Chapter 1: Strange Masters
Another gust of wind blew in and with it a mouth full of dust and chilled bones. Winter was approaching in the coming months and, without protection, Lock Love would surely freeze to death. He coughed and hacked, his dry throat trying to expel the invading dust. It had been 3 days since he’d had water to drink or food to eat, three days since his meaning in life came to a horrifically bloody end, and three days since a new sensation began forming in his heart. For the first time in his 24 years of life he truly hated someone. The Grey Mare.
Though the pain never really left him, he didn’t have time to dwell on his newfound hatred. He needed shelter, food, water, and a new master. The young black stallion stopped, taking a moment to set down his old master’s recharger-rifle, and hugged himself for warmth. “A little further Lock. Paradise is a little further.” This mantra to reach Fillidelphia was all he had left and drove him forward. He looked down to his flank where dust was beginning to cover up the symbol that denoted his purpose in life, a red heart with an iron chain and shackle piercing it like an arrow. “You can’t die here Lock, you haven’t been used enough. You’re still valuable.” With this he found the courage to get back up and continue moving, one shaking hoof at a time.
Hours more of hunger and thirst pressed against the lone unicorn until at last, hope shown like a light in the distance. He finally saw other ponies, possibly masters, standing in front of a wooden stand with a zebra waiting on them lazily. He hurried along, making his best effort to keep up a brisk trot. He was able to make out the details of the three creatures at the side of the road, hugging the wall of the valley they were in. The zebra had strange colors in his stripes; red, blue, orange, purple, and a couple other colors that he couldn’t remember the names of. The pony talking to the zebra was a broad shouldered Earth Pony with a wild red beard and a strange metal contraption lining his legs and back, it seemed to be supporting a large gun and battle saddle. This pony was clearly a warrior of some kind. The other pony was stranger yet, sporting feathers and yellow front hooves that split into 4 wiggly things that had sharp points. Lock Love had seen pegasi before, this was not one of those. This thing was tall and had a sharp yellow thing covering its face where the muzzle should be. The sharp-feathered-pony-thing was wearing polished armor with a necklace dangling in the front. The necklace carried a softly glowing green gem.
The green and red earth pony began shouting as Lock Love got closer. “You are making sale very hard! 300 caps, no higher!” He slammed down his hoof, marking the finality of his statement. Lock Love approached, Eager to know what was going on and hoping he could assist this pony who clearly had the will of a master.
The Multi-colored zebra took a moment to weigh the offer and finally nodded. “Sure, okay. 300 caps it is.” This Zebra didn’t seem to have that strange rhyming accent that most others Lock had encountered had. “Tell you what though, if you three do something for me I’ll return the full amount to you AND give you something nice in exchange.” The Zebra had looked over to Lock Love briefly, counting him amongst the group that was there.
“OTLICHNYY! YES! Very good! You have deal!” The earth pony rushed in to shake the Zebra’s hoof before pausing mid shake. “Wait… Three? Last time Cann On counts it’s two” The hulking earth pony known as Cann On looked about until he spied Lock Love, head lowered and in an obedient position. “Blyat! Gyle, pickpocket! Shoot him, Gryphon!” Lock thought that Cann On was loud, that probably meant he was a master, he was also giving out commands.
The strange feathered pony, that answered to both Gryphon and Gyle shook his head. “I’m not shooting him. He’s not a pickpocket. I’ve been watching him this whole time.” The feathered pony had a smooth voice and spoke with a great deal of authority. Were both of these ponies masters? Maybe they could help him get to Fillydelphia, or maybe just accept him as their slave!
Cann On, looking a tad surprised, inspected the would-be pickpocket. Immediately, Lock Love stood up right to show himself off to the inspecting master, levitating the recharger-rifle into his old master’s satchel at his side. he knew he was a good specimen from how he had been treated and traded in the past; a sex slave, a model, a personal pleasure slave, and the envy of many other masters. He was certainly good looking and on top of that he was perfectly obedient. He had learned to do as he was told a long time ago and even earned the collar around his neck by doing so. Even though the collar was broken now and no longer had the pretty red light on it, he was very proud of it.
