//------------------------------// // Chapter 21: Ironwing // Story: Ungrounded // by Lucien Chance //------------------------------// Clouds of smoke drifted lazily up to the ceilings of the room. The afternoon light shone directly through the open windows of the house, illuminating the many works of art and statues that had been placed throughout the halls with care. The floors of the place glinted with the sunlight, threatening to shine in the eyes of the owner of the house. Ironwing chuckled as the smoke clouds he blew disappeared through the ceiling of the cloud house. But it wouldn't be fair to call it just a house. Where he lived deserved the title of mansion, even by the standards of extravagant pegasi houses. He was reclining on a sofa, colored stormy gray to match the semi-solid walls of the place he owned. His head had been aching with stress, so he had taken a break from work to have a smoke and lay down. It wasn't very often that he got good, restful sleep, due to the amount of managing work he had to keep up with. It was all very difficult at times, but the benefits far outweighed the hardships. The tip of his cigar smoldered, approaching the moment he would be forced to put it out. He chuckled once. It wouldn't be terribly difficult for him to just toss it through the clouds to the ground below. He propped himself up with an elbow and a groan, his slightly bloodshot eyes scanning the room. Anti-climatically finding absolutely nothing wrong, he got up and walked down the hallway to go deeper into the household. He passed by statues, paintings of his forefathers, and old suits of armor fitted for ponies. He had never liked those, but only kept them because they frightened guests even more then they did him. He passed by a mirror and took a glance into its silvery depths. Equally silver irises met his gaze. His eyes flicked over his form, down from the weathered bronze goggles on his head, past the once-black head feathers that were now gray, beyond the tan leather jacket and the brown lion body underneath. He unfurled a graying wing and fixed some bent feathers with a quick flap. The motion caused a small clinking noise to emit from his jacket's pocket. He grimaced, feeling the slight weight of the item he carried. It wasn't much of a physical burden, but the mental one was always present in his thoughts. He tore his eyes from the looking-glass and continued down the hallway. Smaller windows lined up neatly with the suits of armor, keeping the corridor illuminated. Unlit torches hung in sconces above the suits, ready to be lit at sundown. Electricity was still not in common circulation, and Ironwing was always a bit old-fashioned, so he decided to keep firelight in favor of electric. He reached the end of the hall, stopped by a great cloudstone door. With a small amount of effort, he tugged it open. Cloudstone was a great resource to have for solid surfaces and he was glad he had gone through with developing the process, but sometimes he just wished it didn't weigh as much. Doors made strictly of unrefined clouds were so much lighter and let more sun through than cloudstone. He passed into the next room, this one completely devoid of windows. It was completely dark, save for the small sliver of light that passed through the crack in the door and the tiny amount of illumination that the tip of his still-burning cigar let off. With a pace hastened by growing nerves, he removed the cigar from his mouth and pressed it to a spot on the wall. There was a spark as the cigar went out and something else lit up. A trail of fire worked its way down the wall and illuminated his way through the room. He breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't publicly known, in fact it was known by only one other being, that he happened to be diagnosed with achluophobia, a pathological fear of the darkness, and what lurks inside of it. He had hoped that by living in a spacious house in the brightest city in the country that he would be able to forget about the fear. Naturally, it hadn't worked out, so he decided that if he constantly exposed himself to it, he would be able to get over it. He thought it might be working but he wasn't completely sure. It wasn't like he was a doctor or anything. He made his way through the mostly empty room, an involuntary shiver running down his spine caused by the lack of illumination. The flames offered to light his way, but they didn't dispel the shadows that remained in the corners of the ceilings. He crossed the floor quickly, making way directly for a bookshelf that covered the entire back wall. He lifted a claw and pulled on a book. The section of shelf he was standing on rotated 180 degrees, and he was suddenly ushered into a new area completely. In there, the only source of illumination was a magnified lantern to shine a concentrated light around. The walls were made of stormy-gray unrefined clouds, and the only was forward was deeper into the cloud. He started to walk, thinking about his entrance. The "book-switch" was a little cliché, but he was a bit old-fashioned. He had no doubts it was overdone and tacky, but who would know but him? It's not like he made the room into a deathtrap or anything. At least he thought he didn't. He reached the end of the hall and set the lantern at his talons and paws. He wouldn't need it anymore. A heavy cloudstone door blocked his way. An indent was in place on the front of it, and he lifted his right claw to place it there. His claw fit perfectly, of course, and he twisted to the left, activating gears within the walls. The door swung open slowly, revealing a spacious, electrically-lit chamber. Several jump-suited pegasus ponies and assorted griffins paused in their work to look at him. The ones closest saluted, while the ones further away just went back to work. The sound of hammers banging on metal echoed in the area, and the smells of sawdust and ash filled the nostrils of all present. In a futile attempt to filter the bad air, the workers wore bandannas over their muzzles or beaks. Ironwing swiftly walked over to the center of the chamber, looking for a specific pony. "Steam Gauge, where are you?!" he called to the room. All the workers stopped immediately upon hearing their boss' voice. The sound of papers rustling came from nearby. Then, a small pegasus bolted in front of Ironwing with a hoof snapped in a salute. "Right here, uh, sir," the meek pegasus said, nervously fixing his wire-rimmed glasses. "Are we on schedule?" Ironwing asked, eyes ahead as he began walking around the room. "To the best of my knowledge, yes, but-" "There is a 'but'?" Ironwing chuckled. "How can there be a 'but'? I asked a yes or no question." Ironwing's eyebrows narrowed. "But the metal shaping is requiring much more energy than we had anticipated. We've had to use nearly double the amount of bottles of Liquid Magic than we had originally anticipated. And we are starting to get worried that it will attract