The Pawn Who Would Be Queen

There was a certain art to reading the tangled web of thought that was a Changeling hive-mind, only the sensitive and the powerful could do so with much clarity. That was what made the difference between an average female and a Queen... The ability to serve as a sort of overseer to the far flung network of individual consciousness, molding it like clay, with an eye towards a greater purpose. Queens generally could sense when something wasn't quite right within that network, and typically that tended to point towards rebellion and discontentment, or perhaps even a coups...

What tormented the dwindling sanity of Queen Chrysalis, however, was as bizarre in its abstractness as it was sickening in its sensation. No one in her hive could comprehend it, none of her healers could feel it, and she was beginning to doubt any believed her claims to be genuine... Something, or somethings, squirmed among the web in an unnatural way, sometimes only momentarily, sometimes for hours on end. They wriggled and slithered through Chrysalis' mind, writhing like maggots in rotting flesh, occasionally fooling her with the phantom odor of embalming chemicals and tobacco smoke.

For fractions at a time, she might even glimpse a dark and dingy chamber, men in suits looming over her... Speaking, as if she wasn't even there. They'd be staring down at her coldly, impassively, smoking cigarettes and conversing in unintelligible whispers. The visions were all the more unsettling because she was certain that she had never been in such a room... It was too vivid to be a dream, and so Chrysalis could only assume that it stemmed from those unwanted interlopers in the web... Perhaps it was something they had seen, that they were trying to communicate to her? Were that the case, the Queen wanted nothing to do with it, or them.

Most days she could keep her composure, so long as she sat in silent and uninterrupted meditation. Other occasions, those were she was inundated with troubles throughout the hive, there was just nothing she could do to keep those wretched unnatural sensations way. Things were worst when the hive-mind was calmer than usual, almost unnaturally so, and it was in those silent moments that Chrysalis swore she could hear the interlopers calling out to her... Broadcasting their sickening desires directly into her consciousness, urges of such a primal nature they could only be encoded into those strange creature's very being...

"Get out! Get out! Get! Out!" The Queen's voice suddenly shrieked through her chambers as she lay curled upon the floor, her skin bare save for the blanket taken from her bed. She'd wrapped it around herself like a cocoon, much as her Mother had done with her when she was but a nymph, it was one of the few things that brought her comfort anymore... As if worrying about keeping her people fed and dealing with a recent encroachment of dragons into the badlands wasn't enough, now there were wicked abominations playing on her mind, toying with her perceptions in new horrific ways.

Every night her dreams were filled with images of such unadulterated depravity. Twisted black forms swarming through vast cities, cities Chrysalis had never seen before, filled with peoples speaking tongues she'd never heard. Every one of them was ravaged by flames, the skies rent by towering tornadoes of flame, terrified inhabitants ripped to shreds and consumed with such vivid clarity that it was as if Chrysalis herself were the one responsible. Their shrieks of fear haunted her so ardently that even the faintest creak of a door's hinge felt enough to send her into gibbering panic, desperately searching for somewhere to hide, to blot out the screams... Nowhere was safe, for how could she hope to escape her own mind?

Changelings were a parasitic race, a fact Chrysalis saw no harm in... It was natural for them to occasionally raid their neighbors, just as the dragons regularly went up against the Equestrians. There was always a code of conduct that hives were expected to adhere to... Just as farmers might diversify their crops, or hunters would limit their number of kills, so too did the hives abide by similar methods of conservation. It was the only way to ensure that their prey not only remained numerous, but also to keep from drawing too much infamy that the prey banded together for protection. The beings that tormented her now, however, held to no such code. Destroy... Burn... Pillage... Consume... Repeat, until there was absolutely nothing left but bones and ashes.

Chrysalis' Mother had succumb to the sensation of madness very rapidly, and in many respects she suspected the late Queen to be the lucky one. Tempo's kind sensibilities and desire for the betterment of all her subjects had made her exceptionally sensitive to the horror. It was no wonder to Chrysalis why that sweet, if slightly misguided, reformer of a woman so rapidly deteriorated into a shivering mess.

Starvation had been the ultimate cause of death, for Tempo could not bear the sight of any form of meat, or bring herself to absorb the love offered her, without turning away in disgust... Chrysalis herself struggled to keep every meal down, because every bite she took was accompanied by those fiendishly violent demands for more blood... The whispering urges demanded she devour the hearts and brains of her victims, for that was where she... They... It... Would find the most emotional nutrients...

What spawn of the blackest abyss could play upon the hive-mind, could toy with her thoughts as a cat plays with yarn? Where were the voices coming from? Her spies could tell her nothing, for they could find no sign of any 'rogue' hives that engaged in such debauched destruction. Surely the entire known world would know if there were, for the cities that burned in her mind's eye were too large to go unnoticed in their destruction. All Chrysalis could think to do to survive was to sate the voices, to heed their demands of conquest, as quickly as possible.

She couldn't help but hope that maybe, if she subdued the Equestrians and took control of their love, that would be enough to satiate the frightful urges... The food shortages would stop once and for all, for the rest of her subjects at least, and her people could gorge until the voices prevailed no longer. Deep down, however, she knew that wouldn't be the end of it... It would never end, the interlopers would once again hunger for blood, and by then... Chrysalis might not be in a position to fight them as she did now.

She'd need to focus all of her energy on that alone, as that was the only way she could think to prevent them from taking hold of her body, or worse... The entire hive-mind. Sooner or later that would happen, she would be forced to watch herself overcome by madness. Already she could see it happening, her fixation on the Equestrians... Was it really her trying to sate the voices, or was that what they wanted her to think? She was getting so turned around, her thoughts often conflicted with one another. How could she hope to untangle that web and rule her hive?

A knock on the door to her chambers briefly drew the Queen from her spiraling inner turmoil, and it took all of Chrysalis' willpower to rise from the floor and stagger to her throne at the center of the room. She had dismissed her attendants for the time being, as it wouldn't do to have them see the Queen in such a state. That made it all the more clear that this was likely a message of great importance. Discarding the blanket, she seated her bare form in the throne and cleared her throat, gripping the armrests with trembling white knuckles, hoping to hide the terror that gripped at her soul... If she even had such a thing anymore...

"E-Enter!" Chrysalis declared in as steady a voice she could muster, the doors opened moments later, and a familiar handsome man stepped into view. With the door closing behind him, Supreme General Pharynx entered and bowed respectfully, his new red shoulder cape flourishing as he did so.

The flowing garment, a symbol of his new lofty rank, was secured sturdily about his shoulders, fluttering absently as he straightened to his full height. His aspect was stoic and professional, just as Chrysalis had come to expect of him. Try as he might to hide them from her, Chrysalis could sense through the hive-mind that he too harbored his doubts... Her mad ravings were hardly a secret within the Under Hive, but where generally the other nobles responded with barely hidden ridicule, General Pharynx exuded an air that seemed genuinely concerned and... Angry with her.

"General Pharynx..." Chrysalis continued smoothly, biting her lower lip with a growing sense of her own anxiety. "Have our spies finally reported the disposition of Princess Orzel?" The General clasped his hands behind his back before shaking his head, and for a fraction of a second those violent urges bade her to lunge forward and destroy him for his 'failure'. "Why not!?" Chrysalis shouted louder, and more ferociously, than she'd intended.

"Our agents visited the temple the Princess previously frequented, but report she has not been present for prayer services in months." Pharynx stated bluntly, maintaining his calm facade with a remarkable degree of professionalism. Chrysalis could sense another burst of indignation at her tone on Pharynx's part, but for now allowed the impudence to pass unchallenged. "Further investigation indicates that she may have departed the Equestrian mainland entirely. We have a few leads within the Equestrian Navy that point to somewhere in the Luna Ocean, but nothing more concrete than that." The man continued in an even tone.

The voices cried out for her to kill him where he stood, to rip him open and feast on his corpse, to bathe herself in his blood... Struggling mightily against those urges, Chrysalis managed to produce a small growl of annoyed acceptance.

"There's more..." Pharynx added with only slight reluctance, his posture stiffening. "The Equestrians know of our recent infiltrations, several of our operatives in their Nocturne Agency report that their duties have gradually been shifting. They've taken steps to evade capture until new identities can be created for them elsewhere. Others have failed to make contact or reach their respective rendezvous points, and a few even report that the Agency may have agents of another hive in their custody as we speak." Chrysalis' eyes widened at that, and once again those voices screamed at her, told her of their hunger, of their desires... It took all her willpower not to submit, or vomit at the disgusting images.

"While I doubt the Equestrians will catch them all, it is nonetheless clear that we have lost the element of surprise." The General paused for a moment, appearing faintly unsettled... That wasn't uncommon, powerful emotions commonly radiated from a Queen when her subjects were within close proximity. Undeterred, the man continued in that typical professional tone of his. "I suspect the departure of Princess Orzel is another move to hamper our progress."

"Further investigation indicates she possesses a martially oriented personality, as we expected of her draconic origins. I have no doubt she would lead the Equestrian counterattack with characteristic tenacity, without any thought towards a negotiated surrender." Pharynx didn't flinch, even with Chrysalis growling so furiously as the General supplied her with more bad news. "Any attempt at a decapitation strike without eliminating her from the equation would therefore prove futile, our invasion of Canterlot will be doomed to failure if we cannot ascertain her location."

The Queen briefly considered ordering him to go ahead with the attack regardless, especially at the mention of 'eliminating' Princess Orzel. For some reason the voices were remarkably insistent about that, almost as if... Almost as if they were acting out of animalistic fear. Chrysalis didn't know what about a teenaged dragon girl could be so terrifying to creatures with such violent appetites, but that alone was enough to prompt the woman to hesitate on her ordering the invasion. There was also another matter, just as pressing as the departure of one of the key members of the Crown... That matter being the evidence that the Badland's Hive wasn't the only hive taking steps against Equestria...

"What of these other agents? Those that are of another hive. Have our operatives contacted them?" Chrysalis asked in her brief moment of renewed control, though she doubted that lucidity would last very long. Pharynx shook his head, gaining yet another one of those serious expressions of his.

"No, your Majesty." The General stated simply, looking off to the side, as if pondering how best to continue. "Our reports indicate they have attacked a military installation under Nocturne control, and may even have been involved in the assassination of the Agency's Director. There's rumor they might even be planning other hostile acts of sabotage on Equestrian soil."

Chrysalis could feel her control rapidly fading away, of course one of the other Hives would attempt to stick its nose into things... For all she knew, that hive might well be attempting to draw the wrath of the Equestrians against the Badlands Hive. It was a classic tactic of their race, incite too powerful rivals to fight one another, stoking the fires along the way, until both parties were too weak to carry on... Then swoop in and overwhelm the depleted enemy force. Unaware of the Queen's inner frustration, Pharynx continued on.

"Were we to contact these agents and be caught in the act, our Hive would appear just as guilty as theirs. In the event they themselves enter a full on conflict with the Equestrians, it would be best to appear as uninvolved in possible, to limit cause for retribution." The man paused momentarily, maintaining a serious expression. "Speaking of retribution, their recent success against dragon raids have driven some of the unaffiliated clans to venture into our domain, most likely to seek a means of flanking the now battle hardened militias on the Lone Star border. I am having several units... Dispatched... To... Shadow them..." By now Chrysalis was no longer able to restrain the various strong emotions radiating across the hive-mind. "Are you feeling well, your Majesty?"

"Ye-.. N-..." Chrysalis stammered, suddenly taking her hands from the armrests and grabbing at her head. It was all unraveling, without the element of surprise there was no way to beat the Equestrians.

No way to conquer, no means of 'consuming', or sating those terrible voices of creatures that should not have been. Now the dragons were encroaching onto her territory, her hive's ancient sovereign birthright! She was failing! She was failing at everything! The solution seemed obvious, send a raiding party against the dragon raiders. Ensnare them! Bring them back to the hive! Consume their love, and that was gone, consume them entirely! Rage! Rage! With the powerful emotions of dragons it would be possible to feed so many more soldiers, they could raise a mighty army, and then the world would be theirs!

"Help me..." The Queen managed through gritted teeth, fighting like mad to constrain the unleashed desires for bloodshed that'd nearly overwhelmed her. Struggling to her feet, Chrysalis staggered towards the bewildered General. Pharynx quickly moved to her aid, his typical stoic expression replaced by one of genuine concern. "You h-have no doubt heard the rumors of my... Ravings..." She continued tiredly, allowing the man to put arm around his shoulders for support.

"Indeed I have, your Majesty." Pharynx admitted honestly, just as was always the case... Honest ones were rare, especially among Changelings. The General helped steady his Queen, moving her towards her bed and grabbing the blanket from the floor. "I do not know the extent to which they are true." Chrysalis grinned painfully as Pharynx draped the blanket around the Queen's shoulders.

"There is s-something... Toying with the hive-mind. Y-You cannot sense it as a Queen can." Chrysalis explained as the General helped her to sit on the edge of her bed, where she once more held the blanket tight around herself. "They speak to me all day... S-Shows me things, as they s-showed my Mother. Terrible, terrible things..." The woman shook herself, her hands trembling as chills racked her body. "T-The voices... They want me to k-kill you..."

"They want me to eat people! Not just their emotion, b-but their bodies..." She added with tears welling in her eyes. "If I fail to fight them, they will undoubtedly take control of me... If I die, they will almost instantly overwhelm whoever is chosen to replace me... They will not be able to resist the madness as I have!" She cast a look at the floor. "I f-fear they may already be in control of other Hives, as you mentioned earlier..." Pharynx regained his expression of cold command, sighing heavily through his nose.

"What must I do...? Should I get your guards? The healers?" Pharynx asked his Queen solemnly, but the trembling young woman merely shook her head. If she called for guards or healers she would undoubtedly order them to do something drastic, something she couldn't undo. No... Not 'she'... The voices that bayed and snapped like the hounds of madness, and it was all the Queen could do to keep them in check.

The best thing for everyone involved was for her to remain apart from the powers she wielded as Queen, only then could she focus on combating the voices. It had to be done, but the voices... The voices realized what she was planning, and at once a splitting headache erupted into being, forcing her to suppress a cry of pain. Pharynx's eyes widened again as Chrysalis felt a warm rivulet of liquid emerge from her nose, when she brought her hand to her face she was disheartened to see a smear of brightly glowing green blood that came away. The pain, coupled with the increasing protest of those beings of purest evil, briefly robbed the Queen of her self control. She hissed bestially at Pharynx, nearly lunging at him with bared teeth, but the warrior had little trouble restraining her long enough for her faculties to return.

"I need only the Keeper of Tomes and the Chief Magician..." Chrysalis managed with heaving breaths, looking towards the door, then down at her hands. An image played across her eyes of one of those hands, embedded in the gut of a woman in armor, covered in crimson blood, though the hand was not her own. There was someone screaming off to the side, a child by the sounds of it, and ring of fire that encircled them both entirely. "If I am to maintain control of the hive-mind, I m-must give it my full attention..." She looked at Pharynx with apologetic realization. "There is yet another task I must place on your shoulders, General." The man raised an eyebrow. "Our hive will need a ruler of sound mind, far sounder than my own... At least until the source of these damnable voices has been found and destroyed!" She said the last word with a particular relish, as if even the utterance of the syllables filled her with an unhinged glee.

"You will b-become that ruler..." Chrysalis chuckled as a look of greater fear and shock crossed Pharynx's features, but the trembling woman could only nod in confirmation. She had gone mad, even she realized that not, but from that madness came a sort of... Clarity. This was bigger than her, bigger than the ruthless ideas of expansion she'd once embraced. "Mother s-spoke fondly of you, General... She said you were a man on whom I could rely..." She looked back at the floor, clenching her eyes shut and trying to banish more images.

