Once we’d made our way to the snowy treeline behind Easy City, it didn’t take us all that long to find an old overgrown parking lot that was out of place. Twisting snow coated thorny vines covered in striking blue flowers constricted around the old vehicles still parked here. They layered over and nearly consumed the walls of a small shack that looked like it was once a restroom of some kind, while a larger pair of bright red plants sat sprouting through the shack’s roof. They slowly released some sort of yellowish gas and powder that I’m sure wasn’t anything healthy, but thankfully drifted with the wind away from us.

“I have heard of plants like these before, in the archives on the Inuvik, and through stories from travelers.” Buck said as he leaned down toward one of the overgrown motorwagons. As he did, Hispano and I watched as the small blue flowers turned towards him in unison, almost like they were reaching for him. “Don’t touch them. While they seem to have the appearance of poison joke, I assure you, it’s not.” As he spoke, I could almost hear Hispano gripping onto her sister tighter than before.

“Yeah well, I don’t need your help in knowing what killing joke looks like.” Hispano grumbled and gave a hefty flap of her wings. “Let’s just get out of here and go blow up this doctor. Maybe I’ll come back here later and burn this place to the ground for fun.”

“We’re not blowing her up.” I get why she could expect that the doctor was bad, but come on! “We still don’t know what’s going on here, and she might be just like the mayors in the sense that she could be some sort of pawn as well.”

“Night’s right.” Buck nodded and looked to Hispano with an unamused frown across his metal muzzle. “We’re going to observe and ask questions. If she turns out to be hostile, and only if she does, then you’ll have every right to blow her up.” Looking back over the vines around us however, he gave a shrug. “What I won’t argue with, is that someone needs to burn these vines. It’s a public health risk to just leave them here like this.”

“It keeps undesirables like you out.” The creaking deep voice of someone in the woods filtered out to us. “Speak, dog, or I will see to it that you and your companions become food to nourish the grove.”

I don’t know how, but I couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from in the shade the treeline provided. Hispano seemed to fare as well as I did, which was a surprise seeing as she has much better hearing than I do. However, Buck didn’t need to even guess. His perked mechanical ears had guided his gaze to stare down one of the darkest patches of the forest, and three pairs of softly glowing green eyes stared back.

“The mayor sent us to see the Doctor.” Buck’s muzzle curled into a snarl as he let out a low growl. “What the hell are you...”

“We are better than you.” The creature offered back it’s own snarl as it stepped closer through the shadows, but not far enough that even with my augmented eye I could see what it truly looked like. From what I could see, it’s form was like Buck’s, but bigger and bulkier than he was. The three sets of eyes moved independently from each other, each one looking at one of us and narrowing with three different tones of growls. “I am Monk, and you are not welcome here dog. You will not take my territory from me or my family.”

“We are interested in no such thing.” Buck stated flatly, reaching up and gripping around his robes tightly. “If you will not lead us to the doctor, then we will find our own way to her. But we will speak with her.”

“This is my forest. My home. Even the cursed flower you wish to burn is mine to protect.” The creature offered out a barking laugh as it again stepped forward. “And Doctor Chirality is my friend, so you will not ‘blow her up’ as you so clearly threatened.” A set of wooden claws dripping with sap gripped around the tree next to ‘Monk’ and dragged down them, cutting deep gashes through the bark as he stepped out of the shadows.

It was clear to me that at some point, Monk had been a hellhound like Buck. But now, he hardly resembled it. Towering twice as tall as Buck, he lacked fur, or normal skin at all. Thick twigs, logs, and strips of bark made up his bulky body, oozing the same pitch yellow sap that came from his claws and all three of his heads. Buck may have at one point thought he was a monster, but this… thing, was every bit just that.

“Those mutations… w-what are you!?” Buck barked, letting out another growl as he surprisingly took a substantial step back. “Are you a timberwolf, or a hellhound!?” At his words, the two heads on either side of Monk’s body turned their attentions from Hispano and I to snarl right at Buck.

“I am alive.” The center head’s wooden muzzle twisted into a splintered smile. “Past that, it is of no concern to you, machine. Leave my forest, I will not tell you again.”

“No.” Hispano spoke as she landed and leveled Suiza at the wooden monstrosity. “Mayor Sheriff sent my friend here to be healed by your doctor, and we aren’t going anywhere until she helps him.”

That pulled a creaking chuckle from the center head, while the two at his sides looked at each other with confusion.

“You misunderstand, I will take you and the pony to see the Doctor.” Monk growled as he leveled his gaze at me. With a clacking snap, his wooden arm raised and pointed a dripping claw right at Buck. “However, this dog stays out of my forest. We will not tolerate an intruder in our territory.”

“We? There are more of you then?” Buck asked as he looked like he was struggling to keep from snarling. His stiff stance and quick pants made me wonder just what was driving him so far up the wall right now, but he was strong enough to fight whatever urges he was having.

“Outside of my mates, I am alone.” He snarled, looking over at each of the heads on his shoulders. “But if you will not leave, then my wives will be more than capable enough to keep you company while I take the others to see the Doctor.”

At that, a green glow enveloped Monk. The heads on each of his shoulders split off from him, as did hundreds of smaller twigs and logs. The collections of greenery reformed at his sides into two snarling timberwolves that Monk’s now nearly skeletal body leaned down to in order to softly pat them on their heads.

Okay, I’ve seen some weird shit in the wastelands, but this was pushing it.

“You disgust me.” Buck’s low tone came with a deep, static filled growl that I’d never even heard from him before today. “Whatever you’ve become, you were like me once, but they are animals! Surely you can see how wrong...”

