In the skies above Brittany, the sun was rising. Rockhoof watched the pinkish cottony clouds drift by above the castle from the confines of the kitchen, one bowl of porridge tucked between his hoof and his chest.

A bowl for him that is. To anypony normal-sized it was more of a salad dish.

In the courtyard, he could see Meadow examining the contents of a vegetable-filled cart. Their first ‘harvest’ of the season taken straight from her gardens, thanks in no small part to their Earth-pony magic helping things along. Normally the fields outside the castle should follow after a couple more weeks. They were a bit slower to grow the further they were from the castle, what with being less influenced by their magic.

“So how are you going to make them last the winter, dear?” He asked her in French.

“I’m just going to can them I think. That might take a while, but we got help alright?” She smiled, nodding her head towards Martin.

She had to give it to the little fawn currently eating his breakfast behind Rock, he sure was full of energy. Even the day prior he had stuck along with Meadow to help her harvest all those vegetables, and his help alone probably made the whole thing twice as fast, the young deer zipping back and forth between the plants and the cart so fast he was basically a blur.

Cute as it was to see him scarf down his porridge (quite messily as a matter of fact), Rock still was a bit… well, not so much worried as concerned by the mark the White Stag had left on the fawn. And who wouldn’t really? The creature was the closest to King Bramble of Thicket (the long-lived leader of all Deer that lived in the Everfree) there was in the area, and as far as he understood its mark painted Martin as his successor.

At least that’s the way he understood it. So much for letting the kid have an actual childhood…

His train of thought was brought to a halt when Meadowbrook waved a hoof in front of his muzzle.

“Thinking again?” She smiled.

“Sorry honey.” His ears stuck to his head and he scratched his ginger beard with the tip of his hoof. “There’s just so much in play, I’m trying to see how it’s going to unfold. So much for simplicity...”

“Almost feels like a curse don’t you think?” She chuckled.

“And you find it funny?”

“Maybe?” The mare nuzzled him. “Or maybe it’s just a bit of cynicism and me getting kooky from the pregnancy.”

“What, already?” He nuzzled her back. “Celestia help my soul, if it’s getting to you so soon I’m terrified at how it’s going to be when you’re all swollen up and stuck inside this winter.”

“Oh shush!” She playfully punched him in the shoulder. “You’re a big stallion, deal with it. Anyway, you know where...”

“Where’s Star? Eeyup...” He jerked his head towards the other side of the courtyard, right where there was a lone octogonal tower rising above the corner of the rampart with its pointy roof. “He’s officially our court mage now, so I gave him that tower for… you know, his lab. Wizards love towers. Been stuck in there for a while casting wards and enchanting the place with the stuff he got from Morgane.”

And they sure had felt it when he did. Not only did the ghost wizard drop a powerful lodestone covered in runes in the middle of the courtyard as the main array for the wards, but now even the tower’s walls were covered in the magical sigils.

The first time he’d turned on the runes felt like chewing on copper wire – something which thankfully didn’t last more than a minute-. The lodestone had started glowing like a second sun before firing up a dome-shaped shield around the castle and the outbuildings.

That, according to the wizard, was the emergency ‘siege’ shield. Starswirl said it was a more practical re-imagination of a spell invented by Celestia’s last Captain of the Guard before she abdicated. He didn’t keep it on at all times though, instead switching to more ‘common’ anti-scrying and anti-teleportation (among other things) ward arrays when Rock asked him to tone it down a bit. Apparently Star had even added an early warning system keyed to him so the Earth Pony would know if a monster or any ill-willed creature ever got close to the castle.

He didn’t tell him what he was doing inside though. So beyond the obvious plane of existence he was near-certain the wizard had put in there (because why else would he ask Morgane for instructions?), he had no idea what was going on in that tower.

Not that he worried about it. Starswirl was past the time where he’d get into hazardous and potentially volatile experiments. At least Rock assumed he was.

Regardless of whether or not the mage was being reckless like a Sparkle, his musings were brought to a grinding halt when he heard the clopping of hooves coming down the stairs behind him. He turned around to come face to face with Miles. The purple mare yawned, stopping in the doorway to rub her eyes sleepily.

“Mornin’...” She mumbled, distractedly scratching her ear with a wing as she trotted over to the open fire.

