Arcane Shadow (Re-Written)

The farrier nodded to a small team of gryphons and changelings before him in a barebones room with some buckets filled with trimmings, trimming and scraping tools scattered around them haphazardly and sometimes on the few tables of the room. The light crystals flickered a bit, providing a reddish-green clashing ambiance he didn't care to notice. He kept his gaze on his subordinates, his scarred body and tattered wings making him stand out as he said in a gruff voice, "We're expecting the higher-ups sometime today. We gotta do the best job, as always."

A gryphon underling nodded and spoke up, "But don't they have paperwork to plow through?" Murmurs of agreement rose among the other underlings as he asked.

"I also heard we're getting some new soldiers," the farrier replied, fangs glinting in the light as he spoke. "What they're like… I haven't learned yet." He glanced past his team to a door at the far end of the room, frowning. "I wonder if they can find us."

A changeling underling snickered, wings buzzing. "Newbies? Pfha, it'll take them all day to find us. Plus, I'd like to see the looks on their faces when they come in…" He trailed off as light exploded from behind the lot of them, and he turned around with the others to find one of their higher-ups in the room with a few new faces. He took a moment to scan them up and down, noting a few new things about his superior. "... Lieutenant-General Windwood, what did you…" He shut up as the wood on her legs shifted, uplifting itself to reveal her hooves.

"It's a long story," Anna replied with a huff, trotting up to the farrier. She waved a tendril of ivy at her group, "The usual, just don't keep us for too long."

The farrier nodded, frowning as he noticed Maria. "And what's a kid doing here?" he asked.

"Same reason I am," Anna replied, shaking her head. "Don't give her a reason to scratch you; she hates being wrangled by strangers." The farrier didn't question it; he nodded, lit his horn and grabbed some tools and a few hoof stands, checking to see if they had any for children to use. When he found he didn't, he simply wrenched a table over with his magic, cleared it of its clutter, and nodded to his underlings. Anna nodded back, put a hoof on the stand offered to her, and lit her horn to lift Maria onto the table with her magic.

A changeling underling magically lifted some tools and trotted over to Maria, taking a moment to look at her claws and hooves. Alas, they did leave a lot to be desired, even if they seemed healthy and hale—there were a lot of patches on the hooves that could have used some filing, and some patches that could have used a trim, and the claws didn't shimmer in the light as they ought to have. "Goodness, kid, have you ever gotten your hooves trimmed and your claws shined before?"

Maria shook her head. "How does claw shining work?" she asked as the changeling lifted one of her claws and grabbed a thin filer that was less stockier than the rest of the tools. She watched as the filer started grinding and sharpening her talons to a dull finish, but with a sharper point.

"Well, we sharpen the claws first, and then put a special wax on them to make them shine and keep them healthy. We also add in some polish if you want, to make them look pretty," the changeling replied with a grin, keeping careful to avoid jerking too suddenly. "The hooves are a different story though; they're a bit more… specific to manage." He kept filing away, his motions gentle and his strokes as certain as could be.

Sarah trotted up to a gryphon that bade her over, and lifted a hind hoof to let him place a stand beneath it. She wobbled for a moment, but got used to the new position as her hoof was inspected. "Hrm, a lot of wear and tear on this one… you travelled a lot?" the gryphon asked, to which Sarah nodded.

"I was homeless for a while, just walking across Fantasia, shooting the shit with Fenrir after we became travel buddies," Sarah said, frowning slightly and twitching her ears as she felt her hoof getting its first filing in what felt like forever.

Another changeling underling came over to lift one of Sarah's claws to give it some treatment. He started filing right away, asking, "Yeesh, you got a lot of scratches and dulling on these ones. Do you use them much?"

"Not for scratching other ponies' faces off, no," Sarah replied with a shrug and a ruffle of her wings. "I usually stick to having those help me preen my wings." She indicated to Maria with a jerk of her head. "She, however, will claw you to hell if you try any funny business with her."

The changeling tending to Sarah furrowed his brow. "Funny business?"

"Attempted rape," Sarah said bluntly, causing all activity in the room to halt as the farrier and his crew looked at Maria.

Maria nodded, puffing her chest and feathers with a twinkle of pride in her eyes. "No bad cocks will touch me!" she declared boldly. "I will cut them to ribbons!"

