Frostpony: Of Hounds & Horses

It was a grey, gloomy day that greeted Riley Burrows.

Clouds filled the sky and filtered the sunlight. The town overcast with dim, darkend air that sucked the colour out of the world. Smoke and steam rose from chimney stacks, big and small, feeding into the foggy horizon.

Everything seemed just a little less lively as Riley weaved around the roads. Rarely did she see ponies walking the streets, and even rarer did see children. Given the circumstances she had no doubt school was out, yet she could probably count the amount of young she saw within one paw.

Was everycreature staying indoors? Hiding? Or something else?

It gave the town an…oddly empty feeling, seeing only the other half of the population out and about. Walking to work, talking to neighbours, shifting through snow, like it was just another day.

And around every other street saw more shifting coats and military mutts outnumbering the number of everyday citizens.

When she caught sight of Gale’s diner it was everything Rini had described and worse.

Oh, so much worse.

The place was barely recognisable anymore, the windows were smashed in, spray paint defaced the decorations, and the contents of numerous garbage bags had been strewn about the entrance, now spilling out onto the road. Those however paled in comparison to the other leading issue.

A truck was parked outside, which saw several soldiers moving furniture, home appliances and property out of both the diner and Gale’s apartment. Paintings and posters, tables and chairs, all the way down to small items like books and miniatures.

Within a moment, it became clear as day what they were doing.

“They’re looting his place…th-they’re actually looting his home. In broad daylight!”

Riley’s breath grew still as she watched. Sparks of anger ignited as her daughter’s descriptions from the night prior played fresh in her head.

Rolling her shoulders, she crossed the street and approached them. Her entrance was quickly met by another who stopped her some paces away from the conga line of mutts passing items around.

“Excuse me mam, have you-”

“What do you think you’re doing?”

The soldier looked up to her, taken aback by her sudden response, likely not expecting retaliation. In a moment he began sensing the fiery aura around the older Diamidian and took a moment to reply.

A moment too long in fact.

“Errr we’re-”

“Why are you looting Gale’s apartment?” Riley snapped in, her voice stiff and stern. “Do you know how much this place means to some creatures?”

The soldier didn’t rise nor fall to Riley’s temper, instead keeping a steady tone, as if a desk worker addressing a complaint.

“Mam, I’m not sure you’ve heard but we’re looking for the pony who lives here. They’ve continuously failed to pay bills, and recently have been suspected for subversion and subterfuge within this community.”

He then reached into his pocket and produced a crude drawing of Gale. The lines were wonky, the colours were off, and the shape of his mane was completely wrong. More akin to a child’s drawing then an actual wanted poster yet that was the way it was presented. Complete with a short list of crimes below.

Riley looked at the picture for a moment, stunned that any creature with functional digits could scrap it together, before turning back to the soldier with an almost disappointed eye.

“Subversion and subterfuge? Do you even know what those mean soldier boy? Or are you reciting that script they gave ya?”

Even before the mutt had said anything, a simple eye dart to the side was all the confirmation Riley needed.

“Look he’s a dangerous pony and we need to know if you’ve seen him. We’ve already found several disguises he was probably gonna use, along with several small swords, maces, daggers, and books about monsters and spells. We need to find him.”

Riley’s eye twitched at that, and she had to fight off the urge to break out into a fit of laughter.

“He’s talking about his costumes, oh my goodness. His props, his tabletop adventure stuff, they’re actually trying to use it against him. You couldn’t hurt a foal with any of that stuff. Oh I’d be livid if it wasn’t so ridiculous.”

Try as she might, she couldn’t prevent a smirk from creeping across her face, and she spoke through gritted teeth.

“So why are you looting his apartment?”

“We’re uh…cofisa-confiscate,” The mutt took a moment, trying to rack his brain. ”…con-fis-cating evi-dence!” He proudly stated, wagging his tail in delight, like a child who’d just answered a test question right.

Once more Riley had to hold herself back. Now with more molten rage to poison the well, but an equal amount of astonishment at the soldier's display. So much so she found herself speechless, at a loss for what to say next. With each sentence his vocabulary broke down now that he was speaking freely.

“The boy’s so dumb he either doesn’t understand the difference between confiscation and theft, or he does but got told it’s okay and to use big words when questioned.”

Her eyes drifted to the other soldiers, wondering if their mental acuity was as sharp as this one.

“How is the town still standing?”

“Yeah, so, the pony is bad because he’s not paying bills, and he had a bunch of dangerous stuff we have to take away.”

Riley stared at him wide eyed. Conflicted between anger and amusement at every sentence he spoke.

“I’m sorry if this has come as a shock to you,” He gestured, noting her expression, “But we gotta find him! Just last night he beat up a pair of teenagers near the uh…where that big bell thing was?”

“Church…it’s called a church.”

“Right! So to help prevent that, we’re preparing to put up this thing called a curfew tonight. Think of it like when you’re parents would make you go to bed at a certain time. Everycreature has to go inside past ten PM so we can keep-”

There was a brief yelp as his mouth was suddenly covered by Riley, who glared at him with a growl.

