I stood there, amongst the burning bodies, delimbed ghouls and the momentary fountain of glowing gore and blood as shock finally gave way to incredulity. How in the name of Lunas shiny moon did Maul and Scrapyard even get here? It was the primary question in my mind, even as the shard of the Crystal Heart slowly slid down the rubble of what had once been a nefarious and very dark looking pipe organ, my mind was blanking. Did Scrapyard follow us? That wouldn't of explained a lot though, for one they had come from the collapsed hole in the ceiling, not from the tunnel behind me. Scrapyard might of been good at following a scent, or perhaps a trail, but that was still severely off track. Let alone where Maul fit in this equation. I tried to emit a response, but after a few seconds of trailing babble I shut myself up and tried to recompose myself.

Alright, so I was in a dire situation, Pumpkin had blown the ceiling on accident in attempting to destroy the pipe organ that was muffling magic around the place, and then the roof collapsed. Soon after the chaos of battle had resumed and Maul had dropped from the hole above alongside Scrapyard. That still didn't make sense, "What... How...?" I rang out, my first intelligible words after the fight. And a scrap of metal against stone redrew me back to reality.

Maul had taken the shadowy smoke like form of Sombra as an enemy, and was trying to gore the stallion, Sombra in response was trying to dodge, which was odd since he was made of smoke and couldn't be-. Wait.

A claw soared past Sombra, grazing him on his cheek, a blow that would of rendered a slower target headless, but he was scratched, an ichor color sliding down his cheek. Sombra was bleeding. More mysteries that were piling on top of one another, but with friend attacking friend, I drew in a breathe as Sombra moved to retaliate with a wave of shadow, "Stop!"

Both forces of unnatural power halted, Sombra an inch away from flooding the monstrous armored stallion, and the later less than an inch from goring the former tyrant of the Crystal Empire into a ragged mess. Seeing each other stop, they looked to me, both asking the same question, "What?"

"Maul, Sombra, no fighting!" I quickly exclaimed.

They both looked from me to each other and then back to me, saying simultaneously, "You know this guy?" They looked back to each other, menace back in their eyes, "Stop."

"What are you a mirror?" Maul intoned his metal shod tentacles withdrawing and rotating, he looked still on guard, but it was nice to see a somewhat friendly face out here, even one that had nearly bit my face off on our first encounter.

"Try former king. And you?" Sombra grimaced disgustedly as he looked over Maul, "Did someone drag you out of a swamp or are the Steel Rangers lose their basic sense of sanitation?"

A boom echoed in the distance and no one other than I paid any attention to it, Maul retorted, rasping his voice, "Steel Rangers? I'm not some metal cowpony with a technology fetish, but if we're comparrrrrrrrring notes..." he drew out the r curling it in a spine chilling way that only his uniquely mutated vocal cords could produce, "I'd have to say I found the worlds most germaphobic smoke pony who can't take a single blow directly without going poof like the gasbag you are." He finished off, "But that's all nobility right? Bags of hot air?"

I was worried that Sombra was going to attack Maul again, and that nothing I could do would stop a renewed onslaught between the two, but to my surprise, Sombra began to chuckle, before going out to full blown laughter.

"...What?" I asked again, to no one in particular, as a Pumpkin made a new arrival from the shattered ceiling as well, flapping on in,and seeing the lack of action occurring, landing beside me.

"Hey, what I miss?" She asked me, as I stood there a bit slack jawed, "Uh, Aria?", Pumpkin waved a hoof in front of me, looking back to the newcomers as if noticing them for the first time, "Hey isn't that the power armored pony from when we first met?" she gestured to Maul, "And when we fought that Ultra Sentinel as well?" She added in as a second thought.

In a daze I muttered back to her, "I believe you also shot at him with a chaingun at one point..."

"What's he doing here then?" She asked, bracing herself for the worst. Couldn't blame her since I was pretty sure that had been the last time they met, "Looking for a third round rematch?"

I fell onto my haunches, gesturing with my forelegs at both him and Scrapyard, "Pretty sure that's not it, but that's what I want to know as well!"

Maul overhearing us, turned away from Sombra as the later calmed down, "I can sharrrre the story another time, but for now let us confirrrrrm something." He rasped on as if he was trying to be playful, before spitting out what looked like a bit of bloodied glowing bone and licking the lips that hid underneath the rim of the helmet, "Gagh, got a bit of cold ones stuck in my mouth, its like licking a freaking metal pole."

His jaw unhinged a little bit as he started to explore his own mouth, and then he shook his head and swallowed, "Got it, where were we?" he looked down at the ground, then up at me, and then tilted his head as if pondering for a short bit before adding in, "I believe the nice thing to say is, 'Sorry to drop in unannounced'?"

"How did you even get here? Let alone find us?" I asked the armored mutant, to have him point towards Scrapyard.

"Scrapyard found me," He said simply, grinding out the words, "Seeing he wasn't with company when he came by, I went after him and ended up finding you."

