//------------------------------//
// Chapter 20 - Plan B 
// Story: The Dusk Guard Saga: Beyond the Borderlands 
// by Viking ZX 
//------------------------------//


The Vault of Bones


“Your cousin is going to be furious,” Alchemy said as he sat down in front of the helm.

“Noted,” Blade replied as she rushed around the room, eyeing each control and the appropriate label before deciding whether or not to reach out and flick it, push it, or just leave it alone.

“I mean really furious,” Alchemy continued.

“Noted,” she said, pausing in front of the communication station and eyeing the small microphone that sat next to the rest of the signaling equipment. Can this thing send signals to elsewhere on the ship, like the one on the Seeker? Or can it send signals to other ships as well? It was better safe than sorry. She reached down below the console and found a loose bundle of cloth wrapped wires that ran down into the deck. A swift tug tore them free. That ought to mess things up a bit. Hopefully there wasn’t some sort of paranoia switch present in the form of a booby trap. She shook her head, dismissing the thought almost as quickly as it had come.

You’ve been working in the private sector for too long. This is military. They don’t have paranoia. They have redundancy. At the very least, she’d just destroyed backup controls along with the inter-ship communications assembly. Which they weren’t going to need anyway.

“You sure this is a good idea?”

She held back a sigh as she turned to look in the earth pony’s direction. “Alchemy, weren’t you all in favor of continuing the mission twelve hours ago? Are you still for it now?”

“Well,” Alchemy said, pausing in his examination of the helm controls. “Yes.”

“Then let me worry about my cousin,” Blade said, turning and moving to the last of the small bridge’s consoles. More redundancy, she thought as she flipped a few more switches. This thing’s barely bigger than the Arrow, and yet the standard bridge crew is four.

Military. She was remembering why she’d left, now.

“That’s it,” she said as she pulled the last lever back. “We just need to let the boiler finish heating up.” She ran her eyes over the row of gauges, stopping on one with a slowly rising needle. “And I think we’re only a minute or two away.”

There was a knock at the door, and she froze until the knock came again—twice fast, twice slow. The door slid open and Hain walked onto the bridge, followed by Frost.

“Crew’s taken care of,” Hain said. “And our gear is stowed in the galley. We ready to leave?”

“Almost,” Blade said, her attention shifting back to the gauge. “Any minute now.”

“Well, we’d better hurry,” Hain said. “It won’t take too long for someone to find those five.”

“Where’d you put them?”

“We tossed them in one of the cult tents.” Hain walked over to the bridge’s front glass and peered out the window. “They won’t freeze to death before someone finds them.”

“Good.” Blade looked up for a minute and then fixed her eyes on the lone magilight in the center of the bridge. “Someone douse that light, will you? There were only two griffons on the bridge when we took it, and now we’ve got two ponies up here too.”

“Won’t dousing the light make us more suspicious?” Frost asked.

“Not if it looks like we’re about to take off,” Blade said. At least, I hope not, she added as the interior of the bridge went dark. She frowned as the gauges all went dark as well. Wonderful. One source of light.

“Oh,” Frost said before Blade could speak. The light came back, but dimmed. “So that’s why they had that on.”

“Military expense at its best,” Hain said with a chuckle. “Why install proper gauge lighting when you can just install one light?”

One more reason I’m glad I left, Blade thought as she watched the gauge climb. Thankfully, the original designer had given it a helpful label along one side that read “ready,” so all she had to do was wait for the needle to get that far and she could tell Alchemy to go.

She looked up, peering out the glass windows ringing the bridge and trying to pick out details in the shadows outside the ship. She could see the vague outline of another balloon, and faint pinpricks of light coming from other sections of the makeshift camp, but nothing outside of the corvette they’d just hijacked.

Sorry, Kalos, Blade thought as she glanced back down at the needle. It was almost in place. I gave you a chance, but my mission comes before yours. Plus, it’s not like you guys will miss a corvette. True, it was the corvette that the rest of the fleet had fixed up and completely refueled to fly ahead of them to Teardrop in a few more hours, to deliver news of the battle and call for resupply to meet the rest of the fleet halfway, but that preparation was exactly why she’d picked it.

