Why?

That one word kept running around in my mind. The whole way back to the Arcturus, the whole way through Buck patching us up and removing a damn near quarter pound of wood and metal from Happy and I. Even the bitter taste of what must have been my hundredth consumed health tonic didn’t stop the irritatingly persistent thought. I simply couldn’t get past replaying those last moments in my mind again and again and again.

Why did Solomon step out like that? Sure, he’s a smug asshole who thinks he’s better than everypony, but there’s no way he could think he’s faster than a bullet. He’s not a fighter eager to prove anything to anyone. And the last thing he’d be is selfless enough to take a bullet for his own slave.

So why did he do it?

“Are you okay, Night?” Buck’s tone weighed heavily enough on my mind that it finally seemed to knock the repetitive thought down to somewhere in the depths. Looking up at him, I met his concerned blue eyes, and couldn’t help but offer him a soft smile for his efforts. “You’ve been quiet since you returned.”

“Just… trying to figure out what the fuck happened back there.” I offered, knowing that it wasn’t really the answer Buck was looking for.

“Yeah, me too.” Happy groaned as he pushed to sit himself upright on the infirmary bed. He favored his mostly healed forehoof, and tried not to shift himself too much on his black and blue bruised side. “I never thought Solomon would do somethin’ like that.”

“You said he attacked you.” Buck frowned as he stepped back and rested on his haunches. “What exactly about that is unusual?”

“No, he didn’t attack us.” I twisted my muzzle up as I once again ran through the events in my head. “I was about to shoot Rook in his smug face and Solomon just… threw himself in the way.”

“Once I’d pinned Rook, I expected that Arabian bastard to hoof it the other way.” Happy let out a low growl that swiftly turned into a soft whimper. He winced as he brought his wooden hoof back to lightly hold his side. “I can’t believe they got away.”

“Maybe he didn’t mean to do it?” Hispano broke her own stark silence as she pushed herself up from her place in the corner. “You know, maybe something in him just snapped.” She shrugged as Happy and I shot her a pair of confused looks. “So it didn’t quite go as planned, who cares! Can’t we just call it a win?”

I wanted to say he’d snapped. And while that certainly was the best theory I’d heard yet, deep down in my gut I felt like that wasn’t it. Honestly, if I didn’t know better, it felt like I was missing something important. You know... maybe there was somepony I could ask.

“I know that I’m oh so special to you, Night.” Jynx fuzzed up in front of me with a smile. Without an ounce of hesitation, she leaned back and pressed herself up against Buck. “And of course, I’m humbled that you feel we’re close enough you can ask me about anything on your mind…” She wasn’t really touching him, but I had to fight my own reflex to reach out and drag her away. “But while I may be able to pull some strings here and there, I can’t tell you what he was thinking. I’m stuck in your head after all, not anyone else's.”

Well, it was worth a shot.

“So, what now then?” Happy let out another whine as he maneuvered himself to lie back down on the old infirmary bedding. “Do we even know where he’s going?”

“I’m afraid not.” Ping’s voice abruptly came from the PA system. “We were unable to track his convoy as it departed Maple Creek, and there are many routes he could have chosen to take. But, perhaps the residents there were given a clue during their brief encounter with the Prince.”

“That’s not a bad idea.” Buck held a bit of hope in his words as he gazed over to take stock of the infirmary’s supplies. “Plus, if any of the town's ponies were hurt in the firefight, I’d think we’d have an obligation to help them.”

“But we didn’t technically start that fight.” Hispano grumbled and shot a sideways glance at Buck. Funny thing was, she wasn’t expecting the glare that he threw back at her.

“No, but that had been the plan, correct?” The cheeky grin Buck paired with his glare held more smugness than he normally used on me, and that pulled a light chuckle out of my muzzle. “So then, it’s settled? We’re going back?”

“Ugh, but we just got back from there!”

“You don’t have to go, Hispano.” I offered as I looked over at Happy. “You good to head back and ask some questions?”

“You kidding?” Happy groaned and carefully shifted himself toward the edge of the bed. With a light whimper, he lowered himself back to the floor again. “I… ain’t going to let... Solomon get away that… easily.” He bit his lip to try to hide the fact that he was still definitely in no shape to go. “Just… give me… a moment and I’ll… be good to go!” It was painful to watch as he stifled a small scream as he put his weight on his bandaged forehoof. But like always, stubbornly, he pushed himself to try to appear tough.

“You know what? Sure, I’ll go.” Hispano nodded and shook her head with a laugh. “If anything, I want to see how far Mr. Tough guy makes it before passing out.”

Despite Happy’s slow pace out of the Remora, it hadn’t taken the four of us long to walk back to town from where we were dropped off.

Unlike before, a dozen or so ponies were moving about town now. More than a few of them worked on the walls of the buildings where we’d been fighting, while others brought over what looked like more building materials. My best guess was that they were trying to clean up the mess we’d made. A guess that was all but confirmed by the many annoyed looks we pulled as we entered the small settlement.

“I’m gettin’ the feeling we aren’t welcome here.” Happy did his best to whisper as he hobbled himself closer to Buck and I.

“Well we did shoot up their town a bit.” Hispano offered without even trying to hide it as she lazily hovered above us.

“Hey, it was Pentex doing most of the shooting.” Happy did his best to shake his bandaged hoof at Hispano. “You and Night barely did anything.” Yeah, thanks for that, Happy...

“Regardless,” I sighed and tried my best to ignore the piercing stares from the ponies who’d now stopped working just to watch us. “Let’s just find out where Solomon went so we don’t make things any more difficult for the ponies who live here.”

We made our way towards the small explosives shop where Solomon had been. As expected, it had fared better during the fighting than most other buildings. However, the pristine window it once held had cracked, probably from when Pentex had opened up with their cannons. Through it, the four of us could see a mare in a worn equestrian army jumpsuit doing her best to patch the edges of the crack with some duct tape.

She paused working on her window as she noticed us walking up. Like the other ponies, she leveled a glare at us as she stepped back from the window and headed for the door. She was about to shut it on us, but then she looked at me. A wide, beaming smile stretched across her muzzle that made me feel more than a little uneasy.

