//------------------------------//
// Skedaddle: Part 2 
// Story: Dawn Adopted 
// by Idyll 
//------------------------------//

Luster wandered the streets of Kludgetown under a dark cloak that was comically oversized for a filly.

Her 'work experience' lent her to identify the fabric as silk, and coupled with the stitch work around the hood, it must’ve been expensive. 

Most of the hood had to be creased behind her neck to prevent it from shrouding her sight, but she also had to be aware of the physical tension that caused, for if there were to be a sudden gust, and it were to reveal her mane, her colors weren’t exactly the most discrete. 

And the potion she swallowed was only so strong; though her leg no longer throbbed waves of pain, it was far from a point where she’d be able to run on all fours. It might have been a city of bystanders, but her bounty was easy money.
 
She specifically avoided the streets near this morning’s fire, still covered in layers of ash because no creature could be bothered to clean a public area by their own good will. 

Who could blame them? Kludgetown had an aura of misery. Most of its inhabitants, with exceptions like a certain Pegasus pony, were driven here by compounding misfortunes—the deceased Storm King’s ransack of Abyssinia—or were born here, and raised in its vices. 

Underground kingpins needed a place to centralize, free from the reaches of Canterlot and (rebuilt) Panthera, so they chose here; they ran the Government, and they had no intentions to ever change.
 
Even far from the incident, gossip of the filly arsonist held every conversation. Luster survived till midday by sitting alone in the comfort of shadows; the cloak blended perfectly with the dark, and the fact it was too large became a blessing, because when she sat still she looked like just another discarded rag next to the dumpsters.
 
It was swampy underneath, humid by her own breath. Hard to breathe, but she could tolerate it; all she had to do is make it through today. She had dreamed of what thrived beyond the city’s walls: a land of harmony, roamed by ponykind, where true friendship never ends.

But she couldn’t stay under that cloak forever, for her hunger rebounded with vengeance. Her body had sweat itself dry, and her stomach felt like a balloon of searing acid. The smell of garbage didn’t help the nausea, and lightheadedness denied her mind the ability to distract itself. 

There were food stalls nearby. Luster knew it was a shortsighted decision, but all she had that day was orange juice, and her body didn’t pack much in reserves. 

She stood up, nearly falling over as her body staggered side to side on wobbly legs. A sharp zap of pain swept her body as she accidentally pressed her injury onto the ground, which drew a wince and teary eyes, but finally—she stood still, and, hood down, she looked for signs of anything edible.
 
Contrast to the atmosphere, the street’s offerings were vibrant and varied; an eclectic assortment of items you’d struggle to find elsewhere. But for every vivid fruit was a caged critter, and for every caged critter was their friend’s carcass, chopped up into parts for display and sale.
 
Luster didn’t want to know where those hollowed horns came from, or those bright coats.
 
It was past rush-hour, but the area was dense, so most of the stalls had at least a few creatures in line. Wanting to attract as little attention as possible for a cloaked filly, she chose an empty sandwich place. 

A young colt ran the counter, Earth pony, yellowish-beige coat, orangish mane, nowhere near as orange as Luster’s. His colors appeared desaturated, probably related to the fact he looked a bit—empty. He wore a stained white apron with many stitched up patches, and above him was a menu sign cataloging their sandwich options.
 
Luster dragged an empty stool from one of the two unattended tables, across the sand and in front of the counter intended for tall, two-legged Abyssinians. Climbing with a broken hoof was a challenge, but after tugging her cloak off the ground she made eye contact with the young cook.
 
“I’m Fry,” the colt said in a monotone voice. “May I take your order?”
 
“Yes, you may.” Luster replied in an eyebrow-raising deep voice, followed by a pause as she tried to read the menu with her limited self-taught literacy. “What can I get?”
 
The colt groaned. “How much d’you have?” and elaborated after a huh: “Storm bucks?”
 
