Skitter, Scurry and Screech (Iota Force Issue #4)

Chapters

Prologue: Above the Deep
Chapter One: Beneath the Fields
Chapter Two: Through the Tunnels
Chapter Three: On the Trail
Chapter Four: Into the Depths
Chapter Five: Over the Hurdles
Next time on Iota Force...
Epilogue: Carrying the Consequences

Prologue: Above the Deep

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Icy fidgeted, the tension she felt from her situation being channelled into twitches in her shoulders and back and a heavy swish of her tail. She had to actively prevent her hooves from moving and scraping against the ground, such as it was, for fear she might upset their balance on the thin blades beneath her boots.

Of course, her teacher had assured her that ice skates were perfectly safe and stable as long as you kept at least three hooves on the ground, but Icy wasn't sure if that would hold up to her current agitation. Besides, the teacher in question...

Well, she had been recommended by a Princess, so Icy sort of knew that she was probably a good choice and she certainly wasn't the main cause of Icy's nervousness, but she didn't exactly help.

“Of course it's a good idea, silly filly!” Pinkie Pie assured her, her smile never wavering, giving the distinct impression that she wasn't truly comprehending Icy's worry. “Why wouldn't it be?”

Icy looked around her, taking in the ice that surrounded her. Of course, the ice wasn't a problem for her. Quite the reverse, in fact – she loved ice and snow. It was what was beneath it that she had issue with.

“Well, we're kind of... on top of a lake, aren't we? What if we... you know...”

Pinkie giggled, looking down at her reflection in the frozen surface of the Ponyville lake. She scratched at the surface a little before raising her head again to face Icy.

“Don't be silly! This ice is totally thick enough to skate on.” A flash of an idea passed through Pinkie's eyes, in turn creating even more worry in Icy's. “Hey,” Pinkie's eyes widened as she spoke, “Watch this!”

She crouched for a moment, keeping still for just long enough to give Icy hope that things might not...

And then she leapt up, with much more force than her usual bounces, and crashed down hard on top of the ice, making a heavy thump noise with, though Icy might have imagined it, a hint of cracking as well. She kept bouncing for several seconds.

A tiny voice at the back of Icy's mind wondered how easy, or even possible, it was to jump like that in ice skates. Another tiny voice did have to admit that Pinkie didn't seem to be doing any significant damage to the ice.

However the vast majority of her mind was busy with a single thought:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

“Pinkie!” A voice came from behind Icy, shouting to be heard over the thumps. “I think she gets the point!”

Pinkie paused in midair, looking over to her pupils. Her smile, while in no way diminishing, did become slightly abashed.

“Sorry!” She said, lowering herself gently to the ground.

Icy turned away from Pinkie, both to give a grateful look to Scootaloo and so she didn't have to think about how Pinkie had just done that. Scootaloo just gave her an encouraging smile before they turned back to their teacher.

Pinkie's smile had now turned strangely serene and she had closed her eyes, looking far more peaceful that Icy had ever seen her or, for that matter, imagined her.

“If you are to learn the art of ice skating,” she began in a smooth, even voice, “you must divest yourself of all fears, all worries, all earth-y concerns. If you are to move on the ice, master the ice, you must become one with the ice and one with the water, merge with it, immerse yourself in it!”

That, Icy thought, is what worries me.

It was the beginning of January, a few days after the new year. Icy had been wanting to learn how to ice skate for a while – ever since her and her friends' encounter with Magic Eye back in November – but it had been agreed that it wasn't practical until the temperature dropped significantly. Sure, with her powers, Icy could theoretically create ice to skate on anytime – in fact, that was sort of the point of learning. However, not only would it take a lot of energy to freeze enough of an area for her to learn comfortably on, but she'd have to constantly refreeze it as it melted, meaning she wouldn't have much energy left for actually skating.

As such, it had only been a couple of days before then that Pinkie had shown up at her house, informed her that it was now cold enough to skate, told her when her first lesson was and then bounced off without even giving Icy a chance to question her or think if she was free that day. She was, but she didn't know if Pinkie knew that or if it was just a lucky coincidence.

Of course, Pinkie being Pinkie, she had told plenty of ponies and invited anyone young and interested enough to come along. Thus, Icy's simply request for lessons on how to skate had turned into a full-on class, with five other ponies joining in, including Scootaloo and her friend Apple Bloom. Icy guessed that more would join once word spread around, at least until school started again. She wasn't exactly sure at what point the gathering would be large enough for Pinkie to consider it a party, but she was sure it would get there sooner or later and she dreaded that happening.

On the other hand, on the list of things she dreaded, that was a little way down the list. Despite Pinkie's assurances... in fact, a little bit because of her assurances, her main concern at the moment was the deep expanse of water beneath their hooves.

Icy had always told herself that her... issue with water wasn't really a problem. Sure, she didn't like large bodies of water, but as long as she kept her distance from them, it didn't seem like it would cause much trouble. She and big water had an understanding – she left it alone and it would leave her alone. But now, with only a few feet of ice between her and it, she was beginning to reconsider.

It wasn't debilitating, by any means, it was just... constant. She could feel the water below her, in a way she couldn't quantify. She just... knew it was there. She could feel it as it flowed and circulated beneath her. And it felt, for lack of a better word, hungry. Not ravenous, just like it... wanted her. Like there was an empty space in it, sucking at her a little and trying to gently tug her in. Not physically, but... metaphorically? Spiritually? Magically? Icy didn't know and didn't particularly want to find out.

Icy shook her head, trying to put the matter to the back of her mind and refocus on what Pinkie was saying. She had asked for this, after all, and it was pretty important that she learn. She just wished she could do it somewhere else.

Soon, Pinkie had finished her introductory spiel and got to the specifics of ice skating, thankfully with less of the Zen-Master-by-way-of-wrecking-ball persona than she had displayed earlier. It seemed simple enough, at least to understand – more to be practised than learned. Pinkie had the assembled colts and fillies skate back and forth across the width of the lake a few times, before separating them into groups of three to practice while she looked on and offered advice.

Naturally, Scootaloo paired herself with Apple Bloom and, for want of a Belle, picked Icy as their third. After some initial help from Pinkie, she left the three alone to help the other group, allowing for a little small talk.

“So,” Icy began as she and Scootaloo watched Apple Bloom slide around, almost-but-not-quite under control, “where's Sweetie Belle? Aren't you three trying for skating Cutie Marks or something?”

“Nah,” Scootaloo replied, waving a hoof dismissively, before wobbling a little and putting it back on the ice, “we tried that last year. Was fun, but we, er... we didn't get our marks from it.” She paused, looking at Icy. “Did you know that ice skates aren't supposed to be sharp enough to cut through solid wood?”

Icy returned Scootaloo's quizzical look. “I... I'd kinda figured. Didn't y-”

“Hey!” Apple Bloom interrupted, skating to a stop in front of them. “We cleaned up our mess, and it all turned out alright. Miss Blossomforth healed up real quick, too – ain't even a scar!”

On instinct, Icy's mouth opened before she quickly decided to close it and not pursue that line of questioning any further.

“So, yeah,” Scootaloo continued after a momentary awkward silence, “this isn't for a Cutie Mark, I just wanted to learn. Can't be the second fastest in Ponyville unless I can go quick on all kinds of ground, right?”

Icy raised an eyebrow at her choice of words, but let it slide.

“I mean, it's not like I can use my scooter on ice, unless it had, like, blades on the bottom.” Scootaloo's eyes lit up as the possibility occurred to her. “Hey, Bloom, could you, like, put blades on the bottom of my scooter? But not down all the time – like, put them in a, what do you call em... sheathe but they can come down and, like, become skates if you press a button or...”

“Hey, hey, whoa there, Scoots!” Apple Bloom replied, cutting Scootaloo off from her fantasizing. “It ain't impossible, but it'd add a whole heap o' weight to your rig, prob'ly slow you down somethin' fierce.”

Scootaloo deflated a little. “Oh. Guess it was kind of a stupid idea, huh?”

Apple Bloom smirked. “Hey, now. I didn't say that. I'll give it a bit o' the ol' thinkin', see if I can come up with anythin'. But for right now, maybe you should give these skates a try.”

Scootaloo nodded and set off with, as was to be expected, far more speed than control.

Icy looked over to Apple Bloom. She didn't know the other Crusaders as well as she did Scootaloo, but they were definitely in the realm of “friend of a friend.”

“So what about you?” She asked the yellow filly, keeping one eye on Scootaloo's... she was gonna say progress. “What brings you out here?”

Apple Bloom shrugged. “I just thought it'd be fun. Ain't much for me to do on the farm til Spring 'cept listen to Granny's Stories. Figured I'd get out for a while and maybe learn somethin' while I'm at it. 'Sides,” she looked briefly uneasy before she continued, “I don't wanna get in the way. Applejack's been kinda tetchy lately, don't wanna cause any trouble.”

Icy frowned, confused. “Really? I don't know her too well, but she seemed pretty nice.”

“Course she is!” Apple Bloom replied, sounding almost offended that Icy might consider her sister anything but nice. “We've just been havin' a little trouble lately, that's all.”

Icy was about to question further when she was knocked off her hooves by an orange missile, sliding across the ice before coming to a rest beneath a dazed Scootaloo.

“Ooh, that was a really good tackle, Scoots,” Pinkie called as she skated over to the group. “but I think that might be more of an advanced skill.”

As she was scooped up by a pink foreleg and deposited gently back onto the frozen surface, Icy shelved her questions for the moment, refocusing on the lesson but resolving to pursue the matter later.

Of course, as with so many things that Icy resolved to do later, she did not, in fact, end up doing it later. Given that her general level of focus was somewhat less than absolute, it was a bit of a recurring problem. No matter how firmly she fixed something in her mind or what steps she took to remind herself, it would invariably fade into the back of her mind and not make itself known until, usually, when it was far too late to do anything about it. There had been one time when she had resorted to literally writing an appointment on the wall, only to become so used to the writing being there that she didn't register it until she'd almost missed the appointment.

And so, once the lesson was over, Icy completely forgot about Apple Bloom's issue. Of course, this process was expedited by the group going for ice cream afterwards. Well, Icy went for ice cream, at least – the rest wanted hot chocolate and claimed it was too cold for ice cream.

Icy had snorted at that. Too cold for ice cream? The very idea was ridiculous. Clearly, the cold was making them delirious.

Fortunately, a couple of days later, she was reminded from another source.

Chapter One: Beneath the Fields

It was another snowy morning and Icy was out running a few errands for her mother. Sunny Flight was far from lazy, of course, and didn't have much of a problem with chilly weather, to say the least. However, even she had nowhere near the imperviousness to cold that Icy possessed and, since school was out and Icy had already finished her holiday homework (if only at her mother's... insistent prompting), Sunny had asked her daughter to go out instead. After all, as she'd jokingly asked: “Why keep a dog and bark yourself?”

Admittedly, the question puzzled Icy a little. She got what it was saying, but was barking really the main thing you'd want a dog for? I mean, sure there are situations when barking was needed, but getting a dog just for those seemed unnecessary and would be outweighed by all the many instances when barking is neither needed or wanted, like, say, when you're trying to sleep and the neighbour's dog won't shut up.

Still, she didn't mind going out on her mother's behalf – it wasn't like she had that much else to do most mornings except read comics or draw a little. Which, in all honesty, she would have preferred doing, but not enough that she begrudged a few errands.

At that moment, she was heading to the library to return a book. Which, of course, meant the castle, but in Icy's mind, Princess Twilight's castle, the library and Spike's house were separate entities, despite all being the same building. Admittedly, that building was a huge palace and if they were separate buildings, it could easily house three such places, but still, her ability to separate them out based on function was considerable.

As she came up to the castle's front steps, she noted that there were still no guards or anything out in front and the door was wide open. Understandable, since the Princess did want to keep the library open to the public and you couldn't very well have a public library with a locked door, but it still gave Icy an uneasy feeling after the last time the castle's security had been put to the test. Of course, she was sure that the Princess had learned her lesson – she wouldn't be stupid enough to let an enemy waltz into the castle unchecked a second time, right?

Chuckling to herself, she made her way through the corridors, following the signs directing her towards the library. She started to hum to herself quietly, not wanting to make too much noise while entering a library. However, as she approached the door, she began to hear noises that suggested that not everyone was so considerate.

“Whaddaya mean it's impossible?!”

Icy flinched back for a moment from the volume of the question before pushing forward through the door, seeing Applejack glaring at a shrugging Princess Twilight.

“I mean exactly that, it's impossible.”

“Don't you give me “impossible!”” Applejack snapped. Even from across the room, Icy could see red around the corners of her eyes and noticed that she was blinking often and heavily. “It's magic, I don't see why magic couldn't do that!”

Twilight sighed. “Just because magic can do what would otherwise be impossible doesn't mean it can do anything, Applejack. It still follows rules. And, according to those rules, what you're suggesting is impossible. Teleportation would leave a distinct magical signature which you couldn't cover up.”

She levitated an open book up, offering it to Applejack, who swept it aside with a hoof. “But didn't you just say you could hide that kinda thing?”

Twilight shook her head. “Yes, magical residue can be covered up, but you have to be in the area the initial spell was cast to do it. How could they do that if they'd just teleported away?

Applejack paused, frowning in contemplation. She closed her eyes tight for a moment, rubbing her hooves over them before opening them again. “Okay, I get it. Can't cover your hoofprints in the place you've already run from.”

Twilight nodded, smiling. “Exactly. Not without making more, which would sort of defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?”

“I guess so.” Applejack chuckled awkwardly. “Sorry about that, Twi, it's just that...”

Once the raised voices had died down, Icy tuned them out. Sure, she was curious about what that was all about, but she wasn't about to interrupt them. Besides, apologies and getting along were much less interesting than arguments and fights, as any comic fan knew.

She trotted up to the main desk, where Spike was sitting, raising a comic to his face from his lap. Evidently, he'd had the same thought and, now the ruckus had died down, was getting back to his reading. Icy could relate, though not so much to what he was reading.

Still, the image on the cover of the Mane-iac did bring up a couple of memories and inspired something between a smile and a shudder.

Before she could look up again, she heard Spike's voice.

“Hey there, Icy. You finally interested in reading a good comic?”

Icy looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. “Yep, that's why I was looking at Power Ponies – thought I'd try and remember what not to look for.”

The two shared a smirk. In truth, the ongoing argument was kind of a joke – she didn't hate Power Ponies that much and Spike, while he did love them that much, had more or less accepted Icy's position, no matter how wrong he thought it was. Still, it was fun to play along with the idea that they were ideological nemeses. If an argument was a kind of battle, they were playing with toy soldiers.

Still, she had business to attend to. She opened one of her saddlebags with a wing and turned away from Spike for a moment, pulling out the book she'd brought with her mouth.

“Mmms fmmmshd wmm...” She paused for a moment before spitting the book out onto the desk. “Mom's finished with this, she asked me to return it.”

Spike put his comic down and looked down at the book. “Sapphire Stone, huh? You want the next Daring Do book...” He paused, looking off to the side. “Wait, was that Griffon's Goblet or Temple of Tirek? Hang on, lemme look it...” He started reaching for a book on the side of the desk before Icy interrupted him.

“No, that's okay, she doesn't want the next one. She said she didn't really like it.”

Spike paused, his arm frozen in midair. “Didn't like... She doesn't like Daring Do?”

Icy shrugged. “Guess not. She said it was...” she thought for a moment, calling up the exact phrasing, “sensationalized and exaggerated.”

Spike withdrew his arm, frowning in confusion. “Well, I mean... yeah. That's kinda the point, isn't it?”

Icy shrugged. “I don't get it either.”

Spike chuckled. “Gee, disagreeing with popular opinion seems to run in the family, doesn't it? Just don't let her tell that to Rainbow Dash. Our little thing?” He pointed at the comic on the desk. “Got nothing on what she'd say.”

Icy giggled. “Gotcha, Spike. So, anyway, she said she was interested in the first of the Blackstone Files series.”

Spike tilted his head. “Erm, Twi has a list of over fifty Aetherological mistakes in the first three books alone. Isn't that kind of “sensationalized and exaggerated?” He asked, casually reciting her phrasing.

Icy smiled. “Yeah, but about something Mom doesn't know all that much about.”

