//------------------------------//
// Episode 4-2 :: Scrambled 
// Story: Romancing the Clouds 
// by KitsuneRisu 
//------------------------------//


 



12:15 AM


“Are you prepared?”

“Yes, Miss Cookie,” Champagne whispered, the strains of nervousness edging into the fringes of her voice.

“Do not worry,” The gentle gryphon assured. “It will be fine, yes? We will do as Mister Egg has advised.”

“Y-yes. Of course.” Champagne nodded, fiddling with her bag.

Around her neck was a small slingbag. She had brought it from her home, and it was decorated with little drawings of a popular mascot character that was currently sweeping Cloudsdale’s pop culture scene.

It currently held a variety of objects that Egg had given her to take care of, things that might be useful in a pinch.

Champagne clutched the bag closer to her chest.

“Do you remember what we are to do?” Cookie asked Champagne.

“Yes, Miss Cookie. But why did Mister Egg have to go with Emberkite?” she asked with faint hesitation.

“Because Mister Egg is the only one who can control Ember, little Champagne. They need to make noise. Enough noise. But Ember cannot be allowed to get carried away. They must not pass the doors behind which lie the Professor, yes? So to draw her into our path. Neither I nor you would be able to tether Emberkite as well as Mister Egg can.”

“I guess,” Champagne mumbled. “Do you think it’s gonna work?”

“It is a sound idea. But we must clear our side of the building, and this is where those little knockout bags of Egg’s shall come in handy, yes?” Cookie poked the mascot-ridden satchel.

“Well, we’ll try using them then!” Champagne declared.

“And remember to be flexible. As the scenario changes so must our actions. Draw their attention. They will surely attack me on sight, but you will be able to distract them enough to give me entry, yes? And I insist that we disable without unnecessary harm.”

“Yes, Miss Cookie. But… how are we going to get the bags near their faces?”

“Well,” answered the gryphon, taking one of Egg’s traditional weapons from Champagne. Opening it, she retrieved a small baked treat that she had brought along for a snack and dropped it into the bag.

“There’s one thing I always noticed, as a baker.” Cookie smiled. “Ponies usually can’t resist taking a sniff of something delicious.”


- - -


No one was supposed to knock at this time of the night. In fact, according to her information, the next scheduled pickup was tomorrow. But then again, communication wasn’t one of the organization’s strong suits, and perhaps there had been a slight scheduling error.

Despite that, it would be a rather ill-advised thing to not open the door. After all, it could just simply be a wayward student, just like that young fellow from yesterday, but it might be Unity business.

The young mare scratched at the floor. This is why she hated door duty. You had to make choices and decisions and all that. The ones on the inside had the cushy jobs. Well, at least it would be her turn soon.

Just a few hours more, and she’d be able to switch with one of the guys up front at the main entrance, and nothing ever happened there.

Well, better get to it, then.

Her hoof froze a mere moment away from yanking the door open by a shrill call off in the distance. It sounded like a sort of bird, or bird-like creature, or something of the sort. Whatever it was, it drew a chill down her back, although she could not quite place the reason why.

 The young lady who stood guard in the hallway behind the door thought back to when she was told, as a young child, that the screech of an eagle during the rising of the full moon was a portent of bad things to come.

Or was it supposed to be an owl?

It sounded like an eagle, though.

Nerves. Just nerves.

She flung the door open and looked down suddenly, the object of her focus a little bit lower than where she had originally cast her attention. There stood an innocuous-looking young mare, blinking wide-open eyes as she clutched a small pouch to her chest.

“What th- What do you want?”

“Good evening,” the little girl muttered, staring straight at the guard. “Is this where I can find Cloudsdale Unity?”

The guard’s heart skipped a beat as her expression changed from one of annoyance to one of confusion.

“Hey, w-what? Who are you?” she sputtered out, looking back over her shoulder into the darkness behind her. She turned down again, facing the little, bubbly girl with the braided mane.

“Can we speak?” she asked, giving a small, curt smile. But past that, there was a look of intent deep within, somewhere past her furrowed brow and nervous eyes.

“Kid, are you insane?” the guard growled, long, black strands of her mane falling past her eyes.

She reached out, grabbing the young girl by the shoulders and pulled her roughly through the door. A quick look outside helped reassure her that no one else was following before she slammed the door shut.

She didn’t notice the young girl taking a few quick looks of her own.

“I don’t know who you are, or what you think you’re doing here, but you just made a bi-”

The guard halted. 

There was something wrong with this kid. Something terribly wrong. She was a bit too calm. That wasn’t to say that she was the height of non-perturbability, but the way she was just standing there and staring down the hall was quite unnerving. Even more so was how she started to take slow cautious steps forward.

