(Special thanks to Alamut for helping me write the transmission scene)

Now:

We flew back to the base without incident or any sign of the Enclave ships. We landed on the field outside the hospital and my friends headed inside. I put Candy down on the floor and she quickly got up on her hooves and started forward slowly under her own power.

“There's a good girl, you can do it.” I said, walking around her slowly and backing down the ramp. She hesitated at the top of the ramp, looking at me for a moment then back at the ground, clearly confused by the sudden change in angle, but she still put one hoof in front of the other and tried to make her way down the ramp. I wrapped my magic around her midsection so that if she slipped I'd catch her. She made it about a quarter of the way down before she stumbled and fell. I lifted her up and she looked defeated. “Don't worry sweetie, you have years to learn this stuff.” I said, kissing her cheek and carrying her inside.

“What took you so long?” CB asked as we entered the hospital, “I was getting worried you got lost.”

“Worried I got lost?” I chuckled, “not at all, just working on something.” I set Candy down and she wandered slowly towards CB.

“Oh she figured out walking!” CB giggled, leaning down and kissing the top of her sister's head. Candy looked up at her and nuzzled her happily. She wandered slowly between CB's legs, lost her balance and bit down on CB's tail to try and keep from falling. “OW! DAMMIT CANDY!” She cried, grabbing the foal in her magic and lifting her up, freeing her tail in the process. Candy just giggled and clapped her hooves.

“I have to go talk to Venture and see what he's come up with,” I said, “can you take care of Candy while we work?”

“Yeah, no problem.” CB nodded, looking at the foal intently, “long as you don't bite me again...” She said seriously before putting her back on the floor.

“Thanks CB.” I said, kissing her horn gently.

“Don't you need to get your head looked at?”

“Nah, I'm sure there's a minimum of drain bamage.” I shrugged, grinning at her. She rolled her eyes and turned to Candy, who had started off down the hallway on her own.

“Wait for me.” She said, following Candy slowly down the hall. “I'll see you later dad.” She called back to me as I started down the other hall. I felt a small twinge of sadness, she'd already grown out of calling me Daddy...not that that was a bad thing, she was a teenager, it was embarrassing for her I'm sure. Soon enough Candy would be able to talk and she'd call me Daddy for years before she grew out of it.

“So how's things looking?” I asked when I came into the lab. Venture sat in front of the mass of computer monitors, four of them showing one big map of the Wasteland, the others flowing data.

“It's not looking great...Those Raptors that grabbed Ruby shot through the cloud barrier and were GONE.” He sighed, looking at me. “What happened to your head?”

“Nothing I haven't dealt with before.” I said, walking over and looking at the data.

“I traced their movements up into the sky, but lost them. A friend of yours named Homage said she had seen the same but also lost them at the same point when they moved past the tower network.”

“Dammit!” I slammed a hoof on the desk. “We need to do more.”

“I'm doing everything I can. Worse comes to worse we'll go in guns blazing.”

“I don't like the sound of that...” Brutus said from the doorway.

“It's not looking good.” I sighed, rubbing my face and trying to calm down, my imagination presenting me with all kinds of worst case scenarios and thoroughly avoiding any best case ones.

“So what are we going to do?”

I sighed again, hating myself for my answer. “There's nothing we can do...At least not at the moment...”

Venture got up out of the chair. “I'm going to get something to eat. You want anything?”

“I think I'm good for the time being.” I said, flopping back in the chair. “You might as well crash out for now too, it's getting late.”

“I'll sleep for a little bit, but I'm coming back in an hour or two.”

“Sure, thanks.” I nodded and he headed out.

“I know there isn't much I can do, your computer systems are so far outside my skill set I feel like a moron just being in this room, but I'll hang out if you don't mind.”

“Well you're good with computers I don't know why in two years you haven't asked me to teach you anything.”

“Kind of intimidated by your skills.” He shrugged.

“Well that's an admirable admission, come here and I'll teach you a few things specific to my systems. You can use em to impress some buck down the road.”

