Author's Notes:

Very short sex scene near the end. Text is colored if you wish to avoid.

The day following Adrastea's trial, Trevar woke to find the morning in Griffonstone was a stormy one, which mirrored his mood. There was an uneasiness that he felt and he just couldn't put his finger on the reason for it. But whatever it was bothering him, it didn't seem to be reflected in Panthera as she, more or less, cheerfully woke on her side of the bed. But that didn't mean she hadn't quickly noticed Trevar's unease the moment she looked at him.

'Another disaster averted,' she telepathically sent him, in case there was someone nearby eavesdropping on them, 'the cause of which was satisfactorily dealt with. And no one is the wiser as to the manner of your interference in the resolution. So what's troubling you?' she inquired.

'I don't know,' he responded as he entered the ablution chamber of his quarters to begin washing down before bathing. Much like Japan, the griffons kept a filled heated tub of water for soaking after showering. 'But I can't help be feel we're missing something.'

The shadowcat prepared his meal while Trevar continued his business, silently brooding in his own mind over whatever the problem was. After all, she understood Trevar better than he understood himself.

Her mouth watered as she worked, revealing only slightly how envious she was in that she no longer needed sustenance to keep going. But the available food choices she was fixing for him reminded her of the pleasures of the tongue. And it wasn't like she couldn't enjoy flavorful food whenever she wished, but it would certainly be a waste of a perfectly good meal for her or Pardus to eat anything.

The heaps of salmon she cooked was seared to perfection, bathed in lemon juice and liberally garnished with olives, spinach and capers. As a balance to the main dish, she made a fruit salad composed of chunks of pineapple, strawberries, oranges, kiwi, blueberries, and raisins, as well as a serving of pasta noodles. And it greatly intrigued her that this world even had such foods, completely identical to the same types of items from Earth.

Just as she was finished setting the dining table, she heard Trevar getting out from the large bathing tub. But a sudden, throaty roar from him alerted her to danger and she rushed to join him.

Bursting through the door, she was confronted by an image of a Vorlon standing opposite the chamber from a naked Trevar, who had just emerged from the tub.

"ᶘ♫₰∑€₰﴿♪ﻼ (If you go to Equestria, you will die)," the being told Trevar.

"If you don't explain yourself right now, 'Ambassador Kosh', it's you who will die!" Trevar growled. "And don't think for a second that I can't seriously fuck you up!"

'Hold up a second!' Panthera sent him as she began looking about, scanning the area. 'It's a projection! I'm looking for the source!'

"ᶘ♫₰∑€₰﴿♪ﻼ (If you go to Equestria, you will die)," the image of Kosh repeated before fading away.

"Any idea of what that was about?" Trevar asked, visibly spooked.

'It was a holographic projection from outside the room, but I can't trace from where it was coming,' Panthera replied. "I'll be right back," she said before runn out of the ablution chamber and fly out through the windows of their quarters into the open air about the castle.

"Chrysaetos tells me we've dropped out of warp," Sherry Williams addressed her husband as she and Yoko Trevar entered the dining lounge, accompanied by one of Sherry's golden eagles and Yoko's two large cobras.

"Canis and Lupus are testing out a theory," Bill replied, not looking up from the pad he was reading as he was simultaneously eating his dinner. "We should be here for a few hours before we're back underway."

"So we've been told," Naga, Yoko's male cobra said. "We've run the numbers Pardus sent us and there's just no way around the impact the altered G-Constant will have on our travel. It would seem the effect will cause us to fly at thousands of miles an hour even at the lowest possible settings."

"My guys agree," Bill said, still eating. "That's why they're testing an idea that they hope will fix it so we can pick them up."

"I can't wait until we're on our way back," Sherry said. "Why didn't you tell me we were headed for Orion?" Bill blinked and looked up at his wife.

"We—uh—told you we were headed for the Horse Head Nebula," he slowly said. "Where did you think that was? And—what's so special about Orion?" he asked.

"Duh! The Orion Nebula, hun!" she responded. "I've always wanted to get a close up view of that!"

"Uh—honey, the Orion Nebula is just one small hole punched in the dark cloud that lies behind the entire constellation," Bill explained. "The Horse Head is just another small hole in another part of the dust cloud."

"So?" Sherry asked. "So how much of a diversion would it be for us to swing by there on our way back?"

"I dunno," he said shrugging his shoulders. "I'll check with Canis."

'Hey Canis,' he telepathically sent. 'Sherry wants to know how much of a diversion it would be to swing by the Orion Nebula on our way back to Earth after we pick up Trevar.'

'It shouldn't be much,' the huge wolf replied, calling up the navigational display. 'Okay, diverting to the heart of the Orion Nebula upon leaving our target—is showing up—about 175.656 light years on a bearing of roughly 25.78 degrees away from what our course back to Earth would be. It would only add about 19.656 light years to our trip—wait a second—what the fuck!?'

"What's wrong?" Bill demanded out loud as he telepathically sent while jumping to his feet and running for the door. He had never heard his companions speak like this unless there was a real emergency. The others, upon seeing and hearing this, all gave chase.

'This can't be right!' Canis exclaimed.

"Canis! Report!" Bill yelled, rushing for the ship's elevator.

They didn't get a reply until the elevator reached the Bridge level and they entered the control center at a run.

There, they saw the wolf pacing about the hologram display showing the expanse of space between the Horse Head and Orion Nebulae, a large number of stars on one side of the display, and the roiling dark cloud of the Greater Orion Molecular Cloud Complex filling the other side of the volume.

"Canis! What's the matter?" Bill shouted.

"There's way too much fine detail here for the data that was contained in the Gaia star mapping project!" Canis complained as she continued pacing about the image. "And the error estimates for the locations of star systems are far too small, as well!"

At that moment, a command from the timberwolf directed the image to zoom in on the Equus system hidden deep inside the Horse Head Nebula they were supposed to be headed for.

