The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

New Plan

Howe's right ear flopped. Then his left one. Then he frowned.

"Could you, umm... run all that by the Howenator again? Because I frankly have no clue what you just said."

Gerardo and Maple gulped, turning to stare at each other. "That's right," Gerardo mused. "I do suppose we need to figure out what to do with Howe before anything else..."

Maple glanced guiltily at the pegasus. If she hadn't spoken up, he would be happily playing along with whatever they were going to do... but they wouldn't be doing anything in the first place. And if he had been in on Neon Nova's schemes, it was his fault, in the first place.

"Might I remind you," Howe asked, not yet daring to pick himself up from the floor, "that I was but a humble mercenary? A base creature motivated to act in the service of others via instinct and greed? Uhh..." He winced, backpedaling. "What I mean to say is that I've since had a break with my former employers, as apparently has my bro. And back in Gnarlbough, you did say you wished to hire me in return for something I very much want... Err. What I'm getting at is that that deal could still be on! Despite the obvious disapproval with which you're looking at me..."

"First things first," Maple interrupted. "Exactly how much did you know about Blueleaf?"

Howe shrugged. "Everything. Neon's assignment was very... general in what it asked of him. So he came to me, and together we crafted a plan to disable the generator's access panel and simulate a power failure. Herman himself covered for us by preventing any real Sky District technicians from being sent to conduct maintenance on the generator, thus discovering that we had sabotaged the door. But me and Neon architected it from the ground up."

"And did you ever go there?" Maple's eyes narrowed. "Did you ever spend time in Blueleaf, to see how your plan was hurting ponies? If not, maybe you should head inside this refugee center and take a look at the ponies here, because this is what happens when ponies are displaced from their homes."

"Err..." Howe sweated. "No? But we were in constant contact through our sound stones. And need I remind you that I did call him and ask him to turn on the lights for the duration of your stay, in order to make the city safer for you?"

"Well, we did." Maple glared, ignoring him, her breathing starting to grow faster. "And we met ponies who had been there for a lot longer than us. There was a filly called Redshift, who was about Starlight's age, who spent her days climbing around in the dark, looking for ponies who were trapped or wanted to move but couldn't. A. Filly." She stomped a hoof. "This place is what happens when two districts with massive amounts of resources work together to help displaced ponies. Blueleaf didn't have that. It was a town where the economic outcasts from the Stone District wound up, segregated by poverty in terms of how much sunlight ponies received! They didn't have the resources to do an evacuation. It was survive the dark or move on your own... and guess who needed power the most? The ponies on the bottom, who were least able to help themselves! Your plan hurt a lot of real ponies."

"Well..." Howe fidgeted, struggling, even though he wasn't pinned down. "Most mercenaries are hired to fight in wars, you know! Like the one up north in Varsidel? We could have dressed up as Defense Force members and beaten ponies up to rally everyone to the Spirit! When your band leader says you accept a job, you do it, and... Look, we were really proud of finding a solution that didn't involve killing anypony!"

Maple lowered her head until she was on level with him, not breaking eye contact. "How do you know no ponies died, alone in the dark?"

"Uhhh...!" Howe squirmed.

"I believe the pegasus gets the point," Gerardo said, intervening on Howe's behalf. "As do I. It seems this is a case of carelessness more than malicious intent. Though it begs the question..."

His eyes narrowed. "Tell me more about your reward, and why it was so important."

"Uh-huh!" Howe gulped, trying to recollect his posture. "Right, so. As I kind-of, sort-of recall telling Maple, I don't particularly care about financial compensation. In fact, my team's compensation was... complicated. What Neon Nova and I were really after was a chance to steal back a pair of ancestral heirlooms that had, in turn, been stolen from us by the yaks and were being routed to Ironridge. You know... the windigo hearts in those crates of yours. All we really wanted was to get close enough to nick them and make our escape. Ideally, we would seize both, then immediately flee before anyone could stop us." Hesitating, he added to Maple: "We would have left the power on, too."

Gerardo nodded. "And what use would a pair of imposter mercenaries like you have for two artifacts that are clearly quite dangerous?"

"I told you," Howe insisted, "they're heirlooms. Relics given to us by our father, left over from his glorious days of travel and adventure. We don't want to use them for anything! Just... keep them safe, you know?"

Gerardo frowned.

"Hey, don't look at me like that!" Howe protested. "Aren't you all big on quests and adventure and things like that? If a villain steals something of yours and you have nothing better to do with yourself, you leave on an epic crusade to get it back!"

"Do you have any idea what they might want them for?" Maple asked, leaning in. "Or if they'd be able to do it with just one, instead of both?"

