//------------------------------//
// #12 - Captain Arbiter's Revenge: Part I 
// Story: Techorse Short Stories 
// by Spirals95 
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Captain Arbiter's Revenge: Part I


Techorse Series: #12


By Spirals95






Equestria had made a good recovery from the attack the small team of humans had made on their world. Six months had passed since the terror had been defeated, and life had returned to normal. The cities had been rebuilt completely, and enough therapy had helped the citizens recover from any psychological turmoil from the attacks. With their space station vaporized, all traces of human presence had been wiped, with the exception of a gigantic factory, which was now overrun with ivy vines and trees as nature tried to reclaim the area. The smokestacks no longer belched their horrible pollution into the air, and the skies had cleared up over the factory. But as the structure continued to sit and produce nothing, a group of ponies was busy clearing machinery out of it. 

In particular, they were taking away the mining probes; large machines resembling the tunneling devices used to carve subways or underwater tunnels for cars. The raiders managed to find several still-active probes, hijacked them, and drove them away from the factory. No one really cared, with the property abandoned, there was no security to make sure nothing was ever taken out of the building. The three ominous digging machines, all the size of warships, simply drove off across the plains the factory was built on. When they reached the mountains, the drill bits on the front activated, and the worm-like robots cut tunnels into them and disappeared below the surface of the world. It was unclear what the plans for the massive drilling machines were, but if human technology falls into the wrong hooves, trouble is inevitable.





"Come on Rainbow Dash, pitch the ball already!" called out Applejack as she stood next to home plate.

A small group consisting of the two friends and eight other ponies were engaged in a variant of kickball. But Rainbow Dash was refusing to kick the ball towards home plate for some reason, perhaps to take advantage of Applejack's impatience. Rainbow squinted her rose-colored eyes and stared down at the country girl, who was looking very cross at the stalling. 

Applejack stomped a hoof on home plate, "We ain't getting any younger!"

Rainbow Dash picked up the red foam ball in front of her with a wing and quickly rolled it towards her friend. Applejack intercepted the ball and gave it a heavy front kick with her right leg. The foam ball arched up into the air and away from the ball field. The rules of the game stated that the Pegasus ponies had to stay on the ground, no flying was allowed, so it was unlikely the ball was going to be caught. Applejack had scored a home run, and she galloped around the bases, laughing in celebration of her victory. Rainbow stared in shock that Applejack had managed to kick the ball so far, she tended to underestimate the strength of earth ponies. 

"Well, that's 2-2," said Applejack as she crossed home again, "we need a tiebreaker next innin'"

"After we get the ball back." said Rainbow Dash, "it flew over there." Rainbow motioned towards the well-built stone castle behind them.

"Aw, did it go in Tech's castle?" said Applejack, "he's gonna be upset."

"Have the teams wait here, I'll deal with the crabby inventor." Sighed Rainbow as she flapped her wings gently and went to get the ball back. Techorse's castle was not too large or ominous, but it had plenty of spots on it where a foam ball could enter and get stuck. Rainbow Dash entered an open window on the castle skillfully, landing gently inside the structure.

"Hey Techorse, we lost our ball in here again!" shouted Rainbow.

Techorse heard her and replied gently, "Just find it, Rainbow."

Rainbow was a little happy Techorse wasn't upset about the issue, and kept searching for the kickball. She found it wedged into the top of the largest pipe on the castle's pipe organ. Rainbow Dash could have flown up and plucked the ball out of the instrument, but decided that was too much work, and searched the keyboard for the matching pipe. Having no musical talent, she simply guessed and whacked a large number of the keys on the organ. The sour chord sounded throughout the castle, and the ball flew out of the top of the tube. It bounced off the tile floor and out the window of the castle again. Rainbow Dash turned to leave and was about to jump out the window to fly away when a cold metal object touched her neck. Turning around, she saw Techorse had put a robotic hand on her. The colt was soaking wet, and his battle saddle was sparking from the water damage.

"I was watering a houseplant above my head when you hit that chord." He said through gritted teeth, trying not to yell.

Rainbow laughed sheepishly and replied, "Sorry about that, it was stuck." Techorse sighed and let the robotic arm slide back into a panel on the side of his back-mounted invention. The panel closed with a metallic click, and the machine emitted a puff of smoke as a little more water entered it.

He scooted her out the open window and watched as she flew away, then locked the paned windows and groaned in anger. A nearby computer monitor flickered on and the face of a robot popped up.

"That was a little rude." commented PAL, in central computer form. Techorse, water still dripping from his mane, looked at his robot and said to him, "This is the fifth time this week she's lost a kickball in the castle, and then destroyed something looking for it."

The computer suggested, "Maybe you should invent something to repel the kickballs and keep them from getting in here. You know, use that brain you used to build me."

"That idea is a waste of time." replied the pony, "I've been too tied up running my business to invent fun things like that."

PAL said nothing in response, only looking around the edges of the computer monitor to see if any icons caught his fancy.

"I think you ought to apologize anyways." said PAL, "she is one of your friends, and you did just mistreat her."

Techorse yelled, "WHAT? She keeps wrecking this place, and you want me to apologize because I call her out on it? How is that fair?"

"Well I'm only saying you were rude in calling her out on it, master. She was getting annoying, but that's no reason to blow up."

"You're going to blow up if you don't shut it!" threatened the colt as he stormed off to go fix his saddle.

"Third threat on my existence this week." mused the computer, "The master's gone absolutely insane from this appliance business he runs. The money is simply not worth it, he should limit the number of orders allowed per month." 

PAL decided the best option, through a series of logical calculations, was to    go into town to get away from his angry master. He thought that maybe he could apologize to Rainbow Dash on his creator's behalf.

The face on the computer monitor disappeared, and electrons flowed from it down the output cable, through the wiring, and into a robot body lying up against a wall on the other side of the castle. PAL opened his eyes and took in the information from the surrounding area, then straightened himself out and walked for the back door. Reaching the outside access, he grabbed the handle on the oak door and pulled it up like a manual garage opening. The machine walked out into the sunlight and had a quick look around the peaceful garden, then strolled off to go find his friends. He found the kickball teams moping around and doing absolutely nothing. Some of the ponies took notice of the robot and started to shy away a little, PAL's form made him about twice as big as them, and he was somewhat threatening.

But the robot was programmed to be happy and gentle, and the machine introduced himself to the ponies he didn't recognize, "Hello, how may I be of assistance?”

"Aw knock it off PAL." said Applejack, "Are you here to finish yellin' at Rainbow Dash for him?"

PAL crossed his arms and said, "Not at all, I was getting tired of the master's attitude myself. I came here to play with you."

"We're not going to play anymore." stated Rainbow, "he's just going to yell at us again when we lose the ball over there."

PAL scanned the playing field and suggested, "What if we treat second base as home instead and play in that direction? There's no fence behind home, so we can still kick the ball in that direction without interference."

Applejack turned her head on looked at the field, then said cheerfully, "Hey, why didn't we think of that? What team do you want to be on, PAL?"

The robot picked up the red ball and said, "I'll pitch for both teams. My father was a pitching machine."
"Really?" asked Rainbow Dash as she looked up at the machine curiously.

"No not really." Replied PAL, "But I really was hoping to get in on this match.  It looks like fun.”

"Come on you silly gadget, let's play!" giggled Applejack as she pushed the robot towards the pitcher's mound. PAL walked over to the mound as the ponies got into position to start the new game.





As the game recommenced, across town Twilight Sparkle was busy catching up on world events. It was a slow day at Ponyville's library, and so she had plenty of time to read the newspaper. Looking casually over the text, she searched for an interesting article to read.

"Coal purchases for power plants up 400%." She said to herself as she read the second page's main article. "Do we even need that much more electrical power?" 

Her assistant, Spike the dragon, hopped down from a bookshelf and peered at the news.

"Not sure, Twi. Where does the coal come from anyways?"

Twilight explained, "Coal is a fossil fuel, it's made in the ground over millions of years from dead plants, trees specifically. It has to be dug up and then burned to make electrical power. Because we use so little electricity as a society, we just buy and burn all the available coal. But with this fourfold increase in coal, we're making way too much power."

"What's the worry?" asked Spike, "Four times the electricity means more hot water and other stuff, right?"

"Maybe, but it also means four times the pollution generated. Some unlucky pegasus pony has to clean that up and damage his or her wings. Not only that, but it can in large amounts change the environment permanently."

"That's insane." commented Spike in disbelief, "how could a little burnt coal change the planet like that?"

"According to Techorse, it happened to Earth." Answered Twilight, "and Earth had less of a natural balance than we do. The pollution will be much more devastating."

"I thought you said coal was clean last month, and now it's cursed." sighed Spike, putting up with Twilight's indecision.

"It does burn cleaner than oil, but we're burning four times the amount of coal that we need to! The power plants always purchase every last piece of coal available and burn them without thinking."
Spike asked, "So, what do we do about it?"

Twilight said, "We need to investigate. If things get out of hoof, I'll write the princess and let her know about the problem."





A few days passed by, giving the two plenty of time to research the effects of burning coal on the environment, and how much was actually needed to supply the cities of Equestria with enough electricity. Unfortunately, they simply lacked the statistics needed to continue in their project, they needed more information about where all the coal was coming from. Spike suggested they ask Techorse if they could borrow his castle's radar equipment to search for the source of the extra fossil fuels. Twilight agreed with him and they left that afternoon for the small castle on the edge of town. Arriving at the wooden doors, Twilight knocked gently with a hoof.

PAL answered the door gruffly, "We're not interested in a new sofa, thank you."

Spike said to the monitor, "It's us, PAL."

"Oh, it's Spike and Mistress Sparkle. Hold on, I'll open the door right away!" said PAL, changing his attitude quickly. 

The two halves of the door swung open slowly to grant access to the guests, and they walked inside the moment the doors provided enough space to enter. "He's in his laboratory working on something." said the robot, “I'm not sure what it is though.  Perhaps we should check.”

"Thanks." Replied Twilight as she walked gently through the stone halls. She and Spike found the green-coated pony making adjustments to his favorite invention: the robotic saddle. Holding a tiny wrench with his teeth, he twisted one last screw into place before opening his mouth and dropping the wrench into a toolbox.

"Techorse." Called Twilight, "can we ask you for a favor?"

He turned around and swished his tail, "Of course, Twilight. What can I do for you?"

Spike barged in, "We need to borrow your radar to see where all this extra coal stuff is coming from. Twilight says it's polluting the planet to death, but I don't see how."

