My Little Metro

by redsquirrel456

Chapter 16

        Cold.

        I was so very, very cold. I’d been bleeding badly from the hole in my leg for who knew how long and I hadn’t found anything to wrap it with. I was almost completely numb now. I felt the pain, felt the gaping horror of there being a hole in my own body, but it was all very distant. It felt as if there was a glass wall between my mind and the world around me, and I sat behind it just watching everything happen with vague ambivalence, wondering when I was going to die. Every thought came to me in slow motion, and I couldn’t work up the energy to do anything except blink whenever my eyes got a little itchy. Every rock of the carriage we were in brought more bleeding. It seemed to ooze more than dribble, which I found amusing in a morbid kind of way. It covered the ground beneath me and slithered through cracks in the floor, mingling with the dry patches of other prisoners who had been tossed in without medical attention. My life essence was slowly escaping into the Metro.

        My eyes rolled in their sockets and turned to Sixpence, who sat in a corner and didn’t look at anything but the floor. He hadn’t said or done anything since the ride started, and I wondered if he was already dead. Sidewinder was unusually reticent, and his jaw waggled back and forth as though he were constantly trying to say something but the words never came.

        The rail car we rode in rumbled and clanked as it carried us to our doom. I looked back to Sixpence and uttered the one question that had been with me since he’d kicked me off that cart and started this lunacy.

        “Why?”

        My voice was raspy and thin. I thought he hadn’t heard the wispy sound over the noise of the car, but his ear turned towards me. He shook his head and curled in on himself.

        I took a deep breath and spoke again, laboring at every word, hauling them out of the bottom of my chest.

        “You said... you knew what I was doing. And you wouldn’t let me.”

        Sixpence shuddered.

        “The Dark Ones,” I growled.

        “Don’t,” the miserable orange pony whimpered. “Please. Don’t.”

        “You... know about them. You saw them,” I pressed on.

        “Stop it.”

        “You wanted to keep me from finding them. Why?”

        He didn’t say a word.

        “Tell me!” I wheezed, slurring my words as the effort made my vision go dim. Sixpence shook his head.

        “With an injury like that and where we’re going, it won’t matter at all soon.”

        I tried to raise my head.

        “Y... you...”

        Darkness.

        /-/-/-/

        Somepony screamed.

        I jerked awake and noticed two things: I was surrounded by other strange ponies, and my leg was wrapped in cloth. A monstrous red stain covered most of it like a virulent growth, and I felt no comforting warmth of magic. This was made out of somepony’s shirt. I looked up and saw a tear in a nearby stallion’s garment, and suddenly felt ill and out of place.

        “Hold him still!” a voice commanded. The screaming somepony kept screaming: a shrill, grating noise that scraped against my eardrums.

        “I said hold him still!”

        “I’m trying! Shit, there’s so much blood—!”

        “What the hell’s going on up there?!”

        I lifted my head and looked around. Two stallions were holding down a third, who thrashed and yelled obscenities as the others attempted to wrap a bandage around his torso. A gaping wound in the pony’s side gushed thick blood onto the ground. More ponies milled around, about twenty in all, holding each other, talking, crying, or staying totally silent. We were crowded together by a thin hallway studded with windows. It hit me an instant later that this was a train.

        I was in a working, honest-to-Celestia train.

        I felt a rumble through the floor and the lights in the train car’s ceiling flickered.

        “Why won’t it stop? Why won’t it stop?” whimpered one young pegasus stallion while an older mare held him close and shushed him gently, whispering in his ear.

        “We’re lucky we made it down here,” another mare spoke up. “When those bastards just started shooting—I thought they were supposed to protect us!”

        “There’s nothing to protect!” an earth stallion barked at her. “Didn’t you see what’s happening up there?”

        “Help me,” I gasped, totally lost. Why was I here? Who were these ponies? Why were they all wearing clothes, clean clothes that had no gas masks or respirators attached? They wore button-down vests and comely skirts, fancy gilded shoes and jackets. None of them had guns. None of them looked sickly or dirty, but they all looked frightened out of their wits.

        They ignored my plea, and the wounded stallion kept screaming—a constant, maddening background noise.

        “Can’t you make him shut up?!” a frentic voice screeched over the din as another rumble shook the whole train. Another river of fear swept through the train car and once silent ponies began to break down and cry.

        “I don’t understand why this is happening!” the frightened young pegasus babbled, ignoring the older mare’s empty assurances. “My parents are still up there! I didn’t see them come down!”

        “What’s happening is the end of the fucking world!” the irate earth stallion barked, trying to drown out the wounded pony’s gasping screams. “Somepony fucked up big time and now it’s all over!”

        A portly unicorn with glasses stepped up. “Look, we- we don’t know exactly what’s happening right now, I’m sure if- if we all just wait here for a while, the Guard will get their act together—”

        “Help me?” I asked, but I was again drowned out by a fresh bout of wailing from the wounded pony. One of the ponies helping him was a unicorn who hastily cast a spell, and at last the screams fell silent as the wounded pony collapsed into a stupor.

        The earth stallion scoffed. “The Guard? The Guard almost killed everypony up there! They shot at us! They were closing the doors. There’s no getting in or out now! Look, there’s miles of tunnels down here. We need to find one of the bunkers they set up and keep our heads down!”

