Imaginerian

Tall lies awake in bed, having taken in the bland ceiling and its turned-off light bulbs. A fitful fight with his blanket later, and he now finds himself at the staircase outside of his quarters, away from the snores of Eckhard and Nascente.

No lights except the soft, pulsating glow of the city that's engulfed him, or whatever is left of that that can filter in through the windows. His hind legs hang past the railings, heeding the call of the void (the fall is just one storey down). The roaring of engines and the bustling of nightlife activity are muffled in his ears.

He sits still, then now his legs sway.

A world of being alone.

"Oh, you're awake," a voice calls from below—Appe Bloom, in a faint whisper. Her form rises from the lobby until it reaches him, holding a mask and lugging along some cleaning materials—sponges, spray bottles, and rags. She's even wearing overalls to fulfill part of the southern Earth pony stereotype.

"I, uh, didn't know you were the janitor, too."

"Y'all learn how to do the dirty work together," she replies. "Least yer' doin' a great job tryna' rise above the grind of bein' the son of some scion guy. I've seen griffs from the Wingbardian mafia… bad apples, Ah say, they're sendin' bad apples, spoiled brats their parents'd rather have a drill sergeant deal with. So hey, yer' doin well."

Tall sets his jaw firm. "I really meant what I said about helping my homeland out. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Don't get all self-defensive, Ah ain't doubtin' ya." Now she takes out a tiny metal box. The lid taken off, there's cigars inside. After lighting one up, she takes a long drag, the smoke wisping away, form- and shapeless. "Want one?"

"No, thanks… I'm not a smoker. Despite the jokes about you-know-what and cigarettes."

"A livin' an' breathin' lighter doesn't want to smoke? Now Ah've seen everythin'."

The two of them share a silent moment, hindlegs dangling off the railings. Her cigar's earthy aroma can only mean freshness, high quality.

"So, ma'am, you really do clean the whole place up, huh?"

"Keeps ya' sane, keeps ya' focused. Have been doin' it for the longest time, even before Ah came in as a real soldier, ya' see." The scent of the cigar rests upon him as a hint luxurious. "Came in as one of 'em auxiliary types. We were that kinda' strapped before, but then the nirik war jus' started happenin'." She now leans closer to the railing, resting her head on it like she were behind bars. "Heh, I remember askin' Applejack that I wan'ed to go here, there, everywhere right after Chrysalis went down. Sweetie Belle soon got back to trainin' for her singin' career, an' now, she's a radio star. Actually, ya know what? Sometimes, when the pop station here bothers to play foreign stuff, Ah call in an' make a request if they could bring up a single from Sweetie."

"Records?" Tall asks. "Don't you have more advanced things? I heard about Vinyl Scratch and her electro genre being the hottest new thing when I was a lot younger."

"Call it pony talent or somethin'." Then she shrugs. "Ya can't mass-produce things like what Vinyl helped make, 'least not until like a few years ago. 'Electro' was a thing because of her, but Ah think everyone else really took so long to catch up ta' her." Now she straightens up, fixing a curious look into his eyes. "So, what's gotten ya' here, starin' and mopin' around in the middle o' night?"

His breath is hitched. He finds his inner self caught off guard, aswim in many dangling threads made of memory. "It's a lot."

"How many's 'a lot?'"

"Hmm, how about we start with the entire shooting gallery with Fickle in the center of it all?"

Apple Bloom whistles loud and sharp. "Ah figured ya' were made of sterner stuff, but it's the first time yer' doin' intense security stuff."

Tall's eyes shift in response. The first floor looks appealing to him, much more so than his supervising officer for now. "It was the same mostly. I did my time in close protection, escorting the usual list of names around in my corner of Griffonia. Makes the political connections come easier, too, for my clan."

Apple Bloom's replying stare cuts through the implication—or lingering question—like butter. "What do ya' think about stayin' here for the long haul?"

He does chuckle. "You know I'm not exactly free to do that. The Grasses will come asking for my whereabouts."

She leans in closer. Car horns pierce the air—an auto accident that almost was. "There's a way out you can take right now."

Tall's breath hitches again.

"Walkover's sometimes gets contracts for smugglin'—actually rescuin'—kirin 'cross the border through some big nirik fort or checkpoint, but that's not the whole thing. They need ta' get through bureaucracy and everythin' about it jus' so they can get registered as real North Kirian citizens. We know a few gals here an' there doin' the dirty paperwork for us. They're good at their jobs."

