My Little Metro

by redsquirrel456

Chapter 7

My Little Metro: Chapter 7

“I had given my word.”

The last thing I expected to hear upon entrance to Bucklyn Station was that I’d been placed under arrest. I’d expected a veritable army of friendly ponies who’d shower us with congratulations and praise for surviving such a long and harrowing trip on hoof. I thought we’d be shown to a resting area where we’d be treated for our injuries and I’d be able to show Hunter’s medallion to the Rangers nearby, and that’d be the end of it. They’d know what to do and my station would be safe and sound. It seemed that was too much to ask for the nightmare that my life was turning into.

In retrospect, turning up half-dead, armed to the teeth and with a crowd of bandits right behind us hadn’t been our brightest idea either.

“Weapons down, now!” their captain, a tall tan unicorn with a powerful glow around his horn snapped at us. He was levitating three assault rifles at once. We did as he said and unholstered our guns, dropping them to the floor.

“Mind telling us why we’re suddenly the bad guys?” Sidewinder asked with his laconic grin. “Or do you just enjoy putting ponies in hoofcuffs?”

“Shut up!” the captain barked, though his subordinates did indeed bring forward cuffs and secured them around our limbs. “You!” he said, pointing at me and waggling one of his rifles in my face. “Explain why you turned up here like this. What were the circumstances involving your arrival?”

“We were running for our lives,” I said, and revealed nothing more. I didn’t want anypony to know about Hunter’s mission for me. The captain didn’t look satisfied and snorted, motioning for the guards to take us away.

“It’s true!” Sunny Side protested. I didn’t know how he was talking and struggling with a bullet lodged in his chest. Adrenaline, probably, or the shockers. “We have passports. Just check our bags! That’s why your magical defenses didn’t fry us. It’s why we had to break one of the wards and alert you! We couldn’t have just snuck in past them on our own.”

“I could have,” Sidewinder said, but the captain ignored him.

“You think passports are worth a damn anymore, boy?” the captain sneered at Sunny Side. “I don’t care if you’re Princess Celestia herself. All new arrivals are to be detained and questioned.”

“About what?”

“About the deaths of the Rangers and the sabotage of the eastern plantations.”

A cold chill ran through my veins. ‘Ranger’ and ‘death’ just didn’t go together in the same sentence. Rangers didn’t die, they prevented death. They didn’t just keel over and accept the end for no reason. This wasn’t possible. They were making it up to try and press imaginary charges. My mind raced, trying to imagine all the problems this station might be having that they suddenly arrested new arrivals. Bucklyn was always a tense place, being a large, five-hundred strong station and one of the few places along the Ring that didn’t accept Hoofsa’s strong pressure to join their federation. They were responsible for the defense of several of the eastern plantations ever since rumors of bandits organizing into powerful mobs came up, but they’d always been friendly to the other independent stations of the north. I couldn’t understand this fearsome resistance.

I railed against strong hooves that grabbed my limbs and attempted to drag me away. “What do you mean? How could we be responsible? We’ve only just arrived!”

“You think those bandits were the only ones out there?” the captain snarled, pushing through the crowd to put his face close to mine. “You motherfuckers, dragging an army along behind you and smashing a protection ward. You’re lucky we didn’t shoot you on sight! You could be spies, bandit deserters, saboteurs! So what if you have passports?”

“From the Guild,” I gasped, hoping against hope that invoking that mysterious name would give us some leverage. For a moment I thought it might work, since the captain’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully and then his horn was magically ripping open my saddlebags. I twisted in fright, hoping Hunter’s pendant wouldn’t be seen… but somehow all that came out was some spare ammo, my meager supply of dried foodstuffs, and the Guild passport. The captain levitated it and looked it over, probing it with his magic. Then I remembered what happened to Sweet Dreams and my mouth went dry. I waited for the captain to explode, but he didn’t, and then he sneered at me again.

“So what?” he snapped, and crushed the passport under his hoof. “You might have stolen this. Either way, we don’t answer the questions. You do. Now off with you and don’t say another word.”

“Wait. My friend, he’s hurt!” I pleaded, but they didn’t listen. Instead I got a blow to my face for my trouble, and Sunny Side only gasped while Sidewinder looked on.

It didn’t matter how much I struggled, they strung us along anyway, into a side passage away from the main entrance. I could see, beyond the checkpoint crowded with guns and guardponies, the lights of a station, the sounds of life and hardworking ponies… I’d come so close only to be torn away from my goal right at the finish line. The sounds and sights of hope fell away as the door clanged shut behind us and we were forced into a makeshift prison. It was a little hallway with several doorways set into the walls, each secured by doors converted into cell gates. We were all tossed into one, furnished with nothing but a harsh red emergency light above our heads, sans our weapons and armor but with our bags and equipment still attached. I hoped that meant we weren’t expected to be held long… unless they planned on keeping us locked up so long we’d need to provide our own food from our supply.

I didn’t mind the getting locked up part, no, what bothered me was that I could no longer complete my mission due to it. I felt stuck in a cold, nasty chill that prevented me from thinking straight. A huge barrier had erected itself in my mind, made from fear and panic, and my thoughts ached to be voiced, banging on the walls while I sat and pondered and withered with depression. Sidewinder seemed more disappointed and annoyed than anything else, as he curled up into a corner and laid his head against the wall. And poor Sunny Side at last seemed to be cracking under his façade of loyal bravery. The small space was barely enough for all of us to lie down abreast of each other, and spreading his wings was impossible without brushing the tips on the walls or floor. That above all else, I knew, was an unbearable feeling for a pegasus to have.

“Um. Wait. Wait!” he said, rearing up and putting his front hooves on the door as it was slammed in our faces. “Could I just… get a bigger room? Please?”

“Shut up!” the guards outside shouted back.

“Wait, but, it’s getting close to my flying time! I can’t miss it!” he said, a note of desperation entering his voice, but then he slumped back down and pressed a hoof to the injury in his neck. “Damn it… damn it!” he said, sounding like he was about to start sobbing, and I hurried to his side, taking out a shocker that hadn’t been confiscated. I jabbed it into his skin and he shuddered as the magical energy provided a short boost.

“Fuck, it’ll heal up right over the bullet… I’ll have the damn thing stuck in me forever… like a splinter.”

I did my best not to wince. Splinters were just… disgusting to think about. “Don’t worry,” I said, trying to soothe him. “We’re going to get out of here.”

“Doubtful,” Sidewinder muttered from his corner of the cell. “I should’ve seen it coming. Bandits that close to the main doors always means a blockade. And they had a Diamond Dog too, so these guys knew what they were doing. They knew how to capture dangerous animals, set up checkpoints… We probably ran right into a military lockdown here.”

“Weren’t you supposed to know?” Sunny Side gasped sharply, slumping against the door and closing his eyes. “All powerful Sidewinder taken by surprise!”

“I’d heard Bucklyn was having troubles, but I didn’t know they’d gotten this bad. I’d been more focused on not getting murdered by the Guild or by Sweet Dreams,” Sidewinder said, not sounding apologetic in the slightest. I realized that in his mind, the job was done. He’d gotten us to Bucklyn alive and in one piece, and now he hadn’t the slightest amount of loyalty to us anymore. He was just sorry that he’d gotten caught up in this mess like us. I saw his normally frazzled mane even looked more low-key, imitating his laid back slump. He didn’t even care what happened to us, now. We were baggage and now we’d been dropped. “They’ll have us against a wall in a few hours if we can’t prove we’re honest travelers.”