"Should another hive's Queen succumb to this madness, and s-she will do something foolish..." Chrysalis stated with as much restraint as she could muster. "You are correct in your assessment... We, as the closest hive to the Equestrians, w-will be the first they blame... It is not h-helped that they have discovered our own a-a-agents..." She couldn't help chuckling at that, likely only making it further clear to Pharynx just how deeply the unhinged voices had driven her. "Y-You must find t-the source of these voices, I know you cannot hear them, but..." The General nodded quietly at her. "I... I have indulged th-their blood lust for too long... F-Forgive me!"

"I shall do as you ask, my Queen..." Pharynx agreed with more of trademarked quiet, thoughtful solemnity, obviously realizing just what it would mean if the Equestrians were attacked in earnest. Never mind that Chrysalis had been plotting to do the same thing themselves, it was clear in Pharynx's eyes that he understood the situation was well past that being an option now. Not only because they'd lost the element of surprise, but also judging by the Queen's own current state.

The Equestrians couldn't know that there was more than one hive, each as different as the last, spread throughout the world. Any attack by those hives would paint Chrysalis' hive as the aggressors, and then... She shivered of her own accord, as there were no illusions what would happen if ever the Equestrians were enraged to such a point they'd actually wage war. They were a silly, fun loving, people... Friendly, peaceful, slow to anger. It took a great deal to earn their wrath, and there were some that viewed this as weakness... She'd been among that camp, for a time.

She could only shudder as she imagined what would happen if ever the Equestrians were pushed beyond their breaking point... The retaliation of aggressive and confrontational forces tended to be predictable, but the fury of the quiet, the patient, and the calm could in some cases eclipse even the most bloodthirsty of dragons. It could only be hoped that something would be done before that destructive possibility emerged into reality... Before the Equestrians were provoked into conflict, for all the world would descend into war.

Situated some twenty-five stories underground, there were few levels within the confines of Site R below that of Orzel's private laboratory, all of which pertained to maintenance or geothermal power regulation. Her lab was illuminated by bright steadily humming fluorescent lamps, with space enough to easily accommodate a team of twenty researchers if necessary, though Orzel continued to remain its sole occupant.

The lab was everything she could've hoped for and more, with sterile blue linoleum floor tiles, and pristine white walls, lined with counter tops, cupboards, and drawers, all of which contained just about anything Orzel could ever possibly need, not to mention a few things she didn't need. It'd been furnished with hundreds of test tubes and beakers, a healthy number of burners, flasks, mixers, microscopes, centrifuges, crucibles, evaporators, and all manner of other machines.

There was equipment at her disposal that Orzel would've thought confined to the realm of a science fiction novel five months ago, and it was all hers to do with as she pleased. Many were festooned with buttons, dials, flashing lights, oscilloscopes and cathode ray tube monitors, even 'reel-to-reel' computing machines. According to Nocturne Agency records, a great many of these wondrous inventions had been derived from technology left in the wake of the Ancients, even then achieving only a fraction of what the long lost builders of the Pulauapi installation had been capable of.

They were at the very least thirty or forty years ahead of anything Orzel had seen on the mainland, even with their construction widely limited by the materials and methods available to the modern world. Nonetheless, they were more than capable of helping the Princess to peer beyond the very fabric of the cosmos as never before.

Of course, there was more to a lab than shiny equipment. As requested, there was also a cabinet for personal protective equipment, a chemical decontamination shower, an eye wash station, first aid kits, panic button, and plenty of fire extinguishers. Several pairs of doors lined the various sides of the room, each leading to what Orzel termed a 'Contamination Minimization Chamber'. An 'air-lock' between the lab and whatever chamber was beyond.

One led to her fabrication workshop, offering a room where she could change out of her clean lab wear and into more appropriate machining attire... They also possessed decontamination showers, to minimize the risk of her tracking anything in from the adjacent room that might compromise the sterile conditions of the lab proper. The other sets of doors each connected to Orzel's drafting room and enchanting chamber respectively. The drafting room in particular also housed a 'Panic Room', with access to an emergency air ventilation system with an adjacent escape shaft, and enough food and water rations to last a month, just in case the hatch to the escape shaft became jammed.

Honestly, if Basilisk Defense Technologies didn't pan out, Orzel might very well want to stay with ARMA. Considering Luna wasn't likely to abdicate the throne any time soon, it might be a fun adventure. Especially now that Orzel was granted greater access to the island's communal facilities, even if it hadn't gone exactly as the girl might've hoped. She'd come a long way from a few months ago, and though she wasn't feeling 'super', this was probably the best she'd consistently felt mentally since her arrival to Equestria... She still had bad days, and on more than one occasion she'd had 'flashbacks', but... It was easier to deal with the pain, easier to accept things that were beyond her control.

A lot of that was thanks to Doctor Scratch and her faith, but... Being totally on her own for so long, cooking for herself again, cleaning her residence, falling into a steady and rewarding routine. In the end, Orzel had managed to for the most part move on. There were still matters she wished were different, the fact that Sokol's remains still remained in Agency custody for starters, but by now she accepted that things would never be the same again... The grief still hurt, the fear still shot through her, and yet the effect they had on her was easier to manage.

She had more than enough new things to worry about, so moving on from the old ones was certainly a welcome respite. Her expanded access throughout Site R sprang to mind, which as previously stated hand't gone entirely according to plan. There was certainly quite a stir among when 'Researcher Boyegolovka' first entered the cafeteria, and not just because she managed to snag the last bottle of root beer. Apparently everyone had expected someone of her reputation for innovative ideas to be much... Older.

In hindsight, giving a face to the name probably made things more difficult than they otherwise would've been. Her age was the familiar issue that Orzel had encountered for as long as she'd been a Princess. Now those that decried her theories not only disagreed with them, they felt themselves entitled to lecture her as if she were some sort of simpleton. It was also the first time she'd ever encountered people outside of Canterlot that didn't think all that highly of dragons, or their cognitive abilities... One had even gone so far as to refer to her as a 'knuckle dragging savage', though obviously without intending for her to understand it.

Orzel attributed a lot of their confidence in saying such things to the fiction that she couldn't fluently speak or understand spoken Equestrian. That was a blessing in disguise... Better she knew how people really felt about her, rather than having them hide those thoughts behind platitudes. The Princess had since gotten quite good at pretending not to understand people, and that certainly helped in getting them to leave her alone. Not that she was afraid of them, or afraid to defend her work. Her time was just better spent actually working, as opposed to being talked down to as some sort of malcontent juvenile delinquent at best, and 'dimwitted' at worst.

At present, her efforts were focused on the closer examination of her Monolith pendant under a microscope... She'd performed a few more thorough tests using an Arcane Radiation Device, and discovered that it actually had some sort of enchantment... At first she'd figured the runes had been rendered invisible, but... That wasn't the case. It possessed a considerably complicated defensive ward, somehow able to read not only the danger presented by an enchanted item, but the severity of that danger as well... It didn't seem like much, but in the context of the threats Nocturne Agents regularly dealt with in the field, such distinctions could literally mean the difference between life or death.

Orzel idly drummed her fingers upon the counter top of one of the many lab islands that took up the center of the room. She'd examined nearly every centimeter of the pendant with painstaking care, moving millimeter by millimeter, searching for the final piece that might reveal to her precisely how the necklace did what it did. The Princess was close to something, she could feel it in her bones, and that her more than a little giddy. The only sounds surrounding Orzel were the consistent steady hum of the air vents, occasionally interrupted by a bleep or bloop from the various machines. These were broken up every now and then by the anxious tapping of the Princess's foot against the floor.

So far she'd found what at first appeared to be simple scratches in the gold, as one might expect of typical wear and tear. Upon closer inspection, it turned out that the scratches were actually latent stylus markings of an impossibly small size. Normally seeing scratches of such a nature wouldn't be unusual, it was actually quite normal. Every enchanted item had at least a few latent markings, no enchanter's grip was perfectly steady, and occasionally their hand might stray a millimeter or two in one direction or another.

The scratches in this case were different, as there weren't any runes visible around them... The Princess saw no sign of the runes having been removed, nor that they'd been rendered invisible by magical means. That left her with more questions than answers. Taking a deep breath through her nose, the Princess sighed and moved the pendant a little further up, until one of the large rubies adorning its surface passed into view.

It was an absolutely beautiful stone, and Orzel was quite certain it would taste delicious, were she ever to consider eating it... Which she wouldn't. That wasn't to say the ruby was totally flawless either, there were several impurities visible within the center of the stone itself. Or were there...? Orzel quietly adjusted the angle of the pendant, slowly, meticulously, until finally...

"What in the name of the Goddess...?" Orzel mumbled in stunned Szafirian, quickly moving to adjust the magnification on the microscope. She was just as careful with that as she was moving the pendant itself, carefully moving the dial and bringing the image into greater focus. What greeted her searching eye was nothing short of astonishing... Runes, some of which she recognized, but... Not from any modern setting.

There were some that appeared identical to markings she'd seen on her family's sword, but how could that be? According to Seeker Topaz, the pendant was only a couple centuries old, well after her people had gone extinct on this world... Thinking back on the night, she recalled that he'd told her how it'd been given to him... Perhaps it'd been passed down throughout the years from one Seeker to another, and thus was older than Orzel initially assumed.

The age of the piece wasn't what baffled her though... What truly stunned her, truly left her speechless, was the fact that these runes were of such an incredibly minute size that they should have been impossible. Each symbol was no wider than a hair's breadth, and clustered in impossibly tight groupings of six or eight. Orzel was good, very good, but not that good. Whoever had created this piece truly had to be a 'Master Enchanter', in every sense of the word.

The real kicker was that the runes were perfect. Not just created by an expert hand, they were absolutely flawless, with many of them identical to a degree beyond human normal capability. The technology to create an enchantment of such minute size with a mechanical precision did not exist yet. Orzel had only just started experimenting along that front, with limited success... Now it was about more than discovering the nature of the pendants enchantments, now the Princess needed to know just where, or when, this pendant had come from.

Leaning back from the microscope, the girl picked up a nearby pen and scribed everything she'd discovered thus far into a waiting notebook. Once finished there, she grabbed both the notebook and the necklace, her lab coat flaring as she deftly moved across the room. Her eyes were set upon one of the innumerable machines she'd been using in her enchanting research of late. It stood out among the others in that this one lacked an appearance of mass production, that was because Orzel had built it herself. It also had the distinction of a large 'Radiation Hazard!' placard painted on its side. There was nothing else like it in all the world, at least... Nothing that was in a useable condition.

The Princess opened a nearby drawer, quickly setting the necklace and notebook on the counter beside the machine. Within the drawer she found a dozen crimson colored crystals, perfectly aligned with one another, just as she'd left them. Picking up one of the satin smooth stones, she closed the drawer and depressed her thumb onto the center of the gem. It glowed a dull crimson, and so she proceeded to set it neatly on the island.

"Audio log two-hundred-ninety-eight pertaining to the examination of Personal Enchanted Item Zero-Zero-Seven, hereafter referred to as 'Pendant' or 'Artifact'. Researcher Boyegolovka recording." Orzel spoke in standard draconic, unable to hide the excitement rising in her voice. "Upon microscopic analysis of the artifact, I have discovered what appear to be impossibly small runes, somehow etched inside of one of the rubies adorning the pendant! Confirmation of the discovery is contingent on a battery of tests I intend to run regarding the artifact's passive thaumatergic energy levels."

"Should the results prove in line with my suspicions, it would potentially upend everything modern enchanters know about the history of our craft! Enchantments of such a size could be the key to developing new advancements in fields I could only speculate upon... Medical devices, aircraft instrumentation, body armor, the potential is virtually limitless! I shall resume this log upon the completion of the tests. I await the results with eager anticipation."

After deactivating the crystal, Orzel's eyes darted over the machine, which was just about as tall as she was. She'd given it a name that was exceptionally long and difficult for most Equestrian's to pronounce, or spell, on account of its heavy reliance on a long forked tongue. The closest Equestrian translation was 'Electromagnetic Confinement Lens Amplified Stygiometer Mark 1', or the much more manageable 'EMCLAS Mk. 1'. Checking that all the power indicators were in the off position, Orzel opened the machine's heavy lead and Wolfram-Arcanium alloy lined door, the outer edges of which supported a black rubber gasket material.

The interior of the machine was lined with the same wolfram-arcanium alloy, every surface of which had been scribed with pulsating green runes. Behind these lining plates were a collection of enchanted amber colored octagonal gems, each of which had been carefully machined to act as a Fresnel lens. Together they focused arcane energy into the chamber, bombarding its contents with magic. The 'Arcane Lenses' were backed by several large electromagnets, utilized to refine the intensity of the beam, and prevent potentially harmful arcane radiation from escaping the test chamber. To that end Orzel had also included a layer of lead shielding.

It was the magnets that really what allowed Orzel to fine tune the parameters of EMCLAS tests to such precise specifications. The device itself was Orzel's modern take on a very old and relatively unknown machine, known as a 'Stygiometer'. The first such device had been developed at least two-thousand years, perhaps even longer than that. Of course, the technology of the time meant it was prone to failing, not to mention no one understood what Arcane Radiation actually was... So most mages that wound up using one sooner or later dropped dead from Acute Arc-Rad Syndrome. All of which had contributed to the Stygiometer fading into obscurity. The Wolfram-Arcanium alloy plates Orzel used were probably enough to protect her, but it was best not to take chances on that sort of thing.

Orzel had always figured there was a way to actually measure magic, or 'thaumatergic energy' as it was scientifically called, and indeed there was. The information was just so remarkably archaic that even she had managed to initially overlook the books pertaining to it.

The most accurate unit of measure she'd found was what was known as a 'Stygian', hence the name 'Stygiometer'. As the name might've suggested, it was used to divine the level of thaumatergic energy in a given item in Stygians. The unit itself was named for the man that'd developed it, well into Equestria's past, before there really was an Equestria to speak about. Measuring Stygians was a lot of complicated math, but generally boiled down to a number that, in layman terms, could be used to determine how powerful a given item or person was...

In the case of enchanted items, it could also reveal its remaining energy level, the rate of decay, and what it's original level had been. Through that, Orzel could get a decent estimation of when the item was created, to within a margin of error of five to seven years.

Typical background Stygians ranged between five-hundred and nine-hundred Mili-Stygians, while average spell-casters measured eight-hundred Stygians. A professional mage such as Twilight Sparkle could probably go into the range of two or three Kilo-Stygians. Orzel's last measurement was something akin to four Mega-Stygians... Between her arcane signature's similarity to Luna's, and the Kwarczkie's natural abilities as magic users, that number had steadily been creeping up as she practiced her craft with increasing frequency.

Four Mega-Stygians was certainly powerful, but nowhere near the level of alicorns and other 'Ultra Magic Users' like Piercing Gaze, all of whom, reached into what were known as 'Tera-Stygians', or one-trillion Stygians... Aunt Celestia evidently lingered somewhere around one-hundred-fifty Tera-Stygians, while Mother came in at one-hundred-eighty-nine and Piercing Gaze at a whopping three-hundred-ten Tera-Stygians. Mister Gaze was an adept warper of reality itself, able to bend the powers of space, time, and substance to his will with the snap of a finger. So, in retrospect, the obscene amount of magic her family had at their disposal really didn't surprise Orzel.

She had to take a moment to calm herself with a few deep breaths, focusing her thoughts back on the task at hand. For as safe as she'd made things, the EMCLAS was nonetheless a device with the power to do serious harm. Much like handling a firearm, operating it without an appropriate level of care could prove deadly. Placing the pendant carefully at the center of the testing chamber, Orzel closed the door with a heavy 'ka-thunk'. Next she spun a locking wheel at the center, much as one would expect to find on a bank vault. The inch thick titanium locking bolts extended with a steady ratcheting clatter, seating themselves snugly into their respective receptacles.

