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Nightmare

by Roland 'Jim' Lowery

The soft rustle of her own robes filled Twilight's ears as she slowly approached the throne. It was the only thing that could be heard in the vast hall save for the sharp scratching of pen on paper, both sounds almost thunderously loud compared to the encompassing silence.

Darkness shrouded the far corners of the room, but Twilight felt no fear that anyone or anything lurked there. Even if she hadn't cast her own protective spells before entering, she fully trusted the castle's wards. No one had broken through them in a thousand years, history told, and for good reason. The one who had cast those wards was the tall, stately figure sitting at the far side of the hall, writing quickly but neatly on fine parchment. Her knowledge of the arcane arts far surpassed that of any other. Even with her own natural talent, Twilight could never hope to best her mentor, not unless she too lived to be so many centuries old.

Queen Celestia did not look up when her student finally reached the other side of the table, but Twilight knew quite well that she did not need to make her presence known. She merely waited patiently and faithfully. While she did so, she took the time to reach up and pull the hood of her robes down, shaking out her black and purple striped hair to fall down around her neck. Her bangs trembled slightly then settled easily just over the two small, bent horns protruding from her forehead.

"You are aware of why I sent for you?" Celestia asked, her eyes and hand still intent on the paper before her.

"No, my queen," Twilight answered immediately.

"That is as it should be. The matter I wish to discuss with you is of both the utmost importance and confidentiality," she said. Her voice was not unkind, but it was low and sincere, impressing the seriousness of the situation upon Twilight.

"As you desire."

"There is a threat to the queendom that I wish you to investigate and, if possible and necessary, eliminate." Celestia finished a line, then moved the parchment to a growing stack next to her even as she pulled a fresh sheet over to begin anew. "I have received reports that a being calling itself Nightmare has been attempting to sow dissent amongst my people."

A frown creased Twilight's brow at this. The other woman somehow caught this expression and answered it.

"There is no reason to disbelieve that this person is the creature of legend," Celestia stated authoritatively, "yet neither is there reason to believe. It may be a dread force has truly risen against me. It may be that some would-be usurper is merely using an ancient tale to lend credence to a rebellion that would otherwise have none. The mission that I am imparting to you is to discover what truth there may be to any of this. Can you do this for me?"

Twilight's expression cleared as she bowed at the waist and said, "Yes, my queen. I shall begin my research immediately, and then investigate the matter based on my findings. I will find this Nightmare for you."

"I have little doubt that you will. But I am afraid there is little time for such research. You must begin your journey to Perinville immediately."

"Perinville?" Twilight echoed. "I'm sorry, my queen, but I don't-"

"There you shall meet with the team that I have assembled for you. They will aid you in determining the exact nature of our quarry."

A sinking pit formed in Twilight's stomach as she took in the words of her mentor and liege. "Team?" she asked, then gritted her teeth together and cursed herself for once again repeating Celestia's words. The conversation had suddenly swung far left, and she was feeling off balance. Shaking her head to clear it, she stepped forward and put her hands out beseechingly. "Queen Celestia, I do not believe that I need a team to accomplish my goal. I have performed well enough for you on my own before, and I assure you that I will continue to do so now."

Celestia stopped writing and slowly looked up. Even though her face betrayed no emotion, the white horns that sprang from underneath her flowing hair seemed to sparkle brightly, and the wings that sat close to her back twitched with agitation. Twilight knew that she was walking a thin line by pressing on, but she couldn't seem to help herself.

"I will go to Perinville if you believe it will help, my queen," she said, trying to placate and entreat at the same time, "and I will even do the research as I go. But I don't see any reason to involve others, especially as you yourself desire secrecy on this matter."

"Twilight," the queen said evenly as she gradually drew in a breath and then let it out as a soft sigh, "I have been your teacher and, more importantly, your friend for many years. I have seen you do many wonderful, amazing things in your time here in Cantela and abroad. But you simply cannot allow your self-reliance to consume you to the point where you become insular. If you close yourself off to the aid of others, then when you truly require that aid, I am afraid you will find it is not there, and only too late.

"I worry for you," she continued, allowing a hint of softness into her voice and expression. "But I cannot protect you always. Nor can you always protect me. Not on your own. Please, accept the aid provided by these others. I am asking you as your friend. Do not force me to order you as your queen."

The pit in Twilight's gut had somehow set fire, which she felt twisting up and around her heart. She yearned to say more, and very nearly did, but with a slight bow of her head and a downturning of her eyes, she acquiesced to the other woman's request. Without a word, she pulled up her hood, turned on her heel, and made her way back to the hall's wide doors.

The sound of pen on paper and the thrumming of blood rushing through her ears were the only sounds she could hear as she left.

---

The door to Twilight's quarters softly slid open, allowing her into the dark confines. The overheads automatically illuminated when the door closed, causing light to stream across the slumbering Spike and waking him. Stretching his back casually, he clicked his sharp claws on the foot of the bed and opened his mouth wide in a jaw-cracking yawn. Waking routine finished, he clambered down from the mattress and moved to twine himself around his mistress' legs. Twilight absentmindedly scratched behind the dragon's ears for a few moments before stepping over him and moving over to her closet.

