BridgeWorld

[994AB Day 290]
"MISTER MANE!? MISTRESS MARETA!? MASTER BUCK!? RED!? FRED!? MATCHBOX!? ANYPONY!?" Alfalfa screamed. She hissed at the sharp pain when her still-healing wings spread in alarm.

"No telemetry from anypony," Lucius reported. "Not even Highflyer."

"Could the blast have gotten him, too?" Alfalfa inquired. "We've got to get out there!" she said, leading the way across the bridge to the elevator.

"If the vat was still full, I wouldn't doubt it for a minute," Lucius soberly said, following her. "A blast from that much mushroom joke would disassociate the very air, itself, for furlongs around! You'd have a hard time identifying anything in that part of the city. But we're still getting network signals from all the cells surrounding the warehouse, except those leading toward the wharf. In addition, the network is dead for at least three or four cells out from the main part of the harbor. Looks like most of the blast happened there."

"Then what happened at the warehouse?" Alfalfa demanded as the elevator took them up into the mansion.

"Likely destroyed by any of the stuff that was still in the drainpipe," Lucius replied. "The explosive potential of mushroom joke is no joke! But you're not going to be able to get out there. Your wing is still healing. I can get there quicker. You get to Mane Industries and be ready to throw the switch." Alfalfa snapped her glare at him.

"We knew this might happen," Lucius grimly told her as the door opened into Thomas' office and they walked out. "We planned for this, even as we knew what it would cost us."

Alfalfa nodded, and Lucius bounded off for the front door, while she got on the phone and dialed up the number for Flashfire at his Mane Industries office.

"Flashfire here," the unicorn answered at the other end of the call.

"Flashfire, this is Alfalfa," she grimly began. "There's—been a complication with tonight's operation…." She hesitated, praying that they were just overreacting and that everypony was still okay out there. But Master Mane was counting on her to carry it through in event of a worst-case scenario. "Activate 'Operation Torchwood'," she finally ordered. There! It's done, but I'm so sorry Master Mane! Tartarus take us all!! she silently prayed as her tears flowed down her face.

There was several moments of silence on the line.

"Understood," Flashfire softly responded.

"B-be sure to go through and collect ALL the security recording crystals before you open the vault. I—I'll join you there as soon as I'm able," she finished before hanging up the phone.

As soon as she set down the hoofset, she rushed out of the home office and nearly tripped over Robin.

"Oh! I'm sorry, Robin! I didn't see you there!" she apologized to the young griffon tiercel.

"Is s-something wrong, Alfalfa?" he inquired, seeming a little too aware that something indeed was wrong. "I just saw some sort of fox creature running out like all its tails were on fire."

Complications! Alfalfa instantly thought. Always, complications, or potential complications!

"Th-there might be," she evasively replied. "There seems to have been an incident at Mane Industries, and I need to get there right away. I—I'll let you know what I can where I get back. In the meantime, you should stay here. The staff can ensure you get anything you need while I'm gone."

"Okay, Alfalfa," Robin replied, with definite uncertainty in his voice as she ran on out.

The griffon fledgling stood still and stared after her after she left. Then, after he was sure she was well and gone, he walked over to the doorway to Thomas' office and peered back inside.

There are no windows and no other doors, he thought as he considered the puzzle. So, where did they come from? He was torn between wanting to figure it out and wanting to ignore it. It was just possible that he hadn't seen them going in, but he was certain the room was empty when he had just walked by it just moments before their canid employee had rushed out. As he initially moved to walk away, an idea suddenly came to him, one borne from experiences shared with his natural family, and he stepped back to consider the office space from his vantage at the entrance.

No other doors that I know of! he suddenly realized, after finally deciding to advance into the room.

The circus that his family traveled with had numerous practitioners of sleight of hoof, each with dozens of secret sets, tricks, traps, and stage props at their disposal. As part of their extended family, Robin was privy to many of those secrets. What if—?

When he had first been given a tour of the mansion, he was highly impressed by just the sheer massiness of the structure. With his griffon instincts, he had an enhanced special awareness, and he quickly had a mental map of the place, made all the firmer with each of his wanderings since then. All the walls were extra thick, evidently to support its own weight. Not only that, but that the Manes would never have to worry about the weather. There wasn't a tornado that all the pegasi of Equestria could ever put together that should even be able to touch the place!

But this room—only now, did he feel anything odd about it—well, odder.

The walls about it were even thicker than anywhere else in the mansion, more than twice as thick as any other wall in the building. Which made no sense, given there was nothing about the second or third floors above it to account for the need to build it so solidly like this.

And now that he thought more about it, he realized the thickness of the deck between the first and second levels was almost enough for another entire floor to fit between them!

His eyes slowly looked over the bookshelves lining nearly all of the available surfaces before his gaze settled on the wall to his left.

Except this wall, he realized, staring at it. His mind told him it was well over twice as thick as the other three walls in here! Why? he wondered, blinking at it.

Walking over, he slowly scrutinized the shelving for any telltales like he was familiar with from his life in the circus.

Here, maybe? he wondered when he found one vertical shelf divider about a third of the way toward the center was more than twice as thick than any of its like in the rest of the room. He followed it down all the way to the floor. Nothing immediately suspicious about it, but from there toward the center of the wall, the wainscotting did appear a little different from the outer section. Then, at a third of the way to the back wall, there was another double-thick shelf divider. He followed it up to the top of the shelf, needing to use his wings to fly up and hover while he looked it over.

No obvious seams, he considered, as he settled back to the floor, a little disappointed his examination didn't find what he was looking for.

Then he looked closer at the forward divider, checking first the side toward the center of the wall. The woodworking was high quality and firmly attached, but when he looked at the other side, he saw the woodworking was much poorer. Almost sloppy. Almost like what he was used to seeing in his old home, of an often-used circus prop. He stepped back a pace and extended a wing out, carefully bringing his primaries toward the crack he had found, and he felt the slightest flow of a steady breeze.

His beak slowly grew a knowing smirk.

"Blackbird to Mother Hen!" Highflyer called out diving down to look for anypony. "The warehouse has been completely demolished! No response from anypony else on the team! There's nothing left of it! Do you copy!? MOTHER HEN!? TOOTHY!? Respond, please!"

There was no response to Highflyer's call.

"Probably because there's nothing left of the relay here, either," Highflyer muttered. We set those things rather spread out to get maximum range to look for them, but we've got minimal redundancy if we lost one, he thought as he desperately searched for signs of life, switching back and forth between IR and light-enhancement vision while doing so, and this warehouse was the center of the zone. It's only a matter minutes before someone from the Guard shows up and finds somepony, and then whoever's left alive will have a very short and unpleasant talk with the Princess!