“You have the patch of the Stalkers,” I pointed out. Sidewinder laughed hoarsely.

“Yes, I’m sure the captain noticed it, but that doesn’t mean he’ll let us go. Stalkers can come from anywhere and work for anypony. We have no official allegiances, so unless we arrive at a station that knows us or we’re carting a bunch of supplies, we’re just one more mouth to feed.”

He looked at me with a pointed, vexing stare that hovered between amusement and incredulousness. I saw that he mocked my inexperience and while this time terrified me, it wasn’t anything more than a minor inconvenience. His sheer indifference to how this affected me and Sunny Side, not to mention my home station, lit a fire of anger under my heart. Still, I chose to keep my mouth shut.

“You’re a kid, Lockbox. A little colt, and your friend there isn’t much better. You’ve fought bandits and monsters, but you don’t really know the kind of darkness that exists out there in the Metro. I have stories, you know, of all kinds of horrible things that happen to distant stations, and you… you have no idea what it’s really like. You’ve only just got a taste, you see? You’ve never even seen the surface, have you? I have. I’ve seen what kinds of horrible things lurk up there. I’ve seen the sun break through the clouds and blind ponies that it used to comfort. The Sun is a monster all its own. I’ve seen the twisted woods and tangled vines overgrowing our fair city… turning it into a forest of death. I’ve seen monsters that I don’t even know how to describe… I’ve followed rules like ‘don’t look at the Victory Spire’ and ‘never go into that north facing house’ without even knowing why, because anypony who broke them disappeared without a trace. What’s worse, I’ve seen what ponies do to each other down here.”

He crawled forward, his chains clinking together, his grin spreading over his face like a mold. I grew distinctly uncomfortable and wished very much to no longer share a cell with him, now that his debt was repaid and he didn’t appear to have any compunction about murdering us. But no, he was strange, but he was too smart for something like that, wasn’t he? I hoped so.

“Have you ever watched a mother trying to sell herself at the dockside? Or sell her children? Have you ever seen the Monarchy bear down on a Republic station, showing no mercy and using commando units to slaughter innocent ponies whose only crime was living under the wrong government? Ever been through tunnels so dark and so wretched you’d rather you were walking on corpses, just so you’d know you weren’t the only pony in the place? I have. I’ve done all that and I can tell you, you’re not cut out for this.” His grin turned into a leer, as if by trying to make myself realize how stupid I’d been to come here meant some kind of victory. If anything it just made me mad.

“So what?” I asked, plucking up unexpected courage. “I didn’t know what I’d be facing out here when I left home. So what? Does anypony? All I know is I’m still alive and I have a job to do, and if I wasn’t going to finish it I’d be dead already. Since I’m not I’m going to keep trying.” The anger at my unfair situation, and the fact that I still hadn’t gotten proper and fair medical treatment to my wounds that aggravated me without end, drove me to greater heights of eloquence. It was strange how easy it was to stare down my problems when I was too frustrated to care about how big they were, and Sidewinder was the only pony around I could easily vent at. “So you’ve seen horrible monsters and been through horrible things. Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? Impressed? I’m supposed to curl up into a ball and cry? I’ve seen some pretty terrible things myself, and I don’t think I need you to remind me how terrible they were!”

Sidewinder didn’t answer. I supposed I’d made my point, since he just snorted at me and fell back into laconic, unfriendly silence. I hadn’t felt very brotherly towards him at all, even after what we’d been through, and this just drove the point home that he was still a very strange and unfamiliar pony who I wanted very little to do with when push came to shove. And when the argument passed, the anger abated with every heartbeat, bleeding out of me like sand between my hooves. Whatever I said, Sidewinder was right, and all I’d been doing through my outburst was try to put on a brave face. I knew exactly how unprepared I was for all the things that could go wrong, and I was still haunted by the face of Sweet Dreams, and the blurred, vague silhouettes of those bandits I’d put down without a second thought. All to meet Rangers who apparently had died before I even got here.

Merciful Celestia, I’d killed them. Just killed them all. The realization, the reality of what I’d done and its awful permanence dropped onto my back. I sagged under the weight and collapsed onto the ground, staring straight ahead. Killed them. I, Lockbox, had killed at least three ponies in as many days, just by traveling from one station to another. My head bowed under the weight of the shock. I didn’t know why I dwelled on it so much. It was like gum that I refused to swallow, and kept chewing on it. I hadn’t quite accepted the fact yet, and now I tortured myself as memories replayed through my head, over and over. The sight of blood dribbling down from Sweet Dreams’ eyes, the indistinct shadows that collapsed lifelessly as my gun pointed and flashed at them. Like a colt’s game, really. Point, flash, and they fall over. Then they never get back up again.

I felt very grateful I hadn’t seen their faces and that my mind had been clouded by the terror and anxiety of the moment, the blinding flush of combat dulling my conscience until later. I didn’t think I could handle even more faces to add to my nightmares. My mind began to go blank as time stretched on and on, and my thoughts droned in my head. I killed them. I didn’t want to. I had to. I was angry at myself and snarled my old justifications. They were evil, they were obstacles, they were hostile. What would Hunter have done? How had he managed to cope with his first dead ponies, and knowing that his own kind was definitely out to kill him if he got in their way? Was I any better, since I’d mercilessly cut through them and then run, not even affording them the slightest dignity?

No… no, in the end, I supposed I wasn’t any different. I’d held some small dreams of being a hero like my idols Hunter and the rest of the Rangers. But now I knew what that cost. What Rangers and Stalkers and all those other heroic ponies faced when they went into the dark unknown wasn’t just monsters. It was their own souls, being warped and twisted by the terrors they endured. And I’d been infected by the same taint.

If it’s hostile, you kill it.

This was all too much for me. I wanted these heavy thoughts to stop weighing in on my head, but they wouldn’t go away. I felt rather sick, now that I really had time to dwell on what I’d done. All I heard was the gentle, labored breathing of Sunny Side next to me, and the clinking shuffle of chains along the floor as we shifted our weight.

“Damn it,” Sunny Side whispered, and I knew he was clenching his eyes tightly shut, aching just as I had for a little bit of rest and freedom, trying to imagine he wasn’t in a cold, crowded, cramped cell and he wasn’t bleeding. Just the chance to spread his wings. My heart went out to the poor pegasus, but there was nothing any of us could do. Or at least nothing I could do. I was pretty sure Sidewinder had fallen asleep and didn’t really care.

“It’s… it’s like an itch,” Sunny Side whined. His wings shivered, twitching in random directions. They yearned to move and be free. “I can’t scratch it. It’s worming around under my skin… it won’t stop until I can fly freely… make it stop, Lockbox! I can feel it. I can feel it getting worse. I can feel how… how small the room is. I can’t breathe…!”

“Yes you can,” I said firmly, unable to dredge up the patience to deal with a panic episode. He’d have to keep it together, because getting worse would bring the guards, and the guards would bring batons and hooves… “You can breathe, Sunny Side. Just keep doing it. Deep and slow, now.”

