Fallout: Equestria - Murky Number Seven

by FuzzyVeeVee

Following in Her Hoofsteps

    “...so that's why you didn't get away.  What did it feel like to fail after coming so close?”

    Guilt.

    “Huh?”

    I felt guilty!  How could I not?  In my quest for freedom, I hadn't just put myself in danger; I'd brought it upon innocents too. My wings were what made Minstrel consider me valuable.  He hadn't cared about me, only about the wealth that selling the pegasus would bring him.  Now he was dead because of me.  Cayenne had been shot while defending me.  While Sunny, brave Sunny Days, had fallen and been pulled right into the same life I had been attempting to get away from.  If I had escaped, how could I have ever lived with myself knowing the cost of my freedom?

    Only now it was worse.  At least while free I might have been able to eventually pretend that she gave herself up to save me.  A sacrifice. But now we were both trapped inside Fillydelphia, having gained nothing.  My wishes had ruined the freedom of somepony else and destroyed everything that she had in life.  We weren't even together to be able to comfort one another. She was The Master's, and The Master’s alone.  I dreaded to think of the conditions she was being kept in, or the brutal work she was enduring as one of his stock.

    That’s why I felt guilt, wondering that perhaps it would have all been better if I hadn't tried at all.

    At least then nopony else would have been hurt because of my dreams. I had been so close!  So hair-raisingly close to seeing freedom, for the first time. It hurt. Right in my heart, it hurt, because I knew that as much as I wanted it, I would never be willing to sacrifice the lives of others to get it.  The Master would follow me to the ends of Equestria and beyond if he wanted to get me back. How many ponies would he hurt in his crusade to bring me 'home?' How many sleepless nights would I spend knowing that, out there, somepony else was being abused, hurt, or taken after they failed to give him proper direction?  How many would become slaves to buy my freedom?

    On the other hoof, I had a burning drive within me.  Being out there, seeing the wastes from building-tops and feeling the true wind on my face, unspoiled by the rads and disease from smog that choked the air of Fillydelphia gave me a target, a fresh ideal that I could not deny.  A tempting, big, and lovingly warm meal laid bare before me with a price on it that was just too high. But I wanted it anyway.  

I couldn’t stop thinking. At what point do dreams cease to be realistic and enter the realm of impossible madness?  At what point are you asking too much of what your life can give you?

    All the same, those little voices in my mind reminded me of possibilities and consequences.  One shrieked that I was so close to being free.  The other harshly insisted that I was so close to making the biggest mistake of my life.  One said rebel, the other said obey. Fantasy or reality.

    Dare...or simply dream.

    I couldn't do it alone.  Making sense of all this wasn't something I could manage on my own while under slavers.  No matter what I wanted, for the foreseeable future, I was now condemned to the work once again, separated from my friends.  If I wanted them back, I would have to work for it, prove I could be a part of their 'workforce' once again.

    I had failed. And now, it was simply back to the grind.

    This was a familiar place.

    Rusty, dark metal surrounded me in the cell. Vents along the floor allowed red-tinged smoke to filter through before being sucked out by industrial fans behind the vents on the ceiling.  The locked door ahead of me was almost invisible against the wall, identified only by the small closed slit they used to occasionally check that I was still alive.

    Roughly healed, as well as Doctor Weathervane could manage in the short time before Master Red Eye’s enforcers arrived and took me, I was left to sweat in the stuffy heat of the enclosed space.  Bandages still around my chest, shoulder, and right hoof told of still-healing injuries. The fumes made me choke. My lungs stung and heaved as my sickness grew. No RadAway for the one who had defied them, no. None at all.  Instead, my thick coughs only echoed, rang off of the walls, and gave me thumping headaches. I would have retreated to the corner, farther from it all, had I not been chained to the floor in the middle.

    Abandoned without clothing or possessions, and left with a fuzzy head and a raging fever, my mind only raced from thought to dream to wish to fear.  The Master had visited many times, sometimes entering to sit and talk of my place in life, others to just...stare. Those were the worst, looking up and knowing that those light green eyes would be peering in through the slit, silent and telling.

    But by far the cruelest moments were his talks on the fate of Sunny.

    Now she was the personal property of The Master, his to do with as he wanted.  The same thing he had once wanted Littlepip for...and had come close to having me for. Now he had her.  Horrible visions of what sick things he might do to her played in my head. At times he would grab my face, stare directly at me, and hint at how she was 'his forever,' as I would soon be.

    Sunny, like my abuse before, would remain far beyond help from the only ponies who might want to get her out of here.

    A part of me wished I could help her, like I had helped Glimmerlight and Starshine Melody, but with The Master standing in the way, claiming her as much as he claimed me, I could not muster the courage to do anything.  As he had left, leaving only the echo of sick laughter, I was shut in alone once more.

    Another harsh coughing fit sent my body into spasms.  Held down by chains, I had no way to brace myself, so I simply closed my eyes, and tried not to cry out too loudly while my rough throat flared on every one of the hacking expulsions.  A wet splatter accompanied it; I didn't even need to look at the floor to know there was a new bloodstain across it. My wounds may have closed, but all the signs of rad-poisoning entering lethal levels were starting to show.  

Behind the echoes of my own coughing, I didn't even hear hooves approaching before voices rung out through the door.

    “Sir, you know you're not meant to be down here.  The prisoner is under orders to not receive any—”

    “On whose authority?”

    “Standard rule for all prisoners, by order of Stern, sir.”

    “Yet I happen to know for a fact that Chainlink Shackles has been down here every hour on the dot.  Can you explain that?”

    The voices made me perk up as the guard paused.  Through the thick doors, I couldn't recognise anypony in particular, just the dulled muffling of speech, barely discernible.

    “I...”

    “How much did he pay you each time?  Or promise you? Tell you what, I'll keep this rampant abuse of authority to myself and save you from being thrown into the taint moat as an example if you go for a ten minute break.”

    “...Sir.”

    The sound of somepony trotting quickly grew to a hurried canter, as I heard the fearful guard make himself scarce as fast as possible.  Half choking, I tried to push myself back from the door, feeling my head swim and throat swell as I pushed motion through my sick body. A thin copper taste in my mouth made me shiver. The next coughing fit would come soon, I could feel it.

    The door's locks were thrown aside, metal joints clanked and squealed on their rusted hinges, and gave me reason to cover my ears as the huge door was pushed inward.  A rush of clean air made me splutter as I turned my head to look.

    A red eye stared back at me, glowing through the smog.  Only this time, I recognised him for who he was. It was Protégé, clad in a dark brown weather cloak for protection from the acid rain.  Quickly approaching me, he pulled a half-empty orange sachet from his saddlebag and quickly dropped it near my mouth. Without waiting, I grabbed it and sucked down the foul liquid so fast that I nearly choked.  Wincing as the taste hit me, it became a fight to not throw it right back up.

    “I...I need more. This won't do it...”

    “I'm sorry, this was all that was left, Murk.  Barb's lot were quite thorough with your cell as soon as they saw you weren't around to reclaim it all.  If I can, I'll see what I can do, but even we only get access to so much at a time, and Weathervane is being closely monitored.”

    “Why...do you care?”

    I saw him step back, his eyes narrowing as I voiced my question.  This pony had stood in front of my freedom and shot me down to keep me inside.  Bringing half a sachet of RadAway wasn't going to do anything close to enough to apologise for it.

    “Why couldn't you have just let me go?”

    Protégé sighed, shoulders slumping.  Rubbing a hoof through his red mane, he looked at me with his one visible eye.

    “I have a lot of explaining to do, and not just to you.  I have other work-leaders inquiring why I kept you alive, and why I killed one of the ponies who was paid to help Master Red Eye.  I tell you this because I want you to know how much risk I am involving myself in to ensure you are not simply killed outright. Like it or not, you were the last worker to be found out there.  All others caught, including Barb's raiders and Glimmerlight, were brought home long before you were. That makes you significant, Murk. It makes you a target for punishment from everypony seeking to see it happen.”

    Shaking my head, I couldn't help but repeat myself.

    “Why couldn't you just have let me go?  Please, master. I just want to be free...”

    Tears had already started rolling down my cheeks, leaving thin lines against the muck and soot.  Glimmer's cleaning of my face hadn't lasted long in Fillydelphia. Even seeing him here still reminded me of that horrible moment atop the mill.  When I was within sight of escape, with only him standing in my way. Somehow able to appear at the last second to drag me back.

    “How did you even find me?”

    Finally, that small smirk of his returned. Raising a hoof, he tapped his eyepiece.  To be honest, I had been wondering what it was for.

    “An Eyes-Forward-Sparkle, Murk.  A gift from Master Red Eye. It can follow PipBuck locator signals if within a certain range.  I've had it set to yours for some time now, tracking your position while I was on my way to reclaim you from Minstrel's home, but—”

    “But he got there first.”

    “Yes. Shackles was the direct link to Minstrel and was far ahead of me by the time word got back about the escape. Look, Murk, you have to listen. We don't have much time. The call for your sentencing is going out as we speak.  I don't know who is going to decide it, but chances are they’re on their way right now. I had to speak to you ahead of time, get you to understand something.”

    Screwing up my face, I didn't even want to think on the ramifications of that eyepiece and how Protégé would always know precisely where I was.  Had he just been testing me before, when I had snuck out of the Mall?

    “All I understand is, I failed. And now I’m going to die...”

    “No, Murk.  What I need you to understand is you can still do this.  Show forgiveness, prove to them you are a worthy worker who is seeking to help Equestria.  You're a good pony, Murk, I can see you want to help others and live a good life. And that's just what I'm offering!  Two years, Murk. Two years of hard effort and you can do whatever you want! A small portion of your life working hard, and you can earn your freedom for yourself.  Rightful, guarded, and without danger of falling into it ever again. No slaver in the wasteland would dare take in a pony carrying the pardon of Master Red Eye. Give me your trust, Murk. I will keep you from the dangers as much as I can, help you become somepony better.  Perhaps you will see the value you can have as a worker to me, or perhaps something mo-”

    “SHUT UP!”

    It wasn't my most elegant response, but the more he talked, the more I felt the rage and bile growing in my throat.  Screaming led me to stagger even as I forced myself to my hooves, feeling my shoulder, chest, and every leg ache. Leaning against a wall to even stay upright, I had to bite back an angry snarl.

    “Stop calling me a worker!  I'm not!  I'm a slave!  Whipped, hurt, kept locked up, and abused!  I'm dying of sickness because of this place!  Red Eye isn't anything but a monster forcing ponies to work and die for him!”

    “Master Red Eye is a visionary, Murk.  I have told you this, that I accept this isn't the nicest way forward, but it is the only way, and it is working!”

    “All it's doing is killing us!”

    Protégé sighed. We were breaking into the same argument again. He paced on the spot, lowering his tone.

    “Have you got any idea what Fillydelphia was like before Master Red Eye came along?  This place was a blight upon Equestria; a horror-filled city of pain and darkness, where raiders and warring gangs were only the tip of the iceberg.  There were...things...stalking the streets, things nopony has even yet identified, or discovered the source of.  They still exist, somewhere beneath us in the old city tunnels and subways. They were only locked in there because Master Red Eye brought with him the leadership and charisma to turn Fillydelphia around and work toward such a difficult goal.  He took a place where wastelanders were lucky to survive a day and turned it into the greatest industrial powerhouse in the wastes. We are producing books, cloth, resources, and tools for a protected generation of educated foals. He has done good.”

    My voice sounded weak by comparison, my shouting had already made my throat feel ragged. 

“At what cost? I don't want to be a part of this anymore!  I never asked to be a slave...”

    Sighing, he shook his head, glancing back out the door quickly.

    “I respect that, Murk. You do not have to be a slave all your life.  Believe it or not, I don't want you to be. If I could make you free, right now, I would.  You don't...you don't deserve to have been caught up in all this.  Nopony should be born without choice, but...this is how it is in our time.”

    My anger simmered down, bubbling beneath the surface as I watched Protégé remove his eyepiece with his magic and store it on a clip of his clothing.  Those deep red eyes were earnest, convincing.

    “I do...care for you.  But this is the hand we have been dealt.  Master and slave. I cannot release you, short of Master Red Eye himself permitting it.  All I can offer is whatever small measure of protection I can bring as you push on. These two years will make you a better pony, Murk. I am sure of it.”

    “But I barely survived one day. How can I do two years?  I can't survive a day without RadAway!”

    Protégé simply looked away, sighing. Seeing his eyes fall, I pressed home.

    “You know it. You know it's going to kill me. It's impossible! Nopony has ever done it!”

    “No...it's not impossible, Murk.  Allow me to help, work to get back to me and—”

    Stopped short, he began paying attention to a sound that I had missed on account of how worked up I was.  Multiple sets of hooves approaching.

    “They're early...I had hoped to have longer to convince you, Murk.  Please, trust me on this, your best bet for survival is to get back to me.  Let me do the talking, say that you want to work to return to me. Please, Murk.  Can you accept this at least?  It will get you back to Glimmerlight.”

    Staring across at him from where I leaned against the warm metal wall, the thought finally clicked in my mind.  Of course...she'd be back with him. But any train of thought was lost as the approaching party arrived. I heard a lot of ponies and griffons out there beyond the half-open cell door.  Protégé was signalling for me to move back to the middle of the room, to stop straining my chains.  Feeling the fear begin to build, I did so. There was a look on Protégé's face that I did not like. What was going on?

    Lying down on all fours, I felt my neck shrink back and my hooves tuck in, as though trying to make myself as small as possible.  The cell door creaked open to reveal a huge earth pony in battle barding that looked thicker than my limbs. Stomping forward, he moved to my right and took up position, facing toward me.  Behind him came another, almost identical guard, followed by four griffons who took the corners. All carried shock rods or had hoof shackles at the ready. Finally, I saw the large earth ponies draw their weapons and point them at me.  Even Protégé moved aside, his assertion to 'do the talking' blunted by the heavy guards. Trembling, they didn't seem to take notice of my whimpering, keeping their eyes fixed firmly for any movement. Why all the security? Was this a rank higher than Protégé?  What was he...a tier four? Or was it three? Was this Stern!?  Panic to make a bolt for the door was held in check only by the thick chains.  Oh no, she would kill me for sure, she did that sort of thing...or just throw me back in the Pit.

    The gentle tip-tap of hooves proceeded toward the door down the corridor.  Pleadingly, I cast a glance at Protégé, who had been politely moved to the side of the cell, into a corner behind a griffon.  Having slipped his eyepiece back on, I now once again saw the more disciplined look of a slavemaster on his face. Instead, I screwed my eyes shut, prepared for whatever pony general or slave overlord I was about to meet.

    The hooves stopped just in front of me.  By some insane stroke of madness, I allowed one eye to open.

    The chains that held me to the floor and my own blood were not what kept me from immediately running terrified beyond all conscious control.  It was a sudden, overbearing rush of terror to stay still and obey. Locked in my own unresponsive body, I could only now stare upward. Every bit of my every free will screamed for me to get out, yet I could not.  

It wasn't Stern.  It wasn't one of Red Eye's generals or overlords.

It was him.  My Master above all.  The pony who had bought me.  Who owned me.

    Red Eye himself.

    With a start, I realised my error.  Before any detail or close observation of his appearance could even register, I flung myself to the floor with my head lowered.  My entire body trembled hard enough that I felt coughs ready to explode out of me, only being forced down by the desire not to make a sound in the presence of my master.  The highest of masters. Maybe not the most personal, but by every law and rule of slavery, he owned my life completely. I could only await his instruction, be it to die or to live.

    What I did not expect was the same kind, fatherly, and genial voice that I had heard on his broadcasts.

    “My dear Murky, you need not hide your eyes from me.  Come, stand before me and show me the same spirit you held to attempt the impossible.”

    He knew my name.  Past the shock, it was an instruction.  I obeyed. Avoiding as much whining as I could, I shakily pushed my battered body to its hooves and looked up.  Red Eye was smiling warmly, his one proper eye showing not the hard glare that I had long associated with him from afar, but a gentle concern.  Across his body he wore what once might have been a Stable suit, while on his right hoof, just like her...just like me...he possessed a PipBuck.  But that crimson cybereye was all that drew my attention. Feeling unable to look away, it almost seemed to hypnotize me as Red Eye began to speak again.

    “Much better, Murky.  I must admit, to attempt one escape and survive only by the thinnest of margins is impressive.  But to attempt a second one less than a couple days afterwards? Perhaps there is more to you than we first thought.  Both in your determination, and in other more physical terms.”

    Through the slight filter of smoke I could see a light beam near his eye projecting outward.  Trotting forward, he moved alongside me and gazed down at my broken wings.

    “If things of late had been different, a pegasus like you would have been very valuable to me, Murky.  You could have done great things for the restoration of Equestria to aid Unity in its pursuit of peace.  I somewhat wish I had known of these wings all those weeks ago when I bought you. Such a pity that you hid them so diligently upon your arrival here.  Tell me, do you feel ashamed of your birth?”

    “Yes, Master...”

    My eyes didn't leave the doorway ahead as I answered, almost mechanically.

    “Such a tragedy.  It is good you found us, Murky. The wasteland would have stricken you.  It disappoints me that you saw fit to try and escape your destiny here in Fillydelphia.  The mind is more powerful than the body, Murky. Did I not rebuild this city with words and leadership?  I could find many uses for a pegasus willing to better himself and become stronger of mind away from the shackles of the slave.  As I hear, you were doing rather well in helping to discover the secrets of a Stable. Why did you try to run, Murky? What drove you to such extremes?”

    Gulping, fighting the itchiness in my throat, and attempting to wet my dry lips, my mind raced for an answer.  His words were filled with a thousand different intents and purposes, like some unbreachable safe door that I could never break through to understand the true meaning within.

    “I...”

    My voice died, every idea faltering, like his very presence drove every element of free thought from my brain.  Not in the invasive, overwhelming method of The Master, but with an almost tangible aura of calm understanding. Red Eye controlled the space he occupied. I was merely one little pawn within his great game.

    “I wanted...to be free, master.”

    “To be free?  Is that not what all ponies wish for, Murky?  To be free of pain, suffering, and particularly, guilt?  That guilt that sits in all our hearts, that guilt that says we could be doing more for Equestria, but aren’t?  I understand. You may see me as a monster, as the dictator forcing your life into harm’s way.  But I offer freedom, true freedom. To face the world and be able to say in your heart that, 'I helped.'  Is that what you seek? To go out, to be a better pony out there? Little Murky...do you know what freedom truly is?”

    Red Eye spoke  as he circled me, eventually coming back around to face me head-on.  Without knowing why, I felt like I could look him in the eye and not feel in danger of insubordination.  He seemed to invite an ease upon those around him, letting them see him as a simple pony, bereft of all the mythical legends.  Yet his question was deceptively well chosen. Unable to think, unable to consider, reason, or piece together any coherent thought, I could only lower my head again, sniffing.

    “No, master. I don't...”

    “Yet you have now made two runs for something you do not understand.  I would ask why that is, but I believe I may already know the answer. A certain little Stable Dweller.”

    My head shot up, prompting Red Eye's brow to rise as he made a small grin.

    “That would be my confirmation, then.”

