The Mechanic

by NightInk

The Traitors

“Have you done something to get The Insurgence after you?”

Smithy towered over Grease Hoof, trying for once to intimidate him. Even as he puffed out his chest it occurred to him that he was far less frightening than even the thought of what The Insurgence would do to him if he were wanted by them…

Grease Hoof grunted as he stood up. “Coulda used a couple extra minutes. I think one more wire needs tweaking.” He quickly flipped his hood over his head. “I don’t suppose you still have my shirt?”

Smithy muttered under his breath and quickly retrieved the bloodied garment from the floor. “Sorry, it was just kind of lying out there for a bit.”

“Yeah, whatever.” He threw the shirt on underneath his cloak and buttoned himself up. When he was done he shook his head like he was shaking out his mane, despite the fact that he was wearing a hood. “Thanks for everything. I hope the money I gave you will cover everything.”

He looked towards the front, where The Insurgence was waiting. “I get the feeling it will only cover parts.”

Grease Hoof chuckled dryly. “I’m not personally busting up your shop, so I don’t count myself responsible for the damages.”

As he spoke, the sounds of the front door being smashed in reached them. “We warned you, Smithy! If we find the pony we want, you’ll be charged with harboring a fugitive!”

Smithy growled and picked up a hammer from the workbench. “I don’t answer to a government other than that of our great Princess Celestia,” he growled under his breath.

“Well, everyone makes mistakes,” Grease Hoof muttered back.

“In following Celestia?”

“In following.” He gave his left hoof a shake. “You aren’t gonna need that hammer. Everything out there is made of stone and metal, right?”

“Um, yes?”

“Good enough for me. Stay here.” He spun on his front hooves and aimed a powerful kick at the metal door. The door flew open with a clang and hit a tough looking pony in the snout. He reeled back with a startled yell and grabbed at his nose.

“Damn it! Sir!” he cried.

An official looking pony in a fine red uniform strode into the room, grinning widely. It was a frightening grin, one that forebodes only death. The uniform appeared as though it were made of a fine, comfortable material, well suited to patrolling or even light combat. A golden cord hanging across his chest and a black insignia in the shape of a salamander identified him as a high ranking officer of The Insurgence’s Third Corp. Most ponies wouldn’t take note of such a small detail, but Grease Hoof recognized it almost out of habit. The uniform consisted of a long sleeved shirt and pants, all very red and all very clean. The pony himself was orange with a fierce red mane, unkempt and fluttering dangerously in the room as the cold night air from the outside clashed with the heat of the forge, spinning the dust and ash up into the air. “Aah. Grease Hoof. We finally meet again. It’s been a little while.” Despite his frightening appearance, his tone of voice was quite calm and civilized.

Grease Hoof crouched like he was preparing for a fight. “Not long enough, you slimy bastard.”

The military pony clicked his tongue and shook his head sadly. “Now, now, dear friend. I simply wanted to catch up a little while. How is that lovely daughter of yours? Gasket, wasn’t that her name?”

At the sound of the name, he leapt forward, roaring, “Don’t you dare say that name!”

He tried to spin and buck like he had kicked the door earlier, but the pony in red moved too quickly. He jumped to the side and aimed a kick at Grease Hoof, who was still reeling from the force of his own kick. He performed the same spin-and-buck, but was successful in making contact with his opponents left side. Grease Hoof flew across the room with a bellow, landing hard on his right side. The Insurgence pony chuckled and rubbed the bottom of his hooves. “My, my. I see you got some solid ambi-tech in place of that old, shabby leg of yours. Too bad. I might have to break a sweat. Or the right half of your body.”

“I’m not here to deal with you, Flare!” Grease Hoof yelled. “Leave this place alone! They don’t know who I am and have no business with you!”

“Oh, but they do,” Flare corrected him. “Even in unknowingly assisting you, they have committed treason against The Insurgence, and that cannot be tolerated.” His hair suddenly began to glow with a powerful yellow aura. As it parted, it revealed a crooked horn, charging up for a magical spell. “Now they shall learn that all who cross The Insurgence will perish!”

He wasn’t big on maniacal laughs, but he did grin feverishly as flames burst from the tip of his horn. The magical flames seared the stones of the room, quickly beginning to turn the structurally sound forge into an unstable collection of slowly melting rock.