I settled in next to him, but gave him space. He curled up against himself, huffing and puffing.

“You know,” he said, “I never thought this’d be how our trip turned out. Heh… when will I ever learn to stop listening to your crazy plans, Lockbox?” Abruptly the door swung open and the captain stepped inside, pointing a hoof at Sunny. The pegasus sprang up, looking almost hopeful, if a little vacant and tired, and without a word two guards came to escort him out.

“Sunny Side!” I said, and he gave me a glance over his shoulder. In a single moment we said all that friends needed to say when they were worried for each other. Then they closed the door and their hoofsteps faded away.

So long Sunny Side.

/-/-/-/

One of the things I liked about being in prison was that it gave me a lot of time to think. Thinking helped me pass the time. It was either that or twiddle my hooves and roll around on my back over and over, which was what Sidewinder was doing while muttering to himself inanely. He said something about “fabulosity” but I wasn’t listening. I took some amusement from watching him act like a brain-dead colt until the sight suddenly grew disturbing and awkward as it dragged on and on, and I leaned against the wall to try and get some relief from the cool concrete for my headache. I wondered, dully, if I was starting to come down with something. Getting sick in the Metro was a terrifying experience; lack of valuable antibiotics and proper nourishment meant even simple illnesses could turn deadly. That and no station was going to risk a breakout. Cramped quarters meant sickness spread like wildfire, and had to be quickly and ruthlessly stamped out before it got too bad. If I did get sick, it meant a quick trip to quarantine… and then slowly dying there, or being shot out of mercy and burned in the tunnels. I’d seen it happen to several good ponies… usually the elders, or the children. The children were the worst. One day they were running and laughing, and the next they were struck down, unable to even see their parents too often for fear that they would spread it to the rest of the station. Exiperia, being relatively small, was almost draconic when it came to preventing epidemics. I’d seen the Rot and common colds destroy families before I ever saw my bullets tear apart another creature. Mercifully my father had never forced me to stand quarantine guard during a suspected breakout.

My ribs ached, and my leg throbbed.

Such things didn’t help my already black mood. I turned my thoughts back to home and the mission I’d undertaken to protect it. Somehow I’d ended up just short of my goal, due to Sidewinder not keeping up on current events and me being too stupid to try and collect some news or gossip, either from Sidewinder himself or from Draft station before we’d fled. The Rangers were dead. I didn’t want to accept it. I couldn’t until I got real hard evidence, until I saw the bodies for myself and investigated their little safe house. So that wasn’t up for debate either.

Ah… the Dark Ones. They loomed large in my mind now that I was here, stuck in the surreal red glare of the overhead light. What were they, I wondered? I didn’t know anything about them except that they were violent and unstoppable, which basically put them into the category of ‘every monster ever encountered in the Metro. Sixpence, who I recalled with a twinge of anger and regret, had said they looked like the Princesses, which led my thoughts to them. I’d never seen the Princesses except in old, faded photographs or little charms, and those were generally stylized and without the vigor and detail that only a living creature could possess. The photographs, I knew, did them absolutely no justice. They were the apex of pony perfection, living representations of the ultimate pony form. As mares, they were more than beautiful, they were perfect. So heart-stoppingly wonderful and elegant you wanted to turn away and grovel in the other direction, because they didn’t deserve your meager affection and devotion.

At least, that’s what the stories said. As ponies in general, they were wise beyond comprehension, drawing on thousands of years of wise and benevolent rule to provide a guiding hoof to every crisis. But if they were so perfect, I had to wonder, why had the world gone so awry? I didn’t know much about the history of the War itself, and it often surprised me nopony did. I knew most of the War’s roots lay in the sudden, inexplicable disappearance of Princess Celestia from the public eye. It was her absence during the War that led to many ponies assuming that she was alive and well somewhere, or perhaps watching us still from the afterlife alongside her sister, Luna. Luna had led Equestria alone through the dark days of the War, but without her elder sibling’s experience (or at least that’s what I supposed the reason was), she’d been unable to contain the situation. Bit by bit the world slipped out of her grasp. According to what history we knew, there was nothing but chaos in the final days, with fell magic being hurled at will, dragons scorching the landscape and flying on unprecedented rampages, armies roaming almost at random. Our world had gone mad, as my father said, with greed and lust for power. And now it was dying.

Whatever the reasons, both Princesses were clearly no longer present.

“Sidewinder,” I said out of the blue.

“Huh?” he replied.

“What do you know about the times before the War?”

“Not much to tell the truth. But it’s a sad tale for those who know it.”

“Tell me. We don’t have much else to do.”

“Celestia died, the world went to war, Luna couldn’t hack it and died when Canterlot went up in flames.”

Ah, but that was the version everypony heard. It was like finding a song sheet from long ago consisting of only a single verse. I wasn’t satisfied. Besides, there were varying accounts of Celestia’s absence during the War, and death was the least popular rumor.

“That’s it? And how do you mean, Celestia died? She’s a-”

“Deity? Heh, unlikely. Nopony really knows why she left. Some say she went to fight a great evil, others say she foresaw the War and abandoned this world to make a new one. Others still say she just up and left because she’s a goddess, and well, what reason does the Sun have to care about a world that scorches itself? But if she was alive, don’t you think she would’ve come back to help us? Or her own sister?”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“So, what exactly caused all the strangeness? I can understand the wasteland, the radiation… but have you ever seen anything like that anomaly that chased us?”

“Eh, I’ve heard about it, seen one passing by… but it was much less impressive. It was a ball of living lightning that attacked anything too noisy. I saw it chase down a pack of thumpers and zap them all, Celestia’s honest truth. I don’t know what causes them, but I’ve heard they’re something like mad magic. The energy of the world lashing out now that order is gone or some shit. Basically, we’ve been naughty children, and this is the world giving us a nice long spanking.”

He paused, staring up at the ceiling.

“I knew a mare who liked spanking, some pony of influence in Felabelskaya. Not being spanked. No, she’d give it to you. She had this paddle-”

“The anomalies, Sidewinder. What about them?”

“Told ya, I don’t know nothin’ about them. But I can tell you some other strange things. Stories are what keep things alive here in the Metro, even if they aren’t accurate. Stories about the old world… stories you can go to bed with. And then… well, there’s the other kind.”

He turned towards me with a strange, almost scary grin.

“Almost all my stories are the other kind.”

“Tell me,” I said. If I was going to try keeping history alive, I might as well delve a little deeper into the mythology our own Metro created.

