Bellton wasn’t much of a town, not even a hundred years ago. Never was, never will be. Northeast of New Orleans, situated right on the coastline, or what was left of it. All it was back in the day was a place to moor a boat for a night. Then the boat crews started gambling, and before you knew it, another gambling den had popped up in Louisiana and, somehow, grew into a meager city. Barely anyone even knows how it got called Bellton. Nothing special then, nothing special now.

Until a few days ago, thought Agent Willard Pascal as he drove through Bellton’s quiet streets in the rainstorm. Gray clouds all above, bitter-tasting rain pouring down, hardly a soul on the road or sidewalks. His standard black luxury sedan rolled through the streets, towards the heart of the city. Bellton Police Department, Second Precinct was his destination, and he wasn’t looking forward to getting there. Truth be told, he didn’t want to be involved in this mess. He wanted to stay back home in Boston with his family, his wife and daughters, and the few relatives he had left. But they needed the best they could to help out, and Pascal was one of the best–well, more like the best they could afford to spare.

He pulled the car up next to the sidewalk between two parked police cruisers. He peered through the passenger window, past the raindrops splashing on it. Not an impressive building, just a few stories tall, lined up with all the other buildings on the block. Garage access was probably around the corner, but Agent Pascal didn’t feel like wasting anymore time. All he wanted was to do his job, then head back home.

The driver-side door opened, and he stepped out. The rain poured down on him, soaking his olive dress shirt and brown tie, and quickly made work ruining his cleanly combed black hair. The agent reached back into the backseat of his car for his standard black FBI windbreaker, slipping it on. Kept the rain off and concealed his holster. All while looking stylish, he chuckled to himself. He shut the door and hit the lock button attached to his key-chain, the sedan making the classic bleep bleep sound that confirmed the alarm was active. Slipping his keys into his black trousers, Pascal made his way up the concrete steps and into the station. He didn’t want to be here, but at least he’d be out of the rain.

- - - - - - - - - - -

The station was abuzz with activity, as it had every right to be. Even in the state of the world where towns are practically being abandoned overnight, when a crisis is capable of attracting international attention, everyone gets involved. Pascal looked across the lobby, noting that the place looked surprisingly clean and tidy. White tiles for the floor, photographs adorning the walls of older, better days, and furnishings that looked to be made of actual wood. Officers of the law passed back and forth across the room, holding papers and files. The receptionist looked overloaded with incoming phone calls. It’s almost as if everything went back to normal, if just for a little while, Willard couldn’t help but think to himself. In the lobby sat over a dozen people, none of them looking well. Several were adorned with bandages, some covered with bruises, while others looked sleepless and weary.

And many of them were ponies.

He’d seen ponies before. Talked to them. But he’d never seen so many ponies that looked like they’d been through hell. The people sitting on benches looked bad but the ponies sitting with them seemed even worse off, pure misery in their eyes..

Is it because they can’t handle this kind of stress? No, I have a pretty good idea why...

Shaking his head, the federal agent walked past all of them, straight to the front desk. The woman sitting there looked like she’d pulled three all-nighters back-to-back. Messed hair, wrinkled clothes, looking just plain overworked. Papers were scattered everywhere and it appeared she couldn’t let go of that phone for more than four seconds. I better make this quick.

“Ma’am, I’m Agent Willard Pascal, Federal Bureau of Investigation,” he plainly stated to her, retrieving his badge from his pocket. The woman gave him a glance, then gave the badge another one. Pulling the phone away from her mouth for a moment, she said to him, “We’ve been expecting you. Head on in and let them know you’re here, I can’t take the time to page them. Just ask for Lieutenant Gagnon.”

Nodding his head, Pascal pocketed his badge and walked by.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Lieutenant Gagnon was in one of the interrogation rooms, and as the agent entered, he immediately noted that the lieutenant was a large man. Tall, stocky, looked as solid as a brick wall. He didn’t look much better than anyone else did either; disheveled brown hair, beard, and clothes–wrinkled yellow shirt and khaki pants, obviously another person who’d been worked to the bone recently. Pascal felt a little smaller just by being in the same room as him, though; the man looked like he went above seven feet tall. Gagnon hovered over a scrawny, blonde, bespectacled man in a meager brown coat who, in contrast to practically everyone else in the building, looked like he actually cleaned himself up this morning.

Gagnon turned to face Pascal when he heard the door open, a stern look in his eyes. “Let me guess,” he began, his voice exactly matching his gruff-looking exterior, “you’re the one the boys in Washington sent? I can tell that you’re not from anywhere around here.”

He didn’t ponder what made himself look so foreign, Pascal just nodded. “They said I could find Lieutenant Gagnon in here. I guess that’s you, isn’t it?” The lieutenant curtly nodded, and motioned at the clean-cut man sitting at the table. “This is Doctor Howards. He worked as an assistant in the Bureau. I’ve been waiting for you to arrive before I started asking any important questions. I take it you’ve reviewed the files we sent you?”

“Mostly.” This response earned a brief scowl from Gagnon, but Pascal didn’t pay it any mind as he took a seat next to the doctor. Looking at him, the young doctor seemed very nervous, avoiding eye contact, and constant fidgeting in his seat.

“Dr. Howards, I’m Agent Pascal with the FBI. I’m sure you know why I’m here to talk to you. I need you to tell me what you can about–“

”I-I already told the police, I wasn’t even there that day. It was m-my day off, I was at home. I can’t tell you anything about what happened at the Bureau, I didn’t even know what was going on until they started showing it on the news.” Howards stared off into the wall, tapping his finger on the table out of nervous compulsion.

“I know, I know you weren’t there, but you worked there the days beforehand. We need you to tell us if you saw anything suspicious, anything that could help us figure out more about this incident.” Pascal looked over to Gagnon, who was learning against the concrete wall with his arms crossed, looking as immovable as a mountain, and observing just as quietly as one. The lieutenant was obviously gauging him, wanting to see if he could handle this. It was clear that Gagnon was not the type to be easily impressed, but in truth, Pascal didn’t care what the lieutenant thought of him as long as he did not interfere.

“...I...I don’t really remember seeing anything...weird...” Howards stammered after a period of tense silence, adjusting his glasses that were slowly sliding down his nose. “It was just normal. Typical people, typical conversions, typical d-day...if-if I’d seen something, I woulda told someone.”

Willard sighed, pulling back a few strands of hair that had fallen into his face, and said, “Dr. Howards, you’re a terrible liar. Please stop trying. I’m a trained federal agent, and you couldn’t convince a rookie patrolman you weren’t speeding. This is stressful for everyone, and we can’t afford to waste time prying the truth out of you with threats of jail time and fines for lying to authorities. Just give me the truth. Anything, any information at all can make a difference. The more we know about what happened, the better we can prevent it from happening again.”

The doctor sighed, and crossed his arms. A defensive action. It was clear that Howards did not want to be involved in this, and it was clear that he was afraid of something. What that fear was, however, was not so obvious.

“...I don’t want to be blamed for what happened,” Howards coldly muttered after a solid minute of silence. “From what I know, the Bureaus get threats from radicals all the time that are never followed through, just like anything else. I didn’t figure this was anything different...”

“You’re saying that your Bureau received a threat? A threat of what, and how?”

