The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum (The Original)

by Sledge115

Converge (1/4)

Resting her forehooves upon the wooden railing that enclosed her home’s front yard, Applejack’s alert eyes gazed North at distant Canterlot’s large and ornate towers, constructed and ornamented with lavish gold-leaf architectural accents by the unicorns in times long past. Moving further along, her gaze could barely make out faraway Cloudsdale silhouetted against the afternoon sun, otherwise so indistinct amidst the white and greys of today’s overcast sky. To the South lay Ponyville's smaller and simpler half-timbered buildings, built by the sweat off the brow of hard-working earth ponies such as herself.

With a gloomy sigh, she then looked Southeast, where the village’s planned and manicured landscape came to an abrupt end, and the uncultivated Everfree Forest, undisturbed by Equestrian hooves, began. Tucking at her farmer’s hat, she idly wondered why the princesses would build the first of their castles out there. Perhaps in the days before Discord’s overthrow, the lost woods had been a refuge, a place of some small sanctity from the threats of the world. How the world must have changed, then. She knew the feeling.

Applejack contemplated her history with that accursed place, thinking back to all the times it had spelt trouble for her friends, and for her family, a certain easily excitable baby sister of hers most of all. Although Stephan and Marcus alike had warned Lyra and the rest of them that throwing yourself headfirst into a war, with no word sent to family, would lead you up the creek without a paddle, living the truth was no less of a grind. And the truth was, in war, there are always casualties.

Old Granny Smith hadn’t like what happened to little Applebloom. Not one bit.

“Granny, Ah’m going with Rarity and Fluttershy to confront that varmint Fuse.”

“No! I forbid it!” the old lady spluttered at her granddaughter. “Ya can sit your flank while Ah send Big Mac to get the Town Watch. Yer friends shoulda kept their snouts outta trouble! Going out themselves is darn foolish! I'm not about to see ya join in it!”

“Ah can’t do that!” retorted Applejack. “They’re my friends! Heck, we’re the Bearers of Harmony! Equestria needs us!”

“Ah know, but it doesn’t mean ya have to do this.” Granny spoke with a conviction that did not fit her small frame. “Other ponies could help… wasisname? Step-Hands?”

“Stephan,” she corrected.

“Right. But ya don’t have to risk yer life for hew-manity. Don’t get me wrong, I fully support the war to rescue the hew-mans from that twisted mockery of our good and merciful Celestia! But there are plenty of other ponies willin’ to fight for their folk! Heck, if Ah was younger, Ah myself would join the fight to save those poor fellers!”

“Yet ya won’t let me.“

“We need ya on the farm! Ya can help them some other way! Not like this! Ya could get yerself killed out there!” Granny cried.

“Don’t ya understand?!” Applejack exclaimed, her two forelegs raised high in exasperation. “There won’t be a farm... there won’t be an Equestria! If Ah don’t help, we could be next!”

“Don’t ya speak to me like Ah’m some wee foal, Applejack! Ah knows what they’s a plannin’! Ya still got plenty of other ways to help the hew-mans without–”

Both of Applejack’s forehooves stomped down hard on the floor. “It’s humans!” she bellowed.

“Don’t ya speak to me like th–” But even as Granny shouted, Applejack had turned away, marching to the front door. “Where’re ya–”

“Granny, ah gotta go.”

“Wait! Don’t!” pleaded Granny, a fearful look in her eyes. “AJ… I’ve lost one child already. And a mare that was close as a daughter to me as ya can get. Ah don’t want to lose ya too.”

Applejack stopped in her tracks. “Ah have to do this, though. This war’s a threat to anythin’ that doesn’t sell itself out for survival. It ain’t gonna stop with just the humans and us, which is why we have to do this! Why Ah have to!”

For a moment, both were silent. Finally, Granny was able to speak again.

“Heh,” Granny Smith chuckled with a sad smile. “Just like your Pa.”

“Huh?”

“Applejack, yer father was a great stallion, handsome as can be, and where Big Mac gets all his looks from. Honest to a fault, too. Ah see him in the three of you all the time.”

“Granny, what’re ya–?” Applejack asked slowly, sincerely hoping that her grandmother wasn’t trying to guilt-trip her.

“But,” Granny Smith continued, “He was stubborn as a mule. No, scratch that, Ah once saw mules tellin’ him to give up on a few occasions.”

Applejack stared at her. “Is that how he…”

“No, it was… somethin’ else. Ah ain't gonna sink that low.” Granny sighed. “Ah want ya to know, though, yer daddy could go pretty far when he got an idea in his head. Like that time Mac cracked a rib or three, and ya tried to do his workload, except your daddy’d go further. Just… promise me, Applejack. Promise me you’ll never go that far.”

There was no proper answer for Applejack. “How is that not guilt-tripping?” she demanded.

“Because Ah know you’ll probably go through with this anyway,” replied Granny Smith. “Just… Ah jest want ya to know, Ah want ya to come back safe. Cos’ all of us need ya here!”

“I’m telling you, this is the right direction!”

Applejack, who’d been cursing her impatience under her breath, telling herself she needed to keep a calm mind if she went after Fuse, felt her ears perk up at the sound of new argument, not far from her. She looked up to see a group walking down the road at a leisurely pace – five ponies or so, all in different shapes and sizes, though each looked like they’d emerged from the back alleys of Manehattan.

These mysterious, large and muscular, mares and stallions wore neck to tail coats when most Ponyville residents would be wearing short vests, neck garments, or no clothing at all. Their drab overcoats were too well tailored to be mistaken for day laborer work clothing. Also, the overcoats had too many deep pockets to be worn by respectable professionals. Applejack realized that Rarity’s talks about the fashion trade were useful to her after all.

“Bah!” the same one growled. “Probably took a wrong turn. Small wonder if that cross-eyed menace gave us directions that only made sense in her stupid head.” As several of the others began to laugh, he went on, “Whatever, a minor setback is all. Believe you me, Shorty’s days are numbered.”

“Quiet, Flare,” grunted their leader, a white unicorn fellow who’d spotted Applejack and was eyeing her critically. “Hey, you!”

“Yes?” Applejack’s joints had frozen up at hearing the word ‘Shorty’, but from the instant the lead stallion set eyes on her, she strove to project a casual, unworried, some might even say clueless appearance. “What can this farmer do you for?”

“Looking for Fuse’s brickyard, gotta pick up some… orders. Yeah. Know where that’s at?”

“Hm…” Keeping her internal panic under control, Applejack tapped her chin, hoping these troublesome visitors wouldn’t spot the slight tremble of her hoof. “Well, folks, ya take this road down about a mile, then take a right. Keep close to the farm or you’ll find yourself on a trip through the Everfree, and as it’s gettin’ close to Zap-Apple season, the Timberwolves’ve been plenty antsy of late. From there, skim past the western end of town. Then ya take a left at the school, the path’ll cut back into the forest, and from there it’s a straight shot to the brickyard. That’d be the easiest route.”

And also the longest. Applejack couldn’t fib to save her life, but sending them on the long way around would give her time to race ahead of them. And it was technically true.

“Why can’t we just cross through the orchard?” scowled the leader, nodding toward the nearby cluster of trees. “Save us some time?”