Even with all of this working in Lock Love’s favor, Cann On reeled back after a very short inspection. “Oh! He is slave.” He sounded sad at first but quickly turned to anger. “Where is slaver of you? Answer now.” Cann On kicked a small lever on his metal rigging, causing his guns to click and load in fresh shotgun shells. “You are safe with Cann.”
Having been asked a direct question, he was allowed to answer. That was lesson 1 of being a good slave. “I’m sorry. My old master died. I didn’t do it though, I promise. It was The Grey Mare with wicked blue mane and a shotgun.”
“Otlichno.” Cann calmed down, seemingly satisfied with this answer. “Okay, well you seem fit enough. You want to join us on whatever the zebra here wants? He offers pay.” He motioned towards the zebra, who was wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.
Lock Love smiled, a little excitement filling his chest. Was Cann offering to be his master and give him work to do? He would rather have some food and water first, but he was a slave and would have to work first. “Yes! I would be happy to serve you! I’m sure a master like you could use the money.” He looked at the Zebra behind the counter, anticipating what type of pleasure service he might want.
The feathered pony-thing quickly cut it. “Woah woah woah! No. You got the job offer wrong there guy. Take it from a gryphon, I know a thing or two about jobs and contracts.” Lock love felt a little embarrassed, he thought gryphon was this creature’s name, apparently this creature was Gyle who was a gryphon. He had never met one before but remembered somepony mentioning them in passing a long time ago. He had to admit, they looked rather intimidating. “What my Stalliongradi friend is trying to say is; do you want to get paid for helping us with whatever job this zebra is offering?”
Lock looked at Gyle with confusion. What did he mean get paid? Did these creatures not know how slaves worked? “Okay, I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I don’t need money though, I’m not supposed to have that.” He ended his statement in a fit of coughing, dust flying out in small clouds.
There was an exasperated sigh before Cann cut in, grabbing onto Lock’s shoulders. “No, You are confused! Eto tvoya svoboda! Master is dead, collar is clearly broken, no slavers in sight. Meaning is, you are free! As free pony you need money, caps, to survive.”
A test, it had to be. There were only three types of ponies in this world; Good Slaves, Bad Slaves, and Masters. There was no such thing as a free slave and Lock love was definitely not a bad slave. He couldn’t help but laugh at the trick this new master was trying to pull, of course the laughter simply ended in more coughing. “Oh no sir, only bad and dumb slaves think they can be free. Not me, I know my place. If I hadn’t found you I would still be on my way to fillydelphia.”
Losing patience, the Zebra spoke up. “So, what’s it gonna be?” He uncapped a bottle of water and placed it on the counter tauntingly.
“Cann, we have to take him with us. You know that. If he goes to Fillydelphia-” Gyle was cut off abruptly by Cann waving his hoof in front of the gryphon’s face.
“Ugh! I know I know. But Cann is no slaver!” The hulking green pony sat down in a slump.
Gyle pulled out an old magazine from beneath his armor and flipped through the pages. “Besides, he’s not going to make it on his own.” After a moment, he showed one of the pages to Cann, whose eyes went wide at the sight of it.
“You hold Cann’s hoof behind his back! Fine!” Cann sat back up and started poking Lock Love in the chest. “Listen to me.” Lock nodded, he was good at listening. “You will come with us, you will serve Cann, but do not call him master!” Lock nodded once more, it was a strange request but he could think up other things to call him. “For first command, hold out your hoof.” It was an easy enough task, Lock Love proved it by holding out his hoof without delay. To his surprise though, the boisterous bearded stallion plopped ten caps into his hoof. “Use that to pay for water and food from Zebra.”
It was highly unusual for a pleasure slave, but he had heard of house slaves doing this kind of work. They would use the master’s money to purchase food from in town and bring it back for them. Lock just nodded and hoofed the caps over to the Zebra. “Food and water please.” With a smile, the zebra added a fancy buck cake to the water he had already placed on the counter and collected the caps. Lock levitated the items up and over to Cann, waiting for approval of his servitude.
