Snowbound

Chapters

Chapter One (Edited for 2017 reboot)
Chapter Two: That Haunted Melody
Chapter Four: Figment Shifter
Chapter Five: Just A Little Too Slow
[NON-CANON] Chapter One: Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya
Chapter Three: The People Who Carry Their Forests Around With Them

Chapter One (Edited for 2017 reboot)

2027

Chapter 1: JOHNNY I HARDLY KNEW YA

“Where are the legs with which you run,
When first you went to carry a gun
Indeed your dancing days are done
Johnny I hardly knew ya
Dropkick Murphys, Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya

January 2022
Late at night, in the arctic circle...

Fiddlesticks hated flying. If she was meant to fly, she’d be born with wings. While that was a joking statement on Earth, there was a certain kind of comedy in the fact that it was literal in Equestria.

Besides, she was an earth pony with a music cutie mark - the blue musical note on her flank, so similar to her cousin Octavia, signified that whatever her destiny was, it had nothing. To do. With flying.

Which meant that naturally, she had to be in a plane.

She sighed. ‘Of course’.

Something about being in planes always felt uncanny to her. It was small, it was cramped, it was dirty, and uncomfortable. For Fiddlesticks, flying meant trailing along in a pegasus chariot, or the luxurious confines of a skyliner - like a mansion, a boat, or the Manehatten Limited express train, all in one. So either uncomfortable, or luxurious yet enclosed.

Flying in a human airliner (or just an airplane, as they called it) managed to combine a little of both. It was a cramped, ugly, utilitarian tube that Fiddlesticks still couldn’t quite believe was able to fly.

But it did, and she was flying. Better yet, it was in first-class on the plane. In three seats, no less! It was so welcoming, especially after a particularly racist airline official had suggested keeping her in the hold in a dog crate.

Johnny C - Nny to his friends, and her, on the basis he was one of her very best friends in the world - had ended that debate by tapping his fingers against the grip of the revolver at his hip expectantly, until the official caved.

He was sitting in the row across from her as she lay motionless, trying and failing to sleep. He was a short, stubbly, stocky human with syrupy brown eyes, an odd, uneven chin, and a mop of hair that’d formed itself into a pompadour and looked to be waging a winning insurgency against miitary grooming standards.

He had a frown on his face as he continually tried and failed to fall asleep, staring at a book on his kindle app on his phone. But then, Nny always had a perpetual frown.

Next to him was Henri Bartholomeaux, a tall, lanky, blue-eyed and black-haired Quebecois scientist whose work required him to move to the absolute middle of nowhere. To Alaska. Apparently, he and Nny went way back, and he’d managed to wrangle Nny into helping him with the move.

And Fiddlesticks had come, on the basis that…

Well, she didn’t quite feel safe without Nny. Example being:

2018…
Southern New Hampshire, near Wilton...

Run.

Fiddlesticks was rushing through the woods. It was the early, bad old days of the Purple Winter, and

She'd been happy to see people attacking the Bureaus. No bucking loss there. Those places... Those bucking places...

She'd been happy to see them. Happy to see humanity cured of every injury. Happy to see people shrug off the disease that reduced grandparents to having infantile minds in wizened bodies, incurable cancers, paralysis, seizures, all of it gone with just one drink.

It was due to this happiness that Fiddlesticks had staged a benefit concert to support Conversion Bureaus. Particularly, the one in Boston.

The HLF - the men and women chasing her, driven mad by grief - had not forgiven. Hadn't forgotten her either.

She'd been running for days, through rioting communities, and come here to die in this apple grove. The rioting had been some of the worst she'd ever seen. A kindly doctor from the Bureaus, his wounds covered in lemon juice - he'd helped manage one of her concerts - had been dragged by his ankles through the streets, chained to a truck. He’d just seemed to have fallen apart then and there.

"Heh," Fiddlesticks wheezed, lying against a tree. A dirt road was nearby. "Almost like dying back home." She looked up at one of the apple trees, and coughed through overtaxed lungs. Almost reminded her of the Apple Family Reunion, before the Apple Family had broken in half, with a third of it leaving for Earth or for resistance movements, a third becoming spies or just trying to keep their heads down, and the remaining third growing more pro-Empire by the day.

"I like 'em better when they scream," said one man with a long, thin, double-barreled gun. "Let's get it over with."

There were two women standing behind him, weaponry raised.

"Stow that shit," one woman said, pulling out a vicious-looking knife. "It's too easy for-"

The world lit up.

"Cold blood," Fiddlesticks wheezed. "You're gonna kill me like that in plain view of that guy?"

"Damn right we will," the other woman said. "Killing scum like you should be a public service. And..." She pulled a rope from her pack. "I don't know. I'm not feeling the-"

BANG

She fell over; screaming, clutching her stomach.

As did the other two.

"Fiddlesticks," said a short, stocky-ish human with an untidy mop of brown-black-bronze hair, the sides shaven, a two-day reddish, black, and white beard on his scrubby, lopsided chin. He held a large silvery revolver almost the length of his forearm in one shaky hand. "We're here."

"Nnnngh?" Fiddlesticks groaned, raising her head, trying to brush her mane out of her face, trying to ignore the blood below her hooves.

Dead. They're dead. Dead again.

I created this. I was the siren that lured their loved ones to being the goddam zombies.

"Come on," said the human. "Don't know who you are. Or if you're PER. But far as I can tell, anybody who’s about to be lynched doesn’t deserve it."

"Not bucking anymore," Fiddlesticks sighed. "I don't know these people! I thought that the Potion was medicine, but it's goddamn poison! I..." Fiddlesticks sobbed. "Why'd we have to do this?! I just wanted to help!"

"I'm sorry," the human said, placing his monster pistol on his back. "But… For real. You're not PER, are you?"

"I used to do benefit concerts," Fiddlesticks said. "Not anymore. Buck that, never again. I… I know what it does to people."

“Huh,” the human said, looking down. “I think I may have just killed three people.” His voice trembled as he looked down at them. He whipped out a phone. “I’ll get you to the farmhouse,” he said, picking her up and setting her into his car. “Just rest a bit, yeah? It’ll get better tomorrow.”

It didn’t.

“So,” he said, “We’re here.”

Fairbanks, Alaska
January 2022
Near Fort Wainwright

“When’re we gonna get off the ground, huh?” Fiddlesticks mumbled.

“We did,” Johnny C said.

“Huh?” Fiddlesticks asked sleepily, dragging herself up off the seat.

“We’re here,” Johnny C said, gesturing at the window. “Alaska.”

Fiddlesticks groaned. “Already? Why do human flights have to last so long, Nny?”

“Cause Henry got a job over at a military base,” Johnny C explained, as the three of them filtered out of the plane, towards the tarmac. “Dammit that’s cold.”

“You forgot to wear a jacket again, didn’t you?” Fiddlesticks asked, looking down at his bare sleeves and large triceps… then at the tarmac and snowdrifts all round.

“Yeah....” Johnny C sighed. “You slept through a flight on one of those planes with propellers. That’s pretty impressive. I haven’t done that since I was 12.”

As a rule, he liked winter. Though the feeling was slipping a little with the rationing he’d had to do, and the PER having potioned various foods. One guy’s artificial hip exploding out of his leg had been more than enough.

“Seriously?” asked Henri Bartholomeaux, the thin, wiry Quebecois man they’d come up here to help. “How do you forget to wear a jacket in the middle of winter?!”

He wore a suit that wouldn’t have been out of place at the Hyperion Corporation in combination with a bowler hat, and a large, thick briefcase that looked heavy enough to bludgeon a man to death was handcuffed to one wrist. He had a thick, almost impenetrable tome on the history of steam locomotives tucked under his arm. He’d been offered a high-paying job with some PHL R&D department up in Alaska, and thanks to Johnny C and Fiddlesticks owing him a favor, they’d been contracted to help him move his various possessions into housing on a military base.

“It’s easy,” Johnny C said. “You just don’t think about it?”

It was hard for Henri or Fiddlesticks to tell if he was being sarcastic.

“It is a pain in the ass to wear a winter jacket in an airport!” Johnny C protested. “Come on. Fiddlesticks. Isn’t wearing clothes a pain in the ass?”

“It is kind of a pain in the flank,” Fiddlesticks admitted. “Then again, you do kind of play dress-up for fun, so I’m not sure where this is coming from.”

“Not even gonna ask,” Henri sighed.

“That’s totally different,” Johnny C said, as they headed for the baggage claim. “I mean…”

Fiddlesticks yawned a little, hoping that her fiddle - her precious, precious fiddle - was alright. First, it had been made from Everfree Forest wood, and getting any of that on Earth was nigh-impossible. It’d been durable, some of her late Cousin Tavi’s money had paid for the necessary enchantments, but planes looked so fragile, and… and…

Fiddlesticks breathed upward a little. It didn’t accomplish anything to be worried.

The Fairbanks airport was quiet. Well, quiet-ish. It was underused by the standards of pre-War, and Fiddlesticks remembered that there’d been more people inside when she’d flown into Portland’s airport. Fuel had been at a premium, ever since the Middle East had been swallowed up, but the only other option had been to drive up through the Northwest Territories, which were full of survivalists, hidden PER, and allegedly the Thenardier Guards. So…. no.

Fiddlesticks had seen some of the things the Thenardiers had done. If she and Nny had driven through their territory with Henri, they might just disappear. Again, no.

“They’re not staring,” she observed.

“They wouldn’t, no,” Henri said. “There’s a military base nearby. They’ve seen far weirder things than a yellow little horse with a fine hat.”

“Are there minotaurs?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Nope,” Henri said, downcast.

“Shame,” Fiddlesticks sighed, downcast, hat adhering to one hoof as she held it to the front of her barrel.

Johnny C did the same with his own hat.

Nny

The air force base was… well, Johnny C wasn’t sure what to think of it. There was biting cold all around, as per usual.

Snow swirled all round, blanketing houses in a thick white coat. Rime ice crusted the windows of the houses, as their mover’s truck, converted to electro and biowaste to save fuel for the military, chattered down the main drag.

The wind howled. As did a very lonely wolf.

“You picked a hell of a time, didn’t you?” Johnny C asked, trying to keep his teeth from reflexively chattering at the cold. Fiddlesticks shivered.

“Hey, don’t you have fur?” Henri asked, confused.

“Ah ain’t a yak,” Fiddlesticks said. “The fur’s for th’ kind of winters we get back in New Hampshire, not th’ polar circle. Or Sibearia.”

“You know,” Henri said, “I’ve been wondering. Why do so many of Equestria’s locations sound so much like puns on human lo-”

“Stronger minds’ve tried n’ failed t’ figure that out, Henri,” Fiddlesticks said. “Just… don’t think about it. It’ll only give ya a headache.”

“Ooh, right there with her. I’ve seen time paradoxes that were more linear,” Johnny C added.

They parked the truck next to an office, and clambered out into the snows, walking into one building.

“Nny,” Henri said, “Welcome to my new workspace. Until-”

“Let’s not go there,” Fiddlesticks interrupted.

Henri shivered. “Yeah. That’s… yeah.”

The lobby they were standing in looked like it hadn’t been redecorated since the seventies. This didn’t matter - it served its function.

A receptionist sat behind one desk.

“Mr. Bartholomeaux, I presume?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Henri said.

“Who are they?” she asked.

“Couple friends of mine,” Henri said. “They’ll be helping me move in.”

“All of your work?” the receptionist let her glasses slide down her nose.

“It’s cool,” Henri said. “They’re trustworthy.”

“Good,” the receptionist said.

“It’s cool,” Fiddlesticks said. “Sometimes, ya just learn not to ask.”

“Fiddlesticks,” Henri sighed. “Look, don’t worry. It’s just... It’s just reams, and reams of paper. Nothing liable to explode.”

“Aw man,” Johnny C said, a little disappointed. “Wait. Paper? Couldn’t that-”

“Can’t hack paper,” Henri said. “It has notoriously poor wi-fi. Even worse than north of Berlin near the Umbagog.”

“My God,” Johnny C breathed in mock-horror.

A few hours later…

Henri hadn’t so much moved in as rearranged.

Boxes full of his various affects and personal items were stacked all over various rooms, and his thinking couch had replaced one of the furnishings in the lab. There looked to be a nice enough desk in one room in the house, on which he set his book on steam engines and finally uncuffed that briefcase. He’d placed some of his most valuable effects over this room: His medical equipment, a series of books, and his prized Armacham HV Penetrator rifle - a ‘Samantha Yarrow Special’, according to the little inscription.

This large, more-than-somewhat-ridiculous rifle was part of why Fiddlesticks and Johnny C owed Henri - once, on visit to Montreal, he’d saved them from a potion-bombing with the thing.

Johnny C and Fiddlesticks sat, breathing a little heavily, against one wall, Fiddlesticks lying down on his lap, head up to the ceiling.

“So, what is in that briefcase, anyway?” Johnny C asked.

“Oh, nothing important,” Henri said, a smile on his face, opening it up. A glow bathed his face. “It’s beautiful…” he breathed.

“Quit beating around the bush,” Johnny C said, standing up to look…

Only to see that the orange glow only came from a small lightbulb affixed to the inside of the case. There was nothing in it but a piece of paper with the word “Suckers!” written on it.

“What…”

“All part of the plan, Nny,” Henri said, chuckling as he waved the dry tome on steam engines in one hand. “The case was just a decoy. I’m bringing very important research up here and I figured someone might catch on. And since this has been opened up before, by now someone should’ve…”

A couple hours ago, back when Johnny C, Henri, and Fiddlesticks were in another airport…

“SWEET CELESTIA, IT’S IN MY EYES!” the PER spy disguised as a baggage handler screamed, rolling around the floor in pain and terror.

“...Fallen victim to countermeasures,” Henri finished. “This is the real treasure.” He laid the book on steam engines out on the desk, and turned to the introductory page. “Tell me. What do you see?” he asked.

“A page?” Fiddlesticks asked. “I don’t know, what am I supposed to be looking a-?”

Henri whispered something down to it, and the ink seemed to melt, running down the page, and then… then… it changed. Letters ran together into new words, diagrams formed themselves from ink, and before they knew it, they were staring at a completely different treatise.

“My research,” Henri said proudly.

“And what was that you said about hacking paper?” Johnny C asked.

“He was right about the poor wi-fi, though,” Fiddlesticks said.

“...I guess I walked into that,” Henri admitted. “Anyway - there’s a guest room I’ll likely be renting out to someone sooner or later, and it’s been a long day. You should be feeling jet lag-”

“I’m not,” Johnny C said.

“He destroyed his circadian rhythms years ago,” Fiddlesticks explained.

“You… do realize it doesn’t work like that, right?” Henri asked.

Fiddlesticks lightly punched Johnny C with on hoof. “Nny…” she sighed.

“Seriously though, when I was a kid, me and Vasquez here-” Johnny C reached into his backpack, pulling out a threadbare stuffed dog. “-did a lot of traveling. Corsica, France, Britain, Utah, South Carolina, Colorado, Chicago, Wisconsin… Rome, France, Amsterdam… my internal clock’s not really that chained down. And I learned that you gotta power through timezone changes.” He paused. “Plus, I have really terrible sleep habits.”

“He does,” Fiddlesticks confirmed. “Stays up till 2 AM all the time.”

“That must be hell on your electricity ration,” Henri said.

“Nah, it’s cool,” Johnny C said. “I bought a lamp that uses bioluminescent algae. Saves so much cash.”

“Well,” Henri said, “We’re still rationing, so… you’ll have to head off to bed early, Nny.”

Johnny C sighed. “I had a good book, too. I was gonna read about Romeo. Wolf from around Juneau.”

“Juneau’s down in the Panhandle, Nny,” Fiddlesticks yawned. “We’re up a lot further than that.”

The cafeteria on the base was an interesting sight. First, it had heavy lighting, the blue glint of various algae-lamps above casting an eerie glow down on the feasting personnel.

Of which there were a lot. Diamond Dogs, having grown out thick winter coats thanks to a few enchantments from local ponies on the base, sat on large, high tables beside humans on stools, chowing down on various meats. One such Dog bore a resemblance to a husky, complete with little white eyebrow markings. There were a few griffons, and yes, a couple ponies, even zebras.

That said, they were outnumbered by the various humans that also sat in the mess hall, all chowing down on their meals.

Johnny C wasn’t thinking about this. He hadn’t slept well - partly due to playing computer games on his PHL laptop late into the night, and partly due to the dreams.

He’d seen plenty of terrible things lately. It just seemed to get worse and worse during the winter, didn’t it? Years ago, pre-war, before he’d picked up a lot of jobs - wilderness photography, graphic design, game concept art, drawing, writing, interior design - he’d thought of winter as a blessing. A time he could out and enjoy himself, eat lots of meat and well near half his considerable weight in chocolate, laze about, spend inhospitable days indoors, or possibly play dress-up inside.

But now, well, things had changed. But hey, at least it was great now compared to how it’d be two years from now, or in, probably, November 2023! Give it time, who knows what you’ll do....

His reverie was interrupted as a woman wearing thick snow boots walked into the cafeteria. All around her, personnel were saluting - and in turn, so did Nny and Fiddlesticks. Going by her rank insignia, she was a Major.

Nny looked over the Major. She was well-muscled like she went to the gym, and young - not much older than him. She had blonde hair at a length that clearly pushed any military grooming standards, as was common among PHL.

Nny thought she looked attractive and friendly enough.

Fiddlesticks

“Dr. Bartholomeaux?” the Major said, holding out a hand. The first thought that Fiddlesticks had about her accent was that it sounded German - but not quite. “Dr. Salonen’s been quite excited about you.”

She looked to Nny and Fiddlesticks, and held out a hand. “I assume these are the two friends that you brought to help out?”

Nny nodded. “Yes…” Fiddlesticks watched his eyes tracked towards her rank insignia. “Major.”

“Major Northwoods,” the woman said. “Sabine Northwoods. I’m Colonel Hex’s liaison to important PHL laboratories and other think tanks while he’s busy in the office with Presley and Dovetail.”

“What’s he working on, ma’am?” Henri asked.

Northwoods smiled. “Classified.”

Of course, Fiddlesticks had an idea what that meant. Currently, the PHL was working on some big project - some massive amount of magically enhanced materiel that they planned to deploy in Iceland.

“Dr. Salonen’s been eager to see you. Says your pharmaceutical work is invaluable. You’ll be very welcome here. Meanwhile, I’ve volunteered myself to give you a tour around the base.”

Henri staggered back a little, his ever-present grin seeming to wobble a bit. “Well, that’s excellently personable, Major.”

“Huh?” Fiddlesticks asked. “Our friend’s getting a tour from a-”

“We needed someone like Henri on-base,” Major Northwoods said. “And don’t think anything of it. I want to make sure everyone here feels welcome and secure, as that’s in rare supply these days. I was once on a visit to an Armacham facility, and I would have contracted them if not for the atmosphere. There was… a miasma of sorts. I didn’t like it.”

“They do make a good nailgun, though,” Henri said. “Had to get Sam Yarrow to tweak the rate of fire, but the thing works a treat now.”

“He is scary good with that HV Penetrator,” Johnny C said, nodding slightly.

“Why thank you,” Henri said, executing a mock bow.

“Well, if I need someone to nail people to walls, I’ll call you. I’d rather have an assault rifle,” Major Northwoods said, a slight frown on her face. “At least you don’t have a FAMAS F1.”

“That would be pretty bad,” Henri agreed, a smile on his face.

“Besides, Crowe offered me more money,” Northwoods said. ”They’re much more transparent about their cashflow, and something tells me that if I followed the money that Armacham gets, I’d find a researcher with his arms so far into the pork barrel there’d be bacon bits in his armpit hairs.”

Johnny C and Fiddlesticks shared a look and laughed at the mental image. As did Henri.

“Can my two friends come, though?” Henri asked.

Northwoods looked to consider this. “I don’t see why not. Besides, we won’t be showing the really classified stuff on the first day.”

“...I feel vaguely disappointed,” Fiddlesticks said.

“If we did that, anyone could get in and see what we were working on,” Northwoods said.

“Like Kgalakgadi?” asked one female Diamond Dog that bore a resemblance to a Lapphund.

“...I’m not even answering that, Alawa,” Northwoods sighed. “Come on, then. When breakfast’s done, let’s get on.”

Nny

As it happened, Fort Wainwright had been given a new facility. Up by East Ammo Road, there was a large hangar that had likely been built at the beginning of the war, and a large gathering of various outbuildings, facilities, and others. According to Northwoods, their facilities extended deep underground. “Enough that,” she said, not bragging but stating a plain fact, “a bombing from an Imperial zep couldn’t hit us. There’s other defenses we’re working on.”

“Why would they have one up here?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“You have to be sure,” Northwoods explained.

Henri nodded reverently. “I can understand that.”

“The rest of the base is mostly housing and training for anyone that’s going to be sent off to the Europe front,” Northwoods explained. “This, however, Mr. Bartholomeaux, is where you’ll be working.”

“What do you do here, anyway?” Johnny C asked, looking up at the hangar. It looked like it was something you’d expect to stage spaceships, not new-generation PHL aircraft. The words “William Armstrong Memorial Facility” were inscribed over the hangar doors.

“Magic bullets,” Northwoods said.

There was a brief silence.

“So… actual magic bullets, or, well…” Johnny C asked, cocking his head. “Something like cracking-”

He stopped.

“We can only hope,” Northwoods sighed. “Still. I have faith in the PHL here. We might not be the ones that crack the Barrier, but I’m hoping we at least contribute. Though we do make actual magic ammunition here.”

They headed in through the hangar doors, and Nny marveled as it buzzed with activity. There was simply so much going on - ponies, humans, and other species milling about a fighter jet, for example. It looked conventional, almost, but for the massive circular structures in the middle of the wings. Nny assumed they were rotors of some kind or - no, that didn’t make sense. Some kind of magic levitation devices? PHL machinery that Nny couldn’t understand lined the walls, and PHL personnel of every species moved to and fro. A unicorn was standing just behind the plane’s cockpit, holding a strange tool as she looked at a large, chunky-looking iPad of some kind.

Up above, between two of the catwalks, Nny noticed a hammock between two catwalks close to the ceiling. A set of tools and sketchpads were piled on a shelf that’d been nailed to the wall somehow, topped off with a large apple. It looked like someone had made their bedroom right in the middle of the hangar.

How strange.

Just under one of the pillars supporting the catwalks and hammock, a sullen-looking woman with the left side of her head shaven sat on a crate labeled ‘Juneau Black Wolf Blend’. An assault rifle somewhere between an AN94, FN FAL, and Remington ACR hung over one shoulder.. It was called a Leshiy, if Johnny C remembered correctly.

Next to her sat a unicorn stallion with a scraggly black beard and purple eyes. He had a rivet gun for a cutie mark.

“That good coffee?” Johnny C asked, looking over at her. He noticed the name sewn on her vest. Vera Low... but the rest of it was torn around the final letter. In basic, back when he’d joined the National Guard at the start of the War, that would be a hell of an offense. “I heard it was made in memory of a lonely wolf named Romeo. Did you e-”

“Nyet,” the woman evidently named Vera Low said. “Am Russian. Not Alaskan. Amaruq, Haymes, and Joseph did, though.” She took a quick breath to push a hair out of her face. “And da - I know that story. Everyone tells it to me. Am tired of hearing it.”

“Sorry,” Johnny C said, hurrying to catch up to Northwoods, Henri, and Fiddlesticks.

“Is nice, though,” Vera admitted.

“That’s a new fighter we’re hoping to work on,” Northwoods explained, pointing up at a plane that reminded Johnny C of one of the planes from the Avengers movie a few years back. “Apparently the Thunder Child’s been a big success in the water, so we’ve been trying to integrate runes and enchantments into vehicles here.”

Two soldiers, one female, another male, were looking over the plane. One of them, a thin woman with short, fine black hair, carried an LMG, (wasn’t that overkill just for guarding a hangar?) while another one carried a simple AR with an underbarrel grenade launcher.

A unicorn mare with a brown mane, purple eyes, and a gray-tan, almost skin-colored coat that you could barely see under her heavy clothing (a red parka adapted from a human child’s, black snowpants, and a fluffy winter hat) walked by, using her telekinesis to carry a large box of crates marked with Lyra’s cutie mark.

“That’s Sandalwood,” Northwoods said. “Morning - what’s today’s cargo?”

“Materials for prosthetics,” Sandalwood said. “Electroactive polymers, superplastics, lightweight alloy foams… all magically charmed to build greater connection to the host, of course. It’s all for a new gadget that Lyra came up with.”

“Awesome!” Johnny C said, a big smile on his face. Sandalwood staggered back a little, taken aback by his enthusiasm. “I’ve been keeping up on aug news lately. Been an interest ever since I got mine.”

“You have an aug?” Sandalwood asked. “You, uh… don’t quite smell like most of the ones I’ve seen.”

“Augs have smells?” Johnny C asked, confused.

“Sure they do. Why wouldn’t they?” Sandalwood asked. “But what’s yours?”

“Just a reflex booster installed in my neck, right over the spinal cord,” Johnny C explained, turning around, pulling his parka and t-shirt down, showing the scar tissue on the back of his neck. “Mostly a bit of neural stuff. Not gonna go for stuff like replacement eyes unless things get… fucked up.”

“He got the aug so he could have more fun while skiing,” Fiddlesticks said.

“...and I needed the money,” Johnny C added. “Volunteered as a test subject.”

“The most.. advanced… prosthetics your world has ever had,” Sandalwood said slowly. “And you use them to go skiing?”

“Why not?” Johnny C asked. “There’s this one ski trail back home. Upper Elevator Shaft, and it’s tighter than the Queen Bitch’s rectum! I’ve nearly died in there before.”

“Skiing, huh?” asked an inuit man whose name patch read Johnson. “Where, uh…. where are you from? You sound like you’re from Canada.”

“I’m from New England,” Johnny C explained.

The inuit man smirked. “Flapjack.”

“I ski a four-thousand footer across the street from a mountain that’s killed over 150 people,” Johnny C said. “...Not counting that accident on the auto road awhile back. So don’t knock it.”

The Inuit man shrugged. “Damn. That bad?”

“Mount Washington can be pretty deceptive,” Johnny C said.

“Guess you know how to deal with bad weather, then,” the inuit man said. “I hear there’s a storm coming soon. Pretty big one at that.”

“That’s putting it mildly, Amuruq!” Sandalwood called over from her

“And so am I, I guess,” Fiddlesticks said. “Well, it’s not home, but…” She looked up at Nny. “Ah, screw it. It’s home.”

“So, as you can see, Mr. Batholomeaux,” Northwoods said, taking them to a door at the end of the hangar, “I think we’ve got some decent staff. Even…” he looked downward. “Even Snowshoes. Though she doesn’t always show it.”

“Who’s that?” Henri asked.

“She’s….” Northwoods said. “Ah, you’ll meet her soon enough. Just don’t get irritated by her, she’s more fragile than she seems.”

There wasn’t much to say about the hallways they were traversing. They had the look of something that had been made to be ultramodern at the beginning of the war. But, halfheartedly, the builders had given up on little flourishes like that midway through construction. Curves between wall and floor, possibly made to invoke an apple store, often existed on only one side of the hallway.

There were photographs on the walls of old battles from early in the war. Shots of skyscrapers collapsing backwards into the Barrier, refugee camps outside of cities, helicopter shots of the Europe Evacuation…

And one of Lyra standing tall, the sun at her back, working on a prosthetic arm for a woman who’d lost her arm to potion. Lyra standing at the podium with Bon-Bon at her back, Lyra holding a hoof to Reverend James Thomas’ open hand in friendship. Lyra, sitting human-style behind her desk, a smile on her face, reading glasses sitting over her muzzle, looking apprehensive, eager, and determined all at once.

And one with…

...With Johnny C himself, Fiddlesticks, Congresswoman Annie Kuster, Reverend James Thomas, Bon-Bon, and Lyra, in Manchester, in the Radisson hotel.

“Huh?” Henri asked, looking over the picture. “Nny, you’re in this one!”

“It was a good day,” Johnny C said, smiling. “James Thomas… say what you will about his ability to keep people under control, but he had drive. The one thing he didn’t have was pull. He was just a small-town preacher. He’d been visiting New Hampshire, he was talkin’ with some early PER… and one of them told him to complain to his congressman. I told them I could complain to my congresswoman, called her and then Lyra on the spur of the moment....”

He looked at nothing in particular at that photo, looking into prewar life. “It was a pleasure to meet Lyra. She… she was just the nicest mare.”

“Is that why you saved me?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“No, any decent person should do that,” Johnny C said. “But she helped.”

“You might want to take the photos of devastation and replace it with stuff like this,” Henri said, moving in closer to the photo, slightly pushing his friends. “Can’t say seeing London get atomized inspires confidence.”

“It’s not meant to,” Northwoods said. “This-” she pointed to photo taken of two airplanes that had crashed into the sea outside, as ships were being swept back in by pegasus-created storms.. “-Reminds us of what we’re up against. But Lyra… that reminds us of what we fight for.”

“And the fact that this hallway gets more utilitarian as we go represents that we have limited time?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“...I guess it does,” Northwoods admitted. “Never thought of it that way. Anyway, Mr. Bartholomeaux, this is one of the best PHL facilities you could ask for. I promise you that.”

“You and Salonen will absolutely benefit from my work,” Henri said. “Ah, I can’t tell you how reassured I am to work here. Far away from it all.”

“Snowshoes is much the same way,” Northwoods explained.

“In that case, I’m sure we’ll get along great, Major” Henri said. “She can’t be that bad.”

Northwoods muttered something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Good luck with that’, as they turned to the left and headed into a large room, with only a single workbench bare of technological clutter. “Anyway, this is where one of R&D’s best assets resides. With luck, he’s here. God only knows when he is most of the time.”

“Wait, when?” Fiddlesticks asked, but Northwoods and Henri ignored her. “Nny? Any idea what-”

Nny just shrugged, forearms held outward, making the upper third of his body look sort of like a large ‘W’.

“...course you don’t,” she sighed.

“What is all this stuff?” Johnny C asked, looking over the room. Computer equipment from what looked every year since 1972 or so lined the shelves and desks that hugged the walls, and inexplicable instruments lined the walls like decorations. There was a set of clocks, one of which seemed to be arranged in a spiral. A thaumoemotive indicator, an odd device that featured a small, slowly rotating cube above a small soup-bowl sized scaffold, was glowing softly in one corner. A hexagonal panel from a solar road, an infrastructure project that had been popular around early 2018, hung from one shelf on a loop of copper wire. There was a panel from a solar window taped to a nearby easel, surrounded by an indecipherable scrawl of sketches and notes.

A small ring, just about big enough that someone might be able to stick their head through it, lined with shards of crystal, with various wires sticking out from various gaps, as wild as Johnny C’s bedhead after a long night, sat next to a long, crystalline spike that was glowing a dull peach color.

The walls behind the ring were furry with blueprints for what looked like weaponry, with red ‘rejected’ marks on them, with ‘not here they’re not!’ marks in almost glowing lime-green ink written directly underneath them. Another note was stapled underneath in scruffy black writing - ‘Get the other me to build these, because I won't! I do not kill!’

A yellow scrap of paper with ‘413 gigathaums =/= !?Magia??’ and a list of incomprehensible equations that would’ve hurt Johnny C’s head back in high school was taped directly over a blueprint of what looked like a bomb collar marked ‘GG3’. Another note read ‘note to self: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO STUDY DIVINITAS. BAD IDEA ALL ROUND. DON’T WANT TO EXPLAIN ANOTHER BLUE STAIN ON THE FLOOR.’

There were a few personal effects dotted about. An empty leather bandolier and coat, both scaled for a decently-sized pony stallion, either a unicorn or earth pony judging by the lack of wing-slits, hung over a positively ancient-looking computer.