Spike shrugged. “If you say so. You're in luck, too, that one's in our returns box. We were meant to sort it out this morning, but Twi got called away to sort out Applejack's problem.”

Icy blinked in remembrance. “Oh yeah! What was all that about, anyway?”

“Apparently, someone's been stealing apples.”

“Oh, is that all?”

It was amazing. The words left Icy's mouth with barely any input from her brain and yet, the moment they did, she could feel the temperature drop and a presence looming behind her. Her left eye looked back, seeing nothing in her peripheral vision, yet she could feel it coming closer. The words hadn't been loud, but she still felt them echo around the library, ringing in her ears as if mocking her. After a couple of seconds of tension, she caught a faint glimpse of orange in the corner of her eye and heard a cold voice behind her.

“‘Is that all’? Did you just ask ‘is that all’?”

Spike gulped, his terrified stare going over Icy's shoulder. “I'll just... get that book for you.” He ran into a back room while Icy, despite her best efforts to stop her hooves from moving, turned around to see the irate Applejack.

“Let's jus' forget for the moment how those apples are the livelihood for me an' my whole family, so stealin' them any time's a real dirty thing to do. Nah, let's focus on the rest. Dunno if you'd noticed out there, but it's pretty cold right now, bein' winter an' all, and my trees ain't 'xactly weighed down with fruit, so that means we have to rely on our stores an' our savin's an' anyone stealin' from that is a real danger. And what, d'you think we jus' shove apples straight into our cellar an' leave 'em to rot? We gotta box 'em and shift 'em and sort 'em and all that's wasted money and effort if someone jus' up an’ takes 'em. And don' get me started on how openin' the crates can...”

“Applejack!”

Applejack whirled around at the interjection, shifting her glare onto Twilight without lessening it.

Twilight pointed behind her. “You're scaring her.”

Applejack looked behind her at Icy's terrified expression. The farmpony's eyes widened and she turned fully around to her, taking off her hat and putting it to her chest.

“Aw geez, I'm real sorry there, sugarcube. I jus' get a mite riled when ponies don' respect my family or what we do. If I had a bit for every time I heard “It's only apples.”” She started to sigh, but it quickly morphed into a yawn. “Course, it don't help none that I didn't get a wink of sleep las' night.”

Icy nodded – the big (very big, very strong, she reminded herself) mare's anger seemed to have passed, but her heart hadn't fully slowed down. She focused for a moment, trying to convince her fight-or-flight response that she was no longer in danger of being hammered into the ground like a croquet hoop. However, she tilted her head a little at that last remark.

“You really couldn't sleep just because you knew someone was stealing your apples?”

Applejack gave a sighing chuckle. “Naw, I ain't obsessed or nothin'.”

“...”

“Well, not that obsessed, and that ain't why, anyway. Me an' Mac were standin' guard all night, tryin' to catch the varmint. Didn't work, though. Somehow, they still got in an' made off with our apples.”

“Did you see them?”

“Nope. Darndest thing – we were standin' guard at the hatch. Couldn't really stand around in the cellar without bein' seen, and that hatch's the only way in or out. No one came around, but next mornin', another batch had up an' vanished. And since Twi says there ain't no way someone teleported down... well, we're kinda flummoxed.”

Icy frowned, thinking about the problem. “They must be really good at stealing, then.”

Applejack nodded. “Sure seems that way. We ain't the only ones goin' through this neither – whole buncha other fruit an' veg sellers've had stock goin' missin'. Even heard Carrot Top had some carrots stolen.” She gave a slight sniff. “No accountin' for taste, I s'pose.”

Icy hummed for a moment, her hoof rubbing her chin. “But you weren't down there when it happened? You didn't get a look at who or what was doing it?”

Applejack shook her head. “Nah. Like I said, we'd been down there, they'da seen us 'fore we saw them – might stop 'em, but wouldn't catch 'em. Still, I guess we don't got much of a choice tonight, we're gonna have to...” she was interrupted by another yawn, deep and wide enough that Icy was pretty sure she could see her tonsils.

“You sure?” Icy asked, raising an eyebrow. “If you don't mind me saying, you seem... kinda tired. You sure another night up would...”

She was interrupted by a chuckle from Applejack. “I don't like it either, but don't see what else we can do. 'Sides, this ain't nothin', compared to...” She trailed off for a moment, getting a faraway look in her eyes. Shuddering slightly, she came back to the conversation. “So, yeah, don' you worry 'bout me!”

Icy put a hoof up, considering an idea. “Or... we could always do it for you.”

“We?” Applejack asked, thinking for a second before she remembered. “Oh, yeah, you're with that whatchamacallit – that team thing, aincha?”

Icy nodded. “I'll have to ask them about it, but think about it – we're smaller, so we can hide easier, there's more of us and it'll mean you can get some sleep.”

Applejack nodded, only a glimmer of apprehension in her eyes. “Well, might be worth a shot, but... well, I dunno how much I'll be able to pay you.”

“Huh?” Icy sputtered slightly, baffled by the statement. “You, er... I don't know about the others, but you don't have to pay me anything.”

Applejack snorted. “Phooey to that! You do work for me, you get paid. Ain't no question 'bout that. But if it don't have to be much, I 'ppreciate it.” She thought for a few more seconds before nodding slowly. “Alright – you talk to your buddies and see what you can do.”

Icy hopped up and down a few times, excited at a new case, even one as seemingly minor as this. “Yes, ma'am! I'll gather the team, we'll make a plan and I'll get back to you by this evening.” She gave an inelegant salute and started towards the door. “We won't let you down, Miss Applejack, Ma'am.” She had just put her hoof on the doorknob when she heard another voice.

“So, you don't want the book, then?”

She turned back around to Spike, who had, at some point, emerged from his back room retreat but had apparently decided to stay very quiet. Icy couldn't really fault his decision there.

“Oh, right. Sorry.” She trotted back over to the desk and waited patiently while Spike opened the book, carefully wrote the date to be returned on the inner card, then pulled the ledger out of a drawer in the desk, wrote the name of the book, the date it was lent out and the date it was to be returned again, then closed both books, returned the ledger to the drawer and handed her the book she was taking.

Once she had the book in her saddlebags, Icy turned around and thrust a hoof out forward. “Okay, now I'm going to...” She paused for a second. “Now, I'm going to get his book back to Mom, then I'm going to gather the team!” She strode confidently toward the door. “Don't worry, Miss Applejack, we'll find something out!”

As she blinked herself awake again and shifted her legs to keep them from falling asleep, Icy ruminated that at least she hadn't been lying. She had found something out. Namely that stakeouts suck.

After she had told the others what Applejack had said, they'd agreed they should lend a hoof, both because it was the right thing to do and because a little extra pocket money would very rarely go amiss.

However, it was also decided, given how quiet, unseen and attentive they would need to be, that not all of them should be there for the initial stakeout. Truffle was too loud, Scootaloo was too hasty – something she had not disagreed with – and as for Dinky...

Well, it turned out that slowing down and speeding up her perceptions was actually quite easy for the young chronomancer. As a result, when she got bored on jobs like this, she had a tendency to put things on fast forward. Useful for long walks and waiting rooms, not so good when you need to pay attention to what's going on.

So Archer, Lance, Alula and Icy were the ones spending the night in the Apples' cellar. Icy wasn't honestly that sure how good she'd be at it, but Alula had assured her she would be useful, as the only pegasus who could glide down quietly if they saw something – Archer and Lance could jump down, but would make a noise, and Alula shifting into a pegasus would create light. At the time, Icy had gone along with it, as the way Alula put it did make sense.

That didn't really make her feel any better now, though. She had been sitting on a beam near the ceiling in one corner of the cellar, in almost total darkness for what felt like days. There were a couple of small lights on each wall preventing the room from being completely pitch black, otherwise there wouldn't be much point in her and her teammates in the other corners watching for intruders. Whoever was sneaking in might have had a light, but there were plenty of ways to see in the dark without that, so the watching ponies needed a little visibility. Too much, however, and they might give away that there were ponies watching. So, the room had to be mostly dark.

That might not have been such a problem if not for them needing silence. Which meant no talking. Which meant little to relieve the boredom of staring into the darkness for hours on end. Their badges had been adjusted so that they would barely be audible to anyone but the wearer and so they wouldn't produce much static, but talking was still generally discouraged. The only times it would really be okay would be if one of them saw something or...

“Check in!”

Icy jumped at the quiet voice of Archer breaking her out of her thoughts, having to take a moment to keep her balance and not fall off the beam. Because they were still children, these checks were to make sure they all stayed awake.

She pressed a hoof to her badge.

“I'm here.”

She waited a moment as Alula responded similarly and a tiny fzt signalled that Lance was also still awake. Once that was established, she resumed thinking.

It wouldn't have been so bad, she thought, if she just had some way of telling the time and knowing exactly how long she'd been at it. Admittedly, she still wouldn't know how long she had to go, since thieves rarely provided a schedule for when they burgled somewhere (though, as her last adventure had proved, it wasn't unknown) but knowing how long she'd been waiting would have been something.

Or just being able to talk or... do something. Icy had heard of places where ponies could go into tanks and have all their senses cut off, but she'd never understood why anypony would ever want to go to such a place and this experience was not aiding her understanding. At this point, she was desperate for anything – a quick bit of conversation, a book to read, even a game of I Spy.

Actually, now that she thought about it, that last one probably wouldn't work. Sure, this time, Archer couldn't follow her line of sight and guess before she'd spoken, but it probably wouldn't have been that interesting when the only things she could name began with A.

“Icy?”

Speak of the gerbil. Icy thought as she pushed her badge and whispered into it. “I read you, Archer, what is it?”

“We got movement on our side.”

Icy blinked, her eyes refocusing, and silently thanked whoever was listening that Archer was sharper than she was, both in eye and attention.

She looked down to see... something. She couldn't exactly be sure what it was, but she knew what it wasn't – it wasn't a pony. In fact, the movement seemed to be coming solely from the apples themselves. As far as she could see – which wasn't much – it looked like the apples were coming out of a hole in a crate and moving along the ground by themselves, without even the telltale glow of unicorn magic.

“I'm going down.” She spoke quietly into her badge before standing up slowly... then immediately sitting back down and shaking her legs to wake them up again, then standing up slowly again and then spreading her wings and hopping off the beam.

Her glide was short, but she made sure to loop around the moving apples the long way to make sure she wasn't seen. She landed on top of a crate a few down from the one with the escaping apples.

Creeping silently, making sure to place every hoof down carefully to avoid either making noise or slipping between the planks of the crates and tripping, she made her way over to where she'd seen the moving apples.

Peeking slowly over the side, she got a closer look. It turned out that, no, the apples had not gained sentience and locomotion and decided that being eaten didn't sound too appealing and so were getting out of dodge. They were being carried, but by something much smaller than a pony. Or rather, a lot of somethings:

Rats.

There was a small crowd of them gathered around a hole in the crate, their dark brown fur blending almost perfectly with the packed earth of the basement floor. Every few seconds, an apple would tumble out of the hole, pushed by a rat already inside. The rats would scatter around the apple as it landed before one of them picked it up in its teeth and scurried off with it. Icy could see a sparse line of them going towards a hole in the corner of the wall, just large enough to fit an apple through.

Icy couldn't help it. She didn't have a problem with rats especially – they weren't her favourite animal, but she wasn't afraid of them or anything. But the sudden sight of a swarm of them not only being there, but apparently working together and being organized was something of a shock.

So she let out a gasp.

It wasn't loud, but it was enough. A small lake of dark, shining eyes turned towards her, all motion stopping for a second.

Then things started again. A chorus of squeals and chitters mixed with the collective scrabbling of maybe a hundred tiny, clawed feet as the rats turned and bolted towards the hole.

Icy barely had time to tell the others what she was seeing. “Rats! They're rats!” She shouted, no longer worried about stealth, as she ran after them.

She could see that she wasn't going to catch them – they were quicker, had a straighter path to their destination and were on even ground, not to mention being able to see where they were putting their feet. Nevertheless, she didn't stop, fixing her eyes on the hole as the last few rats began to pour into it. Quickly gathering energy at her wingtips, she flapped them far forward, focusing her blast tightly.

The freezing air shot past the only rat left and hit the hole itself, causing a thin sheet of ice to block it up.

Icy skid to a halt, giggling a little as the last rat ran into the ice and bounced off it. The ice cracked, but didn't break.

“Huh.” She said to herself. “Did not know that was going to work.”

The rat rammed itself once more into the ice, cracking it further but still not quite shattering it, before apparently deciding it wasn't worth the effort and shooting off to the side. Before it could get more than a foot, however, a two-pronged arrow flew forward and hit the rat, the prongs burying themselves in the wall above its back and between its front and rear legs, trapping it.

Icy turned to the filly leaping down from the ceiling. “Nice shot!”

Archer smiled as she looked to the ice covering the hole. “Was gonna say the same to you.” As they heard Lance trot over behind them and saw a flash of green in their high peripheral vision indicating that Alula was coming down, Archer peered down at the rat. It was still struggling to pull itself out of a snare arrow normally meant for hooves. “Looks like the Apples have got a pest problem.” She said after a moment.

Icy shook her head. “I don't think these are just any rats. They were working together, they were organized.”

“More than that.” Alula said as she landed behind them, her words quick and precise. “Normally, rats would just eat food here, wouldn't take it away, wouldn't need to, would leave traces and bits. Here, rats transporting food somewhere, not for immediate eating.”

Icy nodded. “I think something weird is going on here.”

“Heh.” Archer chuckled, smirking. “This is Ponyville, when is it not?”

Chapter Two: Through the Tunnels

“Rats?” Applejack raised an eyebrow as she looked at the creature held in Alula's recently reacquired magic. The rat was silent, its eyes flicking around the room in terror.

After their encounter with the rodent regiment, the four had come straight to the Apples' farmhouse and knocked on the door. Then, when that had produced no results, they went around to Applejack's window and Archer had thrown a small rock at it to try and wake her up. When that didn't work, she threw another rock to knock it open a little so she could take another rock and throw it inside the room.

Judging by the yelp they'd heard, that had woken her up. Archer claimed it was just luck – she couldn't have aimed to hit her since she couldn't see where her bed was. Icy preferred to simply assume she was a wizard, horn or no horn.

After that rude (but only kinda since she did ask to be woken if anything happened) awakening, Applejack had come down and let the four in. They were currently sitting in her living room, having just finished relating what had happened.

The clock on the wall claimed it was a quarter to midnight, which would mean they had only been down in the cellar for about an hour and a half. Icy decided that that meant the clock was a wizard, too. An evil one.

Admittedly, she did actually know someone capable of altering the flow of time for a prank, but even ignoring how powerful the effect would need to be, it wasn't worth considering. Between the possibility that there was some grand conspiracy of clocks and timepieces to use their hidden power to fundamentally alter the flow of the space-time continuum for the sole purpose of making Icy suffer... and the possibility that Dinky was capable of being a bit mean, the former was by far the more likely.

The other possibility, that maybe Icy's sense of time wasn't the best, did not occur to her.

She shook her head and refocused on the conversation as Alula was talking.

“...in command of them or it could be that they decided it as a collective but, whatever the case, this is highly unusual behaviour.”

Applejack looked up from the rat and over to Alula. “Anyone ever told you you speak real complicated, sugarcube?”

Alula's expression remained level. “Once or twice.”

Applejack shrugged and looked back to the rat being held in Alula's magic. “Well, not sure if there's much I can do with this li'l fella, but I reckon I know someone who can. I'll take him over to Fluttershy's tomorrow, see what she can get outta him.”

The others all nodded to themselves, seemingly recognizing the name, but it didn't ring a bell to Icy. Furthermore, the rat seemed to get even more agitated at hearing what Applejack had said. Presumably, Icy thought, it didn't know who this Fluttershy was either and assumed that she was some sort of interrogator. Probably a good assumption, but she didn't want it to spend the next night awake in terror.

She got down from her chair so she was at eye level with the rat and spoke gently to it.

“Don't worry, little guy. I'm sure that Fluttershy,” she made sure not to pause before saying the name so it sounded like she knew it, “isn't going to hurt you.”

“Ain't that the truth,” she heard Applejack mutter as she got up and went out of the room.

