Conduit in Equestria: Wire-fray

by Wind Scribe

First published 7th of November, 2016

Samuel Reed; Human, Conduit, and currently a resident in the country of Equestria. Why is he here? Where did he come from? And why do authors need to put such obligatory questions like these in a description?

Conduits. They are beings of immense power and feared by the ‘normal’ people of the world. It wasn’t until seven years later after the inception of the D.U.P. (Department of Unified Protection) that select conduits were to be transferred from Curdan Cay Station and subsequently escape. In the time following, in the city of Memphis, Tennessee, a small group of conduits were making a name for themselves by raising hell against their captors and slowing winning the people over to their cause.

Samuel Reed, a wire conduit and one of the four escapees in Memphis is like many of the conduits from Curdan Cay. Strong, fast, witty, and clever enough to hold his own. It wasn’t until one day that he’ll learn that there are just as many different worlds as there are types of conduits. Although he definitely would not expect to end up in a world full of multi-colored, candy-coated horses. And that he would be instrumental in this new world’s safety.

MLP FiM/Infamous Second Son (OC) crossover

Special thanks to Regreme for proofreading and editing.

This story is really based off another set from FanFiction that I worked on, and currently rewriting so it doesn’t read like shit in a manure farm. Though this one only follows one of the characters seeing as he is the only one pulled into the MLP universe.

20181018 EDIT: inFamous: The Four Aces, my original work where Sam and the rest of the Tennesse gang mentioned come from. Give it a read if you'd like. As of this edit, it's still being written.

Chapter 1: Prologue

“How’s it looking from up there?”

The radio called out in a familiar voice to the lone conduit on the roof . The conduit looked over the roof’s edge. Down below, an overpass was devoid of the usual hustle and bustle of commuters at this hour. Though that was to be expected with it being closed off to the public that day. The DUP really didn’t want their interference this time around. Not to say that they wouldn’t be getting any.

The conduit known as Samuel Reed, a wire conduit, picked up the radio to reply, “Nothing yet. You sure that you didn’t get the times mixed up?”

The last remark was merely a joke. He and the rest of the ‘Four Aces’, as they were known in the city of Memphis, had gone over their info at least three times before they set up their plan. That didn’t stop the other person on the radio to chime back in.

“You trying to say something, bitch?”


‘Eloquent as always, Lu,’ Samuel smiled, “Yeah, that there is a difference between a two and a three in case you forgot.”

“Both of you shut up!” another voice cut in, “I swear, if either of you miss your cue. I will electrocute you both into a coma!”

Samuel would never doubt the threat, as he liked not being hit by a couple gigawatts of electricity every other day.

“Nataline, please.” the final voice of their group spoke up over the radio, “We’re just a little anxious about this. I mean, this is the first time that we’ve tried something like this.”

A sigh from Nataline came over the radio, “I know, but we can’t afford to mess this up. Conduit or not, those are innocent lives We’re attempting to rescue.”

Isabelle, always the voice of reason. Samuel was sure that their little group wouldn’t have survived as long as it had together without her. Or their powerhouse, Nataline. They could certainly due without a certain rocks-for-brains loudmouth, but even he had his uses. This ambush/rescue plan had to go off without a hitch if they were to show the DUP what ‘bio-terrorists’ were made of.

Samuel’s thoughts were interrupted by the radio crackling back on to life, “I think I see something.”

Samuel knew that everyone else had to have heard Isabelle’s call, and like him, were getting ready for the strike.

“I have them coming down the overpass, four, no five vehicles.” Isabelle continued, “They should be coming around to you all here now.”

From Samuel’s spot, he watched the corner where Isabelle’s watch point was blocked by an apartment building. Seconds ticked by, and then he saw them. Just like they anticipated, the DUP convoy came around the bend at a relaxed pace. When all the vehicles came into view, Samuel counted three APC’s, two in the front and one bringing up the rear, and two heavy transports in the middle.

Samuel raised the radio in his hand up to speak, “I’ve got them; my guess, at least a dozen on guard.”

“No shit sherlock. Wanna tell us what the color the sky is next?”

“Shut up, Lu,” Samuel hissed in reply.

Nataline cut in again, “One more word, and both of you are getting fried! Now get ready, they’re about to hit the marker.”

The ‘marker’ was a DUP billboard that hung just above the overpass section the conduits planned for their ambush. Lu, had also placed a big ol’ target on the back of it with some red spray paint he found lying around. With everything else ready, and the convoy just about in place. Samuel listened to the countdown Nataline was giving over the radio.

“3...2...1...NOW!”

The DUP billboard gave an audible groan before collapsing into the overpass below. Shards of concrete embedded in the back where the target was. The convoy screeched to a halt in front of the impromptu blockade. Shouts of orders to turn around were cut off as an impressive wall of fire erupted behind the convoy, effectively sealing off any retreat. Now is when the real conflict began. Lu, being brash as ever jumped first. The leap he made from the top of the building he shot the billboard off of down to the overpass would have killed any other man. Though to a conduit, it was akin to stepping down the last step to a staircase.

He shot off a blast of concrete into the first APC at the front just as the DUP troops were getting out. Two of them were knocked off their feet and one unlucky soul actually got blasted over the side of the overpass guardrail. The ones that were only staggered rejoined their comrades that dispatched from the second APC at the front of the convoy, trying to overwhelm the concrete conduit with sheer numbers. Their plan failed as Nataline joined the fray by slamming into the center of their ranks from above with a shockwave of electrical energy. Together they kept the aggressors pinned to the cover of their vehicles armor plating and the barriers they erected from the ground. And now, it was Samuel’s turn to get in on the action.

He leapt from the building he was perched on. The air whipping past his body for a few seconds before he skillfully rolled out against the ground and got back to his feet to engage. His right arm tensed and he felt the familiar tingle of his power manifesting as a coil of wire sprouted out from his wrist. The first trooper he encountered didn’t have enough time to react as Samuel used the tendril of wire like a whip. The lashing sent the trooper sprawling. Unfortunately, the element of surprise would only work once and Samuel dove for cover as three more troopers zeroed in on him. The air was rife with gunfire, crackling electricity, and pelting concrete shards.

“Another contact!” one of the DUP goons cried out, momentarily drawing Samuel’s suppression away from him.

He heard a few screams and a ‘fwoosh’ of fire signalling their final member, Isabelle, was now in the fight. Samuel ducked away from his cover behind one of the transports to assist her. Two of the DUP troopers were subjected to a combination of fiery blasts and wire lashings. A few of the bullets from the DUP struck home in the two conduits. The pain was more than bearable and their increased regenerative abilities made it easy to recover from in a matter of seconds.

Up front, Lu and Nataline’s opponents were thinning. The DUP troopers may have been endowed with a few conduit abilities, but they were nothing compared to prime conduits.

“Sam,” Nataline shouted out, “Get to the transports!”

Sure the plan wasn’t to take on every DUP trooper they came across, but you can’t blame a guy for getting into the spirit of things. Alas, there was a plan and Samuel finished subduing the last trooper he defeated with some wire shackles. The rest of the conduits were handling the DUP forces so Samuel hurried over to the first transport. The back door was secured with a heavy plating that would make bank vaults jealous. Not that that would stop the wire conduit and proceeded to snake a few wires into the crevices of the door’s seam and around the internal locks. The mighty door groaned under Samuel’s exertion, but eventually the internal pins gave way and the door swung open. Inside a teenage girl, no older than 13 by the looks of her shied away from the entrance and the commotion outside. She wore a purple, spaghetti-strap tank top with a black skirt and off-white leggings. She had a pair of ugg boots with eggshell colored puff tassels.

Samuel reached out only to have the girl shy away even more.

“Hey,” he tried again, more gently, “I’m here to get you out of here.”

The girl looked skeptically to her would be savior. Slowly, but surely, she too reached out her hand. Samuel gave the most disarming smile he could to further encourage the girl.

“Halt, bio-terrorist!”

The intrusive order came from behind them at the transport’s exit. The DUP trooper already had his weapon raised and ready to fire. Samuel wasn’t about to let himself or the other conduit be captured so easily and lashed out. Though unlike his witless brethren. This trooper was ready and dodged the tendril with a backstep. Having unexpected this, Samuel left himself wide open. The trooper took hold of his advantage, blasting the conduit with a wave of concrete and dazing him.

The DUP trooper smirked from behind his covered face shield. He could almost taste that capture bonus. All he had to do was bind the two conduits for transport. His plan was cut short though as the frightened girl screamed and stretched her arms out in panic. Reflective shards wove their way from her palm. Caught off-guard by the surprise attack, the pawn was blasted away by the shards and into what appeared to be a mirror. Samuel, having recovered, watched as the trooper was thrown through the mirror behind him, but instead of shattering, the trooper disappeared into the reflection all the while screaming.

Samuel couldn’t believe his eyes. One minute, the trooper was there, the next, he pulls a houdini. The mirror soon cracks then shatters. The shards lazily float back to the little girl he was protecting. As the last of the shards are absorbed, the girl begins to sniffle with a few tears.

“Hey there,” Samuel tries to comfort the girl, “It’s going to be okay. He’s gone now. Gotta ask though, what happened back there?”

The girl shook her head as if to ward off a bad dream and buried her face in her hands. She could only mutter under her breath, to which the other conduit could only catch a few words.

“...th-the mirrors…take them away...it’s my fault”

Samuel could already see where this was going, feeling sorry that the young conduit had to be put through something like this. With a little more empathy in his voice, he spoke to the scared, little girl.

“Hey, there’s nothing to fear,” just as a large explosion rocked the transport, “ignore all that outside, just tell me your name, please?”

The girl finally looked up from behind her hands. A few errant tears dotting the corners of her eyes, “Jessica.”

“Well, Jessica. Me and my friends are here to rescue you from the DUP’s. Does that sound okay?”

Samuel could see a small glimmer of hope return to the younger conduit’s face. He smiled back with as much reassurance as he could which seemed to work in his favor. With an arm outstretched in support, the girl took Samuel’s hand and ducked out of the transport. Outside Samuel’s friends were huddled behind a concrete barrier facing away from the first transport.

Lu spotted the two first and gritted his teeth, “Geez, wanna take all day?!”

“I don’t see you doing anything important out here, besides hiding behind a wall,” Samuel retorted.

As always, Nataline was the one to cut them off, “Will you two shut it! Sam, was that all who was in the transport?”

Samuel looked behind him where Jessica was taking refuse. Sure enough, there was no one else on the transport which he affirmed with a nod.

“The other conduits must be in the other transport then,” Nataline mostly talked to herself, but Samuel caught that hint of surprise in her tone, “get to the other transport. There’s a few DUP’s out there, but they’re keeping their distance. Most likely waiting for back-up.”

Samuel nodded again and sidled along Lu’s concrete barrier to the other transport just on the other side of the highway. With Jessica right behind him, which he didn’t seem to mind, Samuel moved up to the rear door of the other transport.

“Stay back, Jessica,” He motioned to the younger conduit beside him.

Just like before, he snaked a few wires between the transports locks and pulled with all his might. Also like before, the door heaved with a resounding groan of resistance until it finally gave way. Though unlike the last time, Samuel’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of the interior. Time slowed to a crawl as he took in what was inside. A container the size of a car engine sat menacingly in the center of the transport. Color coded wires snaked along the outside of the whole contraption along with several hazard placards. Though what caught his attention the most was the large LED timer facing him with a display that instilled only more panic in him. Six whole seconds was all he got as a warning as to the true nature of this DUP detainee transport.

“IT’S A TRAP!”

He couldn’t see how his friends reacted to the outburst as he had another issue to focus on.There wasn’t enough time to move, especially with the younger conduit just behind him, so he did the only other thing he could think of. Wires shot out from his hands, criss-crossing over one another in an attempt to become a woven shield. He worked as fast as he could, but the timer was already at the two second mark.

Scratch that, one second.

There was no more time, so he braced. Then, there was an explosion. One that was louder than anything Samuel had ever heard or felt before. The shockwave that hit was more than enough to rattle him to the bone. Then there was pain; searing pain in many different parts of his body. In his nearly blinded state, he could swear he could feel his body no longer firmly planted on the ground where it belonged and simultaneously crashing through what sounded like a sheet of glass behind him. A sense of vertigo took hold and no matter how far back he was thrown, there was no solid ground he expected to hit on the way back. It was like he was perpetually falling. He tried to scream, but even then he could not hear the sound of his own voice. Just the agonizing ringing in his ears as he prayed for it to stop.

Then another crash of glass before he hit the ground and passed out.

Beyond the Mirror's Image

Author's Notes:

Thank you, Regreme, for proofreading

Princess Celestia had the uncontrollable urge to yawn and stretch her cramped limbs. As much as she enjoyed helping her little ponies, holding day court could be more than a little tiring... especially when she had more than the average amount of patrons. Luckily,it was also the end of the day and only one last patron left to see.

Though on this particular session, a prominent, if a bit boisterous, home appliance manufacture executive was trying to garner her support in settling a disagreement in his and his rival company’s merger policy. If she had to draw an apt comparison to this, it was like one child going to his mother behind his brother’s back to ask for a bigger slice of pie after dinner. Celestia tried her best to teach her little ponies the honorable values of harmony, but there was always the temptation for things such as greed and violence that were and will be a part of the balance. The earth pony stallion, Lined Pockets was his name, finished his presentation and awaited with bated breath as to his ruler’s response.

“Your position in this merger sounds like it will be quite lucrative in itself, Mr. Pockets,” Celestia finally opened.

Lined Pockets hid his disappointment in not receiving the response he was looking for and went on, “Well, yes, but you see, your majesty... if the agreement is settled here, my company will be unable to expand into the eastern coast. I would dare say that the citizens of Fillydelphia and Baltimare would lose the opportunity to have another avenue of market from their western brothers.”

“Of course,” Celestia played to the stallion’s game, “but then, wouldn’t the export to the eastern coast come at a greater cost than to reside in the western market?”

“Not at all your highness. You see, with your approval, my company would have a greater reach through my partner’s networks to reach the eastern market with mitigated costs to export,” the stallion stated proudly.

Celestia hummed to herself in her musing, “How would you establish these exports? As I see it, neither of your companies have a localization outpost for the eastern market.”

“Well...” Lined cleared his throat, “...again, with your approval, some of my partner’s older warehouses would be dedicated to that purpose, along with new programs that could effectively look into other expansions into other kingdoms.”

“I see, but what of your partner’s workforce? Wouldn’t they need to be trained in this venture to be successful?”

Lined Pockets chuckled a bit, “Oh no, not at all. I already have the employees that can replace those to expedite the process.”

This is what the princess was looking for, “Alright then, but one last question. Would those in the warehouses be compensated for their relocations?”

At this, the stallion started to falter a bit, “Ehh... well, you see, your majesty, due to the proposition, it would be too much of an investment to keep those ponies and find new work for them at the same time, so they would have to be let go.”

There was a moment of silence as the stallion readjusted the tie on his business coat with one hoof. At the same time, Celestia pretended to ponder on the stallion’s words. In her mind, she already had a decision. She would first decline the offer and send the pony off. Then, she would send a representative from her trade and commerce department to handle any fallout from what was surely to come from the denial between the two companies. Finally, she would close court and make her way to the palace kitchen for some afternoon tea and a big ol’ slice of triple decker chocolate and strawberry swirl… cake?

Her last thought was interrupted by what she and her various guards and subject felt like a surge of foreign energy shifting throughout the room. Trying to pinpoint it proved difficult, as everyone in the majestic throne room felt the energy swirl all around the massive chamber. That is, until it started to condense into a singular point, almost directly in the center of the room. The one pony that was closest to it, which coincidentally was Lined Pockets, asked the most logical question in this situation with the most reasonable amount of composure he could muster.

“What the hay is going on?!”

To which his question was answered with unsure stares and nervous glances. It was at this point that the condensing field of energy began to take form. Tinkling shards of what looked like glass materialized from the ether. All of which slowly came together to form a larger piece. As the object grew larger, the ponies watched as jets of lights spouted from the mass’ center. An unseen wind picked up and drew more energy to the mass. The entire chamber was filled with a low rumble as the object took on its final form that no one expected to see. A mirror, or what they could only guess was a mirror, as anyone who looked into it could only see their reflection. Although it was a bit disorienting, as the reflection would warp into amorphous shapes. The guards soon became uneasy and tensed at the possible danger. Celestia was both curious and worried for what secrets this mirror held. All the while, Lined Pockets was easing his way toward the exit.

The mirror suddenly shook in its suspended state. A low rumbling sound could be heard emitting from its frame. Another sound was also present in the undertone, almost like a voice. A voice that was yelling, no, screaming if just faintly, though the noise did not stop and continued to get louder. The mirror began to spasm, and cracks began to appear all along its surface. The rumbling soon escalated into a roar and drowned out whatever the voice the ponies heard from the mirror was screaming. Now, even Celestia was becoming uneasy. Never in her life, which was an astonishing feat, had she seen something like this. More cracks lined the mirror as a strange light started to emit from its surface. The guards took more aggressive stances to retaliate against whatever would happen next.

And as if on cue, the tension, along with the mirror, reached their breaking points. A audible shockwave that could be felt in one's bones echoed across the chamber. The mirror shattered and sprayed pieces of itself out in the direction it was facing, along with something else that was eclipsed in the light. While pieces of the mirror shattered, the other mass shot out across the room. Skipping once across the ground before smacking into one of the throne room’s marble columns. What the ponies did not also expect was to hear an audible cry of pain from the mass that hit the column. After the initial shock and mandatory check of everyone present for injuries, the guards delegated tasks amongst themselves to assess the area, starting with the vaguely body shaped mass against the marble column.

“What is it?” one of the guards finally asked as a crude semi-circle surrounded the body.

Two of the guards charged with defending the princess fought earnestly with advising her majesty to stay behind them, though Celestia was more than curious to see what had appeared in her throne room herself.

The semi-circle of guards pondered on what the body really was, because even though it looked much like a diamond dog or minotaur at first glance, there were some stark contrasts. It had no horns on its head, nor full body of fur, aside from the tuft at the top of its head. It’s hind legs looked misshapen or even broken. Though more striking and more concerning was the state that the body was in. From the spot that the being skipped along the ground, there was a trail of streaking blood leading to the body and the impact point on the column. There appeared to be multiple cuts, gashes and burn marks all along the being and its strange apparel from what they saw. One would even think that with that many injuries that it would be a safe bet to assume the being dead. Though as one guard was about to check for any signs of life, the body moved.

The entire semi-circle fell back into defensive positions as the being made to upright itself sluggishly. The pained expressions it was making showing that every move it made was with considerable effort. The guards could only watch, stupefied as the being rose on shaky limbs and using the bloodied column for support. The thing blearily looked around, as if to find out where it was. Seeing as it wasn’t doing much else besides standing there and breathing raggedly, the senior most guard stepped forward to attempt communication with the foreign creature.

With a commanding tone the pegasus, Captain Aegis Flare, demanded, “You, um, creature. If you can hear me, identity yourself.”

At hearing the guard’s voice, the creature turned to face him and the rest of the encircling guards. Seeing that the creature was just staring at them with an unfocused gaze, the guard tried another approach.

“Excuse me, but do you need help?”

His question was punctuated with a step forward. At this, the creature finally reacted and tensed up at the guard’s approach. The creature also took another look at his surroundings and although looking confused, focused on the weapon wielding guardsponies. Its face contorted into a bit of a scowl and tensed up further. Bringing its arm not used to steady itself against the column up into a defensive posture.

“F-fuck off, dupes.”

Of all the responses the guards anticipated, a swear directed at them was not one of them. Both parties stared at each other for the longest time before Aegis Flare regained his composure.

“Right, Corporal Steadfast, Private Mortar. Detain this creature.” Aegis Flare commanded as the aforementioned guards nodded in understanding.

Not exactly the best route he wished to take with this unknown being, seeing how injured it was, but it would be easier to detain it and bring it to the infirmary than to slowly coax it out to them. Although he would soon see the error in this order as the next set of events not only startled him, but the entire throne room as well. Before the two subordinates could lay a hoof on the creature, the being pushed off from the column and charged the two guards. Not only that, but it also appeared to shunt what looked like wires from the wrists of its arms. With swifter movements than what the guards thought possible by the injured creature, it used the wire like appendages to both grapple and throw the two advancing guards back and over the encroaching semi-circle with significant force.

No one moved forward as they watched the two hapless guards crash behind them harshly to the ground. Years of training and experience let the rest of the guards recover swiftly and draw their weapons in the direction of the heaving creature on the ground. Although the creature before them seemed weakened, Aegis Flare was not about to underestimate it again.

“Emerald, Signal, keep the princess away,” Aegis Flare directed the two guards closest to the princess before returning his focus to the rest of the guards encircling the creature, “Everypony else, hold position! Battlemages, to me and prepare sedation spells!”

Each guard moved to their roles, all while a quartet of silver armor clad, gray coated unicorns moved forward with their horns already alight with arcane energy. The creature on the other hoof was struggling to its hind legs again, furrowing its brow in determination. Aegis Flare waited until he saw all the other guards signal their ready.

“Creature, you have one chance to surrender, or we will use force!”

He had hoped that the intimidation of the encroaching encirclement would at least give the creature a moment of pause. That was not the case as it took a shaky step forward. The determination unwavering in its gaze. Aegis Flare silently signalled the four battlemages to let loose their volley of spells. Unsurprisingly, the slow target made the spells unmissable. What did surprise him and the rest of the guards for no less than third time that day was that the creature merely staggered a half step back in what they could only witness as it shrugging off four battlemage level spells. The little reprieve of stunned gawking was all the creature needed to regain its footing and roaring at the top of its lungs.

“You are not taking me back to CURDAN CAY!”

“It’s magic resistant! I can’t get ahold of it!” one of the battlemage cried out.

“Watch out!”

The warning came too late as chaos erupted as the creature once more charged.

Across the throne room, Princess Celestia tried her own spells in stopping or slowing the creature down. To her dismay, they all had little or no effect. She watched helplessly as the guards set before her prevented her from joining the fray, and she watched as the creature wildly swung to and fro on wire appendages, violently taking down any guard that got too close. It’s own magic or whatever it used to conjure the whirling strands of metal seeming unhindered, even as it was struck with battle arms and spells. The worst of it was as she watched,it and her guards’ brawl inflicted grievous wounds upon each other. A pegasus looked to have one of its wings bent in an unnatural position. Both a battlemage and an earth pony specialist had pieces of metal wiring embedded in them, though luck would have it that they were still breathing. To be honest, she would have been intrigued by the creature’s unique ability were it not being used to shoot, evade, and strike at her subjects.

The creature roared as one of the guards managed to slip under its defenses and plant her spear into its leg. The creature finally staggered after knocking the guard away with its flailing forelimbs and wire protrusions. It seemed that whatever previous injuries along with the guards assault were finally wearing it down. The remaining guards standing along with Aegis Flare slowly worked their way either closer to the downed creature or to evacuate their fallen comrades to a safer distance away.

“Captain,” one of the guards in the new encirclement spoke, “I think we can take it out.”

Aegis Flare frowned as he watched the creature struggle on the ground, “Negative. If it gets up, move to flank out of its reach.”

A tall order to be had as the creature had proven to have a much further reach with its conjured metal appendages, along with the bits of metal projectiles it used to take out a few guards from afar. In any case, the creature’s breathing had become ragged as it vainly attempted to stand up from its prone state. The floor around it and the guards were littered with pieces of wire and spatters of blood from both it and the guards. The remaining guards tensed as the creature attempted to stand once more.

Celestia, who had been watching and to her dismay of being unable to help her guards, nearly flinched for the first time in a century. The creature’s attention had left the guards and focused solely on her. Beyond the determination was pain and rage fiercely glaring back at her. The standoff only lasted a moment before the creature’s gaze became unfocused, and it fell to its side unconcious.

The surrounding guards tentatively enclosed the space around the creature.

“Is-is it dead?” one of the guards finally asked the question on everypony’s mind.

Aegis Flare moved in closer, spear at the ready. The faint rise and fall of the creature’s midsection could be seen under his inspection.

“No, but not for long,” Aegis Flare raised the spear in his possession, hoping to end this before the creature could cause more damage and injury.

Though before he could deliver the finishing blow, the princess of the sun rose up, “Wait, Captain!”

The spearhead stopped just above the creature’s exposed back.

“I want it detained,” Celestia continued as the Captain paused to look at her, “As of right now, this creature is the first of its kind that we’ve seen. If more were to appear and in much less debilitated states, we need to learn everything we can from it.”

The captain looked torn in ensuring the safety of the citizen charges and subordinates under him by ending the creature’s life, but the princess was right. He saw the wisdom of gaining more knowledge from interrogating it for more information.

“Of course, your majesty,” he begrudgingly accepted the order, even as he glanced around the chamber and at the destruction and injuries the creature inflicted, “You three, attend to the wounded and get them to the infirmary. Silver Wind, we will take the creature to the prisoner medical dispensary.”

The guards moved about their tasks. Aegis Flare and the pegasus guard he called upon worked to move the creature onto a makeshift gurney they made from a torn banner. Celestia watched as the injured were either carried or supported out of the throne room, cursing herself for lacking in her remembrance of any magi tier healing spells. Her heart went out to them to wish them a speedy recovery as she saw that none of their wounds, to her relief, were fatal. She only allowed a brief wave of anger to sweep her visage as she thought about why the creature had attacked her subjects. In any case, so long as it recovered as well, she would find her answers.

Her thoughts were disturbed once more when she noticed the stallion, Lined Pockets, who had been cowering on the opposite side of the throne room. He lay next to a column, his business coat and mane completely disheveled and a witless stare lined up with the spot where the creature first appeared.

“Mr. Pockets,” Princess Celestia called for his attention, “I’m sorry that your petition was cut short. If you wish, you may bring your grievance back to my attention at a later date. Though I must insist that everything you’ve witnessed here today must remain expressly confidential. So, I trust you understand that you must not discuss this in public?”

All the poor stallion could do to respond was give a shaky nod.

“Thank you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must attend to other matters.”

With that, the sun princess rose from her throne to take her own leave. Lined Pockets slumped further back against the column where he sat. The only thing on his mind was to find himself a bar and with it, the stiffest drink they had.

When Do I Get My Phonecall?

Author's Notes:

This one took a bit longer than expected. Kept having to go back to redo some parts to make it sound better for myself. Still working on my style, though let's get this out of the way.

Thanks Regreme for proofreading, you're always a big help. And I'll try not to be so indecisive in my planning for the following chapters.

Sam felt bored, and quite tired. Which was to be expected of a conduit sitting in a interrogation room with his hands literally tied nearly right after the crack of dawn, or in this case, chained and shackled. He was never a morning person to begin with. Even so, this was no time to think about sleep, he had to find a distraction. He leaned back in his chair as far as the manacles would let him comfortably as they were also chained to a sturdy anchor in the floor. With nothing else to do at the moment, he swept his gaze around the room for the umpteenth time.

A sturdy, stone brick room around ten feet by eight feet. In the center sat a steel table with four legs that had been bolted to the ground. Hanging from the center of the ceiling was a single lamp that lit the entire room with a dull yellow light. Across from him was another set of two chairs, which like his, sat lower to the ground and had a wider seat. To the wall just behind it and a little to the left was a heavy looking steel door, the only way in or out of this room. On the wall to the left of that, a one-way mirror that spanned nearly the entire face of the wall itself showed a reflection of everything that Sam already saw in reverse. Another heavy exhale escaped Sam as he rolled his neck to work out the growing stiffness from having sat there in his spot for nearly an hour already.

You’d think that this would be a time to panic in this situation, but this isn’t the first time that Sam had been brought into this room, or one similar to it. This had to be the third time he’s seen the inside of this room since his ‘incarceration’. Of course, it might also stand to reason that the last few days have made this moment somewhat less unnatural. Sam leaned back a little more and reminisced on how exactly he came to be here. That, and he was still rightfully bored as he had nothing else to do and taking a nap was definitely left for a better time.

The first thing he could remember after that bomb went off back in Memphis was being surrounded by D.U.P. soldiers. It was a little fuzzy, and he could have sworn that their uniforms’ colors were a bit off, but he was sure he put up one hell of a fight. It wouldn’t be til later that he learn who he actually got into a fight with. The next day, by his estimate, was the weirdest part. He woke up in a hospital room. Or at the least, what passed for a hospital room. The bed he laid on was a bit short, like it was made for someone shorter, and the mattress was pretty lumpy. His whole body ached from whatever fight he had been in, and every time he tried to draw out some of his wires it made him dizzy and nauseous. He could also feel a good portion of his body had been wrapped in enough gauze and bandages to make a mummy envious. The only thing that felt off putting was that his arms and legs were restrained by medical straps. So, as any sane person would do, Sam calmly assessed the situation, tested and determined the holding power of his bindings, and voiced his concerns to the nearest attendant that could hear him. He did not try flailing against the restraints, reopening some of his more grievous wounds, all the while shouting obscenities loud enough to wake the dead.

Upon the small commotion he made to garner someone’s attention, he did not expect a light blue furred, mint green mane and tail miniature horse to burst through the door. It was made even more ridiculous by the fact that said horse also wore a nurse’s cap atop its head. Sam couldn’t help but stare, as did the horse, until it somehow spoke and called for more horses. These ones were a bit larger and bulkier than first one to appear and wore what looked like flashy gold armor. At this point, Sam started to think that he may have hit his head a little harder than usual during the fight to be seeing such a ludicrous sight. He immediately put that thought on hold as the bulky horses fought to hold him still as the one in the nurse’s cap came up to his side with a very pointy looking needle. The horses had to work feverishly to restrain the conduit until the nurse horse could administer a sedative. After that, Sam’s memory was a little fuzzy again, but he did remember having a lovely afternoon chat with Mr. Lampshade. Even if he didn’t find many of his jokes all that funny.

When he woke up again, the light blue horse was there, a stethoscope gingerly wrapped in its hooves. Seeing that the conduit was awake, it meekly asked him if he was ‘feeling better’. Once more, Sam questioned his current mental state and whether or not he got hit in the head more than usual. Though Nurse Patient Care, the horse’s name, did an admirable job in not letting Sam’s joke about her name get to her. So began the long and arduous process of convincing the wire conduit that he was not dreaming or hallucinating and that he was in a hospital being treated for his injuries that he acquired from not only his fight in Memphis, but also when he took on an entire platoon of royal guards. To top it all off was that he was also being detained, thus the restraints, for breaking and entering into the royal palace of Canterlot, resisting detainment, and multiple counts of aggravated assault against several royal guards. If it weren’t for the part about the pun-tastic locale, Sam would have considered it to be a regular morning on a Tuesday. Of course, there was also the other part about how he was somehow being treated by a horse in a hospital get-up like it was a normal thing. So, more questions were raised that, unfortunately for him, would never be answered immediately due to the two gold armored horses from before marching into the room. As like all authorities in Sam’s experience, it was not for the conduit’s benefit. Sam overheard one of them speak to the nurse to see if the conduit was fit to be interrogated. The nurse replied that most of Sam’s injuries were healing faster than expected, but he would still need more time before he could be released from the medical dispensary. The first horse nodded for the nurse to take her leave before the two ‘guards’ discussed about how to handle the now awake conduit. After having to listen to the conduit babble on about getting his one phone call, the guards became fed up and left. More than likely to alert their higher-ups.

After another day in the hospital, Sam was released and immediately led to the presently familiar sight of the interrogation room. He was left there while his escort left the room after chaining him up, which left him to try and make his escape. Unfortunately, his power still seemed to be weak and agitated him with use, although he was lucky to notice that they were coming back to him, albeit slowly. So, he planned that once his power was fully restored, he would break out of crazy horse town and find his way back to Memphis. Hopefully his friends were okay in the meantime.

For the next few days, a routine came about. Sam would wake up in his new home away from home; a.k.a., an actual dungeon cell. Check how much power he’s regained. Be escorted to the interrogation cell for questioning. Crack a few jokes at whoever was escorting him. Be questioned for hours on end in interrogation, sometimes by a horse by the name of Aegis Flare and sometimes by the big cheese herself and her somewhat austere sister. They’d later send him back to his cell after getting practically nowhere whenever they questioned him and left him to what devices he could keep himself occupied with until the next time. Sam would check again on his powers before going back to planning his escape and turning in for the night. It was only a matter of time, but hopefully not much longer as he could feel that his power was nearly restored. Although the lack of sleep from staying up to observe guard routines was starting to get to him and making him a little more irritable.

Sam was drawn out of his musings as the familiar sound of the steel door across from him unlocked and revealed the ever-aggravated face of his favorite captain of the royal guard, Aegis Flare, as he marched in. Sam could swear that the scowl he wore was somehow his default expression as he’s never seen the disgruntled horse without it. So, every time they talked, Sam would time just how long it took before the captain’s left ear would start flicking in annoyance. It was always pretty funny. Though it seemed that the grumbling captain was not his only visitor. In walked her royal cheesiness herself, Princess Celestia. Sam rose from his seat with the best shit eating grin he could muster and mockingly bowed.

“Your excellency, what a surprise! I’d offer more than just a simple bow, but I’m a little chained up at the moment,” the sarcasm layered so thick, it could top a birthday cake.

Unlike the captain, who was quietly gnashing his teeth, the princess shook her head, but tried to salvage it by smiling faintly. She sat herself in the opposite seat from Sam while Aegis Flare took his usual spot of just to her right, though never sat down.

The princess took a silent and deep breath before addressing the detainee, “That won’t be necessary, but I must ask that we skip these pleasantries so we can begin.”

Sam already knew the routine, which he was frankly getting a little sick of, but played along. It would be over soon enough. He could probably catch a nap after this too if he played his cards right. So, it retook his seat and focused on trying to get through this as painlessly as possible

“Alright, but I hear they’re serving up a special surprise for today’s grool. I don’t wanna miss that.”

Sam could hear the near silent huff of the captain as he had to endure another session of Sam’s brand of humor.

“Very well,” the princess replied as she shifted only slightly in her seat, “I guess we’ll start from the top. What is your name?”

“Marty McFly,” Sam answered immediately with a smirk.

“Not Luke Skywalker or Tinotenda, Prince of Ukraine?”

“Yup!”

Sam took a quick glance over at the captain and noted that his ear was already twitching. That had to be a new record.

“And what exactly are you? We have no records of a creature such as yourself in our archives. And I don’t believe you to be a ‘one-horned, red-eyed beast’.”

Sam chuckled at the inadvertent joke that just played out before answering, “Well I’m not exactly a hairless monkey either.”

Celestia merely sighed, “Of course. So, if I may ask. How is it that you came to appear in my throne room in the middle of my day court?”

Sam leaned back again. Not to actually think, but to waste a little more time. “Well, I was out for a walk, when I saw this lovely place you got here and decided to take a little detour. Gotta say, I can really dig what you do with the place. Though I think it could do with a few paintings, or hell, some splash of color other than gray.”

The princess frowned a little. Her attempts to hopefully draw out any new information was not going so smoothly. She had to think of something else. Something that would possibly catch this strange creature off balance.

“...Tell me, Marty McFly. How did you become so injured?”

“I think you can thank cappy over there for that,” Sam replied, a little more bitterly.

Aegis Flare had a hard time trying not to ruffle his feathers with every second that he had to spend dealing with this creature. He was told that the princess would lead this interrogation, but he could already see that it was becoming pointless. If they were to get the information they needed, they needed to show this ape-like creature that they were willing to be more direct.

“I mean before you ended up in my throne room,” Celestia tried to lead the creature, “if I recall, you were bleeding profusely and suffered more than a few bruises.”

She watched as the creature tensed for a moment before relaxing again into its usual posture.

“I fell down some stairs.”

Silence filled the air after Sam’s deadpan answer. The pony princess and the conduit were locked in a stare down, both unwilling to let the other see them flinch. At least until Captain Aegis Flare let out an exasperated sigh.

“Your majesty, if I may,” the captain waited for the princess’ reluctant approval before getting up in Sam’s face, “You’ve already wasted enough of our time, ape. You will tell us who you are, where you come from, and why you are here!”

Sam was actually a little taken aback from this, but not enough to really feel intimidated. Just that he found something else to really dig a little deeper under this horse’s skin. So, like any other time he’s had to deal with people like this. He pulled out his own secret weapon.

“First of all, rude,” Sam started off the banter, “Second of all, you have got to tell me what kind of mouthwash you use, ‘cause I’ve got to get some of that. That’s like doublemint fresh right there.”

Sam could almost see a vein bursting behind the captain’s oppressive gaze as he continued to try and intimidate the conduit. He even slammed his hooves on the table in front of Sam in some vain effort to look tough.

“I’ve had enough of your roundabout answers! Tell us what we want to know, or I will see to it that your interrogations are a lot less friendly!”

“Oh, now that I’d like to see.”

“Enough, Aegis Flare!” Princess Celestia cut in, “Please take a moment to calm yourself.”

The little pegasus glared as hard as he could at the conduit before stepping off to the side.The princess retook her seat in front of Sam, easing her posture to appear more relaxed. It was her turn again to try and win the conduit over, and by god, was Sam getting more than a little sick of it. He could already see what was going on here and frankly, was too tired to really deal with this.

“Listen, Marty Mcfly, I don’t want to see either of you come to blows. This situation is far from ideal, and-”

“Oh, don’t give me that crap,” Sam suddenly blurted out, having finally had enough and wanting nothing more than this to end so he could go back to sleep rather than sit here listening to this crap, “I can already tell you are far too smart to be playing this good cop, bad cop game, Sunny. Don’t try to act like you care when you don’t.”

Off to the side, Aegis Flare was glaring so hard that you’d think he’d set Sam on fire with his gaze alone.

“As for you,” Sam returned the captain’s glare, “I would love to see what you’d have in store in this ‘unfriendly method’ of yours. I’m being sincere by the way. I would love to see what your serious interrogations are like, because I’ll tell you this: Anything you come up with, I bet I’ve already been through, or something even worse. I’ve been through enough shit that any one of your soldiers would be screaming for death before the week’s out! So, bring on the psychological mindfucks; bring on the propaganda abuse, and bring on the straight up torture! Same goes for you, sunny britches.”

Not really sure what brought on that outburst in himself, Sam couldn’t be asked to care. Like he said, he’s seen this song and dance before, including the director’s cut. Although the rant did leave feeling a bit better, but before Sam even had time to react, a hard right hoof made sweet love to his face. He could only groan in pain while voices muddily argued in the background as he shook the sucker punch off. Then, Sam smiled. The odd familiarity of authoritative abuse actually felt comforting, in a weird way. Being locked up in the grand daddy of all detention centers for more than a couple of years will do that to a guy. He swished around the blood and spit in his mouth before spitting it out and spoke up.

“Whoo... now, that’s what I’m talking about! Got another one in you?”

“Captain Aegis Flare, I don’t care what he had said! That was unnecessary!” Princess Celestia continued to berate the pegasus, ignoring the conduit altogether, “Remove yourself from this room!”

“But your majesty, he has shown nothing but disrespect to you and-”

“Leave, NOW!”

‘Christ, did the room just shake?’ Sam thought all while his ears recovered from their ringing.

The begrudged captain gritted his teeth before bowing and marching out of the room.

“Ah, come on. We were just getting to know each other,” Sam had to add snarkily, “Welp, I guess that just leaves us… Wait, what?”

Princess Celestia was already halfway to the door, obviously taking her own leave. Though, not before turning her head to face the conduit with an expression that was devoid of any of its usual cheerfulness.

“We are done for now.”

The steel door exit swung shut, leaving Sam to ponder the princess’ reaction. There was something else beyond the lack of cheer behind her gaze, and Sam couldn’t help but feel some inkling of guilt.

A couple hours later, the only other beings to enter the interrogation room were a pair of guards with Sam’s lunch. A simple vegetable stew, a bread roll, and a glass of water. Normally, the conduit would have taken the opportunity to quip about how there wasn’t any meat on the tray, or if there was someone new, he would have made a tasteful joke about the benefits of horse meat for his diet. Though no such thoughts entered his mind this time. The guards came and went and left Sam to eat his meal in silence. This wasn’t like the conduit at all, but the way that the princess had looked at him left him wondering. What was that expression she had? It wasn’t anger or annoyance. Nor was there any malice toward him or his lack of cooperation. This was something that Sam had not seen directed at him as far as he remembered. In actuality, Sam had seen this expression before, albeit only once, and it was ‘pity’.

Having nothing else to do since he was locked in a room and chained to a table, Sam closed his eyes to rest. His plan to catch a few Z’s was swiftly interrupted by the telltale sound of the steel door opening once more. Sam shot back up awake and alert to find that his new visitor was none other than the blue princess herself, Luna. Or as he liked to call her, Loony. Unlike her sister, Loony wasn’t afraid to ‘cut to the chase’ when she spoke. Not to mention that whenever she got flustered or irritated, usually by Sam’s hand, she would start talking like a character out of ‘Ye old medieval times’. So, like any other time she came to try her ‘hoof’ at cracking the conduit’s will, he made it a point to try and get her to talk like that just for giggles.

“Hey, Loony,” Sam started off, a half smirk already on his face, “how’s the nightlife treating you?”

At first, Luna stopped and pondered on a reply until she just resumed her walk to the opposite side of the table to take a seat across from the conduit. Sam was only slightly disappointed that the lunar princess did not take the bait, but recovered quickly to try again.

“So, your sister was in here earlier,” Sam began the setup, “Gotta say, she could really do well in theater with a set of pipes like that.”

Luna only sighed for a moment and continued to stare at the conduit with a measured gaze. It seemed like the princess wanted to play hardball. Sam could handle that.

“Hey, Loony. Wanna hear a joke?” Sam only waited for a moment to continue regardless of the princess’ answer, “What do you get when you cross a vampire with a snowman...frostbite!”

Not even the sound of crickets could be heard at such a lame joke. Though to be fair, the crickets that lived in the nook in the eastern wall of the room had decided to take a vacation that week. In the meantime, Luna just arched one of her eyebrows. Sam was still smiling like an idiot, but he soon dropped that too as he engaged with the princess’ staring contest. Cool, cyan eyes met chocolate brown with more time just ticking away as the two just sat there and stared.

“What is it that drives you?” Princess Luna suddenly broke the silence.

Sam was caught off guard so thoroughly by the question, that he actually couldn’t come up with a nice quip in response. Then, he really started to think about the princess’ strange question. So, he did the only thing he could think of.

“Come again?” ‘giggity’

Princess Luna took a deep breath, “So far, you’ve done nothing but antagonize myself, my sister, and every guard assigned to you. I’ve read the report over and over about your ‘appearance’, and although annoying, I’ve yet to see this ’flagrant disregard for life’ or ‘animalistic rage’. When I first heard of you, I expected to see a wild animal whose only purpose was destruction. That is not what I’ve seen these past few days. You may be arrogant, brutish, and might I add, have a terrible sense of humor, but something without emotions you are not.

“So, all I want to know is; what is it that drives you?”

Out of all the questions in the world that Sam could have been asked, he got the one that he had no comeback to. The princess waited in expectant silence and watched as the conduit tried to come up with an answer. Sam tried to come up with anything witty, but the question was so serious that he too started to think it over seriously.

And then, it hit him, “Survival.”

“Survival?” the princess repeated.

“Yeah, you could say that’s what drives all of us in the grand scheme of things.”

Princess Luna smiled, “I guess you do have a point. Though, I think there is more to you than some mere survival instinct.”

“What makes you say that, Loony?”

Although not fond of the name, Luna let it slide for the moment, “Because, we wouldn’t be here talking right now with some civility.”

“If you want, I could tell you another joke,” Sam smirked

“That won’t be necessary,” Luna deadpanned, “Tell me something though: why is it that you choose to come here?”

At that, Sam had to reel in his snort of laughter before it got out of hand. The princess arched one of her eyebrows, unaware of what was particularly funny, but something about the being’s reaction added another clue to her growing theory on this creature that she had been working on since they first met. If she was right, her next question might be what she needed to finally make some headway in this challenge.

“Did you have any intention of even coming to Equestria to begin with?”

Sam remained tight lipped. Not like he was gonna make this easier for his, so far, favorite princess. Of course, Luna was already taking note of the creature’s subtle movements that spoke volumes above anything that had been said so far.

Princess Luna eyed the creature a little more crucially, “You never intended to come here, did you. You came here by accident?”

It seemed that Samuel was finally caught. Not that it mattered. His plans for escape remained the same, and as soon as it was later that night, he felt confident of having regained enough power to break loose. That is until a certain princess threw the mother of all curve balls his way.

“Tell me, what would you do if we were to let you go right now?” Princess Luna asked calmly.

It was Sam’s turn to finally be floored by this crazy rabbit hole of a wonderland since the first day he woke up. His brain almost couldn’t comprehend exactly what he was just asked, even if he did understood the words. He didn’t believe for a second that he would get just a slap on the wrist and be set free, but the question still remained. What would be his answer? Not like he had planned on any impossible chance of just being let go. The thought just seemed entertaining. Luna watched as the creature thought, and finally found what she was looking for. Her sister may have played the political game to near perfection, but she was always the one that was better at asking the right questions.

Sam played with a link from his chains out of nervous habit as he finally spoke, “Let’s just say that I have better places to be than here.”

“And where would that be?” Luna asked, “Your home, isn’t it?”

“You could say that,” Sam simply replied.

Luna dropped into thought again before nodding toward the one way mirror. Sam caught this and already anticipated the door to the door opening once more to allow another occupant. Who he didn’t expect to enter was the other princess herself, still wearing that strange expression on her face from the last time. The solar princess closed the door behind her and made her way to sit beside her sister, where they engaged in hushed tones before Sam. After a few minutes of debate, they both turned to the conduit with Celestia leading the speech.

“I know you do not trust me, or our kingdom, but... I only have one question. All I ask is if you will tell me the truth… Do you wish to go home?”

Sam couldn’t believe what he was hearing. There was no way that it was going to be this simple. Even if what they were implying was true, what would they expect in return? Sam wasn’t about to let them have the upper-hand, or would it be ‘hoof’ in this case.

“If I say yes, what kind of deal are we gonna work out here?”

Celestia and Luna looked to each other before Celestia replied.

“All we ask is that we know where your kingdom lies, so we may contact them in regards to the terms of your release.”

And there was the catch. Sam already expected something like this, which was why he avoided thinking about what the possible answer might end up being. Of course, now was as good a time as any to get the information he needed.

“Have you ever heard of Tennessee?” he asked matter-of-factly, but also with a small quiver of doubt.

The sisters both gave him blank looks. This was not looking good for the conduit.

“The United States of America?”

Just more blank and questioning looks.

“This ‘United States of America’,” Luna began, “Is it beyond the Griffon Empire?”

Sam frowned, “I think we may be thinking of a different place here.”

At that, the solar princess’ horn lit up, and after a flash of light, the table between them was covered in what Sam could only assume was an atlas of the world. Now Sam had already seen feats of ‘magic’ these horses were capable of, so it wasn’t quite new, but what really caught him off guard was what laid before him. Before either of the princesses could say anything, Sam’s eyes already took in the unfamiliar land masses, and his frown grew deeper.

“If you would,” Celestia spoke up, “Could you show us where on this map your kingdom lies?”

Sam studied the map a third time in some vain hope that it would magically rearrange itself to look like earth. No such luck in that regard. With a dejected sigh, Sam finally came to grips with a fact that he wished wasn’t true.

“I can’t show you on this,” he plainly said.

Celestia looked at him in bewilderment before replying, “If you are worried that we will take retribution against your home, you have nothing to fear. All we wish is to see is this misunderstanding resolved.”

“You don’t understand. I can’t show you where my home is on this map. Not while none of this is even matches what my world looks like,” Sam said while sweeping a hand over the map.

Luna was the first to pick up on it first, “Did you say, your world?”

The two princesses seemed flabbergasted. Here they were, in a room with a creature that just said that it might as well be an alien. Not exactly something that you could just take in casually. Celestia and Luna turned away from the conduit and whispered frantically back and forth as to what this could actually mean. This could potentially redefine their view on diplomatic relations if they were to contact this creature’s home. Sam, on the other hand, was occupied with the sobering thought that he wasn’t even on his home planet. Not that he didn’t suspect as much, as a nation full of candy coated equines that were as smart as humans would have made headline news for weeks back in his town. This just left him with the prospect that finding a way home may be a lot tougher that he originally thought. He shunted to depressing thoughts to the back of his mind to focus. He’d just have to find out how he got here to begin with and work from there. So long as he had a goal, he could get through this. The princesses returned to the table after their deliberation. Each of them bore an expression that Sam couldn’t quite tell if it was either serious or worrisome.

Celestia spoke first, “I only have one question before we proceed any further. My sister asked you this earlier, but you never told us an answer. Did you come here, to Equestria, intentionally?”

Even though he could have made a witty remark about the horse related name-pun, Sam only replied simply, “No.”

Not like it would matter. It wasn’t like he was giving away state secrets here. Of course, his one word answer was met with an unusual response. Both the princesses looked at each other and nodded in silent agreement.

“It seems that we have made some terrible assumptions, Marty Mcfly,” Celestia stated, “We all assumed that you were sent here with ill intent, but my sister and I believe that your actions in the throne room were primarily due to delirium brought on by whatever trauma you suffered beforehoof.”

Sam listened to the deduction. All of it, within the right context, was sounding to be quite in his favor.

“Although it is still to be said that you attacked and severely injured a number of guards that are still recovering from your actions,” Luna continued, “We can’t overlook that just yet. Your detainment, although regrettable, was a necessary step to ensure our subjects safety. Although, if what you have told is true, as my sister as said, I believe we may be able to help one another out.”

‘And here comes the catch,’ Sam thought.

The lunar princess looked the conduit straight in the eye and asked, “If we were to let you free right now, what would your intentions be?”

Now that was something Sam wasn’t expected to be asked. He wholeheartedly expected some form of compensation for his deeds. Not that he had much to offer other than the tattered clothes on his back. The only question was, ‘what kind of answer were they looking for?’. Sam studied the two princesses faces intently, but only found a strange, sad curiosity on either of them. Whatever that was about, Sam didn’t know. Though he did know that maybe, just maybe, he should at least try to be a little more straightforward in his answer this time around. Not like he had much to lose.

“You really wanna know?” Sam started off, “Ever since I got here, all I could think about was the fastest way to get out of here and back home. If you’re saying that you got a way to send me back, then I’ll give you a shot.”

Sam watched as their expressions shifted from hopefulness to happiness and then to that mystery expression he couldn’t place, pity. They whispered back and forth once more and nodded again.

“Marty Mcfly,” Celestia spoke up, “We are willing to circumvent your detainment and aid you in finding your home, but on one condition.”

It's a Beautiful Morning...What's for Breakfast?

Author's Notes:

Thanks again to Regreme for being my proofreader and editor. My chapters are slowly getting longer, and hopefully will keep that up. Thanks to those that are reading, and please leave some feedback if you can.

Sam awoke in a fashion he never expected to ever do in his life since Curdan Cay. There was no loud buzzer to act as his alarm clock. No hard, lumpy mattress atop a steel frame that was bolted to the floor. Not even the sound of fluorescent, overhead lamps that always gave off that weird humming noise no matter how dim they were set. In fact, he also couldn’t hear his fellow conduit friends also rousing themselves in their own fashions as they always did within their little hideout along the Memphis riverbank. The lack of anything familiar to wake up to caused the wire conduit to panic for a moment until his thoughts cleared enough for him to remember.

~~0~~

“Marty McFly,” Celestia spoke up, “We are willing to circumvent your detainment and aid you in finding your home, but on one condition.”

‘There’s the catch,’ Sam thought, still chuckling to himself over his name.

Sam leaned back in his chair, waiting for the inevitable clause he would have to agree to. Only question was, what would it be? Sworn loyalty? Access to everything he knew about conduits? God forbid if these horses had a weird kink for humans.

Celestia smiled and said, “You will have to apologize to each and every guard that you injured from your arrival.”

If Sam had been drinking anything at that moment, he would would have done an impressive spit take. In the meantime, his reaction was just as dignified as he choked on his own spit and coughed violently to regain his composure. This had to be some kind of joke.

“Let me get this straight,” Sam said between his fit, “You want me to apologize to a bunch of ho- ponies, and that’s it?

Luna’s brow furrowed as she spoke, “Dost thou hath any trouble understanding our request?”

Sam chuckled a bit more from the lunar princess’ ye’ ol’ english before answering, “No, but seriously. What do you really want?”

Luna continued to look a little mad while Celestia’s face set into a soft puzzlement. Neither of them answered, as if they were asked the ultimate question of the universe.

“Maybe we have asked you in the wrong fashion, Marty McFly? I believed we made our condition quite simple,” Celestia continued to seem puzzled.

Sam suddenly realized that these techno-colored equines may have actually been serious. He wasn’t exactly prepared for something like this. Yet, here it was. A simple demand for an apology and he gets a slap on the wrist essentially. Every part of his skeptical side screamed how much bullshit this was and that there had to be more to it. On the other hand, these leaders of a pony nation had just handed him the easiest ‘get out of jail free’ card. After thinking it over as many times as he could, Sam looked back up at the two princesses and tried to flash them his most innocent grin.

“Alright, fine. I’ll agree to your condition, so long as there’s no take backs.”

It was as if Sam had said the magic words and Celestia lit up with a smile so bright, he could have sworn he saw it shine. Along with the rest of her. Luna on the other hand still looked a little skeptical herself, but held her tongue.

“Thank you,” Celestia spoke, “I am glad we could come to an agreement, Marty McFly.”

Sam was starting to get tired of the joke himself, so he did the one thing he could do to remedy that.

“Yeah, so my name’s Samuel by the way. Though just call me Sam. Everyone else does.”

After that, the princesses left to gather a few guards and the keys to the conduit’s restraints, only to return to find the conduit already out of his chains. Unremarkably, the returning equines were either utterly surprised or warily cautious. The guards that had accompanied their diarchs drew their spears and took up defensive positions around what little room the interrogation room would allow.

“How did thou release thyself from thy bonds?!” Luna pointed an accusatory hoof at Sam.

Sam just shrugged and called forth a few strands of wire to dance around the palms of his hands, “I’m no expert at lockpicking, but those were too easy. Plus, you were taking too long. I got bored.”

“But, the negation ringlet is supposed to suppress all manner of magical expression,” Luna countered.

Sam looked down at the shiny, dark-blue bracelet on his right wrist that he had noticed he had worn ever since he woke up in this crazy world. The material was cool to the touch and smooth all around. Whenever he held it up to the light, it practically sparkled, like it had flecks of glitter embedded in it. Though no matter what he tried, it never seemed to come off. It fit perfectly around his wrist with only enough room to not chafe. Apparently, this thing was also supposed to suppress magical expressions, or what they thought Sam’s conduit abilities were.

“This thing here?” Sam pointed to the ringlet around his wrist, “I thought it was some goofy trinket one of ya slapped on me.”

The entire room was filled with varying dumbfounded expressions. In the end, Celestia made Sam promise not to surprise them like that again, to which Sam agreed. All the while, immaturely crossing his fingers behind his back. Seeing as the ringlet was useless, the princesses removed it with a quick burst of magic and decided that reintroductions should be administered.

~~0~~

Sam was already sitting up in his castle suite’s bed as he recalled the last parts of the previous day’s events.

After the little jump scare of his ‘release’, the princesses led the conduit out of the dungeons, followed by a quartet of ever stoic guards trailing them. Their little procession led them up into the larger, and considerably less dank, halls of the castle proper. Sam had to admit that it was quite impressive and questioned on multiple occasions on how a species with nothing but hooves could build such a place. Though those thoughts were washed away when they passed a sizable window and he caught his first glance of the outside world since he had been locked away. He actually had to stop and stare at the absurd sight to even come close to comprehend what he was seeing. Just outside the window was a grand view of a picturesque landscape that spanned for miles into the distance. Though the sight that really took the cake was when he looked out over the window’s ledge. A sheer drop that was only broken up by craggy cliffs nearly half a mile down. The sheer incline that led up to the castle’s foundation that Sam could barely see made it fairly obvious that this side of the castle would definitely not be the ideal place to be if a sudden earthquake were to hit.

The two princesses shared a silent chuckle with each other over the conduit’s stunned expression before beckoning him to follow them. The rest of the castle that Sam was led through was just as grand as the hall he first encountered after exiting the dungeon. Though the halls were conspicuously devoid of the hustle and bustle one would expect to see from such a luxurious building. Sam got the sneaking suspicion that they were avoiding such encounters, but held off on calling it out. After a small trek throughout many of the castle’s corridors, they ended up in an infirmary wing that was built into one part of the castle. Ponies with lab coats and nurse caps only stopped to stare for a moment at the odd creature and its procession before giving a curt bow to the princesses and hurrying off to whatever tasks they already had or look busy. The air, filled with the sights and smells of an antiseptic lab, was putting Sam on edge. Luckily, he kept reminding himself he was not here for any other reason than to dole out a couple of apologies and leave. The entire affair went as smoothly as sandpaper, but as promised, the recovering guards reluctantly accepted the conduit’s apology from each of their beds. That didn’t mean that they couldn’t throw a few looks his way when his back was turned.

After the prolonged session, the day was pretty much done, so the princesses suggested that they all retire for the evening. Which led the conduit to the biggest surprise of the evening as he was taken not to the dungeon, like he anticipated, but one of the many, extravagant castle suites. Upon questioning the princesses on their choice of hospitality, Celestia replied with a light titter and asked him why they wouldn’t provide him with such an accommodation. Being too tired from the day’s events, Sam elected to go along with it and bade the two princesses a good night.

Looking around the room again since waking up that morning, he still couldn’t believe that he was here. The room was too big to really be called a simple suite. It was more like a one room apartment. Sam threw the covers off himself and walked through the room to reach the bathroom on the other end, taking note of everything as he passed.

The bed was big enough to fit three people comfortably and left Sam with the impression that it was made with clouds with how soft it was from the night he slept in it. A simple, yet expertly carved wooden nightstand sat stoically next to the bed with a single ceramic lamp on top. On one side of the suite was a study desk with fresh sheets of parchment and a quill & inkwell. How these ponies never discovered the genius behind a ballpoint pen with all their “magic”, Sam would never know. Next to it was a grand bookcase. And when Sam thought grand, it meant enough books to challenge his own library of books he’s read in his lifetime. He may have liked to read for fun, but damn. On the other side of the suite was a set of lavish, light-blue loveseats. Although, Sam suspected with these ponies’ anatomy that they were meant for one occupant each. The window on the far wall behind the seats was quite large, but simple in design, with similarly colored drapes hanging loosely against it. Passing the window, Sam regarded the view of half of the city of Canterlot, the nation’s capitol and location of his residence, he could see with the same stupefaction he gave the previous night.

He asked the princesses about the city before they left, which led to him finding out, to his disbelief, that their capital had been built almost directly on the side of a mountain. Just another tidbit to add to the whole ‘question it later, too tired’ bin. Other than that, the view was pretty amazing, but onwards to his destination to do his morning bathroom rituals he went and picked up his shirt and pants he threw across the room from the previous night.

~~0~~

Aegis Flare, in all his royal guard career, never felt like his position was so demanding or frustrating. He would have never made it to the rank of Captain were it not for his level-headed temperament or his resourceful and adaptive mind whenever in a pinch. Though as of late, his limits have been tested, and even he could see that his skills were left lacking for want of a better term.

In the past couple of weeks, he had received three missing ponies reports from within the city’s garrison. Crime was always going to be a part of life and a nature that he had been trained and trained others to handle. However, what made this string of reports far more frustrating was not the severity of the possible crime, but the circumstances surrounding them. Following these reports, he was also informed of similar reports being received in various townships throughout Equestria. The one common thread between them was that in every instance of the pony going missing... they all seemed to just disappear. There were no signs of struggles, no magical impressions to hint at foul play, and no eyewitnesses attesting to any strange happenings or noises. It was like they just up and left or vanished without so much as a trace. Aegis Flare was never one for superstitions, so any claims of a boogeymare involved were thrown right out. It was just frustrating that there was not so much as a hint as to what happened to these ponies.

To top it all off, now he had to deal with a creature that had appeared several days ago out of nowhere that was resistant to magic and was being treated like a diplomat instead of a criminal, like it should be. Said creature was also why he was heading towards the guest suites of the castle at that very moment with a small cadre of his best best soldiers. He was personally assigned to escort the creature to breakfast with the princesses this morning, but that didn’t mean he had to like it or that he would let the creature have as much freedom as it was supposedly allowed. Turning the last corner that led to the creature’s room, he was at least pleased to see that the guards he assigned to watch the entrance were diligently stationed at their posts. He could only assume that the pegasi guards he posted just outside the windows were also just as diligent. The two guards at the posts snapped crisp salutes to their captain at his approach. The Captain nodded in return and waited for their morning report.

“Sir, nothing to report from either shifts,” the guard on the left reported, “The pegasi teams also noted nothing to report during each of their hourly checks outside the suite’s perimeter.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. You and Private Meadow are relieved. Relay to the pegasi guards that they are also relieved on your way out. We will be handling the creature’s escort to its morning meal,” Aegis Flare gruffly stated.

Both the guards saluted again before peeling away. Aegis Flare waited for the two guards to round the corner down the hall before returning to the task at hoof. Signalling his own guards to take positions a few paces away from the door, he prepared for the ensuing battle that could come from today’s events. His hoof rose up and rapped upon the suite’s door and waited for a response. From the other side of the portal, he could faintly hear the sounds of footsteps getting closer. Aegis Flare braced as the door’s handle slowly turned and the door opened to reveal the strange creature standing before him. Aegis Flare was not going to be intimidated by the creature’s larger stature even as he had to tilt his head slightly to look it in the eye. Not to say it was that much bigger. He could tell that if he were to stand on his hind hooves, he would only be maybe a few centimeters shorter. The creature looked down upon the scowling face of the captain and put on its stupid grin it got every time they encountered each other.

“Hey there, Cappy,” it merrily spoke, “You will not believe how big the bathtub in one of these rooms are. I swear, you could fit a whole horse in there!”

That was the other thing that Captain Aegis Flare hated about this creature. It never knew when to shut up. Every time it spoke, it was either an insult or a stupid comment came from its mouth without a filter. Captain Aegis Flare gritted his teeth as he went about reciting his message that was given from the princesses.

“The princesses wish to inform you that they request your presence for the morning meal in the dining hall. Be ready to depart, as we are to escort you there personally.”

The creature blinked once as it processed the request, “Eh, sure. Give me a minute to grab my stuff.”

With that, the creature left the door open and walked back across the room to the bed where it acquired its footwear. The Captain also took notice that the creature’s clothes seemed slightly different from all the other times that it had seen it in the dungeons. Wherever the fabric was torn open was haphazardly stitched together by little metal rings. The captain suspected that the creature used its abilities to do up the job, as there were no apparent materials in the room to do such a thing with. The creature returned a few moments later and joined the procession outside the room, taking note of the other guards that were also there.

It smiled again as it talked, “Lead the way, Cappy. I could definitely use some breakfast.”

“My name is Captain Aegis Flare. Now, follow us, and do not attempt to wander off.”

~~0~~

With the Captain leading the way, Sam decided to look around a little more at the castle they walked through. Each window they passed would be excellent routes for escape should the need arise, and he also noted that besides Cappy, there were four other guards keeping watch over him on their little trek. Two of them unicorns and other two of the normal variety, each of them looking almost identical except for the slight, subtle differences in size. How they all had the same coat color when Sam saw various hues on others from the princesses and the staff at the medical bay eluded him. Just another tidbit he’d look into most likely never. In any case, these were manageable numbers, even with what little wire he still had. His clothes, unlike many times before, did not regenerate as he recovered over the past several days, and he had to improvise their repair with a few links of wire on some of the nastier gashes, While the rest was pockmarked with burn marks and other small cuts. Over all, the job was shoddy, but they would do for now.

In the meantime, the trek through the castle was mercifully short as they halted just outside a set of dark wood doors that Sam could only assume was the dining hall. The captain stepped forward and knocked on one of the doors before entering.

“Your majesties, I have brought our guest as requested,” the captain proclaimed before allowing Sam to follow him in with the other guards in tow.

Sam couldn’t help but stop for just a moment to admire the architecture of even a simple dining hall. The table could probably sit twenty people comfortably from its size. The room was decorated with the same style as the rest of the castle, but with a bit more subtly in color to create a more homely feel. Only two of the windows were of stained glass, which sat at the ends of the eastern wall. Their patterns more of just artistic interpretations of the day and night. Along that and the opposite wall were a few more guards standing at a stillness that anyone not really looking would confuse them for just statues. Though what really caught Sam’s attention were the two pony princesses sitting on the far end of the table across from each other with their own platters of food before them. Next to Luna was another plate with another platter of food that Sam could only suspect was his.

Celestia smiled as she greeted the conduit, “Good morning, Samuel. I hope you are well rested.”

“Pretty much,” Sam replied, “Though didn’t I tell you you can just call me, Sam?”

“If that is what you prefer,” Celestia nodded and gestured to the seat next to Luna, “Come, sit. We were just waiting for your arrival before we eat.”

Sam marched himself over to the offered seat and discreetly checked around it for any signs of danger. Just because the princesses were playing nice doesn’t mean he can’t be cautious. Luna and Celestia waited before the conduit sat down before they set about their meals. In true fashion that Sam suspected of royalty, they ate with such poise and etiquette that would put his standards of manners to shame. Not that he really cared about his manners, but he wasn’t a barbarian either. It was then he noticed something. A smell. A smell he had no idea would come from a place like this. Looking down at his plate, he spotted the one thing that could actually make this day far better than any since he’d been there.

“Bacon?!”

Luna patted her muzzle with a napkin before looking at the conduit inquisitively, “Is something the matter, Sam? We thought your requests for meat back in your detainment were for your omnivorous nature.”

Sam shook his head before answering, even as the sweet smell of the delicious strip of meat became more enticing, “No, it’s just that I thought for a bunch of herbivores, meat would be the last thing I’d see here.”

Celestia chuckled from behind her teacup, “You would be right, but our foreign dignitaries from the Griffon Kingdom and the Diamond Dog tribes who visit appreciate the gesture of an open mind when it comes to their culinary options.”

Although not understanding what a ‘Diamond Dog’ was, Sam could appreciate anyone who also saw the value in a hearty diet of rich protein from meat. Without another word, he picked up his first strip and ate it whole. Flavor exploded across his sense of taste. It was smoky, crispy, and had just enough fat to really draw out the best of its flavor. Sam almost forgot where he was for a moment, as he just wanted to enjoy as many pieces of delicious cooked pig. Thankfully, there were still two more slices and Sam enjoyed each with just as much enthusiasm.

The meal was spectacular compared to what Sam was used to having down in the dungeons. Scrambled eggs, Whole wheat toast with jam, and tall glass of fresh squeezed OJ. Which made it all the more sad when the meal was finished, but at least he had his fill. Sam watched as the princesses were also just about finished with their meals before setting their own plates aside. As if on cue, a unicorn in a butler’s get-up appeared from a door on the other side of the room from the main entrance. Sam hadn’t noticed this at all and was surprised until the pony had only come to pick up the empty dishes before taking his leave. Of course, not before not so subtly gawking at the creature known as a human he had never seen before. Sam was used to those kind of looks, so he just ignored it.

“Sam,” Celestia spoke up, “I would like to thank you again for your cooperation to allow us to help you in finding your home. Although trying at first, I am glad we can come to an understanding and hopefully move past our first impressions. I would also like to extend our offer in that the event of anything you need, within reason, we will try to provide.”

Sam’s breakfast and good mood nearly turned sour as he ran over what the princess said in his mind.

“Alright, what else are you looking to get out of this?”

The princesses gave the conduit a forlorn look. They had thought that they had moved passed this. Evidently, they had been mistaken and would need to find a way past this.

“Does thou always expect some form of compensation to be returned on others’ hospitality?” Luna said curtly.

Celestia tried to chastise her sister with a look, but she too couldn’t help but think the same thing.

Sam, on the other hand, merely shrugged as he replied, “In my experience? Pretty much always.”

The two alicorns shared a look. This was going to be more difficult than a prideful griffon.

“Sam, I don’t know what your species are like, but here, it is a common courtesy for one pony to help another pony in need,” Celestia said.

Sam chuckled, “They say the same thing where I’m from, but believe me. That’s not how it works.”

“Then, let us try to show you that it’s true here.”

Sam wanted to laugh, but every time these ponies spoke of some ‘love and tolerance’ policy like it was some kind of standard. It made him wonder. So far, he’s been given a castle suite and an excellent breakfast. By no means proof of their words, but definitely different than what he was used to. Actually, he remembered. A time before Curdan Cay. Sure, he was in high school and dealt with a bully or two, but there was a time when good intentions were never expectant of returned favor. The thought was banished from Sam’s mind though, as he was reminded of what the real world had taught him. Though, with a reluctant nod, he gestured for the solar princess to continue.

“Is there anything that you happen to need at the moment?” The princess asked.

Sam thought about it. There was only one thing that he was in desperate need of at the moment, and this was the perfect opportunity to test these new boundaries.

“Wire,” the conduit admitted, “I need a big ol spool of wire. Iron or steel if you got it.”

The request seemed odd to the princesses, but they wanted to show their guest that their words were not hollow. Calling two of the guards closest to them, they relayed the request to them, to which they bowed and exited the dining room with their task. So, they waited, but as with all things in life that required patience and no outlet, the occupants of the room became bored and anxious.

It was Luna’s turn to break the ice and with a question that was burning in her mind since the request was made.

“Why is it that you require such an odd item?” she asked the conduit.

“Well, don’t get me wrong,” Sam started off, “the meal was great and all, but I need something else to fill me up.”

“You eat metal?” Luna asked confusedly.

Now, Sam could laugh, and laugh he did until he could actually breath, “Not exactly, but that would be a great party trick next time to show off. No, I need wire to recharge what I lost from my recovery.”

“I don’t think we quite fully understand, Sam,” Celestia tried to coax the answer out.

Sam rolled his eyes, “You see, conduits need a source to syphon off to refuel whenever they use their abilities.”

Sam raised his right hand and summoned a few tendrils of wire to dance about his palm he still had. He got a little kick out of how the guards’ armor clanked together as they tensed at his display. No doubt still sore over their last scuffle. The little wires danced and wove until they tied together into the form of a miniature wire frame of a pony. Although silent, the little wire equine reared up to pose dramatically. The princesses were awestruck by the little display, that is until a certain captain cut in.

“Are you saying that you need this wire to increase your power and abilities?” Aegis Flare called out.

Sam should have known that Cappy would be the one to call this out.

“In a way, yeah.”

His scowl grew harder as he faced the princesses, “Your highnesses. I believe it is in our best interests that Samuel may not be permitted to obtain this ‘source’, as he calls it.”

The princesses could see what the captain was getting at. In a sense, he was right. Sam had proven to be quite the adversary, even at his weakest. If what the conduit was telling them was true, he may pose a true danger to the kingdom of Equestria if he so choose.

“We understand your concerns, Captain,” Celestia spoke, “We are well aware of the implications, but we believe that Sam’s request to be within reason. As we’ve said, we would grant him any resources he has asked for, so long as it’s within that reason.”

Aegis Flare looked about ready to pop a blood vessel, “Your highness, you can’t honestly believe that this, this creature, will not just use this as a means-”

The Princess of the Sun cut him off with a raised hoof, “Thank you, Captain, but we have made our decision.”

“Nay, sister,” Luna finally spoke up, “the good captain has a point. I see no reason to allowing such a request go fulfilled without stipulation. Samuel, how much wire is it that you require to ‘refuel’ your depleted wares?”

Sam was at least glad they didn’t completely leave him out of the exchange. That didn’t mean that he didn’t have a backup plan to get the spare wire if he needed it. That lamp on his bedside table looked like it had to be connected to some electrical grid, and where there’s electricity, there’s wires. In the meantime, princess stingy needed her answer, which Sam gave.

“Eh, I never really measured out how much I can usually take on. If I had to guess, a couple hundred feet should do.”

“Feet?” Luna inquired, “Is that unit close to a meter?”

‘Holy crap. These ponies are metric.’ “Yeah, pretty much the same.”

“Then, it is settled,” Luna proclaimed, “Thou shall only receive one hundred meters of wire.”

“Two hundred,” Sam mockingly bargained.

Luna eyed the conduit, “...one hundred and twenty-five, and no more.”

“Deal.”

Aegis Flare was nearly fuming at the end of the exchange, but a stern look from the Princess of the Sun made him hold his tongue.

The two guards that were sent to retrieve the wire had just returned, and with them, a spool of wire heavy enough that they opted to roll it in on its wooden spool. The princess of the moon gave the two guards instructions on cutting the wire to the right amount, all the while keeping an eye on the conduit should he attempt to obtain the whole spool himself. Sam watched as the unicorn guard magically broke off the estimated amount for him, and the two guards started to wheel the spool out again. Sam focused on the length that was set before him. An image of him slurping up the braided piece like a spaghetti noodle came to mind when he thought about Luna’s comment about eating it. Of course, he refrained from such silliness, as he would use that later to joke with a certain group of conduits back in Tennessee.

Still, as Sam eyed the shortened spool before him, he couldn’t help but feel a longing that any conduit felt when separated from their element for so long.

‘Hey there, sexy! You’re gonna be all up in me here in a minute.’

Sam pressed his hand to one end of the wire and felt the familiar sensation of taking in a new source. However... there was something else underneath it all too. Like a light tingling where the wire was being absorbed into him. Even though the process was a little slower than what he was used to, nothing else felt unusual about it and he went about absorbing the rest. Everyone in the room watched as the conduit seemed to control the wire to wrap around his outstretched hand like a snake charmer would with its snake before it seemed to dissolve into the conduit’s body entirely. Before long, all the wire was gone and Sam appeared to be more revitalized.

“How do you feel?” Luna asked

“Like I could take on an army.” Sam replied deviously.

“Let us hope that you will not act upon any intentions to do so,” Luna added, “Samuel, if you would, would you accompany me to the gardens?”

Sam arched his brow in curiosity, “Am I in trouble?”

Celestia chuckled from behind her final cup of morning tea as she watched the exchange.

Luna gave a deadpan look before speaking, “No. I am just merely accustomed to my morning walks with company before retiring for the day, and my sister has already informed me that she has previous engagements this day that demand her immediate attention.”

Sam looked between the two sisters, searching for any ulterior motives through their expressions, but finding none. In any case, this would give him another opportunity to map the area for routes of escape, should he need them. Besides, not like he had anything better to do.

“Sure, why not,” Sam finally replied.

“Excellent,” Luna said, “Then let us make haste. The skies are unclouded, and the air is crisp. Sister, we wish thee good fortune in today’s endeavours.”

“As well as yours, sister,” Celestia nodded back.

Everyone rose from their seats and headed for the dining room doors. Surprisingly, Cappy was not following the Princess of the Moon and her company. Sam barely overheard him whisper to a few guards that were following them to watch over ‘the creature’ in his stead. Apparently, he had his own obligations to manage, but it was sweet of Cappy to think of him.

Luna led the way through more of the castle, which Sam memorized for later. There was at least one highlight, in which one of the castle maids was unaware that her duties should have been elsewhere, as her eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets at seeing a strange creature venturing the halls alongside the Lunar Princess. The princess luckily intervened and politely asked the wayward maid to keep what she saw to herself. Sam couldn’t help but crack a grin, not only at the mare’s reaction, but her attire as well. The get up was what one would call ‘french maid’, minus the over exaggerated frilliness and being more practical in its form. Seemed like clothing was either optional in this world or a means to denote occupation. In the end, their tour of the interior hallways was swift, and Sam was led to the first doorway that led to the outside. Luna hadn’t been lying about the air being so crisp, nor the skies being ‘unclouded’. What she failed to mention was how serene the place in front of them was.

A few marble steps just outside the doorway led directly into the gardens. Most of the gardens stretched on beyond Sam’s view behind hedges twice as big as him. Just a dozen feet from the foot of the steps was a marble fountain that spewed water from its spout at the top of its Victorian design. Three paths branched off from the walkway around the fountain. Each began with a few topiary trees on either side of their paths before opening up into their own unique form of garden. The entrance to a hedge maze started beyond the right path. Off to the left, laid a small circuit with various trees with glinting plaques underneath each one.

The princess led the conduit, along with their escort of guards, down and past the fountain through to the middle path. Sam peered out to the other paths and almost wished to see those ones as well some other time. This path led past more topiary, but their designs remained subtle, like if they were anymore complicated, it would ruin the atmosphere. It was actually relaxing to a degree for Sam, and he took in the sights just as much to enjoy as to map the area. The princess seemed to also be enjoying the walk and was a little more at ease.

The two didn’t talk, too busy just following the winding path deeper into the garden until they came upon a gazebo. It upheld the simple design of this area of the garden. The wood was richly lacquered to give it a slightly darker tone to complement its natural hue. As Sam got closer, he could see that simple wavy patterns were carved into the supports as accents. Inside was roomy enough to fit six people comfortably and was furnished with wooden benches with plush looking, beige cushions. Luna was the first to ascend the few steps into the structure and bade the conduit to join her.

As they both took seats on opposing benches, their tranquil quiet morphed into awkward silence. Sam soon became a little unnerved by the princess’ stares and began to shoot a few of his own stares back. That is, until Luna decided it was time to break the ice.

“Tell us, Samuel. What does thou think of the royal garden?”

Luna always knew just the right questions to ask to give the conduit pause to think. He just couldn’t tell if there was anything else in the princess’ question that was hiding another meaning. In the end, he just took it as a simple question and responded with grace.

“Not half bad.”

“...Just that then?” Luna asked, “Nothing else?”

“Look, Loony,” Sam raised his hands in defense, “I’m no gardener. So, I’m not gonna pretend and say something like ‘This garden is extravagantly crafted’ or some other bull. If you want something more: it’s pretty damn nice. Sure beats the hell out of anything I’ve seen before.”

Luna couldn’t understand a few of the conduit’s word choices, but the point was at least easy to follow.

“We suppose we all have our own way of looking at things. Now, there is another reason we wished for your company, Samuel.”

Sam frowned, “You know, I did say you can just call me Sam.”

“We are very well aware of that, Samuel,” Luna replied with the faintest of smirks.

Sam bit back his own smirk of amusement.‘Oh ho... that cheeky bitch’s got jokes.’

“Back to the matter at hoof. We wished to speak with you a bit more frankly, Samuel. We, that is to say, I have noticed that you still do not fully think my sister and I to be your allies in your endeavour. What is that that you are still holding against us?”

Again, the princess got straight to the point, to which Sam felt a little more respect for the dark blue horse in her ways. Not to mention every time she talked made him think of a discount renaissance fair.

“I’m not exactly what you call ‘trustful of authoritative figures’,” Sam replied while crossing his arms.

“Oh? Then who is it that you know that you can trust?” Luna asked

“You really like to pick at people’s brains, don’t you, Loony?” Sam asked in kind.

“In a way, yes. That is besides the point. My question has still gone unanswered. Surely, there is somepony that you have in your life. Friends? Family?”

At the mention of both the ‘f’ words, Sam tensed. He was trying not to focus on either groups or the fact that they were literally worlds away. Luna caught the conduit’s flinch and suddenly felt she understood a little more of what this creature, this conduit, was like. She was reminded that even if Samuel had caused her and her sister’s subjects pain, he too held the same emotions as they did and only attacked in retaliation. He was no less a pony than any of their subjects in that regard.

“I am sorry if my words offended you, Samuel.”

“No, it’s fine,” Sam smiled, but with less sincerity, “As soon as I get back, I’m gonna have one hell of a story to tell the others.”

“Others,” Luna repeated, “These others... they are your friends? Are they like you?”

Sam paused, “...You could say that.”

“*sigh* There is just no easy way to get a straight answer out of you, is there?”

“...You could say that.”

Although Luna frowned, the conduit’s returning cheer promised her she was at least on some right track. As much as she wished to continue with her queries, the temptress of sleep was calling for her. It also didn’t help that Samuel snickered at her attempt to hide her yawn.

“Yes, well. I have kept you for long enough, but I would like to ask you for one last favor before I depart, Samuel.”

Sam, now intrigued, gestured silently for the princess to continue.

“If you do not trust us for who we are. Then, trust us in our endeavour to help you for your friends.”

“I’ll think about it,” Sam replied lazily, though still smirked.

“I guess that will have to do for now,” Luna said before getting up from her bench to leave the gazebo, “If you will, will you accompany me back to the castle?”

Sam could tell that the request was just another means to keep an eye on him, but saw no real reason to decline. These horses wanted trust, so why not give them just a little? He needed them if their promise of finding his home was true. So, he nodded and hopped from his seat to join the princess for the walk back through the garden.

“By the way,” Luna suddenly spoke up, “My sister may have not said anything, but your attire is in quite the state of disrepair.”

Sam looked down at his hastily stitched together clothes. They still had cuts and burn marks all over the front. Plus a few bloodstains that he failed at getting out from the previous night. The little rings of the wires that held together the larger tears looked mangled at best.

He just shrugged, “I can give them another wash, if it makes you feel better. Honestly, this ain’t the worst thing I’ve worn in my life. Now, that polo back in middle school...”

Luna mentally rolled her eyes and exasperatedly proclaimed, “Nay, you may spare us the details. I was merely going to suggest that we have the royal tailor make something new for you.”

“Alright, but nothing in orange.”

Gee Loony, what are we gonna do this afternoon?

Author's Notes:

Hey, know that editor of mine, Regreme? Another round of props to him for sticking with me to make sure my stuff doesn't read like crap. Really, I may have a lot of imagination, but I can't help but wonder if you would need a personal translator when I get done with a chapter. No, english is not a second language for me or anything. I just tend to get caught up in writing that I forget to grammar-check.

Also, you might notice a lack of a crazy title. Well...that's something I'm bad at. Yup, semi-decent writer is terrible at coming up with titles for his own chapters. So I will be think about it, but in the meantime, if someone has an idea for one. I won't stop y'all from commenting. Now then, get out of the 'author notes' and get reading. Unless all you come here is for the author notes, which is weird, but I won't judge...ok, maybe I will. Though gotta admit, that is weird.

Celestia sat upon her throne, listening to another patron in today’s day court session. However, her mind was more focused on the conduit that was now freely roaming the castle. She saw that the conduit was hiding a deep pain, and locking him away only seemed to make it worse if his outburst from their final interrogation was anything to go by. Her sister, Luna, had warned that allowing such a dangerous entity to have so much freedom would be unwise, but Celestia wanted the conduit to open up freely to them, and in his own time. One could say that the Solar Diarch viewed the conduit and her sister in a similar way. Thus, for that reason, she was trying to prove to herself that she would not make the same mistake twice by locking away somepony who was just misunderstood. Whether it be on purpose or by accident.

Of course, Celestia had not forgotten about her patron. A lime-green earth pony mare was just concluding her request after explaining her plight.

“I-I hope this is not too m-much trouble, your highness,” the mare nervously bowed.

The Princess of the Sun had grown accustomed to her subjects’ behavior around her. Some, such as this one, saw their princess as some omnipotent goddess, master of this world and then some. In reality, Celestia was just another pony. Albeit, an alicorn princess that has lived and learned for centuries, but a pony nonetheless. So, any time her more demure subjects came to see her, she employed her own little technique to make them feel more at ease.

“Come closer, my little pony,” Celestia started off, smiling radiantly. The mare averted her gaze, thinking she had done something to offend the princess. “You have nothing to fear, Garden Spring. I only wish for you to be closer.”

The mare known as Garden Spring hesitantly shuffled her hooves closer, all the while keeping her eyes down. After a few anxious steps, Garden Spring stopped just at the foot of the dais.

From her downward gaze, she saw the white and gold-trimmed steps of the dais. She didn’t dare to look up, for fear of making the wrong move and just stood there shaking. Then, she heard hoofsteps. Ones that gradually came closer from up the dais until, one after the other, gilded hooves walked into her field of view. Garden Spring shook even more violently as she waited for whatever awaited her from above.

“No need to be afraid, Garden Spring,” Celestia gently rested her wing on top of the shaking mare’s back, “You ask only for so little. Your shop and many of your possessions were ruined in the wake of an accident. The fire may have claimed the property, but remember how you gave thanks that your family was spared. Loved ones can never be replaced. I will send a messenger to the bank to rebuttal your insurance claim denial. You only need to visit them later today to receive the compensation for your loss.”

Garden Spring gasped, and her gaze snapped up to meet the smiling visage of her ruler. The warm, benevolent embrace surrounding her melted away the last traces of her fears. Tears began to fall from the corners of her eyes. Here she was, before the princess that just promised her the help her and her family needed to avoid the pitfall of bankruptcy and becoming homeless. Garden Spring could not begin to express the amount of gratitude she felt in that moment.

“Th-thank you. Thank you, your majesty!” she shouted in jubilation.

Celestia retracted her wing and beckoned for the mare to rise, “You are very welcome. Now, isn’t it time you go tell your family the good news?”

Garden Spring quickly wiped her eyes and sprang to her hooves, her burden now lifted, “Yes, your majesty! I must go. Thank you so much!”

The elated mare turned and nearly galloped out of the throne room. Though, not before turning back around to bow one last time and leaving. Celestia giggled at the mare’s awkward retreat. As soon as Garden Spring disappeared past the throne room doors and said doors were shut, Celestia took a long, deep breath. She was always happy to see when she was able to help any of her subjects in need. She just wished they would feel more comfortable in approaching her in general. That was just an issue she would continue to deal with and hope to resolve one day. Even her own student, Twilight Sparkle, sometimes fell into the same mindset whenever they spoke to one another.

Celestia smiled at her remembrance of her student as she began to ascend the dais steps back up to her throne. A modest unicorn mare with a heart of gold and a veracious appetite for knowledge, but she once needed a push in the right direction to find the right ponies to complete her life. Now that pony was studying the magic of friendship with the help of her friends in the little town of Ponyville. Then, it hit her. Celestia just figured out the perfect pony to introduce the lone conduit to, along with the wonders of friendship that ponies could offer. Not only that, Twilight was the one pony that Celestia trusted and had confidence in to solve the lone conduit’s problem in her stead.

As she sat back down upon her throne, Celestia called on her magic and conjured a quill and a piece of parchment.

Though before setting words to parchment, she turned to one of the guards at the bottom of the dais, “Please inform the next patron that I am sorry, but I will need a few minutes before seeing him.”

The guard on the left bowed and walked out of the throne room to his task. With that done, Celestia levitated her writing instruments and only took a moment to collect her thoughts on what to write.

My faithful student

Twilight Sparkle

~~0~~

“Ow!”

“It wouldn’t have to hurt if you would stop squirming!”

Sam glared at his assailant with the same hatred he reserved only for those that truly needed a good smack. The royal tailor, Silk Trim, just ignored the conduit’s gaze as he busied himself with another swath of fabric in his magic.

The stallion, like almost everyone else that first encountered the creature from another world, had stared at Sam until he regained his composure. Princess Luna had sent a messenger ahead to inform the prestigious stallion of his newest client. Though, Silk Trim never expected a bipedal, furless monkey to be the one to require his services. Luckily, Silk Trim was a renowned individual within the world of fashion with many exploits, and said accomplishments included making ensembles for more than just ponies. Furthermore, by the looks of the conduit’s tattered clothes, his skills were about to be put to the test.

“How much longer do I have to stand like this?” Sam practically grumbled as he was forced to stand still in the middle of the stallion’s workshop while different fabrics and clothes were pinned together across his body.

Silk Trim sighed, long since gotten used to his newest client’s demeanor, “We are nearly finished. One more adjustment to the sleeves.”

Sam groaned again. Luna had said that Silk Trim was the best stallion for this job. What she failed to mention was how unbearably long and boring a fitting for new clothes would be. He seriously missed just dropping into a local retailer in Memphis and picking out a few new simple outfits. The whole experience of such a simple errand now being taken for granted. In the end, Sam just had to wait a little longer, hopefully. Of course, he was never someone who could stand to stay in one spot for very long, let alone two and a half hours. Yet, here he was, under the ‘supervision’ of two guards and at the mercy of his tailor. He thought about what he would give to kill the boredom slowly crushing him to death.

“Aaaand, voilà!” Silk Trim shouted enthusiastically, stepping back to admire his work, “Yes, yes. I can see it now. This will work exquisitely!”

Sam watched as the stallion beamed at his work, tapping his front hooves on the ground. The conduit tilted his head down to view the work himself. The design was simple, as Sam demanded it to be. Silk Trim also debated long and hard on the colors that would suit the conduit best along with suitable materials. Ultimately, the tailor went with a cotton blend for the top with a maroon color. Turns out it was going to be with long sleeves with how much the material tracked down Sam’s forearms. The pants ended up being a material Sam at first thought was denim, but found out it was a little more stretchy, like sweatpants almost. It seemed that Silk Trim agreed that the pants should remain as a navy-blue for color and quickly fastened the pins needed for the material to size. Overall plain, but practical. Just the way the conduit liked it. Alas, even if the basic design was appealing to look at, Sam was still feeling anxious to move again.

“Can I take this off now?” Sam asked in irritation.

Silk Trim sighed once again. The request for Sam’s wardrobe came at the behest of Princess Luna herself, so he would not have let the conduit leave until he was completely satisfied with his work. Fortunately for the both of them, the fitting was complete.

“Yes, yes, of course. Just be careful and don’t disturb the pins,” Silk Trim assisted the conduit in removing the clothes, “It’s a shame though. Are you certain you wouldn’t like something with a little more flare on the design?”

It was Sam’s turn to sigh, “No frills. I’m serious. They look stupid. Just need something that I can move comfortably in, you know?”

“Right, of course,” Silk Trim nodded, “By the way, if you don’t mind me asking, I don’t believe I’ve seen a ‘conduit’ before. Where is it that you come from?”

Sam removed the pants portion of his newest outfit, not really embarrassed at having to walk around in nothing but a pair of boxer-briefs. Not like he hadn’t done the same back in Curdan Cay. Sam quashed those thoughts the moment they resurfaced. Not like he needed to think about those thoughts.

Silk Trim’s question still remained, so Sam answered, “Far away.”

Silk Trim knew when his clients were telling him not to press on a subject. So he just went back to sorting the unfinished clothes at different stations in his workshop.

“Very well, Mr. Reed. I’m also sorry for the delay, but these outfits will not be ready until later this afternoon,” Silk Trim apologized.

Sam was busy slipping his old shirt back over his head by the time he answered back, “That’s fine. Thought it would take longer anyways, what with the fitting and all.”

Silk Trim chuckled, “Not to be rude, but these designs are actually quite simple compared to my other works. Most other clients tend to be fickle and demand wholly over elaborate alterations or patterns.” The tailor suddenly realized what he said and quickly cleared his throat nervously. “That isn’t to say, that your design is unsophisticated. I meant that some of my clients would ask for a few superfluous additions that take a little more time to amend.”

Sam shook his head with a smirk at the tailor that thought to have just insulted his client.

Sam leaned over to speak to Silk Trim, “Man, don’t worry about that. I ain’t some upper-class prick with ‘a stick so far up my ass I can taste it’ kind of guy. Besides, clothes are clothes. I only need them to fit comfortably and look decent enough. Nothing else.”

Silk Trim was relieved and a bit shocked at the conduit’s flagrant language. At least he didn’t seem to mind the tailor’s earlier comments. It was actually a bit refreshing to work on something simple, yet practical. In the meantime, Sam was just about done slipping on his shoes and stretched for a few moments to work out the last of his stiffness. Silk Trim walked up to him and held out his hoof in a well mannered ‘goodbye’.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Reed.”

“Yeah, likewise,” Sam accepted the hoofshake with a surprising amount of ease in his temperament, “Though, just call me Sam. Never really liked the whole ‘Mr. Reed’ name.”

Silk Trim made sure to make a mental note of this as this was a client’s request before parting their shake. Sam stuffed his hands back in his pockets, although one of them had a neat hole going out the bottom, and called for the two guards to lead him back to his room for the time being. Silk Trim looked over the conduit one last time as he left with his escort.

Even if Sam did not say much, beyond the gripes and grumps of the fitting, Silk Trim could tell that the conduit was no ordinary dignitary from some ‘far away’ nation. He carried himself far too differently than any aristocrat or noble. Not to mention his clothes told a story all their own to the veteran tailor. It reminded Silk Trim of a griffon diplomat that came to Canterlot that refused to wear anything but his battle scarred armor as a testament to his accomplishments in combat. The tears, burn marks, and stains of dried faded blood on the conduit’s clothes told of a being not unfamiliar to battle. Just what kind of battle this conduit had been a part of both intrigued and scared Silk Trim.

The Princess was very tight lipped about the conduit’s origins, or any basic details to begin with, when she first requested his services to a new client. In fact, the princess had even requested that he did not speak about the conduit outside the castle. It only got Silk Trim thinking more of who this being truly was to warrant such secrecy. He quickly shook his head as he went back to his work at hoof. Idle hooves and all that.

Now in front of his workstations and looking over the designs once more, Silk Trim prepared for the work ahead. Although, now that he thought about it, there was at least one idea that he wanted to add to Mr. Reed’s final design. Hopefully the conduit wouldn’t mind just a few small changes.

~~0~~

It was just around sunset when Sam got up from his bed with a book in hand. Other than explore the castle on his way back to his suite, at least the parts that his ‘escort’ would allow him, Sam didn’t have much else to do, which was both pleasant yet dull as compared to his normal routine involving a healthy dose of beating down DUP troops with his friends. As those thoughts started to sneak up on him, Sam set his attention to something a little more productive and/or distracting.

The guards led Sam back to his room where he poured over the shelves of books from the bookcase in the suite. Although, he did have a few false starts when some of the books he pulled were either boring textbooks or written in some weird language that looked like hieroglyphics. In the end, he settled on an encylopedia called ‘Incredible Creatures and Where They Come From’ by a ‘A.K. Yearling’. A bit of a mouthful on the title, but it did look interesting enough with the image of a silhouetted flying serpent on the cover.

Sam almost couldn’t put the book down after flipping a few pages, what with all the mythological creatures that were noted in the bestiary alongside artist illustrations of them. Creatures like hydras, dragons, and Chimeras. Then there were things that he had never even heard of before, like a Cipactli, Parasprites, and something called a ‘Draconequus’. The only problem was that Sam was having a hard time believing any of these creatures even existed. Of course, he was stuck in a world where magical, talking ponies also existed, so maybe the rest wasn’t so farfetched.

Sam was just finishing his stretches when he noticed how dark it was becoming out through the window. In fact, the sun seemed to dip much faster over the horizon than what the conduit was used to seeing. Still, it was a brilliant sight to behold. Although nothing could have prepared him for what he witnessed next. Just as the last vestiges of sunlight disappeared, the sky lit up with a new form of light. The stars seemed to just blink into existence. First one by one, then in twos and threes, and finally in the dozens. Sam pried open the window to watch the spectacle before him unfold. Never in his life had he seen so many stars before in the sky. It was breathtaking. And then he looked out over the city.

It seemed that this city was no stranger to the nightlife. The streets and buildings were alight with the typical illumination of a city after dark, minus the obnoxious droves of cars. However, even with the lights of the city below, the sky remained just as brilliant as before. Sam knew of the concept of light pollution, so cities like Memphis never had a sky filled with so many stars like it did here. Sam then noticed out of the corner of his eye the largest source of illumination the night had to offer peeking over the corner of the mountain just beyond the mountain peaks he could see.

The moon was massive. At least from what Sam could see and compare to his own world’s moon. He could see that it was nothing more than a waning crescent, but even then it was no less brilliant than the stars themselves. That pretty much sealed the deal. Sam had to do something. So, he quickly strode to the other side of the room, picking up his shoes along the way, and threw open the door to his castle suite. The two guards just outside jumped in surprise from the conduit’s abrupt entrance, but were unable to interject as Sam spoke.

“I’m heading out to the garden. If you need me, I’ll be there.”

Though before Sam took more than three steps, both the guards swiftly planted themselves in front of Sam’s path.

“Halt, conduit! You are not to leave this area until the captain is informed,” the unicorn guard declared resolutely.

Sam couldn’t help but groan until a light smirk made its way onto his face. These guards’ attempts at appearing intimidating was delightfully silly, especially with their orders coming from Cappy. Speaking of the Captain, apparently he has appointed himself as Sam’s personal stalker. Sam didn’t know whether to feel flattered or disturbed… maybe both, just to be safe.

“Well, if he really must know. Why don’t you go tell him, then we’ll meet out back later, kay?”

Neither of the guards seemed amused by the offer of compromise. Seemed like Sam was going to have to do this the old fashion way.

“Well darn,” Sam over exaggeratedly looked down in defeat, “It seems that your uncompromising fortitude has foiled my attempts to take a relaxing walk through the gardens.”

The earth pony guard just watched in confusion while the unicorn looked to try and come up with a response.

“Mr. Reed, we are not exactly stopping you, we just need-”

“No, no. The moment’s gone,” Sam turned to go back into his room, “I’ll be in here if you need me.”

The conduit closed the door behind him, leaving two very confused guards back out in the hall. The two guards looked at each other and silently debated on whether they should inform Captain Aegis Flare of the encounter. That question would remain unanswered as they heard one of the two pegasi guards posted outside the room’s window shout.

“Halt, conduit!”

~~0~~

Sam was once again ‘detained’ by the patrols that apparently were stationed just outside the suite’s window. He really should have looked up when checking for more guards. His simple plan of wire-rappelling down and out the window was suspended when a pegasus spotted him halfway down to the ground. Now, he just waited and leaned against the castle wall while half a dozen guards threatenly held spears toward him. The first pegasus that spotted him left a short while ago to summon reinforcements or some other nonsense, which left Sam to boringly wait and stare at his aggressors.

“So, how’s the weather been out here?” Sam idly asked no one in particular.

One guard had actually felt inclined to answer. “Silence!” Albeit, not very socially.

Not very long afterwards, a new set of galloping hoofbeats came around the corner of the castle to Sam’s left. Surprisingly, it wasn’t Cappy who came as Sam expected, but the Lunar Princess herself.

“What is the meaning of this?!”

And she did not seem very pleased.

“Hey, Loony,” Sam calmly replied, “Just making a few new friends.”

Neither the princess nor the guards seemed amused. At least Sam thought it was a good answer.

“I will allow thee one chance to explain thyself, Samuel,” Luna threatened while advancing just behind the semicircle of guards, “Do not waste it!”

Once again, Sam figured that he might as well be a little more serious. So, he pushed off the castle wall and glanced at the sky.

“It looked way too nice out, and I wanted to walk around the garden to enjoy it.”

Luna looked genuinely confused, “It looked nice out?”

Sam waved his arm lazily toward the sky, “The night sky. I don’t usually say this, but it just looks beautiful.”

Sam, too busy admiring the stars and moon once more, missed the Lunar Princess’ surprised expression. Luna shook her head to clear her thoughts and called for the conduit’s attention.

“Regardless, you fled your room through the window to abandon your escort.”

“My ‘escort’ wanted to tell Cappy that-”

“Captain Aegis Flare,” Luna corrected, narrowing her gaze a little.

“Right. So, they wanted to get his permission for me to even leave my room, and we both know how that would be.” Sam tried his best to imitate the Captain’s scowl, which did earn a few restrained snickers from the guards. “Anyways, I just took the liberty head out for a bit and come back later. At least, until the ‘top gun twins’ showed up.”

The two pegasi guards from the beginning looked confused until the princess sighed in exasperation. Samuel was both a nuisance and surprisingly good-natured. It was a wonder how such a being could exist to Luna, but that was something to ponder for later.

“So, your intention was to watch the night sky from the garden, even if it meant ditching your escort?” Luna pressed on.

“Yup, that about sums it up,” Sam replied nonchalantly.

Luna suppressed the smile that tried to adorn her face so she could properly berate the conduit, but having someone compliment her night sky so openly made it hard to stay truly mad.

Luna stepped past the semicircle of guards to speak directly to Sam, “Well, if you are still intending to visit the gardens, I suppose I have no choice but to personally escort you myself to make sure you do not cause more trouble.”

“Well, if you insist,” Sam said even if he didn’t care either way, so long as he could ditch his escort for a little while.

With that, the Lunar Princess dispersed the rest of the guards to their patrols. Although, she did inform one of them to report the incident to Captain Aegis Flare, much to Sam’s chagrin. Afterwards, Luna led the way around the castle’s exterior to where the gardens were, which happened to lead to the backend of the tree grove Sam saw earlier that day. They detoured their way onto the closest path leading back toward the fountain, though not before Sam caught a glimpse of a few of the plaques that were embedded at the feet of those trees.

“Sweet Bristle, Night Twister, Ivory Charm, Crystal Rose?” Sam read off each one as he passed.

Luna’s hoofsteps slowed down as she remembered a few of those names, “Members of prominent families of Equestria’s history.”

Sam watched as the Lunar princess looked off into the distance with a wistful gaze, as if remembering a time long past along with a sort of happiness and pain.

“You knew them?” Sam asked.

Luna blinked twice and returned to her normal pace as they made it to the fountain, “A few. They were friends, as well as family in a way.”

Sam clenched his jaw to hide his frown. He knew the feeling she was talking about, but he couldn’t think about that at the moment. So, he looked back up to the sky, to which Luna took notice.

“You really enjoy the night sky, don’t you, Samuel.”

Sam chuckled, “More like you don’t get views like this where I come from.”

“Oh?” Luna pressed as they passed the last of the topiary that led to the gazebo, “What is it like from your world?”

Sam frowned, “Not quite as bright.”

“Is your world plagued by darkness at night?”

Sam laughed a little at that, “No. I mean, you can’t see as many stars in the sky unless you live out in the mountains or something. Though here, it’s like the sky is an ocean of stars and light. Hell, even the moon is beautiful.”

Both the conduit and the princess sat out in the grass at the foot of the gazebo to look out into the sky. Luna admired her work just as much as anypony that took pleasure in the nightscape. It was a time of peace, of wonder, and of beauty. Of course, thanks to her sister, she was also made aware of what the modern ponies called ‘nightclubs’ and other such places that celebrated with much enthusiasm for the nightlife.

“I thank you for your compliments,” Luna smiled as she watched the stars twinkle a little.

“Wait, what?” Sam asked in confusion.

“Your compliments on the night,” Luna said, not taking her eyes away from the field of celestial bodies, “It is a grand task to undertake each night, and to have someone openly admire it is uplifting.”

Sam sputtered until he fell back in laughter. The princess, unable to see the joke, just arched her brow in confusion.

“I’m sorry,” Sam finally got himself under some control, “but it sounded like you were saying that you create the night. I’m calling bull!”

The last statement left Sam in another laughing fit, which left the princess to scowl at him until he calmed down a little more.

“Pray tell, Samuel,” Luna looked directly at the conduit on the ground, “What makes you think that this is a joke?”

“You’re serious?! Ok, I thought I was the crazy one here.” Sam suppressed another chuckle to continue, “Stars just don’t work that way. I see you got the whole night motif going for you, but come on. Be serious here, you can’t honestly tell me that you control the stars. Next thing you know, you’re telling me that you also control the moon.”

Princess Luna had half a mind to rain a mighty storm of retribution for the conduit’s comments, but she came up with something a little better.

“Samuel, do you see that cluster of stars? Just north of the moon?” The princess pointed to the sky to emphasize her point.

Sam didn’t know where she was going with this, but nodded all the same. This should at least be fun to watch. The princess on the other hand merely closed her eyes. Sam watched as her horn gained the ethereal glow of magic he was becoming accustomed to. Slowly but surely, the glow became brighter and more intense. Arcs of blue energy wafted off her horn until they disappeared into the darkness of the night air as more energy seemed to pour from the Lunar Princess. There was even a slight hum in the air that tickled all of his senses. Then, he saw something impossible. The cluster of stars that the princess had pointed out before shone brighter. Each one winking out of existence and then popping back in. That wasn’t all. The surrounding field of stars dimmed as the cluster began to move. They spun around an invisible axis and seemed to dance around that axis’ center. The stars soon rearranged themselves into an image. One of a pony with no wings or horns. Then, they wove into the image of a lotus blossom. Finally, they formed to outline the image of the bipedal creature that Sam had known all his life as a human. The final image was wiped away, and the stars slowly eased their way back into their original positions.

Princess Luna’s horn dimmed until there was no more magic flowing through it and opened her eyes. She turned to the conduit to see a slacked-jawed Samuel sitting on the grass staring at the spot where the impromptu show was displayed. She couldn’t help but giggle at the dumbstruck being as he tried to comprehend what he just saw.

“No way,” Sam finally said in a whisper, “That… how… you did that?!”

Luna’s only response was to nod and smile cheekily.

Sam continued to stutter at what he just witnessed and came up with no rational way to explain what just happened. At the back of his mind, a little version of himself smirked at him while jazz-hands-ing and whispered ‘magic’. That little version of himself was immediately thrown into the deepest pit Sam could imagine for being too snarky. Lil’ Sam’s last words will never be forgotten as he fell.

“IT WAS WORTH IIIIIIIT!”

Sam came out of his stupor to look at the smiling princess and regained more of his composure.

“I can’t even begin…”

“Anytime you are ready, Samuel.”

“That. Was. Incredible!” Sam finally shouted, “I still don’t know if I even saw that, but damn! That was like the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!”

The conduit kept on rambling while Luna just smiled at the continued praise. However, their time was becoming short. So, the princess raised her hoof to halt the conduit’s speech.

“I appreciate your praise, but it is getting late. My sister must be waiting for us in the dining hall as we speak.”

Sam very much wanted to continue to watch the night sky, but his stomach disagreed with him as it gave a soft rumble. Sighing in acceptance, he lifted himself up off the ground and brushed off a few loose blades of grass from his clothes. Luna did the same, and they both began their walk back to the castle underneath the vibrant night sky. This world was far to peaceful by Sam’s perspective, but for the moment, he enjoyed it.

~~0~~

Within the office of Captain Aegis Flare, said captain was furiously tapping his hoof on his desk as he studied the report in front of him, although he would much rather be home, spending time with his wife. Of course, the life of a captain in the Equestrian Royal Guard was demanding, and these latest reports also demanded his attention. It seems that the ‘conduit’ was determined to give him an ulcer with his constant antics. His latest offense including leaving his assigned escort without permission and attempted escape. Aegis Flare would never speak ill of the rulers of Equestria, but how the princess could not see what kind of threat this creature presented eluded him. For all they knew, it was merely waiting for the right time to strike, more than likely when it had gained enough of its ‘source’ for it to empower itself.

Then, there was the following report of another incident within the Ivory District of Canterlot. It was another missing pony report. Just like all the others: no witnesses, no unusual sounds, and no traces left. That is... except for one crucial piece. At first, it seemed like nothing, but one guard noticed how out of place this one thing was. This object being a metal shard. Not too uncommon, as the piece was determined to be made of something like steel from the first look at it, but that’s where things began to not add up. Upon inspection of the metal shard at the scene of the last known sighting of the victim, unicorn guards noted that the piece of metal was strangely resilient to even the most basic levitation spells. The metal shard also had no discernible runes or gems infused with anti-magic wards to account for this. It was like the metal itself was magic resistant. Further inspection of the shard also showed faint burn marks around one side of it. The final clue that the shard had to offer was on one face of it, a partial black letter ‘D’ against a yellow background that looked very angular.

Whatever the piece of metal came from, Aegis Flare was certain that it was connected to the missing pony. Not only that, but the mystery of its magic resistance also drew a red flag at the back of his mind. If his hunch was correct, then he needed to find the proof he needed before it was too late. Otherwise, not just the princess’, but the whole of Equestria could be in danger.

Twilight's Preparations

Twilight Sparkle: Element of Harmony Bearer, personal protege to Princess Celestia and sometimes referred to as an egghead by her friends. That last part was moreover just a little personal tidbit, but true all the same. All these things amounted to a unicorn of considerable prowess in many a fields of the arcane and science studies communities. So, it wasn’t uncommon for her to travel to Canterlot, the foremost Equestrian capital of magical/scientific innovations, to support prominent various new studies. Although, this particular ride aboard the Friendship Express had the unicorn quite nervous and excited. ‘Nervouscited’ as her friend, Pinkie Pie, would say. She had been summoned by none other than her mentor for something that was unusual, to say the least.

In the meantime, she still had about twenty minutes before she arrived at Canterlot Station. So, to steady her nerves and pass some time, she dug through her overburdened saddle bags for one particular piece of parchment that had been carefully rolled up. This letter was very special, as it had come from Princess Celestia herself. This also wasn’t too uncommon for the purple unicorn to share correspondences with the co-ruler of Equestria; she was her mentor after all. This letter was not like her others though. It had even been sealed with a spell, so that only the recipient could open it. That recipient was Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight unfurled the letter for the fourth time since she boarded the train. She could practically recite the letter by heart, with how many times she read it since the day before, but the contents always left her reeling.

My Faithful Student

Twilight Sparkle,

I apologize greatly that this letter is not just a well greeting. Be that as it may, I still wish to bid you a wonderful evening. Your last letter about your friends, Rainbow Dash and Applejack’s new ‘Iron Pony’, competition was both inspiring and had both my sister and I in fits of laughter. Though before you continue reading this letter, it is with the utmost importance that you keep the contents of it to yourself. That includes not divulging any of this to Spike, if he so happens to be peeking over your withers right now.

Even if she was alone on a train bound for Canterlot, Twilight couldn’t help taking a glance over her withers for the sometimes very nosy dragon that liked to sneak glances at her private mail. Twilight may have raised him, but he was more akin to a troublemaking, little brother at times. With the reflex out of the way, Twilight returned to reading her letter in peace.

If you are now without any onlookers, good. I am sorry if this letter does not answer all of the questions that you will surely have, but we cannot risk too much information being made public. What I am about to tell you is a matter of national security and may change the way we interpret the mechanics of our universe. Many ponies, like myself, have gazed upon the open skies, whether in the day or night, and wondered if there was another world out there with intelligent life, such as our own. No more than a week ago, a being from one such world has made contact with ours. He is unlike anything we have ever seen before and has shown a great deal of understanding and intuition. Unfortunately, his arrival was not without its complications. It had taken us a while to understand him and the fact that he had been sent to our world by accident. He was never meant to come here in the first place and adamantly seeks a method home.

Unfortunately, without knowledge of where exactly his home is or a method to travel with, I fear we would be unable to help him. That is why I am calling upon you, my most faithful student. You have proven time and time again how intuitive and resourceful you are in the face of adversity. This is why I would like for you to come to Canterlot to meet this being, known as a ‘human’, and help him in his endeavour of finding his way home. Not only that, but also to get to know him and understand him for yourself. For as much as we have come to learn about him, there are still many a things I can see that he has to offer and vice versa.

I know this is a lot to take in and ask of you, but I can think of no pony that I am more confident in to complete this task. I will await your arrival at Castle Canterlot in the following day and wish you safe travels.

Your Mentor,

Princess Celestia

The first time she read that letter, Twilight thought she was dreaming. A being from another world? It was the scientific discovery of the century. No, the millennium. The mere thought of being one of the first ponies to meet this ‘human’ made her giddy to the point where she almost couldn’t sleep the night before. That and all the preparations she had made in anticipation for meeting said alien didn’t help her sleep schedule.

Twilight carefully rolled the letter back up and replaced it into her saddlebags while also pulling out another roll of parchment. Her ‘List-of-things-needed-to-study-an-alien’ list. Going down the list, for the third time that day, she checked off each item from saddlebags.

‘Several rolls of blank parchment for notes; check. List of questions to ask the alien; check. Extra quills to take notes with; check. Ink pots; check. Medical examination kit; check. Reference textbooks on prominent interstellar theorems; check. Equestrian customs and courtesies, a reference guide; check. Flash cards on study topics assigned from Princess Celestia; check.’

Just as Twilight finished her checklist, the train’s whistle blew to signify their arrival in Canterlot. She quickly stashed her belongings back into her bags to be ready for her departure to the castle.

--o0o--

It had been awhile since her last visit to Canterlot, but the purple unicorn navigated the streets as if she’d known them her entire life. The looming visage of the castle in the distance served as her beacon as she wove between crowds of Canterlot residents.

“Twilight?”

The mare whose’s name was called looked about the semi-busy streets to find the source of the familiar voice. As it so happened, the source of the caller was just on the opposite side of the road waving back at her.

“Mother! Father!”

Twilight lightly galloped up to her smiling parents as they welcomed their daughter with open embraces. After a quick hug and nuzzle from both of them, Twilight backed up to properly speak with them.

“What are you doing in Canterlot, sweetie?” Twilight Velvet, her mother, asked.

Twilight flinched. As much as she would love to tell her parents that she was on her way to a highly confidential assignment she was tasked with from the princess herself to act as an ambassador to an alien being from another world, she had been sworn to secrecy. Luckily, she was spared the interrogation when her father, Nightlight, cut in.

“Honey, why don’t we move out of the street before hounding our daughter on the time she hasn’t spent with us? We were on our way to brunch, Twilight. Care to join us? Your mother and I found this spectacular outdoor cafe down the street from here last week.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Twilight spoke, “but I kinda needed to be somewhere for an, um, appointment.”

Of course, her stomach had other plans as it made its protests known after missing out on the breakfast that Spike had made that very morning. Twilight’s parents both gave their daughter a knowing smile.

“Twi, you didn’t skip breakfast to be at this ‘appointment’, again?” Twilight’s father asked smartly.

Twilight blushed as she had been called out on one of her bad habits. Both her parents chuckled at their daughter’s expense before sweetening the deal even further.

“Why don’t you come sit down with us at the cafe?” Twilight’s mother said, “They have banana nut muffins.”

Of course her mother had to play on her weakness for banana nut muffins. Thinking it over, Twilight was never one to deny time with her family, nor her favorite snack. Plus, Princess Celestia never did say what time she was to arrive at the castle. Then again, she would never disappoint her mentor by not being as punctual as possible...maybe she could have one muffin with her parents, then get back to her assignment within an hour, tops.

Giving her parents a quick nod, the three ponies made for the cafe down the street to enjoy a simple mid-morning brunch. Twilight had to admit that the cafe did indeed have its charm. Most of the patrons sat at the outside tables, eating and chatting with friends and colleagues. Luckily, Twilight and her parents were able to snag one of the last outdoor tables to enjoy the pleasant weather.

Once seated, a pony in the cafe’s uniform took their order and left them to fill their orders. In the meantime, Twilight and her parents caught each other up on each others lives since their last get together. Nightlight’s lectures on history at the Canterlot Higher Education Academy were going smoothly with this semester’s students. Some still needed to apply themselves better like his dear daughter, but promises of bright futures were seen in each of his students nonetheless. Twilight’s mother, who was an independent editor for novels, was just about done with her latest work for an up and coming author before she began on a ‘secret’ project. This was just a codeword that Twilight had grown to loathe whenever her mother started editing for an author that Twilight had interest in. Her mother would never tell her which one she was working on, which frustrated the purple unicorn to no end no matter how much she begged for so much as a peek at the synopsis.

Just as Twilight finished telling her folks about her time during Ponyville’s ‘Harvest Day Parade’, their orders had been brought out for them to enjoy. Twilight’s nostrils flared as the scent of a hearty banana and walnut muffin hit her senses. Though before she could savor her first bite, her mother asked the question that was on both her parents’ minds.

“So, what is it that brings you back to Canterlot, Twilight?” Twilight Velvet asked as she took a sip of her coffee.

Twilight’s magical grasp on her food nearly slipped as she forgot to come up with a viable excuse for her unexpected arrival.

“I just, um, have an appointment. That’s all,” Twilight said and stuffed a sizeable piece of the muffin in her mouth to buy some more time.

Nightlight arched his eyebrow and gained a devious grin, “Does this ‘appointment’ include a visit to our lovely daughter’s coltfriend by any chance?”

Twilight instantly regretted taking such a big bite out of the muffin, as she immediately started choking on the piece while a dark blush crossed her face. Twilight’s mother helped her daughter take a few sips of water to ease her pain and patted her back.

“Dad!” Twilight choked out.

Her father just chuckled as her mother continued to help Twilight through her coughing fit. The apparent scene was enough of a commotion to draw the attention of the surrounding patrons, further embarrassing the Sparkle family as a whole.

“Nightlight, stop embarrassing your family while we are out in public,” Twilight’s mother glared at her husband, “Honestly, it’s a wonder we don’t get kicked out from every venue we visit.”

With a warm smile, Nightlight leaned over to lay down his patented get-out-of-the-doghouse card, “Oh, Velvet, isn’t that the part of my charm that drove you crazy for me?”

“No, I believe it was the part where you apologized to your daughter,” Twilight Velvet gave her own smirk behind a dangerous glare.

With his plan foiled, Nightlight apologized quickly and returned to his meal. Velvet, on the other hoof, leaned in a little closer to speak quietly with her daughter.

“So, are you here to meet with a coltfriend?”

“Mom!”

Twilight was lucky to avoid a repeat performance of her earlier endeavour, but she blushed even more profusely.

“What? Your father and I are just wondering when we can expect to meet the lucky stallion that catches our beautiful daughter’s attention.”

“Perhaps she is just waiting for a prince to sweep her off her hooves,” Nightlight added with a chuckle, “, You know, just because your brother married a princess doesn’t mean you have to compete with him. Although your mother and I would then have all our grandfoals be royalty to look forward to.”

Twilight slammed one of her forehooves down on the table before rapidly responding, “I am perfectly happy with my life right now, and I will find a coltfriend when I am good and ready! And I am not here to meet with some stallion!”

She never knew why her parents, especially her father, loved to mortify her everytime she came for a visit. It was like all parents did was come up with ways to embarrass their children. Why couldn’t they just understand that she was a simple mare with simple needs? Which did not include plans with a stallion anytime in the near future.

“Then can we ask what this crucial ‘appointment’ is about that brought you to Canterlot?” Twilight’s mother asked.

“Uh...” It was at this point that Twilight forgot one important thing. To come up with an excuse for her unexpected arrival to Equestria’s capital. She continued to nervously hum to herself in a vain effort to put off the question. She needed to think of something fast and believable. Something her parents wouldn’t suspect as out of the ordinary. Then, it hit her.

“I was called to study some new energy matrices that are to be used for magitech!”

It was a total lie. Magitech, or technology that runs off of magical energies, was something that she had been looking into since the first week of its proposed theorem, and that was when she was still at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. Magic may have been a part of everyday life for everypony, but the fine tuned manipulation of unicorn magic made industries rather limited. So, as a proof of concept, the first ever device to be powered by a source of magic besides a unicorn was a simple lightbulb. Soon, the whole concept exploded into a revolution of inventions to provide simple yet effective products for ponies to use. Ice boxes became refrigerators. Candles were becoming outdated by lamps and other lighting fixtures. Wood burning stoves could be replaced with a stove that had plates that heated on their own with the flick of a switch. Entire cities soon found themselves thrust into a new age of technology in just nearly a decade.

Of course, all of this was a mote point as Twilight had once been asked to help study the complex matrices of new magitech and improve a few of them nearly three months ago. Not to mention that she never told her family about that time as she was also in the midst of an astrology kick she went on in the follow weeks. Her only hope was that her lie would dissuade her parents from digging for more details.

“Oh? It must be very important if our little Twilight was asked to come aid in this,” Nightlight said.

Twilight could already see that her parents were about to start digging. Luckily, she noticed that her plate was now devoid of any muffin left and provided her with the perfect excuse.

Looking at a nearby clock tower, Twilight hastily stood up, “Look at the time! I’m sorry I can’t stay and talk some more, but I really need to make it to this appointment. Love you both, bye!”

Her hasty retreat was cut short when she noticed she could not feel the weight of her saddlebags on her back. With a quick flick of her magic, her saddlebags found their way upon her, and a few bits were dropped on the table to pay for her meal. Twilight’s parents watched as their daughter dashed off down the street with all the haste of a foal looking to avoid some rather nosy parents. Twilight Velvet and Nightlight both smiled at their daughter’s antics and continued to enjoy their own food until Nightlight got another smirk on his face.

“Ten bits says she is going to see some colt.”

Twilight Velvet merely rolled her eyes, “If she is, I hope he at least has more decency than you at the brunch table.”

--o0o--

It didn’t take Twilight long to get back on track, and in short order, she was given consent to enter the castle grounds by the gate pony guards. Now, she was making her way through the labyrinth like hallways of the castle to the dining chamber, the place she was directed to where she would find the princesses and their ‘guest’. Although the guards she was given directions from seemed quite uninterested in this ’guest’. Though how could they be? There was a real, live alien sitting right in their capital! How could anypony not be interested in this? A chance at a cultural and intellectual exchange of immense magnitude.

Twilight then realized something. She had brought her guide on Equestrian customs and courtesies as a refresher for herself in anticipation for her introduction. What if her greeting is considered an insult to this alien? What if she causes some interplanetary incident just by not shaking with the right hoof? Did ‘humans’ even shake hooves, or whatever appendages they have? If she did not handle this just right, she could end up offending Equestria’s first interplanetary ally by saying ‘hello’ improperly. She would be scorned for the rest of her life as the mare that failed to make peaceful relations with an alien race. She would be expelled from every scientific community in Equestria. She would no longer be allowed to call herself Princess Celestia’s prized pupil.

Twilight was so busy running through all the possibilities of her first encounter with the human that she didn’t even realize that she was now standing just outside the dining chamber.

“Oh no, I can’t talk to the human like this!” Twilight hissed while she paced frantically in front of the dining chamber, “I have to readjust my greeting, but what do I say? ‘Hi, my name is Twilight Sparkle’. No, too informal. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you’. No, too impersonal. ‘Greetings from the land of Equestria’. Argh, why does this have to be so complicated?!”

Twilight’s ears twitched as she heard the voice of her dear mentor from behind the dining chamber’s door.

“I suppose it’s about time that we meet the pony I have entrusted to aid your endeavour, no?”

‘Shoot, was that suppose to be my que? I didn’t plan for this! No, I’m not ready, but I have to make my entrance now!’

With no more time ponder, Twilight pushed the doors open to the dining chamber. She trotted in with a level head and issued a courteous bow to both the Equestrian diarchs and the alien known as a human.

“Hello and welcome to Twilight Sparkle, my name is Equestria!”

…smooth like silk.

Pride vs. Prejudice

Author's Notes:

Hey, a new chapter... and only a week late from when I originally wanted to post... yeah. Have fun reading, and thanks to my editor, Regreme, for helping me as always.

I'm also looking into cutting the chapters down into smaller parts like this one to keep a better tone between each one. So wait, does this mean there is a another chapter soon to be? Well all I can say is

Another day and Sam pressed on with his morning routine in the magical land of talking horses. If only he could get over the feeling of anxiety he woke up with that morning as well. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought it had something to do with a dream that he had the previous night. It was too bad he couldn’t remember any of it besides the waking up in a cold sweat. Perhaps a warm shower was all he needed.

With his morning duties out of the way, he made his way back into the suite’s main room in nothing but a wrapped towel to fetch his clothes. Only this time, instead of the tattered set he had been wearing the past week, he walked across the room where three new sets of clothes were folded up and sitting on top of the seat in front of the work desk. Sam carefully took the top set back to the bed and set them out upon the sheets. Silk Trim had dropped by the night before to deliver the finished products. He had seemed especially anxious to see the conduit’s reaction to the clothes. True to his word, they remained simple and practical. Not that Silk Trim hadn’t taken the liberty to add a few personal touches. Sam was pleased at the very least that said clothes had no frills, despite the tailor’s insistence. For some reason, Silk Trim had noted that the ensemble’s cuffs at least had these additions to add an air of sophistication. Luckily, Sam made it abundantly clear that nothing like that would be added. What was left before him was something that he could be happy with. And like the night before, he thanked the tailor for the work he put into them.

The shirt was a maroon, long sleeve v-neck. The material was a cotton blend by what Sam could tell. Light to the touch and quite durable, plus didn’t hang to loosely to his frame. The sleeves even felt comfortable when he cinched them up his forearms. The pants were still that navy blue denim-like material he anticipated, but had an interesting graphic added to the right pant leg along the outside of his thigh. A hollow silver three leaf clover club. Even more interesting about it were the lines of silver that twirled and wrapped inside of the hollow clover symbol to look like vines or wire threads. Sam couldn’t help but laugh like he did from the previous night when he first saw the design.

“Is there something the matter with the design, Mr. Reed?” Silk Trim asked when Sam started to sputter out laughing the night before.

It had taken a moment for Sam to compose himself before he spoke between chuckles, “No, nothing at all. It’s just- where did you come up with this graphic?”

Sam thought back to his friends back in Memphis. ‘The Four Aces’ couldn’t really be ‘The Four Aces’ without their ‘Ace of Clubs’. Then, there was the fact that they still never really found out why the Memphis folk even called them that. Then again, it was a pretty cool name, so it stuck. Sam hoped that his friends were doing okay and that they wouldn’t have to start calling themselves ‘The Four Aces Minus One’. That would seriously be too much of a mouthful.

Silk Trim tapped the bottom of his chin with a hoof before answering, “If I’m to be completely honest, it just felt the most fitting. It’s not too much, is it?”

“Absolutely not,” Sam replied, “It’s perfect.”

