Death Rides a Pale Mare

Chapters

Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Author Notes
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 11
Chapter 17
Chapter 23

Chapter 3

There was a small cake on the table in the main chamber of the cave. It was nothing fancy, by Even’s request. She stood next to it, looking nervous behind a smile.

On the other side of the table were the Pale Mare, the Piebald Piper, the Wandering Shadow, the Patient Whisper, the Falling Hammer, the Stained Shard, the Jolly Mule, the Lying Mirror, and Tietack. The whole guild had managed to get together in one place for the event.

Piper cleared his throat. “It’s a special occasion today. We have a new member joining us. Ms. Even Odds has proven herself and comes with the highest recommendation.” He looked at Pale.

Pale swallowed. “I want to recognize Even’s intellect. She’s been my protégé for a while, but clearly I haven’t rubbed off on her.”

Jolly made a small noise. He was the only one who seemed to recognize the joke. Pale quickly continued. “Since we determined Even was ready, she’s been taking the lead on missions. In five cases now, she’s come up with solid ideas that resulted in five dead twitchers. She’s cool under pressure and her plans always work.”

There was a light smatter of applause. Piper said, “We’re glad to have her. And now that she’s a member, she needs a name. I’ll open up the floor to suggestion.”

“I have an idea,” said Pale. “The first time she took the lead, we were in Ponyville. Not only did we get in and out without being spotted, neutralize the target, and avoid completely the Nightmare Moon incident-”

“Princess Luna, now,” corrected Mirror.

“Right,” said Pale. She went on. “Everything in the plan went perfectly. But one thing we didn’t count on was the coin that was used as bait. It spun across the floor, but didn’t fall on either side, staying completely upright on its edge. I suggest we name her the Spinning Coin.”

“Oh?” said Piper. He looked at the others. Nods, all of them. “Very well.”

He turned back to their new member. “Let me welcome the Spinning Coin!”

More applause this time. Pale smiled. The Spinning Coin blushed. She said, “Thank you all.”

The party didn’t last, just long enough to cut the cake and bestow individual congratulations. Pale hung around for a few words with Coin, as she had decided to mentally truncate the name.

Jolly’s baking was top notch as usual, and despite the rather plain cake, Coin ate it delicately, balancing the plate and fork with her magic. Pale held the plate with a hoof, taking bites.

“It’s not what I expected to do with my life,” said Coin. “But here I am. It’s good to have a place, a group. And...big picture, it’s good to be doing this.”

“Someday, maybe we can beat the Blight,” said Pale. “Every little bit helps, and I know you’ll do great things.”

“Thanks. I know this is important.” Coin tilted her head. “You’ve got a little…”

Pale flicked her tongue out to get the errant frosting off her muzzle. “Thanks.” Attempting to steer the conversation back, she said, “If we beat the Blight, the world can go back to normal.”

Coin frowned. “Was it ever? I thought the Blight has been around for generations.”

“Well, at least we can stop living like this,” said Pale. “It’s not a bad cave, as caves go. It’s roomy, there are parts we still haven’t explored yet. But you used to live in a house. I’ve never had a house.”

Coin paused. Pale looked at her for a moment. “I can already see your brain working.”

“You know me too well.” Coin smiled. “Maybe we can talk Piper into setting up a safehouse somewhere else. Just a place to stop through for supplies or support. Maybe it could help us extend our reach.”

“Interesting,” said Pale.

They were both finished with the cake. Coin took Pale’s plate. “I know you have somewhere to be. I wouldn’t want to keep you.”

Pale nodded. “Thanks.”

As she headed for the front door, she realized it was the first time she was going out alone in a long time. There was more that she would have to do herself. There would be no second pair of eyes, no extra consideration. More risk.

But then, that was how Pale had always done it before. She could handle herself, and she’d taught Coin how to do the same.

Pale arrived at a small country house just as the sun was setting. The tip from Piper was as good as ever, and the target was waiting inside, his nose in a newspaper.

The approach was carefully timed. The stallion’s wife and young son had gone into the nearby town to see a movie. That would give Pale time to survey the house, eliminate the twitcher, and dispose of the body before the family returned.

Dusk had passed, and the night grew darker as Pale slowly circled the house, noting entry points and observing the interior of the house she could see through the windows. The living room where the stallion continued to sit was well furnished as a family space. It looked like he was using his favorite recliner. A few kid’s toys were on the floor.

A faint buzz passed Pale’s ear. A parasprite landed on her nose. Pale crossed her eyes, noting the small dark smudge on its body. This would be Piper’s surveillance.

The parasprite lifted off again, hovering beside her and looking into the window. Pale had decided on a course of action and turned to head for the back door. Just then, however, she thought she heard something from the front of the house. Hooves on gravel?

“I’m sure the theater will be open some other day.”

“Okay, mom.”

The front door opened and the absent wife and child returned. Pale frowned. This made things much more difficult. The best course of action would probably be to wait for another day, until the next time the family was separated.

The colt appeared to be recovering from a black eye. He seemed to shelter behind his mother as the two of them came into the living room.

The stallion got up as they entered. He started for them, but his hoof brushed across a wrinkle in the carpet, putting a stumble in his step. He stumbled right onto a rubber ball, perhaps one of the colt’s toys. It went shooting out from under his hoof and the stumble turned into a full-on fall. The stallion hit the floor with a crash.

He coughed, and then began to hack as if a lung was fighting its way out.

Watching from the window, Pale’s lip curled at the scene unfolding in front of her, but she couldn’t look away. None of the ponies in the house knew it, but they had just been marked for death.

The stallion’s coughing fit went on for perhaps ten seconds as the mare worriedly came over to see if he was all right. He wheezed as the coughing tapered off, his face ashen. “I’m…I’m okay.”

The colt hesitantly came over, surreptitiously pushing the ball out of the way behind the couch. His father got up, swaying. “I suddenly don’t feel so well. I think I should go to bed.”

Pale backed away from the window, putting distance between herself and the house. Only a few times before had she ever seen a stress-induced early bloom. It seemed to be some sort of last-resort mechanism of the Blight. If a twitcher felt intense fear or panic, as if their life was about to be cut short from some outside cause, it could trigger a bloom prematurely.

The bloom served to spread the disease. An early bloom wasn’t as infectious, but Pale was certain that the stallion had unknowingly infected his family. She stopped in the darkness a few dozen yards’ distance from the house and looked back at the lighted window, jaw tightening. Now there wasn’t one twitcher, there were three.

If she’d been faster, she might have killed him before he got the chance. Pale shook her head. No, it wasn’t her fault. Two pieces of bad luck, the family’s early return and the father tripping, were to blame. Still, she wondered what Coin might say if she were here. Could she have put together a successful plan despite the setbacks?

There was nothing that could be salvaged now, and Pale wasn’t looking forward to what lay ahead. She settled down on the ground, resting but ears tipped forward and alert. Minutes passed. The light in the window was abruptly turned off. They were going to bed.

Pale continued to wait. Occasionally she heard the parasprite buzz somewhere nearby. Piper had surely seen what happened, and would know what had to happen. Moreover, he would agree.

Pale waited, counting off two hours on her watch before getting up. She’d spent the time mentally reviewing the inside of the house and deciding her course of action.

The back door was unlocked, and Pale inched it open. The hinges didn’t squeak, and she slowly closed it behind her. The darkened living room lay ahead. The Blight was highly infectious, but didn’t last long outside a body. Pale still took care to avoid the center of the living room.

She found the master bedroom and quietly opened the door. The two adult ponies lay on the bed. If left alone, the stallion would likely die in his sleep, as twitchers usually did shortly after blooming. But there was no reason to chance it.

Pale prepared two knives at once as she approached the bed. There was no telling how infectious a post-bloom twitcher was. A brand new twitcher wouldn’t show symptoms for weeks. With that in mind, Pale decided to keep her distance approached the mare’s side of the bed on silent hooves.

Pale leaned across the mare’s sleeping form, using her long reach to aim for the stallion’s throat. She cut it simultaneously with the mare’s.

Already weak, the stallion simply expired without fuss. The mare’s eyes opened wide even as her blood drained away. Her lips gasped. She appeared to be trying to speak, to ask who Pale was and what she’d done, but the breath wouldn’t come.

When both were dead, Pale wiped off her knives and quietly left the bedroom. She turned in the hallway and opened the next door. There was a sign with a name painted on it in colorful letters, which she purposely ignored.

The colt’s bed was much smaller and he was bundled up to his chin. Pale closed her eyes for a moment, long enough to take a deep breath. She stepped forward, bringing the knife down in a strike straight through his eye socket and deep into the brain. No pain.

Pale let out a breath and turned away, swallowing and blinking. She didn’t wish Coin had come with her on this one after all.

There was still work to be done. Pale checked the usual places - wallets, purses, dresser drawers, piggy banks - and came away with perhaps one hundred bits.

Next would be disposal. Isolated as the house was, there would be time to set the scene. The summer weather was too warm for a fireplace mishap to be plausible, but there were other ways.

Looking around, Pale saw the house was equipped with a gas stove. She found a candle and lit it, placing it on the dresser in the colt’s room as if he needed a night light. While in the room, she avoided looking anywhere near the bed. A few of the colorful hoof-paintings on the wall held her attention instead, though they would have looked brighter in the daylight.

After loosening the gas fitting on the stove until it hissed, Pale left the house. She waited down the road. It took nearly an hour of patience, but the night was suddenly broken by a flash and the whoosh of displaced air as the gas ignited.

It was a low-grade explosion, but enough to start a fire, especially with the gas pipe still streaming. Pale approached, just long enough to ensure the quality of her work, before turning away to make the return journey to the cave. It was a long way back, and Pale had only her thoughts for company.

One thought was at the forefront, one she had never forgotten. The Blight had to be stopped.

Chapter 4

Jolly, Mirror, and Pale were the only ones available. They’d spent the day planning with Piper, trying to account for several twitchers and the complicated situation into which they would be placed.

The Grand Galloping Gala was the biggest party in Equestria. At the Princesses’ invitation, guests came to Canterlot Castle from all around the country. It was bad luck that three twitchers would be in attendance; a bloom by any of them would have catastrophic results. Piper was taking no chances, but more help would have been better.

Coin was at the other end of Equestria after a twitcher and wouldn’t be back for days. Whisper and Shadow were also occupied. Hammer was simply too large. There was no way he could blend in, or even get in the door. Shard was away gathering ingredients for his laboratory, and by his own admission he was ill-suited for field work anyway.

Still, the numbers could have been worse: three twitchers, three assassins. They could have been outnumbered.

Pale, for her part, was secretly delighted at the prospect of going to the legendary Grand Galloping Gala, but that was tempered by the task that lay ahead. She wasn’t comfortable or practiced at working in crowds. Picking three targets out of a packed ballroom and dispatching them covertly was probably even more difficult than it sounded.

Fancy balls were not at all part of Pale’s skill set. Culture had never before been required of her. She wasn’t just rough around the edges, more like rough all the way through. She just never had the time, opportunity, or reason to learn how to be refined and sociable. Needless to say, Pale hadn’t had anything resembling a normal upbringing.

She was glad to be going with Jolly and Mirror. Both of them knew their way around a party, and were probably best suited to this kind of work. Jolly had charisma and a mastery of conversation. Mirror had an easygoing attraction and quick wit. Pale had, well...knives and moxie. She was going to need all the help she could get.

“The easiest way to intercept them would be before they arrive at the castle and mix with the crowd,” said Piper. He spoke to them from the front room of the cave, where planning materials lay scattered over the table. A folder of notes about Canterlot lay open, lit by the charm lights around the cave. “Unfortunately, there’s no telling from which direction they will arrive or at what time. The easiest way to identify them would be when they’re concentrated at the ball.”

“So we’ll have to get them separated,” said Mirror.

“And determine a method of concealing the business,” added Jolly. “One death at or after a party could be mere happenstance. It goes without saying that three would arouse suspicion.”

“If we can identify them, we could follow them home,” suggested Pale.

“That would be safer initially, but would increase the timeline and bring us closer to a potential bloom,” said Piper. “I’ll leave the tradeoff to be decided by you three.”

“Four, if that would be all right,” said Mirror. “Tietack has been just dying to go.”

Piper considered it, and nodded. “As long as he understands business over pleasure.”

Mirror nodded. She smiled. “Well, I suppose we should get started. I don’t have a thing to wear.”

That wasn’t true, though Mirror clearly wasn’t holding back in her preparation. Jolly was content to wear a tuxedo he already owned. Pale didn’t have anything fit for Gala wear.

“Who are you going as?” Mirror asked when Pale came to her with the problem.

Pale shrugged. “Ideas?”

“I was thinking something with veils. Saddle Arabian?”

“Interesting.” Pale considered it. She had rarely used - or needed - a cover identity. Pale’s business was usually conducted directly, without the need to talk or pretend. For her, it was easier that way.

“I can make something with that theme,” said Mirror. She already knew Pale’s measurements.

Pale went to the library to look up Saddle Arabia and put together a fake backstory. It wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny from a real Saddle Arabian, but she was planning to talk to as few ponies as possible.

Still, books couldn’t teach everything. After making some notes, she got up and went to Jolly’s quarters. He responded to her knock. “Come in.”

Jolly’s room was probably as luxurious as cave chambers could get. Whenever he’d encountered a particularly fetching item in a twitcher’s home, he’d taken it. His bedspread looked fit for a prince, or at least a duke. Most of the things, however, were recipe books, or loose leaves of improvised directions. Pale wouldn’t be surprised if he’d tried them all.

“I need help with faking an accent,” said Pale. She told him what she was planning.

“I’ve met a share of Saddle Arabians,” acknowledged Jolly. He invited her to sit on the bed, which was made of either feathers or something even softer.

He coached her on pronunciation, seemingly delighted to do so. Jolly was, by far, the most upbeat member of the guild. Pale didn’t know how he did it, being so, well, jolly, while still doing his job. The trophies around the room attested to his work.

Sometimes Pale wondered if it was all an act. Surely nopony could actually be that jovial and simultaneously be a multiple murderer. Nopony normal.

But who was she to judge what was normal?

Almost before she knew it, Pale was walking through the gilded front gate of Canterlot Castle with Jolly, Mirror, and Tietack. They’d been passed tickets by a pony who worked at the castle and owed Piper a favor.

They were all dressed up. Mirror wore her fanciest, which was intricate and extravagant enough that she couldn’t have made it in time for the Gala. She’d probably had it waiting for just such an occasion. The veil and robes Pale wore were conservative, especially next to Mirror, and hardly made her stand out among the other Gala-goers.

Fireworks burst in the sky above. No effort had been spared. The Grand Galloping Gala was already living up to its reputation and they weren’t even inside yet.

Tietack couldn’t keep his hooves still, practically vibrating in place. They hadn’t decided on a role for him tonight, but an extra pair of eyes for lookout was always welcome.

Piper’s parasprites followed them to the ticket line and then dispersed. Their tickets checked out and the four of them were let into the castle’s great hall. The marble floor had been polished like glass, overlaid with red carpets that connected like spokes of a wheel to a statue of an alicorn in the center of the room. Huge windows around the walls opened to views of the night sky, the city of Canterlot down below, and the castle gardens. A four-piece band was playing on a raised stage.

The four of them didn’t discuss the targets or the job, not here. They had already studied the layout and the targeted twitchers. Plans could change in an instant, of course, but they could adapt. This wasn’t the first outing for any of them.

Of the three targets, they’d already decided to poison the old stallion, Silver Scale. His death would most appear to be natural causes. Jolly’s expertise would have the twitcher expiring after he was home and to bed. The other two, both younger mares named Cosmograph and Maple Cakes, lived in Trottingham and Manehattan, respectively. It was undecided how they would be handled, but preferably separately and far apart to avoid suspicion.

Pale kept to the edge of the crowd, her back to the wall. The other three dove into the mingling. Tietack engaged on his own, but stayed close to Mirror. Jolly tended to hover near the refreshments.

It took a few minutes, but she eventually picked all three targets out of the crowd. Jolly had already struck up an animated conversation with Silver Scale, the better to find a way to spike his refreshments. Pale kept her eyes on the other two. She could see Mirror and Tietack doing the same.

The band suddenly switched to playing the Pony Pokey. Across the ballroom, heads turned. A pink mare with a loud voice was apparently trying to get their attention.

Cosmograph shook her head and headed for the door to the castle gardens. Pale met Mirror’s eyes and tilted her head, signaling that she would follow.

Pale stepped out into the darkened gardens, following Cosmograph at a distance. There was some sort of commotion at the far end of the maze of hedges, but the area was still much quieter than inside. The air was a lot fresher, too. Pale noticed a few parasprites hanging out near the windows, looking in.

Pale unobtrusively followed her target, keeping just within sight. She tested her reach to the knife sheathed beneath her robe, but didn't plan on using it just yet. There were a few ponies around the gardens, either taking a break from socializing or trying to avoid the music currently blaring in the ballroom.

The target took a stroll around the fountain closest to the castle and headed back. Pale saw Jolly step out the door. Her target conveniently sat down on a bench, so she went over to talk to him.

“Deed’s done, no problems,” said Jolly. “I came out to get away from whatever is going on in there. That’s not a Gala, that’s a...well, I’m not quite sure.”

Pale nodded. “It’s my first Gala, but I thought as much.”

“Did I hear somepony say it’s her first time?” asked a stallion, slipping between the two of them. He flashed a practiced smile at Pale. “Hi there, Duke Domino’s the name. And you are?”

“Talking to somepony else,” said Pale, looking pointedly at Jolly.

“Oh no, don’t mind me,” said Jolly, giving her a mischievous smile. “I’m going to go get some apple pie from that booth over there.”

Duke didn’t even look at him, smiling more broadly at Pale. “That’s an interesting accent you have there. Where are you from, honey?”

For all her experience, Pale had never been in a situation like this before. Knives replacing words was one thing. The other way around was quite another.

“Saddle Arabia,” she said.

“Oh, very nice. A little bit of a unique character around here, aren’t you?” Duke appeared to be slowly circling.

“What is it you want?” Pale asked. She realized he was sliding between her and the lights of the castle.

“You caught my eye, honey. I bet you’re beautiful in the moonlight, if you’d let yourself be seen under that veil.”

“I wore it for a reason.” Pale sized up the area. If Duke was canny enough to be trying to isolate her from everypony else, surely he could hear the annoyance in her voice.

If so, it didn’t seem to deter him. He slid closer. “Did you come here with anypony? Do you have a place to stay tonight?”

“Yes and yes.”

“Ah, what a shame. You seemed like the kind of mare who was as singular as the moon...and just as beautiful.”

Pale stared at him for several seconds. She wasn’t sure whether she should point out that he hadn’t even properly seen her face, not to mention the rest of her, or just go straight to the point that she wasn’t interested.

The silence stretched out, awkwardness building. Duke’s smile grew more and more pained. “Er, here, let me-”

He reached out towards her veil. Pale’s hoof flashed up and wrapped up his foreleg with her own, bending Duke’s joints so that he had to either lean back or get something broken.

“Ah! Okay, maybe we got off on the wrong-!”

There was a sudden cacophony from inside the ballroom. Heavy things were knocked over and voices shouted.

Pale let go of Duke and pushed him over. She ran towards the commotion. Jolly was at the food stand, though the proprietor was nowhere in sight. “Come on,” she said, pulling him away and towards the ballroom. Jolly looked longingly at the pie he would not get.

Inside was chaos. The band was in disarray. A couple of ponies were covered in the remains of a huge cake. The statue in the middle of the room lay broken on the floor and appeared to have taken a line of stone columns around the room with it.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but we need to make sure the twitchers aren’t startled into an early bloom,” Pale said. She spotted Mirror and Tietack across the room and caught their eye. Raising her voice to cover the room, she adopted a commanding tone. “Everypony out! Get some fresh air and wait for the mess to be sorted out.”

Following her lead, Jolly helped her herd the crowd towards the nearest exit. A sudden stampede of animals swarming into the ballroom from the gardens provided unexpected assistance.

The three twitchers seemed to take delight in the commotion, in contrast to the rest of the crowd. They required some extra pressure to exit the ballroom.

Pale was curious what might have gone wrong with the Gala, but at the moment didn’t have time to trouble herself too much about it. She only cared about preventing one very specific kind of disaster.

The ballroom cleared out. It took Pale a moment, but she eventually spotted all three twitchers in the crowd heading out the door.

She and Jolly regrouped with Mirror and Tietack. They stood with the confused crowd in the courtyard outside the ballroom.

It was getting late and some Gala-goers apparently decided it was close enough to the end of the party. When those at the edge of the crowd began to disperse, the rest gradually followed.

The individual members of the crowd broke off to go their separate ways as they exited the castle grounds. Silver Scale headed off to his house in Canterlot, meandering slightly. Cosmograph, Maple Cakes, and a good portion of the crowd from out of town headed for the train station.

Pale glanced up at the departures board as she and the others walked into the station. The train to Manehattan would leave in just a few minutes.

They came to a stop on the platform within sight of Maple Cakes. The area was crowded with others waiting to board. A faint whistle came from up the tracks, the train coming closer.

“I have an idea,” said Mirror, her voice low. “She’s over there at the edge. Tietack, I need you to push her in front of the train. I’ll provide a distraction.”

“W-why me?” Tietack stammered.

“Because you’re still young enough to simply slip through the crowd below eye level,” said Mirror. “Just give her a little nudge, like an accident. I guarantee nopony will be looking when you do it. Now go.”

The train’s headlight came into view. Mirror pulled out a camera and clicked the shutter, the flash washing over the crowd. “Clear the way! Saddle Arabian royalty approaching.”

She turned the camera on Pale. “Lift your head,” Mirror muttered under her breath.

Pale raised her chin, feeling ridiculous but also picking up her hooves as she walked down the platform. Mirror continued to take pictures and loudly commentate as heads turned in their direction.

The train swept into the station, coming closer. Suddenly, there was a scream, a sudden screech of brakes, and a wet thud.

The Saddle Arabian royalty ploy lost attention as quickly as it had gained it. The whole crowd had now turned in horror to where a mare had just vanished in front of the train. Voices clamored and ponies started forward, but pulled up short in futility.

Tietack rejoined them, wide-eyed, but composed. Mirror nodded and ruffled his mane. The group of them headed for the other end of the station as emergency ponies rushed past them.

The train to Trottingham would be leaving in another few minutes. The others watched Cosmograph on the platform while Pale bought a ticket and ducked into a restroom to change into her regular cloak.

It was, by necessity, much plainer than what she wore to the Gala. The dark brown blended into darkness without drawing the attention or showing dirt that black cloth would. The seams were reinforced, as long experience had shown was necessary. It let her move and reach her weapons. Putting it back on after the party was a comfort, and Pale felt more like herself.

She came back to the platform and traded off with the others. Only one twitcher still remained, and it would be best to deal with them elsewhere to avoid raising suspicions. Pale could handle that alone.

“Excellent work tonight,” said Mirror.

“That’s you. I haven’t done anything yet,” said Pale.

“Well, best of luck, then,” said Jolly. He and the others turned to go. Tietack waved to Pale as the three of them walked away, disappearing into the crowd.

Pale turned, glancing at Cosmograph, thoughts already considering how she would dispatch the last twitcher. It would probably be best to follow her back to Trottingham first.

Until the train arrived, Pale allowed her mind to wander. The Gala had been something. Not what she had been expecting, though probably not what anypony had been expecting. In another setting, in a proper ball, Pale could perhaps see herself enjoying it. Maybe someday she would get the opportunity.

Her eyes went back to the twitcher. Someday.

Chapter 5

“So what’s the worst-case twitcher you can imagine?” Whisper asked in his high-pitched voice. He adjusted the vest that Pale wasn’t sure he hadn’t stolen from a doll and sat down at a table sized for his tiny form atop the main table in the library. He had just entered the room and the look on his face told Pale that he had news.

Pale put down the book she had been consulting. “A big guy. Alert. Fighting experience.”

“A Royal Guard?”

Pale shrugged. “Okay.”

“Because Piper found a twitcher who’s a Royal Guard.” Whisper grinned.

He wouldn’t be so happy about it if he and Shadow were the ones assigned. Whisper might enjoy a challenge, but he got where he was by being calculating.

Pale got the hint. “Am I getting any help?”

“No, probably not. Shadow and I were just about to leave on another assignment. Coin is already out. I doubt Jolly or Mirror would be of any help for this.”

“What about Hammer?”

There had been few times that Hammer had ever been sent to eliminate a twitcher. Usually only when the target was formidable and when discovery or collateral damage wasn’t a concern.

“Oh no, not him,” said Whisper. “The target lives and works in a busy city.”

He kept grinning. Pale stared at him. “How long until the bloom?”

“Not long at all.”

Pale got up and put the book away, holding back an exasperated sigh. “I suppose I should get started.”

She headed for the front of the cave and sought out Piper. He appraised her expression as she approached. “I take it Whisper found you.”

“Right.”

Piper went right into the details. “The twitcher is part of the Royal Guard unit in Trottingham. I believe he’s in the late stages of Blight. His name is Halberd. He’s quite a large unicorn.”

“Any good news?” Pale asked.

“He lives alone.”

That did make things easier, but only slightly. Pale went to prepare. She had been in Trottingham only a few weeks earlier following the twitcher from the Grand Galloping Gala. With the city still fresh in her mind, Pale decided to devote her preparation to equipment.

She rarely took more than a few knives and infiltration devices with her. But this time, it seemed appropriate to carry heavier gear.

In her room, Pale put on a mail vest. Hammer complained about doing the intricate work of making small loops of chain if Pale didn’t often use it, but for times like this she was glad to have the armor.

Her usual blades were as long as her hoof and thin, suited for precision strikes on vital areas. This time, Pale decided to carry a larger blade for her dominant side, twice as long and heavier in the spine for strength.

After strapping on her usual wing razors and equipment belt, she covered it all with her cloak and headed for the mouth of the cave.

Trottingham was not a bad city as far as they went. Large enough to be a destination, small enough not to be a chore. Pale slipped into town just as the sun was setting.

According to Piper’s observations, Halberd’s usual schedule, on duty with the Guard, was from noon to midnight. That should give Pale a few hours to get ready.

She’d already decided to surprise him at his apartment. Shard had given her a glass ampule of a powerful stunning potion. It would be easy to throw it from a darkened room when Halberd came home. Better not to engage with him if she could help it.

Pale surveyed his neighborhood. Once she was confident that none of the neighbors were watching, she went up the stairs to Halberd’s second floor apartment, picked the lock on the door, and slipped inside. After carefully relocking the door, she gave herself a tour.

It was a basic bachelor residence. If anything, Halberd seemed married to his job. In the front room, he had a display wall of antique Royal Guard weapons and memorabilia. The centerpiece was an intricate sabre and scabbard.

There was a small tap that Pale barely heard. She paused, turning her head, ears pointing. The noise came again and she looked at the window. One of Piper’s parasprites was headbutting the glass. It could only be a signal.

Pale heard heavy steps outside the front door. She barely had time to duck into the kitchen before Halberd came in the front door, far ahead of schedule.

He was wheezing, occasionally giving a half-cough. Could he have been sent home from his duties for appearing sick? Alarmingly, he seemed to be in a very late stage of the Blight. Pale was only going to get one chance.

Observing covertly from the kitchen, Pale noted that Halberd’s behavior seemed erratic. He would occasionally start for the door again only to pull himself back. The Blight seemed to will twitchers to seek out crowds before blooming. Perhaps his willpower kept him home, believing himself ill.

Pale readied the stunning potion, but had to retreat into another room as Halberd came into the kitchen. He shifted a few things around, apparently beginning a meal. From her position behind the doorway, Pale cocked her foreleg back and hurled the glass orb at him.

Just then, he yanked open a cabinet and the potion shattered across the door, none of it getting on Halberd. It got his attention, though, and he looked straight at Pale.

And then, quicker than she would have believed, he charged.

Erratic behavior was one thing. Mindlessly rushing an unknown trespasser was another. Pale had time to get out of the way, but she could only go so far before the onrushing stallion cut off her escape options. She couldn’t leave regardless, this was a job that had to be done immediately.

Pale drew her knife, which finally seemed to get Halberd’s attention. He pulled up from his attack and started to circle, seeming confident even when facing a weapon.

Pale lunged for his neck. Knowing who she was up against, it didn’t surprise her that her first thrust was parried. She tried again on the backswing, but was again unsuccessful.

Halberd’s horn lit up. Pale attacked again, interrupting whatever he was doing. Unicorns had a big advantage in a fight, but active magic required concentration and usually line of sight. Keeping the pressure on could negate a lot of the ability.

Trying again, Pale stabbed for Halberd’s heart, shifting targets. In an attempt to end the fight as quickly as possible, she was only trying for powerful, killing strikes.

She should have shifted tactics earlier. Halberd was learning her moves and when she slashed again, he slapped her fetlock with his large hoof, combining it with a magical tug to disarm her.

Pale tore her wings free, slashing forwards into the twitcher. The wound was not fatal, a razor cut across a sturdy ribcage, but it bought Pale time and space while Halberd recoiled.

She backed up into the kitchen, kicking a chair at him. It gave her time to draw her other, smaller knife. Halberd kept coming, blood streaming down his chest but far from finished.

Pale struck again, but had to abort the attack and duck her own knife as Halberd counterattacked. She grabbed at whatever objects were closest, trying to throw more things at him. The napkin holder from the center of the table didn’t do very much, the empty coffee pot only slightly more.

Halberd kept coming. Pale knew she couldn’t keep giving ground. Eventually she would be backed up against the front door. Gritting her teeth and putting her trust in Hammer’s work, she lunged forward.

Halberd knocked her knife off target and she only managed to bury it in his shoulder. The knife he wielded sparked across the mail covering her chest.

Pale drew back her blade for another attack, but Halberd slammed forward into a clinch, shoving Pale back against the wall and driving the breath from her. His hoof went out, holding her foreleg pinned against the wall and unable to strike.

Pale kicked forward with her hind legs, but Halberd had already twisted his lower body to protect his sensitive areas. She couldn’t get enough power from her vertical position against the wall to inflict significant damage against any other part of his body.

The knife in Halberd’s magical grasp slid down the mail on Pale’s chest, scratching across the metal links. The point dropped lower and lower until the vest came to an end. Then, the blade bit into her flesh, just below her ribcage.

Pale couldn’t stop a gasp of pain, but turned it into a convulsion of desperation. She was pinned, but her struggle got a foreleg free and she struck at Halberd’s face and whatever she could reach. The rapidfire punches had no real power, but Halberd jerked back from them. Pale aimed for his horn and he lifted his head back for protection. That left his chin open and Pale took advantage.

He raised a hoof to block the uppercut and Pale tugged her other foreleg free. She hit him once more, giving him a shove from the other hoof. Halberd stumbled back and fell. He coughed.

Pale was on him in a moment. She slapped his jaw closed and forced his head back, exposing the throat, whipping the blade across it.

Blood welled up like a fountain. Halberd’s breath wheezed out of his open trachea. His chest heaved, but because he was choking on blood, instead of blooming.

Pale took a stuttering breath and stepped back, her shoulders slumping after the exertion. She put away the knife she held and looked for the other. Her gut still hurt and she raised a hoof to touch the wound. It was only now that she realized the knife was still buried in it.

Her eyes darted around the room. There was no time to cover up evidence of the fight. Somepony might be coming after hearing the noise.

She didn’t have time, either. Pale’s blood was on the floor, a darker shade of red than the rapidly spreading gush from Halberd’s neck. If she was lucky, his would spread over the scene, concealing evidence that she had been there. Pale tore bits off her cloak to pack around her wound to absorb blood.

It would have to look like a murder. There simply wasn’t time to prepare the scene to appear as anything else. Murder needed motive. Pale’s eyes fell upon the ornate sabre in the display. She crossed the room and grabbed it up. Then, she went through the window.

Breaking the glass wasn’t necessary, but further damage was moot. Also, it got her out of the apartment quicker.

Pale fell from the second story, got her wings out the ragged holes already torn in her cloak, and managed to soften her landing. She thought she heard voices coming closer.

Pale was not a strong flier, but an aerial getaway would keep two thirds of ponies off her. She got airborne again, gritting her teeth against the pain in her abdomen as she breathed.

The last time Pale had been in Trottingham, she’d followed the twitcher named Cosmograph to her secluded residence just outside of town. It was on a hill and the remoteness helped with Cosmograph’s work in astronomy. On impulse, Pale headed in that direction. The house was still empty, as far as she knew.

Glancing back periodically, Pale didn’t notice any pursuit. She made it to the isolated house’s doorstep and went to work on the lock. It took her two tries to get the picks to work.

She stumbled in. A parasprite buzzed after her. She grabbed up a lamp and lit it, sitting down on the kitchen floor.

Pale unwound the cloth of her shredded cloak from the wound. Her dark blood had spread over her coat and the hilt of the knife protruded from her stomach obscenely.

She’d already lost a lot of blood, and pulling the knife out was only going to cost her more. There wasn’t anypony nearby to give her a transfusion, if a proper donor even existed.

Pale set her jaw and pulled. Even being ready to bandage the wound, Pale’s heart nearly leaped out of her chest at the amount of blood that poured out after the knife. She controlled her breathing and willed calmness. An elevated pulse now would not help.

After bandaging, she forced herself to get up and raid the pantry. A few things had spoiled in the weeks the house had been left alone, but Pale was concerned about fluids, energy, and electrolytes. She was no medical expert, and even more in the dark about her body’s own unique needs, but something was better than nothing.

