A rich magenta glow filled the cave as the faces of everyone seemed to only reflect it and the shadows cast by their own features. All stood by while watching as I pulled a flare out of my bag and toss it onto the ground beside the writhing arimaspi. The monster continued to cry out into the cave, roaring meekly as it stumbled. Smokey seemed unsure what to tend to first, the severed arm or the sliced windpipe that prevented him from screaming so loudly. Meanwhile the freshly-removed arm twitched beside me while I walked forward. The scene was a sudden mix of purple, pink, and red, the flare becoming the more dominant light source as Shining's magic gradually faded. Running up to the frantic creature, I sliced into it's legs, causing it to collapse onto the ground with a loud thud. After it fell, I could see the red-lit faces of Caramel and a few others.

Huh, I wonder why he's here above all ponies.

"Holy Faust, what are you compensating for?" Caramel commented as he walked up to the lightly twitching claw of the creature.

"Your lack of integrity." I responded while kicking away the still-living limb in disgust. "And Smokey-boy's lack of a limb now."

All of the other guards in the cave proceeded to look to one another while Flash quirked an eyebrow. "Smokey?"

I pointed to the creature I've downed as it still rolled around on the ground. "Yeah, the one I left alive? Now help me cut the other arm so I can get started on the tendons in his legs."

The creature, by the strength of it's own determination and will to live, used it's remaining arm for support as it stood on threes. The creature snarled as it leaned back against the wall, just long enough to hold the gap in it's throat closed. "(YOU WILL NOT TAKE ME!)" It croaked airily, struggling to produce a solid sound.

Without warning, Smokey used his arm to push off against the wall, giving himself a running start on his hind legs. My eyes expanded as I dodged to the side, barely missing an opportunity of becoming wholefully intimate with the frogs of his cloven hooves. "Fuck." I mumbled to myself, seeing how close of a call that was.

The others made an attempt to chase after it, only to get the creature to turn on them and swipe a claw at them. "Look out!" One of them cried out while they avoided the potentially lethal blow. When he fended them off, he hobbled off into the night, crawling to another part of the mountain.

I grabbed my sword into a backhanded grip while pulling out my assault rifle. "So you guys aren't gonna help me get him?"

"I'm not sure if that's a good idea. He might lead us into a trap, sir." One of the others brought up.

"More than that, this cave is probably a trap. There's another arimaspi out there to worry about. Might be small, but it's claws are still as sharp." Caramel noted.

"Wait, what now?" I asked.

"There's some arimaspi cub just outside of the cave. Guess it would be awake with all of that commotion just now."

By that point, I had recognized what they were talking about. It seems that they were referring to the little one that was on the mountain side. "That? Oh yeah, Junior's dead."

The other guards looked at me astounded, one of them asked in confusion. "You killed it?"

"Yeah... and hid underneath him for cover when a trio of Smokey and his bowling buddies went looking for me. I affectionately named them Larry and Dan." I said, looking towards the other two creatures that lied dead in the cave. Apparently I got two of the three stooges there.

"So is that why you're covered in blood?" Shining asked, referring to my current fashion statement.

"It's a long story, but it ends in my being underneath him. And he was a bleeder."

"Right... So you're alive, huh?" Flash confirmed.

"Yup, and I feel like trash. A shower would be ideal, but those fuckers don't like the scent of clean. I've done all but dive into a pile of shit up till now just to mimic the smell so I could lower my chances of getting caught." I responded.

Caramel walked up to me, giving me a few sniffs before covering his nose and inching back in revulsion. "You're a tad too high on iron content to match."

"Meh, I'm almost used to the feeling of blood drying in my ass crack, I could care less right now. I'm just gambling to stay alive."

He then looked at me with a tilted head. "You're not sane, are you?"

"There's a loud, distorted screaming in my soul, I cough up blood that's not mine, all I can see are demons, I'm starting to believe in God right now, and I can't talk to my therapist until next Tuesday. So I decline myself to be in a state where I can function as a member of society." I answered sarcastically, albeit truthfully.

Shining finally came to, seeming as if he was out of sorts for a while before doing so. "Well that's a side I haven't seen in months."

"Oh, morning sweet-prince. Did you remember something getting knocked around? You look like you were trying to uncross your eyes for the past three minutes." I joked.

The prince rubbed his head while he attempted to give my comment a chuckle. "You don't look so good yourself."

"Yeah, I've probably caught hepatitis, but I'm still alive. Questioning whether or not that's a good thing now."

He seemed to finally get it all to fit, and a giggle didn't seem to cause too much of a headache for him anymore. "Good for us. We don't have to use the body bags to clean you up and tote you back home."

Body bags? Why do they need body bags for? I'm not even dead, why would─you know what, I'm just gonna roll with it. I got help, might as well use it. "Not even gonna question that, don't care. Now is there any reason why you guys let Smokey go?"

"Because it's too dangerous to approach when cornered." Caramel answered on behalf of the group. "Why are you trying to capture that thing anyway?"

Looking back at it, I think it was frustration that drove me to be an ass for the moment and oversee the simple fact that they didn't know what I knew. "Because I was gonna interrogate it into telling where the gold is." I answered with a condescending tone.

And it was obvious that I went over their heads. "They're arimaspi. What are you going to─"

I interrupted Flash and told them outright what my reason was. "Smokey speaks fluent English."

"...What now? What's English." Caramel inquired.

"English is to me as Equish is to you. We're all understanding one another now, right? Well I understood him when he said 'Kill him' in plain ol' spreken ze Hitler."

Mumblings of the group started to fill the cave with idle questions about the topic, including the one that Shining presented to me. "You're telling me these things can talk?"

"To each other, oh yes. They had a full-blown conversation over two dead bodies I've killed while Smokey toted them both off. He had both of them on his back and one's head in his teeth."

By that point, all the mumbling stopped as they all stared at me with a bewildered expression. "A head?" Flash questioned.

"Yeah, there was one that almost killed me. I killed it back. It's head weighs about thirty-four pounds."

The group proceeded to look to one another while Caramel brought up the question. "...You're functioning, right? You're not so far gone where you're just seeing meat and bones?"

Clearing my throat, I gave a brutally honest response. "I think I vomited enough to stop caring... at least for now. If this were humans, I would probably be so far gone to stop associating myself with life in general. But this isn't the Pacific Theater, the Rape of Nanking, or the Vietnam War. Count my blessings when they land."

Shining looked at me oddly, croaking out a long 'um'. "I don't know what either of that is."

I only felt my eyes expand as I answered him. "You don't wanna." I quietly answered with an expression I wasn't truly aware of making. The only thing that swirled in my mind was the thought of those events happening in this world. Eventually, I had to snap myself out of it and focus on the present. "Now! Since all of you are here, I'm not gonna question it. I'm just gonna do what I'm gonna do and you guys are gonna help me. Sounds good? Sounds great. Let's go."

Yeah, cause the longer I sit here and dwell on it, the more likely they'll prod it out of me, and the more likely I'll end up scaring them for life.

As I had walked over to the other side of the cave to recover a firearm tossed aside by Smokey, I heard a familiar voice. "Nondis?"

Looking back to the source, I was suddenly reminded of the fact that Rainbow Dash was here as well. I walked up to her and helped her up to her four hooves. "Now you, I'll have to ask about later. Just get back on your hooves and walk with me." After that, I walked up to Shining Armor and gave him back the AR-15 after confirming that there was no real damage done to it. At this point, I wasn't going to complain too much. "Also I see that you were so comfortable to grab one of the rifles from the storage back home. I have no qualms with that except that you didn't put a suppressor on it. It's gonna be loud in those caves, so I suggest you fire only when it's necessary."

Afterwards, I approached the mouth of the cave to scan the area. I looked around and found nothing but more rocks and a trail of blood leading up the mountainside. Caramel tapped my leg as he inquired me one last time. "You're not going to question any of this?"

I simply shrugged. "Not right now."

"Well... then I'll ask one. Where are we going?" He followed up with another question.

I gave him a raised brow before I knelt down and patted him on the head with a fake smile. "Main cave entrance. I'm sure you'll familiarize it with the name Songbell."

His face quickly became a stark contrast to mine. "Oh no."

After traversing the mountainside for another hour or so, we managed to relocate the cave I stumbled onto earlier. But the scene was very different from the sudden influx of arimaspi walking around the place. It was quiet, almost abandoned with a few sticks being left against the walls. The place seem dimly lit with a few luminescent mushrooms growing from out of the walls. The light they gave off wasn't enough to completely illuminate a room, but it was enough to provide a glow bright enough for nocturnal creatures to benefit from. It was as if the moon was so waned to produce a light that was barely usable for the creatures of the night. And given the fact that an arimaspi's eye is capable of nightvision of the biological variety, it would only benefit them if we were to enter the place without some sort of visionary aid.

I dug around in my bag to pull out the night-vision goggles I had packed. Once I had them on, I searched the room for any life signs or heat signatures. The only thing that seemed to register was the mushrooms, which still seemed to be so dim that they barely registered a reading. "Clear." I whispered to everyone else, motioning that the group could enter the cave.

"Okay boys, nighties on." Shining quietly whispered to the group.

When I looked back, I could see an assortment of golden goggles with orange lenses resting upon the faces of every one of the guards that accompanied me. Though I was surprised, I was quite relieved that they came somewhat prepared. Though it begged the question as to why they didn't use them before, but again saying, I wasn't going to prod too much into it. Time was against me and I needed to work quickly.

However, both time and my body were telling me that I was too tired to keep pushing myself for the day. I know that they just got here and that they can go on forever in their current condition, but I was already fatigued to the point where any future decisions I make could be impaired. And that would easily put anyone around me in a bad position. One thing I learned in a quick-run of the officer guidelines is that I should never let my personal health become the source of dysfunction for the unit.

But rest had to be put on the back burner until we were clear of the open-aired entrance.

As we took the most direct path, I made the choice that it would be better to set up a temporary rest camp to get ourselves together. We walked onward for another fifteen minutes, managing to enter yet another junction. Despite the smaller array of choices, it's easy to say that our future decision would be even easier. There were only three choices to make instead of the seven we were greeted with from the start.

And yet, 'even easier' wasn't really the best choice of words.

"(So it is true.)" A voice rumbled from up ahead.

"What the hell was that?" Flash asked as he brandished his spear.

As I continued to scan around, I started to make out only one heat signature. "Obviously them talking, probably to us. Don't ask me to translate this shit."

But when the seconds ticked by, I started to see more and more heat signatures. Looking to the cave on our left, I could see a couple slowly approaching us, with what appeared to be a torch. Looking to the cave on the right, I saw another three walking up to greet us, again with a torch in their possession. By that point, I had to take off the nightvision goggles due to the images readily becoming indistinguishable. Directly ahead, there was another six arimaspi approaching us, all of them carrying torches. The one in the center continued to speak in it's own tongue. "(The Funaki has revealed the ones who he crawls under. A creature sent by the Cloppu to undermine us.)"

As the others started to mutter the word 'cloppu' ad nauseam, Shining nervously held his gun while he pointed towards the approaching throng of creatures. "Cloppu? What the hell is that?" He mumbled.

I shrugged my shoulders as I pulled out my own rifle to match. "I have no idea, that one's been escaping me all day─" Suddenly, as one pointed to Rainbow Dash, I realized what the word really meant. "Pony! That's what it means, pony! I get it now! Pony makes clopping noises when walking!" You know, I feel somewhat dumb for not getting it when I had said the world 'clop' earlier today. "I wonder if that's a dig for how loud you guys are when you walk around."

"Shining, who is this dolt?" Caramel asked as a means to insult me.

