Intermission: Tempest Shadow's On the Case!
The princesses were missing. And for once, it wasn’t because Tempest had kidnapped them or turned them to stone or whatever.
At least, Tempest was fairly certain that she hadn’t done that. She supposed it was always possible she was experiencing blackout due to her various mental traumas, but she didn’t think that was the case. Grubber would have said something.
“Grubber, you’d let me know if I was having blackouts and kidnapping people, right?” Tempest asked.
“I’unno. Probably not,” Grubber said. He was staring up at the ceiling of the shady motel room they had been staying in. He was lying back on the sofa, his quills digging into the cushions and no-doubt raising the price they’d have to pay when they finally checked out.
Tempest had only just gotten back to the hotel room. The scary-looking pony with the goatee had dropped her off just a few minutes ago. Tempest had no idea how that guy had known where to find her; she and Grubber were pretty far away from Equestria, after all. But somehow the unicorn had opened a portal into this motel in the middle of Diamond Dog territory in order to pick Tempest up. It was a mystery.
“This is serious, Grubber,” Tempest said seriously. “I need you to be serious.”
“’kay,” Grubber said.
“The princesses are missing,” Tempest said as she turned away from the mirror she’d been dramatically staring into. “We need to do everything possible to find them so we can make up for what we did under the Storm King.”
“I thought that was why we were out here,” Grubber said, “Y’know, solving friendship problems outside of Equestria to make up for how we used to be evil. That’s why we’re staying at this motel in the middle of Diamond Dog country.”
Tempest frowned. “Grubber, I already know all of that. Why did you feel the need to tell me why we’re here?”
Grubber sat up and shrugged. His quills had left very noticeable holes in the couch cushions. Tempest did not care about that. Couches had almost nothing to do with friendship.
After the incident with the Storm King, Tempest and Grubber had left Equestria in order to learn about friendship outside of its borders. Tempest didn’t know why they’d had to leave Equestria to do that, but she wasn’t complaining. After years serving the Storm King, she’d gotten used to life outside of Equestria, and it would be awkward to spend time around the ponies she’d helped enslave. All in all, this trip had been a good idea.
That didn’t mean Tempest had completely severed ties with her homeland, however. Tempest was still in contact with Twilight Sparkle, or at least had been until the princess had gone missing. Tempest had been sending Twilight status reports, friendship letters, and occasionally postcards with funny jokes on them.
Twilight was pretty much the first real friend Grubber had made in years, save possibly for Grubber. Tempest felt like she owed Twilight so much for her kindness. Unfortunately, most of Tempest’s skills revolved around combat, military tactics, and covert assassinations. Twilight usually didn’t need any of those things.
… Usually.
“We need to start making our way back to Equestria,” Tempest resolved. “If there’s anyone who knows the thought process of someone who kidnaps princesses, it’s us: the people who kidnapped a princess.”
“How’re we supposed to even get to Equestria?” Grubber asked as he hopped off of the couch. “It’d take half a day to get there on an airship, and we don’t even have one!”
Tempest was already aware of that. Why was Grubber telling her things she already knew so much today?
“We’ll have to commandeer an airship,” Tempest said. “The local Diamond Dogs must have someone with a ship, right?”
Grubber scoffed.
“Tempest, I dunno if you noticed all of the tunnels all over the place, but the Diamond Dogs mostly travel underground. Why would they have airships?”
Tempest shook her head. “I refuse to believe they don’t have any airships. They’re dogs. Dogs love sticking their heads out of vehicles. We just need to find the one who likes sticking their head out of an airship.”
This was flawless logic. Reasoning like that was why Tempest Shadow had risen so quickly in the Storm King’s army.
Tempest tossed a small bag at Grubber, who caught it in his chubby little paws. The bag was filled with the tiny gem fragments that the Diamond Dogs used for money. For some reason, the Diamond Dogs called this currency ‘crunchos’.
“You check us out of here,” Tempest ordered. “I’m going to find transportation back to Equestria. Then we’ll work together to try and find Princess Twilight Sparkle.”