Incidentally that simple act lifted enough of her UCP poncho to reveal the thundercloud mark on her rump. A weather Pegasus then? That was something Rock could value quite a lot in a colony, particularly with the amount of fields he had already planted.

“Morning lieutenant.” Rock replied, easily switching from French to English for the American. “I trust you slept well?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “The beds ‘round here sure beat those at the academy. Eh, sorry, but is there any coffee?”

“No, but we got some chicory on the top shelf if you want.” Meadow piped in, jabbing a hoof towards the back of the kitchen. “Where’s Emeric?”

“In his room.” She supplied. “Writing. We had a chat yesterday, and he had a bit of an idea to get some running water and electricity in the pipes. Nothing you should trouble yourself about though.” She added as an afterthought.

Saying that she paused as she came in front of the cupboards… which were actually deceptively tall for a little quadruped pony. As a human she could just have reached up with her arms and reached the jar just fine…

But now? She grumbled loudly, pulled a drawer open and used it to climb on top of the counter before propping herself up even higher on the cupboards using her forehooves. And…

‘Well, what now?’ She grumpily thought. Her muzzle was in front of the yellow plastic jar of instant chicory yet it wasn’t like she had any free limbs to take it.

“Use your wings.” Meadowbrook supplied when she saw the mare struggle with her new anatomy. “Pegasi can use their primaries to grab stuff.”

“Oh...” Miles turned her head towards her back to look at the appendages with newfound interest. “Really?”

“Well only as long as you’re not using them to fly, but don’t ask us, we’re not really expert ourselves.” She smiled. “Earth pony, you know. We use our mouth.”

Miles hopped off the counter with the jar tucked between two primaries – an odd sensation if she ever had any, like having an extra large hand growing out of her back- and walked over to the open fire to toss a log in and rekindle the dying embers.

“Your mouth? Isn’t that...” She hesitated. “Un-hygienic? No offense.”

“None taken.” Rock shrugged. “We get that all the time from creatures that have hands. Most ponies are fine with that and, really, it’s intended to. You can pick stuff up with your hooves if you want, but your mouth is always more dexterous. You’ve never tried?”

“I… sorry but that feels a bit weird.” She lifted a hoof to stare at its frog. “Emeric and I… we haven’t really had the time to familiarize ourselves with those bodies. Hell, I’m still in shock whenever I use the toilet, so I’m not up to the point where I’d use my mouth to handle stuff yet. Wouldn’t I get sick from that?”

“Not really no.” Meadow shook her head. “Ponies have been doing that for millennia where we’re from and we rarely if ever get sick from it. You’ll get used to it in no time, believe me.”

“I think I’ll stick to the wings, but thanks anyway.” Miles winced.

Though if how hard it was to lift a pot of water to hang it over the fire was anything to tell, she may not have a choice in the matter. So much for being a civilized man…

Mare. Her mind corrected. Might also be why lifting stuff was that much harder, in addition to just being so damn small.

“So what’s happening today anyway? More farming?”

“We need to build up the stores for this winter.” Rock confirmed with a nod. “But I’m also waiting for Star-”

“Merlin.” Miles corrected before serving herself a bowl of hot porridge.

Figuring out how to eat cleanly was a bit weird, but she managed it by holding the bowl in her forehooves and using a wooden spoon tucked between her wing’s primaries.

“Same pony, different names.” He huffed. “Anyway, I’m waiting for the wizard to get out of his tower so we can finally go and visit that hmm… Lady of the Lake I think he said? It’s about an artifact apparently.”

Miles almost spilled her breakfast at the remark.

“He wants EXCALIBUR?!” She exclaimed.

Martin perked up the moment he heard the last word in her sentence. The little fawn rushed over to them with a fanboyish smile.

“Are you talking about King Arthur miss?” He asked in French.

“En quelque sorte, petit.”Miles sighed before she turned her head towards Rock and Meadow. “Excalibur is one of the most legendary swords in human culture.”She explained.“According to legends, it was given to King Arthur of Britain by the Lady of the Lake in exchange for a boon. Its sheer power helped him unite the Britons under his rule and form a lasting kingdom. At the end of the story however, he’s wounded and asks one of his servants to throw the sword back in the lake.”

“So it’s powerful?”

“It’s the best!” Martin blurted out.

