Trevor the not-so-dead griffon is cleaning off his knife, a karambit like Leroy. I stare blankly at him, trying to think what to say. My beak opens and closes a few times before I settle on the most pressing question.
“Ain't you dead?”
He sits back on his haunches and then pinches his arm, wincing as he does.
“Guess not,” he says with a little chuckle.
“So... Why you here, Trev?”
“You know what cyoctene does. Can't have ponies like this running around with it. You?”
“Same here,” I say, getting to my paws, “We're setting Special Branch on this place, but first I need photos of some dweeb picking up a Wiley Pegasus.”
“Heh. Just like old times, Moneyshot.” I hated and still hate that fucking nickname. Worse than Gilly-Boo. The only good thing about Toi Thung was that everyone who used or knew about that nickname died.
Or so I'd thought.
Trevor looks up but doesn't meet my eyes. “I can work with that, Gilda. Team up?” he asks, reaching out with a bloody claw. I shake it.
“Just like old times, Trev.”
I start walking to the corner office that the ex-reindeer was working out of, and glance at the second corner office. Three of the walls to that office are glass, and it looks like the other end of the office overlooks another factory floor or warehouse. It's hard to tell, there's almost no light coming from the other side.
The reindeer's office on the other claw is very well lit. To be fair, I wouldn't want to work with detonators and explosives in the dark either; and there are enough of both here to make Trixie drool from both ends. Big jars of mineral oil to keep white phosphorous moist, powdered aluminium in airtight containers, powdered rust, jars of potassium chlorate, magnesium ribbon, jars of acids and caustic agents, burettes for titration, commercial detonators; everything you need to build a bomb. There are several boxes of ready-built thermite and white phosphorous detonators under the desk. Trevor comes over and picks a box up.
“What you doing with those?” A nervous edge creeps into my voice, with good reason. He's got a box of ten thermite detonators, and those can ruin anybirds' day even without a bomb attached.
Again, he doesn't meet my eyes. “Evidence. Part of my job.” He pauses for a second, then points at the other corner office. “The storage room past that office, have you seen it?”
Trevor was always a bird of few words and a bit odd, but he seems freakier than usual. Maybe it's the whole not-being-dead thing.
“...no, why?”
He puts a talon to his beak in a 'quiet' gesture, and then walks into the other office. I follow him. The room is strangely constructed. Three of the walls are glass, two of them part the larger office we were just in. The other glass wall is overlooking a poorly-lit warehouse area, and has a second door that opens to a set of stairs leading down there. This office must have been intended for the warehouse supervisor when the sugar plant was up and running.
A door into the ground floor of the warehouse opens, letting light shine in, and me and Trevor drop to the office floor. More lights come on as two ponies come through the door and flip a switch somewhere, a mish-mash collection of table lamps around the room connected by wires and crocodile clips. It's not bright and it's nowhere near light enough to give our position away, but enough to let the two ponies get what they need from the warehouse and enough to let us see what's being stored.
I'd like to say that what I see doesn't faze me. That after all the fun little surprises of the last few days I'm all jaded and shit. I don't gasp or clap my claw over my beak or anything, but my eyes go wide and I tense up like someone just grabbed me by the uterus.
Fourteen more two-hundred litre cyoctene bombs. Several dozen coalmilk drums of coalmilk spirits. Crates of polystyrene beads. At least forty reinforced barrels for bomb-making. This isn't some criminal's stash of fireworks for special occasions, this is a wannabe warlord's wet dream.
Then I see the grooves on the floor, the stacks of modified pallets and the adapted pallet trucks about the place. It takes a few seconds to sink in as I see the two ponies loading a pallet of six coalmilk drums into the grooves on the floor, where it neatly slots in and they push it towards the factory floor like on a rail. At the rate they're making these things and how much spare material they have, there's no way those fourteen bombs and the six near the cyoctene machine are their entire stockpile. They're shipping these things out.
Fuck.