Anna nodded sadly, then shook her head. "I've seen her do it, too. Those guys at the hotel weren't the sharpest crayons of the box," she muttered under her breath. She was glad those jackwaffles got some comeuppance that day, even if she wasn't the one who had delivered it. Even better, their most valuable assets too, which was a bonus.

The farrier and his team sighed, then resumed what they were doing when they saw they weren't getting any further explanations from their superior. Fortunately, they didn't seem to question it either way, as one of the remaining changelings indicated Lazarus to trot over to start his treatment. Lazarus complied, summoning his full crystal sheen with a flash of his horn, and plopped a hoof on a stand.

The changeling tending to him almost looked at the hoof cross-eyed until it clicked in his brain. Then he redirected his eyes to seek out Lazarus's own. "Y'know, we don't get that many crystal pony sightings these days," he said. "Do you happen to have any relation to Lieutenant-General Starcovert?"

Lazarus grinned. "Frenemy," he said. "Knew her from before the Royale Catastrophe, and got my mark at the same time she did from that shitshow."

The changeling tilted a hoof file to his chin and then jerked, mouth forming a silent 'o' shape. "Oh yeah, she told me about that mess! You're one lucky bastard to have even survived it," he said, trotting around to better observe Lazarus's cutie mark. When he understood its appearance and the like, he came back around to start tending to the offered hoof. "She did mention a bird carrying a sun-shaped weapon… what's it mean?"

Lazarus sighed, shaking his head. "That's the thing… I don't remember how I got it or what it means. I even fainted as it just… manifested." He conjured his sun-shaped spear and indicated to it with his glowing horn, "Though I know this thing has something to do with it." He sent the spear back to the ether as the changeling nodded, donning a firm frown and slightly narrowed eyes as his head moved.

"Cutie Mark Blackout Syndrome… that's a very serious affliction you've got there…" the changeling muttered, filing Lazarus's hoof. "Over seventy-five percent of all cutie-marked Fantasians have it for one reason or another…" He indicated to Anna with a free hoof. "She almost got it, but we were able to reciscutate her in time."

Anna sighed as her hoof started getting its trimmings in, the clippings and scrapings falling to the floor as the farrier cleaned out her frog and edges. "Yeah, that was a real shitshow and a half… took them weeks to clean out the plants I summoned…" she grumbled. "I think we had a mutant flower with teeth in there too, didn't we?"

The farrier idly nodded. "It smelled bad and was susceptible to fire. Nobody still knows what the hell you did to that plant, ma'am, but you turned it worse than it already was," he answered, wrinkling his nose as he continued scraping. "No offense, but I'm surprised a rafflesia didn't wind up as part of your cutie mark."

"A rafflesia? A whole-ass rafflesia?" Lazarus asked, eyes widening at that bit of intel.

The farrier's underling tending to him nodded. "Whole-ass rafflesia, as big as the Valkyrie Tank with the bladed tendrils to match. It even had little support flower helpers… some healed, some summoned rain and hail, some suicided when heavily wounded… and one even called forth paralyzing lightning," he replied. "We have one of its petals as proof too, but it's in the laboratories wing undergoing extensive study still. Same goes for the flowers we were able to capture and relocate."

Lazarus let his tail go between his hinds as he envisioned that mess playing out in his head. "Any casualties?" he asked.

The underling nodded. "Some close calls, some injuries, but no deaths. It wasn't exactly a miracle we could put that thing down so quickly," he said, taking a moment to use the file to gesture at his horn. He took a hoof-clipper off the nearest table and began trimming Lazarus's hoof from the bottom, being careful to avoid anything that even seemed the least bit sensitive. When that was done, he got the scraper and began cleaning the frog, noticing a rather rust-red blemish on one side of it. "Birthmark?" he asked.

Lazarus nodded. "Yeah, and I don't know why it decided to strike there," he said.

The last underling began looking at Fenrir's paws, gauging the fuzz between the rough-looking pads and the nails' collective bluntness. "Haven't done a lot of digging, have you?" he asked.

Fenrir shook his head. "Unless I absolutely had to," he answered. "I have spent more time above ground than under its surface."

