Entry 028 - First Ascension (Part Two)

“I don’t understand why you’re not getting this, Elm. I figured it out on the first go through.” I teased my oldest friend over dinner. We’d convinced one of the Stable’s upper-class diners or ‘restaurants’ as they liked to call them here, to give us a table that got us away from the crowd following us. Luckily, this seemed a common occurrence, as they had a spot roped off usually designated for ‘Moaning’ Melody and Hot ‘Shit’ among other well-known ponies that they gladly reserved for us. It wasn’t that I wasn’t enjoying the attention of the hoards, but a bird’s gotta eat, and Elm and Mole insisted on it.

Our booth was clean, beyond the cleanliness of the Stable. When you have once considered waking upon an old manky mattress in a crumbling, leaky cottage clean, you notice these things. The dark wood panels on the walls were spotless, the silver light shades above our table were cobweb free and even our black and chrome table had been free from crumbs and drinks rings before our meal arrived. The stable pony waiting on us stood at a short distance away from our table so she could take our orders, and only our orders, ignoring other calls for service if she couldn’t send another member of her staff to look after the customer.

Our food had been good. Not great, I longed for meat and my stomach felt a deep disappointment every time I saw another horse-friendly vegetarian meal in front of me, but as far as tatos soups and radish stews went, this was not bad. We ate our fill, drank like the long lost royalty of Equestria and Mole had felt like a princess, which she proudly played up every chance she got.

“Would you like Your Highness to demonstrate again?” she enquired primly as we were halfway through dessert.

“No, he wouldnay get it if it slapped him in the face w’ a halibut, love,” I groaned, but Elm held up a forehoof in my direction.

“Silence, knave,” he ordered, having clearly pretended to be a gentry in a past life. “If Princess Candy wishes to show her peasants the inner workings of her fair singing competition once more, then thy shalt allow it.”

“You’re both forgetting who the celebrity is here,” I grumbled, but Mole was already gathering the salt shakers, pepper pots, glasses and coffee cups back into their original positions. She had requested several of these items from our server in order to put together the puppet show for us.

“Alrighty, salters and shakers,” she giggles sweetly, and despite my third viewing of this performance, I felt a small smile creep up my beak while I watched. “Welcome to the Ascension Battles! All winners of the Seven Day Rule, please step forward!”

“Who are we?” asked one drinks glass to another.

“We’re the Magnolia group,” advised the other, “the cups are the Arias, the pepper pots are the Shadows, and the salt pots are the Kivas.”

“Wow-wee, all of the drinks glasses are in the same group? That’s convenient,” suggested the original glass, “but what do we do now? I thought that if I sang in the Seven Day Rule and won, I would get to ascend.”

“No, you silly beautiful griffon shaped like glass, that is not how it works! It’s like you’ve been living under a rock in the bad part of Equestria, beyond the Stable doors, or something!”

“We get it,” I interrupted, sharing a raised eyebrow with Elmwood, “that glass on your left is me. Can we hurry this along?”

“You can’t rush art, Captain,” Moley responded seriously and returned to voice the two drinks holders, “this is how it works, pretty griffy. Our four groups are separated out for the quarter-finals, and each group has to fight a battle. In the battle, they all perform one song as a group, chosen by the leading judge, at the same time.” The first time I’d heard her call it a battle, I’d been excited, believing we were finally going to see some action in this sleepy Stable, but learning it was more singing disappointed me greatly. Elmwood raised a hoof and Mole grinned, pointing one of the forks she was using to move the ‘contestants’ about with at him. “Yes, question?”

“No, my name is Elm. Question Mark was a colleague I used to work with, we looked the same but unless my father slept around, we definitely weren’t aware we were brothers,” he tapped a hoof on top of the glass cup acting as me. “How can you judge who is singing the best based on a whole group? You can tell a crappy singer from a good one in a band but not an exceptional singer from an average one if they’re all singing the same.” The white shoulders slowly rose as he spoke, until they were beside his cheeks, dropping them the instant he had finished. Although he’d raised a good question, another thought intrigued me. I’d never heard Elm mention his father before, not even in jest.

“Great point, Prince Elm,” grinned Mole, “which has a super great answer. Everypony has their own points clock during the battle which turns around as they sing, with them getting more and more points the better they are at singing. When the song ends, the six ponies in each group who got the highest amount of points go into the semi-finals and get split up into two groups of three.” She pushed out six of the glasses and separated them in half, animating the losing cups to drift in a sad formation to an unused table. “They sing another song in their threes, and the two best of those go into the finals!” Four glasses glided away, two remained.

“And the best singer of these two is the winner, who then joins the singer of the other groups, making four ponies who will ascend to this ‘Gardens of Equestria’ place, aye,” I concluded, tapping the glass with a talon.

“Except that glass didn’t win,” explained Elmwood, “because that glass was Crow the Cup, who didn’t get a place in the Seven Day Rule because she threatened to break the judge’s teeth!”

“Aye, aye, don’t remind me,” I glared, lifted a clawful of hay fries to my beak and stuffing them in, “does that mean you get it now, then?”

“No,” he frowned, his expression expecting me to realize what was not being said. In his mind, I was supposed to know the thing that would clear this whole matter up. I didn’t.

