The night parted for the dawn after some long, grueling hours, yet the only sign that it even arrived was the clouds in the sky brightening considerably from black to dark grey. The ectoplasms still hung in the air, crackling and releasing lightning intermittently, seemingly waiting for something other than the airships to take flight. Yet all life in Ashwood remained absolutely still; even the cooling magma did not bubble or pop with its usual flair, nor did the tendrils, still smouldering and smoking from last night's activities, lift so much as a flake of ash. The wind itself failed to come and stir the branches, almost as though it were avoiding the area entirely, or perhaps holding its bated breath.

Greenwood's barrier dropped, but that was the only sign of movement from the forest village in question. Nopony dared to leave their houses, of which the number was an impressive eighty that could be easily counted from above, and not even the Mighty Oak dared move from his shrine, no doubt as rattled as the villagers by the rain of weapons that came and went. This was good, now that the airships' myriad of eyes were trained on the town, some with telescopes handy. Rhinoc was one of those who held a telescope, with his magic no less.

He watched from the deck of his vessel, his telescope trained on a small and unguarded stump in the town. The stump was adorned with tattered paper talismans and a single, leaf-shaped jewel of viridian with golden veins all connected to a thin stem. "Maybe they set up the barrier so they wouldn't have to watch the jewel, on top of keeping the trees out…" Rhinoc muttered, shaking his head at the sight. "Bunch of lazy asses. Their houses are made of trees; bastards don't know what irony is..."

As he continued to mull and mutter about how Greenwood's ponies were stupid in one capacity or another, the hatch slowly and rather fitfully flopped for a few minutes, before it finally opened with a groan of protest. From the hatch, someone emerged with a small grunt of exertion. Whoever it was pattered over to Rhinoc with very light steps and gently tapped his front knee to get his attention with a rather thin digit once they reached him. Rhinoc lowered the telescope and looked down at his legs, finding Maria looking back up at him with a talon raised. "Yes?" he asked.

"You have to get inside," Maria said, frowning. Her voice was tinged with a note of urgency.

Rhinoc's brow raised. "Listen, kid, I don't have to get inside. You can't—"

"But daddy said so," Maria replied, preemptively cutting Rhinoc off before he could finish. "He wants you inside right now."

Rhinoc's mouth shut, and he sighed through his nostrils before making the telescope vanish in a flare of light. "Well played, Lance. Well played," he thought with a nod of resignation. Maria dropped her talon, turned tail, and made a beeline for the hatch before jumping down. Rhinoc followed her, but not prior to waiting for a few seconds so she could gain a bit of distance from him, making sure to close the hatch on his way down to see what the hell his superior wanted. "Now we have another military foal… at least this one's more metaphorical, in that sense…"

Maria led him down to a massive, linear room that had a lift opposite of the ladder, spanning some impressive eighty yards and started trotting to the lift. Machines whirred to life and worked tirelessly, turning gears and pulling chains and pumping with glowing lines and runes that dotted every surface brightly. The runes were surrounding several crystals, and all but a few were either green, blue, or gold in color. The few that weren't were bright red instead, and gave of a bit of concentrated darkness that collected around the ceiling. Large copper pipes interlocked the machines, further interspersed with clear glass windows that gave a good view of some kind of blackened substance flowing within.

Wires splayed out across a bolted tile floor rather haphazardly, though none were cut open, and these too further connected the machines. To one side, there was a sight that caused Maria and Rhinoc to stop: four panels stood between a gap in the machines halfway down the hall, with a screen that displayed small green bars in one corner and some sort of ancient, archaic language Maria had trouble deciphering. The panels also sported crystal-studded helmets with holes drilled into the forehead and two holes in the sides for some purpose and, bizarrely, bolted-in shoes for hooves and mechanical arms that held up body-shaped slots which were bolted into them.

The slots and shoes also had crystals embedded into their frames, and runes surrounding them as well, though both were outside instead of inside the shoes and slots, probably to avoid actually agitating the hooves and sections when applied. The panels were currently in disuse, having gathered a thin layer of dust that would need to be removed before its next operation. Strangely, these panels were color-coded; in order from left to right, one was red, the next blue, the third gold, and the last a vivid green.

