The next morning after Applebloom had seemingly disappeared from the farm, nobody had been able to find anything to find out where she had gone with the two young fillies that had been in the clubhouse upon them getting their still being unconscious.

Both Bayek and John had stayed in the barn they had landed near (or on in Bayek’s case). Upon getting up after some food and a good night’s sleep, they exited the barn to find Applejack outside talking to Twilight with a pained look on her face.

As John walked towards them he heard Twilight say, “I’m sorry Applejack, I looked all over town and asked everyone I could if they’d seen her, even Rainbow spent most of yesterday looking everywhere for her and we didn’t find any trace of her.”

“That’s not surprising, considering that the ones who could have taken her wouldn’t have wanted to leave a trace,” Bayek said. Twilight jumped in slight fright, as he was behind her when he said that.

“And just who do you even think is responsible for this?” Twilight asked as she turned to look to Bayek who was standing before her as she regained her composure.

“The Order of Ancients,” Bayek said. “They are an enemy to freedom first, and the Assassins second.”

“The Order of Ancients?” Twilight asked in confusion, “I’ve never heard of any group under that name.”

“They take measures to prevent their plans from being interrupted, like keeping all knowledge of their organization from everyone but those who they want to know of it,” Bayek explained. “More often than not, the members tend to be people in high places, so to speak.”

“Like nobles?” Applejack asked.

“A decent example, but it can be government officials, business owners, military and media figures, the list can go on.”

“But even with those, I wouldn't put it past them to use even the homeless or orphans to further their goals,” John stated from the roof of the barn.

“Are you going to do the Leap of Faith just to annoy Miss No-Faith?” Bayek asked. John didn’t respond as he stood where he was as Bayek saw a faint golden glow in his eyes, even though he couldn’t be sure from the glare of the sun. A few minutes of silence and Bayek managed to understand. “Wait, nevermind. You’re doing your Eagle Vision stuff.”

“What do you mean by Eagle Vision stuff?” Twilight asked in confusion.

“Eagle Vision is a unique ability that all Assassins have in one form or another,” Bayek explains. “John’s is straightforward, giving him thermal-like vision that allows him to see targets, friendlies, and enemies. Mine requires an actual eagle, which I lack.”

“Is there a limit to this Eagle Vision?” Twilight asked as she seemed to write something down in a notepad.

“I think it mostly has range issues. His relies on a literal line of sight. Mine relies on a mental link of limited range with the eagle.”

“If it’s short range, why is he trying to use it from the barn?” Applejack asked.

“I think he’s partially clinging to the hope that she wasn’t taken far.”

It was then they saw John look down seemingly in annoyance before he seemed to jump off the roof of the barn into the haystack below him before climbing out and looking to the group with a shake of his head.

“No luck?”

“No, I tried looking from the barn and it looks like something my Vision can do is follow the trail of someone for as long as they are on the ground, but only to a single person, but she vanished around the forest to the East,” John admitted.

“So, my sister was taken to the Everfree?!” Applejack loudly asked with panic on her face, before she fell into a kneel and began to cry.

“That, or she was taken through it to throw off the trail,” Bayek added, hoping that it calmed her down. “Other than that, we lack any further leads. Unless we find or receive said leads, our best bet is to wait and see what happens.”

“I could go near to where the tracks ended and see if I could pick up any trail… but I don’t know if that would help,” John responded a sad look in his eye.

“Just do what you can,” Applejack said in sorrow. “I’m gonna do what I do to try and dull my emotional pain...work.” She walked off south into the orchard.

John then looked to Bayek before he said, “So, we have no leads on what happened, nobody to back us up when things go wrong and no idea who we could even look towards to get us started.”

“The only idea I can think of is seeing if the Displaced we heard about from the choker token thing can help us,” Bayek answered, pulling out the choker as he spoke. “She said she prefers not to fight, but if you think about it, she could only need help in the investigation, and we do the fighting.”

“I suppose an extra head to think everything through could be good, besides we know almost nothing about the area around us. If we are lucky she may have some knowledge that could help us work out what could be near.”

“Fair enough. Come forth, Calm Flame,” Bayek said. Nothing seemed to have happened, causing both him and John to slump a bit in disappointment. Bayek was about to say something when something landed hard in a nearby cart of hay, breaking the cart and scattering the hay. He quickly ran to the remnants of the hay and dug through until he found an arm, then gently pulled a golden haired young woman up to her feet. “You okay ma’am?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” she said while trying to catch her breath. She looked towards him and asked, “Who are you?”

