A quill scratched across the paper as Commander Nightbreeze continued with the seemingly endless task of writing up reports summarizing each of her squadron’s reconnaissance sorties. Several knocks echoed through her office and without missing a beat, she answered, “Enter.”

The door swung open, allowing two pegasi to walk into the office. Nightbreeze glanced up to see who had entered and dropped the quill from her mouth onto the desk. “Lieutenant Sharp Eye; Sergeant Silent Sky,” she greeted them cooly with a slight grin.

They both stood at attention and saluted. “Ma’am!”

“At ease, you two...” The commander regarded them with a small smirk. “You know I don’t like all the pomp when we’re in such a casual setting.”

Both immediately dropped the salutes. “Sorry, Ma’am,” Sharp Eye replied.

“So what’s the damage?” Nightbreeze asked, leaning back in her chair nonchalantly.

Silent Sky stepped forward. “Unfortunately, nothing, Ma’am. Our last patrol grid was completely empty. We didn’t see any ponies, let alone the targets.”

“Well, that’s how it goes, I guess.” She looked at Silent Sky, squinting slightly. “Huh... Ya know, we could stick a horn on you and pop off your wings and I bet you would pass as Sparkle. Then we could all just go home,” she said with a chiding chuckle. “Oh, and dye a streak into your mane. You’re damn near a dead-ringer for that mare, you know?”

“Believe me, Ma’am, the resemblance is not lost on me,” the sergeant replied with a smile.

“Anyhoo... I suppose you two are looking for your next grid,” the commander stated, as she passed a small piece of paper with her wingtip.

Sharp Eye retrieved it with a yellow wing and tucked it under the wing to look at after they had left. “Thank you, Ma’am.”

“Heh... I wouldn’t thank me quite yet. Y'all are heading into the deep Everfree. Uhhhh...” She glanced at a list resting on her desk. “Everfree East, grid eight. Lucky for you, the weather is supposed to be clear and calm for the next few days. Check back in six hours for your next orders. Dismissed.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” both scouts intoned in unison with a quick salute before turning and leaving the office.

The door shut behind them, and the flight partners meandered down the hall to the exit of the building. Once outside, Silent Sky closed her eyes and looked up to the sun with a smile and deep breath.

“We should get something to eat before we go, Sharp.”

He looked over to his wingpony soaking in the sunlight. “You think we got time?”

“Of course we do!” Opening her eyes, Sky turned her head toward the stallion. “Forty-five minutes there, forty-five minutes back, and 4 hours for the recon flight. As long as you move your tail, that’ll give us like... uhm, like, an hour leftover or something.”

“Thirty minutes, smarty,” Sharp Eye replied with a muffled laugh.

“Gah...” Sky rolled her eyes dramatically. “Whatever, just a quick snack, and we’ll get outta here.”

“Well?”

“It’s uh, rustic... I mean, it’s outside. That counts for something, right?”

“Stop pretending to be nice, Spike. This is almost as bad as the hole, Twilight, and I only say almost because there’s at least sunlight out here.” Fireshade turned herself about, taking in the two and a half stone walls with no roof, and trees. Lots and lots of trees.

Twilight plopped to her haunches and crossed her hooves. “Well, I think the forest is pretty,” she pouted. Her eyes suddenly lit up. “I know, let’s go up to the turret! We’ll be able to see for miles over the trees,” she suggested, pointing to the corner of the ruins.

Eyeing the tower, Fireshade questioned the sanity of doing such a thing. “Shouldn’t we be trying to figure out a way out of here?”

“We’ll get to that,” Twilight said over her shoulder as she headed towards the stairs to the tower, Spike following close behind. “The last few days have been very taxing, and I need to take a break.”

She suddenly stopped and looked back to Fireshade. “Not everyone got to take a three-day nap,” she said with a nod of finality, turning to continue the trek.

“Yeah, okay okay... If anything, I’ll be able to get a better idea of where the heck we are.” With that, Fireshade slowly began trudging after Twilight and Spike.

“Holy smokes, Twilight!” Fireshade cried between heaving breaths, hooves clopping heavily on the steep stone stairway. “How many stairs can they put in such a short tower!?”

“Almost there, Fire!” Twilight called back behind her as she crested the top step to a small lookout platform where Spike was already waiting. “Phew... She’s right, Spike. It does seem like too many stairs for this size of a tower.”

Spike shrugged, without looking away from the scenery. “I didn’t have any problem.”

Fireshade huffed her way to the top, the platform groaning under the weight of the three. “Are... you... sure... this...” Panting towards the floor, she stopped speaking for a moment to catch her breath. “Twilight, are you sure this thing is safe? It doesn’t sound safe.”

