Fallout: Equestria - Murky Number Seven

by FuzzyVeeVee

Just Downstairs (Part 2)

    “Are we any closer to the primary chamber?”

    “N-no, master. The door remains unbreachable.  The slaves say that...that it just resists everything.  It must use Stable technology in it or something, the Ministry of Wartime Technology did build it after all and-”

    “Silence, cretin!  Do not lecture me!”

    There was a sound of somepony being grabbed and lifted from the ground.  Sat in the room we had hid in, I could hear the conversation clearly.

    “If you cannot go through the door, go around it.  If you cannot go around it, go under it. Whatever it takes.  This operation has drained much of what we can muster in this ridiculous mountain expedition already.  Now get to work.”

    “Y-yes, master!”

    “Don't forget who it is that saved you from losing your life, and who could happily throw you back to the wolves of your debts should you begin to think yourself above your station.”

    “Yes, master!”

    They were dropped and quickly galloped off.  I heard somepony else trot out of the huge door behind Shackles.  The horror of what had become of Glimmerlight tore at my mind, but the fear of who lay just outside kept me silent, merely watching the door that Protégé held his ear to.

    My hearing had no such requirement.

    “I suppose you can't blame the poor buck. This place tends to leave most with headaches as it is.”

    That was Grindstone's voice!

    Shackles made a low, dangerous sound in reply.

“Only those that matter.  This place holds secrets, Grindstone.  It is a nexus for slavery of the mind, the source of Fillydelphia's history of servitude.  I won't tolerate delay on finding why.”

    I saw Protégé narrow his eyes.  Shackles' words were grand. A nexus of slavery?

    “One of many secrets, yes.” Grindstone coughed harshly and trotted past the door, joining Shackles' stomping tread.  “My work in the Ministry has encountered similar problems. We miss one piece of the puzzle to make the simultaneous memory experiment function properly.  We try orbs, but they simply fracture. They are not designed for it. We need one made for it, just as you need what I would presume to be some sort of key to find the end of your own search.”

    “You believe this mountain holds these secrets?”

    “I only know it is something Aurora had great interest in visiting regularly and supporting it with funds diverted from her own Ministry's records. All off the charts, disguised as payment for several non-existent experiments that all 'failed' and were disposed of.  Simply put, whatever lies in her Ministry, this place and the mountain's mines are linked somehow. Perhaps we shall...”

    His voice trailed away, even for me they had moved too far down the corridor for me to hear the rest.

    Finally, I dared let out a small sob with any volume.  Free of the fear Shackles left in his wake, the memory of Glimmer came racing back.

    “We need to go in there!” I gritted my teeth, moving toward the door until Protégé blocked me.

    “We cannot open it, Murk.”

    “We have to!  Glimmer's in there!  She's...she's not well!  I need to help her! I...I need to!”

    I almost fought with him, trying to push past and scraping my hooves on the ground.

    “The door is locked shut, Murk!  Calm down, we can-”

    “Calm down!?  They've done something to my sister!  I need to help her! Help me, please!”

    It was almost a scuffle. I fought and shoved, but the bigger pony held me back before dropping me to the ground.

    “Murk, listen!  We...” He blinked a few times, putting a hoof to his head with a groan before wandering away from me.  “We can't get...in. We just need to find something...something in this place for it. So we can help to get it open.  Help...”

    The change in his voice broke my mood.  My eyes followed the slaver as he leaned on the wall.  His eyes closed, and he kept looking side to side.

    “P-Protégé?  What's wrong?”

    “Just a...a headache, Murk.  Like I can hear things in here.  That sensation when we pushed after Glimmerlight.  There's something down here, Murk. Something that affects ponies.”

    Getting to my hooves, I couldn't help but glance to the door we passed through in order to hide.  I dearly wanted to just shout through the door, maybe she would hear me! Yet I knew he was right. The door was massive, and we'd heard it slam shut behind Shackles and Grindstone.

    All the same, I didn't fancy hanging around here much longer. I had a growing headache, too, and the sensations of moving air and thick, throbbing power below our hooves was getting to me too. Protégé seemed to especially dislike it. He'd been acting really strange.

    I trotted over to him, finding him apparently very interested in the walls of the darker room.  They were broken tiles, dark with rot and yet uncleaned like the remainder of the station.

    “Protégé?  I-I'm sorry. I'm just worried. and scared.” I crossed my front hooves.  “The things earlier and what happens to ponies here I...”

    He didn't even seem to notice me.

    “Protégé?”

    “Seems odd to miss cleaning this bit here. Wouldn't take long if somepony went at it with enough effort.  Finish it off. They'd feel happier about it, wouldn't they?”

    He spoke conversationally.  Like he'd forgotten what we had been even talking about.

    “Protégé?” I hoofed his shoulder hard, and he snapped around like he'd seen a ghost.

