"How can you see anything?"

"I dunno, I've been out here for a while. Your eyes just kinda get used to it."

"Ugh, that'd explain it. They left all the lights on on the train, for some reason. I thought all the night trains were supposed to leave the lights off?"

"That's only in the cabin marked for sleeping, I think." There was a metallic clunk between them. "You have to make sure you tell them that at the station, or else they'll put you in the normal one by default."

"Huh, that's dumb." There was another shifting, a scraping of hooves on the pavement. "Are you sure I can't turn on my hornlight?"

"Yeah, I don't think that would be a good idea. Twilight always seems to be there whenever I leave the light on a dozen rooms away, so yeah, she'd be here in an instant."

"But... how are you going to find the stuff?" There was an urgent quality to her voice. "Like, how do you know she even has any of it still? Wouldn't she have used it?"

"Nah," the lower voice replied, continuing to quietly drag the metal along the floor. "One thing about Twilight—she friggin' buys everything in bulk."

"...Everything? Seriously?"

"When it comes to her science experiments, yeah. We've had enough blowing shit up that she buys at least five of everything. And though she burned through a ton of that stuff with the first one, I know there's a lot left. And we shouldn't use her original blueprint, because... well, I think we could make it better."

"...Better? I mean, I might be studying engineering but I'm not that good..."

"Meh, I'm sure we can do it," the voice replied. There was another metallic clang as he shifted a few parts above, pulling one off an upper shelf. "We just need to get this stuff across town. Is your contact a go?"

"Oh, yeah, he said we could use his garage. Though I had to... ugh."

"Oh, jeez. Hopefully not anything...?"

"Not anything I'm going to keep."

"...Lemme know if you need me to help you get out of anything, okay?"

"Will do. But seriously, just tell me what to grab and I'll carry it."

He sighed. "Alright... here."