Tall nods, understanding the hidden invitation. "It's an honor system and you know that, too. I take the easy way out, then what? My reward will be the shame of running away from the responsibilities of adulthood."

"Yer' in yer' twenties, yer' prime, and ya' talk like yer' a foal too scared to grow up?"

"It's cultural."

She sits still in the silence, an invisible Yeah, fair discerned in her features. They filter out the rest of the sounds of the outside, the city closing in on them with the arguments of apartments across the street and the sizzling of a kitchen downstairs—the receptionist, whose name he's forgotten, cooking for herself a midnight snack. For him, it's a nice distraction, trying to recall her name.

"We can still protect ya'. Ya' don't have to abide by those standards forever if it's getting' at ya' hard."

"Says the pony," he says. Now he winces away.

Apple Bloom's ears wilt at that. She chooses not to answer. Instead, "Well, if that's so, how're ya' gonna leave the business when yer' contract here's up?"

More traffic noises give him time for the awkwardness he caused to slip away. "When we help bring enough stability to Kiria by taking down one of the big three nirik warlords. Have to get the kirin back in Skyfall feel safe moving back here—all of them. It's a pipe dream, but still…."

"Takin' down Winter Frost would be yer' best bet as a first target," she says. This, he knows from old newspapers back in old Griffonia—leader of religious fundamentalist kirin, the Sororal State of the Champions of Concord. The articles over the years have rambled on about this dying flame of the past, where Winter rules and reigns supreme, suffocating any chance for a spring of freedom. For all intents and purposes, Winter is the new Matriarch—Rain Shine having been missing for so long, the head of the national Kirian faith a pathetic no-show.

The scant few pictures taken of her, he remembers—tucked away in the front pages—are images of scowling fangs and flames trying to wear divine robes and headgear.

"She's a juicy target," Tall remarks. "Fickle's made enough speeches that dove deep into why her policies would doom the country."

"Can't imagine they'd be drinking buddies. Heard they argued over and over in that national plenum assembly thing right before Fickle did his north secession thing." Gone unsaid is the assumption or the insinuation that nirik can't really make a long-lasting government… otherwise, Fickle would've invaded by now.

A minute passes by in reminiscence and imagining scenarios—at least, for Tall—where such a war would happen and how it would end in decisive victory.

Apple Bloom then stands up, beginning to leave him to his own devices and his remaining capacity to stay awake. "What we do have now is Fickle's gonna make a big PR stunt. 'The attempt on mah' life has left me scarred an' deformed!' Somethin' like that…."

Then her hoofsteps move past him, accompanying the sprays of cleaning mixtures.

The waters bobbed around decades ago in another continent, another world, another city, in one of the hectic fish-smelling ports of the Grand Duchy of Feathisia where the griffons spoke a strange language. The joke was that it didn't sound like a serious language, and Tall in years before—back when discipline hadn't existed for a young, idealistic foal like him—had openly mocked those who used the "funny tongue." Beerken werken merken! A stern dressing down from his father on his last business trip had put an end to that nonsense.

His father's trips were frequent, then getting more so. Not so long ado, they'd obsessed over their homeland—distant and spoken in hushed tones or formal praise—returning to the land of the living. Emerging from the shadows of the Silence, Concord would bless the Realm once more. Hope had sprung around a new mare, a politically unknown wildcard—a poor citizen who'd dropped out of her temple's education… Autumn Blaze, the very one who'd taken two Elements of Harmony to the Matriarch of Kiria herself, Rain Shine, to spell out to Her the plain and simple truth: the Silence hurt everyone, and it would trap everyone in a cycle of pain and suffering unless she reversed course.

That train of thought made Tall ask, in a world-class café while his father was drafting up letters and his mother was busy being deceased, "Will we go back home?"

"We'll see!" he replied. The newspaper divided the table between father and son, kept the former's list of contacts well hidden. "We still have much to do back here, but if and when Autumn does her job, then we'll embark on something special."

Then marching into view was a griffon, chatting it up with a mare he'd met likely at some other café. A gun slung around his barrel, while she had a bag brimming with notebooks and quills. Their good-hearted laughter tickled the air around them.

"Maybe I could go home as a soldier?