A shift of plating caught his attention and just as he turned to investigate, the plating shifted again then tilted up on its edge and was pushed over to fall flat on the ground by Buck's expanding shield spell! Moreover, Fred was there as well! The pegasus was just shakily getting to his hooves as Highflyer landed.

"Thank Celestia you're still alive!" Highflyer exclaimed. "I can't raise anypony else, though."

"I think our comm units were damaged by the blast," Fred spoke up. "Buck and I were trying for several times when we came to, but we couldn't even hear each other."

"How did you guys survive!?" Highflyer asked, astonished.

"I threw up a shield spell when you yelled at us," Buck said. "I couldn't maintain it, but when it failed, most of the blast had already dissipated. Have you found Mom or Dad?"

"Not yet," Highflyer said. "You're the first I was able to find."

"We've got to find them!" Buck exclaimed.

"I know!" Highflyer said, pulling out a tracking module to show him. "That might be a problem, though. Neither of you are showing up, either. And I can't call to Mother Hen or Toothy, either, although that might be simply because we're out of range. The relay on this building was the center of the cellular coverage here, and I don't know if any of the other surrounding relays survived. You didn't get to see that blast!"

Buck looked over to where the vat used to be. Or at least thought he was.

"We were over there—I think," he said. "The others were about four rods up and four or five rods from the vat over that way," he said, pointing with his hoof. "Matchbox, though, was dodging about the crates that were stacked up all around here, trying to evade that unicorn mare shooting at him."

They all lifted up and began searching for the others.

"How bad was the explosion?" Buck inquired as they scanned for any heat signatures of living beings.

"I don't think the harbor exists anymore," Highflyer told him. "It's just a mountain of smoke there right now. Likely to be tons of casualties over there if anyponies were on those ships, but it could've been much worse. The water probably mitigated the explosion, while this warehouse borders one of the mostly densely populated areas of the city. If that vat had been full when it went off—never mind we wouldn't even be here talking about it—but ponies for leagues about would be dead! You did good, Buck!" he firmly told the colt.

"Let's hope Celestia thinks so," Buck grumbled.

"As you know, she will, Buck!" Fred said, fully agreeing with Highflyer. "But as she warned us, the Crown, however, will not!"

"Over here!" Buck suddenly called, pointing before diving for the piled mass of debris.

"Why haven't we started hearing sirens yet?" Fred inquired as they landed and began shifting large metal plates out of their way. But most of the pieces of debris were too much for the pegasi or even the earth pony to move. But Buck realized he could still use his artificial horn to lift objects far heavier than he, himself could move on his own.

"Easy, Buck!" Highflyer warned. "You don't want to cause an avalanche. One piece at a time and pile them up over in that clear area."

"Probably they're all busy with the bigger blast being at the harbor," Highflyer responded to Fred as Buck concentrated. "But there's sure to be somepony come along here, sooner rather than later."

"That's Red!" Fred called out as another large chuck of wall was lifted off and he could finally see the figure laying there. He rushed in beneath the wall even before Buck had safely finished removing the mass from the scene. "He's alive!" Fred yelled, quickly yanking off numerous bits of piping and wiring from the downed pony. "But barely!"

"This is some seriously tough armor we've got," Highflyer whispered in awe to Buck as the colt dropped the wall on the newly formed pile of debris. "Get him up and to the clinic as soon as you can, Fred!" he yelled at his partner.

"Roger that!" Fred said, hauling the larger pegasus to lay over his shoulders before taking off.

"Red was staying on as wingpony to Mom, last I saw them," Buck said, anxiously looking about. "She should be around here!"

"We'll find them, Buck!" Highflyer assured him, touching the colt's shoulder with a forehoof. "You guys have the most advances in your suits, they should be even better protected than Red was."

Celestia was having a bit of insomnia for some unknown reason.

Lately, she had been having innumerable visions of Luna showing up in her dreams, with the impending date of her sister's return looming. Sometimes, she was disturbed by dreams of naked, screaming anthros falling out of the sky. Other times, some dragon-like predators or squidlike monstrosities would come flying at her. Or somepony's leisure boat being sucked down a vortex toward a watery grave—only it wasn't an ocean bottom it landed upon…

Tonight, it was nothing specific that she could recall. Only a strange heavy pounding in her chest when she woke and a vague feeling of dread.

A check through the entertainment channels for any strange goings on showed nothing odd going on at the moment. As usual, whenever she had trouble sleeping, she knew she wouldn't be able to get back to sleep until she raided the kitchen. As she left her quarters, she made an inquiry to her Guard, who had nothing new to report. Then she would make such trips into a game of evading being seen by the castle's roving patrols—and they all knew better than to let her get through without challenge, or there would be consequences and severe reprimands. She did better than usual this time, but she was eventually caught and challenged to confirm her identity, satisfying her that they were doing their duty in staying alert.

After retrieving a slice of cake from the refrigerator, she returned to her quarters and turned on the VAD again, this time to look for an appropriate non-stimulating mind-numbingly stupid dumb roadapples normally playing around this time to lull her back into dreamland.

"The story you about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the guilty. The innocent can go fu—" the deadpan voice intoned.

click<

Too intellectual, she thought, as she hit the remote.

"Lu-u-CI-I-I-I-ILLLE—!" her husband screamed.

click<

Too funny.

"Fire Phasers!" the captain commanded.

click<

*sigh*

"Oh! The pain! The pain!"

"Danger, Will Robinson!"

"Ah, this will work!" she happily muttered, getting ready to take a bite from her cake. "Just the right amount of 'stupid' to put me back into a coma."

"We interrupt this program to report there's been a tremendous explosion at Manehatten Harbor! The cause is currently unknown! Dozens of furlongs appear to have been demolished around the center of the blast site, and it's feared there could be hundreds dead—!"

"Fwoaphfdapples!?" she exclaimed, spitting out the mouthful of cake.

Fred Hummer was just about to leave the clinic when Buck and Highflyer burst in the entrance, carrying Buck's parents.

"WE HAVE INJURED, HERE!" Buck loudly bellowed. The triage team at the Mane Industries Clinic had already been alerted when Fred brought in Red Sovine that there would be more coming. But he hadn't informed them that it would be the Manes, themselves.

"Bring them to Thomas' ward!" Doctor Clydesdale immediately ordered.

"Go with them, Buck," Highflyer ordered. "Fred and I will go back and search for Matchbox," and Buck followed the triage team down the passageway.

"How are they?" Fred inquired as he followed Highflyer outside, and they took off.