“You do know that when you mate with a Changeling like I have with Lily, it's basically the same as getting married right?”

“I did not realize that no.” I said seriously. “Well I'm happy for you then.”

“Well knowing is half the battle.”

“The other half is violence.”

“Sadly.” He nodded, walking over and standing beside me while I explained how to get root access to computers and bypass encrypted log ins for whenever he wanted to hack a system. Not MINE of course, but the usual computers found in the Wasteland.

We spent the next few hours going over a number of different security overrides and bypass abilities, he picked it up very well. CB showed up after the first hour, a sleeping Candy in tow in a small crib. She put the sleeping foal down beside my desk so I could keep an eye on her so CB could go to bed as she had school in the morning.

"Uhh Cane? This says somepony is trying to open a comm channel." Brutus said, gesturing to one of the monitors running along the wall beside him. I slid over to the screen and looked at it curiously, it was being routed through almost a dozen locations...I put a tracer to work on it and moved back to the computer and accepted the connection request.

"Doctor Sugar Cane I presume?" The cobalt blue Pegasus that appeared on the screen chuckled to himself seeing as my eyes went wide. I could also see Brutus tensing up. "Yes, the Blitzwing knows of your existence Doctor. The work of you and your brother for the MOP and MAS during the war are true marvels that I've always admired. But where are my manners, let me introduce myself. I'm Colonel..."

"Scourge Cloud." My words cut him off. I recognized him the moment I saw his face on the screen. It was him. He was there. In those orbs. In Ruby's memories. He seemed older but his pupil-less, golden eyes were unmistakable. I could see that, for a split second, his face went blank, expressionless as his gaze. But then he smiled at me neither jovially, nor sheepishly and I felt the anger start to truly boil inside of me.

"My good Doctor your knowledge is truly astonishing! I would have never..."

"Shut the fuck up you sick asshole." I said coldly at the screen. "If you dare to do anything to my fiancee I'll fucking end you! I might be an Earthbound pony by birth but I am more than capable of making my way through the clouds to put a bullet in your skull." I could feel my rage building and I struggled to keep it in check. " I will rip your wings off and break every bone in your body for the things you've done to her!" I wasn't thinking straight. How could I after the things I'd seen in those orbs?! "I'll crush you! I'll... I'll..."

"Have you finished Doctor?" The calmness of his voice had cut me off. He was looking at me with slight amusement. "I understand that you had to get that out of your system and hope that it helped to clear your mind. Nevertheless I would like to keep this talk civil and professional."

"You got a screwed up view of professionalism." Brutus retorted, coming up beside me. I moved the tracer program onto the bank of monitors mounted on the wall above the one we spoke on so I could watch it without looking away from the monitor. "What do you want you limp winged piece of shit?" Brutus asked. I could almost feel the rage emanating from his body. "Come to beg for mercy? Surrender yourself maybe?" I could feel his body shaking with the rage he some how managed to contain.

"As much I cherish every opportunity of widening my vocabulary, I certainly can't say that I'm interested in muck-dweller linguistics at this moment Mister Brute Force." The blue buck answered in a reprimanding voice while looking at him with disdain clearly written over his face. "Seeing the alternative, after all these years, I can finally understand Miss Star's interest in ancient languages." He smirked while turning his attention towards me. "Or should I say Mrs. Cane?"

"What...do...you...want?" I asked slowly through gritted teeth, struggling not to lose it on him again, I needed to keep him on long enough to trace him. "If you want to keep this professional and Civil you'll refrain from hurling insults Colonel, unless you were just expecting civility from us, but not the other way around?" I knew I wouldn't get a rise out of him but the insult still felt good and I could see Brutus smirk out of the corner of my eye.

The pegasus laughed out loud at my comment. This wasn't the reaction I expected...