Again, the creature who lead the group spoke to us in it's native tongue. "(Five years ago, your army descended upon our lands to take what is ours, and now we will show you retribution for your insolence. You dare to return with more, we shall─)"

While it spoke, I rolled my eyes out of frustration and arrogance and used my hand to mimic the visual of a mouth talking. It was apparent that my patience had been worn long before I came here. By the time it started to ramble on and on about something, I had to step forward and interrupt it's monologue... if that's what it is. "Okay, okay, cut that shit out! Right now!" I said while walking up to it angrily. "Look, I know you guys are so smart where you can speak to each other and us, but this talking in junk-speak doesn't help your intimidation factor not one bit. I know you can understand what the hell I'm saying, otherwise you wouldn't be able to set up that trap from five years back without some intel. Now with that being said, why don't you start over, and speak a language we can all understand?"

The creature seemed taken aback by my sudden response and raised a claw to swipe at me. "(Your impudence will only hasten your─)"

I proceeded to interrupt him and throw out a tired rant, venting my frustration for the current situation. "No no no! I don't hear anything in that! I need. You to. Intimidate me. In a language. We can all understand. To me, all I can assume is that you're talking about how your day went this morning. You could be saying this: I had a cup of coffee this morning, but it wasn't good. It was burnt, and they ran out of the creamer I really like. So I went to the store and tried to find it, but the store clerk said they didn't have any in stock. So I came back home frustrated as hell, only to find my wife─mate, yeah we'll go with that instead─mate fucking the guy in the cave next door. And after she finished, she told me that she's taking the cubs and filing a divorce because my dick was too small. She then emphasize that she needs some real dick in her life, she needs that Jeep-Grand-Cherokee, not a pinto. Dragon size is the only size she wants to completely rip her ovaries out of her coin purse, and you're just sitting here with that limp little twig hoping to make things meet with your family. Yeah, I bet that must be working real well for you!"

"...Urg...Burg..." It responded slowly, raising his fist higher and higher. But as his fist remained suspended in the air, I saw that it had started shaking before it inevitably came back down. Looking at the creature, I saw that it was actually gritting it's teeth and clenching it's eyes shut. A powerful snort from him blew wind past us and nearly made me lose my balance.

It wasn't so much of the strength of the gust, but rather my surprise from the creature's actions... That and the smell of it's breath was overwhelmingly abysmal.

Caramel stared at the creature with eyes squinted in disbelief, making out what the creature was doing. "Is it... crying?"

The other arimaspi looked back at him, seeming to be just as puzzled as the rest of us. Eventually, the creature grumbled in a quiet voice. "...Mate left... three weeks ago."

...WHAT? ...WHAT THE FUCK!?

That response had me floored. Again, it was the element of surprise that caught me off guard along with the bad breath. But hearing the absurd response and actually encountering it was something that I had long thought would be a comical happenstance. Instead, it just came off as awkward and... a bit sad. Of course I failed to show any true sympathy for a creature that's three times my size and has the ability to squash me like I was a grape in Verona, Italy. While I thought to kill it initially, I thought better of the situation and decided that I could possibly use the creature for the time being. After all, I needed a talker who could give me directions to the gold. Of course it would be without his consent, but I'm not in this to be nice.

...Or maybe I could play the role and move forward with the conversation, giving myself a chance to strategize a means of getting out of this mess alive. Well, it's worth a shot. "Oh, dude, sorry about that. I didn't mean to step on your... tail?"

"It's okay." The creature answered back. "I didn't wear my horns with her. I didn't give her any attention. I was so focused on foraging and tribe work that I haven't spent any time with her or the cubs. Now she's leaving me for good."

No doubt he's a smart one. I bet there are a few in this cave system that would be able to speak our language, let alone speaking it almost so naturally. I could possibly assume with it's appearance, the massive golden rings in it's mane, the huge choker on it's neck, the golden wristbands, that this one is an officer of some sort with a damaging resume. Seems he must be well-acquainted with Equish/English speakers or quite astute to pick it up as time goes by. If that's the case, then communication with these creatures is more than possible, it could be beneficial.

But for now, I think I'll just keep the talk small. "It'll be okay buddy. I know I've got my own relationship issues to deal with back home. Dad and mom things, mate things too, it's... it's just hard you know."

Everyone else around the two of us were just as confused as the ones who opposed them. For a moment, both equine and arimaspi were both in uniform in expressing their confusion over the situation. Some of the arimaspi looked back to each other and shrugged. Meanwhile, Caramel was the only one who could vocalize his opinion. "Okay. Is no one going to give some sort of explanation about this?"

One arimaspi walked up to the creature I spoke with, giving it's shoulder a shove while grunting to him. "(Quit stalling and kill them already.)"

"(I know, wait!)" Hollered the one I spoke to, causing the other to snort and back off. He returned his focus to me as he asked. "So what do you suggest I do?"

By then, our conversation nearly became organic. Of course I'm pretty sure he's coming up with a way to kill us while I'm doing the same. If anything, we're probably dancing around each other at this point, waiting for the song to end before the blood starts flying. Hell, if he's so damn smart, he'd probably find a way to avoid any personal harm to himself while throwing the others in the flames. Given that I have a preceded reputation, I can assume that he'd want nothing to do to become personally involved... which would seem strange since he led the group to ambush us here.

The only way to find out what he'll do next is to keep dancing. "Well I know that in my world, divorce is a pretty shitty situation, especially for us males. It's like we enter the relationship with our own things, and in the end she leaves with all of hers, half or yours, and your left arm. Alimony's a bitch."

The creature gave a short chuckle. "Tell me about it."

Hmm... That response. That simple response actually gave me a pretty damn good clue to how their system is ran. I guess I can make a mental note of the fact that their social environment is built similarly to our own, minus the technology and moral compass. In other words, I could use this to my advantage in future encounters. Understanding the enemy's culture is a sure-fire way of learning the trades of waging psychological warfare on them. Process of elimination by factor of inclusion. I know how I'm gonna get out of this now. "Yeah, but you know, there's something you can do."

"What?"

You can lead us to the gold, by not leading us to the gold on purpose. Now, to give the incentive. "You can take all your shit, clean your bank account, take every last piece of gold, and then leave to the north. I heard that the Yaket Range is pretty nice this time of year, and I don't think any of these fuckers would mind you getting yours and getting back at that bitch. Start over with a nice mate who'll love you in spite of your workaholic tendencies, and hold the home front when things get hard. Besides, I heard the girls up there are into the hard-working type. And they got this pretty white fur that blends in with the snow, it'll make for a good game of hide-go-seek." A little bit of book knowledge also helps.

Appearing a bit fired up, he gave my answer a hearty laugh before revealing an unsettling smile filled with jagged rows of sharp yellow, tartar-covered teeth. "Now you're speaking in my language. You know what, you're okay with me. I'm gonna go back home and clean out my valuables, and then I'm going to go to the north and raise a family with a mate WHO WILL ACTUALLY APPRECIATE WHAT I DO FOR HER!" He screamed back into the cave.

Feeling a bit carried away from his sudden influx, as well as my excitement from realizing that my plan had worked, I juiced him up even more. "YEAH, THERE YOU GO!"

He walked back into the center cavern, gleefully marching as he hollered into the darkness. "I'm taking back my life!"

"You go, motherfucker! You do that shit!" I said, continuing to cheer him on.

"And they can take yours!"

Okay, maybe I got a little too excited to immediately notice what he said, but it didn't take long to realize it when the others raised their claws. "Yea─shit."

Thank God for automatic weapons.

As for the reason why that statement came to mind, it was because of the result of the ambush they had set up. Apparently ol' dude decided that he wanted to get the drop on us by sending his boys in for us. And given that there were ten of them vs eight of us, it meant that each one of us would have to take on more than one arimaspi at a time. But being that we had the technological advantage, Shining and I managed to dispatch our aggressors with ease. In short, our battle ended about four minutes, forty-five seconds ago, no casualties on our end. The rest of that time, we used to set up camp.

On a positive note, at least they brought us fire to use.

After we managed to set up our futons and whatnot, I sharpened my knife one good time as Caramel stared at the downed party of creatures. "You know, five years ago, this wouldn't have happened. We'd be well on our way to dying now. Those weapons are quite beneficial."

As I continued to sharpen my tool, I gave the earth pony a response. "Caramel, let me let you in on a little something. My species existed for over thirty-five thousand years, and we're the only strain out of seven possible links to make it this far. Now in the course of those tens of thousands of years, we had our fair share of fights, wars, genocide, all the works. Eventually, we got good at it, and we started making all sorts of toys that could decimate a human body."

"Hiroshima?" Shining called out.

"We haven't gotten there yet, Shining." I answered back, refocusing on the individual I was originally directing my commentary towards. "Now we have these special little sticks that shoot rocks faster than any bowman could ever hope to draw and loose arrows. From slingshots to shotguns, we became marksmen in our evolution. Close quarter combat is an art form nowadays. Martial art competitions, fencing matches, kendo, boxing, sword dancing, relics of a time where we were mentally dull to the sight of a man losing the light in their eyes as we stared into them, as they stopped breathing."

The others looked to me with concern. Flash seemed the most distressed. "So I take it that humans are very used to violence and war?"

"Hell no." I answered with a scoff and a laugh. "Most of us are squeamish as fuck when someone gets a damn paper cut. Hell, back in those days, it was often you'd see a young guy get his leg cut off because it or his foot was broke. Even going back a century, the sight of seeing someone dying was a haunting experience. World War I set the tone of humanity collectively fearing war. That's not even going back to World War II, where my great grandfather died in the Battle of Midway, or the complete shitfest known as the Vietnam Conflict."

By that point, everyone started to gather around. They seemed no longer concerned, but they were indeed curious. "What happened with those two battles in particular?" Caramel asked out of curiosity.

"It's not everyday you hear of human conflict on such a scale." One of the other guards said as he leaned forward, seeming like an eager foal who wanted to know more of their bedtime story.

For a moment, I stopped sharpening the knife and scratched my scalp while I thought about some of the details. Unfortunately, not much came to mind. "The Battle of Midway took place in the middle of the ocean. My great grandfather was assigned to the ship U.S.S. Yorktown. It was the only U.S. carrier that got sunk in the battle. Much of the crew didn't survive, and he was one of them. I wouldn't know much about that battle, but I heard it was hell regardless. My grandfather, on the other hand, served in Vietnam."

I guess being that these were guards who were already used to combat stories, they implored me to share more. "Any stories from that one?"

This time, I rubbed the right side of my face, eventually using it as a prop to rest my head on. "Several. One instance was where they were posted in a village after fighting local forces. Of course, when the government feeds rumors to the people of what your enemies can do to your kids, your mind starts getting warped into telling them that it's better to die with honor than to live under your rule. And being that the locals would buy into the estranged brand of patriotism, they'd do whatever it took to aid their nation's effort to push back against the offending forces, even resorting to the most desperate of tactics."

"Safe to say that it didn't end well?" Shining questioned.

I turned my head to the ceiling, remembering what all my grandfather said. Though his account was far too graphic for me to keep in mind, I decided to generalize the whole situation. "Kid walked up to a few soldiers with a bomb on his chest, fucking commander went apeshit, ordered everyone in the village to be seen as hostile targets or aids to the enemy."

That statement alone put most of the group on edge, not needing much context to add up to the scenario. "A whole village?"

Then the memories of one certain night came to mind. It happened when I was much younger, when I went on a weekend trip to the ranch out in Wimberley. It happened around three in the morning, and my brain couldn't even process why exactly my grandmother told us to keep our ears closed. By the time I got older, he explained it to us.

Even now, it causes me to put things in perspective. "...My grandfather would see their faces every night for the rest of his life. He'd wake up out of his sleep, screaming for forgiveness. My brothers and I watched it happen twice. It's why my dad never joined the military, and a primary reason why he encouraged us to go to college instead of the service. He was adamant in keeping us away from that life, and my grandfather would be harsh on me for playing video games based on war and shooting at people."

"I see..." Rainbow said, stretching out her wings. "So is your output on your species a positive or a negative one?"

I looked back at the knife in my hand and concluded that it was sharp enough for use. At the same time, I could see the silhouette of myself in the blade. "I have a positive sight on it, but I see more gray than black-and-white. I see the means to justify an end, but I see the consequence that comes with the means. The reason I often speak about war and conflict like it's our finest hour is to grandstand really. It's also a warning above all else, but mainly grandstanding to keep the politicians from contemplating a hunt for us humans. I can already point out a few who'd rather us become scarce again."

