I spent another week practicing with the PDW’s, which, as I’d later found out actually stood for ‘Pony Defense Weapon’. I would also discover that the agency had a love affair with not only black outfits and black equipment but also bloody acronyms. Everything had one, and it took all my time to decipher the conversations going on around me. Each day was a repeat of the last, tactics, drills, TED protocols and of course, target practice. After a little while, I became quite proficient at handling the deadly little weapon. There were other types too, designed for pegasi and earth ponies, utilising a mouth operated firing mechanism. Despite my misgivings, and I had to admit my own hypocrisy in this, I had previously used crossbows to shoot ponies in the watch. But, at least here in the agency, we had the ‘shocker’ which was non-lethal. Not that being hit with all that magical energy wouldn’t hurt like hell, but a lot better than a hole burnt through you.

What I missed the most in the agency though, was the camaraderie of the watch, my friends and colleagues. The agency was a group of ponies who all seemed to have, I don’t know….’issues’ ? No pony seemed to want to get along with the others except on missions and there was always a sense of distance between them, and me. Wist was a bit wacky but there was something beneath that outgoing façade which didn’t sit right with me. It was the same with gruff old Warlock, one day I would have to find out what was going on here before it drove me crazy. The sooner we put a stop to these smugglers the better, I would have Shadow back and get out of this loony bin.

The ‘facility’ we were in, was not much more than an agency version of the watch house. A lot more up-market and clean than my old work place in Manehattan but lacked a lot of its character, unless clinically clean and bland was to your taste of course. Wist had explained that the agency ponies stationed in various locations around Equestria, operated remotely to the main hub, which I guessed, would be the mountain facility I had been taken to that time. ‘That time’, when I had been forced to hand over my badge. Goddesses, I could never forget that, regardless of the reasons behind it. The memory was still like a dagger through my heart.

One morning at breakfast, I decided to broach the subject with Wist. He sat opposite me, yawning while stirring his warm oat porridge. “Late night ?”, I asked pleasantly.

Wist nodded, stretching his fore legs out for emphasis, “Yeah, card game with Snap and the gang, Goddess knows what time that went on ‘till”, he took a swig of apple juice, “…bit of advice buddy, don’t play against Snap. She’ll wipe the friggin’ floor with yer.”

The breakfast choice in the agency was like its working practices, bland, mechanical, efficient and necessary. Porridge and apple juice or apple juice and porridge, delicious… I looked across the table at Wist, he had dark circles under his eyes poor bugger, I imagined his pockets were pretty light right about now.

“Hey Wist, I never asked, how did you end up in the agency then ?” I asked.

He looked at me with a disinterested expression, “Same way you did chief”.

“What ?”

“Woke up here. You know, doctors, nurses. Same as everypony else”.

“You’re kidding me!” I putting my spoon down, “What, you’re just walking along one day and ‘poof!’ you’re here in the agency ?”

Wist stared down at his porridge, “Pretty much. Thing is, none of us can remember what happened before then, or at least if they do, they’re not saying.”

“Can you remember ?”, I asked him curiously.

Wist’s eyes narrowed and a dark look passed across his face, “No. No I don’t, and Nox ?”, his eyes bored into me, “Don’t ask me again, alright ?”.

I paused looking into those deep eyes. There it was again, the fathomless black hole which appeared from time to time in his gaze. “Sure Wist, didn’t mean to upset you my friend, I’m sorry.”

With a blink, the chirpy piebald stallion re-appeared, “Its cool chief, just y’know, what we don’t know cant hurt us, right ?”, he laughed.

“Right”, I said, not believing my own reply. It wasn’t right, not at all. I had the impression that the agency was full of damaged goods that they’d ‘patched up’ by applying a plaster rather than attempting a proper repair. I hoped I wasn’t working with a bunch of ticking time bombs, ones who were armed with magical energy weapons.

“Team Epsilon to briefing room in five minutes.”

The voice over the tannoy caught our attention, “Come on chief, lets shift flank. Don’t wanna be late for yer first outing do yer ?” Wist smiled ruefully and finished off his porridge with a final spoonful. I followed suit, downing the last mouthful quickly and headed for the door. Warlock was already there watching us...waiting.

