In a place where it snowed day and night, the white ever-growing and the intensity of the chilling winds as varied as the stars in the cosmos, four ponies and a huge object trudged through the powdery, chilling snow at a rather slow pace, leaving four sets of hoofprints and a pair of tread-like tracks as a result. The cold winds carrying a blizzard fast upon their shoulders was getting to them, but they still pressed on regardless.

At least, until one pony spoke up. “Perhaps we should sleep in the tank for the night!” cried the one furthest ahead, a masculine voice barely audible from the howling snowstorm swirling around him and those he accompanied. "I can feel my backside stiffening!" he added, stopping in his tracks and turning around to the other three behind him.

“When will we get to Frostbite Haven?” cried another pony that soon stopped behind the one complaining about his stiffening backside, a feminine voice even less audible than that of the first. “We’ve been walking in circles for the past... shit, I don’t know how long we’ve been out here!”

“We can’t last in this cold much longer,” complained another feminine voice that was an octave higher than the first two belonging to the ponies who had also hollered mere seconds ago. This one stopped well away from the duo that stopped ahead.

“Alright guys, let’s get in the tank!” yelled a masculine voice almost completely drowned out by the storm, one of a gruff tone. He stopped and poked the pony nearest to him with a hoof. “That means you, Leaftail,” he added.

“My name isn’t Leaftail, you midget-horned twat,” the pony who was poked turned around as she spat the words out like venom, and she glared daggers at the one who touched her.

“Not my fault your mane’s green as pine!” the stallion jeered, a grin growing on his face that soon faded as he heard the mare that was up ahead begin to holler once more.

“What did you say, Matt?” asked the second pony, having to scream so he could hear her. She turned around to the two furthest from herself and Matt. The wind began to howl louder, almost entirely drowning out the response she got as a result.

“I said, ‘Let’s get in the tank!’” he replied, also yelling louder this time around. White flecks of crystallised water darted past him at a frantic rate, almost blurring out the two ponies ahead. He could barely make out a bright, fiery red something that one of the two possessed, but what that was—or to whom it was attached—was obscured by the onslaught of whirling white.

“Alright!” cried the second, who then glanced at her side, looking at the pony who was closest to her. “Let’s go, you black-coated, torn-eared, rusted redhead,” she murmured, but when she attempted to raise her head, she felt a hoof touch her shoulder and glanced at it.

“You have a fiery red mane yourself. Your argument is invalid,” the other pony replied with a bit of snark in his voice.

“Isn’t your backside stiffening, Mr. Red Eyes?” the mare sneered back, turning back around and seeing a blot of black and another of green behind her.

“Can it, Cream Coat,” the stallion who was at her side jabbed accusingly, also turning around and spotting the two blots. He felt ice tickling his backside, and he shivered as a result. “I’m amazed my teeth aren’t c-chattering,” he mumbled, only to feel a hoof poke him.

“They are now,” the mare groaned, putting her hoof down into the snow before she resumed trudging ahead. “You need to get some insulation for that damn back of yours, especially under that coat in this weather,” she added.

“All you’re wearing’s a fucking scarf! You shouldn’t lecture me about what I wear in the damn snow when you practically trot in the nude within this frozen hellhole!” the stallion shouted, his voice marred by anger.

“Says the burnt orange stallion with the stiffening back!” the mare paused, pointing an accusing hoof at the stallion for emphasis. “If you start growing ice, maybe those drills on your damn tank could crack it away!”

“That would be suicide! Besides, you’re a damn unicorn, Natz—you know fire magic!” the other pony exclaimed, anger welling up in his voice.

“Fire magic is suicide too, unless you forgot that you have metal fused into your back?” Natz retorted, choosing to not turn around to the stallion. She continued to wade through the snow.

“Fine, you win,” the stallion grumbled, hooves shifting in the snow.

“What’s taking Lance and Natalie so long?” the green-maned pony asked, stopping to turn around. Now, the snow had completely blurred out the two ponies who were still at least a few feet behind.

“Dunno,” Matt replied, also pausing to glance behind himself. “Say, Anna, could you pull out that thing of yours and make the snow stop heaping on us?”

“It’s called a flute, you black-and-white splotchfest on legs,” Anna groaned, turning to the ‘midget-horned’ stallion she had just addressed.

“Whatever, Horny Bushhead,” the stallion jabbed, rolling his eyes even as the mare glared daggers at him.

