My Little Metro: Chapter 10
“Lord, what a splendid world we’ve ruined…”
I didn’t understand why we got as big a guard as we did. The trip to the western warrens (calling them tunnels would’ve been a compliment) wasn’t long, but Snowglobe didn’t take any chances. I wondered if she thought we were going to bolt as soon as we were out of sight and suddenly commit to a guerilla war against her station. I held that thought with vindictive relish, finding a greater and greater annoyance with the Ponies of the Underground with every step I took. They seemed to believe they were a step above the regular guardpony, holding themselves with pride for accomplishments I didn’t know and didn’t care about. I walked behind the one called Abacus. He looked thin, but in a slender, agile way, like Sidewinder. Nopony and Sunny Side trailed behind me, flanked by Snowglobe and the rest. There were five of them in total but Snowglobe assured me that they were a strong and numerous unit, spread through the three remaining plantations. The thin side hall we traveled down, clean though not well lit to preserve energy, was filled with Snowglobe’s rambling.
“We’ve pretty much got the monopoly on bein’ badass here in the north. Hoofsa actually contracts us to keep an eye on the trade routes between here an’ Bucklyn, all the way down to New Trottingham. But even still we know where our loyalties lie… Ponies of the Underground will always be loyal ta’ the farms, an’ so ta’ me. Not that you Arm Stations would understand about that.”
Arm Stations were any stations that weren’t directly connected to the inner Metro, and were stretched out along the long outer tracks outside the Ring. It wasn’t necessarily derogative, but I still didn’t appreciate the subtle jab at my ignorance and inexperience in inner Metro politics. I was happy to be from an Arm Station, because it kept me further away from troubles and wars that plagued the stronger, bigger stations. I was about to point out that the plantations were on an arm themselves, but thought better of it and let Snowglobe talk. It was clear she was very proud about her station… or she wasn’t very confident and all, and made up for that with her bluster.
“Heron’s destruction was awful for all of us. But we’ve rebuilt. We gave the ponies of Heron new homes. We adjusted our plots an’ now we’re working more efficiently than ever. Shame ya won’t stick around an’ take a peek at our operations. Maybe you’d learn a thing or two about ponies what actually stick together an’ watch each other’s backs.”
I stared at the ground, trying to drone out her incessant blathering. If this was the commander of the Ponies of the Underground, this arrogant and confrontational child, my opinion of them was lowering further every second. I resisted the impulse to ask her why they’d lost Heron in the first place if they were so tough… but the question nagged me anyway and I modified it to be less rancorous.
“So how was Heron lost, anyway?” I ventured, expecting to hear some grand tale of defiance and danger in the face of impossible odds.
“Treason,” Snowglobe spat. I was surprised by her honesty. “We didn’t stand a chance, really. Somethin’ or somepony opened up a key blockade we’d set in one of the auxiliary tunnels… an’ then the damn rats just spilled in.”
“Rats?” Sunny Side asked. “You were beaten by rats?”
“Yeah. Big rats the size of foals that came in the dozens and didn’t stop till everypony was dead or gone,” one of the other ponies hissed at my friend, who wilted under the vicious stare. “We managed to cut our losses and seal up the other tunnels in Heron’s direction. And we hold the line and make sure the rats don’t find another way in. They’re attracted by the smell of the livestock and the plants we grow, we figure. Every so often one or two slip through. Once Hoofsa clears up this business with the bandits, they’ve promised to send us heavy guns and ponypower to help clear the little turds out. Gonna be a hell of a day of reckoning when it finally comes… everypony in Heron was family in one way or another.”
The thought of a giant blob of mutant rats pressing against the walls of the station, multiplying until they burst through with the pressure of their own collective weight terrified me. I wondered about the farmers’ situation, how they had to constantly fight for their lives against monsters from the surface and the underground, and realized it wasn’t so different from the state of Exiperia. I didn’t dare open my mouth and try to build bridges with talk of the Dark Ones, but I knew that at least we weren’t alone in our terror. It made me wonder how many other stations were like ours, all around the Metro, stuck between the frightful monsters outside, and the selfishness of the stations behind them. I realized that they weren’t just fighting to keep the Metro safe; they fought for their own turf and their own survival. Give up a little ground and the noose we called the Ring is tightened a little more, until there are too many ponies and too little space, and everyone chokes on each other’s bullets when they find there’s not enough generosity to go around.
But if everypony faced the same doom, what was the point of my mission? If we stopped the Dark Ones who knew what would come to another station, wipe them out and push us all in a little closer together… no, no. I couldn’t think about that. I couldn’t stop, and I couldn’t wonder. That was a pathway to a dead end. There only lay purposelessness and defeat, and that was something I’d never consider. Not after all I’d gone through already, and how many ponies had died. Ray Drop and all the others deserved better. Hunter and my father deserved better. I’d given my word. I wouldn’t give up, and I wouldn’t die until my mission was complete.
“We’re not going to find anything just taking a look around, I hope you know that,” Abacus said over his shoulder. I didn’t answer him. He didn’t know the Guide I had, or the little talisman that would guide me where I needed to go. I just needed a way to lose them once we were in the tunnels… perhaps I could convince them I was too much trouble to keep looking after and they’d abandon me?
“We just make a clean sweep,” Snowglobe answered for me. “An’ when we don’t find nothin’, we just head on back. This killer ain’t gonna jus’ pop out of the woodwork when we swing in.”
“Why is he doing this?” I asked.
“He’s a loonybin, why else?” Snowglobe snapped. “Ah don’t reason with murderers an’ killers. Far as I’m concerned they’re all just targets in mah scope. If we do run across him, an’ you better hope we don’t, cause he’s a mite more dangerous than the average lunatic, first thing Ah’m doin’ is puttin’ a bullet in ‘is brain. The killing all happens in these tunnels, but there ain’t any evidence beyond bullet holes. An’ any gun in the station could be usin’ the calibers we find.”
We came to a doorway that had a magical rune etched into its surface. A teal unicorn in the group came forward and disarmed it.
“We’ve got most of these tunnels sealed off,” Snowglobe explained as the door swung open into pitch blackness. She bravely led the way. “Because we don’t use ‘em for much more than storage. Just a bunch of back rooms an’ whatnot nopony knows the point of. We’ve made a few sweeps of ‘em an’ found nothin’. But ponies kept dyin’ in ‘em, so we just keep them closed off until we can get a good fix on the perpetrator.”
“What of magical charms? Scrying? They can spot and find ponies easily,” Sunny Side said.
“In case ya didn’t notice,” Snowglobe drawled, tossing her mane as the door was shut and re-sealed with the runes behind us, “we aren’t exactly swimmin’ in magic. The unicorns we got don’t have talents turned towards that business, an’ we’ve lost two already in scoutin’ groups. Bastard picked ‘em off in the same damn rooms, even…”
I gulped. A pony that could kill others in the same room as other ponies… and yet escape undetected? Was it a pony committing these murders, or had a relative of the Dark Ones found their way to the plantations? Either way I didn’t want to stick around and actually meet this character. I was here for something infinitely more important than a single station’s troubles… a single station that held foreigners at gunpoint and insisted on kicking them out at the earliest convenience at that.
“We should be wary the further back we go,” Abacus warned us. “There are cracks in the ceiling where some of the radiation and poisonous air has leaked in from above.”
The air grew cold and stale as we traveled further into the warrens, which were dusty and crowded with the refuse and useless things the station didn’t need and couldn’t find space for. The only lights came from that of our lamps, and I felt rather claustrophobic in these spaces. The tunnels of the Metro winded and twisted on into the darkness, at least giving you a chance to see that you were going forward or back. But these tight corridors ended after a few hoofsteps, twisted back on each other and were struck through with many small rooms I couldn’t tell the purpose of. One place had a series of dusty old consoles long without power, another held massive generators that Snowglobe explained were damaged beyond repair, and needed expert runemakers and magic users with knowledge we didn’t possess anymore.