There was a very specific order in which the machine had to be prepared, another safety measure Orzel included, on the off chance anyone ever came poking around her lab. First she flipped the 'Master Power' switch, prompting an amber light above the switch panel to spring into life. Next came the 'System Sync.' switch, which had the effect of starting up several of the nearby computer reel cabinets, while also giving life a large nearby control console, about the size of a small sofa.

Biting her lower lip in anticipation, Orzel pressed and held two buttons on the side of the machine labeled 'Bake-Out' and 'Atmo. Purge', filling the lab with the sound of a droning motor and the steady hiss of air being evacuated from the test chamber. At that moment, the EMCLAS test enclosure was being heated to a higher temperature, so as to coax out any gasses that might result from impurities in the metal, and would thus lessen the effect of the vacuum. It'd also be enough to sterilize or burn off any contaminants. Watching a gauge on the outer housing, Orzel held her fingers on the buttons until the test chamber was completely depressurized. When it was clear that the vacuum was holding steady, she moved on to the next step of the process.

Flipping the 'H.M. Fault Check' switch prompted the device to emit a high pitched whine, the circuit drawing a high amount of power from Site R's grid to charge a series of large capacitors. It'd been tricky, working out how to turn electricity into raw magic, and that process tended to produce considerable heat. A large amount of the EMCLAS' considerable bulk was dedicated to a series of powerful fans and a water recirculation pump. Six green lights came on beneath the switch panel, cascading one after the other, each verifying that there were no faults detected in the Heat Management circuitry.

The fans were still spinning up when Orzel turned her attention to a CRT monitor mounted in the large control console beside the EMCLAS proper. Its face was lined with dozens of flashing lights, buttons and gauges, as well as something very much akin to a typewriter, which the people of ARMA called a 'keyboard'. Orzel pulled up one of the innumerable stools situated through her lab and took a seat in front of the keyboard, eyes darting over the various inputs and outputs listed on the screen.

In the beginning Orzel spent much of her time 'hunting and pecking' the letters, which took a considerably longer time than she would've liked. By now, however, she'd become quite adept at typing, her fingers dancing across the board like lightning. Dozens of loud clacking sounds echoed throughout the laboratory, with Orzel pausing occasionally to double check what she'd typed so far. An improperly placed decimal point or unaccounted for extra zero could void whatever results she got from her test, so she had to check and re-check everything at least three times.

It took her maybe twenty minutes to finish setting the test parameters, as well as the number of cycles the EMCLAS was supposed to be run through. For now she settled on one-hundred, what Orzel considered to be the minimum acceptable sample size. In terms of time, it'd be at least ten hours before she'd get the results. With the final numbers set, and the tape reels ready to collect the data, the Princess turned her attention to the buttons on the console. Reaching into the pocket of her lab coat, the Princess withdrew a sizable ring of keys. Flipping through them, she settled on one, then inserted it into a lock mounted in the console. Turning it from the 'Safe' to 'Armed' position caused a red Bakelite button cover to pop up, revealing a round black button labeled 'Execute'.

Orzel pressed the button, and within moments the lab was filled with another sound. A steady thrumming electronic drone emanating from the EMCLAS, the start of the test's first cycle. Withdrawing the key from the safety lock, Orzel looked over the machine she'd spent so much time working to start... Admittedly she might've made the device a little too safe, at the very least she'd gone out of her way to make things complicated. Each system had at least one redundancy, and the device itself would shut down immediately were anything to go wrong. Given the EMCLAS could put out enough radiation to deliver a lethal dose to anyone in the room in a matter of minutes, perhaps she'd been just cautious enough.

Double checking that the various radiation monitors placed in the console were within safe parameters, Orzel stood up and grabbed a small yellow cylinder from a cup on top of the console. It might've been mistaken for a pen, were it not for the lack of a writing point, or the somewhat intimidating radiation hazard symbol. Tucking the quartz fiber dosimeter into her breast pocket, Orzel could finally move on to other things.

For the next hour and a half Orzel reviewed her notes, expanding on them in some places, jotting down her theories as to the origin of the strange enchantment, or how she might be able to replicate it herself. Her first thought was that perhaps the ruby wasn't originally as small as it appeared now, and as such the runes she'd seen were applied at a much more manageable scale... That didn't seem all that likely. Sure, gemstones of such size were far easier to find in the Dragonlands, but the amount of work it would take to shrink an enchanted ruby of sufficient size seemed too intensive... Maybe, seeing as it was a religious icon, that was the point? Some sort of... Symbolic labor of faith?

The other less likely conclusion was that someone in the Dragonlands had managed to do the impossible, and crafted enchantments on such a miniature scale so as to appear entirely invisible to the naked eye. That made even less sense than the 'Shrinking Ruby' hypothesis. By now Orzel could apply runes stroke for stroke, line for line, with virtually pin point accuracy, but she doubted she'd ever be skilled enough to repeat such a feat... More importantly, as she'd already pondered, the technology to create runes on such a scale didn't exist... There wasn't an enchanting stylus out there with a point fine enough to do that sort of work without shattering in the enchanter's hand, and it still didn't explain the mechanically repeated shapes, or how the runes wound up inside the ruby.

For as much as it confused her, as much as this latest discovery threw her for a loop, it was all but impossible to keep from bouncing around on her stool. Every couple minutes she would look up from her notes at the monitor, eager to see if any new results had come in... Of course they hadn't. Ten hours may as well have been an eternity, as Orzel found it surprisingly difficult to maintain her typical level of patience in the face of such an exciting chance for discovery.

It wasn't just studying old enchanted items or inventing new methods of testing said enchantments that contributed to her recent boost in mood. Every time she set to creating a new rune, or applying that rune to a prototype, Orzel found her heart racing. Not from fear or nervousness, but elation. Every calculation, every stylus-stroke, every incantation had the power to bring her untold joy. Even failure was more enticing than it'd been in the past. There were so many exciting new inventions to make, so many discoveries to explore, so many questions to answer. Would a given configuration work? Had she provided enough width to her lines? Were the lines robust enough to handle the strain of a couple Kilo-Stygians coursing through them?

It was some of the most challenging work Orzel had ever done since arriving at Site R, perhaps the most challenging work she would ever do in her entire life period, and the rush she felt whenever one of her creations actually worked? There was really no comparison she could draw that would do the feeling proper justice, other than what she felt whenever she received a letter from Spike.

If someone walked through the door at that very moment and told her she was no longer a Princess, but that she could still do this work...? Well, obviously she'd be devastated to lose her title of Princess, but... If she could do this for the rest of her life, remain a permanent member of the ARMA think tank, creating wonders the likes of which no one else could, wonders that might make the world a better, safer, saner place... She might've very well been able to live with the loss.

As with most things pertaining to her work in the field of enchanting, time just sort of flew past, and Orzel soon found herself disappointed to have finished reviewing her notes and respective theorizing. Gathering up her notebook and the audio recording crystal, the Princess rested them neatly on the console beside the steadily humming EMCLAS. Normally this was the point where she'd move on to another project, but... For the first time in a while, she wasn't certain what project to work on next.

Project Gungnir had stalled due to a lack of appropriate testing materials, and the arrival of the necessary items wasn't expected for another two days. Orzel's Vasiliskov prototypes had been sent off to the Agency for testing, and her work developing uniforms and accompanying camouflage patterns had been accepted. There was the OUBC project, but that wasn't without its own frustrations. Ceramic was indeed capable of stopping bullets, but the level of technology to reliably create a usable ballistic plate on a large enough scale was estimated at being something like fifty or sixty years away...

So Orzel had settled on hardened steel, and turned her focus on mitigating the risk posed by spalling. ARMA had some pretty amazing stuff at its disposal, particularly a newly discovered synthetic material known as 'para-aramid', which was heat resistant and had a tensile strength nearly five times that of steel. It was also highly experimental, and highly classified, thus it couldn't be utilized in the production of ballistic plates...

There were other materials that could be used, even some that could replace the current laminated blend of knitted fiberglass and epoxy resin used in existing OUBC plates. At present she was waiting for several of these materials to finish curing prior to a live fire test, so again she was forced to wait.

For fifteen minutes the girl sat atop a wheeled stool, idly spinning herself around and around... Try as she might to keep herself under control, it was almost impossible to sit still. Evidently picking up on this, Midnight phased into existence atop the control console, inclining her head ever so slightly to the right.

"You are going to make yourself dizzy if you keep doing that." The bird chided disapprovingly, Orzel merely shrugged while continuing to spin on the stool. "You may drop something if you stop too quickly." At that, the Princess stopped spinning on the stool. The sudden halt in motion also resulted in Orzel's specta- glasses flying off her face and landing on the floor somewhere. Orzel blinked her eyes several times, attempting to do away with the dizziness while at the same time searching the now blurry linoleum for her glasses. "See?" Midnight asked rhetorically.

"What has you so remarkably talkative now...?" Orzel asked quizzically, moving from her stool to kneel on the floor, feeling around for her glasses. "Could you not be a tad more helpful?" Midnight responded by fluttering to the floor, then evidently picking up a blurry shape, which she set in Orzel's open palm. "Thank you..." The girl sighed, placing the glasses back on her nose. "Oh joy... The lens has cracked." She muttered, squinting with her left eye to see through the damaged lens. "Mend yourself." Orzel commanded, her magic surging up to fix the lens.

"You realize you could just use magic to recover them every time you drop them, correct?" Midnight asked flatly, Orzel turned to look at the bird while raising a finger as if to speak, only to lower it and look thoughtfully at the floor. "Had you actually not thought of it?" The bird realized as the girl pursed her lips, unwilling to respond with more than a small chuckle. No matter how smart she might've been on paper, there were still times when she could do things, or not do things, that made her feel quite dumb... Sometimes the answer could be right in front of her, and she'd just fail to put all the pieces together.

"I shall need to write Spike about this later..." Orzel stated simply, rubbing at her chin before rising back to her feet. Midnight meanwhile fluttered back up to perch on the faucet of a nearby sink, where Orzel was quickly going to wash her hands. "You did not answer my question. Normally I am lucky if I get five words out of you, now you are just talking to me out of the blue?" Midnight quirked her as Orzel turned on the water and started scrubbing her hands with soap... Briefly the girl paused to look at them, her already bronze skin had since taken on a much darker tan, both on account of her ongoing training outdoors and regular hunting excursions out into the tropical sun. The scales now stretched from the back of her wrist to the center of the back of her hand, albeit smaller and in fewer numbers.

"You were in an uncertain mental state before. While I could have spoken to you more regularly, I was uncertain if what I had to say might not have done more harm than good." Midnight explained reasonably, watching Orzel as she finished washing up and drying her hands. "You appear in far higher spirits of late, and so I feel it is time that you and I have a discussion." The Princess raised an eyebrow at the bird, which now fluttered across the room to land on one of the center lab islands, the same one on which Orzel had rested her satchel. "You really should contact Spike, but for a different reason than your foible with the glasses. He misses you, as much as you miss him." The girl followed her familiar's lead, approaching the satchel with a faintly raised eyebrow.

"Our first meaningful conversation in months, and you desire to give me relationship advice?" Orzel asked skeptically, sighing softly through her nose. "We already write each other every day, multiple times. Not that I would protest to more." The girl took a seat on another nearby stool, leaning on the counter. The bird shook her head, then pointed with a wing over to a telephone resting on a nearby counter top. "Do you have any idea how difficult it would be to place such a call to the mainland at present? The atmospherics are not in our favor, not to mention it is nearly one in the morning there." Midnight nodded understandingly, tucking her wing up by her side.

"You are an enchantress. Bend the forces of the universe to your will." Midnight stated seriously, the myna's golden eyes glowing briefly brighter. "There is more than one way to contact him, a spell that your Mother and Aunt have used to communicate with one another before, much as you use the Beacons." The bird explained seriously, taking on a tone not unlike that of a teacher. "I am your familiar, Orzel. Here to guide your path into the realm of the arcane arts, especially now that you are studying on your own. You have made great strides of late, not only in your abilities controlling magic, but in your overall spirit... Your inner light shines now as it has never done before, thus the time has come for you to dabble in High Magic."

Orzel looked at the bird with serious concentration, brow knitted together as she processed Midnight's words. She had only ever used 'true' High Magic once, and that'd been entirely on accident. Passing that threshold intentionally was the obvious next step in her arcane studies, but to do so would take every ounce of meditative control the girl had. Orzel was well aware of the spell Midnight had in mind, 'Astral Projection', using the very fabric of the Arcane Barrier to temporarily send her consciousness out of her physical body to an entirely different plane of existence, where she could theoretically contact anyone, regardless of their location... The Arcane Beacons operated on a similar prospect, albeit on a 'point-to-point' variation.

According to some of the books she'd read on the subject, Astral Projection required a great deal of meditative concentration, which Orzel was quite certain she'd be able to do... It would also require her to use an estimated two Mega-Stygians of energy in one spell, possibly more than that... The books didn't list the number, so Orzel had to estimate based on the complexity of the spell. The most she'd ever used previously was a little over a Mega-Stygian, on Nightmare Night when she'd created Fantom.

That'd been her accidental foray into 'High Magic', and to do so had required a great deal of planning, proper scheduling, not to mention being situated above a massive deposit of Arcanium, all of which naturally boosted her spell casting ability. Orzel had become far more adept at accessing her magic since then, but... Two Mega-Stygians was still an immense amount of energy. The attempt could potentially send her into a seizure, should Orzel fail to cast the spell properly, though all the literature indicated there was little long term risk.

Should she lose concentration she would simply be transported back to her corporeal body with no permanent ill effects... Still, High Magic was High Magic... It was the second most difficult class of spells for a mage to master, beaten only by those spells classed as 'Ultra High'. Orzel would need to prepare herself properly, so perhaps it was fortunate that the time difference between Site R and Ponyville was so great.

"I will wait until later this evening, when it is afternoon in Ponyville. That will give me enough time to make the proper arrangements." Orzel stated with a tone of seriousness, earning an accepted nod from Midnight. Quietly the girl made her way to the phone and lifted the receiver, then dialed the number she'd been given for a direct line to her bodyguards.

The line buzzed for a moment or two, until she heard the familiar sound of Grim on the other line. Swapping to her still broken Equestrian, she began to explain the items and personnel she would need. Grim was understandably surprised by the request, but evidently he and Fable had been expecting something like this for a while now. Orzel sometimes forgot that their job prior to becoming her bodyguards involved dealing with powerful, and potentially dangerous, spell-casters. At least they weren't trying to interfere in her studies anymore.

In addition to qualified medical practitioners, Orzel would need a few select components, taken from the 'Alchemy and Potion Synthesis Department'. High Magic typically required physical ingredients to boost effectiveness, the only exceptions being in the case of an Ultra High caster.

From that point on, Orzel threw herself into studying every book she could find on Astral Projection, all of whom were quite thick... A task that likely would've taken an average scholar a week or more of intensive study was instead completed in a matter of hours. The Princess couldn't help wishing that aspect of her day lasted just a little longer. Much as she enjoyed being able to read and comprehend so many words in so short a time, having reached a number nearing seventy-thousand words per minute, she couldn't lose herself in a single story the way she used to... Reading books had become akin to eating potato chips, she couldn't stop at just one.

Orzel kept the tomes in question among her other spell books in her enchantress' lair, as well as an exceptionally large black leather bound blank tome. The cover was emblazoned with a large bronze badge in the shape of Orzel's personal emblem, its polished surface glittering with numerous emerald runes. Roughly half of the pages had steadily been filled in over the course of the past month or so, all of which were written in Szafirian, accompanied by detailed sketches of a Gothic sort, a style Orzel had adopted to many of her sketches since learning of the threat posed by the occult.