As the two ponies leave the warehouse area, I get back up and go out into the main office. “Trev, I need to contact my team, wait here a sec.” He nods and then goes about hiding the reindeer's corpse. I smile inwardly. Trevor was always thoughtful with things like that.
There are boarded-up windows in the ex-reindeer's corner office and on the walls running along from the corner office. This is a room with two external walls, one story up. If anywhere in this building has signal, this should be it. I turn my headset on.
“Mission control, this is Bravo One, radio check, over.” Third time's a charm, I hope.
“Loud and clear Bravo One, this is mission control. Over.” I sigh with relief as I hear Twilight's voice.
“This is the location, they're making military grade cyoctene munitions here. I've spotted twenty two-hundred litre cyoctene bombs and materials to make dozens more. Their storage looks temporary, I think they're shipping them out. Over.”
There's a pause.
“That's two-zero-zero litre munitions, quantity two-zero, please confirm, over.”
“Affirm, that is correct, over.”
Another pause.
“Have you located the Wiley Pegasus, over?” Twilight's voice seems to waver a little, but she quickly composes herself.
“Affirm, only one, custom built for Gulf-Foxtrot, over.”
“Roger that. Continue as planned. Gulf-foxtrot is thirty minutes away. Recover any intel you can. Contact me when pictures are taken, I will contact Sunray Bravo. Over.”
“Wilco, mission control. Also, I have located one friendly, over.”
“Say again bravo one, over?”
“I have located one friendly, he is cooperating with me. I'll explain later. Over.”
A third pause. “Roger that. Get to work, over.”
“Roger that, out.”
I turn back to Trevor, who has just finished stuffing the reindeer under a desk. “Trev, I need to camp out above the factory floor to take the photos. My target's here in half an hour. Can you watch my back?”
“Sure.”
I get a brainwave. “Wait here a sec,” I say, heading into the ex-reindeer's office. I'm pretty sure I saw what I need in an open drawer in there. Sure enough, a drawer in the desk has three unused remote controls for detonators. The controller is bound with twine to the electrical output, which converts energy from a thaumatic cell into an electrical charge. Attach the output end to an electrically-sensitive detonator and pressing the button on the controller will make a boom.
In my webbing I have a multitool, some common technomancy bits and bobs and a few miniature egg-timers. Twist the egg timer, chuck it into some bushes, and a few seconds later the guards are searching for the weird ringing thing while you sneak up behind them. The first thing I do is take one of the egg-timers apart and remove the bell. I take the actual metal bell off, just leaving the striker and the electromagnet, and then use some wire to connect the electromagnet to the remote-control output. Double checking the number on the remote-control and the output to make sure they're definitely the same device and I'm not going to blow the room up, I press the button on the remote. The striker vibrates madly but silently. Perfect.
I tape the vibrating gadget to the back of my right paw and give the remote another press to make sure I can feel the vibrations, which I can. Then, I head out of the corner office and chuck the remote to Trevor.
“If there's somepony coming and I need to get out of dodge, hold down the button. If I'm spotted, press the button repeatedly. Got that?” I ask.
“Sure.”
I'm about to head back to the bathroom to pick up the camera, the rifle and the rest of my kit, when I remember something that had been bugging me. “Not that I'm complaining or anything, but how come you're acting so calm and composed around a banished bird like me? Why are you helping me and not running away or charging my flank down?”
“Heh.” He walks up to me and reaches a claw out to my face. I draw back a little and he pauses, then gently reaches out further and cups my lower beak. He turns my face towards his so that our beaks are almost touching, and his eyes meet mine for the first time today.
I'm gazing into horrors from an alien abyss, a kaleidoscope of perfectly black shades, every one darker than every other. I realize how truly small and fragile I am as beings older than time itself stare back at me, grinning with great curved teeth that long to crack open my ribcage and slurp down my lungs like oysters.
I've seen this sight before. That griffon had seemed off and strangely wrong when I saw him in the bar, but only when I saw his eyes and stared into infinite nightmares that I knew what he truly was. It's different this time, I can see it for what it is but I don't feel the sheer disgust and terror I should feel. It's as if I'm viewing a tape of some obscene atrocity that happened long ago, but I'm utterly disconnected from it.
