"Vinyl, don't you see what she's doing to them? We can't stay here! I can't let you be next!"
"Octavia, I refuse to live in fear. We can't run and hide!"
"Well what else are we going to do?"
"It won't even matter, we can't go anywhere, we're stuck under this stupid dome!"
"We'll move to the nearest town! We'll go there! It's better than here!"
"I said it won't matter! She'll still get me! There's no point! Either I get executed, or I get executed trying to fight her!"
"But you can't fight her..."
"I just hope it's a quick death."
"I hope there is no death!"
"I hope that you finally understand, that we do not hide. We fight back, Octavia. We don't cower in fear."
"Vinyl please-"
"We have our own ways of keeping each other safe. My way is to actually do something. My way is to stop her before this gets any worse. Before... Before she hurts more than just unicorns."
"Oh, Vinyl I-"
"Just, stop it Octy. It'll be all over soon. I promise."
"After the harsh battle Trixie has faced to protect your lives. Trixie is going to make some new laws in Equestria. One is the end of unicorns. Unicorns are a threat to us, they have great power that is against my own, we do not know how they will use their power for evil to defy against their Queen Trixie. For a long while, I executed the monsters, but now I see that they may be some use to us. Nopony will have to work endlessly to be happy, now the unicorns will work for us and create our necessities. Unicorns will no longer harm us, but instead gift us with high class items. Earth ponies, pegasi, and I, the last standing alicorn, will now be treated with higher respect and treated like royalty."
"But you won't be taking me."
"Vinyl, no!"
"Octy, I know what I-"
"What did you say?"
"I said, you won't be taking me. We are ponies, not slaves. You think you can just make us work? You think every pony will like that?"
"Ha! You see every pony, this witch wants us to work on disgusting farms and waste our lives away. She wants us to live in nothing but rags! She thinks she can stop the mare who defeated the power hungry, villainous, Nightmare Moon?"
"That was not Nightmare Moon, that was Princess Luna. You think you can use that excuse?"
"There was no telling whether she would do it again. Trixie is protecting you ponies! She has created this dome to keep you safe from the outside world! The Everfree forest! She will have all the unicorns treat you well. Earth ponies will no longer have to work on farms, they will now be treated with respect and showered with gifts and praise, the pegasi will no longer have to work in weather. Nopony will have to make clothes, food, buildings, anything! The unicorns will bring us wealth. We shall live happily with no trouble."
"I'm sick and tired of this! You can't take me! You cannot hurt me or any pony! RAAAAHH!!!"
"AAAH! This witch has assaulted Trixie! Hold her down guards! She will get the worst job of all!"
"NO! You don't touch me! Get off!"
"Vinyl! Vinyl!"
"Her new job will be enjoyable. A gift to my guards."
"Get your filthy hooves off of me!"
"I'm sorry, Vinyl."
The three stallions loomed over her. Wide grins on their faces as they looked her up and down, she couldn't take this torture any longer. The stallions were like demons from hell, they continued to rip her apart over and over. Making her scream in pain and hoping some pony would come to save her.
And from behind those demons came an angel.
An angel that showed them no mercy. An angel who ripped apart their bodies, much worse than what they had done to Vinyl. A silent angel, who took Vinyl by the hoof and rescued her.
She had become rather close with the silent angel. But the silent angel could not take her to Octavia. She could only keep her safe from harm, and begin her training to become just as fierce a warrior as her. And maybe, soon, Vinyl could do just the same for some pony as the silent angel did for her.
"Vinyl Scratch." I said in shock.
She heard her name, and looked in my direction. She fell back down, put down her cards, and walked over to me.
"Woah, you're Midnight Glider right? I'm guessing you've heard about me?" She grinned, pulling down her magenta glasses and looking at me with those bright pink eyes.
"I- I-"
"Rainbow was telling me about you. You're pretty tough if you can escape a bunch of guards." Vinyl elbowed me, and pushed her glasses back up to cover her eyes.
"I have heard so much about you-"
"Well, I was a DJ once, I don't see why anypony would be talking about me now. But I-"
"Octavia Melody." I suddenly said, cutting her off.
She froze, her glasses slipped down to reveal her bright magenta eyes full of shock, her pupils dilated in fear and remembrance of the name. Her jaw dropped, and I saw tears forming in her eyes.
"Where did you hear that name?" She choked out.