“We just want to know what you were doing. We aren't going to hurt you or do anything bad to you, okay?”

The rat looked at her. Icy was no expert at understanding animals, but she got the impression that it was suspicious, but open to what she was saying.

After a moment, Applejack returned carrying a small metal box. She opened the box and Alula started lowering the rat into it, setting it off into another frenzy of movement and fear.

“Hold on,” Icy said, looking to Applejack. “Could I have an apple, please?”

Applejack looked up, puzzled, but nodded, indicating the counter where a bowl of them lay. Icy went up, having to hop up on a stool to reach it, before taking an apple by the stem in her mouth. She then walked back over to the box and placed the apple inside, next to the suddenly-confused rat.

“There you go,” she said, smiling. “Just something for the trip.”

The rat didn't look up, but it did start nibbling a little at the apple as Applejack shut the box and closed the latch.

“Dunno why you wanna reward the thing for thievin', but I guess I owe you one, so I won't question it,” she said as they walked to the door.

Archer rolled her eyes a little before looking back, making sure they were out of earshot of the boxed rat. “Really? It's basic good cop stuff, getting it on our side so it'll be easier to get info out of it.”

Applejack nodded. “I guess, but don't see as how that's necessary – just bein' near Fluttershy'll do that.”

“Will it?” Icy asked. “Sorry, I don't know who Fluttershy is.” She looked to the side a little awkwardly. “Actually, I just didn't like seeing it so scared.”

Applejack chuckled a little as she paused by the front door. “Maybe you're related. Still, I get what you're sayin'.” A dark look suddenly came over her. “Still, guess I'll have to go by the carrot stand tomorrow.”

“Any particular reason?” Alula asked, a hint of confusion edging onto her face at the apparent non-sequitur.

“Well, way I figure it,” Applejack answered, “Fluttershy ain't gonna wanna keep an animal confined, which means I gotta ask Angel to keep an eye on it.”

“Angel's her pet rabbit.” Archer informed Icy before she could ask. “He'll be able to keep it in line.”

Icy nodded for a moment before she stopped, an important question coming to mind. “But wouldn't Fluttershy already have carrots?”

“It ain't the carrot he'll want from me,” Applejack explained. “It's me havin' to go up to Carrot Top, buy some carrots and listen to her gloatin' 'bout it for the next six months.” She frowned a little more heavily that it sounded like she should. “Li'l varmint likes to see me suffer.” She shook her head after a moment of brooding. “Anyway, thanks for your help. You just get to bed now, leave this with me an'...”

“Actually,” Alula interrupted passively, “I think we can help some more. While you're conferring with Fluttershy, we can take a look down where the rats most likely took your apples.”

“Where's that?” Icy asked. Alula's voice was even more level than usual which, she'd learned, could mean many things. Few of them were good.

“Where else?” Alula answered, giving Icy an evaluating look. “The sewers.”

“You know, Alula,” Icy spoke into her badge as she hopped down off the last step, “when you said ‘We can take a look’, I kinda thought you meant ‘we’. Not ‘you’.”

“I apologise for misspeaking,” Alula's voice came over the badge, “but it wouldn't work for me to come down there.”

Icy walked a few paces down to give room for Archer and Dinky to come fully down into the tunnels. “Why not?”

“Because you three are the smallest of all of us, Pip notwithstanding. You're in tunnels, so being small enough to manoeuvre in there could be very important.” There was a half-second's pause before Alula continued. “Also, we can't afford to crowd it too much, so the you three should be the best combination.”

Icy nodded – that had answered her next question of why they weren't sending more. There was still something niggling at her, but she couldn't pin it down.

She tilted her helmet up, shifting the beam from the flashlight atop it a little, and went to scratch her head. Fortunately, at the last second, she remembered the plastic boot on her hoof and what her hoof was just standing on and stopped herself. The nice lady who opened up the ponyhole for them had assured them that the sewage flowing along the bottom of the pipe shouldn't have gotten onto the walkways much, but Icy was still a bit hesitant to put the soles of her boots anywhere near her fur.

She heard a couple of clicks behind her and turned around to see two more beams of light turn on, one complete, the other with a small shadow at the bottom cast by Dinky's horn.

“Well, we're here now, no sense arguing about it,” Archer spoke into her badge, her voice echoing from Icy's own – something she was told she'd get used to, but she had her doubts. “Besides, we've only got a couple of hours down here, should make the most of it, huh?”

Icy nodded, rubbing at her nose with the front of her leg – not her hoof. The lady who let them in had cast a spell on them to disable their senses of smell for two hours or so. She never needed any longer, she'd said, since after a while of working down there, she'd just gotten used to it, but Icy was thankful that they wouldn't have to.

“Well, they'd have come from Applejack's barn, so... how far is that?” Dinky asked, looking around the dank stone walls.

A sound came over the comms of paper being straightened, presumably the map of the sewers they'd retrieved from the town hall.

Pip's voice spoke from the badges. “From where you came down, turn left and go about...” There was a long pause and the sound of a ruler on paper, followed by another pause. “five hundred metres – that's the nearest point to the Acres, where their pipes join the main lot.”

Archer sighed, sounding as close to annoyed as she ever got. “Well, better get going, then. Come on, guys.”

And so they set off down the tunnels, Archer in front, Dinky second and Icy third. Archer went on the comms every so often to tell the ponies on the surface how many exits they'd passed, check what junctions they went through and ask which tunnels they should take, but Icy didn't really pay attention, simply following the others and letting her mind wander.

She wished that ponyholes were a bit more common in the streets of Ponyville so they could have gone down one closer to their goal, but she knew it wasn't feasible – the stairs down to the sewer tunnels were both difficult to build and awkward to place, since they couldn't interfere with either the sewers and pipes themselves nor the foundations of any houses. She'd read that Minotuars used ladders instead for that very reason, which let them put a lot more ponyholes (or maybe minotaur-holes... Taurholes? Toroles? She'd have to look that up) in their cities. Then again, given how big minotaurs were, it probably balanced out.

Of course, Icy wouldn't have minded the long walk quite as much if it wasn't for how silent things were. There was little chatter between the three, so as not to distract Archer from getting and using directions, and the sounds of the sewer were a little off. Icy couldn't quite pinpoint it – the movement of the... contents of the sewers sounded fine, as did the occasional drip drip of what Icy desperately hoped was water. Even the occasional creak of old stone didn't seem that worrying.

But there was something missing. Not that Icy had ever been down in the sewers before to hear it, but it was something she'd always heard it in her head whenever she thought about sewers or read a scene with the Pipe-Ponies in X-mares or even just looked down a storm drain, in curiosity or in search of dropped keys. She couldn't put her hoof on what it was, but it was definitely worrying in its absence.

She raised a hoof to wipe away the sweat on her forehead – again, making sure her booted sole didn't come anywhere near it – before realising something.

“Why is it so warm?” She asked quietly. She wasn't sure why, but something about the tunnels made her not want to raise her voice.

Alula's voice came over the badges. “Well, you're deep enough underground that the cold won't penetrate as much. Plus, the breakdown of pony waste produces a lot of heat.” Icy nodded, thankful that they were coming down in the middle of winter – she was getting a little sweaty as it was. “If you go deep or far enough, that heat might start interfering with our transmission a little, but it shouldn't be too bad.”

Dinky looked around, the light from her helmet illuminating her worried face a little. “I hope it doesn't interfere with my chronometry.” She said, not even stumbling over the word.

Archer looked down over the edge of the walkway to the flowing sewage below. “You sure you'll be able to track them, Dinky?”

Dinky's face didn't lose its trepidation. “Well, I don't know, but I might. It's been a bit of time and running water... or kinda-water does mess it up, but...” she thought for a moment, “well, you said they were working together, right? So, they were probably going in the same direction.” She brightened a little. “If a lot of them were moving together, I should be able to pick that up.”

Icy gave Dinky an encouraging smile for a moment before something just at the edge of her hearing distracted her. Her head whipped around, the moving beam of her lamp disorienting her vision for a moment before it settled on an empty corner. She couldn't see anything and could no longer hear anything. In fact, she'd barely heard the sound at all. But she had – a tiny scraping noise and maybe, though she could have imagined it, a slight squeak. And she suddenly realized what was missing from the ambient noise: life.

Life makes noise. That was a fact that even Icy knew. Animal or vegetable, wild or civilized, there was always noise. Even the emptiest field or deepest jungle had noise, whether it was the buzzing of flies and insects, the skittering of small animals or just the wind rustling the grass or trees. So too should the sewers have had the occasional sound of animal life, but there was nothing. Icy could almost see the cartoon sound effects that should have been there but weren't. The place wasn't dead, but it was like everything was hiding. Where were all the...?

Icy turned back to the others, gulping audibly. Whatever was up with the rats down here, it wasn't just one group.

She was jolted out of her thoughts when the others stopped, causing her to stumble a little and almost trip, though the thought of what she'd be falling into helped her to keep standing.

“Okay, I think we're here,” Archer said, a little louder than before.

“Are you at a curved corner with a large pipe going out from the middle of it?” Alula asked precisely.

Archer shrugged, apparently not bothered by the fact the badges didn't broadcast shoulder movements. “Gotta be honest, there's a lot of places like that down here, but yep, we are.”

“Assuming you followed my instructions correctly...”

“We did,” Archer interrupted.

“Then that should be it,” Alula finished, not sounding bothered by being cut off. “Look for a hole that's been chewed into something.”

As Archer began to look, Icy piped up. “Wouldn't they have just gone down the pipes? Why would they make a hole here?”

“Because it's easier to chew through a stone wall than a metal pipe,” Alula's voice informed her.

“Yeah...” Icy trailed off, a little unsure of herself, before continuing, “but I don't think they could chew through either of those, could they?”

“Guess again, Icy,” Archer said, pointing a hoof towards the end of her lamp's beam.

Sure enough, a little above the pipe that, presumably, lead to Sweet Apple Acres, there was a sizable hole with rough edges slanting inwards. It was a bit of a distance away and the low light made it difficult to be certain, but if Icy strained her eyes a little, she could just about make out tiny teeth marks in the stone.

“Wow,” Icy said simply, nonplussed by the sight. “They can do that, huh?”

“Oh yeah,” Dinky said, smiling a little as she stood next to Icy and looked at the hole, “Mommy said she once lived in a place with rats. She said that, if they had long enough, they could chew through the brick of her house, the wood of her cupboard and even the metal of her muffin tin.”

“Really? They can break through all that?” Icy turned to Dinky, her eyebrows raising. “So what happened?”

Dinky shrugged. “So could she.”

It took a moment for the meaning to register with Icy, but when it did, her eyes widened a little further and her mouth pulled back into a straight line. “Wow. Remind me not to get on a rat's bad side. Or her bad side, I guess.”

Dinky giggled a little. “That's okay, I...” She paused for a moment, her eyes looking distant briefly, “I don't think she has one.”

Icy chuckled. That would explain where Dinky got it from, at least.

“Yeah, and I think we're already on one rat's bad side, having caught it and all,” Archer interjected, looking down the tunnels shooting off from the corner. “So, might as well get on some more. You ready, Dinky?”

Dinky nodded, her smile going into slight remission as she concentrated, her horn lighting up gold and pointing towards the hole. The edges of it glowed with a matching golden light, which quickly moved down, zipping across the water in a straight line, then alighting on the walkway down the tunnel they didn't come through.

“This way!” She said, trotting off after the glow.

This time, they moved slower, though it was a lot less tense for Icy – the hum of Dinky's magic made an effective substitute for other sounds of life. However, there was also a lot less talking, neither her nor Archer wanting to disrupt Dinky's concentration. The only time they talked was in the quick break they took after about ten minutes to let Dinky get her breath back.

“It's not hard or anything,” She'd explained between deep breaths, “but it's like... holding your hoof out. You can do it, but if you keep it there for long enough or put it out and in again too many times, its gets kinda tiring.”

Fortunately, she'd only needed a couple of minutes' rest before she was okay to go again. Five minutes after that, they turned a corner and stopped.

“Can't be sure,” Archer said as she looked along her lamp's beam, “But I've got a feeling this is the place.”

They were standing at the entrance to a relatively large room or cavern – it was hard to say, since there were the same stone walls, but they were round and shaped like a naturally formed cave. It was around the size of a small living room, though differently proportioned – wider, but with a lower ceiling. There were four entrances, including the one they were standing in, and none of them looked like there was any sewage flowing through them. The floor was too high for that anyway, being level with the walkways rather than the bottom of the sewers. At a guess, Icy would have said the room was built inside a small natural cavern and intended as a junction and landmark for those navigating the sewers. However, it had clearly been repurposed.

In the centre of the room was a huge pile of produce – apples, carrots, beetroots, potatoes, bananas, celery (though Icy couldn't imagine why the rats would want to subject themselves to that), beans, broccoli and even a single cherry on top. The pile reached up past the three fillies' heads, despite how much it sagged. All the food on the bottom was rotten and semiliquid, much of it melding together into a greeny-grey mush. Around the pile were specks, seeds and juices, all laid out in a thin carpet, implying that a lot had been eaten, presumably by the rats, but Icy assumed that they had stronger stomachs than ponies, which was saying a lot. The food on the top, though, fared a little better, being merely unpleasant – you might not throw up if you ate it. You'd just wish you would.

Once again, Icy was thankful for having her sense of smell disabled.

“Well, looks like we found the farmers' stuff,” Archer said, strolling through the strewn-about remnants without even flinching. “Though... I wouldn't wanna tell them their jobs, but I don't think they'll be wanting it back.” She walked around the pile, looking it up and down. “Though there are some brussel sprouts here, so some of it, no one'll want.”

“Hey!” Icy said, trotting a little after her. “I like brussel sprouts!”

Archer turned and gave her a smile. “And you and your kind are a blight upon Equestria.”

Icy huffed, a little offended but mostly playing along. “At least I don't eat celery.”

Archer raised an eyebrow. “Well, let's agree to disagree.”

Icy nodded, a little wary of Archer after this new information, before turning back to the pile. “Okay, well, whichever is bad, I guess it's mostly the rats doing this after all.”

“I don't think it is,” Dinky's voice came from the other side of the pile. “Come look at this.”

Frowning in concern, Icy and Archer trotted around the pile, coming to a stop next to Dinky and following her hoof to see what she was talking about.

Nestled in a corner of the room opposite to where they'd come in was a large mound of straw, hay and filth. It rose up as it went into the rounded wall, but it had a large hollow in the middle. It seemed to be some sort of nest, but it was far too big for any rat. On the other hand, it was too small for a pony.

Or, at least, a full-sized pony.

Icy walked forwards a couple of steps, reaching out a hoof towards the hollow, not touching it but sizing it up.

“Is it just me or...”

“Yeah,” Archer nodded, cutting her off. “Would fit one of us just fine.”

Icy looked back at the other two. “You don't think...”

A noise from the side of the group cut her off. At first, it sounded like the squeal of a mouse or a rat, but after a split second of consideration, Icy realized it a little too deep for that. It sounded like was imitating a rat, but very well. Like they were speaking in rat, but with a pony accent.

Icy didn't have time to giggle at the thought as her head whipped around along with the others'. The beams from their helmets flashed across the walls before converging on the tunnel exit to their left, just in time to see something be pulled off to the side rapidly.

Something that looked remarkably like a small pony's tail.

“Let's go!” Archer said, rushing forward with an impressive acceleration given what she was standing on. Icy and Dinky took a few moments to register what was happening and a few moments more to get up to full speed.

They came out of the cavern one after another, looking to the left for a moment before hearing light but hard hoofsteps from the end of that tunnel. They turned and started running after the sounds, managing to spot the tail darting around another corner.

Another three corners blurred by as they continued the chase, never catching more than a momentary glimpse of their quarry's tail but always able to follow the sound of their hooves.

“Can't get a clear shot at them,” Archer said, a little louder than usual. “Icy, can you skate after them?”

Icy shook her head, taking a moment to gather her breath before responding. “No, too many corners - I'd just hit the walls or fall into...” She stopped to breathe, already beginning to get a little winded, but Archer spoke before she could continue.

“Right, course. Dinky, can you slow them?”

Dinky also took a moment to respond, though given that she was having to run a little faster than the others to keep up thanks to her shorter legs, her fatigue was probably a bit more forgivable than Icy's.