    “I...” He looked around, down the darker corridor, his eyes wide, his pupils dilated.  “I just...nothing. Was sure I heard somepony saying this place needed sorting. Sorry.  We sh-should head on. Find a way to open the door.”

    I just nodded while he wandered away in front, but I watched him warily. This was dangerous enough without him losing it.

Or without the same happening to me.

The corridor was actually a room, now that I saw it clearer, with low arches and with cages barring entrance on either side.  The air stank of unwashed ponies.

    At the far end of the corridor, I could have sworn the shadows shifted in between my blinks.  Like ponies were moving without anypony there. Sweat dripped down the back of my neck. This place...I almost preferred the obvious danger of the metro lines we'd passed through.

    Cantering after him, I looked into each of the caged arches.  Slaves lay in little pony piles, sleeping in strange unison. After a second I realised why. Each of their breathes made their torsos expand in sync with one another.

    “What have they done to them, Protégé?”

    “I don't think it's the slavers, not directly anyhow.  Shackles said this place did it. Those machines we saw, do you think-”

    “Murk?”

    I stopped on the spot.  The deep, gravelly voice rumbled out of the cage just ahead of us.  I knew it! I knew it!  I galloped past Protégé and right up to the rusty bars, pushing my head through them.

    Brimstone Blitz was getting up right before me.  Dropping a thick piece of fabric away to the side, he advanced to meet me before bending down.  Behind him, I saw Coral Eve look up before rushing over. Pushing her front legs through, I met her in the best hug I could manage.

    “What are you doing here, you two?” Brimstone glanced at Protégé.

    “Getting you out.” Replied the unicorn. "Both Murky and I need you, for both our purposes.”

    “Our purposes?” Brimstone's face showed no hint of giving any games away.

    “Don't take me for a fool, Warlord.  You and I both know what you are all trying to do.  What we want just happens to coincide right now. Are you and Coral okay?”

    “As good as we can be.” Coral looked up, letting go of me and wiping away some of my tears with a hoof.  “It's been hard. We're hurt and starving...very weak. But we're alive.”

    She looked it.  Coral had always had a strong frame to her body, but now she seemed thinner and more drawn.  Her cheekbones were noticeable for the first time. Even Brimstone looked lethargic, his injuries in the Pit still recovering.  The massive burn scar on one side of his body looked raw, and I still wasn't used to seeing only one eye staring back at me.

    “G-Glimmer...” I didn't even know what to say.

    Brimstone growled under his breath, looking beyond us.  “So you saw.”

    “Glimmer, she hasn't had it good, sweetie.” Coral stroked my mane gently.  “Since we came here, she kept saying she saw things or had dreams of Old Equestria.  They got bad, turned to nightmares, and she started using her orbs to remove them. I...I tried to stop her but...something in this place, Murk.  Something she was vulnerable to, we all felt it, heard things. But for her it was worse. Then she started volunteering for shifts. Even with it just being a couple of days down here she doesn't even recognise us any more after that.”

    Whatever tears she had wiped away were quickly being replaced.  My sister had needed me.

    “I'm so sorry, hun.  We've seen it happen to others. I don't know why not us.  We feel it, things out of the corner of our eyes in the dark, winds we don't feel, sounds of ponies whispering, yet nopony talked.  This place is evil, Murk.”

    Protégé looked behind us at the door.

    “If this is a slave pen, they may be back any time.  Brimstone Blitz, we need to get this cage and that door outside open.  Do you know how?”

    Brimstone snorted and knocked the cage with a hoof, the strong bars clanging hard.

    “I tried to bring it down. Don't think I'm quite as strong as I once was, boy.  The only pony with the skeleton keys down here would be Shackles himself, likely in his own room.  If you can get them, we might be able to get out. Just be aware, I will not leave this station without Glim.”

    “I wouldn't imagine it.” Protégé was hasty to add.

    “Good.” Brimstone snapped the word out, staring down at Protégé.  “Head back out of here and directly to the opposite end of that big bloody lab they have.  Good to see the sassenach bastard's still limping.”

    Brimstone seemed rather pleased with that thought.  His one eye turned to me and saw me crouching down fearfully.  We had to steal something. I knew who it would be that had to do it.

    “He's not your master now, kid.”

    “I...I know.”

    “Aye. In, out, grin afterwards when you imagine how pissed off he'll be imagining you stealing his personal slaves away from him.  You two better get going now. They'll be changing shifts within half an hour.”

    I gulped and nodded.  Protégé was already moving away from the cage to check outside.  Shivering on the spot, hearing the strange ambience of Ministry Station in the air and feeling the stark terror of confronting Shackles himself in my mind, I realised I had to rise up here.  I had to rise to the occasion.

    How many times had Glimmerlight saved me?  How many times had Coral helped me keep going?  How many times had Brimstone obliterated an obstacle I couldn't fight?