What Lock Love got was not approval, but a deeply concerned look from his new master. “You can’t be serious... “ Gyle started snickering from the behind the earthpony. “Oh Iyubimyy. Look what the bastards have done to you. Eat, drink. Those are for you.” Cann was offering Lock a reward but still looked very sad. It was very confusing, but the command to eat and drink was too welcomed to be questioned.
Wasting no time, Lock downed the water all at once and washed away the dust that had collected there over the past 3 days. The cool liquid was as good as any Sparkle Cola could have ever been at that moment. The Fancy Buck Cakes were next. He didn’t really take the time to taste them, swallowing large chunks without chewing, just to get the food down into his stomach quicker. It wasn’t much, but it was definitely enough for now.
All the while that Lock was enjoying his reward, Gyle was leaning against the counter hashing out the details of the task. “So, yeah I guess we’re accepting your deal. What was it you needed us to do?”
The zebra smiled, quite satisfied. “There is a town, just down the road. It’s having some troubles. Go help them out and I’ll reward you. Simple enough?”
Cann nodded, squinting one eye at the zebra. “Dah… but why zebra make it sound so suspicious?”
“Why, I have no idea what you’re talking about good sir. I just have business in that town that is far more valuable than what you’re purchasing. It would shame if their troubles were to escalate to the point where I couldn’t do business, now wouldn’t it? Trot along now. You’re on the clock, even if it doesn’t seem like it.” Answered the Zebra, placing a tiny ‘closed’ sign on the counter top of his small booth.
The two wastelanders took the hint, gathering their purchases and making tracks in the direction the multicolored zebra had indicated. Lock, wasting no time, stuck to their tails ready to be of assistance should his new masters need it.
Not much happened along the road and out of sheer boredom Gyle decided to make conversation. “Sooooo, Lock Love was it? I get that you were a slave but you’re also a unicorn, have you learned any useful spells along the way?” He asked, looking back to lock with one predatory eye. “Anything you know could be useful to us.”
Never one to waste the chance to display his usefulness, Lock jumped at the chance to explain some of what he could do. “Yes of course! I know few spells. They aren’t particularly dangerous but they are very useful! I can cast a neat light from my horn, levitate things, I have a tickle spell, I have a hair growing spell, And I can make sparks with my horn!” He smiled, knowing that he easily had spells to use than most slaves. He mostly learned from watching, never having access to a spell book before.
Cann rolled his eyes. “Dah, well flashlight is good to have. Yes? Can you shoot gun?” He nodded towards the recharger rifle hanging out of Lock’s saddle-bags.
It wasn’t something he had actually considered before. He knew he had brought it to shoot monsters if any showed up, but that concept of needing to actually use it never crossed his mind. “I uuh..” He hesitated, not wanting to lie to his new master. Then a thought crossed his mind. Cann had only asked if he could shoot it, not if he was good at shooting it. “Yeah, I can shoot this gun.” He said nodding with a grin that just a tad too wide to be believable. “Mistress Brilliant Spark taught me how to assemble and help fix these things. We had to fire them to make sure they were working correctly.” He hadn’t lied, but he had only helped his old master with repairs a few times and only when it came to energy weapons which often needed an extra hoof to hold things in place.
Of course, this little white lie was bound to get him in trouble, Cann seemed extremely interested in this feature of Lock’s. “Fantastika! You fix guns? Cann does also!” He slapped his chest with one hoof rather excitedly. “Cann fixes many things! Like prototype power armor frame.” He motioned to the strange contraption that was outfitting his whole body. “No armor, but carries large guns. Making dah big booms! HAHAHA!”
Before the conversation could go any further, and to Lock’s relief, Gyle spoke up. “Oh good there’s the town. Oh shoot, and here I was hoping to listen to you two talk about part numbers and pin sizes for the next hour. Oh no what a shame.” He said, as lamely as possible. He wasn’t lying though. There, just around the bend of the mountain, was a walled off town with a large belltower sticking out from the center.
