Sin Never Dies

by TheMixtapeHorse

Graduation Day

“Are you ready hun?” Rose’s voice echoed through Max’s almost emptied out room.

She stood in the doorway while the young stallion stared blankly out the window. It was ‘graduation day’. But he wasn't celebrating. Not only was he leaving the only place he knew, but the only place he understood. The thoughts of the outside world both mystified and terrified him. People like him were the minority in this new world; would he face discrimination? Threats? Did they even share the same culture?

These thoughts whizzed through his mind while his unbroken stare looked out his window at the mighty stratosphere tower. One of the only surviving relics of his world, tattered and retrofitted with a radio tower and all sorts of crazy communication gear.

Rose walked up next to him and nosed his shoulder. “Max. Are you okay?”

“Huh?” Max jumped. “Oh, yeah. I’m fine”

“My tail you’re fine. What's up, hun? You can tell me” Rose said comfortingly.

“What’s it like out there?” Max said shakily. “Not like what it looks like out there.” He turned to look at his pants and back to Rose. “What is it like for us?”

Rose looked down at her hooves. “Well. It’s certainly not our city, that’s for sure.” She sat next to Max and gestured for him to sit next to her. “It’s always difficult for us, but eventually, you’ll get used to it.”

“I meant the ponies.” Max replied, “Do they discriminate against us?”

“I’ve gotten strange looks every now and then when I make it apparent that I’m a returnee, but I’ve never faced discrimination myself. That doesn’t mean there aren’t ponies that target people like us on the regular.”

“So, business as usual, eh?” Max asked.

Rose shook her head. “Not even close.”

She put her hooves around him. “Don’t dwell on that, Maxie. You’ll do well out there. And with Katie by your side, you’ll conquer the new world.”

The young stallion embraced his counselor firmly. “Thank you mom-.” He choked on his last word. It was a slip of the tongue, but there was truth behind it. Rose seemed to care for him much more than other patients he’d seen under her care as if she were trying to be a mother for him.

Rose’s hold on him tightened as she let out a shaky sob.

Max looked over his shoulder at the mare holding onto him with her ears flattened and tears streaming down her cheeks. “Rose?”

The distraught mare swallowed and let out a heavy sigh. “Nobody has called me mom in over forty-five years.”

“Is… Is that a good thing?” he asked.

She let go of him with a sniffle and smiled half-heartedly. “Yes, Max. I… I miss being a mom. I don’t know what it is, but you just remind me so much of my boys. Hearing you call me mom like that just… It was like a flashback.”

“Well, you do kinda remind me of my mom, so I guess that makes two of us,” Max said with his ears folded.

Rose laughed and put her hoof on the side of his face. Max let out a pained whinny and leaned into her hoof.

“It’s always good to have family to count on, hun,” Rose said with a warm smile. “Even if they’re not blood related.”

She stood up and helped him onto his hooves. “So... do you have everything you need?”

Max looked at his fully equipped saddlebags lying by the doorway and silently nodded.

“Well… Go get Katie. I’ll meet you in the lobby. Don’t be late now, young stallion.” Rose cooed to him as she trotted out the door.

Max threw his bags over his barrel, followed her to the doorway, and looked back to his dorm. The only things left were the furniture and the pictures on the walls. He closed his eyes and shut the door on the only place that truly felt like home. He turned and walked somberly away from his room.

When he made it to Katie’s room, he didn’t bother to knock and just pushed the door open. He stepped in only to be met with a bap on the nose from his friend's forehead. Both ponies stammered and cursed in unison before laughing at each other.

Max tried reaching over to help his friend off the ground but was tugged upwards by a fuzzy sensation around his chest. Katie was lifting him up with her magic!

“Holy shit! Putmedownputmedownputmedown!!” Max yelped while his hooves flailed wildly underneath him, attempting to regain their traction.

Katie laughed and released him, dropping the stallion a half inch, his legs locking into place after landing. “What? Somepony has to be the gentleman in this relationship.”

“Y-you could’ve told me you were gonna lift me off the ground!” Max whined.

“I didn’t even lift you up that high... Your hooves were smacking the floor the whole time!”

Max’s cheeks turned rosy in embarrassment. “Well… us earth ponies need to have our hooves on the ground to function properly. At least that’s what I heard from the earth pony class thing I went to.”

“What did they teach you about earth ponies anyway?” Katie asked as she invited him into her room.

Max sat on the edge of Katie’s bed and looked at his hooves. “So apparently earth ponies have earth-based magic. We can nurture plants, are strong enough to pull a pickup truck, and can feel earthquakes as far away as Washington. So, filthy farmer peasants, basically.”

