//------------------------------//
// [NON-CANON] Chapter One: Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya 
// Story: Snowbound 
// by Doctor Fluffy 
//------------------------------//

“Where are the legs with which you run,
When first you went to carry a gun
Indeed your dancing days are done
Johnny I hardly knew ya
Dropkick Murphys, Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya

November 2023, North Conway, NH

The train, lead by a 2-8-0 steam locomotive numbered 501, once of the Maine Central, then the Conway Scenic, roared over a crossing. Its wheels clattered in a mad percussion. It consisted of a few freight cars, one refrigerator, and haphazardly winterized passenger cars, trailed along over an ancient wooden bridge.

Viktor Marius Kraber, a far-too-enthusiastic South African mass murderer of some repute, now enlisted by the Bundeswehr, sat on the back end of the old black coal tender. He was scanning the sides of the train, his massive .338 Norma Magnum MG2019 ready to eradicate any threats. His gas mask, a grim, red-lensed, climate-controlled visage, was impassive. There was a palpable sense of menace to the thing.

He had, in fact, bought the gas mask specifically for a “palpable sense of menace.” These were the actual criteria he’d used when talking to the military surplus store’s owners. Like he was buying an Australian heeler dog.

Snowflakes - no, not the pony in a former dining car - hissed against the locomotive's boiler as the train headed west, away from the encroaching Barrier. The Solar Empire, unforgiving and bent on converting any human in its path to ponydom, was advancing.

The most they could do was outrun them.

"Here's hoping God will have some mercy on any kontgesig simple enough to attack this train, cause I fokkin' well won't," Kraber said. He stared down the MG2019's reflex sight for a second, and shrugged. "Ah, what'm I saying. Fok em."

In the cab of the huge 2-8-0, his best friend Aegis, the largest earth pony any one of them had ever seen, was shoveling coal into the engine, his white fur made a bit gray by all the ash. It was a bit cramped in there for Fiddlesticks and Johnny C, two of only a few people with experience running a steam loco, but he'd argued that this was the best application for his brute strength. Nobody, and nopony, had argued. 

"Sure as hell wish we had you for this back in Alaska, Aegis," Fiddlesticks sighed, pulling down on her battered gray Stetson with one yellow forehoof.

Johnny C Heald, one of only two humans in the cab, briefly reflected on the whole ordeal, on the fact that there was a sentient pony big enough for him to ride standing next to him and a yellow-coated, blue-maned mare with a talent for the fiddle sharing the cab with him. Not to mention the mass-murderer with the uncanny resemblance to Sharlto Copley who'd proven himself to be a good enough friend, an excellent cook, (especially when it came to shrimp and grits) and all-around, not that bad. Except at Destiny. He couldn't play a Hunter if his life depended on it.

They'd all been through so much.

"Honestly, I'm glad I wasn't there," Aegis said. "I'd hoped to put off this sort of thing for awhile. Figured it'd end up like this."

"You really figured you'd end up in this situation?" Fiddlesticks asked incredulously. 

"Nah, just running from the Barrier in winter," Aegis said. 

"Least we're not hauling totem-proles again, though. Once was enough," Johnny C agreed, shivering.

"Twice," Kraber corrected. "If we count Montreal."

"I still can't believe you lived through that," Johnny C said.

"It was not easy," Aegis said. "Viktor and I coulda died..."

"I did die!" Kraber protested. “It hurt.”

"You got better," Aegis pointed out, chuckling a little.

"Yeah, but getting the fat in your brain tissue turned into electricity also fokkin hurts," Kraber said, chuckling back as if this was an old joke between friends. "Like a bakvissie with teeth in her fokkin boerewors portal."

Aegis burst into laughter, tears welling up behind his orange-tinted goggles. Fiddlesticks asked him what it meant, Aegis whispered in an ear tucked between her inky blue mane and gray Stetson, and she was howling with laughter along with the three of them. 

The other human in the cab, a vaguely Hispanic woman in her mid-forties named Ida, was mystified at this. Fine black hair spilled out from under the ushanka she was wearing.

"What are you even talking about?" she asked. 

"It's a long story," Aegis said. “I’d think it’s pretty clear-cut by now-”

"Nah, I mean Alaska," Ida explained. "What'd you and the fiddle pony do up there, Nny?"

"It's also a long story," Fiddlesticks said noncommittally. 

"Well, we've got time, don't we?" Ida shrugged. "Plus. You got through there alive, telling it'll probably give us all a lot of confidence. That right, Mr. Kraber?"

"I'm not that kind of doctor," Kraber said. "Besides, what fokkin' makes you think I'd be a kwaai barometer of mental health?"

"I..." The words died in Ida's throat. "Okay. Fair enough. Seriously, though. I'm curious."

"Well then," Fiddlesticks said. "It was about two years ago, in January of 2022..."





January 2022
Late at night, in the arctic circle...

Fiddlesticks hated flying. If she was meant to fly, she’d be born with wings. While that was a joking statement on Earth, there was a certain kind of comedy in the fact that it was literal in Equestria.

Besides, she was an earth pony with a music cutie mark - the blue musical note on her flank, so similar to her cousin Octavia, signified that whatever her destiny was, it had nothing. To do. With flying.

...And you totally know where that’s going, don’t you? 

Fiddlesticks and Johnny C were flying across the Yukon, in a decently comfortable plane. A particularly racist airline official had suggested keeping her in the hold, but Henri Bartholomeaux had been very persuasive.  As had the gun at Johnny C’s hip, and the PHL ID that the three of them shared. So Fiddlesticks had been given two seats in which she could relax on the flight up north.

At the moment, she was dreaming.

2019…
Southern New Hampshire, near Wilton...

Run.

Fiddlesticks was rushing through the woods.  It was the early, bad old days of what would soon be known as the Three Weeks of Blood.

She'd been happy to see people attacking the Bureaus. No bucking loss there. Those places... Those bucking places...

She'd been happy to see them. Happy to see humanity cured of every injury. Happy to see people shrug off the disease that reduced grandparents to having infantile minds in wizened bodies, incurable cancers, paralysis, seizures, all of it gone with just one drink.

It was due to this happiness that Fiddlesticks had staged a benefit concert to support Conversion Bureaus. Particularly, the one in Boston.

The HLF - the men and women chasing her, driven mad by grief - had not forgiven. Hadn't forgotten her either.

She'd been running for days, through rioting communities, and come here to die in this apple grove. The rioting had been some of the worst she'd ever seen. A kindly doctor from the Bureaus, his wounds covered in lemon juice - he'd helped manage one of her concerts - had been dragged by his ankles through the streets, chained to a truck. He’d just seemed to have fallen apart then and there.

"Heh," Fiddlesticks wheezed, lying against a tree. A dirt road was nearby. "Almost like dying back home." She looked up at one of the apple trees, and coughed through overtaxed lungs. Almost reminded her of the Apple Family Reunion, before the Royal Guard had pissed all over the right to assemble and very nearly destroyed an Apple Family Reunion.

"I like 'em better when they scream," said one man with a long, thin, double-barreled gun. "Let's get it over with."

There were two women standing behind him, weaponry raised.

"Stow that shit," one woman said, pulling out a vicious-looking knife. "It's too easy for-"

The world lit up.

"Cold blood," Fiddlesticks wheezed. "You're gonna kill me like that in plain view of that guy?"

"Damn right we will," the other woman said. "Killing scum like you should be a public service. And..." She pulled a rope from her pack. "I don't know. I'm not feeling the-" 

BANG

She fell over; screaming, clutching her stomach.

As did the other two.

"Fiddlesticks," said a short, stocky-ish human with an untidy mop of brown-black-bronze hair, the sides shaven, a two-day reddish, black, and white beard on his scrubby, lopsided chin. He held a large silvery revolver almost the length of his forearm in one shaky hand. "We're here."

"Nnnngh?" Fiddlesticks groaned, raising her head, trying to brush her mane out of her face, trying to ignore the blood below her hooves.

Dead. They're dead. Dead again. 

I created this. I was the siren that lured their loved ones to being the goddam zombies. 

"Come on," said the human. "Don't know who you are. Or if you're PER-"

"Not bucking anymore," Fiddlesticks sighed. "I don't know these people! I thought that the Potion was medicine, but it's goddamn poison! I..." Fiddlesticks sobbed. "Why'd we have to do this?! I just wanted to help!"

"I'm sorry," the human said, placing his monster pistol on his back. "But... You're not PER, are you?"

"I used to do benefit concerts," Fiddlesticks said. "Not anymore. Buck that, never again."

"I saw a man with a prosthetic hip get ponified," the human explained. "That was pretty bad too."

"How bad was it?"

"His artificial hip exploded," the human said bluntly. “Right through his leg.”

"I can see why they converted people in tiny little rooms," Fiddlesticks said. “Shit…”

“Huh,” the human said, looking down. “I think I may have just killed three people.” His voice trembled as he looked down at them. He whipped out a phone. “I’ll get you to the farmhouse,” he said, picking her up and setting her into his car. “Just rest a bit, yeah? It’ll get better tomorrow.”