“Eh, you can if you want, Ah won’t stop ya,” Applejack replied, leaning on the fence seemingly without a care, secretly glad to see the others tense up. “That’s where the Zap-Apples grow. It’s still the off-season, but they tend to... Oh, what’s th’ word Ah’m looking for? Twilight’d say they get…. vol-a-tile?”

She picked up a rock from beside the porch, and hurled it at the nearest tree, and the rough-looking group actually paled as it promptly exploded into several shards, shot through by a bolt of lighting from within the trunk.

“Which means they git all explody-like.”

“Uh… yeah, okay. We’ll take your route,” the leader muttered, waving his companions down the path. Applejack watched them trot off, more than a few concerned glances at the Zap-Apple orchard rippling amongst each of the five as they passed by, one by one.

Once she was sure she’d waited long enough, she bolted past her trees without a care.

“Heh, you only have to worry about touchin’ them,” Applejack chuckled as she raced on. “Good thing they didn’t ask anythin’ else. Better find Rarity and Fluttershy, and quick!”

“We thank you for your help, you three gentlemen,” Rarity smiled sweetly. “Your information provided has proven of the utmost value to us.”

The thug just glared, helpless as he was with her twisting his forehoof at his back.

“Rarity,” asked Fluttershy, “What’ll we do about them? We can’t just let them go free, and, um, I don’t think we’ve got anything to tie them up with.”

“Don’t you fret, darling, we’re in the Everfree with a Ranger at our side,” answered Rarity, nodding toward Minus, who stood rigidly over Shades’ crumpled form. “I’m sure the natural world can give up what we need. Isn’t that right, Minus?”

Only when the Ranger whipped her head back did Rarity notice, the whiteness still hadn’t receded from the habitually placid little mare’s face.

“Minus? Are y–” Rarity began, before cutting herself off. Fuse’s wife plainly was not alright. “Are… there any vines or anything we could use as restraints for these brutes?”

“Restraint…” muttered Minus, face growing, if anything, whiter. Set against the natural sandy color of her coat, the change was deep and striking. “Restraint! My whole marriage has been built on the promise of restraint! And that blockhead just had to go and tear it down, bringing his old gangmates in like that…”

Rarity swallowed. Now the adrenaline had begun to depart from her system, some of her earlier worries, blotted out in the thrill of the clash and interrogation, were returning, and the unabated metallic tang of fury exuding off Minus comforted her not at all.

“Look, dear, I’m… I’m sorry,” she said simply. What else could she say? “Sorry we got you involved in all of this. I thought it’d make things easier for everypony if you just gave your husband a good talking-to. Don’t blame Fluttershy, it was my idea, I asked her to get you.”

“Sorry?” repeated Minus, and Rarity saw the color starting to flow back into her cheeks. “Why be sorry, Rarity? Why should either of you be sorry? I’m the one who oughta be sorry. You ain’t the mare wedded to a ruffian.”

“I’m sure you thought he’d mellowed out–”

“No, you don’t get it,” Minus raised a hoof, speaking quietly. “I’m not sorry for myself. Sorry for inflicting my kind of stallion on you. Fuse and I, we’re not mellow folk, but the true Equestrian spirit, it did me such good after my brains got scrambled, it’s what he fell in love with firstoff. Only, even in this place, I’da been adrift if left to my own devices, so he chose to stick around, and things... kinda spiralled from there.”

The Ranger sighed. “I suspect he views what the humans are doing, turning things more hardcore and all, almost like a personal insult, and alas, it’s gone and reawakened some real ugly side of him. Why else would these blasted goons be here?”

She gave the unconscious Shades a buck in the shins, then flinched at the realization of what she’d just done, staring woefully at her creased hindleg.

“You see? Short Fuse ain’t the only one who needs restraining.”

There was so much Rarity felt like saying at that moment. About all she and her friends had learnt of the human world, all the age-old cruelties and hardships, from even before this war, which molded mankind into the toughened species they were, a nomadic people sent on an eternal quest for a place to find peace upon the hostile planet they called ‘home’.

How they could posture, and strike hard, and at times be so very, very difficult to love – and yet, daring to look many a human in their fierce eyes, one saw something more underneath. A quiet, lonely desire for an end to struggle, for the simple gift to stand face-to-face with a fellow being, and know they were not an enemy; and see that they, too, knew the same.

Instead, what she said was, “We’ve seen far worse. I think we can live with it. What do you think, Fluttershy?”

“Yes.”

“So anyway,” Rarity pursued, “Any ideas how we’ll keep our ‘friends’ here from skedaddling?”

Minus threw Shades a dirty look. “Leaving them for the Timberwolves does feel like a most tempting prospect,” she admitted, ignoring the sharp, frightened intake of air from Fluttershy’s captive stallion. “But you know what? Let it not be said I picked my lifemate straight out of a packet of wolf chow. No, we do this by-the-book. Miss Fluttershy, if you don’t mind?”

Cautiously, Fluttershy eased her grip ever-so-slightly from the nerve cluster on the downed thug’s back. Small beads of sweat ran along the stallion’s face, eyes shooting anxious, pleading stares at the Ranger as she strode up to them, her expression unreadable.

Daring Do’s first sidekick knelt before the captive. “Think you’re so tough, don’t you?” she whispered, tracing a hoof across his quivering nape. “A veritable mustang, who don’t answer to nopony ‘cept your herd leader, free to run around wild messing with others. Well, if you want to behave like an untamed horse, you can be treated like one.”

In a flick of the carpus and teeth so fast the other two mares barely picked up on it, she’d caught the thug’s ear and bit into it. Fluttershy gasped, and even Rarity winced inside as, with a sad little ‘oomph’, his eyes glazed over and the tip of his tongue lolled out, the hormones released by Minus’ grip working their uncanny magic on his brain to produce a hazy, blank calm, such as no equine could resist.

“How long’ll that put him out for?” Rarity enquired shakily, struggling not to let her own hapless goon sense her discomfort at this, after she’d threatened his stallionhood earlier. “You clenched him real hard.”

“I’d say half a day, give or take,” replied Minus, with a spit to the ground. “We’ll see yet how that compares to what’s in store for Fuse…” she added darkly, one of her hooves twitching.

Despite her personal animosity for the brickmaker, Rarity disliked the sound of that. “But–“

“Don’t worry, he’s from Gildedale, he can take it,” Minus hastily amended, some of the anger finally dissipating from her voice, replaced by, suspectly enough, a hint of sheepishness. “More than that, even. Usually on the lip, only this time, oh, he should be so lucky...”

“I did not need to hear that!”

“Sorry. It’s the tension. Brings it out of me.”

The thug in Rarity’s grasp dared snort. “Oh, yes,” he sneered. “I see Locksmith told it true. Worse than Sunny and Flare, you are. So obvious why Shorty chose to keep you around–”

“Quiet, you,” Minus said casually, swiftly leaning over to bite his own ear. A minute later, he wouldn’t be bothering the mares for a while yet. “Alright, change of plans, girls. Looks like Fuse has really gone and sunk himself in the quicksand this time, and though I can’t rightly call it undeserved, the big lug’d never forgive me if I did nothing to haul his rear out of there. So I say we plow on ahead and throw him a lifeline.”

Fluttershy gave a meek cough. “Minus, we can’t just abandon the unconscious brutes.”

“Much as I regret to say so, I agree,” Rarity added, pacing over to her best friend’s side. “At the very least, if only because the PHL will want them alive for questioning.”