The underling nodded, grabbed the thinnest file available, and tenderly began to work on prettying up the claws a bit. "Goodness, this paw's big as my head. Are you sure you don't suplex trains in the morning?" he asked with a puzzled frown, looking at Fenrir with a serious, albeit inquisitive, flash in his eyes.

"We came across this one… I think he was a gryphon without wings, riding in something a little bit taller and rounder than the Valkyrie Tank and jumping on and off some old rails whenever it could," Sarah began, causing Fenrir to sigh and bury his face with his other paw. "Called himself a lone rider or something, and dared Fenrir to suplex his ride. That… is exactly what happened."

All activity stopped, and everyone turned to Fenrir with the utterance. "Dude," the farrier said, almost completely expressionless save for his frown, "you suplexed a Godcat-damned piece of feline technology from the days of myth?"

Fenrir whimpered and nodded slowly, paw still firmly on his face. His ears folded back and his tail slunk between his hinds.

The farrier beamed, smiling widely. "What I would give to have that amount of strength… how do you live with that level of restraint?" he asked.

"That… I am not sure," Fenrir grumbled, still looking fairly chastised about the whole thing despite not even being the least bit scolded.

"Did the 'lone rider' still live to tell the tale?" Anna asked.

Sarah nodded, turning to her sister. "Yeah, but it required his ride being suplexed back onto its treads. Why?"

Anna frowned. "He's one of the army's… acquaintances, and sometimes a source of intel…" she said in a low voice. "Next time you see him, don't compromise his ride…"

Sarah wilted, but nodded slowly as she absorbed that.

Maria began to fidget as her claws on one side were polished and spiffed, and continued as she raised her other talon to let the same happen to it. "So mommy can grow flowers?" she asked, causing the farrier and his underlings to collectively choke. Their bewildered eyes turned to their superior for immediate explanation.

Anna sighed. "Adopted, hellhole, pretty much the only survivor that's not actually undead," she said flatly. The underlings slowly nodded and hesitantly resumed their task, while the farrier shuddered and kept the trimming with dreadful wonder clearly sparking in his eyes. "If you want I can tell you guys later, but now isn't the time," she added, garnering nods of understanding as the shining of claws and reshaping of hooves continued.

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Twilight, Shining, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Blueblood stood in Lance's office later that afternoon, the setting sun shining its rays through the glass of the massive window behind the desk. Now free of the papers that needed to be dealt with, the place was spic and span, with Lance facing the window with his primaries turned to the group.

"So… you've pretty much seen one mangled alicorn in my retinue," he began, keeping his voice neutral, "and two of you are saying you've spoken to another one and found her to be in that same boat. Discounting Pestilence, on the grounds he might not have been exactly alive to begin with, you must be wondering…"

Lance turned to the group, stalked around the desk, and moved to look Twilight in her eyes as he capped off with a simple, quiet, "Why hide this from us?" Twilight found the gumption to nod, as did the others in her group. Lance nodded in turn and turned away to sigh, eyes closing as a frown creased his muzzle.

"Well… since the cat's already out of the bag at this rate, I'm just going to answer the why first: truth be told, nopony on Fantasia wants to be associated with alicorns. Not in their family trees, not through adoption, not even through acquaintance, for if you even have the slightest hint of knowing or being related to one, you're as guilty as they are. Godcat forbid if you are an alicorn yourself, because at that rate you're just asking for a mana-charged nuke to glass your ass to kingdom come."

"Guilt by association? That's… that's fishy. How long has it been that way on Fantasia?" Shining asked, frowning as he recalled the brief gist of things that Pinkie and Fluttershy had given him on his way to the office.

"Far as I can tell, since at least the day Akron was sealed, if not for possibly longer," Lance answered, keeping his head turned away. "I can give you the brief on Akron in a bit; right now, I'm just getting your most likely questions out of the way first." At the nods of understanding, he sighed, and turned back to face Twilight again. "You've personally seen Pestilence, and his first impressions left… much to be desired."

"Discord also said something about the twins being related to him somehow," Fluttershy cut in, keeping her nerves steeled as Lance turned to her. "He didn't say much else beyond alicorns bringing forth more alicorns… I was wondering if you knew how true that could be?"

