The quarters Trevar was provided looked from the outside to be identical to the one across the street where Scott was staying. It was a modest two story home with an evident basement. The exterior greatly resembled a quaint Northern European or English townhouse with a thatched roof, exterior molding reminiscent of German fairy tale homes but with an almost cartoon flavor to it. No cut, corner or intersection was square, but the fits of walls, doors and windows had no obvious flaws.

When his pony escorts arrived, they each took up a position that corresponded to their comrades' across the street: one on the front door, one on the rear, and one at the cellar entrance. Trevar and Pardus entered the house without a word.

As soon as they were left alone, they got busy scoping out the house, although naturally, it was Pardus doing most of the work with deep scans using his advanced and sophisticated sensors. The shadowcat quickly located the stairs to the basement and began down there, while Trevar headed upstairs. They stayed in telepathic contact, relaying what they found to each other.

Trevar found the main bedroom at the end of the hallway at the top of the stairs, already furnished with a bed, a couple of nightstands on either side of the bed, a chest-of-drawers and a dressing table with mirror. Again, the workmanship was finely crafted despite nothing of the drawers was at right angles. If those drawers were ever all removed, they could only go back into the same slots they came from. The room also had a sizable closet. The ceiling was the bottom layer of the thatched roof, and he scowled at how that could be a problem. Another two rooms off the hallway were lightly furnished for guestrooms, also with closets, while one of them had numerous bookshelves that could double for a study. A communal bathroom with shower finished out the somewhat square upper floor.

Pardus found the basement was segmented into six dry storerooms. The bottom of the interior stairs met the foot of the stairs going up to the external access. The basement hallway formed an L shape, with the stairs starting at the short leg of the L. The door for the first storeroom was right by the foot of the interior stairs, the door to the next storeroom was at the bend of the hallway. The remaining storerooms were two on either side of the long leg of the hallway. All the spaces were currently empty from where the previous occupants tried to clear out, although some remains of what had been stored here were evident. Bits of corn on the cob, green beans and carrots in the first, remains of potatoes, onions, celery in the second, leftovers of wheat, alfalfa, rice and hay were scattered on the floors were respectively in the next two spaces, and the last two storerooms had been cleaned out too well to determine exactly what they had been used for, although there were signs one may have been used for storing clothing and/or blankets.

They met again on the main floor. The front door had opened into a foyer that led to the living room/dining room combination with a kitchen which had the back door to the outside and another bathroom evidently for visitors. Pardus continued upstairs while Trevar checked out the basement for himself.

'No signs of listening or monitoring devices, but that's no guarantee there aren't any,' Pardus sent as Trevar contemplated the empty storeroom farthest from the stairs. While in the kitchen, he had taken note of the proximity of a large orchard of apple trees extending for acres behind the back yard of the home.

'The previous owner is going to be pissed at the changes we're planning to make to this place,' Pardus commented, making Trevar snort.

'Think it's doable?' he asked.

'Panthera saw some structures being built in town using structural I-beams on her way to meet with the griffons,' Pardus considered, 'so there should be a source of steel that we can exploit. Cutting a tunnel out into that orchard will be child's play, although I am concerned about how we're going to hide the exit out there, it's obviously being constantly worked. The big hurtle will be to see if there's any way to counter their magic. We sure as hell don't want someone teleporting or the like in here while you're a dragon or out and about.'

'Agreed,' Trevar responded. 'Plus, there's those bloody griffons we'll have to deal with.'

'They're definitely going to be a problem,' Pardus warned him. 'They've spoken to Panthera about the need the both of us to help them. Their entire species is in trouble! They're facing an extinction-level failure in their population. Their numbers are back to the prewar levels, but they've been lately seeing a marked decline of egg laying and hatching rates and a huge increase of birth defects, infant mortality and psychosis due to a lack of genetic diversity.'

'That's an understatement!' Trevar sighed.' Considering that we can't breed with ourselves, there no way I can breed with them. Plus the fact that you're not even biologic. And why isn't she sending directly to me?'

'Too risky using telepathy at that distance until we know more about the abilities of the equines, especially those alicorns,' the shadowcat replied. 'Our encryption on top of the frequency-hopping transmissions we use should make it harder for interception.'

