Mere hours later, Esmerelda and I were approaching the flashing lights and huge buildings that made up Los Pegasus. For the first time ever, I was starting to absorb Esmerelda's magic. I had grown some scales and I felt like my eyes were shifting somehow. I would never have guessed on my own, but I supposed Esmerelda's magic was either very hard to copy, or just a very slow process. It might have been a trait shared by all adult dragons for all I knew. I didn't dwell on it though, and instead was just thankful that Esmerelda knew the land so well, even if she didn't recognize Los Pegasus since it had grown so much since she had last seen it.

"Really! It was just a little collection of stone shacks last time I was here!" she repeated for about the third time as she circled it.

"We fucking get it!"

She was still making really wide circles around the city, looking for a place to set down on the outskirts. She didn't want to approach this city either, which I didn't blame her for. Eventually, she settled for landing behind a massive dune to the east of the desert city. It was night now, which meant that I was going to have to walk in the dark to the city. Great. I left Esmerelda and started to walk the mile or so of distance left to Los Pegasus's outermost buildings. Before I actually reached the city, I had a thought.

There's no way I can just walk in to this place. I'm bound to get mobbed by fans and paprazzi. Then Byron would certainly catch wind of my actions and be gone before I could even make my way out of the first crowd. Even if they didn't swarm me, I don't want to see how they'd react while I look like some 25% dragon thing. No, I'm going to have to be stealthy about this.

I knew that was going to be hard for me to do with my considerably large body and loud armor. Not to mention the fact that I had no real stealth training, and the only experience I had with sneaking was the time I stole the dragon eggs from Celestia. Even then, she had arranged the event for me to be able to steal them. At the very least, I knew I needed all the advantages I could get here, so I walked back to Esmerelda.

"Back already? Where are we going now?" Esmerelda asked readily as soon as I got back to her. I didn't answer, and instead began taking my armored pants off. "Ummm... not that I don't like where this is going, but isn't this a bad time to--"

"Control yourself, ho. Don't worry, I'm just taking off my armor so I'll be quieter while I'm moving around. I need to be sneaky that way nopony sees me and gets the word out that I'm here. If that happened, Byron could run away if he heard about me. That's the last thing I need to happen. There's also the worse option where he offs the kid when he runs, but I think he's trying not to think of that right now."

Esmerelda's eyes widened and she didn't talk for a few seconds. "Well... that didn't go where I thought at all."

I tossed my armor and Buster Sword over to her and turned to leave. "Keep an eye on that for me. And quit staring at my ass."

"How did you know I was--"

I walked out of earshot before Esmerelda could finish saying whatever she had been saying. I might have gone back to ask her what she was saying, but I didn't want to be stuck wearing my boxers alone for any longer than I needed to. As it was, I still had no real idea where in hell the address I needed to get to was in that huge city.

"5208 Trottingway Path." I reminded myself as I got close to the first few buildings. I flattened my body against the first building as soon as I got near it, and snuck along the side towards a more clustered group of buildings. The building I was next to was stone and felt pretty old. There were cracks and such in the walls. It was the first building in a small cluster that looked like some sort of neighborhood. There weren't any fences to divide the buildings, but there was about 40 or so feet between each of the houses.

What struck me the most about the little houses was how empty and dark they looked. Sure, it was night, but I had expected at least some of the lights in the houses to be on still. I shrugged at the houses and darted to the next building to try and remain mostly in cover. It was easy to sneak from house to house, and soon enough I was on the last house in the neighborhood. It led right to a large road with a few small assorted shops on it. The road led out of Los Pegasus to the left, and went deeper in Los Pegasus on the right. The buildings grew in size gradually on the right as the road went into the city.

"I said where's my money?!"

A shout drew me out of my examination of the city. I looked around for a few seconds and found the source of the shout in an alley a few shops over to my right, slightly deeper into the city.

"I-I told you, I'm just a bit beh--" a smaller voice replied to the loud angry one.

"I'm tired of hearing that! You owe me, Roller, and I'm gonna get my payment tonight!" the aggressive voice shouted again. Both voices were clearly male, and clearly the small one was in trouble.

"I-I d-don't have any m--"

"Then I guess you'll just have to pay in blood! I warned you punk!"