Mostly full on fuel, full on food, and ready to fly with all the needed repairs, she thought. The corvette had all the makings of a perfect mark.

Granted, the forty-foot vessel didn’t have the firepower to take on the Order’s airship, but then it didn’t have the speed to catch up to it either, so that probably wasn’t going to be a problem. All things equal, she thought as the needle touched the base of the “ready” zone. I really would rather we were making this trip in the Seeker. Even damaged, it was a faster ship. But running a full-size frigate with a crew of four wasn’t something she wanted to even bother attempting. Especially a damaged, fuel-stricken frigate.

“We’re up!” she shouted as the needle moved into the ready area. “We’ve got pressure!”

“Right,” Alchemy said, reaching for the controls and then pausing. “Let’s see … We need to cast the mooring lines off.”

“On it,” Frost said, stepping over to the window. Her horn lit with a purple glow, and Blade glanced out the windows to see a thin sliver of ice sawing its way through one of the mooring lines. At the same time, another of the lines was wrapped in the same purple glow, this one untying it from the cleat.

“I’ll get the ones in the back,” Hain said, nodding at her as he moved for the door. Blade returned the nod, watching as Frost finished her work.

Two down, she thought as both ropes slipped down the pointed prow of the airship, sliding off the bow and landing on the ground below. Two to go. The corvette was laid out almost like a yacht, with a raised bridge near the front of the ship’s aerodynamic prow, a more conventional deck behind it. Which wasn’t to say that the front of the ship was completely standard. Halfway up the curved surface,, midway between the point of the bow and the bridge, the ship’s forward line was broken by a small weapons platform. Two walkways worked their way back from the platform and towards the rear deck, moving towards the edges of the ship and lowering themselves to the level of the main deck as they passed by the bridge.

Shame that gun only has a few shots, Blade thought as she looked down at the weapon. A cloth tarp had been slung over it to keep the worst of the weather off, but she could still make out the general outline of its shape. It was home-made, that much was sure, since the design looked like some sort of cross between a cannon and the more modern, cartridge-based designs coming out of the minotaur city-states.

Then again, if we have to use it, we probably screwed up somewhere.

Behind her there was another knock on the door, and then Hain ducked inside. “We’re loose,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“Got it.”

The deck titled beneath Blade’s feet, and she extended her wings slightly, steadying herself. Outside the glass the ground vanished, fading away into the darkness as the corvette began to rise.

The corvette, Blade thought, frowning. “Did anyone catch the name on the side of this thing before we boarded it?”

“You didn’t look?” Hain asked.

“Plan B is more concerned with the means, not the names,” she said. “Plus, we probably shouldn’t name it ourselves.” Outside the glass, the ship continued to rise, ascending past the surrounding envelopes and into the open air above the island. It rocked to one side almost immediately, the wind catching hold of it and pushing it southward.

“Convenient,” Alchemy said as he spun the wheel and began to bring the ship around. “We already needed to go that way. We won’t be fighting the wind for a bit at least.”

Blade nodded, her eyes picking out the distant lights of the Strike of Dawn as it made its circuit off in the distance. Here’s hoping they don’t notice us.

“Onset of Honor,” Hain said, his words pulling her away from her examination of the destroyer.

“What?”

“It’s the name of the ship,” Hain said. “Onset of Honor.”

“Yikes. A bit pretentious isn’t it?” She could see another set of lights past the Strike. The other destroyer? Or one of the frigates that had been made airworthy already?

“Must be their thing,” Hain said, shrugging. The lights of the destroyer continued to slide to one side as Alchemy kept the airship in a steady turn, and Blade watched, searching for any sign that the larger vessel was changing its position or heading.

“Well,” she said, now facing the out the port side of the ship. “I vote we just call it Onset. Or Honor. Something that isn’t several syllables long.”

“I’m going with Onset,” Alchemy said, reaching out and adjusting a lever as the airship began to tilt to one side. “Calling a vessel we just stole Honor is a little too, I don’t know, ironic? Is that irony?”

“Onset it is,” Blade said, turning with the ship and keeping the Strike in her sight. “Can we throttle up already?” One of the lights on the distant carrier flickered, and she held her breath, waiting to see if it came again. Are the signaling us?

