Okay so getting a Battle-saddle on was harder than it looked. After stripping down into my basic recon armor it begun with a small patch of reinforced leather between my wings which acted as the central support and a pair of connected straps that went underneath me to keep it lodged in place. That was however where the simpleness ended. None of us had ever rigged a pony based saddle for a changeling, and while I had seen other older members use them and in theory it would only take a bit of work to adjust the space to not only provide a snug fit, but provide my wings space to fly as well. Of course this meant adding the guns and accompanying gear like spare ammo clips and adjusting the mouth grip which was a bit too short thanks to my height.

It had taken a hour to cut away at the leather and adjust the straps accordingly in order to free my wings while maintaining the perfect balance of aim for the weapons. All the while Cait was going on and on about things like leverage and masculinity meters and awesomeness levels. I didn't get what he was saying for the most part but Grey diligently made sure that any errors and kinks were worked out so that the saddle was skin tight to my armor. With everything said and done, shotgun mounted on one side and my varmint rifle mounted on the other.

With a flare of green flame I disguised myself again, once more only removing the traits of my body that marked me as a changeling and replacing my horn with that of a unicorns once more. Scrapyard nuzzled me as we left, I in return giving him the usual ruffling of his fur as the four of us left the metal apartment. Automatically we seemed to adjust in formation, Scrapyard moving on ahead of us a few meters while I hanged back behind Cait. Grey trotted to our left, where his prosthetic leg making the odd click noise every few steps as we traversed the floor in comparison to the heavier clanking of Cait's metal boots. Naturally however now that I was paying attention I couldn't hear either mine or Scrapyards steps over the ambiance of the city, even Grey's other three hoofsteps were drowned out by the chatter of Celestia knows how many ponies.

As we trotted closer towards the central black tower I couldn't help but allow my eyes to follow the slanted pillar upwards until my head was as far back as it could be without dislodging my hat. It was a bit more tattered, and the back rim of it had a jagged line to it now, a new addition apparently, though it wasn't one I recognized. Huh... I opened my mouth to ask about it but I was interrupted as Grey nodded towards a building up ahead that was built into the side of the tower, it it had a stairway up to the hanging building and from here I could spot the windows flashing in a spectrum of different colors, "Look's like it has changed a bit since the last time I was here."

Cait turned his head giving Grey a long stare, "You've been here before old guy? I'm impressed, didn't figure you for the rave type."

"Rave type?" I cut in, another new word for my vocabulary?

Grey scoffed, "It wasn't a club back then kid. It was a base, for truth and justice. Though from what I hear nowadays its more for the former and less of the later."

I kept the conversation rolling, my eyes darting between the flashing windows and Cait's amused smirk, several minutes passed before finally I could take it no more, "What do you mean?"

Cait smirked, "The town is bigger and where justice used to be dealt out directly by Mr.Hoofington himself some years back, no one has even seen him for the past thirty years though, not since the town of Hole was founded and security moved up to surround the place as best it could while policing the streets."

"And now we only hear him on the radio apparently." Grey muttered, "Met him myself more than enough times to count."

Cait turned and stopped, forcing the rest of us to follow his lead except for scrapyard who merely bounded back next to him, "Wait, you're friends with Mr.Hoofington?"

Grey rolled his eyes and navigated past Cait continuing onward, "More like comrades in arms. We've met in the middle of a fight more often than not that it kind of became forced to become familiar with him. Never did like the tongue on him. He'd go on and on about saving the wasteland this, and recruiting local heroes to do this and that, and never get anything done on any plans he had but instead accomplish a bunch of stuff outside of his so called brilliant notions. All in all, he was more of a pain in my rear than a friend."

Cait grinned, replyinig to Grey's small monologue with his own attempt at failed wit,"Sound's about right for a friend. Sometimes all you can hope for is a stallion who will shoot with you rather than at you. At least you two didn't end up killing each other."

Grey groaned aloud while I resisted the urge to join him, "Almost wished I did. We had our fair share of stand offs as well."

"Standoffs?" I asked, curious for more snippets of my mentors ever so mysterious past, "Over what?"

Grey narrowed his eyes, glaring at the both of us, "That's none of your buisness."

"Oh come on..." Cait teased, "It can't be that bad."

"None. Of. Your. Business." Grey stated each word slowly, with enough venom to have made my caste faint had they been around.

I made a placating gesture towards Grey and shot Cait a nervous glance while Cait merely chuckled at the glare. Soon enough however he got the memo and took a deep breath and calmed himself down after a few more giggles, we began to trot again. Though I could of sworn that I heard Cait add one last snippet in his usual jolly manner, "And I wondered why they called you the Mysterious Stranger."

"You say something?" Grey growled.

"Nothing, nothing at all."

When we had trotted to the bottom of the stairs and began to climb I could feel my ear throb from the muffled music that was coming from inside. At first I thought something had attacked, and as much as I tried to keep my calm, I had to admit that my face was anything but. Was somepony attacking us with sound now? No way, those kind of weapons were just theory. With a lack of response from Cait besides his grin becoming wider and Grey's frown growing strong enough to crack rocks if a rock could see it. I knew it wasn't just my imagination. My ears flared downwards, in a futile attempt at dampening the sensation going through my ears.