And in front of all these notes, there was a hatstand with two tweed coats and one tan raincoat as well as a fedora. Bizarrely, a keytar hung off the hatstand, and a green military coat hung off an odd grandfather clock. A keyboard stood nearby, looking old but workable.

Then there were photos that lined the shelves. They were… bizarre, to say the least. One was a picture of a lanky, auburn-haired man standing next to a tall woman with blonde hair wearing a trilby. Another was of a blue stallion in a black coat and blue scarf, standing next to a pony who looked like Trixie, the Blue Spy, but looking much happier than anyone (or anypony) would ever have seen her, the two of them stood in a bizarre landscape lined with purple, orange, and yellow coral-like trees.

The same auburn-haired man was in more photos - in one, he was playing cards with a man that was unmistakably Maximilian Yarrow, judging by the bald, tattooed head. Another was of a white mare with green eyes and a red mane with purple streaks sitting on a couch as the auburn-haired man read off a clipboard, a concerned-looking man with a strong resemblance to Sharlto Copley with the right side of his head shaven, sitting nearby, looking incredibly concerned. The white-on-black text taped under its frame read ‘Counselling for Kate.’ Another was of twelve ponies in grey flightsuits, a mare that looked like Derpy Hooves at their head, with a note reading “Grey Squadron circa 2025. No More For Ditzy.”

Most bizarrely, in another corner, Johnny C could see a blue police box. Suddenly, everything made sense.

“Ah,” Johnny C said. “Well. That explains it.”

“Ah didn’t know you had Doctor Whooves here,” Fiddlesticks said, amazed. “Damn, Major! Henri, you’re gonna buckin’ love it here.”

“Who's ‘Doctor Whooves’?” Henri asked with a frown.

“Long story!” Fiddlesticks said excitedly. “Just trust me, he's awesome.”

“Well, it's not exactly Whooves,” Northwoods admitted. “Not… exactly..”

“Not exactly?” Henri asked.

“Doctor!” a mare’s voice said. “Don't bother looking for it!”

From out of the police box stepped a grey Unicorn mare with a slightly somber expression. She paused as she saw Northwoods and the others, and raised an eyebrow at Johnny C and Fiddlesticks.

“Hello,” she said, and for a moment it almost seemed as though she recognised them.

"…hang on, hang on, I think I have one in my pocket somewhere…" a man - or stallion’s - voice drifted from the box. “

"Sorry, what are you looking for?" the mare asked with a soft smile. “The Doctor and I are working on something. Not quite my favorite project, but-”

"Well you said you wanted to think outside the box on crystals! Don't blame me that I had to look for stuff! Gimme a mo," the man interrupted, rifling through the pockets of a long tweed coat in a rather hideous shade of green. Under this he wore a shirt and waistcoat, an untied ascot hanging around his neck.

“Look, we both know that there’s guests here,” Chalcedony said. “Can’t we just-”

The man sighed. “Look, I’m… not certain it matters. I’m just…” and for a second, the man just sounded incredibly forlorn. “At this moment, Amber’s right about to walk through, and we’re going to get into the most pedantic, irritating argument that leads to-”

He looked surprised. “Ah! You again. And…”

Fiddlesticks

Fiddlesticks would’ve sworn that the man - almost certainly The Doctor, or even a Doctor - had never met Northwoods in his life. Despite the fact that he’d probably worked here for quite some time, going by the workspace he’d created for himself.

Which was strange.

“Ah! Major Northwoods!” the man said. “What a welcome change of pace. Good to see you! Why, just in preparation, I brought…”

The man pulled a small crystal out of his pocket, grinning at it. The mare frowned at it slightly, apparently not knowing what to make of it. For that matter, neither did Johnny, though there was a more pressing issue in his mind.

“This thing!” he said, grinning.

“Is that…” Nny asked. “So. Many. QUESTIONS!”

“Words…. not workin’ from... mouth!” Fiddlesticks agreed.

The man looked at them both like they had two heads. “Sorry?”

“Like I said,” Northwoods said quietly. “Not quite.”

"What is that?" the grey mare asked.

"Called a 'crystal projector'," the man said, smiling and apparently ignoring the others for the moment. "Basically instantaneous magical connection to another projector. Like a holographic communication interface - but magic!"

The mare raised an eyebrow.

"Is it connected to anything now?" Nny asked.

"We can only hope. Good to see the three of you again, by the way!" the man said. "I'd assume you're... don't tell me... Henri Bartholomeaux, Johnny C Heald and Fiddlesticks Apple.”

Henri's eyebrows shot up. "Wait. What?!"

"How could you possibly-" Fiddlesticks started.

"Oh, he... does that," Major Northwoods sighed. "He just sort of... does that. Best not to ask questions."

“Oh, I wouldn't say that! Questions are the foundations of better understanding," the man said.

"How else am I supposed to learn without asking them, after all?" Nny asked. He sounded like he was just accepting it, as Nny often did when something weird happened. But, if Fiddlesticks knew anything about Nny - And she did! - there were probably so many questions racing through her mind.

It wasn't as if the PHL didn't have various oddities - rarer beings of Equus, humans who claimed psychic abilities - that could conceivably read your mind and find your name. But then, that didn't preclude Fiddlesticks having certain... questions.

Still, somehow it seemed better not to ask.

"That's the spirit! Dr Bowman, by the way, but you can call me the Doctor, everyone seems to. I do too," He moved to shake Henri’s hand. “And a pleasure to meet someone of your calibre, sir. We need more minds around here, and maybe Colonel Hex will stop badgering me about guns.”

Northwoods sighed. “Tell me about it.”

Bowman’s eyes bugged out behind his glasses. “Well then, you too?! Americans…”

“Swiss, actually,” Northwoods said.

Which, Fiddlesticks realized, means she must have seen a lot. Switzerland was the first country to fall!

“Amen to that,” Northwoods said. “The man’s a great engineer, but there’s only so long I can focus on making new solar panels or engines or thaumic powercells with one of his lackeys over my shoulder, badgering me about not having made enough weapons.”

And at this point, she took on an accent that Fiddlesticks vaguely understood as being from Chicago. “Where’s the BFG 9001, Northwoods, your team’s supposed to be working on that…” Then she switched to an accent that sounded like it came from Philadelphia. “If I don’t get my rocket-powered fist, there will be hell to pay...”

Bowman started laughing uncontrollably. “Oh, that is spot on or how Hex or Presley sound! Ah, I knew there was a reason I liked you so much.”

“Already I can tell this is going to be a fun work environment,” Henri said, a smile on his face. “Wasn’t it Sutra Cross that said they needed ‘water-bearers more than arms-bearers?’ Or something like that.”

“Yes, well, heaven forfend anyone in the PHL decide to not focus on building the next doomsday weapon,” the Doctor said with a snort.

“It’s not that,” Henri said. “People like Kasparek…. Rachel Presley and Dovetail from Quebec… they’ve got a role, much as anyone. But, well, they see PHL Science, they see some kind of big, game changing thing. And everyone assumes I’ve got the cure for potioning.”

“Which just isn’t what science’s ‘bout,” Fiddlesticks said, speaking up. “Let’s say we get t’space. Th’ guy that invents pressure regulators for ships would be more valued than th’ guy makes a laser pistol.”

“You’ve learned a lot,” Henri said, surprised. “Honestly, I’m impressed.”

“There might be a cure for potion one day, four hundred years from now,” the Doctor said idly. “But that'd be spoilers.”

“Which means there is one?” Johnny asked.

“It’s four hundred years,” Fiddlesticks said. “Sometimes I wonder if we have that many days left. So, it doesn’t matter.”

“No need to be that pessimistic,” the Doctor said cryptically. “And as I said, spoilers. “Anyway, feel free to look around. And don't touch anything. Some of it hasn't been invented yet, very temperamental. Also, there might be blueprints to weapons banned by the second Exodus convention -”

“The what?” the grey mare asked.

The Doctor blinked. “Oh, right. You still don't have an Exodus convention. Could’ve sworn I’d picked a better variation this time.” He frowned.

“It can’t possibly be that bad,” Chalcedony said.

“I suppose… but I knew there was something I didn't like about this job. Apart from lots of it.”

“O… Kay,” Johnny said. “You're… weird.”

“You’re one to talk,” Fiddlesticks added.

“No I’m…! Yeah, okay, fair enough,” Johnny said. “But he's weirder.”

“So I’m told,” the Doctor said, shrugging. “As to your initial question about the projector, Mr Heald - dunno. Could be. It'd need charging though." The Doctor grinned. “Still - fascinating bit of kit.”

“Where did you even get this?” Northwoods asked, looking it over.

“That's for me to know, and you to… not know,” the Doctor said simply. “Ever. Just rest knowing it’s not Imperial - if they tried to work it, it’d be like throwing a Tesla’s plug into a car’s gas tank. Have fun.”

"Then how do we go about charging it?" the mare asked.

“Ways,” the Doctor said.

The grey mare just sighed. “This man…”

“Oh, believe me, I know,” Fiddlesticks said.

“Him?” the mare asked, jerking a foreleg up towards Nny.

“Hey!” Nny protested.

“Actually, no,” Fiddlesticks said. “Our bosses back home… I swear they just shuffle the work papers and staple them together. I could be working a farm while I’m scheduled on another.”

“Or I,” Nny added, “Could be working on another farm - not necessarily with her - while I’m supposed to be writing about something boring, like… corn. I don’t mind. Good exercise.”

“Very corny,” the Doctor said deadpan.

“No,” the grey mare said at once. “No puns.”

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly.

She turned to Johnny and Fiddlesticks with an apologetic smile. "Chalcedony, by the way. Pleasure to meet you. I'm the Doctor's friend."

"Is friend the right word?" the Doctor asked. "Maybe you prefer 'colleague'?"

"Too vague," Chalcedony said.

"What about 'assistant'?"

"Too lowly."

"Companion?"

"Unfortunate implications."

"Even more during the Victorian era, I promise you. Compadre?"

"… no."

“Amigo? Freunde? Mon ami?”

“No!”

"Oh. Well -"

"Friend works."

The Doctor blinked. "Ok then, friend it is."

"So how would you charge it?" Johnny asked, pointing at the projector and eager to be back on track.

The Doctor glanced down at the projector with a frown. "Honestly, you'd need a magical charge, I think."

"That's easy enough," Chalcedony said, her horn glowing, but the Doctor held up a hand.

"No," he said. "This runs on magia, not thauma.”

“On… what?” Northwoods asked.

“Magia - different signature of magic to Thauma or Divinitas,” the Doctor said. “Which I am not touching. And neither should any other… certain doctors… you may have employed. Usually not easy to find in this world, by which I mean you can’t. Ever. Insofar as I understand the energy differential, it'd be like putting diesel in a petrol car. Best case scenario, pfft. Worst case scenario… blam."

"Blam?" Chalcedony repeated.

"Blam," the Doctor confirmed. “Isn't such a thing as a pony on this planet who could charge this device.” He paused thoughtfully. "I think I could jury-rig some magia charge, th-"

It was right about then that Northwoods’ phone started ringing.

“Huh,” Northwoods said. “I have to step out for a bit.”

She stepped out of the room. “Ah, Leo. It’s good to hear from you again. No, this isn’t a good time…”

Her bootheels clicked against the floor as she stepped out of the room.

“...And what was that you said about making sure we didn’t see the confidential stuff?” Fiddlesticks asked.

"Oh, I'm not confidential," the Doctor said with a grin. "Well, I kind of am. Don't tell me you saw me. I'll get irritated. Actually, maybe I won’t this time, since I’m not sure I’m actually me. But people tend to not understand what I'm saying half the time…"

"Can't imagine why," Chalcedony muttered.

“It certainly is a mystery,” Johnny C agreed, looking over at Chalcedony, one eyebrow looking as if it was trying to secede from his forehead and join his widow’s peak.

"… so I'm considered 'safe'," the Doctor finished, as though he hadn't been interrupted. He pulled out a small tool and held it up to the crystal. There was a buzzing sound, and he put it down on the table. "This is the Doctor - that is, Dr Richard Bowman, if you must have the name - to whoever's connected on this channel. Anybody or anypony receiving?"

There was a pause, and then suddenly an image popped up of… something. Suddenly, the figure of a man appeared, looking stressed as hell and wearing a black military uniform, a small symbol underneath with the letters FEAR written. He scowled for a moment, before shouting off to someone behind him.

"The projector's activated! We figured out how to detect that magia crap yet?!"

"No sir!" a tinny voice cried back.

"Well get on it!" the man called. "I don't wanna be caught on the back foot, not again!" He turned back to look at the assembled watchers, before frowning.

"Colonel Munro - hello again," the Doctor said. "I suppose that it’s been too long for you?"

"It certainly has, Bowman," 'Harry' - Munro - said softly, frowning at him. "What are you doing back?"

"From my perspective, I haven't left," the Doctor said quietly. "What date is it where you are?"

"Uh," Munro said, "November 27th, 2024?"

"But it's only 2022," Fiddlesticks said. "That doesn't make any -"

"Don't say it doesn't make any sense," Chalcedony said quietly. "Because he'll explain it."

"She's right, I will," the Doctor said, winking. "People tend to not like those. I think I even bored Button Mash once: tricky proposition."

"Wanna explain why I'm talking to someone from the past?" Munro asked.

"Was about to ask the same thing," Nny added grimly. "Except, you know, the future."

The Doctor nodded. "There's been a little cross temporal boost - my fault, mixed a bit of artron energy or a few chronons in there. Suffice to say, when I charged this projector it defaulted to a charged state of its own future, in lieu of a compatible projector in its present."

"Huh," Munro said. "Do those ever make sense?"

Chalcedony laughed. "No, Major."

“Oh, like ‘making sense’ was ever a job requirement,” Fiddlesticks laughed.

“She raises a good point,” Munro said, though it was impossible for Fiddlesticks to mention that he was frowning at Chalcedony slightly. "Alright - while we're on this line, it’s more important than ever that you try to enact the Reaver Plan."

"No," the Doctor said more calmly. "Nothing of that sort. You need to switch your projector off. No spoilers. You have said too much."

"What's that about Reavers?" Johnny C asked.

“I have no idea,” Northwoods said, walking into view of the projector, her phone call finished. “Getting real irritated about where they got that laser cannon.”

The Doctor coughed slightly.

“No,” Johnny C said. “For real. What’s with th-”

“YOU!” Munro yelled, as soon as he saw Northwoods.

Everyone in the room save for Bowman and Chalcedony stepped back, and Fiddlesticks gaped at the look on Munro’s face. Not even a second ago, he’d looked… Genial? Resigned? It was a good question.

“Shut it down, Chalcedony!” Bowman yelled. “Whatever he’s talking about, he has to stop!”

Chalcedony galloped towards the projector, her horn glowing. Beams of light shone against the projector’s various facets, and before Nny and Fiddlesticks’ eyes the projector shifted colors. One pyramid-shaped prism along the device emitted a burst of rainbow-colored light.

“NO! YOU’VE SENT US INTO A FLOYD HOLE!” Nny gasped.

“With all due respect,” Munro seethed, ignoring what Nny had said. “Fuck. Spoilers. I know what you’re about to say, but do you have any idea how it eats me up inside knowing that-”

The projector went dead.

“Did I do that?” Chalcedony asked.

“It would appear that you did, in fact, do that,” Bowman said. “What was that about a floyd hole?”

“It looked like a pink floyd album cover for a few seconds there,” Nny said. “Like, with the…”

“Huh,” Bowman said. “I suppose it does. But Floyd Holes are no laughing matter, Nny.”

The four of them looked to Northwoods, who was staring at the projector.

“What was he talking about?!” Northwoods asked, shaking. “What the hell was Harry talking about?!”

The mask of composure had utterly vanished. It was hard to describe the emotion on her face. Fear? Anger? Confusion? Whatever her mental state, it was nigh impossible to pin down any single emotion she felt at the moment. They were cascading, her face shifting from emotion to emotion.

“Harry’s my friend,” Northwoods said, almost pleading. “We went for coffee together, I looked after his son… What could I have possibly done to him?”

Bowman was stonefaced. “I couldn’t know.”

“You have time travel,” Northwoods said. “How could you not-”

“I mean that I can’t know,” Bowman said. “Whatever it is, I can’t let you know.

“But… he sounded like I betrayed him,” Northwoods said, sounding genuinely upset. “Why would I…”

Bowman held up a hand. “I have… thoughts. But first things first.” He brought out his small device and buzzed it over her head, before looking at it. “No sign of mnemno-alteration. You’d better be extra vigilant.”

“You think it’s possible that happens?” Northwoods asked.

“I don’t know, but it pays to be prepared. Now,” Bowman said, “that out of the way, it’s worth trying to investigate how this can seek out thaumic frequencies. We need to find out how to guard against them...”

"Or trace them?" Chalcedony replied quietly, and the two shared a glance.

"I believe that would do us a lot of good," Northwoods said. "PER use untraceable thaumic-powered communications all the time. Plus, it's for the best that we investigate this before the Empire does."

"There's only so much Crystal Empire magitech out there," Fiddlesticks said solemnly.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Bowman said. "More that there's only so much that can be easily understood, isn't broken, and won't bite you if you poke it wrong."

Fiddlesticks nodded. "Yeah! Exactly."

The Crystal Empire had, collectively, been a nightmare for Equestria before it became the Solar Empire, not least because it used ancient relics and forgotten magic that even Celestia and Luna had never quite understood. The crystal golems, the Berserker Armor, the Composer Crystals - bombs, more like - that could crystallize virtually any organic matter upon detonation. The Thaumic Lens Projectors that focused beams of magic light through cities, through lines of Royal Guard and Equestrian Army, burning and vaporizing anything in their path.

Nopony had quite been able to understand most of it, save for the Thaumic Lens Projectors, now repurposed by the Solar Empire as "Celestia's Spear". Of course, those were simple - they used specialized crystals to focus magic through an enchanted lens. The rest...

Well, the Solar Empire was left picking over scraps from battles long gone. It hadn't helped that whatever hold Sombra had over the artisans, glassblowers, and weaponsmiths (if those were the right words?) had left them mentally handicapped after his death, with little if any understanding of the devices they had once churned out in the hundreds.

She gazed over the crystal projector, looking thoughtful. "I think I can see the theory: I could try replicating it for a thaumaturgical signature. Were there other Crystal devices you could show me?"

"A few," the Doctor said quietly. “Come on. I want away for a while.”

He began heading off, but Northwoods coughed.

"Doctor?" he asked.

The Doctor looked at him for a moment, before nodding, a look of dawning comprehension - not to say irritation - on his face.

"Major Northwoods, may I have permission to pursue this line of research?" he asked, boredom in his tone.

"Yes," Northwoods said simply.

The Doctor grinned, and he headed off into the TARDIS. With a sigh - though she was smiling all the while - Chalcedony followed. A moment later the blue box dematerialised.

"Two of our best," Northwoods said quietly. "But the Doctor - Bowman's so…"

"Weird?" Fiddlesticks asked.

"Yeah," Northwoods said. "We'll go with that.”

“Does that thing with tellin’ people hints happen a lot?” Fiddlesticks asked, worried by the prediction.

“Actually he's often hinted he's changed history already,” the Major said quietly. “He won't tell me how, though.”

“That’s disturbing,” Johnny C commented. “Who knows if we’re even supposed to be alive?”

“We don't,” Henri said quietly. “Theory of timeline change is -”

“Anyway…" Northwoods interrupted.

A sullen-looking, sallow man with ashy blond hair that couldn't really be described as anything other than “pale” walked by. A winterized M16 with white camo was slung over his back, and he wore a bandolier of thermite grenades over his chest. Half his face looked to be tattoos and burn scars, and one arm poking out from under his mountainous parka looked to be covered in strange, arcane symbols.

“Are those rune tattoos?” Fiddlesticks asked, curious. “Heard great things bout those.”

“Nah. We’d have to be really desperate to tattoo magic-superconducting material into people,” Northwoods said.

“Burns,” the ashy blond man said, voice hoarse from the smoke. “Had some tattoos from the old gang on my left arm - the thermite gun really fucked em up.”

He made a salute to Northwoods, the envy of most any soldier, but there was a weird jerkiness to it. His tag read Joseph.

“Is that Darryl Joseph?” Henri asked. “Man’s a hero! Why’s he in a place like thi-”

“Volunteered,” Darryl said, voice cracking from lack of use. “I saw things out there, kid.”

“...I’m the same age as you,” Johnny C said.

“Same here,” Fiddlesticks added.

“You weren't in Europe,” Darryl said. “I can call you kid if you want.”

Nny sighed. “Fair enough.”

“Actually, I was,” Henri put in.

A smile crept up Darryl’s face. “How about that. What’d a twig like you do?”

“Psychiatrist,” Henri said. “Turns out, evacuating a country during the apocalypse can be draining.”

“Don’t I know it,” Darryl said. “Be seeing you round, Major. Think we can get some sessions in, Doc?”

“It’d be a pleasure,” Henri said.

“He didn’t seem very…” Fiddlesticks started, before Johnny C gave her a warning Look.

“Well,” Northwoods said, “Not…” he sighed. “It’s a sad story. Europe left some big scars on him.”

Just then, there was a loud thump from one room, and the sound of shattering glass.

“Dammit!” a mare unmistakable as Sandalwood cried out from one room. “This’d be so much easier if I had hands…”

“And which one of us is the unicorn, huh?!” someone muttered.

“Shut up, Snowshoes,” the mare groaned.

Nny peered in. He could see Sandalwood, using TK to levitate a set of prosthetic eyes that, from what he could tell, looked broken. Stray wires trailed off it. The old hairy eyeball, huh? he wondered.

The mare who’d been sleeping in the hammock was up there, a screwdriver in her mouth. Nny thought, right then and there, that she was the cutest mare he’d yet seen.

Though Fiddlesticks would be pissed if he said it. Bands of white fur that made it look almost like she was wearing ballet hoofshoes circled her legs just above her hooves, blending against her pale, ice-blue fur. Her mane was in several shades of pale blue-white, and her vibrant orange eyes, like maple leaves about to fall from a tree seemed to glow.

And then she dropped the screwdriver from her mouth and issued forth such a torrent of profanity that Nny’s opinion dropped.

That was kinda hot.

“...ya done?” Sandalwood asked after a few seconds.

“Come on, Sandalwood, there’s no need for that,” said an earth pony stallion with thick cokebottle glasses. “The sooner you stop arguing, the sooner we get out of here.”

“You were such great friends before Europe!” a woman with curly strawberry blond hair tied back protested. Incongruously, she had what looked like an M249 slung over her shoulder.

“Excuse me,” Major Northwoods said as she walked in the door, “But I do hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

The four standing in the room stared over at the Major.

“Um,” the strawberry-blond woman - whose name read Hayden - said. “Just having a polite disagreement.”

“Really?” Northwoods asked. “Because it seemed more like an impolite disagreement. Everyone, this is Henri Bartholomeaux. He’s on tour, these are two of his friends-”

Johnny C waved. Fiddlesticks tipped her hat.

“And they asked nicely for the tour, so I felt like obliging. Now, if you don’t mind, what is going on here.”

“...Ummmmm,” Henri said. “Hey. I’m new here.”

“We were trying to make a new assault saddle configuration,” Snowshoes said. “The Russians have been complaining about eye problems because of potion in the air, and top brass wanted one that didn’t look like goggles welded to the face.”

“And I,” Sandalwood said, “Was saying we could hook it up to a gun.”

“You broke it!” Snowshoes yelled. “I spend so much time trying to winterize that eyeball, but you took it before I was ready!”

“You labeled it done!”

“That was for something else!”

“And you say Heliotrope has shitty work habits!”

“Come on guys,” the strawberry-blond woman pleaded. “There’s no need to be like this-”

“Leave em,” the coke-bottle-glasses wearing stallion sighed. His voice was curiously uninflected. “They get like this all the time.”

“Much fewer times, I admit,” Northwoods said. “Dr. Bartholomeaux, Mr. Heald, Fiddlesticks? This is Emma Haymes - she’s who we call on for testing a big gun around here.”

“Hey,” the strawberry-blond woman said, waving.

“The two ponies that insist on arguing,” Northwoods said, “Are - well, you met Sandalwood earlier.”

“Oh,” Sandalwood said, waving one foreleg. “Nice to see you again.”

“And the last,” Northwoods said, “Is Spurred Weld. He’s…”

“I’m not exactly a subtle unicorn,” Spurred Weld said.

Fiddlesticks looked him over. She could believe it. He had a body that looked like it’d belong on an earth pony, and his thick coke-bottle glasses - which reminded her of the stereotypical Canterlot scholar - were wholly incongruous.

“Hey, I’m not mad,” Spurred Weld said. “I do the heavy lifting. It’s just… my job.”

“Nice to meet you again too, Sandalwood,” Fiddlesticks said, tipping her hat. Sandalwood blushed a little. Snowshoes just raised an eyebrow to that, as if to ask: Really now?

“Anyway,” Spurred Weld said, “I was hoping to calibrate the eye for a bola rifle.”

Sandalwood and Snowshoes looked over at him incredulously.

“...I’m tempted to ask why,” Snowshoes sighed.

“Well, Sarah Presley and Dovetail down in Montreal are working on a buzzsaw gun for Diamond Dog soldiers,” Spurred Weld said, matter-of factly. “I… got drunk with Alawa off-base, and promised her one. Then we got to thinking we needed a bola to launch from there, and I asked Tomorbaator.”

“And I need nonlethal weapons for use against newfoals because?” Snowshoes asked.

“Come on, Snowshoes,” Emma said. “Don’t be like-”

“I’m not!” Snowshoes protested. “This is genuinely interesting.”

Fiddlesticks wondered about that. Snowshoes was the kind of mare who seemed to be permanently set to ‘Sarcasm’.

“The confusion effect,” Spurred Weld explained. “Besides, I could make the wire really, really sharp. Motorize one end, turn it into a tiny buzzsaw… Tomorbaator’s really onboard with it.”

“That sounds horribly unsafe,” Sandalwood said.

“For the newfoals?” Snowshoes asked, raising an eyebrow. “For PER? I’m…. kind of busy not caring?”

“Look,” Emma said. “Let’s just… Let’s move on. Work on something else.”

Snowshoes looked up at Emma, and the most anguished look that Johnny C had ever seen flashed over her face. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I… I think I need some fresh air.”

“So do you,” Spurred Weld said to Sandalwood. “Both of you. Outside.”

“Oh, alright,” Sandalwood said.

“Glad to see you getting along,” Northwoods said. “I leave the place for two months and those two end up at each other’s throats?” he sighed, as the four of them walked down the hallway.

“Then why do you…” Fiddlesticks asked uneasily.

“Employ them?” Northwoods asked. “Where would they go? No, the two of them are brilliant. Sandalwood’s a gifted combat engineer, same with Snowshoes. They just… at least we’re used to them. Montreal isn’t.”

He was silent for a second, as they traversed the hallways of the facility.

“With that out of the way,” Northwoods said, “There’s more facilities to see. I’m assuming you’re eager to see Salonen?”

“Very,” Henri said. “I was told I’d be of great importance to him.”

It was right then that a scrawny-looking zebra skidded - no, literally skidded - by, tripping over one hoof and falling in a heap in front of them.

“Uhhhhh…” Johnny C said, looking down at the zebra. “Evenin?”

“…And this is Kgalakgadi,” Major Northwoods said, looking down at him. “Everything going well?”

Fiddlesticks looked down at the odd, scrawny zebra.

“Heyyyyy?” she asked, holding out one hoof.

“N-not m-much time to talk,” Kgalakgadi said, picking himself up and stuttering a little. “Tell me.” He reached into his saddlebags, which looked to be covering a tribal design of some kind. Or a cutie mark? Fiddlesticks wasn’t entirely clear on it. He pulled out a photo of a hyena munching on a newfoal’s corpse.

“Oh, why would you do that?!” Johnny C groaned. “It’s just like that video with the red wolves from Kraber...”

“I still can’t believe he’s in the country,” Fiddlesticks shivered. “Not sure I feel safe with him…”

MEANWHILE, IN THE FUTURE!
2023

“I feel really safe now that Kraber’s here,” Fiddlesticks said.

Johnny C abruptly burst into a particularly long coughing fit.

“Wait…” Fiddlesticks looked over at Johnny C, then Kraber. “Shit.”

AND BACK TO THE PRESENT.
Johnny C

“Oh, that video,” Major Northwoods said. “I told you, Kgalakgadi. It’s not evidence if someone’s actually feeding the animals. No matter how much they may have deserved it.”

“I’m telling you, though,” Kgalakgadi said. “It has potential. I’ve cross-referenced the level of wildlife attacks on newfoals in Africa with pre - Ritual Of Forbiddance numbers, and they’ve increased dramatically!”

“What’s this about, then?” Johnny C asked, remembering the video of red wolves to which Major Northwoods was referring. Presumably, it involved PER being fed to them.

“Kgalakgadi is one of the most brilliant workers we have here,” Major Northwoods explained. “Unfortunately, he has so many pet projects that it’s more like a zoo.”

“I think he means the Ritual of Forbiddance,” Fiddlesticks said.

Johnny C nodded to that. “I heard about that. What is it?”

“Ritual that taps into Earth’s old magic,” Kgalakgadi explained. “It was attempted in Africa approximately one year ago. It made Africa actively hostile against newfoals and Imperial forces, turning the native wildlife against them. Even the weather-”

“There is no evidence to support that, Kgalakgadi,” Major Northwoods sighed.

“Regardless,” Kgalakgadi protested, “It would be an excellent benefit-”

“It would need resources,” Major Northwoods said. “Yes, PHL R&D approves the testing of a number of concepts. Probably more than we should. But after a year, there’s no proof that it worked.” He paused. “By the way. What about those readings you picked up on Christmas Eve?”

“Readings?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Right,” Kgalakgadi explained. “On Christmas, I picked up a… a blip. Similar to the portal stations the Solar Empire uses, right in the middle of Alaska.”

“Why aren’t you going after that?!” Fiddlesticks yelled.

“Because here’s the weird thing,” Kgalakgadi said. “Have you seen a portal station before?”

“Once,” Johnny C said, and shivered, recalling his last National Guard deployment. “It was enough. But you haven’t answered my question...”

“Well,” Kgalakgadi said, pulling a scrap of cloth out of one of his saddlebags. “Let’s say space is this rag. Regular portal stations involve stitching here and here-” he pointed to two spaces on the rag with one hoof. “Together. Though, uh, teleport matrixes… they’re sort of like that, but instead of making two points connect, they stab through. Like needles. But I don’t think we’ll come across those again. But the blip I got… It was just a flash. Barely a second. Like someone had forced a needle through the blanket, and then… nothing. I thought it was nothing, but…” Kgalakgadi looked out a window. Then something in his saddlebags beeped.

“Huh?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Exactly,” Kgalakgadi said. “I’m getting weird readings more and more often. More than I should.”

“Maybe it’s someone running a test?” Northwoods suggested. “There is an Armacham facility nearby.”

“Not that far north,” Kgalakgadi said. “There’s just… miles and miles of nothing that far north. And here’s the thing:”

You could almost hear the colon at the end of that sentence.

“When we experiment with reverse-engineering Solar Empire magic,” Kgalakgadi said, “There’s, uh… there’s a bit of a background fuzz of earth’s magic. And when Armacham tries, there’s a bit of the fuzz, but also, a bit of, uh…” Kgalakgadi paused. “Let’s not go into that. Whatever this is, it came from Equestria.”

“And why are you just telling me now?” Northwoods asked.

“The readings are getting stronger,” Kgalakgadi said. “This… this could be…!” he seemed to deflate. “Actually, I have no idea what this could be. But someone needs to investigate.”

“Ah, what the hell,” Johnny C sighed. “I’d be willing to help.”

“Sure,” Fiddlesticks said. “I can work on that.”

“You two?”

“NH national guard,” Johnny C said, nodding. “Fiddlesticks has PHL self-defense training.”