“Why? Why, Elm? What don’t you get about this? It’s simple, you sing, and if you win you sing again and again until you wipe the floor with everypony to become the next bonny pony to ascend. It’s not like hacking a terminal at Route Fifty-Two Ranger’s outpost. So, enlighten us.” The awkward stallion picked at his teeth with a stray bobby pin he’d had hidden somewhere on his ponesome, ignoring the waitress’ offer to get him a toothpick, and stared at me. Previous attempts to break his awkward silences had taught me to just hold a stare with the idiot. Arguing and walking away from him never got him to reveal his hidden thoughts any quicker.

“No elderly ponies,” he finally answered.

“Wha-?” My shoulders shrugged of their own volition. Of all the things I expected him to blurt out, that had not been on the list.

“There are no mares scooting around in wheelchairs, no grey-old stallions slapping punks like you and me with their walking sticks, no deaf biddies asking you for the fifteenth time if you’ve seen a cat they lost along with their marbles. There isn’t one pony here past their forties. Where did they all go?”

“Maybe they all ascended?” While I tried to sound more helpful than sarcastic, Elmwood answered my suggestion as disparagingly as possible.

“Of course, that explains it, everypony in this Stable is born a miraculously good singer and nopony here could possibly sing duff notes their whole lives. Come on, Crow, you’ve got to see that there should be some ponies who are left behind. Even with just under fifty ponies a year shooting off to meet their makers, there are bound to be as many foals born that equal that out. That means that those ponies who sing like they have a frog in their throats should still be hanging around here, getting old and fat and whining about their dreams never coming true. Why aren’t they?” He jabbed the pronged end of a fork into the table, his eyes waking up as he glared at me. I knew he had other questions, but with Mole beside me already hearing him tearing into her current existence, I didn’t want to give him the chance to ask them. The dark nutshell horse was already looking dubious and confused by his questions, yet she interrupted before I could give him cause to shut his ridiculous scarred face.

“I bet if we ask my sister Maud, she’ll know,” she piped up, her cheerful tone slightly off. “She’s head of the Ascension Sciences, and part of the Stable Council. I never ask her stuff because she just says, ‘it’s not your place, Molasses,’ or, ‘you don’t work in that area. Go back to cleaning the restrooms, Molasses.’ But if you guys ask her, she’ll have to tell you! She’s still a Stable Fifty-Four sponsor, just like me.” She shared a genuine and proud grin with me, nudging my foreleg with hers before stuffing the last of her sweet-roll into her muzzle. “I’mf readfy to gof whenf youf aref!” Even Elm couldn’t hide the chuckle at her goofiness.

We asked to pay for our meals which were about to cost a tidy fortune until Elm started talking. He lay on compliments, started passing a few suggestions on what made the meals nice but what might make them even better. By the end of his exchange, he had convinced the restaurant owner out of hiding and encouraged him to pay Elm for future advice and critiques. The blue maned beguiler swanned back having scored us a free meal and a way out of the restaurant through the back to avoid a potential flock of new fans stopping us from leaving. Ignoring his glib comments, I gathered myself and my things from the table to depart.

“Hold it, Crow.” I could see Elm and Mole ahead of me stopping at the exit and turning to look in the direction of the voice, then at me. I hadn’t needed to turn around to recognize the speaker as Midnight Dreamer, nor needed to analyze the sounds of her angrily stomping hooves to know exactly why she’d stopped me. Her face was in mine the moment I spun around.

“Oh! Hello, DJ Dreamer,” were the first words to calmly come out of my mouth. Behind me was a gasp from my big-eared friend as I called out the pony before me by her stage name. I hadn’t done it on purpose, I’d completely forgotten that Mole had been unconscious during our first meeting and dragged away by her siblings in the second. The madness in Midnight’s expression intensified.

“You PROMISED me you wouldn’t go to Hot Shot, Crow,” her hoof jabbed me in the chest with each word, “you said that you would come to see me and we would figure out your voice problem together. What happened?” Dreamer stood patiently, waited for my answer and snorted in frustration. I could feel all eyes in the vicinity bared on me and ruffled my feathers defensively.

“I don’t know what to tell ye, lass. It was you who pushed me to go there, after all. You wanted me to go see your wee friend Black Cherry, who was a complete pisshead I might add and no help whatsoever.” I clattered my beak in front of her nose to show dominance, which she flinched back from. “Hot Shot found me there, stuck me out onto his stage and somehow managed to produce a decent wee tune out of my feathery breast. Personally, I think you mighta got the wrong end of the log wi’ him.” My story was littered with lies and half-truths that I hoped the DJ would accept, but the frown on her face said otherwise.

“I told you he put magical voice augmenters on ponies. I thought seeing Black Cherry would have made it clear how dangerous wearing one of those terrible things would be and yet you let him stick one on you?” She challenged. For the first time, she actually had me intimidated.

“I dunnae ken what you-- Hey!” Before I could stop her, magic had popped the collar of my suit and dragged the zip down beneath my breast, revealing the swinging amulet against my heart of azure feathers.

“Oooh, that’s pretty! Where’d you get it?” Mole enquired as she leaned around me, while my claws tried to bundle it back into hiding inside my suit.

“She got it from Hot Shot, Molasses,” DJ Dreamer informed her, her eyes fixed on me, “and it’s not pretty. It’s bad magic, very bad. So come on, give it over and we’ll destroy it.” She offered her hoof out to me to take the enchanted item I had grown attached to, and I stepped back with a firm shake of my head.

“Och, no. Without it, I’m back to the bitch griffon foal-ki-- nevermind, I’m nay giving it back!” Midnight jumped as I raised my voice, and softened in response. She stepped close again to fill the gap and reached for the necklace.