Sam hadn’t noticed that he had been staring at the pair of pants for the past few minutes while he remembered that event. So, he did what any person would do with a pair of pants; put them on… for the time being. The only thing left on the bed from the outfit was a long strip of dark silver cloth. Sam figured that it was to be used as a belt/sash and fit nicely through the loops around the waist of his pants and held them up pretty well too. No one was going to be pantsing this conduit any time soon. Sam frowned when he looked at the sash as the ends, even when knotted, drooped down almost to his knees. It looked rather dumb at the front of the pants, so instead, he fixed it so the ends sat along his left side on the outside of his left thigh. He would have prefered a regular belt or go without the sash, but the pants were a little loose if they weren’t secured like they were. Still, overall not a bad look he thought as Sam looked down over the outfit one more time.

A series of sharp knocks on the suite’s door interrupted Sam’s musings for the moment. Seemed like whoever it was has a great sense of timing. Sam strode over to the door and opened it to be greeted by his favorite stick-in-the-mud guard captain.

“Cappy!” Sam threw on his prize winning smile, “So great to see you this morning. And how goes it with you?”

The captain said nothing and narrowed his gaze, as if it would somehow set the conduit in front of him on fire. Although Sam noticed that his glare was a little unfocused, like the good captain had something else on his mind.

“Stay within the formation to the dining hall,” Aegis Flare said in a very clipped manner.

Sam knew the routine, but the Captain still seemed off. Like he was frustrated at something other than Sam. So, he took it upon himself to do the only thing he knew to get to the bottom of Cappy’s troubles.

“So, like the new duds?” Sam asked, showing off the outfit as he was led down the winding hallways of the castle.

The captain only spared a glance in Sam’s direction, then he was back to watching the hallways.

“Yeah, I hear sashes are all the rage now,” Sam quipped, “Bet the ladies would love to see the captain sporting one too.”

Aegis Flare didn’t even look back this time, but Sam could tell he was still listening.

“Of course, if sashes aren’t your thing, I get it. Everyone’s got their own tastes. By the way, got any news on what’s up with the ’way-back-home’ project?”

Finally, the grumbling captain broke his silence to answer, “No.”

Sam was a little disappointed to hear that tidbit, but pressed on, “Well, darn. Guess you can’t always get too high of hopes. Hey, so I can’t help but think that you look like you’ve got something on your mind. I mean, other than how long it would take to strangle me to death. Just to let you know, I’m a great listener.”

Aegis Flare stopped and deftly turned on his hooves to face the conduit, “You are to mind your own business, ‘human’. Whatever the royal guard is investigating is none of your concern.”

Sam’s eyebrow rose as the good captain realized what he just said.

“Damn. Gotta be an important investigation if it’s so hush-hush. Like I said, I’m a great listener. I don’t mind hearing about this,” Sam offered.

Aegis Flare gained a steely look and turned back around, “It is none of your concern, ‘human’, and you will do well to forget you heard anything at all.”

Sam shrugged and followed the captain to their destination. Upon entering the dining hall, Sam noticed that there was a distinct lack of royalty at the table waiting on him like the day before. Though before he could question Sunny and Loony’s absent, Aegis Flare spoke first.

“The princesses are busy this morning, tending to important matters. Princess Celestia will not be available until noon at the earliest. I, much to my displeasure, am to watch over you until such time that she is available. Now, if you would so kindly hurry up with your meal, I will see to your escort back to your quarters.”

While Sam made his way to the only seat at the table with a breakfast plate in front of it, the rest of the guards took up positions around the room. Aegis Flare in particular took the position of just in front of the main door and pointedly glared at the conduit at intermittent intervals. If Sam didn’t know any better, he would have thought that the good captain was pissed at him just a smidge.

Since there wasn’t much else to do, Sam finished his breakfast of fluffy, blueberry pancakes in quick fashion. Like the day before, the food was delicious. He only wished that he had his friends back from Memphis to share them with. Also like before, a butler pony appeared, as if on cue, and went about collecting his empty plate. Seemed like it was the butler from yesterday too, as he didn’t do as much gawking this time around.

As soon as Sam stood up, the guards moved back to the entrance to await with the captain for the conduit. Back out into the hallway, they were back on the path to the suite that Sam took residency in. Then, the boredom settled back in. Sam thought back to what Aegis Flare had mentioned earlier on about an investigation and decided to play around with an idea.

“So, Cappy... Mind if I ask about that investigation you got going on?” Sam nonchalantly asked.

“No,” Aegis Flare grunted out.

“Okay… what if I just guess what the investigation is about?” Sam asked, “So, let’s see here. Hmm, is it about some political corruption?”

Aegis Flare gave no answer as they continued walking. Hoping the human would just get bored again.

“How about espionage? If it is, might want to call up that fellow, double-O seven, yeah? Or maybe it was a murder? Money laundering schemes? Drug ring? Oh, how about a grand theft?”

With every moment that passed in the human’s presence, Aegis Flare found it increasingly difficult to hold himself back. It was like this was all just a game to the creature.

“...So, I can take your silence as a yes to ‘all of the above’?”

“Do you ever shut up?!” Aegis Flare reared back and spat out in Sam’s face, “Are you just not right in the head, or do you find some sick pleasure in your incessant rambling? Don’t even think about answering that, human! Not once have you shown even a bit of respect nor gratitude for the generosity that you have been given! I don’t know how your world deals with the likes of your kind, but I hope they do not tolerate this kind of foalish behavior! And just to be clear, your random accusations have nothing to do with my investigation!”

After the captain’s tirade, he settled into breathing heavily through clenched teeth while glaring hotly at the conduit. The other guards did not dare to make a move as they watched the tension grow thicker and for fear of getting swept up into it. Sam, on the other hand, looked as though he were in deep contemplation. His brow was knit furiously, and his eyes were squeezed shut while his arms remained crossed.

When Sam seemed to come out of his stupor, he quickly regained a quirky smile and said, “So, that’s a no to ‘all of the above’. Ah well, at least it narrows down the list quite a bit.”

The surrounding guards couldn’t believe this. No mortal would dare to speak so freely or nonchalantly to Captain Aegis Flare. All eyes were on the captain and awaiting what sort of retribution this human had brought upon himself. Instead, Aegis Flare remained rooted in place, seemingly stuck between looking dumbstruck and utterly furious. It was at this point that the captain realized something. The human had once again provoked him enough to reveal sensitive information. Aegis Flare couldn’t tell if the human was still just messing around or being serious and carefully chipping away to gain any secrets it could get its hands on. This creature could be more clever than it initially led on. That made it dangerous.

Though before Aegis Flare could retaliate, Sam cut him off with a clap of his hands, “Well, as much fun as twenty questions is, I think it’s only fair if you get something out of this too. I mean, I can’t let you be the only one talking here, right? So, how about it, Cappy? Wanna hear a secret?”

Aegis Flare wasn’t about to be suckered into another one of the creature’s games.

With a turn of his hooves, he set about in the opposite direction and called back, “Whatever it is, I doubt I would care.”

“Even if it's a secret about conduits that I haven’t even told the princesses about?” Sam asked with a devious smirk on his face.

Aegis Flare’s trot came to a grinding halt. What did this human mean by a secret he never told the princesses? Surely it was just another one of its terrible jokes, but if this human was withholding some vital piece of information… the captain would need to at least hear what the human had to say.

“Talk.”

Sam gave another devious smirk and spoke, “All conduits, including myself, are extremely dangerous and wanted criminals on my world. My rap sheet alone includes willful destruction of public and government property, disregard for human life, and abetting other conduits from arrest. And those are just the top three.”

Aegis Flare just stood there as he took this in. Around him, the other guards were slack jawed and frozen at the conduit’s confession. The captain watched as the human idly picked some dirt from beneath his nails, as if what he just said was just a casual conversation topic.

Then the captain regained his steely gaze. He knew this ‘human’, ‘conduit’, or whatever it wanted to call itself was a danger from the moment it had first shown up in the throne room. Now, the damn idiot basically told him all he needed to lock him up in the dungeon, where it should have been this entire time. The princesses would understand once he brought this new information to light. No longer will this ‘human’ be allowed to have so much freedom, and the captain would make sure of that. Though before Aegis Flare could issue the order to have the conduit detained, Sam spoke up once more.

“At least, that's what the Department of Unified Protection would have you believe,” Sam said, “Bunch of bureaucratic asshats that were too afraid or didn’t care to try to understand who or what conduits are like. Even gone so far as to label every conduit as ‘bio-terrorists’ to get my world’s populace to believe that they are my world’s most dangerous threat. Didn’t even matter if you were a man, woman, or child either. As soon as you got tested positive or got caught, you got an all expenses paid trip to a lifetime incarceration. No questions asked. So yeah, I may have roughed up a few of the D.U.P.’s troops from time to time whenever they tried to shoot me and friends on sight for just walking down the street, but hey. At least I never imprisoned anyone for several years without so much as a trial just for being different and who happened to shoot wire from their fingertips.”

Sam’s final words were punctuated with silence from every guard present. Most looked shocked and appalled. What Sam had just described wasn’t just simple discrimination, but a prejudice that has been unheard of in the lands of Equestria since its founding. Even if a small part of Aegis Flare continued to doubt the conduit’s claims, he was just as shocked to hear this new revelation. He was a pony that swore to protect the citizens of Equestria, but also uphold justice in all its forms. Thinking back on the first week that he interacted with the human: were his methods and mentality good examples of the oaths he swore? No, he did what he had to do to ensure the protection of Equestria…by imprisoning a human and never truly asking why he ended up displaced from his land. Aegis Flare looked at the part of himself that still doubted the human’s every word and wondered if he too had let himself become blinded by a fear of the unknown. There were still so many questions, but now, Aegis Flare would consider the possibility that there may be more at play than he originally thought, like he should have done from the start.

With his musings done, Aegis Flare looked the conduit in the eye and said, “I believe it’s time that you return to your quarters. I will return to escort you when the Princess is available.”

A toothy smile crossed Sam’s lips. His silent acknowledgement in the matter as he resumed his march with the guards back to his suite. There wasn’t much else he wanted to say, and it stayed that way until they reached the guest suite.

“Well, I guess this is my stop,” Sam said as he opened the suite’s door, “Nice chatting with you Cappy. You’re a real pal, you know that? Oh, and don’t worry. I won’t let anyone know about the super important, super secret investigation that I totally have no idea about.”

Aegis Flare sighed, “Just remain here until I return to escort you, human.”

Sam gave a conspiratory wink and mockingly saluted before disappearing into the suite. No matter what, Aegis Flare will still never understand why the human ever acted so carefree. Especially if his claims of his relentless, unjustifiable punishment at the hooves of this D.U.P. were true.

Maybe humans really were just crazy, or he was still suffering in a way the good captain couldn’t possibly understand.

Ponies & Pranks

Author's Notes:

Thanks Regreme for helping me get through this chapter, and not just for the editing.

I actually ended up scrapping the first two drafts for this one cause I just didn't like how they turned out. No matter what I tried, the characters either felt too OoC or the scenes just never made sense for the long run. So, like I said I just scrapped them all together and took a few days off and binged on 'Horizon: Zero Dawn' (Fantastic game btw). When I finally came back, I realized that this chapter wasn't meant to hold too much major significance and just be more of a transition for the next. That doesn't mean this chapter is useless. I just wanted to bring a few things full circle for later on. In any case, I shall remain optimistic in the regard that I may have some new content sooner rather than later for next go around.

In the end, have fun reading. And thanks to everyone showing their support by just doing that.

‘Needs to look fiercer,’ Sam thought to himself as he surveyed his creation.

It was a wire frame model of a hydra. No taller than he was, but with enough detail that it was unmistakeable. He got the idea to make it after realizing that it would still be a few hours before the princess would be able to see him, if what Captain Aegis Flare said was true. Which left a certain conduit with nothing to do except twiddle his thumbs. Well, there was something else he could do with his thumbs, but it would be no fun by himself. Not to mention none of these horses had this human trait to rightly play a game of thumb war with him. They couldn’t even do a round of rock, paper, scissors. Childish? Yes. However, nothing beats a stupid idea to kill a bit of time. So in the meantime, Sam noted that there was always the option of going back to reading that bestiary from the day before, but he needed something a little more immersive. That’s when the idea struck. Maybe it was time to work on another project.

At one time, Sam believed that his abilities would have no more use than to fight. That is until one day in Curdan Cay, when he was able to sneak a bit of material back to his cell to just spite his captors. At first, he only imagined what he could have come up with as new techniques to use in a fight. Though after a while, and letting the bit of metal thread dance between his fingers, he tied it in a knot. After that, he added another knot, and then a bend. Soon, the little piece of metal took shape into a tiny stick figure of a human.

He stared at the little figure for longer than he could remember, subtly moving it in a way that moved it to do simple actions like walk and wave its stick figure hand like a puppet. When the guards finally noticed his ‘unauthorized material’, he was severely punished, but now he knew his abilities were not meant just for violence. They could build, and over time, his skills improved till he could produce impressive pieces of art out of wire. It helped him understand his powers all the better, and produce an ease of mind that his powers were more than just a weapon.

Back to the present, now all he needed was a bit of inspiration. His eyes wandered to the open pages of the bestiary he was using as a reference to eye the creature once more.

“Bingo,” Sam said as his eyes fell on the particular feature he now knew was missing.

The heads were the last thing he worked on. Faces always gave him the hardest time. It was honestly the best, yet most challenging part of any project. However, with a snap of his fingers, he added the last touch. A few tendrils of wire snaked from his fingers and settled along a weave above the beast’s eyeless sockets to help make the brow leading to the snout become more pronounced and menacing. Sam took a step back and eyed the completed work with a smile.

It took a good chunk of his reserves, but he could always reabsorb it later. One of the perks of being a solid matter conduit. The three heads of the hydra snaked from the body on elongated necks in twisted directions. The body was made to look like a simple wire egg shape, but Sam put extra spines leading from the necks and down to converge along the center of the hydra’s back. Sam couldn’t see how such a creature could traverse land all that well on such stubby legs, but the recreation was accurate, according to the pictures. Finally came the tail that almost dragged out along the floor from behind the hydra’s body. A simple piece, but Sam added a bit of life to it by having it coil around to the side of the main body. If it wasn’t for the fact that the entire thing was made of metal threads, it could almost look alive.

Crossing his arms and nodding in approval, Sam found his time well spent, and his boredom alleviated for all of twenty seconds, “Well, I’m bored again.”

Who knew so much peace and free time would drive a conduit crazy from restlessness. Usually a project like this was enough to keep him satisfied for far much longer. Of course, he also had to deal with defending his creations from Lu, as he tried to use them as target practice. Which would have led to the two brawling it out in their abandoned warehouse headquarters. Isabelle would try to reason with the two, but the fight would always be too far along to be stopped by words. Finally, Nataline would step in; and by step in, she would blast both the idiots with a few thousand volts of electrical energy til they could only taste ozone for the next hour.

Sam looked over his creation once more. It still needed one more detail before it could be completed. So, with a wire whip in hand, Sam lashed out at the side of the creature’s body. A loud pop resounded across the room, and a sizeable dent was now present.

“Damn it, Lu,” Sam muttered under his breath with a smile.

Now, it was complete.

The guards outside the door must have heard the commotion that Sam made, because a trio of knocks sounded upon the suite’s door.

“Mr. Reed,” the voice of a guard called out, “Is everything ok?”

Sam would have answered immediately, but then an idea entered his mind. A deliciously devious idea. Another series of knocks rang out from the outside of the door and another call of his name. Sam worked fast and set up to put his new plan into action.

--o0o--

Star Arrow and Violet Rose, the two royal guards posted outside the extraterrestrial’s suite, were doing what every good guardspony does when performing sentry duty.

“Alright,” Star Arrow said, “a million bits, but every time you sneeze. It actually sounds like a fart.”

Pass the time with stupid banter while the captain was away.

Violet Rose rolled her eyes, yet stuck out her tongue in concentration, “Can I control how loud the fart will sound like when I sneeze?”

“No, and it will always sound like a really loud one. Like that one time Midnight let one rip after downing a whole bowl of expired pears,” Star Arrow retorted with a smirk.

Violet Rose cringed a bit at the memory. The eastern barracks had to get fumigated after that.

“But wait, it won’t smell like that, right?”

Star Arrow shook his head, “No, but it’s not going to go unnoticed.”

Violet Rose thought it over a little more, and soon, her choice became clear.

“Pass.”

“What, too embarrassed to break a little wind?” Star Arrow chuckled.

“No, but that would get too old explaining after a while if I took the bits.”

“Alright, alright. You’re turn.”

Though before either of them could continue, a loud clanging noise came from inside the human’s room. Both the guards looked at each other, as if asking who was going to investigate first. Neither of them were particularly jumping at the chance, seeing as they were two of the guards that had once faced off against the human back in the throne room back when it first arrived. Star Arrow’s knee still ached from where it was broken. Violet Rose had to be put in a neck brace for a week, not mention all the other bruises and cuts each took when the fight picked up.

Unfortunately, their first encounter made them prime candidates for escort duty for the human. Along with every other guard that were a part of the first contact. Through the grapevine, they learned that the princesses have been facing media and other inquisitive ponies non-stop to suppress the fact they were currently housing an alien from another world in this very castle. It was mostly to keep the general populace from freaking out or even starting a full blown panic. Conspiracy theorists would be chomping at the bit just to even get a glimpse of the extraterrestrial, so with fewer ponies in the know about the human, the better. That didn’t mean that the it wasn’t a hot topic among the the castle staff that were in the know.

Back to the matter at hoof, Violet Rose gave Star Arrow a look. A look that said ‘you better do it or I’ll tell everypony about the barracks incident from yesterday’. So resigned to his fate, Star Arrow drew in a deep breath and faced the door. His hoof lifted up and started shaking a bit. He wasn’t scared. He was just being cautious. Three knocks on the door and no explosions later, Star Arrow let out his held breath.

“Uh,” Star Arrow needed to speak up, “Mr. Reed. Is everything ok?”

The suite and the hall outside with the two pony guards was silent. Had the human not heard him? Maybe it was just their imagination and nothing happened in the first place. Or the door to the suite would slowly open just a crack. Both guards were now sufficiently on edge. They took up positions further away from the door, and Violet Rose ignited her horn. The door was surrounded in an amber colored glow and slowly began to open further. Neither guard was prepared for what came next.

A glint of metal was all they saw before the door was wrenched open, and a slithering silver hydra head jumped out. Its maw opened to emit a terrible screeching noise they never heard any other hydra make. Star Arrow was too busy watching his life flash before his eyes to move, which left Violet Rose to act. Quick as a blink, her sword flew from her sheath, aided by her magic, to slice at the head and chop the creature’s face nearly in two. With her sword firmly embedded in the hydra’s face, the air became still, besides from the two guards hyperventilating.

“Damn~,” a familiar voice came from further into the suite, “didn’t think you’d just start hacking at it.”

Out walked the human with a stupid grin on his face and came over to inspect the hydra. It was at this point that Violet Rose could get a better look at the hydra she just killed. Although, to call it dead would be the wrong word. The part where she cut into had the most detail, but it was nothing more than a bunch of wires spun together into the shape of a hydra head. From there, she also saw that some wires were connected from the head all the way back the human’s ‘fingers’ if she pronounced them right. The human lifted one of his forelimbs, and his fingers made a few movements. At the same time, the wire hydra’s head shifted and moved. It was all a trick.

“So, what did y’all think?” Sam said to the two flabbergasted ponies, “Pretty crazy, right?”

“Th-that thing nearly gave me a heart attack!” Star Arrow shouted.

Admittedly, Violet Rose was also mad, and let the human know it, “What in the name of Celestia did you do that for?! Why did you set that to attack us?!”

Sam raised an eyebrow, “Attack you? That was just a harmless prank. See?”

The conduit used the wires from his fingers like puppet strings to get the wire frame to move once more. Only this time, just to dance around a bit with a sword stuck in its ‘head’. It also made that weird screeching noise, although more quietly. Violet Rose noted that it was due to some of the wires inside the psuedo-hydra’s mouth scraping against each other.

“That wasn’t exactly very funny!” Violet Rose retorted.

“Haters,” Sam muttered under his breath as he reached up to pluck the sword from his creation, “Here, I think you dropped this.”

Violet Rose snatched the sword out of the air as the human tossed it and used it as her pointer as she talked.

“Mr. Reed-”

“Sam,” Sam corrected.

“Sam, does your world think something like this would have been funny?”

Sam brought his hand up to stroke his chin, “Eh, depends on who you ask.”

“Well, neither of us exactly found it funny,” Violet Rose growled.

“Pfft. I thought you royal guards were made of tougher stuff. Guess you wouldn’t even be able to handle ‘The Ring’ at all.”

Violet Rose and Star Arrow looked on in confusion at the human’s comment.

“What ring-wait, nevermind.” Violet Rose shook her head in frustration, “I don’t care how or where you got that ‘hydra’. Just get rid of it.”

“Don’t you wanna at least see the rest of it?” Sam asked with an innocent looking smile.

‘The rest of it?’ Both Star Arrow and Violet Rose thought at the same time. Sam merely moved himself and the hydra head back into the room and made way for the guards to come see the creation. With a bit of hesitation, though ultimately overcome with curiosity, the two guards followed until they viewed the entire piece. Both were once again flabbergasted at the piece of art that the human created out of nothing but wire. A scale model of a hydra made out of wire sat in the center of the room. It was actually really good, by what the two guards could tell. Neither of them are really art critics.

“Wait, wait. You’re distracting us,” Violet Rose spoke up, “The captain is going to want to hear about this incident.”

She was about to leave, but Star Arrow stopped her, “Hold on. The captain said that we were to report to him if the human tried to escape again. Plus, this thing ‘is’ pretty cool now that I look at it.” The little pony’s eyes were filled with wonder at the creation as he walked around to inspect it.

Violet Rose almost snorted, “I think this also counts under his ‘other’ orders, don’t you think?”

‘Other orders?’ Sam thought to himself.

“Okay, but you know how the captain gets,” Star Arrow argued back, “And look at this thing. It’s just so cool, plus nopony got hurt.”

“Yeah, listen to the big guy here,” Sam joined in with an innocent grin, “No harm done. What if I also throw in an apology?”

Violet Rose had to fight off the two pleading faces as they continually threw up pleading gestures.

“Fine, but I want that apology.”

Sam clapped his hands together, “No problem. Ahem… I’m sorry for scaring the pants off you.”

Violet Rose looked back at herself in confusion, “I’m not wearing pants.”

“Well, I did do a good job of scaring them off.”

Light snickering from Star Arrow could be heard coming from beside her. She realized that she now had to deal with two awful senses of humor and frowned at the terrible joke. At least she could count herself lucky that she hasn’t suffered a concussion from the human this time around, although there was a growing headache. Violet Rose realized that she could now sympathize with the Captain’s frustration when dealing with the human. Maybe she should have taken that apprenticeship at the archive like her father said many moons ago. Any further thoughts or arguments were banished when another royal guard knocked on the open door outside the suite. Everyone inside the room turned to see the stunned expression the messenger had upon seeing the hydra frame.

“Yes, private?” Violet spoke up to gain the new guard’s attention.

The new guard shook his head and coughed into his hoof before speaking, “Captain Aegis Flare ordered a message relayed to the human to inform him that the princess is ready to see him. He also wanted to inform the human that even if he is not here to personally escort him, that if he tries anything then ‘he will hunt him down and throw him back in the cell in the dungeon for another week’.”

Sam smiled, “Good to know he still cares. So, sounds like that’s my cue to clean up.”

The three guards wondered what he meant until they watched the hydra wire sculpture begin to deform and unravel. The wires untangled in a matter of seconds, and all of it was soon reabsorbed back into the conduit through his outstretched hands. The guards didn’t know how to react to this, so they just pressed on with their assignment.

“Private,” Violet Rose addressed the messenger, “Is there anypony else with you for the escort?”

The private snapped a salute, “Yes, ma’am. The captain ordered for a four pony escort, you two and two others outside. Another messenger has been sent to relieve the pegasi guards on wing duty.”

“Very good. You are dismissed private. Alright human, if you don’t know the drill by now-,” Violet Rose took charge.

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam cut her off, “I already know. Let’s get a move on. Hate to keep ol’ Sunny waiting.”

The conduit cut in front of the two guards and walked out into the hall. Like the messenger, who already left, said. Two more guards were standing at attention at the opposite wall. They seemed familiar, but it was really hard to tell with all the guards looking the same in color. Maybe it was just the color throwing him off. The first two guards followed shortly after, and after closing the suite’s door and arranging their formation, they were off.

Back in the dining chamber, Sam noted that the solar princess was the only one at the table. She gestured for the human to sit down across from her at the elongated table, where they sat in silence for the time being.

“Where’s Luna?” Sam finally asked.

“My sister’s duties carry a burden of retaining a nocturnal schedule,” Celestia said, “So, she is asleep at the moment.”

Sam nodded in understanding. It seemed like the two princesses’ aesthetics were more literal than Sam originally thought. It was almost too much to believe, but so were magical talking equines about a week ago. Just then, the butler, Sam had to remember to learn his name one of these times, came along and set a lunch tray in front of him before scuttling off to do whatever little butler ponies do. Again, the room was silent for a moment. It may have been a little funny, but Sam did try to remember what his parents taught him as a kid about manners. Plus, he was too busy trying to come up with a few new one liners. Never a bad time to keep a bunch on hand for the future.

Celestia cleared her throat to gain Sam’s attention, “Please, do not feel that you must wait on me. Enjoy your meal.”

Sam looked down at the tray in front of him. A bowl of chicken and vegetable soup sat piping hot, and the fresh aroma wafted up to greet the conduit. On the side was a small cup of cut fruit and a glass of water. By no means was this lunch any less elegant, as the chef garnished the plate with leafy lettuce around each item. Bit of a waste in Sam’s opinion, but he wasn’t going to complain about good food.

Sam began to dig in at a steady pace. After a few bites, a familiar looking unicorn butler came in with a covered tray. He quickly set the tray up in front of Celestia and uncovered the tray with a flick of magic. Celestia’s lunch appeared to be some sandwiches with nothing but leafy greens as its fillings. The solar princess smiled in appreciation and the butler bowed and exited with the tray cover in tow.

Both the princess and Sam ate in peace for a few minutes until Celestia broke the silence.

“I’ve heard that you gave guards quite the scare before you got here.”

Sam gave a pointed look at the guards that escorted him that screamed the word ‘tattletails’.

“Just having a bit of fun,” Sam said.

Celestia, although looking bemused, gave a knowing frown, “Then I would appreciate if your ‘fun’ did not try to incite a panic in the future.”

“Yes, your highness,” Sam spoke back with a mocking tone, “Speaking of the future. I don’t suppose you’ve got the latest on a portal slash ride slash possible way home?”

Celestia’s expression went flat once she was done thoughtfully chewing on her food. Sam did not take this as positive news.

“Progress has been… slow,” Celestia’s response was met with a disheartened frown, “However, I have made contact with somepony that I believe will be invaluable to the effort.”

This last statement gave Sam a small glimmer of hope. Although, something about it did catch his attention.

“Somepony invaluable?” Sam asked, “Who is this pony?”

Celestia tittered from behind her hoof. Obviously, she was the only one in on the joke, as Sam just looked confused.

“Forgive me,” Celestia said, “It is just that most ponies at least know of this pony, or at least, her exploits. Of course, I have to remind myself that you are not a pony.”

‘Some pony who is famous then?’ Sam thought to himself.

Though before Sam could question the matter further. One guard had entered the dining room and swiftly made his way to the princess’ side to whisper something to her. Sam was unable to hear what was said, but by the looks on her face, she was quite pleased with the news. Celestia dismissed the guard with a nod, to which the guard bowed and took a place by the door to await some kind of command. Celestia’s attention returned to Sam with a more joyful smile.

“It seems that if you speak of the devil, Tartarus will arise.”

Sam got a little kick out of the little synonymous quote.

“Who you are about to meet is a pony that I trust fully to handle this endeavour with dignity and respect. She is a brilliant mind that will be more than capable to solve this problem,” Celestia continued to build up the suspense.

Sam cooked a smile, “Sounds like a real egghead.”

Celestia chuckled again, “I’ve been told she has been called that.”

A muffled cry of indignation was suddenly heard from beyond the dining room’s door. By what Sam could hear, the pony was complaining about something being complicated. Celestia didn’t seem too fazed by the outburst. In fact, her smile broadened at the mystery pony’s distress.

The solar princess cleared her throat and with a bit more volume called out, “I suppose it’s about time that we meet the pony I have entrusted to aid in your endeavour, no?”

A few seconds ticked by with no indication that the cue was heard. Although before Sam could question it further, the dining chamber doors slammed open with a bang. If it wasn’t for the doors being made of some the highest quality materials, they would have been flung from their hinges entirely. From behind the doors stood a frazzled looking purple unicorn. Her hair, although disheveled, had an odd dark hue to it with two lighter streaks of purple running through them. Sam thought these ponies seriously needed to lay off the hair products, not like they already covered the whole damn color spectrum. The unicorn immediately galloped inside the dining chamber, almost tripping over her own hooves and nearly threw herself to ground in some hasty bow.

She jerked back up and with an askew smile, faced the conduit and said, “Hello and welcome to Twilight Sparkle, my name is Equestria!”

I am Not a Labrat

Author's Notes:

Thank you Regreme as always for your help in editing this chapter and making sure it doesn't read like a bag of ass. Also, thanks for helping me get through that bit of writer's block I had in the middle of this chapter.

Hope you all enjoy the read, and please feel free to leave some feedback. Because in the immortal words of Denzel Washington

It's the only way to further your skills.

Sam would have liked nothing more than to go back to sleep. It may have been well past sunrise, and past any decent hour any normal person would have woken up. Yet, all the sleep-deprived conduit could do was become more annoyed by the insistent knocking coming from his suite’s door. He knew exactly who it was, but that only gave him less of a reason to even answer it.

“Alright, already!” Sam finally threw the covers off himself with a huff, “Just stop banging on the fucking door!”

The groggy conduit shuffled his way to the now silent door while also picking up his clothes from the floor to wear. He didn’t care if it was yesterday’s outfit. One good sniff let him know that they were still wearable. Sam had just finished dressing by the time he reached the door and took a long, deep breath in an attempt to put off the inevitable. As he released his breath, he opened the door to reveal a very perky and bright-eyed unicorn by the name of Twilight Sparkle. Sam gave her the most unamused frown he could muster.

“I’m sorry if I woke you up, Sam,” Twilight’s cheery demeanor continued as she talked, almost completely ignoring Sam’s mood, “I just couldn’t wait to get started with today! Although, is it normal for humans to sleep in past sunrise?” From the unicorn’s saddlebags, a sheaf of parchment and quill emerged to dictate her new thoughts. A habit that Sam was growing to be not so fond of. “Does this mean that your kind is nocturnal, or do they just have a different sleep cycle than ponies?”

“Listen, Sprinkle,” Sam grumbled, “Can this wait until ‘after’ breakfast?”

Twilight sighed at the dismissal of her study, but put away her things, “I guess… Plus, my name is Twilight ‘Sparkle’. It’s alright though. Just try to remember later on. After all, we’ve got an entire day to work together.”

The purple unicorn led the way out the hallway with a spring in her step. Sam just sagged and grumbled as he was forced to follow. Whether the brainiac of a pony understood it or not, Sam was not exactly as enthused as the purple wonder herself. However, he did promise a certain princess that he would try to play nice. As the purple unicorn rambled on about her schedule for the day, Sam thought back to the day before. Where he was first introduced to Miss Twilight ‘Sprinkle’.

--o0o--

“Hello, and welcome to Twilight Sparkle! My name is Equestria!”

Sam was stunned by this purple whirlwind of over enthusiasm. It took him a moment to really pick up on what this pony was actually trying to say. Apparently, so did the purple unicorn as her overly happy expression shifted to one of sheer embarrassment. It was actually pretty amusing as Sam watched the little pony prance in place as she tried to get more words to come out of her mouth. Luckily for her, Sunny was there to salvage what was left of the train wreck of an intro.

“Twilight, my most faithful student,” Princess Celestia sat up from her seat, “Your timing couldn’t have been better.”

It seemed the princess’s words had a calming effect on the frazzled unicorn, as she soon straightened out herself and her mane to a more presentable state. After her little episode was over, much to Sam’s disappointment, she finally looked confident enough to speak again.

“Thank you, princess.” Twilight’s eyes wandered from her mentor to the only other thing in the room with enough interest to give her whip lash with a double take. Sam.

“I, um. It. Is. An. Honor. To. Meet. You.” Twilight drew out her words as she fully addressed the human-conduit.

Sam frowned. The cheeky little pony thought he was dumb or something. He had an idea to fix this.

Sam got up from his seat. “Hello. I. Am. Sam.” He slowly drew out his own words and ended with a smile.

The little unicorn clopped her hooves together and squeed in delight. She even lit up her horn to draw out a piece of parchment and quill from the bags she wore.

“Fascinating! It understood me!” Twilight cheered and wrote something upon the open parchment.

At this, Sam frowned even more. The princess knew a situation when she saw one and swiftly gained her apprentice's attention.

“Twilight. This human’s name is Samuel, or Sam as he prefers. You should also be aware that he does speak fluent equish.”

Twilight dropped her parchment and quill and looked back up at the human, to which Sam’s reaction was to wave and smile deviously.

“I’m also fluent in witty remarks, but that’s just more of a hobby.”

Twilight flushed with embarrassment. Her attempt to show respect as one of the first equestrian’s and communicate with an alien was slowly coming apart. However, she would not let this deter her for long.

“I-I’m sorry. I just assumed with coming from a different world, so too would the language.”

‘That isn’t the only thing you were assuming,’ Sam thought to himself.

Twilight refocused her efforts and tried to appear a little more composed as she spoke, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to try and reintroduce myself.” She took a deep breath in preparation. “Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle, and I’d like to be one of the first Equestrians to welcome you to Equestria.”

“People call me Sam,” Sam simply stated, “Also, hate to burst your bubble, but I’ve already met with the welcoming committee, courtesy of the illustrious royal guard. Although, they could use some work on their hospitality.”

Sam’s remark left the purple unicorn confused, while Celestia subtly ruffled her feathers. One of the few times that the princess has shown outward embarrassment.

“I- well, I hope that I can leave a better impression on you,” Twilight said as she reached out with a hoof.

Sam wasn’t entirely sure if this was supposed to be an offer to shake her hoof. He’s never seen any of the ponies in the castle use this gesture. The question of how a society of intelligent horses could build anything without opposable thumbs, disregarding the magic part, crept back into Sam’s mind. Hooves were just not the ideal appendage for that type of thing. Perhaps he would ask this question later on, or completely forget about in the next ten minutes. Either way, Sam had to make the decision on how to go about shaking the unicorn’s outstretched hoof. Sam shrugged in the end. It’s not like he cared if he embarrassed himself, so he took the unicorn’s hoof in his hand and gave it a light shake.

Twilight gasped as Sam grasped her extended hoof, a reassurance that her greeting was a success. It was an odd feeling to have her hoof encompassed by this human’s ‘claws’ however. The appendage was nearly furless, save for the short hairs that dotted its forelegs. The only portion of its body that seemed to have any large volume of hair was its mane. Twilight would have to add a few more questions on human physiology to her list to ask Sam during her research sessions. With her introduction completed, Twilight’s expression lit up with more excitement. It was almost time. She would be one of the first ponies to fully interact with an extraterrestrial species. Just thinking about it gave her the jitters as thoughts of the prestige she would receive within the scientific community flooded her mind.

“You alright there?” Sam asked as he noted the pony’s near explosive excitement.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m just so excited!” Twilight pranced again, “I never thought I’d ever get to meet an alien before, let alone study one.”

Sam looked confused by Twilight’s remarks and just a tad bit slighted, “Excuse me?”

“I mean, think of the possibilities!” Twilight exclaimed, “A whole new field of xenobiology, a brand new branch to add to cultural diversity, not to mention the wealth of information you must have on your people’s exploits!”

Twilight kept rambling on, completely oblivious to the slowly growing agitation that Sam was developing. Luckily, Celestia was not quite as oblivious to Sam’s distress and stepped in.

“Twilight, before you begin your task with Sam, why don’t you make preparations for it to begin tomorrow?”

Twilight’s lengthy monologue was cut short upon hearing this, “But princess! This is practically a dream come true! I’m certain that I will be able to learn everything this human has to offer if the sooner I get started.”

A faint frown crossed Princess Celestia’s face, “Of that, I have no doubts, but you will need the necessary equipment and adequate room to even begin, no?”

Twilight pondered this for a moment, “Of course, your majesty. I think my old lab in the east wing will do, but you are right. I need to have it prepared.” The little unicorn was practically quivering with anticipation. “I’m sorry we can’t begin today, Samuel was it? However, I promise you, tomorrow will be exciting for the both of us.”

Sam crossed his arms and mustered every last ounce of sarcasm in his body, “Can’t freakin’ wait. Also, it’s just ‘Sam’.”

Sam watched as ‘Twiggy McSprinkles’ completely ignored his remark and bowed to the princess before all but running out the door to begin her ‘preparations’. This left a very disgruntled conduit to glare at an equally nervous princess.

“You must forgive my student, Sam. She is merely an eager mind,” Celestia said in an attempt to appease the upset conduit.

“You don’t say,” Sam’s sarcastic remarks continued, “Sorry, but this ain’t gonna work out.”

“Sam, wait!” Celestia called out, “I know that Twilight seems to have forgotten her true purpose in coming here, which I will correct with her tonight, but please. Give her a chance. There is nopony else that I am more confident in than her for this.”

Sam clicked his tongue a few times in thought. Finally settling on his decision, he grunted in exasperation.

“Fine.”

Celestia breathed out a sigh of relief, “Thank you, Sam. I promise that Twilight will do everything she can to help you. Promise me that you will cooperate with her?”

“Sunny, I make no promises, but if it gets me out of rainbow wonderland, I guess I can at least tone it down.”

“That’s all I ask for,” Celestia smiled warmly.

She departed with a short nod of her head and left Sam to whatever devices he could for the rest of the day.

--o0o--

Sam had been just going through the motions of his day. Go to the dining chamber and eat breakfast. Or more accurately, have a few bites and move the rest of the food around on his plate until the butler came to pick up the trays. He half listened to the purple wonder as she continued to talk her head off about being excited or whatever. Only chiming in with a nod or a grunt whenever he thought she was talking to him. Finally, the two were off to the eastern wing, surprisingly a new part of the castle that Sam had neglected to go see, where Twiggy Sparklebottom-jeans had set up her lab. It was only now that Sam started to really focus, as the room he walked into was far different than what he was used to since his arrival. Of course, this did not fill him with any of the ambient enthusiasm that Twiggy seemed to radiate.

The ‘lab’, if Sam recalled her mentioning from the day before, was something he was not exactly eager to be in. Tables were covered in various pieces of equipment, from bunsen burners, flasks and containers filled with unknown liquid, to books and stacks of blank parchment filled with notes. The walls were littered with various charts and scrap parchment with figures, symbols, and notes of all kinds. Then, there were the other pieces of equipment that Sam could only take crude guesses about their uses. All of this had started to make Sam nervous as he recognized the tools of research that would be implemented.

“So, what do you think, Sam?” Twilight asked.

Apparently, Twizzler Sprinkler had been dictating about what each of the various assemblies around the room were for while Sam was focused on observing them and potential escape routes throughout the room. He ground his teeth to keep his composure. The princess did say that she would talk with the purple wonder, so maybe this was all just a necessity. He needed to stay calm.

“Meh.”

It was all he could manage. It seemed that Twilight was underwhelmed by Sam’s reaction, but pressed on regardless.

“Alright, I understand. Let’s not waste any more time,” the unicorn levitated a quill and parchment to her side, “First thing’s first. Can I get your full name and species name?”

Sam raised an eyebrow, “Why?”

“Just for documentation’s sake,” Twilight swiftly replied, “I’ll need as much information on you and your world to cultivate a final product on the TD Gate.”

“The what now?”

“TD Gate, or Trans-Dimensional Gate,” Twilight began to lecture, “It has been theorized that there are infinite alternate worlds than just our own. Ultimately, if I can figure out the circumstances of your arrival, theoretically, I can create a gateway to your dimension. Now, as I was asking before, can I have your full name and species name?”

The little unicorn looked on with restrained anticipation while Sam debated. There really wasn’t much choice in the matter if he was to get his way home.

“Samuel Reed. Human; sub-species, Conduit.”

The quill beside the unicorn flew across the parchment in a flurry to produce her thoughts.

“Conduit? What does that mean?”

Sam rolled his eyes. Today was going to be a long day. So, after a few more questions were answered, Twilight asked the conduit if he could produce a few examples of his abilities. Sam conjured a few simple strands of wire to his hand to snake and weave between his fingers. He even made a simple stick figure out of the wire to show off a bit. He firmly countered Twilight's inquiries, making it abundantly clear that his abilities were not magic.

“Fascinating,” Twilight whispered in awe as she scratched her thoughts down on her parchment, “What other abilities do you have?”

Sam was getting a little sick of Twilight’s almost clinical analysis. Yet, he had to remember his words to the princess that he would at least try to be cordial. Sam retracted the set of wires that he was using while at the same time, he got a wicked idea in his head that put a devious smirk on his face.

“Alright, Sunlight-”

“Twilight.”

“Whatever. I’ll show you something really cool, but I’ll need a target.”

Twilight cocked her head in confusion. Why would Sam need a ‘target’? Sam just rolled his eyes as the unicorn just eyed him with confusion and pointed out one of the tables in the room.

“How about that? You won’t need that will ya?”

Twilight hesitated. She wanted to learn more about what conduits were capable of, but Sam’s choice of words gave her pause for thought. Reluctantly, her curiosity won out, and she levitated the papers and equipment off the table that Sam pointed out.

“I guess it is worth it for more info, but you make it sound like it’s not going to be usable afterwards.”

‘That would be the point Sparkle-butt.’ “Eh, only if I do this wrong.”

Sam stepped forward to arrange the table to stand up. Using the legs to prop it up and present the top of it to face himself from the middle of the room. The set up provided him with a decent sized target. Imagining the table as a D.U.P. trooper gave him an extra helping of motivation in channeling the energy he needed for what was to come.

“You may want to stand back,” Sam warned with a smirk.

Even though she questioned it, Twilight did as suggested and prepared to observe. Sam eyed the table once more and produced a whip-like appendage from his hand made of wire. With target in sight and his weapon at the ready, Sam focused on his years of training and let loose. A sharp crack and splintering wood was heard throughout the room. Splinters flew everywhere as the table was shattered. Sam heard a light gasp and squeal from behind him, and was rewarded with a surprised and prominently scared tiny, purple unicorn. Unfortunately, the noise had also drawn the attention of the guards from just outside the doors.

“What happened?” one of them asked and they surveyed the room.

Sam smiled at them innocently, “Nothing to see here folks. Just a little demonstration for our avid scientist here. Ain’t that right, Sprinkles?”

Twilight was too busy just eyeing the destroyed table, not really responsive.

“Eh, she’ll come around.”

The guards, already used to Sam’s antics, gave him a warning to tone it down. Sam waved them off, and the guards returned to their posts outside.

Sam returned his gaze to the catatonic unicorn and began his own lecture, “Conduit abilities have varying ranges of combat applications when harnessed correctly. Some have been documented to have enough power to level entire cities. Want to see some more?”

“M-my table,” was all Sparkle-butt could say after seeing such destruction. If you consider a broken table destructive.

“Hey, Nightlight. You ok?”

Sam’s comment and him waving his hand infront of her eyes seemed to snap the unicorn out of her stupor.

With a shake of her head, she turned on the conduit with an angry glare, “It’s ‘Twilight’, and why did you have to destroy my table?!”

Sam held up his hands in front of him defensively, “You’re the one who wanted to see more of my abilities.”

“I thought you were going to lift the table up or something.”

“And what kind of example of my powers would that demonstrate?” Sam asked mockingly.

“I don’t know. Maybe one that wouldn’t require my table being reduced to splinters!”

If only Sam gave enough of a crap to feel sorry. The stress relief was well worth it though. Now, it was time to move on for a another opportunity.

“Anywho, I’ll need another target if we wanna continue.”

Twilight was immediately between Sam and the tables topped with other equipment. If the amusingly threatening glare didn’t give it away, the harsh snort was a dead giveaway. Not to mention, it was hilarious seeing the little pony get so worked up that she actually snorted in what sounded reminiscent to a real horse.

“You are not destroying anymore of my stuff!”

“Relax, Starlight-”

“Twilight!”

“Right. I meant that I was going to just use some wire to build a few frames to use as practice dummies.”

Sam could almost hear the mental snap of the irate pony.

“Then, why did you have to use my table to begin with?”

Sam shrugged nonchalantly, “Seemed easier at the time.”

It was surprising how easy it was to get under this pony’s skin, but Sam had his fun and they needed to move on if he wanted to get her to work on getting him home. So, Sam did as he said and constructed a few wire frame dummies to show off a few of his moves. Another plus to the action was watching the unicorn become visibly more uncomfortable with each demonstration of using his powers to ‘kill’ each dummy. Before long, Sparkle-butt decided she wanted to get some other information that was ‘imperative’ to her research. Sam just thought she was being a little too squeamish. In any case, medical information and a multitude of samples from hair to saliva were taken. Afterwards, Sam was bombarded with question after question about everything that Twilight could think of to ask the conduit.

“Alright,” Sparkle-butt said, looking a little more than haggard after Sam’s less than helpful cooperation throughout the ordeal, “Just one last thing, and we’re through for the day.”

Finally feeling at some amount of ease, Sam leaned back against a table with his arms folded over his chest, “Nice, thought this would have been an all day thing.”

Sam watched as Twilight’s eye twitched, “Well, I was hoping to have a better interview, if somepony didn’t answer half my questions with ‘no comment’.” The little unicorn took a deep, steadying breath. “Anyways, all I need is a blood sample, and I can get this day over with.”

It was at this point that only two words could make it through Sam’s mind, “Wait, what?”

Just as he said that, Sam watched as little miss stick-up-her-ass levitated a syringe out from her bags. If there was any sane reaction that Sam could have come up with for a situation like this, it was lost to him. Instead, he settled for the next best thing and dashed to the other side of the room with wire whips at the ready. The sudden reaction gave the purple wonder a jump almost as lively as Sam’s.

“Sam, are you alright? What’s wrong?”

Sam put on a hysterical expression as he spoke, “Me? Just peachy, just thought I’d hang out over here. You know, change of a scenery and all that. Also, quick question. Why the hell do you have that?”

The accusatory finger fell on the floating needle beside the unicorn. Twilight looked between the empty syringe and the nervous looking conduit before quirking an eyebrow.

“Uh, how else am I supposed to get a blood sample?”

“Wow, great question. Hmm, let me think here. Oh yeah, how about you don’t get one.”

Twilight sighed in exasperation, “Sam, enough if this. I am tired and just need to do this to get wrap up here and begin my studies.”

Each of Twilight’s hoofsteps were matched by an equal backpedalling step by Sam.

“Get that thing any closer to me and being a little tired will be the least of your problems.”

Twilight stopped as she reconsidered her position. The wire tendrils from Sam’s hands seemed to twitch in anticipation, like a cobra ready to strike. She had seen what they were capable of, but Sam’s expression was caught between restrained fear and something else. Then, a little wicked idea wormed its way into the Twilight’s mind.

“Ahh, is the big, strong conduit afraid of a little needle?” Twilight mockingly called out.

She took another step forward while Sam matched it with another step back.

“Don’t you dare.”

Twilight giggled innocently, “It’s okay. I’ll give you a lollipop after to make you feel better.”

“I’m warning you, Twilight. Back off.”

‘Oh, so now you remember my name,’ Twilight scoffed mentally.

She raised the syringe over her and began to bring it even closer to cornered conduit. Sam, now rooted in place, felt like a coil spring ready to break under its own tension.

“Take one more step, and you’ll regret it, Sparkle!”

Twilight huffed, “Oh, would you just calm down and shut up? This will only take a minute.”

*Fwip-Crack*

Before she even realized it, Twilight was lying against the floor. Her right cheek burned and warm liquid could be felt running down her face. The shock she felt as she looked into Sam’s fury-filled eyes only now registering. The two guards from outside the room burst through the door with weapons at the ready.

“Ms. Sparkle, Mr. Reed, is everything alright?”

Both of them gasped upon inspecting the scene before them.

“You!” one of the guards turned on Sam, “What have you done?!”

The other guard carefully stepped around the broken pieces of a syringe on the floor. Twilight only just noticed the glass shards of the device and the slight tinges of red amongst some of the pieces.

“Ms. Sparkle, your cheek,” the guard said as he examined the downed unicorn.

Said unicorn’s hoof found the spot on her face that burned with pain, and was surprised when it came back bloody. It only took a few more moments for Twilight to connect the dots and remember how she came to be injured. It all happened so fast that she thought it wasn’t even real. The wire whip in Sam’s hand flew at her and snapped the syringe out of her magic, shattering it in the process. The reaction was so sudden that Twilight tripped backwards, but not before getting a few pieces of the syringe to catch the side of her face and leaving some nasty looking gashes.

“Answer me, human!”

The shout drew Twilight’s attention back over to where Sam and the other guard were having a stand off.

Sam clenched his fists as he spoke through gritted teeth, “What I did was simply defend myself.”

The guard didn’t seem to like that answer and turned his spear on the conduit. Sam snorted, unafraid of the threat directed toward him.

“Sam, w-why? Why did you lash out at me?” Twilight tried to sound mad, although her trembling made her trip over her words.

Sam’s hate filled eyes fell on her again. His gaze made the unicron flinch. Never had she seen such anger in one pony in her lifetime.

“Why?!” Sam repeated the question, “Maybe I don’t like being poked full of holes! Maybe I’m not so comfortable with a research lab like this! Maybe I even have a problem with someone treating me like I’m some kind of science experiment! I don’t give a damn what your excuses are, but you better listen up. I am not your goddamn labrat!”

Sam last statement was punctuated by Sam storming off toward the door. Though not before the one guard that had his spear trained on him stepped in his path.

“Halt! Stay where you are,” the zealous guard commanded.

Sam merely flipped him off and shot a few wires out to the doorframe to slingshot past him and escape.

I'm the One Who Should Be Sorry

Author's Notes:

Huzzah, I'm done with this chapter. Certainly took longer than I'd like to admit. Ran into complications irl that kept me away from getting to work on this. Ah well, such is life.

Another shout out to my editor and proofreader, Regreme, for his continued help throughout this endeavor.

Sam paced back and forth in an angry rut in front of the royal garden’s gazebo. It had taken him a bit of time and some fancy maneuvering around the castle’s snaking hallways to lose the cadre of guards chasing him. Eventually, he lost them and escaped out through a storage room with a window. After hearing more alarms going off around the castle perimeter, Sam bolted for the garden. Somehow, it was the only place that felt safe in his mind. Honestly, he wanted nothing more than to run as far away from this place as he possibly could. However, those notions kept getting shot down every time he thought about his lack of a plan once he escape further out. He was a stranger in a strange land; an outsider. There wasn’t anywhere he could run to, least of all his home back in Memphis.

Memphis. It’s been over a week since he last saw that city and his friends. Just thinking about it all just made him even more frustrated with his situation. It didn’t matter if he was free of this castle or locked up in its dungeons. He was still a prisoner to these lands and these god forsaken ponies. So, his feet shuffled once more around the perimeter of the gazebo to hopefully come up with an idea that would lead him home. Although, just in that moment, he heard something off in the distance besides the constant clanging of alarm bells. It wasn’t a surprise when he glanced up to see the silhouettes of pegasi against the sun honing in on his direction. Sam breathed a light sigh and put on his game face. Maybe if he was lucky, these guards would give him an excuse to knock a few heads around and a much needed distraction. Though when the glare of the sun backed off of the incoming ponies, Sam was surprised by the unexpected arrival of the princess of the sun along with them. Well, at least he could add ‘fighting a pegacorn princess’ to his resume by the end of this.

Sam stood a little more defiantly and scowled as he faced the ponies when they landed, “Oh no, looks like you found me. I suppose you’re going to say ‘we can do this the easy way or the hard way’, right? Well in that case, I’ve got some cable whips with your names on them.”

The royal guards at Celestia’s side readied their spears as Sam extended a few wire tendrils from his hands. Sam almost laughed as he eyed the silly ponies and their notion that they could take him down with some measly spears. Last time he was more or less half dead and he still kicked over a dozen of their asses. These ponies had yet to see what a conduit was truly capable of, and Sam was about to show them. Although, Sunny had other plans and blocked the two guards’ paths with her outstretched wings.

“Stand down,” she ordered while never letting her eyes wander away from the conduit, “Please return to the castle and inform the rest of the primary guard that they are to remain on standby. The additional guards that were pulled from their duties may also return to their posts.”

‘Wow,’ Sam thought, ‘I warranted the entire royal guard for a search of me? Gotta be a new record.’

The two guards looked shocked at their princess’s order, almost downright refusing it and adamantly protesting against it.

“You have your orders,” Celestia calmly countered.

With hesitant bows, the guards took flight and returned in the direction of the castle sparring constant glances back until they were out of view. This left the conduit and princess to stare menacingly at each other, silently gauging the other’s movements. It may have only been the princess left, but Sam knew better than to let down his guard. So his muscles remained tense like a coiled spring while the wires encircling his arms shifted with every twitch of his body. Sam eyed the princess suspiciously as he tried to deduce what kind of angle she was working toward as she remained unmoving for the longest time.

“Do you mind if we have a seat inside the gazebo?” Celestia finally asked, gesturing to the unoccupied, cushioned seats within the structure behind Sam.

Sam wasn’t sure what tactic the princess was working towards, but he knew that closer targets were always easier to hit. So, he slowly nodded and stepped into the gazebo to sit across from its entrance and awaited the princess’s next move. Sam watched as the princess approached nonchalantly to ascend the steps after him and sit on the opposite set of seat cushions. Sam still had his wires conspicuously wrapped around his knuckles and awaited the princess’s next move. Her posture was only slightly more rigid than what he was used to seeing, but she seemed to try and remain as relaxed as she usually did. Most likely a ploy to lull him into a false sense of security. However, her smile that she usually wore also seemed to be a lot more forced, as if hiding a raging storm of emotions behind it. Seconds turned into minutes, but to the two occupants of the gazebo it felt like a lot longer. It all made Sam even more tense as he waited for the right moment to retaliate when the princess tried something.

“You know,” Celestia finally broke the silence, “Both my sister and I like to come out to the gardens to think during our free time. Sometimes when time permits, she and I sit here in this gazebo to talk.”

Sam snorted, “I already know what you’re trying to do. Stupid psycho-analytical bullshit doesn’t work on me, so just cut to the chase.”

Celestia’s posture stiffened and a hint of a glare appeared on her features for a fraction of a second before being replaced by a stern look. Albeit, a very restrained one at that.

“Very well, I won’t ask what happened, seeing as the guards already informed me of the incident. What I would like to know is why you assaulted not just one of my subjects, but my personal student.”

Sam clenched his jaw. Remembering the event only brought the anger back. He was fine with that, he should feel angry, not to mention feel betrayed. Both of those feelings were all too familiar to him and his friends. The world wanted to see them as monsters, so why not let them see what monsters could do?

“What do you want me to say? That ‘I’m sorry’? ‘It wasn’t my fault’? Honestly, I think she got off easy.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Celestia deadpanned.

Sam laughed mirthlessly, “Right, but let me tell you something first. I am not sorry for what I did. I’ve had to do much worse just to stay alive, and everyday that I have been on the run has been filled with nothing but hardships and challenges. People who aren’t like me don’t even think about what it means to have to survive.”

Celestia continued to stare directly at Sam, even after his speech. Sam just watched as he waited for Sunny to just throw the first punch. It was starting to get on his nerves.

“I believe you are still avoiding my question, Sam.”

At that, Sam stood up. He tried to be as intimidating as possible. Though other than a slight flinch from the princess, her expression remained neutral, “What does it matter, huh?! Anything I say now won’t be worth jack shit! So, if you’re going to try and lock me up, just get on with it!”

“Sam, you misunderstand my reason for questioning you,” Celestia said, “If I wanted to have you detained, would I really want to have this conversation with you out here in the garden? Now before you answer that with another snide remark, also ask yourself this; do you truly believe that you don’t regret your actions in any way?

“I’ve seen what you are capable of, Sam. Yet with all that power, you exercise restraint. You’ve never risen an arm against anypony unless it was in retaliation, whether it be physically or verbally. You’ve shown us that your power is more than just a tool of destruction, but you put Twilight in pain with its use.”

Sam tried to block out the words, but his attempts were failing. He tried pacing within the small space the gazebo provided, but the exercise did nothing. He stopped and returned to glaring at the princess. Hoping that she would just give up and just let him have his reason to fight.

“You think you know me?” Sam countered weakly, “You don’t know anything about me, so you sic your little scientist on me to pick me apart like some biology project. I tried to tell her what would happen, but did she listen? She should consider herself lucky that I didn’t use my full power.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

It was a simple question. Yet, Sam found it increasingly more difficult as time passed to come up with a simple answer. Meanwhile, Celestia watched as the conduit struggled internally. It was as she had hoped. She saw the miniscule cracks in Sam’s arguments become bigger as they interlinked. He was trying to push her away, and instigate her into a needless fight. He might not have noticed it himself completely, but it was as the princess said that he did restrain himself in his confrontation with Twilight and here as well. As soon as Celestia was made aware of the incident, she had teleported to her pupil’s side fearing the worst. When she arrived, Twilight was distressed and unsurprisingly in shock from the ordeal. However, when she examined her student’s condition, other than the minor wound to her cheek, she was relatively unharmed. Celestia looked on to her waiting guards, seeing a burning desire for retribution in their eyes, but she needed to do something first. Something that would either end in a lot of pain and suffering, or she would find the answers that she hoped to hear and prevent an unjust punishment to befall someone who only wishes to be understood. She needed to speak with Sam, and that’s where the following events of tracking the human down led her.

Sam continued to trip over his answer as the princess silently watched him. For so long, it was so simple for Sam to disregard those in authority. What have they ever done for him? Lock him and all the other conduits up in a hole to rot is what. So, why should this be any different? Her and her little pet scientist just wanted control over him and his power, just like the D.U.P.. Yet, he just couldn’t bring himself to shake off the princess’ words. He only did what he needed to do, just like he always did when the D.U.P. came after him and his friends. Though, was it the same here?

Sam faced Celestia once more. She still sat there, just waiting. She may have looked a little more tense than usual, but she made no moves or took any aggressive stances. Sam wished one final time that she would just do something so he could fight. Yet, she just sat there, waiting for his response. Her patience reminded him of Isabelle. It took all of Sam’s will not to succumb to any reminiscing that would distract him, but he did remember one thing that Isabelle always liked to say.

‘I think we just have to talk the people. Let them know we’re not monsters, but just a little different. I think once we do that, they’ll start seeing us for who we are and not what we are.’

“I didn’t want to,” Sam said.

Celestia cocked an eyebrow, hoping that this was her chance, “So, you didn’t want to hurt Twilight?”

Sam grit his teeth, “No- I mean yes! I mean, she just needed to see that I wasn’t going to sit there and let her jab me full of needles.”

“Is that why you attacked her?” Celestia asked.

“She didn’t need to get hurt if she just listened,” Sam retorted, slowly becoming a bit more withdrawn, “I tried getting her to stop, but then she…”

“What happened then? Did you feel threatened?” Celestia pressed.

Sam could feel himself being backed into a corner. Not unlike his incident with Twilight, and similarly like the tortuous years he was imprisoned by the D.U.P.. If only his friends were here with him, even if so he could feel a little safer under the scrutinizing eye of the princess. Though he could draw no such strength now since he was alone. It surprised him how unnerved he could become without the simple presence of his friends to back him up. He missed that comfort of just knowing that there was someone beside him that he trusted. He needed that comfort again, and so he was reminded of how Celestia was right there waiting for him with that opportunity. Just like Isabella and his other friends.

Sam refused to sit down, even as his legs became shaky as he spoke, “I was scared.”

“You were scared?” Celestia prompted for Sam elaborate.

“I was scared, and angry, and maybe a little bit offended,” Sam continued, “Alright, pretty damn offended. So, when I saw that needle in her grasp, every moment of Curdan Cay came back to haunt me. All the conduits, including myself, were experimented and tested on like common lab rats. I still remember when all you could hear were the screams of the other conduits through the walls on some days. We were more often referred to as numbers rather than by name, like we weren’t even allowed to be human. Some were picked apart to the point that they went insane. So, when Twilight tried to force me into that test, I slipped.”

This was unlike anything that Celestia had seen in this human before. She watched, for the first time, Samuel lowering his guard and revealing a deeper, unsettled part of himself. Celestia thought many a times about what sort of feelings Sam hid behind his strong willed persona. She had caught glimpses of it before, like fading whispers on the wind whenever something of his homeworld came up. She remembered how he would usually redirect the topic or deflect any of the inquiries that made him even slightly nervous, and now, she saw why. She was unsure if Twilight’s actions were the tipping point, but Celestia now saw just how insecure and distressed the conduit truly felt underneath. She may have still been upset by his actions with Twilight, but another pang of pity reached her as she listened.

Celestia spoke up once more, “...Fear is a powerful emotion, Sam. I’ve seen how fear and uncertainty can control one’s actions and lead to regrettable decisions. Anger can be just as dangerous, especially when that anger evolves into hate. It can blind them and everyone else to the world around them. In the end, I don’t think anyone can resolve their own fear and hatred alone. However, it takes time, patience, and the help of willing friends to conquer those emotions. Though sometimes, that help might not be the right kind of help and we end up inheriting more of those negative feelings over time. Then we project those feelings through whatever we can, because by then those emotions are too ingrained and are far easier to cope with than accept others help.

“Listen, Sam. I can’t pretend that I know what you and your kin have been through, but shutting out everyone around you only distances you from what could help you in the end.”

“You don’t understand,” Sam countered, “Conduits never asked to be so different. We were merely born this way, and somehow, that labeled us as monsters or freaks. We were the ones to be shut out to begin with. I won’t say I want to give up my powers just to fit in. I just want to be seen like everyone else. Like...like…”

“You just want to be accepted without prejudice,” Celestia finished the thought, “Sam, I have faith that Twilight didn’t mean you any harm or offense directly. And I am sorry that you felt that way and threatened at the same time. It was my fault for not stressing more clearly to Twilight on her role in helping you. If it is worth anything to you, I’m sure she is just as sorry as I am for the whole ordeal.”

Sam sighed heavily as he finally slumped back into his seat, “I want to believe that, but I spent four years behind concrete walls just for having my powers. Four years that killed most of the faith I had in my world.”

Celestia was shocked upon hearing this. She would be lying if she did not feel a tiny bit of outrage toward Sam’s world, but that outrage was replaced by sympathy soon after for the wayward conduit, knowing all too well the pain of unjust punishment and reminded once more of the parallel he and her sister shared.

Celestia’s features grew softer as she spoke up to the conduit, “It can take just as long to build a lasting bond of trust, Sam. Though you will never have that trust to begin with if you don’t start building upon it first. I know you are scared and rightfully hurt, but please. Do not let your fear and anger hold you back from those that want to help you.”

Trust was a funny word for Sam. His country put their trust into an organization that subjugated people like him. His own trust had been crumpled up in front of him like a used tissue more times than he cared to remember. Natty, Isabelle, and even Lu were probably the only people he could honestly say he had any amount of trust in nowadays. However, when he looked back on his experiences in Memphis, there were a few others he could say the same about. A minority of the local residents became people that he and his friends had come to rely on for one thing or another. At first, they were just a mutual benefit or a means to an end, and nothing more. Though if it hadn’t been for some of those people and the bonds of trust they formed, Sam and his friends would have found themselves imprisoned under the concrete fist of the D.U.P. once more.

Looking at Celestia, all Sam could see was a kind sincerity that also held a deeply rooted pain that he couldn’t help but empathize with. He had to look away, or else he’d lose himself in those magenta orbs and instead looked down at his hands that he flexed open and closed out of habit. Him and his friends had made a promise to show the world that the D.U.P. were wrong and were nothing but a bunch of liars. They were going to show that conduits were more than just a bunch of freaks with powers. They were going to show that they could beat the D.U.P. without becoming the monsters they portrayed them to be. Though here he was, embodying everything that he stood against. It may not have been his world, but that did not do much to excuse him or his actions, no matter how justified he may have felt.

“I-I’m sorry,” Sam choked out, “I lost control, but you’re right. I saw how much Twilight just wanted to learn about me, and I took it the wrong way. Maybe we both took a wrong step, but I attacked her, like a wild animal.” Sam gave a weak, mirthless chuckle, “It’s true what they say ‘hindsight is twenty-twenty’.”

Celestia let a gentle smile touch her lips. The human known as Sam never ceased to amaze her with how complex of a being he could be. Though he was wrong in her eyes. He was not a wild animal, nor a monster. Just a being that needed an ear to listen to him and a bit of guidance, not unlike many of her pony subjects.

“Anything can be worth forgiving, Sam,” Celestia offered in a pleasant tone, “But, I don’t believe I am the one you need to apologize to.”

Truer words have never been spoken, and as much as Sam hated to admit it, he fucked up…big time.

“I don’t suppose you know where Twilight is right now?”

Celestia’s response was to gracefully stand up from the gazebo cushions and gesture for the conduit to follow. The two exited the shaded overhang of the gazebo roof to feel the warmth of the afternoon sun touching down upon them. Somehow, the light felt just a touch more satisfying to be under and filled the wire conduit with a renewed sense of hope. The moment was cut short when the princess of the sun stopped a few paces away from the gazebo and looked up to the sky.

“I am glad this issue was resolved peacefully!” Celestia spoke up a little louder, as if speaking to someone else that Sam couldn’t see, “But dear sister, do you have anything else you would like to add?”

At first, Sam was confused by the sun princess’ words. That is until shadows began to emerge on the ground. Sam looked up and witnessed something that surprised him. Princess Luna and a dozen royal guards flew out from behind the cover of a couple clouds overhead that looked strangely more solid than what Sam would expect from condensed water vapor. Perhaps they were just an illusion conjured up by magic. Though the contingent of guards and the lunar princess drew his attention more sharply as they landed upon the path in front of the conduit and Celestia. Luna’s face was indiscernible behind what Sam could only tell was her armored helm. The rest of her body was clad in similar raven-black, plated armor as if she were a war horse, complete with twin swords belted to her sides. The play on words was not lost on Sam, but he wasn’t quite up to making the joke out loud.

Princess Luna stepped forth, levitating her helm from her head to let her full expression be seen as she spoke, “Nay. When word reached mine ears of your transgression, I prepared for battle forthwith. Yet, I do not find an enemy to be condemned or slain. Samuel, so long as you make this right, I will stay my blade for another day.”

Sam smirked as he regained a bit of his composure, “Damn, and here I could have gotten a chance to see ol’ Loony in action. I’m a little bummed out now.”

Luna snorted at Sam’s comment, but a ghost of a smile made its way onto her face, if only for a moment. Celestia herself was glad to see the conduit well enough to make his jokes as he would, however crude they may be. If nothing else, it showed just how strong of a will he had to be able to stand back up after his falls. She smiled as she thought about how lucky his world, his friends, and his family must be to have a human like him among them.

--o0o--

Twilight found it incredibly difficult to concentrate on the book laid out before her on her plush reading cushion. After the incident with Sam and Princess Celestia’s examination of her, Twilight retreated to the safe haven of her old room within the castle. The room was something on par with one of the castle guest suites, but held some of Twilight’s unique personal touches. Those touches ranging from the monumental stacks of used scrolls, parchment and books next to the already crammed bookshelves full of other assorted knick-knacks. There were also scattered pieces of equipment that she hoarded from her studies and research throughout the room. Though the room felt unnaturally drained of its usual warmth that Twilight felt whenever she came here. Having the curtains drawn over all the windows so only a fraction of the filtered light enter seemed to add to the whole experience.

Yet the most striking feature in the room was the unicron it belonged to, trying vainly to forget how puffy and red her eyes were from the bout of crying she had done earlier. She also tried to forget the pain of her bandage covered cheek, but that and Sam’s words kept her from immersing herself in her literary escape. She finally gave up on the endeavour and slammed the tome shut with a groan and stood up from her reading cushion.

‘It was his fault to begin with,’ Twilight tried to tell herself mentally as she paced about the room, ‘He was clearly in the wrong!’

She may have told herself this, but she couldn’t put her full weight behind those words. Her right hoof rose to find its way to her bandaged cheek. She hissed in pain upon pressing into it lightly, all in a thin hope that the physical reminder could push her to believe her words.

“Maybe I have a problem with someone treating me like I’m some kind of science experiment!…I am not a goddamn labrat!”

The echoing words kept resurfacing in Twilight’s mind like an angry wasp. His words were filled with so much anger directed at her, over something so small as a simple blood draw. So how could she feel like she was the one who had made a mistake.

“Maybe…maybe I did push too hard.”

A shallow knock on her door interrupted the unicorn from her thoughts and caused a tense gasp to catch in her throat. She could have sworn that she had told the guards outside her door that she did not want to be bothered. Then again, perhaps it was Princess Celestia coming to check up on her faithful student. That alone pressed the unicorn to straighten out her disheveled mane and wipe away any errant tears from her bloodshot eyes.

“Who is it?” Twilight asked, failing to suppress the lack of composure in her voice.

The door handle jiggled a few times before twisting open and allowing the door to creak open by a fraction, although it wasn’t either of the princesses nor any of the royal guards that came in. From the crack in the doorway came the last person she expected to see poking his head in. Maybe it was the pain on her cheek flaring up at the moment or the sight of her aggressor spurring her on in the heat of the moment, but now Twilight could feel the adrenaline flooding her veins to fuel her anger and fear. Time stood still as Twilight took the defensive stance she was taught from her self-defense courses her mentor had put her through. Twilight never believed that she could have a use for such a trivial skill set, she was a scholar at heart after all. Nevertheless, her reflexes from the lessons proved to have its uses today. Hooves spread just wide enough apart to lower her center of gravity, head tilted ever so slightly for optimal spell casting angle, and magical reserves churning inside of her to await her call.

“What do you want?”

Sam winced at the bite in her tone, knowing full well he should have expected this reaction.

“I want to talk. Is it alright if I come in?” Sam asked meekly, something that contrasted Twilight’s perspective of the conduit entirely.

In fact, she had expected a swift retaliation upon Sam’s entrance, yet the human before her almost appeared to be withdrawn while speaking to her. If he did not come here to attack her, what was he doing here? He did say that he came to her to talk. Something at the back of her mind screamed out against her when she began to consider Sam’s request. However, Twilight’s undying curiosity won out in the end, and she cautiously motioned for the conduit to enter. Sam recognized the gesture and slipped the rest of his body in through the door and closed it as gently as he could behind himself. Sam’s head hung low, only sparing a glance up in Twilight’s direction to notice the bandage covering the right side of her face. He winced again at the reminder of his hot-headed reaction. The two beings stood across from each other, neither uttering a sound as they sized each other up. Sam felt a lump form in his throat and quickly swallowed to banish the feeling so he could speak clearly.

With a deep inhale of air, Sam spoke, “Before you say anything, I just want to say, I’m sorry. Back in the lab, I overreacted and I ended up hurting you.”

Another silence fell over the room after Sam’s short confession. Sam waited in anxious anticipation for the unicorn’s reply. Her expression was flat with only flickers of deep thought every once in awhile.

“Is that all?” Twilight finally asked.

Sam blinked a few times in confusion, “What?”

“I asked you if that was all.”

Sam ground his teeth in frustration, pacing back and forth in front of the unicorn, “Well I don’t know what else you want me to say! I can’t use the excuse that I only acted in self-defense, because all I did was lash out in anger. Celestia was right, I only saw you as some uncaring, emotionless scientist like the ones from the D.U.P. and acted like I would against them. You’re not them, but it all felt too similar for me to see it any other way. Ever since I ended up on this world, aside from the first week, I’ve been shown nothing but grand hospitality that I’m so unused to that it made it hard for me not to be suspicious. I want to believe that you all just want to help me out of sheer kindness, but it’s hard for me to just accept that. Again, that’s no excuse. So, I’m sorry. I was wrong to take my anger out on you like I did and -”

“Sam!” Twilight spoke up to interrupt the conduit’s tirade and pacing, “I wasn’t looking to see if you were going to make excuses. I just wanted to know if you really meant that you were sorry. Though you weren’t the only one to make mistakes. Listen, I was wrong too. I was so fascinated by you and your abilities that I forgot that you’re still a pon-person with feelings. It doesn’t matter if you are an alien or an interdimensional being from another world. I shouldn’t have treated you as anything less, but I did. I was also wrong to not see how much distress you were in when I provoked you. For all of that, I’m sorry too.”

The two stood apart from each other for another few minutes as they let each other’s words sink in. Sam was unsure how to really move on from this point, and neither did Twilight, so they just stood rooted in their spots until Sam conspicuously coughed a few times.

“Well, I guess we both kinda fucked up, right?” Sam nervously joked.

Although Twilight didn’t take to the vulgar language too well, she offered an awkward smile in return and nodded in agreement. A new spark of hope for a budding friendship already present between the two.

Twilight walked up closer to Sam and offered a more sincere smile, “Why don’t we start over? From the beginning?” She extend one of her hooves up in offer of a hoof/handshake. “My name is Twilight Sparkle of Equestria.”

Sam smirked as he took the offered limb in his hand, “The name’s Samuel, but most people just call me Sam. It’s nice to meet you ‘Twilight Sparkle of Equestria’.”

Twilight couldn’t help but snort in laughter at the conduit’s ridiculous joke.

--o0o--

The sound of button clicking and a tape recorder spool rolling could be heard as a pony began his dictation.

“Log number D-113. Extraction from the previous lab is complete, and set up in the new facility is almost done. I’ve yet to figure out how that nosey guard captain came to find any clues leading to the last facility, but I’ve ensured to destroy any evidence deemed unnecessary to the project at the previous site before leaving. Though back to the matter at hoof. Experiment B-13 was a failure. However, it did lead to miraculous insight on the meta-physiology of splicing the ‘conduit gene’. I have high hopes for the next subject, B-14, in that the next trial will be more fruitful.”

“Wh-what’s going on? Where am I?!”

“It seems that subject B-14 has awakened ahead of schedule. I’ll have to revise my dosages for sedations later.”

“Wait, I’m still here?! Somepony, please! Help me!”

“Excuse me B-14, you’re interrupting my recording log.”

“Anypony! This pony is crazy! Heeeelp!”

“*Sigh*, I suppose I should have anticipated this. They never want to cooperate. Especially in the name of the greater good. You, mercenary. Whatever your name is, will you be so kind as to sedate our subject?”

“Sure thing, Doc.”

“N-no wait, please! Get away from me! I-urk, mmmph!”

“Dammit, be careful! I said to sedate her, not give her brain damage! What am I even paying you for?!”

“Sorry, Doc. You gave me a job, and I saw to it. Which reminds me. Me and the boys were wondering when we get to ‘field test’ these powers. We’re getting pretty itchy waiting around to try them out for real.”

“Patience, my dear friend. I only need a little more time to isolate the source of this lifethread signature. From there, you and your ‘boys’ won’t need to receive regular doses of the beta serum to maintain your stability when taxing your metabolic reserves.”

“...Doc, you know I don’t know what you’re going on about with that science mumbo-jumbo, but if it means we get to really let loose soon, do whatever you have to do to make it happen.”

“Indeed. Now why don’t you go do...whatever it is you mercenaries do with your own time. I’ll let you know when the time has come to set out on your next job.”

Bonus Chapter: Cloud Physics 101

Author's Notes:

I just found this idea to be funny and just rolled with it, but don't worry. This will have no bearing on the plot for the main story whatsoever and I am already hard at work for the next chapter. In any case, if you feel so inclined, feedback is always appreciated.

Thanks to Regreme for being my proofreader and editor. For without his guidance, I would have the Grammar Nazis on my doorstep en masse.

Canterlot was once again treated to another mild autumn day as the denizens of the fair city went about their daily lives. Though, the weather wouldn’t stay so enjoyable, as the Canterlot weather teams were hard at work, pushing rain filled clouds overtop of the city for the afternoon shower scheduled for that day. The ponies only spared a few glances up to the sky to check on how much time they would have before they would need to seek shelter from the rain. However, there was one being who not only was watching the pegasi as they worked, but wore an expression that was a cross between confusion and anxiety.

Samuel Reed, wire-conduit and an extraterrestrial to the lands of Equestria, was out in the royal gardens of Canterlot Castle observing the hardworking pegasi in the sky. Well, more like glaring at them and even moreso, the clouds. He had been like this for nearly thirty minutes, and the pegasi were nearing the completion of their task. Though something about the entire ordeal put Sam into an uncomfortable mood. No matter how many times he would look away, he would eventually be drawn back to the spectacle in the sky, and another spike of aggravation would flare up inside of him. He let out another groan of frustration and walked about the small patch of the garden he was in to avoid looking up.

“Sam, there you are!” Came a familiar voice from behind the conduit.

Welcoming the distraction, Sam turned on his heel and awaited the purple unicorn known as Twilight Sparkle to canter up to him.

She was among some of the scarce, few ponies that was made privy to Sam’s existence, and the one assigned by the Equestrian princesses themselves to aid Sam in his endeavour to find a way back to his home world. To be honest, the two had had a rough introduction when Twilight was first put to the task. However, after some time and a good long talk with each other, they were becoming good friends and learned from each other daily.

When Twilight stopped in front of Sam, he offered a small smile, “Sup, Twilight?”

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” she replied before gaining a slightly annoyed look, “Your escort guards said that they lost track of you, again. Why do you have to keep running off and leaving them behind?”

Sam held his hands up before him defensively, “Hey, I just like to see how good these guards are at their jobs. Don’t blame me if they can’t keep up. By the way, ‘B-’ for these three. They were pretty good, but I guess they weren’t trained to watch out for a slingshot feint out a window.”

“Sam, this isn’t funny. What do you think Captain Aegis Flare is going to say when he hears about this?” Twilight asked, her ears flicking back in concern.

Sam rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest, “Cappy? Pfft, I wouldn’t worry about him. We’re practically like besties by now. If he seems angry, that’s just his way of saying that he misses me and wishes we could hang out more.”

A lavender hoof found its way to the unicorn’s forehead with an audible slap. Twilight wasn’t quite accustomed to Sam’s sense of humor, which left a lot to be desired in her opinion, but she was making progress to understand it nonetheless. With a deep sigh, she let the matter go and focused on another question to move herself along.

“Okay. Fine. What were you doing out here looking at the sky for anyways? You seemed a little… stressed out.”

At that, Sam’s good mood slipped away. He turned away from the purple unicorn and shot a scowl up at the sky once more.

“It’s nothing,” Sam answered plainly.

Twilight knew there was something up, especially since Sam didn’t add another one of his jokes to his reply. It actually made her worried. She knew how the conduit could get sometimes, and she would have to tread lightly if she didn’t want Sam to shut her out once more. Carefully as can be, Twilight walked around to Sam’s side and sat herself just a meter out from him. She slowly looked up to Sam and saw him glaring up at the sky while drumming his fingers against himself with his arms still crossed. She tried to eye the spot that Sam was looking at, but found nothing out of the ordinary. She was going to have to be more direct.

“Please, Sam,” Twilight said softly, “If there’s something wrong, you know you can talk to me, right?”

Sam gave a passing glance down to the unicorn. He could see that she was very much worried and scared as their eyes met. He let out a heavy sigh, knowing that he would eventually have to talk to someone about this. He uncrossed his arms and pointed up to the sky for Twilight to follow.

“What do you see?” Sam asked out loud.

Once more, Twilight tried to find where Sam was pointing to, but found nothing. So she pointed out everything in hopes of fumbling upon the answer.

“I see the pegasi weather teams.”

“And?” Sam asked.

“The clouds.”

“Aaaand?”

Twilight shook her head, “I’m sorry, Sam. I just don’t see it.”

“Really?!” Sam turned on the unicorn with a shocked, hysterical expression, “Nothing about that seems out of the ordinary?”

Twilight chanced one last look up into the air. Again, she found nothing that seemed to be out of place. Sam waited as Twilight looked, but it was becoming more obvious that the unicorn just couldn’t see it.

“The clouds, Twilight!” Sam hollered.

Twilight jumped from her spot after Sam’s shout. Though thanks to it, she refocused her gaze upon the objects of Sam’s mention. The clouds hung lazily in their spots after a pegasus pushed them into their place. The puffy, gray masses brimming with rain water were showing telltale signs of being ready to unleash their loads onto the earth below at any moment. Twilight squinted to take in every detail she could about the blanket of clouds above the city, but found nothing that seemed to be out of the ordinary.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” Twilight shook her head in defeat, “I can’t find anything wrong with the clouds. Unless you have some extra sensory perception to see something beyond them. Wait, do conduits have ESP?”

The eager mare was buzzing with excitement at possibly adding new details to her records on humans and conduits. Ever since she and Sam had worked out their differences, their research sessions together had completely reshaped Twilight’s perspective of the world. Somewhere out beyond the stars was a world teeming with life that beat the cosmic odds and brought about the human race and all their brilliance. She wanted so badly to see such a world, especially after her interviews with Sam and his unbelievable stories of cities thriving on nothing but steel and concrete, wildlife that she had never even heard of, and most impressively a machine that reminded her of a horse drawn carriage but was powered by itself called an ‘automobile’. With all that she was learning about the human race in its entirety, she could publish a book on the fantastical world in no time, maybe two if she kept up the research.

Twilight halted her musings and shook her head to clear her thoughts. She needed to focus if she were to take in what Sam was about to say. She also had to remind herself to make a note later for her research.

Sam let out a tired sigh, “No, Twilight, conduits do not have ESP. At least, none of the ones I’ve ever met. Also, wait. You seriously don’t see the problem here right now?”

“Sam, all I see are the weather teams hard at work moving the clouds into place for this afternoon’s rain showers.”

Sam’s expression grew even more manic, his right eye even began to twitch, “What?! You can’t possibly tell me that ponies can push around clouds with their bare-, er, hooves and call that natural!”

Twilight’s head cocked to the side in confusion, “Why not? Pegasi have been in charge of weather maintenance since the the pre-unity tribal era. Not to mention, they’ve had a centralized organization for providing Equestria with its weather schedules since the third centennial of the celestial calendar.”

“Because that’s not how weather works!” Sam cried out while throwing his arms up into the air to punctuate his point.

Twilight was a little taken aback by Sam’s outburst. He seemed so sure of himself, even if his crazed expression said otherwise. Twilight thought about it for a moment, but couldn’t come up with a way to fully understand what the conduit was talking about. Pegasi controlled the weather, and that was a fact.

“I don’t understand,” Twilight tried to remain calm to soothe the situation, “Don’t humans control the weather on your world?”

Sam looked at Twilight like she had just grown a second head. The inquisitive unicorn shrunk under his gaze as more emotions raced across Sam’s face, most prominently being bafflement. The conduit sucked in a large breath of air before letting it out slowly in an attempt to calm himself down. It didn’t have the entire effect he was looking for and even less so when he saw out of the corner of his eye another pegasus pony pushing a cloud into place to fill in a patch of the blanket of clouds.

“Alright, fine,” Sam said desperately to get ahold of himself, “Riddle me this Sprinkles. How are clouds formed?”

“Sparkle,” Twilight automatically corrected, “And to answer your question; clouds are made at the numerous weather management facilities throughout the kingdom of Equestria through a process called ‘water coagulation’ with the help of weather factories. Pegasi are able to do the same thing on their own with their magic, but thanks to the innovation of the ‘water coagulation’ machine, the process is more streamlined and produces much higher yields.”

Twilight patted herself on the back for being able to recite the paraphrased knowledge for her curious friend. Although, she did not get the reaction she had been hoping for when Sam just looked at her like she had told him that the accurate numerical value for pi was three-point-one-three. Indeed, Sam was at a loss for words. Well, it would be more precise to say that he actually had a lot to say, but couldn’t really figure out where to begin. So, he just opted to sputter and wave his arms about for a few moments until he got himself under control once more.

“I think you need to go back to school, Twilight,” Sam said.

Twilight was now the one looking confused again, “What are you talking about? I just told you how clouds are made, and I did learn that in my cross-tribal extracurricular studies course.”

“First off, I asked how clouds are formed,” Sam pointed out before continuing his argument, “Second of all, who would believe something as stupid as ‘water coagulation’. It’s called a precipitation cycle. Water evaporates from lakes, oceans, and what not. Then, the water vapor rises into the atmosphere, since it’s lighter than air at that point. From there, all the little bits of water vapor come together and condense til they’re so packed together that they form clouds in the air. Once there’s too much of that water vapor in one spot, all the vapor condenses even more til water droplets form and become too heavy to hang in the air and fall. That’s how you get clouds, and that’s how it rains. Plus, all those clouds just move on their own, like on wind currents.”

Sam crossed his arms again in finality at the end of his little impromptu lecture. All the while looking rather smug in his confidence for his explanation and teaching the purple wonder some real science.

“Sam, that doesn’t make any sense.”

Or maybe not.

“Although... that last part sounds eerily much like the Everfree Forest phenomenon,” Twilight added, a hoof to her chin in ponderance.

“Wait, what forest?” Sam chimed in.

Twilight’s eyes brightened at the chance to educate her peer, “The Everfree Forest is one of Equestria’s four chaotic anomalies. There’s also the Crystal Caverns underneath Canterlot, The Emerald Snow Plains north of Vanhoover, and the Labyrinth Peaks at the edge of Equestria’s south-western border. Each one of these areas exhibit strange and chaotic natures that have yet to be fully explained, even by today’s greatest minds. The Everfree Forest in particular is known to be home to exotic fauna and flora that don’t usually thrive in the surrounding areas’ natural ecology and could only be found in areas outside the Equestrian border. As for the weather, the meteorological patterns of the forest’s atmosphere are unaffected by even the most powerful pegasi magic. Storms and other weather patterns form at random above in the forest’s atmosphere without any guidance whatsoever. Thus, as you mentioned before, clouds seem to move all on their own with no outside force to be seen.”

“Hold on. Back up a sec,” Sam said as he massaged his temple to soften the incoming headache, “You’re telling me that weather that just moves on its own is considered to be unnatural?”

“Yes?” Twilight replied with another tilt of her head, “Isn’t it an unnatural phenomenon on your world?”

Sam just gaped at the unicorn before him. How could a society not know about how simple weather works? Sure, their immortal princesses could move celestial bodies in the sky like it was child’s play, but a simple rain cycle eluded them? He wanted to say something, anything that would make this whole thing not sound like a fevered drug trip and make more sense, but nothing came to mind. It just so happens that he also made the mistake to look back up at the clouds overhead, now fully covering the city in a hazy shadow. But there was a clear cut off where the mass of rain-filled bodies did not span over the cities borders. It looked way too precise to be natural weather, and yet to these ponies, that’s all it was. Hell, even the unicorn beside him was now looking at him like he was the crazy one.

Though before Sam could add any further input, he caught a bit of movement at the center of the mass and could barely make out the outlines of flapping wings, a pegasus. Though it was what this pegasus did next that made the conduit want to throw himself off the side of the mountain to preserve what sanity he had left. With a kick from the pegasus’ back legs to the cloud above, a low rumble sounded across the city and rain came falling from the point of impact. Then, like a ripple of water on a lake, the rain fell from the clouds adjacent to the epicenter. Soon, all the clouds were releasing their payload onto the earth below from the same ripple and left a certain conduit to stare in disbelief at what he just saw.

His right eye twitched, the headache he tried to avoid came back with a vengeance, and a certain miniature version of himself had finally climbed his way out of the depths of the mental pit he threw him into. Mini Sam smirked at himself with a devious glint in his eyes and conjured a mental image of the words ‘Fuckin’ Magic Beeyatch!’ within the conduit’s mind. The little version of Sam was swifty punted right back into the pit from whence he came for his overt snarkiness, all the while cackling at the top of his lungs.

“I REGRET NOTHIIINNNGGGGGGGGG!!”

Outside Sam’s vivid imagination, said conduit turned on his heel and headed back for the castle with the most neutral expression he could muster.

“Fuck this, I’m done for the day.”

Right behind him, a shocked Twilight swung her head back and forth between the rainy city and the conduit who had just stormed off. She was unsure why Sam had reacted the way he did, but she resolved herself to find out.

“Sam, Wait up!”

With One Step Forward, There is Always Two Steps Back

Author's Notes:

You know what this story is missing? Brutal, heart pumping fight scenes and hookers...Wait, no. Forget the hookers. In any case, this one has been a long time coming, so enjoy.

Thanks to Regreme as always for his help in proofreading and editing. Can't tell you how awesome you are for doing all that for me.

It’s been several days since Twilight and Sam made amends after their fight, even slowly becoming friends the more they got to know each other. Twilight got to learn more about Sam’s homeworld and all about its strange and wondrous sounding technology, while Sam finally had someone that he was willing to truly open up to and trust besides the friends he had fought alongside with back in Memphis.

Between all that though, Twilight worked diligently in her task to return the wayward conduit to his world. Although, the progress was tedious with how the unicorn had promised to not let herself get carried away as she did before. Sam appreciated the gesture, but soon found himself becoming annoyed with the unicorn’s tiptoeing. She would constantly check to see if Sam was alright during whatever test she put him through, no matter how small it was. Twilight took a painstaking amount of time before each procedure to explain every step she would conduct to the conduit, no matter if he was directly involved or not. Whenever Twilight would ask a question about Sam’s world, whether it be for her research or just out of curiosity, she’d always follow it up with something along the lines of ‘I hope it’s not too much to ask’. It was like she thought everyday she was navigating through a minefield blindfolded.

Then there was even the time that she accidently threw a beaker at the conduit. Although, that one was more Sam’s fault since he thought it would be funny to sneak up on the distracted unicorn with a wire frame of a giant tarantula in his hands as a prank. It didn’t matter though, since the beaker smashed against the conduit’s face and opened up a small gash on his forehead. The wound healed quickly enough, but the damage was done. Twilight looked about ready to have a heart attack for what she did and apologized as many times as she could before Sam could get her to realize it was all an accident.Yet, she still seemed to assign the blame to herself and tried to avoid Sam whenever she could for the rest of the day.

It wasn’t until the point that even a small bump into each other would turn the unicorn into an apologetic mess that Sam had had enough. Sam pulled the little unicorn aside and finally let out his grievances. Twilight seemed even more distressed at first, then hurt moreso. Then, after the two talked about it some more, the two came to an understanding on how they should be working together. From then on, Twilight and Sam were much better off, and the research Twilight conducted began to pick up steam.

“I know we’ve been over this before,” Twilight said without turning away from the set of notes she was looking at, “but is there anything else that you can remember from the time when you ended up in the throne room, or especially before?”

Sam knitted his brows in concentration and paced a bit around Twilight’s lab. The place was littered with used or discarded pieces of paper with all sorts of scientific equations and scrawlings. A few bunsen burners were busy keeping a couple of test tubes and beakers at the right temperatures for further use later. A machine that Sam didn’t fully understand its purpose to hummed quietly in one corner. It was very boxy and had a lot of dials and buttons on it. Twilight had said it was called a ‘spectro-thaumatilyzer’ or something like that. He didn’t quite pay attention to when Twilight was explaining it, but it had something to do with analyzing samples for inscriptions or signatures of magic. In anycase, it was apparently vital to Twilight’s research, so Sam didn’t encase it in a wire cocoon and hang it from the ceiling as another prank. Other such loose equipment was scattered around the room and added to the organized chaos that was a unicorn’s workshop.

In the meantime, Sam stopped his pacing and spoke. “Sorry, Sparks. The bomb went off, I tried to shield myself, everything looked like the world’s trippiest kaleidoscope, and bang! I’m faceplanting against the floor in Ponyland.”

Twilight didn’t know what to be more annoyed about. The nickname that Sam now kept calling her by or how he kept calling other ponies or places by the wrong name, like Equestria. She sighed heavily and rubbed the side of her head with her hoof to avoid another headache. After which, Twilight levitated a few more pieces of paper from various places around the room and added them to the growing stack in front of her. She skimmed over the information the new pieces provided and hummed to herself in deep thought.

“The reports from the royal guard archives says that your arrival was also accompanied by the appearance of a mirror of sorts.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, “We went over this too. The conduit me and my friends were trying to save had powers over mirrors. Sent one of the DUPes into one of them, and the guy just upped and vanished. From what I remember, I think I did fall into one behind me when I was protecting the girl. She mentioned that ‘the mirrors take stuff away’, or something like that. I just thought she meant that the mirror trick was just another one of her abilities and did something else. Never thought she meant that she could send stuff to another world.”

Twilight nodded in understanding as she looked over the papers with a bit more scrutiny. She had suspected that the mirror was the root cause of Sam’s ordeal, but held off on inquiring about it too deeply, since it was also the reason that Sam’s first encounter with Equestria had ended so poorly. She didn’t want to risk upsetting Sam by bringing the event back up when he might still be recovering, but she needed more information.

“Sam?” Twilight’s throat ran dry as she prepared herself for what she needed to ask, “I want to ask you about this one thing, and I know this might be a bit hard for you-”

The little unicorn didn’t get any further into her inquiry as Sam let out an exasperated sigh. He pinched the bridge of his nose and got a slightly annoyed look on his face. “Sparks, we’ve been over this. I’m not going to be mad, or lapse into some sort of resent against you and never want to talk to you again just because you ask me about something that might help you figure out a way to send me home. Honestly, I don’t get it. You want to help me, but every time it comes down to it, you make it out to be like I’m about to bite someone’s head off afterwards. I’ve been shot, blown up, chased down, and imprisoned at least three times now, so please, stop trying to act like I’m made of fucking glass or something.”

The harsh tone made Twilight flinch as the air in the room became still with tension. When Sam finally looked up, he saw a little, purple unicorn huddled in on herself with a remorseful look on her face. He could already sense the string of apologies that Twilight was putting together in her head and cut her off before she could start.

“Look,” Sam started off, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

Twilight waved her hoof and shook her head, “No, you’re right. Even if most of it’s about gathering all I can to find you a way home, I still want to know all there is about you and your world.” The little unicorn’s hoof wavered over her healed cheek subconsciously. “Yet, I don’t want to offend you or make you uncomfortable after… the last time. Although at the same time, I’m just making excuses and delays to what could be your way home. But I can’t just ask you whatever I feel like. I have to consider each question and line of tests in regards to what you’ve been through and how traumatizing it could be. You’ve said that the D.U.P. had done awful things to you and all the other conduits. What if I end up doing the same thing without even knowing it? I’d never be able to forgive myself.”

Twilight danced on her hooves nervously as she ranted. She was completely absorbed in her world now, and Sam knew it. Of course, this is why he came up with his patent pending technique of breaking the unicorn out of her guilt loop. While she was still distracted, Sam crept up to her side. His arm stretched out to find its target, and his fingers twitched with anticipation for what was to come. His hand and his target were mere inches away, and he lunged forward to strike. Contact was made, and he proceeded to scratch that one sweet spot behind Sparks’ ear that she seemed so fond of. Her first reaction was to yelp in surprise and drop the bundle of papers floating in front of her, but once the sensations fully set in, she was practically sighing in pleasure. She began to lean into the conduit’s hand, begging for more attention as her eyes fluttered happily.

The moment of bliss only lasted for a few seconds before Twilight’s eyes shot open as she realized what was going on. She quickly batted the human’s hand away while her cheeks flushed red and tried to look as annoyed as possible.

“Would you stop that?!”

“Well, I would, but then I wouldn’t get to see you make that adorable pouty face you always get afterwards whenever I do,” Sam replied with a devious smirk on his face.

Twilight shook with aggravation and growled at her assailant. It was like Sam enjoyed frustrating others for his own amusement, which just made Twilight even more irritated.

Sam chuckled, “Yup, exactly like that. Oh, and here comes frustrated sigh~”

Although she really wanted to, Twilight stopped herself from doing just that. There was no way she was going to let Sam have the satisfaction. Instead, she inhaled deeply through her nose and let the breath out slowly through pursed lips. After sufficiently calming herself down, Twilight concentrated on what she was initially set out to ask.

“Back to the topic at hoof. The mirror you were sent through. Do you remember anything about it, like its tactile composition or possibly if it had a thaumaturgy signature or inscription?”

Sam shook his head, “I was a bit too busy dealing being a human pin cushion with all the shrapnel that bomb threw at me when I got thrown through the mirror. Plus, I have no idea what you mean by ‘thaumaturgy’ signatures or whatnot.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, her ears splaying back in unease, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to overwhelm you. It’s okay if you don’t remember.”

It was Sam’s turn to massage his temples as Twilight mentally reprimanded herself once more. So, he did the only thing he could do in this situation.

“Didn’t you say that the guards wrote a report on the event?”

Change the subject.

The strategy appeared to work somewhat, as Twilight blinked a few times and levitated the stack of papers she had earlier back to herself and looked over the report in question carefully.

As her eyes scanned over the report, Twilight voiced her thoughts, “Yes, the whole event took them by surprise, so nopony got a long enough look at the mirror itself. The whole thing, the mirror, seemed to have just willed itself into existence within the throne room, despite the innumerable wards placed about the castle and the room itself. Magus level unicorn guards also recorded odd fluctuations in the ether fields when the mirror was forming. Although the fluctuations were not due to the mirror drawing ether to itself, since the readings taken afterwards showed no signs of field decay, like with how all spells work when they consume ether, but the field was still vastly distorted or non-present. It seems like the mirror just pushed the ether field away from itself entirely in all directions. Kind of like with your resistance to magic, Sam… Wait a minute.”

The purple unicorn looked like she had just stumbled upon a breakthrough. A whirlwind of papers and documents were engulfed in her magic and circled around her. Sam was unsure if she was actually able to read all the stuff that surrounded her at once, but by the look of pure concentration, she was doing a fairly good job at it.

Twilight’s eyes lit up, and Sam waited with bated breath to see what she had come up with. Though before he got his answer, Twilight snatched up her saddlebags from the corner of her lab with magic and a few other items from around the room to place in said saddlebags. She muttered to herself as she examined each piece of equipment and either sent them back to where they came from or placed them carefully in her saddlebags. Sam was becoming bored with just watching the unicorn work, so he conjured up a few strands of wire to busy his hands.

Of course, he also asked the obvious question that was on his mind, “So, want to share with the rest of the class what you think you figured out, Sparks?”

Twilight ignored the conduit’s snark, but explained her thoughts, “It’s more of a theory, but I believe there is a way to hone in on your world’s signature. From there, it’s just a matter of following the signature’s leyline back to its origin point.”

Sam stood up straight and banished the wire from his hands, a glimmer of hope in his voice, “Wait, does that mean you can send me home?”

“N-no. At least, not yet, but it will bring us one step closer to doing just that,” Twilight said reassuringly.

Once all her selected tools were stashed away, which made her saddle bags bulge unevenly, she levitated the whole thing over her back. She struggled a bit under the weight at first, but her determination let her push herself forward and out toward the door.

“If we’re lucky, I can still grab my own readings from the throne room on any residual anomalies. Come on, Sam!”

The excited unicorn left with Sam on her heels, along with their usual escort that peeled away from their positions from beside the lab’s doors on their way out. Well, they were more like Sam’s escort.

Even though the two had made up, a certain royal guard captain was none too happy to find out that a pony, and Celestia’s personal student no less, was injured due to the conduit’s actions. His immediate orders were to have Sam detained on the spot and thrown into the dungeon, but before ol’ Cappy could get out an ‘I told you so’, Twilight came to Sam’s defense. She confessed her role to being the main cause of Sam’s outlash, but Cappy wasn’t fully convinced until Sunny and Loony came around to also attest to the unfortunate event being a clear incident of miscommunication. It also helped that the two rulers of the country have enough pull to order Sam’s release with no further questions.

That didn’t mean that Cappy was going to let the conduit go with just a slap on the wrists however. So, he cleverly suggested that Sam’s ‘free roam’ privileges should be revoked for a time and that he should be confined to his room unless he was needed for Twilight’s research or by order of the princesses. Much to Sam’s displeasure and Cappy’s delight, the princesses agreed with the ruling, and Sam was sentenced to think about his actions from the confines of his suite for the next several days unless he was told otherwise. Other than a mundane routine of wake up, research with Twilight, eat, and sleep, it wasn’t too bad. Just very boring, and the princesses did warn him if he tried sneaking out from under the guard’s watch, they would extend his sentence. So, he grinned and beared it, swearing that he would get back at the smug face of Cappy when the opportunity arose.

The near silent walk about the castle was soon met with a much needed interruption, by way of the princess of the sun making her way from just around the corner in the opposite direction. Both Twilight and the guards planted their muzzles on the ground to bow in reverence for their leader and ruler. Sam on the other hand, just shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded his head with a light smile.

“Sup, Sunny?” Sam greeted nonchalantly.

“Sam!” shouted a very worried Twilight, looking very tense once her gaze fell back on the princess. She quivered almost unnoticeably and waited for what was surely going to be her punishment for allowing the slight by the conduit go under her watch.

The princess, on the other hand, chuckled in warm mirth and bid the ponies to rise, “I appreciate your gesture in wanting to be less formal and more at ease with me, Sam. However, I would like to remind you that as a princess of Equestria, I have a certain image to uphold in the public eye, and such casual interactions may be taken the wrong way.”

Sam looked about the hall they were standing in and smiled back at the princess, “Then, I guess it’s a good thing that the public eye is nowhere around today.”

“Indeed,” Celestia smiled back, “And hello, Twilight. Do not think I haven’t forgotten about my most faithful student. It’s wonderful to see the both of you today. Although, might I ask what is it that you are doing with so much equipment that you have?”

Twilight looked like she had just avoided a car crash in the middle of rush hour and quickly recomposed herself, “Not at all, your majesty. I believe I have discovered a breakthrough in my research and was on my way to test my hypothesis.”

“Oh?” Celestia said with intrigue, “Would you mind if I accompanied you? I am curious to know how far in your research you’ve progressed.”

Like a switch that just got flipped, Twilight’s expression was nothing short of a nervous wreck. If the princess wanted to see about Twilight’s research, it could mean only one thing in the unicorn’s mind. She was about to be evaluated and judged on her performance in front of her mentor. She regretted leaving her flashcards behind in her lab at that moment.

“S-sure! I don’t mind one bit, princess. Why would I mind? Nope, totally do not not mind at all,” Twilight sputtered while she sweated bullets.

Sam didn’t know if Sunny enjoyed seeing her own student become so distraught, but it was hard to tell with her wearing that constant sirene smile all the time. Hopefully not, or else he would have to reevaluate the whole ‘benevolent ruler’ persona he was led to believe in the solar princess. Sadist was definitely one of the first new words he could use if he was proven otherwise.

“Wonderful,” Celestia calmly stated, “If I may also ask, where is it that you are conducting your next examination, Twilight?”

Twilight spoke, albeit nervously, “The throne room, princess. I, er, think there might be a way to find Sam’s origin leyline if I can gather the right data. It all has to do with Sam’s magic resistance phenomenon. There’s just something to it that connects with the mirror anomaly.”

“Splendid work, Twilight. I knew I chose the right pony for this task,” Celestia said as she moved to the side to allow the unicorn the lead the way, “It is fortunate that I close day court early on the week’s end. You will have full access to the area, all to yourself, for as long as you want for the rest of the day.”

“That is what I had been counting on,” Twilight muttered under her breath dejectedly.

Twilight took the lead and led the procession throughout the castle’s elaborate hallways to their destination.

In the meantime, Celestia struck up a conversation with Equestria’s resident conduit to pass some time.

“How are you feeling today, Sam? Is everything going well with you?”

“Alright, I guess,” the conduit shrugged and yawned, “Just a little tired.”

“Are you not getting enough sleep?” Celestia asked, looking a little worried.

Although he brushed it off, the princesses and Twilight had noticed that Sam would sometimes appear less than awake during the waking hours. They had inquired into his condition, but Sam would just smile and say that he was fine. Any further prodding would only get them a change in subject by the subtly distressed conduit. Celestia was unconvinced and asked the guards that watched over him at night for any unusual behavior. For the past few nights, the guards reported Sam waking up at odd hours of the night, sometimes even hearing him awakening with a startled yelp or cry.

Celestia consulted her sister on the matter, but even she was unable to tell what was wrong with Samuel. Luna was known to have the unique ability to dreamwalk, or lucidly enter the dreams of others. With this ability, she had become something akin to a guardian of the dream realm against the dark terrors and nightmares that plagued her subjects during the night. It wasn’t too much of a surprise that she would also want to peer into the subconscious of an extraterrestrial that had just dropped into their fair kingdom. So, anytime Luna would explore the dream realm, she had kept a special eye out for a certain conduit’s dreams among the ethereal plains. At first, it was just another way for the princesses to investigate Sam’s purpose in coming to their world. But now, Sam’s restless nights had become a concern for them, and they wished to help him any way they could. Yet, night after night, Princess Luna was unsuccessful in locating Sam’s dreams. On a few occasions, she had glimpsed the specter of an unknown consciousness within her dominion that carried a very unique energy about it, but it would fade almost instantly into the oblivion before she could get a chance to hone in on it.

Neither of the princesses were very successful in discovering the cause of Sam’s restless nights. Neither had they been able to get the wayward conduit to open up to them on the issue. It was discouraging to them both, but they left the topic alone for some other time when Sam was willing to talk.

Back to the matter at hand, the princess and her entourage eagerly awaited what Ms. Purple Egghead had planned. They all waited patiently from just inside the throne room doors as Twilight nervously glanced about the room, looking somewhat lost.

Sam found himself a little intrigued. This was the first time he had been in this room that didn’t involve him fighting for his life while bleeding out all over the floor. The entire place was massive, almost like a mini-cathedral. The decor still held warm marble white tones with golden accents everywhere. Banners were hung between marble columns in alternating depictions of the sun and moon, with a few United Equestria national flags in between. A long red carpet ran the length of the room from the entrance doors to the foot of the elegant throne on the opposite side of the room. Sam was a bit unsure, but it looked like there were a set of water fountains idly trickling crystal clear water on either side of the throne’s dias. Along both sides of the room, there was enough stained glass that it wouldn’t be surprising that whoever did them must be a millionaire.

While Sam was busy taking in his surroundings, it seemed that Ms. Purple Egghead did not work well with an audience. Her mane and tail had a few strands sticking out unevenly, and every hesitant move she made was as stiff as a board. Everyone continued to wait on her until Sam got bored of just standing around and took some action.

“Hey, Sparks.” Sam whispered while leaning over the unicorn’s shoulder, “You need another pick-me-up behind the ears? I can use both my hands this time if you want.”

Twilight sputtered at the conduit’s remark and made a fairly good attempt at impersonating a tomato. Sam snickered at the flustered unicorn while Celestia just looked at the two questioningly. When Twilight caught a glimpse of her mentor’s expression, she tossed her saddle bags off her back unceremoniously and quickly set about her work.

With more volume than what might have been necessary, Twilight shouted, “I believe we should get started with the tests!”

Her movements were still very stiff, but at least she was focused on her task again without distractions. Celestia looked to Sam, who had a seemingly innocent smile on his face as he followed the purple unicorn to help in any way he could. His good cheer was suddenly swept away when he heard a sound coming from beyond the stained glass windows outside. It was the sound of condensed chucks of rock and concrete whistling through the air and in his direction. A sound that Sam was very much familiar with and made his blood run cold. From his left and behind the stained glass, a shadow grew darker as the incoming projectile closed in. With the speed instilled in him by his instincts and training, he threw himself at the unaware unicorn in front of him to use himself as a shield.

“GET DOWN!” Was the last thing he said before stained glass shattered inward along with a yellowish glowing hunk of rocky debris.

Time crawled at a snail’s pace as everyone else in the throne room either dived for cover or were too stunned to move. The concrete grenade hit the floor of the throne room and exploded, filling the air with a high pitch ‘bang’ and pieces of shrapnel. The unlucky guards closest to the blast were thrown off their hooves and riddled with splintered concrete. Princess Celestia and the other guards faired slightly better, but suffered their own injuries in not reacting fast enough and were dealing with a painful ringing in their ears. Twilight, although pretty dazed at the moment, suffered the least damage from the attack as Sam shielded her from the impact and only took on a few bruises from the initial tackle.

Sam groaned as he picked himself up. He could already feel his body rapidly healing its injuries after taking the hit for his unicorn friend. Though he couldn’t relax just yet. This was just the beginning of the attack, and he had to act fast. He looked at Twilight below him and swiftly took note of her condition.

“Sparks!” Sam barked to gain the dazed unicorn’s attention, “You need to get out of here, right now! Go get help!”

Twilight’s senses were slowly returning to her as she listened to Sam’s instructions. She shook her head to clear her thoughts more and opened her mouth to protest against Sam’s orders. She wasn’t about to leave her friend to whatever had just attacked her, the princess, and Sam.

“Go, NOW!”

The harsh tone and serious expression on Sam’s face cut off whatever argument she was building in her mind. Unwilling to defy the conduit’s wishes, Twilight drew on her magic reserves and pooled it at the base of her horn. In a flash of magenta light, she was gone, having teleported to carry out Sam’s instructions of getting help. With Twilight out of the danger zone, Sam stood up and readied himself for more incoming attacks.

A quick glance around the throne room let him see the crater in the marble and torn up red carpet where the concrete grenade went off. Two of the guards looked severely injured, and only one of them was moving. The princess and the two other guards looked worse for wear with streaks of blood from open gashes and other obvious injuries coating their bodies. Sam didn’t have more time to assess his surroundings as four figures came hurtling in through the broken window.

“No,” Sam whispered in a shaky voice.

Before him were a squad of D.U.P. troopers, decked out and ready for combat. Their black with yellow and off-white uniforms gleamed in the sunlight that streamed in through the hole in the window. Sam could only focus on the clearly visible ‘D.U.P.’ patch adorning their uniforms and everything it represented. Sam shook with unconscious, paralyzing fear.

“Boss, look,” one of the troops called out as the squad fanned out to their positions, “It’s another one of those ‘humans’. What do we do with it?”

The verbal outburst was enough to snap Sam out of his trance, and he was able to see the figures for what they truly were. They were quadrupeds wearing crudely altered pieces of D.U.P. standard issue armor. Some of them had wings or a horn, but one of them didn’t even look like a pony altogether. It was much bigger than the others, but also sported a pair of angular, feathery wings. It may have had the head and talons of an eagle, but its back half more like that of a large cat, like a lion. Sam had to think for a moment to remember the word for the creature and came up with only one that fit the description: a griffon.

The griffon, or boss, looked in Sam’s direction, but his expression was obscured by a tinted visor. He cocked his head for a moment, then scoffed.

“Flash, Tango,” the griffon spoke in a gravelly tone, “Get rid of it. We’re only here for the princess.”

Sam snapped out of his daze at the command. The two unicorns broke from the intruders’ ranks to face him. One of them leveled an assault rifle on Sam in its magic, ready to fire while the other lowered its head and scraped at the ground. The griffon and the pegasus of the group turned on the princess and her battered guards, shards of concrete encircling them like bees. The sound of a gun safety releasing was all the signal Sam needed before springing into action. Wire shot from his outstretched fist faster than the ponies had time to react and knocked the assault rifle out of the unicorn’s magical grasp.

“What the-!” the unicorn exclaimed before being knocked aside by another wire appendage.

The rest of the intruders’ attention was thoroughly stolen by Sam’s action, but he wasn’t about to let them get a chance to catch their breaths. With another thrust of his fist, a wire grapple shot forward toward the other unicorn. The unicorn seemed to have a better reaction time than his partner as he narrowly sidestepped the attack. However, he did not anticipate that this was just a feint as the wire grapple embedded itself in the wall behind him. Sam smirked as he used the grapple to reel himself forward and delivered a flying kick to the other unicorn on his way over.

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll get rid of me that easily,” Sam quipped.

Both the unicorns, the pegasus, and the griffon backpedalled in disbelief of the wire conduit.

“Shit, the thing’s a bio-terrorist!” one of the downed unicorns cried out as it scrambled to his hooves.

Sam frowned at the remark, “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘conduit’, ya’ asshat.”

The griffon clicked its beak a few times, “Doesn’t matter. Take it out, now! We have the princess to subdue.”

The two idle guards by the princess moved to put themselves between the assailants and the princess. Celestia, however, readied her horn to unleash her fury on the would be attackers.

“How dare you!” she declared, waves of power that could match the sun rolling off her, “You attack not only myself, but my loyal subjects and distinguished guest? You will all pay dearly for your arrogant crimes!”

As her declaration ended, she wove all the power she had been building up into a spell of raw, physical force that would knock any opponent she directed it at into a broken mess on the floor. She aimed her horn at each of the intruders and fired, only to find that they had merely been knocked back a couple of paces once the dust settled.

Seeing her attack fail left the princess stunned and wide open, which the griffon and pegasus took full advantage of to issue their counterattack. Concrete shots fired from the griffon and pegasus’ outstretched limbs. One of the guards in front of Celestia hastily erected a barrier to stop the incoming barrage. Though, the rounds tore through the bubble shield like wet newspaper and struck him, his partner, and the princess behind him.

On the other side of the room, Sam was too busy dealing with the unicorn duo that blocked his path. The cries of pain made him grit his teeth as he tried to figure out a way past them to reach the other assailants. One of them tried to grab hold of the conduit with his magic only for the magic field to burst as Sam burst through it through sheer force. It looked like being extremely magic resistant was coming in real handy for the conduit. Wire and concrete shots were exchanged as they kept each other at a distance for the moment.

“I don’t have time for you punks,” Sam growled, but an idea soon struck him when he looked beneath him, “So, why don’t you two just take a seat for a sec.”

Sam grabbed the rug from underneath him and heaved as hard as he could. Both of the unicorns, who both had a few hooves on the rug too, stumbled as the red carpet flew out from underneath them. Of course it wasn’t enough to topple them, so Sam took advantage of their moment of imbalance to move in closer and sweep their legs out from under them with another wire whip. With the two unicorns stunned for the moment, Sam lept over top of them and ran to intercept the other two.

“No, no. Don’t get up on my account,” Sam sneered as he passed over his first two opponents.

The princess and her guards were barely holding on as the pegasus and the griffon kept up their assault of concrete shots and flailing talons and hooves. Celestia wanted to at least teleport all of her guards away, especially the more injured ones, but the onslaught kept her from being able to concentrate long enough to execute such a complex spell. She was trapped, powerless, and rendered incapable of even protecting her subjects. Her guards did their best, but the sheer gap in power between them and their adversaries was too great.

“Excuse me,” Sam called out with his usual brand of snark as he slammed a wire whip down in front of the opposing forces, “mind if I drop in on this dance?”

The griffon and the pegasus halted their advance. Sam couldn’t tell, but he was sure that the two must have looked upset from behind their darkened visors. Sam put himself between the princess and her guards and the mysterious assailants. The two unicorns regrouped with their companions to face down the conduit all together.

“Move aside, Bio-terrorist,” the griffon called out.

“For the last time,” Sam charged up power within his fists, “I am a conduit!”

Sam slammed his fists into the ground, causing multiple sets of wires to burrow through the the floor and thrust up and around the assailants in all directions. The griffon and the two unicorns used different methods to avoid the strike by either teleporting away, blasting a path out the side of the encroaching fence of wire, or flying up and out of the cage before it could close. The only one to get snagged was the pegasus who was too slow to react and got tangled in the wire cage when he tried to follow his other winged friend. The griffon and two unicorns moved to flank the opposing group from the sides, but Sam was ready and fired off spikes of wire at the incoming forces.

Celestia used the moment of reprieve to gather her energy and focused a teleportation spell on the two most injured guards within the throne room and sent them away in a flash of light. She then summoned a golden halberd from the ether, her main weapon of choice for melee. If spells and magic had no effect on her opponents then maybe she could at least keep them at bay with a physical weapon. The other two guards that still remained took up positions to hold back the assailants with Sam where they could with spears and any debris they could throw with their magic.

“Damn it!” the frustrated griffon screeched as he threw another concrete grenade at the conduit as a distraction, “This was not how the plan was supposed to happen. Pack it up and move out, boys!”

The two unicorns, looked to one another between dodging and repelling the guards’ counterattacks.

One of them looked at the griffon and called out, “But boss, what about Jet Stream?”

The griffon glanced over to the trapped pegasus who was doing everything he could to escape from his wire confines. If only there was more time.

“We have to fall back now,” the griffon called out while pulling a out metal canister from his belt.

“But boss-”

“Get your fat flanks moving before I kick them!”

The two unicorns faltered under the griffon’s harsh tone, but obeyed immediately.

“Come on!” Sam called after the retreating assailants, “There might not be any music, but that doesn’t mean we can’t stop dancing!”

“Maybe next time,” the griffon called back, “Celestia, the doc gives his regards!”

Sam gave chase after the the fleeing ponies and griffon, but just as they jumped through the broken window they originally came through, the griffon tossed the metal canister into the throne room behind him. Sam came to a halt as he watched the metal canister’s arc. He only spared a glance back in the griffon’s direction before turning around and going after the grenade he just threw. Celestia and the other two guards also watched as the assailants fled, but were slightly mesmerized by the metal canister as it made its first bounce. Sam sprinted as fast as he could and threw out a wire whip to try and knock the grenade away.

“Get down!” Sam cried and hit the grenade out of the air and away from the group.

There was loud bang and smoke poured out into the throne room from the grenade. Sam hacked and wheezed as he realized that the grenade was a smoke grenade. It played havoc with his senses, but just as soon as it came, powerful gusts of wind blew the offending smoke away. It was Celestia with her mighty wings, that with each beat blew away more of the smoke until there was none left. She and her guards, although wounded, stood proud and tall.

“Thanks, Sunny,” Sam threw the princess a quick thumbs up, “Take care of Birdy over there, would ya?”

The pegasus that was left behind flailed and writhed as he tried to free himself. Sam smirked at him before turning back around to head toward the broken window.

“Sam, wait. Where are you going?” Celestia asked with concern.

“I’m going after the wonder triplets.”

“No, you are not,” Celestia said with as much authority as she could muster, “You are to remain here and allow myself and any reinforcements I can muster to go after them.”

Sam smirked as he twirled around to give the princess of the sun the cheekiest grin he could give her, “What? Can’t hear you over the sound of me not caring!”

Sam could hear the princess disapproving shouts behind him, but he had already leapt through the broken window to give chase to the fleeing assailants. They were just to the garrison wall of the castle when Sam caught a glimpse of them as he fell from the window two stories off the ground. Any guard foolish enough to try and stop them as they escaped were knocked aside along their path. He also saw the unicorns use some concrete pillars to vault over the top of the wall while the griffon flew overhead. Sam hit the ground, rolled out, and ran as fast as he could to catch up. He had no time to lose.

The sprint lasted only a couple of seconds before he hit the wall between the unicorns’ boost pillars. With another grapple wire, he scaled the wall in half a second and looked out from the top to find his assailants. It seemed that luck was finally on his side for the moment, as the assailants drew enough attention from the citizens of the city to hear where they were going. It was also at this moment that Sam realized something. This would be the first time he had ventured outside the castle walls. The thought made him nervous, but also made him excited. Of course, there was no time to dwell on the thought of how the ponies of the city would react to him. He had some D.U.P. wannabes to hunt down.

With a leap from the garrison wall and out into the city, he shot a wire out to the closest building to swing and propel him toward his targets, much like a certain costume wearing webslinger. The exhilarating feel of using his powers to their fullest only pushed him to go faster. The streets of Canterlot whipped past him, along with gawking onlookers that watched him swing, sprint across rooftops, and slingshot overhead. The bustle of the ponies underneath shouted and pointed at the strange creature moving swiftly through their city. Sam paid them no mind as he closed in on the escaping trio.

“There you are,” Sam smiled as he vaulted over a rooftop air duct to see the unicorns vaulting up to another building less than a block away, “Hey, assholes! You miss me?”

The unicorns and griffon overhead turned to see their pursuer jump from his building and shoot a wire into an adjacent structure. From there, the wire conduit reeled himself in and used the momentum of his swing to close the distance. The griffon wasted no time in firing off a couple of concrete shots at the conduit, but missed with his wild aim. One of the unicorns continued to flee while the other turned to send a shotgun blast of concrete at the incoming conduit. Sam had no time to dodge and just braced himself for the impact. The sharpened shards of concrete cut into him, and he hissed in pain as he was pushed away. Ponies on the ground scattered from the dropping conduit as he hit the ground below. Thankfully, the fall wasn’t too far, and Sam got back up and dusted himself off.

The griffon overhead flew past the unicorn still standing around and shouted, “Tango, leave it! We need to escape from the city before the guard reinforcements arrive!”

“R-right, boss,” the unicorn replied and prepared to leave.

Sam wasn’t about to let them get away that easily though and shot a few bolts of wire at the fleeing unicorn. His regeneration ability had just finished its work on his body, and he was ready for round two.

“Ah, come on now! I thought we were just starting to have fun!” Sam called out.

Sam could swear that the griffon was giving him the meanest stink eye from behind that visor of his. Though it seemed that he wasn’t going to play along with Sam’s taunt. Instead, he charged up another concrete grenade and threw it at the conduit’s direction. Sam ran out of the way of the exploding ball of concrete and climbed the building that the griffon and the unicorn fled away on. Back in the air, Sam could see that the trio were heading for the closest edge of the mountain side city. He could chase after them if he wanted to from there, but who knew how far these guys could lead him. Not to mention that they could lead him into a trap outside the city too. So, Sam had to stop them as fast as possible.

The chase continued along the rooftops of Canterlot. Exchanges of wire and concrete shots fired between the opposing forces. Though it seemed that the fleeing trio were not as adept at using conduit abilities like the people of the clothes they wore. So, Sam used their inexperience to deftly weave and dodge between their blind fire and close the distance once more. Occasionally, a wild shot would make contact from either side and stagger his progress, but the chase was quickly looking to be in Sam’s favor.

Sam smirked as he landed a hard hit on one of the unicorns with a wire whip, “Surprise, bitch!”

Sam was in the middle of executing a tackle on the downed unicorn from above when the griffon flew in and swiped at him with his sharpened talons and blasted the conduit point blank with another barrage of concrete once he was off balance. Sam fell away and hit the supports of a water tower behind him hard enough to bend them. The water tower’s frame creaked under the stress and tilted precariously to the side. Sam groaned as he tried to regain his senses, but once he did, he had to jump to the side to avoid another blast of concrete from the griffon and the other unicorn.

Sam was about to resume the chase when he heard the water tower next to him creak and groan under all the damage it took. From below, ponies screamed and ran as fast as they could out of the way of the crumbling water tower and the side of the building that got destroyed. It only took a moment to see that most of the ponies had fled the area underneath, but it seemed that in the panic that a foal had got knock around and possibly concussed by the bigger ponies. Sam glanced back in the direction of the fleeing assailants one last time before grinding his teeth in frustration.

“Fuck!” Sam screamed as he jumped off the building toward the foal just as the last of the supports of the water tower gave way and sent the entire thing careening over the edge. Sam landed hard next to the disoriented foal, but pushed any pain of the the hard landing away to quicking scoop her up and rolling off to the side.

“Hang on, kid!” Sam yelled as he braced himself.

The water tower crashed with a resounding boom behind the conduit. The foal in his arms cried out in fear, but Sam just cradled her closer as a cascade of water swept him off his feet from what spilled from the broken water tower. The water pushed him further down the street and caused him to skip across the ground a couple of times painfully until the torrent of water started to subside. Once the now thoroughly wet conduit came to a stop, he uncurled himself from the foal he was protecting and checked her over for injuries. Aside from a few scrapes and wet fur and mane, she appeared to be okay. The little sky blue unicorn shook as the shock of the events that befell her caught up with her. She looked up to the creature that was holding her and soon realized that the creature was the one that saved her from being crushed by the falling water tower. She didn’t know what to do or say, so she just continued to stare at the soggy creature holding her.

“Are you okay?” Sam cautiously asked in a warm tone.

The filly’s only response was to nod to the question as the adrenaline started to leave her system from the terrifying experience. Now that she wasn’t in danger of falling debris, Sam gave her reassuring smile to help her feel a little more at ease.

“Can you stand on your own?” Sam asked next.

The filly nodded again, so Sam slowly set her back on her shaky hooves on the watery street. The sound of dripping water from the busted water tower was slowly replaced with the sound of voices murmuring and clopping hooves. Since the perceived danger had past, ponies were once more claiming the streets and came to bear witness to the strange creature in the middle of the road. Sam soon found himself surrounded by a throng of ponies and their apprehensive or curious stares. That is until a turquoise colored unicorn mare with a pale yellow mane pushed past the growing crowd to get to the front.

“Honey Spice!” The mare called out in distraught, “Honey Spice, where are you?”

“Mommy!”

Her eyes fell on the foal in front of the conduit and her worried look melted into relief. The apparent mare’s foal rushed forward into her mother’s outstretched arms in a heartwarming embrace that everyone in the crowd smiled at. The misty-eyed mother looked to the conduit and could only mouth the words ‘thank you’ between joyful tears to her daughter’s savior before she pulled her daughter in for a tighter embrace. Sam gave a sincere smile of approval before he remembered that he had a couple of wannabe DUPes he had to catch. Though before he could take off back up the building next to him to resume the chase, royal guards broke through the crowd and encircled the conduit with horns and spears at the ready.