“We’re have enough altitude now,” Alchemy said. “Yeah. One second.” From behind the ship there came a steady chugging sound as the propellers began to spin.

“Can we get higher?” Blade asked, watching as the light she’d seen flickered again. That’s definitely a signal. “Into the cloud cover, maybe? Strike is trying to say hello, and I don’t think any of us know how to talk back.”

“I thought both of you had military training,” Alchemy said. “And we can, but we run the risk of ice buildup on the propellers.”

“Do it anyway,” Blade said. “Unless we really push it, the ice isn’t going to do much harm, and I’d rather risk ice than risk one of those guns.”

“And I can take care of the ice,” Frost added.

“To answer your question,” Hain said, moving towards the rear of the bridge and looking out of one of the back windows. “We do have military training. But my air signals are decades out of date, and it wouldn’t matter anyway, because they’re using a clan-dependent code rather than a general one. The moment we say anything back, we’d be speaking the wrong code.”

“Which might not matter in a minute,” Blade said, watching as the Strike sent them a very clear series of signals. “They’re definitely talking to us. Shouting, actually, from the rapidity of the flashing. We’ve got maybe a minute or two before they realize something’s up. Alchemy?”

“On it,” he said, adjusting the throttle. The steady whump-whump of the three rear propellers picked up in intensity, building to a low drone that just barely necessitated speaking slightly louder than usual to be heard. “What’ll they do if they catch us?”

“If they catch us?” Blade repeated, still watching as the Strike began signaling more franticly. She’s probably signaling the rest of the fleet too, by now, she thought. Checking to see if we left early and why we’re not responding.

“If they can get close enough, they’ll send over a few squads of talons and try to board us,” she said. The Strike was moving now, rotating. She decided not to relay the information back towards Alchemy. “And if they can’t get close enough to do that, they’ll probably just shoot us out of the sky.”

“What?” She could see Alchemy’s reflection jerk back in the glass as he turned to look at her. “I thought you said that they were out of ammunition?”

“I said they were mostly out,” she replied.

“Oh. Well great,” he said as he turned back to the controls. The faint drone of the propellers shifted slightly as he began coaxing a little bit more power out of the engines. “Then I guess we could only end up mostly dead.”

“Mostly dead’s not bad,” Hain said. “I once read a book about a griffon who ended up mostly dead. A pirate. Mostly dead’s not all dead. A little medical miracle, and he was back on his talons.”

“I think I already used up my one miracle potion for my lifetime,” Alchemy said. “Have they noticed something’s up?”

“Uh,” Blade said, trying to decide whether or not she should tell him. She saw Alchemy shake his head.

“Nevermind,” he said. “The silence says it all.”

“Right. How soon can we be in those clouds?” she asked.

“In about another minute or two,” Alchemy said. “Hold on.” The deck began to tilt underfoot, rocking back as the bow of the ship rose slightly.

“Make it fast,” Blade said as a flash erupted along the front of the destroyer’s bow. Something whizzed past them, a whistling drone traveling in its wake that was drowned out a moment later by a distant boom. “Scratch that, make it really fast.” Another flash, followed by another whistle as the shot missed them by meters. “Alchemy … ?”

“Working on it!” the earth pony yelled. The Onset jerked underfoot as he spun the wheel, going into a tight turn.

“Frost! Blade!” Hain called as the ship continued to tilt back, doing its best to go into a steep climb. “Douse the lights! Fast!”

The lights! “Right!” she called, jumping for the rear of the ship. “I’ll take the back!”

“Rear!” Hain called as she exploded out the door.

“Eyes off it!” she shouted back without thinking. Her talons dug into the deck as she spread her wings, the hallway tilting beneath her as Alchemy continued to turn the ship as far onto its side as it could go.

Good, she thought as she burst out onto the rear deck. The less profile they’ve got the better. The rear deck was dimly lit, almost nothing but faint, dark shapes scattered across a vague outline that was well lit by twin rear lanterns that were steadily glowing despite the motions of the ship.