The crystals on the leftmost panel did not exude darkness the way the others did, instead flickering very weakly with a fading light, and stranger still they framed two extra holes on the sides of the helmet, large and round as small ramekins. The other crystals glittered with a brightness that would have made very decent portable lanterns, if actually treated as such.

"What's all this stuff?" Maria asked, lifting a talon to gesture to all of the machinery.

"We're in the engine room, kid. Over there's the charging panels," Rhinoc answered, nodding to the panels in question. "We convert raw magic to electrical energy, with a bit of hydraulics thrown in to stabilize it. Unfortunately, ponies have to cast to charge it."

Maria blinked, turned to Rhinoc, and canted her head at him. She recalled hearing Lance mutter something about charging objects and asked, "Why?"

"These crystals were mined from the nearby caverns, and they'll need a regular charge. Otherwise, the airship will drop," Rhinoc muttered with a sigh. "And they only react positively to a pony's magic. Lance used to help charge the things with his wings, until he got grounded…"

Maria turned to the panels again and took a better look at the oddly-shaped slots before noticing that one particular set was larger than the others, indicating that the pony who would use it simply had a bigger body, or perhaps extra limbs that would need to be tucked away. The panel with blue crystals shared this feature as well, strangely enough. "So that's why mommy hurt before we went to Mythos?" she queried.

"Well, now that you mention it… she hurt with Matt and Natz every time these things were charged. Maybe they needed to compensate by giving it more energy," Rhinoc mused, then he shrugged. "Don't step on the wires. You did say your daddy needed me?"

Maria jolted at the reminder, wide-eyed before she nodded and rushed the rest of the way to the lift, though she was careful to avoid tripping over and accidentally cutting into the wires with her talons in the process. Rhinoc snorted and followed after her, pressing the button once they boarded on and simply letting the lift do the rest.

She led him specifically to the master room, in an ascent and then a walk that lasted for no more than fifteen minutes, accounting for a second lift ride after they'd reached the lounging area. When they strode in, the door already suspiciously open, Rhinoc found three of his superiors wide awake and in tip-top shape… and one of them seemingly half-asleep, whose legs were threatening to buckle. Anna's face was flushed to hell, her mane hanging to her front knees without the baubles to support it, tangled into large knots that covered her right eye and framed her left. She stared vacantly at him, or perhaps at a point past him; her exposed eye was bloodshot and puffy.

Rhinoc frowned. "Is she alright?" he asked, looking pointedly at Anna. It took her a few seconds, but she shook her head at his query.

"Nightmares… getting… worse," Anna muttered, her voice dry and raspy.

Lance spared Anna a very worried look, his brow slanting briefly before he turned to Rhinoc and his expression became neutral. That lapse was impossible to miss; Rhinoc could see the concern glimmering in his crimson eyes. "You summoned me… via your filly, sir?" Rhinoc tried.

Lance nodded, then turned to Maria. "You may head back to your room now," he muttered. Maria nodded and trotted off, making sure to close the door behind her. Anna fell to her haunches the second the door met with its frame, front legs straining to hold her front quarters now that the back legs had slipped. "First off… is the jewel still there?"

Rhinoc nodded. "Nopony came out, though. Rainbow was right; the villagers have probably shat bricks by now," he answered. "And your adopted one asked me about the engine room. I made sure she didn't fuck with anything, but I did answer her queries as best as I could." He paused. "Sir, you may need to revitalize one of the panels downstairs sooner or later for this vessel," he added. "Its crystals are very dim, and your wings are now in peak condition again."

"And speaking of vessels, the villagers have probably noticed the ones in the sky by now," Natalie added, wearing a tight frown on her face. "But, unless they suddenly sprout wings or learn to self-levitate in the course of twenty-four hours, we have nothing to worry about there."

"There's plenty to worry about!" Anna suddenly shrieked with enough force to make everyone else stagger briefly, ears flattening against her head as her front legs gave out. "What if they do manage to fly in that time frame?!"