It didn’t.

“So,” he said, “We’re here.”





Fairbanks, Alaska
January 2022
Near Fort Wainwright

“When’re we gonna get off the ground, huh?” 

“We did,” Johnny C said.

“Huh?” Fiddlesticks asked sleepily, dragging herself up off the seat.

“We’re here,” Johnny C said, gesturing to the airport around him. “Alaska.”

Fiddlesticks groaned. “Already? Why do human flights have to last so long, Nny?”


“Cause Henry got a job over at a military base,” Johnny C explained, as he walked into the airport. “Dammit that was cold.”


“You forgot to wear a jacket again, didn’t you?” Fiddlesticks asked, looking down at his bare sleeves and large triceps.

“Yeah....” Johnny C sighed. “You slept through a flight on one of those planes with propellers. That’s pretty impressive. I haven’t done that since I was 12.”

As a rule, he liked winter. Though the feeling was slipping a little with the rationing he’d had to do, and the PER having potioned various foods.

He had bought an Ithaca 37 - with modernized furniture and a flashlight - for this very reason. Cheap. Easy. Thank the Lord for the potion sensors from the PHL that’d been installed almost everywhere.

One guy’s artificial hip exploding out of his leg had been more than enough.

“Seriously?” asked Henri Bartholomeaux, the thin, wiry Quebecois man they’d come up here to help.

He wore a suit that wouldn’t have been out of place at the Hyperion Corporation in combination with a bowler hat, and a large, thick briefcase that looked heavy enough to bludgeon a man to death was handcuffed to one wrist. He had a thick, almost impenetrable tome on the history of steam locomotives tucked under his arm. He’d been offered a high-paying job with some PHL R&D department up in Alaska, and thanks to Johnny C and Fiddlesticks owing him a favor, they’d been contracted to help him move his various possessions into housing on a military base.

At the moment, he was just confused. 

“How do you forget to wear a jacket in the middle of winter?!” he yelled.

“It’s easy,” Johnny C said. “You just don’t think about it?”

It was hard for Henri or Fiddlesticks to tell if he was being sarcastic.

“It is a pain in the ass to wear a winter jacket in an airport!” Johnny C protested. “Come on. Fiddlesticks. Isn’t wearing clothes a pain in the ass?”

“It is kind of a pain in the flank,” Fiddlesticks admitted. “Then again, you do kind of play dress-up for fun, so I’m not sure where this is coming from.”

“Not even gonna ask,” Henri sighed.

“That’s totally different,” Johnny C said, as they headed for the baggage claim. “I mean…”

Fiddlesticks yawned a little, hoping that her fiddle - her precious, precious fiddle - was alright. First, it had been made from Everfree Forest wood, and getting any of that on Earth was nigh-impossible. It’d been durable, some of her late Cousin Tavi’s money had paid for the necessary enchantments, but planes looked so fragile, and… and…

Fiddlesticks breathed upward a little. It didn’t accomplish anything to be worried.

The Fairbanks airport was quiet. Well, quiet-ish. It was underused by the standards of pre-War, and Fiddlesticks remembered that there’d been more people inside when she’d flown into Portland’s airport. Fuel had been at a premium, ever since the Middle East had been swallowed up, but the only other option had been to drive up through the Northwest Territories, which were full of survivalists, hidden PER, and allegedly the Thenardier Guards. So…. no.

Fiddlesticks had seen some of the things the Thenardiers had done. If she and Nny had driven through their territory with Henri, they might just disappear. Again, no.

“They’re not staring,” she observed.

“They wouldn’t, no,” Henri said. “There’s a military base nearby. They’ve seen far weirder things than a yellow little horse with a fine hat.”

“Are there minotaurs?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Nope,” Henri said, downcast.

“Shame,” Fiddlesticks sighed, downcast, hat adhering to one hoof as she held it to the front of her barrel.

Johnny C did the same with his own hat.





The air force base was… well, Johnny C wasn’t sure what to think of it. There was biting cold all around, as per usual.

Snow swirled all round, blanketing houses in a thick white coat. Rime ice crusted the windows of the houses, as their mover’s truck, converted to electro and biowaste to save fuel for the military, chattered down the main drag.

The wind howled. As did a very lonely wolf.

“You picked a hell of a time, didn’t you?” Johnny C asked, trying to keep his teeth from reflexively chattering at the cold. Fiddlesticks shivered.

“Hey, don’t you have fur?” Henri asked, confused.

“Ah ain’t a yak,” Fiddlesticks said. “The fur’s for th’ kind of winters we get back in New Hampshire, not th’ polar circle. Or Sibearia.”

“You know,” Henri said, “I’ve been wondering. Why do so many of Equestria’s locations sound so much like puns on human lo-”

“Stronger minds’ve tried n’ failed t’ figure that out, Henri,” Fiddlesticks said. “Just… don’t think about it. It’ll only give ya a headache.”

“Ooh, right there with her. I’ve seen time paradoxes that were more linear,” Johnny C added.

They parked the truck next to an office, and clambered out into the snows, walking into one building.

“Nny,” Henri said, “Welcome to my new workspace. Until-”

“Let’s not go there,” Fiddlesticks interrupted.

Henri shivered. “Yeah. That’s… yeah.”

The lobby they were standing in looked like it hadn’t been redecorated since the seventies. This didn’t matter - it served its function.

A receptionist sat behind one desk.

“Mr. Bartholomeaux, I presume?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Henri said.

“Who are they?” she asked.

“Couple friends of mine,” Henri said. “They’ll be helping me move in.”

“All of your work?” the receptionist let her glasses slide down her nose. 

“It’s cool,” Henri said. “They’re trustworthy.”

“Good,” the receptionist said.

“It’s cool,” Fiddlesticks said. “Sometimes, ya just learn not to ask.”

“Fiddlesticks,” Henri sighed. “Look, don’t worry. It’s just...  It’s just reams, and reams of paper. Nothing liable to explode.”

“Aw man,” Johnny C said, a little disappointed. “Wait. Paper? Couldn’t that-”

“Can’t hack paper,” Henri said. “It has notoriously poor wi-fi. Even worse than north of Berlin near the Umbagog.”

“My God,” Johnny C breathed in mock-horror.





A few hours later…

Henri hadn’t so much moved in as rearranged.

Boxes full of his various affects and personal items were stacked all over various rooms, and his thinking couch had replaced one of the furnishings in the lab. There looked to be a nice enough desk in one room in the house, on which he set his book on steam engines and finally uncuffed that briefcase. He’d placed some of his most valuable effects over this room: His medical equipment, a series of books, and his prized Armacham HV Penetrator rifle - a ‘Samantha Yarrow Special’, according to the little inscription.

This large, more-than-somewhat-ridiculous rifle was part of why Fiddlesticks and Johnny C owed Henri - once, on visit to Montreal, he’d saved them from a potion-bombing with the thing.

Johnny C and Fiddlesticks sat, breathing a little heavily, against one wall, Fiddlesticks lying down on his lap, head up to the ceiling.

“So, what is in that briefcase, anyway?” Johnny C asked.

“Oh, nothing important,” Henri said, a smile on his face, opening it up. A glow bathed his face. “It’s beautiful…” he breathed.

“Quit beating around the bush,” Johnny C said, standing up to look…

Only to see that the orange glow only came from a small lightbulb affixed to the inside of the case. There was nothing in it but a piece of paper with the word “Suckers!” written on it.

“What…”

“All part of the plan, m’boy,” Henri said, chuckling as he waved the dry tome on steam engines in one hand. “The case was just a decoy. I’m bringing very important research up here and I figured someone might catch on. And since this has been opened up before, by now someone should’ve…”





A couple hours ago, back when Johnny C, Henri, and Fiddlesticks were in another airport…

“SWEET CELESTIA, IT’S IN MY EYES!” the PER spy disguised as a baggage handler screamed, rolling around the floor in pain and terror. 





“...Fallen victim to countermeasures,” Henri finished. “This is the real treasure.” He laid the book on steam engines out on the desk, and turned to the introductory page. “Tell me. What do you see?” he asked.

“A page?” Fiddlesticks asked. “I don’t know, what am I supposed to be looking a-?”

Henri whispered something down to it, and the ink seemed to melt, running down the page, and then… then… it changed. Letters ran together into new words, diagrams formed themselves from ink, and before they knew it, they were staring at a completely different treatise. 

“My research,” Henri said proudly. 

“And what was that you said about hacking paper?” Johnny C asked.

“He was right about the poor wi-fi, though,” Fiddlesticks said.

“...I guess I walked into that,” Henri admitted. “Anyway - there’s a guest room I’ll likely be renting out to someone sooner or later, and it’s been a long day. You should be feeling jet lag-”

“I’m not,” Johnny C said.

“He destroyed his circadian rhythms years ago,” Fiddlesticks explained.

“You… do realize it doesn’t work like that, right?” Henri asked.

Fiddlesticks lightly punched Johnny C with on hoof. “Nny…” she sighed.