His laughter calmed down to a silent chuckle."Turning my own words against me Doctor?" He shook his head and then clasped his hooves together. "Wonderful! Finally someone with humour and wits." The pegasus sighed and made a painful expression. "You simply wouldn't believe how foreseeable the surface dwellers are with their invectives, threats, boasts and..." He stopped abruptly, cocking his head while eyeing me and Brutus. " On the other hoof maybe you would but I think that I'm deviating from the initial topic."

"I should say so." I said, sitting back in the chair and trying to put on my best unimpressed face.

"You've obviously contacted me for a reason, you went through my private M.A.S. network connection to get right to me and bypass the rest of The Collective being in the know about this conversation."

Unfortunately the noise of Scourge's laugh had disturbed the sleeping foal in the rocker beside the desk and she started to cry. I closed my eyes and sighed deeply, not because I had to tend to Candy, but because she wasn't a secret anymore.

"Excuse me..." I said as politely as I could manage and rolled the chair over to her. "Shh, shh, it's okay Candy, Daddy's here..." I cooed lifting her into my hooves and holding her close, keeping the blanket bundled tightly around her and rocking her gently.

She calmed down quickly enough but when I tried to put her back down she started crying again, so I brought her back to my chest and, with no other options, I rolled back to the desk, the happily cooing infant cuddled in my forelegs. "Sorry about that, please continue." I tried to play it off as best I could.

As I feared Scourge Cloud directed his attention towards Candy. For a while he was looking at her silently, his face the same mask as in some of Ruby's memories. I would've said he was doing it absentmindedly as the lack of pupils made it impossible to read him, effectively hiding his thoughts. I was afraid of those thoughts.

"Candy Cane." He said as if savouring it and then smiled at me. "There will certainly come a time when she starts hating the sound of the name, inventing monikers that better fit her personality. It will be as well adorable as irritating." Scourge Cloud clapped his hooves together and leaned back in his chair. "Considering all the firewalls, accessing that little private network of yours was quite interesting. I won't even bother addressing the problem, that you will clearly understand, of sending the signal through half the continent in a vain attempt to make it impossible for you to track it down." My eyes went wide as he looked towards something on his right. How did he know... "In the ten remaining minutes, before I have to shut down the connection, I would like to address a certain matter. Before that I'll have to ask you a question Doctor Cane: would you like to bring your daughter up as an half orphan?"

I tightened my hold on Candy and she almost seemed to give me a dirty look but she didn't start to cry again. "What do you mean?" Though with my imagination I could already think of dozens of horrifying scenarios, each and every one of them involving him having Ruby, which was something I knew couldn't happen to her, her mind might well snap if it were to happen. I slid closer to the computer, using my back legs to type on a keyboard I kept on the floor for when I was trying to trace wiring or otherwise working under the desk and wanted to be able to change songs or skip around in movies without having to haul myself back up to the desk, reallocating system and server resources from all over the base to speed up the tracing program, as well as to activate a few backdoor protocols built into the systems that Scourge still seemed fool enough to use to contact me. Code was flying across the bank of monitors as I tried to force my way into Scourge's systems to break the routing signal completely.

Scourge Cloud shrugged. "What do I mean Doctor Cane? I meant to probe the level of attachment you feel for your spouse. History and society teaches us that it is one thing to get a mare pregnant and another one to genuinely feel something for her." He smiled and leaned towards the monitor reenacting my own movement. "Doctor Cane we're both intelligent enough to know that the simple fact of your mare being in my hoofs makes you gullible and vulnerable at the same.”

The pegasus extended one of his wings and I could hear tipping sounds coming from his right. Suddenly a timer appeared in the screen's left upper corner, showing the now rapidly decreasing amount of time. Scourge Cloud gave me a sad smile. "It pains me to see that you intend to end this conversation prematurely Doctor so I'll have to be quick: tell me the locations of doctor Dawn and Nova Star."