Shining laughed off my comment, thinking it was absurd that we'd become so few. "I'd like to think you guys would be hunting us. I think you said your numbers were in the realm of seven billion."

In response to Shining's statement, the entire group jumped up in surprise. Caramel screamed. "SEVEN WHAT!?"

I started laughing as I thought more about it. "Yeah, all those wars and we can't even keep the population from increasing. Ain't that some shit?" Though to be fair, it's not like we want war, much less the brand that WILL actually wipe us out. I don't want it based off of the simple fact that I've fought skirmishes here. Personally, a war here would be easier to stomach than one involving human life. Not saying it wouldn't come without regret or sympathy towards the loss of life, but I suppose it's an instinctual response to be more accepting of a species other than your own. It's easier to lose a pet of twelve years than a brother you've had for the same time. "It's our desire for love and happiness to keep us fighting. Yet we declare war because of the greed and envy that ensues."

After a few seconds, I had realized I said that last part out loud.

"You humans are terrifying." Rainbow Dash muttered in a low voice.

Hearing her say that made me feel a bit uneasy. And knowing what I was going to do next would probably bring credence to her argument. However, I know that I can't do much to keep them safe or fight for them if I'm not able to do so. Rising from my seat, I walked up to the nearest arimaspi and placed myself in survival mode. With knife in hand, I carefully measured out the body and took note of where to cut. Afterwards, I gave the motionless creature a forceful plunge of my blade. "I try not to show that side of what we are. We really are more into enjoying peace, even though there are some really edgy fucks out there who want a bloodbath or some shit."

As I drug the knife downwards, I pulled out and cut the creature in a horizontal motion. Caramel took notice of what I was doing and questioned my actions. "In speaking of blood, why are you cutting at that arimaspi?"

"Because of three reasons. The skin would make a nice rug, the skin would make a nice fur coat, and the M.R.E.'s you guys have contain hay, which my body can't digest. I need protein to keep from passing out. This may be a bit disgusting to you guys, but it's something that I need to do in order to survive." The majority of the group winced and grimaced at the sight of my hand sinking into the abdomen of the creature. After getting a feel of the texture of the meat under the skin, I felt the cut I wanted and guided my knife to cut out a proportionately-sized slab of meat. Next, I pulled out the bloody chop and wrapped it within a cut of the skin. Following that, I grabbed the skillet I packed with me, placed it over the fire, and waited for it to get hot.

Caramel, who seemed the most disgusted, tried to cover his face. "Well, it's not like we've never watched any griffons eat meat. Just... why them?"

"You expect met to pass on some perfectly good meat? It's like an overgrown chop of goat." I said, pulling out an M.R.E. and removing some of the spices they included for the hay-based side dishes to season the meat. I removed the skin wrap and applied the seasonings evenly as Shining watched.

"Well, aren't you brave?" Said the prince as he poked fun at me.

"If there's one thing I've learned being out here in this forest, it's that the creatures, including the arimaspi, have a system here. Whoever's more intimidating and capable of killing, they're on the top of the pecking order."

"And you're trying to establish that?" He questioned.

"Unlike most of you, Rainbow and I gotta come back here within the next seven days. I think now would be a great time to put that system into place."

"I hope that doesn't backfire." She said while I walked up to the skillet and threw the slab of meat onto the skillet, causing a sizzling noise and a meaty smell to permeate throughout the cave.

"It won't."

Well... Can't say that steak didn't really go down smoothly.

As I ate it, I noticed that the meat tasted extremely gamey. And the seasonings weren't really a good choice to go with that particular cut of meat. It seemed to throw off the flavor way too much, and it ended up being a failed project that was even tougher to chew and swallow. I suppose that's because I failed to tenderize the meat first, but I didn't really have anything clean to put it on that would allow me to do that. Of course, if given the opportunity to try again, I would probably consider it when the conditions are more ideal.

After meal time, we all racked up and got some rest. Shining and I were on guard duty, making it even harder for me to get some rest. But I decided to get the first crack at staying up. It wasn't just the fact that I wanted to make sure that we weren't going to be slaughtered in our sleep, but also the fact that the food didn't really settle well within my stomach. For the better part of my three hour shift, I had to deal with a few stomach aches and some heartburn. But at least I was capable of keeping my guard up.

But by the time the third hour came around, my stomach finally settled down. However, I started to feel myself being too worn out to keep guard. The weight of my own eyelids started to override my ability to keep a lookout for anything. My head dropped more frequently, indicating I was nodding off. And a few times, I snorted loud enough to wake myself up. Anymore of this, and I'd be inviting the arimaspi to take us for a ride on the expressway to the afterlife.

Groggily, I walked over to the slumbering prince and nudged him awake. "Shining, wake up."

In similar fashion, he slowly raised his head. "What? What's going on?"

"Time's up, shift change." I answered with a yawn.

Shining rubbed his eyes and stretched. "Oh yeah... Let me get the gun."

As he got up, he walked up to the rifle he brought and levitated the weapon towards him. He stared at it for a few seconds before he started to make his way towards his post. I chuckled weakly as I mocked him. "I swear, you're starting to act like me when I first got introduced to firearms."

"And what does that make me then?" He asked.

"A nine year old kid who's been bullied to hell and can think of almost nothing else but revenge fantasies." I joked.

"That's... mildly concerning." He said with a nervous chuckle.

"Yeah, so then my grandfather thought of a method to curb my internal violent tendencies. We went hunting every two months." I further explained.

"Hunting? Hunting for what?"

"Deer. My grandfather owned a ranch out in a tiny town called Wimberley. We'd go out, he, my brothers and I. We'd hunt a few stags, run to the next stop, get some deer sausage and come back home to eat."

"That's all you did?" He inquired.

I broke out into a yawn as I answered him. "No, not really. Thing was that I saw my older brother kill a deer once, and he didn't get his aim right. So he had to finish the damn thing to make it stop suffering. Since then, never really had any intention of using a gun on anything living unless I felt my life depended on it. But my older brother was more encouraged to get his aim right."

"Was your grandfather upset with you?"

I shook my head. "No. He was proud as fuck. He practically paraded me around as his personal little project, teaching me a whole lot of things about life and the choices I make. He'd even talk to me whenever my dad was a total hard ass on me, calmed me down whenever I wanted to just scream at him."

The young prince naturally grew curious. "You and your dad don't get along too well?"

"...Don't know. I've never really tested it."

"What do you mean by 'never really tested it'?"

As I thought about what I had said, I realized I blurted out something I didn't meant to say. I was beyond tired, it was time for me to cut this conversation short. "...It's getting late. I should be getting some shut-eye."

As the subject was left to die, I laid myself down and closed my eyes, waiting for sleep to take me. As I waited patiently, Shining stirred me once more with a question. "Hey, Cadie gave me this to use whenever I found you."

"Why?" I asked, not even attempting to look at what he was trying to show me.

"So Twily can know how you're doing."

...She wants to know how I'm doing? She didn't even send me off or say good morning, so why would she even care if I was alive if she wanted me to 'suffer' for her? I swear I've started losing track of where her mind is nowadays. "So that's it?"

"It's not just her. It's your brothers, your friends as well."

With another yawn, I started feeling myself slowly drift off. As I spoke, my words were slurred more than usual. "Well you can do what you want. I'm not ignoring the fact that they're wanting to know about me, it's just that I've been through hell today. My staying awake on this shift alone has not been good to me. I'm dozing off too often."

I'm sure Shining had looked at me with frown, probably because I wasn't in the mood to speak with his sister. He obviously knows that there's friction between us, and he's probably just now seeing his previous prediction about us starting to manifest. I'd be upset too. "I understand, too tired to really say anything else."

"You pretty much got it." I mumbled tiredly.

"Okay then. Get some sleep, we get up early."

As the world slowly drifted away, I whispered to myself, realizing that I'd be extremely tired when I woke up. "Four hours is better than none."

Meanwhile, in Ponyville...

The halls of the castle have been quiet for several hours with the exception of the hourly patrol. The floors were illuminated by only the pale light of the moon. It seemed that there was only one room that had a light on in the entire castle. In that room remained the princess who claimed dominion over the castle. With her was a slumbering visitor, a human woman who seemed distressed in her appearance. Twilight stared into the pages of her friendship journal, highlighting one entry in particular.

It was the very entry he made before they shared their first intimate moment together.

In my time here in Equestria, I've learned that when others do you a major favor, your best option is to humbly accept what they did and to give appreciation. I remember where I was given a home to stay in and food to eat, even though the accommodations were a bit small and the food was all of the horse variety. But even then, I was given the chance to be amongst them; to be a member of their society as one of them instead of just being something so different. Instead of complaining about every little thing, I took into account that everything they tried to do for me was with heart and love in mind. Even now, I'm urged to record my experience for Twilight to read later to be quizzed on while this purple pony threatens to shove a quill up my urethra for future posterity.

Her friends are a bit wacky, crazy, also seeming to carry some emotional baggage, and even overzealous, but if I could spend more time to get to know them before I left, I would truly try my best to show them the kindness, the generosity, the laughter, the honesty, the loyalty, and even the care they have shown to me. I know that would only give me another three to four months to do so, but I wouldn't trade that time for an express ticket back home.

I can't make the demand that I'd be unforgettable, I can only hope that I was. I won't ever forget this place, the people ponies that live here. Even though I would be called crazy for believing in such a place and possibly thrown into the nearest mental institution for psychiatric evaluation, I won't ever forget the incredible friends I wish I could carry over.

I have to stop writing now, the purple one is getting invasive. LOL! (human expression meaning laugh out loud)

Yours in memory,
─Nondis

P.S.: Magic out the crossed-out sections if you would, Twilight. I know you're reading this.

For the past three hours, she repeatedly went back to that same entry, looking at the words scribbled on the paper. The message inscribed on the parchment was what kept her up, hoping that things between then would somehow be rectified. For once, she started to feel the very same weight of regret she'd often criticized Nondis for having.

And it crushed her terribly as the time slugged on.

Meanwhile, further on down the hall was the guest room assigned to none other than Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. Princess Cadance, the embodiment of love and grace rested peacefully in her bed.

Sitting beside her was a faintly glowing crystal orb. As sound was produced from it, the orb would glow even brighter, nearly illuminating the entire room.

"Cadie." Shining's voice called through to wake his slumbering wife, who was dreaming of the past her and her husband shared, namely before their arrangement was set in place.

"Nnngh, tell that bitch she can eat my─"

"Cadie!" The voice called even louder, causing the room to become almost daylight bright.

The alicorn was quickly startled from her sleep and fell from her bed to the ground below. "Shit!" She whispered as she removed her blindfold, being greeted by a bright light. Shielding her eyes, she looked at the source and saw the image of her husband in the crystal ball. "Uhh... Shining?"

"Cadie, you there?" He asked once more, trying to get her attention.

"Shit. Baby are you okay?" She said, immediately bringing herself to focus on her husband. She also took the opportunity to use her magic to control the brightness of the orb to where it became bearable to look at.

"Yeah. Gotta be extra quiet though." He whispered to his wife, looking at the others around him.

The pink princess yawned and covered her mouth as she spoke. "Oh sweetie. It's so early, the sun rises in like the next two hours and forty-five minutes."

Shining continued to look offscreen, bringing his attention to one particular individual. "Where's Twily?"

"She's sleeping in her room with Melanie. Melanie stayed over to help her feel better. Those two are practically holding each other together at this point."

"Babe, I know you're tired, but I need you to take me to Twilight."

Cadance felt something inside of her sink deep into her stomach. She was already preparing for the worst to come, but mentally she felt herself to be unprepared. Still, she strove on. "So you found him?"

Shining took a deep breath. "Yeah."

