Spies and Shields

Far away from Canterlot, about a day’s train ride away, an old griffon fort collapsed into a lake of magma. Cables snapped and the foundations groaned as enormous geothermal power generators plunged into the white-hot molten rock, incinerating them and melting them down to unrecognisable slag. As the tallest towers in the fortress plunged into it, the magma swallowed the magical artifacts kept within, immolating them in an explosion of magic that produced an enormous mushroom cloud. The earth itself trembled under the sudden release of energy, sending vast shockwaves up into the Griffon Kingdoms.

Seafire jerked awake.

She saw nothing but pure sterile white at first, similar to a clinic, though the most striking thing she noticed was the cold. Her whole body was iced-over in this little metal coccoon, her light blue fur frozen in place, her powerful pony legs and larger-than-average wings completely non-responsive.

“Where am I?” she tried to say, but her mouth was iced shut, too. The pod - for she must be in a pod - seemed to be frozen solid on the inside, some kind of cryogenic prison that had kept her locked away for...goodness knows how long.

Why am I suddenly able to see and think now, though? Seafire thought to herself.

As time went on, her brain regained functionality little by little, ordering her heart to start pumping blood at its normal rate. Soon, Seafire felt her hooves twitch against the ice, no longer frozen to her sides as they had been. She squirmed and struggled, feeling the layer of ice over her body crack and shatter as blood pumped through her major arteries faster. Her core body temperature skyrocketed, limbs finally responding perfectly to her brain.

Last of all, her hearing returned, her big frozen fluffy ears twitching as she listened to what sounded like quite the commotion from outside.

“What do you mean, the power went out?” shrieked someone from beyond the pod. “Get the backup generators online immediately! We need to keep the specimen contained at all costs, or Silver’s gonna have our asses!”

Seafire frowned.

Really? Specimen? That’s just rude… she huffed, her breath crystallising in front of her face. Still, if there were living things out there, they might be able to tell her what was going on...and more importantly, where her sister was.

Seafire strained against what little ice still pinned her to the back of the pod, letting out a strangled cry as she felt some of her feathers come free from her wing. No matter, those would grow back.

With one last yell, she pulled herself free from the ice, slamming into the front of the pod with a loud bang. The noises from outside ceased, the panicked pitter-patter of feet and paws replaced by tortured silence.

“You...you don’t think…?” came a second voice from outside.

“Get those generators up and running now.” said the first, quietly and shakily. “And...get security down here, stat. We might not have time to get it frozen again!”

Seafire rolled her eyes. The last time she checked, she was a ‘she,’ not an ‘it.’ Still, whatever she was going to run into out there, it sounded as if it was better avoided, at least until she could get her equipment and her bearings back. She leaned back against the back of the pod, planting her hind legs against the front door. With a laboured snarl, she began to push.

“SECURITY, NOW!” the first voice shrieked as Seafire put her significant weight and strength behind the push. Her muscles, still sluggish from her time under the ice, were no less potent when it came to tasks of brute strength. Under her enhanced strength, the metal hinges and locking mechanism of the pod door buckled and bent, rendered brittle by their own time under the ice.

I can do this...I can get out of here… Seafire thought to herself, panting and groaning as she put increased pressure on the pod door. The door itself bent and buckled under the force of her legs, groaning under the incredible stress. It had clearly never been designed for something like this.

With a final sickening crack, Seafire launched the door straight off of its hinges, sending it slamming into the far side of the room. As she struggled to free herself from the pod, she chanced a look around.

The room was totally deserted, with a wall lined with pods exactly like hers, each apparently running off of a dying emergency battery. The room itself seemed to be dedicated to keeping potentially dangerous creatures in stasis, and judging by Seafire’s pod’s position of prominence in the row, she was considered very dangerous indeed.

The big blue pegasus stretched dramatically, feeling the coating of frost all over her body crack and fall away, little by little. Her limbs felt unresponsive, moving far more slowly than she would have liked, but Seafire put it down to her body recovering from the ice. Obviously she’d be slower and more sluggish than normal, at least until she warmed up a little more.