I see what any griffon looking into my eyes sees, though I do not feel as they would.
He takes his hand from the bottom of my beak and steps back. “...you're banished,” I say. He grins and winks at me.
“Get your gear, Moneyshot. You've got pictures to take.”
* * *
Above the factory floor, the vats and the high-raised catwalks, there are steel rafters by the roof. They're tangled up with ropes and cables where the rafters have been used to support pulley systems for moving kit up high and hold up the jury-rigged ventilation system; and they're either still being used or they were never taken down after use. The area above the rafters is cloaked in darkness, there are no skylights and all the lights in the room are far down below on the factory floor.
Getting up here was a fucker. It's dark, but nothing draws eyes like movement and I had to make sure every single pony down below had their eyes on something else before I so much as twitched. A stallion was looking straight up while he hefted a drum of coalmilk spirits into the cyoctene machine's input funnel, and I had to stay stock still holding a rope with one claw and barely grabbing onto a girder with another. The little bastard fumbled for thirty seconds before he finished up and I could make the jump in peace.
Now I'm perched in position, shrouded in a dull grey waterproof cloak. No clear shape, no silhouette against the ceiling, no shadow, dull colour, no movement. The camera lens is capped until I take the pictures. I'm as close to invisible as possible without being a unicorn. Trevor is hidden down in the catwalks and vats somewhere, ready to give me a warning if somepony starts snooping.
All there is to do now is wait. Goodflank should be here to pick up the Wiley Pegasus in less than fifteen minutes. Far down below I can see the Wiley Pegasus on the table below. It's a chunky little fifty-litre thing, and a unicorn is sewing a duffel-bag around it. You could strut right into some yuppie restaurant with it, shove it into a cleaning closet and no one would twig until the place was in flames.
Still, it's a small fry compared to the two-hundred litre bastards. The giant machine has finished making one and started on another since I first saw it. Four Winds, they could have made a dozen this week alone. Wherever they're being stored, we need to find them and get them out of Trotksy's hooves. Trotsky has rabid snakes where her soul should be, she should not have access to cyoctene. My Uncle Scratchy once told me: “Gilda my niece, never give explosives to things with snake-nests for souls.” Something along those lines anyway, I'm paraphrasing. Point is, whatever her plans are for that much cyoctene, they're probably nothing good.
So I'm waiting. It's a tense wait. Everything has the potential to go very wrong. If someone goes looking for that reindeer and sees the blood on the floor, I'm screwed. Even if I get out just fine, the Special Branch agents will be up against well-trained and well-armed sociopaths on high alert. That's a recipe for sautéed pony in a place like this. The ponies in the Equestrian Intelligence Service can fuck themselves, but Special Branch are all right. They're competent, direct and useful, and they do more to protect Equestria and the Kingdoms in a year than the EIS do in ten. I'd feel downright unpatriotic if I led those guys into a meat grinder.
I wait and think about Trevor. Trusting him is a huge risk, given that he's come back from the dead, appeared out of nowhere and is acting even weirder than usual; but I can't and wouldn't risk trying to incapacitate him in the middle of a hornet's nest. Even if I could, I want answers out of him. I want to know what he knows about Trotsky's little weapons program. I want to know how he survived Toi Thung. I want to know what got him banished.
Looking back, Trevor was the closest thing I had to a friend in our FOG unit. I never exactly wept for his death, but I wouldn't wish harm on the dude neither. I hope he's being on level with me, but I doubt it.
I wait and Goodflank arrives. He comes through a door at the other end of the factory from the loading bay. Honey coloured coat, coltishly-tousled chocolate mane, neatly-trimmed fetlocks, stylish glasses, hooficured hooves (I can't see his hooves, but I damn well know they are). The lens cap comes off, and I get my first snapshot of him strutting up to the huge table. The unicorn assembling the Wiley Pegasus seems to know him, and shakes his hoof as he comes over. They spend a few minutes talking shop. I can't make much of it out, but it looks like the unicorn is telling Goodflank about all the ins and outs of the bomb. I take a few more pictures of the pair going over it.