    It took a few seconds, but eventually it clicked. Red Eye hadn't known for sure, but by playing my bluff, he'd just fooled me into revealing it for certain.

    “What is she to you, Murky?”

    “Everything, master.  I...I believe she's going to save everypony, somehow.”

    Red Eye's grin became an amused smirk, before catching me completely off guard by nodding.

    “I agree.  Littlepip will be a great asset in the restoration of Equestria.  She and I are not so different, you know? We are both seeking the same goal in the end, whether you believe that or not.  Her role in this will be significant yet, more than unloading rounds into random raiders and creatures. But the mirror image is there. She and I, both fighting for Equestria's future, and both having to bear the burdens of our path.  You may be interested to know that you, at this very moment, lie in the same cell she once occupied for the very same crime. Perhaps you and her are not too different, either.”

    If it weren't for all the security and my master's presence, I might have moved out of abject shock.  She had been here? Prior to the Pit, she had been in these same chains? Or was this just a way for Red Eye to mess with my head?

    “I...I want to try and be like her, master.” It felt like the only honest answer I could give to try and deflect the traps his words were leaving for me.

    “Admirable, if somewhat naïve. Be wary of putting others on a pedestal. No, I believe you are better off here, with us, creating the New Equestria, Murky.”

    “But...why all this, master?  Why do I have to be whipped and driven to death?”

    Biting my lip, I expected the lash any second. I had slipped up, letting too much out. You don't question your master.

    “An excellent question, and one that, in a way, she asked as well.  Our world is imperfect, sadly brutal and lacking in the Unity that will save it.  Perhaps when all is said and done, I may face judgement for what I am doing to save it.  But for now, this is merely my side of the same coin, the unfortunate period in history that ponies like you, I'm afraid, have been caught up in.  I have never attempted to hide the truth, Murky. I do not deny the darker side to my work. But on the other side of that coin lies just as much grey morality in the actions of your beloved Stable legend.”

    “But master, she saves ponies!”

    Somehow, I felt like I was being toyed with.  That I was nothing more than an idiotic child compared to a grandmaster's artform of conversation and debate.

    “Does she, now?” His head tilted, intrigued by my more convicted words.  “She didn't save you.”

    Four simple words that wormed their way into my head.  I knew they would not disappear easily.

    “I...but...she couldn't!  Nopony can save everypony, master!  To...to save this world, I guess some ponies will have to be put in danger or...or wait their turn to be saved?”

    “Then what is so different with Fillydelphia, may I ask?”

    My mouth opened, then closed...then gaped and finally shuddered shut again.  He had expertly weaved me into a logical trap. Resigning myself, I simply bowed my head.

    “My Master,” I heard Protégé's voice approach as he carefully trotted toward Red Eye, “Murk is rather idealistic, from what I have seen.  Admirable in some ways, if tragically naïve, and sometimes void of cold facts.”

    Daring to open my eyes a notch, I saw the black unicorn stand to the side of his Master.  Only now did the similarities begin to tell. The way Protégé wore his mane, his tail...even down to some stylistic patterns on his eyepiece were clearly inspired by Red Eye's, well, eye.

    Red Eye smiled as he saw Protégé move over, turning as though to politely allow him into the 'conversation.' Very quickly I was beginning to worry if I was being judged without even knowing it.  By supporting Littlepip, had I just ruined my chances?  

    “Ah, my faithful student.  I was under the impression that Stern didn't allow past masters to visit their recovered workers.”

    His voice held a slight tone of challenge to it.  As though he was testing his 'student' to find the proper reply, to work his way around the situation.

    “An unfortunate necessity, Master.  Murk was dying of an irradiated disease.  He required RadAway immediately. I felt, after consideration, that you would prefer not to have a pony die pointlessly.”

    Red Eye's smile grew as he nodded, almost seeming to chuckle lightly.

    “Very good, just what I might have done...and have done in the past.  Now, time is valuable these days, with us closer to Unity than ever. I felt that it would only be right for me to finally meet this little oddity of a pegasus in Fillydelphia myself before deciding on his future.”

    Protégé didn't seem to hesitate, crossing a hoof across his chest and lowering his head.

    “I am sure he will have been glad to meet you.”

Speak for yourself, Protégé...

    “Before you arrived, Murk was willing to offer his continued services under me, if primarily to be reunited with his friend, Glimmerlight, the unicorn.  The Stee—”

    “Steel Ranger Initiate. Yes, I remember her. From the same influx as the Great Warlord, I believe.”

    Red Eye seemed to catch a surprised glance on my face, turning back toward me with that ever-fatherly smile.  I could feel myself wanting to please him, serve him. The loyalty he inspired in those working with him was easy to understand.

    “You are surprised that I remember another worker, Murky?  Within the rebuilding of Fillydelphia, I ask a great amount of you all.  Is it so much that I be required to remember those whom I can, to honour your sacrifices and hard work?”

    “No, master. Sorry, master...”

    “Now, do you truly seek to return to Protégé, to continue your progress toward true freedom and choice?  To help Equestria by the methods we have here? I do not require you to turn against the Stable Dweller in your heart...only that your mind sets itself to the task you can do.  She is beyond your reach now; gone into the far flung places of Equestria beyond sanity’s reach.  Her tale is not yours to share anymore, past the crossroads of history that saw you so briefly within her influence.  So, Murky, you wish to retake your place as a worker under me? To follow my student's path that may see you do better things for all ponies?  Truly and honestly?”

    A sudden dark tinge overtook those last words...a narrowing of his good eye...the loss of the slight grin.  Very quickly, I began to sense what would happen if I were to do anything but agree. My master was leaving me no choice.  Despite what he said, this was no question.

    “Yes, master.  I...I am sorry for trying to escape you...”

    His gaze fell upon me, witheringly intense and full of indiscernible intent.

    “...I deserve to be here.”

    Saying those words was like ripping my own newly found spirit clean out.

    “The punishment for at least one escaping worker is simple, but you have complicated things by being a consistent troublemaker, Murky.  Not to mention that chaos almost seems to follow in your wake. A dead slaver in the threshing mill, perhaps? Or the Terminal slave riot?  Normally, I would offer a choice between summary execution—for I cannot have other workers following in your rebellious wake—or to join the next Pit Arena event.”

    I couldn't help the squeak escaping my lips, and tears began to fall as my history seemed to be repeating itself.  Lowering my head, I didn't even dare defy or beg...my master had the final say. Do I take the quicker certain death or...or try the Pit.

    Protégé trotted forward.

    “Master Red Eye, I—”

    He was silenced by a raised hoof from Red Eye.

    “However, Murky, you have done me a great service.  One few ponies have. You showed kindness, and a braver heart than you may feel you have, by helping to rescue one of my dear children of Unity and Equestria.  Starshine Melody asked of me just yesterday, 'Where is the little pony? Is he okay?' This is partly why I am here, to meet the pony who brought one of those for whom I am doing all of this back to me.  I would like to believe I have a generous soul, Murky. However, I cannot allow you to go without punishment, for fear of repeat occurrences both from you or others. Thus, I am left with a clash of ideals.”

    Shivering, my fate hanging in the balance, I raised my head once again to look at him.  The smile was, amazingly, still present. Still reassuring, like I could half-expect him to genuinely care for me.

    “Within my messages of Unity, I speak of hard work being the proof of the willing.  That those ponies willing to take a stand and say 'I shall do my part' are the true bearers of Equestria's future.  Therefore, it seems appropriate that you should be set to prove this. Murky Number Seven, you shall reaffirm your worth to my student.  To be accepted once more into the two years of salvage missions, you will work a full shift within the Parasprite Pits. Show the courage, resolve, and determination required of the ponies who would bring about our salvation and you shall be forgiven for your blind and unfortunate mistakes.  Do you feel this is fair?”

    The question was not directed at me, but at Protégé.  I saw the younger unicorn cast a look toward me, away from his Master.  His one uncovered eye, hidden on this side from Red Eye displayed his immediate concern.  Terror was gripping me, the Parasprite Pits were, without a doubt, the single most dangerous job in Fillydelphia; reserved only for troublemakers and rulebreakers because nopony else would ever actually volunteer.  They were set to find, collect, and destroy the masses of flesh eating, flying, and lethal Parasprites that swarmed to and fro down there. Horrible memories of hearing the agonised squeals of those suffering bloody deaths when I had I passed by the pits were too fresh...too real. That might be me, now.

    “This is fair, Master.  If I may, I feel that Murk will show a good effort.”

    “I truly hope so, my student.  If the future for him you discussed with me is something you still believe he can achieve...”

    “It is, Master.”

    Red Eye paused, watching his student, before smiling, and resting a hoof on his shoulder.

    “Tell me, my most loyal student, is there anything you have learned from all this?”

    “Yes, Master.” Protégé nodded diligently.  “I have learned that even those we believe in may falter sometimes, but we should not casually dismiss one failure as a complete loss.  That we can do better for Equestria, to put them on a better path for themselves and for the world as a whole. Be it a raider being repurposed and kept away from others to help rebuild homes, or a hurt little soul who has lost his way from the path of his life...”

    His Master seemed to agree with this, smiling and patting his shoulder once before standing tall and proud once more.

    “I always did appreciate your rather poetic tone,” he said with a grin, “from the first day you conversed with me.  When you initially spoke to me of Murky, the notion of history repeating itself did stand out from your words. I ask you to stay by him, if that plan is still your choice, but this task he must do on his own.  Murky will be taken to the pits by his old overseer, Whiplash. You understand?”

    Protégé nodded. “I do, Master.”

    “Good...good.  My time becomes more precious with each passing day in the weeks to come, my student.  Unity approaches. Continue to write to me with your findings in your studies, if and when you have something to report.  Until then, I wish you good fortune. To you too, Murky. I would not begrudge you giving your prayers to Littlepip's safety, I assure you I am just as concerned about her as you are.”

    He turned, nodding to the guards and trotted from the room.  As though on cue, the security began to march past me, each thump of their hooves making me shiver all the more.  No matter his friendliness, the sentencing left me in abject terror. Dread images of carnivorous little beasts tearing at my skin...pushing their way inside to the muscle and organs and multiplying all the time.  A horrible, and painful death...no, I didn't want to die like that.

    If Red Eye's influence hadn't kept me where I was, I might have simply thrown myself on their guns.  That thought alone chilled me. I saw him depart, a last glance back to me with that glowing eye being the final sight before he moved away.  My meeting with the great slave master of the wastes...the legend that had brought even Brimstone Blitz's clan low. For all his calm and politeness, all his fatherly speeches...he terrified me.  Only now did it even filter in, he'd called me Murky.  Like he was a friend.  The way only Glimmerlight did. Other ponies rarely said it...only ever to degrade me like Sooty had.  But Red Eye used it genially and respectfully.

    Somehow, that scared me even more.

    Protégé stood in the doorway, watching as the procession headed away, before slowly turning his head to me, glancing back over his shoulder almost sadly.

    “I'm sorry it had to go this way, Murk.”

    “Pr...Protégé?”

    He turned almost suddenly, as though surprised I hadn't called him 'master.' In the wake of Red Eye, Protégé seemed almost trustworthy.

    “I...I don't think I can do this, I—”

    “You can, and you must.  Your friend is waiting, Murk.  For now, you simply must endure.”

    Collapsing to the floor, spluttering and coughing between sobs, I couldn’t stop imagining little brightly coloured sprites bringing an unthinkable end.

    “Simply endure. I wish you all the luck I can, Murk. It is one shift. Master Red Eye would not have given you this chance had he not believed you could survive.”

    There were no more words I could say.  Protégé simply stood in the sole light of the doorway, looking half way between me and the corridor.  Long seconds passed, before he sighed with resignation and trotted out of the cell, closing the door as he spoke.

    “You endured for your whole life...just a little more, Murk. A little more.  Good luck.”

    A few seconds he had left, I heard a violent slam.

    The sound of somepony outside it bucking a metal wall.  Hard.

    Being marched toward the wagon waiting outside was like the Pit all over again.  My legs were shackled and tied to another three ponies taken from the cells. Each looked rough, liable to strike back against a careless slaver.  No doubt they were in here for just that, sentenced to the same punishment. Between two large unicorn bucks, I trotted with my head low through the steel corridors and hissing pipes that made up the prison, it having been converted from an industrial plant.  The rattle of reactivated machinery did little to let me try and relax.

    But it had been Red Eye who commanded that I was to go.  Thus, I couldn't disobey.

    Only now was my mind beginning to drift and fret over other issues.  My possessions were likely all gone. Sundial's PipBuck, my beloved journal, and all my clothing or loot from the Stable.  Barb apparently had stolen all the RadAway I had left behind at the Mall, too, given Brimstone hadn’t been there as a deterrent.  Feeling the brief respite of the small amount Protégé had saved already beginning to fail in its resistance, the shiver of cold fear passed over me.  The Parasprite Pits were heavily irradiated from the trapped smog underground. It was all a matter of what would kill me first.

    Either I would be torn muscle from muscle and devoured alive by small creatures over the course of one long, agonising minute...or I would choke and drown in my own blood as my lungs ruptured.  No matter how hard I tried, my mind kept going over and over each fate, filling my imagination with what it might feel like. Every time was the same, surrounded by uncaring slavers who would simply laugh or turn their backs.

    Sniffing, wishing I could dry my eyes with a hoof away from the shackles, my mind only wished it could deny the reality that was my life.  Even as we were led through the cavernous doors into the red mist outside, the sight still shocked me. Fillydelphia was hell, truly and utterly.

    Marched out on the ashy gravel next to the broken tarmac road, we were ordered not to move by one of the multiple gas masked guards as we awaited the wagons. I never, ever, got used to a view of Fillydelphia.  Of trodding lines of sick and broken slaves moving ahead of you, the whips and shock rods dragging screams from their parched throats or blood from their broken bodies. Back and forth, ever moving, like a great unceasing machine, the cycle of slavery and labour only kept going.  When one slave expired, another was found to take his or her place like a replacement part in the engine of industry. Even as I watched, one marching buck on the road simply keeled over, spasmed sharply, and finally lay still. Masked slavers simply threw the body on a passing corpse wagon headed toward the mass graves and incinerators, ignoring the wailing mare being pressed back into line.

    All just one big, utterly efficient, and unthinkably brutal machine...

    “Stay in line, ya wretches...wagon's coming.  Make a move, we'll slot the lot of you.” The stallion's voice was muffled behind the mask, but he made his point clear as he jabbed one unicorn's side with a riot shotgun.  My legs felt locked in place (well, technically they were), not daring to move one inch.

    To the right of us, around the corner of a ruined employee building, a scrap-built wooden wagon rattled and began its lurching gait down the road.  Slaves scampered from its clearly uncaring path, avoiding the big hooves of two big earth ponies dragging it. Each bore fresh whip marks on their back and hoods over their heads.  They were nothing but a source of movement, not even allowed to see where they went...

    Upon the back of the wagon, my old overseer, Whiplash, glared at the four slaves waiting.  Standing up, his front hooves on the front of the wagon, he cast an imposing figure against the crimson smoke and tall funnel chimneys of the Fillydelphia horizon.  Turning between the mesh fences surrounding the entrance to the prison, I could see his eyes focussed only on me as the wagon pulled up.

    “Well...well...well...”

    Hopping down, Whiplash trotted around the wagon, standing before me.  Without a word, I saw him reaching for his whip, slowly and carefully.  Taking his time, he let it unfurl and got a good bite on the leather grip; the whipcord itself dropped to the ground right in front of me.  Whimpering, I felt myself stagger back from it. I knew it was coming...he was just drawing it out.

    Wringing his neck side to side and almost chewing the grip a little, Whiplash finally swung the whip...and pulled back.  My squeak of shock when it came near my head only betrayed my fear of it. Finally, after making 'test' shots another two times, he finally did it.  Shackled to the spot, I couldn't even dodge.

    The whip lashed forward. Searing pain erupted across my forehead, burning and throwing my head back. Squealing, I tripped when my hooves tried to cover me face.  He wasn't nearly as strong as The Master, but my skull jarred back from the strike on my still vulnerable head wound. Balance waving and vision swimming, I shivered on the ground, pleading my apologies to him in between cries of pain.  Eyes clenched shut, I could still hear him shouting above me.

    “That's for taking my whip. For stealing from your overseer!  If you weren't going into the Sprite Pits anyway, I'd probably put you in for twenty lashes for theft!”

    “I'm sorry!  Please, I'm—”

    “Shut up!  Just shut up!  I had to put up with Slit bitching for an hour after I went looking for my whip, Betsy!  You can take your hit and you can like it! Now get on the fucking cart, all of you!”

    My shackles were already being pulled.  Staggering along, with the chains getting tangled between my legs and a few incidents of bumping into the rump of the stallion in front of me, I was half pulled and half pushed up and into the wooden cart.  Forced into a small section near the head of the open top wagon, I tried to curl up as best I could and cradle my skull. In the dry Fillydelphia air, my throat burned with each whimper, leading to me dry heaving a few times and fall just short of a coughing fit.  Rumbling off, the wagon departed toward one of the great pillars of smoke from a parasprite incinerator. Around me, the other slaves just tried to stay as far from me as possible, muttering that I was 'bad luck.' Whether due to that demonstration or my wings, I wasn’t sure.

    “To think, you were a pegasus all that time under me, Murk.  Disgusting. Should just have you shot in the back of the head, I think.  Right?”

    The last word wasn't directed at me, but to the driver of the wagon beside him.  I kept my head down, feverishly trying to get rid of the horrible feeling of a gun being placed to my skull and fired.  But then, wouldn't that be nicer than what was about to happen?

    “Aye, Lash, any thievin' little whelp takin' any of my stock isn't lookin' to get much favour from me now, is he?”

    Wait...that accent. I hadn't even looked at the driver with my attention on Whiplash so entirely.  Glancing up, he turned back to face me. Another face from before my first escape attempt...one I had last seen tauntingly laughing at me when The Master had paraded me through the streets.

    Sooty Morass.  That grey, braided mane drooped down over the back of the driver's seat even while his head turned to wink at me.

    “But...but you're a slave!”

    My jawline whipped to the side, my head following. Whiplash's hoof slapped across my face.  Yelping and falling to the floor of the wagon, I shivered and sought to find the best words to appease my overseer. I felt that tooth loosen again, just as the chains pulled were pulled to get my head up for one swift slap across the face to remind me of my place.  No talking without permission.

    “Aye, laddie, that I am.  But life ain't so bad if you know who to let a few caps pass to now and again.  'Wagon driver' is pretty cushy...handy too, to meet all the contacts. Lash here just knows a good business stallion when he meets one.  So how's that RadAway hunt goin' for ye laddie? Still ready for the off?”

    I didn't have much choice with him.  No doubt Sooty Morass could read me like a book.  With Protégé, Red Eye, and now him, I was quickly beginning to remember how pathetically small I was in Fillydelphia.  As such, I could only sniff and sadly nod before coughing almost on cue. Throat rattling, I had to take gulping breaths just to get my lungs to function again.  Pulling a hoof back over the wagon seat, I felt him roughly tussle my mane as though he actually cared.

    “Well there's me answer...shoulda' stuck with me, lad.  You know who has the RadAway you need. Me business door is always open if you're willing to pay the price, o'course.”