"How...?" I repeated, "This place is like in the middle of nowhere."

"My Internal map, remember those upgraded radars back where we met?" He grumbled, "Used it to track your pipbuck and from your pipbuck, you. Was confused why you were walking around unseen in the street... through walls... and through hordes of ghouls..." He paused, before adding, "Didn't realize you were down not on the ground level until the ground collapsed from under me."

"How did you not realize that?" Pumpkin snorted, "What, did you think she was some sort of supernatural ghost pony capable of going through solid walls without leaving a mark?" There was silence from Maul, it lasted far too long before slowly I could see the silent giggles forming in Pumpkins chest as she barely constrained them. "Oh my goddesses and stars above," Pumpkin landed on her haunches and fell on her back laughing, "You totally did. Oh my goodness."

Mauls tentacles began to inch away from defensive posture they had towards Sombra and start curling back as if to strike Pumpkin, Interjecting I added in, "Alright, alright, lets get what we came for and get out of here before the rest of the sewers collapse around here."

Scrapyard barked in response to my dictum, prancing up to me proudly and presenting me with the shard of heart, unattended he had grabbed the nearest shiny thing and drug it to me, choosing now to present it to me before giving me a hearty lick to the face with his gross ghoul-ichor covered tongue. If he wasn't covered in gore, I would of given the Timber-wolf a big hug, might of anyway if there wasn't the issue of not having any non-freezing water to clean off with afterwards, instead I gave him a pat on the messy head and wiped my hoof off in the snow afterward when the resulting pat covered my hoof in said bloody bits of ghoul, grime, and who knows what else. Puppy needed a bath.

"So, we just go out to the surface and work our way back or...?" I asked Pumpkin who promptly nodded.

"Yes, unless you want to deal with digging through rubble and risk a cave in. Though looks like we won't be flying unless somehow the dog magically got wings alongside squid-face over there." Pumpkin gestured at Maul who growled in response to being called a squid. Didn't know what a squid was, but from where she was pointing, I guess it had to do with Mauls mouth having the habit of extending like the art-book pictures of salmon and trout that used to swim in Equestrian rivers before the bombs dropped.

"I don't have a beak." Maul responded simply. Was I wrong? Were squids a kind of bird?

"You still have several Tentacles like one though." Pumpkin teased back, and now I was wondering what sort of horrible flying abomination these two were talking about. My minds eye forming a flying winged monster with several tentacles and a fish like jaw that stabbed forward with a sharp beak. I had so many questions, and I didn't want any of them answered in case the truth was far more horrifying than what I was thinking. After both the Big Grin and the cannibal 'vamponies' at the Hole I had supposed anything was possible at this point but I didn't want to think of the implications of flying tentacle-monsters more than nesscary, so I tuned out their conversation before they added to the mental image and tried my best not to imagine horrifying details like turning it into sentient metal or-

Stop me, just stop.

Shaking my head to clear it we emerged from the rubbled ruins to more snow buried buildings and looking the way we came from, I could see several rows of buildings with an odd hole pierced through them and I paused again, my train of thought being derailed. "So when you said you followed me wondering if I was a ghost capable of walking through walls, did you literally walk through the walls to follow my pipbuck tag?"

"Yes." Maul said before resuming his conversation with Pumpkin, apparently they had gone on from whatever the dreaded 'squid' was to arguing about semantics of robotics and how he was apparently 'too badass' to have his power armor lockup in the cold. I wanted to question what evil donkeys had to do with his armor, but I withheld the comment as I figured out shortly afterwards that it was meant as a saying that he was 'too cool' to freeze.

I started to ignore them again as they bantered on and on, and my attention was drawn back to Scrapyard, who had taken the opportunity to run ahead and roll in the snow, clearing himself of a good portion of grime and dirt in his efforts and leaving a mysterious bloody mess in the middle of otherwise clean snow. I pondered for a moment what this would look like to someone who came across this later and giggled, as the timber-wolf became a snow-wolf as snow matted itself into his fur.

"Seems like they're getting along fine," Said a voice next to me and I jumped a little.

Looking to the origin I realized it was Sombra, silent as ever he had changed from walking behind the rest of us to next to me, "Yeah, still surprised to see them all the way out here."

"Surprising hardly, but it is a worrying factor." Sombra commented back to me, "If Maul could track your pipbuck tag, That means others can as well."

"So you're saying then..." I asked dawning realization forming on my mind as I realized the implications.

"That your stable can too." Sombra finished for me, "Might of been a good idea to get rid of it, but without either a pipbuck technician or an experienced stable-tec programmer to change the tag, that's impossible without hacking off the foreleg."

"I'd rather prefer to both keep it and my leg thank you." I pouted at him, "It was my first gift from Grey. and it has saved me from so many situations." It was true, the amount of times it had done so was staggering, the military grade casing on the thing alone had blocked several bullets with barely a dent, and its other functions had saved me more than I could count. That and it still had the massive data of Grey's own personal journal. Let alone countless records and navigational data that I probably couldn't survive long without. If Stable-tec did one thing right it was the truly wondrous invention of the pipbuck. As I realized Sombra was still staring at me I added in, "That and I need my leg for walking, cause you know that's what it does."