“I once helped a caravan run a tunnel blockade down south, near Ponyopolis. It’s a strange place, between Felabelskaya and Connemara. Those Monarchist bastards were withholding vital medical supplies, trying to force Connemara to submit to their authority. Hoofsa helped us; this was before they jumped in bed with King Pleiades… Gave us maps to an alternate route… through the secondary line between Felabelskaya and Grazeld, and then we’d swing south again to get to Connemara. We had to escort a pony-drawn cart, couldn’t go too fast since we didn’t know what exactly would be there. We got about halfway through, no problems, when suddenly the lights start fizzling, and our only unicorn with us, he starts going crazy. His horn lights up like the dickens, and the rest of us aren’t doing so well either. I felt something in the air around us. Some kind of static, like from a radio, except it was in your head. It wasn’t a good feeling at all… heavy, almost, but intangible. The unicorn is going nuts, crying about how he can hear it, and how ‘they’ are so sad. It’s really freaking us the hell out, so we just try to book it in the cart, ‘cept by now the lights are almost completely out except for the unicorn’s horn. Our gems and lights were just going out, like they were being drained… or the light was just going somewhere else… The static, it was getting terrible, to the point where I couldn’t hear anything, and I had to shake up the others to keep ‘em moving. And I’m hearing voices, too, except they aren’t coming from the other ponies. Just whispers at the edge of my senses. They said things that I didn’t understand and felt I didn’t want to know about. It was knowledge that tantalized and taunted… but I knew was deadly. Then our cart-puller trips and hurts his leg, nearly sent us all onto the ground, so we have to try and untangle the stupid idiot while things just go straight to hell. Another guard snaps and starts shooting down the tunnel at nothing, then the unicorn flies off the handle. He’s sobbing by now, his hooves are out… reaching for something or kicking it I don’t know…”

I noticed him trail off, lost in the memory, his eyes glazing just a bit. It took a small prod from me before he kept going.

“It was like… like he was trying to keep something from coming near him… or… trying to keep it from going away. Something only he knew… then he jumps off the cart and takes off towards Grazeld, screaming about something. I dunno, the static was too loud to hear. So he leaves, and then our only light’s gone. Me, I’m thinking this is it, we’re dead, a few more seconds and some ghost will come and choke the life out of us. Then there’s this bright flash, and it’s over. Just like that, everypony’s back to normal. We’re scared as hell, but we’re alive, just without our unicorn. We get to Grazeld and everything’s fine. Except, when we asked about the unicorn, the one who jumped off the cart… the guards at Grazeld didn’t see anything. Not even the ones at the five hundred meter mark, furthest out. We were close enough that unicorn should’ve come tearing right down that tunnel minutes after he left us. There are no side passages in that tunnel. No holes. Nowhere he could’ve gone. He just vanished. I never saw him again. Just like the ponies who look at Victory Spire on the surface. Or the ones who go into that north facing house… needless to say, after hearing our tale and how shaken up we were, Grazeld blew the shit out of that tunnel and sealed it up but good."

A pall settled over our small, poorly-lit cell, and I found myself wishing I hadn’t asked about it. Would that anomaly we encountered have swept us up too? Sucked the life from us, obliterated us from existence like that poor unicorn, and who knew how many others who disappeared without a trace in the Metro? It was a long while before I worked up the courage to ask about anything again.

“Victory Spire?”

“A monument on the surface, built during the War in honor of Princess Celestia. It’s a statue of her on top of some obelisk in the middle of Ponypal Park. Don’t look at it.”

“Why?”’

“I dunno. Anypony who does vanishes.”

“Just like that?”

“Well, you know, they’ll walk towards it, vanish into the forest the park now is, and never come out again. Like they’re in a trance or something. I never saw it happen personally, ‘cause I never looked at it, and when I ran with other Stalkers we always went in groups so we’d snap each other out of it if some damn fool looked up. Best just to avoid the place entirely. If we had the tech, I’d try shooting it down, but of course… can’t look at it.”

“What about the north facing house?”

“You’ll know it when you see it. Don’t go in. No matter what. Something else is already inside it.”

“What? A magical vortex that kills you instantly or the like?”

He leaned forward and fixed me with a strange, faraway gaze.

“Only thing I can tell you that I can be completely honest about, Lockbox? This world is strange. It’s gone crazy, lost control of something deep inside… that’s why being crazy like me is a good thing, you can get instincts and feelings you never thought about before. You can’t fight what never makes sense. It’s not even chaos, because chaos is some kind of order that came unraveled. This? This is brokenness. Something is very wrong with our planet and I can’t even begin to tell you how truly fucked we all are. Mysteries are the only things that survive here… like you.”

“Me?”

“Of course! You come all the way to Bucklyn through monsters and mayhem, you can survive an anomaly screwing with your head… you’re not a trader, and you’re not tough enough to be a wanderer, though you’ve got the makings of one. No, Lockbox, you’ve got something hidden… something you keep deep inside… don’t look worried, I like that in a pony! You hold onto that secret, boy. It’s one of the few things you’ll ever own that you can say is truly yours. It’s not like these other ponies, no, it’s all secrets and lies with them. But you… ho ho, I can tell you’ve got something worth keeping your mouth shut for.”

He smiled thinly. “Secrets are fun. They give a little drama and tension… can’t have all the exposition at once, you know? Gotta have that one thing that drives you…”

“What drives you?” I asked.

Sidewinder didn’t get a chance to answer, and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t going to anyway. The door opened and the guards came again, this time pointing at Sidewinder. The rust-colored stallion stood up on his lanky legs and chuckled.

“My turn to be alone with the boys, huh? You want me to sweet talk you, or do you like to do it in silence?”

They punched him in the face and dragged him out. I was alone.

/-/-/-/

My mind swam with terrifying possibilities of what they’d done with Sunny Side and Sidewinder. I fretted they’d been put up against a wall, and wondered if the same was coming for me. It wasn’t too big of a leap of logic to assume we were nothing more than bandits who’d deserted their posts, or posing as spies and saboteurs. In a moment of bored bleakness I pondered what being shot in the back of the head would feel like. Would I hear the gunshot? Would I feel the heat of the muzzle flash? I wondered what it would be like to simply be dead, moments after living. How quickly did death come when it was so close and so powerfully delivered? Had the ponies I shot and killed died quickly? I hoped so, fervently.

I shut my eyes as the red light from above dribbled down out of Sweet Dreams’ eyes. The tinny echo of my breathing in the small space reminded me of her screams, so I held my breath for a while.

Trapped in the middle of that awful, rotten cell I couldn’t do anything but think and think some more. What Sidewinder said disturbed me. I’d heard tales before like his, of strange happenings wiping out whole stations and leaving no survivors, of terrible haunted tunnels and cannibals that stalked the shadows. Even my home station now had something terrible to deal with, those monsters the Dark Ones that couldn’t be killed and struck us down without laying hoof on us. It wasn’t the first time terror rose up from the Metro’s depths to overwhelm an entire station, but it was the first time I’d had to face the real, credible threat. The stories and night terrors were always plaguing some other faraway station, or at the very least some guard post at the four hundred meter mark. Now I’d stared right into the face of terror and come out alive. I wondered about the anomaly, and about the burst of strength I’d gotten to fight back the lurkers. Was the world really still speaking to me? Did I, as an earth pony, really still have a connection to magic that helped us, instead of striking out in a tantrum like the anomalies? Was my sensitivity and visions something I’d been ignoring up to now, or was I just going crazy? I couldn’t tell, and didn’t know if I wanted the answer either way.

I chewed on the idea that I’d already failed my home and that in a few short hours… or minutes, or days, or however long I’d been in here… I’d die, and then everything I’d accomplished so far would be for nothing. I didn’t want to think about it, but my thoughts had nowhere to go in this small, red-lit space. Over and over I pondered how the Rangers could be dead before I even got here, or if the story was even true. Had it been Sixpence? Some new enemy I hadn’t encountered? They couldn’t have fallen prey to the bandits that plagued this station. And why had the bandits chosen now to start growing more bold? Who was this Auntie Buttercup I heard about back in the tunnels? And just what the hell was I going to do about Hunter’s message? I didn’t know where other Rangers were. The only clear goal left if they were gone was Ponyopolis… and getting there was a suicide mission.