As the trio came into sight, the belltower began ringing a loud ominous chime. It was as though they were being warned away. At the same time, the wide town gates began to swing open, welcoming them into the town of partially restored pre-war buildings. Across the walls of the town were large words and signs that had been painted on over the year. ‘Go home zebras!’,
‘Zebraeque moriemini!’, and ‘Better wiped than striped’ had been painted in red and in overly large letters. From the weathered appearance, it looks like it had been there for a long time. The sign above the gate had been vandalized as well, but could still be made out clearly ‘Welcome to Pacatus Town’.
Lock noticed that his old master’s pip-buck chimed as he read the sign to himself. After examining the device, he noticed that the location had been updated on his map and marked with a small town icon. Lock smiled, noting how useful the device was. Perhaps Mistress Spark was still looking after him from inside the small machine. He certainly hoped so and made a quiet promise to make her proud.
When the trio entered into the town, they didn’t find much more than boarded up buildings and darkened windows. It was ominous to say the least. As they walked further in Lock noticed the slightest bit of movement in the window of a long building, comprise of 3 houses linked together with scrap wood and sheet metal. “Over there!” He pointed out impulsively.
Everypony looked, but saw nothing. “Try to relax, Lock Love. sure it’s creepy but it’s just an abandoned mining town by the looks of it.” Chimed Gyle, who was fingering one of the pistols he kept on his side. Lock figured, that he was probably saying it more to calm himself down than anything. “Strange though, didn’t that zebra say this was a town he did business with?”
There was a sudden rumbling from beneath everypony's hooves as they entered the town square. “What is that?” Came Cann, his firing bit clicking into place and ready for combat. The rumbling continued, getting louder and louder. Soon everypony was on edge.
All at once the rumbling, which had grown to surround the trio, stopped. The air became still, no pony willing to make sudden movements. “Cann, Sit here with Lock Love. I’ll take a look around.” Gyle said pointing up towards the sky. He got nothing more than a nod from Cann. In one large flap of his wings he was soaring over the town. Lock looked up to him in jaw dropped awe, as his wings made him look like the posters of the princesses that had survived the war.
“Woah!” Exclaimed Lock Love. He quickly put his hoof over his mouth, realizing he had spoken out of turn. He looked to Cann to make sure he hadn’t been noticed. Cann was more focused on the dirt beneath his hooves, flopping one ear from place to place in silent determination. What was he listening for? Lock had no idea.
Lock didn’t have to wait and wonder too long, Cann had something for him to do. “Lock, why not check buildings for ponies and supplies?” He quickly motioned towards the building made of scrap materials linking together three houses.
Eager to fulfill a roll of service, Lock nodded happily and made his way to the building at once. “Yes, sir. I’ll fill my saddlebags.” This made Lock rather happy, he couldn’t help but put a smile on his face. Aside from the spooky rumbling sound, everything was going great! He was getting orders, he wasn’t being shot at, he had a master, and he wasn’t even that close to starving. The only thing that was bugging him was the fact that his rear hoof had stopped being able to move all of a sudden.
Lock looked back to check on his hoof, which was experiencing a sharp pain.. He saw two sharp boney looking things squeezing his lower leg and keeping in still. “Hey, let go. I’m supposed to be doing something.” He tugged at his leg in an attempt to free himself from the weird thing sticking out of the dirt. His attempt to free his leg was met with some angry clicking sounds and the bony things digging in deeper to the point that blood began to slowly seep out of his leg. “Ow! Hey, stop it please. You’re going to upset my master.”
In response to his continued resistance, two large antennae pushed their way out of the dirt followed by large multifaceted eyes. The eyes were connected a thick shell that was also connected to what was now quite obviously mandibles. All together the strange chittering creature looked like a monster right out of any wastelanders nightmares. Lock love could help but scream in terror. “Master Cann!!!!”
As though some unheard signal was sounded, eight huge oversized ants burst through the ground to ambush the two ponies on the ground. “Shoot it Lock! Shoot bugs!” Cann shouted as his shotguns began to shout defiance at the encroaching ants.