“Maybe, but I'll need to be able to see more of...”

“Then let's do that!” Archer interrupted before accelerating.

Icy took a moment to ponder Archer's tendency to interrupt ponies – it was a little rude, even if circumstances usually meant it was necessary – before speeding up herself along with her, ignoring her legs' slight protest.

After two more corners, they came to a long, straight tunnel. They could see the fleeing figure a little clearer, but only enough to ascertain that it did indeed look like a pony somewhere around their age. They couldn't see anything more, not even its colour, as their movements prevented their lamp beams from illuminating the pony for more than a split second.

Fortunately, they didn't need to see any more for what they needed to do.

“Now, Dinky!” Archer said. A little flare of light in Icy's peripheral vision indicated that Dinky had lit her horn. As she did, a golden glow enveloped the running figure and its pace slowed to a crawl. With their body lit up like that, Icy was able to get a better look at them as well.

It looked like they had a grey coat with a slightly browner grey in their mane and tail. Said mane and tail were extremely scruffy and, though Icy couldn't tell much due to the distance, it wasn't a stretch to imagine it was probably even more matted and filthy than it looked, given where they were.

The figure turned its head as the three pursuers slowed a little, trotting up to him. Judging by the muzzle, it looked like it was a colt and Icy could practically see the stink lines coming off him. It seemed that, in this case, having her sense of smell turned off was the gift that kept on giving.

The figure opened its mouth and a squeal came out. Except this squeal was wrong. In three ways, in fact – it sounded like an actual rat, it was coming out before he'd fully opened his mouth and it was coming from... above... them...

Icy looked up just in time to see a small group of rats jump down from the ceiling, a few landing on each filly's head. She heard the sound of Dinky's magic fizzling out as she shrieked. Turning, she could see a rat wrapped around the little unicorn's horn, tapping and scratching at it. It wasn't enough to damage it, just enough to stop her from using magic.

She could also hear the sounds of the colt's footsteps getting further away.

Flaring her wings, Icy flapped them downwards hard, sending a chill wind over her, as well as lifting her up an inch or so. The wind wasn't enough to freeze the rats crawling over her, since that would be a little counter-productive for getting them off her, but was cold enough to repel them, making them jump down from the hovering pegasus and scurry off in the opposite direction to the colt.

Icy looked to the others just in time to see Archer throw off two rats from her hooves, then grab one clambering on her barrel by its back. Spinning round, she threw the rat towards Dinky, hitting the one on her horn and knocking it off. As the two rats splashed into the sewage below, Dinky's horn lit up again, its glow suffusing her skin rather than enveloping it, and she started shaking herself at incredible speeds, throwing off all the other rats clinging to her.

The three looked in the direction the colt had gone, the sounds of his hoofsteps now barely audible. Icy was about to say something when the glow of Dinky's magic expanded around the three and the sounds got slower and deeper, signifying that they were being sped up.

Without a word, the three sped off down the tunnel. Luckily, the end of that tunnel was a single corner, so there was no question which way the colt had gone. With a bit of luck, they could get to the end quickly enough to hear where he was running and begin the chase anew,

Unfortunately, after they turned the corner, their luck ran out. About thirty feet from the corner was a four-way junction, the walkways giving way to a solid stone floor, and they stopped in the centre of it. Dinky's glow died down as they looked at what was in front of them. And to both sides of them.

Stretching out about ten or fifteen feet down each tunnel were more rats. But not just a few this time – three entire swarms of them, almost forming carpets along the ground. They stared at the fillies, silently daring them to try and get past them.

The three groups in the three tunnels also made it impossible to tell which way the colt had gone. They could just barely hear his hoofsteps, but the echoing of the tunnels masked his direction well. Even if they could get past the rat-blockades, they couldn't find him without splitting up and none of them wanted to risk losing the others in these tunnels.

Of course, that was assuming the rats didn't attack.

Icy flared her wings, speaking to the others without taking her eyes off the gathered creatures.

“Um, I could maybe freeze one group, but I don't know how much good that'll do.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Dinky nodding and Archer drawing her bow.

“I can slow some of them down,” Dinky said carefully, “but not for long with this many.”

Icy heard Archer's bowstring tautening. “And I could maybe repel some with a flash-bang.” She sighed, sounding an imperceptible bit put-out. “We canst not give thee explosive arrows, young Archer.” She said in a mocking imitation of Princess Luna's voice. “'twouldst be far too dangerous.”

“Um,” Dinky began after a moment, “wouldn't that risk making the tunnels collapse?”

“Not if I'm shooting them, it wouldn't. Still, least I've got some crowd control options.”

“So, what do we-”

Icy was interrupted, not by Archer this time, but by the rats suddenly turning around and running away, scattering down the tunnels in all directions.

A moment passed in confusion.

“Huh,” Archer said finally. “Well, that settles that.”

Icy looked down the three tunnels, seeing nothing but more tunnels and walls. “Why did they run away? They could have taken us.”

“I don't think that's what they were here for,” Dinky replied, sitting down on the stone floor and panting a little. “I think they just wanted to protect him.”

“Yeah, figures he'd use them to cover his escape,” Archer said before looking at Dinky. “Hey, you okay?”

“I'm fine,” Dinky replied between breaths. “I just used a lot of magic there.”

A thought occurred to Icy. “Hey, why didn't you just speed us up first instead of slowing him down?”

Dinky took a couple of deep breaths before answering. “'Cause doing it to one pony is easier than doing it to three.” She looked away, blushing a little in shame. “I'm sorry, I should have thought...”

“No, no, no, I didn't mean it like that!” Icy blurted out, her heart breaking a little at Dinky's expression. “I was just wondering, that's all, although... aren't the costumes supposed to help channel your magic?”

Dinky nodded. “Yeah, but you don't have one, so I'd still have to do one normal pony, plus me and Archer's costumes. Also, I didn't want to leave you behind. That'd be kinda mean.”

“Well, in any case,” Archer piped up, giving Dinky an easy smile. “'snot your fault – you couldn't have known he'd drop rats on us.” She looked over her back and hooves. “So much for keeping clean, eh?”

Dinky giggled, a small smile coming onto her muzzle. “I don't think that was going to happen anyway.”

“Er, guys?” Icy said, looking around at the four tunnels. “Can you remember the way back to that cavern?”

“Sure, it was back, take a left and...” Archer paused, her brow furrowing, “no, wait, we went left, so that'd be a right and... well, we'll just go...” She looked around, trying to remember which tunnel they had come down.

“It's okay,” Dinky said, standing up. “I can check.”

“In a minute,” Icy said, putting a foreleg on Dinky's horn. “Get your breath back first.”

After another couple of minutes, Dinky was able to scan the ground and find the path they'd taken. They followed her back to the cavern, only to find another surprise waiting for them.

“Where'd everything go?” Icy asked.

Sure enough, both the food pile and the nest were gone, a few strands of straw and a thin carpet of rotten vegetable-mush the only signs that they had ever been there.

“Must have moved everything while we were chasing their leader,” Archer said, looking at each of the exits. “Dinky, can you...?”

Dinky lit her horn once again, but this time her expression fell. “Everywhere...”

“Huh?”

“They went everywhere. It looks like a whole bunch of things came and took things in all directions.”

“Spread out, you mean?” Archer kicked a hoof gently against the ground. “Can you follow the general paths?”

Dinky shook her head. “They're all criss-crossing each other and...” She cantered up to one of the tunnel entrances and shone her horn down it. “Yeah, they're going all over the place, spreading themselves too thin... I can't tell where they're going.”

Icy gulped, feeling her skin crawl slightly. “Does this mean what I think it means?”

Archer nodded. “They're learning.”

Chapter Three: On the Trail

Icy leaned over her plate and took a deep breath of the steam coming off her mother's mushroom risotto, happy to finally be able to smell something nice again.

Once it had become clear that there was no real way to figure out where the rats were all going, it had been decided to withdraw from the sewers for the moment. Fortunately, the cavern didn't take long for Pip to find on the map, so the three were guided out fairly easily and emerged from the sewers a good fifteen minutes before their senses of smell were due to return. However, things weren't quite that simple.

They'd been met at the ponyhole by the sewer worker who had let them into the tunnels before – a very cheerful lady whose parents, in a staggering lack of foresight, had named her Aroma Dream. However, she didn't let them go right away, instead insisting that they accompany her back to her office. Once there, she spent a short while preparing three bowls of hot water with a mixture of salts, herbs and various things Icy couldn't identify dissolved into them.

Fifteen minutes after they had emerged, it became clear why – it turns out that just because you can't smell the stink doesn't mean that it's not getting inside your nose. According to Miss Aroma, the remnants in her nose didn't smell a tenth as bad as being in there. Icy wasn't sure she entirely believed her, but definitely didn't want to find out.

Still, after about ten solid minutes with towels over their heads huffing the steam from Aroma's smell-mixture (or “cleanse-it-with-fire water,'' as she called it), they had managed to get the smell out of their noses. Then it was just a question of getting it out of their coats.

Fortunately, the office had a very big shower and a wide selection of very powerful soaps and shampoos, presumably for this precise situation. They'd all taken it together – for a species that rarely wore clothes, this wasn't much of a taboo – which meant it was much hotter than Icy usually took it. Still, that was probably for the best, given what it had to clean, and Icy was willing to put up with a fair amount of discomfort in order to eliminate as much of the she-didn't-want-to-think-about-what from her skin as she could.

Of course, that meant that the moment she'd got home, she immediately went upstairs and took another shower. And then a bath. And then another, make-double-super-safety-sure shower.

It wasn't entirely paranoia – Icy's hair was hard to manage at the best of times. The fur of her coat tended to clump together and her long mane and tail seemed to get continually tangled. No matter how much she washed it, how thoroughly and how much shampoo and conditioner she used, it would tangle again within a day or two. Now, normally, this would just be a minor annoyance, but those clumps and tangles getting suffused with stink and sewage was a real problem.

Still, it had taken several hours, half a bottle of shampoo, three combs, countless pulled-out hairs and no small amount of pain, but Icy finally felt clean.

Then, when she came down for dinner, her mother informed her that she knew a spell to help clean one's coat, mane and tail extremely thoroughly that she would have gladly cast on her had she thought to ask.

To her credit, Icy only screamed a little.

“Not that I don't appreciate you enjoying the smell, sweetie, but I think I'd like it more if you actually ate it.”

Her mother's voice pulled Icy out of her thoughts and she looked up.

“Sorry, Mom,” she said, sitting back in her chair and skewering a thick slice of mushroom on her fork, “I'm still a little out of it after, you know...” She tilted her head in the direction of the bathroom.

Sunny Flight shrugged, smirking a little. “No more than usual.”

Icy rolled her eyes at her mother's playful jab, not answering for a moment – that slice of mushroom had taken a while for her teeth to penetrate, worth it though it was.

“Sorry for taking up the bathroom for so long.”

Sunny waved her daughter's concerns away with a hoof. “Oh, it's no trouble – believe me, I know what it's like to schlep through muck and grime. You ever had to pull out an entire coatful of burrs? Not. Fun.” She took another mouthful, pondering for a moment. “Might have to pay an extra couple of bits for water, but those are in no short supply.”

Icy swallowed a mouthful of rice and peas. “Okay, if you're sure.” She picked up another forkful, taking a moment to smell it before putting it in her mouth.

Sunny raised an eyebrow and lifted her own forkful to her nose, taking a quick sniff before bobbing her head from side to side for a moment, her face declaring the smell fine.

“Sorry, Mom,” Icy said, blushing a little. “It's just...”

“No, that's fine, I get it.” Her mother smiled at her. “After where you've been, smell-stopper or no, anything'd smell good by comparison. Besides, I know how useful smell can be.”

“Useful?”

“Yeah. When we were going somewhere big where people could get lost, we'd always make sure to have something cooking or brewing so they could find their way back to the main group by smell.”

“Really?” Icy asked, beginning to get enraptured, as she always did with her mother's stories.

“Yep. I mean, sometimes it also led animals to us, but we knew how to handle them. But yeah, we used to say “if all else fails, lead 'em by the nose.”

“Were the smells nice?”

Sunny chuckled. “Depends who was doing the cooking and what they were using. Sometimes the smell would practically pick us up and float us towards it like in one of your cartoons. Other times, you'd have to play a game of hot-and-cold with your gag reflex. I remember this one time...”

As her mother launched into the anecdote, something twigged in Icy's mind. She wasn't sure what, but it felt important. Still, she thought as she focused her attention on the story, it'd probably come to her.

“So what do we do now?” Archer asked as she lent her chair back, her feet up on the big table.

It was the next day, around eleven in the morning, and the team had gathered at their headquarters AKA Pip's basement. Well, most of them had – Dinky was exhausted enough from the previous day that they'd all agreed to let her have a long lie-in, but the rest of them were there, trying to figure out what their next move would be.

It wasn't going especially well.

“Hard to say,” Truffle said, his hoof stroking his chin. “I checked by the market today – thought I should do something since I wouldn't fit down there – and everypony I talked to said the raids had stopped, or at least put on hold last night.”

“Won't last,” Alula said, her eyes wandering as she thought. “They seemed to be gathering food to feed the colt controlling them – once he runs out, they'll start taking food again. But now they know we can track them, they would make sure to spread thin and go complicated routes so we can't follow.”

Scootaloo snorted, a tone of frustration edging into her voice. “Well, we gotta do something soon.”

Pip looked over from his seat on the sofa, listening but, until now, not really taking part in the conversation. “What's the rush?

Scootaloo opened her mouth to answer before stopping, a contemplative look coming on to her face. “Well, I mean... we're gonna have to figure out where he went eventually if we're gonna stop him stealing again. So, should probably do that quickly.”

Pip shrugged, leaning back. “I guess, but I don't see as we can do much unless we know where to start.”

Alula nodded. “Have you had any ideas?”

Scootaloo looked away, a little embarrassed. That had been the stumbling block for the last ten minutes.

There was silence for about thirty seconds as everyone thought about it, but no one had an answer.

Eventually, Truffle let out a loud sigh. “Well, no use thinking about it on an empty stomach, eh? What say we go out and get something to eat – maybe full bellies'll make full minds.”

There was a general murmuring of agreement – not as enthusiastic as the suggestion, but then few were more enthusiastic than Truffle when it came to food.

That said, now that Icy thought about it, she was pretty hungry – she had slept a little late that morning and had forgotten breakfast, so a muffin from Sugarcube Corner sounded pretty good. Not to mention almost certainly looking, feeling, smelling and tasting goo-

Smelling!

Icy blinked as she recalled what her mother had said the previous night.

“Hey, could we... I dunno, use something he has to track him. Like... by smelling the fruits he has?”

Everyone paused in the middle of getting up, thinking about what Icy had said.

“Well, smell wouldn't work – the sewer would cover it up,” Alula said after a moment. She thought for a split second more then continued before Icy got a chance to feel stupid for her suggestion. “But using something to home in on... could work, there are spells for that, but we’d need to either find him first to cast it or have something of his and get it back to him.”

Icy's ears drooped a little at her idea being shot down – she knew Alula was right, but it had felt like such a revelation. “I guess we don't have anything like that, do we?”

A hoof landed gently on her shoulder, causing Icy to jump for a moment before turning round and seeing Lance, his face sympathetic. Icy breathed for a moment – in these sorts of big discussions, it was so easy to forget Lance was there, as ashamed as that made her feel.

“Even if we did,” Alula added, standing up again, “we couldn't get it back to him to track unless we knew where he was. I mean, unless it was something that'd just go back to him on its... own...”

Alula trailed off as the idea expanded across the room like a gas, each ponies eyes lighting up in inspiration as it reached them.

“Of course!” Truffle bellowed, leaping to his feet and making a small tremor go through the room as he landed. “We can use the rat we captured! We'll just...”

A loud gurgle from his stomach interrupted him.

“Do something after lunch!” He finished, his voice no less exuberant than before.

Icy sighed in contentment as she trotted along the path out of Ponyville, enjoying the feeling of a full stomach.

On the way out of Pip's house, they'd run into Dinky, out of breath and apologizing profusely for sleeping in and missing the meeting. Once she was told that they didn't call her since they figured she'd be too tired, she'd been... well, not offended, exactly, as that would require her to think something negative about her friends, but certainly put out.