“… And the other ones,” Grubber pointed out.
“Yeah, sure, them too,” Tempest said quickly. “Look, just pay the front desk, Grubber. And whatever you do, don’t use all of our money to buy several dozen churros again. I doubt that any airship pilot we find will let us use their ship for free, even if we ask very nicely.”
Tempest began gathering her supplies without waiting for a response from Grubber. She put on her saddle-bags and made her way to their hotel room’s door. The door was made of rocks. Everything was made of rocks. The Diamond Dogs were big on all kinds of rocks.
“Come find me when you’re done,” Tempest said as she looked over her shoulder at Grubber. “And remember… don’t waste all of our money on churros.”
Tempest opened the stone door and stepped out onto the stone street. The stone was made of rocks.
It didn’t take long for Tempest Shadow to find a Diamond Dog with an airship. The Diamond Dogs didn’t have many above-ground buildings. Out of the few they did have, only one was big enough to hold an airship, so it was easy enough to spot. That building was on the other side of town, and marked by a large sign that read ‘HAIRSHOP’.
When Tempest arrived at her destination, she spent a lot of time staring at that sign. Evidently, whoever owned the building had tried to write ‘airship’ and failed catastrophically. The word they’d wound up writing was deeply unsettling for reasons Tempest couldn’t adequately describe.
Once Tempest had overcome the vague horror that the sign had instilled in her, she opened the large stone doors and walked into the stone barn. Inside of the dimly-lit barn was an airship, floating at a pony’s height above the ground.
“… Hello?” Tempest called out into the seemingly-empty barn. “I… need to book passage to Equestria.”
The barn was silent save for the sound of Tempest’s own voice echoing off of the stone walls. Tempest, who had run away from her home as a child and thus never finished her education, wasn’t entirely certain how echoes worked. She did know, however, that the owner of this barn evidently wasn’t home.
Tempest waited another minute for some kind of reply, but the barn remained as quiet as a dead bird. In that silence, Tempest found herself staring at the airship in the middle of the big, empty room.
“It’s an emergency…” Tempest muttered. “I’m sure the owner wouldn’t mind if I… just borrowed their airship.”
Because Tempest was talking to herself, she instantly agreed with her own idea. She trotted slowly towards the airship, as if afraid that a loud noise might somehow spook it. All Tempest needed to do was unmoor the ship and figure out how to actually get it out of this huge barn. Then she just needed to find Grubber, who had probably wasted all of their money on churros by now.
Just as this plan was taking form inside of Tempest’s cool-looking head, however, it was instantly foiled.
“You stop!” A gruff, coarse voice barked out.
Tempest froze and looked around for where the voice could have come from. At first, she didn’t see anyone. Soon, though, Tempest saw that there was someone in the room with her.
Directly beneath the airship, a Diamond Dog’s head was poking out of a small hole in the ground. In the dark, Tempest had mistaken the head for a rock or something. Now that she was closer, however, she could clearly see that it was the head of a light-yellow Diamond Dog.
“I’m… Sorry?” Tempest said as she tried to figure out why the Diamond Dog was keeping everything below their chin underground. “Are you the owner of this airship? I need to travel to Equestria.”
“Airship is mine!” The dog snapped. “Not pony’s! I make funny delivery to pony-land! Pony not come!”
Tempest frowned. “I… only understood some of that. Did you say you’re making a delivery?”
The Diamond Dog nodded, or maybe it didn’t. It was hard to tell with just its head sticking out of the ground.
“I go pony-land!” The dog said. “Only me go! Take funny to pony! I—”
The Diamond Dog abruptly began coughing violently. Tempest watched with some concern, shocked a bit by the sudden outburst of noise. Just as Tempest was wondering if it would be morally acceptable to take the Dog’s airship if he died, the Diamond Dog hacked up what looked like several small pebbles.
“Ahem.” The Diamond Dog cleared his throat and sniffed. “Sorry about that; must’ve swallowed some dirt while I was digging. Anyway, what was I saying?”