The parasprites still hovered around. Piper would send help.

Pale settled in to wait, concentrating on her breathing. Assistance would be a long time in coming. Though, she supposed, if she wasn’t dead already, then her chances of surviving this were optimistic.

It might have been a nightmare if the memory wasn’t real. It had faded with time, but Pale recognized where she was.

Few outsiders had ever seen the inside of a changeling hive. Even if Pale had been born there, she had never felt as if she belonged. Even less so in retrospect.

Much like changelings themselves, the hive was dark, irregular, and riddled with holes. It took experience to navigate and Pale learned alongside the other young ones. They didn’t seem to notice she was different.

But Pale’s mother did. Every time the memories had surfaced, Pale had tried to figure out what she had done to deserve the treatment she got. Eventually, she had given up without drawing a conclusion. It could simply have been because her mother was evil.

Hate was not a word Pale encountered or used often. Her job was grim, but rarely was it cause for emotion. In fact, it was probably better without. But Pale hated her mother.

The face in her memory may have been distorted with time, but it was less about how she looked and more what that face represented. The sharp features, the cold green eyes, the jagged horn, and limp, asymmetric mane all added up to represent the looming figure that had maliciously played one of the biggest roles in shaping Pale’s current life.

As the memory always did, Pale saw their last altercation as it had happened years ago. She’d been far behind her peers in utilizing changeling magic. Her mother had always insisted she should be better at transforming into ponies.

“You are half pony, after all! You weren’t made that way to be useless!”

A dozen years of hearing that while growing up still hadn’t helped Pale become who her mother insisted she was supposed to be.

“Does that mean I get half a say in my own life?”

Her mother’s hoof slammed into her head, knocking her across the room and into the stone wall. It wasn’t the first time Pale had been hit, but this was different, a pain worse than she’d ever felt before.

“Look what you’ve done!” her mother roared. Blood ran in Pale’s eyes.

“You were useless and now you’re worthless! Get out! Never let me see you again!”

Pale left the hive in a haze. The blinding pain was part of it. The rest was uncertainty. Despite the abuse, she had until that point always known her place.

But now, with the subsequent years of experience, Pale actually considered the broken horn payment enough for getting out of there. Good riddance.

“Pale!”

Her eyes slid open, bringing the present world back in a spinning miasma of early morning light. The kitchen floor in Cosmograph’s house had been a terrible place to sleep, but considering her other pains that was of small consequence.

Coin bent over Pale, looking with concern at the makeshift bandages and the sticky blood spread all around her. Pale sat up, wincing but working through the pain.

“What did you do for treatment so far?” Coin asked.

“I just stopped the bleeding.”

“How deep was the cut? Did it cut into any of your organs? Do you see signs of infection?”

“I don’t know.”

“This is bad, Pale. I hate to tell you this, but we might have to open you back up just to make sure everything under the skin is going to heal. But I can’t really do that. I might have to get Shard. I don’t think you should move until we can make sure you’re okay.”

Pale grimaced, and nodded. She started to get up. Coin put out a hoof. “Hey, don’t hurt yourself.”

“I think I’m going to hurt either way. I’m going to go lie down on the bed.”

“At least let me change the sheets. This whole place smells musty.”

Pale consented and Coin quickly stripped the bed. When it was freshly made, Pale lay down while Coin fussed over her.

She had the uneasy feeling that she would be there for a while.

Chapter 6

Pale sat at the lab table and watched Shard work, collecting materials and equipment from around the room. He seemed to have a rhythm, though only he knew what it might be.

She shifted uncomfortably, the bandages that ringed her torso digging in. At least she had healed enough to make the trip back to the cave. It had been a week of misery in Trottingham before Shard decided that she was going to pull through and pronounced her well enough to travel.

“How’s the pain?” Shard asked over his shoulder.

“Not bad.”

“For real. Normal pony pain reaction, please.”

“Five out of ten.”

“Okay, getting better.” Shard dropped a few things into a beaker and then poured in some liquid. He dipped the tip of his wing into the mixture and gave it a stir. The concoction turned purple, also coloring the feather he was using to mix it.

He gave it to Pale. “Try this.”

“What is it?”

“Pain suppressant.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Just humor me. I take every opportunity I can to play doctor.”

Pale took a sip. There was an herbal flavor, though she wouldn’t have liked it as a tea.

Shard stared at her. “Anything?”

Pale considered it. “My stomach feels cold. I think it might be spreading outwards.” She lightly touched her abdomen where the bandages were thickest. “I think it’s working a little.”

Shard nodded. “Good. Works on me, too.” He turned and rummaged among his shelves. “While you’re here, you can help me with a few other things.”

“I thought you wanted me to take it easy.”

Shard chuckled. “We both know you won’t. At least give me a hoof with some paperwork while you’re resting. I’ve been trying to get my notes on the Blight together. Mostly it’s just scraps of paper that I’ve written on here and there.”

He came over and dumped a pile of papers on the table, sitting down across from her. “They aren’t dated, but that’s not a proper way to organize this anyway. We’ll just have to pick through it and sort by topic.”

Shard also placed a roughly-bound book on the table. It was a journal on the Blight, collected by various members of the guild over the years. Some of the entries were older than Piper.

By comparing Shard’s notes to those already in the journal, the two of them were slowly able to flesh out a few of the finer points. Pale already had an intimate understanding of the Blight’s timeline, but a few of the details they uncovered were new to her.

It took up to one month from infection with the Blight to death. Following infection, there was a one-to-three week latency period in which the disease spread through the twitcher’s body. At that point, symptoms began to occur. Aside from twitchiness, the infected began to crave destruction and would readily sabotage their surroundings in order to feed the impulse. Infected spent about a week as full-blown twitchers. As the end approached, creating destruction became secondary to seeking out crowds. The period of active infection eventually culminated in the bloom, a massive coughing fit that spread the Blight to as many others as possible. Following the bloom, the twitcher only possessed enough drive to leave the scene and find somewhere quiet to die.

Shard pondered over a few notes in front of him and then consulted the early pages of the journal. “The Blight doesn’t seem to have changed since...well, since before somepony began keeping track.”

“Why would it change?” Pale asked.

“Diseases tend to mutate. Even if it’s just a little bit, over time the symptoms and markers vary. The Blight’s been exactly the same for perhaps a few hundred years, if not longer.”

“That’s unusual?”

“Well, think about it. If it’s always been the exact same, then where did it originally come from?” Shard frowned. “I’ve only observed the slightest variances in lab samples, and nothing out of the ordinary compared to live twitchers.”

He indicated a couple of covered petri dishes with blood samples inside, labeled from the time a measure of Blight was introduced. They were difficult to simulate disease gestation, as the Blight did not tend to survive very well outside a body.

Shard went on. “High stability is just one aspect of its unusual characteristics as a disease. I have yet to formally decide if it’s a virus, bacteria, or fungus. It seems to share characteristics of all three. There isn’t another malady out there quite like it, not to mention its effects.”

He leaned forward, clearly building towards a point. “Towards the later stages, the Blight inspires twitchers towards violence and destruction, even before they bloom. It doesn’t make sense for a disease to cause them to stir up trouble before becoming infectious. That could hurt the disease’s chances of finding new targets to infect, if - for instance - the twitcher scared away or even killed others beforehand. It’s almost like the Blight’s overarching goal is to inflict chaos first, with a secondary goal of spreading itself.”

Pale’s ears tipped forward. “Chaos? Like Discord?”

While Pale had been recovering, an ancient monster that could manipulate reality had broken free from his prison but then recaptured.

Shard shrugged. “Maybe. He could have created the Blight the last time he was free.” He paused, his brows furrowing. “But even if it wasn’t him...it does kind of seem like somepony or something might have purposely created the Blight.”

Pale considered it. “Interesting. And troubling.”

“No kidding. That still leaves a lot of questions, though.” Shard picked up the beaker of leftover purple liquid and took a sip.

Being confined to the cave and light duty for weeks did not take advantage of Pale’s skill set in the slightest. Shard had her tending his medicinal garden and Piper asked her to refile the library. At least it was better than doing nothing. Pale worked slowly, focusing on healing, as she should.

The small garden did not take much effort. It was located near the entrance of the cave, concealed by a patch of tall grass. Pale had never done much of her work during the daylight, and found some small enjoyment in the opportunity to spend a few hours in the sun.

The library had all the material the guild had managed to collect over the years regarding the Blight. The rest of the nonfiction section, and the fiction section too, was as varied as the tastes of all the assassins over the years. Some of them had been quite prolific in looting books from dead twitchers.

As nice as the forced vacation might have been, Pale still jumped at the opportunity to go back to work.

Mindful that she was still recovering, Piper purposely gave her a light task. “Appleoosa just fumigated and I can’t get parasprites into town for a few days. I’d like you to go and keep an eye out. There are a couple of ponies that could have been exposed that I would like watched. Plus, Nightmare Night will make it much easier to pass undetected.”

“What if any of them are close to blooming?” Pale asked.

“The last time I had a look at the town, there were no ponies that I felt were confirmed twitchers. I don’t think there will be problems, but I trust you to evaluate that for yourself.”

Pale made ready to leave, packing lightly. Even being Nightmare Night, she didn’t even consider going sans cloak. If nothing else, everypony would ask, “What kind of costume is that?”

She arrived in Appleoosa as the sun was setting. Foals and adults alike were out in the streets, dressed up and enjoying themselves. Pale kept to the boardwalk at the edge of the dirt street. Being surrounded by costumed revelry didn’t change her dislike of crowds.

She first checked in on a stallion from the list Piper had given her. He and his wife were giving candy to the children that came to their door. Unfortunately, all Pale saw of him were brief glimpses when the door was open. There was no place to hide near the house. Appleoosa’s desert landscape left little in the way of shrubbery. The moon was also bright and full. If she wanted to hang around, she was going to need an excuse.

There was a small group of friends talking and laughing together in the street, all of them decked out in costumes. Pale quietly joined them, doing her best to stay in the back and inconspicuous.

Her plan worked for a few minutes. She caught a few more looks at the stallion in the house. He seemed fine.

“Hey, do we know you?” asked a pony in a clown costume, finally noticing Pale.

The others turned to look. Another asked, “What are you supposed to be?”

“Leaving,” Pale replied, quietly disengaging. She headed down the street towards the diner and the next possible twitcher on the list.

The restaurant wasn’t as lively as the streets and it wasn’t any trouble for Pale to walk in and sit down. The place was nearly empty. She picked a table that gave her a view of the kitchen, and out of habit also the door.

The waitress seemed annoyed, but Pale thought it might be because she had to work during Nightmare Night, rather than being any effect of the Blight.

Still, Pale nursed a glass of juice for a few minutes, watching just to be sure as the waitress wiped tables and carried plates around. A stallion dressed like a basketball player came in. He was more interested in the waitress than something to eat. She came over and he pulled her close, whispering in her ear and slipping a chocolate bar into her hooves. She laughed and kissed him, but then shooed him out so she could keep working.

Pale paid her bill and left. There was one more name on the list, an elderly mare who lived in a house at the end of the street. The place wasn’t quite what Pale would consider isolated, but she decided to risk a look around the back.

She rose up at a lighted window. A grandmotherly pony was in her kitchen, mixing something in a pot on the stove. A bushel of apple cores and skin sat on the floor, with a masher. Apple cider? The mare opened her spice rack and took out some cinnamon, sprinkling it into the pot. Her hoof shook.

Pale frowned. A palsy, particularly in an older pony, did not obviously make her a twitcher. As she continued to watch, the mare put away the spices and turned to a different cabinet. She pulled out a small box and took it over to the stove. Pale squinted. It was rat poison.

The contents of the box went into the pot. Highly suspicious, but circumstantial. Maybe she was trying to be rid of picky pests that would only eat treats.

Then, the doorbell rang.

“Coming!” the mare sang, and lifted the pot from the stove. She paused, set it back down, and coughed delicately into her hoof.

Pale set her jaw and crept towards the front of the house. Two colts dressed like pirates stood at the front door, bathed in the porch light.

The door opened and the grandmotherly mare greeted them, fawning over their costumes. She gave them each a paper cup filled with steaming liquid.

After thanking her, the two kids started away and Pale heard the door close. One of them blew on his cup. That made sense, it had just come off the stove.

Pale turned and hurried back along the house until she came to the corner and then ran as quietly as possible down a few houses to get in front of the pair of colts.

She glanced around and then emerged from between houses, heading towards the two colts at a walk. Both still carried their steaming cups. Pale deliberately walked into them, feeling two splashes on her sides.

“What the-!”

“Hey-!”

“Watch it,” Pale muttered and continued on without looking back. She winced as the spilled cider soaked through her cloak and bandages. It must have been boiling when it came off the stove, though the cool night air would take the heat off soon enough.

Ignoring it, Pale walked to the door and knocked.

“Coming!” Cough.

The door opened and Pale pushed forward. She was into the house and had the door shut and porch light turned off before the mare could even protest.

The old mare put up only feeble resistance. As gently as she could to avoid bruising, Pale put her in a headlock and slowly squeezed her into unconsciousness.

That bought Pale some time, but now she had to figure out how to stage the scene. The two kids would probably say something about a mysterious cloaked figure if there was anything suspicious about the mare’s death.

Pulling the limp body into the kitchen, Pale examined the room. First, she pushed the pot of cider off the stove. It hit the floor, spilling everywhere. Then, she climbed up on the counter, dragging the mare with her. From there, it was easy to drop her on the corner of the table, ensuring there was enough force to separate her vertebrae.

The crack was audible, and the old mare slid down into the puddle of cider, neck hanging at a wrong angle. Pale watched from her perch long enough to ensure the mare stopped breathing.

Pale slid back down the counter, dismounting when she was sure she wouldn’t get her hooves in the cider. She turned the porch light back on, and then left the house, slipping out of town.

On the way back, Pale touched her bandage and winced. This would probably set her recovery back another week or two.

Chapter 7

The observatory in Trottingham had been empty since Cosmograph’s demise, save for the week Pale had been laid up there. Cosmograph had mostly paid off bank loan, but the last few thousand bits were still on the ledger. With no other buyers in sight, the bank had quickly accepted the guild’s offer to take over the property.

Of course, secret enclaves of assassins were not exactly legitimate buyers. Piper had set up some paperwork that, when traced, apparently pointed to a seemingly-legitimate facade corporation. Pale had been sent to take delivery.

The pony from the bank seemed hurried. Maybe the creditors were more concerned about the sale than they let on. “If you’ll just sign here, the ownership can be transferred,” she said.

Pale wrote down an illegible scribble.

“There, that does it. The deed’s yours.” The bank pony gave Pale the key. “Thanks for doing business with us Miss...ah, I didn’t catch your name.”

“That’s perfectly okay,” said Pale. She turned and looked at the building. After a moment, the bank pony awkwardly left without another word.

It wasn’t a bad place, Pale supposed. It had an unexpectedly good view of the city below. Being an observatory, the view of the night sky above was sure to be excellent.

Strictly speaking, the guild didn’t need an alternate location, but taking ownership was a good opportunity and having the building gave them options. It could be used as a safehouse, a cache, or simply a free place to sleep while traveling on the way to somewhere else.

Or a shower that didn’t just spout cold cave water, thought Pale. She opened the door and went inside.

Piper was outside the iron door when Pale arrived back at the cave. It was perhaps the first time she had ever seen him outdoors, and the look didn’t suit him, only highlighting how pallid he had become from a life underground.

Before she could express her surprise, he cut straight to the point. “There’s a symptomatic twitcher in Dodge Junction. We didn’t manage to predict him by connecting him to the site of a bloom, and only realized he was infected when the twitches and destructive behavior began. Time is short. Go now.”

Pale wanted to ask questions, but thought better of it. He’d already told her everything she truly needed to know. Piper gave her a few pieces of paper and she immediately began to canter for Dodge Junction, reading as she went.

The file was sparse and written so quickly as to be barely legible. The twitcher’s name was Golden Valley. He was a farm hand, working the orchards in Dodge Junction. His address was listed.

It would have been nice to have gotten something to eat and a rest at the cave before leaving again, but the task called. At Pale’s pace, she arrived in Dodge Junction late that afternoon. She went straight to Golden Valley’s residence, an austere place with flaking paint and a gable roof. Stalking the windows, she saw it was just as weathered within, not to mention empty.

As she squinted through a murky window, a parasprite fluttered by her nose, doing a little loop to get her attention. It headed off down the street. Pale followed, wondering where it could be leading her.

It wound its way a short while down some of Dodge Junction’s dusty streets before stopping in front of the jail, a brick and mortar affair with thick bars. Pale stopped and stared at the door. She looked at the parasprite. It bobbed up and down.

Pale turned back to the jail, staring blankly and turning over in her mind how she should proceed. There wasn’t time for much planning. She grimaced inwardly and then opened the front door.

The police clerk at the front desk looked up as she entered. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for Golden Valley.” Her voice was calm, but there was a careful absence of anything that resembled a question.

“Oh yes. He was just taken in for attempted arson.”

Sounded like a twitcher. Pale asked, “Can I get him out? Bail or something?”

“The bail’s been set at a thousand bits. The judge was not pleased, to put it mildly. It was the courthouse Golden Valley tried to burn, after all.”

It only got worse. Pale asked, “Is there a place to get bail bonds?”

“Just down the street. Can’t miss it.”

Pale headed out, and sure enough, there was a business a few doors down with a large, bright sign advertising bail bonds. She pushed open the door. The proprietor was a fat stallion who wore a lot of jewelry. He lounged with his hooves up, but stood when she came in. The building smelled like him, and he smelled like perspiration.

“I need one thousand bits,” said Pale, to the point.

The bondspony smirked. “What have you got for collateral?”

Pale didn’t have many options. She pulled out the deed. “A house in Trottingham.”

He took it and squinted at the text. “Do you represent the corporation that’s listed as owner?”

“Do you want it or not?”

“All right, take it easy.” He went behind the counter and Pale heard a safe dial being spun. In a few moments, the stallion came back with a large sack of bits, which he presented to Pale. “Here you are. You can pay it back at twenty percent interest, due one month from today.”

“Sure.” Pale snatched the receipt that he offered and headed back to the jail.

The clerk seemed surprised to see her again so soon, but accepted the payment and released Golden Valley to her custody.

Valley didn’t look well. He had visible tics and stared at her suspiciously. Pale beckoned him out the front door.

“Who’re you?” he said, joining her on the sidewalk in front of the jail.

“A concerned friend,” said Pale. “Come on, we need to get back to your place.”

Valley started to follow her, but suddenly bolted in the opposite direction.

Pale hissed in anger and took off after him, her cloak catching the wind as she picked up speed. This task was already difficult enough without chasing a twitcher through the center of town.

As he skidded into the first busy sidestreet their path crossed, Valley glanced back and saw her following. He lunged for somepony’s applecart, knocked it over, and darted around a corner.

Pale held back in her pursuit, unwilling to tackle him in the middle of the street and then have to fight him right there. She dodged around the spilled apples and their indignant owner, rounding the corner. Valley was headed out of town, seemingly the first bit of luck Pale had gotten so far. She lengthened her stride to catch up.

The houses were behind them now, the land rising and gaining feature. Valley knew the terrain better, and went up the foothills like a rocket. Pale temporarily lost sight of him in a thicket of trees.

She stayed light on her hooves, trying to be quiet. When she got to the point she’d last seen Valley, she spotted him further up the hill, running towards what appeared to be a logging operation.

The loggers were gone for the evening. There was nopony to stop Valley as he threw himself at a bundle of a dozen cut logs, yanking loose a binding rope and sending them careening down the hill right towards Pale.

She tore her wings out and got airborne just before being crushed. The logs crashed into their still-standing fellow trees and came to a stop.

Valley ran into the sawmill building. Pale hit the ground and ran after him. Just as she stepped through the door, she had to duck to avoid a sawblade he’d tossed at her. Valley hit a switch on the wall and the whole operation came to life, with pulleys, gears, conveyer belts, and more buzzsaws suddenly whirring.

It was a maze where a wrong turn could get her killed and ambush would be easy. Moving carefully, Pale picked her way past running conveyer belts and saws, emerging out the other side. By that time, Valley was out of sight.

Pale took to the sky again, eyes searching in the growing darkness for Valley. She found him near the top of the hill alongside a large boulder.

As she approached stealthily, she saw that Valley appeared to be trying to tip the boulder over. It was twice as high as he was, and as Pale looked downhill, she could see where it would roll: straight through Dodge Junction. By the time it reached the bottom of the hill, it would have built up tremendous momentum and would crush everything in its path.

Pale dove, but not for Valley. Instead, she slammed into the other side of the boulder, getting her hind legs down for traction and pushing with all her might. Her lungs and legs protested, already burning with exertion, but she poured all her effort into stopping the boulder. Sinew stood out in her legs and back as she willed everything she had into the effort.

Straining, Pale felt the rock begin to move by inches, rolling the other way. She gave it an almighty shove. Valley’s breath hitched; and the barest fraction of a scream echoed through the trees before it was abruptly silenced.

Pale slumped against the boulder, her breath ragged. She stared at one of Valley’s motionless hooves sticking out from under the boulder, and then averted her gaze. Everything would have been easier if he’d cooperated. Perhaps she could have even asked him about where he’d been in an attempt to determine how he’d been infected.

Composing herself, she took off again, gently gliding back down the hill. The sun had fully set now. Pale visited Valley’s house. The door was unlocked and she let herself in, starting to go through his possessions. There wasn’t much of value. He’d been a low-level laborer, after all.

But Pale wasn’t done in Dodge Junction just yet. She remembered the closing time listed on bail bond sign. As it approached, Pale left the house and went downtown, doing her best to stay out of sight and conceal the rips in her cloak.

From the shadows, she watched the bond pony lock up for the night. It would be easy to mug him for the key, but he would surely remember her. Better to stage a break-in.

Pale waited, watching the street traffic die down. When she felt confident in her approach, she walked up to the front door and smashed the glass out with a quick hoof strike, unlocking the door and stepping inside. Then, she paused to clear the broken shards from the frame with the hard edge of her hoof, sweeping them across the floor away from the door. In the darkness, a casual observer might not realize there was no longer a pane in it.

Behind the counter, the safe was bolted to the floor. Pale was experienced with picks, but cracking combinations was quite another matter.

Some safe dials were more difficult to predict and crack than others. Pale sat there, squinting in the moonlight at the dial as she worked it back and forth. Slowly, she went through all the tricks she knew, trying to shorten the list of possible numbers the combination could be.

It took just over two hours, but she finally got the safe open. A couple of times, she’d stopped and hid behind the counter when somepony passed close by, but her luck held and nopony noticed the break-in. The whole time, her senses were on edge, mindful that a police station was only a few blocks away.

Inside the safe, she found the deed, as well as quite a bit of money. Pale sighed and got up, working a crick out of her back.

When Golden Valley couldn’t be found after posting bail, the police would come looking. Pale couldn’t allow there to be any evidence to tie his disappearance to the guild, so the deed had to be recovered. It couldn’t be the only thing taken from the safe, or that would be a red flag as to who might have done it. This had to look like a robbery of anything valuable.

Pale also took the time to go through the bond pony’s notes and scatter them messily across the floor, carefully destroying the page with information about her.

Then, it was time to load up and get out of there. Pale put the deed away in a pocket and hoisted the heavy golden bits.

Stealing from anypony besides a dead twitcher gave her pause. Twitchers didn’t need it anymore. However, Pale reasoned, a proper businesspony would be insured. Plus, she estimated, the four thousand bits taken from the safe would keep the guild running for quite a while.

It helped to seek out the good points among everything else.

Chapter 8

Piper often pondered over a large map of Equestria etched on the wall of the cave in the front room. A simple paper map would have a hard time of it in the dampness. Whenever an update was required to the stone map, Piper would scratch it in. New cities and routes had appeared in the time since the map had been originally made. None of them knew how long ago that had been.

The map stretched from floor to ceiling in height and several pony lengths wide. There was room for prodigious detail. It was not a map of twitchers - the guild had dealt with far too many to record them, of course - but etched in the wall were likely more features and information than just about any other map of Equestria.

Something had troubled Piper, and he’d brought in Coin for her analysis skills. The two of them had reached a conclusion and called the whole group together in front of the map to announce their findings.

Coin spoke. “There’s been a slow rise in the number of twitchers. We don’t have hard numbers - I’ve only been keeping track for a few months - but Piper estimates it began a few years ago.” She indicated the map. “Most of the activity has been in the northeast.”

Pale considered it. Now that Coin mentioned the statistic, it did seem as if there had been more and more tasks than before.

Piper said, “I’ve only just realized this because I’m starting to discover twitchers through behavior, not from blooms. In fact, blooms have not risen much, if at all.”

“So, more twitchers infected, but not more blooms,” said Tietack. “How does that work?”

“Right,” said Shard. “The Blight isn’t becoming more infectious, not from any of the samples I’ve taken. As I said before, it’s not like any disease I’ve ever seen. Heck, it’s almost more like a self-replicating curse than anything.”

Coin said, “In going over a few recent cases, we couldn’t tie new twitchers to a bloom at all. That seems a little strange, doesn’t it?”

It did, thought Pale. But how could that be? She waited for the answer. Coin seldom asked rhetorical questions.

“It’s going to take more observation and data,” said Coin. “But I hypothesize that we’re dealing with a new method of infection. Somehow, the Blight is being passed without blooms.”

At this revelation, a concerned ring of murmuring echoed around the room. Piper spoke over it. “But we don’t think twitchers, at least all twitchers, are becoming infectious pre-bloom. If so, there would be a lot more infection being spread.”

“What about somepony being infected but they show no other symptoms?” asked Shard.

“Like a, whatchacallit, a carrier?” said Hammer.

“Could be,” Coin allowed. She chewed her lip at the possibility. “That would explain a few things.”

“Wait,” said Shard. “Remember that theory I put together that the Blight is a manufactured disease? What if whoever did it is still out there?”

“Spreading it manually?” asked Jolly, incredulous. “How do they themselves keep from being infected?”

There was a moment of silence in the room.

“We might just have to find them and ask them,” said Piper.

Troubling as the possibility was of a malicious effort being behind the Blight, business still had to proceed as usual to deal with twitchers as they appeared. It would have to stay that way until the guild determined a way to stop the Blight at its source.

With her next assignment to Griffonstone, Pale stopped by Shadow’s room before leaving. Her knock produced a faint squawk of surprise, but a moment later Shadow opened the door. “Oh, hey Pale. What’s up?”

“I’m going to Griffonstone. Not my first time, but I wanted to keep up on the news.”

“Sure.” Shadow turned away, leaving the door open. Pale took it as an invitation to enter.

Shadow’s quarters were less a bedroom and more a nest. The bed was not a bed at all, but a pile of blankets and her own feathers. The walls were covered with colorful, happy pictures, many of cats, all arranged in slightly crooked rows.

“Have you heard anything recently of Griffonstone?” Pale asked, pulling her eyes away from the decor.

“No, nothing new,” said Shadow. She turned around a couple of times before settling onto her bed. Without Whisper, she seemed smaller in stature, more aimless, less sure. In her quarters was perhaps the only place Whisper was not constantly with her. Pale had never been inside his room - it was the size of a breadbox.

“Any tips on where to stay? Places to avoid?” Pale asked.

“Uh, well, I haven’t been there in a while.” Shadow seemed to find the pictures on the wall very interesting.

Patiently, Pale asked, “They haven’t gotten any new police or anything else? Nothing else I need to watch for?”

“None of that.” Shadow shrugged again. “It’s just not a very great place. That’s why I left.”

With that in mind, Pale packed her things and left the cave, heading for Griffonstone. The Blight seemed able to infect all sapient creatures, though there seemed to be remarkably fewer griffons affected. Perhaps because they came in contact with ponies less.

The capital city was also called Griffonstone, and like most big cities outside the well-groomed lands of ponies, it glowered menacingly from a distance, its stone houses barely enjoying lit windows or streetlights against the evening sky. As per usual, Pale arrived after dark. It was doubly important to stay concealed in a place where ponies weren’t even the majority species.

The target was a fairly well-to-do griffon named Gail whose house resembled a miniature castle rather than the nestlike structures where many of the other griffons lived. It took time to search, but Pale finally located her sleeping in the bedroom at the top of the turret, surrounded by windows. The bed was a fancy four-poster with a canopy.

Pale found a high branch in a nearby tree to perch, a place to watch the house and ensure she was alone. She concealed herself among the leaves. It seemed a quiet night. The windows below her were either open or didn’t have glass in them at all. It would be easy to swoop through and cut the twitcher’s throat.

Pale took out her knife, but frowned. She shouldn’t take the easy way out. Just because she didn’t come to Griffonstone very often didn’t mean she could get lazy. She paused to take another look around, reevaluating the situation.

It was good that she did. That was when she saw another griffon, this one perched but well hidden in a tree across from the house. He had a knife in his talons. Their eyes met.

It was hard to tell who was more surprised. The two of them stared at each other for several seconds. Pale put away her knife. So did he. He then tilted his head questioningly. After a moment, Pale nodded.

The two of them met in a different tree, though still within sight of the house. Both hung back, picking different branches. Up close, the griffon was a fairly standard brown and white, though he wore a tunic that left his limbs loose while still providing concealment for weapons. Pale kept her eyes on his talons.

“So…” he said, speaking just loudly enough that his voice would carry across the short distance between them. “Nice night, isn’t it?”

“I suppose,” said Pale. “Who are you?”

“A rather personal question, isn’t it?”

“Fair enough.”

The two of them lapsed into silence for several seconds.

“Are you an acquaintance of Ms. Gail?” he asked.

“No. Are you?”

“No.”

More silence.

“Interesting meeting you like this,” said Pale.

“I know what you mean.” He paused, and then ventured, “It has to be done though, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

The griffon nodded, as if her answer satisfied something he’d suspected. “Shame, though.”

“Yes.”

“How were you going to do it?”

“I was still considering it,” Pale replied. Was this really happening? Who was this? Did he actually know about the Blight? “What about you?”

“I do my best to avoid wetwork. These manicures aren’t cheap.” He wiggled his talons, which were indeed manicured nicely. Pale wouldn’t know. She didn’t care what her hooves looked like.

The griffon went on. “I was thinking about cutting down the canopy over her bed, wrapping her up so she couldn’t fly, and throwing her out the window. Maybe it would look like she got tangled and fell to her death, a tragic accident.”

“Not bad,” Pale allowed. “Though somepony might be suspicious of the cut in the fabric.”

“Just testing you,” he chuckled. “Take it slower and untie it, then. But that’s more of a risk that she’ll wake up.”

“A punch to the face to stun. Nopony would notice extra blunt force trauma after a fall from so far.”

He nodded. “So you want to do it that way? Together?”

“Together?” Pale considered it, but then shook her head. “No.”

He looked slightly hurt, but appeared to understand her misgivings. “Well, I’ll do it, if you want to leave.”

“I need to make sure with my own eyes that it gets done. I’ll do it.”

“Well, I need to make sure it gets done.”

Funny thing about not trusting each other: they were going to have to trust each other to work together because neither trusted the other to do it alone.

“Together, then?” said Pale.

He nodded. “All right.”

The two of them took off, flying parallel but not close. They descended on Gail’s house, entering separate windows.

Pale took the head of the bed and he took the foot. That was two knots to untie each. When the canopy was free, they held either end, and in silent coordination gently draped it over the sleeping twitcher.

She didn’t react, so Pale and the other assassin next moved to the sheets and untucked them from around the bed. He jerked his head in signal and the two of them flipped the whole bedspread over, rolling it like a tortilla.

That brought the twitcher awake instantly, but before she could struggle, she was already going out the window. There was a shriek, and then a thud.

Pale and the griffon both leaned out the windows, observing their handiwork. Both realized at the same time that their attention was distracted and abruptly pulled back to face the other.

“Nice work,” he said.

“You too,” she replied.

“Do you do this often?” he asked.

“What do you think?”

He nodded, though seemingly to himself. A few seconds passed while the two of them stared at each other in the darkened room. “Pity about the conversation, isn’t it?”

“You could say that,” Pale allowed. “I still don’t trust you.”

“I know that feeling. Trying to figure out if we’re on the same side, but unwilling to betray anything we know to figure it out.”

“Sounds about right.”

The silence stretched out again.

“So do you have a name?” he asked.

“Do you?”

“Touché.”

“How about names we actually trust each other with?” Pale proposed.

After a moment of thought, he said, “Call me Gilderoy. And you?”

There was nothing she could think of, no public records or otherwise, that could betray her, especially with a moniker the guild had bestowed. “Pale.”

He looked her up and down, peering intently with his eagle eyes. Only Pale’s face showed, and that was shadowed by her cloak. “A little bit of a rare specimen, aren’t you?”

“I can’t tell if that was a pickup line,” Pale deadpanned.

Gilderoy laughed. “I don’t think either of us is quite ready for that.”

“You’re right.”

“Well, it was nice meeting you. I wonder if we’ll run into each other again someday?”

“Good question.” It was, too.

The two of them hesitated, as if a parting shake was appropriate. Neither of them moved forward, however, and after a moment that was salutation enough.

The two of them backed towards opposite windows and exited the house at the same time, still watching each other. They flew off in opposite directions.

It wasn’t until she was out of sight of the house that the tension came out of Pale’s shoulders. Maybe Gilderoy was a paid assassin. Maybe some other plot was at work.

