The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Missing Piece

Maple paced along a first-story warehouse corridor, her hoofsteps ringing against the concrete flooring as she drooped with exhaustion. The outside heat hadn't fully wormed its way into the building, and she constantly found herself shooting expectant glances at the worker pony who was leading them.

Beside her was White Chocolate, along with six other workers dedicated to carrying the mare's children and belongings. For a moment, Maple wondered how the Earth District could afford to dedicate so many ponies to helping others... before it clicked in her head that every able-bodied equine helping was a pony that didn't need to be helped. For all she knew, the squad was comprised entirely of volunteers.

The mare at the lead flipped through a clipboard held in her teeth, humming as she walked. "Not really sure how to handle a family this big," she apologized around it. "We'll look for something we can use, but for now you'll have to make do with a shared space. Sorry, but these are tough times."

White Chocolate hung her head, seemingly resigned to her fate. "Do you think you could get me barriers so my children don't run off?"

"A wall of crates, or something?" The lead mare shrugged. "Sure. I think we can do that."

They rounded a corner, breaking into a wide room with a low enough ceiling that it likely had a second story. Rows of parallel conveyor belts stretched across it, evidently part of a processing facility. Now, however, it sat dormant, filled instead with nearly a hundred ponies, bustling with sweat and fear and life.

"It's a little hard to move around in here," the lead mare apologized, treading carefully down a cleared isle. "But I think we can get you a corner space. That way, you'll have at least two walls to your back. We'll keep looking, I promise, but in the meantime you'll just have to make do."

White Chocolate's ears folded at the chaotic scene. "Oh my..."

"This is a disaster..." Maple murmured under her breath, scared back to proper posture by the sight of the room as she stepped through, careful to avoid any errant tails. "I had no idea an evacuation would involve this. I wonder if Shinespark is seeing what this looks like. We... We should have tried harder, and found a better way..."

"Well, here you go." The mare shrugged, having reached a mostly-empty corner and persuaded the ponies on the edges to move slightly further aside. "Once again, I assure you, Ma'am, we'll try our best to find a better spot. But like I said..."

"I know," White Chocolate interrupted. "It's... better than drowning."

Maple's ear twitched. Somehow, the sea of ponies was dense enough that she wondered how different real drowning would feel.

---

Long after the workers had left, with a promise to update Gerardo or Howe on Maple's location should they return, White Chocolate lay on her back, using her folded bathrobe as a cushion and holding three foals close. Her belongings and boxes had been arranged into part of a wall by Maple, Hayseed and Snow, though it wasn't big enough to form a complete enclosure. Hayseed sat silently, trying to amuse two more of the foals, while Snow rested against his stack of magazines that was built into the wall and unsuccessfully tried to distract himself.

For her part, Maple sat and stood watch at the break in the wall, trying to recover her strength as much as she could. The refugee families were packed close enough together that she couldn't walk between any two of them without violating someone's personal space, and thanks to the enclosed nature of the room, it was impossible not for body heat to accumulate. So did smells.

The conveyor belts blocked her sight of much of the room, affording a false sense of privacy when she looked at how many ponies were still next to them, White Chocolate's wall too short to do anything but help corral foals. Maple's ears folded. Gerardo had to get back. This couldn't continue.

"Nnnnnngh..." White Chocolate moaned, drawing her attention and her presence.

"Are you alright?" Maple asked, sliding up beside her, keeping a careful eye on the foals who were still unattended so that they didn't wander off.

"Maple, I'm worried," White Chocolate whimpered, voice barely audible over the noisy shush of the room. "There are so many things that could go wrong..."

Maple touched her shoulder with a hoof and smiled a smile she didn't feel. "They won't," she reassured. "You'll get out of here before you know it."

"There are so many ponies, though..." White Chocolate fidgeted, rocking slightly, still holding her foals close. "I don't remember the last time I was around so many. What if...? What if I get up to do something, and when I get back, one of my foals is missing in the crowd?"

Maple bit her lip.

"Or what if...?" White Chocolate's face was strained with worry. "What if somepony in this room is sick, and gets everyone else sick too? There wouldn't be enough medicine! And they just want us to stay here for three days. What if there is a flood, and all our old homes are destroyed? What if we have to live like this for months?"

"That's not going to happen," Maple repeated. "We'll make sure of it. I promise."

White Chocolate didn't even listen. "What if I foal here? With no one to help, and so many to take care of already, and surrounded by strangers, and-"

Maple's face turned ashen. "That's enough," she commanded, silencing White Chocolate with a hoof. "You. Will. Be. Alright."

Somewhere in the distance, a pony coughed.

Maple glared in their direction, limbs shaking with frustration. She had been there when the decision to evacuate was made. She could have said something. She could have done better...

