Luna and I talked for a while longer, until, with a yawn, she excused herself from the room. I reached over and helped myself to the last of the berries, thinking I maybe should have asked where she got them. I doubted they were from the local grocers, so they must be cultivated nearby. I made a mental note to ask about them later.

The princess had been particularly interested in the interplay between the two tribes I had encountered in the Wither world, the tribe of the Beyond and that of the Purple Sands. I’d asked her about the wendigo spirit and Luna had explained to me that the one within me had most likely been created due to the trauma of the attack on myself and Meadow. Whilst in a state of near death, the ‘spirit of the wendigo’, as she called it, had kept me alive. If she knew why, she wasn’t saying. Suffice to say, she wanted to tap into the wendigo’s power, its ruthlessness, to put out the fire beginning to take hold in Equestria.

Under Celestia’s rule, ponies had enjoyed a thousand years of peace and prosperity. The downside to this was that as a rule, we were hopelessly susceptible to anything that threatened us. Sure, a lot had magic abilities or physical strength to help them fend off the odd attack by wild predators, but these were normally contained in areas ponies seldom travelled.

The spirit within me was apparently born of me, a corruption that regular ponies should not have experienced. I viewed the thing as both a blessing and a curse, without it I would have been able to cross with my family to the eternal herd. Without it, I would never have met Shadow and the incredible world of the thestral’s. Nor, of course, would I be stood here speaking to the princess and been given the opportunity to help protect ponies as I had done in the watch.

‘Honour’, ‘Loyalty’ and ‘Duty’, three words hammered into me by my father, had been part of the motto of the watch. I missed my old career, and my friends. Meadow was right, a pony was not meant to be alone any yet here I was…again. But not for long I hoped.

The door behind me opened and the cheerful orange stallion stalked in, “Follow me”.

He walked out and like a well behaved little terrier, I followed close behind. He was a big fellow, scarred and weather beaten. Warlock was not a unicorn I’d like to meet on a dark night…unarmed. We headed back to the medical room where the doctor was waiting with an exasperated look on his face, “Ah ! The wanderer returns ! Going to let me examine you, or are you going to run out of the room after trashing the place again ?”

I stood there with my mouth hanging open like an idiot, before giving the doctor a sidelong glance and hopping up onto the bed for him to check my chest. Sarcastic sod that he was, I don’t suppose he considered that it was his staff running, screaming in terror because I had ‘frightening’ blue eyes that caused all the commotion in the first place. Still, I wasn’t going to argue with the guy, he had a lot of sharp metal instruments next to him and had most likely saved my life. Don’t be ungrateful now Fairlight !

Warlock stood quietly watching from the doorway while the doctor poked and prodded me without a care for where he was examining.

“Fascinating”, he muttered checking my pulse and temperature, “Quite remarkable in fact. Hmmmm.”

Warlock rumbled to the doctor in his deep gravelly voice, “What’s the story with those eyes doc ? anything we can do about them ?”

The medical pony held one of my eye’s open while he peered in with a light, “Well, hmmmm, no. Theres nothing wrong with his eyes, its just the pigmentation that’s changed. Theres a significant magic field running through him which, together with the trauma to his head, appears to have created this unusual effect. The glowing is a particularly fascinating phenomenon. I’d like to run some more tests when I get a chance.”

The doctor took some pictures with a tripod mounted camera before continuing, “In answer to your question, agent Warlock, I believe the issue glasses will do just fine. If we tried to magically interfere with them, I have honestly no idea what would happen.”

The doctor peered at my broken horn, tapping it with a metal instrument of some kind, “Nasty, could take a long time to heal judging by the direction of the crack line. Possibly never depending upon how deep the damage goes”.

He measured the broken stump, muttering to himself under his breath. It was a frightening revelation, I may never have my horn back ? I simply couldn’t imagine it, a unicorn without a horn. Great goddesses, what in Equestria was I going to do ?