“Seriously though, when I was a kid, me and Vasquez here-” Johnny C reached into his backpack, pulling out a threadbare stuffed dog. “-did a lot of traveling. Corsica, France, Britain, Utah, South Carolina, Colorado, Chicago, Wisconsin… Rome, France, Amsterdam… my internal clock’s not really that chained down. And I learned that you gotta power through timezone changes.” He paused. “Plus, I have really terrible sleep habits.”

“He does,” Fiddlesticks confirmed. “Stays up till 2 AM all the time.”

“That must be hell on your electricity ration,” Henri said.

“Nah, it’s cool,” Johnny C said. “I bought a lamp that uses bioluminescent algae. Saves so much cash.”

“Well,” Henri said, “We’re still rationing, so… you’ll have to head off to bed early, Nny.”

Johnny C sighed. “I had a good book, too. I was gonna read about Romeo. Wolf from around Juneau.”

“Juneau’s down in the Panhandle, Nny,” Fiddlesticks yawned. “We’re up a lot further than that.”





The cafeteria on the base was an interesting sight. First, it had heavy lighting, the blue glint of various algae-lamps above casting an eerie glow down on the feasting personnel.

Of which there were a lot. Diamond Dogs, having grown out thick winter coats thanks to a few enchantments from local ponies on the base, sat on large, high tables beside humans on stools, chowing down on various meats. One such Dog bore a resemblance to a husky, complete with little white eyebrow markings. There were a few griffons, and yes, a couple ponies, even zebras. 

That said, they were outnumbered by the various humans that also sat in the mess hall, all chowing down on their meals.

Johnny C wasn’t thinking about this. He hadn’t slept well - partly due to playing computer games on his PHL laptop late into the night, and partly due to the dreams.

He’d seen plenty of terrible things lately. It just seemed to get worse and worse during the winter, didn’t it? Years ago, pre-war, before he’d picked up a lot of jobs - wilderness photography, graphic design, game concept art, drawing, writing, interior design - he’d thought of winter as a blessing. A time he could out and enjoy himself, eat lots of meat and well near half his considerable weight in chocolate, laze about, spend inhospitable days indoors, or possibly play dress-up inside.

But now, well, things had changed. But hey, at least it was great now compared to how it’d be two years from now, or in, probably, November 2023! Give it time, who knows what you’ll do....

“Mr. Bartholomeaux?” asked a man with soldierly bearing and the remains of a soldierly build, with hair that immediately called to mind gunmetal gray. “Dr. Salonen’s been eager to see you. Says your pharmaceutical work is invaluable. You’ll be very welcome here.”

He held out one hand, and Henri shook it.

“I’ve volunteered myself to give you a tour around the base,” the man said. “Colonel Ambrose Hex. Pleasure to meet you.”

Henri staggered back a little, his ever-present grin seeming to wobble a bit. “Well, that’s excellently personable, Colonel.”

“Huh?” Fiddlesticks asked. “Our friend’s getting a tour from a-”

“We needed someone like Henri on-base,” Colonel Hex said.  “And don’t think anything of it. I want to make sure everyone here feels welcome and secure, as that’s in rare supply these days. I was once on a visit to an Armacham facility, and I would have contracted them if not for  the atmosphere. There was… a miasma of sorts. I didn’t like it.”

“They do make a good nailgun, though,” Henri said. “Had to get Sam Yarrow to tweak the rate of fire, but the thing works a treat now.”

“He is scary good with that HV Penetrator,” Johnny C said, nodding slightly.

“Why thank you,” Henri said, executing a mock bow. “It’s kind of why they’re here.”

“Well, if I need someone to nail people to walls, I’ll call you. I’d rather have an assault rifle,” Colonel Hex said, a slight frown on his face. “At least you don’t have a FAMAS F1.”

“That would be pretty bad,” Henri agreed, a smile on his face.

“Besides, Crowe offered me more money,” Hex said. ”They’re much more transparent about their cashflow, and something tells me that if I followed the money that Armacham gets, I’d find a researcher with his arms so far into the pork barrel there’d be bacon bits in his armpit hairs.”

Johnny C and Fiddlesticks shared a look and laughed at the mental image. As did Henri.

“Can my two friends come, though?” Henri asked.

Hex looked to consider this. “I don’t see why not. Besides, we won’t be showing the really classified stuff on the first day.”

“...I feel vaguely disappointed,” Fiddlesticks said.

“If we did that, anyone could get in and see what we were working on,” Hex said.

“Like Kgalakgadi?” asked one female Diamond Dog that bore a resemblance to a Lapphund.

“...I’m not even answering that, Alawa,” Hex sighed. “Come on, then. When breakfast’s done, let’s get on.”





As it happened, Fort Wainwright had been given a new facility. Up by East Ammo Road, there was a large hangar that had likely been built at the beginning of the war, and a large gathering of various outbuildings, facilities, and others. According to Hex, their facilities extended deep underground. “Enough that,” he said, not bragging but stating a plain fact, “a bombing from an Imperial zep couldn’t hit us.”

“Why would they have one up here?” Fiddlesticks asked. 

“You have to be sure,” Hex explained.

Henri nodded reverently. “I can understand that.”

“The rest of the base is mostly housing and training for anyone that’s going to be sent off to the Europe front,” Hex explained. “This, however, Mr. Bartholomeaux, is where you’ll be working.”

“What do you do here, anyway?” Johnny C asked, looking up at the hangar. It looked like it was something you’d expect to stage spaceships, not new-generation PHL aircraft. The words “Jacob Renee Memorial Facility” were inscribed over the hangar doors.

“Magic bullets,” Hex said.

There was a brief silence.

“So… actual magic bullets, or, well…” Johnny C asked, cocking his head. “Something like cracking-”

He stopped.

“We can only hope,” Hex sighed. “Still. I have faith in the PHL here. We might not be the ones that crack the Barrier, but I’m hoping we at least contribute. Though we do make actual magic ammunition here.”

They headed in through the hangar. Up above, on one of the catwalks, a sullen-looking woman with the left side of her head shaven sitting on a crate of Juneau . An assault rifle somewhere between an AN94, FN FAL, and Remington ACR, a Leshiy if Johnny C remembered correctly, hung over one shoulder.

A large container of Juneau Black Wolf coffee blend sat next to her. As did a unicorn stallion with a scraggly black beard and purple eyes. He had a rivet gun for a cutie mark.

“That good coffee?” Johnny C asked, looking over at her. He noticed the name sewn on her vest. Vera Low... but the rest of it was torn around the final letter. In basic, back when he’d joined the National Guard at the start of the War, that would be a hell of an offense. “I heard it was made in memory of a lonely wolf named Romeo. Did you e-”

“Nyet,” the woman evidently named Vera Low said. “Am Russian. Not Alaskan. Amaruq,  Haymes, and Joseph did, though.” She took a quick breath to push a hair out of her face. “And da - I know that story. Everyone tells it to me. Am sick of hearing it.”

“Sorry,” Johnny C said, hurrying to catch up to Hex, Henri, and Fiddlesticks. 

“Is nice, though,” Vera admitted.

“That’s a new fighter we’re hoping to work on,” Hex explained, pointing up at a plane that reminded Johnny C of one of the planes from the Avengers movie a few years back. “Apparently the Thunder Child’s been a big success in the water, so we’ve been trying to integrate runes and enchantments into vehicles here.”

A blue-white mare with a mane the color of fresh snow lounged in a hammock between two catwalks close to the ceiling. A set of tools and sketchpads were piled on a shelf, topped off with a large apple.

Two soldiers, one female, another male, were looking over the plane. One of them, a thin woman with short, fine black hair, carried an LMG, (wasn’t that overkill just for guarding a hangar?) while another one carried a simple AR with an underbarrel grenade launcher. The woman’s name tag read Haymes, and the man’s read Joseph.

A unicorn mare with a brown mane, purple eyes, and tan, almost skin-colored coat that you could barely see under her heavy clothing (a red parka adapted from a human child’s, black snowpants) walked by, carrying a large box of crates marked with Lyra’s cutie mark.

“That’s Sandalwood,” Hex said. “Morning - what’s today’s cargo?”

“Materials for prosthetics,” Sandalwood said. “Apparently, Lyra came up with a new gadget in her assault arms, and I’m bringing this up to the lab.”

“Awesome!” Johnny C said, a big smile on his face. Sandalwood staggered back a little, taken aback by his enthusiasm. “I’ve been keeping up on aug news lately. Been an interest ever since I got mine.”

“You have an aug?” Sandalwood asked. “You, uh… don’t quite smell like most of the ones I’ve seen.” 

“Augs have smells?” Johnny C asked, confused.

“Sure they do. Why wouldn’t they?” Sandalwood asked. “But what’s yours?”

“Just a reflex booster installed in my neck, right over the spinal cord,” Johnny C explained, turning around, pulling his parka and t-shirt down, showing the scar tissue on the back of his neck. “Mostly a bit of neural stuff. Not gonna go for stuff like replacement eyes unless things get… fucked up.”

“He got the aug so he could have more fun while skiing,” Fiddlesticks said.

“...and I needed the money,” Johnny C added.