Tempest stared at the Diamond Dog for a few seconds, more than a little confused by his sudden coherence.
“I’m honestly not sure,” she said. “Something about not taking me to—”
The Diamond Dog nodded again.
“Right, right,” he said. “I can’t take you to Equestria. I mean, this isn’t some fantastic voyage or brilliant adventure; it’s just a delivery. If my bosses found out I was giving rides to random ponies, it’s gonna be me who gets in trouble. I’d need to find a new career in a new town. They’re dead against it.”
“Please,” Tempest pleaded. “This is an emergency. A friend of mine has gone missing.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s not my call,” the Dog apologized. “My big brother is the boss of me. If I took you to Equestria, he’d get real mad, and that’s nothing to be desired. And I’m not telling lies; I have to go without you.”
Tempest had to fight back the impulse to try and blast the Diamond Dog with her explosive magic. Even though it had been some time since she left the Storm King’s army, the way she’d done things back then hadn’t quite left her yet. Tempest knew she couldn’t just blow up and threaten her way to get the results she wanted.
Well, she could, but it would be rude.
Tempest Shadow reached her hooves out and gently grabbed the sides of the Diamond Dog’s head. Instead of snapping his neck, which would have been easy and very cool, Tempest instead lifted the Dog’s head to force him to look into her eyes.
“Listen to me… very closely,” Tempest whispered, sounding a good deal more threatening than she intended. “Trouble for Equestria means trouble for everyone. The sun and the moon have been completely messed up. My friend and I want to help solve this problem before everything goes wrong. Do you understand?”
The Diamond Dog’s face was squished between Tempest’s hooves, so it was hard to read his expression. Tempest hoped he was thinking about what she’d just said and not freaking out about being squished by a small horse.
“Okay,” the Dog said. “I’ll take you there.”
Tempest let go of the Diamond Dog’s fuzzy cheeks and let loose a sigh of relief. For a moment, she’d been worried she would have had to steal the Dog’s airship and abduct him so he couldn’t report her to the authorities. That would have been morally questionable, even if it would have been super easy.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Don’t thank me; I’ll probably get fired,” the Dog said. “Let me just pull myself out of this hole in the ground.”
A pair of gangly paws burst out of the dirt in front of the Diamond Dog as he pulled himself out of the ground. He was much taller and skinnier than Tempest had expected. His height just made the fact that he’d been buried up to his neck much more confusing. How deep had he been?
“My name is Tempest, by the way,” Tempest said as the Diamond Dog dusted himself off. She wasn’t really comfortable telling a stranger her old name, especially a stranger who just stood around with most of his body hidden underground.
“I’m Ziggy,” the Diamond Dog said. “I’d shake your hoof, but I’m unwashed and somewhat slightly dazed.”
“That’s okay, my friend is the same way,” Tempest said. Nevertheless, she was fine with passing on a hoof-shake. “Speaking of which, he should hopefully be here soon.”
As if on cue, a shadow stepped into the open doorway of the barn. It was Grubber, carrying something at his side as he trod into the dimly lit room. The hedgehog’s gaze was quickly drawn to the airship in the middle of the barn. He looked impressed, and gave the ship an appreciative nod.
While Grubber was doing that, though, Tempest was looking at the object he was carrying under one arm. It was a paper bag filled with several dozen churros. Grubber had wasted all of their crunchos on fried dough again. Tempest was in no way surprised.
“Grubber,” Tempest said with restrained frustration. “I specifically told you not to buy several dozen churros.”
“Uh-huh.” Grubber barely paid Tempest any mind as he reached into the bag, pulled out a churro, and then shoved that stick of fried dough into his mouth.
Tempest sighed and turned back to face Ziggy the Diamond Dog, who looked like he didn’t care at all about churros.
“I… was going to pay you,” Tempest said slowly. “But it looks like my friend spent all of our money.”