"Oh fuck no, you're not coming into my house and trying to out computer me." I said. "Brutus, baby." I held Candy out and he took her quickly. My horn lit up and every computer in the room came to life, wrapped in the glow of my magic, the timer he had brought up started to scramble and glitch. "These are my computers, my babies, they bend to my will, you don't use a computer to best me, you use a gun, you use force, you don't use technology." The location of their base downloaded into my systems and started pulling data from their hard drives, it also unlocked the security cells and reprogrammed the targeting parameters of the automated sentries using my data from the sky wagon. "You'll never get Ruby's parents. They are safe from you. And unless you want the turrets to cut your men to ribbons you'll sit patiently until Ruby walks out of there and radio's me she's safe."

Scourge Cloud was looking at me with a blank expression on his face. He turned his head to the right and tried to tap something on the keyboard that I was unable to see. "You've jammed everything..." He said silently to himself.

"Yeah I have. You could cut the hardline at this point and the automation protocols I've left in your computers will take over my work." I could see the reflection of my face in the monitor, my eyes blazing with blue magic, the look scared me a little.

The door of the lab opened and I saw Venture walk up beside me. "Cane what are you..."

"Re-appropriation of our systems." I cut him off. "You can run that half of the computers if you want to help."

"Who's he?"

"He has Ruby. He's the worst monster in the Wasteland." Brutus said. Candy was held against his neck with his magic and he was rocking her gently while she poked at his mane idly though she was watching me intently, her eyes wide with wonder at the sight.

"Not for long." I said, looking back to Scourge. "Now, do we have a deal or do I bring my brother in on it and you can see just how much control we have over your base? Because I swear as good as I am alone, together we're unstoppable."

The cobalt blue pegasus nodded towards Venture. "Good day Doctor Cane, it seems our Intel on you was wrong as it described you as a think tank of sorts." Venture gave me a What the fuck is going on? look, while pointing his hoof towards the monitor. I gestured him to be silent as it wasn't something that I wanted to discuss right now. My attention was directed towards Scourge Cloud. I had the bastard where I wanted, he and his men were at my mercy and I couldn't really say that it would be mercy they would get...

"Marvelous Doctor Cane!" The jolly voice of the winged buck pulled me back to reality and I eyed him, irritated. "You've disabled every security protocol and our system is fully under your control, truly impressive. You have my respect." He nodded and leaned back in his chair with a relaxed expression on his muzzle. "Your talents would be very useful but I doubt that you would seek employment by the Blitzwing Doctor Cane. How about you Doctor Cane?" He gave Venture a jovial smile. I had enough of his shit!

Venture looked at him in confusion for a moment but his eyes lit up with yellow magical power and he took control of half the computers in the room, bathing everything in green light. "I'm good thanks, I think I've done enough damage to the wasteland."

Scourge Cloud shrugged in an almost theatrical matter, smiling apologetically. "I'll have to refuse Doctor Cane. Please shoot me I'm curious how it will work out." He leaned back in his chair and cocking his head with curiosity written all over his face.

"Fine." I sent the command and there was a CLICK, but nothing happened. I sent the command again and again. "The fuck?" I growled, seeing data roll across the screen that showed the turret fired, but clearly not.

"Cane wait." Venture said. He gestured to the monitors above me and I looked up at them. Ven brought up a list of coding, virtual network coding, none of it was real, everything I had control of was just software in Scourge Cloud's computer, none of it actually ran anything.

"Fuck you Ass hat... you think you're pretty clever don't you?" I growled, looking back at him as I started to overload the computer system that was running the virtual programs and after a moment of whining from the machine I saw flames burst to life beside Scourge Cloud. “I still have your location, you can't mask that from me!"

The pegasus waved nonchalantly with his right wing but the wind gust he produced was strong enough to extinguish the flames. He sighed and shook his head. “Doctor Cane I’m surprised that you thought the Enclave would be using the same protocols and software from two hundred years ago. Furthermore I’m even more disappointed that you believe my location will be of any use for you.“ He smiled as if challenging me to prove him wrong.

"Cane might be a little out of touch with technology but I've certainly kept up." Venture said. "Cane, the Aegis array is online you know."

I looked at him in amazement. "You're kidding."

