A pastel pink mare nervously turned the corner, tightening her shawl. In the distance above the run down brick buildings, the factory arcologies of the Chicago suburbs loomed. The emblem of Radiant Industries glowing, larger than the moon eclipsed behind the mammoth structures.

A pile of garbage moved, now revealing a hobo reclining on top.

“Hey Missy, spare a few nu-bits for an old hungry codger?”

The hobo wheezed and got to his hooves.

“Umm I really don’t have any food,” the mare protested, “or that much money.”

She took a step back. He took a step forward, then another.

“Oh I think a sweet young thing like yourself has exactly what I need…”

The mare took another step back, starting to turn.

“I don’t know what you’re implying, but Knight Errant aren’t far away… and I should be…eeeeeyyyy.”

The mare's sentence was cut off by a shriek as she dove away from the hobo that had lunged at her, the rims of his eyes burning orange. She made another two paces before she tripped over a bag of garbage. The hobo was on her in a pounce, his eyes now lurid pools of orange, the fur on his muzzle giving way to matte black chitin. Two deadly fangs emerged from his upper jaw and as the mare shrieked he plunged them into her.

A second later and the mare went limp, her eyelashes fluttering pitifully as her eyes rolled back in her head. The pink color in her coat began to fade. A half moment passed before there was a soft beep from down the alley.

The hobo got off the mare and extended a hoof, helping her up. She quickly rose to her hooves and looked around to ensure that none were watching. Satisfied she went to retrieve a small object.

“You were a bit slow retracting your fangs this time,” she whispered, rubbing the base of her neck.

“It showed up in the last shot. I didn’t want another location wasted on an unusable result.”

“Whatever.”

A few moments later and two apparent Chicago gangers loitered at the end of another alley looking tough while they shared conspiratorial whispers.

“How many more times we going to do that?”

“A few more, you anxious to get back to Frizzle's cooking or something?”

“By the Queen, don’t remind me, I’d love a nice bowl of sugar slaw. The pony food here gives me indigestion.”

“Well, we're almost done. I can understand the extended mission. The Queen trying to salvage something of value from our trip. Drawing media attention to Chicago and away from Seattle is the least the orange Hive owes us after their Nymph threw a wrench in the works.”

“You think Radiant Pine will take the bait. I doubt this is going to fool him.”

“Eh probably not, but there’s value in making them expend effort chasing ghosts.”

One-handed a bottle of hay beer to the other.

“To the Queen, long may she reign.”

Elsewhere

A hiss of escaping carbonation filled the cab. Irregular Freight threw back his head and imbibed deeply. He wasn’t supposed to drink on the job but these long haul runs could have been rigged by foals. The seemingly endless desert of California stretched out dark before him, only a few taillights far ahead, and his favorite tunes for company.

“On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair,

Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air

Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light,

My head…”

Freight stopped singing along with the song, there WAS a strange light coming over the ridge far ahead of him. He checked the rear cameras. Two lights also approached from the rear.

“Weird,” he took another swig of soy beer.

Still the lights grew larger at an astonishing rate. Almost supersonic T-birds crossing the desert, and yet as he looked again, expecting the lights to move off or a set to recede, all three grew larger equidistantly.

“Umm Dispatch anything I should know about low flying aircraft,” Freight questioned.

“Nothing on the schedule, there..zz..sometzzzz…. wrzzzzzzzz,” the answer faded into incomprehensible static.

Freight pounded a hoof on the console as the rest of his instruments that needed a matrix connection flickered over to warning notices.

“This could be heaven or this could be hell,” the music played on uncaring.

The lights screamed at him like tiny suns, the faintest edge of Doppler-shifted turbines wailed across the desert at Emergency power.

“Oh drek me!”

A trio of spotlights speared the truck with blinding radiance. Freight felt himself forcibly jacked out of the truck, his head aching with biofeedback from his severed rigging connection. The engine stalled and the large cargo carrier drifted to a stop on the side of the freeway.

Freight turned his head to see a T-bird land, a squad of Firewatch streaming out the lowered ramps. The groggy rigger barely managed to react as the door was wrenched open bending the hinges.

“There’s been some sort of mistake!”