"How many know about this?" Panthera demanded.

"Only those in the highest levels of the Empire and our trusted operatives," Gustav admitted. "If word of this ever leaks out, there will be war, and there will be no stopping it! We've been doing our best to maintain the peace at all costs."

"So 'keeping the peace at all costs' is defined by going to war over Trevar being put on probation?" Panthera asked incredulous.

"That was my mistake, I admit it! Purely out of desperation! When you showed up in Cloudsdale, I could believe our good fortune. I was going to ask Celestia to allow me to speak with you in private, but then I heard the Cat-Lord speak! I couldn't let you both slip away! I'm sorry! I didn't know if you were aware of him, too and Celestia had no idea who she held! I—I—thought—if I threatened war, she would instantly turn you both over to me! I had no intension of actually doing it. But then she was willing to fight to keep you both…"

"She wasn't willing to go to war over us!" Panthera interrupted. "She was just simply having a 'what the fuck' moment trying to figure out what your problem was! You had blinded yourself with panic!"

"I know that now, and I'm very sorry for nearly revealing the existence of the Cat-Lord and our situation to Celestia," he said. "But there's more that you're not aware of. Our war with Equestria wasn't the first time our species was nearly wiped out. Similar disasters had happen twice before and once again after. Of those, the very first time was when the ship that brought us to this world crashed here."

"So you're not native to this planet?" Panthera asked.

"Neither are the ponies," Gustav replied. "They just got here a few thousand years before us."

"Then who are the original natives?" she wondered.

"Nopony knows," he replied. "Although it's well known that the dragons were here before the ponies, before Celestia ignited the sun. But even they had come from someplace else."

"Do you have any idea of where your home world lies?" she finally asked.

"Unfortunately, no," Gustav said, shaking his head.

'Just a thought,' Pardus sent, suddenly perking up. 'Try changing into a griffon!' Trevar considered it for a moment, and then quickly undressed. He concentrated on the image of their form, but nothing was happening. It seemed too alien for him to conceptualize, so he tried a different tactic. He knew he could do a panther, but what about an eagle?

When the brilliant flare faded, he stood there on his hind legs with feathered wings outspread, a proud visage of a bald eagle.

'Well, you're partway there,' Pardus quipped with a snort.

'Okay, I've got that down pat. Now how about…?' he sent as he concentrated once more, this time on trying to change into both an eagle and a panther at the same time. This time, the flare revealed he was indeed a griffon.

'FUCKING COOL!' he exclaimed, spreading his wings and looking back at his body. He had the golden front talons, brilliant white plumage of an eagle and inky black fur covering his feline haunch.

'Unfortunately, not at all stealthy,' Pardus sent, grumbling.

'Chances are, males aren't supposed to be,' Trevar sent, sticking out his tongue at the shadowcat.

'The question is, are you fertile?' Pardus countered.

'True,' Trevar acknowledged. 'Certainly no harm in trying,' he sent with a grin.

'But then, how are you going to explain this?'

'That—will be tricky. Yes,' Trevar sent, wincing. The next moment, he triggered the Gateway once more and resumed his human form.

'Well, let's get started on doing what we can,' Trevar sent. 'There's a fridge for meats and we'll need to shop for whatever else those griffons need, as well as something for me. And you've got to find a way to translate all that shit you scanned. Hopefully, something in all that mess will help us secure this place.'

They departed the house together and Trevar addressed Silver Thorn, who had evidently just finished speaking with Mittens on some subject.

"It's a pretty nice place you all set up for us," he said. "I'm just lacking some supplies like food and such. Mind if we go into town to shop?"

"Not at all," the unicorn sergeant replied. "That's what we're here for."

A few blocks into town, they were passing a large open field containing a small red building with a playground nearby.

"Is that a school?" Pardus inquired.

"Yes," Silver Thorn replied. "That's the Ponyville Primary Schoolhouse." Just then, the school bell rang and a couple dozen young screaming fillies and colts all rushed out the building to happily make a military-style assault on the playground sets.

"That's perfect," Pardus said. "I would like to ask a favor, if I may. I need to borrow one of you to give me an introduction to their teacher for a few moments." Silver Thorn scowled a bit at that.

