Echoing down from the unseen heights, a multitude of voices cried out in a wailing sea. Following in the wake of that sea came a horrendous baying.

My blood went cold. I know that sound. A few steps further up, Wings also found herself rooted in place. The blue flame of her eyes flickered uncertainly as we locked gazes.

As one, we turned and began shoving Undertow and Bosco back the way we came. “Down! Down! Get back!”

Their bickering forgotten, the six Changelings were waiting to haul us out of the way as a bitter, biting wind drove a swirling maelstrom of mixed Gold and Silver back into the basement. The interweaving fogs exploded out to fill every corner of the air, with suddenly-solid Changelings ricocheting off the walls, floors, and each other. Two inverted Silvers cross-blocked a dizzied Gold, which plummeted out of the air in panic.

Everyone was yelling at once, rendering all words indecipherable. The two leadership trios raced from one cache to another, calling for calm, but their pleading fell on deaf ears.

Cowering in the corner, Wings and I did what we could to protect our younger charges. “Bosco, whatever you do, stay behind me. Stay with Undertow.”

Spinning her revolver slots, Wings watched the room's entrance. “Think it's the same one, or did we get super lucky?”

I blinked through purple smoke. “Does it matter? If it comes after us, grab those two and go. I'll slow it down, same as before.”

“'Before' almost killed you, Snow. You barely made it out. We're not outside this time. It'll turn you into a snowcone!” Wings slammed home a fresh set of rounds as punctuation.

I half-growled at her. “Bullets won't hurt it, Wings! My spell at least drove it off.”

“And now it's back!” She full-growled. “We need a new idea, Snow!”

“What is it?” Demanded Undertow. “What's coming?”

“A Windigo.” Grim fear dripped from my words.

Undertow paled. “Bosco is a Changeling. If it comes—”

“If it comes, we stop it.” Wings interrupted, before tapping Bosco with her tail. “Listen, Bosco, I know things suck right now, but we could really use some of those Boss Colt smarts right now. What's the play?”

Appealing to familiarity seemed to, at least for the moment, drag him out of his own head. For the first time in days, determination set across his face. “Okay. How did you fight the last one?”

“Chrysalis' blizzard. It blocks their vision, or senses or whatever. They can't see through it. I whipped up a blizzard of my own, sat it between the Windigo and Lethbridle. I think it got confused and, well, wandered off.”

“It was cooler than it sounds, but yeah that's basically what happened.”

“IT'S COMIIIYYYAAAHHH!” The warning shriek cut off abruptly in the darkness.

“Okay,” numbers crunched behind his grey eyes. “so that can slow it down, but how do we stop it?”

“I don't know, that's all I could manage of Chrysalis' tricks. She made some kinda magic cages to hold 'em in the Memory Orb, but I can't do that.”

“We can.” Gold- and Silver-leaders chorused as they dropped down beside us. “You say our insightful Queen could trap these beasts? Then so can we. The revered Mother may be without equal, but we are many. We will see her will done.”

“SCATTER!”

In a great rush of frigid air, the Windigo burst into the room. The Changelings scrambled to get out of its way as it charged after them. Two unlucky souls didn't make it, and were swallowed up into the ethereal body. Through the translucent form, their struggles played out in mere seconds.

As it reached the far end of the chamber, the Windigo began a slow, lazy turn. Two mangled, wingless, frostbitten corpses dropped to the chamber floor. Their carapaces cracked on impact, but their expressions of horror didn't budge.

“Wings, distract it!” Bosco jostled his way to the centre of the gathered bodies. “Everybody else, get out of the building. Lead it outside!”

“On it.” With a flick of her feathers, the griffon went airborne, ducking and juking towards the wind demon.

“Snow, get to the top of the stairs, when everybody's out, throw up your blizzard cover so Wings can get clear. Then both of you run like hell!”

Oh sure, easy for you to say. “Alright. Undertow, stay with Bosco.”

She didn't argue, just followed the Changelings up the stairs. “Stay safe. Get out as soon as you can. We'll be ready.”

Bosco hesitated a moment longer. “She's right, Snow. Don't hang around.”

“I could tell you the same thing. You're its lunch, not me.”

Queasy at the thought, Bosco sprinted up the stairs.

Alright then.

Backtracking up the stairs, my attention was fixed on the show Wings was putting on. The griffon used every trick in the book. When it lunged for her, she pulled back. When it bit out, she twisted forwards before the jaws could close around her.

The Windigo filled the air around itself with ice, covering her wings in dead weight, but she just dropped, using the momentum for a mighty flap to clear the frost.

I reached the top of the stairs, and my horn lit up. “Wings, this way!”

Abandoning all evasive action, she turned straight around and charged towards me.

Held in a ball, my blizzard spell split out into two Cryo Serpents, surging either side of Wings as she powered up, and colliding behind her to spread out in a wide disc.

Huffing and puffing, Wings halted by my top step. “Good job. Now let's get out of here before it figures out we're gone.”