My protective nature kicked in before I could help myself, and I started making my way to the alley the voices were coming from. Luckily I kept my head enough to not leave my cover.

*thwack*

"N-no! Stop! I just need a little more t--"

*crack*

Clearly the 'Roller' pony was being hit now, luckily the blows sounded like he was being hit with hooves, not weapons. I got to the alley to see a large black stallion towering over a light red stallion cowering against a wall. I crept up behind him and stood to my full height as he raised a hoof for another blow. I grabbed his raised foreleg before he could swing down.

"Well, normally I'd give you some sort of one-liner and ask some rhetorical questions, but I'm in a bit of a hurry." I hissed to the stallion before I brought my free hand down on his head in a pretty solid punch. The stallion went limp and I dropped him to the ground in front of Roller. Roller had been covering his face with his hooves, but he slowly moved them when the expected blow from the other stallion never came. By that time, I had ducked out of the alley and moved a few buildings deeper into the city.

"H-hello?"

I picked up my pace a bit and cursed my stupidity. I could've just blown my whole mission with that stunt. Not that it wasn't the right thing to do, I just had more important right things to do that could've been ruined by that. Even now, I had to be more and more careful as I progressed into the city. The streets and alleys were slowly getting more and more populated the farther I travelled into Los Pegasus. I kept an eye on street signs as I ducked from building to building. None so far was named 'Trottingway Path'. Though, in a city that size it could take hours to locate one little road.

"For you love, just a meager hundred bits..."

"Yo dude, there's this great new cas--"

"I swear, she needs to get her flank out here n--"

"--cker left me just standing there a--"

The growing chatter was becoming unbearable to the point where I was beggining to wonder if I could even hear my own thoughts. On the bright side, that meant I didn't have to try and move as silently and I could focus more on speed. I would have climbed to the rooves and leapt from building to building to travel even faster, but I didn't want to run into a wayward pegasus and get caught after I had gotten so far.

"-ingway Path."

I stopped suddenly and backtracked to the alley I had heard the last bit of speech from. I ducked behind a wayward trash can and listened for the voice that had just spoken.

"--abandoned factories down t--" I lost the voice in the chatter of the crowd, but picked it up again soon enough. "--bro. Some kick f--" the voice was drowned out again. I slid the can forward as quietly as possible to try and hear better. "--fitti down there. Wanna check it out?"

"Why not?" a second voice replied. Both voices were female as far as I could tell, and they seemed to be going to Trottingway Path. I couldn't be 100% positive, but it was my best bet. I risked a quick look over the can to see a lime green mare with a white mane standing next to a gray mare with a navy mane. They had to be the ones talking since they were the closest ponies. They stepped out into the crowd of ponies on the streets and nearly vanished.

I had to keep them in my sight to get to where I was going, so I turned to the building on my right to try and see a way to climb it. Luckily, this was a building with a fire escape on it. I leapt from behind the can and grabbed the third layer of the escape easily. I wasn't sure if I was strong enough to do what I did next, but I had to risk it to keep up with the mares. I pulled as fast as I could, and ended up throwing myself into the air. I was able to reach about two levels higher on the escape. Without wasting anymore time, I repeated the process and eventually managed to reach the roof. I scrambled to the edge of the roof that overlooked the street and searched for the manes of the mares I had seen.

I couldn't find them. Then, after almost a full minute of searching, I did manage to see them. They had barely moved away from the alley in fact. They appeared to be talking to some other mares that hadn't been with them in the alley. I waited a few moments for them to finish their discussion. What felt like a solid hour later, the two mares I was waiting to follow left the others. Unfortunately, they went across the street.

I had three choices:

1. Jump across the entire street to the buildings on the other side. Which I wasn't even sure was possible.

2. Try and sneak across the street unnoticed which was certainly impossible due to my size and the fact that I was the only one of my kind.

3. Give up. I was more likely to make it across the street unnoticed than to do that.

Against my better judgement, I decided to try to jump across the street to the buildings on the other side. It sounded even dumber when I thought about it a second time. I didn't have another choice though, the mares were almost to the other side of the street. If I didn't move quickly, I'd lose them for sure and be forced to spend hours wandering the city. Before I could think a third time and realize how bad of an idea it was, I moved to the opposite end of the roof. I crouched down and assumed a runner's crouch. Without another second's hesitation, I took off towards the street.