One of the guards with eyes as hard as steel yelled out, “Hold it right there, you are under arrest!”

Sam sighed at what would be a very difficult situation before him, “Oh, goddamn it.”

The Calm After the Storm

Author's Notes:

Hello~

Bet ya'll have been wondering where I've been. Well, I was afflicted with the terrible ailment called responsibility. Yeah, too much in my life happening at once, so I was only able to work on this sparingly. Luckily, life has calmed down, so hopefully my wave of inspiration will stick around for a little while longer to crank out another chapter soon. Thank you all for sticking around to want to read. Oh, and you'll probably notice something different in this one. Just a little something to help make the reading easier, let me know if it works better this way or if I should get rid of it.

As always, A big ol' thank you to my proofreader and editor, Regreme. And another big ol' thank you to the readers for the support of just enjoying a casual writer's fantasy.

Celestia would have been having a nice, humble slice of her favorite triple-decker, strawberry cake at this particular part of the afternoon, to enjoy the peace and quiet she so rarely can afford. However, baked confectioneries were the furthest thing from her mind at the moment.

Following the attack on the throne room, Celestia wasted no time in rallying the guards to both lockdown the castle and begin the pursuit of the three escaped assailants. From there, she teleported herself to her sister’s quarters to bring her sister up to speed on what had transpired. Surprisingly enough, the princess of the night was already blearily awake for this time of day. Though, Celestia could see that the early rise was not intentional by the ruffled feathers in her wings, the tired expression hidden behind her stalwart gaze, and her ethereal mane’s lack of its usual luster when it hasn’t had its morning brush.

When Luna saw her sister appear, her expression shifted to one of shock and worry. Celestia found herself bombarded with question after question about what had happened to her. She tried to reassure her younger sister that she was alright, but the various wounds, bruises, and dust flaking off her once pristine coat of fur said otherwise. The two argued over Celestia’s condition until they agreed to address it later once other issues were dealt with.

Luna surprised her sister once again when she told her that Twilight Sparkle had teleported to her not too long ago and frantically explained what she knew of the situation. Luna deployed her own guards in an effort to assess the full state of affairs and report back to her. Once she was made aware of intruders in the castle, the lunar princess rallied as many guards as she could and sent them to assist those already working to contain the assailants. Luna informed Twilight to make her way away from where the reports of the intruders had been seen, to seek shelter under the protection of a couple more guards.

Celestia was proud to see her sister take charge as she did and could not think of any other way she would have done in this situation. The moment passed as Luna insisted that her sister finally see herself to the royal clinical ward. Her sister’s persistence wore down Celestia’s defenses, and she made her way to the clinical ward of the castle. While she was there and treated for her injuries, Celestia also went to see the injured guards from the throne room that fought to protect her.

The first two she came across were in a recovery wing with bandages covering some more severe gashes and cuts. One of them was even fitted with a cast, as he had suffered a broken bone or two. Celestia bid them a speedy recovery and looked for the two others that held her more deeper worries. Both of the other two guards had suffered grievous injuries from the attack, and one of them in particular was still being treated in their surgery ward. By the sound of the doctor that she spoke to, neither of them were looking to continue their career in the royal guard, if they even survived the next twenty-four hours. It was painful to hear, but she bade the doctor to do whatever they could for the ponies under their care and wandered back out to the castle halls.

More guards than what were usually present stood at various intersections of the castle that Celestia strode through. A quartet of them were now shadowing the princess as she left the clinical ward to reach her final destination, Twilight’s makeshift laboratory that she set up to study with Sam. The trip was anxiety inducing, and even when Celestia was before the door that she seeked, she couldn’t help but feel worried. Her hoof rose and rapped upon the door being flanked by a duo of more guards that stood ever vigilant for anything or anyone out of the ordinary to approach.

Frantic hoofsteps raced to the door before the door was enveloped in a magenta aura. The bookish nerd, Twilight Sparkle, gasped as she opened the door to see her mentor before her in the doorway. She immediately sank into a low bow, but Celestia waved her hoof.

“Rise, Twilight,” Celestia said with as much mirth as she could muster, “There is no need for that when it is just me.”

The little unicorn blushed in embarrassment as she rose, “I’m sorry, princess. It’s just- Oh my gosh, what happened?!”

Twilight’s sense of formality flew out the window as she bore witness to her mentor’s appearance. Celestia only had a few bandages covering her, as some healing spells settled the lesser wounds, but it must have been the dirt and grime that spotted the princess’ ivory coat that really drew the unicorn’s attention. If it wasn’t for Celestia’s quick response, she was sure her student would no doubt be scrambling for any books or notes she had on every aspect of healing magic she could find.

“Please, Twilight. I am alright. The castle’s healers have already done everything they can, and I am feeling much better than I look.”

Celestia’s words seem to put the unicorn at a bit more ease, until another thought hit her, and her worried expression redoubled, “What happened to Sam? Is he alright? Who, or what attacked the throne room?”

Celestia raised her hoof once more to keep Twilight from ranting, “There was a group of individuals that sought to do harm. It is still unclear what their goal was, but we hope to find something soon. Sam… If it wasn’t for him, I do not believe the guards left in the throne room or myself would have suffered so little injuries. He fought bravely and was able to hold the individuals off. Unfortunately, the individuals fled, and Sam went after them into the city.”

Twilight gasped and shifted back and forth on her hooves, “Sam went after them?!”

“Yes,” Celestia said, “Fear not my student. I have already sent more guards to join the pursuit and bring Sam back safely.”

The words only helped to ease Twilight’s worry a little. Sam may be a foul-mouthed, wisecracking alien from another world, but he was still one of her friends. So, she couldn’t help but worry for him while he was chasing these ponies that thought to attack the castle. Before Twilight could go on to rant some more, the sound of clanging armor came from the hall to their left, and a new set of guards marched up to the princess. They gave a quick bow before one of them stepped forward.

He cleared his throat to speak, “Your Highness, I have news of the assailants.”

The princess turned to fully address them and waved for him to continue. Twilight listened in intently, as she was very much interested to know who had brought on the castle wide lockdown and the hunt for the escapees.

“I am sorry to report that the first three assailants have already fled the city,” the guard said somberly, “However, the conduit is back in our custody. By the report, he did not put up a fight with the guards detaining him and is being returned to the castle as we speak.”

“He did not harm anyone, did he?” Celestia asked with a hint of worry.

The guard shook his head, “No, your majesty. In fact, the runner that returned ahead of the retrieval party stated that the conduit was involved in the rescue of a pony that was caught in the crossfire from his pursuit. We do not have the full details, but once he is returned, we will have him interrogated.”

Celestia breathed a sigh of relief. If anyone were looking closely enough, they could see the princess’ tense posture slightly relax. There was still much to do, however, so Celestia gathered her focus.

“That will not be necessary, lieutenant,” Celestia spoke up, “Be sure to have Sam escorted to me as soon as he returns. I will handle him from there.”

“Understood, your majesty.”

The guard bowed and was getting ready to delegate the order to one of the other guards behind him, when the princess of the sun drew his attention back to her. There was still one final issue to address, but she was unsure if a certain purple unicorn should be present for this part. In the end, the lieutenant gave her no choice, as he anticipated what the princess was looking to hear about.

“As for the fourth assailant that was captured,” the guard hesitated for a moment before continuing, “He is no longer with us. The guards sent to collect him reported that he made it impossible for them to approach and apprehend the assailant with his abilities. Then, the assailant started to have some sort of seizure, to which the guards that were finally able to approach were unable to stabilize his condition. I am sorry, your highness, but there was nothing we could do.”

The guard looked more disappointed in himself than the princess did in him having delivered the unfortunate news. Celestia was only more disappointed and saddened in the fact that the pony had died in the end. She did not wish to admit it, but even if the pony had been an assailant sent to harm her and her subjects, she couldn’t help but feel a sliver of remorse in his lose. That sliver was overshadowed though in the fact that his passing left them with less information as to the assailants motivations that they could have gotten from him.

“See to it that the remains are handled properly,” Celestia commanded, “They may be our enemies, but we are not tribal barbarians and we will treat them with more respect than they may have shown us.”

The guards bowed again and turned to carry out their tasks. Once they were gone, Celestia turned on her hooves to speak with her student again. The little unicorn looked much more worse for wear after the exchange. Celestia blanched as she realized that Twilight had overheard everything. It was no wonder that the unicorn would react in this way. She wasn’t so jaded to not know about the circle of life, but to be so closely involved left her with an uncomfortable feeling in herself.

“Princess,” Twilight tried to speak through the lump in her throat, “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to help. Maybe I could have-”

Celestia silenced Twilight with another raise of her hoof, “No, Twilight. None of this is your fault. I am more relieved to know that you are safe, and I thank you for thinking fast enough to inform my sister of the situation. It is thanks to your efforts that more guards were able to be rallied to the pursuit of the intruders, and that is all I could ever ask of you.”

“I can’t take all the credit,” Twilight looked down at her hooves, “I froze when the attack happened. If it wasn’t for Sam, I don’t know what I would have done.”

“Then, you should thank him upon his return,” Celestia lifted Twilight’s chin up so she could see the radiant smile on her face, “Come. As much as I know you would like to return to your research as soon as possible, it might help if we were to retire to a more suitable chamber to await Sam’s return, yes?”

Twilight looked behind her at all the equipment and notes she had left to organize and store. She would have protest, but even before the princess’ arrival, Twilight found it hard to focus on anything besides the commotion that echoed through the castle from outside her door. Not to mention, she wouldn’t dare to dispute her mentor when she asked her of something. So, Twilight nodded her agreement and stepped out into the hallway to join her mentor to wherever she may lead.

--o0o--

Twilight had barely taken a few sips of her jasmine tea and only had a few nibbles of the daffodil sandwich on her plate before her. Princess Celestia had led them to her personal boudoir, where they awaited the arrival of Sam after his excursion into the city of Canterlot.

Every once in awhile, a guard would appear at the door and bring a report to the princess to hear and issue more orders. Having seen her student nervously shift in her seat idly beforehoof, the princess called for one of the guards to fetch them something to eat. Twilight thanked the princess as she received her humble meal, but hardly touched the tea or sandwich since then. Princess Luna had come to join them not too long afterwards and also awaited the return of the conduit whilst helping to coordinate the guards’ search efforts.

It was nearly a half hour before another knock at the door came, and the princess of the sun went to answer it. Her upbeat tone carried through the room and with it, a statement that got Luna’s and Twilight’s attention.

“Sam, it’s wonderful to see you safe and unharmed.”

Of course, Sam had to come back with usual snark, “Well, I can say that the rapid healing helps for the second part. As for the first, you mind getting Cappy here to stop trying to set me on fire with that stare?”

“Quiet, human!” the usual gruff tone of Captain Aegis Flare also came in from beyond the doorway.

Twilight shot up from her seat and rushed past Princess Celestia only to come skidding to a halt in front of the snickering conduit.

“Hey, Sparks,” Sam waved at the shocked unicorn, “Ya miss me?”

The unicorn grabbed hold of the conduit in a nearly bone crushing hug. The tension of not knowing where her conduit friend was from earlier slowly ebbed away in the embrace. Sam could only let the whole thing happen as the unicorn’s reaction was the only response he needed for his question.

“...Um, Sam?” Twilight asked as she eased up on her hug a bit, “Why are your clothes damp?”

“Well, there was this water tower, and it kinda got knocked over. Which was totally not my fault by the way! Plus, I didn’t see a water park anywhere in Canterlot while I was out there and thought you’d all could use at least one slip-n-slide.”

Twilight pushed herself away to look at Sam with a confused look. Though, before Sam could get to elaborate, Princess Luna cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention from the other side of the room.

“Would it not be more proficient if Samuel would explain the whole story of why he not only disobeyed our orders to not leave the castle, blatantly disregarding my sister’s command while in the throne room, and took it upon himself to chase after a group of dangerous assailants into the city like some vigilante?” Luna asked with an annoyed undertone.

“Hey, I am no vigilante. If you read the papers back home, I’m a god-damned criminal mastermind,” Sam snarkily corrected.

The sound of many hooves meeting faces echoed around the room from the few guards, Cappy, and Twilight that knew of Sam’s antics. Luna’s only reaction was to sigh heavily and sit back down.

Aegis Flare snorted in annoyance, “Human, just shut up, sit down, and tell us what happened.”

Sam walked over to one of the couches closest to Luna and sat down. Everyone else took this as their cue to find their seats while Sam regaled them with a tale of the exploits of his first excursion out into the city. Nopony found it quite as amusing when he started it off with ‘A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away’ though. He concluded that they must have all been trekkies. In any case, Sam rattled off all the details he could remember about the chase and more importantly, the assailants. Aegis Flare and the princesses were actually impressed with how much he was able to remember about the intruders with the limited encountered he had. All of it would find its way into the guards ‘Wanted’ bulletins by the end of the day.

“So, yeah,” Sam concluded, “That’s when Catbird and Thing 2 took another shot at me and hit the water tower. The whole thing toppled over the side of the building, and they fled toward the southwest cliffside.”

“Why did you not give chase after that? I thought you said it would have been ‘as easy as Taco Tuesday’ to catch them” Cappy asked.

“Remember the slip-n-slide idea?” Sam wittily shot back.

One of the guards stepped forward before Aegis Flare could berate Sam, “Sir! Reports from the retrieval team say that the human gave up the chase to save one of the citizens that was caught in the crossfire. A filly by the name of Honey Spice. If the human did not take action, the filly would have been killed. The mother of the filly wished to pass along her most sincerest gratitude for her filly’s rescuer.”

The princesses, Twilight, and even Aegis Flare looked to Sam with astounded surprise. The conduit just laid back into the couch with his arms crossed and gave them all a confused look.

“What?” Sam asked.

Celestia was the first to speak, “It seems that there is still more to you than what you lead us on.”

“Come on. I’m a conduit, not a monster. I thought we’ve been over this. Sure, it would have been nice to know where those DUP wannabes got their gear, but I can’t just ignore someone when they’re in danger.” Sam’s eyes lit up as something clicked in his mind, “Wait, what about that flyboy that I caught back in the throne room? Oh~, I so want first crack at him whenever he’s ready to be ‘questioned’. I’ve got my whole Christian Bale impression worked out.”

Just like that, the whole room was silent. Sam could feel the disturbingly cold mood that everyone put off and was slowly becoming more anxious.

Aegis Flare decided that he should be the one to break the ice, “Human. The last intruder you caught is dead.”

A cold lump dropped into the pit of Sam’s stomach. This was the last thing he expected to hear after all the trouble he went to to try and catch these intruders. He tried to recall if at any point he may have done more than aim to ensnare those four, but he could not. There wasn’t much blood, at least, from the ponies and griffon that attacked. Yet, what if he did do more than just trap that pegasus? He had to know.

“Th-that pony, he...I didn’t-”

“No, human,” Aegis Flare interrupted, “The intruder was alive and fought to escape himself. It’s unclear if you killed him, but for what it’s worth, I don’t believe you did.”

Sam breathed a sigh of relief and muttered under his breath, “At least that’s one less name to add to the list.” Before anyone could question what he said, Sam sprang up from his couch with a smile and clapped his hands together. “Well, we’re not getting any younger. Who wants to go on a little hunting trip?”

Luna blocked Sam’s path as he tried to make his way to the door. She still looked rather annoyed for some reason.

“We have already sent scouting parties to follow any tracks that our adversaries may have left behind. Which just leaves us with you. Do not think that we have forgotten about how thou still disobeyed our orders, Samuel Reed,” Luna finished with a dangerous bite in her tone.

Sam tried to avoid her gaze, but he could only smile nervously as a small bead of sweat grew along his brow. He had actually hoped that she did forget, but it seems that fate had other plans.

“Can we just pretend that I did it out of pure selflessness and for the greater good?” Sam chuckled nervously.

Luna’s eyes narrowed as her frown grew deeper.

“Yeah, didn’t think so.”

--o0o--

A tape recorder sits alone and empty on a metal table until a new tape is inserted, and the device is set to record.

“Log number D-119. Subject B-14 has proven to be invaluable toward unlocking the full potential of the ‘conduit gene’. I’ve never seen such a high rate of synergy in any other subject before. If I can just replicate these results, I could graft this development into the final serum. Hmm, on second thought, I need one more key component. These results still show a deterioration of the grafted serum over a rate of seven point three percent. If only I can get my hooves on another subject. Possibly one that has already been ‘activated’, it might help me to see how I can slow, or perhaps better, stop the deterioration.”

“DOCTOR, WHERE THE BUCK ARE YOU?!”

“Ah, it seems that the simple-minded have returned, but what in the name of Tartarus are they yelling about?”

“Doctor!”

“Yes, yes, in here. What do you want? Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a breakthrough?”

“I don’t care if you’re in here curing cancer! What the buck is your problem?!”

“I have no idea what is you are referring to, but seeing as you are here, I take it that the job has been completed?”

“At the expense of one of my wing.”

“Ah, a regrettable loss, but his sacrifice will at least be a footnote in the pages to progress.”

*A great crash is heard in the background along with things clattering to the ground.*

“What is wrong with you, you buffoon?! That equipment is worth more than your miserable life!”

“Are you deaf? They took one of my partners prisoner!”

“I heard you the first time, but that is of no consequence. He should expire soon enough.”

“What in the name of the great eagle are you talking about, doctor?”

“Tell me, Aras. How are you feeling? A little weak, shortness of breath, migraine ranging from annoying to head splitting?”

“... …”

“Yes, all symptoms of the serum’s effects running out.”

“What do you mean?”

“The beta serum only gives you the capacity to access a fraction of your potential conduit abilities. Even then, it can only give you access through a preset code, which in turn would have rewritten your original genetic code. Of course, your metabolic stability does not take too kindly to that kind of imbalance. Think of it as an infection, although that would be a very simplistic way of putting it. Your body can’t handle this amount of irregularity to your system, so your body does the only thing that it can to correct it. Destroy the infection, which consequently means that it will try to destroy every living cell in your body, seeing as the serum affects every cell within you.”

“So, what you’re saying is, that Jet Stream is-”

“Dead? Yes, or at least, he will be without another administration of the serum. If he continues to use his powers, he’ll just burn himself out faster. At least he won’t have the chance to reveal anything of use to those idiot princesses. Now, tell me. Did you at least deliver the message?”

“Sure, but there was a complication, so we weren’t able to give the princess the ‘full demonstration’ like you asked.”

“What?! She was to be made sure that she understood her mistake! I told you to make sure she was within an inch of her life; an inch! No more, no less! *sigh* I should have hired a bunch of rocks to do this at this point.”

“Well, maybe you should have told us that there were more of those bio-terrorists in Equestria!”

“What the name of Tartarus are you talking about?”

“There was another one of those ‘humans’ alongside the princess. We didn’t think much of it, until it starting shooting metal strands out of its claws and captured Jet Stream!”

“...There was another human?”

“Yeah, or did the ‘great doctor’ not know.”

“...Perhaps you and your band of misfits aren’t a complete failure after all.”

“Listen here, Doc-”

“Ah, ah, ah. You can’t do a thing to me. You see, without me, you and the rest of your merry little band won’t last more than a week. Even with the reserve stores of the serum I have.”

“... …”

“There. That’s a good birdy. Now tell me, what was this about another human that can control metal strands?”

Never Meant To Be Faced Alone

Author's Notes:

Who wants a new chapter? That's right, you do!

It is currently 4 AM while I post this, but I wanted to double check for grammar and spelling before posting this for all to enjoy over the weekend. A little darker, but something I wanted addressed after a few hints being dropped.

As always, a big ol' hearty thanks to the editor and proofreader himself, Regreme. It really does help to have that second opinion on the sections that I'm never quite happy enough with.

Sam strode through the city streets of Canterlot without a care in the world. Sure, there were the odd looks here and there from the ponies passing him by, but he wasn’t about to let their hushed whispers dampen his mood. All he really wanted to do was wander around a bit and take in the sights after having snuck out of the castle, again. It would probably still be at least another thirty minutes before his guards noticed he was gone, or the rumors of the lone human roaming about would reach the ears of the princesses. However, he would let future Sam deal with that problem when it came about later. For now, Sam was content to just walk among the regular citizens of Equestria and do a bit of window shopping, even if most of the stuff was pony oriented.

Sam drew in a deep breath of the crisp mid-morning air and smiled, “Man, if only the others were here to see all this.”

It all felt a little too perfect, which was probably why the universe saw fit to rain on Sam’s parade by having the telltale whistling noise of impending doom heading straight for him. With lightning fast reflexes, Sam shot a set of wires from both arms to slingshot away from the spot he was just standing upon, where a concrete grenade detonated. Luckily, none of the bystanders were close enough to get hit by the whizzing shrapnel that spewed forth and ran in any direction that was away from the impending fight. Sam’s head jerked up in the direction that the initial attack came from to find three silhouettes atop a roof on the opposite street against the sun in the back. Sam only had to squint for a little bit as more of the silhouettes’ features became more defined, which in turn made him smirk.

He chuckled to himself before calling out, “So, the wonder triplets are back for another ass-kicking?”

The two unicorns broke off to either sides while scaling the the sides of the adjacent buildings down on concrete platforms. One of the them was even brandishing another assault rifle in his magic and leveled it on the conduit as they both hit the ground across from Sam. The griffon took to the air and hovered just above the entire scene in preparation to swoop in for his own attacks. By now, the streets were devoid of the rest of civilians, which left only the four figures to stand off against each other. Sam tensed as he readied for the fight, the familiar feeling of giddiness before entering a brawl making him even more happy.

“Or did you that there was a special discount here on Market Street for B-rate henchmen. ‘Cause, seriously, the whole cobbled-together-armor look only worked in the ‘Mad Max’ movies.”

Sam thought that they either hated him for questioning their fashion sense, or they just hated him in general as he heard the safety on the assault rifle disengage and the unicorn opened fire. Sam was at least glad that the unicorn was a terrible shot, as he only caught two of the bullets on his roll out of the way to the left. The pain from the shots hardly even registered as he was used to the feeling already and them being only glancing hits. So, Sam dove further off to the side and shot a few wire bolts to throw the rifle wielding pony off balance.

His next action would have been to sweep the unicorn off his hooves with a wire whip, were it not for the griffon’s sudden dive bomb from above. Sam was sent flying toward the other side of the street again, where the other unicorn suddenly appeared and was charging up a blast of concrete to send toward the incoming conduit. Sam braced as the the cone of concrete shrapnel tore at him and sent him skidding back the other way along the ground. Sam ignored the disorienting induced tumble and jumped back to his feet to avoid another hail of gunfire from the first unicorn.

Gritting his teeth, Sam tried to come up with a plan to gain the upperhand against the more coordinated trio. Though at the rate the fight was going, he doubted he could even mount a counterattack against the onslaught. So, he took to the rooftops to put some much needed distance between him and the DUP wannabes. However, the griffon was waiting for him on the opposite end of the roof, tail swishing back and forth in a hypnotic fashion. This didn’t make much sense, since Sam could have sworn that the griffon was on the ground next to the second unicorn before he took to the roof.

“Alright, Houdini. You gonna pull a rabbit out of your ass next?” Sam nervously quipped.

The griffon did not answer, but crouched before pouncing at the wire conduit and making him retreat back over the side of the roof into the street below. There, the two unicorns awaited at the bottom, charging up for another volley of concrete shots up toward the falling conduit. Luckily, Sam was able to slingshot out of the way to the opposite side of the street with only a few of the concrete shards clipping his side. Sam sprang to his feet and held his ground across from the two unicorns that stared him down. The griffon came swooping down from above to join the unicorns, and they spread out into a tight semicircle around Sam.

Sam’s eyes darted between the three with his arms outstretched and palms facing out to fire at the first to make a move. The assailant trio carefully closed in on their target, barely twitching while they stalked ever closer. In Sam’s mind, he continued to try and find a way out of being cornered, but each idea was either too overly complicated to work or would need something that he just didn’t have within reach at the moment. Maybe if he could stall them, it would give the time he needed for a the right plan.

Sam took a step back and did the only thing left he could think of, whip out a sarcastic remark, “I don’t suppose we can just call this a draw and get back to this next week, right?”

The three assailants continued to remain silent as they drew less than a dozen feet away. Shards of concrete hovered around each of the creatures, and the one unicorn with the assault rifle racked the slide on the gun loudly and pointed the firearm at him.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’.”

Sam, being thoroughly boxed in by the oncoming assailants, and with no real plan to escape, poured all of his energy and reserves of wire to the surface of his being. He was just going to have to wing it and hope for the best. Though, before he could unleash his power, his left leg suddenly wouldn’t move. He looked down to see the lower part of his appendage completely encased in concrete. Before he had any real time to react, more shards of the offending material sprang from the ground to latch onto his other leg, anchoring him firmly to the ground. Sam tried to break away from concrete holding him in place, but the more he struggled, the more the material seemed to grow from the source around his legs and slowly crept up the rest of his body.

“Hello, Samuel,” a voice that sent chills down Sam’s spine called out.

It was a voice that also made him wonder how its owner was even physically here, but the fear that it instilled in him overrode any part of him that questioned it. When Sam raised his head away from the encroaching concrete to find the source of the voice, his blood ran cold. Before him, along with the unicorns and the griffon, was a squad of D.U.P. troopers from Earth and a woman that he hoped to never meet again in his lifetime. The ‘Concrete Queen’ herself, Brooke Augustine, the Director of the Department of Unified Protection. Her navy blue D.U.P. uniform was crisp and only enhanced her air of superiority. Her trench coat flowed and rustled behind her with every step she took toward the trapped conduit. Her fiery red hair was drawn up into a tight bun per her agency’s regulations, which only drew more focus to the smug, leering smile on her face. She stopped only a few feet away from Sam as the concrete cocoon encasing his body reached just below his chest.

Augustine looked the trapped conduit up and down before giving a little wider smile, “It’s been a long time, don’t you think?”

Even in the face of impending doom, Sam swallowed the hard lump in his throat before retorting, “Not long enough, I’d say. You still haven’t found a cream to fix that ugly spot just above your chin. Oh wait, that’s just your face.”

“As rebellious as the other three, as always,” Augustine said without letting her unnatural smile falter, “Oh well. It’s time for you to come home, Samuel.”

Sam struggled once more, and even raised one of his hands to fire off a few wire bolts at the ‘Concrete Queen’, “You can’t make me go back to Curdan Cay, you bitch!”

Augustine waved her right arm and a flurry of concrete shards flew up to encase Sam’s outstretched hand, halting his strike in its tracks. Before he even had a chance to raise his other hand up, that too found itself enveloped in another flurry of concrete and stopped any further attacks by the wire conduit. Having been incapacitated made Sam panic. The shell of concrete crept up the rest of his body, leaving only his head and face for all to see his hysteric expression.

Augustine gave Sam a sickly sweet smile, “Actually, Samuel. I most certainly can.”

He tried calling out, but the only ones to come were more D.U.P. troopers in one of their heavy-duty armored transport vehicles. Augustine raised her right hand again, and with it, the shell that contained the trapped wire conduit cracked at the base of the street and rose into the air. She guided the captured conduit up and toward the back of the armored transport, where two of the troopers opened the back doors as if they it were the maw of a hungry beast. Sam frantically searched for a way out, but the shell of concrete held firm against his struggles. It felt like death himself had Sam in his cold, vice-like grip with no chance of letting go. It was suffocating.

Just as he was levitated into the into the transport, Sam’s panicked gaze fell on the two unicorns and griffon. They stood side by side with the other D.U.P. troopers and stared motionlessly back at him from behind their featureless face shields. Just seeing them among the ranks of the D.U.P. just made Sam feel even more alienated than he once did back on Earth.

The doors to the transport slammed shut in front of Sam and plunge him into absolute darkness. He couldn’t tell which way was up or down or if Augustine had even dropped him to the floor of the armored transport. For all he knew, he was bound in a perpetual darkness, where he could not even hear the sound of his own heart pounding in his ears.

However, Augustine’s voice pierced the veil and echoed through the air and into his mind all at once, “Welcome home, Samuel.”

The chilling voice was punctuated by a harsh, incandescent light suddenly blinding Sam from in front of him. The fluorescent tube lights hummed overhead, giving Sam vertigo as he tried to reestablish his orientation. He squinted past the illumination to see where he was now, but the sights around him only redoubled his fear. He recognized the room he was in. An ‘examination lab’ within the walls of Curdan Cay Station.

The gray, concrete walls seemed to close in even closer every time Sam looked at them. The cold, familiar feeling of the slab like steel table that he was strapped to pressed against his back uncomfortably. With what little movement he was allowed, he tilted his head forward to see the was now wearing a set of orange D.U.P. detainee uniform. The same uniform he was forced to wear for four years of his life. He couldn’t quite see the spot above his left breast, but he knew the stenciled characters were not his name; they were his number: ‘0527’.

Within these depressing walls, he was no longer a human or a conduit. He was just another bioterrorist with a number, and that is all the world would ever know him to be.

Sam’s mind raced with questions of how he had gotten here, how the D.U.P. found him and more importantly, were his friends safe? Augustine’s words from Canterlot made his guts tie up in knots. His friends were as strong and clever as he was, if not moreso. They couldn’t have been captured, could they?

Sam wasn’t left much time to ponder on this as echoing footsteps came from the shadows of the room. The shadows congealed into hazy figures. Once the figures were close enough to step into the light from overhead, they were revealed to be human scientists in sterile, white scrubs and medical masks to obscure their faces. Even with the light pouring down on them, the rest of the their faces remained in hazy shadows. Incoherent whispers emanated from the collective mass of surrounding scientists.

“S-stay back!” Sam futilely shouted, “Get away from me!”

The scientists just ignored the conduit’s cries as they busied themselves with setting up trays to side of Sam’s table. All manner of sinister equipment and medical devices exchanged hands in front of Sam, and there were far more needles and sharp objects than Sam was personally comfortable with at present.

“Please, just stop! Let me go!” Sam cried out.

His hands were still encased in special cuffs and mitts that were meant to inhibit a conduit’s powers. So no matter how hard Sam tried, he was utterly powerless.

“Samuel, you need to calm down and relax.”

Sam recognized this voice as a flicker of hope burned like a candle light inside him. That faint glimmer of hope was swiftly extinguished when he turned his head to face his perceived savior.

Twilight Sparkle’s hooves clacked noisily against the linoleum floor of the examination lab. As she walked into the light, she was revealed to be wearing the same sterile, white scrubs as the rest of the scientists around her. The only difference was that her medical mask hung loosely from her neck, which let Sam see the serene, innocent smile she wore as she stared back from the edge of the table.

“Sparks, what are you doing here? Please, we have to get out of here!” Sam desperately pleaded.

Twilight’s smile faded and was replaced with a confused frown and a questioning tilt of her head.

“Go? Why would we do that?” Twilight asked as if it were the craziest thing she heard Sam suggest, “Besides, if we leave now. We won’t get to continue with your exam.”

Sam couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He thought that the purple unicorn was his friend. He had thought that they had promised never to hurt each other again, and yet, here he was. The pony he called ‘friend’ was now helping to organize the equipment that would soon be used to cut him open.

He had had this happen to him before. Test after test he was put through, like all the other conduits in Curdan Cay. All for the sick curiosity of the scientists to see what made them tick. The incoherent whispers died out, and Sam was brought back to focus on the unicorn as she brandished a syringe that had no business in having a needle as long as it did in her magic.

“If you would, could you hold him still?” Twilight asked one of the faceless scientists beside Sam’s table.

Cold, latex covered hands cupped the sides of his head, and no matter how much thrashing he did, Sam couldn’t move an inch. Twilight levitated her medical mask up to cover the serene smile she still sported.

She leaned over the table to look Sam in the eye, “Don’t worry, Samuel. This won’t hurt all that much.”

Sam’s panicky breathing evolved into hyperventilation as the unicorn leaned back ever so slightly to allow the needle she held to point down directly into Sam’s face. Sam tried to scream, cry out, or just try to speak, but every sound died out before they could even pass his lips. He was in too much shock.

Then, the needle slowly started to dive down toward the conduit’s left eye. The scientist behind him was far stronger than he appeared, as he kept Sam’s head in place without so much as a twitch. Closer and closer the needle came, and the last thing Sam saw was Twilight’s sparkling violet eyes staring back at him without a single shred of remorse.

--o0o--

Sam awoke, screaming at the top of his lungs. His covers entangling him, and the confinement only made Sam panic more. He tore through the sheets with a few hectic swipes of wire, but he did not stop there. In the darkness of the castle suite, he could still see the shadows of the scientists hiding in them. So, he lashed out at them too, tearing apart anything that got in the way. Objects exploded into piles of debris under the ferocity of Sam’s attacks. Anything else that was caught up in the reaction crashed to ground with audible bangs and clatter.

Sam was on his feet and backed himself up against the wall, for fear of something that might sneak up on him. At the same time, his suite’s door slammed open to let cones of light pour in from the portal. The window shattered inward as two more figures entered the chaos. Sam instinctively lashed out at the intruders that barged into the room to defend himself. Though, in his drowsy, delirious state, the group of five figures easily sidestepped the incoming attacks.

“Mr. Reed, calm yourself! We’re here to help!” one of the shadowy figures called out from the group.

Sam halted his arm that had another wire whip just above his head after the shout. The voice was familiar, and after his eyes had time to adjust to the spotlights coming from the two unicorns’ horns of his escort guards, he looked to each of the guards faces that he recognized. Each of them looked from the crazed looking conduit to the destruction about the room. A full spectrum ranging from fear to confusion flashed across each of the guards. The unicorn that had first spoke approached the conduit with heavy trepidation, careful not to step on any of the haphazardly strewn debris.

“Mr. Reed, what happened in here?” the unicorn asked with obvious concern.

Now that Sam was no longer in any immediate danger, his focus was drawn to his own condition. The clothes he wore were thankfully no longer orange in any way, but a set of bark-blue shorts and red t-shirt that was given as pajamas. However, they and his entire body were drenched in a cold sweat that clung to his skin like a cloak and made his body shiver in the cold night air. His heart felt like it was trying to explode out of his chest, even when he tried to will it to slow down. His throat felt sore and raw from his screams of terror. Then, there were the memories of the nightmare. It all slowly came back to him in painstaking detail. This was the first time in a long time that he had a nightmare this bad. The last time he could think of that this happened was back at, ‘That Place’.

“Mr. Reed?” The unicorn tried to get the conduit’s attention.

Being too consumed by his own thoughts, Sam had neglected to answer the guard that was talking to him. Even so, he couldn’t come up with a viable excuse for his actions. All around him, he could hear the guards whispering among themselves while they never took their eyes off of him.

Sam clenched his fists and looked to an empty corner of the room, “It was nothing. I’m fine.”

The hushed tones from the guards grew steadily in volume. Though the unicorn guard in front of him didn’t seem to really accept that answer.

“With all due respect, Mr. Reed, but this,” The guard gestured to the room in general, “this is not ‘fine’.”

“Whatever,” Sam dryly replied, not even looking at the unicorn, “I just need to go for a walk.”

The unicorn guard blocked Sam’s path, which just drew a frustrated, yet tired, look from Sam. The guard didn’t seem to look to be scared, like some of the other guards, but neither did he look angry like the others. His expression was something between an empathetic frown and a concerned look.

Sam mustered what little energy he could put into an angry scowl to scare the guard, “Move out of the way.”

“I can’t do that, Mr. Reed,” the unicorn said.

“Why not?” Sam asked, now starting to feel some true anger boil beneath the surface.

“Because I have ordered him to.”

Everyone turned to the doorway, where the princess of the night stood regally against what pale moonlight spilled in from the halls. Beside her was one of Sam’s usual escort guards, and determined must have been sent to fetch her. Her gaze wandered around the room. The wanton destruction spread throughout the room made her lips press tightly into a thin, neutral line. When her studious eye came upon the conduit, she found a mix of roiling anger and restrained unease. Princess Luna motioned for the guards to leave them, to which they all gave a bow and left. This left only the princess and Sam alone in the royal suite, where they stood alone and stared at each other.

When the last echoes of hoofsteps signalled that the guards were clearly out of earshot, Luna’s posture sagged visibly. She took one more look around the room and every destroyed object she saw made her grimace. Sam was unsure of what she was doing, but this was a far cry from her usual distant scowl that she would grace him with. Then, Luna looked to Sam, and her expression turned to one of pity and sorrow.

“I am so sorry, Samuel,” she solemnly, but before Sam could ask what she was talking about, she continued, “I should have confronted this sooner.”

“I-wait, what?” Sam asked nervously, unsure of where this was leading. If it turned ugly, he was unsure if he was up for a fight.

However, Luna surprised him with her next words, “As the princess of the night, I have many tasks. Ensuring the safe passage of the moon through the heavens, presiding over the night court, and protecting the kingdom by moonlight alongside the royal guard. But, there is one task that I take the most pride in every night. To watch over the citizens of Equestria’s dreams and help them overcome their nightmares. Though tonight, like many nights before, I failed one such individual in that regard; you.”

Luna’s head dipped low to the floor in shame. Sam looked even more confused by the princess’ words. Some of it made sense, but the final task she mentioned taxed his fevered mind to a dangerous point.

“I know you do not understand this, but let me explain,” Princess Luna rose her head, and tried to appear less upset than before.

“Look, Loony. You sound really upset and all about this, but I’m fine. So, I don’t see how you ‘failed me’. I’ll even put a five on your feedback questionnaire, ‘kay?” Sam tried to say with a smirk, but the expression came out looking pained and lopsided.

“You need not put on a brave face, Sam,” Luna said, “not for me. I am a dreamwalker, and it is my solemn duty as the princess of the night to guard the realm of dreams for all who reside in Equestria, as it has been my solemn duty ever since I was crowned the sovereign of the night. I have faced night terrors and cleansed the dreamscape of the wicked banshees that haunt my subjects minds while they rest. I do not know exactly how it is that humans deal with these aberrations, but so long as anyone should sets hoof, claw, or paw in Equestria, I will be there if their dreams turn to darkness.

“Yet, there is one mind that has gone without my aiding presence, and it has plagued my conscious to know that they must suffer alone. I speak of you, Sam. For even if you do not admit it, I have watched you, and it saddens me deeply that I can do nothing to help you within your dreams when I see so much pain.”

This was all so much for Sam to take in. He had seen some weird shit in the land of magical, talking ponies, but this? Princess was implying about something that should be physically impossible. Sam wanted to make a joke about how she should join the NSA with that kind of skill, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it in his troubled state. So, he just leaned back against the wall that was next to him to steady himself.

“Even if you do not believe me, please, let me help you,” Princess Luna took a cautious step toward the conduit, “Nightmares are never meant to be faced alone.”

“I’m-,” Sam couldn’t get the next word out of his mouth, because he knew that he certainly was not ‘fine’.

Every time he closed his eyes, he could see flashes of the nightmare. Every time he saw Twilight’s wicked smile, it made him shudder. He hated that even when so far away, the D.U.P. had so much control over him. Yet, that hatred was buried under a suffocating pile of fear of the organization that stole what semblance of a normal life he had from him. His whole body shook out of unconscious fear, and Luna took this as her cue to step a little closer.

“I know it must be hard, but will you tell me what it is that torments your dreams?” Luna asked in the most gentle tone that Sam had ever heard her use, “I have tried many times in your slumber, but whether it be because of your species or some other factor, I cannot help you in your dreams. But... I want to help you through this.”

The words were so sincere, so honest. It reminded Sam of his friend, Isabelle. No matter what the issue, she was always there to listen and help him and the others. A solid lump formed in Sam’s throat as he choked up at the memories. Luna stayed quiet and motionless as she waited patiently for Sam’s reply. She did not judge Sam for when his shoulders slumped tiredly, or when his head hung lower than she had seen of the proud conduit. Nor did she judge him when he slid down the wall into a seated position with his arms wrapped around his body like they were a blanket of reassurance. Luna waited as she watched the conduit debate in his mind on what he would decide to do next. She was glad she did, as Sam took a slow, steadying breath to calm his nerves before talking.

He told her of his nightmare, and throughout it all, Luna’s heart sank at hearing what Sam’s nightmares were doing to him. From the fight with the three assailants, to his capture by the ones that had first imprisoned him on his homeworld, then on to his helplessness in the ‘examination lab’. Finally, there was the part that disturbed Princess Luna the most. Sam told her of Twilight Sparkle being one of the scientists that wanted to ‘cut him open like a turkey’. By the end of it, Princess Luna couldn’t even tell where to begin.

She had seen many nightmares that would put a bloodthirsty hydra to shame, and born of fears of things that only the shadows could create. Sam hugged himself tighter, having recounted the nightmare in every grueling detail. He wanted to be angry, spiteful, or even just plain annoyed, but his mind emotional reserves was burnt out. All that was left was a cold, empty feeling embedded deeply in the pit of his stomach. That is, until a blanket of warm feathers curled around his body. At first, Sam tensed up, as if he was being ensnared once more, but looking up into the princess’ melancholy eyes looking down on him put that feeling to rest.

“It is alright. You are safe now,” Luna whispered, her wings curling up around Sam in a cocoon of protective warmth.

Sam had no idea of what to say or even do. No one had comforted him like this, except for his family before his imprisonment and only once by his Memphis city friends. Luna gently nuzzled the top of the stunned conduit’s head while quietly hushing him of any protests he tried to voice.

After a minute of this, Sam accepted the gesture, and even returned it in kind by wrapping his arms around the princess through her outstretched wings. The feel of his fingers running through her feathers and fur was soothing to the touch. There was an aroma of fresh lavender on the princess’ coat that put Sam further at ease.

“You are never alone, Sam,” Luna quietly reassured, “And nopony here would ever do such horrible things to you as this D.U.P. have done. You’ve shown that you are strong, driven, yet caring and gentle when those are in need. You are no monster that deserves to be locked away in a cage, and by what you’ve told us of your friends on earth, neither do they. When you do return to your home, I’m sure your friends will be there waiting with open arms to welcome you back.”

Sam hugged the princess tighter as he felt a few tears run down the sides of his cheeks, some even wetting the front of the princess’ fur. The tears did not come with racking sobs or hiccuping cries, but he was not trying to stay strong or look tough. No, they were just the only things that Sam had to give in his state of distress. Yet, as each tear fell, Sam could feel his racing mind finally start to slow down. The tension in his body left just the same, until he was left with a sense of ease and security within the Lunar Princess’ embrace.

“I am still so sorry that I cannot help you through the dreamscape, but I will always be here if you need somepony to talk to,” Luna said as she gradually released her embrace, “Are you feeling better?”

Sam wiped the wet streaks from his face with the collar of his shirt before looking up to the princess. His eyes still stung with fatigue and the aftermath of his tears, but he had to admit that the hug and Luna’s reassuring words were definitely something that he needed at the moment. It was like a massive weight was lifted from his being and cast to the side. He still knew it was there beside him, but he no longer needed to carry it all on his own. With a tired smile, Sam nodded and received a warming smile in return.

Luna stood up and offered a hoof for the conduit to stand as well, “Good. If you wish, we may have you retire to another set of quarters. This suite is a bit unsuitable for the rest you need.”

Sam looked around the room and winced at the state it was in because of him. He was about to say that it was fine and that he could sleep just about anywhere, including the destroyed suite, but Princess Luna was already guiding him out into the hallway and away from the disaster zone.

They only moved to another set of doors about three rooms down, and the Lunar Princess opened the door with a burst of magic. Inside, the whole thing looked like his suite before he laid waste to it. If it wasn’t for the fact that he glanced down the hall to the open doors to his old suite, he would have easily mistaken this one as the one he was using all along. It made him feel a pang of regret for destroying such a carefully furnished room and made him wish that he could refuse this offering.

“Come, Sam. There is still a few hours left in the night for you to find your slumber,” Luna guided the bleary-eyed conduit to the bed.

Sam obeyed her without question and settled in under the fresh linens with the help of the princess. His eyes were already having a hard time staying open the moment his head touched the pillow. Luna busied herself with drawing the curtains on the opposite side of the room, blocking out the ambient light of the moon and stars. With that done, she returned to Sam’s bedside and ignited her horn. The four poster bed’s top railing glowed in the same magical hue as the princess’ magic. The magic flared briefly, and in its place were clusters of flowers hanging along the railings. The sweet scent of lavender wafted down from above, and Sam drew a deep breath of it in.

“Lavender is known for its therapeutic qualities and helps those troubled by restless nights, Sam,” Luna said as she stared at the bundles of flowers overhead, “They are one of my favorites.”

“Thank you, princess… for everything,” Sam yawned, “I guess we’re on some good terms if you’re calling me ‘Sam’.”

“Do not lean too heavily on thy insinuations, Samuel,” Luna huffed, but she still smiled to match Sam’s mischievous remark, “May pleasent dreams find you this night.”

“Goodnight, Luna,” Sam replied as he watched her walk to the door and close it behind her with the chiming echo of her magic.

When Sam finally did fall asleep, it may have been dreamless, but at least there were no more nightmares.

News Travels Fast on the Pony Express

Author's Notes:

Does chapter seem shorter to you? Lol, jk. I know it is, but I'm going back to trying to making shorter chapters to put them out sooner. Hopefully this strategy works well enough, plus the ideas for the next scenes may benefit from the breaks. Still, hope you all enjoy.

Still gotta thank my editor, Regreme, for the grammar nazi repellent. Just wish I would learn my lesson already so I can save that money for something else.

‘Peaceful First Contact, or Alien Invasion?’

Princess Celestia read the headline for the Canterlot Gazette and couldn’t help but frown. The photographer had also snapped a rather misleading photo of Sam in action for the cover. The photo in question set right underneath the headline was of him in action just as he narrowly missed one of the out of frame assailants with a wire whip and instead fracturing a sizeable chunk off the building in front of him. The rest of the article, which took up a significant portion of the front page of the newspaper, went on to chronicle Sam’s actions from the day before the last. Most of it was accurate, except the reporter took a few artistic liberties to play up Sam’s perceived danger to the community.

Celestia also had a small stack of other newspapers just off to her side from the dining table, much of them having similar headline news of the conduit’s reveal to the world at large. At least some of them actually spun the story to make the conduit sound more amiable, but they were few and far between. Their first encounter with foreign life from beyond their world, and her subjects almost outright reject him. It saddened the princess greatly to hear such outbursts when she has strived to instill a sense of respect and to avoid prejudice. Day court from the previous day had been a similar ordeal with nothing but ponies, from nobles to shopkeeps, asking questions on what she was planning to do with such a dangerous creature. She would have to correct this mentality as soon as possible, before it got out of hoof.

In the meantime, with a heavy sigh, Princess Celestia set the Canterlot Gazette on top of her stack of newspapers and went back to staring at her untouched breakfast of a now cold omelette. Not only was there the public’s opinion to deal with, but the investigation of the assailants’ motives, and her normal duties as a diarch of Equestria was there to deal with as well. It was always an uphill battle somewhere. It just made it even harder when that incline was raised a few more notches.

From the dining chamber’s entrance, the princess of the night entered with a regal flare of her wings. Although the gesture was made less regal once she paused to let out an impressively long yawn.

“Good evening, sister,” Princess Celestia said with a good natured smile.

Princess Luna had to yawn once more before she could reply, “And may this morning find you in better spirits, sister.”

The princess of the night plopped herself down at a seat across from her sister, her eyes half closed in fatigue. Princess Celestia pushed her untouched breakfast aside to worriedly watch her sister from across the table. She already knew why Luna seemed to lack her usual energy during their meal time, but that did not stop her from worrying.

“So...” Celestia began, “...has there been any developments?”

Luna reached across the table for the still warm coffee pot with her magic and drug everything else she needed to make her morning brew before her. As she poured the lukewarm contents of the pot into her cup, she added her usual mix of three sugars and as much milk as it would take to fill the rest to the brim. Out of the many things she had come to appreciate in this present day, coffee was one of the better advancements that society has made. Although... there was the incident where she had first tried the brew and accidentally scorched her tongue after not letting it cool enough. Thus, she was dubbed Princess Lisp for the entire week after the ordeal until her tongue healed. She had since learned the fine art of brewing the perfect blend of coffee, along with the proper time one should allow the mixture to cool before drinking. Now, she was one of the most avid coffee drinkers in Canterlot, to the point that the tabloids secretly referred to her as the Coffee Queen.

In any case, once Luna had had her first sip of coffee, she was in a much better mood to discuss the important matters that her sister was alluding to.

“Unfortunately, not as much as we had hoped,” Luna said as she idly stirred her cup of coffee, “Examination and autopsy of the assailant’s body has revealed little on what gave the pony, named Jet Stream, his abilities. We are still looking into his records for anything that can help, but there is still much to sift through about his history. The armor that he wore is as you predicted. No protection runes, but they still repel magic to a degree. I fear that they may also have come from Samuel’s world, if our theory is correct.”

All this gave Celestia more than enough of a reason to frown, yet Luna was not quite done talking.

“Captain Aegis Flare’s investigation into the assailants whereabouts is still underway, but he has assured me that they are closer than they have ever been before. He has my full confidence in his words, so I believe we may be able to put an end to this soon. As for our resident ambassador of his world; the public’s opinion is skewed at best for him.”

Luna’s eyes wandered to the stack of newspapers beside her sister and frowned at the headlines she was able to see. She knew all too well the bitter taste of disapproval from her people and how it could lead to darker judgements. She would have gone to each and every one of the newspapers’ editors in chief to 'give them a piece of her mind’, but the last time she did that when wild speculations from local tabloids said she was in an illicit relationship with one of the nobles in Canterlot led to even more embarrassing and wildly untrue stories being published about her. It was only thanks to her sister, and a new scoop of a story about the theft of forty cakes, that reporters stopped hounding her at every chance they could get.

Celestia sighed deeply, “Thank you, Luna. I know I’ve asked much of you this last week, and I know that you are tired.”

“Tis alright, my sister,” Luna said with a raised hoof, “It is my duty after all, and you needn’t have to shoulder the weight of the kingdom’s problems alone anymore. I only wish that we could, as you say, ‘put these criminals behind bars’ as soon as possible.”

“Yes, it’s very disturbing to know that even a small group of assailants could wield such devastating powers and use it against ourselves and our subjects without prejudice,” Celestia agreed, “Though until Captain Aegis Flare’s investigation turns up something, we have to stay vigilant. In the meantime; how is Sam doing?”

Luna was in the middle of pouring her third cup of coffee as she spoke, “I have not received any word from his guards of any more outbursts for the past couple of nights. Though, I am still keeping watch over his dreams when I can. Aside from that, I do believe he is recovering much better than he has before. However, his antics are still a problem.”

Celestia giggled, “I’m sure he is just using them as a means of coping.”

“Yes, but the guards, and even myself, are finding it very difficult to justify such actions to the public as non-hostile. Especially when he continues to forgo our warnings of staying within the castle’s walls,” Luna replied with a huff.

“Alright. You’ve made your point. I will speak with Twilight on possibly curbing his antics. Now, why don’t we try to enjoy a meal together in peace? I’m sure we can come up with a few ideas to dissuade the public’s panic of the last few days, and particularly Sam’s appearance, after a nice meal.”

Just then, an almost inaudible knock came from the dining chamber’s door, and a nervous looking guard made his entrance. He bowed to each of the princesses in turn and made his way up to them on shaky hooves. The princesses could already recognize the guard as one of Sam’s usual escorts, which already concerned them.

Through a bit of stuttering and a clearing of his throat, he reported to the princesses, “I-I’m sorry, your highnesses, but I have some news on Sam.”

Celestia let out another deep sigh, as she already knew what was coming, “He got out again, didn’t he?”

The guard gulped and nodded as sweat poured from his brow.

--o0o--

Sam walked with his hands in his pockets and a very satisfied grin on his face next to a very perturbed looking Twilight next to him. His escort walked along with them with annoyed looks on them as well, but Sam didn’t care. Twilight threw a glower at Sam every so often, to which he only smiled a little more when he saw it out of the corner of his eye.

Just to make it better, Sam leaned down next to the unicorn with a shit eating grin and asked, “What’s up, Sparks? You seem a little mad.”

Twilight huffed, “Mad, me? I’m not mad. Why would I be mad? I just can’t believe that after all that’s happened, you run off without your escort to do Celestia knows what in Canterlot for everypony to see.”

“Oh come on, Sparks,” Sam mockingly pouted, “I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”

Twilight rounded on him, looking cross, “Maybe, but have you seen what the papers are saying about you?”

Sam crossed his arms and tsked, “Meh, they probably just can’t take how much of a handsome guy I am every time I walk down the street.”

“As much as I hate their journalistic integrity, some of those papers are writing that you’re some kind of alien, here to take over the nation! Even when somepony sees you just talking with the princesses!”

“Welp, at least you can always count on the paparazzi to blow everything out of proportion, no matter what world you’re in. You should have seen what they wrote about me and the gang back on my world.”

“What about those assailants that attacked? What if they come back when your escort isn’t around?” Twilight countered.

Sam only slightly flinched, but kept his smile up, “I kicked their asses once. I bet I can do it again. I’ve even got a few more one-liners saved up for if they do come back.”

Twilight groaned and ground her teeth before taking a deep breath to calm herself, “Sam, this is serious!”

“I know!” Sam hollered back while throwing his arms up in the air, “I barely had any material ready to come up with some awesome quips last time! I must really be off my game.”

Twilight stared, slack-jawed at the conduit’s response and could only think of one thing to do at a time like this. After her brain rebooted, her hoof wavered out in front of her before making perfect contact with her face for a resounding facehoof. With another deep breath to calm her nerves, she gathered her composure to glare at the infuriating conduit.

“Sam, please,” Twilight said, “This world isn’t exactly used to seeing somepony like you. The princesses are trying to do everything they can to dissuade everypony’s concerns not just about you, but about everything else that is going on. They could really use your help, even if it’s just you not running around the city, evading the guards every time they notice you’ve gone missing.”

Sam thought about it some more. Twilight had a point, but he didn’t like being cooped up in the castle all day. His little treks around town were his only source of entertainment since the ponies found out about him. Though, like Twilight said, even if some of the ponies weren’t outright gawking or fleeing at the sight of him in the streets, there were still plenty who looked more than uncomfortable by his presence.

“Alright, fine,” Sam relented, but suddenly got another smirk on his face, “but I reserve the right to shout ‘You’ll never take me alive!’ every time one of them yells ‘Halt!’.”

It was at least a little more than she hoped for, but Twilight couldn’t help but bemoan Sam’s compromise in exchange. At least they could continue on to her lab, after having wasted a good portion of the morning have to search for the lost conduit in the city. Once they were to her lab, the two began to discuss what was supposed to be on the agenda for that day.

Twilight reached for the door with her magic, and it squealed loudly as it opened to let the two in. However, something was different about the lab today, and before Twilight could figure out that it was far darker than it usually was since she would leave the curtains over the windows drawn open, it was also too late to see somepony ignite their horn to do just that.

In a whirlwind of sound and bright lights, Sam reacted first. There was a series of loud pops and bangs as the light from the windows temporarily blinded them. Someone shouted out something in a high pitched voice before a crash rang out, which was followed by another voice’s screaming. By the time it was all over, Twilight did not expect the scene now before her.

“My-my mane! This is a disaster! I need conditioner, STAT!”

“Ah, come on, Rares. A little frosting behind your ears doesn’t hurt you. I use it all the time!”

Twilight stared with a stunned expression on her face, as her lab had been hit by one of Pinkie Pie’s ‘Instant Party Setup Cannons’(TM). Said pony was rolling around on one side of the room whilst giggling up a storm at her other friend’s expense. Rarity looked like she was on the verge of a mental breakdown as she pranced in place. Her mane and half her face was covered in a mixer of chocolate and vanilla swirl cake and multicolored frosting. Sam was just as stunned as she was, as he was frozen in a pose and a wire whip extended out from his left wrist to a now destroyed table, the epicenter of where the cake explosion happened. As Rarity continued to run around the room hysterically crying and Pinkie Pie just laughed some more, Twilight knew this was going to be a long day.

After half an hour of cleanup and Rarity getting to wash the frosting out of her mane and coat while hiding her less styled mane behind a sunhat, the two ponies known as Twilight’s friends stood before the unicorn as she questioned them.

“I’m glad to see you girls, and I know I haven’t sent any letters in the past week, but what are you two doing here?” Twilight asked.

Pinkie Pie was the first to speak up, though only after she inhaled a giant, audible breath of air, “Well, the girls and I, oh, and also Spike, were getting really, really worried about you! You know, on account of not getting any letters for the last week. At first Applejack was all like ‘She’s just probably busy o'er there, Sugarcube.’ and then I was like ‘Maybe she was so busy that she might have forgotten all about her friends in Ponyville!’, but then Dashy was like ‘That egghead is just probably having too much fun nerding it up with the bigwigs again’! So we were gonna send you a care package in case you just didn’t have time to write back to us and was missing your Ponyville friends. But then we got the news that there was a real live ALIEN in Canterlot, and we were all like ‘oh my gosh! Alien invasion!’. Well, I thought that until Applejack roped me back to finish the article and we found out that this alien was actually kinda friendly! So I was like ‘We need to go throw it a ‘Welcome to Equestria’ party!', but Applejack had to stay on the farm, Dashy was busy covering for a few of the pegasi on the weather team that got sick, and Fluttershy, well you know how Fluttershy is with new ponies. Anyways, Rarity said she’d go since she wanted to pick up a shipment in Canterlot personally, but I already knew she was totally into meeting an alien for herself.”

If Twilight didn’t already know her friend so well, she would have questioned how she was able to say all that in one breath. Unfortunately, Sam wasn’t quite as prepared and just eyed the pink, hyper-active pony with a confused and curious eye. As he was doing that, said pink pony looked directly at him with the biggest, ear splitting smile he could ever see on one pony’s face. He blinked, and suddenly he was face to face with the pink terror and jumped back to avoid accidentally headbutting her.

“Hi, Mister Alien!” she waved enthusiastically in Sam’s face, “My name is Pinkie Pie. Party pony planner extraordinaire! I wasn’t sure what kind of cake aliens liked, so I just made one of the two classics and swirled them together. Cause everypony I know says you can’t go wrong with the classics! Oh, silly me. I never asked you what your name is, I mean unless your name is ‘Mister Alien’. Also, do aliens like parties? Do aliens prefer chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry flavored cake? How come you’re wearing so much clothing? Also, do aliens use those probes like the ones in the movies?”

Before Pinkie could get another question in, Twilight clamped her muzzle closed with her telekinetic grasp and dragged the still mumbling pony away from Sam. Sam thanked the purple unicorn silently as she drug her friend back beside Rarity to continue her questioning.

“Sorry darling, but you know how Pinkie gets when she goes off on a tangent,” Rarity also held Pinkie in place while she apologized to Twilight, “But she is right about one thing. When we heard the news about Canterlot being attacked by a group of rogues, we were ever so worried!”

Twilight nodded in understanding, “It’s fine. I would have wondered the same thing. Though, how is it that you two got into the castle? The whole place is supposed to be on high alert.” Twilight’s eyes lit up before she pointedly stared at Pinkie Pie, “Pinkie bribed the guards again, didn’t she.”

With Twilight’s magic no longer sealing her muzzle shut, Pinkie snorted in laughter, “It’s not my fault they love my double chimicherrychanga recipe so much.”

Pinkie reached into her mane to pull out a fresh and still steaming hot concoction of a pastry that she just mentioned and took an abnormally large bite out it. Surprisingly, especially for Sam, Pinkie’s mane remained free of gooey cherry filling while the pastry had not even a single hair stuck in it.

Pinkie’s content smile turned to Sam as she offered the pastry up to him, “Wanna try some?”

Sam just shook his head as he tried to process what he just saw. Pinkie, on the other hand, just shrugged and tossed the rest of the pastry up into the air, only for it to land down her gullet in a single gulp. In another universe, Newton, Einstein, and Galileo were rolling in their graves.

“Pardon me, where are my manners?” Rarity drew the stunned conduit’s attention back to her, “My name is Rarity. Might I inquire as to yours?”

Happy to rid his mind of even more headache inducing pony logic, Sam composed himself to reply with a smile and an open hand, “Samuel, but everyone just calls me Sam. Also, sorry about the cake.”

Rarity accepted the handshake, “My, he’s more polite than I would have expected. Eh, no offense darling.”

“Believe me, it would take way more than that to offend me,” Sam shrugged and stuffed his hands back in his pockets.

Rarity cleared her throat, “Yes, well. It was still impolite for a lady such as myself to assume such a thing from a complete stranger. For that, I offer my most sincerest apologies. If I may, I could not help but notice your attire.”

Sam looked down at his clothes, looking for any blemishes or stains he might have missed, “These? Is there anything wrong with them?”

“Oh, no no no no! Perish the thought,” Rarity quickly replied, “I was just curious as to whom had made them. The style is a little rugged, but it suits you well. It’s bold, and absolutely screams charisma, even without too much flare. Plus, the stitch work is simply marvelous!”

As Rarity trotted around the conduit to inspect every inch she could of his clothes, Sam couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed by the impromptu inspection.

“Um, I think his name was something like... Silk Trim? I could be wrong though,” Sam said in thought.

Rarity gasped, “The Silk Trim?! Founder of the new age classical revival?!”

Sam just stared at the excited pony blankly, “Sure, why not?”

At this, Rarity squealed with even more excitement and went off on her own tangent on everything fashion that Sam could hardly even begin to understand.

“Rarity,” Twilight called out, “Rarity! RARITY!”

Stopping in her tracks abruptly, Rarity smiled nervously and backed herself up and away from Sam in embarrassment, “Ahem, my apologies.”

Twilight cut off everyone else, so she could finally talk herself, “Girls, I’m really glad you’re both here, but it’s far too dangerous to be here right now.”

“Which is why we came here to check up on you,” Rarity replied, “Twilight, when everypony heard about the attack, we couldn’t stop thinking about you. Spike especially. He was so worried that he couldn’t even bring himself to send a letter to Princess Celestia for fear of what she would have said. We had to promise him that we would come to check up on you personally to keep him from breaking down.”

When Twilight heard this, she was stunned into silence. She should have known that they would have been worried like this. She knows she would have, just like her parents who all but demanded to see their daughter at the front gates to know that she was safe.

“I’m sorry,” Twilight quietly said, “I should have at least had Princess Celestia send a letter to Spike. You all didn’t need to go through that.”

Her two friends came to her and embraced her from both sides. Friendly nuzzles were shared and even a few tears were shed, but it looked like they all made up in the end.

“Well, this isn’t awkward or anything,” Sam interrupted from the middle of the room.

Pinkie Pie giggled and waved for the conduit over, “Come on. Get that silly flank over here.”

“Thanks, but I think I can enjoy this romcom from over here,” Sam smirked.

The impossible pink mare pulled another feat of impossibility by lifting both of her friends up, nearly skipping across the room, and throwing them all at Sam to entangle him in the group hug.

Sam barely caught them all with a grunt and rolled his eyes, “Alright, but if the live studio audience starts cheering, I’m out.”

“Don’t worry Sammy. They’re only here on Thursdays,” Pinkie Pie said.

Thauma-what-now?

Author's Notes:

Alright, so I would first like to start off with an apology for taking so long on this chapter and my inactivity in general. Things in life just kept piling up to the point where I just needed to take a step back and try to reorganize it all. I know I should have at least dropped an update on the status, but I basically just lost all motivation for just about everything during that period of time. Not too worry though, as I finally got it all situated and feel just about as good as new and ready to continue on with the story. Well, enough about all that depressing jazz; let's get to what you all came here for.

Thanks for all the proofreading, editing, and constant support to my good buddy Regreme. Plus, if you all feel up to it. I always appreciate a bit of feedback and criticism to help improve.

“Well, your friends were interesting,” Sam mentioned between bites of his cupcake.

Twilight rounded on him from her spot at one of her equipment laden tables in the lab. Her retort was cut short when she spotted the sweet confectionary in Sam’s fingers.

“Sam, put that down,” she snapped, “We’re in the middle of something! You’re going to throw off my readings.”

Sam smirked and shoved the rest of the cupcake into his mouth before Twilight could snatch it from his grasp with magic. Her eyes shined with annoyance while she watched him chew noisily right in front of her. She was at least glad that he had the decency to not get any of the frosting on the electrode leads attached to different parts of his body.

After their encounter with Twilight’s friends, she was able to convince them to wait for her and Sam in one of the lounges while they got back to their research.

“You’re such a foal,” Twilight said and turned back to her equipment on the table.

Sam enacted the only suitable response to a comment like that; by sticking out his tongue while the unicorn’s back was turned. Twilight could tell that Sam was doing something behind her back, but she decided to ignore it in favor of concentrating on the equipment and notes in front of her.

'It’s faint, but it looks like the signatures match,' Twilight thought as she read over the data, ‘That means that this displacement is definitely the unique energy that seems to exude not only from Sam, but any other object that is saturated with this signature. If that’s the case, then maybe I should work on a way to identify this energy and use it as the anchor rather than just try to match a resonance.'

Twilight’s quill would have caught fire with how fast she was writing were it not for a set of knocks coming from her lab’s doors.

“Yes?” She snapped, hating being interrupted when she was in the zone, “What is it?”

The lab doors opened to admit a pair of guards wheeling in a large tray cart with all manners of spooled metal on its surface.

The first guard saluted and spoke with a soft, musical voice, “I am sorry, Ms. Sparkle, but these are all the materials that you requested yesterday. It would have been ready sooner, but some of the materials were out of stock.”

Twilight blushed in embarrassment once she remembered that she did in fact ask for the materials that were being set off to the side by the other guard, “Oh, right. Thank you for bringing them as promptly as you could.”

The female guard nodded with a small smile, “You’re welcome, Ms. Sparkle.”

The two guards left without much more else to say and left the unicorn and the conduit to look over exactly what had been brought over. The cart contained multiple spools of various metals. Some of them, Sam could tell what they were just by looking at them, but others he would have to pick up and use to remember their names. Disregarding Twilight’s instructions, he ripped the electrodes away from his body to get a closer look. The unicorn didn’t seem to mind as she busied herself with inspecting each spool for its quality.

“So, Sparks. You wanna share with the rest of the class on what you got there?” Sam snarkily remarked.

Twilight’s ears twitched, and she bit her bottom lip before speaking. In a rather hushed tone, “Uh, well, I was kinda hoping I could get some more readings on your abilities with the use of different materials. You know, to see how the various substances interact with your powers and finding any further links between yours and my world’s ecology through proportional similarities.”

Sam raised an eyebrow at Twilight’s forced grin. He could already see the bead of sweat forming at the top of her brow. Although she would never flat out admit it, Sam could always tell that this mare was always hungry for knowledge. There was also the way she would look whenever she had a burning question at the back of her mind that would slowly eat away at her until she found the answers she was looking for. Sam’s and Twilight’s time in their research was thoroughly divided up that it left Twilight with so many questions that she wanted to ask about both Sam and his world at large. Though, she had also promised that she would make Sam’s means of getting back to his home her top priority.

Thus, Sam would suddenly find himself bombarded with random series of questions at some points of the day by the eccentric unicorn. When asked where the curiosity was coming from, Twilight’s replies would be along the lines of that these were the only points in her schedule that she had time for herself. However, to Sam’s disbelief, she would use that time to do, what else, study. Yet, Twilight would still make a habit of carefully arranging her questions or her own tests in a way that would try to sound the least offensive to the conduit. Sam appreciated the consideration, but he thought that they had moved past the whole glass floor part of their relationship.

“Sparks,” Sam smirked, “Are you trying to confuse me with big words so you can see what I can do with my powers, again?”

Twilight flinched as she was caught in her lie. She looked down at her hooves with a guilty look on her face and her ears splayed back. There was no point in hiding it, now that Sam was onto her.

“I’m sorry, Sam. I just really wanted to see what type of effects different materials would have for you. So far, I’ve seen you use mostly steel, iron, or a similar ferrous metal as your ‘source’, but-”

Sam had to stop the poor looking pony before she could get any further. Knowing her, she would have spent the next hour or so apologizing.

“Hey, Sparks!” the sudden shout caught the unicorn off guard long enough for Sam to cut in, “I’m not mad at you. Listen, I get you’re curious and all, but you don’t have to disguise it as just another test or something. Just ask.”

The distressed unicorn looked back up at the conduit with moisture in her eyes. If it wasn’t for Sam’s words, she would have broken down into tears of regret. Thankfully, Sam’s warm, confident smile pulled her away from such notions, and she quickly wiped her eyes with a hoof and calmed down.

“Thanks, Sam.”

Sam shrugged and crossed his arms, “No problem, Sparks. Just so long as there’s no more needles, then we’re good.”

Twilight chuckled, “What, the grand king of badass is still chicken when it comes to a few pointy bits?”

Twilight’s eyes widened as she couldn’t stop herself from spouting the witty remark. She didn’t even know why she had said it in the first place. Maybe it was a result of getting to know Sam’s crude sense of humor too well, and she just wanted to further relax the situation. In any case, it was too late to take it back as she watched Sam’s smile disappear, and his brow raised in surprise.

“Oh my gosh, Sam! I didn’t mean that! It just slipped!”

“Damn, Sparks,” Sam said flatly before getting a goofy grin on his face, “And here I thought I wasn’t teaching you something important. Congrats on passing smack talk one-oh-one!”

Twilight was still pretty shocked by Sam’s reaction, but after a moment or two, she was able to shake her head and tried to look mad through her smile at the snickering conduit.

“So,” Sam clapped his hands together to get them back on track, “What exactly did you have in mind for this little test of yours?”

Twilight took a slow and steady breath before speaking, “I wasn’t lying when I said that I wanted to see how different materials interact with your abilities, but I was just too busy trying to come up with a way to relate it to the TD gate project. If you could, would you allow me to record your reactions to the different materials I have here?”

Sam smiled, “Say no more. I’ve actually been running low on material anyway, so this will be a good chance for me to recharge.”

Twilight tilted her head in confusion as Sam picked up the first spool of wire and examined it.

“Wait, what happened to the stipend that Princess Luna gave to you from the other day?” Twilight asked.

Sam looked at the unicorn and then off into the distance.

--o0o--

YESTERDAY EVENING

Captain Aegis Flare stoically marched down the halls of Canterlot Castle. The rhythmic clanging and thumping of his armor against his hide were his only means of staying awake. After the long day that he’s had, no matter how much he wanted to keep going, he was almost dead on his hooves. Yet, there were still a few more reports that have yet to be filed back in his office. Which is where his current destination lied. So, he soldiered on until it was time to shuck off his armor for the night.

Passing a few of his subordinates along the way, he nodded to their salutes and continued on his auto-pilot to reach his office. Once there, he retrieved his key from his saddle bags and unlocked the door. He stepped inside and kicked the door shut behind him. Now, being as tired and unaware of his surroundings as he was, one could understand that he would not immediately recognize the condition of his environment in this moment. Which is why when he closed his eyes to inhale deeply, which soon turned into a drawn out yawn, he completely missed the strand of wire that tripped him up for a moment until he regained his balance. The sudden loss of equilibrium, snapped the good captain into heightened alertness. This ultimately drew his attention to the state of office as it was, and not how he had left it that morning.

Every piece of furniture and even a few knick knacks were haphazardly suspended off the ground by metal wires. A few of them were even stuck to the upper corners of the walls like they were flies caught in spiderwebs. Aegis Flare’s eye twitched, and he could feel his blood pressure rising to dangerous heights. More metal strands crisscrossed the room like a maze and just added to the chaos of it all. Though, what really got Aegis Flare to start grinding his teeth in frustration was the message that was stuck through one of the wires and hung directly infront of his face for him to read.

Hope you don’t mind, but I thought I’d do a little remodelling to your boring office space, Cappy. No need for thanks, but I always appreciate one anyways.

Love,

Your favorite Conduit

“...huuummMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!”

--o0o--

Sam blinked and shook his head a few times to clear his thoughts before answering Twilight.

“Nothing important,” Sam said with a little internal chuckle to himself.

Twilight eyed the conduit suspiciously, but she knew trying to pry the truth out of him would be like pulling teeth out of her own mouth. Certainly not a headache she wanted to deal with today.

“Fine, let’s at least get started with this then,” Twilight sighed

Her demeanor quickly shifted back to happy intrigue as she grabbed a fresh piece of parchment and a quill. Sam nodded as he set the first spool of now identified aluminum wire in favor of some of the stranger colored wire at the back. He reached over the first row of metallic wires and cables for one he couldn’t quite identify by sight. As he reached for the double braided one that first caught his eye, his hand brushed past another spool that caused him to flinch back from some unknown sensation that came off of it. Sam grasped his hand and hissed not quite out in pain, but more of surprise from the mysterious sensation.

Twilight gasped at the reaction, “Sam, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Sam said automatically while he stared at his hand that quivered slightly, “That was weird though.”

Sam looked over the cart and zeroed in on the offending wire that startled him. It was hard to tell at first, but now that he focused on it, this particular spool of single strand wire was far more different than the others. Besides the faint glow it gave off, even in the sunlight, the quiet of the room allowed him to be able to hear the slight hum that seemed to be coming from it more clearly. Sam had at first mistook the sound for one of the machines in Twilight’s lab that she had scattered and running around the room. The wire itself almost looked like polished copper, but with a silvery tint when he looked at it from an angle.

While still staring at the odd spool of wire, Sam tilted his head to the side to address his unicorn friend, “Hey, Sparks, what kind of wire is this?”

Twilight curiously looked to find the the wire that Sam had pointed out. It seemed that the conduit was keeping his hands as far away from the cart as he could, but the unicorn was able to pick out exactly which one Sam was pointing at. It only took the purple unicorn a moment to recall this particular wire’s name and properties. In fact, it was something that has gained a lot of publicity in the last couple of years.

“This is actually a hefty amount of unattuned thaumium,” Twilight said as she levitated the spool from off of the cart.

Sam stared blankly at the unicorn, “...what?”

While Twilight stretched out a few feet of the wire off the spool to examine for herself, she talked to the conduit from the side, “‘Unattuned Thaumium’. I’m actually surprised they were able to give so much to work with at once. Good quality, too.”

“Hold up,” Sam shook his head, “I meant to say; what’s that stuff made of?”

“Oh, it’s actually magic infused zargun alloy,” Twilight stated nonchalantly.

“What?” Sam asked again, even more confused.

Twilight perked up that the conduit’s continued bewilderment and turned to fully address him, “Sorry. I should have explained that. Zargun, or Zirconium falls under the ‘transitional metals’ classification. When it’s put through a refining process, you can produce unattuned thaumium, which is one of the few known types metals that, like gems, that can absorb and channel magical energies. It’s actually one the latest developments in the scientific communities, because of its practical applications in powering household appliances.”

Sam knew a Twilight lecture when he saw one. So, he only paid her half of his attention to the chattering unicorn while he inspected the still floating spool of ‘unattuned thaumium’. It was curious. He never once touched it, but the closer he got to the metal, the more it felt like it was pulling him toward it. At times, it even felt like electricity jumped from the metal and onto the conduit’s outstretched fingertips. While this was going on, Sam caught tidbits of Twilight’s lecture that interested him.

Apparently, before thaumium production, what little industrial machinery like the ones inside Twilight’s lab ran off the power of gems that were ‘saturated with latent magical energies’. Though this was horribly inefficient, as the gems were like batteries and once the energy was used up, the gem would be nothing more than a paperweight at best.

Thaumium changed that and everything else, as its relatively low cost of production and abundance jumpstarted a new wave of industrial advancement that Equestria had never seen before. The revolutionary metal could not only hold magical energies, but once properly tuned, could also be used to transfer those energies from one place to another. Honestly, the more Twilight talked about it, the more this stuff sounded like how humans used electricity. Twilight even mentioned how some of the larger cities in Equestria were experimenting with something similar to a power grid for the general public to use. Which would explain why Sam saw stuff that looked like power lines running through the city of Canterlot while he was out on his excursions. Where and how they harnessed these ‘magical energies’, Sam got lost in Twilight’s explanation. How was he supposed to know what ‘binding etheric channels’ or ‘regulating flux anomalies’ meant? In the end, it was all very interesting, but Sam suddenly realized the one thing that was truly bugging him about this ‘thaumium’ since the beginning of the lecture...

“Hey, Sparks,” Sam called out.

One thing that always irked the purple unicorn was being interrupted in the middle of her lectures. An upside to that was that she would always make the most adorable scrunchy face that Sam couldn’t help but snicker at. Though right now, he had other stuff on his mind.

“This ‘Thaumium’, I think it might be like ‘Rayacite’.”

“Ray-a-what?” Twilight asked with a confused tilt of her head.

Sam smirked as it was finally his turn to give the studious unicorn a lecture, “‘Rayacite’, aka an irradiated piece of earth fused with ray field energy. Basically, the purest form of all conduit power. Hell, there’s some even more badass version of that stuff called ‘Blast Cores’. Get your hands on one of those, and you could give a serious boost of power to a conduit or even some new kickass ability… You know, this spool of thaumium kinda reminds me of those, but it feels like something different too.”

Sam carefully plucked the spool of wire from Twilight’s magic. Arcs of invisible energy danced across his arms from the touch. His eyes lit up at the thought of gaining some new power from this ‘thaumium’ if it was anything like a blast core. Though, trying to absorb it proved useless, as the material refused to budge at Sam’s beckoning.

“Blast core, ray field energy, rayacite,” Twilight recited while writing everything down that she heard, “Wait, Sam. Are you sure you should be messing with it so carelessly?”

Sam was in the process of trying to chew from a strand of the metal in an attempt to get a reaction out of it, but like all his other attempts, it failed.

“Relax, Sparks. Looks like I can’t just absorb this stuff… unless,” Sam gained a devious look on his face.

Twilight looked at the conduit nervously, “Unless what?”

“Well, back in Memphis. Me and my friends got our hands on a couple of blast cores that we stole from the D.U.P. Took us a bit of time, but we found out that the only way to crack those things open was to give them a good jolt of electricity,” Sam explained, “I bet if we do the same thing with this stuff, it’ll be just like with Lu and Natie. You should have seen it too. They got some really awesome tricks out of those things once they absorbed them. Say, what do you think I would get from this? Oh, maybe it’ll be like a ‘wire missile’ or finally a way for me to fully ‘material shift’.”

Twilight just stared in awe at Sam’s continued building excitement.

“So, what are we waiting for?” Sam exclaimed, “Let’s crack this puppy open!”

“Wait a minute!” Twilight interjected, “As interesting as this sounds. Don’t we want to run some tests beforehoof or find out whether-”

“Sparks, you’re killing me here. You and I both know we’re way too curious to see what would happen if I absorb this. Think about it. I get some cool new powers, and you get to be the very first pony to witness that power in action,” Sam smirked as he thought of something to sweeten the deal, “I’ll even let you take as many notes as you want about it.”

Twilight bit her lip as she thought about it. Her growing curiosity and insatiable appetite for new knowledge slowly winning out. When she looked up at Sam’s smiling face, she found that his enthusiasm was wearing off on her. In the end, she let out a deep breath she had been holding as she thought.

“Ok,” Twilight said, “but let me grab my extra quills.”

It only took around fifteen minutes for Twilight to gather and set up all the equipment she needed as Sam specified the process as best he could. Yet, it took infinitely longer to reach the final checks of their little project. The only reason it took so long was for the fact that Twilight kept insisting that she run all the precautionary tests before they start.

Eventually, when all was said and done, a good portion of the lab’s spare equipment had been shoved to the far side of the room to clear enough space for the setup that Sam and Twilight had built. The spool of thaumium sat atop of a wooden pedestal. A couple of basic conductive wires were attached to the exposed metal and led back to a generator that Twilight brought out and explained was powered by magic; crude, but it would get the job done in theory. It seemed kind of roundabout in Sam’s mind of how they were going to generate the necessary charge to pop the thaumium. Though, he didn’t spend too much time on it, as he was more focused on psyching himself up for the big moment.

“Alright, Sparks. Just like I said, just give it a good jolt, and it should crack open like a fourth of July firework,” Sam said.

Twilight looked far too worried in comparison to Sam’s nonchalantness for what they were about to do.

“Are you sure this is the only way for this to work?” Twilight asked nervously.

Sam rolled his eyes at having to wait even longer, “Come on. I’ve taken bigger jolts from Natie on a daily basis. I can take it.”

Twilight shuffled her hooves as she grabbed her already large stack of notes from one of the tables, “I should at least double check the calibration on the apparatus first.”

Sam groaned, “Sparks, you’ve already double checked it. Hell, even quadruple checked it! I think you’re just stalling. I’ve already done this before. Well, not me personally, but I’ve seen what needs to happen and what to expect. Besides, I trust you and your setup here, and I can guarantee nothing is going to go wrong.”

A sheepish smile graced the unicorn’s lips. One last nod and a reassuring smile from the conduit was all she needed to stoke her confidence.

Twilight took a deep breath and let it out slowly, “Ok, I’m ready.”

“Sweet, so am I,” Sam beamed excitedly.

The two of them took their respective positions. Twilight flipped a few dials at the console of her generator. The generator itself whirred to life and gave off a dim hum not unlike the thaumium across from it. Sam stepped over to the thaumium and flexed his hands open and closed a few times. Although, being the eager one earlier, he found a moment of hesitation in his mind. He clapped his hands together to snap himself out of it before setting his hands on the spool of wire. The same feeling of wavy energy returned with his touch. Maybe it was the anticipation of it all, but he could already feel the new power he was about to inherit between his fingertips just waiting to be unleashed.

Sam looked over to his unicorn friend and gave her a nod. Twilight gulped and rechecked her notes one last time before reaching over to the main switch on the generator and beginning the countdown.

“Applying current in five... Four... Three... Two... One...”

Sam braced, and the switch was thrown. Arcs of electricity ran across the surface of the Thaumium from the leads and then up Sam arms. Sam’s entire body tensed, and at first, it seemed like nothing was going on... until it happened. The thaumium glowed brighter than Twilight had ever seen a sample glow before and shook violently before seeming to shatter into a fine mist. The air was filled with the ambient energy and made the unicorn’s fur stand on end. The hum from early on grew to a fevered pitch and made Twilight’s ears ring. The thaumium’s essence swirled in the air until it flew directly at Sam’s body, like flecks of metal drawn to a magnet. Twilight watched in awe of the luminous display before the scene turned grim. As the last of the thaumium was absorbed into Sam’s body, the conduit gasped. Wire shot out and around his body sporadically, as if they were writhing in pain. Sam’s body began to convulse and shudder while his face was stuck in an expression of shock and agony.

“Sam!”

The cry was lost on the conduit as his mind blanked. After about ten seconds of the horrible scene, all the wire that shot out of his body retracted, and Sam collapsed to the ground with a resounding ‘thwack’. The whole room was dead silent after the event. Not even the sound of her own pounding heart could be heard by the studious unicorn. Having been paralyzed by fear up until then, Twilight shook her head to clear her mind as best she could and finally sprung into action.

“Sam! Oh my gosh! What do I do, what do I do?!” Twilight raced back and forth as she tried to summon up all the knowledge she could remember from her studies on medicine, “Pulse! I have to check for a pulse!”

The unicorn raced up to the side of the downed conduit. Once she turned him over carefully from his side to his back, she firmly planted her ear to the his chest and listened. With a short sigh of relief, she found his heartbeat still going strong along with the sound of light breathing. That didn’t mean she could relax just yet. She needed to get him to a professional, in case the worst was yet to come.

Twilight sprinted for the lab’s entrance to seek out the guards she had sent away on another errand, “Guards! Help me!”

Bonus Chapter: Welcome to Sam and Cappy's Fitness Center

Author's Notes:

Heyo, just another bonus chapter that I wanted to put out between the main attraction. Not to worry though, I'm getting to work on the next chapter, so we'll be back to your regularly scheduled snark of 'Conduit and Pals' in a little while. Enjoy, and feedback and criticisms are always welcome.

Proofread by, who else, That awesome guy named Regreme

“Next,” Sam said with a smirk.

The two other guards that were his sparring partners grumbled as they stumbled off the training field in front of the barracks. Sam stood victoriously as he awaited for the next few brave souls that thought that they could take him down. Though it seemed that watching match after match ending in the same way had really struck a chord with the once intrepid guards.

“Ah, come on,” Sam mockingly pouted, “You all aren’t doing that bad. Rally over there was at least able to land a few good hits. Would it help if I tied one of my hands behind my back?”

None of the guards encircling the training ring stepped up to the challenge. This actually made Sam a little disappointed. No matter which way he turned, they either averted their gaze or tried to make themselves look as small as possible.

“Perhaps it would be better if my subordinates didn’t act like a bunch of new born foals,” the ever scowling Aegis Flare called out as he eyed the two closest guards with icy intensity next to him.

Sam chuckled, “Ah, don’t be like that, Cappy. They are doing better than the last time.”

As always, Aegis Flare’s icy glare returned to the conduit whenever he made a comment such as that. Sam didn’t care though. He just snickered again and stretched a bit while he waited for the next match. These training sessions had been going on for the past few days. Or ever since the attack on the castle by the unknown assailants took place. Sam remembered the way that ol’ Cappy worded it when he requested/ordered his participation in these 'training exercises'.

“Human,” Aegis Flare said as he confronted the conduit right after his and Twilight’s research session, “It has come to my attention that my guards are woefully unequipped to deal with these new threats to the kingdom properly. Which is why I am acquisitioning you for the purposes of training exercises to combat these new forces. You will report to the guards’ barracks at zero-eight tomorrow to begin. This is not a request, and I have already sorted out the details with the princesses.”

“Don’t worry, Cappy,” Sam replied with a smirk, “I’ll be there. You could have just asked though. I would love to beat down-, I mean, help instruct your troops on the finer points of taking on a conduit.”

So here they were. Although the guards ponies were putting up some fairly decent fights for their own standards, Sam was disappointed to say that they were still seriously underprepared to take on a conduit for real. Most of their tactics consisted of letting the mages take the first strike with ranged magic. Already a bad move, since it seemed that both Sam and the assailants were magic resistant. They were also pretty weak when it came to physical attacks. Though that made sense, when you had a magic wand superglued to your forehead that let you solve most of your problems. Pegasi seemed to be trained in hit and run tactics. Or in this case, hit and ‘fly’. There was a lot of variation, but the underlying theme for most of it was to first get into position, swoop down for a few quick attacks, and then get back into the air and out of reach of counters. Again, fairly ineffective against conduits that would just use the reprieve to heal up and get ready for the next swoop. Earth ponies, although physically strong, were still at a disadvantage, at least for Sam. Though it did surprise him how well these creatures could wield a spear with just hooves. Yet, Sam’s abilities were definitely a hindrance to them, as his wires were more suited for grappling at closer ranges.

All in all, if Aegis Flare and the Equestrian Royal Guard wanted to take on a conduit, they were going to have to seriously rethink how they engaged one in combat. While Sam thought about all of this, it seemed that Aegis Flare was busy eyeing each of his subordinates and periodically glancing in Sam’s direction.

“Turbulence, Steel Gear,” he finally called out, “You two are up next.”

The two aforementioned ponies, a pegasus and earth pony respectively, both gulped nervously as they broke away from their fellow guards to enter the ring. The rhythmic clang of their armor was the only thing anyone could hear besides the few stray back and forths from the other guards. Apparently, they had taken a liking to betting on who would win in the matches. Sam was pleased to hear that his odds had grown significantly since the first day began, a hefty eight to one in his favor. Then, the guards gasped. Sam had to turn around to see what the commotion was about, and he too looked on in surprise.

It seemed that the illustrious Captain Aegis Flare had entered the ring along with the other two guardsponies. His golden and blue-highlighted armor gleamed in the morning sun. Although some of its battle damage was visible, it did not detract from the overall appearance. He wielded a training spear under his wing and flexed the wing to test the weapon’s weight. The captain motioned for his fellow guards to draw closer as he whispered something to each of them out of Sam’s earshot. Behind Sam, there were already talks of his odds jumping down five to six.

‘Sellouts.’

“Well, well,” Sam started off, “What an honor to be sparring with the almighty Aegis Flare. Tell me, Cappy, are you ready to rumble?”

The captain shot a warning glare in the conduit’s direction before rolling his joints a bit to warm up, “Do not get too cocky, human. Overconfidence is a dangerous hinderance.”

“Pfft,” Sam rolled his eyes, “Sure, sure. Just remember not to choke on those words after this.”

As both parties took their stances opposite of each other, they sized one another up to gauge who would be the first to attack. It was almost like a scene out of an old western film. All that was missing was Clint Eastwood in a poncho and a desperado hat. Though since he wasn’t around to complete the troupe, Sam took that roll upon himself.

“Draw, ya’ varmints,” Sam happily whispered under his breath with a smile.

Just like in an old western, Sam drew his hands up to look like finger pistols and fired off a few wire shots at the trio of guards. Cappy and his guards sidestepped the volley and spread out to either side of the conduit. It was surprising the pegasi did not take to the air immediately, but Sam wasn’t about to ponder such a small detail in the middle of a fight. Turning his gaze to the two guards, Turbulence and Steel Gear, Sam charged at them to further divide them up. Wire whips at the ready, Sam aimed for the middle of the two, which made the two break to either side. Just as planned. Though, just before he was about to break off and chase down Steel Gear, Sam caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. Sam ducked just as Aegis Flare flew overtop of him, faux spearhead aimed where his head used to be.

“Woah,” Sam cheered, “A little more than just ‘a bit off the top’, don’t ya’ think, Cappy?”

Still zooming close to the ground, the guard captain pulled a one-eighty and charged back at the conduit. It seemed that Sam’s witty banter was still lost on the stoic captain, but not exactly a huge loss. Refocusing on the fight, Sam fell back to find the other two guards. They too were charging at him from different directions, so the conduit used a wire grapple to zip away to the other side of the training ring. However, it seemed that the captain was not going to let him catch his breath, as he was already careening toward him low to the ground like a pony-sized missile.

Sam threw both his arms out, and with them, multiple wires shot out to try and intercept the incoming captain. Aegis Flare saw this coming and pulled up to gain a height advantage. Sam followed his movements, but in doing so, forgot to watch for the other two guards. The first was Steel Gear, as he snuck under Sam’s guard and kicked out with his back hooves to throw the conduit off balance. Before he could retaliate against the retreating guard, Sam was blindsided by another swipe of Turbulence’s training sword to his back. Sam staggered as he pushed out a few flailing wires to hold the guards at bay. All around them, the other guards cheered for who they wanted to win, whether it be their fellow brothers-in-arms or the conduit himself.

Sam groaned as he touched the tender spot where he was kicked, “Damn, anyone hear of the phrase ‘kicks like a mule’?”

“Human!” the good captain called out from above, “I will not tolerate such bigoted comments. Donkeys are welcomed in all provinces of Equestria.”

“...wait, what?” Sam asked in confusion, “So, donkeys are sentient too? Great, now I’m probably gonna have to have a cultural sensitivity class after this.”

Sam was at least glad that the small break was long enough for his body to heal up the damage he had taken, but after such a long morning of training, he was running low on material, even with the small spools that he was given to refresh after a few bouts. While the captain stayed a fair distance away in the air, the two other guards got ready for another attack. Sam readied a few wire whips as the two charged at him. It was easy enough to pick off the earth pony, Steel Gear, as he was unable to avoid Sam’s low sweep with his wires. As the earth pony tumbled forward, Turbulence tried to distract the conduit with a flurry of hoof strikes. Sam shot out another grapple to the other side of the field once he was able to push the pegasus back with a few punches of his own.

However, as Sam sped across the field, a shadow loomed overhead to strike at him. Aegis Flare timed his strike to the conduit’s recoil on his grapple and dived to intercept him halfway through. Sam glanced up in surprise as the captain swooped down to attack him in the middle of his escape. He had to kick off the ground and to the side just to avoid the vicious divebomb in time. However, his escape did not leave him unscathed. Various cheers and boos rained down on the fight from the crowd. Some were even encouraging the conduit to get back up.

“What were you saying about choking on one’s own words, human?” the good captain called over the crowd.

Sam was surprised to hear his favorite captain make such a remark. What was even more surprising was when the conduit jumped back up to his feet, he actually saw a ghost of a smile on ol’ Cappy’s face for the first time ever. Well, it was more like a sneer, but it was the thought that counted.

Sam took a moment to catch his breath before retorting, “Lucky for you then, Cappy, that I know ‘the heimlich’, right?”

The good captain wasn’t exactly sure what the conduit meant and wrote it off as just another humanism. In the meantime, he signalled his fellow guards with a wave of his hoof. Sam readied himself as he saw this, periodically glancing between the captain high in the air and the two guards on the ground. Steel Gear looked to be putting a bit more weight on his left side, a clear indicator that Sam’s low sweep did a bit more damage than he originally thought. Turbulence was sticking close to his earth pony counterpart, more than likely to cover his bad side while they rushed forward. Sam fired off a few wire shots to hopefully break the two charging ponies up if they at least did not get hit. A couple of the shots connected, but the two did all they could to stick close together. As they came into Sam’s reach, he switched over to wire whips only to be bombarded by Cappy once more. The captain moved too fast for Sam to ensnare him with his wires, while the two other guards alternated below Sam’s guard whenever they could.

“Okay, new plan,” Sam muttered as he charged up a bunch of energy into his left hand.

While the conduit defended against what he could with his free hand, more and more energy and a bundle of wires poured into his left. Then, once he was ready, he chucked the bundled up clump of wire at the two guards on the ground with him. They easily dodged to either side of the ball, but Sam smirked as he yanked on the wire attached from his hand to the bundle and unleashing the heaping mass. Wires sprayed out in all directions and surrounded the two guards in a forest of the metal strands. Once the wires had spread out to their fullest, Sam yanked on the attached cord once more. Turbulence and Steel Gear did their best to avoid the tangle of metal, but there was just too many to dodge. Soon enough, the two guards were encased in what looked like a comically oversized yarn ball made of wires, flailing limbs sticking out of the mass included. Some of the surrounding guards got a good laugh out of the scene, but there was no time for the conduit to rest.

There was still one more opponent left, and he used almost all of his reserves on that last attack. If he had the time, he would have carefully untangled what he could from the clump of metal, but he would have had to be careful not to let the two guards escape at the same time. He at least smirked at the captain still in the sky, even while he panted from the loss of energy.

“So, Cappy,” Sam called out between deep breaths, “I guess it’s just a one on one now, seeing as backup is a little tied up at the moment! Or do you wanna just give up and save yourself some embarrassment?”

Sam thought the good captain should really put a trademark on that scowl of his. It was almost enough to make the wire conduit flinch, which was quite the achievement for just one facial expression. All the while, Aegis Flare circled overhead as he tried to come up with another plan to outmaneuver the snarky conduit. When all his plans in his head failed to meet a successful resolution, he was left with one last choice. Gripping his spear even tighter in preparation, Aegis Flare waited for the impatient conduit to make the first move.

Sam watched and slowly became bored with the captain’s lazy strategy. He thought that the good captain was simply trying to bore him into submission at this point. Even the surrounding guards were starting to get anxious from the stall in the match.

“Oh, Cappy~!” Sam tried taunting, “If you say you give up now, I promise to only gloat about it to Sunny and Loony for the next week or so!”

Captain Aegis Flare grit his teeth. He just had to hold out for a little longer, and then he may just possibly have a shot at taking the cocky conduit down a few pegs. Sam huffed at the failure of his taunt. He only had about a tenth of power left to effectively use, and he didn’t want to waste any of it on taking pot shots at the hovering captain. At last, Sam got tired of waiting and summoned up the last of his wires into a makeshift morning star. With a wire still attaching his arm to the wad of metal strands, he began to twirl it until it was nearly a blur. The spectating guards held their breath as they waited and watched to see what would happen next. Even the two guards that were trapped in the ball of wires tilted their heads as much as they could to watch the spectacle.

Just as it seemed that nothing else was going to happen, Sam broke the standoff by chucking the morning star up at the pegasus captain. He concentrated as hard as he could to push the heavy ball of wire up with his will at fierce speeds still attached to him by a wire that acted like a fishing line. Though with how much time that it took for the morning star to reach the captain, Aegis Flare was able to deftly pitch out of the way of the incoming projectile and dove down past it. He traveled alongside the outstretched wire as he dove straight for the conduit below.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Sam panicked as he tried to reel back the last of his wires that he expended.

The guard captain was going faster than ever. Angling his body and wings so much that the air whipped past him at a breakneck pace. The spear clutched in his hooves was pointed directly at the conduit’s center and was swiftly coming closer and closer to its target. With what little material Sam retrieved on his reel, he broke off the rest and prepared to block the incoming attack. The captain was mere seconds away, but he pulled another trick and let go of his spear so it continued on its way straight for the conduit while he pulled back for the second part of his plan.

With the spear being as narrow as it was, it easily passed through Sam’s makeshift defense and struck home near the center of his chest. It felt like an iron fist that hitched a ride on a freight train hit him and knocked the wind right out of the conduit. He was also sure that he might of heard a crack somewhere in there that did not come from the spear itself when it snapped in half. While Sam was trying not to double over from the pain, the good captain swiftly rocketed around to the conduit’s back and kicked him hard enough to send him to the ground, though not without one of Sam’s flailing wires latching onto his leg on the way down and dragging him along for the ride. Together, the two opponents tumbled to the ground. Muffled grunts and cries of pain issued from the both of them as the skidded along the dirt beneath them. The crowd held their breath again as they waited to see who would get up first.

Slowly but surely, both Sam and Captain Aegis Flare shakily stood up together, panting and breathing harshly. Neither of them made a move for each other. It was just another standoff. That is, until Sam put on a cheeky smirk.

“Alright, we’ll call it a draw,” Sam declared between shallow breaths

The good captain stood up a little straighter, “That’s fair enough. Everypony, this exercise is over! Return to your duties and make sure to clean this area up!”

An invigorated round of ‘Yes, sir!’s came from the crowd as they dispersed but still excitedly talked about the spectacle they just witnessed.

“Um, sir?” a familiar voice from the yarn ball of metal called out, “Turbulence and I can’t get out of this.”

The captain sighed but winced from the deep breath before turning to the human, who was busy making sure nothing was broken on him.

“Human. If you would be so kind?”

Sam looked over at the two helpless guards and got a mischievous grin on his face.

“Hmm,” Sam replied while he eyed the ball with a critical eye, “I don’t know, Cappy. I think this may be one of my better works. I think I’ll call it ‘Yarneggedon’.”

Sam was once again treated to the captain’s yet to be trademarked scowl and chuckled at his response.

“Just kidding. I’ll get them out in just a sec.”

You're a Wizard, Sammy

Author's Notes:

Chapter, Post, Done.

What? You want more...hmmm, maybe later. Have fun in the meantime.

Thanks for keeping me from writing like a five-year-old, Regreme, editor and proofreder]

Also, feedback and comments welcome for improvement

Within the castle of Equestria’s capital, the royal infirmary has seen a great deal of unusual cases over the past two weeks. From guards being nearly killed by assailants wielding magic the likes of which nopony had ever seen before, to housing an even stranger creature from another world after he had rampaged through the royal throne room. On this day, said infirmary was host to the same foreign creature known as Samuel Reed, the wire conduit.

The conduit’s room was quiet, aside from the rhythmic beeps of the machines that monitored his vitals. He lay as still as a rock, unconscious to the world around him after an attempt to, theoretically, gain new powers from an experiment. Beside him sat a purple unicorn by the name of Twilight Sparkle. Once she had alerted the guards of the incident in her lab, she rushed alongside the stretcher that carried the conduit to the infirmary. All the while, she cried profusely over her inability to help as the medical staff worked to assess the conduit’s condition.

Twilight remained by Sam’s bedside after the medical staff had done all they could, however little that was with such a foreign biology. She wailed and prayed to whatever deity watched over humans to let her friend be okay. Every once in awhile, a doctor or nurse would come to check their current patient’s status. Twilight hardly acknowledged them, even when they bade her a greeting or farewell.

Once the news had traveled throughout the castle, both Pinkie Pie and Rarity rushed to their friend’s side to comfort her and hopefully cheer their unicorn friend up. Though, upon seeing Twilight and Sam in their respective conditions, both their moods soured further, and all they could offer was their emotional support before leaving again. Even the princesses of the sun and moon had taken what time they could to come and check up on both the occupants of the room, but could offer little more than what Twilight’s friends had already given. The gestures fell short of the unicorn’s ears however, as all she could think about was that the incident was all her fault.

So here she sat, hours later. Twilight had already cried herself out, as evident by the twin streaks of wet and matted fur that ran down her cheeks from puffy, bloodshot eyes. Every time she looked up at Sam’s face, her eyes stung with regret and she grimaced while looking away once more. Twilight couldn’t help that even though her friend seemed to be peacefully asleep, images of what took place back in her lab freshly haunted her memory like an open wound. Twilight choked back a sob as she thought about how she should have ran the variables one more time, or at the very least, not let her curiosity win out over her concern for her friend’s safety. Those thoughts of hindsights did little to hide the truth in her mind. This was her fault.

“Ugh.”

Just as the poor unicorn delved deeper into her dark pit of sorrow, the groan beside her woke her from her stupor. Her breathing hitched as she raised her head to watch the conduit slowly lean up against the infirmary bed.

“Alright, next time, I need a mattress for that landing,” Sam said, scratching the back of his head before becoming aware of the shocked looking unicorn beside him, “Sparks, what’s wrong? You look like someone who just watched Spiderman 3.”

Before Sam could react, Twilight already had her forelegs wrapped tightly around Sam’s midsection, clinging to him as if he would disappear if she ever let go. The subtle sounds of sobbing could be heard as fresh tears stained Sam’s shirt.

“I’m sorry! I thought you were dead! And then you wouldn’t wake up! And, and-”

Twilight’s words failed her as she continued to blubber against the conduit’s front. The whole thing happened so fast that the only thing that Sam could think to do was hug her back and try to comfort her.

“Hey, hey. Sparks, calm down,” Sam said as calmly as he could.

To his surprise, Twilight pushed him away. Her expression, even though lined with tears, was one of pure outrage.

“Calm down?!” Twilight’s voice hitched, “I watched you writhing in pain! You collapsed and were unresponsive! Nopony knew if you were even going to wake up again! I was worried for you, and you want me to calm down?!”

Then she did the unexpected and actually hit Sam squarely in the chest with a firm hoof. Although the strike made Sam grunt, it wasn’t anything hard enough to really hurt, but the point was made. Twilight’s temper burned out quickly after that first strike, like a candle that got doused in cold water, and she returned to hugging Sam for dear life and sobbing some more. Sam was too stunned to react the entire time, but once he had a chance to process it all, he sighed heavily.

“I’m sorry, Twilight,” Sam whispered, noticing one of Twilight’s ears twitch at the mention of her name, “I didn’t mean to make you, and probably everyone else, worry like that… This is also gonna suck, but I was kinda sort of hoping that this wouldn’t happen.”

This got the unicorn’s attention and made her push away again from Sam to look at him both hesitantly and curiously.

Sam sighed heavily again and looked away to the other side of the room, “You remember when I said that blast cores are pretty much concentrated chucks of ray field energy? Well, even conduits aren’t meant to take in that much power all at once. Luckily, since conduits are evolutionary by nature, our bodies evolve with the energy we take in. Though with that much energy, it takes time. Basically, conduits have to essentially reboot like a computer after an upgrade like that.”
Beside him, Sam heard the unicorn’s shocked gasp as she more than likely was piecing together what the wire conduit was saying. Unable to take not knowing what Twilight looked like to be thinking, Sam reluctantly turned back around to face her. A mixture of shock, outrage, pity, and relief fought for dominance over Twilight’s expression, yet she remained silent for Sam to finish talking.

“When Natie and Lu took their blast cores, they were out for a good couple of hours until they recovered and could show off what new tricks they got. Which I’m guessing happened to me too, even though that wire wasn’t exactly a blast core.”

“...but why?” Twilight cut in, “Why didn’t you tell me this could happen?”

Sam looked away in shame and scratched the back of his head again, “Because I didn’t want to worry you.”

Sam yelped as he received another jab in the side by the unicorn. He quickly turned to see her wipe away a couple tears, but her eyes still remained watery as she tried to look annoyed with him.

“Well, you did a horrible job at that,” Twilight joked while trying not to choke up.

Sam smiled as he swallowed the lump in his throat that was starting to form, “Yeah, screwed up that one.”

“Promise me you won’t do it again,” Twilight half whispered.

“Hmm, I don’t know. My calendar is pretty full on promises I already gotta make,” Sam’s cheeky comment earned him another light-hearted jab, “but... I guess I can bump a few of those to next month to squeeze this one in there.”

After apologies were shared, Twilight went to go inform a nurse about Sam’s condition. Although, she first had to persuade the conduit to remain in bed over his insistence of being fine. After Twilight left, Sam flung the covers off of himself and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Not like anyone was here to stop him now. Plus, the smell of antiseptic was starting to make him ansty. Getting up, he did a few stretches and was greeted with a few satisfying pops from his stiff joints. Sam was just about to flex his powers when the door to his room opened to two ponies.

“Sam, I thought I told you to stay in bed,” Twilight said in exasperation.

Sam smirked and said as he turned away to stretched a bit more, “I did, but you never said for how long.”

The sound of a hoof meeting one’s face was heard and gave Sam a small smile of satisfaction. The other pony, with a light azure coat and wavy, baby-blue mane and tail and a nurse’s cap perched on her head, lightly giggled at the scene before stepping forward.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Reed, but Miss Sparkle is right. You shouldn’t be out of bed just yet, however well you may feel,” the nurse chided

Sam looked at her with a mocking pout.

“None of that now,” the nurse said, and she motioned for the conduit to get back on the bed, “Please, at least have a seat so I can give you an evaluation. I promise nothing invasive, and then you may get back up again.”

Sam conceded, if only so he could get out of there faster. Though as the nurse worked, their room was visited once more by Twilight’s friends bursting in with both concerned and relieved expressions. Both of them ran up to Sam and gave him a hug, even against the nurse’s insistence. Rarity was the first to let go and pulled a tissue from the box beside Sam’s bed with her magic to herself, daintily dabbing at the tears on her face before it could ruin her makeup.

“Oh, Mr. Reed. When we heard the news, Pinkie and I just had to galloped here as fast as we could,” Rarity said as she blew her nose noisily into the tissue before grabbing another, “Everypony was absolutely distraught from the incident.”

As Rarity swooned, to which Sam thought was a bit overdramatic, Pinkie was still trying to crush the life out of the conduit with her abnormally strong hug. Sam looked to Twilight for help, but all he got back was a look that said ‘you got yourself into this’. Carefully freeing one of his arms from Pinkie’s grasp, he stroked her mane a few times and put on his trademark smirk.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Sam chuckled, “Just gotta make sure I don’t grow another arm somewhere weird. Plus, if I did kick the bucket, at least Lu wouldn’t be able to collect on that bet about who would go out first.”

It seemed that no one was laughing at Sam’s morbid joke though, and he nervously chuckled to himself. That also included the pink party pony below him who lifted her head to look him in the eye with one of the most unhappy expressions he had ever seen on her. It was enough to even make Sam feel ashamed of his dark humor.

“Please don’t joke about that, Sammy. That wasn’t very funny,” Pinkie said somberly.

After a moment of consideration, Sam used his free arm to softly stroke Pinkie’s mane. Tilting his head down, he laid his chin just above her forehead with a frown.

“Ok,” Sam replied, “I promise not to make any more jokes about the afterlife.”

Then, just like that, the pink pony zipped out from under Sam and was already at the door with a wide enough smile to split her cheeks. Not a trace of sadness was left on her face as she waved to Sam and the others.

“Okie-Dokie-Lokie! I’m going to get Sammy a secret ‘Glad you’re recovering just fine’ gift! B-R-B!” she called out before bouncing away cheerfully.

Everyone else in the room just stared at the empty doorframe, unsure of what just happened. After a moment, Rarity softly cleared her throat and made her way to the door as well.

“I must say,” Rarity chimed in, “it was very good to see you are still yourself after that awful ordeal, but I must take my leave as well. Please do not worry us like that again, or Pinkie and I will be even more cross with you. Goodnight, Twilight. Sam.”

With a reserved nod to both her friend and the conduit, Rarity also left. As the rest of the occupants were gathering their senses, the nurse suggested that she at least finish her exam before anything else happened to interrupt. Sam and Twilight agreed heartily and let the nurse finish within just another half hour. After which, since there was no signs of any negative symptoms, the nurse got to work on the conduit’s discharge papers with no more incidents.

Once they were all done there, Sam and Twilight were met with a quartet of guards to lead them back to Twilight’s lab at Sam’s suggestion. He was feeling very eager to try out whatever new power he just got, even if he wasn’t quite sure what it was yet. On the way there, Sam kept noticing that the purple unicorn was staring at him any time she thought he wasn’t looking.

“...What is it, Sparks?” Sam finally asked after being stared at for the twentieth time by the purple unicorn since they left the infirmary.

Twilight turned away, but gathered her courage to finally speak up, “Are you sure you’re okay? I mean, absolutely sure? No headache, pain, or anything out of the ordinary?”

Sam groaned as he expected this kind of question.

“Yes, Sparks. For the n-th time. I’m sure I’m completely fine,” Sam said tiredly while checking his body over once more, “No extra arms, no unusual pain, and no, I do not feel like I need to lie down.”

“But you were passed out for over three hours. What if there was more to that thaumium than we originally thought? What if there is just a delay and we haven’t seen what effects could take place in the future?” Twilight started to panic.

“Sparks, I’m good,” Sam sighed and slumped his shoulders, “I mean, other than being a little bit hungry. Which reminds me; We getting that platter up to the lab as usual?”

When Twilight nodded, Sam grunted in appreciation. He never did like working on an empty stomach.

“Sweet. Oh, hey, look at that. Your lab. Welp, let’s get started, yeah? I so want to see what kind of power that thaumium gave me,” though before he entered through the heavy oak doors, Sam turned his head over his shoulder and smirked, “Also, I appreciate you you keeping an eye on me since we left. Though, I didn’t know you liked checking me out that much.”

The purple unicorn blushed and nearly tripped over her own hooves. She tried to talk, but everything she tried to say came out like as a sputtering mess of confusion. The wire conduit couldn’t help but snicker at the cute little display. This got Twilight to see through Sam’s teasing, and she harrumphed before pushing past him into her lab. She immediately got to work on collecting everything she would need to document Sam’s possible changes and new ability while Sam played with some device he found on one of the tables.

“Give me that!” Twilight snatched the device out of the air with her magic when Sam tossed it up and carefully placed it on another table across the room.

Sam was about to fall into a haze of boredom, when Twilight’s whirlwind of retrieving items came to a stop. An area was cleared in the far left corner, set aside for a table, her notes, extra quills and parchment, and a few different devices that Sam recognized as stuff that analyzed different energies and the like that Twilight had used before. Sam smiled at how easily the unicorn could slip into her habits after the incident without so much as a moment of hesitation. Once she was done, she looked at Sam expectantly.

“Since you’re so anxious to try out whatever it is you got from the thaumium, how about you test it out before dinner arrives?” an over eager Twilight said, before pausing and remembering the last time she let her curiosity drive her, “At least, so long as you’re feeling up to it.”

Sam chuckled at Twilight’s antics, “Don’t you mean ‘so you can document the results’?”

The little tease got the unicorn to brighten up a bit. It wasn’t much, but it seemed to have the right effect on the both of them. Sam casually strolled across the room to the empty spot that Twilight pointed out for him.

In his mind, he was trying to figure out exactly what it was that felt different to him about his powers. He definitely knew there was something new, but it just didn’t seem to jump out at him. Twilight scooped up her quill and parchment while Sam took a deep breath. Closing his eyes to concentrate, Sam reached inward, probing for what he knew was there but having no idea of what it was. It was just like the first time he properly wielded his abilities. The sensation of pins and needles all over his body took over, and soon, he was able to feel the change. The pins and needles were gone, and now, he could feel a ball of warm heat in the center of his chest. From there, the energy drifted to the left side of his body, out through his left arm, and all the way down to his fingertips. Once he felt that, he had called upon this new ability fully, he opened his eyes again to see something unexpected. Sam couldn’t help but be impressed by the new ability. The pale golden threads of the new wire emerged from Sam fingers and were unlike anything he’d ever seen.

“What’s it like?” Twilight asked with a burning curiosity.

Sam played with the new wires for a moment. Stretching them, spinning them, and crisscrossing them around each other. Like before, it was unlike anything he had ever used before. The pale light they gave off was like that of the thaumium he absorbed to gain this new power. Yet, it wasn’t quite the same brightness or hue as thaumium itself.

As he manipulated the wires some more, he dictated to Twilight his thoughts, “They’re lighter, almost weightless. I can feel them in a way... there is a slight humming coming from them, like it’s got a mind of its own. Wait, no... more like it’s alive in a way, more responsive. At least, when you compare it to my other spool.”

The sound of quill on parchment froze as Twilight cocked her head to side. Sam saw this and thought for a moment on how best to describe this. With a snap of his fingers, his face lit up with realization.

“Well, you see,” Sam began as a new set of wires emerged from Sam’s other hand, looking like the wires he usually used, “It’s like I have two spools of wire inside of me now. Not literally, but you get the picture. One is my old wire, pretty sure you know what I can use it for by now. Though this new one, it feels like it’s got this energy about it, unlike the old. Plus, you can see how clearly different they are just by looking at them.”

Sam banished the old wires and continued to mess around with the new ones. Spinning them into all kinds of shapes and patterns just to further test them out.

“Fascinating,” Twilight whispered under her breath as she scratched out her notes as quickly as possible.

She was about to reach out for one of her pieces of equipment to keep going when Sam pulled off a trick. Swiftly bending the pale, glowing wires around themselves, Sam put a couple strands between both his hands. From there, the wires followed his commands to spin around until they took on the shape of a hollow sphere with the threads spiraling around the outside from one hand to the other. The shape was pretty neat to look at, until Sam saw the wire flash brighter for a split second, and an orb of light began condensing itself into the sphere.

*BANG*

Sam would have liked to have known what that flash of light was, or why exactly the room he was in looked like it was a blurry, upside-down version of itself. He also would have liked to have known why both his face and back were hurting and why there was loud ringing in his ears. He was confused about a few more things, but his attention was suddenly occupied by the strange purple misshapen blob in front of him.

He blinked a few times, and as his body regenerated, he was able to figure out that the purple blob was none other than Twilight Sparkle looking very worriedly at him from upside-down. Behind her was the lab with dust, debris, and two very uncertain guards hanging in the background also upside-down. In front of him, Twilight kept moving her mouth, but the words that came out sounded like they were coming from underwater.

“WHAT?!” Sam blurted out, suddenly realizing that he too sounded like he was underwater.

As more of his body regenerated, his eardrums popped, and he was able to hear the world again.

“-YOU OKAY?!” Twilight screamed into his face.

Sam covered his ears, but the damage was done. Sam figured that the little unicorn would do well in opera if the whole ‘princess’ prized pupil’ thing didn’t work out.

“Ow, no need to shout, ya know?” Sam said as he slowly uncovered his ears.

Twilight sighed in relief with a hoof over her chest. Then she looked straight down over top of the conduit and slammed her hoof down next to his head. It was at this point that Sam realized that the world wasn’t upside-down, but he was. Though more accurately, he was propped up against the wall at an odd angle that made the world look upside-down.

Twilight huffed as she continued to shout in his face, “No, I think I do if I’m to get it through your thick skull of yours! What were you thinking?! Are you intentionally trying to get yourself killed, or do you just not care?!”

Sam pushed himself back up both to put a stop to the strain on his neck and to see Twilight eye to eye, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know that was going to happen! Though just to make sure, did I just blow myself up?”

Sam watched as Twilight tried to hold back the tears that were starting to pour down her face and the barely restrained anger in her eyes. Sam bit the inside of his cheek and looked away after further upsetting the unicorn. She sat there and silently sobbed until Sam pressed his fingers into her mane and scratched the sweet spot behind her ear.

“Sparks, I’m sorry,” Sam softly spoke, “I seriously didn’t mean for that to happen. Frankly, I don’t exactly know what did happen. I do know that I am sure that I’m perfectly fine now, and I don’t want to see you to crying anymore, at least not today.”

Twilight sniffled as she looked into Sam’s smiling face. With a bit more encouragement from Sam, Twilight was able to get herself under control. Sam helped by quickly getting up and fetching one of the paper towel rolls across the room for his unicorn friend. Twilight thanked him and got to work on drying her wet-furred face and blowing her nose a few times.

“Better?” Sam asked, and once he received a nod, turned to the two guards awaiting at the door, “Nothing to see here folks. Just your everyday conduit and unicorn having a moment.”

Twilight jabbed him in side for that comment. The guards glanced over the both of them once more before turning to leave, though not before one of them coughed to get their attention.

“If there are any more incidents, please do not hesitate to call for our assistance. The guard would miss having such lively company around the castle,” he said and shut the doors to the lab behind him.

Once they were gone, Twilight and Sam stood up together and got to work on cleaning up the lab of the blown away debris. Twilight was in the middle of turning a table back up when she noticed something on the ground. Behind the table was a piece of debris that looked like a blackened string. Yet, it looked too rigid and bent in odd ways that it couldn’t be made of any kind of normal string.

“Hey, Sparks. What do you got there?” Sam asked from behind her.

Twilight jumped at the sudden appearance of the conduit behind her and tried to calm her pounding heart with deep breaths. On the other hand, Sam was busy studying the piece of string that Twilight had uncovered earlier. Like her, he thought it looked too odd to really be string. He furrowed his brow as he tried to find the right words to describe it, but nothing came. When he went to pick it up he was given an almost static-like shock as the piece of burnt out wire disintegrated into dust. It was quite surprising once he realized exactly what the stuff was, and raised even more questions on how it came to be.

“No!” Twilight yelped as she attempted to recover what little of the dust there was with futile scrapes of her hooves, “I wanted to know what that stuff was!”

“It was my new wire,” Sam answered, causing Twilight to look at the conduit questioningly.

“But, how do you know that?” Twilight asked, forgetting the dust on the floor.

“I felt it,” Sam replied, looking at his empty palm, “Just before it upped and poofed, I know I felt it.”

Sam flexed his hand open and closed a few times in front of his face. From curiosity, to wonder, to straight up excitement, Sam slowly gained a devilish grin as thoughts raced through his mind.

“Oh, man!” He shouted and jumped to his feet, fist pumping into the air, “I can make explosions with just wire! Hell fuckin’ yes!”

Twilight wasn’t quite on the same level of excitement as Sam, yet she was still curious. She went about the room to see if she could find any more remnants of Sam’s wire if he were to be believed, but perked up when she caught the conduit mumbling to himself under his breath.

“Maybe if I twist it this way, or maybe it was because I used three strands,” Sam muttered while toying with another set of his new wire.

“Sam!” Twilight screeched, “Stop trying to blow yourself up!”

Sam halted his messing around and tried to play innocent, which Twilight was having none of. She marched right up to the conduit and glared at him with the intensity that could have rivaled ol’ Cappy.

“I wasn’t trying to blow myself up,” Sam half lied, “You know the saying about experimentation. It goes, uh, ‘always repeat the results’, right?”

“That’s ‘any successful experiment is gauged on its reproducibility’, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t try to do that again!” Twilight huffed.

Sam sighed, “Ok, ok. Just thought I’d try and figure out how I did it in the first place. It was so weird. I was just messing around, making some shapes, and then there was this little orb of light in the center. Then, boom.”

While Sam was explaining all this, Twilight was listening intently. For some reason, she just knew that this all sounded very familiar. Her brain worked even harder as it moved the pieces of the puzzle into place. Suddenly, her face lit up with an idea.

“Sam,” Twilight interrupted the conduit’s musing, “Can you show me exactly what shape you were making with the new wire?”

Sam blinked twice at the unusual request and shrugged. He called on the new wire again, but before he could do anything with it, Twilight interrupted again.

Twilight stomped her hooves and shouted, “Not with the new wire! Can you just make it out of the ordinary stuff?”

“Killjoy,” Sam muttered with slight smirk.

He followed Twilight’s instructions and recreated the sphere he made with some regular wire. Once done, he tossed the thing to Twilight, who immediately dropped it when she forgot she couldn’t get a steady grip on it with her magic. Fumbling around with her hooves got her nowhere, so Sam politely offered to pick it back up and show it off. Twilight stood transfixed on the sphere in Sam’s grasp. Her mind raced to figure out what it was about the sphere that fit into the larger picture. Then, it clicked. She snatched up a piece of parchment and quill and drew at a feverish pace.

“Sam, this is a spell matrix!” she cried out as she continued to draw and label on her parchment.

“Wait, what?” Sam asked.

Twilight put the finishing touches onto her parchment and practically shoved it into Sam’s face. Taking a moment to look at the drawing closely, Sam was able to see that she had drawn his sphere. All around it were labels and runes that he had no idea on where to begin to understand their meanings, but the excited unicorn looked up at him expectantly.

“Sparks, I don’t know what the hell this means,” Sam pushed the levitating parchment away from his face.

Twilight’s head flew back and forth between Sam and her drawing so fast that Sam was afraid she’d spin her head clean off. Unfortunately, he would not be the first to bear witness to such a ridiculous scene, as Twilight finally settled her gaze on him with slack-jawed bafflement.

“Don’t you see it, Sam? You created a spell matrix! Albeit, an unstable one, but a spell matrix nonetheless,” Twilight declared, exhilaration in her eyes, “You just casted a spell through your wire like a unicorn using their horn!”

Sam gasped in surprise upon understanding what the purple unicorn was saying. He looked down at his hands, a smile slowly growing on his face as Twilight’s words settled in.

Sam shouted out, pointing to the sky as he declared, “I’m a motherfuckin’ wizard! Take that, Criss Angel, you eyeliner wearing hipster!”

Although she wouldn’t have put it in those exact words, Twilight was pleased to see the wire conduit just as excited over the discovery as she was. She watched as the conduit spouted more nonsense that was sure to be more humorous if she knew the references, but there was just one more thing she had to get in before he decided to try and make another, larger, and unstable ‘force amplification field’ spell.

“Sam, listen to me,” Twilight flagged down the hyped up conduit, “I know this is exciting-”

“That’s an understatement.”

“Which is why I believe that we should work to see just how much power your new ability holds. Without blowing up my lab!” Twilight reminded after seeing Sam just about to summon more wires, “If you would let me, I can teach you how to wield magic and the corresponding spell matrices to use it properly.”

Sam made it look like he was taking his time to think about it, but in his mind, his decision was already made. He gave Twilight one of his signature smirks and offered his hand to shake.

“Sparks, you’ve got yourself a deal,” Sam said confidently.

Twilight let Sam grasp her outstretched hoof to seal their pact and gave the eager conduit her best smile. Hours passed in the blink of an eye, and the two were working feverishly into the night. In that time, Sam learned all the basics of magic and its theories in a swift crash course on the subject, under the mentorship of Twilight.

The unicorn had at first insisted that they start from the very beginning, which Sam soon found out that it would be days, if not weeks, before they would make any real developments with his new ability. Luckily, he was able to convince Twilight that they should skip all the boring history lectures and such and move on to the practical application.

He certainly didn’t threaten to experiment with his new ability on his own until he stopped exploding should they have started with said lectures, and he certainly didn’t imply that he would try out said ability in public for everyone to see. Sure, it was underhanded. Plus, Sam would have never done something that reckless around innocent civilians to begin with, but Twilight wasn’t about to take the chance.

So, after hours of practice and refinement, Sam was feeling tired, but pleased with all his progress. His outstretched hand, palm out, was pointed directly in front of him. From his palm, the pale golden wires stretched out and were woven into the pattern of a circle with a triangle inside it. The most basic levitation matrix taught to any unicorn foal. In front of Sam’s hand was a book, but it was suspended in mid air about four inches in front of his palm and enveloped in the same pale golden light as the thaumium wire.

“This is incredible, Sam!” Twilight squealed, “I never would have imagined that I’d be the first pony to see a new form of magic being developed in front of my very eyes!”

Sam smiled as he pulled his arm toward his body, the book never once leaving its position in front of the wire matrix. It was like it was magnetized to that position, and no matter how much Sam shook his arm, the book never flew away. Another interesting fact about this experience was that the book was practically weightless in the aura of the wire matrix. It wasn’t like the book was heavy to begin with, but it was different than if he were to pick the book up normally or even with his normal set of wires. Normally, he would be able to feel the weight of an object, even through his wires, yet with the thaumium wire spun into a levitation matrix, it was like lifting a thin coloring book.

“It is strange though,” Twilight said, chewing on the feathered tip of her quill in thought, “I’ve never seen a levitation spell act like this before.”

Sam shrugged, “Who cares, I’m practically my world’s first real magician! Smoke and mirrors not included.”

“I’ll have to run some more tests, but…” Twilight had to pause as she felt a yawn overtake her, “I think we better get to bed.”

“Ah, come on, Sparks. You want to stop now?” Sam said, fighting off his own yawn due to the late hour, “You gotta at least teach me something else, say like a magic missile?”

In all the trial and many errors of Sam’s practice to learn how to use his new ability, Twilight wanted to keep the damage to the castle to a minimum, which meant that she was only willing to teach Sam two spells for the day. The simple levitation spell and illumination spell. This left Sam a little disappointed. He was hoping to learn something a little more than just a pocket light and another way to pick things up and put them down, yet Twilight insisted that they start with those or she would not teach him at all.