"Oh, it's too dangerous for someone as young and inexperienced as you!" his father answered. "You will have to learn so many things before you can begin considering a tour of duty there, and that is if there will be any war at all! But this I promise you: if you can handle the work the Clan will provide you in the near future, then I will recommend you personally to the recruiters I know…."

Downstream, following the babbling river, zooming across the countryside on a rickety van to a humble village not too far from here, now they say. They say they'll still see the city when they make it, although every mile passing by shrinks the skyscrapers by a considerable lot. The river down here is part of a delta, Tall learns, churning in hues of blues and browns passing from the metropolis to the Greater Fragrance Area, where the apartments and the malls lose a few stories in height for every half-mile, which is every half-mile that the teeming remnants of jungle and forest reclaim. Only a bit. Nothing compared to the shadowy copses of griffon-run Adelart on the other side, once run by a merry band of bandits—

"So, ya were sayin' somethin' about how ya were fightin' in some magical place?" Apple Bloom asks Nascente in the middle of something, which gets Tall's attention.

He obliges. "Oh, Barrad? That very dark and magical place? It is… very unusual. You could say." He hopes to latch his eyes onto something else. "Many of our old refugees came over when we captured all of Barrad. The scenes I saw—they were really like fairy tales. A mad prince, a great fog… they say the rest is history, I know. To actually be there, in arms, however…."

So with every bump of the road, his tale grows: ghouls rising from the ground until their necromancer masters had their heads blasted by artillery, clockwork creatures turning their gears and winding up punches and guns, slowing down a magical deer whose aura shifted and glowed with dying souls from the underworld… and a zebra who could summon other demons and spirits from another version of the beyond.

"It was mayhem. Take a look from my perspective. You are down in the trenches, staving off dirt and mud, and what do you see? Emaciated skin on the other side, and their eyes glow all eery, and that corpse rips your friend apart. What did I do then? I shot my dead friend in the head—Brilharem—he had to die with his head removed from his body."

"I assume the obsession with demons was related?" Eckhard asks out of the blue.

For how sharp the probably intended faux pas was, Nascente takes it in stride. "Such arts were outlawed in Kasa until very recently. A culture built on liberation had to reckon with the liberty of 'those occultic freaks,' if you know what I mean? It did not go so well at first because we all remember what was leaked about Asinti who was a former Kasan citizen before they found out what he was doing to his victims, but we had to be true to our principles."

"He should've gone to Equestria, is what I'm saying. Hey, Captain Apple… hey, Apple, maybe they should've sent them to Equestria. The princesses could turn the demons into statues for redemption a hundred years down the line, right?"

The driver-captain shakes her head in embarrassment. "Ah swear, if Ah weren't this tolerant, Ah'd shoot ya on the spot."

Spectating the discussion, Tall nods his head at the Changeling War veteran's implication. The changelings' new republic has had its growing pains, so say the papers, and while there hasn't been any mass stoning of Chrysalian war criminals, the cries by the pony masses to have them stoned anyway persist. A panic to contain the ever-present threat of another war….

"By the way, heads up on the new corporal y'all 'll meet. She's a riot, Ah'll say."

The ride continues in solace. Fresh bridges crisscross over the river, traffic converging and diverging at these waterway crossroads. Flat slabs and ornate temples decorate the horizon, the latter slanting up as old pagodas alight in the sunshine with fragrant candles.

A little drop-off over a hill and down there lies more modern flat roofs and square houses though surrounded by old stone and wood covering vast courtyards, with wooden patterns matted in glorious, vibrant crimson. The earsplitting sound of drills hits Tall next, fading in as his eyes settle upon the organized chaos of the construction team wriggling up and down the hills, surrounding the river with concrete and dugouts and heavy-duty vehicles overturning vast heaps of dirt, marked with logos boasting about some Consortium. Nothing like the colossal water barriers proposed in Equestria, but a dam is a dam, and the idea of a "simple" wall taking a river by the throat and squeezing every last inch of energy it could from this natural feature is enough to stun him.

"The Indigo River Dam," Apple Bloom announces. "Decent electricity for cheap? Let's hope that promise sticks."

Their van slows upon their approach to the chain-link gates barring the public from the site, past boxy residences and onto grassless soil after clearing IDs by the guards. Work crews, organized by colored stripes on their vests, shovel and drill away or haul sacks of yet more material for the actual power plant, wires and transformers and the works. Waterproof suits are on hoof though quite plasticky, implying cost cuts and the fear that a few drops of liquid may penetrate the outer layers yet.