        “Who put you in charge?” another earth stallion shouted as he bulled his way through the crowd, his eyes red and puffy from crying. “We don’t know anything, like this colt said! This- this could be just a test, or some kind of illusion!”

        “Will you listen to yourself, you little hay-brained moron? The only illusion here is you all thinking everything is gonna be fine and dandy. Everypony left up there is dead.”

        Glasses Unicorn cleared his throat. “Uh, now, hold on, we don’t know that—”

        “I can’t believe I’m hearing this! If you’re all too stupid to listen to reason, I’m going alone!”

        “THE SKY WAS ON FIRE!”

        The train car fell silent as we all turned to stare at the frightened pegasus who curled up on himself, eyes staring straight ahead even as another mighty rumble shook the earth.

        “I saw it. The sky was burning... there wasn’t any blue or clouds anymore. Just fire, reaching over everything... Why is this happening?!”

        The sounds of the others began to fade away, and the butter-yellow mare holding the young pegasus turned to me. She shook her head, and her bouncy pink mane fell over her achingly beautiful blue eyes.

        “We were never made for this,” she whispered, her voice so gentle and kind my heart cracked to hear it. The entire scene around us faded into bleak tones of grey, gradually disappearing from sight into darkness. Every angry, frightened, and miserable face winked out of existence, gone without a trace. Each one left a gaping pony-shaped wound in the world, and I was saddened to see them go.

        “We were never made to do this,” the yellow pegasus whispered, stroking the mane of the colt she held until he too was whisked away into shadow, and we were left alone in the confines of the train car. Outside was a dark, wailing void. “We were never meant to feel this kind of pain, this kind of anger. Why did they make us fight? Didn’t they know what would come of it?”

        She sighed as she stood, and all the life in the world seemed to leave with that sigh. “I just wish I could have done more.”

        “Who are you?” I asked. She looked directly at me again, with eyes full of keen, piercing sorrow and impossible, heart-bursting joy, and I felt so small and alone in the face of those eyes that my tail curled over my flank and my shoulders hunched.

        “Regret,” she answered, and turned away from me, opening the door to the next car over.

        I lifted my hoof. “Wait.”

        She stepped through.

        “Wait! Please! I’m so confused! Why are you following me?”

        She turned back to me one last time.

        “I’m not. You are following me.”

        She closed the door and just watched through the little window as Sweet Dreams descended on me from behind in a flurry of gnashing teeth and bloody hooves.

        /-/-/-/

        I woke up again to the tempo of somepony kicking me in the gut, over and over again.

        “Get up! Get up!” he barked in my ear. I waggled my hooves and found I could move without much pain, and a makeshift bandage had been wrapped around my leg. Had they really gone to the effort to heal me?

        “I said up!”

        Thwack.

        I see. They wanted me well enough to move so they could have leeway to beat me down again. How sinister. I got up as the unknown pony wanted, peering into a bright light suddenly thrust into my face.

        “Name?”

        “Lockbox.”

        “Get up.”

        “I am up.”

        He kicked me again and got me moving, forcing me out of the train car and into a crowd of other ponies who were a mix of dirty, frightened, sullen, or all three. I couldn’t see Sidewinder or Sixpence as I joined the huddle. We were on a large platform lit by a harsh spotlight, and after my eyes adjusted to the glare I saw it was a dock station with a small crane hanging from the ceiling. At the end of the tunnel, a flag hung from the wall. Upon it was the cutie mark of Princess Luna herself. Six stars bridged the inverted curve of her crescent moon, and pegasus wings flared out from the tips. Underneath were the words “Harmony for All, All for Harmony.”

We had arrived at the borders of the New Lunar Republic. My heart sank in my chest. No story I had ever heard about the Republic comforted me in the slightest. Like the Celestial Monarchy I knew them only by name and reputation, and both were ugly, ugly things.

“Move it, all of you!”

We were shoved through a large doorway into another long corridor with a tall arched ceiling and broken tiles on the walls. Guards hustled us along, giving us no time to think or rest, shouting at random ponies and harassing us with their batons equipped with a shocking spell at the end. One landed square on my wounded leg and I screamed, falling to the ground as every muscle in my body seized up at the same time while the brutal current stabbed deeply into me. Panic at the thought of being trampled almost paralyzed me until somepony grabbed my mane and yanked me back up. It was Sidewinder. He pulled me into the middle of the crowd where only a couple of pegasi guards could harry us.

“Stay close to me,” he muttered. “We get separated down here and we’re lost forever.”

We were rushed to a large waiting area ringed by barbed wire.  One wall was decorated with an open balcony, upon which a tall pegasus pony that looked about twice my age stood, dressed in the cool midnight blue uniform of the Lunar Republic. Luna’s crescent moon shone proudly over his head, emblazoned on the concrete above him. His shockingly bright green mane hung proud from beneath a dapper officer’s cap, contrasted by the slate grey of his pelt. Two Republic soldiers flanked him, dressed in full body armor that obscured their faces. The guards told us to shut up. The wounded ones were given no mercy either; they were forced to stand or sit and pay attention through their grievous injuries. One unicorn looked like he had the plague: his skin was mottled and his fur patchy, and he seemed to be bleeding from his ears. I wondered if he’d die where he stood, and whether the guards would care. Then I found myself jealous that he would escape so quickly from the hell that was coming to envelope us.

