Scootaloo walked in front of Silverstreak as he limped through the streets. She felt bad for him, she really did, but after what that thing did to Scootaloo, her left eye twitched as she remembered, Silverstreak really got the short end of the stick. Scootaloo came upon an intersection with the lights flashing differents colors, some red, some blue, some pink. To her left was the Sweet Apple Arces building were a most of the western apple buisness used to run under. From zapapple fuel, to apple jelly, to apple cider, to just about anything with apples, came through this building for distributing and selling. Scootaloo wondered what would've happened if she, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom had taken those job offers Applejack gave them before they joined up with Pinkie.
"Sure wouldn't be in this mess."
Rain began to sprinkle down as Silverstreak finally caught up to Scootaloo, his face still bloodied from Scootaloo's panic attack, his right front hoof lifted just barely upon the ground as Scootaloo was certain something was broken, and blood continued to drop in small amounts as the wound in his back kept bleeding from walking. Sliverstreak pointed with his head right.
"This way."
Silverstreak didn't talk all that much after Scootaloo stopped beating on him, she understood, but she felt like she was alone again, just like after she left her friends. An itching sensation creeped into the back of Scooaloo's head as they neared the end of the ramp they were walking on. Scootaloo shook her head, but the sensation remained, growing more intense until Scootaloo rolled her head back to scratch it with her wing, when a small yellow flag outside a fifth story window across from them caught her attention.
"Hey Silverstreak."
"Hmmp?"
"Does that yellow flag look suspicious to you?"
Silverstreak looked up to see what Scootalooo was talking about. Shock rolled through his face.
"Quickly hi..."
'Don't move!"
Scootaloo turned to see a griffon floating right behind them pointing her SG straight at them. Two other griffons came from behind a crashed airship with smug looks on their faces.
"Nicely done, Gilda! I thought for sure we'd have to kill the stallion."
"That's because your plans are to violent Brak."
Brak shrugged his shoulders and brought a picture to his face. The other griffon just sat their with a strange look in her eyes like she wasn't there or something. Brak's face grew a wide smile on his face.
"It's her alright, Scootaloo the Pegasus worth 50,000 bits."
Gilda crossed her arms. "We know that Brak. What I'm concerned with is what to do with the stallion?"
Brak looked over Silverstreak trying to figure out how much money he was worth.
"Well these ponies are the soft type. I'm sure we can get a good sum from the Lunar Republic for him."
"No!"
Gilda and Brak looked at their friend in shock.
"No? No? What do you mean, no!"
"No, I won't let you sell these two ponies for money Brak."
Gilda flew down and stood next to Brak, both face to face with their friend.
"Hey we all agreed that when we came here..."
"That we would find help for our people! Don't you two see! Equestria is falling apart just like our empire did, except that they only have two forces fighting each other. We had our own cities fighting themselves. This world is falling apart and us going about taking ponies and selling them to the highest bidder isn't making things better."
Brak raised his claw and smacked her across the face. Gilda twisted her head, not wanting to watch it.
"Now you listen to me! Our home is gone, gone! That's why we all agreed to come here, to make a new start for our empire. Stealing a few ponies and selling them for money is all apart of that. You even agreed that we needed to bring our people here. Well guess what, this is how we're doing it. Now shut the fuck up and just do as you're to..."
The griffon grabbed both Gilda and Brak in each claw and smashed their heads together. Gilda and Brak slumped to the ground both unconscious from the hit. Scootaloo saw tears starting to gather in the griffons eye's. Scootaloo made a move to comfort the griffon.
"I'm so sorry. We just wanted to help our people escape the ruin of our cities." tears rolled down her cheeks, "I don't know what they did to your team. I'm so sorry!"
The griffon curled up into a ball on the ground, sobbing to herself. Scootaloo held her hoof in place, unsure if she should continue. Silverstreak put a hoof on Scootaloo's shoulder and shook his head, then continued into the Lunar Forces building. Scootaloo stood there alone, and silent, except for the crying griffon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Silverstreak was watching a computer screen when Scootaloo walking in the room. After confirming that it was Scootaloo, Silverstreak turned his head back towards the screen.
"How is she?"
Scootaloo moved to the maps that were placed on a table, just like when they first met.
"She finally stopped crying."
"That's good."
