Maneard admired Gladstone for doing his best to find a silver lining to the dank room they were sitting in. The floors of the motel they found were stained with what looked like a mix of blood, saliva, and urine; the walls had been painted with what could be best described as puke green; and the entire place had a thin greasy coating that rubbed off with the slightest touch onto their coats. Gladstone had said it had a lived in feeling. Maneard agreed so long as the previous occupants had been a bunch of vomit-spewing puss sacks. Which when he thought about it they probably were.
At least it had all the qualities he'd been looking for in a temporary hideout: good enough reception for the antenna, multiple nearby exits, and a no questions asked policy. The receptionist had charged them extra for what she called the skyline view, in reality their view was of a brick wall they were just above the 10th floor. Maneard decided to write it off as an ignorance tax and go on his way, worth the signal strength in the end. Zecora was keeping dead quiet. The receptionist had tried to engage her in conversation, saying she made friends with the zebra musicians that passed through, that she loved the stories of their homeland. Zecora just stared at her blankly and Gladstone had made something up about only being able to speak our language through song. Maneard had laughed at the half-truth under his breath for at least 10 minutes.
"Where are you going?" Gladstone asked sleepily, looking at Maneard theough half shut eyes as he walked to the door.
"I'm going to grab some breakfast, get the lay of the land."Maneard explained, pulling the wooly jacket he had bought from a homeless man the night before over himself.
"Aren't you exhausted?"
"Course I am, but I doubt we'll be able to stay here more than a week."
"Pick me up something, will ya?" groaned Gladstone, rolling over to let the light from the hallway hit his back.
"Thought you were going to sleep?"
"I am, but I'm still starving."
The area around the motel was colorful to say the least. Drug dealers shared the street corners with the hookers that were addicted to to their wares. A homeless pony dozed drunkenly next to a garbage can overflowing with booze bottles. Somepony walked by with a cardboard sign with 'the end is nigh' and 'repent' written on the sides. The whole scene looked like it had been purpose built to make any city pony's skin crawl or country pony turn and run. Maneard looked straight ahead of him, being careful to avoid eye contact, and picked a random direction to walk.
He was going to get breakfast, but first he wanted to get some bearings on his surroundings. They had been more concerned with finding a place to stay than figuring out just where they were. The more he walked the worse the area became, and the more reassured he felt. No way somepony asking questions in this cesspool would get anywhere. The residents probably wouldn't even give a cop the time of day, let alone the whereabouts of some strangers.
Eventually his wandering led him to the a nice enough looking bakery. Nice enough because none of its windows had bars or cracks running down them. He slipped in and the rough looking mare behind the counter gave him a gap filled smile. Her wares didn't look much better either, some clearly moldy others covered in dust and cobwebs. Maneard let out a sigh. He never thought he'd feel homesick about Applejack's pies or Derpy's muffins, but sure enough he was missing them and the mares that made them right now. After a quick trip down memory lane, him and Applejack bucking apples for a bet against Big Macintosh, he picked the three least deadly looking pastries out of the display and walked back to the motel.
When he cracked open the door Gladstone and Zecora were fast asleep in their beds. So deeply that they didn't even twitch when he closed the door and fell onto the couch. Maneard let out a low groan and rested his head on the arm of the couch. His legs burned and cramped every time he shifted positions. His eyes stung from exhaustion but sleep wouldn't come. No matter how much he begged and pleaded for the world just to go away for a little bit, his mind wouldn't let him. There was work to be done still, sleeping was time being unproductive they couldn't afford.
After another thirty minutes of pleading with his worry to leave him alone just long enough for him to get some sleep, he gave up and slumped off the couch. He staggered stiffly to his saddle bags and started fiddling with the binding. He made a deal with himself, if he built the array he could go to sleep. Well the entire array except the stone that would actually send and receive the signals, that was up to Gladstone. Maneard started methodically snapping legs and braces together, bending this bit here, torquing that fitting there. The slow pace and tedium was just his speed, he felt himself start to slip into a doze, his eyelids grew heavy.
"Weren't you just a busy little bee last night."
"Wuh?" groaned Maneard.
"Come on sleepy head, we need to get to work."
Maneard pulled his head off the cheap plastic table it had been resting on. Gladstone stood in front of him, chewing loudly on one of the muffins he'd gotten earlier. The array stood in front of him, fully assembled. Maneard got to his feet and let out a loud groan as the feeling came back in his legs.
"Guess you were on one of your 'gotta get it done' kicks." said Gladstone, his voice muffled by a mouthful of muffin. "We'll need another one of those, press just got wind of what happened."
"How much do they know?"