    For them, I had to manage this.  I saw Coral's weak but confident smile as she rested her hooves on the cage, and I saw Brimstone winking that one remaining eye at me.  They believed in me. They believed in me.

    Oh Goddesses, they were insane.

    “Come on, Murk.  You're not alone.  I'll help you do this.”

    Protégé trotted beside me when we put on our slave disguises and crept back out.

    “Thanks...”

    All the same, the way he'd been acting and what Coral had said, I worried all the same.  Why didn't it affect Coral or Brim? Why Glimmer?

    All the more, why Protégé?

    Beep!

    My hoof flew to the PipBuck quickly, tapping the volume dial rapidly to make sure it stayed quiet. I had been hunched behind an abandoned cleaning cart left lying by the side of the smaller labs we had entered when it had gone off.  After passing through the main area, Shackles' room hadn't been hard to locate. Following his voice wasn’t exactly difficult.

    Now we simply waited opposite that imposing steel door amongst a small lab of ponies fixing up spark batteries and magical talismans.  Protégé watched them, but I had something else to listen to, waiting for my chance when Shackles left...

    Beep!

    Click.

    “Um-um, hi.”

    “Hi...”

    “Just a quick update. I'm in a room with some sleeping workers, so I have to be quiet.  It's been three days now down here and I...I don't think they're going to let me out. I'm trapped.  I'm so scared. I know that Sky must be so worried about me. We were supposed to meet two days ago, but they won't let me leave!”

    I looked up at the workers toiling with dead smiles around me.  The atmosphere was eerily cold and calm, mixed in with hoofsteps going back and forth in the corridor. Sometimes, I could swear no actual ponies had passed by when I heard them.

Gulping, feeling the hairs on my neck crawl, I returned my gaze to the PipBuck, and my attention to poor Sundial.

    “I've been briefed by Aurora Star herself. She's really weird.  Like, she's intelligent, but she's a little socially awkward. A bit like me before I met Sky actually.  She seemed really nervous, constantly glancing at the zebras. Did she get trapped in this as much as I did?  She wants me to join a team and help construct these memory orb machines. Really, it seems to be an adaptation of the same techniques we used to help the spells in Ranger armour 'remember' user settings.  Something about orbs that can teach ponies things.”

    That matched up with what I’d seen. Just like the Stable, they had continued her research down here and developed the same things from Aurora’s theories. Spell orbs.

    I heard hooves getting up in Shackles room and nudged Protégé.  The unicorn took a second to respond, looking dully across the room, before jolting his head up.

    “There's something bigger planned, though. Some expedition soon to take some of us to another place.  They keep talking of 'safe zones' to develop something. What's dangerous about memory magic, though? It's just teaching ponies things they couldn’t learn otherwise.  All the same, I woke up last night hearing somepony screaming, running away from what I now know is an old asylum the Ministry built and then abandoned after Fluttershy had deemed it unsuitable. I saw the pony run past our room from the direction of it...her hair had gone white.”

    My teeth chattered a little.  Just what was in there? What were they doing?  Was this zebra magic? I'd heard all the legends about the things they'd done in the past, like melting ponies alive or devouring them for food.

    “I...I hear someone. I need to-”

    Click.

    If I’d hoped to have any time to think on that after it ended, Shackles wasn’t going to give me the chance. His voice rung out from his room.

    “There is no shortage of slaves to use for testing, Grindstone.  I will get more if you require them.”

    “Be that as it may, Master Shackles, the slaves here are unsuitable after this place has had its way with them.  They are too defined, too imperfectly aligned for any sort of memory tapping. The ones on Fillydelphia's surface, perhaps, yet many retain too many thoughts unwilling.  If we had a foal, we could-”

    Grindstone’s careful tone was interrupted. I had begun to learn that one could never get too long to speak before Shackles would take control of any conversation.

    “We don't. At least, not yet. Maintain what you are doing, I’ll deal with that in time. You and I both know what's coming. There is one that might help us with minimal effort, however.  Leave him to me. You simply get the team together for that mountain, if you believe it will help.  Waste no time.”

    “Of course. Heh, you really are getting younger by the day with all that ambition showing, Shackles. Not seen that look on your face for years.”

    “This is my city, no matter what Red Eye thinks. It always was.  Now I own its heart.”

    Shackles and Grindstone moved from the room and wandered along the side of the lab, facing away from us.  I could see Grindstone was limping, stopping to cough every few feet in the thick air down here. His elderly frame shivered and struggled to keep up with the gigantic slave master beside him.  It really felt odd. Grindstone must have been the only person in this entire city that could actually hold any sort of conversation with Shackles.

    I didn't waste time.  Nodding to Protégé, I sneaked out behind them and pushed my way into Shackles' room.