Or maybe the guild wasn’t alone. If Piper didn’t know already, she had to tell him.

This was huge. The possibility that they weren’t solo in the fight was simultaneously heartening and troubling. It was always good to have company, but perhaps another guild eliminating twitchers had deceived them into thinking there were fewer infected than there really were.

Pale had gotten the impression that Gilderoy wasn’t operating alone. He seemed too confident and knowledgeable to have figured everything out by himself. A guild operating in Griffonstone could explain why there seemed to be fewer twitchers there than expected. However, as Gilderoy had noted, it would be devilishly difficult to gain enough trust to actually work together. After literally hundreds of years protecting their secrets, opening up would be near impossible.

Pale frowned. And who was to say that Gilderoy and his cohorts had the same values and intentions? Could they even be the theorized group who had been spreading the Blight?

Identifying a twitcher was easy. Identifying somepony who might be intentionally spreading the disease was like trying to find a single poisonous weed in an entire country.

Pale arrived back at the cave. She’d noted a parasprite or two around, and figured that Piper knew at least a little of what had transpired in Griffonstone. She still made a point to tell him as soon as she saw him.

He was in the front room when she came through the door. Pale started straight off. “I met somepony who was also there for the twitcher. Somepony else knows about the Blight.”

“I had speculated,” Piper replied, “But you met somepony? This is the first solid evidence we’ve ever had.”

“All it took was two assassins awkwardly meeting over one target,” Pale muttered.

“We can talk about this later, once we’ve both had time to collect our thoughts,” said Piper. “We’ll tell the rest.”

He turned and picked up a newspaper from the table. “I’m afraid I have some news of my own. This is something you should see. I haven’t mentioned it to the others yet because I think that should be your decision.”

He showed her the newspaper. Pale stared, slowly reaching out to take it from him. The headline read:

Canterlot Attacked!
Queen Chrysalis and army defeated at royal wedding!

The rest of the page was taken up by the sneering face of Pale’s mother.

Chapter 9

It had been a while since Pale had been to Las Pegasus. She didn’t usually receive tasks in that part of Equestria.

It seemed that most of the ponies in the city at any given time were tourists milling amongst the flashing neon buildings. It was easy see that a bloom could be catastrophic. One errant twitcher at, and the Blight could infect hundreds. Worse yet, some may take their unwanted souvenir home with them to all parts of Equestria.

Like Cloudsdale, Las Pegasus was primarily a cloud-based city, but the infrastructure had been upgraded significantly to accommodate all types of ponies. And accommodate them it did. When Pale stepped out of the airship terminal in the early evening, there were nothing but crowds as far as her eyes could see, packed all along the main avenue that comprised the city’s iconic strip.

The night weather was warm, but comfortable, specially kept that way to draw more visitors and keep the nightlife alive. It worked. Even at night, the city was busy and crowded. Perhaps especially at night.

Pale tightened her jaw. She did not like crowds, least of all because of their impact on her work. Perhaps the city was busier at night than it was during the day - it was Las Pegasus, after all. She braced herself set off into the throng.

It wasn’t going to be easy to locate her target. She had thought about the alternative already, that she could simply wait until he had gone home from Las Pegasus. As a careless tourist bumped her in passing, she thought perhaps she should have.

Pale kept to the main street, weaving between groups of ponies. All the buildings on either side were lit up, each trying to outdo the others. Advertisements for hotels, restaurants, and shows were everywhere. Magically-enhanced voices of showponies and music came from all directions. Carnival rides operated in the background.

Pale kept her eyes and ears moving, though there was little chance she would spot the earth pony named High Roller. He had a reputation for enjoying the finer things, and would likely be enjoying them rather than walking the street.

She stopped at the first hotel she came to, a place called Gladmane’s. The lobby was big enough that it could probably fit somepony’s house inside. Every single surface sparkled. And it was hardly out of the ordinary for a hotel in Las Pegasus.

Pale tried to spin the most polite and persuasive request for information she could manage to the receptionist. At any rate, it didn’t work: there was no guest on file named High Roller. Pale left and kept trying places down the street. Eventually, one of the desk clerks confirmed that he was a guest.

“What’s his room number?” Pale asked.

“I’m sorry, I can’t give that out,” said the clerk stiffly, turning up his nose. “We ensure the privacy of our guests. However, I can ring him, if you would like.”

“No thanks,” said Pale. She walked deeper into the hotel.

It was less a place to sleep overnight and more a destination in its own right. It had a spa, a theater, two restaurants, a bowling alley, and an arcade. Pale had to keep reminding herself who she was looking for. There was too much to look at. If it weren’t for her height, she would have an even more difficult time seeing over the crowd. It didn’t help that the building seemed to be designed as a maze, difficult to locate an exit.

The arcade was even more confusing than the rest. The dinging machines, flashing lights, and darkened room only made it harder to navigate.

Focused on looking for somepony, it didn’t occur to Pale that she might also be watched. A large stallion wearing a jacket and sunglasses appeared at her shoulder. His stare was obvious and she turned to him.

“We don’t appreciate loitering,” he said.

“I’m looking for a friend.”

“How do I know that? You could be looking for somepony to pickpocket. If you’re going to stay, you’ve got to play.”

Discretion was the better part of valor. Pale dropped her eyes and nodded, turning to the nearest game in the arcade, a claw machine.

The coin she put in activated the machine. Pale had never played a claw game before, but the controls seemed obvious. She didn’t win anything, though.

Looking around the room, Pale tried to find some other way she could spend money slower, to make her limited supply last longer. The beverage bar in the lobby seemed the most likely way, with a better view of the entrance, too.

Pale bought some juice and sat on a stool. She was always watchful, but having time to observe passers-by in greater detail let her mind wander.

Coming in the door was a mare with crammed traveling saddlebags was starry-eyed and staring. Probably her first time in Las Pegasus. Possibly her first time outside of wherever it was she came from. Likely central Equestria. An east or west-coaster was more likely to have experienced big city spectacle before.

The elderly stallion on a stool at the other end of the bar didn’t look at anything but the glass of water in front of him. It had either done him some wrong, or he was fuming about something else. Being Las Pegasus, it was probably the latter, and also probably involved a substantial amount of money spent.

The mare sitting beside Pale kept sneaking glances at her, but pretending she wasn’t. Pale turned her head, her look lingering long enough to show she’d caught on. Wearing a concealing cloak was better than showing her true self in public, but still was out of the ordinary. It was far from the first time Pale had been stared at.

Just then, she saw High Roller come into the lobby, heading for the front door. He wore a tuxedo and seemed to be in a good mood. The bags under his eyes showed he hadn’t much sleep, and his jacket was wrinkled as if he’d been in it for a while. Las Pegasus could do that to you. Pale slugged the rest of her drink and got up, heading after him.

He followed a long, somewhat meandering path until he found a hayburger stand and got a bite to eat. Pale hung out within sight of him, most of her attention devoted to avoiding passers-by.

High Roller finished his late night meal and walked away, carrying a bottle of cola. Maybe he was using food and caffeine in an attempt to stay awake to see even more of what the city had to offer.

Pale followed him, idly wondering if the reckless behavior twitchers displayed could be related to partying and spending money. However, as High Roller left the brightly lit main street, the beginning of a plan came to her mind.

Her target stopped at an overlook at the edge of the city. The moon showed the expanse of land under the cloud base. The railing of the overlook ran right to the edge. High Roller stood there for a moment, finishing his drink. He tossed the bottle over the side.

Pale checked her back and then walked up to him. He turned, instantly apprehensive of the cloaked figure approaching. “Can I help you?”

Pale grabbed him by the collar, but he went limp instead of trying to jerk free. “Hey! Uh, is this a robbery or something?” Apparently his appetite for risk only applied to resort games. He fished in his pocket. Pale heard the jingling of bits.

A sudden idea came to her. “Keep your money. I want your hotel key.”

The strangeness of the request crossed his face, but he gave it to her. Then, Pale jerked him towards her, getting her shoulder under his chest, and heaved him upwards. He realized instantly what she was doing, but by that time his back was already bent over the railing. He started to shout, but it was cut off by coughing as he fell.

Pale looked over the edge at the ground far below. The tactic worked even better here; flightless creatures did not need to be restrained.

With his money still in his pockets, foul play was harder to determine. Pale took his key and went back to the hotel, slipping in a rear entrance and going up to the room number engraved on the key. His suitcase was there, still packed. The bed was unused. He really had partied hard.

Pale mussed the bedsheets and bathroom towels. She then picked up the suitcase and took it with her. Down in the lobby, she dropped the room key in the express checkout box and left the building. Behind a different hotel, she tossed the suitcase into the dumpster.

With that done, she turned to a more personal reason for coming to Las Pegasus.

The city was largely one big entertainment district, but the locals had to live somewhere. Pale passed a couple of neighborhoods full of small, unassuming houses. It was getting later at night, but not quite so late that all the residential streets were empty.

A couple of older, presumably retired, ponies sat out, enjoying the temperate weather. Some of them mended laundry or peeled potatoes or some other busy work. A few gossiped with neighbors.

Pale didn’t know exactly where she was going. She had never been there before. However, she was confident she would know it when she found what she was looking for.

Turning a corner, she came upon an older mare sitting on her stoop and knitting. Pale paused, and then stopped. Their eyes met.

Pale had never seen her before, but she knew her. After a moment, the mare smiled in recognition and got up, tipping her head towards the house. She opened the door. Pale stepped inside and the mare followed her in, closing the door. Then, in a flash of magic, she dropped her disguise.

Pale smiled. “It’s good to see you, Nan.”

“You too. It’s been so many years.” The changeling stepped forward and the two of them embraced.

Pale’s nanny had done a lot more to raise her inside the hive than any other. Certainly more than her actual mother. Nan had left the hive some time after Pale.

Pale had never asked her why. Perhaps it had something to do with Chrysalis’s treatment of Pale. Perhaps it was a more direct conflict with Chrysalis and how she ruled. Nan was old enough to remember the previous queen.

“What are you up to these days?” Nan asked.

“This and that.”

Nan nodded as if Pale hadn’t just dodged the question. “How about some tea?”

“That sounds great.”

Nan busied herself in the kitchen and came back just a minute later with the tea set. She sat down at the table across from Pale and served each of them.

Pale took the cup and held it in her hooves. While she waited for it to cool, she said, “I suppose you’ve heard what happened in Canterlot. Do you know anything about it?”

“I’m surprised,” said Nan, holding her own cup. “I thought even Chrysalis had more sense than that. But I consider my exile quite effective if I didn’t hear anything about the attack until I read about it in the newspaper. I hadn’t heard anything afterwards, either, until just now when you asked.”

Pale considered it. She didn’t know what she’d hoped to gain by visiting Nan. Why did Pale care what her mother did? All the better to avoid her, perhaps. At least by visiting Nan, Pale...well, got to visit Nan.

“It makes things different,” Nan lamented. “Most ponies had never even heard of changelings before.”

“But now all they know is that changelings are bad,” finished Pale. “How are you doing?”

“No problems,” Nan reassured her. “I’ve been here for years. Has it been years since I’ve seen you? Surely not.”

She paused in thought. “Oh! And speaking of the last time I saw you, I have something for you.”

Nan left the room and was back in a moment. She unwrapped a torn scrap of cloth, revealing a brass button inside.

Pale hadn’t seen it in years. As she reached out to take it, the memories came back.

She concentrated hard, the tickle of magic on her forehead. The small pebbles on the floor of her mother’s chamber made only feeble movements.

Her mother let out one of her many noises of disgust. “Really?”

“I’m trying!”

“After who your father was, this is unacceptable.”

“Who was he?” young Pale had asked. Her mother had rarely mentioned him at all, let alone provided any details.

“Apparently even less important and talented than I thought.”

“Where is he?” Even young as she was, Pale knew she was pressing her luck with the questions. “What was he like?”

Her mother opened a small box on a shelf and threw to the floor a scrap of cloth with torn edges. A shiny button was sewed to the center. “That’s all there is. Nothing more. Now, never mention him again.”

She stalked out of the room. Nan, who had been standing quietly nearby, stepped forward. “Well, back to learning. Try again.”

This time, Pale tried to lift the button with magic. She actually managed it. It felt different in her grasp than any of the stones or other practice objects she’d tried.

“Good job! said Nan. Pale took a closer look at the button as it hovered in front of her. There was a strange seal on it. It was an interesting decoration, she decided.

Pale looked at the button resting on her hoof, reviewing every detail of the design, even though she recalled it perfectly.

“I remembered you liked it,” said Nan.

Pale looked up. “Did you know my father?”

“No. You probably know as much about him as I do: very little.”

Was he still out there somewhere, or was this piece of fabric and single button the only thing left of him?

Did it matter?

Pale put the button into her pocket. “Thank you.”

They hugged again, longer this time. Nan sighed happily.

When they parted, Nan said, “It was so good to see you. Come visit me anytime.”

“It was good to see you, too.”

Nan showed her out. After the door closed, Pale stood on the stoop for a moment, breathing. She blinked a few times and headed for the airship terminal.

A parasprite hovered nearby. Pale gave the insect a look and kept walking.

Chapter 10

There was a knock on Pale’s door.

She’d been studying the button that Nan had given her; the one belonging to her father. If it held any answers, they remained elusive. She wasn’t even sure what the questions were. The button still felt to her like a lonely puzzle piece, as if it were a clue to something bigger. What, she couldn’t imagine.

Pale put the button away and went to answer the door. Shard was there. “Piper wanted to talk to you. He’s got a very particular target in mind.”

Shard delivering the message was a little strange. Pale would have expected Piper himself. She went with Shard and they met up with Piper in the front room. He was in the middle of reviewing some documents.

As Pale came over, he held up a picture of a lanky, bespectacled unicorn stallion. “This is Helix Histone. He’s a scientist who lives in Manehattan. Being that he’s quite the mild-mannered soul, it was easy to suspect him of being infected when his behavior changed. However, he rarely goes out in public so it was difficult to tie him to any bloom. I think that his still relatively calm demeanor and scientist attention could make him a good candidate for interrogation so we can determine how twitchers are becoming infected without blooms.”

“I tried to get close to him in a professional capacity,” said Shard, “at a conference last week. He isn’t much for socializing, even in his field of study. I had a look through his things while he was out. He’s going speed dating soon.”

Pale looked between Shard and Piper. They looked right back at her.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Well, I don’t think he’s into stallions-” Shard began amusedly, but already Pale was appealing to Piper.

“This can’t work, it just-” Pale shook her head. “I don’t know anything about dating!”

“Neither does he,” Shard pointed out. “It’s probably only the Blight that got Helix to take the risk to join a speed date. He’s awkward and a huge coward, not to mention a nerd.”

“Just focus on the mission,” said Piper, his voice trying for reassuring. “At the least, Helix is an unlikely attack risk. I’m sure you can handle it.”

Under normal circumstances, Piper’s authority was all any member of the guild needed to act; and usually all they would get. Pale, though, needed more reassurance. She went and knocked on Coin’s door.

“It’s open.”

Pale walked in. Coin looked up from the book she was reading. Despite sitting on her bed, the sheets were unwrinkled, a medium blue that helped liven up the place. Her possessions around the room were neat and tidy, as Pale would expect of Coin. A small chalkboard stood at the end of the room, covered in symbols Pale couldn’t decipher.

“I’m supposed to go on a date,” Pale blurted out, not even bothering with a hello. “It’s a good way to get close to a twitcher.”

Coin blinked at her, her mouth slightly ajar in surprise. She put the book down. “Wow. I...take it this wasn’t your idea.”

“You know me,” muttered Pale, sitting down beside Coin at her invitation. “What am I supposed to do on a date?”

“You’ve never-” Coin shook her head. “Well, I didn’t expect you to be a romanticist, Pale, but I’m sure you know the theory about how ponies hook up. Be interested, be interesting, laugh once in a while. Don’t take it overboard and be a clown, though. He might be afraid of those.”

“Ponies are afraid of clowns?” Pale asked, eliciting another bemused reaction from Coin.

“Well, some are. I guess you wouldn’t know; you grew up underground.” Coin shook her head and changed the subject. “So what’s the purpose of this date? I don’t really know what your objective is.”

“I think I just want to find him and talk. Shard and Piper seem to think he might be the key to finding bloomless twitchers. Of course, I’d kill him after that.”

“Some date,” Coin quipped. “Well, that’s easier than trying to teach you how to be a pickup artist.” She folded her forelegs. “Not that I’m great with colts myself.”

“You still have more experience than me,” said Pale. “Anything is more than zero.”

“You’re not a zero to me,” said Coin.

“I’ll have to remember that one. Thanks.” Pale got up, grimacing at the task that lay ahead.

Coin started to say something, but paused and then said, “Good luck.”

The restaurant in Manehattan had been cleared for the event. A bright sign on the front door read Welcome speed daters! With more than a little foreboding, Pale pushed the door open and went inside.

She wore a toned-down version of her dress from the Grand Galloping Gala. A little dressed up for a Saddle Arabian, but not as gaudy as a Gala outfit. The veil was still in place, however.

Pale could feel eyes on her the moment she walked in. If they could only see what was under her clothes. As it was, she appeared merely tall and mysterious. A couple stallions seemed to jockey in position, as if that would give them an advantage in a speed date.

The organizer was a round mare who seemed a little too cheerful. Maybe she had gotten especially lucky from a speed date and become an acolyte. “Okay everypony, take a nametag. You can pick sexual preference. You’ll have five minutes at each table and then I’ll ring a bell. Waiters will be around with drinks. There’s just one big rule: no Alicorn Amulets!”

There were chuckles around the room. Apparently, Manehattan newspapers had taken some liberties with the story of what had recently happened in Ponyville.

“Okay, places, everypony!” The crowd around her dispersed to find tables.

Pale found herself sitting across from a stallion who had a soul patch. She wanted to give herself some time to observe the situation before engaging Helix. He was even taller and bonier than he looked in the picture, and twice as awkward.

“Hi, I’m Golden Age,” her tablemate said. “And you are?”

“Shamal.” Pale indicated her nametag. Surreptitiously, she watched and listened to Helix, who appeared to be stuttering his way through a conversation nearby.

“You seem foreign. Where are you from?” Golden Age asked.

“Saddle Arabia.” Pale tried to use the proper accent.

“What do you do for a living?”

What did she do for a living? Pale replied, “I travel.”

“That’s nice,” the stallion replied, seeming earnest. “What do you like to do for fun?”

Pale shook her head. Why did she feel like she was on the defensive? “No, what do you do for a living?”

“I, uh, sell literature.”

Pale stared at him.

“You know, like books with words. Sometimes pictures. Sometimes comics. I sell a lot of comics.”

The waiter came by and Pale ordered water. It was also just about that time that the bell rang, and she couldn’t be more thankful.

She got up and swapped tables with everypony else. The next stallion presented to her seemed content to talk about himself. Pale didn’t say a word, but that was fine with her. She waited out the time, and when the bell rang again she sat down in front of Helix.

He seemed interested, but bashful. Even with her veil, he had trouble meeting her eyes, but clearly wanted to. As tall as he was, he seemed to tuck his chin even more, probably as a habit of avoiding the gazes of shorter ponies. It worked especially well on Pale, who was nearly as tall as him.

“Hello,” she said. “I’m Shamal.”

“I’m Helix Histone.” His voice was quiet and hard to hear over the other conversations around the room.

“I like to travel,” said Pale. Her feigned accent gave her time to think while speaking, though she hoped her halting sentences merely sounded as if she were unfamiliar with the language. “Do you travel a lot?”

“I haven’t been out of Manehattan in months,” Helix said.

“Oh? Is your work too important to leave?” As an afterthought, Pale leaned forward in an attempt to indicate interest and curiosity.

“I do independent testing for a pharmaceutical company,” he said, tapping the tips of his hooves together.

“Interesting.”

Pale looked at him. He didn’t continue. After a moment of strenuous silence, she prompted, “Does that require you to visit a lot of places in the city?”

“No. I stay at home.”

“Surely you must go out sometimes? Please, tell me. I want to see the city while I am here. Where was the last place you went?”

Helix stammered. “Uh, I went to the market last week. I go every week. It’s not really that interesting.”

“Which market? Perhaps I will stop by.”

Helix looked bewildered. Pale wasn’t sure if it was because she was still on this line of questioning, or if he wasn’t used to so much attention. “It’s on the corner of Twelfth and Bronco Boulevard.”

“Where else have you gone, in, say perhaps the last month?”

Helix started to reply, but the sound of breaking glass suddenly cut off all conversation. Pale instinctively jerked her head in the direction of the sound.

A mare had apparently elbowed her beverage off the table. No threat. A waiter quickly swooped in to clean up.

Pale started to turn back, but paused. There was something about the pony who had lost her glass, but she wasn’t sure what.

It was then that the bell rang again. Pale’s time with Helix was up.

She got up. There was no way to continue talking to Helix without attracting attention. If there was even any reason, if he had any other information of value.

Pale turned for the door. It suddenly hit her where she’d seen the mare who’d broken her glass. It was the same pony who’d sat down beside her at the juice bar in Las Pegasus. Her brown mane had curly ringlets, and her cutie mark was a cinnamon stick. She was an earth pony who had the look of somepony transplanted from somewhere smaller than Manehattan. Her attitude seemed to indicate she’d learned to live in the city, however.

Pale kept walking for the door, not letting the recognition register on an emotional level as she sped through the process of risk assessment. Seeing the mare again was not an impossible coincidence. Las Pegasus was a vacation destination that drew ponies from everywhere. It was entirely within the realm of possibility that Pale would encounter the same Manehattanite twice in two different places.

But what were the chances of that happening?

Standing outside the restaurant, Pale made some quick decisions. Even if the unknown mare had spotted Pale in Las Pegasus, she wouldn’t recognize Pale’s current disguise.

Pale frowned. Though she might anticipate somepony of Pale’s build wearing a veil.

But who could the mare be? Part of the unknown group spreading the Blight? If she was in the same room as Helix, was she watching him to see who came to kill him? What would she do if she discovered Pale? Did she have help?

There wasn’t a lot of information to go on. At this point, Pale decided that her best bet would be to break contact with the unknown mare and attempt to reconnect with Helix to get more information from him.

She didn’t know where he lived, not exactly, but his description of the market was likely near his residence. Pale did not head in that direction at first; taking a long loop around several city blocks to ensure she was not being followed.

Helix’s neighbourhood was only a few minutes’ walk from the restaurant. Satisfied that she had made good time, Pale took a brief survey of the area and then set up post where she best guessed Helix would show up.

She had a few minutes to think while she waited. It helped Pale to consider her options, and more importantly, her potential stalker, the mare with the cinnamon mark. She sighed lightly as she stood, leaning against the wall of an apartment building. Why did it seem as if every new task she undertook was only more complicated than the last?

Piper had never been one to tell her how to do her job, but with as many new challenges that had begun to appear, he hadn’t even been able to even tell her what needed doing. Initiative was something Pale was going to have to learn on her own one way or another.

There was no time to ask for advice. It fell to her to decide what to do about the mare. Could she be working with Gilderoy? Some other group? Why?

The questions went to the back of her mind as she saw Helix appear at the end of the block. Pale backed into the shadows, her attention turning to Helix’s backtrail. If she could draw his attention and get him out of sight quickly enough, she could get him alone out from under the unknown mare’s oversight.

“Hello Helix!” she called as he passed. He drew up short in surprise. Pale waved a hoof, gesturing him closer.

“I went looking for the market you mentioned, but it was closed,” she said. She took a few steps back from the street. Helix followed her.

“Is this your neighborhood?” she asked.

“Yes,” Helix replied.

Pale kept backing up, leading him away from where the unknown mare would presumably following him. Pale’s mind raced, trying to figure out her next step. Helix’s place might be secure, but the stalker would undoubtedly know where it was.

They would have to keep moving, then. Pale said, “Please walk with me. Could you show me around?”

“Uh, I was going to-”

She couldn’t let him go this time. “I think I may have become lost. Please help me.”

Pale had succeeded in drawing him almost a block off his intended course, and the further they went the more likely they would leave the stalker behind.

“Where are you trying to go?” Helix asked. He was clearly uncomfortable, but he was apparently buying Pale’s act.

“I was going to catch the river taxi,” Pale said. “Is that nearby?”

It was several blocks in the same direction they were already headed. Helix said, “Just up ahead.”

“Thank you.”

“Uh, you’re welcome.” Helix replied, a nervous smile flashing over his features. He looked as if he didn’t get the chance to say it very often.

Pale looked back over her shoulder. She wasn’t confident that they had given any pursuit the slip. A small café was still open and she pointed it out. “Would you like something? My treat.”

She didn’t give him the choice, opening the door. Helix looked uncomfortable again, which was quickly becoming his default expression, but followed her in.

There was an inviting glass cooler right in front of the door with gelato on display. As was probably intended, it caught Helix’s eye.

“Would you like some?” Pale asked.

“Uh, er, one scoop of vanilla,” he said to the pony behind the counter.

“The same,” said Pale.

Pale had already scanned the dining area from outside and picked a table out of view from the window. The two of them sat down with their treats.

“Have you been here before?” she asked in attempt to mine though his travel history again.

“No. I knew about it, but I’ve never been inside.” Helix appeared to find his snack especially interesting.

“I think our conversation was cut off earlier,” she said. “You were telling me about places you visited.”

“I don’t really get out much.”

“No, please. Tell me about your days. I am interested in how you live.”

It sounded ridiculous, even to Pale. However he felt about it, Helix was too awkward to point that out. He stammered, “Er, well, I stay in my apartment. I go to the market once a week. A few days ago I went to a conference for work. This date is the first time I’ve been out doing anything else in a while.”

“Are we on a date?”

Helix went brick red. “I, uh, I meant-”

“It’s okay,” said Pale quickly. “I didn’t mean that. It’s just nice to talk sometimes.”

Helix calmed down and swallowed. “Yeah.”

They both ate in silence for a few seconds. Pale had decided Helix probably didn’t know anything more of value. Her next lead would have to be the mysterious mare.

“Can...can I tell you something?” Helix asked.

“Anything.” Pale wondered what it could be.

“This is probably the strangest night I can ever remember having.”

His standards must be abysmally low, Pale thought. But if everything Helix had told her about his life was true, then yes, they probably were.

“Is that a bad thing?” she asked.

Helix considered it. “No. I know I need to be more social. I just...it doesn’t come easily. I’m always shut away from everypony else.”

“I know the feeling.”

“You?” he asked. “I thought you went everywhere.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t feel alone.”

“Surely you must have somepony.”

Pale considered it. The guild was...well, somepony. “I suppose I do,” she conceded. “But I still find myself wanting more. I don’t want to be-”

She shook her head. “You don’t need to listen.”

“You listened to me.”

Because she was trying to get information out of him. And in a short time, she would have to kill him.

Pale bowed her head. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

The café pony came to take away their things and leave the bill. Pale pulled it over. It hadn’t been totaled.

Helix noticed how long she stared at it. “Um, I can pay, if-”

“No, I’ve got it.”

He leaned forward to look at the bill. “Eight and a half bits.”

“Thank you,” said Pale. “I...don’t have a lot of formal schooling.”

“We all have things we’re good at. I guess.”

The two of them got up. Pale made sure to check outside before opening the door. They continued walking towards the river. The bridge was just ahead.

“I want to thank you,” said Helix. “I meant it when I said this was the best night I’ve ever had.”

Pale stopped and turned. They were in the middle of the bridge. She didn’t see anypony around. “I thought you said it was the strangest.”

He laughed, the first time he had done so, and looked away over the canal below. “Can’t it be both?”

It could. Pale agreed with him on the strange, but she was thinking of something else besides best.

“I want to thank you, too,” she said. She took a step forward put her forelegs around his neck before he could back away.

She could feel his surprise and nervousness, but he set it aside and returned the hug. Pale took a breath, stretching out the silence between them as long as she could.

The moment ended with a sharp crack, when Pale broke his neck as quickly and cleanly as she could manage. In the next movement, she heaved him over the edge of the bridge. A few seconds later, he landed with another crack on the stone bridge footing just above the water.

Pale turned and walked off the bridge. She looked up at the night sky, the illuminated buildings looming over her.

The night had at least left her with more clues than she had before. Pale was already putting together what she knew about the mysterious mare, what Helix had told her, and other pieces of information gleaned from years of chasing the Blight.

Pale had already decided she wasn’t going to leave Manehattan until she found the mare.

Chapter 12

Pale showed up on Nan’s doorstep in Las Pegasus having not paused to sleep or eat since leaving Manehattan. Night had fallen, but Pale didn’t care about who she might be disturbing. She hammered on the door until Nan opened it.

“Nan! I-” Pale’s words caught.

Nan looked at her, calmly taking in Pale’s expression. “You’d better come inside.”

She led Pale through the door to the kitchen, where they sat down at the table. Pale stared at he hooves. Her mouth was tight and she swallowed hard. She’d had the whole trip to think about what she was going to say, and still didn’t even know how to begin.

“I think I know what this is about,” said Nan.

Pale’s head shot up. Nan said, “Just after I saw you last, a mare came to my door and kissed me as soon as I opened it. She said she knew what I was and that she could give me all the love I wanted.” A smirk passed over her lips, and she snorted. “I told her to leave me alone. I could tell she was lying anyway, though I couldn’t figure out why. But then, I began to feel strange.”

Pale could see where this was headed. Changelings’ mastery over their own bodies allowed them to feel even the slightest disturbance.

Nan said, “She must have given me something, but I don’t know what. None of the symptoms match anything I’ve ever heard of.”

“Did she tell you her name?” Pale asked.

“No, but her cutie mark was a cinnamon stick.”

Pale’s teeth clenched. Her suspicions were correct, then. Somehow, the Blight was being passed without blooms.

But solving that mystery wasn’t why she was here.

Pale looked at Nan, attempting to mentally describe what she was feeling. Changelings were specialized to interpret emotion. It helped them blend in and read targets. Pale knew how emotions were supposed to feel - grief, joy, love - but she’d shunned any remnants of the hive when she’d left. If she still possessed any such ability, it was long dormant.

So why was it only now that she wished to fall into the deep water of feeling? Pale’s own emotions were as much a mystery to her as anypony else’s. Surely there was something else she was supposed to feel besides an acidic pain in her chest. Something, anything.

“I take it you know this pony,” said Nan, bringing Pale back to the now.

Pale wasn’t able to do anything more than nod. Nan had to know about the Blight, but Pale couldn’t think how to even begin. “I...need to tell you...”

Nan looked at her evenly, patiently giving Pale time to speak.

“You… you’re going to start feeling reckless and destructive. In about a month, you’re going to want to find a crowd and then you’ll start coughing and infect everypony around you. Then, you’ll...die.” Pale took a deep breath, as if she’d been holding it. She looked at her hooves.

Nan reached across the small table to touch her. “Ah,” she murmured, the single word carrying more weight than it had any right to. “Ah, deary me. I suspected this. It’s in my lungs and everywhere else and still growing fast.”

“It’s not right that you got pulled into this.” Pale tried to keep her tone level, but only partially succeeded.

“It’s not your fault.” Nan smiled, and not for her own benefit.

Pale started to protest, to point out how her previous visit had started this, but Nan reassured her. “You didn’t mean for this to happen. And you know what? Just seeing you again makes it up to me.”

She got up. “Would you like some tea? Something relaxing?”

Pale looked at her. “Tea?”

“Well, we’ll have to make the moments we have left count.”

Pale looked away and nodded.

Nan went into the kitchen and back in a few minutes with the tea set, cups already full.

The two of them talked. The topic meandered as the hours passed, neither one making any effort to correct it. The avoided talking about the past, neither finding the topic appealing. Living in the moment was so much better.

Nan did not ask how Pale knew Canella or about the disease. In fact, they didn’t discuss the Blight at all. The conversation was normal small talk. Startlingly normal. Perhaps the most normal, small talk conversation Pale had ever had. It was nice. She hadn’t known what she was missing, just having somepony to talk to.

It was late when Pale had arrived, and even later when Nan yawned. “I suppose we should call it a night. You’re welcome to my spare bed.”

“I would like that,” Pale admitted.

Nan took the tea set back to the kitchen and showed Pale to her room. She paused in the doorway as Pale sat down on the bed. “You know, it makes me happy to see you all grown up. You’re your own pony now, and there’s something beautiful about that.”

Pale wanted to say something, but didn’t know what.

Nan smiled. “Maybe that’s just the contrast from the hive, getting out and being yourself.”

“I’m glad you were there for me,” said Pale. “So I got the chance.”

And what had Pale done with it?

But Nan didn’t judge her. She just leaned forward to give Pale a hug goodnight. “Sleep well.”

Pale did sleep well, surprising herself. She woke to the morning light in the window, an experience she’d rarely gotten. Living in a cave was a lot like living in the hive. Maybe that was part of why Nan had also left.

It was still early. Pale made the bed and went into the kitchen to get a drink.

The tea set was still beside the sink. Curiously, Nan had washed Pale’s cup and put it away, but her own still sat there by itself, stained with tea. Beside it sat a prescription bottle. Pale picked it up. Sleeping pills.

Her gut clenched and she bolted for the master bedroom. She slammed open the door, but Nan did not stir. She lay beneath the sheets in the form of her cover identity, peaceful and still.

Nan had done what Pale had dreaded she would have to.

Pale closed her eyes for several seconds. When she opened them again, she took one last look at Nan, and then quietly said goodbye.