"Fair bit, pinning the explosion at Calamus' shop on us though. Calling it a minor terrorist attack, some have theorized that we were just testing out one of the NLR's newest demolition spells."
"How many of our people's deaths are we being blamed for?" sighed Maneard, rubbing his eyes.
"Just Calamus, guessing that means everypony else cooperated."
"Yep. Where's the muffins?"
"On top of your saddlebags, Zecora already had her's."
"Where's she now?"
"Bathroom."
"I'm thinking we run with the punk rock cover story the receptionist gave us. Nopony's gonna ask to many questions of that."
"Makes sense." Gladstone said, cramming the last of the muffin into his mouth. "Any headway on finding the NLR?"
"Nope, gonna go bar hopping tonight, see if I can flush out anypony."
"What's your plan, go in and shout 'long live Celestia'?"
"Something like that."
Blood Diamond groaned as she fell back into her chair. Her office was normally cramped, but thanks to the mountains of paperwork that came with the raid on Ponyville it was even more so. She pushed several pounds of manilla folders out of the way and flicked her terminal on. Images of her raid on Ponyville popped up alongside over a dozen different agents synopsis's of the prisoner's confessions. The fact that all of them seemed to crack the moment the black bags were taken off made Blood Diamond chuckle.
She closed the half dozen windows and pulled up the newly gathered files of Maneard, Gladstone, and Zecora. Gladstone's was annoyingly dull, nothing in it but how much of a model citizen he was. Zecora managed to be a bit more interesting. Research grants, Science Visas, even a couple of commendations from Celestia herself about random herbal discoveries. Finally Blood Diamond clicked on Maneard's file, now that one was juicy.
The first thing to greet her when she opened the dossier was his mugshot with terrorist in giant block letters underneath it. Not even Gladstone had gotten that treatment yet. The rest was absolutely enthralling. Papers accusing Celestia of tyranny and corruption being traced to his name; evidence of him being at various NLR training camps; most deliciously a speech of his at an infiltrated recruitment rally. Blood Diamond downloaded the clip for later. Listening to the newest member of the terrorist hunt list's first moments of NLR allegiance would be a lovely thing to wind down to. She closed the window and got up, not wanting to spoil the thrills of Maneard's file with his no doubt tragic past.
The warehouse shook and bounced in unison. Maneard sheilded his eyes from the ever flashing and changing lights behind jet black sunglasses that he suspected could block out the sun. In the farthest corner if the massive building stood DJ Pon3 bobbing to the incomprehensible noise she was mixing. Everything else though was nothing but smoke and silhouettes. Maneard found the bar more out of instinct and luck than anything else. The ponies around it were are sipping elaborate and violently colored cocktails.
"Hardest cider you've got." Maneard shouted over the rave's music, getting the barkeeps attention.
"How do you want it?" was the gruff dark brown pony's response.
"Straight." chuckled Maneard, noting the pony's cutie mark was a ocktail shaker.
"You've already got your mark, no need proving yourself. What do you really want?"
"You don't fuck with a good thing. Cider, straight."
"Shamrock would like you, go order from him."
"Why can't you just-"
"Trust me, he's just over there," the barkeep pointed to the far end of the bar, "the gray pony with a cloverleaf on his flank."
Maneard groaned and started sidestepping his way down the bar. Apologizing over half a dozen times for accidentally bumping into somepony or jostling their elaborate drinks. By the time he got to Shamrock he was quietly fuming. All this for a fucking cider, one that was probably going to be warm piss compared to what Applejack used to brew.
"I was told I had to order from you." Maneard called after the stallion while he balanced a tray of bottles on one of his hooves.
"Guess you ordered a real drink den," Shamrock replied in a breezey yet still firmly masculine voice, "what are you having, bucko."
"Hardest cider, nothing fucked with."
"A stallion after me own heart." Maneard internally danced with joy when Shamrock pulled out a Sweet Apple Acres bottle and poured it into a mug. Simple and fucking great. "Sorry 'bout Mixer, he only knows the filly drinks the ponies round here like."
"It's no problem, doubt he'd have even given me the right bottle if he'd done his job." Maneard joked knocking back the mug in one gulp.
"You'd be right there." shouted Shamrock, laughing loudly. "Tell me where you're from, lad."
"I might ask you the same thing."
"Damlin, thought you might be wonderin'."
"Manehattan."
"Bullshit." he chuckled, pouring himself a mug.
"Why's that."
"Cause you order and drink your cider like a pony from better stock than what they grow here." he answered, grinning. "Not to mention you look like you've actually worked on honest day in your life."
"I'm from the country, let's leave it at that for now."
