Pinkie's unconscious form was dumped into a dark basement somewhere within the shady depths of Ser'ka'om.

Crepuscular tore her hood off and let out a sigh of relief. "It worked," she said, turning on a lantern.

A few other pegasi were in the basement along with Windstream. The unicorn perked up. "I told you it would work. She's biological in nature, no matter what, she would have fallen."

"It almost didn't," Crepuscular commented, removing her cloak completely. She carefully unbound the rope that had been keeping her wings painfully pinned to her sides. The things she went through for the sake of avoiding the mob. "She bragged about being heavily resistant to such thing."

Windstream shrugged. "Then we just need to keep the sedatives at high levels. She won't wake up unless we want her to."

"Good," Crepuscular said, glaring at the pink pony. "...We could kill her now..."

"And waste this opportunity to study magic beyond the three divisions!?" Windstream gasped. "Are you insane?"

The pegasus facehooved. "While you are right that we shouldn't, I was thinking more that she would be useful for leverage. We haven't seen the Gem of Oreand with them, they may have hidden it. With her under our control we could extort the information in exchange for her." She furrowed her brow. "Though she is a major risk..."

"No discoveries would be made if ponies didn't take risks," Windstream huffed.

Crepuscular nodded in admission - he was right there. They would keep her alive. Though definitely not awake. Nothing they had seen attack them had been able to keep her pinned or still for even a minute.

"Can I run my tests?" Windstream asked.

"Sure. Don't wake her up, though, under any circumstances."

"Oh, I won't." He quickly opened up a small box of tools, undoing the silvery latch with his magic. He took out a pair of tweezers and plucked some of her hairs. Her coat seemed perfectly normal, though her mane had an unusual springiness to it. He sniffed it, finding that it smelled like sugar. With a curious expression, he reached into her mane trying to pull something out like they had seen her do so many times before.

He only found more mane hairs. "Hmm..."

He tested her eyes - big, bright, and just as responsive as they should have been while drugged this heavily. Everything seemed normal about her.

Until he took a blood sample.

"What in...?" He looked at the neon red liquid coming from the minuscule cut he had made at the bottom of her foreleg. "What IS this?"

Crepuscular was interested enough to end her conversation with the other pegasi. "...Hmm..."

"I have no idea what could cause a blood color this... neon. I wonder if she's even a pony..."

"There's something more concerning," Crepuscular said, frowning. "We've never seen this color before now. Nothing she's encountered has managed to draw blood from her - we would have noticed it. She's been hit with things more than powerful enough..."

"She's not more durable than a normal pony though!" Windstream complained. "She has bones, skin, flesh... all behaving normally right now! ...There must be some conscious component to it..."

"Don't wake her up."

"I won't! Promise!"

Myrrh alighted on top of a four-story building with an impressive ledge on the roof. She was trying her best not to think about anything. She'd already had her cry. Time to be a big girl and just...

...Just what?

She had to go back. She couldn't leave the Prowler. And she wasn't about to kick them off of it...

Could she even do that if she wanted? Crypt, maybe. Pinkie...

She'd try to get them to talk it out, to resolve their differences peacefully.

Why does she have to be that way? Myrrh thought angrily to herself. I could always rely on my claws before if it came to it! She's... she's hindering me!

She's protecting me.

Myrrh groaned, realizing there wasn't really a way out of it. Of course she'd stop going after Crypt - as painful as it would be for her to quell her urges, she could do it. She knew she could. There had been many times she was in enemy territory and her 'way' would just have gotten her killed.

It never felt right, though.

All of a sudden she found herself wanting to talk to Pinkie about it.

Am I going crazy!?

The next thing she saw made her honestly consider the thought. In the city center, an open marketplace in the center of the three towers, she saw someone.

Or, rather, something.

It had a slender form marked with two legs and two arms. The upper limbs ended in five-fingered hands, one of which was rubbing the back of the creature's round, featureless head. Every inch of it was covered in a sort of shiny white carapace dotted with occasional green highlights. Where there should have been a face, there was only a smooth blue plate that might have been glowing slightly. Even with her draconic eyes, it was hard for her to tell in the middle of the day.

After she confirmed she wasn't crazy - seeing multiple ponies around the thing looking at it curiously as it walked by - she knew exactly what she was looking at.

The Technician. Of course, armor had been mentioned, and it had been a highly unusual creature... This had to be it!

Forgetting all her emotional problems momentarily she bolted back to the Prowler.

Crypt looked at her with an annoyed expression. "About ti-"

"NO TIME!" Myrrh shouted. "I FOUND THE TECHNICIAN!" She ignored the protests of the robed ponies and pushed the Prowler into overdrive, charging right toward the city center. She barely registered that the ponies began pursuing them.