"The radar isn't the best piece of equipment for geological study." Replied Techorse, "what you would want is a satellite to send pictures from space. I haven't gotten around to sending one up yet."

"We know." said Twilight, "your job keeps you working around the clock."

"Hey, I never thought my kitchen inventions would sell so well." He replied with a quadruped shrug, "All I did was make a produce peeler that could be operated easily with these hooves."

"Don't be so humble." teased Twilight.

"Anyways" continued Techorse, "it's worth the income. I'm a pretty lucky pony."

"I've heard you're not so lucky." Said Twilight, "You've been working so hard you've become bitter towards others."

"Let me guess." sighed Techorse, "Applejack told you that."

"Yeah." Said Spike, "she sounded pretty mad about how you treated Rainbow Dash."

"Look, I'm sorry about that. I've just been so busy it's gotten me all upset." replied the inventor.

"Maybe you should declare a vacation and shut down your production for a bit." suggested Twilight.

"I just don't want to look lazy." replied Techorse, "It's not fair that I shouldn't work because I made a bundle off of these gadgets."

"But you're working yourself to death." protested Twilight, closing the distance between them, "you need a bit of rest before you go nuts."

"Well, ok." caved Techorse, "I guess it's time that I scale back my business.  I never really was in it for the money, just to try and make life easier for ponies by giving them better cookware and appliances.”

“You can still do that in smaller batches though, so you don't go nuts, right?” asked Twilight optimistically.

“I can, and I should have done that to start with.” he answered.

Techorse asked them to follow him as they descended down the stairs and into the production room, where a few pieces of large machinery were making and boxing the appliances. A flip of a switch brought the noisy machinery to a halt, and the factory room became eerily quiet. 

"With that settled, let's go see what we can do about that coal problem you were talking about." He suggested, motioning for them to go back up the stairs.

They walked into the instrument panel room of the castle on the top floor and stood in front of a 42 inch computer monitor. Techorse pushed a button with a hoof and watched as the picture on the screen started to form. The monitor displayed a large green ring with a sweeping green line coming out of the center. The line quickly traveled the length of the circle once, and a number of green objects showed up to represent the topography of the surrounding terrain. 

"This is what the radar is capable of showing, just the surrounding objects as these green blobs on the screen. If you're asking me where all the coal is coming from, I have no way of telling from this."

"Do you have a map of Equestria stored on the computer?" asked Twilight.

"Yeah.", he said after thinking for a bit. "Try combining the two and see if that helps." She ordered.

Techorse hit a few keys, careful not to let his hooves smash a large number of them at once. The picture changed, showing the continent they were standing on, with the radar on top. The mountains on the map were soon covered by the matching green blobs that the radar picked them up as.

"Still no good." said Spike, "I can't see any coal mines anywhere."

"Well maybe if we..."

"Hi, watcha guys up too?" came a cheerful voice from behind. A pink pony jumped into the room and landed with a gentle bounce behind the friends.

"Hello Pinkie Pie." said Techorse "How did you get in my castle without me knowing this time?"

"PAL left the door open again." She answered with a giggle. Pinkie Pie stood up a bit on her hind legs and stared at the monitor with her cute blue eyes.

"Ooh!" she exclaimed, "What's with the pretty map? Playing a game?"

"We're looking for the source of all the extra coal being burned in the power plants." stated Twilight.

"Didn't hear about that." said Pinkie Pie.

"That's because you never read the news." explained Techorse bluntly.

"Hey, I do too!" she said, "Just only when it involves party planning or baking!" Techorse shook his head and continued to focus on the monitor. Spike could tell Techorse was going to get angry, so he tried to draw Pinkie Pie away from him.

"Hey, Pinkie." He said to her, "Let's go back to your place and try that new recipe you've been talking about."

"Great idea!" she said, "bye-bye Twilight and mister grumpy pants!"

Techorse snorted as they left the room, leaving him alone with Twilight.

"Man she's annoying." He commented as he hit another button the panel.

"See, there you go again." criticized Twilight, "you're being nasty to your closest friends!"

He said sadly, "I've just been so stressed out recently that I've completely forgotten my manners." 

Twilight told him, "Just try to relax. I'm sure after a few nights of rest you'll be a nicer colt again. See you tomorrow." 

She left the room and stopped only for a second to stare back at her frustrated coltfriend. Twilight felt somewhat sorry for him, she knew it was only his work that was making him act the way he did. She dropped the topic from her mind though as she headed for the front door.





The next day was uneventful for the town. Work continued as normal, but nothing interesting happened to the citizens. The morning came and passed like it was absolutely nothing, and the early afternoon dragged on as the sun continued its path along the sky. As the shadows began to lengthen due to the afternoon coming to a close, dark figures approached the town stealthily. They used every rock, tree, and building to their advantage to move through Ponyville undetected. Not one resident noticed them due to their speed, but some could feel the eerie presence as the day started to come to a close. 

The shadowy characters made their rounds to a few key buildings in town, with plans to complete their mission without being seen. One resident of the town who did not have a care in the world about their presence was Rarity, who was busy going over her inventory at the end of the work day. As a master dressmaker, Rarity always made sure to check her supplies daily in order to avoid running out when a critical order came through. Thus, inside her well-decorated boutique, she carefully went through each door and closet.

"Let's see now, two bolts of red cloth, one of blue polyester." She counted as she sorted through the materials, checking for what she needed to order. 

Rarity's horn glowed a soothing white as she moved the cloth magically from the closet into her studio.

"Hmm, I'm out of forest green. I'll need to pick some up tomorrow." She said to herself as she found an empty metal tube. 

Last on her list was to open a vault she used to store the gemstones she sewed into nearly every dress she created. Rarity punched in the code and swung the metal door open. She counted the various gemstones out, and was satisfied in finding that she had a good balance of various stones. A weird draft came in the room as she finished looking over the gems, and the air flowed over her well-curled hair, making it flutter gently.

"Brr, did I leave a window open?" she asked herself with a shiver as she walked over to one of the store walls. 

To her intrigue, ever last window was closed, and so was the front door. Whatever had caused the draft of cold air had simply vanished into thin air. Rarity decided to brush off the event as a silly happening and started to pack up the cloths again. When she went back to her inventory, however, she noticed a square of plain white cotton material had been torn off neatly. 

"I didn't use any white cloth today!" she said, suspecting something, "a certain pony's playing a prank on me." 

Rarity believed that Pinkie Pie had snuck into her store to steal some cloth as a "harmless" joke. So, she picked up a magazine with her magic powers and rolled it into a playful club.

"She's going to get a little bop on the head." She thought to herself, hoping it would bring a few laughs when it all boiled over. 

Looking around the room for Pinkie Pie, Rarity spotted a very large bulge in a thick red curtain on one of her windows. 

She smiled and said, "Bingo." 

Rarity walked over to the curtain and prepared to brush it aside with her hoof and then bring the magazine down on Pinkie's head. She whisked away the velvet curtain and swung the magazine through thin air. Absolutely nothing was behind the curtain. Rarity frowned and looked back and forth; she still had a prankster loose in her shop. 

"Oh dear." She said sarcastically, "I sure hope Pinkie Pie doesn't prank me while I'm out here in the open!" Rarity readied the magazine again, ready to make it count when Pinkie would inevitably giggle and reveal her location. 

But no such thing happened, Rarity heard absolutely nothing. "Well, that's odd. I can't seem to find her." she said, "looks like she gets away again."

Suddenly, a black blur rushed in front of Rarity, and she shrieked in surprise. 

Rarity swung the magazine at the thing, but missed whatever it was. After that moment, the white section of missing cloth came down over her face. Rarity struggled to get it off, but something was holding her still, she couldn't break free. She took a breath in from the cloth and noticed it smelled very strange. The cloth had been soaked in something akin to chloroform. The unicorn pony collapsed on the ground unconscious as the chemical knocked her out cold. Something then dragged her limp body out of her store and away from the town, unnoticed by a single being.

About two hours after Rarity's disappearance, Ponyville began to get concerned. They found evidence of a breaking in and entering, but couldn't find the criminals responsible. It was simply assumed that Rarity had fled in fear of a burglar entering her home and shop, and that she would eventually return once she calmed down. Word of the robbery spread through the town like wildfire, despite nothing of actual value being taken from the store itself, this type of crime was rare. Ponies began to lock down their own stores in order to protect their places of work and their families. Fluttershy, who lived at the edge of town in her hollowed tree, also barricaded her windows to prevent anything from happening. As a pony afraid of anything, sometimes even her own shadow, she never took chances whenever potential danger was about. She pushed the last board over her door and stepped back a bit to admire her precautions. Her home was prepared more for a hurricane than a thief as boards covered the windows and held the door shut.

"There." She said, "Nobody's coming in here tonight." 

To calm her nerves, she walked over to her fireplace and started a small wood fire to boil a pot of water. A rabbit inside the home hopped over with a teabag and dropped it gently into the pot. 

"Thank you Angel." said Fluttershy to her pet. The tea began to brew and filled the sealed home with a strong aroma. 

"Oh that smells good." thought Fluttershy as she leaned into the large fireplace to get a whiff of the boiling tea. 

Something clamped onto her long pink hair, and Fluttershy screamed as the attacker pulled her up the chimney, nearly scalding her hind legs on the metal pot. Angel jumped to try to grab Fluttershy back, but the heat from the fireplace nearly scalded her, and he had to watch as Fluttershy was taken away in the one place she never expected an attack to come from.

Rainbow Dash was lazing off again from her duty in weather management. Despite it being her only job, she tended to not do it until the very last minute. As she sat on her mattress in her cloudhouse, she caught sight of a black blur out the window. 

"What is that?" she wondered as she observed the speeding object. "I gotta check this out." 

She said as she opened the window to get a better look. However, the blur disappeared underneath of her floating home. 

"Hey!" she shouted as she jumped out the window and inverted herself to fly underneath the house. Rainbow looked around, but saw nothing in the shadow cast by the floating structure. 

"That was a little freaky." She said. Calling out to the ponies walking around below her, she asked, "Did anybody else see that black line running around here?"

She got a bunch of head shakes for an answer, the blur had only been seen by her.

"Blind." She said sadly as Rainbow flapped her wings and drifted back into her house.

"All right" She said, "I'll make dinner, then go and bring that rain we need today for the grass. Some of the lawns around here are looking pretty dried out." 