Ice was spreading across the walls and floor around my blizzard shield, so we beat a hasty retreat through the corridors and walkways of the building. We were almost out when the Windigo's furious howl echoed around and past us.

We found an extra gear in response, and needed it too. We'd barely gotten out of the building and behind cover when the remains of the windows blew out, and the ghostly half-horse emerged.

Changelings buzzed nearby, hidden by the buildings like us, but watching the winter creature's every move. Gold and Silver were forgotten now, both groups joining forces against a much greater threat.

Snuffling, the Windigo moved this way and that on the wind, seeking out its prey.

“So now what?” Wings' breathing had lightened, but she was in no hurry to dance with the devil again.

“Dunno. Bosco didn't explain past this point.” Whisper or not, the Windigo's head snapped up. The two of us held our breath until it resumed its searching. “Fuck, that was close. Where the hell's Bosco with the plan?”

“Snow.”

“Any Changeling wanna jump in here? They were the ones who wanted to cage the thing.”

“Snow.”

“I mean, seriously, did they just ditch us?”

“Snow, shut the hell up!” Her whispered hiss broke through my grumblings.

“What?” I glowered at her but she didn't look back.

Her attention was on the monster. “Snow, it's looking at you.”

“What?” Risking a glance through a crack, her assertion was confirmed. No longer meandering back and forth, the Windigo barely wobbled in the air. It's attention, through our concrete barricades, was focused right on me. “How?”

“Oh, fuck.” Sounding a lot further away than the half-metre she was, Wings reached out a claw and turned my chin towards her. When she glanced over, she instantly squeezed her eyes shut and blew out a harsh breath. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

Talking around her sharp talons was an exercise in restraint. “What is it?”

“These things eat hate, Snow.” She released my chin, and held two talons up to her own eyes. “And those peepers of yours only glow when you're pissed.”

Oh... shit. Purple snaked into and out of the corners of my vision. “What do I do?”

“Dial it down before it...WATCH OUT!”

Grabbing me, she hauled us both out from behind the wrecked building, just as the Windigo passed straight through it. Ice instantly covered the parts where the Windigo had travelled through.

Getting my hooves under me, I followed Wings to another wrecked building, two stories this time, even as the Windigo roared behind us.

As we reached the new shelter, Bosco's voice sounded out from somewhere else in the ruined city. “Split up!”

Taking the advice, Wings soared up to the second floor, then took off to the right. She loosed a few revolver shots at the Windigo as she went.

I went in on the ground floor, then leapt left out of a window. I was barely fast enough, as the Windigo engulfed the structure, and the ice kissed the back of my hooves before I cleared the area.

As I ran, I passed Bosco, who was running perpendicular to me, green flames flicking over and over as he cycled between himself, Cept, and Cassie. “Over here, big guy! Nice tasty Changeling for you!”

“Bosco, what are you doing?!” I cried, even as I knew I couldn't stop.

“Trade off, we’ll keep it distracted. Snow, build up another blizzard, and be ready to drop it on my signal!” Cept-Bosco disappeared into another crumbling domicile, which iced over as the Windigo ghosted into it.

Bosco emerged the way he'd come, now flying as Cassie. The wind demon made to follow, but water tendrils jabbed into and through its body as Undertow leapt down from an overhang and ran in a fourth direction.

The winter spirit's frustration emerged as a rumbling bellow. The moment it moved to follow Undertow, Wings streaked by its ear. When it snapped at her, Bosco rapid-fired a morph display to entice it.

As the three of them bothered the beast, now joined by the Gold and Silver trios. I concentrated on building up my spell. I was halfway there when I felt a probing presence through the arcane link I shared with Undertow.

It wasn't her. Raising my head, I found myself glared at by the devil of the north winds. Even as the Changelings flitted about it, it did not break eye contact. The eye itself was pure white, alien, the essence of the cold and winter itself.

It had no words to say, but the sensations that ran through link were all too clear:

Cycling images of Lethbridle, the basement chamber, and the present.

It remembered me.

Ghostlike threads linking it to me, threads that shifted and danced in the wind.

It knew how to find me.

The Changelings, filled with red. My friends and I, roiling masses of red and blue. Wings and Undertow were almost all blue. Bosco had a single solid core of blue, surrounded by red.

Me? Fifty-fifty, with each blending into the other.

The Windigo didn’t care. It only cared about the red.

It would consume the hatred within me.

More images now, other Windigoes dancing at the edge of the blizzard. Probing. Hunting.

It was not alone. The others would get through, and they would feed on all the hatred in the land.

Infinitesimal licks within that wall of wind.

They would devour the one in the mountain blizzard, and then me.

That won't happen, I sent back, I'll stop you.

Again, it gave no words, just hunger... and what felt like laughter.

“Now, Snow!” Bosco's voice was dulled by the link.

You won't win. We know about you.

“SNOW! What are you waiting for, do it-no wait, HELP!”

Bosco's shrill cry broke the spell, whiplashing me back to reality. The reality that Bosco was half a leg into the Windigo's grasp, and sinking deeper.

