Author's Notes:

Well, after heavily looking over the original version of Arcane, I found it pretty bad by my new, ahem, skills in writing. So I decided to write it again, but vastly different—a standalone redo, if you will. Comments contain slight spoilers, and review comments are outdated, as the story is still undergoing heavy revisions; do not read those until you've read this story so you can see why. Original, nonsensical version can be found here, if you want to see how bad it is for yourself. And a blog explaining the use of asterisks in the first 26 chapters and intro.

Thanks to Xinrick and Aes Nebula (who has made an alt and sadly gone inactive some weeks ago, may he rest in peace) for supporting the original stories, including the sequel to the sequel of the original (which will, in due time, get its own re-written version. Yay).

Further thanks to Norris for helping me spiff up the intro. He's awesome. :D Added thanks to WIL_I_ZIN, Typewriterpony, La Barata, and Discord Kantus for editing before Norris came along. Much appreciated.

There was 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. In this frozen landscape, which sorely lacked any signs of flora and fauna, if one looked hard enough they could see four lone ponies and a huge object as they trudged through the powdery, chilling snow at a rather sluggish pace. In doing so, they left behind four sets of hoofprints and a pair of tread-like tracks that quickly filled in with a few fresh layers of snow. The cold winds that fueled this hellish blizzard had been getting to the lot all the while, but they still pressed on regardless of the flurry and cold.

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 over the howling snowstorm swirling around them. "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, 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 had been an octave higher than the first two, one sounding like a high-pitched keen at first. This one stopped well away from the duo that had taken a moment to pause up 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 had gotten poked hissed. She whipped her head to the offending pony next to her, eyes narrowing to slits as a hint of a smile cropped up on his face.

“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 kept trotting on still a ways 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 the other pony that had still trotted brazenly onwards. 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 had been attached—was almost completely indiscernible, as the forms ahead were still obscured by the onslaught of whirling white.

“Alright!” cried the second, who then glanced at her side, looking at the pony who stood closest to her. He was a uniformed sort; with a long, thick, sable coat flapping past his hinds that held fast onto his withers and barrel. “Let’s go, you black-coated, torn-eared, rusted redhead,” she murmured. 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 accompanied her jabbed accusingly. He too began 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, brushing aside her messy bangs sloppily before putting her hoof down into the snow and 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, Natalie—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?” Natalie 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 retorted, rolling his eyes even as the mare glared daggers at him.

“Hey! They're called pigtails, dipshit!" Anna snarled, front hooves spacing out as she knelt forward in an offensive stance. She rose a hoof and pointed at the viridian locks for emphasis as she went on, "They're not bushes, Matt! 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,” Matt spoke in a sarcastic voice, rolling his eyes again and 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 anyway,” he added, the grin on his muzzle spreading just a little more and appearing that much more smug.

“Fine, you blond-maned asshole,” Anna spat, her horn starting to glow in a vivid green aura. A wooden flute with intricate carvings appeared from a flicker of green light and began to float next to her, but the winds were now whirling with a vengeance. These winds took to 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, 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. Her ears started twitching as the snow-filled gales kept assaulting her, along with the rest of the landscape.

She glanced behind herself, seeing a bow of gemstones and stone laden on her back alongside a quiver filled with arrows to match, 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 and silver. 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.

Matt 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—until they got close enough that he could see 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 rather dreary 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 bow in my beak, okay?” he said with a frown, carefully plucking the gem-encrusted weapon off of the mare’s backside by pulling it out of a sheath with his beak.

He then descended further and wrapped his forelimbs around her midsection, narrowly avoiding a quiver laden on her body in the process. Once this had been 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 glowed in a soft blue, and the sod she had yelled at noticed a blur of red fast approaching him. He simply blocked the oncoming object by shielding himself with a wing before it had the chance to connect with his head.

“Stop your griping, and stop trying to hit me with your crystal-tipped redwood 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!” Natalie snarled, eyes narrowing low. She trudged over to him until she stood at his side, and then clambered onto his back like a child desperately 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 found himself 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 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 scant few seconds they bore witness to a dull luster 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, with about the capacity of a blimp, and fitted with two machine guns and two drills at the sides, further fitted with a central cannon on top.

The top of this metallic behemoth sported a gargantuan lid-like structure that stood vertically up at a sharp 90-degree angle, and the gryphons maneuvered their way inside a hole this lid had concealed. They were careful to avoid scraping themselves or the ponies they carried against the rim. 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, a loud metallic clang ringing inside their ears and shelter for a good few minutes.

The interior was indeed very warm, and it could qualify as roomy to boot. Eight more gryphons were inside, all sitting patiently as if they had been waiting for their fellow gryphons and the ponies to climb aboard for some time. Some bolted-down 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 had even been a rotisserie, among other things, and all the objects in the cabinet were tucked neatly away and held in place by rather flimsy-looking cages of glass adorned with faint runes.