    The inside was sparse.  Made of steel on all sides, it clearly had been put together by the workers down here rather than when the metro was built.  A worryingly identical desk to the one in the Mall dominated the room with a rusted cage in the corner, likely where I would have been put had I still been his.  To the other side, there was a musty old bed on a metal frame. Listening out behind me, I rushed to the desk and started hunting right away.

    While my hooves tore open drawers and hunted among piles of odds and ends upon his desk, I couldn't help but ponder more on just what this place was.  Sundial hadn’t mentioned any strange ambience, so that must have come later in his time. Something had happened here, maybe because of the balefire? Or after?  Did it have to do with some crazy memory experiment that went wrong and released a memory orb into the air that created recurring perceptions of all who were in the area that perhaps now manifested as ghosts caught between the physical world and their own memories?

    I stopped for a second and blinked.  My imagination really was on overdrive today.

    “Could anypony blame me?” I muttered, digging into Shackles’ things.

    I moved drawer to drawer, hooves spreading the papers, tools, and shotgun rounds he kept aside in the hunt for keys.  Shackles was a practical slaver. He had to have spares!  I'd just take any I found and-

“Aha!”

    I found one large ring of keys and threw them into my pack.  The thought to rush out now entered my mind, but who knew if this was all of them?  I needed to make sure. Shivering the longer I stayed here, I moved to the next line of drawers and began digging through sets of hoof cuffs he had stored ready.

    If he came back, there was only one corridor. I'd be trapped.  

“Come on, come on…”

    Minutes passed.  The drawers were finished.  I began to hunt along the edges of the bedside table and under the folders he kept there.  I flipped through them to look for anything in between the papers, and instead got a rather unnerving sight of photographs.  They were of slaves, each in the same collar and each on their last legs. Every photo bore a red cross over them. There was one of me in here, one I hadn't even remembered he had taken.  It bore no cross.

    I was a skeletal, broken figure, looking up at the camera with submission in my eyes.

    Sweet Goddesses, I'd been so hurt I hadn't even remembered things like this.

    Well, not anymore.

    Throwing it down again, I noticed a ring pointing out the side under it.  The ring led to a huge and fancy looking key. Yes! Throwing it in my bag as well, I made to hunt over the last things.

    I should have gone then. I knew I should have, but I didn't want to leave anything to chance!

    I really should have gone then.

    The stomping hit my ears just a moment too late.  He was in the corridor outside.

    Standing rock still, my body froze with fear and my mouth dropped open in shock.  He was coming! Oh Goddesses! I had no way out! There was no airducts or floorboards!  He had no cupboards or drawers big enough to squeeze in, it was too sparse!

    “Get back to work, worm!”

    I heard a whip slap into somepony's back, and a stallion shriek in pain.  Then again and again until a begging was heard, promising that he would work harder. Shackles was in the lab outside!  Protégé must have had to hide!

    But I couldn't.

    No, I could! It was the worst hiding place ever, the most pathetic attempt born of a foalish comfort. But it was all I had.

    I hid under his bed.  Crawling right to the back corner, I curled up and shook terribly.  I was sweating so hard I feared he might smell me.  My heart slammed into my ribs hard enough that it hurt.  With shaking hooves, I gulped down far too much of my RadAway than was necessary just to ensure I didn't cough.

    The door opened.

    And he entered.

    His hooves were visible in what I could see.  They made the thin steel floor bend beneath him as he limped his way in, having acted stronger when around Grindstone.  I could hear the rasp in his breaths after Brimstone's attack a few days ago. Clearly, he was still recovering just as much as I, Brimstone, or Protégé was.

    The hooves moved forward, setting to his desk where I heard a low growl under his breath.

    “Somepony has been in here.”

    I had to stifle the squeak. He'd noticed!  Oh Goddesses, it had to be the same trick Protégé used in his office!  I'd been so stupid!

    “Somepony after keys...”

    ‘Please...please, please, please…’ I endlessly repeated the word in my head.

    He moved in further.  His mere presence, the smell of that mangy coat washed into the room so thickly that I wanted to gag.  He was moving right toward the bed! Reaching the side, he stood right before my hiding place, before turning and sitting upon it.  The bedframe protested and groaned when the huge stallion's weight sank. With horror, I felt the wire mesh holding the mattress above me press down, pushing upon me and effectively trapping me here.  Claustrophobia set in, the frame lowering down and keeping me in my little corner, restricting my space till I couldn't move! If I did he'd notice me for sure, it was too small a space to move quietly!

    I heard him pick up the folder and open it.

    “It seems our little thief is getting bolder every day, eh?  Daring to come here. Daring to steal from their Master.”

    Biting my lip, eyes clenched shut, I simply covered my eyes and prayed internally.  He knew, he had to know! Maybe if I came out, he'd go easier! If I gave up.

