//------------------------------// // 12. On the Road to Old Manehattan // Story: A Ghost of a Chance // by Epsilon-Delta //------------------------------// Electricity, ironically enough, became short in supply and high in demand shortly after Sunny Flare showed up. Those rechargeable batteries didn’t power the cylinder player for very long and keeping them charged in the winter was a hassle. Zest put her will into an orb and had it turn the battery crank. The little guy started strong but quickly got tired and gave up. It simply didn’t have the energy to fully charge the battery. Because orbs drew their energy from the ambient heat of the environment, they grew more lethargic the colder it got. Even in life, Zest knew orbs came out in the summer and slept in the winter. That was one reason they couldn’t travel to Old Manehattan while it was this cold. The orbs wouldn’t have the energy to work as pack animals. More directly, this affected her ability to make them do chores for her. They slept through the coldest parts of the year, but even in March, Great Pines was cold enough that you couldn’t get very many spins out of these guys. Not unless, of course, you let them ‘warm up’ in the hot cafeteria for a while. That’s why it was preferable to sleep through the winter. Of course, Zest had alternate means of charging the batteries. Though that was easier said than done for now. Creating small blasts of electricity wasn’t so hard. Zest didn’t even need flint or a lighter anymore. Her small bursts were just enough to light some brush on fire whenever needed. Powering a device was a different matter. She’d gotten too excited when she made that one light turn on for a second. That strategy soon proved unsustainable for two reasons. Firstly, a small burst of electricity could only maintain something for a second. Secondly, as Zest was learning, there were different types of electricity now? Zest swore all electricity was the same until just a week ago. But no, you needed the voltage and amps to be just right for whatever you were powering, and you needed to alternate the current all to the right specifications or else… Just outside the school, Zest held a lightbulb Indigo managed to scavenge between her hooves. Zest’s pool of magic was already nearly depleted from her exercises for the day. The bulb ‘lit up’, darkness beginning to swirl around it. The light coming out was terribly inconsistent. The black mist vanished and grew in intensity from second to second. Zest smiled, impressed at how long she was able to keep this up. Then lightning sparks erupted from the bottom and a burst of purple flames announced the death of the bulb. The little metal part on the bottom made it smell horrible, punishing her failure. Zest dropped the flaming bulb to the ground as purple replaced the blackness swirling around it. Rather than eat the heat, she merely smothered it with dirt. That’s how it went so far. Zest had destroyed half the light bulbs and blenders Indigo got for her to practice on. Zest didn’t even want to touch something as expensive as these magic sci-fi batteries just yet. After her latest attempt, Zest floundered and fell partially below the ground. The use of her elemental abilities was similar to that of her unicorn magic. If she still had it, her horn would be sparking and throbbing in pain right now. Actually, as Zest looked up, she did still have her horn, only now her whole body was sparking. “Guh! This is exhausting!” Zest collapsed onto Indigo, forcing the phantom to catch her. “Do I need to eat that much to have enough energy to shoot lightning bolts?” “Think of it more like you’re working out a muscle you never used before,” said Indigo. “But if you’re at your limit, you gotta do at least two more!” “Right!” Zest tried to shake off her weariness and picked up another lightbulb. With renewed determination, Zest picked up another lightbulb. This one went much worse than before, Zest barely able to make any blackness swirl about it. “Zest.” Sugarcoat appeared behind her, coming out of a wall. Zest panicked the lightbulb exploded in front of her. “Sorry! I know I still suck at this.” Zest rubbed the back of her head. “It’ll be a while before I can power all this.” “I suppose you’re doing well enough all things considered.” That was high praise from Sugarcoat. “At any rate, we might be able to power these with or without you, thanks to our deal with Flare. Your true value comes from your ability to possess the devices Flare will bring to us.” “Possession.” Zest tapped her chin and looked up at Sugarcoat. “I don’t think I’ve seen you possess anything before. But aren’t we supposed to be able to like– like go into a piano and give it teeth, then have the top part open into a big mouth and–” “None of us are the type of ghost that can perform such a feat,” said Sugarcoat. “You need some type of geist if you want to manipulate inanimate objects like that. Dolls are the only objects that any ghost can possess.” “Yeah, that one’s mostly