Another shot whistled past, closer still than the last two, followed by the distant boom of one of the Strike’s main guns, and she spread her wings, half-flying, half running across the tilting deck, ignoring the cutting cold of the wind as it swept across her body. Another whistling shot, this one passing so close to the ship she swore she could feel the faint shift of the wind in its passing.

She locked her talons around the stern gunwale, extending the claws on hindpaws and digging them into the heavy wood as she grappled with starboard lantern, her talons bouncing off of the warm metal.

Come on … she thought as she finally locked her talons around the bobbing lantern, beating her wings to keep from falling off of the rear of the ship. There! The light went out as she twisted the lantern wick down, the flame fading away to embers that glimmered against the glass.

She shoved herself back, twisting her body and digging into the gunwale wood with her talons as the ship began to shake.

Crosswind! she thought as she pulled herself towards the port lantern. We must be just below the cloud cover! She could feel the Onset starting to jerk and buck beneath her as the heavy winds tore at the envelope, yanking the airship back and forth. Another whistling sound rolled through the air, but it was more distant, off. The winds were making the ship hard to target.

Still, the last lantern needed to go. The lights both on and in the bridge had gone dark, but as long as there was a single light that the Striker’s gunnery crews could target … She threw her upper body over the side just as the Onset jerked, dropping several feet through the air, her rear legs leaving the deck. The gunwale slammed into her side, knocking the breath out of her and sending her tumbling forward over the back of the airship.

No! She lashed out with both pairs talons, the first meeting only air. The second caught, digging into the rear end of the ship, and for a moment she was dangling, her entire body hanging from one forelimb as her rear legs struggled to find purchase.

If I fall, and they make it into the clouds, there’s no guarantee I’d be able to catch up. One of her rear claws bit, scratching what would probably be a fine scar into the back of the ship before getting enough bite to pull her legs in. The other leg gripped, and she pushed herself up and over the railing just as the vessel jerked again, the wind tearing it to one side with a sudden gust that would have sent her spinning from the back had she still been clinging there.

She took a careful breath, her chest still throbbing from the heavy hit, and then, steadying herself against the gunwale with one forelimb, reached out and caught the rear lantern in her claws.

Why, in all seriousness, are these things just hanging from the back? she wondered as the light went out. Just because old sailing ships did that, or what? That’s a terrible design. Maybe there was an engineering reason or something behind it but, as she dropped back to the now even darker deck, her stance wide to keep her center of balance low, she couldn’t think of one.

Another whistle cut through the air, but it was faint, subdued. Off target. She could feel a dampness around her now, cloud cover doing its best to soak into her wings and coat, and she pressed through it, willing the tendrils of cloud to part around her as she moved back to the rear door.

By the time she reached the bridge, the ship was surrounded on all sides by thick, heavy clouds, the faint light of the distant moon far above filling them with a wispy, inward light that was just bright enough for her to make out the faint shapes of the rest of the team.

“How’d it go?” Hain asked as she slid the door shut behind her.

“About as well as could be expected,” she said, stepping up to where the rest of the group was clustered around the helm. “Almost took a tumble, but didn’t. I’ll probably have a bit more to say about that after it settles in how close I came to having to fly back to the Strike.”

“Well, it worked,” Hain said. “They’ve stopped shooting. And we’re in the clouds. So we can probably turn eastward anytime you want to.”

“We need to decide where we’re headed, first,” she said. “There’s a few settlements on the eastern edge of the ocean, right?”

“Yeah,” Hain said. “Though none really that we want to head for. There’s the Bloodhooves fortress—Windfell—due east of here, but we’d best avoid that.”

“I plan to,” she said. “Anubis didn’t strike me as the type to bother with a bunch of pirates.”

“Me either,” Hain said, stepping over towards the navigation station. “Frost, could we get a little light over here?” A small purple glow flickered into place above the desk, and Hain shuffled through the carefully organized materials until he held up a small map of the ocean printed on plastic.

“Here,” Hain said, holding the map up as he walked back and then setting it on the side of the helm. “We’re about right here,” he said, tapping the map with one claw. “Near Anubis’s vault. That’s Windfell fortress right there,” he said, shifting his talon. “And these …” A series of taps along the eastern coast of the ocean, marking out settlements dotting the coastline all the way down to The Choke at the southeastern corner. “These are settlements. Small ones, most of them. These three,” he said, his talon making faint taps as it touched the plastic. “These are all Bloodhoof run places. From back when they were trying to cut off trade with the Empire.”

