An ugly silence reigned over the room. Both of the twins looked miserable, their earlier calm and excited outlooks somewhat downcast at the mention of the famous radio show host. After a minute, Grace was the first to speak up, "He's gone..."

Grey's eyes went downcast, his expression becoming unreadable under the shadow of his hat, "Oh... I'm sorry for your loss."

The audible smack of a hoof on flesh drew me to Crank, he had facehoofed, "As in missing."

Cait chuckled despite the dark mood, "That's a relief, what happened?"

Grace shrugged, "We don't know, he disappeared about two months ago."

"Any idea to what caused him to leave?" Grey quizzically rose an eyebrow, "It seems a bit strange that he would leave out of nowhere after all."

The female twin sighed, drawing the sound out and looking down at the table as she thought, a few moments later, "He had been singing 'ashes to ashes' for the past few weeks when he was out of the studio, we had just finished recording about the factions around the hole and he vanished the morning after." She looked to her brother who elaborated, finishing for her, "We have been managing so far without him with a little voice changing trick and bringing up extra food for him, but we haven't spotted him once in Vanhoover, but ponies are starting to wonder why they haven't seen him lately."

Both of my companions shared a look, Grey didn't change his expression at all like he was mentioning the weather, which was cloudy by the way, "If we see him, we'll make sure he comes back, assuming he isn't locked in another 'save the town of so and so from impending doom of an unspeakable evil' plot like the last time I saw him."

Cait rose an eyebrow, "When did that happen?"

"Before you were born." Grey replied cryptically, changing the conversation back to why we had came, "So you wanted an interview with the kid here?"

Crank had a smile that could blind ponies, It was fast enough that I couldn't spot when he had transitioned from a frown to the brilliant sheen of the smile,"Never met a changeling before Aria, so of course!"

My head nodded in agreement to the interview, it had been the reason we had came here after all, "Fire when ready..."

Crank adjusted his headphones so that they were around his neck rather than just above his ears, "So, Aria... What's it like being out here in the wasteland after living in a stable?"

Cait looked to me curiously, no doubt wanting to know himself. While I had told him of the horror of the arena fighting and what had happened to cause me to leave, I hadn't gone into much detail about the stable itself. Grey had already lived in the stable for several years as well, and kept quiet, though I noticed he was watching me out of the corner of his eye. Collecting my thoughts I launched the conversation slowly and quietly, building up pace and volume as I gained my confidence, "My... Stable was... a prison where the warden were scientists and the prisoners the test subjects..."

I paused to take a breath before continuing, "I was made and raised under a controlled environment to adhere to military regulations and given basic education of wartime history, wartime technology, medical treatment, among with the equestrian language and the ability to read." I gestured to my hoof, "When I turned eleven, I, along with several members of my caste were put into magical training while forced to wear a obedience collar, those who refused were taken away and killed. Of thirty caste members of my class, Changelings who had been raised with me, all but four of us had been taken away for this or that. Some for disobedience in the classroom, some for unregulated practice of magic, some for an accident out of their control."

Grace looked a bit confused, "And what happened to those they took away?"

I sighed, lowering my gaze to stare at my hooves, rubbing the edge of one hole near the edge of the pipbuck and hooking it into a hole on my opposite and tugging lightly, "I never saw them again, so I assumed they died as well as the fourth member of the ones who did wear the collar but lacked any magical aptitude. After a crash course on basic telekensis and how our magic worked, we found out and were introduced into the military program as a slave program. That's when I met Grey..." I looked at him and he looked away, not meeting my gaze, I had never figured out why he had joined them in the first place, it was something I had to question him later on, if he was willing to give the answers that is...

Crank raised a hoof interrupting me before I could say more, "Wait, wait, wait. What was Grey, The Mysterious Stranger, doing in a high tec version of a slaver army camp?"

We all looked at Grey who sighed, "Needed a new leg after your father got mine blown off the last time we met. Limped to a stable in search for medical supplies, instead found a stable still fully stocked with scientists and took their aid and offered my experience in return as payment." He shook his head to silence another question from Crank and gestured for me to continue talking.

"Grey trained us to fight, and after a month we were thrown into an arena for two entire months, a battle a week with training in between each fight. Our final fight were against another Caste, and then I was forced to kill or be killed by my remaining caste member." I took a pause, remembering that day, "With his help I managed to escape from there, where no doubt you know the rest of my story, considering you've been reporting it. As for how I view the wasteland itself, I prefer it, even if it's much more dangerous and uncontrolled. I'd rather be free for a few weeks rather than systematically executed or lose myself to their research."