"Ah a pony with secrets, and shite. What are you some terrorist?" Maneard laughed loudly with the barpony at his joke.
"Nah, just trying to start a new chapter in my life. I hear that it's hard if you keep looking back at the old one."
"I understand completely. I did the same thing not too far back. Now look at me serving drinks to foals who never even heard of the labels on em."
"To drinking your troubles away." Maneard refilled both their glasses and promptly knocked his back.
"I like your style, lad. Y'ever had a Republican-Car-Bomb?"
"Can't say I have."
"Well let's fix that."
Shamrock turned his back for a moment and began fiddling with a handful of bottles. Maneard chuckled to himself while the Stallion swore loudly at Mixer for apparently putting a bottle back in the wrong place. When Shamrock turned back around he held a shot glass and a tankard of creamy looking chocolate colored alcohol. Maneard raised an eyebrow, Shamrock dumped the shot into the glass and shoved the tankard at him. Maneard took it and chugged. The insane drink felt and tasted like it looked: a rapidly solidifying mass of chocolate milk. He coughed violently soon as the last dregs of it were gone, Shamrock laughing loudly and slapping him on the back.
"I see were it got it's name." Maneard managed to hack out.
"That's most ponies' reaction. Here have another cider on the house."
"You're a saint."
"Tell me, why did you come to this little piss stain of a party?" Shamrock asked, lifting his own freshly refilled mug.
"I'm looking for someone."
"Mind if I ask who?"
"Not really as it's nopony in particlar."
"I don't think I follow ya."
"It's not that I'm really looking for them really," Maneard explained, taking a break to wet his throat, "more what they can lead me to."
"What's that?" asked Shamrock, leaning in to hear him better.
"Freedom." Maneard replied getting a bit of a grandiose air to his voice.
"Freedom. Well there's plenty of that round here isn't there?"
"Yes and no." Shamrock raised an eyebrow. "We are free, but not once we walk outside those doors, hell even in here the long foreleg of oppression reaches in. We can only truly be free if we take it."
"You're sounding a lot like a Republican right now mate." Shamrock warned.
"And if I am."
"Then there's only one thing for you to do." Shamrock paused for a moment, hastily scrawling something on a napkin, upending the drink that was previously resting on it. "Take this and go there tomorrow night. Tell 'em Shamrock sent ya, they'll know what that means." Maneard looked at the napkin with suspicion. Sure Shamrock was cool, but could he really be trusted? After all the only thing Maneard knew about him was his drinking habits. "Luna nobis custodit." Shamrock whispered, that was all he needed to hear.
Black Diamond let out a low moan as she sunk into the tub. Work had been a real bitch, nothing but mountains of paper work to fill out for every damn Ponyville conspirator. That's what they had labeled them, conspirators. She didn't give a fuck what they were called so long as they were in her rear view mirror. She had drug her old tape deck out to play Maneard's speech, blowing an inch of dust off of it, and laughing to think that when the civies got there hands on them in a year or two it would be considered 'high tech'. The tape was scratchy and clearly made in the field with a hidden mic, but Maneard's voice rang clear and firm through the ocean of white noise.
"My brothers and sisters," he let those words hang in the air for a moment, waiting for the crowd to fall silent, "we gather today not simply to join a movement. No we gather today for something much more ethereal and concrete than that. We gather because we know we are not free." he was interrupted by cheers, cheers which fell silent the moment he began again. "We gather because a tyrant says we cannot. We gather because a ruthless hoof crushes every glimmer of hope and justice that dares make itself known, all in the name of its own vain beliefs and name. We gather because Celestia and her Solar Empire say that we must obey. Well I say resist!" he shouted, the crowd went absolutely wild, but again they fell silent when he resumed. "They will say we are traitors all, that we wish nothing for Equestria than its destruction, that we are just a great tide of evil to be broken against the rocks of their loyalty. But we know that isn't true. We know we are the only ones willing to stand for something, rather than bow to everything. We know that their 'loyalty' is fear. Fear to stand, fear to see the truth, fear to throw everything away in the name of something which they have never known. Well I say let us cast off this fear, let us cast off this empire, let us cast off Celestia. Let us show that we are not afraid of them. That we will stand united in our end: freedom and equality for all. That we are committed to this cause until the bitter end. Whether we stand alive at the conclusion or not, we will bring change to this nation. With our collective dying breath we will call out for this, leaving our great note upon history. Long live Luna, long live the Republic, long live freedom." the crowd had steadily built with him in volume, and now they were going mad with adoration. The tape ended with cries of 'long live freedom' chorused by a thousand voices. Blood Diamond felt chills go down her spine.