"You don't have to be here," White Chocolate's voice reminded her. "You aren't tied down by an unmanageable family. You only have one filly, and she's old enough to care for herself. You could get back on an airship and return to wherever you came from..."

"No." Maple stomped, glaring. "I'm not leaving. I can't leave this. There must... There has to be something I can do to help, and to make things right."

"Why?" White Chocolate asked. "You told me you're not from Ironridge, didn't you? You don't owe us anything! Even if you want to help me, there's not much you can do now that I'm here!"

Maple hesitated, mouth open. Then, eventually: "Because I can. You're right. I'm not tied down. Aside from Starlight, I don't have anything holding me anywhere... and that means I don't have anything stopping me."

White Chocolate's brow furrowed. "What?"

"Because I can," Maple repeated with a shrug, feeling determination replace the weariness in her limbs. "Don't tell me you've never thought, 'I wish I could make a difference in the world, but there's just no way...' because I have. For days and weeks and months and even years on end. And I want to."

She didn't mention why the plight of the evacuees was personal, or that she was friends with the Sosan top brass, but didn't feel she needed to. "If you think you'll be alright for an hour or two without me..." She smiled, softening her tone. "Or at least until Starlight and Jamjars get back, I think I'm going to go see if they could use another able-bodied pony who's good at moving heavy things."

At that, White Chocolate caught on, blinking giving way to a smile of her own. "Good luck, then. I wish I could help too..."

---

Maple stomped through empty hallways, trying frantically to cool her head. She had meant every last thing she had said to White Chocolate, even if her words had been on the spot and not thought through. She wanted to help. She needed to help. The mass displacement of the evacuation couldn't be right... but how?

She was a pony who had spent the past two days being chased, assaulted, foalnapped and drained beyond the point of collapse by what was likely an evil artifact. She had been invited into the company of ponies who had been playing the planning game for decades, a dynasty that had been plotting city-sized solutions for almost as long as she had been alive. She was just a mare who had led a life with large shares of fortune and misfortune... and right then and there, she realized, luck was happily ignoring her entirely. Maybe that was why it felt like she had a chance.

A troupe of ponies in worker garb stomped past her, barely giving her a second thought save for one nod of greeting. As unobtrusively as she could, she followed them, figuring they would eventually be bound for the point where ponies were arriving. At the very least, lending other evacuees a hoof, even as nothing more than a pack pony, was something she knew she could do.

Bright sunlight broke around her after several minutes of walking, instantly causing her to shy away. She could practically see the hot air billowing in through an entrance, making the bright world outside shimmer with its oversaturated green and yellow hues. She winced... and pushed through it. It was something she needed to do.

"Hey, that's Maple!"

Maple gasped at the incoming voice, and jumped aside just in time. Howe and Gerardo dropped through the sky like missiles, homing in on the cool, welcoming entrance and landing right where she had been standing a second ago.

"Hmm!" Gerardo straightened up, happily fixing his headcrest. "That was easier than expected."

---

"So Starlight and Jamjars are already on their way here?" Maple asked, sitting much more comfortably in the shade inside the warehouse entrance as more refugees were ushered in. Gerardo sat beside her, and Howe was away, searching for water.

"As best as we could tell, that's the truth," Gerardo replied. "The room where I left them had recently been re-commandeered by a new family, and they weren't there any more. As best as I could tell, they must be in transit here, through some company function."

Maple frowned unhappily. "The conditions here are... not good. It's so tight, and nervous. Everyone here is one step away from panicking. I wonder why they didn't offer to move White Chocolate to the tower, if they really had an air-conditioned private room there instead?"

"Transportation difficulty." Gerardo shrugged. "What is easier? Moving two fillies, or ten plus a rather large mare? The Earth District, I've gathered, is somewhat short on fliers as well."

"They said they were going to try to find somewhere better here, but..." Maple hung her head. "Even if they find something for White Chocolate, there are still so many other ponies here. It makes me wonder if this evacuation was really the right thing to do..."

Gerardo shot her a strange look, as if there was something he desperately wanted to say. After looking in every direction and determining that they were sufficiently alone, he dropped his voice to a whisper, and asked, "May I confide in you something that's very... troubling to me about this entire operation?"

Maple tilted her head. "Sure."

"Well..." Gerardo looked away. "What do you think of Shinespark?"

Maple blinked, not expecting the question. "She seems very friendly. Enthusiastic. Maybe unprofessional, even. Why?"

"I'm unsure if this is a common phrase where you hail from, but I would describe her as wearing her heart on her sleeve," Gerardo said. "She... discussed her personality with me, in fact, while we were traveling to meet you early this morning. I take it she told you how Braen works?"