Between these two object-filled 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 formed from a plethora of objects. One of these arrows seemed as if made of scrap steel and gears, shining a dull copper that rivaled some of the bullets. A gryphon strode to and opened a third chest; he 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 had been unceremoniously tossed onto her body. She was shivering and snarling through clenched teeth, “And whose oh-so-bright idea was this, again?!”

“Mine too,” Anna bemoaned, eyes averting towards the ‘midget-horned’ stallion for a few seconds. Without the mist of snow in the way, she could see he had a horn only three inches in length. “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 began 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 bears! With boots thick enough to choke a dragon!” Natalie 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 rapidly derailed 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 club.

“She better not poke her eyes out with that thing. Those gems on that bow could really do some damage…” he thought for a second before looking over at the weapon and pushed the thought from his mind. He gave the green-maned mare another glance, noticing that she had taken an arrow out of her quiver to use like an accusing hoof. And then she loaded the arrow into the drawstring. “Joy, looks like she's about to shoot Matt with the damn thing. I hope he responds fast enough to deflect her arrows, if and when she decides to fire them.”

His eyes darted off to a dark-feathered gryphon with a black feline coat 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,” he sighed and nodded. He raised his front legs skyward, pointing his head upwards as well, moving to stand on shaky rear legs like he had the desire 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. This exposed a metal plate on his back, fashioned of steel and with a thin melting layer of frost having already accumulated. His wings were also covered in steel, adorned with copper feathers protruding from small metal spikes. Like his back, they too had a rapidly-disintegrating layer of frozen water.

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

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

“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 split-second in amusement.

“Listen here, Mister I-Can’t-Fly-Because-My-Wings-Can’t-Lift-Me,” Natalie 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,” Lance immediately 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…” Natalie shrieked, and once again, the argument had started right back at square one. The trio of unicorns began raising hell at one another, and this time it started getting more physical, because Natalie began to swing and hurl her staff at the half-Clydesdale stallion. He merely took the hits like he had been a living 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 dropped and connected with 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 floated, secured in an aura of gold, and as the red-eyed stallion took another quick-second glance at Matt, he noticed that his horn glowed with a similar 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…” Lance paused for a bit, 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 themselves, for that matter—the argument had quickly became a full-on brawl complete with flailing hooves 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 had been tightly 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 as best she could, using her magic to grab the sword and the staff to keep them spaced apart too.

“No,” the trio said in unison.

“Alright then. Stop fighting,” Jeremy 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 spiel began, taking their weapons with and shooting glares at him, bitterly mumbling "crow-jaguar" to themselves the entire time. Jeremy simply chortled at the mutterings, rolling his eyes at the unicorns before cantering to the chests and digging through them for something.

Lance finally 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 Matt, who had a puzzled brow raised, using his magic to poke the lone pegasus he addressed with a stick that had appeared from nowhere. He did not bother to get up off his rump to do so as the poking with the stick persisted.

Lance instantly snapped out of his stupor and blinked a few times as the question registered in his mind and the feeling of the stick repeatedly touching him caused his shoulder to twitch. “Uh... to take my mind off of you arguing with the girls, Matt,” he replied quickly.

“Uh-huh,” Matt hesitantly sighed, slowly nodding his head as if skeptical of Lance’s words. “Riiiiight.”

“I’m hungry!” Anna interjected in complaint, 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,” Lance remarked with a frown, and he shot a quick glance at two identical maroon gryphons and nodded to them. Quickly, they nodded back and turned to a stove that stood just behind them. A third with gold feathers and stripes on an orange body 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—let alone sort all the junk within it—and he made sure to take a flashlight with him as an added 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 soon 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: a missile-shaped opbject with a red body that had a great white stripe running down the middle, with said stripe adorned by a manji. He and the gryphon exchanged just one glance; a panicked face meeting that of a stone-cold mask which tethered 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 striped gryphon who'd been addressed as a 'canary-colored tiger' frantically nodded, rummaging through the contents of the sack with twice the agility he’d had previously. He looked back at the pegasus and shook after another fifteen minutes, wide brown eyes betraying his nervousness. “I-I just double-checked. We’re out,” he stammered as he emerged from the sack of stuff for the second time.

Lance hissed as he briskly 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. A whole slew of things filled the sack, like trinkets, more bullets, many valuable gemstones, and a wide variety of other items. All of this the pegasus dug through in desperation, in an attempt to find one morsel of food.

