Detention
Detention
“Yo!” a voice called in the distance.
“Bro, wake yo’ ass up, pony!” The voice sounded much closer. Like somepony standing right next to them.
Sugar Baker opened his eyes. A gray Alicorn with a black mane was staring down at him.
“Dude! You betta git yo’ ass up before the guard gets to us. I ain’t playin’!”
“What happened? Where am I?”
Bake started to look at his surroundings. He was lying on the frozen ground outside. The layers of snow had been compacted again and again as it continued to build for weeks on end. The ground was now covered in a layer of permafrost. Alicorns were standing in a line waiting for something. Some were just as out cold on the floor as he was. A Pegasus Lieutenant and two guards were walking the line with a screenpad. They were making their way slowly towards them.
“You in Candy Land, Bitch! Now stand the hell up!” The gray pony tried to pick him up by the mane.
Bake finally struggled himself to his hooves in a standing position. He noticed he was cuffed to the same pony who wouldn’t stop waking him. The guards were now only a few feet away.
They stopped at another pair of Alicorns cuffed together. This pony had apparently failed to awaken his partner.
“You were unsuccessful at reviving him?” the officer asked calmly.
“I tried! I tried! But it’s too late. He stopped breathing during the night…I TRIED!!!”
Bake saw the Alicorn pleading with the Lieutenant, who looked at the guard carrying the screenpad and nodded. The guard tapped his pad checking off something.
The soldier looked back at the pony who was on his rear knees in the ice. “Then you will share his fate.” Again he spoke calmly, as though his “fate” was nothing more than a extra form to fill out.
“NO!!! PLEASE!!!” I can work!! I’m strong!” he begged.
The officer turned to the second guard and simply said, “Take him.” The guard unlatched the crying pony from his dead companion and was lurched forward face first into the snow.
“Move!” the guard yelled, prodding the Alicorn, pushing him forward off to another area.
The remaining soldiers continued down the line until they reached Sugar Baker and his partner.
“I see you were finally able to get him to wake up ‘eh?” The officer looked Bake up and down as if he wasn’t fully convinced he was actually alive and awake.
“Yessir!” The gray pony stated, standing upright at attention.
Now that Bake could see his partner more clearly, he saw what looked like an orange cap covering his horn. Looking at his own horn, he could just make out the orange that covered his as well. He had seen these caps used before when arresting criminals. They prevented the perpetrator from using magic. They could only be removed by another’s magic.
“Well, let’s just hope he’s a good worker…for your sake!” said the Lieutenant, moving on to the next pair, while the guard marked it on the pad. When they moved sufficiently far enough down the line from them, the gray pony finally relaxed his stance slightly.
“You owe me one, pony!” he said to Bake.
Bake tried to figure out what was going on. The last thing he remembered was a sonic grenade landing at his feet. He had been marching in the parade towards the middle. He had not seen any of the violence that had broken out, nor the Pegasus soldiers attacking from the sky.
“How long have I been out?” he asked hoping his partner would be a little more forthcoming with details.
“Four days. If you hadn’t gotten up today, you nevah would’a.”
“How’d we get here?”
The gray pony looked over at the guards, who were steadily making their way down the line. A guard was taking another pony away who had failed to wake up their partner.
“Look. What’s the last thing you remember?”
Bake told him about his role in the march and seeing the grenade.
“After you was knocked out, the soldiers here started messin’ everything up. They started attacking an’ killin’ everypony. We was the lucky ones! Everypony left alive’s been brought here to this facility, s’far as I can tell. They got plans to put us to work, help buildin’ somethin’.
“Last night, they paired us off, awake and unconscious ponies and chained us up together. We were forced to spend the night outside until we could get them to wake. If we couldn’t…well you saw what happened.
Just as he said that, the pony being escorted away tried to make a run for it. He almost made it behind a nearby building, before he suddenly fell to the ground. Blood stained the snow beneath his body, as a guard lowered his rifle.
“Just play it cool and you’ll be a’ight.” He winked at Bake, who was so shocked from what he had just witnessed, he couldn’t breathe, let alone ‘play it cool’.