Lance closed his eyes, and grudgingly nodded. "Too true for even my liking," he said, spreading a wing before curling his primaries just in front of where his bangs covered up his entire forehead. He parted the hair slowly, angling his feathers in a way that the group could see it without obstruction. Eyes went wide as the hair was moved aside, revealing nasty runes etched around a clear and jagged stump only a centimeter tall. He let them gaze upon the travesty, and slowly pulled his bangs back into place before closing his wing and opening his eyes again.

"And in case you're wondering how that came to be… that would be from my attempted conquest of Fantasia, when it was halted and I got some sense beaten into me. My original plan was… and this is going to sound obscenely stupid… spread the alicorn race through selective, eugenic breeding programs. Eventually, an empire would have risen, founded and run by alicorns, and… well, I'll just leave the rest unsaid." He let that sink in, then turned away and marched to his desk with his ears twitching. "Are any of you familiar with a geas?"

Silence held as the question and confession ran parallel through everypony's minds. Eventually, Twilight found her voice, and it was as quiet and frail as a cornered, wounded deer, "Y-yes… an illegal spell made and used to compel ponies into whatever the caster d-desires?"

Lance snapped a wing out and curled all but one primary. "And?"

"And it c-can be used in conjunction w-with other spells to ensure o-obidience?" Twilight added, her mouth drying out as she spoke.

Lance closed his wing and gravely nodded. "Exactly. That, along with the Greenwood Blight, was what the twins were afflicted with on top of glamors to hide the runes of their geas. And those small wings and horn we found off that dummy that was moving? Still powering it to ensure it remained in effect. Their instruments were just added security for the whole thing." He didn't see the need to make eye contact once more; not yet, anyway. "I, too, had a geas put on me before my attempted conquest. It doesn't justify what I did… but I was compelled to act with that geas until I was subdued."

"Who geased you?" Pinkie asked, frowning as she asked the question that made her feel as though tar ran through her mouth, worry clear in her eyes and voice. "What did they want with Fantasia?"

Lance turned to Pinkie, his face etched with as much bitterness as there was regret. "They wanted a puppet king to manipulate and do with as they pleased," he answered morosely. "And the thing they don't tell you about breeding alicorns? Things can go wrong in so many ways: broken wings, crippled horns, useless legs and infantile minds that can never function in a society. So many things can go wrong with a geas too: broken, becoming unsustainable, circumvented… in my case, it was the first one, though it took some work before Matt and Natalie understood the geas and they could break it."

"Who's 'they?'" Blueblood questioned, even as his stomach dug several pits to stew in. He had a feeling he would regret asking, and Lance unfortunately failed to disappoint.

"... I absolutely refuse to acknowledge them as such in any other way than the fact they're the reason I'm on Fantasia to begin with… but you can thank both my parents for not only the failed conquest, but the fact that Fantasia is much more fucked up because of it," Lance answered, wings ruffling. "My 'father' was the one who geased me to begin with, because he couldn't be half-assed to do the damn job of conquering Fantasia himself. My 'mother' has equal blame, for enabling that shitsack and convincing me that I would be better off dead than related to her."

Fluttershy trotted over, and without hesitating, wrapped her forelegs around Lance's neck in a big hug. At first, he debated in his head whether to return it, but then wrapped his forelegs around her in turn, being careful not to squeeze. "I'm sorry you had to go through that…" Fluttershy muttered.

"Don't be; the fault lies with them," he said, keeping the hug as he maintained eye contact with the rest of the group. "The reason I am telling you this… is that word will have already gotten to them that my geas is broken. It's only a matter of time before my father either makes another wannabe puppet king, or he'll do something more drastic."

"But why tell us now, when you could have told us sooner?" Twilight asked, stepping forward to confront Lance. She didn't wrench Fluttershy off of him, but some part of her was taking what he was saying with a grain of salt, while another began madly babbling all over again.

"Because… I truly, truly did not want you involved in the matter. It's between me and those shitsacks, and whatever they can dredge up to fight me and my military. It should not have to involve you, because you could get killed." Lance's words hung heavy in the air, and Twilight kept eye contact the whole time as it sank in. She hated, absolutely hated, that Lance was right—Pestilence was proof enough of that, and that wasn't getting into whatever machinations the Tormentor entity had been planning.

