//------------------------------// // Call of the Wild V // Story: Midnight Rail // by daOtterGuy //------------------------------// “You hungry?” “...” “Wow, snippy, aren’tcha?” “...” “Hey, hey, no need to growl at me… Look. It's bread. Little stale, but still good. Isn’t probably what you’re used to, but— Hey! Watch the fingers.” Crunch. Crunch. “So, what’s your name, mongrel?” “...I’m not a mongrel.” “Not literally. But with your little tumble right there, you just went from the domestic bliss of a homestead to the feral wilds of the Stacks, and they sure as Tartarus didn’t treat you like a person when they made that choice.” “Could you piss off with the stupid dog analogies?” “Tell that to the Executives. They sure weighed your qualities like some kind of show animal and decided you didn’t measure up. What’s wrong with ya? ADHD? Mood swings? Physical—” “Shut up!” “So the last one. Well, based on how ya look, doesn’t seem to be anything that would save you from the worst in the factories. You might have bit off the heads of those Red Coats, but there’ll be more, so long as you got that collar on ya.” “... Can you get it off me?” “No.” “Then—!” “I can at least give ya somewhere to call home and maybe a few friends to show ya the ropes before you make a mistake you can’t reverse. Name’s Pipsqueak.” “...Scootaloo.” “Pleasure to meetcha even if it's not the best of circumstances. Mind if I call ya Scoots?” “Don’t call me that.” “Okay, Scoots. Let me give ya quick word of advice: what the Owners say goes and they don’t care for attitude. You’ll need to learn to fake some cheer or at least indifference.” “Owners?” “Oof, not a good start. They really don’t teach ya anything up there. Factory Owners. They run this place, and they’ll be your new employers soon enough.” “Can’t I work for you?” “You can… but the Red Coats’ll make ya join a Factory eventually whether you like it or not. Come on. Let’s get you settled, then we can get ya in an easy spot to start up your new career as a paid slave.” “You’re a dick.” “Well, I prefer to go by Pip, but whatever gets your butt movin’, Scoots. Now hurry up. I ain’t waiting on you all day.” “Come on, London. Talk to me,” Pipsqueak pleaded, a nervous grin on his face. His eye was fluttering closed from Scootaloo’s prior punch. “Let’s hash this out.” Scootaloo ignored him. She stomped through the winding alleys of the Burn Out, the mildewy scent of the HasGal Factories replaced by the burnt smell of the Smoke Stacks. The path was familiar and amplified her rage. When she’d asked for the location of the Trauma after clocking him in the face, Pipsqueak had just given her a sad smile in return. It was all she needed to know exactly where the Trauma was located and had served to make her even more furious than she already was. In her haze, she’d had enough sense to tell the rest of the team to follow after her before she set out toward their new destination. “We have nothing to talk about, ya stupid dumb moron,” Scootaloo retorted. “That’s kinda harsh,” Pipsqueak replied. “No, it’s not. This is.” She grabbed Pipsqueak by the collar and shoved her face into his. With as much venom as she could muster, she said, “I hope the Red Coats catch you and spit roast you on a spike over an incinerator so you can slowly burn alive.” She dropped him and continued on her way. Pipsqueak, after a moment, caught back up with her, an equally impressed and shocked look on his face. “Damn. That was harsh,” Pipsqueak remarked. “And if you don’t piss off, I’ll give you a second black eye,” Scootaloo retorted. “Whoa, not necessary!” Pipsqueak held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Look, I just wanna talk, okay? And get a chance to apologize.” She glared at him. He grinned back with his stupid, stupid face. “...Fine,” Scootaloo relented. “But we talk as we go.” “Okay, I can agree with that.” He ran a hand through his hair, making a bigger mess of it then it already was. “So first off, yes, I was working for One Big Leap before we met, but it wasn’t specifically for you… at first.”  “At first? What were you actually here for then?” “Leap predicted that one of the passengers for the Rail would appear in the Stacks, so she wanted me to scope out the place ahead of time.” “Then what? I came along and ya just knew that I was the passenger you were looking for?” Scootaloo asked. “You manifested,” Pip replied. “First day I found ya, you’d just fallen from the Dodge Junction Haven and turned into Instinct.” “So only passengers can turn into wolves?” “I mean, not all of’em turn into wolves, that’s just you.” Pipsqueak looked up, deep in thought. “Though, I don’t actually know what the others manifest as, so they could all be wolves for all I know. Point is, ya resonated with the Trauma here, so you can Manifest, and that means ya might be a passenger for the train.” They continued in silence for a moment. Scootaloo felt her thoughts entangle with questions as she tried to decide what she wanted to know next. Eventually, she settled on the most pressing. “...How’d I resonate with the Trauma?” Scootaloo asked. “Dunno.” Pipsqueak shrugged. “Ya’d have ta ask Leap about that.” Something to be mad about later, then. “What happened to the rest of the crew? Bauble, Jacks, and Flannel were still ‘round here when I left, but I didn’t see’em at HasGal.” “Took’em on as scouts and have’em checking out the other Traumas. Bauble is up in Manehattan, Jacks in Canterlot, and got Flannel tryin’ to get close to the cultists in Soladelphia as a ‘supplier’.” Pipsqueak grinned. If Scootaloo knew anything about how Pipsqueak worked, the supplies being supplied were nothing short of horribly illegal. “They were wasting their lives here in this Tartarus-damned place, so I thought I’d put them to better use.” “How’d you pay off their contracts?” “How’d you get out of the Stacks without gettin’ chased by the Red Coats cross borders?” Leap. “Who even