    Undoubtedly something absurdly high and bonding me into future 'favours' that would ruin every ounce of freedom I had scraped together in my mind.  All the same, he had the things I needed, while I had no leeway right now to try and steal anything.

    “After all...can't be nice to be sitting back there knowing that radiation is eating away at you inside...slowly...never going back down on its own.  I hear it's quite the long process when it finally all adds up. Tell ye what, if you get out of the pits here, come see me at the ol' Terminal. Got some new directions of trade I could use you for.  I'm sure me new business venture's customers would appreciate having somepony as, well...exotic, as a pegasus.”

    The degrading cackle as he rubbed my mane once again before returning to driving was so demeaning that took all the effort I had to not burst into tears.

    “One RadAway per day, laddie, for each job done, after ye work off what you stole from me.  Come see me in the if ye want. Ye'll find I'm quite open.”

    Staying silent under Whiplash's harsh gaze, I wasn't sure what sickened me more.

    The fact that once again I was so far into servitude that even other slaves had leeway over my future options.

    Or the fact that part of me felt so hopelessly indentured and desperate to survive that I actually considered his offer...

    “All off!  Five seconds, move it!”

    The back of the wagon was lowered down and masked slavers crowded around to yank at the chains that bound every slave on board.  We weren't even given the option to move, simply dragged as one conjoined line off the wagon. Having been sitting with my head down, my world turned upside down as I was pulled from the wagon, dropped and shoved across the ground.  Yelping from pain flared from injuries, I was dragged across the gravel with the others by half a dozen slaves battering us onward so hard that I couldn't make head nor tail of my surroundings. Just red sky then grey dirt, crimson clouds then ash covered road...again and again as they kept pushing me and the others over and over, rolling us and clipping us around the ears to keep us docile and disoriented.  Panicking, I tried to keep going, to do what they wanted, but their painful shouts in my ears made it difficult.

    Finally, mercifully, it stopped with a last hoof standing on my back and forcing me down upon the ground.  Glancing back, I saw Whiplash himself taking responsibility for me, while the Pit Slavers held the other prisoners down.  Behind me, Sooth Morass almost gleefully leaned back on the wagon.

    Coughing hard enough to spray up dirt before me, my eyes finally focussed on a hoof right in front of me.  Covered in a dull yellow containment suit, I glanced up to find a scraggly looking earth pony mare. She looked older than most slavers, perhaps over fifty, with a patchy mane.  The suit's headpiece was hanging at her neck, her dark purple mane stringy and filthy against her deep blue coat. She was utterly hideous. Covered in sores, old bite scars and with a smell that stood out beyond even the pungent reek that resided on most slaves.

    Glaring down at me, she made a rough sound of displeasure.

    “That's it?  Four slaves for me today?  I lost ten yesterday, what the hell makes you think this is going to help?”

    Raspy and uncultured in the extremes, she simply scratched herself as much as she talked.  I could see her head twitching on every other word. Her eyes were lifeless around a drooped face. 

Whiplash shrugged in response.. “Rest of em got claimed already, Hive, you know the rules.  Go check with Grindstone if you want more, I hear he's got ponies to spare right now.”

    “Yeah, well...Grindstone is a cranky old bastard to get anypony off of.  Just see what you can do about it if any slave you want rid of gives you lip.  The sprites are playing up lately, warm season for them, more aggressive. Can't seem to keep the slaves alive too long...”

    Her eyes travelled downwards, looking me up and down with distaste before almost deadpanning with a lazy glance at the slaver above me.

    “...you having a fucking laugh, Lash?”

    “Come on, Hive, you're used to working with small creatures.  Just give him a good clip around the ear. He'll do what you tell him.”

    She sniffed. “Eh...more that he won't fit in any of the suits properly. Doesn't look too useful anyway.  We'll just tie him in and if the sprites get into the loose parts, I guess they'll get some wings for dinner. What? Don't like the sound of that, little chicken?”

    She had heard my whimper of fear as she reminded me of the sprites.  Already, in the distance, I could detect the sound of buzzing and flitting tiny wings in their masses.  Behind Hive I could see the pits, stretched out over the open field with cage wiring fitted over the top.  The elevator down was kept in the middle, with some pits giving out a thick pillar of sickly smelling smoke.  Beyond that lay the outer housings and above them...the great Wall. We were close to the edge, far away from anything 'important' should a parasprite containment breach occur.

    “Hah...oh, chicken wings. I kill myself.”

    Please, do.

    Hive turned and wandered off, her containment suit proving to be just as matted and filthy as she was, with the helmet and tailguard flopping around behind her.  Feeling Whiplash's hoof lift, the chains were unlocked by the pit guards. Whiplash wandered around to me, raising my head on his hoof.

    “It's been brief, but I spent too long with you since you were dropped on me out of nowhere, with no proper procedure, to not feel like I'll be embarrassed if you screw up again.  Don't.  Or I'll come hunting for you myself.  Twenty lashes, Murk. You know the punishment.”

    “Yes master...”

    “Good, now get going.  Hell, if I could ever find who it was that gave you to my stock, I'd lynch him myself.”

    Wrapping a hoof around my head, Whiplash threw me forward.  Not expecting it, I staggered across the mud before my injured right hoof gave out in a sharp stab of pain.  Before I could so much as yelp, I tripped and fell flat on my face onto the caged pit. With a sharp springing sound, I found it mercifully painless as the chicken wire flexed beneath me.  Holding my right hoof to my underbody protectively, my eyes finally focussed and-

    Oh Goddesses.

    Below me, through the cage, the parasprite pits were in full swing.

    A red-hot workhouse lay down there; made up of pony-powered cranking conveyor belts, slowly moving carts that were all filled with rank honeycomb-like nests of all putrid colours, and dozens of the weakest and most horrifically pitiful looking slaves I had ever laid eyes on.

    Each one of them would have tried to escape or cause Red Eye problems.  Their rations were lower, their sleeping locations were often simply their workplaces, and their sicknesses went untreated.  They huddled scraps and small pieces of cloth and clothing over themselves in a vain attempt to hide any exposed flesh from the parasprites.

    Oh...the parasprites...

    Buzzing everywhere in the air in small groups, they flitted all over the pits. More would shoot out, trailing smoke, when each nest was fed down the conveyor into an incinerator.  Several flew from the fire each time, causing at least a few slaves to scream and hide under the conveyor or carts while guards equipped with flamethrowers sent searing blasts toward them.  I saw them drop from the air, little more than drifting ash, while the higher or more agile ones rammed against the cages or swooped toward the screaming slaves. Many tried to swat with large metal fans or sticks, others simply ran before being turned back at gunpoint by fully suited slavers.

    It just went on and on...terror after terror amongst hard, savage work that was never allowed to cease.  Seeing my dripping tears evaporate in the thick warm air before even hitting the ground. The reason why pit workers were so strung out, paranoid, and weak became perfectly clear.  How would i— ARRGH!

    A parasprite hurtled right at my face, leading me to throw my body back from the cage.  Innocently cute, I saw it gnaw on the bars with tiny fangs in an effort to get at me; just a small, light blue ball of carnivorous intent.  Shaking, I quickly retreated over the mud, seeing a pillar of flame rocket out of the cage and burn it to cinders.

    “Come on, you four. Get inside!”

    Hive's slavers were already herding us to the elevator; their shock rods giving me plenty of incentive to not dither around.  Half cantering, half limping, I moved onto the sheet metal floor of the lift with Hive, two armed guards, and the other three prisoners.

    “Right, now get this straight. It's simple.  There's four stages to Parasprite work.” Hive spoke to the wall as the lift juddered and began descending.  “Import, chop up, move, burn.”

    The surface fell away. After a few foot of soil, I felt the ambience warmth hit me. The caverns were laid out before us, outside the skeleton of metal that made up the lift shaft into these pits.

Already, I found myself backing into the corner and curling up as the lift.  Its open and caged front end became a target for many little stray creatures bashing into it repeatedly to try and get at us.  Behind them, I could see the work pits stretching between tunnels and hollowed out basements. The heat was already unbearable, choking all the air from my lungs.

    “Import.  You get on the carts and pull the nests in from wherever they're found.  Chop up. Use auto axes to carve the nests into pieces. Move. Get them on the conveyors and fan away any strays trying to get out.  Burn. Throw them in the fire. You'll each get a job.”

    Straightening on the helmet and tailguard of her filthy contamination suit, Hive kept the lift descending onto a level apparently below the work floor.  Dull grey overtook deep red as we descended into the underground rooms where I saw slaves trying in vain to sleep and guard their meagre armour from the intentions of their co-workers at the same time.

    “You, the big earth pony. Auto axe, chop up.  Tiny horn, you're on conveyor. Other unicorn?  Yeah you, you're on burning. Chicken?”

    Sighing at the acquirement of yet one more name to add to the list, I looked across at her.

    “You're on import duty.  Lash tells me you've done carting before.  Probably all you're good for.”

    Sighing, I rubbed my shoulder. This was going to hurt.

    Finally arriving at a level one below the lowest work pits, the elevator opened with a clattering racket that pounded through my head like a machine gun next to my ear. Beyond was a small ready room with a sealed cage door leading into a mesh walkway beyond. I could only imagine that it led back up to the main chamber and was designed purely to keep sprites from this safezone. Around me were rusty benches and old abandoned lockers. A couple of slaves cowered in corners, small bite marks bleeding while they shivered and pathetically licked empty bowls. Beside me, I noticed even my three rough prisoner companions beginning to cast unsure glances between themselves.

    “Here's your suits. Grab one that fits and follow me.”

    She pointed to a pile in the corner. Filthy leather, metal plates, rotted fur, and old cloth were patched and sometimes nailed together into the most mishmash clothing I had ever seen. On top seemed to lie a smaller one. oh, that'd be a lot better if I could—

    The other three shoved me to the floor, rushing by me and clambering across the ten or so empty suits. The one I had seen was stripped apart, used to quickly cover the exposed sections on others.

    “Wait, wait! That's the only one that might fit me!”

    Heedless, I was roughly bucked back away from them and left to clutch my chest. By the time I could pull myself to my hooves, they had torn it apart to cover their own flanks. Hive glanced back at me, rolling her eyes behind the visor of her containment suit.

    “Whiplash was right about you, chicken. Absolutely useless. Might as well write that letter to Protégé already, telling him I'm not releasing you from my service.”

    What!?

    Seeing my look of shock, she raised an eyebrow. She seemed to be a little shaky and short-fused right now, biting back an annoyed scowl.

    “Didn't you know? That's how things work around here. You prove yourself back into normal work. Red Eye did you a good turn by putting you on my shift instead of having you hung for our entertainment, something he should have done to a pegasus, I might add. To 'prove yourself,' you need to first prove yourself to me. I can find plenty of suicide jobs for a pathetic pegasus who can't even fly, but I'm not going against the rules just to satisfy your wordy little master's whims. No...you don't impress me today. And you get to stay here until either you do...or you die. That clear enough for you?”

    Without waiting for an answer, she lifted a random protective suit on her hoof and hurled it toward me.

    “So get your flank in gear, pick that up, and follow me.”

    The rotten, half-ripped, and often repaired clothing slapped heavily onto the ground at my hooves. Metal trays nailed onto the sides as protection clanged and slid to a halt. Grabbing the heavy fabric, I realised that even crumpled up, it was clearly for a pony far bigger than myself. Hive's disapproving glare watched me, before she turned and trotted away. I began to realise that Protégé's one comfort to me, the assurance that I need only endure till the end, was now gone. This slaver had it out for me in particular. If I wanted to get past her, I had to excel at something I'd never done before. Either that or come up with some idea to get out of here without simply running away from it.

    Hoofing it into the mesh corridor after them, I felt it shake and judder from the scaffolding holding it above the carved rock corridor. Every so often, a single parasprite flitted around outside it or rammed against the cage in an effort to reach us. Winding through a few corners and back up to the work pit level, we came to another suspended room, built of stable bulkheads and mounted on concrete pipes. Open windows and tunnels leading away were lined with thin mesh, looking back on the slaves working alongside the conveyors we had seen on the way down in the elevator. Clearly, this was a chamber to prepare suits, enter, and exit without the parasprites having a chance to swarm out of the main chambers, like an airlock.

    Checking inside the foggy window, Hive opened the main door and, with a nod of her head, indicated that we were to enter. Trying to keep my whining to a minimum as the shouts, screams, and fierce surges of the incinerators drifted through the last door ahead of us, I trotted in, almost falling against a bench with the weight of the suit. My entire body was already feeling weak...I...I needed RadAway now. An entire shift wasn't survivable, even if I did excel at the job.

    “Get dressed! That door opens for a shift change in three minutes. If you aren't ready, tough.”

    The three prisoners began throwing on their suits. Around us were the benches I had spotted, along with racks of various equipment. Behind a locked cage door, I could see crates of weapons and flamer fuel tanks mixed in with more valuable looking devices I couldn't even identify. Near the door was a large bin that Hive tapped.

    “You have any bits not attaching properly, have a check in here. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you'll get scraps to tie them up or patch them.”

    Checking my suit, pulling it up, I found it to be a mostly heavy leather construction. The two dinner trays were pinned to it, with flexible cloth covers on the joints. Around the face was an old welding mask with clear plastic soldered onto it. It looked tough at least.

    It wasn't.

    Even as I tried to fit my hooves in, the cloth began to rip. The headpiece of leather and wool felt flimsy and ready to tear. All along my underside, the entire suit had a great opening where the ties had been stripped off. It was entirely too big by at least a good few inches and I didn't even want to think why that ripped section near my flank still felt wet.

    “Aaah...old Ladybug's suit. Yeah, we stripped the lace off that.” Hive chuckled, leaning against the door and preparing what looked like a tiny flamethrower to sit around her mask. It was connected to a small battle saddle wire running down her hoof. She toyed with it, incessantly twitching restlessly. “Good old worker...till she sat on a nest. Tore right through the material underneath and, well, kept going.”

    Trying my hardest to not let my imagination take flight, I slipped the suit on as best I could. The leggings were loose, the bottom hung open to leave a huge gap to my exposed flesh and at least three holes ripped open as I tried to fit the vastly too large suit around my body properly.

    Hive simply snorted at my effort.  She slipped her own hood off for a second, and I watched as she popped a small white tablet into her mouth. Her hoof seemed to be shaking even more as it fought to keep the tablet from dropping until it was in. A few seconds later, she inhaled deeply, shuddering, before breathing out and relaxing.

    “Fuck...really?”

    The words were just muttered under her breath as she strapped her suit back on and slipped the little rusty box back into her suit. Drugs, likely. Many of the slavers in Fillydelphia used them. I'd seen Whiplash go through a few inhaler like things before. But watching Hive, she just seemed to jitter on the spot. Her pupils widened and seemed to stop blinking for a while. Looking back at me, that hazy darkness in her face faded away and was replaced with a bright fury.

    “Hey, Toolset?”

    One of the masked slavers turned his enclosed head. Hive indicated upwards.

    “Know if that rat bastard Sooty's got any more mint-als? I'm out.”

    Without a word, the guard just shrugged. Hive swore under her breath, before turning to see me looking.

    “You waiting for a fucking invitation? Get in the barding!”

    Immediately turning back to my suit, I fought with my own hood. Settling my face into the headpiece, I had to fight the urge to throw up when I wiped the visor to find those bloodstains were on the inside. She said there were spares in that bin right?

    Trotting unsteadily forward in the ill-fitting gear, I hopped up to put my front hooves on the lip of the bin, stretching on my rear ones to peer in. There were a few things. Perhaps there might be a wire for me!

    “Oi! Get out the way!” 

A heavy force knocked me clean off my hooves onto the floor. The big earth pony prisoner, a stallion, was staring through as well. One of the unicorn bucks quickly joined him. They pulled out numerous rags, small plates, and scraps of leather. Moving away, I saw the unicorn use his magic to lift two threads out and weave one around a hole to close it up. I only needed one! There was enough for both of us!

    Trotting up, I waited beside him till he was done, holding my hoof out for the second one. His suit was enclosed now, he wouldn't need it. Finishing up, he turned back to me.

    “Nope, I need it.”

    Feeling my own face droop, I stepped forward.

    “But...but you don't have any holes!”

    “Want a spare.”

    “My belly is open!”

    “So? Get your own.”

    “There isn't any...can't we share?”

    “I'm sorry, isn't selfishness what you pegasi do? Go ask your rich parents on the clouds for one.”

    He wandered off toward the door, leaving me muttering 'I can't fly...' behind him. Storing the thread loosely on his side, he hooked it through a small pouch that dangled and nodded to Hive. They showed little obvious fear...probably because of my presence. I could see it in their eyes, all this bluster and acting tough was just trying to hide the truth.

    In the presence of working with the parasprites, they were just as terrified as myself.

    Hive nodded back, glaring at me as I tried to hold my suit together beneath me, looking for all the world like I was hankering for the toilet as I crossed my hooves in an attempt to hold the suit shut.

    “Please...Hive, I need something to close this!”

    “Don't use my name again or I'll throw you out there naked. Your fault for not getting in faster.”

    “I'm going to die without something to close this! I'm—”

    My sentence was cut by having to let out a shrill, high pitched squeal. Growling and storming forward, Hive lifted me, carrying me while wailing toward a bench. Her shakes were gone, replaced by a calm and horribly efficient displeasure toward me. Was she going to hold to her threat? Planting me down, she stamped on the side of my face, holding it to the bench. Her voice was dangerously low, possessing a sudden intelligent and lethal tone missing all of the aloof shakiness of before...

    “I am through fucking playing with you. You think any slaver in Fillydelphia wants you? No, you're bad fucking luck. We all know you. From Grindstone, all the way to Whiplash, Slit, Protégé, and Shackles. The insufferable whiner, Murky Number Seven. Not so lucky as his name implies, eh?”

    Squirming under her hoof, I heard the door hiss, as it was about to open. My apologies were cut off immediately.

    “I don't want you here.  You cause problems. But I’d hardly relish handing you over to that upstart in the Mall, either. So if I see you've got an untied belly strap, don't expect me to do anything but look the other way.”

    Her other hoof prodded my belly.

    “You've been getting too soft under Protégé, Murk. Forgetting your place in Fillydelphia. You're not special. Not somepony destined to escape. All you are is another number to me; more than most. Time to remind you what proper slave work is...”

    I clung to the bench. It was a death sentence to go in there! But she was pulling me, wrapping her hooves around my stomach and roughly hauling me free. The gates behind us slid open, racking upward to reveal the searing haze of the incineration rooms and the pit itself.

    “You'll kill me! Please, don't! I'll...I'll...”

    I had nothing. No bargaining chip. Just a slave.

    She hurled me backward with a deceptive strength in her old limbs. Tumbling, I flew through the door and collided with the unicorn who had taken the threads. Collapsing together outside, I felt him swear and knock me twice with his hoof, eliciting cries of pain; even if it wasn't much more than just a shock. Cowering and trying to pull myself out from under him, he gave me one last small kick on the knee before cantering off.