Katie snorted and picked up a brush in her magic. “You’re right. You are a peasant.” She brushed her messy mane into place and flipped it towards her friend. “And I, a powerful unicorn, am a high class member of society!”

“Oh please,” Max chuckled. “A college girl that waited tables at Olive Garden is the opposite of high class.”

Katie scoffed and threw her brush at him. “Is that right, farm boy from Illinois?”

“Farm boy my orange horse ass. I grew up on the bad side of Rockford. I am anything but a cornchucker.”

“Whatever you say, hay baler,” Katie said with a grin.

“Okay, glowstick. I guess you don't wanna move out today then.” Max said slyly.

Katie’s ears drooped. “Well… I am kinda nervous about going out there…” She said timidly. “How will people like us be treated? Us returnees are minorities. Do you think we’ll face discrimination?”

“I had that same conversation with Rose just a couple minutes ago. I think we’ll be fine” Max said with a hint of uncertainty.

“I hope so,” Katie said nervously.

“Hey. As long as we stick together, we’ll be okay. Promise.”

“Don’t get too sentimental on me now, Max.”

Max sputtered. “Are you almost done prettying yourself up, or do I need to give you another hour for you to put your makeup on?”

“Do you really think I need makeup on this face?” Katie said while pressing a hoof to her cheek.

“No, not really. Your coat does a good job being the makeup for you.”

“Awe, how sweet of you.” She said as she picked her brush off the floor and stuffed it into her bag. She lifted them onto her back and looked around her room.

A few seconds passed before Max cleared his throat. “I had the same moment in my room. This is our home. But we have to move on now. Did you say bye to Jasper yet?” Max asked.

“Yeah. Right before you came in,” she answered. “He was a great per- uh, pony to talk to. I just wish I had that counselor connection you and Rose have though.”

“I’m willing to share,” Max said holding the door open for her. “She misses being a mom.”

Katie walked through the door and looked back to her room as her friend closed the door. She sighed and waited for Max to catch up to her. “I could only imagine…”

She stopped talking and just continued with her eyes fixed forward. Max could tell what was happening. She was thinking about her parents. Her family. He knew because this is what he did when his mother and sisters came to mind. He blocked out the world and embedded himself into his memories.

Max let her be. He knew she wouldn’t want to be disturbed. He sure wouldn’t. He simply kept his eye on Katie as they walked down the halls to the lobby.

Katie’s face began to fidget a little, starting out with heavier blinking. Then her eyes started to water and her lips began to quiver. Max was about to speak up but, she fell onto her haunches and started to sob with her head hanging low. Max stopped in his tracks and quickly turned to her. “Katie?”

“D-dad killed himself.” she whimpered.

He sat next to her and put his hoof on her back. “What do you mean? You told me you talked to him before the event.”

“I saw it!” she yelped. “...he- he was suffering from depression after the divorce. He loved me and my sister. If he could never see us again… I could just… see it.”

Max held his friend as she sat in the hallway. “I’m sorry I brought up family. I’m so sorry. I should’ve known better.”

Katie leaned into the sturdy earth pony and let her tears stop on their own.

“I know what’ll cheer you up,” Max said comfortingly.

He cleared his throat and whispered to her. “I was only nine years old. I loved Shrek so much, I had all the-”

“I swear to shit if you say another word, I’ll use my magic to tear your balls off,” Katie said with a nasally chuckle.

“Dick.” He helped her onto her hooves and gave her a reassuring smile. “I get those random flashes of anxiety about family too. You’re not alone.”

Katie sniffled and leaned into her friend again. “Thank you, Max.”

“Of course, glowstick.” He said as he awkwardly leaned back as a slight scent caught his attention. It wasn’t bad, but… strange.

He helped Katie back to her hooves and continued down the halls.

When they finally reached the lobby, the first thing they noticed was the train sitting at the platform outside the glass windows at the end of the lobby. It looked eerily similar to a modern European commuter train. Seeing as they didn’t use cars anymore, Max assumed technology was still in its infancy, but the sleek design of the train said otherwise.

Rose called out for them from one of the many benches lining the sides of the open space.

“Well, here's our ride,” Max said as he trotted toward his care taker.

“Would you look at you two.” Rose chuckled. “You guys look like you’re going on an adventure with all that stuff in your bags.”

Katie nodded. “Well, we are going on an adventure.”

“Yes, you are. It’ll be fun. Promise.” Rose said before she turned and walked to the train platform. “Do you have everything hun? You have the apartment keys? The address? All the residency paperwork?”

“Y-e-s mom” Max sighed.

“Well then get a move on! The train leaves in a minute. You don’t wanna be stuck in this boring lobby for an hour.”

As Max walked out the doors, his senses were hit with the blast of dry air of the Mojave desert. It’s only been a day since he was last outside, but this was different. Mostly because this wasn’t the well landscaped courtyard of the rehab center and partly because it smelled like overheating metal.

