• Published 17th Oct 2018
  • 741 Views, 22 Comments

Bad Compony - ReadStart



Honor, Faith, Land, and now... Ponies. Wars are fought for a lot of reasons—and on most battlefields, you’ve gotta find your own. Luckily, my friends and I trampled on a really good cause when we got here...

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4. - The One Village We didn't Raze

“I... I can’t read that from here,” Sweets griped while poking out of the turret. “It doesn’t look like anything.”

We’d parked the van facing the sign—shinning the headlights on it.

“So… it ain’t Chinese, nor Russian?” Hags asked, leaning out of one of the dozen hatches on the vehicle to look as well.

“Well—I think it's safe to mark Chinese off the list. But it… could be some Cyrillic spinoff? Pres, get the hi-beams on it, I’m getting out to look.”

I turned up the lights and cracked open an overhead hatch to hear what Sweets had to say. For some reason, he called Hags over for a second opinion.

“Sweets… this looks an awful lot like Russian…”

“But it’s not, look—the letters are all scrambled and flipped around. It doesn’t spell out anything I’m aware of... Christ, it’s like someone hired a—dyslexic expressionist to paint these words on. I’m about to Pollock my eyes out trying to read this…”

“Well… I can almost feel like I can read it.”

Pfft—In what? All you know is English.”

“–And Spanglish.”

“Oh sure, like that’s… ah—fine, be my guest.”

Haggard stood with his face a foot away from the board and slowly scanned each letter, calling them off as he went. “And… the magic word… is... ‘P’… ‘Zero’-”

“’O’”

“Uh, excuse you, Sweetwater?”

“It’s ‘O’, as in the letter, not zero. A zero doesn’t make any sense–”

“–Ain’t like you were makin’ sense of it anyway, so ‘O’ my God, just shut it.”

“Alright then... have fun with your binary.”

“Okey-dokey, so where were—ah… so, a flipped ‘N’… a, uh ‘Y’—gotta be a ‘Y’… and a… Triangle without a top. I’ll—get back to that... one line, maybe an ‘L’… two ‘I’s and an ‘E’— there, done!”

“Oh—so, done now, are we? Could you kindly tell the rest of the class what this new word is?"

“Sure, it spells–" Hags cleared his throat. "P-zero-n-y uhh, liie… which is said together as… ‘Pez-erony-lie’.”

Sweets slowly turned his look at Hags, squinting into his eyes to tell whether he was joking or not.

“Oh… Ok, I’ll admit it. I got no idea what I’m doing.”

“Well, if that isn't a first... but, uhh—don’t feel so useless yet.” Sweets turned back to the sign. “I think you might’ve nailed the first half of the word.”

“Shit, rea—I mean, yeah?”

“If the zero is actually an ‘O’—then the first half of this... would spell ‘PONY’.”

On God, we’re actually getting somewhere with this,” Sarge spoke. He was still next to me in the van, watching this amazing waltz of wits.

“Ok… So, it could be a horse farm, maybe?" Hags started to walk back to the car as he talked, "Welp, farmers are usually good folk, and I ain't gonna judge ‘em by their pimpy lil' castle, so I think it’s good to call this place safe. Let’s get a-.”

“We’re solving the rest of this thing now, Hags.”

“Oh—good Lord, Sweets! I mean, really? The word’s got a damn shape in there. It ain’t like we’re getting’ anywhere fast with this grammar-sleuth shit of yours!”

They argued for five minutes, with the latter three having devolved into name-calling. Sarge was entertained at first from just watching them—but I kept my focus on the sign. I... reasoned that if some of the letters were flipped around, then maybe that shape could be too. And there’s one letter that looks like a bottom-up triangle. And if that was that, and the ‘I’s ‘L’s... I had something figured out at least. I opened my door and cautiously yelled out.

“Pony-ville?”

Hags and Sweets stopped dead in their words. Sarge chucked at the unease I instantly made between all of us. Then Hags started to nod his head, a little bit at first—then to a full-on ‘yes’.

“Yeah, yeah—I reckon ‘ille’ fits in better."

“And—the ‘v’…" Sweets glanced back between me and the sign a few times. “Oh, of course! It’s a welcome sign! To Ponyville! Ha! What are the odds that you—oh, who am I kidding. God, we're retarded.”