"Nope, with all the chaos surrounding the first salvos of balefire we managed to launch the rocket and no one gave a shit. How do you think I kept such easy tabs on you for so long? Look." The monitor bank switched to a display of the whole planet as the satellite system came online, Venture accessing it through my systems.

"Well fuck me." I laughed. "And it works?"

"It's already doing it!" Venture smirked. "Hey asshole, Scourge thing, you got a window you can see out of in that little hovel you're hiding in? If not, pop your head outside and take a look in the sky." When Scourge Cloud would do this, he'd discover dozens of green lasers shining down through the cloud cover, cutting a hole through the clouds in fact, the beams surrounded Scourge's base like a cage and stretched up into the sky and well beyond.

Scourge Cloud sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I feared that it would be this, but sadly none of my superiors accepts simple logic." He shook his head and then looked at me with his emotionless eyes. "Nevertheless Doctor, it appears that we're in a problematic situation. You must understand that there a certain data files sought out by the Raven-claw Enclave that used to be in the possession of doctor Nova Star and her husband. I hoped that their daughter's ordeal from ten years ago would have lured them out for the simple act of revenge but that obviously didn't work. Miss Star on the other hoof doesn't know anything about them, or at least so she said in our latest chit-chat." He cocked his head while my heart skipped a beat at the sheer thought of another interrogation by him. "I can assure you that she was very cooperative and that no drastic measures were needed to acquire her answers. So I'll ask you Doctor: does the anagram PCDM mean anything to you?"

"You want the Cloud Disperser? Shit of course you do." I sighed. "It doesn't exist. I have been through every computer, hard drive and data storage device the Collective has. There are TWO mentions of it in the minutes of some old council meetings where Ruby's dad tried to advocate for funding to allow their research to go on, in both he got shot down. Physical records and anything else the Collective might still have had would have been lost in the Pyro collective attack on our original base last year." I was terrified for Ruby and I felt that at this point honesty was the best policy

Scourge Cloud's eyes perked up. "Oh so the name does ring a bell? Allow me the curiosity but did Miss Star tell you about it?" He put up his hoof before I could even answer his question. "No. That wouldn't fit her personality... Memory orbs!" He clapped his hooves together as the idea struck him. "She had her memories recorded but why? Oh... " His eyes widened up in realization. "She wanted to forget them, didn't she? Auto destructive tendencies, suicidal thoughts?" I noticed the rage in Brutus's eyes and saw that he was all tensed up. "But something clearly didn't work as she recognized me on the spot..." He turned his eyes on my orange friend. "... didn't it Mister Brute Force?"

"What of it? I was a teenager trying to learn complicated magic. I did what I could to help ease my friend's pain, it took her from unable to get out of bed in the morning to being able to start getting on with her life. You raped and tortured her mercilessly, and YOU did rape and torture her, your lack of intervention in those events makes you just as guilty. She came home broken and dying inside, and we had to tell her her parents had died while she was gone. I spent weeks guarding her from killing herself because of you, I heard every sorted detail of her suffering, and I had to live them myself as I extracted the memories and I will never be able to forget the pain and the suffering. I would tell you I'm going to kill you myself and enjoy every last second of watching the life get squeezed from your diseased yellow eyes, but I'm not going to deprive Ruby of the pleasure of doing it herself."

"It's your right, although I don't pay that much attention to such petty concepts like revenge or justice." Scourge shrugged it off with his wings and turned his eyes back on me. "But excuse me Doctor I'm digressing once again, let's get back to business." He gave me a charming smile, that made me want to puke. "I've read every single file about Doctor Nova Star and he, when compared to his wife, certainly wasn't an idealist. He knew about the worth of this data and he surely guarded it well." The cobalt blue bastard leaned towards the monitor and I already knew what was coming. "I believe you being capable enough of find the information on the PCDM Doctor. I'll contact you in exactly twenty four hours. Happy hunting Doctor Sugar Cane!"

The pegasus extended one of his wings towards the camera and ended the connection before I could even react.

