“Well, we need a plan,” Daring Do says. “Or rather, a change in our plan that’d include those three. What do we do?”

“Wait, we had a plan?” I ask. “As for me, I’m gonna go back to the plane and get the rifle. When they’re closer, I’ll shoot Aryanne in the knee and slow them down.”

“We’ll need our weapons, sure.” Daring nods. “Also, you should rather shoot her in the head.”

I sigh. “I don’t shoot ponies in the head… on purpose.”

“Trixie thinks Daring has a point,” Trixie says. “If you shot her in the knee, you’d leave her to slowly die in a hostile environment. Much worse than a quick headshot.”

“Ah, how nice. Your kind developed ethics to the point where a decision that seems less ethical at first is actually better.” Blackcurrant Muffin shrugs. “So, are your weapons able kill them now or only after they come here?”

“We’re not going to kill them,” Inkie replies.

“Why?” Blackcurrant Muffin asks. “You’ve just proved that’d be more humane.”

“Not to mention more convenient.” Hexie smirks.

“Also, the word is ‘equine’,” Vinyl mutters, shuddering slightly. Although it’s not snowing, it’s still pretty cold in here. I wonder how cold is up there, where Aryanne and the gang are. Maybe that’s why they haven’t noticed us yet.

“I’ll get our weapons,” I say, seeing that my friends are about to start a discussion about ethics of killing one’s enemies. Since no one protests, I teleport away.

The first thing I notice after appearing in the plane is how much warmer it is inside. My teachers warned us to be prepared for different conditions in the start and destination places, but since I can only teleport within a bull’s roar, it never mattered to me much. I look into the boxes and grab my rifle, Vinyl’s shotgun, and the gun we got from Aryanne. We have ammo for most of them, even for the gun, so I pack it into the saddlebags. After a while, I find Inkie’s crystal gun, so I grab it too. Ruby already has the BB gun with her, so I guess that’s all.

For a moment, I wonder if I could dismantle one of the autocannons Hexie installed in the plane and give it to her. She’s probably strong enough to handle it as a regular weapon. Though on a second thought, we don’t need that much firepower. Especially not in Hexie’s hooves. I don’t need a new anus, thank you.

Once I’m ready, I teleport back to my friends. Or rather some twenty metres from them. It’s hard to focus on your destination when everything around looks more or less the same and focusing on the group as your target can end with teleporting into someone’s stomach.

“So, let me rephrase,” Blackcurrant Muffin says, shaping a part of her face into eyebrows to furrow them. “You don’t kill other ponies, even when they try to kill you. How are you even alive?”

“We have other means to deal with them,” Inkie replied. “Like kind words and ass kicking.” She blushes so hard it could melt snow.

Blackcurrant Muffin turns towards me. She’s covered in frost, which makes her look like a glass pane in winter. “And yet you carry instruments of murder. At least I think that’s what they are.”

I give the shotgun to Vinyl and throw the crystal gun to Inkie. No one in sight has balls, so it won’t fire anyway. I take a look at Aryanne’s gun and at the rest of my friends. I guess Daring is the only one I’d trust with it, but Blackcurrant Muffin walks to me and grabs it.

“How does it work?” she asks, looking into the barrel.

“You pull this and it lights gunpowder on fire. Then the gunpowder explodes and throws a ball of lead at you. Which you don’t want to happen to your head.”

“That’s it?” She shrugs and gives the gun to Daring Do. “Why yours look different?”

“It’s enough,” I reply. “Mine shoots at further distances. Vinyl’s shotgun throws more pellets to compensate for her crappy aim, Ruby has a training rifle working on compressed air, and Inkie’s gun casts a spell that can fry someone’s balls.”

“That does not sound very lethal…”

“But it’s painful,” I mutter. “Also, ‘balls’ is a slang for male reproductive organs.”

Blackcurrant Muffin shrugs. “And you consider that more humane than killing?”

“And funnier,” Vinyl says. “Also, I guess we could just dig a hole in the snow and try to reach the town before they even get here. All they’ll see will be the tops of the buildings.”

“That’d be easier if we had an excavator.” Daring Do sighs.

“Well, I do have some experience in digging,” Blackcurrant Muffin says. “Also, if you don’t kill ponies, how about other races? Are griffons and zebras still a thing?”

“Killing griffons and zebras?” Vinyl asks. “Well, that’s debatable.”

“Racist,” Trixie mutters.

Vinyl shrugs. “I’m just pointing out that it’d be easier for me to shoot someone who doesn’t look like me or my uncle…”

“You’d better not share that opinion in a polite company.” Daring Do turns to Blackcurrant Muffin. “And you’d better dig instead of teaching us about morals.”

“Sure.” Blackcurrant Muffin’s front hooves change their shape. Soon, they look more like a pair of shovels. I don’t have time to take a closer look, since she starts moving them with an inequine speed, throwing large chunks of snow into the air. The whole place looks like the snowstorm came back; Blackcurrant Muffin almost completely disappears in the hole that gets deeper with her every move. We look at each other. Can sentient blobs of jelly even get tired?

“I reached the street!” Blackcurrant Muffin shouts from the bottom of the well she dug. “Is that enough?”

“Pretty much,” Daring Do replies. “I guess someone should stay here while the rest would explore the town.”

“I’m staying,” Hexie says. “I’d rather be in the plane when those genetic experiments find it.”

Vinyl looks into the hole and shudders. “I don’t like it. Can I stay with Hexie?”

“I’m going!” Ruby exclaims. “This looks like some cool place.”

“You’re not going,” I reply.

“Blow me.” Ruby tries to teleport to the bottom of the hole. She almost manages to do that, ending up about two metres above it, half-buried in the snow.

“Come back here!” I shout.

“I can’t teleport!”

“Yeah, sure. I know you can.”

Ruby chuckles, jumping down on the street. “Come and get me!”

I teleport to the bottom of the pit. More exactly, I somehow teleport inside of Blackcurrant Muffin, but she quickly pulls herself together.

“Ruby, you’re going back,” I say.

“There’s no way I’m teleporting with you,” Ruby replies. “Your accuracy got worse.”

“One day we’ll use you as a bait for monsters,” I mutter, watching as Daring Do flies down, carrying Inkie and Trixie with her. Their combined weight reduces her flying skills to a parachute, but after all, they only have to go down to us.

“Okay,” Daring Do says when they land. “Where are we going now?”

“The door.” Blackcurrant Muffin points out at the large trapdoor under her hooves. “It’s actually my master’s house. Most of it is underground.” She looks up. “Well, even more underground now.”