Shining stomped a hoof, causing the three to turn to him. "We'll help anyway," he said with finality. "If your sire is planning to make moves, we have to act—not just in Fantasia's best interest, but Mythos's as well. The only option is to stop him before any new plans of his get off the ground." He stepped forward, and so did Blueblood and Pinkie. "Tell us… what is that going to entail?"

Lance broke from the hug, stood up, and cantered around to sit at his desk with his hooves moving to fumble at some drawers. "This will take a moment…" he grumbled, pulling drawers apart and digging through them before closing them and opening more. "Aha!" He pulled out a large, rolled up sheet from the third one, brimming with multicolored crystals in its thick and yellowed parchment. He plopped it on the table and rolled it out, revealing a map studded with crystals across five continents, the largest in the center and the smaller four of varying sizes marking the intercardinal directions on the map. Runes decorated the map, as old and worn as the rest of it, but even then they still glowed with a faint power that coursed through the etching.

Small islands studded the cardinal directions in clusters, one cluster big enough in the south to technically count as its own continent if one didn't squint at it. He spread a wing and rested a primary on one crystal overlaid on a mountain on the center of the largest continent, and it glowed with his magic and projected an image of Irongrey Aerie as he withdrew his wing.

"Projection crystals?" Twilight asked, lifting a hoof to phase it through the still, unmoving image of the Aerie. Lance nodded and waited for her to retract her hoof before using his wing to light up a crystal on the southeastern continent, conjuring another image of a smaller, equally still mountain that had a suspect red glow in its craterous top.

"The finest we could find yet. Even better, this map changes with the geological changes and as new cities pop up, and you could even get to see the insides of any one place of your choosing. This is the best ancient feline scrying technology could ask for in an enchanted map," Lance said, using a hoof to gesture to the smaller volcano-like mountain.

"Hrm… most interesting…" Blueblood muttered, turning to the southeastern continent. "And that?"

"That is where Akron was sealed, Ashen Volcano Peak." He spread his wing again, and moved to the southwestern continent to light it up, revealing a third mountain that was actually another volcano surrounded by a scarlet forest, attached to a lake at the foot that had pipework extending into it. Various pipes leaked out of the volcano, expelling exhaust of some sort from within. Every few seconds, a burst of bright energy shot out of the volcano, yet no lava or ash followed the blasts.

"And here is Redpine Rock, where I was born and raised. Don't be fooled by its exterior; inside lay horrors the likes to which I have largely been desensitized." He lifted a hoof and planted it on the crystal, muttered something, and the image over Redpine Rock shifted to show off an extensive interior that took almost all of the map.

It was layered in floors, circular in shape and interconnected by stairs, all centered around an ominously large chunk of magitek resting over lava that was built into the rock, with pipes running rampant and wires haphazardly strewn across every floor. Some pipes even went through all of the floors from the bottom up, sticking up high into the craterous top of the volcano to expel their exhaust. The magitek at the bottom was whirring constantly and disposing of countless bones bloodied and old.

"It has five floors, as you can see here. Nowhere near as fancy-schmancy as Irongrey, but I'll give them points for trying," Lance went on, gesturing to the first floor that housed innumerable weapons and the like, attended to by moving images of scores of red-eyed pegasi intermingled with some red-eyed alicorns. "Top floor's the launch-off department, where soldiers will pick up their gear on the wing and sail to challenge whatever dares threaten their home. And yes, the eye color is hereditary in case you were wondering about that."

Lance gestured to the second floor, feeling the eyes of his guests glued to the display. Here, there seemed to be a simple series of mess halls, divided amongst pegasi and alicorns equally, though filled to packing with a lot of ponies. Moving images of ponies eating filled this floor, and some forming cues to get their trays. On one side were some crude-looking sick bays attended to mostly by alicorns. "Mess hall, med bays and restrooms. Nothing particularly note-worthy here."

The third floor housed a sight that made Blueblood want to retch. Cells lined every aspect of the floor, most with crude beds and chains, each one housing a mare and some foals. Many mares had scars on their backs and foreheads, indicative of where horns and wings once were; many of the fillies sported these same scars as well. Some stallions were… using the mares in front of the children, with no clear regard for innocence and foalhood safety.