Howe shrugged. "We did some investigating as a part of learning they were being taken to Ironridge. Apparently, it wasn't just ours that were confiscated. Windigo hearts are extremely rare, but they... do exist. We couldn't find out where the others went, unfortunately. Our two best guesses were that they were bound for some eldritch research facility to perfect whatever dark arts the yaks seek to employ, or that they were shipping them to other countries to repeat whatever they intend to perform here."

Maple slumped, feeling her eyes go wide as the strength drained from her limbs. "You mean... whatever Yakyakistan is planning here, with the dam and the hearts and getting the districts to fight each other... could also be happening in the rest of the world?" Pale, she looked to Gerardo. "This is like what happened forty years ago, with Blazing Rain and the yaks threatening the rest of the world..."

"Technically," Gerardo corrected, "the threat to the rest of the world was if Yakyakistan's internal conflict became an external affair. Yakyakistan attempting to make a play on the world theater would be extremely disconcerting... and, in fact, worse than history repeating itself."

"Now, now, I didn't say that!" Howe got partway up, waving his hooves. "Please, bear in mind, this was only a humble pegasus's speculation! For all I know, they consider the windigo hearts a delicacy and like eating them. Yaks do eat snow, after all."

Gerardo and Maple both looked at him.

"Erm... what?" Howe shrugged. "You're steering the conversation, here. Not me."

"Look." Maple stomped. "We already know whatever is happening with Yakyakistan and Ambassador Herman is bad news, and we have to do something about it! Letting things keep going like they are isn't an option! We might be closer to the truth than any other ponies in Ironridge, and that means it's our job to help them!" She trailed off, wilting. "I... didn't really see myself saying this, yesterday or the day before..."

Gerardo chuckled. "It seems Shinespark was right about knowledge being the most potent thing in Ironridge. You're certainly quite a bit more assertive than I recall you being when we set out, Miss Maple. That said, we do still need a plan."

"Hey, uhh, I don't know if I've slipped your minds or what, but..." Howe fidgeted, standing fully upright. "A helpful reminder that I'm right here, and fully willing to employ my broad talents and full loyalty in exchange for something you have, and don't want to see falling into the hooves of the yaks!"

"I'm... still not sure I trust you with the windigo heart, though," Maple pointed out. "For all I know, you could know something even worse about it than the yaks."

"Look at it this way!" Howe grinned. "Technically, you don't have to give me the one you have. However, while you cannot ascertain my true intentions, you're certain the yaks are up to no good... and thus we can both agree that they shouldn't have the other heart! And frankly, all I have to do to get the hearts from you is get you to trust me, whereas the yaks stole them from me in the first place. So we could go ahead with no promise of payment, yet I'll still come out of this better off and have every reason to help you!"

Maple hesitated.

"Need I read to you my resume?" Howe raised an eyebrow. "As you have seen, I possess a pair of wings, an elusive treasure in this heat-ridden jungle! I may yet also possess a trove of knowledge you don't even know yet that you need, could instantly recruit my brother to the cause should we come across him, and happen to be very good at both working with technology and addressing crowds!" He blinked. "Also, I know kung fu."

"Maple?" Gerardo turned to her, expectant.

"...Why are you looking at me?" Maple frowned, taking a step back. "I'm not the leader."

Gerardo sighed. "Well, what I'd say..." He twiddled a talon, drumming it against the cold warehouse floor. "Howe, I can't say I've reason to doubt you, though that could easily change if you try anything underhooved. I'm not sure it's wise to trust you with everything we're privy to, and I shall be watching you, but... we do need all the allies we can get."

"Yeeessssss!" Howe sang, fluttering. "I promise you, you will not regret the day you chose to hire the Howenator! So, then, what's our first order of business?"

Maple looked sideways at him. "Isn't that exactly what you said when I hired you in Gnarlbough?"

"Well, I don't know about you two," Gerardo announced, "but now that we know the true villain is Yakyakistan and not the Defense Force, it seems increasingly less likely that Selma is suspect. In fact... and I'm slightly mad at myself for not remembering this earlier... Selma took me aside prior to my inspection and gave me a very lengthy speech that I don't remember well and recall amounting to a lot of nothing and drama, all intended to confuse me. But I seem to have a memory of him indicating that the yak embassy was nearing completion of a project that involved yak meddling in Ironridge, and he desired to sabotage that project in order to force the embassy to stay, and continue propping up his Defense Force. Does anyone have any ideas how this fits into the puzzle? Or is it likely something that became irrelevant the moment Selma discovered the bombs?"

Maple frowned. "Well, Selma did tell you to tell us to fight in the Water District, didn't he? So he can't see that far behind the yaks' backs to be able to tell that fighting is a bad idea..."

"Aaand you lost me again," Howe announced with a shuffling of feathers. "What's all this about Selma wanting a battle in the Water District?" Out of the side of his muzzle, he added, "I don't like that guy one bit, by the way. If he's an enemy, give him a whack in my name!"