“I am Bayek, Servant of Amun,” he told her, as he began to brush some of the hay off of her. “The other man is John. We both are Assassins, but we’ve come upon a slight problem here.”

She spent a teeny tiny fraction of a second thinking it over. “What kind of problem?”

“One that involves a missing person,” Bayek said. “We have unfortunately have no leads, other than the culprit took her to or through the Everfree.” He frowned a bit when he found a some hay in her hair. “Brace yourself, you’ve got a few stubborn pieces of hay up here.” He yanked as gently as he could, dislodging the hay, and a hair or two. He tossed the hay to the side, but the hair stuck. “Nek! I hate static attraction or whatever it’s called!” He shook his hand, trying to get the hair off.

“Hm?” She looked over to Bayek and saw him shaking his hand, trying to get something golden off. Her temper flared up, eyes turning red, and she promptly swung at his face, landing a solid blow on the ordinate shield Bayek pulled up on reflex. With a loud clang, Bayek was sent skidding backwards. Upon stopping, he pulled out his spear and pointed it towards her while holding his shield up.

She charged forward, her bracelets turning into brass gauntlets, grabbed the shaft of the spear with one hand, and threw another punch at the shield. As soon as her fist connected, a plume of smoke erupted from the gauntlet.

John then turned to Twilight before he said to her, “Should we stop them?”

“I’m pretty sure they’ll be fine,” Twilight responded seemingly looking forward to whatever Yang would end up doing to Bayek. “Something smells good.”

She kept punching the shield and sending him back until he was against the wall. He moved his head when a punch aimed for his head came for him. The punch sent her fist through the wall, allowing Bayek to shield bash her and reclaim his spear. He then swung the spear at her legs, sweeping her legs out from under her, stabbed the spear next to her neck, and then quickly drew his sword and stabbed the opposite side and crossed the two weapons, trapping her neck.

“I’m not sure what happened, but I wasn’t expecting that reaction,” Bayek muttered as he fell onto his back in exhaustion. “And why do I smell like I was at a barbecue?” He sniffed.

Without any warning, she grabbed the sword handle, and swung it right at Bayek, the blade going through his arm and spilling sand on the ground. She then rolled out from under the spear, got next to Bayek’s head, and slammed one last punch down on his masked face, sending out more sand and smoke.

A few seconds after that, Yang’s eyes reverting back to their normal colors, she looked at Bayek’s sandy remains with a mixture of horror and confusion. With considerable strain, he muttered out an “Ow…” from under his mask, before using his intact arm and pulling the mask off, revealing a barely functioning face, buried under a very light layer of sand. “Dead or alive, pain is the same,” He muttered in pain.

“Wait, you’re dead?” Yang asked. “That’s. . . different.”

“Well, technically, I’m undead, but that’s semantics,” he said, not overly bothered being called dead. “By the way, why can’t I feel my arm?” He looked over to where his arm was attached, only to see his severed arm...waving at him. “Oh.”

Yang helped him up and when he stood, the arm dissolved into sand and swirled up and around him in a whirlwind. After a moment, the sand settled and reformed his arm. “Remind me to not think or be arrogant like Deadpool,” he said in a serious voice.

“There’s nobody that can think like Deadpool,” Yang responded, but then added, “Except Pinkie Pie. Anyways, you called me here, so what do you need now that things have calmed down?”

“Honestly, in this situation, I’d replace things, with you having calmed down,” John responded walking towards Yang and Bayek.

Taking a nervous look towards the broken cart and scattered hay, she said, “Yeeeah, that sounds good.”

“Anyway, I’m sorry for the less than great meeting, I can only hope that the crash landing isn’t a standard occurrence for you,” John admitted with a kind smile.

“Apology accepted. Crash landings aren’t new for me. And for some reason, the universe has it out for my face,” She said. “I couldn’t even begin to tell you how many times it’s gotten hit.”

“Sounds like a running gag,” Bayek said in slight monotone. “Much like me and how I’ve been impaled, shot with a shotgun, and just now punched to bits.”

“Yeah, sorry for that. I don’t like that reaction to my hair getting damaged,” she admitted. “I really need to work on that.”

“And I need to work on not being a target,” Bayek said. “Nobody’s perfect.”

With a nervous look between the two Assassins, she asked, “Right, what do you need me for?”

“We called to ask for your help in trying to find a missing pony, one we think may have been kidnapped,” John repeated before adding, “but I have a question for you. How did you land in that haystack safely? I know Bayek and I do it often, but it didn’t appear that you did a Leap of Faith.”