"She did." Maple nodded.

"What she told me," Gerardo continued, "is that it is their hopes and goals that are ultimately linked. I don't believe Shinespark was ever a recluse or introvert, but at least part of the reason she behaves as she does is because she needs to feel what she feels honestly in order for their magical connection to work properly. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Slowly, Maple nodded. "She needs to make sure she knows what she's feeling and always feel what she wants in order to... make Braen act on those wants... right?" Confused, she folded her ears. "What are you getting at with this?"

Gerardo grinned bleakly. "Does the word 'impulsive' come to mind, at all?"

"I..." Maple sat, thinking, staring.

"She's wholly invested in what she does," Gerardo continued. "Passionately so. A commendable trait in a leader who needs to feel for their people... but what about in one who also gives lectures on how the most potent form of power in Ironridge is information? Surely you must have noticed all the things she told us or allowed us to listen in on were secrets of the most sensitive order... and she sounded excited to be sharing them."

"Gerardo..." Maple frowned. "You're questioning her judgement abilities, aren't you?"

"I wish I was." Gerardo hung his head. "But, in fact, this is about a problem I only noticed recently, at breakfast this morning. Do you know how old Shinespark is?"

Silently, Maple counted in her head, trying to recall dates.

Gerardo didn't let her finish. "She's nineteen," he interrupted. "Not even twenty. And look at her cabinet! Grenada was a recent appointee, and couldn't have been much older than she was, if any. Gigavolt, at least, I'd peg in his twenties. Dior is on her side, and appeared quite young himself. Now, I'm hardly an elder myself, but..." He narrowed his eyes. "Does it at all worry you that the only pony there who is likely to even remember Project Aslan was Gunga? I'm sure Arambai has some hoof in things, remote as it may be, but..." He straightened up, sighing. "It feels to me as though this entire half of the city is being ran by far more passion than experience. They can be as driven or noble of leaders as they please, but were I a villain... I would smell an opportunity to manipulate, or set a trap." He sighed again, turning to Maple. "Perhaps it's just me, but I can't help but have doubts about our present course of action. Especially since it involves real bloodshed."

"...I know." Maple hung her head. "Now that you mention it, I guess they are really young. I don't like to hold that against a pony, but..." She looked in the direction of the warehouse corridors, beyond which there existed rooms and rooms of worried ponies. "I'm having doubts about this plan, too. About the evacuation. You should see White Chocolate in there; she's about to have a nervous breakdown. I'm almost feeling guilty just for not being there with her right now..."

Swooosh!

Howe appeared in a flash of feathers, clutching a freshly-filled canteen that he guzzled greedily from. "Greetings, comrades!" Water dripped from his muzzle like a leaky faucet. "Has the Howenator missed anything of supreme importance?"

"Oh. We..." Maple trailed off, remembering that Howe wasn't aware of any of the Sosan planning they had taken part in. It wouldn't do to let any secrets slip. "We were just talking about the evacuation. It's so crowded here, with no privacy and easy for panic to spread, and..." She sighed. "I wish there was a better way."

"Well, they could always send them to Blueleaf," Howe offered with a shrug.

Maple's ears shot up, suddenly paying attention. "Blueleaf?"

Howe grinned. "It's a place my biological bro Neon Nova hangs out at. You passed through yesterday, right?"

Maple squinted, choosing her words carefully. "Isn't Blueleaf currently having... infrastructure issues? Would sending a large amount of ponies there really be a good idea?"

"Well, about that..." Howe rolled his shoulders. "Right, so here's the deal. Blueleaf's mana generator is having... let's call them issues. Unfortunately, there's a door on it that only Sky District technicians can pass through! As a result, the city has been suffering from periodic blackouts that make the lower levels uninhabitable and force ponies to move upward or migrate to the Stone District. Now..." He grinned harder. "We may not look like it, but Neon Nova and myself are fairly accomplished at mana technology. In fact, we've extensively studied the entire Ironridge power grid to find out if there was any other bypass to the failing generator! So if we decided, 'screw the Sky District!' and found a way to blast that armored door off its hinges, I'm fairly sure the two of us could get that generator working right as rain again in no time. Then, all the abandoned lower levels would become livable once again, and we would have plenty of space for these refugees."

Gerardo's eyes widened. "That could be a most valuable resource, indeed..."

"Hold on," Maple snapped, realizing with a rush of fear that she was the only one of the three who knew that the situation in Blueleaf had been resolved... or how it had been resolved. Howe thought the generator was still under Neon Nova's control, and hadn't a clue that Neon Nova had been incarcerated in the upper districts by Valey. She blinked, remembering Valey's sound stone message.

"...Hold on for what?" Gerardo eventually asked.