“And shouldn’t we go back for some reinforcements?”

“Hardly any time,” the Ranger replied gruffly. “But you’re right, a couple extra pair a’ hoofs never hurt none. So, listen. Rarity, you’ll gimme a spark of help in flying these laggards to the treetops. And Fluttershy, while that’s going on, would you be so kind, and go get Zecora? Only person in the immediate vicinity I’d bet my life on in such a situation. Once that’s done, we mark the spot, then we race for the escape route.”

Working her wings up to a steady flap, Minus moved to wrap her forehooves around one of the downed thugs’ shoulders. As Fluttershy trotted past Rarity, who had began lighting her horn, the friends shared a glance and the same confused response.

“Escape routes?”

Blackberry didn’t know how long he’d been galloping.

Panting, heaving, he galloped through the forest, ignoring whatever eyes might be watching through the thick foliage of the Everfree. With a final, decisive sprint, the young, frightened stallion jumped over a small creek, and his run came to an exhausted halt in a clearing. Breathing in short, pained gasps, Blackberry leant a hoof against a tree, the afternoon sun bearing down on him as he recollected his composure.

‘I… was not… built… for this…’ he half-thought, half-wheezed.

The full scale of what he’d seen bore down upon his mind. And the more he thought of it, heart racing, the more absurd his situation appeared. His memories of the past few days came to an abrupt stop following his arrival in Ponyville. Before he knew it, he’d awakened to find himself surrounded by gangsters. Or maybe “awakened” wasn’t the right word, one second he remembered being in ponyville, enjoying the sights and baked goods.

And the next, he had simply been there. He dimly remembered, or felt like he should’ve remembered doing something, he knew time had passed, he knew he’d had a job in mind, he knew he’d agreed to something. But he simply couldn’t remember the specifics.

‘Five heavyset thugs, effortlessly defeated by a Forest Ranger and two other mares.’

It was when the white unicorn seized the last one and issued such horrid, un-Equestrian threats that he’d turned tail and ran. Throughout the whole brief, intense skirmish, no-one had paid him notice. And so, here he was. Alone, exhausted, but safe from those thugs and any further crazies. It was only when Blackberry looked up that he noticed this forest clearing wasn’t quite so empty as he’d first thought.

The vaguely insectoid, giant black metal craft was huge, cumbersome, and yet surely it had flown here, from what he remembered of Exit Strategy’s lectures. His jaw dropped. Could this be, up close, the same black dot he’d once seen, and more importantly, heard patrolling the skies of Canterlot? For something which created noise to rival a hundred twittermites, it looked so delicate, resting there in the clearing with the sun shining off its chitinlike surface.

Blackberry’s studious mind overtook his fears as he tentatively approached the metal husk.

‘It’s, it’s magnificent…’ he whispered, gently tracing the surface with a hoof. He knew he ought to feel repulsed by its twisted, unnatural form. It bore scant resemblance to any airship he’d seen, only its elongated body providing a common form with Equestrian aircraft. Yet there was an odd elegance in its alien nature, one Blackberry couldn’t help but appreciate...

“Stay where you are, lad.”

Blackberry froze as something cold and metallic pressed against his neck

“Calm down, and I might think twice about pulling the trigger,”

“Wh-what’re you going to do to me?” Blackberry gulped nervously.

“I’m the one asking questions here,” retorted the human voice. Female, by the sound of it. “But if you must know, good news is, you’re probably not going to die. Turn around, please.”

Heart in his mouth, Blackberry slowly, very slowly removed his hoof from the craft’s surface, hoping against hope his captor wouldn’t mistake any wrong move on his part as aggression. Much to his dismay, he found himself facing down the barrel of a diminutive, black, squared-off flintlock – if that was the correct term for the firearm the angry-looking human female still held raised at his eye level.

“Yes, that’s right,” she said. “Nice and easy now, nobody needs to get hurt.”

“O-okay! Okay, please don't hurt me?!” Blackberry whimpered.

“Calm down,” she replied flatly. “Unless you do something insanely stupid, you should be fine. Don’t worry your scruffy little head about it.”

“...Oh,” Blackberry said in a small voice, realizing he sounded almost disappointed.

The human gave him a look. And then she sighed, and flicked her flintlock upwards.

“You know what?” she muttered. “Fuck this.” As Blackberry gawped at her wide-eyed, the female pressed her thumb to a tiny patch on the flintlock’s hammer. “There, safety on. Well, kinda. Maybe Ivan, the Krauts and the Seppos think there’s any glory in holding a loaded Glock pressed against a scared foal’s head, but dammit, I’m better than that.”

She gestured at Blackberry with her weapon. “Look, you move away from the chopper, out in the open. Obviously, I can’t rightly ask you to keep your hands behind your head. Still, so long as you stay right where I can see you, while I radio command, all shall be fine.” Her eyes flashed daggers at him. “But I warn you, if you’re pulling any ‘wounded gazelle’ shit on me here, got friends hiding in the bushes waiting to pounce once my back’s turned, be sure I’ll give you something to really cry about.”

Blackberry voice caught in his throat. He wanted to tell his captor that, yes, there were more ponies nearby, many of whom he’d hesitate to call friends, but still more who needed help. Patients, at the brickyard. Patients he’d run off on.

‘Ponies who got hurt catching a human,’ a voice dimly whispered inside his head. ‘And this female, she must be one of the team sent to rescue that guy.’

He swallowed, begging himself that he hadn’t blurted his thoughts out loud again. Fortunately, the female didn’t seem to have picked up on anything amiss, as she was busy plucking some kind of diminutive walkie-talkie on a cord from the craft’s innards.

“Overwatch, come in, Overwatch. This is Sleja Gamma, over.”

To Noteworthy’s vivid, yet precise way of thinking, three flavors stood out, loud and true.

First of all, the color of dirty red that was the path of the Ponyville brickyard assembly line, starting with the treading pool, where earthpony hooves would stomp water into a sheet of the fresh clay dug up from a nearby claypit. Daring to sneak a peek over the impromptu barricade of big sticks and stones shutting off the wide-open exit from the central warehouse, his eyes shifted to rows of soft, ready-made bricks outside, left to dry a first time outside in Princess Celestia’s warm sunlight.

Behind him, to the far side of the kiln, were pallets of fired bricks, from plain ones made for lining ovens, furnaces and locomotive fireboxes, to fancy ones for building walls, most of them boxed and ready for shipment all over the nation. Yet these weren’t what had caught his attention. The second color he perceived was the black-and-blue of a dozen injured ponies, lying in a row close to the hastily-welded door of the drying shed, seemingly ‘boxed’ to within an inch of their lives. A few others were still binding their wounds and giving the most beatdown ones sips of liquor from saddle-flasks.

Checking himself over, Noteworthy was relieved that he was not himself hurt. As he chanced another glance outside, though, it became clear that he was as trapped as the unfortunate souls who lay side by side. A faint gleam of gold, almost indistinct against the late-afternoon sky, winking in and out of his sight like irregular, wavy outlines of squares cut in thin air, and resembling nothing so much as the patches on some great invisible duvet, reminded him of the magical ‘net’ which had been cast over the whole place.

However, the most troubling color of all within his mind was the white, a blank void. With earnest desperation, he wondered at how he could recall tidbits about brickmaking, but not the circumstances which had brought him here, or how these fellow ponies had taken such brutal beatings.