    Behind me, Hive snorted and closed the door behind us, before using her small flamer to burn any parasprites that had gone inside of the shift change chamber. Lying on the bare red rock ground, I found myself in a mass of activity. Flamers belched from slavers on walkways, carts were drawn up and down ramps on all sides of me that arced around the edges of the pit and while dozens of slaves rushed to and fro. The great conveyor trundled across the floor, from one carved room to the next with an incinerator below each of the cage meshes in the roof. From the surface it had looked like a small circular pit, but down here it was more clearly a series of caverns, all interlocked with ramps or conveyors running through the mined out earth. Within seconds, a parasprite fluttered in front of my visor, prompting me to lash out with one hoof, the other trying to keep my clothing together. It eluded me and buzzed off to pester a slave working a cart to the end of the conveyor.

    “Hey you! The idiot in the bad suit! Get over here and get to work!”

    Pulling myself behind a rock, I hoped only to buy myself some time. My collision with the unicorn hadn't come off entirely without reward. Held tightly to my chest, the spare thread dangled from the little pouch the bigger pony had possessed.

    “Oi! Stop hiding, get over here now!”

    Quickly, tie it shut, tie it shut...

    Desperate, my hooves dropped it multiple times as I heard the slaver approaching with his heavy tread. Come on...I can sew, this should be easy! But with the fuzzy visor and ill-fitting materials it was like trying to thread a needle while blind with a numb body. Right, one hole...now just a dozen more...

    “I can see you hiding, dumbfuck! Nopony gets breaks here!”

    The slaver rounded the rock. Maintaining my work on the belly, I kept trying to tie it shut, four down...eight to go.

    I only managed one more before I heard a sharp click, and my neck was squeezed roughly. My scream couldn't even emerge as anything other than a wheezing cough as something closed around my throat. Feeling myself pulled from the rock, trailing the thread behind me from the still open hole, I saw the slaver's magic held a sort of extendible lasso that could grab hold of slaves' necks. The wire bit deep, even through my thick clothing, making my legs kick and flail when no air would come in. Gurgling and choking, I was pulled before the slaver.

    “Tryin' to take a break, eh? We'll see about that. You're on carts, so grab that one and get moving!”

    Finally, the noose came, well, loose.  Dropping my head to the floor, I struggled to take breaths through the enclosed headpiece.  Seemingly, the only air that came into it was through the small holes that were hopefully too small for a parasprite.  Rolling to the side to avoid a fully laden cart topped high with a huge nest, I felt the slaver shove me in the direction of the still empty ones coming off the end of the conveyor.  Afraid of the noose, I cantered as best as my sore little body could take me

    “Hook yourself to the one on the end and get up that ramp into the storage!  Just don't drop the damn cart off the edge and I'll not have to beat you for it!”

    The buzzing was everywhere.  Holding my clothing closed with one hoof, I tripodded my way toward the carts and tried to ignore the occasional bumps on my body from a parasprite getting too close, or landing for a little ride.  Every so often, I could feel one gnaw on the tough leather until I shook it loose. A few landed near holes, sending me into a frenzy of panic until they were swatted away. Seemingly, I wasn't the only one with such troubles.  Around me I could see blood leaking from small bites on other slaves as they tried to cover exposed holes in the failing suits. Only slavers seemed to have properly enclosed barding and masks, or containment suits like Hive's. I could see her, having re-entered the pits, cantering around spurting fire from her mini-flamer and bellowing at slaves who were struggling to lift the cracked and crumbly nests onto the conveyors.  It was hard to see exactly at this distance...everything kept clogging up over this visor, and it was already beginning to mist up.

    Even with the flimsy visor, I really missed my goggles right about now...and my journal...and Sundial...

    Part of me wished that Protégé still had them again, a slim hope that stopped me from falling into the abyss of loss that I had felt after the gang took my journal.

    Even traversing twenty feet down here was an obstacle course.  Twice a cart thundered past, sprays of shredded hive belched from auto axe zones, slaves crashed into one another when they felt a parasprite's teeth gain purchase, begging for somepony else to knock it off.  Much to my surprise, most slaves did help each other.  The notion seemed to be that if they all watched one another, somepony would come to their aid if it were them.

    Any lift in my heart at this sight was quickly drowned out by the knowledge that they likely wouldn't help me.  No.  Pegasi didn't get preferred treatment in the pits.

    There were about six carts yet to be pulled off, the remaining five I presumed belonged to now dead slaves I was replacing.  Carting being the most dangerous was of no surprise to me. Travelling along with a huge hive at your back while locked onto the cart itself and unable to run was a horrifying thought.  Glancing behind me at the auto axes spinning and whining alongside the conveyor (with half a dozen ponies galloping on a treadmill to power it) I saw the slavers were a little distracted with controlling two poor ponies who were getting swarmed.  Masses of sprites had flew from the incinerator, seeking to get through the tough suits of their targets.

    The thought of what would happen if I let this huge open gap in my stomach get noticed gave me the courage to crawl under the cart and try to do it up again.  The movements had unthreaded it again.

    “Oh no...oh no, come on!”

    Fluttering sounded around me on all sides. I couldn't tell if one was nearby or not.  Sweating, my hooves fumbled and struggled with it. Every time I got it through one hole, it fell out of another.

“Oh come on...come on please!”

    I felt something land on my back. My heart almost stopped while I held the gap shut with my hooves, crying and silently praying it would leave.  Mercifully, after a few seconds it did. After another three whizzed by the front of the cart I kept trying again, just to get it—

    “NO!”

    Fluttering at speed right under the cart, a bright red parasprite made a beeline for the gap the moment I had opened it again to try and tie it up.

    “Help! Somepony, anypony! HELP! HELP ME!”

    Fighting me, the sprite kept trying to dig away, pulling at the material with its tiny jaws and evading my hooves when I tried to knock it away, while holding myself shut with one hoof. It got inside for a brief second, before I pushed it back. Undeterred, it kept shoving forward, three of its friends beginning to lazily float over while taking notice. Two others seemed to cluster around my back, niggling away at the leather as they hunted for weak points. Panic was giving me volume, even on a hoarse throat, to scream for aid. Many looked, but none helped.

    Only after three of them made a concerted effort to push their way inside the gap did it hit me. They could smell the blood of my wounds through the gap...that's why they knew! Backing out from under the cart, my one hoof batting away as the agile sprites, I felt their powerful little mouths beginning to pull away at the gap.

    “Haha...stupid fuckin' pegasus. Doesn't even know you roll to get them off you...”

    The line was muttered in passing to another slave, clearly not intended for me to hear it or be helped by it. But my hearing picked it up all the same and I didn't waste any time. Rolling frantically on the ground, I felt little crunches below me or heard the sound of them flying away to avoid being crushed by holding onto me. My wings ached from hitting the ground, I could feel the fragile bone structures in them grinding and shifting away while my shoulder felt dangerously close to reopening the stab wound. Weathervane was right. I needed rest and lots of it, yet Fillydelphia was not willing to give it to me. Amidst my mad thrashing to ward off the sprites, I could feel my body itself begin to wear and tire much faster. Pain built in the joints, the effort making my head spin and the air intake needed caused my lungs to burn. Finally lying still, feeling each breath in like swallowing shattered glass, I simply held myself shut and recovered. Gradually, slowly, I began to carefully tie myself up again, finally getting it far enough to pull tightly shut.

    Finally, I could breathe a sigh of relief.

    Until the hoof caught me around the head.

    “Whiplash wasn't kidding, you are fucking useless! Get up, chicken! Get on the cart! Go! Go! Go!”

    Each 'Go!' was accompanied by another skull wrenching blow to the head as Hive clipped me around the ear so hard it was almost like a straight out kick. Cantering in pain ahead of her, I strapped myself in even as she berated me. Shouting I was sorry and promising to be better didn't help her mood.

    “Get. Moving!”

    With a final slap across the flank, I took off with the cart, wishing I could wipe my tears under the hood and visor as my aching hooves pulled me onto the big earth ramp that circled around the pit into a higher level for the nest importing.

    Nothing she hit me with was particularly damaging in the long term, indeed after so long in Fillydelphia regular beatings were almost expected. But as I whipped myself into shape and made a pull of the empty cart for the ramp, it wasn't the pain that made me cry. It was that every strike was a stinging reminder of my place in the world. The place I so wanted to change...but just seemed incapable of doing so. Every effort had only landed me lower. First into harsh work in Stables and now into a literal pit where I would likely die soon.

    Even as the bumping parasprites followed and toyed with me. Even as my throat itched from the growing ambient radiation down here. Even as my mind fought over which death would be worse...that one line of Red Eye's kept banging around in my head. It was stupid, illogical to think it should have happened...but I couldn't deny its significance and how upset it made me feel.

    “She didn't save you.”

    Working down in the pits, it turned out, sucked.

    It had everything a 'normal' job in Fillydelphia might entail. I was tied to a cart and given a simple route that, bizarrely, seemed to be uphill in both directions. Slavers watched us like hawks, or eagles, in the case of griffon sentries. Any sign of slacking resulted in a sharp beat across the back or head, given whips couldn't penetrate the thick clothing to allow proper incentive.

    But the similarities ended there. Trudging on the hard hewn rock was rough on my hooves for a start, but the sheer heat of incineration chambers in tight underground areas led to a sweltering atmosphere. Add in the thick clothing, and unceasing hours of hard manual labour, and it was a recipe for heat exhaustion that exceeded even that of Slit's forge. Around me, slaves sometimes dropped where they stood. A swift strike would either force them to their hooves again, or they would simply be dragged off. A single gunshot was usually heard following them.

    The parasprites were a lethal nuisance. Small bites before a location was sealed or covered led to almost incessant yells of pain, creating an almost hell-like atmosphere amongst the flames and red rock. The punished were sent here to work off their sin in the eyes of their masters up above, almost appropriate to the old tales of Tartarus one master had scared me with as a colt. He'd told me that disobedient slaves were sent there if they caused any mischief.

    Guess he was right.

    Most of the parasprite injuries came from the auto axe wielders, who regularly got swarmed when slicing open nests to fit on the conveyor belts. Those on the carts, while noticed by less of the loose sprites, had a harder time dealing with them. Stop, drop, and roll didn't work when you were padlocked to the cart itself.

    But the worst things about the job were the masks we wore. They were not filtered gas masks like the slavers’ or powered containment suits like Hive’s. The only area to breathe through was a thin layer of cloth near the mouth that if you sucked enough breath in, you might get half a lung's worth. With the dry air and stifling temperature, that made things very difficult before my lack of air intake in general was factored in. The result was that, while trudging up sharp earth and rock ramps and straining my back to pull carts laden down with nests, it felt like I was trying to breath through a wet and sweaty towel being held across my mouth.

    Numerous times I collapsed, believing I was dying while coughing up inside the sealed mask, until a slaver would start kicking me to get up. Half blind and unable to focus as my vision whirled and became little more than a red blur, I struggled to keep putting one hoof in front of the other, to drag myself that one step further.

    This couldn't last. I wasn't even one third finished with the shift and already my body was failing. The radiation wasn't even having a chance to build, I would suffocate in this long before the end!

    Finally arriving once again at the import area, I dropped while they loaded me up. Loading took twenty seconds on average, the only rest I got each trip. Unable to lie down from the wagon straps, I ended up just hanging in my loose suit. The loaders heaved the great nests from the covered wagons that had transported them from wherever in Fillydelphia they had been located. Covered in horrible juices and sticky fluid, they stank even above the smell of smoke.

The route back after being loaded was up a ramp, through a suspended mesh corridor into the main incineration chambers again, and then down another ramp that ran in a circle around the conveyor on the ground floor to reach the unloading area. Once I’d offloaded it all, it was back up the opposite ramp to arc back here again.

    It felt about as inefficient as it was.

    Hive had continually ignored me all throughout the shift. How was I meant to prove myself down here? What was the goal? All I was doing was dragging carts, something that I didn't have the strength for in this heat. Maybe if she'd let me sew up the suits to protect slaves or...or...well, that was all I really could do for her. The unfortunate fact that she likely didn't care for the slaves didn't particularly compare to the fact she had no interest in being impressed by me or even caring about my survival.

    “Laden up, get going!”

    With a groan, my aching back muscles stretched once again as I set about tugging the heavy cart. The buzzing in my ears from the masses of parasprites still inside the nests once again became an irritation as much as a danger. They were strange creatures, irradiated to the point of carnivorous intent and yet, oddly playful. They allegedly had moods. Often, a little 'love bite' was their standard fare with ponies that were mostly covered. But if they sensed a hole big enough to swarm in they could strip a pony to the bones in less than a couple of minutes. The swarming mood was rarer, apparently, only created if they hit a certain critical mass, which was why the guards had so many flamethrowers spurting gouts of fire through the nests and into the air. Sometimes they sprayed my cart in an effort to keep the bugs down.  Yet every time they did, they burned up much of the oxygen in the area, making me gasp and wheeze.

    Slowly tugging the cart one step at a time up the earthen ramp that led back into the main chamber, I groaned as I felt my shoulder wound suck and stretch under the harness. Whether it had opened I didn't know, my entire body was so coated in sweat and aching from the labour that I could be covered in blood and not know.

    Ahead of me the incineration chamber appeared through the carved rock passageway. A frantic rush of ponies was being beaten back into work from near the fires by slavers while the conveyor sat still. Hive strode among it, bashing heads and shoving ponies back to their workstations even while two guards magically carted off a limp looking pony. Enough blood streamed from the neck area to make my stomach turn. Closing my eyes, I pushed on. The parasprites in the cart behind me stayed in their nest, but their increased buzzing at the scent of blood was enough to make them itchy. 

    All the same, I felt one of them land on my head and simply sit there for a ride. These creatures were weird.

    “Get a replacement from Grindstone! I hear he's been taking in a lot lately. You lot on the axes, back to work! I didn't say you could stop!”

    Hive's voice rang out around the pit, echoing off walls while she strode back and forth among all the workers. Even a few lazy looking slavers got a clip around the ear or flank from her.

    “Carts! What's the hold up?! Just because one idiot ripped their suit and got their jugular eaten doesn't mean you get to hold up, get moving!”

    She confused me, just when coming in I had seen a jittery and aloof overseer. Where had this sharp and perceptive personality come from? Unless...had that thing she had taken been some sort of chem? I'd heard that ponies addicted to such things could have almost two personalities.

    Spears of flame shot across the conveyor, making ponies duck under it. The parasprites that had killed the worker were turned to black dust in the air itself.

Wandering on in our convoy, I passed a mare crying to herself behind the visor. She was carrying an auto axe out for repair, bawling as she trotted. Another buck nearby was controlling another axe with magic, balancing on three legs. A small patch over where his suit's front left leg might have been telling the horrible tale all too clearly.

    I remembered the slave in the thresher mill who had been shot for losing a leg. Clearly, rules differed from slaver to slaver.

    Nopony walked strongly. Heads were low, running on what energy they could muster in the tiny breaks inside a rusty safe room. If only I could breathe properly, I might be able to work harder and show my worth to Hive.
   
    Pushing harder, whinnying softly and snorting hot air into my own face off the visor, I set out with the cart again. The parasprite on my head gave a small hop and squeak (Oh, great, even some parasprites had deeper voices than me) as the speed increased downhill into the room itself and curving around the edge of the wall the corridor hugged. With wheels squeaking, I kept up the pull until I was behind the one in front of me again.

    Below me, off the rather unnervingly close edge, I could see the giant pile of nests ready to be cut up. The surface shifted as sprites rustled around on the larger pockets of activity. Flamethrowers held by armoured slavers were pushed into said pockets and ignited to flush them. Even through the suit, I could smell the milky aroma of their disgusting homes.

    “Get back! Everypony get back!”

    Huh?

    “BACK! SHIT!”

    The screaming was coming from the incinerator again. I could see half a nest sticking out of it, bulging and stretching at one end. With a spray of ichor, it burst.

    “SWARM!”

    Pandemonium broke out. From within the nest, far too large for the opening to the incinerator, a pocket of dozens, maybe hundreds, of sprites belched forth with a slopping rip and buzzing drone. Slaves scattered before the surging little beasts that washed over and around them like a wave. Some slaves fell, or hid beneath the conveyor. Auto axes shrieked and bit on rock as they were dropped, still active, on the floor. Flamers roared toward the great mass, but could not stem the tide. The swarm instinct took over, and every loose sprite in the room joined the horde. 

A bell was ringing to warn to workers further away, and slaver after slaver rushed in through the gates, but the sprites just kept coming. How could they multiply like that? How could they move so fast?

    How could they move so fast this way?

    Shrieking, I tried to gallop, but the wagon lurched and refused to move, the locks jammed in place. Straining, I realised that even if I could pull the weight again, the wagons in front were unable to move due to one that had overturned in the panic. My hooves paced on the ground faster and faster, head whipping from side to side before it finally settled, wide eyed, on the gigantic swarm.

    My ears vibrated, aching and pinging in pain while the pressure of so many wings on all sides felt utterly unreal. Screams from around me only joined with my own as the cart behind mine pushed forward, steadily knocking me toward the edge.

    “Stop pushing!”

    The pressure increased, my cart tipped as one wheel fell.

    “PLEASE! Whoever you are, stop it! STOP!”

    With a great shifting of weight, the sensation of it slipping removed all pressure from me only momentarily before the harness squeezed tight around my waist, and dragged me over the lip after it so hard that my ribs felt like they shifted inches to the side.

    Pulled from the swarm, below me I saw the wagon explode into fragments and planks as it landed in the nest pile and punched right through to the concrete floor. The locks around me snapped on impact as the wagon landed first, dropping me over the top of it and onto the pile of sprite hives. Punching through the weak material, it only marginally supported my landing before the hard rock knocked the wind out of me and sent lances of pain shooting from every wound I owned. Crying out, even within the nests, I simply curled up, clenching my teeth and seething in pain.

    Hooves shaking, I knew I had to move, now! The nests were waking up, dully popping out one or two sprites around me at a time. I could see the slavers herding the sprites up into the cages with fire, where slavers on the surface sprayed them with more flames. Mists of black ash fell like dark snow into a pit still gripped by panic and chaos. Individual small swarms that had branched off were chasing ponies, pulling at clothing and fighting with hooves to get into gaps the slaves and slavers desperately attempted to hold shut. I saw some groups pressing their gaps against one another in an effort to help out. Some lay shrieking in agony on the ground, holding shut gaps where a parasprite had devoured a piece of their leg, an ear, or a tail.

    Pulling myself with my good hooves, keeping my hopefully still bandaged right hoof held close to my underbelly, I made my way through the soggy, rotten nests toward the conveyor. I could hide under it!

    One hoof plunged into a pus-filled crevice of a nes, bogging me down.  The sticky liquid bubbling up and sucked hard at my hoof as it finally came loose. The reek that wafted up and through my nostrils was sweet and sickly, like the bodies I'd sometimes woken up screaming beside in the FunFarm when someone had died in their sleep. My visor was dripping with the stuff, the moisture getting through gaps to stain my hooves and clog up the inside of the loose suit. My own sweat, blood, and whatever else had accumulated through gaps sending the stink nowhere but to me.

    Enough to make me want to—

    —to...oh no...

    My throat began to spasm. Tripping forward, I dry heaved. I hadn’t eaten in almost a day; there was nothing to bring up. Trapped inside my suit, I was glad to not vomit properly, but it kept going. Finally falling free of the nests and dropping to my side, the retching turned worse. My throat seared in pain as the copper taste entered my mouth. ‘No, please no’, I begged in my mind, I just needed a while longer...I'd get RadAway soon!