“That sure is… a peculiar grenadier saddle you have there, miss.” I’d heard that sort of cadence in somepony's speech before, many times in fact. That was what it sounded like when I couldn’t stop the words in my head from coming right out of my muzzle. “Mind if I take a look at it? I assume it was a custom job?” Of course, she didn’t even wait for me to respond before she’d trotted right up to my side and stuck her hoof along the straps.

“Hey, watch it, lady!” Hispano fluttered down next to me and used her talon to yank the mare’s hoof away. “What are you trying to do, blow us all up?”

“Excuse me?” The mare snorted, whipping her tail with an audible crack as she tore her hoof out of Hispano’s grasp. “I handle explosives all day for a living. Believe me when I say you are more liable to blow us up than I ever will be.” The glare she shot at her didn’t phase her in the slightest, but Hispano didn’t stop her again when she brought her hooves back up to my saddle. “Hmmm, this must have been one hell of an expensive job… and I assume the release mechanism is triggered remotely by your implants, right?”

“Yes, it is.” I nodded to her, widening her smile. Geeze, she really was forward about this sort of thing, wasn’t she? I suppose you’d kind of have to be that way though, working in a shop that could kill you the moment you had a single faulty wire around… “I’m glad you find it interesting, but we came here to ask about your last customer.”

That wiped the smile from her muzzle, and she tugged her hooves back from my harness roughly.

“Sorry, can’t help you.” She tipped her muzzle up with a huff and spun herself around on her hooves. “Unless you wanna buy something, you’ll have to take your business elsewhere.” Without any hesitation, she walked inside her store and slammed her door shut with a kick.

“Well, I should have seen that coming.” Hispano grumbled as she dragged her talons down her face. “Why do ponies always need to be so dramatic. It’s infuriating.”

“It’s an art.” Happy’s smug retort earned him a flat look from the griff.

“Well,” Buck spoke up, perking my ears. “She does seem friendly enough despite what happened in town earlier.” I glanced up at him and found his warm, thoughtful gaze staring off through the cracked glass window of the shop. “Perhaps she’d be willing to trade for information on Solomon?” And that, Buck, is one of the many reasons I love you.

“Technically she did say we’d have to buy it.” I nodded to Buck, brightening his smile.

“Shall we negotiate then?” He held his paw toward the door. “I’m sure she’s a reasonable mare who’s just frustrated from earlier. Nothing we can’t handle.”

“Yeah, right.” Happy grunted and stopped me with his wooden hoof. “Night, I’m all for trying, but I swear if you send us on some fucking three day long errand, I’m taking the Remora and going after Solomon myself.”

“If that’s what she asks for, I’ll just say no.” I offered back to him. “I know the feeling Happy, because I want this over with as quickly as you do. So just wait here with Hispano and let us do our thing.”

Happy didn’t seem pleased with my answer, but he accepted it all the same and lowered his hoof. After this morning, I think keeping things quick will be the only way we’d get Solomon without any more collateral damage. Still, both Buck and I shared a quick, sympathetic look with each other before heading for the door.

Stepping inside, we were welcomed by a heavy sigh as the mare behind the counter let her head thump down onto it. It gave me a moment to look around and marvel at what she had displayed here. On one wall, she had racks of rockets, mortars, and a dozen different grenade types I’d never even seen in my life. On the other, true to Hispano’s word, she had racks of big guns, some of which nearly rivaled Suiza in bore size, but nowhere near as hefty. From the boxes of grenades displayed under them, I assumed they were supposed to be grenade launchers.

“Look, I thought I told you…” She began.

“We came to buy something.” I cut her off as Buck and I shut the door behind us. “Look, this guy has been a pain in our flank’s for months. We’re willing to buy the information off of you if that’s what it takes.”

The mare lifted her head up from the counter to glare at each of us before dropping her head again.

“You two aren’t going to leave until I give in, are you?”

“No, sorry.” Buck offered with his normal Snow Dog charismatic kindness. “This is quite important to us, so please, if there’s any way we can convince you to tell us…”

“Fine.” She grumbled, cutting off Buck as she dragged her head off of the counter and let it hang. Closing her eyes, she brought her head up and pointed it at the ceiling as she took a moment to collect her thoughts. “You know what, maybe there is something you can do for me.” She smirked as she seemed to relax a bit. “A friend of mine, Viton, ran off to scavenge from the old Battered Sea power station to the northwest. Now, he’s normally pretty particular about staying away too long, but he’s been gone for two weeks.”

“Battered Sea?” Buck brought a paw up to his muzzle in thought.

“Didn’t Ping want us to head out there?” I asked reflexively, cringing right after as I thought that maybe talking about Factory stuff in public wasn’t the smartest thing to do…

“Yeah, but we’ve already helped him out down here.” Buck answered with his own nervous smile sitting across his muzzle. He turned back to her and rubbed at his neck. “Yes, we have heard of the place. However, a trip of that distance would likely take a good few days on hoof. Perhaps he is simply taking his time to return from such a journey?”

“He was only supposed to see if the information he paid for about the place was good, and then he was going to head right back here.” She sighed and shook her head. “Normally, that’d mean a week away from Maple Creek, a week and a half tops. Look, trust me when I say that he’s my best friend, and that I know he should have been back by now. Go to the station, and if you don’t see him on the road on the way up there, then all I’m asking is that you check if he’s still at the station itself.”

“Alright, that’s doable.” I shrugged and looked up to Buck. Checking up on a missing pony? That sounded reasonable enough.

“Indeed. If we leave right away, we’ll be there before sundown.” Buck shrugged to me and pointed back to the door. “With any luck, if we don’t find him there, we can use the last of the daylight to skim the road on the way back.”

“Woah, woah, hold up.” The mare behind the counter forced out a laugh as she waved her forehooves at us. “What are you talking about? It’ll take you days to get out there.”

“On hoof, right.” I nodded to her, not sure of exactly why she thought we would be walking. “That’s why we’re flying there?”