Better stop her. Best not to let her roam around.

The girl stopped by herself, staring up into the guard’s eyes.

Alright. She’s stopping. I guess I can afford to relax a bit. Better go call for backup. Figure out what to do wi-

“Hey, you don’t need to call anyone else,” the girl said. “I just want to have a talk with you, that’s all.”

“Wh- what the hai…” the guard muttered.

Luna! Hold it together, mare! This is just some young kid who’s probably here on a dare or a challenge or something. But how did she know about Unity? Who could have possibly told h-

“Don’t worry! It doesn’t matter who I am,” the little girl gave her a smile that might have been meant to be reassuring, “or how I know that this is a base. I just want to talk.”

“K-kid,” the guard stammered, “you just caused yourself a lot of trouble. You think we’re gonna let you g-”

“What’s his name?”

“W-what?”

“Your friend. What’s his name?”

“I…” The guard swallowed.

“That’s alright. You don’t have to be afraid. I just want to talk.”

Something snapped.

“Alright, kid, that’s enough!” the guard barked, grabbing her roughly by the mane. “I had enough of your crap! I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but enough is enough!”

The girl yelped, cringing away. That’s right. She can feel pain. She’s just a normal little girl trying to play the fool.

The guard threw the girl deeper down the hallway, placing herself between the child and the door. The girl fell roughly, tumbling on the floorboards, catching her breath.

“Yeah, you wanna be funny? Right. Let’s see you be funny now!” The guard frowned, approaching the girl as menacingly as she could.

But the girl just sat there.

She sat there and regained her composure, slowly getting to her hooves, ignoring her assailant entirely.

There came a soft click from behind the guard.

She turned, eyes pulled open as far as she could. In the murky depths of the darkened hallway, she could see nothing but shades and shadows. But everything there was as she left it. Just an empty corridor and a door shut tightly.

She heard her own breathing rise noisily in her skull as she turned away, slowly, back to the child, back to the girl, nothing but the soft glow of a distant lamp keeping her silhouette from disappearing completely into the black.

“Kid,” the guard growled, using anger to displace that threatening rush of fear. “Who are you?”

“My name is not important,” the child responded as she slowly reached up with a hoof to remove that small pouch from around her neck.

“Hey! Stop! What are you doing?” The guard yelled, rushing forward.

A swift kick to a leg sent the child sprawling back down to the ground, and the small pouch found itself in the guard’s secure grasp.

This time, the young girl stayed down, her head cast to the floor. Her braided mane fell across her face, completely preventing the last remnants of light from reaching it.

“C-crap…” The guard scowled, raising her voice to call down the corridor. “Hey! Harrow! Get over here!”

It took half a minute for him to arrive, each second metering out two beats from her heart.

“What the hail do you want, Summer?” the stallion grumbled, walking cautiously down the hall. His head turned to the figure on the ground as he passed near enough to register. “Who the hail’s that?”

“J-just some girl, man. Was outside asking about Unity and stuff. Said she wanted to ‘talk’.”

“Hey, you doin’ alright? You don’t sound too good,” the stallion remarked, keeping an eye on the girl on the floor.

“Yeah. Just… just shaken, man. Tonight’s been weird. This stupid kid’s been tryin’ ta get in my head or something. She’s up to no good, man. Check this out while I interrogate her, alright?”

“What?”

The small bag flew through the air, caught deftly by the stallion.

“The heck’s this?”

“Girl was tryin’ to take something out of it when I whacked her. Check it out. Might be a weapon or something.”

The guard named Summer turned her attention back to the young girl. She walked forward, lowering a hoof on to the ankle of the little figure on the floor. The young mare winced, hissing to fight the sudden, sharp pain.

“Alright, girl. Enough games.” Summer spat. “Who are you, and what are you here for?”

“Dude,” the stallion said from somewhere to her right.

“Speak!” Summer cried, pushing down.

The pony on the floor squeaked again, yet still replied in a way that wasn’t particularly sensible.

“No,” she sputtered over a cough. “Not yet. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“What are you talking about?” Summer responded, ever more agitated.

“Hey, dude. This is… um…” came the other voice off to the side.

“What, Harrow? What?” Summer flicked her head towards her friend in annoyance.

“There’s a cookie in here.”

“What?”

“Um… yeah,” the stallion reaffirmed, sticking his nose into the bag to give it a deeper sniff. “Definitely a cookie.”

“What is this?” Summer yelled again, turning back to the girl.