I leapt clear off the roof and into the air over the road that held a large amount of ponies. For a moment, I knew I was going to make it. The roof of the building on the other end of the road seemed so close, like I was already there.

However, even I could only do so much.

Without wings or something to aid my little jump, I couldn't get enough air to quite reach the roof of the building on the other side of the road. That doesn't mean I didn't reach the building. I crashed through the wall of the building on the opposite side of the street and fell right into what looked like a casino. I had lost the scales and natural toughness from Esmerelda's magic, so it actually hurt a little bit. I rubbed my back as I looked around. There were little machines with levers and flashing lights lined up in rows along with large groups of ponies gathered around tables.

"What the hell was that?!" somepony shouted. My entrance had created quite a bit of dust, so I used the slight cover it granted to roll to the nearest line of machines and hide behind them. Most of the ponies began yelling in a confused, angry, or scared manner. There was a surprisingly varied reaction. In fact, some ponies even ran towards the huge hole in the wall, though it sounded like more backed away or fled. While they were distracted by the hole, I paced backwards, away from the crowd as quietly as possible.

*thud* My back smacked into something warm and furry. I slowly turned to see a pink mare with a tan mane.

"Oh m--" she started to scream. I clapped a hand over her mouth and dragged her to the nearest door I could find, which was only a few feet away from the line of machines I had hidden behind. The door led to a single bathroom, which thankfully was unoccupied. I released the mare but pressed a finger to her lips before she could talk.

"Don't make a sound. Or I'll end you on the spot." I warned. The mare looked me over quickly and began to blush bright red. I got the slight feeling she hadn't heard a word I said.

"O-oh my... This is exactly how I imagined it..."

Oddly enough, I was pretty sure I knew what she was talking about. I rolled my eyes in response. "Oh please, it's nothing like that. I just need to get to the roof. Damn, is sex all you bitches ever think about?"

The mare frowned poutily. "Oh, of course. Silly me, don't know what I was thinking. Why the heck did you drag me here though?"

"You were about to scream. I need to remain unnoticed. Now, what's the easiest way to get to the roof from here?"

"Uhhh... There's a door that leads to a stairway to the right when you leave this bathroom. I--"

"Thanks. I'm out." before the mare could say or do anything else, I had slipped out of the bathroom. The majority of the ponies had either left this floor or were still examining the hole in the wall. I located the door to the stairway easily enough and made it to the roof with no more real trouble. There was a pair of ponies making out on the stairs, but they were too engrossed in each other to even notice me. Once I was on the roof, I started looking for the mares right away.

It took me a few seconds, but I located them a few buildings away. They were on a new street perpendicular to the one I had followed from the beginning of my trip. I leapt from roof to roof until I was on the building they were directly next to. It was easy enough to keep up with them for the next few minutes. They kept going in the same direction, until eventually they turned left down a smaller road. It was realtively deserted, so I leapt from the roof of the building I was on down to the street. Sure enough, I was on the road I had been looking for. A faded white sign stood at the beginning of the road weakly, quietly displaying the name 'Trottingway Path'.

The walls of the buildings that bordered the street were absolutely covered in graffitti. Some pretty kick-ass stuff in my opinion. I didn't bother to examine it for very long. After a brief look, I started walking down the street and checking out the numbers posted in front of buildings for the 5208 I was looking for. Most of the buildings were big, much bigger than the first few buildings on the outskirts of the town. They also had stone pipes leading out of the buildings in various directions. They must've been the abandoned factories I thought I had heard the mares talking about.

"5205, 5206, 5207... Ah, finally. 5208 Trottingway Path." I quietly announced to myself as I eyed the crumbling building in front of me. It didn't stand out from the other factories in any way at all. A brilliant place for a criminal to have his weapons delivered. I walked up to the door of the factory and opened it without hesitation or thought. Just as I had expected, it wasn't empty. What I didn't expect was the mass of gryffins occupying most of the space in the building.

What I didn't expect even more than that was the fact that every one of them was covered in polka dots and silly string.

Unity was here. All that stood between me and my son was a surprised small army of gryffins. I raised my fists and grinned eagerly.