“It’s dangerous, it makes ponies like Black Cherry sick and it is going to do the same to you. Take it off and then I can help you with your voice rather than let you get ill from this.” Her hoof managed to connect with the metal of the ornament. For a split second, I considered giving it over to her and trusting her to help me, but then a spit of rage snuffed the idea out. I shoved her back hard and squawked a warning.

“I am not a weak little pony.” I lifted myself to full height, my feathery chest bursting through my suit. “Cherry was off his face on chems and booze, it had nothin’ tay do with what he was wearin’, filly! Yer a bampot, inspiring nonsense lies to yer idiotic listeners. Go ‘way an’ boil yer head, you scunner.” I turned sharply to storm away but found the amulet around my neck caught on a small shimmering cloud trying to rip it from me. My temper snapped and there was no turning back. Flipping around, my claws flashed through the air with a furious scream. Midnight reeled back, but not quickly enough to avoid them completely. The talons made contact and red splashes dashed along the floor.

In the next few seconds, I forgot anyone else was there. Dreamer lifted her head and although I could not see the damage I’d done to her cheek, the crimson droplets falling off of her hoof and along her leg were unmistakable. Worse still, her eyes wore the hurt she felt at my betrayal to our friendship. I started towards her, trying to say something to apologize and attempting to find someone with a potion to heal her wound, but a barrier stopped me in my tracks. She shook her head with a terrified nicker and hurried to her feet, moving herself to the stairs out of the VIP area without turning her back on us.

“F-Fine! You can keep the cursed thing.” She faltered at the stairs down into the rest of the restaurant, holding one last look in my direction. “I thought you were different.” By the time her barrier dropped back down, she’d turn tail and fled, leaving me to face the looks of surprise, concern, and pity from the staff and patrons. I croaked that I was sorry, but she never heard it to acknowledge it.

“Wh-Why’d you hurt DJ Dreamer?” The scared voice beside me cut my soul the most. I looked down at Mole’s petrified eyes and chirped ruefully to her, crouching submissively before her. I let her look down at me as I tried to find an answer, fearing she would run away and become lost to me too. Even Elm did not have a snide remark as he watched me with an oddly delicate air of regret. I stammered at the floppy-eared filly, then gasped as she leaped forward and pulled me into a strong hug.

“Don’t ever do anything that scary thing again, please, Captain?” her voice begged, her forelegs squeezing tighter and tighter no matter how little I was struggling to get away from her. My yellow forelegs wrapped around her in return, the touch of my bladed fingers making her twitch nervously, but not stopping her from clinging on to me.

“I promise I won’t,” my voice whispered hoarsely, as I stroked her mane and gave a small gulp. For that moment at least, I wanted to mean it. “Come on, Fuzzball. Let’s get moving.” I untied her from me and helped her back onto all four hooves, then faced her towards the escape route and nudged her until she was able to move under her own steam again. As we passed Elm, I took one more look at him and gave him a small nod. “Thanks.”

“I didn’t do anything,” he shrugged dismissively. Without stopping, I rocked my beak ahead at the passageway out of the scene of the crime with one wing holding Molasses.

“Exactly.”

It was more comfortable sneaking out of the back exit of the restaurant after the altercation inside, and once we found ourselves on a path Mole knew exactly how to get through the Stable’s nooks and alleyways without too much risk of being seen. She’d explained that she’d learned how to find the swiftest paths through living out all her years here. They’d come in especially useful when she had wanted to find a quick escape route away from her siblings or ponies she’d managed to annoy. I partially listened, yet my mind could not get over my concerns for Midnight. I hoped she’d find a way to forgive me, and yet I couldn’t see how that was ever going to be possible.

The mare took us up to some of the high metal pathways, where few if any ponies walked. It already felt like an age since I had been this high seeing the Stable for the first time with Overseer Overlook. Her aim was to take us up and over the ‘Le Grande’ sector of the Stable and into the ‘Yearling’ Sector, yet she noticed me freeze up from looking out over the tallest heights of T-Thirty once more. Softly, the sugary coffee pony crawled under my wing and peer up from beneath it.

“One hoof at a time, Captain,” she murmured helpfully, which discouraged me from reminding her about my distinct lack of hooves. I jumped at a feeling under my other wing and glared at the far less adorable Elmwood peeping out from under it.

“What? I thought we were having a moment?” he suggested teasingly, “we get you across this bridge with the power of teamwork, and from that moment on we become an unbreakable, unstoppable trio, BFBFFs.”

“Big Fat Best Friends Forever?” Mole asked excitedly, and almost cruelly Elmwood copied her excitement.

“YES! See, Crow? Mole gets it!” It earned him my darkest glare as I slowly raised both wings, releasing the pair of them and moving tentatively onto the metal gangway.

“Thank you for your concerns, Mole, but I think I can manage it.” I took my first few steps confidently, my eyes closed and my tail swaying. I was doing brilliantly. Then, I made the foolish mistake of looking down. “... Oh. Buck.”

The small brown mouse moved back under my wing, her green eyes shining in the ceiling lights. Mole didn’t say a word about my debilitating phobia as she stuck by my side to ensure I kept moving. Instead, she tried to talk about things that could take my mind away from it. Unfortunately, that meant that soon other questions she was concerned about sprang up.

“Why does DJ Dreamer think you’re going to get sick? Is the pretty necklace you’re wearing really gonna make you ill?” She probed, trying to get a peek at the bulge in my Stable Suit. I walked a little faster to keep it out of her sights and nearly covered her face with my appendage, pushing her elongated bat-ears forward like a pair of bull horns.

