I was off the floor and out the door of the hotel LONG before the griffon woke up. Despite my misgivings about her probably knowing everything I still did not want to have her talons buried in my intestines.

Actually, in my paranoia, that had probably raised her interest in her dreams. I mean, she had been sleeping right? She had been dreaming through my memories.

I probably had nothing to worry about.

But what if she linked the human memories to me? I was screwed...

But what if she didn't? What if she passed it all on as one of those weird dreams?

But what if I needed to tell them I was secretly an alien? Ok. Calm yourself, you should NEVER need to tell them that.

Just... push on. Try to ignore the fact that a griffon could be killing you by the end of the day. Try to keep it out of your mind that your life hangs by a thread.

I was at the bar within seconds, looking around nervously.

And then the snake was next to my side and I plastered the biggest fake smile I could across my face.

"You're in luck. I got you a meeting with my boss." He said and I instantly went alert.

"When...?" I dared to ask, not wanting to look at him in case he decided to turn into a basilisk or something. My mind was swimming, churning out streams of ideas on how I should handle this, screaming out with a thousand voices that I should flee into the world.

I ignored them.

He gave a look that might've been a smile. "Today." He pointed out with one of his hands outside.

Fucking hands. I want hands.

And I stared outside and waited. Slowly... I could see a massive airship, easily the best looking inorganic thing I has seen since I had gotten here. Her sides were smooth and fitting, the paint on her was brilliant. She probably had enough firepower to absolutely level the entire town.

"Coward." Of course Malice was going to but his two cents into the mix. Damn it.

The rest of my group slowly crawled out of the rooms we had had booked and took their places at my side.

I was really hoping I was imagining that Catastrophe was staring at me. I could imagine that she was testing to see just how hard it would be, from her standing position, to bury her claws into my throat and end my struggle right there.

And then... of all the things I would've expected to be able to order Marty around...

A cow.

Walked over.

A cow. Walked over. In the lead. Of two kinda scary looking ponies. One was a reddish pegasus and the other was clearly some sort of guard. I could read it in his eyes. Kinda.

I was absolutely dumbfounded. I had been expecting something like a fire breathing world snake or something. I blankly stared at her for a long time before my brain rebooted.

Marty slithered beside me and nodded at the cow.

And then the cow started speaking. “Hello, there. I am called Missy, and I am an Inspector. This is Safe Guard, a member of the Royal Guard, and this is Red Hot Chili Pepper, my assistant.” With each name she waved at the one it belonged to.

I had to blink at the names. So cliche, yet so fitting. Much like everything else.

While I tried to formulate my response, I stared at the cow's odd suit and caught sight of a strange bulge on the chest. A tube... I tried not to think about what it was...

It was a set up, clearly.

“Is that a gun? What did I do to deserve a gun?” I did my best to try and come up with a serious excuse for getting the hell away from the cow. “And geez, who designed the suit?” I backed away slowly. “I uh... have to go get Boss and the others...” I tried not to point out that they were next to me, and I heard Canary groan.

The Cow literally exuded calm into the air and I drank it like fine wine. “As I have no relevant warrant, this is an entirely voluntary meeting. If you would prefer other people to be present, that is entirely acceptable.” She lifted her hoof in the air in a manner that reminded me of an open palm and raised my ire at the instinctual connection. What was I to her, a savage beast? “The suit is an original by Rarity Designs. As for my self-defense tools, I am not a unicorn, and their magic is much more versatile than my mere gadgetry.” The name Rarity tugged at my thoughts.

I looked back at my party and smiled lightly. “Right... What do you want?”

She replied. “In general, to keep Equestria’s people safe and prosperous. At the moment, I’m investigating reports of unusual slavery and anti-slavery activity, and I recently received a report that you might be strongly on the anti-slavery side of things.”

I looked around some more. The cow did not seem to possess the sheer power that Marty did, but maybe she had people hiding, waiting to do me in? “Yeah. If you are talking about Rej, than yeah. Against slavery.”