“But... that's literally what I was saying before, ya tenderfoot.”

“No, you thought this sign was for a farm, not a village."

“Well, farmers can live in villages too, so am I really wrong?” he claimed.

“Ahh, forget it." Sweets shrugged. “Anyway—Pres, thanks for doing my job for once.”

“Ain’t killing ‘bad guys’ part of your job too?" Hags added, "He’s saved your ass a few times doin’ that too.”

“Eh—well, I like to think of that as more of a complication to my work more than any–”

“–Christ's sake, guys, enough of this!” Sarge hopped out of the car and called everyone on him.

“You got a plan on meeting these ‘Ponyville’ peasants, Sarge?” Sweets asked as we formed up.

“Hmm. Well—I'm sure a big-ass armored vehicle rolling in with all four of us killers at night ain’t gonna give us a good chance to introduce ourselves. Best bet's to hold up here on the road ‘till mornin’.” He walked over to the back of the car, opened the doors and hopped in. He turned back to tell Sweets that he had first watch.

"Wait, what? Hold on, what's it for this time?”

Sarge was already laying down over a bunch of gear in the back. “I dunno,” he answered.

Sweets shrugged as he turned around to post up. He walked up to a stump near the sign to take watch and said something about “four-hour shifts” to Hags and I before we jumped into the front seats to sleep.


I realized that our watches were off after the sun started to rise at about 11 am, our time. And that was the highlight of my watch. Nothing moved around us during the night—but neither did anyone or anything in the village. I had the morning shift, so I was up viewing the village at dawn. While the whole scene was pretty and all—with the stillness of the countryside and the view of the crystal treehouse—it raised a few flags. There were no alarms, bells, doors slamming, yelling—no sounds coming from any of the seemingly person-scaled houses. From the road, it looked and sounded abandoned.

Sarge was the first to hop out of the van when I knocked on it, with everyone falling out quickly after, and went straight into our morning routines. There wasn’t much of a morning routine to do, except for breakfast. But before I could take a second look at him, Hags had a fire going to cook one of the Russian MRE’s. It was decent for being mostly crackers and spread. After that, we mounted up in the same spots, and set off to meet the natives.

I honked a few times while we rolled into town—no response. I slowed down as we passed the first house—nothing new. Hags fired off a few rounds into the air, much to Sarge’s dismay—absolutely nothing. Sweets made a joke about the Plague beating us here to kill off everyone before we could—It was pretty funny—but the town’s silence wasn’t putting anyone in a laughing mood.

The only talking we kept hearing came from Sweets as he commented on the “half-assed-timber” architecture in the village—with straw roofs and pink-purple woods making up the “built environment.” They seemed to have been built a bit short too— with doorways only scaled up to six-feet. Other than that, everything looked homely from the outside. They were a lot like dollhouses come to think of it...

We kept on driving to the crystal castle, which all of us were still stunned over. Viewing it in the day… it was like a giant, trippy looking dead shrub, with a purple castle stuck between the twigs. I didn't like how we were bee-lining it to the fortress—but it was probably the best bet we had for some action in this fresh ghost town.

“Oh—Jesus, Sarge! can we talk about it now?” Sweets pleaded.

“Ahh… knock yourself out, kid. No use holdin' it now.”

“Well, Shit! This is just—Damn! This thing’s out of the budget for fucking Disney, much less a bunch of feudal shmucks!" Sweets sputtered out. “And… guys, are we sure we’re even looking at the same thing? Aww, just—wow, is that real crystal? I—don’t even know where to begin with this. I—if it’s quarts, then I guess–”

“–Sweetwater… you really have no idea what this is?” Sarge asked with a splash of concern in his tone.

“No, go fish.”

“Well… damn. Alright—so first off, shut up about it. Second off, if we don’t know shit on this, we need to be careful pokin' around it.”

“Is—Is it reasonable if I’m scared now, Sarge?”

“Naw, Hags, that’s just bitchin’.”

Sarge took a long look at the fortress before pointing me to the base of it. “Hey, there's some big-ass golden doors on it. Take us closer, we’ll dismount and get up close on foot–”

“–Excuse me?” Hags tensed up.

“That’s right, everyone group up on me when I bail. We’re going up to knock on that thing until somethin' happens.”

“But... uh, what if it’s, like, cursed, or something?”

