The city continued to gleam in front of us despite the considerable battering it was presumably taking from the fact a tyrant was in charge of it. My heart goes out to all those hurt by Gulfstream's nutters, OK? I'm planning a charity concert to raise money for the victims of his terror, and will feature a pretty big list of performers, who will be showcasing their newest and biggest content. Keep an eye out for Ruby Jubilee there as well! She's pretty big, almost as big as me!

In terms of fame, not body size. Just wanted to make that clear. There's nothing wrong with being a plus sized pony!

Still, we continued to look down at the place, amazed at how it had held up oddly well considering the circumstances of the times. It stood there, continuing to shine like a city atop a hill (which I suppose it was, being literally positioned on top of a mountain), which was probably because the screens in the city were being used to run propaganda instead of advertising.

But I could also see soldiers being moved about as well. They marched back and forth, presumably to keep an eye on the populace who were under their control. The poor things. They deserved so much better.

As we looked down, I spoke up once more. "He's turned the place into a fortress!" I said, amazed at the fortifications on one side. They were packing a lot of scary stuff into a very small space, which I wasn't too happy about. All of these resources that could be used on things to benefit ponykind, and they use them to blow things up. Urgh!

Hitch heard my comment, and spoke up. "Well, every fortress will crack," heard, optimistically. "They said Fortress Europe could never be breached. And yet here we are, moving in to conduct our very own D Day. Or should that be Z Day?"

Oh, yes, D Day. The day when America saved the world. Because none of the Allied nations ever did anything, right?

In case you're wondering what I'm talking about, the United States of the world I was originally from basically controlled much of the world's cultural output. This meant that the viewpoint the United States had was often the one pushed in global media. One side effect of this was a rather lopsided view of the Second World War, a conflict which involved the entire planet locked in a global conflict. The lopsided view was one that prioritized the American viewpoint at the expense of many others.

One of these was D Day, a key battle when the Allies launched an attack to liberate an entire continent. Thanks to the United States dominating the cultural market, this meant that the American perspective of the battle, which was only one part of the offensive, is the one that has endured in popular culture. Which is a bit awkward, as other nations like Britain played critical roles in the attack. Britain is the place Zipp was originally from if that sounds familiar; I queried if she was formally British when she used the phrase 'loony bin'.

Which nicely brings me onto my next point, actually. Zipp is a person who was originally from Britain, and as a result she uses British pronunciation of some things. One of those is the letter Z, or the final letter of the Ponish alphabet. This letter is pronounced 'Zed' in some parts of the world, and 'Zee' in others. Zipp uses the former pronunciation, whereas I use the latter pronunciation. It can get a bit confusing at times, but otherwise things are pretty fun.

Anyway, I raised this point in my next comment. "That would confuse those of us who used to be British or American," I said, looking to Hitch. "Zipp says it the British way. It's really weird!"

Misty then spoke up, the first thing she had said in quite a while. Sometimes it could be quite surprising hearing her suddenly speak. "Before we get needlessly bogged down on stuff that doesn't matter," I said, "let's keep moving and do a superb job of clearing out this tower."

Well, I wasn't going to argue with her over that one, as that was most certainly our main job for the day. I nodded in agreement, but just as I did this a series of explosions began to sound down below. I glanced in their direction, and saw some fire and big bangs coming from one particular direction.

"Well, that's our cue," Hitch said. "Let's go, and hopefully this'll be less awkward than last time."

Yeah, here's hoping. There was a drastically reduced chance of me being stuck upside down this time, for one. I made my way onwards across the landscape, and after a period we dropped down into the city itself. We were using a side entrance which was seemingly unguarded, which surprised me. Given how big he wanted to make the army, and given that he'd introduced conscription shortly before I had been forced to run from Zephyr Heights all that time ago, you'd think he'd have considerably more soldiers running about and doing soldier things. But, to my complete surprise, no.

Seems as though he'd stuck the bulk of his troops on one side of the city and left a skeleton crew on other bits of the city. Whilst this made sneaking around a lot easier, it was also quite eerie.

At least I had a considerably reduced chance of being spotted. The gear I was wearing did a good job of hiding my appearance, and the helmet was hiding my mane pretty convincingly. The only issue was my wings. I knew they made me very distinctive, as I've never seen another pegasus with wings like that, but whilst normally I'd have no problem with standing out, now standing out was the very last thing I wanted, especially if I encountered an ill timed guard or something like that.

We stopped to let some guards pass, and then continued on our way. The screens were running propaganda, but with no sound. The General sure liked the visual image of his lips flapping, huh?

"About a week or two as his personal fiefdom and Gulfstream still hasn't figured out these screens have no speakers." I rolled my eyes. Absolute amateur hour going on here.

Hitch looked at me, puzzled. "How do ponies watch your broadcasts, then?" he asked, looking confused.

I looked back as if it was obvious, then remembered the earth ponies were at a different technological base to the pegasi. "They mostly just sync their phones to the screen, which provides the sound," I replied, shrugging as I did so.

We then moved along towards the ZBS building, which was now clearly visible above us. This tower rose high into the sky, consistent with the art deco look of the rest of the city. It certainly was a very striking structure, but this building also had a notice outside it proclaiming it to be the Tower that Pipp Built.

I spotted the allusion immediately. In the other world, there's a record company called Capitol Records, who have a very distinctive building in a place called Hollywood. It's nicknamed 'the Tower that Nat Built', partly as Capitol's best selling musician at the time was Nat King Cole, a truly great musician.

It just so happens my label is ZBS Records, so presumably that was how they raised the money needed to build such an enormous structure on top of receiving state funding for their operations.

After that, we stopped in front of the building and looked around. Compared to how lively the city had been before then, to see it so empty and lifeless was eerie. Not to mention the fact that the building had no lights on. That was just plain spooky. I then looked in and tried to see if anypony was home, but I couldn't see anypony in there.

Hitch then tried the door handle. "Well, there's a snag. Door's locked." The door hadn't moved, which was a bit annoying.

I facehoofed in response to Hitch's entirely unhelpful comment. "Urghh, that's kinda obvious, Hitch! Why would they leave the door to a strategically valuable location unlocked? That's just inviting anypony to walk in and take whatever they want!"

Hitch shrugged. "Well, we need to find a way to get in. Can anybody see a key? If not, pass me a bobby pin and a screwdriver. I may be able to pry the lock open manually."

Seems Hitch momentarily forgot he's a pony... again. I then noticed Misty prying at something. "Hitch, could you lend me a hoof? These screws are a bit stuck!"

"Sure thing, Misty. Let me just set the screwdriver."

After a few moments of work, they had the grate open, and Misty set up her gear before wriggling her way inside that narrow space. Boy, she's braver than me.

So, we sat there. Hitch and I had some time to chat.

Author's Note

We're halfway there now for this week's leg with Pipp. =3