At one point Goodflank points at the six two-hundred litre bombs, looking impressed. The unicorn mentions something about “the reindeer.” Looks like one of our key leads is dead. I'll need to search his office before I split.
They chat some more and then the unicorn lifts up the bag and I take a picture. Then Goodflank takes the bag and I take a picture. Then Goodflank says his farewells, turns to leave, and I take a picture. Then I am done.
I sneak down from the rafters onto the catwalks. Trevor is nowhere to be seen. I get near the doors to the offices and see the remote control for the buzzer, abandoned on the floor. That dickhead bailed on me! I pick it up and go into the offices, dart launcher at the ready. Any pony I see slinking about gets a face full of shock-spooge. If I see Trev, he's getting a dart just for pissing me off.
The way to the corner office is clear. I contact Twilight as soon as I arrive.
“Mission control, this is Bravo One. Pictures have been taken successfully. The friendly inflicted one casualty and has disappeared. I am going to collect some documents and leave through sewers. You are clear to contact Sunray Bravo, over.”
Twilight's voice comes through the headset. “Roger that Bravo One, contacting Sunray Bravo now, ee-tee-ay at least two-fife minutes. Alfalfa One has been successful; Charlie One and Charlie Two are in position. Out.”
Twenty five minutes. I set to work immediately. The first thing I do is take out the reindeer's body and take a photograph of his face. Next, I toss the corner office looking for documents. There's nothing but manuals, storage guides and a few receipts for Beanburger Palace. I take it all anyway.
Then I look through the cubicles in the larger office. Most of them haven't been touched since the beet plant closed down, the few bits of paper I find are mould-ridden memos. Two cubicles in the middle of the room have been used recently. There are a few empty Red Taurus cans, a calendar with a yellow pegasus wearing socks splayed out on the cover, who I recognise but can't place, and scattered jotters and documents. The documents are written in a mixture of Equestrian, Koński and what I think is Poatsi. A few of them look like invoices and shipping manifests.
Jackpot.
I'm packed up and about to leave when horrifying sensations flood my body. My bones burn, muscles are barbed wire stretching under my skin, my eyes bulge and vision goes dark and my knees are buckling stabbing in my head going to start screaming I'll be found they'll kill-
Before I open my beak to scream it's gone, as quickly as it came. I'm on my belly, still in the office, facing towards the corner office that leads to the warehouse area. Something dark is pulling at me, focusing me on the warehouse, filling me with a mixture of foreboding and curiosity.
I'm not sure why I start moving towards the warehouse. I think I should be leaving. There's something about that warehouse, though. I need to see it. I walk into the corner office, go straight on through and then open the glass door into the warehouse, not even checking the coast is clear first.
The strange pull ebbs and fades, and I'm standing at the top of the metal stairs that slope down sideways to the warehouse floor. The room is black as coalmilk and I can't see a thing. I slip the Specterscope over my right eye and take a look.
A few seconds later I see a dead pony, throat cut, lying in his blood. Then I see another pony splayed out on the floor, neck twisted all the way around, her tongue lolling out. I swallow, and the feeling of foreboding comes back in force.
That's when I see Trevor.
He's standing on top of the two-hundred litre bombs, fiddling with the detonator slot on one of them. I take to the air and approach him. As I do, I see what he's done to the other thirteen bombs. Each one has a detonator slotted in and the emergency detonator release button ripped out. There's a string on each of the ring-pulls on the detonators, and they're all attached to a handle lying next to Trevor. I drop down onto a stack of pallets ten meters from him, and draw a bead on him with the dart launcher.
“When you said you needed those detonators for evidence...” Anger, fear and curiosity fight in my mind. Curiosity ekes out a narrow win.
Trevor looks up at me and smiles. “Evidence that bad things happen to bomb-makers. I'm sure you understand.”
“Right. I think you should leave that big pullcord thingy right where it is and step the fuck away from those bombs.”