    It didn't cease. Staggering, trying to keep my balance, my hooves were forced under me again. My right hoof's injury stung and burned in infected pain; the shrapnel injury from the mines having only gotten worse, apparently. Eyes watering, I slipped or fell every few steps before finally rolling under the conveyor and pressing against a buck that was calling for his big brother to come help him.  I could appreciate the feeling.

    Sprites sometimes flew down to us, making the buck and myself scream. Along with the mare on my other side, our warding hooves sent them flying off again for easier prey...or they perhaps simply got bored of taunting us. Ahead of us, I saw one slave trapped in the open and swinging an auto axe at them in a blind panic. Swearing, cursing them with all the names in the world, his front hooves threw the massive whirling axe in all directions. His wild momentum over-balanced him, and eventually I saw him trip. The auto axe swung low and sliced across the side of another buck who looked no older than Protégé. By some miracle, it only cut the suit and not him. Stopped on the spot from attempting to gallop toward us and relative safety, he stared in disbelief at the hole, clearly having just seen his life fly before his eyes.

    “It didn't cut!”

    We waved him toward us, there was still room. He looked at the gap and dodged away from the frantic axe swinger again before cantering over carefully. Big dopey blue eyes showed a slave not long introduced to this city.

    “Hurry!” I screamed. “Get in! There's room!”

    “I'm coming! I'm— AAAIIEEE!”

    With horror, I saw a sprite fly right into the gap in his suit, immediately forcing its way into the side of his torso. He fell, scrambling with his hooves at his own suit. A trio, then half a dozen more followed, ramming into and tearing the gap into a full blown hole. Unable to stop them all, screeching in pain as they bit into his flesh, he flailed at his suit and rolled back and forth, but it was too late. The anguished cries that followed as the parasprites frenzied cut into my skull. The creatures multiplied within his own suit, shifting and swelling through it like a pulsating sore. Seconds later, I could see them buzzing around inside his visor. Already screaming as the swarm devoured his body from inside and out, the sound of his voice wailed higher, becoming a shrill wail of terror and agony.

    “Help! Help!  MY EYE! MY EYE!”

    Spreading, multiplying in seconds and growing, the suit was little more than a raging mass of parasprites stripping him to the bone. His shrill cries finally died a few seconds later. 

One slaver turned his flamer on the swarming heap, a roaring burst of flame aimed to turn the parasprites and their victim to ash. Perhaps it was intended as a mercy, but the buck was already gone before the flames found him.

    Amongst it all, away from the screams, the blood, and the gunshots of panicked slavers, I retreated as far as I could into the mass of cowering slaves. There, I simply curled up between a few of them while trying to think of better times than this place.

    There were precious few.

    “She didn't save you.”

    I know...

    The aftermath was as short as it was quickly forgotten.  To me, the swarm had been a mind numbingly hellish event.  To the slavers in the pits...it was routine. The dead were collected, the critically wounded brutally executed before my very eyes, and the rest thrown into the prep room for recovery.  For everypony else, it was back to work.

    Left without a cart, I was suddenly jobless.  The spares from earlier had disappeared as more shifts came on, and there didn't seem to be any other job that I knew how to, or could physically, do.  As such, it was a rather depressing piece of information that I would need to locate Hive and...oh boy...ask.

    There was a rule as a slave.  One I had learned long ago. Never ask.  Never say that you have nothing to do.  No slave master was ever alive that did not possess the mythical skill to locate work from seemingly nowhere.  But to be found trying to 'slack off' carried greater punishment in Fillydelphia, one often resolved with violence.  My body was already aching enough without another beating to push me into dangerous territory again. The illness was still building and doing that just fine on its own.  Each breath was a wheeze and that metallic tinge in my mouth wasn't going away. That wasn't a good sign. Any more stressful activity might bring about a set of spasms or...well, worse...

    Left alone in the pit, I felt surrounded by a whirlwind of activity.  From the floor beside me in lines around conveyors to the curved roads running around the edges with carts, it all moved and twirled in ceaseless brutal activity with me in the eye of the storm.  The brief calm before the inevitable plunge right back in.

    “I don't care if there's ten or ten thousand, we need to get that place cleared!  Red Eye will have my neck if they destroy anything in there after last time!”

    Hive wasn't too hard to find.  Shouting amongst a congregate of slavers, she was waving a hoof in every which direction; mostly at other ponies.  Approaching meekly from across the room, I worried about how was best to approach while trying to avoid thinking about whether this was me acting to try and win my way out of here...or just acting to look for my next task.  I really wanted my journal; to just sit and draw, let it all out and create to help me sort things out and know what I really was...

    “And you!”

    Stopping dead in my tracks, her head whipped around.  At least twelve different forms of apology were on the tip of my tongue, but her eyes were elsewhere.  Nearby to the slavers, a slave worker was being held down by two heavily barded guards.

    “Isn't it a bit damned obvious that thing wasn't going to fit in the fire?  I've lost workers 'cause of you! Now you're going to have to clean up. See that gap up there?”

    I glanced up at the same time as the blamed slave.  Above us, I could see the red tinged cloud layer through a cage.  Guards were still fighting to reattach a segment of mesh over a six inch hole.

    “One of those idiots hit the cage when firing about like a bloody loony!  Apparently, ten parasprites got out. The surface guards kept them from getting near the slave dens, but they've fluttered over and gone right into the Ministry of Image!  We only cleared that fucking place out a few days ago already!”

    Her voice rose until both slaves and slavers were glancing over at the outburst.  Remarkably, the slave before her just sat quietly.

    “Ah'm not goin' in...”

    “I do believe you are.  This is your mess and that little unicorn isn't around to wave her magic horn and do the job now, is she?”

    My eyes visibly perked up.  My ears would have too, had the suit not crushed them down.

    “Mister Shiny did ask for her again, sure, but that little bitch isn't around anymore since the pitfight, is she?  So I need you to go in.”

    “Dun care, ah'm not goin' in to die huntin' parasprites.  Shoot me if you want, ah dun care anymore...”

    The earth pony looked in his early thirties, his coat and mane hidden in his suit, but his posture showed complete loss of will.  Was that how I looked sometimes? From afar, the stance was a stark reminder of the dangers of being in slavery too long. You eventually just stopped caring entirely.

    After all, I knew I had once stepped on the edge of the control tower too.

    Hive bristled. “Oh, you do tempt me, slave.  You really do, but I need every worker at their post.  Get back on carts. Least you can't fuck up there. Perhaps handing you over to Shackles or Grindstone might change your tune, they've been looking for more lately.  Hey! Misty Sheen! Yeah, you!”

    A young mare looked up from the conveyors, the bright orange leather around her suit was like camouflage against the red haze.

    “You're going topside, we need the Ministry cleared, sprite hunting.  Get on it!”

    She visibly recoiled.  A buck beside her stepped closer.  Hive marched right over to them, voice dropping.

    “Did I say you had an opinion?”

    The stallion was between Hive and the mare in a hurry.

“She's never fired a gun!  Don't take her, she'll just die!  Please!”

    “Oh break my fucking heart, get out the way, loverboy.” Hive snapped at him. “Unless you want to do it yourself?”

    “I...”

    The mare tugged at him, imploring with her eyes that he don't send himself in for the dangerous mission either. At the sight of it, Hive groaned, trotting in a small circle.

    “For crying out...ONE of you is gonna go!  Choose!”

    Holding the mare, sadly, the buck turned to nod before being pulled back by clearly the slave who was his marefriend.

    “Don't!”

    “Sheeny...I have to, I can't let you go in there.”

    Already she began to wail, simply holding onto him as more and more slavers began to grab hold of him to begin tugging.  Eventually dragging both across the ground, I saw the mare struck with a steel capped hoof and held back, crying at the top of her voice.

    “Don't take him!  PLEASE! I'll do it!”

    “Sheeny!  No! Don't!”

    “I won't watch you go off to die!  You...just...”

    Rolling her eyes, Hive turned.

    “I've had just about enough of slaves whining in my ears today. One of you is going, and that's it!  Guards, just pick one of them.

    “NO!”

    “I'll do it!”

    The third voice rang across the pit in a raspy and tired tone.  Mine.

    Silence overcame Hive and the pair as they all turned toward the sick little pony in ill-fitted protection gear.

    “I'll...do it.  I'll go.”

    The words felt impossible to speak.  To choose. To overcome the obedient nature to be told what my next job would be.  But this pit was killing me slowly from radiation and heat. At the very least this would get me out for a while.  The danger of the task hadn't quite entered my mind yet, but some part of me knew this might help convince her...somehow.

    Hive slowly trotted toward me, leaving the pair in the back to clutch one another and quickly retreat to the conveyor again.  Her eyes were lethal, thin and serious.

    “You think doing this is going to make me suddenly like you, chicken?”

    “I...”

    “Don't even answer.  You've volunteered. Get topside, find Mister Shiny, and make sure those parasprites are gone.  I expect either the building clear or you dead trying to make it clear.  Understood?”

    I nodded meekly, stepping back and lowering my head. But Hive moved forward, keeping the distance close until I was backed onto an inactive conveyor.

    “You dare set foot outside and it isn't done, you can rest assured you'll be eating a parasprite before the night is out.  I've done it to one pony for failing me before. Don't think I won't happily watch it happen to you.”

    The imagery haunting my thoughts, I quickly nodded again.

    “...you're still here, chicken.”

    realised I'd missed my cue to leave.  I'd gotten sloppy as a slave lately. That was going to cost me before long.

    But even as I retreated into the elevator and began ascending to the surface again, I realised the truth of the matter.  I hadn't chosen this because it was a job to obey. No, my place here was assured with Hive's mentality. This was a test for me so kindly given by the Great Goddesses.

    They had placed before me the same challenge that my beloved legend, the Stable Dweller, Littlepip, had once faced.  An opportunity to live the legend. This may have been something Littlepip had done with both hooves tied and one eye closed in her sleep, but to me it was one small chance to prove Red Eye wrong.

    Time to follow in her wake, if only for a little while.

    Limping, struggling, and fighting with the headpiece as I went, I emerged out of the elevator to the surface once again, filled with a frantic zeal to taste the sickly air once again. Throwing the visor off, I braced my lungs and took a deep gulp of the dry air. Compared to the pit, this was the purest and cleanest air I had ever tasted. Despite the rattle of my throat and several stifled coughs, it brought a little light of escape to my mind. At least from the trial by fire down below.

    Spending about a minute, I simply sat on the curb and breathed deeply, trying to get my lungs used to taking in more oxygen again. My heat felt dizzy, and my throat was warm and swollen. No matter how much cooler out here felt, I was sweltering as though I had a fever. Coughing, and seething in pain from my throat and chest, I panted and tried to just get used to breathing normally again, clutching my hooves over my body.

    “Well, well, laddie. Don't I recognise this little sight before me, eh?”

    Oh please, not now...

    Turning on the spot, my eyes widened in surprise to see a set of large tables laid out in some of the drier earth by the roadside. Wares, scraps of metal, threads, and leather lengths rested beside old oatmeal and a few odd pieces of clothing. Slaves clammered around it, shouting and haggling with raised voices while the tender, Sooty Morass, completely ignored them. The earth pony had his eyes locked on me, waving me toward his stand.

    I didn’t look back at him. Instead, I spotted the bright orange sachets on his table. RadAway!

    Heaving myself up, I made a sorry little limp across. All the wear and tear of injuries and work was just one dull ache across my back and shoulders now. Even as Sooty turned back to his clientèle, I just sat on my rump in the mud to wait and rest. Slaves bought strips of metal, leather, and thread to maintain their suits. Pulling the bigger slave's pouch out, I took a look inside before struggling to hide my glee. Twenty five caps! They weren't worth too much in here among slaves, but ponies like Sooty and guards would still use them!

    Ahead of me, a mare dropped what looked like a book on the table, receiving a few strings of thread in return. Behind her, a buck wandered up. Only half-wearing his containment suit, I could see the telltale signs of radsores across his cheeks. I recognised that weak gait too. He was dying just as much as I from the radiation in the pits and air of Fillydelphia.

“H-how much is the RadAway?” His voice was cracked and rough.

Sooty put the book he had just received down, leaning over the table.

    “Heh, had a little run in, lad?”

    “The pits, I keep throwing up blood, please...”

    “Twenty five caps or trade, lad.”

    The stallion had pulled out his pouch, before recoiling in shock at the price.

    “But...that's all I have!”

    “Not my problem, laddie. Buy it or die quietly, you'll put off my regulars.”

    Biting into the sachet after dumping twenty five caps on the desk, the buck galloped off. Dazed from his sickness, he never even saw the hungry looks the other rad-sickness-ridden slaves gave him. The sounds of the brawl that erupted behind me and the buck's pitiful whines as they tried to tear the vaunted RadAway from his hooves almost made me miss that it was my turn. There was no honour here. Only desperation.

    “Aah! Hello little Murk, lad. Now can't I guess what you're after, eh?”

    He was entirely ignoring the buck fighting behind me. Straining to keep my attention focused on the canny trader, I almost felt guilty for trying to tune him out too. These things were tragically all too common in Fillydelphia.

    “I need RadAway.”

    “Coulda' called it. That'll be fifty caps or equivalent trade, laddie.”

    About to dump out my caps, I just felt my ears wilt, mouth tremble and eyes tear up. He was extorting me!

    “But that buck—”

    “Wasn't immediately dying of radiation in his insides, lad. He's got a few days left in 'em if I've seen me sick ponies right. But you, ye little winged thief, I know you've got it bad, am I right? We've been over this back in the Terminal, remember? Not to mention you owe me for stolen stock. I'd beat ye but yer too good a potential customer. Course, could always put ye down for me other work. Got a few clients been askin' for somethin' with wings.”

    Screwing up my eyes, I forced down those horrid thoughts. 

“Sooty, please, I-”

    In an almost identical repeat of history, my lungs seemed to swell and remind me that they were the exact reason for this sales bias. I felt it deep in my lungs, before convulsions and agonising coughing erupted through my body. Staggering in front of his stall, I had to place my injured hoof on it to keep myself up. Sooty's eyes glanced to it even as I pulled it back in pain.

    “An injured hoof too, now? Oh, come now, lad. You're just making this too easy for ponies like me to take advantage of ye. Why, I almost feel a little bit sorry for you. Oh wait, you're a thief. Well, there goes any niceness I might've had. So, shall we talk employment? Or do ye have anything else hidden inside that suit?”

    So it had really come to this again. There had to be a way. I willed myself to think. Screaming internally over and over, 'Think, Murky, think!'

    Looking along his bench at the plates of metal and leather, one idea gradually and horribly began to slip into my mind.

    I didn't like it. Oh no, I didn't like it one little bit.

    “My suit.”

    “Oh?”

    “I'll sell my suit.”

    Welling up, the risk factor of choosing parasprite death over sickness felt shocking even as I heard the words come out my mouth, but suit or not, I'd never survive this job without the medicine.  Sooty was the only merchant who could solve at least one of my problems. 

Grinning suddenly, he leaned forward.

    “Now, yer talkin', laddie! Now let us get to haggling. So, ye say you'll be giving me the one suit, eh? Two metal plates, cloth, two ties and some leather it looks like...hm...throw in the twenty five caps.”

    “One suit for one RadAway! They each save a life!”

    Sooty just laughed, then laughed some more, and eventually broke into a cackling roar of comedic screaming as he slapped my back hard enough to make me yelp in pain.

    “Oh, this is just cute, lad. You're trying to barter? What makes you think you have anything to stand on in this? When I said haggle what I really meant was, I'll tell ye what I want for one RadAway sachet.”

    I really wanted to argue, but he was right. My throat felt like it was throbbing, and my spit was no longer clear. I had scant hours before it would be immobilising, maybe even sooner.

    “Now, I'll be taking yer suit and the twenty five caps. Come on, laddie. Undress like a good partner in trade.”

    Choking back both a cough, I began untying and pulling myself from the horridly sweaty and ill-fitting suit. My coat was drenched under it, coated in dark red blood; whether mine or somepony else's, I didn’t know. Thick goops of nest slime still crusted around the bottoms of my hooves.

    Sooth didn’t miss a thing.

    “Oh, well now, bandages! Now that's a surprise.”

    My body still had some around my chest and shoulder as well as the yellowed and pussy ones on my front right hoof. My head hung sadly, until his next words bit ever deeper.

    “I'll be takin' those cleaner ones too.”

    “What!?”

    “Truth of the matter is, little Murk. I can ask what I want. Name any price. You have to take it to live. The very definition of 'over a barrel,' me friend.”

    He was not my friend. But for all my defiant looks, Sooty just motioned with his hoof to the bandages.

    “Strip em off, lad. I gots customers that might want them.”

    It felt terribly slow. Not entirely painful but making me feel horribly vulnerable. The bright pink and red welt on my chest from Protégé's bullet seemed to pulse and sting in the air, while my shoulder revealed that it had slightly opened. Even looking at it made me wince. The memory of a foul, frothing raider holding me down and plunging that wicked knife into my shoulder still haunted my thoughts. I handed over the thin strips of bandage that weren't right over my wounds.

    The RadAway was finally handed over to me. Leaping forward, I almost hugged it to my chest to prove that it was really in my hooves. Without another word to the gloating trader, I glumly trotted off to the side with the RadAway in my mouth. It was thin and diluted, likely to get more sachets to sell. It wouldn't be as effective as the real thing, that I knew. I just hoped it'd be enough. 

The pits cast enough smoke around the muddy field and broken concrete that I hoped to find somewhere secluded to drink my RadAway. I wanted to avoid a repeat of what had happened behind me. Then I'd, well...

    Something, I'd do something. I had to. Every advantage I had was gone. The pits would tear me apart, they almost already had. Now I had no choice but to find a way to avoid going back. One visit had been brutal enough.

    Guided by the gruff nods of Hive's guards on the surface, I made my way to the 'Ministry of Image,' apparently one of the buildings near the edge of the pit fields. As I slipped through the muddy fields surrounding the pits, my mind briefly wandered. Brimstone Blitz had said something about the Ministries, as had Weathervane. Many ponies across my life had mentioned them, talking of how they either 'ran Equestria' or, to ponies like Brim, 'destroyed' Equestria. Sundial, it seemed, had worked in the Wartime Ministry himself. But in all my life, I'd never knowingly seen one for sure; mostly due to a lack of being able to read signs. Having Brimstone or Glimmerlight around had made things so easy.

    “Hey, you! Pegasus!”

    Stopping dead at the sharp words, I almost felt confused when they were interrupted afterwards by a hacking cough. Turning on the spot, the RadAway hanging in my mouth, I saw a bruised and bleeding figure limping his way toward me. It was the buck from before, who'd had his own sachet stolen.

    “Lucky you, getting your RadAway....”

    His eyes were full of almost lust and mad determination. I recognised them, I'd once seen them in my own eyes in the desperate struggle to stay alive day to day in this wretched city. But in this case they didn’t look at me. They just looked at the sachet of orange liquid in my hooves.

    “I think I'll be taking that...”