I wanted to tell her that it was the biggest load of donkey dung anypony had ever come up with, but the words hesitated in my mouth. Black Cherry had been acting like he’d been overdoing his drink or overdosing on chems, but I hadn’t seen him taking either of them. All I had as evidence was the stench of alcohol in his fur and breath and I was doubting whether that was enough to prove that Cherry had drunk anything. From the behavior of Hot Shot and Whip-Poor-Will, it was terribly possible that they’d hidden the effects of the augmenter on him by dousing him in cocktails. There wasn’t enough evidence to prove they had yet though.

“Don’t worry about her, Mole,” Elm piped up when I’d spent too long in complete silence dwelling on her question. “If she starts looking green around the gills then at least we’re taking her to the right place. Your sis and the good ponies at StableTec Sciences can do some strange funky things to her and make sure she feels worse by the end of it.”

“You mean better,” Mole smiled innocently. Elmwood shook his head with a shared smile. Elmwood did not mean better at all. Despite being part of the butt of the joke, I found myself laughing at them, and it was only after the amusement died down that I realized they’d gotten me across the bridge to the other side.

I stopped for a moment to look back over the rest of the Stable from on high. The cobbled streets were busy with ponies preparing for the contests tomorrow, the smell of baking bread and treats rose up from the businesses in the Sector below, and some sort of board was being set up by the fountain heart of T-Thirty. The larger writing that I could read announced that it contained the names and ranks of the ponies in the running for the Ascension Battles, but I was too far off to be able to read any of the smaller writing beneath it. The gentle chatter and prattle of the Stable’s occupants echoed around us. Had I been a true griffoness without my fear of heights, this view, and the privacy that came with it would have been a treat.

The next accompanying thought only came as we were making our way back to ground level via the opposing staircase to the one we’d taken up. To the best of my knowledge, I was the only sentient creature with wings in the entire complex. Many, many ponies had told me so. But I hadn’t been the only creature here in the Stable’s history to have wings…

“Why aren’t there more pegasus ponies here?” I questioned, beginning to feel more like my old self as my feet touched terra firma once more.

“Oh, there have never been flappy ponies here, Captain,” Mole grinned that indomitable smile, continuing to be our guide and leading the way ahead with Elmwood now between us. I shook my head and corrected her thought as carefully as I could.

“Songbird Serenade was a pegasus pony, Moley.”

“She was?” That perplexed the little chocolate pony, making her scrunch her face adorably, “I always thought she was a horn-head like me, and her pretty mane hid it. You know, because horns come in all shapes and sizes.”

“They sure do,” sneered Elmwood with a wink. I rolled my eyes, flicking him across the snout which seemed to deter him less that I hoped.

“You’re bein’ filthy, stop it,” I grunted at him, “and no, Moley, she was a pegasi. She was famously around and about durin’ the return o’ the Storm King, and was a beacon of light to the rest of Equestria once he was defeated. My pa always said that she flew with her dancers as she sang about the sunshine and the rainbows.”

“But there’s a picture of her and everything, and there are no wings coming out of her Stable Suit,” it was clear from the way Mole’s face was caving in more and more that this was blowing her tiny little mind to bits. However, she had a point. I’d seen the photo that day in the museum, and I was certain I hadn’t seen the feathered appendages in the image either.

“Who would go to such effort to hide all traces of pegasus ponies having existed in this Stable?” I wondered aloud between my friends, clicking my beak at the curious issues surrounding us at every turn in this place. A hoof clapped my back. Elm’s sleepy eyes had the faintest tinge of excitement inside them.

“Now you’re thinking like me.” He slipped his leg off of my neck and bumped hips with Mole, “come along my fellow horn head, we’ve got too many questions and not enough answers going on. Let’s go rustle up your sister and see if we cannot shake a few out of her.” He was still being suggestive, to my irritation, but Molasses just giggled at his antics with an optimistic ‘okay,’ and led the way to her sister’s hideout.

I might have explained before, but Stable T-Thirty was broken up into five main sections, six if you counted the exit and entrance. The named five were separated into entertainment and music, food and dining, education and resources, clothing and supplies, and lastly law, medicine, and order. The ‘Yearling’ Sector of the Stable was the academic part that housed two schools, the library and the ‘StableTec Acquisition of Sciences building’. Even the name sounded like a massive snooze-fest. This section was the cleanest, quietest and less homely of the whole Stable, and I found myself both appreciating the lack of ponies yet creeped out by the way very few noises reached this area. It was as though we had already entered the library and would be hushed the second we needed to talk or cough.

As we approached the Acquisition of Sciences building, I noticed the tall statue placed in the center outside of the entrance. A seven-foot-tall wizard pony stood proudly, sporting a beard that would make GrogMacintosh jealous and holding a glowing globe in the center of one hoof. His eyes were piercing and although he was made out of clean white and unrippled marble, I could imagine his mane and beard would have not been too dissimilar to the colorations they were at now. He was the oldest pony I’d ever seen in my whole life.

“Och, here ye go, Elm. They turned all their oldies into statues. Mystery solved.” The stallion in our party shook his head and walked up with a serious expression that unnerved me the moment I looked at him. His eyes were fully open.

“That’s Starswirl,” he informed us, “he taught Celestia and Luna everything he knew. His beard was shorter before the balefire. I guess he didn’t want to forever be known for his facial hair.”