She steps off the trapdoor and touches a small crystal next to it. Whatever device it is, it still works. With a terrible screech, the door opens, engulfing us in a cloud of dust. Holy shit, it smells! I cough, covering my face.

“What is that?” Trixie groans. “Did something die here?”

“Mistress…” Blackcurrant Muffin jumps into the underground room. It has no stairs to speak of – I guess creatures that used to live here didn’t need them. We climb inside and immediately we’re greeted with a view of some half-rotten half-dried creature with a long, sturdy body and several tentacles that’d probably fall apart if someone touched them. Good thing it didn’t rot completely; as far as I can tell, this thing was an invertebrate, so there would be no skeleton left if it did.

The floor is covered with some unknown substance. I guess it used to be some kind of carpet, but after getting drenched with the dead creature’s fluids it nearly turned to stone. I can’t exactly see the walls of this chamber; either it’s that big, or it’s some weird angles again.

Blackcurrant Muffin sniffs and wipes her eyes, looking at the dead thing. I’m not sure if she does that because she’s sad or because she scanned our brains and knows that it’s something she should do.

“Do you know why I look like a pony?” she asks. Inkie walks to her and embraces her. “My master’s child kept them as pets, but they were dying quickly so she wanted me to look like one…”

“Quickly?” Trixie shudders.

“About eighty years,” Blackcurrant Muffin replies. “There they are.” She points at the ceiling. Far away from us, there’s a large, rusty cage hanging from it. Two pony skeletons hang from the bars – apparently they were trying to get out after everything went to hell, but never managed to do so and eventually starved.

“Holy shit, that’s creepy,” Ruby mutters. “Pretty metal, but still creepy as a hundred of fucks.”

“Cultural differences,” Daring Do replies. “We need to respect them.”

“Yeah, especially when someone keeps ponies in cages.” Ruby rolls her eyes. “Sombra was a fucking good guy, then. Also, they all died while we’re still here, so they were probably doing something wrong.”

“The conditions on the planet changed, I guess.” Daring Do looks around. “And other species bred faster.”

“That’s pretty much what happened,” Blackcurrant Muffin says. “By the time I got frozen, there were more servants like me than the masters.”

“There’s a lesson for Trixie here,” I mutter. “Too comfortable life may cause extinction.”

Trixie sighs. “Trixie uses everything in moderation. She knows where the line is and remembers not to cross it.”

“Your weight says otherwise,” Ruby mutters. A second later, she’s blasted back by magic.

“Hey!” I exclaim. “Leave my daughter alone. And you, Ruby, should apologise.”

Ruby replies with a suggestion that Trixie should stick her apology up her butt. Except she didn’t exactly say butt.

Inkie shakes her head. “Can we just stop arguing and admit that hard-working ponies from rock farms would survive the apocalypse?”

“Most likely,” I reply. “But how they’d repopulate the world with their shyness?”

“My sister would repopulate the world no matter how it’d scream and kick,” Inkie replies.

“You mean Maud?” Trixie asks.

“Her too.”

“Would you be quiet, please?” Blackcurrant Muffin stands in attention. “Something is alive here.”

“Just what I thought,” Daring Do mutters. “Of course when you’re in some ancient place where everything should die a long time ago, something is alive and hungry.” She turns to Blackcurrant Muffin. “Can you just lead us to the place where you keep the Stones of–”

Suddenly, she’s interrupted by a terrible roar. Trixie screams in response, somehow teleporting on the top of Inkie’s head. Ruby hides behind them, holding her BB gun in her hooves. I stand firmly, aiming my horn at whatever wants to come out of the darkness.

“Don’t worry,” Blackcurrant Muffin whispers before yelling something unpronounceable at the creature lurking in front of us. I’m not sure what it is, but I’d rather not see that in the light of day. With a sound resembling some old, battered machinery slowly falling apart as it moves, the creature slowly crawls off.

“What the hell was that?” Daring Do whispers, her hooves shuddering.

“One of the servants. It was responsible for cleaning the floors,” Blackcurrant Muffin replies. “We’re lucky it’s technically my house. I have no power over servants of other masters.”

“Shit…” I mutter, watching as Inkie collapses under Trixie’s weight. “A titanic vacuum cleaner. Friend of yours?”

“Not really.” Blackcurrant Muffin shrugs. “It possesses no intelligence to speak of. It only does what it is told to.”

“Ah. So it’s more like an appliance?” Inkie asks. “Are there more of them?” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “I nearly peed myself.”

“Well, such a physiological reaction would be understandable,” Blackcurrant Muffin replies. “And there’s lots of them. Back in my days an average household–”

“Yeah, that’s surely interesting,” Daring Do mutters. “Can we end that sentimental trip to your old house and just go to the place where we want to get?”

“You wanted to go to the town. We are in the town.”

Daring Do groans. Before anyone can react, she grabs the gun and shoots Blackcurrant Muffin.

Well, she could as well shoot a block of ballistic gel. The bullet gets stuck in Blackcurrant Muffin’s chest and it doesn’t even deform. However, the shot itself makes a lot of noise. What’s worse, something reacts to it. We hear a faint echo of some yelling and cries. I’d rather not meet the things that make that noise.

“What the fuck did you do?” I yell.

“I’m sorry!” Daring Do shouts. “She’s the only pony I can shoot when they annoy me.”

“That wasn’t nice.” Blackcurrant Muffin spits the bullet out. “Also, the noise this thing makes alarmed the guards.”

“Shit…” Ruby mutters. “Story of my fucking life.”

“Shouldn’t we run?” Inkie asks.

Blackcurrant Muffin shrugs. “That may give us a fake reassurance. They probably crawl faster than you can run.”

“Oh, fuck this, The Great and Powerful Trixie is already running!” Trixie indeed runs. Huh. I haven’t expected such a pace from her. Without a second thought I follow her.

“Didn’t you hear they can run faster than you?” Blackcurrant Muffin chases us. Well, at this point everyone is running, except of Daring Do who takes advantage of her wings.

“I don’t fucking give a flying fuck about that.” Ruby once again proves that she inherited her unusual language skills from her mother. “If I can run faster than any of you idiots, I’ll be fine with it.”

Something yells again, this time closer. Trixie turns to the source of the noise and fires a bolt of magic in its direction. The answer is more yelling, as well as the smell of burned jelly.

“Who are those guards?” I ask as we take a dive into a narrow corridor, leading us deeper into the ruins of the house.

“A certain kind of sentient fungi that only lives on the Outer Rim planets,” Blackcurrant Muffin replies. “After years of bioengineering–”

“Holy shit!” Daring Do yells, suddenly turning erratically in mid-air. She speeds up and rams into Trixie, who is falling behind. Their combined mass and the force of impact are enough to break some rachitic wall, bent at a weird angle in front of them. They fall through it, leaving a small hole.