She nodded. “Good. In that case, feel free to tell me what you have on your mind, and what I can do for you.”

I said the first few things that came to mind, regardless of whether they were true or not. “Building supplies and someone with some sort of knowledge of how to build. Also, Bug repellent.”

She looked slightly curious.“That seems tame enough... dare I ask what sort of Bugs you need repelling?”

“The kind that stops fleas from getting on dogs. I think Boss is getting fleas and I really don’t want to add another problem to The Scourge.”

“Ah, small Bugs. I think I can dig up something for that. But dare I ask about ‘The Scourge’?”

I blinked at her a few times. Was she blind? “It’s my airship. Did you not spot the really bad looking balloon?”

The conversation was rather simple, and my mind slowed down to let me process everything. “I did - I was just worried that you were talking about some other ‘scourge’ you were fighting against.”

“At lot has been happening at my island, but I’m starting to fix it up. Before long, I’ll even be able to offer a safe refuge for others on it.” I hoped I wasn't coming off badly.

“For how many ponies, for what length of time? What would be required to upgrade the existing facilities to the new Bronze-level emergency-shelter standard, or even Silver or Gold?" The questions were coming in rapid fire.

“What is your definition of Bronze level emergency shelter?" I had no idea what she was talking about.

“A Bronze-level shelter contains the food, water, medical supplies, and other necessities to allow a specified number of ponies - or other people - to survive for twenty-four hours. Silver is for a week, and Gold a fortnight.” A rating system... that didn't really make sense. Whatever.

I responded as truthfully as I dared.“I could probably get it to silver once it is fully rebuilt. Gold wouldn’t be that hard, I think.”

Pure logic. There wasn't much emotion in the questions, though each one was pointed and made to allow me to give up more information than I intended. “Who else knows about this island? What’s the distance and travel-time? What are the potential obstacles to completion, and what are your estimates of the probabilities of those obstacles coming to pass?”

“And a bunch of slavers that I plan on taking care of shortly. I have to rebuild the island from the ground, an eldritch horror thing decided to rise up and destroy the buildings. In my floating rust balloon it is a few hours, between three and four, off the coasts of the volcanic wastes.”

And that was the first thing to give her pause. “‘Eldritch horror thing’? Is that going to be a common occurrence in the area?” Actually... she didn't ask what an Eldritch horror was. Human. Totally calling it.

“If it was, would I be trying to retake the island? I’m not insane. I think. I just occasionally have delusions a spider is in my head talking to me.” I half joked, half begged.

Missy raised an eye brow in an odd manner that instantly brought me back to my days of watching Star trek. Spock.

“Uh... No, I actually have a God spider thing in my head messing with my thoughts. He has

a top hat and a monocle and he is really creepy. Any ideas?” She might actually know something. Oh, who was I kidding.

“I’m afraid that I’m not very familiar with such matters. I do have some contacts in the psychological profession, and if you’d like, can put you in touch with a local professional who can provide the best help ponies can offer.” She missed the point that it was a god.

“Right. Sorry I brought it up. So... any gods contacted you slash dwell in your head? I’m just asking because I don’t want to be the only one.” I scuffed the ground below me slightly. I didn't need to run from this one.

“While I do have certain psychological issues of my own, as far as I can tell, the only people inside my mind are all me.” Damned. I might as well have been.

I changed the subject. “Right. Great. So, how did a cow get in charge of all of this? Like, Gary, is all powerful and how did you convince him to help you out?” I was VERY curious about that.

Missy blinksed “Gary? And I’m hardly in charge of all this, I’m just doing my part, the best I can, under the Princesses.” I had the honest feeling that she was mostly kidding. She seemed like the type to be in charge.

I blinked and let what she said wash through my head. Wait a sec... “There’s more than one princess?” I swore under my breath. “Dang it...” I looked back at her and felt quite childish, like she was secretly a teacher and I was her student. “I uh... I said that out loud, didn’t I.”