Nan would have wanted Pale to have what little she possessed. Pale found a few bits. Nan had little else of value, sentimental or otherwise, and anyway, Pale knew there was nothing more important to her than memories.

She started to conceal any evidence that she had been there, but realized Nan had taken care of that, too, even washing Pale’s teacup.

Humbled with the knowledge that even faced with her own death Nan could still be thinking of her, Pale quietly left the house.

“Where have you been?” Coin hurriedly asked as Pale came into the cave. “Piper wasn’t saying anything, but I think even he was worried about how long you’d been gone. And that’s even with tracking you via parasprite.”

“We need to have a meeting,” said Pale curtly. “Get everypony.”

Coin trotted away as Pale entered the main room. Piper was there. He looked at her, saying nothing. He looked like perhaps he wanted to.

The others arrived one by one. Pale had rushed in without a clear plan, but she knew what she needed to say.

Piper, Mirror, Jolly, Shard, Hammer, Shadow, Whisper, Coin, and Tietack. All of them looked at her.

Without preamble, Pale said, “They exist.”

She indicated the map etched on the wall of the cave, its many notes spread over the stone. “It looks like we were right. There’s a group out there spreading the Blight.”

Pale didn’t stop to take in the others’ reactions. She went on. “I found one of them.” With a nod to Piper, she explained, “She was following Helix Histone, waiting for one of us to show up. They know about us.”

She pulled out the veil with Canella’s spit on it. “They’re somehow spreading the Blight with fluid transfer. I have a sample. They’re infected, and infectious, but somehow not blooming. Furthermore, they know about the Blight and are intentionally spreading it. They’re aware enough to realize we’ve been eliminating twitchers and used Helix Histone as bait to try and catch us. I don’t know how many of them are out there, or how to identify them.”

Silence stretched out for several seconds. Jolly cleared his throat. “Any good news?”

Pale hesitated. She couldn’t even put together a comeback to lighten the mood. “No.”

Piper spoke in a calm, measured tone. “The guild has been around for a long time. This is another storm to weather, and we have the advantage of experience. Even in the best maintained fields, there are weeds. We’ll find them and root them out.”

“Did you catch their name?” Whisper asked Pale. “Something they go by?”

“No.”

“Oh!” said Shadow, her eyes lighting up with an idea. She raised a foreleg. “All in favor of ‘Weeds?’”

The vote was unanimous.

“I’ll need anything else you can tell me,” said Piper, turning to Pale. Pale nodded. The others took the cue that the meeting was over, and began to file out.

Pale turned, calling, “Shard?”

He came over. Pale showed him the bundled veil with Canella’s blood and saliva on it. “She spit at me. I think that’s one way they use to pass the infection.”

Shard nodded. “I’ll test it.”

“One more thing.” Pale told him about Helix’s place being under surveillance, potentially even when Shard had been there.

Shard frowned. “You think they were after me? Well, I don’t remember being spit on.”

“Anything else you can think of?” Piper said. “Any other possible transfer?”

“Jeeze, now I’m kind of glad that mare at the convention shot me down,” Shard grumbled. “No, I can’t think of any.”

“We’re still gathering new information on these…’Weeds,’” said Piper. He glanced between the two of them. “I want you both to be careful for the next month.”

Pale nodded. She’d been careful for as long as she could remember. She wasn’t infected yet, was she? But she took Piper’s meaning. This was uncharted territory and a single mistake could be her - and their - last.

Shard went to his lab. Piper turned to the map, Pale joining him.

“You were there,” said Piper. “I only watched. What do you make of it?”

“I can’t figure out why they would do it, intentionally spreading the Blight.” Pale shook her head.

“There is a lot of work to be done, and many questions to answer. We must carefully plan our next move,” said Piper. “Facts are essential, but what do your instincts tell you?”

Pale considered it. “Manehattan. With everything else, it just feels like their hub. I got the sense they were locals.”

Piper nodded. “Then we will go to Manehattan.”

Pale agreed with that. Much as she wanted to go immediately, her gear and her body needed attention. She turned to go.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Piper softly.

Pale paused for a long moment. She wanted to turn around, she wanted to say something, but instead she just nodded in acknowledgement, and left the room.

Chapter 13

There was half a glass of juice and the remains of a small sandwich on the table in front of Pale. Manehattan seemed to be full of sidewalk cafés. Against her wildest expectations, she had become a regular at them. There was little else to do when she had exhausted all her leads in searching for the elusive group the guild had designated the Weeds.

Café aficionado or not, Pale still had a job to do. She kept watch, searching for familiar faces, somepony paying her too much attention, or any other small clue that could give her a new angle to pursue.

She sat back in her chair, glancing at the newspaper in front of her. On the front page, and deservedly so, was a story about a new Princess in Equestria.

A mare named Twilight Sparkle had become an alicorn and been designated the Princess of Friendship. This was after representing the Magic portion of the Elements of Harmony with her friends. All of Equestria had been taken by surprise, but enthusiastically welcomed the new Princess.

Meanwhile, Pale was trolling Manehattan for those who wanted everypony in Equestria dead.

Not for the first time, she wondered if going to the authorities with information about the Blight would help. Why was it secret in the first place? Could powerful allies like Princesses bring about the end of the Blight? Why was the guild founded as a covert organization, rather than, say, a public health group?

Mass panic was part of it, Pale reasoned. Everypony would worry that any cough could be their last, or somepony else’s could be the start of a new infection. There was also the potential that, if the Blight were truly a manufactured disease, those that had originally produced it would do something drastic if they were to be found out.

Not to mention that going public would expose the guild’s activities. Murder was difficult to justify in any circumstance.

Pale straightened up from the newspaper and furtively glanced around. Even when fighting a mysterious group that seemed to want to wipe out all life, she wasn’t used to watching her back. Having been on the hunt for so long, Pale didn’t welcome the idea that somepony might be after her instead.

That is, if anypony actually was after her. She sighed and turned the page, using the opportunity to again covertly survey the street. It had gotten to the point that she was almost hoping somepony would make an attempt on her life. That would at least mean she was on the right track.

Elsewhere in Equestria, the guild was still routinely eliminating twitchers. Pale had been staging her Manehattan activities from the house in Trottingham and occasionally exchanging messages with the others. Piper had been sending reports, which were more information than Pale felt she needed, but she read them anyway.

She caught sight of a griffon down the street. He was coming in her direction, and Pale was startled to recognize him. It was Gilderoy.

He spotted Pale and came over to her table. He gestured to the other chair. “Do you mind?”

Meeting him was a surprise, perhaps even unwelcome. But what could it hurt to hear what he had to say?

Pale held out a hoof. Gilderoy sat. He leaned forward and spoke quietly, though conversationally. “I caught sight of you the other day. I was hoping I would run into you again.”

“What do you want?”

Gilderoy looked hurt, but said, “I was hoping you could help me.”

Pale considered it. “What did you have in mind?”

“A friend of mine needs a change of scenery. I was hoping you could find a place for him.”

Pale avoided looking at a parasprite hovering nearby. Piper would know how big this was, she didn’t need to emphasize it. “Are you serious?”

“A ‘no’ would have sufficed.” Gilderoy spread his talons. Recently manicured, Pale noted. “Look, we’re both in the business of preserving life, in a roundabout way, right? This griffon, this friend of mine, needs a second chance.”

“What happened?”

“He killed the wrong griffon. Look, I know how that sounds. It was a bad situation, he had to make a snap decision, and it was an accident. Trouble is, one mistake is ruining his life. I just thought maybe you could help him get a fresh start.”

Pale studied the parasprite out of the corner of her eye, looking for some kind of signal. None came.

The guild would be stupid to simply trust an outsider. But if Gilderoy was telling the truth, they could use a new member, especially now that the Weeds were in the picture.

“I’ll think about it,” said Pale. “Meet me here tomorrow morning.”

Gilderoy smiled and got up. Pale watched him walk away.

Meeting like this was dangerous. If somepony from the Weeds was watching her, Gilderoy had just made himself a target.

Even still, Pale didn’t see any signs of Weeds for the rest of the day. She went back to the house in Trottingham as the sun was setting.

She talked to Piper that night. It was limited, slow communication trying to use a parasprite’s movements to interpret his meaning.

Pale determined that Piper was as curious as she was about a new member. He didn’t say no. He didn’t say yes. It was probably a good idea to wait to meet this guy, anyway. The way the parasprite seemed to gesture to her, Pale wondered if Piper wanted her to actually make the decision.

Pale was in Manehattan early the next morning. She took her time scouting the area around the café before approaching. She got a table, a drink, and a newspaper.

The headline today was still about Princess Twilight. Friendship good enough to be an actual magical force, and growing into an alicorn princess? Some ponies had all the luck.

Pale frowned. Meanwhile, all her own associates were assassins. However, technically she had been born a princess, the daughter of a queen.

Pale decided that she didn’t have much use for royalty.

Gilderoy walked up, another griffon trailing him. The newcomer was mostly brown with sparse feathers atop his head and a loose sash around his neck for belongings. It was poor form of Gilderoy to bring him, perhaps trying to get Pale to feel bad about saying “no” to his face.

Pale had already decided to accept the offer - with conditions - but did wonder if Gilderoy thought a guilt trip would actually work on somepony who literally couldn’t count the lives she’d taken.

“I think we can find room,” said Pale. She emphasized, “On a trial basis.”

The new guy licked his beak. It seemed to be a nervous tic akin to licking lips. “Sounds good.”

“I’ll be watching you closely,” said Pale. “I hope you understand the need for secrecy. I can’t exactly trust you on the first day we’ve met.”

The new guy ran his talons through the meager feathers on his crest and looked at Gilderoy.

“I suppose I’ll be going, then,” said Gilderoy. He started to turn.

“A word, first?” said Pale, standing up. She glanced at the other griffon. “Have a seat.”

He did, still throwing random tics. This time, it was swallowing.

Pale and Gilderoy walked a short distance away, behind a planter. Pale said, “Before you go, you need to know that there’s a group intentionally spreading the Blight.”

“The what?” said Gilderoy. “You mean the coughing disease?”

“Right.”

Gilderoy considered it. “What evidence do you have?”

“A confession from one of their members. We also started noticing ponies being infected without ever being exposed to a coughing fit.”

“How do they transmit it?”

“Blood, maybe saliva or other body fluids. Somehow they’re infected, but not dying like the victims.”

Gilderoy wore a deep frown. “Do they have a name? Where do they operate?”

“I don’t know what they call themselves. We’ve seen the most activity from them right here in Manehattan.”

“I suppose that explains your presence here,” Gilderoy noted. He shook his head. “Intentionally spreading the disease? How can they do that? How are they doing it? If they’re behind it, stopping them could end it completely.”

Pale nodded. “Now you know as much as I do.”

“I’ll have to, ah, take some precautions,” said Gilderoy. He nodded to her and started to turn away, but stopped. He gestured back towards the table. “Oh, and I hate to say this, but if you hadn’t agreed to take him on...we probably would have killed him.”

He walked away. Pale frowned and returned to the table. What had that last comment been about? Another attempt at guilt-tripping? A warning?

She sat down. The griffon shifted uncomfortably, glanced at her face, and looked away.

“Do you have a name?” Pale asked.

“Yeah, kind of. I’m not really attached to it, though. A change in perspectives, a change in everything, I guess.”

“I’m sure we’ll think of something,” said Pale. She watched as he fidgeted.

Could he be a twitcher? Was it Gilderoy’s intention to set him on her? If so, would he really be that blatant?

At any rate, she had no intention of letting the new guy anywhere near the cave until he’d proven himself. She’d already decided it would be a few weeks, minimum.

“Let’s go,” said Pale, getting up. She decided she could better judge him if he had more to focus on than her.

They followed the sidewalk. Pale gave him a rundown on the basic requirements of the job. He already knew the part about the Blight and eliminating twitchers. The Weeds seemed to be news to him. His nervous reactions got worse as they discussed the topic.

Other than being, well, twitchy, he didn’t seem to be infected. He wasn’t displaying any overtly destructive tendencies, more of a nervous reaction than anything.

“If they transmit through blood, what am I supposed to do if I can’t touch them?” he asked. “I usually-” he made a slashing motion with his talons.

Pale considered it, and then gave him one of her knives. That carried a risk, though she judged it a small one. With their talons, giving a griffon a blade wouldn’t make them any more dangerous than they already were.

He looked at it briefly before stowing it in his sash. “I don’t know if it’s going to stay put. I sometimes move fast.”

Perhaps in all directions at once, Pale mused. He never seemed to relax, even for a moment.

“So, um, what are you?” he asked.

Pale looked at him. He grimaced and looked away from her face.

“Maybe I’ll tell you someday,” she said.

He came to an abrupt halt and Pale nearly ran into him. “Hey, isn’t that the waiter from the breakfast place?”

Pale looked. Sure enough, it was. He was about half a block behind them and heading in the same direction. “Stop staring.”

He instead looked at her. “What are we going to do?”

“Keep walking, for now. If he follows us, we’ll get him alone and grab him. If he’s a Weed, we’ll ask him a few questions.”

“And then kill him?”

Pale held back a sigh. “Yes.”

“Just wanted to be sure.” He cleared his throat.

The two of them changed direction a few times. It seemed like their pursuit was indeed following.

Pale considered her options. “How well do you know Manehattan?”

“I’ve been here a few times.” It seemed as if he wanted to look at their backtrail but was constantly restraining himself.

“I remember seeing an abandoned building near the river. I don’t know if it’s possible to get inside, but that would be ideal. He’ll probably follow me instead of you, so we’ll split up.”

Pale told him where the place was. She wasn’t sure if he understood.

This guy was starting to get on her nerves. It wasn’t that he was incompetent - he’d even spotted the tail first - he just didn’t seem to have his wits about him. Pale remembered what Gilderoy had said about the wrong griffon. Pale almost wondered if he would function better with some kind of sedative. Perhaps Shard could help.

But that was for later. They had a problem to solve now. The two of them split at the next corner, Pale continuing towards her destination. She made a couple of halfhearted attempts at evasion, just so her pursuer wouldn’t think it was too easy.

She found a padlock on the building when she arrived, but picked it in seconds. The inside contained old machinery and trash.

The new guy was supposed to show up in a few minutes. Pale waited to see if her pursuer would also arrive.

Seconds later, she got her answer as he and the stallion crashed through the door in a grapple. The griffon seemed to have the upper hand, pummeling his opponent’s face with lightning-quick blows.

“The knife!” Pale shouted. They’d already discussed not getting into any closer contact with potential Weeds than could be helped.

He did grab the knife, which allowed the stallion a fraction of a second to get up. The griffon made wide, sweeping slashes, the blade whooshing through the air, which the pony backpedaled from, barely dodging.

Pale caught movement out of the corner of her eye and reacted with an instinctive buck, knocking a mare wearing a utility vest into the air. The target landed several feet away, and Pale whirled, already covering her with a knife.

While she had time, she glanced at the other fight. The griffon was still swinging his weapon like a tornado. Around the room, he’d unintentionally knocked a few things over.

The knife sparked across a piece of equipment in one of the wild swings, breaking the tip off. That didn’t stop the griffon from continuing his attack, which tore the blade’s remaining jagged metal through the stallion’s throat.

Pale had been in a few brawls, but avoided it when she could, especially now that they knew Weed blood might be infectious. The new guy didn’t seem to know how to operate any other way. Fortunately, it seemed that he hadn’t gotten any blood on him.

He hurried back over to Pale, still holding the broken knife. “Did you get one?

He raised the knife as he approached, intent on the prostrate mare. Pale stopped him with a raised hoof. “We haven’t talked to her yet.”

While she was momentarily distracted, the mare plunged a hoof into her vest. Pale saw it coming and was already moving when the mare pulled a knife.

She threw it with a quick flick of her hoof, aiming directly at Pale’s face. It wasn’t a great throw, but the mare could have meant it as a distraction more than anything else.

Even still, Pale barely had time to juke her head to the side. Almost on its own accord, the hoof she’d raised to defend herself snatched the knife out of the air.

“Did you-” the new guy started to say, staring at Pale with wide eyes.

The mare bolted.

He jerked his head and shot after her, slamming his knife down on her shoulderblade in a strike that took her to the ground. He pulled the knife out. She convulsed, trying to pull herself away. He stabbed again, this time not pausing and raining blows like a jackhammer.

He must have stabbed her a dozen times before Pale physically pulled him off. “You could have just stopped her!”

He blinked and looked at the knife. “I just thought...she attacked you…”

“We weren’t able to question her.” Pale shook her head and looked around. “Let’s get this place cleaned up.”

“Cleanup?”

Was that a foreign concept? Concealing one’s evidence? He certainly hadn’t made it easy, leaving so much of it spread all over.

Pale decided that if he ever proved himself worthy of a name, she was going to suggest the Whirling Havoc.

Chapter 14

Pale watched Hammer work. He heated the forge with his breath, warming the metal inside. His fireproof scales let him work the metal with more dexterity than could be achieved with tools.

Pale needed a new set of knives. The Whirling Havoc had demonstrated a tendency to break hers. Even as messy and clumsy as he was, he got the job done. The two of them had found and eliminated a couple other Weeds over the last month.

One had even lived long enough to talk. Unfortunately, he hadn’t revealed much, other than to imply the Weeds were working for something - or someone - bigger than themselves. The guild still didn’t have any information they could use to find and destroy the Weeds.

They’d kept Whirl out of the cave for a month, until it was obvious that if he were a twitcher, he’d have bloomed already. From the saliva and blood Pale had brought back from Canella, Shard had managed to put together a rudimentary test to detect infection. Whirl had tested negative as a final precaution before allowing him into the cave.

It was still precious little to go off of. Shard insisted that he needed more data and samples. That was easier said than done.

At the forge, Hammer held up the glowing knife, inspecting it closely. It met his standards, and he applied the finishing touch by gently placing it in a bucket to quench and harden.

“Thank you,” said Pale. “I’m sure they’ll be better than ever.”

Hammer nodded. “I’ll get started on something for Whirl. Maybe a cleaver. It sounds like he’ll need something sturdy.”

That was the truth. Perhaps the guild could train Whirl to be a little more cautious and careful. Calming him down hadn’t worked. The sedatives provided by Shard didn’t change Whirl’s attitude, it just made him dopey and slow, which could get him killed.

“Did you have time to look at the sabre?” Pale asked, meaning the weapon she’d taken from Halberd, the royal guardspony from Trottingham. Hammer had wanted to inspect it, and Pale was happy to let him. She didn’t typically keep anything from dead twitchers.

“It’s a quality Royal Guard blade, and old,” he said. “I might be able to improve it with time and effort. Might. It would be almost a shame to try, as nice as it is.”

He picked it up from his work bench and gave it back to her. Pale hung the scabbard and belt on her shoulder. It was an odd feeling of unbalance, which is why she rarely wore any weapon so large.

He retrieved the new knives and gave those to her, too. She thanked him again and left, dropping off the sabre at her quarters before going to the front room.

Whirl was off in western Equestria after a twitcher. He was a blunt tool, but better than nothing. It just required Piper to keep a careful control over him, at Pale’s behest.

Shadow and Whisper were in Manehattan, doing the same job Pale had left. The Weeds were proving difficult to pin down and trying a different approach might produce different results. Still, Pale was restless and looking forward to going back.

“I have a task for you,” said Piper, as Pale came into the room. He motioned to the map, pointing out a location “There is a drifting twitcher, who has currently come to rest in the Everfree Forest.”

“Not a wise place to rest,” Pale observed.

“Correct. I believe he’s very close to bloom.”

“Why not let him be, if he’s in the forest?” said Pale. “Perhaps some monster will take care of him.”

“Because he is within stumbling distance of Ponyville, not to mention a rather cagey zebra who lives in the forest. I would not be surprised if she knows he’s there.”

Pale nodded. Keep it quiet, then, even in the dense forest.

She made ready to leave. As she headed for the cave, Shard came running up. “Glad I caught you. Here.” He shoved a small box into her hooves.

“What’s this?”

“It’s been chill-charmed. Get me a sample of twitcher blood, if you can.”

Pale nodded, and stowed the container with her things. It was hardly the strangest ad-hoc request Shard had ever made of her.

She set off from the cave, intending to arrive at the forest just after dusk. Small town that Ponyville was, she didn’t see the lights until she was nearly upon it. Pale turned away, heading towards the smear of dark trees on the horizon.

The Everfree Forest was wild and primal. Pale understood that magic behaved erratically, pegasus weather control not working at all. Stepping into the trees certainly felt different than the clear land. Pale wasn’t sure exactly why.

Her senses sharpened as she focused on her target. She walked at a half-crouch, moving slowly and placing her hooves with care and attention. Passing by some bare ground, she grabbed up some soil and smeared it on her face. The night was dark, but extra precaution wouldn’t hurt.

She navigated by vague sense of direction. The canopy of trees hid the moon and stars. Small sounds around her told of insects and other tiny creatures. Occasionally something larger and farther away would move through the brush. Pale made no such noises.

As attuned as her eyes were to the darkness, she spotted the faintest flicker of light through the trees. It must be the hut where the zebra lived. Pale didn’t know much about her, but if she was as perceptive as Piper believed, it would be best to give her a wide berth.

Pale didn’t know what a zebra was doing here. She’d rarely ventured to their native lands. As with griffons, there seemed to be fewer twitchers there. Pale wondered if perhaps they had a guild of their own.

She made a wide circle around the hut, marking it by the barest glimmers of light. Once clear, she headed deeper into the forest.

The ruins of an ancient castle were in the forest somewhere. It was where the Princesses had lived before one had banished the other to the moon, or so Pale had heard. She didn’t think she was anywhere near there, though.

The light of a fire came into view between the trees ahead. Pale moved even slower, averting her eyes from the light and sinking into a lower crouch.

Minutes passed as she stalked closer. A brief glance through the trees revealed the silhouette of a pony.

A twitcher would not hesitate to act if they heard a noise or suspected something suspicious. Pale circled, looking for an angle to her target.

He sat in front of a fire, tossing small sticks into it. Pale approached from his back, weaving between trees and prowling like a cat. She stayed silent all the way, quieter than a ghost.

The knife punched into the side of his neck, severing blood vessels and windpipe, before he even knew she was there.

That made it much easier for Pale to take a sample of his blood. The tiny box Shard had given her was frosty on the inside and wisps of vapor formed in the air around it as the lid was opened. Careful not to spill, Pale made sure some of the twitcher’s blood made it inside before closing the lid.

Pale let the body down, still careful. In the light of the fire, she went through his rucksack. Nothing of interest besides a few bits.

There was a handkerchief, though. Pale pulled it out and rolled the body over, wrapping the wound. When she was sure it wouldn’t drip blood, she hoisted the body onto her back and kicked dirt over the blood on the ground. Somepony might eventually come to find the fire. There was no point it taking chances when she didn’t have to.

Pale retreated from the fire, back into the darkness, walking heavier on her hooves with her load. Remembering her study of the map at the cave, there was a deep ravine that ran through the forest. She walked in silence for several minutes, seeing a thinning of the trees up ahead. That would be it.

It was too dark to see the bottom of the trench. It was too wide to jump across. Pale heaved the body off her back and it fell into the void. She didn’t hear the sound of it hitting bottom.

That was that. Pale was almost glad to get back to one of the standard tasks that she had gotten used to over the years. It almost felt like pride in a job well done, if the job wasn’t so grim.

But that only served to remind her the new paradigm. With the Weeds in the picture, nothing would be standard again. The guild would have to hunt them down. And after that...well, things would still be different.

Pale turned and walked away, fading into darkness.

Chapter 15

The Manehattan problem continued to taunt Pale. Finding the Weeds was like finding needles in a haystack. Every time the guild found one, it would be ages until they came across another.

Fortunately, it seemed the Weeds were also struggling with finding the guild among Manehattan’s huge population. That was probably why the assassins had been lucky enough to never run into more than one or two Weeds at a time.

Pale had come to the safehouse in Trottingham to relieve Shadow and Whisper. The two of them had done good work, but still hadn’t gotten the Weeds pinned down. It was Pale’s turn to try again.

“During interrogation, we still haven’t been able to get any of them to reveal their headquarters,” Whisper explained.

“He tortured them a lot, too,” added Shadow, looking upwards to where Whisper sat atop her head.

“Do they have a headquarters?” asked Pale.

“I believe they do,” said Whisper. “They’re too well organized not to.”

“A headquarters would imply a leader,” Pale speculated. “But individual Weeds are still dangerous on their own.”

“If we can, we could try drawing them into a decisive battle,” said Whisper. “We’ll bring everyone and destroy them once and for all.”

“Well, I hope they don’t have more than us,” put in Shadow.

“It’s been awhile since we needed Hammer to go into battle.” Whisper grinned.

Pale hoped that wouldn’t be necessary. Hammer was physically incapable of being subtle. Although, any situation serious enough to require his combat ability probably wouldn’t be capable of being hidden anyway.

She relieved Whisper and Shadow from the Manehattan task and the two of them headed back for the cave. Pale studied the paper map of Manehattan they had left her. A few dead twitchers and a few dead Weeds were marked.

It seemed that in about half of cases, the Weeds were still trying to use twitchers as bait. Now that the guild was wise to the tactic, their count of Weeds had gone up. In fact, it was turning into an opportunity to find and attempt to interrogate their adversaries. Pale only hoped they were able to learn something useful before the weeds realized what they were up to.

Pale studied the map. There was not a clear pattern, not yet. She sighed. Barring a stroke of luck, they would just have to keep working.

She folded the map and stowed it. Trottingham wasn’t a crime-ridden city, but leaving the map just lying around was unnecessary risk. The guild, though using the house quite often, still took precautions to keep it safe. They had never dealt with an aware enemy before, and were taking no chances.

She stepped out the door and headed for the Trottingham train station to catch the shuttle to Manehattan. A colt out front of the train station was holding up newspapers and shouting. “Extra! Extra! Lord Tirek attacks Canterlot and steals magic!”

Pale hurriedly paid him for a paper. It was really more of a pamphlet, it had been printed in such a rush. Just hours ago, a monster called Tirek had attacked Canterlot, sucking magic from ponies to get stronger. It had a picture of him, so tall that he even towered over buildings.

She found Whisper and Shadow at the station and corralled them towards the ticket counter. “We’re going to Canterlot.” She held up the paper.

Shadow speedread the warning. “Are you nuts?”

“Coin’s there right now,” said Pale. “She might be in trouble.”

“So? That’s kind of what we do,” Whisper pointed out. “But voluntarily going towards the giant monster is a horrible idea.”

The conversation paused there because they’d made it to the ticket counter. Pale ordered three for Canterlot.

“Are you sure?” said the pony behind the counter. “There’s this Lord Tirek thing going on there right now.”

“Is the train going to Canterlot?” Pale demanded.

“Well yes, the train runs no matter what.”

“Then give us the tickets.”

They boarded the train. It would be a short ride just west to the capital city. The car they sat in was completely empty.

“I still think this is a stupid idea,” said Whisper as the train began to move.

“Can you imagine how many twitchers are going to bloom because of the terror Tirek causes?” Pale countered.

“We have a month to take care of them,” Shadow reminded her.

“Which we can’t do if Tirek gets us,” added Whisper.

“What do we have to lose?” said Pale. “You’re a breezy without wings, she’s a griffon, I don’t have a horn. We don’t have any magic to steal.”

“Are you sure that’s how it works?” Shadow said. “I thought that kid said something about how even earth ponies aren’t safe.”

“If we don’t go and do what we can, nopony might be safe,” said Pale. “The Blight is bad, but slowmoving. If Tirek can attack an entire city in a day, that’s worse. Don’t you want to do something besides murder once in a while?”

“I think you read too many newspapers,” said Whisper. “You’re not Princess Twilight, Pale. You’re not a hero.”

Pale felt her upper lip curl and her cheeks burn, but she clenched her jaw and said nothing. The worst of it was, he was right. This was not what she did. The guild might serve a higher cause, but none of its members could be called noble. They couldn’t save everypony, and Pale was no saint.

The train kept rolling towards Canterlot. The three of them rode in silence for several minutes. An inkling of surprise built in Pale as Whisper and Shadow stayed in their seats. Didn’t they disagree with her?

They were still there when the train pulled into the station at Canterlot. Stepping onto the platform, Pale turned and broke the silence. “Are you coming with me?”

“Well, at least you have a plan,” said Shadow.

“Even if it’s not a very good one,” added Whisper. Shadow nodded in agreement.

Pale knew she was in an awkward position. It surprised her to realize that they were taking cues from her decisions. They were still on her side, and willing to follow, but wanted reassurance that she was acting in the same interests they were.

Was it really so wrong for Pale to want things besides stopping the Blight? To look towards a future where she didn’t have to kill every new pony she met?

But Pale realized she had never considered what the others might want. If they were going to look to her example, even if Pale didn’t ask them to, then Pale had to return the respect.

“We should link up with Coin and then take stock of the situation in the city,” said Pale. “If it looks too dangerous, we’ll come up with another plan.”

Whisper and Shadow didn’t object. Pale jerked her head at the nearby parasprite and it led them into the city.

The streets were practically deserted. Debris was scattered everywhere with nopony to clean it up. On some blocks, a building or two had been damaged by something large. Occasionally, the three of them passed lethargic ponies without cutie marks.

That was enormous, something that could take away a cutie mark. Though it did add a slight credibility to Pale’s earlier assessment that she, Whisper, and Shadow might not be affected. None of them had cutie marks to lose.

Getting a cutie mark was a pony’s coming of age event, when they learned their special talent and place in life. Pale couldn’t imagine what her destiny might have been had she been allowed to grow up like a pony. She couldn’t even think of a talent that she might have as a cutie mark, that is, if she could even get one.

She picked her way through the quiet city, Whisper and Shadow following behind. The parasprite led them faithfully, heading towards a hospital. There was more activity here. Emergency ponies were bringing victims into the building.

The afternoon sky above the city suddenly lit up even brighter than the sun as a rainbow trail streaked across it, flashing every color across the spectrum. Pale stared. She realized it was the first time she’d ever actually seen a rainbow, much less whatever kind of rainbow that was. There was so much she’d missed living underground and working at night.

The parasprite flitted through the hospital doors along with a patient being pushed by paramedics. The pony on the stretcher blinked and sat up, apparently aware enough to swat at the insect. Pale, following through the door, saw their cutie mark reappear with a sparkle.

It seemed like everypony around them was suddenly talking at once. Cutie marks were popping up all over. Apparently, Tirek had been defeated.

Pale snorted. One guess as to who had done it.

The parasprite led them straight to Coin’s hospital room. She’d already recovered in the few minutes since regaining her cutie mark and was sitting up in bed.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, surprised, as the three of them came in.

“Pale thought there would be lots of blooms during the attack,” piped up Whisper. “Speaking of, we should probably get to that.”

“I’ll, uh, be along soon,” said Coin. Whisper and Shadow left the room with the parasprite.

Pale turned back to the bed. Coin still hadn’t moved, and was looking at the sheets in front of her.

A moment passed. “Are you alright?” Pale asked.

Coin took a breath. “I...I don’t know how to describe it.” She paused to consider her words. “It felt like I was losing myself. I don’t know if you can understand.”

Pale shrugged wordlessly. She tried a sympathetic and listening expression, but didn’t think she pulled it off very well.

“I don’t know what I would do without magic,” said Coin. “Well, not even just magic, more than that. It felt like...my life. Everything that was me. The worst part was, it didn’t hurt. I didn’t feel a single thing. Just like I didn’t have any emotion at all.”

Coin shook her head, ridding the bad memory. “I never want to feel like that again, like a hollow shell.”

Pale may not have had a cutie mark to lose, but would she have lost anything if the same had happened to her? Did she have a life to lose?

Coin pushed back the covers and swung her hooves to the floor. “I’m glad you came.”

Pale nodded. She realized she was, too.

The pair of them rejoined the others and left the hospital. Piper was already selecting targets for them.

Pale made a mental note to have Coin take a look at the map of Manehattan that was marked with twitchers and Weeds. She would probably be eager to use her skills now that she had them back. Maybe she could make sense of the data or pick out a pattern nopony else had seen.

It was good that Coin had something to do. Even if the guild was her home and her task, she had a spark inside, something that made her her. Tirek may have taken it temporarily, but at least she had something she valued that much.

Pale decided she needed to find something for herself.

Chapter 16

“Anyway, hopefully this works,” said Shard. He gave Pale a small syringe of green liquid, with a cap over the needle for safety. “I think I did it right.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Pale asked. She held the vicious-looking dose before her eyes, wrinkling her muzzle reflexively.

Shard shrugged. “It’s not as if we’re going to be trying it on anypony we like.”

Pale nodded in agreement.

Seeing a need, Shard had been hard at work developing a truth serum for the guild to use while interrogating Weeds. The substance hadn’t been tested yet, but Pale was sure she could find somepony to help with that. They just might not enjoy it very much.

She headed for the mouth of the cave. Piper said goodbye as she passed him, but didn’t give her any tasks, remaining doubled down over old maps and newspaper clippings. They both already knew where she was going.

Other members of the guild had spent time in Manehattan searching for the Weeds on what was becoming a regular patrol, but Piper seemed to have given the task to Pale to lead. There hadn’t been a spoken acknowledgement, but he’d more often asked her opinion lately and been hooves-off on how she ran the operation.

It was good that control of the Weeds task didn’t involve much actual leadership, or Pale might have been reluctant. Unfortunately, it still left the planning and decisionmaking to her.