The tome was what all self-respecting professional practitioners of magic referred to as a 'grimoire', a condensed collection of spells, incantations, instructions, lore and anything else that might prove useful in a pinch... Far easier to consult than pouring through the literal thousands of books Orzel had read on magic since first taking up the craft. The very same reason she approached her grimoire now, only after she'd finished reading the various books exclusively on Astral Projection itself. In part to commit the important details of what she'd learned to the grimoire's pages, but also to consult that which she'd already written.

The Princess's grimoire had started as a potential precursor to the manuscript she intended to one day publish, and was filled with all manner of information... While little of the material pertained to Astral Projection itself, Orzel nonetheless found it helpful to run through a lot of the basics one last time. Eventually a time came when the Princess was absolutely certain there was nothing else she could learn from what she'd read, and so she moved on to the portion of her preparations that would likely take up the majority of her day.

She took the time light number of votive candles and a smoke pot of incense, then start a recording of several of her favorite litanies... This was the sort of thing she would've liked to have her pendant for, a physical object that she could focus on while meditating. That being said, the necklace was merely a symbol of Orzel's faith, not the source of it, and she could make do without it until the EMCLAS was finished running its test cycles. Midnight had since vanished once again, but by now Orzel hardly even noticed the bird's comings and goings.

From that point on until the coming of night, Orzel sat in meditation, chanting, praying, and occasionally partaking in some of the stretches she'd learned in self-defense training. All served to better prepare her mind for what would likely be the greatest test of her abilities to date. She meditated on the nature of the spell, how the caster must have a strong mental image of the person they wished to contact via the astral plane. Eventually that led her to the subject of contact himself, her would-be suitor in the mainland, half a world away.

Orzel chose to focus on how Spike made her feel, how much she cared about him, how she wished she could see him in person again. Her hopes for making friends at Site R hadn't improved with her increased access... Few parents wanted their child hanging out with the girl supposedly plotting to build a doomsday machine in her secret lab. No matter what she did, no matter where she went or who she became, she remained an outcast, but... By now she'd come to accept that, because any that she did eventually make here were likely to be more genuine, truly worthy of her trust... Spike had helped her to understand that...

Whenever she read Spike's letters, whenever he told her how his day had been, told her how much he missed her, how much he cared, that made things even better... If this 'Astral Projection' spell was the only way Orzel could see him again without risking revealing her location, then by Lexicos she would do it... By the time the later hours of the night rolled around, the Princess felt about as centered as she ever had in her entire life, just as had been the case prior to the creation of Fantom. Perfectly stoic, perfectly poised, she extinguished her candles and made her way through the Contamination Minimization Chamber, out into her lab, then into the elevator that would take her up to her residence.

The whine of the elevator proved oddly soothing, as did a rather jaunty tune playing from a speaker overhead. The ride passed with a surprising amount of speed, though Orzel knew well enough that wasn't actually the case... Deep draconic meditation had a way of slowing or speeding the perception of time's passage. By now, Orzel could attain a trance-like state without utilizing the effects of hoard slumber, though when she did meditate upon her hoard the effects were greatly increased. Tonight, however, she'd decided to try without relying on the hoard's calming effects, to test her abilities in more ways than one.

Grim and Fable were waiting for her in her residence, accompanied by a physician and a nurse, both of whom had been briefed on the spell she intended to attempt. Once again, things moved with a perceived amount of rapidity, and at the same time Orzel felt slow... Like she was watching the images on a television run at a higher rate of speed, while she remained static. After a few minutes of deliberation, it was decided that she would cast the spell in the Arcane Beacon room, as it provided a solid 'anchor point' in the barrier.

Without further hesitation, the group made their way into the chamber, a large dark room, which harbored within its walls a conference table and a pristine obsidian orb, identical to that which sat in the conference room at Maksym Field. Though there were plenty of available chairs around the table, Orzel opted to instead sit on the floor, as it allowed her to enter a more comfortable meditative posture. Grim and Fable stood off to the rear, while the medical professionals chose to sit nearby in silent observation. They knew her only as her alter ego, and that was for the best...

The ingredients she'd requested were all arrayed on a strip of red cloth before her, consisting of numerous dried out leaves, stems, and fungi. She recognized all of them from her studies in potion creation. Some were used in balms for burns or small cuts, others were utilized to make potions that soothed shaken nerves and promoted a happier overall outlook... Doctor Scratch had recommended a prescription for such potions in the past, but... As much as she'd accepted the help of her therapist, Orzel didn't like the idea of taking something that might permanently interfere with her un-altered, if somewhat cynical, view of the world.

In this case, however, the ingredients were neither the components of a potion or a balm. The spell called for her to consume them, then enter a meditative trance, much as she'd done before. Taken together, these particular ingredients would produce a sort of hallucinogenic effect, which was necessary for the spell to actually work... Orzel first learned of the effect three weeks ago, when she'd heeded the advice of one of the potionists working at ARMA. Evidently there was a means of determining if an ingredient had gone past its point of potency, merely by tasting it. The experience had been as bizarre as it was brief, just a few odd flashing lights and an unusual urge to hug her couch...

The potion maker was right, eating ingredients was certainly one way to determine its viability, and its potential use in other potions. Orzel supposed that was probably why most of potion makers she'd met seemed so distant, so 'spaced out'... In a lot of ways she envied them for that. The ingredients were perfectly legal to have, and easy enough to come by, seeing as they were vital in a wide array of medicines, potions, and other uses.

This would be the first time Orzel ever deliberately attempted to enter an altered state of consciousness, and on a level far greater than her brief exposure. Nonetheless, she felt safe in the knowledge that there were medical staff on hand to intercede should something go wrong. There was nothing left for Orzel to do but begin. Gathering the various dried items into her palm, she brought them to her mouth and popped them in.

The taste was bitter, nearly causing her to gag, but the girl managed to get the ingredients down with a little concentration. At that point it became a simple matter of closing her eyes, taking slow deep breaths, and reciting a series of Lexican prayer mantras. At first she felt no different than she had before whenever she looked inward... She saw the typical imagery, the ocean, the deserts, the vast prairies and desolate islands. This time, however, Orzel was less aware that they were images... She could feel and hear the spray of the ocean, the grains of sand, the the wind blowing blades of grass, just as vividly as she might've in reality.

Slowly, very slowly, the Princess's visions warped and distorted, stretching impossibly far out ahead of her. Everything took on a distinctly fractal appearance, the familiar orderly landscapes yielding to vibrant pulsating kaleidoscopes of crystalline color. Orzel opened her eyes, and yet her eyelids remained closed. Holding her hand up in front of her eyes, she saw the fingers move about slowly, leaving small blurs of color in their wake. At the same time she knew her arm remained at rest, just as it'd been when she entered her meditative state.

The world around her transitioned from a distorted vision of reality and into an abstract shimmering landscape of color and sound. Blinking again at the flitting pastel colored shapes surrounded her, Orzel was briefly startled to spot an all to familiar figure... The woman in the black robes, her eyes glowing that same vibrant gold beneath her hood, appearing disconcertingly normal among the strange mental landscape they both inhabited. Uninhibited by the bizarreness of it all, the girl approached the figure, peering intently up into the darkened void within the hood.

"Must you follow me each time I peer inward? Are my dreams and meditation sessions not enough?" Orzel demanded of the figure, her voice echoing throughout the space... Characteristically, she didn't receive an answer. "What do you want from me? Can you not see I am busy?" The figure merely nodded, clasping her hands behind her back. "Reveal your identity, specter, or be gone." The woman in black lingered for a moment, then vanished in a puff of black smog.

Somehow Orzel was conscious, somehow she was moving, and still she knew she hadn't moved so much as an inch. It would likely take her a a moment to get used to that feeling, and so she chose to examine the area around her. It reminded her of the center of a fish bowl, with peripheral areas bending and warping in on each other. Flourishing bursts of prismatic color swirled to life in the distance, sometimes exploding in radiant displays that sent streamers of vapor in all directions. She could taste colors, see sounds, in a manner so disconcerting, and yet... Beautiful.

Orzel spent virtually an eternity hovering there, basking in the colors as she grew more accustomed to the incongruous sensations that passed through her body. The need for control and cold stoicism melted away, and Orzel found it remarkably easy to let go of her worries, her fears, they ceased to matter here...

Sometimes the colors would combine together to form snapshots of things Orzel didn't understand... Things that obviously hadn't happened to her yet, but that she wished might some day come true. In one case she saw herself, slightly older, lounging upon the Obsidian Throne, another found her and Spike standing close to one another, him in that tuxedo of his and her in... The image faded before she could really get a good look. Perhaps this was the outermost fringes of her own mind, or the place where her hopes and dreams sprang from. Maybe she was just over-thinking things... She did so love over-thinking things.

It took her a few moments more to remember just what it was she'd started this whole thing over, but the brief glimpse of Spike in a tuxedo brought her mind back on topic. That managed to focus her thoughts back on her true goal, and with that renewed focus she noted a distinct change in the dreamlike world surrounding her.

"Powers of the moon and stars, hear my voice and obey." Orzel stated firmly, once again aware that her waking body remained silent. "Bend to my command, make manifest my decree... Send forth my mind to he whom I seek!" The magic that typically flowed from her lips failed to appear as it usually did, instead merely swirling into existence like all the other bursts of color. The luminous streamers of energy formed a vortex around her, gradually pulling in tighter.

Concentrating would be key at this juncture, she would only have an instant to get this right. The Princess conjured into her mind a vision of Spike, the very same image that took shape directly in front of her... The young man's smiling face was quite comforting, and Orzel moved quietly moved towards him, just as the ribbons of magic tightened in around her. With a sense of finality, the Princess braced herself and 'stepped' into the image..

Her surroundings changed the moment she made contact with the image, the strands of magic coiling around her ethereal body and pulling themselves taught. In an instant she was catapulted into another realm of strangeness, hurtling through the open space until the swirling colors vanished, replaced by a massive shimmering corridor. Impossibly large in its scope, with colorful walls that grew closer and closer the longer she flew, and yet they never made contact.

Overcome by a sudden surge of euphoria, the sensation of flight became more akin to plummeting from a great height, all while her surroundings remained visually the same. Within a matter of moments she could hear her corporeal body breathing heavily, her heart racing in her ears, all while her astral eyes remained wide open. Totally serene in the face of another unusual display, Orzel actually embraced what happened next with a giggle... She watched her form disintegrating into a swirling vortex of green flames, starting with her arms and rapidly progressing up towards her head... In an instant her vision was consumed by the fire, but there wasn't an ounce of fear...

The atmosphere of the Iron Horseman that afternoon was, as always, heavy with the smell of cigar smoke, whiskey, and stale beer. A somber song was playing over the jukebox, performed by a band from somewhere in Trottingham, or maybe a little island next to it... The song's message was clear, with the singer explaining his poor lot in life, and proclaiming that today was the worst day since yesterday.

Spike couldn't help thinking the song was meant for him, made all the more depressing because he wasn't yet old enough to drink. Sarsaparilla didn't do much to take the edge off, especially considering the sort of day he'd had. It wasn't just him that'd come to the bar that afternoon, a handful other men from his department lined the bar beside him, each staring absently into their half empty glasses or speaking in hushed uncertain tones.

There were a lot of things Spike respected about his job, primarily the professionalism he saw among the 'Old Guard', many of whom weren't currently present at the bar. They could hold it together far better than any of the 'New Bloods', mostly because they'd seen just about everything already. Prior to the formation of the professional FDPV, the town's firefighting needs had been served by a mix of bucket brigades and an understaffed, not to mention under equipped, volunteer department. Most of its members had since transitioned into leadership roles in the new department, among them 'Fire Chief Big Macintosh' and 'Assistant Chief Filthy Rich', though they both preferred to go by their last names.

They worked everyone under their command something fierce, and Spike suspected that was to weed out those who couldn't hack it. They rode him especially hard, and Spike figured there was some ulterior motive to that as well... Twilight had given her okay for him to join, but she still wasn't totally sanguine about it, and odds were she was pressuring Big Mac and Rich to make his life miserable so he'd quit. He didn't blame her... She was his Mom, she worried about him, it was only natural she'd want to protect him any way she could... Especially today.

Still, if Mom was hoping for him to bow out of the department, Spike would have to disappoint her. He wouldn't just quit, not after he'd worked so hard... The past five months had been some of the most grueling, stressful, and yes, miserable days of his short life, but... He'd come through better for it. He was leaner, fitter, tougher now than he'd ever been before... Tried by fire, quite literally, in all the practice burns and other emergencies he'd intervened in. More importantly, a career as a firefighter came with a great deal of benefits, not to mention a pension. Of course it took twenty years on the job to qualify, but he was a dragon. Twenty years was almost literally nothing to him, or so it'd seemed earlier that morning.

Most of all, more than the pension and the benefits, Spike wouldn't quit because he liked what he did... He liked helping people. Then again, that'd never really been in doubt... Every time the alarm went off, every time he strapped into his bunker gear and mounted up, he affirmed to himself that he would do everything he could, to save everyone he could. He'd managed to keep that affirmation without losing anyone, until today. Taking a sip of his sarsaparilla, Spike did his best not think about what'd happened, but... That was difficult. Even now he'd find himself consumed by his own thoughts, the world around him would become distant, and he'd be taken right back to the scene of the accident.

It'd started earlier that morning, he'd been scrubbing down Engine Two... The Spring air was warm, sweet, and all was calm throughout Ponyville. Then, just as it had done a dozen times before, the station's alarm buzzer went off. Dispatch called for Engines One and Two to respond to the scene of an automobile accident on the southern outskirts of town. Spike had cleared the cleaning supplies out of the drive way, then rushed to get into his bunker gear, just as he'd been trained. It was probably the fastest he'd ever managed to pull off the change. From there he'd climbed aboard Engine One, where he was joined by three other New Bloods, Chief Macintosh, and Assistant Chief Rich.

They'd torn out of the station like fiends, lights flashing, sirens shrieking, horns blaring. There was something about that call that just didn't sit right with Spike, somehow he'd known in his gut that this scene would show him something different, something terrible. They reached the site of the accident in less than seven minutes, not a bad response time given the distance involved, but Spike had spotted the smoke well before then... Thick, black, and heavy, the sort of thing indicative of of a vehicle fire. All those different chemicals in the engine, rubber belts, tires, upholstery, gasoline... It'd hung in the air like some great tombstone, drawing the firefighters in.

As best as could be figured, a couple from out of town had been touring the countryside. Inadvertently, for some reason the Sheriff couldn't figure out, they'd strayed into oncoming traffic. A farmer swerved to avoid them and wound up tearing through a barbed wire fence, a couple bushes, a shrub, before finally slamming into a tree. His truck was the vehicle burning when the fire department arrived. The farmer himself had managed to come away with barely a scratch on him, most likely because he'd crashed through a bunch of smaller, comparatively softer, obstacles before making final impact.

The touring couple in the red convertible... They hadn't been so lucky. They too had swerved, right into the end of a guard rail. The impact was so intense that the entire engine compartment, in fact the entire front end of the vehicle, looked as if someone had split it open with an especially dull axe. The hood was crumpled, mangled, and rent apart by the violence of the impact, all the way up to the shattered windshield. There were several puddles forming beneath the wreck, brake, radiator, and transmission fluid, oil and gasoline, which thankfully hadn't caught fire. Both the burning truck and the spilled fuel was the fire department's job to handle, in the latter case it'd been Engine Two.

The man in the driver's seat impacted the steering wheel with such force his head had gone through it, though... Not before being badly mangled, like someone had taken a metal pipe to his head and hadn't stopped swinging until they'd coated the upholstery in a fine coating of brain matter. The driver was the lucky one, killed instantly, and probably didn't feel a thing, especially given the faint aroma of whiskey the sheriff reported.