The station had no walls but was covered by a much needed metal roof that sheltered the trains and the ponies from the scorching heat of the Nevada sun.

“Green Line South will be departing in thirty seconds.” a voice over the station’s loudspeakers announced.

Hurriedly, Max and Katie stepped aboard, preparing for the journey ahead.

As the train sped off, Max and Katie could finally see the rehabilitation center from the outside. It looked like a shopping mall with more windows and no store logos. Being cooped up in there for so long made it seem smaller than it really was. With their old home fading into the desert haze, he focused his sights forward towards the Stratosphere Tower.

They stopped at a newer structure built where the massive hotel complex once stood. Now that he had a close-up of the ancient relic, Max noticed strange writing carved into portions of the concrete. Those must have been the runes he learned about in class. They ran up the length of the structure, but were unnoticeable to the untrained eye, appearing instead to be a sort of stylized decoration. The wall of the station accentuated this effect, with the logo from the old hotel painted like a mural as well as directional signs pointing to the museum and broadcast center inside.

As this was the only train heading back into the city, the train quickly filled with media employees and tourists alike.

The train played its tone, closed the doors, and began speeding off to its next destination.

"The next stop is Las Vegas Central Station," said a flat voice over the loudspeakers.

The city itself was still about ten miles to the southeast, so Max took his eyes off of the expanse of desert in front of the train. He sat in silence while the ambience of the train car buzzed in the back. Katie wasn't talking either; she must have been just as nervous as him. As time went by, however, he eventually decided to speak up.

"What was it like when you first got there, Rose?"

Rose's ears twitched and she pawed at the floor. "It was... lonely" she mumbled. "I didn't make any friends on the inside, so I was starting from scratch." She looked out the window and watched the eastern mountains draw closer. "I met a few ponies. Mares mostly. Not many of them stuck around me. I was too much of an outsider."

"The stallions though... I may have been in my late forties at the time, but that's still considered young. And with youth, comes... you know. The drive. Us returnees will feel it, but It's still too strange for us to act on. For the natural borns though, it's just growing up. And that's all I really was approached for. It was high school all over again. Not that I didn't have a couple of guy friends."

She put her forehoof around Max. "The mares will probably do the same to you. You're quite the handsome stallion."

"Jesus Christ. You really are my mom." Max sputtered.

"They can try, but you're all mine, Maxie," Katie said with a wink.

"Oh! There she is, guys." Rose pointed her hoof out the window to a sight Max and Katie never thought they would see again: Skyscrapers. Actual glass and steel skyscrapers. They weren't the goliaths they used to see in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles, but they were well above twenty stories tall. They were not simple block shaped buildings, but very fluid. They looked like they were hauled all the way from Dubai and shrunken down enough to hide behind the southern ridge of Frenchman Mountain.

"Wow... that is..." Max paused for a second to take in what seemed to him like a mirage. "Gorgeous."

Max and Katie simply sat at the window and watched the city slowly reveal itself. To the direct south, where Henderson once stood, a field of warehouses and factories sprawled along the outskirts of the city like a protective barrier. It wasn't until they turned around the southern ridge that they truly saw the city in its entirety.

They soon found themselves passing over the Las Vegas wetlands and immediately into the outer neighborhoods. Beyond the protective fence lining the train tracks, the buildings looked like the dense parts of Los Angeles without the paved roadways. Townhomes and apartment complexes with flat roofs lined the walkways. Green parks filled with palm trees, ferns, and all other kinds of non-indigenous plants appeared every few city blocks. The deeper into the city they got, the older and more Mediterranean the buildings became. Stucco and brick structures built next to each other with no spaces in between. The streets were very narrow, but the wide main street built alongside the train tracks seemed to be the central gathering place for these neighborhoods. This boulevard that followed them all the way into the city was lined with stores, restaurants, street vendors, and even a mime. Who knew those still existed?

The train itself began slowing down, catching Katie off guard, sending her into Max. They both toppled over onto the floor of the train with a groan.

"Now arriving at Las Vegas Central. Green Line final destination." The loudspeakers sounded off as the two dusted themselves off.

"Are you two trying to be comical?" Rose said as the train doors opened.

Max whinnied and shook his head. "I don't even know.

The train platform was nothing special. Trains large and small lined the concrete piers all while the stench of coal and diesel filled the area. All around, ponies sat on the various benches with their newspapers and books waiting for their train to arrive.

