"What more do you want me to do?" Cotton Fluff asked. She was huddled in the far corner of a small room, one that held bunks on either side much like the one next to it, all of which were still empty though the sheets were still perfectly tucked into the sides of each mattress. She wasn't paying attention to these, however; what held her attention was the small comlink on her foreleg, which she was staring at despite that there was no video or anything of the sort.

There was a pause before the reply. "I'm not sure. You... make a good point, about being suspicious. If they start to suspect what you're doing... well, I don't know these rebels all that well but I do know that they've been reported to be monstrous. I'd be surprised if you made it out alive."

"R-really?" Cotton Fluff stammered, visibly shaking. "Then I'm not sure if... I'm not sure if I should be talking to you here."

"Nonsense, it should be fine. You said everypony is asleep, did you not?"

"Well, yes, but..."

"Sweetie, please just tell me where you are and where you're going. That's all I need and then I'll get out of your hair."

Cotton Fluff opened her mouth as if to reply. But then she heard the slow creak of the floorboard somewhere in front of her and she leaned to the side to see the doorknob slowly turning. In just a quick few moments, the door cracked open and one pony she very much did not want to see came into view: Scootaloo. The alien filly the whole hullabaloo was about. Her eyes darted around the room, seemingly looking for something—but at first she appeared not to have seen anything and, eyebrow raised, started to retreat out the door.

"Ahem... Cotton? You there?" the voice crackled. Instantly, Scootaloo froze and ran into the centre of the room. Her eyes locked on Cotton Fluff's cowering form in the back corner, and she snarled.

Panicking, Cotton Fluff galloped over to the other side of the room and stopped, panting. "I'm... here..." She looked back to see Scootaloo just a metre away, eyeing the mare with an odd expression. "Go on."

"Right, right. As I was saying... where in Aeneus' name are you?"

Scootaloo frowned and leaned back, making like she was about to tackle the mare. Cotton Fluff, for her part, looked around to see if there was anywhere she could run, but there was no way she could make it even halfway up the ladder to the top bunk before the filly knocked her down. No, she'd have to weasel her way out of it some other way.

Frantically, Cotton Fluff shook her head. She lifted her paw to her neck and made a horizontal motion, hoping Scootaloo would catch a hint.

Luckily, the filly's muscles relaxed and she pulled back to a normal standing position. Her head turned, looking back towards the door. A wave of recognition flashed through the filly's eyes and she started trotting over to the other side of the room; Cotton Fluff realised it was to grab a blank pad of paper and a graphick that lay atop one of the nightstands. As Scootaloo walked, Cotton raised the comlink back to her mouth and cautiously said, "We're... in the Sciouse province."

Again, there was a pause. Then, a sigh. "Cotton, honey... that doesn't help at all. We know you're in the Sciouse province. There's no way you ponies could not be in the Sciouse province unless you flew away from the planet, but we'd have caught you anyway because the airspace is on high alert for any unauthorised activity. No, I wanna know where you are in the province. You've got to know."

By the time Gloss was done with his tirade, Scootaloo had made it to the other side of the room with the pad of paper and set it down. Quickly, she scribbled a few words on the top of the paper.

Cotton Fluff squinted, looking down at the paper. It was in the script of the lemurs, whatever she had written, which Cotton didn't understand. In reply, she merely gave a sympathetic expression and shrugged.

It was then that another wave of realisation washed over Scootaloo's eyes and the filly facehoofed. Letting out a quiet groan, her face screwed up in concentration.

"Hello? Cotton? What's going on? Are you still there?"

"Sorry, Gloss," she whispered, "but I'm trying to be quiet—I think somepony's coming. Is it okay if I hang up and call you in a few minutes?"

"That's fine, just hurry up! They're really getting on my case about all that went wrong, so I'd really appreciate some damn info." There was a click, and the line went dead. Cotton Fluff lowered her hoof.

"So," the orange filly in front of her calmly said, "what was that all about?"

Cotton Fluff bit her cheek. "I can explain—"

"You sure as heck better be able to explain!" Scootaloo near-yelled, lunging forward. "What are you trying to do, get us killed? Why are you working for the other side?! Have you been lying to use this whole time?!"

"Scootaloo, I..." She took a deep breath. "Yes. I've been lying to you this whole time."

Scootaloo blinked. "But why?"

"Really, I don't know," Cotton Fluff started. "I didn't mean to join up with the cops and whatever, but I didn't want to get all buddy-buddy with the rebellion either. I kind of just wished that I didn't have to get involved, but then you kids came along."

"Then how does that officer, Gloss, come into this? Isn't he the one we ran into back in the Umberlight Zoo?"

Cotton cringed. "Yeah, that's the one. Okay, that's right. He came to me asking for a favour, back a few days before Kevin and Flight showed up at my shop, and he asked me to look out for them. I've always just been a law-abiding citizen, you must realise—I just want to do what's right for the ponies I live around, and the nation as a whole. I always... I always saw the rebels as the bad guys. Though I didn't even know they were involved until... well, until we ran into that zebra outside Umberlight."

"So you agreed to do this before you really knew what was going on." It wasn't a question; Scootaloo was merely stating what she understood to be the facts.

Cotton nodded. "B-but honesty, if I had to make a decision knowing what I knew now, I'd help you guys! Really!"

"You don't even sound like you want to be talking to him," Scootaloo mused. "You ponies have history? Why'd he call on you for a favour?"

"He was my ex-husband," Cotton grumbled, looking down. "And he's gotten creepier and creepier ever since we started talking. Honestly, I'm kind of... scared of him."

Scootaloo sighed. "I don't trust you, like, at all."

Cotton nodded. "That's about what I deserve, I reckon."

"But... I don't know what I want to do about this," Scootaloo continued. "I can't turn you in to Later and Clove, 'cause who knows what they'll do to you. Even if you've been... feeding information to them, you don't deserve this."

"I almost got you killed, though," Cotton said. "I almost got all of you killed. I told them that we were going to be in Ferretfall."

Scootaloo frowned. "Okay, that is pretty bad. But... uh... at least nopony got hurt?"

"I just want everything to be okay," Cotton Fluff said with a sigh. "I just want to go back to my shop and sell specialty parts for vehicles and not have to worry about this stupid war and whether the stupid government or the stupid rebels are in the right. I want that all to be beyond me."

Scootaloo thought for a moment. "Let's make a deal. You do what I say, and I won't rat you out to the rebels. Then, after this stupid mission or whatever they make us do, you can just slip out. Maybe you can get 'captured' by the Bureau. Then you can just go back to Umberlight and pretend none of this ever happened. You shouldn't have to be involved in this whole thing if you don't want to."

"R-really? You'd do this for me? But that... goes against everything about the rebellion!" Cotton protested, though she was a bit surprised she was looking a gift horse in the mouth.

"As much as I like these ponies... I'm not a part of their rebellion," Scootaloo stated emphatically. "I want what's best for everypony, but I have no stake in this. I kinda was just passing through and they were the first ponies who didn't want me to stay in jail."

"...fair enough," Cotton Fluff replied. "So, uh, what do you want me to do?"

"Call him back," Scootaloo said. "Tell him we're going, like, west or something. Somewhere that we're definitely not going. I dunno. Make him think we're going to those islands."

Cotton Fluff looked down at the comlink. "I sure hope you're right about this..."

Scootaloo nodded. "Me too."