“Oh yeeeah—I almost forgot that pretty lil’ castles always got those curses. Thanks, Haggard… Too bad I don’t give a damn.”

“Wuh—well, alrighty then. Just don’t blame me if your dick falls off when you touch the handle.”

“Uh, Hags? I... don't think a curse is going to neuter you,” Sweets spoke up.

“Well, that’s what my curse would do if I made one—and it'd be funny as Hell.”

After a whole 9-yard drive, Sarge dismounted and we stacked up behind him. As we moved to the door, I noticed a piece of paper taped to it. After pointing it out, we lazily broke formation and walked up to it. It was in that ‘expressionism’ language again, and since I had the best track record, I grabbed it. Sarge and Sweets hovered over my shoulder as I tried to read.

“Ok… It says—let's see, uh— ‘Princesstwo—'too late’? ‘Gone’? ‘To’... ‘the’ fu- fecc... uh, ‘Festival’?”

“So, it’s an invite to some... Fuckshit Festival?” Sweets noted. “Oh. Ok. Well, I... guess everyone here must have just carpooled together outta this dump at the same time, eh? All for some giant, orgy thing too, fucking great! What else does it say?”

I strained to read out anything in the next chunk of the words, with only a single phrase standing out.

“Oh, yeah—happy-inning? No, ‘happening’— ‘in’, ehh... ‘Canter-lot’?”

Ah… shucks.” Hags groaned, “So it’s somewhere else?” He sighed before starting to shuffle back to the car, "I'll… just keep my seat warm."

Sweets grabbed the note from me and tried to read it for himself. “Ok—I think it’s referring to a ‘Camelot’ instead—but other than that, I think we’re golden! Which… means our ‘Princess’ is in… another fucking castle!” He kicked at the door, only to find that kicking something gold-plated hurts. "AGHH! Balls! Ugh—why are we even still here, Sarge? I doubt a bunch of frivolous, dark-age, party-animals are going to be much use to us!"

“Sweets, just zip your shit!” Sarge hit back, snatching the paper out of his hand. “Outa all of us you should be the most interested in meetin’ these things! Hell, you’re the only guy I know that liked that Contact movie. And you're just gonna let a chance like that go over a stubbed toe? That's just sad! Besides, this is our best shot at doin’ somethin’ productive ‘round here.” He flashed the paper back at me. “Pres—you just keep reading. If you find a name or"

“–Picture!” I blurted out. It was printed in a handful of colors on the back of the invite. It looked like another castle, only more like the kind we were used too. It was on the side of a mountain, with a shower of fireworks around it.

“Oooh… well, that's useful! We just—have to follow the bread trail left by a septuplet of dwarfs that lead us to a glass slipper and we’ll be there in no time! Fuckin’ Ace!” he cried out while tossing up his arms.

“Lemme see that–” Sarge snagged the paper out of my hand and took another look. “You know what? I bet this place can’t be too far from here. We haven’t seen a vehicle that wasn’t ours this entire time...”

Wait...” Sweets cooled off enough to think again. “If that's drawn from a view that the inhabitants here could recognize, then mountains in the distance should have–”

"Pffft—fuck that, I'm not lookin’ for it by eye.” Sarge clarified, “I'm sayin' we just find a map around here and follow it."

“Sure, maybe that too—or we could just follow a road–"

“You can't just follow a road without a map. Shit’s suicide.”

"Alright—so where does the wise and honorable Sarge think a map would be?"

Sarge pointed over his shoulder. “There's got to be a map up in here. A place like this should have a war-room at least.”

"And there’s bound to be other stuff in here too,” I said. “Speaking of looting, where's Ha–"

“–Heya, folks!” Hags yelled, walking back from the van with an RPG.

Oh, no- NO! Absolutely not!" Sweets scolded him, "You can't just blow open the fucking door to... whoever's castle! Like—we haven't even checked to see if it's locked!"

I gave a quick tug at the door handles. locked, of course.

"Well... Aw, guys, really? Can we at least try knocking first!"

“That's exactly what we're doin' Sweets, just a lot louder! Now step your asses back,” Hags warned, shoving a rocket in the pipe.

OH, come the fuck ON! Sarge! You can't give him the go-ahead for this! What happened to 'making nice with the natives’?”

"Not much use of tryin' for that in a ghost town, now is there?" Sarge replied, giving Hags the thumbs up as we walked away from the door.