There was nothing wrong with that or Piper’s conspicuous absence of management. But in the back of Pale’s mind, a thought kept pricking at her: Piper was getting old. Eventually, somepony would have to replace him. Did he want it to be her?

Pale reached the safehouse in Trottingham. She took a careful look around and unlocked the door. The outside had been maintained only to the extent of keeping it from looking abandoned. Trees were the exception. All of them near the house had been trimmed to deny any hiding places.

Whirl was inside. His time with the guild hadn’t changed him at all. He still idled nervously, seemingly afraid to meet anypony’s eyes, and as Pale entered the room, he barely even acknowledged her.

“I didn’t see anything the last time I was in Manehattan,” he noted, and headed for the door, barely pausing. Pale had nothing to say in reply, but would have at least liked to get the chance.

There was no open hostility to Whirl like Gilderoy had implied his old group had shown him, but Pale could understand why Whirl might not be the most popular. Piper had kept him busy, usually far away from anypony else.

Pale frowned. Was that why she was here, alone? She told herself she would have noticed the others pushing her away. Her frown deepened. Then again, Whirl didn’t seem to notice.

She shook her head. There was no proof of that. At any rate, if she was concerned about being liked, she was in the wrong line of work.

Pale set her things down. She would have made herself at home, but despite being more hospitable than the cave, the house didn’t feel like anything more than a rest area.

The place had changed surprisingly little since the guild purchased it. It was almost as if they were only borrowing it from Cosmograph, the deceased former owner. Most of her possessions were still where she had left them.

Pale walked through, surveying the rooms. Whirl hadn’t made the bed. At any rate, she would like to wash the sheets before reusing them. She went to get detergent, which was in the bathroom, or it would be if the package wasn’t empty. Pale would have to get more.

She turned, catching sight of herself in the mirror on the bathroom wall. The Lying Mirror had one in her study back at the cave, though the only time Pale had ever used it was when Mirror had some piece of clothing for her to evaluate.

Pale pulled her hood back, letting her mane out. It was getting long and she should probably trim it soon. She pulled it back, giving it a twist so it would stay in position. It only served to expose her neck and the blemishes on her skin. Pale was reminded why she kept her mane long.

There were still leftover cosmetics in the cabinet. Pale picked up a tube of lipstick and looked at it. She took the cap off. The product was bright red. She hesitated, but gingerly applied it to her lips before checking the mirror once more.

It was like painting knotty wood: the color might have been there, but the underneath showed through. It probably still wouldn’t have looked attractive even if Pale knew how to apply makeup.

She shook her head and wiped off the lipstick, streaking it all over her foreleg. She didn’t know why she had even bothered trying it on. Pale pulled her hood back up and headed for the door.

Trottingham was a big enough place to have just about anything, but small enough that community markets were still the place to get it. Pale found the detergent and then went to seek out something to eat. There was a fruit vendor she had interacted with before. She didn’t know his name, but knew him on sight.

Pale gave him her order and he bagged it up. He told her the price and she paid him. Functional conversation without social expectations, her favorite kind.

But then, just as she was ready to walk away, the merchant added something that gave her pause. “Oh, somepony was looking for you.”

“For me?”

“Well, he was looking for a tall mare in a hood, anyway. I’ve seen you around, but I don’t know where you live. I told him he’d just have to watch for you.”

Pale’s eyes narrowed. “Who was he?”

The fruit merchant shrugged. “Blue pegasus. He talked like a Manhattanite.”

Pale started to turn away, but stopped, thanked him, and then departed. Securing her shopping bags so that they did not obstruct access to her knives she headed out of town. Noting the sun, she made sure to keep it at her back, taking a looping route back towards the house.

Out of sight of anypony else, her senses sharpened. She paid attention to the wind, which had noticeably dropped among the sparse trees on the way back to the house. And then, she saw the shadow she had been expecting.

He’d been clever and planned his attack carefully, picking the ideal spot. Pale had suspected the pegasus was going to come at her there. It’s where she would have done it.

She timed it well, and spun around when it was too late for him to adjust his speeding trajectory. He had a blade extended from his hoof which she knocked aside as it passed her face. Pale caught his neck with her hooves and bent her knees, translating his momentum into a flip that slammed his back to the ground. The breath whooshed out of his lungs.

Pale used her hold on his neck to roll him over and then pulled his head towards her, leaving his body bent up from the ground and using her hind legs to hold down his back and wings. She glanced at his cutie mark, a loaf of bread.

“I’m getting really tired of you ponies,” she said, taking care not to crush his windpipe. At least not until he’d told her what she wanted to know.

“Same to you,” Loaf managed to grunt through her choke.

Pale adjusted her grip and pulled out the syringe with a spare hoof. She popped the cap off in front of Loaf’s face.

“Do you think you can threaten me with poison?” he grunted through clenched teeth. “I’m not afraid to die!”

Pale debated. Should she tell him what it really was? Would he then fight against the truth serum or would the placebo effect actually help the effectiveness?

But then, another idea came to her.

“No,” she replied calmly. “It’s actually a cure.”

“What-no! That’s impossible!”

“So you say,” she replied, moving the needle closer to his neck. “Want to find out?”

“No! Just kill me!”

Pale knew the Weeds weren’t exactly levelheaded. Were they really crazy enough to prefer death over being cured of the Blight?

“Let’s talk,” she said. “What can you offer me?”

The stallion shook his head furiously, or as best he could while in her headlock. “I’m not saying anything. Just kill me.”

“What if I were to cure you? What then?”

“I’d…” he paused, his mouth opening and shutting lamely a few times.” I’d kill myself.”

“If you were cured and weren’t feeling destructive anymore, would you still want to?”

He hesitated. Pale stabbed him in the neck and pushed down the syringe’s plunger.

Loaf reacted like she’d actually stabbed him with a red-hot poker. He screamed and struggled, thrashing like it wasn’t just his neck, but his whole body on fire. Pale tightened her grip.

Pale figured if the truth serum worked, he would tell her what she wanted to know. If it didn’t, he might still believe himself cured, which would open up different conversation paths.

She felt water dripping on her foreleg and realized he was crying. His entire body was still convulsing, and Pale realized the serum must actually have given him blinding pain through his entire body.

“...kill me…” Loaf pleaded, sobbing hysterically.

“It’s a magic cure,” Pale said, hoping she could ad-lib well enough to fool him. Perhaps, as he was highly distracted. “It comes with truth. Let it all out.”

“I grew up in Manehattan.” He made a wet sputtering noise.

“How about something more recent?”

“The world is going to end. My friends and I are the only ones who see it coming.”

Pale saw blood dripping onto the sleeve of her cloak. Alarmed, she loosened her grip on him. “Where do you meet your friends?”

“Forty-Seventh-” he started, before losing his words to gagging.

Pale turned him around and realized he was bleeding from every orifice on his face. She jumped back, tearing her stained cloak off.

Loaf gurgled and convulsed for only a few seconds more, and then was still.

Pale took a breath and shot a look at the nearby parasprite. “Tell Shard the test results were inconclusive, but there are some definite side effects.”

She headed for the house. After washing off, Pale found a garden shovel and hurried back to bury the biohazardous scene before it was found.

That done, she put the shovel back, donned a new cloak, and headed for Manehattan.

Loaf’s clues were incomplete, but the most logical place to start was Forty-Seventh Street. Fortunately, it was one of the crosstown streets, which narrowed a huge city down to only about fifteen blocks.

That was still a lot of ground to cover without knowing what she was looking for.

Pale sighed. She had better get started.

Chapter 18

Pale didn’t remember being in a good mood that lasted quite so long. The attack on the Weeds had been nearly flawless, and with them out of the picture, the guild had enjoyed a relatively calm few weeks. They were back to dealing with only twitchers.

It would still take awhile to cut them all down, with as much as the Blight had gained while the guild was distracted with the Weeds, but Pale was optimistic that the end was in sight.

If they truly managed to eliminate the last twitcher and end the Blight...then what? Pale rarely thought about what she would be doing if she wasn’t killing. It was hard to admit that she didn’t know how to do anything else.

Still, the prospect that she could get away from death and destruction eventually was a happy thought to look forward to. The guild just had to finish its task.

They hadn’t been able to make much of the material recovered from the Weeds’ headquarters. A few future attacks had certainly been prevented. The Weeds were apparently researching how to make the Blight survive outside a body long enough to be spread through a public water supply. Needless to say, that would have made the guild’s job exponentially more difficult.

The recovered papers had contained a few basic notes on the Blight and references to some substance the Weeds had discovered to keep themselves from blooming. Apparently, they’d gotten a lot of use out of their cover as a pharmaceutical company. Perhaps that was even how they’d discovered the Blight in the first place.

Exactly what they were doing with the Blight was still unclear. Pale couldn’t fathom how they could want to spread it. Could it be that a particularly clever twitcher, because of their destructive nature, had figured out how to live longer in order to go on creating chaos? Was there some other explanation?

Fortunately, if the guild never discovered all of the Weeds’ secrets, it wouldn’t matter very much. Even if a few stragglers had been elsewhere and escaped slaughter that night, the Weeds were as good as finished.

It was just one more thing that contributed to Pale’s overall good mood. The other was cause for celebration. Today was Tietack’s naming.

The group of them had gathered in the main room. Jolly hadn’t held back with the chocolate cake and even decorated the table and walls. It was probably the most colorful that Pale had ever seen anything in the cave.

Tietack was not quite an adult by legal standards, but age had never been a factor to the guild. Pale had earned her name even younger than Tietack, though to be fair, she’d started younger, too.

She hadn’t had a party, either. She’d been busy.

But after the doom and gloom, a celebration was for everypony. Tietack was enjoying being the center of attention, though. For the occasion, he’d sewn himself a custom tuxedo. Almost a month later, his face was healing nicely, though as Shard had predicted, the scar looked permanent. At least it wasn’t quite as big as they’d all initially thought, just enough to put a crook in his smile and make him look rakish.

Piper lifted his glass. “It’s a special occasion today. We have a new member joining us. Mr. Tietack has proven himself.”

He looked at Pale. Caught flatfooted, she quickly improvised. “I think Tietack has been a good influence on us all. It’s good to remember what we’re fighting for - the future.”

“That’s actually what I was going to say,” Jolly broke in.

“Right, Pale, when did you get so sentimental?” laughed Mirror. “Well, I want to point out how brave Tietack was at the Weeds’ hideout. He charged in with no regard to his own face.”

Tietack could at least laugh. Amusing as it was, Mirror raised a good point. Pale added, “Definitely brave beyond his years. He probably saved me from getting blindsided in there.”

“It was a lot of responsibility for one so young,” said Piper. “But with his help, we eliminated a major threat. If we keep up that level of effort and success against the Blight, Tietack might well be the last new member we ever need to induct. With that, it’s time for naming. What shall we call him?”

“Self-sacrifice and an excellent sense of fashion,” said Mirror with a smile. “May I suggest ‘the Handsome Cut.’”

There were no objections, and the guild welcomed its newest, and hopefully its final, member.

Pale applauded with the rest. For her part, she honestly did hope that the guild would never need anypony else. Even though they fought to protect ponies, they shouldn’t need to exist. And once the Blight was finished, so too would be the guild.

Her anxiety from earlier came back. What was she to do then? No résumé, no special talent, half changeling...just who would give her a job? She could be a hermit, like that zebra in the Everfree Forest, but that was just as bad as living in a cave. The worst part about craving something else was not knowing at all what she wanted.

Somepony coughed. Pale’s ear twitched. Her head turned. Whirl had raised his talons to his beak, his eyes wide. He coughed again, and then again.

Piper was closest and reacted faster than a stallion his age had any right. He shoved Whirl back, away from the group, just as he began to cough continuously.

It was almost as if time had slowed down, dragging out the unfolding horror even though the witnesses could do nothing to stop it. Piper kept pushing Whirl, backing him up to the far side of the cavern even as Whirl coughed in his face.

Whirl’s hindquarters bumped into the wall and he started to fall over backwards. He raised his talons, grabbing at Piper. Piper shoved him, Whirl flailed, blood splattered on them both.

Pale had been frozen in place, but jerked her scarf up around her nose and started forward as Piper went to his knees. Whirl let out a final, wheezing cough, and swayed where he stood. He sat down and looked dumbly at the spreading pool of blood around them both.

Piper rolled over, furrows of skin raked off his chest. As he breathed, blood came from his lips and his chest wounds bubbled. He looked at Pale, and then closed his eyes.

Whirl’s hind leg was closest to Pale and she kicked it. He yelped. Pale demanded, “Why didn’t you tell any of us you were infected!?”

“I...I thought maybe…”

She kicked him again, harder. Whirl curled into a ball. “Do you know what you’ve done!?” Pale screamed again.

“The last guild, the one that didn’t want me,” Whirl wheezed. He was fading fast, and had stopped fidgeting entirely. “They’re at a flour mill in Griffonstone. Tell them I’m sorry.”

“You should be sorry for what you did here,” Pale snarled. She grabbed Whirl by the ruff of feathers on his chest and yanked him towards her. He didn’t struggle, not even when her knife sliced open his throat.

She stepped back, her eyes going to Piper. Blood had stopped pumping out of his wounds. He lay still.

Pale could feel any hope she had for the future dying with him. He was the guild’s leader, he was their eyes. He’d taken Pale in when she had nowhere else to go and given her a purpose.

And now he was just as dead as any of the countless others Pale had killed herself.

Chapter 19

The forge room was darkened, lit only by the fire in the furnace. The members of the guild stood before it in a semicircle, the red light flickering over them, their shadows looming larger on the walls.

The fire glinted in Pale’s eyes. She knew staring into the flames wasn’t a good habit, but couldn’t bring herself to look anywhere else.

Three black parasprites hovered over their heads. They seemed unnaturally still and somber. How did they know? Somehow, they did.

Piper was wrapped in a blanket and laid on a flat wooden skid before the furnace. The others kept their distance. It was respect, partly. It was also the feeling that the Blight might still linger, still desecrating its victims after death. Piper would want them to be prudent.

“Does anypony want to say anything?” Mirror asked quietly.

Seconds passed. “I do,” Shard muttered. “But I don’t think it would do any good.”

That might have been the truest thing Pale had ever heard. Not to mention the hardest to hear. Fitting that it was how Piper was sent off.

Hammer stepped forward, and with a gentleness that belied his strength, slid the body forward into the flames. The wood and the fabric began to burn almost immediately.

Pale was the first to turn away. She went directly to her quarters and gathered her things. Coming back into the main room, she encountered Mirror.

“Where are you going?” Mirror asked, her eyes lingering on Pale’s expression.

“Are you in charge now?” Pale challenged.

“Do you want to be?” Mirror shot back.

They locked gazes for a moment. Pale looked away and started walking again, heading for the door. “I’m going to Griffonstone, to search for the other guild.”

“What will you do when you find them?”

Pale hesitated, but didn’t have an answer. She went out the door.

Griffonstone was apparently the home of at least a few scone shops. Pale couldn’t see much else as she arrived in the town, though perhaps it was because of the darkness.

Even after the journey to get there, Pale still didn’t have a clear idea what she would do when she found the other guild. She told herself it wasn’t their fault that the Whirling-

She shook her head. No. She was never going to think of that name again.

If there were scone shops in Griffonstone, then it stood to reason there was probably a flour mill. It took Pale longer than she expected to find it, however. She’d passed the blackened, burned remains of a building several times before realizing it was the one she was looking for.

The grindstones, fallen through the burned wreckage, were the only recognizable things that remained. The rest of the building had been reduced to scorched sticks and ash.

Pale walked into the remains, treading carefully and watching her steps in the soot. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, or whether she should feel disappointed or relieved.

There was a rustle of feathers and a griffon stepped out of the shadows. Pale tensed, but saw it was Gilderoy. He seemed surprised to see her.

“Fancy that,” he murmured. He cocked his head. “I take it you aren’t here by chance.”

“Your-” Pale chose her words carefully “-associate got infected and didn’t tell anypony. He took one of ours with him.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Gilderoy. His words lacked sincerity. Pale wasn’t sure if it was because he wasn’t surprised, or if it had more to do with the ruined building they stood in.

“What happened here?” Pale asked, changing the subject.

“I don’t know, but I’ve managed to put together a few clues.” Gilderoy sat, seemingly unconcerned about getting ash on him. “I came back a few days ago to find the mill like this. Dust explosion, they said. Maybe it even was, but there were a few things out of place.”

He pointed to the door, or to the empty hole where it had been. “Over there, I found a knife buried under the ash. It wasn’t one of ours. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen anything like it.”

He produced the blade to show her. It was certainly an exquisite piece, even being covered in soot from the fire. It had the look of something produced industrially, and even then at high quality.

“It was under one of the bodies,” Gilderoy went on, “the guard at the door. I’m thinking that means he went down fighting, and maybe even killed one of them first.”

“One of who?” Pale asked.

“I don’t have any proof, but I have a suspicion,” said Gilderoy. “It’s the cyclops.”

It was a word Pale had heard before, but she gestured for Gilderoy to explain. He said, “Many years ago, Griffonstone was actually a nice place to live. Now, I wouldn’t know, this happened well before I was born, but there was a golden statue called the Idol of Boreas that was stolen by a monster named Arimaspi. But then he fell into the Abysmal Abyss. From what I’ve heard, Arimaspi was a cyclops.”

“What does this have to do with some statue?” Pale asked.

“Too many coincidences add up. A couple of weeks ago, a couple of those Element of Harmony ponies came here. Down in the Abyss, they actually spotted the Idol of Boreas and Arimaspi’s remains, but the idol fell deeper into the crevasse and they lost it.”

Gilderoy paused and looked at Pale. “It was about then that we started getting reports of strange creatures spotted nearby. Nothing solid, just rumors. Arimaspi was hardly the first or only cyclops, but none have been seen for years. I heard they lived underground, which would explain why Arimaspi was trying to escape to Abysmal Abyss. He apparently fell, though, and didn’t manage to carry the Idol all the way to the bottom. But now it’s there.”

“Did it have powers or something?” Pale asked.

“Not that I know of. But - bear with me here - maybe it falling down was just a reminder to the cyclops that the surface world still exists. If they’ve been living down there for so long, who knows what they could have gotten up to. Maybe they’re coming up here now.”

“Why would they attack your group?”

Gilderoy shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe one of us got careless. Maybe all that time alone gave them an edge, a technology or magic or something we haven’t encountered before. You saw the knife.”

The theory did require some suspension of disbelief, but a sudden thought struck Pale. The mural painted on the wall at the Weeds’ place: a single, staring eye.

Added to that, could the cyclops have developed something never seen before? Perhaps...an engineered disease?

But the Blight had been around for hundreds of years. Could the cyclops have released it before they retreated into solitude? Were they only just now discovering that the surface world still existed, that the Blight hadn’t killed everything?

Gilderoy studied her face. “You look like a couple of things just fell into place.”

“Maybe,” Pale allowed.

Gilderoy nodded and got up, stretching. “When I want to think, I always go for a flight up into the mountains. If it’s a good night, you can see forever. Do you want to go?”

Pale debated, but then nodded.

Gilderoy led her, flying at an easy pace. He kept glancing at her wings, but managed to keep his curiosity to himself.

Pale still didn’t fully trust Gilderoy, but he’d gained quite a bit in that department tonight. She balanced the risks and decided to go with him, as long as he stayed where she could see him.

It really was a nice night. The moon was out and the stars were shining. It was easy to navigate, even among the mountains. Gilderoy pointed one out and spiraled down, aiming for the peak. Pale landed beside him.

“I think this is my favorite spot,” said Gilderoy. “I’ve been coming up here ever since I was old enough to fly.”

The two of them looked out over the landscape. Pale took a moment to admire the view. The town was far down below, its lights barely visible. In daylight, she might have been able to see all the way to the ocean.

Gilderoy raised his talons to his mouth. Pale noticed they weren’t well manicured anymore. He coughed once.

“Well, I don’t want to be that guy,” he said suddenly. “After what happened at the mill, I got careless. I’m pretty sure I’ve got...it.” He stared at the ground. Pale tensed, but didn’t move.

After a moment, Gilderoy looked up. “It feels different to say it out loud. I’m not sure if that’s the same thing as accepting it.”

“I’m sorry.” Pale didn’t know what else to say.

“Thank you. I guess.” Gilderoy took a deep breath and looked skywards. “You know, I was wondering what I was going to do. I have some time left, but I wanted to go out on my terms. I haven’t come up with anything yet.”

He took out the knife he’d showed her, paused, but then shook his head. “No. No way am I going out with this. Not this knife.” He hurled it off the peak of the mountain and it fell into the darkness below.

Gilderoy’s shoulders hunched. Pale watched him carefully.

He swallowed. “C...could you?”

He’d said he wanted it on his terms, but that wasn’t at all what she had expected and Pale was taken aback.

But could she not? She pulled a knife from its sheath.

Gilderoy stared at it, the moonlight glinting off the blade. He looked at her face. “You’re a good friend, Pale.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

Gilderoy closed his eyes.

Chapter 20

Pale came down into Griffonstone that morning as the sun was breaking over the horizon.

Gilderoy had said the top of the mountain was his favorite spot. It seemed only appropriate to leave him there.

Pale was short on rest and food. She could remedy the hunger easily enough. The sleep would have to come later. She couldn’t delay in delivering what she had learned about the cyclops to the guild.

She walked into the nearest scone shop. It wasn’t worth shopping around. The griffon behind the counter seemed in a sour mood, but took Pale’s money without comment.

With a scone, Pale went outside to avoid sharing the shop with the proprietor any more than she had to. She sat down at a table to eat.

A griffon wearing a smirk Pale wouldn’t have thought possible with a beak dropped into the chair across from her. Pale stared at her, but kept chewing.

Several seconds of silence passed. The griffon waited for Pale to finish chewing. “You’re looking well.”

Pale took another bite instead of replying. She had no idea who the griffon was, and hoped her stare was enough to convey that.

“Ooh, I like the ambivalence,” said the griffon. “Most things are so clear - something is either good or bad - but grey area, now that’s interesting. So much unrealized potential.”

Pale finished her scone and got up. “If you have something to say, out with it. Otherwise, leave me alone.”

The griffon got up too. She was still wearing that infuriating smile. “Follow me.”

She turned and disappeared around the corner of the building. Pale stared in the direction she had gone. Her instincts were telling her something was wrong. Aside from the strangeness of the encounter, there was something about the mysterious visitor that set her on edge. She stood and debated, but her curiosity got the better of her and she gave in.

The street behind the building devolved into a scrambled rat nest of alleys and passages. The griffon was hidden in an alcove that Pale almost missed. Her smile grew wider as she saw Pale appear. “I knew you would come. I know you so well.”

“Who are you?” Pale demanded flatly.

She laughed, high and harsh, and then with a flash of green light, she revealed herself.

Pale was instantly in a defensive stance, knife out in front of her. She hadn’t seen her mother since she’d left the hive so many years ago, and if anything, absence had made the heart grow colder. She glared, muscles tense and ready.

Chrysalis’ simpering expression hadn’t changed. She looked at Pale’s knife. “Put that away. We both know it wouldn’t do you any good.”

Pale didn’t. She didn’t trust Chrysalis. Who would? And at any rate, she wasn’t inclined to do what Chrysalis told her, either.

“It’s been so long,” said Chrysalis. It sounded to Pale’s ears that she was faking affection, and not even trying very hard. “I’ve wanted to see you for ages.”

“I haven’t,” said Pale.

“You’ve changed so much, grown up,” said Chrysalis. “But you’re still my little-”

“Don’t call me that,” Pale snapped.

“What’s wrong with the name I gave you?” Chrysalis asked. “And you prefer ‘the Pale Mare’ these days? You know you aren’t a pony.”

“At least I’m not a changeling.”

Chrysalis put a hoof to her chest as if wounded. “You should know that ponies never say anything nice about us. Surely you can’t believe their newspapers.”

“Why are you here?” Pale abruptly changed the subject, trying to regain control of the conversation.

Chrysalis smiled. “You need my help. I’ve been watching you, dear. I know what happened to your beloved leader.”

“What, and you want to adopt the guild since you lost the hive in your attack on Canterlot?”

Chrysalis’s lip twitched, a minute expression that she could have hid if she’d been in disguise. She was going to sneer and say the guild wasn’t worthy.

But she surprised Pale with her restraint. “No, actually. I’m sure you’ve been desperate to stop this infection. I can give you an advantage.”

She let that hang in the air. Pale hesitated, but then firmly shook her head. “No. I want nothing to do with you.”

“What if I told you…” Chrysalis stretched her words out, like savoring a morsel, “...that after all these years, I still kept your horn?”

Pale stared at her. Chrysalis smiled, a confident, assured smirk.

Pale turned and walked away.

Behind her, she could practically feel her mother’s instant rage. But by the time she could put together a response, Pale was already back into the street and heading out of town.

Pale enjoyed the personal victory all the way to the train station. Chrysalis showed up after all these years thinking it would be a happy reunion. She’d even brought bait if it wasn’t, but Pale had surprised her. Hopefully she would stay gone forever this time.

Though, it was true that magic would give Pale a huge advantage. Not that she hadn’t gotten by without, but the temptation was there.

Pale shook her head. Surely Chrysalis wouldn’t have made contact after all these years just to do her a favor. She would want something in return. There would be strings attached.

But she wondered if the pleasure of showing up her mother was worth the missed opportunity. Pale frowned. Could having her magic back help her beat the Blight any faster? How many more lives would be taken before the disease was stopped?

There was no easy answer to that question, but at least Pale couldn’t say for certain that magic would help. She had never been very good with it, so she didn’t feel like she was missing anything. And there was still no telling what Chrysalis would have wanted in return.

Back in the cave, Pale stood at the front of the room. She’d finished explaining what she’d learned from Gilderoy. Coin had been taking furious notes to copy all the information down.

“Do you believe that what he said is true?” Mirror asked. She had assumed an unspoken leadership role. The others were slowly getting on board for lack of another leader, but, well, she wasn’t Piper.

Pale nodded. “He had no reason to lie.”

Coin broke in. “If all of this is correct, I’d say it’s entirely possible that the cyclops may have released the Blight. Perhaps they wanted revenge on surface-dwellers.”

“That was, what did you call it, ‘a long time ago?’” said Jolly. “Why are they only showing themselves now?”

“Maybe they calculated the Blight would wipe out all sapient life and they could then emerge from the Abyss as the dominant species,” suggested Shard.

“Maybe they were down there hibernating or something,” said Hammer. “Er, if the cyclops hibernate. Even if they don’t, it sounds like this Idol of Boreas falling down alerted them that we’re all still here.”

“Either they’re getting impatient or the Blight didn’t work as well as they hoped,” said Handsome.

“The Blight didn’t work thanks to us,” said Shadow, grinning.

“So I suppose we’re back to hunting another aware enemy,” said Pale. She mentally decided that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start wearing her armor every time she went out.

“Did you learn anything else while you were in Griffonstone?” Mirror asked. “Was there anything that happened?”

Piper would have known that Pale had met with Chrysalis. He would have been concerned, maybe even for her personally. But he probably wouldn’t have told the others unless he thought they needed to hear.

“No,” said Pale.

The group of them dispersed, to digest the new information individually. Pale went to her quarters.

She passed Piper’s room on the way. It was empty now. After he was gone, the rest had divided his possessions. They agreed that he would want the guild to have them, though Pale had personal reservations. She didn’t like being reminded of what had been lost.

Piper’s black parasprites were still in the cave. They seemed aimless, but somepony kept feeding them. Pale couldn’t decide if they made good company or if she wanted them gone.

She lay down on her bed, but sleep wouldn’t come. She rolled over. In the darkness, she could faintly make out a small pile of books next to the bed. Piper had not kept any personal texts, as that would have defeated the purpose of a library. He did have several journals and notebooks they’d discovered in his room. Piecing all of it together with what material they already had would essentially require reading the whole library to determine where it all should go.

Ordinarily, academic pursuits were Shard’s or Coin’s cup of tea. Pale’s reading was slower and her comprehension not as good. But she’d volunteered to help, to have something to do if nothing else.

Sleep wasn’t going to come, not tonight. Pale sighed and sat up. Lighting the lamp, she opened the top book in the stack.

Chapter 21

Pale was getting tired of Manehanttan. The Weeds had been one thing, but even now it seemed like she was constantly being drawn back to the city.

She had never liked cities, and experience hadn’t changed that. Not to mention the memories and unpleasantness. More importantly, the longer she hung around the greater the odds of being recognized or somehow connected to something.

Pale did not want to be remembered. She made sure to visit places as few times as possible. She’d even stopped going to the local market in Trottingham.

That made doing research on the cyclops difficult, if she had to keep switching libraries. She’d even considered going to the royal archives in Canterlot or the castle library in Ponyville, but that sounded like even less of a good idea than when she’d first had it.

Manehattan, then, was probably the next best choice. As the largest city in Equestria, it had more resources and more anonymity. Unfortunately, it also came with crowds and disadvantageous landscape.

It would have been better for somepony else to be doing this. Probably anypony. Pale had been pressed into service today as the group researcher because there simply wasn’t anypony else available.

She was currently in one of the Manehattan Public Libraries, sitting at a table with one of the little green-shaded lamps. She’d done her best to get a table in a corner out of the way of the main stacks, but still closely guarded her books whenever another patron walked by.

The books she selected ranged from Griffonstone history to obscure creatures. Pale had managed to find a few things about the cyclops, but it wasn’t enough to put together a comprehensive idea of their capabilities and technology. Other than a vague physical description and regional origins, there was barely more than mentions of them available. It certainly made sense, as Gilderoy had said, if the cyclops hadn’t been seen in centuries.

Or at least, they hadn’t. Pale also reviewed recent newspapers, particularly those from Griffonstone. Sightings and unexplained events had happened around Equestria, but centered near the Abysmal Abyss. It was hard to say for certain, but it certainly appeared that the cyclops were on the move.

Pale sighed and sat back from her research. It seemed like it had taken all the brain cells she could muster to assemble what she’d discovered so far. This wasn’t supposed to be her job. She felt like she wasn’t any good at it. But it had to be done.

Somewhere else, though. This library hadn’t had anything valuable to add. Pale reshelved her books and left.

There had at least been a little more information about the Abysmal Abyss. The winds that roared through it were too strong for any creature to fly in. The best way to descend into it was probably some sort of mountaineering gear. Was that how the cyclops were getting in and out? Pale thought somepony might have noticed. Did that mean they had another method, perhaps a cave passageway? There were no easy answers.

Pale was certain in herself. She was certain in her work. But this new problem was rife with uncertainty. She told herself that the guild had overcome the Weeds, they could overcome the cyclops. But something still wasn’t adding up.

If only Piper were still around. Pale shut her eyes and let out a breath through her teeth. She didn’t like thinking about the past, and that was yet another reason why.

“Watch it!”

Pale ignored the Manehattanite who she’d nearly walked into. A stupid lapse for her, but not as serious as the offended party made it sound. If only they knew what she did for them. If only they knew how many times Pale had killed for them.

And for what? They didn’t know what she did. They couldn’t, and probably never would. Pale didn’t know any of them, only that it was her job to protect them while they remained blissfully unaware. They didn’t understand.

Those were dangerous thoughts, she knew. Pale couldn’t afford to feel things, especially not anger. The margin for error was dramatically smaller now that Piper was gone. The guild had no scouting ability since his death, and now were just barely keeping up with twitchers, much less seeking the cyclops. Piper had also left a hole in leadership. Mirror had stepped in to run the guild, but that wasn’t the same thing as leading it. Pale hadn’t realized there was a difference until it was missing.

Again, Pale coached herself off that train of thought. Fortunately, she’d reached her destination. A sporting goods store presented itself and she went inside. If there was something to this idea of climbing down into Abysmal Abyss, she wanted to investigate.

Once more, somepony else would have been better for the job. Pale, as a flier, had no experience with climbing. But, once more, the guild had nopony else to send. New members could help alleviate the issue, but the memory of what had happened the last time they had opened the cave to a new recruit was still fresh in the mind.

The polo shirt-wearing employees of the sporting goods store mostly seemed to be fit young stallions who were mostly concerned with chatting up customers who were fit young mares. Pale technically fit that description. She was taller than most of the stallions and probably stronger besides. But her cloak wasn’t getting her any second glances.

She knew she was going to have questions about climbing equipment but there was nopony to ask. She had to go find a store employee. The nearest one had cornered a mare near the freeweights and was happily explaining the differences between each brand.

The mare noticed Pale first and subtly tried to draw attention away from herself. It wasn’t until Pale coughed that the salespony finally noticed her.

“Oh, uh, can I help you?”

“I have some questions about mountaineering,” Pale said. “Could you show me the equipment?”

“I’ll be over there in just a minute,” he said, turning back to the other customer. Pale was skeptical of his tone, but well aware that forcing the issue wouldn’t work out well for anypony, particularly her. She walked back to the climbing section of the store.

A filly with braces and a plaid shirt was at a nearby rack looking at camping silverware. She glanced up, watching as Pale approached. She was staring. Pale stared back.

After a moment, the filly asked, “What happened to your face?”

Caught off guard, Pale hesitated and replied, “My mother.”

“Wow, she must be twice as ugly,” the filly said.

“She is.”

The filly shrugged and picked up a spoon off the rack. “Sucks to be you.”

Pale considered that. “It does.”

Chapter 22

Pale sat on her bed, reading through another of the guild’s collected books. In many ways, she’d gotten more of an education in the past few weeks than ever before. Pale knew her job, but academics didn’t come easily. Dense textbooks or journals written in shorthand weren’t doing her any favors.