“What did you specialise in Captain ?”, the Doctor asked while filling in a clipboard, “Levitation, spell casting…what ?”.

“Basic levitation and manipulation, plus some limited fire making” I replied.

He fished a box of matches out from his top pocket, “Try and take a match out for me if you would,” he said watching my horn intently.

Well, here goes. I carefully channelled my senses to release the magic, relieved to see the familiar deep blue glow envelop the small box. The pain was still there, just on the edge of discomfort, making me a little cautious in not allowing too much magic to rush out at once. Carefully, slowly, I felt the box, feeling its shape and dimensions. A slight push and the box opened, another small trickle and gently…oh, so gently…one of the matches floated out to hover before the doctors nodding head. “Good…now, light it”, he said seriously.

Dropping the box, I concentrated on holding the match in place and exciting the air around it, creating heat, friction…”Ow! Damn it…,” I cursed as a bolt of white hot pain lanced down through my horn into my brain. Celestia’s tits that hurt like hell !

“Never mind Captain,” the doctor said making a note on his clipboard, “your magic is still flowing which is an excellent sign. You’ve probably lost some strength in your levitation but that’s only to be expected. Pyrotechnical abilities often suffer as they put the most strain on your horn, but keep practicing though, it will help with the recovery.” Well, at least that was some weight off my mind.

Warlock didn’t seem impressed as he shook his mane, “What about the cutie mark? He stands out like a sore hoof with that…’thing’”.

I was really starting to take a dislike to this pony, I certainly didn’t like being talked about when I was only a couple of feet away. The doctor glanced at Warlock, all the while checking my body over, “I’m not performing surgery to remove it, if that’s what you’re thinking”, he said, “I’m sure the agency budget can stretch to a raincoat or cloak. There’s always alteration magic as an option.”

Warlock harrumphed. “The Mistress wants him ready for field assignment as soon as possible, so he’ll have to do, I guess.” Oh lucky me, I wasn’t exactly enamoured about working with this prick either.

“Hey Lucky, hows our patient doing?” the chirpy voice from the doorway was followed by a piebald stallion who pushed past Warlock to gawp at me, his bright green eyes staring right at me. Fantastic, more testosterone in the room, whatever happened to that nurse ? Oh….yeah, the running from the room thing. I sighed.

“Crikey ! Look at his eyes ! Proper freak you out, them eh ? Some spooky shit you got going on there mate.” The newcomer had a peculiar accent, not one I was familiar with and his colouring too was not that common in Manehattan. At least he seemed…friendly ? Or was that just weird?

I blinked, “Names Fairlight, former watch captain, former corpse.”

The piebald buck grabbed my hoof and shook it vigorously, “Agent Wist at your service buddy, must say yer looking pretty good for a dead guy. Feeling better then, yeah ?”

I smiled, still a little unsure about this male, there was something off about him I couldn’t quite put my hoof on. “I’m feeling a lot better, thanks agent Wist.”

He patted me on the shoulder, “Just Wist when we’re alone captain, you know, just the two of us. Lights down low…” Wist drew out the last syllable and burst out laughing at the look on my face. “Oh captain my captain ! I’m sorry, new guys have to get a bit of a hazing you know ? Anyways, come on, we’ve gotta get you sorted.”.

Wist helped pull me off the bed, nodding to the doctor, “You okay if I pinch yer patient doc ?”

The doctor sighed, placing his stethoscope back on the medical trolley and waved us off. “Good-o !” Wist chirped and pulled me past a silent Warlock. I’ll bet he was just the sort of pony you’d want your daughter to come home with. I swear if Sparrow came home with someone like that, I wouldn’t care how big he was, I’d probably kick him in the nuts and run for all I was worth. Well, maybe not but the thought of bucking the miserable shit right in the bollocks was sheer gold.

Wist sniggered, “Don’t mind old orange boy, bud, miserable sod at the best of time but handy in a scrap…”

The piebald male chattered away until we came to another room with a suited pony behind a desk. “This the new guy ?”, he asked.