“We’d be able ta’ power the whole northern section of the Metro,” she said sadly. “Wouldn’t need half the unicorns we have ta’ keep our plantations going. But we just don’t ‘ave the means, the time… the knowledge.”
I shook my head. Somehow, knowing that we’d literally forgotten how to maintain certain parts of our city, and we didn’t have the time or the resources to recover that knowledge, struck me as one of the most tragic things I’d ever heard. So much was being lost at a prodigious rate, and I couldn’t keep up. I recalled my Wall, my pathetic contribution to the preservation of the species… I thought of Hunter’s talisman and Ray Drop’s picture in my bag. Was it silly to try and help our species survive by keeping those trinkets? I never thought so until now, when I had a massive treasure sitting right in front of me and couldn’t even summon up the will to try and figure out how it worked.
But like the ponies here, I had more pressing concerns on my mind. How could I sit in this little room and uncover the secrets of a bygone era when my family’s lives were on the line? Knowledge was a luxury, survival was a necessity.
We wandered those back rooms for an hour or more, growing bored and restless when we couldn’t even catch a glimpse, and Hunter’s talisman didn’t glow or buzz even once. I wasn’t willing to give up. I knew that somewhere in these tunnels was the answer, and I couldn’t leave. But I couldn’t shake off all these guards, and I couldn’t find a good spot to find an excuse to really start searching without them herding us everywhere. When we found nothing but a pile of rubble from a cave-in at the end of a long hall, with graffiti on the walls across from it. The symbols were nothing but incomprehensible gibberish, left by some silly adolescent years ago. I stopped moving entirely, sighing.
I closed my eyes, wondering if we were starting to waste our time. Snowglobe was sticking to us like glue, and I was stuck on an adequate way to get us out. Were we going to have to waste time doubling back once we were kicked out? I’m sure Nopony had some kind of idea or map, or the Guide could lead us back…
Nopony looked up suddenly. “In what manner were these ambushes conducted?”
“If you’re asking whether magic was used, then of course,” Abacus answered. “It’s the only way he could stay hidden so long.”
Nopony moved to the front, touching my shoulder. He pointed me towards a spot in the wreckage of the cave-in that seemed unremarkable at first glance. It was just a place where somepony had left more graffiti on the wall… But as I stood and stared, I noticed a change in the pile of rubble, much like the symbols of the Guide, changing and warping before my eyes. It was still an incredibly alien and unsettling experience, but at least this time I knew what was happening. My eyes were riveted to the spot, though I kept my expression neutral, not wanting to draw attention. The mess of graffiti suddenly made sense. The talisman triggered something, or changed my perception, or my own mind changed something in it… but I could see the word in the middle of the morass: safe.
Next to it was an arrow, pointing down the hall. Blindly, I began to follow.
“Is he feelin’ all right?” I heard Snowglobe snark at the edge of my senses. Sunny Side was quick to cover for me.
“He, ah, gets like that,” he said. “Shoulda seen him back in Bucklyn… poor guy got hit on the head, you see, few years back. But he got healing from a local seer, says it helps him see things now. Sometimes he spots something interesting and just can’t let go of it!”
It was a ridiculous story, one you’d have to be extremely dense to even think it was credible. But I didn’t hear the others answering or even rebuking my friend… I heard them following. I didn’t know what I must have looked like, taking slow, measured steps down the hall. I didn’t even really feel anything in those few minutes except a certainty of where I was going and what I was doing. The talisman began to buzz and hum as I dragged the entire entourage behind me. I felt purposeful and confident for the strangest reasons, and that confidence must have bled off me and into the group that followed behind. I didn’t see them as barriers to be overcome, but fellow travelers. And so we went, into the dark, far away from Ponyevskaya. The tunnels twisted in on themselves, and we went under half-open gates, past a room full of lockers rusted and plundered, and once through a sewage canal. It made no sense to some small part of my mind that watched my sudden change in behavior, though somehow I felt I was following a very particular path that needed no explanation… only a pony’s hooves following it. Time passed until I thought for sure the guards would think I was trying to get them lost. Sunny Side, bless him, kept his faith in me and never once complained, knowing that I had a plan and this was probably part of it. It didn’t even occur to me that I might be under a spell until my wandering came to an abrupt end. We were in a small room with three doors, lit by our lights and the faint glow of radioactive moss in one corner. I noticed the walls were pocked with bullet holes.
“This was where Pickaxe bought it,” she spat, and the other guards seemed uncomfortable too. But I knew this was my best chance, for some reason I knew that the path ended here, and here I needed to search for the next route. I and Sunny Side made a great show of examining the room closely, while the guards, already bored and indifferent to our fate, leaned against walls and spoke quietly to each other, keeping an eye on their surroundings instead of us. Nopony stood in the middle of the room, quiet and unnoticed by anypony except me, it seemed. I hadn’t even seen him come into the room with us. I pondered asking him if he could slip away, but I was loath to approach him lest it break whatever spell he kept cast on ponies around him that kept them under his influence. Snowglobe, however, stuck close to us and didn’t let us out of her sight.
My saddlebag tingled, and Hunter’s talisman hummed. I almost couldn’t contain my excitement, and began searching the room in greater earnest while Snowglobe regarded me oddly.
“You look like a drake what just caught scent of a dead body,” she observed.
“I think I did,” I replied, which gave her enough pause for me to lift up a rock. Underneath was another arrow, pointing at one of the other doors. My eyes glowed, though I pretended to have more interest in the rock than the floor.
Snowglobe growled and turned away. “Useless!” she snapped, fed up at last with our aimless wandering. Now that I’d reached this room the strange charisma and influence I’d exerted before… perhaps with Nopony’s help… had vanished. Snowglobe took aside one of her lieutenants and they spoke in hushed tones as I looked at Sunny Side, who joined me in inspecting the floor.
“This is it,” I whispered to him, and nodded towards the door the arrow pointed us towards. Of course he couldn’t see the arrow, but he trusted me. I got up and pushed it open, the loud squeal of the hinges drawing Snowglobe’s attention.
“Hey!” she barked.
“There was a door there?” Sunny Side asked.
I ignored them both, entranced by what I saw beyond. There was another hallway behind this one, gutted by fire judging by the scorch marks on the walls. At the end was another door, dented inward and hanging loosely on its hinges. Sunny Side gaped, and others erupted into panicked whispers.
“He found it! Holy shit, he found it!” I heard one of the guardponies say, and Snowglobe kicking him in the shin. Nopony ushered Sunny Side into the hallway with me as the Ponies of the Underground went into another whispered conference.
“Tides are changing,” he murmured. “Hurry! Find what you need!”
“Lockbox?” Sunny Side asked. “How… how did you… was it the-”
“Shh,” I said, and walked slowly towards the busted door, feeling strangely detached, like I was floating. Sunny Side almost cowered behind me, clearly unable to comprehend what was going on. What was so strange about a door with a hallway behind it, I wondered? Couldn’t they see it? I reached the door and pushed it the rest of the way open, with Hunter’s talisman now releasing a high pitched, crystalline tingle. The door had been very sturdy once; it looked like somepony had taken a battering ram to it to force it open.
Inside was some kind of armory combined with a base of operations by the look of it, big enough for four or five ponies to stand comfortably in the middle of the weapon racks and small consoles. All of the consoles had been smashed and their innards scattered over the floor, many of them shot to pieces. The room had been looted as well as destroyed, with scrap metal scattered all over the floor.
The high pitch whine from Hunter’s talisman still sounded in my ears, and I gently drew it out of my saddlebag. The Ranger symbol was glowing a gentle dark blue, holding my eyes. Sunny Side looked over my shoulder.
“Is this is it? Did we find it?”
“Unfortunately.”
I spun about, still holding the talisman dumbly in one hoof. Snowglobe stood there, her gun prepped and pointed at us. Nopony was nowhere to be seen, which somehow didn’t surprise me.