“They are more like me than you could ever comprehend!” Monk roared, easily beating Buck’s volume and scattering a flock of birds from the forest. Stiffened up, standing to his full height again, Monk heaved and tensed like Buck had been, locking his burning glowing eyes on Buck’s now glowing red augmented eye. “Now leave this place, or we will use your corpse to feed my future pack.”

Each of his ‘mates’ devolved into clacking sharp barks that flung their sappy slobber onto nearby plants and trees. Smoke sizzled as the sap burned and melted through them, and the stench of rot filled the air thick enough that almost immediately Hispano and I gagged.

“Buck,” I forced through my mind as I raised a forehoof and pinched my nose shut as tightly as possible. “It’s fine, we won’t take long.”

“No, Night, you can’t go with this monster!” Even in my head, Buck’s growls came through crystal clear, mirroring the exact growls he aimed at Monk.

“And if we don’t go, then what happens to the town?” I thought to him. As I’d hoped, that quelled Buck’s growls slightly, and his glowing eye reverted back to it’s soft blue color. “We will be fine. If the Doctor causes any trouble, Hispano and I will fight our way out immediately.”

“Fine!” Buck barked and gave out a hard stomp at the snow covered parking lot concrete. The concrete cracked, somewhat dampening the whine his mechanical leg gave out with the strike. “But mark my words, monster, no harm shall come to them.”

“I take no orders from you, dog.” Monk snarled, once more showing off a muzzle full of sappy sharp splinters of wood.

“If you value your forest, you will.” Buck raised a metal paw up and pointed back towards the city. “If I find that you have somehow harmed my family, then I will order our ship to vaporize every last leaf, twig, and blade of grass in your forest. Do you understand me?”

“Very well.” Monk snorted before giving a clacking snap of his wooden paws. As soon as he had, his ‘mates’ fell completely silent, standing at attention with their glowing glares locked on Buck. “Now then, you two,” His voice lost a bit of it’s hostility as he turned his gaze to Hispano and I, “Follow me, and do not deviate from the path. The bamboo here grows thick, and fast, and I will not seek you out should you get lost or trapped.”

“Fair enough.” Hispano cooed as she gave a nervous flap of her wings and used a talon to straighten up the flight cap on her head. “Come on, Night. Let’s make this quick.”

The ‘forest’ became less and less of what I traditionally would define as one as we were lead on. The plants and trees gave way to thicker and thicker clusters of ‘bamboo’, a type of tree that didn’t seem to have many leaves, but grew upward in sections to incredible heights. Thousands of small sprouts dotted the softer and surprisingly moist ground, only getting thicker the deeper we headed into the odd forest.

The small concrete bunker we were lead to was no more than a rusted service elevator behind an old blast door. The heavily corroded elevator interior was damp, and had moss growing over most of the walls, and even over the control panel. It was barely big enough for the three of us to fit on, and despite the groans of protest the cable gave out when we stepped inside, the second Monk hit the button to go down, the controls responded and we descended.

The ride downward came with some interesting observations. With each moment that passed, the air grew thicker and warmer, to the point that by the time the elevator came to a stop again, I could feel the condensation already gathering on my feathers. I held my breath as the doors rolled back, and a wave of moist, hot air rushed over us.

I’d expected something close to the degraded ruins of the other facility to meet my eyes, with crumbling and cracked concrete walls, and dim lighting that clung to corroded wires. However, what I found in the hallway ahead was that vegetation had reclaimed almost every surface outside of the brightly shining lights above us. Lush swaths of broad leafed plants, thick vines, and vibrant flowers sat thick enough that I couldn’t even see the other end of the hallway from here.

“Come.” Monk snorted as he pushed past Hispano and I, stepping out into the forested hallway without hesitation. “Nothing here will harm you outright, but I suggest you do not fly. The plants get temperamental if you block their light.”

“Whatever.” Hispano rolled her eyes as she slung her sister around herself and gave me an annoyed glance. “Let’s just make this quick.” Stepping out, she pushed her way through the vegetation, trampling dozens of different plants and colored flowers as she did. Within the span of a few seconds, she was deep enough into the hallway that I couldn’t see her at all anymore.

Stepping out hesitantly, I couldn’t help but feel something was off about this place. Moving to catch up with Hispano, I pushed through the thick vegetation, brushing aside plants that felt almost as if they were pushing back against me. I couldn’t exactly say why, or if it was something in the air itself, but all I knew was that the very fiber of my being didn’t want to be down here for longer than I had to be.

I did my best to follow the noise of rustling plants ahead of me. It wasn’t until I’d come up on the fourth junction that I’d been forced to stop and listen. The hum of the lights, the low level frequency from whatever powered the bunker, all mixed with the thick, hot air and made it incredibly hard to concentrate.

“FUCK!” Hispano screamed from down the hallway to my right. “No no no!”

Shit!

“Hispano!” Spinning and pushing myself off, I all but leapt through the foliage. “Hold on!” I called out as I fought my way towards her. Oh what I wouldn’t have given right now to have Buck’s old claws to mow through this shit with! I…

Hispano gave a squeak as I pushed through a few broad leaves and slammed right into her. She and I tumbled down to the flowers and vines coating the floor, but we were both no worse for wear. Looking over her, she seemed fine, but I could tell she’d been shaken by something here.

“Are you alright?” I finally managed to get out as we both picked ourselves up.