“As he said.” Miles shrugged, ruffling the fawn’s fur between his antlers with a wing. “Nobody knows for sure what it does though, too much conflicting tales about it. Only that it’s really powerful, if not physically, then symbolically.”

“It’s both, trust me on that.” Merlin popped in behind her, this time in equine form.

For what it was worth, there was no use hiding his equine nature from humans anymore. At least for now it didn’t seem to hurt his reputation with them. Even Martin didn’t seem to mind seeing him as a ghostly Starswirl the Bearded.

“So you do intend to get it.” Meadow stated.

“That is correct.” He nodded. “And I’ll try to merge it with the Golden Tree. That should give it a boost and tie it with the Elements. Exactly the kind of power needed to fight the demons.”

“Fine then.” Rockhoof stood up. “We doing this today?”

“Preferably, yes.”

“I’m coming then.” Miles abruptly said.

“Really? What for?” Starswirl quirked an eyebrow. “I mean… it’s fine if you do, but I’d rather have you military ponies stay here and watch the castle while we’re gone. Plus Vivian’s domain is most likely guarded by the same type of piast that tried to make a snack out of you. Are you sure you want to come along?”

Rockhoof raised his hoof before she could respond.

“I’ll go further on my friend’s concerns, lady. Right here you were having a hard time just reaching for a jar and lifting a pot. I’m all fine and willing to let you come along, but if it’s going to be dangerous I need you to be in fighting shape. Can you do that? Can you go there with us knowing you might get a repeat of what happened a few days prior with the piast?”

“Won’t happen again.” Miles scowled. “And we found weapons in the castle by the way.”

“What? Really?”

“Yeah, there was this gun locker in the wine cellar. It’s not military grade, but me and Emeric found some lever-action hunting rifles in there. It’s not military-grade, but judging by the caliber it packs a lot more punch than regular 5.56 service rifles.” She told them between two spoonfuls of her breakfast.

Saying that she lifted her head up from her bowl, only to find blank faces staring at her.

“Modern weapons then?” Meadowbrook awkwardly smiled.

“Yes...” Miles winced. “Modern weapons. So?”

“Fine, you may come.” Rock relented. “Just make sure Emeric stays here to guard the place. I know there are wards, but on principle alone I want someone on guard duty.”

“That’s a deal.” The Pegasus mare beamed before a whistle told her her chicory coffee was ready.

What followed the accords between the two colonies in Belfast genuinely made Aleksei feel as if things were speeding up. It was as if she’d barely got the time to blink before the Captains ordered a couple technicians to be dispatched to either colonies to help them develop properly.

Not to do the work themselves of course. They were only supposed to teach them how to go about things. Basic welding, how to operate and maintain the infrastructure they had been left with. It seemed like at any moment of the day you’d find a sailor giving a briefing in either Carrickfergus or Belfast proper. The former in particular was important because that colony was needed to provide water and electricity to the whole region. They needed to be able to operate Kilroot’s power station.

On the bright side, said station supposedly could keep running a couple months at a slow burn, long enough for the fleet to cycle around and bring back some coal for trading, and that was without accounting for the fuel bunkers also present on site.

Come to think of it, as far as Aleksei knew Schmitt was basically done with the fuel reconditioner, so maybe they could sell them one and make Carrickfergus a fuel hotspot? Granted their own model wasn’t small by any stretch of imagination (the result only just managing to fit on the trailer of a 40-ton lorry), but it was meant to process large, maritime-scale volumes of spoiled fuel.

If anything, the only real problem with the system so far was that it produced fairly large amounts of slop water and mud, and that it could only process diesel and HFO.

As for water and sewage, the colonies had decided not to rely on underground piping. With as few inhabitants as they were around Belfast’s Lough, maintaining and running all the infrastucture was far too manpower intensive (‘man’ being such an antiquated term these days). Instead, they retrofitted a couple trucks in the confines of Amandine’s vehicle bay. Water tankers fitted with pumps and basic purification systems would ferry water from the reservoirs up in the hills to the colonies, and a sewage truck would evacuate waste from the colonies’ septic tanks to an agreed-upon water treatment plant in a town halfway between Carrickfergus and Belfast.

Whiteabbey if memory served, it was one of the first agreed-upon conditions the leaders had signed in the Otherworld with Epona.