“The signal… I didn’t manage to get a general area, but it seems to be coming from west of…” Kgalakgadi pulled a map out of his saddlebags. “Well. Dead Horse. That’s where it’s coming from. Of course.”

“Well, that’s not ominous at all,” Fiddlesticks sighed. “Is there… is there seriously a town called Dead Horse? Is that actually what it’s called?”

“It is,” Major Northwoods said.

“Well, I’m with Fiddlesticks,” Johnny C said. “It’s definitely a bad omen.”

“You believe in omens?” Kgalakgadi asked, and sighed. “Ya superstitious-”

“What, it’s unreasonable to believe in omens? Should I not believe in unicorns?” Johnny C asked.

“Ooh, he’s got you there,” Fiddlesticks said.

“Look, let’s just say it’s west of Prudhoe Bay, alright?” Major Northwoods snapped. “There’s not much there, Kgalakgadi-”

“Which is exactly why I think we should send a team out there,” Kgalakgadi said. “The readings I’m getting… They’re getting stronger. There isn’t even really a military out there.”

“Which means nobody to investigate this personally,” Northwoods said. “Which is worrying.”

“Well, clearly this is important,” Kgalakgadi said. “Therefore, we need a team of the bes-”

Fiddlesticks

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Snowshoes muttered, looking over the briefing room.

“Me neither,” Sandalwood said.

The twelve of them stood before a PHL transport plane. Kgalakgadi, Sandalwood, Snowshoes, Spurred Weld, Vera Low, Emma Hayden from back in the lab, Darryl Joseph, and Fiddlesticks and Johnny C. There were two others with them that Johnny and Fiddlesticks hadn’t seen, a tall rail-thin Inuit with an Ulfberht on his back (According to a name stitched on his vest, it was ‘Amaruq’) and a short woman with a semiautomatic rifle named Sharon Minik. The latter two looked like they hadn’t left the boundaries of Alaska more than twice in all their life.

“I could outfly this thing,” Snowshoes sighed, looking at the VTOL’s engines.

“You want to stay there in a blizzard,” the inuit man named Amuruq said. “Be my guest.”

Snowshoes just sighed, her breath coming out as a smoky mass in the cold winter weather. “I’m sure this’ll go along great.”

“Why not?” Emma asked, hefting a Kalashnikov.

“Name one occasion that anyone has ever said ‘I regret bringing all this extra ammo,’” Darryl said, hefting a large canvas-wrapped package into the plane’s cargo hold.

“Darryl’s got you there,” Fiddlesticks chuckled.

“That had better not be a flamethrower,” Sharon said.

“Alright,” Darryl shrugged. “It’s not a flamethrower.”

“Then is it a thermite gun?” Sharon asked.

Darryl shrugged. “Could be,” he said, a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Alright, how many other people brought weaponry?” Spurred Weld groaned.

Everyone that wasn’t Kgalakgadi raised a foreleg or forearm.

“God…. dammit,” Spurred Weld groaned.

“Well, don’t be unfair,” Amuruq said. “We are in Alaska. Why do you think I brought this revolver?”

“Bears?” Johnny C asked. “Same reason I have mine.”

“And I also asked for assault saddles,” Snowshoes said.

To everyone’s surprise, Sandalwood smiled and nodded her head. “Amuruq’s right. It’s Alaska.”

“You never know what you’ll find out here,” Sharon said, as they stepped into the plane.

“You guys gonna get in here soon?!” the pilot called out. “Hear there’s a blizzard comin’!”

Author's Note

So, uh... I'm guessing none of you saw this coming.

Anyway: Snowbound has just been brought in-line with the SPECTRUM reboot! Hooray! I'm sorry it hasn't updated in... over a year? Good cripes. Anyway, back then, I kind of forgot about this in favor of working on Light... and then, well, Spectrum was collapsing, and I wanted to get Light out as fast as possible so I could tell myself it was finished.

That failed, of course.

EDIT: ...WOW, this thing was a rush job! With luck, the version I just re-re-edited is an improvement.

Chapter Two: That Haunted Melody

Chapter 2: That Haunted Melody
editors/Co-authors
VoxAdam

“This is a land of broken dreams. And this forlorn, little railroad is one of those dreams that never came true.”
Richard Beneville, Nome, AK tour guide.

“"Aeon War Syndrome isn't losing your mind. It's losing your friends. It's losing your family. It's losing whatever hope you might have had left. They say war is hell. I've seen hell. This is worse."
Someone from Cthulhutech, I don’t know.

PHL PSYCH DOSSIER
SUBJECT: JOHNATHAN JOHNNY C “NNY” PHILIP HEALD III
HISTORY: Heald exhibits marked anti-authority and antisocial tendencies, in combination with firearms enthusiasm. College psych eval indicate suicidal ideation, violent tendencies, paranoid episodes, severe trust handicaps.

Heald was hospitalized in July 2013 after a stress-related breakdown, in which he went AWOL from college after a violent assault of his roommate and said roommate’s girlfriend, claiming “The fuckers deserved it.” He disappeared from his college in Spring 2013, resurfacing as a lookout in a remote national park, delusionally claiming to be a “wolf whisperer” and having been photographed alongside wild wolf pups. Subject underwent treatment and successfully applied to a different college in Spring 2014.

He came to PHL attention, however, upon news of both HTF and PHL involvement. Subject was witnessed holding a knife to Bureau personnel, but willingly took the knife off his throat so as to send the Bureau employee to PHL interrogation.

Upon Celestia’s announcement of war, he volunteered for the National Guard, as did the pony (see:FIDDLESTICKS APPLE) he had allowed to board in his house. Heald shows exceptional resourcefulness, marksmanship, dedication, determination, and duty, but reports of cruelty at PER sites just keep piling up.

Investigation into wartime trauma and its effect on his mental state is still pending. Thus far, he proves to be a fascinating case study. So many aspects of his personality can be contradictory. A passion for the arts, frantically swinging between introversion and extroversion…

Still. I’m glad he’s here with us and our counselling department. Not in a “We’d-all-die” sense, but a “He’d-die-without-us” sense. Something tells me that taking him off his meds and leaving him among HLF would not end well.

Dr. Red Couch, PHL Psychological Counselling

Snowshoes

Snowshoes didn’t like getting off the base on business. Especially not for Kgalakgadi’s little pet projects. Which outsiders - like the somewhat overweight human with large triceps and nice hair, or the yellow earth pony with the blue mane that were for some reason on this mission - would say was weird for a pegasus.

Pegasi were usually free spirits. Inclined to flights of fancy.

Snowshoes, however, unlike many pegasi who saw a snowstorm like the one approaching as a casual annoyance, was much happier fluttering around the very large hangar of the base, working on a prototype aircraft inspired by the works of one Prince Blueblood, or possibly in a nest (yes, she was a pegasus, she’d heard all the jokes) of blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals.

Which, coupled with her instinctive dislike of confined spaces, meant that she didn’t like it in this little PHL plane built on half-understood engines barely out of the testing phase, sitting across from the two outsiders from the east coast. And she definitely didn’t like being taken off-base in the middle of a project of hers to reverse-engineer Heliotrope’s suit. Nevermind that the notes Heliotrope made were scratchy, and that Heliotrope’s mouth-and-wingwriting was unreliable at best. Nevermind that Heliotrope could use weird terminology and would always code her notes and provide half-finished guides. Nevermind that Heliotrope had a tendency towards paranoia.

She’d been busy on the most humiliating part of the project, too, when you weren’t actually working on the project, you were working on starting. When you were working to actually work, but making an infinitesimally small amount of progress.

Also, as a favor for Heliotrope, she’d been working on a module that’d create a decoy upon Heliotrope going invisible. Which, again, had not been helped by Heliotrope’s informal language. The bad mood that hung over her was not helped by the cramped confines of the trucks, or the fact that she barely knew any of these people. She’d seen them around - Amuruq Jackson could often be found staring over the base with his sniper rifle, a big Ulfberht. Vera was… Unapproachable at best, and went damn near rabid when you talked about her family. Actually, everyone but Sandalwood and Darryl were various flavors of unapproachable.

The short, squat human with the mop of brown hair was off talking to Amuruq. She’d pegged the short man as a moronic sexual deviant - he was a bit too touchy feely, and there were odd touches to his mannerisms.

“So you met Romeo?” the short human - Johnny C, apparently nicknamed Nny - asked.

“Me and my old Samoyed did, yeah,” Amuruq said. “Heh, here’s Romeo just being surprised at Fluffy’s, y’know, well, fluff.”

“What an amazing experience,” the short human breathed. “Meeting a wild wolf playing with dogs. You know he had dog back in his family sometime, right?”

“Seriously?” Amuruq asked.

“Yeah, black fur, that’s a mutation,” Nny said. “You gotta breed wolves into your sled-dogs, to keep the pool fresh, y’know? And black fur was great for blending into forests. This is why huskies have black spots on their faces. I seen it.”

“Well, yeah,” Amuruq said. “I knew that. You learn a lot working the Alaska Zoo as a teenager.”

“Did you meet the funny river pups?” Nny asked.

“Course I did.”

“Awesome! I thought you were saying Romeo was a wolfdog.”

“Nah,” Nny said.

Snowshoes knew everyone in there but him and his mare.

“What’s your story?” she asked.

“Nny and I came up to help out a friend on the base,” the yellow mare said. “And then someone thought it’d be a great idea to come all the way out here.”

“I thought it’d be a vacation, Fiddlesticks,” the stocky human - Nny? - said. “Then again, I do kinda have doglike loyalty to others…”

“Huh?” Snowshoes asked.

“He’s saying he’s loyal to anyone with a kind word,” Fiddlesticks said.

“That’s not… bad…” Snowshoes said.

“What’s bad is why I’m like that,” the human named Nny said. “See, back in college I had this mental break-”

“Bad news,” the pilot said over loudspeaker. “We’ve got word that there’s a real big storm coming, maybe something brewed up over behind the Barrier, so we’ll have to touch down by Galbraith Lake.”

There was a pause.

“Yeah,” Snowshoes said. “Those clouds ahead don’t look good.”

“They’ve got a vehicle stored in the hangar, so at least you guys can stop up by Point Rotgut,” the Pilot said.

Snowshoes let out a gasp of joy.

“Aw, yeah!” cheered Sandalwood from a seat nearby. As always, Sandalwood was fully clothed, wearing an old pony-made snowsuit that had been patched with duct tape. “Been forever since I got to stop there.”

“Need I remind you this is a scientific mission?” Kgalakgadi asked, Sharon and Spurred Weld folding their arms, staring at the other nine of them.

“Need I remind you this is the perfect time to get some fresh air?” Snowshoes retorted, and bumped hooves with Sandalwood. While they disagreed, plenty of times, if there was anypony she could trust… It was Sandalwood. Her best mate.

“Where’s Point Rotgut?” Nny asked, peering out the window. “Didn’t see it on any of the maps.”

From experience, Snowshoes knew what he was seeing. Miles and miles of green, snow-covered forests, scarred by the pipeline, a road, and the long railroad winding through the wilderness. A forlorn, lost length of trackage.

Running through miles of nothing.

“Point Rotgut’s not really a… a on-the-map place,” said Amaruq.

“Then…” Nny started.

“It’s what we call Pump Station 3,” Amaruq explained. “The Prudhoe Bay Rail Extension has a maintenance area near the Dalton Highway, and it gets lonely up there, so some enterprising guy made a rotgut distillery. Turned into a stop, and now there’s a small town. Besides, after all the work building the line, there wasn’t much of a place for all the railworkers. Had to take up shelter on the line, and they didn’t have the money to leave.”

“Best truck stop for miles,” Sandalwood said, a big smile on her face. “Almost as good as Sagwon.”

“Shame, though,” said Vera Low, the Russian woman who had torn most of her last name off of her tac-vest. “We had to build that through one of the last wildernesses in the world…”

“It wasn’t all that wild, considering the pipeline and the road,” Snowshoes said. “Or would you rather not have any fuckin’ power?”

“Come on,” Sandalwood said. “Dick move, Snowy. Dick. Move.”

Command had likely shoved her off on this…. mission, if you could call it that…. to get her out of their hair for awhile.

“Never said that,” Nny said. “It’s just… sad.” He paused. “Still. Least there’s good beer on the way.”

“It’s not about beer,” Darryl Joseph said. “Look. No matter how insignificant it seems, we’ve still got a job.”

“And then get schwifty?” Nny asked hopefully as the plane arced down to a forlorn-looking airport by a lake.

“And then get schwifty,” Fiddlesticks confirmed.

“Great,” sighed Spurred Weld, the unicorn stallion that had come along with them, a railroader unicorn before he’d left for Earth. Kgalakgadi had figured they’d need a unicorn to come along, “just in case,” so he’d reluctantly come along. “I’m surrounded by alcoholics.”

“Hey,” Snowshoes said. “How many people here aren’t alcoholics?”

“Don’t… just, just don’t do anything, don’t answer that,” Darryl sighed, facepalming. “I don’t want to know.”

This was probably for the best.

Twelve people disembarked the plane. Kgalakgadi, Vera, Snowshoes, Tomorbaator the griffon, Darryl Joseph, Spurred Weld, Emma Hayden, Amaruq, Sharon Minik, Sandalwood, and of course, Johnny C and Fiddlesticks.

None of them were happy, mind. It could have been a decent drive, but noooo...

They were offloaded into one of the trucks on the base, and headed down the Dalton Highway. Though “highway” was stretching it a bit. It was like one of the dirt roads from back home in New Hampshire, Johnny C thought.

...Okay, this was only a highway in the sense that a “tram,” as Alaskan mining operations had called anything from a gondola to a narrow-gauge railroad, was a wide-spanning railroad operation. It was a dirt road longer than Johnny C's home state.

“The open road, huh?” Johnny C asked.

Amaruq

It would have been easy to say that it was dark by the time Point Rotgut drew closer. But no, this was Alaska, so it had been dark the whole time.

Everyone needed a break to stretch their legs and take a piss, especially as they passed the large sign that had been pieced together from neon lettering taken aboard various evac ships. Black iron railroad tracks glistened under its light.

“So,” Sandalwood asked, “What exactly did you pick up on your instruments, Kgalakgadi?”

“Good question,” Kgalakadi said, adjusting his glasses. “I… don’t know. It lasted a short time, but when I read the printout it was such a massive spike of thaums that… I don’t know. It couldn’t be natural. Or an error. It was too...” He sighed. “It was like something had used a teleport to simply shift Equestria to earth for a second. Like a pinhole, and…” he gulped.

“What’re you saying?” Sandalwood asked. “We’ve been having thaumometers going haywire everywhere. Something about earth’s old magic waking up, are you sure it-”

“I think something came through,” Kgalakgadi interrupted, then whispered to Sandalwood. “And I picked this up twice.”

“Sounds like something followed them,” Sandalwood said.

“I was thinking the same,” Kgalakgadi said, and the two of them looked out at the road ahead. The lights of Point Rotgut glistened in the distance, through the snow.

Snowshoes whistled at that.

“Something’s wrong,” said Amaruq. His knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel. He was driving at a crawl, and the windshield wipers whipped across their view of the road.

“And that is?” Johnny C asked.

“This story,” Amaruq said. “The sign. It’s just…”

“Amaruq, have you been playing through Until Dawn again?” Spurred Weld sighed.

“Oh, come on,” Amaruq sighed. “Those are from Southern Canada! Just like loup-garou.”

“Kishtaka?” Spurred Weld suggested.

“...It’s. Not. The same,” Amaruq said.

“Wendigos-”

“Wait, what?” Sandalwood interrupted. “The Hearthswarming boogeymonsters?”

“No, it’s totally different,” Johnny C said. “For example, I’m pretty sure Windigos aren't created through cannibalism-”

“Some of them are,” Fiddlesticks said. “Grandma Astrachan said her great-grandma told her that she’d heard ponies got real desperate for food back then. Resort to being a carnivore, then... Windigo.”

“How have I never heard of this?" Snowshoes asked.

“Would you want to hear this as a filly?” Fiddlesticks asked. “I didn't know you weren’t supposed to tell ghost stories on Hearthswarming Eve till the pageant we had to do... And I ended up as one of the windigoes…”

“Your childhood sounds messed up,” Snowshoes said, shivering.

“Eh,” Fiddlesticks shrugged. “The ghost stories were fun.”

“Wait a second,” Snowshoes said. "I’ve tasted meat before. It was on a bet, with a griffon back in flight school. You don’t think…”

“Nah, that only happens in somewhere with windigoes,” Fiddlesticks said. “Least, that’s what Grandma Astrachan said. Long as you don't do it somewhere with lots of snow and ic-”

“...blast," Snowshoes sighed, looking out the window. “Ammy? You're sure they're a-”

“Yes! Can we... Can we focus for a bit?” Amaruq asked. “I just have a really bad feeling about Point Rotgut.”

“Ammy, it’s fine,” Darryl Joseph said, as their truck, rattling on the frost-heave battered road, drew up to a ragged collection of outbuildings and battered but serviceable structures in the middle of the snowy tundra.

“Looks like an open wound,” Fiddlesticks said, and Sharon glared at her.

“Outsider,” Sharon sighed.

“New Hampshire?” Fiddlesticks asked, raising an eyebrow.

Sharon just sighed again.

Fiddlesticks is right, though, Johnny C thought. It does... kind of look like one. He’d usually thought of Alaska as mostly forest and mountain, but this place was just surrounded on all sides by nothing. No roads other than this one, no flora or fauna besides a couple stunted trees just barely poking out of the thick snows, no suburbs, no isolated shacks from people who just wanted to be left alone.

Just this collection of buildings in the middle of nowhere.

It was a place that would look more at home in the wilds of Pandora - the one from Borderlands, not Avatar. The rails of the Deadhorse Extension had been overtaken by a sprawling wasp's nest of prefabs that had remade the junction for their own use. Wooden outbuildings clung to it like burls to trees. Somewhere in the middle of it all, he could see a group of green, slab-sided buildings that looked to be built for functionality above all else. (They were).

And, sprayed with vivid blue and pink paint, enchanted to glow by unicorn settlers, on the walls of a blue, corrugated roadside warehouse were the words: Point Rotgut.

It didn’t look like a welcoming place, to say the least. The street had been paved, and there visibly was electricity… but something gave Johnny C the idea that it was a luxury or indulgence here. Algae-lamps in blue and green lined the street, casting an eerie glow over the snowy border town.

Everyone that they could see hurrying by was wearing patchworks of old-world clothes (the kind with expensive material and lots of zippers) and crudely stitched cold-weather clothes made of anything on hand, from tree bark, to pelts, to old plastic. Almost everyone seemed to be armed, but even pre-war that had been fairly normal for Alaska. A large revolver could be a lot of use up here, especially on various large wild animals.

“See, Amaruq?” Darryl asked, as they drove down the main drag of the town. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

Darryl was right. Whatever disaster Amuruq had predicted of Point Rotgut was… not. Well, Point Rotgut was kind of a disaster in itself. ‘Shuttered’ was the only word that came to Fiddlesticks’ mind as she looked it over through a frost-encrusted window. It looked as if everyone in town wanted nothing so much as to burrow down in a hole with a lot of booze and never return to the world.

...In retrospect, this explained the various bars all over town, each one adorned with scavenged neon in a multitude of languages. And the closed windows that seemed like nothing so much as the heavy-lidded eyes of an insomniac that wished for just a moment’s peace.

“Ain’t it great?” Sandalwood asked, a big smile on her face.

“No,” Fiddlesticks said quietly. “Being honest, it seems pretty horrible here. This is just… this looks like somewhere I’d go to die of alcohol poisoning or frostbite.”

“Or drinking alcohol that’s the same temperature as it is outside,” Emma added. “Nny - you’re young, so-”

“Twenty-seven,” Johnny C said, unable not to look at Point Rotgut. “It’s short for Johnny.”

“Point is,” Emma said, not listening and likely not caring, “Don’t drink booze out in the cold. Nearly lost my throat to-”

“So that is why Emma sound like Girlfriend Doctor from Venture Brother,” Vera said, earning a glower from Emma. “This place… was never plan. American PHL, Canadian and American government… they needed quick route to petrol in Dead Horse.”

“It’s actually called that?” Fiddlesticks asked. “...Dead… horse? Sounds like an HLF camp.”

“Used to be,” Darryl said. “Though as HLF go, we kinda neutered them.”

Fiddlesticks, Snowshoes, and Johnny C glanced over at him, alarmed.

“Not even remotely what I meant,” Darryl elaborated. “We… came to an agreement. They keep the gas going, don’t touch our ponies, we don’t touch them. They won’t do anything like Lovik-”

Vera’s eyes blazed with hatred, and Johnny C would swear, to the day that he wrote this story, to the day that a South African war criminal would start reading a copy of said story after quoting Ladd Russo as he beat up a PER woman, that Darryl did, in fact, whimper and squeeze himself back into the seat like a puppy. Possibly one of the Funny River wolf pups that had been rescued near Denali, but that was too far south, and probably way too specific.

“Lovikov?” Johnny C asked. “Hate that bastard. The day he ended up on the same coast as me was a pretty bad one. I’ve shot a few of his goons before.”

“Good,” Vera spat, and now it was time for Fiddlesticks to shrink back against her seat. “Anyway. The workers, a lot of them didn’t have the money to buy their own homes after all this. Or, well, a lot of them didn’t have the money to get out of alaska. The cities were crammed, and a lot of weird stuff can happen out there.”

She sighed, and looked over at a bridge through the middle of Point Rotgut that transients were using as a temporary roof over their heads. “No side of the tracks more wrong than under them,” she said.

A beat-up train, headed by two EMD-f7s (one bore the number 1500 on its waybill) rushed over the bridge, trailing snow like a running wolf. It coated the sides of the buildings in the alley it rushed through, and the side of the truck facing the bridge was buffeted in a gust of snow.

For a second, Amuruq couldn’t see anything.

“So I was wrong,” he sighed.

“That’s putting it lightly,” Emma smirked.

“It’s just… I had a bad feeling, alright?” Amuruq asked. “Look. We’re in the middle of nowhere, there’s a huge storm, and we’re gonna head further out to the middle of nowhere on some zebra’s hunch-”

“It’s not a hunch,” Kgalakgadi said, as they inched towards the very edge of Port Rotgut, past a narrow scattering of outbuildings. “I’m telling you. The instruments. Do. Not. Lie. Something’s out there.”

“What, are you gonna try to make all the wolves eat newfoals?” Emma asked sarcastically. “Again?”

“I didn’t have the resources to make it work!” Kgalakgadi protested.

“...Not helping your case, bruh,” Sharon Minik sighed. “Seriously, that’s just superstition dreamt up by-”

“You do realize you’re in a van with two unicorns and a pegasus, right?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“What about me?” Kgalakgadi asked.

“And we were mythical before Equestria found us,” Johnny C added. “Point I think my friend’s trying to make here is, skepticism sounds weird.”

“I’unno,” Fiddlesticks shrugged. “I can’t think of any human legends about talking zebras. I mean, there probably is one, but we’d have to ask someone from Africa.”

Sharon

Let’s just skip about an hour and fifteen minutes forward from this Tarantino-esque conversation and assume that the twelve people in there kept driving for a lot longer.

And that Amuruq, who’d been driving a long time, switched out with Sharon Minik, who’d been rather suspiciously quiet.

It had been only getting darker. Up here, night could last for weeks. Sometimes more than a month. The human from New Hampshire was lying against the pale yellow, blue-maned mare, and everyone seemed rested. Except Sharon herself.

Who wasn’t happy. But then, who was?

The snow was pounding down on the flat, icy tundra that surrounded the road, and Sharon was hoping they got to the next station soon. Not for rest - they’d likely make it up to where Kgalakgadi’s instruments were indicating soon enough that she wouldn’t need a break from driving. But it was tiring to be away from civilization.

“Look alive, everyone,” Sharon said, the truck trundling down the isolated old road. Civilization, the cities they all remembered, almost seemed to be distant memories as they inched closer and closer to Prudhoe Bay and Deadhorse. “We’ll pass Sagwon in about ten minutes. Amuruq? You got a bad feeling bout this one too?”

Amuruq, who was half-asleep and reading his copy of ‘A Wolf Called Romeo,’ just mumbled something incoherent in Inuktitut and flipped her off.

Nobody responded. They’d been driving too long, and everyone had retreated into various pursuits. Fiddlesticks, the New Hampshire mare, was gently strumming her fiddle in a relaxing lullaby. Johnny C was also reading a book, bobbing his head along to the music. Emma had fallen asleep, Vera just didn’t care. Darryl was fiddling with something on his phone.

Snowshoes was sketching.

Kgalakgadi was busy on his instruments.

Everything in the general area was almost serene. Well, except for whatever the truck would hit in ten seconds.

The sign for Sagwon was coming up. It was, perhaps, one of life’s great ironies, that Sharon had family in Sagwon. They’d been teachers looking for a job, so they’d taken up the job in the little town that had grown up around the pipeline and railroad.

She wondered if she’d see them soo-

Thu-thump

Was that an elk?

The truck drew to a halt, skidding through the snow.

“The hell?” Amuruq yelled.

Couldn’t be. I only saw it out of the corner of my eye.

“I think I hit something,” Sharon said.

“Well… why would you…” Johnny C asked, confused.

“Friggin’ city boys,” Sharon sighed.

“Motherfucker. I’m from the woods,” Johnny C said. “You have any idea how many deer dad killed with his Ford? I know deer hunters without as many kills.”

“So it has no emotional impact?” Amuruq asked.

“Not really,” Fiddlesticks said. “Would you be mad if I ate a monkey?”

“Not really,” Amuruq said.

“Then no,” Fiddlesticks said.

“We’re Inuit,” Amuruq said. “Me and Sharon both. That’s not how we do this sort of thing.”

Johnny C looked at Amuruq and shrugged accomodatingly. “Okay,” Fiddlesticks added.

“No arguments? No verbal sniping?” Amuruq asked, surprised.

“Nope,” Fiddlesticks said.

“I knew there was a reason I liked the two of you,” Amuruq said as they filtered out into the snow. The lights of Sagwon glittered in the distance.

“Where’s the deer?” Sharon asked, confused.

“Let me try,” Johnny C said. “I have a flashlight.”

The ensemble Johnny C was wearing on his head would’ve looked silly in any other situation. Okay, it looked silly in this one, too. He was wearing an old hat meant to look like a stuffed husky, with a pair of ski goggles worn over its eyes.

He pushed them down, and shouldered his rifle. Thumbing on his flashlight, he stalked down the road.

The snow whistled around him. Fiddlesticks was trotting at his side, scanning the horizon. She tightened the strap under her hat that kept it from being tugged off by the wind.

“Y’know,” Fiddlesticks said, looking down at the thick snow beneath their feet. “I’d think that if ya hit a deer, you’d… y’know, find it by now.”

“Now that mention it,” Vera mused. “Weird.”

Sharon stared down into the snow, searching in the narrow area of road covered by the car’s headlights. She was shaking from the cold. “Well, we definitely hit something,” she said, inspecting the front of the car.

“Then where is it?” Fiddlesticks asked.

Vera and Johnny C flicked on the flashlights on their rifles, and scanned the nearby area. Fiddlesticks did not, in fact, have a rifle, so she simply flicked on the flashlight in the breast pocket of her jacket. Or at least, what humans had dubbed the breast pocket.

“What’d you hit?!” Snowshoes asked, fluttering out, unbothered by the snow. She held both hooves to Sharon’s collarbones, and shook. “What’d you hit?!”

“I don’t know!” Sharon yelled. “It looked like, I… I thought it was a…” she was shaking her head vigorously. “It looked like an elk! Caribou or something.”

“I’m not seeing anything!” Fiddlesticks called out.

“It was so real though,” Sharon said, eyes tracking Vera and Nny’s flashlights as they scanned the surrounding area. Wide beams of light cast themselves along the snowy tundra. “And then, how do you explain the front of the truck?”

Fiddlesticks looked over at her. The front chassis of their truck had crumpled a little, as if it had indeed hit a caribou, but there was one thing conspicuously missing:

Whatever it hit.

“Huh,” Fiddlesticks said. “I’m seeing tracks. There’s something… looks cloven there.” She peered down. “Well, this is going to be a bitch to explain.” The tracks abruptly stopped in front of their truck. It was as if whatever they hit had simply vanished upon impact. “The snow will cover this up for awhile.”

“Let me look at them,” Johnny C said. “Dad told me a lot about looking at tracks.”

“New Hampshire, maybe,” Sharon said. “How the hell would you know anything-”

“Dad’s well traveled, alright?” Johnny C snapped as he turned back towards the truck, casting his flashlight arou-

“Whoa,” Fiddlesticks said, and held a hoof to Johnny C’s folder. “Nny. Move that back to the left a bit. Bout an inch.”

“Why, what’s-?” Nny asked, and saw it. “Well. Fuck.”

There was a car stalled on one side of the road with its doors thrown open, half-buried in a snowdrift. From the looks of things, it’d veered off-road.

“That’s… that’s not normal, right?” Sandalwood asked, staring over at the car.

“No,” Darryl said. “It isn’t. Heald? Fiddlesticks, Snowshoes? We’re heading towards that other car.”

“That just raises so many questions,” Nny said, following the three of them.

“...Where’d you even keep that Kalashnikov, anyway?” Snowshoes asked, looking up at the Saiga MK-107.

“Backseat,” Johnny C said, as if that explained everything. Then his eyebrows shot up almost all the way to his prominent widows peak. “Wait a sec. You guys… you’re from Alaska, right?” he called over. “Tell me… anyone know what the tire marks here look like?”

“Course I do,” Amuruq said as he stared down into the marks left in the snow. “Whoever the driver was - wherever he is - he was running. He was driving too fast, so the car skidded around in the snow…”

“But what was he running from?” Emma asked, looking concerned, rifle ready-

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Kgalakgadi asked. said, staring over at her. “Why would you even-”

“Same reason as Nny, I bet,” Emma said. “And, ah, Amuruq? Sorry about laughing at you for having a bad feeling bout this.”

“Apology accepted,” Amuruq said, trembling.

“Wait a second,” Vera said. “Snowshoes? Does the pattern on the windshield look… familiar? Just fly up and stand on it.”

“Come on,” Darryl sighed. “That’s evidence. It’s-”

But, as Snowshoes alighted on the hood, the snow melting in her windswept mane, his voice trailed off into the realm of stillborn sentences.

“Oh,” Darryl said, as if reading something moderately interesting in the newspaper. Then, as if he’d just found out everyone he’d ever known and loved had died: “Oh.”

“Fuck,” Sharon spat.

Snowshoes’ four hooves matched the points where the windshield was cracked, almost exactly.

The sign for Sagwon was glowing in the late-night winter moonlight.

“Everyone. Back to the car. Minik,” Darryl said. “Get us to Sagwon. Now. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“What’s going on?” Johnny C asked, gripping his rifle like a lifeline.

“I don’t know,” Snowshoes said.

“Why is it that when he gets a bad feeling we all listen, but when the inuit guy does-” Amuruq started.

“Actually, first, you… might’ve been technically right,” Darryl said. “Second - we’ve got something here. Don’t know what it is, but it’s something.”

“Do we mean the thing that I hit, or…” Sharon started.

“Maybe,” Darryl said. “I don’t know what it is. But I don’t think I like it.”

None of them did. The lights of Sagwon, Fiddlesticks noticed, looked almost like the eyes of some great beast…

They piled back into the truck, as it crawled towards Sagwon.

“Hello?” Darryl asked, thumping the truck’s radio. “This is investigation team Romeo. We’ve got… I don’t know what. I-”

“...lo? Snow….. thick,” someone said on the other end. “Ca…. *static* thing. Blizz… ...ference.”

“Great,” Emma sighed. “Storm’s screwing up the signal.”

“Actually…” Kgalakgadi wiped the sweat from his brow with one striped foreleg. “That might not be all that’s interfering with it.” He held up one of his instruments in his mouth, something that looked vaguely like a geiger counter, showing it to everyone else in the truck.