“Nox, Wist, you’re with me” The dour orange pony informed us turning away to walk down the brightly lit corridor. We sat in on the morning briefing together and watched the surveillance images projected onto a screen, it all seemed straight forward enough. Nice and simple, an easy routine job for my first outing.

The target was a coffee shop on the junction of 39th street near the projection house. Meadow and I had been there once and I still had a vague recollection of the layout of the area. It was in a typical Manehattan setting, busy streets, equally busy pavements and the overhead railway which so fascinated me the first time I saw it. The sparks from the smoke stack in the early morning light as the locomotives thundered by was magical to behold, and like a foal, I’d stood there staring up at them wide eyed. Meadow thought my reaction endearing at first, but after the second locomotive has passed and I didn’t show any signs of moving, she’d pulled me into the shop, rolling her eyes at my behaviour.

The inside of the shop was wood panelled, with wooden tables and neat checked table covers, all quite quaint. We’d been the only couple in there at that time in the morning and the waitress, a cute cream filly with a yellow and blue striped mane, had cheerily taken our order. The manager had turned out to be her father, who’s expertise in brewing was the reason why Meadow had wanted to visit this part of the city. I still thought the place a touch run down for my liking and it was an area I’d made several arrests for drunkenness and damage to property when stationed here. Needless to say, I was rather wary about taking Meadow to areas like this, but she had told me off for being ‘overprotective’ and said I needed to ‘relax and loosen up’. She was right of course, I did tend to be a bit stiff when it came to her safety, not that I had been able to protect her when I needed to. When it really mattered…

“Hey, chief !”, Wist nudged me, “you get all that ?”.

I nodded, “Yeah, we go in, secure the place when they close. Team Alpha secure the perimeter, Beta search the place for contraband. When finished, we take the family in for interrogation and memory alteration. Clean and simple, right ?”

Wist smiled, nodding, “Clean and simple”.

I checked my sidearm and shocker, I’d leave the crystal out of the thing, there was no way I was blowing holes in ponies with that, not after the warehouse, not when I had a non lethal means of disabling a target. Maybe I was growing soft in my old age, but, well…perhaps I’d seen too much death. I put it out of my mind and we headed for the sky carriages compound and boarded. We were quickly airborne, messages flying back and force over the TED’s, none meant for me though, just background chatter about weather conditions and estimated times for arrival at the target area. Out of habit, I didn’t look out the window but noticed, with some relief that my vertigo had simply…vanished. I silently thanked the wendigo part of me for that, maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

Wist noticed me deep in thought and tapped me on the leg, “You okay there chief ? you seem a bit distant.”

I smiled at him, “Sorry Wist, haven’t been on a mission for a while and it brings back memories, not all pleasant ones, you know ?”. Wist blinked, “No, not really. We have a job to do and thats the way I keep myself going. Keep telling myself…its just a job”.

I don’t know about Wist being worried about me, I was more than a bit worried about the way the piebald buck would slip between being cold one minute and perky the next. I hate to say it but I simply didn’t have the faith in my new colleagues that I used to in the watch. Still, all things come in time, I was probably just as nervous back when I first joined up, but It seemed so long ago now I couldn’t remember. Oh bollocks, I was becoming forgetful now too !

The carriage began to lose height, gradually dropping to ground level with a clatter of wheels on cobbles. The communication hatch opened, “We’re here people”.

I sat and waited, listening intently to the TED. Surveillance teams were already on scene, the voices chattering back and forth, “One female customer inside. She’s paying for her drinks now. Stand by one.”

Wist stared out the window of the chariot. I’m not sure what he thought he could see, we were parked one street over and had no view of the coffee shop from where we were. The radio voice came back, “Female has left the shop. Target male heading for the door now, all teams move in.”

“That’s our cue !” Wist shouted enthusiastically and threw the carriage door open, trotting towards the front of the shop with myself in hot pursuit. I re-adjusted my sunglasses and patted my pockets to make sure my badge was handy.

The air today was warm and dry, the sun dipping below the tops of the buildings, casting shadows across the road surface. I remembered there had been little wind in this part of the city, probably due to the density of the buildings.