“Right, this was something Delilah told us about.” Buck gave out a soft gasp that only made me more confused. “Ponies this far south don’t really use as many vehicles as in the north.” Oh, right!

“Are you saying that you folks have a sky carriage or something?” She scrunched up her muzzle and looked both Buck and I over again. “Well, in that case, if Viton is late because he’s hauling something good from there, I’ll pay you for the trouble if you haul both it and him here on your way back.”

“I doubt he’ll just hoof whatever it is over to complete strangers, Ma’am.” I smirked for a moment before I really thought about it. Actually, a group like ours coming out of the sky after looking for him? Yeah, we’ll be lucky if he doesn’t start shooting the moment he sees us…

“Well, he knows I’d send somepony looking if he ever took this long…” She twisted her muzzle as she propped her head up on her hooves. “Still, you can remind him of that silly railroad conductor’s hat he’s got.” A hat? Buck and I must have shared that thought, because we both shared the same confused glance to each other. “I gave it to him for his sixteenth birthday, and nopony else around here knows that other than me.”

“Alright, well then I guess we’ll be on our way.” I offered a final smile and nod to the mare before Buck and I turned around and headed for the door. Pausing, I realized there might be one more piece of information we might need. “Actually, one last thing. What’s he look like?”

“Bright pink coat, short white mane.” The mare leaned up against her counter as she looked over me. “I’d say he’s shorter than the average pony, but not quite as short as you are.” Hey! I keep telling everyone that I’m not that short!

I went stiff as a static filled chuckle came from Buck’s muzzle.

“What?” He shushed me before reaching down and scooping me right off of my hooves. “You are adorably short, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” Yeah well ponies didn’t have to make such a big deal about it! “Oh, and don’t worry, Ma’am.” He turned to wave at her as he pushed the door open with his tail. “We’ll make short work of finding your friend.”

Goddesses above, grant me the strength not to lose my shit right now…

The silence that filled the Remora’s cabin for the last few hours was getting to me, but I couldn’t exactly strike up a conversation. Buck had curled up and drifted off for a nap against the rear bulkhead, and both Hispano and I had propped ourselves against him on the floor. Now that Buck had allowed him to have a healing potion, Happy was content with a brooding pacing back and forth across the same three meters of cabin. He hadn’t been happy with yet another detour, but at least admitted that we could spare a few hours for it.

The time it had taken to fly out this far had given me a chance to think about things. Not the things that I wanted to, mind you. No, every time I tried to think about what happened with Solomon earlier today, my mind would skew off into something unrelated. For example, the last fifteen minutes have been nothing but remembering every single time so far that somepony’s called me short.

“Can I ask you a small favor?” Hispano hissed out in annoyance.

“Fine, I admit it!” I snapped and threw my hooves up. “I’m short for a stallion! Is that what you want from me!?”

Both Happy and Hispano froze up from my outburst, and Buck shifted softly under me.

“I was trying to ask Happy to knock off the pacing.” Hispano squinted at me and scrunched up her beak. “But now that we’ve got this whole can of worms open, I feel like it’s just the distraction I was needing!” Perking up slightly, she rolled herself further against Buck and propped her head up on her talon. “So, you’ve finally come to terms with your stature, have you?”

“Hispano…” Buck grumbled before pitching his head back with a long yawn. “We talked about you teasing Night already.”

“Hey, he’s the one who admitted it.” She rolled her eyes and crossed her talons with a huff. “Sorry, it’s just Happy’s pacing has me a little annoyed.” Just a little?

“We’ve been stuck in here for hours, and I gotta take a piss.” Happy tapped his hoof on the floor before deadpanning at me. “I already know you aren’t going to land this thing, so can you just open the door or something and let me do my thing?”

“Hmmm, let me think about that...” Hispano brought her talon up and tapped at her beak. “Given the air speed we’re traveling at right now, I’d like to see how far you’d make it before the difference in air pressure sucks you right out of the Remora.” Okay, now I definitely know it’s more than being a little annoyed.

“Are you alright, Hispano?” The words slipped out of my muzzle before I could think about it. Thank Celestia they did though, because they forced a cringe of regret from Hispano. “Because we can talk if you need to…”

“I’m fine! I mean, why wouldn’t I be?” She shrugged and reached over for Suiza. Taking her sister in her talons, she used her as an excuse not to look me in the eyes. “I’m just bored is all, you know how it is.”

“You sat in a cloud and watched our convoy for hours just fine.” Buck snorted as he pushed himself up from his curled napping position. “I’m with Night here. What’s going on, Hispano?”

“Fine.” She took a deep breath and huffed it out, letting her sister slip down to the floor again. “It was Xeno.”

‘Xeno?” I blurted out as I thought back to our encounter. Sure he’d gotten the drop on us, but we beat him this time. Unless she was thinking of the last time we’d met him…

“It was my fault.” She shook her head as she somewhat slumped forward. “I let him sneak up on you and Happy earlier.”

“You couldn’t have known…” I tried to say, but that only pulled a rage filled glare from her.

“You don’t understand!” She spat, “I couldn’t do anything to help without endangering you.” She grit her beak and slammed her talon on the floor. “There’s a reason Talon’s don’t stray that far from their bosses, and if I’d been down there with you…”

“But you aren’t a Talon.” Happy interjected in his own moment of bluntness. Of course, he froze up when Hispano turned her glare on him, but he had a point.

As much as our relationship had basically truly started with me hiring her as my bodyguard, Happy was right. She wasn’t a true Talon, not like Cora was. So it just came off as odd to me that she was treating herself like she was. Especially after her, Cora and I had that talk about her not needing to be a Talon that lead Cora to denounce…

Wait.

“Ding.” Jynx’s voice echoed up from the back of my mind. “You’re welcome.”

“You’re right, Happy, she isn’t.” I spoke as I did my best to drag myself closer to her. “But, I’m thinking you still actually want to be a Talon, despite what your dad did.”