“And jus’ how do you know that?” I asked Elm. He stared wildly at the statue for a moment and murmured something under his breath that I couldn’t make out. Something immediately caught his attention over his shoulder, making him turn his head with such a crack that I thought he might have snapped his neck. I looked, but whatever he was seeing was beyond my eyes. When I turned back, the sleepy lids were back down on his patchwork eyes and he was moving on. My question went unanswered.

“Come along, Captain Crow and First Mate Mole, time’s a-wasting.” He disappeared inside without seeing the endearing salute Candy gave him, and I clicked across to the plaque nailed down onto the plinth of the pony with the timeless stare. The gold and bronze embossed font confirmed Elmwood’s definition of the elderly horse.

The mirrored writing showed my reflection once I cared to notice it. I took a look at the blue griffoness in the scarred and battered vermillion bandana, and quietly wondered how my headwear had started to look more war-beaten than I had. I gave a snort and a click, glancing into my yellow eyes peering through the font.

“What are ye starin’ at, lass?” I asked aloud, tilting my head.

“A very poor pretender,” my head answered for the reflection’s closed beak, “tell me, when are you going to tell your wee lil' brown morsel that you so enjoy bucking buttons with that you’re a thief, or a scoundrel, or a murderer?”

“Shut it,” I growled at my inner child, and turned only to see Mole beside me flinching again. I instantly winced, “oh, no, Moley. I didnae mean you. I was talking to myself, it was jus’ a wee bad joke.” My soft tone and stupid explanation eased her concern a tad, her head nodding weakly.

“Panda was wondering when you were joining us. We’re about to ask the nice colt at the desk how to find my big sister.”

“Panda,” I enquired in confusion as we made our way up the pale grey steps and through the doorway.

“It’s a teddy bear from Neighpon with a black and white face! They eat loads of bamboo and they live in trees and they have big, black, fluffy eyes. I saw one in a book I read and he looks just like one,” she educated me and I snorted at the mare’s suggestion, shaking my head solemnly. I gazed ahead at the stallion already chatting up the pony at the desk and then at her.

“Elmwood is many things, but a teddy bear is not one of them. A yao guai bear maybe, but--” I looked and saw one of her eyebrows had fallen over her emerald eyes. “Nevermind. You call him whatever you like, Moley.”

I kept by her side as I looked about the room we were in and gave an extremely disappointed sigh. The ceiling was three floors above us, the walls were a concealing shade of dull silver, as were the floors, the railings of the walkways, everything. Even the symbol of oppression, StableTec’s logo behind the receptionist’s desk was a colorless bump in the flat wall. The closest we got to anything different was the blackboard with white names of doctors and scientists presumably working within the ash walls of the facility, which sat behind the desk. Only a few ponies, guards and scientists moved about the hall like marbles rolling around in the square container. As we got closer, we finally caught up with Elmwood and the conversation he was having with the stallion guarding a terminal at a half-moon desk.

“He says Dr Candy is busy,” Elm informed us with a worry-less chuckle, “too busy to see her own young sister Molasses. He is being very cruel, you guys.” The guard, who was trying to continue working on his device, let himself react to that with a drop of the jaw and a swift spin in his chair.

“I did not say it like that! I said that Dr Maud Candy has asked for unmitigated privacy during the week of the Ascension Battles! She is extremely busy ensuring that everything after the contests goes without a hitch. She is extremely stressed.”

“I don’t think she has the emotional range to be stressed, nevermind ‘extremely’” Elmwood quipped. Mole slipped her forelegs across our side of the half-circle desk like a puppy in an awkward cuddle.

“But I’m her sister, Mr. Typewriter, surely she wouldn’t mind seeing me for just a few widdle minutes?” She gave him the huge, wet, adorable eyes that nearly had him crumbling more than a Canterlot ghoul, and yet he still managed to shake his head softly, producing a slip of paper with a black type-written note on it. Mole took and read it on the flat surface.

“Huh. Och, okay, I guess we’ll catch her when she’s finished for the day then, aye?” I offered with optimism after reading the note myself over Molasses’ shoulder. Mole gave a small, disappointed groan and pushed the note back towards Typewriter.

“She stays here and sleeps here for the full week during the Ascension Battles. All she’s ever told me is that she needs to make sure it all goes okay when the ascensions are done,” the mare explained through flopped brown ears, starting to turn about and waving limply at the stallion behind the desk. “Alright, if Maud says no visitors, then I guess we’ll never find out what’s going on. Thanks anyway, Mr. Typewriter, sir.”

“Nahhh, hold on, I’ve got an idea,” Elmwood proclaimed impudently in front of the horse stopping us in our tracks and twirled back around with a stamp of hooves on the desk. He ignored the attempts of Typewriter to not notice him and get on with his work, and pointed his hoof at the wall of names with an unintelligible mumble.

“I’d like to see, errrr…. No, no, no, no, YES!” The horse in the chair jumped with a start at Elmwood’s yell, blinking in shock that the noise could come out of him. The white pony who almost blended in with this blank slate of a place just grinned. “Dr Whithers, is he or she available for a comment?”

“Dr Whithers?” The receptionist asked dubiously and frowned at Elm, breathing in deeply as he checked his terminal, “HE is here, but--” the stallion didn’t give him a chance to suggest that we could not be introduced to a complete stranger.

“BRILLIANT! Molto bene! Send him down, as representatives of Stable Fifty-Four we would like to talk to him about…” He paused and squinted at the board, “hydroponics. Yes, we are scientists ourselves, me and my griffoness chum, and we would certainly like to speak to him about hydroponics. Please?” The skepticism grew on Typewriter’s face.