A low moan interrupted his reverie. It came from one of the injured.

“Water, please…” croaked an earthmare, gesturing at him pleadingly.

Nodding, Noteworthy moved to pick the nearest available flask from a row set up on a workbench opposite the main kiln. He tried hard not to let his gaze flicker in the direction of the two heavyset stallions standing guard on either side of the furnace’s heat-lock, which was as covered by the same thick layer of cement as the entrance to the drying shed. The recent unpleasantness involving the yard’s owner still rang fresh in his memories.

Like most of the good villagers of Ponyville, while he was as open to receive anypony new in town as his fellow citizens, something about Fuse had always put him on edge. That said, contributing his share of volunteer work in brickmaking with the guy as his master in the craft had gradually, if not warmed him to, eased him around the rough-looking stallion, who despite the sharpness of his tongue rarely criticized to hurt, never on unwarranted grounds.

Witness such a toughened character overpowered on their very workplace by stallions of equal bulk, then shoved inside their kiln, was perturbing for Noteworthy, to say the least. But thus far, the intruders had thankfully shown no intent to get a fire started. In secret, he prayed that if the Ponyvillians made it out of this alive, so too would the village brickmaker.

Back at the mare’s side, he held the tip of the flask to her lips, and she took a grateful sip.

“Humans,” she whispered after finishing her drink, clutching at her flower-patterned hoofbag, a trickle of water running down the left of her lower jaw, staining the pale gold fur a dull orangey tinge. “One myth that should have remained a myth.

“I know somepony who’d disagree with you there,” Noteworthy replied in a soft voice, so very soft that only the two of them could hear. “And yet, you’re right. Strange, isn’t it?”

“More than strange...” whimpered the mare. “Scary. Darn scary creatures.”

Feeling his throat tighten, Noteworthy risked a quick glance back at the stallions on watch, before carefully placing a forehoof upon the mare’s shoulder.

“Shh…” he hushed her, trying to make the sound feel comforting, not admonishing. “Shh. Take care, don’t hurt yourself further. You wanna hear a secret? Myth, legend. It’s been said those are born from our fears, our wonders faced with sights and songs we don’t understand. Only, to understand a thing, we try to find patterns, apply rhythm to it, based off how we feel we know ourselves.”

“What’s there to know?” she whispered, her own trembling forehoof snapping backward to tightly clutch at his on her shoulder. “They’re monsters, and really, that’s all there is to it. They’re what got us into this mess, I don’t know, just that they did.”

The sharp desperation in her grasp unintentionally brought their hooves closer to her nape, where surely they did brush against a few beads of sweat, trickling down from the chartreuse-green bush of her mane. An uncomfortable moment for Noteworthy, not helped by the middle-aged feel of her fur, yet he willed himself not to pull away.

“I think there’s more to it than that,” he said, eyes downcast. “I’ve seen them, and they scare me, they do, yet somehow, whenever I look at them…”

Stray memories briefly flashed back behind Noteworthy’s eyes, and his voice caught. “It’s like they’re hurting inside, and they don’t understand why.” Oh, if only he could remember the mare’s name, he’d be able to better reassure her! From her accent and outfit, he almost thought she was a tourist who’d wandered into this mess by mistake, no relation to it all. “They claim they flee the threat of an eternal static, but they themselves are clearly so full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

She looked at him oddly, although he did not really notice. Of all the jumbled images his clouded mind could discern, these resounded the most like a constant background melody. The muted pink or brown of human skin, and their field uniforms of patchwork-green which somehow never fully blended into the foliage of any forest or jungle known to Equestria, nothing but sharp and piercing edges irreconcilable with the soft, rounded tones of his homeland. Two different worlds had clashed with each other here, in more ways than one.

“Okay, that’s the last of them,” Rarity panted in relief, finally, finally allowing the glow of her horn to dim, now the unconscious thugs were safely stashed up and away from the deadly forest floor. “So we sneak in, grab your husband, and get out?”

“That’s the gist of it,” Minus smiled back, though one could tell the expression looked forced. Privately, Rarity made a note that once all this had blown over, she’d have to find a very special gift-wrapped package to thank the Ranger with, for goodness knew what hells the other mare was wading through right now, torn between conflicting loyalties.

And speaking of loyalty…

“Before, I thought it fortunate Rainbow wasn’t here,” she admitted awkwardly. “Only now, I’m not so sure. After all she’s put up with lately, there’s a mare I just know would leap at the chance to show she’s still got it in her, especially against a band of ruffians.”

Then her lips thinned in sudden perplexity. “But just what did that guy mean when he said you were Daring Do’s–”

“Hold up,” Minus half-whispered tersely, nudging her in the direction of the darkened treeline. The sound of hooffalls on grass echoed, very slightly, across the forest path. “Rarity, I think Fluttershy’s returned along with Zecora.”

Barely visible amidst the thick foliage and gloom of the forest, the familiar sight of the buttery pegasus in the distance, flanked by a lanky, hooded figure, lent credence to her words. Despite herself, Rarity suppressed a shiver. Even now that the mysterious witch-doctor of the Everfree had become a valued acquaintance, one whom she could outright call a friend, the idea of anyone choosing to live in such a place continued to send icicles down her neck.

“So it would seem,” she muttered back. A new thought struck her as she glanced at the Ranger. “Say, now I think of it, Zecora never did appear to worry you too much.”

This time, Minus’s laugh was a sound of genuine mirth. “Oh, that! I’ve encountered scarier, weirder, more untamable creatures than zebras, Miss! Honestly, I used to wonder how long it’d take you to come around. True story, the Ezebrantsi tribe, they got somma’ the best textile manufacturers on the continent, you’ve never seen the like. I’d trust you’d find a lot of common ground with ‘em.”

“Yes,” Rarity whispered dreamily, thinking back to the colorful and exotic encampments which had sprung up in the great natural reserve called New Central Park. “Yes… that would be lovely… must see to it...” A spark flickered in her eyes for an instant, then went out. “If we survive. If some buffoons don’t go and make a mess of it…”

Concordantly, part of Minus’ newfound cheer faded again. “I’m… not sure what to say… What is there to say? Right now, only thing which sounds sort of right for me, Rarity, is that not everyone fears what they don’t know. Sometimes, they fear something because they know it only too well.” She made a show of adjusting her campaign hat. “But every time after I’ve popped by Zecora’s to pick up some ‘Heart’s Desire’, I always felt it was worth it, there was more to anyone than just that.”

Rarity raised an eyebrow at her. “Wait a minute. You knew what a zebra was, went so far as to do some occasional trade, and you never told us?”

“Would you have listened?” Minus replied softly. “It isn’t like all the things I love best in the world are to your taste… then again, I never did have the heart to explain why the shops were always shut to her when she came into town, either.”

Guided by understanding, Rarity gently reached for her shoulder. “Look, darling, I won’t pretend I ‘get’ everything you hold dear. Personally, it’s a mystery to me, how Fluttershy can put up with some of the… muckier... aspects of looking after animals,” she confessed, subtly nodding towards her approaching friend. “But I know how it feels, being passionate about your life’s work. Perhaps that’s why the Elements chose us, my friends and I.”