Reacting instantly to the command, Lock drew out Brilliant Spark’s Recharger rifle and unloaded the whole battery into the head of the creature trying to hold him in place. There were loud cracks of energy in rapid succession, followed by brilliant pink flashes of light. In a moment the air smelled of ozone and cooked ant meat. He stood there panting, in a half panic, before his years of training kicked back in and he was right back to following his master’s commands: ‘Shoot bugs’.
Freed from the grasp of the ant, Lock began charging the remaining ants. He yelled at the top of his lungs, feeling as though a ‘battle cry’ would be appropriate. He fired his rifle wildly, so much so that the rifle could barely keep a charge in it and occasionally clicked dry before being able to fire again.
The smell of battle took him to a dark place, remembering the gunshots that lead to Mistress Spark being slain right before his eyes. Every Ant seemed to grow that blood spattered grey mare’s face. What was at first a wild spread of gunfire quickly became directed hatred, his look of horror became a grin, and his screaming became laughter. It was a beautiful 30 seconds of bloody revenge.
When the last ant fell, disintegrating into a burning pile of pink ash, Lock was left panting as he searched for more of that grey mare to kill. He stood before a shocked but impressed Cann. “Is okay now. All dead.” Cann said, motioning to the fried ant corpses.
It took a moment but Lock finally began to calm down taking in the carnage that he was partially responsible for. His magical grasp on the recharger rifle popped, dropping the weapon to the ground. He had never killed anything before, not even a radroach. He was astonished at how easy it had been to do. Was it always like this? Was it different with ponies? He figured that it probably wasn’t and that why Some master would kill off bad slaves. He looked at the Earthpony he now called master, loaded with shotguns and a mortar. He definitely had to keep being good.
Lock was pulled out of his thoughts by a sudden gust of air as Gyle returned to the ground. “I heard gun fire is everything- ah… ew.” The charismatic gryphon had to kick some ant goop off of one of his pawed legs. “Nevermind. Who was laughing?”
Before Gyle could put the pieces together Cann slapped Lock’s back, laughing boisterously. “That was the ‘slave’ pony. Much fun shooting ants.HAHA! Is good step in right direction.” He shook Lock love with one heavy hoof, sounding proud. Lock Love thought he was being trained to be a combat slave, were those a thing?
“Right well, I found something while you two were ‘playing around’” Gyle chimed in, pulling out a small black and purple orb that had been crack from wear and tear. “I think it’s a memory orb, think it’s still useable?”
Lock Love was staring at the rifle on the ground and the word etched into the side. ‘Sparky’, Mistress Spark had carved it in before she even began repairing it. He was so lost in the memory of the item and thinking about how he had just used it that he was completely unaware that the question was directed at him. One sharp claw to his bare chest pulled Lock back to reality. “What? Me?” He looked at the orb curiously. He had seen memory orbs before but never used one. “I-I I don’t know sir. I’m sorry.”
Gyle shrugged and held the orb out for Lock Love. “Well give it a shot at least. What’s the worst that could happen?” He looked around for an answer but saw none in the blank expression of his companions. “We’ll keep an eye out for more ants while you’re in there. The orb may have some useful information in it.”
The command to use the orb was definitely enticing. Lock was being trusted with gathering intelligence that may be ‘vital’ to his masters’ survival. “Yes sir, Master Gyle. I’ll remember every detail.” He took the orb in his magical grasp, but didn’t get a chance to focus on it like other unicorns did when they used memory orbs. In truth, Lock was completely unprepared for the experience, as his consciousness was sucked into the orb all at once.
In an instant Lock was pulled into a dark place, he could feel the air around him and powerful legs pounding up a sharp incline. The air was cold and damp and every step echoed as if in a long dark cavern.
Lock wanted to stop and get his bearings but his legs wouldn’t obey, they just kept pounding up through mud and stone. He could feel a massive weight behind him, trying to pull him back down, hooked to a harness around his neck and shoulders. He was pulling sounded like a metal cart. With each step came a guttural grunt that came from an alien throat. It only took a few moments for Lock to realize that he wasn’t inside of his own body, he was experiencing the recorded memory from inside the body of the pony who owned this memory.