Neither was her posture. Pale sighed and got up to stretch from where she had been hunched over the book. There was barely room to turn around in her quarters, particularly as it was currently piled with books. At least she hadn’t had very many things already inside. The bed. A spare cloak or two. Pale did not need or want many things.

The antique sabre she’d taken from the guardspony Halberd hung from the same peg as her other cloak, hidden behind the fabric. She’d snatched it from the scene on the spur of the moment to feign a robbery.

The only other thing was a torn scrap of cloth with a brass button sewn to it. Pale kept very few things, and most of them she wore at all times. But she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of the button that had supposedly belonged to her father. It wasn’t anything valuable, perhaps not even sentimentally, but something about it attracted her like a magnet and only seemed to get stronger the longer she’d had it.

Pale looked at the button for a moment before lying back down to return to her reading.

The guild did not have an established history. Nopony had ever decided to write it down. Pale knew Piper had not been the first leader, and most probably not even the second or third. Clues she’d found in the reading indicated a history of at least a few hundred years. With evidence of the cyclops added, that would indicate the guild had grown in parallel with the Blight. Though, Pale supposed, with no recorded history, anything could have been possible.

There was a tap on the door. As heavy as the knock was, it could only be Hammer. Pale got up and opened the door.

“It’s been awhile since your blades have been rehoned,” he said.

Pale nodded. “I’ve been distracted.”

Hammer nodded, but didn’t pursue the subject. Maybe diving deeper into his work was his own way of coping. He tilted his head. “Come down to the forge.”

Pale decided to take a break from the books and followed him. In the furnace room, Hammer stepped up to the forge and blew it hotter with his breath. Pale gave him her blades.

There was a sound of hurried steps out in the corridor. Coin burst into the chamber, carrying a newspaper along with her. “Pale, there you are! I guess you weren’t affected.”

“Affected by what?”

Coin showed her the paper. The front page had a picture of a smiling creature that Pale realized after a moment was some variant of a changeling. Even from the black and white picture, it was easy to tell he wasn’t the standard monotone color of the average changeling.

The caption read: Thorax, new changeling leader, gives exclusive interview. Queen Chrysalis nowhere to be found.

“Apparently the changelings tried to kidnap Princess Twilight and her friends, but some ponies found out and stopped them,” said Coin, reading from the newspaper. “There isn’t a great explanation of the magic involved here, but apparently it turned the changelings bright colors. I just thought...since you…” She gestured.

“I haven’t felt a thing,” said Pale honestly. And good riddance to Chrysalis.

“Well, I suppose that answers my question.” Coin folded the newspaper and tossed it into the furnace. “Are you working on something here?”

“Just a little basic blade care,” Hammer replied, beginning to work on Pale’s knives with his tools.

“It’s been awhile, but I haven’t even used them that much,” said Pale. “It’s been harder to find twitchers.”

Coin nodded seriously. “We have cut into their numbers, but I’m worried that they’re building up again. We can probably keep them in check, but we’ll need some way of locating them to get ahead of the Blight’s infection cycle.”

Pale nodded. Like a parasprite system to see all around Equestria. How did the guild function before Piper? Was parasprite control always part of the guild’s repertoire? It would have been beneficial if there had been instructions in the notes they’d been poring through.

Pale cocked her head. She thought she heard something over the sounds of Hammer’s tools. She nudged him and he looked at her, pausing his work. “What?”

In the silence, the three of them all heard it. There was an echo from down in the cave, the sound of movement, many sounds incoherent from each other, but growing louder.

Pale stepped out into the corridor and stared into the darkness down the tunnel that sloped deeper. The guild didn’t have any inhabited chambers beyond, and the corridor was not lit any further.

Across from Hammer’s forge, Mirror stuck her head out of her room. “What is that?” She joined them, Handsome also coming out of the room.

Hammer leaned around the doorframe and grabbed the lantern from his room. He held it up, throwing light down the tunnel.

It was hard to tell what they were looking at. A dark-colored mass resolved into individual bodies, a line of them marching closer out of the depths of the cave. The creatures had shaggy fur, hindquarters like a goat, and an upper body that resembled a gorilla. The walked on their knuckles, claws curled under. They each had a pair of horns on their head wrapped in gold bands, to match the shine of jewelry woven into their fur. Swords and spears were carried with them, the metal worked expertly into deadly shapes.

The lamplight shone in their eyes. Each of the creatures had only one.

The realization hit all of them at the same time. Hammer reflexively hurled the lantern towards the cyclops. The narrow corridor prevented any maneuvering, so when the glass shattered and the oil caught fire, several of the cyclops caught with it.

But with the scream of dozens of voices, the rest charged forward.

A spear came flying towards the defenders. It was going to miss Pale, but Coin was right next to her. She threw a hoof out, shoving Coin to the side. The spear nicked across Pale’s foreleg.

Coin may have been slow to react, but she caught the spear in her magic and tossed it to Pale, who hurled it back towards its previous owner. It penetrated into the cyclops’ chest and he fell. But he was only one, the rest kept coming.

Pale’s knives were in the forge. She didn’t know if she could grab the blades before the wave of cyclops crashed over the guild. Even if she could, the cyclops were armed and outnumbered them by far.

“Get back!” Pale shouted over her shoulder, taking a stance beside Hammer, who had already batted aside a few spears. He was a large target, but his scales protected him well.

The two of them met the enemies head on.

Blades came at Pale as if she’d disturbed a hornets’ nest. Swords, spears, daggers, and blunt objects besides. She yanked a spear out of a cyclops’ grip and reversed it, running the cyclops through before pivoting to crack another across the eye with the shaft. He went down clutching his face as she switched to the next closest enemy.

Ducking a sword, Pale broke the point of the spear off in his chest. She jumped back to avoid another attack and punched a cyclops in the face. The large eye was a clear vulnerability, but that didn’t make them pushovers. She almost lost her head to another sword swing.

Disarming the owner, she showed him what he should have done instead. Turning, she blocked another enemy headed towards Hammer, who was already bleeding. He was far from out of the fight, but the cyclops steel had found a way through his skin.

Coin was shooting magic, but she was no offensive spellcaster. It helped keep the cyclops back, though, letting Pale take advantage. She crossed swords with a cyclops and then ducked under his blade, gouging his chest. Her speed advantage didn’t give her too much advantage from the straight shortsword she’d purloined, but at least it was light and strong.

That worked against her, though, as it was knocked from her grasp by a crashing cudgel from another cyclops. Pale hit him with her hoof while he was still swinging and pulled the knife from his belt, cutting his throat.

She turned. Coin was backing up, unable to hold position. Hammer was bleeding in several places. Mirror and Handsome were to the side, guarding Coin’s flank but not in a good position.

Despite their dead, the cyclops kept pushing. Pale sustained a shallow cut across her chest in exchange for downing another of their number, but she too was being forced backwards. She tried to consolidate her position with the others, enforcing a line across the corridor.

Hammer was the anchor and hadn’t moved, but even as Pale watched he was stabbed again before dealing with his closest foe. Cyclops surged around him, spilling into battle with Handsome.

He got the first one with his knife, but another came at his side. The unarmed Mirror leaped forward, jumping in front of a sword to protect her protégé. The blade stabbed through her heart, blood spilling as she sagged forward, still shielding Handsome with her body.

The cyclops on the other end of of the sword didn’t even have time to draw back before Handsome jerked forward, slamming his knife into the cyclops’ eye. His momentum carried him along with, landing on top the cyclops and throwing him directly towards another.

The slash of a sword actually lifted Handsome backwards with as much force as it struck him, leaving the side of his head nothing but blood.

Pale jerked him backwards by his collar, practically throwing him at Coin. “Take him!” She leapt forward again.

The cyclops had gotten past the initial line of their own dead and were still pushing forwards. Hammer was surrounded now. Pale tried to fight her way through the crowd of enemies to reach him, but was hit forcefully in the gut and knocked backwards.

She landed on her back and kicked her hind legs at cyclops who attacked. One swung a battle hammer at her head, which Pale jerked to the side to avoid. It instead smashed her ear to the cave floor. The pain was brief - it was only skin. Pale sprang up and buried the knife she still held in the closest cyclops.

She looked to Hammer again, who batted away another cyclops, but met her eyes. There was blood running down his lips now and out of a dozen places on his body.

Pale ducked another cyclops and glanced back. Coin was practically carrying Handsome away. Cyclops were noticing too. Pale engaged another cyclops, pulling the fight back towards her. What else could she do?

She saw Hammer take another wound, a sword that slid under his scales and between his ribs. He jerked, his movements sluggish. His head tipped back.

He stretched, reaching up to the ceiling even as cyclops converged on him. He wrapped his claws around a stalactite and ripped it loose, putting his weight on it.

The falling rock crushed a cyclops under it, but Hammer lifted it again. With the last of his strength, he thrust it upward, back to the roof of the cave. With a thunderous crash, the rocks split and the ceiling came down.

A hoof-sized rock bounced off Pale’s forehead. She twisted away from the fight, but another cyclops stood in her way. There was no time to run.

The rocks plunged down on them all, burying Hammer, the cyclops, and Pale. The roar of tons of stone rained all around, filling the tunnel. As Pale was crushed to the floor, she saw Coin looking back, but willed her to keep going.

Then, everything went dark.

Chapter 24

Pale wasn’t surprised when the door opened before she got there. The guild would be unwise to not have a watch posted, and they must have seen her coming.

What surprised her was how Coin shot out the door and wrapped her forelegs around Pale’s neck. “I thought you were dead! What-” She pulled back, still holding Pale’s shoulders but looking her up and down. “What happened?”

Pale shifted uncomfortably. She hadn’t expected to get a welcome quite like this. “I’ll tell you inside.”

“Of course.” Remembering herself, Coin turned and led Pale into the house.

Trottingham was a far hike from the cave, but Pale hadn’t considered any other places the guild would go after being displaced. It looked like they hadn’t, either. The house was exposed and vulnerable, but if the cave wasn’t secure, was any place?

Pale saw Jolly at the window as she walked into the kitchen. His usual demeanor looked strained, but he gave her a smile. “What a surprise.”

Shadow and Whisper came in to see Pale for themselves. “Oh, you’re not dead,” Whisper observed. “I suppose you can keep your stuff, then.”

From him, that was about as encouraging a comment as could be expected. Pale acknowledged it with a nod.

Handsome appeared. His previously scarred face was now mostly wrapped in bandages from further injury, but he was mobile. The eye Pale could see widened in surprise.

Pale looked around. There were just seven of them. It wasn’t even crowded in the small kitchen. Was this what the guild had been reduced to?

She pulled back her hood. The assembled crowd gasped as her mane fell away from her horn.

“We need to have a talk.”

There were no arguments. Handsome stayed near the window to keep watch, but the rest clustered in front of her at the kitchen table.

There was precious little in the pantry. Jolly made them what was available, which was tea and toast. Pale was completely unused to being the center of attention, but sat at the head of the table and forced herself to talk.

“My mother is Queen Chrysalis.”

Reactions ranged from a head tilt by Whisper to a jaw drop by Shard.

“She approached me weeks ago about joining her. I hadn’t seen her in years and we didn’t part on good terms. I told her no. Then, I heard about her swarm being taken down.”

Pale went on. “I don’t know where Chrysalis is now, but I think she came to the cave. I’d been buried in the rocks…” She looked at Coin questioningly.

“I told them,” said Coin. “We thought you were dead.”

“I thought so, too,” allowed Pale. “I think Chrysalis did this.” She touched her horn. “I didn’t ask her to. I didn’t want to tell you all this, but you all should know, in case she comes for me again. She made it your business.”

“I mean, she saved your life, right?” said Shadow.

Pale shot her a look. “Maybe.”

“Not to give her so much credit,” said Coin, “it doesn’t sound like you’re on good terms, but I saw you go down. It’s been two days since then. She must have done a lot.”

“And knowing her, that makes me suspicious,” said Pale. “So I want all of you to keep on the lookout. I shouldn’t have to tell you she’s a master of disguise and manipulation.”

“How do we know you aren’t her, trying to trick us?” asked Whisper.

Pale gave him a flat glare.

He chuckled. “Yeah, it’s you. Just checking.”

“So what can you do with that brand new horn?” Shard asked.

“I haven’t tried,” said Pale. “I can move small things. That’s about it.”

“There’s no way you have that fancy horn and that changeling blood and you can’t do something cool,” he prodded. “I’ll help you practice.”

Pale nodded and changed the subject. “More important than Chrysalis is getting back to the fight. It’s not going to be easy. After the cyclops, everything has changed. We’re going to have to come up with a new plan for operations. We’ll need a source for weapons. We need to figure out how to defend this place, or find another we can. And, most importantly, we need a way to see beyond our perimeter.”

The others nodded in agreement, but none said a word.

“There wasn’t any time to save things from the cave,” said Pale. “And I think going back there would be a bad idea.” She reached into her cloak and pulled out the one journal she’d taken.

As if called, Piper’s three black parasprites filtered into the room. Surprising herself, Pale was happy to see them. She set the journal gently in the center of the table. “I did manage to get some of Piper’s notes. Everything else, we’re just going to have to reproduce from memory.”

“It’s going to be a long recovery,” she acknowledged. “This isn’t going to be easy. It’s going to be the hardest thing we’ve ever done.”

Pale had never had much say in her own life. Between Chrysalis and falling in with the guild, she had never had any choice in what her future held. The others had been recruited to the guild at various points in their own lives, but now shared her fate, whatever that was.

They had no choice. No matter the effort, they had to rebuild, they had to avenge their fallen fellows, they had to stop the Blight.

Would any of them choose differently if they could?

Pale sat in front of the telescope on the upper floor of the observatory. She was a creature of the night, but had never studied astronomy besides what she needed to know of the stars to navigate.

Mostly, the empty rotunda was a quiet place to think.

Her speech to the others was surprisingly rousing, even to her. But saying was easier than doing. Pale had no idea where the guild would even start with their goals. However, difficulty did not make them unachievable. Pale had seen many things she’d thought were impossible turn out not to be so.

Just like her horn. She still resented Chrysalis, even her own curiosity at the possibilities of magic couldn’t replace that. But now that she had the ability, she might as well practice it.

An old telescope mirror leaned against the wall, its surface dusty and curved, not at all ideal for a looking-glass, but Pale used it anyway. She only now took the time to properly evaluate herself after the battle and subsequent cave-in.

She’d been cut several times, the smallest of which was across the top of her muzzle in front of her eyes. The slash across her chest was long but shallow and had barely bled. In fact, the worst thing might be her ear, smashed in the fight, cartilage crushed flat. The muscles still seemed to work, but the shape was wrong.

Pale tried to fix it with magic. Just folding it back into the correct shape didn’t work. She didn’t know any healing spells. What did she know?

She hesitated, but then concentrated hard, trying to draw on her changeling magic lessons from years before. Could she not simply morph her ear back to the correct shape?

It didn’t work, not even a little. Well, with as many things had changed since she’d gotten her horn back, at least one thing was still the same. Pale relaxed her magic. At least she still wasn’t a changeling, if that was what Chrysalis had been trying to achieve by reaffixing her horn.

Even though she was just experimenting with moving small things, Pale could tell her magic was stronger than it had been when she was a foal, and in fact seemed to be growing stronger. With practice, she was now able to lift knives, though she was still clumsy with them.

What had changed? Surely she wasn’t any more experienced now than when she’d had childhood magic lessons. Pale frowned in memory. Granted, her childhood had been spent in a much different setting.

A thought occurred to her. Chrysalis’ throne in the hive had been carved out of an ancient dark stone that absorbed outside magic, leaving a barren wasteland around the hive and weakening anypony foolish enough to approach. Was that why the half-pony Pale had never managed to properly use her magic?

That actually cheered her up. She wasn’t a changeling.

There was the sound of hooves on the spiral staircase and Coin appeared. “There you are. We’re going to have dinner soon.”

“Thanks for telling me,” said Pale. She didn’t really want to go, but it was only after food was mentioned that she realized how hungry she was. She’d been more focused on other things.

“Oh,” said Pale. “I found this.” She used her magic to take out the golden bit she’d recovered from Coin’s room in the cave.

It was the very same spinning coin that had been her namesake. Eyes wide with surprise, Coin reached out to take it, her own magic meeting Pale’s.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “I thought it was gone.” Coin hesitated, dropping her head, and added in a different tone of voice, “I thought you were gone.”

Coin shook her head and stepped closer. “I’m really glad you’re back. I know I said it before, but I’m finding it really hard to express how emotional I am about that with just words.”

“Well, you know I’m not a hugger,” said Pale.

“It’s not about you,” said Coin quietly.

It wasn’t, was it? Pale sighed and gestured her forward.

Coin was quick to capitalize. She tucked her head onto Pale’s shoulder, eyes closed and hanging on like a foal to a teddy bear while Pale stood still.

After a moment, she said, “You’re like hugging a statue, Pale.”

“That must be hard.”

Coin looked up at her. “I can’t decide if that was an intentional pun.”

“Maybe,” Pale admitted.

Coin gave her a sympathetic smile. “I appreciate you trying.”

She disengaged and headed for the stairs. “Just like taking charge. Somepony needs to.”

Chapter 25

The house simply wasn’t big enough for the whole guild. Pale woke up on the floor swaddled in her cloak. Considering the circumstances, she supposed, it was good to be waking up at all.

She got up and went into the kitchen. Her sleep cycle still had her waking up at night. Jolly was there, yawning but vigilant in his watch at the window. Pale nodded to him and they traded places.

“Good evening,” he said. “Well, an evening, anyway.”

That summed it up. The attack at the cave was still hanging over them all. Pale had never known nor heard of such a loss to the guild before, not to mention in their own headquarters. The Weeds were nothing compared to the threat posed by the cyclops.

Facing their greatest enemy while at their weakest… Pale didn’t know how things could be worse, and did not wish to find out.

Jolly was working on something at the stove while Pale stared out the window. He came over with a plate. “Toast?”

“Thanks.”

Pale leaned down to take it, but Jolly pulled back. “I thought you wanted to practice your magic.”

Pale had forgotten completely. “Habit,” she muttered. After a moment, she managed to pick up the toast with magic and put it in her mouth.

She returned to staring out the window while chewing, her mind turning back to the problem. If the guild was to overcome this, to have a chance of surviving it, they would need every advantage they could get. They would need to develop new tactics. Anything that could be done to provide even the slightest advantage had to be put into place.

That meant Pale had to learn how to use her magic. Really use it, not just lifting small objects. As much as it pained her to admit, doing so might require Chrysalis’ help.

That, of course, carried far more risk than even dangerous experiments with magic. Pale hated that she was even thinking about it, but resolved to reserve groveling in front of her mother as a last resort, after all available methods of self-help had been explored and abandoned. There was no telling what Chrysalis wanted with the guild and caution was warranted.

When somepony replaced her on watch, Pale went back up to the open area under the observatory dome. Alone, she took out the brass button and examined it. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that it felt somehow unusual under magic.

Pale tried picking up various other things around the room, books, pieces of small telescopes, paper. For practice, she tried several objects at once.

She twiddled a few knobs on the main telescope in the center of the room. Something felt right about that, a strange sense of understanding. Pale stepped forward and looked into the telescope. It was centered and focused perfectly on the moon, the craters easy to distinguish and more detailed than Pale had ever seen them.

She didn’t know what she was doing, but had somehow intuitively known how the complicated telescope worked. Was her special talent astronomy? That was...Pale wasn’t sure how to feel about that. But surely that couldn't be it, could it? She checked. No cutie mark.

No other object Pale had touched with magic, save for the button, had even registered as special. What was different about the telescope and the button?

Pale started touching everything.

She moved downstairs, working her way through the house room by room. She tried complicated things like the telescope, she tried simple things like the button. She tried brass things, machines, cloth, everything.

She didn’t get a reaction from anything until she picked up the sabre she had brought from the cave. As she examined it, she realized she could feel what must be the metallurgy and stress points of the blade, though she wasn’t really sure how she knew that or why. Understanding that, though, could help her wield and take care of the weapon better. Pale swung the sabre experimentally, and it moved easily, despite being one the heavier things she had ever lifted with magic.

But why did it feel this way? What did the sabre have in common with the telescope or the button? Pale considered it. She knew she’d killed the previous owners of both the sabre and telescope.

She shook her head. Coin would say two out of three implied nothing. She needed more evidence.

Pale started going through everything in the house again. She was still at it in the morning when Coin found her. At the time, Pale was closely examining the spoon drawer.

“Can I...help you?” Coin asked.

“I’ll let you know,” Pale assured her.

“It’s time to feed the parasprites,” Coin said, turning away. “We don’t have much left. Somepony will have to go get food.”

“I can do it,” offered Pale. She needed a break from fruitless searching.

She found Piper’s three black parasprites resting in the living room. They perked up immediately upon seeing that she had food, though ravenous as parasprites were, one slice of bread was hardly a meal for the three of them.

As they ate it out of Pale’s grip, she felt the same connection she’d been searching for. Her heart leapt up. Piper’s signature parasprite spell?

Tentatively, she reached out, trying to feel the magic. The parasprites came to a halt and obediently turned to face her. Pale closed her eyes, and found herself looking at...herself. The view was narrower than her usual field of view, and dim, as if remembering a picture in her mind’s eye. It was somewhat fuzzy and distorted, but undeniably through the eyes of a parasprite. With a little will, Pale found she could swap between the three of them.

Elated, she tried moving them around the room. It wasn’t as if she controlled them directly, like playing an arcade claw game, more along the lines of she expressed her will and they followed along. With a little effort, Pale managed to see the view from more than one of them at once, though dividing her attention between two viewpoints strained her concentration.

It was still an amazing discovery. The opportunity to see the back of her own head was novel, but that was hardly the most useful thing about the spell. The guild had its eyes back!

Though, it didn’t answer Pale’s questions about how her magic worked. She tried to somehow connect the button, the telescope, the sabre, and the parasprites. She knew that at least three of the four previous owners were dead. They were also unicorns. Pale didn’t know her father, but from what little Chrysalis had ever said, he could have been a unicorn.

Pale still couldn’t figure out why she had a connection to any of the things. She hadn’t felt it on Piper’s journal or anything else in Cosmograph’s house. Was it only tied to one object per pony? Did they have to be dead? Did it have to have a special spell? If so, she’d figured out the others, but what secret did the button hold?

Pale shook her head. It would be good to know, of course, but she’d just discovered something more important.

The sun was just barely up, and Pale had been awake all night, but she strode into the kitchen and upturned a cooking pot, banging it a couple of times with her hoof. “I need everyone in the kitchen now!”

“What’s going on?” asked Shadow, who was already there with Whisper, standing near the window on guard duty.

Pale smiled, which probably surprised the two of them more than her answer. “We’re back in business.”

Chapter 26

Staying busy had its perks. Not that Pale didn’t want to think about her newfound abilities, but with all the opportunities they afforded her, she didn’t have time to consider questions to which she might not want answers.

For example, if it turned out that she could only take on the lost spells of departed ponies, then that meant her father was as dead as any of the rest. It also implied that her special talent involved just as much death as anything else she did.

Pale did what she did, killing twitchers, because it needed to be done to stop the Blight. The idea that killing was her purpose in life, what she had been born to do, didn’t sit right. She was effective at it, but she’d begun to realize that she didn’t like it. And what would she do when the Blight was gone?

So, instead Pale focused on the now instead of the later.

She kept herself busy, learning how to use parasprites. She managed to reverse-engineer how Piper marked them to add to her menagerie. It would take a while, but Pale was confident that she could rebuild a surveillance network all around Equestria. The guild could go back to tracking down twitchers.

But first, they had to eliminate the cyclops. Pale’s first priority was getting sight of the Abysmal Abyss. Her second priority was organizing a plan of attack.

However, the seven members of the guild would not be enough. It would take time to find, recruit, and come to trust new members, time they might not have.

But even from beyond the grave, Piper came through for them once more. Pale had been obsessively consulting his notes, the only documents she’d managed to preserve from the cave. Near the back, she found Gilderoy’s name.

It was at the bottom of a list of other names, twelve of them in all. With no context, it was hard to say what they could mean.

But if they were what Pale hoped, it could be the answer she was looking for.

Pale called another meeting. When they were all there, she held up the list. “We need to find these ponies.”

“It won’t be easy tracking down just a name,” Jolly observed. His tone of voice suggested that it should have been obvious.

“You’re right,” said Pale. “Some of them are probably dead, if they could even be found. But what if there are other guilds still out there?”

They all thought about it. Not facing the cyclops alone was an attractive option.

“We could each take a copy of the list, and divide up Equestria to comb for them,” said Coin. “It won’t be easy, but I think it can be done.”

“I’ll send a parasprite with each of you,” said Pale. “But I need each of you to be at your sharpest. The guild is stronger together, but every one of you can improve and innovate even more.”

Pale looked around the room, seeing the determination in all of their faces. Nopony else in Equestria knew who they were, or what they did, but the seven of them were devoted beyond a shadow of a doubt to their cause.

Failure was unthinkable, but if required, all of them would go to their deaths fighting for this.

They divided up Equestria into segments for each of them to cover. The paper map of Equestria they used was inferior to the one back at the cave, but they used what they had. At any rate, they all remembered the notes scratched into the stone well enough. Pale assigned herself the northwest portion of Equestria.

“You’re going, too?” said Handsome.

“I can’t stay here,” said Pale. “I can’t only be the parasprite babysitter.” She turned it back on him. “Are you okay to travel?”

Handsome nodded. “I’ve been working on a half mask. Ponies will think I’m in the opera or something, but like you said, I can’t just sit here.”

Pale nodded. The guild’s survival might depend on this, but more importantly, so did all of Equestria’s. Even their youngest member understood exactly what they were fighting for.

With copies of the list of names, the group of them split up. They left the house together and Pale locked the door.

After trading hoofshakes and wishing each other luck, they got to work.

Pale sat on the train, delicately using her magic to thread a needle and support a small mirror. She’d been getting better with her abilities, but with every challenge met she found another. At least she’d reached the point where her magical control was such that not knowing how to sew was the bigger obstacle.

Handsome had taught her a few basics, and Pale was trying to apply them to her work. Using the mirror to sew in reverse on a garment she was already wearing was not easy, even if she had been well practiced. But in public, she wasn’t about to take her cloak off, and she had time while the train sped to Vanhoover.

She’d carefully slit the thread holding her father’s button to its scrap of cloth. With new thread, she affixed it to the throat of her cloak, replacing the plain button that had been there.

The brass glinted as she held it in place, slowly working the needle in and out. Juggling the button, the needle, and the mirror all at once while resisting the urge to use her hooves kept Pale’s mind occupied.

She centered the button and adjusted it so the design on the face was straight. She still had no idea what it might represent. Her best guess was perhaps some kind of family crest. Maybe when the cyclops were defeated and Pale could find some free time she would look into it.

Though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. There was no way her father could be worse than her mother, but would she enjoy meeting him? Could she respect him? Would he want to see her? That is, if he was even alive.

Pale decided to put the decision off. She could think about whether she really wanted to know when she could spare the thoughts to do it properly.

Finished with the sewing, Pale tied the knot and cut the thread. She’d discovered a minor ability to cut fragile things with just a thought.

She consciously avoided the thought that once again it seemed she had a natural ability that could be used to hurt or kill others. Did unicorns like Coin have thoughts like that? Naturally seeing herself as a weapon?

Pale put it out of her mind and sat back in her seat, closing her eyes. She’d spread the three black parasprites out over the length of the train, surveilling out of habit. There was nothing to lose by being careful.

She could monitor them in a passive way, even when concentrating on something else. However, it was only now that she’d assumed more direct involvement that she began to pick out details of what they saw.

She scrutinized each car. Again, it cost nothing to be careful. However, one stallion made her go back for a second look.

A newspaper lay in his lap and he was slowly tearing small rips down the edge of the paper. Every once in awhile, he would look around, side to side, up and down. Then, he coughed, just a short one that didn’t even require him to open his mouth.

It could have all been coincidence. But now, Pale was the one to decide that.

A pony moved in the aisle. The stallion Pale watched shifted a hind leg, but drew it back. A bemused look flashed across his face as if he was unsure why he had done it.

Pale made her decision and settled in to wait for an opportunity.

The train continued to chug forward. Pale kept alert. And then, fifteen minutes before arriving in Vanhoover, her chance came.

The twitcher got up and walked towards the restroom at the end of the car. Pale got up and headed in that direction. The restroom was located at a jog in the aisle, and out of sight of most passengers. Pale checked both ways, raised her scarf over her nose, and pushed into the restroom.

The stallion was more than a little surprised to have company, though he hadn’t started his business yet. Pale grabbed him by the neck, twisting him so he faced away. His chest heaved as he drew an involuntary breath. Quick as her reflexes, Pale shoved him forward and down, forcing his head into the toilet bowl just as he began to cough. His breath only expelled under water, and he only got a lungful of it when his body tried to inhale again for another cough.

She held him there until he went limp, propping his body on the floor to keep his nose underwater. It would be hard to call the scene an obvious accident, but there was little evidence to indicate anything else.

The parasprites covered the outside of the restroom and Pale exited, confident that she hadn’t been seen. She made sure the door was locked before closing it.

Returning to her seat and calming herself, Pale mentally reviewed the list of names from Piper’s journal again. It was so little to go on, but the guild had triumphed before with less. It might take awhile. It might require long hours and tireless effort. But if there were other guilds out there, she was confident that they would be found.

A few minutes later, the train stopped in Vanhoover. Pale walked to the door. The conductor said, “Have a good day.”

“I will,” Pale replied.

She scouted Vanhoover on hoof and via parasprite. By the next morning, she’d located a twitcher.

Pale followed them for a patient week. She was poised to eliminate them when they got close, but for now she simply watched. It was not lost on her the irony in copying the Weeds’ method.

One evening, she was perched on a rooftop across from the twitcher’s lighted apartment window. She lay prone on the flat roof under her. The sun had set hours ago, and Pale knew from watching over the previous days that the twitcher would likely go to sleep soon.

With parasprites, Pale checked in with the others, going about their missions in other parts of Equestria. Not surprisingly, Coin had been the first to see success. She hadn’t actually met up with another guild yet, but had found encouraging signs that one existed. She gave the parasprite with her a smile.

Pale was no micromanager, and neither had Piper been. Checking in once a day seemed sufficient. If any of them wanted to get her attention, the parasprites were there.

Speaking of parasprites, the ones patrolling the area around Pale picked up movement. She focused, getting a sense of direction and distance relative to herself.

A pony appeared on the roof across from her, right above the twitcher’s window. They peeped over the edge to check if the light was still on. Seeing that it was, they sat down to wait, appearing tense and poised.

Pale got up. Her movement immediately drew the attention of the new arrival. They stared at each other across the gap between buildings. Then, Pale lifted a hoof in greeting.

Chapter 27

Pale liked the night. She was comfortable in the dark, when she didn’t have to show her face. It was concealment. It was an advantage. It was a time to strike.

She stood at the top of Abysmal Abyss, her back to the crevasse. The wind whistling out of it ruffled her cloak. A light rain was falling from the dark sky, shrouding her and the others standing nearby.

In front of her, in groups ranging from five to a dozen, were other guilds.

It hadn’t been easy to find them. Pale and her fellows had spent weeks looking, and probably hadn’t even found them all. It hadn’t been easy to convince them to join, either. What lay ahead was going to be even more difficult. But all of them had eventually been persuaded by the same goal. They’d all collected here tonight to wipe out the cyclops.

Pale took a step forward, pulling back her hood. She was already wet, but she did it to show her face. It was something she’d never done before. But a leader could not hide who they were.

“I want to thank you all for coming,” she began, speaking above the rain, but no louder. Every one of the assembled assassins had their eyes on her. Mostly ponies, of course, but here and there a donkey, mule, or griffon, and even one minotaur. Pale wasn’t sure if her face and horn helped keep their attention, but hoped they were actually hanging on her words.

She went on. “We’ve all been studying this stronghold.” It had been impossible for the many guilds from across Equestria to all meet in one place before now, but they’d collaborated on information and planned for this night. It had been exhausting to coordinate everything across so many different groups.

Not to mention trying to find a way to get parasprites down to the bottom of the Abyss through the strong winds. In the end, Shard had hollowed out a pineapple and tossed it in. The parasprite rode down to a relatively soft landing and then ate its way out.

“You’ve got the layout of the caves,” said Pale. She’d drawn sketches based on what she’d seen via parasprite. “Priority one is sealing the deeper tunnels to prevent any cyclops from escaping.

“Next, we kill them all.”

Pale looked at every face in front of her. She saw no reservations.

There was no time to consider how unnatural it was that so many could be committed to extermination. She didn’t stop to doubt her plan or question her own part of this. It was time.

They’d set up five long ropes. Each was anchored securely at the top of the Abyss. Pale already wore a climbing harness and walked over to the edge. After clipping to the rope, she took a last look at them all, and slid down.

Pale braked with her hooves on the way down. Long seconds passed in near-freefall. The wind roared around her, trying to pull her off the rope.

Two ponies from other guilds, expert shots, had come down with her. Each carried heavy crossbows.

Glancing downwards, Pale saw the bottom of the Abyss coming up. The others swung around on their ropes, aiming down at the cyclops guards below.

The howl of the wind muffled the noise of the armored cyclops hitting the ground, crossbow bolts buried in their necks.