“The most.. advanced… prosthetics your world has ever had,” Sandalwood said slowly. “And you use them to go skiing?”

“Why not?” Johnny C asked. “There’s this one ski trail back home. Upper Elevator Shaft, and it’s tighter than the Queen Bitch’s rectum! I’ve nearly died in there before.”

“Skiing, huh?” asked an inuit man whose name patch read Meektijuk. “Bet that’s spring skiing compared to here.”

“I ski across the street from a mountain that’s killed over 150 people,” Johnny C said. “...Not counting that accident on the auto road awhile back. So don’t knock it.”

“Okay,” the inuit man said. “Fair enough. Where, uh…. where are you from? You sound like you’re from Montreal.”

“That,” Colonel Hex said, “Would be me.”

“I’m from New Hampshire,” Johnny C explained. 

“Just don’t get too comfortable,” the inuit man said. “I hear there’s a storm coming soon. Pretty big one at that.”

“And so am I, I guess,” Fiddlesticks said. “Well, it’s not home, but…”  She looked up at Nny. “Ah, screw it. It’s home.”

“So, as you can see, Mr. Batholomeaux,” Hex said, taking them to a door at the end of the hangar, “I think we’ve got some decent staff. Even…” he looked downward. “Even Snowshoes. Though she doesn’t always show it.”

“Who’s that?” Henri asked.

“She’s….” Hex said. “Ah, you’ll meet her soon enough. Just don’t get irritated by her, she’s more fragile than she seems.”

There wasn’t much to say about the hallways they were traversing. They had the look of something that had been made to be ultramodern at the beginning of the war. But, halfheartedly, the builders had given up on little flourishes like that midway through construction. Curves between wall and floor, possibly made to invoke an apple store, often existed on only one side of the hallway.

There were photographs on the walls of old battles from early in the war. Shots of skyscrapers collapsing backwards into the Barrier, refugee camps outside of cities, helicopter shots of the Europe Evacuation…

And one of Lyra standing tall, the sun at her back, working on a prosthetic arm for a woman who’d lost her arm to potion. Lyra standing at the podium with Bon-Bon at her back, Lyra holding a hoof to Reverend James Thomas’ open hand in friendship. Lyra, sitting human-style behind her desk, a smile on her face, reading glasses sitting over her muzzle, looking apprehensive, eager, and determined all at once.

And one with…

...With Johnny C himself, Fiddlesticks, Congresswoman Annie Kuster, Reverend James Thomas, Bon-Bon, and Lyra, in Manchester, in the Radisson hotel.

“Huh?” Henri asked, looking over the picture. “Nny, you’re in this one!”

“It was a good day,” Johnny C said, smiling. “James Thomas… say what you will about his ability to keep people under control, but he had drive. The one thing he didn’t have was pull. He was just a small-town preacher. He’d been visiting New Hampshire, he was talkin’ with some early PER… and one of them told him to complain to his congressman. I told them I could complain to my congresswoman, called her on the spur of the moment....”

He looked at nothing in particular at that photo, looking into prewar life. “It was a pleasure to meet her. She… she was just the nicest mare.”

“Is that why you saved me?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“No, any decent person should do that,” Johnny C said. “But she helped.”

“You might want to take the photos of devastation and replace it with stuff like this,” Henri said, moving in closer to the photo, slightly pushing his friends. “Can’t say seeing London get atomized inspires confidence.”

“It’s not meant to,” Hex said. “This-” he pointed to photo taken of two airplanes that had crashed into the sea outside, as ships were being swept back in by pegasus-created storms.. “-Reminds us of what we’re up against. But Lyra… that reminds us of what we fight for.”

“And the fact that this hallway gets more utilitarian as we go represents that we have limited time?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“...I guess it does,” Hex admitted. “Never thought of it that way. Anyway, Mr. Bartholomeaux, this is one of the best PHL facilities you could ask for. I promise you that.”

“You and Salonen will absolutely benefit from my work,” Henri said. “Ah, I can’t tell you how reassured I am to work here. Far away from it all.”

“Snowshoes is much the same way,” Hex explained.

“In that case, I’m sure we’ll get along great, Colonel” Henri said. “She can’t be that bad.”

Hex muttered something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Good luck with that’, as they turned to the left and headed into a large room, with only a single workbench bare of technological clutter. “Anyway, this is where one of R&D’s best assets resides. With luck, he’s here. God only knows when he is most of the time.”

“Wait, when?” Fiddlesticks asked, but Hex and Henri ignored her. “Nny? Any idea what-”

Nny just shrugged, forearms held outward, making the upper third of his body look sort of like a large ‘W’.

“...course you don’t,” she sighed.

“What is all this stuff?” Johnny C asked, looking over the room. Computer equipment from what looked every year since 1972 or so lined the shelves and desks that hugged the walls, and inexplicable instruments lined the walls like decorations. There was a set of clocks, one of which seemed to be arranged in a spiral. A thaumoemotive indicator, an odd device that featured a small, slowly rotating cube above a small soup-bowl sized scaffold, was glowing softly in one corner. A hexagonal panel from a solar road, an infrastructure project that had been popular around early 2018, hung from one shelf on a loop of copper wire. There was a panel from a solar window taped to a nearby easel, surrounded by an indecipherable scrawl of sketches and notes.

A small ring, just about big enough that someone might be able to stick their head through it, lined with shards of crystal, with various wires sticking out from various gaps, as wild as Johnny C’s bedhead after a long night, sat next to a long, crystalline spike that was glowing a dull peach color.

The walls behind the ring were furry with blueprints for what looked like weaponry, with red ‘rejected’ marks on them, with ‘not here they’re not!’ marks in almost glowing lime-green ink written directly underneath them. Another note was stapled underneath in scruffy black writing - ‘Get the other me to build these, because I won't! I do not kill!’ 

A yellow scrap of paper with ‘413 gigathaums =/= !?Magia??’ and a list of incomprehensible equations that would’ve hurt Johnny C’s head back in high school was taped directly over a blueprint of what looked like a bomb collar marked ‘GG3’. Another note read ‘note to self: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO STUDY DIVINITAS. BAD IDEA ALL ROUND. DON’T WANT TO EXPLAIN ANOTHER BLUE STAIN ON THE FLOOR.’ 

There were a few personal effects dotted about. An empty leather bandolier and coat, both scaled for a decently-sized pony stallion, either a unicorn or earth pony judging by the lack of wing-slits, hung over a positively ancient-looking computer.

And in front of all these notes, there was a hatstand with two tweed coats and one tan raincoat as well as a fedora. Bizarrely, a keytar hung off the hatstand, and a green military coat hung off an odd grandfather clock. A keyboard stood nearby, looking old but workable.

Then there were photos that lined the shelves. They were… bizarre, to say the least. One was a picture of a lanky, auburn-haired man standing next to a tall woman with blonde hair wearing a trilby. Another was of a blue stallion in a black coat and blue scarf, standing next to a pony who looked like Trixie, the Blue Spy, but looking much happier than anyone (or anypony) would ever have seen her, the two of them stood in a bizarre landscape lined with purple, orange, and yellow coral-like trees. 

The same auburn-haired man was in more photos - in one, he was playing cards with a man that was unmistakably Maximilian Yarrow, judging by the bald, tattooed head. Another was of a white mare with green eyes and a red mane with purple streaks sitting on a couch as the auburn-haired man read off a clipboard, a concerned-looking man with a strong resemblance to Sharlto Copley with the right side of his head shaven, sitting nearby, looking incredibly concerned. The white-on-black text taped under its frame read ‘Counselling for Kate.’ Another was of twelve ponies in grey flightsuits, a mare that looked like Derpy Hooves at their head, with a note reading “Grey Squadron circa 2025. No More For Ditzy.”

Most bizarrely, in another corner, Johnny C could see a blue police box. Suddenly, everything made sense.

“Ah,” Johnny C said. “Well. That explains it.”

“Ah didn’t know you had Doctor Whooves here,” Fiddlesticks said, amazed. “Damn, Colonel! Henri, you’re gonna buckin’ love it here.”

“Who's ‘Doctor Whooves’?” Henri asked with a frown.

“Long story!” Fiddlesticks said excitedly. “Just trust me, he's awesome.”

“Well, it's not quite Whooves,” Hex admitted. “Not… quite.”

“Not quite?” Henri asked. 

“Doctor!” a mare’s voice said. “Don't bother looking for it!” 

From out of the police box stepped a grey Unicorn mare with a slightly somber expression. She paused as she saw Hex and the others, and raised an eyebrow at Johnny C and Fiddlesticks. 

“Hello,” she said, and for a moment it almost seemed as though she recognised them.

"…hang on, hang on, I think I have one in my pocket somewhere…" a man - or stallion’s - voice drifted from the box.

"Sorry, what are you looking for?" the mare asked with a soft smile. “The Doctor and I are working on something. Not quite my favorite project, but-”

"Well you said you wanted to think outside the box on crystals! Don't blame me that I had to look for stuff! Gimme a mo," the man interrupted, rifling through the pockets of a long tweed coat in a rather hideous shade of green. Under this he wore a shirt and waistcoat, an untied ascot hanging around his neck. "I've got something in here… ah!"

