Once they landed in Valhalla, the crew got out of their chairs and all of them stretched, sore from having sat down for several hours in hard and uncomfortable chairs. When the door at the back creaked open, they all slowly walked out and began to look around. To their surprise, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Most of them thought that there would be more soldiers lying in wait, but not even a single insect could be seen.
"Well, gang..." Washington said, looking around. "Time to fan out and look for clues."
"Got any snacks to bribe me to do any work?" Grif asked impishly, growing very hungry from not having eaten for a while.
"You only get one if I need to use you as a decoy," Wash countered sarcastically.
"Hey, Sarge! Wanna come see what we did with the place?" Doc asked.
"I think you'll really like what Doc and I have done," Donut added.
"You better have not done anything too bad to the place..." Sarge murmured, walking behind the strange pair of beings he reluctantly called men. "Come on, Simmons. I'll need your help cleaning up anything they've ruined."
"Yes, sir!" Simmons nodded, running after him. "Come on, Grif. We'll see if we can find you some food."
"Okay, but you better not make me try to clean!" Grif argued, but then followed him after a few seconds, realizing that there wasn't much to do there anyways.
"Wash, you take Tucker and Sister to Blue base and look around there."
"I don't want to be stuck with her," Wash grunted.
"Feelings mutual, piggy," Sister coughed into her fist.
"Just go. Red team are going off to do their own thing and somebody needs to check up on the other base."
"Fine. Come on, Tucker. Come on, psycho," Tucker murmured the last part, setting a solid pace for the other base.
Caboose then looked to the Red base. Then to the Blue one. With a shrug, he started after Wash and the others, knowing he should probably try to help.
"Hey, Caboose," Carolina said, holding onto his arm as the others ran ahead.
"Yes?" he asked merrily as he spun around to see her.
"Listen, I've been thinking over what you said last night. I know you said you want to be my friend, but I'm just wondering... After what I put you and the others through... After what I did to you..."
"What did you do to me?"
"I killed you."
"You killed me?" Caboose asked in a befuddled manner. "But I'm standing right here..."
"I... know. And what's-her-name filled me in on that when I was in her castle. I killed you and the others revived you with some book. Still not sure if I can believe that, but what I can believe is that I willingly went out of my way to hurt you and the others."
"Well, I'm here now, and that's all that matters!" Caboose chimed.
"Still. I just wanted to say.. I'm sorry, okay? I wasn't in a right state of mind. I might never be again for all I know. But what I do know is that I don't want to be that person anymore. I want to change. But I think I'll need some help. And honestly... even though you might not be the smartest one in the bunch, I think you're the one that would have the best chance of helping me... So..." Carolina began, and held up her hand again. "Do you still want to be my friend and try to help me change?"
"I would love to!" Caboose said, nodding happily as he spread his arms wide.
Though she wasn't used to it and would have much preferred a hand shake, she spread her arms and gave an awkward and tight hug to her new dim-witted friend.
"Now go on and catch up with Wash and the others," she said, gently pushing Caboose away and out of the hug.
"Okay!" Caboose called out, instantly sprinting after the others.
Carolina let out a hefty sigh as Wash and the three others vanished towards the Blue base.
"He kind of grows on you, doesn't he?" Church asked, flickering into life next to Carolina.
"A little bit, sure. Not sure if I can take him in large doses, but I think any dose other than nothing is a good start..."
The two remained silent for a few moments.
"I guess we should go look around the areas outside of the bases," Carolina said finally, beginning to walk away.
"Carolina, wait..."
"What?"
"...He'd be proud of you," he replied quietly.
"Thanks," she said quietly, looking down at the ground.
"You know, I know a thing or to about loss. While I'm probably not a good candidate for being a nice friend, I think I'll be able to help you move on with your past without forgetting the past. Memory is kind of my thing."
"I might just take you up on that at some point," she grunted, then looked in the distance and saw a Pelican crash. "I actually came here when I was looking for a way to get into the unit. It was up at that crashed ship where the unit flickered back into life temporarily. Might be a good spot to look for a clue."
"As good as any," Church agreed, then disappeared into her armor. Instantly, he flickered back on. "Wait, you said that the unit came back to life at the Pelican?"