Her hands moved quickly, removing her robe and deftly picking out a new outfit. There was no hesitation in her movements, no moment of indecision or inability to find exactly what she wanted. Her collection of clothing was perfectly arranged, just like the rest of her small apartment. A place for everything and everything in its place.

That being the case, she did not simply leave the robe where it had fallen, but instead picked it up and put it in with the rest of the dirty laundry to be washed by the palace attendants later. The fact that she had only put it on shortly before she had gone to see the Queen and could not have possibly gotten it dirty in any way did not deter her in the slightest.

While her new outfit was not as pleasingly ascetic, it was more functional for the traveling that would have to be done. Light but sturdy boots, rugged cargo pants, lightly armored jacket, and a gear harness strapped around her waist, filled with many small tools that she might not need but would be sore to be without if they were. A quick check in the full length mirror next to the closet showed her that everything was adequately squared away.

And, though it didn't truly matter, she had to admit it looked good on her as well. The predominant color of her clothing matched that of the darker purple stripe that ran through her hair, and it had a vaguely military cut to it that appealed to her orderly sensibilities. All that she needed to finish it off was the pair of gloves that she pulled out of her bedside nightstand and slipped onto her hands.

As she began packing a small bag with various necessities for the road, Spike watched her every move and lightly clicked his teeth together from time to time. Finally unable to contain himself any longer, he broke the silence between them.

"Hey, we going somewhere?"

Twilight's head snapped up, and the somewhat irritated look she'd had on her face since she'd entered the room became even further clouded. "You know we are, Spike," she said, then went back to her furious packing.

"Well, yeah," he admitted as he rubbed the back of his neck. "They dropped off the info cube while you were out. I went ahead and ate it, and . . . "

"And?"

" . . . aaaaaand I think it's a good idea?"

The snort that tore its way out of Twilight's nostrils was immediate, loud, and obviously heartfelt in the extreme. Spike fell silent for a few moments while he gathered up the courage to speak again.

"I mean, you really are stuck in here or the lab most of the time," he said. "It'll be good for you to get out and, y'know, get to know some other people."

"This isn't a social visit, Spike. It's not a play date. It is an important mission assigned to me by the Queen herself." She sealed the bag and slung it over her shoulder. "We've got a job to do, and we're going to do it, with or without whatever soldiers Celestia may have assigned to me. Preferably without."

"Er . . . " Spike tapped two of his metallic talons together nervously.

Twilight narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "What?" she asked, her voice suddenly hard as stone.

"Well, see, it's just . . . they aren't soldiers," Spike told her, shrugging his shoulders. "They're kind of . . . being paid to do this."

As Spike's voice trailed off, Twilight's ire turned to something more akin to grim annoyance. "Mercenaries."

"Right."

"We don't need that scum."

"Yes," Spike unconvincingly conceded, then quickly amended, "but! And I shouldn't actually be telling you this, but Celestia's orders on the cube were pretty explicit that I'm supposed to try and steer you toward meeting up with them anyway. Not actually taking them on for the job!" He held up his hands placatingly before Twilight could interrupt. "Just . . . meet up with them is all. Feel them out. See what you think.

"And y'know," he said, "they might not be so bad! I hear they're doing a lot of great things in the mercenary field these days. Soldiers for hire are supposed to be real professionals now!"

Twilight crossed her arms and fumed. "Right," she finally said, "fine. We'll meet with them. We have to stop in Perinville anyway, I guess, so it's not like it's going to be out of our way to tell them to find a job elsewhere."

"That's the spirit!" Spike cheered. "So, we going or what?"

She gave him a light pat on the head as she led him out through the door, which sealed and locked behind them. Various functionaries, servants, and members of the military filtered around them as they walked the spacious hallways of the castle. A few tried to make brief eye contact with the favored student of the queen, but none of them attempted to actually stop her and strike up a conversation. With the way she moved and the way she was dressed, they had to know that she was on her way somewhere important. Those who would have approached her anyway still didn't thanks to the added force of her reputation.

The trip down to the closest vehicle bay took almost no time at all. Gravcars, airships, and even a few scattered ground vehicles were parked around the massive room that was only one of many lining the edges of the castle. There were always visitors in and out and errands for those who lived within the building to run outside its walls. It was a necessity to have several fully operational docks running night and day, and they were always a hotbed of activity, the thrum of engines only barely louder than the constant hum of conversation.

Twilight ignored all of the sleek machines sitting in the many parking aisles of the dock as she walked along. Instead, she made her way unerringly to an open hatch and looked out at the city of Cantela beyond. The capital of Ectheria was a sprawling metropolis, filled with tall spires between which flew the bustling citizenry as they went on living their lives. She wanted to make sure that they could continue living those lives in as much peace as could possibly be procured under the circumstances, and that meant she needed to be on her way.