“Is that so wrong?” Hispano squeaked as she slumped even more, folding her wings around herself. “I’d never thought I could be anything else before I’d met you, Night. You showed me that I could do anything if I tried, that I could be more to somepony than just a mercenary. But I can’t deny that even after all we’ve been through, everyday I just feel it inside me. Being a Talon is what I want.”

I won’t lie when I say that part of me hurt to hear her say that. It was selfish and unreasonable to want her to put down her own ambitions to do nothing but stay with Buck and I for the rest of her life. But given the experiences we’ve had with the mercenaries we’d met, could she blame me for trying to keep her from it?

But was it really my place to decide that for her? Would I ever even entertain a similar idea that affected me? What if Buck wanted to remove my wings to keep me from ever flying too far away from him. I couldn’t blame him for wanting something like that, even if it sounds like an extreme example. Still, the effect would be the same, it would be his want, not mine.

“Hispano,” Buck’s soft voice came with the light feeling of his paws wrapping around the two of us and pulling us closer to him. “I know you feel selfish for wanting to be a Talon, but we’ve already talked about this.” Leaning forward, he planted a kiss on the top of her flight cap with a smile. “Night and I will always support you, no matter what you choose to do.”

“But you don’t get it.” Hispano sniffled as she pulled her wings tighter around herself. “If I become a Talon, I won’t be around you two. I’ll always be off on a job, and we’ll hardly get to see one another. Then you’ll forget about me, so one day when I show up again, you’ll both have moved on and you won’t even care anymore! Then I’ll be all alone again and nopony will want me because I’ll start drinking and waste away the rest of my days until I die alone.”

I’d heard some great leaps to wild conclusions during my short time in the wasteland so far, but that was officially a new record.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Happy snorted before he walked over and gave Hispano’s head a few hard knocks with his wooden hoof. It made her puff up, and she swiped at his leg hard enough that it knocked a few flakes of bark off. “You spent weeks annoying the shit out of Night with your incessant advances.”

“Happy...” Buck grumbled, but was cut off when Happy pushed his wooden hoof against Buck’s metal jaw to keep it shut.

“Let me finish.” More than a bit of Delilah-styled anger filled his words, and it made me stiffen up. This… was going to be interesting. “You’re a goddess damned hypocrite, Hispano. You spent all that time pushing to be with Night, never taking no for an answer. And now that you finally have what you want? You realize that it’s not the happily ever after you imagined it is because it takes work to keep up. So you freak out and make up excuses to why it’ll never work out in the end. You tell yourself you might as well give up now to try to protect yourself from things in the future that you don’t even know will ever come to pass!”

“Hmmm,” Jynx popped up next to me holding a bucket of popcorn that looked like it had come freshly popped from the Klondike theater. “You think he’s projecting his own revelations from taking over after his mom died, or nah?” I blinked at her as she stuffed another hoof full of popcorn into her muzzle, simply shrugging before offering the bucket to me.

“That’s not what’s going on…” Hispano tried her best to sound angry, but she didn’t put any feeling into her words.

“That’s not what’s going on,” Happy mocked her before again dropping his hoof and smacking her across the back of her head. “That’s bullshit and you know it.” While she hadn’t moved earlier, the hit drew her glare up to him once more. “You tell me that these two idiots beside you aren’t crazy about making sure you’re happy, and that you’re not doing your best to throw their efforts back in their faces. Because from one screw-up to another, I’m telling you that is exactly what you’re doing right now.”

As Happy finished his rant, the cabin of the Remora was dropped into another bout of uneasy silence. Hispano sent her gaze to the floor again, while Happy stepped back with a huff and propped himself against the forward bulkhead. I, however, couldn’t take my eyes off of Hispano.

It was hard to tell what she was feeling when she was curled up and enveloped by her wings as much as she was. But if her far off gaze was anything to go on, she was busy running through everything in her head again and again. At least, that’s what I’ve done whenever I’ve had my own doubts about things.

“To be fair,” Jynx offered as she tossed the bucket of popcorn over her shoulder without a care. “You’ve always doubted yourself for a good reason. I mean come on, you always find a way to screw things up.”

I always screw things up? While I’m willing to admit to my fair share of mistakes, I was pretty sure it was her pulling the strings for quite a few of them. That is the job of a jinx after all, wasn’t it?

“True, but not every bit of bad luck has been because of me.” Her muzzle curled into a devilish smirk that made me want to punch her square in the nose. “I take pride in picking and choosing my moments. Say… remember when you were on your way out from math class and you were so busy staring at Stormy Summer’s firm flank that you ran into the doorway?”

That was years ago, and… wait. Was she actually trying to take credit for that? Because last time I checked, I’ve always had control of where my eyes are looking.

“Sure, but Mrs. Thermal was going to warn you about the door.” Jynx shrugged, “a shame she gave herself a papercut a moment before she could.”

Wow, how amazing. A two hundred year old curse gave me a black eye, truly a great use of the vast cosmic power it must take to change somepony’s fate.

The laugh that came from her muzzle at that gave me pause.

“Say, whatever did happen to that good looking stallion?” She brought her hoof up to her muzzle and looked up through the ceiling. “Didn’t he say he was planning on joining the Shadowbolts one day?”

We were all like ten, and half of us just wanted to serve the Enclave like our parents did. Though, that being said, of course Stormy never could be a Shadowbolt. No, that went out the window when what had been the best school day ever turned into the worst.

“You were so happy when you got to be his lab partner for the exercise that day.” She shook her head but didn’t wipe that irritating smile from her expression. “It really was a shame when your project blew up in his face and ruined his once exceptional eyesight.”

Hey, that wasn’t my fault! I followed the instructions to the letter, and even Mr. Squall said I’d set the burner up correctly! There was no way that it… should have…

But then there was Jynx right in front of me, slowly raising her hoof up.

“Guilty as charged. It was me! Some of my best work, if I might add.” Jynx gave a little giggle as she wiggled herself excitedly. “I know I really shouldn’t gloat, but I just can’t not make a big deal about how much of your life I’ve screwed up. Oh, we’ve had so many good times together that you don’t even know about. Well, good times for me, miserable for you.”