“You know, I’d really wanted ta’ trust you,” Snowglobe began. “Doin’ this is harder than it looks. Weighs on the conscience heavy-like. But we gotta.”
It took a few seconds to register what she was talking about. Suddenly everything came flying back into focus, my body began to shake and my eyes narrowed. Clarity was restored to my thinking. I gently replaced the talisman to its place in my bag.
“You’re going to kill us. You knew this was here,” I said quietly. Sunny Side opened his wings, ready to fight.
“That’s the idea,” Snowglobe said. “Don’t bother fightin’. I didn’t think you’d actually stumble on this place. Celestia’s honest. Hell, I don’t even know why I let you get this far… I guess I thought you’d actually be able ta’ help. Even after you found the door, I kept thinkin’… jus’ maybe we can work this out. Dumb luck on your part, or magic or somethin’. I hadn’t made a decision until just now. But that there talisman…”
She pointed at my bag. “You’re one a’ them. You ain’t goin’ back ta’ Bucklyn.”
“Are you saying you did this?!” Sunny Side gasped, horrified. “You… you destroyed this place? You…”
“Killed the Rangers,” Snowglobe finished. “Eeyup. An’ now we gotta do you.”
I saw her mouth tighten on the trigger. I wondered if I’d be faster, if my hoof flying to my head could prepare my gun in time… maybe if I’d actually gotten it ready before we got here… kept it tacked… Sunny Side’s wings blurred as he hurtled forward…
And then everything went black. It took a moment for me to realize that I hadn’t fainted; everything had literally gone dark, as if the light was suddenly sucked out of the room. Snowglobe cursed. Sunny Side yelped as he crashed into something, perhaps one of the empty weapon racks. A weapon fired in the dark, deafening in the enclosed space, and I saw a flash of Snowglobe standing angrily in place, eyes closed, and Sunny Side flailing on the ground.
More gunshots from outside, and shouting. I couldn’t hear it well; my ears rang with a high pitched whine. I fumbled about in the dark, not daring to fire lest I strike my friend, trying to find something, anything that might give me light. I hit my light, saw its beam pierce the gloom, but somehow it seemed less strong than before. The light seemed to be at half-strength, everything was shrouded in blurry shadow…
“What in tarnation! Damn it! Stupid scum-suckin’ piece of-” Snowglobe spewed.
“Aw, crap, I bit my tongue,” moaned Sunny Side.
I lunged towards the sound of Snowglobe’s voice and caught a flash of her face scrunched up in an angry grimace in the dull beam of my headlight. I swung with my hoof and connected with her jaw, knocking the trigger out of her mouth and snatched at her gun when she staggered, ripping it back up into the harmless ready position. She recovered with startling quickness and I felt a strong, hard hoof slam into my stomach, knocking the wind out of me. Gritting my teeth against the pain I sprang on Snowglobe and pushed against her, trying to pin her against a wall or the floor so I could land a good hit, flailing my hooves and landing hard but ineffective blows on her armored back. This time, the strength of the earth came unbidden to my legs.
I shoved, chest to chest with the struggling mare… and then she shoved back.
The next thing I knew I was lying in a pile of broken machinery, nursing a sore back. My headlight sputtered, showing me the grey ceiling.
“You aren’t the only one who knows a few tricks!” Snowglobe spat. “Stay still an’ this’ll be easier!”
“Captain!” I heard Abacus shout. “It’s him! It’s hi-!”
He was cut off by a loud, angry yell. There were more gunshots, but they sounded further away. Snowglobe cursed in the dark. “Boys! Talk ta’ me!”
It was then I heard a loud crash, and a yell from Sunny Side. Two more gunshots exploded in my ears. They were harsh, high-powered booms. They must have been from Sunny’s rifles.
“Stop shooting!” I yelled. Nopony answered and the sounds of a struggle ensued. I stood and leaped forward, tripping when somepony’s hoof swept mine from under me.
Sunny Side yelled in pain.
“Gonna rip yer damn hides open-!”
I swiped blindly with my hoof knife. I felt the serrated blade catch on something, tug, pull, and tear through.
Snowglobe shouted in pain. Knowing I’d landed a hit I pressed on, but her hooves were in the air, catching mine. I swung with my other hoof and felt it smack something soft. Snowglobe went down, or at least I thought she did from the heavy crash I heard. The earth’s magic had served me well, giving my punch a little extra power… though I’d gotten very lucky to land it, I knew; the dark and the distraction of the fight outside had cost Snowglobe her attention.
“Sunny!” I gasped, groping around to find my friend before Snowglobe got up again.
“She cut me…” Sunny groaned, and then something touched my shoulder.
That time, I really did faint.
/-/-/-/
Something was eating my insides.
I was strapped to a table, eyes wide open, staring at a blank stone ceiling. I felt my intestines squirm as they were shifted about inside my gut, and I slowly looked down. A shadowy, pony-shaped figure was gleefully rummaging through my guts. I saw my kidneys laid out next to my liver.
The shadowy figure lifted my ropy intestines, scrutinizing them closely.
Then it put them in its mouth and began to eat them.
My eye twitched.
“… F… Forgot… Path…” I mumbled without knowing why.
The figure leaned forward. It was Sweet Dreams.
Her eyes were missing. They were nothing but bloody sockets.
“This is the way you’re going to die,” she said, squeezing my blood between her teeth, sloppily licking her lips. “This world is going to eat you alive.”
/-/-/-/
When I awoke, I found myself in an unfurnished, concrete room, perhaps still in the western tunnels of Ponyevskaya. A little fire simmered in front of me, nearly burnt out. I was reminded immediately of our first encounter with Nopony, but there was no tea brewing this time.
“Thank goodness.” Sunny Side sat across from me on the other side of the fire. There was a bandage wrapped around his neck. Ah, he’d woken up before me last time too… I must have been a heavier sleeper than I thought.
“He’s awake?” a quiet, gruff voice said on my right. I turned and came face to face with a gruff, angry looking unicorn the color of ash, with a light grey mane spilling over his features. He was fully dressed in a combat uniform only worn by soldiers, with plates of armor and assault webbing covering his chest and limbs. Ammo and equipment covered his body, ready to be taken out at a moment’s notice, all packaged and organized in neat little rows as befitting a pony who knew what he was doing. He was big, too. Not as big as Hunter. But he had muscles, giving him girth that could challenge any big earth pony in Ponyevskaya.
“I’m going to ask you this once,” he snorted in my face, and Hunter’s talisman floated in front of my face, wrapped in magic. “Where did you get this?”
“… Why should I tell you?” I said, feeling unafraid.
“Lockbox, he saved our lives,” Sunny Side whispered. I shot a glance his way, and then looked back at the unicorn, who had added a pistol to the talisman, pointed at my head. I stared it down, my expression remaining neutral even as I felt the familiar twist of fear squeeze my stomach.
“Because your life depends on it,” he answered me.
“I think you already know where it came from,” another voice interrupted, and suddenly Nopony was standing next to the unicorn, staring him down. “He wouldn’t have it otherwise, would he?”
The unicorn, to his credit, didn’t flinch at the sudden intrusion. “My brothers can’t take chances in these dark times.”
“So don’t take the chance that this might be the wrong pony to shoot,” Nopony said with a simple shrug. The unicorn did flinch this time, away from Nopony, away from the strange echo of power in those simple words. The strange old stallion was working his magic again.
Sunny Side’s eyes flicked between the two, his muscles tense, clearly ready to take a shot at the slightest provocation, while I stared at the barrel of the gun in my face. I wondered why I wasn’t dead yet, with all the near death experiences I was having in rapid succession. Perhaps there really was something to that business about fate and destiny. In any case, I didn’t find myself nearly as afraid as I might have been not long ago. A matter of days had hardened me, begun to make me think that guns in my face was a natural and expected occurrence. I didn’t even think much about Snowglobe and why she’d suddenly turned on us. I just knew that I hadn’t trusted them since the moment I set foot in their station, and that lack of trust had been completely vindicated.
