//------------------------------//
// Chapter 17 
// Story: Archives of the Friendquisition 
// by Inquisipony Stallius 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 17
	 
By all accounts, it was a beautiful day.
 
The sun shone brightly over the fields of the Stablea Progenium, and a spring breeze carried it’s warmth across the green parade grounds. Birds perched on the high brick walls, chirping and watching the cadets below as they ran their laps around the inner perimeter.
 
A grizzled, old earth pony stallion was watching them as well.
 
“Are we not blessed, cadets?” he called out to them. “Does the Princess not smile down on us with Her glorious sun today?”
 
“Yes, Drill Abbot!” the group yelled.
 
“Of course She does,” the Drill Abbot, one Hickory Switch, said with a smile.
 
He had them run another couple laps. It was supposed to be a thirty mile run, but he’d lost count around forty eight.
 
“That’s enough! Bring it in, cadets!”
 
Around two dozen of them, mostly earth ponies and a few pegasi, formed ranks in front of Abbot Switch. The foals—though only barely so, as most of them were already sporting cutie marks—stood at attention. They were all breathing heavily, but otherwise said nothing. The stern-faced Abbot paced back and forth, inspecting them, looking for any reason to make the whole group start their little “morning jog” over again.
 
Finding none, he finally said “at ease.”
 
All at once, the cadets fell into the grass, panting and heaving. A trio of Novitiates hurried out from the Sororitrots chapel across the courtyard and brought them all some water. The Abbot didn’t stop watching his cadets like a hawk, though, lest they get a little too comfortable during the break.
 
“As much as I know you’d all love to keep running,” Abbot Switch said, “Abbess Marm complained to the Headmaster that I have been taking too much time away from her curriculum for ‘pointless track and field,’ and that it was compromising your education.”
 
He came to a stop. “That’s why sparring is to be scheduled before weapons training. Starting today.”
 
Had any of the cadets groaned, sparring would have had to wait for another thirty miles of running. Fortunately, complaining had been disciplined out of this class years ago.
 
“Pair off.”
 
They stood up and broke off into twos, and found enough space to begin their matches. It was a familiar practice, each cadet having fought every other in hoof-to-hoof training innumerable times in their years together.
 
“Begin.”
 
Soon the air was filled with the sound of ponies grunting, scuffling, and hitting the ground hard. Abbot Switch paused to observe each fight, ready to correct any mistakes he saw in their technique. This close to graduation, there were few new things to teach, so the time was spent mostly perfecting what they’d already learned. That didn’t mean they could coast, however, and it was the Drill Abbot’s prerogative to punish any lack of effort.
 
After a few minutes, he approached one pair of combatants. “Mind your footing, Cadet Barrage,” he said. The colt was stronger than his opponent, but had a tendency to overextend his reach, and it had made him easy to topple. Taking his Drill Abbot’s direction, the cadet finally started to hold his ground.
 
The next case was a filly. At first, he had thought of her as timid, always letting her opponents make the first move. Ultimately, he remembered that they didn’t send him the timid cadets. Instead, it turned out she was merely calculating.
 
“Planning too far ahead into the fight can be the same as hesitating, Cadet Moxie,” Abbot Switch said. “And hesitation will get you killed.”
 
“Yes Drill Abbot!” the filly said. He noticed her throw herself a little more enthusiastically into her match after that.
 
Finally, Abbot Switch came to the true thorn in his side.
 
Not that this cadet was the worst troublemaker Switch had seen by any stretch. On the contrary, the grey colt was always eager to learn, and quick on the uptake.
 
He just… lacked focus was the way Switch thought of it. The cadet’s attention often wandered, and he asked too many questions. Like at the moment, he seemed at least as interested in impressing a flirtatious Novitiate as he was with actually winning his fight.
 
“For the Princess’s sake! How many times do I have to tell you, Caballus? Pay attention!”
 
Unfortunately, distracted as he was, the cadet instinctively turned his head toward the sound of his name. No sooner did he do so than his opponent, a blue pegasus filly, swooped behind him, threw him down, and pinned him.
 
“Yes, Drill Abbot,” the embarrassed colt groaned.
 
Abbot Switch just shook his head and moved on. As he often told his cadets, pain and experience were the best teachers, so he was just going to let that particular lesson sink in.
 