“I-I didn’t understand it at all. I mean, it didn’t...w-well...I guess it was...out of the ordinary. But I just shrugged it off as typical craziness. I bet you know how wild things have been. Protests, assaults, people are getting hurt out there because everyone can’t stop...” He sighed and bowed his head, rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean...I don’t know anymore, it’s hard to keep up with everything. I’ve just focused on my work in the Bureau. I worked there as a doctor back when it was just a clinic, you know. When they came along and changed it into a ponification center, I just kept hanging on. Didn’t see a reason to quit. It was still helping people, right?”

Pascal leaned back in his metal folding chair, stretching his legs a bit before continuing the interview. “Dr. Howards, when did you receive this ‘threat’? What did it say, where’d you find it, tell me all about it.”

“It was the day before...th-that happened. It was...around noon I guess. I’d been working for only an hour when the-the pony in charge of the Bureau came in. We were...well, friends, and it was a slow day, so we started talking. I walked with her to her office...”

It was a cold gray day, no different from the previous. Bellton had been suffering poor weather for what felt like weeks now, but everyone was used to it. Dr. Thomas Howards didn't mind it, he worked inside for most of his days, and today would be no different.

He served as an assistant for the Conversion Bureau, a somewhat recent addition to the town. It opened just two years ago, along with hundreds of others across the world, and they had already made their impact: half of humanity was gone. Changed. Altered into something else, something equine.

They offered tickets to paradise at the cost of your thumbs. But Dr. Howards didn't mind; if he did, he wouldn't work there and help them do it. It wasn't like he did the conversions himself, that was the ponies' job. Dr. Howards, in truth, just served as a friendly face for the newfoals–the humans who turned into ponies. Sometimes he found an opportunity to chip in with his medical expertise; some of the people who came in would have minor conditions that needed looking after while they waited in the Bureau. Howards had worked in the building back when it was Red Leaf Clinic: a plain, small hospital that was converted into a Bureau by a joint effort between the government and the ponies. He couldn't go out and find a new job, something wouldn't allow him to just let go of the place, so he pleaded for a position at the new Bureau, and they let him stay.

It was interesting, working alongside talking, multi-colored ponies, helping them turn people into more talking, multi-colored ponies. Very interesting. The fact it was a magical process irked him, though he never let it show. It piqued his curiosity, he wanted to know more about it, but he was too meek to ask. He figured they couldn't really explain magic anyway, or, at least, not in a way he could actually understand.

And so, Dr. Thomas Howards sat at the front desk of Bellton's Conversion Bureau, one of many places where humans became equines. He'd gotten used to it with time, though even the smallest joke about undergoing ponification himself made him uncomfortable, for reasons he wasn't completely aware of. Still, he admitted that he liked the ponies he worked with. They were friendly, social for the most part, and genuinely cared about the people who came to the Bureau to get converted. Sometimes it felt like his job hadn't actually changed at all.

For example, he still had a lot of annoying, tedious paperwork. He started his shift an hour ago and the only thing he'd worked on was organizing the giant stack of papers in front of him. He wasn't even sure what they were for, or how a building with only one defined purpose with only one defined way to fulfill that purpose could produce this many forms and files. For all he knew, it was paperwork from fourteen years ago that got mixed up with papers from last week. He doubted even the ponies understood this stuff, they seemed pretty simple in general.

Howards groaned and shook his head, looking up and away from the sea of thin white sheets. He looked around the lobby, and saw that it was still empty. The Bureau had been going through some slow days recently, and in truth, it never received that much "patronage," one could call it. Most people tended to head for the nearby New Orleans branch, while those who shied away from big cities deferred to Bellton.

Still, the truth of the matter is, they'd been under a dry spell for quite some time. This Bureau had only a handful of converts at the moment. Aside from them, the only other people in the building were the staff members, meaning Howards, a few other humans, and a number of ponies straight from their homeland of Equestria, a magical realm protected from the outside world by the will of two goddesses who raised the sun and the moon.

At least, that's what the ponies told him. He couldn't help but feel skeptical, even after they showed him pictures, even after he saw their leader, Princess Celestia, on the news. He was a modern, college-educated man, so it was difficult to believe a magical talking winged unicorn could raise the sun in the morning via magic. Then again, he didn't believed one could swap species with magic, yet here he was helping it happen...

Howards' bored musings were broken when he noticed the main glass doors sliding open with a soft mechanical whirr. In stepped a regular Earth pony with a raspberry-colored coat and a soft, fluffy, cream-colored mane and tail, each sporting a pair of scarlet streaks in them. Howards was familiar with the pony that was now approaching him, as he should be, considering she was the "head honcho" of the Bellton Bureau. Her name was Raspberry, and even though she often mentioned that she didn't enjoy being the "boss," she did it well enough that they didn't want to let her leave.

Upon seeing her, Howards had gone back to filing in a weak-hearted attempt to look productive. But he knew she'd see through it easily, she just had a strange knack for it. He knew a pony's "cutie mark," the emblem that appeared on both of their flanks, represented their special talent. But Raspberry's was two blue hearts sitting side-by-side, and that didn't really tell Howards anything, so he had no idea how she was so good at reading people, let alone people of a different species. He glanced away from the papers again, and noticed a pair of large, lime green eyes peering at him from the other side the desk, barely reaching above the tall edge.

"Enjoying your work?"

"Absolutely."

"Has anyone new come in today?"

"Nope."

"Are the newfoals doing okay?"

"Yep."

A brief silence.

"…Mind tearing yourself away from your job for a few minutes and walk with me? I haven't gotten the chance to talk to anypony today and the quiet is starting to bug me."

"I think I can survive a small break, yeah."

Howards couldn't help but smirk, both at the word "anypony" and at the fact he could get away from this mess for at least a little bit. Rising from his chair, he noted again just how much taller he was than the pony. But like the other weird factors of his current job, he'd gotten used to it. He walked with Raspberry to one of the many doors that led further inside the building.

+ + + + + + + + + + +

"Can we skip to the part that's actually relevant?" Lt. Gagnon interrupted. Howards flinched in his seat at his deep, loud voice. "We don't have time to waste, Dr. Howards. We have practically a small army of people we need to talk to, because apparently the government thinks that Mr. FBI here needs to personally speak with every single victim."

Agent Pascal glared at the bearded man for a moment before turning to face Howards again. "What did you and this 'Raspberry' talk about on your way to her office?"

"Just typical chatting. We talk a lot. She asked about my parents, wh-which I don't enjoy, not on good terms with 'em. I asked about her parents back in Equestria, who were just fine by the way in case you want to pry into that too…" he mumbled bitterly before continuing, "just normal stuff you talk to your friends about…"

"As I said, let's skip to the relevant part," Gagnon irately chimed in again.

"…F-fine…"

+ + + + + + + + + + +

"…And that's how Equestria was made," Raspberry finished with a bright smile, just as they reached the plain door to her plain office on the second floor of the Bureau. Howards stood next to her, gawking.

"Are…are you serious? You're just messing with me, aren't you?"

"Yep! I heard that story once and I've been spreading it around ever since because everypony just has the weirdest, most hilarious reactions to it. They usually make a face like the one you're making now. Anyway, thanks for walking me, Tom."

"No problem, anything that gives me an excuse to not touch pieces of paper is just peachy in my book. But…I guess I gotta go back now, huh?" Howards said with a fake tone of dejection.

"Yeah, guess you do. Don't worry, we're both bored out of our minds. But it'll probably get better soon. You know what I heard?"