Before she even gave the order, Spike was already stretching himself out fully along the ground. His purple and green scales pulled away from each other as they flipped and slid along the now-exposed rails underneath, pulling around into a new formation that rapidly began to resemble a seat. His talons retracted into his hands, and his arms and legs fused together just before sprouting three sets of grav plating. Subtle mechanical noises came from every part of him, indications that his internal parts were also on the move, realigning themselves to the positions required for his new function.

With the final shift completed, what was moments before Spike the mecha-dragon had become Spike the gravbike. Twilight easily swung her leg up and over, settled into place, and put her hands on the handlebars. A systems check was unnecessary, she knew, but she performed one anyway. To his credit, Spike said nothing and simply waited patiently for her to come to the same conclusion his own diagnostic circuits had come to long before.

City air enveloped them as Twilight hit the lifters and pulled out of the dock like a bullet. Mid-morning light slid in at an angle, but she was prepared for it. Fishing out a pair of goggles from her bag, she slipped them on and polarized them against the sun's effects, allowing her to see with ease.

The exit to merge with regular traffic came up just as she passed over the castle gates, but she kept straight and true. The special flight permissions that Spike was broadcasting would ensure that she wouldn't be hassled by the local guard, and she knew her way through the city well enough that she felt confident driving at top speed outside of the normal skylanes. Only once the she had finally left the cityscape of Cantela behind and was traveling over the farmland beyond did she relinquish control to Spike and opened the computer link on his control panel.

"Okay, let's see what you have for me . . . " she mumbled to herself as she called up the data stored on the cube he had eaten earlier.

An hour and a half later, Spike cleared his throat to get her attention. It was merely an affectation given that he had no real throat to clear, but it served its purpose well enough. She looked up to see a small village in the distance but rapidly coming closer. Shutting down the infolink, she took back manual control and angled in to get a closer look at her destination. A quick scan did not reveal anything even resembling an official landing area, which immediately irked her. There wasn't even much evidence of an unofficial landing area, which further irritated her and started her wondering exactly what kind of little podunk town the queen had sent her to.

She found herself having to admit, however, that in a way it made sense. Given the MO she had gleaned from the so-called Nightmare's file, it seemed the perfect place to start trying to sway people away from the queen's rule. Perinville wasn't exactly an outlying backwater, but it was still in something of an isolated area within Ectheria's borders. It was bordered by working but mostly unpopulated ranches and farmland on most sides and an untamed forest on the other. By all accounts, the people had little contact with any of the nearby cities and much preferred it that way. It would almost be child's play to find enough people there who wouldn't exactly have the strongest ties with the monarchy.

With a sudden feeling of disquiet, Twilight picked out a reasonably clear looking area a quarter mile outside the village and brought Spike to a halt on a bald hill right near the main road. Once she had cleared the saddle, Spike shifted back into his dragon form and swiped his tail back and forth thoughtfully.

"Doesn't look like a bad little place," he said approvingly.

"We're not here on a sight-seeing tour," she reminded him, then set out to follow the road up to the village gates. He quickly fell in next to her, slinking along on all four feet and looking almost more like a snake than a dragon.

"I know, I know," he said. "But it's not like we can't appreciate the scenery as we go, right? We can walk and look at the same time. And who knows? You might actually like it."

If Twilight was paying any attention to his words at all, she didn't show it. With a sigh, he gave up and they continued the short march in silence.

The gates of Perinville were open and, to Twilight's surprise, unguarded. She frowned as she and Spike passed through, wondering if there was even any point in having the protective walls at all under the circumstances. With a mental snort of derision, she figured she probably could have flown directly into the village square without anyone so much as batting an eyelash and completely unimpeded by a flight shield. Her estimation of Nightmare's possible plan went up another notch. The people of Perinville were obviously not prepared for an invasion of any kind, subtle or overt.

The village was, in and of itself, very unimpressive in Twilight's eyes. Very quaint in its architecture, which she really didn't mind, but built in a very open and haphazard fashion, which she did. It seemed almost as if the people who had planned out the village had simply thrown darts at a map and zoned it accordingly. A little voice in the back of her head tried to tell her that it wasn't actually all that disorganized, but the more forceful and orderly part of her brain saw nothing more than chaos running rampant. It was an affront to her sensibilities, and she was almost thankful that she and Spike had finally reached their ultimate destination in the little town.

The exterior of the bar and grill identified as Tessercube Corner on the sign above the door was clean but tacky, and as they stepped through the door, Twilight and Spike found that the interior did not disappoint in matching. Twilight herself did not normally attend theme restaurants of her own volition, and if the info cube hadn't instructed her that Tessercube would be the meeting place for the mercenaries, she would have turned right around and walked back out without a second thought.

As it was, she resigned herself to her fate, slumped her shoulders, and stepped further inside.

"Oh wow!" Spike said, directing his sensors almost everywhere at once to take in all the strange memorabilia lining the walls. "This place is great! Why don't we go to places like this more often, Twilight?"