“I know.”

She let go and turned away, storming off without another word.

It wasn’t enough for them to deface Gale’s home, but to rob it in broad daylight under the pretence of protection? And claim him a criminal for daring to evade them? It wasn’t even Gale that had to defend himself from the two mutts last night, that alone would’ve been enough to set her off on a good day.

But everything that had happened only confirmed more of what she thought.

“They don’t know where Gale is, so that’s good. It won’t be long until they find him though, and who knows how bad things are going to get.”

Her pace quickly started to pick up, a location already in mind.

“I need to move fast.”

Rini followed behind the Labrador leading her through the Rustbucket, occasionally flinching at the sudden spikes of pain coming from her face. The swollen length of her muzzle and cheek still hot and angry from the night prior.

Painkillers and ice packs helped, but the coppery tasting cavity where one of her teeth once was, left her constantly aching.

Of course, even with such an injury she was still expected to come in and work. Such was Snapjaw’s policy. On the bright side, she was at least promised a bonus for putting herself through the grind like this. Maybe she’d be able to afford a false tooth?

“Please for the love of the sky gimme a gold one. Wood sounds…bleh.”

The two engineers stopped after entering the engine room. Finding it relatively quiet with only a few of its machines running. Pipes pumped exhaust fumes and fuel through the various frames and into the bowels of the Rustbucket. Internal lights blinked and shined the only light within, and the smell of oils and metal thankfully didn’t overwhelm her. In part because she only had one clear nostril.

“Ah take it you didn’t bring me here for the view, huh Cole?”

The other mutt raised a clenched fist, rubbing his index with his thumb as he turned around to her. “Soooo…are you familiar with K-12 engines?”

Rini shook her head. “Mm hmm, don’t get much industrial stuff around here. Mostly fours or fives. Worked on a K-9 once though.”

“Good enough, you’ll know the basics then. If you need to shut down or start up any of the engines there’s a control panel in the bridge, and the master control panel right over there.”

Cole then pointed towards a bulky desk nested within the wall, right in the middle back section of the bay. Laden with enough buttons, levers and lights to make any gearhead blush. Even from here she could tell how complex the thing was and part of her hoped she’d never have to interact with it.

“Each engine should each have their own manual ignition and shut off key in case both of those fail.” He then pulled out a thin booklet and passed it over to her. “This contains a list of common components that work well with the engines. Mostly industrial stuff, but heavy vehicles like trucks also work.”

Rini looked down at it, giving the pages a brief flip through before looking up at all the engines around her. By her count, there were about eight in total. All within wall compartments lining the room. Almost like a giant set of draws with a pulley system anchored on the ceiling, where a large hatch could give way to the roof.

“Must be how they got the engines inside. In case one of them breaks down beyond repair they can just lift it out.”

She turned back to the compartments they were nested within.

Each engine itself was big enough to take the center stage of a showroom, or fill out the space of a small room, let alone eight of the things. A complex network of pipes, boilers and brass parts only navigable to somecreature who’d spent their life head deep in cogs and gears.

If such contraptions were pony made.

Instead, when Rini looked upon the few engines that were pulled out to be worked on, she quietly identified the parts that made up their being. In what ways the pipes flowed through the system and where the tangled messes of wires linked together. Almost as if she could see through the machine itself and watch its intricacies play out.

In a way, it was like a puzzle lacking all the pieces. She could see the picture even if it wasn’t complete.

They were the kind of engines she’d expect to see fitted into a monster truck or a small ship. Not that she’d ever seen either before, but Gale’s tales only left so much to the imagination.

So to see so many brought to mind a question of hers.

“Say, how much fuel does all this consume?

“Alot, I’ll say it right now, a lot. Chances are not all of them will ever be running at once but even then you’d better believe their hungry.”

Cole then moved over to the control panel, pointing towards several gauges that read out the vehicle’s capacity. List all but two fuel tanks as full.

“As you can see, her belly’s full but we only have two of the engines running to keep the lights on and the ice out.”

“Just that?” Rini mumbled, careful not to challenge her pain tolerance.

“Well, that and the machines. From the toys in the workshop to the crane on the roof. Everything runs off these. There’s a lot more I’m skipping over, and even I’ll admit I don’t know every trick ol’ Rusty has, but there’s a readout panel to let everydog know where she’s hurtin’.”

Rini looked to where Cole gestured and saw a secondary panel beside the main one. It was full of different lights and indicators reading out the different systems and how they were doing.

Only a few of them read green.

Most were amber or red.

In fact, it was quicker to read off the number of things right with the vehicle bay then the number of things wrong with it. The whole idea of the machine’s required existence aside.

“By the looks of things, we’re gonna be a couple of very busy dogs.”

Rini stared in awe at the panel, and the many, many problems it listed.

She replied slowly with a nod. “You can say that again…”