    The bed frame suddenly released and he stood up again, his hooves clattered to the ground before me.  I heard him put the folder down and move further into the room.

    “The perfect slave in the heart of Fillydelphia.  The eternal chain...hehe. The Master will be so again.  Nopony escapes it, not even the ass, for whatever that ageing mule thinks. There is only one Master.”

    To my immense relief, he moved toward the door.  Only then he stopped.

    “Murky Number Seven.”

    Never in my life, had my heart felt so still.  Hearing my full name spoken without him even knowing I was there.  Or did he? Oh no. Oh no!

    “It won't take long to break you back in. The born slave. The servant who knows his place.  You were meant to come to me. None of the others...just you. Just you and that lovely broken mind...hehehe.”

    The door opened, and I dreaded hearing even one step back as he stomped out and left.  His hoof treads echoed long as they disappeared down the hallway, leaving me in the dark.

    I emerged a couple minutes afterwards, trotting into the small lab to find Protégé.  Trotting toward me, he clearly saw the look on my face, saw the tears. He'd seen Shackles go in.

    I fell forward a little, sitting down awkwardly, and leaned against the wall with my hooves covering my face.

    It didn't matter that he was a slaver, or whether or not I could call him a friend.  Just feeling anypony resting a hoof on my shoulders and quietly telling me it'd be okay was enough for me right at that moment.

   
    Our return wasn't so simple.

    The moment we had poked our heads through the door leading back to the main lab, we had dropped back rapidly.

    Chainlink Shackles stood at its centre, dominating the proceedings and bellowing orders.  He was right on the elevated bath between them on the centre. We'd never get past him!

    “Find more materials to block the exits!  I will not lose another room to these beasts forcing in!  Should they take a room of importance, it will be you retaking it!  Get going! NOW!”

    Shackles didn't threaten.  That was an ultimatum.

    It only confirmed my thoughts.  Ponies in this place were attracting whatever lurked in the outer metro, drawing them to every possible entrance.  They couldn't possibly keep it much longer if they ran out of supplies; these things were finding every possible way in that ponies might have overlooked.  Now that I cast my eyes up, I could see that even the air vents had been welded shut with huge iron plates.

    “There has to be a way around, Murk.  We passed a few other corridors. Let's go before we're spotted.”

    He was right.  Much as my eyes were focussed on my ex-master (I did like to remind myself of that whenever possible), we had to get moving.  I didn't want to be here if we were spotted, let alone if something broke in...

    However, just as I began to step back, my eyes caught somepony amongst those moving back through the labs.  There was a group of slaves awaiting instructions on where to go at one side of the large room, mostly sitting or leaning on the wall.  Slavers were dividing them up.

    An earthy yellow coat with a deep brown mane streaked in red.

    Sunny Days!

    She was right there!  I knew she'd been taken here, but I'd thought it was the inner metro she'd been left in!  Yet here she was, lying against the wall and resting as best she could. Filthy and bearing injuries, she looked weak. Heart in my mouth, I dear hoped she had held up down here, and not become one of them. I knew she was strong inside.

    A massive blue mare began shouting at them, dragging slaves up to move elsewhere.

    “C'mon!  Git oop! Getcha movin' now!” Her odd accent, seemingly formed of many origins, penetrated the air with sharp, whiplike cracks before Sunny's group began moving.  I saw her slide in between the ponies, staying out of sight and inside the crowd. Smart mare. A few others trotted with her, mutually helping one another.

    “Murk, what's wrong?  We have to go!”

    “There one pony more we've got to get, Protégé.  An old friend.”

    He pulled me back from the door and let it close.  “We won't get anypony by standing around, let's go.”

    He was right.  I nodded, and we slipped off into the deeper areas of Ministry Station.  We passed by many of the fallen slaves idly chatting while carting supplies around or attempting to break into sealed rooms.  Others made a point of securing some rooms.  The lower we went, the more we found they were having to block it all up.

    Eventually, we found ourselves entering less populated areas.  An old café near some interior windows that had been stripped of anything useful lay ahead of us.  This wasn't getting us anywhere. Every direction we'd taken was putting us farther away from our goal of the slave cells, yet no way around presented itself.  Hanging around to wait for Shackles to move back in wasn't much better...

    Behind me, Protégé stumbled and caught a table with his front hooves to keep himself up, groaning and holding his head briefly.  He looked behind him, staring at a bare wall.

    That wasn't helping much either.

    “It's getting to you too, isn't it?”

    “I'm fine, Murk.  Let's...let's just keep going.  I'm just...hearing things. What they said for Glimmer, I won't fall to it...s-something about her orbs weakened her. Come on!”

    He pushed on ahead, knocking a few chairs out of the way with more aggressiveness than I'd seen in his movements in a while.  Not since he'd grabbed me earlier on today at the thought of the foals being endangered.