When they made it outside, they were greeted with a breathtaking view. The station's main entrance was in the perfect position to make the skyline look perfectly symmetrical. The tallest tower rose up in the center, followed by two shorter towers to either side and two shorter ones after those. Below the engineering marvels was a grand plaza built specifically for the train station. Trolleys also ran along the outer ring of the square and into the surrounding avenues while entire area bustled with life. Proud earth ponies set up carts, selling the fruits of their hard labor. Young pegasi flipped and dived in the air above, like a gang of skateboarders. Griffins sat at tables swindling gullible ponies out of their money with street games, and little colts and fillies kept cool in the Nevada sun by splashing around in the large elegant fountain.

"Welcome home, kids," Rose said as she walked ahead of them. "If you two are done gawking, let's get you to your apartment. It's a twenty minute trolley ride from here to the north hills."

The two of them looked at one another and followed Rose down the steps of the train station, looking around the city like children in Disneyland. Their hooves clopped softly on the tiled streets as they walked toward the stopped trolley.

-------------------------------

Max hopped off the trolley onto the inclined brick street. He looked over his shoulder down this hill and took in the sight of the city below. It felt like he was in San Francisco the way the dense neighborhoods climbed the side of the mountain. They were in one of the newer parts of town, not only because of the modernized apartment buildings but because a good portion of them were built into the side of the hill at a near 45-degree grade. The main road wasn't at that extreme of a grade, but it would definitely be difficult to get an underpowered car through the neighborhood. The inclined streets had no shops or entrances on them, but had a sign placed on the side of one of the buildings that read 'No skating or sliding down the road at any time.'

The leveled out side streets extended in both directions off the main road and incorporated quaint shops and diners. The streets weren't narrow like the ones in the inner city but were equally as packed thanks to large planters in the median.

"Damn... nice place," Katie said levitating a blossom off one of the cacti in the planters.

"Much better than the neighborhood I was living in." Max retorted.

"Okay." Rose exhaled walking under the shadows of the canary palm trees and stopping at one of the building's metal fence gates. "Should be right here. 2121 Blue Feather Way. You remember the keys, hun?"

Max nodded and turned his neck, trying to open up his saddle bag. He got the flap open only to realize he couldn't get anything out of it. Katie caught on immediately and levitated the key out of his bag.

"What the hell would I do without you?" Max said with a smirk.

Katie inserted the key into the complex's gate and swung it open. "Your clumsy ass would put teeth marks into everything in there and end up swallowing the key."

Max walked into the surprisingly green courtyard. The fifty foot wide common area was landscaped just as well as the parks they passed by on the train. All the apartment's entrances were accessible from the balconies above the courtyard. The open areas were covered in green grass and a small soccer net sat toward the back. The entire area was shaded very well by the buildings and trees.

They climbed the stairs to the fourth floor and stopped at one of the corner units of the complex. Unit 410.

"I think you'll like this place," Rose said, waiting for Katie to unlock the door. "I pulled some strings back at the office and got it for you guys."

The door unlocked with ease and made a slight creak as it opened. They entered into a fully furnished great room. The left and back wall of the room had a couple of paintings on them surrounded by an array of blank picture frames waiting to display the new owners' adventures. The wall also had three doors leading to two bedrooms and a bathroom. The right wall was a kitchen complete with appliances such as an oven and even a refrigerator! The opposite wall to the entrance had two floor to ceiling windows and a sliding glass door onto a large balcony. Beyond the deck, the entire city and its five glass and steel spires lied below in the canyon around the lake. Max walked to the window and rested his hoof on the glass, taking in the view.

Rose chuckled and walked up beside him. "I thought you'd like that. You're always so sentimental about scenery."

"Looking out into the canyon, you feel like you own the city. As if it's yours for the taking," she with a smile. "And that's exactly why I chose this place for you two. This view is a reminder that this city isn't just another den of misery and sin, it's a new beginning. An opportunity for you to become who or what you want. It's beacons like this that give ponies hope, and that's what I want you to feel when you wake up every morning. Hope."

"The hope for a better tomorrow."

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

How did you come up with the name of the story?

[TheMixtapeHorse]

8376266
Well... Las Vegas is known as the 'City of Sin' for a reason. It's known for it's gambling, drinking, sex, and violent crime. This story revolves around two average ponies' adjustment to life in a just as sinful and prejudiced city, but through the eyes of the minorities of this new world.
So simply put, "Sin Never Died" with the age of humans.
But to many people, like myself, it's also a beacon of hope. A glamorous mirage in the middle of the desert that calls the souls of people from California to New Zealand for everything from a night of happiness to a new beginning.
And it's these two reasons why I picked the setting of Las Vegas.

[Alden MacManx]

It summons me. It's a good city, despite its drawbacks. Then again, so does every place else. They are just more up front about it. Walk down the Strip and count how many times you are accosted for ads for sinful places.

Then again, the story summons me for other reasons. I LIKE IT! 'nuff said.