“Yeah, just… took a step in there and nearly got myself killed is all.” She nodded and pointed to an open doorway next to us. Inside the dark overgrown room, I had to blink a few times as I took in the glowing floor. The entire room held thousands of the blue flowers we’d seen outside. “More killing joke.” She let out a particularly rough growl as she grabbed Suiza off her back. “So much for non-lethal down here. I knew they were lying.”

“Not killing joke, or you would be dead right now.” Monk growled as he pushed his way back towards us, “That is poison joke. It may be annoying, but it is unfortunately non-lethal.”

“Now I know you’re full of shit.” Hispano smirked as she leveled her sister at the wooden hellhound. “Poison joke doesn’t exist anymore.”

“That’s not quite true, you know.” The voice of a mare came from behind Monk, making his wooden ears perk before he flattened them against his head. “It didn’t exist, at least, not until I engineered it back to how it should be. Before my work, poison joke was relegated to only exist in the history books. And now as you can see, it flourishes thanks to the insights that Deru has provided me.”

“Chirality, I…” Monk let out an uncharacteristically meek whine from his wooden muzzle. “I was bringing these outsiders to you. They say that the mayor sent them.” He turned himself side on to the wall and pressed himself back against it. As he did, the rest of the plants around him seemed to bow out on their own, forming a tunnel that a ghoul unlike I’d ever seen stepped through.

Her lemon yellow coat was saggy, but glistened with the moisture from the air down here. It was accented by what looked like mossy green scales that sat across her back and in a band that ran up her spine, under her moss colored mane, and down the top of her muzzle. She was just like Mayor Thunderbolt in the sense that each of her legs had been replaced with the same wooden prosthetics. However hers were a deep red color, with thin flaking strips of bark with the consistency of paper. She was a unicorn of sorts, sprouting a thick horn from her head, but it was the same deep red as her legs, and had the consistency of polished wood. It even held a branch to it, with one of it’s forked endings holding a small rotten piece of fruit on it.

“Wait, that horn… you’re a kirin, aren’t you?” Hispano got out as she took a single step back. “I thought they were only a myth.” Her words pulled a surprised look from the ghoul’s sharp red colored eyes.

“Oh, it looks like our guests are well educated.” The mare offered a laugh as she looked over Hispano. “How rare to find anyone who still remembers the kirin as they were, but they were indeed no myth.” With a smile, she waved for us to follow her. “Come! I will take you back to the laboratory where I can help you and your friend get back onto four real hooves.”

I stepped forward, but paused as Hispano reached out and pressed her talon against my chest.

“Be careful, Night. Kirin are legendary for being ill-tempered.” She kept her voice to a whisper, but even so, it pulled a growl from Monk, who was still stiff as a board against the wall. “I suggest we try not to piss her off.”

“Got you.” I nodded and took a deep breath. Going to be honest here, but I didn’t even know what a kirin was, let alone that they existed at all. So for now, I’m pretty sure I could default to whatever knowledge Hispano had on the matter. Even so, ‘don’t piss someone off’ was always generally good advice that I had always had a particularly hard time following...

The two of us moved to catch up with the odd ‘doctor’, following her through the tunnel she seemed to make through the halls. Creepily enough, with each step Hispano and I took to follow, the tunnel behind us bent back into the bizarrely thick foliage that it normally was. It kept HIspano and I moving, like we were being pushed to continue onward, not that you’d have gotten any argument for us!

“So, Doctor,” I managed to push out of my muzzle, “How long have you been down here?”

“Far too long, I can assure you.” She laughed as she pushed forward, forcing a set of thick looking wooden tree trunks to bend out of the way like it was nothing. “But I shall return to the daylight once more soon enough.” Stepping past the trunks, she trotted out into an expansive and bright room that was far less confining than these hallways.

Hispano and I stepped out as well, finding ourselves in a large room maybe twice the size of the weapons bay of the Arcturus. Banks of terminals lined the wall to our left, giving readouts and monitoring various things. The wall to our right was a dark pane of cracked glass, on the other side of which sat a dark forest of nothing but the same bamboo trees from above.

On the far wall to us, dozens of small samples and testing equipment sat on sterile, clean tables, with one table towards the center being completely empty and clean. The samples themselves consisted of quite a few different plants. Each of the samples were labeled and had charts sitting next to them, some of which caught my eye.

Displayed were a collection of samples for Poison Joke, Killing Joke, something called ‘Cruel Joke’, ‘Conditional Joke’, and even one labeled ‘Lively Ivy’. Knowing what Killing Joke did, and even that Poison Joke supposedly wasn’t lethal, I didn’t even want to know what the other strains could do.

One table out of the lot, seemed to be of the same odd ‘bamboo’ tree we’d passed on the way in. However, some of the samples had grown out of control, with one in particular standing out above all the rest. The odd plant had sprouted countless thin trunks, and had grown upwards hard enough that it punctured right through the concrete roof above. It’s root system had overgrown the entire part of the table the sample was on, and had stretched down to the floor and likewise burrowed through the floor.

Ever since I’d come down from the clouds, I’d learned that plants were far more resilient than I’d ever given them credit for. But this? This was almost scary with how resilient this tree could be.

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the surface is about to be pretty inhospitable. Why all the work down here?” Hispano snorted and stepped over towards the ‘doctor’, pausing as she spotted something on the wall next to the dark glass. The two of us walked over, finding the yellowed and surprisingly untouched frames of a few documents. “Doctor Citrus Bizzaria… you have a PHD in arcane phytology?”

“Yes, I was Citrus, but you may call me Doc Chirality.” She laughed as she trotted across the room toward the terminal banks. “And that was the second PHD I’d earned. My first was in Biology with a minor in botany, focused on plant genetics of course.”