    “But it got others...”

    My words went unanswered, the strained look on his face showing more frustration and anger than anything.  He didn't like that it was happening.

    Reluctantly, I dropped the issue and followed him to where he looked through those interior windows.  Below the café, about fifteen feet beneath the window, I could see another level. It held open platforms beside metro lines.  These, however, bore only smashed barricades at the openings to their tunnels. Something had broken through before the concrete had been laid down.

    “That platform, it runs all the way to the east, the direction we want to go, Murk.  Look down there.”

    I craned my head and hopped up on a small box to see over the lip better, feeling decidedly dejected from my height.  The platform was between four metro lines, studded with smashed benches and ruined signs that bore, presumably, times and departures. I looked at the yellow text upon them, taking some time to decipher the single word, eventually realising they all said “delayed.” How appropriate.

    “What was I looking at?”

    “The stairwell on the far end.”

    There indeed was one.  It went up to-

    Ah, that could-

    My eyes found those smashed barricades again, and I gulped.

    “Nooooo, no, no, no! I don't think this is the best idea.”

    “It takes us to the opposite end of Ministry Station, below that main lab area, and back into the place we found your friends from the opposite side.”

    “B-but the barricades. Those things must be down there!  It's open to them!”

    Protégé glanced at me, before unlatching the window and pushing it open.  Stale air swept in over us both, the stench of decay and dust blew into the café.

    “No mint.” Protégé muttered to himself.  “It's only thirty metres or so. If we sprinted...”

    “No!” I pleaded with him.  “If we open it, they'll be let in here!  Everypony will die!”

    “We could rappel down from here.”

    “There'll be another way!”

    “There isn't.”

    “I...I...”

    I was quaking so hard that I hadn't even noticed that Protégé looked afraid, too.  He was right. We couldn't risk staying unseen forever, and we had to get over there.  Shackles knew I had these keys, he might even have known it was me!  We couldn't delay.He might go for the cells to cut us off!

    Taking a slow breath, I muttered quietly to myself. “For Glimmer, Murky. For your sis.”

    Letting the breath out, I nodded, and spoke up.

    “Okay.”

    Getting a boost up from Protégé, I sat on the windowsill, attracting a curious glance from Protégé to the way in which I sat on my rump with my legs dangling out.  (Why does nopony get it? It's comfortable!) He vaulted up after me and held on as I hooked my, uh, hook onto the window and bit hard on the mouthpiece to lock the wire in place.  We didn't need to jerk and fall. Breaking a leg in an area they could reach would just be horrific.

    “Ready, Murk?”

    “N-no.”

    “Glad I wasn't the first to say it.  Let's go.”

    He bit his lip, a strangely meek expression from the stoic slaver.  I closed my eyes and released the tension on the wire a bit, dropping us from the window.  Gradually, we lowered down, the wire taking both our weights fairly easily.

    From below us, I heard a small, metallic sound. Like a bit of tin hitting the ground.

    I stopped immediately, ready to bite to pull us back up.  Protégé's revolver flew out, pointing down toward a tunnel where the noise had come from.  We simply swung in silence, waiting…

    Waiting...

    Nothing.

    Whimpering to myself, not in the least from the weight on my saddle tugging at my torso, I lowered us to the ground.

    “Th-this might make noise when it comes loose to retract, Protégé.”

    “Then get ready to sprint.  We can make it.”

    The repeated line was whispered to himself, something I wasn't meant to hear.  Taking a breath, I released the tension. The sound of the saddle whirring and dragging the released hook back in seemed deafening, the clack as it jammed even worse. Wincing, I tugged at it, but it wasn’t moving.

    “What happened?” Protégé seemed impatient to get moving, I could see his hooves pacing.

    “I'm stuck!”

    My hook had wedged on the window as it slammed shut above us, the rusted joints failing.  I was stuck onto it! Like I was chained to a post! My hooves tugged at the wire, biting for it to retract hard enough that light traces of smoke flew off from the airgun mechanism and smelled like burning.  I looked to either side at those looming dark tunnels. Things lurked in there. If they heard us...

    “Come on, Murk!” Protégé pulled with me, the wood above cracking.

    I didn't want to leave my precious saddle!  I'd never get another one, but it'd take me so long to get out of it!  If I was caught half way...

    From behind me, I heard that same sound of metal striking the ground, echoing down one of the metro lines.

    I had to fight not to scream. Another sound, a scraping sound, came from down one of the tunnels, rippling out.  I saw Protégé's head snap around and gasp. He suddenly redoubled his efforts, pulling harder until the wood splintered, the hook almost free!

    “What is it?”

    He gritted his teeth, pulling again and again with me.

    “Protégé, what is it?”