My piebald agent colleague reached the door of the shop just as the male I recognised as the owner was reaching for the ‘closed’ sign. Wist pushed the door open and was stepping through, a grin on his face just as the shocked cyan male backed up, still keeping hold of the handle, “I’m afraid were closed now gentlemen, we’ll be open again tomorrow at eight.”, he said politely.

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll be able to manage a couple more coffee’s for my friends and I wont you? There’s a good fellow” He produced his warrant card and the males eyes went wide, looking to me as if for help.

I nodded at him and produced my card holding it up for me to see, “Agent Nox, Celestian Bureau of Investigation. No need for alarm sir, we’re here on official business.”

There was a thump, followed by a small crashing noise from the back of the shop as Warlock and Beta team, moved in to begin the search for any smuggled items. The agency briefing officer hadn’t deemed it necessary to give us poor grunts any background on why they thought there was smuggling going on here, but as the ‘new foal’ on the team, I guessed I was on a ‘need to know’ basis. Apparently, I didn’t need to know. I sighed inwardly, this was a completely different set up to what I was used to.

The coffee shop owner walked behind the counter and began preparing a couple of cups of coffee while I locked the front door and closed the blinds. Wist followed the poor fellow, smiling that knowing smile of his. You couldn’t help but feel sorrow for the owner, he was visibly shaking in fright and managed to drop one of the cups which, fortunately, I was able to catch with my magic before we had a damages claim.

I had to throw the owner a lifeline if for no other reason than to distract him from Wists attention, “Whats your name sir ?”, I asked politely.

“G…Green…Green Gauge” he stammered, nervousness showing in his dilated pupils. He poured out two cups and leaned down to pull something from under the counter.

Wist clicked his tongue at him, reaching down himself and taking out a jar of sugar lumps. Eyes never leaving the owner, he called over, “Agent Nox, how many sugars do you take ?”.

“One”, I answered, peering between the blinds. The street was clear in both directions. I needn’t have bothered, I could see Alpha members stationed up the street and on the roof top opposite keeping an eye out. There weren’t any passers by, or traffic for that matter, they probably had the road blocked off too.

“None for me,” Wist spoke in a cheeky tone, hooking a foreleg around the beleaguered males neck. He leaned close and whispered loudly into his ear, eyes flicking to me, “I’m sweet enough already”. Green Gauge quailed and pulled away from him, his antagonist laughing, “He’s good ! I like him. Hope yer coffee’s good too, squire…”

Wist leaned against the counter and sipped his freshly brewed beverage, “Hey ! This really is good ! Nox, come and get yours buddy.” I trotted over and tried some of mine. It really was quite excellent, rich and smooth. The aroma brought back memories of the visit I’d had here with Meadow. Why in Equestria hadn’t we been back here ? It was a rare treat to find a place that could produce such a flavoursome cup as this.

“Thank you Mister Gauge, this is excellent.” I said smiling to him.

“You…you’re welcome”.

He tried to smile but it never reached his eyes, the poor guy looked like he was going to piss himself. A loud crash from upstairs and a scream caught all of our attention as Warlock’s voice crackled over the TED, “Female heading your way Epsilon, head’s up”.

A yellow mare with a red mane rushed at us from a back room, tears flying from her eyes as she rushed to embrace Green Gauge. Wist stepped back and chuckled, pressing his hoof to his TED, “Male and Female secure, anything to report ?”

“Negative, nothing up here, we’ll continue to…wait…stand by one,” There was a brief pause, “contact…hold it, its a female foal, come here, its okay…Ow! Dammit the little fucker bit me! Look out Epsilon team she’s heading your way!”

There was rumble of hoof steps and a grass green foal burst into the room running headlong into Wist. He stumbled back winded, while I picked up the foal and pushed her back to her parents, “Here you go, its alright little one, we’re not going to hurt you”.

She glared at us, “Get out ! You’re bad ponies, you’re frightening nanna and granddad”. Okay, so…grandparents, not parents. So much for my detective skills! That was when I noticed the small toy pony lying on the floor, a plush model of Celestia. I went to pick it up but Wist beat me to it, levitating it up before the frightened foal.

“Looks just her doesn’t it ?” he shouted over to me, “bet she’s a right goer, eh?”

I gave him a hard look, “Give her it back Wist, she’s just a child.”

