Magpie slowly opens his eyes, roused from his mix of coma, sleep, and unconsciousness by someone shaking him.
"...ughh..."
"Warm water, here. That's the best we could get on short notice," says someone.
Talons grab his shoulders from behind and slowly pull him up into a position where his head rests on someone's lap, giving him a hazy view of himself wrapped in blankets. A griffon leans over him, the bright teal eyes contrasting with the dim light around, and carefully puts a half full glass to Magpie's beak.
Right… they got me out of the cage… then we ran… and then I must have passed out.
So, where are we?
One thing is clear as he forces himself to slowly slurp the warm water - he's reclining against transformed Three who is making sure he doesn't choke on his drink.
"What… happened?" he asks after he puts the empty glass away.
"We got you out!" he hears Thirteen.
"AAH!" Magpie twitches when new, improved and unmasked Thirteen leans into his field of view. The toothy mouth open into an unnatural ear-to-ear smile with the more hind part of her mouth connected by strands of sinew isn't good for the old sanity.
At least she still sounds the same.
Thirteen withdraws, her smile fading.
"Sorry," Magpie whispers, "Still not used to you… looking like that."
"He said sorry, are we sure there's no lasting brain damage?" Thirteen chuckles with a hint of nervousness.
"Enjoy it… while it lasts," Magpie forces a smirk too.
"No, seriously," Thirteen presses on, seeing a crack in the griffon's armor, "You keep stressing how dangerous us all being in the Empire is and then you, of all griffons, just waltz your face here."
"You're the idiots who… risked your lives coming here when you have someone waiting for you back home, not me," Magpie might be tired but minor things like exhaustion and deep tissue damage won't stop him from complaining.
"Yeeeah, makes me wonder what Gem would have to say about this," a shit-eating grin from Thirteen makes Magpie frown, if only because he knows she's currently on the winning side of the argument no matter what he might say and she knows it.
"You're forgetting that if I get either of you two killed, your succubus friend will be kicking my soul's nonexistent nuts in Tartarus for all eternity."
"Well, we're all alive and well and from the first look when we were wrapping you up, no bits have fallen off."
"Weird, I can't feel bits… quite a lot of my bits actually."
"We'll have a proper doctor take a look at you when we're safe, uhh, safer," Crimson joins the conversation, scowling at Magpie.
"Crimson? I thought you… didn't want to help?"
"You got my son killed," she growls, "This isn't over between us but he believed that talking you into taking things in Bloodstone into your talons would be better than leaving the reins to some Irongit."
"Heh, good one," the corner of Magpie's mouth curls up, "But Tasheed got all of us."
"You vouched for him," Crimson keeps glaring at him.
"He was… my old teacher and he was also… a Black Ops spy planted into the Redtalon family. I didn't know until we got ambushed in the fortress and he had the expected evil monologue explaining everything. I'm sure now he was the one who poisoned my father."
"I'm so sorry," Three discards reality again when he somehow manages to wibble his beak.
"No love lost there," Magpie closes his eyes and chuckles, "The head of the family and the N-th descendant usable only as a diplomatic chip, the usual story. It's the principle that counts."
"If someone poisoned dad-" Thirteen speaks up.
"I know a lot about your hive from your sister..." Magpie interrupts her, "You would be somewhere at the back of the list of the poisoner's problems. Look, noble families work differently. Let's leave it like that. How did you get me out... anyway?" he gestures to Three for more water, his voice growing steadier.
Crimson answers instead of the changelings.
"Warren was right. I just wanted a payback but he was right. The griffons here believe in Redtalons, believe they are part of the family themselves. No foreign Irongrip has a place here. I'm a bit more… practical, I'd say, but I must admit that snatching you right from under their beaks felt good," her permanent scowl softens a little, "I never thought we'd gather so much support without anyone selling us out but we did. Not a single griffon said a word about the plan and we got thousands within days. Thousands willing to die just to say 'fuck you' to the Irongrip invaders who robbed them, whose relatives or children starved to death in darkness just because Irongrips consider us traitors due to a squabble between noble families," with a sigh, she adds, "And dozens did. More got caught, I assume. We got our satisfaction out of it… and we got you."
