Despite working in the production of firearms, I had little experience with them. I only ever saw them used on the range or by the Guards. Now, I witnessed a revolver kill a demigod of ponies. The loud bang of the firearm pierced reality itself and caused it to screech in pain as the minuscule bullet toppled a creature that commanded ponykind itself. I trotted over to the lifeless corpse of the Chief. He was just as much a pony as I was, despite the hole in his head. I turned back to Gravel. Her eyes were on the verge of tears, but she did not tremble or betray her steely resolve. A commotion resonated from the factory floor, a mixture of battle-cries, revolution, and more gunshots. Gravel set the revolver back in the briefcase and levitated a sack of bits from one of the filing cabinets.
“My allegiances are obvious now I suppose. Here's enough bits to get ya outta here. Find some small town hamlet that’ll appreciate your candies. I know I did.” She regarded me wistfully. “I don’t want this to be another Manehattan fer ya. I’ll give a chance where life wouldn’t.”
I gawked at my manager turned revolutionary. Her conviction to this cause overshadowed any will I could muster, and she was aware of this. I was lucky to have her as my boss even as she tore apart what once was her endgame. My debts were not paid in Manehattan, but perhaps I could pay this one, albeit gradually.
“And what if I stay with you?” I asked.
Gravel smiled and rolled her eyes. “That’ll be a first then. Fer you anyway. Welp, if ya stay you’ll become an accomplice to what happened here. The courts ain’t nice to ponies involved with hurting their fellows. ‘Specially to politically charged activities like this.” She held a hoof out to me. “So ya want to hop on this Red wagon with me? Or do ya want to get going?”
I shook her hoof slowly. “I’ll be glad to join you, but I’m still not too sure about this whole...resistance of yours.”
“Well, if yer gonna stay yer gonna need somewhere to hide. I’d been plannin’ this with the Reds fer a good few months now, so I know a safehouse we could go hide in.” She beamed. “I suggested this one to them myself.”
Gravel’s little factory was in ruins. Machine parts littered the floor along with puddles of grease and oil. Ponies likewise accompanied the Beast’s organs with their own lifeblood. Some wore business suits, but most wore typical worker’s overalls. Bullet casings were sprinkled across the floor of the abandoned cemetery. The workers wielding makeshift red flags and weapons took to the streets outside, rallying neighboring factories to their cause. The horde grew by the minute and amplified its growth when more Guards arrived to subdue the rioting. Gravel,while carrying the briefcase, led me away from the chaos through alleyways and passages until we arrived at a solitary taxi carriage. The chauffeur regarded us with suspicion.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“It’s time for action,” Gravel replied.
The chauffeur eased up and smiled. “Hop aboard then. Where to, comrades?”
“Rock Pop Farm.”
As the carriage rolled along to the outskirts of Princessyn, the war-cry of the Beast bellowed from the industrial district. It has been galvanized, and the patricians have a right to fear its penance. I murmured quietly, “I will not give up this time, sweet Princessyn”
“Here’s your stop. Please mind the dirt, you two.”
Gravel and I clambered out of the carriage along with the briefcase before the chauffeur trotted off into the distance. In front of us was an abandoned farm, one of many casualties of the titanic weather disaster almost a year ago. A rustic gate signaled the path to the quaint, country home. Gravel gazed longingly towards the barren wasteland of fields.
“A real tragedy, ya know. This place used to farm coal for generations before it had to farm crops since mining industrialized. Too bad that them crops wouldn’t survive that weather screw up.” She prodded a hoof at the dirt. “And neither would them farmers.”
The inside of the home was simpler, yet cozier than my apartment in Princessyn. It’s door opened up to a spacious room that had a dining table to our right and a couple of couches to our left. Ponies were organizing hoards of papers and envelopes at the table. A pegasus mare looked up from her work upon realizing the door opened.
“It’s good to see you again Gravel. It’s also nice to see a new face for the Revolution for a change though. What’s his name?”
Gravel pointed a hoof at me. “This fella here is Toffee. Treat ‘im nice, ya hear?”
The mare waved with her wing. “Well, I’d like to go easy on you, but we gotta get these letters done, so if you’re gonna crash with us, you can at least help us out a bit.”
I nodded. "Sure."
“Alright then. You can get to sealing the envelopes. My tongue’s about to crumble to dust with how dry it is.”
I sat down at the table with Gravel who set the briefcase in the living room area and levitated a pen. She began writing on one of the many blank papers, discussing its message along with some other unicorns. The mare that greeted us folded the papers after they finished writing on them while I placed and sealed the folded letters into envelopes. There was a mild chatter as the repetitive work dragged on. The atmosphere reminded me of the work back at the factory. I looked across the table to Gravel as she scribbled. I pursed my lips.
“What are you writing?” I asked her.