The little girl held her head up now. She held it up, smiling through the slight pain, smiling directly up at her with a gloss in her eyes that came from absolutely nowhere.

“Soon,” she whispered.

“Damnit! What is wrong with you? Harrow! We gotta knock her off or something! This is just too much manure for one night!”

Summer breathed, her heartbeat rising to her ears again.

“Harrow?”

She turned.

She stared.

Harrow stood there, all four legs to the ground. The bag lay a few spots away, where he dropped it. He turned, misty-eyed, head in fog, mind in blankets. The air around him stirred as he fell, first dropping to his knees as if he were laying down for a rest but then tipping to the side, head roughly smashing against the wall as the rest of him slid down the side of the corridor.

His eyes remained open, staring at Summer’s face, lost in a wakeless delusion.

The little girl on the floor had started to get up.

Summer hadn’t noticed how far back she had stepped.

“Wh- what did you do to him?

“I’m sorry,” the girl said, suddenly, a chipper tone in her voice. She raised herself unsteadily on an injured leg but stood tall and firm, staring up towards Summer.

“What… what is going on here?” Summer said back, wearily.

“I’m sorry for tricking you,” Champagne explained with a guilty smile, “but… we had to. There were only the two of you, right?”

“What?” the guard cried.

She was a rat. A rat in a corner. Frantic. Scared. Things were happening that she didn’t understand. She backed up to the wall, nervous wings twitching, ready to lash out at anything in defense.

Wordlessly, with a lump caught in her dry, itchy throat, she reached for the baseball bat in the corner, hefting it over her head with a wing.

She shot forward, a mere four or five steps, closing the gap, ready to swing. To destroy. The red in her mind glowed brightly as she focused on the face of the young pony, pulling the bat behind her as she…

… as it stopped.

And did not move.

The bat flew out of her grasp, a tight set of claws cracking the wood as they sank into its worn, chipped body.

A set of wings, a large shadow, flashes of sharp ends and pointed tips descended from the ceiling without a single speck of noise as the thing landed in front of her like a silent meteor gliding through space.

It very calmly reached forth with a set of ten sharp knives, digging into her weapon, and pulling it apart at the splinters, tearing through it as a ravenous child tears through a slice of bread.

The feathered monster placed both ends of the bat down on the ground very gently, very politely, and stood to its full height, head nearly brushing the ceiling.

Summer had never met one before this moment. She was always told about them and warned to stay away from them by particularly set-minded parents. She was always given stories and lines about why they ought to be feared and shunned.

She didn’t really understand why.

And perhaps her being here tonight was merely a case of turning left rather than right at a very important juncture in her life, and perhaps it was all the result of never taking the time to get to know one.

But right at this point, there was nothing further from her mind than getting to know the gryphon that stood in front of her, chest puffed out and angry eyes watching her every move.

And then it spoke.

Two simple words to sum up its view of the situation.

‘No violence’, the gryphon had said.

And then everything went dark.


  



3:59 PM


“So, I had two leads, actually. But one of them went dark.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. She supposedly moved away. Dead end. But I chased the other, and she is definitely the one. It was actually rather easy once you gave me enough to work with. Everyone with a doctorate is registered somewhere or other, and she has a rather peculiar name. It was just about narrowing a thousand lists to only a hoof-ful.”

“You’re absolutely sure this is the same pony?”

“Oh, yes,” Survey said, not a shadow of a doubt in his voice.

“So, that’s her name, is it?” Egg asked, sliding the small dossier closer. The information it held was carefully written down on a fresh, white scroll of paper, and a small photo was attached to the top left corner with a paperclip. It was clearly Survey’s work. “Polychromasia?”

His eyes ran down the short report, picking out small snippets of information. But this was merely formality – Survey would want to relay the information himself, and thusly, Egg made the request.

“Tell me about her.”

“Certainly.” Survey nodded proudly. “What we have here on our hooves, sir and lady, is a classic case of your run-of-the-mill old scientist who got absolutely scrambled in the top two inches.”

“A scientist?”

“Let me tell you a curious story. Once upon a time, there was a professor named Polychromasia. She was working on some rather interesting things, but notably, for a number of years she was researching a very specific subject. Two years to be precise. She managed to get funding from a large corporation, and then about eight months ago, her research stops.”

“Why?” Mocha asked, curiously.

“Because nothing ever came of it. As we all know, corporations of whatever sort don’t rather much like paying for things that produce no results. So, eight months ago, she was released from her position, and she went about her merry way.”

“About a year after you first stepped in here, wasn’t it, Egg?” Mocha commented, leaning closer to take a look at the professor herself.

“Yeah,” Egg said, offhandedly. “So where does Miss Polychromasia go?”