“Yeah, it looks like he bought several dozen churros,” Ziggy said. “But don’t worry about it. Like I said, I’m not supposed to be doing this anyway; if I accepted payment for it, I’d probably get into even worse trouble. I’d be a dead man walking.”
Tempest blinked.
“Er… don’t you mean a dead ‘dog’ walking?” She asked. She wasn’t even sure what a ‘man’ was.
“No.” Ziggy smiled. “Anyway, I’m not leaving right away. It’s gonna be an Equestrian Night Flight. I hope you don’t mind killing a little time until this evening. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to figure out how to get the ship out of this barn.”
Ziggy, the Diamond Dog who enjoyed being buried up to his neck, got down on all fours and ran towards the airship’s gangplank. He ascended up onto the ship’s deck, leaving Tempest and Grubber standing beneath the floating vessel.
“Is it me, or is there something weird about the way that guy talks?” Grubber asked, his mouth full of delicious fried dough. He was really going to town on those long boys. It made sense, of course. Aside from loving treasure and being dogs, the Diamond Dogs were famous for the quality of their churros.
But no amount of tasty street vendor food could make Tempest excuse what Grubber had done. She turned back towards her friend and gave him a look that she hoped made it clear just how let-down she was by his irresponsibility. Judging by the way he kept eating churros, though, Grubber wasn’t getting the message.
“Please tell me you at least used some of our money to check out of the hotel,” Tempest whispered.
Grubber stopped in the middle of hoisting another churro into his awful maw and blinked.
“Uh… I think I did?” He frowned. “To be honest, I’m still not used to, y’know, paying for things. Back when we worked for the Storm King, we used to be able to just take whatever we wanted. I keep thinking we can still do that.”
Tempest stopped herself from snapping at Grubber. She took a deep breath and did her very best to calm down. She and Grubber had been trying to leave their past behind them for over a year now, but Grubber still just didn’t have a solid grasp on the whole ‘good person’ thing. He was trying, Tempest knew that; but he kept doing things like this.
“Okay,” Tempest sighed. “This is another town we can never come back to, Grubber. Add it to the list later.”
Grubber scoffed. “Whatever. You could’ve payed the bill yourself if you weren’t in such a rush to impress Twilight Sparkle.”
Tempest Shadow’s ears stood upright in shock. Her eyes widened. Sparks of magic burst out of her broken horn and sizzled in the air. Her tail also somehow displayed signs of agitation.
“I am not trying to impress Twilight Sparkle,” Tempest hissed. “I am trying to save all of Equestria!”
“Right, right,” Grubber said as he fished another churro out of his bag. “You’re trying to save Equestria so you can impress Twilight Sparkle.”
Tempest sputtered in outrage.
“Why would I care about impressing Twilight Sparkle?!” She asked. “I don’t need to impress anyone!”
Grubber tossed an entire churro into his mouth and swallowed it whole. That was how eating worked.
“Look, I’m no shrink,” Grubber said. “But if you ask me, you have severe unresolved abandonment issues due to your friends casting you out as a child, coupled with being betrayed by the Storm King after spending years being nothing but loyal to him. You believe that by proving yourself useful to the people you associate with, you won’t be abandoned again, and thus won’t have to experience that pain again.”
Grubber scratched himself and then took a bite out of another churro.
“Or maybe you just have a crush on her,” he said. “I dunno.”
Tempest stammered, completely unsure of how to defend herself. She knew Grubber wasn’t right. He couldn’t have been right. Tempest just wanted to save Equestria. She didn’t care about impressing Twilight Sparkle. Tempest just wanted to save her, and also those other princesses. This had nothing to do with Tempest needing validation in some way.
After a few seconds, Tempest came up with the perfect response to counter Grubber’s claims.
“… Grubber, you’re grounded.”
Grubber was so shocked that he nearly dropped his several dozen churros onto the dirty dirt floor of the barn. Tempest knew that wouldn’t have stopped him from eating them.
“You can’t ground me!” Grubber pointed a churro at Tempest accusingly. “We’re about to go on an airship! I can’t go into the air if I’m grounded!”