Freight protested as his face was shoved into the desert gravel, the road ablaze with ponies in military armor. He just caught sight of a pony in slightly less bulky armor approach him. A spell fetish of pine on one side of his belt, a focus of dual sun and moon gems dangling from the other side. Freight winced as a scanner was held up to the back of his head, while the lightly armored pony chanted something behind his face mask.

From the cab the music droned on, ignored.

“Some dance to remember, some dance to forget.”

The light on the scanner shone green, and the masked pony mage shook his head in the negative. Still, they did not let Freight up off the ground. The sound of boxes being thrown out of the back of the truck carried in the desert air. The occasional sound of breaking plastic or shattering glass accompanying the clatter. After barely a minute several armored ponies clustered around a spot on the floor of the trailer. A mage finding a powdery substance that sent his Mana detectors screaming.

“And in the Master's chambers, they gather for the feast

Stab it with their steely knives, But they just can’t kill the Beast”

A Captain turned from the open back of the trailer, tapping the side of his helmet making a conference call expand within his visor. All the talking heads were blank save the Captain and one other.

“There’s nothing here but a residue of some sort.”

The looks of disappointment were palatable around the virtual round table even though the blacked-out faces.

“Ritual Surveillance is showing another trace in Bakersfield.”

“That truck was unloaded there, I’m already having the lads run background checks but there’s a lot of staff at the sorting facility, confirming any deviants will take time.”

“Do we have any confirmation the truck was actually full on the leg to California? They could be moving it south.”

“Are we sure it’s even them at this point? I know they are Ness' concern, but they’ve never shown any interest before. My concern is that we're ignoring the possibility this may be more Deviant trickery. Regardless, what is important is in the box that truck carried,” a mare’s voice cut in among the stallions and silenced them.

“We’re checking surveillance but we haven’t picked up any groups of hitchhikers or vagrants along the route yet. Nor any known Deviants.”

“There were no changelings in the truck.”

Ness interjected. Some pony coughed.

“And you are sure of this how?”

“You abruptly conferenced me in at the invitation of the personal assistant to Radiant Pine himself and demanded the case files for the Rising Mist incident. An incident where a heavily armed strike team at the behest of SOMEPONY went in and overran what looks every bit like a nascent proto-hive, only to trigger a running gun battle on the freeway, and an even bigger battle at the Tacoma docks.

No pony decides to tangle with a full Hive for cupcakes and giggles, though I’m not convinced that they were aware of that. Regardless, whoever commanded that Hive lost their ever-loving cupcakes over that attack. Hives don’t chase heavily armed attackers and have highly public battles for cupcakes and giggles either. I thought it might have been a rescue, but here you are. Clearly less interested in the fact there may be another Hive in Seattle, eating ponies then what you appear to suspect they might have.

So does some pony want to tell me what exactly it is that this suspected Hive has gotten their holey little hooves on that’s so drekking important?”

The mare spoke with a note of finality.

“Your insight Special Agent Ness has been invaluable and noted, but certain information is on a very need to know basis. That will be all thank you.”

The screen winked out. In the visiting executive suite of the Radiant Industries Seattle HQ. Ness swore and loosened his tie. He stood and grabbed the crystal tumbler off the table. The sound of the real glass bottle sliding across real wood was soothing. He poured out a sniffer of whiskey and stood, the lights of Seattle blazing below, sending beams of glittering color to the heavens where no stars could compete with their radiance. In the far distance the sullen red of the volcano lit the low clouds.

Ness checked the bottle, already half empty. He usually had a lead by now. It was rare that he needed more than one bottle for an assignment. His liquid luck an old family recipe from a still that dated back seven generations to Bootleg Brew.

He sniffed and then brought the crystal tumbler to his lips.

“You’re out there under this same sky, aren’t you? Enjoying playing Radiant’s right hoof ponies for fools, are you? They don’t understand that you’re different, you’re not going to play by their rulebook.”

He finished off the tumbler and poured another.

“Drek, I’m going to need another bottle, maybe a lot more bottles.”

A few days later

A few changelings cheered as the Pegasus courier lifted off into the sky, having secured the parcel to her back. The tracking code from the seventh different courier company was attached to the RFID smart barcode.