“He’s right, you know, Cab,” said the pegasus as she helped him back up. “Landing flat on your back probably isn’t the best way to get Sera to notice you.”
 
“C’mon Blitz,” Caballus replied, flashing a grin, “I thought fillies liked scars.”
 
Cadet Glory Blitz failed to stifle a giggle. “Only if you get them doing something cool. Getting beaten up during sparring doesn’t cut it.”
 
“I’ll take your word for it,” He said. Sera Phim, the Novitiate he had been trying to show off to, was giggling as well. Mission accomplished, then, Caballus thought to himself.
 
With the Novitiates called back to the chapel and the distraction now removed, he had much less difficulty staying on his hooves in the matches that followed. After hitting the showers, Caballus caught up with Glory again on their way to afternoon classes. Just as he got her attention outside the lecture hall, a shadow passed overhead.
 
Both of them looked up to see a black air-carriage, pulled by a pair of pegasi, descending towards the Stablea’s landing pad.
 
“Who do you think that is?” Caballus wondered.
 
Glory shrugged. “I heard some of the Scribe Abbots talking about a VIP coming to visit.”
 
“That doesn’t really narrow it down.”
 
Indeed, it wasn’t uncommon for officials of rank to visit the Stablea Progenium. One of many such facilities, it was part orphanage, part boarding school, and it supplied a number of institutions with competent adepts, instilled from an early age with an unswerving loyalty to Equestria and an unshakable faith in the Princess. While most graduates went on to positions in the Heliarchy or the Admanestratum, there were also programs to train officers for the Equestrian Navy and Guard. Some organizations, like the Adequa Sororitrots and Ponnissariat, took only progena, as the graduates were often called.
 
“You know,” Glory said after a moment, “I bet it’s an Inquisipony.”
 
Caballus rolled his eyes. “It’s not an Inquisipony.”
 
“How do you know?” she snapped back.
 
“Because,” he said with a sigh, “Inquisiponies only want the most experienced, battle-hardened veterans they can find to work for them. Not progena fresh out of the Stablea who’ve never even seen real battle.”
 
The pair followed the carriage’s descent, until it disappeared behind the hedge wall that surrounded the landing pad.
 
“I know you’ve convinced yourself that you’re going to be one someday,” Caballus said, “but it’s never going to happen. You can’t choose to join the Friendquisition. They choose you. Besides, what about training to be a Storm Trooper?”
 
“Duh, Cab. Who do the Friendquisition call when they need the most elite firepower around? They call up a Storm Trooper regiment. Some regiments are even attached to Inquisiponies full time. I just have to get into an outfit like that, show them how awesome I am, and then bam!” said Glory, flashing her most cocky smile, “they’ll have no choice but to make me an Inquisipony.”
 
As if to prove her point, she brandished her cutie mark, a lightning bolt over crossed swords. Glory often touted it as proof of the inevitability of her ambitions, and her undeniable skill as a warrior. But all it usually served to do was give Caballus a pang of self-consciousness about his own blank flank.
 
“Oh,” she quickly said, seeing her friend’s frown, “sorry. You know, you’re pretty good at just about everything. Sometimes I forget… you know…”
 
“Yeah,” he said, “‘pretty’ good. Good enough to get in. Good enough to pass, even.” He forced a smile, and nudged her toward the door. “Look, don’t worry about it. It’ll come.”
 
The abbots had always told them that the Princess’s plan was as mysterious as it was vast, but every pony had a part in it, and it would be revealed to them eventually. Usually, a foal discovering their talent determined which course of study they would pursue at the Stablea. Caballus certainly didn’t question the Princess’s will, but he had nearly completed the Storm Trooper academy and still didn’t have a mark to show for it. What the mark eventually turned out to be almost didn’t even matter to him anymore. What he really wanted was some sort of confirmation, something that told him he was on the right path.
 
Putting his personal musings aside, Caballus had to admit, despite its astronomically small chance of success, Glory’s plan was probably as good as any. But as it was, the chances of a normal citizen even meeting an Inquisipony—or at least being aware of meeting one—were remote. Unless, of course, said pony was involved in something that might draw the Friendquisition’s attention. And from the stories and rumors he had heard, Caballus was confident that would be a very unwise thing to do.
 