She looked over the wrecked hay cart before answering. “I don’t know what this Leap of Faith is, but I have this nifty thing called Aura. It’s really nice,” Yang said. “Not only does it act like armor, but It even does some really nice little things like working as goggles underwater.”

“You know, I bet that’s a pretty nice thing to have in your back pocket,” John responded, “Kinda wish I had it myself.”

“I can’t turn it off. And I wouldn’t want to anyways,” she said, with thankfulness in her voice. “But I don’t think I can. . . Wait, there was that one scene in Volume 1. I don’t know how it worked, but it can be done. Maybe.”

“Would you be willing to give it a try, honestly even if it doesn’t work it can’t cause any harm to try and see the results?” John asked.

Yang contemplated for a moment or so before she answered. “Alright, let’s do it.” She put a hand on John’s shoulder and turned him around so that she was facing his back. “This might tickle a bit.” She put a hand between his shoulder blades and seemed to try using her aura to find whatever might do the trick...despite seeming to not know what she was doing.

Something eventually happened, and a bit of fire magic leaked out, causing a small, forceful explosion between John and Yang. As she got back up, some music magic kicked in with an upbeat tune, which Yang started clapping along to.

“Help me!” John called out. He was doing the Russian kick dance in time with the music.

Bayek came over, chuckling a bit. “I don’t know about you, Yang, but I’m getting a kick out of this kazachok.”

“Don’t take my pun and only type of joke,” she said in mock insult.

“Traitors!” John accused as he kept dancing, though the amount of malice in the accusation was a very deep negative. “All two of you!”

In response to his accusation, Bayek pulled out his bow, and started shooting arrows around his feet, giving the impression that John was dancing as a means to dodge the arrows.

The song ended after a minute, as did John’s dancing and Bayek firing arrows at him. Yang had a smile, seemingly amused from the antics from the situation. “So, you might have aura now. I don’t actually know if it worked.”

“How do we tell if it did?” Bayek asked.

“You know, there have been times where I ruined a knife in the kitchen when I swung it at my fingers by accident. And I have survived really long falls before. So, yeah. Dangerous stuff,” Yang explained.

“Fair enough,” Bayek said, pulling out his mace and swinging it down at John’s foot like a sledgehammer.

“Maybe this isn’t the best…” John began to say but was stopped as the mace struck his foot before a wavy white glow began to cover his form, but being mostly centred around the foot where the mace had struck him.

John started hopping around, holding his foot in pain. Yang looked on questioningly. “Is that what my aura looks like when I’m hit?” She asked. “Wonder why nobody said anything…”

“While I don’t entirely regret what I did, is that what you’re paying attention to?” Bayek asked.

“Huh? Oh, sorry. But it looks like he does have aura now, so he should be fine,” she said bashfully.

After a few more moments, John stopped hopping around before he knelt down slightly to check the foot that had been hit to find that it wasn’t broken, only a bit sore before he looked to Bayek, stating, “You know, I’m going to get you back for that one some day.”

“So, someone was kidnapped and you need my help to unkidnap them or something?” Yang asked.

“Is ‘unkidnap’ even a word?” Bayek asked.

“You know what I mean. Who’s been kidnapped, and what do we know?” Yang shot back.

“Well from what we know, at least Applebloom’s gone missing and disappeared near the Everfree and apart from that… absolutely nothing,” John responded sadly with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Apple Bloom.” A corona of flames seemed to appear around her eyes, showing her anger. Aside from that, she didn’t seem to have any rage. “Continue.”

“If speculation is something, the only ideas we have on who could have taken her is the Order of Ancients,” Bayek said as he flinched away from Yang.

“Do we know where they are?” She asked.

“We don’t even know who they are,” John added. “Just that their trail vanished around the Everfree forest.”

Yang’s fire cut out and she took a breath. “Okay. So, are we going to investigate, or…”

“That can be a start,” Bayek said. “If we can find some clues or even a trail to work with...and now I’m wondering if me being made undead also made me more brainless.”

“I guess that makes me the brains here,” John snarked. “Bayek, you go tell Applejack and the rest of her family about Yang. We don’t want her to get shot by a blunderbuss.”

“Because that’s my job,” Bayek muttered.

“Yang, come with me and we can investigate the scene, see what’s around the trail. You might have some kind of insight we haven’t had yet.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” she concurred.

“Well, if we search for about an hour or two them meet back here we should be able to see if we found any new information out about what happened,” John admitted as he looked between Yang and Bayek. With a consensus reached, the group split up and went their separate ways to do what they planned.

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