“Give me that back !” the foal screamed stamping a hoof.

Wist ignored her laughing, “Let’s see how well she can fly shall we?” He threw the toy up into the air narrowly missing the ceiling fan. The little green foal cried out and rushed forward to tackle Wist, flailing her forelegs and bucking him with surprising accuracy, right between the legs. It may have been funny except the piebald male snatched her up in his magic and slammed her tiny body against the wall, snarling, “You little BITCH!”.

I rushed over to put a hoof on Wist’s shoulder, “For Celestia’s sake Wist, chill the fuck out, she’s just a foal, put her down.” The agent’s eyes narrowed as he lowered the foal and turned to me, breathing hard.

Wist pulled off his sunglasses and stalked up to me until we were nose to nose, his bright green eyes boring into mine, “Don’t you ever…EVER…tell ME what to DO!” he yelled, foam spraying from his mouth.

I picked up the toy Celestia and stepped back from Wist, “Easy Wist, no ponies telling you what to do. Let me give the foal her toy back and we can get this job over with”.

He glared at me, hatred and rage burning in his eyes. I’d never seen him like this and it was worrying that this guy was in a position of authority. I would have to report this when I returned, he was obviously…unstable. That look in his eyes, where had I seen it before?

A bolt of green light made my vision flare and I ducked back instinctively, Wist doing the same, “What the fuck !”.

I looked up to see the grandparents cowering behind the counter and the foal standing on her hind legs holding a PDW. Both Wist and I patted our pockets, it was obvious from his face what had happened, the little foal had grabbed his pistol in the scuffle and it was now pointing right at him.

“Come on darling…” he said to the foal, insincerity thick in his voice, “put that down now, its not a toy. Here, look, my friends got your doll. Nox, give her the toy for fucks sake.”

I levitated the Celestia toy to her and she started to cry, “You’re a bad pony !” she bawled at him, “You’re bad, bad, bad !”.

A voice crackled over the TED, it was Warlock, “Whats going on down there Wist? Nox, report !”

“Chief, we’ve got a situation, the foals got Wist’s PDW, keep position until we get the situation back under control”.

Warlocks voice was heavy with condemnation, “Received, holding positions”.

Shit, this was going to take some explaining. Some first job this was turning out to be, a standoff with an armed child. I had to get the weapon away from the foal before some pony was hurt, and somehow keep Wist away from the family.

Before I had a chance to react, Wist stepped forward towards the foal, “Come on now, give uncle Wist the gun…”

The foal shrieked and a bolt of green light shot out again narrowly missing his ear and punching a hole in the wall behind him. Wists eyes narrowed and I saw him reaching behind his back as a cream filly with a yellow and blue striped mane walked into the room from the restroom, “Mum, Dad, whats all the noise ?”.

Quickly taking in the situation before her, she screamed. Celestia! What happened to our bloody surveillance teams ? Weren’t they supposed to have checked this place before we went in ? It was all too clear now how horribly unprepared we’d been.

I remembered during watch training, planning was drummed into us. “Piss poor planning, promotes piss poor performance”, my trainer had told us. By the Goddesses, he was right. In my excitement at being new recruits, we’d been all too willing to listen to some of the stories the veterans regaled us with. One had told us that when the ‘shit was about to hit the fan’, everything happened in slow motion. It may have been that way for him, but not for me, not now. Now, everything happened in a terrifying blur.

The foal, distracted by her mothers scream whirled away from Wist who made a lunge for the child, whilst reaching out with his magic to grab the PDW. The child tried to hold onto it with her hooves and in the ensuing tug of war, her tiny hoof hit the trigger and it fired, sending a green lance of energy at Wists head. With suprising agility, he dodged just but not fast enough, the magical energy beam clipping his ear and sending blood and burning flesh into the air.

Before the glow from the beam died away, Wists hoof produced another PDW from a hidden holster beneath his overcoat and aimed it at the foal. I shouted, rushing forward to try and wrest the gun from him but I was too slow. Too damned slow. The beam from Wists gun lanced out and the foals head exploded into flying chunks of meat; bits of red mane and yellow fur spattering across the counter and her grandparents. The mothers agonised screams echoed throughout the coffee shop.