“Indeed they are powerful, dear Bearer,” whispered a silky voice, barely audible beneath the rustle and sigh of leaves in the wind. “Thus too is our Equestria’s future for the better. But pray tell, ponies of three, why are you in the Everfree?”

“Didn’t Fluttershy say, Zecora?” Rarity asked, surprised.

“Only that we were to fly swiftly towards this location,” explained the zebra witch-doctor. “Of little beyond this did she make any mention.”

“Beg pardon?” said Rarity, surprised. Perhaps it was just the stress of these last few hours, but she was finding it hard to focus, to the point she wondered if she’d misheard.

“My apologizes are given to you all,” said Zecora. “But ill will surrounds us and shall befall.” From beneath her cloak, she peered at them all with yellowed, eerily shining eyes. ”Friends, I urge you make haste from these darkened trees, for I do predict that whatever new devilry lies ahead, it shall only bring you at the door to the world of the dead, from behind which none can return with any set of keys.”

“Maybe we should go back.” Fluttershy shuddered, looking around the trees with new dread.

Was Rarity’s head playing tricks on her, or did the shadows around them lengthen, deepen, the air growing thick, muggy, all of which made proper thought difficult?

“But… but my husband–” Minus protested, looking at the two pony mares with confusion.

“Yes…” Rarity’s eyes seem to glaze over, a smile gracing the zebra’s lips at this. “We should leave this place… for our safety… I’m–”

Suddenly, a streak of orange careened straight from behind Rarity and into her line-of-sight. The effect was as if, together, sheer surprise added to Zecora’s disappearance from her view flicked a switch in her mind. As she stumbled backwards in shock, countless vermillion dots swirled before her eyes, and the orange streak turned into a very good friend of hers, trademark stetson hat almost barely hanging on as, snarling, Applejack stomped down hard, three times, upon some tiny object Rarity couldn’t make out.

“Applejack! What–”

“Whoa nelly, good thing Ah found you lot,” Applejack said, wiping her forehead. “More of them city gang folk showed up by the barn ‘bout half an hour ago, headin’ for the yard.”

“Wh… what, what happened?” Fluttershy stammered groggily, blowing at her dishevelled mane in a daze, like a mare come out of a coma. “What city gang folk?”

In the event, Minus was the one who answered, having apparently recovered the fastest. “The ones we just got done storing away in the trees for safe-keeping, after you girls… kicked them… to the curb… hold on...” Groaning, she gave her head a massage. “Hold on… when’d you get here, Miss Applejack?”

“Huh? Right now, is when!”

“Oh, yes…” mumbled Rarity. “That’s right, I remember… suggested you stay behind and wait for the girls to get picked up, didn’t fancy the risk of a ruckus with Fuse…” Her hooves twitched in abrupt panic. “Applejack? Where are the girls? You didn’t…”

“Nah, no problem,” Applejack silenced her, with a bit of a haughty nod. “Left Applebloom in Granny’s care at the farm, once Berry had done gone and got Wildfire and your parents to fetch Scoots and Sweetie.”

She looked up to the branches, a small smirk on her face as she pointed towards the hapless thugs.

“Mac was on his way to call the Town Watch when fellas much like these ones came up to me, askin’ for directions to the brickyard. Figured Ah’d best pull the wool over their eyes, long enough for me to run and lend ya some muscle, then here Ah come just in time to find y’all in thrall, bewitched-like. Looks like ya did a mighty fine job with them thugs,” the proud earthmare acknowledged, “but when curses come a’knocking, ya’d have stood much to gain from extra ordinance.”

“Why, I…” Rarity coughed, her emotions beginning to rise as she recalled her last, painful conversation with her friend over the value of public weaponry. “Why, why must you be so paranoid all the time, Applejack? Zecora was giving us directions, like a real friend does…”

“Zecora? Directions?” Applejack echoed out, tilting her head in confusion at her words.

“Yes! Zecora! The same zebra whom we in town all took time to warm up to, before–”

“So that’s what she showed ya,” Applejack muttered as she rubbed her chin, she leaned in close to get a better look at the three before nodding her head with a smile. “Rarity, what you’re rememberin’ now, it’s fakery. There were, like, these three marbles floatin’ in the air with beams o’ light projecting straight into your heads. Caught sight of some picture-things in the stream, of the here and now, only with… Zecora in it instead of whoever. Almost like someone cropping a photo in real time...”

And Rarity realized it was true. In all of her memories of what had transpired, as though she were witnessing shapes emerge on a negative freshly dipped in chemicals, the hooded figure whom she’d seen and heard as Zecora suddenly no longer appeared as Zecora, but instead as someone completely different, shorter, paler and unfamiliar.

Applejack turned to glare at the hooded figure, who was cautiously walking back into view out from the tree she’d been crouching behind. “Fancy magic there, ‘Zecora’. Didn’t see a pointy pin on your head when we first met. But I smashed your marbles, you can’t hurt my friends now.”

“I assure you,” said the cloaked mare, “I mean you no harm. Anymore than I do to the brickmaker’s wife, for that matter.”

Applejack frown grew more pronounced as she listened to her speak. The truth was there, but there was an underlying tension to every last word. “And the varmint Fuse? Can Minus here get her dumb-as-a-sack-of-bricks husband back? Ah may not like the guy that much, but he will get hurt pretty badly by those thugs.”

The cloaked mare shrugged. “That is out of my grasp. Events are in motion, wherein I’m only one amongst countless grains of sand strewn on the beach as the tides come in. But under no circumstances can you be allowed to meet your demise.”

Rarity’s face was a picture perfect match for confusion, but inside her mind was racing. ‘She speaks like a noble of Canterlot, if a little fancier than usual. She may not want to harm us, but she’s in the way. Why?’

Noteworthy started at the sound of a great stomp ran through the warehouse’s earthen floor. In the doorway, having crossed the barricade, a great unicorn held his ground flanked by perhaps five more of these thug-faced horses, none of whom wore happy faces or the clothing that respectable folk would favor.

With a snort, the big grey pegasus in charge of the local group marched over to meet them.

“What the... what in Tartarus are ya doing here?” he demanded, one of his wings twitching. “Didn’t call for you guys yet.”

Locksmith, that was his name, Noteworthy told himself. Over the last, unending hour, however, he’d grown to question whether such an individual deserved the honorific of a proper name, almost certainly given by parents who must have loved them. A barely restrained look of feral, red-misted madness had begun seeping from behind the ringleader’s eyes to take over all his posture.

“A dozen of our guys are dead,” the unicorn told Locksmith flatly. “Never did like prepping our own guys for the hole.”

“What?” Locksmith yelled. “When did this happen?!”

“Macua spent the night preparing our guys after that Weaver paid us–”

“My name is Cihuateto,” a tattooed earthmare growled out.

“That ain’t even your real name, just a title–” another stallion swallowed whatever words he had left as the earthmare favored him with a cold look. “Whatever.”

“Weaver left,” Blackjack explained. “A few hours later, the bundle started to smoke these pale grey fumes, and our unlucky guys dropped dead. Good thing me and Macua weren’t there at the time. Only one of us who got away was Doctor Caballeron.”

“Yeah,” piped up the stallion from before, “he ain’t never taken off his amulet of protection, not since that poisoning incident with the griffon gang.”

“Former gang,” Cihuateto responded coldly. “And don’t waste your words, Flare.”