Scootaloo didn't need to see him to know that Silverstreak was having a tough time dealing with all this, and truth be told so was Scootaloo. Hell Scootaloo was pretty sure every single pony, griffon, zebra, or anything would have a tough time dealing with this. Is this how the humans felt when these things attacked them. Scootaloo didn't know that for sure, nor did anypony, but she just had a feeling that the humans were attacked by these creatures. The image of the human shooting those ponies in Tara City ran through Scootaloo's mind, the coldness in it's voice, the unfaltering way it just killed them, and the message it sent her. When I find you, you'll regret it. Something still didn't seem right, but Scootaloo just couldn't put her hoof on it.
"Silverstreak?"
"What?"
"When did this all start to happen?"
Silverstreak turned towards Scootaloo.
"When what happened?"
"The fall of your cities?"
Silverstreak moved to the opposite side of the table.
"Well the first time we knew something was wrong was about a month ago when we lost contact with a fleet of airships moving to investigate why Saddle wasn't talking to us, but if I had to guess I'd say it all started about four months ago when some farmers found something in the ground near the Griffon border. After that Luna gave the order to leave all human technology alone until a few days after it was uncovered and activated, then Saddle went dark after a month, then city by city they all went dark until it reached here."
"Four months?"
"Yeah, after the artifact was uncovered and Luna gave the order, everything felt different, felt like we were being watched. Then everypony started getting on edge as griffons came down and told their tells, then we just started falling apart."
"But if it was four months, why didn't anypony else know what was going on? Why didn't we know?"
Silverstreak shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know. When did the Imperial Military come under attack?"
"About a month, but that doesn't..."
"Maybe the creature didn't want them to know?"
"Then how did you know about the Imperial Military?"
"Ponies talk, and word gets around. Why?"
"You got word of them, but they didn't get word of you? Something else is at play here. Something powerful enough to...LUNA! She has to be behind it!"
"The attacks!?"
"No, the lack of word traveling! Who else wouldn't want Blueblood to know if her cities were falling apart!"
"Maybe, but I don't see why you have to be excited."
"Well it's just that something has felt wrong for awhile."
"And this help you?"
Scootaloo stopped for a moment to feel herself. Nope she still felt like something was wrong.
"Ugh. No I still feel like something's not right."
"Well start from the beginning."
"Well it all started after I left Tara City, after I saw it."
"The human?"
"Yes."
"Well maybe that's it. I mean how do you know it was a human, maybe it was something else."
"No. The way it just projected authority and respect and several different things at once, it had to be human."
"Well my superiors project those things as well."
"It's not easy to explain..."
"I needed to be there?"
Scootaloo nodded.
"Continue."
"Well, it killed five ponies, I went aboard it's ship, and it knew because it told me I would regret it."
Siverstreak stoked his chin.
"Well besides the killing, everything seems alright I would figure it had some sort of camera on it's ship. Was there anything in the background that you noticed?"
"Well, the burning chucks of metal and balloon from the Imperial ship, which I still don't understand why ponies cover the balloons with metal, the fog, silence, and the zapapple fuel line being connected and disconnected from my ship..."
"You didn't connect, or disconnect it?"
"No I was talking to the family, then searching the ship."
Scootaloo's eyes widened.
"You don't think?"
"Well considering the fact that it took me out before I could run to the roof to help you, Scootaloo, yeah I'm thinking."
"But why wait till I was here before attacking me and sticking something in my eye?"
Scootaloo and Silverstreak stared at each other as they both came to the conclusion of the only thing that would connect.
"The human!"
"It must have been that thing that told me the message to leave!"
"Then it clung to the bottom of your fighter until you could stop!"
"And the human is chasing after it, but why?"
"Technology!"
Silverstreak smacked his hooves on the table.
"What?"
"The humans technology! They must have discovered a way to stop these creatures! That's why they haven't attacked outside the Everfree Forest!"
"The humans trapped them there! But why is there only one human?"
"Well maybe there's more, we just don't see them!"
"But why does that thing want their technology?"
"To free the other creatures! And the humans are trying to stop it!"
"But we just got in the way! First the griffons, then you, and now the Imperial Empire!"
Scootaloo and Silverstreak stared into each others eyes, both enjoying there realization when the lights came on, the lights on the panels turned green and a voice said.
"Power Restored."