He shakes his head. “I can't do that, Gilda. I'd be careful where you're pointing that thing by the way, you mentioned it was a shock-based weapon, yes? I've got potassium chlorate from the fuses all over my arms and legs and I left the fuses exposed on a few of these cubs; a spark from that dart gun of yours will, well... You get the picture.”
“This is a bad fucking idea Trevor, Special Branch are gonna be here in ten minutes, you don't wanna do this.”
“Then you should probably tell them that here is going to explode,” he says, tying the last string to the handle. “There's a three-minute delay on each of the fuses, you can't disarm them all in time. I'd leave quickly”
“Trevor, don't fucking do this, just drop the damn handle,” I snap, panic creeping into my voice. He looks at me like I'm a fourteen-year old spotty nerd begging for a pity fuck.
“Moneyshot, please.”
With that he leaps into the air, handle in claw. All the ring-pulls pop out at once.
I don't see where Trevor goes after that. I'm instantly back in the air, flying towards the office. The moment I'm through the glass door I'm yelling into the headset.
“Mission control this is Bravo One, he's rigged the whole place to blow! You need to call off Special Branch RIGHT NOW over!”
Twilight's voice is confused and panicky: “Who rigged what to do what? They're already on their way, over!”
“Trevor, the friendly, he's set a bunch of bombs on two-minute fuses, the entire place is going to explode!” I'm scrambling towards the boarded-up windows at the other side of the office, crowbar out before I even start my next sentence. “Send a message, get Alfalfa One to intercept them, do anything! They get too close to this place, they'll be cooked, over!”
One board off. I can see the edge of the window. “Where are you, over?” Twilight yells into my ear.
“Still inside, trying to exit, can't talk right now, out!”
The next board comes off. My heart skips a beat. There are iron bars in the windows. Strong iron bars. Twilight is saying something. I can't hear her.
I'm fucked. Utterly fucked in every way. There's no way I'm strong enough to break off a grid of iron bars, not in less than two minutes, I'm not powerful enough-
I glance sideways at the corner office full of detonators and a plan springs from my mind. Det-cord, a fuse, four thermite detonators, duct tape. That's all I take. It's all I need.
“'Linear shaped charges are too dangerous,' she said, 'they're not for you,' she said!”
One minute, thirty seconds.
I tape det-cord to the boards and light the fuse. In ten seconds it blows, cutting the rest of the boards away.
One minute, five seconds.
The grid of bars is only connected to the wall at the corners, thank Zephyrous. A detonator gets strapped to each corner and I set each fuse at five seconds. I pull out each of the rings and step well back. All four corners light up in a blaze of white fire. I count down from three, and then charge at the centre of the grid.
Forty seconds.
The corners of the grid split off like warm fudge and I shatter straight through the window into the afternoon air. I drop the blazing set of bars before they burn my claws off. My wings are pumping as hard as they can go. A single splash of cyoctene could be fatal. Getting caught in the wave of carbon monoxide will be fatal.
Thirty seconds.
I'm nearly at the gates to the factory grounds. My blood runs thick with fire and boiling adrenaline. I can make it. Past the gate now, into the scrublands.
Ten seconds.
Two hundred and fifty meters into the scrublands and counting. Something inside me is pushing me on. I might just make it.
“Mission control, if I don't make it tell RD-”
I'm lost over the roar of the explosion, and do not stop to look. Seconds later I feel a wave of heat like an open oven wash over me. I'm now three hundred meters into the scrublands, far enough out that I won't drown in carbon monoxide. Just as relief washes through me, something clips me on the back of the wing.
I tumble to the ground
* * *
Everything that can hurt, does. Something wet and cool is running down my beak, and I flick my tongue out to taste it. Water. Rainwater.
I open my eyes. I'm deep inside a large bush. A large, thorny bush. Hundreds of little spikes are digging into my arms, wings and body. Light is coming through the top of the bush. It's pouring with rain. The city must have whipped up a massive thunderstorm to put out that fire. I'm grateful, the scrubland would have burnt to a cinder with me inside it if they hadn't.