“Gotcha! Now step aside—goin' hot!”

As we stood to the side of Hags, Sweets let out one last sigh. “Don't be surprised if this comes back to bite us...”

Hags fired at the door, blasting it off its hinges inward. After a cracking thud, we stood there waiting for the dust to settle.

"So—who's goin' first?" he asked.

"All of us, numb-nuts, now shut up and stack up!" Sarge yelled.


We moved through the castle, in all of its garnet glory. Most of us took some time to look at some of the stuff in there, like the roots of a tree stuck in the ceiling in one room… with a two-foot-high, 20-foot wide, crystal table surrounded by thrones with colorful stickers on them, and a 3-D projection on the table.

“Hey, is this some—spacey-techno, holographico stuff on that table?" Hags walked up to it, swatting at a cloud floating on it.

“The Hell?" Sweets muttered, going a bit farther as he stepped up onto the thing. "This— these are holograms! How did they—What is this sci-fi shit doing here? I can't even begin to tell how it's working!"

“Wow… pretty. Can you tell what it's for?" Sarge asked

"This would be kick-ass for D&D, I can tell you that."

“It's definitely a map,” I said, poking at the forest we were in the day before with my rifle.

“No shit—but what’s it a map of? The clouds on it are moving, the trees look like they're swaying—it’s like a live feed of this land, an entire continent’s worth of it!”

“Hmm… Then we’ve got to be—there, there it is!" Sarge pointed to something near the center of the table. "Look at that tall, fork-thing! It's this place!"

"Hold on." Sweets wiped down his glasses. "Oh my—wow, that's detailed!" He kneeled down to take a closer look at the village we were at. “Huh—hey, I think I see a… railway hub?"

"A What? As in, for trains?" Sarge asked.

"So, hold up there–" Hags jumped in, "–we got a map we can use here. But where's that other place we're lookin' for? Castala del Doso?”

"That’s... not even close to anything in Spanish."

"Hop off, Sweets, I'm still learnin'."

“Just shut up and look for the other castle, Christ!” Sarge kept switching between looking at the map and the picture, slowly combing over the mountainside facing our village. All our eyes were quickly drawn to the tallest peak of the map.

And there it was; a castle that looked like it was stuck onto the side of a mountain like a dart on the board. It was picture perfect to the print on the note, and looked like it was within line of sight too.

"Why... is it up there?" I asked.

"And why so close to another castle?" Sweets added.

"And the fuck is this table anyway?" Hags joined in.

“You… you know what?" Sarge slowly started off. "I’m just gonna say it: Fuck it. I’m already sick of tryna figure out what the Hell’s goin' on. We might as well be in—Yipidy-do-dahhh-go-fuck-yourself land for what it matters. Gah—for now on, let’s all just keep quiet and go with whatever the fuck happens. As long as we find some other assholes to communicate with, we're gonna be just fine, alright?”

“So... Is that an order for us or–”?

“That is a standing order, Sweetwater—’specially for your motor-mouth. Now, get back out there!”


“How the fuck did we miss something like that?” Sarge asked us, with the view of Camelot painfully clear behind him.

"I mean... the whole 'fort-sparkles' thing was a bit- jarring–" Sweets spoke up, "–and it blocked a lot of our line of si–"

"Just shut it."

"Yes, Sarge…"

We stood in silence until Hags asked something. "Shouldn't we get movin’ or somethin'?"

"Yeah—but I'd like to know how to get there first," Sarge answered.

"Oh, that’s the easy part,” Sweets spoke up. “Our biggest problem’s going to be figuring out distance.”

“How?” I asked.

“There's no scale on the map—It looks scaled—but without something to measure up to, It’s hopeless. I didn't pack a measuring tape either, so I don't know how this can–"

"–You can measure somethin' small, like an inch, right?" Hags asked.

"Uh, duh—but measuring something big enough to use on the map is gonna take ages, dude," he claimed, knowing damn well he was going to end up doing all the math for it.

Hags pondered for a moment, as he turned his look towards the castle. "If... you could get the height of that, could ya work with it?"

"What, are you kidding me? Of course I could, dingus. But that thing’s massive. Only an idiot would... try to... shit—you wouldn't happen to have an idea–"

“–Sure fuckin’do!" Hags smirked. “Now follow me… uh, the Vod’s unlocked, right?”