“She goes to look for other sources of funding, of course. She makes a big noise about it. Begs other corporations to bring her on board. Claims to be on the verge of a breakthrough. But no one ever picks her up.”

“What about Stackford? Did she ever go through us?”

“No. Which is the weird thing, really, but I guess she must have thought Stackford a bit out of her range. But get this. Two months after she’s released from the school, she suddenly stops. Goes cold. No one ever hears anything again. I can’t find a single document of her having shown up anywhere else on the entire grid that I have access to, which means she kept away from the larger corporations.”

“So, around six months ago.” Egg muttered, staring down at the photo attached to the page.

The photo showed a pony who was remarkably grey. Everything, from her coat to her mane seemed to be devoid of shade, with the barest of blues giving it the timidest of tinges. Over her eyes were strapped a thick pair of dark glasses that seemed to be oddly specific in form – too plain to be worn for vanity and too nondescript to be worn for profession. That left prescription as the logical answer. They must have been medical.

Her slightly sharp features were only countered by the curls in her mane, which might at one point have been a rather pretty bob, but now lay ruined by the fervour at which she went about her work.

The sleepless, dishevelled look.

Egg recognized it well.

But it was her colour – or lack thereof – that was the most striking in its unstriking nature. Altogether, her colours and name gave birth to a rather sinister character overall.

“Beyond the pale,” Mocha muttered.

“Hmm?” Egg hummed.

“In both action and appearance.” Mocha shrugged, eyes darting to Egg’s.

“Hmm,” Egg responded.

“Her name’s a bit of a twister, isn’t it? Funny, that,” Survey continued, tapping the copy of the report that he made for himself. “I wonder if her parents had some sort of vaguely ironic sense of humour, giving her a name like that.”

“It doesn’t sound like a very… normal name,” Mocha said. “You understand what it means?”

“Well, ‘poly’, as you know, means ‘many’, and I’m sure you know the word ‘chromatic’, don’t you?” Survey asked.

“Oh, yes. Of course.” Mocha nodded in recognition. “But that’s not standard Equestrian, is it? What language is that, actually?”

“Oh, I don’t know…” Survey shrugged. “Science?”

“It’s Thebos,” Egg cut in. “She was named ‘Many Colours’ in Thebos.”

“So she’s Skyllan?” Mocha questioned.

“No. I believe not. Arguably, we were all from Skylla once, but I dare say there’s a bit of a problem with the idea of a non-Cloudsdalian fighting for Cloudsdale purity,” Egg debated.

“It’s just a name, eh?” Survey chipped in with a cheeky trill. “Don’t think it’s anything more than that. Sometimes names are just names. Isn’t that right, Eggbeater?”

“Quite so,” Egg responded without responding, cusping his hooves in front of his face. “Anyway. Keep going, please.”

“One month after she disappears, a particular building starts using power. A little building on campus that no one notices because no one goes there.”

“And you think she moved in?”

“No, I know she moved back.” Survey grinned.

“Wait.” Egg placed a hoof flat against the table. “Back?”

“Yes. Guess who her original employer was?”

“The University,” Mocha muttered. “And the lab was…”

“That’s right. It was her old lab. She was moved to the new building a good half year after she joined, and the cloud was condemned shortly after. All her old equipment must still be in there. And that, Egg, is the link between everything.”

“A professor who used to work for the university suddenly gets her funding cut,” Egg repeated everything, sorting it out logically. “She seeks a new source of funding, but disappears before she gets it. Around the same time, gang activity… this Unity group… starts to emerge, and they also move back into the very same labs that the professor used to work at?”

“It sounds like she got tired of begging for money,” Mocha observed. “Maybe she decided to take matters into her own hooves.”

“But why?”

“Desperation, maybe? The need to accomplish something can overtake the mind. Can make you do… things that you would never thought you could or would.” Mocha sighed.

“Sounds familiar,” Survey said, looking straight at Egg.

“So all this is about research? Just… to do research?”

“Well. Here comes the rather confusing part of it all,” Survey said, slowing down a little. “The final piece of information I have for you.”

The stallion expertly swept a document to Mocha and Egg. It was hoof-written, clearly, in penmanship that was not much more than scribbles. It looked like some sort of form. Egg didn’t give it more than a second’s look, but Mocha poured over it, taking in every mangled word.

“I managed to get this from the school. I went myself this time. Felt… too important to send one of the lads for this. It was the only thing they had left – her original application to the school for funding. They wouldn’t let me get the whole thing, but I managed to get a copy of the cover sheet and abstract. It turns out she was researching something called colour prismatism.”