Why, Celestia, did I decide to keep her around again?

“So I could manipulate things into going your way now and again?” She answered me slowly, letting each and every word look like it turned sour in her mouth before she said it. Her muzzle drooped and she shook her head. “Look, I feel like I keep having to mention this, but things can’t go your way forever.”

Yeah yeah, enough with the whole ‘pendulum must swing the other way’ bit. Again, I will remind you that so long as you do what I say, you’ll stick around. The moment you don’t however…

Before I could finish that thought, she rolled her eyes at me and ebbed away into nothing. Wow, rude. I wish I could just fucking vanish the moment somepony started to lecture me.

The Remora shifted itself, tilting up as it started to descend. Well, at least we’d finally made it out to Battered Sea Station without incident. Now we just have to hope that this pony we’re looking for isn’t so spooked to see us that he starts trying to kill us all before feeling up for a chat.

The hydraulics in the Remora’s armored doors whirred to life, and the orange hues of evening poured in. A flurry of snow washed into the cabin and over the four of us from the engines as they spooled down. A thick blanket of snow had been laid across most of the flat and clear land around here, and a shiver from both Happy and Hispano told me that the blizzard that came through Maple Station a few days ago must have come from over here.

The four of us stepped out from the Remora and got a quick lay of the land. Most of it to the east was flat until you reached a thick forest with a fairly abrupt treeline. To the west of us was a set of steep cliffs that dropped off what must have been fifty meters straight down into the frigid waters of the ocean that stretched off to the sunset on the horizon. A fair distance south of us sat a collection of ruined buildings that surrounded a collection of rusting dockyard cranes. To the north was the power station, which was unlike any building I’d ever seen up to this point.

The old power station had been built right on the edge of the steep cliff. It was a huge brick colored concrete box, with imposing turret-like structures on each corner that almost gave it the feel of the world's most brutally boring castle. Almost as impressive was the robust, white colored chimneys that were built on top of them, one for each corner. It certainly was an odd building design, and even odder that it had been built all on its lonesome out here. A set of large pipes dipped out of the back of the plant, and followed the cliff downwards toward the water. On the other end of the building, a collection of rusting metal power towers, thick cables, and piles of scrap sat between the plant and the treeline.

“Alright, I think it would be best if we spread out.” Buck pointed to Hispano and I with a grunt. “You two take to the air. Go check out those cranes to the south and those ruins in the snow to the east.”

“I assume you and Happy will take a look around the station itself?” I asked, looking over to Happy for confirmation, only to find him missing. “Happy?” I looked around, finding that his hoof tracks in the snow ran around the front of the Remora.

“I’m takin’ a piss!” He shouted from the otherside.

“Come on, Dum Dum.” Hispano gave me a nudge and tried to hide the fact that she was shivering from me. Just watching her made my body start to shiver as well, even though I couldn’t actually feel cold.

The two of us spread our wings and took to the air. The strong breeze that washed in from the ocean made it so much easier to gain altitude here, though it wasn’t without its downsides. The sheer amount of salty air stung at my eyes, and the smell of it was more overwhelming the higher we climbed. While I hadn’t been so bothered by the ocean during our short time at Destruction Bay, I wasn’t sure I could understand living with the sea assaulting your senses every single day…

“I just noticed something, Night.” Buck’s voice came through my mind sharply. “This place is absolutely pulsing with magical energy.”

“Well, it is a power station.” Hispano squawked back over her radio. “Isn’t that what it’s supposed to do?”

“Perhaps I can clarify.” Ping’s voice came through my mind, and from the way Hispano seemed confused, I’m assuming over the radio as well. “The Battered-Sea Power Station was not simply a building to generate power, but was rather partially constructed as a cover for a ministry bio-research facility. However, that is the extent revealed to us by the wartime records that the Factory has procured over the years.”

“Excuse me, if I may cut in for just a moment.” The voice of Doc Groovy cut in with a burst of static. Huh, it was oddly good to hear him again. “The index that the facility’s files were located under reference a similar type of facility as the one Doc Sea Shell was once tasked to run. Perhaps there is another Medical Administrator program still active inside.”

“Hmm, yes, I see.” Ping popped back in like he had the file in his hooves as he studied it carefully. “Doc Groovy may have a point. Perhaps this facility warrants further investigation in the interest of finding if there is another program inside.”

“Well if it’s anything like the other government bunkers Night and I have run into…” She paused and shot a frustrated look my way, “well, I think you should find somepony else to check it out.”

“Given your history, I would have to agree.” Ping’s lighthearted tone helped me relax a bit. “But should you decide to change your mind, know that the Factory would be grateful for any assistance you could render in exploring this mystery.”

“Unfortunately, we’ve already got a job to do.” Buck’s tone however was nothing less than aggravated frustration. “You two see anything from the air yet?”

Glancing ahead, it was still a ways off, but it looked less than welcoming. The rusted collection of industrial warehouses that surrounded the cliff-side cranes and seaside docks below, had mostly collapsed over the last two centuries. The cranes still stood defiantly against the ravages of time, but even from here we could hear the old metal creak and moan eerily in the evening seaside breeze. That place was a deathtrap just waiting for the moment someone even thought about spending a night there.

“Most of the complex to the south is barely standing.” I reported back, getting a nod of agreement out of Hispano as well. “I don’t think any rational pony would have trusted this dump to hold up in a blizzard.”

“Alright, head out to the other ruins. He must’ve taken shelter around here somewhere.” Buck grunted, but paused for a moment before he let out a long sigh. “And now Happy’s yelling about something. Hold on.”

Both Hispano and I banked away from the rusted cranes and headed off toward the pile of junk we’d seen earlier.

“What are we going to do if we can’t find this guy?” Hispano called over to me as we both gave a few flaps to adjust and let the sea-breeze push us along a bit. “Are you really okay with just leaving this pony out here?” She shrugged as she re-positioned her grip on her sister to keep her close. “I mean, you know I’m all for helping, but is it really our problem?”