Facet held up her hooves for quiet in the common area of the cafeteria. It was a strange game, but a welcome diversion. The renovation of Silver Screen Dreams and construction of the Hive was virtually complete, and the Workers and Scouts that previously had full run of the spa as construction staff now found little to do. The long lockdown was starting to wear on the Hive, there were limits on how many of them could be employed within the spa, and aside from careful forays for precious serenity, few changelings left their safe harbor while Knight Errant scanned most everything that moved in the city.

“Okay…votes are in, our next leg is to…. Drumroll, please….Applewood. The box is going to see the stars…”

Facet put some theatricality into her performance, working to keep up spirits while the Queen was away. Most of the changelings hadn’t realized that Tisiphone was working today. After the near-disaster of the Tournament, resistance to the Queen risking her life on rather insipid pony intrigues was growing.

“Ohhh,” a chorus of sharp-eyed scouts cried.

Facet turned, caught at the far edge of the micro camera’s resolution, the courier company the Pegasus had just lifted off from, was suddenly sent into chaos as a Citymaster armored vehicle skidded to a halt…not quite fast enough to avoid denting the bumper of the sports car parked across two spaces. Ponies in security armor got out of the Citymaster and ran inside.

“Oh, …almost got caught there!” Facet’s eyes sparkled as the assorted changelings cheered. “Looks like it’s time for a reroute…everyone has one minute to provide their votes on which reroute option we’re going to use for this day’s CHASE THAT BOX!”

Facet hoped that her Queen was having as much fun as she was.

Elsewhere

“…kindly get your butt out of my face…”

Glass Darkly tried to find some tiny pocket of space to fit into as the car pulled away from the Washateria. Smoke poured from broken crevices in the plascrete. Glass prayed the suspension on the car didn’t break, they were loaded to the brim with the shattered remnants of Gwynn’s combat drone, a sizable load of loot in the form of black market cybernetics, a captured medical drone, and the object of the task. One Vector Sound, a defector from the CMC. Glass wanted to get into the pony’s head, but now was not the time…and Glass was well aware that given that they had gone to great lengths to rescue the pony, the information they sought was almost certain to be given freely. Tisiphone had learned the lesson previously at great cost to avoid snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by overcomplicating her schemes. She could wait.

The fight within the clinic had not been by any means graceful. It had been a slog of slogs until the defending mage went down. Then a spell fetish of Witche's Moss had been useful, as had her natural gifts. High-end armor was strong against bullets but not much against magic paralyzation. Tisiphone was surprised that Gwynn hadn’t commented on the fact that Glass had gone through supposedly rare and expensive paralytic toxin like it was candy. Geez her venom glands were going to be sore for a week replacing all that she had just used.

More worrisome was Gwynn’s funk of depression. Tisiphone didn’t know how to cheer the Griffin up. The loss of yet another combat drone so soon was greatly discouraging their rigger. The purloined Cybernetics would ultimately make good her losses, but risking life and limb to wind up back in the same spot never felt good. Going in circles. On that point, Tisiphone wondered what exactly might come of this.

She was hesitant to push the team to attack the CMC, though gaining the Alicorn Amulet from them was the obvious play before turning to the far tougher nut to crack of Radiant Pine and Ms. Who. Yet, such a dangerous foe would not be considered unless the pay was equal with the risk. Tisiphone had sunk so many resources into the Hive…which granted, between the spa and the temple, they were eking out the lockdown enforced by the anti-changeling crackdown, but they were in no position to bankroll the kind of cash needed to hire Tisiphone's comrades, full stop, even if paying Tisiphone was removed. That left things in the hands of an elusive benefactor until either Tisiphone’s cash balance recovered or something changed the status quo.

Glass Darkly sighed as they pulled into a covered parking garage and the car changed IDs and paint schemes. Nothing to do but wait and hope the Hive was having a productive day.

Elsewhere

“That is a lot of sugar…,” Local Production looked on quizzically as the first of several pallets began to drop towards the loading dock from the back of the large cargo truck.

“I know, but we got such a huge discount buying in bulk,” Violet Bloom answered to the soft approvals of the kitchen staff.

“Yeah but…,” Local Production protested.

“But what? Cozy Matinee and Box Office always wanted to open a Parisian Bistro. Now we have our own cozy little restaurant to serve a limited menu and fresh snacks to the patrons. It will bring in a few diners that in turn might stick around for the spa. There are only so many ponies that want to relive the glory of Audrey Hebpone’s early work. A little bit of diversification never hurt any pony.”