"I promise to not cause a diplomatic incident, Sergeant," Trevar said, raising his hands in surrender. "I can stand right here until Pardus is done. I know that Celestia instructed you to have at minimum of two pegasi and one unicorn on me at all times. Surely a griffon can stand in for one of your pegasi to watch me?"

"Yes, she did," Silver Thorn replied flatly. "And don't call me Shirley. And yes, a griffon can provide escort to Pardus just as easily as one of my comrades."

"Really?" Trevar snickered. "Think about it, Silver. A griffon AND a shadowcat suddenly descending upon a schoolyard full of unsuspecting young foals. Hmm—do you really wanna have to clean up the mess that's going to create? As I offered, we can wait right here so your guy can even wait outside the school to keep me in sight while Pardus speaks with their teacher. Bu-u-u-ut if you insist on Mittens going, I'm just going to walk away because I do not want to see the alternative when those kids all freak out."

Silver Thorn closed his eyes as he slowly sighed out his breath. Trevar knew this guy was good at sticking to his orders, but he was clearly finding there was no avoiding agreeing with their request.

"Okay," Silver Thorn whispered. "Skynard, go with the shadowcat and make introductions."

"Aye, aye, Sergeant!" the named pegasus responded, lifting up to fly alongside Pardus.

"Oh, my!" the adult fuchsia earth pony with the two-toned light pink mane and tail exclaimed as she suddenly looked up as the two fliers came down to land in front of her. All the activities in the playground came to a halt as the young ones all stared at the scene, ready to bolt at the first wrong move.

"Good morning, ma'am," Skynard greeted. "I'm Private Skynard and this is the shadowcat envoy, Pardus. He is visiting your city and asked to speak with you for a matter, if you're willing."

"P-P-Pardus, you say?" she stammered. "D-d-do you have a sister, named Panthera?"

"Indeed I do," Pardus replied. "She attended a welcome party hosted at the castle yesterday. I got in late last night, so I missed it."

"Oh, I see!" she replied with relief. "Yes, I do remember hearing Pinkie Pie screaming your name at one point during the party."

"Yes, well, the study of celestial dynamics unfortunately does require a little bit of time," Pardus explained. "I couldn't very well leave my experiments unsupervised. I believe you were introduced to Panthera as Miss Cheerilee?"

"Why, yes! I am!" she happily responded. "What can I do for you?"

"Well, I hope you can teach me how to read," Pardus explained. "It should only take a few moments of your time."

"Oh!" Cheerilee exclaimed, gulping in horror. "Th-th-that's not exactly something I was expecting. Learning to read isn't something that can be taught in a day, much less a few moments!"

"Don't worry, I'm actually a pretty quick study," Pardus said, giving her a toothy grin, which obviously didn't help matters.

"Umm," Cheerilee moaned, trying to think of a response as she nervously gulped again.

"HI!" a trio of high pitched shouts which sounded as one came from behind Pardus. He turned to look to see a lemon-yellow earth pony with a red mane and tail, a white unicorn with a two-toned lavender mane and tail, and an orange pegasus with a fuchsia mane and tail standing there.

"Can we help teach you to read?"

"Maybe we can get our cutie marks by teaching?"

"What sort of creature are you?"

"Maybe we can get our cutie marks in exotic creatures?"

"Where did you come from?"

"Does your species get cutie marks, too?"

"Maybe you can join the Cutie Mark Crusaders? We'd love to help you find your own cutie mark!"

They were firing off comments so fast and overlapping that even Pardus had a hard time separating out which was saying what, until they shouted out in unison once more.

"YAY!"

"Now, children…" Cheerilee began, but Pardus interrupted her.

"I would be honored for your help," he told them.

"Ha! You three would more likely get eaten! It would serve you blank flanks right!" another young equine shouted from the side. There, a couple of earth fillies, one with a pink coat and lavender and white two-toned mane and tail, the other with a gray coat and darker gray and white two-toned mane and tail.

"We will not!"

"Will, too!"

"Will not!"

"Will, too!"

"Will not!"

"Will, too!"