“You’re double-grounded for making such an awful joke,” Tempest said confidently.
Grubber tried to protest, but it was clear he knew he’d been defeated. He hung his head in shame and sadly began eating another churro. For the time being, it looked like he hadn’t realized that Tempest really had no authority to ground him.
Tempest was fine with that.
It was night outside by the time Ziggy finally managed to somehow get the airship out of the barn. The ponies in Equestria had evidently gotten the whole ‘sun and moon’ thing sorted out. That was pretty cool, but it wasn’t really what Tempest was concerned with at the moment.
The wait to board the airship had passed without incident. Grubber had finished eating his several dozen churros, and Tempest had successfully put his little psychoanalysis behind her. She was standing on the deck of the ship, looking out over the railing as they rose into the air.
Ziggy’s airship wasn’t terribly fast. It was a bit of a clunker, honestly—much less sophisticated than the airships that had been used in the Storm King’s territories. It took the ship several minutes to rise up above the clouds that floated over the Diamond Dog settlement below them. This was possibly because of the heavy cargo Ziggy had loaded onboard weighing the ship down, but was most-likely caused by how garbage the airship was.
“How long is it going to take us to reach Equestria?” Tempest asked once Ziggy had returned from setting the airship’s course.
“Five years,” Ziggy said. “Nah, just kidding; we’ll reach Equestria by the next day. My first stop is Seaweedattle, and that’s right on the edge of Equestria. Time will crawl until then, though, so hang on to yourself.”
Tempest frowned. There was really a town called Seaweedattle? What kind of name was that? Tempest was glad she didn’t live in Equestria anymore.
“Thank you again for all of this,” Tempest said, allowing herself to sound just a bit relieved. “I know you might get in trouble for all of this, but…”
“Hey, I told you not to thank me.” Ziggy waved a paw dismissively. “I mean, it’s not like I’m afraid of Equestrians. And it’s not like this will be a difficult journey… Not unless we run into scary monsters and super freaks.”
Tempest stared at Ziggy in confusion. “I… suppose those would cause complications, yes.”
Ziggy nodded. “Okay, well, I’ve gotta get back to the wheel. I might need to raise the red sails if we need the wind’s help. Then we’ll travel at the speed of life. Fall dog bombs the moon.”
With that, Ziggy turned and headed back below deck. He left a very confused Tempest behind.
“Grubber was right; this guy is weird,” Tempest muttered to herself.
“Tell me about it,” Grubber said.
Tempest jumped a bit when she heard Grubber’s voice from beside her. She hadn’t noticed the little hedgehog approach her. Tempest didn’t know how she hadn’t noticed, considering that Grubber had all the stealth of a neon-colored wrecking ball. Nevertheless, though, she hadn’t.
The churros were all gone. Grubber was just standing beside Tempest with his arms folded over his chest. Neither of them spoke. The only noise was the sound of the airship’s propellers spinning, and the screams of the birds that kept flying into those same propellers. The clouds didn’t make any noises.
“I’m… sorry for snapping at you,” Tempest said finally.
“It’s fine,” Grubber said. He shrugged. “I’m sorry I spent all of our crunchos.”
“I still don’t know why they call their money that,” Tempest muttered.
With a sigh, Tempest leaned over the railing and looked at the clouds passing by below. Maybe Grubber was right when he’d said that all of this was because she needed to feel like she was useful to the pony who had saved her. Maybe Tempest really was embarking on this quest for the wrong reasons. But if she could help, did it really matter?
Tempest didn’t know, and she was too tired to really think about it. All that mattered was getting to Equestria and seeing what could be done. Regardless of how she felt, the princesses still needed to be found. That was all there was to it. And no matter what complications came their way, Tempest decided that she wouldn’t give up.
It was a good thing she made that decision, too, because the airship would wind up crashing as soon as they reached Equestria.
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If it wasn't for fanfic I'm pretty sure no one would remember Diamond Dogs existed.
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Not true. It was one of Bowie's most well-known albums.
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[slide whistle]