He rolled his eyes giving me a dry sarcastic laugh before looking away, "Right. Wasn't trying to get you to maim yourself," He elaborated, "I was just pointing out to be careful that this might come back later to bite you in the flank."

"Shouldn't be much of a problem out here," Maul chimed in, "Signal would be far too weak for another pipbuck to track you, I had advanced military hardware stored in this suit, and still got lost a few times trying to track it.

Pumpkin also brought in her own opinion, a logical as well as solid one at that, "Let alone the amount of preparation and foresight one would need to get enough winter gear to amount to a raid this far away from Vanhoover. To prepare any sort of large scale squad to capture you would be a logistics nightmare for the wealthier folk around the Equestrian wasteland. They'd need to send a small squad similar to us in order to maintain the sheer amount of rad away, weapon-oils and heavy duty winter gear needed to venture from here and back."

"The only ones I know of wouldn't share such a thing on account of being friends with Grey." I responded, thinking of Stark, "Or the Pegasus Enclave who could bypass the snow almost altogether by flying."

"Last time I checked they have zero operations out this far from their cloudy utopia. Pumpkin responded, "Well as far as I know in any case. Most of their volunteer corps barely come down to more major populations back in Equestria's main base of operation, let alone wander that far away from a cloud. I'd imagine most other pegasus ponies used to living above would feel like a sitting duck if there wasn't cloud cover everywhere in sight while flying through the sky."

"And you don't?" I asked, to which Pumpkin laughed.

"I was born ground-side. My mother and father were unicorns, talk about one heck of a surprise when I came out with wings. Apparently my mother had a great great grandma or something that had been a pegasus pony if that makes any sense at all. Should take you to my home sometime, I think a changeling would just adore it there love-bug. Lots of fun when you get past the creepy-murder-swamp vibe surrounding the village."

She laughed at my expression, and I regathered myself as we trotted through icey dale and several building remains, Ironically Mauls path of destruction had left a mostly clear route to go through on our way back to the bunker, by the time the main trail had stopped, Maul had apparently only been a few blocks away from us when we ourselves had started traveling through the sewers, as his path made a sudden left turn back towards the edges of the town as we ourselves progressed back to base.

"Hmm, do wonder though what most factions would think of this group." Sombra pondered aloud as we entered the compound, Pumpkin quickly updating the system so that the turrets wouldn't shoot either Maul or Scrapyard before they came in.

I added in, "A mutant-pony who has power armored machine tentacles that can tear through other power armor like butter, a Nightmare Nighter who specializes in robots and explosives, a former tyrant from over a thousand years ago, and a wolf who belonged to a Sentinel of the brother hood of steel?"

"Not to mention the changeling, a race that is infamously known for devouring love who is trying to be both a sniper and a medic that happens to be learning how to use a form of rare magic whose seeking a powerful historical artifact to free her people?" Pumpkin chimed in as she finished up, "Yeah, most groups would wonder if they were having a nightmare, were drugged with a particularly potent blend of drugs..." She drew out the last word before adding an after thought, "Or were hearing a made up campfire story with some combination of the above being responsible for the creation of it."

"Heh." Maul chimed in tiredly as he entered, "I'd make one hell of a campfire story to scare foals with back in the days when Equestria wasn't blown to high hell and back." Scrapyard barked once in agreement before running off deeper into the compound, coming back a few minutes later dragging what looked like the remains of an office chair to use as a dog bed.

Maul just sat on the ground, couldn't blame him for the lack of effort to find a nice spot though. Sleeping in that heavy armor must of been exhausting in its own right let alone being unable to take it off to rest. Bedding would of proven pointless to anyone wearing power armor. Especially if that power armor couldn't be taken off. A good portion of the gore and blood that covered Maul had also been wiped off, at least partially, by trudging through the snow earlier though his helmet was long since stained a dark red of dried blood, some of it crystallized pale blue glowing ichor now on his helmet.

The brief trail of thought on how these frost ghouls tasted died as fast as it came, disgust replacing the momentary trail off thought with other distractions. Looking towards Sombra I spotted the stern stallion lost in thought as he pulled out long since faded maps of the crystal empire and began to mark it with ash and soot to better update the map, he chimed in as if he had been following another conversation entirely, "Hmm, curious, the locations of the other two shards..."

I let him be lost in thought and turned back to maul, asking him another question that had been nagging at my mind, "So now that we're settled in again, how exactly did you get out here with Scrapyard, Maul?"

The mutant stallion let out a large sigh, and turned his head to look at me. As he did, Scrapyard bounded up as well when I mentioned his name and settled down next to me trying to cover me with licks of his tongue. Maul cleared his throat and began his story...

Xp Footnote: 60% Until level up.

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