"Hey! I never eat my friends," Pardus snarled at the two who had started the argument. "On the other claw, those who are not my friends…" he left unfinished as he gave them a very toothy grin and his pupils widely dilated. That put an end to it very quickly when the two bolted for the safety of the rest of their class. Furthermore, Pardus found it was very amusing to see all the other foals instantly scatter away from those two, instinctively knowing that if he were to act on his word, they were clearly on their own.

"Did you just…?" Skynard began to ask.

"Nyah, I'd never harm them," Pardus chuckled as his pupils returned to their normal narrow slitted setting. "But it is so entertaining to watch them scatter like that."

"So! Who wants to teach me how to read?" Pardus happily asked the three fillies. They each instantly pointed to the partner sitting clockwise in their group, making Pardus laugh again.

"Come along, then," he said, spreading his wings to herd them along into the school along with Cheerilee.

"We all really shoulda worked harder ta get that lion-tamer cutie mark!" the earth filly whispered to her comrades loud enough to reach Trevar sitting beneath the tree by the road. "Ah think we could use one right about now!"

After the meeting with Gustav broke up and Mittens flew off to resume her escort duties with Trevar, the other griffons decided to take up the offer the purple alicorn had made about their quarters in town rather than stay with the hotel. This left Panthera alone to begin scouting about for the supplies they'd need to secure the house.

She wandered back to the construction site where a five-story structure was being built and scoped out the supplies of I-beams that had been delivered. Several other structures of similar size had already been completed for a few blocks at the far end of the town from where they were staying.

A quick measurement of the I-beam dimensions yielded a volume about 0.008 cubic meter per meter length, which would make a cube of 20 centimeters per side. A few calculations using the data Pardus fed her quickly gave her the amount of steel plating they'd need to coat the inside walls of the house and that gave how many of those I-beams they'd have to acquire to melt down for that purpose. Plus, there were the structural members that would need to be replaced in order support the additional weight that would be added.

"We're going to need a lot of money," she muttered to herself when she was finished with her calculations.

"How much!? And what for??" came a loud high pitched voice from behind her that Panthera instantly recognized: the one she was quickly deciding should be relabeled "the pink menace".

"That remains to be estimated," Panthera replied, refusing to jump at the surprise. Her sensors had not registered that creature there just a second ago!

"But you didn't answer my second question!" Pinkie Pie said, hopping around to face the shadowcat.

"No. I didn't," Panthera agreed, as she turned away to walk on. No need to let this one know exactly what items she was interested in.

"Oh! Come on! Maybe I can help!" the bouncing pink creature happily offered, hopping on all four hooves alongside her plodding along.

"That remains to be seen," Panthera muttered, setting part of her mind to resume seeking out useful materials. Something to help insulate the metal plating from any contact with the house's walls or floors that might result in a short to ground would potentially be helpful….

Lieutenant Scott heaved a deep, contented sigh of relief. Her quarters were finally cleaned to pass any military inspection! It had only taken her all morning and a bit into the afternoon to clear out the dust and remains of the previous tenant out of all three bedrooms, two bathrooms, living and dining rooms, kitchen and six basement storage rooms, making it spick and span. And after that workout, she was hungry!

She went to the front door and knocked then waited for the guard to unlock it. While she stood there, it galled at her that she was locked in while the real criminal, Trevar, an admitted vigilante and quite possibly a terrorist as well, was not only free, but given a diplomatic protection escort, to boot.

But he was a true puzzle. Worse than the fact he was able to walk about freely, nothing about the man made any sense.

The evident abilities the man had displayed to date hinted at someone with an immense knowledge and certainly strange powers. Telepathic, telekinetic, expert on everything from nuclear weapons to theoretical warp dynamics that even she herself barely understood. On top of that, he supposedly had a space ship that was coming to pick him up! And a supreme level of confidence that let him feel he could speak with impunity to this world's leaders as an equal to any of them, creatures that could evidently move their sun and moon! Not to mention suddenly the object of worship for yet another of this world's leaders, sight unseen!

Just what sort of man was this Trevar? she wondered as the door finally opened.

"Yes?" one of her guards, the unicorn assigned to her, asked. What was his name? Oh, yes. Corporal Rackorn.