She rolled her eyes, or at least, that was my imagined reaction. I don't really remember. “You did. Officially, Equestria is a diarchy - a monarchy with two co-equal monarchs. One was absent for quite some time, and so generally acts as the junior partner, but that’s more along the lines of an unwritten constitution than a definitive feature.” She knew of other governments. She was a cow for crying out loud! I remembered stalking and brutally killing one of them because they were stupid!

Oh wait. That was a griffon. Nevermind.

I looked at her oddly, as if I could get her to fess up to her imagined mistake. “Right. So. How about them totalitarianistic bodies?”

“I’m not sure what you mean - most places outside Equestria’s borders tend to be rule-by-the-strongest, which is fairly totalitarian, if on a small scale.” Suspicious.

I nodded. “Right. So... Would you happen to know what the Difficulty check of getting any useful information out of you is?”

“Er... I suppose very hard, if there’s a chance that information can put other members of the network at risk - otherwise, as easy as I can make it.” But what if she wasn't a human? What if she was just some cow that somehow managed to snare a gun and win the trust of the higher government?

I was a zebra from a place she hardly knew. Kinda. “So... Purple Flurp is the one that likes parties, right?” I couldn't remember much from the single episode I watched, but the rhythm in the name sounded right.

She eyed me oddly for a long second, scrutinizing me. “I’m not entirely sure of who you’re talking about - do you mean the Bearer of Laughter, Pinkie Pie?”

I groaned inwardly. “Right. And you wouldn’t know what a computer is, would you?” I scuffed the ground yet again. Might as well go for broke in determining what she was.

She pulled out an abacus and I could've swore she looked smug. “I’m reasonably skilled at computation myself. Is there a particular problem you’d like solved, or are we now playing the non-sequitur game?” HA. LATIN. She was probably human. Maybe even another piece...

“Non-sequitur game. Do you happen to know that the snake hasn’t already been a snake and where his name comes from?” I asked, trying my best to not look desperate at the chances of me being wrong.

“According to the information we’ve gathered, he hasn’t actually given his name, only a title that sounds like one - so I’m afraid I can’t really tell you anything about his name.”

I looked at the Snake man and noted he hadn't said anything in quite some time.

After a long time of me probably just barely passing as not crazy for her and her still pestering me with questions, we turned on to the purpose of the meeting.

“After listening to all of this... I’d like to extend to you an invitation to join the same network that Marty and I are members of. You could become a stringer, receiving news relevant to your interests, in exchange for passing along anything you know that’s relevant to our general mission.” She was offering me a job.

I remembered what my mom had taught me about jobs. Never go for the first offer if you don't need it. “Sounds... interesting?”

“There is another option available to you which may be of some interest to you. While the network has been building up our stringers and communication infrastructure, there is something of a shortage of active agents who are able to actually go out and investigate the various reports collected - and even fewer who have the ability to do anything about what they discover. I know you have your island to consider - but if you are willing to spend some of your time away from it, traveling in your airship through Equestria and the neighbouring lands, you could do some valuable work - anything from confirming a report to, if you’ve a mind, directly dealing with those slavers we’re able to locate.” That was a bit of a mouthful for the cow.

My thoughts swam into each other at the mention of slavers. My recollection of Boss clutching her ears to her head at the low pitches mixed in with what I was going to say. I babbled. “What sort of neighboring lands? Also, would you happen to know how to reproduce gem effects? I have this idea involving frequencies around 40 hertz I want to test out. I know that it can disable a diamond dog, practically. I don’t know of its effects on cows or most creatures, but I do know that it reeks absolute havoc with dragons and dogs. Maybe griffons as well. I was thinking we could... like... hook up a pipe that could blast out the frequencies and aim it at things? Maybe find a way to throw it as a bomb or something?” I stopped talking for a sec while my thoughts screamed at me and hissed. “You are trying to find all of the humans, aren’t you!” I slammed my mouth shut, narrowly avoiding snipping out part of my tongue.

