Agents of F.R.I.E.N.D.

by PeppyJoe

7. Forgotten

Four years ago...
Knight re-read the title of the document in her hooves for at least the tenth time. Immediate Departmental Transfer. The midnight mare had done her very best to focus on her upcoming task and how best to approach it, but she simply could not overcome the intimidation of a new posting. Her small quarters did little to help liberate her mind, crowded into a one-seat coach.

That was something else that upset her. Not only reassigned, but to a place so remote that even trains did not reach it. Four hours gallop from the nearest city of any significance, and in the middle of a scorching desert. Her service to the Equestrian Royal Guard had been commendable, but a posting in the New Maresican desert was hardly a commendation.

When at last the coach came to a stop, the mare poked her head out the curtained side-window and saw them in the center of what one might argue was a town. The collection of sun-bleached wood structures, featuring most prominently a tavern and "Sal's Shootin' Irons," did not speak highly of the ponies who occupied the shanty homes in their vicinity. Shaking her head slightly before pulling a hood over her head to protect from the wind, Knight pushed the door open and hopped to the ground.

After paying the carriage-puller his due and inquiring after directions to her destination, she began in the indicated direction. Ahead of her was a building which, while primarily comprised of the same decaying wood that made up the rest of the town, was reinforced with brick and its windows with iron bars. There were no noticeable markings on the exterior, but Knight saw upon entering that she had found the sheriff's office.

The main room, although in truth it appeared to be a one-room building, was sparsely furnished. Three desks were aligned in a row to her left, each one in front of the next, and two jail cells were built into the wall near the back. The only other items of note included a fake potted plant, a dirt-caked welcome mat, and a water-cooler with which Knight immediately acquainted herself.

The exterior door swung open once more, and a puke-green earth pony stallion stumbled inside carrying a lidded cup. Either he or his beverage—though Knight suspected it to be a combination of the two—smelled of alcohol. He kicked the door shut heavily before too much sand blew in, and stared at the mare for a moment before blinking in comprehension. "You the new'ne?"

"I'm sorry?"

The stallion frowned, clearly making an effort to steady his speech. "The new sheriff? Captain Dark Knight?"

Knight returned his frown twofold, both at the use of her full name—far too much like something from a comic-book, she felt—and at her realization that this stallion wore a badge. "Knight will do just fine, deputy."

He gave something resembling an affirmative grunt and plopped down in the frontmost chair, leaning back and resting his back hooves on the surface of the desk.

With her concerns about the job now entirely justified, Knight took a seat at her desk with a resigned sigh and put her head down.

~ ~ ~

"Are you sure it's in this direction?"

"Yes! Crown Roc is only a few miles inland from the western coast, and because it's a mountain-and-cloud city and we're headed straight towards the biggest mountain in sight, I'm fairly sure that we're going in the right direction."

Soarin stopped walking alongside her and frowned. "I'm not sure that reasoning works."

Pausing as well, Minuette replied, "I know that, but it's all we've got. I already told you, I can't cast any spells—my horn must've burned out from that teleport. Just fly up there and get help already."

"I'm not leaving you out here alone, Mini. You'll get eaten by wild hydras and crabs."

She managed a feeble laugh. "Griffin territory really isn't so wild as everypony thinks. They might not have organized weather control and animal keepers, but it's not that dangerous. Don't believe everything you hear, Soarin."

"I could say the same about reading, you know."

"Granted, but in this case, my information comes from Celestia herself. And besides, I haven't seen a single living thing since we got here."

~ ~ ~

"And when did you get here?" Knight asked around the pencil held in her mouth.

"Only yesterday. We were just stopping for the night on our way to Las Pegasus, but he wanted to check out the guard base while we were here."

A pause. "I'm sorry?"

"The guard base, ma'am. A pony at the tavern told us about it and Chance just wanted to see their airship hanger."

"There's no guard base in the area, Mrs. Chaser, I can assure you."

"B-but the stallion said... Do you mean my Chance is just wandering the desert looking for something that doesn't exist?"

Knight spat out the pencil, taking a final glance at the incident report on her desk before making eye contact. "I promise you, we'll do everything we can to find your husband. I'm going to gather some supplies and look for him myself."

Once the mare had expressed her gratitude and left the building, Knight retrieved a large rolled-up map from the storage area and spread it across her desk. As she was studying it, marking likely areas to look based on the mare's report, Deputy Lax Law awoke from his nap and walked over.

"What's this?" he queried.

"Missing pony."

Lax snorted. "Keep forgettin' you're new. And that you're here, for that matter. Anyway, we get missin' pony reports all the time." He kicked the trashcan next to her desk. "Got a special filin' place right here."

Knight looked up from the map and stared at him in absolute shock. She stammered for a moment before demanding an explanation.

"See, ponies tend t'wander off from time to time. Last sheriff what went lookin'... he wandered off too. Don't go lookin' yourself or the problem'll just be worse."

Knight stood up suddenly, knocking her seat to the ground with a crash. She rounded on him and he took a step back. "Ignoring the situation is not any sort of answer! If your previous sheriff failed to return from the desert, then he clearly did not prepare or plan adequately! You pack water, you pack food, you pack a compass, and for pony's sake you get a unicorn to cast a cooling spell on you! Now, if you won't help me search, you will at the very least go outside and retrieve some supplies from the general store!"

The stallion paused, as though considering whether to say something, and then nodded and left.

~ ~ ~

"Do you think we should say something?" Soarin whispered to Minuette as they stared at the trio of griffins crouched in a semi-circle around them, pointing crude rock-tipped spears. They were speaking amongst themselves in a language neither pony understood, but from their gesturing and general situation, it was clearly not a pleasant chat.