As she paced past the pods, she spotted several others that were similarly open. Aside from her own, there was a pod labelled ‘Zero’ with no one inside, though it seemed to have been built for something significantly bigger than her. Beside it sat yet another pod labelled ‘Marauder.’ The screen with his readout indicated no life signs, even as the temperature dropped inside of his pod. He clearly hadn’t been able to take the rigours of being frozen. There were few who could.

“PUT YOUR HOOVES IN THE AIR AND GET BACK IN THE POD!” came a bird-like shriek, distracting Seafire from her investigations. She perked her ears, looking up at the far end of the room.

Several griffon warriors, armed with what looked like strange glowing muskets, blocked the doorway out of the containment cell, weapons trained on the light blue pegasus. Seafire blew a strand of her blonde mane out of her face, settling into a ready position. Slow though she was, there likely wasn’t a better way out of this.

“I just want some information,” she said, as softly as she could. Her eyes darted from the griffons to the emergency light overhead, the buzzing fluorescent bulb offering what little light it could to a room on lockdown. “Who were you keeping in here? What year is it?”

“You’d better get back in your pod right this second! Don’t make us kill you!” the griffon insisted. Capacitors whined in his rifle as he trained it right between Seafire’s eyes. “You’re valuable, and I’m sure you don’t wanna die any more than anyone else!”

“You’re right,” Seafire said, taking a step back. Her hind leg hit something with a dull clang, the pod door that she had ripped off of its hinges earlier. Well, it was better than nothing.

“IN THE POD, NOW!” another griffon shrieked.

“All right, all right!” Seafire replied diplomatically, putting her hooves up for their benefit. Her tail wrapped around the twisted metal of the door. “You’re right, okay? I don’t want to die. All I want is information.”

“Get back in the pod,” the griffon repeated, apparently calming down a little as Seafire backed towards it again.

Suddenly, Seafire flicked the pod door up into her forelegs, drawing back and hurling it like a discus up at the light. While it was by no means well-balanced and accurate, it was enough to knock out the light and plunge the room into total darkness. Without the backup generators elsewhere in the facility turning the main lights back on, the griffons would be hard-pressed to see anything.

Seafire, meanwhile, could see everything. Even with her good eyesight, those security griffons had bright glowing weapons.

“Where’d she go?” one of them whispered, peering into the darkness with his rifle raised.

“Get down into that room, kid,” the commander ordered. “Flush her out. She’s probably not too much of a threat this early after cryo.”

“We need backup, sir!” the soldier argued.

“That’s an order, trooper! Get in there and pop her head! You’re twice her size!”

“Y...yes sir…” the soldier gulped, stepping into the room with two of his comrades. The griffons fanned out into the darkened room, keeping their weapons raised in case they had to pop off a shot at a moment’s notice.

The room was deathly silent, the only noise the dull hum of generators as they struggled to keep the cryo pods running, not to mention the heavy, terrified breaths of the griffon soldiers.

Crack!

“What’s going on in there?” the officer growled, as one griffon slumped over soundlessly. “Get up, soldier! There’s still a pegasus hiding in here somewhere!”

“He’s knocked out, sir!” one of the troopers announced, inspecting the downed griffon. “Looks like head trauma!”

“Damn it, find her and shoot her! We don’t have time for this!” the officer barked, lighting up a cigar and puffing on it.

There came another crack, and the griffon who had spoken fell atop her comrade, neither getting a shot off nor calling for help. Whatever had done that had struck out of the shadows, with inequine speed.

“Sir, we’re not getting anywhere by searching around in the dark!” the last soldier announced, his voice shaking. “I recommend that we call for backup! Hell, why the hell did we get sent down after a super-soldier on our own, anyway?”

“No excuses, soldier!” the officer growled. “Get that pegasus, dead or alive! I’m not going to abide this cowardi…”

The officer was interrupted as the remaining griffon soldier was struck by something, staggering sideways before slumping next to his comrades. The officer glared, drawing a pistol out of his bandolier and advancing into the room himself. There was no way that she was this much of a threat, no matter what the reports had said…

As he advanced deeper into the room, he could wear that he heard the pitter-patter of hooves nearby. Whirling round, he trained his glowing blue pistol on the source of the noise.

“It’s over, Equestrian,” he spat. “The only way you’re getting out of here is in a body bag, got me?”