Helmeted police faces radiate suspicion upon the squad's arrival; Tall smiles and waves, which does nothing to lighten their mood. Apple Bloom does the talking now to the newly appointed mayor of this newborn village who replies, decked out in a three-piece suit, "Then it is decided. The last team has not been well-disciplined, but I blame the eternal fickleness of youth! You, on the other hoof, are a multi-racial team! I would like to confide in the four of you that they do not trust each other in the uniforms you are wearing—they say it makes you traitors! But you and your kind pony face? You will make this crack team much easier to swallow!"

"Thanks for yer' helpful racism," Apple Bloom deadpans.

He laughs at that instead. "That's what makes you Equestrians so useful! Very straight, to the point, when you cut through the cute facade! With a pony leading the way, I am sure you will operate like the clear-cut professionals you appear to be!"

"Oh, they're professional, alright!" shouts a high-pitched voice, and the owner of said voice trots in—a pink mare whose curls and freckles made her look more the part of a lost foal wearing a Nightmare Night costume party outfit than somepony geared up, hefting an assault rifle and extra ammunition.

Apple Bloom's deadpan face couldn't become more dead. "Everypony, meet Corporal Cozy Glow. She'll be your immediate CO during this operation."

"And it'll be an honor for you to serve under me!" Cozy boasts in that sickeningly sweet tone, and only now does Tall notice that she's been carrying a few boxes, walking alongside a few vested workers—now she's putting a few down, boxes of wires and plugs. "It will be so much fun to work together!" Fragments of coin-baiting headlines return to him: FOAL THREATENS STABILITY OF EQUESTRIA! VANQUISHES MAGIC FOR SEVERAL HOURS! A quick stint in Tartarus for her crimes ends up a blessing in disguise thanks to cries to give the foal a second chance in the aftermath of the Great War. The last he read of her, she was out "rehabilitating" in some vague manner. "And how's AB doing?"

"Doin' fine," she says, clearly trying to shrug it off. "Ah hope ya' know what to do with these folk?"

"Oh golly, these very clearly trained thugs have to ask little ol' m e?"

"Yer' thirty, and Ah still think yer' older than me by a smidge."

"But little ol' me?" She squishes her cheeks and her eyes grow sad like a depressed puppy's.

Apple Bloom responds with a roll of her own eyes.

Security shift begins at 1900, and the first thing to note in Indigo is, after getting used to the smells and sights, is how forced every design choice seems. The precise calculations for mathematically pleasing parks and gardens in the lowliest of apartment complexes in the Griffonian Empire's capital was at least democratically voted upon by a bunch of intellectuals. Here, the street grid and its prefab homes with only the faintest hint of local Kirian culture conjures up images of cardboard boxes surrounded by forest and jungle.

Spruced up by the tour which the mayor—who Tall learns to be Cottoned Roseate—is giving him from the crest of the hill. Down they trot, examining pipes and turbines, glad-hoofing the leaders of each work team.

"This here is the weir. See, the Consortium is very forward-thinking. They've scouted many dams across the world, but they've also scouted out many water mills, especially the ones in Feathisia—the tulips there are lovely, aren't they? Here, however, there many more kirin than there are griffons in their own kingdoms. What can work for them cannot work for us with how dense the population can get. So, may I ask you what the solution is? That is right: Modernize river dams! It's very clear to you and me. We shall run this lean, as they say. The risk that comes with conventional dams is that, with a reservoir, you risk having water build up gas and other unwanted substances that come from being stagnant for so long, so…."

After letting him ramble on for a few more minutes, Tall lays out a smile. "The idea seems very sound, sir."

"Oh, yes, it is sound! Which is why I am glad that you are here. The years I am sure you will accumulate in service of Kiria will not go unnoticed."

"More than just getting more rivers to dam?"

"Much more than rivers to dam, dear one," he says, now almost down to the foot of the hill, approaching the work-in-progress power station—more wires being rolled out. Lights smell of damp dirt and icky sweat. "Your presence here is both welcome and the result of a sorry state of affairs." Those nirik terrorists can blow this up and disrupt the lives of so many.

A little while later, Tall finds himself back with the squad. Orders were given before: patrol these routes, oversee these areas, watch out for these potential problem workers who might cause a scene.