just for sneaking up on predeads,” Indigo added. Did they even have any dolls? Zest remembered seeing a few in the dorms now that she thought about it. “But I take it I’m special?” Zest pointed to herself. “Ghosts like you can possess objects infused with enough of their elementals,” said Sugarcoat. “Fire elementals, for example, can embody flames and take control of even massive infernos.” “My old water elemental friend used to be able to possess an entire lake,” Indigo added. “Of course, you can barely control something that size, but he could still splash ponies with water or slowly suck the heat out of them like that.” “And I can possess things that run on electricity?” Zest asked. “Hypothetically.” Sugarcoat closed her eyes. “Unfortunately, it isn’t as easy as another elemental would have it. Electric appliances haven’t existed very long in the scheme of things. This power was only discovered last century. With no other lightning elementals around you’ll have to pioneer much of the techniques yourself.” Which did explain why no practical examples of why Zest would want to possess their cylinder player were forthcoming. Becoming one with the music sounded nice on a philosophical level, but the thing already played itself… if you kept that battery charged. It seemed the three of them would have to discover ways to use that ability themselves. Realistically, there was only one decent shot at finding another lightning elemental coming up. “What about in Old Manehattan?” Zest asked. “Is there another one of me living there?” “There wasn’t one last time I checked,” said Sugarcoat. “Though it’s possible one moved in recently. He wouldn’t keep something like that hidden. As I’ve said, lightning elementals are considered good luck and can attract older ghosts.” “Hah! Believe it or not, you’re one of our selling points!” Indigo jostled her. Zest smiled, liking it when she got to be useful. She hoped all the ghosts down there would want to rub her head like that book said! “I wonder what a ghost city is like,” said Zest. “Is there a lot to do there?” “Oh, yeah! There’s so much to see down there,” said Indigo. “They make these seven-foot-tall, metal combat dolls down there. And they got the war museum, the ruins of the reactor, and Toxco HQ. And then you got the biggest F.U. wall in the world between Old and New Manehattan. It’s a hundred and eighty– uh, like fifty-something meters tall?” “There are quite a few places I’m looking forward to showing you as well.” Sugarcoat smiled. “They have actual chefs down there and there’s a few spots I have fond memories of. I’d like to see them all once more before their destruction.” Flare was coming out of the dorm where she slept with her wagon packed up with the things she’d be taking back to her. This was the last day she would be with them. “I wish I could see a ghost city as well,” said Flare. “Sadly, the only one left is too toxic for me to enter. I suppose I’ll just have to listen to you talk about it later.” Indigo’s smile dimmed whenever she showed up. Sugarcoat, at least, had warmed up to Flare. Indigo was still a little standoffish, rarely speaking to their guest. Zest tried suggesting Flare punch the pegasus and get it over with, only to be reminded that Flare’s hoof would go straight through Indigo. “Oh no!” Zest tried to hug Flare, but her forelegs went straight through. “I’m gonna miss you! It’s so lonely out here!” “I’ll be back soon enough.” Flare smiled and waved her off. “And from the sound of things, there might be more of you soon. How long are you going to be out for yourselves?” “Don’t expect us to be back here until July,” said Sugarcoat. “If the city is still safe, we’ll likely stay there for over a month.” “I kinda wish we could wait another year before going.” Zest looked down at the money she’d been paid. “It’d be nice to have more time to save up first.” Flare had given them a substantial bribe just for agreeing to help, in addition to the payment Zest got for obsessively helping her. In all, she had maybe four thousand bits, more than she’d ever had at once in life. With zero living expenses and no ‘interest and insurance’ to pay, it all added up fast. Zest figured she might as well blow it all in the city, having nowhere else to spend it. After this trip, her only option would be to buy stuff from Flare herself. “Perhaps I can give you a chance before leaving,” said Flare. “I do have a request. Or maybe a bounty. It’s been exceedingly difficult for me to find demographic information on ghosts. I want to know the cause, time of death, age, and health conditions of as many ghosts as possible.” Flare took out one last bag of money from her now nearly empty cart and placed it before Zest. “If there are about a thousand ghosts in Old Manhattan, I’d be willing to pay about six thousand bits for that information. I’ll give you the money now and you can keep six bits for each profile.” Zest’s eyes sparkled at the bag of hundred-bit coins. That was a whole lot in her mind! She