Warlock and the other agency ponies charged into the room a heartbeat later. While we were distracted by the latest entrants, the grandfather clumsily reached under the counter and pulled out a tubular weapon, similar to the type I’d seen in the warehouse. It didn’t do him any good, another green flash from Wist burned a hole through him from chest to tail, he was dead before he even hit the ground.

The now hysterical mother ran for her foal crying out in anguish, and I managed to tackle her to the ground, “Stay down!” I shouted at her, but all she wanted to do was reach her foal. The same foal who’s broken body lay strewn across the floor near her grandfathers corpse.

In a sudden rush, the grandmother, picked up her husbands fallen weapon and shot it wildly at Wist, who ducked behind the counter. The bang made my ears ring and pieces of splintered wood fell on my muzzle. Warlock reached around the corner of the counter and placed a shot right between the older mares eyes. Silence fell, the smell of blood and burning flesh mingling with smoke from singed hair that was hanging in the air around us. I looked down at the mare below me whose eyes had narrowed to pinpricks, she was going into shock and began shaking uncontrollably. I shouted over my TED, “I need a medic in here now. We have ponies down, repeat, we need a medic in here now!”

Warlock trotted over and pulled me off the mare, holstering his PDW, “Leave her newbie,” he said in his gravelly monotone voice, “the medics will take care of her”.

I stood up, wiping spatters of blood and splinters from my muzzle, “You bastard Warlock, you lousy miserable fucking bastard ! Is this how you do things in the agency? Is it !? You just gun down ponies, just like that?” I pointed to Wist, “he just shot a foal, a bloody foal for Celestia’s fucking sake! What the fuck is wrong with you ponies?” I was starting to lose it and I could feel a hint of rage spark down inside me, who were we supposed to be here? Who was I? Who were the good guys?

Wist picked up his PDW and slipped it back into its holster along with its twin and walked past me without another word. I couldn’t bear to look at him. Warlock paused as a voice came over the TED, “Agent Warlock, we’ve found something”, he pressed his hoof to the device, “On our way.”

Turning to me, Warlock hooked a foreleg under mine and hoisted me to my hooves, it was the first vaguely friendly gesture I’d ever had from the stallion, one I barely noticed. “Come on Nox,”, he said, “theres something you may want to see here.”

I fought back the rising bile in my throat, following the orange buck through the back of the shop. Radio chatter continued across my ear piece, but in my current state none of it registered. I could still hear the mares scream, her pain and grief like a red hot lance through my heart. ’I’m sorry little one’, I silently prayed, ‘Goddess guide you to the eternal herd’.

At the back of the shop, a black coated agency pony from Beta team stood by an open hatch in the corridor floor, the rug which had been covering it, pulled back to one side.

Without another word, Warlock headed down into the cellar beneath. The smell of damp hitting my nostrils, damp and…something else, the smell of...

The big stallion halted at the bottom of the stairs, in the dim lamplight, a row of rusty cages sat haphazardly along the side of one wall, boxes, jars and other detritus piled up nearby. Agency ponies were busy breaking open crates with crowbars, their packaging material spilling onto the dank floor. One of them magicked out a long tubed device, the same as the one upstairs, “Sir”, the pony nodded passing the weapon to Warlock.

He took the thing and he passed it to me, his eyes watching my reaction. “Equestrian made”, Warlock said levelly, “These get on the streets, Nox and we’ll have more blood on our hooves than what you’ve seen upstairs today”. I propped the weapon against the wall and turned to meet his gaze, “Is that an excuse for what happened up there ? Warlock, we just killed three ponies, a little girl and her grandparents. Was that part of the plan ?”.

He spat on the floor, “Of course not, we don’t liquidate ponies unless absolutely necessary”.

I looked at the cages, “But Wist…Celestia, the guys not right in the head, we could have…”

Warlock interrupted, “...We will deal with Wist, this is not the time for that.”

I sighed removing my glasses and rubbing my eyes, Goddesses what a fucking mess.
A quiet sound of…something, caught my attention, Warlock had heard it too, “Over here !” he called pulling one of the crates aside. One of the agency ponies lifted up her lantern, casting light into the recesses of the cellar. There, behind the crate was another cage, rusty black metal glinting in the half life. Disturbing the crate sent the stench I’d noticed earlier to new heights, the foul reek of manure and urine catching the breath in my throat. I took the lantern from the pony and squeezed into the gap towards the cage, inside, two little foals looked up at me with shining eyes wet with tears.