"Because I have a semblance of good taste," she grumbled under her breath. She waved off the waitress that approached them with a too-bright smile and stalked off toward the booth in the far corner. To her complete lack of amusement, the wall overhead was adorned with an old-fashioned sled, two hammers nailed together in an X shape, four digipads blinking advertisements from nearly three decades ago, and the stuffed head of a pony. "Kill me now."

The seats, at least, were comfortable, covered in plenty of plush material sealed under a layer of cloth and polymers. She slipped in as Spike slid under to wrap himself around the table's center pole. Almost immediately there was a young woman standing by the table, leaning over and looking at her expectantly.

"Water," she told the strangely intense woman before any unneeded pleasantries could be exchanged, "and nothing else. I won't be here long."

To her great startlement, the woman let out a high pitched giggle that seemed to drill straight out of her mouth and into Twilight's brain. "I'm not the waitress, silly!" she said once she'd calmed herself down. "I'm Pinkie! And you must beeeeee . . . Twilight! I know because I know everyone in Perinville and I don't know you so you have to be Twilght! Am I right or am I right or am I right?"

"Wha-?!" Twilight started, then stopped herself as she suddenly recognized the name and a sudden sinking feeling hit her stomach. "You're one of the mercenaries, aren't you," she stated rather than asked.

"Yup yup yup!" Pinkie's grin was a million watt bulb being powered directly by the sun. Trying to look away from all those insane teeth didn't help, however, as Twilight found her eyes then inexorably drawn up to the equally insane mass of curly pink hair that seemed to have no particular direction in mind. "I saw you come in and just had to come over and get you, 'cause we all decided not to meet out here after all, 'cause the Mr. and Mrs. Sekac have a backroom that they said we could use, 'cause it'll be a little more private, 'cause privacy is super important when you're talking about the stuff we've got to talk about!"

An image of hands wrapping around the aptly named Pinkie's throat suddenly filled Twilight's mind, and it took sheer force of will to keep reality from matching fantasy. Gritting her teeth and giving in to what was obviously the inevitable, she growled, "Yes. That sounds very reasonable."

She stood up and gestured for Pinkie to lead the way, which she thankfully did without any further one-sided conversation. The strange woman did skip along, however, which given her ample endowments and skin-tight pink and white outfit was just as distracting in its own way. In her head, Twilight began calculating just how long she could resist telling all of the mercenaries as a whole to go stuff themselves if Pinkie was at all representative of the group.

"Holy crap, finally!" a raspy voice called out from the other side of the backroom the moment they stepped through the door. "Let's get the hell outta here and start doing some damage already!"

"Hold your horses there, li'l missy," a gruffer but still female voice called out from nearby. "We ain't on the job just yet."

Twilight looked back and forth between the two speakers and started reconsidering her earlier appraisal. At the very least they didn't immediately seem to be like Pinkie, but she still wasn't sure at first glance what they were all going to be like, as they all seemed to be completely different from each other in several ways.

In all, four others occupied the room aside from Twilight and Pinkie, and pretty much the only thing they seemed to have in common was that all of them were women. The one with the accent went around, introducing each of them. "Now this here's Rarity, Flutter, Dash, you already met Pinkie o'course, and I'm AJ. Info cube said you're Twilight, right? Nice ta meet ya."

The tall woman stepped forward and took Twilight's hand in hers. Twilight was about to give a greeting of her own, but it became lodged in her throat as sudden pain rushed through her hand and up her arm into her shoulder. Apparently recognizing the wince of pain in Twilight's expression, AJ let go and held her hands up.

"Hey, sorry 'bout that," she said. "Still ain't quite used to shakin' hands with anyone that ain't an earther."

"Perfectly alright," Twilight returned graciously as she gingerly tested her fingers to make sure none of them were broken. "Though I think I'll skip any further physical shows of comradery, if the rest of you don't mind."

The woman AJ had introduced as Rarity laughed brightly and waved off any concern. "Don't you worry at all, my dear," she said. "The rest of us aren't quite so uncouth as-"

"So you're from the queen, huh?" the raspy voiced woman interrupted, fists on her hips as she stared down at Twilight from where she was standing upside-down on the ceiling. "Well I see your horns, but where's your wings?" Almost accusingly, she spread her own translucent blue wings wide and waited for an explanation.

"Dash, you dingus!" AJ said before Twilight could answer. "It's obvious she's just a reg'lar ol' demon like Rarity, ain't it? She ain't got no angel wings, and she ain't earther tough. Only Queen Celestia's got all three!"

Dash rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "Yeah yeah, whatever," she sneered. "So are we gonna get this show on the road or what?"

Taking the chance to pounce on the conversation and get it under some semblance of control, Twilight stepped into the middle of the room and said, "Yes, exactly right. We all came here for a reason. Mine was to meet with all of you and make a decision regarding your employment. And I have made that decision." She took in a deep breath. "And that decision is that your services are not required, thank you all for coming, it's been lovely chatting, but I must be going now, thank you."