“Your instruments are screwing it up?” Sharon asked, looking down at it.

“Are they?” Amuruq asked. “The hell, man?”

“No,” Kgalakgadi mumbled, his jaw’s grip slipping. “Look at the needle.”

“...Oh,” Sandalwood said, eyebrows raised. “That’s… disquieting.”

“Exactly,” Kgalakgadi said. “We have to warn Sagwon!”

“I’m guessing that’s bad?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Considering the PHL doesn’t have anything capable of that there, yes,” Kgalakgadi said. “Look. Here’s a little thaumoemotive indicator.” He held up a device that looked a little like a walkie-talkie. “There’s a thaum spike out here. I don’t know what could be causing it.”

“...I don’t know about that,” Fiddlesticks said. “What about that car? The marks on the windshield?”

“You can’t possibly be suggesting-” Tomorbaator started.

“She is,” Johnny C said, his face hardened. “Sharon, we’re getting to Sagwon.”

“I’m in command here, in case you forgot,” Darryl said.

“Unless we were going through some other town,” Sharon said, “We were doing that anyway.”

They clambered into the truck, and headed for the town.

Nobody looked enticed by the thought of visiting Sagwon, this time. Darryl was trying to use the radio, communicate them any way he could, but the storm had made him lucky to get in more than a syllable.

“Fuck,” Sharon said.

Which just so happened to be the train station. It wasn’t a big station, or anything that could even charitably be called remarkable. It was just a line of winterized prefabs, an almost halfhearted awning covering the platform.

The low orange, green, and red light of a departure board scavenged from somewhere in Europe hung above the platform, helpfully informing them that a passenger train wouldn’t come through for days.

“Nobody’s here,” Emma called from inside.

“Free liquor?” Snowshoes asked, hopefully.

“Was there part of ‘nobody’s here’ that didn’t get?” Vera sighed.

“If what I think happened here, well, happened,” Snowshoes muttered, “Dead men don’t complain.”

“They do,” Vera said.

Snowshoes just glared at her.

“Snowy,” Sandalwood said, walking into the station, “I believe she means some HLF cult?”

We’re all scared, Nny thought, as they headed indoors.

“Why’d you have to take us here?” Fiddlesticks sighed, her breath wafting through the air like smoke.

“Huh? I… uh… how’d you hear me…”

“Y’all didn’t say anything,” Fiddlesticks said. “Wi’ yer mouth. You’re regrettin’ this, here n’ now. Plain as day.”

“I… thought it’d be nice,” Nny said, a little dejected, wishing desperately that he was bored again. “Visit alaska. Hike with lonely wolves. Find logging equipment in the forest.”

“...Is that really what you think my home state is like?” Sharon sighed. “Guys from Outside, I swear.”

“Hey, I read the books about Alaska,” Nny said. “I just wanted to relax. Enjoy the cold.”

“People like you,” Sharon said, “Never know what it’s like up here.”

“I have literally had my mustache freeze while skiing before, and I ski a mountain that kills people every yeah,” Nny said. “You don’t know what it’s like back home, either.”

“Fair enough,” Sharon said, shaking the snow off her coat. The wooden floor wasn’t exacty clean…

Except for a certain patch of wet floor over by the bathrooms. Under a model of a Shay locomotive, there was a bucket of soapy water. The presumably corresponding mop was lying on the floor.

“Who walks away in the middle of this, anyway?” Sandalwood said, confused.

“What do you mean?” Kgalakgadi asked.

“Somebody was cleaning here,” Sandalwood said. “Walked away right in the middle of it.”

“How…” Darryl asked.

Kgalakgadi looked at his thaumoemotive indicator. The cube was spinning in a small glass sphere surrounded by a block the size of a child’s flashcards, enchanted so it’d be easier for a native of Equus to hold it.

“Well, there’s definitely something…” Kgalakgadi said. “What do you think, Da…”

His voice trailed off. The device dropped from his hooves, his hoof TK evidently failing him. “Ohhhh, no.”

Johnny C looked over to Darryl. He was shaking. And, unnervingly enough, carrying what looked to Johnny C almost exactly like a thermite projector.

“...Should I be worried about this?” Johnny C asked.

Emma just looked over at him and rolled her eyes.

“There is a man with a flamethrower here,” Fiddlesticks said. “And I notice that most of the stuff here is flammable.”

“Dare,” Snowshoes said. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but don’t.” She was fluttering near his head. Shivering.

“Snowy,” Darryl said. “This… this is real bad.”

His hands were shaking like leaves. “I know the signs. This is…”

He headed out the door, throwing it open. Snow cascaded in, sweeping over the floor.

Darryl, still shaking, headed out. “Look,” he said. “What about this.”

Kgalakgadi backed away slowly. “Um…. Is he usually...”

“Yeah,” Snowshoes said. “I haven’t seen him this bad since Forward Oper-” her mouth clammed shut. “Later. We’ll talk that one later.”

“You are totally trying to find a better way to dodge that later,” Johnny C commented, as they walked into the street outside the train station. He noticed a nod from Snowshoes.

There was nobody on the street, pony or human. Admittedly, it was the middle of a frozen night - who would be out? - but there was no…

Anything, really.

The buildings were so encrusted in snow that they looked almost like giant snowdrifts. A windmill, meant for generating power in the intense cold, warbled slightly.

Another car was stalled in the middle of the road. Parked neatly, as well. One door hung open. It juddered against the car’s body, its drumbeat echoing in the wind.

Snowshoes shivered again.

“And… and y-you laughed at me for having… p-pants,” Sandalwood muttered through chattering teeth.

But there was no malice in her tone. Not even good-natured ribbing.

The lights blazed through the wintry, month-long darkness. Vera was scanning the rooftops through her rifle’s sights.

“Empty,” Vera said finally.

“Hmm?” Spurred Weld asked.

“All empty,” Vera said. “Bought a thermal sight awhile back. And I can’t see anything living in the immediate area.”

“...What the hell happened here?” Fiddlesticks asked.

There was a bar up ahead. Its doors were open, one of them swinging.

“Okay,” Amuruq said. “Is anyone going to make jokes if I say that now my bad feeling is back?”

Snowshoes shook her head.

“I’m guessing that one is a bad sign,” Johnny C said.

“Movement,” Tomorbaator said finally.

“Huh?” Emma asked.

“Movement. There is not a goddamn thing moving, here,” Tomorbaator said.

“What do you mean?” Kgalakgadi asked.

“I mean, look. There is no hint that anything’s… doing anything.”

“For the love of all that’s holy,” Nny said, “Please tell me we are not splitting up.”

Darryl blinked. “Well, why not? We could cover more of the town that way.”

“And we’ll get picked off easier,” Snowshoes added sarcastically.

“No shit, Sherclop,” Tomorbaator growled. He’d kitted himself out with what looked like an assault yoke. “Here. Mr. Heald-” he passed Johnny C something that looked like a grenade launcher. “Underbarrel bolas launcher. Pet project of mine.”

“What’s this for?” Johnny C asked, affixing it to his kalashnikov.

“Emergencies,” Tomorbaator said.

“Ah, guys?” Amuruq asked, shielding his balaclava’d face from the wind. “A thought occurs. You know that train we saw going through Point Rotgut? Those do double duty as passenger trains, because Prudhoe Bay and Deadhorse are, how to put this…”

“Barely a step above unincorporated townships?” Johnny C suggested.

Sharon gave him a flat, unfriendly stare.

“No, he’s right,” Amuruq said. “The population of these places is so low that it is barely a step above that. So either someone on that train we saw escaped…”

“Or whatever it was here happened recently.” Sandalwood finished. “Shi-”

“Did you hear that?” Tomorbaator yelped, jumping a foot into the air.

Six rifles (and one flamethrower) were shouldered in the space of a single moment. As had Fiddlesticks’ assault saddle, which slid out from a box she was wearing just above her barrel.

“The hell, man?!” she yelled at Tomorbaator.

“I heard something,” Tomorbaator said, as if that explained everything. “From the bar.”

He inclined his head, pointing towards a building that sure as hell looked like a restaurant of some kind. A sign, painted in black and yellow, simply read: “The Redoubt.”

Sandalwood

Was Sandalwood scared as they walked into the bar?

Absolutely.

It was like walking in the ruins of somewhere the Barrier had eaten already. There were few ponies of the PHL that hadn’t been present for a Barrierfall somewhere.

Sandalwood had been in one. In fact-

The ships - Gone. Stuck. Stuck on the coast, no way out, one hind and one front leg broken. PHL gone, her, alone, with the only humans in a vaguely caring mood towards her being utterly fucking nuts. An entire city, a mausoleum that wouldn’t be-

A staticky radio was crackling somewhere in the background. Sandalwood could see Snowshoes trying not to stare at it, though the disgust in her eyes was clearly aimed for the radio, not at her. For once, for bucking once, it was good not to have that slut, that frie-

‘Calm down,’ Sandalwood told herself as she trotted into the bar. ‘Keep it calm, Sandy.

This didn’t work when she saw the state of the bar. Dinners, tall beers and glasses of the finest rotgut that could be distilled in someone’s basements or in hidden, accidental spaces under the pipes or where two service corridors built to keep people out of the cold didn’t quite intersect right, forks and knives laid out as if the bar had been the site of a bustling evening after a long, hard day. As much as you could be said to have “day” here. It was night, now - it’d be night here for at least the next two weeks, and, and focus…

The only thing missing was people. The bar was empty as could be. Sandalwood reared up, inspecting a heaping plate of salmon.

“It’s still warm,” she heard herself say, her voice sounding as if it was coming from faraway. “Their dinners,” she said, sniffing one plate. “They’re… still warm.”

Krkrrkkhhkkhkhkkkkkhhh… the radio answered. Static. Weird, thrumming, static.

“That sounds… bad,” said the guy from New Hampshire, Johnny C. “Somebody shut off that damn radio.”

“Yeah, the static’s not helping,” said Fiddlesticks, his marefriend with the gray hat.

“Bad ain’t the word,” Darryl said. “Besides.” He held up the thermite gun. “I could take it off the airwaves for all of y’alls.”

“Dare?” Snowshoes asked. “If you don’t mind, I don’t like having a flamethrower in closed quarters like this.”

“It’s a thermite gun! And I don’t like any of this, so I guess we’ll have to compromise,” Darryl snapped.

“Darryl,” Sandalwood said. “Out of line.”

“It’s just nerves,” said Johnny C. “Come on… guys. This is fucked, I think we all know it…”

“Well,” Snowshoes said, as per bloody usual, “Thank you, captain obviou-”

And it was at that moment that Emma - who had walked into another room just behind the bar - yelped like a startled dog, then stepped, no, staggered, no, flew backwards.

VERA

Fucking staticky american radios.

At the very least, back home in Oily Rocks, things worked. And at least when they didn’t, you could punch or duct-tape things into submission until they did. This was how her father’s old, piecemealed shotgun, the one he’d beaten into a bullpup configuration through sweat and aluminum had worked, anyway.

It was impossible to hear anything over that radio. At least the arguing of all the Americans and ponies she’d come with were doing a good job of drowning out that horrible static.

“The dinners are still warm,” Sandalwood was saying. Then, as usual, she was glaring at Snowshoes. It was a shame, really. From what she’d heard, they’d been great friends once upon a time. Emma, the pale and vaguely Irish woman with coppery hair, the one that held her M16 like a hunter but not a soldier, was heading into a back room.

Dangerous. But what did Vera care?

What did she care that a woman was filtering away, during a heated argument in a place that seemed to be actively cutting through their ability to reason…

Emma was opening the door.

I am not Leonid, Vera told herself. “Tomorbaator,” Vera said. The vaguely mongolian sounds of his name were awkward in her thick, partly Azerbaijani, partly Russian accent. “What did see?”

“Honestly?” Tomorbaator asked. “Haven’t a clue.”

“Wait. Really?” Vera asked, pursing her lips.

“I saw… a flash. Something like antlers,” Tomorbaator said. “Then... “ he reared up a little, shrugging as best he could. “Gone.”

“Maybe it’s the deer we hit,” Vera said, laughing, surprised by how uncertain she sounded.

“Yeah,” Tomorbaator said. “Maybe.” He groaned. “Fuckin’ staticky radio. None of this feels right. Y’know?”

“Tomorbaator,” Vera said, “We are in empty town in middle of nowhere, Alaska, above arctic circle. The nearest settlement is hour and a half away. Nearest military base is twelve hours away. Town looks like barrierfall-”

It was impossible for neither of them to notice how Sandalwood jumped at the mention of Barrierfall.

“-there is nobody here, and that radio is pissing me off,” Vera finished. “Oh, and you’re seeing things.”

Tomorbaator snorted. Emma was peering through one door, absentmindedly. The same way people do when they’re bored and are absentmindedly picking at a loose piece of wood, or loose sticker on a desk before ripping it apart purely on accident.

“I am not,” Tomorbaator snorted.

“Then what was it?” Vera asked, heading towards Emma. It’s for the best she’s here, Vera thought. Can’t imagine she’d be well off anywhere else. Definitely not on a battlefield.

Tomorbaator looked to deflate. “I don’t know. Whatever it was… it’s got magic.”

Vera’s head snapped towards Tomorbaator. Not ‘spun’ or ‘swung’, it was simply that one second she was looking at Emma, the next she was looking down at Tomorbaator. And, Tomorbaator could also hear a crack as she was suddenly looking down at him.

Did she hurt herself or something? Tomorbaator asked himself.

“Then why didn’t you tell us?!” Vera hissed down at him.

“Why don’t you just go smoke one of those scum ciggies Amuruq likes so much near the fuel for Darryl’s flamethrower?” Tomorbaator retorted. “Look at us. We’re a powderkeg, and everyone knows it. At the moment, we’re panicking over this town, and if I tell anyone, then-”

“Even if this is just a survey made to give fresh air and frostbite,” Vera said, “We have a job. And it’d help if you told us.”

“Fair,” Tomorbaator said.

Amuruq was hanging back, still reading that book.

“Thank you, Captain obviou-” Snowshoes was saying.

And then, suddenly-

EMMA

-Emma stumbled over something on the floor.

“Huh?” she asked, cocking her head, almost doglike. Had someone dropped a branch on the floor?

She fumbled for a light switch on the wall, and then, all of a sudden, the room was bathed in light.

This looked like a lounge of some sort, somewhere for people that wanted slightly more privacy. It’d been decorated with a piecemeal arrangement of furniture that looked to have been taken from all over Europe and wherever else. The couches looked vaguely comfy….

Something about it made Emma want to sit down, and-

I didn’t turn on the lights, Emma thought, her mind suddenly hazy, as if she was just barely awake.

The lights weren’t even on. There was just a glowing orb sitting in a hammered-metal lampshade, steadily growing brighter. Emma’s head hurt. She could just

float away. Something better is out there, Emmeline Joseph Hayden. A new name. A new life. Wouldn’t you like to forget it all, Emmeline?

Emma closed her eyes. It was as if the room was becoming indistinct. Cognitohazard, Emma thought, uncertain.

Forget how your dad was never there, though to be honest, there’s not much to forget. Forget the past, forget you and become better, happier. Embrace the light of a terrible, perfect smiling go-

The words rang out in Emma’s head, as if they were being whispered from the very base of her skull. Her vision went watery, and the orb seemed to grow bright. Brighter than the sun, brighter than anything else, so much that the room seemed to just be dark, thin outlines.

Don’t listen to them. They tell only lies. They killed all but three of us.

There was a shadow in the corner of Emma’s vision. The light seemed to fade around it. Something like a tree, its branches seeming to spread across an entire wall, but…

No. That was not a tree. It stood on several legs. Was it a deer?

NO! something called from inside Emma’s head, and she was not sure if it was hers. She needs this! She will love it, she’ll be happy, finally, finally happy!

But the light. It was blinding, hurting her. She needed darkness. Needed to be away from that awful, terrible, all-consuming li-

Emma fell backwards, over whatever it was that she’d first stumbled over, and all of that just faded away.

“The hell was that?” She mumured, before seeing something shaped vaguely like a tree branch on the floor.

No. While it was the same brown color she’d expect of a tree, there were some minor differences. The fact that it was covered in bristly hair that looked to have exploded out from under the skin. The stump of bone jutting out of the end.

The trail of what was not blistered red paint leading into another door.

The fact that something like colorful keratin seemed to have formed above the fingers...

She yelped, and staggered backwards, back into the bar.

SPURRED WELD

“Tartarus was that?” Spurred Weld yelled, his voice a deep, basso rumble. He had a very, very stallionly bark of terror.

“Something’s not right in there,” Emma stammered, pointing at the door.

Something about Emma’s tone of voice set Weld off. Liar. He’d learned a truth-telling spell from somepony named Blackpowder on the Last Ships. Okay, it wasn’t quite a lie, but there was something she clearly wasn’t saying.

“There’s an arm in there,” Emma said. “It’s… there’s blood everywhere! Just a trail of it, and it’s in weird bubbling clumps!”

Everyone shared a Look.

“I’m guessing that’s bad?” Johnny C asked. He was shaking, unlimbering his Ithaca 37. “One hell of a wrong, uh, agglutinogen, right?”

“Dammit, this is serious!” Snowshoes snapped at him.

“Yeah,” Fiddlesticks interrupted. “It is.” Then, quieter: “Let him have this.”

“I gave you the bolas gun for a reason,” Tomorbaator said, confused.

“And I keep this handy,” Johnny C said, pumping the shotgun to chamber a single 12-gauge slug, then forcing another into the breach, exactly like you weren’t supposed to. You know, for safety reasons. “For close encounters.”

“Shut,” Snowshoes hissed, “Up. People could be dead-”

“No,” Emma said, trembling. “They’re not.”

In literally any other war, this would be good news.

“Someone shut that fucking radio up,” Amuruq said, shaking unhealthily. “Shut it off. Shut the fucking thing off, motherfucker.”

He knew.

But this was not any war. This was not the Crystal War, where if you were really, really, horrifyingly unlucky, you’d get the desirable fate of being worked to near-exhaustion in some shithoof labor camp by someone who considered prisoners ‘useless mouths to feed,’ hated their job, and treated prisoners as labor. The Crystal Empire - where Spurred Weld had once been held prisoner - had at least been kind to him when he told them and that one slave, P-404, how to pilot airships. And Equestria had at least some ability to tolerate the existence of those different back then. Poor… P-404? Whatever her name was.

It gnawed at Spurred Weld’s heart that he couldn’t remember her name. Her real name.

He trotted through the room just as Amuruq shot the radio, listening to it devolve into tortured squeals and metallic, echoing groans.

“The hell was that for?!” Sandalwood yelled.

“I didn’t like what was on,” Amuruq said, an affected dispassion in his voice. “Come on. Let’s see what…”

They saw the arm. Immediately as they stared down at the malformed limb that never could have worked as part of any creature. An unnaturally bluish hue, like it’d had something like frostbite times a thousand. Stains of… something seemed to have splattered forth from the stump. It looked like it’d been human blood once upon a time. But it looked like it had cracked, somehow. Like… paint. It had swelled out in big clumps, some of which appeared to have bubbled up from the floor.

And there was a hoof at the end. Or… something that would’ve become a hoof. It looked like an armor pad someone might place on the back of a glove, except the hand had been bent backwards about 60 degrees. The thumb looked to have retreated into the remains of the hand, a small nub of flesh that looked like nothing so much as a superfluous fingertip protruding from just behind a knuckle. The other four digits had fused together, gnarled… but the ring and index finger’s last two joints splayed outward from the middle finger in a y-shape. Bluish fur looked to have burst up from under the skin, creating a network of bumps and cracks that made it look like the arm had been slowly pressed through a slow-moving series of dull blades.

“Bismillah,” Vera swore.

“...Ponified,” Fiddlesticks whispered, her voice a dry whisper. “There’s PER here.”

Amuruq bent down towards the stains, curious.

“You don’t know that,” Sandalwood protested. “You don’t-”

“As a matter of fact, I do!” Fiddlesticks yelled. “GOD! You and Snowshoes, just bicker all! The damn! TIME! I’ve seen people’s amputated limbs midway through ponification. You guys don’t like us, I get it! BUT LISTEN TO US JUST A DAMN SECOND, AND-”

“Same,” Johnny C interrupted, cutting off his friend. His skin, bruise-pale, had gone even paler. “It looks like the lower leg of this guy with an artificial hip I saw getting ponified.”

“Gross,” Spurred Weld said, but he couldn’t keep himself from feeling the slightest bit curious. “You wrote about that, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Johnny C said. “His leg just exploded! It was the-”

“AMURUQ!” Spurred Weld interrupted. “NO!”

Amuruq drew his hands back, lightning-quick.

Good reflexes on that one, Spurred Weld thought. “It’s been potioned,” he heard himself say, unnervingly calm. “You don’t know what those stains are like. Some of those bubbles? Might be full of potion. Might not be. The Potion was made to convert human to pony, and it does… weird things to viscera that someone leaves lying around. Most of the time, the severed limbs are highly toxic.”

Amuruq went so pale Spurred Weld swore for a second he could see blood cells moving in his circulatory system.

“...Fffffuck,” Amuruq said, wringing his hand reflexively.

“You never saw battle, did you?” Snowshoes asked. “You’re taking this worse than Em-”

“Don’t,” Sandalwood interrupted. “Just. Bucking. Don’t.”

“I thought he knew this stuff, though!” Snowshoes protested. “He’s one of us, he… he’s got the biggest rifle, he’s gotta…” a note of desperation began to creep into her voice.

“No,” Amuruq said. “I have seen battle. Over in Russia - I was at the back. Sniper. But, what can I say?” He asked bitterly. “I like it back here, and I might as well be blind in close combat. When the game doesn’t decide you’d be be-”

“He shot it off,” Darryl said, dispassionately.

“Excuse me?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Bulletholes in the floor,” Darryl said. “He didn’t have a saw. So he shot his own arm off.”

“So where’s the rest of him?” Vera asked.

“Where’s the rest of anyone is the question,” Spurred Weld said, noticing splotches of blood leading to a door left ajar. They were just in the shadow of a roughly-cut table made of clapboard that leaned to the side, and a large cabinet looked to have collapsed just over one of them.

“So,” Sandalwood said. “We’re following a trail of blood into a dark hallway. This is going to end great.”

“It’s the PHL life, lass,” Fiddlesticks said solemnly.

Sandalwood just facehoofed.

“Nice,” Spurred Weld said up at her. “You got in… a good word… with the both of those harridelles. You have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do that?”

Fiddlesticks shot him a flat, unimpressed Look. It seemed that Spurred Weld was always getting Looks. What, what’d he say?

AMURUQ

Spurred Weld, Amuruq thought, was as tactless as they came. Which was why the unicorn, despite being able to talk - no, really, talk, he’d told a pipe not to bust and it hadn’t, no other repairs needed - to machines, had such a low-profile job.

Because he said stuff like that. Sandalwood and Snowshoes sniped at each other more often than not, but they cared about each other. At the very least, they had chemistry, they had an understanding of everything about their projects besides why they shouldn’t piss each other off for shits and giggles. Amuruq knew it, Vera knew it, Johnny C - who was a nice guy, really. Wait, hadn’t he been that guy that posted a drawing of Zephyr from the Wolf Conservation Center and a video from Tanja Askani on the We Love Romeo The Wolf group on facebook? And hadn’t Harry Robinson thumbed up his posts?

Yeah, that was him. Amuruq would have to ask him about that. We’re gonna be great friends, I can tell. The point was, everyone could see Sandalwood and Snowshoes had something. Except Spurred Weld, who, evidently, had less tact than you could find in a handful of snow.

“We follow the trail, though,” Darryl said. Amuruq had heard a lot about him. That he took to command like a pegasus foal to the air.

Evidently, this had been true. He’d assumed command here, no, not assumed. They’d all realized he was in command the whole time.

“Split up to cover more ground,” Darryl said. “And-”

Snowshoes made a coughing sound that was very definitely not the word “Bullshit!”

“Excuse me?” Darryl asked, raising an eyebrow. “Might want to get some medicine for that cough, Snowshoes, otherwise-”

“We’re stretching things enough having just Sharon and Kgalakgadi guarding the truck,” Snowshoes said. “Besides, if we split up, in an unknown area, we’ll just make easier targets.”

“That’s not how it works,” Darryl said, frowning.

“But we’re in a town that’s been deserted within the last four hours or so, and Tomorbaator says he saw something suspicious,” Snowshoes said. “Splitting up never ends well at times like this.”

Darryl sighed. “Fine.”

“I can head back to the car,” Amuruq said. Kgalakgadi and Sharon… Out there… together In the middle of a deserted town... “Anyone else?”

“Tomorbaator,” Darryl said. “And…” he looked thoughtful. “Emma, accompany the two of them. I’d say you’ve seen enough.”

“No argument here,” Emma squeaked, voice much less solid than she would have liked.

“Why not me?” Snowshoes asked.

Darryl glared at her. “Because you’re one of the only science personnel we have for this. You’ve been insubordinate so far, much less so than someone that’s barely from the same hemisphere as me.”

Johnny C rolled his eyes.

“Come on, Snowy,” Amuruq said, sighing. “Don’t. Just… just don’t.”

Amuruq headed out, towards the door. Glad to be away from that godawful charnelh-

Why did I think of it as a charnelhouse? he thought as he and Tomorbaator headed out.

“Emma,” Tomorbaator said, “What did you really see in there?”

Emma’s smile faltered. “What do you mean?”

“Spurred Weld was looking at you suspicious the whole time,” Tomorbaator said. “And I can smell lies.”

“Shit!” Emma spat. “You can?!”

“Not really, but you just told me you lied,” Tomorbaator said. “So. Spill.”

“Come on, Ammy,” Emma said. “Help me out here.”

Amuruq raised an eyebrow. Christ, he thought, only to realize he’d said it out loud. “No, Emma. Just. No. We have to be open about this sort of thing.”

Dammit. This was exactly why literally anything he’d done as a sniper in Russia had worked out. Because people had told him who to target. And, considering Amuruq would have been sending a friend request to Nny, if not for the fact that the storm overhead was screwing with Sagwon’s already terrible (if not nonexistent) internet, it was also what had made him more than a few friends.

More than a few people had said they owed Amuruq Jackson and his rifle each a few beers. Both of which Amuruq would then drink. Not too bad for a subsistence hunter from the arctic circle.

“Emma,” Amuruq said. “What. Did. You. See.”

“You went all glazy-eyed when you were heading into the room,” Tomorbaator said. “You had a-”

“Anyone hear that?” Emma asked, though there was a strange, alert look to her. “It’s like music, or something…”

“Stop dodging the question,” Amuruq snapped. “You saw something in there.”

“Come on, Amuruq, no need to be that snippy,” Tomorbaator said. “If you yell it out, do you think she won’t just not say it out of spite?”

“Why do you think I would do that?” Emma asked.

“It’s what I would do,” Tomorbaator shrugged. “And Amuruq here.”

“And neither of us think it’s all too likely you were in shock,” Amuruq continued, ignoring the interruption. “Your eyes glazed over like a newfoal’s, or-”

“Sharon?” Tomorbaator asked.

“What?” Amuruq asked. “That’s just silly. I know she hits the bottle at ramming speed, but-”

“No, goddammit, no!” Tomorbaator interrupted, pointing forwards with his taloned foreleg. “SHARON!

Their driver, Amuruq’s fellow subsistence hunter, was wandering down the street. Hood down. Coat unzipped. Hair plastered against her skull in the frigid weather.

Fuck.

She was shambling through the snow on uncertain feet, eyes glazed over. Hair frozen. Dragging herself through the deep snows of the road. Mouth slack.

And Amuruq ran for her.

JOHNNY C

“Any idea what we might find?” Johnny C heard someone ask. It took him a fraction of a second to realize it was him. His voice sounded calm. Too much so.

“No,” Snowshoes muttered. Then, under her breath: “Fuckin’ stupid horseapple-brained…’

Sandalwood just glared at her friend. She’d been manifesting a simple light orb from her horn. Any unicorn pony could do it, from what Johnny C had seen.

He bit his tongue. Why bother. Why fuckin’ bother? People were always like this. He’d piss them off, always. Oh, except Fiddlesticks! Fiddlesticks! He could almost hear his late grandmother in her broad South Carolina accent. You forgot Fiddlesticks!

Nothing about this seemed right. They’d been heading up the stairs awhile now, and the static from the radio had been getting steadily louder and more annoying.

“Where is everyone?” Sandalwood asked.

Nobodt had an answer. But then, nobody really wanted to in the first place.

Ponified. Is what Johnny C didn’t want to say.

The radio downstairs burst into life. Goddamn it was loud! Had there been speakers for that thing all over the building?

Sandalwood’s corona of purple flared around the doorknob, and they walked into a...

Oh God.

“Dear lord,” Vera breathed.

About six bodies were left in this room, collared to the floor by their necks, with the sort of heavy-duty chain collar used for large dogs or wolves. Somehow, that seemed almost like an afterthought. A woman lay slumped against a wall, by the door they’d just come in.

Snowshoes yelped at the sight, and fluttered backwards and upwards so fast her head bumped against the ceiling.

An Armacham-made HV Penetrator was slung over the dead, half-headless woman’s shoulder, and she seemed to be holding another chain collar and stake. Nothing could be said about her face, on the basis that someone had shot her, splattering the top half of her skull up against the ceiling. Everything about the bottom half, however, was just… wrong. There was almost a beatific smile on her face. Or was that a grimace? It was hard to tell.

She’d nailed someone to the wall with that Penetrator. Right through their throat.

“Fiddlesticks?” Johnny C asked, uneasy. “I’m not thinking she’s in a position to keep that thing.”

“...Agreed,” Fiddlesticks said, uneasy.

“What’re you….” Vera asked, as Johnny C picked up the Penetrator and gingerly placed it into one of Fiddlesticks’ saddlebags. He felt around for the magazines, placing them in another saddlebag as well.

“Um,” Vera said.

“What?” Fiddlesticks asked. “Saddlebags can hold a lot of things.”

There was a makeshift barrier at one corner of the room.

A note, stained with unidentifiable fluids and blood, sat on the floor.

“Are we the last ones left alive are we the last ones left alive FIND THEM WHY ARE THEY HERE

“Whatever psychopath is in here,” Sandalwood said, “Has to be pretty bad. Look, they were trying to escape from him, he…”

“No,” Fiddlesticks interrupted, holding up a foreleg.

“Excuse me?” Sandalwood asked.

Fiddlesticks gestured down to the collars. “This sorta thing happened to a friend once, and he passed out from the pain. Do you really think someone would willingly…” She looked up to Johnny C.

“Fuck no,” Johnny C said. “I’m thinking we don’t have a serial killer with a petplay fetish.”

“I’m not even going to ask why you thought of that,” Darryl said.

“Don’t. These people kept going beyond the limits anyone should,” Johnny C said. “Let’s say… whoever did this wasn’t trying to imprison them. He was trying to protect them - keep them here, the only way he could think of at the time.”

“Still not getting it,” Vera said.

“Don’t you see?” Johnny C asked. “It’s like everyone just walked away downstairs! He was trying to stop these poor bastards from following, but whatever did it, whatever compelled them, it was too strong!”

“Darryl?” Emma’s voice crackled over the walkie-talkie. “I don’t know what happened here, but whatever it is…”

TOMORBAATOR

“...It’s got Sharon!” Emma was calling into her walkie-talkie.

“What?!” Darryl bellowed into the other end.

Tomorbaator couldn’t hear the rest. He and Amuruq were sprinting towards Sharon, no idea what they could do, driven only by the knowledge that something must be done.

“Can you hear it?” Sharon was slurring through her teeth. “They’re… callin’ t’ us.”

“No! Goddammit, no!” Amuruq yelled.

Tomorbaator was rushing at her now. He had good eyes, better than any of the humans, and better especially than the ponies, and-

NEWFOAL!