He did this once, then twice, then thrice with haste before stopping his mad digging fit and getting out of the bag with sluggish movements and ragged breathing. Looking back at his fellow ponies after a total of another forty-five minutes, he noticed their impatient looks and shook his head. “Yep. We’re out of food,” he sighed flatly. "Didn't even find a rotten slab of meat or stale loaf of bread."

“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,” Natalie groaned, a hoof connecting with her face in short order. "I'm also glad Lance isn't rambling about the fucking snow 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,” Matt instantly replied with wide eyes and a hasty nod. He had his front hooves raised, almost as if the pegasus stood 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!” Lance continued, pointing a hoof and waving it at a rather empty portion of the tank everyone stood in.

A cat appeared in a glimmering blue flash of light. This cat meowed and then sighed. The feline was blue-furred and missing all four limbs—yet somehow defying the fact and standing upright on its hips without aid. 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?” Matt asked, petting the cat with his hoof.

NoLegs 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,” Matt replied in a friendly tone, still petting the cat, who kept purring like no tomorrow. With that, silence filled the air, with the only sound breaking it being the steady whirring of the heaters and the treads as the tank pressed on through the snow. Two hours passed before someone chanced a look towards a particular object.

A forest green gryphon moved until he stood in front of a screen that hung above a control panel laden with keys and a steering wheel. “I see something!” he cried. His exclamation ended up causing everyone else, cat included, in the tank to rush to the panel in mere 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 began to hesitantly approach. What it had been, nobody was certain—all the thing was, to the naked eye aided by the screen, a far-off silhouette blurred by the howling winds and hellish flurry of purest white.

The silhouette drew closer yet, and all eyes were still glued to the screen watching it.

“What is that?” asked one brown gryphon, blinking.

“Not sure, Nathan. Let’s wait till it gets closer, and then we see how it plays out,” Lance replied, leaning in closer to the screen. Silence filled the tank, and all were tense as the thing drew even closer.

Brown matted fur stood out against the pure white. A four legged frame lumbered forward, the limbs ending in dulled yellow claws.

There could be no mistaking it: the beast approaching them had been a bear. The tranquility still lingered in the tank when the group realized what the encroaching beast was. And then, the silence broke as fast as it had settled in, while Matt's eyes began to gleam.

“Sweet! We get to eat after all!” Matt cried in joy as a smile crossed his muzzle, rushing to the hatch and grabbing his sword with a magic tinged in gold during the process. As his blanket flew off, he revealed his cutie mark: a black silhouette of a sword in a pentagram's star-center. His white back legs propelled him in tandem with his front ones as he got closer to the hatch.

“Yay!” Anna cheered, also rushing to the hatch whilst scooping up her bow. A sharpened arrow and flute, crossed in an X shape with, a poison ivy vine wrapping around where both had intersected had been her cutie mark.

“May as well help get the damn thing,” Natalie sighed, also going to the hatch and casting off her blanket. Her cutie mark was a shooting star, leaving behind three colored feathers of red, blue, and gold in the wake of its trailing tail. The trio of unicorns clambered out by levitating themselves in their magic, but once they let their hooves land in the snow, the bear had stopped well away from the tank. Anna squinted her eyes and noticed that the beast had leaned its head down to sniff at something, but she wasn’t quite sure what.

Anna instantly made to trot towards the bear, but a thick-furred white leg stopped her. She turned to Matt with a frown on her face. “What?” she asked.

“Snipe it from here. It won’t know what hit it,” he answered with a nod.

“I’d have to get closer; the damn snow is obstructing me, and I think the wind’s gonna turn my arrows sideways before they hit the target,” she replied with an irritated huff. The leg that stood in her way her dropped, its hoof landing once again in the snow as the stallion merely groaned.

“She’s right; if the wind picks up any more speed, our manes will get in our faces at this rate,” Natalie agreed with a nod. “From here, I can hardly see the damn bear as it is. I’m grateful the tank saw the bear before we did!”

Matt processed this for a moment before smiling. “If that’s the case, then the bear probably can’t see us through the snow. Ample time to sneak up on the fucker.” Maybe the wind will change direction and help the arrow along." His smile widened as he spoke. Cautiously, the three approached the bear, making their hoofsteps as quiet as possible—easier said than done, since the snow crunched beneath them as they went. Once they were a good football field's length from it, Anna paused to squint her eyes again and see the beast.

“Stop. I think it’s found a corpse,” she hissed, her remark causing the two other unicorns who trotted ahead to turn to her.

“A corpse? Of what?” Natalie cautiously asked, quirking a brow as the wind shifted to blow her and Matt's tails between their rear legs.

“Dunno—all I see’s a splotch of dark red,” Anna answered, slowly taking out an arrow from her quiver. The other two quickly got out of her way as she put the arrow into the drawstring, levitated the bow before her body, and took aim. The stone bent, flexing like rubber, as the arrow pulled further back until the string was taut. She fired the arrow once she had been all but certain it would connect with her target, and it flew brazenly through the still-falling snow and the winds propelling it.

