The four of us came out of the portal in an unoccupied warehouse, the only thing inside other than us being metal crates. "Forge, you there?" I asked.

"Affirmative, Operator," Forge said. "I am holding in orbit above the planet, and have access to communication satellites."

"Date, time, and location?" Excalibur asked.

There was a silence that lasted for half a second before Forge replied, "September twenty-seventh, two thousand and seventeen. Wednesday. It is currently twelve twenty P.M., eastern standard. Location is outskirts of Canterlot, capital of Equestria, within the industrial area. The warehouse you are in belonged to a company that has closed, and is not currently in use. It should suffice for a temporary base."

"Not much good it'll do us," Umbra said. "How much cash we got for food, Forge?"

"Accounting for exchange rates of the various gems and precious metals I managed to mine with Oryx's permission, you have approximately three billion local dollars in digital storage. If I may say, if the Equestrian economy was ever introduced here, gold and every gem type would take a nuclear nosedive in price."

"No shit," Prime muttered.

"What houses could that buy us in the city?" Excalibur asked.

"Your thinking too small, dude," Prime said. "We could buy a fucking island, contractors to build a mansion, and probably have enough left over for one, maybe two hostile takeovers of large companies!" he proclaimed. "At least."

". . .Forge? Don't take any suggestions from Prime while looking for a more permanent base."

"Wasn't planning on it, Operator."

"Killjoys," Prime said. "Seriously, though. If Order decides to send people after us, we can't be in the city or near it. Especially, if they're the other Tenno."

I nodded. "Agreed. She knows how to make Warframes and give people Tenno abilities. If it becomes a full on fight between just us and four other Tenno, we may end up destroying a good portion of the city. Not to mention the civilian casualties."

"We'll need contacts in Equestria if we're going to have any actionable intel," Umbra said. "If only to counter the Tenno arriving."

"And considering we don't have a way to get there that they don't know about," I said, "that's something we can't do."

We were silent for a time before Excalibur spoke. "What if it's not us?" he asked, getting our attention. "They don't know our allies," he explained. "Order might tell them about the Guardians and the Shadow Kings, but they haven't had actual contact with one another. If we could get in contact with Oryx, have him Take one of the Equestrian Tenno, and use the altered version of Taking, we'd have a source of intel in the circle there, and one they wouldn't expect."

"Any ideas on just who that should be?" I asked. "Chances are Order will tell the others the moment one gets Taken."

Excalibur winced. "Did not think of that. I'm really hating that this bitch is multi-dimensional and is an embodiment of multi-verse theory."

I let out a small, nasal gasp at that line. "Say that again," I said. 'I'm not sure I heard it clearly."

"That I hate the fact she's multi-dimensional and embodies the multi-verse theory?"

I let a small smirk come to my face as an idea came to me. "Yeah. That. You guys go out and look around. I need to look into something."

The three looked at each other before Umbra said, "What is it?"

"Something that might just give us a one up," I replied. "Something only a Tenno can do." The three lanced at one another, and left, their warframes receding and forming backpacks. Once they were gone, I sat on the floor, legs crossed, and rested my hands on my knees, palms facing skyward, and closed my eyes.

Excalibur

"So what do you guys think Josh is doing?" Prime asked.

"Mental link cut for you, too?"

"Why do you think I was asking, Umbra?"

Umbra sighed as the three of us-wearing jeans and three different shirts-myself wearing a gray one with red lines at the sides of the chest, Prime wearing one of white and gold in the same pattern, and Umbra dark gray shirt with gold lines and a silk scarf around his neck-with our frames on our backs hidden as backpacks-got onto a sidewalk, heading towards the bulk of the city. "Maybe one of us could guess. The link has to be especially strong between him and one of us, given how long he thought we were just warframes."

"If that were the case, it'd probably be Ex," Prime replied, and the two looked at me.

"Nothing," I replied. "The wording didn't make sense, either. If it's something only a Tenno could do, he could have told us what it was.

"Might have something to do with how Order knows everything. I don't remember much about how Josh saw the multi-verse theory," Umbra said, "but I remember just how complicated it can be."

"Same," Prime replied.

I remained silent on that. As the one Josh had spent the most time controlling through the link, I had probably the strongest connection to him, and even with him blocking his thoughts, I could still get a few ideas from the few rogue thoughts that got out.

Prime looked up at they city skyline, and stopped. "Uh, guys, look," he said, pointing. The two of us stopped, turned back to him, then looked at where he was pointing, and saw a skyscraper on fire.

"Oh shit," Umbra said. "Forge, how bad's that fire?"

"Scanning. . . .The flame has is steadily growing in temperature, already approaching one thousand and two hundred degrees Celsius. Whatever caused this fire, it isn't some workplace accident."

"Isn't that past the point steel melts?" Umbra asked.

"Not quite. That is one thousand, three hundred and seventy degrees Celsius. The only it has not collapsed due to strain is this world had something similar to nine-eleven happen, and reinforced steel beams with more temperature resistant alloys," Forge informed us. "If it reaches the melting point of steel, it wont matter. At that point, the supports will fail, and the three hundred left in the building will die."

"How long?" Umbra asked.

"At this rate? Two hours before total collapse. Given many are trapped above the flames, two hundred of the three hundred will still die."

The three of us looked at one another. "You guys thinking what I am?" I asked.

They both nodded, their face, along with mine, becoming serious. "Time to be big damned heroes," Prime said.

"Forge, deploy Archwings at our location. Stealth 'em to avoid attention before we're ready," Umbra said.

"Understood, Tenno. Deploying Odonatas now," Forge replied as our warframes took shape around us. "Along with a little extra something to facilitate the rescue."

Author's Notes:

So, a thought came to my mind while rewriting this chapter: what if someone or a small group of people got Displaced to an Equestria that has received Displaced for so long in the past, say, thousand and a half years, that the Displaced are seen as pests, and there are actual organizations dedicated to hunting down and killing Displaced. The Displaced the story follows would flee, and he/she or they-I'm being grammatically correct, not politically correct-encounter a city of Displaced, and find out it is one of a few Displaced City states in that universe. Honestly, I'm surprised I haven't seen anything like that talked about before, as far as I know. It could be rather interesting if done right.