"I'm afraid Mareta's dead," Highflyer grimly informed him. "Thomas was still alive, but he was unconscious the entire way here. Fortunately, we found them right next to each other. Finding Matchbox is going to be a lot tougher since we don't have a good idea where to start looking. We only found his parents because Buck was using some sort of unicorn or kitsune magic to scan for them, and they were still close to the surface of that mess. He was somewhere down on the floor at the other end of the warehouse among all those crates you and Buck were thrown up against."

"Not to mention, that unicorn prosthetic allowed Buck to lift all that garbage," Fred acknowledged.

"Perimeter complete, if not exactly secure, Lieutenant," Sergeant Fently reported, saluting his earth pony superior.

"Thank you, Sergeant," earth pony Lieutenant Manes Gordon replied, well aware they didn't have enough Guard on hoof to cover the block where the warehouse used to be, let alone the nearly three-quarter league additional wreckage leading back to the Harbor. With almost every available hoof out there, where the blast was known to have originated, there was little left to spare to look into as to why the disaster inexplicably reached out to this point. "Come along, Detective Paddock. Let's go see how this is connected to that blast at the Harbor."

"Whatever you say, rookie," his unicorn partner, Harvey Paddock grumbled. They look at each other, and then grinned, as they walked toward the crime scene and the waiting team of a dozen or so Equestrian Guard, who were standing by to help the detectives to search for evidence but had strict orders to not touch anything unless lives depended on it. Sergeant Fently accompanied them.

"This—is about where the warehouse began, Lieutenant," Fently told them.

"Are you sure, Sergeant!?" Paddock exclaimed, glaring at the stallion. "There's literally nothing here!"

"I was here just yesterday, Detective," Fently replied while Gordon bent down to look closer at the ground a little to their side. "I was called out by the warehouse manager to respond to a trespassing complaint. There was some dispute that had erupted between him and some ponies working for Mane Industries who were supposed to be installing one of those VAD relays on the roof. The manager didn't want them all walking through his warehouse."

"He's right," Gordon muttered. "You can barely see it, but here's where one of the structural beams was sunk into the concrete. Blast broke it off almost clean. How was the dispute resolved, Sergeant?" he asked, standing back up.

"Thomas Mane had to personally show up and point out the obvious," Fently replied. "All his ponies were pegasi who could fly up to the roof without ever needing to step a hoof inside. Made the manager look like a total idiot. The stallion finally backed down but had one of his own pegasi accompany them to oversee the installation. There were no more problems after they did their work and left."

Both officers grunted at that.

"Detectives! We found somepony! He's still alive!" a call from one of the perimeter Guard suddenly called out, and the three of them went running. "Stay here but send a med team after us!" Gordon yelled back at the waiting team of Guard.

They found a beige pegasus stallion who had apparently faceplanted into the ground, his wings splayed out, and with his rear still stuck up into the air. He was mindlessly moaning in pain and for good reason. His plot had taken some obvious and severe trauma.

The medical team arrived on their heels, and while they worked, Paddock took note of the stallion's location, description, cutie mark, nature of his injuries, and wrote down the circumstances and condition in which he had been found.

"Be sure to have your hospital assign some security staff to keep an eye on him," Gordon instructed the paramedic pony-in-charge. "He's a material witness to whatever happened here, and we'll want to question him after you get him stabilized."

"Will do, Lieutenant," the unicorn paramedic replied.

"I'm done here," Paddock announced, closing his notebook and storing it back in his pocket, and they walked back to their planned starting point.

"Alright!" Gordon said, raising his voice to be clearly understood by the Guard team. "You all know the drill: we're doing this by the book! Spread out but keep each other in sight at all times. Keep your eyes and ears open, look for any signs of something out of the ordinary. If you find bodies or body parts, don't touch it, but call Harvey or me! If you find anypony alive, call us and go get a paramedic team asap. DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING UNLESS SOMEPONY'S LIFE DEPENDS ON IT! And for Celestia's sake, be careful where you step! There are plenty of ways for somepony to get hurt or killed in here, and we don't need to add ourselves to the body count! I highly doubt that whatever blew this place up was natural, and there might still be some of it still about!" He paused to check to see that his words were received and clearly understood. The nods he got from the Guard told him they were.

"Alright, let's go!" Gordon order, leading the way in.

With his natural speed matching that of ponies, Lucius' loping gait gave him greater far greater stamina to run long distances. Despite that, it still took him over 90 minutes to reach the warehouse. Moreover, he was spying innumerable scattered bits of debris long before coming up on the scene.

But he became seriously worried when he saw the entire block was now swarming with Guard poking about and trying to secure the area, setting up floodlights and triage tents, along with fireponies who were putting out spot fires here and there. Not as many Guard as he was expecting, given how devastating the blast clearly must have been, and the devastation by the docks being likely far worse, but their presence here was seriously going to hamper his search for the Manes and their team.

"Yeah, definitely not a pleasant expression to experience!" he muttered to himself, noting that he was frowning at the sight.

A direct run in was clearly out of the question by now, and his head turned sharply as he looked for another way to approach. He quickly bolted off for a hopefully better route to his goal.

It didn't take Lucius long to find a way in, as it was clear they didn't have enough Guard present to hold a secure perimeter, and so, he started his search.

"Toothy to any lost birds, come in, please," he quietly called on the radio, mindful of the Guard carefully wandering about sifting through the disaster area. "Toothy to any lost birds, come in, please," he repeated after moving to a different location, but worried that his effort was in vain. The blast that hit this place was completely devastating, barely anything was left to show this had been a warehouse structure at all. And their communications and recording systems were mounted on the outside of their suits. Even assuming that by some miracle a pony had survived, there was little likelihood their gear did.

"Toothy to any lost birds, come in, please," he called out once more, spending more of his time trying to stay out of sight of any Guards patrolling the mess than in searching for his lost friends.

"TOOTHY!!? THIS IS BLACKBIRD! I READ YOU!!! WHERE ARE YOU!?"

Lucius winced in agony as the response nearly blew out his eardrum and had to scramble into hiding while yanking the earpiece out. After adjusting the volume control, he put it into his other ear before responding.

"Toothy to Blackbird, I'm at—" he paused to consider what appropriate code phrase to use, then grinned at the idea that just popped into his head. "I'm at the—playground. That's quite the mess you left it in," he quipped. "Time—time for you all to come in from your playing. Where are the rest of the children?"

"We're just coming back to look for Kitt," Highflyer said. "Everypony else is recovered or accounted for." The tone of his statement told Lucius enough. Something bad had happened—not like he should be surprised. Just how bad was yet to be revealed—but—Highflyer had said 'we'!