Then Cait opened the door, and the constant thumping in my eardrums became accompanied by a type of music I hadn't heard of before. It had an almost electronic feel to it, as if the sound was being made by a series of machines rather than instruments and I perked up as it became louder but more bearable, if not enjoyable. Cait and Grey went in while Scrapyard went under the stairs with his ears perked downward. Naturally I followed Cait and Grey right on in and lost my breath at what I saw inside.

Flashing lights of every color, accompanied by thinner beams of light that danced all throughout the room, a large square floor that had its own set of lights flashing in synchronization to form shapes inside it's depths. Ponies shaking their bodies to the beat and swinging their heads to and fro as if trying to dislodge a particularly nasty creature on their heads, and a dual staircase leading to what once might of been an interior balcony instead to a booth where a pony with large headphones over his ear and wide brimmed sunglasses who was nodding his head along with the beat similarly to how I was. He raised a hoof and shook it in the air while his other messed with something on his table and I felt my gaze shift as Grey reached back to grab at me and pull me along with a hoof across the floor while biting Cait's tail when he tried to race on ahead of us.

Eventually, with a lot of effort, we broke through the crowd of spazzing ponies and made it onto the tall gently twisting staircase towards the pony who was spinning a strange black disc upon it's record player fluctuating the music as it continued to grow louder and louder. Grey said something to the pony and he nodded, and replied in turn, my hearing unable to catch what they were saying within the deafening environment around me. The strange pony beckoned to another to take his place and lead us through the door behind the table. Once it had shut behind us the music was instantly gone, and I wondered if I had gone deaf, but Cait's voice negated my fear as he shouted while rubbing his own ears, "Hello Sound Crank!"

Sound Crank, the pony who now in the normal lighting had taken on a surprisingly light blue hue with a alternating yellow and green striped mane and tail composed of spikes arranged in a large saw blade pattern of a mohawk, His sunglasses was a deep golden color. As for his body, it was smaller than the average pony but from how his muscles bulged I doubted that it meant that he was weak however, as atop of his head was the classic unicorn horn that decorated the head of countless ponies throughout Equestria. He nodded to us, a quick bob while his head kept slightly nodding to it's own tune as a wide bright smile adorned his muzzle a cheerful sparkle glinting off his sunglasses as he spoke, "Cait, Grey, long time no see!"

Grey rose an eyebrow, the rest of him remaining impassive while Cait and Crank grinned like fools in comparison, "What's with the hairstyle?"

Sound Crank chuckled, "You haven't visited us in twenty years and that's your first question?"

Grey rolled his eyes while reaching a hoof up to adjust his bags and dig for something, "Last time we met you barely came up to my cutiemark, how's that sister of yours?"

Crank pointed upwards, "Upstairs in fathers office, why?"

Cait unfolded the invitation and presented it to the other unicorn in his magic, drawing another grin from the later, "Ah I see you got our letter. So I assume you're all ready for the interview?" He tilted his head to look past both Grey and Cait to me, "and I can bet that the lovely mare behind you is the adorable Lovebug?"

He flashed me a grin and I averted my gaze, instead concentrating on my sudden increase in my hearts beating, I tried to open my mouth to say something, anything in return for the compliment but found myself speechless, my mouth not knowing what to say. I became quickly aware of his slender if not boyish figure as he shifted from one hoof to the other and fought back a blush, instead settling for a quick nod and thanked Celestia as Grey spoke up, "She is, and since we're at it, I am sure your father and sister would be pleased to meet her as well."

The smile gave way to a serious frown at the mention of his father, and I shifted my gaze back up to Crank, I had hardly known him for ten minutes but I didn't need my ability to sense emotions to tell that he was troubled. I spoke up quietly, "Something wrong?"

He sighed responding cryptically, "Mind if we chat on the elevator? The walls have ears."

Grey rolled his eyes but we all nodded and the four of us proceeded down the hallway towards a heavy set of doors with a switch on one side, an elevator. Crank continued on talking with Cait and Grey once we had all entered the narrow room and pressed the button to go up, feeling a slight lurch and supporting our hooves against the wall as the elevator jerked upwards at an angle with the tower, quickly beginning it's climb from the 30th floor towards the button he had pressed, floor 42. I had fantasized that the radio ponies had settled themselves on the top floor but it was nowhere near it, I wondered over this as Crank talked with Cait over the finer details of a spell matrix that the former had apparently been having problems with in engineering, and my companion had agreed to check it out himself after the interview.

The elevator momentarily lurched as it caught on something outside before continuing it's ascent, it wasn't meant for an angle after all, and it drew a question out of me as I quietly whispered, "What is this place anyway? Too big to be a weather tower..."