"Ahh shit... Hold on a second." She said as she completely dimmed the orb, not paying attention to the image of her husband trying to stop her for a second. She groaned with discomfort at the butterflies in her stomach teased her. "I swear it's too damn early in the morning for some grief."

The pink princess walked out of her room and past a patrol of two other guards who were almost on the verge of falling asleep at their post. As soon as she passed, they perked up and saluted her. With one thing in mind, she ignored them and approached the room of her younger sister-in-law. Politely, she knocked on the door to get her attention.

To her surprise, the door opened almost immediately. Twilight stood at the door, waiting. "Cadance."

"Oh Twilight, you look like you haven't slept." She said, noticing the bags under the young royal's eyes as well as her disheveled mane.

"How can I?"

"May I come in?" Cadance pleaded.

Twilight moved aside, allowing the older princess to enter the room. The door closed behind them, by will of Twilight's magic. Cadance walked over towards the bed to notice Melanie, who had dried tear streaks on her face as well as a relatively stressed appearance. A peaceful frown decorated her face, subtle yet telling of her distress. Twilight walked beside her and spoke quietly. "She went to sleep about two hours ago. The poor thing cried her heart out."

"So this is the expression of human grief... The same signs show on her face as it would on ours."

The words Cadance spoke alarmed the younger princess. She started to feel the sickness that graced her earlier in the day creep up on her once more. "Why did you come here so late?"

Cadance placed a hoof on Twilight's shoulder, slowly informing her of the news. "Shining found him."

And as quickly as those words left her mouth, Twilight's tears started rolling down her face as she expected the worst. "...Ca...dance..."

The pink princess held her younger sibling by the shoulders and petted her mane. "Sweetie, I need you to be calm when you see your brother. I don't want us to wake up Melanie. She can find out when she wakes up."

Twilight sniffled and responded with a broken tone. "...Okay..."

While Twilight cupped her mouth closed, trying to keep her sobs from being audible, Cadance pulled out the orb she carried with her and restored the image. "Shiny, you still there?" She whispered back to her husband.

"Yeah, I'm here."

"Brother?" The purple alicorn snatched the orb from Cadance and held onto it with desperation.

"Twily. You doing okay, kiddo?"

With her pursed lips that quivered and a breaking expression signifying the immense pain of her realizing what was to come, she shook her head in denial. "Just show him to me. Just let me get it over with."

Shining saw the pain in his sister's eyes and felt completely ruined by her. At the sight of her being so destroyed, he turned away from her and instead replaced his own image with that of the human's. "Here he is. You're gonna have to be quiet."

Twilight blinked only once, before her tears ran rivers. Her words were choked up and incapable of being soft. She covered her face with her foreleg and sobbed. Cadance held on to the pained alicorn as she spoke to Shining. "Oh goodness, you found him there? He doesn't look pretty."

Shining gave the human a slight nudge, causing him to grunt and breathe in heavily. "He went through hell, and he's still breathing somehow."

Feeling completely overwhelmed, the young princess fell over and lied on the ground, breathing heavily. Cadance quickly brought her attention to the hyperventilating mare. "Twilight?"

"She's probably having a relief attack. She catches those whenever─"

"She finds out about something drastically life-changing being nothing but pure speculation. It's almost like I foalsat her for over three years." Cadance finished with a deadpan expression guided towards her husband. "But is he seriously alive?"

Shining rolled his eyes with astonishment. "Hell, he saved us."

"Oh... Shining you have─"

"Hold on a second." He said before getting a picture of the human's sleeping face. He gave his nose a light poke. "Hey, say something."

"Tell that shitfaced politician... suck my left teeth and get his nut punched." Groaned the human in his sleep.

With a huge sigh of relief, the pink princess sat down and felt the knot in her stomach become undone. Twilight jumped up and clamped her forelegs around her sister, sobbing into her chest. Cadance lightly stroked her mane as she whispered to Shining. "Those are some crude words we are so happy to hear."

Shining snickered for a second before turning his attention back to the human on the ground. "Likewise."

My eyes opened up to the light of the sun hailing through the window, battering down upon my face. Feeling the discomfort of one side of my face being warmer than the rest of my body, I turned over to my side. After I tried to situate myself to get some sleep, I realized that my body was more in a waking mood than my usual snooze. It's happened to me before, the morning after they found Nondis' car in the gulf. It was the familiar feeling of realization that I had lost a friend, and it didn't leave much in the way of rest.

Neither did the sound of quills loudly scribbling against paper, nor the sounds of papers being shoved around like crazy.

My eyes shot open to see what the hell was going on, and then caught a glimpse of Twilight trotting around the room with at least sixteen pages of paperwork she levitated around her. As she read one, she was signing another without even looking at the dotted line. And when she switched to another sheet, she signed yet another paper that she didn't read.

How the hell was she doing that?

I sat up from the bed, feeling a bit more-to-life than I was just last night. "Twilight, what are you doing?"

"Good morning." She responded with an upbeat demeanor. "I'm putting together some paperwork. I'm going to shut down that contract that was forged under Nondis' name."

After I stretched and felt that my hair was a mess, I started walking to the bathroom for the morning relief. I walked in the bathroom, looked around and saw that the system was similar to mine with the exception of an absence of tampons and other feminine products. "So he doesn't end up on the table in the morgue?" I wondered how she takes care of those 'natural occurrences' outside of estrus.

As I sat down and let myself go, Twilight spoke through the door. "He won't be seeing a morgue."

"What do you mean?" I questioned as I was letting myself finish up, reaching out for the roll of toilet paper.

"He's a bit exhausted, and covered in blood from head to toe. But the dead part?... He might be when I see him again." She explained as I wiped myself, flushed the toilet, and washed my hands.

"Oh thank you, Christ." I said, nearly collapsing into the sink in what could be the best bathroom trip I've ever taken in my life. I dried my hands and walked out to hug the purple pony after hearing the news. "I gotta tell you, if you would've told me the worst, I would've lost my shit... both figuratively and literally."

We pulled off of each other, Twilight gave me a look of determination as she held up all the papers in her possession. "I'll also try and clear out the media situation and let them know the truth."

"Actually, I'd advise against that right now." The two of us turned back around to see a light-gray unicorn mare with winter blonde hair. Her gray eyes shimmered as she exaggerated her entrance. "Oh... Knock knock, I'm coming in."

As the pony approached us, I grew suspicious of her sudden appearance. "Um... Who are you?"

She also seemed to speak with a very snooty attitude, which immediately gave me the feeling that I wasn't going to like her. "I'm also a princess, but only through marriage." She said as she proudly placed a hoof on her chest.

"She's one of Blueblood's wives. Vanity Charm, Charma for short." Twilight stated. And with a name like that, I already knew that I wasn't going to like being around her.

She didn't even bother bowing or extending a hoof to greet. She just flicked her mane out of her face and propped it up. "Wife number two, at your service."

"Out of how many?" I asked towards Twilight, realizing that if I had to deal with any sarcastic answer coming from the bitch, I'd have to get locked away for causing an transdimensional incident.

"Seven." She answered back.

SEVEN FUCKING WIVES? WHO HAS THE FUCKING TIME TO MARRY SEVEN TIMES? "Well that marriage law can't be that bad if he's done it that many times."

The mare gave me a glance, seeming to be dismissive of me while she talked to Twilight, also indirectly making commentary towards me. "I can assure you it's problematic in every sense of the word, but I digress. I think you should just let this one ride out. If he's alive, then let the press be the first to put it out there. It would look peculiar, as a royal, to break the news you'd supposedly have no sources on. Last I checked, Shining Armor made it where this whole fiasco was to be kept classified."

"She's right, you know." Said another voice, this one being that of a male. However, it still sounded just as uppity as hers. A white unicorn stallion with a rich blond mane walked into the room without even knocking, almost as if he owned the place. "Any probing of the result would reveal that he had assistance, a situation that wouldn't bode well for his return considering the strict guidelines he was given."

As he walked in, he turned his attention towards the purple princess' dresser. He then proceeded to crack open one of the drawers, earning a frantic blush from Twilight. "So to keep it simple: They're sticking their dick in an electrical socket." I responded, making the commentary a dual reference to the politicians and his own snooping around. Of course, Twilight lit her horn and sent a small amount of concentrated magic into the left flank of the invasive prince. He still managed to shield himself from the blow, but he sure as hell got the fuck away from her drawers. The purple princess blew her horn cold with a cocky grin.

"I was going to say 'their horn in a wood chipper', but yes."

Waking up, our morning consisted of darkness, smoke, craggy rocks poking into our backs, water dripping from the top of the caves onto our faces, and the lingering smell of death as the corpses from last night's debacle started to waste. One hell of an alarm clock to smell something so foul before setting out. Thankfully, Shining got our asses up before the situation could get to the point where we could get deathly ill. Only drawback of it was that I only got three hours of sleep instead of four.

I guess a nap will have to do in my case.

Gathering our stuff and slapping on our night-vision goggles, we pressed onwards to the center tunnel. As we entered, I marked the entrance with a white stick of chalk before committing to fully going in. It was already assumed that this wouldn't be a dead end because of our good friend from last night deciding to engage in his revenge tour while taking this route. If he didn't lead us to the place we wanted to go, then it's convenient to know that he gave us a starting point.

Though that didn't help my demeanor one bit.

We were already two junctions inward, and things started to look the same. "Jeez, this place really smells like fucking corn, cheese, and corpses." The smell, however, was dramatically different than previous areas.

"An odd combination of comparisons, wouldn't you say?" Caramel mumbled while he continued to sniff around. But his ears fell back as his nose caught something. He then ran from the front and grabbed two of the other guards and pulled them to nearby cover. "Get down." He said, still pushing the two guards' heads down below a nearby rock. From our positions, we waited silently for the creature to pass.

But then the creature called out. "Hey, Funaki!" He said in what I think to be a whisper... with plus-bad breath.

While our goggles made out the image of a large arimaspi standing six yards away, Rainbow felt confident to whisper back towards Flash. "Isn't that the same bastard that tried to get us all killed yesterday?"

"Shut up!" Caramel chided quietly.

The creature stepped forward and raised a torch. "I know you're here, Funaki." He said as he threw the torch towards us.

The torch landed just a few feet in front of us, giving me a bit of a chill as it landed directly in front of where I was hiding. We had to remove our goggles because the light from the torch reduced our visibility with them on. But at the very least, the cave was lit well enough to prevent us from not seeing anything in front of us. "Keep quiet." I mouthed to everyone in the room.

"You may choose to not answer me, and that's acceptable. But I should warn you of our tribe's greatest warrior. After yesterday's mess, I can say that Kali'Ma will be taking you for trophy, not for leisure. He will seek revenge for how you have shamed him. By blade you took from him, by blade he swears to take from you what is most precious."

And with that warning, he turned his back towards us, revealing a bag that he carried filled with gold trinkets, bits, and jewelry. The sack however, was stained with blood. Upon a closer look I saw that his back had significantly deep cut wounds, definitely reminiscent of a cut caused by a sharp object. The creature staggered towards the left of the room. Many of us watched in wonder and worry as he grunted with every step. Droplets of blood fell from his body onto the ground while he walked. Flash turned to Shining while pointing at the creature. "They use swords?"

"Never seen that. I've seen them use rocks and sticks, but never swords." Shining answered. By then, we had stopped hiding. Obviously the guy wasn't in any mood or condition to attack us. He seemed more helpful than anything else, which caught our curiosity. The entire group stood in the center of the room and watched as he staggered to the path going towards the left.

"...If you seek a quicker way to the outside, this is the route you must take."

Shining, even to my complete bewilderment, stepped forward and questioned the creature. "Why are you helping us?"

He then turned back to the prince and answered. "Do you not see me as I am? I am no longer of them. Their future is none of my concern."

A bone-chilling comment made by the creature, considering that they've been hunting us down for quite some time now. Shining continued to question him. "But you've been here. This is your home."

The creature then faced the prince head-on and gave him a retort. "We arimaspi envy you ponies. You take our land centuries ago, and build beautiful city on it. You see the sun, the moon, the sky. Here, there is no time other than what the scouts tell you what it is. This is our city, and they call it beautiful."