“You two are doctors of horticulture?” He asked in flat disbelief.

“Of course, nothing we love better than a good radish, and Crow’s a big fan of flowers. She can practically roll around in them for daisies. Get it? Daisies? Hahaha, he gets it…” Elm’s slap on Type’s back almost winded him, and in the end I am certain the only reason the pony at the terminal rang the doctor was to try to get rid of us. As he made the call through a hoof-held device, I pulled ‘Scar-Eyes’ to one side.

“What in blitherin’ billows are you doin’, dumbass? We don’t need to talk to anypony about vegetables, unless it’s to ask somepony how to turn you into less of a cabbage!”

“Relax, Crowel--”

“Oi!” I snapped my beak at him, glaring. He continued to grin with tired reassurance.

“I have a plan. Just go along with me on this. We’re gonna get answers as soon as we go through those doors, so it’s probably just for the best we don’t get them from a pony who is only going to lie to us like Moley’s sister, right?” He watched me go through the motions of denial, then disgust at the realization that he was right once again, finally accepting his plan with a grumbling nod.

“At least there’s no way you can blow up another building atop me this time,” I huffed quietly as we made our way back to the desk and to Mole.

“There’s still time,” he sniggered back.

“Don’t--”

“Dr Whithers will be with you shortly,” Typewriter interrupted my threat, “please take a seat.”

“There are seats?” I looked to where he gestured and realized that he was right, the blank sofas had blended in with the rest of the emotionless hall. “Of course there are.” We took our place in a set of seats and settled back, but we didn’t have long to relax as a few minutes later a bemused orange stallion with a mop of untamed green mane wandered into the hall as though he had just been drawn and animated on blank parchment. His face was full of excitement as he spotted us and waved, reaching us before we were back on our feet.

“Oh, hello! Fellow scientists are one treat, but to meet the Guardian Griffon AND the Black-Eyed Bruiser in the same space was too tempting to pass up. Hello, hello, hello, I’m Dr Wiley Whithers, chief scientist of the Hydroponics Division, at your service. Come, come with me, let me show you around.” He showed us towards the double doors he’d come through, but as he did so the receptionist noticed us and gave a call out.

“Whoa whoa, whoa,” Typewriter leaped out of his chair and blocked the doorway in front of us with both forelegs. “You cannot take this mare through the barrier, Dr Whithers. I’m sorry but Dr Candy strictly instructed it, she’s not allowed to sneak past me.” For a moment both I and Elm were prepared to stick up for my little lover.

“I’m not sneaking past you though, Mr. Typewriter, sir,” Mole responded gently and kindly, reaching out to pat him on the shoulder, “I’m being invited by Dr Whithers, see?”

My beak dropped open. Mole was going AGAINST her sister’s wishes? What had I done to her? What had ELM done to her? I could see that the receptionist was torn, but the scientist at our side gave him a resolute nod.

“Let Maud’s sister through, she’ll learn some fascinating things here and have a newfound respect for her sister’s work. She might even follow in her hoofsteps, eh?” The receptionist frowned at the learned stallion’s suggestion, sighed and dropped back onto all fours, stepping out of the way with a wary eye.

“She stays by your side at all times, doctor,” he warned, “and if she’s found snooping or sneaking about, it’s not my fault. She’s your responsibility, okay?”

“Understood completely,” Dr Whithers grinned and watched Typewriter return to his half-moon pen, nodding to us and the guards. With that, we were allowed to walk through the doorway into yet more uninspiring bleached corridors.

“You’re changin’, Moley,” I whispered with a grin, “that really turns me on--”

“Hehe, shush, not now, we don’t wanna get caught, Captain,” she hissed back, yet the big ear-to-ear smile on her face did not deplete. I was sorely tempted when I saw signs for a broom cupboard and a washroom to drag her away for a bit of fun, but Mole was right. We had to be careful in public.

Unfortunately, the world we were in was not helping take my mind out from between my legs. The most interesting things we got to see through windows and doors were rooms where ponies were testing things in tubes under burners and tapping away on computers. Occasionally they had different plants and fruits growing within the spaces around them, however, after seeing our hundredth variation of a different colored tomato, my mind was wandering away from the rest of me. Whithers’ attempts to teach us about his work was only reaching Elmwood’s ears, who somehow managed to enthusiastically gasp, nod and answer questions on cue. I was sleepwalking, and even Mole’s energy was being zapped in the chalky space.

“What I am fascinated to know is how you survived so long in the Wastelands beyond the walls of Equestria’s hallowed gardens,” I caught Whithers enquiring during an instance of alertness. “We know the Gardens of Equestria must have a bountiful supply of food and freshwater, Celestia would not have it any other way, but beyond that the world is barren and desolate, correct?”

“Och, more than you’d care to know, chief,” I blurted out, watching a robotic arm move and swill a beaker about inside a window hypnotically. “Best you can hope for is to scavenge away a pack of Pinkie Party-Snax from a dead pony’s cupboard.” There were a few shocked gasps from behind me, making me realise I’d slipped a few too many truth-bombs out of my beak in boredom. I glanced back and gave an awkward laughing shrug. “Sorry, forget I said that. Bad griffon humor.”

“What my compadre Crow means is that with very little vegetation in the lands of Equestria, we’ve resulted to eating a very…” Elm clucked his tongue and sucked his teeth as he showed rare consideration for the sanity of the ponies around him, “eclectic diet.” But then, to completely destroy the hard work he’d put into saving the innocence of the Stable T-Thirty dwellers, he added, “many are now carnivorous and will gladly share the same diets as my taloned friend here.” He patted my wing while Whithers looked ready to faint.