"This map has the Equus system's error estimate just under a thousand times the error estimate we got from Panthera and Pardus," she complained.

"Is this a bad thing?" Sherry inquired.

"The Gaia data's error factor at this distance is supposed to be well over a million times this data!" Canis growled, sitting down to glare at the display. "Of course it's a 'bad thing', because I don't know where this shit is coming from!"

"What about the rest of the navigational data?" Bill asked. Canis blinked and the holographic map zoomed out to encompass the entire Milky Way Galaxy. She stared at it for several moments before her ears perked up.

"This data is getting overwritten even as we speak!" Canis announced.

"Overwritten!?" Bill exclaimed. "From where?"

Canis froze for a few moments more before she suddenly shot back to her feet.

"From our base!" she snarled.

"What!?" they all exclaimed.

"Has somebody broken in?" Bill demanded.

"No—no sign of intrusion," Canis replied. "This is coming from our computer systems. And no, it's not a hacking job, either. It's—it's—from a number of other secure sub-space links."

"From who? Gary Seven? Guinan?" Bill asked, puzzled if just a little bit relieved by the news.

"No—not their signatures," Canis responded, sounding rather puzzled herself. "It's Panthera and Pardus' codes. But it's coming from eighteen separate sources and none of them are from the Equus system!"

'Okay, I think we've got a solution to the Equus gravity problem,' Lupus took that moment to announce.

'I don't like it! No sign of what caused that projection,' Panthera sent to Trevar as she finished her last sweep about the castle grounds before turning about to head back to their room. 'It's a good thing you didn't go into full battle-mode when it made its appearance. We have no idea of who that was and they might have started connecting the dots between you and the dragon.'

'The fact I recognized it as Kosh from Babylon 5 was the only reason I didn't,' Trevar replied as Panthera came in through the window and dropped her cloak. 'Whoever made that projection knows something of Earth culture. Aside from us and Lieutenant Scott, there's no one on this world who should know anything like that!'

'Or have the technology to make that sort of projection,' Panther replied in agreement. 'Although, their magic might allow someone to pull it off. But there's still the question of how someone would know anything of that TV show.'

'Except perhaps that Discord creature,' Trevar pointed out as he sat down to eat. 'He's certainly got a motive to pull something like this, and the ability. The only unknown is how much he knows of Earth. Of course, with this world having tech like those warp coils in that castle, there's really no reason to assume they don't know all about our world.'

'And the bitch of it is, with every catbird in the city knowing you're this 'Cat-Lord' creature, we can't stay to look for any answers,' Panthera complained.

'Don't sweat it,' Trevar replied, working on the assorted fruit salad. 'I'm sure if 'Ambassador Kosh' could find us here, he'll be able to find us anywhere on this planet.'

'True,' Panthera acknowledged, twitching her whiskers as she glared at the view beyond the window.

Later, they met with Emperor Tail Feather in the chamber behind the throne room.

"Lord Trevar, I'm writing a message to Gilda," the griffon emperor said when they arrived. "Could you please convey it to her?"

"Of course," Trevar replied. "It would be our pleasure."

"Thank you, Lord Trevar," he said, resuming his writing.

"Gilda was with us when Panthera and I explained the workings of the Enigma machine and how the messages should be encrypted," Trevar stated while Panthera assisted by laying out the selection of rotors to be used and preparing the machine's steckerboard for the first encryption layer.

"We're certain they both understood the importance of frequently changing the keys and the order of the encryption layers to ensure security. But just to be sure, Panthera and I will explain the process again to her when we arrive," he finished.

"That's good," Tail Feather said as he finished the draft for the message he intended to send. He read over the finalized draft as he waited for the ink to finish drying. Satisfied with what he read, the griffon emperor then consulted his notes made when his visitors had instructed him on the encryption procedures.

First thing he needed to do was to settle on how the reply key should be encoded, configured with its own encryption, and inserted into the outbound message. After that, he needed to think about the padding that would go into the message, the purpose of which was to confound the ponies' efforts to intercept and decode the messages.

"Lord Trevar," Tail Feather inquired, "would using references to a set of books be an acceptable means of conveying the key codes?"

"So long as she has access to the same set of books and knows how you're using those references to convey the information, of course," Trevar replied.

"Good," Tail Feather said, adding some notes he wanted to convey to Gilda.

It didn't take the griffon emperor long to encrypt the message through its various layers and roll up and seal the completed scroll. After placing the scroll into a diplomatic pouch, Tail Feather handed to pouch over to Trevar as they all left the decoding chamber. Trevar waited as Tail Feather secured the room from potential intrusion, then they set out to leave for the courtyard where Celestia had indicated she would be waiting for them.

"Are you sure I can't persuade you to stay, Lord Trevar?" Emperor Tail Feather asked as the man stepped aboard Celestia's chariot.

"I'd like to, but there are things I need to take care of at my house," Trevar told him. "I will try to come to visit more often. I'm becoming rather fond of you cat-birds," he said, grinning as he reached out to ruffle the feathers on Tail Feather's head.

"Any time, you're welcome here," Tail Feather replied, grinning as well as he worked the talons of his left hand to set the feathers to lay properly again. "Have a safe flight, and a safer return, Lord Trevar!" the griffon said, saluting with a thump of his fist to his chest.

"Good huntings, Emperor Tail Feather," Trevar replied, saluting in kind before turning to brace for the take off.

The pegasi guards quickly had them airborne and Trevar settled against the chariot's railing as they flew, giving as much room to the alicorn princess as he could, while Panthera flew gracefully alongside.

"Was your stay in Griffonstone a pleasant one?" Celestia asked, being the first to break the silence that had settled on them after their departure.

"Hmm?" Trevar grunted in response. "Oh, yes. Quite pleasant. Quite pleasant, indeed," he said after a few moments. Then he added, "To top it all off, I had a visit from a Vorlon earlier this morning. It said I would die if I went to Equestria."