“There!” Blackcurrant Muffin stops in place and turns towards the hole. For better or worse, Inkie, Ruby, and I obey and follow her in there. As soon as the last of us disappears in it, Blackcurrant Muffin grabs pieces of plaster, bricks, or whatever this wall was built of and seals the entrance with it. For a moment, it’s dark like in Sombra’s ass, but then I light up my horn.

“They can’t reach here,” Blackcurrant Muffin says. I notice that she’s not panting – in fact, she doesn’t breathe at all.

“I peed myself when we were running,” Inkie mutters.

“So you were lighter and could run faster.” Ruby rolls her eyes. “Does anyone have an idea how to get out of this place?”

“Well, I apologise for bringing you all here,” Daring Do says in a weird tone. “I just looked into the face of one of these creatures and I am afraid that I have gone temporarily insane.”

“Only now?” Trixie asks.

“Only temporarily?” Inkie scratches her head.

I stand up and walk to Daring Do. “Okay,” I mutter. “Though this be madness, yet there’s method in it. Where are we supposed to go?”

“Don’t worry,” Blackcurrant Muffin says. “If the guards find nothing, soon they’ll deactivate.”

I raise my hoof. “I’m asking Daring.”

Daring Do chuckles. “Funny thing, really. Have you ever heard of Stones of the Undead? That’s what we’re looking for, actually. The one who possesses them can raise an army of undead and take control of the immortal monsters that live beneath the sea. One who has them can rule the world.” She smiles. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Why the fuck would you want to do that?” Ruby asks. “This world is already screwed without an army of the undead. As Hexie would say, did you swap your head for your dick, or what?”

“I don’t have a dick.”

“That makes it even more worrying,” Ruby says.

“Also, if we don’t find it, Caballeron will.” Daring Do smiles at us. “So I want to find it and hide it better. So he wouldn’t put his hooves on it.” She nods. “Holy fuck, I’m such a genius.”

I look at Trixie, who looks back at me. I can read it in her eyes – Daring Do went totally bonkers. Not now, but much earlier.

“So, let me get this straight,” Inkie says, her voice quivering a little. “We’re in the ruins of an ancient town, buried under tons of snow, with dead bodies lying everywhere and pony-eating monsters roaming freely and you want to find a safer place?”

“Yes!” Daring Do exclaims.

“We already did,” Blackcurrant Muffin says.

Daring Do blinks and suddenly her happy expression falters. “You did what?” she asks in her normal voice.

“We hid it,” Blackcurrant Muffin replies. “As the Masters grew more powerful, they decided that such a powerful artifact couldn’t be kept among them or someone would eventually use it. So they sent it to Yuggoth and cursed this planet so none of them could land on it.”

“Very wise of them,” I say. “So, can we call off search and go back home?”

“Yuggoth is no longer a planet,” Ruby says. “It’s not bigger than Princess Luna’s fart.”

“That’s even better,” I say. “Harder to find.”

“Well, about that…” Blackcurrant Muffin says. “The Stones have to be contained and the spells keeping them stable need to be renewed once in a while. The Masters didn’t need spaceships to travel, but they couldn’t land on the planet, so they used unicorns.” She gulps. “Several spaceships are still in the town. I’m not sure but they may be fully operational and programmed to fly to Yuggoth.”

“Fuck,” I mutter. “Why can’t life be simple?”

“So, we need to contain the Stones, go back and destroy all the spaceships,” Daring Do says. “Where are they?”

“It’s too dangerous to go there from here,” Blackcurrant Muffin replies. “Let’s get back to the surface and dig another tunnel above the spaceport.”

“Well, at least the destroying part should be easy,” Inkie mutters. “We somehow became experts on that.”

“I guess it’s an allusion to some past event I’m not aware of,” Blackcurrant Muffin says. “I think the guards deactivated themselves. Let’s go.”

The way back was mostly uneventful, except of the part when Daring Do had to carry a rope for us to climb up the well. However, as we go back to the plane through the white, snowy lowland, we encounter something strange.

The snow that used to be pristine before we went down to the city, has been trampled by the hooves of numerous ponies. It also became pink and judging by the traces, several heavy objects were dragged away from the place where the fight took place. I’m pretty sure it was a fight. Not because it’s hardly possible to discern anyone’s hoofsteps in this mess.

It’s the three frozen bodies that gave me that idea.

I walk to the first one and poke it with my hoof. It’s no one I know, thought the white fur, blonde mane and the steel-blue winter uniform seem familiar. It seems that this guy’s hooves were all broken before someone finally snapped his neck.

I hear Trixie throwing up and I look in that direction. The other body is of a pegasus mare, kinda similar to Kyrie, except her eyes are blue. I can take an exact look because they’re no longer in her skull, lying in front of her. It seems that someone ripped her wing out first before stomping on the back of her skull.

“Hey, that’s cool!” Ruby exclaims. “Someone threw up here before.”

“No wonder,” I say, taking a look at the third corpse. Seems that this one managed to crawl for some time after his jaw was broken. Too bad that someone shoved a broken bottle down his throat afterwards.

“Who could that be?” Daring Do asks.

“I hope this thing didn’t get to Hexie and Vinyl…” Inkie whispers, sighing. She’s slowly digging in the snow next to the dead pegasus. Not sure if she wants to find something or bury her.

“Don’t look at me,” Blackcurrant Muffin says. “Most of the things that can be alive in the town wouldn’t leave a trace.”

Suddenly, something clicks in my head. “Of course,” I mutter, rushing towards the plane. I teleport to it again. This time, I land between Hexie and a bottle of vodka. It’s never a safe place, especially now when she’s using it to disinfect a deep cut in her hoof. And especially since she immediately grabs a lead pipe with a clear intention to adorn the walls with my brain.

“Chill out, it’s me,” I say, jumping back.

Hexie puts the lead pipe down. “They foalnapped Vinyl.”

“Shit,” I mutter. “Where’s she?”

Hexie shrugs. “No idea. Their airship must be somewhere here, but I was kinda busy with those guys.”

“We’ve noticed,” I reply. “What happened?”

Hexie grabs a box and opens it, looking inside. “We wanted to see if you’re back and then they suddenly were everywhere. Guess they wanted to take us alive, since they didn’t shoot us.” She puts the box down and grabs another one. “Of course Vinyl started to shoot magic everywhere, but they caught her in the net. I’m not sure one of those guys will be able to have children.”

“But of course.” I watch her grabbing thread and needle from the box. “What are you going to do with that?”