With a few taps of her wooden hooves across the keyboard, a mechanical arm lowered down from the ceiling, er, what was left of one. It had been a robust metal arm, crude compared to what I’d seen in the factory, but ending in an articulating drill that had some sort of metal cylinder piped into its base. However, thick wooden vines had grown through where all of the hydraulics once sat, and those now controlled it’s movement. Vines that leaked the same sappy substance from Monk replaced the piping for the drill cylinder, and as it lowered, it began to ooze out over the tip.

“Alright, if your friend would kindly hop up onto the table in the center here.” Doc Chirality pointed back to the clean table I’d seen earlier with a nervous smile.

“Just one moment.” Hispano spoke up, taking a step forward. “Before we do anything, I’d like to know what you’re getting out of all this work.”

“I beg your pardon?” The Doc paused and blinked at Hispano sharply.

“No one does anything for free.” Hispano smirked as she stood on her hind paws and crossed her talons. “So, what are you going to charge us for this?”

“Nothing. I haven’t charged anypony who’s come to ask for our help.” She smirked and nodded over towards one of the sample tables. “As you can see, our goal has simply been to try to restore the growth cycle of the planet’s forests after the megaspell apocalypse so nearly wiped them off the planet. And in doing so, we have found that one of the best ways to keep others from repeating that mistake is to help them understand that a vibrant and verdant forest would be in their best interest.”

“So you simply want to help ponies?” I asked. While I’d been naive in the past, I couldn’t buy into what she was saying at all. “Well, we’ve spoken with both mayors and we already know you’re playing both sides up to the point where they’re about to go to war. Why would you feel you need to make a deal with them when you know they’re currently gearing up to try to wipe each other out?”

“Sit down on the table and we’ll explain everything while we fix your leg.” She offered me a smile as she turned and trotted towards the empty center table, giving it a firm tap of her hoof for me to climb up.

“No, explanations first, then you can help me.” I smiled back at her, watching as my words pulled an unexpected stiffness across her body. She had to be hiding something, and now that she couldn’t run from it, we’d have it out of her any moment…

“Hahah!” She burst into laughter, nearly doubling over onto the table as she did. “What? Do you think I’m masterminding something down here? I’m a botanist, I’ve simply been doing my research like Zeb-tec told me to two centuries ago. They sent me to see what he had to offer us for the war, but instead I found that Deru could save us all. Don’t you see? I don’t care what those on the surface do with the help we give them!”

“Why? And who’s this ‘Deru’ you keep bringing up?” Hispano grunted, stepping up beside me. “I thought you said you wanted peace, for ponies not to kill each other.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that, they can’t kill each other anymore, at least not completely! Prince Deru won’t let them die.” She rolled her eyes as her horn flashed with magic. She entered some sort of command on the terminal behind her and the mechanical arm on the ceiling turned towards me. “Don’t worry so much! Once you two have his sap flowing throughout you, you’ll understand everything.”

“Woah there!” Hispano scrambled to get Suiza in her talons, but tripped as a set of vines crawled up around her paws from the floor. “What the fuck!” Before she could do anything, the vines had grabbed her and hoisted her into the air upside down. “Night! Do something!”

Fire!

The submachinegun on my saddle let out a withering gout of fire at a rate much higher than I’d expected! The tremendous stream of fire was fairly inaccurate, and tore through the room. The Doc’s samples all but exploded from the rain of bullets, and parts of the wooden mechanical arm splintered away. Half of the good Doctor’s head was even blasted clean off, leaving her to gasp as she collapsed to the floor. And within two seconds flat, the counter in my augmented vision counted down from twenty four, to zero rounds left.

For a moment, all was quiet again. Looking over to Hispano, she nodded to me before reaching up and grabbing at the vines tightly wrapped around herself. She growled as she dug her claws into the vines, and without much of a fight, she got them to let her go. The vines themselves snaked back into the vegetation, allowing her to get back on her paws.

“Hey, Night?” She asked as she reached down to the vine covered floor and gripped Suiza. “Do you think there’s always some crazy ghoul in places like this?” She grunted as she yanked at Suiza, but couldn’t manage to easily get her sister’s barrel out from between a few of the vines. “Cause in the future, I say we just blast places like this to bits before anything.” With a few more frustrated tugs, she heaved out angrily as her sister still refused to budge. “Stupid fucking plants, let go of my sister!”

I was about to move to help her when the whole room shook violently. Both Hispano and I were thrown to the floor as we were showered with dust and small bits of concrete from above. It was less like an explosion, and more like the ground around us had started moving, sending spidering cracks through the walls and ceiling. But after a moment, the shaking stopped, and both Hispano and I moved to get back up. When I did, I looked up just in time to see the half-smile Doctor Chirality wore across her half-head.

“It’s finally time. He rises.” Was all she said as she raised a single hoof to me. Underneath me, snaking vines shot up and wrapped around my barrel tight enough that it forced the air from my lungs. My harness creaked as it was squeezed, my wings protested as they were bound to my back, and I did my best not to panic as I was lifted right up off the ground.

“Night!” Hispano let out a gasping whine from beside me.

Looking over at her, she had fared just about as well as I had. Vines had her tightly bound and lifted into the air. However, before they struck, she seemed to have managed to actually get Suiza free from the floor, but now her sister was pinned against her under the vines. Her eyes betrayed the look of fear that I shared, but even so, I could see her normal determination behind that look.