She cheered up when Pip offered to share a milkshake, though.

After lunch, Icy, Dinky and Truffle had volunteered to go and handle the rat they'd caught, as well as a couple of stops beforehand. Dinky had suggested that it might be easier and nicer to just put the tracking spell on a piece of food and track that, rather than casting it on the rat, who might suspect something was up if that happened. So, they'd gone by the market to pick up an apple. They'd intended to get a carrot for variety's sake, but when Applejack overheard their intention as they passed her stand, she subjected them to a five-minute lecture on why they should never buy from Carrot Top “no matter how good she... er, her carrots look.”

Icy shook her head. Adults are weird.

After that, they quickly stopped by Spike's place to ask if he knew of a spell to track it. He'd referred them to Princess Twilight, who had barely looked up from the book she was reading as she cast the spell. They'd thanked both the Princess and Spike, then left.

Well, in Icy's case, she'd been dragged out by Truffle the moment Spike pulled out a comic and her mouth opened, but that technically counted as leaving.

So now they were heading out of town. Icy didn't know exactly where they were going, but she assumed that Fluttershy, whoever she was, lived away from other ponies. Fair enough, Icy could certainly understand the desire for solitude, but they did seem to be getting uncomfortably close to the borders of the Everfree Forest.

Eventually, they came upon a small cottage right beside the outer edges of the forest. At least, Icy assumed it was a cottage, as piles of foliage didn't usually have walls around them. Although, this was near the Everfree, so who could say what kind of weirdness there was around the area. Oddly enough, the leaves covering the place were still full and green, despite the snow covering the ground and the bare trees surrounding the small grove.

Icy giggled internally. It must be like living in a big Hearth's Warming tree.

Still, on the outside, Icy steeled herself. Sure, Applejack's words had seemed to imply that this Fluttershy was fairly nice, but she still lived right next to one of the most dangerous places in Equestria. Anyone who did so willingly would have to be incredibly tough, totally fearless and generally not someone you'd want to mess with.

Truffle knocked heavily on the door and Icy could have sworn she had heard an eep from inside. After a few long seconds, the door started to open slowly, then stopped after a moment, a pair of eyes peeking out from behind the gap.

“Hello?” The figure behind the door asked in an incredibly gentle voice. From what Icy could see, she seemed to be fairly tall and wispy and was looking at the three children in front of her door with an expression of worry.

Well, Icy thought, I got one out of three. I definitely wouldn't want to mess with her. Just not for the reasons I thought.

Fortunately, it seemed no amount of caution could stand up against Dinky's sheer cuteness, as all it took was the little unicorn smiling at the pony for the door to be opened wide.

“Hi, Miss Fluttershy!” Dinky said brightly. “Could we come in, please?”

“Oh, of course,” Fluttershy said, gently waving them in, “please come in. What, um... what can I do for you?”

“Well, we were hoping we could talk to that rat we caught,” Icy asked as she looked around the interior of the cottage. It looked fairly standard and homely for the most part, with the only notable feature being the multitude of small animals nestled in various places around the cottage's walls – some sleeping, some eating, some simply watching the new arrivals with mild interest. Or, in the case of one white rabbit, a suspicious glare.

“Oh, you mean Sweee?”

Icy jumped as Fluttershy's voice was suddenly interrupted by what sounded like a rat. She whirled her head round to where it had come from, but saw only Fluttershy.

“What?” She asked.

“Sweee?” The sound came again, apparently from Fluttershy doing a near-perfect imitation of a rat. “That's her name. She was a little afraid to give it at first, but after a nice lunch and a little petting, she opened up. It's a bit odd,” She continued, a puzzled expression coming onto her face. “Normally animals don't give each other names that ponies can pronounce, so I have to come up with my own, but Sweee was sure that was her name.” She shook her head and shrugged. “I suppose Skrik must have given it to her.”

“Skrik?” Truffle asked, sitting down next to the sofa in the centre of the room. “Who or what is Skrik?” His eyes widened as he looked at the others. “You don't suppose...?”

“Well, when I asked Sweee why she was taking food, she said it was to feed someone, a friend, called Skrik.” Unlike Truffle, Fluttershy spoke the names like a rat would say them. “I asked if Skrik was another rat, but Sweee told me he was a “rat-that-wasn't-a-rat”. I think that he's some sort of pony, but I'm not sure.”

“A Colt, actually,” Truffle said just as Fluttershy finished. “As far as we can tell, there seems to be a young colt living in the sewers of Ponyville, controlling an army of rats and stealing food. If I had to guess, I'd say that's our “Skrik”.”

Fluttershy's eyes widened. “Oh my! That's terrible. The poor little pony.” Icy was taken off-guard by Fluttershy showing sympathy to the thief. Though, in hindsight, she really shouldn't have been, given what she'd heard and seen of her, plus the fact Skrik didn't seem to be intending any harm. “Are you going to try to help him?”

“Well,” Dinky began, looking away and scuffing a hoof on the ground, “we're gonna try, but we kinda sorta have to stop him from stealing stuff.”

“Oh. Okay.” Fluttershy seemed a little put out, but accepting. “And you want Sweee's help?”

“Sort of,” Icy replied, opening her left saddlebag. “We wanted to let it... let her go and...”

Icy was cut off by a tiny but very noticeable growl. She looked around to see the white rabbit from before glaring at her and shaking its head.

“Now, Angel,” Fluttershy said, giving the little bunny a gentle smile, “I'm sure that Applejack won't mind if we just let Sweee go.”

The rabbit shook his head, but Dinky quickly interjected. “That's right, she told us so herself.”

Angel raised an eyebrow, not looking convinced, until Icy trotted up and whispered the plan into one of his big ears.

The rabbit's eyes widened briefly before smiling and nodding. When Icy finished, though, the smile dipped slightly and Angel looked towards Fluttershy.

“Of course you can check with Applejack,” Fluttershy said, not seeming to register the bunny's suspicion. “I'm sure she'll say it’s okay.”

Angel nodded and hopped down from the table he had been standing on. He scampered over to the door before pausing, then going over to a hole in the wall, pulling out a carrot, and then hopping to the door again and out of the flap.

“What in Equestria was that all about?” Truffle asked.

“I... honestly don't know,” Fluttershy replied, still looking at where Angel had left. “He seems to always either want carrots from Applejack or bring them to her. Whenever I ask, Angel just says it's for a “project”, but he won't tell me what it is.” She smiled. “Oh well, I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. Anyway, you wanted to see Sweee?”

“Er, yeah.” Icy wasn't sure she agreed with Fluttershy's assessment, but decided it wasn't worth pursuing.

As Fluttershy went out of the room, Dinky piped up quietly. “I don't like this. I don't like lying to Miss Fluttershy or to this ra- er, Swee.”

Icy nodded, having been having similar thoughts, before Truffle replied.

“I wouldn't worry. I think this definitely counts as a white lie. It's not as if we want to hurt this Skrik colt, we just want to stop this spree of thefts of his. Don't worry, Dinky my girl,” he slapped a hoof on her back cheerfully, nearly knocking her to the floor, “I'm sure everything will work out fine!”

Icy was about to question this when Fluttershy walked back in, a small rat clinging to her back and hiding behind her hair.

Icy walked slowly up to the rat, making sure to stop a good distance away. Not that that stopped it from shrinking further back.

“Hi, little guy. We just wanted to say we were sorry for keeping you in captiviv... capivi... stopping you leaving like this. We understand you were just trying to help your friend.”

The rat didn't stop cowering as she reached back and pulled the apple out of her saddlebag. “Wm Jmft wmmted tm...” She placed the apple on the ground and backed off a couple of steps. “We just wanted to give you this to say sorry.”

The rat looked down at the apple, then up again at Icy. It slowly started to move closer, checking that Icy wasn't moving, before scampering down Fluttershy's side, eliciting a giggle from the pegasus, and over onto the apple.

It sniffed cautiously at the apple for about fifteen seconds before taking a slow, nervous bite out of it. It squeaked happily as it did before grabbing the apple by the stem and running off with it out through the door's pet flap, chittering happily as it did so.

“She says “thank you”,” Fluttershy translated.

There was a long pause as the three younger ponies let out a sigh of relief that the plan seemed to have worked.

“So,” Dinky began, looking at the others nervously, “does this mean we're going to have to go back into the sewers?”

Icy nodded, grimacing a little. “Yeah, I think we might.”

Chapter Four: Into the Depths

Icy sighed. It seemed that the group was making a habit out of misusing the word “we”. As it turned out, she had meant “I might be going back into the sewers.”

Not alone, admittedly, but not with Dinky. It made sense – this time they had a specific signal to home in on, so her magic wouldn't be necessary to track Skrik or his rats. Which was fortunate, since she was still a little magically drained after the previous day. Also, as she had pointed out when faced with a horde of tiny opponents, her abilities weren't really sufficient on their own when it came to a fight. That was the same reason Archer wasn't coming with them – one arrow at a time wasn't brilliant against a hundred enemies – she could disrupt them, but stopping them would be tricky.

It was hard to tell with Archer, but Icy could have sworn she'd heard a touch of resentment in her voice when she admitted that.

And so, Icy was going down with only Lance for company. Truffle had jokingly suggested that he probably wouldn't fit, but his reason for staying on the surface was that he was far from the fastest of the group, so if it came down to a chase again, he'd be more of a hindrance than a help.

However, he, Dinky and Archer were not staying back at base. As it turned out, the aetheroscope had found the apple's signal very near the town's sewage treatment plant. By cross-referencing with the sewer map, Alula was able to figure out where Skrik was probably holed up – a decently-sized chamber a few hundred meters from the plant's sewer entrance. As such, they were able to come up with a plan.

Nodding to her teammates hidden on the hill above the entrance, Icy looked around. She was in no way familiar with the workings of sewage treatment, so all she saw was a bunch of cylindrical pools. Ponyville was a small town, so they were neither as large nor as numerous as they probably were in the big cities, but Icy still felt ill at ease around them. And only partially because of the things other than water they contained.

“If anything happens,” Icy asked, looking Lance in the... face plate, “you won't have much room to swing or stand. Will you be okay?”

Lance gave a nod, swinging his sword from his back and holding it in front of him. Normally, he would stand on his hind legs, but this time he kept his right forehoof on the ground as well, giving a few demonstrative thrusts and swings. It was clear he wasn't as manoeuvrable like this, but could still handle himself.

Icy smiled. “Okay, just making sure. I guess when you're rearing up most of the time, it's easy to make yourself smaller.” She began to turn towards the tunnel entrance when something occurred to her. “Hang on,” she put a hoof to her badge, “Alula!”

“Yes?” Came the reply after a second.

“You're a shape-shifter!”

There was a lengthy pause.

“I appreciate the reminder.”

“No, I mean,” Icy shook her head and refocused, “you said we were going down without you because we were the smallest. So why couldn't you just shift yourself smaller and come too?”

There was another pause, this one not as long, but still a little longer than it should have been.

“Well, aside from my point about not crowding things, I could indeed do so, though I would have to keep at least a small part of my mind focused on it. However, I doubt it would prove that advantageous for us, since I lack the physical skills and abilities to really aid in your endeavours. The only service I could theoretically provide is stealth and scouting which, as it’s likely our quarry can see in the dark, would not be especially useful. And, since I think I am more use here, it seemed unnecessary.”

“Hmm... okay.” Icy said, nodding slowly. That made sense, certainly, and she might have accepted it except... there was something slightly off about the pause before Alula had said it. Like she had to recall her reasoning; like it wasn't her primary motivation.

A silent tilt of the head from Lance broke her out of her thoughts. “Oh, sorry.” She shook her head, resolving to question it further later.

Together, the pair headed into the tunnels. Fortunately, the route they were going was very simple, with only a couple of corners that they had memorized beforehand. Well, Lance had definitely memorized them and Icy was pretty sure she had as well. This meant that not only did they not need to talk, but their head lamps could be left very low so as not to give away their presence early. However, there were a couple of other things to remember.

After about fifty metres, they two came to the first branch of the tunnel system to their left. Lance indicated it with a hoof and Icy nodded. Gathering her energy in her wings, she started flapping slowly but forcefully. Within a few seconds, a sheet of ice began to form over the tunnel.

She kept flapping as the ice thickened. Given how warm it was down there, any ice she made would melt fairly quickly, so she had to make it as thick as she could. However, after about thirty seconds, she was confident that the sheet would last long enough for what they had planned.

She panted a little, both from fatigue and the warmth of the sewer, but straightened herself up regardless. If the map was accurate, there were only two more tunnels to block up.

As it turned out, this was a very good thing. After the third one, she genuinely wasn't sure she could manage a fourth. She might have even suggested going back and letting Lance handle the rest of the plan. However, even if her conscience permitted that, which it wouldn't, it wasn't possible. The third tunnel was the last before they reached the chamber they believed Skrik to be hiding out in. As a result, they had gone down that tunnel to circle round him and Icy had blocked it behind them. Now, there was no choice but to continue the plan.

They crept down the tunnels as they curved around the chamber in a side arc. Soon, they came to another four-way junction, one exit leading deeper into the tunnels, one where they were going and one leading to the chamber.

As they came within sight of the junction, Lance looked at Icy, indicated the junction and tilted his head. Icy shook her head, flapping her wings lethargically to show that she couldn't block it up, then indicated with a hoof down in the direction of the chamber – even if she could, he might see it before they were ready.

Lance nodded and reached a hoof up to his head lamp before Icy stopped him with a raised hoof of her own. She indicated him, mimed him going around, then pointed to herself and pointed down. She wasn't as good at non-verbal communication as Lance, but she was trying to suggest that she stay there and he go to the other end to cut of their quarry's escape.

Lance shook his head, flicking a hoof in two directions – that might make him run through one of the other exits rather than the one they needed him to go down, making their preparations useless. He indicated forward, that the best plan was to try to corral him down the correct tunnel.

Icy nodded, barely needing a second to understand what he was indicating. Lance's non-verbal communication skills were a high bar.

Lance reached up again and turned off his head lamp, then reached over and turned Icy's off as well. She nodded, mostly to herself as she now couldn't see Lance, and silently moved down the tunnel, putting her side up against the wall to her right to keep her direction and her balance. She tried desperately not to think about what the wall was rubbing into her coat.

She probably wasn't moving for more than ten seconds before she came to the junction, but that was a complete guess as it felt like minutes. If it wasn't pitch black, it was certainly close enough that it made no difference to Icy's eyes. She had nothing to focus her eyes on and the need to keep absolutely quiet meant she couldn't hear anything but the echoing sounds of flowing sewage from deeper in the tunnels. She could barely hear her own breathing. In fact, the only way she was able to sense her own body in relation to the world was through the wall she was touching, making for quite the surreal experience.

When she did come to the junction, she stepped forward, stuck her hoof out into the right tunnel and lost even that for a few moments, leaving only the feeling of her hooves on the ground. This was somewhat different from the previous sensation since hooves, or at least the hard part of them that was in contact with the ground, didn't have a direct sense of touch, only the feeling of pressure transferred to the soft bits of her leg. Not that this was unusual, it was always like that for ponies, but the lack of any other real stimulus made Icy consider it for the first time. She briefly considered pressing the frog of her hoof – the fleshy bit inside the hard rim – to the ground to see what it felt like. However, while the boots she was wearing were thin enough that she could have felt the ground through them, she figured the more space between her hooves and the sewer floor, the better. Perhaps if she...

Her outstretched hoof bumped into the far wall of the tunnel she was sticking it down, knocking her out of her thoughts. She almost gasped before remembering the need for stealth and closing her mouth just in time. Putting her coat back against the wall, she continued forward. This time, she counted ten seconds in her head, both to know when she could stop and turn on her light again and to keep herself focused on something.

As she reached ten, she stopped and reached up to her helmet's light. She turned the knob down even further than it had been before, then switched it on.

It flickered to life, just barely able now to illuminate the outline of things. However, after a minute or so in near complete darkness, the change was more than enough for Icy. She looked up, only to see no other pony forms in the corridor. Briefly confused, she turned around to look for Lance, only to see him a fair distance behind her, having just come off the junction.