    Without even waiting, I just turned and tried to run in a blind panic. The buck's hooves kicked up earth as he hurled himself to land atop me even as I curled around the sachet. He wasn't getting my RadAway! Nopony was! It was mine! After all that I’d had to do, it was mine!

    “Give! Me! It!” He shrieked, desperation driving him.

    The sick buck turned aggressive, trying to shove me away and tear it from my hooves in selfish greed. I could smell the result of a long life in Fillydelphia off of him, no doubt similar to myself, but tinged with an infected reek from the mass of radsores across his face and hooves.

    “I need it more! I'm in the pits every day!” He shouted.

    “I won't live a day!” I screamed back!

    Keeping it held tight, his greater earth pony strength was prising me away, gripping it between his hooves. We pulled on it, my mouth and good hoof against his two stronger front hooves. Muffled by the sachet, I tried to plead to him.

    “Rease! Ust et o efore it-

    The sachet slipped from between us. His panicked cry matched mine. We both dove for the falling, and already opened, liquid pack. The ground came up to meet us hard, and we both fell belly down, his body haalf lain across mine. The shock of it drove me to hiss and cough, while I heard him gasp in pain. But mercifully, the medicine had landed in my grasping hooves. 

With one painful roll, I threw myself away from the buck and clutched it to my chest. The liquid was leaking, but by some stroke of luck it hadn't spilled. I was breathing heavily, wheezing again like I had in the pits.

    In that quiet, stunned moment, I saw him stare at it from the ground. He looked almost too weary to move, fresh cuts and bruises across his radsore covered face all too clear from the failed defence of his own sachet. Below them, tears slowly dripped down his face.
   
    “Please...” He whined, as though the harsh impact of the fall had driven the fight out of him. He was weak, and scared for his life.

    The adrenaline in my body died off like a switch had been thrown. In its place came nothing but a shared pity. Temptation tore at me. Run now. Survive.

    But after everything recently, having had so much denied to me, I just couldn't.

    “Give me your empty sachet.” I said, as I started measuring half of it out.

    For a few minutes, I did little but lie there and hold my bandaged hoof closely after the buck had stumbled away. Or at least what bandages remained. 

He had barely said anything, just drank his portion, mumbled something I guessed might have been a hesitant thank you, and then scrambled off nervously. I'd stared after him, almost in disbelief of what I'd done before quickly gulping down what I’d had left.

    My own illness had died down a tad after that. I had gotten enough to last perhaps till tomorrow. That was, if I didn't go back to the pits again. Part of me still wished for somepony I knew to appear, somepony to help me up again, like Glimmer had in the Mall.

    Giving the RadAway time to work, I rested against one of the mound of dry soil for a minute. After twenty long and silent seconds of lying on my own, the thought was beginning to solidly drift home.

    I really missed my friends.

    I missed my belongings, too. Right now, the DJ might have said something to inspire me, or I might have heard one of Sundial's reassuring messages of happiness while I was down lower in the pits. I missed my journal and the self confidence and comfort the freedom of art gave to escape the harsh reality surrounding me. I was trapped in Fillydelphia. Likely, for a very long time, under the shadow of what, in here, was a terminal illness. Then I had masters who hated me, other slaves who loathed me, and a dream that was being crushed daily.

    Why couldn't I just be like everypony else out there?

    Not wanting to move, my body curled up on the rocks and soil. It had been a wild ride since that one beautiful moment when I had learned to choose, filled with unceasing danger, galloping around and enduring pain. I'd tried to escape twice. I had almost died, well...who was counting by now? But it all just kept coming back to this. Ponies came and went. Some stayed, some left, just like had happened right now. The mare had been in my life only to disappear. Brimstone had escaped, likely never to be seen again in my lifetime. Sunny was with The Master. Even Sundial had been taken from me.

    Glimmer was with Protégé still, at least. But my path back to her was being blocked. I wanted her around. To hear her cheeky jokes. For her to tease me or ruffle my mane. I wanted my Big Sister Best Friend Forever back.

    Even through the depression, part of me was trying to kick my rump and say that this job could bring her back, that if I impressed Shiny enough he might talk to Hive! I tried to encourage myself to be like Littlepip, and do what she did! To prove I can. But they were the voices of hope, dreams and daring bravery. Each of which had been gradually stripped from me in failure after failure.

    Better to just lie here and wait for some slaver to shout at me, to order me that I could just fall back in line again and not think about anything. That way it wouldn't hurt so much.

    “Hey! You! You the one Hive sent up to clear the Ministry?”

    Opening my eyes, my head lifted from the ground and spotted a slave master wandering over the muck toward me.  His face betrayed more curiosity than rage.

    “What you doing lying in the muck, you daft thing?  Come on, get on over, work to be done.”

    The voice wasn't harsh or angry, unlike most slavers.  It seemed oddly kind, almost reminiscent of Protégé if you took out the wordiness and replaced it with a strange earnest nature that seemed to 'ask without asking' rather than demand.  Sighing, I lazily stood and trotted after him.

    “Yes, master...”

    “Eh, can the master talk, I'm Mister.  Mister Shiny. Well, let's see about getting you set up to work then, shall we?  Here's the Ministry.”

    Almost to my surprise, it was a fairly nondescript building alongside several others like anything else in Fillydelphia, with white cladding over the ubiquitous brickwork. Tall windows were shielded in black metal bars, but otherwise I could have mistaken it for any of the half dozen similar ones in this street.  I'd been lying almost right beside it. Weren't Ministries big and fancy? They sounded it.

    “Ever worked with parasprites before?”

    Without even answering, I just gave a slight shrug and nodded toward the pits I had come from.

    “Right, stupid question.  Now we got to wait for the spark batteries to charge for the rifle.  Only problem is...how to fire it. It doesn't have a mouth sight. I was expecting a unicorn like last time.  Was sort of hoping they'd send that little one with the PipBuck again, was pretty good.”

    That grabbed my attention.

    “You met her!?”

    “Who?  The mare with the PipBuck?”

    “Yes!” The sudden exclamation made me double over with a heaving cough.  Small spots of blood fell to the ground. Mister Shiny grabbed my torso, pulling me back up.  Apparently the meagre amounts of RadAway were still working their magic before it would die down properly.  No excited shouting...got it.

    “Woah, there.  Seems Fillydelphia has gotten to you a little, might want to ask your master about getting into Hearts and Hooves Slave Hospital sometime soon.  But yes, I met the little mare. Why? Relative? Marefriend?”

    Stupidly, through my recovery from the cough, I hoped he couldn't see my sudden blush.  I wished.

    “No...no, just, uh...I only saw her a little then, um...lost her.  Sorry, mas-I mean, Mister Mast, uh, Mister Mosi- um, Mech- or...Smiley?”

    “Shiny.”

    Trotting back, I corrected myself quickly.

    “Sorry, sorry!  Mister Shiny!”

    Mister Shiny just shrugged and trotted over to the building.  There was a small table near to it that was being hastily set up by a few slavers.  A rather makeshift magical energy rifle sat on it beside a few spark batteries. The batteries were hooked up to an odd contraption, like a bank of glowing gemstones.

    “Whatever, let's just get you readied up.  Um...didn't they give you a suit?”

    I nodded lightly, trotting over and sitting obediently nearby.

    “Right...and it's not on you, because?  I used to have one here, but we didn't exactly expect to have to clear this building again.”

    Fumbling my front hooves, I mumbled quietly. “I...kinda lost mine.”

    Mister Shiny stared at me for the longest time, before sighing, clearly already checking me off in his head.

    “Now, we've got at least ten parasprites in there.  The last mare took on fifty or so and managed it, so hopefully this shouldn't be a problem for one slave to do, suit or not.  Just stop drop and roll if they get too close. Ten shouldn't be able to swarm you.”

    Mister Shiny was surprisingly friendly sounding, although it was clear that he was still a slaver and expected the work done as much as any other.  Looking sideways at me as I tried to figure out how to hold the rifle, he even smiled. The grin seemed dead inside, despite the pleasantries.

    “Often wondered what became of that little mare, so busy getting things done with Hive and the like breathing down my neck I tend to miss things.  Eager little thing, though, about the same size...perhaps age as you?”

    Again, I lightly nodded.  Right...she'd done fifty. I could do ten, right?  Just point and shoot.

    “Had that look in her eyes, determination and spirit. Hah, what am I saying?  Probably just trying to get on our good sides here in Fillydelphia. Wouldn't be the first to try and join the ranks from slave to slaver.  Damn few that ever make it, though. There's only one in recent memory, I think.”

    My thoughts drifted to Sooty Morass.  That slimy trader likely had his eyes on that goal, too, as soon as he had enough dirt on somepony with authority.

    “Now, the rifle doesn't have any real kick so somepony your size should be able to mouthfire without any trouble.  Low power energy, so two spark batteries. Twenty shots should be enough.”

    “What...what if I miss?”

    “Find something to blat them with!  The mare used a bag, I think, to capture them.  You'll figure something out, I hope.”

    Gulping, I glanced at the door, and then him.

“Are...are you sure I can't get another suit?”   

    That mirthless smile turned to me, before Shiny shrugged and began strapping a small saddlebag to my side, probably to sweep up the ash into.  “Sorry, kid. I don't make the rules. You lose the one you were given, you don't get another. Hive would know. She always does. When she’s on those damn mint-als you can't slip anything past her.  Look, do it quick enough, and I'll see about getting you something for the trouble, off the record. It's a lot off my back if this place is cleared before Red Eye finds out his presses are infested again, so you’d be doing me a real favour.”

    'Something for my trouble,' huh?  Perhaps a letter of commendation? Did the chain of command work like that?  Oh, what I’d have done for a scrap of paper and some charcoal so I could organise this.  I had to figure out how to get on Hive's good side and then survive the remainder of my shift, still.

    The problem, of course, was that if I spent too long in here, my only support from Mister Smi— I mean...Shiny would be lost.  Whereas if I tried to finish quickly and please him...the pits would likely be my return destination. Being down there any longer was a death sentence in and of itself without a suit.

    Why was nothing ever easy?

    Argh!  Why was nothing ever easy!?

    Crying, sweating, and bleeding, I galloped down the metallic hall, screaming at the top of my lungs in sheer panic.  The almost empty energy rifle swung madly where I had pushed it through my saddlebag straps. Behind me the small swarm of parasprites surged toward me at a frightening pace.  Rounding another corner of another infuriatingly identical (to illiterates) junction, I gave it my all. All I needed was an open door!

    My shots had been pathetic, missing almost every shot I had been given in my first charge pack and all but a few in my second. One parasprite had been hit, but it had just made it angry, if awkward in how it weaved through the air from the glancing shot.

The rest had converged and flown after me for daring disturb their rest in the rafters of a storage chamber.  Since then it had been a dangerously tiring game of tag around the Ministry building. I'd galloped through offices, collided with heavy terminals, and knocked over shelves containing enough books to keep Protégé grinning like a kid until the second apocalypse.  That, and obstacles on the ground, I had discovered, had little effect on flying creatures.

    The low buzz became louder as they rounded the same corner twenty feet behind me.  Pushing my skinny little legs as hard I could, I made for the closest doorway I could see and prayed it was open. (What sadistic idiot would lock them all just before a balefire war!?)  Pulling with all my might on the mouthgrip handle...it didn't budge.

    “No!”

    The parasprites whizzed toward me, little mouths chomping open and closed.  Already one had nipped me on the neck when it had ambushed me through a ventilation duct in the chase. The pain had been sharp and brief, but a horrible reminder of the reality should they catch me.

“Come on, door!”

    It wasn't shifting.  In sheer frustration, I bucked it, only for it to swing open easily.

    Oh.  Right.  A push door.  Well excuse me for not being able to read, you arrogant pre-war aristo-whatsits!

    Hopping through, I swivelled and pushed it back shut again.  Really, I should have known. Every door in here had been a push door thus far.  I heard dull thumps on the other side, before the buzzing ceased. I'd bought myself a little time, but they would find another way, I was sure of it.  Spilled among dirt or not, that RadAway had likely saved my life for me to be able to keep up that gallop as long as I had on a wheezy throat and swollen lungs.

    Catching my breath a second, I slowed down, turning to the area I had entered.  A security corridor of some sort, but it was wrecked. An upturned desk warped from some sort of heat or energy lay on the floor next to a wrecked terminal lying on its side.  The drawers lay open, with three bottlecaps spilled on the floor. Beyond it I could see a smashed turret still sparking on the roof. A few dots of ash were dotted about the floor amongst a mass of energy rifle scars on the walls and ceiling.

    Eventually it began to all stick together.  This had been her work.  It was all so obvious!  She'd come in, used the desk as a shield from the turret, likely hacked it from the terminal using her awesome PipBuck, and turned it against the parasprites!  That'd explain the marks on the walls from magic energy shots. As if Littlepip would have ever missed or had to resort to brute strength, hah!  A hero such as herself probably didn't even break a sweat.

    But oh, the feeling just to wander amongst her handiwork.  I felt a small surge of pride and satisfaction to see the results of her passing once again.  Hee! She'd been here! She'd been here! She'd been here!

    After a few seconds, I figured that prancing around the room on an injured hoof probably wasn't the best way to let it heal.  Apparently Littlepip ranked higher than self preservation on my mental priorities.  At least I could—

    Sudden shock overtook me as I sensed motion in the air behind me.  Spinning, reaching for the energy rifle in vain hope...I didn't see any parasprites.  Not any organic ones anyway.

    It was a Spritebot.

    Metallic, rounded, and floating silently, a big screen on the front of it lay dormant as it seemed to just stare at me.  After a second or two when my smile had faded, it gradually floated off in a rather wobbly fashion down the corridor. I really hated those things.  Creeping up on you, acting strangely, and then just buzzing off.

    Scooping up the three bottlecaps she had left behind (So charitable!) into my saddlebag, I cast my eyes around.  Right...where would she have gone next? I knew I should follow her methods and do what she did to the letter as much as possible!  That'd help me survive. To learn from the legend. There were a few exits, one a corridor leading back toward the staircases, another the way through the security gate, and the last a small maintenance room off to the side.  Well...a great hero would be resourceful, right? She probably went toward the maintenance room.

    Trotting over, I cast my head in around the door.

    The small room caught my attention immediately.  It was covered in pegasus memorabilia.  Finding myself wandering in, my head spun in a slow circle along the walls.  Posters lined the walls, the most prominent making me almost blush in embarrassment at my pathetic comparison to them.

    Blue and yellow clad pegasi; pictured rocketing in formation. The artwork was fantastic, filled with blurs and lines showing just how fast they were going.  If I could only have reached high enough, I'd have taken it for myself.  They looked incredible, with their brightly coloured manes and whipping smoke trails, they were what pegasi should be like.

    What they should be like...

    My eyes tried to avoid glancing sadly back at my rather threadbare and non-functional wings.

    Pulling my eyes from the poster, I let them settle lower.  To my amusement, there was more blue and yellow pegasus 'team awesome' stuff, mostly clustered around that skelet—

    My eyes popped wide.

    “Ske...ske...skeletARGH!”

    Backpedalling intensely, I fell into the shelves of the maintenance room.  Tools and boxes showered down around me as the buck's skeleton stared, lidless, from the floor up at me.  His limbs were splayed out, unnaturally posed and clearly the result of some sort of spasm attack. I'd had enough by now to recognise it.

    No!  Little...Littlepip had been here!  She hadn't been scared by skeletons, had she?  Of course not! She had taken the things she needed and calmly left. So could I.  Just...just as soon as I stopped thinking it was going to suddenly get up...

    It lay beside a workbench.  From the dust, I could tell somepony had worked here recently.  Rotten food lay across the floor and bench, tipped out of something.  Had she really built a weapon or something from the scraps she had found?  Probably some sort of really advanced perfect tool that saw her through the escape.  That's how it had always happened in my mother's stories.

    Even through my slightly immature love of anything related to that wonderful mare who had shown me the way, I recognised that it was simply a reminder.  She hadn't just been some one-off wonder. Littlepip, the Stable Dweller, really had been there in the Pit with me. She had existed, had worked in Fillydelphia, and was still out there.  Seeing more evidence of it...well, it sounded stupid but...even this sort of aftermath helped remind me of how her heroic escape had inspired me right in the beginning of my new life.

    My eyes crossed to the side.  A whole pile of magazines sat there.  Ooh, perhaps she had learned things from them?  I dragged one across, opening it quickly before shutting it even faster, blushing madly.

    I hadn't ever seen a pegasus mare before.  Certainly not those parts.  The magazine sat under my hoof, the rather sultry cover now more obvious.  A logo of a pair of erect wings were emblazoned the top of it. I was sort of tempted to open it and take another look...for...for research, y'know?  Wings were tough to draw...yeah, that's all it was!

    No! What was I doing?  I was trying to follow in the hoofsteps of my idol!  She wouldn't have stopped to take time reading...reading smut!  Neither would I!

    Turning, I huffed and swung my head high before marching across the room to the door.

    I got a very impressive three feet before hurriedly turning back to shove a small amount of the huge collection into my saddlebag, and then gallop from the room.

    It's just...just reference material!  Pre-war ponies were healthier, I had to learn to draw them!  That's all! I wasn't...wasn't taking it because of those athletic pegasus mares...with their well rounded curves and...and...it was just to help my art!  Some of those poses looked good to draw, and...and an artist had to be varied, right?

    Shaking the justifications to my own nerves aside, I looked ahead of me.  The corridor opened up into an office. Probably management, I guessed. The entrance lay behind small widened section of the hallway, behind a turret and a severely smashed assistant's desk.  Trotting across shaky floor panels and winding by exploded circuits from the roof, I cast my eyes over the elaborate photos of woodland areas, or the elaborate designs on signposts on the walls. It all felt so beautiful and otherworldly, not the one I was in now.

    Briefly, my mind drifted onto just how strange it was that even after two hundred years, and after living my entire life in like this...the loss of ‘what once had been’ still felt like a fresh and horrifying scar.  Equestria's real form was still ingrained in us as ponies, the macabre ruination that surrounded us was not what we were supposed to live in.

    Advancing into the office itself, I saw large glass panels to my right. Thick and misty, they overlooked the huge printing presses that Mister Shiny had talked of.  Not for the first time, the ambition of Red Eye's task in Fillydelphia impressed me. Books and folders could be made once again for those foals he was protecting. Either that, or they could be used to mass produce artwork!  The thought of one of my sketches (well...one I'd feel fine showing others, anyway) being on ponies' walls across Fillydelphia or the wasteland was a wonderful one. Could Protégé be right? Could us ponies in here as slaves be doing the right thing in the end?  Trapped behind the great Wall, we were hungry, dying and enslaved to a life of labour, but if this was the sort of thing it might produce in the end, at least it—

    Sighing, I turned away from the presses. No, it would never be worth it, and I couldn’t bring myself to even accept the ‘upside’.. It was easy to think that while alone in a somewhat secure room, but outside, in the irradiated air or struggling to survive in the hellish nightmare of slave life under Red Eye, reality would always slam home very quickly.  Fillydelphia was an abomination, one we were all tragically still a part of. And yet, seeing these presses, I dreamed of the day when Fillydelphia's industry might be taken by somepony kinder. Too many ponies died every day in here in this method of iron rule. In their sleep, shot by guards or killed by the work like that poor buck in the pit. It had to end.  This...this wasn't right, no matter what rhetoric Protégé gave for it.