“I take it that didn’t work,” Blade said, smirking. Some of her own clan had been part of that trading industry.

“No,” Hain said, a low chuckle mixing with the drone of the propellers. “It didn’t. And as powerful as the Bloodhooves were, the cult didn’t support their ban, or come to their aid when a couple top-of-the-line frigates wiped their raiding party off of the map.”

“Wouldn’t that violate the trade law, though?” Alchemy asked. “I mean, that’s the only thing I’ve ever heard the Ocean be unified on: You invade the ocean with any military force, and they’ll shut off trade for a few years. No ethereal crystals.”

“True,” Hain said, and Blade saw the amused look in his eyes as they flickered towards her. She felt a flutter of panic in her gut. “Of course, there’s a few ways around that law, like hiring someone like Blade here—”

Thunderheads and jackal spit! Blade thought as Hain gave her a knowing look. Alchemy turned and stared at her, wide-eyed with surprise, while Frost’s only reaction was to lift a single eyebrow.

“—which she can tell us all about in a minute,” Hain continued. “And in case you’re wondering, I figured it a while ago,” he said. “Not many have the money to hire someone like you at a price so high to fetch something so valuable, and fewer still have enemies of an immortal tier. In fact, there aren’t many of those left.”

“In any case,” he said, turning back towards the map, though Alchemy’s seemed firmly fixed on Blade. “All the Empire had to do was bait the pirates out of territory that was actually considered to be part of the Ocean. Once they passed that line—which you can bet the Bloodhooves weren’t paying much attention to—the hammer came down and cut them apart.”

“No survivors?” Frost and Alchemy asked at the same time. The pair glanced at each other in equal surprise, as if trying to surmise from the other what had led them to speak.

“Several, actually,” Hain said. “Standard Empire policy.”

“Never completely destroy your opponent,” Blade said, reciting from memory the famous quote. “Leave a few alive to tell the rest of your foes how outmatched they truly are. General Nadiya Sandcrest.”

“That’s … pretty hardcore,” Alchemy said, shooting a glance at Frost as he spoke. She was staring back at the map.

“That’s only half the quote,” Blade said, shrugging. “The rest of it was ‘And if you feel the need to, make sure you let them know that they only lived because you willed it. Break a few limbs, maybe remove an eye, but make sure at least one is completely unharmed. Then there will be no mistake.’”

“Okay,” Alchemy said, a shocked look on his face. “That’s … even more hardcore.”

“Well,” Blade said. “She didn’t mess around. Interestingly enough, her army was facing down several immortals when she said that. I guess she wanted them to know that if they kept along the path they were on, she was either going to kill them or do her best to mutilate them.”

“It worked, though,” Hain said. “And it did the same here. Nowadays they’re mostly just junk ports; holdout points where pirates like to take comfort in numbers and drink rotgut and salt.”

“So those are off the table.”

“Unless you want to give that gun at the front a nice test firing,” Hain said. “And I don’t think Anubis would go there anyway.”

“Why not?” Blade asked.

“Simple,” Hain said. “They’re settlements, but they’re not self-sufficient. Junk ports and docks don’t have much in the way of fuel or supplies.”

“Which Anubis will need,” Blade said, nodding. A tremor shook the ship, the bridge shaking as a heavy gust of wind shook it.

“Sorry, guys,” Alchemy said, turning back to the controls. “We’re catching some turbulence. I’ll take us up a bit more.”

“Don’t,” Blade said as Hain said “No.” They glanced at each other.

“We’ll stay in the cloud cover for a while longer,” Blade said, giving her reason for the order. Hain nodded in agreement. “If we surface above the clouds and they have a ship looking for us, we’ll be a clear target.”

“Right,” Alchemy said. The ship shook again. “You’re the boss.”

“Anyway,” Hain said, pulling their attention back to the map as the Onset rocked. “For either of those, this is the best option. “Spindle Rock Outpost. It’s a the core trade hub with the Empire,” he said, looking up at Blade. “And the best place to get fuel, food, or any other supplies we need.”