“C-Carnivorous?”

“Oh, absolutely. I myself am extremely partial to a rabbit sandwich now and again.”

“Rabbit?” Whimpered Mole, the sound enough to make me wrap a wing around her and stare an order to shut up at Elmwood. Thankfully, the message was received and understood, as he took note of Mole quivering and gave an apologetic shake of the head.

“Don’t worry, Whammy, it’s not real rabbit.” He lied. Well, partially. It depended on where you ate, some places had rabbit on the menu, some would claim it were rabbit and sneak molerat meat into your sandwich instead. That wasn’t what immediately caught my notice however as the doctor had us quickly moving again.

“Whammy?” I asked Mole quietly as her shaking under me slowed to a stop. She beamed with delight when I posed the question.

“That’s what he calls me, because I whammed stuff on the Whack-A-Worm real hard at the Amusement Park.” She gave her head a little dance, making her big ears flap, and pranced out of my wing to bounce from one side of the corridor to the other with a singsong in her voice. “He calls me Whammy, I call him Panda, and we call Gypsy ‘the Sparka--’ WAH! Oooof--”

Not looking where she was going, Mole bumped into one of the ponies dashing along the corridor and went right over their back. The pair went down in a tangle of legs and a cry of shocked whinnies.

I flapped over hurriedly to disengage the accident. In Molasses’ defense, the white coat on the running horse did make them near invisible, however there was no fight or anger in the other collision victim to defend her from as I quickly tried to help the two ponies back to their hooves. If anything, they were more prepared to take responsibility.

“Sorry, sorry about that,” the scientist mare begged a quick pardon as she scrambled to her feet, not even trying to blame the energetic brown filly.

“Oh gosh I’m super sorry, I super didn’t mean to--”

“Not at all, not at all,” Mole’s attempts to hug her and make amends were hastily brushed off as the recovering mare fixed her coat and suit. Something about her struck me as familiar, but before I could work out what it was, she was leaving. “I’m terribly sorry, I have someplace else to be, I’m sorry. Again, sorry!” The corner allowed her to instantly disappear from view, and with her went any chance of recognition.

“Sorry!” Mole called one last time, before she looked up at me with a soft, “oopsie.” I sighed and patted her head, giving her rump a small swat with a wing and redirecting her to follow Elm and Whithers once more.

“Nevermind, Fuzzball. Out of sight, out of mind, aye?”

Whithers kept us moving, and soon led us through a large (what a surprise) grey metal door with signs above informing us we were entering the Hydroponic Houses. The signs did not mislead us and soon we were stepping into a cavern that finally promised us a different sight to the blandness we had previously faced.

Across the huge cave floor were long horizontal greenhouses with such a glow inside each of them that illuminated a lot of the cavern. The light reached right up to the ceilings, where we could see all the support beams and plates ensuring the rocks above did not come crashing down on top of our heads. The far walls were almost as visible, faintly misty from slight clouds of atmosphere that left the shining glasshouses. Between each of the long conservatories were canals of water with ripples and colors dancing inside them.

When I looked closer at these as we took the steps down to the gleaming blocks, I realized they had fish in these streams, and I squawked out in pleasure at the sight. It had been so long since I’d eaten meat, as the conversation about rabbit burgers had reminded me. Knowing there were fish here made my stomach feel a little less ill from all the pony food I’d currently been filling it with. Sadly, however, we didn’t stop for a little fishing, as Whithers immediately led us into the searing light of a greenhouse.

Although blinded, I could feel a cool, damp mist drifting across my beak and feathers and could hear the melodic tune of an orchestra playing on somepony’s radio not far away. When my watering eyes finally adjusted, I opened them to find myself staring at lines upon lines of crops of vegetables. Tatos, to be exact, that delicious blend of potato and tomato that some magic pony fused to the joy of the Wasteland everywhere. The occasional pony in here was helping check the ripeness of their haul and harvesting the goods while Whithers continued his magical educational tour.

“There are fifty of these food generation plants within this side of the Stable, and another fifty in the ‘Le Grande’ Sector, as well as numerous food storage centers and warehouses.”

“We could have seen this without tightrope walking our way here? Great,” I griped, and Whithers gave a benighted laugh at my comment before he continued.

“When the Stable was finalized and colonized under a hundred years ago, StableTec quickly learned that it did not have the capability to be able to feed and facilitate as many ponies as it was going to without having some self-sustainability. Rations and snacks in a warehouse do not last forever, you see. So, these greenhouses were built to allow us to continue to grow and live off of the fat of the land, completely below the surface of Equestria! Neat, huh?”

Elmwood had strolled across to one of the many unprotected vines of tatos and was giving it a sniff. He plucked off the fruit, sniffed at it, bit into it and munched away as he spoke to the shocked doctor with his mouth full.

“You use part-horticulture methods and part-magic to grow these?” he set up the statement as a matter-of-fact question, seeming to know he was already correct and merely giving Whithers the courteous right of telling him so. The doctor assured him of that.

“There are plants here where we grow our food completely from seeds to full produce, and in others we grow fruits and vegetables entirely by magical means,” he explained to us. “How could you tell?”

“I couldn’t,” replied Elm smugly, juggling the treat between hooves before losing it in a heap of vines, “I just guessed, and you confirmed. Good teamwork, Whithers.” I was still giggling as I comically noticed Mole pulling a disgusted face.