“NO! FUCK!” I screamed, my magic power erupting in a massive blast of energy, destroying the bank of monitors on the wall, Brutus threw up a shield over all of us but even still the outburst and explosion had Candy screaming in terror.

“Dammit dammit dammit...” I ignored the dirty looks I got from the other two bucks and took Candy from Brutus. “I'm sorry sweetie.” I said, hugging her tightly and nuzzling her face. “I didn't mean to get upset, I'm sorry I scared you so badly.” I cooed. She calmed down again after a few moments but the other two were still mad.

“You exploded the monitors.” Ven said bluntly.

“You almost got us all a round trip to the doctors with severe cuts from exploded monitors.” Brutus added in the same unimpressed tone of voice.

“I know, I'm sorry...” I sighed, hugging Candy and ignoring them for another moment.

“Seriously though...an orbiting super laser?” Brutus asked, “that's a bit much even for you two.”

“It's not really a super laser.” Venture admitted, “it's a spy satellite, plain and simple. The lasers are for show. Meant to intimidate a target. They can pierce the clouds but they can't DO anything. We bluffed and Scourge Cloud didn't take the bait.”

“Alright, because I was going to say, there's a point you kind of reach an insane level of crazy and you two were diving head first over that point.”

“Yeah just for show.” I nodded.

“So...Cloud Disperser?” Venture asked.

“It's a device Ruby's parents designed, it was supposed to force the cloud cover apart to allow the surface to get sunlight and allow us to start growing crops again.”

“That's amazing, what happened?”

“Somepony in the Enclave used it to level a farming village or something up there and killed hundreds of ponies. They framed Ruby's parents and they fled before they could be branded and cast out. They were still Dashites, just no Dashite marks.” Brutus explained. “Firebird came with them.”

“That sucks.”

“They never told Ruby about it, I think they were ashamed...but because she didn't know she ran back to the Enclave to try and beg her parents be let back in. She was tortured and raped to try and break her and tell them about a device she didn't know existed...It wasn't pretty...”

“So...You said you had some records of it?”

“Nothing substantial.” I sighed, shaking my head, “Old records, a few old council meeting minute breakdowns...”

“Well it's a start?” Venture suggested.

“What about your databases? Didn't you say you were logged into our systems all the time?” Brutus asked.

“Well yeah, but if the information wasn't stored in a computer it doesn't do much good.”

“Well...lets start with that.” I said, pulling up the information I had on Ruby's parents, “Venture, you go through anything and everything you can on the Stars...I'm going to search Ruby's things and see if there's anything I can find...”

“Right.” He nodded, sitting down again and starting to pull monitors from other computers to replace the massive display I had destroyed.

“I don't know that I'll be much help with either of you...” Brutus said.

“Come help me. You're probably the only other pony besides me that Ruby won't mind going through all her personal stuff.” I said, putting Candy down. She perked up at being able to walk under her own power again and I followed her out of the room slowly, putting up magic barriers to keep her from falling down or wandering into oncoming hooves, and directing her down the right halls back to our room.

//////////

11 months ago:

“Bushwoolies?” Brutus asked, looking at the small furry creatures.

“They're freaking adorable!” CB cheered, giggling like an idiot at the sight of them.

“Exactly!” Ruby nodded happily.

“Uhh...T-Thank you ponies...” The red one said, looking bashful, which just made the girls giggle all the harder.

“They need our help.” I said seriously to Brutus.

“I've never seen anything like them, how do we know we can trust them?”

“They're scared and alone and hiding in a forest where almost any creature here could eat them without hesitation.” Ruby replied.

“So they SAY, what if they turn into monsters and eat US?”

“Brutus, Bushwoolies are known to have been happy little creatures who loved nothing more than working and making others happy. There are no records of them being angry or hurtful.”

“The Wasteland makes monsters of us all.” Xem said.

“Look, we're helping them and that's that.” Ruby replied, glaring at them, daring them to argue the point with her any more.