We followed him over to the back of the van as he pulled out a questionable piece of equipment. Along with a few shells for it.

"What? A mortar?" Sweets gawked as we set it down close to the castle. "Whu—Why on any Earth would you need—No, scratch that; what the fuck are you firing at?"

“You might wanna answer him for once, Hags,” Sarge sternly suggested.

"Oh, don’t get your blood pressure up over this: I’m usin’ smoke rounds for this." Hags did a quick check on the shell he was holding as he spoke. “I’ve got an idea to measure the height of that gem with the aim of this mortar!”

“Are you crazy? That’s nothing but a glorified tube with a few dials on it! How could you possibly–”

“–Hear me out, compadre. If we know an angle and, like, one length of a squ—triangle, then we can find the other lengths, right?”

“Correct…”

“So, if I aim at sometin’ way out behind that castle—knowin’ both the angle and distance aimed to—but my shot hits the castle instead, then you could do a bit of math from that and figure out your scale!”

Sweets put a hand to his temple as he thought about the idea. “You… want me… to figure out the height of a building—based off of the disparity between where you aimed and where you hit?”

“Oh, c’mon, Sweets—we know you can! Just use one of your brain-bla–”

“–Can you really do it?” Sarge asked.

“Well, yeah... shit,” Sweets sheepishly answered, “It could work, don’t get me wrong—but, I—No... just, no. We don’t even know–"

“–Know that minimum range on a 2B14 Podnos is 80 meters at an 85˚ angle?" Hags recited. "Well... I do! So, suck it!"

Jesus—how do you even know that?” Sweets blurted out, more annoyed than surprised.

“Long story: Googled it a while back.”

"For fu—you can't be serious!"

“You're right. I'm Haggard.”

"Wuh—you can’t just play this off as a joke! Blasting the door was one thing—but this? It’s a bit excessive! Even if it’s just smoke, it’s not totally–”

“Look, if you wanna measure shit inch-by-inch, go ahead! But with this, it's just distance over—um… some alphabet-soup formula or whatever."

"Aww—I… Oh, I hate it when you’re right." Sweets shrugged. “Sarge? You’re... really ok with this?"

"Hell yeah—ain’t like we got a quicker way to get this done. Get ready to… do your thing, Hags. And if by some act of God this goes wrong—blame it on lightning.”

“Awesome—wait, can ya help me with this, Pres?”

After the two of us dragged the mortar and its shells farther out, Hags made the last adjustments to his aim.

Annnnd just a smidge up... yeah, that’s probably right—OK, goin’ hotagain!” He primed the smoke shell and dropped it down the tube.

KA-Thwooomph

As it fell back down, the bomb burst in air. It was on its way to hit the top of the castle—but started to burn brightly above the giant sparkling star at the top, parachuting down slowly. It was a star shell, not a smoke shell.

“What in the damn…” Sarge snapped to Hags—his glare soaked with disappointment.

“What the fuck was that?” Sweets flipped. “That’s an illumination flair, not a smokescreen! That’s literally the exact opposite of what you said it was!”

Hey—I thought it was the smoke! Don’t just blame me!”

“Who else is there to blame, dumbass! I thought you knew what you were doing—can’t you at least read?”

“Not Russian!”

“They’re still color coded!”

“Look; for smoke, its white for us and black for ‘em—do you know how easy it is to–”

“The Hell…” Sarge called out as looked back at the castle. “Aww shit! It’s fuckin’ onfire now!”

The illumination shell was basically a giant, bright, flaming fireball—so, of course, it started a fire as it landed on one of the castle balconies.

“What? Now how does diamond burn? This is just—bullshit!” Hags yelled.

“It’s the drapes, dipshit!” Sweets answered, “And it’s going to light up the inside if we just sit around waiting for

“Yeah, yeah—fix it—I know! Pres, next shell!”

I dug into an ammo box to find another, grabbing the first one that looked right. Out of the box, its color band looked black—but as I pulled it out into direct light, it appeared as a dark and poorly aged navy-blue.

“Preston—hurry! We can snuff that blaze out with smoke if we’re quick!” he urged.

“Hags, I really don’t think th–”

“No time to think, only pray!” He snatched the shell from me and primed it in one swift move.

“Hey! Let me read the thing first!” Sweets begged.