    The hook flew free, dragging the entire rotten window with it.  Falling away, the hook almost slashed my face as it sucked in and snapped to my side, the window collapsing from above us. We dove to the side, hearing a shattering of glass and wood on the filthy marble floor behind us from the entire frame coming crashing down.

    “E.F.S spotted something red. GO!”

    I needed no telling. We made for the opposite staircase at top speed!  My hooves clattered on the flooring, leaping over the piles of scrap and weaving around the benches.  Protégé clambered over one to simply move in a straight line. The sound from the falling window echoed around through every tunnel.

    Fifteen metres!

    We passed under the platform board.

    Ten metres!

    The stench was unbearable!  Rotting bodies were near the stairwell, insects scurrying over them when we approached.  Such a sharp and sweet scent like...

    ...mint.

    “Protégé, RUN!”

    I couldn't help the scream, the pain from my chest and neck was too great, but I didn't dare slow down!  On all sides, I heard sounds, something scything along the ground at high speed, faster than us! Snorts, wails, and bellows preceded the greater wash of the nauseating smell that exploded from the tunnels ahead of it!  Shrieking, like a child reaching for something they couldn't have, echoed around us.

    Five metres!

    We were there!

    Protégé galloped ahead of me onto the stairs.  Something crashed from, down a tunnel behind us. I heard a frantic alarm sounding from the tunnel just to our right, clipped and broken, like some security sensor someone had set up to warn of things coming down it.  Protégé struggled with the doors, trying to heave the massive valve lock with his body weight. I joined him, crying and not daring to look behind me. Slowly, it ground around, slipping and opening.

    Moving at the same time, we piled through the door together, landing in a heap.  His horn flared, pushing the door shut and spinning the lock again on this side. Ten seconds after that, the door was slammed into by something...and then another.  A metallic clang and an unnatural roar, like something in terrible pain, cracking its voice.

    I scrambled up, getting off Protégé, and pulled him to his hooves, before we both simply galloped away.  There were no words, no 'thank goodnesses,' no 'pauses for breath,' no jokes about never taking the train again.

    We simply ran because we were in terror.  The haunting moans and metallic scraping fading behind us, as whatever was down here departed to find another way to reach us.

    We didn't stop, we just kept running.  Up the stairs, into the Station again, through a shop, and down the tunnels that led back to the main area.

    Beep!

    I didn't cease moving. I could hear it just fine!  I dearly hoped Sundial would say something to make this place feel more real!  Something to make me less unsure of just how far beyond sanity it went!

    Beep!

    Click.

    I heard a frenzied panting, not unlike our own to get away.

    “I...I don’t think they saw me.  By Celestia, those zebras are cautious. I'm only allowed this PipBuck to do my work. If they saw me using it to say any of this...”

    His voice fell away.

    “It's been two weeks now. Sky must be terrified. My family must think I've disappeared like all the other ponies going missing!  I want to tell them so bad, but I now know how important this is. There...there's something being done down here that is not natural.  Something of Aurora's invention that’s been corrupted by the zebras and their weird rituals. I hear them sometimes, chanting in small groups. I'm so scared.”

    It felt strangely unreal to hear him sniff and clearly hold back tears.  I wanted to just hug the PipBuck close, as though it would help him somehow.  That is, if we weren't sprinting for our lives. I wasn’t taking any chances. I'd seen one of them rip down a steel door to get at us!

    “That's not all, though.  I kept wondering how they got in, that's what Pinkie wanted me to find out more than anything.  They have this...this room, across from the main lab. It's closed off to us, and they tell me I'm not allowed.  That's their secret way into Filly. But I know it doesn't lead anywhere! I've been in the overhead wiring ducts around it!  It's just a room to nowhere, but somehow it lets them in and out. I've got my suspicions, but I dunno...”

    “Murk, keep up!”

    “I...I'm trying!  I'm tired...I can hear ponies nearby.”

    I could, even over Sundial's terrified message. I heard the stomping of hooves, of many hooves at the same time.  Sound was unclear in these tunnels, echoing in ways that noises shouldn't.

    Wait...that room he mentioned. That must have been the one Glimmer went into!  Just off the main lab?

    “That's the least of my worries.  Those refugees that came in? Some are put to work. They are interrogated for skills.  B-but some, they just never seem to be around at all. I saw some being taken to that weird prison place. They were saying something about “Orb Duty” or something.  Aurora's all about memory orbs, but what could they want from refugees' memories? I...I thought it was just to teach them spells from those, uh, spell orb things, but I've seen earth ponies and pegasuses, I...I mean pegasi going in, too.  I don't know what's going on, but I'm a part of it now. Two weeks down here, and...and...”

    He stammered.