The Lieutenant returned to the center of the line. He spoke out loudly to the whole of line. “Now you see what comes from running…absolutely nothing!” he spoke pointing towards the body in the snow. “For those of you who have successfully woken up, congratulations are in order! You have earned the right to work! In exchange, you will be clothed; you will be fed; you will be cared for! If you don’t work, you will not! Now, for those of you who just woke up, follow your assigned partner and get to work!”
Many of the Alicorns pairs in the line started to make their way over to their assigned work locations. Bake looked at his partner, who did not look at him. He started to walk off, pulling the chain between them, forcing Bake to follow. They made their way over to what appeared to be a factory building.
As they entered, there was a sign above the entrance, “Parts 23A-45G”. Bake had no idea what that meant, but as he entered the factory floor he could see it was vast. There were hundreds of different assembly lines each making different parts for different things. There were gears, switches, computers, industry-pads, and much more.
There were so many parts, that it was impossible to tell what it was they were expected to build. The guard at the gate took their chains off, freeing the two of them. He continued to follow his partner who still wasn’t looking at him or saying anything. They stopped at a point on the line: “Part 37C”.
There were three small belts on tacks to the left and one wider track to the right
“Now look here!” he barked. “When you see the two devices and a rod come through, you put them together and sync the units. Then you send it off to the next station. Got it?”
Bake looked at him befuddled. He was completely overwhelmed to the point his brain ceased to function properly. The gray pony could read his face and finally eased up a bit.
“Look, you need to get this work done, or else we both in for bad times!” he said. “Watch me for a bit. They’ll keep the belts slow while it warms up some, a’ight pony?”
“Baker,” Bake replied. “My name’s Sugar Baker.”
“Zeus,” said his partner.
“Thanks for saving my life Zeus.”
“I didn’t. I saved my own hide. I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass ‘bout you otherwise!” Zeus said, coldly.
Bake didn’t know why this pony was so combative, but he had a feeling the situation they found themselves in may have been a contributing factor. He watched Zeus assemble the parts and pass it off down the line. After three were made, Bake tried to assemble one, unsuccessfully. Zeus had to fix it quickly, which pissed him off, but after that the two were able to work in concert.
Their first shift lasted almost 8 hours straight, with no breaks. Afterwards, they were given a break just long enough to grab a bowl of food and suck it down, before their second shift would start. Bake was not sure he would be able to survive like this, until he saw his meal.
Cornmeal had been mashed into a paste then highly diluted in water into a yellow soupy porridge. As he swallowed a spoonful, his throat tried to prevent it from entering his stomach. He forced it through and ended any doubt he had in his mind: He definitely would not be able to survive this.
The second shift only lasted for five hours, but by the time it was over, at least two ponies had collapsed on the line. They were taken away, and the line was adjusted to fill the gap. At the shift’s completion, they were brought to a barracks. Inside, it had a few hundred old spring bunks with blankets. Many of the ponies needed to share.
Bake followed his partner to a bunk. They were both so exhausted they collapsed onto the bunk together. Zeus was out almost instantly, but Bake remained awake.
He was beyond exhausted, but his thoughts couldn’t help but drift to his family and whether or not they were safe. He tried to convince himself that only those in the march were detained, but his gut wouldn’t let him believe it.
As he silently meditated on his thoughts, he started to overhear some of the other Alicorns talking. A group of ponies were huddled together next to their bunks, talking in whispers.
“…arrested in my home. They were spouting some nonsense about ‘for my protection’, feh!” The pony who was speaking was a medium blue Alicorn with a Navy mane.
Another Alicorn with light green fur and darker mane said, “I was watching the march from my screenpad, when the violence broke out. I was only a few blocks away. I could hear the explosions. I tried to get away from the city with my wife and family, but I hit a checkpoint they had set up and was arrested. We were separated when we arrived, but it looks like the mares and children were taken to another factory next door.”
Bake could hear this pony’s own doubts about what he just said. And worse, it was now confirmed they did not limit the arrests to those in the march. His mind was in shock at the possibility of his family enduring the same labors he had.