He was about to follow Glory into the lecture hall, when he saw activity by the landing pad. Two ponies, one in a black cloak and the other in a red one, walked out of the enclosure toward the administrative building, flanked by two armed guards. At that distance, Caballus couldn’t make out any more details, though he could see that they were greeted by the Stablea’s Headmaster himself.
 
From the Headmaster’s exaggerated body language, Caballus assumed it was somepony important. Whoever it was, they gave him an unsettling feeling.
 
Who in their right mind wears a cloak these days, he thought.
 




The night was cool and crisp, with clear skies and a bright half-moon hanging high over the Stablea grounds.
 
The bushes outside the colts’ dormitory rustled gently as a figure crept out of them. It approached the corner of the building, and glanced around it.
 
A luminator swung around just as the figure ducked back. Moments later, the security servitor on the other end of that luminator turned the corner.
 
It found nothing. The servitor, a donkey, looked back and forth, slowly, robotically, scanning the darkness. Then it continued on its pre-programmed patrol, unaware of the infiltrator that had just slipped past it.
 
He was getting better at this, Caballus remarked to himself as he tiptoed up to the side of the Sororitrots chapel. At first, his little “midnight walks” would take him twice as long to get from one side of the grounds to the other, and never without a few close calls. Security servitors made little distinction between a hostile intruder and a student out past curfew when determining the proper force to use, and the Headmaster seemed to consider that a feature of their programming, not a bug. So far, Caballus had never been caught, and it was a streak he was determined to keep. And now that he knew all the little tricks to it, it was almost too easy.
 
A sudden breeze rustled his mane. He spun around.
 
And found nothing. Only the empty night was behind him. He breathed a quiet sigh of relief, and turned to finish his journey.
 
“Boo.”
 
The colt nearly jumped out of his own skin. “Blitz? What are you doing out here?” he hissed at the pegasus hovering in front of him.
 
“Ah, ya caught me,” she said, jokingly. Glory dropped gracefully to the ground, making barely a sound when her hooves touched the grass. “I looked out my window and saw you sneaking around outside, so I thought I’d come see what you were up to.”
 
Caballus turned red. “I… um… well…”
 
Glory raised an eyebrow at him, but then her face lit up. “Oh, were you trying to find out if the VIP really is an Inquisipony? I want to come too!”
 
“Shhh!”
 
“Hello?” called another feminine voice. “Caballus, is that you?”
 
A white earth pony in a white robe came around the side of the chapel. The faint light from the front of the building gave her tall, lean shape an imposing shadow at first. But when she saw the two cadets, she froze as though she were the one caught. “Oh. Hello, Glory.”
 
“Sera?” said the pegasus. “What are you doing out here?”
 
“I… well, I was out tending the chapel braziers tonight, as I was assigned to by the Mother Superior,” said the Battle-Filly-in-training, “and I… uh… heard a noise and…”
 
Glory’s brow furrowed. “But you knew it was Cab out here before you-” Then it finally dawned on her why that might be, and it was her turn to blush. “Oh my… I’m so sorry, Cab. I just thought… and I didn’t know… and you and her-”
 
Before she could stammer any more, something passed in front of the moon. All three of the ponies reflexively ducked, pressing themselves against the chapel wall. Against the night sky, a shape could barely be seen overhead, visible only by the stars it blocked out.
 
“What was that?” Sera whispered.
 
“I don’t know,” Caballus said, “but it was headed that way.” The colt started off after it. “C’mon.”
 
Glory bit down on his tail before he could follow. “Are you kidding? Do you know how much trouble we’ll get in if we get caught?”
 
“I cannot leave my post, Caballus,” Sera agreed. “Tending the chapel braziers is a sacred duty.”
 
“Fine,” he said, with a hint of a grin, “I’ll go find out what it is alone if you two are too scared.”
 
“Scared?” said Glory. “As if!”
 
Likewise, Sera stamped the ground in objection. “A Filly of the Sororitrots fears nothing!”
 
“Good.” Caballus said. “Let’s go.”
 
Fortunately, the trio didn’t meet a single servitor patrol as they followed the mysterious object. After a minute or two, they came up on the Stablea’s library. Caballus steered them into the bushes lining the building adjacent it.
 
“There,” Caballus said.
 
On the library’s brick wall, two stories up, hovered the vague shape of a pegasus. It was clad entirely in black, even on its wings, making it hard for Caballus to even be sure of its exact size or gender.
 