“Try to guess.” Hexie takes a swig of vodka, then dips the needle in it. “Their pegasi were trying to catch me in the net, but Kyrie screwed it up and tangled herself in it. Some mare wanted to shoot her, so I made a piece of modern art of her skull.”

“Ruby really appreciated it,” I mutter. “How about the rest?”

“That other guy wanted to tackle me, so I showed him that I mean business. He had a knife, though.” Hexie starts sewing her wound. I suddenly feel like throwing up. “The others ran away, when they saw what I did to him.”

“Ah, I see,” I say. “What about the one with the bottle?”

“He didn’t want to tell where their airship was.”

I shrug. “Perhaps you should’ve ask him about that before breaking his jaw.”

Hexie scratches her mane. “Of course. That’d make things easier.”

Someone knocks on the plane’s door. Hexie stands up, but I raise my hoof. “Don’t worry. It’s Daring, I guess.”

It takes me a while to tell the rest what happened. Daring Do sits calmly when I talk, but I can see she’s already plotting something. Ruby is much more pronounced in her actions; from the moves of her hooves, I can tell she wants to strangle someone.

“This needs to be a covert operation,” Daring Do says when I stop talking. “From what you’re saying, there’s a lot of them. We can’t just walk in, blow shit up, and think we can get away with it.”

“Why?” Hexie asks. “It worked pretty fine last time we did it.”

“Vinyl may be there,” Daring Do replies. “She’d probably prefer to have someone with brains to rescue her.”

“She’d prefer to fuck her way out,” I say. “But I can kinda see your point.”

“That’s why you’ll come with me.” Daring Do stands up. “The rest will stay back and intervene only if we give a signal.”

“Yeah,” I mutter. “And how are we gonna find them? Are you going to carry me all the way?” I look at my stomach. “Both of us, actually.”

“No problem.” Blackcurrant Muffin stands up. Her hooves morph; after a while, they look more like dog’s paws. “Does someone have a sleigh?”

“Give me an old crate and you’ll have one,” Hexie says. “Also, I’m going with you. Remember that I helped to build this airship and I know better than anyone where everything is.”

Well, to be exact, it was Cherry Berry who made it usable after I crash-landed the old thing in the lake, but Hexie and the rest of my workers took a big part in it. Later, it was probably rebuilt a few times by whoever Aryanne hired and it has hardly anything in common with the airship where I first met my mechanic two years ago. Still, if we are to permanently disable some machinery or some hapless guard, she may be useful.

A fifteen minutes later, Hexie and I are sitting on the sleigh pulled by Blackcurrant Muffin. Our new friend transformed herself to be much more streamlined, not resembling any creature walking on this planet. Daring Do flies slightly in front of us, searching for the airship. I put my sunglasses on, while Hexie grabs a pair of goggles – snow reflects the sun, nearly blinding us.

Suddenly, Daring Do stops in mid-air, turning to us and waving her hooves. Blackcurrant Muffin skids to a halt, throwing snow around. We take cover behind a pile of snow, just in case – while Hexie could be mistaken for a grey patch of snow from some distance, the same can’t be said about me, even in white jacket. Not to mention that Hexie’s orange mane looks more like a field of carrots.

Daring lands next to us. “They’re strapped to the rock about two miles from us,” she says. “As far as I can tell, there’s one guard in the observation deck around the engine gondola. The rest are probably observing the perimeter from the inside.”

“So, how do we get closer?” Hexie asks.

“How about digging a tunnel?” Blackcurrant Muffin scratches the snow with her front leg. “I can go quite deep so they don’t notice.”

“Sure, why not.” Daring Do watches as Blackcurrant Muffin changes from some terrible parody of a husky into a monstrous mole. One can get used to that, though it’s better not to pay attention to her body language in process, if only for the fact that there’s hardly any. Like, normal ponies move all the time, if only to keep their hooves from becoming stiff. Blackcurrant Muffin doesn’t.

She can, however, dig. Again, she drills a hole in the snow, disappearing from our eyes. We follow her as she pushes the white substance aside, walking much faster than any other pony.

“Do you think she knows where she’s going?” Hexie asks. I only shrug in reply. The tunnel isn’t big enough for Daring Do to fly, so she also struggles, trying to keep up with Blackcurrant Muffin.

“If she’s wrong, we’re gonna just dig ourselves into the sea.” Daring pants. “She may survive that, but we’ll stay frozen in the ice until the next archeologist digs us out.”

“If Aryanne succeeds, the next archeologist may have tentacles,” I reply, trying to catch my breath. Seriously, I already feel like there’s an alien parasite inside of me and it barely started.

Suddenly, Blackcurrant Muffin stops. “I can sense a high concentration of magnetic field above us,” she says. “I guess that’s the place.”

“Indeed,” Daring Do replies. “Now, we just have to get out of this tunnel and get on the airship unseen…”

I smirk. “How about being unnoticeable?”

“What’s the difference?” Daring Do asks.

“I know a spell for it,” I reply. “Everyone still sees you, but as long as you don’t fart in someone’s face or something, they won’t notice you.”

Daring Do nods. “Will do.”

I close my eyes, focusing on the spell. How did Trixie do that? I channel the energy, remembering just the right sequence of waves. My horn flashes and when I open my eyes, I see… Well, I see Hexie and Daring Do, but I don’t exactly notice where they are. Blackcurrant Muffin is still visible; I guess such spells don’t work on gelatinous blobs, no matter how pony-shaped they are.

“Just stay within range and everything will be okay,” I say. “Muffin…”

“Worry not,” Blackcurrant Muffin says. “I have my own ways of being invisible.”

“Unnoticeable.”

“Jeden chuj,” Hexie mutters, looking at herself. “Let’s go.”

We dig ourselves out and Blackcurrant Muffin completely loses her shape. That is, she morphs into a shapeless mass of jelly that looks like an oversized amoeba. The airship is a bit above us, its main gondola having traces of hasty repairs. It’s tied to a rock with a rope leading to one of the engine gondolas. There’s indeed a lone guard next to it; I can see steam coming out of their mouth. When we stare, a cigarette butt falls on the snow. Blackcurrant Muffin crawls to it and dissolves it completely inside of her body.

After a while, something looking like a mouth opens in a random bit of jelly. “Is it a custom among your kind to consume all those kinds of poison?”

“Yes,” I reply. “Don’t question it, it’s illogical.”

“Ah.” Blackcurrant Muffin crawls to the rope and slides upwards. We follow her while Daring Do flies below us, in case Hexie or I fall off the rope. Did I ever mention that I hate climbing? Too bad that I’d blow Daring and Hexie’s cover if I simply teleported to the gondola.