"Right," Maple gulped, having left herself hanging. She glanced between Gerardo and Howe, sizing up whether the griffon would be able to take down the pegasus in the event that things turned ugly... and reminding herself of his fearsome, strength-sapping sword. Suddenly, she had a way to test how trustworthy Howe was.

"We..." she continued, struggling not to stammer from nervousness. "Already went in and fixed the generator. Valey was with us, and when she found out about how the power outages were stirring up the Blueleaf and being used to raise tensions with the Stone District, she wanted to get to the bottom of it. She got inside the generator through an air duct. It... won't be having problems any more."

Howe paled. "So that's... what you were doing with my bro's sound stone, eh?"

Gerardo blinked in confusion. "Have I missed something?"

Maple gulped, pulling the stone out and holding it in her hooves. It was dormant. "It is."

After a second of staring at it, Howe sat down. "And here I was, telling tales of Neon the moment we crossed paths in this very warehouse last night. You must've figured out I was in on it instantly."

Gerardo narrowed his eyes. "Once again, and I'd like an answer this time: what's going on?"

"The generator door wasn't locked with Sky District access," Maple said, nodding at Gerardo. "It was locked by Neon Nova. He would enter it himself, every once in a while, and turn the power on or off with a breaker, to the entire city. He did it to simulate the generator failing and rally the ponies to the Spirit, against the upper districts."

Gerardo balked, first at Maple, then at Howe. "Is this true!?" he demanded.

"...Mostly," Howe answered, slumped with his chin against the ground, looking utterly dejected. "I doubt there's anything I can do about it now. If Neon's locked up in the Water District and I'm busted by you guys, I doubt I can even talk my way to freedom, let alone get that windigo heart and bust my bro to safety."

"Mostly," Maple repeated, standing over him. "If you feel like making a good start, what do you mean by that?"

"We weren't doing it to help the Spirit," Howe explained, slumped. "Remember what I told you in Gnarlbough? About how me and Neon were mercenaries... at least until I got thrown out the other day? Manipulating Blueleaf was a paid job, with them. Neon's, specifically."

"Mercenaries?" Gerardo frowned. "Someone was hiring a squad of mercenaries for the express purpose of inflaming tensions between the Earth District and the Stone District?"

Maple stared at him, wondering if he was thinking the same thing she was thinking.

"Yep," Howe said glumly. "Well, again... sort of. Our band was hired directly by Ambassador Herman. He had us doing all sorts of stuff, like... you know. Me trying to get you in trouble with the Defense Force. Selma knew about us, and had a pretty big chip on his shoulder because he wanted the Defense Force to be the top military authority in Ironridge, and there his own boss was hiring out mercenaries to go do dirty work behind his back instead of leaving everything to 'city loyalists' like him."

Gerardo's jaw dropped. "Do you mean to say that Ambassador Herman has both been playing behind his own side's back, and stirring up the opposition to... to cause them to come to blows?"

Maple whimpered, ears folded. "Didn't Selma sound surprised by the bombs? If they really were put there behind his back..."

"Furthermore," Gerardo continued, frowning deeply, "I recall it being stated that Herman was the architect of the so-called weapons deal meant to arm the Defense Force with Steel District weaponry... which to this day has resulted in nothing more than massive amounts of resources freely finding their way to Sosa." His eyes grew hard. "Including putting countless weapons in the hooves of the Spirit."

"He wants them to fight..." Maple breathed. "And if the Spirit is that well armed... does he want his own army to get destroyed?"

"Uhh... guys?" Howe looked worriedly up from the floor. "Was it something I said?"

"Yes, Howe." Gerardo stalked across the empty room. "It was. And I don't know what Herman is up to... but it sounds to me as though we've found the real culprit behind this recent turn of events."

Maple gazed sadly at the sound stone in her hooves. "Then that would mean Valey was set up to take the fall. She always did say he hated her..."

"I think it's clear that we need a new plan," Gerardo announced, straightening up. "And if the action really is to start tonight... then we haven't a moment to lose."

Comments

[ZanyZapper]

Oh, good chapter! The pieces are starting to come together for our heroes. Seems like Herman has been setting up a civil war. Can anything stop it or will it be too little too late?

[Hap]

Awwww shieet

[Pluie]

Meanwhile Valey is still stuck in a corridor...

[Venlinelle]

Absolute crack prediction: Herman wants to summon the windigoes with a war to render the area uninhabitable to everypony except the yaks. Does this make sense? No! But now I have a theory to work on.

Reread edit:

Well, I was wrong, but I actually wasn’t that wrong. He did want Yakyakistan to take over Ironridge, just not that way, and the windigoes were not part of the plan. Either way, still amazing to see the pieces come together.