“Hey! Just because I tie my mane a certain way doesn’t mean I have bushes on my head! Nor does my horn constitute me as someone that’s trying to get laid!” the mare snarled, front hooves spacing out as she knelt forward in an offensive stance. “And besides, you don’t have room to talk—you grow out your mane and tie some bits of that and your tail into little braids, so I suggest you zip your lip before an arrow gets plunged into your thick-furred asscheek!”

“Yeah, yeah, just use your flute already and make the blizzard stop. I think Natz and Lance might be going the wrong way, since at this rate their own hoofprints are probably filled in,” the stallion had yet again rolled his eyes as he spoke, not once looking at Anna directly. “And besides, I’m two heads and a half taller than you; you couldn’t do much to me now,” he added with a rather snide grin spreading upon his muzzle.

“Fine, you blond-maned asshole,” Anna spat, her horn starting to glow in a vivid green aura. A flute started to float next to her, but the winds were now whirling with a vengeance, forcing more snow to dart past her eyes to the point she couldn’t even see the blasted instrument, let alone Matt. “Shit,” she mumbled, “I think we may have to get to the tank already, because now I can’t see worth a damn.”

“Try to follow my hoofprints. Forget the flute,” Matt ordered, starting to slosh his way towards the large object that he could hardly see thanks to the blizzard’s wrath. Anna had also started to push herself towards the thing, her legs feeling colder and colder by the minute.

“For once, I wish I had thick leg fur like yours, Matt,” Anna mumbled under her breath, but she could not hear herself thanks to the wind shrieking in her ears. The mare paused again and lifted a hoof up to the base of her neck and felt some wool shift about as she had fidgeted. “At least I have a scarf on me,” the unicorn sighed, still unable to hear herself.

She glanced behind herself, and for once the snowstorm had relented just enough that she could make out a cream-colored body and another of black with bits of burnt orange. Some small part of her had hoped that the other two ponies had seen her as she turned to the object and continued to slowly get to it.

The blond-maned stallion had stopped in his tracks once again, but this time he could see four more forms approaching him and Anna from the very object he had been attempting to trot to. When they got closer, he could make out claws on the front limbs, piercing eyes, and feathered heads adorned with beaks. “Hey, Darkwing, I think Lance has gone stiff and might need a hand,” he said as the figures got closer still—they were a bunch of gryphons.

“For the last time, you accursed black-and-white half-Clydesdale, my name is Alexander, not Darkwing!” the gryphon nearest to the pony hissed, a frown tugging his lips downward. “Just because my body and wing feathers are dark in color does not mean you can call me that name, especially when much of your own body is black-furred! Maybe I should start calling you Cowskin to get the damned point across!”

The other three gryphons walked past the bickering duo, and one soon stopped in front of Anna. “What’s wrong, Windwood?” he asked.

“My damn legs are giving out, and I can’t move them worth shit!” Anna scowled, her breathing hitched and her eyes wide in panic. “I think my horn’s going numb too!” she added, using her magic to jam her flute between her teeth just as her horn started to fizz and spark.

The gryphon nodded and got closer to the mare, spreading his wings and flapping them a few times to start hovering over her. “I’ll hold your gem-encrusted bow in my beak, okay?” he said with a frown,, carefully plucking the aforementioned weapon off of the mare’s backside by pulling it out of a sheath with his beak. He then descended further and wrapped his arms around her midsection, narrowly avoiding the quiver laden on her body in the process. Once this was done, he began flapping his wings fervently, slowly lifting the unicorn out of the snow and flying towards the object with her in tow.

“You could not be any damn slower if your legs were broken!” Natalie shrieked as soon as the third gryphon came into her line of sight. Her horn was aglow, and the sod she had yelled at noticed a blur of red fast approaching him, but he merely blocked whatever it was by shielding himself with a wing.

“Stop your griping, and stop trying to hit me with your crystal-tipped staff,” the gryphon snorted, still concealing himself with his wing.

“Well I would if you weren’t so slow, you orange-feathered half-cat parakeet!” the unicorn snarled, eyes narrowing low. She trudged over to him until she stood at his side, and then clambered onto his back like a child would before clinging to its mother, except a bit overgrown for the resulting piggyback ride. He merely grunted, rolled his eyes, and started flapping his wings, turning around as he became airborne before flying to the object.

“Are t-the h-heaters on?” the burnt orange stallion asked the last gryphon as he was lifted up by a pair of talons.