As they continued to tell their stories of how they ended up in this facility, Bake listened intently, as he stared at them. On their bodies, he could see the signs of hard labor. Their fur had black soot stained throughout. Their hooves were brittle and chipped. They had only been working in the factory here since the march four days prior, yet the ponies before him looked as though they had been here for years. Even their wings…
Bake had to do a double take, as soon as he understood what he was seeing, he checked his own wings. It had been done to him too. Every single one of his flight feathers had been ripped out. It looked like a slick film of some chemical had been painted over the pores where the feathers had been. As he scrutinized his wings, he came to the realization: he would never fly again.
Bake was so wrapped up in this thought he nearly missed what was said next. “This place could not have possibly been set up in a matter of hours. This had been planned for some time.”
Bake snapped out of his thoughts and leaned into the conversation. “Wait. Are you saying they’ve been planning this since before the march?” Bake looked at the Alicorn who made the statement. He was an elder pony. His purple fur had faded and his mane whitened with age.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. I used to work in a factory like this; though the conditions were much nicer then. This camp had to have been constructed around the factory. That couldn’t have been setup overnight. It would have taken several weeks to get this together.”
Bake’s brain was trying to think back. “But the march had only been planned over the last two weeks! That means this was always their plan!”
He had spoken a little too loudly. The others quickly hushed him. “Shh! If the guards hear us talking, they’ll make us sleep outside!” They listened in silence for a few moments. Apparently, the guards had not heard.
Breathing a small sigh of relief, they settled back down. “Ever since the disaster and the disappearance of Galifrea, bad things have been happening,” the green pony said. “The Pegasi have been planning something, and I don’t intend to just sit here at their mercy, while they carry out their plans!”
The group seemed to be nodding in agreement, but the elder Alicorn was a little more reserved. “The key to stopping their plans, is to find out what their plans are in the first place. Without that, a revolt could only result in only a few dead Pegasi and a tremendous number of dead Alicorns. The key here, is obviously the factory. Has anyone figured out what they are having us build?”
The group tried to work out what their miniscule assembled pieces could fit into. Finally another Alicorn crept up quietly to join the conversation. He was much slimmer and was having a tougher time handling the level of physical labor. He was a beige pony, with a brownish-orange mane.
“I used to be an engineer,” he said to the group. “If you can gather the information on everypony’s components, I might be able to figure out what it is they’re building. Right now we know this: It’s big. And it uses tech-magic.”
“How do we know it uses tech-magic?” the blue Alicorn asked.
“Because my part in the assembly line involves a key component in Mcp. generation technology.”
The elder pony spoke up again. “So for now, everypony, do what you are told, cooperate, gather intel, and recruit. Whatever they are up to, we need to know. And probably soon.”
The group slowly broke apart into their bunks, to get some rest. They would need their strength for the coming days ahead.
Bake laid back down on his bunk. Zeus was already starting to snore. “No matter what,” he thought to himself, “I will find Ruby and the girls! I will not stop until I know they are safe.”
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Happy Holidays!
Hope you're enjoying so far and this chapter did not cross a line with readers
Next chapter in two weeks for the holidays.
Special shout out for CaptRicoSakara for the amazing review!
You just murdered my feels.
The Hurricane we saw in the play was a egotistical jerk, but not the kind of pony to allow for genocide. And will you bring the Changelings into this somehow? I want to see them fighting alongside the Alicorns.
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Cmdr. Hirkain's story will be told, but not just yet. As for the fate of the Alicorns, chapter 6 of the Discord Continuum eludes to that, but also remember the title of this story. This is merely the calm before the storm!
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Also, I hope it wasn't too much like the holocaust. Labor camps are hardly unique to that period of history, but I didn't want to get too close for comfort. It's not something that should be used for entertainment. I tried setting up some distinguishing features, and will keep trying to do so.
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Thanks for the shout out. And I hope my words help you out in future chapters. =3
Hi, I’m cheezesauce, here on behalf of WRITE to give you some feedback. Do note that if this is a crossover, I have no background knowledge of it.
