Three is hugging the pilot's neck, tears still streaming down from his eyes, as the griffon carries him into Magpie's office.

"What happened?" asks Magpie, stumbling to all fours from his chair with a hiss of pain.

"The Black Ops agents planted corruption bombs at the spots we discovered. The changelings must have found one which, according to the mapping scanners, activated all of them."

"Where's Thirteen?" asks Magpie which makes Three start sobbing louder.

"I think she realizes she couldn't outrun the corruption cloud so she threw Three through the front window and ordered us to turbo out of there. Sir, what the Black Ops did… that has been outlawed by the Emperor himself after the uprising on pain of total annihilation of everything and everyone connected to it."

"Yeah, but the Black Ops don't report to the Emperor, do they?" Magpie frowns, "Damn it, this means we're cut off from Chineighese caravans, who knows how long until the power lines from the power plant to the north rot, and we're bound to have Corrupted on our doorstep-"

The intercom on Magpie's desk hisses, the griffon pushes the button, and Castor's voice speaks up in a strangely distant, detached tone:

"S-Sir, are you there?"

"What went wrong now?" Magpie rolls his eyes.

"Are you- and are you sure?"

"What? Castor?"

"Sorry, sir. I had to confirm something."

"Spit it out!" Magpie raises his voice.

"We have intercepted a message on Silas Irongrip's private comms. It said… it said that… that Emperor Cassius Irongrip has been killed by a Vash sniper during the defense of Southeast Flow Dam. It was a trap. The Vash had a massive numbers advantage but still had to retreat when faced with the Imperial Guard and the Emperor himself. They went in first to prevent immense casualties among the GIL, obliterated the core of the Vash army, but had to take a risky position against the mobile nomads which got him into a position without enough cover. Vash lost over three quarters of their main army but… but we lost the Emperor."

"What do you mean we, Castor? Cassius was the guy thanks to whom you were starving just a few weeks ago. We should be thankful for any weakness in the position of the Irongrips."

"Sir, with all due respect, I wish you'd reconsider your words right now," says Castor quietly.

Magpie looks at the pilot who is sitting on his haunches, saluting with one foreleg and hugging Three with the other, and then he walks over to the fireplace.

"I… think I'm going to need an explanation here, Castor."

"Sir, we might be the number one enemy of the Irongrips but that's just politics and the result of Veronica's and Legius' betrayal of the principles of the Griffon Empire. We understand that the retribution was cruel to common griffons but there are none of us, sir, not a single griffon who didn't respect Emperor Cassius and the stability the Empire enjoyed under him until the Redtalon uprising. The Emperor might not have been a tactical genius or a smooth-talking politician but he was something much better - a strong, straight griffon who no matter what considered the all griffons the members of the Empire. Well, until you know what."

Magpie grits his beak.

"Could it have been his orders to blow up corruption bombs north of Bloodstone to cut off our only viable supply route and let us get eaten by Corrupted?"

"What?!" gasps Castor.

"The airship crew returned just now with the news. We lost Thirteen trying to get out of there before the explosion could affect them all."

"I don't believe it..." Castor breathes out, "The Emperor would never order something like that. It was a Black Ops operation so it must have been Cassius' brother Nicolai. My tactical guess would be that with his brother's death, he resorted to something drastic so that no one would attack the heartland until the succession situation is solved."

"Alright, Castor. Is there any tradition, any ritual we should do or something?"

"I'll take care of it, sir. I just needed your permission."

"You got it. First things first, though. We're going to need mass patrols in the north ASAP and someone to repair the Black Ops airship."

"Will do, sir."

The intercom shuts off.

"Anything else to report?" Magpie looks at the pilot.

"No, sir. We flew straight here, outrunning the explosion."

"Got it. Dismissed. Three, come over here, will you?"

Three drops on the carpet and give Magpie a pleading look the griffon has no clue how to answer. Seeing that, the pilot quietly leaves.

Magpie looks at the silently weeping changeling staring blankly ahead and limps over to him with a sigh.

"Three?"

"I… I… I can't breathe..." whispers the changeling.

He looks unharmed so… a panic attack? He needs air.

No, he just came from the roof.

But changelings don't relax in the open air, do they?

He scoops Three up with his healthy foreleg, grits his beak at the agony of having to steady himself with the frostbitten and crippled one, walks over to his desk, and shoves Three under it.

"Better?" he asks after noticing a change in the changeling's stiffness and shallow breathing.

"Too much..." whispers Three, "I wanna go home..."

"This is the only home we have right now, Three."

"Thirteen..."

"What happened to her?"

"The egg we found grew into a plant that blew up a cloud of dust. It caught up with her and… I lost her link."

"Does that mean she's... dead?"

Three pauses for a moment and then shakes his head.

"No. No, it doesn't..." he says, a sense of revelation in his voice.