"And the fireworks started…" Matt muttered, frowning. Lance sighed, trotted to Anna, laid down next to her and draped a wing over her backside. Anna bristled for a moment, before relaxing and lowering her head between her forelegs. All the while, he kept his gaze firmly anchored onto Rhinoc.

"Yeaaaaaah… somepony needs a nap," Lance stated in a low, gentle whisper. He used his wing to shake Anna's withers a bit, and her head jerked up. "Did you get anything, new passengers aside?"

"Information-wise, no. Most of the trees told us to fuck off, and the ones that didn't either told us to stay away, or were simply unable to speak," Rhinoc replied, his shoulders sagging. He glanced at Anna, half-expecting her to have another outburst of some sort, though it seemed that having a wing draped over her calmed her down a little. "Only one was polite about it."

"Well, that was a bust," Natalie groused, lifting a hoof to rub her temples. "Wouldn't be surprised if the trees started diddling kids too on top of that."

"I saw a tree fuck a foal once! That foal's one of them now!" Anna cried again, pupils shrinking as she lowered her head again. "One of them…" she repeated in a weak whisper.

Rhinoc shuddered at that mental imagery. He decided he needed to change the topic again, lest Anna continue losing her marbles on her current train of thought. "So… any change in plans?" he asked.

Lance lifted a hoof and tapped at his temples for a moment, his frown contorting a little at the corners like it could not decide whether or not to widen. "Love makes Katie heal, but also makes her act high as a kite…" he muttered.

"Come again?" Rhinoc asked, canting his head.

"Found her in a frozen hellhole…" Lance continued, seemingly lost in thought.

"Babbly babbly fuck fuck?" Natalie snarked, turning to Lance with a bemused brow raised.

Lance dropped his hoof, and his head tilted a little. He blinked before focusing on Rhinoc again. "You think our nooblet would handle despair easily? It's not like she could sense it, with her horn being out of commission," he queried, though it came out more like a statement since it was spoken in that no-nonsense tone.

Rhinoc's wings jolted upright and buzzed fervently in surprise, his eyes widening at the question. "S-sir, are you certain about this? H-her wings a-are…"

Lance nodded, a smirk forming on his muzzle that was so slight it came off more as a pursing of his lips. "There is a way we could get her to heal faster," he retorted firmly. "We just have to make sure a very peculiar, vital ingredient has been converted to thaumic energy and brought aboard…"

Matt and Natalie's pupils shrank and they exchanged glances. "What's he on about?" Matt asked. Natalie shrugged.

Anna answered, though not before taking a few seconds to let her sleep-deprived brain process the question, "Poison joke…"

Lance nodded. "But if poison joke hasn't been brought for the ride…" He turned to Matt and Natalie before asking, "Does Lazarus know any invisibility spells?" When they shrugged at him, he sighed. "Well, send him a telepathic message and ask."

Matt sighed, his horn lighting up for a few seconds before the aura dimmed. Everyone waited for several minutes, during which Anna nestled her head between her forelegs and started dozing, when a blue-red glow embraced Matt's head and he jolted in place.

"No, he does not," Matt reported glumly. "And he's cranky because my message got to him after a nightmare woke him up."

Lance frowned. "So much for that," he grumbled.

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

Lazarus was in a very sour mood, his mane frazzled and narrowed eyes gleaming red and bloodshot to the point it was difficult to tell where the iris ended and the sclera began. His coat was matted, his crystalline sheen sporadic and flickering as though many sources of light were turning on and off around him without rhyme nor reason. Right now he simply sat in bed with his forelegs crossed, snorting like a petulant foal. With him were Fenrir and Sarah, who kept their distance by sitting in a triad of chairs at a table, both leaving one seat empty and eyeing him warily. All three held their breath, seemingly waiting for something to disrupt their stillness, for minutes on end.

Eventually, Fenrir could no longer take the silence anymore. "Do you have plans to go back to sleep anytime soon?" he asked.

Lazarus shook his head. "No; that… goat-faced fucker would've otherwise just come back and dropped an entire continent on my ass in the dream world just for shits and giggles," he growled, his voice raspy. "And that crazy moon-marked pony claiming she's a princess in the sister world. Well, if she's princess, then I'm king of the wasps!"