Gotta admit that their version of 'beautiful' is something that not even Rarity or Jesus can fix.

The creature carried on. "I have read your scrolls, the bits of knowledge given to us by the works you and your predecessors left behind. They speak of beautiful halls and gold-clad warriors. Yet they also spoke of betrayal, even towards your highest order." The creature then turned back around and started walking towards the exit. "We wish to become you, yet we punish the dissenters. I am one who has been punished, never to return. I am not the first, many others have gone before." He stopped walking forward and turned just his head to Shining and I. "If your loyalty is too strong, you will be blind to the cruelty you create. But will it be used for the right reason?"

While he disappeared into the darkness, I felt my arms grow numb. An icy chill ran down my spine as he, an arimpasi, challenged our ideals and shared wisdom we once previously thought they were incapable of displaying. It was an enlightened creature, of course that's to be expected when you get ousted by your own tribe, but it was disturbing to say the least.

He was gone, but he left us a light to guide our way. Walking up to the torch, I picked it up and stared at the curious flame as it danced. While it showed the paths ahead, it also highlighted the drops of blood he left behind.

For minutes, we were stunned to silence. Whatever preconceived notions we had were all blown up in our faces, leaving us with more questions than answers. And much like the flame that flickered in my hand, how the shadows wavered and changed along the ground and the walls, we were moved.

Eventually, Flash broke the silence. "So... what's next?"

"Doesn't hurt to keep our guard up in the rear." Caramel said, showing he was more tense than ever.

I took back out the chalk and marked the cave to our left. "I agree. Let's take the right tunnel. We'll note the left as an exit route." I said, also pointing out the trail of blood our new friend left us.

"Now we'll know which is what when we leave." Rainbow Dash said as she and the others walked onward.

"These caves are humid, something tells me that there's water nearby." One of the guards stated.

After I finished marking the exit, I caught back up with the group and took point. Shining then walked beside me and whispered to me. "You think that chalk will keep up?"

At this rate, I hope it does. The longer we're down here, the less our ammo holds up.

The long and winding web of tunnels would've sent any man who entered into a frenzy, an uncontrollable panic as he scrambles to find which tunnel was the way back out. Hell, just the thought of it is making me insane. But if it wasn't for the small amount of blood littering the floors, we'd just be as lost as any other man. And thanks to our old friend, it seemed that our journey has been simplified for the better part of another three junctions.

That is until one particular split where there was only two paths, a fork in the road where both paths showed blood. One side seemed bloody enough, with what appeared to be a splotch of it on the wall. The other seemed to have a brushed trail. Either choice we made, we were going to be confused. We took a moment to decide and cast a vote to decide which tunnel would have the better chance of it reaching our desired destination.

We decided to go to the left route, moving towards what could be the endgame of our excursion. One thing was for certain. "The smell is getting worse." I said.

"Then we must be close to where they're based." Shining said with a firm tone, seeming as if he was ready to burst out in a full gallop to see what lied ahead.

But the more we progressed, I started to feel a bit queasy from the stench that overtook my senses. So often, I had burped or gagged. The others didn't seem to take it too well either. Caramel even resorted to holding his nose. "This smell is becoming overwhelming. We're entering a dangerous area. My nose will not be able to pick up on them if they should ever get close." He warned.

"That is a problem we can live with. But as far as the smell is concerned, do you think it's a trap?" Flash asked while clearing his throat.

"More than likely. They're probably throwing us off so they can ambush us." Rainbow surmised.

"An ambush is unlikely, given what happened in the last scenario." Shining responded. He seemed as if the smell didn't bother him entirely too much. Perhaps he's dealt with this kind of stuff more often than I would've thought. Either that or he's probably so desensitized to it by now.

"We had the element of distraction that time around. This time it won't be so casual." Caramel said before the stench started to overwhelm even him, causing him to grunt and hold his breath. "This is really starting to get bad."

Finally, we reached an open room where the stench came from. It was an entire mega-cavern, with openings in the ceiling to let the sunlight and open air come through. A river ran just on the far-end of the cavern, introducing a beautiful view of the forest and the Appleloosa River. The place was filled with a bunch of arimaspi...

...Dead arimaspi.

"Try not to lose too much of your breakfast." I said in an attempt to be a practitioner of my sermon.

"Oh...wow." Flash grimaced at the sight and coughed violently.

"Shhhhhit!" Rainbow said as she clenched her eyes shut, not wanting to look at what we've been smelling for a good while.

"Uf... guess we found that third thing you smelled, en masse." Caramel said before his gag reflexes overrode his self-control. Walking towards a nearby corner, he and two others relieved themselves of their previous meals.

"Holy fuck, what is this place?" I asked, now deeply regretting that arimaspi steak I had for dinner.

"There's corpses everywhere." Shining pointed out.

"Breakfast is served... again." One of the guards replied sarcastically, looking at his own vomit puddle.

Caramel, who finally recovered from his emergency ejection session, spat the remnants from his mouth and covered his muzzle. "Why would they do something like this? Don't they understand that this is a hazard to their health?"

As I looked around, I realized that the conditions were ideal for exposure in contrast to this just merely being a grave site where they dump their deceased family and friends. The gears in my brain started turning as a term I once saw slowly crept back to the forefront of my mind. "I think they do... We're at the base of the mountain again. There's openings all over the place."

"This is not how I want to die." Flash stated while he held his nose.

As my eyes scanned the room, I saw one particular body laying on the ground while, I guess, some other arimaspi was lying on top of it. But then I noticed the missing arm and it dawned on me. "I don't think you'd have to worry about that. From the looks of it, they were probably already dead to begin with."

"How can you tell?" Rainbow asked sarcastically.

"Cause the one that tried to kill me is currently sitting on top of himself over there." I pointed out.

As Shining walked over to me, I crouched down and pointed at the corpse I mentioned. It's arm was missing and it's head was placed right-side up, facing the river on the other side of the room. Shining's eyes grew as he nodded slowly. "You cut it's head off? I'm genuinely impressed."

"I lost my shit and I wanted to make sure he was dead." I explained while looking at more of the 'fresher' bodies lying around. "For some, I can already see some with bullet wounds to the face. The others, they appear to have been down here for quite some time."

Shining cleared his throat while he cringed at the sight of another body, which was long into the decomposition process. The creature's eye was missing, clumps of fur and discolored flesh covered most parts of the body while the bone was exposed on some of the smaller limbs. While it lied in wait, flies hovered around while it's young crawled around the openings. Vultures were so numerous that they could be mistaken for clothes, they picked at the body. One of them flew up to one of the fresher bodies and started picking at the eye, slowly devouring it. "Are the maggots and vultures any more of a clue for that?"

Eventually, the words that marinated in the front of my brain was sent to my tongue. "...Sky burial."

"Excuse me?" Shining asked.

"That's what this is. A sky burial."

Rainbow Dash looked around and responded with confusion. "I don't see any clouds anywhere, so what does this have to do in correlation to the sky?"

I went on further in my explanation of the subject. "A sky burial is a method of body disposal. They take the corpse and leave it in an area away from the village, someplace where there's plenty of open air and exposed to the elements. There, the bodies are left to be taken by the forces of nature. Birds, bugs, bacteria, anything capable of breaking down tissue, it all comes here. In parts of Mongolia and a few other parts of the Middle-East, this practice is still being used in my world. It is said to have the deceased rejoin with nature, and to once more become a part of the earth's cycle... An endless circle of life, death, and reincarnation."

Caramel gagged before he spoke. "They're putting me underground, that's the end of that."

As soon as he said that, I watched as a vulture sat on top of an older body jumped into the air as a piece of rotting flesh fell right off of the bone. If anything else didn't trigger my gag reflex, that sure as hell did. It felt like someone had a rope hooked into my diaphragm and yanked it into my neck. The force of it caused me to lunge forward. While nothing came out, I knew that staying here would probably encourage my last meal to do so. "I couldn't agree with you more. The thought of some bastard doing something to me after I die is something too terrifying for me to think about. I'd be comfortable with being cremated, just burn my shit and get it over with. Spread my ashes on a beautiful beach and let me be with the earth in that manner."

Caramel shared my sentiments in his own fashion. "Well while the detour was nice and we learned a little something educational along the way, obviously what we're looking for is not here. Let's get a move on before one of us serves another helping of leftovers."

I don't think I've ever moved that fast to leave a room that didn't contain an immediate threat. And it wasn't just me who thought of taking an expedited withdrawal. Shining however lagged behind as he took one last look at the final resting place of our adversaries.

"I don't blame him on why he left if this is what it all leads to. I'm getting too royal for this."

I know it's been hours and hours since we left that burial chamber, but the smell and sights of it were still just as fresh in my mind as ever. However, there was more to detract from the macabre imagery. For instance, there's the fact that my arm wound has stopped throbbing as much, while my feet are throbbing even more. or even better, how potentially lost we are and not having a clue as to how much time has passed or if it's day or night. Ol' dude had a point, that is a depressing thought. It's like a prison, with the exception of the guards.

Hell, your meals would be an indication of that.

Meanwhile, the same dreary caves we've ran into have resulted in nothing but turn after turn after turn into a web of tunnels. And to make matters worse, the blood trail we used to get us here had disappeared. It's hard to tell which ones lead to where, I'm even concerned about how these bastards even get around with the monotony. I suppose they've gotten so used to the passages that they've learned it by memory. The only saving grace is that torches have become a little less rare.

Thank goodness, because our first one had kinda flickered out like two rooms ago.

Shining carried the role of torch bearer from the point where we entered that open-air morgue from earlier. Meanwhile, I was taking into account which tunnels we walked into and which ones lead back to where, which ones were dead ends, which ones were caved-in, which ones were roundabouts, and which ones were the ones that led further into the mountain. As we were making these decisions, I had drawn out a crude representation of where we've been, where we've came from, and where we're going.

I felt like an adventurer in a dungeon filled with monsters, though the 'walking around' part had always bored me.

"Hey." Rainbow called out.

"Yeah?" I responded in monotone.

"How many tunnels have we marked that didn't lead to the right path?" She asked.

"More than what I'd like to count." I said in the same tone.

"If we ever come back to this place, is there any way you're going to be able to differentiate between them?"

"I've already made up in my mind how it's going to be done."

"That being said, have you mapped any of this shit out?"

I yawned from the boredom of walking around in circles, from seeing the same craggy mouths that lead to more craggy mouths, of hearing the occasional water dripping from the top of the cave. I handed her the map and stretched my arms afterwards. "Hard to do when there's no landmarks of any sort. Not impossible, but I do have a decent representation of what direction we're going."

Rainbow, Shining, Flash, and Caramel all looked at the paper. To their disappointment, the only thing they saw was a few circles with lines drawn from them, which then connected to more circles, which then connected to yet even more lines, almost like a tree growing from the roots on upward. "This looks like the scribbling of a foal, how am I to take this seriously?" Complained an impatient Caramel.

"Life and death is a pretty serious matter in itself. You take what you can get." I argued back, taking the paper away and putting it aside for us to keep walking onward.

"Well can we get something that's a little more beneficial?" The brown stallion questioned.

"My representation is simple and easy to read. If you want fucking Leonard Da Vinci, or whatever pony equivalent you guys have, to map this place out, then too motherfucking bad because guess what? None of us can draw." I openly stated, losing a bit of my patience.

Caramel kept grumbling to himself before he finally blurted out as a shot at me. "Brightened Star would've did this whole exploration justice. She didn't skip a beat, always on the lookout for the environment and scribbling as she went along. I miss her."

"Me too. Though I did often question her particular choice in artistry." Shining cosigned with a nod.

"What did she draw?" Finally, something else to talk about. I was legitimately getting bored of just walking around with rocks in mind. Who am I, Maud?