"Good afternoon, Corporal Rackorn," she said, greeting him. These creatures may have looked comical, but they clearly meant business. Their ability to hold spears with their hooves as if they were in hands certainly conveyed a lethal message: underestimate these things at your peril. And it was quite clear that she was the prisoner and they were the MPs. They certainly had a very professional air about them that she actually found admirable. "Thank you for waiting. I've finished cleaning up my quarters, if you'd wish to inspect them." The unicorn stared at her for a few moments and then called for one of his pegasi comrades.

"Drayla!" he yelled. Instantly, the pegasus mare swooped in from around the side of the house.

"Yes, Corporal?" she asked, saluting with her front hoof. That was something Scott was still trying to get used to: enlisted saluting each other, and a corporal at that! Well, this, and the way their bloody joints could move….

"Please inspect Lieutenant Scott's quarters and report back," Rackorn ordered.

"Yes, sir!" she said, immediately stepping over the threshold and heading for the stairs but then stopped when Scott was not following. "Aren't you coming?" Private Drayla asked.

"I trust you won't find anything wrong," Scott replied, relaxing against the door jam. Both equines arched eyebrows and flipped an ear before Drayla proceeded with her inspection.

"If it's permissible, I'd like to go shopping for some edibles," Scott said to Rackorn while she waited.

"We'll see," the unicorn guard muttered.

"Isn't that where you've got that Allec Trevar staying?" she asked, gesturing to the house across the way. "But he's still not showed up here yet from the castle?"

"Actually, he arrived not long after we got here," Rackorn told her. "And then he and his escort left to go into town a little over an hour ago."

"Oh," she muttered chagrinned.

About fifteen minutes later, Drayla came down the stairs and passed them on her way to inspect the basement. After another ten, she was back to the ground floor, inspecting the kitchen, then dining/living room, and finally the guest bathroom before returning to the entry foyer.

"Inspection completed, sir. She did an exemplary job!" she reported, obviously impressed.

"Indeed?" Rackorn asked. "Well! Then I suppose it wouldn't do to deny you the opportunity to stock up," he concluded.

"If you could, please treat me as an adult, not an infant," Pardus said, putting his paw over Cheerilee's hoof before she could continue to the third page of the reading lesson. "I need to learn how your symbology applies to the spoken word as well as your written grammar structure. Nota series of repetitions of terms intended to fuse the word in my head with basic abstracts, please. Trust me, I grock the abstracts. Simply pointing to the word and saying it out loud as you read along is quite adequate, thank you."

"Oh! I'm sorry," Cheerilee exclaimed. "I'm just not used to teaching anypony as old as yourself."

"It's understandable," the shadowcat replied. "Some of these symbols are evidently as complex as Kanji, while others are clearly phonetic. But once I get these basic concepts cemented, I can then internally proceed at my own speed. I've already scanned in all the dictionaries in the castle library and there were at least three sets of encyclopedia, although Twilight Sparkle informs me they were over a thousand years out of date."

"Wow!" the three fillies exclaimed, pausing their own argument over which book to present to Pardus next.

"You've read all the books in the castle?" the little pegasus asked, clearly astonished. "But Rainbow Dash said you actually flew faster than she could, which means you've got to be a great athlete! But to have read all those books, you've got to be a bigger egghead than the Princess!"

"Scootaloo! That's not a nice thing to say about either Mister Pardus or Princess Twilight!" Cheerilee scolded her.

"Sorry, Miss Cheerilee," the orange pegasus apologized with a sigh.

"No harm done," Pardus growled from the headache, his eyes turning white for a moment.

"Oh! Are you okay?" Cheerilee asked as the shadowcat shook his head to clear it.

"Yes," he said as his eyes returned to normal. "I'm just beginning to integrate some of what I've scanned into my memory. Please, let me continue."

She reluctantly continued reading to the shadowcat, finishing off several of the beginning readers' books when Pardus was forced to yank himself back. By now, he had learned enough that the integration first became a cascade, then a full blown avalanche in his mind. And it reached out and included Panthera, too.

They both underwent uncontrolled spasms as their eyes glowed with a brilliant white light for several moments.