They didn't die for me. Good. They died for whatever little revenge they could achieve.
"What happens now?" asks Magpie.
"The Irongrips are looking for you, that's all we know. I'm pretty sure they'll be doing a house-by-house sweep soon enough. You've been out cold for barely an hour," Crimson shrugs, "The changelings brought you to our meeting place and we took you away through the sewers."
"And where are we exactly?"
"The cellar of a random house, really," she nods to several griffons sitting around or quietly chatting, "Everyone scattered before the soldiers on thrusters could arrive. They clearly were expecting us to try and fly away, not go underground. What happens now… is up to you, really."
Magpie grits his beak.
"We gotta help!" says Three immediately.
"How and with what?" Magpie rolls his eyes, "Go on, I'm listening."
"I..." Three pauses, "Can we… hug-"
"The corpses on the ground in Bloody plaza? Or maybe it might persuade the Irongrips to be nicer to the griffons around here? Or the griffons who had to pick which member of their family starves because there's not enough food-" Magpie stops his angry rant.
This is stupid. Why am I being stupid? Why can't I leave this be? I'm a mercenary, that's all. I'm not a damn noble.
"-" someone opens their beak or mouth to say something but they're immediately interrupted by Magpie wrapped up like a carpet sitting up. Three grabs him so that he doesn't keel over again.
"There used to be assembly lines in factories and warehouses on the outskirts of Bloodstone."
"There still are," Crimson gives him a puzzled look, "But no companies are building or crafting anything due to Imperial orders to save energy for heating and lights."
"Any estimate on how long the power plants will be operational?"
"No… idea? As far as I know, power lines from the heartland are intact and the two coal power plants around Bloodstone are still running. Why are you asking? And even if we had the power to spare, it's not as if the assembly lines are universal enough to build something- to build what, anyway?"
Magpie smirks.
"Something that can grow nutritious although far from delicious food in the darkness and eventually in an amount sufficient for the whole city."
"What? Are you high? I thought your changeling friend was joking with the brain damage."
"Three, will you explain it to them? I need some rest and I don't know what the really long and technical words mean anyway."
"You're kidding, right?" Magpie slumps onto the hospital bed on which the doctor has been examining him for over three quarters of an hour.
"You felt it yourself," the doctor puts his notepad down on the table, "Three of our best neurosurgeons spent past week doing their best to fix you up. This is the result," he points to a dumbbell lying on the floor of the underground hospital room.
"You mean that even after everything I can't swing a mace without dropping it?!" Magpie raises his voice which ends with him launching into a coughing fit. The doctor waits for it to end before speaking again.
"Give it several months of recovery and physical therapy and you should get better. To what degree, though, is in the stars. The problem is that even if you do, the lung damage you suffered from such severe pneumonia and frost is beyond our ability to heal. You're going to run out of breath quickly and cause even more damage if you overexert yourself. You're absolutely unbelievably lucky to even be alive."
"Yeah, lucky. That was the first thing that crossed my mind too," Magpie scowls, "Are we done here?"
"Yes, we are," the doctor nods, "We did all we could to help without alerting the GIL soldiers. If possible, you should stay out of this hospital until they inevitably search the place from top to bottom."
Magpie nods, puts his clothes on, and limps out of the room. Three's on the other side of the door, keeping an eye on any potential intruders. He's in his changeling body as he and the other rebels have been using the sewers and there was little reason to remain disguised. Besides, it showed to the rebels around Crimson that changelings didn't necessarily have to look scary like Thirteen.
"How did it go?" he asks, "You've been there for a while."
"No more fighting, running, grabbing things, or breathing too hard," Magpie spits the words out, "You saved a useless blob of flesh. Congratulations."
"Awww," Three rubs his muzzle against Magpie's foreleg, "You're going to be okay. Hug?"