"WHAT!?" Celestia exclaimed.

"Funny thing about prophesies," Trevar went on as if nothing in her reaction was unusual, "is that they can be so obscure at times. I mean, if it weren't for being more than a few days late, I might actually have reason to be worried for the warning, if you know what I mean?"

Panthera facepawed.

"Good morning, Gilda," Pardus greeted when he entered the new ambassador's office. "How are you holding up?"

"As well as I can be, given that my father is dead," she grumbled. "But at least you have the decency to not rub my beak into it by addressing me as 'Ambassador Gilda', as so many have been doing of late."

"Well, with all the time spent with my sister, I certainly consider you a friend first," Pardus replied. "In addition, most of my encounters with your father was by seeing him through Panthera's eyes. What I did see of him, I have to conclude he was a fair and honorable soul, but greatly stressed by what he saw looming for your people's future. I do wish we had more time to have gotten to know him."

"Thank you," she gratefully said. "I just wish my last conversation with him wasn't an argument."

"I acknowledge that I wasn't there, but Panthera was," Pardus said, cocking his head at her in confusion. "From what she observed, your last time with him was when she and Trevar taught you both about the Enigma encryptor. There wasn't any argument during that meeting."

"Oh, uh, no," Gilda bashfully responded. "It was just before that, on the morning you all fought King Sombra. That was when he finally informed me about just how dire the situation was regarding our eggs and the deformities of our hatchlings. I know now that I have been a fool in not allowing the Cat-Lord—or—you—to breed me."

"Even as you still don't wish to do so with us?" Pardus challenged, tilting an ear toward her. "That sounds nothing less than an attempt to guilt trip you into mating with us. As I said, I still consider Gustav to have been an honorable griffon, but the stress of your situation no doubt caused him to make mistakes. That was one such mistake," Pardus said as he stepped forward and reached out a wing to lightly touch her shoulder.

"Trevar and I would both be honored and pleased for the chance to mate with you," he sternly said. "But not at the cost of your guilt forcing you to breed with us. We will not do so if you truly don't wish it."

The subtle and rapid jerking of her eyes conveyed to the shadowcat just how nervous the griffon hen was feeling at the moment.

"Take your time to think about it," Pardus said, cutting into her mental calculations. "Really think about it. If you truly don't wish to mate with us, there's no reason to allow the ghost of your father to talk you into doing this. Neither Trevar nor I will be disappointed in you—although we might regret the lost chance," he said smirking. "You are a magnificent creature, after all. But in no way, will we be disappointed in your decision. Do so only because it's what you want. Not your father. Not me. Not Trevar. Only you."

"I—I'll—have to think about it," Gilda finally replied.

"That all that we ask," Pardus said, pulling his wing away from her. "Of course, Panthera's still ready and willing at any time."

"Yes," Gilda responded, blushing.

"Besides, it was rather silly of your father to have entertained thoughts that Trevar and I can have any impact on fixing your species' problem, even if we could impregnate any of you."

"True," Gilda admitted. Then she perked up. "Oh, and I'll have to find someone to replace me as a guard for his home!"

"Don't worry about that," Pardus told her. "That issue has already been resolved. In the meantime, I suggest that we go to the princesses' castle to talk with Luna about how to allocate resources into searching for the cure to your reproductive problem."

"Yes, that does sound like a good idea," Gilda admitted, taking the lead out of the room. "I understand Princess Celestia will be back from Griffonstone later this afternoon."

"That's my estimate, too," Pardus said as they walked. "Panthera and Trevar are flying back with her as we speak."

"Okay, good news first," Lupus began when he arrived in the Bridge. "It's a really good thing none of us ever tried using our inertial dampeners when flying on any of the ships! Otherwise, somebody would've punched a hole in the ship at warp speed and messed up everybody's day!

"And even using just the antigravs to maneuver, we need to be careful. There's a slight uptick in our speeds that gets more extreme as the ship goes into higher FTL rates. So far, it looks like we've been lucky to have been instinctively dialing down the power whenever we've used them."

"What's the bad news?" Bill asked.

"As I said, there's a slight uptick in our speeds using just antigravs," Lupus replied. "All I could tell is the uptick isn't linear. As Canis adjusted the ship's speed for my test runs outside, the best curve fit I could find was exponential. However, since we were doing the tests under light speed, for safety purposes, I can't tell exactly what the exponential formula is supposed to be.

"At least the curve fits don't seem to be as extreme as that beast of a formula that Trevar sent for the static warp bubble around that system. But the curves I'm seeing are definitely related to those values. I'm hoping it's some root value of it," Lupus finished.

"So we have to shut down the inertial dampeners when we arrive at the edge of the Equus system?" Bill asked, astonished.

"Most likely," Lupus agreed. "With luck, we can make it a gradual drawdown from when we cross the outer edge until we get to the regions with the higher Gravity Factors. But yes, it's definitely going to make a rough ride all the way in and out."

"That means we'd better start going throughout the entire ship and look for anything that needs to be braced or secured long before we get there," Bill told everyone. "It'll be a hell of a lot less work for us if we get on this right now."

"Okay, yeah, that's a bit more serious than where the navigational updates are coming from," Canis grumbled. "But I'm still making the call to Panthera and Pardus about this."

"So… Vorlons really are a thing here on Equus?" Trevar asked as Panthera dispelled the image of the creature they had met standing on Trevar's outstretched palm.

"They were, over a thousand years ago," Celestia admitted. "They're all gone now. Creatures of Order, along with the Creatures of Chaos, the Shadows. Two of the First Ones—at least of this itineration of the—" She suddenly paused as if she realized she was about to say something that she shouldn't. But then she continued with, "Well, let's just say they outstayed their welcome here."

"What happened?"