“Yes, general, they’re on and the Valkyrie Tank is as toasty as a mild summer day,” the gryphon who picked up the pony answered with a frown on his beak. “Goodness me, I can feel how cold you are, even through the fabric of your uniform,” he added, and without another word between them, he carried the freezing sorry bastard with him as he flew behind the gryphon that had carried Natalie.

Soon, the lot had found that the snowstorm began to fluctuate in intensity once more, and for a moment they bore witness to a sheen of dark grey, stainless steel with faint traces of a lighter, almost silvery grey and another grey so dark in color it could have been mistaken for black. The thing was massive, about the capacity of a blimp, and fitted with two machine guns and two drills at the sides and a cannon on top. The top of this metallic behemoth lifted up a gargantuan lid-like structure, and the gryphons maneuvered their way inside a hole this lid had concealed, careful to avoid scraping themselves or the ponies they carried against the steel. Once all eight beings were inside the lid slammed shut on a moment’s notice, and the ponies moved a few feet from each other before they sat on their rumps.

The interior was indeed very warm, and it was quite roomy. Eight more gryphons were inside, all sitting patiently as if waiting for their fellow gryphons and the ponies to climb aboard all this time. Some gurneys were parked at one corner, and there were varying tools next to them, ranging from scalpels to chisels, a sink, a cabinet with medical supplies, and so on.

Another corner had a stovetop that doubled as an oven, some more cabinets lined with a few wooden plates and bowls, silverware, a few can openers, and a microwave. There was even a rotisserie among other things.

Between these two corners, the lot of ponies could see an assortment of chests, some opened and some closed. One of the open ones had many bullets and empty shells of varying sizes and calibers, and another had nothing but arrows. A gryphon opened a third chest and proceeded to pull out four thick, ragged blankets that were filthy, but still intact enough to be useable.

“Damn, I think my horn’s frostbitten!” Natalie complained as soon as a blanket was tossed onto her body, shivering and snarling through clenched teeth,“And whose idea was this, again?!”

“Mine too,” Anna bemoaned, eyes averting towards the ‘midget-horned’ stallion for a moment. “I think it was Matt’s idea…” she added, a frown etched on her muzzle.

“Natz, Anna, both of you take a chill pill. We’ll get to Frostbite Haven soon,” Matt sighed, almost immediately getting glared at by the two mares afterwards.

“Oh, ha ha, very funny,” Anna hissed. Her face was turning red in blooming fury. “You’re only saying that because your horn can’t get frostbitten!” she exclaimed, pointing an accusing hoof at the stallion.

“Next time we do something like this, we’re dressing like Godcat-damned eskimos!” Natz almost shrieked, her voice now an octave higher than Anna’s. Her eyes narrowed so low it looked as if she’d close them any minute.

The last stallion shook his head as the unfortunate blond-maned pony began to argue with the mares about the weather and other such trivial nonsense—he rolled his eyes as that conversation began to derail beyond his comprehension. His eyes acted as if they weren’t his own, staring rather vacantly at different things. He soon spotted Anna’s bow as she waved it around in her magic as if it were a caveman’s club.

“She better not poke her eyes out with that thing. Those gems could really do some damage…” he thought for a moment before looking over at the weapon. He gave that same weapon and an arrow that Anna had taken out of her quiver to use like an accusing hoof another glance. “How does she fire those things, again? Isn’t the bow made of rock and sparkly gems? Is there some kind of flexible substance in that thing that I don’t know about? And how do those arrows fly with blue and yellow gem feathers and a red gem head? It doesn’t make sense!”

His eyes darted off to a gryphon that had tapped at his neck with a talon. “Yes, Jeremy? What do you need, you crow-jaguar?” he asked, turning his head to the gryphon in question.

The aforementioned ‘crow-jaguar’ chortled, a smile curling up on his beak. “Your coat, sir. We need to examine thine thin metal wings,” he answered.

“Oh, right,” the orange pony nodded and raised his front legs to the sky, pointing his head upwards as well, rising to stand on shaky rear legs like he was about to take off towards the ceiling of the tank. Jeremy raised his talons and grabbed the stallion firmly by his midsection while another gryphon started to hover over them, tugging at the sleeves of the pony’s coat. Soon, the whole garment came off, leaving him almost bare.

“Shall we remove his socks and horseshoes?” the same gryphon who now held the coat asked, folding up the garment very neatly while he was still airborne.