"This is medicine! You can't-" Magpie stops himself, "Oh fuck it, I don't need to keep losing brain cells in addition to everything else," he lifts a shaky foreleg and wraps it around the small changeling, "You earned one. Just one and you don't get to tell anyone."
"Yaaaaaay!" squee's Three quietly, grabbing as far up Magpie's neck as he can reach, his wings happily buzzing and all the runes on his body glowing brightly.
Magpie lets the hug linger for far longer than he originally wanted to because… it just feels good. Not like whenever he was lying next to Gem or anything. This is from a completely different world and makes him feel as if the weight of the recent months disappeared for just the moment. What makes him let go isn't the discomfort and effort of standing on one foreleg, rather the realization that after the initial bright pink glow lighting the otherwise dark hallway, the light of the runes faded into a shimmer. Three doesn't seem bothered at all, though, beaming at Magpie with the dislodged fake beard hanging by one ear.
Still, there's no reality in which Magpie would admit anything that's just crossed his mind to Three.
"I don't know what to do, Three," he looks ahead into the darkness, "It feels like decades ago when I was anything other than a minotaur toy or a travelling merc. I remember what I used to do back here but not how anything felt. The only thing I know how it felt was the cold, the pain, the blows I took, the way the minotaurs used me… and now I'm suspicious that even you could fight me on even ground. What am I good for?"
"Well…" Three scratches his head, leading the way, "All the griffons around here seem to think that you can lead them to a better tomorrow."
"I can't lead anyone. Leaders have to be likable or no one will listen to them."
"Really?" Three raises an eyebrow, "I don't think so. Miss One didn't like the boss at first, Miss Comfort didn't like the boss at first. Ten hated the boss at first," he shakes his head, "What I noticed about the griffons here is that they believe that Redtalon means more than just a ruling noble family. It's pride from being born and raised here. I don't think they consider you a traditional leader inspiring them to do something they don't want to do. To me this feels as if you're just a conduit through whom they can channel who they truly are. Not someone who says they must do this or that but someone who says they finally can do it," Three chuckles, "But what do I know? I just dig holes and hug creatures so that they feel better."
"I don't know if your boss ever was a cripple."
"Pfff," Three actually bursts out laughing and keeps going on for a surprisingly long while, after which he has to catch a breath and wipe tears from his eyes, "Did Miss Gem ever tell you that we first had to keep him hidden in a cellar, then Miss One carried his cocoon while he was transforming from a drone to a king for five years, and even afterwards he had to keep hiding because he couldn't transform properly?"
"How lucky did he have to be to survive?"
"Very," Three nods, "But it all comes to one thing."
"Which iiiis?"
Three shrugs and beams at Magpie.
"Boss is the best," when Magpie audibly facetalons, Three adds, "And he didn't give up no matter how horrible the odds against him were. Most of us could have survived if he died but not everyone, definitely not me or Miss Gem when she was little."
Magpie sighs.
"It's not as if I have a choice anyway. I can't limp out of the city and across the Empire to Griffonstone, I don't speak whatever mix of languages they speak east from here, and even if I could, I don't know anything other than fighting which I can't do anymore."
"Boss had Miss One, you have a city full of griffons. Granted, Miss One could probably beat them all up but it still counts, right?"
"I-"
"May I say one final thing?" asks Three with uncharacteristic hesitation which makes Magpie take a pause.
"Yes?"
"Thirteen didn't want to come here, I did. I didn't exactly understand her explanation why but it's her choice. Miss Crimson didn't want to help you until Thirteen hypnotized her a little. Don't worry, only enough so that she'd do what she really wanted to. If you're bothered about the griffons who died while we got you out..." Three looks down on the floor for a second before gritting his teeth and looking ahead again, "They're not your fault but only you can make their sacrifice count."
Magpie stares at Three before whispering:
"What are you?"
"Bzz bzz, I'm a drone and I dig holes," says Three and hums a short, innocent tune.