"What, what did you hear?"

"I heard from a few certain ponies that the Mane Six are doing a big Bureau tour."

"The…Mane Six?"

"I've told you about them before, don't tell me you forgot!" Raspberry glared at him, but he knew it was just a little irritation on her part. "The Mane Six are the first pony ambassadors to Earth, they've done a lot of work for the Bureaus and Equestria! They're heroes back there, you know, they once saved the land from eternal night by using the Elements of–"

"O-okay, Raspberry, okay, I get it, they're VIPs, Very Important Ponies," Howards cut her off, waving his hand, not in the mood for story time, "and they're doing a 'tour'?"

"Yep! They're visiting a bunch of the Bureaus, they attract a lot of attention, and they're good for spicing things up! I heard that right now, they're in Florida, so maybe they'll head west and visit Bellton! Then we'll have lots of visitors and stuff to do other than doodling on the back of papers." Raspberry was beaming at the thought of having something fun, or at least interesting, to do, and from Howards' perspective, she also sounded excited at the thought of meeting this "Mane Six."

"Well, let's hope they do pay a visit. They sound like they'd be fun to meet. Anyway, if you need me, I'll be in the lobby." Howards turned and walked away down the hall, sticking his hands in his pockets, not exactly eager to return to his real job.

"See ya, Tom!" he heard Raspberry call to him, followed by the sound of her nudging her door open and trotting into her office. First thing they did to convert the clinic was remove all the locks and knobs on the doors, making the whole place "pony-accessible."

If one thing hadn't changed, it was the hallways. Still bleached white, still looked as antiseptic and clean as they always had. One thing he didn't like about hospitals was the fact they all looked depressingly colorless and dull.

"T-Tom?"

That sounded like Raspberry. And she sounded nervous.

"Tom! Thomas, get in here! Quick!"

Howards was running back, practically tripping over himself to get there. He flew through the door and stopped. Raspberry was behind her meager desk, staring at the computer she barely used. Her eyes shifted over to Howards before snapping back to the screen, tensely focused on it. Howards stepped around the desk to see what was on the screen that had frightened the pony so much.

He was expecting something displayed on the screen. Instead, what he saw was a piece of paper firmly pinned to the screen with a blade, the screen cracked, fractured, broken, and useless. The paper was plain white, as if it was just taken intact from a printer, sans the hole gouged in it by the knife. The words on the paper were typed, all capital letters, all bold, and all the letters were colored red, the same shade of red as blood.

+ + + + + + + + + + +

"And what, exactly, did this piece of paper say?" Gagnon asked. Howards fidgeted in his seat a little, scratching at his right temple. He took a deep, nervous breath and sighed.

"You better read it yourself," he mumbled, reaching into his coat and producing a folded white piece of paper, the red lettering visible on it. He laid it on the table in front of Pascal, who began unfolding it.

"You had the note all this time, and you didn't tell anyone?" the agent asked, looking over the note.

"N-no…I…I didn't know what to make of it, okay? Raspberry was scared so I just yanked it and the…and the knife off the computer and I shoved them both in my pockets. Told her not to worry about it. H-here, I brought the knife too," Howards said, laying the small shining blade on the table. Gagnon stepped away from the wall and leaned over the table, putting both his hands on it for support as he looked straight at the knife.

"Looks clean, cheap, brand-new," he grumbled, "'Cept for a few smudges, but that's likely because of Dr. Howards here." At the mention of his name, Howards shrunk into his seat a little more.

"There are lots of ways you could interpret this, but pretty much all of them point to the fact that there are no prints on either the knife or this paper other than Mr. Howards'," Pascal said as he looked over the letter in his hands. "They both look like they were cleanly yanked out of their packages just before they were used. No stains, no wear and tear, not even a bent corner. And considering they were able to get in, plant this, then get out without anyone catching on, they were also probably smart enough to wear gloves."

"So what do you make of the message, 'Special Agent'?"

"Oh, I'm not that special, Mr. Gagnon. But this note…well…it's certainly…cryptic."

WE ARE ALL PLAYING A DANGEROUS GAME.

A GAME OF CHANCE.

IF IT ALL GOES WELL YOU WILL COME OUT ALIVE.

BUT GAMES OF CHANCE ARE UNPREDICTABLE.

AND SO ARE THE GAMBLERS THAT PLAY THEM.

DON'T TRY TO WIN.

TRY TO LIVE.

I WISH YOU ALL THE LUCK I CAN.

BUT IT IS NOT A MATTER OF LUCK.

IT IS A MATTER OF CHANCE.

MAYBE WE WILL ALL WALK AWAY.

MAYBE WE WILL ALL DIE.

THE CARDS.

THE ROULETTE.

THE DICE.

THE HOUSE.

THEY'RE ALL RIGGED.

BUT CHANCE ALWAYS FINDS A WAY TO SLIP THROUGH.

MAY WE HAVE FORTUNE AND MAY WE HAVE MERCY.

"This isn't a threat. It's a warning. A strangely-worded warning. Whoever wrote this, they couldn't afford being straightforward, for whatever reason."

"So they pin it to a computer with a knife?" Gagnon questioned. "That's a little creepy for a kind-hearted warning, isn't it?"

"It's a good way to get noticed and get taken seriously. Dr. Howards, how did you and Raspberry react to this message?"

"Uh, u-uh…we…we passed it off as a p-prank, by someone who just wanted to scare us. L-lots of people don't like the Bureaus, so we figured they were just trying to scare us…I…I didn't know…and we only had a day before it…"

"…It's alright, Dr. Howards," Pascal said to him with a serious expression, "what you did was normal, and in all honesty…you didn't have much time to do anything about it. It's probably smart you didn't have a huge reaction. If there was some pre-emptive action on the part of the Bureau…then things could have gone much worse. People don't like it when things don't go according to plan, and if their early plans went wrong before they even started? They would have gotten angry. Very angry. And then things would have gone…so much worse."

The FBI agent patted the doctor on the shoulder, Howards not looking any less guilty about his passive behavior. "Dr. Howards, I have just one more question: did you see any suspicious people in the Bureau that day, or any relatively recent time?"

"…A…a couple, I saw a couple weird people, the day me and Raspberry found that, didn't know what to think of them. Bureaus draw lots of curious people…so…"

"Just tell me plain and simple, Dr. Howards. Who did you see, when did you see them, all the things you can tell me and Lt. Gagnon."

"…A-about fifteen minutes after I started my shift, 'bout an hour before Raspberry came in, I saw a guy standing around in the lobby. I never noticed him even come inside. He was wearing, like, an old tan trenchcoat and sunglasses, brown hat, couldn't see his hair, or anything about him, r-really. I thought it was just someone, one of those guys who was thinking about it but had doubts, it's kinda normal for guys like that to just linger around, thinking. I couldn't see his face, he was just…standing around…then he left."

"I see…and you said you saw someone else? You mentioned you saw a couple of odd ones. Trenchcoat's one of them, who's the other?" Pascal asked, his eyes lit up with attention and curiosity.

"It-it was a lady, kinda young but–well, anyway, she had black hair, kinda long, straight, and she wore a regular gray coat. She looked really serious–she actually, uh, kinda scared everyone in the Bureau. She just looked around, walked around, didn't say a word, and anytime someone tried to talk to her, she'd just…just look at them and they'd back off. She vanished for a bit, then I saw her again walking out of an employees-only area and straight out the building to the street."