"How bad was the score?" Lucius pressed, looking around for places he could go and search and not be seen, leaping from location to location.

"Hummingbird's with me right now," Highflyer reported. "Graymare got tagged out. Graywing and Cardinal are getting patched up, and Grayson is with them all right now. He's okay, and he kept Hummingbird safe. But all our comms are dead except for mine."

Translation: Bad, and could've been a lot worse. Might still get worse, if the injured were too badly hurt. But at least two who were in the middle of all this came out okay, enough for Fred to still be functioning to lend of hoof to look for Matchbox, was way better than expected!

"Understood," Lucius said. "Just be aware, there are new kids in the sandbox. And I don't think they like how you left it. They're complaining about all the cat litter you left behind," he added with a grin.

"Yeah—" Highflyer drawled. "We can see how they're all lit up over it right now."

"Lieutenant Gordon, Detective Paddock! Over here!" Corporal Ponying called out.

Watching their footing as they trotted over, the sight of the decapitated head of a unicorn mare was disheartening.

"Messy way to go," Paddock muttered as he lit up his horn to pick her head up. "What—!?" exclaimed when his telekinesis failed.

"What's wrong, Harvey?" Gordon asked.

"I can't pick her up," he replied. They both looked closer at the body part.

"Are those a set of bolos wrapped about her head?" Gordon asked. Paddock tried to do a scan on them and discovered his magic was failing to do that, too.

"Waitaminute!" Paddock growled and focused his magic to pick up a small piece of debris, and he was able to pick it up easily. "Huh!?" he exclaimed, dropping the bit of metal. "How about that?"

"Null-stone!" Gordon and Paddock said simultaneously.

"Somepony came equipped," Gordon said, to which Paddock grunted in agreement.

"And they came equipped for her," Paddock said. "This place isn't just an accident. It was a battlefield. So, what were they fighting over?"

"The thing that blew up, maybe?" Gordon inquired.

"There's another one, sirs!" Ponying said a short distance away. "This one's in better shape."

They had to blink in surprise at what they saw: an earth pony stallion in a very dark gray chainmail suit that, aside from its coloration, looked much like a Guard Force uniform.

"Is he alive!?" Gordon asked, astonished.

"No," Paddock said after doing a quick scan. "No heartbeat. Odd, though, I don't see any wounds in his body to account for what killed him. There are no broken bones, damaged organs, or contusions from whatever blew up here."

"Careful, Harvey," Gordon warned him. "He could've been the one throwing those null-force bolos. He could have other items on him."

"Yeah, I was being careful with my scan," Paddock grumbled. "And yes, I found several still on him. What's more," he said grinning, as his magic focused on an outside pocket to pull out a small black rectangular slab, "it looks like he's got some military grade comm gear and a recording crystal."

"Now, maybe we can get some answers," Gordon agreed, pulling out an evidence bag.

"Looks like they found Matchbox," Highflyer said as he and Fred set down beside Lucius.

"Hmm," Lucius grunted from their hiding place, seeing the activity of the ponies apparently in charge. "We need to be able to get to him, in case he's still alive. We need some sort of distraction."

"It'll have to be a big distraction," Highflyer observed.

Suddenly, there was a large shift of debris close to the center of where the warehouse used to be, causing many of the searching Guard to start running for their lives.

"Um—will that do?" Fred inquired.

Flashfire met Alafalfa at the lobby of Mane Industries with a couple dozen trusted company unicorns accompanying him.

"Okay, we've disabled the security systems and gathered up the recording crystals like you ordered," he told her. "How are we doing this?"

"We have to make it look like one or more of the team betrayed the company," Alfalfa said, noting who all that Flashfire brought. She was relieved to recognize that Everypony there was familiar with the side work that was being done at the Manor House. "Given the size of the blast, I'm sure that at least somepony died out there. We have no choice but to publicly throw their carcass and reputation under the wagon."

"Bloody Tartarus, that sucks!" Fiona, Thomas' personal secretary spat.

"Agreed," Alfalfa replied. "Privately, we'll honor whoever ends up getting the blame, but it has to be. Everypony involved knew it might come to this, and we all agreed to it. Lucius ran out to the warehouse where the operation was taking place in the hopes of finding somepony alive. He'll likely bring them to the Clinic, so get on the line to MIC and keep us apprised as to who shows up, and—who won't be coming back."

"Will do!" Fiona said, running off for the elevator.

"Flashfire, we'll need to break open one of the vaults," Alfalfa said to him. "Preferably an empty one, but officially the one that supposedly held those special Guard outfits that we've been working on. What can we do to hide the unicorn signature so it can't be traced to anypony?"

"I thought that might be what you'd be needing," he replied, nodding. "That's why I got these guys. Forensics teams always have a nightmare whenever more than a dozen unicorns apply their magic simultaneously to break-ins or other crimes. I figured that all of us here working together should be able to confound anypony the Guard will send to analyze the scene. And we've got just the vault picked out."

"Good," she said. "We'll also have to torch Thomas' office for the fallpony to be supposedly trying to hide his or her identity."

"Understood," Flashfire said, nodding. "Alright gang, we've got work to do!" he spoke out to the unicorns. "We've got to make it look convincing, but we can't overdo it. Remember, we have to put this place back together again and get back to normal business after the Guard complete their investigation!"

"Aye, aye!" "Roger that!" "Yes, sir!" came several choruses of agreement as they turned to march together to the elevators.

Celestia popped into the air above the Manehattan Harbor after teleporting straight here from Canterlot and then had to use a spell to enhance her vision to see in the dark. The devastation was even more shocking than the news had warned her it would be. She quickly swept her view over the scene, looking for where the first responders would need the most help, but as she did so, an oddity really stood out and caught her attention.

The center of the explosion had evidently been at the water's edge, somewhere around where Piers 92/94 used to be, with a deep, nearly perfect, semicircular bite taken out of the city structures surrounding that spot. But there was an inexplicable jagged scar stretching out from a northeast portion of the near perfect circular edge to the blast zone snaking inland through the city that had ripped up the road it followed, as well as heavily damaged several buildings and warehouses along the way. Puzzled, she flew to find the other end.

It didn't take her long to see where that was, as there were dozens of Equestria Guard ponies positioned around the area forming a perimeter, and they had brought in enough floodlamps to illuminate the block so that they could search for survivors and evidence. A relatively small group of ponies had already entered the remains of the affected structure, which effectively no longer existed. And then her gaze fell on three figures huddled apart from the Guard who were picking through the ruins, watching them, and she scowled as she recognized the three-tailed kitsune. She couldn't tell who the pegasi were, and they were pegasi, with him, but she didn't need many names in her list for guessing as to who they were.