"They—each—tried to impose their philosophies here," Celestia spoke harshly. "This is a world of Harmony, with neither Order nor Chaos in control, but rather a balance of the two," she began to explain after an evident pause to reign in her emotions. "The Vorlons approached me while the Shadows tried to entice my sister to their side. At first, they each tried to be charming, but when it was clear what they were trying to do, I banished them both. At first, I thought I had removed them all, but handful of Shadows managed to stay behind and complete their conversion of my sister to their way of thinking."

"Oh?" Trevar inquired. "What were they doing that made you decide against letting them stay?"

"For one, they were both using genetic modifications and emplanting biomechanical devices first to enhance and then to ensure their converts stayed devoted to their way of thinking," Celestia told him. "When they converted my sister, I was forced to assume her Elements of Harmony. As I wasn't attuned to her set of Elements, I could not cure her in the time that I was able to wield them. The best I was able was to use them to banish her to the moon for a thousand years. Curing her would have to wait until I was able to find a number of remarkable fillies who embodied the principles of each of the Elements and prepared for them to meet."

"So, you evidently missed some Shadows," Trevar stated, wondering if his assumptions about Discord's involvement had been in error. "Is it possible you might have missed some Vorlons, too?"

"In regards to the Shadows, it was quite easy to have missed some of them when I banished the rest," Celestia admitted. "They are quite adept at sneaking about, after all. I know there are a few still here as I've needed to weed out their works here and there over the centuries. The Vorlons, however, were never into such games. It's unlikely any of them have stayed. It's just not their mode of operation."

"What about Discord?" Trevar ventured to ask. "Was he likely influenced by the Shadows?"

"Discord!?" Celestia asked, laughing. "I'm more inclined to believe he influenced them! Discord was Discord long before the Shadows or the Vorlons ever showed up."

"We do have to consider it might not have been a real Vorlon," Panthera spoke up. "After all, it was only a projected image of a being in an encounter suit. And who knows what, if anything, was inside it?"

"True," Trevar admitted.

"So, how is it do you know about them?" Celestia inquired.

"There were—stories of them—on my world," Trevar replied, evading as much of the details as possible.

'The gig's up if she ever asks Lieutenant Scott about them,' Trevar sent to Panthera, who smirked in response.

"Still, as I said, it's odd that it would've singled me out to deliver that kind of threat," Trevar complained.

"The Vorlons would not necessarily threaten you," Celestia countered. "I have known them to issue warnings when a potentially dangerous path we have chosen was a risk to their plans. This would be their way, even if it was some other agency that would be the one to attack."

"A fair point," Trevar acknowledged.

"Still, we should take precautions," Celestia pointed out. "A warning out of the blue like that should not be taken lightly."

"Well, as you know, I'm not quite so easy to kill off," Trevar said, grinning. "I'm inclined to let whatever will happen come. I'm rather curious to see what sort of attack it will be."

"Yes, considering how easily you shook off King Sombra's attack, I could understand your lack of concern," Celestia complained. "Speaking of which, how did you survive?"

"I didn't," Trevar replied flippantly. That got a raised eyebrow from the alicorn.

"And to be honest, I've no idea how I was able to heal from getting speared like that. I felt it pierce my heart from several directions, and it hurt like all kinds of fuck, let me assure you. Normally, that would've been the end of me right there. All I know is, that some time ago, things that would normally kill any other human just doesn't ever finish me off. I do die from such injuries—I just don't—stay dead," Trevar finished with a shrug.

"And is this why the griffons call you 'Cat-Lord'?" Celestia asked.

"To be honest, I haven't a clue as to what that's about," Trevar told her. "I've never even heard of the term before coming to this world."

"Good morning Princess Luna," Gilda greeted when they entered the office to which they had been escorted.

"A valorous morn to thee, Ambassad'r and Pardus," Luna responded, looking up from the documents she was studying on her desk. "How may We beest of service to thee?"

"We understand that Princess Twilight Sparkle has taken the lead in searching for the cure for the griffons' reproductive problem," Pardus spoke up. "While the medical sciences are not my field of expertise, I am adept at quickly assimilating and sorting through information. I was hoping I could assist in a search for the cure."

"And I would like to try to help as well,"

"Yond would beest an immense holp, forsooth!" Luna exclaimed. "Thanks to thee both!"

"It is I who should be thanking you, Princess Luna," Gilda responded. "I was not even aware of how severe the situation was for our people until just before Father died. We should have sought some way to find a cure long ago!"

"Woulda, shoulda, coulda," Pardus snarled. "The point is, no matter what reason it wasn't done, we're doing it now. We have little time before the reprieve we were granted ends. The whole world is a ticking time bomb, with the fuse still lit in the Griffon Empire. Only this time, everyone on the planet knows it, not just the few who were keeping the matter a secret!"

"Uh—Lord Pardus?" Gilda asked, stammering in surprise. Even Luna looked perplexed and shocked.

"I'm sorry, but in situations where time is short, I tend to be a creature of action," Pardus contritely explained. "Rather than standing about thanking each other over and over, I'd rather be looking for the cure already. If we must spend so much time patting each other on the back for our willingness to be of help, let us at least be on our way while we're doing so." The natives were both left blinking at the shadowcat for such a blunt pronouncement.

"HA! HA! HA! HA!" Luna suddenly burst out laughing. "So right! As thee hath said, alloweth us beest on our way while we 'pat ourselves on each other's backs'!" she said, taking the lead out of the office. "We shall guide thee to whither Twilight Sparkle is engag'd in the search"

"I think it best if we start at the other end and work our way toward you, Twilight Sparkle," Pardus explained after Luna left them with her. "We'll meet somewhere in the middle, and just to ensure you haven't missed anything, I'll scan the books you have already looked through."

"But won't that mean there's a chance you'll miss something?" the purple alicorn protested.