“Good job idiot. I didn’t even have to get you to mess up. Also, your blatant stupidity has offended me and I won’t tell you whether or not she is a human.” Freaking annoying spider.

She had the audacity to act like she didn't know what I was talking about. “I’m afraid that I’m not familiar any research into gems or frequencies that the relevant part of the network might be researching, I can easily provide you with a map and atlas, and I am quite curious what brought you to ask me if I’m looking for ‘hyumins’. May I ask what you know about them?”

I growled, words and concepts leaving my mouth like a spitting cobra. “Uh... I really couldn’t think of a reason why you would form a completely separate guard system like what you are working with instead of just reforming the present system. Clearly, there would be a reason why you would need to be separate from the regular guard. Considering...” I pointed at her chest, well aware that she probably had a method of my destruction hidden away. “I’ll assume you have access to some sort of advanced technology. You wouldn’t want that advanced technology roaming free, eh?” I blinked for a second. “And well, why else would a cow come after me?”

I knew I had shaken her, I knew it just by the way she looked at me. “Do you have something against cows?”

I didn't, I just remembered how delicious they were. “Not really. I’m just curious on why and how you got advanced tech unless you have access to advanced tech, from say, another world or something. Unless you had someone who knew how to make it with you.” I distracted myself with more talking. “The point is, if you are going to be spreading the advanced tech, I have a proposition for you.”

“I’m afraid that anything that you are referring to as ‘advanced tech’ is, at best, proprietary information from the network, for internal use only, short of an imminent civilization-threatening catastrophe.” That was completely a shut up and don't ask from her. She was either a human or knew a human.

I went in for the kill. “Right. Then you wouldn’t want to know that they use the old recipe for yellow glaze, right?” I felt like smirking, but kept my face straight.

She remained passionless, her face unmoving. "They who?"

She wasn't going to rise to the bait. "People who use glaze. You know what yellow glaze is made of, right?”

She had to be the lying type. “I’m afraid that pottery isn’t my field - and whatever the differences between our cultures may be, I do have other tasks which take up a lot of my time, so perhaps we can focus more on the topic at hoof...” Nice. Of course she would use hoof.

“Right. My island certainly doesn’t have a mine that exported that and that is certainly why I’m not worried about it.” I groaned inwardly. This was going nowhere. “So what were we talking about?”

“Um...” Ha. I scored a point. I watched her try to rewind the conversation. “Arranging for you to run some seek-and-destroy missions on slavers, if you’re interested, I believe.”

I blinked, my knowledge of cliches coming in. “Say... you wouldn’t happen to be a guy, would you? It goes against the cliche that I would find a boss that would offer me something great that is of the same gender that dominates the land. I mean...” I snapped back to the topic, my thoughts beaten into submission. “Right. Where would it be?”

Missy twisted her head to look over herself, as if checking her gender. Satisfied, she turns back to Ivan. “You mean, where are the slavers you’d be hunting? I’m afraid I didn’t bring the big status map with me - but it’s mainly along Equestria’s borders, though there’s an increasing amount of incursions in the interior. It might be worthwhile to send your airship on something like a circuit around Equestria, and have the local members of the network send up updates for their regions as you approach, to allow you to set your specific targets based on the most up-to-date local data.”

I thought it over for a moment. “Problem. I have four people, counting myself. Operating an air ship is hard with four people, and taking out slavers is hard with four people. I’m going to need something to convince me it is worth it to send myself after these mutts.” It made sense.

“Not all are canine - but that’s quite understandable. I’d rather ensure you had the maximum chances of succeeding, as well. Provisions and materiel, access to an airship repair dock, bits to cover expenses met along the way, including reasonable wages - I can probably arrange to put you in contact with some freelancers who enjoy risking their lives. Is that a good start?” I hated not making sense.

I smiled, though not at her. “Yes. That would help.”

She left not soon after and I could breath again.

And that Catastrophe cleared her throat. "Hey Ivan. We need to talk about something."

I had almost forgotten about being mind violated.

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