A few minutes later, we’re all in the observation deck surrounding the room storing the engine. Blackcurrant Muffin hides behind the corner, morphing back to her pony shape. I approach the guard, who’s lighting up another cigarette. To my surprise, it’s Kyrie. She’s trembling, her uniform is torn, and she has a black eye, as well as a long, reddish abrasion along her side.

“I only did that,” Hexie whispers to me, pointing at the black eye. “She fucked up so hard with the net that they probably whipped her and left her here to guard the airship.”

“Poor girl,” I mutter. “What are we gonna do?”

Hexie shrugs. “I can punch her again, so she’s more symmetrical.”

Daring Do sighs. “Did anyone tell you that your mind is simpler than taking a piss?” she asks. “Do that.”

“She may get permanent brain damage if subjected to more violence,” Blackcurrant Muffin says. Kyrie’s ears perk up – unlike us, Muffin’s voice isn’t muted by the spell.

“How about nerve pinch?” I ask. “I know how to do that.” I walk to Kyrie and knock the cigarette out of her mouth. “Did you know that smoking kills?” I shout.

“Wer ist hier?” Kyrie mutters, looking around frantically. I jam my hoof in the back of her neck, but it has no effect, aside from her surprised yelp. I try a few more times, but Kyrie only backpedals, trying to see me.

“Ah, damn,” I mutter, aiming my horn, and weaving the lines of the spell. “Goodnight, sweet princess.”

Kyrie drops on the floor. Back when I was young, this spell was all the rage and you could see ponies dropping like flies everywhere.

The problem is, it doesn’t exactly work. A second or two later, Kyrie opens her eyes. “Ich hatte der seltsamsten Traum…”

“It’s still a dream.” Daring Do pokes Kyrie’s neck with her wing, causing her to go limp, and turns to me. “That’s how you do that.”

“Okay…” I mutter, opening the door of the engine room. “Let’s drag her inside before she freezes.”

As we do that, putting Kyrie near the engine, we hear knocking coming from the tunnel joining the room with the main gondola. “Kyrie?” someone asks. “Ist alles okay?”

Blackcurrant Muffin morphs her throat a bit. “Ja!” she shouts in Kyrie’s voice.

“Bist du sicher?” We hear steps echoing across the tunnel.

“Damn,” Hexie mutters, standing by the door. When the guy walks in, the first thing he sees is a seemingly empty room with unconscious Kyrie lying on the floor. He doesn’t see any second things – mostly because Hexie smacks him in the ear.

“Apfelkuchen? Ist Kyrie gut?” We hear steps of another guard.

A few minutes later, when we put him next to Kyrie and Apfelkuchen, Daring Do sighs, shaking her head. “Let’s get out of here before it gets ridiculous.”

“Just one moment.” Hexie walks to the red valve on the wall and turns it. “This cuts off the flow of fuel to the engine. If it’s closed, a red light starts blinking on the control board and someone has to go and turn it.” She hits the handle of the valve with her hoof until it snaps off.” Now turning this engine on will take a little longer.”

We walk to the tunnel and climb to the main gondola. At least no one is standing by the entrance; apparently Apfelkuchen and his friend were the only ones checking if Kyrie didn’t leave her post.

“I’ll check what’s in there.” Blackcurrant Muffin points at the opening of a small pipe – probably the ventilation system. Before we can tell her that she’s too big to fit in there, she morphs into a shapeless mold again, crawls up the wall and disappears in the pipe.

“She should star in horrors,” Hexie mutters. “Imagine, you’re rubbing one off on the bed, and she suddenly leaks from the ceiling…”

“Is that a horror or porn?” I ask.

“Maybe both,” Daring Do says. “I’d need a pseudonym to write this one…”

“Meanwhile, let’s find Vinyl conventionally.” Hexie opens the door and walks to another room – a large chamber filled with vacuum tube machines in metal cases, as well as pipes, wires, and valves. The lights are blinking, the meters are showing different values, and in the middle of that, some large, muscular stallion with blonde moustache is sleeping on the chair, his hooves resting against the control board.

“Seems that they hired him in your place,” I say to Hexie. Or rather in her general direction, since she’s hard to notice.

“Do you think we can do something about that?” Daring Do asks. “In case they were trying to chase us.”

“Let’s see…” Hexie says. I briefly notice her walking to the control board. “Hmm, it seems that I could cut off the fuel supply from here, switch off the lights or release hydrogen from the balloon, or make all the lights in here form letters saying ‘Aryanne has a dick’...” She pushes a few buttons and the lights do just that.

“We need light to find Vinyl,” Daring Do says. “And maybe don’t release hydrogen when we’re here, okay?”

“Sure,” Hexie mutters, banging her hooves against the keyboard. “I feathered the right propeller. They can turn on the engine, but it won’t do shit. I also engaged the water-saving system.”

“What’s wrong about it?” I ask.

“You know that moment when you take a shit of your life in a public toilet, you want to flush and it turns out there’s no water?” Hexie smirks. “Soon, everyone in here will know that feeling…”

“Oh crap,” I mutter. “We’d better hurry, though. Who knows where’s Vinyl…”

“One more thing.” Hexie stands up and walks to some wires on the wall. She yanks them out, causing sparks to flash. “Jestem sobie operator, rozjebałam generator…”

The guy with a moustache opens his eyes and sits straight in his seat. “Scheisse,” he mutters, seeing the lights and broken wires. “Was ist das?”

“Rise of the machines, kurwo!” Hexie yells into his ear. There are levels of noticeability even the spell doesn’t cover and yelling into someone’s ear is certainly one of them. At least Hexie has decency to hit him in the head right after that demonstration. Still, we leave the room rather hastily.

“What were those wires?” Daring Do asks as we sneak past the rows of small rooms, each fitted with two bunk beds. I can hear snoring and occasionally someone talking in their sleep.

“Heating,” Hexie replies. “Soon it may get cold in here.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t wake them up,” Daring Do mutters.

Suddenly, we hear some scream from behind us. Several ponies in the rooms wake up. We stand by the walls of the corridor, trying to be as small as possible – no matter how unnoticeable you are, in the crowd someone will sooner or later bump into you. We turn to see Kyrie limping across the corridor, dragging unconscious Apfelkuchen with her. Several more white ponies join her, shouting over one another. I can discern the word “poltergeist” being repeated a few times.

“What are they talking about?” I ask.

“Something about being attacked by ghosts,” Hexie replies, her ears perking up. “Apparently a poltergeist beat them up, knocked down the mechanic and hacked the machines. Also, someone saw bits of ectoplasm leaking from the ceiling…”

Suddenly, all the voices drown in a single yell. I turn to see a white unicorn with large, violet eyes and a messy, dark blonde mane, which makes her look like she’s slightly insane. Her cutie mark looks like an atom. She says something in Pferdisch, but I can’t understand shit because she either has some speech impediment or speaks with an accent.