Admittedly, Scarface wasn’t entirely happy with having to retrofit additional vehicles. The gargoyle had already spent the better part of a week working on O’Connell’s vehicles, but Aleksei had to remind him it was either working on vehicles, or crafting new engine parts in the shoreside workshop.

Said workshop was working overtime at the moment. All damaged plates and beams had already been removed from Fugro’s hull, so now the offshore support vessel was just laying in dock with her flanks open, waiting for her engine to be reinserted through the side. They had replaced her damaged shaft and stern thruster already though, so progress was being made.

The engine was the only thing holding back the repairs, and that was due to the intricate engineering found in Fugro’s Rolls Royce made propulsion scheme. Most of the man-hours they sank in shop time went to machining tiny components, sensors, and all sorts of delicate machinery at this point. Hull plates and beams? Those had been ready for a while now, piled up in a corner of the hangar next to pallets of paint cans and antifouling.

That even included the hull plates they’d need to fix Amandine, mind.

Too bad they couldn’t weld them in place if they wanted to be able to put Fugro’s engine back.

As for O’Connell, the isolated farmer had made good on his end of the bargain. The same day they gave him his vehicles back, their own team came back with a load of live chickens that were supposed to fill two coops that now occupied Amandine’s main deck (as per request from the kitchen staff), as well as a couple slaughtered heads of cattle. Two cows and half a dozen sheep were thus shared between the three ships. Quite the large supply, particularly considered it was supplemented by the spoils of Micha’s hunt.

And with a sizable portion of the fleet being on a vegetarian diet, all that meat might last them longer than expected.

One day later, the two trawlers they’d dispatched finally came back under a drizzly sky. Ted’s team had actually managed to fill up their boat’s hold with fish (a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one), further adding to their growing food supply. At this rate, the only way for them to ever go hungry in the coming months would be a collective freezer breakdown across the entire fleet.

But frozen fish was a trifle in comparison to the cargo Greet and Artemis unloaded off their own trawler. Fugro’s crewmembers would now have weapons of their own, and Captain Skinner immediately moved on to planning some training for that. Nobody tried to stop him, since them being armed would mean Rhine and Amandine’s crews would get some relief from guard duty.

As for the extras… to say Dilip was elated at the news of more artifacts would have been quite the understatement.

“Alright, what did you find?” Dilip asked, arms crossed.

They were safely installed inside Amandine’s armory, with the crates containing the Celtic artifacts piled up in the middle of the room. Except for Bart and Artyom who seemed to be working on a project of sorts, Greet was alone with the Captain, the dog examining the loot with a critical look.

“Well sir…” She started, glancing down at a clipboard that held the cargo manifest. “All you’ll find in those crates is magical in nature, though most of it I have yet to figure out how precisely. But I can say I have one conclusion about artifacts already.” She stated, flipping the manifest over to show him a couple pictures. “These were in the same box I found this all in.”

He threw a glance at the picture. To him it looked like the same kind of picture cops would take whenever they seized something, except… all the items in the pics looked old. They were rusty, covered in patina, chipped, or even outright damaged.

The Diamond Dog’s eyes flicked towards the Celtic shortsword his Fourth Officer had taken to wearing on her hip. It was pristine, as if bought straight from a blacksmith at a medieval fair.

“They’re self-repairing?”

“I believe they are. To an extent. This calls for a demonstration.” She turned towards Bart and Artyom. “Oi Bart, mag ik een hamer? Gooi maar.”

Her unicorn subordinate tossed her a hammer which she deftly caught, twirling it in her talons before she turned back towards the Captain.

“Observe.”

Pulling her sword from its scabbard, she brought the hammer down on it. Hard. As expected, its head hit the blade sideways and bent it out of shape. But then, the whole sword shone with a faint aura, and much to the pariah dog’s surprise, the blade straightened back to its original shape.

The only hint that it ever happened was the amber bead embedded in the pommel. Its glow was slightly dimmer than before.

“Any damage an artifact sustains, it can repair so long as it can draw magic from its surroundings. In the case of mine it’s rather practical since it’s not actually made out of steel.” The scarlet macaw stated, slowly sheathing the sword. “I tested it on a couple items in there. Works for all of them. So… I believe the same goes for your own sword, even though it’s nowhere near as ancient.”

Dilip’s digits drifted towards his belt. Recently he had taken to wearing the Congo Sword more often because he spent so much time touring the docks to inspect workstations. Most sailors were a bit… unnerved, by the evil aura the sword gave off. He was used to it by now.