"Uh-oh! There seems to be a problem with Pardus!" Trevar said, sitting up to look toward the schoolhouse. There was a brilliant white glow coming from within. He got up and started running toward the structure as his Equestrian escorts cursed while being left lying on the ground.

However, the glow subsided by the time Trevar reached the building, and he stood back as Pardus staggered out.

"Whoa! Whatta rush!" the winged panther exclaimed, sounding drunk.

"Dija see that?" a voice shouted from inside.

"Did we break him?" another yelled.

"Aww! Still no cutie mark!" a third groaned.

"You okay, big guy?" Trevar asked. "What happened?"

"Yeah," Pardus muttered, trying to shake off the headache. "I figured out the basics of their written language, then my mind started integrating their dictionaries and encyclopedias and that library just got exponentially loaded into my memory.Heh! Panthera's going to be pissed I didn't warn her that was coming."

"Is—is there g-going to be any—anything else y-you n-need?" Cheerilee asked, obviously shaken by what had just occurred.

"No. No, I'm fine," Pardus said to her. "Thank you."

"Find anything useful?" Trevar inquired as they headed back toward the road.

"Does this count?" Pardus asked, as a holographic image suddenly appeared of an apparatus that had several dangerous looking components and had a large cluster of crystals in the center. "It's an anti-magic shield generator. I got the design from several of those books I scanned."

"Better put that away before any of these horses recognize it," Trevar warned, looking at the escort team rapidly approaching.

"It's highly doubtful anyone will," Pardus said, but complying with his advice. "It's never been built, for one, and quite likely never been attempted before, either. It's an amalgamation of several different types of shield generators all at once."

"Can it be done? And if so, how dangerous would the attempt be?" Trevar asked.

"Unknown on how dangerous it would be," Pardus quietly replied as their escorts arrived. "There are numerous warnings about mixing different types of magic. 'Can it be done' will depend on how easily we can acquire the necessary crystals and then get them charged with the proper types of magic."

"Anyhow, I can use a drink right about now," Pardus loudly finished as their escorts caught up to them.

"Whoo-oo! That was a doozy of a surge!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed. "Are you alright?"

"I will be," Panthera muttered, shaking her head from the pain. "Pardus and I have finally learned how to read your language."

"YOU DID?!?" Pinkie exclaimed. "Well, this calls for a CELEBRATION!"

"Ah—no!" Panthera snapped her jaws at Pinkie as she moved to step around. "What it calls for is me resuming my assignment."

"Oh! But you've got to let me help you guys celebrate!" Pinkie pleaded, jumping around, trying to get Panthera to look at her. "I mean, how often do you get to learn a completely new language? Think of all the books you'll be able to appreciate now! Why, I can help you start your own Daring Do collection! Rainbow Dash and Twilight both love those stories! I bet you will, too!"

"Just so you know, all those books that your purple alicorn friend is still busy sorting? Read them," Panthera shouted back in singsong.

…

"There's the Ponyville Confidential!" Pinkie was exclaiming. "Just full of the latest gossip about everypony who's anypony!" Then added with a barely heard mutter, "As well as everypony who's not anypony."

"Pfft! With my mom being the neighborhood's soap opera queen from hell? Seriously not interested!" Panthera spat.

…

"And then, there's all the letters you can write back and forth with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna!" Pinkie was still listing all the new things they could do now they could both read.

"We never bothered to learn to write letters when phone calls were much faster and far more informative."

…

"Awww! You gotta let me throw you and your brother a party!" the pink creature pleaded, hopping in Panthera's way.

Panthera looked the creature in the eye, evaluating her. Intriguing. She's aggressively annoying, obnoxious, and completely random yet at the same time extremely intelligent and shrewd that was cloaked by a feigned stupidity, Panthera thought. A pattern that she knew all too well.

Long before they had been created, Trevar had watched dozens of early TV detective shows, like Columbo, McCloud, and McMillan And Wife as well as many later ones, like Matlock, Diagnosis Murder, and Murder She Wrote, where the lead character would drive the suspect insane with incessant inane babbling until the suspect finally slipped up by dropping a seriously incriminating clue just to get the lead character to shut up and leave them alone.

"I see what you're doing," she growled. "And it's not going to work!"

She resumed her walk, stepping past Pinkie.