The filly had never bought anything before, so the fact she needed money had slipped her mind. “Oh, umm—I don’t have much on me but pleaseyougottahavesomethingIcanhaveforfree!” Pleading eyes weren’t visible under droopy hoods, but the colt, perhaps feeling a twinge of pity, rummaged under the counter to pull out a half-eaten sandwich—with the fish head still intact.
 
“B-but you’re a pony!” Luster said, confused.
 
“It’s Kludgetown. You sorta needa make that stuff to get by, also it's a freebie, remember.” he shrugged. “You want it or not?”
 
Luster sighed. “Sure. Thanks.”
 
Feeling slightly comforted by the presence of another foal, Luster didn’t move from the counter, and instead pushed the chair to the left so she could eat her meal facing the wall. Fry just rolled his eyes; he didn’t seem to care.
 
It was marked by a pungent fishy smell, that to her nose was spoiled. How could it not be? It was a dead animal!

Pressured by the feeling of some colt watching, Luster used the fabric of the cloak like protection to knock the fish head off the sandwich, which now just left two pungent, dead-juice filled, soggy bread pieces. Holding her breath, she started to bite the crusts of her lunch. 

This is the last gross meal you’ll ever have, Luster reassured herself. Outside is filled with plants and biscuits and orange juice and stuff! You just have to get through this one day.

“Do you have any free drinks?” the filly asked. The colt exhaled a deep sigh, and slid her a chipped opaque glass of tap water.

Slowly but surely, Luster ate—half—the half sandwich, at least the driest parts of the bread. As she mustered courage to finish the rest of her meal—even though disgust killed her dire appetite—the filly heard the sound of metal being unsheathed—followed by slithering sound which got closer, and louder, and scarier—
 
Slam!
 
Luster only narrowly missed her demise, jumping just in time to watch some kind of Y-shaped pony grabber crush the counter once behind her. With a flash of light and thundering zap, electricity flowed through the device’s metal—for a second, long enough to paralyze whatever was between its prongs’ clutches. 

It was wielded by a different bounty hunter, whose face was that of a cobra’s and whose limbs were moderately muscular. The counter was split into two, both ends raised, and the weapon was wedged between.
 
She had to get out of there.
 
The filly ran on three healthy legs, not even bothering to keep her hood down. Her mind could only dread. One wrong turn, one wrong dead end, and it’ll be her meat used for some feline’s sandwich. 

Hope seemed to present itself, and for a moment she thought she might’ve lost the hunter, but the sounds of disgruntled creatures hitting the ground shattered the delusion. Breathlessness squeezed her lungs. Sweat drenched her cloak. She entered a network of alleyways.
 
Knocking things over to slow down the chaser would have been easier if her cloak didn’t get stumbled on by her hooves, but even then, lines of trash and crates hardly seemed to slow him down.
 
Each alley was tighter than the last.
 
The cobra turned a corner. It was a dead end, barricaded by a barbed fence. Luster was no longer in sight. 

The young arsonist had caused tens of thousands in damages; not even every part of her body could fetch for a hundredth of the cost of repairs, but it just about covered the contract. Her freedom would invite further disaster. Justice had to be served.
 
The cobra crept behind a pillar of boxes, hissed, and smirked. It was almost pitiful how easy Luster was to sniff out.
 
Slam! Two prongs struck the base of a wall—in front of a hole. If the wind hadn’t blown sand into the cobra’s eyes, Luster wouldn’t have been able to leap out before the device lit up and sparked.
 
Luster fell forwards in-front of a dead end, her crown cold with blood, but in the hollowed-out shadows of the diamond-patterned barrier—laid a tunnel of light.
 
A hole in the fence! No time to get up!
 
Luster leaped forwards, and kicked as forcefully as her muscles would allow. The pain of hot wires tearing her scalp barely registered; all that did was the thud of her heartbeat drumming her temples.
 