"From what I heard about the uprising, those things turned an entire city into a territory filled with Corrupted instantly."

"But we faced the spindlies before! She's the boss' daughter. He survived poison meant to kill dragons and spindly infection! I'm stupid, I'm so stupid! We could have returned for her after the explosion. We can still go! She's strong, she'll be waiting for us!"

"How likely is that, really? I don't know anything about changelings being resistant to corruption."

Three grits his teeth and the sudden spark of fire in him dies off instantly.

"I… I want to… but I can't lie… I'm sorry, Thirteen. Mister Magpie, changelings are naturally resistant but only a little bit. Those of us who fought the spindlies could resist, especially Miss Gem or the boss… but not… Thirteen. I'm sorry. I want to lie… to say she... she could be okay but… no. Even I can't believe it."

Magpie takes a deep breath.

"Screw it, let's go," he stands up.

"Huh?" Three looks up into Magpie's face, clearly not having expected anything even close to an agreement.

"You're a weird horsebug and I've spent years surrounded by corruption and Corrupted. Who better go looking than us? Got that shield generator?"

Three reaches behind his back where there clearly was nothing and pulls out his beard. He fastens the fake wires by his ears, then reaches inside the beard and pulls the shield generator out, offering it to Magpie who shakes his head.

"Three, I can barely walk with one leg like this. This is on you. I have a pistol but you have to keep us safe. It's that or we're not going anywhere."

"I… I understand," Three nods and stands up with a terrified but determined expression.

Without another look at Three, Magpie heads out of the office, followed by the quiet tapping of Three's hooves.

What sort of monster wouldn't do anything to cheer up the saddest puppy in the world?


"Eeek, bumpy!" Three wraps his fetlocks around the hoof rests of his seat as the airship trembles, accompanied by screeching and cracking of frozen ground.

"Flying this thing is much easier than landing!" groans Magpie, unlocking his seat belts soon after the airships stops, "I sincerely hope we don't have to take off in a hurry. I have my theory about some of the buttons here but I'd prefer learning how and when to use them from an expert."

In their haste to leave Bloodstone once again to check out the location of the first expedition, the airship pilot could teach Magpie only the most basic way to start the systems, control the flight, and the theory of landing. Neither of them could expect that with a good chunk of the bridge window missing, the freezing air and the quick flight would make even reaching some of the required buttons as one griffon a chore, doubly so for someone with limited mobility like Magpie.

Unfortunately, time was of the essence so they couldn't wait for volunteers and they weren't willing to risk griffons who had never come into contact with corruption before losing control over themselves even while waiting inside the ship.

So here they are, roughly at the edge of the line of forests north of Bloodstone. Three is wearing a headlamp to help Magpie see as well as the shield generator around his foreleg. Magpie is wearing a helmet with the same lamp, light version of the GIL armor, a sawed-off shotgun for use with only one foreleg, and a pistol of a much larger caliber than any standard GIL sidearm. After all, no pea shooter would have enough stopping power against a Corrupted.

They exit the ship, Three in front and Magpie right behind him.

"Can you sense her?" asks the griffon.

"No, I can't. We drones can't do much of the mental stuff anyone else can so she'd be able to sense me from much further than I could sense her even if she might not be entirely herself."

"Alright, then keep your ears perked at least. The soil under us feels corrupted so there's a chance of something crawling out of the ground to take us from the back," whispers Magpie.

"Got it!"

They head north, deeper into the newly tainted forest, breathing as quietly as they can in order to hear anyone coming. After roughly an hour of searching, Magpie trips and falls on the ground like many times before but now it takes an audible grunt of pain to get up.

Three hangs his head low for a moment before trotting over and helping him up.

"We should go back," he says, "I haven't sensed any trace of her, the corruption bomb has covered the snow we could use to find tracks, and this can't be good for your leg."

"You sure?" asks Magpie.

Three sighs.

"I am. She's either too far and that can be anywhere or she's a Corrupted now. The Bloodstone griffons can't afford to lose you too. Let's go," he nods towards the direction of the ship somewhere in the distance, "Maybe once the ship is fixed and we can assemble a proper crew willing to face corrupted air we can come back and do a proper sweep from the air."

Magpie has nothing to say to that. Three is being smarter than him despite the situation having hit him the hardest.

Maybe he's not being stupidly positive all the time. Maybe he's only positive because he did many more calculations than anyone else. Maybe I am the one throwing out opportunities by being too negative about the chances.

Maybe we're both stupid and the reality is somewhere in the middle.

Yeah, that's it.

They return to the ship and Magpie starts the lift off procedure. Three, peeking one final time through the broken window furrows his brows.

"Hey, something is moving!"

"Where?"

"The tree line."

"Thirteen?"

