I awoke to the sound of wheels moving on railroad tracks.
I shot up in panic and fear and tried to look around, but the sudden movement was too much for my left side to handle. It felt as if somepony suddenly rammed something into my flank. Oh, wait, that actually happened. Twice.
“Agh!” I couldn’t help but shriek. I suddenly jerked my head to one side to look at my flank, but that was also too much for my weakened body to handle. I suffered another spear of pain as a consequence of moving too quickly.
“Erggh!”
“Hey! Quiet in there, dammit!” Said a pony that sounded as if he were a few meters away. A sharp stick of some sort prodded my side. “You don’t want the other side of your ass skewered, do you?
I gently lay down on the hay I found myself in. As I regained consciousness, I was actually able to tell what was going on. I was now enslaved, in a metal cage on train car. Crocodile must have contacted someone and sold me to some slave-drivers, if I remember correctly. I wasn’t sure where I was, where my stuff was, or where this train was headed.
The train car was rather dark and didn’t allow much light in. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I wasn’t the only one in the train car. I witnessed many malnourished, filthy, and some wounded ponies sleeping, and another on the other side of the car losing her apples, looking around as if she was surrounded by ghosts on all sides.
I relaxed back in the cage to get a hold of the situation and study the car. The cage itself was pretty old and a little rusty, as with the lock. I didn’t have anything with me to break the lock, so escaping would prove rather difficult. The stallion with the stick, who I have assumed to be a guard, was walking up and down the aisles of cages, looking for somepony to criticize. The car occasionally jerked on the tracks, jolting me upwards, and caused me slight pain.
“Whatcha doin’?”
A voice in the cage next to me caught me off-guard. She was a small, pale green mare with a messy forest green mane and tail. Her mane went past her eyes a little. Her voice was astonishingly upbeat, considering both of us were in slave cages. She was also the only pony that remained calm, and for that matter, optimistic. Even the sleeping ponies looked panicked, tossing and turning as if in the midst of a horrible dream.
“Where did you—“ I started. But I interjected myself to answer sarcastically instead. “What do you think I’m doing?”
“Well, no need to be rude.” Her upbeat tone stayed in her voice, but her curious smile turned into a bit of a frown.
“I’m sorry, it’s just,” I hesitated for a moment and then continued. “I’ve been through so much today.”
“Oh I know whatcha mean!” She smiled with glee once again, tapping her chin. “This one time, I put myself in a cave waiting for somepony for foreeeeeeveeeeer.”
“Wait, what? Who were you waiting for?” She was in a cave, waiting for somepony?
“I survived off of candy and meat and candy... I survived off of food, some other kind of foooood....” As she was reminiscing about her “bad time” the train car jerked and derailed both of our trains of thought (as if the green mare even had one).
“Wait, hold on, waiting for who?” I asked again.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter.” She said when she snapped out of it. “Hey, do you want to get out of here? Or do you want to stay? It’s your choice, I mean the hay is pretty comfortable.”
This mare has completely lost it. She’s jumping from one extreme to the other far too quickly. How the hell does she plan on getting us out?
“What? How the hell do you plan on getting us out?” I questioned, reflecting my thoughts while I looked at the lock on the cage. When I looked back at the mare, she was examining boots that were fitted on her foreleg.
“Oh, you want to get out? If you say so...” She lifted her boots high into the air. “Anyways, I’ve got these.”
“Um. Those are boots.”
“Not just any boots, these are special boots.” She was shoving them through the cage bars to show me, a little too close to my face. I gently pushed them out of the little personal space I had.
“How are they special?” I asked, rolling my eyes at the eccentric mare.
“You really need to have an open mind.” She said, waving one foreleg boot in the air. She watched the guard intently, and waited until he turned around. Suddenly, she stomped one hoof on the floor of the cage. Three claws shot out of the boot, transforming the boot into a deadly gauntlet. I watched as she shoved the gauntlet through the padlock on the cage, severing it perfectly from its place.