wondered how hard that mission would be. Maybe the city kept a record she could peek at? “I can already confirm what you likely suspect,” said Sugarcoat. “Ponies who die suddenly are significantly more likely to become ghosts than those who slowly succumb to a disease or age. It’s less common to become a ghost unless you die between your twenties and sixties.” Zest hadn’t noticed it before, but all of the small numbers of ghosts she knew had died quickly as Sugarcoat said. As for age… Zest had died at the age of 19. Did that make her a rarity? The other two looked only a little older than her. “Thank you,” said Flare, “but I’d be willing to pay for solid demographic information either way. If there’s nothing else, I’ll be heading out. I’ll come back with more sophisticated instrumentation.” Zest waved goodbye. She supposed it wouldn’t be much longer until she too left. On the first day of May, they set out for what was easily the longest expedition of Zest’s life. Back in her smuggler days, she’d run ‘packages’ from the ocean to Trotonto. To be sure, that was long in itself, but the terrain was mostly the same and would still be less than half of what lay before her. They loaded up a whole caravan of orbs, over fifty in total, mostly to carry the money and gold they intended to spend in the big city. So even with only three ponies and a dog, it felt like they were marching off in a big parade when the time came to leave. They made it to the Carverstone River that separated Great Pines from Sugarloaf in an hour or so. Not long after that, Zest began setting a new record for the farthest she’d been from home every second. It hardly felt special until the pine trees began giving way to barren ones with only small, budding leaves on their branches. Even leafless trees were something of a marvel to Zest. It was like being in the skeleton of a forest, with only hints that life may one day return here. Mostly, it made her wish she could have come here in the fall. The leaves of southern trees turning orange was something she’d never seen in person before. Finally, the thick woods Zest was used to give way entirely to rolling hills punctuated by huge tracts of farmland. As a ghost, there was safety in the dark woods that had always been Zest’s natural habitat. They needed to be far more cautious as they moved into these more densely populated areas. Had they been normal ponies, this trip may have taken three or four days rather than ten. They needed frequent stops to assess the situation, scope out the farms they would pass over, or plan alternate routes. Cutting through farms or the outskirts of towns was always the worst. Zest had to deal with the annoying sting of her addiction the whole time, but these places were hostile in a way that a town come to terms with a neighboring ghost was not. Most of these outposts had anti-ghost precautions in place. Many had harsh, ultraviolet lights installed. These, Zest learned, burned her eyes badly and left floaters in her vision for hours. They were set up in trees and triggered automatically, sending scalding light down on them and scattering their orbs. Maybe even worse were the metal rods they kept heated near their house. Zest knew beforehand that lonely places next to the woods often kept copper rods heated to ward off ghosts. The absolute stench was disgusting. It made Zest wish she could be back in her old body walking across a field of rotting corpses instead. Being put on the receiving end of these made her want to ban these things! These ‘defenses’ did nothing but hurt wandering ghosts a little. Honestly, it all seemed petty more than anything else. Zest could have gotten past the foul smells and stinging lights if she wanted to. They weren’t nearly enough to turn back a ghost who’d lost control or actively wanted to hurt the farmers. “Guh!” Zest covered her nose as she ran after the orb carrying her money. “You know, they’re only making us stay longer! If we didn’t have to chase down these orbs, we’d be gone already! They’re acting like we’re a bunch of crows to be scared off. You can’t seriously expect this to ward off anything with real intelligence.” “Well get used to it,” said Zest. “Maple Hill is unusually friendly towards ghosts. It really depends on who the mayor is. Not every place will turn a blind eye to keep the worse ghosts out. Sometimes–” An alarm sounded over the farmhouse in the distance, shattering the silence of the farm. Now Zest’s nose and ears were being assaulted! But even through the obnoxious scent of hot copper, Zest could tell living ponies were starting to gather. “They saw us! We gotta go!” Indigo charged forward, stopping briefly to look back at her companions. “Hurry!” Sugarcoat shoved Zest along. Zest panicked. She grabbed her purse herself and ran off. They had no choice but to leave a few of their orbs behind, though Zest managed to save all their money at least. They ran for hours until they were too tired to keep running. At least the predeads didn’t