"It's way too big and I still can't sense her," Three focuses love into his eyes, "Oh dear."

"What?"

"Corrupted griffons."

"Damn it, the starting ship must have alerted them..." Magpie grits his beak, "Three, buckle up. If the first Corrupted are appearing then the flytraps will be growing soon as well."

Three nods and fiddles with his seat belt as the airship rises into the air. Once secured, he examines the control panel around the map in greater detail.

"Mind if I try something?" he calls out loud so that Magpie can hear him over the rushing air.

The griffon only nods, his eyes flicking between the holographic map and the main window. Three leans closer and presses several buttons on the panel presumably controlling the map, each of which makes the map change colors. When the map turns dark blue with faint red spots, Three smirks to himself.

"That must be it!"

"What did you find?"

"This must be a thermal camera. Corrupted ground is warmer than the snow. I noticed that when we were down there."

"So did I. I had no idea the scanners on the ship could detect it, though."

Three returns to watching the map.

"Uh oh," he says after a while.

"What?"

Three points to the map currently showing a full blue view of the ground splattered with occasional yellow blotches of warmth randomly scattered along their flight path south.

"The territory must be expanding southward much quicker than we expected or there are some weird warm spots on the ground."

"Remember the coordinates the map is showing. I'll send out a patrol to check out what it might be once we land."


"I'm not a fan of doing this but I doubt we have a choice here. The brainiacs Twilight gathered are excellent with magic, decent at magitech compositions, but they're absolute potatoes regarding advanced tech," Gem stretches her real body in her underground room inside the research complex under Canterlot.

"Well, we are the best," the smaller, red-maned changeling shrugs, "Besides, I'm going to have Five and Seven on speed dial and Cryo and Eleven who can come kick some ass in case of trouble."

"Two, remember how I told you about the blood mage we escaped from in the Crystal Empire? Promi managed to get him locked up here again and, according to her, someone released him. I'll do my best to keep Six safe but I might need someone right here, not in the Badlands."

"Five could use some infiltration practice," Two winks at Gem.

"No, this isn't her forte. The security here is a bit too tight for her and we can't afford to replace any of the unicorns who work here. Their job is crucial. I need you here in case of the blood mage and I need Six here… I need him so that there's even the smallest chance of this thing working. I trust Twilight but I'm afraid she trusts the wrong kind of ponies."

"You think someone released that blood mage to finish you off? How does that make any sense? If Twilight is on your side, how would anyone even know that you haven't escaped to the Griffon Empire like Three and Thirteen?"

"First, I asked myself who would benefit from us dead but honestly, I got nothing."

"So it has to be illogical, right? Who hates us enough to release someone as dangerous as that blood mage? Am I right?"

"Yep," Gem nods, "And from what Promi told me about what happened when Blazing Light returned from the void after closing the universe-ending rift, I think there's only one pony with the position and the hatred who could do this - Celestia."

Two only raises an eyebrow.

"She's never been the biggest fan of us but endangering the country she's been leading and protecting for centuries like this? Do you have anything to support that claim?"

"No, I don't," Gem sighs, "I just can't imagine anyone else in the right position for this."

Two crossed her forelegs on her chest.

"Alright, I'm in. Under one condition, though."

"Which is?"

"You tell Twilight about me and have her allow me access to this place."

"What?!" hisses Gem, "Are you crazy?"

"That or nothing, sister," Two smirks in a way which Gem can only describe as 'somewhat insane', "If you don't do that for me, you can walk out of here, come find our city, learn how to work the new teleporter, and seek out Six on your own."

"Two, this nonsense is stopping the only chance out of this sunless mess."

"Exactly," Two boops Gem, "So why are you still arguing with me?"

"Fine, I'll ask Twilight to arrange official access for you and Six-"

"Nope, just for me," Two shakes her head.

Gem's jaw drops as she finally realizes precisely what Two's plan is.

"Two, you can't. I saw what the blood mage did to Promi and a unit of paladins. It's way too dangerous."

"Gem, someone already knows you're not in the Griffon Empire. It's likely they're suspicious that you might be in Canterlot or, to be exact, that one member of our hive is in Canterlot. You don't have official access, Six won't have any official access. It will be up to you to keep him safe and make sure he can work here in peace. I will have official access and I will be difficult but possible to find."

"Fine..." Gem breathes out, "Just… just be careful and don't hesitate to ask for help in case anything feels out of place. I know how crazy powerful Promi is and that… monster is much much worse."

"Oh Gem," Two leans closer, gently kisses Gem's nose, and adds in a whisper, "You have no idea what I can do."

Gem's brain freezes for a second and when she opens her eyes, Two isn't there, there's no scent of her left behind, and her hive link is gone. A quick look at the clock on the wall shows that two minutes have passed.

"I just wish you had some idea about what you can't do," Gem sighs.