We were separated into two groups that took up one half of the room each, and I noticed the guards were actually careful, for the most part, about who went to what side. I and Sidewinder ended up on the left, and I noticed our group was significantly smaller, and for some reason that worried me greatly.
 
One of the guards next to the tall pegasus stepped forward. “There will be silence when the Warden speaks!”
 
I flinched as the barking command snapped at my ears. Somepony who continued to cry was struck on the head and lay still. An arguing prisoner was punched in the gut and a guard stepped on his head when he hit the ground. The tall Pegasus waited a few more seconds before speaking. His voice shocked me with its clarity and authority; usually pegasi his age were well on their way to going feather-brained.
 
“Duty. Duty and loyalty. These are the things that ponies of Equestria held dear to their hearts. Duty is not a soldier’s word! It is everypony’s word! Pegasus, unicorn, and earth, we all have a duty. When the world was still green and peace reigned nopony flinched from duty—duty to family, to their cutie mark, to destiny, and above all to the peace and safety of the Equestrian nation. Even you, you creatures of the dark, know duty even if you do not know the word. All of us individuals working towards a greater good, acting as part of a greater whole: that is what made Equestria great. Our President, Lucky Clover, understands this. She knows the importance of unity and harmony, of how when many act as one, great deeds are accomplished. Twilight Sparkle did not become a hero by herself. None of her friends claimed all the glory for themselves. It was only when she and her friends lent their talents to each other that greatness was achieved. They knew their duty and were loyal to it!
 
“Today you are given a new duty: to serve the dream of the New Lunar Republic for a free and equal Metro for all ponies! Here, beneath the earth, we dig for riches, for space, and for arable land. Though the world above is dark and cruel, here we strive to preserve the ideals of Harmony that our great leaders Celestia and Luna used to make ponies great! Through the labor of our hooves Equestria will rise again! The Celestial Monarchy would have us believe that magic lies only with the unicorns and that gives them the right to rule. The bandits take what they want and burn the rest. The Hoofsa League seeks only profit. The independent stations bicker and squabble and die in the dark. Here you will find purpose. Here you will lay the foundations of a free and green Equestria. Work hard and you will be appreciated. Refuse and you will be cast out.”
 
He pointed a hoof at the group opposite me.
 
“You have been deemed salvageable. You will be our soldiers, our laborers, and in time, our citizens. Do not fail us, and you too will become part of true Harmony.”
 
He pointed to my group now.
 
“You have been judged unworthy. For this you will work the hardest and serve as an example to the good ponies of the Republic what happens when ponies slip from the ideals that will save us all. In time you might be considered worth saving, but for now, you will do your penance digging out new space for good ponies to live in.”
 
Sidewinder rolled his eyes. “Ugh, not even the Monarchy recruiters are as brainwashed as this bastard.”
 
“Shut your mouth, scum!” a unicorn guard hissed and threw Sidewinder down with a burst of magic. The Warden continued to talk even as my friend was beaten savagely right in front of everypony.
 
“You will work alongside the Diamond Dogs. You will sweat and you will break and you will cry. You will wish for a better life. Through your pain, you will be made worthy, perhaps, of standing with the Republic and making our President’s dream a reality! If not... you will die and clear the way for better ponies.”
 
He turned to address everypony in general.
 
“Harmony for All, and All for Harmony! Go now to your new duties, ponies. You will be watched. May Luna find you worthy.”
 
At last they stopped beating Sidewinder long enough to drag him to his hooves and push us down another corridor. The last view I got of the others was one mare giving us a pitiful look as we were led away, and then the door shut behind us and I had no idea where we went after that.
 
A side tunnel led us to what appeared to be an unfinished Metro tunnel. I saw markings identifying it as part of the Green Line; perhaps before the War it was in the process of being expanded and never finished. There were about twenty of us, but we had no chance of making a prison break. Many of those with us looked surly and withdrawn, and the rest were disease-ridden; I made sure not to step too close to them.

Sixpence lingered near the back of our group, his head hanging low. Every so often the guard behind him would shove him forward because he kept falling back. Eventually Sixpence got the hint and kept pace. As we moved on the tunnel became clearly more and more unfinished. Long thin wires hung from the ceiling, and spritelights replaced the regular electric ones. The walls became dirty and cracked, held up by support beams and tenuous looking metal grills. We were split into two groups again at a junction that suddenly sloped downward, and we left the Metro tunnels and went into solid earth. Sidewinder and Sixpence were still with me, but I could barely see as the only available light came from sporadic sprite lights and the headlamps on the guards. We passed other groups of ponies who worked to shore up the walls or expand the existing tunnel, keeping their eyes down as we went by. All of them were dressed in threadbare rags or nothing at all, wheezy and coughing as they hacked away at the walls with pickaxes or their bare hooves, which were cracked and bleeding and caked in dirt. I saw the telltale signs of disease and radiation on most of them: lesions and bloody sores and missing patches of fur. A miserable unicorn hobbling on three legs pushed a cart past us with his magic. A glimpse inside showed me a meager helping of gemstones.