“Colour prismatism?” Mocha interjected suddenly, jerking up in her seat.

“Y- Wait, you know about that?” Survey asked.

“Wait… hold on a minute,” Egg said slowly, holding a hoof up. “What’s this about?”

“Yeah, I… I think so,” Mocha replied to Survey. “I’m sure I’ve heard that term before. I wonder if it’s the same thing.”

“Really.” Survey scratched his head. “Because I had to do a ton of research on it, and even then, I could barely turn anything up. In fact, I reckon this form here is the only instance in the last twenty years where the term is being used in a proper manner. Even the other companies she went to didn’t have much to say.”

“If it’s the same thing I’m thinking of, then it’s absolutely crazy.” Mocha furrowed her brow, rubbing her hair bun. “The whole idea of it is…”

“Would somepony care to explain?” Egg asked, calmly.

Mocha’s hoof moved away from her mane as she spoke.

“Well, this is rather… This is going to sound rather odd, Egg,” Mocha said.

Survey tilted his head. Egg did likewise.

“I get quite a lot of customers here. And I listen. I pay attention. It’s the weird ones who come in at the strangest hours that have funny stories to tell. I have a guy come in once every so often always talking about conspiracies and what have you. Strange experiments. Oddities. I’m sure he’s mentioned this colour prismatism thing to me before.”

“And is it about splitting rainbows?” Survey asked, clarifying. “Although I don’t know anything more than that.”

“Yeah! Yes. Yes it is.”

“Splitting rainbows?” Egg asked. “What’s so mysterious about that? The factories work with that sort of thing, don’t they?”

“No, Egg. Not mixing them together from their separate colours. Splitting them during the arcing phase.”

“Pardon me?”

“You heard me,” Mocha continued. “It’s not.. logical, I know. I really didn’t think it was anything more than just the ramblings of some old crackpot. But what it was, really, was the idea that you could arc individual colours.”

“Wait. That doesn’t make any sense at all. I’m not an expert on rainbows, but isn’t the point of it that you can’t arc a rainbow without a specific balance of all seven colours?”

“That’s what we know, yes,” Mocha continued. “Conventional knowledge would state that the process requires your seven basic colour essences, filtered out of the magic spectrum of colours, right? Then the factories mix them together in the only one single ratio that works, and you have a juice that can then be arced into your garden-variety rainbow.”

“Right,” Egg assured understanding.

“And it has always been that if you attempt to arc colours in an unstable ratio, it simply rejoins the colour spectrum and goes back to wherever colours come from in the first place.”

“Yes.”

“Well, the theory goes, simply, that it is somewhat possible to split an already-arced rainbow into separate colours, maintaining them in arc form.”

Egg nodded. “But what would be the point of trying to arc an individual colour at all? Rainbows are… decorative. Kids love them at parties, and they make for good bridges in a pinch, but they have no practical use outside of that.”

“The point, according to my little conspiracy pony,” Mocha continued, “is in the essence of the nature of rainbows. With all seven colours combined, they are stable. So what happens when you take out a colour from a rainbow? It is the instability that they are interested in.”

“So what are you saying?” Survey asked. “They explode?”

“Well. That’s the question,” Mocha continued. “Mister Conspiracy said that there were two hurdles in this theory of his. The first is the splitting of colour itself, of course. The second is how to contain them. Once you get an individual colour, what then? It’d just run havok. How do you capture something like that? How would you hold it in your hoof?”

And that was enough. All of a sudden, Egg stopped looking like he was interested in anything else they had to say, and both Mocha and Survey knew that was a sign that his brain started to work. They also knew it was pointless to say anything more until he was finished, and they gave him his due space to process what this all inevitably led to.

It took him all of eight seconds.

“Oh,” Egg said, snapping back.

“And he’s thought of something,” Survey said. “Took you long enough, Egg. You’re losing your touch. Go on then.”

“The crystals,” Egg muttered, “and the fire? And the theft of the rainbow juice that was in the news way back when.”

“Those little gems?” Mocha asked.

“Our professor disappears. Goes back into research regarding this topic. A few months later, the impossible happens. Clouds catch on fire. Little gems with strange markings are left behind. Coincidence it may be. As unlikely as the existence of this… colour prismatism is, I can’t help but find it all a bit too convenient.”

“Are we really saying this?” Survey blurted out.

“It seems to fit.” Mocha shrugged. “As crazy as it is.”

“But what’s her angle then? Her motive?” Survey argued. “ I mean, fine. Clearly she didn’t get the funding she needed. She was… what, on the verge of a breakthrough but her benefactor went dry. Clearly she needed the money, which is why she went around asking for more dosh. If this is really what she was researching, I think I understand why the companies didn’t have much in the way of information.”