"What was so 'scary' about her, Dr. Howards? Did you try to talk to her?"

"O-once…she did that 'look' at me and I saw why it freaked everyone else out. She had these eyes…just…these eyes on her, the kind that just pierced you, you know?"

"I…see…and she didn't do anything other than walk around, creep people out, and leave? Hm…"

Pascal stood from his seat and straightened his clothes, and turned for the door. "That will be all, Dr. Howards. Thank you for your cooperation. If you remember anything else, be sure to contact us. I say you're free to go." Howards nodded and started to get up, when Gagnon stepped forward and interrupted.

"Now wait a second there, Agent. This precinct is my jurisdiction and I'm the authority here in charge of this investigation, you can't just dismiss a vital witness and tell them to go home without my say-so, just because some suits with big names sent you."

Pascal didn't want to argue. He had more pressing matters. "Fine, Lieutenant, fine. You dismiss witnesses at your discretion, but I don't want to end up with twenty people wasting their time here when they have nothing further to say to us. People want to get back to their lives as soon as they can."

Gagnon huffed and leaned back against the wall.

"W-wait, Mr. Pascal? I just remembered something about that girl I saw."

Agent Pascal was standing in the open doorway when Howards spoke up again. He turned to face the doctor who was still standing at the end of the room.

"The girl, she had a form of heterochromia–mismatched eye colors. It wasn't genetic, from what I could tell anyway. Her natural color was gray, I could tell, her left eye was fine. But her right eye's iris, some was gray, but most of it looked red, like it was blood-stained. Not sure what caused it, but that's the way it was. I hope that, uh, helps…"

"…Thanks, Dr. Howard. I'll remember that."

Pascal closed the door and made his way down the hall, looking for an empty area. He ended up standing by the restrooms, in front of a window, watching the rain splash and blow against it and the walls. He dug into one of his pockets and retrieved an audio recorder. He pushed the record button and began to speak.

"After arriving in Bellton, Lousiana, during horrible weather may I add, I quickly began my work. At the moment, the beginning of my investigation, I'm interviewing as many people as I need to, gathering whatever information I can from the staff and victims. I will, hopefully, also be doing some physical investigations at the remains of the Bureau. So far, I've only interviewed one staff member, an assistant named Dr. Howards, who, alongside the Bureau's overseer Raspberry, discovered an ominous warning the day before the assault. Howards mentioned encountering two suspicious individuals: a nondescript figure in a trenchcoat, and an intimidating and enigmatic woman, black hair, gray eyes, right eye partially red due to sectoral heterochromia. I'll be continuing my interviews and interrogations alongside local police lieutenant Gagnon, who has somehow already found enough reasons to resent me. However, he seems very determined to discover the truth of the situation and will likely help me more than hinder, if he is as intelligent as I hope. FBI Investigator Willard Pascal, out."

Willard sat in the empty office that the precinct had given him. They had plenty of empty space these days. So did everyone. It still felt mystifying sometimes, how so many people just up and left behind their lives in such a short amount of time. The Bureaus opened two, three years ago? He couldn't quite remember anymore. Everything felt hazy these days to him. He looked over the stack of files lying on the cheap metal desk. Next to them was his own laptop computer–for work purposes only–which had many copies of the files stored. The files were all about the incident, and for the past couple of hours, Pascal had been skimming through them, if only to satisfy the angry demands of Lt. Gagnon. Willard, personally, preferred to review files only when they were relevant to the current information he was working with. It was just another simple clash in differences, but if Gagnon was going to be as deeply involved in this investigation as he wanted to, Pascal figured that not aggravating him would make things easier.

But he wasn't here to read things everyone else had figured out. He was here to gather information that they hadn't found yet.

He tossed the file he was holding back onto the desk's surface, and swiveled in the office chair to stair out the window. The rain was still pouring down, and would be for quite some time; it wasn't going to stop anytime soon. It certainly wasn't helping the melancholy that had swept across the whole town. Pascal yawned and stretched in his seat for a moment before standing up and heading for the door.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Pascal was in the office again, but this time he wasn't alone this time. He sat in his seat, rolled around to the front of his desk. In front of him, sitting on the floor on their haunches, was a pair ponies–two of many who had been waiting in the precinct. Gagnon wanted to wait for Pascal to review all the information before continuing any interviews, but Gagnon didn't have to know that Willard was talking to witnesses while simultaneously reviewing files, did he? After all, Pascal's laptop was open and active right there on the desk with the information open in case he needed it during the interview.

The ponies were a mare and a stallion, from what he could immediately observe. The mare was a light orange with a straightly-combed mahogany mane and tail that looked well-groomed once, but were ruffled now. The stallion was a deep brown in both coat and mane, the mane only somewhat lighter–and also a unicorn; his brown horn was the first thing Pascal had noted about him. Their names were Dixie Drums and Oakley, respectively. Two very different ponies, but one thing they had in common was their health: both looked to be in poor shape, much like the many other people and ponies waiting in the precinct. Miss Drums–as Pascal called her–had a large bandage wrapped on the left side of her face, while Mr. Oakley–as Pascal called him despite his protests–had handful of healing cuts on the side of his body and a couple more on his legs, a couple spots covered with small bandages. Neither of them looked very comfortable sitting around a police precinct with a federal agent.

"Normally, we do things like these one-on-one," Pascal began, both ponies' attention on him as soon as he spoke, "but you say you were together a majority of the time, so I decided to talk to you both at once. Saves time." He reached for the styrofoam cup of coffee he had fetched while he was out and took a gulp of the bitter, unsweetened beverage, welcoming something warm in this cold weather. In Willard's other hand was his pencil and notepad. "Now, let's start at the beginning of the incident. Miss Drums, what were you doing before it started?"

The mare shifted awkwardly, staring out the window. "D-do I really need to be here? I'm sure you can talk to some other pony and hear the same things. I just want to go back home now…"

Pascal shook his head. "I'm sorry if I'm putting you through something you don't like, but every perspective is important. There's a chance you noticed something no one else did, as did Mr. Oakley here, and that's why I need to talk to you. Please, take your time, and tell me what you can. I know it can be hard to remember, but we need all the help we can get in figuring this out, to keep it from happening again. We need your help, so please, try your best." He tried to sound kind, but a part of him was already becoming annoyed; nearly every pony he tried to talk to before seemed too affected to say anything important at the time. He was told to give them a little more time to calm themselves, but their perceived fragility was getting in the way of the investigation, and that fact irked him. Still, he pushed his grievances to the back of his mind and tried his best to put on a comforting visage for Miss Drums and Mr. Oakley.

"You can just call me Oakley, seriously," the stallion interrupted, sounding a little annoyed himself. Pascal ignored him.

Miss Drums continued, "I-I just help the newfoals get ack…acli…acclimated to their bodies, but there were very few at the Bureau at the time, s-so I was just helping out wherever I could. A few people had come in that morning, so I just tagged along…"

+ + + + + + + + + + +

Dixie Drums really hated Earth weather. A light drizzle had started outside, but it was freezing cold. She was told the south parts of America were warm year-round, compared to the rest of the continent. But for the past days, it was nothing but bitter cold wind and dark, moody clouds covering the sky. It was like everything was miserable, from the people to the planet. She often wished she was back in Equestria, telling her little sister jokes and entertaining her friends with her special bongos–which she had to leave behind, another detail that bugged her.