Twilight groaned, “Sam, there’s no such thing as magic missile. There’s Galient Spear’s ‘condensed magical aura wave’ combat spell, or colloquially known as the spell blast.”

Sam cut the unicorn off before she could drone on, “Does that spell make it so that the magical energy is transformed into physical force?”

“Well, yes, but-” Twilight answered.

With his free hand, Sam snapped his fingers and pointed at the unicorn with a smirk, “Magic missile!”

Twilight sighed, knowing there was no arguing with Sam on the point, “Anyways, even if that spell is the easiest combat spell to learn, it is still way too advanced to teach to a novice. Even if you’ve managed to learn the basics in such a short time. I promise though, when we have time, I will teach you everything I can.”

That was a depressing thought for Sam. He knew that he would have to eventually leave this world. He wanted, and needed, to go home, but at the same time, he has come to like this world as well as the ponies he could call ‘friends’. Maybe if Twilight’s TD gate was a two-way portal, he could bring his friends from Memphis here one day. Though he also had to remind himself that his first priority was to make it home and make sure his friends were safe. Then, take down the DUP with his friends and show the world just how big of assholes those guys really are. Visits to Equestria would just have to wait, but maybe one day, it would happen.

“All right, Sparks,” Sam said, letting out a massive yawn, “Guess we’ll call it quits for the day.”

Twilight nodded in agreement, “Good. Now, can you put that book down, without slamming it against the wall this time?”

Sam chuckled, having remembered his later attempts at practicing the levitation spell. At first, when his matrix wasn’t made correctly, the wire he used burnt out like a light filament and sometimes hit him with a shockwave of energy. Twilight explained that spells that are cast wrong by unicorns had a similar effect to the latter, to a lesser degree, if the energy did not just dissipate into the ambient magic field surrounding them. She theorized that since Sam’s ‘magic’ was attuned to a ‘different frequency’, it did not mix as subtly with the ambient field.

Then, there was the experience when Sam figured out that by ‘crushing’ the levitation matrix while he had something in its grasp that the wire also burnt out, but at the same time, sent the held object flying in the direction it was pointed in. Almost like a magical railgun. It was funny for Sam the first time seeing the look on Twilight’s face when he accidently pulled that trick off when he was levitating a glass beaker and blasted it against the wall. It wasn’t quite as fun once she started lecturing him on the consequences in the misuse of magic though.

Sam directed the levitating book over a desk, still hovering in front of his palm and willed the magical grasp to let go. Funnily enough, doing this did not burn out the wire like it normally would. Even the illumination spell, after a certain amount of time, caused the matrix to burn out and he would have to make a new one. In any case, that just meant that he could save that wire for later use.

With everything else being stored away, Sam and Twilight sagged tiredly toward the door to catch some well deserved rest. That is, until a commotion from just beyond the doorway made them perk up in curiosity. It sounded like a couple of the guards were arguing back and forth, and before either the unicorn or conduit could go for the door to find out the problem, the door suddenly swung open. The pegasus guard that barged in was anything but calm. He wore a nervous and gloomy look.

“Sir, excuse me,” Twilight grabbed the guard’s attention between his pants to catch his breath, “but... what’s going on? Is there trouble?”

Having caught his breath sufficiently, the guard snapped to attention but still carried a sullen look on his face. The tension grew thicker as Twilight and Sam watched and waited for him to speak, neither of them feeling very tired now waiting in anticipation. Sam clenched his fists, assuming that the conduit power wielding assailants from before had decided to make another move. If they did, he wasn’t about to let the guards stop him from hunting them down and beating the answer out of them on where they even got their powers and gear.

“Miss Twilight Sparkle, corporal Silver Whistle reporting. I’m sorry, but I was told to inform you directly,” The guard swallowed against the nervous tremor in his voice, “It is about your friend, the one named Pinkie Pie…”

Whatever the guard said afterwards, Twilight did not catch it. In her mind was a maelstrom of worrying thoughts for her pink friend and what happened to her. It was enough to make her dizzy and need to sit down before she passed out.

Bonus Chapter: Reflections of the Past

Author's Notes:

Hey, look at that. A mid-week chapter post, but this one is special. *commencing evil laughter*

Editor and Proofreader => Regreme <=

6 Months Ago

In the muggy, eastern outskirts in the lands of Equestria, the unclaimed marshes that border the Celestial Sea are home to a myriad of wild and unfamiliar creatures. Yet, there was one creature, a pony, that had chosen to make this dangerous territory his home. This particular unicorn has dwelled within these marshes not out of some deep seated sense of adventure or wanderlust. No, this land was simply the only option for an exile such as himself.

Yet, why was he condemned to this ordeal when not even a few years prior, he was revered as one Equestria’s grand mages? In his mind, he did nothing wrong, and he certainly did not deserve this. It was all due to a closed minded fool of a princess and her preconceived notions of right and wrong. He was on the verge of a breakthrough in his research that would have turned the world on its head. Then, it was all taken away. His job, his status, his home, his family, all of it, ‘stolen’ away from him. Now, he was forced to live like some common farmer, just to get by. However, it seemed that this curse was about to finally turn into a blessing in disguise when one day, the extraordinary happened.

This unicorn stallion, with patches of matted pearly white fur and a unkempt mane of reddish-orange, trudged through the safer parts of the marshes. He had just finished gathering what little greens he could manage to grow in this terrain with a hoof woven basket in his pale-yellow, magical grasp when all of a sudden, the magic field around him turbulently shifted.

This shift was unlike anything he had ever felt before and broke his grip on the dinner basket into the mucky waters beneath him. The ambient field began to turn into a raging maelstrom, further putting the usually calm unicorn into a state of unease. All around him, he could hear the wildlife flee away from the area, as if they could feel the looming, incoming danger. Then, at the height of the phenomenon, the air shifted again. Right in front of him, luminous flakes of unknown origin swirled and converged on a single point in the middle of the air. As he watched in terrifying awe, more and more of these flakes appeared, and to his surprise, they started to form an object suspended in midair. The unicorn looked closer, and the oval shaped object took on the appearance of a mirror. The reflection was murky at best, and any shape it reflected looked heavily distorted. The unkempt unicorn wondered why such a random object would appear in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps a spell by one of the archmages that went wrong, or possibly a rogue elemental force was at work. Though as the unicorn was about to examine the strange object closer with his magic, a trio of banshee-like wails started to emit from the milky surface of the mirror.

The unicorn tripped backwards over his own hooves as the wailing grew louder. The surface of the mirror shook violently, and with a flash of light so bright that it blinded him for a minute, the sound of shattering glass and three yelps of pain from entities that hit the muddy earth filled the air. Once the blinding spots faded from the unicorn’s vision, he was introduced to the end of a tube attached to a strange contraption in the grip of an even stranger creature.

“Owens, what the hell is this thing?” the creature holding the contraption toward the unicorn’s head exclaimed.

Another one of the creatures, that took a bit longer to regain its footing in the marshy terrain, looked to the unicorn and nearly fell back down into the muck in surprise. The unicorn noticed that both, no, all three of these looked fairly similar to one another. He couldn’t tell if they were even alive or some form of animated golem, as nothing besides all the armored plating was visible to him from these creatures.

“What the fuck?!” the second creature shouted while also leveling a similar tube like contraption on the unicorn, “It’s some kind of monster!”

The third creature was still trying to find its bearings but panickedly shouted, “I don’t care, just fucking shoot it!”

The creatures’ lack of footing on the marsh made their tube like contraptions swing wildly in the unicorn’s direction. Flashes of light and terrifyingly loud bangs emitted from the contraptions. The unicorn felt the sting of some invisible projectile in his right foreleg, which he quickly associated with the now identified weapons in the creatures’ grips. Given the advantage in knowing the lay of the land, the pearly white unicorn lept back to escape after his first attempt to wrench the creature’s contraptions away from them with his magic failed. He didn’t expect these creatures to have magical resistance, so his only option left was to run, his focus too scattered to cast a proper teleportation spell without possible repercussions.

One of the creature’s saw the unicorn turn to run away and lept through the air off a column of jagged rock and pale-yellowish light that spawned from its hindlegs. Too concerned with getting away as fast as possible, the unicorn missed this and was thoroughly surprised when that creature splashed down right in front of him. The unicorn yelped as muddy water splashed up and clouded his vision and coated the front half of his already grimy fur and mane. The unknown creature took the advantage over the blinded unicorn and struck him upside the head with the backend of its weapon.

The disoriented unicorn fell to the ground, sputtering and choking on the muddy water that splashed into his mouth. Half blind, concussed, and with nowhere else to run, the unicorn did the only thing left he could do.

“Please, wait! Don’t hurt me!” He coughed out while holding up one of his forelegs in defense of another strike.

The first creature gasped, “Holy shit! It talks?!”

“Hold fire!” the third creature called out, “I want it alive for information.”

Several days later

“Hey, Owens!” D.U.P. Knight, Edward Palmer called out to a man that just returned from his trek into the marshes for more supplies, “Get your ass over here, or Marshall’s eating your plate again!”

The D.U.P. Pawn named Christopher Owens rushed forward, tightly gripping the satchel and rifle at his side, as not to drop either of them during his sprint. Palmer and another man sat waiting for him in front of a lit campfire on a couple of carved benches in one of the few elevated areas of the marsh. This spot also sported a quaint little hut in the background, fashioned from whatever material laid avaliable. A small bastion of safety in the marshlands they now resided.

As he came up on the two other men that had had the misfortune of joining him on this wild experience to another world, he quickly snatched up the plate in the dark skinned man’s hand that he knew was his food as the perpetrator tried to take a bite out of the freshly cooked meal.

“Ah, lighten up, Owens. I was only kidding,” the dark skinned man cackled, also known as a D.U.P. Pawn by the name of Tobias Marshall.

Owens withheld the urge to kick the man and shielded his plate from any of the would be thieves while shucking the rifle and satchel off his shoulder, “Bullshit, you ate my plate yesterday because I was late by five minutes.”

Marshall chuckled again and taunted, “Then maybe you shouldn’t have pissed about in the swamp on your perimeter check.”

“I thought I saw one of those cragodiles that the doctor told us about on my way back, and since we only have one working radio, I couldn’t call it in and took a detour around the area!” Owens growled as he stabbed his fork into the mush that was his meal and stuffed his face.

Marshall shook his head and faced toward their superior, “That reminds me, where is the doc anyways, Palmer?”

“Come now, Mr. Marshall. Even mythical creatures need to eat as well.”

From the hut that the three D.U.P. agents had set up their impromptu campsite around, stepped out a unicorn stallion with a dirty off-white coat of fur and reddish-orange, unkempt mane and tail from the hut’s doorway, carrying a plate of food of his own. The unicorn strode up beside the circle of D.U.P. agents with a less noticeable limp in his step from a few days ago.

The bullet wound in his right foreleg was healing fairly well, but it seemed that the weapons that the humans used caused a repelling reaction to any rapid healing spell he tried to apply to the wound after their first encounter. So, he was left to heal the old fashion way, with minor healing spells to ease the process in between. The unicorn stallion took his usual seat next to Palmer and promptly began to dig into his meal of roasted veggies.

“Nice of you to join us, doc,” Palmer said, taking a few precious sips from his dwindling flask of whiskey he kept on him, “Got any news for us?”

The doctor swallowed the bite he was chewing on and set his plate down next to him on the hoof carved benches he made. “Unfortunately, I have not been able to glean any new developments on your trans-dimensional displacement. It’s likely that I am looking at this in the wrong perspective anyways. However, I’ve been much more curious as to your unique abilities as conduits.”

The last part was more of a whisper, so the disappointed agents did not catch it. In the meantime, the unicorn eyed each of the agents and then their empty plates of food. Without asking, he quickly lifted them up with his magic and sent them floating along into the hut where they were placed in a bin for later.

Palmer smiled at the unicorn’s actions, “Thanks, doc. I could of had Owens clean those up though. Also, thanks for the food. Beats the hell out of MRE’s.”

“Wish there was something other than nuts and berries. God, I could kill for a cheeseburger,” Marshall mumbled under his breath.

Although the meals they received weren’t just ‘nuts and berries’, the other D.U.P. agents shared a similar sentiment in their minds about missing a certain lean protein from their diet. At least they were able to substitute it with a bog fish or two, but the flavor left much to be desired.

The unicorn waved the D.U.P. agent off, “It is not a bother, Mr. Palmer. It certainly helps to practice such exotic recipes in the meantime.”

Palmer was about to reassure the unicorn that, as their host, that they should at least do more to earn their keep… though that train of thought was derailed as another thought entered his mind. He couldn’t feel his fingers or toes all of a sudden. This certainly surprised him, but a more appropriate feeling he lapsed into was panic. He was about to voice his concerns when Marshall next to him fell out of his seat from his bench with a groan. Next to him, Owens looked on in fear and was too stunned to do more than just stand and watch.

“Wha…” Palmer croaked out as his body fell numbly to ground from his seat.

He tried to fight it, but it felt like every effort he made only made the invisible force choking his body grow stronger. Over him fell a shadow, and through bleary eyes, he could see the smiling face of the unicorn that had served their food.

“Ah, so it seems that the formula does work on humans after all,” the unicorn chuckled to himself, “Don’t worry, it’s not lethal, but merely a highly effective paralyzing agent derived from the swamp bloom commonly referred to as ‘shadow’s whisper’. I should know, I’ve already ran tests on samples of your blood to make sure it only does just that.”

Palmer tried to speak, but everything he said came out at a weak gargle. His entire body was paralyzed, just like the unicorn said. He could still hear and think clearly, but those skills were useless in a situation like this. Whatever the doctor unicorn had planned for them, he hoped that he would regain his motor skills to kick his ass all the way to next Thursday for even thinking about it.

“St-step away from them!” the voice of Owens shakily pointed his rifle in the unicorn’s direction over top of his fallen comrades. This gave Palmer and Marshall the spark of hope they needed and waited for their partner to put an end to the crazed unicorn’s unknown plans.

“Mr. Owens,” the unicorn astoundedly called out, apparently surprised to see him still standing, “You shouldn’t be resistant to ‘shadow’s whisper’. Ah, I see now. You returned from your patrol late again, and the agent just hasn’t taken effect yet. Give it a few more minutes and you should feel its effects soon.”

“Shut up!” Owens shouted, waving his gun around threateningly, “Whatever you did to the others, reverse it now, or I swear to god I will blow your fucking brains out!”

‘No, Owens,’ Palmer screamed in his mind, ‘Just shoot the bastard! Protocol be damned!’

The unicorn nervously sidestepped around Palmer’s unmoving body, while Owens kept a bead on the diminutive horse with his rifle.

As the unicorn slowly moved around the camp circle, he spoke, “Come now, Mr. Owens. Surely you can understand the need for these measures. How else am I to acquire the knowledge I need?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Owens shot back.

“Progress, Mr. Owens! There is no progress without sacrifice. Can’t you see what I am trying to achieve here?” the unicorn sighed between his explanation, seeing confused looks he was getting, “No, I would expect you wouldn’t with such a limited perspective of the world. Now please, put the gun down, and this will go much more smoothly for everyone.”

A rifle crack echoed in the marsh. The unicorn fell from his foreleg that had been shot. Multiple expletives issued from his mouth at the searing pain and oozing blood from the wound. The rifle in Owens’ grasp shook as gunsmoke rose from the barrel.

Something was wrong for Owens. His shot should have sent the round through the unicorn’s windpipe, but his grip suddenly loosened at the last second. His fingers were starting to lose feeling, and his body felt like it was being weighed down with lead. He fought through the sensation and focused on keeping the gun in his hands steady, though even that was slowly becoming more akin to lifting a car with his bare hands. His attention grew to be so focused on himself that he didn’t even notice the unicorn igniting his horn in a burst of magic. The unicorn’s magical aura wrapped around the closest thing to his prone form, which happened to be Palmer’s rifle lying against his bench.

*Bang*

Owens’ lifeless body slumped to the ground. Blood and bits of gray matter gushed out from the bullet hole just above Owens’ left eye and out the back of his skull.

“Damn it, what a waste of a perfectly good specimen,” The unicorn spat out, “Hmm, I guess his body will at least be useful for an autopsy. That still leaves me with one less specimen to work with though.”

Uneven hoofsteps marched back around to inspect the two living DUP agents. The hope that flickered in each of them died out, with the only hope of salvation replaced with fear and anxiety. As the unicorn finished his look over of the paralyzed Palmer, he smirked. The DUP agent would have shivered from the cold look he gave him if he could move.

“At least my other specimens are still viable for testing. I will say that I am sorry, Mr. Palmer, but as I’ve said before, progress demands sacrifice. Conduits, Bio-terrorists, or whatever you want to call yourselves. I will unlock the secrets of your kind and regain the recognition I so rightfully deserve,” the unicorn looked off into the distance, a certain giddiness creeping into him as he thought, “In fact, I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. These ‘genetic anomalies’ or ‘conduit genes’ you’ve told me about sound almost exactly like what my old research was about, before everything I had was taken away from me. Yes, perhaps you are the breakthrough I was missing all this time on discovering that latent energy in my previous specimens I once sought. I must begin immediately, and then I will show that fool of an alicorn that she was wrong for ever scorning me and rejecting my thesis!”

The unicorn eyed the terror-stricken humans with a hungry grin, “Not to worry, Mr. Palmer. You and your men’s contributions won’t be forgotten. However your sacrifices will only be a footnote in comparison to what history will record in the name of the Grand Mage, Visionary Dusk!”

For Justice or Revenge

Twilight lost her focus on the world around her. Color and sounds had no meaning as the figures in her field of view spoke in muted tones. It was with but a few words that drove her into this state of panic. The guard, known as Silver Whistle, had come to her and Sam with a message of great importance. A message that included words like ‘Pinkie Pie’, ‘ponynapped’, and ‘the assailants’. These were the only words that the quivering unicorn could clearly comprehend, but they did not give her comfort. In fact, it nearly shattered a piece of her heart. One of her friends; one of her dear friends was taken, and she couldn’t even have been there to protect her like they had promised to do for each other in their hours of need.

Twilight’s head swam in an infinite sea of scenarios and images of how it happened and how she had failed to uphold her promise. How she had failed to protect one of her friends when they needed her most. It was enough to drive her to tears, were it not for her mind going numb from the shock. However, between the dizzying haze of her run away thoughts and the world around her, she came to realize that somepony was trying to get her attention. Hands grabbed hold of her and shook her lightly at the base of her withers. In front of her, the oddly shaped colors became more defined in her eyes, and she was able to recognize a very worried looking conduit looking directly at her. Every few seconds, his outstretched arms that reached out to her gave her a light shake, and his mouth would move as if he were saying something. Actually, he was saying something. Her name.

“Twilight… Twilight, come on! You have to get it together!” Sam hollered in her face.

Twilight was soon able to recognize that she was still in the doorway of her lab, where she and Sam were given the message from Corporal Silver Whistle. Sam had apparently been trying to snap her out of her daze for who knew how long, and the corporal was relaying other news to some more guards who saluted and made a break for the end of the hallway and disappeared around the corner. More of Twilight’s senses were coming back under her control, and she was finally able to process what Corporal Silver Whistle had relayed to them in his message. Her heart sank and tears threaten to moisten her cheeks for the third time that day. Although what she heard next was enough to put a hold on her reaction.

“Twilight, Pinkie and the others are waiting for us in the lounge,” Sam repeat to his near comatosed friend, “Whistler is going to take us there, but you have to snap out of it first!”

“W-what?” Twilight finally choked out.

Sam sighed in relief at finally getting through to the unicorn. Another reminder to himself that these ponies were not exactly accustomed to stuff like this. At least, not the civilian populace that is. Although the guards were not really prepared for when it came to encounters with conduits, they sure as hell weren’t as squeamish when it came to the darker side of what any society would inevitably be plagued with and willing to face it to boot. Though now was not the time to look into this little detail, as the corporal was impatiently shuffling on his hooves, waiting on him and Twilight.
Seeing the confused expression still plastered on the purple unicorn’s face gave Sam a moment to reiterate Silver Whistle’s message

“Those D.U.P. wannabes kidnapped another citizen. Pinkie is a witness, and I think she could really use a friend by her side right now,” Sam stated while keeping as best of a smile as he could muster on his face, “Do you understand, Sparks?”

Relief. That one feeling was what now surged through Twilight’s body and nearly made her collapse to the marble floor beneath her from her shaky limbs. She couldn’t even begin to think about what she would have done if her friend had been stolen away. Twilight didn’t even want to think about it, as the mere thought made her tremble. Instead, her thoughts turned to what Sam had also said, ‘another pony had been ponynapped’. This did get Twilight’s heart to sink.

If Sam said that there has been ‘another’, how many others had there been before? Were they ponies that she knew? No, it didn’t matter if they were ponies that she knew or not. They were still ponies that had been taken away from their friends and family, yet all she could focus on were her own selfish thoughts. Twilight cringed at her thoughts and berated herself.

Before she could wallow in her own self-pity, Twilight returned to her original revelation upon hearing of her own friend’s condition. Pinkie had had an encounter with the ponies that had openly attacked the princesses in their own castle in broad daylight. Twilight herself was there in the throne room when the assailants attacked directly, although she was only there for a scant few moments before the rest of incident went down. Yet, she saw first hand what they these assailants were capable of with just their first attack. She even remembered that the very spot that the concrete blast hit was the same spot she had been standing in not even a moment earlier. Honestly, if Sam hadn’t knocked her out of the way like he did… She needed to make sure her friend was alright, and it needed to happen right now.

“Please, take us to my friend,” Twilight said after having to choke back more tears before they made their presence known.

Corporal Silver Whistle nodded as he turned to lead the conduit and unicorn toward the other side of the castle where her friend was waiting. The three raced through the hallways where they could see a few other guards scrambling to and fro when they got closer to the southern wing. Sam even caught glimpses of the barracks from the castle windows to see even more guards running about for what he could only assume was a reaction to the news of the ponynapping. The castle flew by in a blur, and they three were soon just outside of an open doorway where a few more guards were stationed, guarding the ponies inside.

Twilight gasped in shock as she came upon the scene inside. Her friends, Pinkie Pie and Rarity, were sitting across from each other in the lavishly furnished room. If Sam were in any humorous mood, he would have joked about how the princesses would have been perfectly at home starring in an episode of ‘MTV’s Cribs’. Pinkie was on one of the velvet red couches, being looked over by a royal physician. What Twilight saw was something that was seldomly seen from her pink party-loving friend. Her expression was fully downcast with ears splayed back and a vacant stare where her usual smile would be. She didn’t even look up to see who had arrived, as the physician was looking her over with one of her forelegs in his. Her usually puffy mane and tail drooped like a half deflated balloon, and her eyes looked glassy, as if her thoughts were elsewhere entirely. Across from her on the other couch was Rarity. She didn’t look to be fairing better. Her makeup looked to be runny, and further evidence of her poor appearance was that of a handkerchief daintily dabbing at her eyes to clear it of moisture threatening to stain her face was a constant battle. The rest of the room was bathed in a warm glow by the chandelier overhead, yet the atmosphere of it was cold and still.

“Twilight!”

Rarity was the first to call out after wiping away some errant tears from her face after peering up to check the new arrivals. Twilight rushed forth to embrace her fellow unicorn friend in a reassuring hug. The two could be seen visibly relaxing at just being in each other’s presence. The tension of uncertainty slowly lifting away, but not all of it was gone away with. As the two mares let the other go, their gazes fell on their other mutual friend across from them who had yet to notice the outburst. Neither of them knew what to say or do, but Twilight had to know what happened to put her friends in such states.

“Rarity, what happened? Is Pinkie okay?” Twilight asked, a fear of what she may hear growing inside of her.

“That, Twilight Sparkle, is something we would most certainly like to know,” a voice called out, cutting off any other conversion about to start.

From behind Sam in the doorway was Princess Luna, standing tall and regal. Upon her appearance, everyone in the room bowed deeply in respect. At least, all except Sam and Pinkie.

“S’up, Loony?” Sam comically waved to the princess, trying to sound a little cheerful to contrast the mood.

An irritated groan followed his greeting from who he could only suspect was a certain purple unicorn on his behalf. Although the princess gave him a narrowed look, she did not reprimand Sam on his informality, choosing instead to sweep her gaze over the other occupants of the room. Her expression faltered when she saw the far away look in Pinkie’s eyes, who had yet to acknowledge her presence. The princess of the night clopped past the conduit in the doorway with her clinking, silver slipper-horseshoes. At that sound, the pink pony’s ears swiveled around, followed by her head, and she half scrambled to bow from her seated position.

“Rise, mine subjects,” Princess Luna commanded, nodding to each as she passed, “We enjoy thy respect and courtesy, but tonight, we must make haste in ascertaining our adversaries’ actions and possible motives.” The princess’ visage changed from one of authority to one of sympathy as she approach the pink mare, “Pinkie Pie, we… I know it may be difficult, but would thee do us the justice of retelling us of the events that transpired?”

“I-I can,” Pinkie said, trying to force a smile upon her face that was anything but sincere, “Just leave it to me. Auntie Pinkie always knows how to tell a story. This will be a piece of cake.”

Princess Luna frowned, extending a downy soft wing to brush over the pink mare’s back like a blanket, “Miss Pie. You needn’t think that you have to put on a brave face for us. I and your friends would think nothing less of you for feeling vulnerable.”

Before Pinkie could protest, both her other friends crossed the distance of the room and wrapped her in a sandwich of a hug while Luna backed off to give them some more room. It appeared to have the desired effect as she nuzzled each of them for their support and finally let out a few sniffles of sadness she was trying to hold back.

“Thank you, girls,” Pinkie wiped a few stray tears away with the back of her hoof.

“We’re here for you, Pinkie,” Twilight said with another nuzzle, “Always.”

Pinkie’s smile returned, but a bit more subdued, “You’re all the best. I just wish I could of-could of done something for that other filly.”

At that, the tension in the room rose again. They were about to learn just what the pink, party pony saw that put her in such a downhearted mood. The ponies and conduit in the room waited as Pinkie composed herself and finally began.

“I was out in the lower ring of Canterlot. I was looking for one last gift for Sammy’s ‘Glad-you’re-recovering-just-fine’ gift basket,” Pinkie’s eyes lit up a bit, and she turned to face the conduit on the other side of the room, “Sorry, Sammy. That was meant to be a surprise.”

The conduit chuckled, if just to lighten the mood a bit more, “No worries, Pinkie. Just glad to know you’re safe.”

Pinkie returned the conduit’s cheer with a half-hearted giggle, “I promise to make it up to you. Anyways, down in the lower ring is the place that has any stores left open at this hour, so I wanted to look around there. Then, my ears got all floppy, my teeth started chattering, and my mane stood up as straight as it could. I knew that this was my Pinkie Sense combo meaning that there were some ponies getting into a fight nearby, so I thought to myself that I could help out these ponies with their troubles and stop the fight altogether. I followed some sounds coming from the next street over into an alleyway behind ol’ Sticky Mane’s candy shop. There was a crash and other loud noises coming from the alleyway before I got there. That’s when I heard the-the scream...”

Everyone in the room tensed up further upon hearing this. They could all see that Pinkie’s mood was quickly deteriorating. Her friends offered more reassuring words and hugs to help calm her down.

“I rushed over as quick as I could,” Pinkie continued, “I didn’t know that the ponies fighting weren’t just a group of ponies having a misunderstanding. There also wasn’t just ponies there. One of them was a griffon, I think. They were very scary looking, wearing weird yellow and black clothes. One of them, the griffon, said that they were heading back out through the west district. I wasn’t sure if I heard that right, but I couldn’t think about what else they said as I finally saw the pony that screamed earlier. She was a peach colored unicorn with a blueish mane. That was all I saw of her though, as it looked like the street around her had risen up and was swallowing her up like a giant street colored mouth. I was so scared, and I didn’t know what to do.”

Pinkie started to cry openly, but her story was not over just yet.

“Th-then, she saw me. She was so s-scared. too. She tried crying out to me, and the griffon and the other two meany ponies turned on me. I-I couldn’t see their faces, but I felt it in my gut. They were going to do the same to me, so I ran! I ran as I heard them chasing after me, but I left that other pony behind! I didn’t mean to. I-I-I just couldn’t look back! She looked so scared!”

At that, the poor filly broke down entirely. Her friends tried to comfort her, but even their efforts lacked the effect they were going for on their traumatized friend. The princess had a look of impending retribution for those that had caused such discord for her subjects. These ponies, and griffon, would not be spared when she got her hooves on them. However, she had to remember that the last time they had come into contact with these dastardly foes, that not even her sister could stand up to them entirely. It was only through sheer luck that Sam had been there when he did that the guards, Twilight Sparkle, and her sister had suffered not quite as much as they might have if he wasn’t there.

Luna’s thoughts fell on the conduit in question. She, like her sister, had taken a great interest in the conduit from another planet. Plus, from time to time, she would give her own input on Twilight’s project to help him return home. Yet, if her world’s magic was useless against this new threat, how would they be able to stop those behind this entire plot? The obvious answer was bring their own conduit ally into the battle through Samuel Reed, but she couldn’t. She had seen what kind of person Sam was. He was not a solider to be ordered into battle, yet he has had more experience in these types of things than anyone on her world. His last battle with the assailants certainly proved that he could take on this threat. Was it right for her to ask for his help in this matter, knowing full well what kind of danger it would entail and put him in? She could perhaps leverage his conditions to help them for his return home.

And that’s where the line was drawn. Princess Luna berated herself harshly for even considering that last part as an option. She may not have known everything that Sam had gone through, but the few times he had been open with her and the glimpses she would get from his dreams... Samuel Reed, the conduit, has faced more hardships than she would ever wish upon for someone so young in life. Besides, this was Equestria’s battle to be fought, not his. It would be difficult, but she and her sister have triumphed with their subjects over the celestial beasts of Argonos, the Mad Lord Grogar, and the Dragon Raids of the first settlements before this. The ponies of Equestria will triumph again over this new threat. Though, what would be the harm in at least asking the sole human conduit on their side for what advice he could offer in this endeavour. However little forthcoming he was with his trials against his own adversaries, he seemed very capable in fighting these types of battles by what she heard of the last incident with the assailants.

“Samuel, thy experience in this time would be-” Luna began, before turning around to realize that said conduit was nowhere in sight.

She scanned the rest of the room to find it devoid of the conduit entirely, like he was never there to begin with. Luna became extremely worried for what this might mean and searched the entirety of the room again.

“Pr-princess,” Pinkie’s somber sounding voice spoke up, “If you’re looking for Sammy, he left a few minutes ago.”

Pinkie’s friends, who had been busy comforting the pink pony, looked about the room once they heard what she had said. It seemed that neither of them had noticed the conduit’s silent exit from the room, like the princess.

Twilight, first to react, jumped up from her seat, “Pinkie, why didn’t you say anything?”

Pinkie flinched at her friend’s question, “Because, he looked really mad, but I didn’t know what to say anything. I thought you all saw him leave too because he needed a bit of time to himself.”

‘No!’ Princess Luna screamed in her head.

She rushed to lounge’s entrance where a few guards stood by before bowing in her presence. She waved for them to get up, searching the halls outside in a vain attempt to find the conduit who disappeared.

“You there,” the princess pointed to a random guard who jumped at becoming the center of attention, “Did Samuel leave at any time since he was summoned here?”

The guard looked nervous. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to answer that question with the eyes of the princess upon him. He tried to flag his fellow guards to help him in some way, but they were just as in the dark as he was. So, swallowing the lump in his throat audibly, he answered the princess as best as he could.

“N-no, your highness. The human entered the lounge with Miss Sparkle and has not been seen exiting from then on.”

The princess was angry, worried, and above all scared for what this might mean. Where had Samuel gone? How did he sneak out without everypony except Pinkie noticing him? Those questions and more kept popping into her mind, but she would not get her answers by standing around here and just asking them repeatedly. Regaining her composure, she pointed to each guard she could see and issued her orders.

“You, rally thy fellow guardspony you encounter to search the castle for Samuel. You, We have already spoken with Captain Aegis Flare before he departed with his scouts to track the assailants. Have the pegasi chariots be ready to take reinforcements if the battlemages receive orders for such. Finally, relay a message to the city garrison to put a lockdown on the city. We must go to inform our sister of what has transpired,” each of the guards saluted and sped off after receiving their orders, leaving the princess of the night to slump her features from stress, “I will require more coffee before this night is done.”

--o0o--

Sam flipped through the air and shot another wire grapple at the building across from him. Without even thinking, he reeled in slightly and twisted his body in a way that propelled him through another high velocity swing out and around the building’s corner and further through the city of Canterlot.

Unlike most times where he couldn’t get enough of the freedom of pulling off a stunt like this, his features were set in a concentrated scowl. He used every single maneuver he knew to traverse the city far faster than he would normally do on a normal day, dodging and weaving through obstacles as the city slowly transformed from five story complexes to smaller stores and houses as he passed the almost visible border of the upper and lower rings of the city. His movements may have suffered a bit from the lack of viable swing anchors, but anytime he touched ground, he would break into a dead sprint to reach the western border of the mountain side city.

Back in the castle, when he was first met with the sight in the lounge, he could practically feel the saturated atmosphere of mournful heartbreak. He wanted to help Twilight and Rarity in comforting their friend who had suffered an ordeal that put her in such a state. Though, once he heard her story of how she did end up this way, he became angry. His fists tightened so much that the knuckles turned bone white, and his body shook with an unbridled rage. He was sure he had ground his teeth so hard that they were about to crack under the force of his jaw if he stood still for any longer.

So, while everyone’s back was turned in comforting the poor, pink mare. Sam slipped out of one of the windows in the lounge silently and snuck his way off the castle grounds like the many times before. Once past the castle walls, he held nothing back and rocketed off into the city.

On the way through the city, many thoughts passed through Sam’s mind, but they all held a common theme. He would make those D.U.P. wannabes pay for ever making one of his friends upset. This also gave him the perfect excuse to finally find out where these posers got their gear from, find out if they were actually working with the D.U.P., and put a stop to whatever plan they had for the pony that they had taken. The similarity to his world of how the D.U.P. would just drag people off the street to lock them away somewhere just hit too close to home.

With one final swing and a slingshot to bring him up the two story walls of the city barrier that kept stray ponies from wandering off the edge, he took a moment to catch his breath after pushing so hard. Looking over his shoulder, he couldn’t help but feeling a slight bit of accomplishment of having crossed the entire city of Canterlot in less than ten minutes. Unfortunately, once his body was done rejuvenating itself off the limited stores of wire in him, he couldn’t see any sources close to him he could syphon off of to top off his reserves. He thought to himself ‘no matter’ as he now had to focus on the next task at hand and determine which way the D.U.P. wannabes fled off to from the western wall he now stood upon, only now realizing that he had made a mistake.

“Ah, fuck me with brick!” Sam cursed, “Where the hell do I go now?!”

Indeed, without knowing which direction the assailants ran off to after fleeing to the western city border, he had no way to track them. Futilely looking out over the edge of the wall yielded no answers as well. Straight down was a sheer drop that plummeted down over a hundred feet before the incline took on any notable difference. Everywhere in between that was jagged, rocky cliffs with sparse vegetation. Further down the mountain was where the land started to show signs of life, with growing greenery and some hardly visible trails.

Looking off to the northern side of the wall held the same result, except for a large waterfall that fell from the side of the city and out of the cliffside until the water broke apart in the wind and looked to come out as a mist near the bottom of the mountain, by what Sam could see. The southern side of the wall curved until Sam could only assume that it wrapped around to hug the side of the mountain that the city clung to. Below that side was nothing of note, just like the view below him already.

Scanning out further, Sam would have taken the time to take in such a picturesque site before him of rolling fields and patches of forest under a blanket of stars and moonlight as far as the eye could see. However, he could not find the one thing he was looking for, which were the assailants or any signs of which way they may have gone.

“Son of a bitch! I should have gotten here sooner!” Sam cursed some more, although already knowing that arriving earlier might not have guaranteed better results, “Damn it.”

Sam paced back and forth up along the city wall as he thought.

“Okay. Now, if I were a bunch of D.U.P. wannabes and I just kidnapped a pony, where would I go? …Gah! I can’t figure this out! They might as well be halfway around the world for all I know,” Sam argued with himself angrily, “Great job, Sam. You just had to run off like an idiot without a plan, again. Well, I’m sorry. It’s not my fault Loony would have never let me go after these asshats if I stuck around to ask. Of course, now you don’t even have a clue as where to go from here! Maybe they just took straight off west from here. I mean, Pinkie did say they were heading west when she overheard them… and of course, I can’t see shit to really support that. Come on! There has to be some sort of sign or something… I wish Natie was here. She always knew what to do next. No, I just have to figure this out. Think, Sam!”

Stomping his foot in frustration, Sam grumbled to himself, trying to come up with any way he could track the assailants down on his own. The brainstorm session only helped in making the wire conduit even more frustrated, until he slammed the wall beneath him with few strikes from his wire whips. Not even the usual cathartic feeling of hitting something solid was helping the wire conduit to figure out his next move.

Just when the wire conduit was about to give up, he turned around to see something emerge from the castle and into the sky. It was hard to tell what it was, as the low light hid any distinguishing features. Not too long after the first object appeared, another took off into the sky from the castle, just like the other.

Sam thought he didn’t have time to ponder what the strange objects were, until the first started to become larger. Well, in actuality, it was getting closer. Soon, Sam was able to pick out a pair of silhouettes of ponies with wings at the head of the first object. Glints of light reflecting off the pegasi in armor allowed Sam to determine that they were royal guards, and soon after that, he could see that the object behind them looked to be like a sort of large chariot with the railings wrapping all the way around the back. The pegasi guards were hitched to the whole thing and were astonishingly pulling the whole thing through the air fairly quickly and easily.

Sam pushed the question of how such proportionally small creatures could pull such a large object and just chalked it up to ‘fuck it, magic’, for he had a more pressing issue to concern himself with. The pegasi driven chariot was heading in his direction. Wasting no time to find out the why, Sam dug a couple wires into the city wall and rappelled over the outer side of the wall to avoid being spotted.

“And of course, Loony just had to send out the royal goons to come find me,” Sam huffed while hanging over the side of the wall, praying to not be seen.

Although, what Sam did not expect to see was that the pegasi pulling the chariot zoomed past him overhead, not even paying him so much as a glance as they soared out into the open Equestrian skies.

“Alright then?” Sam spoke up in confusion, “If they aren’t looking for me… wait, maybe they’re heading out to chase down the D.U.P. wannabes! God, or pony god, if you’re listening. I take back everything I was about to say about you in the next five minutes.”

Sam watched the first chariot continue to grow smaller as it flew off and scolded himself for missing his chance to catch a ride. That is, until he remembered the second chariot.

Reeling himself up just enough to peek over the foot of the city wall, he spotted the second chariot closing in. Just like the first, it was being pulled by two pegasi, and the chariot’s railings were high enough that he could only spot fragments of movement within the air vehicle. Most likely more guards that had to hitch a ride. It was coming on fast, so Sam had to time it just right if he was to pull this little trick off. His whole body tensed, and he let go of the wall with his left hand’s wires while cocking his fist back. Sam timed the movement of the chariot with the thundering beating of his heart, and when the air vehicle was less than a half a dozen yards away from passing over the wall, Sam thrust his left fist skyward.

In the short time Sam had before the chariot came closer, he had been building up energy into his left fist, to the point where strands of wire arched around his fist and forearm due to the overcharge. Upon the release of that energy when his fist shot up, a pair of wire grappling hooks sprung from the back of his hand just before the knuckles and raced through the air to the point where Sam estimated to intercept with the chariot. Sam’s focus poured into the stretching length of wire, helping to guide the tips if they so much as twitched off course. Then, just as the momentum of the wire started to slip due to Sam’s control range, the chariot flew directly into the hooks and caught on the axles of the wheels on the underside. Sam cheered mentally, but almost forgot to let go of the wall and get yanked painfully along. Luckily, he broke the wires from his right hand just before and was soon soaring through the air, along with air vehicle in the night sky.

With no time to lose, Sam reeled himself back in and grabbed the chariot’s front axle with both hands. A few more wires from both his hands and feet ensured that he would not slip from the underside of the air vehicle while he hung around for the ride.

‘Just like ‘Cape Fear’,’ Sam deviously smirked, almost snickering to himself about the absurd parallel.

Through the wind whipping past his body, Sam suddenly heard a couple of voices above him.

“No sir, the sky chariot’s flight support enchantment is still intact!” the first voice shouted over the wind, “and it doesn’t look like we’re dragging anything behind us!”

Another voice grunted and shouted back, “Must be a faulty inscription then! Sergeant Ivory Fire, are you and Corporal Scarlet Twirl still able to make the flight to the drop zone?”

Another voice in front of the Sam, most likely one of the pegasi, hollered back, “It feels like we’re pulling an extra body, but it’s not enough to ground us anytime soon!”

The second voice grunted again, “Good, then. We’ll just have the battlemages look over the enchantment later once we get back! Captain Aegis Flare requested a full squad to his position after tracking down the assailants that were involved with the ponynapping that occurred earlier this evening! They appear to have hunkered down in an outcropping of mountains just to the east, behind the Canterlot Spire! We all know what these assailants are capable of, so I want everypony ready for their tricks once we reach the zone!”

A resounding round of ‘Yes, sir!’s echoed above Sam, and he smiled at the bit of good fortune he just stumbled upon. Not only were these guards out to hunt down the kidnapping wannabes, but they were bringing him straight to them as well. Sam was practically shaking with anticipation to go another round with the rotten creatures that would dare use conduit abilities for evil. The sky chariot banked in a wide arc before leveling out, and Sam viewed the upside-down world. He could just make out the first chariot ahead of them as they were pulling around the mountain that the city of Canterlot clung to, ‘Canterlot Spire’, and saw another, smaller clump of rocky terrain behind the spire that they were now heading toward.

It sickened Sam greatly that these D.U.P. wannabes were almost quite literally ‘hanging out’ right in their backyard. This would not deter the wire conduit though. In fact, it merely reinforced his resolve to put a stop to the beings that would abuse conduit powers just like the D.U.P. Besides, if the last encounter was any indication, these ponies were going to need his help to bring these wannabes down. Though for now, Sam just had to focus on hanging on and getting ready to drop when the ride was over.

Author's Notes:

I'm actually splitting the chapter that this came from into two (maybe three) parts. Haven't written too far beyond this, but I do plan for my inspiration to hold that I can get some nice, new chapters up pretty soon after this. Welp, enjoy. I also welcome all feedback and criticism for improvement.

And as always, A big ol' shout out to my man, Regreme for all his hard work on the editing stage.

The Ponies of Justice

Captain Aegis Flare flew through the night sky with a singular purpose in mind: Track down the assailants before the trail went cold.

The moment he received the report of the ponynapping, thoughts of fatigue from the day’s routine fled from his mind. He made a mad dash for the barracks, where royal guards were already moving into their standby positions, and was quite proud to see his subordinates’ readiness in such a short time. Swiftly picking two of his best flyers, he gathered up a few supplies and ordered for their immediate departure.

The city of Canterlot passed beneath him and his wingponies in a blur until they hit the edge of the city and were soaring out into the open Equestrian skies past the walls. He gave each of his wingponies clipped orders to spread out and search for any signs of the fleeing assailants and broke off to search the south while the other two took to other directions. His keen eyes scanned the grounds below him, taking in even the faintest twitch of movement that could be his quarry. However, his search bore no fruit, and frustration was soon starting to set in.

“Captain!” one of his wingponies called out from the east as he flew to get closer.

The younger pegasus stallion flew up until he was only a few wingbeats away and hovered while giving a midair salute. His gold plated armor gleamed in the waning moonlight, including his magically enchanted helm that turned his natural colors to the standard royal white and blue, just like the rest of the Equestrian royal guards in the pegasi unit.

“Report,” Aegis Flare demanded after giving a salute back.

The other pegasus wasted no time and spoke, “Sir, no visual contact on the assailants, but it seems that they were not able to clear up their tracks as cleanly as the last times. Out to the east, there are irregular outcroppings of the same substance that the assailants use in their magic that lead around Canterlot Spire.”

For once throughout this whole mess of beings with magic from another world, Captain Aegis Flare was relieved to hear a bit of good news. Yet, this was no time to celebrate.

“Any sign of where the trail leads?” the captain questioned.

The younger pegasus shook his head, “No sir. At least, for as far as I followed it. The trail continued on further, but I thought it best to inform you before going any further.”

The captain nodded and grunted in approval of the other guard’s sound judgment. However, like before, they did not have time to waste.

“Relay your findings to private Nimble Step and rendezvous back with me to the east. I will go ahead and follow the trail on a gliding path until you two catch up. We’ll then follow the trail until we find more signs of the assailants,” the captain pointed to his subordinate and commanded.

The pegasus guard saluted and flew off to do as ordered. In the meantime, Captain Aegis Flare set off on his own task, beating his wings furiously until he came upon the strange outcroppings that his subordinate came across. Just like he said, the outcroppings were too irregular, and the material contrasted severely against the natural formations and coloration of the mountain’s base. It was a little surprising to know that the assailants were able to scale the steep slopes of the Canterlot Spire, especially with a captive among them. Then again, he was aware of both what they were capable of and his constant reprimanding toward the human back in the castle about his idiotic antics, which were enough to prove him otherwise that they would be capable of such a feat.

Aegis Flare continued to follow the sporadic formations of the rocky outcroppings while tediously gliding until his other two subordinates were able to catch up. With his wingponies back with him, he signalled to them that they were going to speed up to follow the trail faster. The rocky cliff base of the Canterlot Spire slowly transformed into rough patches of shrubbery and then into hilly plains that would lead to Eastern Equestria. The weird outcroppings were becoming very sparse, as the assailants must not have needed to use their magic to traverse the less mountainous terrain.

The trail was looking to be growing cold after this. If the assailants did not leave any more clues as to where they were going, Aegis Flare feared that they might have just lost their first and possibly only chance to track them down.

“Captain, two o’ clock off due east,” the guard on his right called out, also pointing in the indicated direction.

The captain examined the area closely and spotted what the other guard was pointing out. It was faint, so faint and unassuming in fact that anypony who saw this would have overlooked it entirely.

The trio of guards flew in a corkscrew as they descended to the ground below. Their hooves touched down one after the other, and they carefully made their way to a spot among the grassy edge of the plains just off the last of the crags of Canterlot Spire.

The field around them was an untamed portion of Equestrian soil. So, since there was no need to manage the land in a place where no city or settlement existed, any contrast to the untouched land stood out fairly well. That subtle difference in the landscape was that of a set of heavy wheel depressions in the ground. Tracks from the no longer visible cart stretched out into the east, along with what looked like hoof tracks. The captain marched up to the area, tilting his head down to further examine the scene and gather precious clues.

With a careful scoop of his hoof, he dug up a piece of the dirt from where the cart ran over. The upturned soil smelled rich and had a hint of tanginess to it. Sure signs that the tracks were fresh by no more than maybe half an hour at most. It was surprising to not see the cart itself somewhere on the horizon, especially from the air, with such a short head start. Yet, Aegis Flare reminded himself that these assailants were no mere ordinary ponies or griffin, capable of feats that went against everything he knew about his world and magic, much like their own resident human.

Although, with said human’s help, Equestria and the captain were slowly coming to understand how to combat such forces… even if the human’s methods of training and teaching were supremely unorthodox. One day, he would simply spar with the guards, under careful supervision by the captain himself, and show them the best ways to counter combatants with ‘conduit powers’. The next, he would sneak out of the castle and into the city, evading the pursuing parties that Aegis Flare sent out, always giving the excuse that ‘it was to help train his guards in effectively pursuing conduits’.

The captain highly doubted that last statement to be true as every time he said it, the human would grin mischievously. Aegis Flare suspected, as always, that it was just another ploy by the human to get under his hide. So, he learned that he would not give the human the satisfaction of knowing that it did most days, then delivered his reports under Princess Luna instruction of the human’s actions to the princess of the moon herself. The captain could at least take some solace in the fact that at least the lunar princess would not take the human’s antics lightly and doled out regular, fair punishments for his disobedience. However, the human never seemed to be deterred for long from his usual routine and constantly found new ways to aggravate the captain, from which the cycle would continue.

Captain Aegis Flare shook his head to clear it of his musings. Right now, his focus needed to be on the assailants and tracking them down.

“Private Nimble Step,” Aegis Flare called out, with which said mare came and saluted, “tracks are looking promising, but is there any chance that these may be a diversion?”

The captain backed up to allow the younger guard to examine the area herself. Aegis Flare watched as one of his most reliable and promising, if just a little inexperienced, trackers got to work. The other pegasus sifted through the dirt around the wheel depressions, much like how the captain did. She even gave it a deep inhale, determining all the different scents she could pick up from just the sample. The private cleaned her hoof off and progressed to another part of the area. By then, the other guard in Aegis Flare’s reconnaissance wing, by the name of Lightburst, made his way over to watch and wait along with the captain.

Nimble Step paced back and forth a few times within the original area of the the four wheel depressions, carefully picking up and putting down bits of out-of-the-ordinary things that she found. Once she paused halfway through her third lap, she nodded her head and turned to the captain.

“Sir, the area indicates that the assailants were in a hurry. In fact, it looks like one of the two hitches they used for the two-pony cart came loose a few steps away from not being secured properly,” Nimble Steps pointed to a spot further along where the tracks led and continued, “See there? That divot is where the hitch came loose and tore a piece of the assailants uniform off. Looks like it even cut into his hide a bit. The blood trail drips in the same direction of the tracks we see and nowhere else, so it’s a safe bet that that is the direction they headed in.”

Aegis Flare grunted in approval at the private’s conclusion. It was a sound explanation and the best lead they had. His wings unfurled from his sides, as did the other two guards as they knew what they were about to hear next.

The captain tensed his leg muscles for a quick take off as he gave his orders, “We’re following the trail then. High altitude to maximize recon sweep. If we come across the assailants along their path, we are not to engage directly unless we can confirm their abductee is in imminent danger. Whether or not we see them, as soon as we can confirm their location, we’ll send a message back for reinforcements. Understood?”

The two other guards saluted and echoed a response of “Yes, sir”s and prepared for their own take off. As one, they kicked off the ground and gave a few powerful flaps of their wings to get back up in the air. The three then angled off and climbed higher steadily in the direction of the trail until they could just make out the tracks clearly. Additionally, rather than waste their energy by sprinting to possibly intercept the assailants halfway to wherever they were going. They did not want to be winded should they find themselves swept up into a fight as soon as they found their quarry. So, the three guards glided on as many updrafts as they could while only giving their wings a quick flap here and there to maintain their altitude.

The minutes ticked by, and soon, they were on their fifteen minute mark without any sign of the assailants directly. The tracks led them across more land than they would have expected the assailants could cover in such time, yet they pushed on. Their persistence endured, and the royal guards could now see the Geode Caverns mountain range. Though, ‘mountain range’ was a bit generous for the name. The landscape was more of like a small group of short massifs formed from the earthen magic running through the land and creating many faults in one area.

If an aspiring gemologist or gem farmer wanted a challenge, the constant influx of magic here produced distinct and rare seed gems for them to find. Though gem hunting in this region was out of season, so the lands would be often devoid of pony life. Noticing the assailants tracks lead straight into the territory definitely protested against that notion, and the three guards tightened their formation as they dropped their altitude. Vegetation was limited here, but there was enough to create patches where the ground could not be seen from above. So, the guards came in for a landing just outside the mountain range to track on hoof.

Captain Aegis turned his head to address his guards behind him before they set hoof within the mountain range, “Eyes and ears open. If you think you see something, call it out, but quietly. We don’t know how far in the tracks lead or if the assailants are set up outdoors. Same as before as well. Do not engage unless the abductee is in imminent danger.”

Nimble Step and Lightburst merely nodded their heads, adhering to their order of silence. Aegis Flare nodded in return and took the lead. Their steps were as light as possible, but with the tension of the moment, each sound seemed to echo noisily. The captain remained as stoic as possible. His ears swiveled to and fro, searching for any sounds that were not his or his guards’ muted shifting of armor and hoofsteps.

Behind him, Nimble Step drew in deep, slow breaths to combat her rising nerves, watching the moonlit shadows around them for any unordinary movements. Next to her, Lightburst did the same in his visual inspections of the surroundings, carefully eyeing each crevice, shrubbery patch, or tree for any deviations that stood out, in case there were traps or the like.

The three pony scouting party suddenly came to a halt at the command of Aegis Flare’s raised left wing. With a smooth, almost-soundless series of movements of his wing, he signalled for them all to get lower to the ground and hug the left side of the open path they were on as they continued.

Beneath their hooves, the one set of cart tracks had now grown to several, along with more hoof, claw, and paw marks. Many of them were fairly old, with only a scant few seeming to be recent. What’s more, there was only one set that was definitely fresh, and they just so happened to be the same ones they had been following.

Aegis Flare moved up slowly, his fellow guards falling in right behind. The tracks curved to the left sharply behind a winding path, with the view blocked off by a small rock outcrop. As he got closer to the bend, Aegis Flare’s movements slowed to a crawl. He was not about to let his adversaries know where he was because of a misstep.

Hugging the left side of the path as closely as he could, Aegis Flare teased his muzzle around the corner of the outcrop just enough to bring the land beyond into view. To his relief, no ambush was lying in wait that he could see. In fact, what he could see brought him some satisfaction.

More tracks, both fresh and old, led straight into a partially hidden cave entrance within the offshoot of land that the elevated terrain around it created. The two-pony cart, just like Private Nimble Step predicted, was parked off to the right of the natural enclosure, underneath some large saplings. Besides those two things, nothing much else stood out, so the captain signalled for the other two guards to back up and out.

Once they had put some space between themselves and the area, the captain relayed his findings, “The assailants have appeared to set up their base camp here. Nimble Step, good job on that prediction. I’ve confirmed their cart that they used, though there was still no confirmation of anypony in vicinity. However, there is a cave entrance to what most likely is their base of operations.”

Lightburst cut in quickly with a bit of nervousness in his voice, “Does that mean that there might be more of them, sir?”

“I can’t confirm that, so we’ll have to assume that there is a possibility that there are more adversaries than just the three,” Captain Aegis Flare swiftly replied, “There was also no sign of the abductee, so we must also assume that they have taken her into their base with them.”

“At least we were able to track them down to this location. Perhaps this is our chance to finally apprehend these crooks,” Nimble Step pointed out.

Aegis Flare grunted in confirmation, “Yes, but first things first. Nimble, the dragon-fire letter.”

Nimble Step’s eyes lit up with recognition of what the captain was asking for. She fiddled with one of the few pouches on her armor on her right side under her wing, fishing out a piece of red colored parchment, a shatterproof inkwell, and a quill with her mouth and laying them all out on the ground for her superior. She helped out once more by unscrewing the cap of the inkwell, which earned her a pungent whiff of the black substance that tickled her nose. As the captain laid down to write against the uneven road, Nimble Step eyed the piece of the parchment.

Equestria, and for that matter all the other countries of Equus, knew of only one method of communications that was faster than all others, dragon-fire transmission. It is a strange and very seldomly researched magic that only the ancient race for which the magic was named after possessed naturally.

A dragon’s flames were known to burn or be hot enough to melt through just about anything that was put in front of it. Yet, there was another property that the magical breath of a dragon carried besides barbecuing ponies to a crisp. If a dragon choosed to do so, their breath would still burn any item their flames touch. Though, instead of the item turning to nothing but a pile of slang, ashes, or the like, the item was converted into a state of pure magical energy. From there, the magical energy, usually characterized by what ponies describe as a puff of floating dust on the wind, finds its way to the recipient of who the dragon intended it to. The magical energy then reconstitutes itself back into the form it was right before it was burned.

Little is known about the ‘how’ that the creatures that can produce this feat naturally, seeing as no pony is brave enough to ask a dragon down for tea and talk magic with them. Plus, most of them tended not to like the company of other creatures or even their own kind.

Though, there had been a story of how one pony in a time long forgotten had once actually convinced one of these scaly beasts to use its fire to send him from one side Equestria to the other. Rumors say he did it just to see if it could be done. Others say that he was late for a very important date, and there was no other way to make it in time. Whatever the reason ponies seemed to think the fable was founded on, the story remained just that; a story. Nopony was brave, or quite frankly crazy, enough to test this out for themselves. So, the story remains a myth with only one common theme. That upon the reappearance of the pony that traveled by dragon-fire, there was the sound of jingling bells.

In the now modern days, dragon-fire transmission is still an elusive magic that the dragons seldomly shared, but the ponies of Equestria discovered after decades of research by the higher institutes in Canterlot that there is a way to replicate the phenomenon with a high rate of success. Though the spell was fairly very difficult to learn and unreliable with anything other than a special parchment enchanted with the spell made from the Bitter Oak tree that was very hard to cultivate outside its natural territory. This, in turn, has made the material and spell possessable only to the most elite families and the military forces of Equestria.

Aegis Flare had just finished putting the finishing touches on the letter as Nimble brought out a candle and a box of matches. The captain swiftly rolled the letter up and brought out a wax seal, specially enchanted with the royal guards’ deployment center magical signature, to send the message directly to them with his request for reinforcements. A match was struck, and the candle was lit, so Aegis Flare let the tip of the letter catch the flame so that it soon engulfed in fire. The fire, surprisingly, didn’t burn as it touched him, but he already knew it wouldn’t and didn’t flinch as he watched the wisp of colored dust zip off back to Canterlot. With that done, he eyed the other two guards.

“I’ve given them our location, but stated for our reinforcements to meet halfway back up the path we took. There is a good landing zone there, so we’ll backtrack to that spot and set up our operating area there. Any questions?” Aegis Flare finished off with his question.

“No, sir,” Nimble Step immediately replied.

Lightburst, on the other hoof, did have a question, “How many troops are we to expect?”

“Two chariots, so twelve guards, including ourselves,” Aegis Flare replied.

With no more questions left to be answered, the scouting party followed their steps back to the area that Aegis Flare had talked about. On both sides of the open area were narrow paths leading back to the assailants’ hideout and another to leave the massifs. The three guards busied themselves by inspecting their equipment and guarding the paths leading into the cleared spot. It took about twenty minutes until Nimble Step caught the first sight of the incoming chariots.

“Captain! Inbound on the west,” she called out just loud enough for Aegis Flare to hear.

Aegis Flare squinted until he saw the silhouettes of the incoming chariots in the distance. He let himself have a small smile of approval before his stoic expression returned.

“Nimble Step, keep an eye on the path to the cave. Lightburst, with me to guide them in,” he said and took to the air once more.

Lightburst was right behind him, and the two circled the air just high enough for the incoming chariots to spot their location. Once the good captain saw that the chariots were descending, he signalled for Lightburst to land and watch the area with Nimble Step. Aegis Flare circled the area some more, but as he was banking so his view of the chariots returned, he swore that he saw something fall from the second one and touch the ground. The chariots did not turn around, so it couldn’t have been one of the guards onboard. It might have been a wheel falling off, but it was nagging at him too much to just brush it off. He would have to get his answers once the chariots arrived.

Which they did, and within the next minute, they were following the captain as he guided them down to the area that they secured. The two chariots creaked and bounced off the ground, but the noise was unavoidable, so Aegis Flare checked over his shoulder to Lightburst and Nimble Step, who gave no indication that their adversaries had heard it or coming.

The first pegasus from the chariot pulling teams quickly unhitched herself and marched up to the captain and rendered a salute.

“At ease,” the captain said, “Status?”

The pegasus mare let her hoof fall back down, and she relaxed her stance as she spoke, “All guards and equipment accounted for. Hit a small rough patch just outside the city walls, but nothing serious.”

The captain found this to be odd, as she made no mentions of the thing that fell from the second chariot.

“What about the second team? Did they, by chance, drop something on the descent here?” Aegis Flare inquired.

One of the other pegasi from the second chariot had just joined the first, and both looked just as confused as each other at the question. At this, the captain became anxious. If they did not know what he was talking about, then he may have just been seeing shadows that weren’t there. However, his gut was telling him that this was not the case, that it was sign of something much worse. Though before he could inquire into it further, he and many of the other guards unloading the chariots heard the distinct noise of a twig snapping coming from the shrubbery on the path leading out of the mountain range.

Swords, spears, and other weapons that the guards carried were suddenly leveled in the direction that the noise came from, and the air grew thick with the mounting tension. Nopony wanted to get closer to whatever might be lurking within the shadows, so they stood their ground and waited. Aegis Flare glared hard at the spot as well, anticipating whatever that was trying to sneak up on them. His gut was screaming at him that this had to do with the something that he saw fall off the chariot earlier. The only question that remained though was ‘what?’. The underbrush shifted, and the thing that laid within got closer. It was time to find out what it was.

Two furless hands slowly raised from the shrubbery growth, and Aegis Flare felt a headache coming on. The two hands stood erect and still, and a voice finally called out with the pitch that made Aegis Flare want to bang his head against the ground.

“Don’t shoot… I’m, um, pregnant!” Sam called out to the weapon wielding guards.

It was easy to tell which guards have had the unfortunate pleasure of becoming accustomed to the conduit’s sense of humor, as they simultaneously facehoofed and groaned. The other guards who have either not been around Sam for very long or even met him before just looked on in confusion.

“Human, what in the name of Harmony are you doing here?!” Aegis Flare grumbled, repressing the urge the shout at the top of his lungs.

With his hands still in the air and the rest of his body still hidden in the foliage, Sam gestured wildly as he spoke, “Funny you should ask that, Cappy. You see, there was this incident back in Canterlot, and I-”

“Human,” Aegis Flare suddenly cut him off.

“Yes, Cappy?”

“Get out of those bushes and get over here right now!”

“You got it, Cappy,” Sam’s final reply was punctuated with a snap of his fingers, which ended up pointed toward the captain as a pair of finger pistols.

Sam hands sunk back into the shrubbery which shook as the conduit moved to disentangle himself from the foliage. He soon emerged from the greenery, patting stray leaves and dirt from his clothes. Most of the guards went back to what they were doing with only the few exceptions having to be guided back to their tasks, as they knew what was to come. Aegis Flare squared up his frame up, set his expression into the sternest look he could muster, and marched straight up to the conduit. With the two now face to face, Sam wearing his usual smirk with crossed arms and the captain giving him a scowl, they sized each other up for a moment.

“Human, I am only going to ask this once,” Aegis Flare declared with barely contained seething anger, “What. Are. You. Doing. Here?”

Sam looked away from the captain to survey the other guards, who were just finishing up unloading all of their equipment. Although he still had a light smile on his face, remembering the reasons that made him sneak his way out here in the first place made him grind his teeth in anger. So, for the first time since the two met, Sam gave the captain a straight answer.

“Because I want to take these D.U.P. wannabes down just as much as you do,” Sam replied with all seriousness, “I don’t know exactly what they’ve been doing with the ponies they’ve been kidnapping, but if it’s anything half as bad as what I’ve been through, then they’re about to see why they shouldn’t have gotten on even just one of the ‘Four Aces’ bad side. Plus, I want to know where exactly they got their gear from in the first place. Don’t know about you, but I don’t think the D.U.P. has branched out into Equestria officially.”

Aegis Flare was a little taken aback from this surprisingly straightforward reply. Though, it still left him with a number a problems that the human had just brought with him.

Aegis Flare took a slow and steadying breath, “Human, for once, thank you for not making me have to drag the answer out of you. However, you should not have come here.”

“Oh, come on, Cappy. Please don’t give me this speech,” Sam groaned, letting his arms slump to his sides.

Aegis Flare shook his head and continued, “I am serious, human. Further into the Geode Caverns is the entrance to the assailants base of operations. This is a dangerous mission, and it is my duty as a captain in the royal guard to both bring them to justice and safeguard civilians like yourself from having to face these endeavours themselves.”

Sam threw his head back and laughed, “Civilian?! Oh, that is rich, Cappy. In case you forgot. I’m not exactly what you could call a civilian. In fact, who was it that helped trained your guards in combating a conduit?” Two thumbs flew up and pointed inward toward Sam, “This guy.”

Aegis Flare did not like being mocked like this and stepped back up.

“That is irrelevant. I can’t have you jeopardizing this mission through your interference, no matter how much of a potential asset you may think you’ll be. You are not under my chain of command nor a sanctioned sellsword for the Equestrian realm, so technically that still makes you a civilian. However, I know better that you will not simply heed my order to stay here and not get involved if I say to, but I also can’t spare any of my troops to sit back and play babysitter for you.” Aegis Flare said, trying to think of a way to solve this dilemma.

“Then, don’t,” Sam countered, “Seriously, I came all this way out here to kick some ass, and you’re thinking about benching me? Just think of the advantage you have from me just being here. I hate to bring this up, but your guys still aren’t exactly up to snuff when it comes to bringing a conduit down. Even these D.U.P. wannabes, and they’re basically the stormtroopers of conduits. Face it, Cappy, you’re gonna need me.”

The more the conduit talked, the more Aegis Flare hated to admit that he was making some rather valid points. Quite frankly, it was astounding to hear the human talking with such seriousness at all. Even his usual carefree demeanor that the captain had come to associate with the human was being overshadowed by a rigid intensity hidden behind his smile. There was a fire in his eyes that said that he was here for a purpose, and he was not going to be denied.

The captain sized the human conduit up once more and found no doubt in his features that betrayed his words. So, with a heavy sigh, Aegis Flare conceded to Sam’s reasoning.

“You’re not going to stay here, even if I ask nicely, are you?” Aegis Flare tried one final time.

Sam crossed his arms over his chest, shaking his head back and forth while chuckling, “Not a chance, Cappy.”

“Very well,” Captain Aegis Flare groaned internally, hoping he would not come to regret this decision, “Human, I will allow you to join my squad in assaulting the assailants’ hideout. That being said, you are now hereby directly under my command. That means that you will follow my orders. Or as Celestia as my witness, I will have you thrown back in the dungeons until Tartarus freezes over. Am I clear?”

Sam beamed with a triumphant smile, snapping into a mock salute while putting on a terrible french accent, “Aye aye, mon capitaine!”

Captain Aegis Flare groaned outwardly this time, but it seemed that the point was made. He only hoped that, again, he was making the right decision and that the princesses would forgive him for putting the human in danger like this. Turning on his hooves, Aegis Flare led the human back to his squad, who were just finishing up their preparations and were lining up at attention for their final briefing. One unicorn guard carried some extra equipment and an extra spear in his aura and hoofed them over to the captain, who placed them all in various pouches on his armor and hefted the spear under his wing. The captain marched up to stand in front of the awaiting assembly of fellow guardponies and swept his hardened gaze over the even mixture of different races of guards.

Speaking up just loud enough for everypony to hear, he spoke out, “Equestrians! There is a group of assailants who think they have taken refuge within the rocky terrain of the Geode Caverns. There have been multiple reports of ponies going missing over the past months, but until recently, were unconfirmed to be abductees by this renegade faction. You may have heard of what they are capable of, but do not let presumptions cloud your judgement of them being predictable. They are dangerous individuals, who have committed heinous crimes against Equestria and her ponies and must be brought to justice. If possible, we will seek to apprehend these assailants and put a stop to whatever is that they hoped to accomplish with their crimes. If not, then we must put a stop to them ourselves, even if it means that we must end their lives.

“This operation will be a covert approach. Standard breach and sweep once we reach their base of operations, so do not engage the assailants until the most opportune moment or on my signal. We do not know how many assailants are actually here, but the fewest we can expect to encounter are three. Also remember, they have at least one confirmed abductee, so watch who you encounter and be prepared for evacuation of any noncombatants in area. Finally,” the captain paused as he chose his words carefully, “the human is now officially a part of the operation. He is to stay within the second group and not engage in any way unless told to do so. Questions?”

Aegis Flare waited for a few moments, but nopony spoke up. He took this as their final word and nodded in affirmation.

“Good. Break into your respective groups and be ready to move out. I will take the lead.” All the guards saluted as one and moved to take up their positions for the formation to move out, while the captain turned to the human to address him one last time, “You will be with Sergeant Amber Cross in her group over there. Like I said, Human. Do not iengage or interfere unless she or I give the word.”

Sam turned to look at the pony that the captain had pointed out. It was a bit hard to tell at first, as most of them looked the same with their ‘magical fur color changing’ armor, but he soon found the right one by the mare who was giving her own orders to the other guards as they lined up.

“Sounds good to me,” Sam said and stuffed his hands in his pockets while he walked off.

Underneath his laidback persona, Sam was anticipating the upcoming battle. His hands balled up into fists tightly within his pockets. The captain may have said otherwise, but he was not about to sit this one out while he was here. He wanted answers about these D.U.P. wannabes and make them pay for hurting not just some innocent lives, but for making those he was growing attached to upset.

Author's Notes:

Whether by coincidence or sheer luck, Sam has made it to exactly where he wanted to be. Ol’ Cappy may not like, but he’s there to stay. Plus, who knows? Maybe they will need the human conduit’s help for the upcoming infiltration of our antagonist’s hideout.

Next time, on Dragon Ba- I mean, CiE:Wire-Fray. Operation: Kick-Those-Sorry-Wannabes-Where-The-Sun-Don’t-Shine!

Ha, bet you were looking forward to a fight. Welp, that will in fact certainly be in the next chapter. Though like I always like to think 'the build up always makes the climax better' (get your minds out of the gutter)

Thank you Regreme, as always. Your editing position is firmly secure with all the help you give.

A Conduit Seeking Revenge

Author's Notes:

Wind Scribe: *replaying Watch Dogs 2*Wait a second. Alexa, what day is it?
Alexa: It is October fifteenth two thousand and seventeen
WS: ...Oh, fudge monkeys, the story! Alexa, how badly did I fuck up with my delay?
A: Pretty badly, you scrub. Also, no one plays Watch Dogs 2 anymore unless they suck at actually playing video games.
WS: ...Fuck you, Alexa.
A: Reporting abuse of Amazon hardware to authorities. Have a wonderful day.
WS: Well, better post this chapter before my jail time. You all have fun with this one. Spent quite a while on it, and remember. Constructive criticism is always welcome so I can improve.

Two columns of ponies silently crept along the winding paths of the Geode Cavern Mountain Range. They mostly hugged the edges of the path as they trekked, keeping fairly spaced apart to avoid clumping up, though at the same time alternating which side took the lead whenever they approached a sharp bend. It worked so that the group that bend matched with would peek around to relay any possible contacts as they came closer to their objective.

Sam followed close behind the other guard in front of him in the right column as quietly as possible. Amber Cross, the guard’s name, had made it abundantly clear how much she did not like having the human dropped in her lap like he was. Yet, she wasn’t about to let him out of her sight to do something stupid and mess up their operation. So, she figured the best way to keep an eye on him was to place him directly beside or behind herself, planning accordingly for whichever seemed more suitable at the time. Amber Cross was at least glad to note that the human conduit could adhere to their tactic of a silent approach on their target as they steadily made their way into the territory.

Behind her, Sam continued to slink along with the other pony’s hoofsteps. He was quite used to sneaking around, in actuality. He and his friends could never have slipped throughout the city of Memphis right under the D.U.P.’s nose as many times as they did if they didn’t know how to keep a low profile.

It did surprise him, however, how well the guards could move around as silently as they did in their heavy, clunky armor. The only sound he could hear coming from the diminutive horses were the subtle rhythm of their hooves striking the ground they walked on, which in turn made many of the ponies twitch or jump slightly from any other sharp, unexpected sound they heard coming from the shifting shadows of the surrounding shrubbery terrain.

Luckily, nothing ever leapt out of the shadows to ambush them as they marched toward the destination that the captain led them to, further into the rocky outcrops. Sam glanced over to his left to see the ever steadfast captain marching resolutely along. Determination was clear in his eyes, even from the side angle he could see as he dashed stealthily ahead to check the next corner. If there was one thing that Sam could say about ol’ Cappy, is that the pony always stayed focused on his goals. At least this time, the goal wasn’t to harass the conduit with another lecture on Sam’s ‘disrespectful antics’. Sam shook his head to refocus his thoughts. Natie would have smacked him upside the head with an electrically charged palm if she knew he was zoning out again.

With quite a few guards put into this operation, their pace was a bit slow, so Sam could honestly say that it was longest fifteen minutes of his life until Aegis Flare gave a signal with his wing. He looked down, as did Sam and a few other guards, to note that there were quite a few tracks leading ahead of them until disappearing to the left beyond another sharp bend. The two columns of ponies slowed to a halt as the captain snuck up to the sharp bend to check ahead. Once finished, he returned and whispered to Amber Cross, which Sam could plainly hear.

In his gruff tone, the captain relayed his findings, “Up ahead is the offshoot that leads to the assailants’ base of operations. Like before, no signs of anypony in the area, but I want everypony to stay on guard, should something be laying in wait. I will bring my team up first and form up on the right side to check the surrounding area. Once the last pony in the column filters in, you will move your team in on the left side to cover the rest of the area. Remember, eyes up and heads low.”

The earth pony guard saluted and let the captain get back to his column to issue his orders through a series of signals using his wings. Amber Cross turned around and glared at Sam.

“Did you understand the plan?” she asked and received a silent nod and thumbs-up in return, “Good. Do not break formation, and stay directly behind me.”

Once she was done with her pep talk with Sam, she maneuvered around him to relay the plan down the line of ponies using a few hoof gestures. Amber Cross formed back up at the front just as Aegis Flare led his column around the path down to where the other tracks led to and disappeared from sight. As the last pony from the first column crept around the bend, Amber Cross moved.

Sam followed close behind, keeping a close eye out for anything out of the ordinary that could look like a trap. He continued to follow Amber Cross, only stopping for a split second to take in the surroundings. It was like a rocky clearing with sparse vegetation on the right hand side.

On the other side was the captain’s group, moving along the edge and checking what little undergrowth there was for possible assailants. There was a large wooden cart that sat under the still growing branches of a sapling tree. By the looks of it, it seemed pretty well used, but Sam was no expert on carts to begin with, so he wasn’t about to go all Inspector Clueso on that. On that note, Sam couldn’t help but remember that he still hadn’t gotten over the fact that a race of sentient horses hooked themselves up to carts and carriages, much like farmers did back on earth to pull stuff and other ponies around. He guessed he could equate it to being like those chinese man pulled street carts he’s heard about. Or even hell, those goofy bike taxis he once saw on the east side of Memphis.

Sam felt a tap on the back of his knee and found the guard behind pointedly glaring at him and gesturing for him to keep moving. He managed to smile bashfully before turning around and quickly caught up to behind Amber Cross before she noticed. The rest of the guards funneled in easily enough, and the two groups of guards and conduit slowly circled the outer perimeter of the clearing.

Tensions were high as everyone constantly checked in different directions for the assailants that weren’t there. On Sam’s second scan of the area, he soon realized that they were coming up on a indent in the rocky enclosure that looked more like a cave entrance the closer he got to it. It seemed that the two groups were set to meet right in front of it, if they moved around the clearing like they have been.

With only a few more feet left before the two groups hit the cave entrance, Sam tightened his hands back into fists and conjured a few wires to swirl around his arms in preparation for anything to happen. Their movements slowed to a crawl with every step closer, until the two teams were right on either side of the cave entrance.

Aegis Flare and Amber Cross locked gazes with each other and nodded in silent agreement before slipping around and into the cave entrance at the same time. Sam moved up to peek around the corner and observed what was happening. Fortunately, no ambush was lying in wait, no alarms were blaring, and it seemed that the captain and Amber Cross were the only ones apparent in the cave that could be made out.

The captain moved back and whispered to the closest guard to him, “First checkpoint secure. I want at least four ponies covering this area once we move further in. I also want one of the mages up here to scan and unlock this door.”

Sam luckily overheard all this, as the guard the captain just spoke to saluted and relayed the orders down his column’s chain. Sam squinted into the darkness and found the door that the captain was talking about. The cave was not dug into very deep, at least, not that Sam could tell with the metal plate and door blocking the way not ten feet in. With the light of the moon not exactly pouring in, Sam could only make out the basic features of this obstacle now blocking their way. A unicorn made his way up the chain to arrive at Aegis Flare’s side and studied the cave for himself.

“Can you open it?” the good captain asked in a whisper.

The unicorn lit his horn up, bathing the dusty cavern in a pale green light. Looking over the cave once more, the unicorn took a step forward and channeled more arcane energy through his horn to work up a few detection spells for the area. After a few brief minutes, the unicorn’s horn dimmed back down to a duller lumination.

He turned to the captain and shook his head, “I’m sorry, Captain, but it seems that the door is laced with all kinds of powerful binding and protection enchantments. I’ll need the help of the rest of the mages we have, and even then, it will take a while before we are even able to break them.”

Aegis Flare’s brow furrowed in frustration. It had taken them so long just to track these assailants back to their hideout. Now, time was of the essence, and they had very little to waste on getting past one door. It also would take too long to send scouts out to search for any other ways into this cavern. Even then, there was no guarantee that they would find one in a timely manner. Plus, they may be just as heavily fortified as this one. The more he thought, the less ideas came to mind, and it just made the good captain all the more frustrated.

“Sam, what are you doing?!” Amber Cross hissed underneath her breath.

Aegis Flare spun on his hooves, just in time to see that the human conduit had snuck past them while their backs were turned and was examining the heavy looking, steel door up closely.

“Looks like a standard double cylinder mortise type lock,” Sam muttered back, still eyeing up the keyhole beneath the door latch on the door, “Give me like two minutes, and I’ll have us inside.”

A few wires protruded from Sam’s fingertips as he kneeled down infront of the lock, and before anypony could move to stop him, he proceeded to pick the lock with his wires. The ponies behind him braced for the inevitable backlash from the protective wards that the human would blatantly trip, but in the end, nothing happened. Sam did feel a bit of a tingle run up his arms, like he was being shocked. There was also a slight resistance to every move he tried to make with his wires to move the tumblers into place, but neither of the sensations really bothered him enough to matter. The ponies behind him were dumbstruck, as none of the protection charms or binding enchantments seemed to affect the conduit. The soft tinkling of metal strands on a door lock echoed throughout the silence of the cave.

“Hmm, might want to make that last count three minutes,” Sam hummed as he worked.

Aegis Flare recovered first and stormed quietly up to the conduit, careful to mind the enchantments’ possible radius since they may still be active.

With teeth gritted to stop himself from yelling, the captain scolded the conduit, “What in the name of Harmony were you thinking, human?! I thought I told you that you were not to take any action unless I gave you specific instructions to!”

“Yeah, but let’s be honest,” Sam called over his shoulder, “I overheard your guy say this was gonna take a while to get past. We don’t have that kind of time on our hands, and I’m betting busting the door down, although it would be quick, is not exactly a good plan either. Well, guess who’s practically invulnerable to magic and can pick just about any lock you put in front of him. So relax, I got this.”

Captain Aegis Flare growled as he fought to counter, “A lucky break, but that still doesn’t excuse you from ignoring my orders!”

“Ok, I get it. Bad Samuel, no extra cookies before bed. Seriously though, would you have thought to let me give this a go right off the bat?” Sam shot back.

Aegis Flare hadn’t even considered the option, although the human didn’t exactly give him a choice. It was dirty and underhanded for him to use this type of logic against Aegis Flare. However, the deceitful tactic was what Sam needed to give him just enough time to flick the last tumbler into place and listen to the satisfying ker-clunk of the mechanical hardware unlocking.

Sam smirked, “And that, my fine furry friends, is the sound of success. Even beat my time with, what, half a minute to spare?”

The boastful conduit retracted the wires from the lock, rounding on the ponies behind him to absorb their gratitude. However, he was met instead with a round of angry and disapproving looks.

“Human, get back into the formation. Now,” Aegis Flare hissed dangerously at the human with a glare.

Sam raised his hands in front of him in mock defense as he sidled around them, “Alright, alright already. A simple ‘thank you’ would have been nice at least.”

The captain ignored the human’s comment and turned to look at the door that they had previously been trying to plan to tackle. Nothing about it seemed different, except for the fact that Sam’s efforts now left it unlocked. There didn’t appear to be any guards or the like just beyond the door that may have heard Sam’s accomplishment and came to investigate, so at least they still had the element of surprise. There was just one last thing that he needed to make sure of.

So, turning to the unicorn beside him, he spoke, “Scan the door again and find out if the enchantments were triggered thanks to the human.”

The unicorn immediately obeyed and set to work. With his horn glowing brighter once more, he shut his eyes in concentration to work. A few moments later, the light from his horn dimmed again with surprise clear on his face.

“Sir,” the unicorn guard reported in astonishment, “the enchantments have been broken. Whatever the human did, it worked.”

Aegis Flare and Amber Cross were just as surprised to know this as their fellow guard at that moment. It would have taken them far too long for the captain’s liking to disenchant the door, but with the human’s help, not only did they save time, they didn’t even have to risk any potential magical backlash to anypony that may have worked to disenchant the door. That didn’t mean the captain was about to give the human the pleasure of hearing that from him. Instead, he dismissed the unicorn, but not before issuing a few orders.

“Thank you, private. I want four ponies on perimeter watch out here while the rest of the forces go in. Pick three others of various fields and move to positions that overwatch this area. Only engage with adversaries if it is necessary. If you hear any commotion that indicate our engagement with the assailants, then you can engage with them as you see fit if they flee this way.”

The unicorn guard saluted and turned around to complete his task. Aegis Flare went back to eyeing up the door that led into the assailants’ base of operations and tensed. They were about to enter the belly of the beast, and it was putting him on edge.

Turning his head over his shoulder, he saw Amber Cross tensing as well, along with the rest of the guards that he could see just outside the cave entrance. Apart from them was the human and his surprisingly serious look he had behind his ever present smile. Again, the good captain was torn between giving him a bit of praise and chewing him out for his disobedience.

Though that could wait till later. Right now, he had to focus on the operation at hoof. With a steadying breath, he turned back to the metal door and signaled to the ponies behind him to form up and follow him as he moved to open the door.

The door opened near silently at the press of his hoof. Aegis Flare only opened it just enough to see inside and find any possible assailants beyond the portal that were lying in wait. When all he saw was a dimly gem-lit, winding cavern beyond, a fresh wave of relief washed over him. He pushed the door open further and led the way down into the caverns. Tonight was the night that he would bring these assailants to justice and bring peace back to his country, or Harmony forbid it, die trying.

--o0o--

From within the secret base of operations in the Geode Caverns, a unicorn was hard at work on his life’s goal. Beside him hovered a tape recorder in his magic as he dictated his thoughts and findings. He methodically circled a metal examination table while whisking various instruments and pages of notes up in front of him to scrutinize their conditions in his usual fashion of multitasking.

Upon the examination table was a pony, unconscious and with an IV of sedatives running into her left foreleg. She was laid upon her back, and her limbs and head were strapped down by tightly fitted restraints to keep her in place and prevent escape. A magic supression ring was affixed to her horn to block any errant magical outlashes. Were she awake, she would no doubt be panicking and thrashing against her restraints in an attempt to escape the ones that had ponynapped her. A situation the awake unicorn would rather like to avoid, since it would only hinder his experimentation and might damage his subject, or worse, his experiments’ results.

“Log number D-123. A new subject has been acquired and brought to me, just as instructed. Female, unicorn, peach coat, powder blue mane, and looks to be around fifthteen years of age. A subject, currently designated as subject B-15, in near prime condition for the tests. Still need to find a better way of weeding out subjects with the ‘conduit gene’. The scrying spell is still only forty-four percent accurate, at best. Perhaps I should see if adding a live analog sample to the scrying variables will enhance the accuracy. Though, I will need to find a way to keep the analog’s tissue from decaying before the scry. Another project that will have to wait for another day though. As for now, I will begin with sample extractions.”

The pearly white coated unicorn set his tape recorder down on a nearby table. With his concentration no longer needed to be divided with levitating it, he was free to draw on his magical reserves to gather his other equipment around the laboratory like room. Rows of syringes, specimen jars, scalpels, drills and other various medical devices were surrounded in his pale-yellow magical aura and brought closer to him. Each one was meticulously inspected and either set aside or placed on a rolling tray by the examination table. Only once all the selected tools were in place did the unicorn snatch the tape recorder off the table near him to continue his transcript.

Clearing his throat, the unicorn spoke, “Subject is still heavily sedated, but that shouldn’t affect the results too much. Beginning extraction of follicles and tissue samples.”

The unicorn raised a pair of forceps and shears in his magic. With the forceps, he plucked a couple of strands of the unconscious mare’s mane, tail, and fur at the root. Each sample was placed in separate specimen jars and labeled accordingly before placing them on a shelf behind him. With the shears in his grasp, he shaved a small block of fur from the mare’s foreleg to expose the bare hide underneath. A scalpel was scooped up in his magic, and with a precision that would make a surgeon jealous, he cut a perfect square out of the top layer of skin. He quickly dabbed at the missing patch till it clotted over. The skin sample was placed in another specimen jar and labeled.

The unicorn held the sample in his grasp and examined it closer in some light, “Tissue sample was found to be a tad flaky on extraction. Grayish in color, so more than likely some of the mercenaries’ concrete residue. Other than that, subject B-15’s epidermis is fairly healthy. If I can devise a way to keep the sample alive after extraction, this may be the best way to maximize material for the scrying improvement idea.”

The unicorn brushed a few errant strands of reddish-orange mane out of his face and placed the sample next to the others behind him to continue. “Now, for the blood sample, although I would have liked to know more about how subjects A-1 through 3 and their kind figured out how to scan viable subjects for the ‘conduit gene’ without this technique. Were it not for their forthcomingness in my inquires, I would have never known how to accurately test for the ‘gene’ through blood analysis.”

The unicorn picked up a syringe from the cart beside him, inspecting the needle once more for imperfections. Satisfied, he turned the mare’s foreleg and pressed down on the upper leg. After a moment of sighting a vein, the needle was stuck into the mare’s foreleg. The unicorn drew back on the plunger of the syringe, and rich, crimson blood was sucked up into the syringe.

“No apparent abnormalities with the blood from the subject under first survey,” the unicorn spoke aloud, “As with before, two-hundred milliliters will be extracted for the preliminary tests.”

The syringe in the unicorn’s magic was pushed back out into a vial, which in turn was capped and set aside. Three more empty vials awaited their turns to be filled, but they wouldn’t have to wait long under the mediation of the unicorn mage. However, before he could get started on the rest of the blood draws like he wanted to, a tingling sensation at the back of his mind made him freeze. Unsure of if what he felt was true, he set his equipment down and focused his arcane energies on rechecking the sensation. This ‘sensation’ was not just some simple itch or the feeling of someone’s hair standing up on the back of their neck. No, this was a response to an magical alarm that he wove into the multiple layers of protection enchantments surrounding his hideout and would activate should anything tampered with his enchantments or entered without his permission. It was a subtle spell concocted to be near undetectable underneath the others so it would not be as easily disabled, but if the alarm had been tripped, it could only mean one thing. The unicorn known as Visionary Dusk snapped his eyes open once he was able to confirm that the alarm had undeniably been tripped.

“Bucking dammit!” he swore under his breath, even going so far as to kick over a table side tray, sending all manner of metal objects and shattering glass crashing to the ground, “I should have had more time! How could anypony have found this place, let alone break through all the protection enchantments so easily?!”

With all the noise he was making, it was no wonder that one of his hired mercenaries who was passing by the lab had heard him. In stepped the griffon and leader from the three remaining in the band of mercenaries that had taken up the offer of work from a banished grand mage of Equestria. He was careful not to step on any of the broken glass as he entered, curious as to why his employer was throwing such a temper tantrum. Visionary Dusk was still in the midst of scrapping his hoof against the ground and growling like some kind of feral animal, so he had yet to notice the intrusion.

Aras, the griffon, cleared his throat and spoke up, “What’s going on, Doc? Latest experiment not go so well?”

Visionary Dusk’s ears pulled away from their aggressive, pulled-back state to swivelling around to the griffon that spoke. Soon, his entire body followed suit, and the mage’s wrathful gaze fell on Aras. The griffon had seen the mage like this before, at the time when he came back with his failure to complete one part of his objective with the assault on Canterlot. Even with all his newfound power, Aras couldn’t help but become unsettled under those rage filled eyes.

Visionary Dusk ground his teeth as he took a step toward the griffon and hissed, “Aras, when you and your ‘boys’ retrieved my subject, were you followed?!”

Aras blinked, unsure of where this was coming from. He thought about his most recent job from the mage. He had sent him and his partners to pick up another subject for his twisted experiments from the city of Canterlot. Sure, it was the closest settlement, but the mage’s obsession with undermining the princesses’ senses of security was going to bite him in the flank. They could have just as easily snatched another pony from one of the towns in the east, but it was not Aras’ place to ask questions, especially now.

So, back to his recollection: after using the ‘scanner’, another piece of technology that he was given by the mage along with the armor and other tools enchanted to detect nearby ‘bio-terrorists’ or ‘conduits’, he and his team lured a pony into a secluded area to capture her. There was a slight complication in that another pony saw what they did and got away before they could capture or kill her, but it wasn’t that much of an issue.

The trio of mercenaries had fled the city before any guards could have a chance to catch up with them and made it back to their hideout without being followed. They even made sure to cover their cart’s tracks well enough even after Arctic Flash messed up with hitching himself up the first time in their haste. At least, that’s what Aras knew, since he didn’t see any guards trailing them when he periodically checked on their way back. He was certain of this.

Aras clicked his beak a few times and replied, “Nope. We got out of there before that other pony could call some guards.”

“What?!” Visionary Dusk nearly screeched, looking like he was about to burst a blood vessel, “What do you mean ‘other pony’?”

“When we got our claws on the first pony, this other one came out of nowhere and spotted us. She didn’t fight or anything. Just ran away before we could catch her, so we took the first one and left,” Aras replied, a little more nervously under the gaze of the infuriated mage.

“You were suppose to remain undetected!” Dusk kicked over another tray as he bellowed, “This is the second time you have failed in doing what I’ve asked, which I might add, is very little of you and your gang! Now, there are ponies, mostly likely the royal guard, storming my lab as we speak because you couldn’t follow one simple instruction! Not to mention, I don’t have enough time to gather all of my materials to move on to the fallback site! If I didn’t need you and your gang to hold off these intruders so I can salvage what I can, I’d let you burn out like that useless pegasus of yours!”

Visionary Dusk used his magic to unceremoniously sweep all the debris on the floor to other side of the room in a heap. With the path cleared, he stormed past the griffon to a cabinet behind him. The unicorn ripped open the cabinet doors and searched the shelves of various flasks of muticolored liquids and other materials. In his haste, a few of the cabinet’s contents spilled onto the floor until the unicorn grabbed a stand full of corked vials. Inside the vials was a sickly, yellow colored liquid that had a faint glow about it, even against the unicorn’s own magical aura that he used to grasp it.

The griffon was quite familiar with this concoction that the unicorn produced, as it was the same substance that gave him and his fellow mercenaries their otherworldly powers and were constantly in need of in regular doses in order to not suffer the same fate as their partner they lost in Canterlot. The unicorn summoned a trio of syringes from another bin in his lab and checked them over before taking the first vial and syringe and jabbing the needle through the cork and syphoning the liquid into the syringe. He did the same with two more syringes and floated them over to the griffon.

“Take these, grab your ‘boys’, and hold off the intruders until I’m ready to leave,” Visionary Dusk instructed sharply, “Be sure to only use those when your bodies start to become fatigued from using your abilities. I don’t really care if you overtax yourselves, but the more time you give me, the more of my research I can salvage.”

Aras wasn’t too fond of the way the unicorn put it, but it’s not like he had a choice in the matter. So, he just turned away, grumbling while Visionary Dusk gathered what he needed in his lab and packed them away in some saddlebags. With the griffon gone to rouse his fellow mercenaries, Visionary Dusk took the moment to take a steadying breath to calm himself and think a little more clearly. He looked over to the unicorn who had still laid unconscious on the the lab’s table throughout the entire exchange and sighed.

Picking up a large glass jar and a scalpel in his magic, Visionary Dusk talked, mostly to himself, “It’s a shame I can’t take the whole thing with me. The last two were dead ends, and I would have loved to see how the latest serum would have affected this subject, whether she be a conduit or not. For now, I can at least preserve a larger piece of tissue to use if the results come back positive to possibly improve the scrying spell.”

--o0o--

Still at the lead, Aegis Flare took in everything around him in the dim lighting of the ever expanding caverns. Magic powered lamps lit the way deeper into the supposed hideout, with a winding interior of rock and occasional glowing gems embedded in the dirt. The only other light were those cast by the unicorns in the guard’s party that tilted their spotlight like cones of illumination on anything that may have stood out along the way.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much beyond what one would find in a closed off gem mine. That wasn’t to say that the guards could feel relaxed. In fact, with no encounter they had expected to see so far, it wasn’t a surprise that every little noise and moving shadow put them on edge.

Right behind the captain, Sam, the wire conduit, was busy with his own inspection of his surroundings. Every minute, he expected to see an auto-turret set up to block their path and mow them down in these tight quarters, or even see the telltale red blinking dot on a security camera nestled in an upper corner of the tunnel until klaxon alarms started blaring. It seemed so odd to him that the usual threats he had come to expect from these types of situations just didn’t apply here. Even more worrisome were the unknown threats that he didn’t have time to ask about for this scenario. In the end, he’d just have to rely on his quick reflexes to pull him out of the metaphorical fire.

In a small part at the back of his mind, he once more couldn’t help but admire the scenery around him. Gems that glittered like multicolored stars peeked out from the tunnel’s surface all around him. Although, Sam did have to duck every time they came up to one of the tunnel’s wooden supports. Pony gem caverns were not built to support proper human height it would seem. The earthy, if a bit musty, scent was quite pleasant and added to the atmosphere in just the right way. All of this would have been nice to enjoy and take in were it not for the fact that they were here to put a stop to a dangerous group of assailants that had a penchant for ponynapping.

A few more minutes into their excursion into the caverns, the captain stopped suddenly and signalled for the rest to halt. Sam squinted into the darkness ahead in hopes of seeing what the captain may have noticed. Ahead of him, Aegis Flare’s ears flicked at a faint sound coming from deeper into the tunnel.

“What’s going on, Cappy?” Sam finally broke the silence with a whisper.

The captain harshly shushed the conduit while he concentrated on figuring out what the noise was that he heard, only to clench his jaw in frustration from the sound being too faint to identify. He had no choice but to resume the excursion, but at a much more subdued pace and crouching closer to the ground.

After another minute or two at the new clipped pace, something caught the captain’s eye ahead: light. At least, light bright enough that it spilled into the tunnel from wherever it was coming from. With the tunnel bending to the right further up, the captain sidled up along the edge and peered as far as he could around the corner from where the light came.

Sam and the rest of the guards followed close behind and waited on the captain’s findings. Aegis Flare found that the tunnel open up into a proper cavern just beyond. The area was large, large enough so that forty ponies could fit comfortably if some of the space wasn’t already occupied. Two large magic powered lamps sat near the center of the area, each just far enough away from each other and the walls to cast enough light into the space to see almost everything within. Stalagmites and stalactites jutted from both the ceiling and floor at various points in the open area, perfect to use as cover while the guards crossed the room. Off to the captain’s left side was a section of the cavern space dominated by a set of worktables. He couldn’t quite see what was on the worktables, but all manner of equipment and unlabeled crates were set about the area as well. Behind the worktables and pinned to the wall looked to be a map of some sort. One that Aegis Flare could barely make out that looked suspiciously like Equestria.

Taking his eyes off that for the moment, he turned to the right and spotted a set of metal looking cabinets, racks, and small assortment of lockers. What looked like clothes of yellow and black were discarded around that zone. The same ones that the assailants wore. Aegis Flare was beginning to understand what this part of the cavern was used for, and that would be the assailants’ staging area. The captain pulled himself away from the corner and motioned for Amber Cross to come up.

With the Sergeant next to him, he whispered, “We’re right on top of them. Open cavern area; twenty-five meters high with sloping ceilings and approximately two hundred meters of area on the ground. A ready area is just around the corner, so more of their facilities must be close by. More than likely on the other side of this area through the tunnels.”

Amber Cross nodded, but spoke in a wary tone, “I don’t like this, Captain. We haven’t seen hide nor feather of these assailants since we got here.”

“I know,” the captain grunted in agreement, “I don’t like it either, and if they are planning something, the best opportunity would be within this open area.”

“Can’t we get the drop on them before they can get the drop on us?” Sam suddenly butted in.

Aegis Flare controlled his anger as he replied, “Not without knowing where they’re hiding, human.”

Sam leaned over the captain to take his own look inside the open cavern for himself. He frowned when he realized that even he couldn’t tell where the assailants may be hiding in such a spacious area. He drew back, not wanting to be spotted and bit the inside of his cheek as every idea he came up with fell apart.

“Sergeant Cross,” Captain Aegis Flare took his rightful command, and with it, shared his own plan, “Lead two of your swiftest and take positions at the second closest cover, just inside the cavern. Once inside, we’ll stagger our forces and piggyback off each other’s cover as we move in.” A sound plan that Amber Cross nodded her agreement to, already signalling for two ponies behind her to join up front. “Eyes up and heads on a swivel. We’ll have your flanks covered as much as we can, but don’t get careless. I’ll lead the next squad in and have the last of them stay behind to act as sentries for the tunnel. Human, you’re with me. That’s doesn’t mean that you can jump in if a fight breaks out though. You will be support for those that need to retreat or need an extra hoof in cover. Am I clear?”

Sam rolled his eyes, giving a half-hearted response, “Sure, whatever.”

The plan was set, and Amber Cross, with another earth pony and a pegasus right behind her, slipped around the corner and entered the open cavern. They moved swiftly and almost completely silently.

Sam watched as the trio leapt from one piece of cover to the next that naturally formed from the columns and other rocky outcrops of the cavern until they all settled just shy of the halfway point of the cavern’s center. Aegis Flare stretched a wing out for those behind to see. A few signals later, he ordered the conduit next to him to ‘follow’ with a whisper and took off.

Sam was tensed and ready, so he fell in right behind the captain as they took their turn to move into the cavern. Sam flicked his gaze every which way in hopes of spotting an ambush before it was too late. Yet, so far, nothing.

The captain led the way to the left, navigating between the uneven terrain and rocky spires until he, Sam, and two other ponies found spots along the left side of the cavern to take appropriate cover. With this maneuver, they were brought close enough to the worktables to see what was truly on and around them. With Sam being the closest, and having just a few seconds to spare while the other two teams moved, he snatched a few of the documents off the table with a wire, much like if he were fishing, and skimmed their contents. Sam nearly gasped in shock at what he found, and a new wave of disgust dropped into the pit of his stomach like a cold rock.

“Cappy, you need to see this,” Sam all but shoved the papers in the captain’s face.

At first, the captain was irritated that the human was trying to distract him at such a crucial time. Though, when he glimpsed the documents in front of him, the same shocked expression that the conduit made was mirrored on his face. The very first page was a dossier of some sort, with a picture of a pony that was quite familiar to the captain. The pony in question happened to be one of the more recent abductees’ reports that had found its way onto the captain’s desk in the past couple of weeks. However, in the picture, the pony was locked in a steel cage. Coat, mane, and tail dirty and unkempt. She was huddled in the corner of the cage, curling in on herself to make herself as small as possible. The pained and forlorn expression on her face was a stark contrast to that of her missing poster photos that was of a joyful filly smiling carefree at the camera and photographer that took the picture many weeks ago.

Beneath that was information about the pony, in terms of color, notable features, and cutie mark. There was more info, but only about half of it made sense to Aegis Flare. The rest of the document took special care to mention stuff like ‘photolytic exposure EXP 2; negative’, ‘gene mutation recognized as abnormality 4’, or ‘contaminate procedure C’. Yet, there was something very important that seemed to be missing from the document entirely, and that was the pony’s name. Nowhere that the captain looked seemed to hold any mention of the filly’s name, and Aegis Flare was revolted. That these assailants held the ponies they ponynapped in such low regard that they appeared to not even care who these ponies were to begin with.

Aegis Flare flipped through the other documents, but other than a train schedule in and out of Canterlot, none of them held as much impact as the first. The captain wanted to yell, buck the nearest thing to him into oblivion, anything to demonstrate his anger at this grievous disregard for pony life that he just read. He would have crumbled the papers in his hoof too, but this was something he needed to retain. The more evidence he had on these assailants when he finally captured them, the more time they could remain behind bars to pay for their atrocities. So, he folded the documents up and placed them in one of his uniform’s pouches for safe keeping.

“Human, stay here,” Aegis Flare commanded, pointing to their current cover overlooking the left-hand side of the cavern, “This is your position to defend and support from. If you’re pressured by any counterattacks, retreat back to the tunnel at the first opportunity and wait there.”

Sam looked like he had just been slapped with a wet fish and struggled to try and get a counter out for the argument.

“No ‘buts’. I am trusting you to follow my orders, human. Don’t give me a reason to think that my trust is misplaced.”

Sam begrudgingly accepted the captain’s order, if only to satisfy Ol’ Cappy’s pride. Besides, Sam had already decided that he wasn’t going to just sit on his ass when a fight finally breaks out. No, he would be one of the first to jump into the fray, no matter what the captain said. Aegis Flare, unbeknownst to him of Sam’s own plan, accepted the conduit’s acknowledgement and slipped back toward the guards, making their way to the next sets of cover halfway across the cavern.

Sam wanted to groan, but just settled on leaning back a bit from his crouched position behind cover, until something caught the corner of his eye. Shiny, metallic strands of wire cables reflected what little light there was in the cavern from underneath the worktables. Whatever they were doing here, it seemed that the wire conduit was going to get a nice top off to his flagging reserves. Sam would have shouted in glee, but kept his excitement down, as to not alert potential assailants in the cavern.

Sam shifted from his position just a bit and reached out to the spooled up cable. Wires sprang from his fingertips and linked with the spool. A wave of ecstasy washed over the conduit as he was connected with the largest source of wire he’s been in contact with since coming to Equestria. He could feel every individual strand of metal curled and twisted and ready to answer to his summons, which they did.

The wire cable uncoiled itself at Sam’s beckoning and was subsequently absorbed into the conduit’s body. The feeling of absorbing so much after so long was pure bliss, so Sam hadn’t noticed when the last of the wire smacked against one of the legs of the worktables. This in turn knocked a precariously place mug on the edge of worktable over and crashing to the ground into a shattered mess.

Everything in the cavern became silent. Sam spun around to find most of the guards looking directly at him or in his general direction with expressions ranging from scared shitless to utterly angry. All Sam could do was look back with a nervous smile on his face while mouthing the words ‘my bad’. Had any of the guards had any time to respond, they surely would have had many choice words to throw the conduit’s way. Those words would never be spoken, as a gunshot rang out, shortly followed by the pained screams of one of the guards that had been shot.

“Take cover!” Captain Aegis Flare commanded.

A few more inaccurate shots rang out, but one managed to find its mark in a guard’s leg when he did not jump away quickly enough. The air was soon filled with a flurry of concrete at the guards behind cover, keeping them pinned. Warcries that could only have come from the ambushing assailants drowned out the panicked chatter of the royal guards. All of this happened in less than a few seconds, and it seemed that the Equestrian guards would have no chance to retaliate against the barrage...

...That is, until a certain human conduit used his wires like a sling to hurl a wooden crate across the cavern. The crate may have shattered harmlessly against the assailants’ cover, but Sam wasn’t aiming to get a direct hit. With the assailants on the other side of the cavern ducking behind their own protection to avoid the splinters, Sam leapt over his cover and sprinted for the center. Shouts came from both sides to take aim for the next volley, but in that time, Sam had managed to scoop up the first pony that had been shot and dashed for the nearest cover back on the guard’s side.

“Mages,” Aegis Flare shouted over the din of the concrete, gunfire, and crossbow bolts whizzing through the air, “direct magical attacks will have little effect on these assailants! Use ranged weaponry and indirect spells for diversions!”

The impromptu change in tactics was what the guards needed in order to bring the exchange closer to a stalemate. While all this was going on, Sam was busy setting the injured pony down behind cover, alongside the captain and another guard that took shelter behind a few overturned worktables. Sam’s hands came back bloody after handling the young earth pony mare that was slowly bleeding out. The conduit blinked in surprise upon seeing that it was Amber Cross that he had pulled from the line of fire, but shook his head to regain his focus. Her breathing was erratic as the bullet had pierced through her barrel and most certainly hit a lung, and she was most definitely going into shock.

“Amber!” the other guard behind their cover cried out at seeing his fellow injured guard. He dashed to Amber Cross’ side and took her hoof, “Stay with us, Amber. We’ll get you some help. We need a medic over here!”

“Corporal! The healers are at the back of the cavern,” the captain said as he pulled the distressed guard away, “They can’t reach us with the enemies pinning us down like this.”

The woeful guard shot up and scrambled for the edge of their cover, “Then, I’ll put them down, or at the least distract them.”

The captain tackled his subordinate to the ground and turned the guard over his hooves before slapping him across the face, “Then, you’ll die trying!”

“Cappy,” Sam interrupted while working to loosen the injured Amber Cross’ armor off of her, “I can do something about this, but I need your help. Hold her down.”

Aegis Flare didn’t know where the conduit was going with this, or why he needed to take off his guard’s armor, but the serious look on his face let him know that the human was not joking around. Both the captain and the other guard hurried over to help like they were told and held their sister-in-arms down. The mare looked wildly around, not quite sure what was going on, but tried holding on to the dwindling life still her body.

Sam inspected the wound for just a moment after the last piece of armor around her barrel came off and nodded, “This is going to hurt. Like, a lot.”

Unsure of what the conduit meant, the captain and the other guard watched in horror as Sam plunged a couple of wires from his fingertips into Amber Cross’ wound. The mare seized up in a silent scream, then tried with all her might to pull away from the burning pain her side.

“What the buck are you doing?!” the captain shouted, losing his grip on the mare’s shoulder and allowing her to thrash about.

“Damn it, hold her!” Sam shouted back, “I can’t focus on getting the bullet out and healing her at the same time if she’s not restrained!”

The serious tone that was shot back shocked both the other guards enough to follow Sam’s instruction. With them both back to restraining their fellow guard, Sam went back to concentrating.

Every conduit has the bonus ability of a high regeneration factor, effectively allowing them to heal and recover their own health at an extreme rate. Some could even use their abilities to heal others by passing their own energy into those others, restoring them to good health in a matter of seconds. Sam, although able to heal others in the same way, couldn’t do that quite as effectively. Yes, he could heal, but he needed time, concentration, and the procedure wasn’t quite as painless as his friend Natie’s electric ‘remedy surge’.

“Almost… got it!” Sam cheered in triumph.

From Amber’s injury, the wires from Sam’s hand finally retracted, and with it, the crumpled remains of the bullet that was once lodged her side. Aegis Flare and the other guard watched in awe as tiny filaments from the last wire to left in Amber’s body broke away and filled in the wound til there was nothing left but a bloody patch of scarred over hide.

Amber Cross gasped in relief and soon realized that she could breathe normally again. She was still a bit woozy, but she was healed. Sam smiled at the pony he just saved and tossed the bullet in his hand over his shoulder. Wringing his hands a few times, Sam stepped past the other ponies and just behind the corner of their cover to get a peek of the action still going on in the cavern.

“Human, what are you doing now?” Aegis Flare asked.

“I told you earlier, Cappy,” Sam smirked, “You were gonna need me for this. These D.U.P. wannabes won’t know what hit them once I’m done. Just be ready to back me up.”

“Wait, human!” the captain called out, but it was too late.

Sam dove from their cover and sprinted across the cavern. He serpentined as he spied where the assailants were taking cover themselves. There appeared to be only three of them, just like the last time. Two were taking cover behind an outcrop of stalagmites in front of a set of tunnels across the cavern. The final one, a griffon by what Sam could tell, was perched near the roof and closer to the center of the cavern. His perch was a mini platform hanging from the roof, made out of concrete. In his head, Sam formulated his attack plan and jumped back into cover. The bullet wounds, concrete daggers, and other various injuries on his body that he took in the sprint were already closing up, bit by bit.

“Eat your heart out, Wolverine,” Sam muttered as the last of his wounds healed up.

Sam timed his next strike will the lull of enemy fire as they reloaded and leapt into action. His first target was the griffon’s platform. Even with the face shield, Sam could make out the griffon’s surprise for being picked first for Sam’s attack.

The wire conduit charged up some of his wire into one hand. The spiky ball of wires was then lobbed into the air and managed to arc directly onto the concrete platform above. The griffon had no time to react as the cluster of bundled wires landed on his perch. The threads of wire that poked out of the ball every which a way sprang out upon contact with the concrete. Sam’s ‘Tripwire Grenade’, as he liked to call it, only detonated when the threads that sprung out from the cluster touched another living creature. Like, for instance, a certain griffon that was too slow for a few of the metal threads to jab him in the side and causing the rest of the thing to explode. The griffon screeched as his perch crumbled along with him, but Sam didn’t stop to check on the D.U.P. armor clad assailant. Besides, these assailants were conduits as well, so one shrapnel filled ‘Tripwire Grenade’ wouldn’t be enough to kill the bastard.

Instead, Sam had his sights set on the other two assailants across the cavern that he was approaching fast. They cried out for their fallen comrade, and in doing so, neglected to keep pumping fresh lead into the wire conduit storming their position. The bullets and few stray concrete daggers hurt, but Sam pushed past the pain and fired off a couple wire shots to keep the hidden assailants at bay. Once right on top of them, Sam vaulted over the stalagmite cover to come face to face with the other two assailants. They looked familiar and soon were recognized to be the same unicorns that Sam chased back in Canterlot by the colors of their tails and ears that poked out from their armor. The two ponies were too stunned by Sam’s sudden appearance to raise their assault rifles in time before Sam attacked. A wire whip lashed out and easily struck the closest one across his helmet covered head, sending him sprawling.

“Buck! What’s the bio-terrorist doing here?!” the second managed to call out after the next round in his gun jammed.

Sam whirled on him and glared, “Kicking your ass, that’s what!”

Sam lunged for the unicorn as he tried to use the rifle as an improvised club before being getting tackled. With the unicorn in Sam’s grapple, they brawled on the ground until Sam was able to slip a few wires around his barrel and fling him out from behind their cover and into the center of the cavern.

“And that’s ‘conduit’, you horn-y bastard!” Sam called after him.

Back toward the other side of the cavern, thanks to Sam’s distraction, the royal guards were able to regroup and press their own attack against the assailants, led by Aegis Flare. It still wasn’t a completely even match, since the guards had to work in groups just to fend off one of the assailants, but at least their new tactics they trained specifically for fighting conduits definitely improved their odds from their last encounter.

Sam was busy with a one on one with the final assailant, locked in a staredown as they sized each other up. The wire conduit struck first with a swipe of his wire whip, but missed when the unicorn rolled out of the way. The unicorn retaliated once back up on his hooves with a charged blast of concrete to the human’s face. However, Sam held his ground and hissed through the pain before charging the unicorn head first. A few well placed wire shots toward the assailant’s hooves kept the unicorn from moving away, and Sam was instantly upon him. A vicious snap kick from his left winded the unicorn long enough for Sam to follow up with combo of punches to the unicorn’s helmet covered face.

One last uppercut, and the unicorn’s head snapped back, sending his helmet flying from the force. While he was still dazed, Sam used the opportunity to tie the unicorn up with a few wires and forced him up against the cavern wall by his throat with a few more metal strands.

The unicorn coughed and thrashed about to escape his confines, but Sam kept his bindings tight. Even as the unicorn tried to blast the wire conduit with concrete at the point-blank range, it was to no avail, as Sam slammed the unicorn against the cavern wall a couple times to further break his concentration. The unicorn was too stunned to do much else than gaze into Sam’s piercing glare and was overcome with a sense of fear for suddenly realizing just how outclassed his own powers were against the human’s. Behind them, the fight with the other assailants raged on, but the two were now locked in their own little bubble, where no outside distractions could reach.

“Alright, I think it’s time you start talking,” Sam said with a devious smirk on his face. His free hand rose, and a trio of wire snaked from his fingers and writhed in front of the terrified unicorn’s face before Sam continued, “Where did you get that armor? How do you have conduit powers? And lastly, where is the pony that you kidnapped?”

“W-what?” was all the unicorn could manage once Sam slackened his grip on his throat.

This earned him a quick lash across the face from Sam, which drew blood. Sam straightened the pony back up to face him once more, his anger starting to get the best of him.

“I’m only asking one more time. Why are you wearing D.U.P. armor?” Sam screamed in the pony’s face, clenching his jaw as he scowled.

The unicorn was hyperventilating, but was able to blurt out his answers, “Th-the boss made it for us! Said it would help protect against magic based attacks. He’s the one who gave us our powers too.”

‘Boss?’ Sam thought to himself, “Who is your boss?”

The unicorn bit his lip as his eyes darted between Sam’s scowling face and the writhing wires from his free hand, itching for another chance to smack the pony around. The unicorn thought about how his boss always liked to say how he preferred his identity to remain anonymous until his goal was complete, and how bad it would be for all of them if his name were to be revealed before such time. Yet with the wire conduit in front of him interrogating him, his resolve was slowly slipping away.

Then, out of nowhere, a hail of concrete daggers from Sam’s right blasted him away and made him lose his grip on the unicorn. Thanks to the momentary distraction created by the griffon known as Aras, who had slipped away from his own fight to help the unicorn being shaken down by Sam, the unicorn was able to slip out of his wire cuffs with the help of his griffon friend.

“Tango, you alright?” Aras asked as he checked over the unicorn once more.

Tango nodded, his injuries slowly healing up thanks to his conduit abilities, “Yeah, but that bio-terrorist is stronger than I thought.”

“Then, leave him to me,” Aras replied, “Go. Help Flash fend off the rest of the guards.”

“R-roger that,” Tango hastily replied and hurried to their other comrade’s side to fight off the encroaching guards.

Sam shook the surprise attack off quickly and faced off against the griffon. They stood facing each other, muscles tense in preparation to attack or defend.

“Don’t you know it’s rude to cut in on other people’s conversations?” Sam snarked, although with a more seething bite in his tone.

Aras grunted and flared his wings out, “You’re going to pay for what you did to Jet Stream, bio-terrorist.”

“Oh, I’ll show you some ‘terror’,” Sam snapped back and launched himself forward to get in close.

Aras was quick to react and beat his wings downward, clearing Sam’s headlong charge. However, Sam was swift and followed up with a few wire shots directly above him and clipped the griffon’s side. Biting back the pain, Aras retaliated with a few concrete daggers himself and hit the human’s center. The shots were weak and only made Sam flinch, so he dove off to the side to put some cover between himself and the griffon.

Aras saw what he was trying to do by leading him to chase after the him overhead in an attempt to either grapple him with wires or fire off a few more shots. So instead, the griffon landed back on the ground and drew the pistol he had strapped to his hindleg with his right claw. Quickly sneaking up on the cover from the right, Aras pounced and surprised the wire conduit from the side. Two gunshots rang out and hit Sam in the gut and one leg.

Sam was stunned, and Aras moved in with another charged blast of concrete to send him flying. Unfortunately, he was too slow in catching the condensed ball of wire leaving Sam’s hand and falling to the ground right in front of him. Metal strands sprung out, and as the griffon tried to beat his wings once more to move out of the way, the tip of his right right wing brushed up against a strand and set the grenade off.

The griffon screeched again and had to backpedal away as his body tried to heal the damage. Sam’s turn of the tables allowed him to spring back quickly and latch onto the griffon with a wire whip. With it, he swung the griffon around like a ragdoll before letting him loose and letting him fly across the cavern, hitting a few rocky columns and stalagmites on the way.

Aras staggered to all fours, shaking his head to fight off the disorientation. When he could see clearly, he noticed that the human bio-terrorist wasn’t attacking him, but assisting the guards that were having trouble with his comrades. Aras thanked the Great Eagle that the human found helping the guards more important than continuing their fight for the moment. Tango had been right in that this bio-terrorist was far stronger than they originally gave him credit for.

“Aras, I’ve collected everything I can. We’re leaving,” a clinically monotone voice called out behind the griffon, surprising him.

Turning his head after jumping from the surprise appearance, Aras came face to face with his mercenaries’ employer, Visionary Dusk. The bored looking unicorn adjusted his saddlebags as he surveyed the cavern from their position in front of the leftmost tunnel on their side of the cavern. He ‘tsked’ lightly, and Aras could see the disgust and anger in his face at having to lose his ‘precious research facility’.

The griffon made no comment of it, as he focused on finding out if the unicorn was going to say something else before he called out to his fellow mercenaries to fall back. Though it seemed that Visionary Dusk beat him to the punch, when he suddenly gasped when his eyes fell upon something in the cavern’s space.

“Aras, is that-” Visionary Dusk stuttered, not believing his eyes, “Is that the human you said you encountered in Canterlot?”

Aras spied said human swinging away from the main fight with an injured guard under his arm on a wire implanted in the ceiling. He wasn’t gone long as he quickly returned to the fight, sans the injured guard more than likely at their fall back position being looked over by their healers.

“Yes,” Aras simply answered.

The answer seemed to draw an expression from the unicorn beside him. One that Aras could only interpret as sadistic glee.

“Quick change of plans, Aras,” Visionary Dusk said whilst rummaging through his saddle bags, “I need a sample of that human.”

Aras’ brow arched behind his faceshield at the unicorn’s statement, though it seemed Visionary Dusk didn’t think what he just said was anything out of the ordinary. In fact, he had fished out a specimen jar and an empty syringe from his bags and was offering them up to the griffon with his magic for him to take.

“Doc, we can’t stay here,” Aras argued, “We’re holding our own against the guards, but this human is trouble. Plus, those shots you gave us are starting to run out. I suggest we leave as soon as we can before more problems show up.”

Visionary Dusk frowned. No, he was scowling, “In case you’ve forgotten, I don’t care what it takes to complete my research. That includes you and your little band of misfits. What I do care about is that there is a pristine new subject full of samples that I need for my research flitting about over there, and you are going to get me my samples! Do we have an understanding?”

Aras’ claws dug into the cavern floor to suppress his anger. He wanted to tear this pony apart, limb from limb, but doing so would only lead to his and the last of his mercenary groups’ deaths. So, he snatched the specimen jar and syringe out of the unicorn’s magic, biting back the scathing remarks he had for the unicorn in question.

“Fine, then,” was all Aras could say and hustled back toward the fray to accomplish his task as quickly as possible and leaving the temperamental unicorn to smile with anticipation.

Upon his return, Aras found almost half of the royal guards were missing, no doubt injured to the point of having to be evacuated from the battle. The rest didn’t look to be doing much better, though the same could be said for his fellow mercenaries. Their attacks and movements had slowed considerably, but they were at least able to fend the brunt of the attacks off.

That being said, the human was another story. If he wasn’t busy helping defend different groups of guards when they were attacked, he was picking up an injured one to whisk them away to safety. He was doing a rather good job of dealing a modest amount of damage to the unicorn mercenaries known as Tango and Arctic Flash.

Aras had to focus, for he had a task to do before he could let them know that they could retreat. Hopefully, it wouldn’t cost another one of their lives. Landing next to the two unicorns behind cover, they were immediately overcome with relief upon seeing their fellow mercenary and leader.

“Aras,” Arctic Flash, the one still with his helmet on, called out, “I’m down to two magazines for this rifle. Tango lost his from the bio-terrorist, and we’re starting to wear down after our last serum boost.”

Aras sighed, not liking what he was about to tell them, “Well then, we’re about ready to leave. All we have to do is get the Doc a ‘sample’ of the human before we go.”

Both the unicorns looked stupefied by this, which didn’t surprise Aras, but he had to get his plan together with them quickly to get this done fast.

“Here,” he tossed the specimen jar to Tango who caught it in his magic, “Flash, you’ll run diversions. Once we isolate the human from the guards, me and Tango move in to grab the Doc’s samples, and then, we’re out of here.”

The two unicorns nodded without another question and prepared themselves for Aras’ signal. The griffon was grateful that he had such loyal companions as these two in his small band of mercenaries.

They only had to wait a second more before Aras cried out, “Now!”

Flash popped up from his cover and began spraying the guards’ positions with bullets and concrete shots. In the meantime, just as Aras predicted, the human was the only one not deterred and charged in to take down their gunner. Aras and Tango sprang from their protective cover and intercepted him halfway, and the three clashed.

Wire and concrete blasted past each other until Aras and Sam met and squared off. Aras struck first this time and tried to swipe at the too close human with his claws. Sam backpedaled, which only led him being ambushed by Tango from the side with a concrete blast to the face. Sam was knocked back and disoriented, just long enough for Tango to charge up another burst of concrete, but this time shot it at the ground behind him, creating a barrier between the three of them and the rest of the battle.

“Someone better start giving me some goddamn answers, because I’ve had it just about up to here with your guys’ shit,” Sam spat out at the griffon and unicorn staring him down.

Aras and Tango didn’t stop to chat and got to work. Aras screech out a warcry and attempted to tackle the wire conduit to ground. Sam lashed out with a wire whip, which caused the griffon to withdraw, though not before Tango slipped under the conduit’s defenses and performed the tackle that his comrade was going for.

Sam tumbled back with the unicorn on top of him and narrowly avoided a kick to the head by the unicorn’s front hooves. Sam struck him with a knee to the barrel and winded the unicorn long enough to get a grip on him to throw him off. Though, not before the unicorn leaned down and caught a clump of the conduit’s hair with his teeth. The hair tore away along with a pained yell from the conduit’s throat with some choice expletives.

Sam rolled back onto his feet, clutching the spot where his hair was torn out. His palm came away not bloodied, but the burning sensation of ripped hair from his scalp was still there until his healing started kicking in.

“What the fuck, dude?!” Sam yelled out, “Who pulls another guy’s hair? This ain’t some catfight, ya’ know?”

Sam watched as the unicorn ignored him and produced a glass jar from a side pouch and spat the clump of hair into it. Sam stuck out his tongue in disgust as the unicorn screwed a cap on the jar and secured it back in his pouch.

“Okay, now that’s just creepy,” Sam muttered, trying not to think about what ponies would want to do with his hair, and hoping it was nothing to do with some kind of weird fetish.

The scene was far too distracting, and Sam missed the griffon sneaking up on him from the side before he had already pounced on him. The two were now wrestling on the ground, using everything they had to try and pin the other.

“I swear to god, if you’re after my hair, too,” Sam managed to get out between grunts.

“No,” Aras calmly said before managing to get the wire conduit in a hold from behind, “I need something else.”

The griffon reached for his pouch, and then Sam saw it: a syringe. The object made the conduit freeze in fear, his entire focus centered around nothing but the needle heading straight for him from over his shoulder. Sam couldn’t think of what to do, how he should act. All his thoughts just kept getting scrambled and lost. He didn’t want to be a labrat again. He couldn’t become one again. Yet, he was frozen in his dreaded fear for what now loomed over him.

The sounds of the world around him suddenly came back for him to hear after not realizing that there was no sound to him once the needle of the syringe pierced his shoulder. Aras began to pull back on the plunger of the syringe, and warm, life-giving blood poured into the reservoir. Too focused on his task, the griffon was too late to notice the eerie golden light by the human’s arm, nor the metal locker flying straight toward him. The heavy locker slammed into the griffon like a freight train, sending him sprawling. Aras staggered back up to all fours, shaking his head to clear his mind, thanking the Great Eagle that the syringe was still in his talons. Although, it was only filled a quarter of the way. Not quite what he had intended for. Still, it would have to do to satisfy their employer.

“Tango, we’re done,” Aras said.

A wire cable slammed into the ground by Aras’ claws, splintering the rock floor. Sam, although breathing hard and shaking in the aftereffects of his episode, looked pissed.

“Well, I’m not,” Sam said between gritted teeth.

Aras and Tango looked on in awe, for in one of the human’s hands were the normal steel colored wires that braided together into a single cable whip. In the other was something entirely different. Pale golden wires that glowed faintly were woven into some sort of pattern and projected from the palm of the human’s hand. A stalagmite somehow seemed to be suspended in the same golden light in front of the human’s hand, or more accurately, in front of the pattern that was in front of the human’s hand.

Across the room, Visionary Dusk gasped, trying to commit everything he was currently witnessing to memory so he could document the development later. This was nothing like what his reports from his bumbling mercenaries had mentioned. Either the morons hadn’t told him everything that they had witnessed this human was capable of, or this human would have made a far more interesting subject to study if he had the time.

“Tango, take the samples and go,” Aras handed the syringe over to the unicorn as he spoke, “Get Flash and yourself over to the Doc while I keep the guards and human busy.”

Tango hesitantly nodded before trying to leave, though not before a sizeable chunk of a stalagmite sailed right in front of him and smashed into the cavern wall behind them. They both looked at the human and saw that he was weaving another pattern out of the new golden wires until they glowed brighter and another chunk of the cavern flew to his hand.

“Oh no you don’t. Cappy wants to bring you guys in for questioning, but I don’t think he’ll mind a few broken bones,” Sam threatenly growled.

To Aras and Tango, the human almost looked feral. For Sam, his blood was boiling, and he wanted nothing more right now than to kick a few D.U.P.’s asses. Maybe afterwards, he would actually get around to finding the answers he originally set out to find from these assailants, but for now, he only had eyes for putting as much hurt on these scumbags as he could.