"There certainly is, especially as I have very little idea of what I should be looking for," Pardus admitted. "However, as Panthera and I demonstrated in your library, I can scan everything and function as a sort of a combined Google search engine and Wikipedia."

"'Google search engine'? 'Wikipedia'? What are those?" she asked.

"Trevar told us of sophisticated machines on his world called computers, which can not only do immense numbers of calculations in a very short time period, but can also sort and isolate any type of data strings when given the correct search parameters," Pardus explained. "Wikipedia, he explained, is a repository of information from all over his world, a collection of encyclopedias and reference material from nearly every country on his planet."

"Every country?" Twilight inquired.

"Almost two hundred," Pardus replied. "Each with their own cultures, languages, histories, and political viewpoints. So, essentially what I'll be doing here is absorbing all the information in these books, scrolls, and tomes into my mind."

"But how does absorbing all that knowledge help us, if you don't know what to look for?" she countered.

"Because you'll know what to look for," Pardus told her. "Allow me to show you. Think of a specific subject that you know is contained within your library, and speak it out to me."

Twilight thought for a moment then asked, "What can you show me about Svengali-Machiavelli spin schemer manipulators?"

Nearly instantly, Pardus had several items isolated and projected the pages from the books most relevant to what she had asked for. The purple alicorn gasped at seeing the information pop up so quickly.

"It took me four days to dig up all of that!" she exclaimed.

"As I said, I can search for the data you ask for, even if I don't completely understand what I'm looking at," Pardus told her. "So long as you can formulate the query, if it's in the material I scanned, I can find it for you."

"That—that's—amazing!" Twilight exclaimed. Then she appeared to remember what they were supposed to be doing without prompting from the shadowcat. "Yes, you're perfectly correct. You should begin at the other end of the library, and we'll work toward each other. Do you need any assistance?"

"Since my—telekinesis—is still on the fritz, I've asked Gilda here to pull out the books and scrolls and flip the pages as we go down the aisles," he said. "A glance is all I'll need to scan each page. I know it's going to take us time to go through all these, but we'll be back down this way well before you get very far toward us," Pardus said with a parting grin as he led Gilda down the aisle.

'Panthera! Pardus! Come in! Respond, please!' Panthera heard the call from Canis as she flew alongside the chariot holding Trevar and Celestia.

'I've got this, Pardus,' she sent to her brother, and then to Trevar, she reported, 'I've got Canis calling us. I'll tie you both in.'

'I'm here, Canis. Go ahead,' she sent to the Timberwolf.

'I just noticed some updates that have been going on in the ship's navigational maps,' Canis began. 'They're being updated, even as we speak. What's weird is they've got your and Pardus' signature on the signals yet they're coming from at least eighteen different locations before getting relayed through our base. You know anything about that?'

'Ah,' Panthera responded. 'There's no need for concern, Canis. If you recall, the three of us took a ship out a few months back to bake in the warp coils for loading at seven point one-one-five.'

'Yeah. You clocked about eight fifty light years over forty-eight days.'

'Well, to be honest, it wasn't a continuous run out and back,' Panthera admitted. 'While we were out there, we took the time to replicate copies of the Hubble and James Webb telescopes, ganged them together, equipped them with subspace transceivers, and set them up in three octagonal plane arrays that were mutually perpendicular to each other, centered on Earth.' She added the specific telemetry data values of each of the satellites they had positioned, set about 28.9 lightyears out surrounding the Solar System.

'…' Canis sent as dead air. 'Good God!' he exclaimed after evaluating the numbers. 'At just one arcsecond, you're able to map nearly everything within ten million light years to within a few hundred AUs!'

'Well, only those items that are bright enough to be visible to the telescopes,' Panthera sent with a mental shrug of indifference. 'It's no big deal.'

'No big deal!?' Canis exclaimed. 'If you're ever able to get those telescopes to process parallaxes to the resolution of Gaia, you'd map out every single star in the observable universe!'

'Except, not even the James Webb can make out individual stars at galactic distances. And even within the Milky Way, we can't see any stars beyond the galactic core in visible light because of the intervening dust clouds. So we have to rely entirely on the infrared telescopes' functions for anything out that way.'

'I'm—I'm—I don't know what to say,' Canis finally admitted.

'Like I said, no big deal.' Panthera sent.

'If you say so,' Canis sighed. 'Oh, by the way, on the way out to you, we realized that when we arrived, the varying Gravity Factor would play havoc on the ship's FTL and sublight drives,' Canis informed her. 'Hopefully, we've figured a way through that star system you're in. '

'Good to hear,' Panthera replied.

'Alright, now that the mapping issue is cleared up, I can report to the others that there's nothing to worry about.' Canis sent.

'Not that there was any reason to begin with,' Panthera countered. 'After all, you should've figured there was no real problem since the telescopes are sending data with our signatures.'

'You have to admit, it was rather odd to see it,' Canis grumbled.

'Not really,' Panthera replied. 'It would've been odd if we had just run straight out four hundred and twenty-five light years and back and not have anything to show for it.'

'I guess so,' Canis admitted laughing. 'Well, we're back to FTL again, so we should reach you on schedule.'

'Roger that. Panthera out.'

'Really? They call us all the way out here just for that?' Trevar asked, yawning.

'It's Bill,' Panthera replied. 'What would you expect?'

'Eh—true.'

'Pardus cutting in,' Pardus broadcasted. 'I'm here in the Canterlot library, indexing their archives. I'm going to need to spread out some of the data I've been absorbing. There's a substantial amount of "magic" formulae interlaced in their material that's not settling into normal data storage systems.'

'How much are we talking about, Pardus?' Panthera asked.

'So far, I've taken in almost half of what we processed a few days ago,' he replied.

'Roger that. Canis, you and the others better brace yourselves,' Panthera warned the ship. 'We integrated one library's worth of data that had substantial amount of the Equestrian "magic" formulae in it—trust me, it was like processing Block Transfer Computations!'