"There's something more important, actually," Maple interrupted. "Valey." She pulled out the sound stone again, holding it between her hooves. "She'd never work with Herman behind Selma's back to destroy the dam. She wouldn't. She... She hates him. But it still looks like what Starlight said is true, and that someone wants to frame her for everything..." She squeezed her eyes shut. "I know the foals we met blamed her for Blueleaf. And now that everything is happening, she's locked up so she can't change things. I think if we want to make a difference, we have to save her first."

Gerardo nodded slowly.

"Wait, Valey?" Howe protested, shivering. "The one with the hat who throws fruit and sticks her tongue out at ponies? Nooohohoho thank you." He hugged himself. "I like my third dimension."

"She's also my friend," Maple warned. "And she could know something important about what's going on in the Defense Force."

"Remind me..." Gerardo tapped a talon. "What, precisely, is her situation? I seem to recall that she had flown off..."

Maple held out the sound stone. "Me and Starlight were able to call her this morning. She's in the Flame District, and there's some sort of anti-magic trap that's keeping her there. We couldn't hear her very well. The reception was bad."

"You don't say?" Howe grinned, reaching a wing for the stone. "May I?"

Maple didn't stop him from taking it. "Do you have an idea?"

"Oh ho, the Howenator is good at having ideas." Howe cackled softly to himself as he flew, reaching for one of the glowing manalights that illuminated the ceiling of their room in the warehouse. As he flew, Maple pondered how odd it was that White Chocolate's room was so crowded when they had found an empty space so easily... and felt a pang of guilt for leaving the nervous mare.

Howe reached the light, pressing the stone against it. After a few seconds, ambient mana from the fixture had charged it, and it lit up with a swirl.

"Cool!" He dropped back down, offering it to Maple. "Let's see if she picks up..."

Scrkkkkk!

"Hello!?" Maple shouted into the stone, holding it a hair's breadth from her muzzle. "Valey, can you hear me?"

"Yeeowch! Not so..." Valey's voice was drowned out by a flurry of static. "...closer to getting us out of here? I haven't had breakfast, haven't had dinner, and really, really need to..."

"Yo, Valey!" Howe called over Maple's shoulder. "Pancake talking! What kind of trap are you stuck in?"

"...cake? Seriously?" There was a brief moment of clarity, lasting for all of a second before it was gone. "I swear, if you say another word about food right now I'm gonna..."

"Never mind that," Howe growled. "You're in a mess, and your friends want to get you out! What's trapping you?"

"...light! It cancels our magic and..."

Howe squinted. "Some kind of magic light?"

"Yes!"

"Well, then, my loyal comrades..." Howe straightened up, an unstoppable smirk on his face. "The Howenator knows just the trick to save you!"

Maple looked sideways at him. "Really?"

Howe nodded. "Oh, yes. It sounds to me as if your plight is a product of nothing more than a magically-powered trap that requires constant power to stay on! And if, for example, there happened to be an ex-mercenary with a bone to pick with the yaks who knew everything there was to know about the workings of Ironridge's power grid..."

---

Starlight hissed inwardly. She was bruised, tangled, and somewhere she very definitely wasn't supposed to be... and someone was coming.

Shaking herself, she struggled to get off of Jamjars' unconscious form, spending precious seconds wrestling with herself over whether to exert her telekinesis and waste precious time trying to drag the troublesome filly along with her. Jamjars annoyed her, it was her fault that they were there, and she would be glad to be rid of her... but it was the right thing to do. Her horn lit.

It was too late.

"Huh? What was...?" A mare trotted out from a side passage, silhouetted against the room's metal construction by the bar's red light, her featured completely lost in the darkness. "Starlight?"

"...What?" Starlight frowned in confusion, standing defensively over Jamjars' body, ready to fight at moment's notice.

The mare lit her horn, casting the room in more proper illumination, and Starlight's frown deepened. "Grenada?"

"Starlight, what are you doing here?" the familiar Sosan mare asked, stepping closer and causing the shadows of the ribbed wall supports to shift ominously. "And who's this? This isn't a place for fillies."

"...We're lost," Starlight countered, hoping pity would be enough to get her out of trouble. "Or... she's lost, and I was chasing her. Where are we?"

Grenada bowed her head. "This is the Spirit headquarters. It's empty today because everyone is out working, but..." She stepped closer. "How did you find your way down here? We disguised the entrance so well..."

Jamjars stirred, but wasn't awake yet. Starlight shot a worried glance at her; she wanted to resolve any potential trouble before the filly came to and inevitably made more. "We were supposed to be staying with a room in Karma Industries while we waited for her family to get here. Maple wanted to help them, and Gerardo flew us ahead so that we could claim a spot. But Jamjars..." She pointed to the yellow filly beneath her. "She wanted to go exploring, but she's never been out on her own before, so I followed her to keep her safe. She went into the basement, and then tried to run off down this pipe, and..." She folded her ears.