“Fuck me,” whispered Sidewinder, “better to just shoot us now.”

“Don’t give them ideas,” I muttered.

We were led into a cavern that went at least twenty feet up and down. Ponies worked in teams along the walls on rickety catwalks, inspecting every hoofful of dirt they collected, and I saw more ponies coming out of tunnels dug into the walls. Down at the very bottom of the pit, a team of Diamond Dogs hacked and slashed away at the soil, sniffing the dirt as they went. They were separated from the ponies and shackled together by long iron chains that sparked loudly whenever they were pulled too hard, shocking every Dog on the line. I presumed they were mining for gems, but given what I knew of mineralogy finding anything valuable here was a shot in the dark at best. They were most likely just busywork for ponies they wanted to punish.

Guards were everywhere.

“Grab a pickaxe and get to work,” the armored pony leading us barked, throwing a cart of rusty axes down in front of us. “You’re with team two in the third tunnel section. Lucky you, you’re at the front of the excavation line.”

Not all of us got tools, and Sidewinder rudely grabbed the last one before I could get to it. We were pushed down a ramp that led halfway down the cavern and into a side tunnel that seemed natural but had been widened out by excavation. More shoving led to the end of the tunnel, which grew narrow and cramped and lit only by sprite lights. At the end was a blank wall.

“Get to work,” the guards said. Sidewinder raised an eyebrow.

“What, do we get a direction to dig? Some kind of motivational speech? Might want to tell us how we’re contributing to the greatness of the Republic, I can’t really get working if I don’t know just where my little cog is in the grand machine!”

They punched him in the face, repeatedly. “Work,” they said, and pointed at the wall. Without any hesitation, our group attacked the packed earth and gritty stone. They had us digging straight through solid rock, and my poor hooves could hardly contribute; instead of digging through the wall I burrowed through the dirt and gravel that littered the ground, taking it back to a cart that was wheeled in to take the debris.

And so it went. I picked up dirt and rock, put it into the cart, and went back to repeat the process ad infinitum. The tunnel slowly expanded and I was soon relegated to propping up the ceiling with support struts, making sure it didn’t come crashing down on us. The work was harsh, dirty, and as far as I could see quite useless. We were nowhere near the Metro system and there was nothing to find belowground that I could tell. Perhaps they just meant to work us to death or hoped that the tunnels would collapse and kill us all. The guards left us to our own devices, and only posted two at the front of the tunnel, but none of the prisoners with us were in the mood to talk.

After what felt like hours, I sidled up to Sixpence as I delivered another hoofful of shattered rock to the cart, where a pony with downcast eyes and mangy fur waited to cart it off.

“Are you going to talk to me?” I asked.

Sixpence didn’t answer.

“It would go better for all of us if you did,” I said.

Still nothing.

“Look, damn it,” I huffed, “we’re stuck here together. We’re probably never going to see the light of our home stations again. The least you can do is tell me what the hell was so important that it made you kick me off that cart!”

He refused to even glance at me. Rage swelled up in my chest, and at last I could hold back no more. I grabbed him, whirled him around so he couldn’t do anything but look at me, and was enraged by the apathy I saw in his eyes. My vision went red as I drew back my hoof and punched him as hard as I could across the face.

“I lost everything to this damn trip!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, shocking my workmates into silence. I heard nothing but the blood pounding in my ears and an inexplicable whine that quickly grew to a buzzing headache. I leaped on Sixpence as he fell to the ground and pummeled him mercilessly as he held up feeble hooves to protect his head. Nothing in my mind mattered more than turning this little creature into paste for what he’d done, for all the things I’d endured as a direct result of his treachery.

“I saved your fucking life!” I shrieked. I couldn’t shout loud enough to convey how horribly angry I was, and the volume of my own voice tore at my throat, spittle flying from my lips. “I was going to help everypony! I didn’t deserve this! Do you hear me? You little fucking shit motherfucking—”

I felt strong hooves snatch me around the waist and pull me back. I bucked something hard and unyielding, launching off it to attack Sixpence again as I screamed incoherent obscenities, kicking and punching wildly at anything that got close. I saw nothing but a blur of red, shifting shapes and felt blows rain down on me, but I couldn’t care less. I wanted nothing but to kill or be killed, to lose myself in the endless rage so I could vent my fury. Damn the trip. Damn the mission. Damn everypony and everything. I wanted them all dead.

“Leave me alone!” I cried out, and my screams turned to inconsolable wails. Hot tears sprang to my cheek as I struggled with the guardponies who pulled me to the ground and punched and kicked and beat me with sticks that shocked and horns that zapped with magic, but that just made me cry out all the more, pushing out everything inside of me. The pain in my mind became the pain in my skin. The despair and rage in my chest became the dirge that tore from my lips. I kept flailing, aimlessly now.

“Leave me alone!” I said again, beating against visions of the Dark Ones as they pressed in around me, demanding my attention. “I want to go home! Get away from me! I want it all gone, do you hear me?! I want it all gone! I don’t want to See anymore!”

And then, very suddenly, a heavy blow thumped me on the head, and everything was gone.

