Chapter 2 - Fedor Conhanger

Vulsegardt arrived at the Crystal Empire train station. The whole city looked very much more technology based, unlike it was before the humans arrived. The Crystal Empire was the seat of EarthGov Technologies, a company known to produce most machines in Equestria. It was full of people and ponies who were studying or creating machinery, so it was no big wonder that Vulsegardt's mercenary is living here.

"Let's see here, Fedor Conhanger, teleport maintainer, Crystal Empire,..." She finds lots of documents and pictures in the folder that Ryan gave her. One of the documents was a letter that was addressed to Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.

She looks at the letter with slight surprise. "That's a nice surprise, looks like I'm going to meet the princess!"

She leaves the train station and heads to the centre of the city, where the crystal tower was located. At the tower entrance, there were two guards. One was a Unicorn, wearing the armour of the Crystal Empire and the other one was Human, wearing armour of the UNEE.

As Vulsegardt approaches the guards stop her. The Unicorn guard approaches her. "Are you here on official business?" He asks.

"Yes, I was sent here by Lead Representative Atlax, I have a letter for Princess Mi Amore Cadenza," She answers.

The human guard approaches Vulsegardt and takes the document folder she was carrying in her bag. After a short while he returns the bag. "It looks real, I suppose you can enter."

Vulsegardt enters the tower, slightly upset that the guard took something from her without permission, but she convinced herself that if she didn't let him, she wouldn't have been able to enter the tower, so she just carried on like nothing happened.

After a short trot, she spots the Princess talking to some Humans, but before she could reach her a Zebra crossed her way. "Excuse me, do you have clearance to be here?"

"Yes, who are you?" Vulsegardt asks.

The Zebra grins. "I am Xuri, one of EarthGov's top Chemical Researcher. I thought this place was personnel only, are you allowed to be here?"

"My name is Vulsegardt and yes, I am allowed to be here. I was sent by Ryan Atlax himself," She makes a proud face.

"Oh, so you are a guest too? Atlax himself? Guess then it's important, I shall bother you no more." The Zebra as he leaves he chuckles to himself.

"That was strange... They sure keep this place in check, I should get a badge next time."  She trotted towards the Princess, but she was uncertain what to say, she never spoke to royalty before.

"Uhm, excuse me, I have a letter for the Princess?"

The pink Alicorn turns around and looks at Vulsegardt, "Hello there, sorry, I didn't notice you, how can I help you?"

"There was a letter in my bag that has your name on it, it's from Ryan Atlax," She hands over the letter.

The Princess levitates the letter towards her and opens it, "Atlax you say, are you here on his behalf?"

"Not exactly, I'm here looking for a man named Fedor Conhanger," She answers.

The Princess didn't respond at first, as she was reading the letter. "Yes, says here all about it, but the picture he gave along this letter doesn't exactly look like him, well the goggles are the same and the face is similar, guess it's an very old photo."

Vulsegardt becomes uncertain. "Does a Fedor Conhanger live here, portal maintainer? Very smart?" She became worried that she might have come to the wrong place.

"Oh yes, sorry for the worry, he lives here yes, takes care of most machinery of the Crystal Empire, very respected here, I'll have a guard have you escorted to him if that is alright with you?"  The princess asks.

"Yes, thank you Princess." She answered with a smile.

"Of course, wouldn't want Atlax waiting. Guard!"  The Princess shouts.

A Human guard steps close. "Yes Princess?"

"Would you please escort our friend here to the basement of the tower, she needs to see Fedor."

"Of course Princess, right away!" The guard starts leading the way towards an elevator that was nearby.

Vulsegardt slightly grins and follows the guard. "Thank you for your help Princess Mi Amore Cadenza!"

The Princess turns around again. "Please, it's Cadence, the full name sounds silly, oh and say hello to Fedor for me!"

"I will! I just made business with a princess!" Saying to herself while she chuckles.

The guard leads Vulsegardt to an elevator, which after they got in went multiple floors down, probably even underground. After the elevator stopped the guard waited for Vulsegardt to get out.

"I will wait here until you get back, don't steal anything," The guard says.

She looked at the guard with a mocked expression on her face, but was able to remain calm, "I certainly will not!"

