//------------------------------// // Arc One - Part Five // Story: In Chains // by Dino Days //------------------------------// Jitterhoof’s office wasn’t so much a proper medical facility as it was a boarded-up house on the outskirts of the Canterlot slums. It was a two-floor building, much like the one I had grown up in, with violet walls and a darker purple roof. A decade ago, the house was probably home to a happy, loving family. Now an airheaded pony with a twitch stitched heroes up in it. I trotted up the rickety steps and knocked on the door. After a few moments, the sound of dozens of chains and deadbolts unlocking emanated from the other side, and the door opened. A young pegasus mare stood on the other side. She had a rosy-pink coat, a blonde mane tied up in a bun, and yellow eyes. She wore an apron blotted with blood, both dry and fresh. Jitterhoof was the pony to go to if you were a hero who needed medical help. Her skill with a scalpel was unmatched, her knowledge of anatomy second to none. She did a fine job even with her nervous twitch, and she would probably have landed a job at the Royal Canterlot Hospital had she been free of it. “Can I help you?” she asked, her voice sweet. It was kind of creepy, that sweet voice coming from a mare covered in blood. “I’m in the middle of cooking dinner, so if you could come ba-” “Is Dupe with you?” “Oh, you’re... I see.” I didn’t question her poor excuse for the blood soaked apron. Had she hoped I would take it for tomato juice or something? She looked uncomfortable. Was she shy? “Please, I have to see Dupe,” I said, trying to push my way past her. She stood firmly in place. “Who are you?” “I’m his sister!” I pushed past her before she could respond and practically flew into the building. A row of medical table dominated the dirty room, and three refrigerators dominated the back wall. Most of the tables were empty, yet a few still had patients. I looked at the first patient. I didn’t recognize the pony. I moved on to the next, and when that bore fruitless, the one after that. “Where is he?” I asked Jitterbug with a feeling of something being wrong growing inside of me. “He’s alive,” she said, tentatively. She pointed towards a staircase I hadn’t noticed in my rush to get inside. “He’s upstairs, but... before you go, you should be warned.” No. No no no no no! “He won’t respond to anything you do or say, so don’t bother. He took a hit to the head. I’m sorry, but he’s comatose.” I was halfway up the stairs by the time Jitterhoof finished her sentence, searching for my brother. I passed by a bathroom, a guest room, and a closet before opening the door to the master bedroom, where Jitterhoof kept all of her unconscious patients. He was the only one there. Laid down on a bed with crisp white sheets was Goldy, unconscious. Now that I was finally there, I found it hard to face the reality that my brother was in trouble. But he was the only family I had left. I walked up to the bed. I don’t know how long I spent there, sitting on the edge of the bed. I heard ponies come and go, and at one point I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up on an armchair in the corner of the room, covered by a grey blanket. I awoke to the incessant tapping of raindrops on the window. A dull grey light streamed into the room. It was as though a gloomy blanket had been draped upon the world, casting everyone and everything it covered in a state of melancholy. Goldy was still on his bed, just as he was when I had seen him the night before. My chest was tight, and I felt like crying, but I had no more tears to shed. I didn’t move for a long time, instead choosing to get what little comfort I could from the warmth of the cotton blanket. Jitterhoof must have visited some time in the night. I was thankful- she could have left me on my brother’s bed, cold without a blanket to warm me. Her bedside manner almost made up for the fact that she performed surgeries in this dirty, aging, rotting building. I still carried with me the nervousness that had accompanied me the last few days, but it had lessened a fraction. Sure, I was a fugitive, and could never go back to normal life, but my brother was alive. Not well, but alive. That knowledge was more than I had yesterday. I threw off the blanket and stood. As much as I wanted to spend the day by my brother’s side, I had other responsibilities to see to. If I were smart, I would have told Jitterhoof about Virtue’s betrayal as soon as she had opened her door. She would have gotten the information out to everypony who needed to know it. But I wasn’t a smart pony, and I hadn’t told her. I found her in the kitchen. She really was cooking this time. She wore an apron—a clean one, not the one she wore yesterday—and was whisking eggs in a bowl. Many more bowls of food lined the countertop she worked at, likely to feed the sick and injured ponies she was housing. She turned her head when I entered. “You’re awake.” “Yeah. Listen, Jitterbug, I’m sorry about-” “Don’t worry about it,” she responded, nonchalant. “You’re not the first pony to act the way you did, and you most certainly won’t be the last.” Another weight off my chest. I had feared that Jitterbug would be upset with me because of how I acted the other night. I was glad that wasn’t the case- I was a fugitive. I couldn’t afford to make enemies now. “Are you hungry?” she asked, motioning with a wing towards the