"Yeah..." Carolina trailed off, then looked to him. Without him having to tell her, she quickly jogged to the Blue base and found Wash, who still had the unit on his hip. "Wash, we need the Epsilon Unit."
"Why? What happened?" Wash asked as he handed it to her.
"Nothing, we just have to test something out," she said. Grabbing the unit and attaching it to her armor, she jogged all the way to the Pelican and took the device off of her hip.
"What did you do to turn it on?" Church asked as Carolina placed it on the rubble next to the crashed ship.
"Nothing. It just started working again out of nowhere..." she said quietly, staring at the unit.
They both stood there, watching the unit in silence for several minutes, patiently waiting for something to happen. Neither of them knew what good doing this was.
"Ch-Ch-Church?" came a staticy voice from the unit. "Is that you?"
"It's good to hear from you, Twi," he sighed. "Listen, I'll try to keep this short because I'm not sure how this thing even turned on, so I'm not sure how long it'll stay up."
"Bow-chicka-bow-wow!" Tucker screamed from the base.
"Glad to hear y-you're all right," Twilight said with a small giggle.
"Maybe not completely..."
"What do you me-ean?"
"Discord tried to kill us."
There was a pause.
"What?" she asked with a gasp.
"Discord went into the mind of the Director and it looks like he is influencing him to do things."
"But Discord doesn't kill ponies..."
"I know, but he sure as fuck knocks out soldiers that are out to get us for just long enough for us to walk into a room full of them when they wake up," Church grumbled.
"This isn't good. I knew he was unpredictable, but I never would have expected this. Somepony with the power of Discord by himself isn't a good thing to be up against. But somepony with the power of Discord and with the will and drive to try and kill others..." she trailed off. "How close are you to catching up with him?"
"We're at a standstill. We keep finding dead ends. Kind of just decided to fill you in and let you know we're all okay while we wait for the others to search the base."
"I'll be sure to tell the others you're all alive and well," she promised.
"Thanks," he said quietly.
There was another pause.
"I assume you're also calling to check up on Tex and the other fragments?" Twilight asked, and Church could practically feel the know-it-all smile on her muzzle.
"Yeah," he replied.
"They're doing fine. O'Malley and Gary have actually been helping out a bit with the whole 'tear in the sky' situation."
"Really?" Church asked skeptically
"Yup. What with those to wandering around the streets of Ponyville, everypony is willingly staying indoors and avoiding asking questions," she said with a humorous chuckle. "Other than that, Tex and Delta are helping the Princesses and the other girls think of a suitable explanation for the strange anomaly and why we were so quick to cover it up." With a pause, Twilight let out a cough. "Is Carolina there?"
"Right here," Carolina murmured.
"...How are you?" she asked hesitantly.
"Fine, thanks for asking," Carolina grunted as she looked to Church. "Listen, you should probably wrap this up. I'm otherwise fine with you guys having a little chat, but we really need to find the Director."
"I'll leave you to it, then," Twilight said as the unit shut off, clearly not overly trustworthy of the one person who has hurt her friends more than Discord ever did.
"Don't worry. When we get back, we'll explain that you're on out side."
"Normally I'd be angry at you for hogging all the capable fighters, but you needed another one to even up the odds" a voice came from behind them, and by the way the phrase was said, they both knew Sarge was standing behind them.
"What are you talking about?" Church grunted.
"I mean, you guys have Washington, Tucker, Caboose, and those two girls," Sarge said, nodding towards the base.
"What about me?" he asked.
"What with you not being able to hold a weapon, you don't exactly count."
"So what? You have Grif, Simmons and Donut? That's five versus four."
"Ah, but you're forgetting someone."
"What, did you manage to convince Doc to join his... what are Donut and him, anyways? Are they... y'know..." Church coughed.
"I don't know. Sort of a don't ask, and shut-them-up-when-they-try-to-tell sort of situation going on there... And no on us recruiting Doc. He wishes he could be so lucky," Sarge chuckled.
"Then who are you..." Church began, but stopped when Sarhe stepped to the side, revealing another person wearing brown soldier standing behind him.
Only he wasn't so much a man as he was a robot.
"Buenos días, puta..."