“Well, for all we know he could have arrived in Maple Creek an hour after we left.” I tried to offer that in the hopes that all our searching would amount to finding a frozen corpse in the snow. “I mean, the mare at the shop said this guy goes out on his own all the time, right? I’m pretty sure he can handle himself.”

I didn’t want to sound like I didn’t care, but Hispano was right. We had our own agenda, and we couldn’t get bogged down in searching for him. Still, that didn’t mean we couldn’t give it our best shot.

“So, Happy found what must have been his camp.” Buck’s voice came over our radios with a note of worry to it. “It looks like he’d started scavenging, but it doesn’t look like he’s been here since the storm. Even worse, whatever tracks he would have left have been buried by the snow.”

“I hate to say it, Night.” Hispano glanced over at me with a frown as she nodded down to the snow. “But the storm’s been over for what, two days? If he hasn’t been back to his camp yet…”

“I know it doesn’t look good.” I didn’t want to admit that we weren’t going to find this guy. While his life was important, if we couldn’t find him, we weren’t going to get any info on Solomon out of the mare. “We still have to check out the other towers and piles of scrap. Buck, you and Happy try to find any clues in his camp. If it looks like he took shelter in the power station, then we need to find a good way in.”

“If he’s been inside, why hasn’t he come out yet?” Hispano offered far too candidly for my likes. It’s not that she didn’t ask a good question, it’s just that I didn’t like any answer that meant going searching around inside yet another wartime secret bunker…

The two of us turned our eyes towards the snow covered power towers and looked for anything out of place. The rusting chain-link fence that had once surrounded the place had long since degraded, and the remains of steel towers built inside were in about the same condition as the cranes. Again I was amazed that they hadn’t collapsed onto the large metal and concrete boxes they stand on. Other than the thick cables that ran from tower to tower, wires and cables ran every which way across the ground. It looked like they once connected each of the dozen or so different rusted and corroded remains, and the dull shine of cracked talismans on some of the equipment still reflected the evening light off them as we flew over.

“This used to be the main transmission station, but it’s in worse shape than those old loading docks were.” Hispano again shook her head at me. “I’m sorry, but if he hid here, we’d be trying to dig through the snow for a corpse.”

“Well, first off, I don’t think he was scavenging from the power station.” Buck grumbled as Hispano and I closed in on the pile of rusted rubble. “He’s got a half a wagon loaded up with green colored naval torpedoes.”

“Did you say torpedoes?” Hispano’s plumage bristled up as a smile pulled across her beak. “Holy shit, I know he scavenges for an explosives shop, but where the hell did he get those!?”

“Some covert coastline research facilities were built with a submarine dock to facilitate supply deliveries.” Ping’s voice came over the radio again, telling me exactly what I didn’t want to hear. “There is also a submarine base to the south. Seeing as it is not too far from Maple Creek, perhaps that is where he acquired them from.”

“Then why did he haul them this far north then?” I blurted out as I tried to make sense of it all.

Part of me wanted more than anything to say that of course he got them down south. If that’s where he got them, then we wouldn’t have to go spelunking into whatever wartime bullshit is under the power station. But while it didn’t sit right with me, I still needed another option.

“Wait, where does the power even go?” Hispano flared her wings slightly and brought herself to a hover. I followed suit, but was forced to bank back around. “If you’re going to build a power station as a cover for a lab, then you’d need to be powering something else, or it’d draw too much attention.”

As I came around, her words sunk in, and I spotted something just past the treeline off to the east. It was hard to see in this light, but understandable why we hadn’t seen it until Hispano and I had gotten high enough. There was a town over there.

“Buck, there’s some buildings off to the east. It looks like a town that might still be inhabited.” I called through the radio, looking over to Hispano as she brought Suiza up to a readied position. “If anything, that’s probably our best bet for where this guy went on short notice.”

“Again, it doesn’t make sense why he didn’t come back.” Hispano added before she worked the heavy bolt on Suiza. “But I’ve spent enough time in wartime bunkers now that I’d rather choose a random town to protect me from a storm than another second in those concrete prisons.”

“Alright, you two come back down. Happy and I are on our way and will be there shortly.” Buck called back to us. While I knew we’d be more useful searching from the air, perhaps it was smarter to hold off until we knew whatever residents, if any, weren’t liable to go shooting down anything in the skies…

Pushing through the other side of the treeline, the four of us were greeted with the rusting remains of an old playground. The few old houses that sat on either side of the playground had since given into the rigors of time and the weight of the snow on them, remaining now as little more than rotting piles of wooden debris.

Ahead of us was a long, straight clearing of snow that probably at one time had been the neighborhood road. We followed it further in, walking past more collapsed and decaying houses until we started to reach sturdier, more modern buildings. The brickwork for the larger buildings here was more intact, but almost all of the windows had been broken into or boarded up, and snowdrifts pushed into their dark interiors. As we reached what had once been the main road for town, a block away to the south, one building in particular caught my eye.

It had once been a business of some sort, as it had a fairly large raised sign out front. Unfortunately, it was badly corroded and missing most of the letters, but that wasn’t really important. Honestly, it was what was sitting at the base of said sign that interested me. It was a brown, wooden canine figure with it’s back resting against the pole. Odd red streaks ran down from around it’s shoulders, neck, and waist that seemed out of place.

“What is that?” I blurted out as I tried to make out the slumped form.

“Oh shit, are you kidding me?” Hispano gasped excitedly. “That’s one of those old Molly Manticore Pizzeria restaurants! I didn’t know any were still left standing.” From the way she said that, I wasn’t sure what to make of the place. On one hoof, she sounded like she wanted to explore it. On the other, she seemed somehow surprised it hasn’t been burned to the ground? “Remember those animatronic cartoons from the theme park? The same as these, but these ones weren’t tethered to the walls by power cables.” Wow, that sounds absolutely terrifying. And it also explains how one of them ended up outside... “I heard those things were creepy as shit, even before they were rumored to malfunction and kill ponies. Never thought I’d get to see it for myself though! So exciting!”