Tomorbaator almost fell backwards into the snow. You never came back the same from even seeing a newfoal. No hint of who it might’ve been, only knowing that somewhere in their bodies, their minds, there’d been a person. The worst ones were the newfoals that Royal Guard had been testing new strains of potion on, because sometimes they’d come out half-cooked, ping-ponging from lunatic enthusiasm to positively gleeful at the prospect of killing themselves.

The look in Sharon’s eyes was a newfoal. That same glazed, hijacked beatific stare.

I’m not losing another friend! he told himself.

Chapter Four: Figment Shifter

PHL THREAT DOSSIER
NAME: Shieldwall
AGE: 34
BACKGROUND: Born in Manehattan, 29 BH, (Before Harmony). PHL records show him as having been in contact with Lyra Heartstrings pre-war, before falling out of contact with her. He became infamous in Northern Africa for some of the most devastating mass potionings of the war.
AREAS OF EXPERTISE: Self-proclaimed “potions delivery expert”; Shieldwall shows a nigh-preternatural gift for ponification, using any available means with which to convert. As of this writing he has been documented as using Solar Empire magic to turn people into living potionbombs, and is also rumored to possess an ability to create anomalous Newfoals, though these are as of yet unconfirmed.
WHEREABOUTS: Unknown.

Salvation Army HMS Guiding Hoof, Equestrian Research Vessel
‘Camp Destrier’, Alaska

And now for something completely different.

How would you react if you saw a dirigible just hovering above frozen tundra, further north than any trees could grow?’ Like that? Really? Then imagine a camp. Small, wooden prefabricated buildings and tents. Lit by old oil-lamps.

A place where few people would willingly live. Far, far to the north.

The place did not exactly bustle. It was kept warm by crystalline pylons on sticks that seemed to glow when you looked at them from the right angle. These were sustaining a Crystal War-era spell which kept the ground warmed. This had the effect of making the area at least somewhat bearable.

Not too much, though.

As happy as the various ponies and scattered few humans of the camp were for the spells, the tents, or better yet, the skyliners, though the journey from sky to earth felt like a nuisance, were more comfortable.

In this place, Celestia’s Solar Empire underwent its work. An object, a high-value target, had appeared here.

And what was happening in the dirigible overhead? The skyliner?

Fairbairn

“You absolute FOOLS!” Captain Cactus thundered at them. “You heartless, short-sighted, potion-happy imbeciles! This was meant to be small, a quick smash-and-grab! But you couldn’t leave it at that, could you!”

He made a fearsome figure as he yelled at them. Captain Cactus - an earth pony whose real name was Merriweather - had fallen victim to a Composer Crystal during the war with Sombra's Crystal Empire. It'd been slowly converting him into a crystal to be used as a battery for Sombra's war effort, but Celestia had personally halted the infection. She hadn't completely cured him - as evidenced by the fact that he was still mostly crystalline and seemed to audibly crack, almost fracture, every time he walked. Spikes burst from all over his body, one even resembling a unicorn horn. Though it was thin and sat at an off-kilter angle.

One of his eyes was sightless.

Shieldwall and Joseph McCreary quivered under his tirade. Just off to the side, near a comfy little chair, sat a red earth pony mare with a curling blond mane. Her name was Dicey.

A maple-orange pegasus with an auburn mane and dark bags under her eyes stared, smirking at the three of them. This was Roast Garlic, one of the Guiding Hoof’s totem-prole programmers.

She didn’t sleep. She just took breaks. Standing next to her was a unicorn stallion with a rather effeminate appearance and PETN sash. In fact, Fairbairn wouldn’t have been able to guess he was a stallion if he hadn’t been told.

He wouldn’t have asked, though. Fairbairn was a rather egalitarian sort. He just didn’t want to pry.

“It’s what he gets for playing with Newfoals the way he does,” the PETN unicorn whispered to Fairbairn. “Shieldwall, I mean.”

“What a damn waste,” Patrick Fairbairn muttered under his breath.

“What do you mean?” the PETN unicorn asked, still whispering. Discreet. Fairbairn liked this stallion. Not like the other PETN he’d met.

“How many PER ops have you seen?” Fairbairn asked.

“This is one of very few,” the PETN unicorn admitted.

“Right,” Fairbairn said. “Here’s the thing. We live and breathe by discretion. Hit and run, but only on a small scale. That’s our advantage. We fade into the background. We save people, whether they like it or not.”

“Right,” the PETN unicorn said.

“Meanwhile, my friends just…” Fairbairn started, then abruptly buried his face in his hands. “Sweet Celestia.”

Usually, Shieldwall, the Potionmarked Himself, this decently well-muscled stallion, was the picture of PER dignity. Usually he carried his mark like he’d been born to it.

Which he very well might have been. His mark was a shield. The popular story was he’d earned it defending from HLF on the coast of Africa. That he’d gotten it after Viktor Kraber had killed his parents.

The rumor had gone that he’d gotten the purple discoloration on the shield, the mark that denoted his mark of protection as involving ponification, and thus protecting humans from their own worst nature, like Fairbairn and McCreary themselves, after ponifying Kraber himself.

Of course, Kraber had been... resilient... and he’d turned up later alive and kicking (others in the face), but that wasn’t a surprise. Nobody in the PER would believe it if he was reported missing someday, everyone would simply shrug and hope he wasn’t behind them and...

… bleh.

Not that any of all this applied now, as Shieldwall had gone and done something monumentally stupid.

“Come on!” Shieldwall said. “Help me out here, Pat-”

“Shieldwall,” Patrick Fairbairn said, holding a mirror, combing his hair. “I am your friend. We went into this together, we have been here for years. Whenever I doubted, you were there, and vice versa. I could potentially defend you, but I’ll have to back the Cap here. The fuck, bro?!”

Shieldwall winced at the profanity.

“It was Dicey’s idea!” Joseph protested.

“I thought it was pretty good,” Shieldwall said, nodding.

Fairbairn, Captain Cactus, and an androgynous PETN unicorn in the skyliner’s stateroom stared at the both of them.

“You are not… telling the truth,” said the PETN unicorn, whose name was Arcane Mind.

“I am!” Joe protested.

“Would we lie about this?” Shieldwall asked, an almost saccharine expression on his face.

“You really want us...” Arcane Mind said, “... to answer that.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Captain Cactus said. “But, seeing as you and Joe have been fools, I’ll have to decide not to give you benefit of the doubt. I have patience for many things, Shieldwall. McCreary. I approved of hiring Amadeus Cain because I knew he’d cause chaos for the Betrayers. I welcome the anomalous Newfoals. And I see at least one of the humans in this room as a friend.”

“Thank you, sir,” Fairbairn said.

“But,” Captain Cactus said, “I kept one rule ironclad on my vessels. Mistakes are tolerated, we’re only mortal. I understand mistakes. But. I do not. Condone. Willful. Idiocy.”

Shieldwall and McCreary looked at each other, cringing.

“I’m telling you, Captain,” Shieldwall said. “It wasn’t my-”

“How stupid would that be? Newfoals do not get new ideas,” Roast Garlic said. “It’s for their protection. If the genius capacity for harm of a human combined with a pony’s magic, then we’d have real trouble on our hooves.” She looked over to Patrick, pointedly looking over to him. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Patrick said.

Dicey tossed one foreleg up through her curling mane. That barb might have also been directed towards her. A Newfoal. Conversely, only a Newfoal could so easily not just miss that verbal barb but be utterly unfazed by it.

Fairbairn, McCreary, and the researcher nodded slowly.

“It was my idea, you know,” Dicey said, catching them all mid-nod.

“WHAT?!” Captain Cactus roared.

“Told you,” Joseph muttered.

“You said we needed ponypower, Shieldwall,” Dicey said. “You said we might need help. Our mission is to liberate the humans from their imperfect selves.” There was a smile on her face, a faint tinge of mocking humor on it. “I was only doing as I judged to be best for these aims.”

“You… You…” Captain Cactus gurgled.

Roast Garlic made a noise that could be assumed to be a sigh of irritation. “Bucking creepy halfbaked Newfoals…”

“I was told by the PETN ‘assist as best you can’,” Dicey said, that innocent smile on her face.
Fairbairn watched the androgynous unicorn place one hoof to the space between his eyes, sigh, and move them back to his saddlebag.

A sheaf of notepaper on a clipboard unfolded out, and he gingerly placed a pencil in his mouth.

Fairbairn took a quick look at the PETN pony’s clipboard.

“Did he make this one?

Dangerous…

Impossibly dangerous to healthy development of Newfoals…

Sociopath…

But he noticed also the look of hate radiating off of Shieldwall’s pale-furred head. Thought about all the Newfoals that had been saved. Fixed. Given a privilege which he was denied.

Could his friend really be that bad?

McCreary

Shieldwall buried his face in his hooves, desperately trying not to swear or say something horrible. As did McCreary.

It wasn’t that McCreary hated PETN. Was it good of them to crusade against ponies that were too intolerant, too human to welcome the new converts? To create housing projects for Newfoals, help to allocate jobs, make sure nopony took advantage of them? Absolutely. Inkwell, one of Shieldwall’s few remaining family members, worked for their newspaper, working to expose Newfoal rights violations wherever he could. He couldn’t hate that.

It was the PETN that were assigned as commissars, as morale officers, awkardly jammed into perfectly cohesive units, that really left him angry. Technically, they outranked everyone, and sometimes, they’d never let you forget it.

They’d mess up your orders regardless of practicality, be slavishly dedicated to protocol, and they’d push for even adding in anomalous Newfoals. Sometimes, it wasn’t that bad - there were tasks that could be done even by Newfoals that came out blind, deaf, or deformed and these problems could be fixed eventually.

But other Newfoals, like Imperial Creed, were just… wrong. They hadn’t filled the void of a human’s body with the souls they lacked. It wasn't that they retained human soullessness, it was more that they were full of something... other. Not quite pony. Not quite human.. They were good on the battlefield, sure, they had utility, but this wasn’t to say anyone wanted to be near them. They were wrong. They hadn't been filled with the joy of a Newfoal, they were half-finished. Hollow.

‘Shieldwall, did you…’ McCreary thought, anticipatory.

Under it all, under the shame, in spite of his bowed head, McCreary could see a smirk on Shieldwall’s face.

He did.

Dicey was one of his. Somehow, Shieldwall had learned to disrupt the serum’s transformative properties, shaping it to his liking. He could channel his earthpony magic up through his rear legs and into his forelegs, disrupting the ebb and flow of the serum’s healing.

And apparently that was how Dicey had been created. The song. Of course. The Siren song she’d used to convince the residents of Sagwon to shed their humanity like snakeskin and become perfect, happy little ponies.

And McCreary found himself smiling too. That magnificent bastard. Whoever she’d been, Shieldwall had made something wonderful out of her.

Couldn’t play soccer without kicking some balls, after all.

“And we don’t even have enough space on the ship to transport your little freakshow!” Captain Cactus yelled.

“That’s what we have the portal station for,” Shieldwall said, still smiling. “I just felt so sorry for the poor humans in a frozen wasteland like this.”

“That's… I don't…” Captain Cactus buried his face in his hooves.

“You'll thank me when they help us cart that thing out,” Shieldwall said.

“NO!” Captain Cactus yelled. “I’m no-”

The room suddenly felt as cold as it looked outside.

Shieldwall

What an idiot.

Their mission was to fix humans. Even Fairbairn and McCreary, nice as they were. For humans, anyway.

Even on a science mission like this, one that would reply as many personnel as possible to safeguard and transport their prize, that was still their mission.

Besides, without Newfoal personnel, how would they subdue the descendants of this prize?

Not too long ago, Sint Erklass and the reindeer people of Adlaborn had disappeared. The real story, of course, was that Celestia’s "Angel" had killed them all.

This was one the great joys of Shieldwall’s coveted position in the PER. What, exactly, did his position consist of? That was rather vague. But he was greatly respected as a potioner of the PER. Regardless, he felt joy. Celestia’s enemies - those who were even merely associated with those who killed his family. Those who would stand in the way of Celestia’s crusade to bring perfection to the human world.

Shieldwall felt himself smile. “You’re not what?” he asked. “Telling me you don’t want to ponify humans?”

“How dare you,” Captain Cactus said, a look of utmost contempt on his face. “I am as dedicated to this war as any of us, including your human companions over there.”

Shieldwall saw Joseph McCreary and Fairbairn share a Look.

“Sure,” Shieldwall said. “But for a second, it sounded like you were saying you wished I left them human.”

“You’re twisting my words and you know it,” Captain Cactus said.

“Me?” Shieldwall asked, a smile on his face. “No. That’s what the Palace’s legal department would do. I’m just reminding you of that. Besides, I’m eager to do all that I can for the Empire...“

Captain Cactus

‘I feel like that italicised emphasis should worry me, Captain Cactus thought.

Actually, most things about Shieldwall fell under Captain Cactus’ mental category of ‘I feel like this should worry me.’

You weren’t supposed to go native. The Empire already had the PHL or various defectors doing that. Sure, it was rather often that Imperial occupying forces would sample the joys of occupied towns if Forward Operations was done using the place as a garrison. Try some of the human alcohol left over, maybe enjoy the human habitation before it was gone. Nobody mourned it, though. They’d already put down roots somewhere else. Probably.

Shieldwall had not gone native. Captain Cactus would almost be relieved if he had. Instead, it was like he had gone… anti-native, if that made sense.

He hadn’t even wanted to take Shieldwall. But Queen Celestia insisted. He needed a security specialist in the event of a human attack. Someone that could work with PER liaisons such as Fairbairn or McCreary, who seemed perfectly good for humans. Ready to fight for the cause and all.

“... all that I can for the Empire,” Shieldwall droned on, and Captain Cactus had to resist the urge to drive a hoof through his skull.

During the Crystal War, a character like Shieldwall would have been allowed nowhere near a military installation. Celestia had been fighting an enemy worth their mercy. But whatever it was that drove her into such a frenzy knowing about humans, whatever it was that would legally keep the crazies like Shieldwall out of the army and in places where they couldn’t do any harm, it wasn’t here.

“How dare you,” Captain Cactus said. “How dare you imply I’m not doing all that I can for the Empire.”

“Then don’t tell me, in as many words, that you didn’t wish to see some humans ponified,” Shieldwall said, still smiling, but with an edge to his voice.

Captain Cactus glowered at him. “I want this to be discreet. You? Get out of this room. Now.”

Roast Garlic

They all filtered out of the room. The two PER humans, Shieldwall and his Newfoal, then Roast Garlic.

Finally, nobody was left in the Destrier’s cabin but Arcane Mind and Captain Cactus himself. For a second, there was silence. Blessed silence.

Up until Arcane Mind watched Captain Cactus bang one hoof to his head. It stuck to one of the pointy outcroppings of crystal for a second, but he brushed it off.

“Sir?” Arcane Mind asked.

“I didn’t want this,” Captain Cactus sighed. “I just didn’t. Visit the frozen wasteland, certainly. Maybe get some humans ponified. It’d be more incidental than anything.”

“Are you really…” Arcane Mind asked.

“Of course not! Celestia, no. But…” Captain Cactus sighed. “We joined this war to bring happiness, harmony, and… completeness to the humans.”

‘He can’t be lying on that,’ Arcane Mind thought.

“I’m fine working with humans,” Captain Cactus continued. “Without PER, we might just be dead in the water. But…”

“But what?” Arcane Mind asked.

“Shieldwall enjoys it too much,” Captain Cactus said simply.

“Shouldn’t we be happy to ponify them?” Arcane Mind asked.

“Yeah,” Captain Cactus said. "I suppose we should."

‘He’s pretty far from the usual skyliner captain,’ Arcane Mind thought. Captain Cactus was older than most of the officers in Celestia’s skyliner force. He’d never been to a class on how to be an officer, instead working his way up from the ground to the bridge.

He looked to Arcane Mind like a ship’s figurehead, pushing through storm after storm.

“But,” Captain Cactus said. “We’re fighting a war. I’ve been in skirmishes, anti-monster actions… and there’s always been ponies that enjoyed the hurting too much.”

“But we couldn’t possibly...” Arcane Mind breathed. This was… this couldn’t be right. This went against so much of the message of why they’d gone to war.

“Oh, it’s the potion - we’re not technically hurting them,” Captain Cactus said. “But somebody who enjoys the business of war that much unnerves me.”

Fairbairn

Fairbairn had seen plenty of humanity at its worst. The IRA making a mess of Ireland and his brother - who “couldnae stick civvie street!” - coming to blows with him. The way humans, himself included, always found themselves with someone bigger who could beat the crap out of them, and comfortably would.

The way they’d destroyed their planet. And during the evacuation of Glasgow, he’d suffered immensely on the ships. His clothes had been stolen. He’d been penniless. Starving.

He’d been on the fence before - why fight if things over there seemed so much better? Only two wars recently in the past few years of Equestria’s history - and they gathered up their converts gleefully. They seemed for all the world like they did a better job of protecting their own.

Unlike what’d happened to him on the Last Ships. Or what’d happened when the ship landed - he’d been destitute. Starving. Funneled into refugee housing in an unfamiliar country. He’d seen how the HLF had reacted, too. Under Mike Carter’s leadership, they’d taken a support group and turned it into a rabid militia.

So he’d poked around and found his way into the PER. Potioned his first man with a device Shieldwall made. Which made him wonder:

“Why didn’t you potion me?” he asked Shieldwall as they descended to the ground. They’d set up a drop-pad below the ship, a platform enchanted by levitation spells that served as an impromptu elevator and freight lift. It’d been constructed in Equestria, built of enchanted wood that retained an improbable amount of heat and kept them relatively warm before-

The wave of cold hit them like a freight train.

-that. Before that. Shieldwall and Fairbairn headed out into the snow.

“Why do you ask?” Shieldwall asked.

“You ponified all these people,” Fairbairn said, gesturing to some Newfoals in thick winter coats. “Why not me? Why isn’t it me?”

Shieldwall cocked his head, confused.

“I... “ Shieldwall said. “I know you like this.”

The words seemed to be coming from somewhere else. Somewhere far away.

“I know your quirks. I know your value as a human infiltrator,” Shieldwall said. “And I…” he sighed. “I’m still working out your body as a newfoal.”

“You’re still…” Fairbairn worked his hands experimentally. “What’ll it be like?”

“I’m still not sure,” Shieldwall said.

“I’m… honestly kind of scared,” Fairbairn admitted.

“Why would you be scared?” Shieldwall asked as the two of them headed out into the snow. “This is just simple transspeciesism. A way for all humans to fix themselves. And eventually ponies.”

Fairbairn stopped for a moment. The wind cut across his face, and he looked down at his friend. “Even…”

“We’re not flawless,” Shieldwall said. “No matter what the propaganda says, it’s just that. We’re merely perfect by comparison. But I believe that as we correct humans such as yourself, we can learn more about fixing ourselves.”

Fairbairn was jolted a little. It was funny. No matter what he went through, Shieldwall never failed to surprise him. He was a true renaissance pony. A self-described transspeciesist, a genius of potioning, and now going against Imperial orthodoxy.

“You sound like those ponies that talk about a Second Magical Renaissance,” Fairbairn commented. Some of Shieldwall’s Newfoals looked them over. The few that hadn’t been restrained by the potion looked to have hatred in their eyes as they stared at Fairbairn.

But it seemed to die down when they saw Shieldwall. Not that Fairbairn could blame them - their minds had been refocused. They had ascended beyond everything that held humanity back.

“I’m not totally sure I believe in that,” Shieldwall said. “I mean, it’s nice, but it’s probably not true.”

“Captain Cactus might have you hanged for saying things like that,” Fairbairn said.

“Captain Cactus always wants me hanged,” Shieldwall said. “Can’t imagine why. All I did was try to help…”

Fairbairn was going to point out that the things Shieldwall had engaged in with McCreary and Dicey actually weren’t good strategic decisions, but something stopped him. It felt like exactly the wrong thing to say to his friend.

“Where are we even heading, anyway?”

“My tent,” Shieldwall said. “There’s ideas I want to talk about. But first, we’re walking by the Prize...”

Roast Garlic

Roast Garlic stood by the PETN unicorn - whose name, as it happened, was Arcane Mind. Both of them were sitting comfotably in the Destrier’s library. A totem-prole sat in one corner, hooked up to a typewriter.

Arcane Mind sat on a couch, using his magic to turn the pages of a human atlas that had been… what was the word, “recomposed” to prevent the Barrier from atomizing it. It had been less work to do that than it had been to make an entirely new atlas, and so this thing - this human thing - disgraced the Destrier’s library.

“Alaska,” Arcane Mind said, to nobody in particular. “One of the last wildernesses the humans left mostly untouched. Why’d the Prize have to come here?”

Roast Garlic didn’t answer. She banged away on the typewriter attached to the totem-prole.

‘...my belief that if the rebel’s foals have not been found, they will pose an unacceptable level of risk,’ she typed. The Prize’s foals had been conspicuously absent. Only the skeleton of the Prize, gnawed by Earth’s predators and eroded by wind at an impossible rate remained. Already some of Shieldwall’s unicorn Newfoals had been contracted to help. They were a bit off, but apparently they’d done an excellent job of preserving the corpse for study and, hopefully, eventual transport.

Nopony could say where the foals were. Everything that the Destrier’s scientists had attempted had completely failed. They were on this planet - they absolutely had to be - but none of the instruments could actually say where.

‘We have to find them,’ Roast Garlic thought. The PHL were an unknown quantity. Unpredictable, crafty, and creating instruments of destruction from pony magic. Profaning it! Letting the foals of the Prize work with the PHL, pool their resources, could be catastrophic.

“Why do we even call it the Prize, anyway?” she sighed.

Arcane Mind looked at her, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like,” Roast Garlic said, rolling her eyes.

“Because…” Arcane Mind said. “I don’t know. It was one of the most powerful beings of Equestria that could have fought against us. And now we won. Now we can use its magic for our own, make sure nobody stops us from saving humanity. Or anything else unwise enough to think they know better than the Queen...”

Roast Garlic sighed, and rolled her eyes.

‘... Paternalistic attitude has become incredibly grating.’

She stopped and hammered the backspace key with one hoof. Buck! She’d spaced out, and spilled her idle thoughts onto the page.

“Can you just… stop?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” Arcane Mind asked.

“It’s like so many of us have to constantly explain to everyone, especially ourselves, how committed we are,” Roast Garlic sighed, and plopped her face against the table, just next to the typewriter. “It’s enough to make me think about going PHL out of spite.”

Arcane Mind paled. “Don’t even joke about that.”

“Come on, Arky. We’re here cause we were given autonomy. Let’s not talk like an educational play for foals.”

“How did you even get on this mission?” Arcane Mind sighed.

“Hey,” Roast Garlic said, “I miss home much as anyone. But I figured I’d enjoy it to get out for a bit. And to answer your question, I’m here because I wanted to help. Tartarus, I know things about the Empire that’d curdle your blood.”

“And what was that about not talking like an educational play for foals?” Arcane Mind sighed.

“Look,” Roast Garlic said. “I’m just… stressed. I bet you are too.”

“A bit,” Arcane Mind said. “I… really didn’t want to be around someone like Shieldwall.”

“Why not?” Roast Garlic asked.

“Look, nobody in the PETN wants to work with Shieldwall,” Arcane Mind said. “Why are you even… I’ve seen how you look at him, his… Newfoals.”

“He’s a war hero,” Roast Garlic shrugged. “One of the most distinguished potioners of the Empire.”

“Not the most distinguished record for treatment of Newfoals, I can tell you that,” Arcane Mind said.

“I wish he wasn’t here, to be honest,” Roast Garlic said. “I served on this ship back during the Crystal War. With Captain Cactus, and even Heliotrope.”

“You served with that Betrayer?” Arcane Mind asked.

“She was an engineer,” Roast Garlic said. “We didn’t know. And… thanks. For not saying the Cap is a Betrayer.”

“I never would,” Arcane Mind said. “I… know his history. We need more like him.”

“Reminds me,” Roast Garlic said. “You hear that the Cap’s drawing up a plane to take down Montreal?”

“I did hear that,” Arcane Mind said. “I hope we get to do it. I’m… beginning to sympathize with him. Getting tired of the war.”

“A lot of us are,” Roast Garlic yawned, pausing to think of what to type. “It’s for a greater cause. Of course it is.”

McCreary

McCreary sat, wearing heavy winter gear. The Prize was staring at him.

Not that he could prove that to anyone. Firstly, it had no eyes. Not anymore. Secondly, he was in a tent, about three rows back from the collapse site. Or the construction site as it was supposed to be called, but things kept breaking near it. Poles would inexplicably fall in low wind when they’d been dug in deep, tools would vanish. It actively resisted attempts to effect it, but Shieldwall’s Newfoals would move it.

He’d been right. Dicey had been right when she sang to him. They really did need the extra horsepower!

Trying not to think of the Prize’s empty eye sockets consuming him (They were holes, it wasn’t as if holes could bore into him. That was ridiculous) he worked on writing out a letter to his sister Tia. If he remembered correctly, she was going to move towards Canada, maybe New England. Exactly where Viktor Kraber was rumored to be heading.

‘...Going to ponify the sociopathic imbecile,’ Tia had written. ‘I think that as long as I stay subtle, keep an eye on him, and he doesn’t disappear off the radar, we’ll have one hell of a Newfoal made from him!’

He was composing his reply. He didn’t know how, if, or when she’d get the letter, but it had to be done.

Dearest Tia,
It’s cold up here. And I’m working with Shieldwall! Imagine what the PER could possibly accomplish if he ended up in that area. We could save so many people! And that’s before even having the Prize on our side.

He paused. It was hard not to think of it as a Prize. Even down to the capital letters. The same way it was hard not to think of it staring at him.

I’m not sure I know what the Prize can do. I don’t know why it’s here. Things are on a strictly need-to-know basis, and some of the ponies here probably know things I couldn’t even dream of. But, what the hey, it’s an-

McCreary paused.

-an artifact, full of immense power. Belonging to enemies of Queen Celestia. It was her friend, once. A being that formed the basis of her mindset. But she grew wiser. I just wish it would stop staring at me

McCreary crossed that out, and stared. What in the Queen’s name had he just… Nevermind. He kept writing.

I think that just because it’s dead, that doesn’t mean it isn’t… continuing. It knows what’s happening here, or knew.’

He couldn’t stop. It was like his body was paralyzed but for his right hand, which just kept on writing

And it can’t help but send out messages to anyone willing to listen, even someone like me. Someone that condemns betrayal while being one himself...

McCreary crossed it out, pressing pen to paper so hard he dug a hole in his notebook.

Sorry, sis. The cold must be messing with my head. Brainfreeze. Stuff like that.

It sounded like falsehood, yet he couldn’t think of anything better to say. He needed to get out of there. But first, finish the letter.

‘I hope to see you soon.
Your brother, Joe.

He had to get out of there. The Prize was staring into him. Drawing him into itself. Why, though? What could he have done to deserve it? All he did was try to help!

He pushed open the flaps of the tent and headed outside. To nowhere in particular. Possibly the Destrier’s library. Maybe he could talk to Shieldwall. Anything to be out of the Prize’s stare - not penetrating. Consuming.

As soon as he came out he knew it was a mistake.

Staring between the tents, he could see the Prize. Massive lights, not unlike the kind you’d find on earth but just imperceptible different, stood around the Prize in a radius of several meters. He could see several Newfoals, smiling as they went about their work, trying to erect poles for something, anything to protect it from the elements.

Not that it would work.

McCreary watched the Newfoals attempting to build a scaffold from some of the wood they’d scavenged. One blue unicorn Newfoal held a hammer in its mouth.

He saw the generators that they’d placed near the Prize. Meldings of crystal and equestrian machinery that pulsed gently, keeping the Prize… McCreary didn’t know how to describe it. Stable? There was a ring of stunted, yellowed grass around the Prize.

Whatever the generators were doing, they weren’t doing it well. Even now, snow encroached the narrow ring.

One Newfoal drove a wooden post down into the ground, and stood on a ladder, a hammer in its mouth. There was another nearby post, and it looked like the Newfoals would finally make some progress. Two others held up a large wooden beam, sandwiching it in between the other two posts. The Newfoal on the ladder was about to hammer them together, when suddenly…

McCreary had grown up with a carpenter for a father. He’d helped with some of dad’s work when he’d needed an extra hand around the house, and what happened next seemed impossible. The angle the Newfoal held in the nail with one hoof, it all looked perfect. And then all of a sudden, it wasn’t.

The beginnings of the scaffolding simply collapsed, knocking the Newfoal off the ladder, the hammer spiralling out of his mouth and towards another Newfoal.

The wood fell in three separate pieces, the nails nowhere to be seen. The hammer, after it bounced off of the Newfoal, simply fell into the snow, and…

‘Okay. That… shouldn’t be possible.’

There was no impact when it hit. No splash of powder. No hole that it left.

“Again?” one Newfoal asked, something approaching unhappiness crossing her features. “That’s the third one…”

McCreary recognized that one.

Suddenly he was in the middle of Sagwon. That middle-of-nowhere town built because pipeline, railroad, airport and road just happened to connect. The way he’d heard it, it was like a knot. There’d been some houses built for workers to maintain the pipeline, for the drillers and airport staff, the wind turbine stations, and whatever else. Not a large town by any means, it was still in the middle of nowhere, but it was close enough for what he had to do with Shieldwall and Dicey.

That unicorn Newfoal, an indigo mare with a red mane, had been in the shower when Dicey made her sweet song. The human she’d been had walked out, halfway naked and frostbitten. She’d crawled on her belly on frostbite-blackened limbs to get away from Shieldwall.

“Really?” Shieldwall had said, sarcastically. He’d taken a drink from his hipflask, and guffawed. “Really? Crawling? You’re gonna die anyway.”

The woman had just spat and kept crawling.

“Come on. At this rate, anything’s an improvement,” Shieldwall said, lapsing into a bout of laughter. “Honestly, that was true even before the frostbite.”

McCreary should have felt happy. He did not.

And that was thing, wasn’t it?

‘Did those shadows deepen?’ McCreary thought. ‘No. Of course not.’

Something about the cast of the shadows, over the bone ridges of the eyes, made it feel…

It was as if its skull had subtly, inexplicably, imperceptibly changed its expression.

Was it staring at him? Mocking him? Pitying him?

Angry?

‘Of course not,,’ McCreary told himself. ‘It’s dead. It can’t just.. Dead means you’re gone. For good.’

Doubts coursed over him as the Prize’s gaze drew him into its sockets. He had to walk toward it, had to-

Shieldwall

Shieldwall was staring up at the prize, Fairbairn standing nearby. Wondering what he could do with this kind of power.

“Mighty interesting,” Shieldwall said, looking up at the great skeleton of the Prize. “Mighty. Interesting. Indeed.” He stroked the surface of its yellowing bones. “Shame you disagreed with the Queen, but this was the only option. I’m sure we could still find a use for you.”

Fairbairn just stood nearby, shivering slightly in the cold. “Can we go? The cold is doing bad things to my skin.”

“You wouldn’t have to deal with it if you had fur,” Shieldwall joked.

“And I wouldn’t be able to blend in as a newfoal,” Fairbairn said. “Really, I lose something either way.”

Blast. He’s… kind of right then, isn’t he? Shieldwall thought. Such a shame.

He looked up for a secoond and saw McCreary staggering through the snow. Towards the Prize.

“Hey! Joe!” Shieldwall yelled. “You okay?”

He looks just like the humans we lured out into the tundra. Damn! Shieldwall thought, and galloped up to the sullen-looking American. He placed both hooves on McCreary’s shoulders and shook.

“It’s not….” McCreary started.

“It’s not what?” Shieldwall asked.

“Joe!” Shieldwall said, trotting over to McCreary.

Fairbairn shook the other human. McCreary’s eyes darted from side to side.

“It’s getting to me,” he moaned.

“Joe?” Fairbairn asked. “Are you alright?”