The man pulled a small crystal out of his pocket, grinning at it. The mare frowned at it slightly, apparently not knowing what to make of it. For that matter, neither did Johnny, though there was a more pressing issue in his mind.

“Is that…” Johnny C asked. “So. Many. QUESTIONS!”

“Words…. not workin’ from... mouth!” Fiddlesticks agreed.

The man looked at them both like they had two heads. “Sorry?”

“Like I said,” Hex said quietly. “Not quite.”

"What is that?" the grey mare asked.

"Called a 'crystal projector'," the man said, smiling and apparently ignoring the others for the moment. "Basically instantaneous magical connection to another projector. Like a holographic communication interface - but magic!"

The mare raised an eyebrow.

"Is it connected to anything now?" Johnny asked.

"What?" the man asked, looking up at him. "Colonel, do we have new people?”

“Hello to you too,” Hex said, smirking.

“Hello,” the man said impatiently. “Like I said - new people?”

“Henri Bartholomeaux, Johnny C Heald and Fiddlesticks Apple,” Hex said. “I'm just showing them around.”

“Pleasure,” the man said, smiling. “Dr Bowman, by the way, but you can call me the Doctor, everyone seems to. I do too.” He moved to shake Henri’s hand. “And a pleasure to meet someone of your calibre, sir. We need more minds around here, and maybe the Colonel will stop badgering me about guns.”

“You have no idea how much I am looking forward to that sort of thing,” Henri sighed. “Wasn’t it Sutra Cross that said they needed ‘water-bearers more than arms-bearers?’ Or something like that.”

“Yes, well, heaven forfend anyone in the PHL decide to not focus on building the next doomsday weapon,” the Doctor said with a snort.

“It’s not that,” Henri said. “People like Sebastian Irving, Kasparek…. Rachel Presley and Dovetail from Quebec… they’ve got a role, much as anyone. But, well, they see the rifle. They see that I look scientific. And everyone assumes I’ve got the cure for potioning.”

“Which just isn’t what science’s ‘bout,” Fiddlesticks said, speaking up. “Let’s say we get t’space. Th’ guy that invents pressure regulators for ships would be more valued than th’ guy makes a robot.”

“You’ve learned a lot,” Henri said, surprised. “Honestly, I’m impressed.”

“There might be a cure for potion one day, four hundred years from now,” the Doctor said idly. “But that'd be spoilers.”

“Which means there is one?” Johnny asked.

“It’s four hundred years,” Fiddlesticks said. “Sometimes I wonder if we have that many days left. So, it doesn’t matter.”

“No need to be that pessimistic,” the Doctor said cryptically. “And as I said, spoilers. “Anyway, feel free to look around. And don't touch anything. Some of it hasn't been invented yet, very temperamental. Also, there might be blueprints to weapons banned by the second Exodus convention -”

“The what?” the grey mare asked.

The Doctor blinked. “Oh, right. You don't have the Exodus convention.” He frowned. “I knew there was something I didn't like about this job. Apart from lots of it.”

“O… Kay,” Johnny said. “You're… weird.”

“You’re one to talk,” Fiddlesticks added.

“No I’m…! Yeah, okay, fair enough,” Johnny said. “But he's weirder.”

“So I’m told,” the Doctor said, shrugging. “As to your initial question about the projector, Mr Heald - dunno. Could be. It'd need charging though." The Doctor grinned. “Still - fascinating bit of kit.”

“Where did you even get this?” Hex asked, looking it over.

“That's for me to know, and you to… not know,” the Doctor said simply. “Ever. Just rest knowing it’s not Imperial - if they tried to work it, it’d be like throwing a Tesla’s plug into a car’s gas tank. Have fun.”

"Then how do we about charging it?" the mare asked. 

“Ways,” the Doctor said.

The grey mare just sighed. “This man…”

“Oh, believe me, I know,” Fiddlesticks said.

“Him?” the mare asked, jerking a foreleg up towards Nny. 

“Hey!” Nny protested.

“Actually, no,” Fiddlesticks said. “Our bosses back home… I swear they just shuffle the work papers and staple them together. I could be working a farm while I’m scheduled on another.”

“Or I,” Nny added, “Could be working on another farm - not necessarily with her - while I’m supposed to be writing about something boring, like… corn. I don’t mind. Good exercise.”

“Very corny,” the Doctor said deadpan.

“No,” the grey mare said at once. “No puns.”

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. 

She turned to Johnny and Fiddlesticks with an apologetic smile. "Chalcedony, by the way. Pleasure to meet you. I'm the Doctor's friend."

"Is friend the right word?" the Doctor asked. "Maybe you prefer 'colleague'?"

"Too vague," Chalcedony said. 

"What about 'assistant'?"

"Too lowly."

"Companion?"

"Unfortunate implications."

"Even more during the Victorian era, I promise you. Compadre?"

"… no."

“Amigo? Freunde? Mon ami?”

“No!”

"Oh. Well -"

"Friend works."

The Doctor blinked. "Ok then, friend it is."

"So how would you charge it?" Johnny asked, pointing at the projector and eager to be back on track.

The Doctor glanced down at the projector with a frown. "Honestly, you'd need a magical charge, I think."

"That's easy enough," Chalcedony said, her horn glowing, but the Doctor held up a hand.

"No," he said. "This runs on magia, not thauma.”

“On… what?” Hex asked.

“Magia - different signature of magic to Thauma or Divinitas,” the Doctor said. “Which I am not touching. And neither should any other… certain doctors… you may have employed. Usually not easy to find in this world. Insofar as I understand the energy differential, it'd be like putting diesel in a petrol car. Best case scenario, pfft. Worst case scenario… blam."

"Blam?" Chalcedony repeated.

"Blam," the Doctor confirmed. “Isn't such a thing as a pony on this planet who could charge this device.” He paused thoughtfully. "I think I could jury-rig some magia charge, though…"

“...And what was that you said about making sure we didn’t see the confidential stuff?” Fiddlesticks asked.

"Oh, I'm not confidential," the Doctor said with a grin. "Well, I kind of am. Don't tell me you saw me. I'll get irritated. But people tend to not understand what I'm saying half the time…"

"Can't imagine why," Chalcedony muttered.

“It certainly is a mystery,” Johnny C agreed, looking over at Chalcedony, one eyebrow looking as if it was trying to secede from his forehead and join his widow’s peak.

"… so I'm considered 'safe'," the Doctor finished, as though he hadn't been interrupted. He pulled out a small tool and held it up to the crystal. There was a buzzing sound, and he put it down on the table. "This is the Doctor - that is, Dr Richard Bowman, if you must have the name - to whoever's connected on this channel. Anybody or anypony receiving?"

There was a pause, and then suddenly an image popped up of… something. Suddenly, the figure of a man appeared, looking stressed as hell and wearing a black military uniform, a small symbol underneath with the letters FEAR written. He scowled for a moment, before shouting off to someone behind him.

"The projector's activated! We figured out how to detect that magia crap yet?!"

"No sir!" a tinny voice cried back.

"Well get on it!" the man called. "I don't wanna be caught on the back foot, not again!" He turned back to look at the assembled watchers, before frowning. "Wait - Amber? That you?"

"Harry?" Hex asked, raising an eyebrow. "What the hell are you doing on there?"

"Was about to ask the same question!" 'Harry' said, folding his arms. "Last I heard, you were -"

"Wait!" the Doctor yelled, holding up two hands. "Colonel Munro - hello again."

"Bowman," 'Harry' - Munro - said softly, frowning at him. "What are you doing back?"

"From my perspective, I haven't left," the Doctor said quietly. "What date is it where you are?"

"Uh," Munro said, "November 27th, 2023?"

"But it's only 2022," Fiddlesticks said. "That doesn't make any -"

"Don't say it doesn't make any sense," Chalcedony said quietly. "Because he'll explain it."

"She's right, I will," the Doctor said, winking. "People tend to not like those. I think I even bored Button Mash once: tricky proposition."

"Wanna explain why I'm talking to someone from the past?" Munro asked.

"Was about to ask the same thing," Hex added grimly. "Except, you know, the future."

The Doctor nodded. "There's been a little cross temporal boost - my fault, mixed a bit of artron energy or a few chronons in there. Suffice to say, when I charged this projector it defaulted to a charged state of its own future, in lieu of a compatible projector in its present."

"Huh," Munro said. "Do those ever make sense?"

Chalcedony laughed. "No, Colonel."

Munro frowned at Chalcedony slightly. "Alright - while we're on this line; Amber, you need to watch out for -"

"Don't!" the Doctor said, holding up a finger. "No spoilers! Nothing of the sort!"

"And what if we need the information?" Hex asked.

"You don't," the Doctor said sternly. “If you learn it, we might never have this conversation.”

“Shouldn't I decide that?” Hex asked.

The Doctor sighed. “Earth survives to Colonel Munro's time."

“Which is good,” Henri said. “It’s just… the specifics…” he sighed. “Do I live or die? There’s so much I want to do!”