seem interested in chasing them down. It must have been nothing more than an attempt to scare them off, but it worked. Zest was left shaken, and they stayed in the forests for the entire following night. Coming back to another woodland trail or forest was always a relief, allowing Zest to relax slightly again. The few predeads they did pass didn’t have the courage to so much as investigate them in this terrain. They’d all run or hide the moment they suspected a ghost might be drawing near. It felt nice to be the one with the advantage this time. Zest would have been utterly lost without her friends. She’d never been more than two steps into Sugarloaf and couldn’t name a single town save Montpony, its capital. Even if you plopped her down in Montpony, she likely wouldn’t even know she was there. Yet these two were familiar enough with the area to argue about which path to take. Nothing familiar could guide her through these lands. She could only be thankful the other two were so much more traveled than her. She began to wonder just how far south she could go without a fight as they entered Equestria proper, and the land became even more densely populated. Thankfully, she began to see signs their journey was coming to a close. Manehattan made its presence known long before Zest could see any of its towers. The artificial lights of the city began to eat away more and more at her beautiful night skies. In retrospect, she’d seen it coming even earlier than this but hadn’t pieced together what was happening until now. That stygian blue between the stars appeared to have a sort of flow to it, like water above a firmament. Normally, it flowed into the black twinkling lights of the stars creating an endless, swirling pattern. But as she approached the city, the flow became uniform in the direction of Manehattan. At long last, the day they’d entered the city came and the sky above them became devoid of blue. The black stars refused to budge, and the moon still glowed green, but this was overtop a white backdrop. Already, Zest decided this was one downside to living so close to such a huge city. The next sign of Old Manehattan’s approach was much more literal. The trees began to bear posted signs, warning against digging in this area. Indigo was of the mind that this forest wasn’t that polluted. The dangerous, heavy metals were buried under a solid amount of safe dirt by now. They passed a fence with warnings of death to any who proceeded beyond that point. Soon after, the ground turned sour and the number of plants growing dropped precipitously until the Shadowbolts found themselves traveling over barren dirt and rocks. No animals came this far, and a few bones scattered about told why. A pony didn’t need any warnings to tell this place was dangerous. It was also at this point that Zest could, at last, see the tall buildings. She knew they were the ones within Old Manehattan as they had not a single light inside. They stopped in the wasteland to allow Indigo time to sneak on ahead and scope the place out. They could feel the distant edges of aura from the larger ghosts inside. Sugarcoat commented that she recognized what she felt as Meltdown’s aura, that this meant he hadn’t been chained up or killed just yet. Still, they waited for Indigo’s report before proceeding. Upon getting the go ahead, they came upon a second barrier – a high, stone wall stretching as far as Zest could see in either direction. “Is that the wall?” Zest looked up at it. No way that was fifty meters. “Our side is smaller than their side,” said Indigo. One could mistake this wall for being made entirely out of warning signs. The biggest and most numerous of these were massive yellow plates twice as tall as Zest with the biggest font she’d ever seen outside of neon signs. Conditions beyond this point are unsurvivable. Trespassing will result in death. It didn’t go into specifics, but that’s what the surrounding constellation of warning signs were for. They crowded the wall in a disorganized fashion, crawling over one another in morbid competition to prove their danger would kill you first. Ionizing Radiation Zone. Super-radiation Zone. Extreme Haunting Zone. Mercury warning. Lead warning. Asbestos warning. Poison gas warning. Landmine zone. Toxic Fungal Growth. Toxic self-destructing zombies? Flesh-eating bacteria? Mutant Rampage Area?! “Mutant Rampage Area?” Zest asked as soon as one that might affect her came along. “Mostly farm animals by now,” Sugarcoat promised. “Oh yeah.” Zest supposed they needed a source of body heat to stay sane. She floated up higher than the wall to get a better look. Her attention was immediately drawn to a discarded set of metal armor atop the wall. Pieces of such armor were scattered along the length of it. “So do we just float through the wall or–” “Stop.” Zest ducked back down as the armor came to life. It assembled itself as best it could but proved incomplete. A helmet, chest plate, and two boots were all it could muster. Yet the incomplete