“Too late!” Hags hollered as he slammed the heat into the pipe.

KA-Thwooomph

“C’mon, you hunk of shit—work for me, work for me…” he murmured under his breath as we all waited for a tense six seconds,

The shell landed with a very distinct sound.

BOoom—CRaCKshhhh

The sound of an explosive impacting a glass-like castle, shattering a good chunk of the crystal star’s top half. As in, it was gone now. It was like watching a friend toss a Hail-Mary in the backyard, just to see it crash through a neighbor’s window. The big difference being that this was on a tactical scale. But, with all the falling debris kicking up smoke and dust over the castle, it did manage to stop the fire.

OHFuckin–!” Hags tossed his beanie to the ground as he kicked up a storm of dirt.

SHIT! We’re screwed!Sweets cried out.

“Oh, Jesus, Haggard—you’re a bona-fide fucktard!Sarge showed no mercy while yelling at him with a finger poking into his chest.

All I wanted to say to him was… “How?”

He turned around to answer me with a flustered face. “I just… that shit just happened so fast, that I…”

NoYoucan just shut your stupid—fucky-face, you…Gahh!Sweets was on the verge of breaking down as he kneeled. “It—it hasn’t even started for us! And it’s already game over!

“Haggard…” Sarge caught back Hags' attention as he looked on with a glare intense enough to set him on fire—it probably would’ve if he just had a hint of “magic” in him.

“Y—yes?”

“When we get back… your ass is getting promoted to civilian.”

“Yeah… seems fair, honestly–”

“Sweets?” Sarge moved on from Hags. “You think you can salvage any of Dr. Dumbass’s experiment here—preferably before ye-old five-O spot us?”

“You… still want me to… yeahfuck it, let’s just keep going with this piss-ass plan! He broke into a cynically fueled fit. “I’m just fuckin’ lovin’ it, you know? Ha-ha—where are those mortars, fuck!

“I got it

“–Oh no you don’t! Sweets grabbed Hags by his satchel and yoinked him away from the box. “Now stay there, Fido… Ok, let’s see here. Looking for Дым, Дым…” He shuffled the shells around like junk in a toolbox.

“Hey, here it… wait. Oh no.” He froze as he wrapped his hands around something buried in the box. “OhOH my. Fucking, SHIT-dicking, ASS-pricking—CHRIST STAPPLED TO A KITE—FUUUCK!

He fell to his knees as he poured his soul into the sky—yelling louder than he ever did before in pain or fear.

“Sweetwater!” Sarge called to him out of fearful concern.

WHO the FUCK stuffed a laser-rangefinder in a FUCKIN’ AMMO BOX!?he screamed.

Sarge and I slowly panned over to the culprit as Sweets was losing his bearings over a box of explosive ordinance and an advanced laser pointer. Hags had very little to say.

“Oh gee. Fellas, I have… not been on the top of my game today—and I am… just sorry.”


"Annnd if we follow these rails, it should be... about only—83 miles away, ish. Or three days by car if we let Hags drive," Sweets announced standing on the holo-table inside, measuring it out with a six-inch ruler in hand.

"Ah, shut your shit-hole of a face—I drive fine compared to your speedy-suburbanite ass.”

"Both of you clamp it and lemme think!" Sarge ordered. “So… we can make that trip in what, four hours? And we're good on gas?"

"Uh, totally—and we could probably do it in only a fifth of a tank too,” Sweets answered.

"Good, good… So, we just follow these… Sweets, are you sure these are train trac–"

"Oh, Sarge?" Hags jumped in, "What about—uh, gatherin' up ‘supplies’ and whatnot?"

"Jesus, Haggard—you seriously wanna loot Castel de Crumble too?” Sarge snapped back at him, “Blowin' up this fuckin’ place ain't bad enough for ya?"

"Hey—I thought we all agreed to put that behind me now…”

"Hard to do that when it just happened right above us,” I mumbled—just seconds before another tremor in the ceiling started up again.

"Well… I was not about to suggest this place, FYI,” Hags answered defensively. “Anywho, do y’all wanna eat? 'Cause I’m thinkin’ about gettin' some local grub."

"And what exactly do you have in mind for lunch out here?" Sarge asked.

"Heh... don't suppose there would be a bad place to start." He pointed over to a building on the map that looked like… a giant—cupcake.