“You know what the talisman is,” I said quietly. “You know what it’s for… otherwise you wouldn’t be doing this.” My eyes widened. “You’re a Ranger,” I whispered in awe.
The unicorn blinked, and the pistol floated back into its holster. Nopony stepped back to be unnoticed once more.
“That I am,” he said quietly. “You’re not one of us. The only way you could have this…”
“Hunter’s,” I said. The name made him twitch, his eyes widening with recognition.
“You know Hunter,” he said. “Are you the kid he talked about?”
“Lockbox.”
“Cinder Block’s son.”
I was starting to get tired of being identified that way. First bluffing my way into Draft, then this Ranger jumping straight to that… I wondered if perhaps my father had a more storied past than he usually hinted at, and resolved to find out when I got back.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Tracer.” The unicorn stood back, letting me stand. “My apologies about the welcome. Any friend of Hunter’s is a friend of mine. I’m short on trust these days. After what those damn farmers did… they murdered my brothers in cold blood. The bastards!” he spat, pacing back and forth, and I saw him shake with sudden anger. It gave me pause. This was a Ranger… one of the heroes of the Metro. I hadn’t had the best introduction to him, but even this seemed out of character. Something terrible had happened, I deduced, but to make him like this…
“Why have they done this?” I asked quietly. “What were they hoping to gain killing Rangers?”
Tracer growled. An actual deep, guttural growl. I saw his eyes, wide and vaguely unfocused with anger. His strong limbs trembled, unable to contain his fury. Sunny Side wisely remained quiet, staring at the fire. The sight of this pony who had dismantled an entire squad of supposedly “elite” ponies angry beyond belief made even me recoil. The way he spoke was even more unnerving. His voice never went above a husky, quiet tone, never quite matching the anger I saw in his eyes.
“They’re all traitors. They’re working with Hoofsa and they’ve turned on Bucklyn. I and my brothers found out they were planning to let Hoofsa right past their gates, cut off Bucklyn, put Hoofsa in a position of power… they want their guns and ponypower to fight the mutants from above, even knowing we would help without hesitation. And when they knew we would warn Bucklyn as a matter of course, they turned on us too.”
He sat down heavily and stared at the wall. I wondered at his emotional intensity, remembering Hunter and the other Rangers who visited with him were always stoic and reserved ponies, save for when they were in combat.
“We should’ve seen it coming. I should’ve. But we didn’t. We thought we could perhaps contact Ponyopolis. Everypony would respect them as mediators… but the farmers acted quicker than us. We were only four. A force to be reckoned with, but the farmers had dozens… and they knew these tunnels almost as well as us. Surface access was cut off before we even knew they were coming.”
“Farmers managed to overwhelm Rangers?” Sunny Side asked, amazed. Tracer laughed bitterly.
“They have to protect themselves from everyone and everything. Just because they farm doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous. They came in force. Their unicorns blasted right through our runic defenses and enchantments, and they used fire to funnel us into tighter spaces. I managed to kill at least six of them before I was forced to run. Fortune smiled on me. Or perhaps it frowned… I was cut off from my fellows, who were driven back to the safehouse and, I suppose, all died near there. I’ve been hiding in these tunnels ever since. It’s been about five days. They know I’m back here… but a single pony skilled in magic who is very careful can hide where four in a known base cannot.”
I looked around the room, suddenly getting a cold chill in my stomach and a slight headache. If Tracer had gotten us out of there, and he was victim to the farmers’ attacks, and he’d been the only one back here with motive for vengeance…
“Are you behind the murders?” I asked in a hoarse voice.
“Murders?” he asked in a suddenly hostile tone, swinging around to face me. “No, not murder. Justice. By attacking us directly, the farmers showed they were no better than the Monarchy or the Republic… just another arm of Hoofsa.”
“But you can’t just declare war on all of them,” Sunny Side protested. “They provide food for almost all the northern stations. You’ve been killing ponies that keep us alive!”
“They’ve already declared war on us,” the Ranger answered, his tone even and neutral once more. “The fact of the matter is, there’s nothing in this Metro that isn’t leaning towards war already… space is getting less as more and more powers consolidate. Things are very… tense.” He waved a hoof. “I was starting to wonder if I’d run out of ammunition and have to go out in a blaze of glory or the like. But with you all here I think we have a chance. After all…”
He pointed straight at me.
“With what you are carrying, it has now become my duty to escort you to Ponyopolis to the best of my abilities.”
I wasn’t sure how to think about that. Certainly I knew my mission was important, and I knew without a doubt I’d risk death, and see other ponies die in front of me without slowing down. But to have it confirmed like that so suddenly was a new experience. I hadn’t even adjusted to this new pony’s presence, and he was talking about things like war and death and politics, and how I was suddenly the valuable cargo instead of the talisman. I’d just been starting to get used to the idea that I’d be going on to Ponyopolis alone, and now all this was coming up. That, and I’d found out that one of my childhood heroes was a cold-blooded murderer with almost no regrets that he’d slain who knew how many ponies in an act of petty revenge. But then, hadn’t I been about ready to murder the guards at Ponyevskaya’s gates? Wasn’t I shrugging off their problems, about to leave Bucklyn and the farmers and all these others to their respective dooms without batting an eyelid? Was I any better considering the ponies I’d killed so far, and led to their deaths?
I wondered. And it scared and surprised me how little it mattered that Tracer was a killer of ponies… I remembered my father’s words then and there, pondering the strange unicorn’s appearance. Could I trust this Ranger? Yes, I could, that I knew beyond a doubt. I could at least be sure he’d do his best to ensure I reached Ponyopolis. Any friend of Hunter’s was a friend of mine. They were dedicated to protecting the Metro, eliminating threats that would overtake us all… even if those threats were other ponies. I knew this. I didn’t like it. But I understood it. And I knew that I couldn’t let it stop me.
“The Rangers are not like normal ponies. They’re… dangerous. In more ways than one.”
“Why do I have to be there?” I asked, my inquisitive and more cautious side demanding an answer. “You have Hunter’s talisman already. I thought… I wondered if I’d just be able to pass on the message.”
“That doesn’t mean I know what he wanted to say,” Tracer said, and I swore I thought I could hear something else behind the words, something dark and unspoken. “If he gave it to you, he meant for you to deliver the message yourself. Besides, it is far too dangerous to see you back off on your own. You need a way to get out of the plantations alive… they will surely kill you on sight now that you’ve wiped out an entire squad of theirs. And don’t tell me you think you can make the journey all the way back to Exiperia relying purely on your wits and skill at arms.”
I looked at Sunny Side, and he looked at me. It was true. Nopony had made no promise of everlasting friendship, saying only that he would travel with us as long as we went in the same direction. Tracer was right; chances were slim we’d get back alive.
“Hold on,” I said, and I sprang to my hooves, feeling a shiver run down my spine. “So… Snowglobe and the others…”
“I didn’t check to make sure they were all dead,” Tracer said with his chilling monotony. “But of those who might still be alive, I don’t think they will have many nice things to say about you when they get back home… and either way, you and your friends were the ones last seen going off with them. I’m sorry to say, boy, but by the end of the week every farmer in these stations will know you as a murderer.”
/-/-/-/
And so it went that we began to devise a plan for getting out of Ponyevskaya as quickly as possible, penetrating the Ring, and getting into the inner Metro so I could begin the trek to Ponyopolis in earnest. I still had many, many questions for Tracer, but they could wait until we had gotten to safety. They had to.