“Would you be able to live with yourself if you knew, Dr. Bartholomeaux?” the Doctor asked. “You’d probably just panic. Besides, just talking about this has probably changed the future just a little bit.”

Munro frowned. "But if we could warn the past, pass on messages, enact the Reaver plan…"

"No," the Doctor said more calmly. "Nothing of that sort. You need to switch your projector off. No spoilers. You have said too much."

"What's that about Reavers?" Johnny C asked.

“I have no idea,” Hex said. “Getting real irritated about where they got that laser cannon.”

The Doctor coughed slightly.

“I don’t trust them,” Fiddlesticks sighed.

“Makes two of us,” Hex said. 

Johnny C looked up at Hex, raising an eyebrow again. “Fiddlesticks and I have a, uh… a thing about HLF.”

“There’s no reason to be like that about Reavers,” the Doctor said, folding his arms.

“HLF tried to goad me into killing Bureau staff when I was in college,” Nny said. “It… wasn’t a good day.”

Fiddlesticks looked to the burns on her friend’s forearms. She’d guessed, a long time ago, that they were from molotov cocktails. Thanks to a mental breakdown in freshman year, Nny had a mental breakdown, and technically spent one year more than he should have in college, having transferred to somewhere in Burlington.

He claimed to have been at the Burlington riots. Or maybe, ‘claimed’ was not the right word. He’d admit that he had been, but only answer in ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ or just give a weaseling politician’s answer. 

“They had me at gunpoint on your lawn!” Fiddlesticks added.

“Which is trespassing, attempted murder, and several other things I don’t want to go into,” Nny said. “So I shot them.”

“Three,” Hex said, correcting himself. “Forgot about your cousin.” Hex looked looked over Johnny C. “You really look nothing like her-”

“For starters, I’m not half-black,” Johnny C said, with a tone that just oozed sentiments along the lines of “No, really?! You don’t say!”

“-Still, makes sense you’d think like her.”

It was true. Cousin Yael was almost six foot one and thin, while Nny was about 5 foot 4, short, and stocky. Yael had light brown skin that she’d always told him not to compare to caramel. Which Nny did anyway when he was hungry. Which was all the time. At which point, she’d tried to come up with a food to compare his skin color to, and just settled on “Cuz. Get out in the sun more.” Yael’s eyes were a light green color, Nny’s were about the same color as maple syrup. Yael had thick, full-bodied dark brown hair, Nny… actually did too, but hair color was about the only thing they had in common.

“Cousin Yael doesn’t hate the Reavers anywhere near as much as they hate her,” Johnny C explained. “It’s just… worrying, is all.”

Munro was making a considerable effort not to glare at Johnny C. It was failing. The Doctor was frowning as well, before tutting. Johnny was sure he heard a disparaging murmur about ‘humans’ underneath the Doctor’s breath.

“Yeah,” Hex said, looking downward. “I’ll bet it is.”

Munro waved the question off. "Doesn't matter, Dr. Bartholomeaux. I guess the Doc's right. Just… be careful, yeah? Just because..." Munro looked over at the Doctor. “Just because you know it survives doesn’t mean there’s not a lot to deal with, and it doesn't mean people can't… and won't… die. Stay safe, Ambrose.”

"You too, Harry," Hex said quietly.

“Say hi to my son for me,” Munro said quietly, blinking. “Tell him… tell him I’m prouder of him than I could ever have told him.”

And then the image vanished.

"That… was weird," Johnny C put in.

"Yeah…" Fiddlesticks added.

The Doctor was frowning at them. “Six hundred and four.”

“I'm sorry?” Johnny C asked.

The Doctor checked a wristwatch. “Oh, my mistake. Six hundred and seventeen - that was two weeks ago.” He looked up. “That's how many of the Reavers have died fighting to protect humanity and, though they'd never admit it, PHL-affiliated ponies too - tell me, if that's ‘untrustworthy’, what is trustworthy?”

Johnny frowned. “Hey, it's not that they're bad people - I’ve never met them - but they're HLF and they -”

“One day,” the Doctor interrupted, holding up a finger, “and here's a real spoiler warning for you - one day, you'll trust a man who’s done far worse than the Reavers ever will, and will continue to do so, all with a smile on his face. You'll even call him your ‘friend’, which makes your current stance particularly ridiculous.”

Nny frowned. “Who will I -?”

“Doesn't matter,” the Doctor said with a sharp hand gesture. He pointed at Nny, eyebrows furrowed in annoyance. “Right now, you trust people who have and will perform more atrocious acts than the Reavers ever have and ever will.” 

He made a vague hand gesture at Hex, who folded his arms.

“We have a lot of responsibilities,” the Colonel said, frowning. “For all your talk about Reavers there, they aren’t the ones that are trying to stop the Barrier, or the ones that are an arm of government. There is a lot you would have to change to make the comparison truly equal.”

The Doctor frowned at this. “Have you asked them to help you? Have you given them a chance?” He pointed at Fiddlesticks. “Have you, Little Miss ‘I don't trust them’, ever actually met one? Talked to one?”

“Ah’ve met HLF,” Fiddlesticks said, scowling.

“We’re talking specifically about the Reavers,” the Doctor said. “The HLF are about as unified as the average bunch of politicians, even in the same party. Just ask Jeremy Corbyn.” He pointed at her, eyebrows raising even further. “Have you ever, even once, met one, before your declaration of ‘I don’t trust them’?”

“… no,” Fiddlesticks admitted.

“Exactly,” the Doctor said. “I have. Tom Richardson, Mr Preston, the Cranes, Joe Rither and little Alice - ‘scuse me, Kidman. They're good people. Good people you've lumped in with murderers without ever meeting them, ever knowing their struggles, ever even seeing a picture!” 

“I’ve been busy,” Nny mumbled, but it was clear to anyone he had his tail between his legs on that score.

The Doctor lowered his arm. “In fact, I'd go as far as to say that that impulse, the desire to judge someone based on nothing but… ill-founded preconceptions…”

“Not that ill-founded,” Fiddlesticks said.

“If I judged you by other ponies, would that be fair?” the Doctor asked scathingly. “If I decided you were a racist xenophobe based on somepony else?”

“...No…” Fiddlesticks sighed.

“Thank you,” the Doctor said sarcastically. “So - that impulse, the one you're trying to defend - that is the same thing that grants the Solar Empire the following it has among Trueborn Equestrians.”

“Hey!” Fiddlesticks protested. “Ah’m nothing like them!”

“You're willing to harshly judge people you've never met and never spoken to based on - what?” the Doctor asked. “What do you even know about the Reavers? Maximilian Yarrow’s own daughter doesn't know anything about them, and she’s tried! Men like him -” he jabbed a finger at Hex, “- have classified it all.”

“I didn't,” Hex said with a frown.

“I said ‘men like you, Hex, try to use your ears,” the Doctor said irritably. “This is humanity’s darkest hour - this sort of division makes a bad situation worse, and is exactly what Queen Celestia wants. That impulse is the start of the road she led Equestria down. It’s exactly the opposite of what Lyra Heartstrings wanted. Wants. Whatever the tense I should be using.”

Fiddlesticks blinked in shock. “Ah - Ah never thought ‘bout it.”

“Then maybe it's something for you to think about,” the Doctor said. “Both of you.”

Johnny C nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, maybe I will.”

“Me too,” Fiddlesticks added.

“And I guess I will, too,” Henri said. “With luck, I won’t meet them.”

“‘With luck’?” the Doctor repeated.

“Hey, i’ve nothing against them,” Henri said. He smiled slightly. “Sam Yarrow fixed up my HV Penetrator. I kinda wish I’d known who her Dad was before. It's just… it’s not so much ‘they’re here’ as ‘what’ll have led them here.’” 

“Ah,” the Doctor said. “They do have a tendency to be where things are their worst.”

“Yeah, figured,” Henri said with a wry smile. 

“Well, you never know, you might meet them more often than you'd think. Considering what’s already around h-” the Doctor’s voice abruptly cut off. “No. Spoilers.”

“He’s been with Kgalakgadi again,” Chalcedony explained, though there was something halfhearted in that.

The Doctor sighed. “Well… let's say, you might want to keep that HV Penetrator loaded.” Sighing, the Doctor looked at Hex with a scowl. “And as for you, Colonel - ‘they aren't the ones trying to stop the Barrier’, because nobody’s giving them a chance to try. Nobody's giving them a chance to do anything.”

“They're the HLF,” Hex replied dryly. “Every time we ask, we either get ignored or shot at.”

“No, you don't,” the Doctor said. “Not from them.”

“Once bitten, twice shy,” Hex shrugged.

“Oh, like you wouldn't work with unsavoury individuals,” the Doctor said with a sarcastic tone.

“I’m working with you, aren't I?” Hex asked.

“And you have Ernst Kasparek on the payroll,” the Doctor retorted. “There's a man with atrocities to his name, though give him credit…”

“That's different,” Hex said. “He defected.”