He was met with silence. For a critical moment, the officer glanced sideways to make sure that she hadn’t simply run out the door while he was in here.

In that critical moment, Seafire leapt at him, taking his gun hand in her hooves and twisting it with all of her might. The officer’s wrist cracked and he dropped the weapon with a pained howl. The pony kicked his hind legs out from underneath him, taking him to the floor with a dull, heavy thud.

“Now,” Seafire snarled, placing a hoof on the griffon’s head, “you’re going to give me answers, pal. Where am I?”

The officer clutched at his broken wrist, whimpering. “You’re...you’re in a Thun...Thunderous Industries facility...in the Gri...Griffon Kingdoms…”

“Why?” Seafire asked. “Why was I brought here? What did Silver and Thunder want me frozen for?”

“You...you didn’t have a use? I...I don’t know. You’d...have to ask them…” the officer whispered. “And...I heard that...Thunder died a few days ago...and Silver’s disappeared…”

Seafire sighed with relief. At least she hadn’t been under for too long if those two were still kicking about.

“What about Daybreak?” she asked, her voice carrying just the tiniest hint of a growl.

The officer hesitated. “D...Daybreak…?”

“Daybreak,” Seafire repeated. “My sister. She’s not here, is she?”

“I...I don’t know any Daybreak…” the officer whimpered. “She’s not...she’s not in this facility...there aren’t any ponies here…”

“Why the hell aren’t there ponies in a Thunderous Industries fortress?” Seafire asked, frowning.

“We’re...we’re a specialist...facility...okay? Top...top secret…” The griffon reached for his pistol with his good talons, struggling against Seafire’s grip.

“Got it,” Seafire said. “Do you have my equipment on-site?”

“Y...yeah...but you’ll never get it…” the officer snarled. “You’re not getting outta here alive!”

Seafire spotted his talons closing around the gun, and reacted as best she could. Grabbing him by the back of the neck, she swung him away from her, straight into Zero’s vacated pot. The officer slammed into the back of the capsule with enough force to knock him out, his pistol dropping to the floor.

Seafire took the weapon from him, slamming the pod door shut before he could come to.

“That ought to keep you from raising the alarm..” she muttered, darting out of the door into the hallway beyond.

The architecture was standard-fare for a facility such as this. White, sterile walls, fluorescent lighting, an overall clinical atmosphere. Griffon scientists and security officers charged down the corridors, trying to restore order until the generators could be brought online to restore full power to the fortress. In the chaos, Seafire found it easy to slip into the stairwell out of sight.

She consulted the floor guide on the wall. While it was written in Griffish, she found it fairly easy to translate to Equestrian.

Best bet’s probably the Hazardous Materials labs… she mused, wings crackling as she strained against the ice. Getting her things back ought not to be too difficult...but then again, you never know what a bunch of mad scientists could throw at you.

* * *

The first that the scientists in Hazardous Materials knew of Seafire’s presence was when the bright blue pegasus kicked the grate out of an overhead air vent, dropping into the sensitive lab complex and training the pistol on the nearest available griffon.

“Where’s my stuff?” she barked, narrowing her bright yellow eyes dangerously.

“You know that that gun doesn’t work with hooves, right?” the scientist replied, tilting his head and looking a little embarrassed for her.

Seafire looked down at it, frowning. Sure enough, the trigger assembly was built for someone with talons or working fingers. There was no way that she would be able to operate it...at least not the traditional way.

She flipped the gun over in her hoof, holding it by the barrel instead.

“Ever heard of pistol whipping?” She asked, starting again.

The griffon scientist backed away. “Now, hang on a minute! I’m not here to get my head bashed in! You want your stuff, right?”

“Geralt, what the hell? You can’t just give her those things. They’re company property!” another scientist shrieked.

“I’m not getting paid to get the stuffing knocked out of me, mate!” Geralt yelped, pressing a series of buttons to open a heavily reinforced cylindrical safe. The sides of the safe slide up into the ceiling, leaving only a pedestal, a glass case to match the safe, and Seafire’s equipment.