“Nah, leave them on. They make great legwarmers,” the stallion replied with a rather cheeky grin on his muzzle. Once Jeremy let go of him and backed off, he thrust his front legs forward, horseshoes producing a brief echoing sound as they collided with the floor. This caused the still-bickering unicorns to stop talking and turn towards him.

“Oh look, Lance has no clothes!” Natalie was the first to comment on the obvious, and she had a devious smirk plastered onto her face.

“You have no room to talk, filly—you, Anna, and Matt trotted around in that snowstorm wearing nothing but fucking scarves. Matt, I can sorta understand because he’s got fuzz that makes me think he has a woolly mammoth somewhere in his family, but you? Don’t get me started, Featherbutt,” Lance retorted, his cheeky grin becoming a smile that looked like it belonged to a great white shark.

“Oh, what was that? You wanna fight?” Natalie stood straight up, her horn beginning to shimmer in vibrant orange.

“You heard me, Miss I-Got-a-Shooting-Star-With-Feathers-for-a-Cutie-Mark,” Lance continued to sneer, his crimson eyes glinting for a moment.

“Listen here, Mister I-Can’t-Fly-Because-My-Wings-Can’t-Lift-Me,” the unicorn began, her eyes narrowing low. Her smile widened into a full-on Cheshire grin as she spoke. “You best watch yourself, because you’re the only non-unicorn trotting in this tank!”

“Bitch, you’re outgunned,” the orange stallion replied, using a hoof to gesture to all of the gryphons present. “I suggest you choose your next words carefully if you wanna continue this verbal drawl.”

“Ignore her, Lance. She’s probably in heat again,” Matt groaned, rolling his eyes with a frown on his visage. His remark almost immediately garnered him another glare from the mare he just spoke of.

“Am not, first off…” the cream-colored mare shrieked, and once again, the argument had started. The trio of unicorns began raising hell at one another, and this time it was getting more physical, because Natalie started to swing her staff at the half-Clydesdale stallion. He merely took the hits like he was a sponge, all the while trying to talk sense into her.

Lance allowed himself to sit on his rump again as the gryphons spread his wings, raising a front hoof and letting it connect with his face before running it down the bridge of his muzzle. Once that same hoof was set on the floor, he let his eyes wander around until they caught sight of Natalie’s staff once again assaulting Matt with a whack atop his head. “He doesn’t look amused,” the burnt orange stallion thought, “his narrowing eyes and that grumpy frown... yeesh, I hope he doesn’t explode soon.”

His eyes darted off again, towards something that mysteriously appeared from nowhere to block the oncoming staff. It was secured in an aura of gold, and as the red-eyed stallion took another quick-second glance at Matt, he noticed that his horn was surrounded by the same aura. “Ah, hell, here we go,” he frowned as his thoughts echoed in his skull, glancing back at the mysterious something that had appeared out of flat-out thin air.

“Hmm... gold wings for the hoof-guard, rubies, long silver blade with gold runes encased in red veins…” the stallion paused for a moment, silently muttering to himself this time, “great, he brought out Heaven’s Gate.” Fortunately for him, none of the unicorns heard him amidst their own bickering, and soon enough bow, staff, and blade started to clash vehemently. So too had the unicorns, for that matter—the argument had quickly became a full-on brawl that lasted for a while.

At least, until Jeremy spoke up as he put a blanket around Lance. “Should I get out the magic inhibitors again?” he asked, and in that moment, the trio of arguing ponies stopped fighting to glance at him. Anna was sandwiched between Matt and Natalie, who had at that point tried to reach past her with their hooves in an attempt to slap the other. The green-maned mare kept them apart with both her hooves and her bow, using her magic to grab the sword and the staff to keep them spaced apart too.

“No,” they said in unison.

“Alright then. Stop fighting,” the crow-jaguar hissed, a frown on his beak. With that, the three unicorns broke up and returned to the spots they sat at before the whole arguing began, taking their weapons with. The red-eyed stallion allowed himself a small sigh of relief, as if grateful that something had been done about the fighting. He glanced at Matt’s blade again, noticing it had been standing upright due to its owner’s magic. It wasn’t until the aforementioned stallion had addressed him did he stop thinking.

“Lance, why are you looking at my sword?” asked the small-horned stallion, using his magic to poke the red-maned pegasus with a stick that had appeared from nowhere, all the while not bothering with even getting up off his rump to do so.