“Yes. Either she would have been dismissed as a crackpot or she didn’t want to reveal too much of it herself,” Egg asserted. “Either way, I can see her not getting the backing.”

“So then she heads to… what. A more illegitimate means of getting money? But the fact that we’re seeing evidence of it working means that she already got the money, right? Why rob more? The jewels I can understand but why the attacks on the bakery and other things? And what’s with the attacks on gryphons and non-cloudsdalians?”

“I think these are the questions I’m going to have to ask her when I go after her tonight,” Egg declared. “No better source than from her own mouth. Even if she isn’t talkative, at least we’d have brought her down. No. There’s no point asking all these questions. There’s something else I’m more concerned about.”

“What is that?” Survey asked.

“Mocha,” Egg said, turning to her. “You said you had this conspiracy theorist talk about colour prismatism. I noticed that you didn’t mention when. Neither did you mention in what time frame his theories were relevant.”

“Heh,” Mocha chuckled sadly. “Can’t slip anything by you, can I?”

“Clearly, he couldn’t have come up with the theory due to recent events. It was more likely that this current discovery is what made him start to talk about it again, which means this theory is an old one. I also surmise that he has mentioned it to you only recently. Such theories are usually dismissed easily unless they are fresh in the mind. Put them both together and…”

“Fourteen years ago, Egg.”

“Fourteen.”

“Yes. That was when the rumours first started that someone… some group here was working on the very same thing.”

“Fourteen years ago.”

“What’s… going on, Egg? I wasn’t around then. Is something… significant about that time?” Survey interjected.

“No, but that doesn’t make sense. If… no. The connection is too loose. I think this one might just be coincidence,” Egg determined.

“It probably is. Besides, I highly doubt this professor has anything to do with them,” Mocha shrugged.

“Them? Them who?” Survey asked.

“Well, but still. It is a little disconcerting. It might be prudent to investigate,” Egg continued on.

“Would somepony please talk to me?” Survey yelled.

Egg turned slightly to face his friend.

“Fourteen years ago,” Egg said, calmly, “was when the Wonderbolts gave up on Cloudsdale."


   



12:37 AM


“Mister Egg?” Champagne asked, limping up behind him.

“Yes,” Egg replied, staring at the door. He wasn’t really listening. He was back in his head, and all the writing, the clues, and the details presented themselves upon the flat, brown surface in front of him, and he was observing them very carefully.

“Are you… are you alright, sir? You’ve been quiet for a while, now.”

“Something’s wrong.”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

Egg snapped his head away from the doors, turning to the side, his body parallel to the thin piece of wood that separated him from the Professor.

He blocked the doors. Blocked them from Emberkite, who was more than ready to bust in and show her some justice. Blocked them from Cookie, who was ready to give her a very stern lecture. Blocked them from Champagne, who just wanted to be part of the experience.

Despite her mild injury, she was still very excited, but her enthusiasm dropped a little at Egg’s proclamation.

“Something is wrong,” Egg repeated, looking up and around, as if there were clues nestled in the cracks between the walls and the ceiling.

“Uh… Old stallion? What are we waiting for? Come on!” Ember growled. “We’re here! Let’s get her already!”

“No. Wait.” Egg ordered.

“For what, man?” Ember yelled.

“Calm yourself, Ember,” Eternia trilled from behind him.

“Hey.” Ember swung around. “Why don’t you calm yourself?”

“Emberkite,” Egg said softy, returning the young colt to a quiet rumble. “There’s no need for that. I wish to be sure of something before we proceed.”

“Are we in danger?” Champagne asked. “Is it a trap or…”

“No. Nothing of the sort. In fact, precisely the opposite.” Egg waved his hoof in the air.

“What are you talking about? Come on, let’s get her already before she gets away or something!” Ember yelled again, stamping the floor.

Eternia and Champagne both turned slightly to look at the young stallion. He was unreasonably heated, even by normal standards.

“We won’t have to,” Egg said, seemingly unaffected. “I believe I was mistaken with my original assessment of the situation.”

“What about?” Eternia chimed in.

“There were always little things that didn’t quite fit the story. There are things that I have observed that are making me question the concept. The convenience of the note we found, for instance, with her name. And then there was the fact that her motives never made sense.”

Egg turned to face Champagne.

“You said that when you entered, you only encountered two guards, and one of them wasn’t even in the entryway itself. He was further down the hall, correct?”

“Y-yes, sir.”

“And no pony else ran towards you after the commotion we made?”

