Windstream walked into his strange, mostly-spherical house and slammed the door. He tried hard - oh so very hard - to forget about the Prowler. To just let them go on, continue on their adventures, leave him in the dust.

Let them leave him in this backwater town...

Where his genius was shunned and never appreciated...

He pushed the thoughts out of his mind, returning to his work. Currently, he was tinkering with a metallic needle twice as long as he was, suspended in the air by several cables. He levitated his wrench into the air and latched onto the hook on the back of the needle. He began to push it back and forth, discovering very quickly that he was sapping his energy. Keeping the periodic motion driven by his own magic for an hour would be near impossible, even if he had access to injections...

The Prowler though, it clearly didn't run on magic. It could have been set to rotate and provide the needed force for as long as he could dream. Of course, it needed fuel, but it would be a much simpler task to get solid fuel than magical fuel.

He twitched. They were gone. He just needed to let them go. Like he had let so many things before. Curiosities, ponies, everything. Even the Technician.

Your life is not defined by things passing you by, he told himself, shaking his head. You have a lab. You have experiments. Experiments nobody cares about... Every measly paycheck is spent entirely on food to keep your magic reserves up... He scowled, dropping his telekinetic grip on the pendulum-needle. He wasn't going to get any work done on it like this. For these precise experiments, a unicorn's mind needed to be clear.

He walked up the stairs to his humble observatory: little more than a balcony. He walked to his simple mounted telescope - ignoring, for the moment, the menacing cylindrical device he had set up right next to it. He looked into the sky, able to catch a beautiful glimpse of Lurse in the daytime sky. A smile came to his face - it was so beautiful and mysterious. If only the Academy would listen to him; he knew it was possible to reach it with enough power.

He looked down from Lurse to the scenery in the distance, taking in the distant southern sea, the forests, and...

His scowl returned when he caught sight of the Prowler heading down the road at a leisurely pace.

Taking away his opportunities... How dare Brook send their kind to him... Completely worthless...

He tore his head away from the telescope, hardly bothering to think anymore. Setting his hooves upon the menacing cylinder next to the telescope, his scowl twisted into a grin. I'll get that Prowler one way or another...

He strapped the metallic cylinder to the telescope, tapping it with his magic. This prompted a thin, metallic spike to protrude from the device. Once more, he returned his eye to the telescope and looked right at the Prowler.

"Steady... Steady..." He began to charge a magical current through the cylinder, keeping a hoof carefully placed on a lever in the back. "Steady..."

Twitcha-twitch.

Pinkie looked over the Prowler's edge. "Hey, Myrrh, think you could shift to the left a bit? I think it'd give us a nicer view."

"Caaaaan do!"

Windstream unleashed the magical discharge, prompting the iron spike to launch out of the barrel at supersonic speeds. It would have hit the Prowler dead on.

Had it not swerved to the left just before he fired. Instead, the rod harmlessly buried itself so deep into the ground it would not be recoverable.

"Oh for the love of snakes!" Windstream hissed. They hadn't seemed to notice the spike hit - which was to be expected, since it was so thin and the earth out there was so loose. They probably thought a rock had fallen or something. He rushed downstairs, took an apple out of his pantry, devoured it in a handful of seconds, and rushed back up to the telescope.

He had two spikes left. They were difficult to fashion, and he'd made all of them by hoof given the lack of excess funds. Which meant every one he fired was about a week of effort down the drain.

Windstream, to put it mildly, wasn't thinking.

He loaded another spike.

Twitcha-twitch.

"I'm thinking left-ish again."

"We'll be off the road," Crypt commented.

"Does it look like the Prowler needs road?"

Once more, they swerved out of the way just in time. Furious, Windstream didn't even stop to devour something before loading another spike into the barrel. He charged it up and aimed once again, this time with shaking hooves.

Twitcha-twitch.

"Myrrh! Rock! Left!"

"AUGH! NOT A ROCK!"

Crypt sighed. "The wheels can handle a rock..."

Then something metallic and moving really fast hit a rock about an inch to the left of them. The rock split in two with a resounding CRACK, and the thing itself buried itself deep into the ground.

"...Pinkie, are we being shot at?" Crypt asked.

"Yep!"

"WHAT!?" Myrrh shouted.

"Oh, don't worry, I think he just ran out of spikes," Pinkie shrugged. "We should probably move a bit faster though, so he doesn't get creative in his attempts to steal the Prowler."

"...Nobody takes my baby. Full steam ahead!"

There went his last spike.

They'd noticed it that time, and were now speeding away at a ridiculous velocity.

It was absurd. Annoying. And a waste. Not only had they taken away the Prowler, but they had also taken away his ammunition! It was just too much!

He had wasted too much energy. Legs shaky, he tried to turn away - but he just tripped over his front hooves and let out a whine of pain.

"Hey. You. Eat this."

He felt a granola bar hit him in the head. He ravenously devoured it without thinking - registering that someone was in his house. He turned around, eyes wild, jaw dropping when he saw a deep purple pegasus mare perched on his balcony. "Wh... Hah... Geh..."

"Yes, I'm a solder for the Sky King. No, I'm not here to kill you." She tossed her mane back. "I'm Crepuscular. Why are you shooting at that automatic cart?"

"I d-don't want any trouble with the Sky King! I apologize, I didn't k-"

"They're our enemies, I wanted you to hit them," Crepuscular deadpanned.

"Oh, right, they did say something about that..."

"Focus, goggles. Why were you shooting?"

"They refused to let me examine the Prowler."

Crepuscular nodded slowly. "I'll make it simple for you. It's hard for my kind to move in the lands of Ser, and their leader is too powerful for a direct attack to be worth the effort at this juncture. If you can get them into our hooves - by any means, I don't care - you could have the Prowler entirely to yourself."

Windstream paused. "...I'll need a bit more than that to work for the Sky King."

"What do you want?"

"Access to the devices in your clouds. I want to know how they work."

"We're done here," Crepuscular said, spreading her wings to reveal numerous blades.

"W-wait! I won't give it to anypony in Ser!"

"...Excuse me?"

"Just... give me a workshop in the Sky King's domain. One with resources! And funding! Let me live my dream of being a bright inventor!"

Crepuscular pondered this for a moment. "I can't promise you'll live your dream. But I can get you a private laboratory."

"I'll take it!" Windstream said, grinning. "All I have to do is capture them somehow?"

"Yes. And you won't have to work alone. My troop can work alongside you. But we are pegasi, and would be outed immediately. We do not have access to our storms this far from our borders."

"I can work with this..."