If they're here, then it's evident as to what caused the explosion, she surmised, aiming to land there beside them, even if questions remain as to why the blast took this shape. But perhaps they can provide those answers.

But just before she could properly join them, there was a rumble of noise and a large mound of debris suddenly began shifting as if something quite large inside it was raising up, causing a minor avalanche of metal plates, steel girders, and tangled wiring, which instantly alerted the searching Equestrian Guard. And it didn't take long for it to be revealed that it was indeed quite large, and clearly the shattered chunk of a very large, very thick-walled black bowl that finally cleared the mound of debris that had previously buried it. And at seeing the reason that stupendously large chunk had lifted itself into the air, the Equestrian Guard ponies were either instantly running, flying, or teleporting the fuck out of there!

"What!?" Celestia softly exclaimed, seeing a beefily-muscled white pegasus stallion hefting that chunk of black metal over his head as he looked about for targets. It didn't take long for the monstrously strong pegasus to spot some, and he threw the massive chunk of debris at the fleeing Guard ponies. Instantly, Celestia reached out with her magic to stop it, and felt the brush of kitsune magic also being used to slow its flight down. It was quickly brought to a halt and dropped to settle on the ground.

Lucius was clearly startled by the glow that enveloped the chunk of debris that aided him in slowing it to a stop and looked about for the source. Spotting her above and behind them, he flashed her a toothy grin then turned back to face the pegasus.

The pegasus, for his part, didn't seemed that bothered that his impromptu weapon had failed to hit anypony. Indeed, he didn't even seem to wonder why. His focus was solely on the fleeing Guard ponies, and after a few moments of apparently making up his mind, he decided to fly after them.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Lucius growled, flicking one of his tails around, and the large white pegasus careened into the inside of the piece of the shattered vat bowl. With a satisfyingly loud thud.

A couple seconds later, he was back up in the air, but facing away, and seemingly confused. Looking about, he spotted the Guard still running and launched off at them again.

"STOP!" Celestia yelled with a resounding roar, managing to get the large pegasus' attention. He did indeed stop for a moment before turning to look at her. Then he flew at her with the same single-minded purpose he had shown earlier.

He came in too fast for her to react, and his sweeping hoof actually succeeded in knocking her out of the air, sending her to bounce across some of the debris littering the ground before she finally came to a stop at the base of a mound of building fragments. She looked up to see the pegasus diving toward her to attack again, only for him to be diverted by the two dark-suited pegasi who were accompanying Lucius. And diverted, the big white pegasus was—as he focused on the two Manes associates and flew after them, completely ignoring her.

"LEAVE HIM TO ME!" she yelled as she launched back into the air.

A little more searching had soon revealed the cleverly concealed latch for the hidden door, but Robin was utterly astonished by what he saw when the large section of shelving smoothly pushed out and swung aside.

"Wow! No mere set of spiral stairs or firepony pole for this guy!" he whispered in awe at seeing the elevator waiting for use. Before stepping fully into the metal room, he took the time to carefully look over the workmanship. "He didn't spare any expense putting this together," he muttered, highly impressed. Folks doing anything like this back at the circus would have needed to cobble together items to perform the desired function, often out of mismatched and subquality devices and material resources, resulting in the often shoddy-looking appearance to their finished products. "Not bad," he said, nodding in approval.

"Well, let's see what we've got downstairs," he said, stepping into the elevator and pressing the button.

He was even more impressed when the elevator let him out at the end of a metal grated bridge spanning a deep dark chasm that he couldn't see the bottom to. Across the way, he could see panels and banks of electronic systems, like the ones used for those high-end electronic calculators that he's seen advertised on VAD channels or mockups of such being used as props in some sci-fi movies as part of some evil rich mastermind villain's lair. Thinking of the latter, he smirked.

"Maybe such ponies really do exist?" he surmised as he stepped out—only for an odd glint of light catching his eye for barely a fraction of a second to stop him. He looked about but didn't immediately see the cause.

Puzzled, he slowly backed up, and there it was again. Intrigued, he tried to look directly at it, but he found his eyes were having trouble focusing, which was exceedingly odd, given he was a griffon. Moreover, it was easily lost when he tried to shift his head slightly to identify what it was, how far away it was, and where it was coming from, or which light source scattered throughout the dimly lit cavern was responsible for it. The strangeness made the feathers on the back of his neck suddenly rise. It seemed to be visible only when his head was in this specific spot in space. All he could determine was that it was an unfocused glint of reflection.

With his head's position noted, he slowly shifted his head side-to-side, up-and-down, forward-and-back, but still the glint would disappear whenever he moved more than a claw's thickness away from the spot. It didn't give him any information as to what it was, but it did tell him the cause for the glint of reflected light, itself, was a specific point in space, too!

Going back to where it had been visible, he tried adjusting his head movements, this time in diagonals to the cardinal directions. This time, and only in one axis, the light source stayed a little longer before vanishing again, but it lasted for over a talon-length. Moreover, it moved! That finally told him it was quite close.

He returned to his starting position and adjusted the angle of his head movements slightly, and this time, got a steady bead of light to move along with his vision. Still trying to focus on the source, he found he was still having trouble resolving the cause. But its motion along with the position of his head seemed to indicate it was quite near—much too close—almost as close as one of the series of metal frames which framed the walkway along its leng—then he leapt back in the shock of sudden realization.

After he got his racing heart to slow down again, he focused on the metal frame, only now noting the oddity of it compared to its clones along the bridge: this one had a rope attached to it!

Being careful not to move much, he let his only his head and eyes follow the rope up into the darkness of the cavern, but his vision could just barely make out the cable that snaked through a pulley, across the upper side of the far cavern wall, and over to a—

He had to blink at the sight.

Straight out of a Manes Pone thriller—an honest-to-Celestia battering ram—set to swing down over the spot just between that metal frame and the frame beyond it!

"They really do exist!" he hoarsely whispered after a nervous gulp, thinking of the stereotypical Ponesque-villains.

And something else that he only just picked up upon—the bridge was lacking those ubiquitous OSHA-mandated guardrails along its entire length.

Now, it finally made sense. The glint of light had been a stray reflection from the tripwire that was set to release the battering ram to sweep any intruder off into the depths below.

More than a little freaked out at how close he had come to joining the rest of his family in the grave, he was also rather intrigued by the entire setup. Why go through all this elaborate security measure? What's Thomas Mane hiding over there?