'You're going to do what?' Canis demanded.

'It shouldn't be so bad if we feed them the language lessons we got first,' Pardus stated. 'That power surge happened because we held all that data from Twilight Sparkle's library and it all got processed at the same moment once we learned their writing.'

'Yeah, that makes sense,' Panthera grudgingly agreed. 'Between the eight of us, we should be able to handle those computations.'

'If you think so,' Canis replied uncertainly.

'And if it's too much for all of us to handle, you've got the ship's mainframe to help, too,' Pardus pointed out.

With his tractor beam out of commission, Pardus was grateful for Gilda's help. Despite being hampered as he was, they still made good time on Twilight at the other end of the aisle. The first couple of hours saw them match the distance the alicorn princess had managed in since she started from at least the day before, and the next three hours had them just passing the halfway point in the aisle.

For Gilda, it must have been mind-numbing work to fly up, get book after book, fly down, flip pages, and fly back to return the volumes, only to repeat it ad nauseam. And for Pardus, it was rather boring as well, as he was never much interested in the biological sciences, and what he absorbed made even less sense when it was mixed with material that evidently applied to their "magic" or even the occasional mundane terms that were merely cultural deviations marking this world different from Earth.

But as dull as it was, he could go like this pace forever, as he had no problems about getting tired. The griffon with him, however, didn't have that luxury. And that fact made its evidence quite starkly when her stomach made quite the growl to rival many of similar vocalized sounds Pardus had experienced in his existence (as both a human and as an artificial life form).

"That sounds like a signal for a break," Pardus quipped deadpan.

"I'm very sorry, Lord Pardus," Gilda apologized.

"No need to be," Pardus responded. "I sometimes forget about how folks like you can't keep up with me and Panthera."

"'Folks like me'?" Gilda demanded.

"Slice me," Pardus ordered, offering up his right paw to her.

"Wh-what!?" she exclaimed.

"Go ahead. Slice me," Pardus said.

"I—I'm not going to do that!" she responded, to which Pardus sighed.

"Fine," he grumbled, rearing up as he unsheathed the claws of his left paw and slashed at his right arm several times in succession.

"STOP!" Gilda screamed, rushing forward to stop the shadowcat from further self-mutilating himself.

"Look," Pardus said, moving his right arm over in front her beak. "No blood."

The griffon stared incredulously at his arm and blinked in confusion. To confirm, she rubbed his limb against the lay of his fur.

"You weren't really cutting yourself?" she asked.

"I was trying to cut myself, but go ahead and cut me," he challenged.

"NO!" she yelled.

"Oh, for the love of—" Pardus growled. Quickly, before she could react, he wrenched free of her grasp, and then instantly grabbed her left hand with his right paw and forced her talons to rake his left arm.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" she screamed, yanking herself out of his hold.

"Pardus!? Gild—Ambassador!? Is anything the matter!?" came another voice as the purple alicorn and several castle guards rushed up from the far end of the aisle.

"See? No blood," Pardus said holding up his left arm before her before looking over to address the arrivals.

"No problems, Twilight Sparkle," Pardus told them. "I was trying to explain to Gilda about my makeup being of equustite rather than being like all of you."

"What? Equustite? What are you talking about?" Gilda asked in confusion.

"You should perhaps ask Princess Twilight Sparkle while we all break for lunch," Pardus replied with a toothy grin.

A short time later, the three of them sat at a table in the castle cafeteria, flanked by the four guards who had run up along with the purple alicorn. When Pardus asked the guards to join them for their meal, they all refused, insisting that it was inappropriate to do so while on duty.

"So—you really can't eat?" Twilight Sparkle asked excitedly as she continued to take notes. Gilda just looked at the shadowcat in astonishment before her untouched food.

"I can eat," Pardus corrected her as he reclined before the empty dining set. "However, I get no nutritional value from doing so. As you already know, my body runs on its own internal power supply. Any food or water I ingest would simply be incinerated. I know it is a horrible waste of a meal that could otherwise feed a starving individual, but it does allow my sister and me to avoid socially awkward situations that might arise in different settings."

"Yes. Yes," Twilight Sparkle said, nodding as she continued to scribble. "I can see how that might cause problems."

"Speaking of causing problems," Pardus muttered as he reached out a wing to smack the back of Gilda's head. "Eat, Ambassador! That is what we came here to do."

"Now you boys just can't hold Lieutenant Scott responsible for the actions of Princess Twilight Sparkle," the alabaster unicorn told the guards who were assigned to watch her.

Scott could scarcely believe her ears by the unicorn defending her.

After all, it was this creature's actions which caused the equine to get on the tall pegacor—uh—princess' bad side. That incident had resulted in the unicorn being forced to make reparations for the loss of Scott's uniform, which resulted in several more copies so she wouldn't be stuck washing the same uniform set every day and being without any clothing until her laundry finally dried.

But then, after the excitement following an attack by a bunch of insect-like ponies and a weird smoke monster that tried to murder the civilian just a few days ago, she got caught up in a mass-teleport which caused her to toss her breakfast all over this very same unicorn.

During the train ride back from the national capitol, Scott barely had any interaction with any of the creatures. She spent all her time watching the landscape go by, observing how it changed from a thickly forested mountain as the track wound about and sometime tunneled through, and quickly transitioned to relatively flattened plains with mix of smattering clumps of forests and open fields.

It had taken most of the day when they finally arrived in the small community that served as her prison.

Scott wasn't surprised that the hatted orange pony accompanied her from the train station, since that creature's home was further down the road that ran by Scott's residence. But that the other creatures also came was unexpected.

She was sure to have what little freedom that had been granted her be instantly revoked when she returned to her home. And it almost was the moment Corporal Rackorn spotted her. He shouted for his fellow guardsme—ponies, and they all rushed up to arrest her.