The metal-winged stallion snapped out of his stupor and blinked a few times as the question registered in his mind and the feeling of the stick touching him caused his shoulder to twitch. “Uh... to take my mind off your arguing with the girls, Matt,” he replied quickly.

“Uh-huh,” the black-and-white stallion sighed, slowly nodding his head as if skeptical of Lance’s words. “Riiiiight.”

“I’m hungry!” the green-maned unicorn complained, causing the other three ponies to look at her in a heartbeat. Her eyes watered, her mouth quivered, and she even stomped a hoof to complete the child-throwing-a-tantrum look.

“Lovely,” the pegasus remarked with a frown, and he shot a quick glance at two gryphons and nodded to them. Quickly, they nodded back and turned to a stove that was just behind them. A third rummaged through a big brown sack filled with so much stuff it would take all four ponies and three gryphons just to lift the thing from the floor of the tank, and he made sure to take a flashlight with him as a precaution.

“What’s taking so long to find food?” asked one of the gryphons at the stove after waiting patiently for a good thirty minutes.

“We’re... we’re…” the gryphon in the sack began, shaking as if cold as he emerged from the bag's mouth, “we're out of food!”

Lance immediately rose up onto his hooves, the blanket falling from his hind quarters and revealing his cutie mark: an atomic bomb with a red body that had a great white stripe running down the middle adorned with a manji. He and the gryphon exchanged just one glance; a panicked face meeting that of a stone-cold mask which was on the verge of breaking. “We can’t be out of food!” he cried, an eye twitching. “We all had rations yesterday; I’m sure we have some left still! Keep looking, you canary-colored tiger!”

The ‘canary-colored tiger’ gryphon frantically nodded, rummaging through the contents of the sack with twice the agility he had previously. He looked back at the pegasus and shook after another fifteen minutes. “I-I just double-checked. We’re out,” he stammered as he emerged from the sack of stuff for the second time.

The metal-backed pony quickly stomped his way to the sack and pushed the gryphon aside with his hoof. Mumbling something about a lout, he too began wriggling and crawling through the sack's contents, which was filled with trinkets, bullets, valuable objects, and a wide variety of other items all in an attempt to find one morsel of food.

He did this once, then twice, then thrice very quickly before slowly getting out of the bag and looking back at his fellow ponies after a total of another forty-five minutes. “Yep. We’re out of food,” he sighed flatly.

“Awww! I don’t want to sleep on an empty stomach!” Anna complained almost immediately, eyes watering again.

“Just be glad we’re not out there freezing to death, you tan-beige tree stump,” Natz groaned, a hoof connecting with her face in short order. "I'm also glad Lance isn't rambling about a crazy bitch this time, like he has for the past eleven days," she added, running that same hoof down the bridge of her muzzle.

Lance glared at Matt. “I hope this is all worth it when we get to Frostbite Haven, because we’re buying out the food shops as soon as we arrive!” he scowled, an eye twitching once more.

“It is,” the blond-maned stallion replied with a hasty nod. He had his front hooves raised, almost as if the pegasus was just inches from his muzzle while trying to mug him.

“Also, we’re investing in three fridges and five more cupboards. We haven’t got time to be going out there and hunting monsters, especially in this storm we landed in!” the pegasus hissed, pointing a hoof and waving it at a rather empty portion of the tank everyone stood in.

A cat meowed and then sighed, this one blue-furred and literally legless—yet somehow standing upright. It sported a very thick and fluffy coat, and it rubbed its head against Matt’s foreleg and purred as soon as he set the ends of his front appendages back down.

“Hey, NoLegs. You hungry?” the blond-maned stallion asked, petting the cat with his hoof.

The cat nodded and meowed again to answer, before going back to rubbing itself on the foreleg of the pony it answered whilst purring.

“We’ll get some food tomorrow, I promise,” the black-and-white pony replied, still petting the cat who was purring like no tomorrow.

A gryphon stood in front of a screen that hung above a control panel laden with keys and a steering wheel. “I see something!” he cried, causing literally everything else that was breathing in the tank to rush to the panel in seconds, all three weapons dropping and clattering to the floor as though nothing more than used bullet shells. There, outside in the raging snowstorm, something was approaching. What it was, nobody was certain—all the thing was had been a far-off silhouette blurred by the howling winds and hellish flurry of purest white.