We vacated Tracer’s small rest area and did something I believed to be rather counter-intuitive: we went straight back towards Ponyevskaya. The going was slow, as the farmers had put up numerous traps and runes in the areas they didn’t patrol constantly, on the lookout for Tracer and now us. I wondered about how I seemed to be making enemies wherever I went, and only the ponies that traveled with me now were the ones that I could trust. The only ones besides those back in Exiperia that I felt a reasonable attachment to. I certainly didn’t have the time, the resources, or even the willpower to stay behind and help the farmers fight off an army of mutants from the surface… at the same time, I chose not to think about how close their situation was to Exiperia’s. I didn’t think about it, that was all. I had my own mission. If I didn’t see it through, how could I go back to my father empty-hoofed, look everypony else in the eye and say I gave up halfway just because an alternative presented itself? I didn’t want everything I’d been through so far to be for nothing, for it all to just be some “experience” I would relate to my grandchildren.
And that was all supposing that I actually lived to tell the tale if I gave up and went back on my own now.
Nopony had gone on ahead without anypony’s consent, saying only that he’d make sure to meet up with us again. Before he left, he bade me take out the Guide and look it over, marking two certain spots on the arcane map. One was near the exit of Ponyevksaya, where there was a railcart tunnel that made for quick and easy transport between the remaining plantations. It sat directly parallel to the line the plantations sat on, and would be our one and only chance of escaping this place within the day. The next was a place right on the rim of the Ring: the place Nopony assured us he would meet with us again, prepared to help us on into the inner Metro.
“Can’t we just follow you?” Sunny Side asked. “If you are going to be sneaking through the entire route yourself then surely-”
“The places I go, you do not want to follow,” Nopony said simply. “Only trust me, as you trusted me to deliver you safely here. There is something that must be done by you, and I am one of those lucky enough to help you along the path. But for now that path does not go the same way… I will make sure the door is open when you get there.”
I noticed he’d been looking straight at me when he said that.
The actual plan was simple enough, one that almost made me indignant at how ridiculously uncomplicated it was. Get back to Ponyevskaya, sneak aboard the railcart that delivered supplies between stations, and ride it all the way out. Then jump off, find Nopony, and move on. All we had to do was get there.
Tracer led us on a winding, dark path that seemed to me to go in a huge semi-circle. He avoided whatever runes he detected, using his horn to find and uncover whatever traps the farmers may have left. The speed and efficiency at which he moved amazed me; the way he almost effortlessly disabled any runes and enchantments we came across made me wonder why he hadn’t tried to make an escape attempt before. To turn off an alarm was one thing; to be able to turn it back on again after passing so those who set it didn’t even have a clue that something was wrong? To even be able to predict when and where such traps might have been set? That took skill beyond what I knew in normal unicorns. It also made me extremely happy that Tracer, of all the other Rangers that had been with him, was a unicorn himself… what use was a pegasus or an earth pony under these conditions? If Sidewinder were here, I’d have been very interested to see how he handled it. Horn envy wasn’t something that struck me often, but in those confined spaces, it did.
We snuck through tunnels that had been stacked high with old supplies and preserved foodstuffs, guided by Tracer’s silent, comfortingly strong presence. He gave us only a few whispered instructions here and there, telling us when and where to go. Occasionally we would be told to wait and hide even when there was seemingly nothing there. Only twice did we run across guards thanks to Tracer’s expert pathfinding, and twice we avoided them. There was little tension, as we watched Tracer at work, moving as expertly as Sidewinder, but with much more control, much less… randomness. Tracer knew just what he was doing, and knew it before he even did it. Every movement was controlled and measured, precise and confident. He never said a word, and I couldn’t even hear him breathe.
The fact that he was a killer was lost on me. In some ways I even agreed with his logic, though it still appalled me that this had happened at all. The Rangers were the ones who protected us. The farmers were in a bad spot, but they had chosen their side, and committed a grave error in attacking those who would have helped them. Hoofsa was a powerful ally, but I knew from rumor they likely couldn’t be trusted, especially since I remembered they seemed to be getting close to the Monarchy, which everypony who was not one of them knew they were the most dangerous threat to the Metro’s freedom. What worth was my private morals in the face of all that? When even the strongest ponies proved to be at a glance as full of vengeance and disgust with their fellow ponies as all the rest? Tracer was capable, strong, tough, and he’d endured things I doubtlessly could only dream of. But a hero? A real, live hero who did everything in his power to save the Metro and the world, consequences be damned?
No. I didn’t see that about him. Not the way he looked at me, or the way he glared viciously at the farmers, the only thing stopping him from killing them with his bare hooves his iron self-discipline and training. What worth were morals when all they were was words on a page, thoughts in the brain? When trying to put them into action was as useless as trying to drain an ocean with a thimble?
What was the point of believing in them if I knew they could never truly affect my world? By Celestia. This journey had already plundered the idealism I’d held onto so surely at the start.
In the end, I knew where my loyalties lay. With Exiperia and those who helped its survival… and as dangerous as Tracer was, I knew I could trust him to help me much more than Sidewinder. That and we really didn’t have a choice. I felt more and more like I was an observer, grabbing every chance I could to keep moving forward. Was it fate or chance that led me to those who kept helping me, even inadvertently, on the path to Ponyopolis? As long as I was moving toward my goal, I felt I was doing all right for myself...
We came out of a small tunnel that we’d been crawling through with great difficulty, as it used to be part of the ventilation system for the Metro which had broken down many, many years ago. All around us were boxes. Giant, wooden boxes with strange labels on them I didn’t understand. Off in the distance, I could hear ponies working and talking, and the sound of a crane.
“We’re in the loading zone of Ponyevskaya’s docks,” Tracer explained in a whisper. “It’s here we’re going to fetch our ride.”
I wondered how exactly we were going to do that. Sunny Side’s guns were still rather loud and cumbersome to carry around, but there was no way he was going to abandon them. Tracer explained his plan quickly as we scurried furtively around the big crates, listening to the shouts beyond. I was surprised there wasn’t tighter security if they knew that Snowglobe’s group had been taken out. I didn’t feel much pity for Snowglobe, since she was a part of all this nasty business and had doubtlessly taken part in the ruthless killing of the Rangers. Was Hoofsa that all powerful, that fearful, that the plantations would risk making enemies of the Rangers? The only reputable military group in the whole Metro? I wondered at the ability of ponies these days to forget friendship and harmony when they were faced with the chance of quickly and easily improving their station.
“It should be a simple matter to sneak aboard one of their carts,” Tracer explained. “Cattle shipments move regularly between stations… helps keep down the filth and doesn’t attract as many mutants. It’s something they do quite often, so they will likely be lax about security. It is lucky you came when you did... a day later and this shipment would have moved on, and we would have to try something drastic.”
“Hiding among cow carts from ponies who want us dead isn’t drastic?” Sunny Side asked incredulously. Sure enough there was a deep lowing from one of the unfortunate creatures as they were led down to a large railcar for transport. Tracer led us closer, until we could see the ponies busily finishing preparations to leave.
“No. The cows are too closely checked. There’s only one chance, so listen closely.”
/-/-/-/
I’d never ridden in a war wagon before.
War wagon was a catch-all term for the Metro’s improvised armored vehicles, cobbled together from spare parts and metal plates slapped onto the bodies of railcarts. Any and all manner of weaponry and equipment was placed on a war wagon. Our model was a two-seater that came with a standard heavy machine gun turret in the back, which I had no idea how to shoot apart from aiming and holding down the trigger. I’d wondered where the farmers got such heavy-duty equipment, and Tracer explained it was probably a goodwill present from Hoofsa, proving that they could provide better armament and protection than Bucklyn could ever hope to. Which was true, and why they were well on the way to controlling the entirety of the Ring Stations.
Luckily for us, the war wagon hadn’t been loaded onto the main tracks just yet. Tracer had led us around to the side docks, where railcarts were prepped for transportation. The war wagon was being prepared by the two ponies who were supposed to ride it: a stallion and a mare who diligently loaded the ammo box next to the heavy gun, cleaned the barrel and greased the wheels.