He looked up at her and sped his pace up a little, coming off the wall he had put a hoof on. It made sense, Icy thought – not only was his clothing somewhat bulkier, but seeing through that face mask couldn't be easy. Lance had always insisted... well, insisted through action, which probably counted as insisting, but Icy wasn't sure... anyway, he had always insisted that he could see just as well as anyone else, but she had her doubts. Though he did admit that his peripheral vision was slightly reduced.

Icy still wasn't sure how he had managed to convey the concept of “slightly reduced peripheral vision” though only expressions and small gestures, but she figured it was better not to question these things. Don't look a gift monkey in the mouth, as the saying went. Although, now that Icy thought about it, that was kind of a weird saying, since the only time she could think of where a “gift monkey” was a thing was the wooden monkey of Trough, where the Troughans definitely should have looked a gift monkey in the mouth to make sure there wasn't a legion of Unicornian soldiers inside, so maybe...

A hoof on her shoulder brought her back to reality. She looked up to Lance and gave an apologetic smile, but he simply pointed down the tunnel. Turning around, she saw that they were only a few metres from the next junction – the one they need to approach the chamber from if they wanted to get Skrik where they wanted him. Turning back and nodding, she turned her lamp off again, twisting the knob back up in readiness for when they got where they were going. She held out her hoof as Lance turned his lamp off. She felt him take her hoof and she pressed her coat against the left side of the tunnel this time, leading the two of them down and around the junction. It might not have been strictly necessary to hold hooves, but it was probably best that they didn't get separated again.

After a couple more minutes of silent walking, she felt the wall vanish from the front of her side, indicating the tunnel opening out into the chamber. She stopped moving and held her hoof rigid to indicate for Lance to stop.

She strained her eyes, trying to see into the chamber, but it did little good. With their helmet lights off, the wall next to her and the open space in front of her were the exact same shade of black. Not only could she not see her hoof in front of her face, she could barely see her eyelids whenever she blinked.

However, after a moment of staring into the void, Icy's ears perked up as she heard something. It took a moment to pinpoint and identify it, but she smiled invisibly when she did.

It was the sound of somepony breathing. It wasn't loud, but it sounded deep and, after a few seconds of listening, completely regular. There was a slight rasp to it as well. While Icy was no expert on pony lung noises, it seemed to indicate something very encouraging.

The pony, whoever it was, was asleep.

Icy moved her hoof a little to where the noise was coming from and felt Lance's hoof dip slightly in acknowledgement. When they had made their plans, they had assumed that they would have to chase Skrik down, given how skittish he had seemed in their (admittedly brief) previous encounter. However, it had been agreed that, if they could confront him without a chase, they should, and him being asleep seemed to indicate that was the case.

Unfortunately, they had forgotten something.

Icy felt Lance tug her hoof a little in the direction of the sound. Taking that as an indication to go there, she started creeping towards the sound, Lance's hoof moving along with her.

One step. Two Steps. Three steps. Squelch.

The sound was unmistakable and rang out like a gong in the silent tunnels. Icy had stepped in something. Something slick and semi-solid. A tiny speck of solid matter gave her the clue as to what it was. The speck felt like a pip, meaning she had stepped in some sort of fruit.

Of course, the food pile!

She'd forgotten that the rats had moved the pile of rotting food. By the sounds of it, she had just stepped in some of it.

For an all-too-brief second, it seemed like the sound had gone unnoticed. The tunnels returned to near-complete silence, the only noises being the slight echo of the squelch and the breathing, uninterrupted.

Then, from the same direction as the breathing, a momentary small squeal came. There was a tiny, near-imperceptible flash of motion in the darkness.

Then the squeal rang out again, louder and longer this time. Then a few more squeals joined it, before one final squeal overshadowed them all, louder and deeper than any other. Icy recognized that as the cry Skrik had given. She let Lance's hoof go and quickly reached up with a wing to click the light of her helmet on.

The light flashed into existence, illuminating the form of the grey colt they had seen during the previous day's chase. He thrust a hoof over his eyes and gave a pained squeal, presumably not used to the light. He was nestled within the relocated nest of straw and hay. Scurrying over him in agitation were about half a dozen rats, their eyes shining in the sudden light and glaring at the two interlopers.

After half a second of non-motion, Skrik darted off the bed and away from the two, managing an impressive acceleration given the softness of his starting point. The moment he did, Lance darted off around the other side of the food pile and Icy, only fractionally slower, surged forward, the two engaging in a pincer movement around the pile to corral the colt down the tunnel they wanted.

Of course, the rats he was carrying didn't take kindly to this and leapt off him, scampering towards Icy. Her eyes widened and she leapt over them, going into a brief glide and landing behind them. She didn't dare look back, but she knew it would take them a moment to turn around and give chase.

Skrik sprinted down the tunnel opposite to the entrance Icy and Lance had come in from. The two joined each other again as they followed. Icy smiled and, though she couldn't see Lance's face in her peripheral vision due to his mask, she got the feeling he was smiling too.

Well, she thought as she remembered how Lance usually looked even with his mask off, on the inside, maybe.

Her own smile increased when Skrik moved to the right of the tunnel, making ready to turn down the left exit coming up, only to see the ice blockade Icy had created and squeak in panic. He quickened his pace, beginning to increase the distance between them, but Icy doubted that would do him any good.

He let off a louder squeal as he came to the next junction, only to see that exit covered in ice too. He suddenly dashed across the tunnel, ramming into the ice at an angle, presumably so he wouldn't have to stop if he didn't break through. Fortunately for the two chasing him, he didn't manage it and the impact did slow him down a little. Although, it might have been Icy's imagination, but it seemed like he was slowing down anyway for some reason.

Nevertheless, the chase continued for another short while. There was only one other iced up offshoot between there and the surface and he tried to smash through that as well. There was a brief moment of panic for Icy as she heard it crack. If he managed to break through, he would lead them deeper into the tunnels, probably lose them again and all their work would have been for nothing.

However, it didn't break. As Icy got closer, she could see the massive cracks the impact had made and she estimated Skrik could have broken through given one or two more attempts, but all three ponies knew he didn't have time to stop for that.

She looked back up, the light of her helmet beginning to merge into the light streaming from the end of the tunnel. She could see Skrik a lot more clearly now as he looked back at his pursuers, his dark eyes wide and his hooves moving with absolute certainty despite not looking where he was going. After a couple of seconds, he turned to look in front of him again, catching sight of the opening to the outside world.

The moment he did, his hooves locked up, bringing his retreat to a sliding stop. He let out a huge, high-pitched scream that echoed back down the tunnels, making Icy and Lance stumble to a halt themselves and put their hooves over their flattened ears.

Skrik backed away from the tunnel exit a couple of steps before whirling round to face Icy and Lance again. His hooves started scraping frantically against the ground and his eyes shrunk to tiny dots. He started chittering and squealing in distress as he curled up into a ball.

Lance and Icy exchanged a look of confusion. Icy turned back to the terrified colt and raised an eyebrow. “Are you... are you okay?”

“Bad!” The colt yelled out suddenly, making Icy step back and Lance move a couple of millimetres in shock.

“You can talk? Do you-” Icy managed before Skrik interrupted her to continue.

“Bad! Bad place!” He said, his words rapid and rushed as he pointed a hoof towards the exit. “Big place, bad place, big place, bad place, don't go, don't make Skrik go!”

Icy took another couple of steps back, jerking her head to indicate Lance to follow. “Okay, okay, we don't want to hurt you, we just want to talk.”

Skrik tilted his head jerkily. “Talk? Ran, ran at Skrik, not talked at Skrik, why ran not talked?”

Icy sighed. “You ran from us, remember? You saw us and you ran.”

Skrik shook his head. “Came to Skrik. Came for Skrik. Didn't...”

He trailed off as a smaller series of sounds came from his feet. Looking down, Icy saw a rat with its front paws on Skrik's leg, squeaking at him.

He gave a brief glare to Icy and Lance with a distinct undertone of “Don't move, I need to talk about this.” He started squealing back at the rat. Icy had no idea what was being said, the most she could make out was “Shhht hwi hwo hiw sweee sui twi” or something of the sort. She was about to say something when another series of squeals come just onto the edge of her hearing. The echoing of the tunnels made it impossible to tell where it was coming from, but there was definitely a lot of it. And, unless Icy was very much mistaken, it was getting louder.

“Talk.” Skrik said, looking up from his conversation with the rat. “You talk? We talk. What we... talk...” He trailed off as he looked behind the two.

Turning around, a sudden sense of imminent doom slowing her movements, Icy looked behind her.

Flood. That was the only word to describe the amount of rats streaming towards them. They were surging forward in one great, long mass, covering the floor so completely that barely a hint of the stone beneath was visible. A few were even scurrying along the lower parts of the curved walls, like splashes of water coming up onto a riverbank. The tunnel behind them faded quickly into darkness but, even if it didn't, Icy doubted she could have seen the back of the horde. They were moving chaotically, weaving in-between each other, even sometimes clambering over each other, looking like some furry waterfall.

And, while Icy was by no means an expert in reading animal moods, she got the distinct impression that they were not happy.

She barely had time to flare her wings before they were on top of her, swarming all over her. She tried to gather her energy, but the sudden scratches at her wings made it impossible to concentrate or keep the energy focused. She felt her hooves leave the ground and she fell backwards, landing on the tide of rats and finding herself carried forward towards the light.

She got a brief look back and saw that Lance was faring a little better, his sword swings deflecting many of the rats that tried to jump on him, but he was quickly becoming overwhelmed.

As she moved forward, struggling but unable to get her balance long enough to resist, she rushed past Skrik, who was gesticulating and squealing wildly, as if to stop the onslaught. Unfortunately, by now, it had gained enough momentum that even he couldn't control it.

She reached back toward him, but it was too late – she found herself bundled out of the tunnels and carried out towards the massive pools near the entrance.

For a moment, she panicked, flailing her limbs and knocking away a couple of rats, though not nearly enough. Her own pupils constricted as she considered what the rats were about to do to the filly who, as far as she could tell, they thought had threatened their king. She closed her eyes and held her breath.

A sudden whoosh of wind blew across her face, followed by a boom noise and an intense light briefly penetrating her eyelids. She opened her eyes to see a small patch of the rats on the outskirts of the swarm scurrying away. She barely had time to register this when another whoosh came from the other side of her, and she turned her head just in time to catch an arrow landing on the other side of the swarm before bursting into a flash and a bang.

She let out something between a gasp and an inhaled sigh at the reminder that her friends were here, and they were ready for this sort of thing.

Another arrow impacted and burst in the middle of the horde, just beneath Icy's stomach, sending many of the rats in the middle scurrying towards the edges and thinning the mass even more. Struggling through them, Icy managed to get a couple of hooves on the ground and lift herself up, her body swaying but, if nothing else happened, soon to find its balance.

Unfortunately, something else happened.

“BANZAI!”

Truffle's weight was a curious thing. While he was generally the first pony to admit to, even boast about, how fat he was, he didn't look it at first glance. He was big, certainly, no one would dispute that, but he didn't look like the lump of flesh and fat in a vaguely equine shape one would expect from one with his level of pudginess-pride. In fact, like his surprising level of fitness, it was due to his Special Talent. If his body truly reflected the amount he ate, he'd barely be able to move his shoulders enough to walk. As a result, the magic of his Mark made him internalize fat in a different way. It didn't disappear, it was just compacted and squeezed into his only-somewhat-larger-than-normal frame.

As a result, his body was dense. Very dense. Not solid, of course – hitting him in the stomach wasn't like kicking a brick wall, but more like hitting an incredibly overstuffed pillow. It would go in a little, maybe send a slight ripple across if it was hard enough, but not disturb it particularly.

Now, this compactness had a lot of advantages besides the extra agility it gave him – he wasn't exactly an Equestria Games gymnast, but he could certainly move if he needed to. For one thing, he had told Icy that it actually meant he hit harder, particularly when jumping on things. It was something about more weight in a smaller thing meaning more pressure. She didn't entirely understand, if she was honest, but it certainly sounded science-y.

Normally, this extra-hard impact was good. This time, however, he was hitting the ground very near a filly who was already quite unbalanced and teetering on the edge of a large body of water. The impact sent a tremor through the ground. Not a massive one, but more than enough destroy what balance Icy had achieved.

For a split second, she hung there, tilting at an angle over the edge of the pool, her limbs desperately screaming at her brain for directions it was too terrified to give.

Then she fell.

She saw Truffle, his eyes wide as he realized what he'd done, try to leap forward and grab her hoof, but it had taken him a moment to pick himself up and, again, he was far from the fastest of the group. His hoof fell short by two feet.

Icy plunged into the water, briefly blinded by the bubbles that surrounded her and made a trail from the surface. Panicking, she flailed her hooves, trying to shove herself upwards. Unfortunately, even if she could swim, which she couldn't, the tension in her body and the terror in her mind made certain she was incapable of stopping or controlling her descent.

She could feel the water around her, both on her skin and in her soul, clinging, cloying, wrapping around her and pulling her in. She tried to reach a hoof up, but felt the water shift with it, flowing up away from her and propelling her further down. She started fidgeting desperately, as it trying to shake off the chains she felt like she was wrapped in, but the water just shook even harder, spinning and vibrating into a maelstrom that spun Icy around and made her unsure which direction was up. She heard a faint scream, but wasn't sure if it was coming from the surface or from her.

A moment later, she felt the water pull on her, carrying her backwards. It took a moment to realize what was happening and by the time she knew what was going on, she found herself rushing away from the concrete-walled pool and into a pipe that flowed out of it. A small part of her registered that the water she had been in was clean, so probably the last place the water went before it left the plant, but that meant she had no idea where she was heading.

Shaking her head, she placed her hooves against the walls of the pipe, trying to halt her progress. She didn't think about why or whether that would help, she just wanted to stop her uncontrolled journey. For a moment, it seemed to work – she skidded to a halt and the water actually seemed to stop flowing.

Unfortunately, the pressure behind her seemed to build up and, after a couple of seconds, the flow started again much harder, knocking her from her hoofholds and sending her tumbling. She tried to right herself, but it was no good – every movement she made, the flow made as well, sending her spinning in a different way. It didn't help that the pipe was completely dark and she couldn't even make out when she was facing down the pipe and when she was facing a wall.

Her lungs screamed as her hoof started hitting her stomach in agitation. She was about to try to grab the walls again when she felt the flow of water around her fade. Looking around, she realized that there was light and open water around her.

She floated for a moment, gravity reasserting itself and letting her hooves face down once again. She looked to the side to see a slope of soil, and, steeling herself, looked down. The depth of the water nearly shocked her into another round of wild flailing, even in spite of her bracing herself, but the sudden chill kept her still. It looked like she was in a small lake of some kind – not as big as the main lake, hence why that was called “the Ponyville lake”, but still a sizable body of water. And, hopefully, one with a surface.

However, as she looked up, that brief flicker of hope was drowned. The lake did indeed have a surface – one that was completely covered in ice.

Were Icy in a more contemplative frame of mind, she might have thought about the irony. As it was, she just felt despair fill the ever-increasing void in her lungs.

She found herself floating up towards the ice, as if it were mocking her, her limbs kept still by the cold. She placed a hoof against the ice and beat at it slowly with the other, her hoof flowing along with the water, but it was no good. Even if her energy wasn't being rapidly drained by the temperature and suffocation, she couldn't have smashed her way through it.

Icy closed her eyes, feeling her tears diffuse into the water. Her fear had plateaued into a bizarre kind of calm that allowed her to fully appreciate her situation.

I'm gonna to die here. I'm gonna fall unconscious and drown and my body'll be found when the ice melts and Mom's gonna scream and cry and hate my friends and my friends are gonna feel horrible and not wanna defend Equestria anymore and I'll never learn to ice skate and OOMPH!

She was knocked out of her thoughts when a hoof wrapped around her barrel and yanked her downwards. The force knocked what little breath she still had out of her, sending up bubbles that rose up and bumped lazily against the ice. Blackness began to creep in at the edge of her vision as she looked back at whoever had grabbed her. Between her failing consciousness and the light fading as they descended, it was hard to make out, but Icy could just about see what looked like a thin, coltish face and a probably-grey mane and tail.

Wait, she thought as the light faded completely, the two entering some sort of underwater cave, it can't be...