    Turning back into the office, there was one more desk where an active terminal rested, its surface bearing a few folders and books.  The walls were lined with more posters. A lavender pony was pictured with a sparkling book, another showing war technology. Amongst them all, I saw those same six mares.  I wished I could keep remembering their names. Rainbow something...what was it? The only one I invariably remembered was, of course, Pinkie Pie. Her toothy grin stared at me from across the room.  Around her were a number of happy looking spritebots. No doubt it was to try and sell the idea to a populace. To reassure that they were always watching you.

    Well...they certainly had managed it.  As if those creepy eyes looking at me down the left side of the poster weren't bad enough, thanks to that spritebot earlier I certainly did feel like I was being...well...

    ...watched.

    Come to think of it, hadn't I seen one that close to me before in the FunFarm, too?

    Sighing, I made my way to the desk, passing by the Pinkie poster and hopping up to stare at the terminal.  As if I could ever do anything to these...Littlepip had probably activated something really cool or solved some mystery from it. Best not to touch.  Not like it could actually help me anyway. What was a terminal going to do to kill parasprites?  Instead, I glanced at the book beside it.

    It was a scrapbook of sorts.  No pages seemed even vaguely identical, being crammed with a clippings, pictures, photos, and so much else besides.  Really, it was more of an album. One page had a small image of that yellow and pink medical mare, the one from the Ministries.  I wished I could draw her. She seemed really sweet. Brimstone's assertions that these ponies had somehow destroyed Equestria seemed almost stupid when I looked at those caring eyes.

    Flicking through more, there was little to be discovered without the ability to read.  The most I got was a really cool picture of the rainbow mare standing victorious atop a dragon! Catching myself making a ‘woah’ sound at the heroic sight, I spent some time looking at it. Was that what pegasi could really do? The huge beast looked dead; its hide the same colour as Brimstone's coat.

    I placed the book back down carefully.  Clearly, Littlepip hadn't spent a huge amount of time here.  Really, there was little but odd memories of the past. Funny really, that after the Stable, and after Glimmerlight’s advice I felt a little better. Like my experiences were forcing me to confront that fear of the past, and quell the terror. 

All the same, too long in here, and I figured it might become unnerving.  After all, I was alone in this big...empty...dead...Ministry. All by myself other than sprites of all kinds creeping around.

    Shaking my head, I set out to continue.  No, I couldn't get bogged down, a Stable-style freakout was not what I needed  Just keep to Littlepip's trail. Advancing through the office, a door on my right caught my eye, a simply bathroom. But within, it held within it an unopened medical case!  The sing-song of ‘Potential RadAway!’ (a sure fire hit with the slaves of Fillydelphia) lit in my head as I rushed in.

    Someday, I would probably stop running into skeletons, but not today.  As fast as I had galloped in, I shrieked and backtracked in a flurry of backpedalling hooves.  Half-hidden beneath a collapsed piece of ceiling, the crushed mare's skeleton betrayed her no doubt painful last moments.  From where I had fallen against the desk, my eyes remained locked on the empty sockets, struggling to stop my mind imagining being trapped under a chunk of rock while my world died.

    No, my world had died.  The only difference was she had known what it looked like.

    Sucking in breath and steeling myself, I trotted back in.  There was precious little amidst the fallen pipes from part of the wall tiles that had been torn off, but one thing caught my eye.

    A set of shackles on the floor, fallen in the exact same shape as my own cutie mark.

    They had been hers.

    Alone in this place, she had found a way to break her chains.  To leave them behind her in light of her coming great escape from slave life.  How long had Littlepip worn these? Not too long, I guessed, judging by the DJ's reports.  But all the same, these had been the chains that bound the Stable Dweller into the life of servitude...and she had simply removed them.

    I wanted to take them. They were something that had, in some way, belonged to her.  Something I could have as a reminder of her, to feel connected to my great inspiring hero.  But it wasn't right. These shackles had bound her, the same way they bound me. As a symbol of freedom and escape, they were entirely unsuitable.  A reminder of a dark part of her life that she had willingly broken away from. Littlepip had left these here. For me to take them seemed to go against what she had sought to achieve.

    Elsewhere, around the bathroom were only the partial rags of clothing, having probably belonged to the poor, long dead mare, and a couple of small tools.  There was a half-squeezed tube of wonderglue (Yoink!) and much to my delight, a medical box on the wall! Those wonderful butterflies, the same as my old saddlebag, promised so many things!  The Stable Dweller clearly would never have needed these. She was too good to be hurt!

    It was locked, and even my patented pathetic whine of ‘please?’ couldn't convince it to give up the healing items trapped within.  Instead, I took the wrench from the mare's toolkit and jammed the clamp into the rusty edge of the medical box. It wasn't going to be exactly dignified or clean, but these cases hardly looked tough.  A few seconds of pulling at the wedged wrench with my teeth would do it!

    Fifteen minutes and an awful lot of swinging and pulling later, I finally fell back on my rump as the now somewhat destroyed box popped open and its contents fell nicely into my hooves.  Hah! Little Murky wasn't as weak as they thought! My grin turned to a moan as my loose tooth made its presence known from all that pulling, before I looked down at the one item the case had contained.

    A...packet of sweeties?  In my hooves was a little tin box marked in bright colours.  I could hear small mints or something tumbling around inside it.  I couldn't lie, after all my wishing, it was somewhat anticlimactic. No wonder Littlepip hadn't bothered with this here, what would she ever want with a few little sugar sweeties in the middle of her busy life being a hero and all?  

I popped the lid open. The little white and pink tablets certainly looked tasty, identical to sugar treats I’d seen occasionally. Biting back the temptation to upend the tin into my mouth, I had to reason with myself a little. They had come out of a medical cabinet, and I really wasn’t certain as to what they were. Maybe foal medicine?

My curiosity was broken however, as I heard something fall behind me. 

I poked my head out of the bathroom.  I could have sworn that sounded like...

An air vent grate falling to the floor...

    On cue, I could hear the fluttering and whimsical buzzing that betrayed the location of parasprites somewhere down the hallway I had come up through. Panic raced through me. This was a dead end!  Throwing the mints in my small saddlebag, I grabbed the energy rifle off its strap across my back and got to my hooves once more. Did they know I was here? The sound wasn't getting any closer.

    Carefully, I trotted out of the bathroom.  Glancing back, I almost jumped as I saw myself in the mirror, before forcing myself to breathe and control my movements.  Once again, my eyes passed to my cutie mark...then to the exact same symbol from Littlepip's chains on the ground. If only mine could just be removed like that.

    “I'll do it, Littlepip...please, I haven't given up yet.  I...I just don't know how. If you could only show me something to give me a little hope again...something to prove to me I can do this.”

    A small thump from a parasprite knocking something over sounded a lot closer.  I had to get moving. Ripping my eyes away from the chains, I began to look for a way out.

    As before, there was none.  The parasprites could be heard approaching down the security corridor, still unaware of my presence, owing to that they weren’t rushing in. Instead, they seemed to be moving slowly, if I was gauging the increase in volume correctly.  But a door out was needed. I'd never get past them!  

“Oh, what to do, what to do?” I muttered quietly. I only had three or four shots left!  I couldn't hit anything short of a huge wall with this thi—

    “...aaah.”

    I pulled the magic rifle into my mouth again.  I'd have to move fast. Terror made my heart beat faster as I tried to steady my grip and move my tongue into position.  The barrel pointed directly across from me, right at the windows that led to the walkway above those huge printing presses.

    I only had one shot at this.  Well, I had three. But figuratively. Steeling myself, I pulled the trigger hard, again and again.

    Energy flared from the barrel the first three times, blinding my eyes and streaking across the room.  I heard the blasts screech on impact with the window, and saw the shattered glass melting from the area where the shots had landed.  The window remained unbroken, but hopefully it was weakened enough for me to-

    Off to my side, high pitched little squeaks grew much louder, and the buzzing of parasprites grew in volume just as much! They were coming!

    Gazing sideways, I saw all ten of them swarm in through the door. Galloping, I leapt at the window with all my might and screamed as my injured shoulder and chest impacted against it.  The weakened sectionof glass sheared right off the panel of the window, punching a hole through onto the walkway. Sliding across its smooth surface, I barely grabbed the edges of the walkway itself to stop my falling into the presses below.  Even turned off, I could see there were enough sharp edges to tear me apart. The energy rifle though, dropped between a great pair of rollers.  

This was why you need safety railings, pre-war ponies!  Was it really too much to ask for somepony to have a lick of sense in this world!?

    Straining and grunting in pain, I rolled back onto the balcony and immediately had to dive to avoid the parasprites rushing through.  Swishing my tail at them, I galloped off before they decided my tail was a meal unto itself.

    Of course, a big disadvantage of me being a ground pounder meant I had to use the walkways. They simply cut across the corners after me.  Yelling in stark fear, sweating, and trying to avoid looking back, I simply ran around the edge of the room, slapping each doorway in an effort to find one that was open!  The noise increased behind me, the deceptively quiet buzzing from those little wings ringing in my ears, signifying the sound of oncoming death. A sharp nip on my rump led me to scream and knock my hips into a wall hard enough to knock it off.  Tears flew from my eyes. The walkway only had stairs to go down to the printing presses in each corner, but I'd be caught if I slowed down to go on them! Instead, I kept running in a big circle around the printing room’s walkways, trying every route I could come across, begging for somepony to have left their door open. For there to pleeeease be somepony be generous enough to have left their room unlocked!

    One last door remained before I was back where I had started, and the hole I’d shot in the window was too high to climb back through.  Okay, the doors in this place were, uh, pull, right? The last one I had pulled to open!

    Springing up, I clasped my mouth to the door and tugged hard enough that the resulting lack of opening almost pulled a tooth right out.  Squealing in pain, my eyes widened as the parasprites closed in. I simply screamed as loud as I could, I didn't want to be chewed and eaten to death!

    Trying to ward them away, I fell backwards into the door...falling through as the door pushed open behind me.  Not stopping to even curse anypony for the inconsistency, I crawled and kicked out at it. On the impact, the door slammed shut...and bounced inward again.

    “NO!”

    Struggling to my hooves, I galloped forward into it.  A small red sprite poked its face through the door even as I slammed it shut with a great cry.  I didn't even see if it had dodged back or been crushed when I threw all my weight against it. Pounding my hooves in a panic, as though it could somehow shut even more, I finally felt convinced that it was properly shut.  Tired, sweating, and bleeding lightly again from my neck and flank, I slumped against it with my head in my hooves. My matted mane drooped over my eyes, my teeth hurt and my entire body was shivering in adrenaline and fear.

    I'd...I'd just stay here a while...

    At least until the tears stopped...

    Scared, confused, and alone without my journal...I took some time to recover and collect myself. But finally, I let my wet eyes look up to gauge my latest environment.  I expected some other random office, but what I got was anything but.

    Around me lay the single most lavish office I had ever seen.  A thick carpet, dusty and grey but obviously once pure white lay beneath me.  Decorative furniture sat by the walls around a low table made of a dark wood. Atop it sat a rather spectacular set of teacups and teapot.  Dead plants betrayed the presence of greenery that must have once offered a lovely green, while a cat basket with faded colours in front of a large airvent sat next to an incredibly elegant and undeniably beautiful desk. Curls of polished wood gleamed in the lights, filled with patterns both natural and stylish. The top was laid in glass, while I could see sockets with gemstones embedded into them on the legs.

    Trotting carefully, I felt almost terrified to break anything, as though I half expected somepony to come charging in and scold me for it.  Around the back of the desk, I found its layout worryingly precise and neat. The feather quills were stacked in size order, for crying out loud.  Either somepony had one big thing about cleanliness, or it just hadn't ever been used.

    Investigating the boxes behind it revealed little but old documents beyond my skill to read, and short rolls of fabric in half opened mail packages. With little of worth, I instead carefully began to peek through the drawers.  Smooth and quiet, they slid out as though they ran on silk. Even the minor noise of the first drawer felt like an offence to how well ordered the entire room was. Truth be told, in my filthy and sweaty state, I felt rather undressed for this area.  My hooves were leaving little ashy and dirty hoofprints all over the pristine (if dusty) white carpet.

    Within the drawer there was little of worth.  A few quills, notepads, crayons, and some long out of date cat food.  But at the back, I found a small row of recorders like the ones in Stable Ninety Three.  Tugging with my hooves, I drew the pack of four out.

    Only one seemed still operational, either that or the other three just hadn't ever been used.  Wondering why it seemed active without being attached to a PipBuck, it finally occurred to me that the small stand the four were attached to was like a hub to allow them to play.  Lacking anything better to do while I searched the room, I set it playing.

    Ksssh...

    “Right...ah, yes!  There we go.”

    A mare's voice.  Even from those few words, her diction and eloquence was obvious, like every word was being deliberately crafted into a feminine and well mannered tone.

    “Due to a rather ruthlessly busy schedule, I have elected to record myself with the day's events.  I simply cannot believe the distractions and problems even one day away from Canterlot can create. As such, for my own sanity, I must do this instead to remember.  Oh, for the days of my simple Boutique and only having one product line to follow...”

    Moving from drawer to drawer, found little on the left hand side of the desk other than the bare essentials of an office.  Clearly, whoever worked here was rather picky about keeping the things they knew with them if they travelled away.

    “The investigation in Fillydelphia turned up almost nothing.  Clearly, the intelligence handed to me was not accurate as this has been a fine way to waste three days searching.  The head of the Arcane Ministry here, Aurora Star, did offer her rather elaborate and generous levels of aid. But even with their support, the missing papers on...”

    She seemed to hesitate.  My ears had perked at the mention of Aurora Star.  The Overmare in the Stable had said she was into the memory research, hadn't she?

    “The missing papers haven't turned up.  It is something of a travesty that they even got copied from it in the first place, let alone taken out of Canterlot. Less than a dozen ponies even knew of their existence.  I swear to Luna, if I ever find whoever let those things slip—”

    With my head buried in the drawer to see into the back (Damn unicorns and their magic...) I slipped and whacked my head as I heard the door suddenly open. My heart skipped a beat at the sound.

    Yet, the door was still closed. I let out my breath as I realised it was in the recording.

    “Oh!  Oh my!  Fluttershy, my dear, I didn't expect to see you!”

    “Oh...I'm sorry, I could go back and make an appointment if-”

    “No, no, darling, of course not!  Do come in, it was just a surprise, is all!  I do apologise, Fluttershy. If I had known you were in Fillydelphia as well...”

    The second voice almost stopped me in my tracks.  It barely transmitted from the recorder at all with how quiet it had sounded.  Indeed, without my hypersensitivity, it may not have been audible.

    “It's alright...I've been too busy.  I...I just wanted to see you before I had to go.”

    “...darling, what's wrong?  You look most upset. Please, do take a seat, sorry, I am being most ungracious. Would you like something to drink?  We could go to that delightful little café near Pinkie's rather garish FunFarm, if you'd like.”

    A sound of the recorder being placed on the desk sent the quality into static for a second, before I heard two ponies trotting farther away from it.  Rustling my hooves around, I found a small selection of coat and mane dye. Pink, light blue, red, and a few other colours too! I felt like doing a little dance, I could use them as paints!  Dye worked like that, right?

    “No, really, Rarity, I'm...fine.”

    “Forgive me, Fluttershy, but I've been your friend too long to not see when something is troubling you.  Well, more than this whole thing troubles us all. You can tell me anything, you know that.”

    “Yes, I do.  Well, you see...I was checking in on the refugees.”

    “Mm, yes.  The Ministry of Peace Refugee and Aid Initiative, I must say you most impressed me.  I toured the facilities and camps yesterday, and you're saving so many ponies who have lost their loved ones or homes.  Granted, I may have cheekily given them a few pointers on getting blankets warmer, but I supposed you wouldn’t have minded, and I simply could not resist.  It felt good to get back into the old needle and thread again. But whatever about them could be upsetting you? You are doing a wonderful job...”

    “That's just it...I'm not.”

    “Oh, Fluttershy. We talked about this, remember?  You are doing everything in your power to—”

    “No, I mean, the refugee camps and houses. There's something wrong.”

    Sitting back while I stuffed the dyes into my saddlebag, I listened for a few seconds.  The talk of Ministries between this Fluttershy and...what was it? Rarity? The talk was helping me attach names and voices to faces.  This Fluttershy was clearly the one I had seen on all the medical posters. Her voice made me wish I could go to her Ministry for help with my illnesses. I'd want somepony with that kind and gentle voice to take care of me.

    The other, Rarity...probably either the lavender or white one.  I couldn't quite remember them enough to tell which was which. It occurred to me that I must be in the office of a Ministry Mare.  The voices I were hearing were likely things very few ponies back then would have gotten to hear.  With the parasprites infecting this place before Littlepip came along, nopony must have been able to explore it.  Sitting more attentively, I listened further.

    “Wrong, darling? Whatever do you mean?”

    “Yes, the poor things; there are refugees going missing, Rarity.  Often the poorer ones. Oh my...I just worry for them. I was trying to find out where, but nopony knows.  They just get up and go somewhere...but they never came back.”

    “Hmm, I can see why that would concern you.  How many?”

    “Dozens...but at this rate, it could be over a hundred.  The camps are so crowded since the villages in the Vale were hit that it's hard to keep track of everypony.  Oh, I'm so worried. This is my responsibility, but with things back at Canterlot, I can't spend anymore time here to look for them.  I...I don't know what to do, Rarity.”

    “Fluttershy, darling.  You have an entire Ministry behind you, searching for every single lost pony isn't something you need to do yourself.  I know you feel like you want to, but go to your hub in Fillydelphia. I'm sure Doctor Flowerpot will be willing to look into the matter. He was the one who gave me that tour.”

    Flowerpot?  That was the ghoul that Weathervane had locked up under Hearts and Hooves Hospital.

    “I suppose. I just see the mothers and fathers missing foals, or children missing their parents, and I just wish I could comfort them all.  Rarity, when can all this just end?”

    “It will sometime, Fluttershy.  It will. We've all got our problems to work through.”

    “Oh?  Applejack said she was coming to Fillydelphia in a week's time to investigate where three of her Ministry's workers from the refugee camp went.  Why? Did you lose something too, Rarity?”

    “Oh...me?  No, no, no, nothing at all, darling.  Why would you think that?”

    There was an odd silence for a few seconds where even I felt awkward.  Eventually, I heard Fluttershy sigh lightly.

    “I think I need to go...Aurora Star needs to see me before I leave Fillydelphia for Ponyville.”

    I wasn’t exactly the master of conversation, but Rarity sounded very glad to change subject.

    “You too?  My...that mare has been busy, hasn't she?  Probably to give you one of those new memory orbs she's been working on.  We're all getting one as a gift, all six of us. She's looking for funding to make more of them, you see.  Some sort of design that records you as well as your voice, showing you when it plays back. Rather impressive, I simply must say, but there is no way I am committing myself to history until I get some proper mane attention from all this heat.  Fillydelphia is far too hot this time of year. Tell you what, Fluttershy, if you're still in Ponyville when I arrive there to get the train back into Canterlot, we should meet at the spa. Perhaps that will help you settle down...just like old times, yes?”