“Fight all you want, it is no matter.” The Doctor laughed as she stepped forward with a single glowing yellow eye in her head. Turning the blasted half of her head to me, I gasped at the sight of the charred and smoldering wood that filled the inside of her skull. “Prince Deru has awoken, and soon, he will save the world.” Lines of yellow magic trickled down her wooden limbs, ebbing softly as she breathed.

“What… are you?” I managed to force out as I struggled to breathe. Okay, so this wasn’t good, obviously, but I needed to buy us time to get help. “Buck, Eliza, anyone, Hispano and I are in trouble down here!” I thought out as the Doctor answered my question with words that didn’t matter to me. “Come on, someone respond!”

“What do you mean... “ Hispano groaned as she twisted and fought against her bindings. “Save the world? From what?” As she spoke, she glanced over at me with a note of hope. A hope that I’m sure was supposed to be brought by the fact that I could tell someone we were down here.

Unfortunately for us, the concrete here was thick enough that I don’t think that help was coming…

“Why, from itself, of course!” The Doctor laughed softly as she spun on her hooves and walked back towards the sample tables. “The world is sick. It’s forests lay barren and rotting, all thanks to the efforts of selfish ponies and zebras who have forgotten their place in nature. Prince Deru is here to remind us of our place, and to help us accept it with open hooves! All you need is his sap flowing through you to understand...”

“I’d rather die, thanks.” Hispano snorted as she stopped struggling in order to focus on trying to aim Suiza through the vines. However much she tried, the best she could do was to shift Suiza enough that rather than shooting the floor, she’d instead have shot me.

“But you don’t have to die if you submit to him! That’s Prince Deru’s gift to ponykind!” The Doctor spat out through yet another sharp laugh. “Imagine the possibilities! A completely renewable body, with all the space for a mind to learn infinitely! Always learning, always growing, never at risk of death due to simple things. So long as one spriggan, one sapling, one leaf remains, a new you would regrow from it. This is the future of the Equestrian race, the rest of the world even! And thanks to the genetic alterations I’ve grafted onto him, Prince Deru will be the one to lead us all into it!”

“So none of... us get a choice?” I again struggled to get the words out as the vines seemed to tighten around me. The shifted against my skin, and I could feel a new set growing down towards my braced foreleg. I winced as I could feel the vines work their way under the brace, and after a moment, they squirmed and wriggled hard enough to push the brace down and off of my leg altogether.

The ground shook violently again. The vines propping me up moved and shifted with it, not letting me feel one ounce of the shaking past the air itself. The good Doctor was nearly thrown from her hooves, but steadied herself with an unnatural sense of balance. More cracks filled the walls, and an entire chunk of the ceiling came down next to me, leaving a mass of damp wood and roots pressing down from above the room.

“Of course you get a choice!” The Doctor spoke up as she ran her hoof over one the surfaces of the sample tables. With a swift pluck, she grabbed one of the thorny vined variants of killing joke and spun around to me. “The choice is to either submit to Prince Deru, or die and nourish the coming global forest.” With another smile and a cant of her head, she looked down at the thorny vine in her cloven hoof. The vine itself seemed to liven up at her gaze, stretching out at her face like it wanted to latch on and never let go. It pulled a sadistic chuckle from her as she brought it close to her muzzle. “Cruel Joke was one of my favorite creations you know. So eager to feed off others misery, so creative with the agony it can rip from it’s victims.”

“Spare us the…” That was as far as Hispano made it before the vines around her tightened again and the air was forced from her lungs.

“Let her go!” I whimpered and whined. I didn’t know what else to do at the moment, but we were running out of options. “I’ll stay and do whatever you want, just please, let her go.”

At that, the doctor smiled brightly, and the charred wood inside her head flared like charcoal on a fire.

“No, I don’t think I will.” She spoke as she walked back across the room with the Cruel Joke sample in hoof. “Prince Deru wishes to save the world, and every race that lives on it. This griffon will be his ambassador to the rest of her people, she should feel honored.”

I wanted to hear a snarky response from Hispano. I really could have used any sort of backhoofed comment, or bad joke. But when I looked over, I couldn’t do anything but whimper as she struggled to even breathe. She was running out of time.

“She won’t be... able to do anything... if she can’t breathe!” I forced out, struggling against my own bindings. Okay, what are my options? Could I use a grenade? Not without blowing myself and Hispano to bits. What about my new gun? Glancing down in my vision, the stark zero out of twenty five shots remaining told me that my salvation must lie somewhere else. Wait! I still had my emergency eye weapon! Yes, that had to be...

Hispano’ gave a deep gasp as the vines loosened around her, and her relieved voice ripped my mind from its momentary panic.

“Perhaps… if you were to accept Deru’s gift willingly, I would consider sparing her.” The Doctor glanced over at me with her sinister smile. “Here, I’ll make it even easier for you to choose. Soon, you’ll be begging for his sap…”

I winced as again my attention was immediately stolen back. The Doctor lifted her hoof up and brought the sample of Cruel joke to my foreleg. It felt like a snake as the green thorny vine slithered and curled up just past my hoof, wrapping itself tightly around my fetlock. My heart started to race as it constricted, and in a single instant, every single one of its thorns pressed down and were driven through my skin.

There was a sharp cracking, like that from a fire that filled the air from within my leg. I blinked as my augmented vision fuzzed and the side of my head grew warmer. Warnings flashed up about my painkiller talisman and the temperature of my augment. Then with a flash, it all went away.