Fenrir frowned at that. He opened his mouth to say something else, when Sarah lifted her talon and clamped his mouth shut with it, before angling his head down to let him see her shaking her head in disapproval. "I reckon he's only thinking it's his imagination. Just let him vent," she mouthed. She released her hold on Fenrir's muzzle and watched him nod and sigh in resignation. At that moment, Lazarus uncrossed his forelegs and stretched them before he clambered out of bed and trotted unsteadily to the toiletries' corner.

As soon as the sound of running water graced their ears, Sarah snorted rather disdainfully. "Just you wait until he sees the Mythonians' giant flying fish of an airship," she scoffed.

Fenrir nodded. "He may still believe himself to be going insane," he remarked rather matter-of-factly. With tactful consideration, he added, "Yet then again, during our stay in Mythos, I have gleaned that Discord does indeed cause madness with his mere presence. Perhaps that is why Lazarus is… more snappish as of late."

Sarah couldn't argue with that. She decided to switch to another topic before Lazarus could start eavesdropping, "Do you think Lance will let me join the military?"

Fenrir's brow arched sharply at that. "Perhaps. However, he may not, or if he should, then the soldiers may well regard him as if he truly lost it," he muttered in reply. When Sarah canted her head, he elaborated, "As it stands, they may see your inclusion, should you join, as a sort of favoritism on Lance's behalf. Your sister is one of his right-hoof ponies, for Godcat's sake. How could it be anything but, in the eyes of the lesser troops who worked their wings off?"

Sarah paused, having not really considered that point until now. "Damned if I do, damned if I don't, huh?" she asked.

Fenrir hastily nodded. "You may as well be balancing upon a rope between two steep cliffs, wings bound or worse and upon the tip of your snout," he stated firmly. "And he has already lit a pyre under his own arse by recruiting Katie. Lazarus, I could well understand."

Sarah pursed her lips, seeing where Fenrir was going. "Sounds fishy to me too, unless…" She lifted a talon and put it to her chin, tapping idly. "He thinks it could help her somehow?"

"As sound an explanation as any… in the realm of what is strictly a hypothesis," Fenrir stated, his tone edging toward incredulousness. "Be that as it may, he is pleased to see her eating… so there is credence to your guess, I must admit."

Sarah dropped her talon and assumed a tiny smirk. Her ear twitched when the water shut off, and she craned her neck to find Lazarus trotting out of the toiletries' corner, soaking wet and with a towel resting askew upon his back. "Did that shower help you any?" she asked sincerely.

Lazarus turned to her and nodded sluggishly, and Sarah noticed his eyes were less bloodshot and narrowed. Still, that irritated frown of his clung to his muzzle like glue, though it too had receded a bit with his recent shower. "A little... " His horn lit up, and his magic grabbed the towel before he willed it to wipe away the excess water. "I'm still gonna need coffee today, though… I wonder if there's any left."

"I gotta admit, they have some good brews in their stocks," Sarah chirped, purring a little at the thought of a fresh mug of Joe. "If they don't grow it, then they import the shit like no tomorrow."

"Making the vast assumption, of course, that this military is also somehow its own province," Fenrir snarked, smiling a little at that rather absurd thought.

"Although… I can't help but wonder how they make their money. My sister does get paid; she showed me her last six months' payment bags last night. They're hefty things too; a good ten thousand bits per bag at the least," Sarah muttered. At that, Fenrir gave a low whistle.

"Ten thousand bits?" Lazarus echoed, trotting over to the two, still rubbing his body with the towel in an effort to finish drying off. "What the hell did she do to earn that much per month, invent a new form of magic or something?"

"I dunno. She didn't tell me," Sarah replied with a shrug of earnest. "Now I kinda envy her."

"Well, whatever the reason, if it's ten thousand every month… she must have done something admirable enough to warrant it," Fenrir chimed in, his smirk widening a little.

"Eh, we shouldn't worry about it much," Lazarus interjected with a shrug, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

Sarah turned to Lazarus with a brow quirked. "Shouldn't? Why?" she asked.