The guard smirks. "Just saying. There is much expensive material here."

Ignoring what the guard said Vulsegardt makes her way down a long dark hallway where in the distance she sees a man cleaning a small portal frame. She decides to approach him.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for somepony named Fedor Conhanger?" Vulsegardt asks.

The man turns around and looks at Vulsegardt while smiling. "The word you are looking for is somebody, and yes, that would be me. What can I help you with?

Vulsegardt looks at Fedor's face and examines him. "You have long hair, you don't have hair on this picture." She levitates the picture to Fedor's hand.

He grabs it and looks at it. "Well, of course not, this is very old, from my army days," He says.

"You were in the army?" For a second Vulsegardt became worried, why would Ryan want a soldier to come along with her? Is this expedition dangerous? Is there something that she is unaware of?

"Yes, but after I found the Holder crystal I became way more than just a simple field mechanic. You can call me the engineer who knows how to shoot. Now, what was it you needed help with?" Fedor asks.

A letter is levitated into Fedor's hand, similar to the one Cadence received. He took it, opened it and started to read. "Ares station huh? Haven't been there for a while, worked alongside bigshots like Altman before the whole thing went to hell..."

"What happened? The UNEE never told the public what happened there." Vulsegardt asks with interest.

Fedor drops the letter on the ground. "Of course they didn't, it's classified."

She levitates up the letter and puts it on the table. "Look Mister Conhanger, I'm here to hire you to go down there with me to examine runes of an obelisk that was in storage there. And also I think I have the right to know what happened if I'm going down there."

With a small bit of anger in his face he looks from the ground to Vulsegardt. "Probably that damn thing that caused this. I remember that day..."

For a moment he paused and looked back on the ground."I just came in the shift, I was running late. I was still in the elevator when it happened. Someone attacked the station. That, Marker, it... it let out something. The whole station lost power and an evacuation was called. Me, Altman and some others came out, since we weren't that deep in the facility.

Vulsegardt listens closely.

"They closed Ares Station down, said that some radiation from the Marker flooded the facility. Haven't been down there ever since. What makes you think I want to go down there again?" Fedor asks.

"I need to translate the runes on this, Marker you called it?" Vulsegardt answers with a question.

Fedor frowns. "And why should I? That place is a graveyard by now."

After that statement Vulsegardt felt a little calmer, the facility probably isn't dangerous then and the radiation should have cleared up after all these years. "Well, you know the facility, I need a guide and if you help me, I will put a good word for you to Ryan Atlax."

Fedor begins to think. After a while he raises his head to Vulsegardt. "Alright, maybe a good word in the tops would do me well. I'm in."

"Maybe I won't tell him you told me classified information" She replies with a laugh.

"Maybe he will tell you that the letter there says that I can tell you." Fedor replies with a smile and points to the letter on the table.

"So, you are going?" Vulsegardt asks with a smile.

"I suppose since Altman is missing, he won't be mad if I grab some of the crystals in the facility, so I'll tag along with you Miss...?"

"My name is Vulsegardt, nice to meet you Mister Conhanger," She introduces herself.

"Vulsegardt, heh, you horses sure have the strangest of names."  Fedor chuckles.

"I'm an Unicorn and I think you Humans have stranger names."  She answers with a smug name.

"Well..." He starts laughing for a short while. "We could debate this but I guess you're not here for that. I'll meet you by the train station then, I need to get some gear before we go, assuming we go today am I right?"

For a moment Vulsegardt stops and remembers there wasn't actually a time set on when she should go to this facility. "Uhh, yes! Today, we go today." She smiles.

For a moment Fedor stares at Vulsegardt. "You have no idea do you?"

She looks at Fedor with a serious face, "We go today Mister Conhanger."

"The letter says that we could go tomorrow." He looks at Vulsegardt with a smug face.

"Very funny." She turns around and starts to trot back towards the elevator. "Oh yes, before I forget, Princess Cadence says hello!"

"Tomorrow at twelve at the train station!" Fedor replies while searching through some equipment.

She enters the elevator and looks at the guard, "Take me back up please." She sighs, "I can't believe I got stuck with a know it all."