In a couple of minutes, they would both be unconscious. Or at least I hoped so. I’d asked Tracer not to leave a trail of bodies right at our exit, and he’d fortunately agreed to the wisdom of that. I would kill to keep going, that much was clear. But the thought of being a killer still turned my stomach. I didn’t want ponies to die. But of course, that didn’t stop them from dying anyway, or stabbing me in the back, or me from killing them if they got in the way...
Tracer hid behind a nearby workbench, waiting for the clamor of heavy machinery and box loading to become loud enough to make his move.
“Did you hear about the latest catastrophe in the western tunnels?” the stallion asked as he fed bullets into the machine gun’s ammo belt. “They found Snowglobe and what’s left of her squad.”
“What! Th’ commander? That tunnel rat got her too? Naw! Is she all right? Concord must be in a right tizzy!”
“Yeah, she was messed up pretty good, and three of her own squad were dead at the scene. She and the rest are in the hospital.”
“Damn, poor kid. She’s barely gotten a chance to prove herself, an’ now this.”
“It’s a sorry state we’ve got ourselves. But once this business with Bucklyn is over, Hoofsa’s promised us an elite squad of unicorns ta’ help flush out that murderin’ bastard. Meantime security’s gonna be tighter’n ever... higher ups are still convinced it’s a group a’ ponies with secret access ta’ the surface.”
“Hogwash. It’s one a’ them Rangers. I still say it was a right horrible thing we did to ‘em...”
“You sayin’ we deserve ta’ get picked off like flies?”
“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’! Just thinkin’... I dunno, we was rash or somethin’...”
There was a loud whine and a buzz of hydraulics and turbines as the crane strained to lift a particularly heavy load.
Tracer made his move as quick and smooth as a snow ghost. He rushed straight up to the mare while she moved closer to the stallion to speak over the noise, both of them facing away as they checked the cleanliness of the gun barrel. He tapped the mare on the shoulder, and... that was it. She dropped, out cold. The stallion went down moments after. Tracer gently lifted their bodies and lifted them behind cover.
The entire operation from start to finish took about six seconds. Sunny Side and I took our places as we’d been ordered, having wrapped our scarfs around our snouts and popped our collars to help hide our faces, and placing the jackets of those Tracer had incapacitated over our regular clothes. Sunny Side, who had handed his battle saddle over to Tracer for now, would have the cover of the armored plating of the driver seat, and I was snug inside the turret. Chances of being spotted were slim, especially since we were at the head of the four car column. Unfortunately, our plan stopped there. Getting past both Percherovskaya and Compass was going to be another problem entirely.
I had been told our plan amounted to “go as fast as possible and hope they don’t catch us.” They’d know we were fakes the moment we stopped moving, and so we had to be going as fast as we could for the inevitable moment they found out we weren’t on their side. In essence, I was about to engage in subterfuge with ponies who had indirectly been giving me and my station life for the last twenty years. I was going to gun them down, flee from them, and betray them... just like they’d tried to do to me. My mind was full of conflicting feelings... none of which helped the nausea that came up as soon as Sunny Side started the engine and we began trundling towards the main tracks.
Tracer had promised he’d be nearby, sneaking aboard the personnel cart near the end of the column. I didn’t see him do it. He had vanished the second I got into the turret. It was a miracle we hadn’t been spotted yet at all.
The war wagon rumbled forward. I felt numb. Detached. Queasy and uncomfortable in the cramped space of the turret. Only a thin opening allowed me to see the world outside. Sunny Side was keeping his eyes firmly forward. We were both keenly aware that, as we came onto the tracks and passed through the eyes of the guards, we were surrounded by ponies who wanted us dead, and they weren’t even “bad ponies” by any stretch of the imagination. They impeded our mission. Sought to end our lives. Wanted to protect their own families from the wrath of both Hoofsa and Bucklyn at any cost, just like me.
For this, some of them would not live to see tomorrow. Or I wouldn’t. This wasn’t going to end well. I knew it. No sunshine and rainbows for me.
This world is going to eat you alive.
I placed my back hooves in the stirrups of the turret, locking them tight into place. With a push of my left or right leg I could turn the turret in the corresponding direction. I pressed my front hooves into the sheathes of the trigger mechanism, up against the pedals within. I just needed to press down on both those little levers and I’d be spewing hot lead death. Best not think about that. It made the cramp in my stomach worse.
Somehow, we made it to the front of the column. Sunny Side had switched on the headlights, making himself that much harder to see. His bulky saddle mounted guns were being carried by Tracer... somewhere.
A guard came right up to Sunny Side, and my heart stopped beating.
“Hey Good luck out there,” he said, knocking on the armored plate of the driver compartment. This is it. He was good friends with the correct driver and he’d see right through our disguises and I’d have a few seconds to take as many of them with me as I could. It was over. We were going to die.
Sunny Side gave a timid wave.
It was enough. The guard turned away, and my blood resumed normal flow. This seemed almost too easy. I stopped that thought process... whenever a pony started thinking like that, things turned against them. I somehow knew my so far charmed life would collapse if I gave too much though to how and why I’d survived, why tiny things like that little interaction still worked out all right. If Sunny’s eyes had been showing better from under his driver’s goggles, if he waved the wrong way, if I sneezed, if the two unconscious ponies woke up too soon, if, if, if...
Something had kept me going so far, and I decided to stop questioning it.
“All right, ponies! Let’s do this nice and smooth!” called out the caravan commander, seated in the personnel cart just behind ours. Behind his was the livestock and the second supply car. “To Compass and back before tea time!”
I gulped as Sunny Side waved at the gate guards to show he was ready. I could hardly believe it... we were actually going to make it. We were going to make it out of the the gate! As the war wagon rumbled over the tracks and into the darkness of the Metro, I almost believed that things would go smoothly.
/-/-/-/
We’d made it to Percherovskaya. It was a long, tense trip, but we moved fast and made no stops. The tunnels between the plantations were well guarded, with regular foot patrols back and forth and numerous rune traps. But it wasn’t mutants we were concerned about, it was the very net of safety that kept them out.
As I sat in the turret, never daring to raise my voice and speak to Sunny Side, I almost let my guard down. It was relaxing, being driven like this, snug and safe inside a protected, armored compartment. The straightness of the path helped me to believe things were actually going well, and the carts full of a dozen ponies who’d kill me without a second thought weren’t really all that dangerous. All that bothered me was the cramp in my legs.
Even the guards and dock workers that swarmed the caravan to take off and load on more supplies didn’t bother me all that much. I just kept the turret pointed straight ahead. I didn’t look to the left or the right. I didn’t breathe too loudly. I made a show of adjusting my weight and getting comfortable inside the turret. We needn’t be bothered. We were just two bored guards waiting to get going again. I felt as long as I stayed still and never spoke to anypony, I’d become invisible like Nopony and they’d never even remember I was there. I focused all my willpower on that one little thought.
Stay invisible, stay quiet. You are not there. You are not important. Everypony who looks at you doesn’t need a second glance.
Somepony knocked on my turret. “Hey, Pewter Smith!”
Damn it.
“You want somethin’ ta’ drink? You look cold in there.”
I peeked through the long, vertical slit that my gun poked out of and shook my head. I hoped that would be enough, and he hadn’t seen me too closely through my goggles. Pony eyes were large and notoriously expressive.
“Right, whatever,” the guard said, taking a swig of his flask. “You know, Pewter, I wanted to apologize for what I said. You know, about you and, ah...” He nodded towards Sunny Side. “I know you two are a thing. She’s... she’s good ponies.”
I gulped, turning away a bit. The cloak of invincibility was falling away, piece by piece! If I said a single word it’d all be ruined!
“Well, come on, Pewter, say something!” the guard asked, looking hurt. I shook my head and turned away.
“Can you believe this guy?” the guard asked Sunny Side. When he didn’t get an answer from him, either, I knew we were doomed.