“What’re they doing?” Glory asked her fellow cadet.
 
“I don’t know,” was Caballus’s honest reply. The figure had its hooves on the wall, but what it was doing with them was impossible to tell.
 
“Whatever this miscreant is doing,” Sera said, “they don’t want it known. Which means it’s something sinister.” She tried to push her way past the other two, but Caballus stopped her.
 
“Sera, wait,” he said, stopping her. “Look.”
 
The mysterious pegasus drifted away from the library wall, and took off. In seconds, it disappeared into the night sky.
 
“Way to go, Cab,” said Glory, “they got away.”
 
“Yeah, but they were doing something up there.” Caballus walked up to the library, craning his head upward toward the spot the trespasser had been. “See if you can find out what it was, Blitz.”
 
The blue pegasus floated up the bare brick wall, running her hooves over its surface. “I don’t think there’s anything… wait a second.”
 
The earth ponies below heard the sound of stone scraping against stone. Glory had found a loose brick, and was slowly pulling it out with her teeth. She fluttered back down a moment later, with a small piece of paper.
 
“They were up to something alright,” she said, handing it to Caballus. “Probably a secret message to somepony.”
 
“What does it say,” asked Sera, leaning over Caballus’s shoulder.
 
He unfolded the note. The paper was covered in twisted runes and arcane symbols. Though none of them had ever seen it themselves, they had heard enough whispers and rumors about the Malign Text to recognize it now.
 
The text began to glow and move on the page. Both Glory and Sera jumped back, startled by what they saw, and Caballus himself felt dizzy and nauseous just looking at them. The glyphs defied every effort to make sense of them, writhing and changing shape whenever he gained the slightest idea of what they might mean. Still, Caballus felt compelled to keep trying; he had to know what it said.
 
Sera tore the note away from him. The Novitiate threw it on the ground and began trampling it with her hooves.
 
“No!” the colt cried, “what are you doing!”
 
“Destroying this abomination,” said Sera, who only stopped when the paper was torn to dirty shreds. “It’s heresy to even let it exist, let alone read it. Who knows what kind of corruption you would have been exposed to if I hadn’t?”
 
“But now we’ll never know what it said or who it was for.”
 
“Maybe we will,” said Glory, pointing behind him.
 
Coming around the corner of the library was a new figure, a pony in a black cloak. As soon as the foals saw it, the newcomer stopped in its tracks, and took off back around the corner. Without hesitation, the trio pursued.
 
In the seconds it took to reach the corner of the building, Caballus’s mind raced with questions: Who was this stranger? Who sent them the message? What were they planning? And could there really be a heretic among them in the Stablea?
 
But all these thoughts were obliterated as he rounded to corner by a blinding white light. All three came to a skidding halt.
 
“What the Tartarus are you cadets doing out here?” roared Drill Abbot Switch.

 


 
“Sorry to wake you, Calligraphus,” Abbot Switch said politely, “but I thought this needed to be brought to your attention.”
 
The Drill Abbot stood behind the three progena in the Headmaster’s office. Caballus and Glory exchanged nervous glances, while Sera just stared at her hooves, shuffling anxiously. When the Abbots could beat you back into line at their own discretion, going before the Headmaster himself spoke volumes about the kind of trouble they were in. It had been its own brand of torture, just waiting for him to answer the midnight call. They could do nothing but stare at the walls.
 
Though he had only occupied it for just a few months since taking the post, the Headmaster had wasted no time with the room. The walls were practically plastered with various certificates, all showing off his administrative credentials. Other portraits and heirlooms boasted of him coming from a long line of effective and diligent bureaucrats in the service of the Admanestratum.
 
“Honestly, Hickory, are you sure this couldn’t wait until morning?” The silvery, bleary-eyed, bespectacled unicorn finished heating himself a cup of tea and—still in his sleeping robe and slippers—took his place behind his large oak desk, leaning back in his chair. “You seem to handle other disciplinary matters on your own just fine. Why was this so urgent?”
 
The Abbot looked at Caballus. “Go ahead, cadet. Tell him what you told me.”
 