Rainbow walked into her kitchen and got out some fresh ingredients from her refrigerator. As she sorted out the grains and vegetables, she felt a presence behind her. Rainbow Dash grabbed a knife in her teeth and spun around quickly to face whatever was there. Except for the kitchen door, nothing was behind her; it was only a bit of paranoia. She dropped the knife on her counter and shook her head, letting her striped mane wave back and forth. An impact to her skull brought her thoughts and consciousness short, as a loud metallic clang put Rainbow Dash down. Her living but unresponsive body was removed from her house as quick as a flash, leaving behind only a ladle with a few strands of colored hair on it.

The town's panic had been brought to maximum level. With three disappearances in the hour, no one was taking any chance whatsoever. The mayor declared a state of emergency and ordered every citizen to arm themselves with something blunt and heavy. But word had not yet reached Twilight or Techorse, for no pony in town had bothered to make the now perilous trip through town to reach them. Twilight had kept the library open, unaware of the panic of the town. Spike watched as the residents outside dived into their stores and shut them down for the day.

"The stores are closing early." He said, "so much for getting that comic book I wanted today."

"There's always tomorrow." Said Twilight as she shelved returned books, "but it is a little odd they're shutting down this soon. It's only five o'clock." A loud knock on the door sounded as Twilight pushed a heavy dictionary onto a shelf.

"Will you get that, Spike?" asked Twilight as she grunted under the weight of the volume, "I'm still busy here."

"Sure." He said as he walked over to the red ornately-carved door. The dragon brushed the green fin on the top of his head into a neater position, and then opened the door. A brown male unicorn wearing a green and white baseball cap was standing there. On his back was an odd plastic square tray, on which rested a flat white box.

"Pizza delivery." said the guy, "for a Miss Sparkle."

Twilight might have wanted the food, but she had already put her paycheck in the bank and didn't have anything left in the house, so she said, "We didn't order a pizza."

"You sure?" he asked, "It's half sprouts and half rubies."

Spike loved gemstones and said, "Come on Twilight, that's our favorites!"

"I don't have any money to give him." said Twilight as she looked at Spike.

"Someone else already paid for this." explained the delivery guy, "I'll just set it on the table here for ya."

"Who?" asked Spike. He looked at Twilight and they both knew.

"Techorse." They said together as the unicorn used a magic burst to place the box on the counter in the middle of the room. He then left without a word, oddly not asking for a tip.

"Let's finish putting these books back before we eat." said Twilight, noticing Spike reaching for the pizza.

"Fine." replied Spike with disappointment, drawing his hand away from the box. As they turned to work, a small metal pipe emerged from the box and started to quickly fill the room with grey smoke. It took the two a while to notice it because they were facing away from the box, but they soon saw it.

"What the?" exclaimed Spike as the smoke continued to fill the room. 

Twilight opened a window and brought out an oscillating fan to push the smoke out of the room. As they worked to clear the mess, several black blurs entered the door and whisked around the room. Twilight got scared and cast a spell to blast the pizza box out the door, ending the smoke problem. When the vapors finally left the building, Spike and Twilight found themselves surrounded by three Pegasus ponies wearing completely black tight fitting clothing. Only their eyes were visible through a rectangular box cut from the cloth.

"Ninjas!" shouted Spike, "I'll handle this!" 

Hoping to repeat what he had read in the previous issue of his comic books, Spike breathed fire on one of the ninjas. The green flames danced around the bad guy, but when he ran out of breath, Spike realized that he had done no damage. 

"They have fireproof suits?" he gasped as the ninjas moved in closer on them. 

Twilight shot a bolt of destructive energy at one of them, but he raised a wing and deflected it into the ground. Then the three leapt to attack them at once. Twilight looked at Spike and knew that both of them would be killed if she didn't act fast. So in a moment of love for her lifelong apprentice, she used a pusher spell to kick the dragon out of the library as the ninjas fell on her. Twilight shut her eyes and felt a hard knock on her head before she fell unconscious.





Spike had hit his head on the cobblestone streets of the town and had been knocked out, he was collected by the medical experts of Ponyville and put on a sick bed until he could wake up. Word of the disappearances of the heroes of the town put everyone in despair, if they were robbed themselves, they would have to defend themselves. The only one to not know yet of the disappearances was Techorse, who was still stuck in his castle working on the maps to look for the coal source. Pinkie Pie had decided to visit him again today and ask about where her friends might have gotten off to, so she bounced up cheerfully to the castle with a basket of cookies clenched in her teeth. She knocked on the door and waited for either him or PAL to answer. No response came, but the gates opened up anyways. Pinkie left the basket on a table immediately to the left of the castle entrance, and then walked while humming a cheerful tune to find him. She entered the radar room again and saw Techorse continuing to stare at the screen, but this time he was wearing his saddle.

"Have you been there all night and day?" asked Pinkie Pie.

"No." he replied without turning to look, "I've been taking breaks. Good to see you again Pinkie." 

She let her fluffy tail swish in the air as she prepared to ask Techorse her question, but PAL entered the room with a strange plastic bag. Inside the bag was a couple of interesting rainbow-colored rope shaped objects.

"Hello miss Pie." said PAL.

"Hey PAL!" she replied, turning to look in his direction without moving her head. She then spotted the bag in the robot's left hand and asked, "What's in there?"

PAL removed one of the objects from the bag and said, "It's a new treat recipe I made! They're homemade gummy worms. Want one?"

Pinkie Pie opened her mouth wide and tilted her head back.

"Chirp!" she said, imitating a baby bird. PAL laughed and dropped the chromatic confection into her waiting maw. Pinkie closed her mouth and began to chew on the jumbo gummy worm, enjoying the unique multi-flavored taste of the treat.

"That's good." She said in ecstasy from the flavor of the worm.

Techorse said to Pinkie Pie, "I'm sorry I snapped at you yesterday."

"It's ok.  You're tired." replied Pinkie, mouth full of gummy treat.

"Anyways, PAL and I couldn't find the source of that coal Twilight was talking about." He said as he looked back at the monitor. Pinkie Pie nodded thoughtfully and continued to chew, the ridiculous size of the worm made it impossible to swallow the treat quickly.

PAL said, "I'll go check the mail while you two talk, ok?"

"Go ahead." said Techorse. 

The robot left to go check the mailbox, making loud metallic footsteps as he walked out the open door of the control room. He went out front and found the plastic box, then opened it. Inside was a small brown package tied with a plain white string. PAL removed the rectangular object and turned it over in his hands, scanning it carefully with his optical sensors.

"Interesting, a package." He stated in a matter-of-fact tone. PAL shut the door on the mailbox and turned to go back inside when he was stopped by Applejack.

"PAL, wait up!" she said while short on breath, "Twilight, Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Rarity have all gone missin'. The town's in a panic!"

PAL said, "If that's true, miss Applejack, then we must inform master immediately. Follow me in." He took the orange pony upstairs and went back into the room.

Applejack spotted Pinkie and said, "Oh thank goodness, Pinkie's already here tellin' Techorse about it."

"About what?" asked Techorse as he turned to see Applejack, "nice seeing you by the way." 

Applejack walked up beside Techorse and said, "Fluttershy, Twilight, Rarity and Rainbow Dash have all fled their homes for some reason and haven't come back yet. Somethin' terrible must have happened!"

Applejack wanted to get in another sentence, but was getting annoyed by Pinkie's noisy chewing and asked, "Pinkie Pie, what are you eating?"

"A worm." She answered as she continued to masticate her snack.

"I've seen ya do some pretty disgusting things." said Applejack in shock, "but eatin' a worm is new even for you!"

Pinkie Pie explained, "A gummy worm silly. Look." Pinkie opened her mouth to reveal the ball of rainbow-colored bolus.

Applejack recoiled in disgust, "Ok! Ya didn't need to show me."

Techorse stopped the distracting talk and asked, "What about the disappearances, Applejack? Tell me." 

She tipped her hat forward on her head and explained, "It seems some of our friends have gone missin' after that chain of breaking-ins. No one knows where they went."

"Maybe they just fled in panic." Said Techorse, "I'm sure they're all ok."

"By the way master, a package came for you today." Interrupted PAL. 

PAL handed the box to his master, and a pair of robotic arms came from the saddle on his back to accept it. Techorse took the string off the box and opened the top of it. Applejack gasped at the contents, and Pinkie Pie immediately swallowed the rest of the worm in shock. The box contained a lock of Twilight Sparkle's tail hair, recognizable by the pink and dark purple stripes on it. Techorse found a note underneath the lock and quickly picked it up to read it.

"Hello Techorse, it's your good old friend. It seems my followers have taken your love Twilight. She is being held captive in my castle at the following coordinates:" 

Techorse punched the numbers into his computer and watched the map change. Then he finished reading the note: "Do not send these coordinates to princess Celestia. I have unicorns scanning the air for traveling message particles, if they pick any up written by you, I will be forced to deal with your friends immediately. That being said, with the coordinates, you have three days to make it to my castle and turn yourself over. Because you were one of the aliens, I cannot simply allow you to live after what your kind did to ours six months ago. As insurance that you will arrive, I will not tell the location of your other lesser friends whom I have also kidnapped. They are locked up in different dungeons to prevent you from plotting the escape of all of them at once. Enclosed is a lock of Twilight's hair to prove I am not bluffing about any of this. Should you fail to show up at my castle in three days and turn yourself over, the next package I send you shall contain Twilight Sparkle's head. Make your decision, and I hope to see you very soon. Signed, Arbiter."

"I don't believe it." said Techorse in disbelief, "Captain Arbiter's back."

"It looks like he wants revenge after you got him fired." commented Applejack.

"Well we can't just sit here and let him cut off Twilight's head!" shrieked Pinkie, "We have to do something!"

Techorse resigned himself and said plainly, "I'll turn myself in to him. He will keep his word and let you all go. I can't let any of my friends get hurt because of me."

"We're not letting him get you!" said Applejack strongly, "we're going to kick his tail and rescue them the old fashioned way."

"Thanks Applejack, but we don't know where the others are being kept. Unless I turn myself in, there's no way we'll be able to save them."

PAL added, "You have the coordinates of the main castle Arbiter is staying in. There is a good chance the fortresses where the others are being kept is hidden somewhere between here and that castle."

"True." Said Techorse, "It's unlikely Arbiter would put the prison off in a location where it couldn't be defended very well."

"Then let's go now. We don't have any time to lose." declared Applejack.

PAL detected a knock at the front door and said, "Someone's at the front gate, I'll let them in." The robot walked out of the room and tossed the bag of gummy worms to Pinkie Pie.