The brown earth pony chuckled as he started to reminisce on his previous assignment. "She was the one in the company that was known to be a top-notch pervert. She drew a exact-to-the-visual representation of Shining's... intimate parts. She drew mine, she drew half of the stallions in the company. She even went so far as to draw us peeing."

Can't say I'm willing to pass on the subject, this was all we had to talk about for the time being. Might as well indulge in the lunacy. "Well that could've been worse." She could've sold those pictures for profit to every mare in the company. Might have dealt the exchange in M.R.E's or shift changes.

"Oh it got worse alright. She also drew some of the stallions when they were in the bushes to 'relieve themselves'." Caramel stated with a scoff.

Shining snickered as he pointed back to the brown earth pony. "I believe that was you relieving yourself."

The entire group burst out with laughter as the brown stallion blushed heavily, subconsciously trying to cover himself with his hindleg and tail. "Exactly! She even captured my face the moment I cut loose. I never felt so violated."

Flash looked around and stopped laughing. As the monotony started to settle back in, he started to look around nervously. "Well I'm sorry for your loss. But right now, we need to check on where we are."

I pulled back out the map and saw that we were in yet another room to note. However, I've noticed that we've already marked one of the entrances on the walls. "I think we're here." Rainbow said, pointing to a random room.

"Nah, I think we're here." One of the other guards said as he pointed to another random room on the map.

"This map is so hard to read. It's like there's so many lines intersecting, there's even one that just curls back to three rooms before this one. And you haven't even jotted down anything new." Caramel continued to bitch like he did earlier.

Yeah, my patience is almost non-existent. "That's because we're back in the room that had the one cave we took that led us three rooms back from where we were then, which is where we are now." I think I've gone cross-eyed trying to explain that.

"Well, we're lost." Shining said with a submissive sigh.

"Not entirely." Oh yes the fuck we are. "We still got the left path to take that could lead further inside. Let's try this one instead."

No one really argued at this point, we've just given up on trying to decide which is going where. But this at least shortened the time it took to make a decision. We followed the path until it lead up to what appeared to be a stony rotunda, sans decoration or sunlight of course. However, the path eventually led to a steep drop off point into a dimly-lit chasm. "Well then, it appears we are at an impasse."

Flash and Rainbow looked to their back, flapped their wings twice and smiled. "Not us. We can glide into the chasm and see what's below or above us." Flash responded.

"Glad you volunteered, Flash. You wanna go on ahead and do the honor of enlightening us?" I said to the pegasus stallion, who gave me an eager salute and backflipped into the darkness.... Showoff.

It took him all of seven minutes to come back and give us his findings. And judging from the massive smile on his face, he must've found something good. "There's a large hall down there with huge doors at the end of it. The doors seem to be made of a really heavy wood with golden embroidery. Also, the place seems to be a little more 'in form' compared to the rest of the halls we've walked through. I managed to wait around for one of the arimaspi to come around and open it up, and I've confirmed that your payday is right through those doors."

Best news I've ever heard, but it came with a significant catch. "And of course, it's not accessible from here unless we all grow a pair of wings and float on down. So close, yet so far."

"How long have we been in here? We just caught the waning of the afternoon sun back in the corpse room. But it feels like we've been in here since forever." Rainbow pointed out.

"It's been forever since we last ate." Flash said.

"It's been forever since we last slept." Caramel stated.

Hell, I'm probably just as fucking tired as ever. If they say they're tired, then I don't blame them. I was running on fumes up to this point and I think it would be better if we took a siesta to get our energy back up. Our fight thus far has been very light, and it's only going to get harder from here on. No point in continuing if none of us are in peak condition. I'm on board with it. "I might be wrong, but I think camping out for now seems like a good idea."

Shining gave me a weary nod. "Agreed."

~Day 4~

Once more, Shining and I shared shifts on sleeping. The only difference was that Flash made it a little easier for us to do so and that Shining cast a barrier spell to alert him whenever something went past the borders. As far as what we had for breakfast, we had the usual M.R.E exchange and chowed down. Granted I couldn't eat much of what was provided, some of the others went into their rations and pulled out whatever they could to give me a decent meal. I tried to offer them a means of showing my appreciation, but they said that some gold from the vault would be a nice payoff.

Guess that means I'll be working my ass of to get them what they want.

Everyone seemed a lot more energetic today, probably because we knew what was gonna go down today. And just below us was the vault that held all of our wildest dreams, a room grossly filled with treasure as far as the eye can see. My dick was already getting hard from the thought of coming back with this stuff just to piss of some of the politicians.

Hardly anything stood in our way as soon as we left the camping spot. We pushed and plowed our way through every hall, marking each one as we walked through them. We ran into a few arimaspi patrols, and they fell as quickly as they called themselves to action. We were all so high on the thought of success that we considered our encounters as nothing but a mere nuisance. Shining and I placed our shots well to minimize our ammo usage, running short on supply was starting to become a concern. But once again, our shots landed pretty well, mainly because we aimed for the eyes.

So we carried on, deeper into the system of caves. Morale was so high that we were almost negligent in our stealth... almost.

And yet, after the first two hours, things eventually crept back into the same monotony as before. It felt like we were riding high on life, only to come back and see that we've never really left where we were in the first place. It's the feeling of flying higher than before, but you realize that it's only a marginal increase because you're jumping up while going down a steep flight of stairs. But at least everyone seemed to have more of a sense of humor.

Rainbow Dash, who seemed to be the most eager of the group now, marked our next route on the walls. "You know what's funny?" She asked.

"The fact that Nondis sleeps under a dead arimaspi?" Cracked a smart-ass Caramel.

The others shared a laugh, even Shining took pleasure in the joke made at my expense. "Well that's worthy of a chuckle in my eyes, but we have seen more arimaspi when we came in than we do now. We ran into a few, but they've been so easy to take down that it's leaving nothing in terms of suspense."

"Killing made easy, these weapons were made with that in mind." I said while tapping my fingers against my rifle.

"I'm just saying this is odd in every sense of the word. It doesn't seem like we're getting any closer, yet we've got a visual of the vault." Rainbow stated.

"Yeah, things have gotten slow." Flash agreed.

I was prompted to give a response to them, but before I could even take in the air to push back out, a voice grumbled out from within the cave. Following the usual routine, we hid amongst the cracks and crevices of the walls. Just ahead, there seemed to be a much different formation of the cave. For the first time, there seemed to be the semblance of a perpendicular intersection, no rooms, no extra choices, just a hall.

We waited, and they came from the right. "(And he has the nerve to leave me here with OUR cub, like he's leaving the tribe and everything)" One female arimaspi grunted angrily.

I mouthed my words to the others while they walked by. "Let them pass. We'll take the route they came from and sneak by."

"(That just lets you know what kind of mate he was. He was never really in it to raise a gathering, he was just in it for himself.)"

"(I wish that the tribe did more than just strip him of his gold and status. He should be decaying in the sky chamber.)"

"(In speaking of that, did you hear about the tribe's best warrior getting bested by that new creature everyone's talking about?)"

"(Yes, and he is ANGRY. He even took the tribe leader's sword and started searching the mountain for him.)"

"(Too bad, I wonder if the creature could be broken in as a pet.)"

Finally, their voices disappeared down the hall, leaving us with all the freedom to walk down the hall. "Okay, we're clear." I called out, causing the others to quietly dash for the intersection. I then motioned my hand to move towards the direction they left from.

Caramel hummed to himself. "Wonder what they're on about."

Shining quickly answered him. "We ain't got time to find that out. Let's just focus on what's ahead."

As we went along the route that was provided to us, the halls started to shape up. It gradually went from craggy mouths, to smoother tunnel bores, all the way up to crudely-shaped pillars. There seemed to be a prouder sense of masonry here and it was apparent that some effort was made to create the halls of a grand castle. In fact, the pillar scheme seemed to poorly replicate the ones we've seen from the Castle of the Two Sisters, the ruins in the Everfree Forest. But it was obvious from the erosion-worn surface that the construction was halted probably centuries ago.

Guess they must've got tired of trying.

But damn was it convenient to see the whole place being lit like a nightclub at closing time. For the better part of the past three hours, it was like we were just eating away at the flares whenever Shining got tired of lighting up the place. And there weren't any glowing mushrooms to give us a heads up on where the walls were when we wore our nightvision goggles. Two of our guys broke their specs because they ran into walls with them on and cracked the lenses.

So yes, this was a nice change in scenery.

We inevitably ran into more and more arimaspi we had to hide from. And as it went along, the halls started to become more and more intersected. The entire place seemed to be constructed like a city more than a cave at this point. And glowing crystals that emitted bright light were used in illuminating the 'streets' while torches outlined the intersections. Guess they provided those to whoever was going up to surface, a rather nice system if I might add. The torches last long enough to keep burning while they go up, and they probably have the way memorized for when the go down....

Or are we going up and the surface is going down? I've honestly lost the ability to tell what was what.

As far as cities went, there always tends to be that one busy intersection that lets you know you're close to a location of prominence. And with enough time, we managed to run into said intersection. We were slated to cross whenever the traffic died down, but it seemed far from wanting to do so for quite some time. However, Flash remembered the features of the hall we needed to take, and to our misfortune, it was directly in front of us.

So for several hours, we stood in hiding. And we kept waiting... and waiting... and waiting... annnd waiting.

And eventually the traffic died down to where we could cross. But as a counter measure, Flash and Rainbow planted dynamite on the ceiling of the other two halls that intersected with the ones we needed to stay open. As far as closing the other halls, we'll have to do that on the way out.

After they were finished with the planting, I borrowed one of the torches they provided for us at the intersection and blew the those halls into a crude pair of walls. It didn't go unnoticed, so we ultimately had to postpone our moving forward to blow the other halls leading up to it anyhow. And judging from just how much rock fell from the ceiling, we were looking at a total collapse. When we finished, I took notice that the rock was made of a mix of schist and sandstone. The schist could hold out against the dynamite, but the sandstone could be very easily broken with enough explosive force put on it. And due to the structural weakness of the material, further enhanced by the unevenly-shaped structure and poor shaping from the masons, the halls were easy to bring down.

Huh... Guess that explains why they've stopped chiseling.

Flash assisted me as I took point from there on, guiding us towards the massive hole in the ceiling where he flew in from. And the more he pointed out the thing that were familiar to him, the more excited the group got. I was just on the verge of jumping out of my clothes as we finally saw the massive set of doors that closed in our prize. I looked at the structure from top to bottom, seeing that it was made of a hardwood. I whistled as my eyes drug along it's height. "That's a huge-ass set of doors."

"And these doors look far too heavy to move on our own." Caramel stated as he tapped his hoof against the door. "We might have to plant some dynamite at the hinges and hope that they break."

I examined the hinges and saw that they were made of something I never thought I'd see while I was down here. The rusted iron hinges appeared immensely thick, far too thick for just a few sticks of dynamite to separate, even in the current state that it's in. If it's capable of holding this much weight, then obviously it's capable of standing up to a few sticks of dynamite. "Seriously?" I questioned with a sarcastic tone.

"Yes, those stick things you used to blow the other caves back there in the intersection?" Caramel responded with a condescending tone.

I shook my head as I unzipped my bag and started rummaging through it. "My point is this: Why use something so primitive when you have a job that requires precision?"

The brown stallion rolled his eyes as I continued to go through my bag. "Well I don't think you can get a lock pick that will fit that door."

As my hand reached in and met with a softer substance, I pulled it out and drew out a brick of C-4. "Don't need one when you've got the master key."

Shining's eyes lit up as soon as he realized what was taking place. "Oh I remember those, that came in the crate Rickey gave you."

After I finished rolling up the bricks into longer strands for the hinges, I turned to the two pegasi in our group. "Rainbow, Flash, I need the two of you to plant these on the hinges of the door. And when you plant them, shape them into a thin line that will outline the area we're trying to cut. If you see any more contact points that's holding the door in place, you put some there. Use only what we need, not what all we have."

While the two saluted and started putting everything in place, one of the guards walked up to me and curiously asked. "What's this clay-like dough going to do?"

