//------------------------------// // Ch - 4 - new cages // Story: A Fatal Error Has Occurred // by Orderly Disassembly //------------------------------// “What in Tartarus is this mess?” The voice of a stallion cut through the ambient sounds of suffering that drifted through the halls of Tartarus.  The sharp beginnings of each word told of shock, the tone suggested confusion, and the faint warbling buried in his voice tore away the lie of courage to reveal his fear. “Come in, come in, to my web of lies.” I stepped through the maze of red lines to grasp the bars “So said the spider to the flies.” The pony grimaced at my form: a human skeleton barely taller than him, covered by a frayed white jacket, a pair of tattered black shorts, and a glowing red scarf.  Strings pervaded every joint in my body and formed webs of red lines between my ribs.  He flinched when he met my gaze, but still managed to glare into my eyes: one of red and one of blue.  One to see the lies, the other to see the truth. The ‘brave’ stallion called out an order. “Clean up your mess and we’ll get this transfer over with.” His brows twitched and the muscles deep in his chest quivered, but his eyes were sturdy. You hide your fear well, guardsman. It took me but a moment to erase all of the strings in my cell.  A simple kill command and something was reduced to nothing. Too bad that it only worked on loose code like my strings or active spells. The guard jumped at the sight of my wires disappearing but quickly recovered as a wagon cage rolled into view.  The backend of the thing was as large as my entire cell door and the bars were woven into a netting tight enough to resemble a mesh of wire rather than a steel cage.  However, the fact that the metal stood all on its own and the thickness of the bars dismissed such theories. “Do not try anything, prisoner. We have-” “Over a hundred guards right next to you, two hundred around the corner, and almost a thousand on standby along with the general magic numbing qualities of the prison. Yes, I know, no need to waste time parroting basic protocol to me.” The guard cringed before scowling at me. “How did you know?”  My smile widened at his suddenly hoarse voice. “The guard is not incorruptible, friend.” Of course, I actually learned that little tidbit when one of the guards got too close to my cell’s edge one day.  He was quite unobservant so my strings managed to drag a lot out of him before I had to break contact. That didn’t stop my new friend’s eye from twitching and his tail from swishing.  Anxiety, sweet sweet anxiety, oh how I missed you. The pony tapped the side of the wagon as its rear lined up with my cage.  The entire opening was sealed as the bars of my cage faded from existence.  A few steps left me on the flattened door-turned-ramp.  I stared into the confined space. Less freedom now for more later. Less now and more later… right? My smile only slightly dimmed as I got into the mobile metallic box.  The floor bounced as we went, the bars swayed millimeters one way or the other, and the axle beneath rumbled.  The sounds of dozens of hooves accompanied the droning roar of the wagon, but in my head I heard only static.  The fuzzy dead noise crackled in my skull as the bars began to widen and descend. I didn’t bother to look through the cracks of my new prison to see what lay in the halls.  I was too busy staring into a jumble of my strings, trying to ignore the walls closing in.  My breathing quickened as my cage slowed to make a turn. The bars were getting closer. The air was getting thicker. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t- My captor’s voice cut through my growing panic. “The big bad skeleton is afraid of tight spaces? What’s next? Ya scared of the dark, too?” I could hear the smug smile on his face and feel his satisfaction pollute the air.  I hated it.  With a flick of the wrist, a string shot from the confines of the wagon to lash the stallion’s nose.  The glowing string brought back a drop of blood with it. “Keep your strings to yourself prisoner, or I’ll have them removed, permanently!” My smile grew back to its normal size. “Then keep your comments to yourself, Bulwark.” My cage jolted to a halt and the countless pairs of hoofsteps ceased. “What did you just call me?” Malice oozed from his words like blood from a mortal wound so I smiled and smiled.  I drank in the hate, the apprehension, the fear.  Then I twisted the strings that I had strung within me to shift my voice to something more familiar to him. “Oh, nothing Bulky, nothing at all.” The perfect rendition of his wife drew a squeak from the guard. “W-what the buck i-is wrong with y-you.” “Everything and nothing.” The procession started forth once more and a whole seven minutes passed before the idiot gathered his courage for one final attempt. “You will rot in your cage forever, freak.” I neither frowned nor scowled.  How could I hate something so delightfully ignorant?  Instead, I simply laughed.  I laughed at how small and weak this fool really was. “Yes, little Bulwark, I will rot and you will not.” The strings in my shoulders pulled taught as I punched the side of the wagon, denting the metal. “Just remember that the only thing between you-” Another slam to follow the first. “-and me-” Another punch rattled the cage as I heard the entire regiment begin to form up. “-is a flimsy little cell wall.”  I punctuated my statement with a kick that bent one of the bars outward before sitting back down.  