Lazarus shook his head, his voice turning serious and grim as he answered, "You probably wouldn't be admitted into the army. Only reason Red Eyes recruited me was Matt's big mouth, and he just… had this creepy grin glued to his fucking facehole."

"You speak like Lance is a demon of the apocalypse or something," Sarah murmured, though she did not miss Lazarus's shudder and teeth clenching when 'creepy grin' left his mouth. "Truth be told, he's not all that bad, just… quirky."

"He smiled like a fucking demon of the apocalypse, I swear to the fates! Godcat's my witness!" Lazarus hissed through grit teeth, ears folding back as that grin came to the forefront of his thoughts for a moment.

"Well, you did give him a week to acclimate before you could let him order you around," Sarah stated firmly, causing Lazarus's mouth to snap shut before he could utter so much as another syllable. "And that week has barely even started and shit's hit the fan, so Lance may extend that wait behind your back just to sort it out."

"And besides, he has yet to give you an assignment of any sort, let alone having you go through a gauntlet of vetting processes," Fenrir added, folding his arms over his chest. Cocking his head and tapping a bicep with a digit, he continued, "So you do not have any rank as of the present. What he knows of you is from word of mouth, and whose lips… you have already clarified for me." He leaned toward Lazarus, not once blinking. "You'd best prepare yourself. I don't know if whatever training regiments he may have are grueling or not, but I think it's better to be safe and sure than sorry and sore."

Lazarus mulled it over for a few seconds, before he shrugged and nodded at that. "And as for that 'grin' of his? I have yet to see Lance smile beyond 'slightly curved thin line' during my tenure in this mess, and it sounds to me as if he had perhaps forced himself to grin in such a manner. He's as stone-cold as they come, Lazarus," Fenrir finished.

"Cold to everyone except the diplomats and his right-hoof ponies," Sarah stated matter-of-factly, leaning back into her seat. "And Maria," she added.

"And you, by extension," Fenrir chimed in, garnering a snort from Sarah.

"It's as you said; only because of my sister," Sarah snarked with a roll of her eyes. "But I think she may have had something to do with it." When she got a pair of incredulous looks, she proceeded to spin up a rather insane, improbable train of reasoning behind it, "She may've convinced Lance to bring me with to see how competent in the battlefield I am, which compared to her, isn't a whole lot. I may be part of some cock-measuring contest that only they know about."

Fenrir and Lazarus shared a glance, then turned back to Sarah with both brows raised. "But… he hasn't seen you fight at all," Fenrir pointed out, frowning. "Only the aftermath, which resulted in a broken wing."

Sarah leaned forward with a sigh. "Eh. Chanson Cheval was a puss anyway," she scoffed. "And so were the old coots who dared call themselves his parents."

"Who the fuck would name their foal Chanson Cheval?" Lazarus interjected, garnering a flat stare from Sarah. "And who is he?"

"A dickpickle who thought it would be a great idea to lift my tail, whom I promptly challenged to an instrumental play-off… with a cursed harp, that then got the mother of all headaches. And he got arrested, broke out of jail, and broke my wing a few weeks after the fact," Sarah summarized with a huff. "Elitist, racist unicorn who was part of an orchestral band."

Lazarus frowned at that, and he noticed Sarah's lack of a wing-cast. "So… that's why your wing…"

Sarah nodded. "Yep. And he had a cousin who told me that I was in the wrong for acting in self-defense. Shining Armor got to see two-thirds of just about all three confrontations," she added.

Lazarus grimaced at that. "Was the family high, polite society…?"

Sarah nodded again. "Damn straight they were, fancily dressed and everything," she affirmed. Lifting a talon, she gestured to the empty chair and curled her claws, beckoning Lazarus to take a seat. He obliged, though not before putting the now-soaked towel back in the toiletries' corner to avoid dampening the seat. "So, how'd you get your cutie mark?" she asked, looking at Lazarus's bird-and-spear mark the moment he sat down.

Lazarus frowned and averted his gaze briefly. "Well… a lot of ponies were being rounded up to participate in a tournament, about nine-ish years ago. Me, Matt and Natz were barely teens; Natz was only twelve, and me and Matt about a year older than her. A cutie mark boom happened, and none of us earned our marks yet, but we were dragged into it too," he began dourly.