A scream ripped through me as I could feel everything again. Pain like I’d never experienced consumed my foreleg as the crackling noise continued. Arching and fighting hard against the vines that bound me, I cried out as it felt like something was eating its way through my leg from the inside. The doctor said something, and Hispano was screaming at her, but I couldn’t hear anything over the crackling. I couldn’t focus on anything but the agony as I did my best to try to pull away from my own bound leg.

I don’t know why, but I couldn’t fight the urge to look at it. Through the tears streaming down my face, I glanced at my leg as it started to shift and move, like something was crawling just under my skin. The pain got worse, and I couldn’t even see as everything went white for goddesses know how long. But the pain continued, and I thrashed against the vines until I lost the strength and will to fight at all.

Heaving and crying like a foal, I torqued and twisted against the vines. Eventually, the pain started to subside, and my vision returned. Glancing down at my foreleg, I was sickened as the movement under my skin became more pronounced until small slices sprung up all across my leg. Blood quickly trickled up, followed by small white objects that wormed their way out. They rode the small rivulets of blood across my skin, and dropped onto the floor.

As soon as they had, the vines let go of my leg, and it flopped down like it was made of wet paper. With each painful torque of my body, it simply hung limply, bleeding down across the vines that were slowly growing up through the cracks in the floor.

“What the fuck did you do to him!” Hispano’s screams were the first thing I could hear again as sound returned, but it was getting hard to focus on anything past the throbbing pain in my leg, and the thundering of my racing heartbeat.

“I’ve simply shown him what happens when you refuse Prince Deru’s gift.” The Doctor’s voice warbled for a moment as everything around me started to dim. “And should he continue to refuse, then I still have two other legs to remove the bones from…”

No. I couldn’t do that again, I wouldn’t! I didn’t want to have to use a grenade, I wanted to save Hispano and I. But now, it looked like I didn’t have any other choice.

“Fuck you!” Hispano shouted.

A resounding blast filled the air, and my vision went white again as pain consumed my mind. However, as the sounds of the world resolved into a single sharp ringing note, and my scream fell upon my own deaf ears, I could see something in the white ahead of me. It was her, the other me, standing and smiling. Reveling in the misery and agony I felt.

“Stay with me, Night…” Hispano’s far off voice pushed through the blinding white in my vision. “I… didn’t mean to… but you’ll be alright, right? You have to be…” With every word she spoke, I could feel the pain drift slightly further away.

Cold swept across my body, and I started to shiver, which only made the pain worse. I tried to cry out, to scream again, but I could barely manage a whimper. As the blinding light in my vision started to die, so did the pain.

“Alright, hold on…” The gravelly voice of another pony hit my ears. There was a high pitched sound of something compressed that stung at my lungs. “The effects should only take a moment to kick in.”

“G-good.” Hispano’s nerve wracked voice met my ears, and with it, came an astonishing feeling of calm in my mind. If she was still here, than that was all that mattered. “I know we just kicked him off his drug addiction, but hopefully he’ll understand…”

Drugs?

My heart jumped in my chest, and my back arched. My lungs forced my muzzle open wide, and I took in the biggest lung full of air I think I’ve ever had. My eye shot open, revealing an olive drab tent above me, along with Hispano, and one of the Cordite ghouls. I couldn’t fight back as the sudden urge to stand up hit me hard. Flailing my legs, I pushed myself up from the cot I’d been on and immediately bowled into the ghoul next to me.

“Easy there, give yourself a moment to adjust.” The ghoul gave a wheezing laugh as a sharp spike of pain ran up my foreleg. “Ultra Dash hits us ghouls pretty hard, so I can’t even imagine how it’s affecting you.” Looking down at it, my heart nearly stopped again as it ended in a stump wrapped in a blood soaked bandage.

For Celestia’s sake, are you fucking kidding me!?

“I’m so sorry, Night, I tried to aim for that stupid doctor.” Hispano squawked as she reached out and put her talon on me. “But the recoil from the second shot, it tore Suiza free from the vines, and I over corrected…”

“He’s lucky. Another few degrees over when you fired, and he’d be missing his torso.” The ghoul snorted, forcing the smile on his muzzle to linger a bit. “But I stopped the bleeding, which should be enough to keep you alive in the short term.”

For just a moment, a slight shift of movement behind him caught my eye. My own eye and smile leaned out from around him, and I deadpanned at the other me. No, this was not your doing, Curse. As much as you want to take credit, if Hispano hadn’t acted, I’m sure we would have never made it out of there alive.

She gave a shrug, and like that, the other me was gone again.

The whole ground shook under us, and I was forced to again brace against the ghoul. The sound of a large blast outside came through with a heavy gust of wind. Along with it, came a deep roar the vibrated the ground and air itself.

“What the fuck is going on?” Looking over at Hispano, I was almost afraid to hear the answer of how I got here, let alone whatever that sound was.

“It’s ‘Prince Deru’, he’s some sort of massive timberwolf, and like the doctor said, he’s woken up.” She nodded to the flap of the tent as the sound of dozens of Cordite ponies running by filtered in. “I can fill you in, but it’s best if you see for yourself.”

Pushing myself off of the ghoul, I forced myself to hobble over to the flaps. Each tweak of my freshly missing leg sent up a spike of pain that threw off my balance. But, it was only a few hops to the flap, and I bit down on the old fabric with my muzzle for a bit of extra stability. Looking out into the late afternoon sky however, I wasn’t expecting to see anything like what stood before us in the distance.

Towering over the town was what looked like a timberwolf, but made out of the same bamboo trees that had been around the bunker. It had to be damn near fifteen meters tall, and it’s glowing yellow eyes burned as they swept across the town. With a bristle of it’s back, it gave a hard shake that tore mounds of dirt from within its body, sending up a cloud of dust under it that rolled over East City and towards us.