It's only four days and six "safe" houses later when a series of quick knocks, the current rebel code, on a cellar door inside a previously searched house interrupts Magpie's slow and overall depressing sparring session against Thirteen which, so far, has been definitely confirming Magpie's diagnosis from the hospital.
Magpie tosses the metal rod he's been using to attempt to break through Thirteen's defenses to her, she snatches it from the air with her weird collapsible hoof-claw, and he calls out in between heavy breaths:
"Come in!"
"Got news for you," Crimson walks inside, followed by a dark brown earth pony mare with light blond mane and tail clutching a broom, who gives the two changelings and one griffon in the cellar a quick glance before resuming staring meekly at the floor, "This is Dust Pan. She's been working in the fortress for the past month-or-so. One of our guys on the inside says she knows of a secret way in."
"I know a bunch of secret tunnels into the fortress," Magpie shrugs, "But considering how long Tasheed has lived with my family I have exactly zero doubts that he knows them all too."
"That's the thing, this one is supposed to be new and completely unknown," Crimson nods towards Dust Pan, "Although we haven't managed to figure out who made it and why," she taps on the mare's shoulder which makes her look up at her for a moment before returning to her shy position, her foreleg wrapped around a broom handle as if it was her lifeline, "She's mute, apparently, and sign language works waaay differently for griffons than for ponies."
Magpie hums to himself and drums his talons against the floor, pondering what to do. In the meantime, Thirteen approaches Dust Pan who only hangs her head lower. Something about the mare is making Thirteen's chitin crawl. The thing she calls "instinct" is screaming at her but there's absolutely no explanation as to why. The mare feels off, the mare feels wrong, and Thirteen can't, for the love of all holes, figure out what's causing it.
"Three, what do you think of her?" she asks Three who has been lying on the table in the corner, watching her and Magpie's exercise with one eye open.
"She feels strange but I don't think she's bad or anything. There's a lot of fear surrounding her. It must be rough being a pony in a griffon city so far from Equestria and she doesn't look as if she's from Chineigha."
"You don't think anyone is bad ever," Thirteen objects to Three's analysis.
"I'm not often wrong."
"But when you are it's fatal!" Thirteen raises her internal voice. When Three's mental image deflates and slumps a bit, she adds, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. I don't have any proof that she's bad which would stand up to scrutiny. She just… creeps me out and I don't know why."
"Well, you can keep an eye on her, right?"
"I definitely will."
In the real world, Three approaches Dust Pan, looks up at her, smiles, and gives her foreleg a hug. She withdraws a little, noiselessly opens her mouth, looks around, and then rubs her cheek against Three's.
"She's fine in my book!" reports Three via the hive link.
Thirteen just rolls her eyes, although the corner of her mouth curls up.
While this was going on, Magpie and Crimson have been discussing their current situation.
"-and by doing that the Irongrips have shot themselves in the leg. I knew Silas, the Irongrip regent, wasn't the smartest griffon Cassius could send here but discharging and disarming two thousand GIL soldiers only because they were born in these parts and had issues with firing at civilians, even using rubber projectiles?"
Magpie shrugs.
"Even if there are barely over a thousand soldiers left in the fortress, they could literally withstand the siege of the entire city. If we get in, numbers won't mean anything inside the hallways, even though they're huge in comparison to normal buildings. They're going to have an advantage in both weapons and training. You can't run griffons with melee weapons and pistols into a reinforced checkpoint with a minigun. I don't think a moment of surprise will do the trick, unless the secret passage leads directly into this Silas' headquarters."
Crimson shakes her head.
"Ground floor pantry next to the kitchens."
"And where is Silas staying?"
"As far as we know, lord Altberg's royal suite."
"So seven floors of nearly a city block size up from there. Soldiers are bound to notice," Magpie sighs, "Unless… Three, what about you and necessary violence?"
"No!"
"Okay, so what if you had to hug one griffon really really hard. Not hard enough to break anything but enough so that he can't move."
Three narrows his eyes.
"The funny thing is… I know you're playing me but I'm listening..."