“The Reavers have nothing to defect from,” the Doctor said. “They're fighting the same war, the same enemy, and frankly - given some of your more atrocious backup plans - they're a lot less bloody callous about it in some ways.”

“And what would you have us do?” Hex asked.

“Give them a chance,” the Doctor replied. “You're all too busy ‘not trusting’ them, despite the fact that, for the most part, they're fighting the same war the same way you are against the same people. Maybe - and I realise this is a long shot - you should all try cultivating a little trust, and maybe a little optimism while you're at it. Otherwise you might find things go a darker shade before the end.”

“Doctor,” Chalcedony said in a warning tone. “Changing things.”

“I know,” the Doctor said quietly. “Forgive me for thinking I can change things, especially for the better.”

“You've changed enough,” Chalcedony replied quietly, and the two shared a glance. She gazed over the crystal projector, looking thoughtful. "I think I can see the theory: I could try replicating it for a thaumaturgical signature. Were there other Crystal devices you could show me?"

"A few," the Doctor said quietly. “Come on. I want away for a while.”

He began heading off, but Hex coughed.

"Doctor?" he asked.

The Doctor looked at him for a moment, before nodding, a look of dawning comprehension - not to say irritation - on his face.

"Colonel Hex, may I have permission to pursue this line of research?" he asked, boredom in his tone.

"Yes," Hex said simply. 

The Doctor grinned, and he headed off into the TARDIS. With a sigh - though she was smiling all the while - Chalcedony followed. A moment later the blue box dematerialised.

"Two of our best," Hex said quietly. "But the Doctor - Bowman's so…"

"Weird?" Fiddlesticks asked.

"Yeah," Hex said. "We'll go with that.”

“Does that thing with tellin’ people hints happen a lot?” Fiddlesticks asked, worried by the prediction.

“Actually he's often hinted he's changed history already,” the Colonel said quietly. “He won't tell me how, though.”

“That’s disturbing,” Johnny C commented. “Who knows if we’re even supposed to be alive?”

“We don't,” Henri said quietly. “Theory of timeline change is -”

“Anyway…" Hex interrupted.

A sullen-looking, sallow man with ashy blond hair that couldn't really be described as anything other than “pale” walked by. A winterized M16 with white camo was slung over his back, and he wore a bandolier of thermite grenades over his chest. Half his face looked to be tattoos and burn scars, and one arm poking out from under his mountainous parka looked to be covered in strange, arcane symbols. 

“Are those rune tattoos?” Fiddlesticks asked, curious. “Heard great things bout those.”

“Nah. We’d have to be really desperate to tattoo magic-superconducting material into people,” Hex said.

“Burns,” the ashy blond man said, voice hoarse from the smoke. “Had some tattoos from the old gang on my left arm - the thermite gun really fucked em up.”

He made a salute to Hex, the envy of most any soldier, but there was a weird jerkiness to it. His tag read Joseph.

“Is that Darryl Joseph?” Henri asked. “Man’s a hero! Why’s he in a place like thi-”

“Volunteered,” Darryl said, voice cracking from lack of use. “I saw things out there, kid.”

“...I’m the same age as you,” Johnny C said.

“Same here,” Fiddlesticks added.

“You weren't in Europe,” Darryl said. “I can call you kid if you want.”

Nny sighed. “Fair enough.”

“Actually, I was,” Henri put in. 

A smile crept up Darryl’s face. “How about that. What’d a twig like you do?”

“Psychiatrist,” Henri said. “Turns out, evacuating a country during the apocalypse can be draining.”

“Don’t I know it,” Darryl said. “Be seeing you round, Colonel. Think we can get some sessions in?”

“It’d be a pleasure,” Henri said.

“He didn’t seem very…” Fiddlesticks started, before Johnny C gave her a warning Look.

“Well,” Hex said, “Not…” he sighed. “It’s a sad story. Europe left some big scars on him.”

Just then, there was a loud thump from one room, and the sound of shattering glass.

“Dammit!” a mare unmistakable as Sandalwood cried out from one room. “This’d be so much easier if I had hands…”

“And which one of us is the unicorn, huh?!” someone muttered.

“Shut up, Snowshoes,” the mare groaned.

Nny peered in. He could see Sandalwood, using TK to levitate a set of prosthetic eyes that, from what he could tell, looked broken. Stray wires trailed off it. The old hairy eyeball, huh? he wondered.

The mare who’d been sleeping in the hammock was up there, a screwdriver in her mouth. Nny thought, right then and there, that she was the cutest mare he’d yet seen.

Though Fiddlesticks would be pissed if he said it. Bands of white fur that made it look almost like she was wearing ballet hoofshoes circled her legs just above her hooves, blending against her pale, ice-blue fur. Her mane was in several shades of pale blue-white, and her vibrant orange eyes, like maple leaves about to fall from a tree seemed to glow.

And then she dropped the screwdriver from her mouth and issued forth such a torrent of profanity that Nny’s opinion actually dropped.

That was kinda hot.

“...ya done?” Sandalwood asked after a few seconds.

“Come on, Sandalwood, there’s no need for that,” said an earth pony stallion with thick cokebottle glasses. “The sooner you stop arguing, the sooner we get out of here.”

“You were such great friends before Europe!” a woman with curly strawberry blond hair tied back protested. Incongruously, she had what looked like an M249 slung over her shoulder.

“Excuse me,” Colonel Hex said as he walked in the door, “But I do hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

The four standing in the room stared over at the colonel.

“Um,” the strawberry-blond woman - whose name read Hayden - said. “Just having a polite disagreement.”

“Really?” Hex asked. “Because it seemed more like an impolite disagreement. Everyone, this is Henri Bartholomeaux. He’s on tour, these are two of his friends-”

Johnny C waved. Fiddlesticks tipped her hat.

“And they asked nicely for the tour, so I felt like obliging. Now, if you don’t mind, what is going on here.”

“...Ummmmm,” Henri said. “Hey. I’m new here.”

“We were trying to make a new assault saddle configuration,” Snowshoes said. “The Russians have been complaining about eye problems because of potion in the air, and top brass wanted one that didn’t look like goggles welded to the face.”

“And I,” Sandalwood said, “Was saying we could hook it up to a gun.”

“You broke it!” Snowshoes yelled. “I spend so much time trying to winterize that eyeball, but you took it before I was ready!”

“You labeled it done!”

“That was for something else!”

“And you say Heliotrope has shitty work habits!”

“Come on guys,” the strawberry-blond woman pleaded. “There’s no need to be like this-”

“Leave em,” the coke-bottle-glasses wearing stallion sighed. His voice was curiously uninflected. “They get like this all the time.”

“Much fewer times, I admit,” Hex said. “Dr. Bartholomeaux, Mr. Heald, Fiddlesticks? This is Emma Haymes - she’s who we call on for testing a big gun around here.”

“Hey,” the strawberry-blond woman said, waving.

“The two ponies that insist on arguing,” Hex said, “Are - well, you met Sandalwood earlier.”

“Oh,” Sandalwood said, waving one foreleg. “Nice to see you again.”

“And the last,” Hex said, “Is Spurred Weld. He’s…”

“I’m not exactly a subtle unicorn,” Spurred Weld said. 

Fiddlesticks looked him over. She could believe it. He had a body that looked like it’d belong on an earth pony, and his thick coke-bottle glasses - which reminded her of the stereotypical Canterlot scholar - were wholly incongruous. 

“Hey, I’m not mad,” Spurred Weld said. “I do the heavy lifting. It’s just… my job.”

“Nice to meet you again too, Sandalwood,” Fiddlesticks said, tipping her hat. Sandalwood blushed a little. Snowshoes just raised an eyebrow to that, as if to ask: Really now?

“Anyway,” Spurred Weld said, “I was hoping to calibrate the eye for a bola rifle.”

Sandalwood and Snowshoes looked over at him incredulously. 

“...I’m tempted to ask why,” Snowshoes sighed.

“Well, Sarah Presley and Dovetail down in Montreal are working on a buzzsaw gun for Diamond Dog soldiers,” Spurred Weld said, matter-of factly. “I… got drunk with Alawa off-base, and promised her one. Then we got to thinking we needed a bola to launch from there, and I asked Tomorbaator.”

“And I need nonlethal weapons for use against newfoals because?” Snowshoes asked.

“Come on, Snowshoes,” Emma said. “Don’t  be like-”


“I’m not!” Snowshoes protested. “This is genuinely interesting.”

Fiddlesticks wondered about that. Snowshoes was the kind of mare who seemed to be permanently set to ‘Sarcasm’.

“The confusion effect,” Spurred Weld explained. “Besides, I could make the wire really, really sharp. Motorize one end, turn it into a tiny buzzsaw… Tomorbaator’s really onboard with it.”

“That sounds horribly unsafe,” Sandalwood said.

“For the newfoals?” Snowshoes asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’m…. kind of busy not caring?”

“Look,” Emma said. “Let’s just… Let’s move on. Work on something else.”

Snowshoes looked up at Emma, and the most anguished look that Johnny C had ever seen flashed over her face. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I… I think I need some fresh air.”

“So do you,” Spurred Weld said to Sandalwood.