She threw open the cage door and darted out at unsurpassable speed down the aisle of cages towards the unsuspecting guard. He heard this ruckus, but it didn’t matter when the green mare jumped on his back and sunk her claws into his neck. He died a quick, silent death as the green earth pony helped him quietly to the floor. She picked something up off of him with her teeth, and it looked to be a gun. She trotted over to me with an unnatural pep in her step.
“Now let’s get you out of here, and let’s take this train.” Her claws went right through the lock on my cage this time, splitting it in two, and then falling to the floor. She opened the cage door and motioned for me to exit. “C’mon, ya pessimist, let’s get a move on!”
“Thanks, sorry I doubted—“ I tried to say as I climbed out.
“Oh now you’re nice!” She said, this time she rolled her eyes. “Let’s go, slowpoke!” She gave me the gun she picked up off the guard, which happened to be a pistol with a black tube thing on the end of it.
“Thanks.” I said, somewhat sheepishly. “Let’s go then!”
“Wait, what’s the rush?” The little green mare questioned.
“Well, you said that we should go as soon as possible, and you seemed rushed—“
“Oh no, I’m sure we have a minute.” The mare now seemed to have alternating personalities. One minute she’s goofy and upbeat, the next she’s stabbing somepony in the throat without breaking a sweat. “Why don’t we introduce ourselves?”
I facehoofed.
“My name’s Pounce Scratch.” She said, while she made the motion of moving her hidden gauntlet in a clawing motion. “But you can call me Pounce. Or Miss P. O. M. Y. Master... or Galactic Cupcake... Or Super Subatomic Panwaffle—”
“Pounce!” I said, snapping her out of it.
“Oh, right.” She said with a grin as she started towards the car door. “Pounce works just fine.”
“Don’t you want to know what my name is?” I couldn’t help to ask before we headed to the next train car. After all, we were introducing ourselves.
“Eenope. As a matter of fact, I’m just going to call you Blue, cuz you were all sad and stuff a minute ago. You’re also kinda a downer if you know what I mean. So it fits!” At this point, she was relaxing against one of the nearby slave cages, feeling clever and triumphant at her own remark.
I really wanted to choke this mare to death. But I thought about it for a second, and she was right. Sure, I was being a bit of a pessimist, but I think I have the right to be after last few days’ events. I had been beaten, stabbed, raped, and even took a gore shower.
I turned around and I saw the sad bunch of slaves that made up the whole boxcar. There was at least twelve other ponies in here, and nine of them were awake now. They looked at us with hopeful eyes. Even the psychotic mare in the back of the room (The one I had mentioned earlier) was attentive, even if one eye was twitching. “Get us out of here!” I heard one say.
Half of me wanted to smile while the other half wanted to cry. I wanted to grin; because I was meeting people who I could trust, and didn’t want to bash my head in with an aluminum bat. I was also happy for the reason that I was in a position to save possibly dozens of ponies’ lives. However, the grim part of me thought about what would’ve happened to these ponies—or to me for that matter—had I not have gotten stabbed by that bandit Crocodile. I would’ve just wandered the desert trying to find Canon.
“No worries, everypony, we’ll be back! We have something to take care of, first,” I said, as I let the better part of me give them an optimistic grin.
We opened the train car’s front door, which led to the car’s door in front of us. Then I saw the ground through the gap between the two boxcars.
We moved at an alarmingly dangerous speed in relative to the ground. I had never been on a train before, and for that matter have never moved at this speed before. I couldn’t help but vomit up whatever was left in my stomach. Seeing how fast the tracks were zipping into and out of side, as well as how fast the ground zipped my puke out of sight made me want to vomit once again.
“Woah, woah, you okay?” Pounce asked. For once, it seemed like she genuinely cared, but that good feeling changed when she continued: “Blue, you’re looking a little green!” She then laughed and cackled at her little pun.