“... Cabbage Patch?” he asked. Sunny Side looked straight at him, hearing the uncertainty in his voice like I did. Time was up.
My friend punched him in the face, sending him sprawling onto the tracks.
“Go go go!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. Sunny Side gunned the engine as I slid my hooves into the trigger guards, feeling my stomach clench. I didn’t want to kill them. But I would, and I’d do it without hesitation. Sweet Luna, what was I turning into?
“Ponies of the Underground! Enemies in our midst! Stop that war wagon!”
The turret rattled and shook, my ears rang with the cacophony of bullets striking my armored plates. I ducked my head and didn’t managed to get a single shot off; I didn’t even manage to fire the gun until Sunny Side had started us rolling down the tracks. I didn’t have the courage to swing the gun around and open even that tiny gap in my armor to the guns of the enemy. I just hunkered down and shut my eyes as tightly as I could, completely at the mercy of the opening barrage. When it finally slackened and I felt our speed picking up, I raised my head. The turret was no long shaking from bullet impacts. I saw three smoking holes in the walls, just above my head. Damn.
“Lockbox! Bring the turret around! They’ll be coming after us!” Sunny Side barked. I realized that we were back in his element; the place of firefights and violence and guns. He was a militia pony at heart.
The turret swung with agonizing slowness, squeaking on its little track, hydraulics groaned and wheezed. The quickly receding lights of the station were swarming with shadows, ponies scrambling to prepare their carts for pursuit.
“You’re not going to stop me,” I whispered, watching the lights of other cars and war wagons shine towards us, like the eyes of predators.
“What about Tracer?!” Sunny shouted over his shoulder. He accelerated the wagon to top speed; I felt every little vibration as the wheels struck bumps and imperfections in the tracks.
“Tracer can make it on his own!” I replied, looking down the barrel of the machine gun. I’d fire as soon as they started getting closer. I had faith in Tracer, the Ranger. He would do his best to stick to his duty, unlike that bastard Sidewinder... if he could survive days being hunted in a confined space, he could catch up to us. Right now I was focused on saving our skins.
“Shit! Checkpoint on the left!”
I swung the gun around and watched several shocked Percherovskaya ponies fly by, their faces blurred. I caught movement towards another war wagon, which rumbled to life in seconds and started down the track after us.
“Shoot them! Shoot them Lockbox! I’ll keep an eye on the tunnel ahead!”
My stomach clenched again. I was strangely terrified of the blindingly bright headlights of the wagon as it hurtled down the tracks, rumbling towards us. It reminded me of my visions. They probably wanted to take our wagon intact, and would do their best to disable us. I’d be shooting to kill. I didn’t want to. But I did.
They were about fifty meters back, and the silhouette of their wagon was lost in the muzzle flash of my gun. It thundered in the small tunnel, each deafening report rattling my very bones. It felt like a sledgehammer was cracking into my ears. My front legs already felt sore from the vibrations, but I kept firing, blind and deaf and senseless from adrenaline.
Fireworks must have sounded like this, I thought. I could see the bright sparks of my heavy caliber bullets smashing into the armored compartments of the wagon behind us. They returned fire, aiming beneath me, at the engine compartment. The wagon shook and jolted with each blow, like a demon was trying to punch its way through. The turret wall in front of me dented inwards from a ricochet, making me blink and jerk my head back. I squeezed my eyes shut and pushed down hard on the triggers, not even knowing where I was aiming.
Stay steady. You are the earth, I heard a voice in my head say.
I forced my eyes open, and aimed for the flashing of the other wagon’s muzzle. I could do this. Don’t think. Shoot.
Pok! Pok! Pok!
The gun bellowed and roared, spitting lead fury. Still I did not let up, past the point of sensibleness, past the point of reason. I didn’t just shoot at the other turret, I buried it in bullets until the barrel of my gun smoked and steamed, hissing from the exertion. I kept shooting until it couldn’t shoot anymore, triggering a safety mechanism that kept it from overheating.
The other wagon was slowly pulling away, battered and torn, its steel skeleton cracked and shattered. The other turret was nothing but a smoking mess. My head swam with victory.
“Ah, shit! Front! Front!”
I swung the turret about just in time for our wagon to crash into the rear of another with a horrible clang and an eerie screech. The impact was so jarring I was actually able to go sprawling inside the turret, my face smashing into the cold steel wall, my chest crushing hard into the back of the machine gun. Where the hell had this wagon come from? A side tunnel perhaps-
“Shoot him! Shoot- fuck it!”
I peeled my cheek away from the turret just in time to see Sunny Side stand up in the driver’s seat and aim his war rein at the other turret, spraying it with a loud blizzard of submachine gun bullets. The turret sparked and screamed with the rending noise of metal being torn apart, and I saw a shadowed figure within flail and burst open with hot red explosions of blood. The poor pony within had been ripped to chunks.
My own turret burst into light and noise again; the impact with the other wagon had caused us to slow down just long enough for a large sentry station to take notice of us and open fire. Bullets whizzed around us in a deadly crossfire. The station was made of three tracks arranged parallel to one another, where other trains in early days stopped and exchanged passengers. Now it was deathtrap for us.
“Oh, Celestia! Hang on, Lockbox!” Sunny Side shouted, gunning the engine and crashing our front plates full on against the weight of the other wagon. The other driver must have been confused. He accelerated, giving us space to speed up and smash into him again. We slugged our way through the barrage, though we were accelerating slowly enough that the others could keep pace with us.
I stuck my pistol, which had been the weapon mounted on my war rein to save space, through the gap and fired all six shots at the nearest enemies. I thought I saw one go down, but I couldn’t have been sure, as at that moment a pony’s face leered at me through the gap.
Without thinking, I thrust my hoof knife towards his face, cutting open his cheek. The wagon continued to crawl forward as the other pony tried to crawl into my turret from above, punching and hacking with his knife while I screamed obscenities and did my best to stay alive.
I wasn’t sure how the other wagon in front of us managed to limp out of our way; I was just suddenly aware we were going faster again and my opponent still hadn’t let go. I felt his teeth bite into my clothing, his knife edge dangerously close to cutting into my side. Our screams and cursing and our hot heavy breaths sounded tinny in such a small space. His hoof thumped onto the back of my neck as I punched his armored chest. I squirmed violently, getting my legs under me before I shoved upwards, sending the other pony off balance. He flailed, and my knife found a gap in his armor, cutting deep into his armpit. He wailed pitifully and fell backwards, dropping away with some help from me.
I heard him crunch as he fell on something hard, and thanked Celestia I hadn’t seen it happen.
“Is that it?!” I shouted.
Sunny Side gestured wildly. “We haven’t even reached Compass yet! Fuck if I know how we’ll get through there!”
I had no choice but to huddle up in the turret again and wait, watching the tunnel fly by. Those few minutes felt like hours, the high pitched whine of moving air and the rumble of the uninterrupted by other patrols.
“All right, all right! When we get there, you just keep shooting and don’t stop!” Sunny Side commanded. “We’re fucked if we slow down, so just pray there’s nothing on the tracks to stop us this time!”
I gulped, watching and waiting for the lights of Compass to appear... I saw them soon enough, little pinpricks slowly building brighter and brighter. I could only hope and pray we were moving faster than any messages they might have sent on ahead. Our plan was horrible. I knew Sunny Side just had the idea to smash right through the docks and hope we’d get all the way through intact; but then, that was our only chance.
I felt a strange sense of peace as I settled into the turret once again, the trigger guards feeling more familiar this time. I’d gotten this far, hadn’t I? We still weren’t dead, even after that frantic chase. This wasn’t going to stop me either. My home was still in danger, and my word and my mission were still on the line. No, as long as I had this, with my goal in front of me, my responsibility driving me forward, I would not die.
I tried not to think of the ponies I’d shot as being not quite as evil as the bandits.