The woman in the passenger seat bore the worst of things. Sent hurtling through the windshield, her face and body had been reduced to a texture of raw hamburger. The force had been so great that she'd continued flying a good twenty feet, until she was ultimately impaled on a tree branch. It'd gone right through her gut, then her spine, clear through one side and out the other Two feet of gnarled crimson wood protruded from the wound... Spike never realized how much blood there was inside a person, not until the moment he'd first laid eyes on her... By some cruel twist of fate, she was somehow still alive... Paralyzed, intestines hanging down to her ankles, legs twitching spasmodically like marionettes. There wasn't anything for the paramedics to do but put a shot of morphine in her arm.

Spike and the other members of Engine One put the fire out in short order, but through it all Spike was working off of his training alone. Operating as an automaton might, unable to really think for himself, as his mind wrestled with the herculean task of processing the image of that poor young woman. She passed away, somewhere between the first time he saw her and the time the fire was finally out, a window of maybe twenty minutes. In one single incident, Spike and the New Bloods had seen a dead body, and watched someone die, all while they were utterly powerless to save their life.

The scene just kept playing over and over in Spike's head, and as it did, he would find himself thinking back to some of the conversations he'd had with Orzel... About the night she'd come here, the night her Mother had died, in very much the same why. He thought he'd understood before, but now... Now he understood just how much he hadn't, just how different it was to imagine something like that, versus actually seeing it happen. So he, like most of the New Bloods in the department, had been given the rest of the day off while they worked through things.

Most of them came to the Iron Horseman to try and drown their sorrows, and indeed most of them had managed to succeed... Most except for Spike... He'd been left holding the non-alcoholic bag, so to speak. Taking another long swig from his bottle of sarsaparilla, the young man pondered what, if anything, he should say to Twilight when he got home. The news had spread like wildfire all over town, she had to know by now that he'd been there, that he'd seen things... Things she could never possibly hope to understand, but that she'd swear that she did.

There wasn't anything he could've done to change the outcome, that woman was dead the moment she got into the car that morning. One moment she was alive, and the next she was gone. She would've lived, had she been a dragon, of that Spike had little doubt. In fact, he was quite certain a dragon would've knocked that tree flat on its side, without much more than a mild bruise. That was another thing he'd never fully realized before that morning, just how fragile these people he lived among were. They broke so easily, like... Toothpicks, or wet tissue paper. For as hard as they worked to toughen themselves up, all their posturing and bravado, Spike was just... Built better than them.

Not in an arrogant sort of way, but objectively speaking... There were certain things he could easily do that regular Equestrians couldn't. Chief Macintosh was the biggest, toughest, strongest, man Spike knew. He could bench two-hundred-fifty pounds at most, if he really pushed himself. For Spike, that was just a warm up. There wasn't a bar large enough at the station to hold enough weight to actually provide the young fireman a challenge... So he had to get creative, lifting actual automobiles, or carriages, and other such massive things. It'd become something of a running challenge among the locals, to see if they could bring him something he couldn't lift...

Of course, Spike couldn't farm worth a damn, nor could he fly or cast spells, that was where Equestrians excelled. When it came to general survivability, though, there was no contest... If anything, realizing just how much there was that could actually kill an Equestrian increased Spike's respect for his brothers in the fire department all the more. For them, the risk was all the greater that they might not come home...

Nonetheless, the difference in general ability between himself and those around him served as a powerful motivator for Spike keep his temper in line. That would've been well and good, assuming Spike was actually angry, or... Upset at all, really. What struck him most of all, and even scared him to an extent, was that after all the horror the day had bestowed upon his young mind, Spike didn't... Feel anything. No anger, no fear, no sadness or guilt... All his life he'd endured heightened emotions, just another effect of his being different, but now...? One second there was the constant rushing 'noise' in his head and the next? Dead silence. Dead. Silence. Two people were gone from this world, one of them had died in more pain than he could imagine, and here he was, drinking a sarsaparilla and feeling... Nothing.

"I really need to see a shrink..." Spike muttered to himself as he looked at his nearly empty bottle. He'd been telling himself that ever since Orzel first recommended he seek therapy for his own problems. His health insurance certainly covered it, now that he was with the department, but... What would those around him think if they found out?

The big tough dragon needs to go talk to someone because his feelings hurt? Because he had a few bad dreams? Next thing he'd know, they might start thinking he couldn't handle the job, that he was nuts or something... That sort of talk could spread through Ponyville like wildfire, then everyone would start treating him like some sort of weirdo, or they'd act like they had to walk on eggshells... Either way, he'd never live it down... Better to just keep those things deep down inside. Speaking of keeping things inside, Spike at that moment had a sudden feeling of acid reflux on a magnitude he wasn't used to.

Bringing a hand to his stomach, he instinctively turned his head to the side, just as he exhaled what had to be the largest gout of flame he'd ever breathed. For whatever reason, no one else took notice, and none of the items he expected to catch fire so much as smoldered. The roiling inferno rapidly condensed on itself, taking on a far larger, feminine humanoid form. Abruptly it winked fully into existence, giving a bright flash and chime of magic. In its wake, Spike found himself half-blinded. Blinking the spots from his eyes, his eyes fastened upon the source of the flash, the semi-transparant ethereal form of...

"Orzel?" Spike asked, dumbfounded, looking between the girl and the bottle of sarsaparilla, then back at the girl, then back at the bottle... It was definitely sarsaparilla, there wasn't a single drop of alcohol in it, so that left one far more startling alternative. "I really need to see a shrink." Once more needing to verify what apparently only he could see, Spike looked once more at Orzel, she was different than he remembered her... Translucent as she appeared, the girl somehow managed to have become prettier. Slightly taller than she'd been before, though he too had grown nearly eight inches in height. The girl was attired in a lab coat, sweater, slacks, and her customary headscarf. She had more scales wreathing her face, and looked distinctly more muscular than when last they'd seen each other in Canterlot.

"Your eyes do not deceive you, Spike, though you are the only one who can see me." Orzel stated matter-of-factly in Szafirian, taking on a remarkably casual tone. "I am at this moment projecting my consciousness through the Arcane Barrier, using a spell known as Astral Projection. My corporeal being is elsewhere." Spike once again checked the bottle... This was weird. Really really weird... "I would recommend we move somewhere private. I fear those around you shall find you quite mad should you attempt to converse with what, to them, is an empty space."

"I'm not so sure I'd blame 'em..." Spike countered quietly, nervously looking around in search of someone, anyone, that might be seeing the same thing he did. Of course none of them did, so for now he decided the best thing to do was humor his potential delusion at least until he got home, where he could ask Twilight if 'Astral Projection' was even a thing, or if he'd just earned himself a free ride to the Funny Farm. "Hey, guys... I'm gonna head out, I'll see you later." The young man said coolly to his coworkers, he was far better at compartmentalizing now, something he owed to his training.

The other New Bloods nodded and bid him farewell, so Spike took a five Bit bill from his wallet and placed it on the bar. With his tab settled, he quickly and quietly made his way through the Iron Horseman's numerous tables, pausing by the door to snag his russet brown uniform jacket from a coat hook. It matched his similarly colored cargo pants and black steel-toed boots quite well, contrasting nicely with the orange and white striped 'telnyashka' that become part of the CDA's 'Standard Garrison Dress'. Orzel's spectral form accompanied him as well, silently observing as he donned the jacket.

The young man finally grabbed a hat, known as a 'rogatwyka', from the same hook. One of the many Szafirian inspired introductions to the CDA's SGD that Orzel had instituted, it was a sort of peaked cap, but with four corners rather than a rounded top... It was notably decorated with a black band, as well as the emblem of the CDA at its front, depicted on a white shield. Certainly a spiffy garment, if nothing else. Briefly examining the piece of headgear for a moment, Spike plopped the rogatwyka on his head, then adjusted its fit before finally he made his exit.

The spring air that greeted him was warm, and Ponyville was bustling with activity, just as it always had. The market was open, mothers and their children wandered about looking to buy the day's groceries, and all seemed as it should be. Looking at it, Spike could hardly believe the sorts of things that happened in what'd become his hometown. Not just the monsters and villains. Grease fires, gas leaks, medical emergencies, and now fatal automobile accidents... Thankfully there was no one immediately nearby, so Spike could safely converse with his girlfriend's ethereal form as he walked towards the library.

"Okay, so let me get this straight." The young man began, glancing to his right at the ethereal girl 'walking' beside him. "You're Orzel, but you're somewhere else, and this is just your brain I'm talking to? Assuming that this is actually happening, and that I'm not hallucinating due to stress, is this some sort of... Telepathy thing? Can you read my mind?" Orzel nodded, offering him only the faintest of smiles...

"Yes, and no... It is a form of telepathy, but I cannot read your mind. You are not hallucinating." She explained, so Spike attempted to test that statement. To do so, he thought of something that he knew would drive Orzel absolutely crazy, something that she'd have to respond to if she could read his mind, or if this was all a hallucination.

The young man imagined visiting the Princess's tower in Canterlot and moving one thing slightly out of place, followed by organizing her book collection alphabetically rather than the standard decimal system. Orzel would notice the books fairly quickly, but it'd likely take her time to figure out just what one thing was out of place. She'd realize sooner or later there was something off, but wouldn't know what it was exactly, and that'd drive her bonkers. To his surprise, this mentally pictured scenario didn't so much as earn him a look of annoyance, let alone the tirade pf condemnation he would've expected... Maybe this whole 'Astral Projection' thing was real.

"Not that I don't like you being here, but... Why are you here?" Spike quickly looked around, both to ensure he was still far enough away from other people, and out of general paranoia. "Is something wrong? Are you in danger? Do you need me to come rescue you or something?" Orzel's smile became distinctly melancholic, at which point she moved closer to him and leaned her 'head' against his arm. Simultaneously, he felt a warm tingling sensation there. It actually felt rather nice, and weird...

"Your concern is touching, but you need not worry... I am perfectly safe." The Princess assured him gently, her arms snaking around Spike's right arm and hugging it tightly. More of the strange tingling followed, but again it didn't feel all that uncomfortable. He was again taken by surprise, because she seemed far less rigid than the last time they'd met. He'd figured there was some change from her latest letters, but this was his first time actually seeing such an improvement in person, or... No, it wasn't, since she wasn't actually here. This was usually why he left magic to Twilight. "As I mentioned earlier, I am practicing Astral Projection. It will allow me to commune with people over long distances, as if I am standing there with them. I wanted you to be the first one I tested it on..." The girl's ethereal cheeks somehow managed to blush. "I hope you do not mind."

Spike wasn't really sure how he felt about that, but again he wasn't really sure how he felt about a lot of things... Yet here he saw an opportunity to maybe get some advice. Orzel was the very person he'd been thinking about not five minutes prior, the one who actually knew how it felt to see... Well... Bad stuff. Orzel must've picked up on his inner uncertainty, because she loosened her 'grip' just a tad and took on a distinct look of genuine concern... It was so strange, to see her now, with so much emotion evident on her face. To see the worry in its fullest was as touching as it was heart wrenching. Spike hated to think she'd be worried over him, but he knew that'd never change... She worried because she cared.

"Actually I'm glad you popped in, I think I really needed this today..." Spike admitted shakily, prompting Orzel to nod her head. Her 'hand' slipped down to his, squeezing it gently. He was still getting used to the strangeness of the sensation, but the more he experienced, the more it felt like she was actually there. "Got called to a bad wreck this morning, and... Well, I'm not really sure who I can talk to about it, other than you." He sighed, turning his eyes towards the now clear afternoon sky. "I know you've talked about your Mom, and what happened to her. I thought I understood, but I didn't... Not until today."

Spike recounted the story as he remembered it, taking great pains to ensure he remained far away from other people walking along Ponyville's sidewalks. By now he believed it really was Orzel, so rather than going to the library, he walked past the towering tree and on towards the western edge of town. Orzel listened to him intently throughout it all, until finally he came to a stop beside a tree overlooking the meadow that stretched to the edge Everfree Forest. Seating himself on a rock at the base of the looming pine, Spike gazed off into the distance, struggling to explain how he felt... Or rather, how he didn't feel. Orzel sat beside him all the while, placing a hand on his back and rubbing his shoulder. By now the comforting phantom sensation was more or less indistinguishable from the real thing.

"So that's it... That was my day..." Spike concluded, slouching forward and removing his rogatywka. He rubbed at his slightly stubbly chin, having decided to begin shaving again, as a beard tended to interfere with the seal on his respirator. "Y'know, I bet other kids our age don't have to deal with this sort of thing... I'm okay with being a dragon, but sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I was a normal Equestrian, if I had a normal Mom and Dad..." He looked at the ground, proceeding to rub the back of his neck. "That's not really the point... The point is that I watched someone die, I watched someone die and I don't feel anything... Does that mean there's something wrong with me?" Orzel took hold of his shoulder and pulled him closer, somehow managing to wrap her arms around his comparatively bulky frame.

"There is nothing wrong with you..." She soothed softly, holding the young man in a firm but gentle hug. "Just because you do not know what you feel, does not mean you feel nothing... Give yourself time to process." Orzel continued with a bit more resolve in her tone. "This is a reality you must face as your career continues, you know as well as I. Today will likely not be the last time someone loses their life." Spike turned to look at her, there was the stoic bluntness he'd come to know so well, but it was clear she was still concerned... "Have you considered talking to someone else...? A professional?" He'd also been expecting that question...

"Yeah... I've considered it." Spike said simply, looking down at the ground as Orzel ended her hug. "I don't know if I'm ready to do that." He admitted, looking to either side of him. Thankfully they were still alone. "Look, Orzel... I'm..." The young man trailed off, staring at the ground. "I'm afraid... Afraid someone will find out, afraid I'll get laughed at... Afraid they might find something else wrong with me." Spike bit his lower lip. "What if they think I'm crazy? What if I actually am crazy? Part of me says I should just get over it, that it's not that bad, I just need to tough it out, y'know? Be a man." The Princess's expression clouded for a moment, then took on a small but gentle smile.

"If you broke your leg, would you go to a doctor?" She asked softly. Spike nodded, confused. "Your mind is just as much a part of you as your leg... It is perhaps the most important part of you, and it is fitting that it is also the hardest part of a person to recover." Orzel took his hand into hers, squeezing it comfortingly... "The sooner you seek help, the sooner you can begin to heal." She hugged him again, more tightly this time. "Your mind is what I love most about you, Spike..." The girl added sincerely, leaning her head against his shoulder.

"Here I thought it was my rugged good looks..." The young man joked dryly, allowing the two of them to chuckle for a few blessed moments. "I love you too, my Lady..."

What followed was a stretch of time where neither of them said a word, together they just sat there, watching the meadow... Usually silence made Spike uneasy, but not here, not with Orzel... Or her astral form, at any rate. The bustle of town grew more and more distant, the sounds of nature swelling to fill the void. After a few minutes Spike leaned back against the tree, faking a yawn while casually putting his arm around Orzel's shoulders, a maneuver he'd seen Chief Macintosh use once or twice at the Iron Horseman. To Spike's relief, Orzel scooted a little closer, then leaned her head against his chest. Once again she was blushing, but no less content than before.

In a lot of ways, the two of them were older than they appeared... Through circumstances and personal will, they'd done quite a lot of growing up since first meeting. Here Spike was, seventeen years old, already running into burning buildings and pulling people out of the flames for a living. All the things that scared him before, all the worries and anxieties he'd had about just meeting with Orzel at the Gala, they seemed so small... So unimportant. Tending to the library, not being able to talk to his crush, not being accepted in Ponyville as a dragon... Now people accepted him because of what he could do as a dragon. He wasn't alone in changing either...

Orzel was not only learning to rule a country, but to design and build machines to make it a safer place, things that Spike couldn't ever hope to understand as she could. She remained the most radiant being Spike had ever laid eyes on, and to see her smile for but a moment was enough to brighten even the darkest of days... But she didn't see herself that way. Granted, it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been before, but Spike knew she still had quite a way to go. This moment here, though... Where she'd comforted him, where she felt comfortable enough to sit so closely beside him... It was such a simple thing, but to Orzel it must've been a huge step forward. Astral Projection or not...