McCreary shook his head, his curly black hair shaking. “No. That…” he pointed to the Prize. “It’s getting in my head. Something about you two is keeping it out.”

“It can’t just… keep doing this, right?” Fairbairn asked.

“Shieldwall, you said it was dead!” McCreary insisted.

Shieldwall did look somewhat troubled. “What… what were you told?”

“Only that it’s an enemy of Equestria. That Celestia needs its body for… something,” Fairbairn replied.

“Let me tell you, Patrick and Joe, why I have never believed that ponies are perfect,” Shieldwall said. “There are beings rivalling, perhaps even beating our glorious queen in power. This… Betrayer... stood against her.”

“If it was a Betrayer,” McCreary said, “Then why’s it worth our time?”

“And if it’s dead, then why…” Fairbairn added.

“This,” Shieldwall said, pointing to the Prize. He paused. Probably for dramatic effect. “Was once Celestia’s teacher. Her father figure. It was named… Sint Erklass.”

McCreary and Fairbairn followed his hoof, to the Prize itself. It had been a reindeer, perhaps as large as one from Earth, maybe slightly bigger, but with the proportions and humongous eyes of a lifeform of Equus.

The key word being ‘had’. It looked like it had been dead for months, even though it couldn’t have been much more than a week. Its fur was gradually decomposing, and moss grew from its antlers. There were marks on its bones, possibly from wolves.

It was like it was slowly breaking itself down, collapsing into the Alaskan tundra. Willing itself to fade.

“He was Lord of the reindeer. Bringer of gifts and joy. Long dead for his crimes and resistance to the Solar Empire, but that,” Shieldwall said, “Doesn’t mean it can’t continue.”

“If he was so powerful, then what killed him?” McCreary asked.

“Celestia sent her Angel after him,” Shieldwall said, enjoying the looks he was eliciting from these two humans. Fear? Awe? Glee? It was hard to tell on their unexpressive, dull-looking faces, but he was certain it was one of those three emotions. “And she killed Erklass as punishment.”

“But... what do we need its body for?” McCreary asked.

“Partly to ensure that it doesn’t continue,” Shieldwall said. “Partly to take the power that still remains so Celestia can make sure of that.”

“I just want it to stop getting in my head,” McCreary said.

“Me too,” Shieldwall said, looking up at McCreary. “Both of you… No matter how things get, just remember. It’s only another dead Betrayer. Anything it can do to us is all in our heads. Things will be fine.”

Wouldn’t they?

Author's Note

This chapter takes its name from the song "Figment Shifter" from Squidlid. God, I love Squidlid. I love them so much that I actually legally downloaded their music.

Most of my chapter names in The Light Despondent and Snowbound are named after songs that inspired me in one way or another. Or, just as often, I couldn't think of a chapter name, and went with something tangentially related.

I really need to be more forward about the songs.

Chapter Five: Just A Little Too Slow

Author's Note

IT'S HERE BITCHES

Snowbound, it has to be said, is basically my Half-Life 2 episode 3. Or Half-Life 3. Because i keeps getting forgotten and screwed over because the studio (which is me) has bigger projects.

For what it's worth, I'm sorry it's been about 2 years since the last update. At the time I last updated this, I was on my last semester of college in Ireland.

A number of bad things happened that threw a wrench into any hope I had that Snowbound would ever consistently update. First, Spectrum was falling apart, and I was in sort of a frenzy to get as much of Light Despondent out as I could. So Snowbound fell by the wayside. Then, when Spectrum finally ended, I decided to rewrite the story at Jed's behest. Because, well, you know how I feel about writing in the classic spectrumverse.

But that's beside the point.

Anyway. Now that Light's rewriting process is done and I'm beginning to make actual new content, I can... well, I'm probably going to work on Light Despondent and Slow Mutants. Let's not kid ourselves here.

Still. I do want this finished. I don't give this more than four more chapters, though.

Chapter Five: Just A Little Too Slow

Amuruq

There were certain things that Amuruq had been told about driving. Don’t drive above… some speed while it’s snowing. Don’t drive above a certain speed limit in the Dalton Highway. It wasn't as if Amuruq had a choice in breaking most of these rules. Except for texting and driving or being drunk. Really, he wasn’t stupid.

The Crystal Method was blaring as his car roared up to Prudhoe Bay. Snow pelted downwards so quick it seemed to be suspended in midair.

It was damn cold out there.

“Just… a little too sloww!” the speakers boomed. Hello? Is that you? Is anyone out there?

Amuruq felt that at the very bottom of his soul.

He was too slow.

“Used to listen to this all the time,” Nny was saying.

“You’re not that old,” Darryl said.

“I had a game with this back in the 2000s,” Nny explained. “Played it a lot when I broke my collarbone. I think my favorite car was the Eclipse.”

Oh, he is totally trying to distract himself, Amuruq thought.

Prudhoe Bay and Deadhorse would be coming up soon. Or at least, he hoped they’d be. The landscape looked the same everywhere. It was a flat white expanse in all directions but for the road, the pipeline above the snow,

“Reminds of home,” Vera said.

“What part of Russia?” Fiddlesticks said.

“Yes and…” Vera said. “Actually. Am Azerbaijani. I grew up in place called Oily Rocks.”

“Oh yeah,” Nny said, and much to everyone’s surprise: “I’ve heard of that place.”

“You have?” Vera asked.

“Yeah,” Nny said. “Uh, oil refinery town on the sea. Not, like, on the coast, but actually a town built on an oil refinery in the middle of the ocean.”

Vera smiled at him. “Da. That’s where I grew up. Then, moved to Baku. The pipeline, the… müstəvi… it reminds me of home. One winter it froze nearby, it looked like home was in middle of tundra. But now that we’re in tundra… it reminds me of being in sea.”

“How often do you miss it?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Who wouldn’t miss their home?” Vera asked.

“You didn’t answer,” Snowshoes remarked.

“Didn’t I?” Vera asked.

Nobody said much of anything that as the truck rushed over the tundra. As the snow pelted against the windshield. It was flat and white all around, and if Amuruq looked closely he could see the pipeline, the slight upward curvature in the snow of the railroad. A narrow rib of land, too long to be a hill, jutted out off to one side of the road.

He idly fiddled with the radio. He could play music, sure, but he was so far north that he didn’t expect to find anyone.

He clicked the radio for the umpteenth time.

“This is Amuruq Johnson. Sagwon’s been emptied. Is anyone out there?”

No response.

He’d never felt more alone in his life. Well. ‘Alone’ might not have been the right word. He was in a car full of people - Sharon, Darryl, Nny, Fiddlesticks, Snowshoes, Sandalwood, Kgalakgadi, Vera, Emma, and Tomorbaator. All of them kind of noisy, clashing with each other. Especially Sandalwood and Snowshoes.

Why couldn’t they make an atempt to just get along?

‘Too bad I can’t just stop at a hotel,’ Amuruq thought. Then: ‘Aww shit, I wouldn’t have the cash for that anyway.’

“Kgalakgadi?” Fiddlesticks asked. “What’s the status on your plot devices?”

“It’s a thaumoemotive indicator, a thaumic barometer, and…” Kgalakgadi looked sheepish as he held it out. “My iPad.”

“So… what are you picking up?” Sharon asked. She was still shivering.

“Well, there’s…” Kgalakgadi held the iPad on one hoof. “Damnedest thing. The readings I’m-”

“Kgalakgadi,” Snowshoes said. “Just… laypony’s terms. Please.”

He glowered at Snowshoes a little, but shrugged. “Very well. It’s… I keep getting thaumic pulses from somewhere west of here.”

“Is it the same thing that brought us back up here in the first place?” Amuruq asked.

Kgalakgadi just shrugged. “Odd thing, though,” he said. “It sounds… for all the world, like Morse code. Can anyone-”

“I can,” Sandalwood interrupted. “Hmmm…”

They listened to the pulses coming from Kgalakgadi’s iPad.

“It’s…” Sandalwood said, and scrawled on a sheet of paper, pencil held in her horn TK. Written on the paper were the characters ‘. -. -.. - .... .. …’

“It says ‘end this,’ Sandalwood said.

“I told you,” Sharon said. “That’s what it wants. It wants us to end it.”

“So something,” Johnny C said, “Is in the middle of the arctic. Asking us to murder it.”

“It honestly doesn’t seem like murder,” Sandalwood said. “More like euthanasia.”

“Why are you two arguing about this?” Snowshoes asked. “We learned this all earlier.”

“I’m just still processing it,” Johnny C said. “I’ve always had… troubles… with that.”

“So is he stupid, or-” Snowshoes started.

If looks could kill, Snowshoes would have been a puddle on the floor of the truck, lapping down between the seats. Nny’s glare burned through her.

“I’m just going to pretend you didn’t say that,” Nny said.

Snowshoes quailed a little.

“I’m sorry,” she said, finally. Meekly.

“You’d better be,” Fiddlesticks said, glowering at her.

Amuruq was both relieved and irritated at the silence. On the one hand, quiet, and he could just sit back and drive.

On the other hand, he was stuck in a car full of people, ponies, a griffon, and a zebra who could scarcely be relied upon to act like friends, or even like people who knew each other.

‘So that’s how mom felt driving me and Annamarie everywhere,’ Amuruq thought. I had wondered.

“Will we be able to get any communications out from Prudhoe?” the yellow mare asked. Fiddlesticks.

Amuruq pondered this. When he’d worked as a smokejumper, parachuting out of planes to fight fires, he’d come to a realization. There were people who were more-or-less urban, like him - born and raised in Juneau. There were townies, who lived in small towns. Then there were people from what he considered the ass end of nowhere, unincorporated townships well off the beaten path. Then there were people who lived places was nigh-impossible to visit without a plane.

Prudhoe was one of those places. Then again, its oil was absolutely vital to the human war effort, so it was quite likely they’d have some way to communicate…

Amuruq had to hope. Because the way the storm was going, the place they were, it was probably the only chance for anyone south of Sagwon to know for quite some time.

Now if only the snow wasn’t thicker than clam chowder…

It was hard to resist gunning it. But the urge to gun it just seemed to strip his nerves a little more bare. So did the urge to not gun it. And the silence. And his lack of knowledge. And…

Well. Everything.

“So,” he said, desperately trying to break the silence. “I feel… kinda lost on this. Any idea just what we’re chasing?”

Tomorbaator

He raised one foretalon and gave his answer. “It’s just… I have a guess. The… the reindeer. And this mention of a God. The fact that we’re in the frozen north. I think… that maybe, just maybe, it could be Sint Erklass.”

The truck was silent.

“Yeah, I don’t know what that is,” Nny said.

There was silence.

“He was the oldest being on Equus,” Tomorbaator explained. “A great reindeer older than the oldest civilizations of the planet, and the wisest. Legend has it that he was the most powerful, strongest, and wisest being of Equestria.”

“If he trained Celestia,” Sandalwood muttered, “Then I doubt he was that wise.”

Tomorbaator pointedly ignored that kind of disrespect.

“Anyway, from his realm in the north he brought joy to Equus, delivering presents to the good children of the planet,” Tomorbaator said. “On a specific day in the winter, he does so, a smile on his face, riding across the-”

“This sounds like Santa Claus,” Emma interrupted.

“It’s not the same thing!” Snowshoes protested, much to Tomorbaator’s surprise.

“They killed Santa Claus,” Darryl said, slowly. “What.”

“It’s not the same thing at all!” Tomorbaator protested. “He’s a magic reindeer who brings gifts and joy to-”

“So far you’ve just said why it’s so similar,” Darryl said.

“So Santa Claus is dead, in the arctic, and we have to give him a proper burial before the Solar Empire desecrates his corpse,” Nny said. “...Can’t fucking believe this,” he sighed.

“There’s some people that’d consider that sacrilegious back on Equus,” Kgalakgadi said.

“Yes, well, we’re not there,” Sandalwood said.

Tomorbaator just sighed. This is so surreal…

“By the way, though,” Snowshoes said, “What… do we have to do? At first we were investigating, and now…”

She looked over to Sharon.

“Well?” Tomorbaator asked, eager to hear from her.

Sharon

She thought about what Tomorbaator and Snowshoes had asked.

“Well,” she started. Then stopped when she realized that everyone, absolutely everyone, including Amuruq in the driver’s seat, was listening.

She didn’t know what she was saying. She knew beyond a doubt, that the thing was important. That it couldn’t be allowed into the hooves of the Solar Empire. That it was-

Betrayed.

The images flowed through her mind like water. Two happy fillies that were playing in the snow, telekinetically firing snowballs at each other. Being watched over by reindeer. They were speaking a language she did not understand but momentarily understood to be her own.

A great stag, dwarfing them in power and age. Its memories stretching back eons.

“Yeah,” Snowshoes said, voice sounding like it was coming from far away, “That sounds a lot like Sint Erklass.”

Darryl

Suddenly it didn’t seem so silly.

Admittedly, it still seemed silly. It wasn’t that he regretted making a joke about it, God no. It was more that he was trying not to be overwhelmed by the sheer scale of it all and failing miserably.

There was an ancient being from before recorded history, from before any civilization on Equus that had only wanted to help, to bring joy, and Celestia had killed it. Of course she had.

“There’s more, though,” Sharon said. “It… still has power.”

“Okay,” Darryl said.

“What, you’re just ging to say ‘okay?’” Snowshoes asked. “Just like that?”

“Well, it contacted Sharon, didn’t it?” Darryl asked. “And it’s powerful enough for Equestria to justify wiping an entire village off the map.”

“Well,” Sandalwood said. “Maybe that’s just Shieldwall being Shieldwall? I mean, we did see him around…

“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” Emma said. “I…. I mean, I saw him up there. We all did. But what gave him such a reputation? Where’d he come from?”

Darryl sighed.

“I was never on the same continent as him. I was in Spain, he filtered down to Northern Africa. And I was glad for that. So, story goes… Shieldwall was a partisan in the Crystal War. He’d wanted to be a scientist of some kind, but he’d gotten to like being a partisan. So he heads to Earth on vacation, take his mind off of the things he saw,” Darryl explained. “His brother is there, along with his friends.”

“Yeah,” Sandalwood sighed. “That period when so many ponies visit this new, wonderful exciting world and decide in a few months that it needs to be destroyed.”

He could see Snowshoes look over at her, confused. “Did that… did that invert on you or something?”

“I dunno. Probably,” Sandalwood said, both forelegs out in an exaggerated shrug.

“Then suddenly, Shieldwall shows up, after the Three Weeks Of Blood-”

The truck went quiet. Incredibly quiet. Nobody had anything in the way of good memories of that time. Darryl had been in the U.S Army during that time, down in Philly. The Alaskans in this car - Sharon, Amuruq, Emma - were lucky they hadn’t seen anything like that.

“And he’s…” Darryl sighed. “The worst kind of potion-bombs you hear about? Potion grenade launchers, potion mixed with acid to eat though hazmat suits, anti-personal mines-”

“Don’t you mean anti-personnel?” Emma asked.

“I wish,” Darryl said. “Anyway, that shit? It’s Shieldwall’s inventions. He had something to do with making Quickblade, and rumor is that he likes to tinker with newfoals while they’re still being made. He left so many refugees and cities distraught while he was chasing someone across Africa. No idea who, but… I’ve got theories.”

“And then what happened?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Well, he just… disappeared from Africa one day,” Darryl said. “Vanished. Guess we know where he is now, huh?”

The car was quiet again.

“...Didn’t they tell you back in boot camp not to talk up the enemy?” Nny asked. “Seriously, man.”

“Yeah, my old sergeant told me to avoid doing that too,” Amuruq said.

“Oh for God’s sake,” Darryl said. “Did everyone-”

He immediately regretted asking. Apparently, everyone - except Kgalakgadi - had heard as much.

Darryl just groaned.

“Well,” Emma said, “If… if Darryl’s breaking that rule, anyone mind if I do?”

Emma

“What do you mean?” Kgalakgadi asked, confused.

“Is anyone else wondering… well, what else we might find out here?” Emma asked. “There’s a lot of stuff out here. I mean, a lot of things.”

“What do you mean?” Fiddlesticks asked

Emma thought on that. Back in high school, one of the things she’d done on weekends was to head up into the middle of nowhere and visit abandoned ships, buildings, and rail lines. It’d been like a game.

The one thing this had conveyed to her was that Alaska was big. Bigger than she’d ever really thought, and big enough that she’d never really trusted globes for the rest of her life.

“It’s just that there’s a lot of space up here,” she said, right as a newfoal splattered against the grill of the truck. “SHIT!”

“What, again?!” Sharon groaned.

The truck slowed down ever so slightly, and Amuruq swore.

“How many of these damn things are out here?!” Darryl groaned.

“Hey, remember when we thought this’d be simple?” Sandalwood sighed.

“Sandy, that was a couple hours ago,” Kgalakgadi said.

The truck trundled along, and then suddenly, illuminated in its headlights, they saw it. There were massive snowbanks on either side of the road, and two children hiding on the one to their right.

Things like fireballs zipped overhead, lights blooming in the distance.

“Amuruq,” Darryl said, “Stop the truck. If I was uncertain about stopping before… Not anymore.”

“Yes sir,” Amuruq said, and Emma felt the truck slow, then crawl to a stop.

Darryl stopped and got out of the truck, zipping up his coat as they went. It wasn’t anything close to disciplined, or orderly, but all of a sudden here they were outside in the biting cold. Nny was holding a Kalashnkov, Amuruq a massive hunting rifle, Sharon with a semiauto Kalashnikov of some kind, Vera with a gun that looked somewhere between a Kalashnikov and a FAL, and Fiddlesticks had two lightweight SMGs in her assault saddle. Emma went for a shotgun.

“Aren’t we supposed to be just a peaceful expedition?” Kgalakgadi asked, half-whimpering, half-sarcastic, his breath visible in the air as the truck’s door opened.

“Kgalakgadi,” Sandalwood said, trotting out with her horn glowing, “This is Alaska.”

Darryl, though…

He walked around to the back, pulling out a long, thin tube connected to what looked like a barrel.

He clicked its pistol grip experimentally, watching a short, lighter-sized jet of flame issue from one end.

“That’s a damn flamethrower?!” Emma yelped, staggering back slightly.

“Nice one, Dare,” Snowshoes said approvingly.

Amuruq looked at Darryl, unsettled. “Yeah. The hell, sarge? What gives?”

“They didn’t tell me not to bring it,” Darryl said. “So I did.”

“The therapist told you not to touch that,” Amuruq said, for what sounded like the umpteenth time.

“Well, the therapist?” Darryl said, dragging the word out unpleasantly. “He ain’t here.”

Emma watched Nny and Fiddlesticks step back. They’d probably heard the stories of Darryl Joseph the hero. Darryl Joseph, who’d managed to liberate what was once a Spanish prison, on his own, with a flamethrower.

Nobody at the base completely believed that. They all knew why he’d really been reassigned here. Nowhere.

“Sandalwood, Spurred Weld?” Darryl barked. “Project shield spells around us. We don’t have much cover, so it’ll have to do. Stay as far back as you can. Amuruq, Sharon? Keep near our truck. We’ll need you to provide cover. Anyone else with a gun, Tomorbaator? you’re with me.”

“Wait, even us?” Nny asked Fiddlesticks.

“Congratulations, kid,” Darryl said. “You’re heading out with us.”

Emma’s field of view became red. For a few seconds, she wondered what was happening, then she realized - that was just the color of Spurred Weld’s magic.

He’d even left cutouts in the shields for their guns. That was nice of him.

And they rushed into the fray. Nny was at the rear, just in front of Fiddlesticks. Darryl was running point, flamethrower outstretched. And Emma…

Can’t believe I’m fucking doing this! she thought, and - more to feel like she was actually doing something - fired her Ithaca 37.

It made its characteristic THOOM, and she heard a scream.

Here’s hoping you’re at peace now, she thought. Whoever you were.

And then she screamed, herself.

“NO NO NO FU-”

She rolled to the side, a fireball landing barely an inch from her feet. She scrambled backwards on her butt, then picked herself up, shotgun in hand.

“IDIOTS!” Darryl yelled, and his weapon let loose a gout of flame.

And then, illuminated by Darryl’s flamethrower, she saw the two children. They looked terrified. Incredibly out of place. The way they were dressed, it almost looked like they’d freeze to death any second.

There might have been fire raining down from the sky. This might have been more battle than Emma had ever seen. This might have been… terrifying, to be honest.

And yet that was her first reaction: Get to the kids.

“Nny?” she asked. “Cover me.”

Nny just nodded, and let loose a burst from his own Kalashnikov. Fiddlesticks did the same with her SMGs.

As they fired, Emma ran towards the snowbanks. Towards the children. She was about 16 feet from the children when it happened.

An earth pony had clambered to the top of the snowbank, a newfoal judging by its glassy eyes. Emma was about to fire when several strange things happened.

Firstly, the newfoal stopped as it looked down at the children. It looked…

Well, Emma couldn’t say what it looked like it was about to do, but it looked almost like it was uncertain of what to do next. Which never happened.

Then someone, or maybe somepony yelled: “You don’t know what they could do!”

‘But they know exactly what guns do,’ Emma thought. ‘What?’

She brushed it off. There were children to save. So, shouldering her shotgun, anticipating for the recoil, she fired. At that range the pellets didn’t merely punch through, or hit the newfoal. They vanished the newfoal, its blood staining the snow above the kids.

She rushed towards the children.

“You’re going to be okay,” she promised, crouched by the two children, a boy and a girl. Her shotgun brushed the tip of the snow.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

They were silent. Weirdly enough it didn't even look like they were shivering.

“Where are your parents?” she tried again.

“Dead,” the boy said. “They… got him. Left him bleeding out in the snow. We barely got out alive!”

“Please!” the girl pleaded. “You have to get us out of here! Before they get us!”

“I'm not letting anyone else turn into one of those… things!” Emma yelled. “Come on, both of you!”

She motioned for the two children to follow, guarding them with her shotgun.

“LOOK OUT!” Tomorbaator yelled, and a newfoal fell to the ground behind her, blood issuing from a hole in its throat.

Emma nodded thanks, and kept moving.

“That… those were people?” the girl asked.

Emma didn’t have time to think about that question. It was like a dull buzz in her head as she escorted the children towards the APC.

She thumbed a round from her Ithaca’s sidecar into the loading port.

“Look out!” Nny yelled, and drilled a round through a newfoal’s head with his Kalashnikov. It tumbled down the snowbank, blood gushing from the ruined flesh and bone where there used to be a head.

So how had the children gotten here? They didn’t even look cold.

But Emma could ask that question later. At this very moment, Tomorbaator had dropped from the sky, bleeding profusely.

“Damn… newfoals!” he choked out.

Nny

He didn’t know what to do.

There was Tomorbaator lying there, blood oozing out of one foreleg. And there was Emma. What to do?! Obviously, save the children, but he couldn’t leave Tomorbaator th-

“Wait a damn minute!” Fiddlesticks yelled. “They don't have any Potion with them!”

Something snapped inside Nny.

“EAT MY DICK!” he yelled, and fired off a long, saturating burst with his rifle. There was a yelp of pain from off in the distance.

“He got Will O’ Wisp!” a pegasus newfoal yelled, circling overhead.

Haven’t I heard that before? Nny asks. Huh, maybe it’s like Transformers, all the good names are taken.

And then he dropped downwards. Towards…

Towards Tomorbaator!

Nny was running before he realized it, just ever so slightly outpacing Spurred Weld’s shield.

He slipped his rifle onto his back and grabbed Tomorbaator by the chest, desperately trying to move him out of the way before the newfoal dropped.

Come on, come on!

Tomorbaator slid across the snow, millimeter by millimeter. Nny wheezed, trying to pull Tomorbaator onto his back.

It didn’t work.

The newfoal’s forelegs slammed down on Tomorbaator’s own forelegs, and he screamed like a banshee.

“Griffons,” the newfoal sneered. “One day, when we’ve fixed this world, we’re going to have to-”

Nny was holding his revolver - the larger .44 with the central shotgun barrel - before he realized it. He fired into the newfoal’s face, splattering their brains across the snow.

“Come fucking ON!” he yelled, holding Tomorbaator to his back, bent slightly.

And he ran. At least, as best he could, struggling under the Griffon’s weight.

“NO!” a newfoal earth pony yelled, rushing up to the truck at impossible speed. “You’re not taking them! You’re not-”

Suddenly, he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. Fiddlesticks stood nearby, her little SMGs smoking in the cold weather.

“AWRIGHT!” Nny whooped, and made his way to the truck.

Then they heard it.

A horrible, slithering sound, like someone slapping boneless limbs against the snow. Coming from behind the truck.

“I WON’T LET YOU,” a magically amplified voice boomed. “YOU ARE NOT TAKING THEM!”

“What the hell is that?” Amuruq asked, turning to the other side of the truck… and then freezing.

“Oh hell no,” Nny breathed, looking almost physically sick.

Not far behind the truck, he could see… something vaguely person-shaped, glowing patches and lines intersecting their body.

Except it looked like it’d also been shaped from people. Bodies were joined together haphazardly into a shape like a four-meter, headless person. A head was visible where feet would be, the crotch of another body looked to be the knee, and arms jutted out at seemingly random points.

“Golem!” Amuruq yelled, and started firing. With a shrug, Nny joined in as well. “FIND THE PUPPETEER!”

It didn’t help. The bullets only looked to be staggering it, and wherever the puppeteer was, Nny couldn’t see him.

He deposited Tomorbaator on a mostly empty seat, watching everyone else squeeze in, watching Amuruq force himself into the driver seat.

“Are the kids okay?” Tomorbaator wheezed. He sounded like he barely had the energy to talk.

“Yeah,” Nny said, looking over two the two frightened and most assuredly out-of-place children. “I think they are.”

“Good,” Tomorbaator said, through gritted teeth. Obviously from the pain. “That’s… a relief.”

“How fast can you take us?” Sharon asked, as Amuruq hit the gas.

“Let’s find out!” Amuruq whooped, and their truck shot off into the snowy alaskan night. Nny and Fiddlesticks desperately held Tomorbaator in place, hoping he wasn’t shaking around too much.

Darryl

Something bothered him. Firstly, where had the snowbanks come from? They were too huge to have formed completely naturally. And how could the children have gotten there? It was too far away for them to have walked, and there weren’t any vehicles in the vicinity.

So they hadn't seen a newfoal. No, they simply had no idea what they were like. No idea how they acted, how singleminded they were, how broken?

Darryl was calling bullshit.

No matter how isolated you were in Alaska, it was impossible to not know that much about newfoals. He'd known some people who talked a blue streak about newfoals, some that could almost mistake them for the real thing. But that always stopped.

In 2018. Enough in 2019 that he could barely count it on one hand.

Something was very wrong here.

“So,” he said, “Where are your parents?”

“Dead,” one of the children said.

“Not ponified?” Darryl asked, raising an eyebrow. That was interesting.

“No,” the boy said.

“What happened?” Darryl asked, doing his best to be gentle.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” the girl said.

“Is there anything you can tell us about Sagwon though?” Darryl asked.

The children stared at him suspiciously.

What aren’t they telling me?

“Are we going to be okay?” one of them asked. “Where’s Elsa?”

God, I’m interrogating children? Darryl thought. That’s screwed up. But… they’re the only survivors. And there’s just… so much isn’t right here.

Sandalwood

The foals - excuse her, the children - had been sitting next to Sandalwood this whole time, and it felt like whatever Darryl was directing at them had spilled over onto her.

She could see him… scrutinizing them. Treating them with a complete lack of trust. And he looked intense enough that even she felt some of it.

If that was how she felt, she didn’t want to know how the kids felt. She felt a stab of pity as she looked at their faces. They were…

Lost.

It was the first word that came to mind. They had something like the same look Sandalwood had seen on the faces of Barrier refugees. ‘The Dispossessed,’ as some called them. They like something had left them with nowhere and nobody out there to help them, and they knew it.

“Darryl,” Sandalwood said, “Just… we didn’t even ask their names.”

She looked to the two of them. “Who are you two?”

“I’m Eadmund,” the boy said.

“Lucie,” the girl said.

Their accents are a bit odd, Sandalwood thought, but she ignored that.

“And I’m telling you,” Darryl said, “Something isn’t right.”

“Yeah,” Sandalwood said. “I know. Acting like they’re suspects, like something’s wrong with them… that isn’t right.”

Darryl fumed, but there was an oddly tight look to it. Something that could have been regret.

He might have a point, Sandalwood thought, but like hell I’ll interrogate kids.

Nny

He looked over the van. At Sharon, still shivering from the cold. Darryl Joseph, an apparent war hero from Spain who’d been willing to interrogate children. Snowshoes, who had all the intrapersonal skill of a flying mallet. Tomorbaator, kept immobile to keep him from hurting his bleeding, broken leg.

“Are you sure I haven’t made a huge mistake?” Nny asked.

Fiddlesticks’ face was blank. She looked at him silently, her mouth in a contemplative frown.

“Honestly, I think we’d both be happier if we were in a house with a hot meal, ignoring this,” Fiddlesticks said.

“...Oh,” Nny said. ‘Yeah. That’s… that’s what I thought.’

“But…” Fiddlesticks said. “You know, on some level, I think you may have wanted to hear that. But, here’s what else I think you need to hear.”

Nny looked at her expectantly.

“We’ve done good out here,” Fiddlesticks said. “Rescued children. Found out about an atrocity nobody else would’ve known about for days”

Despite himself, Nny smiled. “Yeah, Fiddlesticks. I think I did need to hear that too.”

He looked out the window.

“Huh,” he said. “I think… I think that’s the coast.”

“Yup!” Amuruq called from the driver’s seat. “We’re nearly at our destination, everyone. Hot food and a break from this goddamn stupid drive await!”

“I thought our destination was, uh… the thing that the Solar Empire took,” Kgalakgadi said.

“It is, but we won’t be any good if we don’t warn somebody,” Darryl said. “Besides, Tomorbaator…” he looked back towards the injured griffon. “He needs help. Badly.”

“What’s his name?” Lucie asked.

“Tomorbaator,” Snowshoes said. “His name’s Tomorbaator.”

“Well…” Lucie said. “Tomorbaator, I’m sorry. For what happened.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Tomorbaator said. His beak didn’t allow for smiles, but Nny imagined from the tone of his voice that the griffon would be smiling weakly. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“You don’t know that,” Lucie said.

Nny thought about that.

Thought about the sadness in her voice. The way she responded.

Darryl might just have a point. Also, do their names seem familiar, or is that just me?

Fiddlesticks

They rolled into town,and Fiddlesticks took in all the sights. Before she’d come to Alaska, she’d thought of arctic villages almost romantically, thinking of quaint, ancient wooden architecture that looked like it could survive gale-force winds.

This was partly Nny’s fault, considering the places he lived. But Prudhoe Bay couldn’t have looked anymore different than she’d imagined. The first words that came to Fiddlesticks’ mind when they came up on Prudhoe Bay were ‘blunt’ and ‘utilitarian.’ The buildings looked to be designed with function in mind - and only that. There were some flourishes, like painted signs, but nothing else.

Though she could barely see a lot of the buildings under the snowdrifts.

Through some of the frosted-over windows, she could see people staring at them. Hardened, weatherbeaten-looking workers.

She didn’t doubt for a second that someone was aiming a gun at them.

“Huh,” Vera said. “It really does feel like home.”

Fiddlesticks made a mental note to google what Oily Rocks looked like. She pressed her face to the window, looking over the snow and rime ice-encrusted buildings. The newest thing there looked to be a railroad station, one that looked slightly less weatherbeaten than everything.

Oil cars and other freight cars sat on the rails off to the side. As did a steam engine, a large 2-8-0 just like the one from back home. It looked like it was easing itself back into a shed made of corrugated metal, where someone had spraypainted the words “END OF THE LINE.”

“...Huh,” Johnny C said, looking over at the thing. “They have something like that back home, kids. I actually knew one of the engineers.”