But she sucked it up and went about with her days. She was here to help these weird humans get a happier life as ponies, and from what she'd seen so far–hungry people, lonely people, sad and hurt people, desperate people–they needed all the help they could get.

Sadly, there weren't that many people to help these days. The Bureau she had ended up assigned to was…dull. Small town that no one took seriously, from what she could tell. Even less people here than in the emptying cities, from what she heard.

At least she was making friends at the Bureau. A bunch of bored ponies sitting in one place are bound to become friends sooner or later.

It was the middle of the afternoon, around 4 or 5 P.M., and amazingly, some people had come in to the Bureau asking the usual questions and making the usual plans, which gave her something to do. She stood in a plain room with some tables and chairs, along with a human, who hadn't said much since walking in. Dixie was waiting for another pony–Melodia was her name, a fellow musician–to return to the room with some papers that the human had asked for. It was a man, from what she could hear anyway; he was bundled up so much you could barely see anything about him other than his face, which was also covered up by a cap. Dixie shrugged it off as sensitivity to the cold, and the other humans who had just come in were similarly dressed up in coats and hats and gloves and the like. The rain certainly didn't warm things up either, and Dixie noted the occasional drop that fell off his arms and hat as she awkwardly waited in the room with the quiet man.

The rain tapped against the window, and the orange mare racked her brain for something she could talk about, because this silence was killing her. Ponies working at Bureaus were supposed to be friendly faces for all the humans who came in, and a friendly face who can't talk is usually a creepy face. Gulping, she looked up at the rain-soaked human and summoned up just enough courage to break the silence.

"So, what made you want to become a pony? I'm Dixie, by the way–Dixie Drums," she sheepishly smiled, hoping he'd respond positively. She didn't like being so socially awkward, she wasn't always like this, but this human had something off-putting about him.

The human shifted in his seat and sat quietly for a moment before answering with a low, deep voice, "'Cause my sister got ponified a few months back and I miss her something fierce. I wanna see her again." The deep voice made Dixie flinch just a little, it was something she wasn't expecting. She nodded at this, and her eyes shifted to the side again trying to think of a follow-up question.

"Well, what was your sister like? She must be great if you want to see her so badly you'll get ponied for it," she ended the question with a nervous chuckle and smile.

The human's response was more immediate this time, "Oh, she was the sweetest thing, always as bright 'n' cheery as a summer morning, and she loved her music, loved to dance. But she hooked up with a bad man, and he broke her heart…and then you all ponies set up these Bureaus and she went and checked herself in to get away from it all…"

Feeling the air getting heavier, Dixie changed the discussion's direction, "So, when you get ponified, you're gonna go look for her? Any idea where she is?"

The stranger shook his head and said nothing more. "No, huh?" Dixie pondered, "Well, I'm sure there's a way we can find out where she is if she's moved on to Equestria or somewhere else, so…don't worry?"

The stranger only grunted in response.

I hope Melodia gets back here with those papers soon, this guy is kinda creepy, especially for a human, Dixie couldn't help but think. The man seemed content to just stare out the window, and Dixie tried to muster up the courage to ask his name. But he didn't seem like he was up for talking, so Dixie didn't know what to do other than awkwardly sit in silence.

Finally, a low squeaking noise announced Melodia's return, the purple mare balancing a folder full of sheets on her back. "Sorry it took so long," she cheerfully and loudly declared, "but you asked for a whole lotto papers and I had to look everywhere to get them all!"

"Oh, Lodi, I thought you'd never get back!" Dixie gleefully responded, all too happy to have some friendlier company. Feeling braver with a friend by her side, she turned back to the man and said, "Okay, since we have the things, you can get started filling them out, and me and Lodi here will be willing to answer any questions you have."

The man stared at the two mares for a moment, and then checked his wristwatch. He held it in front of him for a good twenty seconds, looking entranced by it. Then he lowered his hand, reached behind him, and took his backpack off. Both Dixie and Melodia watched him unzip the bag and dig around inside.

"Uh, if you're looking for a pen, I have…one…" Melodia began to offer, trailing off when the man looked up at her with the sternest stare she'd ever seen, catching her off-guard so harshly that she reflexively whimpered a bit.

The man spoke with the same voice as before, deadpan but harsh, "You're going to do exactly everything I tell you."

Both Dixie and Melodia stared at him, puzzled and deeply unnerved, and the two ponies gasped when he drew a gun from his bag and pointed it at them. It was an uzi, though neither of them recognized the specific kind; they just knew that a gun was a lethal killing tool that humans used, and the man seemed all too willing to use it.

Before either pony could say a thing in response, there came a loud screeching from outside the building, recognizable to any human as the squealing of car tires, that rapidly grew louder, the source of the noise clearly getting approaching the building, followed by a blood-chilling crash from behind the door the two ponies and gun-toting man were looking at. It was the door that led to the Bureau's lobby.

"Move. Into the lobby. Now." He was still pointing the gun at them, and had stood from his seat, menacingly towering over the pair of ponies who were too confused and terrified to disobey. Nosing the door open, the pair looked out across the lobby–or what was left of it.

Some dust filled the air, and glass and some concrete littered the tile flooring. Where the front glass doors used to be was a large gray van, the rear of the vehicle backed inside the building with the doors hanging wide open. A group of humans all wearing black, brown, dark gray coats and hats were jumping out the back of the van, large guns in hand, loudly shouting and aiming at all the ponies and people who were standing in the lobby. Dixie glanced around and saw a few men similarly dressed with guns in their hands leading ponies out of other rooms inside the Bureau, pistols and small shotguns pressed against the backs of ponies' heads as they were forcefully herded into the lobby, much like Dixie and Melodia were. A swift, painful kick in one of her rear legs reminded Dixie of that fact as the man behind them began to bark orders at them to line up against the wall with the other ponies. Dixie looked around, confused and horrified, the sudden wave of fear and noise putting her in a daze. Another hard, hurtful kick sent her towards a wall, Melodia following closely behind.

Their bodies pressed against the cold white wall, the two mares watched as the other workers in the Bureau were corralled against the walls by the other angry, loud men with guns, a few of them silent, a few of them screaming and shouting in the angriest voices possible. A few quickly ran off through some of the doors, and Dixie could hear Melodia whimper ever so slightly when they both heard gunshots echo from deeper inside the building. A number of ponies were pushed and shoved into the lobby from where those few humans had run off to. Dixie shifted her aways away and back towards the van. One human was sitting next to it and digging in a bag. He pulled out a black can and began spraying its contents on the windows, the glass being covered with a thick layer of black spray paint. He went on to paint all the windows in the lobby, tossing aside empty cans and replacing them with another one from his duffel bag as he duck in and out of rooms, presumably blocking all the windows. With the windows mostly painted over, the room was even darker than it was before, especially since some of the lights were knocked out by the collision from the van. A few of the humans had apparently foreseen this, and were now toting flashlights and constantly shining them on all the people huddled up agains the walls, the bright lights making Dixie wince whenever it beamed into her eyes.