Aras knew the fight was about to pick up again, but he was running out of energy. So, this seemed like as good time as any to dip into his reserves, unlike his other comrades who had used up their serums that he gave them closer to the beginning of the battle. Thanks to his conservative use of his powers, Aras had been able to hold off on using his own that Visionary Dusk gave them. From another pouch on his uniform, Aras produced another syringe, only this one was full of the special serum that gave him and his comrades the same kind of powers as this human.

He stuck himself in the leg and pressed down on the plunger, feeling the warm liquid set fire to his veins as it spread. Soon, his whole body felt white hot for a second, and then the serum’s effects kicked in fully. Power coursed through Aras’ body and concrete swirled around him as he flexed. The shards of concrete followed Aras’ claw as he pointed toward the human and fired the wave of rocky debris. Sam had to dodge out of the way, but still got hit by a few shards.

“Go, now,” Aras said.

Tango obeyed and swiftly moved between cover to Arctic Flask’s position, where he relayed their fallback order. The two unicorns fired off all the ammo they had left in their weapons to keep the guards pinned. Any guard brave enough to peek out was either shot at with bullets or concrete shards and retreated immediately back into cover.

Aras and Sam exchanged fire after Aras’ first attack. Sam with lashings of his wire whip and anything his magic wires could pick up and throw at the griffon, while Aras continually bombarded the human with blast after blast of concrete. Each were taking on a fair bit of damage, but neither was willing to let the other stay in one spot for long or find cover to heal.

Aras took to the air on his wings, using one claw to pelt the human while his other claw charged more concrete into a condensed ball. Upon landing on the other side of the human, Aras chucked the concrete grenade in between them before the human could counter. Sam had no choice but to brace for the impact and was sent stumbling backwards from the blast. Aras saw the opening and made a break for it.

Tango and Flash were down to firing off shards of concrete at their pursuers behind their concrete covers they built in front of the leftmost tunnel on the opposite side of the cavern. Visionary Dusk, although warned by the mercenaries to duck back, couldn’t help but watch in amazement of seeing the conduit vs conduit fight that was happening before him. It was astounding to see firsthoof the so-called ‘human’ wielding a power that was unlike anything he had ever seen. And thanks to his not as moronic mercenaries, he had two sets of perfectly fresh samples that he couldn’t wait to get testing on from this new subject. Perhaps this was exactly what he would need to finally finish his life’s work and become forever known as the pony that changed the face of his world.

Aras sprinted as fast as he could across the cavern, using his wings to propel him with each stride. Sam shook off the last of the effects of the concrete grenade and looked around for where his enemy had gone. Seeing the royal guards directing all of their forces in one direction led Sam to see where his quarry had fled.

“Get back here, you asshole!” Sam yelled, giving chase.

Aras cleared the last few meters to their escape tunnel in a single bound. He was very winded, and using all of his power like that in one go was doing him no favors. Even so, he checked to make sure that both his comrades were also with him before addressing Visionary Dusk.

“Doc, we got your damn samples. Now, let’s get out of here!”

Visionary Dusk sighed heavily, having to forgo more observation of this human subject to accept that they indeed needed to leave. “Very well. Quickly then, down the tunnel. Then, I will set off the charges.”

Captain Aegis Flare watched as the unknown unicorn, followed by the other three assailants, backed their way into the tunnel behind them, returning fire whenever they could while they appeared to be trying to escape. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the human, Sam, give chase from across the cavern. He was about three quarters of the way there when Aegis Flare spotted the mystery unicorn reach for something off to the side of the tunnel with his magic. The captain gasped at what he saw in the unicorn’s grasp.

“Everypony, back!” Aegis Flare called out upon seeing the TnT plunger box, “Human, stay away from the tunnel!”

Unfortunately, Sam had either not heard him or was ignoring him. Either way, it was too late. Sam ignored whatever it was the captain was saying, choosing to focus on catching up to the assailants and the mysterious unicorn that kept giving him odd looks. Sam had noticed the device in the unicorn’s magical grasp, but couldn’t figure out why it seemed familiar. It was just a simple wooden box with a handle on top with a set of wires leading from it to the tunnels walls.

It was at that moment that Sam realized the danger. He scrambled to try and stop, however, this only ended with him stumbling over his own feet as he watched the mystery unicorn push down on the detonator. A colorful array of lights and sounds assaulted the wire conduit as he was blasted back into the cavern when the tunnel was explosively collapsed.

As the last of the rubble settled over the thoroughly blocked escape route, Aegis Flare poked his head out from his cover to assess the situation. What he inevitably saw did not comfort him. The assailants had escaped. Their escaped tunnel looked to be buried underneath enough rubble that it would take too long to clear and pursue, and the human...

“Human!” Aegis Flare sprang from his cover to check on the fallen conduit.

Sam laid crumpled on the ground, a couple of meters away from the collapsed tunnel, looking pretty worse for wear. Aegis Flare skidded to a halt just before him, worry evident in his eyes. Leaning his head down and pressing an ear to the conduit’s chest, Aegis Flare was at least relieved to hear the human’s heart beating strong. Then, the wire conduit started to cough, so the captain backed up to give him some room. Sam sat back up slowly, allowing his body to regenerate all the damage that he had taken in the final minutes of the fight.

“Well, that was fun,” Sam sarcastically scoffed as he rubbed his head to alleviate some pain.

Suddenly, his eyes lit up, and he shakily got back up to his feet. His face contorted in anger and he made for the now collapsed tunnel, though not before having his path blocked by a certain pegasus captain.

“We’re done, human,” Aegis Flare solemnly said.

Sam snorted and pushed past the captain, “It’s done when I say it’s done.”

Aegis Flare flew back in front of the conduit to block his path yet again.

“Cappy, we don’t have time for this. They’re getting away!” Sam gestured wildly toward the collapsed tunnel.

Aegis Flare landed back down on his hooves and shook his head, “We’re not going to pursue after them.”

“Yeah, sure. You guys can hang back then. I’ll take care of the rest of this,” Sam clenched his fists tighter.

“No,” Aegis Flare commanded, “That means you too, human.”

Sam narrowed his gaze on the captain, ready to do more than just push him to the side this time around.

“Think about it, human. They had that tunnel ready to collapse for their escape setup. What other traps do you think they’ve laid in advance to cover themselves the rest of the way? We have to think reasonably about not just the capture of these assailants, but the safety of the others with us. Besides, we have another purpose for being here. There are still the abductees that need to be found,” Aegis Flare explained

“I don’t care. I’m here to kick some D.U.P. ass!” Sam spat back at the captain, his face peeled back in a scowl.

“Then, what of Sergeant Amber Cross?” Aegis Flare countered, “What of the other guards that you pulled away from the battle after being wounded? Would you have me believe that you didn’t care about them? You said you snuck your way here on one of my sky chariots to help us not only to fight these assailants, but save the innocent ponies that were taken here against their will. What happened, human? Did that last blast knock all the sense out of you?”

Sam’s angry facade cracked. Natie would have said the same thing if she saw him this way. Yet, when he thought back to when that griffon was on top of him with that syringe, he shivered. It didn’t help either that they somehow had gotten their hands on D.U.P. armor and paraded around in it like they were. It made him both want to scream and whimper at the same time. It seemed that his issues with the D.U.P. were still not entirely settled.

Taking a few moments to calm himself down, he followed up with a much needed apology, “Sorry, Cappy. You’re right. I just lose my focus sometimes. I did come here to help you and save that other ponies that were abducted. Not just get some petty revenge, even if I really, really want to. Those D.U.P. wannabes, no, those assailants just keep bringing up some bad memories. Wait, that reminds me though. Is Amber ok?”

“Much better, thanks to you,” a voice suddenly spoke up from behind them.

Both Sam and Aegis Flare turned to see Amber Cross, without her armor, teetering unsteadily toward them with the help of another guard. It was Sam’s first time being able to see her without her armor, and therefore, without the armor’s color changing enchantment. Her coat shined with its misty green hue, which complimented her curly light pink mane and tail. On her flank, Sam was able to inconspicuously spy that her cutie mark was that of light brown colored ‘X’ on top of what looked like a locket. Once in front of them, she raised her hoof to salute the captain.

The captain saluted back, “At ease, Sergeant. You should be resting, if the medics have finished patching you up.”

“There wasn’t much to patch up,” Amber Cross shook her head lightly and smiled, showing off the patch on her gut from where she was shot, “Whatever the human, er, Sam did, took care of the worst of it. Just a little woozy from the blood loss.”

She turned to Sam and gave him an appreciative smile, bowing her head a bit in respect, “Thank you, Sam. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know if I would have made it.”

Sam scratched the back of his head, looking off to the side, “Yeah, no problem. It was just a gunshot wound anyways. Does this mean that the rest of those guards are alright too?”

Amber Cross nodded, “Yes. Thanks to you, we were able to avoid any fatalities. The other guards who are still recovering send you their regards.”

“That’s good to hear,” Captain Aegis Flare interrupted, “but we still have work to do. Sergeant, return to the injured and assist as needed, but don’t push yourself. Leave most of it to the medics.”

Amber Cross saluted and used the guard she came with to help return to their fallback position on the other side of the cavern. As she did that, Aegis Flare called out to the rest of the guards, half a dozen left uninjured, to rally to him.

“The assailants may have managed to evade capture, but the rest of the Geode Caverns still needs to be investigated for other possible assailants or abductees.” Aegis Flare said as he slipped back into his commanding role, “I need one pony to relay our encounter to the outside guard and get them to sweep the surrounding terrain for the assailants if they fled to the outside.”

One pony guard stepped forward, saluted, and then turned on his hooves, galloping off to accomplish his task. Leaving the rest of the guards and Sam behind with the captain.

“Right. We don’t have enough ponies to cover the rest of the tunnels at once, so we will move through each tunnel system together,” the captain said as he moved up to the second tunnel beside the caved in tunnel, “Everypony on me. That includes you too, human.”

The rest of the ponies fell in behind the captain, while Sam smirked to get his head back in the game and asked, “Finally realizing how much you need me in your life, Cappy?”

“I suppose we could always use a simple locksmith, human,” the captain retorted.

The rest of the guards, and even Sam, began to snicker at the light jab. As they began their trek into the rest of the caverns, Sam thought back to the fight. There were just so many questions that he had, and no doubt he thought that the captain may be thinking the same thing. Though for now, he would follow the captain’s lead. Perhaps they might stumble upon the answers they were looking for with everything else the assailants left behind, if that first cavern held nothing.

The Solemn Aftermath

“...And what of the abductees that you were able to rescue, Captain?” Princess Celestia asked, her features already grim from everything else that was reported to her.

“Sent to the royal infirmary, your highness,” Captain Aegis Flare replied, just as stoically as he always did, “The doctors have already given me their word that they will do everything they can.”

The princess of the sun nodded, more out of an automatic response rather than risk letting her wilting voice betray her.

It was nearly an hour before daybreak when the royal guards and a lone conduit returned to Canterlot Palace after searching the assailants’ base of operations. The captain reported directly to the princesses, who had been waiting anxiously within one of the castle’s drawing rooms to receive word on the search. They had been glad to know that their guard had suffered no fatalities, thanks to no small part to their resident human conduit, but the rest of the news that the captain brought was anything but welcoming.

After the assailants had made their escape, Aegis Flare led his guards in the search of the base. What they found was not what they had hoped for. There were two tunnels, not including the collapsed one, that led deeper in the Geode Caverns, and the Captain decided on a systematic search of them, going with the one furthest from the collapsed tunnel.

The tunnel did not delve as deep as they expected, ending at about thirty meters inward. At the end of the twisting tunnel, it expanded into another open area. This one wasn’t nearly as big as the first chamber, roughly one-third the size. The unicorns, and even Sam with his magic wire, illuminated the space with magical light to properly search the area.

Inside, it looked to be some kind of sleeping quarters, sparely furnished aside from the four cots and clothing racks. There were a few other items scattered here and there, looking more like they had been haphazardly strewn about. Among them were some toiletries, loose and most likely preened feathers, some broken glass, and a photo of a griffoness smiling at the observer.

As the guards searched, they came to realize that this was the sleeping quarters to the original four assailants who attacked Canterlot nearly a week ago. Aegis Flare looked this all over, finding it very likely that aside from the unknown unicorn that he witnessed toward the end of the battle, these four, now three, assailants were the only ones working together at this time.

With nothing else to find within the first tunnel, the guards moved on to the second. This time they did not find anything like the first. The tunnel led to another sleeping quarters, or rather, what was left of it. What wasn’t a pile of ashes was burnt or broken beyond repair. On one side were the burnt out remains of a more suitable bed rather than a cot, big enough to hold three ponies if they really snuggled together. On the other side of the room sat the splintered remnants of a once beautifully crafted work desk. Almost everything in the drawers fared no better, except for a cassette tape that miraculously only had a few scratches on it and was covered in bits of debris, having been shielded from the worst at the bottom drawer underneath a pile of now charred and illegible papers. A bookcase was the last thing to be examined by the guards. It, too, was broken and battered and lying on its side with many of the books that once adorned it now piles of ash or shredded, charred paper. A few of the books still had legible covers, but none of them really helped to explain what exactly had been going on in these caves.

With the second tunnel fully examined, it was time to work on excavating the third and final tunnel. Unicorns and earth ponies carefully extracted the rubble piece by piece, working their way to fully uncover what lie beneath. Even Sam helped out with the process, proving once again how useful he was by lifting pieces away with his wires, now looking like claws at the ends of his fingers, nearly the same size as he was. Some of the guards stood awestruck at the feat, before having to snap themselves out of it before getting back to work.

Once the tunnel was cleared enough and deemed safe to search, the pony guards and Sam tensed as they delved into the final tunnel. They knew that the assailants were unlikely to still be there, but just knowing that this tunnel was the last place they saw them put them on edge. However, the assailants were not what they found in their final investigation. In fact, what they found was much worse.

The tunnel split off into two more tunnels, so the guards and Sam decided to work from right to left again. This tunnel did not go on for too long, much like the first two, but what they encountered made even the most veteran guards of the search party feel disturbed. At the end of the tunnel was another open area, but not with a sleeping quarters, but a makeshift prison.

Cages, just big enough for a pony to shift around in, were pushed up against the walls. There were five of them in total, but only two were occupied. Ponies were their inhabitants, and not just any ponies by what Captain Aegis Flare could tell. These were two ponies from the missing ponies reports that he had been looking over for some time now. One pegasus mare and one unicorn stallion, and they looked the complete opposite to the happy and healthy looking ponies they once did on their missing posters. Even more striking were the heavy looking manacles that covered the entirety of their front hooves down from their cannons.

When the guards first entered, they at first started to whimper and push themselves as far back into their cages as they could, as if they were expecting something to happen. It took some time to reassure the abductees that the guards were there to rescue them before they calmed down. After which, the guards set about trying to get the cages open. Unfortunately, powerful enchantments guarded the locks from anything they tried to open them with. Aegis Flare then decided that it was time to make use of their living skeleton key known as Sam, but noticed something peculiar about the human just before issuing his order.

Sam stood frozen at the entrance to the room, face twisting in a grimace. His body shivering, as if he could feel an invisible chill in the air. Though it was his eyes that the captain was drawn to the most. They were wide with fear and constantly shifted about the room, but always shifting back to gaze upon one of the two ponies in the cages.

It took the captain three times to call out to Sam before the conduit realized that he was being addressed. When Aegis Flare tried questioning if Sam was okay, the conduit shakily brushed it off and got to work on unlocking the cages as Aegis Flare asked. Both the cages and manacles on the ponies were unlocked, and the ponies that were now freed and nearly broke down into tears of joy with what little energy they seemed to have. After a quick field examine, Aegis Flare ordered two of his guards to escort them out to safety. With nothing more to find in this area, Aegis Flare guided the search back down to the other tunnel.

This final tunnel was different in that it kept going into what looked like perpetual darkness, but there was a small branching path off to the left. When the guards thought they were unprepared for the room full of cages, they had not seen the worst of it yet. Just inside of the branching path was one last open area, and anyone who walked inside would immediately be drawn to its centerpiece. A metal table with an overhead lamp shining down on a pony that lay strapped down and unconscious upon it. From what they could see of the unicorn mare, blood matted the side of her foreleg from a strip of flesh that had been carved from it and dripped over the side of the examination table.

Fighting against the initial shock, Aegis Flare rushed with another guard that broke through his trance to save the pony on the table. He was at least glad to see that there was not enough blood on the floor to fear for the pony’s life, but he couldn’t relax just yet. Although as he was more focused on the task at hoof, Aegis Flare was once again surprised to see the human conduit out of the corner of his eye standing just outside of the room looking in, looking as pale as a ghost. Though before he could say anything, Sam ran off.

Aegis Flare, once ensured that the third abductee was not in danger, had asked his guards where Sam had run off to, since he was not found in the first cavern when he and his guards returned after finishing investigating the sickening lab the third abductee was in. He later found out from the guards outside the assailants’ base that the human conduit had sprinted all the way out of the cave systems and collapsed to his hands and knees, looking like he had just witnessed a nightmare made real.

“Did Sam mention why he acted in this way?” Princess Luna asked the captain after his report, already suspecting the reason.

Aegis Flare merely shook his head, “No, your highness. I questioned him on the matter, but he would not say why. Which was... odd... for him.”

“Odd?” Princess Celestia furrowed her brow in confusion.

“Usually, the human would have deflected the topic by making some inane joke or snarky remark, but this time, all he would say is ‘I don’t want to talk about it’, and do his best to hide his hands in his pockets, since they wouldn’t stop shaking,” the captain answered, “If I may speak freely, your majesties?”

Princess Celestia waved her hoof and nodded, to which the captain silently thanked.

“I’m not exactly qualified to understand or help the human with these issues he seems to have, but I can’t deny my concern for his wellbeing,” Aegis Flare noted with a troubled look on his face.

It was Princess Luna that spoke up this time to meet the captain’s words, “We know the feeling, captain. Samuel’s psychological health is a heavy matter that we, my sister and I, are doing everything we can to ease at the very least. It is a rather pleasant surprise to see you show such concern for ‘the human’s’ health though, Captain.”

“Were it not for the human’s intervention, I don’t believe our assault on the assailants’ base would have gone as well as it did. For that, he has earned my gratitude, even if he does not show proper respect where he should,” Aegis Flare countered, “Though, if I may conclude my briefing on the operation.

“I had as many able-bodied scouts as I could muster to search the perimeter of the Geode Caverns’ exterior for any signs of the assailants or clues of where they had fled while the rest of my guards prepared the sky-chariots for the return journey. Unfortunately, the search proved fruitless, and the assailants had escaped. I blame myself for this failure.”

“No, Captain,” Princess Celestia interrupted, “This operation was not a failure. At least, not in its entirety. You and your guard weeded out these dangerous elements from their base of operations, disrupted their work, and saved three innocent ponies from what was a terrible fate. If we continue as we have, it is only a matter of time before these assailants are brought to the justice they deserve.”

Aegis Flare dipped his head in a bow of acceptance, even if he still felt like he should have been able to do more. Across from him, the two princesses held a silent conversation that only they knew of what was being said before returning their attention to the royal guard captain.

“Captain Aegis Flare. Earlier, you mentioned one other pony among the assailants that bared no resemblance to any of the others that were previously encountered. A unicorn, was it?” the princess of the sun inquired, “Could you describe him?”

“Yes, your highness,” Aegis Flare answered.

The captain began his description of the unicorn, recounting every detail he could remember of the unicorn’s features that seemed to be leading the other assailants. With every new detail the good captain recited, the princess of the sun’s features grew almost unnoticeably paler. A thick knot twisted in her gut, as every word the captain spoke about the new unicorn raised her concern. Aegis Flare punctuated his description at the end with what he thought he could see of the unicorn’s cutie mark.

“It looked to be a reddish sun on the horizon of the land,” Aegis Flare recited, “one like you would see at sunrise, just after the twilight hour.”

The room fell into silence. For the captain because he had nothing else to say. For the princess of the moon who pondered on the identity of the pony that the captain just described. Though, it was the princess of the sun that seemed to drown in the silence, as she tried again and again to keep herself from letting her unease reach her face with varying success.

“Your highness?” Aegis Flare asked, sensing something was amiss.

“Thank you, Captain. For you and your guards’ work this day,” Princess Celestia said automatically, “See to it that you get the rest that you’ve earned. It is nearly daybreak, so I will make sure to appraise the day guard leaders of the events that have transpired.”

Aegis Flare frowned at not understanding what it was that had his nation’s leader so troubled, but he could see the dismissal hidden under her words and thought better of undermining his ruler’s authority. The captain of the royal guard snapped rigidly to attention, against his aching body’s protests. With a deep bow to each of his nation’s leaders, he turned away from them and made his way to the drawing room’s door. Though, not before giving one last sidelong glance in their direction from the door before closing it shut behind him.

With the captain gone, Celestia felt like she could let her emotions play out a little more in her privacy. That is, until she remembered that there was one other pony in the room and was currently looking directly at her.

“Nay, dear sister. Thou shalt not hide thy thoughts beyond the veil,” Luna eyed her sister with a serious gaze and tone, “I saw the way you shifted at the captain’s mentionings of the unicorn. You know who he is, don’t you?”

It wasn’t so much a question as a statement. A statement that told the elder sister that she would tell her sibling what she knew, or else. Celestia rose from her seat, solemnly moving to the only window in the room that overlooked the city of Canterlot. She looked past the city and out into the horizon, right where her celestial charge awaited her bidding to rise. She soon took notice of her translucent reflection in the window and the drawn-out features that stared back at her with a melancholy gaze. She inhaled deeply before letting out a deep and tired sigh.

Celestia rounded back on her sister and spoke, “Yes, I know who the pony is. I knew him for some years before your return, Luna. Though, the captain got one detail wrong. The pony’s cutie mark was not that of a rising sun, but a ‘setting’ sun.”

Luna hung on her sister’s words with bated breath, as she too stood up from her chair, waiting for the inevitable answer that Celestia was stalling to give to her question. She watched and followed her sister as she paced before the window while she continued to speak.

“He was a promising mind in many of the fields for both magic and industry. A natural prodigy that I took to and cultivated from time to time. I saw a great potential in him, just like I saw in Twilight Sparkle, many years ago. Perhaps that is where I may had failed.”

Luna became frustrated in her sister’s usual routine of prancing around the answer she wanted. That was certainly one thing she hated about today’s society. There were too many words that ponies would use to answer a single question, and her sister had adapted well to this practice, after many years in the nation’s political world. Though, before she let her anger get the best of her, Celestia finally got to point that she had been seeking.

“His name... is Visionary Dusk. Like I have said before, he was a promising academic and somepony that I hoped would have benefitted Equestria and her ponies.” Celestia’s head dipped and her ears drooped back as she remembered this pony, “He had such aspirations to change the way we looked at the world. Even I was amazed and inspired by his theories that he proposed, no matter how fanciful they seemed. He was even made one of Equestia’s Grand Mages of the highest order at the mere age of twenty.”

Luna looked on in curiosity at the praise that her sister was bestowing on this one pony, the likes of which she had only seen her do with her current pupil, Twilight Sparkle. If this unicorn, Visionary Dusk, was such a promising mind, why did her sister seem so distraught over him? And more importantly, why was this pony leading a group of assailants that bared such ill-will toward their nation and her ponies?

“I had to banish him, Luna,” Celestia answered the unspoken question, “You see, Visionary Dusk proposed that ponies and all sentient life of Equues were on the cusp of a new stage of evolution. He believed that we had reached a point in our time that nature was ready to take its course, and thrust new life into the chain. However, he also believed that there was something holding all sentient life back from this new evolutionary step. Like a barrier in the way, keeping us from obtaining this stage.”

Celestia’s features deepened as more of her story went on.

“Nopony saw it until it was too late. Many of his fellow mages whispered about how Visionary Dusk was becoming desperate in his research into this new evolution. To the point where some said he was becoming... obsessed,” Celestia held back the tears that misted her eyes, “Then, one of the Grand Mages went missing.

“Nopony knew where he had gone, but he did not simply disappear. The search went on for a full week, but no leads had arisen. That is, until another pony in Canterlot also disappeared. A young filly, only sixteen years, and her family had no idea where she had gone. She was supposed to have been on her way back from Canterlot’s Higher Education Academy, but when she never returned home, her family reported her missing.

“In both cases, the last pony that the two had been seen with was Visionary Dusk. When confronted, Visionary Dusk had stated that he had been too busy working on his research, but too many other witnesses stated otherwise. The Royal Guard investigated Visionary Dusk’s whereabouts extensively and presented some disturbing findings to me. Visionary Dusk had been secretly using an older research lab that had been condemned in the lower ring of Canterlot. When the Royal Guard had raided the lab, they found not only Visionary Dusk, but the other two ponies as well… dead.”

Luna gasped in shock, though Celestia wasn’t done yet.

“They had been cut apart, dissected. All manner of medical equipment and research papers were strewn about the lab, and at the center of it all was Visionary Dusk, with their blood on his hooves. He was arrested for their murders, but when he was put to trial, he denied that he killed them. Rather, that they were necessary sacrifices for his research and the world’s evolution. He believed so fully that what he was doing was for the benefit of all of Eques, that those ponies lives were nothing more than a stepping stone to his research. So much so that when the order to destroy all the research was given, he fought back and severely injured over half a dozen guards before being subdued.”

The Princess of the Night was taken aback, practically appalled, by this unicorn that her sister described. A pony that saw others as merely tools for his own selfish desires, and what a selfish desire it was if all he wanted was to prove his beliefs to be true.

Celestia tore her sister from her thoughts as she reached the conclusion of her story, “The families of the ponies that had been lost called for Dusk’s execution. They demanded his blood for their own, but I did not allow it.”

“W-what?” Luna gasped out in surprise, galloping up to try and meet her sister’s wandering eyes and shouting, “Sister, even you could not deny that this pony, this criminal, deserved a just end. Why stay thy blade?”

“Because, Luna!” Celestia shouted back before reigning in her emotions, “Those ponies that had just lost their loved ones and were only seeking revenge. I try everyday to steer my ponies away from making a mistake like that, to only seek bloodshed for bloodshed. There is no peace in that.”

Luna scoffed, “Tia, you can’t honestly say that a pony like this didn’t deserve his end for what he’s done. Unless...after all that time, you still felt guilty over my imprisonment?”

Celestia’s jaw clenched unconsciously at the accusation. Luna noticed the reaction and was given her answer. She wanted to scream at her sister’s ignorance. After all that time to reflect, her sister still solely blamed herself for her own actions. She was supposed to be the wiser one, the one that had time to grow and learn.

Luna stamped her hoof on the ground as she exclaimed, “My debt had been paid for my actions, sister, and so had yours so long ago! Why is it that you thought that you had to keep punishing thyself for my actions?!”

“Because I was also to blame, Luna!” Celestia shouted back.

“No, you were not!” the Princess of the Night huffed before taking a more steadying breath to speak, “I thought we had been over this, Tia. I was the one that wanted to plunge the world into an eternal night. I’m the one who stole the elements of harmony and used their magic, nearly corrupting them, to set my plan into motion. You were the only one who could stop me and you did it with the only way possible. Nightma-my other self, would have cursed your name to the pits of Tartarus, but I can only be thankful that you had the strength to do what had to be done for the sake of Equestria and the rest of the world.

“It might not have been what either of us wanted, but we know it was the right thing to do. The same can be said for here as well. Yet, knowing what this pony had done and was capable of, you let him go?”

Celestia rounded on her sister, trying to look angry, but at the same time, couldn’t deny her own sister’s words. Throughout her thousand-year rule alone, the Princess of the Sun had made more mistakes than she cared to admit. It was only thanks to her unwavering will to fix them, and a bit of luck, that her nation grew under her rule. Executions were especially hard on her, because everytime she saw a pony ready to be sentenced to death, she couldn’t help but imagine her lost sister in their place if her actions the day that she banished her did not go the way it did.

Sure, some of these ponies on death row were wholly irredeemable and would not hesitate to commit the same crimes that put them there in the first place, but Celestia wondered if they were given another option, would they have somehow changed for the better? Much like how she hoped her sister did when she returned from her thousand-year banishment?

Visionary Dusk was not the first pony that she had offered such an option to. Though, all who were banished from the Equestrian territories had never returned or were never heard from again. She saw Visionary Dusk and his brilliance and thought that if he was given time to reflect on his actions, he would find some way to redeem himself, even if he was not allowed to return to his birthplace. Maybe she had been too merciful, but that didn’t matter in that this was just another mistake that she now had to live with and hopefully fix.

Celestia let out a deep and tired sigh, not just from having been woken up in the middle of the night, but from the countless years of the weight on her shoulders that she had to carry even to this day. She looked up at her sister and looked her in the eye. Neither had to say anything, as they both understood what the other was thinking in that moment. It was time for the elder sister to try and let go of this weight. Maybe not all at once, but possibly to start with the mistake of always blaming only herself for that fateful day over a millennium ago. From there, she could start to think a bit more clearly, but only time would tell.

Luna caught her sister’s attention by placing a protective wing around her older sibling's body and spoke, “Tia, remember what mother used to say? Especially when we would break something in the castle when we were foals?”

Celestia leaned onto her sister, her lip curling up in a faint smile, “You can never really fix the past, only try to do better in the future. Thank you, Lulu. Though, I must be off. The Day Guard leaders need to be briefed, and Day Court will need to be opened soon after.”

Before the solar princess could pull away to stand up, she was surprised when Luna held her back with a firm tug of her wing.

“Nay, sister. You still look exhausted from last night. You should; how do you say it, ‘catch up on your sleep?’. I do not mind staying awake for a few more hours to complete your morning tasks. However, when you do arise from your slumber, I think it is about time that we address to the general public about everything that has transpired and correct any misgivings that they may have, yes?”

Luna was right. The ponies of Equestria were scared, and without any official statements from their beloved princesses, the newspaper outlets speculated wildly left and right on what everything that has happened in nearly the past two weeks means. So, hesitant at first, Celestia allowed her sister’s words to sway her tired mind and bayed her sister farewell.

As her older sister left to sleep in the rest of the morning, Luna soon followed out of the drawing room to take on the tasks she set before her. The guards would be easy enough to deal with, as the report that Captain Aegis Flare had given them would just have to be reiterated to the rest of the guards so they may begin their investigation with this new information. Day court would be manageable, so long as Luna didn’t have to deal with too many ‘stuck-up’ nobles, but the final task is what worried her. Public speaking was not her strong suit, but if she at least planned it to take place later in the afternoon, that would give her sister enough time to rest up and return to aid her when the time comes.

--o0o--

Twilight galloped through the castle at a breakneck pace. Bobbing and weaving between the morning guards’ patrols and castle staff while spouting off apologizes in her wake. She hadn’t realized that she had fallen asleep the previous night until she woke up the following morning.

When she had woken up, she found that she was back in her old room in the castle and her friends, Pinkie Pie and Rarity, had been set on another bed across from her, curled up together in their sleep. At first, Twilight couldn’t remember how she and her friends had gotten there, but when the events of the previous night started to return, her heart leapt up into her throat.

After Pinkie had told them of what happened to her last night, Sam had vanished from the castle, presumably to go after the assailants that abducted another pony. The castle guards were whipped into a frenzy to both hunt down the missing human conduit and prepare to track down the assailants once the scouts had reported back. In the meantime, Twilight stayed behind with Rarity to do all she could to comfort her distraught friend. All the while, another part of her mind lingered on her other friend, Sam, who had undoubtedly fled the castle to hunt down the assailants on his own.

At first, Twilight reassured herself that the guards would find Sam and convince him to return to the castle and let the guards handle the ordeal. Though after the first few hours, and no sign of his return, Twilight’s anxiety redoubled. It was only thanks to her mentor, Princess Celestia, as she came to check on the three ponies that Twilight was kept from worrying herself into a panic attack. Twilight bombarded the solar princess with question after question of what was going on, but Princess Celestia cut her off and helped to ease a bit of Twilight and the other mares’ worries with reassurances that the Royal Guard was doing everything within their power to settle both issues.

All three of the ponies looked a little bit better after hearing these words, but that didn’t settle their fears entirely. Yet, with everything that had gone on, none of them could deny that the lack of sleep and stress was starting to affect them. The princess had tried to convince them to get some sleep, but the first to refuse was Twilight, saying that she couldn’t sleep without knowing her human friend was safely back in the castle. Pinkie followed up that she too couldn’t sleep without knowing the same, but Rarity and Twilight could hear the waver in her voice. What she had been put through and seen was still affecting her.

So, all three of them agreed to remain awake until they knew everypony and human was safe. Princess Celestia admired their devotion and allowed this condition, although it didn’t take much longer before everything caught up with the young mares, and one by one, they each fell asleep. This allowed the princess of the sun to move the sleeping ponies to Twilight’s room and tuck them into bed.

After waking up and remembering the previous night, Twilight pounced from her bed to find the nearest guard to tell her of what happened. Luckily, there was one just outside her room to provide her with just that. When she was told that Sam had returned with the guards after assaulting the assailants’ base, she sped off without even taking a single stroke of a brush through her messy mane or coat.

Twilight bounded around the last corner to the castle guest suites, panting heavily. Sweat poured through the fur on her face, but she didn’t care. She only cared about the suite that had a set of guards standing in front of it. The guards instantly recognized the disheveled mare coming up to them and allowed her access to the suite’s door.

“Sam? Sam?! Are you in there?!” Twilight pounded on the door as she half yelled between pants for air.

The guards were about to ask if Twilight was ok, when the suite’s door slowly swung open. Just beyond stood the familiar looking human that Twilight had been looking for.

“Hey, Sparks. I-woah!” Sam couldn’t finish his sentence as Twilight threw herself at the conduit and started to cry.

The force of the sudden tackle nearly knocked him off his feet, but he was able to catch himself and Twilight after being pushed halfway into his room. Afterwards, Sam could only stand there and stroke Twilight’s mane while she let out her pent up emotions.

“You idiot!” Twilight sudden threw herself off the human to glare at him with a livid gaze, “How could you have done that?! You’re strong, I know that. You fought those assailants before, but chasing after them? Alone?! What were you...Sam, a-are you okay?”

Although Twilight had her tirade ready to unleash on the reckless conduit, once she was able to see past her anger and get a good look at him, she noticed something. He looked exhausted, like he hardly even slept at all. His clothes were covered in dirt and were in need of a wash, much like the human himself. Though there was something else beyond the heavy, dark bags under his eyes too once Twilight refocused on those strikingly dark colored orbs. Sam didn’t just look tired, he looked...dejected.

Sam rubbed his face with his hand, following up with pinching the bridge of nose as he spoke, “I’m fine, Sparks. Just tired.”

Twilight wasn’t the most adept at perceiving hidden truths, but even she could see that Sam was lying. Her earlier anger was all but forgotten, now replaced with worry for one of her friends, and she wasn’t about to let him suffer alone.

“Sam, you don’t look okay. What happened last night?” Twilight pressed on.

Twilight watched as Sam did everything he could to avoid looking her in the eye directly, and his hands started to shake until he hid them in his pockets.

“The guards and I found the wannabes’ hideout,” Sam explained, “We beat them, but they slipped away.”

Twilight waited for more, but when the silence continued, she found herself a little disappointed. It was unusual to hear her human friend explain something so concisely. She had expected him to slip some kind of joke in between or fluff it up to make the fight sound more epic. This was really starting to worry her.

“Sam, it sounds like there was something else. What else happened?” Twilight asked again, hoping to persist.

Sam turned away to stare idly at nothing, “It’s fine, Sparks. I’m fine.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Twilight, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Twilight gasped. Sam only used her real name when he was being serious. Yet, she couldn’t just stand to see another one of her friends like this, especially after Pinkie.

“Sam, please. We were worried about you. I was worried about you, and I still am.” Twilight continued to plead, cautiously moving to place herself in front of Sam, “No matter what it is or what you say, I won’t judge you. You’re my friend, and friends don’t let their friends feel alone or scared.”

Sam inhaled and exhaled slowly a few times as he thought. Twilight waited, hoping her words got through, and after a few more moments, Sam turned to face Twilight directly. Twilight saw the dejected look on his face staring back at her and tried to look as sympathetic as she could in return.

Sam sighed heavily and gave Twilight a faint smile of appreciation. Twilight sat down on her haunches and listened to Sam while he paced anxiously as he told her what they found after the fight. The cages with ponies, the notes on the experimentation, and then the medical lab. He even managed to share why this all upset him, if just a little bit by saying ‘I know what they’ve been through’. Sam did omit a few details, only because as he kept going, he could see that Twilight was looking very pale. Neither did he want to relive those thoughts as well by speaking them out loud and possibly leading himself down another, darker train of thought.

Twilight listened the entire time, even if she wanted Sam to stop so she wouldn’t have to hear anymore. She couldn’t believe that somepony would treat another so cruelly. As Sam concluded with his and the guards return to Canterlot, he plopped himself down on his bed, unsure if he felt better about talking about this with someone he trusted. Twilight continued to sit across from him on the floor, processing everything she heard. Once more time had passed in silence, Twilight stood up and walked over to Sam and placed a comforting forehoof on his arm.

“Sam,” Twilight began, hoping that her words would be enough, “I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier. You’re not an idiot. You saved those ponies from having to suffer and pushed those assailants back. That was incredibly brave and selfless of you. I’m also sorry that these assailants remind you so much of your own life.”

“Sparks, that’s not something you should be sorry for,” Sam spoke up.

“I suppose,” Twilight accepted, “I just thought you’d want to hear it. Like I said, you saved those ponies, right? Nopony, or anyone, should of had to be put through something like that. You put yourself at risk for others, just like that time in the throne room. I honestly wish I could be as strong as you to have faced all that by myself.”

Sam chuckled under his breath, “That’s just it, Sparks. Neither could I.”

Twilight tilted her head, but Sam stopped her before she could ask the obvious.

“I’m strong, clever, and have a great sense of humor, but if it weren’t for my friends, both back in my world and here, I don’t think I could have made it this far.”

Twilight took these last words in, and a smile began to grow on her face, “Well, I’m glad that you have made it this far. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have made such a great friend like you, even if your sense of humor still needs some work.”

Sam’s smile grew to match Twilight’s, and they shared a small laugh. Though, Sam suddenly got a worried look on his face himself.

“Sparks, um, is Pinkie doing any better? I know she was really upset last night, and I never got a chance to check up on her when I got back.”

Twilight bit the inside of her cheek at Sam’s question. Pinkie still seemed unlike her happy-go-lucky self from the time she remembered being awake the previous night, and she, Rarity, and Twilight had only grown more distraught upon Sam’s disappearance. Yet, Twilight was unsure of the pink mare’s feelings, since she was not awake when Twilight left to find Sam. Though seeing the hopeful look on Sam’s face, Twilight could only do one thing.

“She’s...doing better,” Twilight lied, even though she didn’t know if this actually was a lie or not, “She and Rarity were still asleep when I came to find you, but she seemed to fall asleep a little easier last night once princess Luna told us that she already had the guards tracking down the assailants and you.”

Sam breathed a sigh of relief, as did Twilight for Sam buying her story.

Sam was about to scratch Twilight behind the ears, but pulled his hand back and spoke, “Thanks, Sparks. I know they probably want to see it themselves, but can you tell them that I’ll be around to apologize to them later? I could really use a nap right about now.”

Twilight could see that Sam was doing everything he could just to stay awake at that moment. She realized that even if she hadn’t slept all that much the previous night, Sam had been up longer than she had.

Twilight hopped away from the bed and nodded in understanding, “Of course. I’ll make sure that Pinkie and Rarity are around when you’re awake.”

Sam could only give a grunt in response as he finally let his mind find some peace after talking with his friend. From the door to the suite, Twilight watched as Sam flopped back on the bed, not bothering with covers, and soon heard light snoring arising from the human. With that, she gently closed the door to allow her human friend some time to rest and go check up on her other friends that she neglected that morning.

Author's Notes:

God, what is up with me and not getting these chapters out faster?...Alexa, that was a question for you.

You had over a dozen appointments throughout the month and another work related trip that took over a week before you could return.

Crap, that's right...still that's not really an excuse. I lust wish I had more time to just sit down and write without constant distractions or worries. Maybe I can work something out in the future, but for now, I'm just gonna have to make due and hope for the best. Because I still have more work IRL coming up soon that will demand a significant amount of my attention.

Editor: Regreme for whom I am eternally grateful for having the patience to wait out my draft updates

Be sure to leave some feedback if you'd like, I'm always welcome to constructive criticism

There Is No Spell to Make Good-Byes Easy

Author's Notes:

'So I'll just say that I'll see you later'

Ho boy. So I'll admit that I lost my interest in writing this (any basically anything else) for quite a while. I can't say what really started all that, but once that happened I just hated not working this. Which then led into hating myself for not continuing on with the story. I tried multiple times just to sit myself down and force myself to write, but that wasn't working. So I just dropped it altogether for a while. Once I had some time to gradually pick it back up. I soon remembered why I loved writing this in the first place. Not to meet some imaginary deadline I put on myself, or to gain a whole bunch of interweb fames (Although it is nice to be noticed), but just because I like to invent fun stories and let them evolve in my head until I think that it would be just as fun to write them down and share. So, I'm sorry for the delay and hope any of you who enjoy the story as much as I enjoy creating it will continue to still around til the end.

Thanks Regreme for proofreading and editing, and not giving up on me

Sam licked his forefinger and thumb and noisily turned the page of the newspaper he was reading from, this being the fourth paper he was reading from a stack that was brought up to Twilight’s lab earlier that day. A pink, poofy-haired pony lazily leaned over the conduit’s shoulder from atop the desk he was leaning on and read along, although she was mostly just waiting for him to turn to the funnies while she skimmed. Twilight, who tried to ignore the noisy affair, was pouring over her latest notes on interplanetary teleportation theories.

Sam sighed, shaking his head after skimming the last article in his newspaper, “I seriously don’t get it.”

Pinkie nuzzled up closer to Sam’s cheek and asked, “What about, Sammy?”

“This nickname they’re calling me by. The ‘Wire Wraith’?” Sam said, punctuating his comment with a tap from the back of hand to the newspaper, “I mean, why couldn’t it have been something cool like… ‘Wire-fray’ or something like that?”

Twilight, who had been listening in the whole time, turned to face the conduit with a confused tilt of her head.

“Why would you want to be called that?” the purple unicorn asked.

Sam shrugged and put on a witty smile, “Eh, sounded pretty cool to me, and you know... I got wire powers. Plus, I like to live life on the edge, and I’m pretty good in a fight.”

Sam’s smile drooped as the purple unicorn just continued to stare back at him with an even more confused look.

“Ugh, give me a break. I’m terrible when it comes to making up names,” Sam groaned, folding up the newspaper and setting it aside.

“Ah~, they’re not that bad, Sammy,” Pinkie tried reassuring the conduit, “They just don’t have the same pizzaz! Oh! Oh! What if we called you ‘The Wondrous Wire’?”

Sam sputtered in laughter, “Pinkie, that sounds terrible! No, wait, how about ‘Sam: The Wire Man’?”

“Captain Wire!” Pinkie shouted between fits of snorting giggles.

Both the human and pink pony broke down into hysterical laughter as they continued to come up with even more ridiculous and over-the-top nicknames. Beside them, Twilight was just glad to see her two friends were practically back to their usual selves after the events of a few days ago.

Pinkie had seemed so distressed after the abduction she witnessed. Even more so than the time that she thought Gummy, her pet alligator, had run away. Sam, on the other hoof, hardly spoke a word to anyone, even to her. He’d just do the work that she assigned him, and not much else.

It was thanks to Rarity that the two soon started to get better. She offered that the two get together and just talk. So, Twilight brought Sam, while Rarity gathered up Pinkie, and they all sat down to eat a quiet and relaxing dinner. It was quiet at first, the only sounds coming from the scraping of silverware while they ate. At another prompt from Rarity, Pinkie worked up the energy to tell one of her jokes. Even if she didn’t put too much effort into it, it was enough to get the human conduit to chuckle under his breath. This, in turn, got the rest of the mares to perk up, especially Pinkie.

The pink pony offered another joke, and Sam’s smile and chuckle grew. Twilight watched in amazement as Rarity’s plan began to work. She knew that Pinkie enjoyed making others smile and enjoy themselves, and Sam... well, Sam just needed some company and a distraction.

Soon, the tables had turned as Sam offered to tell his own joke. Pinkie and Rarity waited as Twilight braced herself for what was coming. True to form, Sam’s style of humor was vulgar, raunchy, and served with a bit of a dark side. Rarity expectantly did not take to it quite as well, while Twilight just rolled her eyes with a small smirk on her face. Pinkie was the exception, for as the punchline settled in, she snorted with uplifting laughter.

After that, the two seemed to become more open and started trading stories about their lives. Both Pinkie and Sam talked throughout the rest of the day, whether about themselves or about nothing in particular. Both of them seemed to thrive in each other’s presence and were looking like they were getting better with each passing hour. Twilight and Rarity watched as the two became friends nearly overnight. The next day was the same way, as the two stayed fairly close to each other and revelled in each other’s company. .

Then, the princesses pulled a curveball. They came to Sam with some unexpected news. That being that he was to appear with them before Equestria’s biggest news outlets for a press conference for his ‘official Earth Ambassador Welcoming’.

Sam groaned at the prospect of sitting around for possibly hours on end, answering questions from a bunch of journalist hacks. Though, at the princesses’ insistence, and clever word choices, Sam begrudgingly agreed to the interview. It wasn’t too bad from what Twilight saw. Plus, she thought the rest of Equestria had the right to know that Sam was a good person and not part of some alien invasion like the tabloids raved on about.

The only time that the press conference seemed to throw the human conduit off guard was when a random reporter decided to ask about his involvement with the assailants that had attacked the city over a week ago. Sam had frozen after that question, looking like a deer trapped in the headlights, but thanks to the princesses’ quick rebuttal, the crowd of ponies were reassured that Sam was no ally to them.

After that though, the questions from the reporters turned from Sam to the situation with the assailants. Luckily, the princesses had prepared for this, too. The ponies were assured that the royal guard were devoting every resource they had into the investigation. Warrants were officiated by the princesses themselves, and the name of their leader was announced. Even Sam’s exploits in combating these threats were mentioned in a minor comment to further push the public opinion in his favor. By the time the press conference was over, Sam, Twilight, and princesses were fatigued and retreated back to the castle for some much needed rest, while the presses of Equestria catalogued and produced their stories for the rest of the nation to see.

Over the next two days, Sam worked with Twilight regularly, and with renewed enthusiasm, with encouragement from his new friend, Pinkie Pie. Like Twilight said, it was good to see her two friends getting back to their usual selves and having fun together, even if their ‘fun’ got them into trouble with the royal guard, and Captain Aegis Flare in particular, from time to time.

“Ahem,” Twilight cleared her throat to get her two chuckling friends’ attention, “Ok, Sam. It’s ten-fifteen.”

“Aaah, but I was already having fun over here,” Sam mockingly pouted.

“Yeah, Sparks. Sammy and I were really onto something with that last name,” Pinkie joined in.

Twilight huffed in annoyance, seeing as Pinkie had picked up the annoying nickname that Sam had picked out for her. Through sheer force of will, and a quick breathing exercise, Twilight refocused her thoughts.

“Sam, Pinkie and Rarity are leaving for the train station as soon as Rarity finishes packing. Plus, it was your idea to want to practice until she’s done,” the purple unicorn logically pointed out.

Sam threw his arms up in an exaggeratedly defeated fashion while he theatrically hammed up his response, “Oh, the humanity! What unfairness has befallen me to have such a callous educator~! Heh, anywho. You stay right there, Pinkie, cause you got yourself a front row ticket to the show.”

Pinkie plopped herself on the desk on her rump and clapped her hooves wildly. She hooted and hollered, like she was at a performance on Broadway, while Sam bowed theatrically to the invisible audience on either side of the pink pony. Twilight sighed and rolled her eyes again, clearing off to the other corner of the room the give Sam his needed space.

Sam stretched and bounced around a bit to get loosened up, followed by a quick session of cracking his knuckles, shoulders, and neck. He turned on his heel to face the purple unicorn and nodded that he was ready.

“Alright,” Twilight said, clipboard in her magical grasp, “Today is just a quick review of the spells you’ve learned proficiently, and-”

“Hey, Sparks,” Sam interrupted, much to Twilight’s chagrin, “instead of that, why not teach me something new, like I don’t know... a teleportation spell?”

Twilight nearly dropped her clipboard in surprise, and she frantically replied, “Sam! A teleportation spell is one of the highest level spells a unicorn can learn and is extremely dangerous. You’re not ready for that!”

Sam pursed his lips in the corner of his mouth and let out a sound akin to a ‘pfft’ dismissively. Twilight was arguably ruffled by Sam lack of concern, but the human beat her to the rebuttal.

“Come on, Sparks. You’ve said it yourself. ‘I’ve been learning most of the spells you’ve been teaching me quite proficiently in a very short time’.”

Twilight shook her head, “Yes, but that is most of the spells, and some of the times, the spell has backfired on you.”

“Not the first time I’ve been blown up,” Sam waved off.

“Yes, but teleportation is on a whole other level from the spells I’ve been teaching you!”

Pinkie watched the back and forth from the side with a tub of freshly popped popcorn and a soda. Sam ignored the physical impossibility, a feat he was getting much better at, to focus on his own task at hand.

“Listen, Sam,” Twilight continued, “learning to teleport is no joke. It took me over three years to learn it, and another three to master. It’s also one of the most dangerous spells to perform, and if not executed properly, it can seriously injure the user or any other bystanders. You’re basically ripping a hole between the ethereal ley lines of the world!”

“That sounds badass!” Sam clapped, softly pondering his next thought, “That might actually make a kickass metal band name too; ‘Ethereal Ley Lines’.”

Twilight stomped her hoof and glared at Sam, “You’re not listening to me! If you don’t perform the spell exactly as it needs to be, you could cause the hole to become unstable! If that happens, you risk losing something in the event horizon, and I’m not talking about your shirt. Incidents range from severed tails, ears, actual chunks of a pony’s hide, or worse! I cannot, and will not, teach you anything about teleportation until I feel you’ve mastered at least twenty of the intermediate level spells. Are we clear?”

“Uuuuuuugggghhhhhh, fine,” Sam relented, knowing that Twilight would just continue into a lecture about all the little faults and dangers if he kept pushing, “but when are you gonna teach me any of the master level spells anyways?”

Twilight smirked and tapped her clipboard with a quill, “When I feel you’re ready.”

Sam groaned once more, avoiding Twilight’s smart grin. After that, Sam was more than eager to practice his spells just to not get bored again. Luckily, Twilight was feeling the same way and reached for the desk behind her with her magic. Probing momentarily, she found what she was looking for and telekinetically tossed the bundle of thaumium wire to the conduit.

“Alright, first is the illumination spell,” Twilight called out, “No more than fifty lumens, please.”

Sam snickered at remembering his first attempt at the spell as he caught the spool of wire out of the air. He unwound the end of the wire from the spool and absorbed the material with ease until it was all gone.

“What? You didn’t like the light show last time? Literally, the world’s first ‘thaumium rave party’, and the bookworm is unimpressed,” Sam protested, working a few strands into the correct spell matrix pattern.

“Yes, because everypony wants to be blind for the next hour after you supersize the spell matrix,” Twilight retorted sarcastically.

Pinkie obnoxiously slurped from her soda before cutting in, “That’s why you always bring sunglasses to a party, Twilight. You never know when somepony is going to bust out a light show to turn it into a rave ”

“Yeah. Always gotta expect the unexpected, Sparks,” Sam added.

Twilight tsked, not wanting to get sucked in any further to the idiocracy. At the same time, Sam had just put the finishing touches on the first wire matrix, and the whole thing began to glow brilliantly. Sam marveled at how the spell looked somewhat like the outline of a lightbulb, only with just more of a circle with the filament looping around itself from one side of the circle to the other. While not being too bright in the sunlight filled room, the ponies and human could still tell that it would adequately light the room if the sun was not out.

“Good job, Sam,” Twilight complemented, marking her clipboard, “Now, for a levitation spell. Use this rubber ball as your target.”

The unicorn held up a simple red, rubber ball in her magic out in front of her that she picked up from the table behind her. Sam disassembled his ‘light spell’ and reabsorbed the wires before summoning more to make the new matrix pattern. This spell was also considerably easy, as all he had to do was was create a circle from the palm of his hand, then carefully draw an equilateral triangle within it. He knew he did it right when he pointed the pattern in the rubber ball’s direction, and it flew out of Twilight’s lavender magical grip and into his own pale-golden one. The ball stayed perfectly still, always hovering a mere inch in front of the levitation pattern, no matter which way he turned his hand with the pattern.

Sam got a devious smile on his face and turned to Pinkie, “Hey, Pinkie. You done with that popcorn?”

Pinkie’s eyes lit up knowingly and dumped the half full tub of popcorn down her gullet before nodding, “I am now!”

Sam took a lower stance for balance and stretched his spell arm out just above the pink pony’s head. Twilight saw it coming too late and didn’t have enough time to cry out.

“Pull!” Sam signalled.

Pinkie tossed the now empty tub of popcorn up into the air, and half a second later, Sam crushed the spell matrix. The rubber ball shot off and sped across the room, nailing it’s target. The tub flipped through the air as it came back down, now with the rubber ball perfectly wedged inside the opening. Twilight was slacked jawed at what she just saw, while the conduit and pink pony hollered and jumped around.

“Did you see that?!” Sam cheered and ran up to the pink pony.

“You know it!” Pinkie cheered back, bumping her hoof against the conduit’s fist as he passed by, “You got it right in the hole!”

“I didn’t even try that! Damn, I wish I got that on camera.”

While the two celebrated, Twilight just marked another part of her clipboard while trying not to be too annoyed. She also, picked up the popcorn tub and pulled the ball out so they could move on...hopefully.

“Yes. Yes, that was a good shot. Now, can we get back to work?” Twilight called out.

Twilight watched as Pinkie whispered into Sam’s ear while looking at her, and they both shared another, short laugh. No doubt at her expense, but at least the human conduit bounded back over to his place in the room to continue his practice.

“Alright, next up is... the illusion spell,” Twilight read after consulting her list, “Remember to keep the image of what you’re conjuring in your head. The clearer the image, the more effective the spell.”

“Got it, Sparks,” Sam called, already weaving the pattern needed for the spell.

Like all of his other wire spells, Sam’s magic always worked out a little differently than that of how unicorns executed their spells. For this one, unicorns created images and nonexistent replicas of objects with their magic and projected them for all to see, useful for when you want to show someone else essentially what you’re trying to describe and can’t remember the name for.

Although, Sam could think of a couple of good ways he could use this trick in combat. Like for instance, since the images that project from his patterns seem to stay fixed to above the pattern, like a video game hologram. His thoughts came down to using them as little distraction tools for covert infiltrations, especially since once the image was being projected, he could place the spell pattern anywhere he wanted and not worry about the wire burning out for at least another minute or so. Of course, if he wanted the image to look bigger, he needed to make a bigger pattern. He shrugged that minor detail off as he finished the pattern and waited for the image to come alive.

Both Pinkie and Twilight were surprised at what they saw at first. It was a cartoonish portrayal of Twilight’s face. Only, its eyes were crossed, and its tongue stuck out the side of its mouth in a goofy fashion. Sam smirked before putting the projection up in front of him to cover his own face like a mask.

“Hello, everypony! My name is Twilight Sparkle,” Sam said to give the projection a mocking imitation of the purple mare, “I like books and reading and being an all around stick in the mud! Sam, cut that out and start taking your lessons seriously, like me! Magic is seriously serious business, don’t you know?”

Pinkie was laughing so hard that she rolled completely off her perch on the table across the room. The small tumble did little to reduce the pink pony’s fits of laughter, while Twilight on the other hand was busy staring at the mocking imitation of herself in front of Sam’s face with a displeased scowl. She could hear Sam was also snickering from behind the mask, not to mention how much his shoulders shook as he tried to keep the illusion in front of him straight.

“Ha ha, very funny, Sam. Like it was the first two times,” Twilight deadpanned.

The projection faded and Sam’s face, full of withstrained laughter, was revealed as he reabsorbed the wire. It took a few more minutes until Pinkie and Sam had had their fill before Twilight could see that they were ready to move on.

“Ok, lastly is the shield spell,” Twilight said.

Sam gave her the thumbs up and clapped his hands together, rubbing them vigorously. His hands came apart with strands of thaumium wire connected between them. The threads of magic wire bobbed and weaved at his command to form the last pattern. Another circle was all that was needed to complete the spell matrix when, all of a sudden, the pattern shone brightly and exploded, kicking up a cloud of debris and dust.

“Sam!” “Sammy!”

From the haze, Sam emerged, coughing and wheezing and waving his arms around to clear the air. The two mares ran up to him to make sure their friend was okay. They gave him a quick look over and breathed a collective sigh of relief when they found nothing beyond some spots of soot on his clothes and face.

Twilight, first to speak, chided Sam for his mistake, “Sam, you forgot the-”

“The ‘secondary focusing brace’, I know,” Sam finished.

“Well then, next time you won’t try showing off so much, will you?” Twilight scolded.

“Yeah. Yeah. ‘Practice makes perfect’ and all that jazz.”

Sam coughed up one last puff of smoke clogging his lungs before he felt ready to try again. The girls gave him some room, and Sam took a deep breath to regain his concentration. He visualized the spell matrix’s pattern in his head, taking great care to recheck every detail of it before attempting to form it with his wires. Satisfied that he would not forget the secondary focusing brace like the previous time, Sam stretched his right hand out. From the tips of his fingers, thaumium wires emerged like slithering snakes. The wires slowly began to form the pattern that Sam visualized. The trickiest part, and consequently the part Sam forgot the first time, was to make sure that both focusing braces were formed before adding the ‘catalyst array’. Essentially, two circles with inscriptions running between the two and a hexagonal frame set within the center of said circles.

The last of the inscription gleamed as Sam finished the pattern and the entire matrix flashed with a bright light. From the pattern sprang a shield made of glimmering, translucent magical energy, cast in the same hue as the thaumium wire. The shield expanded to roughly one-third of Sam’s size and into the shape that a certain star-spangled superhero would be jealous of.

“Oh~, sparkly!” Pinkie awed as she marveled at the shield.

Sam shot a cheeky grin at her and replied, “I know, and that’s not even the best part.”

Sam spun the matrix and shield around to free up his left forearm. Wires of the normal variety sprang out from his left forearm and coiled around the appendage by his command. After they had a chance to wrap around his forearm a few times, Sam fitted the shield spell’s matrix on top of his arm with his other hand and let the wires coil around it to secure it in place. Firmly attached as it was, Sam flexed and moved about to test his mobility, posing in between movements to show off various defense poses from behind his shield. Pinkie clopped her hooves together and cheered in approval.

“Alright, Sparks. Give ‘er your best shot!” Sam said, turning to the unicorn with his shield placed between them.

Twilight hesitated. They had done this before, but even while holding back, she couldn’t help but worry for Sam’s safety if she happened to overdo it and broke through Sam’s defenses. Sam and his powers were magic resistant, not magic-proof after all. Though thanks to Twilight’s trepidation, Sam was becoming impatient.

Sam smirked and put on his best terrible french accent to taunt, “Come on, you sons-of-a-silly-person! I blow my nose at you, you so called magic unicorn!”

“Sam, what are doing?” Twilight frowned at the foalish insults.

“Pfffffffffftfttftttt~,” Sam blew a very noisy raspberry at the unicorn from behind his shield.

Becoming annoyed, Twilight replied, “Sam, knock it off. I-”

“I don’t wanna talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!”

Pinkie was peeling with laughter at the conduit’s antics. Twilight, however, was doing all she could not to let the taunts get to her. Though try as she might, the continued verbal assault had worn down her patience. Had Twilight taken the time to take one last deep breath to calm herself down, she might have seen through Sam’s ruse. However, Sam’s final insults had pushed her over the edge.

Twilight planted her hooves firmly against the ground, her horn bursting to life as she poured a significant amount of raw magical power into one of the few combat spells she knew. The air in the lab was humming with all the energy that Twilight was about to unleash. Pinkie Pie had taken the liberty of ducking behind the table she was sitting upon after overturning it, while also sporting the empty popcorn tub like a helmet.

Shards of crystallized magic in the shape of of six-pointed stars condensed around Twilight’s horn. The five little objects grew with each passing second as they spun in the air. Sam grinned in victory before diving behind his shield to await the oncoming attack. Twilight reared up on her hind legs, the magenta crystal stars followed the movements of her horn as she flicked it around like a magic wand. With a final flourish, Twilight snapped her horn forward and cast the stars off.

The stars shot off in the direction of their wielder’s horn, directly at Sam, and with a speed that surprised even the conduit. He barely had time to brace properly before the first star hit. The attack connected and surprisingly jarred the conduit as it exploded on impact. The hit rang out like a giant firecracker, and four more just like it soon followed.

As the faint dust settled, Sam noticed that the attack had actually pushed him back a couple inches from where he originally stood. This actually got the wire conduit both excited and nervous over the fantasy of what kind of sparring match the two could have if he wasn’t so magic resistant. Sam also imagined Pinkie Pie chiming in and giving the conduit’s feelings a more appropriate word like, ‘excitovous’, or something.

Across from him, Pinkie was chortling to herself like she had just thought of something funny, while Twilight panted heavily from the exertion of casting such a powerful spell. Wasting no time to see just how much more the purple unicorn could dish out, Sam grinned deviously.

Raising his shield back up, Sam taunted, “I thought Sunny’s personal student was supposed to be some sort of magic wiz! Come on, Sparks, stop trying to hit me and hit me!”

Twilight stammered in frustration. As much as she wanted to continue, the last spell had drained her significantly. Yet, her pride as an Equestrian Mage was being challenged. Something that she did not take lightly. Pushing past the fatigue, Twilight reignited her horn. She was determined to not let the wire conduit have the last laugh. She would find the strength needed to break through his shield, no matter what it took.

However, just as the purple unicorn was pouring the last of her flagging reserves into a futilely, weaker spell, a dainty set of knocks from the lab’s door interrupted them. Twilight’s horn sputtered out just as the door opened in a veil of a light-blue haze and swung open.

“I’m back~!” Rarity called out from the door frame.

The pearl white mare waltzed in with a poise that seemed to be just at home with the Canterlot community. Although, walking in on the state that the lab was in now made her backpedal.

“Wah! What in the name of Celestia happened here?!” Rarity demanded.

Pinkie bounded out from behind her hiding spot and bounced right up to her friend, “Oh, nothing, Rares. Sammy and Sparks were just testing out some of Sammy’s spells. They did get a little carried away near the end.”

‘I wonder if Pinkie also drives that bus that she just threw us under right there,’ Sam thought bitterly, “Hey now, I have to get my practice in somehow.”

“But look at the two of you. Twilight, your mane is a mess, and you’re all sweaty. And Sam, you’re covered in dust and soot,” Rarity pointed out, “Honestly, we’re about to travel through the heart of Canterlot, and you two go and get yourselves all sullied.”

Twilight blushed bashfully, doing little as she tried to smooth out her tousled mane. Sam, on the other hand, just looked over his clothes, spotting the patches of dust and dirt that Rarity was talking about, but not necessarily caring. He did pat them down a few times, but that did very little. Rarity groaned in irritation, reaching out behind her with her magic as she procured one of the many suitcases she had originally brought to Canterlot.

“You’re lucky I keep my emergency kit on hoof for situations like this,” she chided and motioned for her purple friend to find a seat next to her while she rummaged through her suitcase for all kinds of personal care supplies.

As Rarity worked combs, brushes and various care products through Twilight’s coat, mane, and tail, while Sam and Pinkie went about cleaning up the lab.

“Thank you, Rarity. I didn’t realize how late it was getting,” Twilight said meekly, “Your train should be here within another hour, and I go and get all messy right before we get to see you off.”

Rarity tsked, working at a particularly hard tangle in Twilight’s mane before replying, “Not at all, darling. I would just hate to see you have to go out into Canterlot proper with your coat in such a state. Now, let me just give you a few spritzes of perfume, and you should be good as new.”

“That’s ok, Rarity, I don’t need-” Though before Twilight could protest, Rarity had already levitated a fancy glass bottle of sweet smelling perfume in front of Twilight and squeezed on the bulbous applicator of a couple of times, causing the purple unicorn to choke on the concentrated scent that she inhaled.

“Oops! Sorry, dear,” Rarity apologized, “At least you won’t have to worry about stinking of sweat.”

“Gee. Thanks, Rarity,” Twilight deadpanned.

“Well, now it’s your turn, Sam,” Rarity turned to the wire conduit.

Sam was in the middle of turning a table back over when Rarity started to approach him. He quickly threw his hands up defensively and backed away in the opposite direction of the white unicorn.

“That’s alright, Rarity. Just gotta pat out a little more of this dust, and I should be fine,” Sam tried to argue.

“Nonsense, Sam. You could use a bit of a sprucing up, if I do say so myself,” Rarity retorted, sporting a variety of combs and brushes in her magic as she cantered closer to the conduit.

Sam tried to find the right argument to get himself out of this situation, but his options were running low. Throwing up his shield in front of him to block the unicorn’s advance, Sam stood defiantly and securely from behind the magical barrier. That is, until the wire matrix shattered from overuse, simultaneously dispelling the magical shield. This left the wire conduit with no more defenses, and he resumed trying to back away from the encroaching unicorn. It didn’t help that Pinkie Pie happened to sneak up on him and climb up onto his back while snickering.

With a devious chime in her voice, Pinkie whispered into the conduit’s ear, “You best just let her do her thing, Sammy, or else she might just tie you down and give you a full makeover.”

Sam gulped nervously at those words, weighing his options and thinking just how much it would be worth getting in trouble again this week by breaking out of the castle to escape the smiling fashionista.

--o0o--

Sam and the others were walking through the streets of Canterlot, closely accompanied by Sam’s usual entourage of royal guards. It seemed that dear ol’ Cappy didn’t appreciate having his morning coffee spiked with lemon juice two days in a row. The freedom of being allowed to roam the castle grounds by himself was nice for the first few days, but Sam had grown to miss the dear old captain after their raid on the assailants’ base. He had been so focused on finding any clues that would lead to their whereabouts that Sam and just about everyone else took notice of the captain’s deteriorating obsession.

So Sam did the only thing he could think of to help take Cappy’s mind off the matter, even for a minute. Like the mischievous friend he was, the wire conduit flooded Aegis Flare’s attention with his antics. However, he was eventually caught in the act on the third day, and after a thorough chewing out by ol’ Cappy, Sam’s usual guards and stipulations were reinstated. Aegis Flare was even there to oversee the conduit’s daily training with the guards and periodically stepping in to partake in a few sparring matches himself. Sam tended to go easy to allow the captain to learn how best to counter him and conduit abilities. All in all, the distractions from the constant manhunt for the assailants seemed to be helping, and Sam was happy with that.

“Whatcha thinking about, Sammy,” Pinkie Pie piped up.

Sam looked down and smiled at the pink pony happily munching on a sugar cookie when he replied, “Nothing much. Just how well the ponies here seem to accept me.”

“Of course they accept you, silly,” Pinkie giggled, “You’re super duper nice and funny. And don’t forget how cool you look swinging around the city with your wires.”

“Yeah, I guess I do look pretty badass when I do that,” Sam agreed.

“Sam, language. There are foals around,” Rarity chided

Sam and the rest of the ponies from the castle had just passed a corner marked 12th and Mane, which was the last block leading to the train station. Along the way, the group were repeatedly approached by various other ponies. All of whom were there to see the wire conduit up close and personal. He had grown used to the attention, much like how he and the rest of the gang did back in Memphis when they were slowly gaining popularity and notoriety as ‘The Four Aces’. Though there was the occasional reporter that had to be removed by the guards when they insisted on ‘just one more question’.

However, there was one encounter that Sam actually found very enjoyable. A filly and her mother came up to the group halfway through their trek. Sam felt like they looked familiar, like he had met them before. When they introduced themselves as Honey Spice and Peppermint Drop, the wire conduit instantly recognized them as the filly he saved from the water tower and her mother. Coincidentally, they had just been on their way to deliver a ‘thank-you’ package to the castle for the conduit. The little filly with her wicker basket full of treats she and her mother made was adorably perched upon her back as she presented it to her hero. Sam accepted the gift with an appreciative smile and examined all the little goodies inside.

The little filly stood before him almost expectantly, like she was waiting for him to do something.
After a minute of pondering the look, Sam got the hint and an even bigger smile crossed his lips. Digging into the basket, he rummaged around until he picked out one of the still warm cookies. Biting into it, his senses’ were bombarded with the deliciously sweet taste of chocolate chip cookie mix baked to perfection. It tasted so fresh that it wouldn’t be hard to believe that they were baked from scratch. He wanted more, but before he knew it, Sam had already devoured to the entire thing and heard an adorable ‘squee’ from the filly as she watched him enjoy her gift. Unfortunately, they didn’t have time to stay and chat, so they reluctantly had to say their goodbyes and parted their separate ways.

“-So, the D.U.P. has us pinned down behind their mobile comm center, and that’s when Natie dove off the watchtower and totally wrecks the APC with the reinforcements,” Sam finished recounting one of his stories to Pinkie and the others while they entered the train station.

“Wow,” Pinkie murmured between bites of her fifth cookie.

Rarity didn’t seem quite as impressed by the retelling.

“Was it entirely necessary for you to use so much force, darling?” Rarity asked, voicing her concerns.

Sam shrugged, “They would have done a lot worse to the people that they were holding prisoner there if we didn’t free them.”

Twilight, who had been purchasing tickets from the ticket counter at the front of the group, had been listening in the whole time. She could sympathize with Rarity that using force like that was not something she could agree with. Yet, at the same time, she understood more about Sam and his trials in life. At least, enough to know that he wouldn’t lie about something as serious as this.

“I’m still not entirely sure I feel comfortable with how you and your friends ‘handle’ yourselves in your stories,” Rarity shook her head, “But I wasn’t there, and if this D.U.P. are much like these assailants we’ve dealt with so far, then I shan’t say you are wrong in your methods.”

“Thanks, I guess?” Sam replied to the compliment.

A high pitched whistle cut through the ambient noise of the train station, drawing everyone’s attention to its owner, who was an older looking stallion in a conductor’s uniform.

“Last call for the train to Ponyville! All aboard!” a conductor called from down on the opposite side of the platform.

The train, which Sam noted was a god-awful vomit of bright pastel colors, was quickly being boarded by the pony patrons on the platform. A few turned to their loved ones and either gave them a reassuring nuzzle, hug, or good-bye kiss before rushing off to board the train. Twilight and her friends were doing much the same, embracing each other in a tight hug before the purple unicorn’s friends had to leave.

“I guess we’ll see you back in Ponyville then, huh?” Pinkie asked, a bit more somberly than she usually talked.

Twilight wrapped her friend in another quick hug before answering, “Oh, don’t worry, Pinkie. It won’t be that long.”

“Well, if it does take a bit longer than you expect, do be kind as to send us a letter every once in awhile,” Rarity playfully chided her friend, “Seriously though, please don’t make us worry like that. Spike’s not the only one who was beside himself when we first heard the news.”

Twilight looked down in regret over her mistake, “I won’t, and I’m sorry. I’ll write to you all every week from now on.”

Rarity tittered, placing a hoof on her friend’s shoulder, “Just be sure to let us know that you’re ok every once in a while. And you.”

Sam pointed at himself as Rarity redirected her attention toward the conduit. She nodded at Sam’s questioning look as she leveled her gaze upon him.

“I’ve heard how well you can protect others. So, please. Look after Twilight, but don’t forget to take care of yourself as well.”

Sam smiled and gave her a reassuring thumbs-up. Rarity accepted the silent agreement and hurried to get her bags aboard the train.

“Sammy!” Pinkie shouted as she lunged into the conduit’s still open arms.

The unexpected heft knocked Sam back a few paces, but he was quick to recover and chuckled at the pink pony’s antics. With more logic defying physics, Pinkie wrapped her forelegs all the way around Sam’s body for an all encompassing hug.

“I’m gonna miss you, Sammy,” Pinkie sniffled, burying her face into Sam’s chest.

“I’ll miss you too, Pinkie,” Sam replied, returning the hug.

“Promise me you’ll come visit Ponyville sometime, will ya?”

Sam flinched at the request. If he were to visit Twilight’s, Pinkie’s, and Rarity’s hometown, that would imply that he would be staying in Equestria for a bit longer. Though, looking down into the pleading face of the cotton candy looking pony in his arms. He just couldn’t bring himself to flat out say ‘no’.

“Y-yeah,” Sam finally answered, “If I get the chance, I’ll come to visit.”

“Pinkie promise?”

“Um, Pinkie? You all don’t have pinkies,” Sam pointed out, wriggling his right hand’s pinky in front of the pony’s face.

Pinkie Pie shook her head and pushed his hand down, “No, not that kind of ‘pinky-promise’. It’s this kind of ‘Pinkie promise’. Ahem; Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye~.”

The weird recital of words was accompanied by an equally weird set of gestures. Sam wanted to say how ridiculous of a routine that was, but found himself too caught up in the moment to refuse. So, setting the pony down, he mimicked the routine, gestures and all. Pinkie’s face lit up like fireworks after that, and she smothered the conduit in one more bone-crushing hug.

“Oh, thank you, Sammy! I can’t wait to welcome you there,” Pinkie suddenly went off on a tangent, “I’ll throw you one of my patented ‘Welcome to Ponyville parties’ ™, and I’ll invite everypony in Ponyville! You’ll even get to meet the rest of our friends. There’s Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack, and of course lil’ Spike-A-Roonie. There’s gonna be games and dancing, and don’t forget all the food. I’ll even bake you an even bigger cake than the last one. Then, I can show you everything there is to see in Ponyville. You’ll really like it, I know it! Just don’t forget to-”

Sam rolled his eyes at the silly, pink pony in his arms. Though before she could get too caught up with her tangent, he knew he had to make sure she made it onto the train before it left without her. So, halfway through it all, he was able to free one of his arms from her absurdly, strong grasp and swiftly brought the palm of his hand in to tap her on the tip of her nose. Her head involuntarily jerked back and her muzzle scrunched up into an adorable expression. She looked at Sam silently, before sputtering into fits of laughter to which the wire conduit joined in.

Sam carefully let Pinkie Pie back down to the ground from his arms. The two shared one last look before she hustled onto the train. Not even a minute later, the front half of her body was sticking out one of the windows closest to them as she enthusiastically waved to them. Rarity was far more reserved and waved gracefully from the next window down. The train’s whistle rang out loud, as if on cue. Then, the steam engine chugged into life, and the rest of the train’s cars jerked forward.

“Bye, Twilight! Bye, Sammy! Hope to see you both soon!” Pinkie called out over the grinding wheels of the train’s cars.

Both Twilight and Sam waved back, watching as the train slowly pulled out of the station and was gradually picking up speed. They continued to wave after the train, even as the caboose passed by. Once the train disappeared beyond the station and the city walls, they turned to each other.

“Not gonna lie. I’m gonna miss them,” Sam sighed, sticking his hands into his pockets.

“Well, you did promise to see them again,” Twilight remarked, “Though, I should warn you. Pinkie takes her promises very seriously. So now, you better remember to make some time to go see her.”

Now, Sam kind of regretted making that promise. It wasn’t that he was intending to break it, but he couldn’t forget that he needed to find his way back to his own home sooner rather than later. Perhaps if the project took longer than expected to complete, he could make good on his word. He only hoped that his friends in Memphis would forgive him for taking as long as he already has to return or if he ending up having to stay even a little longer. Setting depressing thoughts aside, Sam clapped his hands together and began making his way back out of the train station with a cheerful smile on his face.

“Hey, wait up, Sam,” Twilight called after the wire conduit.

“Twilight?” somepony suddenly called out to the purple unicorn from behind them.

Upon turning back around to see who it was, Twilight gasped, “Mom, Dad? What are you two doing here?”

A Conduit's Impression on a Pony's Parents

“Mom, Dad? What are you two doing here?”

“We could ask the same to you, honey.”

Sam looked up to see the mare that had replied. Walking toward them was a pair of ponies, obviously a married couple, and if by what his friend had asked, her parents. The unicorn mare looked strikingly similar to the lavender mare standing beside the conduit. Her fur was a very light gray though, and her mane and tail alternated between streaks of white and purple. On her flank, her cutie mark stood out proudly as a trio of purple stars unlike her daughter’s.

At Twilight’s mother’s flank was a unicorn stallion. He easily stood out against his wife with his navy-blue fur. His mane and tail were cropped conservatively short, yet styled nicely with a few curled flairs at the ends. Sam spied a set of crescent moons on his flanks for his cutie marks.

The two of them came up to the surprised unicorn by Sam’s side and gave her a few affectionate nuzzles. The three of them hummed as they did so to show how happy they were to see each other, but Twilight soon regained her senses enough to reply to her folks’ question.

“My friends were just on the train to Ponyville,” she finally replied, “But what about you? I’m glad to see you both, but what are you doing here?”

Twilight’s mother answered first, “Your father and I were just seeing one our old family friends off. You remember Clockwork, don’t you?”

Twilight’s eyes lit up with recognition at the name, “Of course! That stallion and his clocks. I guess he was here to deliver one of his custom orders?”

Twilight’s father was the one to answer this time, “Yes, he did. We just happened to catch him on his way to the station and thought we’d walk with him here.”

Twilight smiled as fond memories flooded her mind of the kooky, old stallion. She remembered how she and her brother would go to visit his shop, when he used to have one in Canterlot, to watch all the clocks go off right after school. The noise they all made at the exact same time was funny to listen to, along with watching all the different little figurines that danced around their frames in the little clock houses.

“Well, I’m glad to see our daughter is doing well,” Twilight’s dad commented, breaking Twilight from her reminiscing, “but wouldn’t you like to introduce us to your ‘friend’ here?”

Twilight gasped, suddenly realizing that she had been ignoring her other friend that was standing right behind her. She turned to see Sam idly picking dirt out from underneath his fingernails until he noticed that everyone’s attention was on him.

“Mom. Dad. This is Samuel Reed,” Twilight introduced the human conduit, hoping that the delayed introductions didn’t offend him, “Sam, these are my parents. Twilight Velvet and Night Light.”

Sam stepped forward to offer his hand to shake, “Nice to meet ya! You can just call me, Sam.”

Night Light was the first to accept Sam’s handshake, “Oh, we’ve heard quite a bit about you, ‘Wire Wraith’. Although, not so much from our daughter.”

Twilight felt like a rock dropped into the pit of her stomach. She had been sworn into secrecy before. Yet, as Sam had made a name for himself in the city of Canterlot, her oath appeared to to have lost its importance. Despite this, she had neglected to tell even her parents about her involvement with the conduit from another world.

Sam looked over his shoulder to see the purple unicorn’s distress and smiled mischievously, “Bah, don’t blame her too much. She ‘was’ supposed to keep me a secret… until I decided to take a nice, little stroll through the neighborhood for bit. Although, you’d think the first thing everyone would think wouldn’t be ‘alien invasion’, or am I just that too good looking?”

Night Light chuckled as he pulled his hoof away from the handshake, “Haha! True! Very true, but you’re not gonna win any beauty contests around here, son.”

Sam mockingly huffed in indignation, striking a pose like a runway model, “Please, I’m gorgeous! You ponies just don’t know how to handle all this at once.”

Twilight groaned in embarrassment, as she had to bear the restrained laughter of her parents directed at her and her conduit friend. If the world decided to implode just at that moment, she would not be too upset by it compared to this.

“Well, we’ll just have to take your word on that,” Velvet cheekily remarked, “In the meantime, it’s still a pleasure to meet you.”

Velvet’s outstretched hoof was met with a clasp of Sam’s hand overtop of it. A few respectful shakes were given, and Sam allowed Twilight Velvet’s hoof to fall back down to the ground.

“Likewise,” Sam commented, “Sparks always liked to talk about her family whenever we had some downtime.”

“‘Sparks’?” Twilight’s mom asked confusedly.

Twilight’s face flushed with even more embarrassment, and she wished that whatever deity that watched over humans would show her some mercy and strike Sam down with the intensity of a thousand suns. Night Light, on the other hoof, wasted no time and sidled up to his daughter, brushing her shoulder while wearing a playful smile.

“He already has an adorable pet name for you, eh?” Night Light teased, “Does this mean that some filly has finally found her coltfriend?”

“Dad!” Twilight squeaked, pushing away from her father.

In all honesty, Twilight tried her very best to look indignant, but the growing blush across her face and her slowly disheveling mane only served to make the little, purple unicorn look more adorable in her parents’ eyes. Meanwhile, Sam was debating on whether or not he should feel slighted or join in on Twilight’s torment. He was the focus of Twilight’s current teasing, after all. That decision was firmly snatched from his hands, however, as Velvet turned to look at him with a sickly-sweet, innocent smile.

As Velvet looked over the conduit once more, she tapped her hoof to her chin in mock contemplation, “I’m not one against interspecies relationships, but it would have been nice to know that our daughter was into the exotic beforehoof.”

It was Sam’s turn to feel embarrassed. Heat rushed across his face as he coughed a few times and looked away, mostly to buy himself some time to come up with a clever comeback and throw the attention off himself once more. Night Light and Twilight Velvet chuckled to each other as they watched the two before them fight to get a coherent sentence out to dispute them. It was cute in their eyes, and their reactions matched each other’s pretty well.

“Alright, honey,” Night Light finally came to the two’s rescue, “I think that’s enough teasing for one day, or at least, for the moment. We should at least take them out to lunch, since they’re out here.”

Velvet giggled one last time and nodded in agreement, “Of course, dear. What say you, you two? Would you like to join us for lunch? ‘The Clover Hoof’ should be open by now.”

Sam and Twilight were finally able to reign in their thoughts enough to think over the invitation. It had been a while since Twilight went out to see her parents, and Sam... well, he was just sort of hungry. Twilight was still a bit sceptical about her parents’ oath, but she couldn’t deny that she too was feeling a little more than peckish. A nice lunch with her folks would be enjoyable.

--o0o--

“I’ll have a toasted daffodil sandwich and an iced tea,” Velvet recited her order to the waiter at their table.

The pegasus waiter nodded and wrote down the order on his notepad with his dexterous wing tips. Once done, he turned to the next patron at the table.

Night Light read over the menu one last time and set it down to face the waiter with a smile, “The garden vegetable soup for me, and a glass of water, if you will.”

Sam was having trouble deciding on what he wanted as the waiter rounded on him. Moreover, he was trying to figure out what dishes on the menu didn’t contain something inedible to humans, but everytime, he found something. A little note in the description advised him of something that would not agree with his natural diet. Sighing in defeat, Sam closed his menu and passed it over to the other side of the table with the others.

“I’ll take the soup as well, but no flowers. Plus, a sweet tea,” Sam ordered then returned to idly playing with the corners of his napkin his silverware came in.

Twilight cleared her throat before placing her order, “One daisy salad with extra tomatoes, please. I’ll also have a glass of water to drink. Oh, and can i have the dressing on the side?”

“Of course, miss,” the pegasus waiter confirmed for the purple unicorn, “If that will be all, I’ll get your orders into the kitchen. In the meantime, please enjoy the complimentary breadsticks.”

The pegasus pointed out the basket of said breadsticks in the center of the table before scooping up the menus from the table and tucking them underneath one of his wings. He trotted off to deliver the orders as promised and left the Sparkle family and conduit to their own devices.

‘The Clover Hoof’ was a decent looking outdoor patio restaurant on the corner of Saddle Avenue. Some of the patrons and passerbys couldn’t help but stare every so often at the one table at the restaurant’s corner closest to the street. The one that coincidentally held a very interesting patron in the form of a certain wire conduit. Sam’s guard, as to allow the Sparkle family and Sam to have some form of privacy, stood just outside the venue at either side of the restaurant, vigilantly watching the streets for any sort of trouble and keeping ogling passersbys from interrupting the restaurant's patrons.

Night Light, being the courteous stallion he was, swept the breadstick basket up in his magic and levitated it around the table for the others to pluck one out before he did so himself. The group happily munched on the doughy appetizer until Twilight Velvet cleared her throat.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, Mr. Reed, how is it that you came to Equestria?” the elder mare asked.

Twilight bit down on her breadstick a little more forcefully than she intended to at hearing the question being asked. She snatched up her napkin in her magic and spit the piece out again to chastise her mother about the sensitive topic that she just barged into. However, Sam flicked his hand up to face Twilight in a way that said that ‘he was okay with this’. Twilight backed down, but her ears flicked back in apprehension to await the time she would need to step in.

“Actually, that’s a bit of a long story,” Sam began, “But just to sum it up... I got thrown through a magic mirror and ended up in ‘Wonderland’, got into a fight with some of the guards, thrown in jail for a bit, had a nice chat with the princesses, and then started working with Sparks here up until now.”

Twilight groaned inwardly at the overly simplified retelling of the conduit’s tale, but she wasn’t about to dispute it, as some of the details she too would rather like to leave out. The corner of her cheek that got cut some weeks ago twitched at the thought of one particular memory.

Night Light hummed as he tapped his chin with a hoof, “Well, I’m not one to indulge in gossip, but I heard that you’re some kind of alien from outer space that has been slowly influencing the royal family to hoof over their seats of power to your kind.”

The table fell silent. Twilight looked like she was going to have a panic attack. Sam just raised his eyebrow in surprise as he and Night Light stared at each other. Suddenly, the older stallion couldn’t contain himself and broke his neutral facade. He chuckled lightheartedly, and Sam couldn’t help but join in. The conduit sputtered into laughter and leaned back in his chair.

Velvet, on the other hoof, swiped at her husband’s shoulder, “Honey, just because he’s laughing, doesn’t mean you can repeat what the tabloids are printing off. Honesty, that was inappropriate. I’m very sorry for my husband’s words, Mr. Reed.”

Sam calmed down enough to respond, but still chuckled between words, “Please, just call me Sam, and don’t worry. If you ever read what the tabloids said about me back on my world, you’d want to buy whatever they’ve been smoking.”

With the crisis seemingly avoided, Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. The pegasus waiter from before came back just in time with a tray of drinks balanced perfectly on his back. He twisted his neck around and grabbed the tray with just his teeth before setting it back down again on the table before him. Sam was keenly impressed with the pony’s dexterity, especially when he used just the tips of his wings to pass the drinks out to everyone at the table without fumbling with the glasses. He nodded to everyone and left to take care of another table of patrons, leaving the group to talk some more.

A firm ‘ahem’ from Velvet caught Night Light’s attention, and he saw the look she gave him just before picking up her glass in her magic to take a drink. He gave a resigned nod and turned to Sam to bow his head.

“I’m sorry, Sam, for what I said earlier,” Night Light apologized, “It was rude of me to make a joke like that.”

Velvet smiled triumphantly out of the corner of her mouth.

Sam took up his tea and offered it forward, “Hey, no harm, no foul. Like I said, the tabloids will do what they’re always gonna do; cater to the gossip.”

Night Light smiled in understanding and raised his glass up to Sam’s to tap them together in mutual acceptance. The two knocked back a swig of their respective drinks while Velvet casually whispered over to her daughter in private.

“He’s a very nice fellow,” Velvet commented.

“Mom!” Twilight hissed back.

Twilight’s mother giggled at her daughter’s reaction, “Oh, don’t worry, honey. I’m not teasing you. Unless there is actually a thing between the two of you going on?”

Twilight’s face burned with equal parts embarrassment and annoyance, to which her playful mother relished, “Twilight, dear. I know you two aren’t actually a couple. I can tell. I am glad you and him have had a chance to become friends is all.”

Twilight tilted her head at her mother questioningly.

Velvet took a thoughtful sip from her glass of tea before replying to her daughter, “Sam seems like a wonderful character, and you and he get along so well. But I can’t help but sense that there was, and maybe still is, a bit of tension between the two of you. Perhaps, something that might have happened that put you two at odds with each other for a bit?”

Twilight tensed at the last statement. Velvet took another sip of her tea as she studied her daughter’s reaction. Having developed such a keen eye for details in all the books she proofreads, she had gained skills that allowed her to perceive minute details, even in others’ expressions.

Offering a reassuring hoof on the purple unicorn’s shoulder, Velvet spoke, “My little Sparkle. It’s okay that you and he made mistakes. No friendship is without its faults, but that’s what helps them to become stronger. Overcoming those hardships and moving on. By what I’ve seen, you two have done a wonderful job doing just that. So, don’t let a few mistakes chase away what you already have with each other, okay?”

Twilight fought back the wave of regret that threatened to overtake her again, smiling faintly and nodding to answer her mother silently. Velvet offered a warming smile in return and pulled her hoof back to herself.

“And remember, sweetie... if you ever need to talk about anything, you know your father and I are always going to be there to listen,” Velvet finished before turning back to Sam and Night Light, who were discussing some other topic.

“See? With a third bracing-circle, the ‘force amplification’ spell can be easily, and safely, applied to reduce the mana consumption of the target spell it is attached to,” Night Light concluded his little impromptu lesson on magic with the wire conduit.

Sam studied the diagram on the napkin that was hastily scrawled out on. Thanks to lessons so far with Twilight, he was able to make most of the inscriptions and notes out. Though there was still the odd symbol or piece of the pattern that eluded his understanding. It looked like he would have to have another study session with Twilight once they were done with lunch.

In the meantime, Sam folded the drawing up and pocketed the spell matrix sketch for later use, “Huh... thanks, Mr. Light. I’ll have to give it a shot later, but like I said, my abilities don’t translate well with magic exactly as they should here. Though, I guess this would be pretty fun to try out with some other stuff Sparks is teaching me.”

Twilight was keenly aware that everyone’s attention was squared on her once more. Sam’s comment had especially struck a chord with her father as he offered her his broadest, proudest smile. Thankfully, Twilight was spared the over abundance of praise she was about to receive from her parents as the pegasus waiter returned once more, this time balancing a tray of the family’s and conduit’s food on his back. Using his wings and gentle manipulation of his teeth and jaw, he carefully placed each dish in front of their respective patron.

“If you need anything else, please, don’t hesitate to ask,” he bowed respectfully and awaited any last minute requests.

Velvet shook her head and thanked the courteous stallion, “Thank you very much. I think we’ll be okay for the moment.”

The waiter nodded once more before dismissing himself and heading off to service more patrons. The Sparkles bowed their heads once before taking up their silverware in their respective magic and dug in. Sam watched for moment, still somewhat, but not completely jaded to the whole ‘magic’ being a common occurrence on this world. Sam idly thought about how cool it would be if he had the same abilities, but the thought was quickly swept aside, as the aroma from his soup wafted up in a tantalizing mixture of hearty broth and just the right amount of herbs to spice it with.

Sam’s first bite was accompanied by a satisfied hum by the wire conduit. He was right in his assessment of the soup’s smell. The table fell into an acceptable silence as the group enjoyed their food for the moment. After a bit, more topics were picked at random to talk about between the conduit and the Sparkle family. It was peaceful, which could only mean that the universe was getting bored.

“Hey, that’s the guy!”

From across the street, a young child called out. At first, Sam and the rest of the Sparkle paid no attention to it. Though, the ensuing argument that followed drew their notice.

“No way, it’s probably just a hairless diamond dog!”

“Nuh uh, look! He’s got the symbol on his shirt!”

They must have been referring to the spindly shaped club sewn into the back of Sam’s shirt, seeing as he was the only one at the restaurant even wearing a shirt, let alone, more than just a scarf or hat. Sam was reminded of how weird that thought had pointed out to him how all these ponies were essentially naked yet it was just another social norm in ‘Ponyland’.

“Hey, yeah! Wait, what if he doesn’t speak Equish?”

“You dummy, the princesses are the ones that made him an ambassador from his planet! Obviously, they taught him how to speak Equish, too.”

“Oooooh... Hey, what’s an ‘ambassador’?”

“It’s- uh, um, a creature from another world! Yeah, that’s it! Now, come on, let’s go see him up close!”

Sam and the rest of the Sparkle family quickly turned to see a pair of colts, looking no older than twelve or so years old, hastily making a beeline across the street to the restaurant. The guard closest to Sam and the family took a commanding step closer to their table. The colts took notice to this and skidded to a halt just before the guard staring back down at them. Sam took the time to look the two young colts over as they struggled to not look too scared in front of the guard.

The first was a light blue unicorn with a lime green mane and tail. His mane was swept to the side and held in place with what must have been mousse. He was a bit lankier than his counterpart, but not exactly frail either. Sam was surprised to notice that he had no cutie mark on his flanks, but assumed that he just hadn’t found his ‘special talent’ yet.

The other colt was a stocky earth pony, though he was only shorter than the first by a couple inches at most. His coat was a rusty orange, and his messy mane and tail sported an auburn color that could do with a trim. Upon his flank was a fruit of some kind, possibly a peach, with a slice cut out of it.

The colts remained frozen in place, unable to move forward or retreat out of fear from underneath the royal guard’s intimidating gaze. Being the closest, Sam leaned back into his chair enough so he could reach over and tap the guard on the shoulder. Turning to find the conduit’s laid back grin, the guard raised an eyebrow in a questioning manner.

“Come on, dude. They’re just a couple of kids. No harm letting them through,” Sam argued, knowing what to expect from a couple of starry-eyed children talking about him, or ‘foals’ in this case.

The royal guard looked back down at the foals before shrugging in acceptance and stepping to the side. At this, the two young colts’ gazes were drawn back to the conduit leaning over the back of his chair and smiling down at them.

Sam raised his arm to give them a few waves and greeted them, “Hey, what’s up?”

The two colts gasped in unison, and soon, the biggest, most thrilled smiles on a couple of excitable foals grew on their faces. Twilight’s parents chuckled in delight as they watched the wire conduit charm the foals. Even Twilight was smiling, knowing Sam wouldn’t do anything dangerous around such young, innocent ponies.

“Are you really the ‘Wire Wraith’?” the unicorn colt finally worked up the courage to ask.

“The one and only,” Sam answered, clapping his hands together.

When he pulled them apart again, dull, silvery strands of metal spread out from his fingertips on both hands, connected to each other. Moving his fingers like a puppeteer with strings, the wire followed his command, twisting and weaving until the mess snapped taut. Everyone who had been watching, including a couple of other tables full of ponies close by, admired the creation between Sam’s hands. It was a perfect replica of the ivy like ‘Ace of Clubs’ adorning the back of his shirt. The little touch of variety was added to Sam’s wardrobe, as Silk Trim had insisted on making more unique clothing for the wayward conduit.

“But you can just call me, Sam,” the wire conduit finished.

“Woah, so cool,” the earth pony colt marveled in awe.

The unicorn just nodded in silent agreement. Sam snickered to himself, spinning a few more wires into the creation at the base of the clover’s stem so it could stand up straight when set down. He offered it to the two colts, who eagerly accepted the gift.

“Mr. Sam, can everypony on your world do magic like this?” the earth pony colt asked.

Sam chuckled at the kid’s formality, “Nah, I’m one of the lucky few who can do neat tricks like that. And hey, guess what? This right here... it ain’t magic at all.”

“What?” the unicorn tilted his head in confusion, “But, how can you conjure metal from the ether if it’s not magic?”

Sam summoned up a few more wires to one hand to idly play with as he talked, “Simple, I’m a conduit. Of course, I didn’t know I was a conduit til I was a little older than you two… I think.”

“What’s a conduit?” the earth pony colt asked the obvious.

Sam thought about it for a minute. He had to come up with a way to explain this to such young minds that have never been to exposed to conduits, or the media of his world that would have flooded their perception of conduits with negativity before.

“...Instead of magic, conduits have superpowers,” Sam exclaimed with a snap of his fingers.

The earth pony colt’s eyes lit up with even more amazement at hearing the simple explanation, “Cool~! So, conduits are just like the Power Ponies?”

Sam figured that these ‘Power Ponies’ must be some fictional comic book superheroes. Though, seeing how he was in a mythical wonderland, the word ‘fiction’ was relatively optional.

“I guess,” the unicorn cut in, “But superpowers and the Power Ponies are just make-believe. Plus, my dad says that superpowers are ‘just knock offs of real unicorn magic’.”

The earth pony rounded on his friend and huffed in irritation, “They are not! What about Mr. Sam right here? And my dad said that even a pegasus and a griffon were seen using superpowers unlike anything any unicorn could do when they attacked the castle a while ago!”

The last comment must have gotten under the little unicorn’s skin, since he, too, turned to his friend and fixed him with an irritated glare, “Nuh uh! Unicorns can do anything with magic, and my dad said that the attack was led by a pair of unicorns, and they were using their magic!”

“Well, my dad said that they were actually earth ponies, so it couldn’t have been magic!”

The two colts were now nose to nose as their argument became more heated. Each vying for the winning statement that would prove them right. The shouting match was starting to draw some uncomfortable attention to the restaurant and its patrons from the streets. If nothing was done soon, it looked like the verbal fight would soon turn into a scuffle.

Sam carefully threaded a couple wires between the two and gently pushed them away from each other. The oblivious colts yelped in unison as they felt the metal strands push against them, effectively separating them and halting the bout. They looked up to see the wires retract back into Sam’s fingers. When they looked up further into the conduit’s face, they saw a mix of disappointment and displeasure. They immediately bowed their heads, expressions of guilt appeared on their faces as their ears pinned back.

Sam sighed at the pitiable display. He didn’t mean to come off as angry. So, he decided that the best way to make it up to them, and to stop their bickering, was to clarify the details of their argument, seeing as he was there for the whole event.

“You know, I was there, too, when the attack happened,” Sam started off, careful to hide the unease in his voice from remembering the dark event.

The earth pony colt was the first to perk up, “Hey, yeah! My dad said that Mr. Sam was the one that was chasing the bad guys out of Canterlot when they attacked.”

“That’s right,” Sam agreed, “I had to chase them out of Canterlot before they could hurt anyone, but both of you should know that there was actually a pair unicorns in the group that I ran off.”

The unicorn got a satisfied smirk on his face and turned to point at his friend, “Hah, told you!”

“But,” Sam held up his hand to interrupt, “they weren’t using magic. They had conduit powers, just like the griffon and the pegasus that they were with.”

“See? I was right!” the earth pony colt gloated over his friend.

Leaning over his chair a bit more, Sam tapped the pair of colts on the heads each with a finger. The tap was light, but the colts rubbed the tops of their heads regardless. Confusedly, they looked up at the conduit for the action and silently asked the same question of why he did that.

“You’re both right,” Sam explained, “but, you were both also wrong. Don’t forget to check the facts of the story when you hear about something happening. Then, next time, you won’t have to get a nice ‘finger bop’ on the head.”

The colts and Sam shared a chuckle at the silly joke. Around them, ponies went back to what they were doing, the situation thankfully averted.

“Um, Mr. Sam?” the earth pony colt spoke up after they calmed down from their laughter, “Is it possible that ‘I’ could become a conduit?”

Sam flinched at the question. The last ponies that he encountered with conduit abilities were working for a mad-pony that tortured and experimented on his own kind. All to do god-knows-what and ended up having a few pony conduits as his bodyguards, wearing cobbled together armor from his least favorite organization in the history of ever. Though clenching his jaw, Sam kept the smooth smile on his face as he looked into the hopeful eyes of a fantasizing colt.

“Sure, kid,” Sam finally replied, tossling the colt’s mane, “Though don’t get your hopes up too high. The chances of actually having a conduit ability are about a million to one.”

Sam didn’t think that the colt heard the second part of his explanation, though that was okay. He couldn’t bring himself to take away the spark in the little pony’s eyes that he got at hearing the first. The little colt was practically vibrating with excitement, and Sam was wondering if he would actually explode from all that shaking.

“Did you hear that?” the earth pony colt grabbed his friend by the shoulders, “I could become a conduit! Mr. Sam, if I do become a conduit, I want to be one just like you.”

Sam held back the snicker in his throat at hearing such a silly statement. He reached for his tea and took small sips to hide the embarrassed smile on his face at the same time.

“Hey, I want to be a conduit, too,” the unicorn colt whined.

“Well, I bet I’d be a better conduit than you, anyways,” the earth pony colt said, sticking out his tongue.

The little instigator followed his remark up with picking up the ‘Wire Wraith’s gift and took off down the road.

“Nuh uh! I bet I could be the best conduit that ever lived,” the unicorn colt called out after his friend.

Not being one to be left behind, the unicorn colt sped off to chase down his friend through the streets. Sam rolled his eyes, but smiled as they ran off to play. He was now free to continue his meal in peace with Twilight and her parents.

A soft giggle issued from across the table as Twilight Velvet hid her smile behind her hoof, “My, good with kids too? Our little Twilight sure knows how to pick them~!”

Sam and Twilight nearly choked on their respective drinks. The former having an easier time, as he had been taking small sips, while the latter had to cough a few times to clear her throat.

“Mom!” Twilight wheezed.

Twilight’s parents shared a short laugh before offering their help to their daughter. In the meantime, Sam went back to enjoying his soup, until he heard the distinct sound of armored hooves striking the ground and getting closer.

Leaning over his chair once more, Sam spied a royal guard down the street. This one didn’t look like it was out on a simple patrol, as he made it clear that he was making a beeline to the restaurant, and more importantly, to the other guards by Sam’s table. Sam watched curiously as the newly arrived guard whispered into the closest guard’s ear next to him. The messenger guard stepped back to nod at the second guard’s questioning look.

The second guard called out a command to the rest of the guards around the restaurant, to which they all heeded to come regroup together. The guard closest to Sam, who had received the message turned to Sam and the rest of the Sparkle family at the table.

“I’m sorry to inform you, Ms. Sparkle, Mr. Reed,” the royal guard said as he bowed, “But, Captain Aegis Flare has requested that the two of you must return to the castle immediately.”

“Ah, man,” Sam groaned, “Can’t Cappy just give us the day off for once? We are in the middle of lunch anyways.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Reed, but the captain has given explicit orders to escort you two back to the castle immediately,” the stallion guard coughed into his hoof as he hid the smirk on his face while he continued, “The captain has also warned that if ‘the human does not return to the castle in a timely manner, that he would revoke his dessert options for rest of the week at dinner’.”

“What?!” Sam exclaimed, knocking over his chair as he jumped up from his seat, “He can’t do that! ...Can he?”

Sam looked to Twilight for help on figuring out if the threat was legitimate or not. Though, seeing as she was halfway between looking bemused and embarrassed at Sam’s reaction, she gave him no help.

“Crap; and I really like those mini cinnamon buns...” With a heavy sigh, Sam hung his head in defeat. “Alright, fine. I guess that’s our cue to leave.”

Before saying anything else, Sam picked up his bowl of soup. Thankful that it was cool enough, he tipped the bowl to his lips and noisily slurped the rest of it down in a few gulps. He placed the bowl back down and smacked his lips a few times.

Many of the other patrons looked on in disgust at the conduit’s lack of table manners. Twilight Sparkle did her best to look as small as possible out of embarrassment, hoping that she could just merge into the seat she sat upon to disappear from sight. Her parents, although a bit put off by Sam’s actions, shook their heads in amusement. They found it refreshing that another being didn’t conform to all the posh and proper norms of Canterlot.

“Okay, I’m ready to go,” Sam declared, patting his belly a few times.

The declaration got Twilight’s attention, and she swiftly climbed out her chair, “Yes, please! Let’s get out of here!”

Sam smirked, “Well, I mean if you’re in that much of a hurry... I’ll race you back to the castle! Ready, set, go!”

Before Twilight could protest, Sam whipped a wire grapple out from his wrist toward the closest building toward the castle. Whooping with joy, Sam swung from building to building down the street, his hollers echoing back to the guards and the purple unicorn he left behind.

“Oh, for the love of-! Sam, get back here and walk normally!” Twilight called after the wire conduit.

It was too late though, and he was too far ahead. So, Twilight resigned herself to canter off after the conduit, swearing to give him a piece of her mind once she caught up. The entourage of guards followed the purple unicorn at a brisk pace, knowing better than to give chase and that they would see the conduit again back at the castle.

Back at the restaurant, Twilight’s parents continued on with their lunch, like nothing strange had happened.

“Told you she went off to meet a nice colt,” Night Light cheekily remarked between bites of his meal.

Velvet scoffed playfully, “Oh, hush, you.”

Author's Notes:

I thought I would try to add some more action in this chapter, but it felt better as a 'slice of life' type of read. If y'all liked it, give me some feedback, I like all criticism that helps me improve.

Thanks Regreme as always for being my go to guy for proofreading.

Preparing For the Endgame

Author's Notes:

Just finished editing this chapter as I watched a rerun of the season 8 premiere. Gotta say, I'm both overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time. Is that possible? I think that's impossible... You know what? why don't I just split the difference and say that I'm just 'whelmed'. I like how it's not just about ponies anymore, but introduces the creatures from the other kingdom as whole (oh yeah, spoilers). Hooray for world building!! Yet, the whole concept for what I see to be the overarching story line for the season just seems, 'meh'.

Welp, maybe it was just the premiere and I can look forward to the rest of the season (seeing as I've avoided most of the spoilers and leaks to the best of my ability). In the meantime, what better way to add to the hype than a new chapter of your favorite wisecracking, fun-lovin' wire conduit?

Also, you see that title? Could it be? Is CiE getting close to the end? Will the forces of evil be defeated by the paragons of justice? Will Sam be able to return home? And has anyone seen my pants?!?!... Seriously, I just a load of laundry done and I swear I put them in the closet to use for tomorrow... I'll check my clothes drawers after I'm done uploading this. Enjoy!

Thanks Regreme for proofreading and editing. You're the best when it comes to making sure I don't end up typing like a 5-year-old on acid.

“And you’re certain that this device will work?”

The captain of the royal guard, Aegis Flare, inspected the device on the table in front of him with a critical eye. Within the western wing of the Canterlot Castle, the royal research laboratory and some of Equestria’s brightest minds had been hard at work. The fruits of their labor had finally come to pass in the form of the device on the central work table that the good captain stood by.

The head researcher, and archmage, a stout unicorn mare with a penchant to adjust her glasses every so often, nodded in delight, “Oh yes, Captain. At least, in theory. This is only the prototype, and we have yet to test it in a practical application. For that, all we need is the test subject.”

Captain Aegis Flare grunted in acknowledgement, picking up the device delicately between his wingtips to examine it from every angle. The contraption was heavy for its size. Clunky, and all together, looked like it had been cobbled together in the last few days. Exactly so, since the good captain did instruct the archmages to ready this device as soon as possible. He only hoped that this new device would be the key to evening the battlefield against Visionary Dusk and his assailants. Though, for now, all that was left to do was wait for the one being that could help them test this device.

“Ooooh, Cappy~! I’m hoooome~!”

If only that being didn’t have to be the one human that Equestria and the royal family now housed. The captain breathed in and closed his eyes before slowly exhaling to ready his nerves for what was inevitably to come. Setting the device back on the table, Aegis Flare turned on his hooves and watched the door to the lab from where the human’s voice called behind from.

As expected from the human, he couldn’t just enter the room normally, opting to instead kick open the ornament teak wooden door like some kind of rock star. The door itself swung open wildly, hitting the stone wall on the inside with a loud bang.

“Hah, boom baby!” the wire conduit cried out with a smirk, striking a pose with his kicking foot forward on the ground and his hands spread out at his sides like someone commanding the room’s attention, “Oh yeah, that’s how you make an entrance.”

Unimpressed as always with the human’s antics, Captain Aegis Flare glared at wire conduit and waited. Many of the archmages in the lab on the other hand nearly jumped out of the their own skins at the sudden intrusion. Sam was at least amused by their reactions, especially so when a few of them actually made hilarious whinny sounds in fright.

“Sam, this is the royal research lab!” Twilight scolded from behind him in the doorway, “You can’t just barge in like that. What if somepony was in the middle of an experiment?”

The purple unicorn maneuvered her way around the conduit in the doorway to enter the room, expressing many apologies to the recovering archmages as they went back to their work a little more wearily. Sam took the opportunity to examine the room that he and Twilight had been led to upon returning to the castle.

Twilight’s lab may have looked sophisticated, for pony standards, but the lab that he was now in put hers to shame. It was nearly three times the size and with enough room, even with all the equipment about, to fit over a dozen ponies comfortably. Which it did, as the ponies that busied themselves around the lab stole intermediate glances to the new arrivals every once in a while.

Tables with more bunsen burners, beakers full of colorful fluids, and loose pieces of various equipment were scattered throughout the room and created a maze-like floor plan that only those that worked there could easily navigate. Many devices and pieces of machinery that Sam was already acquainted with from Twilight’s lab were present, although they were comparably industrial sized and a few more with which he was unfamiliar with that ‘beeped’, ‘sputtered’, and ‘whistled’ as they worked.

Off to his right, the illustrious Aegis Flare waited patiently for the conduit to recognize his presence and the inevitable tomfoolery that he had come to know from the human.

“Hey, Cappy!” Sam obnoxiously waved and crossed the section of the room needed to meet with the captain of the royal guard.

Narrowing his eyes only slightly, the captain stared the conduit down, “Human, I asked for you to be here as promptly as possible. Would you kindly explain to me why it took you nearly two hours to return to the castle?”

At first, the captain had planned on waiting for the human conduit to return near the castle gate. Though as time passed with no human in sight, the captain had no choice but meet with the head archmage on the device’s development when he was informed on its completion, which left him to have a runner escort the human and Twilight to the research lab upon their return. To say that the captain was fuming at the human’s lack of punctuality would be an understatement.

“Sorry, Cappy,” Sam through up his arms defensively, “but when you’re just this handsome and popular, it’s hard to keep the fans off you!”

Captain Aegis Flare ground his teeth silently, and his left ear flicked in annoyance. If this human was one of his subordinates, he would have had him court marshalled on the spot. Luckily, Twilight had just finished apologizing to the last mage and stepped in to clarify.

“I’m so sorry, Captain. Many news reporters were flooding the main roads back to the castle in hopes of catching Sam for an exclusive, since we usually return here after an outing in the city. Sam, unfortunately, thought that the best way to get around them was to find some disguises to sneak past them,” Twilight explained, adding a narrowed glare of her own in Sam’s direction at the horrifically failed plan.

Sam backed away from the angry purple unicorn as he tried to defend himself, “It would have worked too, but you had to go and reveal our hiding spot while I was putting the finishing touches on myself.”

“You were taking over fifteen minutes deciding on ‘the right pair of glasses’!” Twilight shot back with an accusatory hoof.

“Yes, but the perfect disguise requires the perfect set of clothes to truly blend in.”

“Oh, for the love of- Both of them were equally obnoxious and oversized pairs of sunglasses! Nopony would have been fooled by it in the first place!”

Sam snorted in defiance, “Says you.”

“And the clown wig would have helped, too?”

“Hey, no one expects a silly disguise til they’re too shocked to do anything but stare.”

“The point of a disguise is to blend in, not stand out like the circus just came to town!” Twilight shouted.

“Enough!” Aegis Flare shouted over the two of them, unable to take much more.

Twilight’s ears folded back as she bowed her head, clearly feeling embarrassed. Sam just coughed a few times into his hand before stuffing both into his pockets.

With a deep sigh, the captain reigned in his outburst, “I’m sorry, Miss Sparkle. I didn’t mean for you to feel at fault. As for you...”

Sam looked over his shoulders playfully before pointing to himself.

“If you delay the next time I summon you, so help me, I will have your stipulations reduced back to confinement of the castle. Are we clear?”

Glad to hear that his dessert privileges hadn’t been revoked, Sam settled with a few gestures of a thumbs up, followed by a respectful bow. Captain Aegis Flare knew that Sam was only making the gesture mockingly, but if it meant that he could move on to the reason why he had brought him here in the first place, he was going to ignore it. Turning back around, the captain took another moment to go over everything he was about to say and finally request from their resident conduit, something that neither of them were about to readily enjoy.

“Those kids enjoyed the show at least.”

“Shut up, Sam!”

The captain heard the comments from under the conduit’s and Twilight’s breath while his back was turned. The human was a foal in most ways in Aegis Flare’s eyes, but his antics always seemed to find a way to endear himself to the general public, which only helped his image to Equestria as a whole and showed them that he was a friend rather than an just an alien, which also made what he was about ask all the more harder.

“Human,” Aegis Flare began, “You know that my guards and I are still not capable of taking on these assailants on our own. As much as it pains me to say it, we’ve come to rely on you, your knowledge, and your combative skills to fight them back.”

“Hey, I just hate to see some lunatic going around, kidnapping innocent ponies, and giving conduits a bad name,” Sam said, clenching his fists to the point of them cracking on their own.

Aegis Flare grunted his acceptance of the conduit’s reply, “I understand, but we simply cannot expect you to fight all our battles for us, human. It’s simply unacceptable for us to rely on you to do such a thing.”

“Honestly, I don’t mind,” Sam countered.

“Be that as it may. There may come a time when we must be able to fight for ourselves. You still have your own friends that you have to return to, yes?”

Sam choked on his reply. The captain apologized silently with a bow, knowing that this was sore subject. Sam knew that his time in Equestria could only be for so long. The captain was right in that he couldn’t stay forever to fight against these D.U.P. wannabes, but these ponies simply had no way of defending themselves effectively against them.

Sam’s thoughts were halted as the captain continued on with his prepared speech, “Your training with my guards and I have greatly helped us in understanding how to combat those with conduit abilities. Your knowledge and insight on their general strengths and weaknesses have also allowed us to expand our strategic capabilities. Though, there is one thing that we have yet to do to solidify our advantage: An ideal means of safely containing these assailants once we’ve detained them.”

The captain let the last statement sink in before picking up the device once more from the table front of him in one hoof. Turning back to face the conduit, the captain presented the device for the conduit to look over. Sam at first looked over the curious contraption, questioning what the thing even was. His eyes grew wide with shock once they spotted the faded black lettering against the yellow tint of the large, metal ring. ‘D.U.P.’, the letters spelled out, if only roughly around the weld marks where the metal was crudely fused together to make the final shape.

Tendrils or wire snaked across Sam’s forearms as he backed away from the ring like contraption in the captain’s hoof. A primal fear threatened to overtake him and demanded that he found the quickest escape route out that room and possibly the city, just to not be in the same space as the device.

“Captain!” Twilight stepped between Sam and the captain, “Put that away, and for that matter. Why do you have something like that here?”

Aegis Flare looked at Twilight with an apologizing look, “I’m sorry, Miss Sparkle, but this is simply our only means of combating Visionary Dusk and his assailants.”

“Excuse me, but I’m with Twilight on this one,” Sam cut in, “Well, also, what is that?”

Aegis Flare sighed heavily, having already anticipated this sort of reaction from the conduit before him. His posture was tense, arms raised and threads of metal slowly bending around his forearms at the ready for a retaliation. It was the same as when they assaulted Visionary Dusk’s shelter. The good captain could see just how adept a fighter he was just by his stance, and all it took was a simple device with a logo to push him to this point. If that’s all it took, Aegis Flare found a bit of sympathy for the wayward conduit and his distress toward the ones that instilled this fear in him.

“It’s a detainment ring,” Aegis Flare simply answered, “Archmage Scarlet, if you could explain to them on the specifics of what I’ve called them for?”

Archmage Scarlet readjusted her glasses once more before hastily stepping forward and scooping the ‘detainment ring’ out of Aegis Flare’s hoof, “Of course, captain. Now, ahem. We here at the royal research facility have been working on a countermeasure, at the captain’s request, to safely contain these assailants and their supernatural abilities.”

The archmage happily spun the ring around her hoof as she turned to Sam with a smile, “Honestly, it was challenge. We never expected to come across such magical- er, I mean, supernatural powers ever in our lifetimes, but here we are! It was an absolute thrill to study such an untapped well of knowledge! Both for your world’s culture and your abilities! I only wish we could see the human world for ourselves. Oh, what a joy that would be, to immerse myself in the thick of human society.”

Captain Aegis Flare noisily cleared his throat, to which the archmage blushed in embarrassment at getting off track.

“R-right. As I said before, it was tricky to find the right method to properly detain these assailants with their abilities. Any of our normal shackles and cells just wouldn’t stand up against their power. Spells, runes, and other magical artifacts simply have no affect on them, nor could they negate their powers. We were honestly stumped, but after the royal guard successfully raided the assailants home base, we finally found our answers.”

The archmage’s features became a bit solemn as she added her next thoughts, “I’ve only heard of this pony, Visionary Dusk, while I was in the academy. He was said to be one of Equestria’s greatest mages and scientists. I once looked up to him, you know? It was kind of the reason I wanted to be an archmage myself, but after his unethical experiments came to light, nopony even wanted to remember him. To find out that he’s come back and restarted his experiments… I’m sorry, it’s just a bit hard to think about.”

The archmage lifted her glasses to wipe away the mist from her eyes. A renewed sense of purpose spurred the now determined looking unicorn into continuing.

“The raid, like I mentioned, was our key to figuring out a solution to safely containing the assailants aiding Visionary Dusk. You see, very little was recoverable from the hideout as it appeared that Visionary Dusk destroyed most of his notes before escaping. What little that we could get our hooves on was unhelpful at best, but there was one thing that stood out as me and the rest of the research team combed through what we could.

“There was a small footnote on a certain type of material that Visionary Dusk had worked with that seemed to able to negate all expression of the ‘conduit gene’ when a conduit was encased in it. We’ve been able to cross reference this info with debriefs of the abductees that were saved from the hideout and found the material that was mentioned in the recovered materials, also from the hideout.”

The unicorn mare fumbled around for a bit on the ‘detainment ring’ until a soft ‘click’ was heard, and the contraption swung open on a hinge on one side of the circular device.

“It took us a bit longer to fully develop this prototype, as the material itself is magic resistant, and we’ve had to resort to commissioning the guard’s forgemaster to cast it. With this device, the ‘detainment ring’, all one needs to do is put this around a conduit’s neck, and it should, in theory, negate their abilities.”

Sam stared at the contraption uncomfortably. The thing reminded him far too much of the suppression cuffs that he and all the other conduits of Curdan Cay were forced to wear each and every day as a part of their detainment in that horrible facility. Flashes of some of the more unpleasant times he experienced there surfaced in his mind. The urge to run as far away as possible grew steadily, along with his anxiety.

Twilight quickly blocked the conduit’s view from the device by placing herself between the two and softly brushed her cheek up against Sam’s side. The minor comfort only had a slight effect on the distressed conduit, but it was just enough that he no longer felt like the walls were starting to close in around him.

“Archmage Scarlet,” Twilight redirected her attention to the confused looking unicorn across from her, “I understand the need to develop such a device, but why is it that Sam had to come down here to see it as well?”

“Because, we have no other choice, Miss Sparkle,” Captain Aegis Flare cut in gruffly.

Twilight attention was drawn to the captain as she gave him an even more confused look at the statement. Behind his stoic expression, if anyone was paying close enough attention, the captain frowned ever so slightly that betrayed his regret in having to put forth this favor he was about to ask.

“This device is only a prototype, as Archmage Scarlet has already said,” Aegis Flare explained, “I cannot ask my guards to risk their lives on a chance that this device only ‘could’ work without a proper test of its practical use.” The captain redirected his attention toward the human before speaking again. “Which is why I called you here, human. Being the only one we can safely test this device on, you were the only choice we have in ensuring that I trust using this device in the field.”

“Oh, hell no!” Sam sudden blurted out, “I don’t want that thing anywhere near me!”

The wire conduit was already taking cautious steps back toward the door. The metal strands that shot out from around his forearms writhed like angry snakes, and every time two of them scraped against one another, a horrible screeching sound emanated from them. The show of fear induced intimidation set the rest of the room’s occupants at unease.

Twilight confronted the captain, attempting to diffuse the confrontation, “Captain Aegis Flare, there has to be another way. Can’t you see how uncomfortable Sam is by this?”

The captain shook his head, “I’m sorry, Ms. Sparkle, but there isn’t.”

“Sure there isn’t,” Sam bitterly laughed, “And seeing me completely powerless is just a bonus you can add to the sick kick you’re getting out of this. Bet it’ll be pretty reassuring knowing that you’ll finally have a trump card against me, just in case I become ‘too much of threat’, right?”

The captain winced like he had been slapped in the face. The mages and researchers alike looked alarmed by Sam’s now chilling expression of hostility, some even to the point of wishing that the only exit was not being blocked by the wire wielding human. Twilight tried her best to find the right words that would break the tension in the room non-violently, but none came to mind quick enough.

Though, before Twilight had time to speak up out of desperation, the captain stepped forth, “This has nothing to do with anything between you and me, human. This is about ensuring Equestria and her subjects’ safety.”

Sam scoffed, “And I just so happen to be the perfect guinea pig?”

“Please, human. I wouldn’t ask this of you if we had any other choice,” the captain pleaded.

Sam bit back the remark he was about to blurt out with a snap of his jaw closing. Never once had he heard Ol’ Cappy say the word ‘please’ when talking to him. Sam wasn’t even sure if he heard the captain correctly. Taking a step back, he finally noticed how the pegasus stallion seemed to bow his head just so, in a way that Sam could only interpret as ‘remorse’ for even bringing the request up in the first place. All arguments that Sam had initially thought up to get himself out of this situation seemed to take a backseat as he carefully weighed the captain’s words.

“...You really do need my help on this, dontcha Cappy?” Sam sighed, the flames of hatred finally dying down.

Captain Aegis Flare looked the conduit in the eye and nodded only once. The silent and simple reply spoke volumes above anything the captain could ever say to the conduit. Sam’s gaze slowly shifted between the captain, the Archmage, Twilight, and the device in the Archmage’s hoof. The room was oddly silent, and it was only then that Sam noticed that the rest of the mages and researchers had been silently watching the entire exchange from across the room. The extra attention did little to calm Sam’s nerves on what he was considering to do next after feeling so guilty for causing their panic.

The wires swirling around Sam’s forearms slowly retracted back into the conduit’s body, an act that both left him feeling exposed, but helped placate the ponies around him. Although as tense as a coiled spring, the wire conduit forced his body to move, first swinging his back foot forward til it came down in a step in front of him, then another. His movements were almost mechanical, like if he put any more thought into what he was doing he would have turned and ran the other way. His eyes remained fixed on the ‘detainment ring’ held aloft in Archmage Scarlet’s hoof, the thing looking far more menacing than a simple looking metal, collar-like device.

Without even realizing, Sam was already directly in front of the archmage. Her hoof remained outstretched with the ‘detainment ring’ still perched in her grasp, yet Sam was unable to bring himself to reach out and take it. A dark pit of fear welling in his chest made the wire conduit’s body shiver slightly as he tried a number of times to just get his body to move again.

The archmage was unsure of what she was supposed to do, so she cleared her throat and offered some help, “Umm... would you like me to help you get it on for the test?”

“No!” Sam snapped, only to realize how he reacted and how the little pony shrunk back in fear. Sam closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm down and answer more collectedly, “No, just-... just give it here.”

Archmage Scarlet wasted no time in hoofing over the device to the conduit’s outstretched hand and backed away slowly. In the meantime, Sam stared down at the open latched collar in his hands. The damn thing felt much heavier than it had any right to be, but only because of how much it reminded him again of standard issue D.U.P. suppression cuffs. It didn’t help that the thing was literally made from the same material, had the same color scheme, or bore the insidious logo. Sam’s hands began to shake once more, causing the metal contraption to jingle noisily.

Sam nearly jumped out of his skin as he felt a hoof brush up against his forearm. The purple appendage jerked back, but the unicorn that it was attached to stood fast by the conduit’s side. Offering a sympathetic look, Twilight brought her hoof back up to the conduit’s side, showing her encouragement with a reassuring smile.

“I’m right here if you need me, Sam,” Twilight offered a more verbal support.

Between that and the light strokes of her hoof on his arm, Sam’s courage was bolstered just enough to get him moving again. Twilight’s hoof pulled away as Sam adjusted the collar in his hands, so he could put it on properly. His hands still shook a little, but he was able to get the collar to wrap around his neck. He pushed the seperated ring back together until it closed snugly against his throat, leaving no room for it to be pulled up over his head alone. He fumbled with the latch at the front, being unable to see it directly along with his unsteady grip, until he got it to snap in place.

It was subtle at first, the familiar feeling of his powers being suppressed. Maybe it was because of the freedom him as his friends enjoyed once they had escaped that transport crash, or the fact that he may have been subconsciously repressing most of his memories of his four years in Curdan Cay, however, once the feeling fully settled in, Sam nearly panicked. Every instinct in his body screamed for him to tear the damn collar off and run as far as he could. The only thing keeping him grounded was Twilight’s constant presence and the periodic brushes of her hoof on his arm. The small comfort helped him to maintain his courage and stay rooted...just barely

“... Well?” Archmage Scarlet asked, unable to hold back her curiosity for the results, “Is it working?”

This earned her a pointed glare from Twilight, and the stout unicorn shrunk back. Sam, meanwhile, focused on the sensations of being powerless once again. It was unpleasant, to say the least, like a part of him had been cut off and made to dangle in front of him, but kept constantly out of reach. The weight of the collar around his neck didn’t help in the slightest. It felt like it was choking all the air out of him and slowing getting tighter, even if it remained the same shape and size as when he put it on. He hated all of it all the same.

However, he needed to make sure to test it properly, for Cappy’s sake. He put too much faith in the wire conduit for Sam to half-ass this simple, yet unpleasant, test. Raising his left arm til it stretched out in front of him, Sam tried to use his powers. Try as he night though, nothing happened. He pushed harder, willing every fiber of his being for even the slightest reaction to occur. Yet, not even a single strand of wire appeared from his outstretched arm.