"Before you stuff yourself and can't talk again, Pinkie, I need to know if you'll be able to help us on this mission." said Techorse as he swiped the bag away from her.

"Well duh." She replied, "I can't let that mean guy Arbiter keep them all locked up!"

"You know, that's just the oddest thing." said Applejack, "We weren't all locked up. For some reason, he didn't capture me or you, Pinkie Pie."

Techorse said, "Arbiter didn't capture either of you because we're all earth ponies. With no special powers, he thinks you'll be too weak to do anything."

"That snake!" shouted Applejack angrily, "Wait till I get my hooves on him!"

PAL returned to the room with Spike in tow. The dragon was wearing a bandage wrap on his head, evidence of the injury from last night.

"Twilight's been captured!" he shouted to Techorse.

"I know." He replied, "we just got a message saying so. In fact, everyone you see here are the only ones not captured."

"Who captured Twilight?" demanded Spike angrily, wanting revenge.

Techorse said, "Did she ever tell you about Captain Arbiter, Spike?"

"No" he replied, “Who's that?”

Techorse took a breath and explained, "Captain Arbiter was princess Celestia's captain of the guard after Twilight's brother left to go found his own castle with his wife. He wanted to destroy me because I was with the human invasion force. When he got caught setting up a guillotine, he was fired and banished from Canterlot. Now he's captured the others and is holding them hostage, wanting me to exchange my life for theirs."

Pinkie Pie spat out the gummy worm she was chewing and rushed up to Spike. "Not only that!" she said loudly, "he's also got Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy!"

"Nobody touches Rarity." said Spike menacingly.

Applejack interrupted, "All right, enough talk. Let's gear up and head out to Arbiter's castle."

"I'm going with you!" said Spike.

"It's too dangerous for you." said Applejack, "You have to stay here."

"That's not fair." Complained the young dragon, "Twilight's in danger and I want to help too.”

Techorse told him, "Twilight told me that in her absence, she wanted me to take care of you. Since she's been locked up, looks like that comes into effect. I give you permission to join our party, Spike!"

Applejack stared angrily at Techorse, she had been overruled and wasn't happy about it.

Pinkie Pie shouted eagerly, "Yes! Everyone's going together!"

PAL laughed and said, "I guess I'll stay here to provide updates to you, master." 

"Ok, but remember PAL, if you need to get to us quickly…" 

"Yes I know, I'll be there to help." said PAL, waving a hand.





After a little bit of preparations for the adventure, the team of four set out to go liberate their friends from Arbiter's dungeons. Before they left the castle though, Techorse made sure the gadgets in his saddle were working properly. The laser cannons were going to be of use on this mission for sure, so he ensured the topaz crystals were changed out to give him the maximum number of shots possible. He also packed a few spare items into the cargo bin to take on the trip. After the diagnostics check, they walked in the direction of the land where Arbiter's castle was located according to his ransom note. So that they didn't get lost, Applejack had taken the note and kept it under her hat in order to keep a copy of the coordinates on hand.

"We're going to be headin' into territory unmarked on the map." said Applejack, "so it'll be very dangerous. I want y'all to be careful."

Spike got up on Techorse's back and seated himself on the robotic saddle, "With Techorse, nothing's gonna stop us! Any monster tries something funny, and bang!"

"Despite having weapons", he said sternly to Spike, "I prefer to use them as a last resort, Spike." Spike looked for a way to pry the weapons out of the machine and said, "How are we supposed to go through a wild area without getting hurt if you don't even use your guns?"

"Simple." He explained, "Applejack's in charge. She knows how to get through these rough areas better than anyone else. With her as leader, we'll make it through without firing a shot."

Applejack stopped the group and turned around to face him.

"Hold on." She said, "I thought you were leadin' this rescue party."

"Yeah!" agreed Pinkie, "when Twilight's not around, you're the leader."

"Just because I'm a guy doesn't mean I have to be the boss." replied Techorse, “I want Applejack in charge because she knows the area from here to Arbiter's location better than any of us.”

"Ok." said Applejack, "I'll lead. Just stay close, we have to follow this trail around the mountain. I know a place we can ask for directions." 





They went at a quick pace, stopping only for a drink of water or for a few breaths in order to make good time. After making it around the mountain bordering Ponyville, they came across a small forest of deciduous trees. 

"This forest over here is not home to a lot of creatures. If we just stick to the path, we won't find any trouble." instructed Applejack as she pointed to the small woods.

“I've never been out here before." said Pinkie Pie, "Wonder if anypony lives out in these woods?"

“I suppose we're about to find out!” answered Applejack.





The walk through the forest brought them to a small flat building on the other side. It was a plain structure with a shingle roof, a red brick chimney with several bricks missing, and a handful of plain glass windows. The faded white color of the place gave away the place's great age. "What is that place?" asked Pinkie Pie, "a small house?"

"That's a bar." replied Applejack, "The Victory Lap."

"Why would we go in a bar?" asked Pinkie Pie.

Applejack explained, "The place where Arbiter's castle is, is built in an area home to the roughest, toughest ponies around. If we ask the folks here, they'll probably tell us where the other fortresses are too."

"I'm too young to go in there." Said Spike nervously, not wanting to get roughed up in a bar fight, "I'll just wait outside."

"All right." said Applejack, rolling her eyes at his cowardice. Spike dismounted from Techorse and hid inside a bush outside the bar.

"Don't mention to anypony who we are." warned Techorse, "Arbiter might still want you two despite not initially ordering your capture. We need to be careful."

"Okey dokey lokie!" said Pinkie Pie as she trotted inside the door of the saloon. Applejack and Techorse gave each other a look of hopelessness and entered the bar. Very tough looking characters were seated at the tables in the bar, playing card games, sipping their drinks, and having a good time.
Applejack whispered, "Things seem quiet now, but they can sure get violent quick. Ask and let's get out of here asap." Techorse nodded and made sure none of his gadgetry was sticking out of his saddle, as it would tell them who he was right away.

Pinkie hopped up to the bar and jumped up on one of the wooden stools. She spun around on the stool quickly and shouted, "Wheee!"

No one paid any attention to her as she looked at the ugly room. The wood supports of the roof were visible, and from them hung simple chandeliers made from wagon wheels. Very few pictures hung from the walls, and the ones that were had some kind of damage. A hoof grabbed Pinkie Pie on the head, and she stopped spinning around. The bartender took his leg off her hair. He was a tall and lanky pony with a grey coat, brown eyes, a thick yellow haircut, and a prominent yellow mustache. 

"What can I get you?" he asked. Pinkie Pie thought and replied, "How about a half lemonade, half tea!" 

The bartender gave her a confused look.

Pinkie realized she had to order something tough to fit in, so she added, "No ice." 

The bartender rolled his eyes and retreated into the kitchen.

"I thought I was only guy who ever ordered that." Came a deep voice with a hint of Russian in it from beside Pinkie. She turned and saw the gigantic stallion sitting behind her. He was wearing a leather vest which went well with his black shirt. In physical appearance, the bar patron had a soft brown coat, a slick black mane, and deep yellow eyes.

He had his specially mixed cold drink, brown from the dark tea, and he showed the glass to Pinkie Pie.

"Who are you?" asked Pinkie.

"Mega." replied the stallion, "I'm biggest guy here.  Can't drink more than tea though.  Sensitive pallet."

"Nice to meet you!" said Pinkie happily.

"You're very nice." continued Mega, "Most ponies run from Mega. They say I'm mean and stupid. But Mega just doesn't know common language well. I was born in different country. It is nice to meet pony who's friendly out here."

"Oh come on, who wouldn't want to be your friend?" giggled Pinkie as she received her mixed drink from the bartender.

Meanwhile, Applejack and Techorse were asking around the tables for any information about the fortresses where the others were being held hostage.

Techorse sat down at a table in the middle of a card game and said, "Deal me in." 

He tossed a handful of gold coins onto the table, not caring if he lost the hand. To him, the information the three colts at the table had would be worth the 15 bits he added to the pot.

One of the ponies sitting there said to him in a bootlegger's accent, "That's a pretty decent bet there, fella. Feeling rather lucky today?"

"No." replied Techorse as he picked up his cards with his hooves, "but I hope my luck changes when I go to work for Arbiter. You gents seen him lately?"

"Arbiter doesn't have any new job offerins'." said one of the ponies, "all the guard positions went like that." 

"Guard positions huh?" said Techorse curiously, "where?"

"The new fort down the way, about four miles in the direction of the river." said the third gambling pony. 
After drawing a couple of cards each, they all laid down their hands.

"Dang, the new guy wins." declared the leader of the three. Techorse had no clue how he had won, the game was so different from Earth poker it was impossible to tell the objectives.

He swept the golden coins in with a leg towards himself and said, "Maybe I can get all you guys a round on me." He passed the money to a staff member and got a bit of cheering from the others for his generosity. 

Techorse whispered to the staff member, "I'm trying to get some information from these guys, so nothing for me thank you."

While Techorse was trying to get information by waiting for the salt licks to work it out of the patrons, Applejack used her charm. Normally she would look like a working girl without much physical appeal, but she had taken off her hat and untied her hair. She looked a little more attractive this way to the bar patrons, but tried not to frown as she saw the number of boys staring at her. Applejack only wanted information and was not flattered at all by the attention she was getting.

"Look at the hocks on her." said one of the males quietly to his friend.

Another said, "Over here sweet thing!" 

She ignored the catcalls being thrown at her and walked over to the most intelligent looking pony at the bar. He was reading a magazine and enjoying a small drink of something.

Applejack put her front leg gently on the table and said, "Excuse me mister, but woulda mind talkin' to me for a moment?" The cream-coated pony looked up at Applejack and realized he was being given attention by a woman.

"I'm pretty busy." He said, playing hard to get.

Applejack hated to do what she was going to do next. She had seen Rarity do this to get attention before, and if it worked for Rarity, it would have to work for her. Applejack tilted her head a bit, moved a little closer to the stallion and batted her eyelashes gently at him.

"Please? It's awful important." she said sweetly.

The guy looked into Applejack's beautiful green eyes and asked, "What do you need to know?"

"I'm looking for a fortress." She started to cross her front legs and replied, "A big strong one."

"Take your pick lady." Replied the stallion, "There's tons out here."

"Well, the one I'm lookin' for is owned by this crazy guy with an eyepatch." said Applejack.