The misbehaving stallion back away sheepishly, but Locksmith, however, was incensed. Emitting a furious, guttural sound which, unbelievably, could only be called a roar, he whipped around, marched up towards the injured and trembling mare, crudely shoved Noteworthy aside. Before she had a chance to plead, he stomped a hoof down on her ribs.

She screamed. Noteworthy was back on his hooves quicker than he thought, too aghast by her mistreatment to care about how he’d just been rough-handled himself.

“S-stop it!” he half-stammered, half-shouted. “You’re hurting her for no reason!”

All this did was get him shoved down again. By the earthmare this time, Cihuateto. Her previously mask-like face harbored a sinister smile as she pinned him in place, one hoof held against the nerve cluster in his back.

“It shall be all the worse for you if you try anything stupid.”

He saw the mark on her flank, discerning what looked like the picture of a wooden sword with blackened tips running along its edge. What set it apart were the strange, misty-colored wisps surrounding the glyph, almost like they’d appeared on her at a later time. Dumbstruck, he found that the longer he stared, the more his eyes began to water, as the colors shifted.

Pain. Sadness. Regret. Anger. A tattered soul burning beneath it all.

“Blackjack,” she told her companion, nodding towards Locksmith.

The unicorn coughed. “Enough. This will get you nowhere.”

“Oh, I’m only getting started,” Locksmith hissed, spittle flying from his lips. “This was meant to be a straightforward job. Venom in exchange for special payment. Ain’t she a wily one, that noblemare. Musta known she wouldn’t get us all in one fell swoop, so she set it up so a few of us’d be here to collect Discord’s remains–”

“Discord?” Blackjack interrupted him, looking surprised for the first time. “As in the big, snaggle-toothed guy with the ability to hold all the cards, even when they’re upside-down?”

“The very same,” spat Locksmith. “Trouble is, he weren’t done yet. I tried carving him up using my orichalcum, except some weird ghost ape-thing, not the one Fuse caught, just had to spring outta nowhere like a blasted jack-in-the-box and foul it all up.”

This revelation got Blackjack thinking. “Did wonder how come you were holding down the fort when I arrived here. Now I understand.” He paused and stared Locksmith right in the face. “But what about the humans? From what we’ve heard of ‘em, don’t you think they’ll go in with more firepower than we can deal with? Locksmith, a sensible move would be to cut your losses and scram.”

“I’m not giving up Discord,” Locksmith snarled, pushing down further on the mare’s ribcage. “Now more than ever. We gotta come outta this with something worth the taking.”

Blackjack did not look exactly pleased at that, yet he tilted his head in acquiescence. “Alright. You’re the boss around here. But I’m not beholden to you. Top stud ordered me to find out Weaver, and that’s what Macua and I are here for, nothing else, unless pushed.”

“Sure. It’s time for answers,” Locksmith looked down at the injured mare. “Where is Weaver?”

“I don’t know who that is!” she whimpered pitifully. “I swear to Celestia, I don’t know.”

“Bah, they’s been wiped clean. Maybe even starched. Useless,” Locksmith waved his hoof to the guards by the kiln. “Sorry lads - looks like we’re not roasting these oats tonight.
Time to bring out Fuse.”

“Wouldn’t he be wiped too?” asked Blackjack.

Swallowing, Noteworthy realised this stallion had expressed no hint of surprise upon hearing where an old comrade of his had ended up. Meanwhile, Locksmith was merely smirking as he watched a unicorn guard begin to erase the cement covering the heat-lock.

“This is Fuse we’re talking about, formerly part of our gang. If there’s something he’s good at, it’s being stubborn. Probably had had his memory wiped several times already before he left. He got a right knack for that, might be he’s got an idea where Weaver is.”

Noteworthy couldn’t make head or tails of what these thugs were talking about, but despite the iron grip of the tattooed earthmare above him – whose body, in the corner of his eye, seemed to hum with peculiar, distorted vibration – his heart beat a little faster as he felt his resolve tighten.

“He’d be hard to break,” Blackjack commented drily, only to earn a snort from Locksmith.

“Probably,” Locksmith grinned, indicating the general direction of Noteworthy, the injured mare, and several other motionless and ashen-faced Loyalists who’d seen the exchange. “Then again, we’ve all these ‘ere ponies with us.”

“Bah! Cut the fancy talk! We can handle ourselves,” Applejack turned, only for the strange cloaked mare to reappear in her path. She narrowed her eyes at the waylayer, pawing at the ground with frustration. This had gone on far enough...

“Listen, Miss Apple,” the cloaked mare said quietly. “I may not have your confidence, especially not after my attempted deception. But if I am to speak plainly, artists use lies to tell the truth all the time. Enquire from your friend Miss Belle, she’ll say just as much. And the truth is that nothing but death awaits you if you proceed.”

“Why? We were going to the brickyard to get Fuse to back down… but now… now things are getting worse,” Fluttershy managed, fluffing out her wings in an attempt to release nerves.

“Ah say it’s mostly Fuse’s fault, but seeing as those thugs are mighty unhappy, Ah think she may have done something to cause it to go down that way.” Applejack gave Minus a small apologetic smile, only for it to get waved away.

“Yes, my husband may have brought them in, but he isn’t stupid enough to provoke them into turning on him. Wonders of being a former gang enforcer, you know all tricks of the trade.” Minus stomped her hoof in anger. “What did you do?”

“Nothing he didn’t want!” snapped the cloaked mare. “His distrust of the humans was about to lead him down a path he hadn’t taken for years… one which no pony should have to take. I merely stepped in and did my duty.”

“What,” Minus growled. “Did. You. Do.”

The cloaked mare sighed. “Let’s just say I made him forget about any ill intent to humanity. As you’ve seen, I have my tricks...”

“She’s telling the truth,” Applejack stated, prior to cocking an eyebrow at her. “But not the whole truth. Ah clearly remember the question being about the thugs and Fuse, what caused them to butt heads like wild bulls. Well then, let’s ask again. Why are the gangs of Manehattan going after Fuse?”

“Not after Short Fuse,” the other responded. “After a good prize. One which, in days not long past from today, you worked to seal back into the purgatory it should never have left. Two chances were granted it for a trial of peace and restoration... third time, unlucky.”

Applejack stared at her for a long, long while, then waved her hoof to the others. “She’s clever with her words, all truths but only partially. You gals go on and skedaddle onto the brickyard, get Fuse and whoever’s there with him. Ah will stay behind and slow her down.”

“Applejack…” Rarity gave her a worried look, but when she only grinned slyly at her friend, the dressmaker nodded in acceptance. “Come along, Minus, Fluttershy.”

Two of them turned to leave, but Fluttershy to give single flap of her wings and land beside her friend Applejack. Caught off guard at first, Rarity’s face crinkled into a smile, a last, confident beam before she trotted on her way with Minus.

The cloaked mare made no attempt to stop them. But she held against the two who stayed.

“Wait,” she said. “Hear me out, if you will. You stand for honesty, Miss Apple. On that, nobody can cast any doubt. As such, I imagine you’ve seen the exhibition on humanity in Canterlot, on all its plights, its sorrows and its joys, as well as its current fate. And you know it all to be true.”

Applejack lowered her head, her stetson hat covering her eyes, “Ah have. What of it?”