A cough from Cait grabbed our attention, sheepishly he added, "Looks like her Stable is a horror story in the making as well like the other opened ones are."

"Other opened Stables?" I queried.

"Ya, stable 107 was an attempt at a cyborg integration that went wrong when they ran out of parts and they tried taking other still active cyborg parts in after the new patient had deceased from blood loss. Stable 46 however was a social experiment to see if Boars and Ponies could get along, that ended in disaster as the former killed the later and broke their way out. Don't get me started on stable 28..." Cait muttered under his breath, "Stupid ghoul minotaur..."

I flinched, understanding the implications of that. Our text books on why the stables had been built were for ensuring the survival of the equestrian people. Realizing that most of them had been death traps, horrors of experimentation, and tests that had purposely tried to test and break limits that shouldn't of been tested in the first place was rather horrifying. Especially when one considered that Stable Tec had built about three hundred stables within both Equestrian and Zebra lands in total. I wondered briefly what other disasters had ensured and sighed. I was yanked from my thoughts when Grace asked me the next question, no doubt trying to change the topic, "So Aria..." she paused, her horn lighting up to grab a plate of snack cakes from a fridge hidden in recording equipment, "What are you planning for the future?"

I took a deep breath before steeling my resolve, "To free my people..."

"And to do that we need the crystal heart up north. Can you help with that as we have near no information on the Crystal Empire or the border north of Equestria beyond that outpost the steel rangers took over."

The twins looked to each other and shrugged, "We know where some arctic equipment is." Crank started, only for Grace to finish for him, "But it's spread out throughout the four clans."

"Arctic gear?" I questioned, clueless.

"Winter stuff." Cait informed me, "Heavy clothes, spiked horseshoes for ice trotting and climbing, and keeping warm, basic survival stuff for winter."

"It's a lot more dangerous out there than you'd think." Crank confirmed, "the Knights have the clothes, but the other three factions have other things like a map of where one could find safety for the night without freezing over, The Castles have a majority of the oil needed to make weapons not become brittle or break under extreme cold conditions, and the Bishops have spells that could help out a lot in the field. The Queens... They have long term supplies like rations and bottled water."

"Getting them however would be another matter entirely." Grace sighed, "Those clans are always bickering and arguing despite our interference. Do a few jobs for each of them and you might get the materials you'll need to stand a chance out there. Though I was under the impression the crystal empire was completely destroyed when the bombs fell."

Grey rolled his eyes, "Everywhere but the Everfree Forest was destroyed when the bombs fell. So we just need to go around, and bash some heads until they see reason?"

Grace deadpanned, levitating a snack cake to her mouth, "If you want to end up dead in a week."

Her brother elaborated, "More like do them favors, and get favors back in return. I'd suggest starting with the knights since Sentinel over there is a part of their faction. Though I don't think he'll be welcomed in the other places, especially inside the Bishop's main building. Luckily and unluckily you have the king of subtly, Grey here as a teacher."

Grace gave Grey a long look, "Just don't break anything like last time you tried fixing a rogue clan please. I still have nightmares about the Manticore nest you riled up and lead inside the pops to demolish it."

Grey nickered, "Don't blame me, they had enough small guns and bullets to make a buffalo out of it. Needed a big angry thing to smash through them all and in the absence of Bulldozer, that was the next best thing."

The Twins sighed in perfect harmony, and Cait chuckled, "You really need to tell us about yourself one of these days, You're a very interesting guy behind that cold exterior."

The well aged earth pony declined to comment. The silence grew for a minute and I took the opportunity to snag a red raspberry flavored snack-cake. It was stale, but still delicious and mind numbing in flavor. I remembered the meager flavorless slop that consisted of my castes three meals a day back in the stable. Usually it was a yellowish green goop that could be passed on as applesauce if it was supposed to be heavily littered with other nutrients through additions of powder forms of the proteins and other vitamins we all needed to survive and stay healthy.

Twisting my thoughts away from Stable 103, I asked the twins, "Any other questions you have for me?"

Crank looked to his sis and together they nodded, some hidden message passing between them and they both replied at the same time, "Do you sing?"

It took me a moment to recover from the startling harmony between the two, "Um... Haven't tried?"