There's something to overhear: a competition, cliquish behavior between two teams, marked by those differently colored vests and badges. An argument, a competition, calls for bets in coins and change before a helmeted foremare steps in—"Enough! We will assess this!" By the grip of her magic, she drags the both of them into a tiny concrete shack—her little office, flanked by a few police officers. Through the window, he can see outlines of a scoreboard for each team and smell faint notes of cheap, sacheted instant coffee around the rims of paper cups.

So the night continues.

"Heya." Corporal Glow strides right up the hill to where Tall has stationed himself. The city's skyline is alight with the glitter of neon from afar, hazy colorful lines painting the air all around. It births new lights, those of ships and cars slithering home after beating merciless traffic past the day shifts. Now she sidles up to him. "I bet you wanna know the feelings of a would've-been mass murderer? That look in your eyes just sparkles with curiosity, mister!"

"I… did not ask?" Tall confusedly asks.

"Oh, it's all about being a changed filly! My time as a stone statue was pretty sad! Just picture the absolute tragedy in your head—"

"I've read about it before, I know."

"Hmm, is that how you talk to your superiors? I am the corporal in this arrangement. Didn't your parents tell you to respect older creatures?"

Tall scoffs. "As Equestrians say, you're one to talk."
"Oh, well, I'm sure the dear moms and dads of Equestria didn't mind that their foals were okay with locking another foal up in eternal conscious torment just because she had a severe lapse of judgment. Can't explain why it's the teens and older folks that got on my case back in the day, but hey, that's all in the past! Which includes everything before prison reform!"

"The poster foal for prison reform," he half-repeats. The heyday that the Equestrian penal system had after Cozy Glow's grand pardon-slash-probation, of releasing so many prisoners and having nearly everyone go through smaller friendship schools…. "You ponies truly are strange creatures. They'll forgive you after petrifying you. With griffons or anyone else, they'll have stabbed you in the chest, even if you were just a child, for threatening a fundamental part of the world."

"Those griffons must have very bad manners," she says, eyes scanning the sectors downhill for any off-putting behavior. Tall remembers his duty and mimicks her. A security officer prevents access to someone's dinner—no eating on the job before your mandated break time.

"You're here for… redemptionary work, right?" After Cozy nods, "When does it end?"

"When they say so, and by they, that's Apple Bloom. She watches over me, you know? 'Don't give anythin' else another thought, Cozy! Ah'll take care o' everythin' while yer' here!' She's forgotten we're the same age. Her being a principal that one time at school must've gotten to her head."

It then hits him in the head that this whiny mare almost took over Equestria and would've drained it of all its magic. He straightens up, tries to keep her complacent. "So she's watching over you, making sure you don't, say, steal Kiria's magic and usurp the Vermilion Throne?"

"Watching over me with a hundred sticks and zero carrots. They promised something much worse than Tartarus if I pull that off."

Another fight down there breaks out. Dirt slung in the air from target to target, then shovels transformed into melee weapons and power tools threatened lethal action. Only the intervention of the foremare, with her rants about quotas, saves the night.

Cozy trots down the hill, following her patrol. So does he.

"How'd you like it here, Corporal? In Walkover's?"

She takes time to think on it. "I could tell you a lot about my first year against changeling insurgents after the war. The great thing about flushing out love bugs? Emotional manipulation is a virtue! And I'm good at that! But they're the bad minority. So many honest, hard-working changelings want to get rid of their speciesist legacy but they're bogged down by a few bad apples. What do you think of that? A terror cell busted here, a terror cell turned into fine green mist there, and before you know it, Apple Bloom finally caught on to what I could do!"

"I figure the princesses think if they can't fix you, might as well offload you somewhere else where you can't harm other ponies?"

"That makes them sounds speciesist," she jabs. Then, in a mock accent—the freckles not helping her attempt at being all scary—"What're you insinuatin', punk?"

With a chuckle, he offers, "Pony culture sounds utilitarian when I put it that way. That's what I'm insinuating."

Another argument by the dam breaks out as they descend, drowned out by distance and river sounds.

The temporary office shack stinks of old mint and foreign essential oils. The small dinghy square is lit up through the window, and now, Tall greets Nascente guarding the door, who says, "Want to shift, Feskie?" Examining the intent in his eyes, "You want to see the boss mare, no?"

"Breaks the routine." Then Nascente is off the door, letting him inside.

