns with cord.

It looked uncomfortable, to be honest, since saddles really didn't go with ponies with wings. But regardless, they were already loading it with some kind of rock, and pulling it back to fire.

The clouds peeling off the bottom of the shop as it trundled along the skies didn't help with visibility, but Ember spotted it just in time to shove Cookie to the side.

"Canopy roll!" he yelled the command, twisting in mid flight and veering out of the way just as a thick, golf-ball sized rock flew past his head.

He turned, and muttered a curse. Cookie had wobbled uncontrollably out of path. Gryphons weren't meant to perform such manoeuvres. But she straightened herself up again, and a little wave told him that she was ok.

A loud, piercing shriek came from a rather angry Brilliant Cut, who was now screeching high murder at the robbers for lobbing precious rocks out the door. She waved her hooves at them threateningly, and Ember pulled back a little to take stock.

"Cookie," he said, swinging in again, but keeping at a range which didn't seem to trigger the thieves into firing that thing of theirs. "Sorry about earlier. Um… but we gotta find a way in there."

"It was no trouble. I was just not expecting it." Cookie smiled. "Yes, perhaps… I have been thinking."

"What?" Ember asked, as the two of them zoomed left and right, trying to prevent the robbers from taking clear aim.

"Cooking equipment… is heavy. So am I too, quite heavy. As a gryphon, I mean. I am not… heavy. Not in that way where-"

"Yeah, you're thin and beautiful, okay? Get on with it!"

"Oh yes. Ah, I had to get the clouds under my… old store reinforced. To make sure that I, and my equipment, would not fall through. I fear they have now, due to the strange fire, and I hope they haven't hurt anyone on the way do-"

"Yes, yes, get to the point! Urgency here, Cookie!"

"Oh! Of course, of course. When the workponies came to reinforce the clouds, they used a device very much like those," she pointed with a clawed finger, to the two machines chugging away at the bottom of the building. "It seems to me that this is what is keeping the building afloat, yes?"

Metal cabinets and stoves and all that sort of thing – even a gryphon – was quite light in comparison to a complete, full earth-borne building. It wouldn't be unreasonable for them to need to use two running continuously. The house was probably slipping down as they spoke, but the generators, working overtime, were just continuously building up new clouds underneath, which meant that all the building was doing was falling through a cloud into another cloud in perpetuity.

"What… what things?" Ember muttered, turning and twisting his head. Right there, at the bottom, were two machines obscured by the fog. They were incredibly hard to see, and only if one were looking rather closely, and for a long time, would they be able to spot them. But it seemed the gryphon didn't have any trouble. "When did you see those? I can barely see them myself!"

"I suppose you could say that I have…eagle eyes?" Cookie laughed, pointing at her face.

"No. Don't go there!"

"I am… sorry. I enjoy… ah… language play very much. It is amusing."

"But we can't just turn them off, the building's just gonna fall and get wrecked and wreck crap!"

"Yes, but perhaps it is also the… method of propulsion?" Cookie pointed again. The exhaust vents of the two machines, each about the size of a wood chipper, were blowing hot, stinky air out the side. Ember could see it clearly – the clouds that sloughed off the base flew away from an invisible whirlwind, and both vents were pointed away from the direction the house was moving.

"Yeah… yeah! That's right. That's gotta be it! Say, you're a pretty… uh…"

"Smart cookie?" Cookie giggled.

"No. No. Stop that, I said!" Ember looked at Cookie with a frown.

This time it was Cookie who pushed Ember out of the way. Or, to be precise, it was a pull – she had gripped him by the back of the neck and yanked him up against her body, as she panned effortlessly away, the extra weight not affecting her at all.

Another rock narrowly missed him by inches.

"Ack! Get… what?" Ember sputtered, face full of down.

Like a paper airplane, Cookie threw Ember out of her grasp, the boost allowing him to slip back into a glide as easy as that.

Brilliant Cut screamed again.