"Now whoa whoa whoa," AJ said, putting her gloved hand on Twilight's upper arm like a vice before she could get away. "Hold on there, darlin'. I don't mean to be rude or nothin', but I don't think this conversation's quite done at all. Now, I actually live near here, so it ain't no real skin of my nose, but most a'these here girls done come a long way outta their way for this job. Dash and Flutter came all the way down from Cloud City One, and Rarity's one a'them big city folk from Manetta. I think maybe we owe it to 'em to talk this out a bit before you go runnin' off, don't you?"

Silence settled on the room like a tense and waiting predator. A spell tripped its way across Twilight's tongue as she glared at the woman pinning her arm, but she managed to keep it from flying past her teeth and erupting what had suddenly become a very volatile situation. Swallowing the sharp knot that had formed in her throat, she gently picked AJ's fingers away from her jacket sleeve.

"Fine," she said, then turned back to face the others. "What you are about to hear is strictly confidential. We have received reports that a being calling itself Nightmare-"

Pinkie burst out into sudden and prolonged laughter. Even though the others managed to keep themselves under better control, the sudden shift in mood from tense to amused was obvious.

"What, that old husband's tale?" Dash asked, incredulous. "Okay, I'm up for just about anything. Fight a war, smash a dictator, find a hidden city of milk and honey, bug hunt, you name it. But there ain't no way I'm gonna go chasing some kiddie ghost story."

"You'd be paid even if we don't succeed," Twilight told her.

"I'm in," Dash recanted her previous stance without even the slightest hesitation. "When do we start hunting this bitch?"

"We have received reports that a being calling itself Nightmare has begun operating in this area," Twilight continued as if she had never been interrupted. "Attempts have been made to individually recruit the people of Perinville into opposing Queen Celestia. Though we have heard from those who have turned away these advances, it is currently unknown how many may already be a part of Nightmare's forces. Anyone that lives in this area is currently under suspicion."

Her eyes flicked momentarily to AJ, who clearly didn't miss the implication but didn't say anything.

"The first part of my mission is to determine if these rumors have any validity to them," Twilight continued. "If they do, I am then to find and eliminate Nightmare's influence on the people of this town, or at least enable such an elimination."

"I like the sound of that last part!" Dash said, a wide grin lighting up her face as she pounded her fist into her other hand.

"And I'm not unfond of the first," Rarity added. "I could do with a bit of socializing after being trapped in that cramped gravrail compartment. Such dreadful accommodations, I tell you!"

Pinkie positively bounced up and down in place. "Ooh! Ooh! Talking to people is fun! Pick me! Pick me!"

The frail looking angel that AJ had introduced as Flutter sat in the corner and continued to not say anything, as she had been doing since Twilight had entered the room, but AJ herself laughed and slapped Twilight painfully on the back of her shoulder.

"Welp, sounds pretty good to me too!" the rough earther proclaimed boisterously. "But hey, I can see you still ain't too sold on the idea of us gettin' in your way. So I tell ya what! How bout the five of us just help you out just a li'l ol' bit, huh? I mean hey, we're all here already, right? Might as well put ourselves to good use and ask around a little bit, see what we can find out. And, heck, I won't even charge ya for it myself! Whatcha say, girls?"

A chorus of agreements came from the rest of the room, though Dash suffixed hers with an irritated "Whatever, let's just do something already!"

Twilight looked around at the strange group of women and pressed her teeth together tightly. Almost every fiber of her being screamed at her that she was making the wrong decision, but she could still feel a ghost of the power of AJ's grip on her arm. As strange as they sounded and acted, there did seem the slight possibility that some of them might be useful in some small way.

With a sigh of resignation, she nodded her head ruefully and said, "Congratulations. You're all hired."

With the meeting officially adjourned by Twilight's acceptance of the inevitable, the mercenaries moved to follow the reluctant demoness back out into the main lobby. Dash dropped down from the ceiling but didn't deign to set foot on the ground, hovering several inches above it as she drifted along with the group. The rest walked along normally, with Flutter silently bringing up the rear.

Twilight was surprised to see that even though they hadn't been in the back for very long, Tessercube Corner had become quite full with clientele in the meantime. In order to keep anyone from getting a scaly metal surprise when they sat down, she walked over to the table she had been sitting at earlier and rapped it with her knuckles. The metallic squeak of jaws opening in a wide yawn came from underneath and was soon followed by the clicking of claws on the tile as Spike emerged.

A squeal of delight suddenly cut across the restaurant, interrupting the dragon in the middle of a stretch and setting everyone to searching for the source.

"Oh my gosh!" Flutter said as she nearly bowled the rest of the group over. "Is that a mecha-dragon? Oh, he's so adorable! Hi there, little guy. What's your name?"

Twilight blinked in confusion. Though Flutter seemed to be going through all the motions of being excited up to and perhaps passing the point of hysteria, her voice seemed to belie any such evidence. It wasn't pitched up, quickened, or loud by any means, every word instead being cooed out in a soft, quiet, soothing fashion. Twilight found it disconcerting but surprisingly unsurprising.