Her constant optimism was kind of annoying, but at the same time it helped lift my spirits. I felt like I needed somepony to step in and make things a little fun, to kind of shake things up. After all, I couldn’t help but laugh, even if I was feeling rather nauseous. “No, I’m fine, just never been on a train before...”
“Well, hustle up, move it!” She took her weight off the cage and used her booted hoof to slap my rump, jolting me forward a bit, towards the door. “Mush! Time to get over your fears!”
“Argh!” I groaned. “I was stabbed there, remember?! That’s why there are bandages!” I was stabbed not exactly right where she hit, but just shy from it. Unfortunately, my whole rear end was throbbing from her little ‘push’. I proceeded to the next train car anyways, keeping my eyes fixed in front of me.
Before we actually went in the door of the next train car, Pounce Scratch insisted that she would go in first, being smaller and defter than I was. Before I could object, she threw open the door and darted in at unfathomable speed.
Through the opening of the door whenever Pounce entered, I could see that there was a guard in this car too, along with fourteen more cages. This car was a bit more difficult to clear, however. Firstly, the guard was a unicorn this time, and was levitating a more complex and powerful type of weapon, which looked to be an assault rifle (I have my basic gun knowledge from living next to the Arms Assembly Co. factory in Industead). Secondly, this guard was facing us, and he was on the other side of the car. I knew Pounce was a swift killer, but I wasn’t going to sit by when there was a chance that she would get filled with lead.
All of this was running through my mind in the half a second that Pounce went through the door, and I knew I didn’t have much time to act. At the start of her dash towards the guard, I used my own levitation to fight the guard stallion’s telekinetic grip on the rifle.
“What the—” Before he could finish his already cut-short sentence, Pounce had gotten to his neck, and down he went. Quietly, of course. It was ironic, though, seeing somepony that could pass off as annoying be such a silent killer.
“Thanks!” She said with a light, squeaky voice, and gave me a large grin.
----------
We cleared the next few cars this way, and the rest of the train didn’t hear or notice a single thing. After every car we cleared, Pounce was eager to go ahead to the next one while I took a few seconds to promise every one of the slaves that they shouldn’t be frightened, and that we’d be back for them in a little while. I longed for my gear, however.
“Uhh, Pounce? Do you happen to know where these guys put our belongings?”
“I have no idea.” She said in an inappropriately positive voice. “Maybe they threw them out!”
Fuck. I really hadn’t considered that. I didn’t have much, but it still kept me alive. Oh wait.
The journal.
“What’s wrong?” She asked in her optimistic tone.
“My stuff. I have something in my saddlebags that’s very important to me and a friend of mine. I can’t lose it, I really need my saddlebags.”
“Aww, does little Blue write about her special somepony in a diary?” She retorted, and I could hear some of the fillies in the cages giggling softly in the background.
“No! Listen, I’ve got an important piece of history in my saddlebags, and not having it in my immediate possession is starting to tick me off. I’ve had it ever since I was a filly, and it’s the most important thing I own-”
“Well if you really want your diary, it’s probably in the caboose of the train. If not, tough luck, I guess. The bandits must have got it. I didn’t bring anything with me, so I don’t have to worry about it.”
I felt like scolding her on her word choice, but it didn’t really matter. I turned around and headed for the caboose.
“Hey, woah, where you going?” She crooned.
“Going to get my ‘diary’,” I answered.
----------
The caboose.
It was a treasure trove of loot. It didn’t belong to me, though.
Stacked high to the roof of the car were crates, filled with saddlebags, medical supplies, weapons—you name it. The equipment and supplies once carried by all these slaves were stored here. I just needed to find my two saddlebags, laser cannon and spitfire strap. Everything else should have been in my saddlebags, including things such as my shotgun, journal, pistols, ammunition, money, and maps.
I began to get frustrated when I couldn’t find my belongings. After searching approximately four crates (There had to have been dozens), I began toppling over ones I already searched to get to the crates below them. I took a deep breath, and continued. After some more searching, I found my saddlebags, shotgun, Spitfire Strap, and laser cannon shoved carelessly into a crate.