But then, the five ponies jumped in and argued on her behalf, reminding the guards that Scott's disappearance was due to an accident. Then they presented a scroll that evidently had come from the tall white princess that gave an accounting of Scott's actions at the griffon border during the short period of hostilities.

After Rackorn inspected the scroll, he gave a scowl at her, but waved off his fellow guards.

"How is your sergeant?" Scott thought to ask, hoping an expression of concern would also help smooth things between her and Rackorn. "I understand he was hurt when those—bug things—attacked."

That did indeed seem to be a wise move on her part, as the corporal's demeanor instantly changed to be more sympathetic toward her.

"Sergeant Silver Thorne is on the mend," Rackorn told her. "Thank you for asking about him. He should be ready for duty in a day or two." Then he addressed the five ponies that had accompanied Scott.

"Thank you for your report, ladies," he said. "Your statements and the message from Princess Celestia clearly exonerates Lieutenant Scott from any reprisals for her escape."

The five ponies then said their goodbyes and split up; the orange pony and the blue pegasus continued along the road, while the others went back into the town.

"So, you stood on the front line as the attack was going on?" Rackorn inquired.

"Well, the attack was stopped before it even began," Scott admitted. "But, yes, I was there. I felt I owed it to your nation's leaders to do what I could to help. Fortunately, for everybody, that dragon popped into the middle of everything, putting a stop to it and turning the griffons around back to their home. Nobody died—except for the griffon ambassador," Scott sadly finished.

"Ambassador Gustav's dead!?" Rackorn exclaimed, to which Scott nodded. "What happened?"

"Heart attack or stroke," she replied. "Or both, from what I overheard. As a result, his daughter was named the new ambassador by the leader of the griffons, himself. And as I understand it, the leader of the griffons is also her uncle. Your leader accepted the new ambassador immediately."

"Sorry to hear Ambassador Gustav passed away," Rackorn sadly said. "He was a very popular and well liked griffon."

"Well, the last few days have been rather trying," Scott told him. "I'd just like to go home and sleep some of this off."

"Of course," Rackorn replied. "We'll inform the griffons staying at Ambassador Trevar's residence."

"'Ambassador' Trevar," Scott muttered snorting. "I don't think I'll ever get used to hearing him called that!"

After their lunch break, the alicorn, griffon and shadowcat were returning to work in their respective sections of the library.

"No, not that one," Pardus instructed Gilda. "Next one, please."

"Are you sure?"

"Eidetic memory, along with not ever really needing to eat," he assured her with a grin. "They both come with my biology."

"Ri-i-i-i-ght," she grumbled as she pulled out the indicated tome.

But as Gilda was on her way to land, a sea-green eldritch glow suddenly enveloped the volume and yanked the binding from her grasp. Instantly, Pardus leapt for the book flying up the aisle by itself.

Grabbing it, he felt the momentary resistance of the unknown unicorn's telekinesis before it failed in competing with him and the shadowcat had full control over the manual.

"A-a-a-ah!" Pardus heard a voice suddenly yell out. "What sort of monster is that!?" just before a concussive blast knocked him back dozens of feet and rammed him into one side of the aisle, scattering numerous books and splintering shelves.

Pardus finally came to rest in the adjacent aisle. Getting back on his feet while securing the contested book beneath his right wing, he snorted as his eyes were powered up to their orange level. There was a white furred unicorn he had spotted just before the attack who was about to learn a valuable lesson on ranged attacks.

Leaping up to the gaping hole through which he had been thrown, Pardus roughly pushed through the broken and splintered shards of the paneling separating the opposing sides of the book case.

"That's 'Prince Blueblood', to you, you griffon harlot!" the same haughty voice was saying once he was in range to hear.

"Well, then, that would be 'Ambassador Gilda' back at you, Prince!" Gilda yelled.

"Ha! Now I know you're lying!" the white furred unicorn shouted. "GUARDS! TO ME, NOW!" he shouted back over his shoulder. "I know for a fact that Gustav is the ambassador from Griffonstone! And he isn't a hen!"

Oh, I should just let her go ahead and shred him for that one, Pardus cheerfully thought. Instead, twin beams of orange lanced out to drop the offending prince where he stood.

Startled, Gilda looked about, trying to discern where the attack came from.

"Sorry for ruining your fun, Gilda," Pardus said, gracefully leaping down to the floor, "but I saw him first! You can have what's left once I'm done with him."

"What's going on!?" Twilight Sparkle demanded as she and the guards from their lunch break came rushing up from behind them just as several more guards came down the aisle where Prince Blueblood evidently had come.

"We were just about to resume our work when this shithead decided to attack me," Pardus grumbled. "He knocked me through that shelf," he said, nodding back at the hole above and behind them. The look on the purple alicorn's face when she spied the damage was so worth it. Pardus continued, "and I only just got back to put him down. However, before I dropped him, I heard him claim to be a prince of your nation. Should I take care of this imposter for you, Princess? Or should we consider his actions to be an unprovoked act of war against both the Confederation of Shadowcats and our allies, the Griffons of Griffonstone?"

Twilight Sparkle grimaced. Gilda fought hard to not smile while several of the guardsponies from both teams facehoofed.

"I'll notify Princess Luna," the lead guard who accompanied Twilight Sparkle said. "Should I inform her that we're at war again?"

"NO! Absolutely not!" the purple alicorn yelled. "I'll deal with him, if you please, Pardus."

"Very well," Pardus replied. "Just so that you're aware, he's going to be unconscious for several hours."

"Thank you for that information," Twilight Sparkle responded. As she took the guards aside to give them their instructions on what to do with Prince Blueblood, Pardus pulled the book from under his wing.

"I managed to hold onto it when he blasted me," the shadowcat told her.

"I've known Blueballs for years," Gilda muttered as she took the book and began flipping the pages for Pardus. "He's always been a conceited and selfish snob. Even if he missed the news about my father, he knew who I was. This isn't just his typical antixeno bigotry, but this was excessive, even for him. I just wonder what caused this incident."