“Yeah Flail, he’s the Mistresses new pet project. Give him the works will ya ?” Wist replied in his overly excited manner. The grey pony, Flail, walked over and looked me up and down taking measurements, ticking off boxes on a clipboard.

Before long, I was suited in the regulation black; black shoes, black coat, black sunglasses. “Oh yeah !”, Wist said clopping his forehooves together, “Lookin’ sa-wish !”. I wasn’t sure if that was a complement or not, but I had to admit, against my grey coat, it looked pretty damned good, covered the funny cutie mark too. The shades would help me cover the glowing blue eyes up and the white shirt with the black tie looked sharp. Nice, much better than my old watch coat, but…I still kind of missed it.

“Okay…”, said Wist examining me carefully, “Let get you some gear ‘kay?”, I don’t think it was a question. The odd buck took me into a storage room with banks of lockers and shelves. Black was apparently the go-to colour choice for agency ponies and sure enough, everything in here had that shiny beetles wing sheen to it. “Lets see now…”, Wist muttered to himself, “…here you go ! One TED, one shocker, bzzzzt ! and one rewriter. Used these before ?”.

I looked at the TED, it seemed almost identical to the one recovered from the dead pony at the warehouse, the ‘non equestrian’ pony. It fit comfortably into my ear and a thin flexible wire kept it in place with a small mouthpiece attachment. It would take a little getting used to, but not overly much. The other two items were more unusual, the first of which was a small black box with a button that would be too small for hoof manipulation, so I guessed was intended for unicorns.

“Whoa ! careful with that tiger !”, Wist laughed as he took the box from me, “This thing is for dealing with ponies who won’t behave themselves, here…” He levitated it from me with a flourish and pressed the button. An intense blue-white spark of energy jumped across the small metal prongs that projected from the casing. “Jam that into some pony and, fifty thousand volts of fun later, its lights out !”. Yeah, I could imagine the ‘fun’ you could have using one of those things on some poor unsuspecting pony. I suddenly got the previous ‘bzzzzt’ reference.

“Magical ?”, I asked curiously.

“Nah”, Wist replied in a disinterested tone, “A kinda hybrid of human and equestrian tech, you’ll see more of it eventually.”

I nearly dropped the thing as he tossed it back to me, “Human ? Tech ?” I asked intrigued.

“Yeah, never actually seen one myself, they look like us when they arrive. Come through them portals, flogging their shite to the mugs who’ll use it.” Wist scratched behind his ear, “Ah, probably shouldn’t have told you that yet. Here, just a tick…”, he took the black rod, holding it up to my face, removed my sunglasses and there was a brief bright flash of light,

“OW !” I shouted, “What the fuck was that for !? Goddesses, you nearly blinded me !”

Wist checked his device and stared me in the eye, “What do you remember ?”.

“Remember what ?”, I asked, my bloody eyes were burning.

“How does the shocker work ?”

“You jam it into some pony and press the button, you just told me that.”

“What makes it work ?”, he asked closely watching my reaction.

“How the bloody hell should I know ? You said its some hybrid tech, human and…”

I never got to finish as Wist flashed another bright light in my eyes. “For Celestia’s sake Wist, will you pack that it in ? Its like needles in my bloody eyes !”, I swiped the black rod from him and put it in my pocket before he used it again.

He eyed me curiously, like he hadn’t seen me before and shook his head slowly, “Never seen that before, must be those funny eyes of yours. Best keep the shades on chief.”

“What is that thing ?”, I asked him, rubbing my eyes to try and get rid of the blue spots.

“Memory rewriter, variable settings, minutes, hours. One flash and ponies forget you were there. Cracking bit of kit that, don’t forget that ponies here are mostly still blissfully ignorant of what’s going on just around the corner. We want to keep it that way, the princesses want to keep it that way. You don’t tell any pony about the humans, the portals, the agency, nothing. You do, and you’re next to be sent for re-education…or worse.”