Caballus took a deep breath, and then began. He told the Headmaster about his sneaking around, though he didn’t tell why. He told him about Glory coming after him, and later Sera too, though he emphasized that they were just following his lead. Which was true enough, as far as he could see it; he was the one who wanted to chase after the mysterious pegasus. He told him about the message they’d found, and the pony who had come to retrieve it. When he had told the entire story, Caballus braced himself for his inevitable punishment.
 
The Headmaster stared gravely at the three for a long, agonizing moment, contemplating. “I say, Hickory,” he finally said “I certainly hope you’re not the one filling these cadets’ heads with all this ‘spy game’ nonsense.”
 
“I tell them nothing of the sort,” replied the Drill Abbot, who then frowned. “I take it you don’t believe them, then?”
 
“Certainly not,” said the unicorn. “Quite frankly, I’m surprised you even entertained the idea, Hickory. Midnight couriers and secret, heretical dead-drops. Sounds to me like the overactive imaginations of a few progena caught out after curfew trying to lie their way out of punishment.”
 
“But it’s not a lie!” Caballus blurted.
 
Though well within his authority to chastise the cadet for speaking out of turn, the Headmaster instead leaned calmly forward on his desk. “Do you have any proof? Where then is this ‘heretical’ message you found?”
 
“We… uh…” Caballus looked back at Sera, who only gave him an apologetic shrug.
 
The colt hung his head. “We… don’t have it.”
 
The Headmaster smiled. “There, you see? Just a fanciful story, nothing more.” He reclined once again in his chair. “Though falsifying a report is a serious infraction—especially allegations of heresy—I’m willing to be lenient and put only breaking curfew on your records. It would be a shame if we couldn’t put this little incident behind us before graduation.”
 
His eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “We certainly wouldn’t want anything you jeopardize your completion of the Stormtrooper Academy, would we?”
 
Caballus froze. Could he just let this slip through the cracks and be forgotten? Could he knowingly ignore such a crime in his midst? It would be wrong. It would go against everything he had been brought up to believe about his duty to Equestria. But if he didn’t, everything he’d worked for his entire life would be at risk.
 
Before Caballus had a chance to answer, Abbot Switch stepped forward. “Actually Calligraphus, I think they may be telling the truth. I’ve been noticing some… irregularities with the security servitors. Their patrol routes have been rotating at strange intervals, and it’s leaving holes in our-”
 
“Yes yes, you’ve brought up the servitors before,” interrupted the Headmaster. “And for the last time, we just don’t have it in our budget to upgrade them right now.”
 
“But I believe that somepony has been-”
 
“Enough of this rubbish!” The Headmaster slammed his hoof down on the desk, hard enough to rattle his teacup on its saucer. Then he cleared his throat, and levitated the cup to his lips. “Now,” he said, once again composed, “if any of you have any evidence to support your claims, something that I can pass on to the proper authorities, I would be happy to do so. But as it stands, repeating such wild, baseless stories will only reflect poorly on the Stablea. I’ll hear no more of it,” he said, leveling a deadly glare at Caballus. “Is that clear?”
 
Caballus glanced back over one shoulder. Sera puffed up her chest, and gave him a nod of support. He looked over the other. Glory pleaded to him with her eyes. Don’t do something stupid, they said.
 
Sorry to disappoint, he thought.
 
“No.”
 
Headmaster Calligraphus raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
 
Caballus stood up tall. “I can’t ignore it. I can’t do nothing. If I won’t put a stop to an evil plot right in front of me, here and now, what’s the point of graduating?” His eyes flashed. “Especially when I already know who it is.”
 
The room fell silent for a moment.
 
“Very well,” said the Headmaster mockingly, “let’s hear your brilliant theory.”
 
“It’s likely that the drop location had been used before,” Caballus said. “The intended recipient of the message was already well versed in both the time and place of the delivery. That, combined with the tampering to the security systems, leads me to believe the traitor was somepony from the Stablea.”
 
Snorting, Calligraphus said, “perhaps, but that could also be-”
 
“However,” Caballus continued, throwing off the older stallion’s train of thought, “the traitor needed a way to reach the loose brick that high up. When I saw them flee, I didn’t see any wings or climbing equipment. That leaves only magic. And you, Headmaster,” he said with a growing smirk, “are the only unicorn at this Stablea.”
 
“What!” cried the Headmaster. “This is outrageous! For you, just a cadet, to accuse me of being party to some sort of… conspiracy! It’s ridiculous! It’s slander! It’s-”
 
“It’s true,” said a new voice.
 