The guards outside were in a frenzy of clacking hooves, clinking armor, and angry scolding whispers. I began humming to myself and the guards were more than happy to leave me to my music. All over a little fun, it’s not like the dead care if you disrespect them. The wagon wheels glided over the smooth floor of the walkway but the axle still rumbled under the weight of my cage.  Several minutes passed as we traveled before the thick blanket of tension began to fade.  Bulwark cleared his throat. Does this one just not learn? “Why are you like this? Cruel I mean. The rest of the monsters down here have some reason for it. For some it's ambition, for others it's a philosophy, and some do it because of instinct. Why do you hurt others?” “I’m an artist.” It took a few moments for a response to come. “So, what does that have to do with hurting others?” My smile widened as I chuckled. “I am an artist that uses no brush, owns no paint, and has no canvas.” I stood up before walking to the edge of the rolling wagon prison.  I stuck my hand through an opening in the bars to grip the metal and leaned against the vibrating wall. When the silence began to cause discomfort, I continued. “Yet I must paint, yet I must draw, yet I must show everyone something new. After twenty years of putzing around my cell, I had an idea.” I squeezed my bars as I brought an eyesocket to the opening. “If I couldn’t show people new pieces of art, then why not make them the art?”  I caught a glimpse of a guard that walked along the wagon, one of dozens I’m sure. “As an artist, it is my duty to change the world around me, to make something new, something beautiful.” I dragged a finger down the bar to let the metal sing its hatred for those who forged it. “And given the amount of ugliness surrounding me, I have a lot of work to do.” The air was once more ruled by the clopping of hooves and the rumble of an old wagon.  Although this time, the static wasn’t broken.  We arrived at my new cell in what felt like hours. How long it really took, I’ll never know. The wagon rotated in place and I felt the platform beneath me shift as the wagon was presumably pressed against the entrance of my new prison.  I heard something huge shift with a thunderous metallic groan.  A moment later, the back of my cage fell down. The room beyond was massive and I scanned the barren gray rock with wonder.   The floor was made of a gray stone that was smooth as warm butter.  Giant spikes that reached the ceiling made up the walls.  For a moment I thought that I’d found a way out. However, a short examination revealed, to my disappointment, that the spikes came together like chiseled stone blocks used in castle walls.  The black cage in the middle completed the aesthetic.  I turned around to thank the guards for the entertainment but only found a solid rock wall where the entrance once was. With a shrug, I began sewing a tapestry-like web in the top half of my prison.  Cables appeared from nothing to wrap around the tips of the spikes near the ceiling.  Red lines crisscrossed through the air, weaving an ever-tightening pattern.  After a few minutes of work, I grabbed a string that pulled me up into the maelstrom of wire. My fingers were alive with power, my eyes were abuzz with energy, and my soul pulsed to the same rhythm as my strings. My mind felt fuzzy as I felt my senses expand beyond myself and sink into the strings.  I could see, touch, hear, and feel from so many different angles with my cables, like a spider with its webs but so much more. I was ripped from my reverie by the dying screams of sturdy rock and my inquisitive gaze found a hole opening in the walls of my prison.  The stone fell away to reveal a pair of alicorns. I hooked my legs onto a tangle of strings before swinging my torso downwards. I saw the world upside down as I began. “Greetings Celestia, Queen of Fire. Greetings Luna, Guardian Moon.” Celestia radiated serenity like the morning sun, Luna polluted the air with a smog of her gloom, and both suffocated within my smiling void. Celestia’s voice held a trace of iron behind it but her poker face held “Neither of us appreciate your escape attempt, care to explain?” I tilted my head and my grin deepened. “An idiot spouted nonsense, I showed him the actuality of the situation, is the education of others not a moral endeavor?” Celestia set her jaw and Luna scowled. Luna's patience failed first. “Why must you insist on aggravating us, foul creature? Have we not shown you mercy, should you not be groveling for the kindness we have shown?” Her scowl, her shouting, her condescension, it was a delicious combination of negative traits that made me shiver with joy and revulsion.  My grin deepened further as I tilted my head. The edges of my mouth were starting to hurt and I couldn’t help but chuckle, then laugh, then cackle as I felt my own mind swirling with barely bound rage.  My own flaws, my own shortcomings, my own hate tasted sweeter and more bitter at the same time.  I loved and hated, accepted and rejected, understood it and was confused by it.  My head began to ache as my hate and admiration mixed to the point where I couldn’t tell one from another. It took several moments to realize that my gaze had turned towards the floor and a couple more before I returned it to the pair of fidgeting alicorns.  Luna had maintained her scowl as Celestia’s face had descended into a frown.  However, the lines on their muzzles and their slightly crouched stances spoke of their cautiousness. “Enough nonsense.” The return of my voice seemed to calm the princesses slightly as they straightened again. So I continued. “After all, we do have a few things to discuss.” They both shifted in place as my laughter started up again and their grimaces only made me cackle harder. They scowled so I smiled. Oh, how I smiled, how I smiled.