The stallion said suspiciously, "One of Arbiter's prisons? Why do you need to know where that is?" She pulled her front leg back and let it hit the floor with a soft clop.

"I'm supposed to take supplies there." She said, "I can see you're a big, handsome, smart pony who would know where it is."

The stallion finally caved into Applejack's charm and told her, "Why don't you come out back with me and I'll tell you where the fortress is?"

Applejack grimaced nervously and said, "Why can't you tell me in here?" 

The stallion wrapped a limb around her and drew her close. She wasn't going to like his answer.





Techorse had gotten all the information he was going to get out of the intoxicated bar buddies. They were either dehydrated from salt lick or too distracted to care, so Techorse decided it was time to round up his friends and leave. As he got up from the table, he heard a horn start to charge for a magic pellet to shoot at him. It was a grey coated colt with a brown mane and hazel eyes, wearing only an orange vest around his middle. He had Techorse within his sights, and was not afraid to let a beam loose in the middle of the bar.

"Going somewhere, Techorse?  Or should I say, Patterns?" asked the pony.

"Well, Coaltorch, as a matter of fact, I was just about to leave your watering hole." He replied as he backed up away from the knife. 

It was too bad his new friends were horribly dehydrated from all the salt he had bought them, or they could have helped him out.

"Arbiter says you have two days to get to him before your marefriend's head comes off." continued Coaltorch.

"Oh so yesterday counted, huh?" said Techorse, expressing disbelief.

"Now." continued Coaltorch gently as he made Techorse sit down at a booth with him, "I've got an offer to make you. Arbiter may want you in two days, but he offered a reward to anypony who dragged you in early. I'm going to collect on that if I can, but it has to be a live delivery, you see." Techorse wanted to defend himself, but knew using his cannons would start a terrible brawl amongst the barflies, and that would be the worst case scenario.

"I know you're a wealthy colt, and I don't want to hurt you." Continued Coaltorch slyly, "So just give me the extra 2500 bits in a neat little check, and I'll let you go. In fact, I won't even tell a soul about our meeting here."

Pinkie Pie turned on her stool and noticed Coaltorch aiming at Techorse's neck. She gasped loudly, nearly drawing the attention of Coaltorch and the others in the bar, but she only managed to get Mega to spin around and look too.

"Who is that?" he asked. "My friend Techorse is in danger, that guy's gonna hurt him!" whispered Pinkie desperately to her new giant friend. 

Mega got up from his stool and wandered over to the two.

Coaltorch spoke again to Techorse, "Well buddy, what'll it be? Give me the money, come with me, or get blasted?" Techorse saw Mega walk up behind Coaltorch, but tried not to let his eyes wander to avoid giving him away. Coaltorch pushed his horn a little closer to Techorse's neck.

"Choose!" he demanded.

Mega reared up and brought both hooves down on Coaltorch's head, crashing him through the table and leaving him rubbing his head, unable to cast any spells. The stallion in the booth behind them let go of Applejack as she jumped away from him to see what had happened.

"Who was that?" she asked, staring at the now partially unconscious Coaltorch.

"It's the guy who attacked that club we went to a while back. Remember?" said Techorse, referencing an earlier event that year.

"Oh yeah." said Applejack, "he was tryin' to get ya?"

Pinkie Pie dashed up to them and shouted, "Of course, Techorse is always fighting off bad guys!"
"Wait a minute." Said one of the bar patrons, "that's Techorse?"

"Well no duh." Said Pinkie sarcastically, "who did you think he was?"

Immediately, the other patrons tried to collect the reward on Techorse's head and approached him as a mob. Techorse drew his laser cannons and prepared to defend himself. But the mob was stopped in their tracks when Mega stepped in front of them and picked up a chair, threatening to use it as a club.

"Nobody hurts friends of Pinkie Pie." Shouted Mega angrily, "All you guys treat Mega poorly and call me stupid. But she was nice to me. If Techorse friend of Pinkie, he friend of mine too!"

The other patrons knew that they couldn't take on a titanic stallion like Mega, so they quietly sat down, and one selfless mare went to tend to the ailing Coaltorch, who had clearly learned his lesson as well.

Mega turned his head back and said to them, "Go!  Find your friends." 

The three ran out of the bar as quick as they could, and heard muttering as Mega returned to his seat to finish his drink.





After picking up Spike and getting a good distance from the bar, the friends rested at the base of an oak tree to put together their plan. 

Applejack finished tying her hair back up and said, "Ok, what did we get out of those guys?"

Techorse answered, "There's a river nearby. If we follow it upstream for a few miles, we'll find one of the fortresses. The gamblers told me it was well-staffed, meaning we're up against plenty of guards. I'm not sure who they're keeping there, but chances are at least one of them is being held captive inside that fortress."

Techorse stopped to breathe and asked lightly, "So what did you find out?"

She replied, "I heard from that guy I was sitting with that there's a tower containing a single unicorn prisoner. He didn't tell me much more before he… made his move on me." Applejack shuddered as she looked at the ground.

Spike pounded his right fist into his other hand and said angrily, "That tower must be where Rarity's been locked up!"

Pinkie Pie bounced up and down impatiently, "Let's choose a jail and get going! We can save somepony today if we hurry!"

"Since we don't know where the tower is, let's go for that fortress first!" suggested Spike.

"Good idea." Replied Techorse, letting the dragon climb onto his back. As they galloped towards the location of the river, Techorse made sure Spike could hear him say, "Once we get there, if we get into battle and you want to use your fire breath while mounted, go ahead. I've always wanted a flamethrower."

"Very funny." replied Spike, not really appreciating the joke.





The river was not too far away, so they stopped at the bank and looked down the wandering body of water to see if they could locate the fortress described by the gamblers. While at some point the river must have been clean and inviting, it was now extremely dirty and unsanitary to drink. 

"The fortress must be located upriver from here." said Techorse.

"How do you know that?" asked Spike. 

He explained his answer, "The water is polluted from something, probably sewage from upstream."

Pinkie Pie was about to dive into the river for a fun swim, but as soon as she heard the word "sewage", she stuck her tongue out and backed off from the bank.

"Ew." She said, "Doesn't Arbiter know not to build toilets over rivers? It scares away all the fish and makes the water all icky."

"I think he could care less about the environment." said Techorse, "That being said, I'm starting to wonder if he's also behind the recent coal production surge."

"We can talk about rocks and toilets after we rescue our friends." urged Spike.

"Let's keep moving then." sighed Applejack, “Ah sure hope the polluted water doesn't cause other problems for Equestria.” 





The team turned north and walked along the banks of the adulterated river, looking sadly at the condition the fortress's sewer system had put the work of nature in. Following the winding water north brought them to the fortress at last. The structure was surrounded a small grove of trees, but was tall enough to avoid being completely hidden by them. All in all, it was roughly the size of a football stadium, a decent size for a newly built prison house. It was shaped like one large castle turret, featuring only a few barred windows against the white painted stone. On one side of the building were two large gears, which turned occasionally to open the drawbridge over the moat and let a guard in or out. And as they feared, the moat was connected to the river and contaminated it with sewage from the latrine holes cut in the sides of the building.

The team hid behind some of the trees to discuss how to get inside. 

"Let's make a plan." said Applejack quietly. 

Techorse nodded and let the turbofans that let him fly slide out of his saddle. "I'll fly over to those gears and mess with them. Once the front gate is down, get in there. I will try to meet up with you later."

Spike pointed to the two guards standing in front of the moat and asked, "How are we going to get by them? They look tough!" 

Pinkie Pie was already making a run for the front gate.

"No!" called Applejack, but it was far too late.

Techorse lifted into the air and said, "Let her go, it will distract them and buy me time so I can get the door for you. Just make sure Pinkie doesn't get hurt."

Applejack nodded and turned to Spike.

He crossed his arms and said, "She's going to get captured, isn't she?"

"Yup." replied Applejack.

Pinkie jumped in front of the guards, who immediately gave her a strange look.

"Hi boys!" she said happily, "how's the night shift going?"

"Who are you?" asked the first guard, "and how did you find this fortress?"

Pinkie said, "I followed the river up here, I wanted to swim in it, but it was too dirty!" 

The guards looked at each other and didn't really know what to do, she clearly wasn't really any threat, but shouldn't be at the jail either.

The second guard looked back at Pinkie and said, "Uh, maybe you should just go back. There's really nothing to see here." 

Pinkie Pie tried to raise her head above the guards.

"What don't you want me to see? What don't you want me to see?" she kept asking over and over in a squeaky voice.

Techorse made it to the two gears and landed gently on top of the second one. Working carefully, he switched to his robotic arms and started moving the first gear slowly to the right. As it twisted, he had to step gently to the left to avoid falling off into the moat.

"Look, ma’am. Go away!" demanded the first guard.

"But why!" whined Pinkie, "I just wanna see your castle! It looks like fun!"

"No one's allowed inside!" insisted the second guard, "especially not annoying folks like you." 

Pinkie Pie let tears well up in her eyes.

"Annoying?" she sniffed.

A split second of silence went by before she closed her eyes tightly and screamed, "WAAAAAHH!"

Pinkie let streams of tears fly everywhere as she threw her tantrum.

"Great, you made her bawl you moron." said the first guard as he smacked his imbecile coworker on the chin.

"I don't hardly believe this." Commented Applejack as she and Spike watched the scene from behind the tree. "Pinkie Pie is actually holdin' them off."

"Fine, fine!" shouted the first guard in frustration, "If it makes you stop crying, we'll show you the main lobby. But you can't visit the prisoners."

"Yay!" cheered Pinkie, stopping her crying immediately. 

The guards threw a lever and the drawbridge began to descend. But Techorse was still on top of the first gear, and he was drawn towards the meshing of the two. Luckily, a quick jump in the air followed by a midair switch to his fans brought him safely to the ground and out of harm's way.

Techorse waved on Applejack and Spike, and they followed him quietly across the drawbridge, making sure the guards couldn't hear or see them. When they got inside, the drawbridge began to rise slowly again behind them. Applejack snuck up behind the first guard, ready to take him out. She turned around and bucked him in the back of the neck, sending him skidding across the floor into a garbage bin. Spike spat a fireball at the second guard and lit his tail. He panicked and ran around the room before finally jumping out a window and into the moat to extinguish the flame.

"Ok, that takes care of those two." said Techorse, "good shooting Spike."

"Thanks" he replied, letting a wisp of smoke escape from his left nostril. 

Pinkie Pie turned around and said, "Hey, you guys made it! Looks like my plan worked."