Thanks to my squinting, the side of my head vibrated and gave me a closer look at the slumped figure. It’s wooden form resolved into what looked like a cartoony timberwolf, complete with a big fake leafy green scarf around its neck. Looking at the red lines on it however, I froze up. It looked like blood and bits of gore were seeping through every seam in the thing, and there was something about it’s eyes that were a bit too… real.

“Okay… this is close enough then. I don’t think it was just a rumor...” I forced myself to say as I turned to Buck, only to pause as I noticed a large thing standing further up at the crossroad east of us.

I blinked a few times as it looked like an oversize, pink and white furred dog. And when I say oversize, I mean it was almost the size of Buck. Several bits of it’s fur were torn and worn down, leaving gaping holes in it’s skin that seemed oddly empty at a glance, making me wonder if it wasn’t some sort of ghoul.

“Oh, hello there.” Buck had noticed it as well and turned to wave at it. “We’ve come looking for a friend. Can you help us?”

It’s massive broad head turned to look at Buck, revealing a second large head sitting behind the first that sat backwards at an odd angle and didn’t really move. It was an Orthrus? Again, I’d only read about them in school, but I guess it was another species that managed to survive in the wastes.

The large, cartoony blue eyes the Orthrus stared at Buck with felt… off, like they weren’t really staring at anything at all. It canted it’s head at him as if trying to figure out what he was, but then remained oddly still like it was frozen in place. As the breeze that washed in from the ocean pushed over us, it’s fur didn’t move, seeming too stiff to be normal fur.

“Why h-hello there… f-f-friend.” It spoke softly without moving it’s muzzle, sounding like a pair of voices speaking as one. Their odd appearance, along with their words, made my gut twist up. Something was definitely wrong here.

“Woah, that’s creepy.” Happy chimed in, snapping the dog’s attention to him.

It shifted it’s head, while the second head came rotated around unnaturally to point at Happy. Sitting at nearly a right angle, most of the fur on it’s far side was gone, and a metal frame work filled with sharp, running machinery propped up what little was left. Flat steel slabs sat in it’s empty, recessed eye sockets, and a pair of pinprick red beaming lights shone brightly at us. It let out a piercing, high pitched howl that gave us all too detailed a look into the nightmarish collection of wires and machinery inside the beast.

“Don't b-be afraid! Soon you'll look ju-just like m-me!” With a shuddering bound, it started to move towards us, barreling through the snow on all fours.

What the fuck was this thing…

“Woah, wait!” Buck shouted as he planted his hindlegs firmly in the snow. Reaching his paws out he grabbed around the bulk of the two headed machine. His legs and arms whined in protest, but he brought the assaulting machine to a complete stop. “What… are you doing!?”

Both heads on the dog snapped and twitched as they tried to get to Happy. Of course, he gave out a short lived scream and scrambled back through the snow as one of the attempts strained Buck into taking a step back. As he did, the skin on the dog gave out a terrific rip, and it’s mechanical legs raked through the air at Happy as well. Hispano raised Suiza up, but we all knew she couldn’t fire at this distance.

“Why are y-you looking so s-scared?” The machine spoke with its creepy lifeless eyes still locked on Happy. “Don't you wanna-na be like me?”

“Fuck that!” Happy screamed as he struggled to pull Laika’s pistol from it’s holster. “Shoot it in the fucking face already!”

“I can’t when Buck’s in the way!” Hispano snapped back at him. The mechanical head of the dog snapped it’s attention over to her, giving out another high pitched scream.

“Alright, that’s enough!” Buck gave a sharp shift of himself and wrapped his paws around the metal limbs of the dog. With a roar of his own, he spun with a swing of his forearms and threw the dog through the air. It sailed surprisingly far, coming down into the snow hard nearly where we’d originally spotted it.

The moment the mechanical orthrus slammed into the snow, Hispano opened up with her sister and didn’t hold back. My hearing disappeared into repeated thumps amid a constant chorus of ringing. Suiza chattered away, ripping lines through the snow as each round was sent toward the recovering animatronic dog. Metal chunks and shreds of fur scattered as each of the explosive rounds tore it to pieces.

Hispano fired for a good few seconds before letting Suiza fall silent again. The sheer volume of fire and explosive force had whipped up the snow around the machine into a steamy mist. Still, she held Suiza steady as she panted heavily and narrowed her gaze.

Sparks flashed in the cloud, and a single red eye beamed. It swung over to look at us, twitching and shuddering like it was on it’s last legs. But it rose up from where it was as it’s frame ebbed with a deep purple magic that twisted at my insides even from where we stood. It didn’t just feel wrong before, this thing was pure evil.

We all jumped as Hispano opened up again. Suiza’s shots shredded the glowing frame even more as each round blasted it apart bit by bit. It’s single red eye disappeared behind a bright flash as it’s second head became nothing more than scrap like the first.

Suiza fell silent once more, but not because Hispano had paused her fire. I glanced down at the smoking gun and could see the bolt locked on an empty chamber. It hadn’t been often that Hispano had to fire her sister like that, but with as terrifying as that thing was, I could only hope it had been enough.

“How interesting.” Ping’s calm demeanor came as almost a shock to me, easily beating the ringing in my ears. You know, sometimes I’m reminded that despite all the help he’s given at a moment’s notice, he’s not actually in any danger himself. “They seem to be based off of late war M.o.M. entertainment system designs, but… it is strange. I cannot communicate with any of them. They do not seem to be true machines in that regard.”

“That is less than helpful!” My insides did a flip as another knot formed in my gut. “Wait, any of them?” I practically yelled at him. “You mean there’s more of these things!?”

“Night! Three o’clock!” Hispano called out just loud enough I could hear her over the ringing still filling my head. She braced Suiza against her and aimed down the road toward the pizza parlor. The interior of the building was dark, but one by one, almost a dozen lifeless eyes glowed and stared at us. “Why is it always creepy shit we run into!?” With a look of fear she didn’t often wear, she quickly stripped her empty drum mag from her sister and traded it with her five shot magazine from her bag.

Well shit, if a whole drum managed to take only one of these things down, we were in trouble.