It wasn't going to work on her.

Two things that she had going for her that this creature could not have anticipated: primarily, the fact that Panthera was not a biologic—and given the stimulus that the equine was trying to subject her to, she knew no mere biologic would ever have been able to withstand it for long. But after all, she did have the advantage of being able to literally tune the annoying pink thing out….

The other factor being that with the speed her mind worked, she could easily hide the three hundred specific items she sought by simply looking at every single fucking thing in sight as she searched and internally noting where those items were when she found what she was looking for. Add to that was the fact there was Pardus, who was now on the lookout for those items as well. On the other hand, Pinkie Pie would have to consider every single item in the environment, the combinations of which would greatly exceed the total age of the universe multiplied by both the physical dimensions and exact mass throughout existence. No matter what this creature's perceptions may be, Trevar and company would have their goals achieved before this pony could piece the puzzle together.

But then, Panthera suddenly looked back at her, suddenly getting an idea. However … a distraction could very well be useful here. If she's busy watching me, then Pardus will still be free to gather needed supplies, she thought.

"Have you ever heard of a game called 'Predators and Prey'?" she slyly asked, creating a holographic copy of the Role Playing Game rules book for Pinkie to look at.

"Oo-ooh!" Pinkie said in awe.

"Sorry, but it's only a holographic projection," Panthera told her. "But I can let you read it while we walk."

"Okay!" she happily shouted. "We can walk back to Sugar Cube Corners. I've got to do a little work there, and we can talk about this along the way!"

Lieutenant Scott and her escorts came across the other team standing just off the road talking. Just before getting in hailing distance, they saw the shadowcat that had been with them launch up into the air only to vanish in a ripple of distortion.

"Hello, Lieutenant!" Trevar cheerfully called out, waving at her. Immediately, her inner conflicts arose again. But she resolved to reign in her anger. There was nothing she could do about the injustice of it all, nor would it satisfy her to merely complain about it. She was stuck there until she died. And while he was evidently going to live at least long enough to go home, there was some justice in that he hadn't totally escaped, if what the white alicorn had said held true. He, too, would die in a few months, maybe a year or so.

"We're going into town to do a little shopping. Care to join us?" he asked her.

"Same, here," she replied.

"Great! Then we can both save time and learn where all the good foods are," he cheerfully said.

After Pardus left Trevar, he flew about, searching for items that he knew they would need. Since the pink pony was occupying Panthera's attention, it left him to perform the search. Flying about, he discovered what seemed to be an abandoned or currently unused rock quarry. A dozen miles further afield, he located a scrap ironworks.

Landing nearby, he fashioned up a holographic projection of an earth pony mare, complete with a Masonic Square and Compass emblem as the brands on her thighs. Once created, he directed her to walk toward the earth pony foreman running the scrap yard. His brand was that of a lit acetylene torch.

"Good afternoon!" the image called out. "I'm Wilma Cement-Stone. I've been sent by my boss at the Fillydelphia foundry to inquire about getting a supply of scrap steel."

"Oh, hay, no problem," he replied. "Name's Scrap Iron. Yeah, we just got this load in a few days ago from Manehattan. They had a little accident at their construction site that ended up bending all these girders. Free for the taking."

"Really?" Pardus asked, astonished, through the projected image.

"Sure!" he told her. "I guess you're new to the business, huh?"

"Yeah, you can say that," Pardus replied laughing. "I just started today."

"No problem," he said. "After all, that's what recycling is all about."

However, a half-hour later, when Pardus finally located a precision glassworks maker to supply lenses and prisms for some periscopes they planned to install, he learned there would be quite a cost involved, namely the gold coin of the realm or gems.

A couple hours later:

'There she is!' Panthera sent as Pinkie Pie stepped out from her place of business.

While the pink pony went about town, buying up sacks of flour and other supplies and loading them into a cart, Panthera and Pardus began stalking her. Shortly, the equine suddenly perked up her ears and her mane started visibly vibrating. She quickly looked about and abandoned her cart.

'I think she's spotted us!' Pardus warned as Pinkie Pie started stalking him!

'Let's try something,' Panthera suggested. 'We'll create several cloaked holographic copies of ourselves to see if she's able to pick them up as well.'