This sentence in the synopsis is missing a space after the comma.
Other than that, the synopsis does its job fine. It gives me a rough overview of the story, but not really one that would draw me into the story. I guess I prefer my pastel ponies in Equestria instead of in space.
This should be teenage
small, scrawny pony
This is telling.
You do not have to describe every single character, and you do not have to do it the moment they are introduced into the story. It’s breaking the flow, you see? I’m trying to follow what they’re trying to do with the ball, but all this unnecessary description is in the way. Also, if you wish to describe a character, choose something interesting to talk about. Something that stands out among his other qualities. Something that tells us more on his nature. Reading about how somepony has ‘dark navy fur’ isn’t very exciting, is it?
This sentence is cluttered up with a lot of unnecessary details. We know the ponies were scared, because that’s why they’re running. And who wouldn’t be frightening by a dark, ominous cloud of doom anyway? We also know what they were seeing, so you don’t need that bit as well. Trim out all the fluff in your sentences and leave them short, sharp, and to the point.
The ponies ran away, screaming.
I quite like this character’s name. Unique without leaning into Mary Sue territory.
Do we really need this? I mean, it’s good to know, but inserting it into the story like this breaks immersion. I’d remove it.
You mean: a massive explosion?
Where there were no chairs
Instead of walking across the room, he flew, displaying the Pegasi superiority. Note that you are merely feeding me the information on his motives. Why did he fly across the room? Because he wanted to show how pegasi are superior. You don’t get any points for telling it out like that.
Close her dialogue properly.
This is not okay. Spell it out in full.
Oh. This is interesting. The story does a dark twist at this point, as tensions continue to build. It also establishes that the Alicorns aren’t that powerful at all. I also do see distinct characterizations for the tribe leaders, and it looks like Commander Hirkain would be the one driving the plot.
Onwards to Chapter 2.
Your chapter titles tend to stick out a bit too much. I’d reduce its size, and perhaps change it to a different font.
This still needs to be capitalized, even though it’s not a proper word.
She would even practice some of the martial arts moves sometimes
Only a single poster
Celestia said, acting surprised.
Celestia called to her little sister, pointing to a table in the school cafeteria.
This chapter builds on the racial tensions between the Alicorns and the other tribes, and it’s done progressively throughout the story. It seemed to be the focus of Chapter 5, escalating quickly from a peaceful march into a full blown battle. Again, the deaths paint a grim setting for the story, justifying the [Dark] tag. You’ve created a lot of tension by the end of Chapter 5.
The first thing that comes to mind is some sort of holocaust about to take place.
You’re missing a ‘being’ before the ‘so’.
This is certainly questionable. How on earth can she brush that pain off so easily? It’s not a papercut she’s getting. She broke her RIBS. That would leave anypony screaming their heads off in pain.
The correct punctuation for an interruption in dialogue would be an EM dash, and not a hyphen. There is also no need for a comma after the dash.
This is one of Commander Hirkain’s better lines.
And done! I like the ideas in this story, and if I do continue reading it, it’ll be because of the plot. Description, on the other hand, is rather bare. Most of it ends up as Tell, meaning that instead of showing out an idea, you simply feed it to us. You will need to leave enough room for readers to imagine things out for themselves.
There are also a few slip-ups in grammar and punctuation, but not serious enough to break flow.
Hope you’ve found this review useful.
--cheezesauce, WRITE’s perpetual underground lurker.
fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/349/4/b/reviewer_logo_longver03_01_by_burrakupansa-d5o60h2.png
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Thanks for the review!
I will look into each recommendation and take the time to patch up the story and improve future chapters.
(Also in answer to your question, it's not a crossover, but the story was based on a chapter from my last story that was a star trek TNG crossover)
I'm glad to hear you liked the story so far and if you do become a reader, I can't think of a better compliment than a reviewer who became a reader.
Thanks again and happy belated Hearth's Warming Eve!
Just noting that Baker had his named shortened to Bake through the entirety of this chapter except for his introduction to his partner. Was that intentional?