What Spike struggled the comprehend the most was that they both had so many years yet ahead of them, years that Spike genuinely hoped he and the Princess would spend together. It only registered then, what he'd last said to Orzel... 'I love you, my Lady'... It'd just come out... He hadn't agonized over it, he hadn't spent nights losing sleep over whether he should or shouldn't say it... He just... Loved her, she loved him... Time would tell if it would last, but Spike was nothing if not optimistic about their chances.

Spike wondered if maybe the couple in the automobile ever had similar thoughts... Had they said what they wanted to say to one another, or would those words never pass their lips. Thinking about that actually made him... Kinda sad. There was more to it than that, obviously, but... Orzel had been right. Just because he didn't know how he felt, it didn't mean he felt nothing.

The hours passed in that continued comfortable silence, until afternoon turned to dusk. The two teenagers wordlessly adjusted their position at the base of the tree, orienting themselves to better watch the sun's descent onto the horizon. The quiet peace of that moment went unbroken for what felt like a lifetime, until finally something came along to drown out the sound of nature. The buzzing drone of two engines, high in the sky... A cargo aircraft, bound from Maksym Field to some unknown destination. It undoubtedly carried weapons of some sort, there were several pegasi pacing it as it flew over the town... Protestors, most likely.

Spike sighed heavily through his nose, shaking his head and leaning it against Orzel's... The aircraft and its cargo weren't important right now, nor were all the issues that they'd come to represent. As the sun dipped lower in the sky, and the air took on a familiar evening chill, the young man got the feeling that his time with the Princess's projected consciousness was nearing its end. She looked up at him, wordlessly communicating as much with a somber, sorrowful glance.

"I can feel the effects of the spell's components waning..." Orzel said brittly, Spike nodded in understanding... She'd said so much more, and once again his understanding of her body language spoke volumes. She didn't want to leave, but the hour was growing late in Equestria. It was likely that she'd spent the entirety of the night wherever she was, just sitting with him as he processed everything. If that didn't say something about how she felt, Spike didn't know what would. "I will do my best to make time to project to you at least once a week... I love you."

"I love you too. Don't worry, I'll be here..." Spike promised, sharing one final hug with the girl that'd come to mean so much to him. "Until we meet again, my Lady..." He quietly took her hand, kissing it respectfully... Orzel managed to display one final blush, before slowly her ethereal figure faded from view... In its wake, Spike saw only a few lingering embers of verdant magic, twinkling dimmer and dimmer, until these too vanished entirely.

Unable to conceal a somber frown, Spike once more donned his rogatywka and stood up. Straightening his jacket, the young man lingered beside the tree, watching the sunset for several more minutes before tucking his hands into his pockets and beginning the silent walk back home. Quietly he commenced to humming an old draconic folk song, something he'd picked up over the course of his studies into the language. It was a slow melancholic tune, whose title translated to something like 'As I Walk Alone Along The Road', all too fitting...

He'd needed that time with Orzel more than he realized. Ponyville was preparing for the arrival of night, but there was a strange sort of energy in the air. The cobblestone sidewalks beneath Spike's boots felt harsher, while the bite of the cooling evening air chilled him sharply. With any luck things would remain normal, or at the very least quiet, until morning...

The Agency had received the name 'Fuse' from one of their more reliable contacts in Equestria's underground 'Private Intelligence' community, a rather enigmatic character who operated under the moniker 'Mister Slate'. Slate was hesitant to give up Fuse's name to the Agency, and had only done so after consulting his equally enigmatic superiors. It'd been agreed that for their aid in locating a lead in the Artifact Black Market, the Agency would temporarily cease cracking down on those dealing in 'Class 5' and 'Class 6' Artifacts... The weakest, but most highly trafficked, artifacts on the market.

Having started out in the trade of narcotics, Fuse had since transitioned to more lucrative endeavors, and by now was considered the largest purveyor of Artifacts in Classes 4 and above in Canterlot. He'd also been noted as having interacted with Coronel Trepatroncos as recently as three weeks ago. According to Mister Slate, Trepatroncos and Fuse had thrown in together, both having become quite paranoid, to the point of cutting the 'Organization' out of their operations. Exact details of their dealings remained a mystery, but a series of intercepted communiques hinted that the two of them intended to move an item of 'Extreme Prominence' at 'the first possible moment'.

So it was that the Agency had deployed a number of agents into the field, manning positions in Canterlot's various transportation hubs... Their aim was simple. Locate the means with which Fuse, Trepatroncos, and any other persons affiliated with them intended to use to extricate the 'Package'. It wasn't long before further chatter indicated the Package would be moved by airship, the 'Air Cargo Ship Warlock', though its ultimate destination remained unknown. Considering the level of secrecy and security involved in its departure, it had to be something big...

The departure of the airship had been discovered unexpectedly late, and had almost instantly drawn the approval of a hastily prepared Cerberus Operation to seize the Warlock. The airship in question was a griffon built cargo hauler of fifteen years, privately owned and operated by a shell corporation... It had a typical crew complement of forty men, almost all of whom would undoubtedly be armed in some fashion, especially given the nature of the cargo... That didn't account for Trepatroncos and his men. Taking the airship on the ground wasn't an option, not only because doing so would likely result in unacceptable civilian casualties, but also because the ship was already underway... No, Cerberus would need to take it while it was airborne.

The troopers were swiftly assembled as 'Rapid Tactical Response Force Elkhound', a unit rapidly cobbled together from a number of undersized teams and fresh Cerberus recruits in Canterlot. From there they'd been teleported to Maksym Field, where they boarded a waiting cargo aircraft... All navigational lights had been disabled, with the undersides of its wings painted black so as to better hide it against the night sky. The only illumination within emanated from a dim red bulb, situated near the rear door.

It was aboard this aircraft that the team received its briefing, if it could be called that. The noise within the aircraft itself, particularly the engines' dull droning racket, would've made made it next to impossible to hear without shouting. Fortunately, Cerberus was one of the best equipped military units in the world, so communication wasn't nearly as big a problem.

Each Cerberus trooper was attired in the Agency's newly adopted 'CERPAT' Battle Uniform. They carried the new standard kit, including body armor, helmets, balaclavas, web gear, telnyashkas, and silenced PM-72As. Unassuming metal medallions on leather wrist bands were present with every trooper, appearing to a casual observer as wristwatches of a sort. In actuality, a closer inspection of said medallions would reveal a series of blocky, brutal, highly angular runes. Likewise, each soldier possessed had a small orb of obsidian, no larger than a marble and similarly covered in runes, tucked squarely in their ears. These 'Communication Beads' were how they managed to communicate with one another so well, in spite of the noise.

Their final bit of kit might've again appeared mundane at first glance... Simple polarized ski goggles, which would certainly protect their eyes from the winds blowing at such lofty altitudes. In truth, however, each set of goggles found itself the recipient of recent advancements in the field of enchanting. The troopers needed only to press a switch on the side and the goggles would display a myriad of useful details. Compass orientation, a miniaturized map of ones immediate surroundings, their heart rate, and a simplified inventory of each soldier's equipment and ammunition count.

Another toggle switch alternated between normal vision, 'Cat-Sight', 'Serpent-Sight', and 'True-Sight'... Named respectively for their 'Night Vision', 'Thermal Vision' and 'Arcane Vision'... The latter most was intended mostly to see hotspots of magic, as would be expected of a cursed or enchanted item, or to see through simple illusion spells. The goggles were brand new, literally having been issued upon the team's arrival to Maksym Field... The men and women of RTRF Elkhound were given precious little time to familiarize themselves with the goggles, but were assured that virtually anyone could work out how to use them without needing formal instruction.

For Corporal Krieger, they were probably the most advanced piece of equipment he'd ever held in his hands, not to mention the most expensive. All too fitting, given the nature of the mission they were about to undertake. Krieger was one of the new Cerberus recruits, freshly drawn from the ranks of Princess Luna's esteemed Palace Guard. This would actually be his first mission as one of the world's most elite warriors, and he could only hope it wouldn't prove too strange...

Since being accepted into the fold, Krieger had read just about every Cerberus Mission Report he had security clearance to lay eyes on. Usually it was the missions that were enacted at a moment's notice that had to be watched out for. Missions almost exactly like this one. Cerberus' success rate was no less impressive regardless of warning, but casualties usually followed an upward trend that was directly proportional to the amount of time there was for planning. Suffice to say, as a fresh-faced grunt, Krieger's odds of survival were less than certain.

As the young man stood closest to the open rear door, he was granted a near unobstructed view of the near pitch black farmland below. There were small clusters of light, likely houses or villages, plus the odd pair of headlights or two... As a Canterlot native, it never ceased to amaze him how people could live so far away from one another that they needed to actually own an automobile. Whenever he wanted to go somewhere, he could just hop aboard a bus, or take a taxi, or, if he was desperate, use the subway. Not so out here... Given the covert nature required of Elkhound's mission, that was probably for the best.

"Comm check. You all reading me?" A gruff older voice, tinged by a distinct Trottingham accent, spoke up in his ear. The comm-bead amplified it to a an audible level, enough that it could be easily heard over the engine noise.

The voice itself belonged to the newly formed RTRF's commander, Colonel Baseplate, one of the few veteran Cerberus troopers assigned to Elkhound. Baseplate was a veritable legend within the Agency, having logged more hours in the field than ninety percent of most Cerberus personnel. There was a chorus of affirmatives, which Krieger didn't hesitate to add to.

"We're approaching the intercept point... On your feet, lads." Baseplate explained firmly as Krieger glanced around, looking towards the front of the aircraft where he spotted the man. Unlike the majority of RTRF personnel, he wore one of the new 'boonie hats'. Krieger and the others quickly rose from their seats. "Those of you without wings, hook up with your flight partner."

Krieger cast one final look out the doorway, then turned his attention to one of the figure that'd been seated next to him since take off. They were a spell-caster, judging by their overall slight frame. It was only when they stood up that Krieger realized his flight partner was a woman... It wasn't unusual in the Lunar Marines, though there were few in Cerberus. Most couldn't pass the incredibly stringent physical fitness standards. While the other branches made exceptions between the sexes, Cerberus' uniquely global paranormal intervention mission rendered any such notions moot.

Krieger didn't really care either way, if anything it gave him greater confidence that he could trust this person with his life... So long as she knew what she was doing, and didn't flip out when they stepped out of the plane. Tandem flying was nothing knew to the Corporal, the Air Corps, Navy, and Marines made it standard practice for all of their members to at least attain basic proficiency... In this case, however, Krieger once again felt there was little for him to worry about.

Not a word was spoken throughout the entirety of the aircraft, as there was nothing that needed to be said. Like a well-oiled machine, the man used a trio of carabiners affixed to his own OUBC to attach himself to the spell-caster's plate carrier... It was a little awkward, given that doing so required the two of them to be facing one another, but the man did his best to keep his mind on the mission. There was a patch sewn to the front of her plate carrier, identical to that on Krieger's, which revealed the woman's name to be 'Moonlight Raven'... Second Lieutenant Moonlight Raven, in point of fact.

"Equipment check!" Baseplate bellowed from the direction of the cockpit, and this was followed by a cascading call of ' Ten, okay!' to 'Nine, okay!' and so on, until finally it reached Krieger and Raven. The two of them each double checked that their OUBC harnesses were properly affixed, that all of their equipment was stowed to survive the flight, and that Krieger's wings were free of any major obstructions. Flapping the gray leathery appendages experimentally, the man offered a satisfied nod and gave Raven a thumbs up.

"One, okay!" The Lieutenant shouted in a surprisingly silken voice voice, loud enough to nearly deafen Krieger in his left ear. Evidently picking up on that, she tilted her head to the side, though her eyes were hidden beneath her own goggles. "Sorry." Raven offered awkwardly as the team moved closer to the door. Krieger merely shrugged, shuffling forward with the mysterious woman until he was no more than a foot from the door. A few moments passed before Baseplate came barging his way along the side, the bulky thestral pushing and shoving until finally he stood beside the door. Pausing for a moment he examined Krieger, then cleared his throat.

"Command, this is Elkhound... All assets prepared for deployment." Baseplate's voice carried over the comm-bead, gripping the doorway and peering out into the night. Krieger watched the Colonel with a growing sense of suspense, and after a few moments of silence the man nodded and took on a more serious posture. "Understood, sir. We'll get it done. Elkhound, out." Baseplate acknowledged the unheard message, then flicked the switch on the side of his goggles. "Alright everyone, activate your Heads-Up Display. Command is going to be linking us in with their ADATA feed. Use that to guide your flight to the target. Any questions?"

Krieger considered asking something, as he had little experience with the 'HUD' goggles, but chose to flip the switch on his goggles first and see how difficult it looked to operate. The HUD appeared in a matter of moments, including the aircraft's current altitude and airspeed, as well as the miniature map displaying the aircraft's position in relation to Warlock. The new piece of gear was a surprisingly intuitive system, even in the hands of someone that'd never worn or used it before.

All Cerberus troopers were expected to be highly self reliant, so Krieger wasn't surprised when no questions materialized. The others were getting just as easily acquainted with the tech as he was. The aircraft abruptly pitched its nose up, ascending higher into the night sky as it drew closer to the outline of their targeted ship. Baseplate signaled Krieger and the Lieutenant forward, allowing them to stand directly in the doorway... The wind was intense, the result of the air being thrown back by the airacraft's propeller, but he and Raven stood resolute.

Flipping the other switch on his goggles, the man toggled past 'Cat-Sight', settling on 'Serpent Sight'. The world was plunged into a steady gray-scale... Looking at his own hand, or the roaring engine mounted to the aircraft's wing, revealed the hottest surfaces in white while cooler surfaces took on a darker gray shade. Turning his gaze in accordance with the ADATA information he was being provided, it took him only a moment to spot the bright exhaust flares from the engines of Warlock far below, passing left to right at a steady rate of speed.

"You're the first one out, lad! Head for the aft-most section of the ship, I'll see you below!" Baseplate explained, putting his hand on Krieger's shoulder. The Corporal nodded wordlessly, taking several deep breaths as he prepared himself. A sudden buzzing sound emanated from beside the door. "Go go go!"

The Colonel ordered, and just like that Krieger plunged out of the aircraft with Raven still affixed to his harness. They fell freely through the cold midnight air, the wind buffeting against them. Raven wrapped her arms around Krieger's chest to reduce her overall surface area, while at the same time moving her legs in tandem with his. The man held his arms back against his sides, angling straight towards the airship at a remarkable rate of speed... Nothing he wasn't used to already. .

Krieger's breathing was slow, steady, his eyes scanning every inch of Warlock for potential threats. As with most griffon built airships, it looked at first glance like a vessel plucked from the ocean. In this case it took the form of a typical freighter, with a large superstructure at its center that housed its bridge and other facilities. Cargo cranes loomed above its decks and sealed holds... Rather than a gas bladder, as was common among Equestrian airships, this one made use of a powerful levitation enchantment driven by six massive vertically mounted propellers... Hazards he'd need to take care to avoid on approach.

Krieger wasn't an expert on airships, but he'd learned enough watching the Griffon cargo haulers that rarely flew in and out of Canterlot. The maritime appearance was present for more than aesthetics, as that design in particular made it possible for the ships to actually land in water and use traditional harbor facilities, as opposed to the cumbersome 'Airship Masts' required by traditionally designed vessels. It certainly made sense, as the Griffons had far more access to coast line and inland lakes than they did wide open spaces for large 'Gas Ship' anchorages. Repairs, or the construction of entirely new ships, could likewise be conducted in traditional dry-docks.

Thus, it was rare to see ships of Warlock's type this far inland without being near a substantial body of water, a feature that Canterlot sorely lacked. Setting aside for a moment the oddity of seeing such a craft here, Krieger's attention was focused more on the figures patrolling the ship's deck.