“So Anubis will probably have stopped there, or at least his ship. Will the town open to the cult?” she asked.

“Probably,” Hain said. “I can’t claim to be an expert on some of the politics, but they’ve held a fairly even neutral stance during everything due to their trade deals.”

“We don’t have any money,” Frost said. “Fuel isn’t cheap. Nor are supplies.”

“We have money,” Blade said, grinning as she stomped one foreleg against the deck. “We have a whole ship worth of equipment we can barter with.”

“The Teardrop Eyrie won’t like that.”

“Not my problem,” Blade said. “Besides, we don’t have to sell the easily traceable stuff. There’s bound to be equipment on this thing we can barter for fuel if we look. Especially in a trade port.”

“I agree,” Hain said, nodding. “So we’ll need to head southeast.”

“As soon as we get above the clouds,” Alchemy said. “Right now we’re navigating by compass, so I’d prefer to get an idea of where we are first.”

Hain nodded. “Now that we’ve decided that …” He turned towards Blade. “I think its about time that you finally gave us the details of who exactly we’re working for.”

She nodded. “How long have you been sure?”

“Like I said,” the old griffon replied. “I was pretty sure after the vault. Before that I was just suspicious. My guess is that you’re working for an immortal.”

“Close,” she said, shaking her head. “And I guess there’s no point in hiding it.”

“Indeed,” Hain said, shifting his weight slightly. He was taking a combat stance. “Because there’s only so many immortals left in the world today.” His voice was solid, with a dangerous undertone to it. “And if you’re not working for one of the ones with our best interests in mind, I’d like to know. Now.”

“No need to pull out your knife,” she said, forcing her tail to stay still. She didn’t want to send him any wrong signals. Especially now that Frost and Alchemy’s eyes were fixed on her as well. “And I’m technically not working for a pair of immortal sisters who happen to run a country south of here.”

“Technically not?” Alchemy asked.

“Plausible deniability,” Hain said, his tone gruff, though some of the threat had faded. “In case she said too much.”

“Exactly,” Blade said, nodding. “In fact, I’m not even certain that they know I was hired.”

“So who hired you?”

“A Guard,” she said, relaxing a little. It felt good to get the weight off of her chest. “And before you ask, he didn’t know anything about Anubis,” she said, her eyes darting towards Frost. “His name’s Hunter. He’s a pegasus serving in the Equestrian Dusk Guard.”

“Dusk Guard?” Hain asked, frowning. “I’ve never heard of them.”

She smirked. “I think that’s the idea. They’re a bit low key at the moment. They’re a kind of commando talon analog, a special operations group. Very high tech. Very highly trained.”

“And they’re good?” Hain asked.

“They’re led by a pony named Steel Song,” she said, watching as Hain’s eyes widened in shock. “You might have heard of him. He is, as far as I’m aware, the only non-griffon Blademaster in existence.”

“And he’s leading a special operations team?” Hain asked, still wide-eyed. He sounded shocked by the news.

Guess he has heard of him. “Yeah,” she said. “And his second in command is the pegasus that hired me. Under the table, of course.”

“I see.” Hain was staring off into space now. “You realize that means that this whole mess could be blamed right back on him, don’t you?” He paused, as if recognizing his own words. “So, of course,” he said, spreading his wings and then reseating them. “You didn’t tell us …”

“Operational security,” she said. “But since you were guessing anyway, I figured I might as well spill, provided the rest of you understand what’s at stake here. If you talk, or breathe a word of who hired us and why, you can promise yourself you’ll never see a dime of the payday.”

“Speaking of which, I think I see exactly what was eating you about this job in the first place,” Hain said. “Your last job put you up against your friend, didn’t it?”

“It did.”

“So you took the job not just for the money, but as a way to earn back his trust.”

She shook her head, her tail lashing behind her. “I don’t think I lost it,” she said. “At the same time, I don’t think he understood why the choice I made was the choice I made. And for that matter, I’m not sure I did either.”

“So you’re in this to put some honor on both sides of the equation.” Hain nodded. “I understand that.”