I lay on my back, staring at that damn red light. It helped me focus, but then it began to grate on my nerves. I asked myself the same questions over and over but without solid information I could do nothing except dwell on my own lethargic despondency. That and the ache in my ribs and my leg. I found myself concentrating on that more than anything else. I didn’t dare remove my clothing to look at the bandages, certain that my injuries were aggravated beyond repair at this point. The pain reminded me how fragile and vulnerable I was. How utterly helpless I’d been rendered.

I was in limbo, my mind slowly being stretched out by the endless monotony of timeless waiting, my thoughts spread thin until even thinking about twitching a hoof took an eternity. Flicking my tail was like a revolution of the Moon around the Earth. Having a coherent thought meant wrestling my mind into submission, smacking it around and demanding it start working again for me. I didn’t know how much time passed. The small red light continued to glare at me. The cramped walls hadn’t gone anywhere. I wondered if my home was dead by now.

Then I noticed the small sliver of light coming from under the door. It wasn’t a natural kind of light, but rather it was pure white, like the entire hallway was glowing. It crept over the floor and touched my hooves, and where it lay I felt a warmth spreading through my veins. Something big and wonderful and inviting was on the other side of that door. I lowered my head and tried to peer underneath, but the light was blinding. I put my ear to the door and heard nothing outside except the faint sound of wind.

I put my hoof on the door and pushed. It swung open.

A Dark One stood before me, silhouetted by the light.

Time… Lost…

My bowels loosened as I staggered back against the wall of my cell. “No, no!” I shouted at the monster, whose passive red eyes stared at me like charnel omens. “Stay back! Get away! Help!”

Seek… Truth…

It began to reach for me without moving, not so much advancing into my cell as expanding into it. The massive wings opened up, welcoming me, beckoning me. I clawed and raked the concrete with my hooves, shaking my head, in denial of the certain death that advanced on me.

“Get back!” I shouted. “You won’t get me! You won’t!”

If the Dark One heard me, it didn’t heed me. Its blackness swamped the walls of my cell, the massive body filling up the entire space. I felt a great pressure on my head. In my mind. The static from Sidewinder’s ghost story invaded my thoughts, tearing them asunder. I kicked and squirmed, but the Dark One continued to envelop everything around me. My world became its cold, dark flesh, my spirit sliced to ribbons by its powerful magic. I felt myself dragged to the door, towards the light. It snaked over my skin, which crawled with an awful feeling. It caught my fur aflame, and I felt my own flesh sizzle and crack. I struggled to stay away from that gaping, yawning abyss where terrible things waited for me, huge and incomprehensible. The static had reached a fever pitch, gnashing against my ears.

“No! No, NO!” I screamed, struggling against the inexorable pull and the fall that would come afterwards. “Stop! I don’t want to! Please!”

The Dark One abruptly smacked me across the face.

“The fuck is wrong with you, boy? Snap out of it!”

And then the Dark One was the guard captain.

“Get up! We have some questions for you.”

I jumped up and hugged him, and got another punch in the face for it that made my nose bleed. I didn’t care. At least it meant I was alive and well, and still back in my small, safe, dark world.

/-/-/-/

My captors were surprisingly gentle, but perhaps that was because I decided to walk on my own instead of waiting for them to drag me. I was herded back to the main part of Bucklyn Station, where I saw it was much like Exiperia, except that it was larger and more militant. The ponies here looked busy and sociable, if a little grim, and at least I couldn’t see too many beggars. But then, that was likely to be expected at a large, well-organized station like Bucklyn. Transients and traders were numerous here since we were on the Ring, the great circle that stretched all the way around the Metro and connected every major line. Hoofsa, or the Hoofseatic League, or most officially the Hoofseatic League of Ring Stations, was the premier trading power in the station and ruled most of the Ring with an iron hoof, but Bucklyn had not yet bowed to their pressure. The wealth given by being on the Ring and being the so-called “guardian” of the northern stations and the eastern plantations gave them the means to buy electricity in amounts I had previously only dreamed of. Seeing wires and lightbulbs dangling all over amazed me, and I felt more than a little overwhelmed by being in a station that was so big and so self-sufficient.

We soon made a turn down into other hallways, taking us away from the hustle and bustle of the main station. Our destination was a large, open area with several rusty shacks and wooden construction making up most of the “rooms.” These were apparently offices of administration, as I noticed several busy ponies rushing back and forth in and out of them. The only actual rooms of the original Metro were reserved for the high ranking ponies, as was custom. I was led into one, apparently the office of the unicorn captain, which was brightly lit and crowded with papers, reports, and equipment. The captain bade me sit down at a chair in front of his desk, which struck me as odd. I thought I’d be strapped to a table and ruthlessly tortured by now.

“Sit,” he said, and his voice brooked no argument. I dropped onto the chair, grateful that it was large enough for me to drop onto my stomach like a regular pony. The captain seated himself across from me and put his hooves up on his desk.

“Before you ask, your friends are alive and well,” he began. “They told me, with some persuasion, their stories about where you come from and why you are here.”

Had Sunny Side given away my true goal? If he had, then the next question was probably going to be where Hunter’s token was. I resolved never to give it up.

“You obviously aren’t bandits. The pegasus is too soft and Sidewinder… well, fortunately for him a few of our ponies here were able to vouch for him. That just leaves you, Lockbox… apparently, the son of Cinder Block of Exiperia.”

I stiffened in my seat. I always knew my special position in Exiperia’s hierarchy would come back to haunt me in numerous ways, and now half of Bucklyn would know my name and face before the day was out! If Sixpence was still here, I was doomed.

“That much is… true,” I started carefully.

“If it is, then I apologize for shutting you up like that. Obviously your father has sent you on some important business if you came all this way alone…”

“That much is… also… true,” I agreed again. The captain regarded me carefully.

“Okay, how about now we cut the crap?” he snapped, slapping his hooves on the desk.

“My name is Meadow Sage. You call me Captain Sage. Call me Meadow and I’ll rip your damn head off. I’m already pissed as hell that I have a stupid-ass colt and his buddies mucking up an already bad situation. You aren’t here on business for your station. You wouldn’t be traveling with a Stalker otherwise, not if you’re really Cinder Block’s son… and forgive me for saying so, you’re scrawny enough to fit the part.”

I fidgeted self-consciously. I wasn’t that physically imposing, but come on… I was an earth pony. Surely that gave me a bit more bulk than the average pony? Not compared to Meadow Sage, of course, who could probably punch me clean through a wall. Perhaps he was just used to belittling ponies.

“The fact of the matter is, you’re a mystery I don’t need to deal with right now, but at the same time, I can’t just let you go. You’re a suspect, and all of your friends are too. Not very likely suspects, mind. But we have rules. Ever since Aunt Buttercup and her cronies started setting up shop here to avoid the Monarchy and the Republic… well, you encountered them, didn’t you? And somehow got through them alive.”

He steepled his hooves. “But the question still remains… what do I do with you? A strange colt, from a friendly station but on some kind of journey. Sidewinder claims total ignorance and your friend remained tight-lipped. So. What can you tell me?” He shrugged.