Slowly backing up all the way to the elevator, he considered his options:

1) he could go back upstairs and pretend he was never here—and with luck, they'd never know he had been down here.

2) he could try flying across—but with the elaborate measure Thomas Mane had put into making the bridge an inviting deathtrap, just flying across the chasm wouldn't likely be a good idea.

3) he could try avoiding the tripwire and go on across the bridge to see what there was to see—with who knows what other deathtraps that Mane might have installed, in case the battering ram didn't work?

Or, 4) try something a little different.

Well, there was that old saying, one that someponies claimed was rather racist although griffons all found it more than a bit amusing, "Curiosity Killed the Griffon". Robin figured he had either just spent one of his 4½ lives (another of those amusing racist pokes) with that save, or that he had only barely managed to avoid losing such. However, citing yet one more saying often used about griffons, "fortune favors the bird," he finally decided upon Option #4.

He walked back out and went to the edge of the bridge and climbed over and under, using his talons to hold onto the grating. With a little practiced leverage, he brought his back feet to press against the bottom of the mesh to give considerable tension to his talons as he essentially "walked" on the bottom of the bridge all the way across, whereupon he climbed back up to the upper side of the bridge before continuing with his exploration.

To his disappointment, however, he didn't find anything informative about the setup on that side of the chasm. The electronic calculator banks were turned off, and without knowing how to switch it on, more importantly, how to shut it back down again, he couldn't risk touching it. There was an evident console along one long side of an oval-shaped pit that it overlooked, and a set of stairs next to the control station led down into the pit at one end and a slightly raised platform on the floor at the other end. He could see numerous cameras along the upper walls of the pit as well as the ceiling. Along far the wall of the upper level, opposite of the console station, there were several near pony-sized lockers, but they were all empty and there was nothing he could see that indicated what those compartments had held.

There were no papers, folders, books, or manuals were laying out in the open, although there might be something in the filing cabinets lining the upper level above the pit at the end above the platform. Walking over, he checked, but all the drawers were locked. The locks were the simple standard file cabinet design, and while he had been taught how to easily pick such locks, he didn't have any tools available to do so. If he wanted to find out what they contained, he'd have to go and find something and come back for them.

On the other talon, there was more of the cavern to explore that might give him some idea of what was going on here.

Nothing incriminating that I can see so far, but this setup is highly suspicious, he considered as he took another set of stairs to continue he exploration. Mane Industries is listed as doing a lot of contractual work for the Royal Guard, and this all could be legitimately be part of that work. Mister and Misses Mane took me in after Zucco killed everygriff rather than letting me be farmed out to some orphanage, and me sneaking around like this might be a poor repayment to their kindness. But that boobytrap is worrisome. Whatever they're working on, they think it's worth killing to keep it secret. And just who—and what—was that fox creature that had run off? Alfalfa didn't seem to be worried about him, even as he ran off from the same room as she had been in. Instead, she said there had been an incident at Mane Industries and that she needed to go there.

"Alfalfa!" Fiona screamed out when the elevator doors opened, getting her attention while she was watching Flashfire and the unicorns work their magic.

"OVER HERE!" Alfalfa called back as she turned and ran to meet the unicorn mare.

"I was able to locate Buck Mane at the MIC!" Fiona reported. "Mister Mane and his mare were brought in along with Red Sovine!"

"That's—that's wonderful news!" Alfalfa exclaimed.

"Not entirely," Fiona said. "Mareta is dead. Mister Mane and Red are barely holding on."

"Damn!" Alfalfa cursed. "What about Buck?"

"He's fine, or so he reported," Fiona responded. "He said that Highflyer and Fred went back out to search for Matchbox, who's still missing."

"Is Buck able to talk?" Alfalfa asked.

"Yes! He's standing by the phone for you to call him back," she explained, leading the pegasus mare toward the elevator.

"Master Buck! You're okay!?" Alfalfa demanded as Fiona stood by at the reception desk for Thomas Mane's office.

"Yes, Alfalfa," Buck replied over the phone. "Fred and I were a bit shaken up, but we're okay. Mom didn't make it, though, and they're trying to save Dad and Red right now. They suffered some sort of smoke inhalation. Fred and Highflyer went back out to look for Matchbox."

"Not the best of news to hear, Master Buck, but better than expected," Alfalfa said. "We had feared the worse that everypony was lost. Lucius has also gone to the site to look for any survivors—or bodies. We're in the middle of 'Operation Torchwood' here."

There was silence on the line for a few moments.

"Understood," Buck finally said. "As for the Clinic, they've only been told that an accident at Mane Industries was responsible for their injuries."

"Wise move," Alfalfa responded, nodding in agreement. "Hopefully, Matchbox can still be brought safely in with nopony being the wiser about us being involved at the warehouse. But just in case, we'll be ready here. I'll hold off torching your father's office until we know more."

"I'll be sure to get word to you as soon as they get back with Matchbox," Buck told her. "Hold on…"

Alfalfa waited while Buck muted his end of the call.

"Alfalfa," Buck said when he reconnected, "Dad—didn't make it."

"Oh, Master Buck! I'm so sorry!" Alfalfa exclaimed sobbing.

"I told you lot to clear out of there and let me handle him!" she shouted, hovering before him.

"Nothing doing, Celestia!" Lucius countered. "Yes, you're powerful and ageless, but not unkillable. Something happens to you, who raises the sun and moon? The entire world dies because there aren't enough unicorns with the needed power to raise them as there used to be!"

"Your interference only ended up getting them killed!" she challenged. "He still ended up knocking me down long enough for him to get away where he's going to hurt somepony else!"

"Our interference was what pulled him off you when he finally knocked you silly and slammed that chunk of the vat down on you!" Lucius yelled back. "He's way stronger than you, Celestia! Which means, if you intend to beat him, you're going to have to fight much smarter than you were doing! And that means, YOU NEED HELP!"

"You were no help!" she snapped.

"No, we weren't enough help! And neither were you!" he angrily countered. "So, now, we have to somehow find ponies who will be!"

"What do you mean by that!?" Celestia all but shouted at him.

"I mean, you fought like your horn was restrained, your wings were bound, and your hooves hobbled!" Lucius said, snarling at her. "I've seen you take down far stronger opponents with much less effort before! What gives?"

"How dare you speak to me like that!"

"I dare because while you were playing with him, I watched!" Lucius hissed at her. "I've seen that big white pegasus before! He was here when we were installing the communications relay on this warehouse, and I saw him fight when Thomas busted inside to take down Jack Black and his operation. I suspect he might even be former Guard. But there is something off about him, this time! He's much stronger now than any pegasus I've ever seen before, probably far stronger than most earth ponies I've ever met, but he seems to have lost something, too! Last I saw him, he was very close to the vat that held the mushroom joke where Thomas knocked him down, and maybe that stuff did something to him when it blew up. We need to figure out what it did to him and how to counter it!"

