//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Alone in the Snow // Story: An Equestria Covered in Ice // by Solaris Vult //------------------------------//     “I-It’s ok, p-please stop, I’m ok…” Petrochem cried, wrapping her hooves around her brother, who had stopped stamping the ground. Not all the blood on the floor was the Chief’s at this point, Basalt’s hooves were cracked and bleeding, but it was hard to tell under the coating of blood and bone fragments that covered his hooves so thick it was impossible to see the fur beneath.     “T-The King,” One of the guards said, still too shocked to move at the display.     “Kill them!” Shouted the guard mare, who had gotten back to her hooves and had picked up her spear again.     “Dew! Stop!” Shouted Lily Oak, “The Chief was going to kill a pony, one of our own!”     “The King’s death cannot go unpunished! Guards!” One of the other guards stepped forward, “I-” She paused, “I agree with Lily… It’s a crime of the highest order to kill another pony.”     “And it is for that reason that Basalt must be made to pay for his crime!” Another guard stepped in.     “Chief Candlewick was the aggressor!” Lily Oak replied, “Basalt was merely protecting his sister! The Code states-”     “I care not who started it, the King’s life is more important than any other pony!” Dew continued, raising her spear and galloping at Basalt, but brilliant golden light caught her spear and thrust it into the ground. Petrochemical stood in front of her brother, staring down Dew.     “Well the King is fucking dead now!” Oak said, moving forward and grabbing Dew.     “I wanted to help the village, I brought tools I hoped would help us survive, but the Chief would have had me killed!” Petrochem spat.     “This leader of yours was acting irrational,” Ethylene said, inspecting where the Chief’s sword had cut the plastic on her hoof, “And while my emotion calculator may be quite limited, I take offence to what he referred to my designer as.”     “I wasn’t going to let him lay a hoof on my sister! She’s a crazy gearhead but damn it she’s my sister!” Basalt said, angirly, still crying.     “W-What are we going to do without the king?” A guard stallion said, “He’s lead us for… Longer than any of us have ever been alive!”     “Get! Off!” Dew shouted, pushing Oak off of her, who had been pinning her to the ground. She tried to get back to her hooves and tried to find her spear, only to find it pointed right at her.     “Calm down Dew,” Oak muttered between the spear in his mouth.     “Calm down! The King was murdered!” She shouted, pointing a hoof at the crying Basalt.     “The Code states that it is an offence of the highest order to kill another pony, if you harm Basalt you will be breaking the code as well.”     “I will be avenging the King!”     “Basalt was protecting his sister!” As everyone argued, Petrochemical was the only one to notice Ethylene walk up and raise her wings… Her wings were less like wings and more like a series of long blades all emerging from a central armature. There came a soft humming noise, and then golden-yellow energy erupted from Ethyl’s wings and she floated into the air, which did catch everyone’s attention.     “Silence!” She shouted, “You are all acting irrational, we-” There came a popping noise, the humming died, a brief flash of light and burst of smoke came from one of Ethyl’s wing joints, and she fell to the ground, the broken wing getting crushed further by the fall.     “Ethyl!” Petro shouted and ran up to help her mechanical friend.     “I am still functional… It appears my right wing is severely damaged however…”     “No flying then.”     “No flying.” Oak stepped up and spoke first, breaking the silence, “The King is dead. A new leader will need to be chosen, but before that, I regret to say that Basalt must be punished, Dew, make yourself useful and retrieve the Code.” The mare grumbled but obeyed, handing over a sheet of metal with crude pictograms carved into it. “According to the Code, it is the highest offence to kill another pony, as we are all that is left of ponykind. As such, Basalt must be punished, as I have said… However, this situation is unique, as he killed in defence of another pony.”     “I know the Code, just exile us already and get it over with!” Basalt shouted, still crying.     “Banishment is a death sentence!” Petrochem shouted, “Bas!”     “According to the Harmony League’s laws, the punishment for accidental killing, killing in self-defense, or defence of another, is one-month forced-labor,” Ethylene responded. Everyone turned to look at Ethyl. Oak looked intrigued, then putting the code down on the floor, pulled out a crude knife and carved another pictogram into the code, “Noted. Basalt, as punishment for killing Chief Candlewick you are hereby exiled from the Village’s walls for the next month, this is not a proper banishment, you will be allowed to return to sleep and eat, however during your banishment you will collect fuel and scrap for the Village.”     “T-Thank you,” Basalt stuttered, still in shock.     “Someone please clean Basalt up and collect whatever you can from the Chief.” Petrochem responded, pulling Basalt to his hooves and collecting some snow from the corners of the room to wash his hooves. Meanwhile, Oak turned to Ethylene, “Machine, that idea of yours for Basalt’s punishment was rather apt.”     “As a creation of Twilight Sparkle, I have all of Equestria, and the Harmony League’s laws uploaded to my mind. It is necessary for all machines capable of thought to obey these in addition to the Laws of Robotics.” It was clear Oak didn’t fully understand all of that, but nodded anyway. “Well, someone’s going to have to inform the village of the Chief’s death… Machine, Ethylene, stay inside.” Outside, Oak shouted to the Village, “Gather, all ponies, Gather!” There was suddenly the sound of dozens upon dozens of hooves on snow, and soon, most of the village, somewhere around seventy ponies total, were gathered together. “Today, King Candlewick has died, his body too old to survive the poisons by the recent storm, a new Chief will be chosen, until then, a moment of silence for our former leader.” At first mutters spread across the herd, then they all went silent for a few minutes before one-by-one returning to their huts and ruins. When Oak returned inside, Dew was staring him down, “Why did you lie to the ponies, tell them who was guilty for his murder!”     “Basalt has already been punished, I do not want him and his sister being ostracized, or worse, by the crowd.”     “I applaud your tact, Lily Oak,” Ethyl responded.     “Thank you.” Basalt and Petro trotted back toward the group, “I’m going to lead Basalt out of the Village, but I’m taking Ethylene and the RTG with me.”     “Do whatever.”     “Thanks, Oak,” Basalt said, sniffling. Ethylene was bundled up in old cloth to prevent suspicion from the ponies outside, and Petrochem, hauling the RTG in both her and Ethyl’s telekinesis, led Basalt out the building and toward the village gates. “We’re leaving,” She said to the gate guard.     “Already?” She said, pushing the gate open. Once outside, they set down the RTG in a small corner inside the rubble of some old brick building, Basalt sitting next to it, “I- I’m sorry… I shouldn’t, I was just-”     “No need to apologize.”     “I nearly got myself banished, and who knows what the village would do to you.”     “Just get some rest, Ethylene, sit with him for now, I’m going to go grab my stuff.”     “Wh-” Basalt began, “Why?”     “I’m not going to let you sleep out here on your own, I’m getting my shack.”     “Y-You don’t have to do that.”     “I can and I will.” With that, Petro went back into the village, and Basalt was left alone with Ethylene. “I shouldn’t have done anything,” He muttered.     “Perhaps, but what is done is done, you cannot undo actions that have already happened, even with magic.”     “I’m sorry you had to see me do that.”     “I am not. The elderly stallion had insulted my creator and attacked my administrator, were it not against the laws of robotics I would have killed him as well.”     “Really, you don’t seem all too angry or sad.”     “My emotion is… Rudimentary. I was created with a Version Two Emotion Calculator, I can feel most basic emotions, simulated though they may be, I cannot feel more complicated emotions like you ponies however. From your perspective I may also have trouble showing them, as I am not made to display my feelings.” Soon, Petrochem returned with the pile of scrap metal and personal belongings that was her hut and built up a little metal tent inside the ruin. With the heat from the RTG and the insulation from the old metal, it quickly became comfortably warm inside. “I- I think I’m going to sleep, forget all this ever happened…” Basalt muttered.     “Good idea, I’m going to help Ethyl now.”     “Hmm?”     “You need electricity to live right, you said you knew how to make some?”     “Ah, yes… I require my copper wire and iron samples please.” It took several hours, but the alternator, as Ethyl called it, was complete. Not too long afterward she had roughly pounded some plates of aluminum into big blades and mounted them to the iron rod in the middle of the alternator, and all she needed now was to get the thing up high in the wind. Together, Ethyl and Petro climbed to the top of the old ruined building and started erecting a steel tower to get the device even higher. From the top of the ruin, she could see into the village. The building was only three floors tall, shorter than some of the other buildings, but even from here she could observe the comings and goings of ponies, even in her self-exile with Basalt. Early in the morning, as Ethyl was running copper wires down from the alternator, Basalt walked up, “Hey, Petro.”     “Hey, Bas.”     “Anything interesting going on down there?”     “Not really, looks like they still haven’t chosen a new Chief though, none of the guards who have entered the Chief’s building have come back out yet.”     “I really fucked up…” There was a pause, then Petro spoke, “You did, but don’t feel bad about it, Chief was always an ass to me, I expected some shit like this to go down someday.”     “I know, I know…”     “Chief deserved it, plus, he was ancient, old fuck was going to die anyway… I just…”     “It isn’t the fact that he’s dead, Petro… I never liked him either, very few ponies did… But, he was our leader… And…”     “And you were the one to kill him.”     “Y-Yes, I just… I wish that Ethyl, or Oak, or even you could have been the one to end him, not me, I just… I can still feel him wigging beneath my hooves, I can feel his blood all over my legs, I-” Petro sighed, “I understand, I think… Let’s just, check and see how Ethyl is doing.”     “Y-Yeah, ok.” The two stood and turned, Ethylene had been fitting the last of the wires to the wind turbine, it was spinning quite fast in the air. The air that they probably shouldn’t have been breathing, Petro realized. Ethyl climbed down from the turbine, carrying the wires with her horn, “I will need to run these down into the hut, I would not want to spend time recharging at the top of this building.”     “Ok, need any help?”     “Not particularly.”     “We’ll just, follow you then.”     “Understood.” Petro and Basalt watched as Ethylene dragged the pile of copper wire with her down into the building and into their hut, finally sitting down. “Now what?” Basalt asked. Ethylene did not respond at first, instead, a plate of plastic slid off her back revealing a pair of holes in Ethylene.     “I will simply plant the correct wire into the correct sockets, the turbine does not generate enough power to keep me running while active, but I can temporarily go into sleep-mode to recharge.”     “Don’t know what that means but ok.”     “Ensure that the wires are not broken, that the turbine remains functional, and that I am safe while recharging, this will take an estimated time of two days.” With that, Ethylene went quiet, her eyes going dark, her body going limp, with the only sign of life in the machine pony being a single blinking light on the side of her head.     “I think Ethyl’s got the right idea,” Basalt replied, and laid down on the ground himself, he clearly couldn’t sleep, but Petro ignored that, letting him just lie.     “I’m going to go get some food, see you both later…” She said, somberly, as she walked off toward the village. As she was walking to the gate, she stared up into the sky, there was a small break in the clouds, and she thought that, for a small moment, she saw something move between them.