“What are we going to do, Night?” Hispano asked.

“What happened to the doctor?” I asked without really thinking. If she helped to heal this, this... thing, then maybe should help us destroy it.

“Dead.” Hispano cringed and gave me a regret filled glance. “Seems that Suiza proved she wasn’t nearly as immortal as she thought she was.”

“Great.” I grunted and turned to the ghoul who’d helped me just in time for him to shakily put on a pair of old, round brass framed glasses. “Do you think Cordite can stop that thing?”

“I d-don’t know.” He took a step back. “I’m… just the field medic.”

“Find Bitter Charge and tell him to start shelling!” I snapped at him, getting a nod before he broke straight into a gallop out through the tent flaps. Turning to Hispano, I took a quick few breaths as my heart decided it wanted to start trying to break out through my ribcage. “We need to get back to the Arcturus and get as many missiles as we can to use against that thing.”

“Can’t you just call them!?” Hispano flailed as she took a step out from the medical tent.

“I can’t, my whole headpiece isn’t working!” Okay no need to panic, Night. You just need to think. First, you need help, both medical and to fight, and that starts with finding Buck and getting him in contact with the Arcturus. “Where’s Buck?”

“I don’t know.” Hispano shook her head. “When Prince Deru got up, the whole damn facility started to come down around us. I pulled you out of there and came straight here.”

“Well we need to do something to at least slow that giant wolf down!” I snapped at her.

“What do you want me to do, Night!?” She snapped back. “I don’t have some fucking hero complex, so I’m not going to go running off and leave you here like this! That thing is going to need a lot of firepower to bring down.”

A hero complex, that’s it!

“Yes, you do need to go!” I spat out as my muzzle pulled into a smile. “Find Increadimare, get her to keep that thing busy for now!” That pulled a reluctant nod from her, but she seemed to agree. She opened her beak to speak, but I cut her off. “I’m going to find the radio tent. I need to at least try to get in contact with the ship.”

With another sharp nod, Hispano flared out her wings and leapt into the air. She shot off like a rocket as another deep roar came from the massive timberwolf in the hills. Okay, here’s hoping that between Increadimare and Cordite, we could kill this fucking thing.

Hobbling myself to turn back towards the other half of the Cordite camp, I paused as gunfire erupted from East City. Chattering bursts of fire rang through the air, as well as screams. My eyes were pulled upward as a dark shape shot up into the sky. Mayor Sheriff flared his wings and rolled over, diving down towards the city. With a bright green flare, a line of flame blasted through the shanty shacks around the center of town.

Wait, why was he attacking his own city!?

As he rose into the air, he flipped himself over again, pausing at the apex of his climb. As he hung there, his eyes and horns burned with the same yellow glow as Prince Deru’s. They were just like Doctor…

The prosthetics! They were the key! The Doc even said that once I had Deru’s sap, I would understand. This monster was somehow controlling the minds of anyone with those fucking wooden prosthetics!

Which also meant…

Gasping, I forced myself into a painful hobbling psudo-canter straight for the radio room. What I found was that I could get into a pretty good gait that only made me want to scream with every step, but I couldn’t do anything but smile. Damn, whatever was in that drug the medic gave me, it had one hell of an upside. I felt like I was unstoppable, like maybe I shouldn’t bother with the radio and just head straight for that giant wolf so I could teach it a thing or two!

As I passed them, the Cordite artillery battery fired in near unison. The collective successive shots sent a wave of pressure over the tents in camp, and nearly blasted me off my hooves! Thankfully, it also knocked some sense back into my head. What was I thinking? I can’t do this alone, and my friends are in danger.

The safety of everyone on the Arcturus was the only thing that mattered right now!

My body screamed at me as I pushed myself to hobble faster. Sharp whines escaped my muzzle as blood dripped from my bandaged stump down into the mud and snow. But I've been through this before, hobbling was nothing I couldn’t do, and the pain, while intense, was something I had the drugs pumping through my body to help with.

Just as I made it to the radio tent, sporadic bursts of gunfire came from the edges of the Cordite camp. Those who weren’t already helping to load up the tanks, grabbed their guns and charged off towards the gunshots. One thing at a time, Night! I wanted to help, but first I needed to get in contact with the Arcturus.

Pushing my way past the flaps, I hobbled to the small stool that sat in front of the radio set. Quickly I flicked it on and hoofed at the receiver. While I didn’t know how to call directly up to Eliza from here, I had to believe that with the chaos that’s started, she’d know to be listening to everything down here.

“Eliza, this is Night Flight.” I called over the hoofset. “You need to detain Happy before he hurts somepony up there! Do you hear me? You need to stop him!”

“N-night?” The stammering voice of a mare came through rather than Eliza’s voice. “T-this is Bubble Level! What the hell is going on? What the fuck is that giant monster!”

“Bubble, I need you to get your crew to open fire on that thing!” I shouted back. “Hit it with everything you’ve got, and don’t let up!”

There was a long pause that came over the radio. It was long enough that a fresh salvo of shells were fired from the Cordite battery, and a particularly loud roar echoed across the hills. Good, that thing can at least be hurt. And if it can be hurt, it could be killed.

“I… I can’t,” Bubble’s voice came over the radio with more apprehension in it than was really warranted for the situation. “At least, not without the mayor’s authorization, and…” She paused, as if she was wrestling with a thought. “Something’s wrong in the city. It’s like it’s under attack…”

“That monster has control of both mayors, Bubble!” I snapped back at her. “Anypony with one of those wooden prosthesis is being mind controlled, and that includes the majority of both cities military forces!”