For a minute I lay there in the thorns and rain, planning. It's still light out and I haven't been found by a local guard search team, so I probably haven't been out that long. The sky will be teeming with weather pegasi; but if the fire is still burning and it probably still is, they won't be letting anyone get close. I need to stay low and get through the scrubland and past the landfill, then I'll be in a crappy part of town where no one will notice a griffon under a waterproof cloak, not in this weather.
Pulling the spiky branches off my limbs, I make myself enough space to sort out my equipment. Anything suspicious looking goes in my saddlebags. The transceiver for my headset is busted, a crack down the case and the innards rattling around inside it. The dart launcher goes on the top of my back, set to be hidden under my cloak. I wince as I move it, and feel sharp pain in my left wing. It's hard to see, but it looks like there's a chunk of concrete the size of a strawberry lodged in my coverts. Definitely not flying then.
Peering out the edge of the bush, I look upwards. The sky is dark grey and rain is pounding down. All the pegasi must be cloudside by now. Still, I keep close to cover as I move. If I'm even visible from up high, there's no way of telling me from a pony from above, not with the cloak and hood. My left wing aches and stabs where the chunk is. My skin prickles from the hundreds of tiny thorns that I just took out.
I reach the edge of the landfill in about fifteen minutes. The rain washes away the stink of the garbage, and I move quietly through the place. It's not hard to avoid the workers, not when they're all wearing hi-vis jackets and I'm grey and in the rain. I scurry past unnoticed like a rat through the gutters.
* * *
I've never been so happy to see the dump that is Lichen End. The moment I'm out of the open and into the mouth of an alley, I sag and let the rain wash over me. It's lighter here, the heaviest rain must be focused above the refinery. I need a kebab, a hot bath and a pair of tweezers for all these fucking thorns.
I hadn't looked back properly since I started towards town, so I turn around and have a look. The garbage dunes of the landfill are in the way, but I can see a gigantic column of thick, black smoke in the distance and a dull orange glow beneath it. I get a sense of déjà vu, then figure out why.
Damn, second time this week.
“I warned you what would happen, Gilda.”
Something slams down onto my kidneys hard enough that I squawk and sprawl to the floor. I spring to my paws and swing wildly at my attacker. That gets me thrown into the side of a dumpster.
I groan and get back up, body aching and head swimming. I look up at my attacker. It's Pinkie Pie in her gimp suit. What in Adune's name does she want? I say the first thing that comes to mind:
“What?”
For a second she stands shock-still, staring at me through creepy grey mask-eyes. Then she starts towards me and I get bucked hard in the face before I even put a guard up. I stagger back against the brick wall, a claw over my face. Something hot and wet and painful is running over my right eye. Pinkie Pie just opened up a twelve-year old scar.
Whatever this is, I've had enough. I'm gonna twist that gimp into a fucking pretzel.
I swipe at her with both claws and she dodges them like I wrote to her they were coming. My right wing comes up to buffet her across the face. She slides straight under it and puts a hoof into a floating rib hard enough to get another squawk from me.
My right side spasms as I turn around. Pinkie is back on her hooves. This time I see her coming towards me and get ready to block and counter. I might have put my claws behind my back and yelled “Please punch me right in the face!” for all the good it does. She wrenches my guard aside in a way that should not be possible for a being without claws or hands, then headbutts me on the earhole. It's the second most painful thing that's happened to me today and I get dropped to the ground a third time.
I get back up and wipe more blood out of my eyes. No finesse this time, I let my hindbrain take over and pounce. I try to tear her to ribbons in a blind fury. It doesn't work out that way. She dodges my attacks so easily I think she teleports. Every missed swing sets up a savage counter, she grapples like she's got seven hooves and trying to block gets me thrown so hard I dislocate an ovary. I am a nine-year old cub sparring with Uncle Scratchy, but there is no kindness or give-and-take this time. When I realise that Pinkie is playing with me and could end the fight at any time, she does.