I was a little annoyed, but glad I found my stuff. I was almost sure I had it all, but I double checked just to make sure. Combat knife, pistols, bits, map of a somewhat older Equestria... the journal wasn’t in this bag.
I checked the other one. Jewels, ammunition. Nada.
No journal.
I threw my saddlebags into the corner of the car and started sifting through the remainder of the boxes. Nothing.
The bandits must’ve kept it. Now that I think about it, the last thing I remember before ending up on the train car is Crocodile lingering over my saddlebags and telling somepony that I was up for offer. At least, that’s how I remember it.
Damn it! Why the hell would anypony even want something like that?! I don’t remember a time not having it with me, and now it's miles away, Goddess knows where, in the hooves of some bandit...
What would Crocodile want with it? When he said “something to show you” over the intercom, did he mean that he wanted to show the journal to a cohort of his? Why was that journal important to them, if that’s the case? So many questions, not enough answers.
I am going to get that journal back.
I had everything except for the journal, and I strapped everything in place as it should be. My saddlebags were organized properly, and I placed the shotgun in my Spitfire Vest, and telekinetically enveloped the special pistol that Pounce had given me. The weapon was odd, but it seemed better than the other ones I had. I suppose I would find out.
I made a point to clean things up a little bit, too. After those ponies are released, they’re probably going to want their belongings.
I felt a sudden hatred for the assholes driving this whole operation. The slavery, the raping, the killing.... I’ve seen too much, and it’s only been one day.
I swear to Celestia, I will eliminate every one of these bastards.
----------
“Well that was fast. What took ya so long?”
What?
“Ok, listen, this next train car is filled with guard ponies, I mean filled like the glass being half full, but it’s a completely full kind of filled—“
“Pounce! Get to the point!” She tended to go on and on without really getting the basic summary of things.
We were at the end of the last slave car, for eliminating the guards in them proved easy enough for Pounce while I was retrieving my things. This slave car was identical to the previous ones. There were roughly fourteen cages per car and maybe six or seven cars—leaving a plentitude of enslaved ponies.
“Okay. There is a big bunch of bad guys in the next car over, which looks to be the head car.” She peeped through the window installed into the door that led to the next car. “And it appears to be the head car!”
“Pounce, you’re—“ Before I could gather my array of thoughts into an organized manner, the sound of an explosion reverberated through the train, shaking my ribcage. Panic and astonishment surged through the slaves as well as I, but it seemed as though my green companion enjoyed it. I wondered many things after that, but only one thing came to mind:
What the hell was that?
I couldn’t hear the ponies in the head car, but I made out a few phrases such as “Bridge”, “Blew up”, and “Aww shit”.
Soon after, a teeth-grinding screech of metal-on-metal rang through my ears, and I couldn’t help but to duck and quickly smother my ears with my hooves. My sluggish mind finally put two and two together, and it came up with a conclusion.
The whole train was heading for a destroyed bridge.
I was not at all sure what to do next. This train was most likely headed for a gorge none of us would ever crawl out of. The train was moving far too quickly for Pounce and I to just be able to jump out of, without breaking something. And, even if we could, I’d rather not. There were too many lives on this train that needed saving.
Without thinking, I telekinetically threw open the door to the next train car and took out both of my slightly deteriorated pistols. Quickly scanning the environment, I made out a pony holding a shovel and standing next to a furnace in the far right corner. To the far left, a stallion was at some sort of old control panel and was overexerting himself, pulling on a lever installed on the floor toward him with such force it looked like it was going to break. That must have been the emergency brake, the thing generating the deafening screech. One armed guard stood next to the door, but I sent a bullet through the head of that one. Let’s just say he didn’t live long.