I woke up on a cold stone floor in all kinds of pain. The craggy and rough surface told me it was the bottom of a cave. I jolted upright, thinking at first I’d been thrown down a pit to be dashed on the rocks, but though I was bloodied and battered the pain wasn’t any more intense than what I’d been through before. Dry blood crusted over a large part of my mane and stuck it to my face, but I ignored the discomfort as I glanced around. I was in the middle of a thin crowd of sleeping or dejected ponies, some of whom muttered amongst themselves. A small fire had been set up and most of the ponies were crowded around it. We must have been in one of the dormitories for the slaves... such as they were. I saw moss hanging from the ceiling, and there was a pool of foul-smelling standing water in one corner that I could see.

        Sidewinder was one of them. He turned to me and grinned. “Ah ha, you’re awake. Get over here by the fire. Don’t sit out in the cold!”

        “What happened?” I asked, dragging myself over. The sputtering flames were barely enough to heat the tips of my hooves, but the illusion of warmth was better than nothing, and at least we weren’t groping blind in the dark.

        “You don’t remember?” Sidewinder cackled. “You started beating on that poor pony for no reason, then the guards came over and knocked you senseless! Don’t you know they’re the only ponies with a license to kill around here, Lockbox? Oh, also, you won’t get food for the rest of the day for causing such a commotion. Anyway, we’re in one of the side caverns they give us low-life types to sleep in. Hope you don’t mind rocks for a pillow.”

        My stomach growled. “I didn’t attack him for no reason. That was Sixpence. He’s the reason I’m here, the reason you found me out in the metro tunnels. He kicked me off a supply cart and left me to die in a tunnel full of mutants. If it wasn’t for him... I don’t know. Things would have gone differently.”

        Sidewinder chuckled. “Lockbox, do you even know why you started your journey?”

        I gingerly touched a scab forming on the side of my head. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever told Sidewinder, or any other pony for that matter. It didn’t seem important now, here in the bowels of hell. Nopony ever escaped the slave pits of the Republic without either becoming one of their drones and dying in one of their wars, or meeting some unfortunate fate while digging. If I was here, there was no getting out. Nothing but toil and dirt for the rest of my short life expectancy.

        But had Sidewinder earned the right to know my sacred mission, the one thing that kept me going through all the trials I’d endured? The shining light of Ponyopolis seemed so distant now. I wasn’t sure how much time passed before I answered, but the fire seemed considerably lower than before. “My home,” I whispered through parchment dry lips. “I left to save my home.”

        “Yeah? What from?”

        “I don’t know,” I whispered, putting my head between my knees. “I don’t know anymore. I’ve been through so much shit, you know? And I haven’t even gotten close. Now I’m stuck here, and we’re going to die, beaten to death by the guards or maybe killed by a cave-in. The Dark Ones...”

        “The what?”

        “The Dark Ones,” I whispered, shivering at their cursed name more than the cold. “They attacked my home. Everypony there is probably dead.”

Silence fell. I wondered if anypony even knew or cared what a Dark One was. We’d been careful not to let news of them get outside the station.

“So what the fuck’s a Dark One?” asked Sidewinder.

I couldn’t help but smirk. “Hell if I know. They’re... they came from the north. Invincible. Unstoppable. They... I don’t know, Sidewinder. Even the Rangers didn’t know what they were.” Something clenched tight inside my chest. “Damn it. I should’ve at least told Tracer. Maybe he’d... he’d be able to carry on to Ponyopolis and—”

“The Rangers?” Sidewinder asked, eyes going wide. “You said you met a Ranger?”

More ponies looked up from the fire and turned my way.

“You knew a Ranger?”

“Who was it?”

“Are you a Ranger?”

I recoiled from the doey-eyed stares, all lacking hope in anything but the thought of a Ranger breaking in and granting them freedom. Mares and stallions alike, many of them diseased or suffering from open sores and wounds, scooted a little closer to hear even a single more word.

“I—I did know a couple,” I muttered, curling up tighter to hide from them. “Not... three weeks? I think it’s been three weeks since I left. I can’t be sure.”

“But a Ranger! You knew a Ranger! Did they say anything about coming here?” an older stallion pressured, poking me with a cracked hoof. My heart wilted in my chest.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, and it pained me to see the hope suddenly die in their eyes. “They go on their missions, and I don’t...”

“You were on a Ranger’s mission,” Sidewinder said, peering at me closely. “Weren’t you?”

I jolted and leaned away from him, my anxiety only increasing from all the attention. “What? I—no, I wasn’t!”

Sidewinder shook his head. “But you said Ponyopolis! That’s the base of all the Rangers in the Metro. Why are you going there? Do you think they’ll help against the Dark Ones?”

I couldn’t answer; the words simply didn’t come. I worried about what I could or should say, and figured in the end it was useless. I didn’t know any more than I did at the start of my journey that seemed so close to ending. My home was in danger, the Dark Ones wanted me, and the Rangers knew something about them that scared them enough to send Hunter to us.

“Maybe,” I whispered. “I don’t know, Sidewinder. I don’t know anything. I just have...”

regret loss pain anger sadness help darkness evil blood death

“Hope. I... I have hope.”

Sidewinder nodded slowly and turned back to the fire. “Well, if anypony’s going to get us out of here, it’s a Ranger,” he said. “But they don’t give a shit about anypony who doesn’t give a shit about them, so don’t get your hopes up too high.”