“It’s fine, you baby. Stop messing around and look!” Twilight pointed out over the side of the turret.

Finally having found her lungs again, Firehade lifted her head and gazed out over the forest. “Wow...” There were treetops for miles, punctuated intermittently with small meadows and ponds. To the east of their position laid a large body of water, and far, far to the west, sweeping plains at the base of a huge chain of mountains.

“It’s amazing,” Fireshade whispered. She squinted towards the mountains for a brief moment. “Is that Canterlot over there?”

Twilight moved next to the yellow unicorn and reared up to place her forehooves on the short stone wall in order to get a better view. “Yeah, I think so. I know we’re about seventy kilometers away, so that seems about right.”

“It’s so close,” Fireshade mused to herself. “You think we’ll be able to hold out here for long before they find us?”

“Sure. Equestria’s a big place, and they probably think we tried to hide a lot farther away.” Twilight dropped her hooves back to the floor and nudged the unicorn next to her with a flank. “Heck, we’ve probably got two or three months before we need to move again, and by that time we won’t even be in Equestria anymore.”

Celestia must be ended before we go anywhere.

“Heh... yeah,” Fireshade said with a grin.

The three stood, watching the day slowly pass as the scent of pine trees and the sound of chirping birds was carried on the cool breeze. A bird fluttering towards one of the remaining walls caught the eye of Fireshade. The light rippled around the bird as it flew through the enchantment hiding the fugitives, and by the time it saw the wall, it was far too late. The bird impacted with a puff of feathers and tumbled to the ground.

Fireshade jolted slightly as the bird hit and she watched it fall with a growing smile. “Ha! Hey, did either of you see that?”

“See what?” Twilight asked, turning toward the disturbance.

“The bird down there just ran into the wall like it didn’t know it was there!” Fireshade leaned out dangerously to try to get a better look. Her tail was enveloped by a purple aura, tugging her back to the platform.

“At least we know the spell is working properly.”

“Hey Twilight, check out these weird birds,” Spike called out, pointing towards the southern horizon. “They’ve just been flying back and forth since we got up here. They’re really high, too!”

Twilight’s happy demeanor was immediately lost. She quickly spun around to look in the direction the dragon’s finger was pointing. She could easily see the two dark spots that Spike was pointing out and watched them closely. “How far away were they when we first got here, Spike?”

The dragon shrugged. “I dunno... maybe twice as far as they are now. Why?”

“Fireshade, come here,” Twilight ordered without looking back to the mare. “We might have a problem.”

“Huh?” Fireshade pulled herself back up from trying to see the dead bird at the base of the wall and moved toward Twilight and Spike.

Twilight pointed a hoof. “Look.”

The two large birds turned ninety degrees, heading straight at the group. After several long seconds, they made another right turn, moving across from left to right, back the way they came, except even closer now.

“Spike, your eyesight is awful. Those are definitely not birds,” Fireshade stated nervously.

Twilight slowly shook her head. “They’re flying a search pattern. Those are pegasi, and they’re looking for something.”

All three tracked the two pegasi with their eyes for a couple of minutes, not looking away. “What should we do, Twi?” asked the pyromancer.

“Nothing, hopefully. Judging by the pattern and their speed, they’ll be on top of us in about an hour.” She looked to Fireshade before continuing. “Our disguise will work or it won’t. Either way, we’ll find out once they get here.”

And if it doesn’t work?

We capture them if we can and kill them if we can’t.

More will come.

Obviously, but if they do find us and are allowed to leave, more will come faster.

“How’s your magic, Fire?”

“Good, I think.” She paused, scrunching her face, and then winked out of existence with a bright flash.

“Yep! I’m good!” shouted a voice from below.

Twilight looked over the edge of the turret to the middle of the wrecked building to see Fireshade waving happily. The purple mage looked to Spike with a grin and said, “See ya down there!” With a flash and a pop, Twilight was instantly standing next to Fireshade.

“Hey, no fair! Why do I gotta take the stairs?”

Looking around at the broken stone blocks and various detritus strewn about the floor of the ruins, Twilight began devising a plan. She walked the short distance to Fireshade and began to talk. “So, they probably won’t even notice us, but we should probably be out here when they get closer so we can watch them.”

“What happens if they find us?”

“Well, we don’t have any test subjects at the moment, and a couple of experiments I would like to do.”

“We’re going to try to capture them, Twi? I dunno... Shouldn’t we be trying to get out of here? I say we kill them. We don’t have time to mess around with experiments right now.”