The two, one a sand colour and one black, hugged each other in terror, their pupils wide, reflecting the light. They didn’t make a sound. I closed my eyes and looked back to the agency pony, levitating his crow-bar over to me to push into the padlock securing the cage. In the half light, I paused, in the corner, near the foals, lay another little body…unmoving. With a crack, the lock gave way and pulled the rusted door open, “Warlock, get some medics down here…please…” I whispered. He nodded and turned back to the other ponies in the room. I took off my TED, my hoof half way to removing my glasses before thinking better of it. These three had been through enough.

“Hey, whats your names ?” I asked gently. The black one tried to speak but her dry lips could barely offer any words. The other one spoke up, her voice cracking, “Palm…I’m, Palm. This is…Twinkle Sky”. Neither of them moved, “Are you…going to hurt us mister?” she asked shyly, her voice quavering. The black foals blue eyes watched me, twitching when I sat down on my haunches.

“No,” I said smiling to them, “I’m here to take you home, its okay now, we’re friends”. I motioned to the watching agency mare to come over, she took off her glasses and TED sidling up next to me, “Come on now my little ponies, its time to go home, we’ve got some hot drinks and some food for you too. You’d like that wouldn’t you ? Of course you would !”, she told them gently.

Slowly, carefully, the two moved towards her, the black one catching Palm’s tail in her mouth as she led her out of the cage. The same way Shadow had followed me from the village. Had that really happened ? It felt like a dream now…so long ago. I could feel tears stinging my eyes, was this what Equestria was coming too ? The mare patted me on the back with a hoof before leading the two foals away.

The ribs showing through their coats bore witness to cruelty I could never imagine an Equestrian inflicting on any creature, let along a helpless foal.

My eyes caught on the tiny figure of the unmoving green foal. I carefully reached out, feeling for a pulse…her body was stone cold. Cradling her in the blue glow of my magic, I gently lifted her out and took her in my forelegs, the foals eyes were closed just like she was sleeping. Tears poured down my cheeks, mingling with the filth she had been lying in during her final moments in the stinking dark cellar. I held her close and cried, my whole body racked with grief. I was lost, lost in a flood of emotions that threatened to overwhelm me, but I didn’t care. What the hell had she done to deserve this ? Where are you Celestia ? Luna ? Where were you when this young life, this precious spark of magic in the world, waned and died in the land of sunshine and rainbows.

No pony spoke. Rising to my hooves, I placed her on my back and walked past the others, some turning away unable to watch. I headed back up the steps and out the back of the shop where several of the sky carriages were parked up, the medics tending to the mother of the foal from the shop. Warlock shouted something up from behind me, but I didn’t listen. The mare in front of me sat with a blanket around her, shaking, her eyes tight shut against the tears. My magic glowed as I brought the lifeless body of the green foal before her, “Did you know”, my voice barely a whisper.

The mare looked up at me, her eyes bloodshot from crying as she took in the image before her. She said nothing. I advanced on her, pain and anger growing palpable, “I said, DID YOU KNOW ?” I all but screamed at her, but the mare remained silent, her eyes filled with nothing but the grief of her own loss. She had nothing to say for the green foal, no words of regret, no remorse, she was simply a commodity, a tool. She had to have known, she must have !

“Agent Nox!”, Warlock bellowed at me, “Come on now, give me the foal, she shouldn’t see this.”

I looked back at Warlock, my anger soaring, cold rage building within me, rising on a tide of pain, of vengeance. Some bastard was going to pay for this, I would find out who there were, where they were, and Celestia herself would not stop me from exacting retribution for the life of this child. Goddesses, they would all pay.

Warlock took the foal from me and passed her to the female agent who had taken the foals earlier. He took my head in his hooves and looked me in my eyes, “Get a grip Agent Nox, I cant afford to have you going nuts on me too. The Mistress trusts you, she believes in you.”

He slapped me across the face with a hoof, “Get a fucking grip Captain !”, he shouted.