I look at Hexie, but she shrugs.“She’s from Stablerland. I can only understand that she called them pedals…”

Daring Do raises her eyebrows. “She called them what?”

Hexie sighs. “You know that I translate from Pferdisch to Ponish and then from Ponish to Equine, right?” She shrugs. “If you want to beat up some dude in a dark nook because he fucks other dudes, how do you call them?”

“Faggot?” I ask. “Also, stop yelling. Someone will eventually hear you, even with the spell.”

“Yeah, that.” Hexie focuses on the crowd. “Now that important dude says they need to put more guards in the corridors around the lab and tells that reject from that magical lab in Geneighva to check the lab itself. And by the way, her name seems to be Franziska.”

“We need to get to the front of the airship,” Daring Do says. “Do you prefer sneaking past the guards, or one unicorn mare?”

“The latter,” I mutter. We wait until the additional guards walk past us. Then we follow Franziska; she grabs some book and a green crystal from her room and walks past the rest of the room to the sliding door in the middle of the wall. There are apparently some corridors leading around this place, but now they’re heavily guarded, so we watch as she levitates the crystal and touches the terminal with it.

As soon as the doors slide open, we rush with her inside of the lab. Or rather, into the airlock, because there’s one separating the lab from the rest of the ship. Damn. Suddenly, we’re all in a small room and judging from Franziska’s nervous looks, she started to feel our presence.

We freeze in place. The door behind us closes, and suddenly we’re all sprayed with some disinfectant. That stuff is making us slightly more visible, but Franziska doesn’t seem to mind, waiting for the disinfectant to evaporate from her coat. Before it happens, a red ray scans everything in the airlock.

The book Franziska is levitating falls down. She tries to pick it up, but then she looks straight at me.

Suddenly, a feeling of being more naked than usual overwhelms me. It’s a common thing after canceling the unnoticeability spell and I slowly realise what was that red ray. It blocks all the magic in the airlock, just in case someone invisible wanted to get inside. That is, like right now.

Franziska’s eyes widen even more. Shit, I gotta do something! Panicking, I try the first spell that comes to my mind. That is, Haycartes’ method. The inside of the book is warm and smells of ink; I can feel something poking my back. Maybe an electron.

“What the fuck happened?” Daring Do asks. Judging by the fact that I can hear her, she’s only a few pages away.

“We’re in the book,” I reply. “Don’t ask, it’s magic.”

“I’ve never been in the book before!” Daring Do exclaims.

“Oh really?” I mutter. The book is closed, so I can’t see shit, but Franziska apparently shrugged us off, picked the book up, and walked through the airlock. “What book is it?”

“Chemistry textbook!” Hexie hiccups. “I’m in the chapter about alcohols.”

“Ah, that explains why I’m tied with covalent bonds,” Daring Do mutters.

Everything shakes. Apparently we’re thrown on the counter or something. At least the book opens and I can see everything, although upside down. I also learn that the thing poking my back was an electron.

Franziska stands in the middle of the lab, shivering and looking at the airlock. She then opens a drawer and grabs a bottle, then levitates two pills from it. She looks at the airlock once again and grabs two more pills before swallowing them.

That’d actually explain why she was so chill about seeing us. Of all the mad scientists in the world, we just had to meet one who’s on proper medication.

Or maybe not. She looks at the book and probably sees me, looking at her. I quickly hide behind a wall of text, but Franziska only blinks and walks to one of the tanks with ethanol. She levitates a graduated cylinder, opens the tap, and fills it with fuel.

“And that’s why I don’t work here,” Hexie mutters, sitting next to me and watching Franziska drinking the ethanol. “They’d soon run out of fuel.”

“Shh,” Daring Do whispers, looking at the other side of the lab. There’s a similar airlock in there and someone just walked in. “Look who got the guest access…”

“Franziska, right?” Dr. Caballeron walks to the unicorn mare. “We gave our prisoner expensive alcohols and exquisite food spiked with your potions, but she appears to be immune to any chemicals. Four of your toughest guards and one of my ponies fell under the table trying to keep up with her, but she still doesn’t want to talk about anything other than some random shit.”

“Hear that?” Hexie says. “We’re risking our lives to save her and she’s dining!”

“Shut up.” Daring Do rolls her eyes.

Franziska focuses on Caballeron, trying to process what he said. “I told you,” she says with an accent that’d give her a spot in every metal band in existence. “Ve get nosing by being nice to heʁ. I pʁoposed toʁtuʁe ʁight fʁom ze staʁt…”

“Tell that to that Kloppenfuhrer guy.” Caballeron rolls his eyes. “Pulli saw exactly what that grey brute did to Besserwisser when she tried to catch her in the net, and is scared that if he does something to this DJ, her friends will come and get him.”

“Vell, last time he met zem, it cost him a testicle,” Franziska says. “He doesn’t vant to take any moʁe chances.”

“You didn’t have to cut it off, you know?” Caballeron mutters. “He only had a head wound. Though he barely saved his virginity from the gorillas, from what I’ve heard.”

“Zat’s an insinuation.”

“Yeah, sure.” Caballeron smirks. “Go to Aryanne and Pulli and tell them that you always wanted to be a torture technician.” He waves his hoof at Franziska. She opens her mouth to say something, but apparently she ran out of her Equine skills. Or maybe her meds kicked in, I’m not sure. Anyway, she turns back and leaves the lab through the airlock Caballeron walked in.

“Let’s go,” I whisper, lighting up my horn. “We’d better knock him out, save Vinyl and get out as fast as possible.”

“Wait,” Daring Do mutters, pointing at Caballeron, who opens one of the drawers. “Whenever he’s left alone in some secret place, he always has to sneak around. Maybe he’ll find something useful for us.”

“Fucking mutants,” Caballeron says to himself. “Well, maybe Ahuizotl has eyes in his nostrils, but at least he’s not a bunch of crazy albinos whose brains turned into shit because of inbreeding and drugs…” He opens another drawer. “At least they pay well…”

Something drops from the ceiling and splashes on the floor. Caballeron walks to it and pokes it with his hoof. Right in time for a gelatinous tentacle to lower from the ceiling and grab him.

“Release us!” Daring Do exclaims, watching as the tentacle tries to push Caballeron through the air-vent. With rather poor results.

I channel my magic and free us from the book. Daring Do runs to Caballeron, shouting, “Muffin, leave him!”

Blackcurrant Muffin stops banging Caballeron against the ceiling. “Is he a good guy?”