“Magically grown is icky,” she wretched, shuddering so hard that the water droplets accumulating in her mane flew all over. “My sister Lime makes us eat it because it’s cheaper but it’s gross! It has no taste and it doesn’t live long before it’s turning grey and yucky.”

“I wouldn’t argue with that in the slightest,” Dr Whithers sympathized, “unfortunately, magically-grown produce is also necessary. If we did not grow some of our food by magical means, then we would not have enough food to sustain Stable T-Thirty. It really is as simple as that.”

The smart pony in the white coat kept us moving, and kept talking about yields and work-forces and, for some reason, goats, but I lost interest in his comments yet again. We passed through barriers of darkness and jumped into lit chambers of radishes, carrots, apple trees, all kinds of berry bushes and more, yet it all began to blend into one mash of unhelpful nonsense. These blinding houses of food weren’t answering the questions I’d come here to get answered, they were just preventing us from seeking the truth. By the time we reached the house of corn, I’d made a plan to escape the tour and take Mole with me. I snatched her swishing curl of cocoa for a tail and pulled her into the stalks to hide while the doctor and Elm were too busy chatting to see we’d disappeared.

“Eeek! C-Captain, I-I already told you, w-we can’t, not here. If somepony sees us--”

“Moley, relax,” I calmed her, one taloned hand over her mouth, “I don’t want to buck. I mean, I do, I’m dyin’ for yeh, lass, but I don’t want to right now. I am more interested in findin’ out why even ponies who cannae sing are being ascended. We need to have a poke about, we aren’t gonnae find out here, aye?” I gazed urgently into the beyl circles of my fresh new rebel, hoping she would take the bait. Her brow furrowed nervously.

“Maud might catch us,” she suggested uncomfortably.

“And if she does, we’ll jus’ say Whithers invited us in, and we got lost on the tour.” I responded confidently. Molasses thought over the plan some more and peeked out at our other party members still talking a small way off before flashing me a sweet, radical smile.

“Quick, follow me,” she squeaked and gave me a short but oh-so-sweet view of her tush crawling out of the crops before she hightailed her way to the exit of the greenhouse. My desire to pounce that little thing like a randy eagle was growing by the minute, but I held my own and waited until she had triggered the sensor on the door to open it automatically. Then, I beat my wings and flew, catching her shoulders with a carefully timed scoop of talons and pulling the squeaking creature off of her hooves.

“CAPTAIN!” She cried out as I whirled out between the houses on my gliding wings and flew us back towards the Stable facilities, using the canals as a shortcut.

“Shh! It’s okay Moley, I’ve got you. Don’t yell or you’ll give us away,” I urged her, but when I glanced down I could see that I didn’t need to soothe her of any fear. Her mouth was catching flies in elated joy at the way we flapped over the rippling pools, and her eyes were taking in everything with fascination.

“We’re flying!” she cried out to me, ignoring my earlier caution, then with a yelping cry she attempted to point forward. “Look out!” I shot my head up just in time to see a pipe connecting houses speeding towards us, and without thinking I flapped harder to take us up and over it, Mole’s hind hooves just clearing the iron line.

“That was close, sorry,” I expected that might have taken the wind out of her sails, but on the contrary, the hint of danger had the opposite effect on her as she giggled and whooped in glee.

From that point on I made sure I kept an eye on her and the lanes I took to get back to the Acquisition of StableTec Sciences building. It was a short route, and as I gazed up I saw the rare sight of Stable T-Thirty from the outside. With tiny windows of light between thick, darkish blue-grey walls of metal, it reminded me of a fortress. Meant to hold ponies inside, not letting them out into a better world. I heard a gasp below as we were nearing our destination.

“Look, Captain.” I did, and saw Mole with her head bowed, watching streaks of colors fly by beneath us. The paint splashes of the fish underwater made it look like we were zipping over a deconstructed rainbow, and the light bounced the colors back across Molasses’ face. Shimmers shone in her eyes when she lifted her head back up to me, full of the multiple pigments of a paint set. An irresistible smile found its way onto my face and with a firm punch at the air with my wings and a lift of the cute cinnamon horse, I caught her around the middle with my forelegs and hugged her close. Her forelegs draped around my neck and squeezed back, and a small, careful utterance said the words I had been missing since she’d last said them.

“I love you, Captain.”

I held her that way as I lifted us up and over the barrier, onto the gangway back up to the main facility. However, even when hooves and paws were rested on the steel path, I didn’t want to let her go in that instant. Instead, I held her close and tight, rubbed my beak against her snout and nipped affectionately around the short brown fuzz of fur on her jaw and snout. I relished the cute little giggles she gave and sighed happily, knowing that I was not going to give up this small hazel pony for any of the riches Equestria’s spoiled world could give us. She was mine for good.

“I love you too, Molasses Candy.” Naturally, my beak found her lips.

While the no-pony-land between the plant nurseries and StableTec Sciences was still quiet, we kissed as well as a griffoness and a mare could kiss. It was clumsy, and awkward, but it was the best damn kiss of my entire life.

Author's Notes:

Music for this chapter - Vault of the Future from the Fallout Original game OST by Mark Morgan.
Did you know that's a link to the music? give it a click!

If you enjoyed this chapter and want to talk to like-minded ponies, click this here linkie!

Proofread and edited by Salty Alty, thanks big guy! Hope you enjoyed this, sorry it's been a while, but now I'm off work for a week, more should come... Watch this space.

Ta, lovelies.

All good things,
Scar, Nee Dusk.