When we hit Compass, my turret was ready to fire again. I saw a few of the guards raising their hooves, telling us to slow down, and running for their lives when we didn’t. We burst into their main docks in a fury. The dock workers were taken completely by surprise, scrambling out of the way, dropping boxes of valuables. We careened to the right, the tracks having been diverted while a supply car took up the main rail. I felt the wagon lean dangerously and my weight shift as we took the corners hard, heard the indignant shouts of ponies, thinking we were insane or pulling some kind of prank.
At first, I thought we might just be able to breeze through the whole station without problems. We’d be able to just push on through and make our way to Otzark Bulvard, where yes, there were bandits, but there was also the gateway to the inner Metro, the powerful and dangerous world beyond the Ring.
Instead, we crashed headlong into a railcar full of supplies, and at last our battered wagon could take no more, hurtling off the tracks. It happened so quickly I barely even registered the impact.
Suddenly my world was a blur, everything I heard turned into a dull roar of noise. I felt the strangest sensation of floating, and then I hit the side of the turret wall harder than I’d hit anything before. I was jolted as the entire wagon bounced off the ground a short distance and smashed down again, spilling me unceremoniously onto the ground. I rolled and rolled and rolled, wondering if I looked like some silly pillbug that planned on rolling his way out of danger, and then hit a wall in a daze.
I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t see. All colors and sounds melted together, becoming an amorphous mess in my head. I thought I was standing up, or perhaps the world was just spinning around me, and then I fell down again. The wall in front of me burst, pieces of concrete bouncing off my helmet. It took me a moment to realize that I was being shot at.
I rolled away, towards the wreckage of the war wagon. It was on its side, just a useless hunk of metal on the tracks. I couldn’t get the gun out of the turret if I tried. The jungle gym of twisted metal plates gave me a semblance of protection as bullets kicked up the ground, hissing and snapping their deadly intent. I looked left and saw a knot of guardponies firing into the wreck; they must have seen me crawling. I looked to the right and found Sunny Side in the driver’s compartment, wagging his legs aimlessly.
“S… Sunny.”
“Huh.”
I ducked my head as bullets ran a trail across the wrecked wagon, just above my helmet.
They are remarkably bad shots, I thought.
“We gotta get out of here.”
“Y… yeah.”
I reached out and grabbed him, pulling him free of the twisted compartment. I fell backwards and my vision kept going, my eyes rolling into the back of my head as another wave of dizziness overtook me. As I lay on my back I peered down the tunnel, seeing a large junction where several tracks came together, with a high ceiling dominated by broken pipes, and pillars on top of concrete islands between tracks. Beyond three different tunnels split off at different junctions. In the center was the one that led to Otzark Bulvard, the gateway to our freedom.
It was blocked by another war wagon, and ponies were spilling into the tunnel alongside it. They were not wearing the colors of Compass, but had ragged, dark clothing and a mish-mash of weapons. They fired straight down the tunnel, over our heads and at Compass' ponies. Ah… so we weren’t dead because they weren’t aiming at us. Just our luck we crashed right into the middle of a war.
I looked at Sunny. He looked at me.
“Now what?” he asked. Being caught in a deadly crossfire wasn’t my idea of a great way to end my life. We had to cross the tracks and reach the side tunnel… the one on the left, I thought, pointing southeast.
“We run,” I said. “And we pray.”
But unfortunately there was no way to run now. If we were spotted, who knew what the combatants would make of us? We were trapped and we both knew it, huddled under a wreck that was turning into a grave.
Fate again made its decision for us; with an errant glance back towards Compass, I saw a unicorn clad in Ranger armor swoop down on a group of guardponies behind cover. They didn’t even stand a chance. The Ranger laid them out flat with swift, lethal kicks of his hooves and clean swipes of his knife. There was no beauty or elegance about the way he dispatched them. Each strike was designed to inflict maximum pain and damage as quickly as possible, every stab of the knife slid between ribs and chinks in armor. An assault rifle hovered next to his head, swiveling in midair, making deadly sweeps over any ponies who hadn’t taken cover. He moved like an engine of death, brutally cutting down one opponent after the other and moving on with machine-like efficiency. His movements made me feel sluggish and stupid, remembering my awkward struggle with the guard in the turret as we fled. The Ranger would have killed him in the time it took to blink.
I knew it was Tracer; he was the only Ranger that it could have been. He jumped onto the track and charged, firing nonstop, reloading his weapon without even looking at it. The attacking ponies focused their war wagon’s gun on him, but he was too fast, leaping between pillars, seemingly appearing and disappearing at will. Several small cylinders floated out of his saddlebag and zoomed straight towards the wagon like missiles, jamming into the turret and the engine compartment.
The wagon blossomed into flame, and the shockwave sent me sprawling with a frightened yelp.
Tracer appeared next to me.
“Get up!” he shouted, grabbing my clothes and pulling me up. Sunny Side staggered next to us as Tracer bodily hauled us up onto one of the islands, telling us to crawl and keep our heads down. Bullets whizzed overhead, chipping away our cover as we went on our bellies to the far side of the tracks.
“Who the hell’s attacking?” Sunny Side shouted as we huddled against one of the pillars, listening to the deafening report of a heavy machine gun ripping the air apart.
“Bandits, probably the same ones besieging Bucklyn. They’re getting bold. Or desperate,” Tracer answered, and then shoved us onto the final set of tracks. An explosion battered my ears as out of one of the side tunnels appeared the boxy shape of an armored railcar, bearing a massive gun on top. That was no mere machine gun, it was a cannon! The rolling siege engine chugged slowly onto the main track to Otzark Bulvard, in front of where the bandits were attacking from. The gun on top swiveled with menacing leisure. It knew it was going to kill something.
It fired. Another gigantic boom rocked the entire station. My mane fluttered from the sheer force of the monster’s roar.
“They’re going to collapse the tunnel at this rate!” Sunny complained.
“That’s a Hoofsa tank,” Tracer explained, peeking over the edge of the island we sheltered behind. “They don’t care… they have the resources to rebuild. Okay, okay. Only one tunnel left, that’s the auxiliary one on the left. See that? I’ll cover you… go for it on my signal!”
He raised his assault rifle over the ledge and fired towards the bandits. Sweet Celestia, but my ears hurt.
“Now!”
We ran. We didn’t look back. My legs were springs, coiling and bursting over and over. I felt like a thumper, hopping over wreckage and a couple dead bodies, towards the darkness and safety of the Metro. I imagined myself as a little scurrying drake, no need to be shot at. Just a little creature hurrying to the shadows, moving between the legs of giants, scampering between the paths of ricocheting bullets.
Jump, run, scurry, leap, don’t stop, don’t even think about stopping.
At last I gained the portal, and into that small tunnel we fled. Like the monsters that had claimed our world, I felt safer now in the shadows. Yet still I didn’t stop moving, and neither did Sunny Side. Running was all that mattered, getting away from this pitstop of a station, and all the blood on their hooves.
Behind us was a scene of dominion and devastation. Hoofsa was on the rise, ready to claim its new subjects. The plantations would gladly end their independence for the sake of survival, and soon Bucklyn would also be forced to bend to their will, by bit or bridle. The bandits had made a bold decision, but they’d soon all be massacred underneath the hammer of Hoofsa. In the end, all that would really change was that a lot of ponies were going to die very soon because there wasn’t room in paradise for them all, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. My home was still in danger, and all these ponies could think about was killing one another for the sake of one more station under their banner.
What was wrong with us? Why were so perverted in nature that we were reduced to this? Why was our magic now so tainted and deadly? Was I ever going to find out?
Did I really want to?
I knew this: I was moving south at last. I wasn’t being shot at. A Ranger traveled alongside me. My friend was still alive. I had a goal, and a path to it. Ponies were dying all around me, but as long as I had those things, I could ignore it all with a clear conscience.
The thought brought tears to my eyes.