I considered my options. Bucklyn wasn’t an unfriendly station, per se. Then again, every station was unfriendly as a matter of course, and just because Bucklyn didn’t take all my supplies and shoot me on sight didn’t mean they were going to help my journey. And keeping my mission, if not my survival, a secret was paramount. Sixpence could come after me again, but at least entire stations wouldn’t be working together to stop me if the conflict stayed between him and I. If I told Sage I was going to see the Rangers, I’d have to explain things, maybe even show them Hunter’s talisman, and that was beyond unthinkable. It’d waste time, as well. If I said nothing, they’d keep us here indefinitely until the situation with the bandits, the plantations, and the mystery of the slain Rangers was resolved. That could take days. Weeks, even. Again, time I didn’t have to waste.

In the end I had to get to Ponyopolis. That was my mission. I’d have to sacrifice a little bit of secrecy, but-

“Well?” the captain asked. He had no patience for my space out moments. Then inspiration struck me.

“Ah… well, I’d been assigned to a goodwill caravan that was supposed to carry helpful goods and supplies to Draft Station, and would then continue on to here to gather supplies for Exiperia.” I felt rather guilty, having not considered the fate of our former comrades since I’d been dumped off the cart by Sixpence.

“Yes, yes… they came through here, reported what happened. Your pegasus friend mentioned them. Your caravan had assumed you were dead. In fact, they left a few hours before you came here. The problem with that is, boy, why did you keep coming here when you could have just waited at Draft for them to return?”

Oh shit. I hadn’t thought about that. Fortunately, I kept my composure, since the unicorn captain didn’t immediately leap on my silence and call it a lie. So lie I did, right through my teeth.

“Another part of our mission was to try and gather news and information from other stations about what’s happening in the rest of the Metro,” I explained. “Also I had been carrying a proposal to the eastern plantations regarding new trade deals… they love our tea, you see. My father wanted me to do it, and obviously the caravan hasn’t… perhaps they wanted to try and report my supposed death as soon as possible.”

Sage regarded me with a level, quiet stare. I did my best to meet it. There was only the gentle murmur of noise from other ponies outside the door. At last the captain spoke.

“Quite a journey just to complete a request.”

“From my father. To help my home. You know how important it is ponies keep their word down here.”

Sage shrugged. “Well, you came at an auspicious time, then. I suppose you’ll want to help us see what happened to the eastern plantations, since you were going there yourself, and… being such a dependable pony.”

Ah, now he wanted to trap me just like the Guild. I knew there were probably representatives from them skulking around the station… and this captain was no different. He was testing me. If I refused to help and complete my “mission,” the veracity of my tale was even more suspect. Then again, it was an excuse to get out of the station, find the Ranger base myself to discover their fate, and then find a way to wiggle out and get into the Metro proper. I had no idea what I’d do after that.

“Of course,” I said, and then I knew I was stuck. I’d just given my word again. My conscience was going to nag me the whole way.

“Well, in that case, you can provide the ponypower we don’t have. I can spare my sergeant and two others to keep an eye on you and help get past the bandits to the plantations, where you will then ascertain the true nature of what’s going on out there.”

“You have a powerful military,” I pointed out. “Those bandits are good, but not great. Even I was able to come through alive.”

“Through sheer luck and grit, and that’s not something a lot of ponies have here in the Metro,” Sage answered gruffly. “The fact is I can’t just throw my guard ponies at this problem as much as I’d like to fix it ourselves. I’d have to try and have them coordinating strikes on tunnels we rarely use and the bandits know well. They could get lost, they could get ambushed. You know what kinds of terrible things are out there. The beauty of this bandit situation is that they aren’t actually attacking us. It’s our caravans. We could just arm up every railcar that goes out there to the teeth, but that’d bleed us on the home front. Hoofsa is always looking for ways to prove that we ‘need’ their protection. Those bastards said they’d wiped out every bandit in the northeast sector, but here we are practically under siege… they’ll use this to their advantage as well.”

“If… I’m here,” I began, “and you’re telling me all this… then you must think I can do something about the bandits too.”

“Well, well. The boy has a brain. I suppose you need one to have made it this far almost on your own. The most important thing is to reestablish contact with our plantations. If we figure out what went wrong there, we might be able to create a plan to deal with our station’s troubles.” He reached behind himself and pointed at a map on the wall, and a long arm of the Metro that stretched northeast . The eastern plantations weren’t too far away, but going through the tunnels could take too much time. Days, even, to check all the stations. “The plantations are these four stations outside the Ring, on the Green Line: Compass, Heron, Perchervoskaya, and Ponyevskaya. They were blessed with being right nearby the aboveground train stations and the agriculture brought in there, stored in underground basins that were mostly protected from the bombs. Good soil and other supplies were scavenged by Stalkers over the years, and there you go. But now we’ve lost contact.”

“Why can’t Otzark Bulvard check it out?” I asked, pointing at the station next to Bucklyn’s on the Ring, the gateway to the plantations. It was under their control, since a little flag with Bucklyn’s symbol had been pegged on it.

“Otzark was always a small station, a transit point,” Sage explained. “It’s been mostly abandoned due to harassment from bandits, and they claimed that access to the plantations has been… cut off.” He shrugged. “The ones who made it here told us a lot of things, from disease to monsters to living shadows.”

My stomach began to twist.

“And now the bandits have made going to check almost impossible. We could just force our way through, but who the hell knows how that would turn out? The western tunnels are still open, but that won’t last very long since the noose is tightening.”

“So all underground access is done with. That just leaves…”

Sage fixed me with a very worrying look.

/-/-/-/

“You’re insane. You both are!” Sidewinder exclaimed, trying to get up. Sunny Side grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back down. We were seated in a private area of the guardpony quarters, with bowls of mushroom soup sitting before us. I’d barely touched mine, though Sunny Side had eaten all of his and ordered another soggyweed sandwich. Sidewinder was too busy being obstinate to eat. “Why do I have to be part of this crazy scheme?”

“Because otherwise they won’t let any of us out,” I said simply, gesturing with my hoof. It felt good to finally be able to move it without pain; as a gesture of goodwill Meadow Sage had all of our injuries treated at the station’s infirmary, and now at last I could move without feeling like I was going to fall apart at the slightest provocation. Of course, that gave Sage considerable leverage over us; we owed him big for getting free medical supplies. “I gave my word I’d try to help, and this is the only way we can even get out of the station without risking another gunfight.”

“But the surface?!” Sidewinder complained. “Just for this? You might as well go back to Ruby Red and ask her to sling a few slugs into your backside, and pretty please finish you off with a few free blunt instrument blows to the head!”

“Sidewinder, I know you have no obligations to us,” I pleaded. “But this situation seems worse than even you anticipated. Bucklyn is being squeezed by a noose, and we need to help them find a way around it.”

Sunny Side seemed sullen and apprehensive, staying quiet. He hadn’t agreed to this new madness, but he hadn’t objected either. Though he’d gotten treated just like me and had more than a few rounds in the flight room, he didn’t look comfortable actually going up to the surface for any reason. But we didn’t have a choice. I needed to know what happened to the Rangers, and this was the only chance I was going to get anywhere near their base, which was in a hidden part of the metro near the plantations. I’d managed to slip that into conversation with Meadow Sage.