Generic paintings of landscapes with sentences in Kirian frame the single desk, glossy, recently varnished underneath a spreadsheet and several calendars. Typing away at a couple calculators and a new-fangled magi-computer—a hunk of gears and active spells—Quick Squall (so goes the nameplate) looks up.

"Ah, my next suitor?" she asks sarcastically. "Also, it's fortunate that you are a kirin unlike the rest of your military outfit."

"I sure do hope I am a kirin, yes," he says, half-joking.

Her restrained laughter grants him success. "You'll do, you'll do, but I'm on the clock, and they are, too." She side-eyes the scoreboard hanging on the wall. Noticing the hesitation on Tall's features, "Extrinsic motivation and turning intangible experiences into tangible information I can use to take us further. Business 101."

Tall doesn't ask about what happens if someone doesn't improve on the job. The trajectory is demotion in short order, he thinks. "You're making everyone compete against each other for prizes... to simplify, right?" He spots the badges differentiating teams and points. Promotion and relegation just like soccer leagues. A few names find themselves at the bottom—at risk of getting kicked out entirely. Or, replaying the scenes in his head of guns to associates' heads asking them to indeed leave the family of their own free will, do just that.

She wouldn't have been a hit with some of the more red-leaning creatures back in Griffonia, he concludes.

It's sitting at the edge of a tiny work camp, watching the darkness for what it is: a shroud where the real fears lurk in for their prey.

Several helmeted crewmates relax during their mandatory break, cracking open cans to the sizzle of affordable ice-cold beer mixed with energy drinks and powders. Mega Booster Flavor!!! advertises one such packet, and having witnessed a few kirin carry a dozen sacks of concrete in the span of a few minutes, Tall muses that the name may be appropriate. Finally, in the corner, a little shrine juts into view—a seconds-long prayer to Concord, then they walk away.

"Where's the wrench?" one of them cries out. Eyes wide open—it's missing. Curses string out of their muzzles shortly after. His team leader rises from the small crowd, now yelling, "Why are you all careless?" "It wasn't me! We just didn't know—" "Enough excuses! Find it! We can't fall behind!"

Tall takes a safe distance from the others. Now a routine check on the perimeter—nothing suspicious spotted. Choosing to feel more useful than looking scary to any would-be hooligan, he strides his way to the little work camp, scanning tufts of tall grass to see if the missing tool's dropped there.

Nothing yet but more grass, more of his namesake.

"I'm at risk, amn't I?" a voice whispers from the side.

Tall holds his rifle's grip tight, never to let it go. A sideways glance shows a vest and a helmet and a face just like the others. "You know better than to sneak up on a soldier like that. I could've shot you."

"Then you'd have taken out the garbage just as you were paid to do."

Several bags and toolboxes are overturned in search for that cursed wrench over the team leader's panicked insistence. "I pumped creatures in the scummy underworlds of Skyfall and Fezera much smarter than you and they cracked," Tall replies. "I've been through a war. An attempted revolution. I know how politics goes, and you're going to tell me that the bosses never cared about you, they'll throw you out because you'll slip and fall and you'll be abandoned on the streets."

The voice gulps and shakes his head. "You know about it. It sounds like you've never been there. This is the highest I've reached. My fall will be like none's ever seen, but you'll never know that."

His hoof ignites.

Tall wraps it with his own, extinguishing the little flame. One of the team leaders finally glances their way—Tall meets it with his own glance, assertive. "Doesn't seem to be here, sorry! If it's taking you all so long, though, I'll get some tools from the van."

The gruff figure—Tall mentally calls him Mr. Helmet, no name tag in sight—both snarls and smiles. "You have my gratitude. Just you, sir. Vetch here will have less than no gratitude."

Trying to ignore Vetch's own snarls, Tall perseveres with his own glad-hoofing smile. "You'll have a new wrench to replace the missing one! Just put it on my tab and leave this mess behind."

"I respect your very kind attitude, mister, but the Consortium is very picky with its tools and where they go. We certainly do not want them falling into the wrong hooves even as a stray weapon by some burglar. Please go on your way and get a temporary wrench for us while Vetch here will look for the missing item."

Tall squeezes Vetch's hoof tighter. The fire doesn't die, he feels, coursing against his coat. With his magic, he presses a button on his walkie-talkie. "Mister Boss, sir—I apologize, I haven't caught your name—"

Then the sky and the grass are alight in a screaming column of fire, enough to vanquish the night.