In her last moments of consciousness, she felt the water around her recede as they broke to the surface. However, it was too late to stop her eyes flickering closed and her mind slipping into sleep.

Chapter Five: Over the Hurdles

“...o the hospital, just in case.”

Icy groaned as her eyes flickered open, catching the tail end of Dinky's words.

“You're right, of course.” Icy both heard Truffle's voice beneath her and felt the vibrations of it through her stomach. “But let's not get ahead of ourselves, we'll need to...”

“Could always ask her.” Archer said from behind her. “Looks like she's waking up.”

“Wha... uh?” Was all Icy could manage to say before Dinky leapt up, putting her front hooves on Truffle's back and, as far as Icy could tell, just about restraining herself from giving the newly-conscious filly a hug that would suffocate her all over again.

“Oh, thank Celestia, I was afraid you were really hurt and...”

“No need to worry, Dinky my girl!” Truffle said, the boom in his voice echoing down the tunnels. “Icy's made of tougher stuff than that, I'm sure.” Icy herself wasn't sure, but appreciated the boost in confidence. Although, Truffle's natural exuberance did seem a touch forced as he spoke.

“What happened?” Icy asked as she looked down to see herself lying over Truffle's back.

“We were kinda hoping you could tell us that.” Archer said. Icy turned her head to see that the bowmare wasn't even looking at her, keeping her gaze down the tunnel behind them, her ears languidly pricking up at every sound. “We saw you fall in, then nothing.”

Icy nodded, gathering her thoughts as her ride set off again. “Well, after I... fell in,” she squeezed her eyes shut, grimacing as a wave of terror and nausea surged through her body at the memory, “I got pulled down a pipe and sent out under the ice at one of the lakes. I tried to break through, but I couldn't. I thought I was gonna die until someone grabbed me and pulled me... somewhere.”

“Underwater cave, looked like.” Archer said, still looking behind them. “Connected to the sewers. Guess you're lucky he knew the tunnels so well.”

He? Oh, right.

“It... it was Skrik, wasn't it?”

“That it was.” Truffle said, nodding slowly so as not to upset his rider's balance. “I tried to grab you, but I didn't reach you in time. Was wondering whether to jump in and grab you – I'm not that good with water, tend to sink like a stone – when a colt came barrelling out of the tunnels, closing his eyes and shrieking like a banshee.”

“Was about to hit him with an impact arrow,” Archer interjected, as if worried Icy might have doubted her abilities or, at least, as worried as Archer ever got, “then I saw him leap into that water himself. After that, the rats all scurried off and we were left standing there wondering what in Equestria just happened.”

“But everything worked out okay!” Dinky said, smiling at Icy. “Alula told us your badge had stopped moving and guided us to where you were. We found you, you were asleep but alive, we started moving you to the surface, you woke up and that's where we are now!”

Icy blinked hard. “So... why did he leap in to save me?”

“No idea.” Truffle answered, not pausing in his steps to shrug, “But it's just as well he did, don't you think?”

“I was going to, so was Lance.” Archer said with incredibly mild exasperation. “He just got there first is all. Still, I guess we owe him one.”

“I think I owe him more than one.” Icy said, before chuckling weakly as she realized something. “Hey, at least I won't have to take another bath to clean off!”

This did not get the laugh she was expecting. In fact, everyone looked suddenly uncomfortable.

“Do you wanna tell her or...?” Archer trailed off before Dinky spoke up.

“Um, you see, you know how, in the sewers, there's a path that's above the, um... the you know.”

Icy raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Well,” Dinky drew in a sharp breath through her teeth, “you kind of... weren't on the path. You were in the...”

“Sewage.” Archer finished matter-of-factly.

“Oh.” Icy said before what had just been said sank in. “Oh! Ooooooeeeeeeww!” She raised a hoof before letting it fall again, feeling like her fatigue was the only thing stopping her skin crawling. “Why would... why?!”

“Probably saved your life.” Archer replied, turning her head a little and flicking an eye briefly back at Icy. “Remember what Alula said – that stuff makes a lot of heat. And since you were probably freezing, makes sense to warm you up like that.”

“Oh.” Icy sighed, resting her head on the well-padded body beneath her. She would probably be even more disgusted later, but for the moment, she just didn't have the mental energy. “So, he was trying to save me. I'm... I'm gonna ask him why.”

She made to get up before Truffle reached a hoof back and pressed her down firmly.

“Not tonight, you're not! You're getting to the surface, going to hospital and staying there until you're definitely okay. Then, and only then, are you coming back down here.”

Icy made a token effort to push off Truffle's hoof, but it was obvious she couldn't have, even if she was at her full strength. “Okay, I guess that makes sense.” She flopped back down, sighing deeply. “I'm sorry I caused so much trouble.” A small thought suddenly popped into her head. “And that I'm getting muck all over you, Truffle.”

“Don't be... Don't be ridiculous, Icy!” Truffle said, an uncharacteristic hitch in his voice. “I'm the one who should be sorry. I was so busy leaping to the rescue, I didn't notice you were stumbling and what my weight would do. I... I truly apologize.” He cleared his throat noisily before continuing. “Besides, you're only getting it on the suit. And with how little gets through it, what with the magic and all, it'll wash right off!”

A hint of a smile flickered onto one side of Icy's mouth. “Well, in that case,” She reached forward slowly and put a hoof on Truffle's cheek, dragging it down and leaving a small trail of goop on it, “we're even.”

Archer snorted as she looked back at the two, Dinky looked at Icy with a hint of disapproval even as she giggled and Truffle just laughed, loud and long, not even bothering to wipe off the muck.

Nursery Rhyme sighed as she looked up from the chart she was examining, the neutral expression quickly morphing into a glare in the distance between the clipboard and Icy's face.

For her part, Icy just lay on the hospital bed, staring in trepidation at the young filly. The team's assigned medic was wearing a nurse's outfit, but with a doctor's expression. She gulped, feeling herself sweat a little despite the cool temperature of the room. She'd seen Nursery Rhyme a couple of times before, when the others got hurt, and had heard some of her... unorthodox approach to bedside manner, but had never experienced the care (if one used the term loosely) for herself. As she withered under the young nurse's stare, she did not regret this fact.

“Well, Miss Flight,” she began, the high pitch of her voice doing little to disguise the annoyance beneath it, “I guess this is kind of a milestone for you – you finally got yourself hurt. Real shame, too,” she sighed before speaking again, cutting off any attempt to respond, “got to admit, I did hope I might not see you here. Thought maybe you were smart enough not to get yourself nearly killed all the time like your friends do. And like they're determined to do to me by raising my blood pressure through the sun-damned roof! But nope! Proved me wrong there, congratu-frigging-lations.”

There was a pause before Icy dared try to say something. “So, am I-”

“I mean, do you have the slightest idea how lucky you are?! No, no of course you don't, why would you, it's only your life we're talking about here!” She slapped a hoof against the chart. “If you'd been down there a few seconds longer... if you hadn't been warmed up so quickly... Celestia, let's forget about the water and look at how many scratches you got to your body and wings before being immersed in raw sewage!” A growl escaped her at that remark, making her turn away and ignore Icy's disgusted face at the memory. “I mean, if a single one of those had drawn blood, do you have any idea what kind of infections you could get?! You're lucky your wings didn't melt!”

“Er, okay, but...”

“And don't try to tell me it wasn't your fault. I heard enough of that from Truffle and it's a load of horseapples – you still put yourself right in the path of danger and you've got no one to blame but yourself, are we clear?”

Icy gulped. “Yeah, pretty clear, I think. So, am I gonna be okay?”

Rhyme's scowl intensified a little. “Well, there might still be complications, so we're keeping you here tonight, but it looks like yes, you have successfully escaped the consequences of your idiotic actions. Well done, looks like you'll fit into the team nicely.”

Icy was about to say something to that – exactly what, she didn't know, but definitely something – when she heard the door to the ward open. She turned her head just in time to see her mother bearing down on her before she wrapped her daughter in a hug, threatening to do to her what the water had failed to.

“Oh Celestia, are you okay, Icy? No, of course you're not okay, you wouldn't be here if you were okay, but are you going to...”

“She'll be fine, Mrs Flight.” Rhyme said, her scowl vanishing into an encouraging smile so quickly it looked like another filly had switched places with her via teleportation.

Sunny sighed, releasing Icy from her affectionate vice-grip and turning to Rhyme. “Oh, thank Celestia... and Luna and Cadance and Twilight and anyone else who's listening.” She started to turn back to Icy before pausing. “Oh, and it's “Miss”.”

Nursery Rhyme nodded. “Oh, sorry, Miss Flight. Anyway, she probably shouldn't do anything too strenuous for a few days, but assuming no complications happen overnight, she should recover fairly quickly.”

Sunny nodded as she faced her daughter. “Well, don't worry, I'm sure she won't be having any more adventures for a while.”

“Um... actually,” Icy said, hesitant to interrupt the moment, but feeling the need to voice the thoughts she'd been having since she'd reached the surface, “I was thinking I'd go back down there tomorrow.”

There was silence as Sunny and Rhyme turned to her, staring in disbelief.

“I'm sorry,” Rhyme said, cleaning an ear with a hoof, “you're gonna have to repeat that. I was treating Rainbow Dash earlier today and I think I still had some stupid stuck in my ear.”

Sunny shook her head for a moment, broken out of her stupor by Rhyme's words. “Are you five kinds of crazy? This... rat-colt, whatever they said... he nearly killed you and...”

“No!” Icy interrupted, a slight frown coming to her face. “The rats did cause they thought we were hurting him. He saved my life.” She closed her eyes, breathing out slowly and calming herself down before opening them again “I think... I'm not gonna go in there alone, but I think I can talk to him and... I dunno, make friends.”

Sunny looked at her daughter intensely. “You're sure?”

Icy hesitated for a moment before meeting her gaze. “Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure.” She gave a small smile. “I promise I'll be careful, Mom – the moment something goes wrong, I'll get outta there.”

Sunny held the gaze for a moment before closing her eyes, chuckling a little. “Okay, honey, as long as your friends promise to protect you.”

Icy breathed a sigh of relief. “They will, Mom.”

The moment was broken as Nursery Rhyme spluttered. “Buh... I... you... you can't... you're not seriously going to...” After a couple of disbelieving throat noises, she exhaled, turning around. “Excuse me for a moment, I have some... things to do. Feel free to talk about whatever, I'll be back in a bit.” She left the room in a daze, letting the door swing shut behind her.

Smiling, Sunny and Icy hugged again, pointedly ignoring the sound from outside of a young filly banging her head against a wall.

Icy gulped a little as she looked down the staircase that lead to the sewers. She hadn't been lying when she said she was sure of this plan's safety, but that didn't mean she wasn't nervous. There was just something about a near-death experience that tended to put one a little on edge. Weird how that worked.

She looked away for a moment to calm herself. The alley they were in was just next to the town square, so she focused on the sounds of the market – the movement of hooves, the exchange of bits, the sound of Applejack and Carrot Top arguing...

Well, Applejack was arguing, at least. Carrot Top, on the other hoof...

“Are you sure?” She asked, beseechingly. “I've got a lovely bunch of chantenays that would make a delicious cak-”

“I told you,” Applejack yelled, “I don't want any damn carrots – I only got that one cause I had to, so would you stop tauntin' me!”

“I'm not...” Carrot Top replied, sounding very hurt. “I just thought you'd maybe like some...”

“Well, I wouldn't!” Applejack snapped. “So you just march your sex- er, your second-rate flank back to your stall right now!”

Icy raised an eyebrow. Adults are really weird.

“Area's clear, you can come down now, Icy.”

Icy shook herself back into the moment before descending the staircase and entering the sewers for the third time in three days. With how often she's been going down there lately, she probably counted as a frequent flyer (or tunneller, perhaps). Although she doubted there was any kind of reward for regular service and further doubted she'd want it if there was.

Still, as before, at least she wasn't going down there alone.

“So, Icy?” Dinky began. The moment Icy had announced her intentions to go back down, Dinky had volunteered to come along, both to keep her safe and, if things went wrong, to help her escape with a bit of time wizardry. “I like the idea of talking things out with Skrik, but how were you planning on finding him?” She asked as, judging by her tone, a genuine question rather than a criticism – she assumed Icy had an answer and was just curious what it was.

“I'm still not entirely sure we should.” Alula said, a slight edge to her steady tone. She hadn't volunteered to come with at first, but Icy had gently insisted, arguing that they may need her intelligence during their talk. To her credit, she didn't take much convincing and agreed once Icy had convinced her she would be useful, but she still looked over her shoulder frequently and gave off an air of quiet resentment. Icy was getting the distinct impression that she didn't have solely tactical reasons for why she preferred to stay out of the front line.

That said, Icy did feel a little satisfaction that this time, when she'd said “I thought I'd go back down there”, she'd actually meant “we would”

“Well,” Icy said, looking both ways down the tunnel, “He'll have probably moved again, but I think we just need to get his attention.”

Alula nodded. “Well, that shouldn't be difficult.” A green light rose up around her.

Icy tilted her head. “What are you doing?”

A small smile edged onto Alula's face. “Making myself louder.”

The green distortion to the air overtook Alula for a moment before it faded to reveal another form that, Icy agreed, was more likely to be heard.

“SKRIK!” Truffle's voice rang down the tunnels, echoing loud enough to hurt Icy's eardrums. “WE WANT TO TALK WITH YOU!”

A chorus of squeals sounded out, coming from both sides of them and, though it was hard to tell due to the echo, seeming to come from every tunnel and offshoot.

As Icy looked around, she saw another green glow in the corner of her eye. Turning around, she saw Alula again.

“Well, that should bring him if he's coming. Now we just have to see if that was a terrible idea.”

“Well, if anything goes wrong, we're still near the exit, so we can get away.” Dinky pointed out, giving an encouraging smile.

Alula looked behind her. “Oh yes. I hadn't thought of that.”

Dinky and Icy nodded, not calling her out on the obvious lie.

Then the waiting began. Long periods of silence, with occasional moments when rapid sequences of squeals registered on the edge of Icy's hearing. She couldn't tell how far away they were, how many were involved in each burst of noise and whether they came from actual rats or from a colt who could speak rat.

Dinky passed the time by humming a tune quietly to herself. Alula passed the time looking both ways down the tunnels, the turning of her head her only movement, barring the occasional flick of an ear.

Icy, on the other hoof, chose to occupy her time by trying to interpret the squeaks they heard and what the rats were talking about. Within ten minutes, she'd built up a rich narrative involving a pretty young female named Ratchel, an emissary from a far away land named Moustafa and the various stories of their life as they met, fell in love and created a life safe from the evil Rodent empire.

She was just trying to come up with a name for their first child – coming up with rat puns was harder than it sounded – when she heard the squeals start increasing, both with more rats making noises and with them getting closer.

“Get ready.” Alula said, her eyes flicking back towards the stairway out of the area.

After a moment, a horde of rats came down the tunnel to their right, illuminated by Icy's lamplight, and the noises from behind them indicated that another group was coming from the left. Icy's legs tensed, ready to fire her back up the stairs if needed.

However, once the front of the horde got within fifteen feet of them, it stopped, the swarm behind it all coming to a halt in rough rows. They glared up at the three and, although Icy still wasn't an expert on animal expressions, she got a sense of “come no closer” from them.

A movement on the other side of the swarm caught her eye and she raised her head and her light to see Skrik walking towards them. As he stepped into the carpet of rats, they scurried to the side, making a path for him.

Icy breathed a sigh of relief. They weren't attacking, they were forming a blockade. Which, admittedly, was still fairly intimidating, but at least indicated that they weren't going to make the first move.

Alula stepped up next to Icy as the colt came to a stop five feet from the front of his army. “Skrik, I presume?”

Skrik recoiled for a moment, making Icy briefly terrified that he was going to flee, which would mean he wasn't willing to talk and that the rats would come at them to stall them and...

“Skrik is Skrik.” Skrik answered, relaxing again.

Icy blinked away her imagination and focused on the task at hoof. “Can we talk, Skrik?”

Skrik looked at them, eyes flicking between them as if looking for a sign they were lying. “Talk? Not run?” His expression not changing, he nodded. “Talk.”