All eyes fell on the office’s entrance. There stood a pony, the VIP in the black cloak from the day before. The other pony, a red Meq-priest was behind him, as were the two guards. In an instant, those guards were in the room and dragging the flustered unicorn out.
 
“No!” he yelped, “you can’t! I’m innocent!” His voice receded into the distance, making many such pleas before it finally faded away.
 
The strange pony took the seat behind the desk, where the Headmaster had sat just moments ago. With his hood down, the progena could see that he was an older stallion, with fur beginning to grey and skin beginning to wrinkle. He wore an eye-patch, which hid only one of his many obvious scars.
 
“You are the cadet who intercepted the heretical message, correct?”
 
Caballus nodded slowly.
 
“And you read it? You looked upon the very language of the Tenebrae, the words of the Archenemy?”
 
Again, Caballus affirmed.
 
The pony’s remaining eye narrowed. “Without training, even a glimpse of the Malign Text carries a risk of corruption.”
 
He swept aside his cloak to display a small icon affixed to his chest. A gilded “F.”
 
A Friendquisitional rosette.
 
Caballus’s blood chilled. The last thing many a damned pony saw was that very symbol.
 
I told you he was an Inquisipony, Caballus could imagine Glory saying. As it was, however, she was just as afraid as him, far too afraid to speak.
 
“Do you know what this is?”
 
The colt slowly nodded, not even daring to breathe.
 
The Inquisipony grinned broadly. “Would you like one?”
 
“Whuh?” said Caballus, his jaw dropping to the floor. The sentiment was shared by Sera and Glory as well.
 
“My name is Inquisipony Banehoof, of the Ordo Hereticolt,” the old pony said. “I’ve been tracking a cult in this area for some time, and the trail led me to this Stablea Progenium. I arranged a visit, ostensibly to find an Interrogator, an apprentice, but only so that I could watch the faculty more closely. I even managed to capture the courier who brought the message tonight. She named Calligraphus as her contact rather quickly, so I was just on my way to arrest him as well, and that would be that. But I’m glad I decided to wait and listen first.
 
The Inquisipony reclined in the chair. “You see, outside I read your file, Cadet Caballus. I know that you score average in nearly everything they measure in a Storm Trooper.”
 
Caballus almost winced at the reminder.
 
“But,” Banehoof said, “you showed qualities here that cannot be trained. You showed courage and conviction. You showed that you will defy authority when it is wrong, and that you will trust your own instincts. You even displayed a knack for investigation. These are traits of a good Inquisipony.”
 
The Inquisipony walked around the desk and stood before the colt. “Caballus, I would like to make you my own personal protégé. You may decline, and finish the Storm Trooper Academy. I’ve no doubt you’d make a fine soldier for Equestria, if that is your wish. But if you accept, you will come with me to be trained, and one day—Princess willing—to be inducted into the ranks of the Friendquisition.”
 
He waited a moment to let the offer sink in. Caballus didn’t need it.
 
“Of course I will!” he exclaimed. Never once did he imagine he would get such an opportunity to serve the Equestria and the Princess. He was about to start bouncing around the room.
 
“Oh, and Caballus?” Banehoof said.
 
“More?” the colt wondered. What else could this Inquisipony possibly offer?
 
The stallion gestured behind him.
 
“Caballus, your flank!” said Sera with awe.
 
He looked back to his flank and found new shapes and colors there, where none had ever been before.
 
“My cutie mark!”
 
Indeed, his flank was now adorned with a mark of his own. It was a magnifying glass, crossed with a torch. Investigate and purge. Search and destroy, in the Princess’s name.
 
He embraced the two fillies, his fellow progena, with tears in his eyes. Sera pecked him on the cheek, while Glory—still stunned—could barely even hug back.
 
Behind him, the Inquisipony and the Drill Abbot shared a hoof-bump.
 
“It’s good to see you again, Hickory,” said Banehoof. “How’s retirement?”
 
The Abbot laughed. “Now you’ll never know, one-eye. Looking after that one will be a full time job.”
 
“That bad?”
 
 “My lessons didn’t always stick,” Abbot Switch chuckled, “but he does have quite a bit of potential. I’d bet if you set him in the right direction, all he would need is… a little push, is all.”