“Oh, alright,” Sandalwood said.

“Glad to see you getting along,” Hex said. “I leave the place for two months and those two end up at each other’s throats?” he sighed, as the four of them walked down the hallway.

“Then why do you…” Fiddlesticks asked uneasily.

“Employ them?” Hex asked. “Where would they go? No, the two of them are brilliant. They just… at least we’re used to them. Montreal isn’t.”

He was silent for a second, as they traversed the hallways of the facility.

“With that out of the way,” Hex said, “There’s more facilities to see. I’m assuming you’re eager to see Salonen?”

“Very,” Henri said. “I was told I’d be of great importance to him.”

It was right then that a scrawny-looking zebra skidded - no, literally skidded - by, tripping over one hoof and falling in a heap in front of them.

“Uhhhhh…” Johnny C said, looking down at the zebra. “Evenin?”

“…And this is Kgalakgadi,” Colonel Hex said, looking down at him. “Everything going well?”

Fiddlesticks looked down at the odd, scrawny zebra.

“Heyyyyy?” she asked, holding out one hoof.

“N-not m-much time to talk,” Kgalakgadi said, picking himself up and stuttering a little. “Tell me.” He reached into his saddlebags, which looked to be covering a tribal design of some kind. Or a cutie mark? Fiddlesticks wasn’t entirely clear on it. He pulled out a photo of  a hyena munching  on a newfoal’s corpse.

“Oh, why would you do that?!” Johnny C groaned. “It’s just like that video with the red wolves from Kraber...”

“I still can’t believe he’s in the country,” Fiddlesticks shivered. “Not sure I feel safe with him…”





MEANWHILE, IN THE FUTURE!
2023

“I feel really safe now that Kraber’s here,” Fiddlesticks said.

Johnny C abruptly burst into a particularly long coughing fit.

“Wait…” Fiddlesticks looked over at Johnny C, then Kraber. “Shit.”





AND BACK TO THE PRESENT.

“Oh, that video,” Colonel Hex said. “I told you, Kgalakgadi. It’s not evidence if someone’s actually feeding the animals. No matter how much they may have deserved it.”

“I’m telling you, though,” Kgalakgadi said. “It has potential. I’ve cross-referenced the level of wildlife attacks on newfoals in Africa with pre - Ritual Of Forbiddance numbers, and they’ve increased dramatically!”

“What’s this about, then?” Johnny C asked, remembering the video of red wolves to which Colonel Hex was referring. Presumably, it involved PER being fed to them.

“Kgalakgadi is one of the most brilliant workers we have here,” Colonel Hex explained. “Unfortunately, he has so many pet projects that it’s more like a zoo.”

“I think he means the Ritual of Forbiddance,” Fiddlesticks said. Johnny C nodded to that. “I heard about that. What is it?”

“Ritual that taps into Earth’s old magic,” Kgalakgadi explained. “It was attempted in Africa approximately one year ago. It made Africa actively hostile against newfoals and Imperial forces, turning the native wildlife against them. Even the weather-”

“There is no evidence to support that, Kgalakgadi,” Colonel Hex sighed.

“Regardless,” Kgalakgadi protested, “It would be an excellent benefit-”

“It would need resources,” Colonel Hex said. “Yes, PHL R&D approves the testing of a number of concepts. Probably more than we should. But after a year, there’s no proof that it worked.” He paused. “By the way. What about those readings you picked up on Christmas Eve?”

“Readings?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Right,” Kgalakgadi explained. “On Christmas, I picked up a… a blip. Similar to the portal stations the Solar Empire uses, right in the middle of Alaska.”

“Why aren’t you going after that?!” Fiddlesticks yelled.

“Because here’s the weird thing,” Kgalakgadi said. “Have you seen a portal station before?” 

“Once,” Johnny C said, and shivered, recalling his last National Guard deployment. “It was enough. But you haven’t answered my question...”

“Well,” Kgalakgadi said, pulling a scrap of cloth out of one of his saddlebags. “Let’s say space is this rag. Regular portal stations involve stitching here and here-” he pointed to two spaces on the rag with one hoof. “Together. Though, uh, teleport matrixes… they’re sort of like that, but instead of making two points connect, they stab through. Like needles. But I don’t think we’ll come across those again. But the blip I got… It was just a flash. Barely a second. Like someone had forced a needle through the blanket, and then… nothing. I thought it was nothing, but…” Kgalakgadi looked out a window. Then something in his saddlebags beeped.

“Huh?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Exactly,” Kgalakgadi said. “I’m getting weird readings more and more often. More than I should.”

“Maybe it’s someone running a test?” Hex suggested. “There is an Armacham facility nearby.”

“Not that far north,” Kgalakgadi said. “There’s just… miles and miles of nothing that far north. And here’s the thing:”

You could almost hear the colon at the end of that sentence.

“When we experiment with reverse-engineering Solar Empire magic,” Kgalakgadi said, “There’s, uh… there’s a bit of a background fuzz of earth’s magic. And when Armacham tries, there’s a bit of the fuzz, but also, a bit of, uh…” Kgalakgadi paused. “Let’s not go into that. Whatever this is, it came from Equestria.”

“And why are you just telling me now?” Hex asked. 

“The readings are getting stronger,” Kgalakgadi said. “This… this could be…!” he seemed to deflate. “Actually, I have no idea what this could be. But someone needs to investigate.”

“Ah, what the hell,” Johnny C sighed. “I’d be willing to help.”

“Sure,” Fiddlesticks said. “I can work on that.”

“You two?”


“NH national guard,” Johnny C said, nodding. “Fiddlesticks has PHL self-defense training.”

“The signal… I didn’t manage to get a general area, but it seems to be coming from west of…” Kgalakgadi pulled a map out of his saddlebags. “Well. Dead Horse. That’s where it’s coming from. Of course.”

“Well, that’s not ominous at all,” Fiddlesticks sighed. “Is there… is there seriously a town called Dead Horse? Is that actually what it’s called?”


“It is,” Colonel Hex said.

“Well, I’m with Fiddlesticks,” Johnny C said. “It’s definitely a bad omen.”

“You believe in omens?” Kgalakgadi asked, and sighed. “Ya superstitious-”

“What, it’s unreasonable to believe in omens? Should I not believe in unicorns?” Johnny C asked.

“Ooh, he’s got you there,” Fiddlesticks said.

“Look, let’s just say it’s west of Prudhoe Bay, alright?” Colonel Hex snapped. “There’s not much there, Kgalakgadi-”

“Which is exactly why I think we should send a team out there,” Kgalakgadi said. “The readings I’m getting… They’re getting stronger. There isn’t even really a military out there.”

“Which means nobody to investigate this personally,” Hex said. “Which is worrying.”

“Well, clearly this is important,” Kgalakgadi said. “Therefore, we need a team of the bes-”





“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Snowshoes muttered, looking over the briefing room.

“Me neither,” Sandalwood said.

The twelve of them stood  before a PHL transport plane. Kgalakgadi, Sandalwood, Snowshoes, Spurred Weld, Vera Low, Emma Hayden from back in the lab, Darryl Joseph, and Fiddlesticks and Johnny C. There were two others with them that Johnny and Fiddlesticks hadn’t seen, a tall rail-thin Inuit with an Ulfberht on his back (According to a name stitched on his vest, it was ‘Amaruq’) and a short woman with a semiautomatic rifle named Sharon Minik. The latter two looked like they hadn’t left the boundaries of Alaska more than twice in all their life.

“I could outfly this thing,” Snowshoes sighed, looking at the VTOL’s engines. 

“You want to stay there in a blizzard,” the inuit man named Amuruq said. “Be my guest.”

Snowshoes just sighed, her breath coming out as a smoky mass in the cold winter weather. “I’m sure this’ll go along great.”

“Why not?” Emma asked, hefting a large machinegun. “I think it’ll go fine.”

“You brought an LMG, for starters?” Snowshoes asked.

“Name one occasion that anyone has ever said ‘I regret bringing all this extra ammo,’” Darryl said, hefting a large canvas-wrapped package into the plane’s cargo hold.

“Darryl’s got you there,” Fiddlesticks chuckled.

“That had better not be a flamethrower,” Sharon said.

“Alright,” Darryl shrugged. “It’s not a flamethrower.”

“Then is it a thermite gun?” Sharon asked.

Darryl shrugged. “Could be,” he said, a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Alright, how many other people brought weaponry?” Spurred Weld groaned.

Everyone that wasn’t Kgalakgadi raised a foreleg or forearm. 

“God…. dammit,” Spurred Weld groaned.

“Well, don’t be unfair,” Amuruq said. “We are in Alaska. Why do you think I brought this revolver?”

“Bears?” Johnny C asked. “Same reason I have mine.”

“And I also asked for assault saddles,” Snowshoes said.

To everyone’s surprise, Sandalwood smiled and nodded her head. “Amuruq’s right. It’s Alaska.”

“You never know what you’ll find out here,” Sharon said, as they stepped into the plane.

“You guys gonna get in here soon?!” the pilot called out. “Hear there’s a blizzard comin’!”