"I do not think she enjoys losing those stones," Cookie observed.

"Yeah, no kidding. Hey, next time warn a guy when you're about to do that, alright?"

"I am sorry, there was no time to do so."

"Whatever! Anyway. That's what we're gonna do. They obviously don't wanna come out and play, so they're not gonna be able to steer. So we're gonna get down there and push those two to face each other, and maybe we can get that building to stand still, yeah?"

"I might propose…"

"Yeah?"

"Do you know of gryphon country? It is a beautiful place, where I am from originally, of course, and it is quite different from these lands of clouds-"

"Will you stop telling stories and just get to the point?"

"Oh, of course! Ah, we have magnificent mountains. Floating mountains. Our sky cities are made of stone and metal. Magic keeps it afloat."

"Really?" Ember asked, finally distracted.

"Yes. It is rather bleak, from the pictures I have seen. But we are a species made for rocks. Everything is rock. We handle it, we use it."

"What are you saying?"

"I am saying that I have never attempted it before, but I do not believe the pebbles they are firing at us will hurt me. I would offer to provide distraction while you re-orient the generators, yes? And at the same time I am going to attempt to catch the rocks they are firing at us, because the screaming is making my ears hurt."

Ember smacked his lips. He couldn't find any fault in that. Normally, he wouldn't really suggest anypony throw themselves into harm's way just for the sake of it, but… this was a gryphon, wasn't it? That had to stand for something.

"Okay," Ember agreed, recklessly. "Just don't get hurt, alright? If you do, just yell, I'll back off."

"Agreed," Cookie said, calmly, swooping in.





It had taken a bit of preparation, and a bit of finagling, but everything was ready. Slight adjustments were required to overcome two foreseeable issues.

One was that he wasn't completely sure that that brown pony was the true culprit. There was no evidence outside of what was an educated guess at most, and some confirmation was required before he went around knocking ponies out.

The second problem was the crowd.

Egg placed the bitbag in Champagne's hoof.

"You know what to do?" Egg asked again.

"Yes. I've had drama lessons. I should be able to act… accordingly." Champagne nodded. She slung the bitbag around her neck, and grabbed the ice cream cone that Egg had also been holding for her.

Finally, he tucked the cloth bandage behind the strap of the bitbag, and all was ready.

"And… thanks for helping." Egg nodded in appreciation.

"My pleasure, sir." Champagne smiled back, genuinely. This was true blue police work, after all! It was rather exciting, indeed.

She carried the cone, carefully, dancing on three legs between a large crowd, until she reached the pony in brown. Up close, she noticed he wasn't that much of a stallion after all. He was quite young, in fact, maybe around Ember's age, if she had to guess. What a young citizen like him was doing with actions like this… she almost felt sick.

So, it was no trouble at all for her to trip and spill the ice cream right onto his back.

"What the b-" he started, spinning around and raising his leg.

Shaggy mane. Unwashed face. Didn't look like he got much sleep, either. He looked like a pony who didn't care much for outward appearances. He looked rather rough, indeed.

"I'm sorry!" cried Champagne, pulling the cloth out from her strap. She made to move in with it, holding it toward the young punk's back. "Please, if you would just let me…"

"Piss off," the punk growled, snatching the cloth right out of her hooves. He wiped himself up, not really interested in having other ponies touch him.

"Listen, I am… I am ever so sorry," Champagne begged, now offering the bag of bits. "Please, take this as compensation…"

The punk looked at the bag, the cloth hanging from his hooves as he forgot all about it.

"Y' for real?" he asked, smirking suddenly.

"Yes, of course. It is only right," Champagne bowed in forgiveness as well.

The teen snorted. "Can't believe you rich folk. Pay for everythin' with bits. As if that just solved…"

He trailed off, walking away, but the deed was done, and he had taken the bag anyway, despite his complaints. Champagne straightened up again, looking around. Well, since she was already here, and her role was over… perhaps she could give the wreckage just a quick look.