“I’ve done things I’m… not proud of. Yet I have my reasons. And even if I’ve hidden much from you, I’ve never sought to hide from myself. The human race, however....”

Was that the outline of a lump Applejack spotted in the cloaked mare’s throat?

“In all likelihood, you’ve heard this conflict compared to the Holocaust,” she stated bluntly. “An appeal to your sympathies, the kindness in your hearts, to all which shines brightest in this fair country. And that speaks highly of you. But please do consider the following, or better yet, straight-up ask your human friends for the truth. They had a Holocaust Museum in the American capital, did you know that? Before it was destroyed… consumed in the fire unleashed by one of mankind’s most terrible weapons. Ask them. Was there a museum dedicated to said weapon’s previous victims in that great city? How about the Trail of Tears? And then, the people whom they once held in chains… Where was all that? Ask them.”

“Oh my…” Fluttershy murmured, scuffing the ground. “Well, I can’t say much about that, but then again… we have to look at our own history… don’t you think?”

“Pardon me?”

“Well… some ponies still look down on the buffaloes out in the west.” Fluttershy started, beginning to gain confidence. “Donkeys and mules, a lucky few might have their invitations to the Grand Galloping Gala once a year, but the rest of the year, some ponies, too many, treat them like they’re not really Equestrians, second-class citizens. Then, too, what about the cows and sheep? They don’t have a seat in Parliament.”

This did little to mollify their waylayer. “Those are all issues of some import, miss, which are each more real for you than for me. Because a world where these can legitimately count as the greatest social issues of the day sounds like quite a peaceful one to me.”

“We don’t know what they’ve been through,” said Fluttershy. “They are the way they are because life took them in that direction. No guidance, no rules except for their own, and no immortal ruler to look after them. We ponies have always been close together, they’ve been separated by entire oceans. We both look at one another and think they’re the weird ones, cos’ our histories are so different. We have peace, they had wars.”

The cloaked mare seemed unimpressed. “I’ve seen fear, distrust, volatility in every species,” was her comment, sounding old and tired. “But I know ponies, and I know you wouldn’t hate your friend Miss Sparkle due to her being lavender, or Miss Pie for her namesake pink tinge. The very thought would strike you as absurd.”

Fluttershy sighed, looking around before speaking again. “What I’m saying is that… we’ve been really lucky to have somepony like Princess Celestia and Luna looking out for us. Trying to promote unity and understanding for all, even with other races. Humans… they have no one but their families and themselves to learn from. Sometimes… it goes astray and it takes others to put them back on the path. Other times… it doesn’t work out and they fight. But they try… I’ve seen them try so hard to understand others. People like Major Bauer and Colonel Renee, they understand and try to learn, along with everyone here that follows them. They’ll make mistakes, but it’s up to us to help them get back up and move forward.”

She closed her eyes, re-opening them with a fierce look held within. “Not go and force them into something they don’t want or need. And what’s happening to them isn’t any guiding or reasoning of their own doing! It was an attack from an outside force that happened for no reason other than conquest. If they are what you say they are… why didn’t they try to harm the ponies from the other Equestria? They’re different from them, not human, but they tried so hard to understand them. To open their homes and understand what made the ponies who they are.” Fluttershy’s smile was a beautiful flower amongst the dark leaves of the Everfree. “They set aside their differences, if only to try and make a friendship with them.”

It was as if a cold winter morning befell the patch of forest where the cloaked mare stood, blocking their way, and when she spoke, there was only sadness.

“True, true,” she said softly. “They had the smarts. They mastered the earth and the waters, sickness and storms, they made miracles and they flew across the sky, and looked next to reach the stars themselves. But they have something else, something stronger than all their intelligence and their kindness… a hunger in their hearts.”

“A hunger for what?”

“A constant hunger… for more.”

“Then… I guess we should help them find something to fill that? At least… to try and make sure they don’t need to go about it alone… shouldn’t we? After all… a little kindness and honesty allow them to make great contact with many important figures for them. Like Lyra or the Doctor and others that helped them.” Fluttershy giggled sweetly. “Please let us pass.”

The cloaked mare considered her. “You’re asking me to let you pass, Miss Posey?”

“Yes, if you please.”

“Then I can’t refuse you,” their waylayer said resignedly. “Not a direct request such as this.”

How long had it been? An hour, two hours? Probably no more than twenty minutes.

Blackberry sat awkwardly beneath the tree, forehooves cuffed together, across from where the dark-skinned woman stood with her back pressed to the odd aircraft. The human kept a narrow glare directed straight at him, but she kept it in silence, with folded arms. He shifted uncomfortably, to no visible response from the woman apart from a slightly annoyed huff.

“...Sorry,” Blackberry started nervously, the cuffs chinking as he swayed back and forth.

The pilot raised an eyebrow. “Whatever for?” she asked, sounding more tired than angry.

“I, I guess I’m making you kinda nervous.”

She opened her mouth to snap back, but got interrupted by the electronic crackle from the portable device she wore at her hip. With a grunt, the human female brought it up to her ear, not once glancing away from him.

“Hey, uh, this is Nordfjell, uh, is everything all clear?” a young, feminine voice emanated from the device. Blackberry’s ears perked up at the unexpected, alien yet familiar northern tinge to it, which put him in mind of the cherished sound of tinkling bells….

“Yes, Nordfjell, transport's clear, what's the problem? Over.”

“Oh uh, nothing, nothing's wrong! Just, uh…” the voice abruptly fell silent. Much to Blackberry’s bewilderment, the previously irascible pilot did no more than roll her eyes.

“You’re bored again, aren’t you, Bjorgman?” she deadpanned.

“Yeah, I guess I am,” the voice admitted sheepishly. “Haven’t heard a single peep from the boys yet. Hey, uh, anything interesting down there?”

“Caught this Loyalist fellow snooping around, said there’s ‘gangsters’ in the brickyard. Seems pretty far-fetched, if you ask me.”

“Huh, wait, you’ve got one of them? Have you, uh, told the Colonel yet? We need to know everything we can, and all.”

Blackberry’s heart skipped a beat at the mention of Colonel Renee. This was not good.

“Yes, I actually have, Bjorgman, but thanks for, well, at least reminding me there.”

“Heh, anytime! You sure he’s no trouble, Miss… Dula?”

The pilot shot Blackberry a judgmental glance, then back to her device.

“I can handle him fine, Bjorgman, trust me.”

“Well, good luck with him, Miss Dula. I… can call you Dula, right?”

“I don't see why not. Good luck up there, Nordfjell."

“Thanks! Oh and, uhm, think you’re up for a, y’know, night out on town? Seems really nice for a walk. Whaddaya say?”

Blackberry raised his brow as the pilot slapped her forehead.

“Oh, just ask that medic of yours, Bjorgman, I’m sure he’s all up for it. Sleja out.”

“Alright... hey, did you just–”

The radio fell silent again, and with a satisfied sigh, the pilot turned back to face Blackberry. At last, he found his voice, a hoof raised in askance.

“What?” the pilot demanded impatiently.

“Who was she?” he finally asked.

To his unease, she crossed her arms in response. “Ana? Let’s just call her a nice young lady you should feel glad hasn’t got her sights on you. Now be quiet.”

“...Her voice sounds warm and, actually nice, I guess. For a human but, yeah.”