“Yeah, well … Making a choice like that helped me understand your history a little better,” she said. “So yeah.”

“Hence why you were interested in … heh.” He shook his head, an odd expression on his face. “All right, I’ll give you that. So what about now?”

“Now?”

“Is it still about the money and your friend, like you said? Or is this about something bigger?”

She didn’t hesitate long. “Something bigger,” she said. She paused for a moment and then looked at Alchemy. “That’s long enough, Al. Take us up.” Might as well get a nice view while I talk.

“Right.” The Onset tilted back, the pit of Blade’s stomach falling as the airship began to rise.

“Look, I won’t lie,” she said. “I still want to get that key back and get paid. And I want to pay my friend back as well. But now? That’s kind of secondary stuff. We’ve got an immortal out there. An immortal who killed a member of this team who was my friend, who made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t care about any of us ‘mortals.’ And you know what? That’s not the kind of being I want to let walk away.”

“We stopped the cult, yes,” she said, lifting a fist. “But some of their worst members are still out there. Along with a demigod who might just be a whole lot worse.” She took a quick look around at the group.

“So while we might all have different reasons to be doing what we’re doing. Money, revenge, whatever … I think there’s one more reason we ought to add to the list.”

“To do the right thing. Like Hain did,” she said, looking at the older griffon. “When he stood up for his command and refused to let them die in a pointless fight.” She turned towards Alchemy. “Like you did when you did something crazy and dangerous that your master had told you never to do. Or even like Frost,” she said, turning towards the unicorn mare. “Who made a couple of snowballs for some kids because she knew her brother would like it.” The clouds around them were getting brighter now, the turbulence fading as they moved up towards the open sky.

“And then there’s me,” she said, shrugging. “I guess, in light of recent events …”

“You tracked down an old, slightly drunk griffon and bribed him into doing something other than sit and stew in his regrets,” Hain said.

“You told me my mistake made me a super-soldier, “ Alchemy said. “It wasn’t a career I ever considered before, but it seems I’m pretty good at it. It’s kind of like aggressive, preventative medical treatments.”

“You gave me and my brother the best shot we ever had at taking down the cult,” Frost said. “And you did just steal an airship from the Icewing clan because you knew time was of the essence if we’re going to stop Anubis from reaching another part of the world.”

“Well … Yeah,” Blade said, nodding. “I guess you’re right. I did do all that. So I guess, in light of what the goal was with that …” She took a deep breath as the ship broke through the clouds, the light of the moon sweeping through the bridge and painting everything in a silvery-white light.

“I’m doing this because it’s a good thing,” she said. “Someone needs to stop Anubis, and we’re the only ones taking it seriously enough to do it. We don’t have the time to track down someone else, and there’s no one else in the right place. So, for money, for doing a good thing, and maybe—” She grinned. “Maybe for a little fun, I want to track this guy down and get those keys back. And kick his butt in the process. You in?”

She looked over at Hain. The old griffon cracked a smile and then nodded. She turned to Frost. The ice-blue mare nodded as well. So did Alchemy.

“Well, then,” she said. “I guess that settles it. We go to Spindle—”

The sky erupted in colors, and her voice died in her throat as twisting ribbons of light washed across the black expanse.

“What the …” Alchemy said. “That isn’t Luna’s Tribute.”

“No,” Hain said, walking over to the window. Frost and Blade followed. “It’s coming from the south.” He was right. She could see a twisting, beating point of origin coming from somewhere beyond the Crystal Mountains.

“Is it Anubis?” Alchemy asked.

“No,” Blade said, shaking her head. There was something … warm ... about the lights. Something that made her feel like things were going to be okay. “No,” she said again. “It’s not. I think it’s something good.”

“Yeah,” Frost said. “It’s nice.”

“Whatever it is, it’s not what we’re dealing with,” Blade said. “But I wouldn’t mind sitting here and watching for a while.”

And she did. The Onset slid through the night, silver cotton below it and a twisting, warm rainbow of colors above.

The hollow in her chest was gone.



Count of Laws Broken: 5
Total Laws Broken: 69
Damage Value (In Bits): 0
Total Damage Value (In Bits): 390,941