But the punk continued to mutter, as he got away from that crazy rich kid as fast as possible, shaking the bag around with the cloth under it. It jingled heartily. Nice. He looked back up. It was time for him to go, anyway. Maybe he'd come back tomorrow, just to check out the scene a bit more. Maybe he'd-

"Unf," he uttered, running right into a pony who had definitely stepped into his path on purpose. What the heck was going on today?

"Excuse me," Egg said, smiling down at him, casting a shadow on his face.

"What the hell do you want?"

"I know what you did." Egg jerked his head toward the wreck of the building.

His actions told him everything else he needed to know. The kid bolted in an instant. He ran, kicking up tufts and dust as he went. Egg stood there quite calmly amongst the ponies who were gasping and watching the other one run off as if his tail were being chewed on by crabs.

Egg pulled a pebble out from an old green sack. Reeling back, he gave it a generous toss. It sailed through the air and struck the young punk on the back of the head.

"Pardon me," he whispered a soft apology to the ones standing around him.

Ink filled the air in a huge cloud of powder as the bag exploded. Everyone around him jumped back in shock and sudden fright, and a few had flecks of red marring them, but there was nothing that wouldn't wash out.

The punk was caught in the middle of a storm of colour, coughing as it got into his nose and eyes and mouth. His hoof flew up to his face, covering it with the little innocent piece of bandage that Champagne had left for him.

It smelt funny.

"Wh…" he said, his eyelids forcing themselves shut. He stumbled on his weakening legs, and in a magnificent pirouette, he spun around twice before crashing to the floor like a marionette with severed strings.

And there was absolutely no emotion whatsoever on Egg's face as he walked up slowly, and prodded the punk in the face with his hoof.

From behind, Champagne drew up, cantering from the remains of the bakery.

"Thir!" she cried, holding something shiny in her teeth.

"No time. We have to get out of here." Egg rushed her along. "Tell me back at the base. We have to fly this fellow back there before he stirs. Think you can help me carry?"

Champagne nodded, heart fluttering. This was exactly what she had dreamed it would be like. She wondered if the Canterlot Police, the Royal Equestrian Guard, the Fillydelphia Rangers… if they all felt the way she did right now.

It was all rather exciting, indeed.





It was all rather touch and go for a moment there, but he'd finally pushed the two generators into place, watching the shop come to a halt. The clouds being produced were still being produced, so the building wasn't currently plummeting to many random ponies' certain dooms.

All the while he hadn't heard a single chirp from Cookie. One of the only two sounds was the twang of the gun being fired, increasing in frequency as time went on. The other one was the constant cheers of Brilliant Cut as Cookie caught yet another precious bullet.

It hadn't hurt her at all. Gryphon claws were built by the marvel of evolution to be able to stand up to the toughness of metal, let alone pathetic rock, and the leathery pads on her hands weren't even scratched as she yanked stone after stone from the sky.

She dumped them all into the back of the cart.

The taxi driver had long since given up trying to understand what was going on and was only sticking around with the promise of getting gems as payment for this whole tedious mess.

The robbers had since retreated, pulling back into the safety of the shop.

"Oh, these are just waste minerals!" Brilliant Cut lamented, pushing the bunch of rocks left and right across the floor of the cart. "They must have got it out of the bins!"

"Why… why are you so unhappy then?" Ember yelled back. "Isn't it good they weren't throwing your stock all over?"

"Oh… yeah!" Cut lightened up in an instant. "Ha ha."

Ember looked concerned.

"Ah, now that the shop has stopped… what should we do now?" Cookie asked.

The four of them – driver included – were about a hundred meters away from the shop. Both were standing still in air, which allowed for better communication with the shopkeeper.

The generators still chugged away, and the four of them bobbed up and down as they flapped their wings, or sat in a cart, whichever applied.

"Okay, okay!" Ember clapped his hooves together. "Step one is done. Step two is… I dunno. We go in and bust heads, right?"