is Leap?” “A lot.” “That’s not an answer.” “Cuz I ain’t given’ ya one.” Pipsqueak tapped the side of his nose. “Under a DJNDA with Leap and I like how I am, thanks.” Dodge Junction Non-Disclosure Agreement, also known as a Factory Slave contract. Every resident of the Smoke Stacks ended up under one eventually. Breaking the contract meant the contractee got Blanked, which was a fate worse than death. “Fine. I won’t push. I’ll just ask Ole’ Moon Face myself after all this is over.” Pipsqueak snorted. “Ole’ Moon Face, huh?” “They got a moon for a head. Name works.” Scootaloo furrowed her brow. “Did ya know I was the first one up?” “...Yeah,” Pipsqueak replied. “Why’d you give me that ticket, then?” Another bout of silence. “It was your only option, and despite what it might seem like—” A Red Coat leaped from the shadows at Scootaloo. She watched in horror as it came toward her, sword out and ready to skewer her through the head. She didn’t have time to grab her daggers. The Red Coat was— Cut into ribbons, splattering Scootaloo and the alley with gore as it exploded into chunks. She looked to Pipsqueak just as his bladed yo-yo went back to his hand. His expression had a coldness to it, amplified further by the gore smeared across it. Then, he was back to his usual placid smile. “—I do care about you.” He tucked the yo-yo back into his pocket, then chuckled. “Though, as long as we’re out of the Trauma, Leap’ll just revive you again, so saving ya wasn’t that huge a deal.” “Why—” “How far are we from the Trauma?!” Golding shouted. Both Pipsqueak and Scootaloo looked behind them, finally remembering that it wasn’t just the two of them there. Scootaloo had not been the only target of the Red Coats; the rest were all engaged with other assailants and struggling from the sudden outpouring of them. “As much as I enjoy shipping, we should probably get a move on!” Grahame added. “S-shipping?!” Scootaloo exclaimed. “W-what do you—” “Minute if we sprint,” Pipsqueak interrupted. “Verhoeven has something to deal with the Red Coats when we get close.” “Right.” Golding turned to the rest of the team. “We’re making another run for it!” A collective groan emanated from the group as they fought off their current assailants and charged their way forward. Red Coats continued to pour in from all sides as they ran. Bullets flew past, the Red Coats thankfully as bad at aiming as they’d always been. Scootaloo felt the familiar shortness of breath that came from exertion and internally cursed at her recent misfortunes. Running from all her problems was not something she liked being in the habit of doing, and she had been doing an awful lot of that lately. Just as Scootaloo neared the limits of her stamina, the Red Coats began to drop, one-by-one. The team slowed down to a stop, watching in fascination as each of them short-circuited and hit the ground hard.  Poe poked one with his pipe. “Yep. It’s dead.” He swung the pipe back over one shoulder. “I don’t know how. I didn’t get to smash their heads in.” “Verhoeven,” Pip answered. “He— actually it's easier to just show you.” Pip continued down the alley. Scootaloo and the team reluctantly followed after him. Soon, the narrow corridor opened into a wide open space. She was first drawn to a massive pulsating arch of metal on the opposite side of the area, embedded into a building that Scootaloo was intimately familiar with and not ready to deal with. It undulated like water, the interior akin to a warped reflection of a factory, all twisted metal and smoke. It made it difficult to discern what even lay inside. Next to it was a tall metal something. She had no idea what it did, but it sparked and spat and whirred at an annoying frequency that made Scootaloo want to turn the horrid thing into scrap metal. Standing nearby was presumably the final passenger of the Rail. He wore a long tan buttoned-up trenchcoat that dragged along the ground with brown slacks and dusty dress shoes. He had two pistols hanging from a belt at his waist and brass knuckles on both fists. This alone would not lead her to believe he was one of them, but two important details solidified the idea in her mind. The first were his eyes. Slicked-back brown hair with bright blue eyes that had the look of someone who was truly, truly deranged. That they had forgone even the veneer of sanity and opted to thrive on madness. The second was the mountain of corpses that littered the ground before him, a copious amount of blood and gore splattered across him. Scootaloo wasn’t even slightly put off by this, as she had begun thinking of it as a sort of calling card for the Rail. “Well, howdy-do there!” Verhoeven waved to the group, nearly stumbling to the ground with the force of it. “Glad you could finally join my soiree that I painstakingly set up. I’d offer refreshments, but all I have left is blood wine!” He laughed. It was the kind of laugh someone with no social graces and too high a lung capacity would have. No one else joined him. “I crack myself up sometimes. Anyways!” He clapped his hands together, a metal clang emanating from the impact of his brass knuckles. “My name is Verhoeven, apparently. For anyone that would prefer, I also accept ‘Doctor’.” He laughed again. Scootaloo wished he would stop doing that. “Now, which one of you is London?” Hesitantly, Scootaloo raised her hand. “Excellent! Now, please prepare yourself accordingly, as I and the other members of this lovely team will in fact be diving into your deep-seated trauma and horrific past in all of its grisly details. Oh, don’t look at me like that. It’ll be fun! Like therapy! If therapy was with eleven total strangers and took the form of horrific monstrosities set out to kill you and everyone you hold dear. Now, buck up, we have exploring to do!” It was at that moment that Scootaloo wondered if letting the Red Coats kill her before boarding that damned train would have been the better option.