The filly’s head scraped through, and her back. Luster was so close, only for her final push to be dealt with an equal and opposite tug. Hastily, she pulled her hooves through the neck hole of the cloak to take it off, but that wasn’t the only thing trapped under the webbed-foot of the cobra.
 
Her tail was pinned.
 
She screamed and thrashed with wet eyes, but was slid back between those two readying prongs—to be shocked, subdued, and dragged to whatever fate had in store. The high-pitched sound of the device readying its charge surrounded both her ears.
 
Luster closed her eyes, braced herself, and stuttered out: “Please…”
 
Zap!

Lightning struck. Luster felt—fine.
 
Instead, it was the hunter that was covered in branching burns. He laid on the floor, the nearby ground covered in a web of scorch marks.
 
Finally—relief.
 
Luster breathed in and out, in and out, in—and—out. You’re safe, Luster. You’re safe. She sighed, and laid on her back over the ripped up remains of silk.
 
I didn’t know clouds could—
 
Luster’s mouth was covered by a foreign hoof. The other three covered her legs and pulled her off the ground.
 
The filly flailed in whoever’s grip this was, dropped her weight, bit, hammered her head back against their chest, stabbed her horn into their neck, and, though muffled, tried to scream. The foalnapper’s four hooves were barely able to subdue the three-legged filly. They hit a wall, squatted, revealed their wings, and leaped off the ground.
 
Dashing head-first through a window, the foalnapper flunked their landing, instead drifting their sides across the stone floor. It gave Luster the opportunity to escape and—
 
“Cozy?” Luster asked, as if there were any doubts. “But you—”
 
“You!” Cozy shouted as she got up. “What in Tartarus possessed you to do any of that?! That cloak was a birthday gift, and costs more than everything you’ve ever made in your entire life—put together! And after those rescues, potions, orange-juice, biscuits, and offers I’ve given you, you not only caused me trouble, but you brought disaster to that poor little colt’s burger stand!”
 
“But, that creature at the door—”
 
“Oh, him?” Cozy pointed at a tied-up bounty hunter with an apple in his mouth. “You think I just float through life, don’t you? Can you even count the number of zeroes my bounty has? We’re not even talking storm bucks, we’re talking bits—offered by the Crystal Empire! I can handle trouble, but I don’t know why I even bothered to come back for you! Hmph!” She turned her head, inadvertently revealing red spots caused by Luster’s prodding. 
 
“Well, you didn’t have to drag me like that!” Luster retorted.
 
“Oh, I’m sorry, I should’ve explained myself in an alleyway filled with lowlifes, just for you to run off again, or take forever like you did with that potion!” Cozy said, sarcastically. “You really don’t have anything else to say?”
 
“...Sorry.” Luster apologized. Though she felt her actions were justified, Cozy did save her, and: “You’re still taking me with you, right?”
 
Cozy pinched her ridge with her wing. “When I wanted Twilight Sparkles and her friends to go to Tartarus, I worked my flank off for months! When you want me to carry you across a desert… Yes, but the condition still stands.”
 
Luster tilted her head, confused.
 
Cozy sighed. “Bathtub. Now!” She tapped the back of the filly’s head to rush her, and peeked under her wings, reckoning she might need a rinse too.
 
Without the bright candles, soaps and décor that embellished it before, the bathroom looked empty. The only non-wall-colored object left was that purple hardcover book with the hexagram and horseshoe printed on it. Even the potted plant Luster used to climb up the window was gone! Where did Cozy even pack everything?
 
Her musing of the important question was cut short by a blast—of water!
 
Cozy held the shower head in her mouth, and turned both dials to maximum—pointed at the filthy filly. She gave no explicit warning, and had no remorse targeting her face. With no magic or special friends to save her, Luster fell to her knees.
 
The shower head was dropped and left running in the bathtub.
 