Pale stepped down off the rope and faced the entrance of the caverns, seeing it with her own eyes for the first time but knowing it well. It had been her mastery over parasprites that allowed her to build detailed plans that had helped convince the others to join.

She could hear them arriving from down the ropes, building up into a proper fighting unit behind her. The rattle of equipment and low voices reached her ears, but she ignored it, focusing on what was to come.

From inside her cloak, Pale let out the three black parasprites. They circled around her, already reaching out her vision to parts unseen. Behind her, she saw the last of the assassins arrive from down the ropes.

She knew the capabilities of her own guild members, and had fought alongside them. The others were a partial unknown. They’d brought a broad collection of weapons: spears, swords, crossbows, magic, potions, and - being assassins - an assortment of knives. Unknown they might be, but they would do. They would have to. This, the eclectic collection of ponies and others backing her, was Equestria’s only hope and chance against the Blight.

Pale could see them behind her via parasprite, but pointedly turned to face the group. They gave her their attention. She nodded. Nothing needed to be said.

She turned, and walked forward into the caverns.

The parasprites, and Pale herself, scouted out ahead. There was a curved tunnel that led away from the bottom of the Abyss and its wind and rain. It opened into a high chamber that appeared to function as a kind of community square, if this had been a conventional settlement. The dwellings and buildings were made of a combination of the natural rock and stones hauled from elsewhere, plus minerals and metals mined from deep within the earth.

She stopped and pointed to a couple of ponies, the two with crossbows and another with a bandoleer of cartoonish-looking bombs wrapped around his middle. This had been preplanned, from another guild offering up an infiltration force. The three of them joined her quietly and together they went deeper into the cave.

There were few cyclops out this late, and fewer ready guards. Pale had made sure to keep herself and the others on as low a profile as possible in the weeks leading up to this attack.

She and the other two skulked by unseen. They knew where they were going, to the tunnels that led deeper underground and connected the cyclops’ caverns to other thoroughfares.

Upon reaching the passage, Pale drew up short. Four guards stood here. Apparently the cyclops had learned from the guild’s misfortune, reinforcing their back door.

Pale gestured the crossbows to take aim and then crept forward on silent hooves. The years of practice in stealth all added up to this. With any luck, this would be the last time Pale would ever have to sneak in the shadows. She made it one to remember.

Her knives took the middle two guards. Simultaneously, the crossbows took the others. Pale darted side to side, grabbing each steel-clad body before it could clatter to the ground. All the infiltrators let out a breath. That was one hurdle down, and an unknown number remaining.

The bombardier immediately began rigging the tunnel for destruction. Pale whispered to the others, “If I’m not back in five minutes, blow it.”

She disappeared back into the cavern, leaving one parasprite behind for overwatch. Using the other two to aid her, she slipped into another tunnel.

This was where the families lived. Young cyclops had to come from somewhere. Pale had neglected to mention it to any of the others.

Cyclops kept their young ones together, in some sort of brood-like organization. Maybe it was something like a boarding school. Pale didn’t know about that, but she knew what she had to do. She slipped inside, to the room where all of them slept.

Appearances could be deceiving and no individual was guaranteed to represent the whole. Pale herself was living proof of that. She looked at the young cyclops sleeping in front of her. Children hadn’t started the Blight. But every cyclops had to die. It was the only way to ensure, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the Blight ended here, tonight. The cyclops had wanted the same wholesale death of others.

That didn’t make the task any easier for Pale to do it. The rest of Equestria didn’t know what the guild did, how many they had killed to protect the innocent. And, Pale decided then, that was best. They shouldn’t know.

She kept quiet, moved efficiently, and did the job. But she hated every moment, every throat slit in the darkness. It felt wrong, savage, all the way to her core. But what was the alternative, the guilds of assassins raising the young cyclops whose parents they had killed? Letting them go? There were no other options.

Pale realized she hated death. It was a part of her existence, all around her, created by her own hooves. She had no cutie mark, or formal education, or real life. She was nothing but a tool of destruction. What point was there in having a soul if she was only going to stain it with this?

She stopped at the end of the room and forced herself to look back and count, though she knew she hadn’t missed any. Then, she took a breath and went to rejoin the others.

They made ready to move when Pale appeared. The explosives expert lit the long fuse. The three of them swept down the tunnel, checking every crevice along the way. Wherever they found a cyclops, they killed.

When the bombs went off, the escape tunnel came crashing down with an unmistakable thunderclap. From far away at the entrance, voices rose up as the ranks of guilds and assassins charged into battle, magical flares soaring into the air to light the whole cavern and ensure there were no dark corners in which their foes could hide.

The attack was planned ahead of time. The main force would push into the cyclops’ space, sweeping to ensure there were none missed. A fast element would break away to join Pale and her escorts, opening a second front near the closed escape tunnel. They would use the choke point to catch any cyclops attempting to flee.

The support arrived as expected. Shard and a dozen pegasi flew across the high cavern, bypassing the cyclops ground forces that were still in disarray. Some carried spears to get past the cyclops’ swords. Some carried explosives or lethal potions.

And then, the first opponents began to arrive. Most were not armed or only barely so, having gotten straight up from bed to run.

Pale stepped forward. The sabre felt good in her magical grip. She knew exactly what she needed to do. It was a slicing weapon, taking advantage of speed and reach. Pale had plenty of both. She drew first blood, but hardly the last of the fight.

Every time the group of assassins cut down an opponent, they moved forward, expanding their line. Over at the entrance, Pale could hear the sounds of battle, shouts, weapons clashing, and explosions. It was coming closer, and the goal was to clear enough of the cavern for the two groups to link up, closing like a trap around the remaining cyclops.

The ceiling of the cavern wasn’t very high, but it gave pegasi enough room to maneuver for slight advantage. Pale herself was using every tactic she had, every trick she’d ever learned. The parasprites around her provided unprecedented awareness, almost like being able to see in all directions at once, and she made full use.

Fighting through another wave of cyclops, Pale saw a pegasus go down. He managed to stand up, but seemed to be dragging a broken wing. Pale turned and cut down the offending cyclops.

As the group pushed forward, Shadow and Whisper appeared, signaling the assassins from the entrance were near.

Shadow had time to quip, “Lovely evening, isn’t it?” as they went by Pale, each striking at different targets.

Now that the two groups were linked back into a single cohesive unit, Pale advanced again, spotting oncoming cyclops for the whole group and calling them out. She handled the ones in front of her.

Her sabre went all the way through the neck of a cyclops who had come at her with a sword. Without looking, she pointed a hoof. “Two more, that way! Another just around the corner!”

She heard the others behind her quickly move to follow her orders. One mare was stabbed straight through as she rounded the corner, but her companions quickly overpowered the cyclops on the other end of the weapon.

She spared a glance across the battle line. Blood was all over the floor of the cavern, spilled from both sides. Pale knew it was impossible that they would get out unscathed, the cyclops were simply too powerful. But as long as they held together and kept the initiative, their chances of success were optimistic.

Even still, Pale knew they were outnumbered. There simply weren’t enough guilds to be found. The cyclops settlement was too large. There was a very real possibility that they all could die down here, every one of them. But it would be worth it to eliminate the cyclops.

The revelation nearly stunned Pale and she almost lost her head to an opponent before counterattacking. She was no hero. She had killed children and would do it again if she had to. She loved nothing and no one. But Pale realized she was willing to die for this.

She could have picked any cause. Had she been a normal pony, she could have joined the Royal Guard. She could have been a doctor. But Pale’s cause was stopping the Blight, for those who would never know her name. If not her, then who?

Pale kept going forward, but had to keep reminding herself to hold back. It wouldn’t do to get separated from the others. She depended on them to watch her back. They depended on her for direction.

She fought her way closer to the center of the cavern. A unit of cyclops had managed to kit up with armor, shields, and weapons. They advanced as a unit, heavily protected. The obvious threat they posed immediately became the focus of everypony, but the cohesive armor deflected crossbow bolts, spears, and even the exploding potions hurled at them.

Pale leapt forward, swinging her sabre. The six cyclops leaned into their shields and thrust out their spears. Pale hacked the pointed tip off one and then swung her sabre horizontally, slicing down the length of the wood and into the cyclops’ limb that held it. She planted a kick in the center of the shield, denting the metal and driving its disarmed owner backwards.

That was the opening she needed, the crack in the armor that let her in. She slashed out with her wing razors and forward with her sabre, ducking attacks and blocking blows. Not for the first time that night, blood gushed over her, staining her coat, splashing her lips.

The armored unit broken, she charged ahead, flanked by the others. They were gaining ground, even as Pale heard cries of pain behind her.

Resistance was still heavy. Pale kept calling for attacks to her sides and fighting personally to her front. She parried spears and dodged crossbow bolts fired at her from afar. She locked blades with desperate cyclops. Some of them challenged her, lasting more than one exchange of strikes. None of them succeeded in besting her.

A larger dwelling, decorated with more gold than the others, lay directly ahead. Half a dozen cyclops, larger than she’d seen so far, barred the way. Each wore heavy, lapped armor and carried two swords.

This was the only time Pale paused. She knew her flanks were secure. Nothing was lost by delaying an instant to evaluate, taking a page from Coin’s book.

There was no way she could penetrate the armor, and it was unlikely she would be able to wedge her weapon through the cracks while the six of them attacked her. Blunt force, then, to scramble them inside their shells. Or…

Pale tried magic. It still felt unnatural, but her aim was true. The cyclops she’d hit slapped at the slits in his helmet, not hurt, but surprised. That was all she needed.

Charging forward, Pale kept up the fusilade of magic bolts. It bought her time and distraction. And, if she concentrated hard enough - there! She’d managed to craft a narrow enough lance of magic and angled it just perfectly to slip past the armor slits and sting the eye inside. The cyclops never saw her hoof coming, and as hard as she kicked, perhaps would never see anything again. To be sure, though, Pale wrenched the armored head back and quickly slashed across the seam that spread open.

That left five, and ten swords. But they hadn’t a hope of catching her. Pale used her wings, her legs, springing off the floor, the ceiling, convenient walls. She swung her sabre backwards, using the curve of the blade to hook a cyclops towards her where she thoroughly wrenched the helmet, putting her whole strength into spinning it and the head inside nearly in a full circle.

She used the armored torso to push off, even as the body fell, ducking under a double sword swing to tackle another cyclops to the ground. The tip of her horn lowered nearly to the slits in the helmet, she lanced magic inside and got a scream and convulsions back in return.

Alerted by the parasprites of attack behind her, with a beat of her wings she went up, lashing out with her hooves to knock her attackers back, buying time to turn her momentum into a spinning kick that knocked two of them down. The third raised his swords but she swatted them aside with her sabre, driving the tip into the helmet slits. It didn’t go deep enough to wound, but it was just enough of a catch to force the cyclops’ head back as she went over, landing on the floor behind and pulling them down.

Vaulting the prostate cyclops, Pale slashed backwards, up under the armor’s belly plates and striking flesh. She kept spinning into the next cyclops, who was getting up, and slashed upwards, blade sparking off the steel, until it finally caught under the chin and Pale forced it into a seam. Fresh blood rained down on her as she turned again and shot towards the next target.

The cyclops was getting up and was too slow to raise their swords. Pale came up from the ground and wrapped her forelegs around the front of the helmet, hugging it to her chest and putting her full body to work on it, wrenching upwards and hearing bones crack from inside the armor.

Not stopping to look around, the parasprites could do that for her, Pale mounted the stairs of the dwelling. There was a cyclops at the door with a knife, but she cut him down with a slash from throat to groin.

The room appeared to be some kind of royal chamber, featuring a throne and gilded walls. Was this from where Arimaspi and his successors had plotted the Blight?

Whoever the cyclops was that now held title over the throne, he was cowering behind it. He tried to circle away from her, but Pale grabbed him by the horns and twisted his neck back. Then, she cut his throat just like any of the others, his blood splashing over the ornate walls.

He didn’t say a word as he died. He knew why she was there. His gaze slid off to the side, looking out the door and taking in the destruction. He knew the cyclops had been beaten.

Pale stopped then. It was almost jarring. She blinked and looked around. Turning, she walked to the door. Around her, there were still pockets of fighting, but the conclusion of the battle was clear.

It was almost quiet. Pale blinked and swallowed. Bodies lay everywhere, most of them cyclops. Small groups of ponies had started to work their way around the cavern, stabbing bodies to ensure their demise.

Pale started to walk down the steps to join them. The job had to be finished. She noticed something seemed to be wrong with her hind leg. She turned her head and saw a long cut up her hip. She spread her wings, but saw that the razors had loosened under heavy use, the straps that held them on tearing at the holes in the gossamer. Several other small cuts had appeared all over her body. And still, most of the blood wasn’t even hers.

She saw that a laboratory had been discovered. Shard and a few colleagues descended on it to scrape up whatever information they could. They firebombed the rest. Coin and a few others were scavenging anything else they could find, data or notes. Pale thought she saw Jolly heading for a kitchen.

Seeing that cleanup was going well without her supervision, Pale sat, taking the weight off her leg. She watched, but the others knew their jobs and carried on without direction. She allowed her eyes to close, just for a moment. It was over.

Coin found her there a few minutes later. “We’re starting to move. The cyclops have been taken care of and just about everything else has been seen to.” Handsome was with her, splattered in blood, but eyepatch in place and apparently unmussed.

Pale got up, moving slowly. Despite her injuries, she was still mobile. Pale made a tour of the cave, ensuring that the task was done, completely and totally. With every body, every drop of blood spilled, she reminded herself that the death was for something. It was much easier to convince herself when the dead were cyclops.

A number of Pale’s compatriots had also fallen. She reminded herself that they knew what they were getting into, and commemorated their sacrifice with the knowledge that the cyclops were destroyed.

They had left a few ponies at the top of the Abyss, for security and to haul if necessary. The most severely injured were lifted first and the others began to follow. Pale stayed to the end. Supervision wasn’t necessary, but she felt she should be there until the last task was done.

She watched as one last charge was set and one last explosion brought the entrance of the cavern down, sealing it.

The matter was closed, and the Blight finished.

Chapter 28

Twitchers were getting hard to find. Not for lack of looking. This cheered Pale, but reminded her of the uncertainty that lay ahead.

After the battle the other guilds had gone home, taking their dead and wounded, but with their heads held high. Pale wondered if she would ever see them again.

The guild had settled in at the house in Trottingham, though it still felt temporary. Maybe with the cyclops gone they could move back into the cave. Though, hopefully they could corner and eliminate the final twitchers and a headquarters would become unnecessary.

That wouldn’t be this week and probably not this month. Even when the last twitcher was finally found it would still be unwise to disband the guild immediately, but Pale could still see that day coming, an unknown length of time away, but definitely getting closer.

The guild was all she’d ever known. There was less death now, slowly trickling down to none, but Pale had no idea what would replace it when they eventually found the very last twitcher.

It terrified her, strangely more than fighting for her life. Not that she’d had a life to lose. She hadn’t been living a real life, not truly. No hobbies, no friends she didn’t work with, no place in society. What would she do when she no longer had a purpose?

Pale couldn’t think of any other application of her skills. She had never thought about employment, never considered what she could do. She couldn’t show her face. Ponies who weren’t unsettled by the mere sight of her would want to know how she had gotten all the scars laid everywhere on her body, and where she had developed her reflexes and strength. There was no way they would accept what she had done.

Coin could easily go back to processing statistics or teaching it to others. Jolly could be a chef, or perhaps a social host. Handsome was more than qualified to be a tailor or designer. Shard was an effective chemist, and could probably be even better with a proper lab. Shadow-

Pale paused. She couldn’t think of any plausible talent the easily distracted yet deadly Shadow could employ outside the guild and on her own. Whisper, the diminutive psychopath, even less.

Well, that meant Pale wasn’t alone, but it didn’t solve her problem. She considered it. Company was better than nopony at all. The other guilds would be facing the same future. Maybe one of them had some ideas. Surely there were others in her same position. She could go somewhere. Somepony could sympathize. She remembered the reformed changelings had become accepted members of society. Maybe they would take her in.

Speaking of changelings, Chrysalis was still out there somewhere. Pale debated. Did she want to track down her mother? Answers were something that Pale had rarely enjoyed.

Maybe. Pale decided to put off the decision for later, when she would have the luxury of choice. When she didn’t have anything more important than her mother to attend to.

Maybe Pale didn’t have to choose her future right away. She was so new to even having a say in it that the idea would take some getting used to. Maybe she would learn to like something completely unexpected. Maybe she would even get a cutie mark.

She considered the brass button on her cloak. Maybe she could find out if her father was still alive. Maybe not. But Pale found that it didn’t worry her. Maybe was a word to hang the future on. Nopony knew what the future held, and now Pale was one of them.

Finishing a deep scour of Equestria with parasprites, Pale opened her eyes. She sat at the kitchen table in the safe house, hooves folded in front of her. The observatory tower was solitary, but locking herself away wouldn’t help the guild.

Pale got up and strapped on her knives. She took her cloak from the rack near the door. She no longer saw any reason to hide herself from the rest of the guild, and wondered why she ever had.

Coin came into the room, seeing Pale getting ready. “Are you going somewhere?”

Pale told her where she’d seen the latest twitcher. “I’ll handle them and be back tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to do so much yourself. You can relax a little,” said Coin. “I just did some calculations and we might be done with the task by the end of the year, if you can believe that.”

“Interesting,” Pale allowed. “But I can’t stop.”

Coin tilted her head. After a moment, she said, “Someday I want to have a long talk with you.”

Someday might be a while. But eventually. There were fewer twitchers now, numbers dwindling faster and faster as Pale worked.

She nodded. “Someday.”

Pale put on her cloak and said goodbye. She stepped out the door into the darkening night. There were fewer twitchers now, but she wouldn’t stop until the task was done. She couldn’t delay.

The sooner Pale was finished with death, the sooner she could learn to live.

Author Notes

Author's Note

My wife first presented the idea for this story nearly two years ago and it has been a long time coming to make it happen. The two of us are glad to finally publish it.

As I understand, my wife took the idea of an assassin's guild from Skyrim. The workings of a plague came to her from various Michael Crichton books, with a little dose of Stephen King. The title of the story is a reference to a Piers Anthony book. It is not tagged for alt universe because it is carefully woven into the background of the first six seasons.

We talked about and developed the story off and on for, well, two years. I finally convinced her to let me ghostwrite it after drawing up some art of the lead character.

Source

This is essentially a fancier version of a ponycreator image my wife made to lay out the colors.

Pale's appearance was specifically not supposed to be beautiful. In fact, my drawing is probably the equivalent of magazine cover airbrushing. She's half changling. She's been fighting for most of her life and has the scars to prove it. She's tall, she's muscular, she puts badass first and makeup never.

It was interesting to see her character develop as the story went on. She even developed a catchphrase. Bonus points if you caught it.

How old is Pale? We never put it to a number, but she feels like she's in her late twenties.

Here is the extent of the character notes we had about her when we began:

The Pale Mare - protagonist, female changeling hybrid, horn broken by abusive bug mom resulting in malfunctioning magic. Mother is Queen Chrysalis, father is unknown but apparently a fairly powerful unicorn. Very pale grey-blue color, with light green and yellow hair. Usually hides wings as they are very changeling-like. Doesn’t like crowds. Good with a blade. Has no friends besides coworkers. A surprisingly good mentor. Not funny.

Even Odds/The Spinning Coin was originally intended as a sidekick, and shows some of that early on. Then we realized someone or something needed to help pull Pale out of her metaphorical shell and turned Coin away from her buddy role in order to give Pale some space to develop on her own.

Some of you will ask, so here it is: Coin would do Pale. Unfortunately for her, Pale's preference, if she had any sexuality at all, would probably fall somewhere to the straight side of center.

Shipping aside, they both do care deeply for each other. Pale, obviously, is much worse at showing it. She had no experience in social interaction because she killed most every new pony she ever met.

The other character notes are more limited, usually just a few sentences each. The most amusing is one line from Whisper's:

...like Hannibal Lecter in a tiny body.

While he was an open psychopath, Jolly was actually next in line on the scale. He just hid it better. Being genetically unable to reproduce will do that to a guy. Even still, for the same reason, he had a soft spot for kids.

Mirror was difficult to characterize without making her a Rarity clone. Clothes horse trope.

We purposely didn't mention the cutie marks of the other guild members. Well, several of them weren't even ponies, but no mention of cutie marks meant we focused more on their name as an identifying feature. In Equestria, newborn ponies are named related to their talent, as if their parents could see the future and pick out a name suited perfectly to them. In the guild, names are given for actions. One earns their name.

From both of us, thanks for reading.

Source

Chapter 1

A full moon hung low in the night sky, its benevolent light washing over the landscape. It swept across the lightly forested hills, cutting across neighboring farmland to paint with its glow the small cluster of wooden buildings nestled in a slight valley. Most residents of the peaceful town had already sought their beds. With the next workday starting at sunrise, not many cared to linger awake. Few shadows dared to lurk on such a night and even the wind, aside from occasional rustles and murmurs, lay quiet.

In one house however, a fire remained lit, casting restless flickers through an uncovered window. Two cloaked figures approached quietly, taking care to remain near building walls despite the lack of helpful darkness. With so much moonlight there was little they could do to remain hidden if some hapless night owl happened to glance outside, but risks had to be taken. They were out of time.

The taller figure paused at the lighted window and gestured for the other to form up on the opposite side. At a silently given cue, the two of them cautiously peered inside. The room beyond was spare, with bare walls and worn furniture. A well-built hearthfire crackled and hissed, blazing hot even for the mild spring weather. The couch opposite was occupied by an earth pony mare, hoof listlessly skimming over the open paperback in her lap. Her gaze ignored the book, apparently riveted to the shifting flames. Every now and then she would fidget, a restless limb twitching of its own volition. The pony, enraptured by the hearthfire, did not seem to notice.

“The twitcher’s still there,” Pale whispered. Together, she and Even backed away from the window, flattening against the outside wall of the house. They both took the opportunity to look around, ensuring they remained unseen.

“She doesn’t seem to be in the final stage,” Even observed. “Thank Celestia we got here in time.”

“We’ll have to do this as quietly as possible,” said Pale. “A dense town and a full moon don’t leave room for error.”

Even nodded, her mouth tightening. Pale’s own expression didn’t change, though that was because she wore a semipermanant scowl.

It wasn’t entirely Pale’s attitude, her face being due most of the credit. Her lips and brows just grew that way, lacking practice at other expressions. Pockmarks and blemishes on her ivory coat started on her long muzzle and continued down the rest of her body. Her eyes were bright green - less like grass and more like acid - with sparse white lashes.

Even Odds, by contrast, was a pink unicorn, blonde, with a scatter of freckles on her nose. She could pass anonymously on a busy street, unlike Pale with her more conspicuous features and being a head taller besides. Another reason Pale preferred to work at night.

Despite Pale’s limited expression, Even had gotten to know her well enough to discern subtle emotion. As the two of them remained crouched beneath the window, Pale shifted her hooves and loosened her shoulders. Even softly asked, “What are you planning?”

“The back door had a simple latch. Get in, come up behind where the twitcher is sitting, and cut her throat.”

Even considered it for a moment. “I would give that an eighty percent chance of success.”

“That sounds about right,” said Pale. She paused and asked, “How would you do it?”

“I’d put a spring-tailed viper in her woodbox. The next time she opens it, the snake would leap out and bite her. The town’s too small to have a hospital with antivenom. It would look like a tragic accident.”

“How do you know she would be the next one to open the woodbox?” Pale asked.

“She lives alone, and based on that axe by the back door, she cuts her own wood,” Even replied. “Not a perfect plan, I know, but the best I have off the cuff. I could come up with something foolproof with a little time.”

“Which we don’t have,” said Pale. “Piper seemed sure about that.”

From inside the house, they heard a cough. Both of them froze, ears up and alert. After a moment, there was the squeak of couch springs and the sound of hooves on the floor, heading towards the front of the house.

“Surely she can’t have gotten to the final stage already?” said Even, anxious but remembering to whisper.

“It could have been just a cough,” said Pale. “But we can’t take that chance.”

The two of them started forward, edging alongside the house. They reached the corner just as the front door opened. Their target stepped outside and after shutting the door quickly began to walk away, intent on whatever mission compelled her from her home.

“She still looks healthy,” breathed Even, reassured.

Pale, however, had already started forward.

“I-I don’t think this is a good idea, Pale! The probability of this working can’t be more than half! So many things could-” Even broke off, gritting her teeth as Pale continued to stalk towards the unsuspecting mare.

Paled moved with a quick but silent gait, knees bent and head lowered. The interception already played through her mind. She would attempt a strike to the back of the neck, severing the spinal cord with her knife. Failing that, if the target detected her and turned around, she would likely be close enough to slice the major blood vessels in the front of the neck.

As ponies make plans, nature laughs. Somehow detecting her extra shadow, the mare stopped and spun around with Pale still too far away to strike. Pale slowed and turned slightly to hide her reach for her knife. The target stepped forward aggressively. The unexpected advance put her nearly nose to nose with Pale as she demanded, “Who are you?”

There was no room to swing the knife, and Pale’s height looking down on her blocked the twitcher’s vital areas. Forced to improvise, Pale jerked her hoof up and shoved the target back back, bringing out her knife as she did so. The target tripped backwards and fell, eyes going wide at the sight of the knife in the moonlight. She rolled and Pale pounced on her, but the mare pushed her hooves up, trying to throw Pale off.

Pale managed to get a hoof into the mare’s mouth to muffle her before she should scream, and then swung the knife for her neck. One of the target’s flailing forelegs intercepted the first stab. The knife nicked an artery and high-pressure blood spurted over them both. Pale’s next strike went true, burying the blade in the mare’s neck. The target went slack, though blood continued to flow everywhere.

Pale took a deep breath and let it out through her teeth as she scanned the streets around her. The struggle had been quiet, but was far too exposed. Even had already appeared alongside, unable to hide the worry on her face, but keeping it out of her movements. Pale grabbed the body by the neck and dragged it back towards the house from where it came as Even hastily kicked dirt over the blood trail.

Pale shoved the door open with her shoulder and dragged the body into the living room, Even at her heels. “Burn it.”

“O-okay,” said Even. She scanned the room and picked up a lantern with some fuel in it. “Put her in front of the fire.”

Pale dropped the corpse before the hearth and turned to pace the house. Stepping through the only inner doorway took her into a bedroom littered with evidence of the twitcher’s increasingly disturbed behavior. What little furniture there was had been broken and any pictures from the walls had been knocked down and scattered across the floor. The twitcher had been busy here, perhaps frustrated by the lack of things to destroy in such a small town. There wasn’t much else to see, aside from a small purse of money on what remained of the dresser. Stepping over the debris, Pale pocketed the pouch and turned back to the living room.

In Pale’s absence, Even had placed the lantern on the mantle over the fireplace and moved the couch closer to the hearth. She carefully studied the layout of the room for a moment and nodded to herself. Satisfied, she tipped the lantern to the floor with a crash that shattered the glass mantle and spilled fuel everywhere. Some of the oil splashed into the fire, and the flames immediately ignited the puddle, which had rapidly spread around the body.

Confident that their work would not be discovered, the two of them went out the back door and hurried out of town. As the hills rose up to meet them, Pale glanced back. The house had quickly become fully consumed by fire, the inferno enough to wake other residents. As Even had noted, it was a small town; there was no fire department. The fire would burn itself out, and along with it the evidence.

They slowed down to an efficient walk. Pale pulled out the purse she had taken and opened it, counting through and dividing the money. Even accepted her share of the golden bits.

They walked in silence for a few minutes. Pale asked, “What would you have done differently?”

“I would have waited until she came back from wherever she was going,” said Even. “I don’t think she was going to bloom.”

“You heard the cough,” Pale countered. “Maybe that doesn’t necessarily mean the twitcher was about to bloom, but we couldn’t take the chance. ”

“Of course,” said Even.

Pale glanced at her. “You won’t always be my apprentice. I’m sure that when you go out on your own, you’ll be effective at combatting the Blight, and on your terms.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you want to take the lead next time?” Pale asked.

Even stopped abruptly. “Really? Thats…”

“Do you think you’re ready?” Pale asked.

Even considered it for several seconds, and nodded. “Yes.”

“I’ll talk to Piper,” Pale said. “I think he’ll agree.”

The two of them resumed walking.

The sun had come up by the time Pale and Even reached the mouth of a cave. It was hidden out of the way, deep in the mountains. In a cleft between two walls of rock, an iron door taller than Pale sealed the entrance. She stood back and let Even perform the complicated unlocking sequence.

When it was open, the door swung quietly, belying its hulking mass. Pale did a final sweep behind her, taking a last look at the outside world before following Even inside and shutting the door.

The cave entrance was rough and narrow, but lit with charm lights along the walls. Down the tunnel and around a bend, the cave opened into a larger chamber with several other passages branching away. Despite the chill early spring weather outside, the cave still managed to feel even more damp and cold.

A greying unicorn stallion waited for them. Three black parasprites flitted in irregular circles around his head. His eyes were closed, but opened when they approached. He looked briefly at the dried blood all over Pale. “Welcome back.” He didn’t ask them how it had gone. He already knew.

Even excused herself. Pale lowered her hood, letting her green and yellow mane free. It was too long for its own good and in sorry shape from being inside her cloak.

“I didn’t notice your parasprites around, Piper,” Pale said.

“You moved quickly enough that I was unable to get them into position in time. I was able to learn much from the aftermath, however. Nopony suspects intervention.” Piper closed his eyes. “The neighbors have only just now discovered the carbonized body.”

He winced. “They’re more than happy to pause their grief to swat at parasprites, though.”

The Piebald Piper took his name from an unnatural ability to command parasprites, which he used to see through their eyes. It was he who discovered symptomatic twitchers across Equestria and arranged their demise.

“Even’s gotten comfortable,” said Pale. “She’s ready.”

Piper did not immediately disagree. He eventually decided, “That depends on the next task.”

Pale nodded and moved to a different subject. “Where are the others?”

Piper closed his eyes again. “The Jolly Mule has an arrangement in Canterlot. A party, it seems. The Wandering Shadow and the Patient Whisper are on their way to Manehattan.”

“The Lying Mirror is in her quarters, then?” Pale asked.

Piper nodded. “She is, though I doubt she will be pleased with your work.” He gestured to Pale’s bloodstained cloak.

“That’s true,” Pale conceded. She nodded to Piper and headed down one of the labyrinthine passageways that branched from the main chamber.

The air grew warmer as she went. The source was a high-ceilinged chamber, decorated with working tools and metal ingots of various sizes and materials. Inside, though the open door, a dragon conversed heatedly with a pegasus, both of them apparently trying to sway the other in some debate. Both looked at Pale as she appeared in the doorway.

“C’mere and settle this for us,” said the dragon. His scales were red, although how much of that was iron shavings and rust was hard to say. He was on the smaller side for a dragon, otherwise he would never have fit in the cave, but still much larger than a pony. He was called The Falling Hammer, and though underground in more ways than one, he was a master blacksmith.

“Yeah Pale, I want to see what you think,” added the Stained Shard. His usual easy attitude seemed to have been flustered by the argument. His wings twitched, the feathers blotched with the colors of a multitude of chemicals.

Pale entered the chamber at their bidding. Both of them glanced at the bloodstains she wore, but didn’t comment.

Hammer began. “I think a weapon that injects poison is pointless. It would have to be a very quick poison to kill faster than the blade itself.”

“And I have such a substance,” Shard retorted.

“Just because it exists doesn’t mean anyone needs the added complication,” countered Hammer.

“I’m just providing options,” said Shard. “More options are always good.”

Hammer glowered at him before turning to Pale. “Do you want a poison knife?”

“I’m fine with regular steel,” said Pale. “But I’m just one pony. Perhaps Mirror could use something like that. Or Even, maybe.”

“How is she, by the way?” Shard asked.

Pale gestured to herself. “Even’s smart enough to stay clean.”

That seemed to amuse both Hammer and Shard. Hammer turned back to his forge. “I’ll ask if anyone else is interested.”

“Let me know,” said Shard. He and Pale left the room, parting company in the passageway.

The rest of the cave continued further back, deeper into solid rock, eventually trailing off into uninhabited portions. Pale had never bothered to venture too far into the depths. There was nothing there.

Pale headed for her quarters. Even in a roomy cave, it amounted to little more than a small grotto with a door. The size didn’t bother Pale. It held what she needed.

Entering her room, Pale finally stripped off the bloody cloak. The fabric was brown and lightweight, serving more to hide her features and weapons than for warmth. It was loose enough to give her a full range of movement. She hung it up, though it would likely be retired after this. It wouldn’t be the first one.

Turning to the rest of her gear, she unstrapped the blade sheathes from her forelegs, took off the lockpicks and infiltration equipment belted around her midsection, and unwound the straps that held the razor blades to the leading edges of her wings.

Stripped, she took stock of herself. The blood had seeped through the cloak and would require scrubbing out of the divots in her hide. The cloak had mussed her wings, but considering they were gossamer and full of holes, it was hard to tell.

Pale didn’t know who her father was, but her mother had been a changeling. Apparently an important one, judging by Pale’s inherited physique.

She stepped into the shower built into the corner of her quarters, jaw tightening in anticipation of the cold water. Chills aside, the blood came off easily, and she switched to washing her mane, hooves carefully brushing it away from the rough scar on her forehead. She had other scars on her body too, but she’d earned those.