“By the goddesses…” She gasped, pausing just long enough that a burst of gunfire came through the radio from her end. “Shit, they’re coming. I’m sorry, Night, but my crew is my priority.”

“Defend yourselves, but we need those cannons to bring that thing down, Bubble!” I didn’t know if even with them it would be enough, but I’d be willing to settle for trying.

A loud burst of static came over the radio, forcing me away from the speaker with a wince.

“Captain, I’ve been trying to reach you.” Eliza came through with more than a note of panic in her monotone voice. “Cora has detained and sedated Happy. You were right, he was attempting to sabotage the missile loading mechanisms in the weapons bay.” Okay, well that was a relief. “What’s the situation down there?”

“The kirin botanist in the bunker has woken up some sort of old world monster that’s intent on killing us all.” I sighed and looked down at my bandaged stump, watching as drops of blood slowly collected on it before dripping down onto the tarp covered floor. “I need you to get Tofu loading up as many missiles as possible.”

“That is not possible.” Eliza’s tone shifted ever so slightly to one of… sorrow. “Before he could be stopped, Happy attacked and injured Miss Tofu. She is under Cora’s care in the infirmary for now, but I’m afraid she is in no condition to help.”

“Then I’ll do it.” My dad’s voice fuzzed over the radio. “You might have to walk me through a few steps, Eliza, but it shouldn’t be all that different to any other Mistral class ship I’ve run startup tests on.”

“With the exception that these will be live warheads, of course.” Eliza’s voice came back through with a bit of hope in her words. “Double and King will also assist in the loading procedure. However, it will take a few minutes to complete.” A few minutes was a long time to have to wait when ponies were dying every second out here. “Captain, I’ve informed Buck of your whereabouts, and he should be with you within a minute. However, I can not locate Miss Hispano.”

“Don’t worry, she’s gone to get Increadimare to join in the fight.” I smirked, both finding it incredibly ridiculous, as well as somewhat comforting to know that we’d have somepony on our side who at least believed themselves to be fighting for the good of everyone. “But we’ll need those missiles as soon as possible.” While Increadimare was a good start, the sooner we had those missiles ready, the more lives we could save.

“One last thing, Captain.” Eliza’s voice chimed in, pausing for a moment as she did, “what... if bringing the beast down doesn’t stop those in town? What if it doesn’t free Happy from whatever magic is controlling him?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” I sighed as her words sunk in. We couldn’t just kill them all. No, there had to be another way if this didn’t work. “Let’s just focus on one thing at a time for now. Bring Prince Deru down.”

“Aye Aye, Captain.” Eliza’s voice came through promptly before dropping out and sending another loud burst of static through the radio.

Okay, so now that everyone knew what to shoot at, it was only a matter of getting the shots off before we were all killed. Pushing myself to my hooves, I turned around to hear the quick and heavy beats of mechanical paws across the ground. Hobbling forward, I pushed through the flaps just in time to get scooped up into Buck’s warm grasp.

As he brought me close, I found a dozen deep and bleeding gashes across his body. Dents, scrapes, and sparking wires showed me that Buck had fought his way here. And while I couldn’t imagine what he’d been through, he was here with me now, and that was all that mattered.

“Night, I was so worried!” Buck whimpered as he squeezed me tightly. I moved to wrap both my forehooves around him, but cried out as instead I jabbed my bloody stump against him. He gasped and pulled me away, heaving slightly as his eyes dropped onto my bandaged leg. “Night, oh fuck, I’m so sorry. Everything went sideways, and Monk attacked me! He...”

I lifted my remaining forehoof to his muzzle and quieted him while I winced from the pain in my stump.

“It’s fine,” I lied to him like always as I leaned forward and pressed myself against him again. “We need to stop that giant timberwolf before anything else.”

“Yes, I heard what you said to Eliza.” He nodded before his mechanical ears perked and twisted almost all the way around. With heavy wing beats, I was happy to spot Hispano approaching us, closely followed by an angry looking green alicorn in yellow magical spandex.

The two glanced at each other, trading nods before Increadimare torqued her wings and broke off. She picked up speed at an alarming rate, shooting through the sky right towards Prince Deru. Hispano however, flared her wings and came down fairly hard onto her paws.

“Alright, she’s going to go all in.” Hispano panted as she steadied herself again, gazing off towards the massive timberwolf. “I hate to say it, Night, but I’m not sure if she’s strong enough to do anything other than just make it angry.” With a forced smile, she shared a nervous glance with me. “You know, I take it back from earlier. I think given the circumstances, we may just have needed a fifty foot tall mare, rather than an egotistical alicorn…”

As much as I wish this were a movie, and that we had Lilac Lace here, I couldn’t hide from the fact that this was far outside anything she’d have even been able to help us with. It was up to us and our friends to do this, and that scared me. But we could do this, and deep down, I felt that more than anything.

I had faith in them. Cordite, the Road Crew, and my crew. If anyone could face these odds and come back on top, it was us. Still, I found my eyes were drawn down to my bloody bandaged stump once more.

The question was, what would it cost us in the end.

Author's Notes:

As always, a huge thanks to TheFurryRailfan. Even though he's got his own life going on, he still makes time to sit and give each chapter a good once over, and I can't thank him enough for it.

And of course, a big thanks to Kkat, for creating FoE and letting us all utilize it's setting in such neat and novel ways.