“Jeez, Lustie, look at the floor! It’s like a puddle of mud!” Cozy remarked. But Luster couldn’t look, as the remorseless monster squeezed several bottles of shampoo, coat wash, and conditioner, all at once, onto the drenched filly’s mane, back, and tail, until she looked more like a camel than a pony. If she had followed the mare’s instructions, her eyes would’ve been burnt by soap. These were the mind games they talked about.
 
As Luster was lifted into the bath, she asked: “Can I have some biscuits?”
 
“Fine, but you better start scrubbing or you’ll be left here—forever!” Cozy left.
 
Splashing water onto her face, Luster wiped her brow and blinked open her eyes. The book from before was right beside her. She assumed Cozy didn’t care if it got a tad bit wet, and flipped through its contents. Its pages detailed Cozy’s various defeats—all vandalized by highlights, ‘corrections’, and crude scribbles, with such maturity as giving the heroes potbellies, angry eyebrows, and marking out the ‘lurry He” in Princess Flurry Heart’s name, in—every—single—page! Even though the technical quality of the scribbles was actually pretty impressive, Luster’s face held a constant expression of an unimpressed ‘really?’ This was the first time she’d read about the stories that passed from beak to muzzle around her old dorm, but if she had to read another Cozy-written paragraph ‘proving’ Twilight’s hypocrisy, her eyes would probably roll out of her sockets.
 
Thump!
 
Luster turned and saw the cobra bounty hunter lying on the floor, initially groaning as if they had too much to drink, and stepping over their bodies was—who else—Cozy Glow who now wore a satchel over her back, and held a compact jet injector at the tip of one wing—a device used by nurses to inject patients without a needle. 

There was also a loaded tray on her back, which she placed on a counter. Between biscuits and a carton of orange juice was the same healing potion Luster drank before. She poured out the dark-blue liquid contents from the injector’s tank into the toilet, flushed it, and refilled it with healing potion—capping it, shaking it, and jabbing it into Luster’s shoulder.
 
“Ouch!” Luster rubbed the injection site.
 
“Pretty cool gadget, huh?” Cozy boasted. “When you can’t do spells, you need other ways to defend yourself. Kludgetown is full of these sorts of trinkets—if you have the bucks and know-how to find them.”
 
Luster stayed silent, simply stuffing her mouth with as many biscuits as her (now clean) hooves would allow.
 
As Luster washed her throat with orange juice, directly from the carton, Cozy explained: “They only tracked you here because you stink! Behind the ears!”
 
Luster groaned but complied, and was rewarded by another cruel blast of water.
 
Cozy wrapped two towels around her: one for her mane and one for her torso. She giggled: “Golly, cheer up! You’re about to leave this crumby place! Isn’t that what most foals here dream of? We’re not leaving till you smile—come on! Take long enough and they might wake up.”
 
Hooves crossed, the filly’s face was unchanged, but as she thought of what Cozy said, it dawned: I really am getting out of here… I did it… She smiled, and started to giggle along at the harmless prank.
 
“There it is!” Cozy said, ruffling the towel over Luster’s mane before dropping it to the floor. It wasn’t dry, but the wind should sort that out quickly.
 
Groans sounded from the two bounty hunters lying on the floor.
 
“Ready to get out of here?” Cozy asked. Luster nodded with a gleam. The mare bit the purple book Luster read, charged her neck muscles, and tossed it through the glass paneled window. She stepped on the edge not poking with glass, and, with a wing grabbing the hinged window above, leaned forwards to survey the area.
 
Luster was jogging in place like the floor was lava, unable to contain her excitement as she slid down the bathtub—on her hooves to avoid glass—and climbed up Cozy’s ribboned tail onto her back. A hoof around the mare’s neck, Luster tried to peek forwards too, but was halted once Cozy jumped back onto the bathroom tiles. She stood still, worried and rapt in thought, and the uncertainty of what was happening spread to Luster’s face as well.
 
“Is everything ok?” Luster gulped.
 
“If I fly us out now, you’ll vomit all over my mane.” Cozy explained.
 