Gravel, without pausing her work, answered with lightheartedness. “Oh, just some messages. We gotta make sure that the other pockets of resistance and safehouses are in the know, particularly when Steel or his companions have somethin’ to say.” She suppressed a snicker and whispered to me. “These ponies here are some of the few that can read and write what with the rampant illiteracy here in Severyana. You can thank the Regent for that by the way. We got some talented artists making posters for the more unschooled folks. There’s a whole lotta ponies in this thing together, and now yer one of ‘em.” Gravel winked at me.
I pondered over the thought of participating in this Revolution. Politics aside, it's invigorated by the will and courage of ponies trapped under life’s boot. These ponies decided that they can do something, even if the world told them that they couldn’t, and they are ready to sacrifice themselves for a goal. Memories of the pudgy manager surfaced. I never did figure out what happened to her after the riot, but I certainly never saw her again after that day. She was drowned by a sea of spirit and ponies. Ponies that, at one point, were mortally terrified at the thought of asking their boss for a raise, let alone complain about wages.
My eyes wandered to the sheen of Gravel’s briefcase, resting on one of the couches like a sleeping guard dog. The power within was a means to control anypony by threats that are backed with the hoof of death, the Great Equalizer. It did not faze the Chief, but it was able to kill him all the same. The splitting sound of the revolver crashed through my mind, echoing with the voices of thousands of angry ponies. Wielding that power was another pony of course--a pony with the grit to fight in the name of action. I savored the thought.
The mare next to me poked my cheek. “What’s with the slack, Toffee? Do you need help with that or what?”
I turned my head towards her. “Oh, sorry. Just dreaming.” My gaze went back to the briefcase and then to the envelopes. “I think I got it now.”
Her silence was unnerving. It made the air unquiet. My new found comrades were made uncomfortable by it. It was unusual.
The first weeks of my stay with the revolutionaries was a smooth transition, despite the fugitive means of living. Everypony enjoyed the tales and jokes of our past lives as we toiled away for the Revolution. Eventually, nopony had any new stories to tell, leaving most of our isolated days in relative quiet. When we did rest, only smalltalk was had, for many of us slept or ate. Gravel was regularly the one to instigate a majority of the talking, much to the tired delight of her listeners. Cheery conversations then became one-sided, desperate attempts for distraction. Gravel would hop and skip from pony to pony with wild subject matters to discuss. Worried by her behavior, some of us decided to confront Gravel in order to figure out why she was acting strangely.
After one of her ecstatic episodes, we found her in one of the bedrooms, staring at the revolver. Seeing our approach, she snapped at us, and demanded we leave her alone. She stayed in the bedroom for the rest of the day. The next morning, she came for breakfast and to aid us with the letters, but when we would finish, Gravel always returned back to the same bedroom. She never made even the slightest noise that would indicate that she at least hadn’t lost her voice. It was a routine I wished to break.
When we finished with the letters for the day, I followed Gravel to the bedroom. When she entered, she sat on the bed and didn’t bother to close and lock the door like before. As I joined her, she levitated the revolver from the briefcase nestled in the corner of the room, and twirled it around in her magic. The intensity in the air outmatched, but carried reminders of the Chief’s presence.
“Nopony told me it’d be harder to deal with after the fact. I hope it’s worth it,” she mumbled.
“That’s all we can do about it, I suppose.”
“Even if we kill for the Revolution?”
I winced. “I guess we have to.” The revolver stopped twirling.
“What if you can’t?”
“You could learn how to hope.”
Gravel gave a mirthless smile. “Where’d that confidence come from?”
“From a mare that promoted me to forepony.”
A moment of pause swelled in the room. Tears welled in Gravel’s eyes, but her voice held firm.
“This house used to be home to family, friends, and love fer many years, ya know. Stayed that way even till the weather disaster. That’s what Pop told me anyway.” She looked down at the floor. “Believe it or not Toffee, but somepony cares fer the Chief, and now he’s as alive as my folks are. It ain’t my place to choose somepony’s...fate like that. It shouldn’t be.” Gravel began to sob. I embraced her, frightened by the image of an unbreakable pony that could tolerate the whips and scorns of life and guide others to that strength, now broken into millions of pieces. Manehatten found its way into the lives of not just myself, but also my closest friends. My eyes burned and my teeth clenched at its audacity. Long ago, Manehattan broke me, but today was a chance to fight against it.
“Life isn’t fair to anypony, Gravel. Not even to the Chief. He was caught in something he never knew would kill him. However, to everypony else, it showed how anypony can kill and humble mighty ponies once thought to be untouchable. It takes a strong will to do that, and you certainly have it.” I sighed. “It’s unfortunate ponies have to die, but for the change this--our Revolution calls for, we will need to do whatever it takes to free ourselves from a ponymade destiny that we were virtually excluded from choosing. That’s what we all want. At least, I think so anyways.” Gravel looked up at me with puffy eyes, her eyes sparkling like green stars. A lazy smile found its way on my face. “I now know now where you found your strength, Gravel, and I thank you for that.”