I lifted my head and faced him, my thoughts re-arranging themselves, “You knew they were here didn’t you ?” I asked.

“Yes, or rather, we suspected,” he lead me out of earshot of the mare who was bundled into one of the sky chariots, “the smugglers have been trading in foals. Foals and gems, traded for guns, drug components.”

I drew a ragged breath, watching the sky carriage take to the air, “Celestia’s mercy…”, I breathed.

The orange agent stood next to me, “Do you see now Agent Nox, do you see now why we must do what we do ? Who’s foal will it be next ? If we don’t stop these scum, it wont stop. It will never stop.”

I rubbed the tears from my eyes and readjusted my sunglasses. He shook his mane and called a sky carriage driver over to us, “I blame myself Nox, I should have shown you the truth from the beginning. The Mistress wanted me to, but I was worried you might…”, he sighed, “…end up like Wist”.

I looked about me; the piebald stallion was nowhere to be seen. “Here, get in” Warlock said pushing me in through the open door of the carriage.

I felt numb, emotionless…empty. I took a seat in the sky carriage and barely registered it taking to the air, Warlock sat opposite me listening to his TED. Robotically, I put mine in, the radio chatter clear and clinical.

‘Disposal Teams clear to move to target area’
‘Received, moving in now’
‘Sanitation Team to target area, clean up procedure to be implemented immediately.’

I knew what ‘sanitation’ meant, they’d remove any evidence of the terrible events that had unfolded there. A cold thought hit me, had the horrors in the cellar been going on when Meadow and I had been enjoying a coffee and slice of cake there that time? Had there been foals, locked in the darkness in those rusting cages below our very hooves? Crying in the darkness, calling for their mothers, for help that would never come.

I pushed the thought away, I couldn’t give in to this feeling, I had to drive it down, keep myself together. There was work to do, work to help Equestria and stop this…this evil from spreading. I couldn’t do that if my head and heart gave in to hate and anger. Warlock was looking down at something next to me, it was my hoof. I’d been pressing it into the seat so hard, I’d left a deep indentation in the material. I rubbed my sore hoof on my hind leg and looked him in the eye, “What will happen to them?”, I asked.

Warlock looked out the window, “They’ll be taken to the hub, memories wiped, families found.”

“And the mare?” I asked him readjusting my TED, “what about her?”

“Interrogated then memory wiped. If its too deep, she’ll be sent for re-education”

“Re-education?”

“Total memory reset, false memories implanted, a new I.D. A new start.”

“Do some end up in the Agency?”

“Some, depending upon temperament”

I took my glasses off and fixed my gaze on Warlock, “Is that what happened to Wist?”.

He glanced at me then back out the window, “We’re here”, he said quietly but of Wist, he said no more.

Outside, the biting cold wind was the first thing to hit me, we were high up in the mountains and I quickly recognised the landing area from my first visit here. This was the Agencies central hub, and I’ll say this for our driver, he was fast. Warlock and I walked across the wide flat expanse and showed our cards to the guards before climbing into one of the magically powered buggies. The thing was a marvel of magical innovation, smooth and quiet with barely a hum from its rubber rimmed tyres. Why we didn’t have more of these in Equestria, I couldn’t say, pony power was still very much the staple everywhere.

We glided down corridor after corridor, a white line delineating the road traffic from the walking areas. Agency ponies walked or drove everywhere I looked, some carrying files, some standing to chat. One thing I noticed though, was that they all wore the same dour expression, like Warlock, like the joy inside them had been sucked clean away. Goddesses knew, if they’d seen what I had today, I probably was the last one to criticise.

The buggy rolled to a halt near a set of double doors with a guard posted outside, not that he looked any different to all the other agency ponies, other than a larger version of the PDW in his hooves. We flashed our cards and he let us through to a small chamber beyond. A voice crackled over an intercom, “Wait a moment please gentlecolts, scan in progress”. A red light from the ceiling swept over me from nose to tail, then the same with Warlock. The voice returned, “Thank you, you may proceed”.

I watched Warlock, his expression never faltered. “What was the scan for?” I asked him.

He regarded me quietly, “Making sure we’re Equestrian”.