Crank smirked, in a fashion similar to Cait when he cared and cleaned his sword like a newborn foal, "That's because this tower Miss Web isn't a standard weather tower, but one of four sea towers. This is one of the towers that control the seas on either side of Equestria during the war, as a result you can guess, they had to cover and control much more ground than the standard tower."

"And that's...?"

Crank brought his sunglasses back down and in the light a glint reflected off it momentarily blinding me before it was gone, "Ever seen a map of Equestria?" I nodded, "Imagine dividing the map into halves and opening them like a giant set of double doors and you have the range, while having the power to create and direct tornadoes over that entire distance and even cause a high level hurricane within an hour."

I gasped, the military implications of such a device would be catastrophic for whoever fought such an odd, standard balefire bombs were capable of wiping out cities, but being able to deploy them among with other natural disasters at a button press, a question however came up when I remembered the dangerous threat the sky had kept posing every time it began to rain, "Why haven't you cleared up the clouds then or at least stopped the razor hail then?"

Crank sighed, as if it wasn't the first time he had heard that question, "This tower was hit directly by a Zebra earth render megaspell, while the tower survived it was sunken and tilted out of alignment with the other three towers. This means it can no longer can no longer change or operate the clouds here without direct access to the SPP, which as far as anypony down here knows, is unable to be accessed by anypony else."

He sighed, "That and all the floors above 50 have been shut down by some sort of magical force field the Pegasus Enclave set up near two hundred years ago meaning we only have access to the radio over this specific towers broadcasting range thanks to communication being on this floor. As for the razor hail, we've tried sending the occasional dashite that visited us up to deal with them, but none of them ever came back, and there had been no change in the ones they went after."

My ears drooped worriedly, "Something is up there?"

Cait nodded, chiming in, "Enclave have never been spotted in the Vanhoover skies, though I suspect it's their meddling that is causing the rain, unless there is something else airborne and with a grudge against the surface we don't know about."

Grey and Crank nodded in agreement, the elevator dinged and the doors drifted open , revealing a floor way remade in the tilted tower that leveled it out, we stepped up onto the wooden floor way and into the room beyond, which was a large rectangular room with enough equipment inside it to make a stable jealous just lining the walls alone. Shoved in one corner of the room was a king sized bed with a wardrobe next to it while a mare of the same coloring as Crank was messing on a terminal and microphone in a small windowed room that had been built into the chamber, crank trotted towards it, settling for some panels next to the room and we trotted in next to him, or at least I did, Cait and Grey dropped their bags near the door and sat down in some pillows near a coffee table instead.

Crank began to mess with what looked like an intercom and pressed a button, abruptly drawing the attention of the mare inside, she gave an inaudible sigh and looked over at us, giving her brother an annoyed scowl while giving me an nice look at her mess of a mane that was sheer curls framing her face and while Crank wore massive sunglasses that hid his eyes entirely, his sister wore normal reading glasses that ponies with long sighted vision or didn't want to ruin their eyes from excessive reading usually wore back in the stable.

Crank tilted his head in a jerk towards me, gesturing for his sister to get out of the room and she nodded, giving a silent sigh from inside the small room. We trotted around to the front where she opened the door, giving a sincere smile towards the rest of us, and speaking in a tone that reminded me of a soft bell, "We have guests I presume?"

Crank nodded, and she continued, "I am Grace Winter, I prefer Grace before you ask."

Cait grinned, "Hello again Winter."

She sighed, "Greetings Ecait Gear."

"Cait."

"Grace." she retorted, before interrupting Caits return comment with, "Hello uncle Iron."

She nodded to Grey who chuckled in return, "Long time no see, nice to know you've grown better than your brother."

"Likewise," Grace agreed, before turning her attention to me, "And I assume this is the Lovebug we've come to report on the radio?"

I mumbled quietly, "Aria..."

Grace leaned forward causing me to back away as she peered at me her face inches from my own,"What was that dear?"

I stammered, unable to form a complete word, and thanked the goddesses as Cait interrupted on my behalf, "Her name's Aria Web, though she prefers Aria."

Grace turned her head to face Cait again and I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. Grace paused for a moment before nodding at Cait and looking back to me. I had taken a step backward for my own personal space and she took another forward, "Mind dropping the disguise Aria? There isn't anypony here who doesn't already know about your secret."

I nodded, and in a flash of green flame I had let go of my unicorn disguise momentarily causing Grace to backpedal a step as the illusionary flames caused an instinctive reaction of fear from her, I didn't blame her, balefire was the same color and apearance as the inherent magic, and would draw fear from anypony who didn't know the difference. Even though changelings came first, green fire would always represent balefire in the wastelands. I shook myself, feeling a bit more exposed outside of the illusion's shell. I took my seat between Cait and Grey as the two assistants of Mr. Hoofington also took their own on the opposite side of the table. Leaving the table for six with one unoccupied.

"Where is your father anyway?" Cait asked, and I felt the room chill by twenty degrees in ten seconds flat.

Xp Footnote: 95% until level up.

Next Chapter: Chapter 23: Unexpected Detours Estimated time remaining: 10 Hours, 55 Minutes