"I know Octavia. I know she's your marefriend, I'm her friend and I-"
"Where is she? Have they got her? Is she okay?"
The unicorn began to shake me, her hooves gripping me tightly, desperately clutching onto me.
"Can you bring me to her...?" Vinyl looked down, her hooves letting go of me.
"She's safe, I met her a few years ago. She never stopped talking about you. But- she’s doing alright, just worried."
Vinyl looked at me, taking off her glasses. Worry filled her eyes, but knowing Octavia was safe, she seemed to calm down a bit. She gulped.
"I'm glad she's alright... But, I want to tell her I escaped... But I can't leave this place." She gestured around with her hoof. "Especially being a unicorn... I'd be a dead mare."
I nodded. "Maybe we will get back to her one day. She was the one who told me about the rebellion and told me to find it. I don’t think she knows you're a part of it."
"It's been so long, Octy..." She sat down, and wrapped herself in a hug.
I know what this is like. Well I have some pony I can relate to.
“I-I know how you feel Vinyl. My husband was taken, I haven’t seen him in so long.” I felt my eyes get misty, but tried to push it away. I shook my head. “We have to think about what we do have though, right? We are all still alive and well, that’s what matters.”
Vinyl looked away without a word. She sighed, then said, “I guess you’re right. Hey, I’ll uh, I’ll see you around, Midnight.”
She stood up, her ears falling back as she left the room. Looking at the floor, avoiding eye contact with anypony. I watched as she left, and noticed something strange. A stallion walked near her. Not even looking at her, but as he got closer to pass her, she flinched away from him in fright.
She turned, trotting away from the stallion and into the next room.
I arrived back at my table. Clip sat with Fluttershy and Rainbow, although Rainbow got me worried. She had an empty mug of cider in front of her, and her face looked a little red. As I got closer, I noticed how slurred Rainbow's words were.
"-And I was like, WOOOOAAAH! and BOOM!" She demonstrated with her hoof, bringing it up into the air, and crashing it down on the table with a slam.
Fluttershy yelped as Rainbow knocked over Clip's glass of juice. Rainbow began to laugh hysterically.
"Um, Rainbow... I think it's bed time..."
"Aah yes! BED TIME!" She roared and laughed even harder. Clip scooted back in his chair uncomfortably, not understanding why Rainbow was acting so strange and loud. Even from this distance, I could smell the alcohol on her breath.
Fluttershy noticed me, and blushed embarrassingly. "I-I'm sorry. Rainbow is getting out of hoof with the drinking again." She grabbed Rainbow's hoof and pulled her from the chair. Rainbow let herself be pulled away, and yelled louder than ever.
"IT'S BED TIME WITH MAH GIRL!"
"Th-That's not what I mean..." A lock of pink hair fell in front of her eyes, and she hurriedly pulled Rainbow Dash out of the room, and upstairs.
I had barely noticed Pinkie Pie was there. So distracted by the two mares, and Pinkie's eerie silence. I looked in her direction and she was already staring at me. She was rather unsettling. I could never imagine her as what she used to be.
Just on time, Applejack came over holding up two plates, walking on her hind legs. The earth pony set the two plates in front of us. My sandwich and Clip's salad. Applejack smiled at me, noticing the empty mug and tipped over glass.
She shook her head. "Lemme guess. Rainbow got drunk? Fluttershy took her away?" She said as she gathered the two cups.
"Spot on." I said.
She chuckled. "Happens far too often."
Of course since I hadn’t eaten in a while, I ate messily and like an animal. I wiped my face with a napkin, noticing the few crumbs left on my plate.
I looked over at Pinkie. Who stared at me, she blinked. I was going to ask how she ate, but she wouldn't really be able to respond anyway. And I didn't really know if I would want to know. I decided to push that question away for later. I had a feeling the answer would be disturbing.
Applejack came back to clean up our dishes, and smiled at me again. The mare seemed much more cheerful than the rest of them. Applejack looked behind me, making me turn around in curiosity. I was greeted by the familiar pegasus mare.
“Your room is ready, and Rainbow is taking a nap.” We followed her out of the room and up the creaky steps. We walked down the hall, turned the corner, and stopped in front of a door that was identical to every other in the building.
Fluttershy pushed it open, letting us walk in and take it all in. It definitely wasn’t spectacular, gray walls, gray floor, gray bed.
But it seemed like she had tried to brighten it up a bit by putting a light green cloth over the sheets. Above us was a singular light bulb that looked like it had just been replaced. Brighter than the ones downstairs.