“Leave this place alone!” Grease Hoof bellowed, pointing angrily at Flare with his left hoof. As he leveled his leg a hidden compartment on the bottom clicked open and the hoof belched fire back at the mad-pony, breaking his concentration on his spell as he was forced to leap backwards. He only just made it to a safe distance away from the fierce flames snapped at him, eager for a taste of that bright red uniform. A few met their goal as the fabric flared briefly, leaving a charred area on Flare’s right front cuff.

Grease Hoof squinted hard at the patch of flesh revealed by the burning uniform. He was able to get a good look at it since Flare made no move to pat out the already dying flames on his sleeve. “Fire retardant material,” he bragged with a cocky smirk. “They figured it was a necessary precaution for my men and I, what with our propensity for… shall we say, warm temperatures?” He noticed Grease Hoof staring beyond the simple burn on his sleeve and smiled again. “Aah, you’ve noticed,” he purred. “Yes, thanks to your contributions to The Insurgence, many high ranking officials, myself included, have been given the option of having ambi-tech surgeries in order to create… well, the perfect soldiers.” He pushed up both his front sleeves and showed off a pair of shiny metal legs. “Like them? We apparently haven’t unlocked their full potential, judging by your ingenious hidden flamethrower. I may have to pitch that idea to our doctors upon returning to our city.”

Grease Hoof kept himself from gasping at both the sight of the two false legs and the mention of the city. “You have a city now?” he asked, not entirely believing.

Flare flipped his hair out of his face, covering up his horn again. “What, you didn’t hear? I thought that you would have been kept in the loop. Yes, The Insurgence has gained the support of enough ponies to build a small city, free of the tyranny of Equestria’s so-called ‘Princess of the Sun’. We live in true freedom, where only criminals are punished, and then only in accordance to their crimes.” He turned his back on Grease Hoof, looking out the window of the shop and out into the night. His shadow was cast far into the street through the doorframe by the shouldering shop behind him, the melting stones radiating both heat and light. “This is my dream for Equestria. Peace and freedom for all its subjects. Not this false freedom that Celestia preaches, one of overzealous guards and constant attacks by rival kingdoms, like the Changelings. But a quiet life, filled with the good things that we as ponies, as the pinnacle of intelligent life, deserve.”

He turned back around and looked grimly at Grease Hoof. “All ponies are equal. No one kind of pony is special. Alicorns are no better than unicorns, unicorns no better than pegasus, pegasus no better than earth. Our society and our leadership is corrupt, with tiers forming between the pony races again. Our new government has resolved that tier difference within our city, and we wish to spread that unity throughout all of Equestria. I offer you one chance and one chance only to be a part of that. Do you follow us, or do you follow Princess Celestia?” As he asked his question, he planted his hooves firmly on the floor, warning his foe that there was only one acceptable answer.

Grease Hoof took the same powerful stance, knowing he couldn’t give him the proper answer. At least, not honestly. “I do not follow Celestia.”

Flare flared his nostrils, grinning happily. “That’s what I like to hear.”

“I’m not finished yet!” Flare’s smile disappeared quickly as Grease Hoof snapped angrily at him. “I do not follow Celestia. But I do not follow The Insurgence. Now, before you pop your head open trying to figure out who or what I follow, let me tell you. Not that I wouldn’t love to see you blow yourself up, but Smithy has plenty of a mess to clean up. I follow a greater power than Celestia or your false replacement government. I follow the three Goddesses who created our world and the sense of morality they bestowed upon me.”

Flare stood straight and snorted in derision. “Pretty words. But what you said at the end there, about your sense of… morality. I wonder what your daughter would say about that.”

The mention of his daughter set Grease Hoof off again. Howling like a pony gone mad, he bucked the guard behind him without looking at him. He felt a satisfying crunch! as his hooves connected with the soldiers jaw and broke the jawbone and more than a few of his teeth. The guard crumpled, falling to the floor with a sizzle as his head fell into a pool of melted stone. The pain of the burn instantly brought him too his hooves again, but not before his mane caught fire. The blazing stallion ran past his commander, running screaming into the night in search of relief.

One down, two to go, Grease Hoof thought grimly to himself. There was still a pony in the forge, assumedly destroying all the poor smith’s tools. That meant there was one in the other room, the room where Smith and Teacup were hiding. Not giving Flare another thought, Grease Hoof spun and ran toward the back room again. He felt the heat of another blast of magical flame singe his tail as Flare tried to block his escape, but Flare wasn’t quite fast enough. The pony whose nose Grease Hoof had broken earlier was locked in a fight with Smithy, who was wielding a wrench against the soldier’s wings. The soldiers wings, now that Grease Hoof took the time to look, were covered with metal rimmed feathers, greatly hindering his ability to fly but giving his wings a good deal of shielding and dozens of deadly blades at his disposal.