There were a handful of men patrolling the deck, visible only as bright white specks against the darker, cooler, deck strakes. It was clear they had no idea the members of Elkhound were coming, and that their patrols more resembled the circuitous path one might take were one intending to simply look busy. Krieger nodded to himself, angling closer to the ship, selecting an area near the aft which was devoid of enemy contacts. He spread his arms out, quickly slowing their descent before unfurling his wings. Krieger grunted audibly, it wasn't just himself he had to decelerate... While he'd done plenty of tandem flights, he hadn't practiced in a while.

With a few steady flaps and a barely audible grunt, the Corporal slowed their collective free fall to a safe speed before flaring his wings like a parachute. He and his compatriot touched down with barely a sound, situated behind a collection of shipping crates that'd been arrayed near the very rear of the ship. Lieutenant Raven unclipped herself from Krieger's OUBC almost instantly, allowing both of them to grab their PM-72As that'd been dangling from their web gear. Glancing upwards, he watched roughly twenty thermally fluorescing shapes descending on the airship, each landing incrementally further ahead than the last. Only one shape deviated from this, instead moving towards where Raven and Krieger now stood, having taken cover behind what little cover they'd found.

The Corporal swapped from 'Serpent-Sight' back to the goggles' unaltered state, revealing the deck of the airship to be completely blacked out, without so much as a navigational light visible. Highly illegal, but as had been the case with the Agency's cargo aircraft, necessary if the crew intended to remain undetected at night. That certainly leant credence that Warlock was the airship the Agency was after.

Krieger's thestral eyes afforded him natural 'Cat-Sight', allowing him to further verify that they were indeed alone, at least for the moment... Opening the dust cover on his SMG, the man awaited the arrival of the still descending shape, who flared his wings out what seemed the very last second. Baseplate touched down with a grace and finesse that could only have been honed through years of action, pausing only briefly to adjust the boonie hat seated atop his head. Krieger and Raven looked at one another, awaiting the next order from their commander...

"We're all aboard, aye?" The Major asked quietly, almost as an afterthought, before moving up towards Krieger. The other detachments, each roughly three men strong, all responded in the affirmative. "Command, Elkhound is aboard... The Colonel stated while taking a knee beside Krieger and Raven.. A few moments passed, resulting in another nod from the Major. "Aye, sir... All Elkhound elements, be advised. Everyone aboard this ship's been declared hostile. Use of lethal force is authorized, but keep in mind we need a few prisoners."

Krieger's grip on his weapon tightened at that. Unlike most members of Equestria's armed forces, he was one of the few Lunar Marines that'd actually seen combat. It was his effectiveness and bravery serving as a guard aboard Equestrian merchant ships that'd first gotten him transferred to the palace guard... Fending off pirates was one thing, this would be the first time he ever assaulted a ship... Still, Krieger had more than enough experience navigating and defending the corridors aboard vessels of a sea-going type that seizing an airship couldn't be much different... Right? Just do the opposite, think like a bad guy.

The rumbling engines and whirling propellers concealed the footfalls of the deploying cadre of Cerberus troopers. Krieger and Raven quickly fell in behind Baseplate as the man silently advanced along the starboard aft portion of the airship. Several gusts of winds buffeted their uniforms, the thinner fabric contributing to a growing sense of chill that'd started as soon as they jumped out of the plane. Much as Krieger liked the cut of the new attire, at this altitude he wouldn't have minded the fabric being a little thicker.

The trio passed the rear-most hold without incident, their feet thudding softly against the wood. The cargo cranes creaked and groaned overhead, their various cables vibrating like the strings of some great harp. Sticking to the shadows to ensure that none of them were spotted, the three Cerberus troopers slowly converged on the ship's central superstructure... There were troopers visible atop the superstructure, undetected by the crew visible through windows on the top-most floor, where Krieger suspected they might find the airship's pilothouse.

Through careful maneuvering and timing, they managed to reach the base of the superstructure without being seen. Briefly they took refuge among several other wooden crates, covered in a hardy brown tarp... It was dark enough in their confines that one of the patrolling crew passed by without so much as a second glance... He, like all his cohorts, was attired as one might expect of a mariner, the AP-919 he held not withstanding. Judging by the wings and hawkish nose, this was likely a griffon.

Baseplate gave Krieger a nod, that was all the Corporal needed to see before he emerged from the shadows and grabbed the unwitting guard. Clamping one hand over the man's mouth, he administered a rapid jerking motion, snapping the fellow's neck with an eerie sound, akin to cracking one's knuckles. The man thrashed about for a few moments, evidently biting his tongue in the process, judging by the warm liquid Krieger felt splash through his fingers.

Krieger pulled the hostile into the shadows to finish the job, only for the man to abruptly catch fire. Fearful he might also be caught alight, the Corporal let go of the man, sending the flaming corpse hurtling to the deck strakes. It was unlike any flame he'd ever seen before, somehow managing to ignore the man's clothes while at the same time disfiguring his face... Pale purple-ish skin, sharp looking fangs, large violet compound eyes, and as Krieger soon discovered by looking at his hand, vibrantly fluorescent purple blood. The man nervously wiped the liquid on the dead creature's sleeve, looking at Baseplate and Raven as if to silently ask if he'd just exposed himself to some sort of bio-weapon.

Raven appeared just as stunned as Krieger was, quickly relieving the body of his weapon, likely in case it somehow came back to life. Baseplate meanwhile went about lifting one of the creature's hands and examining its palm... Krieger spotted what looked like some sort of odd vertical cut there... Closer inspection revealed that cut to be ringed by jagged teeth, which suggested it was more an orifice than an injury. An identical orifice was found on the deadman's other palm...

"Bloody bugs..." Baseplate muttered coldly, signaling Raven to tucking the corpse in a corner behind the crates, where it couldn't be found. "All teams, this is Baseplate... Be advised, hostiles have shape-shifting abilities. Maintain heightened security posture." The man sighed heavily, rubbing at the stone in his ear. "Command, this is Elkhound. Blackwood... I say again. Blackwood... I'll keep you informed."

Krieger had no idea what the word meant in this context, but the tone Baseplate used denoted an unparalleled seriousness. Wordlessly the Colonel signaled them to move onwards, not pausing to elaborate on whatever 'Blackwood' was. Krieger and Raven followed Baseplate out from the crates, towards a nearby metal hatch that'd been carelessly left open. The interior hallway was well lit, lined with aged wooden paneling and dirty blue carpet. It was a narrow space, with barely enough space for two men to stand side-by-side... The Cerberus troopers each folded their stocks forward, making their already compact weapons easier to wield in the tight confines. At least it was warm in here.

Silently they stalked down the hallway at a steady combat pace, weapons at a low-ready position, stopping at every door they encountered to sweep the room. So far they'd found nothing but storage, primarily filled with crates that were obviously illegal arms and, oddly enough, gold bars. Admittedly, the contents of all the crates they encountered couldn't be reliably determined through sight alone. The other teams moving through the ship fared little better, and each relayed similar findings via their respective comm-beads.

For a few moments Krieger feared this might be the wrong ship, that he might've killed someone that didn't deserve it, even if that person had been a 'shape-shifter'... Apparently those were a thing now. His doubts were silenced when his Artifact Detection medallion emitted a bright golden glow, shortly followed by those of his compatriots.

They had just happened upon another doorway, this one leading to a steep ladder stairwell that leading to the next deck below them. By now, the other three-man teams were moving throughout the rest of the ship, neutralizing its crew as they came across them... All had thus far reported the slain crew as having transformed in bursts of flame that altered their appearance, but otherwise left their clothing intact. One team had even seized the bridge, and at that moment were gradually altering the airship's course back towards Canterlot.

Krieger took point as they made their descent, leading his group down the steps into the bowels of the vessel. The airship's machinery churned and rattled to create a mighty racket throughout the space. Where the upper floor boasted carpet, which somewhat served to dampen noise, here there was nothing but cracked green linoleum. The passages were narrower, and constrained people to moving in single file, with the exception of a few areas where it widened ever so slightly to allow for persons to move past one another. Krieger honestly felt comforted at that...

At heart he'd always be a ship-board Marine, and the young man could rely on that experience to guide his movements through this new and hostile environment. Different as this ship was to those he'd served on in the past, most cargo ships in general had at least some common elements. More importantly, he was far better adapted to clearing around corners in such tight confinement. While most Lunar Marines that made it to Cerberus had some grasp of CQC operations, few had as much experience 'slicing the pie' as Krieger...

It was only a matter of time before the trio caught the sound of voices, speaking in Griffish, a language Krieger didn't understand in the slightest. They sounded calm, almost bored, and the noise emanated from the direction of what the young Corporal deduced to be the ship's mess. Raven and Baseplate took position one one side of the door, while Krieger took the risk of moving to the other... Each consulted their HUD, as the Artifact Detection medallion was linked to them. It indicated that whatever had set off the medallions was situated elsewhere, though they certainly were getting close. Still, leaving a group of hostiles to their own devices could quite literally come back to shoot them in the rear...

There was no telling how many men were in the mess deck, nor how many of them were armed, but it sounded like a sizable number. Certainly more than three people, Cerberus troopers or not, could handle in a frontal assault. The entrance to the mess hall was a dangerous chokepoint... Of course, that could also work to the team's advantage. Tight spaces and explosives tended not to mix well...

That being said, using explosives would blow any chance of remaining undetected. That outcome was never really in doubt, as orders were to purge basically everybody aboard the ship. Sooner or later, the assorted teams of Elkhound would find themselves detected. The only question was how many hostiles would come after them when that inevitably happened. Peering around the corner for just a second, Baseplate quickly moved back into cover.

"All teams, this is Baseplate... We're at the ship's mess, I count at least twenty hostiles inside. Preparing to neutralize." The Colonel began, using hand signals to tell Krieger to grab three of the grenades affixed to his web gear. The Corporal nodded, grabbing three of his four grenades and handing one to the Major. "We're going loud on my count..." With a little help from Raven, both Krieger and the Colonel yanked the safety pins free, holding the grenades' spoons in a death grip while the woman got in position near the heavy steel door to the mess. "Three... Two... One... Fire in the hole!"

Both men tossed the grenades through the door, the spoons springing away while the fuses emitted audible pops. The pineapple shaped explosives clattered across the metal floor in the mess deck, causing quite a stir while Raven quickly shoved the hatch for all she was worth. All Krieger heard inside was a startled 'Granate!', then the heavy slam of the door closing.

Three thunderous noises, 'Whump...! Whump! Whump!', resonated within the mess deck. They were simultaneously accompanied by the sound of scattering shrapnel, shattering glass, and panicked agonized screams. The force was great enough that the deck plates rattled beneath their feet, and Raven struggled temporarily to hold the door shut.

The hatch was opened with an eerie whine in the wake of the blast, and the trio of Cerberus troopers entered the mess hall, which now more resembled some sort of charnel house than a dedicated eatery. All but one of the light bulbs had been shattered, the sole survivor now swinging pendulously back and forth. The walls and ceiling were painted in vibrant glowing splashes and spurts of violet ooze, mixing with the blown-up remnants of sausage, steak, potatoes, and sauerkraut that a few moments previous had been situated on now demolished flatware. Shrapnel had embedded itself in the walls, not constrained to the pre-scored chunks of metal encasing the explosive charge. Twisted forks, knives, and even spoons had either dented or jammed themselves firmly into the bulkhead steel.

Jagged shards of glass and porcelain littered the floor and protruded from the bleeding bodies of living and dead alike, briefly the room was filled with various bursts of flame, though Krieger noted no increased heat or smoke... Just the changing appearances of the shape-shifters. They'd caught at least twenty of them in the mess hall, almost all of which lay sprawled in bloody unmoving heaps. A few of those that hadn't been outright killed by the grenades sat or stood in a daze, many with iridescent neon purple blood dribbling down from their ears. Others found their clothes shredded by dozens of fragments, each resulting in countless small lacerations which bled and splotched the fabric with a growing phosphorescent stain. These were the source of the pained screams, which resonated through the chamber to create a haunting echoing refrain.

A few fumbled for their sidearms at the sight of the intruders, but all were quickly dispatched with a series of well placed bursts from the troopers' Rivet Guns. The suppressors thankfully reduced the weapon's reports to a tolerable level, though it would've been obvious to even a casual listener that it was weapons fire. The ship's remaining crew was therefore undoubtedly aware of Elkhound's presence. The three troopers moved carefully through the twisted wreckage, each of them pausing momentarily to fire two or three rounds into each corpse.

Some had already changed, others burst into flames upon being fired upon a second time, but eventually all transformed into the strange purple-skinned insectoied-humanoid hybrids. In hindsight, this was exactly the sort of thing Krieger supposed he should've suspected working with Cerberus. They'd all seemed so authentically Griffish in their attire, not to mention the way they carried themselves... In the wake of their false feathery wings, the appendages that remained were more akin to what one might find a dragonfly saddled with.

Protocol indicated that any wounded persons the troopers left in their wake had to be taken prisoner, which unfortunately meant every single one of these 'shape-shifters' needed to be dealt with. Naturally, there were far more pragmatic reasons for ensuring they were well and truly dead. Firstly, the same reason they'd made the decision to take out the mess hall in first place. Even a wounded enemy could be a problem if he somehow managed to find the strength to rise and fight again. Secondly, considering the typically odd nature associated with the missions Cerberus teams undertook, it was best to do the physical body as much damage as possible. Vulpine had read at least seven different occasions where Cerberus went up against necromancers that'd chosen to level the playing field with the freshly slain.

"Mess hall secure. All hostiles neutralized." Baseplate announced, even as the sound of further gunfire and shouting erupted throughout the ship. Some of the fire was suppressed, but a fair portion of it was obviously bursts from AP-919s. Baseplate led the group back out into the hallway, though not before each of them took a moment to swap their depleted magazines for a fresh one. There was more gunfire audible from throughout the ship, and Krieger soon heard frantic communications from the others.

"By the Gods, they're everywhere!" One man shouted, more surprised than afraid, all while the ship's walls and vents shuddered with new found movements. "Shoot the air ducts! Shoot the-!" The entire atmosphere of the airship shifted, and it felt as if they'd very literally kicked a hornets nest. Baseplate remained unshakably calm throughout, even as Krieger and Raven eyed one another with a growing sense of unease.

"The mission remains the same. We need to deal with the artifact." The Colonel growled gutturally, casually letting off a burst into one of the ducts overhead. The fluorescent purple goo oozed from the bullet holes, cascading to the floor in thick viscous droplets. "Come on, get the lead out!" He shouted, gesturing out into the hallway while stepping over the unmoving corpses.

Navigating the airship's corridors was far quicker from that point forward, with an emphasis on speed and lethality as opposed to stealth. Krieger took point, utilizing his experience once again to find his way through the ship's narrow corridors. The mini-map feed was replaced with static, though the medallion continued to glow on his wrist. Every now and then they'd encounter one of the crew, whom had dropped the facade of griffon airship crewmen in favor of their true insect-like form. Most were equipped with AP-919s, which made the encounters that much more harrowing.

Most died just as easily as normal men, falling victim to the PM-72As superior stopping power and compact size. Others, the larger representatives of this strange shape-shifting species, were far less easy to dispatch. They'd forgone normal clothes in favor of heavy chitinous armor, with strength enough that they could physically bend bulkheads out of place. It took one entire thirty-round magazine of normal .45 ACP to bring one down, so Krieger made the decision to draw one of the magazines from the side pouches of his OUBC. These were marked with a yellow strip of tape, and contained the far more powerful .45 Basilisk.