The female’s throat tensed, apparently heralding some prolonged tirade. But then she seemed to think better of it. “Yes,” was her sole comment, so softly as to be near inaudible. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you?”

“Well I, I think so. I thought she was a doe at first, but–”

Blackberry’s words were interrupted by a snort.

“Listen, kid,” the pilot said roughly, her hand flexing toward the flintlock-thing she’d placed back into its holster, “Humor me, if you will, and allow me to draw you a pretty picture of just how deep in the shit you and your friends have got yourselves into. Kidnapping military personnel won’t land you a simple slap on the wrist, or whatever it is you’ve got–”

“You mean a ‘slap on the carpus’?”

“Whatever. Fact is, you’re facing a few years’ jail time at best, supposing Command’s nice enough to place this case under local judicial authority, which, I have to say, is no certainty in times of war. And in any case, you’ll be publically held responsible for knowingly aiding the Tyrant’s genocide crusade upon my race, so suck up and face it, from now on, you better consider your life as good as over.”

It was to both Blackberry and the pilot’s surprise, however, when the young stallion brushed this off in return.

“Look, I... I don’t mean to be rude, Miss...” He tilted his head slightly, peering through the mist on his glasses at the tag on her uniform. “Prasad, but your claims are kinda, kinda hard to… believe…”

But he got no further than that, as the female, hands clenched into fists, stomped up to him with murder in her eyes. Whimpering despite himself, Blackberry scuffled backward, only to feel his back collide against the hard bark of the tree, a small shock which sent his specs flying from the bridge of his muzzle. Blinded, he scrunched his eyes shut, shielding his face behind his own cuffs, ready for the blow.

It never came.

“I think you dropped these,” said the human’s voice.

She sounded and felt quite close. With no small trepidation, he dared force his eyes open. Through the fog of his myopia, he found the alien creature had eased herself to his level, holding the very things he needed in the palm of her hand.

Baffled and stuttering, Blackberry delicately retrieved the precious specs, returning his vision as the pilot rose up. The woman looked at him rather expectantly, leading to him to stammer out a reply.

“Th-thank you.”

Prasad waved him off, returning into a standing position at the vehicle’s side. “Don’t get your hopes up. Just following Geneva guidelines here,” she chuckled mirthlessly. “We’re expected to not act needlessly cruel toward prisoners of war.”

‘Huh, is something going on in the woods?’ Ana thought as she saw some trees shake some distance away from the brickyard. “Must’ve been one of those bigger creatures they warned us about. Yeah, definitely some of those… Everfree things.”

Ana sighed as she set her sights on a open window to the warehouse, at range above the eight-foot wall which surrounded the whole damn complex. That left only the rear of the complex and the western side, which Jaka deemed unnecessary to go further into. Once they reached it, all would be over anyways. Coxa had been assigned to sort out the far eastern end of the area, where the walls kept her from spotting any prime targets, but the Changeling had some practice before with this type of work. Not that he spoke much about it, though.

“Nordfjell, status report?” the radio crackled, with Jaka’s gruff voice filtering through.

“Nothing so far, Sarge,” answered Ana. “Seems to be a clear shot, but can’t be sure…”

Her hand reached up to adjust her scope – of all the many special additions PHL armory had to offer, a little visor enhancement was the only one she ever accepted. It was worth more than it seemed. The seemingly mundane device, designed to detect the most discrete of magical barriers, now worked wonders on what Ana presumed to be whatever their opposition thought of as adequate defenses.

A large dome encircled the brickyard, a haphazardly drawn mesh of wires that shone far more brilliantly than any Imperial barrier Ana had seen before. The layout reminded her of chickenwire fences from the rural areas back on Earth, albeit slightly more elegant, owing to its thin, golden gossamer quality.

“I guessed right. There’s a barrier up, Sarge. Aerial assaults no longer an option. If I were to fancy a guess, I’d say it’ll either catch anypony like a net, or, uh... disintegrate them.”

From the other side of the radio, someone could be heard cursing.

“Sorry uh, what was that?”

“It’s nothing. Lieutenant Mist isn’t very happy to hear that.”

“You’re darn right! I’m not looking forward to getting my good hoof stuck in cobweb, for Celestia’s sake-”

“At ease, Lieutenant,” Jaka firmly told her. “Nordfjell, anything you can do?”

“Well,” Ana began, adjusting her scope. “The gaps aren’t that small, Sarge. I think a shot or two could pass through. At my estimate, this wasn’t designed to stop a bullet.”

“Alright. Do what you can do. Vanhoover-Actual out.”

With a sigh, Ana returned to her sights. And started, caught by surprise at what she had to see.

“What the…”

She stared down the scope as a large earthstallion got dragged before several others in the central courtyard, not looking too good by any account. Two of those other, coarsened ponies, earthmare and unicorn stallion respectively, were pushing him forward, keeping him from stumbling as his forelegs were bound behind his back with rope.

Ana briefly wondered just what was wrong with this picture before she realized, the captors had forced the stallion to shamble upright on two legs. It would have been almost comical if not for the swollen eyelids and blood dripping from his mouth. A cold, unearthly yet too-familiar chill passed over her, as long-buried imagery of tortured captives came to mind...

‘Something’s really, really wrong here, Ana.’

“Vanhoover Actual, Vanhoover Actual, this is Nordfjell reporting in.” Ana hurriedly radioed. She could even hear her voice waiver. “Bit of a change in the plan, over.”

“What is it, Nordfjell?”

“Sir, I... I think I have our kidnapper.”

“Do you have a shot?”

“Be kind of pointless to be honest…” Ana muttered nervously as she watched them march the stallion through the front walls, past the walls and towards the claypit. When she saw them throw him down, for one horrible moment, she thought they’d thrown him into the muddy depths of the pool itself. But it turned out they had only left him lying there, trussed-up under the white unicorn's watch, while the earthmare returned to the brickyard proper. “All due respect, this whole mission’s been getting fishier and fishier. I mean, it’s been off ever since we started. It looks like the kidnapper needs saving now.”

“What?”

“I’m not even kidding here. Jesus, the guy we’re going after looks like his face was caved in. Or they tried to at least, if the other ones limping along mean anything.”

“Is he still mobile?”

“Barely.” Ana rolled her shoulder, watching that brown-coated, tattooed earthmare drag another, light-yellow mare and a blue unicorn before her. The sniper frowned as she took in the strange earthmare’s mark.

‘Is that a sword? Pretty gnarly-looking… haven’t seen one of those since... wait.’

Ana’s eyes widened as the earthmare held up a hoof, sickly magic gathering onto the appendage before she slammed it into the ground, whereupon a sword, twin to her mark, sprang up from the earth before her, jagged pieces of blackstone lining the blade’s edge. The earthmare grinned ferally as she picked the blade between her teeth, and walked up to the shivering and very much terrified mare lying on her back in the muddy pit, and held it pressed to the victim’s barrel, finally turning to look at the beaten stallion as she spoke.

‘Herregud...’

Ana swallowed nervously, but years of trailing after known terrorists and wartime anarchists helped her keep the rifle steady. Even so, cold sweat trickled down her brow, and she instinctively wrapped her fingers around her little crucifix. The blue unicorn jumped up, only for the other thug, the earthmare’s companion, to slam a black baton into his back, knocking him flat on his face.

“Sir, uh, we have a big problem.”