"Breeding pens, where the only souls to go through are the ones with a nutsack attached. Ponies literally come out by the thousands here, and once, I was among that crowd… taking part in the insanity. The desireables are mentored, geased, all that fun shit, raised to believe that… this is the way things should be. The mediocres are turned into cannon fodder for those deemed important." Lance scowled at this, and lowered his hoof to the next floor.

Inside, weak and sickly foals and mares were cut up into chunks by pegasi, then fed to conveyor belts leading to chutes that descended all the way down to the machine at the bottom. Others were watching with rapt attention and glazed eyes, some with geases scrawled onto their foreheads clear as day. Wiring ran rampant, and tubes criss-crossed across the ceiling of this floor to expel their exhaust elsewhere. "Here is where the dreams of those deemed useless go to die. Nothing goes to waste; the one good thing I can say is in all my time there, nopony partook in cannibalism."

Finally, Lance's hoof went to the last floor, detailing a sight that would have been refreshing if not for the rest of the things it was attached to. A large, expansive greenhouse covered the floor, with fluorescent lights and sprinkler systems used to water all sorts of crops. Pegasi tended to this mass of vegetation with as much diligence as they did their weapons and sick soldiers, with alicorns overseeing the shooting match. "Simplistic farm, stocked with all sorts of crops, done to ensure none go hungry. The plants are treated better than the mares and children."

Lance's hoof dropped down to the machine at the base of the volcano's interior, itself surrounded by another ring. Twilight took a closer look and saw that it was connected to the upper floors by way of a myriad of pipes as well as its chutes, and paled as the machine released discharges that shook Redpine Rock to its core. "This is the magnum opus of the Redpine alicorns: the Illicit Instrumentation, used to power the rest of the base. It's crude, requires constant fresh supplies of fuel to convert thaumatically, and prone to breaking down sooner or later; the bones of the dead are refuse, cast into the lava below. If we are to strike the enemy, we'll have to disable that somehow and get the hell out of there when we do, because I'm pretty sure it's going to explode violently if we can pull it off."

Twilight grimly nodded, feeling a slight trickle of sweat beading her brow and another racing down her neck. How were they going to disable that thing and get everyone out in time? Something of this scale would surely result in casualties—not to mention the sheer numbers of alicorns intermingled with pegasi. She looked to the top floor again, and noticed that at least half of the weaponry were magitek-based. Which meant magical charges, either the old-fashioned way or the way Lance had been doing it with his wings.

On the other hoof, Redpine Rock was basically one cardinal sin stacked atop another. This… this could not continue. She wouldn't be okay with herself if she let this transpire any longer; surely, there was some way she could offset the travesty... She grudgingly looked to the cells where the mares and foals were kept. "Are any of them…"

Lance grimly shook his head. "No. They're thoroughly broken; it makes geasing the whole lot of them far easier. No mare there is cutie marked; if she were, she'd be fed to the Illicit Instrumentation. No foal is cutie marked either; the same fate befalls them if they were," he answered somberly. "In fact, cutie marks are as disallowed there as they were in Greenwood."

"And if you went there alone…" Twilight didn't want to connect the dots in her head as she trailed off, but her mind did so anyway. Lance gravely nodded. It was then that Twilight noticed an alicorn mare next to the Illicit Instrumentation along with a stallion; oddly, her wings and horn were unmolested, and she sported a gryphon's beak and talons. "And her?"

"The failures that dare to call themselves my parents. They operate the Illicit Instrumentation, and are as tightly-knit as Matt and Natalie are." Lance scowled at the figures, dark thoughts brewing in his eyes as he watched them move about on the projection. The stallion fumbled with levers and buttons, and the mare seemed more interested in the refuse than anything else.

Twilight's mind raced as she recalled Heather, and then her thoughts immediately came to a screeching halt as they reprocessed what she had said on the airship… then her mind went into overdrive and she blurted out, "I… I think we need to consult the young mother from Greenwood," she said, causing Lance to look at her with his brow raised. Twilight wildly gesticulated to the interior showing of Redpine Rock and continued before she could stop herself, "She said she escaped… well, this!"