Nodding, Icy opened her mouth, only for nothing to come out. It took a moment to understand why, since this was exactly the situation she'd been preparing for. Or, rather, she realized, she'd been preparing to find out whether or not she was right and had been so busy with that, she hadn't thought about what she would say if she was.

Fortunately, after a second, Dinky saved her the trouble. “Well, we need you to stop stealing food.”

Skrik tilted his head, brow furrowing in thought. “Ste... Stealing?”

Icy's mouth stretched to the side, a little exasperated. She honestly couldn't tell if Skrik didn't think what he and his rats were doing was stealing or if he just didn't know what the word meant.

Deciding it best to play it safe with the latter, she clarified for Dinky. “Taking. You need to stop taking food.”

Skrik's head moved back a little, slowly, his suspicion increasing. “Stop...? Need food. Need to get food or khhrk.” He said. The last word sounded like rat-speak, but the meaning of what would happen without food was clear.

“But that food belongs to other ponies.” Dinky said, giving Skrik her most powerful cute-eyes. “It's theirs and they need it.”

Skrik's eyes also widened, his guard lowering but his resolve remaining. “But... others not there. Not have it. Not their food.” He said, though it sounded like he was beginning to doubt himself.

“Hm.” Alula interjected before Icy or Dinky could say anything. She pondered for a moment, her eyes looking to the right, before speaking. “Your food... pile?” She said, pausing. She was presumably checking that Skrik knew the word, as she continued when he nodded. “I can take some stuff from it?”

Skrik frowned, glaring at Alula, his fur raising slightly. “No, can't!” He hissed. “Can't! 'smine!”

Alula raised her eyebrows, feigning confusion. “Is it? But you're not with it right now, are you? So that means...”

“No!” Skrik interrupted, an angry sneer coming onto his face. “Still mine!”

Alula smirked. “So, just because you're not with it right now doesn't mean it doesn't belong to you?”

Skrik nodded. “Yeah! It...” he trailed off as his eyes widened, the implication sinking in, “Oh.” He looked down and away from them for a moment. “Sorry. Not know...” He shook his head. “Still need food!”

Dinky smiled. “Don't worry. We can arrange something. Maybe find someone to care for you. If you just come outside...”

“NO!” Skrik yelped. The rats beneath his started shifting slightly before Skrik took a deep breath and gave a squeal that seemed to calm them down. “Not go out. Bad place.”

“Ooh, sorry, I didn't tell them.” Icy picked a hoof up, almost putting it to her mouth in shame before she remembered where that hoof had just been. She turned to the others. “I think Skrik's afraid of the outdoors.”

“Not 'fraid! Just bad place!” Skrik insisted, the tone of his voice indicating otherwise.

Alula nodded. “Agoraphobia. Not really surprising.”

Dinky frowned, confused. “But then...” She looked up at Skrik. “If you don't want to go outside, why did you go out to save Icy?”

Skrik shivered and shook his head, his pupils dilating a little at the thought and his speech accelerating. “Didn't want to, no, didn't want, needed to. You went down, couldn't get back up. Skrik not go, you stay down and khhrk.”

“But, why did you care?” Icy asked, not noticing how the question sounded. “Why was me being in trouble enough for you to go outsi... go into the bad place?”

Skrik looked blank for a second, as if not understanding the question. “Because you're nice.”

“Nice?”

Skrik nodded. “Sweee said you were nice. Said you gave Sweee food.”

“Oh!” Icy said as she remembered. “That wasn't... sorry, but we did that to find you. Used a spell on nng!” She was cut off as Alula stepped on her hoof, giving her a death glare.

It was too late though, as Skrik nodded. “Oh. Didn't know how found me. Put thing on food.” He thought for a moment before he asked. “Why on food?”

Alula turned around to look at Skrik again. “What?”

“Why on food. Why not put on Sweee? Could have put on Sweee?”

Alula nodded. “Yes, we could have.”

Skrik nodded decisively. “Could have. Didn't. Still gave Sweee food. Two food. Still nice.”

Icy blushed a little. “Well, actually the second one was Dinky's idea.”

Dinky nudged Icy playfully with a shoulder. “You still agreed to it.”

Skrik nodded again, looking between the two. “You and you gave food? You and you are nice.” He said, as if explaining the concept to someone who didn't understand the idea of two ponies being “nice.”

He looked Icy in the eye. “Were nice. Shouldn't khhrk.”

Icy stayed in eye contact with him for a moment before breaking it. “Well, thanks, I guess. You saved me... but we still need to figure out what we're going to do now.”

“Actually,” Alula said, stepping forward, “I think I have an idea. Skrik? How did you get here? To these... tunnels? This small place? Did you come through the... big place?”

Skrik nodded a little hesitantly. “Mm-hm. Came in... small place in big place. Small, lots of...” He mimed several objects with his hoof pointing straight up.

It took a moment for Icy to realize what he was saying. “Trees? Er... big, tall, bendy things?”

“Mm-hm. Trees.” Skrik said, his breath starting to get a little more rapid.

“So,” Alula said, speaking slowly to calm Skrik down, “you can go out into the big place if you have to, as long as you're in a small place when you do.” She concluded, seemingly unconcerned with how little sense her statement made. “Well, for the moment, that won’t be necessary, you can stay here and we’ll try and see to it that you’re provided for without having to steal. However, how would you like to go to a place with bi- with a lot more tunnels, more sewers where ponies... nice ponies will give you food and help you if you do things for them in the tunnels? More tunnels, more food, more rats.”

“More friends?” Skrik asked, briefly overjoyed about the idea before a hint of suspicion re-emerged on his face. “Can do that? How?”

“Well, any decently-sized city has sewers and needs ponies to work in them, but Ponyville's a little small to need you and all your... friends. So if you go to a bi- to the small place under a big city, they could probably use your help and give you food in return.”

Skrik's face scrunched up in thought, as if he was having difficulty with the concept. After a few moments, though, it seemed to get through to him. “Where?”

“Canterlot? You want to bring him to Canterlot?”

“That's correct, Colonel.” Alula replied to the screen.

“I see.” The face on the screen said, raising an eyebrow. “May I ask your reasoning for... Miss Flight, could you stop that, please?”

Icy froze, her head in mid-movement. She hadn't been aware that the machine could see her, so she'd been moving her head to different angles, fascinated by how the screen would shift from normal to negative and back again. She sat back down, blushing a little.

In fairness, she hadn't previously been aware that the aetheroscope also had a system built in for communicating with Head Office in Canterlot. In fact, she wasn't even sure what “Head Office” entailed other than being the team's bosses. It was understandable that she didn't know, of course, as Pip had told her it was rarely used. It wasn't solely an emergency line, but it was generally discouraged for them to use it when a letter would do just as well. It was mostly used for when, like now, they needed to discuss things with their superiors, rather than just report or take orders. All in all, it was a neat little system.

That said, Icy had been a little disappointed. She knew intellectually that the Princess wouldn't handle all, or even most, of their briefings and debriefings, but the two times it had happened before had given her hope it might be a regular occurrence. However, this time and, it seemed, most times, it was handled by Colonel Steward, who was... well, again, she wasn't exactly clear on his position or what it entailed, but he was in charge of things relating to them.

The colonel nodded, his moustache twitching a little. “Thank you. Now, perhaps you could explain your reasoning.” He said, his clipped South Trottingham accent gaining a slight crackle as it came out of the speakers.

“Well, we have a colt who lives in the sewers and commands an army of rats...”

“Yes, I understand that part.” The colonel interjected, as if slightly annoyed at restating the obvious.

Alula continued, unbothered by the interruption. “So, instead of attempting to force this to change, why not make use of him? Ponyville's sewers are too small to need such a pony, but Canterlot's are far bigger. So, you can use his abilities to help in managing them and, in return, he can be given food so he doesn't have to steal it. Plus, there are dozens of teachers and psychiatrists there who can gradually help him acclimatize and, eventually, integrate into equine society. Which will probably be much less difficult and harmful than trying to force him to live on the surface.”

The colonel nodded as Alula finished her explanation. “I see. Well, you may be right that it would be better for him, but I'm not convinced that the benefits for the city would outweigh the risks. We are talking about the capital of Equestria and home to any number of vital governmental organizations.” His eyes went up for a moment, perhaps thinking about all the decidedly non-vital governmental organizations there as well, but he didn't say anything. “Having someone who can mobilize and potentially weaponize the city's rat population seems dangerous. Are you sure this Skrik fellow is safe?”

“Um,” Icy spoke up before Alula could respond, “I don't think he wants to hurt anyone. I mean, if you make him mad, he'd probably be dangerous, but I don't think he'll be a problem unless someone hurts him first.”

“Hmm...” The colonel said, his expression and tone making clear that he was only half-convinced. “Well, I suppose I can see your reasoning. However, I’m not sure that simply bringing him here would be best, even if he’s not inherently dangerous. Even if he thinks he’s prepared, moving to a new city might be enough of a shock to cause problems and would almost certainly make him hesitant to trust anypony who tried to rehabilitate him. On the other hoof, you seem to have already gained his trust enough that he would be better suited to staying in Ponyville for the moment. So I’m going to have to say no to the immediate transfer.”

Alula nodded, keeping her face neutral. “I see. I admit I hadn’t considered that. It simply seemed that he would be far more useful in Canterlot.”

“Indeed he would and I do agree that that should be the long term goal, it’s simply problematic in the short-term.” The colonel replied. “The best idea, I think, would be to send a Crown psychiatrist down there to evaluate him, make sure he’s not going to be a threat, gain his trust, prepare him for when he makes the journey and accompany him while he does. That way, he’ll have a point of contact if and when he gets here, which should lessen any problems considerably.”

Icy breathed a sigh of relief, sure that whoever was sent would see that Skrik was har- mostly harmless. As long as you didn't try to get him onto the surface. Although...

“Um, how are we going to get him to Canterlot?” Icy asked.

Alula looked back at her. “Well, the train is an enclosed space, so we could use that.”

The colonel thought for a second. “And, if that doesn't work, I can have one of my unicorns make a force-tunnel for him to travel between forests until he reaches the city's catacombs. Shouldn't be a problem when it happens. In the meantime, keep an eye on him and do what you can to keep him from causing trouble, at least until the psychiatrist arrives and preferably afterwards. Right, well, if that's all...”

“Yes, nothing else to report.” Alula said, reaching for the controls to disconnect.

Icy smiled. It seemed like everything was going to work out fine.

Next time on Iota Force...

The young colt smiled as he saw Canterlot on the horizon. He looked over the sides of his ride at the countryside whizzing by far below.

Canterlot! He thought to himself. Capital city of Equestria, home to the most powerful and important ponies in the world and chock full of both things to take and ponies to take them from.

He nodded to himself as he lay back for a few moments, his ride continuing on its path. He was flying high to make sure no one saw him... yet.

“Can't rush things.” He mused out loud. “Have to get ready to let them know who I am.”

As he thought, he pulled two small square pieces of paper out of his saddlebags. He took one at a time and started folding them, so quickly that any hypothetical observer would have barely had time to register what he was doing before they were both folded into crooked hourglass shapes. He then took one in each hoof and, again with so much speed as to be barely visible, he folded them together to create the shape of a shuriken.

He tossed the shuriken up and down in his hoof a couple of times before something on the ground caught his eye. He peered over the side to see that he was nearing the building he had chosen to use as his base of operations. Smirking, he willed his ride to start lowering.

As he came back to the ground, he kept tossing the shuriken up and down, before catching it for the last time. As he did so, a tiny glow seemed to come over it for a fraction of a second.

He hopped off his ride and strolled towards the building's front door. He could see that it was locked, but that was no problem. Without breaking stride, he threw the shuriken at the door's edge, where it sailed clean through the lock and into the building.

The colt casually pushed open the door, looking at the far wall from the entrance, where the shuriken had embedded itself.

He walked over to it, took off his saddlebags and hung them on the protruding shuriken before turning around, looking out and up towards Canterlot.

“Get ready, Canterlot. Get ready to play... and get ready to fold.”

Author's Note

Hope everyone enjoyed the story. However, I do have a... sort of announcement kinda. Nothing major, just that the stories probably aren't going to be coming out as quickly as they have been so far.

That was them coming out quickly?

Realtively speaking, Mr Hypothetical Reader. See, I had all four of these stories written fully before I'd published the first one, having started the series several years ago but only reaching a point last January when I was confident publishing the first one. Now, I should hopefully be getting future stories written faster, so there's no need to panic...

Yeah, I really don't think anyone was panicking at not having more of these stories. Maybe "Don't feel an infinitesimal amount of friendly concern" would work better?

...yeah, so it shouldn't be a matter of years before the next story gets published, but it might be a little while.

Or you could always, I dunno, actually act with a bit of alacrity for once in your life!

You know, you're awfully mouthy for someone who doesn't technically exist.

Hey, don't blame me, you're the one hypothesizing me.

Meaning I could just as easily get rid of you. Permanently.

What, do you have a gun trained on me right now?

No, but I hypothetically could have.

...I'll shut up.

That would be best.

Epilogue: Carrying the Consequences

“And you're sure about this?” Sunny asked her daughter for what felt like the thousandth time.

“Yes, Mom, I'm sure.” Icy said, rolling her eyes. Her hooves fidgeted slightly as she stood outside the bathroom door – she didn't want to sit down until she'd had this bath so as not to get too much muck on the carpet. “He's definitely not a bad pony, so we should at least try to find an answer that makes all of us happy. And he's okay with trying it, so... yeah.”

“Alright...” Sunny said as she exited the bathroom, her voice making it clear that she was going to take some convincing.

“Don't worry about it.” Icy said as she trotted into the bathroom, head held high. She didn't like to be smug, but she felt like she had definitely earned this bath. She put her hooves up on the edge of the tub and looked down. “Everything's go- going... to be...”

She trailed off as her eyes widened and her pupils shrank. Her hooves went completely rigid, the tension in her muscles making them vibrate. She stood there, frozen, looking down into the steaming water.

It was silly. She knew it was silly. She yelled at herself in her own head that it was silly. It was just a bath, there was no danger at all. She tried to force her hooves to move forward, but they stayed firmly attached to the rim of the tub, screaming at her not to make them move.

She heard her mother come in and gasp. “Oh my... Sweetie? Are you okay?”

“I... I...” Icy responded, beginning to hyperventilate a little. She wanted to say, tried to say that everything was fine. She certainly couldn't see anything wrong – the water didn't look different than it ever had before, didn't move different, didn't feel different. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, nothing was fine. It was wrong and bad and she didn't know why.

Sunny rushed to her side. Out of the corner of her paralysed eye, Icy saw her mother follow her line of sight, gaining a look of understanding. She reached down through the water, eliciting a sympathetic shudder from Icy, and pulled the plug out.

For a few moments, as the water receded, Icy felt herself relax, the nervous energy bleeding out of her.

Then the water got low enough that she could see it rushing down the plughole and a wave of nausea spread through her. She watched as the water spiralled away and could practically feel it rushing down, flowing in an unstoppable wave through the pipes, pulling anything caught in it along with it, with no way to stop it or escape it or...

With a yelp, she fell away from the bathtub, landing in a quivering heap.

“I... I...” Icy stuttered, noticing but not caring how pathetic she sounded. “Can... Can I just have a shower instead?”

Sunny knelt by her daughter and stroked her hair. “Of course, honey, I'm sorry, I should have realized...”

“No!” Icy blurted out, cringing at the slightest hint of her mother blaming herself. “It's not... It's my fault, I... I dunno what's...”

“It's okay.” Sunny interrupted her, her voice gently forceful. “You had a traumatic... a bad experience. It's okay to have... issues after something like that. It's not unreasonable, it's not irreversible and it's not your fault. Tomorrow, I'll go and find a good psychiatrist and we can start working on helping you through this.”

Icy gulped, nodding rapidly, trying to convince herself as much as her mother. “Okay. But what about now?”

“Now?” Sunny said, smiling gently at her daughter. “Now, you have a shower. I'll be right here to help you get everything out of your coat and to help if anything happens. Okay?”

“O... Okay.” Icy replied, getting up and willing her wobbly legs forward. It wasn't easy – nothing about this was going to be easy. But... but she told herself she had every reason to believe her mother.

With her help – with the help of her family and her friends and everyone else, she could get through this. She had to.