Finally giving up, Sam let his arm fall to his side and shook his head, “I can’t do anything. The collar… it works.”

Although being cause for a round of congratulations, the conduit’s words left the room’s occupants feeling terrible.

“Can I get this thing off now?” Sam asked quietly.

“Y-yes, of course,” Archmage Scarlet answered earnestly, “The latch at the front just needs to be flipped open, and the whole device will open back up. It only has the latch since we needed to make sure the device worked before incorporating a component as complex as a proper lock.”

Sam brought his hands up to the collar and began to fiddle with the outside of ring to find the latch. He initially began to panic when he at first thought the latch was gone, fear of having being tricked into detaining himself gripped him like an icy hand. In his mind, he could see the ponies around him giving him satisfied, sinister grins at having conquered a dangerous enemy before them. He had been duped, and he knew it.

Though before the full wave of terror could sweep him under, his fingers brushed against the lost grooves of the latch sitting over his throat. Pure relief rushed over him as the satisfying click of the latch popping open echoed in his ear. He at first wanted to throw the ugly, yellow device across the room and leave as soon as he could. Though, the relief of no longer having the collar on him helped to clear his mind, and he gingerly handed the device back to the Archmage, who was smiling apologetically.

“Thank you, human,” Aegis Flare said, walking up beside Sam, “We don’t need you here any longer. You’re free to go for the rest of the day.”

Somewhere in there, Sam wanted to say that he heard some genuine gratitude beyond the simple ‘thanks’ in the captain’s words. However, the prospect of being able to leave this room was too much to pass up. With a quick heel turn, Sam hurried to the exit, with Twilight hot on his heels, but stopped short and looked back over his shoulder to ol’ Cappy.

Sam thought for a moment before finding the right words, “Hey, good luck on the final design for that thing.” His sincere words were suddenly offset back the goofy smile he forced onto his face for what came next. “Though, can you get something comfy to line the inside? I don’t want it to chafe if I gotta model your terrible sense in fashion again.”

The little jab was just the right thing needed to get the good captain to drop his sympathetic frown and replace it with his trademark scowl toward the human. He raised his hoof and snapped it out to point out and around the conduit’s frame toward the door.

“Get out of here, human!”

Sam snickered at getting his daily rise out of the captain before turning to leave, “Love you, too, Cappy!”

The frustrated groan coming from the research lab as Sam left permeated the air and made the conduit chuckle even more. Twilight on the other hoof, although glad that the experience didn’t traumatize him, groaned in exasperation alongside the captain as she followed the conduit out of the lab. There was still her own studies with the wire conduit that she needed to get back to, but she decided that Sam deserved his own time to himself for now. So, she explained on their walk through the castle that she would be up in her own lab and wouldn’t need him til the next day.

“You sure? Not like I’ve got much better to do,” Sam asked after hearing Twilight’s words.

Twilight shook her head in reply, “No, just try not to cause too much trouble, for both our sakes?”

Placing both his hands over his heart like he had been shot, Sam smiled innocently, “Sparks, I’m hurt that you would insinuate that I would do anything to cause mischief.”

“Sam!” Twilight glared at the conduit flatly.

“Alright, alright. I promise not to do anything too crazy.”

The lackluster oath was all the unicorn was probably going to get out of her conduit friend, which was better than nothing she supposed, and she knew the wire conduit wouldn’t do anything to actually cause any real trouble, so it was enough.

With a quick wave of goodbye, Twilight turned at the next break in the castle hallway to find her lab. Sam waited til she was out of sight from around the next hallway before getting a devious smirk on his face. There were still two guards that were behind him, his ‘escort’, that he had to deal with, but that was an easy fix.

Mumbling under his breath, Sam pondered to himself, “Now, I wonder where they keep their closets full of toilet paper? The princesses’ ‘throne’ definitely needs a ‘restock’. Why even call it a ‘throne room’ if it lacks the basic necessities to perform its duties? ...hehe, ‘duties’.”

--o0o--

Visionary Dusk swept his gaze around his newest lab. A sense of familiarity washed over him as he smiled to himself over the work he’d done in this place. Everything looked almost like it did nearly seven years ago.

The interior of the lab, and the building as a whole, was greatly deteriorated and in much disrepair. The sides of the building outside were tagged in layers of graffiti from local hoodlums. Windows and even a few of the doors had been smashed in, due to vandalism behind the boarded up openings. There was a sickly-sweet scent that permeated the air from all the vagrants and squatters that used the old building as a refuge during the cold months.

Yet, even with all the damage and surrounding lack of upkeep with the area, the Canterlot committee never took the time to assign a crew to clean up or even tear down the old section of the city with the dilapidated research lab at its center within the lower ring. At first, it was due to the history that the place held and the fact that nopony wanted to go near the place. Though after a time, ponies forgot why it was still there, but could never bring themselves to go near it. A few more years, and the old section was just a place that was just forgot about unless some delinquents stumbled across it.

Now, however, with its original inhabitant once again making use of the old research lab, an aura of sinister intent could be felt chilling the halls. Visionary Dusk reached across the room with his magic for his saddle bags that contained the last of his belongings that he was able to salvage from the Geode Caverns and set about arranging them throughout the room in appropriate places. As he did so, he took another deep breath of the musty air and sighed in relief. The feeling of resuming his work was comforting to him, and soon, he would have exactly what he needed to complete the next phase of his research. He was so close that he could just feel it.

The last item to be plucked from his bags was the tape recorder that had been his only companion throughout this entire ordeal, which was fine with him, since the inanimate object cared not for what he did. Nor did it have a sense of right or wrong or a mind to judge unjustly the actions that were needed to bring his lifelong research to fruition. Yet, when the time came, Visionary Dusk would discard the device, for he wouldn’t need it when the world would know him as the pony that brought them into a new age. It was only a matter of time.

For now, however, he checked over the device to make sure it was still in working order. Once satisfied that it was, he checked the current tape inside of it and found a generous amount of tape left to record on. That left him in a better mood, as he wouldn’t have to waste time searching for a new tape before he had to get down to business. A small pulse from his magic and the record button was pressed, and the small ‘whirring’ noise from the device let him know that it was ready to dictate his words.

“Log number D-125. Relocation to new facility is complete, and research is ready to resume.”

Visionary Dusk walked over to an overhead cabinet above a rusted out sink and opened its doors with a flick of his magic. From it, he carefully extracted two items and levitated them across the room to the center table. The original structure may have been dirty, rusted, or neglected of maintenance, but the haughty unicorn had meticulously cleaned and sterilized every piece of his equipment, as to not risk contamination of his precious experiments.

“Although many of my experiments were lost due to the incompetence of my hired assistants, they had inadvertently provided me with some of my most sought after samples that I could have ever hoped for.”

Already back at the center table, Visionary Dusk looked over his samples with a predatory gaze. One was a small vial full of black hair strands. The other was another, larger vial of crimson liquid, filled to the brim. The viscous fluid shimmered in the light when held up, and the unicorn gazed upon it with a sort of reverence.

“Subject A-4 is unlike any other subject that I have come to encounter. Unlike subjects A-1 through A-3, subject A-4 has shown to have abilities that are even beyond those that have come before it. Also of note, whereas subjects A-1 through A-3 have had the same abilities; A-4 has been seen to have an entirely new set of abnormalities. Unfortunately, no opportunities are currently present to acquire the subject as a whole for further study. Luckily, hair and blood samples were acquired in limited quantities during the invasion of the Geode Caverns’ facility.”

The unicorn set the vials down for the moment while he walked about the room, picking out pieces of equipment for the ensuing experiments that he had been anticipating doing ever since he obtained these specific samples. His choices were limited, however, which caused him to frown, as he remembered how he was forced to leave quite a bit of his resources behind.

“Testing of samples will now commence to further understanding of the ‘conduit gene’. With luck, I will finally have what I need to-”

“Doctor! Doctor, you in here?”

Visionary Dusk growled at the sudden interruption to his crucial research. The one that dared to suspend such an important moment was none other than Aras, the griffon. The avian creature poked his head through the open door frame of the unicorn’s makeshift lab. His eagle-like eyes locked onto the unicorn near the center of the room, nodding to himself in approval at finally finding the one he had been seeking. Stepping fully into the room, his claws clicking noisily against the linoleum floor. He only took a moment to glance around to see all the equipment the unicorn had already set up in such a short amount of time.

In his most annoyed tone he could muster, Visionary Dusk directed his attention to the wandering griffon, “What is it, Aras? I’m in the middle of a critical experiment.”

Not caring for what the unicorn was doing, Aras replied with his own question that had been bothering him ever since they arrived at their new location, “I don’t mean to sound like I’m questioning your judgment, sir, but… Canterlot; we are practically right under the princess’ noses, and we risk setting up in a run down place like this? One slip up to be noticed, and all they would have to do is walk a few steps from their palace to come knocking at our door! What in name of the great eagle made you think this would be the best place for us to hide while you work on your stupid science project?!”

“Because it is necessary, you simpleton!” Visionary Dusk threw back with a bite in his tone at the last insult. His research was anything but a foalish ‘science project’. It was the key to a new era for both Equestria and the world, and his redemption in the eyes of those who thought they could shun him.

With a deep, calming breath, the unicorn straightened out his mane and continued his reply more calmly, “You simply just cannot see how glorious this will be once my work is complete. Plus, this place holds a sort of ‘sentimental’ value to me. To have it finish in the spot it all began? It’s almost poetic in a sense. Those that thought I was ‘a loon’ or ‘a criminal’ will finally see that they were the ones who were wrong. That I should have been lavished in praise and commended for doing what must be done to provide the world with what it was always waiting for!”

Aras backed up a few steps nervously as the unicorn ranted. When he first took on this job with his mercenary crew, he had had his reservations for working with the pony. Something about him just never really sat right with griffon. Yet, the unicorn’s bits were as good as any, and he only sweetened the deal when he promised each of the mercenaries with a way to achieve their own personal goals with power that he could only have dreamed of. Now though, Aras could see why the crackpot of a unicorn was banished from his own land. Yet at the same time, he and the rest of his mercenary companions had no way of cutting ties with the deranged pony, not with said pony being in complete control on whether they lived or died with a simple drug shot. Or the fact that the entire Equestrian military most likely had them at the top of every ‘Most Wanted’ lists in the kingdom.

The griffon was broken from his musings as he heard the off-white coated unicorn chuckle to himself. The sound was hollow and held no real warmth like a real laugh would. Visionary Dusk shook his head as he calmed himself down to finish off his rant, “It’s funny. That wretched alicorn thought that I was somehow misguided, and that by banishing me would somehow help me understand that my actions were ‘wrong’. Yet, it was only thanks to that banishment that I was able to finally come across the wealth of information that I needed to continue my research. As much I am loathe to say it, I have her to thank for this opportunity that I have been bestowed.” The unicorn turned to Aras with a serious gaze and flicked his head in the direction of the open doorway behind him with a wicked grin. “Now, as much as I enjoy enlightening you on the importance of my research. I must get back to work.”

The unicorn said nothing else as he turned away from the griffon and looked over his center table to find where he had left off. Aras clicked his beak a few times, biting back all the vulgar remarks he had built up over the one sided conversation. He wanted so badly to dig his talons into the pony’s face and gouge his eyes out, or even grab him and shoot off into the sky before letting go at the highest altitude he could reach and watch as the pretentious unicorn screamed in terror as he fell before splatting against the ground. However, Aras knew he would only be dooming himself and his fellow mercenaries to a slow and agonizing death once their serum-induced powers started to deteriorate them from the inside-out.

So, he left the makeshift lab and the rambling unicorn that continued his work to rove the old research lab they currently took shelter in within the lower ring district of Canterlot. He roamed the halls for a bit, periodically peeking out the boarded up windows at what little of the grand, equestrian capital he could see.

It wasn’t much, and there were no ponies to speak of in this old section of the city that he could watch pass by with mild interest, just cracked cobblestone streets and the few surrounding buildings that were in just as much disrepair as their own. Aras only hoped that the mad unicorn finished his research before the royal guard discovered where they had fled to, or they may not be able to escape for a second time.

Bonus Ch 4: April Fool's chapter - Le Finale

It was quiet...too quiet. At least, that’s what somepony would say were it not for the roaring explosion that shook the mountain side capital of Canterlot to its very foundations. The ponies of the capital had no idea what was going on, or where the startling noise was coming from. All they knew was that there was a giant plume of ash and smoke that seemed to swallow half the city in its billowing embrace. Debris and chunks of the city rained down everywhere, causing everypony to scream and scatter in panic to avoid the onslaught.

From the castle that overlooked the entire city, a lone human raced through the hallways. Using his unique abilities of wire manipulation to expertly weave over and through the groups of confused and terrified ponies that crowded parts of the castle. Sam, the wire conduit, sprinted past any who were running in the opposite direction until he found a glass doorway that led to an open balcony. Throwing open the doors, he disregarded the panes of glass that shattered from having their frames slammed against the opposite walls so hard.

Sam did not care though, for there was the sea of chaos that emanated from the city below that held his attention more acutely. Gazing out from the balcony, Sam could only see what most others could see. Billowing clouds of smoke, flecks of embers coming from the fires that engulfed the streets from anything flammable enough, and the sounds of panicked citizens crying out from the city below for somepony to come save them.

“Sam!” a voice called out from behind the wire conduit.

The sound of galloping hooves came racing toward him, but he did not need to turn around to know who it was due to recognizing the voice. The purple unicorn, Twilight Sparkle, came to a halt just before the balcony’s entrance, panting raggedly. She carefully maneuvered around the shards of glass still on the ground to reach the wire conduit looking out onto the city with an enraged glare.

“Sam, please, at least wait for the captain and the guards to mobilize!” Twilight pleaded to the human.

Sam looked down to see the desperation in the unicorn’s eyes, but even that would not change his mind, “I’m sorry, Twilight. There’s just no time. This has to end, today.”

“Sam,” Twilight whispered, already resigned to the conduit’s conviction.

Though before Sam had to time to clear the balcony’s railing and leap down to head toward the city, he felt a gentle hoof brush up against his side, which brought his attention back down to the unicorn that it belonged to.

Her eyes were misty, but Twilight stood resolutely and gave Sam a encouraging smile, “Give them hell, Sam.”

Sam smiled broadly in return and kicked off from the railing to race toward the city below.

--o0o--

Within the city of Canterlot, on the streets of the lower ring facing the east, the streets were filled with nothing but destruction and despair. Many of the buildings were already in some state of ruin. The cobblestone streets were either cracked, pockmarked with smoking craters, or littered with the wreckage of its surroundings. At the center of all this stood three menacing looking figures that were the cause of all of it.

Two of them were unicorns that continuously swept the streets for any signs of movement as they moved along. The third was a griffon, that led the three man fireteam down the streets. Unlike his companions, his gaze was focused straight ahead, like he already knew what was to come and just needed to wait for it to happen. All three of them heard it over the crackling fires and crumbling buildings and turned in direction it was coming from. It was an odd sound, but one that they were growing familiar with. It was like a metal barb whistling through the air until it struck a solid enough chuck of building to anchor it, followed by a steady whoosh of air before the barb ripped from its concrete anchor and the barb retracted, as if on a reel.

The steady rhythm grew louder before the source of the noise came into view and revealed it to be the human conduit that they had been anticipating, swinging from building to building on wire grappling hooks. The three figures tensed and drew their weapons of choice and opened fire on the incoming conduit. A hail of gunfire and concrete projectiles filled the air between the mercenaries and the wire conduit. Sam expertly dodged the barrage by zipping from side to side on his wires til he was right on top of the trio.

Using more wires that he shunted out from his forearms, he braided them into cable whips, dropped down between the mercenaries and lashed out. Only one of the unicorns was caught with a graze from the opening counter, while the other mercenaries darted out of the way of the wire appendages. They regrouped down the street and took aim on the conduit, but held their fire. Sam stood up slowly, his wires retracting into his body as he took a defensive stance against the mercenaries before him.

“Hey, guys. You know, if you all wanted to hang out again, you could have just called,” Sam snarkily remarked, but his usual mirth was jaded by the wanton destruction surrounding them.

The griffon was the first to step forward and stare the conduit down from behind his tinted visor. The two unicorns fanned out to either side slowly, looking like they were preparing to flank from both sides while keeping their firearms held in their magical grasps trained on the lone human.

The griffon clicked his beak a few times before addressing the human in his gruff tone, “We’re not here to play games, bio-terrorist!”

“Conduit,” Sam quickly corrected, “and why not? You and the lads even brought your toys, even if your moves are getting a bit stale.”

At that, the griffon chuckled darkly. Sam didn’t like the sound of that. The cynical laughter died down after a few seconds, and the griffon did something unexpected. Reaching up with his talons, he unclasped the buckle to the strap on his helmet. With a swift, yet methodical motion, the griffon removed his helmet to reveal the knowing smirk on his face. His eyes held a confident glow to them that Sam was growing uneasy around.

The griffon tossed the helmet over his shoulder and pointed at the human on the other side of the cobblestone road, snidely announcing, “If you still think this a game, fine. Just know that the boss was generous enough to teach us a few new ‘moves’.”

Sam tensed up even further, unknowing of what the griffon could be hinting at. He was about to get his answer as the griffon reared up on his hind legs and raised his talons above his head. In a blur, the griffon’s talons flew down to infront of his chest and formed a sequence of gestures that Sam was unfamiliar with.

When the sequence was done and held on a final gesture, the griffon flared out his wings and cried out, “Kage bushin no justu!”

The street in front of Sam exploded into plumes of smoke. Sam raised his arms defensively, but the effort was in vain as no immediate attack sprang out to catch him off guard. As the smoke settled, Sam gasped in surprise. There was no longer just one griffon, but half a dozen. Each with either a set of short swords, throwing stars, or metal capped claws. All of them wore a black headband with a metal plate attached to it with the D.U.P. logo engraved into its center.

Sam took a step back out of fear. Never in his life had he seen someone, even with conduit abilities, do something like that. The griffon, or ‘griffons’, chuckled again in delight at having surprised the human conduit. Though, he wasn’t about to let the wire conduit catch his breath. So, the six griffons took flight in all different directions to encircle the stunned human from the air.

Sam reacted out of instinct, which was probably the only reason he wasn’t sliced into six different ways, and rolled out of the way at the very last second. There was the clanging of metal digging into cobblestone as the six griffons drove their tools into the spot that Sam was just in moments ago. They didn’t hesitate for long, as they pried their weapons from the ground and chased after the retreating human.

“Not so smart mouthed now, huh?” one of the griffons taunted as he swiped at Sam with his metal capped claws.

Sam dodged, ducked, dipped, dived, and dogded out of the way of the assault, praying for an opening to retaliate that never came. Another griffon came barreling out from Sam’s right and narrowly nicked the human across the cheek with a slice of his sword.

The same griffon smirked and taunted the wire conduit further, “There’s no way you’re going to win against us!”

“My power has increased to a level that you could never attain!” a third griffon called out as he threw a trio of throwing stars at Sam.

Two of the throwing stars made a few more grazes across Sam’s left forearm and back. He hissed in pain, doing everything he could to avoid seizing up and render himself wide open. He had to come up with something quick, or he would suffer worse injuries than just a few cuts. The inspiration hit him in a flash, and he worked to divide his attention on both avoiding the griffons’ attacks and charging a mass of energy from his arms.

Wires wreathed his arms and sporadically twitched in all different directions around his upper body. He took a few more hits from the divided effort, but just as it seemed that the griffons had him on the ropes, the wire conduit smirked. All six of the griffons dove from all around the conduit, weapons forward as if intent to impale him in one final attack. The world moved in slow motion, and Sam crouched and slammed the palms of his hands into the ground.

“Eat this!” Sam cried out, “Super-Amazing-Defensive-Hedgehog-Attack!”

The griffons saw the attack a split second too late and spikes woven from wires shot up and outward from the ground all around the conduit. Four out of the six griffons managed to flutter away or twist their bodies in a way that threaded them around the sharpened points of the spikes before backing off. The other two weren’t as lucky, as they were rightfully impaled and screeched out in pain with an eagle cry. Their limp forms twitched one last time before they burst into a puff of smoke and disappeared into the ether from whence they came.

Sam panted heavily from expending so much energy at once, but he rose to his feet victoriously. The griffons watched cautiously as the human walked out from the center of the spiky circle. They weren’t about to make the same mistake again, but a sudden glint from behind the conduit caught their eyes and gave them a reason to smile deviously. The unicorn duo sprang from their hiding spots behind the wire conduit and lined up their shots to fire upon the unsuspecting human.

“Prepare to die, bio-terrorist!” one of the unicorns called out, focusing his magical grasp on the trigger of his gun.

Before either of them had time to fully squeeze the triggers, another figure sprang up from behind them. The new figure was shrouded in his silhouette from the sun behind him and cast a foreboding shadow on the two unicorns with his outstretched wings. The distraction was all the new figure needed, as the unicorns tried to turn to see who the newcomer was before a spear swung out and caught the first unicorn in the midsection. It may have only been the shaft portion of the spear that clipped him, but the hit was strong enough to send him tumbling through the air and plow into the other unicorn and send them both tumbling to the ground. The unicorns tumbled to a halt at the griffons’ talons as the newcomer rocketed down from the sky and landed beside the human conduit.

Sam covered his eyes for moment as the newcomer’s entrance not only created a crater in the cobblestone he landed upon, but the force of the landing kicked up a veritable cloud of dust and smoke. When the debris cleared and Sam could see again, he was both shocked and surprised by who it was that just saved his life.

“C-Cappy-sama!”

Indeed, captain of the royal guard and defender of justice, Aegis Flare, had arrived to join the fray! His tattered, white cloak billowed in the wind, only slightly obscuring the battle-scarred, golden armor underneath that contoured to his awesomely strong frame. He took a deep drag from the cigarette between his lips before expelling the smoke through his nostrils. His one eyed stoic gaze, for his other eye was hidden behind a badass eyepatch, never left the enemies across from them. However, he tsked and flicked his attention to the human beside him to address.

His voice came out deep and strong as he reprimanded the human, “Yare yare daze, what kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time, baka?”

“Glad you could join the party, Cappy-sama,” Sam replied in delight, “Seems like our friends came back to be good neighbors and say hello. Might even stay to have a cup of tea if we invite them nicely.”

The captain spat his cigarette to the ground and stamped it out with a hoof. It seemed that not even the increase in adversaries could deter the stoic captain. He even went so far as to toss his spear off to the side, like the thing would only get in his way as he stepped forth to approach them. The unicorns raised their weapons once again to line them up with the approaching captain, but a claw held up by one of the griffons made them lower them again.

Aegis Flare stopped a few yards away from the ninja mercenaries and bared down on them with the meanest, edgiest glare he could muster and called out, “Where is your master?”

Before anyone could get another word in, maniacal laughter filled the air and echoed all around them, like the voice it was coming from was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The bonfires created by the destruction of the city block also took on a sinister glow about them and danced with an unnatural wind. All of a sudden, everyone looked up and behind the mercenaries to find the individual that the evil cackle belonged to atop of one of the half destroyed buildings littering the streets.

“You ask where I am, but it should be ‘How might I beg his forgiveness?’!”

The pony known as Visionary Dusk had appeared at last in all of his evil splendor. He continued to maliciously laugh as he twirled one side of his curly-q mustache with a hoof. His high collared, black cape fluttered in an opposing wind to the captain’s cloak fluttering. A crystal clear monocle adorned his right eye, even though he needed no further accessories to accentuate the level of evil he exuded from his presence. The spectacle’s chain appeared to be attached to nothing and hung loosely below, just to put the final punctuation on the point.

The unicorn settled down from his laughter just long enough to evilly grin and shouted over to the human and captain below, “Surrender now, or suffer my unholy wrath that I have held onto for the last five-hundred years!”

“Never, you fruit-of-the-loom mad scientist!” Sam yelled back in retort, sporting a defiant glare at the villian.

“Mad, you say?” Visionary Dusk began to chuckle once again, switching hooves to twirl the other side of his moustache, “Oh, I’m mad alright! You could say that I’m, ‘angry’, and you wouldn’t like me when I’m...upset!” The unicorn reached behind his cloak and pulled out a corked vial full of fluorescent liquid from seemingly nowhere and tossed it in the direction of his mercenaries. “You, henchponies numbers two and three, you know what to do!”

The unicorn to the griffons’ left nodded and caught the vial in his magical grasp. He popped the cork off the top and turned to look at his fellow unicorn companion. The two shared a look and gave each other a silent nod of agreement. As the first unicorn with the vial downed the fluorescent contents in a few gulps, the second unicorn reached into one of his pockets and retrieved what looked to be some sort of remote with a single button on its face. A simple push of it and a two tone beeping sound was all the warning they got before, out from the sky, an object descended fast enough to cause a sonic boom on its reentry. The unicorn with the remote leapt to an impossible height and met the hurtling object halfway on its descent and disappeared into its depths in a flash of blinding light.

The object, easily twice as big as the tallest building still standing, crashed to the ground and kicked up an even bigger cloud of dust to obscure its features than the captain’s initial intro. A single glowing green eye suddenly appeared within the dust cloud, and soon, the eye rose to an enormous height, with the sounds of hydraulic actuators and mechanical components sliding over each other. The dust cloud suddenly dispersed with a gust of wind, and the giant figure was finally revealed.

Sam gasped in surprise at what he saw, “N-nani?!”

A gundam mecha suit, specifically the MSN-06S Sinaju, in all its deep red, armored glory. The unicorn as its pilot moved it to take a fighting stance in front of its dwarfed opponents as it drew its energy sword.

Beside him, the unicorn looked like it was having some sort of seizure. The glass vial he had drank from shattered upon the ground when his magical grasp collapsed from it. The unicorn’s body started bulge out in weird, contorting fashions as his fur, mane and tail took on a shade of seaweed green. His clothes began to come apart at the seams til they tore off completely from the expanding mass of muscle and flesh, leaving him in only a tasteful pair of bright purple shorts.

Sam looked on in worry, for now it wasn’t just the ninja griffons he had to deal with anymore, who had taken to the air to circle around their oversized companions. Looking down to the captain beside him, the human conduit was surprised to see said captain was completely unfazed by the turn of events.

“Don’t worry, Samuel-kun. Everything is going to be okay,” the captain smiled, still with his stoic expression, up at the human, “Let me ask you one thing; Do you know what we ponies are exceptionally known for?”

“What is that, Cappy-sama?”

“Our navy!” the captain shouted and brought one his hooves up to his mouth and whistled a simple three tone tune.

The ground shook violently, and from behind the defender of justice, a giant battleship equipped with enough firepower to make the human’s world powers blush appeared. It glided through the ground, tearing up anything in its path, which included a huge swath of the buildings it plowed through and uprooted. On the very tip of the bow of the mighty ship, a figure stood with forelegs crossed over her chest.

“Yar, thou art in for the most heinous of beatdowns, you vile cur!” Princess Luna roared with her thick pirate accent.

Even from so far away, Sam could see her clad in her iconic pirate garb, a quartet of cutlasses held aloft in her magical grasp, and her ever faithful pet possum, Tiberius, casually scampering about the brim of her feathered hat. The commander of the Equestrian Royal Navy, Pirate Princess Luna, looked down upon the assembled enemies before her and smirked.

With a flick of one of her cutlasses, she pointed in the general direction of their foes and shouted, “Spare them no quarter, ye scallywags!”

Battlecries filled the air as droves of royal guards charged off the battleship and toward the enemy. All of them donned in a multitude of variant types of power armor, but each equally plated in a garish array of bright colors. The battleship itself began to rumble and shutter, until previously unseen seams formed upon its frame. With the hiss of venting pressure from deep within the machine, the battleship began to transform, morphing itself into a bipedal entity and charged into the chaos of warfare as well.

Giant robots brawled as they tried to wrestle one another to the ground, forcing the other into submission. Pirate Princess Luna and Cappy-sama worked in tandem to push the hulk of a green unicorn back and chipped away at his defenses that were slowly crumbling. A giant cloud of smoke burst out from the air, and when it was clear, an army of ninja griffons clashed with the power armored guards.

This left only two combatants left on the battlefield without an opponent. The wire conduit had managed to slip through the chaos to climb atop the decaying building that the mustachioed, evil unicorn perched upon to watch the battle below.

Without letting up on the twirling of his mustache, Visionary Dusk cackled, “Muwhahahaaha! It’s over, Wire Wraith! Even if those fools somehow managed to beat my legion of doom, you couldn’t hope defeat me! Especially by yourself!”

“You’re wrong, Dusk!” Sam shot back, posing triumphantly with one hand on his hip while the rest of his body leaned out to accentuate his finger pointed in the evil unicorn’s direction, “You think that I fight alone, just like you, but look around! All the friends I’ve made here, they’re here to fight by my side and to kick your ass! That’s what it means to have the power of friendship!”

The impromptu speech was punctuated by a timely explosion right behind Sam, casting him in ethereal light. The plume of fiery awesomeness was due to the battleship transformer piledriving the unicorn’s mecha head first into the ground.

Visionary Dusk paused in his meticulous coiling of his mustache to give the wire conduit a withering glare. For a long while, the two stared at each other as if in a contest of wills. Neither of them would allow the other to blink or look away. It was like all that mattered in the world was them and their unspoken battle. Then, the maniacal unicorn’s cheek twitched. His shoulders began to shutter as he tried to hold in his sadistic glee. Then all at once, it broke and he threw back his head in crazed laughter.

“You think your little ‘magic of friendship’ will be enough to stop me?” The unicorn’s horn lit up and tore his cape away to reveal his true form of a solid, muscular body atop his indomitable gaze, “Then come, Wire Wraith! Show me what you’ve got!”

The unicorn leapt far above the city and even the mountain top that the capital resided upon. Flexing to show off his perfect physique, the unicorn basked in his own magnificence before careening back toward the earth. Aiming squarely to collide with the human conduit upon impact.

Sam was undeterred by the unicorn’s challenge and tugged on his shirt with one hand until it ripped away like wet tissue paper. A body sculpted like an adonis glowed in the rays of the sun beating down on Sam’s form. He took a moment to flex and show off his own undeniable strength before springing into air to face his adversary mid flight. Visionary Dusk scoffed at the human’s effort, but would not underestimate his rival.

With a deep inhale of air, the unicorn bellowed out his warcry, “Wraaaaaaaaaith!!!”

Sam was not one to be out done and issued his battlecry with all his soul, “Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuusk!!!!”

“Wraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaith!!!!!”

“Duuuuuuuusk!!” “Wraaaaith!!” Duuusk!!” “Wraaaaith!!”

“AAAaaaaAAAaAaaaAhh!!”
“AaaaAAAaaaAAAaAhhh!!”

--o0o--

“Boom! Kablamo! Then there was another explosion in the background as the battleship bombarded the ninja army!” Sam continued his narration of the story with all the included sound effects and over-the-top reenactments with his arms, even if they were completely unnecessary.

Sam, Twilight, and the rest of her friends were enjoying an afternoon out in Ponyville Park while having a picnic when Rainbow Dash all but demanded to hear how the final battle in Canterlot had taken place. Sam’s ‘retelling’ had started off ok, but the longer it went on, the more unbelievable and unrealistic it became. Unsurprisingly, Twilight was both annoyed and unimpressed with the falsified retelling of the events that transpired to the point that she could longer be silent.

“Sam,” Twilight tried to call over the over exaggeration of a story.

“Yeah, hang on a second,” Sam merely waved her off before getting back to the story, “And then Dusk was like ‘No, stop! I need an adult!’ and I was like ‘I am an adult!’, and then I punched him in the face!”

“SAM!” Twilight shouted, having had enough.

Luckily, the shout was loud enough to break the wire conduit’s concentration and he ended up losing where he left off. His disappointed look toward the purple unicorn did nothing to dissuade her as she stomped her hoof on the ground to emphasize her annoyance.

“Sam, none of that happened, and you know it,” Twilight said, pointing an accusatory hoof at the wire conduit.

Sam crossed his arms and twisted his body away in his crossed-legged position away in indignation, “Hmph, well sorry~, if I wanted to add a few little extra details to liven up the story a bit.”

“Ah’m sorry, sugarcube,” Applejack shrugged and shook her head, “but that story was more rotten than a bushel of apples left in sun fer a month.”

“Hey, I was really getting into it,” Rainbow Dash flew up from her seat to chide her friend, “Especially the part with the giant robot that flew in from the sky! What did you call it again, Sam?”

Sam pointed his finger toward the picnic basket and a wire snaked out and threaded its way across the blacket full of friends to rummage through its contents as he replied, “A ‘gundam’. Pretty much one of the most badass types of mechas from my world’s media. Ah, there it is.” With his prize finally found, Sam reeled the wire in with the slice of blueberry pie attached to it that he had been saving for dessert.

“Well, I didn’t mind it all that much,” Fluttershy chimed in meekly, still hiding one of her eyes behind a few locks of hair, “Although, it was a bit...violent.”

“Agreed. I know you’re used to this kind of action, but was it necessary to include such graphic details?” Rarity inquired.

“Of course it was, Rares!” Pinkie said, practically bouncing in place and everywhere else at the same time, “Sammy’s story may have had a few exaggerations, but it was all to make it more fun and exciting!”

“Meah, wha’ she said,” Sam agreed through a mouthful of blueberry pie.

Twilight facehoofed as she scolded the conduit’s actions, “Sam, don’t talk with your mouth full. Honestly, the story was bad enough.”

Sam childishly stuck his tongue out at the unicorn when she wasn’t looking, which got a few snickers out of both Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash.

Applejack cleared her throat to finally ask the question that was bugging her since halfway through the story, “Iffin’ you don’t mind mah askin’. How did ya’ beat that rattlesnake of a pony, Dusk?”

Sam tapped his chin to figure out the best way to break it to the now expectant mares eyeing him. After a minute, he gave up and shrugged before deciding on telling the truth.

“Literally tried storming the castle after giving himself conduit powers, slipped on a puddle, and clocked himself in the head with a bust of Celestia from a pedestal he knocked over.”

Everypony, except Twilight, who already knew this to be true, gave the conduit a disbelieving look.

Sam shrugged again, “Hey, believe it or not. That’s what happened.”

Everypony was too shocked to come up with a dignified response to the outrageous claim. It was only when Rainbow Dash finally collected herself enough to ask the next obvious question.

“So, uh. What happened to him after that?”

--o0o--

Deep within the bowels of tartarus, which was basically the equivalent of pony hell, there was a little corner of that place specifically selected to hold the worst of the worst of Equestria’s aggressors. Atop of the jagged hill in that little corner of pony hell being guarded by cerberus, who’s three heads were enjoying a nice, juicy bone to gnaw on, stood an iron cage. Inside that cage, a group of creatures sat around a large folding table, each with their own folding chair and playing a game of poker to pass the time.

Among them, a centaur that looked frailer than an elderly pony at the nursing home, a bug-pony hybrid thing, a large monkey with white fur, and a statue of a creature that looked like an animal mix-n-match toy still somehow holding a set of cards in his petrified talon. Finally there was the oddest one among them. Moreso because of how out of place he looked among the wild creatures, for he was a simple unicorn pony with a sunset for a cutie mark.

As the bug-pony took her time to shuffle the deck, the centaur leaned over to the pony and asked not so subtly, “So...How did you end up here?”

The unicorn’s eye twitched as he glared harshly at the centaur, “Just shut up and ante up.”

Author's Notes:

Lol, I know it was hardly a surprise to those reading, but can you blame me? I just like to imagine that this is how the final battle would turn out; cliche, over-the-top, and downright silly. Don't worry though, another chapter should be in the works soon and we'll get back to our regularly scheduled program. Hope you all at least had a little fun reading this is the meantime.

Thanks Regreme for all the hard work on editing with the shorter schedule that I had with this chapter.

The Endgame: Part 1

“I’ve done it...I’ve cracked the sequence!”

The triumphant holler carried and echoed throughout the minimalistic laboratory. Visionary Dusk stepped back from his achievement to bask in its completion. His visage may have suffered from his disheveled mane that had yet to see a brush in days, not to mention the horribly dark bags hanging under his eyes from lack of sleep, but that did little to curb his excitement.

Dozens of sheafs of used parchment, either crumpled and discarded or haphazardly strewn about, covered nearly every surface of the work table. Equations, graphs, research notes, and other varying pieces of information were scrawled out on every single one of them. All of it led up to the culmination that was Visionary Dusk’s goal in life. This, however, was nothing compared to the state of the rest of the lab was in.

Junked piles of old and broken equipment laid throughout the lab, having been cannibalized and stripped of whatever working parts they had to build the necessary equipment Visionary Dusk had needed to continue his work. The cobbled together tools and instruments may have not looked pretty, but the unicorn did not care, so long as they fulfilled their purposes.

The working equipment he had built sat in neat, orderly rows along the other counters throughout the room, lying in wait for their next use, if the unicorn even had one for them. He had raided every part of the old research facility that he was intimately acquainted with for every scrap of equipment he could find, seeing as most of his other equipment was lost during the raid of the Geode Caverns. Though, being the intuitive stallion he was let him find just about everything he needed to replace the lost instruments with ease.

Although, none of this compared to the single, most important, item in the room. Upon the the center worktable, and on top of the myriad of notes and papers, was an odd looking box made of chrome with all sorts of knobs, wires and tubing sticking into and about it. Some of the wires and tubing glowed with unknown power, and a faint hum could be heard coming from the device if one were to listen carefully.

Visionary Dusk couldn’t take his eyes off of the strange device, for he felt that if he did, it would disappear like an illusion in a dream. He felt another wave of accomplishment wash over him for what he had finally achieved in this moment and couldn’t help but laugh.

Whether it was due to the relief of finally reaching his goal, or that he nearly spent five days ceaselessly working on this with little rest in between, the cathartic laughter just felt right.

Visionary Dusk reached for the tape recorder lying next to the strange box and calmed himself enough to finish his dictation, “Success at last! The genome known as the ‘conduit gene’ was nearly impossible to sequence with every previous experiment I’ve conducted. This had led me to believe that there was a missing element that I did not have ready access to, but fortune favors the persistent. Subject A-4 was exactly what I had been looking for all this time.

“I, at first, thought it strange how subjects A-1 through A-3 had mentioned that their ‘conduit abilities’ were nearly identical when they had also mentioned that other conduits exhibit vastly different types of abilities from their own. I had at first thought that the sample size was too small, and that those subjects had been specifically selected for their organization on the grounds of their abilities.

“Yet, initial experiments to replicate these subjects’ abilities were hardly successful and only produced a, sort of, ‘pseudo-conduit’ gene. It was after further experimenting that it was discovered that this ‘pseudo-conduit’ gene was exactly what these initial subjects had possessed. Their conduit gene was not, in fact, a true conduit gene.

“It was only with this newest subject, A-4, that I was finally able to understand what was missing in the sequence, that being an extraordinary energy source found within the cells of the samples taken from subject A-4. I am still unsure as to exactly what this energy is, as any attempts to analyze it has left skewed results, but I have no doubts that this energy source is what separates the conduit gene from the pseudo-conduit gene, as it is woefully lacking in its presence from the latter.

“All that being said, it seems that this energy source is naturally occuring and cannot be replicated by artificial means. However, interestingly enough, exposing subject A-4’s samples to other samples has yielded interesting results.” Visionary Dusk picked up the strange box in his magic, fiddling with it until a hatch on the side popped open and allowed him access to the contents inside. “I’ve had to transmute a lot of materials to create this apparatus that I’ve dubbed, the ‘conduitic infuser’, but the results were well worth it.”

The hatch on the side of the device revealed its contents within, to which Visionary Dusk extracted with gleeful giddiness. To anypony else, it would have looked like an ordinary glass vial, filled to the brim with a semi-translucent, glowing amethyst liquid. Though to the maniac scientist, it was the culmination of his life’s work in physical form.

He carefully held the mysterious fluid aloft in his magic, like a parent would with its child. He turned the vial over a few times to inspect its contents for any imperfections, even if he knew there would be none.

Visionary Dusk reverently continued his dictation to his recorder, “Once introduced to this energy source in its distilled form, samples that have been confirmed to have the conduit gene present take on this energy themselves and undergo a chain reaction. This reaction, which I am calling ‘awakening’, is as the term implies. Samples that have potential conduitism have their latent gene awakened, and everything down to the cells become what is similar to subject A-4’s cellular structure. Unfortunately, the energy source seems to be a finite resource without an awakened subject to synthesis more, as the samples I have obtained appear to not regenerate the energy outside of a living subject once consumed.”

Visionary Dusk was now pacing about the room, both in frustration and lamenting his next train of thought. “Tests have shown that I, too, have this potential latency, but without confirmation on what would happen to a sentient subject upon exposure, I cannot risk using this refined serum on myself. Furthermore, there is no telling if my mercenaries’ own ‘half-awakened’ states would adversely affect the results, which I cannot risk either...therefore, I will require one last test subject for my research.”

The tape recorder in Visionary Dusk’s magic clicked off, and the disgruntled unicorn worked to prepare his lab for what was to come. This was it, the final step to regaining his reputation that was so unjustly taken from him. One final test, and all of Equestria would come to praise him for his achievement. With his lab in a more manageable state, he departed from his confines to the only other place in the building that had been made livable.

It was another laboratory, not unlike his own, only larger and with much more room thanks in part to its current occupants that had thrown out everything deemed useless. These occupants, two unicorns and a very irritated looking griffon, looked up from their respective corners of the room to the jubilantly smiling unicorn that just entered. Their appearances hadn’t changed much since they had left their last hideout in the Geode Caverns, but they were starting to look a little gaunt due to the limited supplies they could scrounge. They all certainly could do with a shower or two to clean up their ragged and dirty hides.

“What do you want, Doc?” the griffon gruffly asked, hardly looking up from cleaning his talons as best he could with a jagged piece of rock.

Visionary Dusk chose to ignore the biting tone due to his eagerness for what he was about to announce, “Aras, my work is nearly complete! I am on the very cusp of bringing our world into a new era as we know it!”

“Whoop-de-fucking-do,” Aras grumbled under his breath.

“The only thing left to do is administer this serum to a viable subject to verify its success!” Visionary Dusk said as he flaunted said serum up for all to see.

Both the unicorns’ ears perked up at this exclamation, a sense of relief and joy taking hold of them at the prospect of no longer being held under the mad doctor’s hoof. Aras had made it abundantly clear to them that Visionary Dusk cared little, if at all, for their well-being and that they were only a means to an end in his eyes. Memories of their fallen comrade from the assault on Canterlot castle certainly reinforced that notion once they had heard about the doctor’s callous disregard for their loss.

Speaking of the griffon, Aras looked anything but pleased by this revelation. In fact, it only made him more weary of what he thought the crazed scientist had planned.

“You want to test it on one of us,” Aras plainly stated, thinking he already knew what Visionary Dusk had in store.

Visionary Dusk suddenly looked confused, then downright insulted as he snorted loudly, “Are you mad?! Why would I use any of you as my test subjects? Clearly, you lack the basic intuition to understand that your deviant physiology from previous serum exposure would leave my results horribly misrepresentative, and completely inadmissible for any credibility,” Visionary Dusk ignored the glowering looks being thrown his way with a sigh, “No, I need a fresh subject. One that is free of foreign variables.”

Aras and the unicorns gave the mad doctor suspicious glances.

“Alright,” Aras hefted himself out of his cot, “We’ll head out to the nearest settlement and-”

“No!” Visionary Dusk shrieked, “Time is of the essence! My exploits have gone without recognition for far too long. Here I am, on the verge of changing the world, and you expect me, all of us, to wait while you waste your time in some backwater village that nopony cares about?” Visionary turned away from the angered looks of the mercenaries, shaking his head at the sheer absurdity he perceived from the notion. “If my work is to be recognized, I need my test subject to be one of notability. From somewhere that nopony can dispute my credibility on my work, and can’t be written off as some half baked conspiracy from a little town of no importance...That is why my test subject must come from here, in Canterlot.”

“What?!” All three of the mercenaries jumped from their seats in shock.

Aras ran up in front of the unicorn in time to block the doorway and furiously argued, “Are you crazy?! Doc, the entire Equestrian military is on a manhunt for us! We’re only here, inside their capital, because you assured us that they could never track us here thanks to your spells and that this would be the last place they’d look! Hiding right under their muzzles is one thing, but to ponynap another pony right here, right now? They’d know exactly where we are!”

Visionary Dusked tsked, as if none of that was any reason to not follow his orders. When Aras refused to move and heed his command, Visionary Dusk became angry.

“What are you waiting for? Your orders written down on parchment, since you don’t seem to understand them?” the crazed unicorn said, poking the griffon in the chest.

Aras growled, “We’ve done everything you’ve asked, and yet, you want us to risk our lives for some vain attempt to save your precious ego?!”

Even with the griffon being half his size larger and his wings flaring out in intimidation, Visionary Dusk was unfazed by the display. In fact, he found the last statement to be a complete insult to both him and his work.

“You just don’t get it, do you, you freak of a hybrid?!” Visionary Dusk shouted with a stomp of his hoof, “My work is more important than you, your insignificant flukies, or anyone on this damned world! Those that came before had struggled and failed to unlock the secrets of our world when I succeeded! I brought to light the existence of our potential for evolution the likes of which nopony has ever seen! I created this revelation and was made to sacrifice everything to make that happen!” The crazed looking unicorn thrusted his muzzle a hair’s breadth away from the griffon’s beak and hissed in a dangerous tone. “Your ‘lives’ are nothing more than a part of those sacrifices, and you should find yourselves lucky that you were even that much.”

If not for what was said next, Aras would have ripped the arrogant unicorn’s throat out where he stood and served him up with his next dinner.

“Besides, without me, your lives are as finite as a candle about to burnout in the night,” the mad unicorn chided venomously, “I am the only one with the knowledge to prolong such a wasteful demise, or perhaps, even negate it. Though, in order for that to happen, I need my test subject. Do I make myself clear?”

Aras growled, digging his talons into the ground where shards of concrete sprouted in place, but ultimately held his tongue. Satisfied that he finally got his point across, Visionary Dusk trotted around the griffon, carrying with him the precious vial with his newest serum in his magic. He even waved it in front of the griffon’s beak just to antagonize him just a bit more

“I expect you to retrieve my test subject without incident this time,” the crazed unicorn called out behind him as he took his leave, “Do not disappoint me.”

--o0o--

“You know, I’ve never really had fan mail before,” Sam said, reading through one of the many letters that had been brought to him from his ‘fans’, “Kind of weird, actually.”

Twilight looked up to the ceiling where Sam sat and had anchored himself, upside down no less, and rolled her eyes at the ridiculous sight, “Didn’t you say the people from Memphis considered you and your friends somewhat like celebrities in a way? I thought you would have got the same treatment.”

Sam strung up the finished letter with a wire and set it back down on the desk below him before letting the same wire fish another off the unopened pile and reeling it back in to open and read, “Yeah, but we never got any fanmail, or written invites to parties and such sent to us. I mean, it’s not like we could let people know where we were hiding out in the city with the D.U.P. still hanging around. We’re still considered fugitives on my world, if you remember.”

Twilight frowned at remembering that little detail. It just didn’t seem fair that Sam and his friends were considered criminals when all she’d seen was nothing but a good friend in Sam.

“Hey, don’t worry about it, Sparks,” Sam called out with a smile, not looking away from his letter, “If anything, the people of Memphis had their own way of showing how much they loved us being around, just doing what we do.”

“Oh, how?” Twilight asked with intrigue.

Sam shrugged and began listing off his favorites, “Free meals every now and then at some restaurants, taking selfies with the adoring fans, and some kickass graffiti on some of the tagger avenues. Oh, then there was this one time that some guys got the brilliant idea to create and throw up these awesome posters about us all around the city. Some people even took some down to get our autographs on them when they could. I felt like a famous rock star when that happened. Crazy, right?”

Twilight rolled her eyes, but smiled at the thought of seeing the humans of Sam’s world showing such praise in such a fashion for ‘The Four Aces’, as Sam had told her they were known as. Knowing that not every human on his world showed as much hate toward them as this D.U.P. gave the purple unicorn hope for the wayward conduit and his friends that they would do what they set out to do, and change their world’s opinion on his kind.

“Heh, this is like the fifth party invite I’ve gotten so far,” Sam said, tapping the letter in his hand with back of his other hand, “... Although, this one actually seems like it could be fun. All the others look like the only people who would go are the ones that want to compare the size of the stick up their asses. Hey, Sparks, you ever hear of this pony: DJ-PON3?”

Twilight tilted her head as she pondered the name before replying, “It sounds familiar, but it sounds more like something Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash would be into.”

Sam smiled, having remembered his fond, if short, memories of the hyperactive pink pony. Thinking about it now, if his partner in crime would be into this kind of party, it should be worth checking out. Seems that Jet Set and Uppercrust are gonna have to wait for their chance to have the wire conduit as their guest of honor some other time.

As Sam thought about how he should go about RSVP-ing to the only worthwhile sounding party from his invites, Twilight shuffled through her latest stack of research notes and levitated them all around her, which could only mean one thing. She was preparing to meticulously organize them and put them away for a lunch break. Right on cue, the whirlwind of parchment and testing equipment floated neatly back to where they originally stood at the behest of the purple unicorn’s magic.

“Ok,” Twilight called out, as she slipped the last roll of parchment atop of the the others, “Now that that’s done, I think we should go get something to eat.”

“Sweet, I’m down for that. Hey, check out this move I’ve been working on! I think I can actually make it this time,” Sam said, preparing his trick by rocking back at forth against the ceiling.

Before Twilight could get out a word of warning, Sam was already in the middle of his execution. The wires that held the conduit firmly in place against the ceiling extended, allowing Sam to swing from them like a trapeze artist. Halfway through his second swing, Sam let go of the ceiling from his wires and was now flipping through the air. Twilight watched in fascination as the wire conduit made a full revolution while falling to the ground. Sam tucked in his body just enough that when he finally hit the floor, he was rightside-up and poised with a knee and a fist thrust toward the ground. Twilight was just about to applaud the acrobatic feat when she heard conduit issue a long hiss of pain from his prone position.

“Aawwww, fuck,” Sam said through clenched teeth, “‘Superhero landings’ are bullshit.”

Sam had to stand up slowly, or else he was liable to fall over due to his shaky knee. Twilight merely gave him a deadpanned look, knowing she should have figured something like this would have happened. The purple unicorn waited patiently as Sam hobbled around the lab for a bit until his healing factor kicked in and began to mend the damage. A few more seconds later, and Sam was able to walk normally again. He gave Twilight a winning smile, like everything that happened was intended.

“Are you done?” Twilight asked flatly, having learned to never let Sam have the satisfaction of seeing her worry over him.

Sam continued to smile as if nothing had happened and marched to the lab’s doors to urge the purple unicorn to come along. Their escort was waiting patiently as ever, just outside. The two guards peeled away from the door frame and followed a few paces behind the duo, already knowing where they were headed by the time of day.

Sam picked at a bit of dirt under his nails as they walked and casually asked to break the silence, “So, how’s the research coming, Sparks?”

Twilight’s step stuttered a bit, and she frowned solemnly in reply, “I’m sorry, Sam. I’m working as fast as I can.”

“Woah, I didn’t mean it like that,” Sam quickly threw in his rebuttal, all while thinking of a way to reassure his friend, “Hey, it’s ok. I just thought I’d ask and see if you needed any help.”

Twilight smiled wearily, thankful for Sam’s words. She should have seen that Sam was only curious on her progress. It was coming, if slowly. The royal research teams had been an amazing boon to her efforts, helping her eliminate false leads and narrowing down the list of possible solutions. Even the princesses’ personal input have been helpful and brought the purple unicorn closer to helping Sam with each passing day.

“Thanks, Sam,” Twilight finally replied, “Everything you’ve done so far has been more than enough. Though since you’ve asked, once I’m done with this latest lead, I’m sure I’ll need your input again.”

“No problem,” Sam said enthusiastically and gave the purple unicorn a tossle of her mane.

Sam was able to sidestep out of the way just in time from the unicorn’s swipe of her hoof and laughed at her snort of annoyance. It was all in good fun, and Twilight knew it, so she couldn’t stay mad for long.

Suddenly, Twilight’s ears perked up at the sound of galloping hoofsteps and clanging armor. Sam recognized the sound as well, and they turned around to see one of the castle guards running toward them from down the hallway. The stalwart guard skidded to a halt in front of the guards in Sam and Twilight’s wake. Catching his breath for a second, the messenger carried with him an air of distress and a guarantee of bad news that everyone in the hallway caught onto.

“Sam,” the stallion guard said between breaths, “Captain Aegis Flare requires your presence at the castle gates. The assailants… They’ve been spotted in the city!”

Sam wasted no time and took off past the guards and down the hallway. Twilight shouted for the wire conduit to slow down as she raced to catch up with the guards in tow. It didn’t take long to reach the castle gates, where the ever stoic captain was waiting where Sam was told.

The wire conduit stopped right in front of the captain, wearing a serious expression as he waited for the captain to give him the details he’d need to start the chase. The wait would last a little longer, as a contingent of galloping hooves from the royal guards hurried up to them from behind, along with a very out of breath and sweaty looking purple unicorn.

“Sweet Celestia!” Twilight wheezed, her head hanging down between her legs while she caught her breath, “Sam, I shouted for you to slow down.”

Although feeling sorry for leaving his friend behind like that, Sam thought he’d make a more sincere apology later when he they had time. For now, he gave the purple unicorn a sympathetic look before turning back to face the pegasus captain that had summoned him.

“I came as soon as I heard,” Sam announced.

Appreciating the swift response the wire conduit usually lacked, Aegis Flare nodded and prepared to brief him, “Then, you already know what this is about. Visionary Dusk’s assailants were spotted in the eastern lower ring of Canterlot about ten minutes ago. They… they were attempting another ponynapping when a patrol came across the scene.”

The mention of another ponynapping was enough to set Twilight on edge and gasp in shock. Sam’s expression grew cold and hard. Every muscle in his body was already beginning to tense, ready to spring into action.

Luckily, the captain cut off the wire conduit’s rash response by explaining further, “Only three guards were injured in the conflict. The patrol was able to chase off the assailants and saved the civilian before they could make off with her. Your continued training of the guards in combating conduits was certainly a major factor in that, and I have to thank you once again, human.”

Although accepting the praise, and relieved by the outcome, Sam couldn’t relax completely as he asked, “Where are they now? Are we going after them?”

Captain Aegis Flare nodded with a grunt, “I already have the city on high alert, and the city garrison actively searching for signs of the assailants. You are to come with me to continue the search from their last known location and provide support as needed.

“Do not get me wrong, human. This is not your fight, and you shouldn’t have to be involved with this. However, knowing you, you would have found out about this sooner rather than later and would have made a mess of the search effort. So, you’re with me, so I can keep an eye on you and make sure you don’t waste our time. Am I clear?”

The captain’s expression may have been as hardened as ever, but Sam was already smirking as he read between the lines. It gave him a sense of pride knowing that ol’ Cappy was really starting to look up to him, and not just because he stood nearly a foot taller than the pony.

“Hey, I’m just glad you thought to include me this time, Cappy,” Sam added with his usual snark, “Alright, I’ll see you later, Sparks! Me and Cappy will catch these guys this time and be back before dinner.”

Sam motioned for the captain to lead the way, and the two began to set off into the city by wing and wire. However, something inside Twilight suddenly took hold of her. Something that told her to stand up and take action.

“Wait!” the purple unicorn cried out.

Sam and the captain turned around to see the purple unicorn reaching out with a hoof as she halted them. The attention now on her made her nervous, but she couldn’t back down now.

“I want to come, too.”

This was certainly not something that Sam nor the captain were expecting, especially from somepony like Twilight herself. Sam and Cappy shared a look, one that they could finally agree on without question, and turned to fix the purple unicorn with looks of staunch refusal.

“No, Ms. Sparkle, I cannot, and will not, allow you to take part in this,” Captain Aegis Flare stated resolutely.

“Sorry, Sparks,” Sam apologized with a shake of his head, “He’s right. This is too dangerous for you to tag along. This isn’t some Sunday picnic we’re going to. You- just wait here until I get back, ‘kay?”

“No!” Twilight suddenly shouted, stunning the two with her persistence, “I can’t just stay here and do nothing but worry while you’re out there, risking your lives! I’ve already done that too much already.”

Sam looked to Cappy for help, and luckily, the good captain had just the words to say to counter the weak argument.

“Miss Sparkle, I get that you would worry for your friend here, but you’re still just a civilian. As a royal guard, no less the captain, it would go against everything that I stand for to allow somepony that I am sworn to protect to go where they would be put in harm’s way,” the good captain stomped his hoof, and continued on to cut off whatever Twilight was about to say, “Tell me, Miss Sparkle. What would you do if you were to come face to face with one of the assailants all alone? Before you say anything along the lines of ‘fighting them yourself’, you’re wrong.

“I’ve seen what these assailants are capable of. They hold power that is not of this world, and weapons that are far more superior to anything you’ve seen. The moment you lay eyes on them, you’d freeze.”

Twilight flinched back from the captain’s intense stare. She was never really a fighter like her brother, but having to wait and do nothing while Sam, the captain, and the rest of the guards went off to face the danger made her feel useless and loathe her inability to do something in their time of need. Sam could see that Cappy’s words had shaken the purple unicorn, but with each passing second, the fire in her eyes were slowing growing back. He had to do something to dissuade her while she was still unsure of herself.

Sam cleared his throat and caught Twilight’s attention, so he could speak, “Sparks, I get it. These guys are tough. Hell, they’ve gotten the better of me once or twice. Though if you tag along, I’ll be too distracted with trying to protect you when we face off again, and don’t tell me that you can protect yourself. In case you’ve forgotten, these guys don’t play by the rules, and your magic is gonna be like throwing wet paper towels at them. Cappy’s right. What could you do if they decided to ambush us and we got seperated?”

Twilight had to admit, she had forgotten for a moment about the assailants’ magic resistance, similar to Sam’s. They were right; she would just be in the way. Though at the same time, her resolve refused to die out. She couldn’t stand the thought of losing one of her friends to these assailants the way that she almost lost Pinkie. The memory of the night still haunted her. However, she needed to think of a way to show that she would not be a hindrance if she came along. Something that she could do to both help Sam and the captain and put her in a position to show that she was necessary to tag along and watch over her friend. Then, it hit her, just as the two were turning back around to head out into the city.

“Wait!” Twilight cried out again, and received a round of impatient stares in her direction, “I know that I would be no use in a fight, but I can still help you.”

Sam tilted his head curiously and crossed his arms, waiting to hear what the purple unicorn had to say, while the captain raised a single eyebrow as he waited for the same.

Even though she was nervous, Twilight swallowed the lump in her throat so she could speak clearly, “You need to find the assailants, or at least, a trace they may have left behind to follow to where they fled off to. I can help with that.”

Both Sam and the captain continued to eye the purple unicorn curiously, even though they should have still refused whatever she was cooking up. Twilight, on the other hoof, was glad that she had their attention again and pushed forward, least she lose her nerve.

“The royal research teams have been hard at work with analyzing everything they received from the Geode Caverns raid. Along with that, they’ve been developing a method of tracking Visionary Dusk and his assailants. I haven’t just been researching a way to send Sam home, by the way. The research teams have come to me multiple times for my assistance in this method, and I’ve gained quite a bit of knowledge on it as well. I believe if we find something that the assailants left behind when they fled, I could use it to help track down their location.”

“Hmm, I don’t know,” Sam said as he debated the possibility in his head, “It certainly would make tracking down these asshats easier if you can do that.”

The good captain rounded on the wire conduit and stomped his hoof, “Out of the question, human! I may be willing to allow you to operate under the strict condition that you follow my orders and remain under my command, but allowing a civilian to do the same?!”

Sam put on his best, innocent smile before cozying up to the captain as best he could, “Oh come on, Cappy. I’ll admit that I’d rather have Sparks stay behind where she’s safe, but think about it. You certainly weren’t jazzed when I tagged along for the last raid, yet it was yours truly that got us past the front door before midnight. Besides, all Sparks would be doing is pointing us in the right direction. No conflict.”

Twilight watched the exchange in silence. It seemed that Sam was putting up a good fight against the captain for her, if the stalwart pegasus’ expression of contemplation was anything to go by. She wanted to push further for in her own favor with her own words, but feared that her input would only break the momentum. So, she sat and waited, nervously awaiting the final verdict that would decide her fate.

“How about this?” Sam cut in, just as the captain was opening his mouth, “If Sparks goes, I’ll act as her personal bodyguard and protect her if those asshats decide to show up for round three.”

Twilight gasped in surprise at Sam’s proposal. The unwavering determination behind his words shone brightly in his eyes as she looked up into them. She knew Sam would follow through with these promises should the worst arise, yet she couldn’t bring herself to ask him to do something like that for her and wanted to refuse. However, by the look on the captain’s face, this was going to be the only way that she would get him to agree to allow her to come along in the end.

Time was running short, and the captain had to make his decision, least the trail grow any colder. With much reluctance, he looked from the human conduit and down to the purple unicorn then back again.

The good captain sighed heavily, knowing he was going to regret this decision somehow, “Alright, Miss Sparkle. You will come with us, but only until we have a solid lead on where the assailants have fled to. Human, I am placing Miss Sparkle’s safety as your full responsibility. You are not to let her out of your sight, and are to make her protection your top priority above all else. Am I clear?”

“No problem, Cappy,” Sam nodded his head once, forgoing any silliness to convey his seriousness.

“Good. Then, we must be going.”

“One sec, Cappy,” Sam cut off the captain just as he was spreading his wings. The wire conduit turned to Twilight and kneeled down and fixed her with a serious look at eye level. “Sparks, I want you to promise me something. The minute any danger arises, I want you to teleport away from there. Deal?”

Sam’s outstretched hand was left hanging for a minute as Twilight contemplated Sam’s tone. She knew he could be serious at times, but this was different. Behind his dark tone, Twilight could hear the wavering sound of his worry for her seeping through. Although wanting to prove she could help, the mixture of emotions coming from the wire conduit settled any objection she could think to raise. With her mind made up, the purple unicorn nodded in agreement and placed her hoof in the conduit’s hand to shake.

“Deal.”

With their bargain struck, Sam stood back up and gave the captain a quick nod to let him know they were ready. Wings of white unfurled and flapped hard to bring the captain into the air and soar across the city of Canterlot to the crime scene. Sam shot off a set of wires from both hands to either side of the castle’s open gate and used them like a slingshot to propel himself into the city. Only now realizing her mistake, Twilight was left with having to gallop after the duo in hopes of catching up.

Author's Notes:

Whoo hoo! An update at last, and what's this? Is the story coming to a close? Is the ride coming to an end?

...perhaps...but you'll have to find out next time. See y'all around

Super-ultra-mega thanks to muh gud buddy, Regreme as always for his ability to make my writing not read like shit.

The Endgame: Part 2

Aegis Flare pivoted in the air, just above the ground as he descended to the streets below. With a few final flaps of his wings, the captain of the royal guard landed against the deserted cross section of street where Visionary Dusk’s assailants attempted to ponynap another innocent life for whatever nefarious purposes they had.

Scanning his surroundings, Aegis Flare felt a knot of outrage well up in his chest. The few business stores that lined the street were left abandoned. Although knowing that the area had been cordoned off for his investigation, seeing a part of the city so veritably empty left the older stallion feeling like he had failed once again to protect those that he had sworn to defend against these adversaries, especially when he spotted quite a few areas where concrete shards and offensive spells left the spots pockmarked with destruction. He had to do better, starting with here.

The good captain’s silent oath had to be set aside for a moment though, as he waited and looked to the ledge of the building closest to him that faced the castle. From the same direction, he could hear a voice, one that held a mixture of sharp screams of panic and alarm, and constant insistences to ‘slow down’.

Aegis Flare sighed and watched as a shadowy figure leapt out into the open air above the streets from the top of the building he was viewing. The source of the voice was now revealed to be a terrified purple unicorn, clinging desperately to the back of Equestria’s only human conduit. Sam seemed unfazed by the noise as he happily flew through the air. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying himself, performing such harrowing acrobatics. However, the would be flight soon turned into a free fall toward the street in front of Aegis Flare. Twilight clung helplessly to Sam’s back and screamed again, thinking that they were about to end up as street pizza.

Sam, being far too in love with showing off at the moment, waited til the very last second before making his move. Thrusting his arms down and out, he shot off a set of wires from his fists straight into the ground below. The maneuver worked like a pair of stilts connected by his hands, allowing him to slow their descent by letting the wires retract back into his body and letting the length of wires shorten gradually until they were firmly, and safely, planted on the ground.

Clearing his throat, Sam spoke into his hand like it was microphone connected to a PA system, “Hello, passengers, this is your captain speaking, welcoming you to your destination! Please take care in disembarking the conduit, as contents may have shifted in transit. We hope you had a wonderful trip and hope to see you again. Thank you for traveling with the ‘Conduit Express’ and have a wonderful day~!”

Twilight carefully extracted herself from her deathgrip against the conduit’s back one hoof at a time. She was shaking uncontrollably after having her nerves pushed to their limits of what they could handle from the harrowing experience. As soon as all four hooves were planted firmly on the ground, she let out a deep sigh of relief and visibly slumped to the ground.

“What the hay, Sam?!” Twilight snorted, glaring fiercely at the wire conduit.

It would’ve been slightly more intimidating were it not for said unicorn’s legs being as wobbly as a bunch of wet noodles as she tried to stand back up.

The wire conduit smiled as innocently as possible while he spoke, “Mmmh-yes, Sparks~?”

“No, you do not get to play innocent with me, mister,” Twilight huffed in indignation and with a stomp of her still wobbly hoof.

“Why, whatever do you mean, Sparks?” Sam asked, still playing innocent.

Twilight was fuming at this point and began to rant, “What do I mean?! First, you leave me behind at the castle gates, while I had to catch up for the first three blocks! Then, to make up for it, you offer to ‘give me a lift’! Granted, I’ve always wondered just what traversing using such unique abilities like yours was like from your perspective, but that?! I felt like I was trying to ride an angry manticore!”

“Oh, come on. It wasn’t that bad,” Sam shrugged off the accusation, “Pinkie never complained about my driving when we went out for a stroll.”

“I almost slipped off, three times!” Twilight countered angrily, “I was holding on for my life!”

“Pfft, as if I’d let you fall.”

“You almost did!”

As much fun as it was for Aegis Flare to watch the feud go on, however little that was, he needed his ‘back-up’ to focus on the task at hoof.

“Enough!” the captain shouted over the quarreling, effectively silencing the spat.

Twilight was the first to apologize, donning a remorseful expression, head hung low and ears splayed down, “Sorry, captain.”

The captain’s gaze softened ever so slightly, “It’s not your fault, Miss Sparkle.” The captain’s steely gaze returned, and he directed it toward the one more deserving of his ire, “You, on the hoof, should know better than this, human.”

Sam looked surprised, as if the accusations thrown at him were unjust in some way. “Me? What did I do?”

The silent glare Sam received let him know that his feigned innocence would not be tolerated.

“Ok, ok already,” Sam finally surrendered, “Maybe I could have gone a little easier on the landing back there.”

Sam’s ‘attempt’ at an apology earned him a swift shove from the unicorn beside him, barely knocking him off balance for a moment. He suspected she had actually tried to hit him with a blow from her front hooves, but her shaky limbs threw her too much off balance. The full body shove was all she could muster.

Sam smirked and folded his arms over his chest as he countered verbally, “In my defense, it was her idea.”

Twilight growled angrily at the conduit, who was throwing the blame onto her, “I only asked if you could slow down! You’re the one who suggested that I ‘catch a ride with you’!”

“Maybe, but couldn’t you have just chained a bunch of short range teleports to keep up?” The wire conduit’s question made Twilight pause and snap her mouth shut, having now realized that Sam was right. “Heh, face it, Sparks~. You were just looking for an excuse to ride with me like Pinkie did.”

“Human!”

The authoritative shout seemed to do the trick in putting an end to the back and forth once again, and the good captain was not about to let it slip.

“I am giving you one chance to get your head on straight, before I have to throw your sorry flank back into the dungeon!” the captain threatened with a scrape of his hoof on the ground.

The threat was hollow, which both Sam and Aegis Flare knew, but Sam knew that there was more important things to do than rile up a neurotic, purple unicorn. He at least had the decency to wince at remembering that and the whole reason that they were out in the city in the first place. Mentally slapping himself a few times, Sam gathered his senses and became a little more serious for the situation at hand.

“Right. So, where were the three stooges last, Cappy?” Sam asked.

Aegis Flare appreciated the renewed focus and turned to direct the wire conduit and Twilight to the crime scene reported to him by his messenger. Down the road they went, following the trail of destruction to the alleyway between the second and third building on their right.

Twilight hadn’t realized before, mostly due to being more concerned with giving Sam a piece of her mind, but the street around her gave off an eerie vibe. The road was devoid of any pony life besides herself, the captain, and Sam. She could still hear the hustle and bustle of the other streets further away, but the cordoned off street felt unnatural and isolating.

Then, there was the damage to surrounding area to behold. Small divots and craters littered the street and buildings, with obvious signs of magic scorch markings being the culprit, though some had shards of concrete embedded in their centers to denote another origin. Windows from the shop fronts were shattered, and littered pieces of the glass panes were everywhere around them. The little unicorn could scarcely imagine what it took to cause such destruction, and all the innocent lives that must have been in danger while it all occurred.

The trio of investigators continued to follow the evidence of havoc until they came to the alleyway where the wreckage led. Twilight gasped upon her first glance into the backstreet. With a more confined space, the devastation was more prominent.

Larger scorch marks dotted the area, and even one part of the wall on the left building had completely collapsed, exposing the interior. Larger pieces of concrete looked to have erupted from the ground and left the simple back road looking nothing like it should have before. Then, there was the blood. She hadn’t noticed it at first, or perhaps didn’t want to notice that out in the streets were little spots of red here and there where the fight would have occured. In the alleyway, the streaks of blood were all too prominent and showed that those involved in the fight did not get off scot free.

Sam and Aegis Flare moved into the area to get closer looks, which snapped Twilight out of her thoughts. She stuck close to them, feeling too nervous to wander around on her own for fear of the assailants laying in hiding and waiting to spring out at them when they least expected it. Sam and the captain had thought the same thing, but figured that they wouldn’t be that stupid to stick around with the entire city guard out on the hunt for them. Though, Sam and the captain decided it would be best not to let their guard down just yet.

“Human,” Aegis Flare said, catching the wire conduit’s attention, “We’ll split up to cover more ground and search for clues, but remember: Your first priority is to keep Miss Sparkle safe.”

“You’ve got it, Cappy,” Sam nodded and began to scan the area around one of the concrete pillars.

Redirecting his focus on the purple unicorn, Aegis Flare addressed her in softer tone, “Miss Sparkle, stay close to the human and stay alert. If you two find anything, call for me. Understood?”

Twilight shook her head up and down to show her understanding. The captain remained rooted for a few moments before reluctantly turning away and trotting off to examine another area of the crime scene for anything of interest that they could use.

Twilight was still incredibly tense, but told herself that she had to do this. With a few more self-reassurances, Twilight gathered enough courage to start her own look around to be of use. She found that she was gravitating toward the wire conduit, who was turning over some of the larger concrete constructs to continue his search.

As she stepped up beside Sam, the wire conduit looked up and offered his greetings, “Hey...You alright?”

“I-I’m fine,” Twilight simply replied, though sounding unconvincing, “...Um, find anything yet?”

Sam stood up and clapped his hands together to get the dust off, “Nadda, Sparks. Lots of debris and concrete everywhere.” Sam lit up with something on his mind. “Hey, you said on the way over here that you were gonna use some kind of tracking spell, right? Can you use this concrete as the focus?”

Twilight shook her head disappointedly, “No, the concrete gives off the same reaction to repel magic like everything that comes from your world, Sam. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, don’t sweat it. Just means we have to find something else to use as the focus to track them down,” Sam said, patting the depressed looking unicorn on the head a couple times.

Even though Sam said it was alright, it didn’t stop Twilight from feeling like she had failed yet again. The frustrations of her perceived failures weighed heavily on her mind and cast many doubts into her thoughts. The purple unicorn dwelled on these thoughts as her body went into auto pilot.

She had failed time and time again to discover a means of helping Sam return home. She had failed in protecting her friend, Pinkie Pie, from the assailants the night that she was almost abducted. Now, she was failing in her task to lead Sam and the guard to the assailants that have caused so much strife for her home and her friends.

“Twilight?”

Sam knelt down next to the purple unicorn as he saw her breaking down before him. He tried giving her a few scratches behind her ear, but Twilight pulled away almost immediately.

“Twilight, what’s wrong?” Sam asked with a worried expression.

Twilight could only give Sam a passing glance before she had to turn away again to speak, “I shouldn’t have come here.”

“What?” Sam could only respond in confusion.

“I shouldn’t have come here!” Twilight spat out with a bit more force than she intended, “...I know I said I could help lead you to the assailants, but I only said that so I could come along and help. I’ve just felt so useless everytime Visionary Dusk and his assailants have attacked, and I couldn’t do a thing to stop them.”

Twilight became increasingly more emotional as her triade continued, but Sam held off on interrupting til she finished.

“I couldn’t protect Pinkie the night she was almost abducted. The first attack on the castle, all I did was run and let you and the others fight the assailants without me. No matter what I’ve tried, I can’t find a stable solution to help you return home, and now? I can’t even help you find where Visionary’s assailants fled off to because the tracking spell is useless without the right focus that I can’t even help find. For Harmony’s sake, I’m supposed to be the Element of Magic, and I can’t even use a damned tracking spell!”

The purple unicorn tried to hold back her tears, but a few sobs wracked her body regardless and let the fresh tears fall down her face. In her mind, she was a complete failure, and unworthy to call herself a mage. Her self-loathing would have continued on for who knows how long were it not for a certain wire conduit tucking his arms under her forelegs and startling her. The swift action left her bewildered as to what was happening until Sam’s arms reached around her body and pulled her closer until they were entangled into the warm embrace of a hug.

“You’re not a failure,” Sam whispered over her shoulder and into her ear, “You had some setbacks, you screwed up, but you are not a failure.”

Twilight sniffled and tried to speak up, “But I-”

Sam pushed the little unicorn out to hold her at arm’s length to look her in the eye with a sympathetic expression, “No, no ‘buts’. Butts are for sitting with.”

The terrible joke got the little unicorn to groan, but at the same time, got her to forget her self-loathing for a moment.

Sam capitalized on this distraction to share his peace further, “Twilight, none of those things are your fault, and you should know that. You went to get help and draw more guards that ultimately pushed the assailants out of the castle during the first attack. You’ve been working so hard to help not just with getting me home, but teaching me everything about magic.

“I know I’d love to see my friends back in Memphis, but I’ve got faith that they’re doing just fine and just waiting for me to show back up, if just so we can all have a laugh about my time in ‘Rainbow Pony Land’. Finally, who cares if we can’t catch the ‘Brotherhood of Douchebags’ today? Yes, I’m calling them that now. They’ve already screwed up and led us back to one hideout. Plus, we’re already hot on their trail as it is, so it’s only a matter of time before I get the chance for some payback and shove a wire fist so far up each of their asses that they’ll be tasting it.”

The dramatic imagery at the end was something that Twilight could have done without, but the pep talk did help her in some regard. Twilight could see that her arguments were flawed, and that all that anger and frustration with herself was doing nothing to help with the task at hoof. If she wanted to prove that she could help, she had to put her mistakes behind her and focus on the ‘now’. Sam’s reassurances were just the wake up call she needed to see that, and now, she could put her full effort into helping tracking down the assailants and Visionary Dusk.

Twilight brought a hoof up to her eyes and wiped away the tears on her face, “Th-thank you, Sam.”

“No problem, Sparks,” the wire conduit offered one more reassuring smile, “Now, who wants some more ears scratchies~?”

Further into the alleyway, Captain Aegis Flare brought his attention back to the pile of debris he was checking over. He had been listening to the conversation the whole time and was about to step in to send the purple unicorn back to the castle as needed. Though, it seemed that he underestimated the human conduit once again in handling the situation, even if it was in his own unique words.

Clearing out some of the smaller pieces of concrete from a pillar that had got knocked over, Aegis Flare peered into the dark crevices of the debris to search for clues. He was about to move on to the next promising looking part of the alleyway when a faint glimmer caught his attention.

Staring deeper into the crevice, the captain could barely make out something poking out of the dust settled at the bottom. It was hard to make out, and it looked like it was no part of the surrounding debris that covered it. He tried desperately to reach for the piece hidden away, but it the opening was too small. It sat too far out of reach. The fallen concrete above and around it was too heavy to lift on his own and proved just as much when he tried to push it. Conceding defeat, Aegis Flare was left with no choice but to turn to the only creature that stood a chance at removing the obstacle.

“Human!” Aegis Flare called out from around the concrete barricade separating the two.

“Yo?”

Sam was done counseling his friend, and she looked better for it. Now, he had to see what problems ol’ Cappy was dealing with. Hopefully, not another existential crisis. The wire conduit doubted that a hug and quick pep talk would help that stoic pegasus. He’d probably need an army of therapists, and then another army of therapists to see those therapists. In the meantime, it seemed that the good captain was instructing him to come with him. So, Sam and Twilight followed the captain around the concrete barricade to see what he’d found.

“What you got, Cappy?” Sam asked upon arriving to see the captain staring at a large, toppled pile of concrete.

“There’s something trapped under this rubble,” the captain replied evenly, “I need your help to retrieve it.”

Sam was somewhat disappointed with the lackluster response. He was on a bit of roll with cheering up these colorful equines, and it was about time that he and Cappy had an emotional powwow themselves. There would have been some laughs, some legit bro-to-bro bonding, and possibly even some hugging at the end.

Sam would dare anyone to say what they will about that last part, but these ponies were just so damn soft and huggable. It was good thing Pinkie had came along when she did to fulfill Sam’s quota of adorable-pony-hugging for the week, or else he’d have to ambush one of the castle staff again… In the totally platonic and not weird way.

In any case, Sam moved up to stand beside ol’ Cappy and peer into the gap that the grizzled captain was eyeing himself. He had to squint a bit, and even move to a different angle to catch the same glimmer that the captain had noticed the first time around while inspecting the debris.

“Yeah, I see it. Give me a sec,” Sam said, cracking his knuckles.

Sam brought his left hand up to the opening and summoned a duo of wires to poke from his fingertips and snake their way into the deep recesses of the debris pile. It took a moment of poking around with the wire appendages before they brushed up against the surface of the mysterious object lodged within. Sam directed the wires to dig into the dust and carefully wrap around the oblong object until he felt he had a good grip on it. The dust sifted off of the object as Sam carefully extracted it from its hiding spot and reeled it in.

“Aaaaand, got it,” Sam triumphantly cheered as he withdrew his hand from the crevice.

Twilight and the captain moved in closer to inspect the mysterious object that their human conduit retrieved. Sam tilted his head in confusion while turning over the object in his hand a few times, trying to discern exactly what he was looking at.

At first, he thought it was some kind of remote control for a tv, but as far as he knew, Equestria didn’t have television sets or anything of that technologically complicated. Then, there was the fact that the ‘remote’ had some kind of analogue numerical readout, and there were no buttons, but a couple dials.

“What is it?” Twilight asked, trying to get a better view of the device in Sam’s hand.

Sam tilted his hand down for the others to see, and they both eyed the device curiously. Aegis Flare could only furrow his brow harder, unable to identify the mysterious device at a glance. Twilight was far more intrigued and fervently worked her mind in trying to decipher exactly what she was looking at.

While the two studied the device from every angle they could, Sam pondered about the device’s use. It didn’t look like it had any explosive materials attached to it or any other obvious signs of being a bomb. Eventually, Sam’s curiosity won out, and the wire conduit reached down with his free hand to fiddle with the dials.

The captain saw this, but before he could warn the conduit about the possible dangers, Sam had already turned the first dial and was rewarded with a ‘click’. Immediately, the device went off and started making weird clicking noises. Both the captain and Twilight backed away in fright, unsure of what was happening. Though, seeing as the device didn’t explode in Sam’s face, it was a safe bet that it wasn’t, in fact, a bomb.

The captain snorted angrily, and stomped up to yell in Sam’s face, “What were you thinking, human?! For all we knew, that thing was some kind of explosive!”

“Ah, sorry,” Sam suddenly realizing how irresponsible his impulsive action was, “At least it wasn’t?”

The half-baked apology only earned him another scathing glare. However, seeing as the perceived danger had passed, Twilight was now even more curious of the device that was now giving off weird noises. She returned to Sam’s side while the two were arguing and examined the device once more.

The device was giving off a weird series of clicking noises while the needle on the analogue readout would flicker from one side to the other. She noticed that the readout gave off more erratic movements every time the bottom of the device was pointed toward Sam in particular. Her mind was hard at work again to understand the meaning of this phenomenon, until something in her mind clicked.

“Sam,” Twilight interrupted the verbal reprimand he was receiving by tugging on his shirt, “Can I see that device for a moment?”

“Huh? Oh, sure,” Sam replied, casually tossing the device over to the unicorn.

Twilight hastily caught the carelessly tossed device in her magic. The panic of almost letting the precious device fall subsided, and the little unicorn let out a deep sigh of relief. Now that she had it, Twilight began to turn it over carefully to examine it from all angles. All the while, the device would click at varying intensities when was turned in specific directions. Judging by the device becoming more responsive depending on this variable, Twilight’s working theory on its purpose was becoming more clear.

While Sam and Aegis Flare continued their back and forth, Twilight levitated the device to point directly at the wire conduit. Just as she suspected, the needle on the readout swung wildly to the other side and began clicking at a more intense frequency. She waved the device a few times away before returning it to face Sam and was rewarded with the same result. The purple unicorn was enraptured with her findings and soon found herself too busy with her tests to notice anything else around her. Finding the noise distracting, Sam looked down to his side to see his unicorn friend swinging the device about him with a look of pure concentration.

“Uh, Sparks? Ya mind telling me what you’re up to?”

Startled out of her thoughts by her friend’s question, Twilight backed away bashfully and pulled the device away with her, “Hehe, sorry… but I think I figured out what this device is for.”

Surprise was the evident response she got, and it was Sam that spoke up first to ask the obvious question, “Well, don’t keep us in the dark. What’s it do?”

Taking the initiative, Twilight cleared her throat to begin her explanation, “Well, judging by this device’s reactions. I believe it’s supposed to be some kind of specialized tracker for detecting conduits.”

This new information certainly raised a lot of questions for Sam and the captain. Luckily, Twilight continued her explanation that brought about the answers they sought.

“You see, the readout on the front of the device gives off a heightened reaction every time its directed at Sam. See?” Twilight validated her point by waving the device over Sam a few more times. Said device did as she said and responded to being passed over the wire conduit, somewhat reminding him of a geiger counter in its reactions. “I’m not exactly sure how this thing works, but with a bit of time, I’m sure I can figure out its inner workings. Perhaps even tweak it to give a more specialized result or-”

“Miss Sparkle!” the captain suddenly interrupted the unicorn with a growl.

“Eep!” the purple unicorn jumped, then realized her error and smiled bashfully in apology, “Oh, r-right. Not the time for that.”

Curiosity stole Sam’s thoughts as he now regarded this ‘conduit tracker’ with a more critical eye, “Hey, Sparks? You mind if I see that for a bit? Cool, thanks!”

Before the purple unicorn could properly respond, Sam reached out and snatched the device back out of her magical grasp. Again, before she had time to react, the wire conduit was pacing around the surprised unicorn, waving the device all over her body. Aside from the mildly embarrassing display, the device gave off very little to no reaction while being waved about the unicorn entirely.

“Sam, stop that!” the self-conscious unicorn groaned, pushing the snickering conduit away.

“Hmm… I wonder,” Sam muttered under his breath, deviously turning his attention toward a certain cross looking captain.

“Human…” the good captain warned dangerously, knowing what the wire conduit was thinking.

Though that did nothing to deter Sam and his devious snickering. Quick as flash, Sam was all over the captain and swiping the device over his body faster than the captain could drive him away, all the while teasing the poor captain with taunts and light pats on his armored head whenever he got a chance.

Twilight watched in mild amusement, but there was something else about the experience that left her astonished. Every time that Sam was able to wave the device over the captain’s body, it gave off a series of wild clicks, and she could just make out the display with the needle moving erratically just the same. It was more subdued than the reaction she got when she used it on Sam, but there was no denying that the device was reacting to the captain’s presence. It seemed that device wasn’t just for detecting conduits that had their abilities activated, like their human counterpart.

“Stop foaling around, or I’ll have you before the princesses to reduce your stipulations, again!”

Sam immediately backed off, but not before muttering under his breath, “Party pooper.”

The exhilarated, little unicorn jumped at her chance to cut in, “Sam! That device, did you see what it did?”

“Of course, Sparks,” the wire conduit smirked, knowing exactly what she was getting excited about, “That’s why I wanted to test it against a ‘control’ group. Figured we ought to make sure this thing did what we thought it did. Turns out, we just got more answers than we’d hoped for. Oh, yeah, and Cappy? Congrats on joining the conduit club, buddy! Well, ‘potential’ conduit club at least.”

Sam wished he had a camera at that moment. He would have loved to frame that mixture of shock and wonder he witnessed in the captain’s expression. He would have even mailed a copy to Pinkie Pie, so they could have a laugh the next time they hung out. Though, as quickly as it came, the stoic captain shook his head and redonned his game face.

“Regardless, I don’t see how this can help us,” Aegis Flare resumed his gruff attitude.

“Actually,” Twilight said while she retrieved the device from Sam once more, “This may be exactly what we’ve been looking for. Though, I’ll need a few moments though to study this.”

Twilight’s horn began to glimmer brighter as she closed her eyes and focused on what she needed to do. More and more magic poured from the unicorn’s horn as she probed the device for what she was looking for. Sam and Aegis Flare waited expectantly as the seconds turned into minutes. Twilight’s face contorted in concentration, ranging expressions from astonishment to comprehension. Suddenly, the glow around her horn diminished, along with the expanded aura around the device.

Coming out from her trance, Twilight blinked blearily until she spoke with determination, “I know how we can track the assailants!”

Before either of her companions could get her to elaborate, she cantered off with the device in tow. Her demeanor was etched in focus as she cast the device about the area and over various objects, like she was looking for something. Sam and the captain followed along in silence, curious as to what the purple unicorn was brewing.

They didn’t have to wait long, as she finally stopped at a pile of concrete rubble, seemingly not unlike the rest strewn about. Using her hoof, she sifted through what Sam determined to have been the remains of a half destroyed ‘Rook’ cocoon. Twilight periodically picked up a piece of the cocoon, waved the device over it before discarding it once again. This process continued a few more times until her eyes lit up, as she seemed to have found what she was looking for.

“Okay,” the purple unicorn smiled excitedly, “Sam, can you hold onto this concrete for a sec, please?”

Sam shrugged and took the shard out of the unicorn’s hoof. Twilight, meanwhile, began to fiddle with the device again.

Without taking her eyes off the device, she began to explain her plan to the curious duo, “I’m sad to admit it, but Visionary Dusk was really thorough when he designed this device, which I’m now certain is some kind of ‘conduit tracker’. I was able to scan through it and deciphered all the interwoven spells he put into it. It’s actually quite ingenious. Overlaying a series of complex locator and detection spells, while at the same time not letting them interfere with one another on top of a condensed, and strangely unique, variation of Magus Voidwalker’s vitality distinction spell.”

“Damn, Sparks! All that from a quick scan?” Sam whistled his amazement.

Twilight blushed bashfully from the praise, “It was more of a full thaumic examination and breakdown, and I almost missed a few axis strands to fully understand the binding properties.” Twilight’s modesty was cut short as she finally got the backplate from the tracker off and began to shift bits and pieces around inside. “In any case, do you see this? This is all the basic groundwork that the Royal Research teams had been looking into applying as well, for the same concept. It’s just Visionary Dusk actually figured out how to interweave the spells without them interfering with each other or backfiring. I just need to adjust the detection array, and then realign the binding properties to regard a specified sample rather than a broadened gauge.”

A quick couple of flashes from Twilight’s horn onto the tracker’s invisible spell structure were the last tweaks on the amalgamation of tech and magic inside the device she apparently needed to make, as she sighed contently over her work being done. She looked to Sam and levitated the tracker up for him to take.

“Ok, Sam. All I need you to do is align that shard of concrete above the first detection array inside the tracker. My magic can’t really affect that piece, and my hooves are too cumbrous to manipulate the shard into place. Don’t worry though, you’ll see it. Surprisingly, it’s the one that’s made out of thaumium wire, directly in the center,” Twilight directed the wire conduit from the side.

It wasn’t hard to find. As Twilight said, the array was made of those same pale golden strands that he has become increasingly familiar with. Taking a moment to study it, the wire conduit was proud to say that he was able to interpret the elaborate arrangement of the spell pattern and its meaning, if just barely... then came the clincher.

Although Twilight had managed to rearrange the various components and pieces, it still left the spot she had picked out for the shard, or ‘focus’, precarious and prone to falling out of alignment. She must have known this, but Sam figured that she thought she could just handle the whole thing delicately enough with her magic to avoid that. He was going to point this out, when suddenly, his own idea took hold.

Quickly studying the array once more, the wire conduit isolated the perfect anchoring points along the buffering chain on the pattern that he could work with. He called forth a pair of his own thaumium wire to bind the concrete shard in his hand. Next, he settled the shard into the tracker like Twilight said, just above the array. Finally, he carefully threaded the thaumium strands around his chosen anchor points, so the whole thing bound together without tripping or backfiring.

With the shard in place, the array, as well as the rest of the components, lit up with a warm glow in what Sam could only describe looking like some techno-rave circuit board. He handed the tracker back to the unicorn, looking a bit more proud of himself, all while Twilight examined his work.

“Amazing, Sam,” Twilight praised, “I never would have thought to use more thaumium wire to anchor the ‘focus’ into place like this.”

Sam smirked and pretended to buff his nails against his shirt in a smug fashion, “Yeah, well. One of us had to… You know, at the rate I’m learning magic, maybe Sunny will be looking into a ‘new’ protege.”

The light tease earned him an indignant and jealousy fueled forehoof kick to his side. He laughed at the expected reaction and Twilight soon joined in, knowing her coveted position was still secure… for now.

“Ahem!”

And just like that, the reality of their situation reasserted itself as an impatient captain waited to be brought back into the loop.

“Sorry, Captain Aegis Flare,” Twilight bowed her head in guilt before offering up the tracker apologetically, “With mine and Sam’s modifications, we can use this tracker to locate the assailants now. We’re ready to go whenever you are.”

“Thank you, Miss Sparkle. You are dismissed now.”

“W-what?” Twilight suddenly looked up in confusion.

The captain took the tracker into his possession, and leveled the unicorn with a serious look, “You said that we can use this tracker to hunt down Visionary Dusk and his assailants. Therefore, your work here is done. I thank you for your help, but I must ask that you return to the castle now, for your own safety.”

Twilight was instantly floored by this revelation. Indeed, she had done what she had set out to do and gave the captain exactly what he needed. Though as much as she could see the logic in the points he raised, she felt like she wasn’t done yet. It wasn’t fair that her friends had to put themselves in harm’s way while she got kicked to the sidelines.

“Whoa, hold up, Cappy,” Sam cut in, “As much as I agree with you that Sparks would be better off leaving the rest of this up to us, I’ve got just one question for you. Do you know how that tracker you’re holding works?”

The captain opened his mouth to answer, only to shut it once more when he realized that he, in fact, didn’t. His eyes darted about for a moment in contemplation, before settling back on the device in his hoof and giving it a scornful glower.

“Then, you will operate it, human,” Aegis Flare hoofed the device over with a huff.

“Sorry, can’t,” Sam said and tossed it right back.

“What?! Why?” Aegis Flare scowled at the defiant conduit.

Sam merely shrugged and gave the captain a bored response, “Cause, I may get how it works on a technical level, but some of Twilight’s mods are still a little over my head. I don’t know how they alternated the tracker’s overall function entirely.”

The captain ruffled his wings in agitation before taking a calming breath and turning to address Twilight, “Miss Sparkle, can you show me how to operate this device so we can hunt down Visionary Dusk’s location?”

“Uh...,” Twilight knew she could explain how to do just that with ease, but in that moment, a flash of movement caught her notice from behind the captain.

The wire conduit was beckoning desperately for Twilight’s attention in the background. In a series of quick movements, Sam winked to her conspicuously and motioned in a way that got her to realize what he wanted her to do. He wanted her to lie.

The captain turned to find out what Twilight was looking at, only to find a certain wire conduit foolishly playing with nothing but a chunk of concrete and waving innocently. That split second distraction was all the unicorn needed, and she thanked the conduit silently as she prepared her speech.

With the captain’s attention back on her, she breathed calmly and spoke, “I’m sorry, captain. I may have reattuned the detection spells, but it would take a lot more time for me to adjust all of exo-thaumatic excluders. Their job is to basically negate any ambient magical energies from interfering with the tracker’s readout, since I’ve set the first detection array to include a specific signature. I’d either have to adjust the excluders, like I said, which I don’t know exactly how long that would take, or I’d have to be on hoof to re-scan the tracker’s spell infrastructure periodically, to make sure it isn’t reading false inputs.”

None of this was true. The little, purple unicorn had lied through her teeth, and Sam couldn’t be more proud. It would have taken all of five seconds to let the captain know that he just needed to not mess with the calibration dials on the tracker. Hell, Twilight could have just put a few pieces of tape over the things and not even a foal could mess it up. Yet, even with Twilight’s terrible poker face, something Sam would have to work with her on, the captain’s blank stares gave them the obvious impression that he was fooled.

“Miss Sparkle, are you certain there is no other way for you to get this in working order faster?” the captain finally asked in desperation.

With a confident, conspiratory smile reassuring her from the back by her conduit friend, Twilight shook her head silently.

The captain let out an aggravated growl, showing just how frustrated he was for the unfortunate turn of events. It was bad enough that he allowed Twilight to come this far. Now, it was made worse that she would have to accompany himself and the human conduit straight to Visionary Dusk’s location, putting her further into unnessaccary danger. Looking over to said conduit, the captain had come to trust the human’s word and his promise to protect Twilight. However, it would only take one slip up, one lapse in attention, and the unicorn’s life would be in jeopardy.

Ol’ Cappy looked to be weighing his options carefully, but the frown on his face only deepened the more one of them seemed the most beneficial. One last reluctant sigh escaped him as his shoulders slumped.

“Miss Sparkle,” the captain solemnly said, “We’ll need you to come with us for a little while longer.”

Twilight’s eyes lit up with excitement as she gleefully clapped her hooves together. Sam stepped up beside her and joined in with his own congratulations.

“Human! This means I need you to be one-hundred percent focused on your duty,” Captain Aegis Flare glared dangerously toward the conduit.

Sam suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to snicker as he whispered, “Heh, he said ‘duty’.”

“Human!”

“Hey, no worries. I’m serious now,” Sam said, holding his hands up in front of him defensively.

The captain gave him a quick scowl, before addressing the unicorn, “Ok, Miss Sparkle. You’ll direct us to where we need to go, but the human will remain at your side while I am at the front. Are we clear?”

Twilight nodded her head vigorously.

“Good. Human, you know your post.”

“Way ahead of you, Cappy,” Sam slid up beside Twilight to the point that they were touching.

Twilight stood still for a moment until she noticed that all eyes were on her, and she realized what they were all waiting for, “Oh, right!”

With a simple flick of one of the dials on the tracker, it lit up with a pale golden light inside Twilight’s own lavender aura. The readout needle stayed close to the low side of the spectrum until she tilted the whole device to point in a different direction. As it was turned, the needle steadily moved to a higher reading, and the whole device gave a rhythmic pinging noise unlike before that also got faster the more it was faced in an eastern direction. The group looked from the device and down the other side of the alleyway that it was directing. It certainly seemed that the assailants moved down that way, if the pillars of concrete and multitude of craters were any indication.

“Alright,” the captain moved back up to in front of the group to lead the way, “Stay close, but stay behind me.”

With that, he began to cautiously move down the alleyway with the conduit and unicorn in tow….

...Though not before Sam leaned down to Twilight to whisper in her ear, “Make this count, Sparks. And don’t forget our deal.”

Twilight hesitantly nodded and took a steadying breath before moving along with the others. Off to where the tracker would lead them, and hopefully, where they could finally put an end to Visionary Dusk’s schemes.

Author's Notes:

One more chapter, and only a few more to go.

Thanks, Regreme for all your editing skillz. You are the best.

The Endgame: Part 3

Author's Notes:

Whoo boy. That took a lot longer than I wanted it to. So yeah, between getting sick twice, my old laptop exploding (freak lighting storm fried the components while it was connected to the charging cable. Actually fried a couple other stuff at my place, still mad about that), then having my knee give me issues that i needed to go to physical therapy and now have to go get it looked at more in depth. It's been tough trying to sit down for any extended period of time and get this chapter sorted out. But, here it is at last. I'm excited to hear what you all might think as the story is swiftly coming to a close. Yeah, this series of titles is not just for show, but don't worry, I will try to make all worth while by the end.

So, without further ado, enjoy, and leave some feedback if you can. I alway do enjoy that thing they call 'constructive criticism'.

It also wouldn't do if I didn't give my good friend Regreme his credit where credit is due. Great working with you as always, buddy, and thanks for editing, proofreading, and basically putting up with my finicky schedule.

The streets of Canterlot were abuzz with roaming rumors and outlandish hearsay. Yet, they all shared a common truth. Canterlot was once again the target of another attack from Visionary Dusk and his assailants. If ponies weren’t out in huddled groups among the streets for safety, they were boarding up their homes like a monsoon was about to strike. The fear and anxiety was spreading like wildfire, and the royal guard were stretched thin in their duties to both scour the city for clues and maintain the dwindling peace.

Inside the castle, things were no better. Castle staff whispered nervously to each other in the halls while guards rushed past them to their assigned stations. Deeper into the castle, a contingent of guards stood ready and alert in front of a set of double doors. Every so often, another guard would gallop up and exchange a few words before one of the guards nodded and opened the door to allow them entry.

One such guard, another messenger, hastened up the row of guards at the door and skidded to a halt a mere hoof-length away. She took a moment to catch her breath as the other guards waited patiently for her words.

Once settled, she snapped to attention and raised her right foreleg to her head in a salute, “Private Dazzleflash, reporting in from the garrison’s third brigade.”

“At ease, solider,” the first guard in front of her waved his hoof dismissively.

With permission to relax her posture a bit, Private Dazzleflash did just that and let her shoulder slump ever so slightly from the ache of having to run all the way here. With another intake of air, she was about to make her report to her superior when the unicorn stallion raised his hoof to silence her, and she half sputtered, half choked on her words.

“You are to make your way inside and report directly to the princesses in the war room,” the stallion sidestepped and moved to open one of the double doors that led to, presumably, the war room, “Once you’re done, take a moment to rest over by the front gate and then return to your brigade.”

The door creaked open further, and the shocked Private witnessed the organized chaos within. Many higher-ups were talking between each other while reading over documents and scrolls. Some moved swiftly from one station within the expansive room to another as they collaborated their reports on sections of the city that have already been searched. Though, through all of this, the little mare guard stood frozen as she witnessed the two alicorns of the sun and moon standing over a large central table. Their muzzles were buried in their work, and their backs were turned from the little mare as she tried to swallow a lump building in her throat.

With only her training to guide her hooves, she marched into the room, ramrod straight and beelined for the princesses that were pouring over the various scrolls that were hoofed over to them from other pony guards throughout the room. Seemingly like they had sensed her presence, the two alicorns looked over their shoulders to see the ridged march of the pony behind them. Private Dazzleflash nearly tripped over her own hooves once she saw this, yet she somehow managed to march the last few paces between her and the princesses she needed to be at a respectable distance and deliver her report. However, every last word in her vocabulary simply died before she could form a single sentence, having only realized at this moment, that this was the first time she had ever really spoken directly to the princesses herself. Any other time she had ever been in their presence was in a routine ceremonial formation or a passing, and very distanced, encounter on one of her patrols on the castle grounds.

The poor mare was blindsided with a severe case of anxiety, to the point that her hooves almost gave out from under her. Her mouth was completely dry, and every second she stood there felt like the royal sisters were condemning her under their watchful gaze. The rest of the room sounded like an empty chamber, where its only occupants were Private Dazzleflash and the two royal sisters that were locked in a deathly staring contest. Then, without warning, the princess of the sun lifted her right hoof with the quickness of a bolt of lighting striking the ground. Before, the poor Private Dazzleflash could realize it, the hoof was in front of her face. ‘This was it’, she thought, as if the accusatory hoof was about to lash out and engulf her world more than it already had. She only wished she had to chance to try that blueberry pie down on South Mane one more time before she was banished for wasting the princesses’ time.

“Boop!”

And just like that, the world began turning again. The war room’s other occupants seemed to not even noticed the event going on and were still shuffling and chattering about. Private Dazzleflash felt her nose involuntarily wrinkle up after having the sun princess’ gold clad hoof lightly bop her in the muzzle. With her senses slowly returning to her, the guardsmare crossed her eyes to look down the length of her muzzle and toward the gold clad hoof still hovering in front of it. She had to shake her head a few times to clear the rest of her cobwebs out of her head before she realized that she was still standing before her country’s rulers.

Snapping to attention and rendering a deep, apologetic bow, Private Dazzleflash announced herself, “Y-your highnesses! Private Dazzleflash, reporting in from the third garrison b-brigade!”

An almost whimsical giggle reached the private’s ears from above her, “At ease, Private Dazzleflash.”

Hearing the command, the guardmare immediately shot back up to attention. She saw Princess Celestia retracting her hoof and placing it back on the ground and realized what happened, much to her embarrassment. The little mare’s sheepish expression only served to give the solar diarch another reason to giggle once more.

Although the princess of the moon did not seem to share in the same humor. “I presume you have an update on your brigade’s status, messenger? Then, report,” the lunar princess coldly intoned.

This was what the guardsmare needed to have her training kick in again. Standing up a little straighter, she leveled her gaze between the two princesses and spoke with a neutral tone, just as she would have if she were speaking to one of her instructors back in basic training.

“Yes, your highness,” she spoke quickly, “The third brigade has finished sweeping the city’s North-east lower ring. There were no signs of the assailants on scene or having used the section as an escape route.”

The faintest of frowns crossed the solar princess’ face before it returned to its usual warm smile, “Thank you, Private Dazzleflash. We will add this intel to our resources to narrow down the search. Please, remember to rest up a bit before returning to your squad. And do not forget to stay vigilant, but safe. The pony we’re after is not to be underestimated.”

“Understood, your highness,” Private Dazzleflash gave another respectful bow before turning on her hooves and marched out of the war room.

As soon as the doors closed, the princess of the sun let out a deep, yet masked, sigh. The only one that was able to spot this little break in the sun goddess’ facade was the lunar princess right beside her. She watched as her older sister turned back around to the table behind them and followed suit.

Upon this table was a very large and very detailed map of the city that now hosted a citywide manhunt. On the map itself, many different markings in red marker were prominently shown in various locations. Many of them were bold ‘X’ markings, signifying locations that have been searched for Visionary Dusk and his assailants.

There was large circle in the south-western section of the map, being the marking that displayed the last known sighting of the assailants that appeared merely an hour ago. Arrows zigzagged in different directions from this particular marking, all of which were along different paths to possible directions that the princesses assumed that the assailants might of taken. Many of the ‘X’s were stemmed from these paths, but as they indicated, none were deemed right.

That was when the guard was ordered to perform a more extensive search of the city. All public and private forms of transportation had been issued a shutdown until further notice, a move in which the princesses hoped would limit the wanted creatures’ routes of escape. Although, they also had to remember that they certainly weren’t limited to their means of escape by any means, if their last infiltration into the city was anything to go by.

The princess of the sun solemnly gazed upon the map for a moment longer before levitating a red marker across the table. The red marker easily floated over the map in the princess’ steady grasp and came down to mark another ‘X’ in the north-eastern corner that contained that direction’s section of the lower ring. The marker lazily drifted to another corner of the table and dropped from Celestia’s telekinetic grasp.

“This is certainly troubling,” the princess of the night noted while looking over the map herself, “Even with their noticeable abilities, these assailants have once again slipped amongst the cracks.”

“That’s ‘slipped between the cracks’, sister,” the solar princess cheerily corrected the idiom.

Luna looked up at her sister and glared before turning her head away in a huff, “My point has still been made. There is also the detail of the attack itself.”

Celestia frowned again at her sister’s words. She was right, after all. The assailants had disappeared once again. It was troubling, not for the fact that they escaped, but that they seemed to have vanished without a trace after the incident occured.

A messenger with the initial report stated that the encounter took place along the border to the upper ring in the east. A small squad of guards heard the cries for help and rushed onto the scene. Like Luna had also noted, the attack was not like any of the other attacks Visionary Dusk has made. Of the ones that they could be certain of, every attack was precise, meticulous, and above all, gone unnoticed until after the fact. For Visionary Dusk’s assailants to stage a ponynapping in broad daylight, it just wasn’t adding up.

The messenger went on to report that the guards were able to hold their ground against the assailants, but suffered serious casualties. When it seemed like the assailants were about to finish off the squad, more guards came onto the scene. It was only thanks to the training by Sam and Captain Aegis Flare, the guards’ overwhelming numbers and new tactics in combating conduits slowly pushed the odds in their favor.

With the added support and with more on the way, the assailants must have realized that their chance to escape was slipping away. One of the unicorn assailants moved to the front, stomped the ground and caused a weird earthquake, which in turn caused multiple pillars of concrete to spring from the ground. The guards had to move back or else get caught up in the massive display of force. The lapse in the fight must have been what they were aiming for as the griffon was reported to have thrown a couple of metal canisters between the guards and them. Unknowing of what they were, the guards had to fallback, and the canisters exploded into giant clouds of smoke that filled the streets.

By the time that the guards could regroup and the smoke had cleared enough, the assailants had disappeared. A search of the area was immediately ordered, and the messenger that was sent to report to the princesses brought all this to them. In the aftermath of the skirmish, it was reported that the assailants were never seen after the encounter, not by the guards, the local citizens, or anypony. It was like they vanished. This was what prompted the princesses to expand the search to the entire city in the end, and that is where they were left.

“What do you suppose may have happened, Luna?” Celestia finally asked after mulling over the details for several more minutes.

Luna stayed quiet for the time being, a look of pure concentration on her face as she scanned over the map.

“I am...unsure,” Luna finally relented, “If these attackers fled from the battle, then it should mean that somepony must have seen in which direction they fled. Yet, nopony saw hide nor hair of them after the battle. It is as if they vanished into thin air. They couldn’t have teleported, or else the guards would have found traces of a magical signature. Fleeing by hoof, and at least one other pony would have seen their escape. Are we certain that the city’s citizens have been interrogated?”

“‘Interviewed’, Luna. And yes, the garrison from that section had already interviewed any possible eyewitnesses. None of them saw the assailants leave the area,” Princess Celestia pondered.

“Then, where could they have fled to?” Princess Luna asked nopony in particular.

It was entirely vexing to be sure, as the princess of the sun tried to figure out the method of the mysterious disappearance. No magic was used, as far as they could tell, to teleport or slip by the guards unnoticed. They didn’t flee on hoof, or else somepony would have seen them right away. One was a griffon who could have possibly flown, but that left the other two unicorns. Sam has always demonstrated that conduits never needed to use just the streets to travel by. His constant antics and traipses about the city always wound up with him making a fair bit of use of the city’s rooftops and other high places. Yet, it still would have been hard to go completely unnoticed by anypony if the assailants used such methods.

A long, disgruntled sigh issued from the lunar princess as she eyed the map dolefully, “These assailants are most evasive. I’d say they’re akin to a pack of rats to the drainpipes.”

Celestia suddenly gasped and wheeled on her sister with a startled expression, “What did you say?!”

Luna had to back up a step to avoid her sister’s overbearing presence in her face before answering, “Sister, I know I am still grasping these ‘idioms’, but that’s no reason for you to, oh what was it again, Take flight from the handle?”

“No, it’s fly off-, nevermind that! I meant, what you said might just be the key,” Celestia rushed in a frenzy to flag down one of the guards within the war room. As soon as the first one saw her distress, the unicorn stallion bounded over and bowed before her highness, “I need the maps to the city’s underground sewer and drainage systems, especially ones for the area that the assailants were encountered today.”

“Yes, your highness,” the stallion bowed again and galloped away to procure his assigned quarry.

“Sister,” Luna asked in a questioning tone, unsure of what was going on, “What does what I said have to do with these maps you’ve asked for?”

The princess of the sun was about to answer when the stallion from before returned to the central table with the required maps in hoof. ‘That was quick,’ the princesses thought. The stallion bowed again and returned to his other duties once more. Meanwhile, Princess Celestia took the maps in her magical grasp and sorted through them till she found what she was looking for. Placing the smaller, sectioned maps on top of the large table with the other map, she quickly placed them in a sort of jigsaw puzzle of connected tunnels at their ends. Before long, the underground maps were overlaid on top of the city map and gave them a maze-like network of tunnels.

Princess Celestia took a moment to catch her sister’s attention before explaining and pointing out what she was talking about, “There, the site of the attack, sister. It’s surrounded by a large collection of drainage maintenance tunnels. Like you said, ‘rats to the drainpipe’, these tunnels were made large enough for even an average sized griffon to fit through.”

Princess Luna soon found herself realizing what her sister was starting to say, but frowned upon finding a contradiction, “I see where this is going, sister, but I may want to point out that this particular street does not have a place to enter these tunnels, if I am reading this right.”

The elder princess cocked a smug grin as she took up the marker from earlier in her magic, “Very true, but we must remember the report of the initial attack.” Gingerly outlining key points of the street map in marker, the princess marked positions of where the assailants, the guards, and key components were in the final minutes of the attack. “The guard’s report said that they were able to push the assailants back toward a side street between two buildings. They’d hoped to entrap then strike at the assailants once they had pushed them into the narrower street. Though before the signal to strike could be issued, the assailants retaliated. The guards were pushed back and then even further away when the griffon tossed, what Sam had mentioned were, ‘smoke grenades’ in the guards’ direction. Unknowing of what they were, the guards took cover, and the grenades went off and blanketed the side street in smoke.”

Luna watched as her sister marked the map even further with arrows to show the movements she described and another circle around the side street for the smoke grenade’s effect.

“We didn’t understand where the assailants had escaped to or how they may have done it in the first place,” Princess Celestia explained further, moving the sewer map back over top of the other, “But now, if we assume that the assailants couldn’t have left on the main street where the guards were, and that there is no tunnel entrance in the side street…”

It was Luna’s turn to gasp in realization, and she quickly snatched the marker out of her sister’s magic with her own and poured over the map, “Then, they could have only gone one way to avoid detection.” Luna was giddy as she followed the side street further back with her eyes and overlaid sewer map till she found the marking of a tunnel entrance. “Here! Just on the other side of the street! I’m sure with the commotion of the fight going on just on the other side, this street would be devoid of ponies that wished to not get caught up in the fight.”

In her excitement, the princess of the night overzealously circled the tunnel entrance more than a few times in the red ink. The two sisters looked over the map once more to confirm this entrance to be the closest to the side street on its other side and nodded simultaneously when satisfied on their confirmation.

“We must make haste, sister,” Princess Luna pranced on her hooves in anticipation, “These scoundrels may think they have gotten away, but we shall swiftly bring them to justice upon their capture!”

Though before the lunar princess could go galloping off, the solar princess moved to block her path with an outstretched wing. Luna gave her sister an incredulous look when this happened and gave a frustrated groan at being stopped.

“Sister, this may be a significant lead, but we have no proof that this is how they truly escaped,” Celestia reasoned while retracting her wing.

The younger princess rolled her eyes and argued, “But this is the most logical explanation we have. Strike while their backs are turned with as many guards we can muster! This is worth at least further investigation.”

“I agree,” Celestia nodded to Luna’s surprise, “but we can’t just send a legion of guards on a possibly false lead, especially when we would have to pull those forces from other search parties, opening up larger escape routes.” Luna quickly realized her error and began to ponder on what they should do. Celestia, already one step ahead of her, patted the lunar princess’ shoulder to bring her attention back upon her. “Captain Aegis Flare should already be at the scene of the attack, looking for any more clues that may have been missed. I was told that he also took Sam along with him as a means to help him identify any clues they may have come across in the search. I believe a messenger is all that is needed for this task, and we can relay our findings to have them search for this drainage entrance and signs of the assailants’ escape.”

Although disappointed that she would not be leading a glorious charge onto the field of battle like she had hoped, Princess Luna understood the need for this tactic and nodded in agreement. With their plan set, Celestia called for another guard within the war room to relay their plan to a messenger who would find the captain and the conduit. The guard gave a quick bow and exited the room quickly to perform his task.

“You said that the captain and Samuel were the only ones to return to the scene of the attack?” Luna suddenly inquired, to which her elder sister gave her a questioning look, “Do you think it wise on their part to investigate the scene alone?”

Celestia gave her sister a confident smile, “Of course. Sam is more than capable in defending himself and others, and has a surprising aptitude for deduction, even if he tends to have a ‘leap before looking’ attitude. Coupled with Captain Aegis Flare’s years of experience and discipline, I believe that they are just fine.”

Somehow, the lunar princess couldn’t help but feel a knot of anxiety twist in her gut. Even with her elder sister’s words, she couldn’t help but feel like something bad was about to happen, especially to the small investigative team.

--o0o--

Captain Aegis Flare leapt over the dirty water way separating the intersection of the confined sewer way underneath Canterlot that he now found himself in. Landing with a steady quartet of clacks from armored hooves, he circled in place and watched as both Twilight and Sam made the same jump without incident. Aside from the trio’s footfalls, the only sounds that accompanied them was the small trickles of water splashing into the grimy water that flowed and carried the waste from the city above, and the rhythmic, almost pulsating, beeping sounds coming from the device in Twilight’s magical grasp.

Sam checked his surroundings alongside the captain for any signs of danger before falling in step behind the pegasus guard. He held up his wire light spell matrix that acted as the group’s light source for the journey to get a better look at where he was going, and give the rest of the group the light they needed to manage their own steps.

They hadn’t expected to be led to such a grotty, isolated system beneath the city, but here they were. Earlier, back on the surface, Twilight struggled for a while on interpreting the tracker she had modified as they first started off. At first, it seemed to lead them in multiple different directions, and Twilight had to stop to make a few more adjustments. When she finally recognized that there was a pattern to the way the device operated, she figured out just how to interpret its readings, to an extent.

Sam and Aegis Flare followed her lead as she led them through the decimated side street, full of concrete rubble. They were eventually led out on to the next street over, which was just as deserted as the first.

It seemed the commotion from the fight had scared off the citizens of Canterlot on this street as well, but that suited the group just fine. as they maintained focus on the tracker’s heading. With Twilight leading the group, they eventually wound up in front of what looked like some kind of stone shed. by what Sam could tell. Sam was confused by this structure until Twilight explained that it was an entrance to the city’s underground sewer system. The human conduit had never seen anything like it before, but figured that it made sense for ponies, seeing as manholes and ladders would be difficult to use for the quadrupeds.

Sam was called upon to pick the lock on the steel entrance door at the captain’s request. Turns out that such structures were charmed to block all but the most powerful magical tampering, to keep unruly individuals from getting in without the proper key. A simple enough task for the conduit, as his abilities allowed him to bypass such restrictions with his magical resistance. Yet, as soon as he started to pick the lock, he and the rest of the group were surprised to the find the door already unlocked. Red flags sprang up in their minds as to what this could mean, and the tracker’s prompting only made it more clear that they were more than likely on the right path.

If none of that reassured that notion, then what they found on the other side of the door surely did. Down the flight of stairs, and in the darkness that the sunlight barely reached, Sam and the others could just make out the distinct coloration and material of concrete, as it sealed off the tunnels below at the end of the staircase.

Sam told the others to hang back while he checked it out. Descending the elongated steps with caution, Sam summoned his thaumium wires to create an illumination spell matrix. The light cast by its artificial glow helped the conduit to see what he would be working with and to spot any potential traps hidden in the darkness.

Now at the bottom of the stairs, and nary a trap to be encountered, he ran his free hand over the concrete structure and pulled it back to look over the minute dust of the material that his fingers trailed off its surface. He tapped on it a few times while putting an ear to its surface, happy to note that it seemed that there was no signs of life on the other side. With a nod of his head, he reabsorbed the light spell matrix to free up his other hand then stepped a few paces back up the stairs.

Twilight and Aegis Flare watched as the conduit shook his arms out to the side before taking a stance. It caught them off guard when he suddenly cocked both his arms back before shooting them forward, and a series of wires flew out to pierce the concrete structure. Backing up a few more steps, they watched as Sam yanked back as hard as he could, and the wires grew taunt. Cracks formed on the surface of the concrete wall, and it started creak from the stress of the conduit pulling on it. It didn’t take long afterwards for the wall to finally give way, and large chunks of it embedded with wire hooks came free, leaving a sizeable, jagged opening in its wake.

Sam carefully stepped down to the newly formed opening and checked the other side with another light spell matrix. It appeared that the scene was safe, as he called back and beckoned for his companions to join him. With the way clear, Twilight and Aegis Flare did just that and continued to follow the conduit down into the previously blocked sewer system.

“Blugh, it smells like a sewer down here,” Sam complained, pinching his nose from the slightly pungent scent that crept up on him.

They had been following the series of tunnels for a while now, switching over to the guidance of the tracker in Twilight’s magical grasp as she led the way to where it reacted to the strongest signal.

“That’s because we are in a sewer,” Twilight huffed, having already expecting this type of commentary, “The tracker indicates that the assailants used this route to make their escape from the surface, so this is where we need to go, too.”

“Ok, but I’ve got one more question. When’s the last time someone actually came down here?” Sam asked, pushing a little tremble into his hushed tone.

When all he got was a pair of confused looks from his companions, he couldn’t help but feel a little, fiendish idea creep its way into his mind. An idea that would no doubt get him into trouble in just a minute.

“What do you mean, Sam?” Twilight all but walked right into the bait, “The Canterlot Sanitation Crew inspect and maintain the city’s sewer systems regularly. If you’re worried about the sewer’s infrastructural integrity, you needn’t have to.”

“Oh, it’s not that I’m worried about,” Sam said casually, though made to look as if he was watching something in the shadows ahead, “I’m more worried about running into… ‘It’.”

Another round of confused looks met him, but there was a faint flash of skepticism from one haggard royal guard captain.

“‘It’?” Twilight asked once more, further walking into the humorous trap.

“Oh, yeah,” Sam replied, working to keep the smirk off his face, “You know, ‘It’. The poly-dimensional, killer clown creature that’s been feasting on the souls of innocent creatures?”

At this, Twilight’s expression shifted to match the captain’s in front of them of bored disgruntlement, “Sam, there’s no such thing as that.”

“Oh, but there is,” Sam suddenly stopped and turned on the unicorn, “No one really knows where ‘It’ comes from, but it’s definitely real.”

“...Wait a minute, you said that your world didn’t believe in the multiverse theory,” Twilight suddenly objected, thinking she saw through Sam clever ruse.

Sam only had to backpedal for a moment and shook his head, “Oh no, most people don’t believe, but there’s been too many coincidences of ‘It’ to just be written off.”

Twilight remained skeptical and pushed past the conduit to continue their trek. Sam rushed back to his place in front of the unicorn, but kept looking over his shoulder in a worried fashion. Noticing this, Twilight was starting to suspect that Sam may actually think that this ‘It’ character might actually be real and caused her to feel pity for her companion.

“Sam, there’s no need to worry,” Twilight tried to reassure the anxious conduit, “I’ve never heard of this ‘It’ creature and never have I heard of somepony getting hurt in these sewers.”

Sam snorted, “That you may have heard of.”

Twilight thought that the only way to quall the conduit’s fears was to further understand what he was afraid of. Thus, she asked for more details on this creature called ‘It’.

Sam took one more worried look over his shoulder before speaking in a hushed tone, “Well, legend says that even though ‘It’ doesn’t actually have a physical body, it takes on the form of a clown. Don’t ask me why, but that shit is still scary on its own. ‘It’ hungers for the souls of living and gets them just about anyway ‘It’ can. In my world, it always lurks in the sewers, watching and waiting until it spots the perfect prey.”

At this point, even Twilight was starting to feel a little creeped out by this creature’s description.

“Once it does spot its prey, it goes on the hunt. Though, it doesn’t hunt like you’d expect it to. ‘It’ has a sick and twisted way of going about it. First, ‘It’ will wait until they approach a storm drain, a sewer grate, or even a hole in the ground that leads to its domain. Then, it appears, in form of a clown. No one knows why, but it’s almost certainly works every time to draw its victim in if only in curiosity. ‘Hey!’ he might say in a weird, scratchy voice ‘You look a little lost!’.”

Sam’s recount was now starting to unnerve the poor unicorn and even gained the attention of the captain, who was starting to suspect something was off.

Sam’s hands began to shake as he continued his talk, “It wouldn’t matter if you talked back to ‘It’ or not. For some reason, you would feel compelled to stay and see to this strange figure before you. If you asked ‘It’ what it was doing, ‘It’s’ reply would go something like, ‘Why, I was just looking for a friend!’. Strange as it would seem, you couldn’t walk away, still compelled to know what was up with this figure in the sewer. ‘Do you like balloons?’, a strange question from a strange figure, yet you find nothing too odd about it. Again, it wouldn’t matter what you’d say, the stranger would just laugh at your reply and giddily chuckle ‘They’re amazing, I’d say. You want to know why?’.”

Twilight hadn’t realized it, but her heartbeat was quickening, and she found herself checking the shadows of the tunnels, just like Sam had done not long ago. In fact, she couldn’t help but wonder if the faint echoes she heard far off down the tunnels belonged to some benign stir of commotion coming from the surface, or from something more sinister and clown related.

“Twilight, you want to know why the balloons are so amazing?” Sam snapped the unicorn out of her trance with the serious sounding question.

The purple unicorn could only nod ‘yes’ as her voice was lost to some primal fear.

Sam looked her dead in the eye and spoke in a dark tone, “‘It’ would slowly reach out from his hiding spot, knowing its victim was paralyzed by an unknown source, reaching out until its icy, cold fingers wrapped around a limb in a death grip. ‘It’ would then smile with a mouth full of yellowed, razor sharp teeth and cry out ‘Because they all float! They all float down here. Just. Like. You!’!”

Something suddenly shot up and out of the water and ensnared the poor unicorn’s hind leg. It felt cold, hard, and spindly, as if they weren’t human, equine, or anything she knew. She tried to scream, but her voice caught in her throat, and she just stood there, frozen in fear. The thing around her leg squeezed ever so slightly to reaffirm its presence before slowly feeling like it was tugging on her, back toward the murky depths of the water. It was this final course of action that finally got the unicorn’s mind working again, and she squeaked out a near inaudible breath of fear, scrambling to pull her hoof out of ’It’s’ grasp. She tripped and fell and prayed that her friend would save her before it was too late, but all she heard was laughter. Sick, horrible...uproaring, jovial laughter?

The world seemed to have snapped back into focus as Twilight took stock of the situation. Her heart was still hammering against her chest, and she found that she was not actually getting any closer to the water’s edge than she had originally started. Looking back to her hoof, the little unicorn finally identified what it was that had ensnared her hoof in the first place. Wrapped carefully around her hind leg was a knot of silvery, metal wire that emerged from the water. Following the faint outline just below the surface, she found the strand slinking back up out of the water further away from her and up to the finger of the wire conduit it was attached to. Said conduit was nearly doubling over with laughter, which only further pushed the unicorn to come to terms with what actually happened.

She looked up at Sam once more and saw he was still snickering while looking at her with joyful mirth in his eyes. She wanted to be mad. Hell, she wanted to be furious, but at the same time, seeing that carefree spirit allowed her to calm down a little more herself, knowing that she was in no more danger than any other time Sam had pulled a prank like this on her.

Of course, not everyone was laughing. No, there was one among the group that found nothing about the situation to be humorous in any way, shape, or form. Sam found himself suddenly assaulted from behind. The feathery appendage that was used as the weapon made a resounding smack across the back of the wire conduit’s head. It was surprising how much force could be put into such an attack, but the intention of it was for more than just causing pain. The distraction was enough to cut off the conduit’s laughter in an instant, as he was now rubbing the sore spot the slap caused and turned to face the perpetrator of the assault. Somehow, he wished he hadn’t, as the fury of a thousand hounds of hell stared back. Cappy was pissed.

“What the buck is wrong with you?!” the infuriated captain hissed, trying to keep his voice down.

Sam tried to respond in the most dignified way he could, “Uh…”

The captain wouldn’t be having it though and flared his wings aggressively as much as the cramped tunnels would allow. “No! No, excuses!” he continued his harsh whisper of a tone, “Take a look around us and tell me where you think we are.”

The odd request was met with an equally confused look from the wire conduit, though he did as the captain asked. The tunnels remained as damp and stinking as the last time he checked, so he wasn’t quite sure what the captain was getting at.

The captain became impatient with Sam’s lack of awareness and finally blurted out the answer, “Have you really forgotten why we are down, human? We are in the middle of hunting down three extremely dangerous criminals and their leader, Visionary Dusk, who is among Equestria’s ‘Most Wanted’!”