Lance's brow furrowed at that little tidbit of information. "So that's where her baby came from…" he muttered under his breath. "Alright, one moment…" He reached for his desk and pulled drawers apart, and eventually managed to extricate a radio from one of them. He fumbled with the knobs and the like, and waited until Alexander's voice filtered through its static before answering.

"Sir, if this is another attempt to get Goldenbrick to let you—"

Lance cut the query with, "Are you with the absurdly young mother?"

Silence held for some seconds, before Alexander ventured with, "... yes?"

"Bring her here to my office. I want her aunt to accompany her," Lance said. He continued before Alexander could begin protesting, "Because I've just found out where she escaped from, and frankly I'd love to hear how she was able to pull that off."

"... where did she…"

"Redpine Rock," Lance answered, cutting Alexander off again.

More seconds of silence passed. Then Alexander grumbled, "Sonuvabit—" He was cut off once more by the sound of a baby crying, and sighed. "I'll bring them here once the little one is calmed down. He's probably not going to like what he sees, sir."

"Fair enough. Oh, and prepare the aunt for what she'll be seeing of Redpine as well. I don't want to take a rolling pin to my skull."

"Copy that," Alexander grumbled before the radio feed returned to static once again.

Lance sighed and set the radio down back where he got it, then turned to his five guests. "Do any of you see anything we could use to our advantage?" he asked, gesticulating to the abomination against sanity, nature, and decency.

Blueblood shook his head at the sheer enormity of what was being asked of him. He steeled himself, and his protesting stomach, and dared take a careful comb-through of the sins and travesties Redpine had to offer. A part of him was amazed that felines once made maps like these, but another felt small at the sheer scale of the volcano's floors and… sordid affairs. He saw vent-like holes leading to the outside, but found all of them to have been welded shut with steel upon closer inspection. Besides the very obvious paths via the stairs, and launch pad, he saw nothing worthwhile unless he wanted to be flayed alive by whatever tender mercies the alicorns of Redpine could cook up. The large congregation of pegasi didn't help matters either; they were hornless, sure, but they'd be just as deadly as their horned brethren.

Shining seemed to be studying the weaponry, noticing a lot more blasters than simple spears and the like. It seemed as if the enemy were prepared for anything to come their way; he wondered how many they had in their numbers compared to the Aerie. War was many things, and even the numbers would have been helpful right around now. This would probably take some time to plan; time they could not waste. Maybe Flash Sentry could help him with that one, but Lance hadn't summoned him; honestly, he could see why with the distressing sight before him.

Pinkie and Fluttershy couldn't stand the sight at all; both had at this point buried their heads in each other's shoulders, whispering in concern amongst themselves. Lance couldn't blame them; this was a bit much just to take in. Neither were of military backgrounds either, so asking them for help was like asking a candy maker to rule a nation. Twilight seemed transfixed on the Illicit Instrumentation, seeming to take in every one of its grotesque features in a bid to find chinks in its armor. Even she fell short; the thing was as solidly built as the rest of the base, with nary a weak point to be seen.

Lance was about to ask again at the lack of forthcoming answers when he noticed something else and snapped his gaze to the door as shadows pooled under the frame, then formed a sphere big enough for two ponies to stand in comfortably. "Runeblade, next time, knock first."

The others turned to the shadowy sphere as Natalie trotted out of it in her war uniform, letting the shadows meld back into Matt as he stood to attention in his wargear. Natalie had her wings out, and they were ruffling as she beheld the interior of Redpine Rock. "Plotting against them again? At least let us in on it," Natalie complained, trotting towards the projection with Matt behind her.

Matt studied the projection, eyes glowing and pooling purple shadows as he did. "So I see they're up to their usual antics…" he muttered, teeth gleaming in the fading sunlight.

"Have you been in a stalemate with Redpine?" Shining asked. Matt shook his head.

"Neither's made a move on the other… but I think that might change soon," he muttered, frowning contemplatively. "I give it… a week at best."

Pinkie's ears fell flat against her head, and she felt her stomach dropping as her elbows popped. She looked at the projection, and saw hundreds of pegasi and alicorns departing the launch pad with weapons in hoof. The projection then shifted back to the outside of Redpine Rock, where the flock flew out and turned to start heading northeast. "I… I think he might be right…" she muttered, eyes widening and pupils dilating. "I feel a doozy coming… and it doesn't feel good…"