“That’s an understatement.” Jynx let out a little laugh as her voice echoed through my mind. Oh, fuck you, Jynx. If this is that whole ‘shit goes the other way’ bit… “Oh, this isn’t that. Believe me, you’ll know it when that happens.”

A trio of animatronic characters stepped out through the entrance of the old building. Leading them was the cartoony caricature of a Manticore I assumed this whole place was patterned after. To her left and standing on its stripped mechanical hindlegs, was a big blue cartoon bear that for some reason had constellations painted all over itself. To her right, was the mostly mechanical and stripped-down form of a large cartoon minotaur.

“Ah, I knew I recognized it from somewhere!” Ping chuckled with what I hoped was good news. “After reviewing the magic you witnessed in the Orthrus model, I have discovered why they are hostile.”

“That’s great!” I mean, hey, so long as we can keep these things from killing us, I’m willing to listen to whatever he says. “How the fuck do we stop them?”

“That is a bit more complicated.” Ping answered me almost too quickly. “You see, the Architect stored records of many different types of magic used by both sides. There were quite a lot of zebra projects that matched this description, mostly based on tech stolen from pony projects of course. Some of the information stolen was actually utilized in the creation of the prototypes that eventually lead to the Architect himself!”

The three machines that came from the pizza parlor kept coming. Thanks to the thickness of the snow, they were limited to traveling nearly a block to us at a walking pace. But every second they got closer I could feel the knot in my gut getting tighter and tighter.

“Again, that’s great, Ping!” Buck answered this time. “But you can make them friendly, right!?”

“I said this magic is similar to what was used by the zebras.” Ping childed him with somewhat of a growl to his words. “What I have found is part of an old M.o.M. anti-espionage project they stole from the Ministry of Arcane Sciences. It’s goal was to use a magical key-word to create animated sets of armor that could stand watch on their own, or even hold ponies of interest inside them for questioning. They are as such, not true machines, and are rather simple animatronic suits aided by a set of complex ‘come-to-life’ spells.”

Well, that at least explains the corpse stuffed in the Timberwolf!

“Unfortunately, the whole thing used necromancy as it’s base enchantment and several sets of the armor murdered those working on the project. It turns out that due to the bulk of their rigid exoskeletons and negative magics, trying to detain any pony inside ended up killing them fairly quickly.”

Yeah, again, that explains the corpse...

“Get to the fucking point!” Hispano groaned and rolled her eyes. Suiza barked out a shot towards the trio of machines. The round impacted right in the face of the bear, bending it out of shape, but the round itself didn’t detonate. “Fucking dud!”

“The point is that without the keyword, there is no way to stop them.” The sheer bluntness of Ping’s words nearly knocked me off my hooves. So outside of running for our lives, we were fucked. “I am certain they would not have put the units to use without keeping it filed away somewhere within the pizza parlor. There must be a terminal with the keyword and it’s enabling command inside the establishment.” Yeah, right through bullshit murder robots! Fucking fantastic!

“Alright, then let’s call the Remora and get out of here.” Buck grunted. He moved calmly, placing himself in between the animatronics and the rest of us. “We just need to hold them off for a few minutes while it powers up again.” For a moment, all three machines turned their eyes on him and froze up. They just simply stopped cold to stare at him.

While that was still creepy as fuck, it sparked a thought in my head. The other machine seemed to lock up when it saw him as well. That, and while it seemed fine to attack Happy or Hispano, it hadn’t even paid attention to me.

“Intriguing.” Ping commented as I think he too picked up on it. “It seems that they see those with augments as not a priority target.” That… made a lot of sense, actually. With Buck’s limbs and mine, we must look just like their busted-up condition on their simple sensors! “Perhaps you could use this to your advantage and attempt to enter and locate the keyword.”

“Except for the second we go in, that leaves Happy and I to fend for ourselves.” Hispano snapped into her headset before lining up her next shot. “And I didn’t foresee needing to bring a thousand rounds to deal with this shit today!”

Suiza let out another sharp report, and this time the round blasted out the entire side of the bear machine. Smoke and a few sparks filled the air around it, but as it cleared, the gaping hole torn in its side hadn’t even contained enough machinery to slow it. In fact, outside of their main metal skeletal bits and head, I don’t think there was much of anything other than reinforcing struts and movement mechanisms to the inside of these machines.

“Then I suggest you retreat to the roof of one of the nearby buildings and wait for the Remora.” Finally, a piece of advice I could appreciate!

“Uh…” Buck turned and ran his gaze up and down the line of brick buildings nearby. “There. Follow me.” He gave a wave for us to follow as he turned and pushed through the snow towards what looked like an old corner grocery store. The moment he’d turned away from the approaching animatronic monsters however, they let out a piercing cry.

All of us paused and watched as from the depths of the pizza parlor stepped each and every one of the other uniquely horrifying animatronic monsters who’d been watching us.

“We might want to fucking hurry!” Happy cried out as he sharply jabbed his hoof at Hispano. “Next time you know about murderous robots ahead of time, just tell us so we can get the fuck out before things go to shit again!”

“Yeah, my bad.” Hispano nodded as she pulled Suiza up to her again and hovered up into the air. “Didn’t think it would actually be this creepy. I kind of regret getting super excited now!” She offered me a nervous laugh as Buck tore open the front door to the place and let her fly inside. “Probably won’t be getting any sleep tonight then… or ever.”

Before I stepped in with Buck, we took one last moment to look back toward the approaching machines. Once more, they stopped completely, standing starkly still in the snow to stare at us. That moment stretched into a thousand though as I swear they were trying to tell us something with their hollow gazes alone. The knot in my guts twisted and pulsed, spiking a line of fear through me that I couldn’t fight. From the way the entirety of Buck’s coat stood on end as well, I knew he felt it too.

“Come on,” I offered to him as I ripped my eyes away from them. “let’s get the hell out of this place.”

Author's Notes:

A big thanks to TheFurryRailFan for all his help in going over these chapters every other week. It means a lot to me to have someone so reliable to help me out over these years.

And of course, a big thanks to Kkat for letting us all use the FoE setting for our own stories.