“Look, I’m not saying that it’s a bad idea…but all this…diversification is shifting the clientele, and that means the work the old crew did is coming in bits and dribbles. Two months ago, Snookie was telling me about her vacation plans, now after a month of half work, and another month of very mediocre bookings for her roles she’s worried about her savings.”

Violet rubbed her chin…

“Hmm we can look at the assignments, Snookie is a long-timer, and we don’t want to run her off, but some disruption was to be expected. The spa needed a major overhaul and refurb, it was stagnating before.”

“Yes, but…you know…arghh…, it’s a nice name.”

Local Production pointed to the Parisian theming…and the bold lettering for ‘La Reve Argent’. Violet Bloom watched him go as a clerk moved to stand next to her with a clipboard.

“What do you want me to do about Snookie?”

“Oh…work her in for a nice run, bump a couple of other ponies to do it…if anyone asks make it clear that Local Production pressured me.”

The two shared a look and amethyst flickers flashed in the two sets of eyes. Behind them, a flurry of baking was going on…one of the pastry chefs quietly pressed a series of hidden buttons. A shelf in the pantry turned, revolving into the wall, carrying several 50 kilo sacks of sugar. When the motion was complete another set of empty shelves waited to be filled.

Outside the bakers conversed where only they could hear each other.

“It feels weird, making food for ponies.”

“I know right…not a single grub in the Hive for us to take care of, instead we have to pamper stressed out PONIES.”

“Enough of that you two. Think of it as….fattening them up. Make them happy, that means more sweet Serenity for us. Do not second guess the Queen’s plans. For she is wise and soon we will all share in her victory.”

“Agreed…Buzz…Glory to the Amethyst Queen….Buzz.”

Elsewhere, Later

“…and so the CMC wishes to destroy the WORLD! Bring Eternal NIGHT!”

Glass Darkly looked down at Vector Sound, the pony that they had fought so hard to rescue.

“And… Quel Surprise? I know this may seem insensitive, but that was pretty much assumed from the beginning. Do you have any information on the ritual they're planning with the Alicorn Amulet? Secondly, are you paying for us to go in and fight an entire legion of insane cultists to take the amulet from them?

“Not really….,” Vector Sound admitted sheepishly.

Glass Darkly held his hoof to his face… the status quo had been budged by all of about several inches. A pitched, difficult battle had paid the bills and given Glass and Gwynn further experience in being shot and blown up, and not much else.

Radiant Industries wasn’t the only group running in circles, something would need to shake loose and soon. Glass didn’t relish bringing Ms. Who back into the equation, but it seemed there was little choice, but this was fraught with peril. Tisiphone still couldn’t say who Ms. Who was, or who she worked for, and in that enigma opportunity and disaster held equal reign.

Author's Note

Game Notes: The team is advised that a defector from the CMC (Vector Sound) wants to provide information, but he has been captured and taken to a hidden clinic where he presumably is being interrogated to determine what information he has provided. We are tasked with his rescue.

The clinc is hidden under a Washateria that serves as a front business. We fail to locate the side entrance and as a result wind up essentially kicking the door in. We find that a squad of heavily armored and armed mercenaries is setup on the chokepoint into the lab. Resulting in it being difficult to move forward, the same problem we ran into at the supermarket. Gwynn's best combat drone is destroyed by return fire while the mercanies are so heavily armored that grenades are largely ineffective.

Ultimatley a lucky shot knocks out the mercenary mage which up to that had rendered Glass Darkly relatively ineffective. Using a consumable spell fetish of Witches' Moss several defenders were paralyzed allowing the team to break past the grenade saturated bottleneck. With no real defense against Glass Darkly's invisibility, the remaining defenders were picked off in sneak attacks and Vector Sound was recaptured before he could removed.

The combined effect of a dozen grenades, burning fires, limited the captured loot. Worse, once Vector Sound recovered, he revealed that the CMC was planning to use the Alicorn Amulet to power a ritual to kill Luna to resurrect her aspect as Nightmare Moon, and bring about an eternal night. This unfortunately had already been surmised, so it was a very much Newsflash, water is wet, kind of moment.