"Uh, hey!" Spike said after the intial shock wore off. "I'm Spike! And yup, I'm 100% mecha-dragon, from chrome cranium to tin-plated tail!" He clanged his knuckles against the side of his head as if to prove he was truly made out of metal.

"Oh my, that's wonderful. My name is Flutter. If you, um, don't mind me asking, were you constructed by assembly, or are you an egg-born?"

"Grade A gen-yoo-wine egg-born!" The green crest that ran along his back began to twitch with pride. "Nothin' artificial about this intelligence!"

"Wooooooow. Oh, you should meet Angelbunny!"

As Spike watched, keenly interested, Flutter pulled out a digipad and ran her fingers across it in what was obviously a well-memorized pattern. Almost instantly a softlight projection appeared on the floor between them, resolving itself into a small white rabbit munching on a carrot. At first the bunny seemed content to focus entirely on its meal, but a prod from Flutter caused it to look up at the dragon before it.

Spike blinked, his optical sensors darkening momentarily in surprise when a small pair of wings popped out of the rabbit's back and pushed it gently up into the air. He waved his claws at the little critter and was rewarded with a rude noise and a digital carrot being flung at his head before the tiny ball of fluff zipped off to hide behind its owner's pale pink tresses.

"Oh my, I'm sorry. He usually isn't like that," Flutter assured the startled dragon.

Twilight cut in with a sigh. "Yes, well, as wonderful that it is that we're all hitting it off so well," she said, tapping a foot, "I'm afraid we really need to get going."

"Oh, okay," Flutter said as she shut Angelbunny off and immediately reverted to her former quieter self. Spike clacked his teeth together and slithered around to Twilight's side as the group began to filter their way through the still-growing crowd.

"Assignments," Twilight said without preamble once they were outside. "Pinkie, you said you know everybody in town? You and Rarity start talking." She pulled out an info cube and handed it to the other demoness, since she appeared to be the more reliable of the two. "This is a list of all the people who reported contact attempts by our quarry. See if you can get them to remember anything more than what's on the cube."

"Of course, darling."

"Okie dokie lokie!"

"Dash, you're on aerial recon. Do a quick flyby of the village itself, and be discreet. Report any unusual behavior in the citizenry. Once you've finished, do a more thorough scouting of the nearby farmland and the forest. I don't expect that our target will have an obvious sign pointing to their base of operations, but it never hurts to check and make sure."

"On it!"

"Flutter, you and Spike will be checking the local archives for anything that might be connected with our task. Any reports that may have been filed but not sent to the castle, anything that you even suspect might somehow be the work of our target. And while you're there, inform the authorities of our presence here and let them know that we are all working under an official capacity, but remember that our exact purpose for being here is still confidential."

"Sure thing, Twilight," said Spike. Flutter merely clapped her hands together and did a happy little dance at the prospect of working with the mecha-dragon.

"AJ, you're with me. You all have my frequency. Contact me immediately if you find anything. Dismissed."

Before heading out on their respective assignments, Pinkie and Dash both snapped off salutes. Twilight was certain that at least one of them was meant sarcastically, but she resisted the urge to roll her eyes or say anything. Instead, she merely turned on her heel and started walking. AJ silently fell into step next to her.

The area surrounding Tessercube Corner appeared to be made up mainly of businesses. The buildings weren't large, but the signs promised that they housed any number of goods a person might want. And if it couldn't be found within the stores themselves, it could almost certainly be found in the open-air bazaar that seemed to permeate the marketplace. Without trying to appear as if she was doing so, Twilight scanned the various booths with her eyes, taking in what to her was an unusual setup.

The atmosphere of the bazaar was much different from those that could be found littering the streets of Cantela. There, in the capital city, the booths were desperate things filled with desperate people trying to ply their usually not-so-legal wares on criminals, the destitute, and discerning upper class buyers in need of particular items that would keep them in the upper class. The markets were usually cramped, filthy, and filled with the voices of merchants hawking their wares.

In contrast, the Perinville market seemed to be a clean, quiet, and completely legal affair. The booths and carts were set up with a good deal of space between them so as not to impede traffic, both on the street and to the bigger businesses. The merchants were soft sells, letting people come along and check their wares without any attempts to fast talk, and it didn't seem to hurt their trade at all. The smell of fresh produce filled the air rather than the stench of too many humanoids taking too few baths.

Twilight found that despite the bazaar exemplifying the orderliness that she herself craved on a regular basis, the scene caused a weird trill to crawl up her back. It was almost as if she'd stepped onto a completely different world, alien from anything she was used to.

"So, where we headed?"

"This way," Twilight said, pointing vaguely forward.

"Uh-huh. Reckon we are at that." AJ tilted her cowgirl hat back and stuffed her hands into her pockets as she took a moment to mull something over. "Welp," she finally said, breaking the silence once more, "whatcha think a'Perinville?"