    “That would be...nice.  I'd like that.”

    “I shall see you then, darling.”

    I could hear hooves getting up.  Curious myself as to this old tale of ponies going missing and Rarity hiding something from another Ministry mare, apparently her long term friend, I began digging through the drawers on the other side.  There was nothing, just letters that likely held the answers, if only I could read them.

    “Oh my...Rarity. Is that a gun on your desk?”
   
    “Oh...haha!  That old thing?  Applejack sent it a year ago, protection against infiltrators she said.  She called it 'Rarity's Grace,' as though it ever matched the real thing.  I tend to just leave it in my desk out of the way. She did her best and meant well, but it is still a rather repulsive thing.”

    Almost on cue, my hooves slid open the last drawer to reveal the very item.  Tiny, slim, and given a white ceramic finish with a single blue gem near the very short barrel, it almost looked delicate.  The sort of weapon a noble or, well, 'proper lady' might carry. The mouth grip was smoothly carved, and coated in thin polished silver.  Guns weren't really my thing, but even I had to admit this was one beautiful-looking piece.

    I heard the pair say their goodbyes, and then overheard Fluttershy leaving the room, before Rarity's hoofsteps tapped back along to her desk.  The sound of something being flung in a drawer (likely Rarity's Grace) and her sitting down with a sigh played through the recorder.

    “Oh well, time to—”

    Then, with a small click, the recorder ceased.  Clearly, in her negligence to remember it when Fluttershy entered, its memory had filled.  Likely the caretaker for the room had replaced it in the drawer after she had left.

    That had been a strange experience. These had been two of the highest ranked mares in Equestrian history.  Even from a brief listen, I had a much greater sense of the sheer scale of the Ministry operations. Missing refugees?  Secret documents? Was Flowerpot being regarded a prophet by those crazy zebra worshippers something to do with the refugees?  Perhaps Weathervane would know...

    Tnk!

    Startled, I felt my voice squeak and swivel my head to the door.

    Tnk!  Tnk!

    Above it, the small vent to allow airflow into here was being nudged.  The rusty nails were shuddering. Through one of the small windows looking out, I saw multicoloured little balls flying upward.  My heart clenched. This time there really wasn't a way out...

    Having to fight to stop my own hoof hitting my face, I shook my head.  Of course there was! Galloping over, I threw the cat basket out of the way and tugged at the vent I’d see there.  Surely, I was stronger than sprites to get rid of a vent cover before they did!

    The small lock on the top of the vent was proving me wrong.  It wasn't rusted at all in this carefully preserved office.

“Oh come on!”

Tugging, biting, bucking...nothing would break it.  Behind me, I heard a tinkle as one nail fell from the door's vent.  I could see little coloured bodies struggling around the edges. Any second they might burst through!  Running back to the desk, I grabbed Rarity's Grace from the drawer and aimed it directly at the vent lock.  Closing my eyes and clenching my teeth around the comfortable mouthpiece, I gently pushed my tongue down on the trigger...bracing for the loud gunshot sound on my ears.

    Instead, I got what had to be quite simply the most...polite...gunshot I had ever heard.

    Somewhere between a small cough and a curt rap on a door, the sound even kicked up at the end, like a highly spoken word of great eloquence.  It wasn't a silent weapon. It was simply...elegant. The vent’s lock popped off from the small round blasting it clean off the metal, betraying that while it sounded prim, it had a punch behind those small bullets. A quick check revealed it only had space for perhaps two or three rounds at a time loaded, no doubt simply a self defence weapon.

    Clambering inside as fast as I could, I heard the other vent pop off, followed by the deathly fluttering of the sprites.  No time to close it behind me, I simply climbed into the dull grey maze as fast as I could.

    Oh...this was a bad idea.

    Now I was simply going to be trapped as they flew in and devoured me from the hind upwards.

    Panicking, I forced myself in deeper, blinking to try and get my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Pushing around a corner, curling my body uncomfortably to squeeze through the tight, claustrophobic gap, I scrambled and pulled myself deeper into the system. The noise on the thin metal sheets that made up the vent echoed back and forward, hurting my ears, but all I cared about was trying to lose them in the metal maze.  Behind me the fluttering changed tone as they entered at a shocking speed. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw them come around the corner.

    “Go away!  Don't!”

    Screaming more out of habit and fear than choice, knowing they wouldn't stop, I kept pushing onward.  Up ahead there was a t-junction. I needed a way out!

    I couldn't look back anymore. The top of the vent was too low to turn my body like that. On my belly, I scooted or crawled forward, hearing the fluttering closing closer and closer behind me.  For one horrifying moment, I felt my saddlebag get jammed. My hooves skittered on the floor as I kept pulling, unable to take it off in these cramped conditions. The thought of being devoured and not even being able to move or thrash made my heart tighten with horror.

    “COME ON!” 

I tugged and strained until I felt fabric tear and fell forward again.  The parasprites were a mere ten feet away; .toying with me, playing and staying as one small swarm.  Soon I'd be exhausted and unable to evade them any longer. Everything was misty through my eyes, they were wet enough that I could barely see, only hear and feel as I pulled myself to the t-junction.  Yanking around to the right, I saw only a large fan at the other end...with a dead end on the way I had chosen.

    I was trapped. Stuck in a small metal box, I was trapped with parasprites.

    I didn't want to die...not like this...please no...please no...please no!

    Screaming, I kept pushing myself into the dead end, thumping the edges, maybe one was weak!  They weren't. Maybe there was a hidden hatch! There wasn't.  

This was it...I was backed into the corner, such a small area I couldn't even sit up.  Claustrophobic feelings began to set in again. Turning and facing them, I saw the ten parasprites buzzing toward me. The one I had shot at even looked angry.

    Rarity's Grace fired twice more before the weapon ran dry.  I didn't hit a thing. The second shot even led to me dropping the weapon in fear. I couldn't even properly hold a gun, let alone shoot something with one, even if it were of high manufacturing.

    I could swear the lead one grinned, before they swarmed me.

    I couldn't even say where I was being bitten or chewed on.  I could only scream again and again in pain as I felt bits of me get grabbed and bitten.  My hooves waved, warded them off, but they kept dodging and biting again. One of my ears was nipped and tugged at, my legs, my lip.  That dreadful fluttering almost becoming a sharp buzz with them so close and moving themselves into a frenzy, always biting. Soon they’d stop hounding and savage me for the kill. In a panic, I slammed myself back and forward against walls, and felt my hoof hit something sharp edged that shocked me with an energy discharge.  Shivering and trying not to scream in fear of them getting in my mouth, I bit my teeth together so hard my loose tooth jerked. Three of them landed on my stomach, starting to try and dig in as I fought to push them away. I fought to stop then trying to tear the wound open. Small little streams of blood began to drip off me from the bites. I could feel myself tiring.

    This...this was it.  Alone in a vent, devoured slowly and painfully by parasprites to be be nothing more than another skeleton for somepony to be scared by someday...

    A gust of air brushed across me. Was it from their wings?  No, it couldn’t be, for it grew and grew in strength and sound.  The biting began to cease, and I felt air begin to rush from small grates in the vent walls.  The parasprites were slowly moving away from me, but now struggling to fly. One of them bit painfully into my back leg until I knocked it off.  I was bleeding in a dozen places onto the floor, but the flow of air kept growing.

    Down the vent, I saw the fan chopping away.  A bassy ‘whup whup whup’ that slapped the air so much as it did cut through it. The surge of air grew stronger, nothing near enough to move me, but the tiny parasprites were being sucked toward the fan at an ever increasing rate.  Beside me, sparking, I saw the control panel I'd hit with my stinging right hoof. The bandage was blackened from the shock.

    Even as I saw the parasprites sucked in and sheared apart, I couldn't stop trembling on the spot.  The feeling of them flying over me, eating me...it wasn't disappearing quickly. Trying to stem a dozen wounds and feeling my ears and limbs stinging from shallow bites, my head felt dizzy already.

    It took me a good while to finally crawl back to Rarity's office and use what bandages I could spare from the thick wad around my right hoof to tie up the bites.  Exhaustion from days without a proper rest were quickly mounting. I needed...needed to rest. Just a while...

    Staggering, I managed to limp over and lie in the cat basket (I was small enough...it was fair game...) before falling into a restless doze when my heart finally slowed down.

    I wandered the Ministry after that.

    I didn't really know why, only that I didn't feel ready to go back outside.  Blood dripped around me, but an examination in a mirror within Rarity's desk had shown that each injury, while painful and bleeding, was not serious.  I wasn't tough, but most of my days had been spent under the pain of some cut or bruise, this didn’t feel too unusual once I’d gotten a brief sleep. For now I could afford to just stagger about and try to think.

    I'd completed the job, but somehow I didn't feel heroic like I should; like Littlepip.  I'd 'won' out of sheer luck and chance alone. Survival though drawing the right card, rather than by my own skill or wit.  That seemed to be a running theme of my life.

    Yet, I had done it.  One way or the other, I had faced something she had come up against and stayed alive at the end of it.  Sure, I had faced a lot less than her, but it still kept me going to know that I'd walked the same path as her.  The same challenge. Perhaps...perhaps some day I might be able to do as she did. To always keep thinking and staying determined.  Where she remained steadfast in my mind, I faltered and tripped on my own lack of confidence and fears. Did she ever get scared? Were there times that my hero might cry alone, afraid that she may fail?  How had she felt being brought into Fillydelphia?

    Wandering back into the office that held the bathroom and her discarded chains, I simply stood and looked at them.  The same...but so different.

    Someday, perhaps.  But I had endured. That was enough for now.

    There was one last objective to today, I still needed to convince Hive that I was worthwhile, somehow.  I'd taken far too long in here for Mister Shiny to likely get me anything of reward. In desperation, I emptied my saddlebag on the steel floor and began rooting through.  Hive likely wouldn't care for dyes, and three caps wouldn't win me through either. Rarity's Grace would likely get me in more trouble to produce than to keep.  At most, the best idea I could do was wait until I could hand it over to Protégé. He wouldn't punish me for finding something, would he?

    Then again, he had been the one to shoot me down.  It bewildered me. Why did I still feel a certain trust that he would be nicer to me after that?  He just confused me. My last memory of that confrontation was of him holding me in his hooves, trying to save my life.  He hadn't wanted to shoot.  Why not? It couldn't simply be that he liked me. All his talk about plans for me was infuriatingly vague and contradictory. Why was he acting like this?

    Shaking my head, I returned to the immediate problem.  What had Littlepip left behind that I might use? Tools?  Wonderglue to repair her suit? Nothing Hive likely couldn't get on her own with but a word.

    My eyes fell to the small tin of mints.  My memory began to pick up. Mister Shiny had called her drugs 'Mint-als.' Mints. Like...like...

    Suddenly, I was very glad I hadn't downed them all as sweeties.

    But this was only one small tin.  Likely something she would just grab from me and then not care.  I needed leverage, I needed more drugs. But who did I know that had that much—

    “...oh!”

    Stuffing everything back into my saddlebag, I made a run for the maintenance room.  I had a few...items, to collect before I went outside again.

    “Well little laddie. Nice to see you've come back alive.  Would hate to lose me most generous customer.”

    Sooty Morass had been making a killing.  His RadAway was all gone, but his drugs container was still somewhat bulging with Artery's stocks.  I staggered up to him, both half-exhausted, and half under the weight of my saddlebag putting me off balance.  He grinned down at me, flicking his braids as I spoke.

    “I...I want all your mint-als.”

    Sooty seemed genuinely surprised.  The look of unexpected shock was worth every pain I had been through.

    “Now just when I thought ye couldn't get sillier.  What makes ye think that you can—”

    I slammed forty copies of Wingboner Magazine down on the table.

    “...ten tins. All yours.”

    One hour later, I was waiting outside the pits beside Hive.  She had been a lot tougher, being genuinely surprised I was back, and willing to give me a few bruises for losing my suit.  Even as she had thrown me against one locker in her ready room, the savage slaver mare had caught attention to the one half empty tin of mint-als I'd thrown down.  The rest I'd buried in the mud near a pit, bargaining that I'd give her the location when Protégé arrived to take me back. Hive hadn't been too happy with it, but had finally reasoned that at least she 'wouldn't have to put up with me whining anymore.'

    The drawn chariot clattered across the road.  Almost regally, I saw Protégé step down and trot across to us.  His face betrayed nothing when he glanced at me, before turning stoically to an impatient Hive.

    “I've come to retake my lost worker.”

    “Oh fuck off, upstart.  Don't give me that 'worker' shit, you're a slaver.  Get over it and don't lose your slaves ever again. Take the little rat.”

    She turned and half bucked me toward him.  Yelping, I landed in the mud beside Protégé.  He didn't break eye contact with her.

    “Get into the chariot, Murk.  Glimmerlight's waiting for you.”

    I didn't need any further telling, scampering up into the wooden transport and turning to watch Protégé again.

    “I hear he did a good service for you, Hive?”

    She spat in the mud. “Get fucked, hornjob.  He's useless, unless you're trying to groom the little chicken for some sort of bed buddy I can't imagine what you want from him.”

    Protégé didn't react in the slightest.  Indeed, he if anything simply trotted toward the side of the chariot without even maintaining eye contact any more.

    “A containment breach, so I hear.  Infesting one of the Ministry Hubs.  Mister Shiny was so good as to inform me of the details of his exemplary service to you.”

    “Did you hear what I said?  Murk. Is. Useless.”

    I saw Protégé grin toward me with a surprisingly cheeky smile.

    “So why did you write to me informing that he had proved himself?”

    That shut her up.  I had to fight to not snort in laughter as I saw her fall for his verbal trap.  If she explained why, it would be to admit to Protégé that I had held her addiction to ransom.  My master clambered up beside me.

    “To the Mall, riders.  Take your time, if you please.”

    Smoothly, the chariot rumbled off.  Hive watched me intently as we rode past and back along the road.  She continued to watch until we were twenty feet away before the cap finally dropped.  I saw her rush forward in sudden panic, unable to catch the chariot.

    “Oi!  Wait! You didn't say where the fucking mint-als were yet!  You little chicken BASTARD!”

    In the aftermath of her hellish pits and the parasprites, the elation of escape was too strong to not do it.  I couldn't help myself.

    I waved.

    “It is good to see you remain alive, Murk,” Protégé looked back from directing the two stallions pulling our chariot through the slaveworks of Fillydelphia, “I must admit I was worried that you might not return...”

    We'd been sitting in silence since he had relieved me of my saddlebag's contents.  Most of it he'd given back (I had blushed as he hoofed over a couple magazines I'd saved) but Rarity's Grace now sat in his own pocket.  Only now, as we were far away from the pits did he speak.  I remembered his frustration at the sentencing, I presumed he was being honest.  But it wasn't going to excuse him for what he’d done.

    “You shot me. You stopped me escaping. Why?”

    “I had to.  Master Red Eye does not permit workers to leave until their due is—”

    “You don't want me to suffer!” I cut him off. “You've been giving me second, third, and more chances every time I've met you.  You give me medicine...return my things to me and...and even seem to care for me. You...you've shown you aren't like the others...so why do you keep torturing me by keeping me in here?”

    My eyes were probably going to tear up soon. The thought of how close I'd been stung deep in the wound across my chest.  Taking a few seconds to simply watch and presumably judge me, he eventually sat in the moving chariot and looked across at me.

    “Would you believe me if I said I had been nothing but truthful with you, Murk?”

    As ever, I felt like it was a loaded question.  He kept staring with that inscrutable look, one eye hidden behind the symbol of his studentship to Red Eye. I spoke more quietly.

    “Yes...”

    Finally, almost with relief, I saw him remove the eyepiece and sigh.

    “Murk...I am glad to have met you.  Fillydelphia is not an easy place to live in; for any of us.  Now, I know that is not much comfort, coming from a...well...a slaver.  But I try. I try to care for those ponies who I know are being hurt in this place.  I believe in Master Red Eye's vision, with all my heart, Murk.  We are making Equestria better. You would have seen the printing presses in there, those will be used to print school books.  In time, ponies like you, unable to read...that will cease to happen.”

    He looked away, as we passed by a group of slaves weighed down by scrap.  Boils and wounds slowed them while they trampled through dry earth with dour faces and weak bodies.

    “I've never said I liked it here.  Ponies are ponies. I do not see slaves.  My job entails problems, like the raiders...like Shackles.  The other slavers dislike me, as you've seen. But it's all necessary, we all do our part.  I chose to be here.  You didn't...and I wish that hadn't happened.  But it has, and you must now play your part to earn your freedom.”

    “But master...I don't want to be here...”

    The chariot drew up in front of the Mall.  I could see some slaves returning from shifts on tired and shaking legs.  Protégé stepped off, with me following at his heels.

    “I know, Murk.  But you are. I'll do what I can, but I cannot defy Master Red Eye.  He orders that no slave escapes. That we all must do our part.  I am his student, his faithful follower.  His methods are my life and his decisions my code.  You heard me talk of loyalty to Minstrel. Well, I am loyal to Master Red Eye.”

    He trotted toward the door.  I simply stood before the great Mall...my home for the next two years in his service.  My thoughts drifted to that moment of Protégé holding me desperately in his hooves, clamping on my wounds. He had been crying.

    “Master...”

    “Yes, Murk?”

    I saw him begging again, pleading me to just come with him, trying to avoid me defying him He wanted me to follow him.  To show that same loyalty.  Not to Red Eye. To him.  Because he wanted the best for me that he could, short of what he couldn't allow.

    “....you...you were tempted, weren't you?”

    Protégé continued to stare back, a blank look on his face as his eyepiece hung in his magic field nearby.

    “You were tempted to let me go.”

    Time stood still.  Protégé and his home was ahead of me and the slaves returning to it surrounded us both.  All were filthy, coated in as much blood, sweat, and tears as I was. All suffering. The full might of Fillydelphia's labour in vista all around me.  Eventually, I saw his mouth seem to twitch, before he finally replied.

    “Yes, Murk...yes I was.”

    Firmly placing the eyepiece back on.  The student of Red Eye and my master turned once more to return to his place of work.

    Passing the cage door, filled with conflict over my master, I found the survivors of the Stable excursion lying on mattresses that had been dragged out into the plaza to accommodate the injured.

    My heart almost broke as I saw the heavily bandaged form of Glimmerlight being cared for on the far side of the plaza.  The slavers hadn't been kind to her on recapturing. A bloodied bandage smeared her forehead while her two front legs bore thick padding.  A nurse was tying more across a thick welted wound on her side.

    That didn't stop her pulling herself up and launching toward me, until we simply held one another amongst the city of slaves we had failed to escape.

    “D-don't worry, Murky. We know it's possible s-someday...someday. I promise...”

Footnote: Quest Perk Attained!

    Path of the Lightbringer – Hers is a story to not cross paths again...but the legend of the Stable Dweller and her unceasing determination to save Equestria will inspire ponies for years to come.  Once per encounter, if reduced to less than 10% of your health, you will immediately gain a small health boost to keep you in the fight that little bit longer.

Footnote: Perk Attained!

    Organiser – Some ponies stay neat and tidy to keep efficient belongings...others just learn how to cram things in really hard!  One way or the other, it helps you carry those little extra things. All items with a weight of two or less weigh half as much in your inventory now.