It was partially the truth, there was little room for fun and games growing up as a military experiment. While I may have chatted with my other classmates, we hadn't exactly had any music to listen to beyond the trumpet menace that had been a massive alarm clock throughout a majority of the stable. We only knew the definitions of words like aria, sonata, beat, and note by our education in the equestrian language. Though I had hummed along with some of the tunes and mouthed some of the words on the radio after discovering their station... Did that count?

Crank made a humming noise while he rubbed the underside of his chin with the side of a hoof, tucking his other front one under the propped leg, "Never gave it a shot huh?"

Grace's glasses gleamed somehow in the light, "Would you mind..."

Her brother finished for her, his own glasses also gleaming a bright white light despite being nowhere near the correct color, "Giving it a shot?"

My mane itched, and suddenly I felt a creepy atmosphere ferment the look with the power of their gaze. I wanted to hide, but it would be rude to do so when I had agreed to be interviewed. I looked to Grey who had turned his head away, his own hat covering what little expression he may have had, though now he was fidgeting. Turning to Cait I saw his face with a barely maintained smile, looking more like a grimace, "Really you two?" he interrupted, "I know it's not that bad and you're making me feel like you just ordered her execution with the sheen... How on Equestria are you two doing that anyway?"

The sheen vanished, as they looked to Cait, the perfect image of innocence on their faces, "What sheen?"

"N-nothing..." Cait murmured, looking to me to confirm he wasn't going crazy, or at least not going crazy alone, I nodded for both of our maintained sanity.

Crank shrugged, "Don't have to do it now, just sometime before you leave if it's convenient. In the meantime I think I've left enough ponies hanging downstairs, so if you don't mind..."

He looked to his sister who nodded and allowed the DJ to get up and head to the elevator, pausing as he pressed a button on the side and waited for it to arrive he called back to us, "If you need anything, just look for me in the same place we met."

I waved a hoof at him while my companions said their various forms of goodbye to Crank. When he had left Grey was the first to speak up, "So who's the Knights and what does Cait have to do with them?"

Grace's sincere calm gave way to slight surprise, "You mean you two didn't know?" Both Grey and my own face were enough to answer that question, "The Knights are one of the two branches of the Steel Rangers in Vanhoover. In fact, his nickname is literally part of his rank inside the Rangers."

Grey's mouth dropped, and he turned to glare at Cait. The later who of which merely grinned sheepishly, rubbing a hoof on the back of his head like a foal who had been caught with his hoof in the history book crate, "I was going to get around to telling you guys about it..." he answered the unspoken question written upon Grey's face.

The older stallion however, was furious, "You're one of those back stabbing tech hoarders? So what, were you really just following Aria because you just wanted to help her or because of the pipbuck on her leg?"

Cait flinched, cautiously starting a response, "Partially, but I was more inter-"

The grizzled veteran interrupted him with pure unfiltered venom in his tone, "I'm guessing as a Ranger you were also rather curious about her Stable and origins of the device as well huh?"

Cait to his credit didn't flinch this time, though any number of changelings who had been taught by Grey before would be praying for the unfortunate soul locked under that glare, "But I'm not just interested in the tec she's wearing or where it-"

"So you're kind is also interested in genetic experiments that those messed up bastards in stable 103 is doing?"

"N-"

"When will Rangers learn that not everything pre-war and post-war isn't only theirs to-" Grey rampaged verbally, this was the angriest I had ever seen him, and that was no easy feat. What had the Steel Rangers done to anger the usually reserved earth pony to this point?

Cait interrupted Grey's tirade raising his own voice, "ENOUGH!" The noise paused as Grey's venomous gaze spoke volumes instead, but Cait continued on resolute, "I don't know what Ranger gave you the impression that we are all Tec hungry warmongers, while there may be Rangers no doubt like that in the east or other factions, I'm one of those who takes their oath to the Codex Seriously in the measure that it means protecting the people of the wasteland. Not squirreling away useful technology for no ones benefit."

Grace commented between this verbal war between Cait and Grey, her reading glasses taking on a sheen again, "It's true. The knights of Vanhoover have been doing their best at protecting everypony around here, hay, without them around this place would of been overtaken by Slavers and Raiders a long time ago." she made a placating gesture with a hoof and the two males sat down, wow I hadn't even noticed that they had stood up with the amount of rage Grey had on his face just moments ago, now slowly placating into a distrustful grimace at Cait's direction.

"Somepony mind explaining this stuff?" I asked after a few minutes of silence.

Xp Footnote: 85% until level up.

Next Chapter: Chapter 24: Sentinel Storm Blade Estimated time remaining: 10 Hours, 42 Minutes