We can use them as leverage if they’re captured alive.

“Look, we need information. I have no idea what’s going on, and we need to find out what Celestia is doing... And we can use them as leverage against Celestia if we capture them alive.” Twilight looked up to the sky once again. “Besides, that’s only if they notice us.”

She moved her gaze to Fireshade and smiled. “Come on, we’re going to need some equipment.”

Silent Sky made a lazily slow loop before gaining speed and catching up with her partner. “Sharp, this is so boring!”

“Frontline recon usually is. Long, drawn-out lengths of boredom and nothing, and if you’re lucky, it stays that way,” Sharp Eye replied while scanning the forest below. “Now, quit screwing around and help me look.”

The stallion’s vision momentarily filled with purple feathers as Silent Sky made one more quick roll, batting his muzzle with a wingtip as she righted herself with a giggle.

“Really, Sky? Is this how it’s gonna be for the entire patrol?”

She looked back to stick out her tongue through a cheesy grin before angling her head downward to continue the search. She began methodically scanning back and forth. The Everfree Forest stretched for miles in every direction, only broken periodically by the random glittering pond or small, open meadow.

Trees... check. Trees... check. Small cliff face... check. Meadow... check. More trees... check. Pond... check. Several minutes passed before Silent Sky once again started to lose the battle against her incessant boredom. She let loose a massive sigh and slowed down, letting her path meander back and forth until she flew alongside her wingpony.

“Hey, Sharp!”

The yellow pegasus grunted in response, not looking away from his careful search.

“You think we’re actually gonna find anything out here?”

Sharp Eye continued staring toward the ground, ignoring the question and its obvious answer. The odds of finding anything of note in a forest as dense as the Everfree were a statistical impossibility. Giving up on it—or slacking, in his partner’s case—was, unfortunately, not an option. The targets had to be somewhere. They obviously didn’t just disappear.

“Sharp! I said, you think we’re ac—”

“Yeah, probably,” Sharp Eye quickly cut her off, slowing to a near stall and banking into a shallow turn as he bled off altitude.

“What—” Sky glanced over to realize that her wingpony had disappeared. Looking behind, she spotted Sharp Eye quickly descending in a wide circle. “Hey! Where ya goin'?” She adjusted the pitch of her wings and pushed off, rapidly intercepting her wayward partner.

Leveling off, Sharp Eye began circling watching the ground intently. Sky scoured the landscape beneath them with her eyes, seeing much of the same that they had been seeing since they arrived. After the third round, she spoke up. “Sharp, what are you doing? The search path goes another half mile before we’re supposed to turn.”

“Look,” Sharp Eye responded without looking away from whatever it was that had caught his interest so keenly.

“Gah! Look at what? There’s nothing down there, Sharp!” She continued straining to see what he was looking at. Was it something below the trees she was missing? Is there a cave down there somewhere?

Sharp Eye pointed with a hoof. “Look closer, Sky. I thought I taught you better than this.”

Following his instruction, she looked to where he pointed, and there it was. An empty meadow. Another deep sigh sounded from the young scout’s mouth. “Congratulations, Sharp. You’ve found grass...”

A small smirk formed across Sharp Eye’s mouth. “Wait. Just keep watching. I’m sure you’ll see it in a moment.”

They continued circling above the large, open meadow, and just as the sun crossed their backs, she saw it. The air over the meadow shimmered slightly and the ground distorted a bit, like the wavy haze over pavement on a hot day. The phenomenon was only visible for a split second, but it was definitely there.

“I saw it!” Sky exclaimed with a smile. The smile quickly faltered, however. “W-what is it?”

Sharp Eye shrugged. “Dunno, but I don’t think it’s natural.”

“Should we get a closer look?” she asked quickly, not taking her eyes off the meadow.

Giving a light push with his wings to come about for another pass, Sharp Eye replied, “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. This could very well be what we’ve been looking for, and our orders were pretty clear that we are to hold, observe, and report.” He watched the glint again as they passed.

Finally taking his gaze off the meadow, he looked to Silent Sky and began giving her instructions. While he started to talk, she squinted to the ground, watching a very faint orange glow below them.

“Take down the coordinates, get back to base as fast as you can, and report to Nightbreeze. I’ll stay here and loiter at high altitude and watch for an—”

“Look out!” Silent Sky screamed as she accelerated toward him.

His head jerked towards the ground and his eyes grew wide at seeing a fiery streak blazing a path towards the two scouts. Sky slammed into Sharp’s side just as the rod of flame reached them.