“No, sir.”

“And you checked all the other rooms? No windows broken? No one escaped?”

“Yes, sir.” Champagne nodded.

“So they were positioned away from the entryways. It took our guard a while to get to our door as well,” Egg said.

Champagne and Eternia tilted their heads in curiousity. Ember rolled his eyes in impatience.

“And they’re all so young,” Egg went on. “Disorganized. Fell for simple tricks. I’d have assumed there’d be a supervisor at least. Somepony who would be more… professional at this sort of thing,” Egg mused on. “They used numbers to replace efficiency. This means that the organization is lacking in numbers on the managerial level, but that… is a different issue. No. In this situation, what it means is that there was no need for them to squander precious resources on this location.” 

“Is she not here, then?” Eternia asked.

“No, she probably is. We’ll find out soon enough, yes?”

“So why are we waiting?” Ember cried.

“Because I don’t want you to rush in and start attacking the first pony you see,” Egg told him.

“And just why not?” Ember threw back.

The doors flew open.

Soft, flickering lights – the kind that casted dancing shadows on the walls – poured out from within. They were by no means pulsating flashes, but thanks to the darkness of the rest of the building, they still managed to dazzle the group for a fraction of a moment. The room, being the lone self-contained room in the building, was the only safe place for the number of apparati that were the sources of the light.

Flasks of steaming liquid and strange beakers lined rotting, old wooden tables, and empty barrels of stolen rainbow juice lined the far wall. The equipment filled the air with a bubbling that, in the otherwise silent nature of the room, sounded like acid burning through sheet metal. A small crate of gems lay on the floor, and bench-tools for grinding, sanding, and polishing sat a stone’s throw away.

A large prism – surely the room’s centerpiece – sat on a metallic stand. It was currently not in use, but small wisps of red smoke peeled off its perfectly black frame.

Four sets of eyes, two open mouths, and one open beak took this all in slowly, registering the world in which they had stepped into.

But inevitably, all four fell upon the figure in the corner.

She was shuddering greatly – be it fear or cold, but her breath quaked past her stone-grey face. Her hair stuck together in odd clumps, nothing but dirt, sweat, and viscosity holding it together in its unhallowed shape. A pair of shackles kept her on a chain that was tied to a heavy table that was bolted to the wooden floor.

Her pallid, dead eyes, as blank and white as the midnight snow, stared straight ahead, unable to focus. She gasped, scrabbling up from her position on the floor, shaky and unsure, and spoke with a voice that sounded like silk being dragged across jagged rocks.

“I will… have it ready,” she whispered. “I just need… two more hours.”

“Oh my word,” Cookie whispered back.

Egg raised an eyebrow.

“That’s why,” he stated.


 



4:38 PM


“It’s just us again. Ending how it all began,” Mocha sang. “How odd.”

“Yes. Well.” Survey muttered distractedly as he swept all his documents up into a single, neat pile once again. Egg had taken what he needed and left to work something out with his team. That left the two of them alone in the empty, dark diner.

“Where are you going after this?”

“I have to get some of these things back to where they belong. I don’t want Stackford finding out I’ve been nose-deep in other business. I’m not sure how he’d take it.”

“You know,” Mocha remarked, leaning over the table. “For someone who keeps insisting he doesn’t want to help, you helped… quite a lot.”

“Yeah, well. I stay out of his business, alright? I just… do stuff. Things. Stuff and things. I’m just as concerned about him as you are, you know. But the difference is, he wants me to help, and I don’t want to, and you want to to help him, and he doesn’t want that. Kind of shows you what he thinks of the two of us.”

“That he respects you more?”

“That he cares about me less,” Survey huffed.

“I… would not say that.”

“Yeah, well, who knows what goes on in his brain? I’ve known him for years, and I still haven’t figured him out yet.”

Survey stopped sorting out his things for a moment just to pause to think.

“It’s almost like he was never who he was, you know? I don’t know what it is about him,” he mused before resuming his activities.

“Well, I’ve not known him as long, that’s certain. Do you think he’ll be alright?”

“Oh yes. Most remarkably so,” Survey said casually, as if there wasn’t the possibility of the otherwise. “He’s a cocky guy, that one, but he’s very… focused. He tends to be able to spot things and notice things without even trying. He learns very fast, too. He’s a bit of a brick sometimes, but I suppose that’s the trade-off for being… whatever he is.”

“And what do you think he is?”

“He’s… Egg. Besides, don’t you think it’s quite curious how fast he slid into this crime-fighting business? It’s like he was born for it, or something. He can only get better. It would be unwise of us to restrict him.”