And now that he thought about it he never had to do anything to maintain it. No oiling the blade, no cleaning the scabbard, nothing.

“That’s an interesting property…” The Indian muttered, looking off in the distance. “You think we can replicate it?”

“I’m afraid not, sir.” Greet shook her head. “I’m still trying to catalog what all these artifacts can do. I mostly know what my sword can do since I tried it out before we set out from Derry… but the rest isn’t going to be as easy.”

“And what can it do if I may ask? Just so I know what mine can. I’ve yet to unsheathe it in anger.”

“Well...” The parrot rubbed the back of her neck.

She was back next to the smoldering ruins of the Guild Hall. They had already loaded everything they needed on board of the trawler, and now they were just waiting for her to come aboard.

Not yet though…

Greet pulled out her newest acquisition from its scabbard. The fading lights of the sunset made its orange aura even more perceptible, oddly enough making it look as if the sword was made from the same amber as the bead in its pommel.

She turned the blade slightly, only then noticing the tiny runes that had been engraved on both sides. She could see a Celtic Triskelion at the base, but the rest of the runes she could not recognize.
“Hey Greet, we’re running late and I wanna be out of here before it gets dark if you don’t mind.” Artemis interrupted her observations, the minotaur cow looking at her expectantly with her hands on her hips.
“Sure, hold on a sec...” She replied.

That sword was just begging to be used. She could feel the thrumming power that radiated from it, ready to be released at a moment’s notice. So she did the exact same thing she’d do to turn her arms into wings.

She ‘pulled’ on it with her mind.

Her sword ignited, suddenly completely encapsulated in writhing flames that hugged the blade.

Greet smirked and turned towards where the sea serpent’s mangled carcass had fallen.

She took a swing. The flames around the blade lanced out like a whip, whistling through the air before hitting the dead monster’s flesh with a sharp ‘thwack’, effortlessly cutting through the hard scales with a sizzle.

The flames faded as soon as she released her mental grip on the sword.

“And that’s about it sir. It’s a fire whip sword, as far as I tried.”

“And you say to do that you...”

“It’s finicky.” She crossed her arms over her chest and clicked her beak. “I had to mentally grasp around the sword to activate it’s magic, same as us parrots do to turn our arms into wings. Don’t know how it would work out with yours, sir.”

“I’ll look into it when I can spare the time, but thank you for the advice.” He replied. “As for the artifacts, keep the crates in the armory until you can catalog which are safe and which aren’t. We’ll figure out which of those we can sell to the HPI later...” He trailed off.

Greet watched the Diamond Dog stop, as if something had just now dawned on him. His ears flicked a couple times, and then he slapped himself on the muzzle with an annoyed groan.
“Something the matter, sir?”
“Yes, yes something’s wrong.” He growled. “We forgot to plan for an armory on Fugro.”

She blinked.
“Oh…”

Inside of Rhine’s synthesis lab, two sailors were gathered around a centrifuge, a centaur and a hippogriff. The white machine with a plastic dome-shaped casing whirred for a couple more seconds before the red LED on its display finally turned green with a little ‘ting’.

“So, that’s it?” Asha tentatively said. “It’s ready?”

“Normally, yes. That last step should have activated all the ingredients in the potion.” Camille confirmed, the hippogriff propped up with her forelimbs on the counter. “So… shall we open it?”

She hesitated, her talon hovering above the button that would release the latch and reveal the vials inside. They had dumped so many ingredients from their hydroponics into that project, and now that last step would reveal whether or not the potion was viable. The lower mandible of her beak trembled in anticipation.

Weeks of reviewing the brewing process and adapting it to modern lab equipment. Weeks of letting the plants reach full maturity in the hydroponics and telling wounded sailors like Carlos and Boris they needed to wait.

And now she was going to see whether or not that wall all for naught. She closed her eyes and pressed the button. The lid popped open.

Camille cracked an eye open.

Air escaped her beak’s nostrils in a relieved trill.

The little plastic vials attached to the rotor inside the centrifuge each glowed faintly, marking the brewing process as successful. Three quarters of the batch was just their own version of the first-aid variant of health potions – and they were successful, with a nice pinkish glow to the vials-, but what mattered was the bigger healthcare-grade vials. There were just a couple of them, since they lacked the ingredients to make more, but they all emitted a rich golden glow, as if the vials were filled with magic honey.