"Uh-oh!" Pinkie nervously gulped as several invisible figures started to emerge from hiding behind buildings to converge upon her from the alleys and rooftops. "HEY!! I thought you guys said there were only two of you!" she yelled.

The pink pony began to randomly bounce about, but was clearly on the attack, as she started bopping the invisible stalkers on the head before bouncing away to aim for another.

Knowing the gig was up, Panthera and Pardus "decloaked" the invisible figures and several more shadowcats appeared, rubbing their foreheads, pretending to have felt the blows.

'Eventually, she's going to tag us before we can catch her!' Pardus sent.

'I've got one more trick up my sleeve!' Panthera responded. Pinkie Pie was heading for her, so Panthera directed a couple holographic figures to step up between herself and the approaching pony, as well as a couple dummy shadowcats swooping down from the rooftops behind Pinkie Pie, forcing the pony towards the trap, and Panthera readied to spring.

Pinkie Pie agilely dodged the swipes from the intervening dummy shadowcats and bopped them both on the forehead before hopping between them, aiming to tag the one behind those two. Pinkie had to move quickly, as the two swooping in from the sky and Pardus on the ground rushing up behind her were pinning her in.

But just then, the real shadowcats materialized another of their projected dummies on the ground directly in front of Pinkie Pie and another in the air right above, just as Pinkie was between bounces—these, they did not arrive as though they had been hidden behind some object.

"HEY! NO FAI—oof!" Pinkie exclaimed just as Panthera leapt and tackled the pony.

Then all the shadowcats, real and illusionary, decloaked.

"Gotcha!" Panthera purred as Pardus stepped up. The illusionary shadowcats all settled about and slowly surrounded the three.

"NO FAIR!" Pinkie Pie screamed from where Panthera held her. "THOSE TWO WEREN'T THERE JUST A SECOND AGO AND THEY DIDN'T TELEPORT IN, EITHER!" she shouted, pointing at the two. "And what happened to there only being two of you, anyhow?"

"LET HER GO!" they all suddenly heard another pony angrily shout. They all looked up to see the purple alicorn begin firing off blasts with her horn at the mass of shadowcats. To her evident surprise, the blasts blew apart the illusions, and having seen this, she started to blast them all in earnest.

'Her blasts are quite potent,' Pardus calmly observed. 'With some effort, we could resist the disruption of the holograms.'

'Meh,' Panthera said shrugging. 'Although, let's have her blast them all away but four, and erect shields about us and them.'

"I SAID, 'NO FAIR!'" Pinkie Pie screamed.

"Technically speaking, if the rules allow us to create a few holograms and perform as we direct, then it can't exactly be 'unfair', now. Can it?" Pardus replied.

Pinkie Pie was going to respond, but then had to think about what the winged panther said.

"Uh!—oh—good point," she finally had to admit. Meanwhile, Twilight Sparkle had cleared away all of the duplicate shadowcats except for the four the real ones had selected as part of the continuation of the game.

At first, the alicorn's blasts struck the duplicate shadowcats directly, but when they weren't disrupted, they turned to face her and then shields blocking her blasts sprung up. The two real ones stood over Pinkie Pie, already under cover of their shields.

"Let. Her. Go!" the purple alicorn demanded growling, really charging up her horn.

"Are you done shooting up the entire village, yet?" Pardus politely inquired.

"So, Pinkie. What other games can we do that—maybe—won't involve highly inappropriate and very disruptive military ordinance?" Panthera asked Pinkie Pie as the female winged panther finally released her prize.

"Wait! This was a game?" Twilight asked, perplexed.

"'Predators 'N Prey'. Ever hear of it?" Pardus asked, manifesting a holographic gamers' manual before the alicorn.

"That was rather fun!" one of the four additional shadowcats said. "At least up until that last little bit. Talk with you later, Panthera and Pardus!" it said, with a wave before it and the other three launched up into the air before their forms rippled into invisibility.

"Who were those guys?" Twilight asked, looking up after them.

"Nobody," Pardus replied with a toothy grin.

The pink equine giggled as she got back onto her hooves. "Oh! You're goo-oo-ood!" she drawled with a grin.