"Of course, we have to say something. Most griffins are taught common Equestrian from a young age." Then, in a louder voice, "Hey there! Could you gentlebirds please show us the way to your nearest population center?" She offered her best smile, but the only response was more discussion in the foreign language.

Turning back to Soarin, she conceded, "These admittedly don't seem like normal griffins... Look at their weapons—they're certainly not guards. And another thing... they walked up. If they wanted to trap us, I can't fathom why they didn't fly up from behind."

The pegasus gave her a wry smirk. "Sort of a moot point now, don't you think?"

The griffin conversation which had gone alongside their own until then just stopped, and the largest griffin lowered his spear and stepped forward. In a single stride, he stood face to face with Minuette and reached up to touch her horn with a talon. He looked to Soarin, who had immediately tensed up to defend the mare, and raised a wing to show nonaggression. He turned back to the blue mare and questioned hesitantly, "Yuh-neigh-corn?"

~ ~ ~

Deserts sucked. Knight had been displeased about her transfer from the beginning, and the suffocating heat had only been one of several reasons why. Now, three weeks later, trekking over dunes in an endless sandstorm just thin enough for the sun to still beat down on her, she struggled to think of anything else.

Luckily, her rage towards her deputy had scarcely subsided in the few hours since he told her his policy of ignoring missing-persons reports. Ugh! She still felt furious and disgusted, and she wanted to kick something, but all she had in sight was sand and there was enough of that in the air already.

Only a couple hours into her search and the black mare was already regretting it. She had brought a white over-cloth to reflect the sun off her coat, but it was hardly enough to keep her from already exhausting half her water supply. Knight was already entertaining thoughts of turning back defeated when she heard a strange rumbling sound. Glancing around, she saw a something large and shiny approaching from ahead.

Instinctively, Knight threw herself to the ground and pulled her covering tight around her. As the object grew closer, she could gradually make out more details. It was a tall, elongated, triangular prism-shaped metal construction that sloped into a rounded front. It looked almost like a train engine, if somepony had tried to hide the entire thing inside sleek armor plating. From her vantage on the ground, she realized she could see rows of hooves thudding on the ground in the front section, evidently pulling the 'carriage'.

The unusual transport passed without incident, either unknowing or unconcerned by her presence. Once it had passed, Knight climbed to her hooves. The armored pony caravan had headed at an angle diagonal to the town. She supposed they were taking an indirect path to the main road. Where they came from, though... Knight paused, recalling the mare's story of a guard base and her map's counterargument that no such place existed.

After a moment's consideration, she decided she needed to keep searching for the missing stallion. Since she had no real direction before, it couldn't hurt to continue searching the direction where those carriages had originated.

~ ~ ~

The griffins had gestured for Soarin and Minuette to follow them, and since they no longer seemed hostile, they decided to stick with their only sign of civilization thus far. Minuette shivered as the snow crunched under her hooves, but traveling uphill helped stave off a bit of the cold. Still, she felt an entirely different sort of chill from all the curious looks the griffins were giving her. 'Unicorn' had been the only word they'd said in Equestrian, and something about it left her unsettled.

The trees around them began to thin out as they approached a level clearing occupied by several large log buildings. It appeared to be an outcropping at the foot of the mountain, and she could see several plots of farmland being worked by griffins, earth ponies, and pegasi on ridges going up the mountain itself. The lead griffin let out a screeching call of some sort, and the farmers looked down at him. Several more griffins and ponies emerged from the various buildings and looked at the new arrivals.

Initially their interest appeared idle, but gradually, all the villagers began to draw closer to Soarin and Minuette, talking amongst themselves and pointing. After a minute spent growing increasingly uncomfortable, the pair saw a yellow-coated older stallion emerge from the crowd and step forward. He looked to the lead griffin, who gave a reassuring nod, and then turned to Minuette.

"You speak old-pony?"

The mare glanced at Soarin and received a shrug in return. "Yes..."

The yellow stallion nodded, then inclined his head toward the ground. "We ponybirdkin peaceful. We help you. Please, do not bring death on us."

~ ~ ~

What? Knight couldn't believe it. Smack in the middle of a desert, and she was staring at a massive fenced-in compound. The sun had already begun its descent beneath the horizon, but that made it no more difficult to see the secret base. It was lit up by the dozen guardponies patrolling its perimeter and a number of arcane spotlights mounted to the checkpoint, bunker, and inexplicably massive hanger. Yet it didn't exist on any maps and most of Rockwell seemed oblivious to it.

She sat on her sand dune looking at it for a while before she concluded, ultimately, that she needed to go down there. She'd drawn out her search far longer than she intended, and while she could survive a freezing night in the desert, she would much rather not. Knight rose to her hooves and started walking towards the base.

She was about fifty paces away from the front gate when a spotlight swept over her briefly, paused after passing, and then refocused to illuminate her in its blinding glow. She raised a hoof to shield her eyes.

"Hello?" Knight called out. "Hi there! I'm the sheriff out in Rockwell! Do you mind if I come in and have a word with you all?"

There was a pause, so she continued. "Yeah, hey! I'm a royal guard serving as sheriff in Rockwell! I need access to your facility and information regarding-" Knight cut off suddenly as a bolt of energy shot out from the guard-post, knocking her unconscious and sending her flying several paces.

After another pause, the gate swung open and a stallion emerged. He gripped her by the neck and began dragging her into the hidden compound.

Comments

[MrAskAPirate]

Oh, no, Minuette... when did you zap yourself to?