She picked one up, carefully evaluating the consistency.

“So what do you think Asha?” Camille mused.

“Looks good ma’am.” The centaur nodded. “Seems like the whole batch was a success.”

“Yeah… the whole four vials.” Camille grumbled.

“It’s the Poison Joke’s fault. I swear I used every trick in the book to make it grow faster, I promise, but it just grows too slowly.” Asha said. “But maybe...”

“Maybe what?”

“There are two species that are ahem… ‘gifted’ with alchemical skills last I checked.” The centaur said, making quotations marks with her fingers. “We aren’t, so any potion we make will be less powerful and forces us to use more potent ingredients. Ingredients like the Poison Joke that, in turn, grow fairly slowly. If we could just find one zebrican or a deer, then I could switch out the Poison Joke in favor of an ingredient that grows faster, even though it isn’t as powerful. Like some Faustian Orchid.”

“Worth a shot… though I have no clue as to where we might find one that would even be trained in basic lab safety and chemistry. I mean… look at yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean your nationality Asha. No offense, but if someone asked me I’d have assumed African people in general would have turned into zebricans. At least some of them. Yet we got Congolese and Liberians on this ship, and the result was centaurs, abyssinians, and even a sphinx.” She listed off on her talons. “So which nationality is supposed to turn into zebras, I have no idea.”

“Well, maybe that’s because I’m from Matadi and there are no zebras in Liberia.” She tapped a red-skinned finger against her chin. “As far as I know, all zebras in Congo live in the Katanga province in the south, so maybe zebricans would share a similar geographic range? I’m not sure. Either way, it’s pretty far inland so I don’t think we have high chances to find one...”

“And to make matters worse we have yet to meet one deer.” Camille sighed. “Guess we’re stuck with the Poison Joke recipe for now. Okay, I’ll take two vials to Amandine so they can fix up their wounded, tidy up the lab somewhat and bring the other two to the med bay for storage, okay?”

“Of course. And… ma’am?”

“Yes Asha?”

“The priest in Carrickfergus?”

“I haven’t forgotten about him if that’s what you’re saying. But those potions were hard to acquire to begin with, so I’ll have to… leave it to the Captain to decide.”

“She won’t agree.”

“I’d be surprised if she did, indeed.” Camille reluctantly acknowledged. “Father Smith’s life is in no danger after all. He’s just… crippled for life with a bad leg and a damaged nervous system that gives him tremors.” The hippogriff pinched her own beak. “Putain, je déteste ce genre de situations.”

“You do know I can speak French, right?” Asha said.

“Well, now I do.”

“That’s actually a pretty decent infirmary.” Lilian said.

Lilian, as in the pink dragon that served as Fugro’s shipboard doctor. With her own ship (and by extension her own medical ward) in dry-dock, Vadim had decided to invite her on Amandine just so she could help him treat the ship’s wounded.

Yeah, because Vadim wasn’t too enthused about sticking a needle in his shipmate’s eye, regardless of whether or not it was supposed to repair all the damaged tissue in there. As he repeatedly told everyone: he was not an actual doctor, just an Officer who somehow wound up with an ever-increasing list of medical skills.

As for the infirmary, it sure had changed ever since Amandine reappeared in May. Even in their first port of call in Zeebrugge he had started adding equipment to the formerly simple room. It had started with added beds, more scanning equipment, basic chemistry stuff (as he had soon found how to make aspirin, the process being actually rather simple), and even an ever-growing medical library.

The latter occupied a significant portion of the room, around his desk, ranging from veterinarian books he had looted from a nearby library, to medical textbooks and encyclopedias, miscellaneous notes on how to use all the equipment he had crammed in there and, most importantly, all his shared notes and research on post-Event species.

“Took a while to get to that point.” Vadim told the dragon.

He moved over to the corner of the room where he’d put a safe for the ‘sensitive’ stuff, quickly typing the code on the keypad.

“Camille dropped this off earlier.” He said, pulling out a foam form holding a handful of shiny vials. The new health potions.

“Yeah, she said her cadet was done getting the ingredients. Didn’t know she’d be so quick in making them.”