"Hmm." Grenada leaned closer. "Starlight, the Spirit headquarters aren't the best place for a filly like you to explore. You should take your friend and get her back where she belongs, then return to the ship yourself. Ironridge is going to be dangerous today."

Starlight frowned. "What? First off, she's the one who wanted to explore, not me. You can keep your headquarters. They're kind of ugly." She glanced at the metal architecture, noting its roundness. Its architecture looked considerably less sterile than the clean, geometric warehouse interiors she was used to, more like the inside of an engine. Something that should have been organic, yet wasn't. It rubbed her the wrong way.

"Second," she continued, "what's so bad about this place? I'm strong, and you're not that old either, you know." She shot a glance at the posters on the walls. "Is it those? Do you have ponies come down here just to do naughty things?"

"Well..." Grenada blushed. "That's beside the point. But we keep the Spirit's weapon cache here, and those aren't toys."

"Oh." Starlight looked away, a sudden flashback triggering in her mind to the cannon pony who had shot Maple during their very first encounter with the Spirit at the start of their visit to Ironridge. She wanted nothing to do with that.

Jamjars stirred again, and Starlight glanced down at her. "So what are you doing here now, then, if everyone else is busy? And could you help me carry Jamjars? I don't even remember the way back to our room, and my telekinesis won't work long enough to keep her from running off again when she wakes up."

Grenada carefully surveyed them. "I'm doing some inventory work before heading out to assist with the evacuation in Copsewood. This place will likely go underwater from a flood... or at least risk having the entrance submerged. The tower and the ship aren't really on my way."

Starlight frowned in annoyance at Jamjars.

"You are right, though..." Grenada conceded. "I don't want you out there alone. You're far too important to the project, Starlight. I think maybe it would be best if both of you came with me to Copsewood, and we'll drop your friend off with evacuation officials on the way. They have teams in place for helping foals who get separated from their parents. Would you be able to behave if I let you come with me?"

"Yeah." Starlight nodded. Most ponies' definitions of behave, she noticed, were to sit still and not interfere with important things. She was fairly confident she could make herself actually useful, but if that was what Grenada wanted, that was what Grenada would get.

"Okay..." Grenada sighed, rolling her shoulders. "I don't know when you'll eventually get back. Shinespark will have to find time to take you. After Copsewood, I'm going to be assisting the team in Blueleaf. There will probably be at least one arms convoy from there to here and back, so maybe you can get a ride this far with them. I assume if you're here, it means Maple is too? Hopefully she doesn't leave without you."

Starlight swallowed. Hopefully, indeed. She didn't want to think about Maple's reaction if she found out Gerardo had lost her. Shrugging, she asked, "So what do you want me to do until you're ready?"

"Uhh..." Grenada chewed her lip. "Good question. You know, I don't think I have that much more to do..."

"Well, I'll just wait here, then," Starlight offered, taking up a cleaner-looking chair at the side of a table and settling herself in. "Let me know when we can go..."

Grenada nodded and wandered off, leaving Starlight alone with Jamjars' steadily-breathing body. Again, Starlight's heart asked her to feel back for the unconscious troublemaker, and again, she reminded herself that it was Jamjars' fault she had gotten tackled... and the end result was her looking away, neither feeling up to gloating nor wanting to go down and do whatever it was ponies did to help unconscious ponies wake up. A bucket of ice water to the face, maybe, though she couldn't deny that sounded appealing.

Her eyes fell instead on one of the dingy room's posters, showing two mares who might have been twins on a plush bed with their noses touching and their tails entwined. She squinted. The text on the bottom was in a faded, blocky font, and read Melia and Sirena. Their names, she presumed. Perhaps they were performers? If they were, she wasn't sure she was interested in whatever their performance entailed.

Bored, she looked instead to the lone bottle left on the table. It had a bitter, foul smell, and she couldn't tell if that was because the contents had gone bad or because macho ponies drank it to show off. Either way, she wasn't about to try it to find out.

There was a half-full pack of playing cards on the chair next to her, and a wad of chewing gum stuck to part of the table's peeling laminate, something someone could have only put there as a prank. Chewing gum was devastating to fur. Starlight groaned at the realization that she had nothing better to think about and tried to tap her hoof... but it didn't even reach the floor. Why couldn't Grenada hurry up?

Suddenly, there came a cacophony of crashes and shattering from the corridor Grenada had disappeared down, along with a mare's yell.

Comments

[FloydienSlip]

...Is that a Wayside School reference?

[Sypher]

Er, scratch that previous hypothesis. On another note, I'm not sure why Herman slipped from my mind during the meeting earlier, given that he is naturally a suspicious characters. Well done on the misdirection.

She was fairly confidant she could make herself actually useful

confident

[Quinch]

I just realized... if Howe and Neon Nova are siblings, how come they have different naming schemes?