Seafire hurled the pistol at the glass, shattering it and busting the casing open. She reached in, grasping the most important part of her armament, a round shield of red, white and blue made from translucent crystal. It seemed to shine in the dim light, as if it could not only turn aside conventional weapons, but light itself.

With a tug, Seafire pulled it out of the broken glass case, sending shards of glass everywhere. She slung the shield over her frosty back, before taking her armour and slipping into that, too. Far and away from the kind of armour that your average guard wore, this was a thick high-altitude leather flight suit inlaid with steel plates, more than enough to keep her safe from aerial combatants and crashes. Her belt was still full of her normal effects and equipment, and she slid the pistol into the empty holster for later analysis. Finally, she pulled her helmet on, slipping the aviation goggles over her eyes and baring her teeth.

“Right, now, is anyone gonna try and stop me from getting out of here?” she asked, looking around at the assembled, terrified scientists.

The griffons pointed at the scientist who had protested earlier, who looked around at her fellows with wide-eyed terror.

“N...no...I’m not gonna stop you...door’s over there...don’t be silly!” she yelped.

Seafire smiled, patting the griffon on the shoulder as she strode out the door. There was clearly much for her to learn, and against all normal logic, a laboratory was not the place to learn it.

* * *

The big blue pegasus stayed low and quiet as she crept through the facility, wary of her slower-than-average reflexes and unusually unresponsive body. Still, as her body got warmer, she felt stronger and faster, finding it more easy to weave her way through panicked security forces towards the atrium. It was massive, featuring a set of steps leading down to a white concrete hall backed by enormous windows. It was a room designed more to impress people than for any practical purposes, but since it was the main entrance, it was also the most likely to be locked down.

As Seafire glanced out of the windows, she saw the familiar mountainous terrain of the Griffon Kingdoms, and beyond that the even more familiar Equestrian landscape. Still, the most prominent feature on display was a thick, sparking mushroom cloud rising up from a nearby mountain. It was multicoloured, swirling upwards to its zenith. Whatever had caused that detonation, it was likely that everyone in Equestria could see it.

That must’ve been what was powering my pod… Seafire thought. What the hell made enough of a bang to detonate half of a mountain?

She frowned, looking down into the atrium itself. Immediately beyond the windows lay a pair of quad anti-air cannon turrets, no doubt designed to keep pegasi like Seafire out. Fortunately, they were at the very least unmanned, so there might be a chance.

Seafire made a break for it, icy hooves slipping a little on the polished white marble floor as she galloped right for the huge window. Security forces spotted her, and bolts of bright blue energy tore into the stone around her as she ran. One bolt even rebounded off of the shield on her back, striking the window and cracking it just a little. With one final effort, Seafire leapt forward and curled into a ball, trying to take the impact with the window with her consciousness intact.

Miraculously, the weakened window shattered as she struck it, sending her tumbling out of the mountaintop facility towards the valley below. Seafire spread her wings, cantering on air as she made her heroic escape.

Or at least she would, if her wings weren’t still iced-over.

Instead, the poor bright-blue pegasus tumbled out of the sky, trying to wrestle with her own limbs as she plummeted off of a mountain.

Seafire let out a very girly shriek as she fell, frantically trying to extend her wings by hoof instead as air rushed past her. With the ground rushing up to meet her, she panicked and let go of them entirely, instead trying to gallop on air to aim herself at a nearby lake.

She plunged into the glacial water with a thundering splash, forcing her so deep that at first she couldn’t see the surface. Still, her own natural buoyancy worked in her favour, pulling her up until she breached the surface with a deep breath.

“So...so wet…” she gasped. “So...very very wet…”

She pony-paddled her way to the edge of the lake, hauling herself out of the water and shaking herself relatively dry. All in all, it hadn’t been a bad escape. She’d had far worse.

Seafire looked down the valley, leading past the mushroom cloud and back to Equestria itself. Questions came racing back. Why did Thunderous Industries have a facility in the Griffon Kingdoms of all places? What was that explosion all about? Why were Thunder and Silver dead or missing? What on earth had happened in the time she’d been under?

There was only one pony that Seafire trusted enough to go after for answers; her very own sister.

“I’m coming, Daybreak,” she whispered, shaking herself dry and cantering off towards the valley gap.