By the bed was what should be a window, but instead was a wooden board.
next to the bed up against the wall was a large wooden chest. A simple design carved on the front. I opened it, and was surprised to find a strange object in it.
I took it out, it was hard, metallic, and cold. When it was taken out and into the light, I realized it was a small gun.
I yelped, throwing it away from me and onto the soft bed. I expected it to suddenly shoot or that I would accidentally click something. Instead it simply fell onto the bed without doing anything.
“Oh dear!” Fluttershy put a hoof over her mouth. “Sorry, Gilda put that in there for you... I forgot to tell you.”
“A gun?!” I said in surprise, “I don’t want a gun!”
“Well, if you live here... you will want a gun. Gilda makes our weapons, specially designed for ponies so your hoof will fit right in there.”
“Wha- but- I-”
The gun suddenly floated up into the air, a silvery white glow encasing it as it flew closer to us.
“No!” I yelled, turning around to look at Clip’s guilty expression. I whacked his horn, making him immediately drop it.
“Ow! Mama!” he complained. I had hit it harder than I meant to.
“Don’t worry. Gilda’s smart enough to not give you ammo yet.” Fluttershy laughed a little, calmly picking up the gun off the floor and showing it to me.
“The safety’s on too. Even if he got a hold of it, he wouldn’t be able to do anything with it.”
I sighed. “Still...”
“It took me a while to even get near a weapon. So I understand, you can take your time.”
“I-I don’t want to fight.”
“If you’re in the rebellion, you are already fighting.”
She put a hoof on my shoulder, and smiled. “I can bring you over to Gilda now. It seems like you aren’t doing anything at the moment. She could train you on how to use it.”
“I already said-”
“You need to learn, to protect who you care for!” she said, taking a step towards me.
Her ears flopped down as she took a step back suddenly losing that assertiveness. “You do it for her...”
She looked back up. “Th-that is to say, you do it for him.” She pointed at Clip.
She shook her head. “You just... this is how you can protect him, Midnight. Unless you want to be a doctor like me-”
“No, you’re right! I have to do this! Take me to Gilda!”
I expected a mare. I expected a pony. Instead it was a gryphon.
I had never seen a gryphon before. My jaw dropped, she was... magnificent. In a gothic sort of way.
She had the body of a lion, she wore black gloves over her claws. She had three silver rings on the end of her tail, her feathers were light purple on the ends while the rest were white. Over her torso was a black skin tight shiny outfit. One black ring stood out on the left side of her beak, and around her eyes was black eyeshadow.
This was the gryphon Rainbow had mentioned earlier.
Fluttershy seemed rather afraid and intimidated by the gryphon, and immediately left us there with her.
"So Gilda-" I started, but the gryphon immediately cut me off.
"Your new gun's pretty sweet huh? I uh, made it myself." she said proudly, her voice was deep and gravelly. I could've easily mistaken her for male had I not been looking at her.
"Uh... Yeah, It's very nice." I said. "Fluttershy said it'd be a good idea if-"
"If I showed you the ropes? Yep, that's my job. Well, not usually. But I'm pretty good at it."
My eye twitched as I handed her the gun. This gryphon was already ticking me off. Her interruptive and self centered way was making me a bit angry and frustrated.
Clip looked down every once in a while glancing up to see Gilda loading the new gun with her claws.
"Alright alright. I'll show ya." She said, as if I had been pestering her.
She walked past us and out the door, we both followed not exactly in the best of moods.
We made it outside, and she stood on her hind legs, pulling back the trigger, and shooting.
It was much quieter than the gun Rainbow had earlier, which I preferred.
"See you have to put your claw- uh, hooves here. It's especially designed for pony hooves."
She put the gun in my grasp, and I held onto it nervously.
Luckily Clip stood very far back, I did not want to mess this up.
Gilda positioned me correctly, and moved my hooves to where they should be. Explaining to me the consequences had I done it wrong. Which really wasn't helping my anxiousness.
I shook a little bit, and she told me, "Now pull this back, then shoot!"
I bit my lip, closing one eye as I slowly pushed my hoof against the trigger. Aiming the gun towards a red chalk marking made on one of the broken down buildings.
I felt my body fall back a bit as the bullet shot out. I gasped in surprise. When Gilda and Rainbow had shot their guns, they stood perfectly still. But I, I had gracefully fallen on my rump. Dropping the gun next to me.