"It's gonna blow the door right off. If it's too big for us to move, then we only need to blow off what's holding it in place. C-4 goes boom, door falls down in front of us, we walk inside, we take what we want, we get the hell out before it gets hairy. Classic smash and grab." What I also failed to mention is that C-4 is a very precise plastic explosive when used properly. Unlike dynamite, which was clunky in shape, could not be made into a precise form unless manufactured as such, C-4 could be used to hit a certain area without causing too much structural damage. Dynamite would've caused numerous problems.

Shining trotted up to survey the process and expressed his thoughts. "You'd think we were robbing a bank."

"We are, theirs." I responded with brutal honesty.

The two pegasi flew down and gave me a salute. "Everything's been set."

"Did you set the charges?" I asked.

The two looked at each other and and shrugged. "Oh... How do we do that?" Rainbow asked.

...Dammit, I forgot to run that by them. My mistake, bad oversight there. "Okay, you see this button right here? You're gonna press this on all of them." I said while showing them an example out of one of the spare bricks I had on hand. "You see how the light turns green on them, that means they're ready to be used. Don't ever do this with the ones you still have on you, or you might find yourself in a crude state of omnipresence."

By that, I mean they'll be blown all over the place.

"Okay." They once more glided back up to the door and set the charges on the C-4. When they came back down, they gave me a nod. "Charges set."

About damn time. "Alrighty then, everyone, behind the pillars and keep your ears pinned down, it's gonna get louder than what it was earlier." After everyone fled for cover, I pulled out the detonator, closed my eyes, and called out to everyone in the area. "Breaching!"

The small charge buttons on the C-4 bleeped red for a fraction of a second before they instantly turned the white clay-like strands into a series of fiery explosions. Powerful blasts sent shards of rusted metal, wood, and rock in every direction. The doorway itself cracked and crumbled in places, but showed that there was no significant damage to lead towards a cave-in. The door creaked and groaned as it tilted towards us, landing with a enormous slam. "Well let's see what we've got in here." The smoke slowly dissipated, but I grew too impatient to wait and see what was ahead. I took the initiative and marched through the plume of smoke.

"Oh... my... Father who art in heaven. Hollowed be thy name for the riches you've provided."

Those were the first words I said when I walked in. The room was heavily lit with luminescent crystals, which only amplified just how golden it was in there. Bits and relics from every era, from every part of the continent, it was all stored here. Beautiful, boundless, benign to the eye, a man could lose himself in the gross wealth that was accumulated here, a man could only live long enough just to count what all was in here. Riches abound, as far as the eyes could see.

I fell to my knees, feeling as if I had saw what heaven had in store for me.

The others followed and stalled when they saw. "This place is more stacked than a dragon's horde."

For just that one moment, I felt ignorant. I had a damn good reason to be. I felt like an average college student who just walked into King Tut's wealth. Without further hesitation, I grabbed my bag, dug for my phone, turned it back on, and posed for a picture. "This is so beautiful to me. I gotta take a picture of it. I gotta selfie this shit." I said it like I was gonna update my Facebook profile with that image.

I don't care, I'm entitled to feel like a fucking dork right now.

Caramel was paralyzed at the sight of it all. A few tears even fell from his face as his legs grew weak under his own weight. "Five years of haunting nightmares because of our search for something we felt didn't exist. I can't be happy for this because of what all we've lost. I am numb."

Shining gave the brown stallion a pat on the back as he watched the others dart forward, leaving the two of them behind. "You have a right to be." He said, closing his eyes and covering his face with a hoof.

As each of the others guards spoke their desires for what they would do next, the two reflected on those that they lost when they first tried to come here. Shining's eyes watered, and he eventually gritted his teeth as he wept quietly.

"I'm going to give this to my wife!"

"I'm getting this for my little daughter back home. She'll be so thrilled to see what I've brought for her."

"I'm rich!"

"I'm finally out of debt! I can be free now!"

The wealth of commentary caused the two stallions, who were originally the most composed, to being the most emotional. They dropped their heads towards the ground while the ghosts of their departed comrades wandered into their thoughts, their voices replacing the comments from the others. They imagined what they would've heard them say. And in turn, their own words were lost to the bittersweet moment they shared. For the first time in the five years since their previous expedition here, they embraced each other and shared their emotions as brothers in arms.

I looked at them from afar, taking in pride of seeing the two finally getting some form of closure in that incident. Those two carried the weight of nearly forty other spirits in getting here. From the experience of walking in Shining's shoes, I felt even myself welling up tears for them... That was until one of the guards called out to the others. "Body bags out, boys. We're snatching all we can carry."

Wait, what now? "Body bags?"

"We thought we had to collect you, or what was left of you." Rainbow explained awkwardly. "But hey, they're not going to waste!"

...Okay, I'm lost. "I don't think I would've been in a presentable state if I was going to be able to fit in one of those."

"Hence why we brought multiple." Rainbow answered.

...Um... Okay? "...Nevermind, let's just grab what we came here for."

"Your highness?" Flash called out to Shining, interrupting the two veterans' embrace. The prince departed for his subordinate and the two proceeded to converse over something they found in one area of the room. They stayed there for an extended period of time before I eventually came over there to see what the excitement was all about.

"Shining, you found something?"

"Something valuable. We've got the key piece of it all." He said, holding up two items not made of gold.

"A scroll and a book? Out of all the gold in this place, and you pick those two items?" I inquired with a puzzled look.

"It's what's inside of them that warrants a blank price tag." Shining stated as he steeled his expression. Seems something really made him angry.

"We're all packed." One of the guards hollered from behind us.

"It almost feels like we've hit all horseshoes in Las Pegasus! We've totally made it big!" Rainbow screamed.

But our cheerful interaction with one another came to a screeching halt as we heard something metallic scraping against the walls. What followed as a loud thud, along with a loud clang. "...What the hell is that sound?" Caramel asked, immediately jumping into full-alert.

More of the scraping sounded from within the hall, slowly dragging from what I concluded. I ran out to the doorway to see a familiar creature, limping towards us with one arm. "Funaki!" Angrily cried the creature.

It seemed that Smokey, or Kali'Ma as they call him, came for a visit. "Hey buddy, you look like you've seen better days."

The creature then turned to face me head on, revealing the severed arm wrapped in bandages. In it's place was a large rusted sword which appeared to have been used as a prosthetic limb. "I've got a present for you!" It whispered angrily, still dealing with his damaged windpipe. "Do you like it, Funaki?"

Pulling out my sword, I readied myself to fight while secretly reaching for my sidearm. "If this is a dick measuring contest, then you've won."

"No. I've won only when I've claimed you as my newest trophy."

I scratched my face, sword still in hand. "Um, I don't know if you got the memo of the change in the pecking order, but you're not that high."

"They all know of you, what you are, who you're allied with. And now they will see your body upon my horns."

"Full-out penetration? Hey buddy, can't you wait until the second date at least?" I joked.

"This is the second date." He responded with a unsettling smile.

For a moment, I had to think about it and in doing the math, yeah he was right. "Oh... I guess it would be... Then I suppose this excuse would work then. I'M NOT IN THE MOOD!" I said as I pulled my gun on him.

"Well you don't have to give me consent. I'll just run you through."

The arimaspi charged at me, using the momentum from his three other limbs for a swing from his sword-arm. I fired three rounds into one of it's legs, causing him to lose a bit of momentum. Seeing that even the higher caliber rounds weren't working on him, I parried his incoming blow. But as a result, I was thrown back several feet. Getting back on my legs, I pulled out my shotgun and used whatever slug rounds I had left to send him careening into the ground. I fired off four rounds, one being a miss and two being shots that landed in the shoulders. The final shot ripped through it's hindleg, sending blood and bone fragments into the air. The creature landed on the ground, resulting in a rather unspectacular victory.

Such is the fate of one bringing a knife to a gun fight.

"Stranger danger, for fucks sake." I said as I renewed my composure. "Haven't you folks ever heard the phrase 'no means no'? What the hell, you can't just go around and shove your things inside of others without them giving you consent."

Smokey's eye turned to me, his sword arm trying to make a lunge for me. "You're no different, taking things that don't belong to you."

After avoiding the wild swipe, I closed in the distance to hack away at the creature's improvised limb. He cried out as best as he could while I took what was left of his arm away from him. He tried to fight me back on that with an attempt to crush me under his other hand, but that too saw the edge of my sword. The others quickly joined in and started piercing the creature from all sides. Smokey became overwhelmed by the onslaught and stopped any resistance. I climbed on his chest and looked him in his eye as I spoke.

"You know... There's a song that we sing every time we enter into a new stage in our lives, it's informally called the New Year's song. Not everything is the same in the new year as it once was in the years past. Some figures have gone on, some have remained, some have faded, some have moved on to travel their own paths. In your case, your new year begins with a bang. And it is the beginning of a new state of mind for you: absolute oblivion."

Smokey writhed in pain as more of the spears dug deeper into his body. With his best effort, he screamed at us. "You all will suffer!"

I ignored his warning and proceeded to sing. "♪Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot in the land of Auld Lang Syne?♫"

Shining then sang along with me, but with different lyrics. "♪When family can not be here, having journeyed far and wide, we sing a song to honor them in the tales of Days Gone By.♫"

Caught completely by surprise, I turned back to him and asked. "Oh so y'all have a version of that?"

Shining then levitated the rifle up to his chest as he forcefully levitated Smokey's head to turn towards him. "I have one for him." He said with an icy-cold dullness in his eyes. "From my friends, to you and yours."

While Shining nearly bore a hole into the creature's skull with just his looks alone, I started to see the look of a man who just found his bounty. I saw the image of a man who lost something precious to him, a man who sought revenge and closure. Even though there was plenty for him to lose out on, he didn't appear that way. He looked dangerous, like he felt that this kill was for personal business. With that in mind, I jumped off of his chest and called the others off of him. This was something he longed to do, obviously. It's only fair he gets final blood. "Well I wanna hear it, Shining. Go on, sweet prince. Sing this guy to his rest."

In a low, venomously sadistic tone, he sang to him. He pulled his ears open, and he sang to him quietly as if it were a lullaby.

We left the chamber and directed ourselves out of the mountain, taking the paths we marked down. The weight of our gold was so tremendous that the bags stressed in carrying them. But as we left with our prize in hand, not a solitary word was spoken amongst us. Flash was pale as a ghost, Caramel was rendered completely mute, and I was left thanking the heavens above that I was on the same side as the unicorn stallion who accompanied us.

Shining's revenge was far from short, and distant from merciful. After he finished singing, he snatched my sword and hacked away at the creature's abdomen. He swung my sword with his own strength, but his magic was solely dedicated to pulling the lower half of the creature's body away as he hacked, whacked, smacked, and thwacked away at his body. Shining didn't just give it a good slice, he was removing pieces and bits of his entrails. He stepped on them, stepped in them, stepped within them, and he did it without a single change in his face. When he reached his vertebrae, he abandoned the sword altogether and just jumped on it repeatedly until it was completely severed. And after that, he used his magic to finish separating the lower half of his body from the torso. Finally, he performed the coup de grace: He left him there to wilt.

I do not wish to recall the sounds and smells of it.

Most of us left when he started, Caramel and I remained to watch him continue his pace for a brutal three minutes. As he walks now, he's covered from head to heels in blood. The sight of him being like that made me realize that I was perfectly sane. But him, he wasn't sane. That wasn't him, that wasn't the Shining I knew. That was a member of the Spanish Inquisition doing God's divine will by punishing the heretics. That was not a pony that just did that.

My brain had two hours to dwell on that in the darkness of the caves. But I vowed to myself that once we left, it stayed there at that moment.

I made good on that promise once we saw the sun starting to meet with the horizon. Another two hours after that, the sun had started to set. We got back to the train they came in on, and the others waited for the conductor to come out of hiding. Meanwhile, I saw Caramel looking back at the path we just walked from. As I approached him, he started to speak.

"Songbell wanted to give her brother something nice. She said that she'd always spoil him, even when it wasn't deserved."