“Well, there sure is a need for them.” The griffon replied, taking a vial of healthcare-variant between his talons to examine the golden liquid inside. “I got two patients who could really use that, but I’m not sure I’m skilled enough to do it. One needs the potions delivered via intraosseous infusion to his scapula and I’ve never done that. The other… well, I think I can do it but I could use your advice before I dig in.”

And she was all too happy to provide some. They had two wounded waiting for healthcare-grade potions: Carlos, with his blinded eye from the Gothenburg incident; and Boris, who still had a broken scapula from being shot.

By his own mate. Griffon pair-bonding was such a weird thing.

Carlos and Danny were the first to come in, followed a minute later by Boris, the Russian being helped inside by Anton.

That made Vadim pause in thought at the sight, a vial of xilocaine clutched in his talons. The pair was mated alright, only an idiot wouldn’t see how close they stayed to each other, the intertwined tails and the furtive glances either kept throwing towards the other. But them being mated wasn’t really much of a problem.

That they worked on different ships was. The only reason Anton was on Amandine in the first place was because she’d promised she’d take care of him while he was injured. And as soon as Lilian gave him his intraosseousshot of potion, that excuse would be gone.

Vadim didn’t think he could go long without seeing Micha, so why should he expect the two newly-mated griffons to do any better?

With those thoughts swirling in his head, he moved on towards the bed where Carlos had laid down. The sulfur-crested cockatoo had already taken off his eyepatch, revealing the blind eye beneath it in all its milky-white glory.

“Impatient to get your eye back?” He asked, casually.

“You don’t say. The pirate look is cool, but I’d rather have my depth perception back.” Carlos squawked back. “So...”

“Not gonna be easy, no.” Vadim shook his head as he pushed a stool over to his bedside. “Think you can stay calm as I jab a needle in your eye?”

The edges of Carlos’ beak creased with a wince and he threw Danny a look, the golden parakeet holding his claw for comfort.

“Not like there is an alternative eh?” He chuckled awkwardly. “Can I at least get a painkiller?”

“That’s an anesthetic.” Vadim replied, hefting up his xylocaine. “Injected via needle, sorry.”

This wasn’t actually as hard as Carlos made it out to be. With Danny holding his hand for comfort on the opposite side of the bed, he barely even felt the needle enter his eyeball and deliver the anesthetic. By the time Vadim prepped the second, more important vial of healthcare-grade potion, he could only feel numbness on that side of his face.

Vadim finally got to see the potion working its magic as soon as he released the golden fluid inside his shipmate’s body. Even before he removed his syringe’s needle, the tissue started glowing and knitting itself back together properly. Damaged nerve endings, blinded eye and all the scar tissue slowly disappeared over the course of a few minutes. He could even see the first hints of new down feathers grow around his eye as soon as the skin was healthy again.

He also took note of the secondary effect behind the variant of the potion. It needed so much energy it sapped patients of their strength. Carlos fell asleep not long after the glow of the potion faded away, exhausted by its effects.

Behind him, the same thing happened to Boris, though his injection turned out to be quite a bit more painful than Carlos’. At least both should be fine now. Carlos still technically had an injured arm, but his eyesight would be alright.

“Okay...” Vadim tossed the used needle in a disposal basket and glanced alternatively between Danny and Anton. “They’re probably going to be hungry when they wake up. Make sure they eat as much as they need to and stay hydrated. If they feel any strain where their injuries used to be, then let Boris rest or have Carlos put his eyepatch back on. And if there is any prolonged drowsiness or exhaustion, you come right back, understood?”

He waited until he was sure both fully understood what to look for before he finally left the infirmary. He needed to talk to the Captains. Both Gerig and Prateek that is. That ‘mated griffons’ issue needed to be solved before it actually became a problem.

Meanwhile in Sandra’s cabin, the batpony was just finished with setting up the new evening playlists for WSU radio. She wanted to make sure there was a measure of variety in the music, whilst still keeping to classics that wouldn’t turn away potential listeners. So far her plan was to create themed playlists she’d play during evenings, and a main playlist that would fill the downtime between broadcasts during the day.

That seemed to work. At least the handful of listeners she was in active contact with didn’t seem to mind overly much. Hell, her Wednesday Country playlist was done with the advice of that DJ Grizzly guy in Montana.