“Come on, Cappy. Of course I knew that,” Sam said, trying to brush the accusatory glare off in a wavering tone.

Aegis Flare’s anger grew even hotter, “Then, you also knew how dangerous it is to be giving away our position with your idiotic antics when we have no idea if they could be just down this tunnel?”

Sam suddenly realized how stupid his little prank had been, and just how much danger he put himself, Cappy, and especially Twilight in if this were true. Thinking back to his friends in Memphis, he knew Natie would have been disappointed in him, or more accurately, thrown him across the tunnel and into the wall before shooting him up with a couple thousand volts of electricity to help sink the lesson in. He wasn’t trying to be malicious or uncaring, and he tried to speak up to explain.

“Ok, that one’s on me. I just-”

The captain furiously stomped his hoof to cut him off, “Shut up! I said I don’t want to hear excuses, human.”

“W-wait a second, captain,” Twilight cut in, after having finally recovered her heartbeat to a normal pace, “Please, it was just a joke. I should have seen it coming, knowing Sam.”

Twilight suddenly found herself under the piercing, scrutinizing eye of the captain and blanched.

The deathly glare only softened a bit after the captain realized who he was misdirecting his ire toward, “Be that as it may, Miss Sparkle. I will not simply overlook the human’s blatant disregard for our safety because it was simply a ‘joke’.” The captain redirected his fury back on its proper target and redoubled his anger, “I’d have you detained and thrown in the dungeon if it weren’t for the fact that I still need you here for Miss Sparkle’s protection, but know this, human: You and I are going to have a very long and serious discussion about this when this is over.”

The captain gave one last snort of anger before turning around to follow the darkened sewer shaft to its next fork. Sam lingered back as he went over the captain’s words in his head.

The captain was right and he knew it. To the wire conduit, it was just a harmless prank, and a way to break some of the oppressing tension that was suffocating them in these narrow enclosures. Though in reality, he could have easily just put the lot of them in extreme danger. It didn’t help when he also realized that that meant that he would have been solely responsible if Twilight had come to harm if the assailants ambushed them during his little prank. The shadows deep into the network of the underground sewer felt a whole lot more sinister and foreboding in the conduit’s mind right about now.

“Sam,” a gentle hoof came up to rest upon the conduit’s side as he looked down to the distraught owner of the voice.

He couldn’t look at her directly and opted to look just over her shoulder as he spoke, “Sorry, Sparks. That was careless of me. It won’t happen again.”

“No, it’s okay,” Twilight tried to reassure the conduit, “Look, I’m fine, and the assailants haven’t attacked, so that must mean that they’re still a ways off. Don’t let this get to you.”

“Don’t mean that it was right. I was just trying to lighten the mood, you know, to... Cappy’s right, I need to focus,” Sam said dolefully, then hardened his expression into a more serious fashion.

Though before he could walk off to catch up with the captain, he felt Twilight’s hoof tug on his shirt. Looking back, he was surprised to find a sympathetic gaze returned onto him. Twilight knew more about Sam’s endeavours than any other pony and quite a few of his quirks and mannerisms. She didn’t always catch on as quick as she liked to, but she could tell when something like this was bothering him and why. She saw the slight tremble in his free hand and how he tried to slip it into his pocket without her notice, how he continued to try and look past her to avoid looking directly into her eyes. Plus, the neutral expression he wore to try and mask his true feelings. He was scared, and Twilight could probably guess why, which also led to why he had tried to distract himself with the prank in the first place. She was determined to stay by his side more than ever, not just to help bring the bad guys to justice, but to make sure that Sam, her friend, wouldn’t have to suffer anymore pain or trauma at their hooves.

She slowly let go of the conduit’s shirt, but continued to stare up at him in an expression of solidarity. No words were needed to understand the implied promise, though Sam was reluctant to accept it at first. He eventually gave in and allowed the unicorn’s feelings to fully wash over him and give him just that little peace of mind he had been needing. Their moment was up though, as they came to realize that the captain was patiently waiting on them from down the tunnel at the next fork. Twilight hefted the tracker back up and turned it back on before motioning that she was ready.

The two caught up with the captain swiftly, and they resumed their navigation of the sewer tunnels in a more peaceful silence. Yet, the tension was beginning to mount again, especially when they had been following the guidance of the tracker in Twilight’s telekinetic grasp for what felt like hours now. Every corner they came to was met with a cautious scouting by Sam and the captain to make sure the coast was clear before they could move on. Just as the tension was reaching a breaking point, they had come across a new discovery. The tracker Twilight lofted about began to chime more rapidly. Unsure of what it meant, but suspecting the cause, they all became more vigilant and careful of their movements.

The investigative trio had just rounded their next corner when they happened upon their next clue. The tunnel was unremarkable in and of itself, but unlike the many they had been exploring so far, there was a distinct difference in this one. A staircase, much like all the one they had used to enter the sewer system in the beginning, had a streak of mid afternoon sunlight streaming in from the maintenance entry doorway where the door was cracked open.

All the other entries they had passed beforehand had their doorways meticulously secured shut and blocking out all light from those points, so seeing something like this so out of place was certainly a new development. Twilight’s tracker gave even more confirmation that this was indeed the way they should explore, as the tracker’s chimes became even more frantic in pace.

The group moved slowly, and Sam reabsorbed the thaumium wire light he had been using to light their way to give them the extra bit of stealth they needed. The noisy tracker seemingly grew louder with each step they took toward the staircase as it echoed around them in the reverbating tunnel, and the purple unicorn grew anxious in whether it was safe to keep using it at the time.

“Sparks, shut the tracker off for now,” Sam whispered over his shoulder.

Heeding her friend’s advice, she quickly disabled the device, and the tunnel was now devoid of the rhythmic sounds that came from the device. The captain was first to reach the staircase, and he carefully inspected it for any signs of traps before even considering ascending. Sam did the same, his own experiences reminding him to watch out for near-invisible tripwires, or the faint gleam coming off of the metal casing of an IED, or even the flashing red dots of security cameras hidden in the shadows. Be it thanks to their vigilance or sheer dumb luck, they encountered none of these dangers as they ascended the staircase and headed toward the promise of daylight. Twilight could feel the increased tension in the air and stuck as close as she could to her conduit companion.

Their pace slowed to a crawl as the captain sidled up against the wall as he came even closer to the door. Seconds ticked back in agonizing uncertainty for what laid ahead, making each of them restless.

Aegis Flare finally stepped up to the final step of the staircase and flattened himself against the shadow of the door. Sam fell in right behind him, along with a nervous unicorn in tow, and worked to keep his breathing in control. The captain looked over his shoulder once to make sure the other two were where he needed them before he creeped up to the veil of light that obscured the outside.

He squinted against the harsh light and peered into the world outside. When he stood there for some time, the wire conduit grew anxious and carefully slipped up behind the pegasus.

“What do you see?” Sam asked in the quietest whisper he could.

The captain leaned back just enough to answer, but kept his gaze on the world through the crack, “Canterlot… An older section, most likely somewhere in the lower ring. Judging by how far we’ve walked, my guess is on the western side of the city.”

Sam absorbed the information quickly, but wanted more, “See any signs of the D.U.P. wannabes?”

“No,” Aegis Flare answered back curtly, “Not from this angle at least. We’ll have to move out there to get a better look of the rest of the surroundings.”

“Let me go out there first,” Sam suddenly insisted.

This time, the captain turned his head fully around to eye the conduit. He saw a determined expression that brokered no compromise for this request. He could see that Sam was trying to win back his trust, and it was at least admirable. The captain thought about it for a second, then decided that he could trust the conduit in the task to take point. He backed away and down the steps to allow Sam to move up into position.

Twilight was bewildered by this entire exchange, and how serious the two acted before her. She wanted to raise an objection in Sam’s defense, that he shouldn’t have to go out into the unknown first, but the pressure of the situation gave her pause to consider her actions. So, she was left to watch her friend nervously as he inched ever closer to their only exit.

Sam was especially tense as he moved up to the metal plated door. He didn’t know what he expected to see on the other side, but he carefully peeked through the crack, just as the captain did, to get a better idea. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the change in illumination and the blurry shapes that populated his vision to come into focus.

The first thing he noticed was the distinct lack of the hustle and bustle of the city’s ambience that he had come to associate with its inhabitants. There was not a pony to be seen along the deserted street that the maintenance entry tunnel exited out onto. Across the street, there were no gothic architecture that most of the city’s buildings emulated to fill the expansive empty lot surrounded by chain linked fence, though it wasn’t exactly bare either. It was a lot more cluttered with piles of scrap, junk, and broken clutter almost half his height.

However, further beyond that stood a lone building, looking like it had seen far better days. Graffiti covered most of the lower walls, and a good portion of the windows were shattered. The building itself looked nothing like the rest of Canterlot’s architecture, being made of faded red brick and looking like it had withstood a good chunk of time and the elements. Something about it didn’t sit well with the conduit, and he couldn’t shake the feeling like it was more important than it let on.

All of those thoughts would have to wait though, as the wire conduit had to finish out his current task of confirming the scene to be safe. Tilting his head in every direction he could to see as much of the world outside as the crack in the door would permit, he found the shabby looking street to look safe enough from his inspection and slowly brought his hand up to widen the gap in the door to move out into the light. The door creaked a bit too noisily for Sam’s taste, but he just had to hope that no one was lurking on the other side and waiting for him to emerge. Once he felt that the opening was wide enough to squeeze through, he did just that and slipped out into the daylight.

Fearing an attack, the conduit summoned a few wires to hover about his right arm, and he moved to the closest hiding spot he could see. A dumpster just to the right of the sewer entrance and up against an adjacent building gave him adequate cover as he checked his surroundings again. Nothing seemed to have changed as he moved to his hiding spot, which he was grateful for, though he kept himself on high alert as he observed the rest of the terrain that he previously couldn’t see.

He found most of the scant buildings in this section of the city to resemble the first that he saw. Far more sturdy look in structure, it was like they were built to withstand more over time. Most of them looked deserted, with very few signs of any ponies having been in or around them in a long while, just like the street itself. Luckily, this meant that Sam was more than likely alone, as far as he could tell, and the lack of any ambush helped reassure him of that notion.

Seeing as the coast was clear for the moment, he pondered on how he was going to let the others know that it was safe for them to come out. An idea suddenly took hold in his mind, and the wire conduit wove some metal threads between his hands. The wires soon took on the shape that Sam desired, and he was left with a wire frame of a human hand. Satisfied with his work, he attached a few wires to where the wrist would be and flexed the puppeteer like strands attached to fingers. The wire hand moved as he commanded, and he found the right patterns he needed to make it gesture in a simple ‘Follow Me’ fashion.

He let the hand fall from his own and used the wires attached to guide the hand out from his hiding spot and back toward the sewer entrance. Since he didn’t want to poke his head out and risk exposure, he contently guided the wire appendage by feel back along the path he took and felt the dull thud of it coming into contact with the door that led back into the sewer. Without having to even look, he carefully slipped the hand in through the entrance just enough that he was sure that the others could see and moved his puppeteering hand in the same motions that he had just practiced. He did it twice and, just as carefully, reeled the wire appendage back toward his hiding spot.

He was glad to hear the creak of the sewer door and a pair of hooves growing closer as he brought the wire hand back into his palm. Not even a second later, the captain and Twilight Sparkle rounded the corner of the dumpster and ducked in behind it, just like Sam had did.

“That was really creepy, you know that, Sam?” Twilight mentioned as she worked to calm her breath from the short, yet quiet sprint.

Sam smirked, knowing exactly what she was referring to and raised the wire hand in his own between the two of them, “I could have used a real one if you had liked.”

Twilight shivered as she tried to dispel the morbid image from her mind and hoped that Sam was only kidding.

“Did you notice anything out here, human?” the captain spoke up in an attempt to get them back on track.

Sam shook his head with a frown as he replied, “No. No signs of Dusk or the wannabes. As far as I can tell, they’re nowhere around here. Hey, Sparks. You still got that tracker on you?”

Said device had been hoisted along and still hovered in a veil of lavender magic from the unicorn behind her. She understood what Sam was asking and brought the device back to in front of her to manipulate it. Easily flicking the dial back over, the tracker lit up once more and produced a higher pitched tempo than it did back down in the sewers. Intrigued by this new development, the other two gathered around as the unicorn fiddled with the device to make sure it was functioning properly.

“I-I can’t say for sure, but I think this device is telling us we’re getting really close to the source of its focus,” Twilight explained as best she could, “Wait, the signal is definitely stronger than it was originally.”

The unicorn swept the device from side to side and observed how the signal grew stronger when it was faced in a certain direction. Sam and Aegis Flare grew more guarded as they also interpreted the perceived meaning.

“Hold on, I want to check something,” Twilight said as she pushed past the two to peek out from their hiding spot.

Sweeping the device out over the street just beyond the protection of their cover, she was shocked to find what she found as of the results. She quickly pulled the device back to behind the safety of the cover and looked to the others with an alarmed expression. “I think I know where Visionary Dusk is hiding now. Or at least, the source of the focus in the tracker.”

Sam and Aegis Flare gasped in surprise and silently urged the unicorn to hurry up and tell them.

“Ok, I’m not a hundred percent sure,” Twilight tried to sound a little more confident than she was, “but by the tracker’s readings, that building across the street has given off the highest reading out of everything else in the immediate area.”

“Fucking hell!” Sam hissed in anger, “Those asshats have basically been living next door this whole time?”

“Wait, calm down, Sam. This is all just speculation on my part, since I’m not sure if that’s tracker is telling me,” the little unicorn said in an attempt to placate her friend.

Sam clenched his fist and took a deep breath to help calm his mind. He knew she was right, but the thought of their enemies possibly being just a quick jaunt across the road from them made it pretty hard for him to keep his cool.

Though at the same time, Twilight was contemplating a new thought that crossed her mind. Carefully peering around the dumpster to view the abandoned looking building on the over side of the empty lot, another twinge at the back of her mind made her focus on it with more scrutiny. She couldn’t help but feel like she was missing something about the place she was looking at at this very moment. Like she should know something about this place, but her mind couldn’t connect the dots.

“Is it just me, or does anypony else feel like this place is familiar in some way? Like, this place, or that building in particular, remind you of something?” Twilight asked her companions as she rounded herself back behind cover.

Captain Aegis Flare was unsure how to answer this, as he had no idea what the unicorn was talking about. The building in question was unremarkable in every facet he could think of. So trying to distinguish any defining features seemed pointless, especially when he held no memories of such a place like the unicorn apparently did. Choosing to ignore it with a shake of his head as it had little to do with the task at hoof, he opted to ask her a more important question, “Miss Sparkle, is there any way that you can check to see if Visionary Dusk and his assailants are actually in that building? Maybe even get a clearer reading on that device?”

Twilight retreated into her thoughts for a moment to run through any ideas that could help answer the captain’s question. Each one that was brought up was immediately shot down, as she either didn’t have the necessary materials or references for spells that could help her in this situation.

“No, captain,” Twilight disheartenedly shook her head, “I hate to admit it, but I’m actually not very adept at scrying spells, and this tracker can really only give me the direction and strength of the signal from the source of the focus we have in it. Though, the reading I’m getting off of that building is far stronger than everything else along the path we’ve been tracking, which leads me to believe that that building may, in fact, be where the source is. Or put simply, one of the assailants that the shard of concrete came from.”

Aegis Flare mulled this over for a minute. This was probably the best answer he was going to get, but it certainly wasn’t the most desirable answer. It left far too many other questions in its wake. Were all of the assailants in the building now, or was it just the one and the others were lying in wait somewhere in the surrounding environment? If the assailants were here, was Visionary Dusk as well? Was this building guarded or have traps? Would it be wise to investigate further to gain better confirmation? Or was all this perhaps just a dead end? All these and more made Aegis Flare ruffle his wings in agitation as he pondered on the best course of action he should take.

His moments of thought were suddenly interrupted by a quiet gasp that came from the lone unicorn in the group. This also drew Sam’s attention, and he worried that she saw something that he might have missed that now put them in danger. His senses were on high alert, wire sprang out to encompass his arms, and he inspected the area around them feverishly to spot the hidden danger. However, he found nothing of the sort around, above, or behind them, and he thought his friend had just been seeing things in the shadows.

This was not the case, as he turned to address Twilight, only to find her staring directly toward the building that was the focus of their deliberation with a wide-eyed shock and disbelief. “It’s this place,” she said cryptically, “I know what it is! I’ve read about it in my ‘Historical Landmarks of Canterlot’ studies. I know most ponies don’t remember this, as the practice only happened for a few years, but just over two decades ago, the royal research teams of Canterlot didn’t always centralize their studies within the Canterlot Academy nor the castle research facilities.”

Both Sam and the captain listened intently to Twilight as she recited her extensive knowledge on a seldomly read topic.

“The lack of accommodating space greatly frustrated those that just wanted the chance to see their research and projects come to fruition, so a compromise was reached by the High Magus Council. Researchers and scientists were given a couple of branching facilities that had been refurbished from old, vacant office buildings within Canterlot to conduct their studies, and experiments that would have otherwise needed days, or even weeks, of waiting before a lab in the castle or academy’s labs were freed up for use.

“The science and magical research communities were eternally grateful for this compromise that allowed more ponies to press on with their research. However, the High Magus Council couldn’t effectively monitor these sites as thoroughly as the more confined castle or academy labs. They may have lacked the stringent oversight of the Magus Council, unlike the academy or castle facilities, but it was concluded that so long as each facility was kept up to code under the magic and scientific research regulations, and were submitted to regular audits by the council themselves, the ponies who utilized these facilities could be afforded this lax oversight. Most everypony was happy.”

Twilight’s expression, which had been rather optimistic as she spoke, turned somber.

“This lax view in oversight turned out to be the foundation for a tragedy that befell Canterlot and the research community as a whole… It’s a little ironic, if it turns out that this facility is indeed Visionary Dusk’s hideout. This facility is where that same pony was found to have been conducting unethical and inequine experiments on a living pony, ultimately k-killing her in the process. It apparently made the headline news for weeks after the incident.”

The sudden reveal of this new information made the captain and Sam grow slack-jawed in surprised disgust. Sam could feel his hate for the mad scientist growing even more and wishing he could just wrap his hands around the bastard’s neck.

However, Twilight’s tale wasn’t completely over, “From what I recall from reading on the matter, which believe me was very little, all the outlying facilities’ researchers were ordered to cease all research, experiments, and testing and were subjected to investigation. It turned out that other researchers were using the facilities for other illegal practices and were stripped of their licenses, but none were as grievous or malicious as Visionary Dusk’s murder. The High Magus Council found that the lack in more thorough oversight was what gave way to the rampant wrongdoings and the ultimate tragedy, and all the facilities were shut down. The last thing I know about this incident is that when Visionary Dusk was put on trial for his crimes, the High Magus Council unanimously voted in favor to Princess Celestia’s counsel of banishment from all Equestrian territories.”

The depressing tale left the group in a state of silence to soak the information in. It was sick and twisted how this had all come full circle, but this time, captain Aegis Flare would not allow such a dangerous individual to have anything less than imprisonment for life.

“Welp, we ain’t getting our answers sitting on our asses here,” Sam suddenly blurted out with a light clap of his hands.

The wire conduit made to stand up from their crowded hiding spot and proceeded to stealthily hop from what little cover to cover between him and the marked building to get a closer look. At least, that was his intention before being bodily tackled back into their first cover by a flurry of clanging armor and fluttering feathers.

The unexpected pounce took him by surprise, and Sam accidently banged his head against the side of the dumpster, generating a loud bang that echoed into the streets very loudly. Twilight, and the captain who had been the one to tackle the now momentarily dazed conduit, winced at the unintended noise and feared that they might have just blown their cover to the assailants that they were trying to stalk.

Poking their heads out into the street and scanning their surroundings, they were relieved to find no such signs of someone having heard the commotion, especially by the ones they were tracking. With the crisis averted, the two ponies turned to face the recovering conduit with varying degrees of displeasure.

“Damn it, Human! What in Tartarus were you thinking?!” Captain Aegis Flare hissed angrily at the conduit pinned beneath his hooves.

“Hey, you’re the one that wanted to know if Visionary Dusk was in there,” Sam argued calmly, like what he was about to do had no need to cause such alarm, “No better way to do that than to get up in there ourselves and check.”

The captain growled in annoyance at the conduit’s nonchalant explanation. He had to take a moment to back off and recompose, which allowed Sam to wiggle his way out from beneath the captain’s grip and sit up properly.

Once the captain calmed down, he leveled the conduit with a contemptuous glare and retorted, “And what was your insane plan this time to do that, human? Walk up to the front door and knock to see if anypony’s home?”

“Do I look like the girl scouts to you, Cappy?” Sam replied with a smirk, although the joke was lost on the ponies, “Look. As far as I can see, no one’s appeared by the windows of the building or around the other buildings around here. Believe me, I’ve been keeping an eye out for even the slightest movement. My guess is that if Dusk or the D.U.P. wannabes are anywhere in there, they’re at least not on this side of the building where we can see them, and more importantly, where they can see us.

“The place looks pretty big anyways. Four people in a place that big makes it easier to pick a spot further inside to set up shop, away from prying eyes. I bet you anything we won’t be seeing them outside regardless, since I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be broadcasting where I’m hanging out if I were a mad scientist hiding out in my country’s capital’s backyard. Nah, it’s like how me and the gang have our hangout set up back in Memphis; Secluded enough in a big city, unsuspecting in appearance, and most importantly, hard for someone to accidentally peek out and get spotted.”

The two ponies were both surprised and astounded by these insightful observations that their companion had made, each time pointing out each part that related to the area on or around the building he was referring to. Captain Aegis Flare was especially amazed by how each point was well founded, and he had to look at the building himself once more to see how he missed some of them in his own deductions. All that being said though, he felt the conduit’s near reckless approach was far too hasty and sloppy to execute without proper planning, something that he should have seen coming with the conduit involved.

Nonetheless, the captain had to concede that the conduit’s deductions held merit. “It certainly meets the criteria of the new base of operations we had been speculating Visionary Dusk would use,” Aegis Flare admitted, tapping his chin with an armored hoof, “However, that doesn’t mean that this research lab is where the assailants and Visionary Dusk are hiding out.”

“What about that concrete pillar on top of the lab?” Sam asked in a taunting tone.

The two ponies looked at each other and then practically threw themselves around the dumpster to look up at the lab once more. Just like the conduit said, almost inconspicuously jutting out from the left most corner of the roof, they saw it. The oddly geometric, slate-grey pillar of concrete that seemed to jut out and point away from the roof was there, just like Sam had said. It was a wonder how they missed it, but with all the other damage and deformities to the building itself and the piles of scrap and junk surrounding it, it just barely blended in with the aesthetics. Though now, it was hard to mistake as anything other than one of the concrete pillars that they had seen used by the assailants as a means to leap across vast distances. The dilapidated lab that stood as just another ruined building among the neglected street took on a more sinister aura that the ponies almost swore they could see. The sight filled them with equal parts fear and solace as they continued to gaze upon the structure.

Twilight thought she was prepared for this. She thought she could be another guardian against the ones that had threatened her friends and family. Yet, now that she was so close, all the fear she had tried to suppress was quickly overwhelming her. She couldn’t help but remember the times that she was left helpless at the hooves of Visionary Dusk and his assailants in the past. The attack on the throne room, the raid on the Geode Caverns, and especially when her friend, Pinkie Pie, was nearly made a victim of their horrid crimes.

Whether by her choice or not, she was made useless in each of those events, and each time, it took another chunk out of her confidence to stand up to these criminals. Her knees felt weak, and her heart began to beat so fast and hard that it felt like it was trying to break out of her ribcage out of fear.

The captain was of another opinion on the matter entirely. He too felt like his heart was racing at a million miles an hour, but for an entirely different reason. The hairs of his mane on the back of his withers started to stand up and press against the rigid interior of his armored helm. It wasn’t fear that drove this reaction though, but discontent.

He felt his frustrations come to a boil at his failures from having not been able to put a stop to these criminals sooner. His sense of duty only served to spur on his anger, wanting nothing more than to march on up to the building and bring the cowardly unicorn and his accomplices to justice by any means necessary. However, he knew what they were capable of, and knew the limits of his abilities against such opposition.

He looked up and behind himself to the human conduit that was eagerly cracking his knuckles while staring determinately at the abandoned research facility. The captain feared that even with the human conduit’s help, they would not be enough to effectively subdue the assailants that could potentially be hiding out within the research facility’s decaying structure.

Weighing his options, Aegis Flare finally came to a decision on their course of action. “I hate to admit it, but good work, human.” The words certainly caught Sam off guard, and both he and Twilight had their attention drawn away from the abandoned lab to hear out the rest of what the captain had to say, “Your’s and Miss Sparkle’s deductions and contributions have given me enough to accept that this lab is suspicious enough to warrant a closer inspection.”

Sam mentally cheered at the captain’s agreement, and that they would soon be busting in doors like the FBI. Well, not so much busting in doors, but at least breaking into the foreboding structure to weed out and kick the assailants’ collective asses. At least, he was excited about that prospect, until good ol’ Cappy decided to rain on his parade.

“We’ll return to the castle, gather up a brigade, and return here to conduct our raid,” Aegis Flare stated firmly, getting ready to lead the way back to the castle now that they were on the surface.

Luckily, the dumpster they were hiding behind was placed just a few scant feet from the entrance to a side street that led directly away from the research lab’s sight. There wasn’t much cover between the two points, but going off of Sam’s deductions, they wouldn’t need it to avoid being spotted as they escaped. Aegis Flare reasoned that once they were far enough away, he could fly up and make mental notes of the abandoned lab’s location and use that to guide the brigade of guards back to conduct the planned raid.

Sam barely caught up in time with his thoughts to finally protest against the retreating captain, “Woah, hold on, Cappy! We can’t just leave here.”

“What are you talking about, human?” Aegis Flare asked and swiftly brought himself back to behind the cover of the dumpster.

Sam flashed a winning grin as he spoke proudly, “We’re already here. Why not kick some ass? All we need to do is sneak inside, make sure they’re there, and then set up to take them down fast and hard! This’ll work, I bet you they won’t even see us coming.”

“Sam, no! It’s too dangerous!” the fear stricken Twilight said after finally finding the courage to speak up again.

“She’s right, human,” Aegis Flare agreed, cutting off Sam’s protest just as he was about to object, “We’re too underprepared for one of your reckless plans. We need to regroup and gather up our forces to do this properly. You also haven’t forgotten that your top priority in all of this is Miss Sparkle’s safety, have you? How are you to protect her by dragging her right into an unknown, and potentially, dangerous location?”

Sam realized how right the captain was right, and how stupid he was for forgetting such a simple detail. In all honesty, he just assumed Twilight would have just stayed behind while they went in. Or better yet, now that he remembered another detail, he would send her back to the castle regardless, thanks to their deal.

Sam smiled triumphantly, and spoke once more, “You and I will be the ones to go in then,
Cappy. Twilight can return to the castle and get the other guards-”

“No!” Aegis Flare stomped and flared his wings resolutely, “No, human. It’s far too risky to go in blind like this. We would have no idea of what kind of defenses they may have set up, where they are hiding, and if they are lying in wait to ambush anypony that steps hoof inside. Think about it, what if they do have some sort of trap lying in store for any who get inside? While we’d be dealing with sorting through those traps, Visionary Dusk would know we were there and slip away before we reached him, again. We need the support of the other guards to cordon off the area to prevent such an event. Surely, you can agree with that?”

Aegis Flare brought up a valid point, and Sam would be kicking himself if he let that heinous unicorn get away a second time. Yet, with each passing minute they didn’t at least check to confirm he and the D.U.P. wannabes were even in the abandoned lab, there was another chance that they could be slinking off through a backdoor undetected.

Sam’s thoughts raced to come up with a winning argument that would change the captain’s mind, or at the very least, give him another option to work with. That last line of thinking was just what the wire conduit needed. A clever idea wormed its way to the forefront that worked around all the captain’s other reasonings. Sam had to fight hard to keep the smirk away that tried to weave its way onto his face.

“You know what, Cappy? You’re right,” Sam admitted, defeatedly putting hands up in surrender, “It’d be too dangerous for us to try and waltz right in there and hope to catch these guys off guard.”

The sudden turnabout in Sam’s resolve gave the two ponies pause. One, out of relief that her friend was finally reigning in his suicidal impulsiveness. The other, in cautious skepticism, knowing that there had to be more to the human conduit’s words than he was letting on. Sam watched their expressions and anticipated their reactions. He wasn’t very surprised to see either, but he had to keep his momentum going if he wanted his plan to work out.

So, the wire conduit chose his next words carefully, “We’re gonna need the backup, that’s for sure. If anything, it’d sure make me feel better knowing we’ve got all our bases covered and keep those asshats from slipping away. Although, wouldn’t it also make sense to keep an eye on the lab until the rest of the forces arrive? What if Dusk and his goons escape while we’re not looking? Or, they start setting something up that one of us could have witnessed while the others were away? We can’t all go back to get the guards then, and I’d surely want to know of any developments if something happens here while we were gone.”

The captain wanted to grind his teeth at the human’s logic. He knew what the human was trying to do and where this line of reasoning was going. The benefits of having an observer to survey the area for such things as Sam suggested made sense, and that was the worse part. If Aegis Flare continued to argue now, he’d be wasting what precious time they had that he would need to gather the necessary guards to enact a proper raid.

“So, I know it’s a difficult task, but someone’s gotta do it,” Sam falsely sighed, “In that regard, I volunteer as tribute to stay behind and hold the fort down til you get back.”

“Absolutely not, human! I know what you’re up to. You think by sending us away, you’ll be left here alone to do as you please, including infiltrating the facility to hunt Visionary Dusk down on your own,” the captain surmised as he caught on to the human’s ruse.

“Sam, no!” Twilight cried out in alarm.

Sam figured the captain would catch on, but he concluded that if he kept this up for just a little longer, ol’ Cappy would have to cave and would be left with no other choice but to either accompany him into the figurative hornet’s nest, or more realistically, rush to return to the castle and gather up his guards to come back before Sam could do anything reckless. Either way, Sam knew the argument was coming into his favor, and he would have his way, unless a certain purple unicorn stepped up to address the captain.

With a determined look on her face, she brought a hoof to her chest and spoke out, “Captain, if you’ll allow it. I’ll stay behind to provide the necessary reconnaissance of the research facility.”

That one statement floored Sam with the force of a two ton boulder. It seemed it also affected the good captain in the same way, and both struggled to get their words back in order to protest the outrageous proposal.

Twilight beat them to the punch and offered her reasoning on the situation, “I know I’m no match for these assailants, and with no way of knowing what kind of spells Visionary Dusk has, I wouldn’t know how to counter him with my own magic effectively.” The little unicorn lowered her hoof from her chest and looked off to the side in shame. “But I don’t want to sit by and let them hurt any more ponies if I can do something about it, even if all that something is is just being a lookout until you two get back with reinforcements.”

Sam tried to regain control of the situation, but his previous bravado was slipping into nervous straw grasping, “Hey now, don’t sell yourself short just yet, Sparks. What you’re saying takes a lot of guts to admit. I can respect that. It’s just that, uh… this isn’t something I think you should be doing. Yeah, that’s right! What if those asshats spot you before you have a chance to escape. Sorry, Sparks. I don’t think you should be the one to-”

“No, I agree with Miss Sparkle.”

Another round of surprised looks fell on the one that interrupted the wire conduit. The good captain accepted them with little reaction as he offered a compelling compromise.

“You were right, human. I would prefer if we had somepony to stay behind and provide intel for me and the forces that I return with on any developments that might occur while I’m gone.”

“Woah, woah! Hold the phone, Cappy!” Sam tried, but ultimately failed, to keep his composure in check while he disagreed, “You seriously can’t be thinking about leaving Sparks here by herself. What was that crap about ‘not letting civilians get involved with this conflict’ back at the castle? You’re seriously going to just throw all that out the window just because you think I might do something stupid?”

Twilight was glad to have been recognized as a potential asset in this situation, but not if it meant that her decision was going to cause contention between her friend and the captain. She wanted to stay and help more than ever, but seeing how adamantly Sam was against the idea made her reconsider her position. Luckily, there was another pony besides her in this situation that held another idea that would offer just the right compromise to all of this.

“Your ideas are far too reckless for me to leave you here alone, human. That is why I put my trust in Miss Sparkle to handle this task to the best of her abilities,” the captain explained before gaining an uncharacteristic smirk on his face, “Though, seeing as I can’t just leave her here unguarded should Visionary Dusk’s forces spot her and attack, she would still need your protection. That is why you will remain here as her guardian while she provides reconnaissance until I return with reinforcements.”

Sam couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was dirty, underhanded, and cheating, just like he would have played it. The good captain knew Sam wouldn’t try anything dangerous, so long as he had Twilight to hold his attention and to protect. He certainly didn’t like the idea of this tactic, and it felt wrong to be using the poor unicorn in such a way. However, if it meant that the wire conduit would be too preoccupied with ensuring her safety, he wouldn’t have a chance to do something stupid in his absence. It gave him quite a bit of reassurance, seeing the fuming expression on the wire conduit’s face as he struggled to come up with a counterargument to this decision.

“Miss Sparkle.”

“Y-yes?”

The captain rested an armored hoof on the unicorn’s shoulder as he spoke, “Be careful and stay safe out here. Do not take any unnecessary risks and just focus on watching for any suspicious activity in the area. I’ll return as soon as I can, and if you can do me one more favor? Keep an eye on the human, and make sure he doesn’t try anything foalish.”

His orders given and a silent nod in return from Twilight, the captain readied himself to make a break for the side street they had considered earlier, though not before giving one last warning glance back at the human. Sam could only scowl back over his crossed arms and grumbled silent curses at the pegasus captain before he left. The last they saw from him was his tail as it disappeared around the corner to the side street, and they were left to listen to his fading hoofsteps.

Both the conduit and unicorn fell into an awkward silence for a time. Sam fell back against the wall opposite of the dumpster and slid down it until he sat with his knees tucked into his chest and laid his crossed arms on top. Twilight wanted to try and cheer Sam up with some idle conversation, but his frustrated, distant gaze directed at the metallic surface of the dumpster suggested that he was not in the mood for such. So, the silence persisted, and Twilight tried to keep herself busy by doing the task she was trusted with and periodically peeked around the cover of the dumpster to watch the research facility for anything suspicious. Unsurprisingly, nothing changed in the half dozen times she went to survey the area.

“Alright, no point in sitting here all day,” Sam suddenly announced as he got up to his feet and stretched, “Hold down the fort here, will ya, Sparks?”

Twilight turned to see her conduit friend limbering up and wondered just what exactly he meant by that. She was startled when she suddenly realized his intention as he scooted over to the corner of their cover to check the surroundings and tense up like he was about to jump out into the open.

“Sam, no! Get back here!” Grabbing ahold of the ends of his sash in her teeth, Twilight yanked back the surprised conduit and moved to block his path.

After suring up his footing, Sam fixed the unicorn with an annoyed expression, “Come on, Sparks. I gotta get in there.”

Twilight slammed a hoof down, though careful not to make too much noise, “No! Captain Aegis Flare specifically said to wait until he and the other guards return.”

“Relax, Sparks. Cappy won’t mind if I just slip in there for a few minutes,” Sam exhaled loudly through his lips dismissively, which seemed to annoy Twilight a bit.

“I’m not letting you go in there. It’s too dangerous,” Twilight proclaimed defiantly.

Sam was itching from the overabundance of anticipation he was feeling and wanted desperately to at least investigate the research facility to ease his mind. That’s why, ever since the captain left, he had been thinking of a way to get past Twilight so he could do just that. Hopefully, the plan he had come up with in that short amount of time would work.

Putting on a calm demeanor, Sam smiled and worked his charm, “Easy there, Sparks. I’m not going in there unprepared or anything. Besides, it’s better that I go in there now, before Cappy gets back.”

Curiously, Twilight mulled over Sam’s words before bringing up an obvious question, “Why would it better if you did that?”

“To gather up intel, of course,” Sam replied like it was the simplest answer.

Twilight was confused even more by how this made sense. She was doing just the same from behind the safety and cover of their somewhat dingy hiding spot. Why couldn’t Sam be satisfied with the same?

Seeing the unicorn’s confusion, Sam went on to elaborate what he hoped would be the convincing statements he needed, “Alright, just look. You know I trusted you when you jury-rigged that tracker of yours to lead us to this location and vouched for you when Cappy wanted to send you away at the beginning.” Twilight couldn’t help but wince at remembering her deceitful ruse with Sam against the captain. “All I ask is if you do the same for me while I go check out the inside of that lab.”

“But why do you have to go in there when Visionary Dusk and his assailants could be in there?” Twilight asked in retort.

“That’s just it, Sparks,” Sam shook his head for emphasis as he replied, “They could be there, just as much as they could not be in there. You said it yourself, that tracker of yours can only do so much in finding the source of that concrete shard we put in there. For all we know, it’s just picking up some residual reading left behind from whichever guy that shard belonged to. Hell, it might even just be pointing to that ‘jump pillar’ on the roof for all we know.”

Twilight looked over at the forgotten tracker she put down a while ago by her hooves and gave a grimace as she realized how right Sam was. She only had so much time to reconfigure such an unknown piece of technology, and even her scanning spells could only tell her so much about its make-up and assembly. In the end, she had only basically crossed her hooves and prayed that her modifications would work, which they did, to an extent. There was still a lot of room for error and her lack of in-depth knowledge on conduits, even with Sam’s tutelage, left her with only best guesses on how the device worked after her modifications. She had to concede to Sam’s point on that, but that was still no reason why she should allow her friend to put himself in potentially harm’s way.

Lucky for Sam, Twilight was easy enough to read on what she was thinking at that moment, and he knew exactly what she would say. He almost felt bad for having to trick her like this. So, to help convince her that his plan was worthwhile, he brought up a few more insightful points.

“Without definitive proof that Dusk and his crew are hiding out in that lab, all we’re going off of is just a hunch. What if it turns out that this is all just a dead end and no one's inside? We’d just be wasting our time on a simple guessing game and lose valuable time on a wild goose chase. I’m not saying that this wouldn’t be dangerous, but I know I’d feel better knowing we got the right place to crack down on when Cappy gets here with backup.”

It seemed that Sam’s words were starting to sway the little unicorn to his side. Yet, there was still that lingering doubt at the back of her mind that worried her for her friend’s safety.

“What if they are in there, Sam? What if they spot you or you accidentally run into them?” Twilight tried one last time to voice her concerns.

“Pfft, I’m two for two against these guys. If anything, they should watch out if they run into me,” Sam answered calmly, “But, if it’ll make you feel better, how about this? I’ve done this sort of thing before. I’m actually usually the one who goes in first to scout out the D.U.P. outposts with my friends back in Memphis, since I’m the one without really flashy powers to give me away. So, I won’t go in there looking for a fight. I’ll stick to scouting only and avoid running into anyone while I’m in there. Believe me, I can do this.”

Twilight saw the flash of determination in Sam’s eyes as he confidently proclaimed his words. It wasn’t hard for her to believe that he was telling the truth, but it didn’t help to quash every last one of her fears. She just couldn’t bear the idea of one of her friends getting hurt at the hooves of Visionary Dusk. Those fears soon took a backseat when Sam knelt down in front of her on one knee and clapped both his hands on her shoulders. He looked at her with a reassuring smile which seemed to echo his own confidence into her and gave her a bit more trust in the wire conduit’s words.

“Ten minutes, Sparks. That’s all I need,” Sam whispered in a soothing tone, “In, out, and I’m back here to let you and Cappy know if we’ve got the right place.”

It seemed that was all that was left needed to finally sway her mind into agreeing with Sam’s plan. She lifted her forehooves and brought her body in closer to Sam’s until they were locked in a warm and encouraging hug. Sam reciprocated the action and wrapped his arms around the purple pony as well.

“Come back safe,” Twilight whispered over Sam’s shoulder into his ear as she gave him a firm squeeze with her hooves.

Sam broke from the hug first and gave Twilight another smile, “Hey, this is me we’re talking about. For real though, I promise.”

He jumped back up to his full height and turned around to take another look around the dumpster to watch the street. Once satisfied that he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, looked over his shoulder one last time and flashed Twilight a grin.

“Ten minutes, Sparks. I doubt I’ll need more than that. Though just in case, if I’m somehow not back before then, head back for the castle and get Cappy to hurry on his way back.”

Twilight didn’t like those foreboding final words Sam left her with before he ran off to sprint across the street. Something about it gave her pause and made her spine shiver, as if they were a grim premonition.

Twilight tried distracting herself with watching as Sam snuck his way under the chainlink fence from a hole in it that he created by absorbing a small section of it. Once through, he dove for behind the closest pile of junk between him and the fence. Twilight couldn’t help but be impressed by Sam’s dexterous movements as he hopped from one piece of cover to the next, with hardly any time spent out in the open. It soon came down to the last piece of cover, which consisted of a broken looking magitech refrigerator fallen on its side, and then a short stretch of open space between the conduit and the research facility.

Twilight’s feelings turned to fear once again as she alternated her focus back and forth between Sam and the abandoned lab. Every little shadow in the building’s busted out windows looked like a figure hiding in the darkness and overlooking the lott in front of it, or more specifically watching Sam as he made his way closer to its grounds.

Twilight wanted to call out for Sam to come back, but her voice was failing her, and if she did, she might risk exposing herself or Sam. She would have ran out after Sam to bring him back herself, but she knew she couldn’t move as swiftly or with the agility that Sam had performed with and would be risking the same type of exposure with this idea as well. For now, she just had to believe that Sam knew what he was doing and would make it to the building without incident.

Her prayers were answered as she gasped when she witnessed Sam vault over the fridge and sprint the last thirty meters between him and the research lab. There was no explosion of magical energy raining down on Sam, nor the same being done with concrete, so Twilight released the breath of air she unconsciously held as she watched the entire event unfold.

She had to squint, and even then, it was hard to tell exactly what the wire conduit was doing at the far left of the building’s front. He seemed to be crouched down low and moved carefully along the front of the building, only popping up for a few seconds in front of a window whenever he was directly below one. He reached the center portion and the boarded up, main entrance’s doors, but completely ignored them and kept moving toward the right side of the graffiti covered building, repeating his pattern with the windows as he went.

Nearly to the corner that rounded the side of the right side of the building, Twilight watched stressfully as Sam looked like he stopped in front of some kind of indentation and held there for the longest time. The little unicorn gasped once again as she realized that it was a service entrance that the conduit had stopped off in front of as he opened the door that led to the inside. Another bout of uneasiness shot up in Twilight’s mind as she watched her friend disappear behind the door and closed it off behind himself, sealing away her view from what might be happening inside.

The only thing keeping her from forgoing all her instinctual fears of staying away from the foreboding place was repeating the same phrase in her head that ‘her friend will return before she knew it’. Just to give herself something else to do and focus on something else, she thought back to what Sam had told her before he left.

With a time limit that she could work with, she did the only thing her mind could come up with to use it for, “...nine fifty-nine...nine fifty-eight...nine fifty-seven...nine fifty-six…”

The Endgame: Part 4

Author's Notes:

After many weeks, and a lot stuff in my life causing havoc and keeping me from truly getting into the mood of writing, here ya go!

So yeah, like I said. I hit so many walls while completing this chapter. Some of which almost made me want to give up on this and writing in general. I hate to admit it, but I just couldn't bring myself to keep going with the effort if it meant that I couldn't give it my all like I have. In the end though, I found my reasons to keep it going and get these last few chapters out for y'all. Just to clear up the air. No, I wasn't suicidal or such. I just got really depressed by a lot of things piling up in my life that really sucked the joy out of me. I wish I could give more details about it, but it's more a private matter that I don't wish to elaborate on for others' sakes. Ok, enough of the feels, don't want to bring myself back down again.

With that in mind, I will say that the last chapter is in the works and I can at least promise that it won't take quite as long since I've already got all the ideas and brainstorm pages up and ready for me to work from. Have fun y'all!

“One twenty-four… One twenty-three… “

He was taking too long, and with each passing minute that had come before and gone by, Twilight’s anxiety and fear grew stronger.

“One thirteen… One twelve… “

‘He said that he’d only take ten minutes.’ Twilight thought at the back of her mind in a desperate attempt to calm herself down.

Yet at the same time, the little unicorn remembered that he also said that he probably wouldn’t even need that long either. So, what was taking him so long? ...He probably just got distracted by something that caught his interest on the way in. Or, he was waiting for just the right moment to come strolling out the front door, Visionary and his crew in tow and wearing a pair of badass sunglasses, all while the abandoned lab somehow explodes in the background and the whole scene plays out in slow motion.

Twilight quickly shook her head to clear the absurd image of her last thoughts. How she ever came to think of it in the first place was a mystery to her. Perhaps Sam had become a bigger influence on her than she thought. Regardless, here she was, imagining ridiculous scenarios while Sam was risking his life on a whim.

“Harmony, damn him! Why does he always act without thinking?!” and now the poor unicorn was both frustrated had forgotten her place in her countdown, “One minute. That’s all I’ll give him, then I’ll have to act… fifty-nine… fifty-eight…”

Yet, what was Twilight going to do exactly? Sam had told her, quite uncharacteristically seriously, that she was to return to the castle and get the guards if his time limit ran out. Yet, at the same time, her concern for her friend begged her to stay and do something more. Whatever that was, she wasn’t sure yet, but she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving one of her friends behind. However, there was also the fact that when it came to matters like ‘dealing with conduits’, most of her expertise in magic was fairly useless.

“Thirty-four… Thirty-three…”

Though, if she was being truthful, that little hurdle wouldn’t be enough to dissuade her from putting herself in harm’s way when it came to helping her friends. She had faced down Nightmare Moon and Discord, two of Equestria’s greatest threats, alongside her friends from Ponyville and won. Whenever one of her friends needed her advice, or just an ear to listen, Twilight put aside her own work or problems to help them however she could. This should be no different, no matter how much Sam pushed her away. So, no matter what happens, as soon as Sam’s limit was up, Twilight resolved to do whatever she could to help him.

‘In fact,’ Twilight thought to herself, ‘why should I wait for some stupid time limit? It’s not like Sam would wait.’ She took in a deep breath and steeled her nerves. Strategies and plans formulated in her mind on how best to tackle this mission. She thought about it for a few seconds and determined that Sam had the right idea. Sneaking in would be the best option. Twilight wasn’t the most athletic nor proficiently knowledgeable in stealth, but she wasn’t about to let that stop her. With a fiery drive now in her heart, she took her first steps out from behind the cover of the dumpster to face the danger that Sam dove into headlong before her.

That blazing ember of determination died to a flicker the moment she laid eyes on the decrepit building of Visionary’s hideout. Something about it just exuded a certain malice that stopped the little unicorn in her tracks. Sam charged in without any hesitation. However, the more that Twilight stared at the building, the more her legs wouldn’t stop shaking. Outwardly, it looked no different than any of its surrounding brethren, yet, the aged, discolored walls of the building was more terrifying to her than any other.

Twilight scampered back behind the safety of her dumpster and tried to calm her hammering heart and panicked gasping. There was no denying it: she just couldn’t go through with it. And all of that just made her feel even more frustrated with herself on top of her fear. When the fear settled down, the frustration gave way to disappointment in herself. That, in turn, quickly became shame for running away when she was supposed to be brave.

“If Sam could do it, why can’t I?” Twilight asked herself as a bit of self loathing started to settle into her thoughts, “I know my magic would be useless, but I can’t just sit here and wait for something to happen.”

Peeking out from behind her cover, Twilight spied the old laboratory across the lott and shivered. She sat back down on the hard concrete and hung her head. There was nothing she could do, and it saddened her greatly how pointless her earlier faux-bravado had been. Leaning out once more to watch the building, she picked up where she left off in her countdown in a vain hope that everything would work out for the best.

“Ten… Nine…”

Any second now, Sam would strut out the front door.

“Eight… Seven…”

He would make a stupid joke about how he wanted to ‘cut it down to the wire’ just for the laugh.

“Six...Five…”

Twilight would ask, ‘What happened in there?’, to which Sam would reply, ‘Hey, you can’t rush awesomeness like me. Oh, be sure to tell Cappy that he can clean up the mess. I’m gonna go take a nap.’.

“Four……”

Any second now.

“Three……”

‘Please, let him be okay.’

“T-two…...One…”

That was it. No over-the-top exit. No explosion. Not even a peep. It was just Twilight and the empty street. It felt like the weight of all that mounting dread was slowing collapsing upon the purple unicorn and crushing her spirits. She had believed in Sam’s words, and now, there was no sign of him.

It was like the ghastly laboratory had swallowed him up the moment he set foot in the foreboding place. A twisting feeling settled in Twilight’s gut over every scenario her mind came up with that could have befell the reckless conduit, each more terrifying and upsetting than the last and all involving a common theme of her friend encountering Visionary Dusk and his own conduit enforcers.

“Sam, please,” the little unicorn desperately pleaded, “Just send up a sign that you’re ok.”

Twilight’s distressed cry went unanswered, and the street remained as empty as it had been from the time Sam had left her. Panic was starting to grip the lavender unicorn as she continued to search for even the faintest trace of her friend among what little of the building’s exterior she could see. Yet, her hope was dwindling.

She thought back to what Sam had told her before he left once more. Having the royal guards at her back to storm the abandoned lab was certainly sounding like a solid plan, but Twilight knew that upon her return she surely wouldn’t be allowed to take part in whatever raid they’d enact afterwards. She’d be waiting and worrying for everyone’s safety while she was stuck at the castle ‘for her own protection’, even though that was her friend in there, and she wouldn’t be content to just wait and see what would happen. Yet, the foreboding aura hanging in the air around the abandoned lab, even from so far away, frightened Twilight down to her soul.

Gazing out and down toward the alley that the captain used to depart back to the castle, Twilight spoke out loud to organize her thoughts, “This place is still in Canterlot. In the tunnels, it felt like we crossed a good part of the city. The architecture appears to be consistent with the lower ring’s industrial center. Teleporting back to the castle shouldn’t put too much of a strain on my magic. I should at least head out the same way the captain did. Better for my bearings, and I can give a more accurate location if I can gauge where exactly this place is by its surroundings.

“But if I leave,” Twilight turned her attention back to the abandoned lab, “Sam may be in trouble, and I wouldn’t be here to help. Teleporting to the building wouldn’t be hard, but… What could I possibly do if I go in there?”

Twilight’s dilemma made her shift her weight anxiously as she weighed her options, and she kept glancing from the abandoned lab to the alley with each pro and con she thought up. She had to make a decision, and the safer route of returning to the castle was looking to win out. Continuing to mutter under her breath, Twilight took one final glance in the direction of the abandoned lab, and shuttered at the intense sense of malice the place gave off.

Slowly, one hoof after the other, Twilight took her first steps in the direction of the alley. It saddened her that her logic made too much sense for her to argue against. Yet, she knew that there would be little to nothing she could do against these lopsided odds stacked against her. Sam and the Captain were right. After all she’d learned about Visionary Dusk and his cohorts, she wouldn’t stand a chance.

An ethereal, icy wind brushed up against her body and sent shivers up Twilight’s spine. Another look back at the abandoned lab, and the little unicorn knew the sensation had come from it. The terrible fear that haunted her every time she looked in its direction had increased two fold. She gasped involuntarily and realized that whatever it was was a bad omen. The feeling was the last bit of motivation she needed to follow through with her now unspoken decision, and her horn lit up with the accumulation of magic. She visualized the front gate that separates the castle from the city. It was easy for her to picture it in her mind with how many times she had been there herself. Placement envisionment: a necessity for any proper teleport to occur, whether it be by a clear, distinct memory or a line of sight.

Twilight’s gaze remained transfixed upon the door that Sam had disappeared through into the abandoned lab and swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat, “Help is on the way, Sam.”

With that, Twilight disappeared in a flash of lavender light, and the street across from the abandoned lab was empty once more.

--o0o--

The lock of the door on the side of the deserted looking building was pretty easy for Sam to pick. Yet, there was something about it that he took notice of while he worked. Having been a student of the arcane arts had helped him to recognize the distinct sensation of a spell at work when he came into contact with one. It was like he was trying to move through runny syrup. Annoying at worst, but it didn’t present any real challenge in the long run.

Though the muddied resistance that he worked through was indicerable for him to tell what type of spell that had been placed on it in the first place. If he had to guess, it was more than likely a form of anti-skeleton key spell to keep out unwanted guests. Thankfully, Sam didn’t need a wand and to shout ‘Alohomora’ to get past this sort of defense. He was basically a human lockpick set after all, though all of this just made him more reassured that he was in the right place to hunt down D.U.P. wannabes. Who else would need something like that on such a squatter-friendly looking place like this?

The tumblers gave satisfying clicks as each fell into place, and then, the entire lock turned. The wires sticking out from the lock retracted back into his fingers, and Sam smirked at another job well done. He cracked the door open and peered inside. It was dark, musty, and reeked of something foul. Holding back a gag, Sam checked the entrance for any signs of traps before proceeding to slip in through the crack in the door he made. Closing the door behind him as quietly as possible, Sam was pleased to note that there didn’t seem to be anything lying in wait for him behind it.

With no danger present, Sam took his first clear look around the interior of the abandoned lab. The side door appeared to have led him into a storage closet of some kind. May have been a groundskeeper’s room, seeing as there was a broken pair of shears and torn up, empty bags of what looked like fertilizer lying on the dusty ground. There was a doorway, separating the storage closet and the main lobby entryway to his left for him to see through with the door nowhere to be found.

Sam slunk up to the side of the doorway and peeked around the frame to get a better look at the rest of the first floor. It was about what he expected. Dank, dirty, and definitely in need of a good spring cleaning.

It was bit surprising how little sunlight was being let into the place with all the open windows, but it seemed like appropriate atmosphere for the such a place. Almost everything was covered in a layer of dust or cobwebs and had a nice, rotting away look to it. There was hardly any furniture or fixtures, no doubt either taken out when the place got shut down or looted. What was left was broken, shredded, or left to rot.

Even though it looked more like a lobby of sorts, there were still a few other doorways that led to various rooms that Sam couldn’t quite make out. There were no signs of them in use, like lights in the doorways, so they seemed to be unimportant. There was a fairly nice looking staircase leading to the upper floors at the back of the area that Sam could see and looked to be in good enough condition to use. Other than that, no real signs of the his true objectives in the area.

“Okay,” Sam whispered in relief, “Now, if I were a mad scientist planning world domination, well, maybe not world domination, but still. If I were that wacko, where would I be hiding in a place like this?”

Sam swept his gaze once more over the first floor and found that all he could come up with is that he would most likely have to search the higher floors. That concrete pillar on the roof at least gave him the idea that ‘someone’ had to have used a way to get up there, and therefore, he might find the clues he was looking for on the higher floors regardless. Sam took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, focusing his mind for the task at hand. This was no more different than any of the times he and his friends infiltrated the various outposts the D.U.P. used to set up about Memphis.

He even played Natie’s peptalk she used to give him before sending him off into scout an area, ‘Just stay quiet, check your corners, and for the love of god, don’t do something stupid.’

Sam smirked at the multiple times that ‘doing something stupid’ had actually come up during his time in Memphis. Mostly not by his own fault, but when you need to set off a couple, pressurized canister of acetylene as a distraction, you really don’t have a choice.

The wire conduit could feel the ghost of a feeling of a certain electric conduit slapping him upside the head for just thinking that. In any case, his mind was focused, and he checked the lobby one last time before creeping along the doorway and out into the open. He kept his footsteps light and his form crouched, avoiding anything on the ground that his foot could knock against and cause a noise. Other than the faint inhale and exhale of his breathing and the distant, muffled sounds of the rest of the city. There was hardly a sound to be heard within the old building.

‘It’s quiet… too quiet,’ Sam thought to himself.

Of course, the old movie quote running through his head did little to dissipate the oppressive sense of malice that permeated the air around him. He was already over halfway across the lobby, which left him a quarter of the ways to the staircase and the upper floors. Just like he thought before, squatters must have slummed it out here for a while, because the wire conduit found old blankets and rags that he assumed was bedding. Some stains looked ‘fresher’ than the ample rain damage, and the less said about what some of those smells were, the better.

‘Y’know, considering his old hideout. This has gotta be a step down for the crazy bastard,’ Sam thought as he reached the foot of the steps leading to the higher floors.

Leaning into the stairwell, Sam peered up into the upper floor. Or at least, what was visible from the staircase. Still no signs of the ones he was looking for, Sam’s paranoia was starting to grow. Something felt off to the wire conduit, like something or someone was watching him. It made him shiver, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Yet, even checking over his shoulder, he found nothing out of place from the path he took. Even still, not wanting to take chances, Sam called on his reserves and wrapped copious amounts of wire around his knuckles and arms.

Though he was careful with his footing, the groans from the deteriorated steps sounded louder in the creepy silence of the building. Each sound made the conduit cringe, and he kept his wire wrapped arms at the ready to retaliate against any unsuspecting attacks. Clearing the landing, the wire conduit let out a breath he hadn’t realized that he was holding when he realized that nothing had attacked him.

The air up here felt just as stale and dusty as it did on the first floor. Other than that, nothing else really stood out to the conduit on first inspection. Yet, his heart was pounding, and his mind raced as the sensation of something being awry grew a little stronger.

The second floor was a lot different than the first. Instead of wide, open areas, the space that the stairs had led to was a large hallway stretching all the way to the other side of the building. The place was a little darker, as what little light that he could see came from the various doors on either side of the hallway. Some were a bit brighter than others, as the doors were missing from their frames, but it did little to truly let any sufficient light help illuminate the dark hallway.

‘Yeah, why not dial up the creep factor to eleven?’ Sam nervously thought in his mind whilst staring into the darkened environment, ‘All ya need is a chainsaw wielding maniac, and you could have yourself a proper haunted house here.’

Not to dwell too much on the fact, Sam took another deep breath before sneaking on down the sparsely lit hallway and up to the first doorway on the left. This one actually still had a door in the frame, but much of what could have been a garishly, sickly yellow paint has peeled away and left all but a few chips that loosely clung to the wood. There was a small window in the top half of the pony sized door, but Sam had to clear away some dirt just to get a smudgy view of the room’s interior. With only indistinguishable shapes and colors to be seen through the translucent glass, Sam was left with no choice but to open the door to get a better look of the inside.

It must be said that years of disuse on any door would cause the hinges to be a little rusty, but the shrill grinding noise that these hinges let out as Sam turned the knob and pushed on the aged wood was like a thousand nails on the world’s largest chalkboard. Granted, it wasn’t quite as loud as that, but in the muted building, it might have been as such. Seeing that he already got the thing open, there would be no more harm in at least checking the place out. Squeezing through the gap that he made, Sam slid into the room and nearly yelped in panic.

Having been too distracted by keeping an eye out in the hall for anyone that heard him, he had turned around to come face to face with a skeletal, equine body. He almost punched the thing out of fear, too, when he noticed that the thing wasn’t moving, nor demanding his cranial innards in ghastly moans. In fact, the skeletal body was just as such and nothing more than a skeleton of a pony propped up on a rack. Getting a chance to catch his breath and calm his nerves, Sam poked the thing and found that his fears of an undead legion coming to haunt him were also unfounded. He looked around the room that he was now in and came to a logical conclusion.

‘Just an ordinary lecture hall... A lecture hall where you’re greeted at the door by Mr. Bones here,’ Sam thought bitterly and then stared at the offending culprit, ‘You mind showing me a way off this wild ride, pal?’

He waited for his new, bony friend to answer, but received nothing in return for his inquisitive stare. Seeing as there was nothing else to be found in the ordinary room with rows of empty seats facing the large chalkboard at the front, Sam peeked out into the hallway once more before finding the coast clear to return.

Back out in the hallway, Sam shifted from one side of the hall to the other, checking each room that he passed to make sure they were clear. He came across a set of laboratory rooms, similar to the ones back in the castle that he could only assume must have been used in the same way. You know, if it hadn’t been stripped bare of all the equipment that wasn’t bolted down and then left to be taken over by the elements and rat droppings. Then, there was one of the doorless rooms that was just plain empty, aside from the bits of glass on the floor from a broken window or pieces of trash in the corners. The wire conduit got another jump from a rat that scurried across the hall in front of him, and he nearly lashed out at the hole in the wall that it scuttled away into and blew his cover.

Sam was almost to the other side of the hall when he came up to the final room on his right. In all the time that he’d spent in this place, he hadn’t seen anything that could be signs of Visionary Dusk or his lackies taking refuge within this abandoned place. Yet, even with that in mind, the wire conduit couldn’t shake off that earlier feeling that something was off about this place. Every so often, he would hear the creaking of something above him or the rustle of something off in the distance. Maybe it was paranoia, and maybe it was just the noises an old building like this made after years of disuse. However, Natie had always taught him that paranoia was just another way of your instincts telling you that you should be alert and ready for whatever was coming. Sound advice that had saved him and his friends back in Memphis on multiple occasions whenever one of them got one of those ‘feelings’.

All that being said, Sam had to put that feeling on hold for a moment as he worked on the lock for the final door in the hallway. He hadn’t even thought about the oddity that this door was locked until he had passed the threshold after unlocking the thing. Even then, his mind lost that train of thought once he got his first look of the interior of this final room.

‘Well, jackpot.’

The room was clearly lived in, especially by the three newer looking cots that were spread out about the room. In between two of the cots sat a table with what looked like a disassembled rifle on it, as if someone were in the middle of some maintenance with it along with its associated cleaning supplies.

Sam moved into the room a bit more and spied a map of Canterlot tacked to the wall on his right, with all kinds of markings and hastily scrawled notes on it. Beside that was what looked like a cabinet that was open for all to see the various pieces of familiar and unfamiliar equipment for the wire conduit. Though all of that paled in comparison to the final discovery that he saw sitting in plain view at the foot of the furthest cot within the room: a modified D.U.P. helmet that looked to belong to one of the unicorns that he fought back in the Geode Caverns.

This was it. This was the place that Cappy, Sunny, and he were looking for. The damn D.U.P. wannabes and their crazy leader of a unicorn were right here, and had been hiding right under their noses for who knows how long. Though, more than likely, it’s only been since they kicked them out of the cavern hideout. Even though this pleased the wire conduit that he successfully confirmed that this abandoned lab was Visionary’s new hideout, this left one last question that kept rattling in the back of his mind.

‘Where the hell are those assholes then?’

Just as he thought that, a sound got the wire conduit’s attention from behind him. It was like pieces of rock crumbling to the ground. Only, by what Sam had seen, this place didn’t have a concrete foundation or frame behind its drywalls. It was at this point that Sam had realized a critical mistake he made upon entering this room he found himself in, and his body stiffened in alarm. He forgot to check behind the door where it swung inward.

Without thinking about it, Sam spun and ducked in place. The wires around his left arm unraveled, and he flicked his arm out to lash at the position he heard the noise come from. He hadn’t been aiming for anything in particular, and he was glad that he opted for a sweeping strike to knock the rifle out of the griffon’s grip just as he heard the oversized bird thumb the safety.

“Shit!” Sam cried out as he took in the situation.

Before him was the griffon, perched on a concrete ledge he must have created into the top corner of the room behind the door. The griffon screeched and retracted his arm as a few of the wires snapped against the back of his claw when Sam knocked the rifle away. The firearm clattered against the wall and then the ground, but Sam wasn’t paying attention to it, as his surprised look met the hate filled eyes of the griffon’s. The momentary standoff was finished off with the griffon recovering quickly and crouching from his perch while spreading his wings, as if he intended to charge the human conduit.

Sam figured he had less than a second to brace for the impact and tried raising his wire wrapped arms to defend against the attack. That is, until a flash of sickly yellow light and movement caught his attention in the bottom corner, below the griffon’s perch. His eyes widened in panic as a barrage of concrete shards were already halfway between him and the unicorn pair that were hiding behind a chest high barricade with outstretched hooves, alight with more concrete that the shards obviously came from. There was no time to defend or dodge, and Sam was left with the wind knocked out of him as he staggered back from the hail of concrete directed at his unguarded chest. As the wire conduit stumbled, he was left defenseless against the griffon’s charge and the concrete infused punch directed straight to his jaw.

Sam was left no time to recover, as more and more concrete was blasted into his face as he was pushed back straight into the first cot’s footlocker and tumbled head over heel over it. Incoherent shouts which Sam could only assume were commands to keep up the pressure came from the trio that was thoroughly kicking his ass as more attacks were pushed on the disoriented conduit. The onslaught kept coming, and Sam could feel his body becoming too overwhelmed to heal the damage that was being done to him. Essentially, his healing factor just couldn’t keep up, and the pain was becoming unbearable. A sudden lull in the barrage was only interrupted by another charge from the griffon, as Sam was slammed into a locker and crumpled to the ground in a heap with a defeated moan.

At this point, the wire conduit was barely conscious. Every part of his body that was hit felt like it was on fire, and he was sure that he may have been coughing up a bit of blood by the end of it. He just wanted to curl up on his side, if he had the strength, and let his healing factor fix him up. However, rough claws and hooves grabbed his arms and began to pull him away. His body screamed at the lack of reprieve he was given, but any protest he gave was either ignored, for the ones that carried him didn’t care, or by the fact that all he could muster at the moment were a jumble of weak groans and whimpers.

A mess of colors and shapes passed by in his blurry vision as he was taken to parts unknown. Sam could feel that his body was dragged down a long, smooth surface until it felt like he was hauled up a series of bumps at even intervals, which did his injuries no favors. More sounds, or maybe it was shouting, could be heard just beyond the ringing in Sam’s ears, but nothing was ever clear enough to make out. He was at least glad that there were no more bumps, and he was dragged across another smooth surface for a short time. However, the wire conduit was suddenly brought to a halt and then hefted into the air. If the sudden sense of vertigo didn’t agree with the wire conduit, the immediate impact of his body against a hard, cold surface was even worse and left him feeling like he was about to snap into pieces.

Sam’s body finally decided to start cooperating, and his healing factor was finally kicking back in. Yet, that was short lived, as he felt someone gathering up his arms and slipping something over his hands before that same something locked tightly around his wrists. At the same time that that happened, he felt his healing factor suddenly ceased. No, it was more like all of his powers were suddenly shut off.

Sam would have panicked a little more about this if he could think a little straighter, but with his healing factor shut off, he was left in this haze of dizziness. It also seemed that whoever put whatever it was on his hands wasn’t done yet, as what felt like straps of some kind were pulled across his legs at the ankles and thighs. Then, more were pulled over waist and chest, which also meant his arms. All these straps suddenly got tighter, to the point that it felt like Sam was unable to move.

Luckily, this seemed like the last of the tightly bound straps, as Sam was left alone to recover a bit. That didn’t mean that he felt any better. His head was pounding, and his body ached. The ringing in his ears just wouldn’t go away fast enough and left the poor conduit with the painful, if belated, realization that his powers were effectively rendered inert. He tried talking, but all he got out was a weak moan that he could barely hear himself. It took far longer for his dizziness in his head to subside without the help of his accelerated healing, and even then, he felt like crap.

His hearing was starting to make a comeback, if just enough to define the sound of hoofsteps pacing around him. The pony they belonged to frequently stopped at different places before the owner mumbled incoherently to themself and noisily fiddled with stuff in the background.

The shapes and colors that spun in Sam’s vision were starting to gain a bit of definition at last, and he was able to tell that there was a painfully bright light facing him and forcing his one good eye closed from the harsh illumination. Another thought slipped into the conduit’s mind that his right eye, and consequently, the right side of his face was swollen and throbbed with pain. Desperate to find out where he was and why he was in so much suffering, Sam forced his left eye open and squinted past the light glaring down on him.

What the poor wire conduit was able to see made the rest of the color drain from his face as he realized where he was. His brain was slow to process it, but the unmistakable weight and sight of the device over his hands led his thoughts. Upon his hands were a standard issue set of D.U.P. conduit suppression cuffs. The cold yellow and black exterior of the metal contraption filled Sam’s body with an icy chill.

He forced himself to concentrate and understand the situation before him. He was then made aware of the rest of the bindings that were placed on his body and restricted his movements to futile wriggling. Sam reached into himself to draw on his powers, but to his dismay, it seemed that the device over his hands were the real deal and prevented him from using his abilities even in the slightest.

Sam was starting to hyperventilate at this point. He was defenseless, powerless, and far more in over his head than he cared to be in. He tried to futility thrash against bindings, but stopped when he realized that that wasted what little energy he had on this endeavor and would get him nowhere. So, he focused on gathering more details on the place that he was now in, if just to serve as a distraction to everything else going on.

Switching his view to his surroundings, he could at least find a bit of good news in that he was still in the abandoned lab. The decaying and mildew stained walls of the interior that the wire conduit had come to associate with the place were a dead giveaway. Of course, that was the only good news. With everything else he found, it could fill up a list of ‘bad news’ so large that it would make Twilight envious.

First off were his bindings. They left no room for him to try and squirm free, and the conduit suppression cuffs left him with no alternative options of escape. Then, came the realization that Sam was not lying on his side on the floor, nor standing upright. He was, in fact, forced into the position of lying on his back. Even more terrifying was the fact that the surface he laid upon was that of a flat, metal table.

It was easy to tell that whoever put him here clearly had no regard for his comfort, as there wasn’t even a pillow to support his head against the cold surface. Looking further out into the room he now found himself in, Sam’s panic grew worse.

The room he was in may have looked as decrepit and worn down as the rest of the building at first glance, but everything had been organized and cleaned to the best of the owner’s ability. But, that wasn’t the part that scared the conduit the most. What did scare him was the tables, hanging racks, and cabinets filled to capacity with all manner of cobbled together equipment and tools which Sam could only associate with the instruments of a mad scientist. There were even some preserve jars labeled with odd sequences of letters and numbers with what Sam could only guess at what the contents held within were. His money was on the possibility that the meat-looking chunks floating in the liquids were not just some very realistic halloween props.

Speaking of which, the shuffling of equipment stopped once more and was replaced with the swift canter of hooves approaching from the opposite side that Sam was facing. Once he did turn toward the noise to see just who this pony was, Sam’s heart skipped a beat. Visionary Dusk, in the flesh.

The pony looked just the same as the last time they came into contact with each other. However, there were some subtle differences to the unicorn’s appearance. Patches of off white fur were matted and dirty, and his orangish-red mane and tail looked far too oily and stuck up at weird angles in places, all clear indicators that the pony has been neglecting his hygiene, if the slight smell didn’t give it away. Even though his face was half buried in a stack of notes he carried in his magic, Sam could also see the distinct bags under his piercing lime-green eyes. Sleep was an issue for this pony as well, as Sam could tell. He kept muttering under his breath, like he was having a two way conversation with himself and was easily irritated with what the other said every so often. Though, the most striking detail was the unicorn’s eyes: half manic and half dead to the world around him. Like it didn’t matter what you said to the guy, he would either bite your head off, possibly literally, or just brush you off like an annoying fly.

Sam wanted to say something witty, or anything for that matter, just to break up the tension that filled the air, but no matter what, the words kept getting caught up in his throat from fear. The mad pony was soon hovering over the tied down conduit, and for a long time, Sam wondered what was going to happen. Visionary was still looking over his notes when he suddenly nodded to himself and set the stack of papers off to the side, only to be replaced by an old cassette tape recorder within his magical grasp. A button was pressed on the side of the recorder, and for the first time since they met, Visionary looked down at the conduit face to face. The look he gave Sam was bone chilling, like the wire conduit wasn’t even there, or he was just a piece of meat to be examined by the uncaring, clinical gaze that was upon him. It reminded him far too much of the scientists back at Curdan Cay and made the human conduit shiver with fear.

The older stallion finally cleared his throat and raised the recorder up to begin his dictation in the most dry, monotonous tone he could muster, “Log Number D-139. It seems that even though my mercenaries had failed in retrieving a new subject for the latest tests, and furthermore, apparently let themselves foolishly be followed back to this facility that I had painstakingly set up, their lack of success has actually been to my benefit. I am now in possession of Subject A-4, although not in the most pristine condition, but to finally have a chance to study the physiology of an intact ‘awakened’ conduit, I would have given just about anything for this chance.”

Visionary’s predatory gaze gave Sam the creeps. Though, as the mad pony talked, a trickle of anger seeped into Sam’s mind over how impersonal he was being referred to. That same trickle of anger was just what the wire conduit needed to bring himself to finally challenge the unicorn above him, in the only way he could for the moment.

“H-hey, asshole,” Sam croaked out, trying to put on a brave and cocky smile, “If all you wanted was for a night out with me, you could have at least bought me dinner first.”

Sam watched as there was a momentary flick from the unicorn’s ear, but other than that, it seemed that the mad pony was unfazed by Sam’s snarky remark.

Visionary Dusk took a deep breath and continued on, as if it never happened, “It was merely out of paranoia that I instituted a secondary alarm spell on all entrances of the building, though it seems that my instincts have served me well. This revised alarm spell that I devised was made to detect when the original sets of sealing spells were tampered with by means other than magic or brute force.”

Upon hearing this, Sam gasped. The lock on the outside door did feel like it had spells to protect it from what he knew of his limited knowledge of magic. However, he had failed to consider that the crazy bastard would have a new contingency for his tricks. The wire conduit mentally chastised himself for such a simple mistake.

“Having done this, when Subject A-4 activated the alarm, I prepared my mercenaries to suitably capture it for my research,” Visionary Dusk remarked, only to snort a second later, “They initially wanted to kill it on sight. What a waste of a perfectly good specimen that would have been. Yet again, I am the only one to see just how important my research is and the value that a live ‘awakened’ subject provides for it. In the end, I was able to persuade Aras that capturing Subject A-4 would be far more useful and beneficial for everypony here, including himself.”

The more the unicorn talked, the more Sam hated the guy, so much so that his fear was starting to take a backseat to his anger for the crazy bastard over his callous disregard for his humanity. It wasn’t also because of the fact that the guy sounded a little too smug that he was able to get his lackies to ambush Sam, like it was biggest stroke of genius in strategy.

“Hey!” Sam growled out, “You know, it’s rude to talk about someone like they’re not even there. Especially when they’re right in front of you, ya lunatic!”

This latest outburst got the unicorn to pause for a bit longer, and he gave an angry huff for being interrupted once more. Visionary Dusk decided to get his thoughts back on track, and he began to pace around the examination table that his precious ‘subject’ was strapped down to.

“My mercenaries are under the impression that just because this subject was able to successfully stumble upon this laboratory, that we must abandon this place. Of course, I was quick to point out that if the Royal Guard were indeed ‘not far off’, they would have had ample time to enact any sort of plan they had after Subject A-4’s intrusion. That would, of course, mean that they somehow were able to bypass all of my security spells without my notice,” the crazy unicorn said, as if he were gloating, “In any case, I shall now begin the preliminary examination of Subject A-4.”

Sam followed the unicorn in rapt attention as he made a full circle around the examination table he was on before stopping on his left side. All the while, Visionary Dusk scrutinized every physical characteristic of his quarry, like he was inspecting a piece of livestock. Sam wanted to spit in the ‘good’ doctor’s face, but held back, as he waited to see what the egotistical fuck was going to say. Besides, the idiot believed that he came alone. He was in for one hell of a surprise once Cappy made it back with backup. All Sam needed to do now was stall.

Making a few noises as he worked, the unicorn finally spoke again into the recorder, “Subject A-4 shows nothing remarkable, or defining characteristics that make him aesthetically unique physically from subjects A-1 through A-3.”

“Well, if your goons had the guts to face me instead of trying to shoot me in the back, you would have gotten a face more gorgeous than Chris Pratt, buddy,” Sam remarked snidely.

Visionary Dusk ignored the commentary again and carried on, “Black, short-cut mane with minimal facial hair, brown eyes, common facial structure typical for its species.”

“Again, so much better when I’ve got the chance to clean up, asshole.”

“Approximately one point five meters tall, with what I can only guess is a medium build for body structure.”

“Are you calling me fat?”

The slowly becoming annoyed unicorn furrowed his brow and doubled down on his concentration to focus on his work. He made his way closer to the table, and it was at this point Sam wished he had the ability to scooch just a little bit further away from the approaching pony. The wire conduit hissed in pain as the unicorn took his head in his hooves and turned it a few directions and proceeded to force his lower jaw down for a closer inspection.

“Aahh, AAAagh. Fuck, get your hooves off me, you damned, dirty pony!” Sam yelled as he broke free from the unicorn’s grip.

Sam yelped in pain as a hoof struck him across the left side of his face. The damned unicorn actually hit Sam, presumably because of his lack of cooperation. Though, Sam was more focused on the stinging pain that was now throbbing on his already injured face.

“Subject A-4 lacks control over auditory remarks during examination, and resists cues for compliance,” Visionary callously drolls, ignoring Sam’s wincing groans, “Although, I was able to confirm that Subject A-4 is indeed of the omnivorous nature, based on dental structure. There is also the fact that even in Subject A-4’s weakened state, it still has enough strength to make examination a chore. It is alright though. I have dealt with unruly behavior from subjects before.”

“Fuck you!”

This time, Sam did spit at the unicorn, and with a bit of luck, the wad of saliva hit just between the point of the top joint of his foreleg and neck. It seemed that this was what was needed to get the unicorn’s attention on Sam rather than his examination. Unfortunately, this is what got the unicorn to focus on the wire conduit rather than his examination. Sam kind of regretted that action when he was subjected to the most infuriated glare directed at him that could rival the good Ol’ Cappy.

Visionary Dusk stomped up to the examination table and hovered over Sam like an angry hornet. The look was enough to make Sam shrink back in fear as he tried desperately to crane his head as far away as the restraints would allow him from the crazed-looking unicorn.

“Let me make one thing clear to you, Subject A-4,” Visionary spoke in a dark, sinister tone, “You are nothing more than my subject as I conduct my research. I don’t care what you are, let alone where you come from, but in my lab, any ‘thing’ that I deem as my subject of study exists only for the betterment of my research.”

The chilling statement left Sam speechless. The D.U.P.’s scientists always treated conduits like monsters or freaks, but this bat-shit sociopath took this to a whole new level. It frankly scared Sam, and made him see this pony in a different light. Rather than an egotistical asshat, this pony... was truly a monster.

With his intimidation speech over, the unicorn took a calming breath and slicked back his mane to get the wild strands that fell annoyingly into his face. Even with the moment of grooming, it did little to fix the rest of his maniac visage and only emphasized how overzealous this pony’s ideals were in controlling his actions. He suddenly turned on his hoof and walked over to one of the numerous desks filled with tools to retrieve something.

Sam just lied there and tried to keep from folding under the dread that was encasing him every minute that he was in the unicorn’s presence. A few tugs on the restraints reminded him that he was trapped here, and his anxiety skyrocketed. Not just because the mad pony’s words kept echoing in his head, but as he watched the pony that hummed in triumph upon finding what he was looking for, he saw what it was that he went to retrieve in the first place.

In the pony’s magical grasp, was the largest syringe that the conduit had ever seen in his life. Although it may have been his mind upping the terror to skew his perspective, but that didn’t matter to the wire conduit at the moment. All he could see was a large, sharp, and shiny needle heading his way. Sam tried his best to break from the restraining straps, but the bindings held firm. All too soon, the needle was already hovering over him, with the maniac of a unicorn right behind it.

“A-alright, how about we all just take a minute, and slow this down?” Sam desperately pleaded, “We can just h-have a ‘Q-and-A’! Doesn’t that sound more productive, and less, I don’t know, filled with pointy things?!”

The unicorn was back to blatantly ignoring the wire conduit strapped to the table as he resumed his dictation to his sole listener, the recorder, “Blood samples will now be taken for both further study and to distill more ‘catalyst’ in the ‘Conduitic Infuser’. Five hundred milliliters will have to do for now.”

The unicorn’s cold hooves reached out and rolled the sleeve of his maroon shirt further up his right arm and felt over Sam’s exposed skin, presumably to find a viable vein to draw from. Though, the touch left Sam shivering and made him feel like he was getting anything other than a simple blood draw. Visionary Dusk grew tired of his subject’s constant fidgeting and pressed hard into the conduit’s arm to keep him steady while he worked. The increased pressure made Sam cry out in pain, as the damage from the battle earlier had taken its toll on his body in many places.

Visionary Dusk felt like this would be a lot easier if he was able to work his magic on the subject before him, but a conduit’s body, even when repressed, was still highly resistant to the effects of magic, even with the most simplistic spell such as levitation. However, finally finding the right vein, Visionary Dusk shifted the syringe to line up with the bulge under his subject’s skin.

The first attempt to draw blood ended with the needle missing its mark and stabbing into flesh. The sensation made Sam cry out even louder in pain, but all Visionary Dusk did was groan at the failure and ordered for his subject to ‘Stop moving’. The second attempt ended much like the first, and the unicorn was growing more frustrated with each lack of success. Between the constant pleas to stop and the squirming appendage trying to break free from his grasp, Visionary Dusk was finding it harder and harder to keep his concentration. Finally growing exhausted of the failures after the third attempt, the unicorn pressed down into the conduit’s arm as hard as he could with both forehooves to hold it still. The pressure was enough to make Sam scream even louder as he tried to free himself, but all that did was twist his arm painfully under the unicorn’s grip.

The needle finally hit its mark, and the sadistic pony grinned gleefully as he pulled back on the plunger to withdraw the precious crimson liquid. More and more of Sam’s blood filled the container until it was completely full before the unicorn yanked the needle free. Spurts of blood spewed from the open vein as Sam jerked his arm and howled out in pain from the harsh treatment. A few droplets landed on the unicorn’s grimy coat of fur, but he seemed to take more offense to the fact the blood itself was what soiled his body than anything else.

Pushing himself off of the conduit’s arm, Sam could already feel the appendage swell with discoloration from the hoof shaped bruises that now adorned his arm. He panted hard after the ordeal and felt like he was starting to run his throat raw from his screaming, all while Visionary Dusk excitedly examined the life fluid in the syringe while cantering back to another table against a wall.

“I hope y-you rot in hell, asshole!” Sam croaked out, trying to sound more intimidating through his hoarse tone.

The unicorn’s ears flicked in the conduit’s direction for a moment before he casually tossed a dirty rag over top of the exposed vein to quell the bleeding, as if in an afterthought that he should keep his subject in a somewhat decent condition.

Visionary Dusk retrieved his recorder that he left behind with his magic and brought it back up to himself to follow up his procedure, “Acquiring a suitable blood sample from Subject A-4 was… difficult. However, samples were retrieved without much complication, and I can continue with refining half of this sample in the ‘Conduitic Infuser’.”

The last statement was punctuated with the mad pony finally finding what he had come to the table for in the first place and hefted a strange looking device above him in his magical grasp. Sam watched in loathsome disgust as the unicorn fiddled with both the odd contraption and the syringe filled with his blood. A hatch popped open on top of the box-like appliance, and the unicorn levitated the syringe to hover over the new opening. With even more revulsion, Sam watched as the unicorn squeezed out half of the contents of the syringe into the device, and then, the thing started to light up. Intrigued by morbid curiosity, the wire conduit played witness to the device accepting his involuntary offering as it began to churn to life with strobing lights and whistling sputters of sound.

Several empty vials floated from the holding stand they sat in to the unicorn’s left. With practiced ease, the rest of the syringe’s contents were emptied evenly between vials that were corked and labeled before being replaced back into their respective positions. Visionary Dusk set the empty syringe and the device still hovering in his grasp back onto the table, satisfied that his device was running smoothly before making his way back to the examination table and his ‘Subject’.

“Plenty of samples have now been properly catalogued and saved for later use,” Visionary Dusk monologued into his recorder, “Being such a rare opportunity, at least until more ‘awakened’ subjects have been acquired, I will now begin testing Subject A-4’s tolerance to varying sensations and their reactions. This will also allow me to examine any non-visually apparent structures of Subject A-4’s body in comparison to previous test subjects, to verify any deviations that could account for A-4’s differing abilities.”

Sam grew wide eyed in fear at the crazy unicorn’s wording. Then, even more so when he saw the unicorn’s horn flare a little brighter as he gathered various tools and devices from around the room to hover beside him in front of the trembling conduit, all of which looked either far too sharp, ramshackled, or for lack of a better term, looked like they had no business to be used on another living creature by the deranged looking unicorn leering over the conduit.

“Fuck, m-man. I thought you were just a tad bit crazy,” Sam said, just to keep himself from devolving into a quivering mess, “N-now I see that you’re just bat-shit insa-aAAAAaHHH!”

A set of what could only be described as sewing needles were unleashed on various parts of the conduit’s already bruised and bloodied body. The unicorn hummed in contemplation as he took note of how far the needles were able to penetrate with the measured force and reaction. At the end of each needle was a tied off conductive wire, leading back to a device in the unicorn’s magical grasp.

He looked up at it and turned the various dials on it before pressing a big, obvious button at its center. What this did only served to cause Sam even more pain, as surges of electrical energy hit his body at the point where the needles pierced his body. He grit his teeth while his eyes widened in shock from the constant barrage of electricity making his body convulse.

Visionary Dusk narrowed his eyes and then turned the dials on the device up a few more cranks. He was rewarded with Sam’s agonized screams as his torture continued for the mad pony’s ‘research’. The unicorn finally relented by shutting off the device and halting the electrical charge and documenting what he saw in his notes, all while Sam was left to bare the after effects of the torturous experience

Next came a bottle of unmarked liquid, which the unicorn generously soaked a strip of cloth in. He brushed the sickly smelling cloth over Sam’s left arm, and it only took a few moments before the part of his skin felt like it was on fire. The red, irritated skin seemed to fascinate the mad scientist, as he quickly noted the reaction into his recorder. He even made notes of the different ways his subject’s joints moved, to better understand the underlying bone structure without the use of a full dissection, just yet. All the while, Sam blurted out more obscenities and curses directed at the unnaturally calm looking pony hovering over him.

Then, came the most terrifying tool Sam had seen so far, a somewhat dulled scalpel. The wire conduit barely heard the unicorn as he dictated his next test to open up a small section of his shoulder to get a look at his muscle framework and the anatomy of the different anatomy from the skin, inward. All Sam could think was that this crazy bastard was about to start carving him up like a Thanksgiving turkey, and he was powerless to stop this.

The knife descended slowly, and Sam pleaded for this madness to stop. He felt like he couldn’t breathe through the suffocating terror. His heart pounded in his ears, he was in so much pain already from everything else beforehand, and the world was already starting to fade away into nothing more than the torture that he was now being subjected to.

Neither he nor Visionary Dusk seemed to notice the flash of lavender light off to the side, as they were too busy focusing on their examination and their panic respectively. Visionary Dusk brushed the neckline of Sam’s shirt out of the way to gain better access to where he wanted. Just as the scalpel was able to pierce the conduit’s skin and unleashed a few rivlets of blood to seep from the fresh wound, another flash of lavender light lit up the opposite side of the room from behind the crazed unicorn. In the next second, the unicorn was no longer over the conduit, as an almighty crash and shout of pain took his place and left something unexpected behind. The scalpel fell away from Sam’s shoulder and clattered to the floor, and the wire conduit was unsure of what just happened, but was also thankful that he was no longer about to be cut into.

As the pain subsided, Sam was able to gather what was left of his wits, and he was able to spot why it was that the mad pony was no longer beside him as he was before. For in his place was a floating piece of two-by-four held aloft in a very familiar aura of lavender magic. Through the haze of the magic, Sam was able to spot a reddish stain on the side of the wooden plank and more pieces began to fall in place. Over the sound of his own ragged gasps he heard another, equally distressed breathing. It came from the direction on his right and the room’s entrance, and who he saw made him both feel relieved and surprised.

“S-Sparks?!”

Just as he mentioned, Twilight was standing in the doorway to the psycho unicorn’s room, shaking like a leaf. She looked terrified, and her eyes were wide with horror at what she had come across. Her horn was alight with its signature lavender tinge as she held the floating piece of two-by-four in the shaky glow of her magic. Her gaze was transfixed on a spot just below the table that Sam was strapped down to, so the wire conduit followed her line of sight. He was easily surprised by what he saw.

Clearly unconscious, the mad unicorn, Visionary Dusk, was sprawled out on the ground with a sizable gash on the side of his head, just above his left temple, no doubt where Twilight had struck him with her makeshift weapon. Blood was oozing from the wound and stained the pony’s fur with a crimson hue, and it already looked like he was forming a respectable welt. Other than that, and the fact that he was out cold, he seemed alive for the most part. Sam thought the bastard could do with a few more strikes though.

However, his train of thought was interrupted by the clatter of wood on the floor as the purple unicorn in the doorway dropped her weapon. Looking back up to her, Sam could see that she was not handling what she had just done all that well. He suspected that she didn’t intend to use so much force.

“Sparks,” Sam said, trying to get the unicorn’s attention.

She ignored him, or rather, she looked to be panicking too much to have noticed. Sam could only imagine what was going through the little unicorn’s mind, but he had to try and get through to her.

So, he tried again, “Sparks!”

The louder call of her name snapped Twilight out of her stupor, but she still looked just as frightened when her gaze fell upon the conduit. In fact, her eyes became misty, and the look of anguish on her face when she looked over Sam’s condition made the wire conduit wish he could take that pain in her eyes away.

“S-Sam,” Twilight whispered, shakily taking her first steps toward the restrained conduit, “By Harmony, what happened to you?”

Sam tried to smile and look unfazed by his pain, but the wince from just pulling that off still bled through. Even still, he tried his best to reassure his terrified friend.

“I’m fine. It’d take a lot more than this to really bring me down, remember?”

The reassurance didn’t seem to work, as Twilight now began to cry and rushed to the wire conduit’s side. Twilight was beside herself with grief as she looked over the damage inflicted upon her friend. Every cut, bruise, and wound she found on his body only made her feel worse and made her eyes sting with tears of regret. She tried to say how sorry she was for letting him go off on his own, and how his condition was her fault. Tears ran down her face, and no matter what Sam tried to say, Twilight continued to blame herself.

“Twilight, please! Listen to me,” Sam finally cut through the string of ongoing apologies.

Taking a deep, yet painful breath, Sam leaned as close as he could to the unicorn and brushed her hoof on the table with the side of his head. The minor action that he took seemed to have just the right effect, as Twilight’s hiccuping sobs died down to tearful sniffling.

Taking advantage of the moment, Sam pushed forth, “Twilight, none of this is your fault. I screwed up and let my guard down.”

“B-but if it wasn’t for me-”

“Then I’d still be here, getting ready to become more of a pincushion for that psychopath,” Sam cut Twilight off, tilting his gaze past the unicorn in front of him.

They both looked down over the table to see said unicorn still out for the count before turning back to each other. The comforting words bolstered Twilight’s confidence and gave her a sense of pride, even if her method of aid had been very brutal and made her feel slightly guilty.

“We need to get you out of here. Visionary Dusk could wake up soon.”

Trying to focus her mind on something else, Twilight began to work on the straps that held Sam down.

“Wait, wait,” Sam suddenly realized something very important, “Why the hell are you here? I thought I told you to go back to the castle to get help.”

Twilight fixed her best cheeky grin at the wire conduit that reminded Sam suspiciously of himself, “Oh, yes, because you would have followed mine or the Captain’s instructions if you were in my place.”

Sam narrowed his good eye at the defiant unicorn, but she did a good job at shrugging it off and continued to work. Twilight struggled with the straps as she looked for where they were tied down, but eventually found the anchors underneath the table.

“That’s besides the point,” Sam growled, “It’s too dangerous for you to be here!”

Twilight clapped her hooves on the table, honestly startling Sam a bit as the unicorn narrowed her eyes back at him, “No, you don’t get to use that on me! Not this time. I’m the one rescuing you this time, and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. Got it?”

Sam bobbed his head up and down dumbly at Twilight’s assertive statement, all while a satisfied, if slightly embarrassed, smile crept up on the unicorn’s face. The straps came undone one by one under the command of the purple unicorn’s magic, and in short order, Sam was free, for the most part. The various needles and, more importantly, his suppression cuffs were still in place

“How did you even get in here?” Sam asked as Twilight helped him to sit up from the table.

Twilight winced everytime Sam grunted from a needle being pulled out of his body, but focused more on answering his question, “The entrance that you went through. I tried teleporting directly into the building, but it seems that Visionary Dusk put up some powerful wards around it to prevent such actions. Next, I tried unlocking the front entrance, but there were more sealing spells around that too. The only way in was through the entrance you came through. Like everything else, your conduit abilities aren’t affected by magic and coincidentally disrupted that door’s detection spells along with the sealing spells, which made it easy enough for me to just follow your way in.

“This place certainly did terrify me, and I nearly ran right into Visionary Dusk’s assailants while I was exploring. Once I reached the second floor, that’s when I-I heard you, screaming in pain.”

Sam was relieved to hear that Twilight was able to successfully sneak past the griffon and his lackeys. Though, the part about how she was able to find him made him regret putting his friend through the experience.

As the last of the needles came out, Twilight capped off her tale, “Your… cries were coming from the third floor, so, I got up here as fast as I could. When I saw ‘him’ doing what he was doing to you, I-I just acted. I grabbed the first thing I saw in my magic and swung.”

Twilight looked down at the unconscious unicorn on the ground and cringed at the damage that she had caused. She’d fought creatures from the Everfree Forest, defended the capitol from the Changeling invasion alongside her friends, but to strike another pony? Even if what he’s done deserved it and maybe more, it made her feel guilty. Seeing the purple unicorn’s expression, Sam leaned down, even against his body’s protest, to bring himself into Twilight’s peripheral and catch her attention.

“Sparks,” Sam called out in a small breath, which Twilight thankfully noticed and turned to, “You didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, it took a lot of guts to charge in and take a swing like that, and believe me, if you hadn’t, I’d probably be in much worse shape than I am now.”

Even with the swollen half of his face, the reassuring smile Sam made gave Twilight the comfort she needed. Sam would have given her a hug too, but his hands were still trapped and time was running short.

“Sorry I gotta cut this short, but we need to get out of here,” Sam said with a serious tone.

Twilight couldn’t agree more. Her little burst of bravery was running out, and every second she stayed in this place made her even more uncomfortable. She held out her hoof to help Sam off the table, but as soon as the wire conduit planted his feet on the ground, his knees buckled. Luckily, Twilight was there to catch him from the side, though the hiss of pain he let out made it clear that he was in no condition to sneak out the same way they came in.

“Sam, you need to rest,” Twilight urged, fearing that wounds that she could see on the human’s body were far worse than they appeared.

“No,” Sam tried to push through the pain, but failed, “There’s no time. Dusk could wake up, or those D.U.P. wannabes might swing by any second now. Damn it. If only I didn’t have these cuffs on me, I could heal in no time.”

Twilight observed the cuffs on the conduit’s hands that he pointed out and realized that this device must have been what Sam had described as the cuffs that the ’D.U.P’ made conduits like him wear to suppress their powers. It made her both angry and curious how the unconscious unicorn on the floor had gotten his hooves on such a device, but more importantly, she wondered how she could get them off her friend if it meant it would help him recover.

“Sparks, what you doing?” Sam asked as he watched the purple unicorn examine the cuffs over his hands.

Without even looking up, Twilight replied, “Trying to find a way to get these things off of you. Damn, my magic keeps bouncing off of it. I can’t even run a scan on it to find a weakness.”

“Sparks, it’s ok. I’ll be fine. We can worry about it later. First, we need to get you out of here safely.”

“No,” Twilight stomped defiantly, “You’re injured, and if you won’t rest, then we need to find a way to get these cuffs off of you so you can heal. Gah, why does stuff from your world have to be so magic resistant?!”

Knowing that Twilight wouldn’t let the issue go, the wire conduit lifted his arms up and away from the unicorn’s scratching hooves. Initially confused, Twilight watched as Sam started to help by pointing out what he knew about the device.

“D.U.P. suppression cuffs can’t just be pried off. You need the key which goes to the slot on the access port on the top over my left hand.”

Twilight spotted the covered port that Sam directed toward her and instructed her how to slide the covering out of the way. The slot looked like any other keyhole, but the only problem was that they now needed to find said key to unlock the device.

Twilight scanned the room and worked her gaze over the clutter to find the item in question. She made two full rotations in place while searching before she was about to give up when the glint of something shiny on the wall caught her eye. She gasped as she laid eyes on a single key hanging on a nail, embedded in the wall on the right hand side of the door leading out into the hallway.

She tried grabbing it with her magic, but it seemed that it too was magic resistant and merely rattled a few times against the wall from her efforts. Groaning in frustration, she galloped swiftly up to the key to retrieve it.

She hadn’t realized how high it was up off the ground until she was underneath it, but that didn’t deter her. Planting her front hooves against the rotting drywall, she craned her neck as far as she could, but even then, it was just barely out of reach. Even when stepping up onto her tippy-hooves, she was still just shy of reaching the offending key with her teeth. She wasn’t about to give up just yet though, and with a resigned groan, she knew what she had to do.

Tilting her head down, she pointed her horn skyward and carefully maneuvered it underneath the tiny metal ring that the key was strung up on. Her muzzle was practically pressed up against the drywall, and her lungs filled with the musty scent of the decay from it. She ignored it as she focused on feeling her way up the wall with her horn until it bumped against the bottom of the key with a ‘clink’. It only took a few more moments before her horn found the inside of the ring, and with a satifiying yank, it came free from the nail and fell down to the base of Twilight’s horn, where the key dangled between her eyes.

Her little victory would have earned herself a smile, were it not spoiled by the sound of restrained snickering behind her. She wasn’t surprised to see her conduit friend still kneeling by the table where she left him, but what she didn’t expect was to find him trying to keep himself from bursting out with laughter. Sam also seemed to be in pain and winced every time his body shuddered with suppressed mirth.

“What’s so funny?” Twilight tilted her head in confusion and worry.

This only seemed to make the wire conduit double over and grimace from the action as he tried to hold back his laughter. Twilight became even more worried and rushed to her friend’s side, all while the key around her horn continued to clink against her forehead and the ring it was on.

“I’m sorry,” Sam got out between snorts of chuckles, “It’s just, your face!”

“My...face?” Twilight asked, even more confused than ever.

Though before Twilight could begin to worry about a potential injury to her friend’s head that might be affecting his cognition, the wire conduit glanced up to the Twilight’s forehead. The unicorn followed Sam’s gaze and had to cross her eyes to find what he was looking at. Though, the only thing she found was the key to his cuffs dangling between her amethyst eyes.

When it looked like Twilight was about to ask Sam if he was ok again, the wire conduit cut her off with his reply, “You, hehe, you look like a carnival ring toss game.”

Realizing what Sam was laughing at now, Twilight found herself to be unamused. Here they were, in the heart of their enemies’ base, and Sam was making jokes about her only option to retrieve his means of freedom from the cuffs on his hands.

“You idiot!” Twilight groaned and struck Sam in the shoulder.

Twilight immediately regretted that, as Sam’s face contorted in pain from the strike to his injured arm. Twilight tried to apologize, but Sam brushed her off.

“No, no. You’re right. Not the time for that,” Sam countered, “Let’s just get these cuffs off, and we can get out of here.”

Glad that Sam didn’t hold the strike against her, Twilight nodded in agreement and was glad that they could get back on track. She then tilted her head down to allow the key to slide off her horn and only heard a small snicker for that. Afterwards, Twilight fumbled with the key in her hooves until she realized that she wasn’t going to be able to manipulate it into the keyhole with her stubby appendages. Holding it in one hoof, she leaned her head down and grabbed the back end of the key in her teeth, carefully to keep her tongue out of the way to avoid having to taste whatever foul contaminants covered its surface. Together, Sam and Twilight maneuvered the key and the cuffs into position for Twilight to unlock the device. The key slid into hole, Twilight cranked her head to the side, and a resounding series of clicks came from the internal locks.

After that, the cuffs slid right off, and Sam’s hands were finally free. A relieved smile crept up on the wire conduit’s face as he wrung his hands a few times.

“You did it! Thank you, Sparks,” Sam said as he pulled the purple unicorn in for a hug.

Twilight accepted the gesture without complaint, just glad that she could help her friend in his time of need. The two broke the embrace and Twilight was surprised to notice that Sam’s injuries were already starting to disappear before her very eyes. It was a bit creepy to see the wires poke out of his skin where he was hurt and cover the injuries, all before sinking back into his skin and leaving no trace of the injuries behind, like he never had them in the first place. If it weren’t for their current situation, Twilight would have loved to document the process and get Sam in for another ‘Q & A’ about what it felt like. Though, now was not the time.

Especially since, at that moment, a set of footsteps came from outside the door and down the hallway. Although, they weren’t quite footsteps, nor even hoofsteps. They had the distinct sound of claws clacking against the wooden floors. They were swiftly making their way toward Sam and Twilight, and since the mad pony of a unicorn was unconscious on the ground, that only left a couple of options left as to who these footsteps belonged to.

“Hey, Doc!” the only griffon in Visionary Dusk’s group of assailants calling from the hallway spoke up, “Sorry to break it to ya, but we gotta go. One of my boys was checking the perimeter and saw the royal guards slinking around the surrounding buildings, no doubt setting up a raid with how they’re moving. I don’t care if you’ve got your precious ‘test subject’ on a slab, my partners’ lives come first from now on.”

The footsteps were getting closer, and Twilight was beginning to hyperventilate in her panic. Sam was unsure about what he should do. If he stayed and fought, Twilight would more than likely be caught in the crossfire.

“...Doc?” the griffon asked, now speeding up his footsteps.

Sam acted on impulse. He shot his right fist out, and a set of wires flew from his knuckles to the door, which he used to slam it shut. He then wrapped the handle in a bunch more wires to jam it closed, for there was no lock. Just in time too, as the griffon that he had come to know mostly through fighting was at the door and trying to jimmy the handle to open said door. When that didn’t work, he began to bang on the door and grumble from the other side.

Twilight was trembling by now and slowly backing away from their only exit as she whispered to her companion, “Sam, what do we do?”

“Doc, did you hear me? Open the damn door!” Aras yelled as he began to bang on the door even harder...

...all while Sam desperately tried to come up with a plan on how he would get past the angry griffon without letting Twilight get hurt. His masterful idea of gallantly charging past the griffon was swiftly booted to the curb, as the griffon had seemingly enough of the silent treatment and opted for a more direct approach of getting into the room. Shards of concrete pierced through wooden door at the point where the handle connected and blew it out toward Sam’s and Twilight’s side. Evidently, this also caused the purple unicorn to scream in fear before she could control herself.

“What the fuck?!”

The surprised statement on the griffon’s side pretty much confirmed that he heard the commotion and the ‘not-Visionary-Dusk’ voice on the other side. Before Sam and Twilight had a chance to react, the door to the room blew open, and before them was the griffon and leader of the assailants that had terrorized the citizens of Equestria alongside his employer, staring dumbstruck at what he had come across within.

Sam gave the griffon no time to regain his wits and charged at him with the force of a mini freight train. The griffon had just started to raise his guard when Sam slammed into him with a shoulder charge from his fully restored body. The hit sent the griffon tumbling back out into the hallway and into the opposite wall, where he sat stunned for the moment. In that moment, Sam used his time wisely and re-closed the door. Though, that was not all. He also took every piece of furniture that wasn’t bolted down and tossed them in a haphazard pile in front of the door to bar entry. He finally decided that one last measure could be taken and launched over a dozen wire strands long enough to reach around the makeshift barricade and stapled the ends into the wall around the doorway to further secure the whole thing. It wasn’t long before the conduit and unicorn could hear the rioting shouts of the griffon as he began to tear through the barricade from the other side.

“Well, that won’t hold for long,” Sam said as he bit his lip in concentration.

Twilight, on the other hand, was still panicking and shuffling in place on her hooves, “Sam, what do we do?”

Sam looked down to the distressed unicorn and saw just how scared she was. None too surprised, considering the situation, but he still had no idea how he was going to get them out while the griffon, and more than likely the other D.U.P. wannabes, were on the other side of the door. Sam frantically searched the room for anything that could help him, but all that was left after he knocked everything to the barricade was the side countertop attached to the wall, an unconscious psychopath, a bordered up window, a bunch of broken tools on the-

‘The window!’ Sam screamed in his mind.

Hustling over to the boarded up portal, Sam peered out into the outside world through the few cracks between the boards. Relief spread throughout his mind as he saw the empty lot facing back at him. Once more, joy took hold as he also saw what looked like the entirety of the castle guard standing in neat and orderly fashion taking up most of that abandoned lot. And who else should be at the head of this squadron of ponies in armor? The one and only, Captain Aegis Flare.

Sam smirked and backed up a few steps away from the window. Twilight, unsure of what Sam was planning, anxiously split her gaze between him and the barricade that was slowly being ripped apart from the other side. She could even see the frantic movement of the one who was tearing into the barricade through the gaps in the makeshift barrier. This only spiked her fear, as the griffon rattled off many explicit comments and ear piercing screeches as a griffon only could. Twilight was about to urge her friend that whatever plan he was working on should be hurried along until she saw what he was doing.

Braided wire cables extended from both his hands and seemed to twitch with anticipation at their master’s behest. Twilight watched in shock as the wire conduit took a deep breath, planted his left foot forward and swung with both arms with the wire cables following through. Sam’s weapons whipped forward and lashed at the wooden planks that covered the window adorning the opposite wall from the room’s only door, splintering them from the frame in a single swipe. What was left was an empty window frame and the light of the day spilling in to bring radiance and warmth that the inside of this whole building had been sorely lacking for who knows how long.

Sam smiled at his handiwork and let his wires reabsorb into his body. Twilight, too frozen in fear for everything going on, could only watch as Sam approached her with his usual smirk and picked her up with a slight grunt and held her in his arms like an oversized cat.

“Ready to get out of here?” Sam asked.

Twilight nodded dumbly, but had to wonder what Sam was planning in the first place. She came to the conclusion all too late as Sam took a running stance facing the now open window, and Twilight’s heartrate began to skyrocket once more.

“W-wait, wait! Sam, I’m not ready!”

Sam seemed to ignore the protests as he cackled like a madman, “Welcome aboard the ‘Conduit Express’! Going down!”

Twilight could only scream in panic once more as she tighten her limbs around Sam’s body in a death grip just as he leapt out the window and into the open air.

The Endgame: Final Part

Aegis Flare wasted no time in returning to the castle and gathering his forces. Surprisingly, it didn’t take long, as he found that the princesses were already in the midst of mobilizing the royal guard for his arrival. They explained upon his questioning that they too, had deduced Visionary Dusk’s assailants’ escape route and sent a few scouts to confirm their suspicions. Knowing that he, Twilight, and Sam were also at the site, they figured combining whatever clues they may have found with their deductions would ultimately lead to the assailants whereabouts. However, when the scouts returned with news that the three were nowhere to be seen and the entrance to their suspected tunnel had remnants of concrete surrounding its frame, the princesses grew worried for Aegis Flare’s party’s safety. It ultimately came as a surprise to the royal sisters when Aegis Flare explained what had become of his group and their investigation of the area when they first arrived on the scene.

He laid out Twilight’s ingenuity with cobbling together a functioning tracker out of a device left behind, to which Princess Celestia praised her student silently at. Then, of the human conduit’s service in clearing the path into the underground. Princess Luna nodded in favor of the wire conduit’s aid and gave her own praises. Finally, it came to the part when the group was led back to the surface and made several key deductions of a possible location of Visionary Dusk’s, or at least the assailants’, hideout. The princesses tensed at the mention of this final note. It troubled them immensely that these adversaries might have been hiding right under their noses from the very start.

When asked where his two companions on this investigation were, Aegis Flare became only slightly hesitant to respond. Eventually, with the eyes of the princesses upon him, he had no other choice but to tell them of what became of the insubordinate human and the sharp-witted unicorn. They had stayed behind to keep their eyes on the abandoned lab for if the assailants or if Visionary Dusk made a move, in case they were, in fact, hiding inside the suspected building.

The princesses did not seem to like the outcome, but having known Sam for a while now, they have come to expect this type of behavior from him. It did, however, surprise Princess Celestia how adamant Twilight had apparently been in continuing the investigation alongside Aegis Flare and Sam, regardless of the dangers it presented. She had also apparently refused on several occasions both the captain’s and Sam’s insistance to return to the castle for safety, and with quite a bit of quick-wittiness that got the better of both her companions. It seemed that Sam isn’t the only one learning from the other in their time together, but it still worried the unicorn’s mentor that her protege was quite possibly in far more danger than she would have liked to see her in.

Nevertheless, Aegis Flare’s conclusion to his report brought about a clear course of action that the royals and guards must take. The princesses ordered the captain to gather the troops they had mobilized and prepare to execute a raid on the abandoned lab they had discovered. It wasn’t long after that the captain and the now assembled guards galloped through the city, following the captain’s lead back to building. Now, here they were. A perimeter was set up, the citizens were cleared from the surrounding area, and the bulk of the guards were lined up and standing ready in the empty lot in front of the abandoned lab. Everything was set, except for two small things. Or, more specifically, two individuals.

It was of no surprise that the captain was fuming at finding his two charges that he left behind were not where he last saw them, nor anywhere in the surroundings. He looked to the abandoned lab as his guards performed their duties and cursed the human with every fiber of his being for what he knew he must have done and ignored his instructions to stay out of the building until his return. Though, the part that surprised him the most was that Twilight Sparkle was nowhere to be found either. At first, he suspected that the unicorn had returned to the castle to warn him and the princesses of another of the human’s reckless decisions. Yet, even he knew of her magical prowess, and a teleportation spell of that distance would have been a simple feat for her, and he would have received word of her return and what happened swiftly.

Looking back up at the imposing building before him and his guards, a twisting knot formed in the pit of the captain’s stomach. The Princess of the Sun would not be happy if his hunch of her whereabouts proved to be true, and he could only pray that he was wrong. Not just for his sake, but for hers as well. The captain took a quick and deep breath to clear his mind. Now was not the time to become agitated. If what he assumed was right, then that just meant that he had to have both Twilight and the human found before something happened to them.

Turning to the formation of guards before him, the captain spoke up in his deep, baritone voice, “Ponies! I’ll make this quick. Inside this building, we may find the fugitive known as Visionary Dusk and his assailants. I don’t have to remind you just how dangerous these individuals are, but remember: You know your roles, your objectives, and the strategies we must use to face these adversaries. Finally, we have one other task we must keep in mind while infiltrating the abandoned lab. Two of our own, Twilight Sparkle and... the Human... may be inside. Keep your ears open, and your eyes sharp.”

Just as the captain was about to wrap up his speech and give the command to commence the raid, a sound tore his and the rest of the guards’ attention away to one of the third floor windows. An almighty crash and a spray of splintered wood rained down from above, where something tore through the wooden planks that covered the upper window. Most were shocked, others were just slightly surprised, but one was torn between feeling furious and a long-suffering headache coming on for what he saw as the cause of the unexpected commotion.

From the window spewed not only the splintering chunks of wood covering the opening, but the ends of silvery, metallic cables. The wire cables retreated just as quickly as they appeared, seeing as they had served their purpose and more noises seemed to be coming from the freshly cleared window. While most of the guards tensed and raised their weapons within the formation, Aegis Flare listened and found that he could make out two distinct voices from within the building’s window. Not long after, more movement could be seen closing in on the window above along with a set of panicked cries.

“Welcome aboard the ‘Conduit Express’! Going down!”

The all too familiar dialogue was followed by a sight almost nopony, except for the captain for the most part, expected to see. A figure leapt through the newly made opening, a terrified, screaming pony in tow.

The guards were too stunned to act as they watched the figure that they have come to know as the ‘Wire Wraith’ flipped through the air in a way that made him face the sky. One of his arms shot out and toward the building. A set of wires sprung from his knuckles and embedded in the side of the building before snapping taut a second later. With his panicking, pony cargo in hand, Sam rappelled down the side of the abandoned lab until his feet found purchase on the ground. He took a moment to look up to make sure he wasn’t being followed before sprinting to the waiting formation of guards in the empty lot.

“Hey, Cappy!” Sam called out with a smile, using a free hand to wave to the scowling captain, “You made it! I-”

“Stop!” Captain Aegis Flare ordered with a shout.

The wire conduit came skidding to a halt in front of the captain who, unsurprisingly, did not look as happy to see him. His usual stony faced frown was replaced with a scowl full of seething anger. Sam nervously chuckled, knowing all too well what that particular look meant, especially when it was directed at him.

“C-captain!” Twilight managed to catch her breath enough to address the royal guard before her.

The unicorn squirmed her way out of the wire conduit’s arms, having realized that she was still being carried embarrassingly in front of what looked like the entire castle guard. It took her a moment to find her footing, and even still, her legs were still shaking from the sudden rush of events that she was just put through. With everyone seemingly settled in for the moment, Aegis Flare took the opportunity to gain the much needed intel that Sam and Twilight must have had.

In a deep growl of a voice, he asked, “What happened?”

“Well, you see. You left, and I got bored-” “Sam ran in, and I got worried-”

On and on the two talked. Their words mixing in with each other so much that the captain had a hard time keeping up. Both explanations were getting Aegis Flare nowhere, since he could barely understand a word that was being said now. It got to the point that he grew too frustrated and shouted over them both.

“Enough!” the captain shouted with a flare of his wings. A set of jaws snapped shut, and the captain finally got a chance to process what he had heard. “Human, I thought I told you explicitly, that you were to wait for my return and not do anything foalish. Gah! I should have expected this from you. And you, Miss Sparkle, you were to keep him in line, not join him in his reckless behavior!”

The purple unicorn looked downtrodden while being chastised as she was. She knew that what she had done was, at best, dangerous. Now, she had to pay the consequences, in that being the harsh words being slung her way. She was interrupted from her self beratement when she saw a hand waving in front of her. Or more specifically, between her and the captain.

Sam’s interruption was coupled by his words that he threw in defense of the purple unicorn, “Hold on now, Cappy. I went in there first and asked Sparks to stay behind. Granted, she did come in after me, but if not for her, that bastard unicorn we’ve been hunting for would have been carving me up like Freddy Krueger.”

Aegis Flare actually did take notice to the minute spots of deeper red that seeped into the human’s shirt and pants, not something that he was used to seeing on the human, especially with his boastful reminders of his ‘healing factor’. It did give the captain pause for a moment and elicit a bit of sympathy for what must have happened to the human while he was gone.

“Which reminds me... this place? Yeah, we’ve got the right place for the guy and his lackies,” With a bit more seriousness, Sam gave the long and short of their story to captain. “Viz is on the third floor, same room as that window we came out of. Sparks knocked him out cold so we could escape. The griffon was up there, too, but we blocked the room, and he was still trying to get in when we got out. Unicorns are either on the second or third floor. If we hurry, we can take them before they have a chance to split.”

Aegis Flare seemed genuinely surprised by the concise briefing the human gave him on the situation. It made sense though. He tended to get serious when the times called for it.

The captain took another moment to process this info before lightening his scowl, “Hmm, right. We already have the area cordoned off. This platoon is meant for the raid, so this info is helpful. Don’t think you’re off the hook yet, Human.”

The tiny smile on Sam’s face devolved into a cringe, and he was left to just scratch the back of his head bashfully.

Turning to face Twilight fully, the captain bowed his head in apology, “I’m sorry, Miss Sparkle for the misassumption. Now, I’m sure Princess Celestia will be glad to know you are safe. Human, escort Miss Sparkle to a safe location outside the perimeter so she may return to the castle. Then, you’ll be back with me for the raid.” The captain looked to his side at the saddlebag strapped under his wing. “Unfortunately, we only have the first prototype of the ‘Suppresion Collar’ on hoof, since more are still being developed, and we’ll need your help to subdue the assailants.”

“What?” Twilight choked in bafflement.

She, at first, felt glad that the captain had apologized to her after Sam’s defense, and even though she was still trembling from the events she just went through, she was eager to put herself to use at her friend’s side as she expected once they made their escape. She had even started anticipating her possible roles in this raid, and the possible ways that she could be of use.

“Roger that, Cappy,” Sam answered the captain’s order with a mock salute, “Come on, Sparks. Let’s get you out of here.”

Many of the guards were gearing up and spreading out in what could only be a preplanned pattern of attack, alongside their captain who was barking orders. This gave Twilight and Sam a moment to speak amongst themselves.

“Sam, please! I want to help,” Twilight pleaded her case to stay.

Sam shook his head and started to guide the reluctant unicorn farther away from the abandoned lab, “Sparks, you’ve already done your part, and more.”

“But I can still help!”

Sam blocked the purple unicorn from getting around him and back toward the abandoned lab with all the encroaching guards surrounding it, gently leading her away, and careful to check over his shoulder for any signs of action about to break out. Sam leveled his pony friend with another serious look as he chose his next words.

“Sparks, we talked about this. And, as grateful as I am that you ignored me the last time, I can’t let you get in on this part. These guys already know we’re here now, and they won’t be fucking around once we charge in.”

“B-but, I can…,” Twilight tried to come up with a valid excuse that would keep her here, but nothing was coming to mind.

Sam encircled an arm around the unicorn’s neck in a one-armed hug and fixed her with a caring expression, “They have guns, Sparks. You remember what I told you about them, right?”

A resigned nod was her only response. A feeling of resignation for the inevitable was slowly taking hold of Twilight.

“They got those and their conduit powers. A far too dangerous combo, even in my book,” Sam’s expression softened, and he began to scratch the sweet spot behind Twilight’s ear, soothing her further, “Listen, I love how gungho you are to wanna help, but like I said, you’ve already done enough. Just leave the rest to me and Cappy, and we’ll have these guys rounded up in no time.”

Disheartened by the fact that she was no longer needed, Twilight moped. Though, she had to admit that Sam was right. She’d end up being more of a hindrance than an asset for the real fight. Her sneak attack on the madpony, Visionary Dusk, was honestly just that; a lucky hit. And she had acted more in the moment than anything. For her to truly want to harm another pony, no matter what they’ve done, made her hesitate. She knew that hesitation would not do her well for what was about to happen. With a sigh of resignation, Twilight bowed her head in acceptance to the truth. Sam offered a sympathetic smile and a quick scratch behind the ears in return.

A commotion suddenly broke out behind the two, making them turn in the direction of the abandoned lab and the formation of guards steadily marching toward the building. With Aegis Flare at the lead, the guards moved in from all sides and even the skies, closing the encirclement til they were mere feet away from the building.

Battlemages stood ready with their horns aglow, waiting to unleash a swift volley of retaliation on anything that tried to break their ranks. In front of the them, all assortment of weaponry were gripped tightly in the advancing guards’ hooves, from shields, swords, to spears aplenty. Above, pegasi kept their flying patterns tight, seeming unhindered even by the heavy armor they wore on their hides.

The plan was simple: enter from all entry points, run the assailants down until they were pushed into a corner, and leave not even a hair to slip through their ranks. A simple plan it was, and a plan that would soon be put to the test on its effectiveness. For as the guards found themselves right on top of the building, a strange noise filled the air. Aegis Flare called for a halt and waited alongside the other guards to see where these mysterious noises were coming from.

Something suddenly caught the attention of the guards from the building, as a sort of fissure split the ground in front of it. The fissure grew larger and seemed to spread out along the entire perimeter of the abandoned lab. The ground rumbled, and before their very eyes, thick plates made out of dull, gray concrete arose from the earth. The rocky material grew larger and covered the surface of the building like a fungus.

If the Captain or the rest of the guards had any doubts about them being in the right place, this wiped away those lingering thoughts. By the time the guards recovered from the terrifying sight, the concrete shroud was slowing down. Its uneven edges all across its surface boasted its haste from its construction, but was no less an impressive shell of protection it was erected as.

“Battlemages!” Aegis Flare raised his hoof as he readied his command, “Bring down those walls!”

Every Battlemage on the field let their horns flare even brighter as they unleashed the destructive power of their magic. The volley of concentrated offensive magic collided with the surface of the concrete from all sides, but when the dust cleared, there was hardly a scratch on the impressive walls.

‘Magic resistant. Of course,’ Aegis Flare growled out in his mind. He turned to a quartet of messengers behind him and pointed to them as he issued his next commands, “Check with the rest of the squads around the building. I suspect they’ve encountered similar results. Have them hold their positions and wait for further instruction.”

The four messengers saluted and either took to the air or galloped off around the outside of the perimeter to do as ordered. Meanwhile, Sam and Twilight had been watching from a distance when the wire conduit leaned back down to his unicorn friend.

“That’s our cues, Sparks,” Sam said with a cocky grin before tapping the top of the unicorn’s head with his palm, “Get back to the castle safe.”

Twilight did her best to put on a brave face, but her eyes betrayed her feelings of concern, “Sam, j-just make sure you’re the one who stays safe.”

Sam stood back up to full height and crossed his arms, putting on his most confident grin for the unicorn, “Come on, Sparks. This is ‘me’ we’re talking about! I’ll be fine, and we’ll have this wrapped up before you even have a chance to grab your note cards for our next magic lesson.”

The boastful promise did what it was meant and gave Twilight the peace of mind for her friend’s safety. She turned to leave from the site, but not before peeking back over her shoulder one last time. It surprised her to see Sam doing the same, but that cocky smile of his was still there. He gave her one last wave of farewell before running off to join the guards. Twilight’s hooves moved slowly at first, but as she took more steps in the opposite direction, her pace picked up into a gallop.

With the area growing less industrial and more residential, Twilight was able to see just exactly where she was in the city. She was right in her assumption that their trek through the sewers had led them to the lower ring of Canterlot, and she could just barely see the very tips of the tallest spires from the castle now.

As more and more ponies could be seen on the streets, whispers of the guards march in the opposite direction were buzzing in the air. They knew not what it specifically meant, but they gave thanks that they weren’t the ones having to deal with whatever had roused such a response. It stung Twilight, even if the whispers were not directed at her, and she felt ashamed for her inability to help any more than she had so far, which in turn left the purple unicorn with a depressed expression on her face.

Twilight’s eyes lit up as she remembered something that the Captain had said earlier. They only had the prototype of the ‘Suppression Collar’ they had been working on as a means to combat the concrete wielding assailants. There was still a way she could make herself useful after all. It may not be much, but she needed to return to the castle immediately. She wanted- No, needed to ensure these other ‘Suppression Collars’ were completed. With a goal in mind, Twilight’s resolve bloomed, and her horn flared up with arcane energy even as she kept running. In a bright flash of purple light that startled a few of the city’s residents, Twilight teleported the rest of the way to the castle and the Royal Research Lab where she could work.

--o0o--

Visionary Dusk had a splitting headache when he became conscious again. A major inconvenience, seeing as he was right in the middle of a crucial project. It wasn’t lost on him that he had somehow found his way onto the floor of his lab with the feeling of something warm and liquid dripping into the fur from the side of his head. He groaned as he tried to get the rest of his faculties under order.

“Doc!”

His hearing was coming back now, and an annoying buzz was grating against his ears. It sounded like somepony trying to say something. It mustn’t be very important, at least, not as important as what he was working on. In fact, he had to get up now. No matter how long it’s been, his research has gone unattended while he was out, not something he would take too kindly to when he found out the source of the interruption.

“Doc! We need to leave, now!”

Leave? While he was in the middle of his research? That would be preposterous. Here he was, with the most valuable specimen he has gotten his hooves on, and somepony wanted him to just up and leave?!

First, he needed to get his wits about him. So, he slowly shuffled his hooves until they were underneath him. Next, he pushed his body off the ground, a bit too fast, as his head gave a terrible throb for his efforts. In any case, Visionary Dusk was officially back on his hooves. With one hoof, he rubbed the side of his head that hurt him more which caused him to hiss in pain. His eyes blearily opened, and when he was able to see, he found that his hoof was covered in blood.

“Alright, Doc, you’ve had your fun,” the voice that spoke to him earlier grumbled angrily, “Now, it’s time to leave. Get your shit together and be ready. I’ve already secured the escape route.”

Visionary Dusk scowled in the direction of the one who thought he could talk down to him. This previously unknown character turned out to be one of his mercenaries. Specifically, Aras, the griffon. The glowering unicorn should have known. The griffon always did like to interrupt his work at the most crucial times.

“I don’t recall you having any say in when we leave, griffon,” Visionary Dusk growled venomously.

Aras clenched his beak so hard that it felt like it would’ve cracked, “Ok, then you might want to know that in the time that you were ‘out’, that thing that I said about the royal guard following us? They now have the entire building surrounded!”

Visionary Dusk wanted to be more mad about the situation at hoof, but the dizziness in his head kept him from reaching a breaking point, “Worthless idiots! You and the rest of your crew! I’ve given you every opportunity to succeed, and you let it all go to waste!”

The shout was accompanied by a painful cringe from the bellowing unicorn. Aras only got a mild twinge of satisfaction out of the reaction, but overall, he was becoming fed up with it. When the unicorn was able to stand somewhat steadily again, he slicked back his oily, bloodied mane to try and regain his calm.

“...Fine, grab the subject, and be ready. I’ve almost completed my-”

“You don’t have a subject, Doc,” the griffon interrupted the unicorn.

The words were there, and Visionary Dusk did hear them. However, to hear such a claim made for a very unintelligent joke in his opinion. He was about to correct the griffon on his ill-considered words, when he turned to check on the condition of his precious subject that he had been working on, only to discover, to his great horror, that the examination table was empty, and the suppression cuffs were lying worthlessly on the ground.