Fenrir rose a brow. "A tournament?" he echoed.

Lazarus nodded. "Yeah. We were put into a sort of arena like a gladiator's ring. Those who weren't participating were kept in small cages until they were called on and dragged into the ring." He swallowed heavily. "My frenemyship was just forming with Matt and Natz, but never once had I wanted to kill them."

"Kill?" Sarah queried, leaning toward Lazarus a bit when the word left her mouth.

Lazarus nodded, his frown deepening. His voice turned grim as he continued, "It got to the point where it was just us three in the ring. All the other ponies who were dragged into it killed each other, well before us. In fact, we were the last three to be dragged into that ring. It was a three-way fight; winner-takes-all yadda yadda. But we… snapped when the ponies running that ring said that two of us had to die."

"What… transpired after they made that declaration?" Fenrir prodded, his ears folding back at what he was hearing.

"We all had a magic surge, simultaneously. Matt… summoned giant swords out of this fucking portal and tore the area up. Natalie… somehow pulled a giant meteor from that same portal down, broke it into several chunks with the swords, and rained a shit ton of fiery rocks. At the same time as that, her body was glowing white-hot all over. Matt's mane and tail turned to shadow, and hers just… I don't know what happened; I don't really recall what went with her or all I did that well, but I know the spear the asshats forked to me to kill Matt and Natz with had something to do with it," Lazarus answered with a shiver.

"I passed out within two minutes of the surge, and when I woke up Matt and Natz were carting me away from… a giant scorched pile of rubble bigger than this ship. The shadows and lights that came from their bodies were gone. But their eyes… their eyes were blood red, and I swear Natalie was pale as the fucking moon. It took them a whole day to return to normal fully."

Both sets of eyes went wide at that. "... so you're saying that place was leveled?" Sarah muttered, a hint of awe and fright present in her tone.

Lazarus nodded hesitantly. "We were the only ponies who left that area alive as far as I am aware, and if I recall it's still there, somewhere far to the south in a deep chasm. And when we found out we got cutie marks because of it, we all fucking panicked," he concluded somberly. "We only later learned that arena was dubbed the Royale Hall of Brawls… stupid name, I know. Its destruction was hence dubbed the Royale Catastrophe. Have you heard of the Catastrophe before?" Fenrir and Sarah slowly nodded.

"We have, but… not many details came out," Sarah muttered. "Only its aftermath, and that Brawls stopped being held after its destruction."

He turned to his mark and sighed bitterly. "Since then, I've hidden my mark under layers of cloth. As well as the rest of my body, just so ponies wouldn't recognize me. I thought that business was over and done with… but nooooo, Matt and Natz showed me a heaping stack of books found in a frozen hellhole before I went to bed…"

"What were the books about?" Fenrir queried, his face contorting to a scowl at what he'd just heard. Lazarus responded by conjuring a book in a flash of light and sliding it to him across the table. Fenrir opened the book and flipped through it, finding several cutie marks illustrated within the pages, though each one beared a bright red X crudely drawn over top. Another few books were summoned in short order, and he took a few minutes to deftly leaf through the whole lot one at a time. Only Lazarus, Matt, and Natalie's marks remained unblemished by those X's.

Only as he closed the last book twenty minutes after the first speed-reading did Fenrir look back at Lazarus. "Are these… records?" he asked incredulously.

Once more, Lazarus nodded, this time with his brow slanting and his tail quivering. "Of the fighters," he muttered tersely. "What I don't understand is… how our marks got into those books after the Catastrophe."

Fenrir's scowl deepened. "Someone likely saw their marks, but you kept yours covered… this is a very curious thing, indeed," he hissed sibilantly.

"Which is why Matt and Natz showed me those books to begin with," Lazarus agreed, his voice taking on a rueful note.

"And why did they round you and all those other ponies up?" Sarah queried, eyes narrowing dangerously low. "Why pit you in fights to the death? For what gain?"

Lazarus swallowed heavily before he answered, "Honestly, I don't remember… and I don't want to remember why."