I felt a tug on my tail and turned around. A miserable looking pegasus stallion who couldn’t have been any older than I stared up from the floor. “You work with the Rangers?” he asked, and he was so wretched looking I couldn’t do anything but nod. He smiled, and tears dripped from his eyes, mixing with the mucous and pus from a gash on his cheek that hadn’t healed properly.

“Then... then you’ll help us. Won’t you?”

I gulped down the knot in my throat. “I can try, I suppose,” I offered.

“I want to see the Sun again,” the pegasus whispered. “I want to see her and feel her. I did, once. Above. I saw the Sun. You’ll take me there, won’t you Ranger?”

“Please,” I said, “stop it. Get some rest or something.”

“I want to fly. It’s so dark down here. Help me fly...”

He drifted into a feverish sleep, still pawing at my tail.

I stared at the glowing embers of the fire, listening to the soft breathing and occasional sobs of the other ponies around me. For some reason I felt guilt clench my heart, as if uttering even a mention of the Dark Ones was enough to bring divine retribution down on my father and the rest of Exiperia. How long had it been since I heard news of my home? Nopony cared about a tiny mushroom harvesting station outside the Ring. The Dark Ones could have annihilated everypony and news wouldn’t even spread until they moved on to attack Draft Station or a Hoofsa outpost.

I felt burning at the corners of my eyes and wiped them with the back of my hoof. They came away wet. Wet. I was crying. Oh, Celestia help me, I was crying. Suddenly more came and then I couldn’t stop. I buried my face in my hooves and curled up, sniffling into my fur, my gentle whimpers drowned out by the oppressive silence in our little cave, joining the sad chorus of other lost and hopeless ponies. I cried for my father, for all the ponies I’d seen dead, and everything and anything else I could think of. The weight of everything I’d carried without complaint so far just came crashing down and wouldn’t let me stop. My whole body felt like a geyser suddenly bursting open.

Sidewinder said and did nothing, and I was grateful for it.

/=/

You are lost.

We will find you.

Do not be afraid.

I feel so alone.

You are alone.

You are the First.

/=/

We woke up the next morning, or whatever the guards approximated morning as, and were chased out of our resting cave with much verbal and physical abuse from the guards. Before we were split into our teams a guard captain came forward and dropped a toolbox in front of us. It was full of rusty pickaxes and little spades and shovels.

“First come first serve!” he said with a sniggering laugh.

I was near the front of the crowd. I exchanged uncomfortable looks with a few of the other newcomers, but we we were quickly bowled over by the more experienced and muscular prisoners, who charged forward and snatched up the finest quality equipment for themselves. The unicorns in our group tried to levitate tools over the heads of the others, but they were set upon by their fellows and beaten to pulps and had their tools taken anyway. As I shoved to the front of the line, determined not to be left without a tool that day, I felt my hoof close down on a wooden shaft. Another hoof smacked my own and tried to push me away. Still in pain and angry from my earlier beating and the uncooperative nature of these ponies, I shoved back and without any shame, leaped onto the toolbox, spilling everything onto the floor.

“There’s your Ranger!” a pony crowed. “There’s your Ranger! What a fool, huh?”

I got up glaring daggers, seeing every tool had been taken by the time I got back up. The pony who’d jeered at me, a thickly muscled unicorn with a broken horn, snickered as he hefted a pickaxe and he spat at my hooves.

“That one’s for you, Ranger! Ha ha ha!”

The guards did nothing but laugh along with him, amused by our barbaric spectacle. And instead of getting myself a handy piece of equipment I’d shamefully been party to it.

I was shoved onto my hooves and told to report to work at gunpoint.

“That was Triton,” I heard a voice whisper. I turned to see pegasus from the night before walking alongside me. “He’s a prison boss.”

I rolled my eyes. “Nopony’s a boss down here.”

“He is,” the pegasus whimpered, his wings shivering and shaking. His eyes darted nervously back and forth, never standing still, and the running pus on his cheek wobbled with his jerky movements. “Watch out for him! He has a gang. A gang that reports to the guards.”

“Why did he call me Ranger?”

“He must have heard our talk last night, Ranger.”

“Hey, feather-brain!” a guard snapped. “You’re with the third tunnel you idiot! Get moving, or is that shit all over your face getting into your brain?”

“No sir!” the pegasus whimpered, scuttling away and holding his wings as tightly against himself as possible. “No sir, I have a clear head! I’m not feather-brained yet! Please, watch, I’ll work, I’ll work!”

I tutted quietly, trying not to think of poor Sunny Side. What was that colt getting up to? Hopefully he was continuing on to Ponyopolis himself with Tracer to finish the mission

One of the prisoners died on his hooves walking to the dig site, and the guards left him to rot where he lay. The Diamond Dogs came out near us and were led to the bottom, surrounded by guards, and I lingered a moment to watch them get to work. None of them dug too far or too fast or the magical chain that linked them all would shock them. But none of them complained or even glared at the one responsible when it did happen. Their unity astonished me, and I found myself tucking a little note away about that for later within my mind. That day we were worked almost to the bone and fed a thin, almost tasteless gruel with the consistency of saliva that did little more than fill my belly for a couple hours. My hooves ached. Dust caked into my mane and agitated the cuts I’d gotten. I didn’t see more than a glimpse of Sixpence through my entire shift; the guards kept me well away from him. It was nothing but slow, grinding work all day, with no visible progress made by the end of it. Whenever we tried to talk to each other, a guard would come into our tunnel and strike us on the backs of our legs in turn with a heavy baton, even if only one of us had spoken. If we slowed our steady monotonous pace they were even more harsh, delivering electric shocks that left us curled up on the floor. It was all nothing but pointless cruelty to no visible end, meant to hold us and break us until we begged and simpered for real work.

