"I'm a guy. I'm gal. I'm a guy. I'm gal. I'm a guy. I'm gal," the pony chanted to itself as it trotted along the abandoned corridor. Of course, that sort of attitude made it hard to assign a gender to the little equine, although at a glance, one could be forgiven for assuming the pony was a young mare. Actually, if one was to watch it closely for some time, one would come to the same conclusion.
The pony's body was completely black, from its nose to the tip of its hooves. Its eyes had an orange sheen to them, but could not be clearly distinguished due to the protective layer over them. Its mane and tail were another matter. It was as if they had no desire to be part of the black and muted scheme, preferring to be an explosion of yellow instead. The mane had been tied in a high ponytail. The tail? It was a pony tail already.
"How can I ever solve this? Is there a solution? Do I have to be trapped in this frustrating no-pony's-land between male and female?" the pony asked itself.
The pony turned a corner, and a lamp on the ceiling in its new direction lit, the one in the former direction switching off, recognizing the futility of remaining lit. At least the lights still worked in these abandoned corridors. They were considered important enough for no pony to have ever stripped them from the corridor ceilings as salvage. Admittedly the pony's glowing eyes were designed to work in total darkness, but visual range was limited due to the weak light-output of the eyes. It made rushing through the unlit machinery of the lower levels both dangerous and exciting.
"I'm a guy. I'm gal. I'm a guy. I'm gal. I'm a guy. I'm gal."
Despite the pony's feminine appearance, its chromosomes were those of a male, yes, chromosomes with the X and Y pair. Yet something was missing – stallion bits. The pony didn't have the stallion bits between its legs. Those were the most desirable bits to have, with the ridiculous female to male ratio from which the lower levels suffered. There were simply not enough males – true males – to go around.
Conversely, there were plenty of sexless freaks, like this pony: female external bits, but no womb inside. For an endangered species there was nothing quite as useless as these not-a-girl, not-a-boy ponies. They were useless enough to be considered expendable. If there was a dangerous job to be done, it was always given to one of the sexless. No true pony really cared if one of these things died, if it saved them from having to risk themselves.
"Curse this stupid body. Why couldn't I be a true stallion?"
The pony had been raised as a female, until the shortfall had been noticed, but despite its extremely feminine appearance, it or she had preferred to pursue more male-centric interests. As soon as she was able to, she had taken to galloping around the dark network of catwalks, taking leaps of faith over unlit gaps and that led to her being given the name Catwalk Runner instead of the placeholder Little Miss she had been called as a newborn. It wasn't a name she was fond of, but it led to her answering to a somewhat different name, and that itself was ironic.
She had not yet been upgraded to a Hellite, thus, resplendent in her natural pink coat, was vulnerable to the low temperatures and general dangers of anywhere outside their ramshackle living quarters. Because of this, concerned adults would often try to intercept her when she decided to go for one of her wild runs. Cries of "Catch her!" would go out, and the nearest adult would block or tackle her if they could. Mostly they were successful. Eventually, as soon as she heard "Catch her", knowing her exploits were about be cut short, she'd abandon her attempt – effectively answering to "Catch 'er" as if it was her name. In time, that was exactly what it became – Cacha.
She had been considered an eccentric filly. Of course, apart from her father, there had been no other males with whom she could interact, and that led to her preferring to be a loner when she wasn't interacting with her immediate family. The other three males that lived in the lower levels each had their own family groups, and had she matured as a true mare, Cacha would have moved in with one of them, perhaps moving between them to spread her genetic contribution around. As it was, no pony would want her genetics, not that she had a way to pass them on.
Many years later, her adolescence had come and gone, or perhaps more accurately, the time for it had passed, and she had not developed into a true mare. Some privacy invading tests had proved what she feared – she was neither female or male, but stuck somewhere in the middle. So, she was one of the despised sexless and to the other ponies was nothing more than an exploitable resource. After all, why would you send a viable mare into a dangerous situation, when you could send one of these sexless rejects. Stallions, being the extremely rare resource that they were, never had to do anything that would put them even at the slightest risk.