The demon frowned a bit. "It's sound architecturally, but I can't say the same for the security." She waved her hand at a handful of happy, relaxed people that were standing at the stalls. "Don't these people realize there's a war going on?"

AJ simply shrugged and replied, "There's always a war goin' on, sugarplum." She then snorted in mild irritation. "Alright, enough a'tha chit-chat. I figure one a'us has got ta actually point out that you don't trust me, and that sure as heck means you didn't ask me to come along with ya just for the conversation. So what's on yer mind already?"

Twilight strongly considered not answering. She continued striding along, eyes forward and face set, hoping that she looked like she was actually going somewhere instead of just wandering around aimlessly. But AJ seemed the stubborn type, unlikely to give up after being rebuffed, so Twilight ground her teeth together and then dove in.

"Have you ever worked with any of the others before?" she asked without looking over.

"Sure, at least a couple of times each," the earther responded easily, having figured the question was going to come up sooner or later. "Not all at the same time like now, but I ain't figured 'em for nothin' but good, honest folk. Pinkie and Rarity both used ta live here like me, and the angels make the merc circuit pretty regularly out here. They might seem a might strange, but I figure you ain't gonna find a finer team a'mercs in the queendom."

"Won't I?" Twilight didn't look convinced. "So far what it seems I've found is a hyperactive lunatic, a preening prettygirl, a caustic psychopath, a wilting flower, and you."

"Aw, now don't hold back, dumplin'. So you really don't trust me."

"No. I don't. Being a current resident of this town means you may have already been influenced by our target, and may in fact be planning to sabotage our efforts."

"Then why in tarnation did ya tell me ta come along with you?" AJ asked, giving a wry smile.

Violet eyes momentarily regarded her from under a furrowed brow. "To make sure you can't sabotage us without my knowing about it. And . . . I think you may be the most if not only useful member of this team," Twilight admitted. "Assuming, of course, you aren't working against us. I've met other earthers before. I get the feeling you're even stronger than most."

AJ gave her a funny look and then burst into laughter, causing a few people nearby to turn and stare. The frown on Twilight's face deepened as she waited for the outburst to taper off.

"Sugarcube, you either got yourself a mighty fine sense of understatement," AJ said as she wiped a few tears of mirth from her eyes, "or you ain't read word one of our files. I got the feelin' it's the latter, and that just might explain why you ain't too keen on workin' with us. But don't you worry none. You give these girls a chance and they'll show ya what they can do."

Twilight went back to watching the ballet of commerce as they continued walking along. "We'll see," she said, unconvinced.

---

The day moved by like molasses.

Twilight considered looking over the mercenary files on her digipad, both just to have something to do and in the hopes that it would make AJ finally shut up about it, but in the end she resisted what little temptation there was to do so. There was little reason, in her thinking, to bother wasting the time learning about people that she would soon part company with anyway. Despite their offer to work the information gathering part of the mission for free, she was still fully prepared to cut them loose as soon as the first viable bit of intel popped up.

In the meantime, she had resigned herself to being shown around the village by AJ, who was more than happy to play tour guide.

Perinville had been founded by earther refugees during the First Griffon Conflict nearly six hundred years prior to the present day, according to AJ's spiel. The earthers had sought refuge at Cantela but were rebuffed at the city walls. Hard travel by foot followed until they finally reached a relatively small patch of land that hadn't been ravaged by the constant fighting, the reason for this being that it was land that nobody really wanted.

The soil in the area at the time had been contaminated by a natural magical disaster that had altered the surrounding ecosystem. Plants grew, animals dwelled, but neither flora nor fauna were anything that a non-mutated humanoid would find palatable or even, in most cases, edible. Unfortunately for the earthers, it was surrounded by even more inhospitable areas on the three sides apart from the one they'd approached from. Tall, craggy mountains blocked off any access to the south or southeast, swampland covered the north, and the rest was home to a dark and virtually impenetrable forest.

If not for their terrible desperation, the earthers would likely have turned back around and left for greener pastures, but none of them knew if such greener pastures existed or even if they did, whether or not the army of refugees would manage to make it to them before running out of supplies. And so, without any other viable option left to them, they had settled down along the habitable strip surrounding the strange plains of mutated grass and trees.

By hand and instrument, they had carved their way into the polluted land, using what limited technology they had at their disposal to terraform it, cleanse it, and turn it into arable farmland. The process took decades and many lives were lost to starvation, poor work conditions, and predators before there was enough space for the budding community to finally be self-sustaining.

Over the years, the newly named Perinville had grown larger, pushing all the way up to the edges of the forest and mountains, both of which had stubbornly refused to budge. The great swamp, on the other hand, had given way as it was drained and the land sculpted into something more useful.

Then had come what AJ called the War of Failed Independence. Twilight didn't bother to correct her. What she knew from her own history books as the Fifth Rebellion Conflict had embroiled Perinville and several other villages, towns, and cities at the time in a massive conflict with Cantela itself. The government had seen Perinville and other such small, relatively new settlements as colonies that belonged to them. The "colonies" themselves disagreed.