"Wait, you mean to tell me that was an elaborate plan to get us inside the fortress?" asked Techorse, "I thought it was just a distraction effort!"

Pinkie said, "No silly! That was my plan, and it worked! What, do you think I'm stupid?"

Techorse looked to the side and said, "Not stupid, just.. that was a little wacky for a plan.”

"We're wastin' time." warned Applejack, "We need to find our friends and get out of here before more guards come."

"Let's fan out and try to find them." ordered Techorse, "If we split up, we'll search faster."

"No that's a mistake!" said Spike, "We'll be on our own and in trouble if something happens.." 

“Probably ought to listen to Spike,” urged Applejack, “We don't know how many guards they still have.  If we stay together, we'll be safer.”

“We'll do it that way then,” settled Techorse.





The lobby of the prison building contained very little, just a few torches for light and two staircases leading to separate halves of the cells. Pinkie Pie let an ear perk up as she heard the footsteps of soldiers.

"Take the right one!" she shouted, "they're gonna come through the left!" 

The team rushed up the right side staircase and up onto a wooden platform suspended over a massive portcullis-like structure below.

"What's that for, safety?" asked Spike as he pointed to the mesh. 

"I think so. Nothing could get out of that cage." replied Applejack. Techorse noticed that the portcullis grid above the cells was almost like a birdcage in appearance. He had a feeling as to which of his friends were trapped here.

"How are we going to get down there without jumping?" asked Pinkie as she looked around for a way down. Spike found a small wooden lever on the platform and pulled it. The platform started to slide down on a set of cables it was hanging from.

"Good thinking Spike." said Techorse, using a robotic hand to punch him gently on the shoulder. 

The platform made its way down the cable at a 45 degree angle. Below, a section of the cage opened up, and the platform sunk below the portcullis. As soon as they were past the aperture, it closed again to prevent escape. When the platform touched the stone floor, the friends disembarked and began searching the cells together.

"We have to hurry before the patrols return!" shouted Applejack.

"Right." Replied Spike, "Techorse, check the cells on that side of the room." The dragon pointed to the other set of cells.

"You got it." Replied Techorse as he galloped off to the other side of the massive rooms.

Confusion swept them as not a single cell contained any of their friends. 

"I don't get it!" said Pinkie, "are they hiding in there?"

"Rainbow Dash!" called Spike, "Fluttershy, where are you guys?" Techorse opened up his saddle and two small conic lights emerged, illuminating the last cell. The room was empty. He shut the small lights off and shook his head sadly.

"They're not in any of these cells. Something's wrong here."

"I'll say something's wrong here!" shouted a voice from above.

Looking up, the friends saw a new pony who had come out of nowhere. The unicorn opened a gate on the cage structure over the cells and jumped through, where he landed with a loud thud on the cold stones of the dungeon floor.

He looked up at Spike and said, "I've got uninvited guests in my prison.”

Spike recognized the unicorn and pointed at him, "Hey, you're the delivery guy!"

"It was a disguise you dope." Replied the unicorn slyly, "and a poor one at that. I'm surprised you and that stupid librarian of yours fell for that." 

To Applejack's surprise, Techorse did not immediately riddle the unicorn's body with laser bolts for his insult.

"And who might you be?" asked Applejack.

He replied, "My name is Keeper, I'm the jailer."

"You work for Arbiter, don't you?" asked Pinkie suspiciously.

"No dip." replied Keeper in a mean tone, "With that comment, I find it amazing that you know how to breathe on your own."

Techorse shouted at him, "That's enough trash talk. After all, you're the moron who let himself get surrounded. There's 4 of us and only 1 of you." Techorse let his laser cannons sprout with a metallic whir and trained them on Keeper.

In response, he pushed a specially marked stone on the floor and jumped in the air to avoid the attacks of the four. Techorse blasted away with his lasers, missing Keeper left and right as he moved quickly around the room.

"Man he's fast!" commented Spike as he prepared to breath flame at the bad guy. 

Techorse stopped firing to allow a chance for the others to strike without getting them caught in the crossfire. Applejack charged at the enemy and lowered her head for a brutal charging attack. Keeper saw this and fired a bolt of energy from his horn. The projectile struck Applejack's head and sent her into a cartwheel which halted her charge. Spike jumped over Applejack's tangled body and spat a rope of green flames all around him. The unicorn pony rolled to the right and quickly used a magic spell to toss a brick at Spike. 

The brick impacted Spike on his body, and although his tough scales protected him, the force of the blow knocked the wind out of him and stopped him from breathing any more fire. Pinkie Pie took three skips and bounced high into the air, nearly knocking her head on the portcullis before coming down on Keeper's back. She pushed him to the ground, and then kept bouncing up and down on him like a trampoline to inflict as much damage as possible.

Techorse cheered, "You got him, Pinkie! Keep it up." 

Keeper spoke between getting hopped on, "You... haven't... won... yet…" Pinkie Pie stopped jumping and pinned the colt to the ground as Techorse walked up to question him.

The laser cannons came back out of the saddle, and pitched down at his head. "Where are our friends?"

Suddenly, a dozen guards arrived in the room and surrounded them. One of the guards was soaking wet, obviously the one who jumped in the river, and angrily grabbed Pinkie Pie, dragging her kicking and screaming off of Keeper. 

"Excellent timing troops. Looks like the alarm stone I pushed worked" saidthe jailer. 

Techorse gave the guards a dirty look as he powered down his weapons and stowed them again.

"What should we do with them?" asked one of the guards. 

One of them cruelly suggested, "We could throw them out the windows."

"We need to hold them here." replied Keeper, "Just toss them in with the others in the double cell. But first take that weapon off the green one, it nearly fried me!"

The team was taken away up a secret staircase, to the double cell Keeper had mentioned. Once there at the entrance, a small steel grate door with heavy lead locks, Techorse's saddle was removed from him and dropped at the foot of the door. The guards shoved them all inside and closed the door gently, if they slammed it, the locks could have been damaged. A loud click locked the cell doors and sealed them inside. Applejack got a good look around the jail cell. For being part of a prison, it was very well stocked. There were multiple cots, a sink, and a small bathroom. If intimidation and horror was the goal of the cell designer, he had failed his task miserably. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were sleeping on the beds, but woke up as soon as they heard the locking of the door.

"Hey!" said Rainbow as she jumped off her cot, "you made it!"

Fluttershy said softly, "Oh, you're finally here to rescue us. I was getting worried that you'd never show up."

"I couldn't leave you here." Techorse told her, "You're our friends."

"So, did you beat up all the guards and cut us an escape route?" asked Rainbow, sure Techorse had woven a master plan.

"Actually, we just got our sorry behinds captured." Admitted Applejack, "but we're glad you're ok and well taken care of."

Spike walked deeper into the room and said, "Yeah, it's like Arbiter doesn't want you to rot or something. He just wants to keep you here."

"This place isn't creepy at all!" said Pinkie Pie, "I could live here if it wasn't called a jail."

Techorse asked, "Have they tried starving you?"

Rainbow Dash shook her head, "We still get plates of grain every couple hours. They're not trying anything to torture us. Fluttershy's plate of food even had a piece of fruit on it."

"Strange." said Spike.

"Not to me." said Techorse, "Arbiter doesn't really want you to suffer, just me. He has some kind of standards, so it only makes sense he'd order his minions to treat you somewhat nicely."

"I still want to get out of here." assured Fluttershy, "it's still a little sad being locked up."

"Imagine how Rarity feels." Mumbled Applejack, certain she was complaining the guards in the other fortress to death.

"How are we going to escape?" asked Rainbow Dash, "they took off your saddle."

Techorse looked back at the door and said, "But the guards left it a little too close to the door. I'll have it down in a minute." 

He walked over to the metal gate and lied down on the cold tile floor of the cell. Making sure his head was as close to the saddle as possible, he issued the mental command to activate the lasers. The guns emerged from the gadget and tilted upwards towards the locks. A few more thoughts activated the steel tubes, and the beams cut right through the lock. Techorse then got back up and casually pushed the door open. 

"Let's go before Keeper comes back." He said.

They rushed out of the cell and looked around for a way out of the building.

"Rainbow Dash, take Fluttershy and fly out a window." ordered Applejack.

"We can't leave you guys in here." Replied Rainbow Dash, "we stick together and make sure no one gets left behind."

"Ok, but be careful!" she replied.

Techorse found a different staircase headed to another section of the fortress. "Let's go this way." He suggested, "If we go back the way we came, we'll get caught again."

The team moved for the staircase and descended quickly, trying not to make a lot of noise. As they reached the base, they came out into this open area, a platform made of concrete surrounded by very deep chasms.  Below the river ran, and several pipes jutted into the area, dumping sewage and other wastewater into the water, turning it brown.

"Wow, a walkway over a bottomless pit." said Pinkie Pie as she peered over the edge, "how cliché!"

"The walkway's large enough that we shouldn't fall." said Rainbow Dash, "besides, I can just fly down and grab you."

"We have to keep moving!" shouted Techorse, already galloping across the concrete for the rear exit of the prison. The team was stopped as wooden elevators rose from the chasms, on each platform, a dozen guards rushed into the middle to stop them.

"Ambush!" said Spike as he looked around, "that guy's smarter than we thought!"

"Of course I am you stupid dragon." said Keeper as he entered the room from behind them.

"Let us go. It's not worth keeping us here." said Fluttershy to the jailer.

"You'd think so, being the harmless girls you are." said Keeper, "but my leader's orders are to keep you and Rainbow Dash here, miss Fluttershy. I don't make the rules you see, I just follow them."

The guards snatched them again, and Techorse grunted as he reluctantly surrendered. He just couldn't bring himself to gun down the guards, who were pretty much innocent in his mind because they were only obeying their orders too.

"It doesn't have to be this way! We've outsmarted your defenses twice now, and we'll do it again." he said. 

"You won't get the chance." replied Keeper as he got close to Techorse, "I know Arbiter wants to see you personally, Mr. Techorse. So I plan on bolting you up in a special containment unit that will prevent you from using that gadget of yours to escape again."

One of the guards brought out special wooden cuffs and clamped them around Fluttershy's front legs. She screamed loudly, piercing the guard's ears and filling the outside of the fortress with the shrieking sound. A mighty dragon, busy foraging for gems to add to his horde, heard the screams coming from the fortress behind him.

"That screaming sounds familiar." He thought as he turned and spotted the jail. 