numerous bowls of food lining the counter. My stomach answered for me in the form of an audible gurgle. I seconded its statement with a nod. Jitterbug motioned once more towards the bowls, and I picked one up with my magic before sitting at kitchen’s small, round table. Breakfast looked like scrambled eggs, and judging by the many cartons of eggs on the counter, most empty, it looked like she was making a lot of the stuff. I wondered how she afforded everything, considering that she didn’t charge heroes for their treatment, but decided not to ask. “Jitterhoof, can I trust you to send a message?” I asked between bites. The pegasus looked at me strangely. “What kind of message?” “An important one.” “Damn it, mare, I’m a doctor, not a mailmare. It had better be important.” She sighed. “Who’s it for? I don’t know how quick I can get it out, but if they’re in the city I can do it pretty quick.” “I need you to talk to Hydra. I don’t know where she is. Tell her that Virtue is a traitor, we can’t trust her.” She cocked an eyebrow. “What rock have you been hiding under?” “Huh?” “You really haven’t heard?” I shook my head, thoroughly confused. What hadn’t I heard? I hoped for good news. Perhaps Virtue had been caught and stopped already? “Oh dear... let me get a television. It’s been all over the news since yesterday afternoon.” The news? Not good news, then. I had a feeling I knew what was going on, and desperately hoped it was anything but. Jitterhoof left and returned a few seconds later, rolling in a television on a cart, no doubt meant to be rolled to conscious but immobile patients when they got bored. She switched it on. We caught a newscaster mid-sentence. “...as reports of the damage continue to come in. After the attacker’s address of the nation last night, there is no doubt in anypony’s minds as to the dangers these so-called ‘meta-ponies’ present.” The news stallion was replaced with a video shot with a shaky camera. A burning building was the backdrop to a mare standing on her hind legs, speaking passionately to a terrified looking crowd. Virtue. “You’ve seen what we can do!” she was shouting, pointing at the burning building. “You’ve seen the power we wield! We have been concealing the truth for centuries, keeping you in the dark about the power we wield! We have been controlling everything for years, manipulating governments!” What in Equestria is she doing?!? “But we are no longer happy with the way things are! Petty manipulation and working from the shadows no longer appeals to us! Consider this a declaration of war, Equestria! A war on your cities, your country, your world!” The video cut out, and the news stallion returned. Jitterhoof switched off the television. “She’s been going around, attacking villages and towns, always with the same message.” My mind did a complete one-eighty, trying to process all the new information. What was Virtue doing? None of that was true! And declaring war? It was as though she wanted them to destroy us! We were powerful, but there are a lot more normal ponies than there are heroes. I sincerely regretted getting on the princesses’ bad side. The only way I could see this being cleared up was if I explained everything- as a ‘meta-pony’ who wasn’t completely involved in the hero thing, I would have been the perfect mediator, if not for the way I had acted and my subsequent escape from the palace. “I have to go back,” I said, mostly to myself. Even if it meant getting arrested on sight, I had to explain what was going on to the princesses. It was our only hope. “Go back where?” I explained. “I was arrested after the attack on the party. The princesses interrogated me, but I didn’t tell them anything. Now I think I have to, or things are just going to get worse, fast.” She blinked. “You escaped?” she asked, surprise in her voice. I nodded. “How?” I told her. “Really?” I shrugged. “I don’t think the princesses will want to hear you out,” she said. “You escape them through unknown means, then a mare goes on a spree of destruction and claims to be part of a shadow organization with super-powers just a few hours later? They’ll think you’re involved.” “Probably. I have to try, though.” “Why not send somepony else?” That was a good question. Why not send somepony else? Surely there was someone more capable that would be able to get this job done? I wasn’t a hero, and I wasn’t even one of those smart ponies that could talk their way out of any bad situation. I’d learned in the last few days that my go-to method of getting out of problems was to choke the problem with a chain. So why didn’t I send somepony else? I thought of what Virtue said when we met at the party. I’m sorry, Cutlass. I can’t let you leave this party. At the time, I took it to mean that she couldn’t let any witnesses leave the party, but that couldn’t be the case, could it? She had let Pauldron go with my brother. If she didn’t mean what i had thought she meant, then that could only mean one thing- she couldn’t let me, specifically, leave. Someway, somehow, I had gotten involved in something bigger than I could imagine. “I don’t know, but... I think it’s something I have to do.” She didn’t question me. She let me go, making me take a few sandwiches with me and offering me a few chains from her garage, which I refused. The princesses knew I was good with chains. If I was going to surrender, it would send the wrong message to do it armed.