unwanted attention." He said the last part in a harsh whisper. "Listen to me, Steam Gauge," he grabbed the pony by the crown of his head and spun his head to look him directly in the eyes. "I hired you because you were right for the job, correct? You said so yourself." The pony nodded, his head bobbing so quickly it seemed as if it would fall off. "Which means that, now, you need to do your job, and keep us on schedule!" The pony nodded wildly and scrambled backward quickly, hooves kicking up little puffs of clouds as he turned tail and ran to get back to work. Ironwing watched as he began pointing and yelling at a few workers hammering out metal plates to hurry up. Ironwing coughed once and ran a claw through his head feathers, smoothing the ones that had moved out of place. He breathed out slowly, attempting to curb his growing sense of paranoia. He had a feeling that something was off. He couldn't quite put his talon on it, but there was something out of place in his workshop. He turned around and looked several of the forges that sat in the corners of the room. Each sat on solid cloudstone and flared with heat, painting the blast-shielded faces of the workers a bright orange. He gazed into the shadows behind them and noticed something. A faint glow standing out from the rest of the darkness. He walked towards it, slightly alarmed. As he got closer, he began to make the shape out more clearer. It was a spade, glowing a very faint green. It offset the storm clouds that made up the uneven face of the wall that it was above. The thing was sideways, the tip pointing off to the left. Ironwing's blood began to pump in a sort of nervous excitement. He recognized that symbol, and he knew exactly what it meant. He was going to meet with the one who had made his life possible. He looked to the left and saw a cloudstone door inset in a bulge in the cloud wall. Heart beating quickly, he walked to the door and opened it after making sure no one was looking. Light assailed his eyes as he tried to adjust to the sudden change in setting. It was strange that he hadn't gotten used to it at that point, given the amount of times that he's opened that door, wherever it was located. He recalled a time once where he opened it in the middle of a dinner party. Frightened the guests in an exceptional way. The light dimmed and he took a look around. It was the same room as it had been each time, whitewash walls, vertical windows with harsh light coming through them, colored banners with strange symbols on them hanging from the ceiling, and the ominous ebony meeting table in the center. A top-hatted, vested blue stallion stood with his back to Ironwing, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere outside the window, though Ironwing couldn't see past the light. "Sandy!" Ironwing called, claws spread out while standing on his hind legs. The blue colt turned around, a small smile on his face. "Hello, Iron, it's been some time." Ironwing started to cross the room. "It's been a while, hasn't it?" he asked while draping an arm over the pony's back. "What are you looking at?" he asked, trying to peer into the light. "I can't see anything at all." Sandcroft chuckled, turning his head to look Ironwing in the eyes. "Many can't see through the light, most never do." His gaze turned away from Iron and went back to the window. He sighed, almost wistfully. "I always was a lucky one..." he trailed off. His eyes flicked to the ground briefly and then he stepped backward, out of Ironwing's friendly embrace. "But enough of that, sit down." He waved a hoof to the table that sat before them. "Of course, of course." Ironwing sat at one end of the table, as he always did. Sandcroft crossed to the opposite end and did the same. "So what is the news, my friend? Must be something big if you are coming to visit." "It is a bit of a pressing matter." His hoof disappeared under the table briefly, then returned holding a folder. "Have a look," he said, sliding the object across the smooth surface of the table. Ironwing stopped it with a talon and picked it up. As he leafed through the contents, his right eyebrow elevated slowly. "I think your eyebrow is trying to escape," Sandcroft remarked. Ironwing attempted to look up at his own eyebrows for a moment before a smile took over his face. "Aha, clever as always I see, Sandy." His brows narrowed and his gaze hardened. "But this information, it concerns me. Bronze, captured? What exactly happened?" Sandcroft stood up and began to pace around the room. "Bronze got too cocky. She believed she was ready to fight Twilight Sparkle, for reasons she did not fully understand. And just as it happened before in the past, she did not complete her research before diving in, head first," he said ominously. His pacing stopped. "But it doesn't matter now. That's all in the past, this is what's happening now." He took a few steps toward Ironwing and put a cold hoof on his shoulder. "You were always my favorite, between the three of you. And now she has done something that put our entire goal at risk, even if she didn't realize it at the time." Ironwing looked up at the pony, a look of half curiosity, half agitation. "Sandy, you've changed, what has happened?" His question was met with a small false smile. "Bronze has taken steps to make sure that I am not 'out of the picture' of the princesses and the magician. Not to mention that now they are suspicious of you now. They are months ahead of schedule, and that is not good." There was a hard edge to his voice, something that was definitely not present the last time Ironwing had met with him. "And so what am I supposed to do about it?" he asked, feeling a bit risky. He got the feeling that he was treading on thin ice, and he wanted to make sure he didn't set off the blue stallion. Sandcroft stopped and took a breath. He set his hat on the table and smoothed his mane back with a hoof. "I want you to get your lawyers and tie up every single loose end in Skyline Corporation. It needs to be waterproof; the princesses cannot pin you in the social game. But that also means that you need to take measures to make sure that our project is not leaked by some loose-lipped pony or griffon. Hire a few unicorns if you have to, just make sure that their memories are wiped of this place. Ironwing opened his mouth to cut him off, but Sandcroft beat him to it. "Don't say anything, you'll have to complete it on your own, we will take no chances." He walked back over to the window. "Gather your 'militia,' Iron, their services will be needed as well. As I said, we will take no chances. Now leave, and make sure your assets are in order by the first of April." Ironwing felt the tug of an invisible force on the back of his jacket, and he was tugged toward the door. Not a sound was emitted from his beak as the exit opened and he was thrown out. The last thing he saw before the doors closed was the silhouette of the stallion gazing out the same window as before.