Keeper stuffed a ball of cloth into Fluttershy's mouth to gag her.

"Oh stop it." He said, "You're going back to your cells now."

Rainbow Dash lifted up in the air to avoid getting nabbed by the guards, but one threw a rope around her hind legs and brought her crashing down.

"This one keeps trying to fly away, shall we clip her wings sir?" asked the guard as he held onto Rainbow.

"No." he replied," we need to keep the prisoners in good condition."

Spike said to Keeper with a tough voice, "You think you've beaten us?  I can still stop you." 

"Oh please." Replied Keeper, "what's one little dragon going to do?"

In an act of irony, the 30 foot dragon standing outside burst through the walls of the prison, knocking large stone bricks all over the crowd. One of the bricks broke the cuffs on Fluttershy's legs, and she spat out the gag. All the guards panicked and scattered as the stones crashed down, leaving Keeper to face the beast alone. The golden, monstrous reptile roared and breathed flame to chase away the remaining minions out of the building. The heroes bunched together and stepped back from the middle of the platform as they watched the violence. Keeper panicked as the dragon looked directly at him, and fired a bolt from his horn, impacting the gold dragon on the right wing. He screamed in a bit of pain, but then extended his neck and made a lunge at him. The pony ran from the dragon, but the beast kept snapping its jaws at him from behind.

Keeper continued to flee down the large concrete platform; the dragon had smashed his way through part of it and lunged one more time, attempting to catch him. This time, the pony was scooped up in its maw, and he screamed loudly in mortal terror. Unfortunately for him, his sudden movements caused him to fly back a little too far, and he was lodged in the dragon's throat. The monster reared back and started choking, sitting back down at the edge of the platform. Most of the team winced, that was not a very pleasant way to go.

"Shoot, I think I swallowed him." said the dragon as he grabbed at his throat. Rainbow Dash recognized the dragon's voice.

"Yorgle?" she asked, "Is that you?"

"In the scales." He replied.

Pinkie Pie's mouth was hanging open in horror, "Yorgle, how could you? I thought you were a nice dragon, but you just ate that guy like he was a cookie!"

"I didn't mean too, honest. The simpleton rammed himself down my throat!" explained Yorgle.

Techorse asked, "Never mind that, what are you doing here?"

"Well I heard Fluttershy there screaming her lungs out, and I decided to check it out." continued the dragon in his deep voice. "When I looked in here and saw you in trouble, I knew I had to do something.  I didn't forget about that lovely sapphire your friend Rarity gifted me for my horde."

Spike couldn't contain his excitement any longer.

"Wow!" he said, "finally, another dragon on our side!" Yorgle brought his head down to Spike's level and asked him, "And who are you? Haven't seen you before."

"I'm Spike." He replied, "Nice to meet you, Yorgle." 

"Ah, you must be the dragon that Twilight knows, she was there that day you broke into my cave." Said Yorgle, "I was hoping she would have let you visit my home so we could meet, but this is just as good I guess."

Techorse explained to the dragon, "We're out here to rescue our team from someone. Spike's friend, the purple-coated one as you called her, was captured too."

Yorgle said, "That's unfortunate, but I'm glad I could help you a little bit tonight."

"Yeah, thanks for busting us out, literally." said Rainbow Dash, observing the completely destroyed wall.

"You're quite welcome." replied the dragon.

Techorse said, "All we have to do now before heading for Arbiter's castle is to rescue Rarity from her tower."

"Where is it?" asked Fluttershy. His smile disappeared as he realized they had no idea where the tower was. "Well, there was one pony who knew where it was, but we can't question him now." He said.

Yorgle sighed, "Look, I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to do that, I was just going to stop him from running away, but he struggled."

Yorgle started choking again, and realized that Keeper was actually stuck on top of his trachea, likely holding on for dear life.  He held onto his throat and coughed several times, giving Applejack an idea.

She was still deeply disturbed by the entire scenario, but said with disgust, "Maybe you can, well, cough 'em up?"

Pinkie Pie shouted, "Yeah, it looks like he went down the wrong way!”

"All right." said Yorgle, "I'll try." Before he started, he decided to add, "But for the record, I didn't intend this.”

"We believe you." Said Applejack, "Now spit him up.”

Yorgle stuck a sharpened claw down his throat and hacked a couple of times before finally regurgitating Keeper onto the remains of the concrete platform. 

"Gross." said Fluttershy as she looked at the mess.

"Cool!" cheered Pinkie, finding weird things rather interesting. Keeper opened his eyes and stood up shaking from the pool of phlegm, scared out of his wits. Techorse took out his robotic hands and grabbed the mucus-soaked Keeper by the horn.

Lifting him up into the air, he pulled the other fist back and said, "Ok you, we got you out of there so we could get some information, so spit it out, Keeper."

"What do you want to know?" he asked slowly, trying not to look at Yorgle again.

"Where's the other prison?" asked Techorse angrily as he pulled him closer to his face, "tell me or you're going back in there."

Keeper panicked and screamed, "The other tower's on the other side of the forest! I swear I'm telling the truth!"

"He's lying." said Applejack, "there's nothin' on the other side of that forest."

Techorse picked him up off the ground, "Well in that case, open wide Yorgle."

"No!" shrieked Keeper. 

He broke down into tears, "Ok, I'll tell you. The tower is built on the top of the mountain 3 miles in the direction of the arrow sign outside of this fortress. Now please let me go!"

Techorse released his grip on him and watched as he ran from the room crying in psychological terror.
"Now that we know where the tower is, let's go save Rarity!" declared Spike.

"It's night." stated Fluttershy as she looked outside, "Maybe we should think about staying put for now."

"We can use the guard's quarters." Suggested Techorse, "I think every last one of Arbiter's minions fled for his castle."

"Then it's settled." said Applejack, "We'll sleep and head out first thing in the morning." 

Fluttershy flapped her wings and floated gently into the air in front of Yorgle.

She gave him a hug on the nose and said sweetly, "Thank you so much for helping us."

"Take care, and good luck saving your friends." Said the dragon as he pulled back from Fluttershy.

He then sheepishly asked for a favor, “Oh, and, don't tell anyone about me nearly choking to death on that pony.  I have some dignity to uphold you know.”

“Our lips our sealed!” giggled Pinkie Pie.

With that, Yorgle thanked them again, and flew off into the night sky while his friends preapred to spend the night in the fortress they had just conquered.






Arbiter's castle reflected the moon well. Its white stone bounced the light perfectly for a dazzling effect. The massive home spanned a mile on each side at least and was made entirely out of stone mined directly from the surrounding mountains. Everywhere on the castle were turrets and lookout points to defend it from anyone stupid enough to attack. A large moat filled with ordinary water surrounded the fortress, and the only way in from the ground was across a special drawbridge which oddly slid out from underneath the castle and across the moat, rather than swinging down. This allowed for a more decorative door on the front, which was painted a crimson red color and decorated with gold swirling designs on the front. From many of the castle towers flew flags bearing Arbiter's cutie mark, an executioner's axe. Yet no statues of the stallion or any other images of him appeared on the castle, because although he appreciated the flags which bore his logo, he was simply not that egotistical and found it psychopathic to want a billion self portraits. All in all, the castle was not a creepy place, but its size could definitely cause fear in Arbiter's enemies. Every hour on the hour, a mining probe would pass by the castle, its cargo bays full of the coal which was making the resident of the land very wealthy. The probes never seemed to acknowledge the fortress, instead mindlessly following their programming to sell the coal at the nearest power plants.

As one of the mining probes drove by, rumbling the foundations of that side of the castle, Twilight Sparkle looked out her prison window at the massive machine.

"That looks like a giant version of Techorse's mining probes." She thought as she stared at the worm-like behemoth.

Twilight cast a light spell to provide a beam to see the probe more clearly. From the outside of the castle, a soft cone of lavender colored light illuminated the probe. The cutting head of the machine kept turning slowly as the machine crawled forward, cutting small grooves to run on. As she looked down the body of the probe, Twilight spotted its cargo bay and noticed the vast amounts of coal behind the plexiglass pane. As the probes cut into the surrounding mountains, any captured materials were sucked into the plastic containment unit located midsection on the probe. By finding the massive amounts of coal in the cargo bay, Twilight immediately knew who was behind the amounts of coal being burned. She kept staring at the machine until a moment came when the robot realized it was being watched. It stopped and scared Twilight back into her room by sounding a loud blast on its horn. She ducked back into the room and breathed heavily for a minute before calming down. After recovering from the shock of the blast, Twilight went back into her room. Like the rooms at Keeper's fortress, it was rather accommodating for a prison cell. Not only was she given a bathroom and a bed, Twilight also had a desk to right on, as well as some parchment and a quill. Writing was the only thing keeping her from going insane while under Arbiter's captivity. Twilight sighed, walked over to the desk, and wrote a new message.

"If you have found this, I am being held captive in the horseshoe mountains. The rouge Captain Arbiter has locked me up in his castle. Contact princess Celestia immediately. – Twilight Sparkle."

Arbiter's unicorns had put a spell on the castle which prevented her from using any teleportation spells to escape, and that included teleporting the message to Celestia. However, Techorse had taught her on one of their dates how to make a paper airplane, and that was finally going to come in handy. Twilight used her magic to fold the parchment into a plane carefully, making sure not to crease the paper too hard in any one direction. Then, she walked over to the window again and peeked out carefully to make sure the mining probe had left. Noticing the metallic giant had moved away and was now in the distance Twilight checked the wind flow, letting the breeze drift gently over her dark purple straight hair. A telekinetic toss sent the message plane out the window and far away from the castle, where it disappeared into the night.

The door to her room was beginning to unlock. Twilight turned around to face the door as it opened with a slam. At the door were two light yellow unicorns, who stepped aside to let their master enter the room. Arbiter entered slowly and walked up to Twilight without saying a word initially. He was a white Pegasus pony, significantly larger than most, with a short gray mane that was well groomed. But his tail looked almost like a rope that had seen better days. What was most prominent about Arbiter was his eyes, although his right one was a beautiful brown, his left eye was damaged. Arbiter had a scar across his left eye at a 30 degree angle downwards, a claw or some other object had scratched the eye out. To hide the ugly injury, he wore an eye patch over it.

Arbiter looked at the saddened Twilight and said to her, "Good evening miss Sparkle. I see you're adjusting to your room quite nicely."

"Can it Arbiter." Replied Twilight sharply, "when Techorse gets here, you're going to wish you hadn't locked me up."