From what Mitre had told me, these ‘humans’ as Wist had called them, had been able to shape shift to look like us, but obviously there was something detectable in their physiology that made them different. I doubted it was little aerials sticking out of their heads somehow, but it would be something…’technical’. Damn it all, I wished I’d spent more time studying as school rather than arsing around.

We hoofed our weapons in at a desk and were patted down before being scanned once more for anything concealed. Cleared, we entered a long corridor through a sliding door, again guarded by a heavily armed agency pony. A row of rooms that could only be described as cells, lined both walls.

The first one we came to held a lime coloured pony, cowering in the corner, shaking and talking to himself. I moved closer to the hatch, trying to hear what he was saying, “Inside you, taking you, listening, watching…always there, never listening, oh no! Inside…inside…yes, yes”.

Warlock closed the hatch, “Seen enough?”, he asked, I nodded. Cell after cell, we passed, each with shaking ponies, foaming at the mouth, chattering insanely, rocking back and forth…madness.

The last cell on the left wall held a purple filly with deep bite marks on all four legs, she’d been muzzled. Her bloodshot eyes regarded us with insane hatred and she charged the door screaming, “YOU! My fathers, brothers, sisters bastard WHORE! Drowning in your own blood, I’ll eat your heart and piss in your eyes…”

She growled and hissed, biting at the glass covering the hatch before, with a snap, Warlock closed it firmly.

He crossed the room and opened another panel, motioning me to look inside. In the corner sat a filly, not much more than a foal. She was sat on her haunches, rocking on her haunches singing a tuneless melody. The walls were covered in formless drawings in crayon. Warlock called to her, “Lilly? Lilly, its uncle. Lilly…?”

The young filly, orange coated like ‘Uncle’, slowly dragged her hind legs towards the door, her pale white eyes staring up, sightlessly. “Uncle Warlock?”, she spoke in a distant manner, as if her voice was already beyond the mortal realm, “Is it time to go home Uncle? I’ve been here so long…so…so long”.

The big orange stallion smiled at her, “It wont be long now Lilly, you’ll be going home to be with you mummy and daddy.”

Lilly smiled, “I’d like that Uncle…I’d like that”. The macabre sight made my hackles go up, there was something frightening about this child, I felt a chill just looking at her. Her face and her manner was like looking into the face of death itself, her eyes reminding me of the lake serpent in the Withers, cold, lifeless. Warlock closed the hatch and we walked back out the way we came in.

We climbed back into the buggy and were rolling quietly down the passageways before he spoke, “Lilly is blind. Her hind legs are withered…useless. Her mother, my sister, the purple filly in the room opposite hers ?”, I nodded, “-she was a user…shot the breeze, one too many times…”. He shook his mane and snorted loudly, “Lilly was born addicted, her mother was too far gone to look after her and the doctors can’t do anything either. The Mistress herself had a look at her and she…she said that Lilly is…” the big stallion slammed the brakes on the buggy before closing his eyes against the tears, “…she’s passing over, the herd are calling her. Its only a matter of days now…”

I went to put a hoof on Warlocks shoulder but, I couldn’t, what could I say to ease his pain? “Warlock…”, I began, but he interrupted me, “Forget it. There’s nothing you or I can do here Nox, I just wanted you to see what I’ve seen, to see for yourself why we sometimes take what you think are ‘extreme measures’ to stop this from spreading.”

Wist had said we were at war, Lilly and her mother were but two of its victims, two of Goddesses knew how many. Even Warlock’s own family had been touched with its deadly poison. It was no wonder he was so…detached.

“What will happen to Lilly’s mother?” I asked him, dreading the answer.

Warlock started the buggy up again, “She’ll be retired, Nox.”

“What ?”, I said incredulously.

“I said she’ll be retired, put to sleep, euthanized, do you want me to spell it out for you?”, Warlock said levelly.

“Goddesses”, I said quietly half to myself, “they’re going to kill her…”

The big orange buck briefly glanced at me before facing back to the road, “And what’s the alternative then? That’s not life Nox, it’s not even death. Breeze destroys you, by inches, rotting your mind and body until theres nothing left. It destroys ponies, families, even whole villages. It’s a disease and we have to do whatever it takes” He closed his eyes briefly, “Whatever it takes…”