“No, I—” Luster held her own burp. “Won’t…”
 
“You’ve hardly flown, and you’ve eaten a whole packet of biscuits in a single sitting! I will not risk it!” Cozy jumped to the floor. 

“Why are you doing this?” Luster asked, looking at the floor.
 
“Doing what?” Cozy replied.
 
“Saving me? Helping me? Letting me escape? This seems a bit like…” Luster had to calm herself to finish. “Like a trick.”
 
“You owe me a n cloak, and a cushion, and—golly, they’ll never give me back my deposit!” Cozy joked. “But actually, didn’t I already tell you? You seemed special, and I couldn’t bear to see that get wasted because the creatures here are blind! There’s nothing better than being proven right, but if you really don’t trust me then—fine! I’ll drop you by an orphanage once we get there. Just, promise you’ll try to keep this a secret.”

 “How many spells do you know?” Cozy asked.
 
“I think about Three. I can make things fly, I can change the colors of clothes, and—.”
 
“Oh golly, Lustie, magic has no limits on the things it can do!” Cozy said. “But I can show you examples some other time. Have you thought of anything you wanted to do here yet?”  
 
There was one thing Luster wanted to do, and it was something that sat at the back of her mind ever since it became more likely than not that she’d escape—but it was a big request, and she wasn’t sure Cozy was capable of it. She was only a pegasus pony after all, and only made a name for herself by befriending other villains—and still got defeated every single time.
 
Cozy did seem to have an arsenal of enchanted items in that bag of hers, and tales claimed she infiltrated the forbidden wing of Canterlot’s library prior to her second and most infamous conquest attempt. At the time she was Tartarus’ youngest prisoner, so for her to succeed in that step either meant she was very sneaky, or ponies were very dumb. Considering she was accompanied by those other two, it’s probably the latter. Still, she must’ve had some skill.
 
Then again, she did try to drain all of the magic from Equestria. That seemed pretty short-sighted. How would the day-and-night cycle or weather function without magic? If she had succeeded, it probably would have caused a new generation of ponies to grow up in a world without magic! Good thing Twilight Sparkles was there to stop her, or least teach a group of students that did.
 
It’s too risky, Luster decided.
 
“No. Can’t think of anything.” Luster replied.
 
Cozy stared at her blankly, and giggled: “Are you trying to lie to the Cozy Glow? That’s adorable! Seriously, just tell me! I’ve already packed all my stuff and I’m bored. Also, remember who’s on the bathroom floor! I don't have the element of surprise anymore.”
 
“Well… you probably can’t do this, but there is one thing I’d like…” Luster breathed in. “You think you could do something about that factory I was in?”
 
Cozy didn’t respond, which prompted Luster to elaborate: “I feel bad about the other foals. What if they punish them for what I did?”
 
“Does it matter? You’re out!” Cozy smiled attempting to comfort the filly. “You’ll make new friends, and you’ll probably never see them again anyways!”
 
“But… it feels weird that I was the only one to escape.”
 
“That’s called ‘survivor’s guilt’, Lustie, and it’s completely irrational! Nopony would blame you for escaping that terrible place, and if those ‘friends’ you had back there did—well, I wouldn’t consider them friends at all!”
 
Cozy’s arguments—presented with a smile—did not deter Luster’s conscience, and it pounded her mind to the point of mild tears, worsened by the mare’s use of the word: ‘survivor.’
 
What if they don’t survive, Luster thought. What if it’s because of me?
 
“Come on Lustie, don’t let it get to you!” Cozy tried to hug her, but the filly pushed off any attempts.
 
Why do ponies care so much about these sorts of things, Cozy asked herself. She flew towards the window to peek back-and-forth between the half-black site of this morning’s fire, and Luster, whose head laid depressingly on the couch.
 
Cozy inhaled through her nostrils. “Today’s Tuesday, right?”
 
Luster turned her head, a bit confused, but nodded. “Yeah”
 
Cozy sighed. “You better be grateful for this.”