The two friends sat together against the wall, shivering, as the humans with guns went to work. A few set about patrolling the lobby, while a few others were now carrying tools and sheets of metal and wood, and wandered off. Minutes of tense silence pass, and the sounds of power tools echoed through the now-empty halls of the Bureau. A number of tables were dragged out of one of the rooms and shoved against the walls, and a couple humans began dumping their things on them and rifling through the piles. One had set up a small group of boxes and wires that Dixie didn't recognize as anything, but the blinking lights did prove it was some kind of technology. The human setting them up grabbed a chair and seated himself in front of the devices and began fiddling with the knobs, but he was on the other side of the room so Dixie herself could barely tell what he–or she, since the human was wrapped up in winter-wear like all the others and Dixie couldn't see any of their faces–was doing.

A sense of crushing exhaustion began to seep into the orange pony. So much noise and panic and stress was taking a big toll, and she just wanted to lie down and close her eyes. She bowed her head and stared at the floor, trying to block it out. A part of her was fighting back some tears. She'd gone from a bored pony just trying to help to a kicked-around hostage at the hands of these humans…

+ + + + + + + + + + +

"Okay, Miss Drums, that will be enough for the moment," Agent Pascal interrupted, seeing the look of unease that was growing in the mare as she recalled her experiences. She nodded her head and turned to stare off into nothing. Oakley looked at her with pure sympathy, then stopped when Pascal called his name.

"Now, Mr. Oakley–"

"Stop calling me that," he flatly rebuffed.

Pascal continued, "Mr. Oakley, where exactly where you when the humans invaded the building?"

The brown stallion sighed, and began his story, "I was in the back of the Bureau, near the basement entrance. One of the fuses had blown and electricity for a few of the rooms had gone out. One of the humans who worked at the Bureau with us taught me how to fix it, since it happened a lot from what I could guess, so I was doing that. I was finishing up when I heard the crash…"

+ + + + + + + + + + +

One large, sudden smashing sound made Oakley pause. It took a moment for the realization to sink in, and when it did, the stallion dropped the bag of fuses he was carrying and started for the stairs. Halfway up, he misstepped and went tumbling head-over-hooves back down. He winced in pain at the bottom for a little while, when he heard banging upstairs. Forcing himself back on his hooves, he went back up the stairs, slowly. The door at the top was cracked open, and Oakley reached to push it open, when he heard heavy steps approaching on the other side. Something compelled him to freeze and stare out the crack in the door. From what he could hear, it was two sets of steps that weren't in-sync, so it had to be two humans. He saw two shapes pass in front of the doors, along with a clanging noise. The pair ran down the hall a ways, then suddenly stopped. A much louder clanging of metal rung out, and Oakley pushed the door open just a bit more to see what was happening.

Two humans in heavy coats and hats were sorting out some tools, one kneeling on the floor in front of an emergency exit with a gas tank by his side, and the other holding sheets of metal beneath his arm. They were talking with each other and sounded out-of-breath.

"Okay, we just need to seal this door while Brittany and Sam seal the other two on the other side of the building," said the kneeling one, his voice very deep, especially compared to his friend's somewhat high voice.

"Cripes, I reviewed the plan, Vic, I know what we're doing. We all know what we're doing, or I at least hope to God we do," his companion responded, leaning against the wall, setting the sheets of metal down.

"Yeah, yeah. You might wanna avert your eyes, Walt, this thing gets bright as the damn sun." The kneeling one placed a big, flat, black mask on his head and held up a tool that was connected to the gas tank. With a flick of a switch, the tool was spraying fire, and the man began to melt down the metals of the door and the frame, creating a red-hot glow that made Oakley squint his eyes and the standing man stare away from it, and at the loud hiss the flame and heated metal let out was louder than anything else in the place. Oakley silently watched the pair work. When the welding was done, the other pulled out some kind of tool that resembled the gun while his friend held the sheets of metal over the door. With the tool, they planted bolts in the metal, sealing off the exit even further, plating over the door and frame with the whole stack of metal, leaving a patchwork of metal and bolts covering where the door used to be.

The welder took off his hat, revealing his dark skin and buzz cut. He wiped his brow and sighed with relief. "That took longer than I liked. Let's head back now. Leave the tools."

"Good, I don't wanna lug that shit around anymore. What do we do next?"

"I thought you reviewed the plan?"

"So I don't have picture-perfect memory, so what? Do you remember every bit of the plan?"

"I don't plan on fucking up and getting shot in the head, so yeah, I pretty much remember the whole plan. If you wanna get shot, that's fine, but you're not gonna screw this up and get me shot."

"What makes you think I'm gonna screw up? What could I possibly screw up?"

The two continued to casually banter as they passed the door. Oakley stepped away, praying they wouldn't notice him on the other side. They didn't, and passed by, verbally jabbing each other. Oakley saw an opportunity, and slowly nudged the door open just enough for him to squeeze through. In the hall, he glanced to make sure the other two were still leaving, and when he saw they were, he immediately began to trot away in the other direction as fast but as silently as possible. He ran ideas through his head over how he could get out. Things were obviously going bad, and he needed to leave and get help. If he could just–

"Wait, crap, I forgot my lighter back there."

"You smoke?"

"No, it's just a lucky lighter, lemme go get it–hey! Hey! It's one of those damn horses! Get on the fucking ground or I'll shoot your legs off!"

+ + + + + + + + + + +

"And that's how you got caught and forced into the same place as all the others?"

"Yeah, that's…that's right…"

"I see. Well, Mister Oakley, Miss Drums, I think that's all I'll need from you for now. Thanks for telling me what you could, it's all a big help to us. You can go back to the waiting room now, if I need you again, I'll call. And if you see a huge bearded man asking where you went, just say you went to the restroom and got lost."

The ponies left unceremoniously, both carrying a miserable air about them. Willard reclined in his seat, propping his feet up on the desk. He took a drink from his coffee, set it on the desk, and reached into his pocket, producing his recorder. Hitting the record button, he held it front of him and began to speak.

"Second entry, just finished interviewing a couple of the ponies who were hostages. One of them was just like all the others. Some guys came in, pretended to be potential converts, pulled out guns when a van smashed through the front, and proceeded to lock down the building and its residents. One saw a pair sealing the doors with sheet metal and welders, which is consistent with the state of the building as observed by local investigators. He overheard them discussing a plan, which from what I could guess, was quite extensive and detailed. From looking back on what happened, it's clear they had a patiently designed plan that took multiple factors into consideration. I will be interviewing a couple more witnesses as soon as Lt. Gagnon finishes his paperwork, or whatever he's doing. The exact details of this plan they had are still muddy, I'll need to work it out. I'm trying to gather as many different perspectives as I can. From what I've heard, the assailants and hostages were somewhat scattered after the initial lockdown, so some may have seen or heard things that others didn't. I'm also finding names for some of the assailants, which may help since I've been told not all of them have been identified. Until then, I'm waiting on Gagnon. I need another coffee. Out."

He pressed the button, stopping the recording with a click.

Dr. Thomas Howards noted that the precinct was more empty than it had been when he arrived. Many of the officers were working hard to process everyone, at the orders of that FBI agent who had arrived just earlier that day. Still, there were still quite a number of ponies sitting, standing, idling around. He, however, was looking for a specific one.

Reddish-pink coat, cream mane, red streak...

He smiled when he saw her. His friend and boss, Raspberry. He'd tried and tried but no one could tell him if they'd seen her safe and sound; for half the day, he'd worried that she was one of the few who didn't make it out, or...