"It's bad enough I now have to weed out tons of rogue agents in both the Royal AND Equestrian Guard, but I simply cannot hire a bunch of rogue former Guard to accomplish that! I will show just you how inhibited, bound, and hobbled I can be, Lucius, when I take you and Thomas down!" she warned him. "Would you like that? Don't ever get in my way again!"

"Well then—if you'll excuse me, Princess," Lucius said, snarling. "I have a couple good ponies that I have to go bury somewhere before the Crown shows up and makes an even bigger mess of things than it has already, now don't I?"

"If you ever live long enough to reach kyuubi no kitsune, Lucius," she growled at him, "then you'll end up burying as many good ponies as I have done in my time, same as I have had to bury many good kitsune. Just remember, the bad ones, I leave to rot under the sun!"

"I know that all too well, Princess," Lucius said, limping away. "I've seen them."

"Princess Celestia!" Lieutenant Gordon called out when she landed among them. "We saw the fight! Are you alright?"

"I am well enough," she flatly stated. "I am disappointed that that pegasus got away. How are all of you?"

"I'm afraid we lost Sergeant Fently when he went to distract that monster after you got knocked down and slammed by that chunk of debris." Celestia started at that.

"You—you should not have gotten involved," she told them, reminded of the all-too fresh argument she had with Lucius.

"I agree, but we had to do something," Gordon said, sighing. "But somepony had to do something! That monster was about to slam down on you again after he buried you! And—I couldn't be sure, but it might have looked like there some other ponies up there, too? Something seemed to have distracted him from finishing you off."

"There were—others who were not supposed to be involved, either. But they're gone now, too," Celestia stated.

"You wouldn't happen to know if they were related to this guy, Your Highness?" Detective Paddock inquired, bringing the dark-suited body of an earth pony stallion over for her to see.

Matchbox! she realized, staring at him. This explains why Lucius and the others had been here. They were probably looking for some way to recover him before the Guard could find him. I do hope they managed to get rid of any sign that Thomas or his family were ever here!

"I'm sorry, but I can't say that I recognize him," she finally said.

"Well, maybe we can get answers from his gear and that other pony we recovered," Paddock muttered.

"Please keep me apprised of what you find, Lieutenant," Celestia said. "Right now, I had better see to what resources are needed at the Harbor and I need to search around to find that bulky white pegasus," she finished before taking off.

"LUCIUS!? WHAT IN CELESTIA'S NAME HAPPENED TO YOU GUYS!?" Buck exclaimed at seeing the kitsune limping in and telekinetically carrying Fred and Highflyer's bodies through the emergency doors.

"Celestia happened—at least—in part," Lucius grumbled as he set their bodies on respective gurneys and a triage team got to work checking him out. "The other part is—" He hesitated, mindful of ears of those whom it might be best that they didn't get to hear unfiltered details. "You remember that big muscle-bound pegasus your father had words with earlier tonight? Well, he's back!" he singsonged with a toothy grin.

"What!?"

"More bad news, too, I'm afraid," Lucius added. "Somebody found our dead cat."

"I'm afraid these two are dead," the attending physician reported, breaking into their conversation, as he turned to start scanning Lucius. "Their necks are clearly broken. And you've got a broken hind leg, sprained forelimb, and one of your tails is dislocated."

"No—shit?" Lucius mocked asked. "And here I thought all this pain I'm feeling was just a rash from eating something bad for me. I'm allergic to grapefruit, after all."

"Has eating grapefruit ever broken your leg before?" the doctor's return shot made Lucius blink in surprise.

"…It's—been known to," Lucius quipped so as to not be outclassed with his snark.

"Then I'd say you've got bigger issues than food allergies to worry about," the doctor replied.

"I like you," Lucius said, grinning.

"Well, we'd better get you into a room and get you treated," the doctor told him. "Get up on this gurney, please."

"Um—I'm bit short of functioning limbs at the moment," Lucius told him. "Could—could you please oblige? Thanks." Grumbling, the doctor levitated the kitsune up.

"Be sure to take him to my parent's ward, Doctor," Buck instructed. "I'll be up shortly to speak with him when you're done treating him."

Buck immediately got on the phone to call back to Alfalfa at his father's office in Mane Industries.

"Princess Celestia! Thank goodness you're here!" Commissioner Friesian Cob exclaimed when she flew over and landed by the command tent.

"Commissioner," she greeted as soon as she set down. "Apologies for not arriving here sooner. I heard about the explosion and came as soon as I was able, but when I arrived, I needed to investigate what appears to have been the source of the blast."

"Um—by all accounts, wasn't this the source of the blast?" he asked.

"It would've seemed so, but evidence shows that the cause was something that was poured into the sewers in the warehouse district, but only exploded when it accumulated down here at the waterfront," she told him.

That damned Gordon! Friesian cursed in his thoughts. That hackneyed pony was right! Now, I'll have to give him credit for his cockamamie theory when this is all done!

"Still, the major damage is clearly here," Celestia continued, unaware of the commissioner's thoughts. "I've sent for the Royal Guard, and they'll be here shortly to provide all the aid that we can to search for any possible survivors and get them to the hospitals immediately."

For his part, the strongly built white pegasus didn't worry about the ones he had fought. He didn't have many thoughts in his head at all. Only feelings.

Where he was right now wasn't someplace that felt comfortable.

Seeing living creatures had not been comfortable, so he had tried to smash them.

When attempted to do so, something frequently hit him and for a moment, he couldn't see the things that were making him uncomfortable. Even so, he was still uncomfortable, and when he looked for a route to someplace better, he would see the creatures that made him uncomfortable again. Rinse and repeat. At one point, he managed to bury one such creature under some large hard rock-thing he had picked up, but before he could permanently make it stop making him uncomfortable, some other things had knocked him away. Fortunately, he was able to break them, and his discomfort diminished a bit—at least until something else had moved him from where he had been.

Only then, did his uncomfortable feelings reduce to the point where he didn't feel the need to smash everything in sight.

As he wandered about, walking along a path of broken rock and smoldering stuff. The discomfort slowly began to ease, and noticeably lessened the more he travelled. Eventually, he came across a wide expanse of broken, smoldering ground, and his discomfort almost—but not completely—vanished. He wandered out into the wide field without worry, and it took him a long time to reach a place where the ground ended, and water began. The discomfort was almost gone—still, just a little bit remained—and he felt a comforting feeling calling to him—somewhere beyond the water.