Despite the forlorn looks on their faces, Fiddlesticks could see the children looking curious at that. ‘Where’s this stranger from?’ she imagined them asking.

“Could you drive it?” one of the foals asked.

Nny shrugged. “Probably.”

Amuruq laughed slightly, hearing the surprise. “They had to keep up with the supply and demand somehow. Having another engine helped.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Johnny C said.

It wasn’t long before they saw it, though: A person (It was hard to tell under the heavy coat) armed with a revolver the size of a small rifle and walking out towards them, an assortment of vaguely official-looking armed men (again, hard to tell under the thick, heavy coats) guarding them. Following her.

Snowshoes

She stepped out of their truck.

Snowshoes had only been to Prudhoe Bay once, with Sandalwood. Both of them vaguely suspected Snowshoes had only been brought on because she could camouflage herself. A lot of people either didn’t have the best view of ponies, or didn’t know anything about them in the least.

Sandalwood… really hadn’t liked it.

Her friend - her more-or-less friend - was shaking as they stepped out into the snow, and it wasn’t from the cold. After all, Sandalwood wore clothes all over her, snowpants and a parka adapted from clothes for human children.

The approaching humans scowled at them. They didn’t have their guns aimed at them, or in any position other than nonthreatening. Which was, oddly enough, exactly why Snowshoes felt threatened.

The leading man threw back his hood with his left hand, massive revolver at the ready. Snowshoes remembered him: Project Manager Edward Coolidge. In charge of most everything here, or at least… whatever there was to be in charge of somewhere like here.

He wore an ushanka to cover his bald pate, though thick clumps of hair spilled out from under the hat into his hood. His face didn’t quite look craggy - he was too short, heavy, and vaguely overweight for that to be true - but there was a sense of solidity to it.

“You know,” Coolidge said, “I actually volunteered to be up here so I’d be safe. Away from it all.”

Amuruq and Sharon walked out of the car, Darryl and Emma behind them. The four of them stood, facing Coolidge and the men flanking him.

“Not so I could be dragged into some business involving ponies. Here. Of all places. Where I can just forget about it. Why not? It’s not like much changes for us here. But no. You have to bring those things here.”

Snowshoes wondered about that. About how eventually, Barrier movements would push him south. Sure, he had it good when it came to his own oubliette - a place he could forget about the Barrier, if only for a few moments - but he didn’t have it Last Resort good.

“Don’t,” Sandalwood said, looking over at her. “Just don’t.”

Must’ve looked pretty angry, Snowshoes thought. “You’re just gonna ignore this?” she asked.

“Why not?” Sandalwood asked. “He’s right, anyway. Besides, what’d it do to argue with him? What would it accomplish?”

Snowshoes found that she couldn’t quite argue with that.

“We didn’t even tell you what we’re here for,” Darryl said.

“Well then, what is it?” one of Coolidge’s guards asked.

“First things first,” Darryl said, “We have a wounded griffon in the truck. He needs medical are as soon as possible.”

“You might be better off getting him to Barrow,” Coolidge said. “We don’t have much of anything that could help here. Especially not for a griffon.”

“His foreleg’s broken, and he’s bleeding pretty badly,” Emma said. “As far as I can tell, it’s not too different from what we’d do for a human. I can help if you want.”

“I… think the doctors would appreciate that,” one guard said.

“Now, I know you didn’t come here just to bring me a wounded Griffon,” Coolidge said. “So why don’t you-”

“Sagwon’s gone,” Amuruq interrupted, ignoring the glares from Darryl and Sharon.

Coolidge looked to Darryl, confused. “Gone as in…”

“As in something made them all walk out and leave,” Johnny C added, Fiddlesticks in tow. “We came in, and… the kids were all we found.”

The look of rank disapproval on Coolidge’s face didn’t exactly disappear as much as it collapsed. “Oh, God. What happened to them?”

Nobody who’d been in the truck could muster the strength to say it.

“Oh God,” Coolidge said. “That.”

One of them men at Coolidge’s side vomited into the snow right then and there. Snowshoes couldn’t blame him.

“Yeah,” Snowshoes found herself saying,”That’s what happened.”

“Wait, what kids?” one of the guards asked.

“Two children,” Emma said. “Kids. Definitely brother and sister…”

“They rescued us from those… those newfoals,” Lucie said.

“Well,” Coolidge said, “I might not be happy to see you, but I’ll be damned if I don’t help them out.”

“Get Tomorbaator out,” Darryl said. “Emma, Nny, can you carry his stretcher?”

The two of them nodded.

“So, while the two of them are dealing with that,” Coolidge said, “Tell me everything.”

Sandalwood

It took some coaxing, hot chocolate, and a warm room in one of Prudhoe Bay’s buildings, but they did it.

It was all stainless steel, formica and wood paneling inside, with guttering lighting that barely illuminated the cramped spaces. Sandalwood didn’t know much about earth decorating, but she guessed the place was old. It felt like it hadn’t been given a touch-up in decades.

Just like it always had.

She’d had to go there a few times - there were a few spells that the PHL had applied to the oil derricks that she’d needed to re-cast. Spells to ensure lack of leakage, to enhance the durability. If there was any way the remaining forces of humanity could enhance oil production, they had Sandalwood cast a spell that’d help them do it.

And some things about the place never really felt right to her. The people here - like Coolidge - lived about as far as you could get from ponies, the war, and they’d developed a sense of independence about it. Enough that Sandalwood never felt safe going there.

“So,” said Coolidge. “Sagwon’s gone, and they have… what, exactly?”

He tapped his fingers on the table. Something about the motion unsettled Sandalwood. Just like… just like...

They wouldn’t hurt us, Sandalwood thought. We’ve got a lot of PHL here. This is not the same.

“Something powerful,” Darryl said, completely unperturbed.

Coolidge was surrounded by an assortment of guards, workers, oil drillers, and others from all over the small town. So each and every last one of them got the whole story. From Kgalakgadi’s signal - he piped up there with something about the signal he’d picked up that Sandalwood only vaguely understood - to even hitting the deer that wasn’t there, to Sagwon, to the moment that they found the children.

Who, as it happened, were sitting off to the side with hot chocolate of their own.

“Well,” said a thin-faced woman with thick glasses, “This might explain a lot about the storm.”

A computer sat on her lap. Kgalakgadi stood near the woman, looking down at the screen.

“Thought there was something off about it,” Kgalakgadi said.

“What do you mean?” the woman asked.

“It’s been a pretty vicious storm, yeah?” Kgalakgadi asked. “But… it’s been here much too long.”

“Definitely,” Amuruq agreed, nodding. “So, what does it explain?”

“It explains what it looks like from above,” the woman said. “...By raising about 20 more questions.” She sighed, and facepalmed. “It should be moving, but it doesn’t seem to be. It’s like something’s keeping it stuck here.”

“I was beginning to wonder if it was normal on Earth,” Snowshoes piped up. She’d been weirdly quiet.

Fiddlesticks

Wish Nny was here right now, Fiddlesticks thought.

“You say those children were from Sagwon?” asked one of Coolidge’s guards.

“Where else?” Amuruq asked. “I mean, we found them a litle bit outside, far away from any houses, but…”

“That’s the thing,” another man said. “See, we’d been thinking. One of us - at least for awhile, maybe till we find them a better place to grow up - takes care of them for a bit. Because what the hell, they’re from Sagwon, and everyone here knows a man or woman from that township.”

“What are you getting at?” Fiddlesticks asked, leaning in, confused.

“So, we talk among each other. Have a little who knows who, yeah?” the man continued rambling, as if he hadn’t heard a word. “We get to talking, and we find something isn’t right. So we double check. Triple check. We even check birth records.”

“Sully,” the first man said, “Get to the point. You’re freaking them out.”

“Right,” ‘Sully’ said. “Sorry. The point is, those children aren’t from Sagwon. They’re not from any of the pump stations, either. There’s no ID on them, no nothing.”

“I told you,” Darryl said, arms folded across his chest. “I told you something wasn’t right!”

“So what’re you gonna do?” Amuruq asked.

“Honestly?” ‘Sully’ said. “Still probably going to take care of them. Anyone could see that even if something isn’t right, they need help.”

There was a strange, questioning edge to Sully’s voice.

“What are you going to…” Fiddlesticks asked, suspicious.

“There’ll be a room with armed guards, of course,” Coolidge said, interrupting her.

He’s what?! Fiddlesticks thought.

“You said yourself that the Solar Empire were after them,” Coolidge said. “We’re only keeping them safe, after all.”

“I…” Fiddlesticks started. “Are you sure? Really?”

“What’s there to be unsure about?” Coolidge asked. “They’re kids. Refugees. We only want to keep them safe.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I mean, I know ponies like you have weird ideas about-”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?!” Sandalwood yelled.

Coolidge threw up his hands. “Nothing! Nothing. I…”

“That’s what I thought,” Sandalwood said.

“I just have one question now, though,” Coolidge said. “What are all of you going to do now?”

Darryl

A few minutes later

“I just can’t get over that,” Fiddlesticks was saying to Nny, her friend. “What do we do now?”

Darryl sat down at the table, and looked at everyone around him. Well, everyone but Tomorbaator, who looked to be out of the picture for awhile.

Nny. Fiddlesticks. Emma, Amuruq, Spurred Weld, Kgalakgadi, Sandalwood, Snowshoes, and Sharon - who, strangely enough, seemed to have become their guide. All drinking something, snacking, looking incredibly out of place.

“Alright,” Sandalwood said. “I’m gonna say it. Fiddlesticks has a point.”

Almost predictably, everyone was looking at Darryl. Of course.

“Well, we can’t just… leave, can we?” Nny asked.

“There’s a snowstorm, we can’t reach anyone thanks to the weather, and nobody else can get here,” Snowshoes said. “I’m going to go with no.”

“So then,” Sandalwood said to her not-quite-friend. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Snowshoes said.

“Well, we have to do something!” Sandalwood argued. “Our friends are gone, and the Solar Empire is doing… whatever they’re doing to Sint Erklass’ corpse.”

Kgalakgadi looked over to Sharon. “What are they doing, anyway?”

Sharon blinked. “I… well, I wasn’t exactly left with a strong impression. Going by what I understand about Sint, he was incredibly powerful-”

“Absolutely true,” Snowshoes said, nodding. “I… I lived pretty far north. Not too far from Yakyakistan and Rainbow Falls. Close enough we could visit Adlaborn fairly regularly.”

“Wait,” Kgalakgadi said, “Wouldn’t that mean that during the Crystal War, your town was one of the first to be-”

“Yes,” Snowshoes said, glaring at Kgalakgadi. “It would definitely mean that.”

“I, uh, don’t know much about the Crystal war,” Nny put in. “What happened there?”

“Oh, Celestia was trying to train us for war with you, so she put us into a bullshit conflict against our ancestors,” Sandalwood says.

“You know that’s a conspiracy theory, right?” Spurred Weld said. Everyone started as he spoke, for what seemed like the first time in a long time.

“Are we really in a position to say what is or isn’t a conspiracy theory?” Fiddlesticks asked. “I mean-”

Her mouth clamped shut.

“What? What is it?” Amuruq asked.

It was impossible for Darryl not to see the pain in Fiddlesticks’ eyes. He glanced over at Snowshoes, seeing the look of curiosity on her face.

“What were you going to say?” Darryl asked.

“I was going to say,” Snowshoes said, “That it probably should’ve been a warning sign. When the Elements of Harmony, you know… failed.”

Vera snorted. “What a novel concept.”

“No, no,” Snowshoes said. “Back then, it was like… we could do everything, you know? Even during the Battle of the Wedding, the Elements still saved Canterlot. But, well, then there was the Crystal War. Where the elements… well, failed.”

“I have to say,” Nny said, “That sounds like perfectly reasonable grounds for a conspiracy.”

“Ponies. Humans. Griffons. Zebras,” Darryl said. “This is all very stimulating dialogue, but it still doesn’t change the fact that we have no idea what to do.”

“I say we keep doing what we came to do,” Kgalakgadi said. “The signal from the tundra… if anything, it’s growing stronger.

He pulled an ipad from his saddlebags. “See, on this-”

It was making a set of pings.

“It says, it’s… it’s getting weaker. But these pings make it sound like it’s… almost increasing in intensity. It keeps repeating this.”

“Wait a minute,” Amuruq said, grabbing a paper napkin. “Anyone got a pencil or something?”

Wordlessly, Nny passed him one.

Amuruq tapped on the table with the eraser, then made some scratch marks on the napkin.

“...That’s morse code,” Amuruq said. “It’s saying… It’s saying…” he scrawled something on the napkin.

“If I may?” Spurred Weld asked, pulling a thick pencil as wide as a thumb from one of his saddlebags. “No, no, that’s… that’s a dash.”

“Certainly,” Amuruq said.

“ ‘Running out of time. Cannot be allowed to have my power,’” Spurred Weld, Amuruq, and Shannon said in unison. Then, suddenly, there was another burst of pings and static from Kgalakgadi’s iPad.

“Sandalwood,” Kgalakgadi said. “Can you… I don’t know, examine for magic in this?”

“Oh, I barely need to,” Sandalwood said, though her horn was already glowing. “It’s… it’s heavy stuff. I’d be more surprised if it wasn’t Sint Erklass.”

“‘Finally. You hear me. You must come. Now. There is no more time,’” Shannon said, going pale. Or at least, paler than normal. “‘We have come to the end of our time.’”

Well shit, thought some distant part of Darryl.

So he made a decision.

“We’re suiting up,” he said. “Kgalakgadi, you can track whatever this is?”

“Yessir,” Kgalakgadi said.

“Then we’re finding it,” Darryl said. “I still don’t understand anything going on here. But if it means fucking with the Solar Empire, then I’m all for it.”

“Yes sir!” everyone at the table said, all saluting.

Even Sandalwood and Snowshoes.

Well, how about that.

“I hope you do well,” said Eadmund.

Darryl didn’t jump. Nny and Fiddlesticks, however, did.

“Where did you come from?” Emma asked.

They didn’t answer.

But out of the corner of his eye, Darryl saw

Nny

They’d easily managed to procure some snowmobiles and a snowcat, along with a few spare guns. Darryl sat nearby, in a snowmobile that looked to have a modified seat so Kgalakgadi could sit behind him.

‘Never thought I’d be doing this,’ Nny thought.

“We ready to go?!” Darryl asked, revving his snowmobile.

“Yeah, but… before we go, one thing,” Sandalwood said. “I was still trying to detect ambient magic, trying to… like, make a token effort to levitate anything. But I looked at those kids, and… nothing.”

“...That’s good, right?” Vera asked.

“Eh, it’s more neutral than anything,” Spurred Weld said, earning a snicker from Sandalwood.

“Right,” Sandalwood said. “But… it was like the magic just… bounced off. Humans have no magic, but this time, this time it was like a negative number.”

“Something,” Fiddlesticks said, “Is… seriously weird with those children.”

“...We can’t do much about that,” Nny said. “The best we can do here is our job.”

“He’s right,” Darryl said. “Roll out, everyone. We’re finding this… whatever it is.”

[NON-CANON] Chapter One: Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Three: The People Who Carry Their Forests Around With Them

Snowbound Chapter 3:
The People Who Carry Their Forest Around With Them

Co-authors:
VoxAdam
Jed R

Darryl

“Are things under control?!” Darryl bellowed into the walkie-talkie. Not here. NOT HERE!

Had to keep calm. Had to keep calm for them. He was in command here, and if you stayed calm, then so did they. Had to be. Had to be.

“Kgalakgadi and I are heading after her!” Amuruq cried. “I think we’ll be fine. She’s, she’s been enthralled or something! Sandalwood, Spurred Weld, we need a unicorn down here if there’s…”

“What was that you were saying?” he heard Snowshoes asking Johnny C. The guy from New Hampshire that’d come here.

“That it was a restraint?” Johnny C asked.

“Exactly,” Snowshoes said. “Whatever this is, it looks like it got Sharon.”

“Well,” Darryl asked, “then why aren’t we?”

Johnny C looked down. “No idea.”

“...The radio station,” Sandalwood said. “Son of a bitch!”

“What do you mean?” Darryl asked.

“Sagwon has a radio station,” Sandalwood said. “Local news, weather conditions for people that feel like skiing outdoors, hunters, music…. Things like that.” She reared up a little, hooves to her face. “The trail of blood goes up that door, to the radio station! If someone went there, there’s only one reason!”

“To record the events,” Darryl said. “Snowshoes. Go find Amuruq and Kgalakgadi, try and help Sharon. Everyone else, we’re getting to that station!”

Kgalakgadi

He was not built for this.

“Please tell me you have…” he panted. “Something… nonlethal… Amy…”

Amuruq didn’t roll his eyes at the misnaming. Somehow, that worried Kgalakgadi more than anything.

“No,” Amuruq said. “There’s no such thing as a nonlethal shot. At this range she might die.”

“Kneecapping?”

“If she doesn't bleed out, it’ll freeze,” Amuruq said.

“And Nny has the Bolas,” Kgalakgadi wheezed. Any idea what to do?”

“An ancient Inuit technique,” Amuruq said softly, and pelted forward, low to the ground.

Sandalwood.

Sandalwood had no idea how long they’d been walking towards the radio station. The hallways all seemed to blur together, as did the paintings.

“Who designed this place?!” Fiddlesticks burst out. “It’s like a maze!”

“I feel your pain,” Sandalwood sighed. “Now this, Fiddlesticks, is why we usually just stop at the bar.”

“Truer words had never been spoken about Sagwon,” Spurred Weld said sagely.

He was right. It was a labyrinthine mess of rooms paneled with Alaskan wood, metal, landscape photos, and paintings that were either reproductions or unlikely to make their way to the lower 48 states of America.

Give Sandalwood a cold drink, a chance to be… to be human for a few seconds here, and she was happy. Have her walk through the mess of half-hidden dormitories, through a chapel, a small clinic, equipment rooms, a cafeteria, showers, a whole mess of places that ~~seemed~~ certainly were thrown together at the spur of the moment, and she was somewhat less so. Too many hallways, too few windows.

“I had to come up and visit a friend once,” Sandalwood explained. “And-”

“No,” Spurred Weld said, “I meant why we usually go to the bar.”

There was an uncomfortable silence as they reached an intersection. One hallway led off to the right, another led straight.

“...Why do people even need a radio station up here, anyway?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Well,” Sandalwood said. “To warn about wildlife, weather conditions, give people something to listen t-”

“Need I remind you,” Darryl snapped, “That this is an official mission. We don’t know what’s out there, we don’t know what caused this-”

‘Why does Snowshoes like this man?’ Sandalwood thought, as she led them down the side hallway. There’d been friends from Europe’s evacuation who lived here. Jorge Martinez, who’d been unaccustomed to the cold weather, and the laborious process of maintaining the rails… but he’d taken it all in stride.

The bartender, old ‘Arry, whose Scots accent had been so thick that Sandalwood didn’t know there was even an H in his name, who’d served as one of the bartenders. Jimmy Wright, one of the lumberjacks, broad and scarred by a bear attack, drinking her under the table each time. Helen Hulme, who’d seemingly felt naked without a chainsaw and shotgun.

And all of them way more personable than Darryl usually was.

And they’re gone. They'd better be okay. I hope to... to God, or whatever is out there, that they're okay, Sandalwood thought. “Fuck.”

“...You okay?” the human named Nny asked.

“No,” Sandalwood said, a little more edge in her voice than she would’ve liked. This was… this was a human after all. “Just… I’ll talk about it later, John.” She sighed. “Not now.” She peered up at a door. “My friend Tricia operated the radio up there. It’s through here.”

Sandalwood would never fully grasp how fortunate it was that she had used telekinesis to grab the door and turn. How she’d been so wrapped up remembering the times she’d had in Sagwon while guarding it (sometimes from the armed ‘survivalists’, sometimes helping to escort a train full of petrol) that it felt only right that she opened the-

CRASH!

...Door.

A log - freshly cut, by Helen’s saw it looked like, swung out the door like the head of a hammer.

Nny yelped like a puppy and practically seemed to teleport back about a meter, cowering behind Fiddlesticks.

“SWEET MERCIFUL GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING?!” Fiddlesticks yelled, a hesitant half-second before picking up the triggers to her assault saddle in her mouth.

“The hell was that?!” Tomorbaator spat.

Vera readied her Leshiy, pulling the charging handle backwards with an audible shunk-click.

Darryl wasn’t so lucky, the log catching his knee at the side. He rolled backwards, hands on his leg, hissing through his teeth.

Only Spurred Weld didn’t seem to react, his eyes only widening slightly.

“Darryl!” Sandalwood asked. “You okay?”

“That looked pretty bad,” Nny said, picking himself up and walking towards Darryl. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Darryl said, a little winded, as he gingerly picked himself up off the ground. “Just…” he fell about an inch to the side. “Just need a minute.”

He wheezed a little.

“What,” Spurred Weld said, with a slight waver in his voice that made Sandalwood wonder just how stoic he really was, “the bitch.”

“...Who even says ‘what the bitch,’ man?” Nny asked.

“I do,” Spurred Weld said. “And at this moment I must ask. “What the bitch.”

“Well,” Fiddlesticks said, “It’s, uh… obviously a trap? I’m just glad that it didn’t have nails in there,” she continued, trying to push the log out of the way. “That’d-”

There was a slight creaking noise, and Fiddlesticks fell back. Another log, this one studded with nails, had embedded itself in the wood, just millimeters from her forelegs.

“OH COME ON!” Emma yelled, breathing heavily as she flattened herself against the wall and floor.

“...That’s just silly,” Nny said, coughing slightly. “So, who wants to bet there’s more deathtraps in there?”

“They had a trap,” Fiddlesticks said, “Triggered by trying to get past another trap. I’d say it’s a safe bet.”

“By the way,” Spurred Weld said. “Do you think that one was meant to keep them in, or…”

“No, definitely, definitely to keep something out,” Fiddlesticks said.

“Alright,” Darryl said. “Sandalwood, can you do a spell to detect the traps?”

“I can, but…” Sandalwood looked over at Nny and Fiddlesticks. They didn’t look happy.

“Can’t we just break in?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Fiddlesticks said they had a trap triggered by trying to get past another one,” Nny agreed. “That… doesn’t give me a good feeling about that staircase. Can’t we just break into the station from outside?

“I… think we can,” Sandalwood said. “Just-”

“We’re going up,” Darryl said, fingers twitching. It wasn’t a question.

Sharon.

White.

All around. All-encompassing. Distantly, Sharon Minik was aware that she probably should’ve been feeling cold, but that somehow didn’t feel important.

She could feel herself smiling. Wouldn’t it be better to just be able to forget? To surrender herself. Sooner or later, this would all rot. Be remade under the unrelenting love a terrible, perfect smiling goddess...

And all she had to do was continue going northwest. The cold didn’t matter. Up northwest, she would find her Purpose.

A shattered coast.

A forest choked by snow, near the very edge of Alaska’s treeline. The forest seemed to be almost buried under the snow. There were icicles hanging from the hardy pines, so thick they seemed almost like stalactites. There were no mountains but the Brooks Range south of them, nothing save for a few human communities, pathetic places to be shown the light later. There was a delta to the north, a place where a river split and met ocean.

This was where she would find it. As she walked through the white expanse, she saw it. A great skeleton, not even yellowed under the storm.

It was hard to make out what it could have been. Bits of brown fur clung to its bones. It was as if it was trying to hide itself, to subsume itself into the earth so it could never be found again. Within a week, if the Solar Empire hadn’t gotten here, it would be gone.

It sat in a clearing, lit by a crystalline obelisk.

This was where she would find her purpose. She would be left with nothing but a smile on her face, every little thing she disliked excised until there was nothing but the smile on her face. And her smile would be better… fuller… wider…

What higher joy could there be than serving Celestia and achieving her perfect shape? To kill her imperfect self? To make sure that the skeleton, whatever they were investigating, did not fall into human hands. To find the… those that were lost. To make them pay for the defiance they could have wrought.

For Sharon saw that there were footprints leading away. Or were they hoofprints? It was hard to say.

Perhaps they were both. They couldn’t be allowed to make their way past this desolate land. Humanity could not be allowed that boon. And, hooked by thin brass wires to the skeleton, was a small crystal obelisk. It was lightly buzzing and chirping. Something seemed warm. Inviting. As if there was a chorus of voices within the obelisk, beckoning her, laughing…

Or were they crying?

Yes. The obelisk was warm. The obelisk was inviting. As was each pony, who cast welcoming gla~~res~~ glances at her, smiling, nodding. There was one that caught her eye, though. An albino, so pale that his eyes seemed to almost blend into the fur of his coat. His cutie mark was a shield splashed with something purple.

She could not wait to be with him. Be part of his cause. To come in that light, so inviting, like

like a lantern to moths.

Exactly. Exactly as inviting as that.

That kills moths, the strange, terrible voice said. It will kill you as well. No, it won’t. But sometimes, you will wish it did.

Sharon put that thought out of her mind. How could she ignore the promise of such refreshing simplicity? Of purpose, of simple happiness till the day she died?

So she stepped forward. Heading towards that clearing, smiling...

Fiddlesticks.

It was like walking on broken glass. The seven of them slunk along the sides of the staircase.

There was a creak as the old, overtaxed wood bent with their weight. Nny’s head was swivelling, jerking from side to side. He was shaking. Anyone could see that.

As Fiddlesticks slunk along the side of the staircase, she saw the looks of exasperation that Nny, her love, her life, her anchor in the world had been receiving from Darryl and Vera.

She saw Vera blowing upwards, pushing a strand of hair from her half-mohawk, an annoyed look on her face. Nny had been rather withdrawn for the past few minutes. Sort of out of focus as they walked through the halls.

Coward, Vera wanted to say. Or at least, Fiddlesticks assumed that she did. Nobody much seemed to approve of them.

But that wasn’t Nny. He’d be jittery, he’d sometimes panic-fire and shoot a few times too many, but he wouldn’t run away.

“You okay?” she whispered.

Nny didn’t answer. He didn’t look like he wanted to, either.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“For getting us here,” Nny said, face taut with fear. “We could be back at home, or somewhere in town, sipping hot cocoa-”

“I thought that was hard to get,” Vera said, confused.

“Do you seriously think we’d just not have cocoa or coffee?” Sandalwood asked incredulously.

“Honestly,” Nny said, forcing a smile.

“Alright,” Fiddlesticks said, as they came to the door.

“Tripwire,” Sandalwood said, and they all lifted their feet, desperately trying not to hit the razor-thin wire illuminated by her horn TK.

The door was coming up.

“What’s it really, though?” Fiddlesticks asked. “I mean, I know you. It’s never about just the one thing.”

“...What the hell does that mean?” Vera asked.

“It’s personal,” Fiddlesticks hissed, as she stepped over yet another tripwire.

“No, what she means is that single-issue-psychology,” Nny said, “is a lie. We’re not just bothered by whatever the hell happened here, we’re bothered by the fact that it’s cold, and it’s nighttime.”

“I see,” Vera said. “Go on, though. I’m scared too, leg.”

“...Leg?” Nny asked, confused.

“Everyone calls you Nny, da?” Vera asked.

“It’s short for Johnny, but I wanted to do something different,” Nny explained. “Plus, it was a favorite comic of mine. Seriously though, Fiddly. What’re you worried about?”

“You,” Fiddlesticks said. “I just… I didn’t want you to feel guilty. For this. For taking us up here.”

“...Why would I feel guilty?” Nny asked.

“Because you just apologized,” Fiddlesticks said. “Like ten seconds ago. It’s just… I’m glad someone’s discovering this.” She paused. “That, and I’m honestly happy with you doing something so assertive.”

“I’m plenty assertive!” Nny protested.

At long last, they made it to the door. The wind howled all around them, and the wooden walls of the studio creaked in the cold winter air like old bones. There didn’t seem to be any tripwires or other traps at the front.

“It looks fine,” Sandalwood said, her eyes glowing in tandem with her horn. “Nothing here…”

“Assertive, he says,” Fiddlesticks said, as Vera looked on. As Darryl held up his pistol, Vera kept her Leshiy trained on the door, and Nny sighted in his Kalashnikov. “Assertive! The man whose favorite hobby back home is when I force him to wear-”

Telekinetically jiggling the doorknob, Sandalwod pushed the station door open, and her jaw dropped.

“Is it weird that I’m thankful for that interrupting us?” Nny asked, his voice sounding like it was coming from very far away.

“No,” Vera said.

“But you don’t even-” Fiddlesticks started.

Vera looked at the room. At the woman with a heavy hunting pistol shoved up to her chin, the top half of her skull gone. The grimace of pain, combined with her head abruptly ending just above one (and only one) of her eyebrows, setting her face into a mocking leer.

The oddly repetitive scratches everywhere, on seemingly every surface. The blood that stuck to their shoes. The notes. The walls that were almost feathery with notes. The red string connecting photos.

The dead body on the floor, its hands cut off, blood everywhere.

“Da,” Vera said. “I’m quite sure.”

Sharon

And suddenly the clearing was gone.

The snow rushed away under Sharon’s feet like some weird sideways avalanche, the trees and bushes bobbing along in the tumultuous wave of snow and flora. A confused-looking husky poked its head out from the snow as the land abruptly retreated from Sharon.

She could see ponies in the clearing as it ran away from her. As a section of woods ran away.

As the snow roiled like waves in a storm, the newfoals and ponies would be pulled under great mounds of snow and ice. One minute, the newfoals would be smiling before the snow crested and hammered them down like a piledriver, the next when they resurfaced, they’d be screaming in agony before the waves dragged them down once more.

Sharon ran towards it, but the clearing outpaced her. All she had to do was find her way there. Find her way there and the feeling would just… stop. And wouldn’t that be wonderful. All the feeling, all of it, just floating away, like snowflakes on the wind. Like tears in the rain.

Or the snow, perhaps.

It swirled all around her, blurring everything out with white. It was everywhere. It was everything. A white forest - not covered in snow, just white - of strange, conflicting curves and angles rose from the snow before her.

Something from the depths of that white forest sang out to her. The words were so beautiful, so melodious, so… harmonic... And yet Sharon could not put her finger on what exactly it had said. There was a light in the distance. An area where the snow simply swirled around an empty pocket of air.

Sharon staggered along, and tripped over something in the snow. She picked herself up from the ground. She didn’t mind. She didn’t mind how cold she was. She had to get to the light. Had to be part of it. Had to live under the unrelenting love of a terrible, perfect smiling Goddess.

After what felt like hours, Sharon found the forest vanishing along a collapsing coast, great swathes of land falling into the sea.

It wasn’t quite where she had seen the long-dead beast. It was… Stranger, she thought as she headed through the strange pallid trees.

“It could become something almost like a paradise in due time,” a voice said, regretful. They sounded… female?

Something sobbed from nearby.

Sharon weaved from side to side to ignore the mass of trees. These were strange - too smooth, too featureless. And then, oh god.

Oh, GOD.

Those were antlers. Growing from caribou skulls. Skulls that were steadily rising from the snow…

“The way to her paradise,” the skulls said, their teeth rattling, “is lined in blood and the bones of those who didn’t share her vision.”

“West,” Sharon heard someone slurring, realizing that it was herself. “N….. nrthwrst…. Th’ callin’ us. North...”

“The way to her vision,” the skulls chorused as she made her way to the clearing, “Is lined with bodies. All who her puppetmaster could not take in his strings, it destroyed.”

She drew upon a clearing in the forest, the skulls weeping behind her. Icicles dripped from their massive eye sockets.

“You must not allow it,” the skulls said, as Sharon made her way to the clearing. “Not here. Nowhere else.”

It buzzed with activity. Tents of strange, purple-red fabric had been pitched out here, in this seaside stand of stunted trees. A great cigar-shaped skyliner hovered overhead.

And ponies bustled to and fro. There were royal guards here and there, a sparse amount of humans earning dirty looks from some of the workers. Scientists - ponies in thick white coats, ascetic-looking windbreakers.