Smithy, distracted by Grease Hoofs entrance, looked away from his foe and let his guard down. The soldier, seeing his opportunity, lashed out at the bigger pony. Smithy fell back against the wall, clutching at his eye. He toppled over onto Teacup, knocking her to the ground but continuing to protect her from the soldier’s onslaught. The pegasus swung his wings over and over again, tearing great gashes in the smith’s sides and legs. Grease Hoof moved quickly to help the big pony, but wasn’t fast enough to save him from a serious beating. Snatching up the wrench, which had flown across the room as Smithy fell, Grease Hoof threw it as hard as he could at the back of the soldiers head. His aim was perfect, as though he had trained at throwing heavy tools. The open areas of the wrench, the edges sharpened by its use, struck the still violently attacking pegasus in the back of the head, digging deep and gouging large chunks of flesh out of his neck while knocking him unconscious and bringing him to the floor.

“Come on!” Grease Hoof bellowed. “You can still stand! We all need to get out of here, now!!”

Teacup cried from her place on the floor, unable to push the dazed smith off of her. “Please, help him! He’s hurt! Oh, Celestia, there’s so much blood!”

“Celestia isn’t going to hear your prayers! Just push him up to me!” Grease Hoof, in a display of strength impressive for a pony of his stature, he hefted the smith bodily over his shoulder. “Now let’s go!”

She struggled to her feet and followed him out the door, right into the grinning face of Flare. “Peek-a-boo,” he sang. He began to charge his horn again, but Grease Hoof and Teacup slipped by him before he could attack. They nearly bowled over the third soldier, who was just coming out of the forge. Teacup squeaked and reared back onto her hind legs, flailing with her front hooves. Catching the soldier off guard, she was lucky enough to scratch up his face and send him scuttling backwards.

Grease Hoof laughed over his shoulder at the increasingly frustrated captain. “Real tough soldiers you’ve got there. Your other man is in the shop, knocked out by a little bitty wrench.”

Flare didn’t take the taunting well, and responded with an unintelligible yell and another blast of flame. Grease Hoof kept laughing all the way out the door, kicking the severely weakened frame as they left. Flare cried out as the building began to crumble in on him. “You bastard!” he cried. “You’re a traitor to the true government! And Celestia! At least pick a side, you spineless coward!”

“I told you before, I follow only the Goddesses! They are the ones pony-kind has turned against!” Grease Hoof called over his shoulder. He turned to the quaking Teacup at his side and grinned. “Not bad for your first near-death experience. Come on, keep going. We need to get far away from here. And you probably need to get out of town. You’ll be wanted for attacking an Insurgence soldier now.”

She stumbled over her words before finally asking, “Well, where are you going?”

He stopped smiling at the thought of what she might mean. “Far away from here. Without anypony tagging along.”

She pouted, her bottom lip quivering. It quivered from adrenaline and fear, but it suited her purposes all the same. “But I won’t be able to fend for myself out there in that big, scary world… Pleeeeease?”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“No.”

“You can’t even open your heart for little old me?”

“No.”

“I can make it worth your while,” she cooed, rubbing her flank against his.

“No.”

She sighed, her shoulders sagging. “You’re awfully cold, you know that?”

“Yes.”

She glared at him, becoming upset. “Are you at least going to give me any advice on what to do?”

“No.”

“Are we taking Smithy to a hospital?”

“Yes.”

“Can I follow you after the hospital?”

“No.”

“Not even just a little ways?”

He sighed, keeping his eyes focused on the lights of the Canterlot Memorial Hospital, shining brightly in the night. After the Changeling invasion five years ago, the hospital had to be rebuilt. They had fine facilities. At least, they did four years ago. The mare next to him stomped a couple times to remind him she was still there. He groaned. “I don’t take on extra luggage, kid.”

She blew a lock of hair out of her face. “Hey! I’m not a kid!”

“How old are you?”

“Um, twenty eight.”

“See, even if you were telling the truth, you’re still a kid.”

“Right, and children need protection from adults!”

“You don’t learn very fast, do you?”

“I don’t have to. I’m a girl, that means I’m always right.”

Grease Hoof sighed. He would have to ditch her at the hospital, otherwise this was going to be a very long journey.