A warm light began to glow in the distance and another pony made herself known. A mare shouting out that it was closing time and to hurry up with the last load. Lock could feel the vibrations in his throat as words began to form but was suddenly ripped from the moment in a sickening change of positions. The whole memory jumped forward, the body he was riding now sitting next to a mine cart full of chunks of stone and metal. The drastic change in position made Lock want to vomit, the worst part was that he was physically incapable of following through as once again he was not in control here.
“Think the Overmare will be happy today?” Grumbled the rough voice of the stallion Lock was in. He was in the middle of hanging up his mining helmet and safety harness. The lamp on his helmet was shattered, likely the reason why there was no light earlier.
“Likely not. She hates birthday parties. Ha! She better smile though. One of Pinkie’s goons is in town looking for that zebra. What was the lock up code again?” said the mare, fiddling with a grated door that lead into the dark tunnels from earlier.
The stallion laughed a bit heading towards a room that read ‘Showers’. “Just do the unlock code backwards. 5529.” There was an electronic click before the world shifted again once again upturning Lock Loves stomach. When he was done with this he was going to puke just to reassure himself that he could.
This time his head hurt and the memory was hazy. There was muffled shouting and Lock could barely make out a black striped gun barrel pointing at his face. Suddenly there was a loud bang, a door had been blown open with explosive and pony after pony began charging into the room with guns drawn. There was a sudden sharp pain in Lock’s chest and then a hail of gunfire went from the ponies into the figure that had been holding the stallion at gunpoint. The shrill shriek of the mare from earlier could be heard over the gunfire. “STOOOONE!!!”
With all of the force of an explosion Lock was kicked out of the orb and back into his own body. He came back screaming, falling to the ground as the phantom pains of the gunshot wound lingered. On top of that his head and horn ached, feeling as though a large nail was being hammered into his skull from the tip of his horn down to his eye socket.
Lock Love wailed in protest of the pain, gripping his head with his hooves. This was possibly the worst pain he had ever felt. It felt like somepony had snapped off his horn and started hitting the stump with a hammer and he couldn’t stand it.
Gyle leaped to the ground, trying to calm the wailing unicorn down. “Lock! Are you okay? Talk to me. Breathe, just breathe!” He held the stallion’s fore legs to the ground reapeating; “Breathe in, Breathe out. Breathe in Breathe out.”
The willingness to comply came easy, but the act of following Gyle’s directions proved to be much more difficult. Lock was trapped in a battle between instinct and reflex. He followed the breathing directions as best as he could, taking in deep rapid breaths. His hooves, failing to follow orders, tried desperately to cling to and protect his skull where the pain continued to consume all thought. His mind was racing, alarms going off all over as he prayed for the sweet release of death so that he would not be faced with this hellish sensation. Slowly the nails pushed further and further, spreading the pain the furthest reaches of his mind.
All Lock could do on his own was breathe.
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
With all the rush of wingless pegasus, Lock Love’s vision began to fade.
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
With a few sporadic panicked breathes, The Black Stallion fell limp on the ground. Cann Looked over to Gyle in shock. “Debil! You killed him!”
“No no no. He’s not dead. He passed out from hyperventilation. Too much oxygen in his blood. Happens all the time to the ponies back home if they need to descend the mountains quickly. He’s still breathing, so he’ll be fine.” Gyle said, reassuring his anxious companion. He took Lock Love in his arms and stood up on his hind legs. “Let's find some shelter for this poor guy so he can recover. After everything he’s probably been through being a slave and I went and got him hurt. Damn it all.”
Cann took the lead, heading for the scrap house that Lock had initially been trying to check out before the ants showed up. “Niet. Don’t worry yourself. Couldn’t have known. We check for medical supplies. Come.”
After a few moments of trying to turn the handle on the door, Cann kicked the door in frustration. The door didn’t budge but the kick was answered. “Hello? Who is there? If you’re raiders do beware!” The door was cracked open just enough for a gunbarrel to be pointed through and a striped face to be seen. “Speak! Or your bodies will leak.”