Though my interaction with her was through a memory replay, I could gather that she was a pony of good intentions. And it's evident with the impression she's left on others around her that she lived well. But again, I could never speak like I know her because I didn't. So my response was minimal. "Seemed to be a pretty decent gal."

"Beautiful." He stated with a nostalgic smile. But that smile gradually filed down to a frown. "I still can't let Shining slide for what he did to her."

Once more, my response had to be minimal. "She forgave him."

Even though I honestly expected him to explode when I said that, his face didn't change at all. "I know. That's just who she was."

We remained silent for a few more seconds as my mind started to wander on the topic of past sins and forgiveness. I was compelled to remember what he did to me and what he put Pinkie through. I stopped looking directly at him then. "I don't know if I can forgive you for what you did to Pinkie."

"...I don't blame you."

It was strange, I felt the same way he did at that moment. It became more apparent when I had remembered Pinkie's words to me. "She forgave you."

"...She always did." He said with his ears folding down slightly.

I shook my head and scratched my cheek as I finally curbed any sense in vengeance in my spirit, realizing that I didn't want to embrace that. "Man to man, why did you do the things you did to her, knowing that it was bad?"

"Because I'm a terrible pony." He answered plainly. "I let my past override my present judgement. When I think of something that tries to mock me of what I've lost, I become violent. And I thought she mocked me. I know now what she tried to do was to give me a second crack at a normal life."

"But it all came crashing down on you?" That's a fact that I know all too well.

"..." He didn't change anything except his ears folding even lower.

"I know it may be a year and some change too late, but─"

"I know what you're going to propose." He said, interrupting me. "And I'll have to kindly ask you to drop it."

"Don't you want to hear her say it instead of me?"

He turned to look at me, not with animosity or with an intention to rag on me. He just looked... normal. "Human... Nondis, there are some pains I can endure. But I feel that hearing those three words would only burn me worse than Songbell did." He said with an awkward laugh that ended with a sigh. "She has a life. She has a web of comrades that will fight for her, no matter their weaknesses. She has a future. I have none of that, and I will continue to not have that."

I know he did wrong, and I know he did me wrong, but if I'm willing to put Shining choking my lights out aside, then I know I can put my personal grudge aside if Pinkie can do so as well. However, I wasn't so willing to overlook his prison sentence. But I do see that he's come to terms with the fact that he made a mistake and that he's hurt by his own actions. Again, not excusing him for what he did, but he is along the road of rehab. For a moment, I let Pinkie's judgement overtake my own. "...You know, if you get out on good behavior within the next ten years, I might just drag you back in the guard. You won't be that old."

He cut his eyes at me then. "Do you want to know why I was dishonorably discharged from the guard? I got drunk and pissed on Celestia's face... A statue of her in town square at high noon, but it was the closest representation I could get. The response she gave to our decimated company was minimal. And I refuse to serve her because of her lack of response. It is not you, nor Shining that drives me away, but her. I will continue to fantasize about violently raping her in my prison cell as a means of masturbatory aid, so no I do not think I will be getting out on good behavior."

Well then, so much for that hand I just threw out there. Lemmie just... pull that back in real quick-like. "Obviously."

He then looked at the other guards, who were playing with their bags of gold. The stallion shook his head. "...Shame. All this gold and I can't see none of it."

"What did you originally want to do with this gold?" I asked out of curiosity.

"The only sensible thing to do with that much wealth, drink."

Okay, I see what he is now. "You're an annoying cunt, but I'll drop you a beer. But only one, can't have you giving golden showers to the guards. Big no-no."

He then gave me a hearty laugh as he walked back towards the train. "Aw, take the fun out of it, why don't you?"

While I watched Caramel get back in the train, Shining was just outside of it, ordering the other guards to get the cargo put away. "Take everything and store it in the back of the passenger car."

"Yes sir!" The others cried out in unison.

Shining then turned to me and pulled out some crystal ball and held it out to me. "Final chance to talk to everypony while I'm here."

I thought about it for a moment and contemplated the thought, but took into account my current image. The last thing my friends needed to see was me covered in blood. "Nah, they can wait a little longer. I'm not really in presentable fashion."

"I don't think they'd care." Shining said.

I looked at him and saw that he and I were practically in the same position, except his hasn't really caked in like mine has. "Well I don't want to haunt them in their dreams, so no thanks. Just let the newspapers report me when they see me."

He shook his head as his eyes rolled to the back of it. "Okay. Just try to stick it out until the next train comes around."

"Look at who you're talking to. I hid in the corpse of an arimaspi child, I think that's a testament to my survival instincts." I said, giving him a salute. He raised his own and quickly dropped it, mine followed suit. And the blood-bathed prince disappeared into the train without much else being said. While the others started getting themselves on the train, Rainbow glided over and tapped me in the waist.

"You sure you wanna stay here for a little while longer?"

As much as I wanted to hit the showers, I was at least aware that I was scripted to be dead or dying. And something told me that if I went against that, it would probably end badly. "It would look pretty funny if I were to just show up on this fancy-looking train. I rather play it safe and keep my distance from you guys on the ride inbound."

"It'll be a few hours or more, are you sure you don't wanna come with us?" She questioned.

"I got it covered."

She reached in to hug me before ultimately realizing what all I was covered in. With that fact rolling in her head, she crept off a little before just nudging me in the side. "You owe me once you get cleaned up."

"I'm not gonna ask what it is." I answered, still playing my usual troll game with her.

"So you don't care to know?"

"Nope." I answered quickly.

With a grumble, she feigned a pout. "You're a fucking asshole, you know that?"

"Old new, what of it?" I said with a dismissive shrug.

She took off with her wings and hovered towards the train before turning back to grab my attention. "Stay safe."

I gave her a playful smirk as I waved my hands, motioning her to go away. "Get back to your post, corporal."

She managed to get half-way through the door before she stopped herself and fluttered back towards me. "Can I correct you on something?"

"What?"

She motioned me to get closer, which I fell for. She then grabbed my collar and stared me down in the face. "My rank is staff sergeant, not corporal."

Even though I was ranked higher than her, she was still the seasoned vet. And that still had some weight on me as one word came to mind: Oops. "I'll condition my mind to remember that next time."

"You better."

Later in Appleloosa...

When the train arrived at the station, only two ponies stepped off of the train. The first pony to leave was Flash Sentry, who took the initiative to visit with the defacto commanders of the company. Rainbow was the second to step off the train. While both were swarmed with questions from local reporters who were interested in getting the next big scoop, her hawk-like eyes made out a familiar figure standing in a window in a local inn. Blasting from the train station, she dusted reporters and ignored questions. Her attention was on the one who started the misunderstanding in the first place.

Dream Star, who cozied up in his room with his freshly ordered bottle of apple cider and his cameras, looked through the window to see the rainbow-maned mare charging for the inn. "Oh, her again." He said with disdain. He then trotted to the door to preemptively greet the cyan pegasus, who would be standing in his door in just a second or two. He looked back to his camera and started counting. "One, two─"

"Hey!"

He looked to the ceiling with discontent, faked a smile, and warmly greeted the mare. "Well, if it isn't the missus who wanted to pull my story from the headlines."

Rainbow wasted no time in speaking her mind, she grabbed his horn and yanked him towards her, meeting muzzle to muzzle. "You're a pathetic piece of shit! That's what you are!"

"Whaaat? I did nothing outside of my job. I report on what I see." He answered coyly.

"You reported a lie. Nondis' isn't dead and you know it."

He shrugged dismissively as he smirked at her. "Is he? Last I remember─"

"You took that picture and saw what happened afterwards. I know what you did."

He then held a bottle of apple cider in her face, to which she snatched from his possession. He continued to try and play himself as calm and poised while he openly confessed to her. "As do I. I know what I did, I threw out the biggest headline in the nation. I broke a story that's worth several awards and more notoriety than a guard taking an arrow for Princess Celestia. I'm hitting the big time."

Rainbow begrudgingly popped open the bottle and took a swig of the cider before she spoke again. "You're paid off, sold off to someone in the political circuit. You're posting a story that remotely true, all to meet your kooky narrative."

The stallion then faked his amazement by clopping his hooves together with glee. "Bingo! That's the deal. And you're not gonna say anything about it."

She got back into his face, angrier than before. "Like hell I won't─"

He then threw away his facade and planted a hoof into her mouth. He gave her a stern look. "Disclose that you broke orders from your commanding officer, kept secret that you and a royal went into the forest to fetch a body before the forensics team could, and apparently aided him in his mission? Yeah, I won't mention anything about that."

When he removed his hoof, Rainbow was left baffled from his knowledge. She was left stumbling with her words. "Wha-bu-you-th-I─"

"Look, missy, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. I know everything about you. And my client is paying me top bit for the word in the streets to be what I say it is. Now, I know that if I see a train made of crystal, I can easily assume that it's from the Crystal Empire. I mean, the whole little show you guys put on, the bringing in of officers and specialists to train your little rag-tag company, as they deemed the situation 'an emergency transition of power, to replace the captain with another pony who was more fitted to taking the command because you were deemed 'too inconsolable to take the position'. I'd run with that excuse if I were you."

Rainbow Dash could not believe that he was so far ahead on her. She felt angry that he knew because she already concluded that this was effectively him blackmailing her and Shining. If any news came out to support that Shining joined up with Nondis, it would do some serious damage. Dream Star continued his rant.

"I know, right? Pretty nice operation you guys had there, even drew in the local media to write a few fluff pieces on the contingent. Of course they're getting their hay day now that I broke the dam for them to shower in on the glory. But if you go out here and blow my story, then I might just have to blow your entire career, as well as the career of Shining Armor, the human's, and even that of your friend, the Princess of Friendship. Now, I know you wanna have nice things. But I can't let you have it right now, m'kay?"

"Your career was ruined from the moment you published that headline." She spat back.

Once more taking up his snarky persona, he placed back on his mask and continued to taunt her. "On the contrary. It's just getting started. Now why don't you go on down those stairs and mingle with the other jarhead folk."

Rainbow wasn't budging, she was more determined to crack him than ever. "Who's paying you to lie like this?"

He then used his magic to swipe the bottle back from the pegasus while holding up his press badge. "Classified, miss. Golden press badge required to know more information. Meanwhile, our little conversation can be off the record if you leave now and pay no mind to my doing business."

Rainbow gritted her teeth and hollered out of frustration. She bolted past him and back towards the door, now holding the bottle of apple cider. His eyebrows lifted high upon his face while she snarled at him. "I hope you get fired, killed, or tortured! You don't fuck with my friends like this!" She screamed before slamming the door and galloping off into town once more. While he watched the mare run through the street with her new bottle of cider, he gave an exasperated breath and nodded while he thought to himself out loud.

"She's really a dumb one."

HOORAY, I LIVED!

I'm sorry if the chapter seemed a bit slow, but I really REALLY tried my best to pace this thing out. This seems to be the longest chapter to date. However it throws in a few nuggets for good measure. So be sure to study extra hard, children.

No but on the serious tip, this chapter is long as hell because information is being thrown out there like plunderseeds, gotta know when they're gonna hatch.

Holy crap this past month was BUSY!!! Where I live currently, there's this thing that takes place before Lent called Madi Gras. And where I live, it's a big contribution to the local economy. Hell, schools close on Fat Tuesday because of the festivities. It's kinda like one of those festivals you see in anime where the kids get out of school and celebrate their local holidays. Anyhow, that holiday had my band getting booked like crazy, even getting double engagements, two balls in one night, playing on an awesome stage, all the works. It's crazy.

They really go all out here.


But yeah, nothing like earning a little more to keep the Comcast fascist overlord happy. If the gods are unhappy with their offerings, I am unable to provide quality content to the masses few dozen readers I have left. I've started on the next chapter, like 5,000 words as is, and I have gone on rambling long enough.

Now if you excuse me, I'm going on a Filthy Frank binge (like I already wasn't on one now).

See you next chapter for those still following.