Queen Celestia preferred not to speak of that time, but from what little she had told Twilight, it had obviously pained her deeply to have to bring the errant communities forcibly into the fold.

Though they had lost their independence, Perinville had gained government support after the conflict. With this had come an influx of immigrants, eager for the business and job opportunities presented by a town that was busy rebuilding itself. Though the population continued to remain primarily earther, many demons and angels had come to call the little village home.

AJ's family, she was inordinately pleased to inform Twilight, hadn't been part of the later settlers. "It was my ancestors what started drainin' the swamp," she said with enough pride that it seemed almost like she was taking credit for having done it herself. "After that first patch was made fit for livin' on, they set up camp and ain't ever moved. Aw, sure, we got some family up in the cities and a few a'tha smaller towns, but there's always been Smiths here in Perinville, and there always will be."

"Fascinating," Twilight said, trying her best to sound as if it truly were. She took a quick sip of her cider and set it back on the table before asking, "So, what do the Smiths do with their little patch of land here?"

AJ grinned and pointed at their glasses. "You're drinkin' it, sugarcube. Sweet Apple Acres provides all sortsa fruit products to the businesses here and a few places elsewhere, but as the name oughta tell ya, it's apples we're best known for. You really oughta try the harder stuff, by the way," she said, then quickly slammed down her own drink and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Mighty tasty, and got a real kick to it!"

"I'll . . . keep that in mind. It must take a lot of you to keep up with that much business."

"Naw, not really," AJ said with a wave of her hand. "We got a coupla hired hands, but mostly it's just me, granny, my big bro, and my little sis."

Twilight leaned forward, suddenly interested despite herself. "Well, what about your mercenary work? Surely that leaves them shorthanded."

"Aw, bein' a merc is just a side thing to help us pay for stuff like repairs and maintenance on the tools. Orchard farmin' is my real job. It's why I usually just take jobs nearby, like thisun."

With a soft noncommittal sound, Twilight settled back into her chair. In the time she had spent sightseeing, occasionally questioning people, and generally learning the lay of the land with AJ, she had begun to develop a grudging respect for the woman. True to her race, she was a down-to-earth type, apparently very practical and with a great deal of pride in her accomplishments, indicative of a strong work ethic.

But this paradoxically made the earther even harder to trust, because those were the very same traits Twilight would expect a traitor in the group to show her in order to alay suspicion. The whole situation continued to be too tricky to fully unravel, and she was glad to be distracted from it by the insistent buzz of her commlink. Pulling the device out and pressing it into her ear, she opened the line.

"What have you got for me?" she asked, then winced as Pinkie's squealing voice tried to tear its way through her eardrum.

"Oh man, what didn't we find?" Pinkie replied. "Well I'll tell you what we didn't find! Anything that wasn't already in the cube you gave us!"

There was a sudden silence on the line as the merc waited for a response and Twilight tried her best to untangle the mess of a conversation that she had just been handed. After a few seconds she realized that Pinkie had told her that they hadn't found anything, a translation that seemed a bit suspect given that Pinkie had delivered her message in such a cheerful tone. "Um, Pinkie? Could you put Rarity on? Please?"

"Dreadfully sorry about that, darling," Rarity said once she had control of the comm, "but I'm afraid our dear Pinkamena is telling the truth. Everyone we interviewed confirmed their earlier report without any substantial amount of variance."

Twilight sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose with her fingers. "That's alright, I didn't really expect much to come from that end anyway. I'll call the others and see if they've had any better luck, then we'll all meet back at-"

"Well now, my dear, I hate to interrupt that train of thought, but we aren't actually quite finished," said Rarity. "We do have one more name to check before we can arrange a rendezvous. A Brolly somethingorother. We've been having just the most awful time trying to track him down, but we think he may currently be at the weather control station. I know it's a little bit out of our way, but do you think we could reconvene there by any chance?"

"Hmm. Hang on, let me check with the others first." Putting Rarity on hold, she flipped open another channel and dialed for Spike. The dragon answered immediately. "Spike, are you almost finished? I think we're going to be heading up to the weather control station and-"

"Whoa, really?"

Twilight glanced up at AJ, who caught the surprise in the demon's eyes. "What do you mean 'whoa, really'?" Twilight asked.

"I mean it's kinda spooky you should say that right now," Spike returned. "Flutter and I have nearly torn this entire system apart without finding anything, but she just found this story tucked away in a recent newscast about the animals out by the weather control station acting strangely. Like a weird migration pattern away from the area. No one seemed to think much of it, but it got me digging deeper into the station's records, and apparently there have been some mild power fluctuations over the past couple of weeks. Not enough to really notice unless you knew you were looking for something."

" . . . okay, definite change of plans then. We're meeting at the station immediately."

"Roger that, boss lady."

Twilight cut the connection and quickly relayed what Spike and Flutter had discovered. "Do you have Dash's frequency?" she asked. "Good. Call her in. Rarity?" she said, switching back to her original call.

"Yes, darling?"

"We're on our way."