"Why are you looking at me?" Cookie shrugged, at a loss. "You are the one who is part of this group who helps others, yes?"

"Yeah… yeah!" Ember yelled, getting pumped. "I'm in charge, that's right!"

"Yeah!" agreed Cut, pumping her leg in the air. "Now go get my store back!"

"O…kay." Ember nodded. This Cut pony was odd. "Um… so, we go in, kick their asses and then… return the stolen goods. Right? Right?"

"I do not know, Mister Emberkite. Surely this is your job, yes?" Cookie smiled. "Are you not the only one going… in?"

That hadn't really occurred to the young stallion. For some reason everything that had happened so far had just seemed right. Just for a moment there, he had forgotten that Cookie was another 'client', so to speak.

"Yeah. Yeah," Ember said, once again, but this time with a little bit less enthusiasm. "Right… I guess I'm gonna go in then."

A great noise, a scraping of rock against wood, came from the shop. A large, dark, looming beast appeared at the door as the three pegasi pushed the large mineral vein to bar entry.

It blocked the only way in.

"Oh Celestia, the floors!" Cut screeched. "They… they…"

"What… is that?" Ember pointed to the behemoth. "Why do you have a mountain in your shop?"

"It's not a mountain! There's some nice shiny bismuth in there, alright? Oh Celestia, some nice shiny rainbow bismuth." Her breath shuddered. "And I was supposed to break apart the rock and get all the nice shiny rainbow bismuth out. Just… now they've gone and used it to block the entrance!"

"Why doesn't your store have any windows?" Cookie asked.

"It's… It's Fillydelphian architecture. We squeeze our buildings in a row, alright? Also, we don't want windows so that thieves won't break in!"

"Right. I'm going home," Ember said.

"No! No! Please! More gems. I'll give you more gems. More gems for all! Just please. Please help me."

Ember sighed, looking at the fortress. No windows, the door's blocked…

"Could we break down a wall or go through the floor or som-"

"Noooo! My boss would kill me! I'd never pay off the damages! Just… get through the door!"

"Okay, okay, sheesh! Celestia and Luna, we'll just push the stone ba-"

"Noooooo! The floors!"

"Lady, I'm going to hit you."

"Please," Cookie cut in, laying a hand on Ember's raised leg. "No violence."

Ember looked down at the mass of claws resting on his limb. Then he looked back up.

"Cookie. How hard did you say your claws were again?"

"Well, our talons were made to claw into stone, so I have read, so… I suppose… but this would be the first time I've attempted to break a rock at all, yes?" Cookie replied, flexing her hand muscles.

Ember turned to Brilliant Cut. "You said you were supposed to break that thing down. Blind pony could see you ain't as strong as a gryphon. How do you do it?"

"Hammer and chisel, normally. Hammers are these things Earth ponies use, you see. They're like-"

Ember pushed his hoof into Cut's face. He didn't need this distraction now. His brain was working overtime. He was… thinking of things. He was… planning things. Dear Celestia, was this what it felt like?

"Lady, how would you break that thing down in one blow?" Ember pointed at the rock.

"One blow? No. That's stupid. You're stupid." Brilliant Cut folded her legs. "There's no way. You can't break that entire thing up unless you had…"

She held up her hoof, eyebrows raising in turn. "No, wait. Yes. There's a way. Right. There's a way. But you'd need heat. An incredible amount of heat. Like… a few thousand degrees. and then you'd have to hit it in the exact spot, and if it's weak enough, the whole vein of bismuth inside should essentially shatter."

And then she folded her legs again. "But that's stupid. You're stupid. How are you going to get a torch up here? And you think we have like hours to spend sitting around heating that thing up while those robbers just wait patiently inside? And it's nearly five! Overtimmmeeee!"

"Don’t worry," Ember said, haughtily, staring upward. "I have a plan."


Continued in Part 3