The only thing she regretted was that since the radio was supposed to be international, she was kind of forced to stick to English songs and refuse suggestions that didn’t match that criteria. Maybe if she put them in a novelty playlist, once a week?

Regardless, her other computer pinged before she had the time to decide on that specific topic. That meant a certain algorithm she’d set up to decode the messages in the radio log was done. About damn time too, it had been weeks already since Aleksei had handed over the files to her.

The purple batpony swiveled her chair to face the PC and used her wingtip to click on the file. Apparently the algorithm had managed to sort out the frequencies into multiple messages layered over each other.

She clicked on the first one.

Bad idea. That must have been the noise made by the magic wave because the thrumming that reverberated through her headset almost made her black out from the sheer pain it inflicted on her sensitive ears. She filed it as just that and was about to move on to the next when she was interrupted by a knock on her door.

She checked the time. Nope. Still too early for her date with Johann.

“It’s open.” She called loudly.

“Hey there Sandra.” Aleksei poked her head through the door. “You alright there? I heard you cry out like a second ago.”

“No worries, just a little sound fuckup.” Sandra winced as she took off her headset. “By the way, I’m done with the radio log, miss ‘priestess of Epona’.”

“Priestess now? I recall pretty damn clearly I specified I would not be her priestess, so unless she went back on her words I’m not.”

“Oh shush...” Sandra rolled her eyes. “I’m just teasing you ‘cause my ears are still ringing. Aren’t you happy the work is done?”

“Well yeah. I am.” The Latvian said. “So what did you find?”

“Beyond pure painful noise?” She rubbed her aching ear with a hoof. “My algorithm found something else. Wanna listen?”

“Sure, just play it.”

She clicked on the second file she had obtained. Her screen filled up with the image of a traffic cone before starting to replay the file. For the first few seconds they didn’t hear anything and she even turned up the volume somewhat, but then they caught some static.

Beside her, Aleksei leaned in closer to the screen.

“… are you sure this is the right thing Luna?” A regal feminine voice said, barely audible above what they assumed to be a maelstrom of magic.

“We have no choice sister…” Another voice, younger but seemingly more… rigid? Said. “They would all die otherwise. It MUST be done. You know what will happen if we don’t do anything. Humans don’t deserve that fate.”

“They won’t like it. They’ll hate us even.” The first voice uttered slowly. “Sister… we’re basically destroying their entire civilization.”

“The alternative is much worse. They will rebuild, they will live on, just… in a different manner.”

“I’m still not sure...”

“Sister, we need you, we need the power of the sun to help in this endeavor. This is bigger than anything any creature has ever tried to accomplish. You’re the last one we need to make it possible. We don’t have much time left.”

“But should we… Luna, they have a right to know what we did to them.”

“And we will tell them. On our terms. I went ahead, Sunset is ready to go as soon as the spell array is cast, but if don’t do it NOW this will all be for naught. Please… just step in the runic circle.” The second voice insisted. “Countless mages and academies the world over dumped their resources into this, the entire microcosm of immortals await in their own runic circles, ready to cast. To save a race they may not ever see with their own eyes, on a planet they’ll never visit. You’re the last piece on the board that needs to move. I know it’s hard sister, but I beg of you, just help us cast the spell, then we’ll make sure Sunset tells them the truth so they may judge us fairly.”

There was a pause, and the maelstrom in the background built up in pitch. Aleksei could practically feel the urgency in the words of that ‘Luna’.

A clopping sound rang out above the background noise, much like the one ponies did when they stomped their hooves.

“I’ll do it Luna. Let’s save humanity.”

She thought she heard that ‘sister’ walk over to Luna. Then whatever they may have said became unintelligible because of the noise. It sounded like they had actually cast their spell.

A clicking sound signaled the end of the audio file, but Aleksei didn’t notice.

“We gotta tell the Captain.”

Author's Notes:

Sidereal did admit the 'Harmony did it' explanation was complete bullshit in earlier chapters, remember? It was only a matter of time before they learned about the spell, and the radio log thing is a project they've technically worked on for over two months.

Not that it's even much of a surprise they wouldn't openly tell returnees about that. Might piss off a couple peeps regardless of reason ya know?

As for the health potions, the healthcare variant is such a powerful thing I gotta make sure they never get too much of it so wounds may remain credible and medical treatment a relative challenge. Wouldn't be any fun otherwise, right?