“Until something terrible happens, of course,” Mocha said with a sigh.

“Well, let’s hope he’ll have a guardian deity somewhere looking out for him, hm?”

“Yes. Perhaps.” Mocha smiled.

“Now… listen. I have to go, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask something.”

“We are open on weekends, Survey.”

“No, not that!” Survey rolled his head. “Come on.”

“Alright, I’m sorry.” Mocha chuckled. “What is it?”

“This… thing about fourteen years ago.”

“Ah, yes. What of it?”

“I don’t know anything about it. Still mucking about Trottingham, back then. And I know that Egg has got something… against the Wonderbolts. He’s never verbal about it, really, but you can kind of tell he has a grudge against them. What’s that about?”

“Well, it’s something we all probably think about. How much do you know about our history?”

“Not much, really. I know the things I know, but… I just know the Wonderbolts for what they are. Some sort of trick flying emergency rescue team thing. I know they work for Princess Celestia or something, but… seeing how Cloudsdale is autonomous, I’m not sure why they’re here. Are they even supposed to be like the Canterlot guards or police or something?”

“It’s a long story.” Mocha smiled.

“Well, if you’re not going to tell me…”

“No, it’s not that. It’s that… nopony really knows. None of the other races, either. Their role in Cloudsdale history has never been too clearly defined. But first of all, you know about the founding of Cloudsdale, right?”

“We’re not talking about that old children’s fable about that Commander Hurricane chap, right?”

Mocha shook her head. “Of course not.”

“Yeah, well. It was just Skylla expanding, right? They moved east. Tried to find new territories. A lot of us ended up in Trottingham and other cities. My grandparents moved there, you know.”

“Pretty much. Not too long after Cloudsdale was founded, Princess Celestia decided she wanted to give assistance to our city, but it was a turbulent time back then. Everything was new, as these things go. Before Cloudsdale achieved independence, we were still under Skyllan governmental rule. This all happened before I was born, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Since our country had little resources, Princess Celestia struck a deal with the Skyllan government to help us with civil defense until such time when we would be able to provide it for ourselves.”

“Which were the Wonderbolts,” Survey said.

“Yes. As they say, the original Wonderbolts were made out of a mix of Cloudsdalians and Princess Celestia’s royal guard. She provided the training, and in return, those Cloudsdalians had to sign a pact saying that they were under authority of the Princess and her laws.”

“Clever little bird, ain’t she?” Survey quirked an eyebrow. “She gets to keep control without being in control. I assume Skylla agreed due to convenience?”

“You would be right. But then a problem occured. We became reliant. It was a dark time back then, and Cloudsdale was the target for a lot of nasty sorts. Smuggling. Trafficking. That kind of thing. We’re talking about huge organizations on a massive scale. Murder. Death. Extortion. Control. But the Wonderbolts cleaned it up. Over the course of many, many years. They cleaned it up and ushered in an era of peace.”

Survey nodded.

“This period, known as the golden age, occurred sometime after I was born. I was just a foal then, but… I do remember things being very calm. A lot of celebrations. But of course, I was young, and I didn’t pay attention to the world like I do now.”

Survey shifted uncomfortably from one set of legs to another.

“And one day, fourteen years ago, when I was, ah… ten, I believe, the Wonderbolts just stopped. They disappeared. Vanished from the skies. Stopped their patrols without a single word. But there were no riots or disquiet. We were accustomed to the peace, and we liked it. Those who would take advantage of Cloudsdale didn’t find us as much of a ripe apple as they did more than eighty years ago.”

Mocha sighed as her mind brought her back to those times.

“The Wonderbolts returned a few weeks after that, but now they were as you know them today. Performances. Public appearances. Trick flying. Showing up during disasters to make a show. Some of us believe they still watch Cloudsdale under Princess Celestia’s eye. Some of us believe something else happened between the Princess and our government. But no one really knows for sure. Despite this, we’ve maintained low crime rates all this time without an active policing force.”

“Until now,” Survey punctuated.

“Until now.”

“And you blame Egg for wanting to do something about it.”

“I don’t. I just wish it were someone else.” Mocha flipped a strand of hair out of her eyes.

“Well, maybe I can uncover something about this,” Survey said with a smug grin.

“I don’t mean to doubt your abilities, Survey, but I don’t think you’d be able to. Princess Celestia likes it when her secrets remain secrets. No one knows what happened fourteen years ago, and that’s probably how it will stay.”

“But it can’t be that bad, can it? They have a Wonderbolts… thingie museum, for Celestia’s sake!”

“Then perhaps you should pay it a visit, Survey, and see for yourself.”


Continued in Part 3 ->