Pale got out of the shower when she was shivering and dried off. She strapped her knives back on and donned a clean cloak.

She sat down on her bed. She’d been up all night and it was now midmorning. Her stomach growled, but rest sounded most appealing.

The Pale Mare lay down, and was asleep almost immediately.

Chapter 2

The cave was an excellent headquarters for a secret guild of assassins. It was quiet, secure, and difficult to locate. However, it made for a substandard place to live. No mailbox. No natural light. No running water other than that which trickled through naturally.

Dark and cold as it was, the cave still had its lively moments. The residents tried to offset the atmosphere with the company. That was perhaps easier said than done when all of them were assassins.

Pale sat at the table in the common area, reading a two-day-old newspaper the Jolly Mule had brought from Canterlot. Jolly himself was over at the stove, humming and creating something that smelled delicious.

A young unicorn named Tietack sat across from Pale, leaning forward with his elbows on the table to read the backs of her pages.

Jolly came over to the table, hefting the frying pan. “Omelettes?” He didn’t wait for a reply and filled their plates.

Jolly typically used poison in neutralizing twitchers, which gave Pale slight pause every time she ate something he made, but the taste was always worth it. He certainly knew the finer foods, as his prodigious belly attested.

Jolly tousled Tietack’s mane. “Eat up, kid.”

“Come now, he’s a gentlecolt,” corrected the Lying Mirror as she entered the kitchen.

Tietack rolled his eyes good naturedly as he ate.

Mirror was an older earth pony, usually draped in fabrics and bangles. Pale had never had a grandmother, but she supposed Mirror projected a similar attitude. She didn’t get out of the cave as much in her old age, but that was why she had taken an apprentice, Tietack.

Even appeared and sat down beside Pale. Jolly served her.

“Thanks,” said Even, smiling. She turned to Pale, her expression going businesslike. “I saw Piper in the hallway. He says we’re going to Ponyville.”

Pale nodded. “It won’t be easy, either. The Summer Sun Celebration is coming up, ponies will be staying up all night, and Princess Celestia herself is going to be there with her guard.”

Even winced. “On top of that, a particular pony who lives there that seems to have a knack for spotting new faces.” She held up a folder labeled Ponyville taken from the library. Inside the folder, and others like it in the library, were maps, pictures, and information constantly updated over the years. It paid to be well informed.

“We have plenty of time for this one,” said Pale.

“I wouldn’t mind going to the Summer Sun Celebration,” put in Jolly. “I just got back from a trip, though.”

“Lucky us,” said Even. She nudged her tablemate and winked. “Though I wish sometimes Pale would take a vacation.”

Pale shrugged and finished her breakfast.

On the way out of the cave, the two of them met the Wandering Shadow and the Patient Whisper coming in. Shadow was a petite griffon, black with white-tipped feathers. She seemed to take more after a cat than a bird, being quiet and lithe, but often distracted. That was where Whisper, the breezy perched atop her crest, came in. She was his transportation, as he had no wings. Under his excellent strategy, the two of them had been undertaking successful missions for years.

“How was Manehattan?” Even asked.

“It’s always a good time,” said Shadow.

“We’re going to Ponyville after a stallion named Alfalfa Fields,” said Pale. “He just came home from Manehattan. I’m guessing that’s where he picked up the Blight.”

“It’s rather possible there is a connection,” said Whisper. “And if so, the source of Mr. Fields’ infection in Manehattan has been slaughtered.” His tiny voice made it sound as if it wasn’t murder.

After swapping information, the two groups said their goodbyes and parted company.

“Good luck!” called Shadow.

Pale and Even quietly entered Ponyville the night before the Summer Sun Celebration. According to a flyer stapled to a pole, the next day’s festivities would lead to the townsponies staying up all night until the dawn. Consequently, all of them were getting their rest this night. The dark streets were deserted.

Their target, Alfalfa Fields, made his living with a small business that harvested and distributed hay of all kinds. His house was nearer to the outskirts of town, which made sense because it was basically a barn. Judging by the earthy scent noted when Pale and Even passed by, it was also where he stored the hay.

Pale said nothing as they canvassed the place, letting Even work out the approach for herself. The two of them studied the area, taking a look through the building’s windows and noting the other structures and houses nearby. As late as it was, nopony was around. Even murmured under her breath. “Young guy, no evidence of children, likely single…” Pale only caught about half of it.

After a few more minutes, Even seemed to come to a decision, finalizing her plan. The two of them paused in the darkness, looking at the building. After a moment, Even said, “The easiest way would be for you to sneak in and stab him in his sleep.”

Pale nodded.

Even went on. “But the way I’m going to do it is by crushing him under a haybale.”

“Interesting,” said Pale.

“We’ll have to wait until the shop’s open, though,” said Even. “That’ll be hours from now, but I don’t think we have a chance of getting a hotel room when so many ponies have come to town for the Summer Sun Celebration.”

She was probably right. The two of them ended up sitting on a public bench beside the small stream that passed through Ponyville. In the dark, Even told Pale the details of her plan.

“In the morning, I’ll go in. I’ll try to be there as early as possible so Alfalfa Fields won’t have time to rearrange anything. I’ll place an order and when I take out my purse to pay, I’ll have a coin fall out and roll across the floor behind the counter. When he bends down to get it, I’ll grab the pitchfork, levitate it to the hayloft, and lever a bale out and down onto his head.”

“What if he doesn’t go after the coin?” Pale asked.

“Then I’ll ask him to. It would be rather impolite for him to refuse.”

“A twitcher getting close to blooming won’t be polite.”

“True, but according to Piper, he’s not that close.”

Pale accepted the answer and asked the next question. “What if there are other customers?”

“Hopefully there won’t be, as early as I intend to arrive. If there are, however, I’ll simply have to try again, coming back for another order later. This is not a restaurant, and all the tourists from out of town staying in hotel rooms likely won’t be shopping for groceries.”

“He shouldn't be close to blooming...but what if he does?”

Even grimaced, but replied, “Then I’ll stab him with the pitchfork as quickly as I can. Hopefully I get the angle right so it will look as if he fell on it.”

Pale considered the plan for a moment. “You’re right. The easiest thing would be for me to stab him in his sleep.”

She could barely make out Even’s brief smile in the darkness, and that was more than the lame joke merited.

“How would you do it?” Even asked.

“If I had to make it look like an accident, I’d probably put him in some kind of chokehold and drag him to a position where I could make him fall on the pitchfork,” Pale said. “It would be a little easier if I caught him asleep.”

“I considered a lot of possibilities, but wrestling never crossed my mind,” said Even. “Particularly against an earth pony stallion.”

Pale shrugged. “If my magic worked, I might try something similar to your plan.”

She saw Even’s eyes go to her forehead. The darkness and Pale’s mane hid the remnants of her horn.

Even sat back. The two of them waited in silence, and watched the sun rise when it came. There were ponies that claimed Princess Celestia did it a little differently every day. Pale wasn’t sure about that, but she appreciated the spectacle either way. She wasn’t really able to surround herself in color, and only rarely able appreciate it. Watching the sunrise was a rare treat.

Eventually, the town hall bell struck seven. Even got up, squared her shoulders, and headed for the hay shop. Pale accompanied her, but only as far as the door.

The front of the store was organized with merchandise, but there were a few things out of place, as if they’d simply been dropped there the day before. A pad of paper beside the cash register was covered in scribbles and the edges were frayed. Somepony had been fidgeting.

Alfalfa Fields hadn’t even put out the open sign when Even walked in. He still gave her a smile and asked her fancy.

Even took out her purse. Exactly as she had planned, a single gold bit slipped out and bounced to the floor, rolling away. Alfalfa turned, already reaching for it. Even lit up her horn, magic silently lifted the pitchfork leaning against the wall up to the hayloft, slipped beneath the heavy bale resting above Alfalfa’s head, and tilted it over.

The impact was a complex sound, partially the tightly-packed grass thumping, partly the floorboards creaking, and partly Alfalfa’s skull splitting. The loose coin shot out from under his hoof, spinning across the floor.

Pale glanced up and down the street and then came in. “Nopony’s coming.”

Even nodded and stepped around the counter, kneeling to check the victim’s pulse.

The two of them watched as the spinning coin came to a stop, balanced perfectly on its edge.

“W-wow,” said Even, eyes wide. “I didn’t plan that part of it.”

She reached out almost hesitantly and picked up the bit. She looked at it for a moment before stowing it in a separate pocket of her purse.

Pale turned and opened the cash register.

“We can’t do that,” said Even. “It’s got to look like an accident.”

Pale nodded and closed the drawer again. Her protégé was even planning for afterwards. Not that it was a contest, but Even seemed to pick up the task more intuitively than Pale had at first. Of course, that could simply be because Pale’s methods of dispatching twitchers were admittedly crude in comparison.

Satisfied that Alfalfa Fields’ heart had stopped, Even got up. They couldn’t rob the register, but nopony would probably notice a few clover candies missing.

The two of them stepped out into the morning. The town was starting to come to life for the day.

“Shame we can’t stay for the Celebration,” said Even.

Pale agreed. Shame about a lot of things. But not Even’s first kill. It had gone perfectly.

Chapter 11

Pale hurried towards Helix Histone’s apartment. If the mysterious mare she’d spotted was involved with spreading the Blight, she might have been watching Helix, waiting to see who came to kill him.

Now that Helix was dead, Pale figured, the most likely place to find the mare was near his apartment. If she’d been following and Pale had given her the slip, it was reasonable to guess she might go there.

The door was locked when Pale arrived. She took a chance, reasoning that whoever she was after probably didn’t relish an open fight in the street any more than she did. Pale picked the door open as quickly as she could, only shifting to a stealthier approach once she was inside.

She swept the house cautiously, finding it devoid of life. The rooms themselves were somehow both clean and messy - Helix’s scientific equipment, while sparkling clean and well maintained, was scattered everywhere around the house.

Despite Pale’s lingering memories of Helix from the evening, he was gone now. Robotically, she went through his valuables, as she had so many times before with so many others. What money he had was in a coin purse in his bedroom, and this she pocketed automatically before turning to inspect the rest of the apartment.

She sat down on the little-used couch in the front room. With no other clues, waiting seemed like her best option. If the mysterious mare hadn’t visited Helix’s place yet, she would eventually.

It took hours, but Pale’s patience was rewarded. Just after dawn, somepony attempted to peer in the front windows. The curtains were pulled, but their shadow was clearly visible.

Pale was on her hooves before the shadow had disappeared. Quietly, she edged over to the door, hearing the scraping of a key against the metal lock. As the handle turned, she jerked the door wide open.

It was exactly who she was expecting. Pale grabbed the mare by the neck and yanked her clean off her hooves, hurling her into the front room and slamming the door.

The mare tumbled across the floor, springing back to her hooves, eyes wide. Pale was already circling, backing her into a corner. She drew her knife.

“I have a lot of questions for you,” said Pale.

The mare’s eyes kept moving, looking for an escape route. It took her a few seconds to acknowledge what Pale had said. “What’s the big idea?” she demanded.

Pale didn’t reply. She’d never done an interrogation before. She’d never had a target she’d had to keep alive. Her instincts told her to move quickly, while her opponent was still too off balance to think about escape or evasion. “Who are you?”

“No, who are you?” the mare shot back. “You have some nerve being here like this.”

It sounded like she was trying to pass herself off as an innocent bystander. Or maybe she was an innocent bystander. Pale pushed aside her doubts and trusted her instincts, taking a few swift steps towards the mare. “Look-” she glanced at the mare’s cutie mark “-Cinnamon Stick-”

“Canella,” the mare interjected.

“I’ve been watching you,” Pale said, her voice sharp. “What did you do to Helix?”

“I didn’t push him off the bridge,” she replied coolly, seeming to regain some of her nerve.

She’d heard, then. Pale said, “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about weeks ago.”

Canella, if that was her real name, took on a different look. “I would have thought you knew,” she said. “Since you and your friends have been so busy.”

Pale’s face kept its flat expression, cold eyes staring down Canella, but a shot adrenaline surged its way up her spine. Who else in the guild had they identified? Did Canella know Shard from when he had looked through Helix’s place? What about the others?

“There are just a few things you can clear up for me,” said Pale, controlling her voice. “How are you spreading infections without coughing?”

Canella stood a little straighter, a thin smile forming over her lips. “What, and give away that little trade secret?”

It should have been obvious from the knife, but Pale reminded her, “You aren’t in the position to refuse.”

“So, what, is that my choice? Tell you that or you’ll kill me? Aren’t you just going to kill me when you’re done?”

“You’re going to have to tell me a lot more than just that,” said Pale, avoiding Canella’s other question.

“Ah, but what if I made you a deal?”

Pale tilted her head.

The smile on Canella’s face broadened. “I’ll tell you who’s already infected.”

Pale’s mind raced. Did she mean Shard, because he had been in Helix’s place? Who else could it be? Could the guild spot the signs of a twitcher in one of their own?

“I’ll add it to the list,” said Pale, more calmly than she felt. “You can start talking.”

Pale saw Canella’s hooves shift. She was about to do something, though it still slightly surprised Pale when she bolted - straight at Pale.

Canella tackled her, displaying more strength than expected, even for an earth pony. She managed to get a tight enough grip around Pale’s barrel to lift her completely clear of the floor.

Pale tore her wings loose and jerked herself out of Canella’s grip. She whirled, using the momentary distraction to land a hind hoof in a spinning kick to Canella’s face. It knocked her against the wall, and Pale was on her in an instant, pinning her on her back, knife at her throat.

The veil covering Pale’s face had come loose and her eyes bored into Canella’s. Based on Canella’s expression, Pale wasn’t sure if her look or her knife was more effective at keeping Canella still.

“I don’t know what you think your purpose in life is,” Pale hissed. “But if you don’t start talking, I’m going to start cutting.”

That was when Canella coughed.

Pale jumped back as Canella curled up on the floor in a wracked fit of coughing. Specs of blood flew out of her mouth onto the carpet.

Pale ran for the back door.

As she reached the outside, however, she paused. Something didn’t make sense. Twitchers were not aware of their condition, only being infected unknowingly and by chance. They also weren’t infectious until blooming. Canella was both cognizant of the Blight and actively involved in spreading it. She seemed too knowledgeable and well-informed to have only known about it for the month it would have taken for the Blight to fully infect her. She seemed too smart and ambitious to throw away her own life in a bloom.

Pale carefully tucked her wings away and replaced her veil. She crept around the front of the building and stood outside the front door. The coughing had stopped. Two or three minutes passed, and then she heard movement from inside.

The door opened. Canella had time to look surprised, but wasn’t quick enough to avoid Pale’s hoof to her face.

The blow sent her sprawling and Pale followed her punch in. Canella’s mouth was already bloody even before getting hit. Coughing up blood wasn’t part of a bloom.

Canella scrambled back as Pale advanced. She lifted her head and spit, the wad of saliva and blood catching on the veil over Pale’s face.

Pale put a hoof under her chin and held her mouth closed. Again, she pinned Canella to the floor. “You know, you were right about earlier. I was planning to kill you. Do you want to delay that? Start talking.”

Canella’s eyes avoided Pale’s look. It secretly pleased Pale that the fight had been knocked out of her. Either from seeing who Pale really was, or from literally being knocked around.

There was still one last bit of defiance in her, though. Canella took a deep breath in preparation to speak and finally met Pale’s eyes. “I told you I would tell you who was infected. It’s the changeling.”

It took Pale three seconds to absorb that. Canella knew what would happen to her as soon as Pale fought through the shock, but she still gasped and struggled when Pale brought her weight down behind the knife. The blade bit all the way through the flesh of Canella’s throat to the bone of her spine before Pale stopped.

Pale got up, sucking in a breath through clenched teeth. She wanted to keep stabbing, but fought for control. Canella was already dead.

Pale breathed and closed her eyes for a moment. She walked back to the body and pried open the mouth with her knife. The tongue was bitten and bloody.

Canella had intentionally added blood to her performance of a bloom. Surely if she knew what a bloom was like then she knew that wasn’t part of it? Had it been an intentional setup to spit at Pale?

Was that how the Blight was spreading without blooms?

Pale washed her knife in the kitchen sink. She found a lamp, lit it, and held the blade in the flame until it was blackened with soot. If Canella’s blood was infectious, Pale was taking no chances.

She removed her veil and wrapped it up for safekeeping. She took a cloak from Helix’s closet. As tall as he was, it fit her. Adjusting her headscarf to better conceal herself, she made ready to destroy the evidence and leave.

Pale took the still-burning oil lamp and smashed it to the floor in Canella’s face. Flames leapt up around the body and Pale walked out the door.

Chapter 17

The table in the front room was covered with paper, books, notes, and a few crude mockups of buildings. It represented all the data the guild had collected on a particular city block in Manehattan.

The corner of Forty-Seventh Street and Rocky Road was occupied by a pharmaceutical research laboratory called Philly Pharm. It had taken weeks, but the guild had tracked down everything there was to know about the company. It was the elusive headquarters of the Weeds.

The research load had mostly fallen on Piper, who had spent so many hours sifting through deeds, public records, and financial reports, and Coin, whose expert analysis had put it all together. However, once Piper had identified leads, he was able to quickly put parasprites on the case to keep an eye on suspected ponies and property.

The layers of the shell corporations had been peeled back, and surveillance told the guild what they needed to know. They had finally found the Weeds.

As tempting as it was to strike them as soon as possible, this was a dangerous task, perhaps the most dangerous the guild had ever undertaken.

Piper stood back and provided details he obtained via parasprite. Pale found herself running the operation, which gave her mixed feelings. It was good to know he trusted her judgement and experience, but Pale was constantly worried that the task would fail. She was fine with risking herself. This job would place much more than that at stake.

To that end, Pale drew on the strengths of those around her. Coin was organizing the overarching plan. Shard had prepared a variety of substances, everything from explosives to nerve agents. Hammer had done delicate work to model the building - two stories and a basement - so they could study the layout beforehand. Mirror was outfitting all of them with armor. The guild had always been cloak and dagger, not sword and shield; but Pale understood the extraordinary situation warranted extraordinary tactics. They all did.

The fight ahead was sure to be bloody and destructive. If they were to wipe out the Weeds in one night, then by necessity, it would have to be in combat. Once the guild breached the building, there would be no stealth and no room for error.

Pale raised her head from where all of them had been studying the material. “Are we all in agreement?”

Heads nodded from around the table. All of them had a stake in this, and all had a role to play. Pale looked at each of their faces. Serious. Focused. Just as they needed to be for the biggest fight of their lives.

Pale nodded. “Let’s go.”

They did not depart the cave together, instead traveling in small groups. All of them knew where they were going, that had been planned.

Pale was first to leave, with Coin. It would be a long trip, but that was all the better to review the plan. Attacking a building in a crowded city that would be filled with hostiles sounded difficult, and it would be. Coin was good at planning, but with the input of the others, the operation had come together into a single, unified task. It would take all of them, but Pale was confident it would work. It had to.

Pale had packed heavy for this task. She wore her mail, both of her matching knives, and a heavier blade. She’d asked Hammer to make some plate for her forelegs. Doubtless, this would be a close-quarters fight the whole way. She’d also wound a scarf around her neck, so she could pull it up around her face to filter the air.

She and Coin talked little on the way, both of them thinking of what was to come. It was not until they were in Manehattan and a mere few blocks from Philly Pharm that the plan was put into motion.

They glanced around at the darkened, empty streets. Pale lifted a sewer grate and the two of them dropped through.

“Ugh,” Coin wretched, “it smells even worse than I thought.”

Pale agreed, but the topic was put aside and the two of them set off down the damp tunnel.

In the distance, a small light flared, a mote of exhaled fire. Hammer was already there, crouched under the low ceiling. He’d come in from the river, squeezing up into the sewers from the outlet.

There was the sound of steps from the cross tunnel. Tietack and Shard appeared. A few minutes later, so did Piper and Whirl.

Tietack’s eyes were wide and nervous. Shard appeared to be much calmer than the situation warranted, and Pale suspected he’d taken something to achieve that. Whirl was his usual fidgeting self, perhaps even worse than normal. Piper was alert and looking remarkably spry tonight.

The group of them checked the time. By now, Mirror and Jolly would be on the sidewalk above. Their job was to turn away any bystanders, and if possible, lock the building’s doors from the outside. Overhead, Shadow and Whisper provided overwatch and insurance against any escapees.

Through long observation of the building, the guild had noted the days and times the Weeds tended to gather. Staring at the roof of the tunnel, Pale could just barely hear their movements and conversations.

“There are approximately sixteen inside,” said Piper, eyes closed and voice low. “I can’t get an exact count.”

It was doubtful that was all of them, even if the guild had already managed to kill nearly that many individually. The Weeds were definitely on the defensive now, but if this attack worked, only stragglers would be left. The guild would have to clean up the rest, but this task done tonight would put them most of the way to eliminating the Weeds.

Pale nodded. “Ready?”

They all were. Shard opened his rucksack and took out a large wad of sticky paste that he slapped to the ceiling and spread out a little. He fussed with it for a moment and then ordered, “Stand back.”

The group retreated around the corner of the tunnel. Pale pulled her scarf up over her nose and made ready.

Three seconds later, a blast knocked the air from their lungs and brought the stone ceiling down with a crash and tornado of dust. Pale, already crouched, burst forward, wings out, blades up. Whirl was at her shoulder, and they went through the new hole. Shard was behind them, with Tietack and Coin bringing up the rear. Hammer stepped into the hole while Piper stayed down below.

The basement they’d blasted into was empty, but that wasn’t surprising. Startled voices and shouts of alarm came through the ceiling above. Shard grabbed a glass bottle out of his satchel and hurled it at the basement door, which blew apart in a comparatively small explosion.

Pale was through it a fraction of a second later, Whirl just behind her. Shard should be coming with them to clear any other obstructions. Tietack and Coin would cover the rear. Meanwhile, Hammer stayed behind to ensure their escape route.

The first floor was a laboratory area. Pale didn’t have time to stop and look around. There were four ponies on the first floor, one near the front door. Whirl was closest and charged in that direction. Pale faced the other three. One, a stallion, pulled a knife and bellowed, charging her. The other two grabbed whatever was nearby.

Pale stabbed the first pony as he got close, using his momentum to throw him to the side. She ducked a beaker as it flew towards her face, hearing the glass shatter somewhere behind her. The two remaining opponents came at her, using her momentary distraction to their advantage. Simultaneously, ponies began to pour down the staircase at the far end of the room.

Pale slammed her blade into the chest of the nearest mare, twisting her body to meet the second with a similar attack. Pulling both knives free, she tossed them up, snatching the blade the first stallion had dropped. With her free hoof, Pale caught each of her knives as they came down, and with two quick flicks sent them across the room. She scored a hit in one pony’s eye and the other knife glanced off the shoulder of another.

Pale buried the knife she’d picked up into the sternum of another Weed and pulled her third blade, slashing forward. One of Shard’s glass bottles flew forward from behind her and Pale had time to swing up a foreleg for protection before it exploded on the staircase in the middle of the hostile crowd. A fragment of glass slashed at her cloak but cracked against her armor.

One stallion, had, if anything, only been propelled forward by the blast and met Pale head-on. She put her weight behind her knife, stabbing it through his throat, between the vertebrae, and out the nape.

The next Weed was the one stabbed in the eye, her entire face covered in blood, but still she screamed and ran into the fight. There wasn’t time for Pale to pull the knife out of the stallion’s neck. She raised her hoof and hammered it forward, driving the blade still stuck in the mare’s eye deep, all the way to the back of her skull.

The weed dropped instantly, but now Pale was left with two stuck blades. It was almost fortunate that the pony she’d wounded with her other thrown knife had picked it up. She ducked his swing, punched him in the nose with a sickening crack of bone, and slashed his throat with one of her wing razors. She took her knife back from his flailing hooves.

And still the Weeds kept coming. At least the rest had been injured by Shard’s weapon. With their suicidal charge, though, Pale was about to be overwhelmed.

Pale shoved her dying adversary away and made ready to meet the next, but Whirl tackled him from in front of her. Another pony used the distraction to dodge Whirl and come at Pale. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another.

Pale attacked the one in front of her, and still got stabbed in the mail by his knife before she put him down. She heard a gasp of pain just behind her and turned to see Tietack bleeding from lip to ear but counterattacking an opponent who had tried to flank Pale.

Tietack finished the job, not requiring any help from her. Pale looked around. Whirl was finishing with his target, spatterings of red dirtying the pale brick wall before him as he stabbed everywhere. There were no other Weeds still standing. Pale caught Coin’s eye and they rushed the staircase.

A mare met them halfway. Pale stabbed her, and Coin followed up with the poisoned knife Hammer and Shard had collaborated to make. Their target dropped instantly.

The upper floor was a meeting area, with tables and bookcases. One stallion was stuffing papers into a bag when they appeared. He turned and bolted for a window. Pale got to him first, knocking him off his hooves and flipping him over before she unceremoniously stabbed him in the heart.

Pale turned to help Coin sweep the room, but there were no other weeds. It was only then that they stopped to look around.

An eye was painted in simple black lines on the far side of the room, lit by candles and spanning the whole wall. Not pausing to examine the decorations, Coin grabbed the papers the stallion had been after, plus whatever else she could find nearby.

The two of them went back down the stairs. Whirl was going around the room stabbing bodies to ensure their deaths. Pale gathered her knives and resheathed them.

Shard had bandaged Tietack’s face. “He’ll have a heck of a scar. Good thing it missed the eye, though.” His reassurance didn’t look like it meant much to Tietack, who was shivering and blinking, holding both hooves around his upper body.

Coin collected a few more things from the lab. There wasn’t time to give it a thorough look. They’d only planned the operation to last minutes, if that. It was time to go.

The group descended back to the basement and down into the sewer. Shard helped Tietack along. Coin carried the captured documents.

Whirl was fidgeting to the point of practically vibrating, but followed the others. Pale turned to look at Piper. He nodded to her, saying nothing. Nothing needed to be said, not now. He turned and followed the others down the tunnel.

Pale looked at Hammer. “Burn it.”

Hammer took out a dragon-sized handkerchief and wiped the building’s drain pipe that hung down from the ceiling of the sewer. He then took a lungful of air and spit fire up the pipe. Even from the basement, Pale heard it erupt from every drain in the building. Flames were already casting flickering light down the basement stairs.

Pale headed down the tunnel, joining up with Coin. The two of them took the next branch in the sewer, breaking off from the group to take separate routes back to the cave just as they had entered Manehattan.

Emerging from a storm grate a few blocks away, Pale looked back to see the glow of the burning building.

“We did it,” Coin said quietly, a few stray strands of blonde mane dropping across her face. She didn’t appear to notice. “Thank Celestia, we made it.”

Pale glanced at her as they turned to walk away. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Or you,” Coin insisted. “There were so many of them. Even by your standards, that was…”

She trailed off and looked away, recognizing the thorny subject. Pale was glad of it. Even as long as she’d had the job, it still made her uncomfortable to be complimented. Killing was necessary to stop the Blight, but praise was not.

It sometimes surprised Pale how much conscience she apparently had. That was strangely comforting.

The two of them walked into the darkness. The night ended quietly, as it had begun.

Chapter 23

Pale stared at the brass button as it lay on the floor of the hive and willed her magic to pick it up. She managed to move it around, but only slowly did it gain altitude, and not more than an inch.

Her mother walked in and stopped, staring at her. “What are you doing?”

“Practicing magic.” Pale thought that was pretty obvious. “It’s...it’s easier with this.”

Chrysalis stared ambivalently as Pale tried again. She had more success than she’d ever had practicing magic with rocks, but her horn was growing warm.

“Maybe you’d better rest,” Chrysalis suggested.

Pale frowned. Wait.

Chrysalis lay down on the floor next to Pale. “You wouldn’t want to hurt yourself.”

No, stop, this was not how the memory went.

“Here, let me help you.”

Pale tried to pull back, but Chrysalis had taken hold of her horn. No! Pale tried to jerk away but Chrysalis kept her grip. Her hooves were warm to the touch and she seemed to be humming contentedly, oblivious of her daughter’s struggles. “I’ll make it feel better.” She massaged Pale’s forehead.

The heat only grew. Pale felt like she was being smothered, struggling to get away as Chrysalis only held her tighter, enveloping her until-

Darkness. Pale gasped.

Her sides heaved as if she’d just run a race. She could feel a stone floor beneath her, but there was no other frame of reference.

Though she couldn’t see it, her body felt as if it was covered in bruises. The cave-in! She gritted her teeth and got her hooves under her, managing to stand. Her legs barely felt strong enough and her head was hard to lift.

There was a sliver of light nearby. Pale groped her way towards it, stumbling over scattered rocks. She realized she was heading towards the door of Mirror’s room, with the faint light coming from underneath it.

Pale fumbled for the handle, found it, and opened the door. A small charm light provided just enough illumination to find a lamp. She lit it, looking around the room. Nothing was disturbed, indicating to Pale that Hammer’s final act had not been in vain. No cyclops had been here, all of them had been trapped behind the wall of rock.

The large mirror was right in front of her, reflecting the room, dim lights, and Pale. She caught her reflection and froze, staring. She was bloody and battered, her cloak torn and stained. But what held Pale’s attention was the horn on her forehead.

Pale swallowed, unable to look away. She slowly turned her head to the side, looking at the horn’s profile. The shape reminded her of an ornate dagger with wavy curves, like a smoother version of Chrysalis’ own jagged horn, but retaining all of the sharp edges.

She reached up and hesitantly touched it. This was no dream, memory, or hallucination. It was real. How? Had Chrysalis done this? While Pale was vulnerable and trapped, she must have forced this on her.

It was hard to believe Chrysalis would wade into the danger of the cave collapse and the cyclops just to put Pale’s horn back in place. Then again, there was very little that was hard to believe about Chrysalis.

In the mirror, Pale saw that the horn looked perfect and clean, as if it had just newly grown. Had it? How could that be? Chrysalis had said she still had the broken piece. But Pale knew it had been much smaller when she was adolescent. What magic had done this, even fixing the jagged seam? How had Chrysalis managed this? Why?

Those were questions Pale could not answer, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to. At any rate, she realized there wasn’t time now and reluctantly turned away from the mirror. She told herself more important things were at stake. What had happened to the guild, and the cyclops?

Back in the corridor, with lamplight, she saw the extent of the cave-in. It had buried the tunnel from floor to ceiling, sealing off the deeper cave.

How had the cyclops gotten in? It seemed reasonable to assume they had adapted to living underground, but hard to believe the Abysmal Abyss had underground connections all the way to this cave. However they had gained access, their surprise attack had worked effectively in their favor, despite the guild’s counterattack.

Pale looked at the heaping pile of rock. Hammer and Mirror were buried under it, their bodies now part of the barrier itself. Pale could do nothing for them now except remember their sacrifice.

Though it raised the question of how Pale herself had gotten out. She hadn’t been buried so deeply, but the answer was probably Chrysalis again. Pale didn’t dwell on it. She had to go. The cyclops could still be coming, and there was no telling how long it would take them to dig their way through.

Pale turned away and headed for her quarters. When a fellow assassin died, it was customary to divide their possessions, but Pale didn’t have time or the ability to carry much. At any rate, Hammer’s forge had also been buried in rock along with her knives.

Opening her door, Pale’s head was abruptly knocked back as she stepped forward. She hissed in pain and cradled her head, looking upward to the scratch on the rock her horn had made. She was going to have to get used to this.

Careful to duck her head through the doorway, Pale entered her quarters. She pulled off her cloak and tossed it on the bed. She was leaving as soon as possible, but it wouldn’t do to go out in public looking like she’d been through the wringer.

With the cave compromised, she might never be able to return. Pale tried not to think about the implications but instead focused on what she would need. There wasn’t much she could take.

Her mail might give her some protection if she had to fight her way out. Pale put it on. With her weapons gone, Pale grabbed the antique sabre off the wall and hung it across her body, covering it with a clean cloak. Looking at the books, she picked up the smallest journal, the one that held Piper’s notes. Her eyes fell on the brass button. Pale looked around the room. There was nothing else she wanted to take.

Indulging herself for a moment, Pale drew on barely-remembered instincts. There was a tingle above her forehead, in a part of her body she had not felt for a long time. Concentrating, she reached out with magic. The button moved.

She lifted it, higher than she thought possible, until it hovered before her face. It seemed to glow differently in the green shimmer of her magic. Something about the sensation was strange, but not unpleasant.

Pale was vaguely aware that this was more command of telekinesis than she’d ever had before, but consciously avoided the subject. She put the button in her pocket and made ready to leave.

There was enough light from her horn to guide her through the cave. Pale checked each chamber, but didn’t stop to survey them. There was nothing more valuable here than finding the rest of the guild. There was no indication that they had died here, and to her surprise, Pale actually felt her mood changing for the positive. Not happiness, of course not, but relief was better than dread.

There were a few splashes of blood, presumably Handsome’s. Shard’s lab looked like it had been cleaned out in a hurry. He might have just swept a hoof over the counter and piled everything he knocked off into a bag. Jolly’s room was intact, though it must have pained him to leave behind his prized trophies taken from dead twitchers, the pages and pages of recipes.

She found Coin’s purse in her room. In the side pocket was her namesake bit. Pale pocketed it.

Pale reached the front room and took a look around. She couldn’t bring herself to miss the cave, but did lament everything that would be lost.

She opened the heavy door and went out. The night sky above was clear and the stars were bright.

She turned and closed the door for the last time.