I felt no anger, though, just a hollow sense of pity. The depravities of the Metro were all around me and I’d become inundated with them, saturated to the point where all the evil and wickedness seeped into my bones and I didn’t feel its sting any longer.

Dinner was a pitiful affair. We were all crowded around thin tables and were practically sitting in each other’s laps, stewing in our own stink and misery. The plague-ridden ponies—though all of us were sick and miserable—were quarantined by the other prisoners: they were shoved into another little alcove of their own, and nopony would approach them even if they weren’t as well off themselves.

Sidewinder dropped down next to me, as well as the feather-brained pegasus.

“Hello, Ranger,” the pegasus said, smiling timidly.

“Don’t call me that,” I grumped, in no mood to entertain more insanity. I was astonished at how quickly I’d gotten used to the idea of back-breaking labor. Perhaps my hope was finally running out.

“Why not?” Sidewinder asked, and there was an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before. He took a large gulp of his gruel, downing it before any other prisoner got funny ideas, and peered at me. “You were on a Ranger’s mission, Lockbox. No Ranger ever trusts anypony except another Ranger to do Ranger things, not ever. They don’t travel with other ponies, they don’t speak to other ponies unless they have to. Hell, they never even tell ponies how they choose new recruits; they just do. And you show up in the tunnels on the way to Ponyopolis, home of the Rangers and you say you traveled with one? That practically makes you a Ranger in all but name.”

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

“Of course you wouldn’t, you’re a wimp from Exiperia. But I’ve been around, Lockbox. I know Rangers when I see one, even when they try to hide it. They’re not like other ponies.”

I felt my mane itch as Sidewinder leaned closer and whispered,“You aren’t like other ponies.”

I swatted him away and turned to see the pegasus still staring at me, his eternally open wound gaping horribly on his face.

I saw Sunny Side beneath the pus and rot, behind the tangled mane and greasy fur. It frightened me. I wasn’t supposed to care whether I saw Sunny Side anymore, not in this pit where I’d surely die.

“Why are you staring at me?” I snapped.

“My name’s Rocket,” the pegasus answered, and his wings fluttered. He looked back and forth and leaned closer to me too, but I didn’t strike him like Sidewinder for fear of catching whatever he might be infected with. “I used to be a racer on the Hoofsa circuit... dangerous, tight corners! I lost a bet and ended up here. I knew a Ranger too, once. She was beautiful and dangerous, like the Sun.” His gaze drooped to his bowl of gruel, which was untouched. “I want to see the Sun. Just one more time before I die. I saw it once, when it broke through the clouds like a hammer.”

I turned away and kept eating as Rocket droned on and on about the Sun, mumbling nonsense. Then came the guards, crowding through the entrance to our little slice of hell.

“All hooves on deck! Line up, you scum! The Warden is here to see you!”

Rocket’s ears perked. “Time for this again. He always does it when they bring in a new group.”

I turned to ask why but the other prisoners, Sidewinder included, were already jostling to obey. Even the infirm ponies crowded out of their hiding hole to pay their grudging respect. I took my place in the lines that formed up and stared straight ahead like the rest. I met eyes with Rocket, who looked past me and at the far wall, his eyes full of inexplicable fear.

I heard the Warden’s heavy hoofsteps, slow and measured. He tromped down the line, glaring at each of us in turn, and I was struck by the way he seemed so sure and confident and handsome in his clean uniform. We were truly the scum of the earth, juxtaposed with this stern image of a real pony who strode among us like a bear among jackals, his whole body a mirror that showed us what we should be instead of what we were. And damn my eyes, in my wretched condition it was working.

He stopped directly in front of me. I met his gaze, remembering Ruby Red’s intimidation tactics. They had come to naught, too.

“You,” he said, with so much contempt I felt compelled to curl into a ball, “you started a fight on your first day here,” he said quietly. “That’s not behavior fitting a soldier of Harmony.”

My eyes flickered back and forth. Was I supposed to answer? Was he going to shoot me for disobeying some unwritten rule? “I... don’t—”

The guard standing next to the Warden lashed out and jabbed me in the stomach with his stun baton. My muscles seized up and pain erupted out of every nerve. I went down and vomited my lunch on the floor while the Warden looked impassively on.

“You’re a threat to Harmony. You and all the rest of you degenerates!” He raised a hoof to include everypony in the room. “Look at you! Diseased! Malformed! Incapable of amounting to anything more than a brick laid on more bricks to build a new world.” He shook his head, as if disappointed. “I don’t know why you attacked a fellow prisoner, and I don’t care. It sullies the honor of everypony here. You’re no better than the beasts outside.”