The only problem was that each member of RTRF Elkhound had only a limited number of magazines with the more powerful round, as it was was primarily intended for use against dragons. Raven and Baseplate helped whenever they could, but the former found herself more concerned with dealing with the enemies squirming through the ventilation system, and the latter was focused on covering their rear as they advanced. There were way more than forty men aboard this ship, and the shape-shifters were almost literally pouring out of the woodwork.

Another one of the hulking humanoids roared bestially, presenting a carapice-like shield in front of it as it charged down the corridor towards Krieger. The man raised his Rivet Gun in a flash, squeezing the trigger and filling the hallway with chattering gunfire. The rounds penetrated the shield with comparative ease, and required only a quick four round burst to fell the rampaging brute. Navigating around his body proved far easier than Krieger would've expected, mostly on account of Raven using her magic to teleport the corpse behind them, creating an impromptu barricade against the hostiles coming up behind them.

At first Krieger assumed that what happened next was just his mind playing tricks on him, but it soon became apparent that the enemy was no longer attacking them. There was enough weapons fire throughout the ship to tell him that they were nowhere close to having eliminated the entire crew. It clicked when they reached an intersection that by all accounts shouldn't have been there, as it was nowhere near in keeping with the ship's layout as they'd previously experienced it.

Things became even more absurd, because the ship wasn't large enough to accommodate so many twisting corridors and adjacent compartments, at least, it shouldn't have been. The true height of strangeness arrived when he turned around, only to discover the hallway they'd just come down had somehow transformed into a dead end. Thankfully it seemed he wasn't the only one to notice, Baseplate was already in the process of warning the others.

"All teams, this is Baseplate. Possible perception warpers are in play, recommend swapping to 'True-Sight'..." The Colonel stated, his voice once again remaining as calm as collected as granite. "Let's see how these new toys of ours work."

Krieger and Raven did as suggested, flipping the toggle switch on his goggles to the 'True-Sight' setting. The visor was briefly awash with a lattice-work of green semi-transparant hexagons, which thankfully restored the 'dead end' to a proper hallway. Numerous calls came in over the comm-beads, confirming that the issues they'd been facing were likewise resolved.

Honestly, Krieger counted himself lucky he'd been able to accompany Baseplate, as he wasn't quite sure he'd be as calm himself... Again, Cerberus was very picky about who they chose. They wouldn't take anyone that couldn't keep their cool in extreme situations, but this was Krieger first encounter with the effects of an artifact, not to mention shape-shifting monsters with glowing blood... Of course, defeating the illusion also invited the enemy once more to attack them, and so to bloody slog deeper into the ship resumed.

The Corporal used his 'Basilisk' ammunition as sparingly as possible, but the resistance was becoming quite fierce... They must've been closing in on the shape-shifters' artifact, whatever that happened to be. Thankfully the mini-map returned with the illusory notions neutralized, and revealed that indeed the artifact they'd been seeking wasn't far off. They were just in the home stretch when one of the enemy defenders fired a burst blindly down the hallway... The first round struck a bulkhead, the second caught Krieger in his OUBC, while the third buried itself into his left shoulder with a burst of blood and pang of searing hot pain.

"Fuck!" Krieger growled, leaning his bleeding shoulder against the wall while taking several painful shallow breaths. The vest had caught the round that would've killed him, but it'd still hit him like a freight train. The more serious injury was the blood oozing painfully from his shoulder wound... Odds were it'd shattered his clavicle, at least, judging by the amount of pain radiating down his now limp arm. "Gah... I forgot how much this stings!" He hissed through clenched teeth, using the cover provided by a hatch in the corridor to assess his wounds.

Raven meanwhile used her smaller size to squeeze past him, firing a burst of her own down the hallway. Without missing a beat she grabbed one of the grenades from her webbing, then yanked the pin. The explosive parcel was tossed underhand down the corridor, bouncing along with three heavy 'clangs'.

"Grenade!" The Lieutenant bellowed before she and Baseplate joined Krieger behind the hatch. There was quite a commotion in the five seconds that followed, as though they spoke a different tongue, panicked confusion seemed to transcend language.

Krieger chanced a peek around the edge of the hatch, his heart nearly stopping in his chest as he watched one of the insectoids pick up the grenade in a hurried attempt to chuck it back. Attempt being the operative word, because the man's eyes were treated to the grenade exploding in the creature's hand, reducing it to little more than a cloud of glowing goo. Shrapnel and gore scattered all along the length of the hallway, with several pieces slamming into the hatch cover with enough force to visibly dent the metal. All of this was what informed Krieger that the grenade had indeed gone off, because he hadn't actually heard the explosion.

There'd been the pop of the fuse as the spoon flew away, the clatter of the grenade skittering along the floor, the panicked shouts, and then a brief violent 'Kra-!'... Followed thereafter by an insistent high pitched ringing sound. It was one thing to be outside the room when a grenade went off, and another entirely to stand so close. This, of course, was nothing new... Just as he'd been shot before, so too had he been party to numerous explosions. The pain in his ears, coupled with his previous experiences, told him he'd likely ruptured at least one of his eardrums. That, plus the throbbing bleeding pain in his shoulder told him he'd likely be laid up for a while when the mission was over... Assuming he survived.

It was amazing the sorts of thing a human body could endure without the person dying... He'd once seen one of his comrades shot twenty seven times in a fight with pirates, there wasn't a part of the man that hadn't been bleeding or bloodied in some fashion... By some stroke of luck, he'd still been able to walk himself into the infirmary under his own power, and had gone on to make a full recovery. These thoughts and others occurred in mere fractions of a second, and through a mixture of adrenaline, training, and sheer force of will, Krieger forced himself back into the fight.

With his left arm out of commission, the Corporal was instead forced to hold his PM-72A one handed. It was light enough so as not to be unwieldy, especially if he fired from the hip. The only problem was he was still running .45 Basilisk which not only increased the weapon's rate of fire, but also its recoil. Holding the weapon steady for more than one or two rounds would prove difficult. Reloading, likewise, was another area where he'd likely run into a problem.

Raven examined the man's wounded shoulder, conjuring an orb of blue-green magic to her palm before pressing it against the bloodied spot. She said something, but Krieger's hearing was still recovering from the grenade blast. Between the muffled sounds of her voice and the movement of her lips, he was nonetheless able to discern that the spell would act as a sort of 'bandage', at least until he got actual medical attention. He was needless to say relieved when the woman took the point, allowing him and Baseplate to move down the hallway...

The grenade had landed in another intersection, where half a dozen enemy soldiers had hold up. It'd taken them all out, painting the walls with a fine purple mist. The lights overhead flickered audibly, as thankfully the ringing in Krieger's ears faded. The gunfire throughout the ship slowly dwindling, until finally the lights went out entirely. Having dealt with the remaining crew in their path, Baseplate's team was converging on the forward cargo hold.

In a few minutes the ship had become eerily silent, even the machinery was muted and muffled. Each trooper's Artifact Detection medallion was glowing a brilliant shade of gold now, almost bright enough that Krieger had to look away. It was bright enough to immediately light up the surrounding area, which otherwise would've been pitch black. Not much of an issue for Krieger or Baseplate, but definitely for Raven. Were that not the case, she likely would've walked face first into a sealed metal water-tight doorway... Turning the metal wheel at its center, she undogged the hatch and pushed it inward...

The trio transitioned out of the cramped corridor and into a far more spacious chamber, ominously illuminated by flickering bursts of blue light. They stood on a metal catwalk that ran around the perimeter of a space, which ran a good three decks beneath them. The other Cerberus troopers of Team Elkhound were all arriving at roughly the same time, each filling out catwalks on the lower decks, all of with their weapons raised in an aggressive posture.

The cargo hold was larger than Krieger expected, filled with dozens of large wooden crates. They were secured to one another with heavy duty cargo straps, most of them being covered by drab brown tarps of the same make he'd seen on deck, while others were marked with emblems from a number of companies he recognized... 'Jet Set Construction', 'Solare Automotive', not to mention half a dozen that he didn't.

Krieger's focus was drawn more towards the presence of a dozen men and women standing at the floor of the chamber, in an area suspiciously devoid of clutter... All save a single wooden crate... A crate bearing the emblem of the Nocturne Agency. Resting atop that crate was a suspicious metallic sphere, pulsating with malevolent blue energy, which sparked and sputtered, giving off an aura of ancient power. Their detection medallions abruptly began flashing slowly, alternating between yellow and red, all while emitting audible chirping alarms.

Worryingly, Krieger spotted a new gauge on his goggles' HUD... An 'Arc-Rad Dosimeter', the number on which was slowly but steadily ticking upwards. Half of the hold's shape-shifting occupants were men dressed as one might expect professional mercenaries, armed with a mixture of Griffon SMGs and pistols. The others were attired in black hooded robes, each lined with purple piping. Their faces were concealed by shadow, save for their compound eyes, each glowing a faint shade of orchid. Five of them were women, each holding jagged daggers, while the single man of their group was festooned with a vibrant purple sash which appeared highly ceremonial in its design.

"In the name of the Nocturne Agency, surrender your weapons and get on your knees!" Baseplate bellowed, loud enough so as to not need his comm-bead. The guards looked at one another, their faces covered in sweat, as if wordlessly debating on what they should do. "Raven! Ward! Get to dispelling their magic!" The man ordered more quietly, prompting Raven and another of the Cerberus troopers to let their weapons hang slack on their webbing, then conjure glowing clouds of magic into their palms. "I will not ask you again! Safety your weapons and place them on the deck!"

Without heeding the Major's warning, the women each took their daggers and sliced open their palms, sending forth numerous gushes of vibrantly luminous purple blood which dripped and spattered on the rust ridden floor. That was all they really needed to do before everyone, Krieger included, opened up on the contingent. The mercenaries put up a short but decent fight, striking five troopers in total before being cut down. Of those five, Vulpine saw only two that didn't pick themselves up and resume firing, no doubt preserved by their OUBCs.

Most fire was concentrated on the would-be ritual casters, though a good amount of the bullets were deflected by a translucent energy barrier. Krieger's .45 Basilisk rounds managed to punch their way through, and with a short sustained burst he'd eviscerated four of the women before, inevitably, the weapon clicked empty. The man in the robes caught several rounds in the shoulder, while the sole surviving woman took several to her lower abdomen and forearm.

Both of were sent sprawling to the deck, and the shield of energy that'd previously preserved them flickered out of existence. Glowing purple blood commingled into a massive puddle, and the fire tapered off with a barely audible order from Baseplate... Krieger's ears were ringing again, and the collective chatter of so many gunshots in such a confined echo-prone space had once again reduced his ability to hear down to nothing but muffled vague notions of words, even suppressed as their weapons were.

Laying on the floor, likely in the process of succumbing to his wounds, the leader of the ritual still managed to conjure a pair of swirling back vortexes of magic. One he hurled at the crackling silver orb, the other was directed at the wounded woman. Both struck their targets almost simultaneously, and Krieger was forced to avert his eyes as a massive flash of magenta energy erupted throughout the hold. It was bad enough he'd been deafened, without risking also temporarily losing his sight. The accompanying crack of magic registered only as a faint whisper.

Opening his eyes again, Krieger saw that the wounded shape-shifter woman had commenced to laughing, all while the troopers opened fire on her specifically. For the next thirty seconds, the Corporal couldn't be sure of what exactly transpired, as another flash of light illuminated the room. Blinking the spots from his eyes, he observed the area where the ritual had been cast, now piled high with the remains of the dead... The blood that'd pooled there was gone somehow, and in its wake he saw a circle of fading glowing runes, melted clear as day into the steel itself.

Only eleven of the twelve expected corpses present... As with the blood, the woman that'd been struck with the spell having vanished entirely. The strange orb remained on its humble impromptu pedestal, appearing for all intents and purposes inert. The goggles revealed it possessed some sort of latent magical charge, but whatever energy it'd stored before had been dispelled now... Not by Raven or Ward's doing, as Krieger soon discovered.

Standard protocol dictated that the troopers now sweep the entire airship, from bow to stern, and take with them any documents, papers, or other materials that could possibly contain some clue as to what transpired there. The bodies of the shape-shifters, the ritualists in particular, were quickly secured in yellow body bags, while the crates in the hold swept for artifacts or other Agency property.

All in all, the 'Sweep and Clear' process took less than two hours, for which Krieger was present for only thirty minutes. He, like the other wounded, were quickly evacuated along with the first batch of materials and several prisoners that'd been taken when the bridge was seized. All items deemed pertinent to the Agency would eventually be loaded aboard a trio of flying chariots, then brought to the Agency's HQ where Krieger was to undergo medical treatment for his injuries.

When all was said and done, three troopers were seriously wounded, while three had sustained fractured or broken ribs. One man, unfortunately, was killed while clearing the forward section of the airship. All had been exposed to a mild dose of arcane radiation, with the dosimeter mechanisms of each trooper's goggles providing an exact dose so as to better target their treatment.

By comparison, the enemy suffered a near total loss, the only exception being the half dozen prisoners and the missing ritualist woman, whose status would be listed as 'Unknown - Presumed Active'. There was a good chance she'd simply been vaporized on the spot, but it was better to consider her alive than to close the book on her too early... Assuming a villain had been defeated forever the first time was a habit the Agency was working very hard to move past.

The data collected on the ritual, the now inert orb, and most importantly the strange circle of runes would be sent off somewhere for analysis by the Agency's 'Top Enchanting Expert'... The very same expert that'd provided the schematics on which all of Team Foxbat's new equipment were based. Given the effectiveness of those enchantments, Krieger had little doubt they'd figure out what, if anything, was the intended aim of the ritual.

With their work finally done, Krieger's compatriots disembarked the ill fated Warlock with everything of value, including as many intact dead bodies as could be appreciably salvaged... They'd also taken samples from strange insectoid-esque 'honey comb' structures that'd been constructed in the airships three other cargo holds. They were crafted from what was obviously an organic compound of some kind, though the details of which were quickly classified above Krieger's security clearance... Much as he was curious, he wasn't that curious, and much more preferred recovering so he could get back to work.

Those bodies that couldn't be recovered were deemed 'Dangerous to the Public Consciousness', and thus had to be destroyed. Krieger learned later that Warlock was set on a course towards a sleepy farming village, before scuttling charges destroyed its engines and ignited the ship's 'cargo'... A highly volatile substance named 'Unstable Sokolite', or something to that effect, placed there in large quantities by the Agency clean up team. The cover story was that the airship's unfortunate crew ran afoul of sky-pirates, which would explain any of the tell-tale signs of a firefight investigators on the ground might discover.

As it was later described to Krieger by Moonlight Raven whilst enjoying an 'I'm sorry you got shot' dinner, it'd appeared from the ground that a great ear-shattering explosion erupted from seemingly nowhere in the sky. The fireball was large enough to illuminate the world for five miles, and detonated with enough force to shatter windows all throughout the nearest town... The explosion itself wasn't what one might expect, as the flames were a vibrant emerald green, and left flickering embers of arcane energy dancing like thousands of fireflies. Whatever Unstable Sokolite was, it certainly did the job.

Flaming debris rained across the land for nearly twenty square miles, with massive fiery chunks sent hurtling across farmland and forests, some landing perilously close to a residential area. The airship fractured into numerous larger and smaller pieces. It'd been hoped that the fire would have enough time to burn up the blood and char the bodies beyond recognition as anything other than human, but the local fire brigade's response time was uncharacteristically short...

Fortunately, or at the very least conveniently, Unstable Sokolite gave off a mild amount of Arcane Radiation when it underwent detonation. The half-life was incredibly short, but it was enough to force the fire department to hang back long enough for radioactive isotopes to decay and, by extension, for the evidence to literally go up in smoke. Come morning, when the accident investigators of the Equestrian Ministry for Transportation Safety arrived to survey the wreckage, they'd find nothing of the crew but charred black bones... In the end, the incident would warrant only a few days media coverage at most, if that... It was, after all, just one airship. What impact could the loss of one ship really have?