“No,” Daring Do replies.

“Then he’s a bad guy.” The tentacle raises Caballeron, who lets out a high-pitched scream.

“He’s a bad guy, but books with him sell better,” Daring Do says. “Hold him, but don’t hurt him.”

“Oh, thank you for that kindness.” Caballeron rolls his eyes. “Since when do you side with monsters, Professor Yearling?”

Daring Do blushes. Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes.

“You can talk all day, if you wish,” I say. “We’re going to save Vinyl. Hexie, dynamic entry.”

I aim my horn at the airlock, trying to remember the spell I once used to blast the door of a liquor store. The effect is better than expected; it not only blows the airlock into several big pieces, but also makes a large dent in the next wall. Hexie rushes forward, kicking the dent and making a big hole in the plywood. I follow her through the splinters and smoke, ready to fry every motherfucker who gets in my way.

“Hello,” Vinyl says. She’s chained to the table in Aryanne’s apartment and most definitely drunk. “Nice to see you. This party just got kinky.”

I look around, assessing the situation. Franziska was unfortunate enough to stand by the wall when we crashed the party, so currently she’s crawling on the floor, picking up her teeth. Aryanne is standing in front of us, aiming a gun bigger than her at me – probably a light machine gun.

I look at Kloppenfuhrer, who’s holding a ridiculously small knife. “Hello, Pulli. Tell her to put that down,” I say, aiming my horn at him. “Or else I’ll shoot your sole remaining ball off.”

His face becomes red. “Aryanne will shoot you then.”

“And then Hexie will have enough time to grab her, take that funny little gun, shove it up her arse and pull the trigger,” I reply. “And then she’ll take care of you.”

Aryanne looks at Kloppenfuhrer unsurely. “Should I drop it?” She thinks for a moment and aims at Hexie. “What if I shoot her?”

“Then I’ll have time blow your face off with my magic.” I’m not sure if I can do that, but she doesn’t have to know this.

“We have a whole army behind your back,” Kloppenfuhrer mutters. “You won’t get out alive.”

“In my opinion, he has a point,” Vinyl mutters.

I shrug. “And how do you know we didn’t rip them all apart and hang their entrails from the windows?” That’s a bigger bluff, since Franziska most definitely saw we didn’t, but she’s currently busy planning to perform a jaw reconstruction on herself.

“That’s not your style,” Kloppenfuhrer says.

“Kyrie squealed, begging me to let her live before I snapped her neck.” Hexie smirks. “You know that’s my style.”

Aryanne clears her throat. “Let me tell you vhy zat’s bullshit. I’ve read ze report from my guards’ encounter wis you. You killed Besserwisser because she vanted to kill Kyrie in accordance wis ze rules of court martial.” She smirks, walking closer to me. “Zerefore, you care about her.”

“More than you care about your safety.” I yank the barrel of her gun with my magic, aiming it at the ceiling and ram into Aryanne. I hear a few shots, followed by the hissing of the gas escaping from the balloon. Kloppenfuhrer darts towards Vinyl, trying to dodge Hexie.

However, he didn’t include Caballeron in his plans.

“Co, kurwa?” Hexie looks at Caballeron, who just got thrown into the room with enough force to knock Kloppenfuhrer down.

“Daring Do to the rescue!” Daring Do flies into the room. The turbulence caused by escaping hydrogen throws her off-course, but she manages to land on the floor, full of kitchen utensils and broken dishes, skidding to a halt by Vinyl’s hooves.

“Nopony shoots!” I scream, yanking the machine gun from Aryanne’s hooves and removing the magazine. “Or else we’ll all blow up!”

Aryanne is still trying to fight, so I gently poke her in the ribs with the butt of the gun. Kloppenfuhrer drops the table with Vinyl on Daring Do, right before Hexie slams into him. He hits the pink couch and falls back with it.

Aryanne gets up, holding a large knife in her hooves. I dodge, earning a long cut on my hoof. She raises her hoof for another strike, but suddenly, Blackcurrant Muffin materialises behind her.

“Put down the cutting tool, please,” she says, grabbing Aryanne’s hoof. Aryanne tries to punch her, but her hoof only splashes into the jelly, leaving no lasting marks.

“Wrong answer.” Blackcurrant Muffin unceremoniously throws Aryanne at the window. The glass breaks and our nemesis takes a quick trip in a rather permanent destination. I think it’s not the first time, but this time without Kyrie to save her ass.

“What?” Blackcurrant Muffin asks. “She wasn’t a bad guy?”

“Did she die?” Daring Do gets out from under the remains of the table and helps Vinyl up.

Hexie looks through the broken window. “No such luck. If you’re born to hang, you’ll never drown, as my dad always said. She landed in a pile of snow, though it may take a while before she gets up.”

“On a side note, you may want to follow her.” Blackcurrant Muffin points at the hole in the wall. “The guards just noticed that the flying machine is losing gas.”

“Shit,” I mutter. I’m in no mood for jumping, so I simply teleport as far down as I can, leaving me only with a few metres to fall on the soft snow. Daring Do flies off with Vinyl; only Hexie and Blackcurrant Muffin jump, the former making a big hole in the snow, and the latter splashing on the ground. She crawls for a while before going back to her pony shape.

We don’t have time to watch as the guards fly or slide down on the ropes from the collapsing airship. We simply run to the sleigh. Blackcurrant Muffin is pretty fast when pulling it, but their pegasi are faster. Daring Do turns back, throwing a couple of snowballs at them. Not much, but she still manages to hit Kyrie, though without results.

I fire my magic into the air, giving a signal to our friends. Let’s hope they’re close, because we can’t just run around the whole continent until we’re caught. Especially since I can see that the guards came up with a plan; a small group is circling a hill to flank us, while the pegasi prepare to dive at us.

“Behold! The Great and Powerful Trixie is here!” Trixie jumps from under the snow cover, levitating a couple of fireworks. She throws them into the air. Most of them only hiss and fall down, having been under the snow for too long. One of them, however, blows up. Two slightly burnt pegasi fall on the ground, groaning and rubbing their butts.

Ruby and Inkie do slightly better. Ruby shots someone in the ass with her BB gun and throws my rifle to me. Inkie has her crystal gun; soon, three guards lie around her, clutching to their balls. Trixie throws a smoke bomb, but then the group that was trying to flank us charges at us, aiming their guns.

“Hooves up!” someone shouts. Turns out, it’s Caballeron – covered in cuts and bruises, but still fine. “Now I’m in charge.”

“You’re not even in charge of your ass!” Ruby yells. She drops the BB gun, though.