I'm slammed face-first into the ground with my left arm wrenched behind my back. Pinkie pushes me along the concrete floor until my head is jammed uncomfortably into the corner between the dumpster and the brick wall. If she wants me dead all she has to do is shove forward hard and my neck will snap like a twig. I hope that Pinkie Pie does not want me dead. My breaths come harsh and heavy. I'm not exhausted but badly beaten; blood is running freely down my face, I'm seeing stars and my limbs have been yanked in ways that limbs should not be yanked. The fight's hers any way you slice it.
Keeping a hoof on the arm behind my back, she leans in close to me. She brings her other front hoof to my face, and wipes the blood from my right eye. It's not rough but gentle, almost affectionate, like a mother would do to an injured cub.
“Tell me why, Gilda.” Her voice wavers and it sounds as if her normal Pinkie Pie voice is leaking in. I don't give any coherent response. I just dry heave a few times. Fucking liver shots.
“Tell me why I have to tell Dashie that I turned her old friend over to the guard for killing everypony in the refinery. Tell me what made you do something like that hours after I warned you not to; and tell me what in Celestia's name made you think you'd get away with it.”
Wait, she thinks I did that? Shitfeathers.
“That wasn't me I swear to- AAAUGH!” Pinkie pushes my claw so far up my back it's almost on my neck.
“Please don't lie to me, Gilda,” she says, chocolatey gimp-voice creeping back in, “Not about this. I had to appear in front of a whole squad of Special Branch agents and tell them the factory they were set to raid was just about to explode. Now I'm their only lead and prime suspect. I'm not so happy about that.”
“I told Twilight what happened,” I wheeze, “Why didn't she tell you?”
Pinkie pauses for a second, and I can feel her eyes narrow. “She told me you'd met a friend then set a bunch of bombs off together, which I don't find hard to believe.”
“Chingis, you think I set off enough cyoctene to deep-fry Ponyville and gave myself a minute and a half to get out? I don't have a deathwish you nutcase!” I yell.
“Why should I believe that? You could have got to a safe distance and told mission control you were still inside,” she says.
“I can prove it, check my left wing. There's a chunk of concrete from the explosion, the size of a crab apple, in my coverts. I wasn't at a safe dist- GAH!” I cry out when she roughly roots around trying to find it.
“You don't quite trust me yet I'm guessing?” I ask.
“No, not really.” She finds the chunk in the coverts and we both inhale sharply when she does. It must look as bad as it feels.
Suddenly I'm pulled backwards from the corner. My arm is still behind my back, but I'm not about to have my neck broken.
“Tell me everything that happened,” she says, “If you lie at any point, and I will know, bad things will happen.”
So I do. I tell her everything that happened, from getting into the refinery to getting saved by my not-so-dead friend to my not-so-dead friend blowing the whole damn place up. I pray she buys it, because I'm shit out of luck if she doesn't.
The pressure goes off my arm and I roll onto my back, groaning as I do. “I've been too quick to judge. I hope I don't find I'm wrong,” she says, offering a hoof. I take it and pull myself to my paws.
“I'm sorry Gilda, I should have been more cautious. Can you forgive me?”
“Don't sweat it dweeb, beatings are how most of my employers say 'hello', 'goodbye' and 'gesundheit,'” I say. It's not entirely a lie. I'm still going to piss in her lemonade as soon as I get a chance. “I'm surprised it took you this long to get round to it.”
I don't know how she does it, but she manages to look bashful through the mask. Truth be told, I ain't even mad. I prefer a Pinkie who can take a beating and give one out over a stupid clingy ball of caffeine. It's been too long since I've had a good scrap, and I like a friend who can give one.
That's in the hypothetical sense, by the way. Pinkie is still not my friend.
Still, we set off to her lair together. She knows all kinds of shortcuts through the city, so it's not long until we're there. I walk through the door to see a frazzled-looking Twilight, a worried Dash, a smug Trixie. Twilight and Dash look relieved to see us both, though Trixie still looks smug. I only have to look at the floor by her hooves to see why.
On a thin bedroll with a shock-ring on his horn is a heavily sedated Goodflank. Hooficured hooves and all.