Howards shook his head and approached the pony. His happiness on finding her was diminished a bit when he took a closer look at her. The mare looked exhausted, with her hair ruffled, like all the others did. She hadn't even noticed him yet, and he was standing right next to her. She sat in one of the precinct's many chairs; though meant for humans, a pony could make use of them if they needed a rest. Seeing her now, he realized he didn't know what to say. What do you say to a friend–of another species at that–after she'd gone through two days of fear and pain?

The doctor chided himself. He sat in the seat next to her and looked over. Then, he chuckled, because he noticed she was asleep. No wonder she didn't notice me...

“I really need to pay more attention,” he whispered to himself. He lounged back in the chair, there wasn't any need to wake up her now. She, and all the others, needed some rest.

Howards looked down the hall. Another pony was being ushered into an office. They needed rest, but the police seemed intent on keeping them up. He couldn't help but sigh.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Pascal reviewed his notes. How many ponies had he interviewed now? The afternoon had dragged on into its later hours, and what little light that shined through the windows was now gone. His fourth cup of coffee laid empty on his desk, next to his feet, casually propped up on the surface. Rain was still pattering on the windows, of course.

It wasn't going to stop raining any time soon.

And of course, Lt. Gagnon sat in the plain office too, in the corner, reviewing whatever files he'd dug up about the Bureau, the employees, and whatever else he felt was important. Pascal had noticed that the two certainly did not feel like they were cooperating; the agent was focused on the “how” and “why” of the incident, while Gagnon seemed quite fixated on the “who.” Willard, however, was fine with that. Perhaps it was the best idea that they handle different aspects of the case.

Speaking of which, Pascal was tired of pretending he was working. Every pony said pretty much the same thing, and it was always the stuff he already knew. Some were tired or stressed, and that did not give him a lot of reliable information to work it. In retrospect, it probably was a bad idea to shove every victim into the same place and make them wait. At least some of the Bureaus sent some food for them, he thought.

“So, Mr. FBI,” Gagnon started, causing Pascal to snap out of his idle musings with a tiny flinch, which the lieutenant chose not to comment on, “what have you figured out so far with your super-agent deductive reasoning? I mean, clearly, all these ponies know more than the officers who apprehended the hostage-takers and intercepted their radio communications and probably saved all those little horses from a terrible end.”

“Sarcasm. Cute. How old are you again?” the agent shot back.

“Old enough to know when a man is only pretending he's doing something important.”

Pascal sighed, rubbing at one of his eyes, and responded, “Listen, all I'm getting is the same vague details over and over: they were forced to sit in a room, guys waved guns around, then there was screaming and yelling and explosions and gunshots and then the police came and saved 'em all like superheroes. Forgive me for hoping that the people who were there on the inside would know something.”

“Well, it sounds like they did what I told them...”

“...Excuse me?”

“I told the boys to send you all the ponies extracted from the cafeteria first. That was about two-thirds of the group. The rest were held elsewhere in the building: staff rooms and bunk quarters mostly, from what I could tell. Guess they felt uncomfortable shoving that many ponies in one room; I heard the stronger ones can kick a man's legs out from under him...”

Pascal tapped a finger on the desk in front of him as he reviewed that information in his head, an annoying realization hitting him: “So you've been wasting my time by sending me all the ones who could only say the same things over and over?”

“Yep,” the lieutenant replied in that casual kind of way that irritated the agent. With a yawn, Gagnon rose from his seat, dumped the files he had been reviewing on the desk, and headed for the door. “It was just getting the easy part out of the way. Tomorrow, you can talk to the others. I'll be sending everyone home for tonight...”

In the open door frame, he turned back to look at Willard, “Because I actually care about the well-being of the people I'm charged with protecting, regardless of who they are. They've been through a lot, FBI, and they need time to settle. If you're going to be working here, you better learn to start caring too.”

Gagnon left, leaving Pascal alone in the office, the only sounds being the rain on the window and Willard's displeased sighs, mumbling to himself, “So he's going the 'holier than thou' route, wonderful...” He reached in his pants pocket and withdrew his audio recorder, and began to play back his records for review. He would need to find a hotel room to sleep in...

+ + + + + + + + + + + + +

The air of the Bellton Conversion Bureau was nearly suffocating. The cafeteria was a big room, but with about twenty ponies and a handful of humans packed into it, combined with the darkness and the intimidation, it was hard to bear. The metal tables and few chairs had been cleared out, some shoved up against windows to serve as improvised barricades. The ponies where stuck in the middle of the now-empty room, circled and patrolled by humans carrying large firearms. Many of the ponies did not recognize the various designs of the guns, but they all knew the danger they posed to the life of anyone caught at the end of them.

Melodia was just an average assistant pony, purple and blue, who simply liked to write music and hoped to be a composer. But like many before her, she had heard of the plight of the strange beings called humans from the strange world called Earth. Many were destitute, weary, miserable, weak, trapped on a slowly dying world that was, somehow, sinking into the sea. That was what she had heard from all the Equestria officials, anyway. When she had arrived on her own, it did not seem that bad on the surface, but as she talked with the humans, learned about them, she realized that things really could be worse than they looked. The humans she'd seen in the larger Bureau she used to work in would share stories of pain, depression, heartbreak, fear, anger, so many that it made her dizzy to look back on all of them. Humans that lost their loved ones, had their lives ruined, were sick or abused, or did terrible things to their “fellow man” and felt horrible guilt. Yet at the same time, many of those humans were as kind and gentle as any pony. It was a confusing job.

But now, the young mare was experiencing first-hand the kind of pain and fear that humans could inflict. In the dark cafeteria, the only lights were flashlights hanging off of the jackets of humans with the weapons that had forced their ways in and herded half the Bureau's occupants wherever they demanded.

It was quiet–the enforced kind of quiet that just made one want to speak out even louder. But that was why they had guns. Two stood in the corner, whispering to each other, clad in dark colors that made their details hard to make out in the shadows. The covered windows, dwindling daytime, and cut lighting gave them the advantage of sight. A third and fourth paced along the walls of the room, their flashlights passing over the fearful and confused faces of the ponies, employees of the Bureau and innocent newfoals alike. Melodia squinted her eyes, following the beam, trying to see who was there. There was Blue Breeze and Fogs, the pegasus brothers who always pulled lame gags and pranks and helped the pegasus newfoals learn to fly; Dixie Drums was there, all the way on the other side of the room, who looked like she was sobbing as quietly as possible, a sight that made Melodia's heart ache for her good friend; there was Mr. Yeager, the Bureau's handyman who fixed the lights and wires when he needed to, always the stoic type, even now...

A heavy footstep next to her made Melodia nearly leap to her feet. Swinging around to see, she looked up at the tall man. From what little she could see wore regular clothes, jeans and shoes, and a thick padded gray coat with straps going over it, holding a couple of bags on his back and side. In his right hand was a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun. His left hand adjusted his flashlight to shine right in the purple mare's eyes, making her wince and shut them tightly. She could hear him chuckle coldly, a kind of laugh that made her skin crawl just from hearing it. The light left her face, and she opened her eyes, seeing spots in the darkness that seemed even darker than before. The human was walking away, around the group, and stopped in the center of the end of the room. He turned, light shining on the group. He took it out of his pocket, and shined it on himself, revealing himself to be a pale, blonde-haired man with notably bright blue eyes. Being the most illuminated thing in the room certainly drew attention, but then he spoke with a booming voice, completely shattering the suppressive silence of the room.