Arbiter laughed and said, "I know he'll be quite angry. But he doesn't really scare me, for you see, I have you. If he does so much as lift a single hoof, I'll simply have to do you in. You've already lost a little hair for his arrogance."

Twilight looked back at her tail. Arbiter had cut off a small piece of the hair to send in the ransom package, and she was a little upset about it.

"It will grow back." said Twilight as she looked back to him. The stallion smiled and made sure he was standing taller than Twilight when he said, "Do you know why I'm doing this whole thing?"

"My coltfriend got you fired and you want revenge?" asked Twilight rhetorically, she was sure that was the right answer. "

On the contrary." Replied Arbiter, "I merely wish to rid the planet of the last threat to its safety, the half-human, half-pony. I could care less about my old job, because I made this land rich by stealing those machines and mining up all this coal."

Twilight said to him with anger, "I knew you were behind the coal. You do know that burning the coal is going to damage the environment forever, right?"

Arbiter shook his head and said, "Twilight, Twilight, you foolish little mare. I have plenty of pegasi who would be happy to clean up the pollution if need be. They'll be paid top money for their efforts."

"But those fumes could give them wing cancer!" protested Twilight, "you monster!"

"I am not the monster!" shouted Arbiter, "It's that stupid Techorse, he's a human, and I must make him pay for what his people did to this world!"

Twilight slapped Arbiter in the head and said to him, "Then why are you using their machines to dig up all this coal?  Seems hypocritcal to me.”

Arbiter stuck his leg out and kept his guards from rushing to defend him. He shook the slap off and monologued in a sinister tone, "I have made my life the best it's ever been by salvaging the alien technology and employing it to serve ponykind. The ponies from this country of Quartz Valley have had their lives improved too. Until I came here, they were poor coal miners, nothing, dirt beneath Celestia's hooves. She didn't care for them at all, and their towns aren't even on the maps. But I did what was noble and brought them out of the dirt, the money from this extra coal will make them loved for once in their lives!"

"You can't buy love." said Twilight softly. Arbiter threw his black cape around him as he turned to leave.

Before he exited the cell, he said to her, "I want you to know something. No matter how much you annoy me and say I'm in the wrong, I'm not going to hurt you. But if Techorse doesn't show up and meet his rightful fate, I will not hold back. He has two days."

Arbiter stormed out of the room. As the unicorns following him left, one of them turned around to shut the door behind them. Twilight's ears drooped when she saw the last guard draw a hoof across his neck to make the universal symbol for death. He then shut the door with a slam, leaving her all alone again.






The morning sun had finally risen over the remains of the first fortress. Yorgle's smashing had destroyed roughly half of the structure and the drawbridge was permanently lowered due to the damage. The friends woke up from inside the barracks and proceeded out of the fortress immediately, as time was of the essence. They knew the longer they took to rescue Rarity, the more she would complain about how late they were in achieving it. As they stepped outside into the sunlight, Techorse took a deep breath in of the warm air.

"Let's get moving." He said, looking at all his team members, "we don't want to keep her waiting in that tower."

Applejack said to him, "I'll say. Miss pretty-pretty is going to be awful cranky when we get there."

"Hey, maybe all the guards will have passed out from her whining! We might not need to rescue her at all." joked Pinkie Pie.

"Would you guys stop slamming Rarity?" asked Spike angrily. Techorse told Spike, "We're just trying to make a dangerous mission a little comical, ok?"

"Yeah." agreed Rainbow Dash, "Everypony needs a little humor."

"Ok, but stop the insults." said Spike grudgingly. 

"You got it, lover boy." teased Rainbow Dash, using her flight skills to draw a small heart in the air.

Spike groaned and jumped off of Techorse's back, "I'm walking on my own."

"You sure?" he asked, swinging his tail over the dragon's head. 

"Positive." Replied Spike with a grumpy tone.

"Hey Techorse, I've noticed you've been using your tail a lot more lately." said Pinkie Pie, taking note of the swing.

He replied, "I never thought about it before, but it's actually pretty neat having one."

"You bet it is!" continued Pinkie Pie, "in fact, I wrote a song about having a tail!"

"Oh no, here it comes." said Applejack mournfully, shutting her eyes in preparation for the agony.

Pinkie Pie started singing, "The best thing about having a tail, is it acts like a safety rail! It keeps you from falling over when you stumble around!"

Techorse chuckled and shook his head gently. He was always amused by Pinkie's singing. The others were very annoyed by the pink pony's tunes though.

"It keeps the bugs from biting! A swish from it is so inviting!"

"Make her stop!" said Spike, covering his scaly ears.

"Why?" laughed Techorse, "her positive attitude makes me happy."

Fluttershy quietly said to Techorse, "I agree. Without her, we'd all be very sad."

"And that's why it's so great to have a tail!" finished Pinkie Pie, who bent over on her front legs and gave her fluffy tail a couple of swings through the air, tickling Applejack's nose.

"Enough nonsense!" she said as she pushed Pinkie Pie's rump out of the way of her path.

"Grumpy." mumbled Pinkie Pie as she fell behind the rest of the group. 

"Don't be upset.” whispered Fluttershy, "I liked your song."

"Thanks!" she said as she gave Fluttershy a smile. 

Techorse noticed that Rainbow Dash was way ahead of the group, her flight was allowing her to move much faster than the others. He thought of a trick he could play to deal with his boredom and brought out the turbofans. He lifted off the ground gently and inverted himself in the air, then flew underneath of Rainbow Dash and looked up at her.

Techorse matched Rainbow's flying speed and made sure he was directly beneath her when he shouted, "How's it going?" Rainbow Dash halted in midair before shouting in surprise and looked down at him.

"You scared me!" she said.

"Stop getting ahead of us then." said Techorse.

"How are you even flying upside down like that?" asked Rainbow Dash, "that saddle of yours can't really be as good as a pair of wings."

"That's right, they're not as powerful as your wings." explained Techorse, "but I put a gyroscope in the saddle that lets me fly inverted like this without crashing." 

Rainbow shook her head and fell back to rejoin the others. Techorse flipped himself over and landed on the ground gently, then with a robotic clang, the fans slipped back into the saddle and the panels closed up over them.

"When do we get to the tower?" asked Pinkie Pie, looking at the surrounding terrain.

"Soon enough" replied Applejack.

"There's gotta be a way we can make this go faster!" she answered.

"We can, by staying really quiet!" encouraged Fluttershy.

Techorse sighed heavily due to his frustration with his team's lack of tolerance for Pinkie's antics.

"The tower should be on top of that mountain up ahead." He said to his friends. "It's obscured right now by the fog up there, but once we get up, we'll be able to see it."

Applejack asked Techorse calmly, "When we get to Arbiter's castle, Techorse, will you, ya know, have to…"

"Go ahead and ask whatever it is you want to, Applejack." said Techorse as he looked at her.

Rainbow Dash flew beside Techorse and said bluntly, "I think she wants to know if you're gonna shoot him."

Techorse gave her a shocked look, partially out of disgust for her wanting to attack Arbiter, but also because of how nonchalantly she'd suggested the idea.

The pegasus went off topic immediately, "Oh! Last night, I had this awesome dream where we stormed into Arbiter's castle, and you guys were all tied up by him! So I swooped in and saved the day, pounding that evil stallion without stopping! He begged for mercy, but I wouldn't let him have any. I was given a medal at his funeral."

Techorse glared at Rainbow Dash and said sternly, "Hey, I don't want to do Arbiter in, and neither should you!"

"But he locked us up, and might hurt Twilight!" said Rainbow Dash, "that doesn't make you mad?"

"It does." He replied bitterly, "but that's no reason to hurt him. I'm really ashamed of you, Rainbow Dash, having fun with a dream like that. Despite his kidnapping and threats, Arbiter is only doing what he thinks is right. I plan on settling this issue peacefully by proving his suspicions of me wrong."

"What if you can't?" asked Rainbow, "Huh?"

Techorse said sadly, "Then I'll have to let him do what he wants to me. I won't let Twilight get hurt." 

He sighed and let a tear hit the ground. "Maybe it seems like this is an adventure where a guy goes and rescues his girl. But very likely, Twilight's going to have to rescue me in the end. If Arbiter won't let her go without me kicking the bucket first, I have no choice but to do that."

Techorse felt like he was going to cry, and his friends got closer to him to help cheer him up.

"He's really breaking down." said Fluttershy. She stroked the mane on his neck to comfort him, "there there, we won't let him hurt you."

"I don't see why he's so upset." said Spike. "Same reason you're upset."

Applejack told him, "The girl he loves is in danger, and he feels bad about it."

Spike nervously asked, "How did you know about me and Rarity?"

"We all know you have feelings for her, silly!" giggled Pinkie Pie, "we just don't say much because it's kinda rude.”

Spike shrugged and muttered to himself, clearly a bit concerned.

"Spike, get up on my back, we can go ahead of the others and talk if you want." Techorse suggested. The dragon climbed up onto him, and they pulled at least 200 feet in front of the others.”

"Thanks for this." said the young dragon. 

He then sighed and said with despair, "but I guess they're right. What chance do I have with Rarity?" Techorse said, "I didn't think I had much of a chance finding someone else either when I was being held captive by Wizard."

"Yeah, but your change is forever." He said, "Those 'scales of justice' granted your wish. It was your choice."

"Maybe the scales did grant me the favor." Argued Techorse, "but that doesn't mean your dream of starting a relationship with Rarity is doomed. I have faith that things will turn out for you, Spike." 

Spike crossed his arms and turned around on the saddle, saying sadly, "Thanks bro, but you're an element holder, and I'm just a small dragon with no future."

“That's not true at all.” he replied, “You do have a future.  I think there is a way for you to succeed.  Of course, you may just have to wait until you're a bit older.  It takes a while for the future to get here, otherwise it wouldn't be called the future.”

“Hey, maybe you're right,” said Spike, smiling, “It might just take some more time.”

“That's what I think.” he answered.

Spike felt a lot better about his situation, and asked, "You know, why do you love Twilight so much?" he asked after a short pause, hoping to gain some romance tips.

"She saved my life." He replied, "And for that I owe her everything I am. She's also the most beautiful pony I know, with the best personality ever. That's why I'm going on this mission, despite knowing what Arbiter will do to me. I couldn't live without her, so if I can't live, maybe at least she can." 

“Don't think that way.” he said with encouragement, “We're going to get out of this.”

“I hope you're right.” answered Techorse, leading the way towards the tower ahead.

To be concluded...