"It'll take some getting used to." Gilda said. "You'll have to shoot it more so you can get used to it. Then we can check to see how well you did."
I ended up shooting it about 7 more times. Each time I was still scared but was getting more comfortable with it. Each time I felt more confident and on the last time I didn't even stumble or fall.
Gilda took the gun from me, and showed me where the safety was. She flipped the safety on, and set the gun on the ground.
Bringing Clip along, we made our way to the target. I had not hit the middle once. Nowhere near it actually, my aim was simply awful, but you could still see eight chips in the wall. Adding to the amount of cracks already on the building.
"Nice job newbie." she said, not so comfortingly.
"Nice job? I didn't hit it once!"
"You seemed alright at the end. It's better to get used to shooting before you get good at aiming."
That made me feel a little better. But still, I wasn't content as we made our way back. Gilda picked up the gun, looking it over. She began to walk back to the building, but I stopped her.
"May I have more bullets, please." I grinned with determination.
The gryphon smirked, handing me the gun and another pack of bullets. I remembered how she had loaded it, and loaded it myself. I stood my ground, holding up the gun and shutting one eye. I clicked the safety off, took my time in aiming, then shot multiple rounds.
The first couple times, I stumbled a bit, but after that I got the hang of it. I was a quick learner.
When I checked the wall again, I had gotten closer to the center, one bullet even hitting next to the center dot.
I continued like this probably for hours, but what felt like minutes. I was now hitting the center of the target, finishing my last bullet and ready to reload again. When I looked down, there were only five left.
Clipeum had already gone inside a while ago doing Celestia knows what. But I wasn't exactly worried about him.
He was fine on his own right?
You've never taken your eye off of him.
I shouldn't be worried.
It was getting dark and maybe it was time to get back inside and sleep. I was getting rather tired and was low on bullets, geez I had probably gone through all their bullets at this point.
"Oh Gilda, sorry I shouldn't have used up all those bullets for target practice!" I apologized.
She chuckled. "It's fine, you didn't use as many as you think you did. We have a lot."
I handed her the gun after clicking the safety on, and she held it in her claw as we stood. Not exactly wanting to return yet, I did have questions to ask her after all.
"Gilda... May I ask how you got here and left the gryphon kingdom?"
"Well, it's not much of a kingdom anymore," she sighed. "Rainbow Dash contacted me. We're childhood friends, met in flight school. We did have a bit of a... falling out a while back, but she still was worried for me."
I listened intently as she spoke. "Gryphons, too poor to do anything. We're obsessed with bits y'know. We would do anything for a good amount of money. We even started making weapons, some gryphons sold drugs, cigarettes... it wasn't great. I was getting quite knowledgeable on the weapon making industry, can you believe I used to sell disgusting scones for a living?"
She chuckled. "The place was getting crowded, maybe I did miss the way ponies lived when I saw it in Cloudsdale. I had to come back, I had to leave the Gryphons and live here. Rainbow started the rebellion, didn't have many members back when I joined. Just her and the other Elements of Harmony. Maybe a couple others. I don't really remember the details since it was so long ago."
She sighed. "I just focus on trying to escape this tartarus called Equestria."
She looked to the darkening sky, up at the stars.
"I think it's time we take a rest."
I walked with her back to my new home, and found myself standing in the doorway of my room.
Watching as Fluttershy settled Clipeum into bed. "-and don't let the bed bugs bite," she said, covering him with the sheets and turning around.
"Oh, Midnight. I see you were with Gilda."
I nodded, yawning. "Yeah, sorry, did I miss dinner?"
"Yes you did, I made sure Clip ate a yummy apple pie!" She fluttered her wings and smiled. I smiled in return.
"Thanks, could I maybe get something to eat? Or am I too late?"
"Applebloom and Applejack are cleaning up in the kitchen. I'm sure they'll give you something to eat."
I returned to my room after eating some apple fritters. They were really good, and I gratefully accepted them.
I yawned again, opening my door to a sleeping Clipeum.
With the room being so dark, with only small beams coming in through holes in the wooden board. Where it was so silent and empty save for the young child asleep in the bed. It was rather calming and made me more tired than before I had entered.
I climbed into the bed with Clipeum, shutting my eyes and falling into a deep sleep.
Only to be awakened by my door being slammed open and a yell.
"They found us!"