“Shall we negotiate?” Vinyl raises her hoof and walks towards the row of soldiers aiming at us. “I mean, I get it, you have your aims and we have ours, but maybe we shouldn’t destroy the world or something?” She backpedals when she sees the barrel right in front of her nose.

“Destroy the world?” Caballeron chuckles. “Please. I’d rather keep it in my hooves, you know… With all that underground town and the possibility that if someone ever farts in my general direction I can unleash certain doom on the whole planet… Finally I won’t have to work with that cloned koala on steroids called Ahuizotl.”

“World domination?” Daring Do sighs. “How original. And what will you do if someone opposes you? Destroy the whole planet including yourself?”

Caballeron smirks. “Nah, I’ll build myself a comfy little base… Maybe on Yuggoth, I’ve heard it’s beautiful at this time of year. If you behave, I may take you with me. Who knows, maybe one day our descendants will populate the whole galaxy?”

“Fuck you,” Daring Do replies.

“I must say, he does think big,” Inkie says. “Why limit ourselves to one fragile rock in the depths of space?”

“You may join too,” Caballeron says. “My base will need skilled engineers and that army I inherited from Aryanne is, frankly, quite small…”

I don’t exactly follow his words. I hear some noise in the distance and see a white cloud of snow somewhere behind him. A storm? That’d be pretty convenient. Unless…

Some of the soldiers notice that too, staring back as Caballeron continues to talk about mutual profits and shit like that. The white cloud is coming closer, the noise becoming deafening. Soldiers turn back and drop their weapons, running away.

“What?” Caballeron turns back to look at…

Holy shit, I know this. I mean, this insane airframe was lying in the hangar for ages, gathering dust, and someone even proposed to change it into an avantgarde outhouse. Hell, we even called it Rusty Shitter. Now it has two rings with large propellers inside of them, one on each side. I remember Cherry Berry commissioning them, but I always assumed she wanted to build an aerodynamic tunnel.

The rings tilt upwards, so it becomes more similar to the helicopter than to a plane. The front part of the airframe unfolds as it lands gently on the ground. Caballeron stares right into it. That is, until a stone flies from it and hits him in the face.

Blinkie Pie stands on the steps, lowering a shepherd’s sling. “Nopony threatens my sister. Ever.”

“Oh no!” Daring Do shudders. “Deus ex machina!”

“Not really,” I say, pointing at Lyra, who gets out of the machine and waves at us. “We did tell her to bring all the help we’d need.”

And hell, did she deliver. Bon Bon, Berry Punch, Flitter, Cloudchaser, Blossomforth, Maud, Blinkie, Pinkie, Wild Hunt, hell, even Candy the minotaur and her manager Perrito Calliente. The all rush forward, grabbing the remaining soldiers.

“Weren’t you supposed to popularise wrestling, or something?” I ask him, watching Candy grab two soldiers and throw them into a pile.

“We do!” Perrito replies. “Maybe there aren’t many viewers here, but those landscapes… Wild nature and wild wrestling, that’s the future!”

“Minuette!” someone calls. I turn back to see Tyluan. “I’ve heard the news…”

I smack him in the face. “You got me pregnant, imbecile!”

“Yeah, that’s the news I’ve heard,” he replies. “So, about that…”

“It’s not gonna work,” I say. “That was one time, you’re in the mafia, I travel a lot, we’ll maybe see each other a few days a year and I don’t want our kid to become a criminal. Don’t bother.”

“That’s what Wild Hunt said.” Tyluan sighs. “I’m going back to Hollow Shades, so we can see each other more often. Guess you’ll be busy with the kid, so I can help.”

“If the kid is not a total dumbass like his father, he’ll inherit the company. He or she will learn a lot, travelling to different places.” I smile at Tyluan. “Those will include Hollow Shades quite often, though.”

Someone pokes me. I turn to see Ruby. “If I hear more shit like this, I’m gonna vomit,” she says. “The situation got quite interesting. You two wouldn’t want to miss it.”

I look around. There’s a big pile of half-conscious soldiers near the Rusty Shitter. Flitter is clearly in her element.

“Conquering Manegascar,” she says, circling around the pile and looking at Caballeron, who’s sitting nearby. “Turning Zebrica into an even bigger shithole… plotting to destroy the world… Theft… polluting the environment with illegal rainbows and your broken airship.” Flitter stops and smiles. “You’re all fucking arrested.” She pokes Caballeron. “You get a cell…” She pokes some soldier. “You get a cell… And you get a cell…” She chuckles. “Everypony gets a fucking cell!”

Cherry Berry waves to us from behind the cockpit of her new aircraft. “Hello, guys! Pretty cold, eh?”

Berry Punch walks to us. “Ruby! You’re going home! Ms. Cheerilee told me about your grades.”

Ruby lowers her head. “Yes mom.”

Cloudchaser scratches her mane. “Someone’s missing… Where’s Aryanne? And that dumb pegasus, for that matter?”

Hexie walks to Cloudchaser and shrugs. “Oh, we threw her out of the window. She was fine, last time I checked.”

Suddenly, the ground shakes. I look at the place where the airship was and see some large, tubular object rising from the ground… Or maybe from below it? It’s conical from one end and spews fire from the other. Something like an enormous firework. It’s almost surreal, since it flies up in complete silence.

That is, until the speed of sound catches up and a terrible roar throws us all on the ground, causing another cloud of snow to rise. The new aircraft trembles, but luckily, it doesn’t collapse.

“What the hell was that?” Wild Hunt asks, watching the large firework, as it gets smaller and smaller in the distance.

“That, my scar-covered friend, was one of the rockets that are programmed to go to Yuggoth where you can activate the Stones of the Undead,” Blackcurrant Muffin replies. “I guess Aryanne put her hooves on those. In that case, we may soon be doomed.”

“What?” Wild Hunt asks. “What yogurth? What stones?” She looks at Blackcurrant Muffin and winces. “And what the fuck are you?”

I look at Blackcurrant Muffin. “You’ve said there were more rockets, right?”

“Each can hold up to three ponies in comfortable conditions, assuring that they’ll go back in one piece,” Blackcurrant Muffin replies. “The masters really liked their pets, even when they used them for medical tests.”

Bon Bon looks at her and her eyes light up. “A propos tests, you may want to come with us…”

“Not now,” I say. “We’ll need a rocket. As fast as possible.”

Blackcurrant Muffin raises her eyebrows. I swear, she develops them only when she wants to do that. “So, you want to go…”

“In space!” Vinyl exclaims. “Yeah, let’s do that!”

Author's Notes:

Jeden chuj - an expression of a feeling that two given items are exactly the same. Literally means, "one dick".

Ich hatte der seltsamsten Traum… - I had the weirdest dream...