parts quickly filled themselves in with the semblance of a pony. Unlike the ghosts she was used to, this pony’s body was totally black and far more transparent. His eyes, too, stood out as two pools of phantom purple broken only by black pupils whose shape never stayed consistent. Two more sets of armor rose to the main one’s left and right. These, however, did not have any eyes or the suggestion of a pony underneath. “I am Gate Watcher, the border guard. You may not proceed beyond this point without permission,” His voice came over the wind, overly breathy in a way Zest wasn’t used to. In a panic, Zest kicked her forehooves in the air. She thought maybe she should go back down to the ground, but the other two joined her “I recognize two of you.” Gate’s eyes moved to Zest. “I assume you’re going to vouch for this pony, Sugarcoat?" Zest looked at the others. She knew they’d been here before but did this guard memorize every single ghost that visited? She supposed it wouldn’t be too hard, seeing as ghosts were so few in number. “This is Lemon Zest.” Sugarcoat grabbed her tail and pulled her closer. “She died about a year ago. I take responsibility for her.” “Very well. Then I won’t waste time telling her our rules.” Gate deemed Zest no longer worth his gaze and turned back to Sugarcoat. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again. Why are you here?” “We’re going far to the north where we won’t be such a large target,” said Sugarcoat. “I want to see if any of the ghosts down here want to join us.” “I see. You’re welcome to try. I doubt Meltdown will have any problem with that. He’s become increasingly,” Gate paused to think of the right word, “lethargic.” Zest still had her connection to Sugarcoat’s aura but all that of any specter was massive. She could still feel Meltdown’s aura even if she was shielded from it to an extent. Already she got an inkling of what he meant. His aura was that of a dour melancholy, the sort that made Sugarcoat’s dull emotions seem exciting. “I don’t suppose you would like to come with us when we return, then?” Sugarcoat asked. “You know this place won’t stand much longer. I don’t care what treaty Crater Cemetery has with Meltdown; they will destroy the city before long.” “I agree, but I cannot leave.” Gate snapped his attention back to her. “I have dedicated myself to protecting Manehattan to atone for helping those that unleashed this calamity on my home. Even if I found myself surrounded by all the armies of the world, I would stand and defend this place until the end.” So he died in the war too? Zest looked over at Indigo. It sounded like the two of them fought on opposite sides, but she wasn’t picking up any bad blood between them. Indigo nodded approvingly of his attitude even. “By the way.” Zest came out from behind Sugarcoat. “I’m making a statistical, uh, thing about when everypony died. I don’t suppose you remember the date and time?” “I suppose whenever Toxco started releasing the poison gas,” he said. “They killed ten of us for each Equestrian with their chemical weapons. Toxco sold us on the idea of fighting for ‘freedom’ but this is what they did to us and our city just to buy themselves time to escape! I don’t care what wealth they brought us; we never should have taken one taste of their poison.” Zest could feel the tension ratcheting up as he spoke, though at least the anger wasn’t directed at her. She imagined she’d encounter a good chunk of ponies killed by Toxco during the war. Zest knew most of the damage to Old Manehattan was actually done by Toxco and Spatial Tear themselves. From the version she got in school, they went ballistic when the Manehattan army started talking about surrender. Knowing they wouldn’t survive if what they did went to trial, they started dumping mercury into the streets, blowing up toxic waste containment centers, and firing all of their chemical weapons off as quickly as possible. Even the reactor’s meltdown was done on purpose. At least, from the sound of things, they wouldn’t find many pro-Toxco ponies here. “June twelfth, 1305, at around one in the afternoon. That’s when they started using gas.” Indigo folded her forelegs and nodded with a smug little smile. “Yeah, I got the whole timeline memorized. They blew up the mercury depots two hours after that. The reactor was already melting down, but Spatial Tear didn’t open up the portals around it until three-thirty so nopony noticed yet.” Zest wrote all of this down. That was six extra bits! Though she realized this would take a while to get the full six thousand at the rate she was going. “I used to say that at least the worst was behind us,” Gate added. “But that might not be true any longer. I hope you are lucky, Lemon Zest.” The three suites of armor collapsed back into a pile “Where did he go?” Zest looked down at the wall. “Don’t think about it.” Indigo floated over the top of it. So they could just go inside now. Zest hung back a moment to watch the other enter before going in herself.