“What?” Visionary Dusk mouthed, flabbergasted, soon to be replaced by a seething rage and caused his head feel like it was about explode with pain that he couldn’t care less about, “What happened to my subject?!”

“He escaped,” Aras snorted and was soon made the focus of the unicorn’s ire.

He might have burst a blood vessel at this point, but Visionary Dusk wouldn’t care either way, “How? How did this happen?!”

Aras snorted again and quickly explained, “Does it matter? I warned you, Doc. Hiding here was a bad idea from the start. Then, when that ‘human’ showed up, you wanted us to capture it, instead of killing it like we should have done in the first place! I hope that that unicorn that brained you finally knocked some sense into your thick skull!”

Visionary Dusk’s eyes widened in shock. Though, not from the griffon’s attitude and aggressive stance, but what he said. Somepony had interrupted his research, stole his vital subject, and cost him his valuable time… an egregious offense that he would not stand for, not when he was this close.

All the while, Aras watched as the unicorn before him seemed to be on the verge of a mental breakdown. It would have been more satisfying were it not for what little time they had before the royal guards made their move. His own unicorn companions were watching from the floor below through some boarded up windows on the guards’ movements. They’ve been setting up an encirclement, which meant they didn’t have much time before they started to close the loop.

Wasting no more time, Aras tapped his claws on the ground a few times to get the unicorn’s attention, “You can worry about your silly research later, Doc. Right now, we need to go.”

Aras turned on his heel and was starting to leave with he heard a low growl emanate from behind him.

“No.”

Confused, Aras turned around once more. There, he saw Visionary Dusk. No longer fuming and lashing out, but that white, hot rage was still in his eyes.

“We are not leaving,” the unicorn stated in dark tone. He paced about the room, ears folded back, but never once let his enraged eyes fall away from the griffon, “I’ve waited for years for this day to come. I am about to make history, and I’ll be damned if I have to waste another minute with everypony else’s ineptitude.”

A chiming sound broke the two’s focus from each other. Visionary Dusk trotted slowly over to the ‘Conduitic Infuser’, where the device had just finished synthesizing its latest batch. The unicorn popped the side panel open and was presented with his prize. The vial was filled with a much larger quantity of the translucent mix of glowing, amethyst fluid. He was both in awe and curious of the wonderful concoction he had created. So much so, that almost everything else had lost his attention.

“Looks like you at least got something out of this,” Aras snidely remarked, “Now, am I gonna have to drag your pony ass out of here, or are you gonna finally see some sense?”

Visionary Dusk narrowed his eyes at the griffon before him, “You do not get to order me around!”

Aras clicked his beak in anger and flared his wings, “Fine then. We’ll just re-discuss the terms of our contract once we’re free of this forsaken place.”

Just as the griffon took an advancing step, Visionary Dusk stomped his hooves in retaliation, too angry to get any more words out. He was so close, he could almost taste it, and this hybrid freak wanted to ruin that. All he needed now was the perfect subject to finally realize his life’s purpose. Though, that wouldn’t matter if everyone else wanted to interrupt him every time he was making progress. Then, he spotted something just behind the griffon, amongst the pile of destroyed furniture and web of wires that was once stacked against the door and barred entry.

Using his magic, he grabbed the container that he spotted and had miraculously survived all the apparent damage. Inside were more vials filled with liquid, only these ones were sickly-yellow in color and did not have same vibrant glow of the amethyst vial in the unicorn’s contraption behind him.

Aras instantly recognized these vials. They were the ones he and his crew were given on a regular basis to use their special powers. He was going to grab them on the way out after the unicorn since he saw them, but it seemed that Visionary Dusk was already ahead of him and might actually be thinking about more than his precious ego. At least, that’s what the griffon thought at first, when all of a sudden the unicorn’s horn before him flashed brighter and with it, the vials were gone.

“What have you done?!” Aras shouted, both confused and irritated.

Visionary Dusk brushed another hoof through his mane, but the strands of hair just fell right back in his face. He didn’t care though. It was just a habit, “Mind your place, hybrid. You and your crew will not survive without regular doses of the ‘beta serum’.”

“Where. Are. They?” Aras growled, taking an intimidating step toward the unicorn with each word.

The unicorn was right. Without that serum, he and the rest of his crew would suffer the same fate as their pegasus friend. With them gone, it was only a matter of time. Time that they simply did not have to stand around arguing about.

“That is not the issue here. We are staying right here until my research is complete,” Visionary Dusk answered calmly.

“Fine then,” Aras gave up and took another step toward the unicorn, “We’ll discuss where those vials are after I drag you out of here.”

Even though Visionary Dusk took a step back, he didn’t seem all that worried, but offended, “Do not touch me! I’ve sent them away to a place only I know of. So, let’s say you ‘drag me out of here’. Do you think you could survive long enough to do whatever it is you think you can do to me to get those vials back?”

Aras hesitated only for a split second, and that was all Visionary Dusk needed. He took his advantage.

With a step forward of his own, Visionary Dusk got up in the griffon’s face, “I’m willing to allow this bout of insubordination go, but you will remember your place! Though, you shouldn’t have worried to begin with. I have already found the answer I need to have my legacy validated for all time.”

The haughty unicorn strode past the griffon before shuffling through the wreckage of his equipment to find something. Aras got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, but before he could raise his objection, Visionary Dusk hummed in satisfaction. From the wreckage, he pulled a single, intact syringe with his magic and levitated it by his side.

Returning to the other side of the room with the syringe in his grasp, Visionary Dusk spoke, “Get your ‘boys’ and fend off the nuisances outside for the time being. I’ll only need a few minutes before I’m ready.”

Aras didn’t like how icy the unicorn’s words were coming from him, but with so very few options, he had to make a choice. He could feel his last dose of serum was wearing off, their weapons’ ammo was running out, and they had the entire city’s royal guard bearing down on them. The griffon made his choice based on the gamble of the choice that seemed to offer him and his friends the best chance of survival. He didn’t like it, but he prepared to head out and get his crew together to tell them that they were about to make one last stand.

Though before leaving the room, the griffon asked one final question of the madpony before him, “What exactly do you plan to do?”

Without even looking back from his work at the only table not overturned, Visionary Dusk replied simply, “What I should have done from the start, with the only pony I trust to handle this.”

Not wanting to waste any more time pondering such cryptic words, Aras left to grab his gear and inform his crew. Meanwhile, Visionary Dusk retrieved the vial from the ‘Conduitic Infuser’ whilst he finished sanitizing the syringe in his magical glow. Taking the vial in hoof, he plunged the needle of the syringe into the vial’s top. The plunger pulled back and extracted the amethyst fluid from the container until the syringe was full. Tossing the useless, empty vial off to the side, it shattered on the ground while the unicorn’s focus remained on the syringe in his magic. His magic carefully gripped the edges of the syringe’s base, where the fluid’s effects wouldn’t hinder his magic and then probed his left foreleg for a vein. Knowing his own body well, it was in short order that he found such a vein and hurriedly jabbed the needle into his leg. The plunger on the syringe pressed down and sent the glowing liquid straight into the unicorn’s body. As the last drop was injected into himself, Visionary Dusk tossed the useless syringe away as well.

It felt cold at first, the serum quickly making its way through his system until it came back to his heart. The tingling coolness started to evaporate, and the conceited unicorn almost frowned at the lack of reaction. That frown lasted little more than a moment, as suddenly, Visionary Dusk doubled over onto the ground. It happened almost instantly, and it felt like every cell in his body was on fire. Grinding his teeth, he tried to stand up, but every movement he made only sent another surge of pain through his entire system. Through the haze of agony, he spotted something next to him on the ground; his tape recorder.

He tried to reach out for it with his magic, but the moment he attempted that, it felt like a metal wedge had pierced his brain, straight through his horn. He would have been screaming if he wasn’t already choking on his own breath. With shaky, scraping hooves, he reached out and bat at the little plastic device just out of his reach. Not one to be deterred, the unicorn edged closer through the painful spasms his body racked him with. Finally, his hoof found purchase and slid the recording device closer to himself. His vision was blurry, and every accelerated beat of his pounding heart was just another wave of pain in the world of suffering he was now in.

Despite all this, and after futilely scraping at the device on the ground for what felt like an eternity, he felt his hoof finally hit the one button he desperately wanted.

The recorder spooled on and Visionary Dusk began his dictation, “L-log day 1-193-B. I’ve d-done it, argh! With only one pony-ugh, pony in this world I tr-trust. I, V-Visionary Dusk, am about to v-verify the-mmmmgh, conclusion of my research! T-to say that it should haaaaave been obvious w-who I should have directed the final product toward. Aggh! Is an understatement! I-I will be Equestria’s f-first conduit, and p-aaAAAH, Buck! Prove that my research was more important than a-anypony imagined! E-especially… Especially to that false god, C-Celestia!”

Without even realizing it, Visionary Dusk’s hoof slammed down on the diminutive device, shattering it to pieces. His eyes had been squeezed tight for nearly the entire time of his speech, but something inside of him changed. He was still in agony, but there was yet another feeling boiling beneath the surface. A haze of discoloration distorted the air around Dusk in a way that made it look as if it were exuding from the unicorn’s body itself. With a deep gasp of air, his eyes suddenly shot open, and though they saw nothing, just on the edges of his sclera, a smoky blackness crept inward.

--o0o--

Gunshots rang out, and their accompanying muzzle flashes shone brightly from splits made in the concrete covering the building. The jagged barriers of concrete left almost nothing to be seen of the abandoned lab behind, except for the three slots carved out of its face at the front to allow the mercenaries to fire upon the guards below. Luckily, the lot, with all its scrap, and the armored wagons the guards used to bring their equipment in, made for robust shields against the sporadic hail of bullets.

From the cover of these makeshift shields, Captain Aegis Flare and the rest of the guards returned fire with arrows, spears, and spells. Yet, they were wholly ineffective against the hard concrete and could merely only chip away at the surface, unlike the mercenaries’ bullets that occasionally pierced the various cover. It was a miracle that nopony that had been hit were mortally wounded so far, but there a few close calls they did have that were evacuated and left the guards’ resolve waning. The only one who seemed to be having any sort of luck, or more accurately, could take the abuse and keep fighting was the human conduit known as Samuel Reed. That didn’t mean his methods were having much luck in breaking through the barrier.

Said conduit was actually in retreat after lobbing a couple of tripwire grenades in the direction of the shooters’ windows. There was a short lull after the assailants moved away from the windows and the exploding tangles of wire before they were back at it again. A bullet narrowly grazed the human on his forearm as he flipped over an armored wagon to hide behind. The sting of pain was already gone, along with the wound, by the time he pressed his back up against the overturned wagon. He turned his head to the side to find just who he was looking for among the chaotic battlefield.

“Hey, Cappy!” Sam smiled before ducking from a bullet pinging off the top of the armored wagon, “So, yeah. I’ve got nothing on how to get past this shell they put up. And those ‘windows’ are just too narrow for me to shoot through and put those assholes down while dodging. If Lu or Natie were here, they could have blasted the place open by now.”

Seeing how even their little ‘ace-up-their-sleeve’ couldn’t get past the concrete shell, the captain clenched his jaw in concentration to come up with a new plan. Peeking down the line of cover at all the other ponies that recoiled from the superior firepower, his mind raced to find a means to put a stop to this battle before one of his guards died.

Intermediately, one of those ponies would pop up and either fire off a combative spell, shoot an arrow, or huck a spear before the rain of bullets came zeroing in on their position, forcing them back down into cover if they were lucky. If they weren’t, a spray of blood and a cry of pain was what they got as another round tore through their bodies. One such case was when a pony was on the unfortunate receiving end of a double shot to the gut and throat. The scream didn’t come from him, but from another guardspony that now tried to stem the bleeding cavities with her hooves and cried for someone else’s help.

The captain wasted no time in calling out, “Human!”

“On it!”

Sam rushed to the poor stallion’s side, cradling the convulsing pony in his arms while he directed a few others to help him out. While the other guards held their brother-in-arms steady, Sam threaded a small number of wires into the stallion’s wounds. Neither pleasant to watch nor experience, if the stallion’s expression was to go by, Sam worked his magic regardless, and before long, the pony was able to gasp a relieved breath of air through his repaired windpipe. The pony was left shaken, but alive, and offered his thanks to the conduit that saved his life along with the companions by his side. Sam was only able to give a quick wave in return before he vaulted over the safety of their cover to take another run at the impenetrable, concrete walls and draw the attacks on him for a bit.

Captain Aegis Flare was no doubt appreciative of the human’s assistance in this battle, but their true objective of penetrating the foe’s defenses still laid outside their reach. He needed to turn the tide of this battle soon, and that was made even more apparent as the human made another vault over the cover of his armored wagon to sit beside him once more. The human was panting heavily, and he seemed to have taken a few more hits, if the multiple bullet holes in his body were anything to go by. They healed no problem, but Aegis Flare didn’t want this fight to play out as a war of attrition at the human’s expense.

“Are you holding up, Human?” Aegis Flare asked with a tinge of worry.

Sam smiled and held a thumbs-up to respond, “Please, a few holes in the chest ain’t enough to slow this badass down.”

The captain begged to differ. The facade the human was putting on was not full proof in the slightest, and the captain could tell that he was getting tired. Turning to the the other side, he signaled a unicorn beside him. The unicorn understood and lit up his horn. Further down the line of cover, a box, half the size of a pony, floated in the unicorn’s telekinetic grasp closer to the pony pair and the conduit. It dropped at the conduit’s feet, and Sam gasped in astonishment at what he found inside. Neatly packed into the box was a pair spools copiously wrapped in wires of both the regular and thaumium variety.

“Ah, Cappy, you shouldn’t have~!” Sam clapped his hands together in glee.

“This isn’t the time for jokes, Human,” Aegis Flare chided, “In any case, this also isn’t the time to worry about your regulations.”

Sam hummed in agreement as he absorbed the wires from the spools with each hand. It may have only been just enough to bring him up to full power, but that didn’t cheapen the feeling. His original bounce of energy returned with his trademark smirk. Though, he was stopped from taking another charge over their cover by Aegis Flare’s raised hoof.

“Can you take down the concrete now?” Aegis Flare inquired hopefully.

Sam let out a sigh and sat back down with his back to the cover again, “Sorry, but that stuff is tough, even for me. Like I said, a couple of my other friends back from Memphis could do it, no problem. I just don’t have a skill to tear that stuff down in one shot.”

The captain pondered the conduit’s words before lighting up with an idea, “What about the sewer tunnels? Back when we first starting investigating the assailants’ trail?”

Sam shook his head, “I’ve been taking shots at this place for a while now, and this stuff is a bit thicker than that. Besides, I had to pierce the cracks in that sewer entrance wall and basically rip it apart, piece by piece. That took a bit of time, remember? I could do that here, but I’d need to get in close, hook the right spots. If those D.U.P. wannabes practice turning me into swiss cheese while I’m at it, even I’ll go down for the count.”

The captain grunted in frustration in realizing the flaws in his working plan. He knew that this could be their best shot, but to sacrifice even the human’s life was not an option. Then, another idea came to the captain. A simple solution to the plan.

Pointing to the unicorn beside him, he laid out his orders, “Grab two more battlemages and meet back here. Be sure you all bring back the largest thing you can comfortably levitate and sturdy enough to use as a shield.” The unicorn Battlemage saluted and shuffled down behind the cover to find his quarry while the captain turned back to the human. “I’m going to have you tear down that wall just like back at the sewers. Don’t worry, human. You’ll have plenty of cover from my guards while you’re doing it, but I have one question. Can you tear a hole large enough to expose all three of the assailants at once?”

Sam smiled deviously as he replied with a snark, “Not a problem, Cappy. That hole will be so wide, the Pride Parade would be proud.”

Although Aegis Flare didn’t know what a ‘Pride Parade’ was, the way that human said it made him only hope that the human didn’t mean for it to sound like an obscene joke. The trio of Battlemages were beside them now, ducked behind the adjacent cover of another armored wagon and nodded to show their readiness. Aegis Flare nodded back, spying the thick pieces of debris and even an armored wagon in their magical grasps, floating beside them. Then, he focused his gaze on the conduit awaiting his instructions beside him.

“Even with their protection, the assailants seem to be using caution and ducking into cover when fired upon,” Aegis Flare began to lay out his fully formed plan, “When I give the signal, you’ll charge on their position and tear down their cover. You’ll have plenty of cover yourself as we suppress the assailants, and just in case, these Battlemages will levitate their cover to block any retaliation in front of you.”

Sam smiled at this plan, mostly because he didn’t have one to begin with.

“Are you ready?” the captain asked.

Sam was, and gave a thumbs-up to the captain and the Battlemages by his side. Their confident nods in return was all that was needed to be said and understood as Aegis Flare spread his wings wide. Sam pushed his back away from the cover and faced it in a one-kneed crouch, in a way that readied a leap over the protective barrier.

Aegis Flare’s ears twitched as he listened to the sounds of battle, waiting for the perfect moment. The roaring bursts of gunfire came in its patterns of twos’ and threes’, pinging off what cover the guards had. For a few more seconds, they continued, with a few clamors of returned fire from the guards’ spells and arrows. One final round pinged off the armored cart that the Captain and the conduit hid behind, and then they were drowned out by the din of return fire and battlecries.

“Go!” the captain ordered and took wing.

Sam was already over the cart by the time the Captain was rallying his fellow, scattered guards across the battlefield. The wire conduit made it a quarter of the way to the building as the combined bombardment of pony armaments flew over his head to crash against the concrete walls. With every ounce of his strength, Sam pumped his legs to further his sprint and make it to his position.

A mere ten feet from the foot of the abandoned lab, the wire conduit dug his heels into the dirt and ground himself to a halt. In all that time, he had also been focusing his energy. Wires slithered up and down the lengths of his arms, like snakes preparing to lash and strike. Thrusting his arms up and out, Sam let the wires do just that.

The metallic strands joined the hail of arrows, spears, and spellcraft, but unlike them that all but scratched the surface of the concrete around the openings the assailants fired from, his wires, with precision aiming, found their way through the minute openings and latched around their edges from the inside.

Sam whooped for joy, but he wasn’t done yet. Pulling back, the wires snapped taunt and the conduit strained against the seemingly insurmountable task he was given. He gasped in surprise when a trio of levitating shield-like objects floated into place amid his wires, but knew their purpose. He was grateful for them too, as even with the suppression, he still found himself the target of the assailants’ gunfire. Most ricocheted off the barriers, but a few still found their marks. However, the conduit did not give up, gritting his teeth against the blows. Concentrating a bit more, he shot a few wires from his feet into the ground, shoring up his footing and allowing him to heave against the concrete even harder.

Sam psyched himself up with a warcry and pulled with all his strength. The concrete had reached its limits and cracked. The fissures grew wider and chunks of the previously impenetrable wall were giving way. With one final burst of effort, Sam wrenched his whole body back, and with it, a good portion of the concrete barrier came with him. Rolling out of the way of the falling debris, Sam stood triumphantly over his work.

It wasn’t his intent, but he had somehow managed to rip not only the portion of cover the assailants were firing from, but both the building’s wall and lower section, too. It seemed that the building’s structural integrity had severely diminished after years of neglect, and the floor from the second floor had caved in, dropping everything from above, which included a trio of D.U.P. armor clad assailants clumsily digging themselves out of the wreckage.

The royal guards had already rushed forward past Sam, and surrounded the criminals by the time the wire conduit was back on his feet. Aegis Flare was at his side as they joined the rest of the guards. The assailants seemed sluggish, but Sam wasted no time. The captain didn’t even see it coming as Sam snaked a wire under his wing and into the saddlebag at his side. The wire came free, having fished the prototype ‘Suppression Collar’ right out from under him and left the captain paralyzed in surprise while Sam blew past the circle of guards toward the assailants.

“Human, stop!” Aegis Flare called out, afraid for what the conduit might do.

Nopony was fast enough to stop him, and before the assailants even had a chance to react, Sam was upon them. Wires ensnared the three as they cried out. The griffon was the only one that was able to recover enough to try and lash out. Though, before even a flake of concrete could be conjured to his outstretched claw, a collar in one of Sam’s wires snapped shut around his neck and left the griffon stunned in confusion. By the time Sam was done, the three looked like a bunch of flies caught in the metallic webs of a spider. They struggled futilely as the bindings held tight.

Sam finally felt like he could breathe, and let out a sigh of relief as he wiped the sweat from his brow. Though he found it odd that out of the group, the griffon and one of the unicorns whose helmets must have fallen off in the fall specifically, they seemed strangely out of breath. He heard the beating of wings come closer, and soon, Captain Aegis Flare was beside him. They stared at each other and then over the trio of wheezing assailants a silent question was left hanging in the air.

Sam was already ahead of him with his explanation, “Hey, you did say that you’ve only got the prototype collar with ya. This should at least hold the rest of them until you’ve got more ready.”

“...Good work, Human,” the captain offered a bit of praise, “I hate to admit it, but I almost expected you would want to do more than restrain them.”

“What?! How could you think so low of me, Cappy? After everything we’ve been through...” Sam gasped in mock indignation before smirking in his usual manner, “Besides, it’ll be so much more fun to gloat over these D.U.P. wannabes when they’re behind bars.”

Their little victory was short lived as the bound unicorns started to cough profusely. The one without his helmet started to look pale, his eyes starting to bug out in shock. His face contorted pain, and if his fellow unicorn’s hunched over groans were any indication, he was suffering just as much, if not more. The coughs escalated into hacking wheezes, and the duo convulsed on the ground.

“What the hell’s going on?!” Sam looked on in dismay.

The griffon leaned up, somewhat surprised himself and looking a tiny bit better than before. Sam, Captain Aegis Flare, and the rest of the guards tensed at his actions.

“P-please,” he begged, “Save them! That serum that gave us these powers. I don’t know why I’m not like them yet, but the Doc said it’d kill us. We had no choice!”

Guards surged forth to assess the criminals’ vitals. The task was made difficult, as whatever was affecting them was worsening by the second, the griffon screeching for them to do more. Memories surfaced to the captain’s mind, and a sense of dread filled him from what he was reminded of.

He had seen this before, weeks ago when these assailants first attacked the throne room and their fellow member, the pegasus, was afflicted with this similar condition. Sam rushed forward from his side, to offer his help. The captain was hopeful that the human’s healing abilities would be what they needed here. However, that hope died out immediately when the wire conduit made to do just that with a set of wires, but backed away in alarm when he seemed to have failed and the assailants continued to writhe in agony.

“Cappy, what do I do?!” Sam asked.

Aegis Flare was at a loss, they never did find out why this happened to the first pegasus, and were left with nothing else to go on. Guardsponies with medical training did what they could, but nothing seemed to be working. If this continued, Aegis Flare was afraid that this would end similarly to that first encounter.

“Captain, a message from the castle!” a pegasus guard sped onto the scene.

The captain, no matter how much he wished he could put this on hold, turned to engage the messenger as he landed and galloped up to him. He saluted and reached for the saddlebag tucked under his wing at his side. It was no shocker that the captain’s expression was one of surprise for what was in the guard’s hoof. Three ring like objects, roughly the size of a similar one resting around the griffon’s neck who was desperately trying to comfort his friends from his bound position..

“Miss Sparkle and the royal research team were able to get them finished. Miss Sparkle’s explanation was...confusing, but she mentioned how the collars’ ‘shut off’ the conduit radiation? I’m not sure what she meant, but she was still rattling on by the time I left.”

Aegis Flare was no expert on the matter, but the human always rattled on about whatever when they were together. Among those things, one particular comment came to the surface of his mind. This ‘conduit radiation’ is what gave him his powers or powered them; it had to be one or the other. By what the griffon said at the serum, it had to be more than a coincidence, no matter how large the leap in logic.

Swiping two of the collars from the other guard, the captain flapped his wings hard enough to clear the distance back to the commotion behind him in one bound. He shouted for the others to ‘clear the way’, and before anyone could ask what he was doing, he snapped a collar around the necks of each of the ailing unicorns. It was subtle at first, but soon, their seizure like attacks died down and their breathing became easier. Sam, the griffon, and the rest of the guards looked on in surprise, and a sense of relief washed over the area. It wasn’t long after that that the two unicorns settled down and looked on around themselves with confused, tired gazes.

“B-boss?” the unicorn without his helmet turned to the griffon, “What happened?”

The griffon just looked on in amazement from his fellow assailants to the captain.

“Hey, Cappy? What did you do?” Sam leaned down next to the captain, trying to figure out what just happened at the same time.

Happy that this day would see proper justice, Aegis Flare readied to tell everyone what he theorized, but before he could, the building around them gave a terrible, groaning shutter.

“Everypony, evacuate the building!” the captain commanded, fearing the battle had taken a more severe toll on the structure than they had thought.

No one argued, and everyone, including the assailants who were carried out, did as the captain ordered. The groans and creaks from the building grew louder, and even the ground was starting to shake.

“Uh, Cappy? What is that?” Sam called out.

The captain skidded to a halt and turned around to see what the wire conduit sounded worried about. Everyone else who had turned to see what had drawn the other two’s attention slowly regarded the sight with unease.

“What has that bastard done?”

Sam and Aegis Flare turned to the griffon who had spoke from the back of another guard. He, too, was looking back at the building in alarm. They wanted to ask questions, but more sounds drew their attention back to the abandoned lab and the unsightly image of itself. From within the hole torn open from the previous fight, something was moving inside. No one could tell what it was, as its image stirred in the shadows. No, to put it more accurately, it wasn’t exactly lurking in the shadows, but the shadows themselves moved and twisted around it.

An unsettling arua exuded from this mass of blackness, and more of it seemed to seep out from the cavity of the abandoned lab, spilling into view for all to see. The concrete around the cavity cracked like brittle glass. It wasn’t much longer before more of the outer shell followed, and soon, the entire building’s exterior threatened to give way from whatever this black mass that grew inside it was. Anyone who looked upon this couldn’t help but tremble in uncertainty.

Even the wire conduit found himself backing away from the unnerving scene, “Cappy?”

Captain Aegis Flare had no idea what this ‘thing’ was, but him and everyone else was about to get a nasty surprise for the umpteenth time that day. The walls of concrete and the building underneath gave another unsettling groan. More and more of the shell broke and fell away from this black mass that grew as time went on, and from its murky depths, something else emerged. Two shining, coppery-yellow orbs floated into view from the largest hole in the front of the building. The sight unnerved everyone who looked at them, like they weren’t just a pair of floating objects, but a set of eyes peering back at them.

“FfffaAaaalllssEEEee GoooodDDdd!!!”

The voice they heard seemed to echo out from the mass in the building. Sam, the captain, and every other guard took their stances, even as the mounting fear building within them screamed for them to flee. Some wished that they had with what happened next. The abandoned lab, and even the entire ground, gave one last shudder. The concrete shell’s cracks finally gave way, and the whole building began to split open like an egg, giving birth to an unimaginable terror within. The black mass had appeared to fill every inch of the abandon lab’s interior, and with it free from its home, it grew even further.

“What is that thing?!” “It’s inequine!” “Is this the work of dark magic?!”

More of the guards spoke up to offer their differing opinion of the matter, but there was something they all agreed on in the back of their minds about this strange turn of events. They were all afraid of it.

Sam stood frozen as he watched the black, translucent mass take form. From a lump of pure blackness, tendrils slithered out from the main body. They at first thrashed and whipped about, like without purpose until their movements became more rigid. Four near the bottom reached for the ground and dug into the dirt, pushing the main body up like a set of legs. The fifth tendril filled out at the back, but took on a more wispy like state that fluttered in an unknown breeze. The glowing orbs from before traveled up the length of the forward most tendril and settled in a spot near the end.

Sam and Aegis Flare both baulked at the creature that was taking on a vaguely equine shape. A mane of the same wispy blackness as the tail extended out from the back of the creature neck and even fluttered about in the same fashion. The ‘head’, with its piercing, glowing eyes, split horizontally down the middle opening up its maw, and a haze of murky, black fog spilled forth. Eerily enough, this wasn’t the final addition. No, from the top of its head, a wickedly curved horn, refined to a point at its tip, shunted out and gave the whole creature the look of a demented, corrupt unicorn.

Everyone was too stunned to make the first move, which left the creature to lazily twist its ‘head’ from side to side, as if it were casually observing its surroundings. On its second pass, its gaze settled on something, but not on anything in the immediate area. Rather, off in the distance. Specifically, the royal castle nestled in the heart of the city. Its head dipped low before swooping forward and its maw opened wider to let loose an inequine screech that echoed all across the city. The screech seemed to do just the trick to snap the guards and wire conduit out of their fear induced paralysis, and they all had one thought in mind.

With a bellowing roar, the captain of the royal guard, Aegis Flare, took to the air in a winged charge, “Everypony, to arms!”

Every able bodied guard echoed their support with war cries and a stampede of thundering hooves. They all raced to meet their newest adversary that was slowly making its way out of the wreckage of the destroyed lab and in the direction of the castle. Even Sam ran forth, but was held up short when a voice called out to him.

“Wait!” the griffon mercenary shouted.

Sam only stopped due to the suddenness of the cry, but seeing who it had come from made him glare at the owner and almost turn back around and run off. The once great predator was now tied up in a tangle of wire restraints and hefted onto the back of an armored cart with his two companions. He glared back, but the fire in his eyes blew out faster than a candle in a blizzard. He looked sullen with the gaunt, tired expression he wore underneath, though Sam cared little for what he had to say if he was just biding time.

“Please, wait,” the griffon tried once more, “That...thing? The Doc, Visionary Dusk, he was the only one left in the building after you escaped. I think that’s him. He had this other serum he was working on, one that would make someone an ‘awakened conduit’. I think he used it on himself.”

The gruff tone was seeded with dread, and Sam had to do a double take just to figure out if what he heard was true. That bastard was a conduit now, but for the life of Sam, he couldn’t figure out what kind, as no other conduit he’s faced ever looked remotely like that. Still, a sense of dread latched onto him that reminded the wire conduit of the madpony with this same creature. When he looked back up at said creature, sure enough, he looked into that creature’s ‘eyes’, and he got the same chilling sensation he had from when he was made into a test subject for the lunatic back in the, now, decimated lab. His fists clenched up in anger, and the wire conduit was now sufficiently motivated to get some well deserved payback.

He suddenly groaned and faced the griffon with an annoyed roll of his eyes, “Let me guess. You want me to go easy on him? Or better yet, spare him?”

The griffon practically recoiled in disgust at the retort, “Absolutely not. He’s the one who twisted mine and my boys’ tails into serving him.” Then, a wicked grin found its way onto his beak. “I don’t care what you think of us mercenaries. We had our own reasons for taking this job. All I ask, is if you’ll give what’s coming to that bastard.”

Maybe it was the heat of the moment, but at the same time, Sam couldn’t find a single reason to disagree with the D.U.P. wannabe and gave him a thumbs-up with his trademark smirk. Wasting no more time, Sam dashed off to join the other ponies, who were doing their best to slow down the plodding mass of darkness in the guise of a giant, demented unicorn.

The wire conduit looked up and was shocked to note that said creature was already tearing through another building across the empty lot, like it was made of wet paper towels. Guards shouted out to pull back and wait for another opening after the debris cleared, and then the barrage of spells, arrows, and other weaponry converged again.

That wasn’t the only problem though. Through the chaos, Sam could hear screams. Screams that came from the city’s citizens that by now had no doubt saw the giant tearing through their homes and livelihoods. Sam rushed forth and scanned the area to find the one guard that was no doubt bravely leading the futile effort. His gaze locked onto a flock of pegasi whizzing back and forth around the dark giant’s head. At their head was the distinct, polished glow only the captain he knew would keep his armor at.

Sam needed a way to catch his attention. Never stopping in his run, the wire conduit sprinted past the now destroyed building the giant knocked down and to the next sets of buildings across the street. Sam took notice of a few civilian ponies being directed through the streets by a couple guards and was coming to realize that if this kept up, they would hit more densely populated areas sooner rather than later.

In one swift movement, the wire conduit shot a wire grapple up to catch the top of the next building he was running towards and ran up its walls while using the wires to pull himself up. Clearing the roof’s edge, he sprinted to the other side and turned back to the giant and started calling out. His hollering and arm waving was just enough to catch the pegasi’s attention above, and one of them broke off to fly down toward him.

Captain Aegis Flare dove to the conduit’s side, flaring his wings at the last second to catch himself just above the roof’s surface and landing. Sam wanted to say he was glad to see that he was doing alright, but the grimace on the captain’s face made the conduit very worried.

“We can’t stop it, Human,” the captain said, “Spears, swords, and arrows seem to pass right through it, like it’s made of black mist. And while spells can touch it, they don’t seem to do a thing.”

This wasn’t what Sam had been hoping to hear. Regardless, he quickly strided over to the side of the building to assess the situation for himself. Just as the captain had told, he watched as the ponies carefully weaved between the hulking giant’s hooves, slashing and stabbing at the creature with their bladed weapons. Though every time they did, the limb they attacked just blew away like a black mist before reforming in the same spot, without so much as even a winch from the giant.

The Battlemages worked in teams, combining their magic to create bigger volleys of offensive spells to launch at the giant. Just as told, their spells impacted with varying intensities of explosions, but if the dark giant was in any way affected, it did spectacularly in hiding it.

The black giant’s front left hoof crashed through the building in front of it, doing little to slow it down, and the guards scattered again to avoid the collapsing debris. There was no more time to think, and Sam was already itching for a fight.

“I see the problem here, Cappy,” Sam smirked and crouched at the edge of the rooftop, “This is why you bring a conduit, to fight a conduit!”

With a powerful kick off the ground, Sam was already flying out in the middle of the street. The captain wanted to stop him, but knew the human was right. He only hoped that he wouldn’t put himself in too much danger. He watched as the human conduit rushed through the throng of guards and dashed up to the closest leg of the dark giant.

Sam’s descent was easy enough to roll out of, and he was already at the base of the left hind leg of the dark giant as it set down on the other side of the second ruined building. He ushered the other guards around him to back up. They did just so and were cheering on the wire conduit as he prepared to bring this giant down to his knees.

Sam threw his arms out and wires extended out to braid into whip cables. Proudly charging forth, Sam yelled out and lashed at the defenseless limb with both cables, only to topple onto his side when the cables passed through the smokey blackness, and he lost his balance in the confusion.

“What the fuck? Ok, just a minor setback,” Sam recovered quickly and tried lashing out again.

Every strike he made did the same thing as the first, and the guards cheering him on earlier were losing hope. Sam wasn’t about to give up yet and gritted his teeth. The leg came up to bring itself forward in the giant’s walk cycle, and Sam sprinted after it. Charging up a few tripwire grenades, Sam tossed them underneath the giant’s hoof as it came down in the middle of the street. Dulled thuds shook the ground to the sound of the grenades’ explosions, but other than the bottom of the limb dissipating momentarily in a smokey plume and stumbling the giant minutely, it came right back.

Sam and the rest of the guards were dumbfounded. No matter what the wire conduit tried, nothing seemed to work.

“Human!” the captain swooped in to see how Sam was doing, “We’re keeping up with evacuating the streets as we go for now, but he’s about to smash through another building! Hurry!”

“What do you think I’m doing?!” Sam shot back.

Panicked and pressed for time, Sam tried racking his brain for something in his arsenal of tricks that could work against this menacing monster. The wire conduit’s face lit up as an idea took hold. It was time to unleash his secret weapon.

“Keep doing what you’re doing, Cappy!” Sam called out as he raced to beat the towering monster to the next building, “I’m bringing this guy down the only way I know how!”

Aegis Flare didn’t have a chance to ask the human conduit what he was up to, as he was already running up the side of the building in the giant’s path. He just had to trust whatever the conduit was thinking would work and continue coordinating evacuation and attack operations.

Meanwhile, Sam made it just in time to come face to giant face with the smokey, black titan before him atop the roof of the building in its path. Plan ‘A’ was bust, plan ‘B’ didn’t do much, but if there was one plan that never failed the wire conduit, it was plan ‘I’. Of course, ‘just in time’ didn’t mean ‘with time to spare’. The building shuddered and threw the wire conduit off balance as the giant’s right forehoof crashed through the lower floors and turned them to rubble. Once the monster had firmly planted its foot into the ground, the building remained intact, for the moment. Sam leapt back up to his feet, watching the monster’s left hindleg begin the arduous process of stepping forward out of the corner of his eye.

There was no time to second guess himself, Plan ‘I’, otherwise known as ‘Improvise-until-I-come-up-with-something-better’, was now in effect. With his right hand, thaumium wire spun and weaved to craft a spell matrix without Sam having to even look, all while he began to lob as many tripwire grenades as he could toward the beast’s face with his left hand.

The projectiles arced just high enough to reach their target and detonated in the monster’s face. There was a split second where the ‘head’ of the beast phased out of existence, like dust in the wind, but like everything else, it returned quickly. Though, whether the beast was actually affected by the attack or just wanted to know where it came from, it had halted its advance to turn its head this way and that through the air.

Meanwhile, Sam felt the finishing touches on his oversized ‘illusion spell’ matrix come together and raised his right hand to the sky. The matrix flashed brightly, and from it, a massive golden arrow pointing downward appeared with a message carved into the light. No one expected to see what it said, but its message was clear; ‘Look down, Dumbass’.

“Hey! Hey, over here!” Sam shouted as loud as he could and waved his free arm about.

The dark giant actually seemed to heed the words, or at the very least, noticed the call and spotted the miniscule human below it. Sam couldn’t be sure, but something about its gaze gave him the distinct impression that the giant, smokey unicorn was eyeing him with the most hate-filled glare it could muster with its unseeing eyes.

The wire conduit remained undeterred though, and continued shouting, “Remember me? The guy that’s been thwarting your plans? How about it, Psycho? I bet you’re dying to get a piece of this handsome hunk of meat!”

Sam added the final cherry on top for his taunt by blowing the biggest raspberry he could at the creature. Childish, yes, but no one ever accused Sam of being the most mature. The giant’s maw heaved shut in an action that one could describe as gritting its teeth. Then, deep within the bowels of the beast, a deep rumble bellied forth. Sam took note of this and was suddenly regretting more than a few choices in his life. The rumble traveled up the monster’s throat, and before anyone had time to prepare, its jaws snapped open, unleashing an ear-splitting screech that made everyone cover their ears in vain.

Sam lost his focus and accidently crushed the wire matrix in his hand, dispelling the glowing sign above. Windows in nearly half the city shattered and left those close to the cause paralyzed in agony. The monstrous cry was over as soon as it started, but by then, the damage was done. Sam was too busy getting his hearing back when he finally saw the black tendrils heading right for him. They were too fast to evade, and the wire conduit’s lower half was ensnared by the ropes of inky blackness that shot out from the giant’s mouth.

They felt cold, like liquid ice seeping from every surface of the black limbs as the wire conduit tried to break free from their grasp. He stabbed, beat, and whipped the tendrils to no avail, and soon, he found that they were starting to move. Or more specifically, they were being reeled back in to the monster’s waiting maw, and with it, a tasty human morsel.

Sam panicked and redoubled his efforts, but no matter how hard he hit the thing, the tendrils merely faded away for a split second before reappearing, like nothing happened. It was strange, as they felt just as solid as he did when wrapped around him, yet so wispy and translucent everywhere else. There was no time to dwell on that though. He was already halfway to the awaiting, murky jaws of the monstrous beast and closing fast.

Sam thought quick and decided it was about time that he tried his other secret weapon. Raising his right hand, Sam conjured more thaumium wire to the outstretched limb. One secret, late night raid into the royal archives on advanced combat magic was all it took for him to find this spell. Twilight was going to be pissed when she found out about this, but she’d understand… eventually.

The thaumium wire weaved together, forming into a pattern that Sam had never properly tested until now, but he was left with no other option. The pattern was like a sort of short conical frustum with the wider end pointed away from the wire conduit. Inside the hollow structure were an array of other shapes, mostly circular in nature that, when complete, flashed in sequence from the smaller end to the wider end. Sam watched in awe as golden light gathered at the wider end and condensed into a sphere of explosive, magical energy. The wire took aim down the center of the line of tendrils and the slowly, encroaching maw.

‘Please don’t blow up in my face.’ Sucking in a deep breath, Sam smirked and shouted the first thing that came to mind, “Magic missile, bitch!”

Sam crushed the spell matrix, and the newly dubbed ‘magic missile’, shot off like a rocket toward its target. Seeing as how close he was, Sam braced for the impact and was glad that he did, as the magical, golden projectile hit the lower jaw of the beast and exploded in a balefire like blast. Sam couldn’t see it, but he could definitely feel and hear the effect it seemed to have on the beast, as it wildly thrashed about with him still in its tendrils and shrieked in a ghastly howl. By the time the smoke cleared, Sam could tell something else was different.

The parts on the face and tendrils that the magic missile hit no longer appeared to be as translucent and hazy as they did before. They, in fact, appeared more solid in appearance and had pieces of itself flaking off and no longer regenerating.

Sam wanted more answers to this strange phenomenon, but his attention was stolen by a blur of armor and feathers speeding past him and ramming itself into the more solid mass of the beast’s tendrils still holding him. The black giant shrieked once again and threw its head back as if it were in pain, but more surprisingly, the tendrils that were severed appeared to be disintegrating before his very eyes. Sam looked up to thank his savior and wasn’t completely surprised to see that it was good ol’ Cappy, with his trusty spear in hoof.

“Has anyone ever told you you have impeccable timing?” Sam mentioned in his usual smarmy tone, meeting up with the pegasus on the edge of the roof to survey the scene.

The dark giant was still reeling from the unexpected turn of events, which gave the two a moment to converse.

“Whatever you did, Human, it seems to have worked,” Aegis Flare noted with a hint of satisfaction.

“Not exactly sure ‘what’ I did. Just glad it paid off though.”

Sam’s nonchalant comment was met with a curious look and then an agitated ruffle of feathers as the captain groaned inwardly. It stood to reason that it would be too much to expect the wire conduit to have planned this outcome.

“That spell you used,” Aegis Flare eyed the conduit next to him suspiciously, “It looked strikingly similar to a Battlemage level combat spell. I didn’t know Ms. Sparkle was teaching you such advanced magic.”

Sam offered a nervous smile, “Well- ahem. I mean, it’s not exactly something she taught me, per se. Just a little something she mentioned off-hand that might have been in a book somewhere…” The captain’s scowl deepened. “You know, you should really get some better security on that restricted archive in the castle library.”

Aegis Flare had a few choice words of rebuttal for the wire conduit’s subtle glossing over of facts, but the two’s argument had to wait. Visionary Dusk, in his beastal form, let loose another terrifying howl. Aegis Flare and Sam looked on to find the dark giant had recovered, but once more, it wasn’t just from the stumble back. Their eyes widened in surprise as they watched shadows cast by everything around the colossal creature shift and distort. A lot of other ponies noticed this, too, as their own shadows roused and twisted until they seemed to fly away from them like semi-solid mist. All the shadows converged on Visionary Dusk’s form and before their very eyes, the lower part of his jaw that was blown away reemerged as its murky, translucent self again.

‘A shadow conduit?!’ Sam shouted in the back of his mind, ‘God, I wish this world would stop throwing curveballs my way every other day.’

The beast worked its jaw a few times before screeching once again and resuming its march through the streets in the direction of the castle. Only this time, it moved faster, crashing through the building that Sam and Aegis Flare had previously been atop of before flying or jumping out of the way. The two regrouped on the ground with a couple other guards, who vied desperately for the captain’s orders on what to do in this dire situation. In a commanding tone only a superior officer in the Equestrian Royal Guard could project, the captain demanded the gathered forces silence.

Captain Aegis Flare spread his wings and kicked off to hover in the air as he addressed the gathered forces with pride, “We are the ponies that chose to protect the citizens of Equestria, no matter the opposition! Our opponent is strong, but we mustn’t falter. That creature, Visionary Dusk, is heading straight into the heart of Canterlot. Do what we are trained to do and protect the innocent from harm!”

A resounding reply of compliance answered the captain’s call to action, and the now inspired guards dispersed to do what they could to evacuate ponies or slow the beast down. With only Sam and the captain left behind, Aegis Flare turned in midair to address the awaiting conduit.

“Human, right now, I don’t care where you learned that spell, but it seems to be the only thing working on Visionary Dusk,” the captain turned and pointed to the advancing giant as he spoke, “You must have noticed it, too.”

Sam hummed in understanding as he replied, “Let me guess, I’ve got point, and you want me to make him vulnerable with more shots of my magic missile?”

The captain made a simple grunt to show his approval, “I will coordinate teams to follow up behind you, and hopefully, it’ll be enough to put a stop to him.”

Sam smirked and cracked his knuckles. The madpony turned shadow giant had made a mistake. That mistake being, crossing paths with the ‘Wire Wraith’ of Canterlot a.k.a. the ‘Ace of Clubs’, Samuel Reed. The unicorn terrorized a world of innocent ponies, had done unspeakable things to those he captured, and worst of all, hurt those that the wire conduit had come to care about in this world. Though, Sam wasn’t about to deny the fact that he was doing this partly in revenge. When he and Aegis Flare locked eyes one more time, that flame was quenched and glowed dimly in the presence of the agreed pact of a new goal between the two; Justice would be served.

Sam sprinted ahead, zipping away on wires used to cross the city section until he caught up with Visionary Dusk. A sinking feeling hit the conduit as he looked over the trail of destruction that was left in his wake. Visionary Dusk was faster than before, and had crossed the length of a city block, tearing up the cobblestone streets and whatever else had gotten in his way. Ponies were frantically running to and fro, with only a small portion of the guard able to help evacuate them, as the rest tried futilely to slow the dark giant down.

As Sam came down to street level, he spotted a pair of foals cowering under a bench that apparently no one saw. That also included the guards that were rushing other ponies to clear the way as another colossal hoof started to come down in that spot. Sam ran forward and fired off a couple of wires from each hand to lasso the paralyzed foals from underneath the bench and fished them out of harm’s way just as Visionary Dusk’s shadowy hoof crashed down and crush the bench.

Sam looked down to the foals in each of his arms, one a female unicorn and the other a male earth pony, and asked calmly, “Are you two okay?”

The shuddering foals could only nod their heads, but it was enough to tell that they were okay, if just a little shaken up. The wire conduit set them down and steadied them until their hooves stayed planted on the ground properly.

“I know this is scary, but I know you two can be brave, right?” Pointing in the direction of some guards in charge of evacuation, Sam spoke, “Just stay calm, and follow those guards. They’ll lead you to safety.”

“Th-thank you, Wire Wraith,” the unicorn stuttered her appreciation before she and her companion did as told.

The foals ran off, and Sam refocused on his surroundings. From high above, he heard a whistle, and he saw the captain, followed by a group of other pegasi, waving at him. Obviously his cue, the wire conduit smirked and focused his energy. Wire of both variety swirled around his hands, and he rappelled up the side of another building to get a better shot of the massive shadow beast.

The roads were thankfully clear ahead, and Sam swung out in front of the dark giant and took aim at its ‘chest’ with another magic missile. The spell matrix went off, and the glowing orb of explosive magic hit the beast just above the joint of the right foreleg. A deafening ‘boom’ filled the air, followed by Visionary’s pained shrieks. As the hulking giant stumbled, pegasi dive-bombed from the sky and launched a volley of arrows and spears at the solid looking spot of darkness with great effect. The solidified pieces of shadows crumbled away and left the dark beast shrieking in more pain.

“Woohoo! Now, that’s what I’m talking about!” Sam cheered from the opposite side of the street.

A contingent of guards gathered around the wire conduit on the ground, headed by Aegis Flare, and Sam knew what was to come next. Not to let the shadow conduit have a chance to recover, Sam sprinted down the street, weaving his offensive spell matrix in each hands. Double flashes and condensing auras of magic signalled their ready, and so was the wire conduit.

Zigzagging between the shadow conduit’s oversized hooves, Sam got underneath him and took aim. The first hit Visionary’s left foreleg in the back of the knee, and the second at the base of his hoof of the left hind leg. The shadows solidified and seized up, allowing the teams of earth ponies and unicorns behind Sam to strike. As chunks of the shadow conduit’s ‘flesh’ crumbled away, his left side could no longer support him, and he tumbled to his side and crashed into an apartment building.

While the dark giant flailed around on the ground, Sam swung overtop of the beast and landed in front of it, where Captain Aegis Flare was waiting with the next group.

“Alright~! Come on, Cappy! Up high!” Sam smiled brightly with his outstretched hand hanging over his head. Sam waited, but an annoyed glare was all he got in return, so he simply reached up with his other hand to slap the other, “That’s ok. I got myself.”

“Human, don’t let up,” the captain gruffly proclaimed, stomping his hoof in annoyance.

“Relax, Cappy. We’ve got him on the ropes. His regen is fast, but he’s still a novice when it comes to using his powers.”

Sam had no time to take the verbal beating from the captain as was intended, as while his back was turned, he took a more physical beating in the way of a cascading wave of shadows hitting him squarely in the back. It was like shards of ice were forced under his skin, but he grit his teeth as he pushed himself back up from the ground.

The scene before him was not what he expected. Guards were either knocked aside or picked up and tossed about by a multitude of hazy, black tendrils that erupted from all over the shadow conduit’s being. The meticulous formations that Aegis Flare had set up were in shambles and many of the guards were left to fend for themselves. Sam’s achy back was healed, but the chilling sensation was still with him, and not just from Visionary’s attack.

Shadows from everywhere came rushing toward the beast, and just as quickly as his injuries had been made, they were healing back up. Sam watched in terrifying shock, as the shadow conduit was already rising back up to his hooves and towered over the city and its frightened citizens. The dark giant tilted his head downward, and Sam found himself shaken to the core with those piercing glowy, yellow eyes.

“SSSssssSsuuuubbbJJjeEEEccccTTttt!!”

Several shadowy tendrils shot forward and Sam barely sidestepped out of the way of all them and avoided their terrible, chilling embrace. Not wanting to stick to one spot, Sam vaulted through a newspaper stand and fired a wire up to catch the side of building to zip away. He heard the newspaper stand being crushed into a splintered mess behind him as the tendrils followed after him.

“Human!” Captain flew up to Sam and dodged around the flailing tendrils to call out, “We need more of your magic!”

Sam ducked under one of the tendrils, then zipped across the street to the next rooftop to avoid being boxed in, “I’m trying, but these things won’t let me concentrate long enough to make another matrix!”

The ground rumbled, and Sam took a glance, only to find that Visionary had started moving again, right in his direction. His movements were faster, and the tendrils that weren’t busy swatting away the guards like annoying flies were doing their best to make Sam bob and weave with every trick he knew. Even then, there were too many to dodge completely, and he suffered quite a few hits all over his body.

“Cappy, can you distract him at all?” Sam asked desperately while dodging another swipe from tendrils by flipping over a rooftop air conditioning unit.

The captain of the royal guard wasn’t faring very much better, as tendrils had almost knocked him out of the air a few times already. Everytime one scraped against him, it felt like a blanket of ice had been draped over him. He spied the rest of the city block, now reduced to a chaotic battlefield, and more than half the guards were either disabled, or missing. The rest were just struggling to stay out of the flailing tentrils’ reach, though with varying success.

The captain flew as close as he could while still avoiding the tendrils to shout back, “My formations are too broken up, and I’m losing ponies by the minute! Please, Human, do something!”

Sam tried to form a magic missile matrix, but was suddenly interrupted by several tendrils swiping at him from both sides. He was able to dodge them, but the wire matrix in his hand fizzled out and broke apart from a misconstruction. Sam solemnly turned to the captain and gave him the bad news between dodges of the tendrils.

“It’s no use! I can’t get another shot off. If only we had just a little more help!”

“If thou askth, then ye shall receive!”

The booming call came from on high and echoed across the battlefield. Everyone turned to get a glance at the sight that brought them hope and a renewed sense of fighting spirit. Like angels descending from the heavens, chariots pulled by pairs of armored pegasi and loaded with fresh guards dove toward the earth, all led by the Princess of Night, clad in her raven-black armor and twin short swords held aloft in her magic by her sides.

The chariots weaved through the throng of flailing tendrils till they reached the ground around the dark giant and delivered the awaiting guards within to join the fray. The fighting force had practically doubled and with it, Visionary Dusk was finally left preoccupied enough to allow Sam and Aegis Flare a breather.

Princess Luna glided down to the rooftop that Sam and the captain occupied and landed deftly in front of them. The captain offered a swift bow as he, too, dropped out of the air to make the trio into a circle.

“Let us be swift, for our enemy is upon us,” Princess Luna got right down to the point, “We have been told of Visionary Dusk and the situation, but this is far more frightening than we anticipated. How fair thee against his might?”

“We had him until he went all ‘Vemon’ mode on us,” Sam informed the princess, then went on to elaborate, “Ok. So, he’s a shadow conduit, which is a first for me by the way, and he ain’t making it easy for us to bring him down. Of course, being all kaiju-sized wasn’t making it easy to begin with, but in any case, the bastard can tank anything you throw at him. Lucky us though, we found out his kryptonite.” The princess gave the wire conduit a cocked frown in her lack of understanding. “I mean, he has a weakness.”

The princess’ eyes lit up and looked out onto the battlefield, “Excellent! How is it that we make the beast vulnerable?”

Sam’s usual smirk returned as he conjured a tangle of thaumium wire to his hand. The princess watched as he molded the strands into the matrix that had done the trick so far. The wire matrix flashed brightly, and an orb of concentrated, explosive magic appeared at the end of the ‘barrel’ of Sam’s ‘cannon’. Recognizing the pattern, the Princess of the Night lit up her horn and an azure orb of magic of roughly equal size to Sam’s appeared at the tip of her horn.

“Gallant Spear’s ‘Condensed Magical Aura Wave’. I know it well, Samuel. To think, one of the most basic offensive spells we teach to the unicorn guard was the key,” Spreading her wings out with a snap, the princess prepared to join the fray with a triumphant shout, “This battle shall soon be ours!”

Her galliant leap into battle was stopped short by Captain Aegis Flare blocking her path, “Wait, your highness! I’m sorry to say, it isn’t our magic that can affect Visionary Dusk. Not even the Battlemages’ spells have an affect.” Turning to point to Sam, the captain forlornly sighed. “His magic seems to be the only one to produce this vulnerability. I can only guess, but being a conduit himself, his magical attacks are the only thing that can make Visionary vulnerable to a concentrated effort by the rest of us.”

Shocked by the revelation, the princess’ magic faded, and she turned to gaze upon the human conduit while her ears expressively drooped in lament. Not once, but several times had they been forced to rely on this wayward soul for his help, and to the princess, it was not fair.

“...This shouldn’t have to be your battle, Samuel,” Princess Luna spoke bitterly.

Sam couldn’t bare to see the Lunar princess sad for him like this. It wasn’t her fault that he got tossed across the multiverse, or whatever, to wind up here, but he had no regrets about it. It was a wild ride, and everything that Twilight, Luna, Celestia, Aegis Flare, and the rest of the ponies have done for him was more than he could ever ask for.

Stepping up beside the princess and offering a comforting arm across her armored withers, the wire conduit spoke, “Hey, don’t worry about it, Loony. That bastard made it my fight the moment he sent his D.U.P. wannabes to crash the castle. Besides, he called me fat, and poked me with a bunch of needles, so don’t think you’re gonna bench me while I still owe his ugly mug an ass kicking.”

Sam had done so much for them already, to put himself out on the line for them again? Yet, when Princess Luna looked into his eyes, the fires of determination burned too brightly for her to say no to him. With a bemused hum, Princess Luna accepted his declaration to fight by their side once more.

“Very well, Samuel. On this day, we fight as one!” Her horn flared once, and in a bright flash of light, out of thin air she produced another extra large spool of thaumium wire and presented it to the human conduit.

“Alright~!” Sam cheered, absorbing the fresh material, “Plan’s simple. I hit him hard, you follow up and hit him harder. Wash, Rinse, repeat, profit!”

“Hold on, Human,” the captain called out. Sam groaned and turned back around just as he and Luna had stepped up to the edge of the rooftop to join the battle. The captain’s face bore a serious expression with just a touch worry flickering underneath. “What if Visionary Dusk concentrates his attacks on you like before? You said it yourself, he heals quick, and we can’t afford to let up on our assault once we begin.”

“Uh…” Sam blanked. He hadn’t thought about that.

Looking back over the battlefield, Visionary was on the move again and headed toward the castle. The wire conduit looked down at his hands and frowned. He wished he knew stronger spells than just the one, though the tendrils all across his body were doing a fine job in keeping the multitude of guards at bay, even if very few of them got hit. It was like the guy could only concentrate on one or two things at a time like he was. You’d think with all that power, he could have leveled the city in minutes, but he was still lumbering around at his leisurely pace. Unless…

Sam gasped when he finally understood the flaw in Visionary’s form. He was focusing all his power into maintaining that shell of shadows around him. Inside that writhing mass of darkness had to be the conduit asshole himself. Too busy concentrating on that form, he couldn’t help but only being able to focus on one or two targets at a time. He only got his powers a little while ago, which still made him a novice when it came to controlling his abilities. Now, Sam only had to figure out a way around becoming the center of attention to the madpony once they started attacking.

Once Natie had pulled her friend aside, she spoke, “Sam, you’re annoying.” She didn’t have to put it so bluntly. “But that’s what makes you good in a fight. You rile up the D.U.P.’s, and you’re creative with your powers. It throws them off balance. You don’t need to be as strong as me or Lu cause you fight smarter, not harder. Hone in on your opponent’s weakness and exploit it. It’s worked for you before, so why think you need to be the ‘tough guy’? Honestly, I wish I could do it the way you do. You’re always a step ahead in finding that workaround when using your powers.”

‘That’s right,’ Sam thought to himself. He didn’t need to think of a way to out-power the shadow conduit. He just needed to make sure the others had all the openings they needed to break Visionary out of that pesky, oversized shell. Another light bulb lit up in his mind as he thought of the perfect way.

“Cappy, I’ve got an idea, but I’ll need a few guards. Preferably, ones that are quick on their feet, er, hooves,” the wire conduit said while kneeling down and started weaving together a bunch of spell matrices on the ground.

Both the captain and the princess cocked their heads to the side as they watched the wire conduit mass produce the same spell matrix.

Being the only one brave enough to ask, the captain asked the obvious, “What exactly is your plan?”

Sam smirked as he looked the captain dead in the eye, “Ever seen Attack of the Clones?”

--o0o--

Visionary Dusk had decimated two city blocks and was working through his third as the guard reinforcements futilely worked to slow him down. Some were starting to lose hope, as their earlier push with the human had only gained them a few seconds of the upperhoof. Word around the battlefield was that he, the captain, and the princess were trying to come up with a plan, but if they haven’t enacted such a thing yet, it made the troops worry that their efforts were for not and that their city, their home would be soon be destroyed.

“Hey, tall, dark, and ugly! Ready for round two?”

The dark, giant form of Visionary Dusk staggered back as the right side of his barrel took the impact of the explosive, golden orb of magic. He roared in pain as the shadows around the impact site congealed into its solidified mass of darkness that looked cracked and vulnerable. The shot, much like the voice, seemed to have come from nowhere, but the guards weren’t going to let this change in the tide of battle go uncheered for.

“Rally, my ponies!” a second voice called out, though this time the guards saw where it came from. Princess Luna, in all her glory, dove from the sky, a full legion of pegasi on her tail as they drove their weapons into the weakened spot of the shadow conduit, causing it great pain as chunks of the darkness peeled away. “The battle has only just begun!”

More and more of the guards’ morale rose as they saw one of their rulers leading the charge and dealing an astonishing blow to the shadow conduit. Their hope flared even more as another bolt of the human’s golden magic struck Visionary in the foreleg and allowed the ground troops to chip away at the defenseless limb. Like before, they hadn’t seen where the shot had come from, but what mattered more was that they were finally on the offensive again.

“Ready your breakfast and eat hearty, boys! For tonight, we dine in hell!”Sam’s voice rang out with unbridled mirth as a third shot impacted against the shadow beast in the side once more.

This time, the guards were able to see were the shot had come from. Atop of one of the roofs, Sam stood heroically with his arm stretched out and a lively smile on his face. The guards cheered again after they tore at the piece of solidified shadows. Only, the guards weren’t the only ones to notice the wire conduit.

The dark giant, Visionary Dusk, roared in anger and focused his attention on the one who was making a fool of him. Shadowy tendrils shot out from his body and raced toward their target, though Sam didn’t move, and before any of the guards thought to warn him, the wire conduit disappeared under the volley of flailing tendrils and falling debris. The guards’ hearts sank, as their only trump card had just fallen under the deadly barrage of the their shadowy opponent. That is, until another shot of golden energy rang out as it exploded against the beast’s flank.

Visionary Dusk tilted forward until he finally crashed into the building he was attacking, face first. No one knew what had just happened, but the shock wore off as Princess Luna dove out from the sky again and struck the exposed shadows once more. Some of the guards turned to find where the shot had come from, and sure enough, the human was down the block, leaning casually against the side of some fallen debris with a brazen grin on his face.

The shadow giant pulled his breaking body out from the rubble and a deep, throaty growl was the only warning the guards got before more tendrils of shadows shot out from the giant’s back and raced across the street to attack the wire conduit where he stood. Luckily, the guards who were in the line of fire were quick, and the tendrils missed them, but, the same couldn’t be said for Sam. He was once again lost in the hail of flailing tendrils as they tore the spot he was at asunder.

Though, as Visionary and the rest of the guards thought Sam had met his grisly demise, again, a wave of confusion washed over them as the familiar blast of golden magical energy slammed into the chest of battered giant. Visionary Dusk roared in fury and pain, as he had yet to kill the one that still defied him with whatever trickery he was now employing to cheat death.

Many of the guards were wondering the same thing, even as they saw the human wire conduit through a window in a shop, peeking out and apparently blowing a raspberry at the enraged beast. This time, however, some of the guards that took a closer look could see that there was something off about the human. Namely, the pose he was holding was unmoving and dull, like a hazy, living snapshot of the being had replaced the real thing.

A flash of movement from above caught their attention, as did Visionary Dusk’s and atop of the roof of the same building, stood Sam, much more lively than his counterpart that was still blowing that insulting raspberry from below.

The one up top drew in a deep breath and shouted loud enough to even be heard over the shadow conduit’s bellowing cry, “Oi, Prick!” The shadow conduit’s eyes zeroed in on the offender, to which Sam could only smile back in delight. “You having fun yet?”

“YYyyYyoOOOuuuUUu!!! I WwwWill DeSssssStroy Youuou!!”

An eyebrow raced up Sam’s forehead as he put a hand to his ear, “What’s that, Duskie? Timmy’s stuck in a well?”

Visionary Dusk roared intensely in an attempt to intimidate the wire conduit, which failed as Sam chuckled to himself.

“Ooooh, you’re as dumb as a sack of barbells!”

Unlike the apparent clones, when the enraged shadow conduit lashed out at the real Sam, he easily dodged the onslaught and dove out of sight. It was also at this time that more and more of Sam’s ‘clones’ started appearing all over the battlefield, each in some ridiculous pose or another that made the guards both want to laugh and groan at their absurdity. A few of them even had some weird costumes; ranging from a red and blue onesie with a spider emblem on his chest to an all black business suit, complete with sunglasses and a strange, pen-like device in his hand. All the while from seemingly random directions, the hail of magic missiles rained down on the confused shadow conduit as he tried to retaliate, only to miss and end up ‘killing’ one of the clones.

Aegis Flare had to hand it to the human for once, the plan was working. Although, he would have prefered that he didn’t have to carry around a wire matrix projecting an image of Sam laying in mid air above the construct in a risque pose with a very ‘come hither’ stare. The captain avoided eye contact with the thing, as it always made him think it was saying something like, ‘Draw me like one of your Prench girls, Cappy’. Regardless, Sam’s ‘illusion spells’ were doing the trick in confusing Visionary Dusk. Aegis Flare and a few of his guards had done good work in sneaking them all around the battlefield, and it was just what they needed to bring the fight quickly into their favor. Currently, he was dropping this one off just to the east at the edge of an alleyway overlooking the battlefield.

From this angle, he could see the dark giant was hurting. Various parts of his ‘flesh’ had been gouged out, one after the other. His back right hoof was completely missing, and the hobbling giant was ground to a halt as he tilted uneasily with his uneven hooves. Aegis Flare watched amidst the chaos for the tiny flicker of movement and bright flash of light that was Sam’s wire matrix before he let loose another magic missile from beside one of his dopplegangers. Princess Luna led a contingent of pegasi to swoop in as the golden energy struck the dark giant’s withers, and another blow was dealt.

Aegis Flare’s had his misgivings about going with this plan, but it seemed that with the way the battle was going, they were assured to win. The universe saw fit to rain on the good captain's parade, as with horror, he saw Visionary’s broad, luminescent gaze sweep over a section of rubble where two of Sam’s dopplegangers were stationed to his right. Aegis’ own gaze was torn from the beast’s eerie stare and to the clones now numbering in three. Only, one of them wasn’t a clone.

Aegis Flare tried to leap to Sam’s aid. He tried to push his wings to give him that extra bit of speed that would propel him the twenty or so meters to push the human conduit out the way to safety. However, that distance was too great, and he only made a third of the way before he watched the panicked realization in Sam’s eyes settle in.

Shadowy, black tendrils shot out. Not just a few, but over a dozen as they all converged on the human conduit that was half way in the middle of building another wire matrix. He hadn’t even the time to brace for the impact as the lines of darkness lanced the area around him with a few even piercing through him and rooting him to the ground painfully.

“Human!” Aegis Flare cried out, but was soon batted away by another set of tendrils that kept him at bay.

The guards that witnessed the event grew fearful and made to back away from the flailing tendrils that swept around the shadow conduit’s body. Princess Luna bellowed a warcry, and dove from the air in a mad charge to free the human conduit that was now trapped. Though valiant, her efforts cost her dearly, and another tendril swatted her out of the air and into the ground. She may have picked herself back up, but her uneasy sway and the bloodied, limp wing on her right side was all Aegis Flare needed to see to show him that she was not getting back into the fight.

Sam hollered in pain as the shadow lances pulled free from the ground, and with them, him. As the human conduit was dragged up to the beast’s eye level, more shadows from all around began to shift and move, being dragged out from ground and into the shadow conduit’s colossal form to heal him once again.

Face to face with the eldritch horror, Sam tried to struggle free from the tendrils’ grasp, but this time, they squeezed even tighter around his midsection and pinned his arms to his side, where he couldn’t aim another magic missile at Visionary’s face.

The giant spoke, his words a little clearer, but still carrying that dreadful, wheezing echo that he could only talk with, “YooOouuu! You’ve delayed me from my destinyyyy! From achieving what I was meant to accomplish years ago!”

Even with the icy cold grip of the shadows pressing against his body painfully, Sam couldn’t help but smirk through his gritted teeth as he shot back, “G-glad I could be nuisance to ya!”

A painful squeeze from the tendrils, and Sam could almost feel one of his ribs crack under the pressure.

“Noooo matter. Even with yourrrr delays, I’ve still secured my legaccccy! And it was all thanks to you, subject A-4.”

Sam furrowed his brow in anger, “News flash, buddy. The name’s, Sam. Samuel Reed, the wire conduit! Get it right!” Sam flexed his hands and gave the shadowy giant a defiant smirk. “You know, I hate to tell ya this, but the whole dark, megalomaniac thing is murdering your complexion. You know what you need?”

Visionary gave a menacing growl, but otherwise said nothing.

Undeterred, Sam’s smile grew as the glint off his wires below him caught the giant’s attention a moment too late, “Some extra light!”

The thaumium wires below Sam completed their weave, and before the shadow conduit had time to react, the wires shone brightly. The light spell below that Sam constructed was bigger than any that he built before. So much so, that when the spell took affect, it was like a second, miniature sun erupted from the ether. Those unfortunate enough to be looking in its direction now knew why they called it a ‘flash’bang, especially the mad pony turned giant shadow beast who was staring directly it as the spell took affect. He shrieked in pain and whipped his head back to shake in agony for his poor blinded eyes. However, the more important reason Sam had done this was made apparent when the death grip the tendrils had on him finally loosened and he was able to slip free.

Sam crushed the light spell matrix, and the mini-sun blew out like a candle. From his short freefall, he was able to tuck and roll to the side, where a concerned looking captain was waiting for him. It seemed the good captain had the sense to shield his eyes when Sam decided to light up the street.

“Are you alright, Human?” the captain asked worriedly.

Sam rolled his shoulder as the last of his wounds healed up, that broken rib popping back into place last, “Yeah, just took me by surprise. I don’t think that trick is going to work again.”

“The light spell, or the illusion spell?” Aegis Flare asked.

“Both,” Sam frowned as he tried to think of another plan while Visionary was still flailing around blindly.

Sam’s bag of tricks were running out, and the shadowy giant kept healing just as quickly as he caught on to Sam’s plans. If Natie were here, she’d be able to fry this guy, no sweat. Lu’s unrelenting, and tougher, barrage of concrete would also make short work of Visionary. Hell, even Isabelle might have stood a better chance at bringing the psychopath down quicker than he could. Sam just, unfortunately, didn’t have a powerhouse move to bring this guy down in one shot.

If he tried making a larger magic missile, there was always the chance that he could mess up, and it could backfire catastrophically. Just thinking about it made Sam nervous, and that made him even more nervous that he’d mess up. That was the drawback to his spells, one misaligned array, and he got a big ol’ ‘kaboom’... Sam knew this was terrible idea. He knew that if, or more likely, when Twilight found out about this, he’d have to sit through another one of her lectures on how stupid of an idea this was. Of course, that implied he survived this hairbrained scheme of his to begin with. However, if this was the only way to catch the hulking shadow conduit off guard with one massive attack, he had to try, and there was no time to think of another plan.

“Cappy, I need you to clear everyone out of here,” Sam ruefully said.

The captain wasn’t a fan of anything the human conduit considered a plan, but the tone he said these last few words with made his feathers rustle with great concern. He looked up at the conduit who seemed to be only staring straight ahead at the shadowy beast starting to get his bearings back. He saw the remorseful look Sam had and even more red flags flew up in his head.

“Whatever it is you’re planning, Human, I am strongly advising against it,” Aegis Flare expressed his worries.

“Noted,” Sam simply replied.

“Don’t do it, Human!” Aegis Flare flew up in Sam’s face, trying to dissuade the conduit, “We can find another way. Just wait and let us put our heads together. There’s no need to do something stupid!”

“Sorry, Cappy,” Sam smiled sadly, “Stupid is, as stupid does.”

With those last words, Sam took off running, straight in the direction of the recovering shadow conduit.

“Human, get back here!” Aegis Flare tried one last time.

“Don’t worry, Cappy! I’ll be fine!” Sam shouted back with the biggest smile on his face he could manage, “Just get everyone out of here!”

Aegis Flare stood there, unable to move as he watched the human conduit run off like he was some kind of hero. He wanted to stop him. He wanted to smack that stupid human upside the head so hard his children would feel. Even still, his legs refused to move in the direction of the conduits about to duke it out. He prayed to whatever deity that watched over humans that Sam would come out of this alive. Then, reluctantly, he cast off into the air to spread the word of retreat to the rest of the troops still on the battlefield.

Sam sucked in a deep breath through his nose, holding it in before letting it back out through his mouth, though it did little to calm the pounding in his ears as he ran. The bellowing roar from Visionary Dusk grated against Sam’s ears. Even so, between that and the wildly flailing tendrils crashing down around him, the wire conduit kept going. The guards that Sam could see were starting to break off, no doubt at the behest of the captain’s order, which in turn was leaving the city block turned battlefield barren aside from the conduits about to duke it out.

The dark giant still seemed dazed by Sam’s earlier spell, an advantage that Sam could only hope would last until he enacted his plan. The wire conduit was closing in, but the effects of the ultra-light spell were appearing to wear off as Visionary’s luminous gaze scanned the area around him.

Another shrieking roar and the tendrils no longer struck out wildly. Sam used every trick in his book to dodge, leap, and counter the shadowy appendages that tried to slow him down. One final leap, and the wire conduit shot wires from both his arms out on either side of Visionary’s expanded form. The wires dug deeply into the sides of buildings that were still standing and anchored themselves in place, suspending the wire conduit in mid air for a moment before he pulled back with his arms to reel himself in and tucking his legs forward for a more streamlined form.

“Hey, Psycho!” Sam called out, using his wires to slingshot himself directly at the shadowy colossus, “I hope you’re hungry, cause I got something for you to snack on! Just don’t blame me for the indigestion!”

Straight into the awaiting maw of the beast, Sam dove in. The giant didn’t seem to know what exactly happened, but something inside of him made him feel uneasy.

Sam opened his eyes to a world of swirling darkness. It was absolutely suffocating. He could barely see his hand in front of his face, and any sound he heard sounded extremely muted. Even his own voice. It felt like he was dumped into an icebox or into the heart of a freezing blizzard. Even still, he had a job to do. That job, of course, was made much harder by the fact that he had no idea where we was supposed to go from here. Sam thought to himself how he really should thought this part of the plan out more thoroughly.

His mind would have to put those thoughts on hold though, as the swirling darkness began to shift. It felt like he was being thrown about under the water of a river’s rapids. The whirling colors he saw as Sam was tossed about made him very nauseous. He tried fighting it, but the current was too strong, and he felt like was being pulled in the direction of something.

Just when the wire conduit thought he couldn’t take much more of it, the current started to ebb away, and Sam was able to recover for the most part. His breath felt short, and his whole body was shaking both from the icy surroundings and an unconscious fright for the dark world around him. He might have killed to be anywhere but here if he had the choice, but the wire conduit fought that instinct down to concentrate.

Then, it finally dawned on him. What he at first thought was just a trick of the eye turned out to be an object straight ahead of him. Amid the swirling fog of shadows sat a solid lump of murky blackness. Anything even resembling light bent around it, or perhaps, was swallowed by it to create a spot of pure darkness. It was both terrifying and mesmerizing. Sam was just able to tear his gaze away to remember why he was here, and it seemed that what he was looking for was now right in front of him.

His hands shook, his eyes unfocused, but Sam conjured every last bit of thaumium he still had to surround the ball of total darkness. Whether ‘he’ could see it or feel it, the shadow conduit hiding in the core of his creation reacted. The floating lump spazzed out, and an echoing shriek emitted from it that rattled Sam to his very bones. The wire conduit gritted his teeth and ignored the chill that screech sent up his spine, focusing on weaving the glowing coppery-like wires into the shape he needed. The swirling shadows began to shift again, and Sam braced against the current even as it tried to flush him away.

He was almost done, and it made Sam smile how easy the core made it for him to use it as a mold for this matrix. A sphere where the wires spiraled along the outside from the top of the surface to the bottom. Another shriek from the core, and it started to spaz out even more, as if pleading for the wire conduit to stop, but he couldn’t.

Sam smirked deviously as the wire frame flashed brightly. A bead of light appeared at its center within the core and kept growing larger and brighter. The currents of the shadows went wild, and Sam felt himself being tossed about again, but that didn’t matter. The spell matrix shuddered, and the expanding ball of magical conduit energy became unstable. The shadow conduit’s giant form looked like it was doubling over in surprising pain, reflecting that of the consciousness of its wielder. There was a moment when the light cast silhouettes of two different beings within the hulking shadow giant from the outside, one of a pony and one of a human.

Sam’s smirk turned to a frown as he thought of something. ‘Huh, I wonder if it would’ve been safer to do this from the outside.’

The shadow giant gave one last roar before it was engulfed in an explosion of light and magical energy.

Author's Notes:

...Huh, I did not expect to make the chapter this long. I literally just kept writing and didn't stop until I reached that little cliffhanger at the end. I still enjoyed it nonetheless. I actually feel like action scenes are my easiest topic to write about, but I try not to make it the absolute focus of any story.

Anywho, I'm gonna take a short break while I finish up the last chapter's edits. That's right, it's almost over. I really hope you all enjoyed the ride. I know I have, though, I wish I could have had a bit more motivation to do this sooner. I don't regret the late start though. Gave me a little extra time to improve my technique even if it's still kinda shit, and I look forward to doing some more in the future no matter what those projects may be.

The Shadow Falls

Twilight had refused to leave the castle, even after Princess Celestia, her own mentor, ordered her to leave and find safety. It took a pair of guards to escort her to get her to seek shelter away from the city with the rest of the city’s populace in the evacuation effort. It had been startling with the sheer volume of ponies being led out of the city by guards, and even the Solar princess herself.

While her sister had elected to take what little reinforcements they had to spare and join the battle, Celestia’s concern for the safety of her subjects left her torn on where she was to be of most use. Luckily, her sister offered her the compromise of splitting their efforts, and it was decided that she would lead the evacuation. The very sight of her helping those in the city was thought to help quell their panic, a tactic that worked and only left the Princess of the Sun with minor worries for the safety of those still fighting the shadowy creature that appeared in the city not long ago.

However, Twilight did not take comfort in this like the rest of the citizens of Canterlot being ushered out of the city. Her thoughts didn’t allow her to think about anything else except for the echoing roars of battle just on the other side of the capital.

Ponies all around her jumped and trembled any time a particularly loud roar or explosion echoed through the air. Not Twilight though. Her worrying just got worse, and she couldn’t help but think about the amount of danger her human friend must be putting himself in. She just couldn’t stand it. Twilight couldn’t believe she was about take a page from Sam’s book, but it was the only way.

Settling on her resolve, Twilight made up her mind on what she was going to do. Making sure none of the guards were watching her, she made her way to the outside of the crowd and hugged the side of the congested street. When she felt no one was watching, she ducked into an alleyway and hid behind an abandoned wagon and away from the street. Twilight took a second to breathe and think about what it was she was doing in that moment.

“Oh, this is crazy!” she hissed to herself, not quite believing what she was doing, “But, I can’t just leave him behind like this.”

Twilight’s legs locked up with indecision, her mind torn between wanting to help her friend in any way she could, and the fact that this would mean she was disobeying somepony like the Princess. She bit her lower lip in guilty habit of knowing what she was considering was wrong, but she just couldn’t give up the idea that she at least had to do something. She thought again as to what Sam would say or do in this situation.

“It’ll be fine. It’s not like the princess can say anything about it by the time we get there.”

Twilight sighed heavily, surprising herself with how much the wire conduit was influencing her decisions even when he wasn’t there. However, he would have been right. Charging up her horn, there was quick flash, a pop of lavender light, and the unicorn was gone. The light only gained the attention of a few ponies from the street, who wrote it off as a trick of the light, so nopony was the wiser to Twilight’s whereabouts from then on.

She hadn’t really thought about where she was going or what she would do when she cast the teleportation spell. Though, her last thought clung to the memory of the abandoned lab, and where she had last seen her friend. Thanks to this, another flash, pop, and the unicorn was standing in the lot across from the abandoned lab. Only, it was different.

Twilight gasped in shock when she saw that the front half the abandoned lab had crumbled to the ground, while the rest of what was still standing was encased in a broken shell of concrete. It was obvious that there was a battle here, and by the looks of it, it was fierce.

Twilight’s gaze found the signs of something that had come out of the building and followed its trail, leading a path straight past her hooves. She didn’t know what could’ve caused so much damage, but she was once again shocked and left without words for what she found behind her and where the trail led.

The destruction and ruin left in the wake of whatever tore through the city made Twilight’s jaw drop. It was like a giant had crashed through the buildings to create the trail’s path. All that was left in its wake was rubble and wreckage. Then, she heard the noise, the sounds of combat crashing down ahead of her. Her focus was so caught up in the visual destruction that her mind just didn’t register it.

“Sam,” Twilight whispered.

Now that she knew where to go, Twilight galloped off in the direction of the battle. She made it maybe, two blocks, before she came into contact with the one pony she hadn’t expected to run into so quickly. Flaring out his wings, Aegis Flare came face to face with the surprised looking unicorn looking back at him. What guards had retreated in the same direction as he came to a halt behind their captain as the two before them were in the middle of a silent standoff.

“Miss Sparkle?” Aegis Flare finally said in confusion, “What in Equestria are you doing here?”

Twilight stumbled on her words, “Uh...” She wished that she had Sam’s quick wittedness to avoid what was about to be a very harsh scolding. “I-I... um... I wanted to help…”

Aegis Flare stared at the bashful unicorn looking away from him, and soon, the pieces came together.

He dropped to the ground and leveled the unicorn with a withering gaze, “Miss Sparkle, this is no place for the likes of you. You were specifically told to return to the castle for your safety.”

“I did!” Twilight snapped, although her ears swept back when she looked up to see the captain’s disappointed face, “But, my friend is out here, risking his life, and- oh my goodness, Princess Luna!”

Trying to look anywhere but directly into the captain’s piercing eyes, Twilight’s gaze fell on a pair of guards that had said princess strewn across their backs as they carried her. The Lunar princess did not look well. Her armor was chipped and cracked in multiple spots. Her helmet was gone, and there was a line of red leading from the left side of her temple all the way down her muzzle. One of her wings was limp and dabbled with streaks of red, obviously missing a few of her flight feathers. Still, upon hearing her name, she raised her head as proudly as she could.

“Hello, Twilight Sparkle,” the Princess of the Night spoke up reassuringly, “Do not have fear. Our wounds are manageable.” Princess Luna grunted as she managed to slip from the backs of her support to stand, even against their protest. “But pray tell, what is it that thou art doing here?”

Even though she worried for the princess’ condition, Twilight knew that there was still one more that she had yet to see among the group before her. Looking back and forth amongst the assembled ponies, her worry grew as the sounds of combat continued up ahead.

“Where’s Sam?” she asked nervously.

One question was all it took for the guards to wicker nervously. The only ones who didn’t break their masks were the princess and the captain.

Captain Aegis Flare approached the distressed mare to offer his hoof, “Miss Sparkle-”

“Where is he?!”

She hadn’t meant to cut him off, but her anxiety was driving her actions. There was a screeching roar, and everypony turned in the direction it came from, the direction in which the trail of destruction led. Twilight’s pulse quickened as more dire thoughts began to fill in the blanks.

“The Human had a plan,” Aegis Flare said, snapping the unicorn out of her thoughts, “He said he would be fine.”

She didn’t want to hear this. She knew how reckless the wire conduit could be, and to hear the captain of the royal guard, the one who hated Sam’s recklessness the most, speak so casually... It lit a white, hot fire in the unicorn’s heart. She tried to skirt past the captain, only to be caught in his strong hooves. She flailed and screamed for him to let her go, but to no avail.

“Calm yourself, Miss Sparkle!” the captain tried soothing the lavender mare.

“He’s still out there! Why would you let him do this? He needs our help! Please!”

Princess Luna tried to calm the poor, lavender unicorn down with her reassurances that her sister would not want to see her come to harm out here, but they fell on deaf ears. Twilight was practically in hysterics, but the captain’s grip held firm. Tears started to well up in her eyes, and she tried beating against the captain’s armored chest to let her go.

Pushing the mare out in front of him with surprising ease, the captain forced her to look him in the eye, “Listen to me, Miss Sparkle!” Twilight immediately stopped struggling, too overwhelmed by the captain’s order. “I don’t particularly enjoy saying this, but... we can’t hope to face that monster of a pony on our own. I’ve tried to keep that Human away from the danger, away from having to put his life on the line for us when he shouldn’t. That being said, in reality, he is more than capable of handling himself, and these types of fights, when we cannot. Even if he is quite reckless, I trust him when he says he can handle this. So please, I ask you to do the same.” Looking back toward the direction of the battle, the captain’s scowl deepened. “Just this once.”

Twilight wanted to argue, offer a compromise, but her mouth wouldn’t move. She shook with fear, worry, and a sickening feeling of helplessness. She only wished that there was some way she had the power to help her friend, just this once. That was unlikely to come to pass, as the shadowy giant known as Visionary Dusk let out a gurgling shriek that was unlike anything before.

The guards, Aegis Flare, Princess Luna, and Twilight turned in the direction of the sound and an uneasy feeling took hold of all of them. Not one to waste the opportunity of the captain’s loosened grip, Twilight pushed herself away from him and let her horn light up with magic power. Before anyone could stop her, she was gone in another flash, pop.

She didn’t go far, and the captain managed to catch up with her on the next building’s rooftop, where she teleported to. He wanted to reprimand her, but just like her, his gaze was captured by the scene before him.

Even from so far away, they could still see the shadowy giant was doubled over, the blackened tendrils flailing wildly about as something inside the center of the beast started to glow. It grew brighter, and before they knew it, faint silhouettes of two figures dotted the inside from the expanding light within. One, a pony, and the other, a human. Something changed in the way the light glowed, and it started to expand quickly. The hazy form of the giant lifted its head to screech once more, while pillars of light shot out from its body painfully.

The captain wasted no time. He tackled the lavender unicorn to the ground and held her there, under the protection of his armor and wings. Just as he did, the glow from the giant shift again, and without warning, the being was engulfed in the expanding light and disappeared. The explosion rocked the city, its epicenter lying at the spot where the shadow conduit, Visionary Dusk, once stood. The shockwave rattled the captain’s and Twilight’s teeth. The energy that seemed to follow its wake made their fur stand on end, as if it had even charged the air.

Twilight’s ears rang, but even so, she fought to stand back up and see what happened. When Aegis Flare felt that the danger had past, he finally let her up. His ears were ringing, too, but he had to assess the situation with a cool head, even while his wings twitched for him to fly in reckless abandon.

Both were stunned into silence by what they saw. Fitting, as the sounds of the battle had fallen away as well and left nothing but the gust of the wind to fill the air. Where the dark giant once stood, there was hardly anything left. Completely leveled and leaving only the remnant debris of the destroyed buildings around the site, it was a sight to behold.

“Sam,” Twilight merely whispered it the first time, but as her hooves moved on their own toward the site, her voice rose, “SAM!”

A rapid series of teleport flashes were left in Twilight’s wake as she tried to the reach the scene of the explosion as fast as she could. Captain Aegis Flare tried calling out to her, but whether she was too far away or not listening, she wasn’t slowing down. Deep down, the captain couldn’t deny that he was feeling the same way. Left with no other choice, the captain hoisted himself back into the air by his overtaxed wings with a tired grunt and flew after her.

The lump in Twilight’s throat wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard she tried to swallow back her tears. The decimated part of the city the battle tore through blurred past her vision in a series of foggy still frames as she used her vast reserves of magic to teleport from one point to the next. In her mind, only one thought dominated, ‘I should have been here sooner’. Her constant jumps came to a halt as she came upon a scene that made her heart sink.

Judging by what she witnessed beforehoof, the spot she was now looking at was the same point where the shadow conduit, Visionary Dusk, rampaged through in his giant form. The entire city block was in ruin. Not a single building was left standing, shaken down to its foundation. Even the one that she was precariously standing upon was unrecognizable with what it used to be, whether it was somepony’s home, store, or a simple place of business. However, all that couldn’t compare to what lied at the epicenter. A crater, easily ten meters in diameter, the foundation of the city itself lying bare within the depression left behind from the blast. Yet, through all of that, there was still one thing missing that Twilight had hoped would be there. She didn’t even know if she should pray for that hope.

“Miss Twilight!” From high above, the captain called out as he surveyed the area.

Just like her, he was left awe-struck by the amount of damage that was left after the explosion. And even with his sharp eyes, he couldn’t spot a single trace of the human conduit that had opted to stay behind to defeat the now missing shadow giant.

His wings burned from the exertion, but he made a low sweep of the area, picking apart the scene before returning to the unicorn’s side. He glanced down at the desperate look on the lavender unicorn’s face, but his frown only deepened, unable to bring himself to say what he thought might have already happened.

Twilight’s eyes flooded with tears, her choking sobs disallowing her the ability to speak clearly as she tried to protest what her mind was already concluding. More guards, and even the Princess of the Night, were arriving on the scene. Those that were able, got to work on clearing the debris and searched for signs of life. The princess saw the helpless unicorn by Aegis Flare’s side and began her stunted gait toward her to try and counsel her. Her good wing unfurled and gently laid across the unicorn’s withers, offering the barest of comforts in that moment.

“Captain! We found him!”

Twilight’s ears perked up, and a new hope flooded her body with renewed strength. She blew past the princess and the captain, but before she could get any closer to the circle of guards, she was pushed back by them. She couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t let her see her friend. He must have been hurt, sure, but she knew a few healing spells. Though, no matter how much she protested, the guards kept her at bay.

The captain galloped up behind her and ushered her through with him at his command. Even from behind, Twilight could see that the circle of guards seemed tense over what was before them. The captain, Twilight and Princess Luna soon knew why after pushing their way to the center of the congregation. Aegis Flare’s feathers ruffled in agitation, his muscles growing taut with the intention of springing into action at a moment’s notice. The princess’ gaze hardened as she looked upon the being that has caused so much strife for her and her sister’s subjects for too long now. As for Twilight, that earlier hope she had built up died in an instant, as it was not her friend that laid injured and unconscious, but Visionary Dusk.

She wanted to scream, rage against this pony that has caused her friends and family so much pain and suffering, but for all that anger, she was frozen, unable to even move as the tsunami of emotions crashed down upon her. That was when she felt something lay upon her back. It made her jump at first, but she came to realize that whatever it was was soft, warm, and more importantly, comforting. Her eyes drifted behind her to see the dark hue of the feathery appendage laying across her back and gasped as the sympathetic gaze of the princess looked back to her.

The captain let the princess deal with Twilight, as he now had a job to do. The unconscious unicorn was in rough shape. His hooves were cracked, he had many cuts and bruises covering his body, and parts of his fur, mane, and tail were missing or singed. With much satisfaction, he fished the last suppression collar out from of his saddle bag and snapped it shut around the madpony’s neck. Another guard brought out a magic negation ring and fixed it around the base of the unicorn’s horn, rendering him further powerless. The rough handling of the dusty, off-white unicorn he received must have brought him back to consciousness, as he blearily took in his surroundings. His awareness only heightened as the guards started to lead him away. He tried breaking free of their grip, but their holds were tough. He winced every time he twisted from one side to the other against his injuries.

“L-let me go!” he finally croaked out, “Don’t you know who I am?!”

The captain stopped right in front of the raving pony, halting him with a condemning expression. The haughty unicorn merely scoffed, trying to seem unfazed by the captain’s scrutiny. He even tried gritting his teeth and concentrating on something, expecting that something to happen. The weight of the collar tugging on his neck made him realize why he couldn't use his powers, and he was left to just growl menacingly at the captain in his face.

Narrowing his gaze, the captain spoke up first, “Visionary Dusk, for crimes against the Equestria, I hereby place you under arrest.”

“No!” Visionary struggled again, even against his pain, “No, it’s you! All of you who have betrayed me! I told you, all of you that I would unlock the hidden potential that would lift this nation to new heights, but you all couldn’t stand the fact that I was right!”

“It doesn’t matter whether or not you were ‘right’. What you’ve done is inexcusable. You’ve murdered ponies, destroyed lives, and treated those that you’ve held captive without an ounce of regard for their wellbeing,” the captain shot back.

Visionary’s eye twitched, as if he was the only one to understand some unknown truth that the rest couldn’t understand, “They were my subjects, and their sacrifices? Mere drops in comparison to what I’ve been forced to give up in the pursuit of my research, research that’s altered the perception of our very existence. ‘Conduits’; beings with such immense power and abilities. Just imagine the possibilities of harnessing that sort of potential!” The unicorn took a moment to compose himself, and then eyed the captain was condescending grin. “You obviously couldn’t even begin to hope to understand what I am talking about. However, if my research is brought to the high council of magical research, they would, and they will see that my work is truly invaluable.”

The standoff between the captain and the unicorn only last a few moments. When it was done, Aegis Flare nodded his head to the side, and the guards accepted the silent order before returning to escorting the captured unicorn.

“What are you doing?!” Visionary Dusk began to lose his composure, “Unhoof me! I am Visionary Dusk, Archmage of Equestria, and I command your respect!”

As he was being dragged away, Visionary fought, but his struggles seized for a moment as his eyes fell upon another that was still present.

“You!” Visionary laid eyes on Princess Luna. The princess tightened her winged hold around a nervous Twilight while the madpony spat his words like venom, “You and your sister are nothing but cowards! I was the only one who was willing to see this through, while you and her were too afraid to accept the necessary sacrifices needed to bring my research to fruition! How can you say that you would do everything to raise your precious subjects up if you’re unwilling to see the truth? How dare you condemn me when you are all so afraid to do what should have been inevitable?! Damn you, I will not be silenced!”

The unicorn continued his tirade even as he was dragged out of earshot, but his departure left Twilight with a sinking feeling that was not quite born of his words. The Princess of the Night tried counseling her, but her words didn’t seem to reach the lavender unicorn. Her concern for her missing friend was all she cared about right now, and since the guards that were still searching the surrounding area had yet to find anything, her hope was slowly diminishing.

“Please, Twilight Sparkle,” Princess Luna tried reaching out gently once more, “He is out there somewhere, and we will find Samuel.”

“...And if he isn’t?” Twilight asked solemnly.

Princess Luna opened her mouth to reassure the unicorn, but trying to give her false hope when she had her own doubts would only bring harm. Twilight shrugged the princess’ wing off her back. Not something she would normally do, but in the depressive state she was in, she just couldn’t bring herself to care. The Lunar princess let her go, though careful to keep an eye on her from afar while she did what she could with the search effort.

Twilight, with her head hung low, wandered around the crater. Far from the guards as they made their sweep on the other side. She just wanted to be alone, and was grateful that the others were allowing her to be. Her eyes became all misty again, and every time she tried to blink the tears away, new ones arose to take their place. All she could think about was Sam’s smiling face and how he had promised to be back in time for their next magic lesson, a promise that seemed would never come to pass now.

Without much thought, Twilight kicked a pebble with her hoof, and it arced toward the debris at the edge of the crater she was slowly pacing around. The pebble went pretty far and actually skipped off the top of the highest chuck of debris before skipping back down the pile. The debris shifted, very subtly at that. The only way Twilight noticed it in the first place was because she was following the pebble as it flew. She chalked it up to the pebble dislodging a chunk here and there, but when the section of debris shifted again, more noisily this time, her heart jumped.

At first, she thought the section would collapse, and she backed away from it to let it fall away safely. However, the debris didn’t just buckle suddenly, and the more she looked at the section of fallen wreckage, the more she thought something was moving beneath it. Her eyes widened, but she was paralyzed in shock as she watched that something begin to break free of the top layer that covered it. The lavender unicorn gasped, for what broke free of the rubble was a human hand.

The hand twitched as it tried to haul the rest of its owner up through the fallen rubble, and in that moment, Twilight didn’t know if she should weep with joy or faint from relief. In either case, her hooves steadily began to move on their own until she realized that they were carrying her toward the hand waving out from the ground.

“Over here!” Twilight called out, as she began to dig with her hooves through the debris, “I found him! I found Sam!”

Her cries were heard throughout the crater, and everypony came rushing to her aid. Aegis Flare was first to arrive, just as the unicorn remembered her magic and telekinetically began chucking piece after piece off the trapped human. The rest of the guards formed up and were working in chain to pass pieces down the line and off the pile trapping Sam. Desperate to see her friend, Twilight worked twice as hard and moved multiple pieces at a time with fervor.

‘Come on. You have to be ok!’ Twilight thought as she worked on hefting a sizable piece off the pile.

As she did, she saw something beneath, or more accurately, someone.

“Sam!” Twilight cried out, tossing the oversized chunk of rubble back like it was nothing, resulting in dull thud behind her.

That didn’t matter though, as her friend, Samuel Reed, laid sprawled out against the rubble beneath him with his eyes closed and one hand laying against his forehead. He looked terrible, much like the madpony from before, with multiple injuries covering his body from head to toe. The sight left Twilight both depressed and elated, but her worry grew as Sam’s shallow breathing caught her ear.

“Sam, please,” Twilight pleaded, her voice cracking slightly, “Tell me you’re ok...Wake up, Sam!”

The wire conduit’s face contorted in discomfort, and he moaned. Everypony held their breaths as the human cracked one eye open and looked out into the world around him with a glazed expression.

“Human, can you hear me?” Aegis Flare tried to get Sam’s attention and to gauge the extent of his awareness and wellbeing.

Sam turned his head to the side, which seemed to take a lot of effort, but once he was turned toward the captain, he looked up at him. He worked his lips, but if he tried to say something, the ponies surrounding him couldn’t make it out, as it came out a breathy lisp.

Twilight placed a gentle hoof on his shoulder opposite of Aegis Flare, and the wire conduit turned to gaze in her direction. Her worry was easy to see on her face, and she fought to resist the urge to just scoop him up and bring him to the closest hospital.

“Sam...are you ok?” Twilight asked one more time, and this time she got a clear response.

It took Sam considerable effort to reply, but when he did, it caught everypony off guard, “Ugh, I still got to get a mattress for those landings.”

Everypony was stunned, they hadn’t expected his first words to be that. Even so, Twilight was the first to recover, and when she did, her expression grew sour with annoyance as her ears swept back to show her agitation. Then, out of nowhere, the lavender unicorn swung her hoof and bopped the conduit in the arm. Sam hissed in pain, and everypony looked at Twilight like she had gone mad. She was mad alright, just, more with a sense of indignation.

“Ok, I might have deserved that,” Sam smirked, but winced when he tried to chuckle.

“Damn right you do!” Twilight retorted, but her anger was slowly being replaced with relief every second, and the two friends shared a smile with each other.

It seemed that the little bout of friendly banter was what it took to break the tension in the air surrounding the rest of the ponies. Soon after, every guard began to cheer, both in celebration of the defeat of Visionary Dusk and the return of the conduit who helped stop him. Twilight went for a hug, but when Sam started to groan uncomfortably, she backed off and apologized profusely. Thinking quickly, her horn lit up, and in a flash of lavender light, she had conjured up a hefty spool of wire to offer to her friend.

Sam accepted it graciously, and as he absorbed the new material, both his wounds and fatigue ebbed away. He was looking to be more like his old self, and Sam leaned up from his seated position to stretch his arms out. Aegis Flare and Twilight helped the revitalized conduit out of the rubble as they joined the princess and the guards awaiting them.

The princess eyed Sam with a disapproving glance as he was descending from the debris, “What you did was utterly reckless, and put yourself at risk of losing your life,” Princess Luna tittered while shaking her head at the human conduit, “And yet, I can’t decide whether we should be thanking you or punishing you.”

“Well~, I wouldn’t be opposed to a little rewarding after my daring ‘heroics’,” Sam said smartly before the princess fixed him with another disapproving glance, “Or, we can discuss where I went right and what I might’ve did wrong. Then, split the difference to, say, ‘no harm, no foul’?”

Twilight slugged Sam in the side of the leg with a roll of her eyes, which only caused him to laugh harder, to which the little unicorn couldn’t help but join in with. Everyone was wearing a smile at this point, even the ever stoic captain, and it looked like the storm that had loomed over this fair nation was finally lifting. If only it had lasted a little longer. The ponies settled down into a hush as something in the air caught their attention. It was like something was making their fur stand on end, and everyone, even Sam who was starting to get a weird vibe, tried to zero in on the cause of this sensation.

The ambient magic in the air started to swirl, soon followed by a shallow breeze that picked up with every second. The ponies became nervous as the natural order of their world was bending to some unknown force that they have never felt before. No, that wasn’t right. Some of them have experienced this sort of event before. While most of the guards became wary and brandished their weapons in all directions, Aegis Flare and Princess Luna watched the surroundings with trepidation.

“Princess, what’s going on?” Twilight asked anxiously while Sam stood over her protectively, wires at the ready.

Though never personally there, Princess Luna had studied the reports thoroughly and knew what to expect, “Be at ease, Twilight. No harm shall come to you, so long as I am here.”

Sam felt a strange chill run up his spine as his heart began to beat faster, “Loony, I’m getting a serious sense of deja vu here!”

That was to be expected, Luna thought to herself. She and Aegis Flare spotted them first as they began to manifest, as if from the ether. Shiny particles began to float into existence within the rapidly increasing breeze. The particles grew bigger, and as they did, they started to form together into larger shards. The sight was mesmerizing, and few could say their lower jaws hadn’t fell open in awe. Even still, once the shards began to condense on a singular point, they all raised their guards again and took note of what they were seeing.

“Cappy, what am I looking at?” Sam was becoming even more on edge as he asked his question, his mind telling him that he should know what was going on.

The captain considered his words for a bit before opting to just say what he knew, “It’s the portal you came through.”

Sam and Twilight gasped as their interest in the slowly forming object before them grew. It was reflective, and stood as tall as the average human before it kept growing as more shards fitted into place around the flat, reflective surface of the mirror forming.

Sam was unsure of what to think about the thing before him. His memory of the last time he’d seen one of these was when he was blown into a another world. Twilight was both intrigued and terrified by the sheer amount of magical energy this thing was able to displace just by its mere existence. Either way, the last shard lazily floated into place at the top of the mirror, and the oval shape of it was complete. A reverberating boom rattled all that were assembled before the mirror as the surface turned from a hazy reflection to strange, misshapen images that were not of those who faced it.

“SssSaaaAaaMMmm!”

The weird, distorted sound coming from the depths of the mirror caught everyone’s attention, especially Sam’s. It was his name that echoed from beyond the surface of the reflection, after all. Though, there was something about that voice that the wire conduit felt like he should recognize.

“SsssSaAAAaaaMMMmmm!”

Another voice, more clear this time, even through the the distortion, and Sam’s eyes widened in disbelief for who it belonged to.

“Natie...”

Twilight watched as her friend stood transfixed on the strange, floating mirror before he started walking toward it. She bit down on his sleeve that had fallen down his arm, unlike his usual style of pushing them up.

“Wait, Sam,” Twilight said after letting go of his sleeve, “I just...I mean, there isn’t-”

Words failed the unicorn. She had studied the reports the same as Princess Luna, but something inside felt torn about what was going on. Sam could sense what she was trying to say, but before he could try to say anything back to her, the familiar voice on the other side of the mirror spoke up again.

“Sam! If you can hear me, please, call out to us! Jessica, are sure this is working?”

There was no doubt about it anymore. Nataline, one of Samuel’s friends, was calling out from the other side of this mirror.

Shouting back through the hazy reflection, Sam replied, “Natie, I’m here!”

“Sam? Thank god. Where are you? Wait, that’s not important. Hurry up and jump through the mirror, Jessica can only hold it open for so long!”

At last, the key to Sam’s return home back in Memphis was right in front of him. Yet, that ray of hope was diminished as he turned back to face all of the gathered Equestrians with varied expressions of sadness, one of which was far more prominent than the others.

“...It looks like you can finally go home,” Twilight bowed her head, unable to look the human conduit in the eye.

Sam tried to think of the right words to say, but nothing was coming to him, not even anything witty or clever, “Sparks, I-”

He hadn’t realized how choked up about this moment he would get until it was here before him, and now that it was, a small selfish part of him didn’t want to go. He looked over the crowd of guards and how they looked to him with expressions of lament for his soon to being leaving. Even the princess and Aegis Flare, who were holding it together the most, had their heads dipped in sadness.

“Samuel,” Princess Luna spoke up, “Your friends back on your world are waiting for you. As much as we would miss you here, they shouldn’t have to bear your absence much longer.”

The princess’ words of wisdom were right, but even so, Sam still felt that little nag at the back of his mind to stay, even if was for just a second longer.

The captain walked up to the wire conduit and placed a comforting hoof on his chest, a gesture that would earned him a witty remark by Sam on any other day. Instead, he listened to what the captain had to say with a faltering, stoic look in his eye.

“I’ve watched you ever since you arrived here, Human. I didn’t think much of you back then. I found you to be disrespectful, rude, and a danger to my home. You continually broke the rules that we enforced upon you, and no matter how many times you were punished, you never seemed to adhere to them. Personally, I would have had you thrown back in the dungeon weeks ago for all of that.”

Sam didn’t know if that was supposed to be heartfelt or just something the captain wanted to get off his chest, until Aegis Flare smiled genuinely for the first time he had ever known the stoic captain. “Yet, if we had to do this all over again, I wouldn’t ask for anything to change. You have a good heart. Don’t forget that when you’re showing your world who you are.”

“That was the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Cappy...Are we sure you weren’t the one who hit your head during the last battle?” Sam ruined the moment with a smirk on his face.

Aegis Flare retracted his hoof from the smug conduit’s chest before stomping it on the ground and glared. Despite that, his scowl wasn’t quite as hard as it usually was when he faced the conduit.

“Hey, shit-for-brains! Get your ass moving, or else I’m coming over there and dragging your dumbass back myself!”

Everypony looked at each other as they heard the new voice and tried to comprehend who would say that to one of their friends. Sam could only lay his head into his hands, as he knew exactly which one of his so-called ‘friends’ said that.

“Shut the fuck, Lu! Can’t you see I’m trying to have a tender moment here?” Sam shouted back through the distorted mirror.

“Doing what? Jacking it?”

This time Sam groaned as some of the guards started to chuckle at the exchange. Twilight and Princess Luna, on the other hand, looked in partial disgust for the foul language being exchanged. One of the voices, ‘Natie’, returned and called out through the mirror.

“Lu’s right, Sam. Stop dragging your feet and get over here! Jessica can’t hold out much longer.”

As if to emphasis the point, the mirror began to crack at different places around its border. Sam knew it was just about time to leave, but there was one last thing had to do.

“Guys, just...just give me a sec. I’ll be right there.”

The protests from the ones on the other side of the mirror went unanswered as Sam jogged up to the moping, lavender unicorn trying to blend in with the rest of the crowd. When she noticed the conduit’s shoes at the edge of her vision of her lowered head, she tried to wipe away the tears with her fetlock that broke out from the corners of her massively, expressive eyes. Sam had noticed this the first time he was aware in Equestria. The ponies always had faces that were easy to read with those eyes. Right now, even hidden behind her hoof, he could see his unicorn friend was hurting from the sudden goodbyes that were being forced upon them. It made the decision he had to make all the more difficult in the end.

Unsure with what to do with his hands, Sasm shoved them into his pocket while he spoke, “Hey, Sparks…”

“You shouldn’t keep your friends waiting, Sam,” Twilight choked out, unable to look up at the wire conduit, “Don’t worry about me. I-I’ll be f-fine.”

While she was failing to hold back the tears streaming down her face, Twilight suddenly found herself swept up in the comforting embrace of Sam’s arms as he hugged her.

“You really think I’d leave without saying ‘goodbye’?” Sam whispered over her shoulder.

That had done it. The dam broke, and Twilight was left sobbing into the crook of Sam’s arm as she let out her grief. Sam let her be, even stroking the back of her mane to offer a bit more comfort. It was enough that he, too, found himself beginng to choke up and let a few tears drift down his cheek.

“I-I’m sorry. This isn’t r-right,” Twilight said, confusing the conduit.

She pushed herself away, so they could look at each other properly. If Sam had a tissue, he would’ve offered it. So, he settled for helping wiping away the tears staining Twilight’s fur down her face. Twilight was doing her best to pull herself together, but the thought of seeing her friend leave was heartbreaking.

Catching her breath a bit, Twilight offered her explanation, “I just- I don’t want you to leave. I’m so selfish! Y-your friends from your world are waiting for you, and-and I just want to keep you here!”

Twilight’s sobs returned, and Sam did his best to settle her down as best he could. From behind him, the mirror’s surface was beginning to crack even more, and the shouts from the other side were growing more insistent. Sam felt so torn, but he knew what he had to do.

Cupping the unicorn’s cheeks with his hands, he gently tilted her head back up to look at him while dabbing her tears away with his thumbs, “Believe me, Sparks. I want to stay here, too, with all of you.” Sam’s eyes drifted over his shoulders to look over the many equine faces looking back at him. “You’ve all done so, so much for me when I was nothing but a stranger on your world. You had no idea who I as was, or for that matter, what I was, and yet? You all gave me a chance. I hate how I almost didn’t do the same at first. I was practically ready to fight my way out of the dungeons and take my chances on my own. I’m so glad that I didn’t. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to know all of you.

“You gave me the courage to keep on going, to keep pushing myself when I would’ve given up when I realized how stranded and alone I was.” Sam’s gaze returned to Twilight, and he put on his best, sympathetic smile. “I honestly couldn’t ask for better friends while being stranded, especially you, Twilight. You put up with my shenanigans, taught me magic, and when I got stupid and rushed into that lab, you came in after me, and saved me. No matter how scared you were.”

Twilight’s heart swelled with pride at the wire conduit’s words. He may have been aloof and tended to joke around a lot, but Twilight couldn’t disagree more on Sam’s criticisms on himself. In Twilight’s mind, he was every bit a friend to her as the rest of her friends in Ponyville.

More crackling sounds came from the mirror, and Aegis Flare spoke up with a yelp, “Human, the portal!”

That was it. Sam swallowed the growing lump in his throat, and forced his own sadness down with it to smile. If he was going to leave, he didn’t want the ponies to see him off with grief. Taking his arms off Twilight’s shoulders, he let her back down to all four hooves and stood back up. His feet felt light, like they were walking on their own and carrying him to the visibly cracked mirror dimly humming a few feet away. His feet locked up midstep, and he turned around with a spark of sad realization on his face.

“Sparks, I’m sorry to ask this of you,” Sam said mournfully, scratching the back of head, “I know I said I would, but, I’m going to have to break that promise I made to Pinkie. Can you...can you tell her I’m sorry?”

Twilight gasped in realization. As sad as she was to see Sam go, she had forgotten the other two ponies that had come to know him, even for the short time that they had. Especially her pink, sugary friend that had been looking forward to a visit from her newest extraterrestrial friend back home. It seemed unfair that they wouldn’t be able to have one last chance to say their own ‘goodbyes’. So, Twilight vowed to see to it that both her and Sam’s shared friends would be able to understand. Unable to trust her voice at that moment, Twilight simply nodded and tried to match Sam’s sad smile with her own.

Sam turned to Princess Luna, but before he could say a word, the princess shook her head, “It’s ok, Samuel. There are no words that are needed here. We knew this day would have to come. My sister and I already know how much you will be missed by both of us. Take care.”

Aegis Flare took the princess’ place as she stepped back. The human and the captain locked gazes, before the pony guard snorted, making Sam chuckle with how horse-like it sounded.

“Sorry for causing you all those headaches,” Sam offered remorsefully, rubbing one arm with the other.

Aegis Flare let out a long-suffering sigh, but his stoic expression relaxed after letting the weeks of tension go from his frame, “An apology is nice enough. I should offer mine as well. I’m sorry you had to be dragged into our affairs as you did, even if you butted into them first.” A sad round of chuckles reverberated from the crowd, and once again, a ghost of a smile slipped its way onto the captain’s face. “It won’t quite be the same without your foalish antics to keep us busy.”

“Hah...Thanks, Cappy.”

“Take care of yourself...Human.”

The final rounds of ‘goodbyes’ were up. Sam stood with his back to the decaying mirror and surveyed the sea of sad smiles on every pony’s face. Taking a deep breath, Sam lifted his head high and smiled as wide as he could, hoping that this could be enough for his high note. The ponies either waved or nodded their heads in understanding.

Sam turned to face the object that would bring him home. The cracks in the mirror were getting bigger, and he could hear the familiar bickering of his friends just on the other side of this hazy reflection. Taking another breath, Sam squat down slightly, poised to jump through, and so, he did.

The ponies watched as the human from another world jumped through the mirror, disappearing to the other side, where his home lied. Other than the sound of the mirror’s low humming, the entire crater full of ponies was silent. The cracks on the mirror bloomed outward swiftly, and the mirror’s surface vibrated, smearing the reflections further. Jets of light pierced through the fissures, and everypony took a cautious step back. As more of the cracks in the reflective object connected with each other, pieces of itself began to shed off. The mirror shook violently, until it exploded outward in the direction it was facing with a shuddering ‘crash’, sounding like shattering glass. The pieces of the mirror broke apart even further, and soon, those pieces seemed to evaporate into the ether like fine powder until there was not a single trace left of it.

Author's Notes:

Welp, here we are. The end. It took me over two years to finish this, but no matter how much I hate some of it due to my inexperience, I still feel proud of it. From the very beginning, I actually had a few parts for this ending planned out, and left the rest up for revisions later on. Overall, again, I'm still proud of it, and I hope you all enjoyed reading it.

Thank you Regreme, you've been the greatest help I could have asked for in getting this done. Not exactly sure where I want to go from here, but I'll figure something out. I always do.

...What? What are you still doing here? Do I got something stuck in my teeth?...

...Ok, so I may have one more thing to add to this. Guess we'll have to wait til next week though, bye!

Epilogue

On the north side, just south of Sandpit Lake in the city of Memphis, sat an abandoned warehouse, turned secret hideout. Four conduits had made this shabby locale their home for a couple weeks now. Although, one of them was currently MIA, but that was why the hideout now housed another, temporary resident.

“I-I’m sorry! I can’t keep it open much longer!” This newest resident cried out.

Her name was Jessica, a mirror conduit, and she was doing her best to keep a mirror gate she had created open long enough to accomplish the group’s goal.

The oldest female in the group, Natie, gritted her teeth with anxiety, “Please, just a little longer! He’ll get through!”

A third conduit, a young asian man snorted in irritation, “The idiot got lost, I bet. I could have went in and dragged his stupid ass back by now.”

The final member of ‘The Four Aces’, Isabelle, was quietly praying off to the side, wishing for their friend to make it back unharmed. That prayer appeared to look like it was about to go unanswered as the shimmering mirror in front of them began to crack. Jessica dropped to one knee, her arms still outstretched and glowing with shards of mirror hovering about them in a desperate attempt to keep the gate open for just a little while longer.

Natie begged for the mirror conduit to hold out for just a moment longer, but Jessica’s strength was flagging. The mirror gate developed even more cracks that grew at an alarming rate. Had they not heard the echoing voice coming from its depths, the three other conduits would have jumped through themselves to see their friend home.

They watched as the mirror grew brighter and the cracks grew larger, all while the voice on the other side grew louder. Distorted as it was, they could faintly make out that the voice was familiar, but in a perpetual state of distressed screaming. Frozen into inaction as they watched and waited to see what would happen, the voice’s volume grew to a fever pitch just before the mirror bathed them all in an intensely bright flash of light. Blinded as they were, all they could hear was the sound of shattering glass and the owner of the screaming voice letting out a sharp exhale of air upon impacting the ground a couple of times.

As their vision returned, the four conduits surveyed the warehouse before all their eyes met a sight that brought relief to all of them.

“Ugh, going through that a second time did not make it any easier,” Sam shook his head as he shakily made his way up to stand.

“Sam!”

Sam winced at the shouts, still suffering from a headache after being flung through what felt like a laundromat dryer on the fastest setting. He didn’t get much time to recover as a pair of arms flung themselves around him. When his eyes finally readjusted, he was absolutely surprised to see one his fellow conduits, Isabelle, crying happily into his chest while hugging him into submission.

“Took you fucking long enough,” the ever familiar Lu and his constantly annoyed demeanor said.

Sam, too shocked to form words, just continued to check his surroundings. The hideout, Lu, Isabelle, Natie, and the other girl that looked familiar. He didn’t know if he should pinch himself just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. He was back. Back in Memphis. Back on his world.

With that revelation finally settling in, Sam began to chuckle. Then, he began to laugh. He hugged Isabelle back and even lifted her into the air in joy at finally finding his way home.

“Oh my god, you guys!” Sam cried out happily, “I missed you all so much!”

“We’re glad to see you too, Sam,” Isabelle squeaked from inside Sam’s unexpected grip.

Everything was back to normal. Well, just about. Coming down from his giddiness, Sam set the fire conduit down and eyed the familiar looking girl from earlier. He just couldn’t shake the feeling that they had met somewhere before.

“Sam.”

The wire conduit’s attention was pulled away as their leader, Natie, called him. Her neutral expression gave nothing away as she proceeded to walk up to him. This made him nervous. It was always hard to tell what she was about to do to him with that expression. Standing a mere foot away from him, Natie looked her fellow conduit over from head to toe. Her left arm rose far too quickly for Sam to block, so he just closed his eyes. When he noticed that he was wasn’t being electrocuted, or smacked upside the head, but rather have a gentle, yet firm hand clasp him on the shoulder, he reopened his eyes.

Natie’s eyes were alight with tired relief, and she wore a smile not often seen by many while she spoke, “Thank you for coming back.”

He could have said something along the lines of ‘I’m glad to be back’, but Sam just wouldn’t be who he was if he left it at that.

He smirked deviously, and spoke, “Well, I think I used up all my vacation days back in that place anyways. Plus, I had to make sure Lu didn’t raid my stuff while I was gone.”

“Fuck you!”

“Back at you, buddy,” Sam called over his shoulder.

“So, don’t want to ruin the moment or anything, but~ who’s the new girl?” Sam was already seemingly getting back to his old ways.

The ‘new girl’, who had been taking a breather off to the side, looked away with a guilty expression on her face.

Natie answered first, “That’s Jessica. Remember, from the overpass rescue? She’s the mirror conduit we saved from the D.U.P. transport?”

Looking her over again, a jolt of recognition flashed across the wire conduit’s face, “Oooooh, now I remember! Wait, what’s she doing here again?”

Natie sighed in exasperation, letting go of Sam’s shoulder. She knew his dismissive behavior was just his way of riling people up.

“She’s the one who brought you back here,” Natie explained while motioning for the hesitant girl over, “Her mirrors open up gateways to different locations. Back on the overpass, you accidently fell through one. We’ve been helping her to gain better control of this ability to open up another mirror gate to bring you back from wherever you got sent.”

Sam understood. It made sense with everything he’s seen. The only thing was that Jessica still appeared to be avoiding his gaze while hugging herself with one arm. She was shaking a bit and appeared to be fighting to overcome a fear to speak up.

She eventually did, but her tone felt extremely apologetic along with her words, “I-I’m sorry I sent you away through my mirrors! I didn’t mean to do it! I tried my-my hardest to get it under control to bring you back as soon as possible! I p-promise that I will never use my p-powers again as long as I live.”

She looked like she was on the verge of breaking down by the end of her speil. Natie, unfortunately, was never good at these types of situations, which eventually left Sam to handle the situation himself.

Kneeling down in front of the teenage girl, Sam reached out his hand. Jessica was trying to hold back her sobs as she noticed this. Wiping her tears away with a sleeve, she curiously looked to the smiling wire conduit who was motioning for her to take his hand. As she did, Sam slipped his other hand over top of hers in a comforting manner.

“It’s okay,” Sam quietly said, “I don’t blame you in the slightest, but don’t ever say that you won’t use your powers just because you think you’ll hurt someone. That’s just what the D.U.P. wants from all of us. You said you trained to control your powers better, and look! I’m back, safe and sound. Keep at it, and you could find a way to put your powers to some really good use. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Jessica seemed a bit unsure at first. If it weren’t for her, Sam wouldn’t have been sent away to god-knows-where. Yet, his reassuring words were helping to calm her down, and see the brighter side to the situation. It felt nice to her. Enough so that she could finally look the wire conduit in the eye once more. She didn’t know how long it would take, but if what he said was true, Jessica thought that she could one day find a good use for her powers. Or, at the very least, fix her mistakes if she made them.

“Okay, enough of the feel-good bullshit,” Lu cut in, ruining the moment, “You mind telling us where the fuck you’ve been? Also, what the fuck are you wearing?”

Sam had noticed that he was still wearing his attire from Equestria. A bit torn up and dirty, but certainly not something he was usually seen wearing here on Earth. The others gave him curious looks as well.

“Oh, yeah,” Sam bounced back up to his feet, “Gotta tell ya. It is one crazy story, but I guess that’s what happens when you’re gone for over a month.”

Silence befell the group. It was Sam’s turn to give them all a curious look, as they were all looking at him like he had said that he’d grown a second head.

“...What?” Sam worriedly asked.

“Did you hit your head on the way back?” Lu bluntly countered, “It’s only been three days, you dumbass.”

“What?” Sam asked, even more confused.

The others were giving him the same looks of confusion. No one could think of a way to respond to this.

“Sam,” Natie finally broke the silence, “Where did you go?”

Sam opened his mouth to regale his fellow conduits with the tales of his adventure. However, the words never reached his voice. The more he thought about it, the more he, too, would find it hard to believe if he was on the other side. His friends patiently awaited his answer, but still, Sam remained silent. Looking down at himself, and the outfit that he had obviously not left in, the wire conduit shook his head with a chuckle.

“You guys wouldn’t believe me, even if I told you,” he finally spoke up with his usual, playful tone.

The others looked to among themselves, an unspoken conversation exchanged through looks.

Again, Natie responded first, “Try us.”

---o0o---

They didn’t believe him. Sam had half expected that, but the myriad of reactions he received were a bit more than anticipated. Perhaps it wasn’t the fact that he had said that he had be transported to an alien world. Or, that he had been there for almost two months time. It may have just been that his description of his new, alien friends were a bit much for them to handle.

Lu had reacted first. Well, more accurately, he started laughing in Sam’s face, calling him a horse-loving faggot and making the obvious ‘ride-the-pony’ joke. Isabelle was far more reserved, in that she couldn’t look Sam in the eye for the rest of the day. She at least had the decency to not call him crazy to his face, but Sam hadn’t missed the looks she had given him after his tale. When Sam looked to Natie in a last ditch hope that she might believe him, she just sighed and told him that he should get some rest, no doubt thinking that being away for so long and in an unknown location had stressed the poor wire conduit out.

It seemed that there was no way for Sam to convince his friends that he was telling the truth...unless. It hadn’t occurred to him that he indeed had proof of his fanciful ramblings other than his change in wardrobe. His knowledge in the magical arts were about to serve him well. Twilight would be proud.

Or, she would have been, were it not for some unforeseen circumstance. The dwindling reserves of thaumium wire Sam still wielded came to his call, but there was something off about them. The glow from the coppery-looking strands were gone. An eerie sense of emptiness exuded from the wire in Sam’s grasp, like the magic that they contained was dead and gone, and no matter what pattern Sam tried to weave out of them, none of the spell matrices he knew worked.

The others bid him a goodnight and to rest up in their own ways and went about doing their own things. Defeated, Sam bowed his head and headed off to his bed. Though before he did, Jessica stopped him with a tug on his sleeve.

“I-I think you’re telling the truth,” she whispered to him.

Upon Sam’s inquisitive look, Jessica conjured a shard of mirror to her hand.

Looking down and toying with the piece, she spoke once more, “In the mirror. The one we brought you back through. I saw something. It wasn’t really clear, and I only saw it for a second. I thought it was a dog or something, but dogs aren’t purple. Whatever it was, it definitely had four legs and some kind of cone over its head.”

Sam’s eyes widened in surprise. Then, a warm smile creased his face. Shaking his head with another chuckle, he patted the mirror conduit on the shoulder.

“Nah, it probably was a dog. Don’t know why it’d be purple though,” Sam said with a smirk, “You know, I probably did hit my head somewhere. The gang’s right. It’s been a hell of a three days. I need a nap.”

Natie swung by to tell Jessica that she was ready to take her to one of their contacts that can get the little mirror conduit out of the city. Sam turned around to get to his bed, though not before looking over his shoulder to see Jessica do the same as she and Natie were leaving. Sam gave her a wink along with his trademark smirk before turning back around and heading up into rafters of the warehouse he called home, and his personal area that he claimed as his own.

It was just like he had left it almost two mon- er, three days ago. Wire cables supported the wooden platform held between two cross beams. In the center was his bed. An old set of couch cushions with a meager set of blankets and pillows that he used to sleep with. A set of wire sculptures he made sat next to his bed, none of which were particularly noteworthy, but Sam just couldn’t find a reason to get rid of them either. His portable DVD player was still set up at the foot of his bed with his stack of DVDs. It seemed like Lu hadn’t raided them, not that he expected the concrete conduit to be interested in his tastes of terrible B-rate movies that made up half of his collection. It was just nice that the rockhead cared enough to not do it.

There were other bits and bobs that were scattered about, but Sam didn’t care. He collapsed onto his bed and inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of mustiness and ambient Memphis air. It was nice to be home. Though, his good mood dipped as memories of his time in Equestria came back to him.

He flipped over onto his back, one hand tucked behind his head and the other outstretched. He conjured the last of his useless thaumium wire to his hand and started fiddling with it. With his thoughts still on the magical world, the wire followed his will and began to take on the shape of a unicorn. The wire conduit smiled as the last two bits of wire at the top of its head swirled together to form the iconic horn that the creature was known for.

As the two ends touched to form the tip, Sam gasped and nearly dropped the sculpture on his face. For at the tip of the unicorn’s horn, the thaumium sparked to life and let off a faint glow of magical energy. Sam sat up and held the wire sculpture gingerly in his hands. The glow was faint and seemed to be dimming by the second until it fully went out once more. Sam watched happily with a smile as the light faded to nothing.

He set the sculpture next to his bed next to the few others that he kept stashed in his space, carefully placing it among its brothers where he would always see it. He stared down at it for a few more moments before moving to the foot of his bed and plucking his DVD player from its place. Selecting one of his favorites from his collection, he popped the DVD in and began to watch and laugh at the trashy CGI sharks that flew about the air amidst a severe weather phenomenon.

Author's Notes:

It all comes to a close eventually. An adventure is all about the journey, and let me tell you. I had fun writing this. I got frustrated, depressed, and out right bored, but whenever I found myself in the mood to write, I always came back to this. I'm glad I did, and stuck it out. Thank you all for reading and hope you enjoyed.