Against all odds, the winds pushed the projectile onward, causing it to hit the bear right in the head—instantly, the creature fell over in the snow with the grace of a wrecking ball. It lay still in the white, nothing more than a brown heap of fur and flesh.

“Aww!” Matt complained, stomping a hoof in the snow with a pout. “I wanted more of a challenge!”

“We’re way stronger and smarter than these bears. They really can’t challenge us,” Natalie sighed, and with that they resumed trotting to the beast. They stopped once they reached it, only to find what it had been sniffing at earlier—a half-buried, filly-sized, moon-pale corpse of a very peculiar pony, if it could be called such. “What should we do with this dead pony?” she asked, hefting up the bear in her magic with ease, being mindful to avoid the deceased pony. She could not help but notice a dark red mane laying askew, forming stringy clumps that rested upon much of the pony's face.

“Those eyes are black and wide open,” Anna began, using a hoof to brush aside some of the pony’s mane so the other two could see its face, which sported a torn cheek that formed a half-grin stretching all the way to the underside of its left ear, “you think it blinded itself?”

“Doubt it,” Matt replied, prodding at the pony’s ribs with his hoof. He noticed a tattered blue scarf barely clinging to its neck, but nothing more than that clothing-wise. “Damn, this one’s just skin and bones—it has the thinnest stomach I've seen yet. How’d this poor thing get out here like this, especially with just a scarf around its neck?” His eyes trailed to a jutting, almost-rectangular-but-not-quite protrusion between the thing's rear legs. "Is that... a dick?"

“It has changeling’s wings. I reckon it flew,” Natalie sighed and frowned, using some more of her magic to heft the carcass up from the snow. Strangely, the peculiar pony wasn’t stiff, though it was limp, and it sported dull clawed horseshoes of steel bearing intricate carvings on its hooves. Its legs were riddled with tears that exposed sinew and yellowed bone that oddly did not have any sort of blood on them, indicating that they'd been that way for quite a while.

The tear on the left cheek was perfectly mirrored by the right, forming a hellish and unnervingly wide grin that could not have occurred naturally. The wings she spotted came in two pairs, one behind the other, and both sets barely held together in thin crimson filaments. They looked as if they'd crumble with just the slightest touch, having more holes than should be possible, and had a translucent red tint about them.

Anna trotted around and took a peek between the cadaver's rear legs, before then doubling back to its face, eyeing the pony's suspiciously red backside and a set of thin ribs matching in color. She turned to Matt and sighed. “It's a girl. Matt, you've mistaken the pelvic bone for a dick." She paused to assess the corpse's front end, eyeing a jagged protrusion that emerged from the corpse's forehead only matched by mule-like ears that flopped uselessly.

"She has a broken stump on her forehead, her mane and tail are thin and stringy, her ears are longer than normal, and she has had chunks taken out of her legs…" Anna paused for a moment. "I think we may have found a dead changeling queen,” she groaned. “But why’s her mane a dark red, and why is her skin light grey? Hell, why’s her mouth torn open to the point she has a creepy grin going from ear to ear?”

“Perhaps she’s been out here a while. I’mma get her horseshoes off her hooves,” Matt sighed, conjuring some more of his magic to remove said horseshoes from the mare’s hooves. “Let’s take the corpse with us; maybe Lance knows something about dead changeling queens.”

A noise caught the attention of the trio, one that sounded like a distant boom of thunder. They looked around in all directions, but nothing stood out against the vast white aside from the tank. The unicorns glanced up, yet could see nothing past the ongoing flurry of snow which once again started to pick up in intensity, let alone past the darkening grey skies above.

Another rumble shook the skies, this time louder, and the ground lightly quaked in response. The snow coating it shook as well, all flakes appearing to jump up and down like the most minute of pebbles.

“Oh, shit, thundersnow incoming!” Natalie shrieked, eyes widening. Her ears fell flat against her skull as the dreaded ruckus vehemently roared once more, this time with enough force to shake her and the other two unicorns in addition to the snow and ground.

The three quickly turned and galloped back into the tank in short order with their new catch, as well as the dead changeling and horseshoes in tow. They levitated themselves inside, and hastily threw the bear onto the floor of the metallic behemoth and the corpse onto one of the gurneys, as well as the shoes into one of the chests.

Lance approached the lot as the hatch slammed shut. “We’re probably gonna need his fur,” he said, turning to one of the gryphons whilst pointing at the bear for emphasis, this one sporting a light grey lion's body and plumage. “Get me the skinning knife, Quicksilver.”