At the center of it all was a buzzing crystal obelisk that hurt Sharon to look at it. And hooked to the obelisk was…

What was that?

Nny.

Nny didn’t like people calling him a coward. He’d seen plenty of “brave” people that hadn’t gone above and beyond. He’d happily crossplayed at cons - somehow, Sandalwood seemed like she’d get that, what with wearing more clothing on her than he’d seen on any other ponies. That was brave, apparently. Lovikov had shot his border collie mix, so Nny had taken it upon himself to piss off the Menschabwehrfraktion and other HLF in his home state in whatever ways he could.

Overcharge them whenever he ended up selling to them, stealing their wallets, and…

Nny paused. Shit, where’d I leave that IED? Ah well, bet it wasn’t anywhere important.

Bravery wasn’t keeping calm in the face of fear. Bravery… was when you kept on going. For example, Nny was shaking as he looked the room over.

“...West,” read the note taped above the recording equipment. As did the words on every square inch of available paper. And the scratches on the wooden stock of some poor bastard’s hunting rifle.

It hadn’t been a quick death. Nny had seen some people shoot themselves when they were at the point of no return, being ponified. That had actually been the first time he killed a man.

He’d taken the man’s little Ruger and shot him in between the eyes. The first thing Nny had felt during the riots in Vermont, shooting that man and keeping the little LCR (even to this day, he kept it tucked into a boot) had been an odd coldness as he saw the gratitude in the man’s eyes (and how fucked up was that?). After that, there was the feeling bad. No, not quite. He’d felt bad for not feeling bad, if that made sense. He’d kept the little revolver ever since. This was not, as it happened, the handcannon he kept on his back. The one a friend had bought for him during the riots, the one he couldn’t bear to drop.

He was feeling that here. Whatever had happened here, it’d been bad. And he just felt cold. Inside and out.

It was like somebody had switched Nny off, and he was running on emergency power.

“Hey,” he Fiddlesticks say, as he looked at an iPhone half-hidden under the rifle. “I think they left something for us.”

As he looked down at the phone, he became aware of several photos.

Linked together with red string.

A poor-quality photograph, taped to the wall. It seemed like it had two caribou in a snowstorm, but… no. That wasn’t quite right. It was fuzzy, poor-quality, but in the blur, it looked almost like it wasn’t caribou in a snowstorm, it was more like there was a snowstorm ober them. He could see little hints of brown, but it looked more like the snow had just… approximated the shape of a two ~~caribou~~ reindeer. There was a post-it note stuck to it, reading “About three days befo-”

Wait. Why had he just corrected himself there? So obnoxiously? Caribou, reindeer… why’d it matter?

“Huh,” Sandalwood said. “Could get a nice prize in one of the galleries for that editing-”

“It’s not,” Emma said. She’d been quiet. Too quiet. “Edited, I mean.”

Johnny C, Fiddlesticks, and Sandalwood each shared a Look.

“She hasn’t been telling us everything, has she?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“It’s not like her to be this quiet,” Sandalwood whispered over to Fiddlesticks.

“And how is she normally?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“How can you tell?” Darryl asked.

“Simple. I’m a photographer,” Emma said. “That’s a polaroid. It’s really unlikely that was edited.”

Everyone crowded around the narrow, squarish frame of the picture.

“There’s also the note,” Fiddlesticks said, reading it out loud. “Started about when we saw this…”

“You do the honors, Lovi-”

“Yob tvoyu mat, ”Vera said, and flipped him off.

“Low,” Darryl corrected himself.

“Look for video file ‘Last Testament of Tricia Callum,’” Vera said, reading off a note on the back of the phone. She looked confused, then scrolled down the iPhone’s screen until she found the file in question. She pressed play.

A video popped up on the phone’s screen. Everyone crowded around, staring at the tiny slit of light.

The room looked much the same. The papers and photographs that covered the walls like feathers were still there, though none of them were splattered with blood. Not this time.

The video shook slightly, and they saw a woman sitting in the chair in front of them. A woman who, judging by the beauty mark on her lower jaw, was the same one that’d shot herself.

A man with sideburns, granite-black-and-white, stood at the door. He was holding what looked like a Kalashnikov to the doorway, ear to the wall.

AKs in AK, Johnny C thought, offhanded, as the realization of the setting started to sink in. Huh… oh shit. They’ve died. Goddammit! I could’ve done something, I should’ve-

The man and woman had an odd, determined look to them. They were at once destroyed and defiant, a look of…

Spite, Johnny C thought as he stared down. Never seen anyone so spiteful. He paused. Okay, there was that time…

He considered telling Fiddlesticks about it. No! Fuck this, we… not now.

“I don’t know why,” the woman said, her voice hard to understand through the phone’s microphone and her thick Alaska accent. “But it wants us to go northwest. The call came in the-”

There was a burst of static, and Nny could see her mouth moving. Could see her screaming. Could see strange shadows dancing along the walls of the room.

“L… listen!” the woman said, as if she was forcing herself to talk. “It. Wanted us. To go. Northwest. I don’t know what it was asking. But it all started just after christmas. Right after Hiel tried to shoot that weird deer. One night, the radio just gave out, and we heard this…”

She was interrupted by an earsplitting shriek. The man with the Kalashnikov, who’d been silent, like a statue armed with a rifle,was still expressionless but his mouth was open. Like someone had cut it through. He was swearing, sweating, shaking like a leaf. But there was no change in his facial expressions.

“SONG! Ah, Christ! This song! It was… beautiful. Magical. We knew we had to leave. To go north. That there was something beautiful. That we had to invite someone there, that… that was so beautiful we couldn’t be allowed to have it as humans.” She laughed, a maddened cackle.

“-Getting harder to talk!” someone on the other end screeched. “The, the pull! PER! They’re calling us, and it’s SO BEAUTIFUL!”

“Hold on, Lonergin!” the woman screamed back. “Just hold on, they have to know. It was… Lonergin, that’s it! The lights in the sky! The-”

Nny’s head snapped towards one photo. His eyes widened.

“Oh, shit,” he said. It looked like a UFO photo. There were lights over the sky… purple.

“Yesterday, people just started disappearing,” the woman said. “I was listening to some Death Set at the bar, then everyone else just… walked out. Everyone just decided they weren’t hungry, picked up their coats, and filed out of the bar. Their homes. They just up and left, walked through the snow up west. We tried to call for backup, but… somebody had cut all the lines.”

“Oh, Tricia… no…” Sandalwood was whispering.

“We were being killed off. One by one,” the woman said. “No, we were being convinced to kill each other. Goddamn geldos, you know? It can’t be just asking politely. Assholes.”

She coughed.

“How fucked up is it we’re used to this, huh?” the woman asked. “When they came back, they were Newfoals. They were telling us how happy it felt to-LONERGIN! DON’T DO IT, LONERGIN! I’M WARNING YOU, LONERGIN! DON’T!”

“Tricia, Tricia, Triciaaaaa…” Something sang from outside the door. Nny was shaking, clutching his rife. “Why aren’t you drinking it? You’ll be happy, happy at laaaast…”

“STAY BACK!” a man yelled. “I DON’T WANT IT!”

“Yes you do, Lonergin!” a voice that so obviously belonged to a Newfoal chirped. “You just don’t know it yet! Why, when you take it, when you drown your imperfect self, you won’t be able to imagine anything but the joy of having taken it!”

“MANKIND ILL NEEDS A SAVIOR SUCH AS YOU!” the man yelled.

“You won’t even be able to imagine anything, Howard Lonergin!” the Newfoal was laughing. “And isn’t… that… just… WONDERFUL. Why even dream when you’re in a perfect state of unyielding bliss? You could even be given to an official as thanks, and they’ll show you wonderful things! Terrible things! BEAUTIFUL THINGS!”

A dog was howling in the background.

“You’re not happy!” Tricia screamed. “YOU’RE JUST NOT ALLOWED TO BE ANYTHING ELSE, YOU FUCK!”

“Tricia, don’t yell at them!” Lonergin yelled. “They… they won’t listen! You have to get it out, Tricia! Before they get us!”

“Right!” Tricia yelled. “Gotta… break… LONERGIN! HOW’S THE TRAP WORKING?!”

“IT’LL TAKE TIME!” the man yelled.

“They’re trying to break through the walls!” someone else was screaming.

“Listen, don’t cry for us!” Tricia yelled. “We’re already dead! Just… listen. I already got hit with the call. I tripped, fell on my face, got frostbite… but then the Call was in my head, I knew… I knew what was… fuck!”

“There’s a great prize in the arctic,” Lonergin said, dreamily. Matter-of-factly. “It escaped. It cannot be allowed to fall into our hands, and it must be in the hooves to which it belongs. But it left a mark. It is full of great and beautiful magic. Magic which humans such as us do not deserve... ”

“Lonergin, no!” Tricia screamed.

“There are wondrous things,” Lonergin droned. “There are dangerous things. We get what we deserve.”

“Lonergin, yes!” the Newfoal cried, its bubbling cackle sounding uncannily like a scream.

“I don’t know who picks them up, what it’ll do if they find their prize! But you can’t let them find it!” Tricia screamed. “These bastards, just… they came here to ponify us and watch us freeze!”

“Oh, silly humans!” the Newfoal tittered. “Always thinking you’re so important.”

There was an odd reverberation to the Newfoal’s voice.

“Yes, little…” someone said. There was something that could have been joy in their voice. “What is your name now?”

“Starshimmer,” the Newfoal said, happy. Oh so fucking happy, so cloying, in a tone that made Nny want to claw out the goddamn thing’s eyes.

“Harry,” Tricia whispered. “No… Oh, no no no…”

“Come on, that’s behind us now!” ‘Starshimmer’ giggled.

“I’m quite impressed with your resolve,” the one with the unerringly calm yet happy voice said. “Why do you fight? Can’t you see you’ll be happier?”

“Well, I won’t be sad,” Tricia said.

“And can’t you see that’ll be better that way?” the one with the unerringly calm voice asked. A stallion - one wearing spectacles over pale eyes with irises so pale-blue it looked almost as if he didn’t have eyes, just a blank, expressionless expanse set into a smile.

A mark of a wooden kiteshield, with an odd bruise-purple discoloration. He was an earth pony, with an unremarkable build that could fade into the background of any crowd of ponies.

Shieldwall.

Nny’s eyes darted around, staring at them all. He’d fought PER before. Stabbed a few of them, shot them back at home. Been deployed all over the East Coast to deal with them, and… Aw, hell. No use sugarcoating it. He’d been pretty terrible at taking prisoners. Then again, most people in his unit had been as well when it came to PER.

Nobody liked fighting PER. At least, nobody could ever sleep easy after doing that. Fighting HLF… that made sense, at least. That was crazy people, that was what most of the National Guard were used to fighting. PER, though… sometimes they’d have hostages, but…

But they’d…

There was always the threat that if you made the slightest misstep, they might just ponify everyone.

Not long after Nny’s first deployment, he and Fiddlesticks had been called in to deal with a riot on a college campus. Somewhere in Connecticut. There’d been PER. Begging. Demanding for... He couldn’t remember. But one of their snipers, a man named Rawne, had gotten impatient...

“Ah, fuck,” he said.

Fiddlesticks

Is he okay? Fiddlesticks wondered, and then-

“Ah, fuck.”

Aw. Shit. This had to be bringing back memories.

He had to be remembering the hostage-taker who’d been standing out on the middle of the campus. There’d been the sound of chaos from inside, after Rawne had shot the bastard.

They’d burst in only to find most of the hostages were ponified. Rawne claimed that he’d seen the person on campus laughing, about to pour potion down the hostage’s throat. Security footage had been… well, that was the thing. Nobody could tell.

You couldn’t trust PER, people would say. Fiddlesticks hoped they didn’t mean her. Sometimes she was right. Sometimes she was wrong.

She watched in rapt horror at the phone’s video…. Then suddenly, the field of view shifted. The woman looked to have shoved the phone under the papers on the desk.

They could only hear what was going on outside.

“Tricia,” Fiddlesticks heard Shieldwall say. His voice sounded… wrong. He was cheerful like a Newfoal… but the cutie mark he bore, the discolored shield with a spot of purple, said otherwise.

She was shivering.

“You haven’t given me an answer, Tricia,” Shieldwall said. “What’s wrong with not being sad? Not living under the love of a perfect smiling goddess…”

“Are you h-happy, Shieldwall?” Tricia asked, stuttering in fear. “Are you ever sad?”

Shieldwall seemed to consider this. “Yeah, don’t I sound happy? You should be too, eventually. Happy to be without doubt. Without that human nature that’s far more trouble than it’s worth. Wars, politicians, greed, vice… Wouldn’t it be for the best if you just let it all go. So no. I am never sad. What would the point be?”

“No,” Tricia said. “So you’re never happy.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You said you were never sad,” Tricia said. “So. You’re never happy.” She laughed. “I know you, Shieldwall. You’re not a Newfoal.”

“I do as my goddess commands,” Shieldwall said. “I feel her perfection.”

“So,” Tricia said, “I hope one day, you end up happy.”

“Well,” Shieldwall said. “Thank you.” He sounded like he was stammering. Like the facade had cracked a bit. “This is a nice change of pace.”

“Cause the way you look like you’re going,” Tricia said, “You’re gonna need something shitty to happen to you if you can ever feel joy again. One day, Shieldwall… you’ll fall. And you. Will. Fall. Hard.” she cackled. “Someone’ll make that happen to you one day, Shieldwall. Maybe me. Maybe even Viktor Kraber-”

“DON’T,” Shieldwall rasped, his voice seeming to fill the entire room.

“You’re going to die, Shieldwall,” Tricia said. “The cruelty you’ve wrought. I hope you’re happy with us, in the ass end of nowhere. I hope you’re happy with it. Because this is pointless.”

“No…” Shieldwall said, his calm voice shifting into that rasp.

“Did it feel good? Destroying my home?” Tricia asked. “Because when you get back, you’re going to freeze. Knowing my friends were worked to the bone for nothing. Knowing that you’re just as bad as the HLF…”

“Don’t… you bucking… compare me to them…” Shieldwall said, biting something back. Something… horrible. “You know what? When you die as a Newfoal, having-”

And Fiddlesticks could just hear the smirk in Shieldwall’s voice-

“-atoned for your crimes against the Solar Empire,” he said, “When you see what we have found… then you’ll know it was all worth it. You’ll come around. You apes always do.”

“I doubt that,” Lonergin said, his voice sounding as if it was coming far away.

“My Goddess,” Shieldwall said. “You are a strong one.”

“Let me tell you something,” Lonergin said, his voice weak and wavery. “You… nnngg… gluesticks relied on your goddess for everything. We created the hydrogen bomb-”

“Is that something to be proud of?”

“We clawed ourselves up to your level, piece by piece,” Lonergin continued, not listening to him. “We had no teacher.”

“You know how tired I am of hearing that one?” Shieldwall said, laughing. “If you think you had no teacher, my friend, you’ve no idea how deluded you are. Did you, Harold Lonergin, when you came into this world, a blank slate, teach yourself everything you know, from the moment you opened your eyes? Of course not. You were guided, taken by the hand, by others, maybe your parents, your community, your comrades, whatever, someone showed you which fruit and animals were good for you to eat, told you of stories, of numbers and of craftsmanship, how to knock wood, stone and metal together, how to keep a sharp aim for and a steady finger on your guns. You built into the heights, only, did you truly look towards them? Radio, television, computers, iPads… you had all those things, relied on them, to coin a phrase. But just how many of you knew how they actually worked?”

He paused, letting it sink in. “You may call us arrogant, us and our supposition that we can impose our will upon you. But it is this, this very self-centred, cocksure assurance of your own individual ingenuity which strengthens our dogma. Deep down, all humans think they can go about it alone. And that’s the antithesis of friendship. Look at yourselves. You're children playing with high explosives, knowing the consequences, then crying like spoiled children when you get what you deserve.”

“And what's. That. Make. You,” Lonergin stuttered. “Super two-fisted Jesus for the Pony Way? Do you think you’re b-b-better?”

“Well, obviously -”

“R-rhetorical q-question!” Lonergin’s stammering was getting worse as his voice got louder. “Y-you think y-y-you're peddling friendship? Y-you c-c-can’t stand humans, y-y-you only accept t-them when they want to change everything t-they are? Y-you know who else does that? Abusive friends, abusive relationships! Y-you p-ponies d-don’t understand friendship at all. It’s your buzzword, your version of being a fucking Aryan! People like you, people that think turning us into mindless little zombie-dolls, about how things would be so great if only us poor stupid humans could understand… look in a mirror! It’s only ever your terms, anyone else who doesn’t like them gets stomped out till they’re stains on the ground! H-how much of what makes us us gets kept i-in those things?! H-how d-d-dare you play h-high and mighty when y-your fucking p-potion guts what makes us w-who we are! Turns us into broken little half-people!”

Shieldwall sighed. “You will never understand.”

“I und-derstand plenty,” Lonergin replied. “You're a cunt, Shieldwall. I bet you were so sad watching an orphaned foal, weren't you? But you don't care about orphaning someone’s kid. Oh no, that's for a greater cause. You're no goddamn different than any of us.”

“Of course I am. I’m doing this to save you,” Shieldwall said. “Look at this place. Can you truly say you want to live here?”

“Sagwon is awful,” Tricia said. “The entertainment is awful, it's little more than a railroad station, and it freezes all the time. But goddammit… It's mine. And it wouldn't exist if it wasn't for you. You and your empire caused the refugee flood that led to this place being built. Think about what you're ‘saving’ us from, huh? How much of it you caused.”

“I seriously doubt I’m responsible for your state’s poor economy,” Shieldwall said. “No wonder they call this place Sewell’s Folly. And really? Arguing that your horrible lives are okay because it's yours? You have no idea how stupid you sound.”

“It wouldn't be perfect,” Tricia said. “Sure, people might get hurt. It wouldn't be perfect, but it'd be life.”

“You're stupider than I thought,” Shieldwall said. “It all comes back to how natural things are and how good that is. How wonderful it is that a wolf eats and kills for survival. How wonderful it is that because things are natural, people die. That's the kind of thinking that made particularly stupid humans afraid to vaccinate their children-”

“Admittedly, all the anti-vaxxers like that who died in the war… they're not a great loss,” Lonergin supplied.

“Thanks, Harold! For proving my point. Resorting to the same monkey brutality, afraid to look up from the shite and blood on your feet. Afraid of transcendence. Let me tell you something, ape. Pray to your primitive gods all you want, you’ll never truly understand what’s here.”

“A god,” ‘Starshimmer’ supplied.

“Yes, new foal,” Shieldwall said. “A god. It would have stopped us. Would have thought it was above Queen Celestia. Would have left us to ask questions. To doubt her glorious plan, and if one of us doubts… Well, your PHL are evidence enough of that. We hunted it, kiled it… It thought it could disappear off the face of Equus… but it had to go somewhere. So it went here. And we can’t let you have it.”

“You said it was dead,” Tricia said.

“Just because the god was killed,” the Newfoal said, “Doesn’t mean it can’t continue.”

“Exactly,” Shieldwall said. “You’re learning fast. This is something that dwarfs all your primitive gods. Something that could turn the tide of the war. Something that has children all over the world, so… very sad to see us take the remains of their father...”

“Ha,” Lonergin said.

“Excuse me?” Shieldwall asked.

“Ha ha aha hahahaha ahahahahahahahahahaha! HAHAHAHAHA!” Lonergin cackled.

“Wha…” ‘Starshimmer’ asked.

“All on tape,” Tricia said. “Everything you said? On tape. On one of the cameras in this room, feeding to the local server. Whoever comes here next does-”

Lonergin screamed in agony.

“My oh my,” Shieldwall said, any hints of anger abruptly vanishing. “It would seem that your friend is… indisposed. Allow me to… make him more amenable. Unless...”

“UNLESS WHAT?!” Tricia yelled.

“Unless you tell me… where… it… is,” Shieldwall hissed.

“I left it in...” Tricia spat. “YOUR MOTHER!”

“My mother’s dead,” Shieldwall said.

“I know,” Tricia said. “Why do you think I left it there?”

“Come on, Tricia,” ‘Starshimmer’ said, a hint of (was that impatience?) something in their voice. “It won’t do any good. Nobody will ever find you, and you’ll be ponified anyway. Just give up.”

“You willing to bet on that?” Tricia asked, a reserve of strange energy welling up inside her.

“Obviously. Look at the storm outside. Do you really think something like that is natural? You’re going to die here or come with us,” he said, a hint of what might have been fatherly calm in his voice. “You’ll be happier as a Newfoal. Please.”

“How about,” Tricia said. “No.”

*BANG*

There was silence.

“BUCK!” Shieldwall screamed, and Fiddlesticks winced. “Stupid… bucking… apes! They can’t look past themselves, their stupid monkey brutality, and try for something different!”

There was a set of wet, meaty thumps. Lonergin wheezed.

“If you must hit me, do it somewhere that I will not be impaired,” Starshimmer said.

*THUMP

“If you hit me, do it-”

*THUMP*

“Irrrfffff yrr…”

“Oh! I’m sorry!” Shieldwall asked, snapping back. “I… lost control. I do hope you don’t mind that it’s invigorating to do that?”

The Newfoal made a noise of vague disagreement.

“Exactly,” Shieldwall said. “Sacrifices for a greater cause! I’m… I am quite sorry.”

“Apology accepted!” the Newfoal slurringly chirped, through what must have been severe injuries.

“But you’re not like that, Lonergin,” Shieldwall asked. “Are you? Because, if you stay the way you are now, I’d be content with keeping you like this. Hands, for example. Those are useful. But that human nature-”

*THUMP*

“Far too much of a hassle,” Shieldwall said. “I wonder what I can do with you… We need a human face. A lure. And that could be you. Dicey? Make him… amenable.”

There was a noise like an opera condensed into the space of a short sentence. A beautiful, melodious cacophony.

“It’s an honor to serve,” Lonergin said, each syllable a screech of agony.

Sandalwood

Sandalwood retched onto the floor.

Nobody had spoken during the video. A first for this motley crew. But…

“Bastards,” Sandalwood whispered, staggering backwards.

“Tricia,” she said. “Lonergin.”

She wasn’t sure what she was feeling. She wasn’t sure if she could feel anything.

“They’re… dead,” Sandalwood found herself saying. “Lonergin… I hope he’s dead!” she sobbed, head not quite smashing against, not quite coming to rest on a nearby desk. “He’s… God. How fucked up is that, is it? Being glad a friend shot herself and wishing the other did the same…”

Emma knelt down against Sandalwood.

“They were my friends too,” she said quietly. “Amuruq’s. Vera. Darryl-”

The latter two gave Emma an odd look.

“Didn’t know anyone here,” Vera said, sadly, her Russian accent broadening. Darryl gave a quick grunt of agreement. “But nobody deserves this.”

“Nobody,” said the yellow earth pony and short human. They’d been quiet most of the time.

“God,” the short human said. “Why... could’ve… those bastards,” he spat, and Sandalwood saw red on his face.

Something… horrible.

She stepped back a little. He looked just like the HLF she’d seen, right in the middle of torturing others.

Just like...

“Speaking of Gods,” Darryl said. “I’m… guessing this is something Equestrian. Any idea which one?”

Sandalwood and Fiddlesticks looked at each other.

“Fucked if I know?” Fiddlesticks asked. “Wasn’t raised with religion. Or caring about that sorta thing.”

Sandalwood pondered it. “I… wouldn’t know either,” she admitted. “Same here. I just… what the fuck could possibly be worth killing all my friends and… and…”

“Turning us into cannon fodder is what makes us worth it,” Fiddlesticks said coldly. “I was one of them awhile ago,” Fiddlesticks said. “I did benefit concerts before the War. Tried to ask people to kill themselves for the greater good. And… and seeing reminders of what I used to do…” tears burst from her eyes.

“Fiddlesticks,” Johnny C said, kneeling down. “That’s… you’re not going down a good path there.”

“But the bastards… we...” Fiddlesticks sobbed.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Johnny C said, both arms clasped around her barrel in a hug. “It. Wasn’t. Your fault.”

Vera looked at all of this, uncomfortable, not sure how to respond.

“Is Sharon okay?” Vera asked, turning on her radio.

“Amuruq says he’s gonna use an ancient Inuit technique!” Kgalakgadi wheezed.

The room went silent.

“Um…” Fiddlesticks said, voice not quite choked by tears. “What?”

Sandalwood and Vera just stared up at each other.

“Oh, great,” Sandalwood groaned.

Sharon

Ahead of her, Sharon could see…

Bones.

A towering, leviathan godbeast, with antlers like the branches of a good-sized tree. With massive eye sockets that could have only fit the eyes of something from Equestria.

The thing was dead, plainly. But there was something about the icicles from the eye sockets. Something about the shape of the bone ridges, a little too angled upwards… that suggested… that suggested…

Regret.

“What is this?” Sharon breathed, surprised to hear her own voice.

“My father,” someone - a male? - said. “Ours. He was... “

Sharon thought she could see a hint of a smile, a curvature in the winds outside.

“It’s not important. But… I’ve hijacked the spell. What’s important, Sharon Minik, is that you do not let them find our father. Murder them. Leave them to freeze. Take their supplies. We don’t care,” the voice said.

“Don’t!” a female voice pleaded. “Please, don’t be so rash…”

“I don’t think we can stop them if they are,” the voice said. “Just please. Make sure our father can rest in peace here. Away from the land that turned against him. And don’t let him be pressed into Celestia’s serv-”

And then Amuruq tackled Sharon to the ground.

Amuruq

Well, I’d tackled her, that was sort of like an ancient Inuit technique… Amuruq thought as he dragged his friend up from the snow.

“Shit, is she… is she not wearing a jacket?” Amuruq asked.

“Empirical evidence suggests yes,” Tomorbaator muttered.

“It was… I just… nevermind,” Amuruq sighed.

“What the hell?!” Snowshoes yelled, alighting next to Amuruq. “What’s going on here?!”

“I have no goddamn idea,” Kgalakgadi wheezed, coming up next to Amuruq. “She… she just… I don’t…”

“I mean here in general,” Snowshoes said. “Apparently… the PER are here. Ponified everyone in this goddamn town.”

“...Shit,” Amuruq breathed.

“It’s worse,” Snowshoes said. “They’re… looking for something.”

“What?” Kgalakgadi asked.

“If I had to make a guess… I’d say the same signal you picked up on,” Snowshoes said.

“It’s a god, you know,” Sharon said, her speech muffled by the snow.

“...What,” Snowshoes said.

“A God. From Equestria’s past,” Sharon said, her voice growing steadily clearer. “I don’t know what they’re planning there, but… they can’t be allowed to have it. It must rest in peace.”

“Sharon, how do you…” Snowshoes asked uneasily.

“Because it makes as much sense as anything else,” Sharon retorted.

“She's…” Darryl’s voice crackled over their radios. “Not wrong, actually.”

“What, that it makes as much sense as anything else, Dare?” Snowshoes muttered.

“No,” Darryl said. “There’s… something out there. A god. Or at least, something they call a God in Equestria. I’ll explain at the train station.”

The station was virtually unchanged by the time they all made their way back there.

“So that’s it,” Snowshoes said, looking down. “Goddamn.”

“Yeah,” Darryl said. “We can’t contact anyone from here-”

“Why not?” Amuruq asked.

“The bastards cut the phone lines,” Sandalwood explained. “We… tried to make some phone calls soon as we heard about this. And wireless is pretty terrible out here, so that’s out.”

“It all makes sense,” Kgalakgadi said sagely, though he was trembling. “The car, the cracked windows… everyone being gone…”

“So then, Kgalakgadi…” Nny asked. “That signal. Think it has anything to do with this?”

“Definitely,” Kgalakgadi said, heading back to their vehicle and bringing back an inscrutable-looking device held to one forehoof. “I… think I’m picking up something else…” he stared at the screen. “Oh dear. That looks… that looks familiar.”

“What’s that?” Nny asked, crowding behind Kgalakgadi. “I… kinda can’t read your instruments.”

“There’s definitely something else up there,” Kgalakgadi said. “I’m reading serious magic coming from up north…”

“They made this storm, didn’t they?” Snowshoes breathed.

“That seems oddly convenient, Snowy,” Amuruq said.

“But it makes sense,” Snowshoes said. “Think about it. The storm kept us grounded. The phone lines down. The fact that we’re damn near stranded…”

“No, they couldn’t have,” Sandalwood interrupted. “Not enough thaums in the air, remember?”

“Well, you tell me how this could’ve happened?!” Snowshoes yelled.

“ENOUGH!” Darryl yelled.

Everyone fell silent.

We’re dealing with some well-funded PER,” Darryl said, ignoring them. “So we’re going to find them. We’re going to hunt them. And ki-”

“No, we’re not,” Fiddlesticks interrupted.

There was a look of what could have been raw hatred on Darryl’s face. “Excuse me?”

“Exactly,” Sandalwood said. “There’s holes in this plan. We get to civilization first and get them to warn the Fort. Then we kill every PER son of a bitch on the coast.”

“Don’t interrupt your superior officer!” Darryl yelled. “Both of you! We would have done that anyway!”

“Actually I was thinking it wasn’t just PER,” Fiddlesticks said. “Think about it, you guys. You’re Alaskan. PER don’t want to bother with most of the people here. Think about all the resources that were needed for this. The… Sharon. You saw a skyliner, didn’t you?”

“I… did,” Sharon said, uncertain for the first syllable then suddenly growing in confidence. “I did. I did. I did -”

“Ok, we get it,” Amuruq muttered.

“You’re seriously trusting a paranoid dream here?” Sandalwood scoffed.

“Considering it told me most of the same things you guys already learned, I think it’s worth listening to,” Sharon snapped.

“Okay,” Fiddlesticks said. “But if she saw that, then… think about it. Does that seem like-”

“Oh God,” Nny interrupted. “We’re dealing with the Empire itself.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

Almost everyone in that room had fought Solar Empire forces. But it wasn’t something you did lightly. Solar Empire forces were goddamn terrifying.

Highly militarized, armed with weaponry that could turn your mind and body inside out. More of them than your bullets could possibly hit. And creative.

Oh God. Were they creative. While there’d usually be the customary swarm of newfoals rushing at you, there’d usually be something insane directed at you. A strange kind of newfoal. Pegasi with potion clouds or, or some kind of gun to fling that goddamn soul-destroying purple goop at you. Even golems made of crystal.

Usually it was the strange newfoals and the ponies assigned to… so shape ~~you~~ the poor bastard that got ponified into something tailor-made to take out armies.

“And they’re smart. They pulled this off, so clearly, this ‘god’ they’re looking for is something important. Something… big. “This god they’re looking for? It’s very important. Enough that it was worth it to just destroy their cover like this,” Nny said. “The skyliners. This kind of mass ponification in the middle of nowhere.”

“Okay,” Darryl said. “I’m sorry. Viol… Fiddlesticks. You were right. We’re getting to Prudhoe Bay soon as we can. And…”

“Yeah?” Snowshoes asked.

“They’re smart,” Darryl said. “We’re dealing with one hell of an operation here. And I don’t like the idea of this… this ‘god,’ this prize of theirs being powerful enough to make it worth doing something so horrible.”

“So, we’re going to find it?” Sharon asked.

“Yes,” Darryl replied heavily. “Against my better judgment, yes.”

“And we’re gonna make the bastards die of frostbite,” Snowshoes snarled.

There was a pause as these two declarations sank in.

“Why do I have the urge to say ‘I have a bad feeling about this’…?” Nny asked.

Author's Note

It's actually "Seward's Folly," but having Shieldwall misquote it seemed in-character. Fun fact: Shieldwall is envisioned as a pony version of Handsome Jack. He went through a lot of iterations, but this is the one that worked best.

Also, did you know this story has a tropes page? Or at least, that the fan-verse it's part of has a trope page, and this is on a subpage? It's true!

Now if only I could get Vox to explain what all those titles meant. Ah well, I can ask him later.