I didn’t know what I’d find there, or if I wanted to. I just knew that for some reason, momentous events seemed to be piling up around me, and all having something to with my mission, or preventing me from completing it.

“So what, then? You’re gonna go up there and find the reason for all this, stop it, be the hero?” Sidewinder sneered. “Face it, Lockbox, there are no heroes in the Metro. There’re just ponies with values, and the guns to back them up.”

“I’m not trying to be a hero,” I countered, and it was true. All these other problems were coincidence, and my home took precedence. If it was possible to slip through Bucklyn unnoticed, I might’ve just done that. I hadn’t even meant to go this far. Sixpence and the strange things that kept happening around me were the only reason I’d convinced myself to go the extra step. “I’m trying to figure out how to protect my home.”

“My home is wherever I park my little rump,” Sidewinder replied, crossing his forelegs. “This is a stupid idea, Lockbox. Nothing is this important; to throw away your life for a station that owes you nothing, the very idea!”

“We all have that little something that drives us,” I shot back. “This is mine. If it’ll help me get out of here and figure out what’s going on, then I’m going to do it.”

I looked at Sunny Side, who rubbed his temples.

“I’m not going to say this is the smart thing,” he said. “But we have something very important to do, Sidewinder, and… and it wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he insisted.

“I know,” I said. “I know…” Everything was coming down on my shoulders at once. I and Sunny Side were the only ones outside Exiperia who believed in the Dark Ones, much less seen what they could do. If we didn’t get to Ponyopolis… or the Rangers… with Hunter’s message, then the consequences could be lethal.

“Fuck!” Sidewinder said. “Well, you’re not getting me to agree to this. I can find my own way out of here.”

He left the room, but I didn’t know if he’d truly abandoned us. I was grateful for the breathing space anyway; I needed to talk to Sunny Side.

“So are we going all the way?” he asked, taking a grudging bite of his sandwich.

“To Ponyopolis?” I answered, dropping my chin on my hooves. “I don’t know, Sunny Side. I really don’t. All of this seems over my head. The Rangers were supposed to be here, and now they aren’t, and… we’re the only ones who seem able to do it. Only the Rangers will understand what this token means and what Hunter found out. No other station has the means or even the will to help us out…”

He groaned and shook his head. I began to grow angry that even Sunny Side, my loyal friend, was starting to doubt me. There was no hubris involved here. I was the only one who could do this right now, and that was fact. Sixpence tried to kill me, Hunter had chosen me, and according to Sidewinder I’m the only damn pony in the Metro who can brush off an anomaly! I’m the only one with the token, I’m the only one… I felt angry and stubborn realizing that. I was the only link between Hunter’s call for help and the only ponies in the Metro who might answer the call. Therefore, all the hopes of survival for my home rested on me. That thought’s weight crushed me, but at the same time it drove me to stand up. Perhaps there was a little pride involved. I wanted to prove to myself and all these dark shadows that stood against me that I was equal to the task. But all alone?

“Sunny Side, I need your help,” I admitted quietly, looking at the table. “You’re the only pony in this place I really trust. The only one I can trust. I need you as a friend.”

“Neither of us have ever been to the surface before,” he pointed out.

“Neither of us ever fought through an anomaly before,” I answered. “Or even gone farther than Bucklyn Station our entire lives. Neither of us fought bandits and crazy ponies and hordes of mutants almost single-hoofed before.”

“I wasn’t trying to dissuade you,” Sunny Side said, giving me a sad smile. “You’re right, Lockbox. You’re right. This whole mess has come down on our shoulders, for better or for worse. And damn it if I’m not going to live up to my name and see the good side. At least we’re alive, and well, and we’ve got a path. We do need to figure out what happened, and why the Rangers aren’t here to meet us. We owe these ponies for giving us medical treatment.”

He flexed his wing, which looked better than ever. My ribs still felt sore, but my hoof was much better. Those supplies and the expertise were expensive. I wasn’t about to be known as a debt dodger at two stations.

“Before we even think of going farther, we have to figure out what killed the Rangers,” I decided. “That takes precedence. Then we discover what happened to the plantations… I hope the two aren’t related, or this could be a very big problem.”

I thought about what Sage had said. Shadows, rats, and other terrible things were the only reports they got. Who knew what those fleeing from the plantations had seen? I wondered if perhaps the Dark Ones had stepped up their campaign. Wiping out four whole stations with many ponies living in each didn’t seem beyond them from what I’d seen. I patted Sunny Side on the shoulder, giving him a smile.

“But it’ll be nothing we can’t handle.”

So now we had a new course. Solve a mystery and perhaps help a station, if only tangentially. And then… depending on what we found… I faced a very long, very tough journey ahead. As I lay on a bunk in the same room, staring at the ceiling (I didn’t want to go out in public much, just in case Sixpence was prowling around) I realized that all I’d been through had been put a prologue. The last several days were nothing but a little test. It wasn’t until now that I’d really be plunging into the thick of it. The entirety of the Metro could be at risk if the Rangers and Ponyopolis didn’t get this message now. If going through with this meant finishing my mission more quickly, then that is what I would do.

In my mind’s eye, the yellow pegasus stood before me, beckoning. I stayed where I was.

/-/-/-/

I checked and rechecked my supplies. I’d had to half my cartridges to buy essentials that Bucklyn couldn’t spare freely; namely a medical kit that included five shockers, precious, precious ammunition, and a couple spare filters just to be safe. Gasmasks, of course, made it impossible to use the war reins unless they were militarized and created with special hard points that allowed you to fit a gun trigger inside. Magical charms created an airtight seal and you were good to go, as long as you didn’t mind having a trigger in your mouth the entire time. It was worth the discomfort. Fortunately, since I’d been in the militia for a short while, my gasmask included these features.

“So this Aunt Buttercup,” I mentioned to Sage as I prepared myself for the journey out into the tunnels. “What’s her story?”

“I’ve only heard the name. Some bandit bigshot, probably connected to one of the crime syndicates down south… or she got kicked out and set up shop here on the northern arc. She supposed to be the one in charge?”

“I heard her mentioned by the bandits we went through, but that’s all.”

“I’ll keep an ear out,” Sage said, and peeled off to finalize preparations. We’d head out by way of a heavily fortified side tunnel called the Orange Line that led to one of the older, ungated entrances: a simple stairway that led down to the old remnants of the Orange Line. We would be joined by three members of Bucklyn’s guard force: Maple Leaf, Ray Drop, and Sergeant Wind Chill, a tough as nails earth pony who, though only as old as Sidewinder, looked like she was ready and willing to shoot anypony and anything in the face if they looked at her funny. I noted her dull grey pelt and icicle cutie mark, and decided if she gave orders, it was probably best to follow them. According to Meadow Sage she’d been up to the surface only twice, and she was the leader of our desperate little expedition. I kept her at arm’s length, knowing that more than anything else she was there to shoot us if we deserted.

I kept my hopes for survival well reserved.