“Okay, you little freaks! It's time to set some ground rules!”

The other humans turned and paid attention to the man; from appearances, it looked like he was some kind of leader to them, and they wanted to see what he said.

“You're going to sit here, be fucking still, and keep your mouths fucking shut, unless one of these guys tells you to move or say something. If they tell you to do something, you're gonna do it, and you don't have a choice! Follow these really simple rules, and you'll all be fine! If you break these rules, you die! Or maybe worse if someone thinks of it!” He capped off that last sentence with another disturbing laugh, and one of the humans in the corner also chuckled a little in response, though, oddly, he didn't seem nearly as scary as the speaking man.

He continued, “You don't ask questions, you don't go anywhere, and you listen to these guys,” he motioned at the other humans standing in the room, “and anyone else who comes in here to watch over you little shits! Hope we're clear!”

As quickly as the silence was broken, it returned. The speaker, now using a normal voice, turned and spoke to one of the humans who had been patrolling along the wall earlier, then walked away, his hard steps impossible to miss. He left through the door he had come in, and then everything was the same as before.

Time passed. At least, it felt like it was passing. As the sun's diluted rays finally vanished, some of the humans attached lights to the walls, just small lamps, but enough to at least see the outlines and silhouettes of the others in the room. As the hours passed, the boldness of some of the occupants steadily rose, and one could hear the ponies whispering with each other, or the occasional sobbing from a scared, stressed one. Once, Melodia thought she heard someone in the group laughing. He was quickly yelled at to quiet down by one of the humans, and for a while things were silent again, but the whisperings eventually continued. Even she herself would share the occasional thought with her neighbor, a white stallion newfoal who said he used to be called Reggie, who seemed even more nervous than herself. Melodia would ask him about the things their captors were carrying, and he explained what the weapons were and what they did, to the best of his ability; he admitted that he was an engineer, but he focused on engines, the things that made those machines called “cars” go, so he didn't know very much to tell her. But if she needed to know the most reliable brands of transmission fluid, she could ask him.

As time passed, Melodia's eyelids began to droop lower and lower. Eventually, she just laid down on the floor on her stomach and shut her eyes. The whisperings faded, either because of her rising fatigue, or because the other ponies were also growing too tired to talk. She yawned, and focused on the silence. The floor was cold and uncomfortable, and the silence was not a replacement for peace, but sleep was a strong force, and it gradually claimed the occupants of the room, one by one.

Their captors relaxed for the night with several thermoses of coffee to keep them awake.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + +

Gagnon was heading home, like many of the officers had already done so. He had to hang back and do paperwork; finding lodging for all these ponies was turning into a miniature nightmare. He had to keep them close because of their vital nature to the case, and finding them places to stay, and finding appropriate security for them–it was just another crazy affair in papers.

He looked over to his left, passing a series of seats in the hall. He recognized Dr. Howards, who was asleep in the chair, head slouched over to the side and his arms crossed. Next to him sat a raspberry-colored pony, who looked like she was waiting for her friend to wake up.

“Excuse me,” he said, catching the pony's attention instantly, “but it's getting late, and we've set up temporary shelter for you ponies. I hear they got the local motels to lend some rooms, so–“

“Um, actually,” she interrupted him with a tired but surprisingly lively voice, “I was going to ask Thomas when he woke up if I could...stay with him...” She trailed off, looking rather awkward. “What I mean is that, well, I know a lot of those ponies could use some guidance but I've never been a great boss to them and they probably don't need to see me around but Thomas has probably been really worried about me all day–“

“Okay, I understand, miss,” the lieutenant said, his gruff, deep voice easily cutting her off. “Here, let me wake up him for you.”

“What? Oh, no, let him–“

Gagnon delivered a swift kick straight into the side of Howards' leg, the doctor instantly springing up in his seat and clutching his leg with a loud whine of pain. A shocked Raspberry gasped with her hoof to her mouth as she watched her friend grumbling and half-shouting, while Lt. Gagnon continued to make his way down the hall, as if he never did anything at all.

Humans can be really rough sometimes...

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

The door to the motel room creaked open, and Willard Pascal made his way in, fumbling for the light switch in the dark. Upon finding it, he tossed his soaked FBI coat onto an armchair in the corner, placed his computer on the small desk and emptied his pockets, placing all his miscellaneous items on the cheap wooden surface. He removed his tie, tossing it aside, and set himself down on the bed. He kept one thing with him, which he fumbled with in his hand. His cellphone wasn't the most cutting-edge device, but it did do what he needed it for. Dialing a number while simultaneously removing his shoes, he waited for the person on the other end to pick up. With an audible click, his call was answered.

“Hey, honey. Are the girls in bed yet? Good, good. Tell them I love them in the morning for me, will ya? I'm probably going to be stuck here longer than I thought...”

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Lieutenant Richard Gagnon sat alone in his apartment, a single lamp and his television providing the only light. In his hand was an empty beer can, the third one of the night. He laid on his couch, staring at the ceiling. The TV displayed a national news network, which was continuing its report on–what else–the incident that had occurred only a couple of days ago; the “Bellton Siege” as they called it. Groping for the remote on the table next to him, he changed the channel as soon as he got a hold of it. He had had enough of it for one day. The alcohol in his system was not doing much to relieve his aching muscles from the constant hours of working. Setting the can down, he rubbed his eyes.

He heard his phone begin to ring, but Gagnon didn't want to answer it. He knew who it was, and he couldn't talk to them, no matter how much he wanted to.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Raspberry, the Bellton Bureau's head manager, was grateful that Thomas offered to share his home with her for the time being. Even more so when he insisted she take his only bed. The problem was, she couldn't sleep. She faded out once in a while, but would snap back to reality, no matter how hard she tried. All day she'd been randomly going out like a light, then flicking back on. It certainly didn't feel like sleep, she'd be just as tired as before. She sighed and turned in the bed. It was a pretty big bed by pony standards, but it was clear that it was on the small side for a human's. Still, there was plenty of space left over; it's not like she was a huge stallion.

That couch really didn't look that comfortable...should I tell Tom that we can just share the bed? Would that be weird? It kind of is weird, but kind of...not...at the same time...

She tossed and turned some more, her restless mind annoying itself. To her, it felt like everything was going a little crazy. The room brightly flashed, followed by a loud rumble. More lightning, just like before...

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Pascal couldn't sleep. He kept playing it over in his head again. He'd figured out what had happened in the cafeteria for those 40 hours. It was simple, and backed by a dozen testimonies that he had sat through again and again. He replayed it in his mind because it was the only thing he knew so far. He needed to know more, because this constant focus was keeping him awake. He scribbled down notes on various sheets of blank paper, trying to work out everything to the most minute detail.

I need to lay off the coffee.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

In the broken, charred ruins of the Bellton Conversion Bureau sat a lone figure wearing a red raincoat. Surrounded by broken concrete, metal, and slag, it stared at the wreckage in front of it: the skeleton of a helicopter. There was something inside of it that the figure needed to protect. It knew that the right person would come along eventually. They would come, and they would know what to do with the object that the figure guarded. The rain ran through the cracks and holes of the building, lightning flashed across the night sky, the wind howled, but the figure did not care. It had a duty to uphold, and it would not be placated or dissuaded.

The lone figure would be its guardian until the right person came to receive it, willingly or not. Only they would be able to uncover the truth behind it.