I hung my head and nodded dumbly. His words had some kind of powerful effect on us all, shaming us, shaming me. I felt lower than dirt and only agreed with him about everything he said. Dirt. Shameful. Disgusting.

The Warden shrugged and move on down the line. “And yet... I can see salvation for a select few of you. Most of you here are new. And now I have an object lesson for all of you: there is nothing worse than the disharmony and chaos that wracks our Metro. We are the last bastion of life in this world, and without unity we are nothing! This creature here”—he gestured to me—“is a perfect example of that. Attacking a fellow prisoner for no reason!”

Yes, no reason. No, wait. There was a reason. He abandoned me. Tried to kill me! But was that a reason? What was it about this pegasus that made my head spin?

“He is no better than the Dog savages we have chained up here. They do nothing but squabble amongst themselves for the smallest scraps of food, just like you degenerates. But there is salvation waiting...”

That wasn’t true. I’d seen them work together without fear or anger. I...

I stood up. He was lying.

The guard beat me down again.

The Warden’s words turned into a blur of noise and fuzzy whines that echoed in my ears as the world collapsed around me again. It took me a full minute to recover as I seized up and shivered on the ground, and by that time the Warden was finishing his ridiculous speech. Whether it was the attack from the guard or not I did not know, but I no longer felt the compulsion to listen to his babbling.

“And in this Metro, which we are building with our own hooves, you will all have a place! Remember that! Remember it all! Remember that we are the only chance for a peaceful, green world again, and by the power of our kinship, our strength of will, the Elements of Harmony will find us worthy and bring us a land of plenty!”

I noticed a strange look on the faces of the other prisoners.  They were all cowed, submissive, even ashamed of themselves. Some were weeping openly into their hooves. But why? Had the Warden’s words warped their minds as well? I looked over at Rocket, who bawled like a child.

“Help him,” I whispered through gritted teeth and a throat that refused to open. “Help them! You can’t... they’re sick! We’re sick!”

The Warden seemed not to notice me, and turned to leave again. His guard gave me another good kick on the head and turned away as I sputtered nonsense.

“Don’t listen! What the hell is wrong with you all? Harmony? Damn them! There’s no Harmony in keeping sick ponies here!”

“Shut up, Lockbox,” Sidewinder muttered, his eyes on the Warden as he stalked away. “For once in your life, shut up!”

        I stood and lunged at Rocket once the guards left us again, shaking him by the shoulders. “Listen to me!” I snarled. “Are you already feather-brained? Are any of you really going to believe that?”

        I felt another hoof thud into my chest. I couldn’t take it anymore and bucked as hard as I could, but hit only a hard wall. Suddenly Triton was standing over me, shoving a hoof into my face.

        “You listen up, Ranger!” he growled. “When the Warden talks, you listen, got it?”

        “I don’t have to—”

        Triton stuck his dirty, grimy face into mine. His broken horn glowed green as he glared down at me. “When he talks,” he repeated in a wheedling, nasally kind of voice, “you listen. Am I clear?”

        It felt like cotton balls were stuck in my mouth. My tongue wouldn’t work right. My lips formed words of their own accord.

        “Yes, you are clear,” I said without meaning to. Triton threw me down again and smirked. “Good little Ranger. We haven’t been formally introduced, huh? Triton’s the name. I’m here to keep you little new shits in line. Nopony escapes from the Republic pits. Nopony. Right?”

        I nodded. “Right. Nopony. Got it.”

        “So you all need to learn the rules. You don’t interrupt the Warden. You don’t interrupt me. And you don’t screw with the guards.”

        He didn’t have Ruby Red’s unique character, that was for sure. But that strange magic he and the Warden possessed...

        “I got it,” I whispered. Triton stood up and smirked, satisfied that he’d beaten me as he turned and kicked me in the face before walking away. The little prick had no idea what I’d been through, and these mind tricks were supposed to intimidate me after all I’d seen? No. This was different. This was pony magic.

        I’d beaten pony magic before.

        I looked around at the ponies that still sat on the floor or in their chairs, thinking over what the Warden had said like scolded children. I felt anger again. But not at them. I felt the same kind of anger I did when my mind was invaded by the Dark Ones. Something was manipulating these ponies beyond the fear of a guard’s baton, something that kept them down. I stared long at Rocket’s weeping visage, at how broken and ashamed he looked.

        I looked up and saw Sixpence at the end of the tunnel, staring at me blankly. Apart from Sidewinder and I, he seemed the only one unaffected by the Warden’s speech. He turned and left me.

        As were sent back to work, I attacked the wall with renewed fury, having wrested a pickaxe from another slave. Whatever was happening here was almost insulting. It was beneath me. I couldn’t believe I’d let myself fall into such an obvious trap! These ponies weren’t just enslaved, they were ensorcelled by... something. Something I wouldn’t let beat me. I felt invigorated once more, thinking that if nothing else I wouldn’t become like the mewling, whimpering things around me. These ponies were weak. But I’d been through too much, seen too much to let myself fall so easily.

        These ponies had very nearly taken everything from me. I might not be able to complete my mission, but I was not going to let them steal my mind. I thought back to their nickname for me: Ranger. So dull and lacking in hope they used the name of good ponies to mock me. No more. If they wanted a war for my mind, for the minds of these ponies... I would give them war.

        It’s what Hunter would want.