After giving a fraction of the wall a new paint job, I pointed my twin pistols at both of the remaining ponies. Their eyes widened and they begged for mercy, but I had no intent of killing them. I took a few steps into the car, keeping my weapon armed and ready toward them. Pounce Scratch followed close behind. As expected, I could not see through the front of the car. There were, however, windows on both the left and right sides.
“Pounce, keep these two secured while I check up on the situation through this window,” I said as I motioned towards the window on the right.
“Yes, sir!” She saluted. I was a little annoyed by ‘sir’, but I was beginning to get used to her silliness.
The sudden brightness of the area outside of the train disoriented me for a few seconds, but my eyes adjusted to the light rather quickly. We were still in a very barren and lonely part of the world, and the sand was very similar to what was outside of Industead’s fences. The sun emblazed and charred the landscape, preventing life from growing except for a few roasted shrubs that poked out of the sand. Past all of this, I looked ahead of the train and down the railroad tracks. The tracks gave way to a bridge—or, at least, what used to be a bridge—and would’ve extended over a colossal gorge.
We looked about three- or four- thousand feet from an enormous hole in the ground.
The emergency brake was hardly doing anything. It had to have been worn and weathered down with age.
“Pounce!” I shouted above the noise. “We need to get off this train! I don’t think we’re going to be able to save anypony!”
“What?!” She replied, and for the first time she actually looked worried, yet determined at the same time. “But we need to save these ponies! “They... Have lives to live!”
Part of me wants to just die with the rest of these ponies. Honestly, I should be, if it weren’t for Pounce. But really, there’s nothing that we can do. The train is headed straight for certain doom, and there’s no way to prevent the inevitable. I can’t save them all, but I can try and save as many as I can.
I stepped towards her and gave it a thought for a moment. “Pounce, I need you to go and find as many medical supplies in the back of the train as you can find. You know, bandages, potions, anything like that!”
“But—”
“Don’t question it, just do it! Go!” I commanded. She scurried to her feet and started running to the caboose.
I levitated out my combat knife and kept it safely in the air, and then turned to the two ponies that kept the train going. “How does it feel, knowing you not only enslaved around seven dozen ponies, and then, all of a sudden, they were going to be killed? You sicken me.” I took a second that I probably didn’t have to sigh. “Stay here or I will finish painting the walls when I get back!”
----------
Everything seemed to be going smoothly.
Crack!
One more pony rescued. I’ve been quickly scanning the cars while Pounce Scratch fetched supplies. I’m searching for the healthiest of the ponies and using my combat knife to break the lock on it, freeing them. The only way I can save any of them is by letting them go and jump off the train. By doing this, they may or may not injure themselves, but that’s what the medical supplies are for. Pounce and I will jump off the train once we’re ready, and we, too, will probably injure something. After we land, we’ll muster together and walk to Luna-knows where. It’s not a very good plan, but it’s all we have.
So far, I have only rescued about five healthy-looking individuals.
Crack!
Six.
Many of the ponies started to cry as I walked past, and all I could say was “Sorry, I couldn’t save you...” I don’t think I will ever forgive myself for this. It’s surprising how many ponies weren’t even in shape to be jumping anywhere at all. Some of them don’t even look as though they could walk.
An overstocked Pounce came barging through the rear exit of the current train car. “I did as you asked, O great one!” She said over a mound of two boxes full of goods she was carrying. It looked as though she took everything in the caboose with her. Pounce had everything from guns to bandages to old lunchboxes.
For the love of Celestia. I’ve never seen a pony carry so many things.
“What do I do with this stuff?”
“Pounce, you weren’t supposed to carry so many things! We’re jumping off the train!”
“Oh. Well, no biggie. I’ll just jump with it in my hooves. Seeya on the other side, pardner.” And with that, she leaped out of one of the side doors I left open for ponies I freed.
That girl is a nutcase.
After making sure I had everything with me and that I was ready to go, I looked back at the ponies that were held captive in the train car. “I’m... I’m sorry...” I said, quietly but meaningfully. I shed a single tear before leaping out after Pounce Scratch.