Without hesitation, he walked into the liquid that steadily raised over his legs, his body, up his neck, and finally over his head. But the feelings were getting better the more he proceeded forward, so he kept walking, until he was underwater. And still, he kept walking.

"Buck!? What in Tartarus happened!?" Alfalfa demanded when she arrived. "You told me that Fred and Highflyer were both alive and well when we last talked!"

"I know! Like I told you, they left to go back and look for Matchbox, but evidently somepony else found him first. But Lucius brought them back a little while ago dead. He's got all the details, but he couldn't say much with all the triage ponies around us," Buck told her. "I'm still waiting for them to let me in to talk with him when they get done patching him up. But he was able to tell me enough. That big musclebound pegasus Dad fought apparently killed them."

"He didn't have any kind of Guard suit to protect him!" Alfalfa hissed. "How in Celestia's name did he survive the blast!?"

"Well, I sure I hope Lucius can explain it, because I haven't a clue how we survived that explosion," Buck whispered back.

"Any word on Red?" she inquired as they both walked along the corridor on their way to the Mane's private ward.

"They're still working on him," Buck replied. "How's it going at the office?"

"We're proceeding according to plan," Alfalfa stated. "Thanks for getting us a name to pin this on, by the way. It's a crappy enough way to handle it, especially with us having to throw Matchbox's reputation under the wagon like this, but with the Guard in possession of his body, we have no choice. Matchbox had a mare he was married to after all, unlike everypony else involved."

"Damn!" Buck hissed.

"How are you feeling?" Alfalfa asked.

"Fair to middling," Lucius replied. "They're being a little skimpy with the painkillers, but they made the casts correctly. All my weight is being transferred to the areas above the break and sprain. Can't do anything about the tail except use one of the others to magically support it. I guess it's effectively back to being an ichibi for a while," he said, grinning.

"So, what exactly happened out there?" she demanded.

Lucius explained how he had just arrived to see that Matchbox had been found by the Guard shortly before Fred and Highflyer got back. None of them could tell whether their friend was alive or dead yet. While they were still trying to decide on how best to try recover him, that's when the large white pegasus dug himself out of the debris and began to attack the Guard by throwing a huge chunk of the broken vat at them. Lucius tried to stop the fragment from smashing all the ponies, and Princess Celestia had evidently just arrived herself and helped with that.

After that, the four of them were forced to engage Jack Black's enforcer. The pegasus' strength was phenomenal, but there was something off about him. His attacks were confused, sluggish, and seemed to be done without any sort of planning to them—not at all resembling the Guard-like coordination and reaction that he had shown earlier when Thomas had engaged him—but that was not to say his actions weren't effective. His enhanced strength and speed made up for what he was lacking and was proving more than enough to be a match for Celestia herself!

After that, things went downhill. Celestia insisted on fighting him alone, then she kept repeatedly getting knocked down. One of the Guard got involved and got smashed to pulp. Lucius explained he had to play dodgebrick with him the whole time while Celestia got back up and got knocked down again. Somewhere along all that, Lucius got hit a few times. With Celestia still out of the picture for a bit, the three of them continued trying to distract him, but Fred, and then Highflyer, got their necks broke. Celestia finally got back into the fray and then was back down again, leaving Lucius no option but to overstrain his own telekinesis and knock the brute out of the area with that massive chunk of vat which the pegasus had tossed earlier with ease. At least it seems that he wandered off after that.

"Princess Celestia wasn't happy in the least, however. Things were said, there was quite a bit back and forth—and we didn't part on the best of terms. And you know what? I really don't like this expression!" Lucius concluded, frowning.

"Well, we're proceeding with 'Operation Torchwood' at the office," Alfalfa told him. "I just hope Matchbox is dead, so he doesn't have to suffer going to trial over this. Come on, Lucius. I'll take you home. Master Buck, are you coming?"

"I'm staying here a while longer," Buck told them. "I have to make arrangements for Dad and Mom, and somepony should be here in case Red wakes."

"Very well, sir," she replied. "I'll relieve you in the morning and stand watch over Red."

"Thanks, Alfalfa," Buck replied.

At first, Robin was quite weirded out at seeing the disembodied pegasus and Thestral wings mounted in a series of display cases inside the shielded container. But he also saw that a right wing from a Thestral was laying on a workbench, all the stranger in that he could see there were some sort of open rectangular panels set into the limb with numerous wires dangling out of the holes.

When he walked on into the apparent laboratory, he soon realized the wings were all artificial. A closer inspection of the openings into the inner workings of the limb showed a variety of components cobbled together that he wasn't all that familiar with, but there did seem to be some elements that might be artificial musculature and tendons. The mate to the one on the bench was evidently still hanging in another display case. There were dozens of measuring instruments of various types scattered about and surround the wing, a couple of electrical meters, a thaumatic meter, a thaumatic field analyzer, a bio field detector, a neuro scanner, a sortilege calculator, and so on. Nothing was currently switched on or powered up that he could tell.

Leaving that room and closing it up, he checked the next room, also a shielded container structure. This one had several examples of what looked like unicorn horns, with many of the same type of meters on the workbench awaiting the return of the technicians who had been using them.

Another compartment contained a collection of what looked like carnival masks for a masquerade ball, but with similar components which were being installed into the eye sockets of the masks, with much the same type of testing and measuring devices involved with their function.

And yet another shielded compartment had what looked like pony ears being designed, again, with more of those fine, delicate internal components built into them.

What in Celestia's name are they working on!? Robin wondered.

He continued to wander about, not finding much of anything interesting for quite some time, until he discovered one large chamber which held several dark-colored covered chariots. At first, they didn't look that interesting, that was until he realized they didn't seem to have any means for hitching up a pony or a team of ponies to pull them.

By then, his stomach began grumbling, and he realized that he had been down there for quite some time. He hoped that none of the Mansion staff were going about looking for him. Getting back would be quite a run for him, not to mention the time it was going to take to cross back ~~over~~under that bridge.

The route back to the elevator was still deserted and he felt relieved that whoever worked down here had not showed up yet. As the elevator's door opened and he stepped out into the office, he came face-to-face with both Alfalfa and that fox-creature.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. They just stared back at him.

"Um—hi?" Robin ventured, nervously smiling.

The figure slowly emerged from the water as he continued to walk toward the marshy banks on the other side of the river from the blast site.

Here, the large white pegasus happily thought. The discomfort was finally gone. He walked further into the swamp and after a short search, found a place in which to rest….