"Some jerks have to be jerks just to be jer—" Pardus started to say, but had to pause and focused on the information he was scanning.

Prince Qilin’s quarters was amazing, the little bit I saw of it as his magic carried me down the hallway. He turned on his bedroom light before dimming the glare just a bit.

"There. I want to see you." The gravel in his voice made me shiver.

"I want to see you too."

Wrapping his forelegs around me, he took my beak with his tongue then teeth as he pulled on my lower bill. He leaned down and began preening my neck, stopping at the pulse point before capturing the feathers surrounding my ear with his lips.

"Have I told you that I love this dress?" he asked as the glow of his magic unzipped it. "It's even better on the floor, don't you think?" Within seconds, it was pooled around my feet, and I was standing in front of him in only my feathers and fur. The dashing unicorn stared at me until I blushed. "Beautiful."

As his lips covered mine again, I opened for him, welcoming his tongue, greeting it with mine. He bent down and used his nose to lift me by my chest and flipped me onto my back, my wings instinctively splaying out as I fell on my spine. His muzzle then began working down my along my swollen nipples. His nose ground into my gravid belly with an urgency that was hedonistic and raw, before finally reaching my pubic bone and creating delicious friction on my clit. I cried out as his tongue deepened the kiss.

"Gilda, do me a favor and flip back to the title page," Pardus asked the griffon. "I need to confirm something."

The Effects of Several Environmental Factors on the Creation and Growth of Populations of Yvridiká ippógryfa the title page read. And just as he recalled, the abstract below the article's title conveyed the expected dry typical concise digest of the purported article.

"Flip forward a couple pages," Pardus instructed her. And there, just as he expected to find it. With his second look, now he could clearly see the point at which the hidden replacement of the book's contents was cleverly done.

"Princess Twilight?" Pardus spoke up, gaining the alicorn's attention. "Could you please look at this?"

"What's the problem?" she asked.

"Read this, and you'll see pretty quickly," Pardus said. Gilda released the book to Twilight's telekinesis, and the alicorn began reading. In just a few page turns, the look on her face soon matched the expression she previously had back when Pardus pointed out the damage to the shelving that was caused by Blueblood's attack.

"Blueblood!" Twilight growled through grinding teeth.

"If it was in my power to do so, I would let you both have him to do with as you wished," she said. "Rest assured, I will bring this to Princess Celestia and Luna's attention and ask they deliver the most severe sanctions on Prince Blueblood."

"Guards!" she yelled at the teams standing by. "Take the prince to his quarters. And when he wakes, make it clear to him it is under my authority that he is confined there until either Princess Celestia or Princess Luna sends for him."

"Yes, Princess Twilight," the lead guard replied as another of the unicorns lifted the unconscious equine with his magic.

"Oh, and one more thing," Twilight called before they departed. "He is not allowed to communicate with anypony before either of the princesses summons him. That includes using any guard to convey his messages, even to the princesses. Have I made myself clear?"

"Aye, aye, Princess Twilight!" the guard responded. Then they left.

"I'll see to it that you get access to an unadulterated copy of this book," Twilight Sparkle told them. "But I'm not sure how long it may take. Hopefully, the research paper won't be holding the one piece of information we're all looking for."

"Boy, Blueblood's really in for it now," Pardus' ears picked up one of the guards mutter to his comrades when they all thought they were far enough away to not be overheard.

In his home-away-from-the-Continuum, Q drummed the talons of his eagle hand, brooding on his latest attempt to dissuade Allec Trevar. Thanks to his owners' evolution, tracking either Trevar or his shadowcats was impossible. Fortunately for Q dropping a question here and there as he wandered about the griffon lord's castle, he was able to find out which suite in which the human and winged panther were staying.

Also fortunate for Q, the guards he had spoken to never inquired about the leathery bat wing Q sported while he was disguised as just some random griffon guard, a feature Q didn't realize he had overlooked until after he had finished projecting the image of one of those horrid Vorlons into his room—

"Uuuggh!" Q shouted, as the memory of those creatures caused him to vomit up a perfectly well-laid four course meal on a twelve-foot dining table, complete with folded napkins and eloquently positioned silverware.

Yet again fortunately for Q, he only needed to project the encounter suit of one of those nasty beings and not the actual creature! But that was still bad enough.

Looking in disgust at what had poured out of his gullet, Q snapped the fingers of his lion's paw to dispel the dining table and the items set up on it.

He considered it unfortunate, because as soon as Q had delivered the message to Trevar, the experience had forced him to depart the area immediately.

"Oh, why couldn't the Vorlons be more like those far more pleasant inhabitants of Z'ha'dum?" Q screamed as another urge to vomit suddenly came upon him.

But what Q was not aware was just how truly fortunate he was that he had been driven off by his visceral gut reactions from projecting the image of the encounter suit. As a result, his presence and departure went completely undetected when the shadowcat began searching for the cause.

Of course, Q knew that merely sending such a cryptic message like that would have no effect on Trevar. But it was still worth a shot….

Lieutenant Scott sleepily opened the door.

"Yes, Corporal Rackorn?" she asked.

"OH! It IS a human!" Scott suddenly heard an unfamiliar voice call out, the shout suddenly waking her up fully to see it was a mint-green unicorn excitedly bouncing on her hooves, alongside a bored-looking light-yellow plain pony.

"Sorry about disturbing you, Lieutenant," Rackorn apologized. "They insisted."

"Hey! Don't count me in on that," the other equine spoke up. When Scott focused on her, she saw that creature had a mane of pink and blue.

"Can we come in? Can we? Can we?" the green one started asking with an expression of — something — that Scott couldn't quite put her finger on, but suspected it would simply crush the little creature's heart if she dared to refuse.

"Ugh—Sure," Scott said sighing in defeat. "Com'on in."