A cool breeze wafted through the clearing between the trees, although it didn't seem particularly necessary; while surely later in the day it would have been helpful in staving off the heat, the morning sun's rays felt more like the warm touch of a friend rather than anything oppressive. It was in these golden rays that Clove Hitch basked, his body leaned against the stony wall beside the hidden doorway into the rebel base. Although he was supposedly on watch, his eyes were closed; he figured that his ears worked well enough and that his eyes were so weary that it wouldn't hurt if he gave them a rest.

Not that there was anything to hear, but for the breeze rustling through the trees and the occasional insect buzzing by. His own breathing, steady and regular. Natural sounds. Briefly, he thought about how long it had been since he had only been surrounded by natural sounds. It was relaxing in a unique way.

Suddenly, his muscles flinched, and he nearly lost balance. Clove's eyelids fluttered open and he reached out his front hooves to steady himself. Slowly but surely, he got himself to a comfortable, stable position once again, and relaxed, letting out a sigh. Whatever the Bureau ponies had used on him was probably still in his system, so he would have to be careful. Especially with this... mission they were about to embark upon. He wasn't exactly sure how long it would be until they left, but he hoped it would be soon; the longer they stayed in this base, the worse, especially with the ponies who were supposed to be there just... gone. It wasn't right... no, it wasn't right.

Later pursed her lips as she looked down at the computer screen in front of her and focused her eyes, feeling how limply they sat in their sockets. After Commander Xiibal had hung up and all the other ponies had left the room, Later had stayed behind to look up a few things on the computer and to check with some of the computer's logs, to see when the last recorded activity had been. She hadn't even gotten to opening any files, though, before a message popped up with a couple incoming files from Commander Xiibal herself. It took a few minutes for them to load with the subpar connection routed through Doc Zed's comlink, but eventually Later was able to open them up and see what they were.

The first was a map with a simplified schematic of the Kindred Palace, detailling exactly how they should get into the place as well as where Scootaloo would need to go to collect the mysterious item from Aeneus's vault. Later was actually surprised at how simple the mission seemed to be, and decided that it was maybe possible that Xiibal didn't actually have any weird alterior motives and might just have wanted Scootaloo for her size and ease of getting through the vents. Still, it wouldn't hurt to be extra careful.

The other file was text and only held a few words: "OX⫙ ʞØ3⦢òØ ØMᑌГ⫙O". Since there was nothing else in the file, Later assumed that this was the item to be retrieved. She let out a sigh of relief, thanking the stars that Xiibal had actually seen fit to send these files; otherwise, Later wasn't sure what they would've done. She set the map document to print a few copies, and then, as the printer whirred to life behind her, she minimised the files Xiibal had sent to make room for the network usage logs.

It took her only a minute or two to find what she was looking for; she watched patiently as the database loaded and then used her magic to scroll down past the connections and file accesses that she had just made. And that's when she saw it, and what she saw made her raise an eyebrow in confusion.

The last time the computer had been accessed, by username '∞ሐ16', had been just three hours before Later first booted the computer up. That meant that whoever had last used the computer had left the base less than three hours before they had gotten there.

What the hell?

Off upstairs in a once-empty bedroom, Cotton Fluff and Mochi had each taken a lower bunk and settled in between the sheets in the darkness. Mochi had murmured a goodnight and it seemed like she almost immediately fell asleep, her light breathing coming at a steady, rhythmic pace. Cotton Fluff, on the other hoof, was having a hard time sleeping. It wasn't that she was uncomfortable; on the contrary, the bunk she lay upon was even more cushy than the bed she had at home—it easily put hers to shame.

No, what kept Cotton Fluff up was the room. She couldn't help but keep stealing glances at the corner of the room which, once her eyes adjusted to the thick darkness of the room, she could just make out by the side of the ladder up to the top bunk. Every time she glanced at the corner, it sent her heart aflutter; it was almost like she was reliving that horrible, awful moment of standing there with Gloss on the comlink and Scootaloo standing in front of her, caught between two ponies whom she desperately hoped wouldn't find out the other was there. Even though she knew it was over, she couldn't help how anxious it made her. Sighing, Cotton resigned herself to her fate and turned onto her back, trying as hard as she could not to look.

Shapes danced around in her vision, her brain filling the gaps of the darkness that she couldn't make out with distorted shapes of ponies that ballooned outward before exploding, giving way to gelatinous clock towers and rolling, shifting fields of grass.

In the next room, the three youngest ponies all finally slept, and this time they would not be interrupted immediately afterwards. Scootaloo had mentioned to Flight on the way up that the bottom bunk was much more comfortable; as a result, Flight had barged her way into the room first to secure a position on one of the lower bunks. Scootaloo did the same, leaving a disgruntled Kevin to clamber up the ladder above Flight's bed, ignoring the others' teasing suggestions that the weary unicorn just levitate himself up there. So, while the other two lay in luxury, drifting quickly off to sleep, Kevin just lay there unmoving in silence, uncomfortable yet still as a board. He counted the seconds as they passed until he lost track and then he just stared at the ceiling. And, as it always does, sleep came eventually.

And yet it was a restless sleep, one where Kevin found himself in a very strange dream...