“BOSCO!” Instinct drove my actions. Through the link I had with the creature, my ice magic rode its ice nature, all the way along to where Bosco was being dragged in.

The non-corporeal ice wind hardened. The winter spirit howled in pain as a chunk of itself sloughed off, taking Bosco down and away from it. In the corner of my vision, I saw Wings and Undertow move to intercept him.

I wasn't done with the Windigo yet, though. I poured my blizzard spell into the wound, filling it out again, and more. My foreign ice wrapped around the creature, slowing its movements and impairing its vision.

Anger gave way to confusion as it blindly lashed out, taking out three Changelings as they rushed in. It hardly mattered, there were so many more. Every available shapeshifter rammed into the Windigo from all sides, pinning it in place in the air.

Cued by a rallying cry from the Gold and Silver leaders, the entire capture force burst into green flame at once. As the Windigo yowled, the green fire cage grew and stretched, engulfing it entirely.

Trapped, the beast could do nothing... as the Changelings began to feed.

It was a horrific, indescribable sight. The Windigo seemed to break down on the basest level, drawn into its captors.

Rationed and malnourished for so long, the Changelings feasted.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“I think I'm okay, Undertow, really. It just takes a little getting used to.” Gently removing her helping hooves from his person, Bosco leaned back against one of the few buildings not iced over by the Windigo's rampage.

He wasn't the Bosco we knew, not in body at least. Getting suckled on, however brief, had cancelled out the shapeshifting spell. Bosco was back in his true Changeling form.

Compared to the others, there were some differences, both minor and major. The other Changelings bore a green tinge. Bosco's tinge, when it was there at all, was not absolute. His green was not so pronounced, and at times simply faded to grey. His eyes too, were different. They were still his pony eyes, rather than the all-blue of the Gold and Silver Changelings.

Said other Changelings seemed to be in a post-feast stupor, and provided no answers. From the brief glances they'd managed, they hadn't seemed worried, at least.

At least they're not fighting each other anymore. If they can keep working together, we might have a chance if more Windigo break through. I still needed a quiet moment to work through what I'd felt from the Windigo, but it could wait until later. I should talk to Watcher about this. I'll ask Schwarzwald when we get back.

One of the reasons Bosco had pushed Undertow's touch away was sensitivity. His gossamer wings, carapace, and even fangs had him shuddering, giggling, squirming at even the lightest touch.

Just be glad Schwarzwald isn't here. She'd have a field day.

Still, Undertow and I stayed close, and Bosco seemed to draw strength from us.

If he was feeding on our love, he was welcome to it.

“Alright, see you later.” Wings stashed her communicator. “Hey, just spoke to Cassie. Let her know about the Windigo.” She cocked an eye at the sitting colt. “Didn't mention this. Thought you'd wanna do that.”

He smiled, the only genuine smile I'd seen from him in days. “Thanks. I appreciate that. Are we heading back?”

Wings shrugged. “You wanna talk to the Changelings some more?”

“No, I wanna be among friends right now.”

Wings tapped the radio against his skull, eliciting a... noise. “Well, you'll get some of your wish. Cassie says Rockhaunch and the three brothers have called in from Grindstone. They think they're on to something, but want some backup. Me, you, and 'tow are heading that way.”

Undertow and I both perked up at the mention of our brothers, but I frowned at the last part. “Just you three? What about me?”

Wings turned and pointed at her back with a claw. “Cassie's asking for you to head back to Sprinkles Supplies. Apparently, Lexi could use your help with the next part of Breeze's treatment.”

I was no less confused. “My help? I'm not a doctor.”

“What do you want me to tell ya? Cassie isn't either, but she's saying Lexi could use your help to get Breeze back on her hooves.” She nodded at Undertow and Bosco. “Couldn't hurt to get some goodwill going between the two of you, Snow. Said that yourself.”

Groaning, I stood up. “I guess so, yeah. Still kinda sucks that I don't get to see my brothers, though.”

Undertow sent good feelings through our link. “I will make sure to let them know you are thinking of them, big sister.”

“Stay safe, Snow. I mean that.” Wings lightly punched my shoulder. “I gotta clear my debt with you, and I can't do that if you're dead.”

“Careful,” I niggled her, “all these good vibes and Bosco'll get fat.”

“Worse things to be.” He quipped.

“Damn straight.” Wings started shepherding him and Undertow towards where we'd left the sky carriage. “Come on, you two. Let's go help the buffalo.”

I waved after them. “See you back at Sprinkles Supplies.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Level Up!

Perks gained:
Zeitgice – Due to a misrouted connection, Snow now has limited access to long forgotten, non-Equestrian ice magics.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Author's Notes:

Metaphysics!

As always, a big thank you to Kkat, Kyts, Y1,
Auramane, Cascadejackal (he did the original cover art, which is still on the Fallout Equestria wiki), and you, the readers. Please read and comment, and pass the word along if you like the story.

That’s all for now, folks. Please keep reading, commenting, and spreading the word on Old Souls. I really appreciate your feedback, and we're almost there.