I noted there were no unicorns in our group, which made sense. They were essential to the working of a station and could be its powerful defenders. Ultimately, us “less magical” ponies were more expendable. I also saw that Ray Drop was a pegasus, with a dark green pelt and vivid purple mane. She possessed a cutie mark of a golden heart on well toned hindquarters she loved to show off by the way she walked. That she was a pegasus gave me some concern, as the possibility of going feather-brained was within every flyer, whether they admitted it or not, and actually being on the surface was a temptation for any pegasus to just fly away. She was, however, a much more sociable pony than Maple Leaf, a taciturn, beige earth stallion who said little and mostly just followed us around while Ray Drop tried to make us feel welcome. Mostly, I ignored her, but she latched onto Sunny Side, presumably because they were pegasi and he didn’t look like he was about to go insane.

“So,” she purred at my friend, trying to look cute and failing due to her clunky barding. “How ‘bout you show me a little ray of sunshine?”

“Um,” said Sunny Side.

I was reminded very suddenly of Starry Gaze, alone and friendless back in Exiperia. Soon they’d get word I’d fallen off the cart and died, and Sunny Side disappeared going back for me. She’d take the news terribly, I imagined, as would my father… my father. I clenched my eyes shut as I thought of him, and guilt pricked me once more that I’d lied, and now I wouldn’t even be able to go back and explain to him what was going on.

“Ooo,” a voice said next to me. “We’ve got ourselves a little fellowship here. Trying to navigate the perils of the Ring, no less…”

It was Sidewinder.

“You’re coming?” I asked, honestly surprised. His presence wasn’t welcome or unwelcome to me; we didn’t owe each other special favors. But that he was here would significantly raise our chances of survival, assuming he didn’t ditch us.

“It’s a chance to stretch my legs,” he answered, fitting his gasmask on. “Either that or I sit in a cell for the rest of forever. Besides, I haven’t been up to the surface in a while. It should be fun! Or lethal. We could all die, you know, in new and exciting ways no pony has even imagined before! And I’ll get to blame it on you since you agreed to this. It’ll be interesting either way.”

“Lunatic,” I muttered.

“Don’t take the Princess’ name in vain, kiddo,” he muttered back and went to stand at the heavily fortified gate. We’d travel down the tunnel a ways before coming to a side tunnel that to a simple stairway to the surface. Up there lurked death of all kinds, and the eternal winter that gripped the land around Stalliongrad. Up there was a city full of crumbling buildings and strange ecosystems and horrifying magical anomalies that tortured the landscape. Monsters the size of houses and all kinds of danger.

Up there was our only way forward.

“Let’s get a move on!” shouted Wind Chill as she headed for the gate and waited for the rest of us to gather. We trooped on out through the gate, passing the rows and rows of sandbags and outward facing metal spikes, designed to funnel attacking enemies into an easy to hit cordon. We traversed the magical traps laid down, and I saw the protection wards sparking in their alcoves. The tunnel was long, straight, and forbidding, with no outstanding features save the typical river of pipes that swam over the walls.

“This entrance isn’t bothered much,” Ray Drop explained, fiddling with the guns on her saddle. “We get the occasional wandering mutant, but the entrance is too small and uninteresting for anything big to get in… we keep it open for Stalkers, mostly.”

“Heh. Hehe. You guardponies always did strike me as ‘back door’ kinds of ponies,” Sidewinder snickered. I rolled my eyes.

“Get your gasmasks on, all of you!” Wind Chill ordered, slipping hers on.

Trying to calm the shaking in my limbs, I slid on my gasmask, feeling the harsh metal and plastic rub over my face, enveloping my head. I clamped the hardpoint down over my gun’s trigger, and the outside world was closed off. Magical charms tightened the seals until I could literally feel the difference in air pressure between my skull and the rest of the atmosphere. I took a deep, sucking breath, and I could hear the deep, rough noise of air squeezing in and out of the filter. I was ready. We all checked and rechecked our clothing and barding, since one false step could open up seams for radiation or the bitter, cold air to bite at. I’d been given a spare coat for the journey, and I prayed that it would be enough on the layers I already wore. At least they let me keep my helmet and flak jacket, slightly scuffed and damaged though they were.

“You know this is crazy, right?” rumbled Maple Leaf. “It’s lunacy. I’m a guard pony. I’m not a Stalker. We should just send the Stalker!”

“Yes, send me,” Sidewinder agreed. “Except according to your captain, I’m required to do this for free, or I rot in a cell or get put against the wall for ‘spying.’ Excellent motivator, he is. Bucklyn is fucking desperate to be reduced to this, and the rest of you can’t claim a single supernatural event between the three of you! Even Lockbox here has a better chance of survival than you all. Are you all that soft, one bandit blockade and Hoofsa breathing down your neck, and you resort to throwing away expendable ponies on suicide missions?”

“Shut up, both of you!” Wind Chill snapped. “We won’t be up there any more than an hour or two, we have a straight line to walk on and then we can get back inside. It’s not that far to the next entrance.”

“I wonder if we’ll sight any demons…” Ray Drop murmured.

“Demons?” asked Sunny Side, eyes wide under his mask’s visor.

“You’ll know them when you see them,” Ray Drop said ominously. “A Stalker party brought one back once, claimed they’d killed it. Ugliest son of a bitch I ever laid eyes on.”

“They fly,” Sidewinder said. “Better then pegasi. Some say they are pegasi. Or…were, rather. Watch out they don’t mistake you for a long lost cousin and try to mate with you, ha!”

Soon we came to the platform that led to the surface. It was a cold, desolate place, with ice and snow covering almost everything. Old benches frozen solid still sat near the platform’s edge, forever waiting for a pony to plop down in one. I looked up at the stairwell, through which streamed the pale light of the moon and gusts of snow and ice. They shimmered beautifully, but my geiger counter began to click every so often.

“Yeah, there’s always that,” Ray Drop explained. Her voice sounded like she spoke through a faraway radio through her gasmask. “If we’re lucky to live long enough we might even get cancer.”

“It’s been too long since there was a good case of cancer,” Sidewinder answered, staring up at the exit. There was a flash of lightning, but I could barely hear the thunder. “That’s a good sign your life is so comfy it breaks from living too long.”

The heaviness of my breathing grew the closer I stepped to that sacred portal, which shone with an unearthly light. Even in the middle of the night, I could see with clarity thanks to the moon. I was struck by a pang of lonely sadness that I’d never be able to truly enjoy my city in the full light of day.

“Here we go,” Sunny Side said, fluffing his feathers. I stared up at the portal, through which our old city still existed. It was a grim, terrible sight. The stairwell was choked with snow and ice that we had to force our way through. Icicles the size of my limbs hung down like the teeth of a great beast vomiting us up into the harsh world above. At last we broke through, squinting as lightning flashed above. Heads bowed against the wind as if forcing us to give homage to the ancient legacy above, shoulders hunched and ears already freezing from the cold, we entered the Dead City.

Comments

[Foasedf]

Definitely one of the best FiM fics out there.

[Damhoof]

<3

[Distant Horizon]

[LawnmowerJoe]

So this is the dead city...welcome home, Lockbox.

[paxtofettel]

HA! Lord of the Rings reference.

[the other sans]

I can't help but think I'm hearing a water droplet falling every time Lockbox does a good deed.Guess that's Metro 2033 and Last Light for ya

[ParaNorm]

Wow this is amazing! You combined two things I really like! I think this story deserves much more recognition though.