“Fine...” Brutus sighed, looking at the grey Bushwoolie, his gun thankfully finally on the ground beside where he sat. “Can you show us the way to this cave you escaped from?”

“Yes of course Pony.” He nodded. “You help us save him and we will be forever in your debt.”

“What about the Cutie Pox?” Xem asked.

“Cutie Pox?!” A blue Bushwoolie jumped up. “Little ponies sick with cutie pox! Is Karina's fault!”

“Who?”

“The witch who imprisoned us.”

“She is causing the Cutie Pox?”

“Yes! She wants the town empty! No more ponies means she can live in town, harvest killing joke and other poisons from forest for her vile potions.”

“Then we really have to stop her!” CB said.

“Alright, show us the way little guys.” Ruby said to them. The grey one got up, grabbed his gun carefully and started through the trees, away from their camp, the rest of the Bushwoolies walking along beside or just behind him, making them seem to walk in an almost arrow shape.

We came to the cliff face a few hundred yards in and they moved towards a boulder, all of them struggling to push it aside.

“Here, let me...” CB offered, grabbing it in her magic and lifting it out of the way.

“Thank you little pony.” Grey said, nodding to her and starting down into a hole that the boulder hid.

CB and Xem followed them right down, I managed to get through after, Lily transformed into a smaller version of herself and hoped right down. Brutus was too big even without his armour, and Ruby managed but had to take her battle saddle off first, sliding it down to me and putting it back on when she got down.

“I'll just keep watch then shall I?” Brutus sighed.

“Don't worry dude, we'll be back soon as we can. We might need somepony to run back to town and alert them if there's a serious problem.”

We moved through the cave slowly, keeping only the barest glow on our horns to light the way. The Bushwoolies seemed able to see perfectly in the dimness of the cave.

“It's just up here...” Grey whispered, gesturing to a gap in the rocks where dim light of it's own was coming up.

We put out our lights and moved closer to the gap.

“Please mistress...I'm so tired...” We heard a quiet voice panting from somewhere nearby.

“SHUT UP! You should have thought of that when you and your friends were running away!” We saw a mean looking unicorn mare with a really long chocolate brown mane and chestnut coat. She looked more like a regular horse than a pony, if not for the horn I'd have been hesitant to say she was a pony.

“But I haven't slept in days!” In the back of the room was a small green Bush Willie, wearing gloves and some kind of uncomfortable looking rubber shirt, sitting beside a massive pile of blue plants, panting and wheezing, a thick steel collar around it's neck.

“AND YOU WON'T SLEEP AGAIN UNTIL ALL THE KILLING JOKE IS HARVESTED! I need it to keep making the poison mist potion.”

“B-But Mistress...Those poor ponies!”

“Poor nothing! They shouldn't have snubbed my offer to buy their homes!”

“Why didn't you just accept their offer to live with them in peace?”

“Shut up! Shut up before I shut you up permanently!”

“What are you going to do? Kill me? Then you can do all the work yourself? HA!”

“He seems really cynical for one so young...” Ruby muttered

“What? Young? No no, he's the eldest of our group.”

“But you said he was the littlest...” CB replied

“Yes, he is the smallest in the group because with age we get smaller.”

“Oh...well that makes sense I guess...” I shrugged.

“So what's the plan?”

“I'm open to suggestions,” I said, “Brutus usually does the planning.”

“I say we just attack her. She's just one unicorn against all of us.”

“Oh no no no.” Grey said, shaking his head quickly. “She is strong, her magic is SO strong.”

"I don't know, my magic is fairly formidable.” CB said, cracking her neck and smirking.

“No no little pony, you don't want to face off against her if she has had some of her potions, she is so very powerful...”

“Then what do we do?” Xem asked, turning back to look through the hole in the wall.

Sadly the decision was made for us as there was a loud CRACK and the floor fell out from under us, sending the whole group tumbling down into the chamber below, any chance at a sneak attack totally blown...

Footnote: 50% to next level