Wists demeanor had changed completely, the flippant, joking young unicorn was replaced with a hard, cold agency pony. “Oh, nearly forgot to give you this”. He held out a leather wallet which I flipped open to reveal a small badge with a silver sunburst, the same as Celestia’s cutie mark if memory served, and a white metal plaque underneath with a name on it.

“Agent Nox”, I read out loud, “Who’s that ?”.

Wist gave me a sardonic smile, “Why, that’s you me old mucker, cant have a dead pony wandering about town can we ? Ponies would piss themselves.” He chuckled and trotted out of the room. In a state of befuddlement, I followed, when had my life become so peculiar ? Surely I’d had a normal life at some point in the past hadnt I ? Goddesses knew what I was in store for next. I sighed and resignedly followed the agency pony.

Down the corridor and a new room, a long one set up with stalls and a caged off area at one end. It was spotlessly clean and the lights reflected brightly from the white floor and walls. Wist trotted up to the cage and spoke to a pony who appeared behind it, a disinterested look on her face, “New guy Wist ?” she asked around a pen she held in her mouth.

“Yup,”, Wist smiled scratching his ear nonchalantly, “sort him out with a PDW please, Snap”

The violet earth pony behind the cage produced a cold black metal device and a box of orange gemstones. The thing looked…familiar, I couldn’t quite place my hoof on it. “That’s yours now chief, just remember not to shoot the wrong guys, okay ?”

Shoot? I nodded, “You’re going to have to explain this to me Wist, its some kind of weapon isn’t it ?”, now I remembered, that damned tube things the smugglers were using to mow down my ponies at the warehouse. This looked like one of them, vaguely. I felt sick even lifting the device up in my magic.

“Sure thing chief”, the agency pony took the device and placed it on a table between the walls of one of the stalls, flicking a nearby switch with a hoof. A long row of lights hummed and flickered into life, the life size picture of a changeling illuminated at the far end. I’d used similar during basic training with the watch, but nothing nearly as fancy as this and something told me that I wasn’t going to be using a crossbow here.

Wist pulled a catch on the device, the ‘PDW’ I think he called it, and popped in one of the orange crystals. With a flick of his foreleg, the thing snapped shut and he floated it over to me grinning, “Used to something a little more agricultural I bet”.

I took the PDW and pointed it towards the target. “Line up the two posts and pull the lever, with your levitation skills, it should be straight forward”. It was kindergarten level object manipulation. Despite odd twinges of pain from my broken horn, I could still manage it.

I squeezed the lever and a brilliant green streak of magical energy lanced out of the end of the weapon and blew a glowing hole through the target. I marvelled at the thing, the power, the weight, lethal burning death in such a small device. Terrifying.

Wist laughed out loud, clopping his fore hooves together, “Top job buddy ! Well impressive that, lets see if it was luck or skill eh ? You’ve got another four shots before you need to change the crystals too. Keep going !”.

I kept shooting at the target, and each blast found its mark with lethal accuracy. It was insanely simple to use and quite, quite deadly. My surprise and excitement was short lived when the reality of these things getting into the wrong hooves hit me. “Wist, what the hell are we doing with these things ? The Mistress wants us to stop weapons coming into Equestria and we’re developing our own ? What if these get into the hooves of the very ponies, or ‘humans’ were trying to stop ?”

Wist shook his head, a dark look crossing his face, “These are magically coded for only ponies to use, humans couldn’t operate them, even if they look like us. They’re also limited issue, one per agency member. The crystals are specially grown here for agency members too. If some pony happened to get hold of one, they’d need the crystals and each one has a magical trace on each of them so we can find it if it’s ‘lost’”.

Clever, but even so, “I don’t like it Wist,”, I said, “we would have to use these on another living thing. Great Goddesses, are we starting a war here or something ?”

He looked away shaking his mane, “You may not have noticed it yet, agent Nox, but yes, we are.”