    “Aurora Star spoke to me. She told me quietly, away from the zebras, that this is for Equestria's benefit when the time comes.  I don't know for sure, but she sounded worried, like she was even more scared than I was. Look, I've got to go, they need me to hook up another of those memory devices for non-unicorns. I have to be close, I feel like I've got all the pieces of the puzzle, but no idea on how to solve it, nor any clues as to what's the end goal of all this.  Um, goodbye. I, um, I realised that I haven’t ever told you how I got my cutie mark. Hehe...silly right? M-maybe when I get out.”

    Click.

    All the pieces of the puzzle but no solution, didn't I know the feeling.  Memory orbs, spell orbs, memory machines, missing refugees, Aurora acting stranger than ever, hidden inventions, and some secret in a mountain. It all had to fit together somehow!

    For the betterment of Equestria, yet in the company of zebras that wanted to destroy it. I really wished I knew what Aurora had meant by telling him that.

    “This...this way!  It has to go right back up to-argh!”

    Protégé shouted back to be, having run ahead, clearly following some sort of tracker on his eyepiece to get back to my friends.  Only as he galloped past a corner, I saw him collide into somepony coming the other way. Yelping, I fell back and hid behind a polished bin for a few seconds.  It wasn't cowardice! I was just aiming to maybe ambush them, if they weren't nice!

    Unfortunately, it wasn't somepony nice.

    Protégé fell off to the side as half a dozen ponies crashed down around him, their chains pulling one another off their hooves from the impact.  Within it, I saw a huge blue shape rear up.

    “What in the fakka!?” The slaver mare we’d seen earlier spun her head furiously, spotting Protégé instantly.  “Come 'ere and see!”

    She stormed forward, throwing slaves to either side.  They shrunk back, cowering. They clearly hadn't fallen yet to whatever happened here.  I saw her pull a length of chain from her back and start dangling it in her mouth. Protégé reached for his revolver, but I saw the chain flash forward, and heard him cry out in pain when it scythed over the hooves protecting his face.

    “A fuckin' gun!  I oughta...I oughta...wait, wait...”

    She threw him out of the crowd, sending Protégé slamming into a shelving unit piled among these old passenger lines.

    “Fuckin' you!?  Spah! You spahin'!”

    Oh flustering heck, she'd recognised him!

    Protégé rolled away, trying to come to his hooves, looking for his dropped revolver.  The chain flew down to one side of him, then the other. The mare swung her head, holding it in her mouth and arced it right around, catching his legs in it.  Too injured and slow to dodge, he was pulled from his hooves and dumped down.

    I couldn't stand by and watch this!

    Steeling myself (by which I mean, repeating 'Oh my goodness' multiple times with every breath) I galloped forward, flicking out my saddle's mouthpiece, and fired the hook into the ceiling.  Hopping off my hooves, biting down until it pulled me off the ground, it whisked me up to land on her back. I felt muscles coil as she flailed, screaming blue murder loud enough that my eyes watered at the stinging pain in my ears, and sending echos down every route of the station tunnels.  I held onto her mane, being thrown back and forth. If only I had my old metal ruler, I could have done some damage! What could I do?

    What I always did. Fight dirty.  So, I grabbed her neck and bit down on her ear hard.

    “Aaaargh!” Her voice roared as she reared up and dropped the chain from her screaming mouth.  “Lil' bitin' midge! Fuck ya!”

    We had to end this quickly! I hoped Protégé would do something, her screaming would alert the others!

    She spun, hurling me so hard that I came flying off her and smacked into the wall.  My chest heaved with pain, making me choke as the iron-tinged fluid burst into my throat.  Sliding down, I coughed and held my bandages, feeling the swollen wound below pulsate around where Wildcard had...yeah.

    Through blurry eyes, I saw Protégé launch back on her.

    He ducked one hoof, stamping on the side of one knee before diving away again.  I could see him looking for his revolver, using his magic to keep that chain away from her!  I saw him charge up to her again, trying to spin and buck for her neck, but the mare twisted away, launching onto him with both front hooves! In a grapple, her huge size was always going to win, and even while I tried to pull my sore body up, I saw her grab him bodily, and throw him to the ground before her.

    Her hoof slapped him right across the face, before a second impact tossed him right into me.  I howled out, falling to the side, blacking out for a few seconds in pain.

    The world swam back into view. Protégé was stunned, holding his head as he lay atop me.  I could hear the huge blue mare advancing on us and the sound of a chain being picked up.

    “Little spahs in mah place!” Her rasping mouth spat to the side.  “Gonna take ya to Master and he'll deal, y'right!”

    Her slaves cowered back behind her, their chains rustling as she advanced on us.  I could see Protégé's revolver lying nearby, but the pain was so great. I couldn't push that far!  Not with his weight on me.

    “Protégé!”

    “H-huh?”

    I worried if she had concussed him. He just stared with empty eyes.

    “Your gun!  It's right there!” I hissed, trying not to let her hear.

    “I...not mine...Master owns all...I...”

    I gasped at the words, seeing that faraway look in his eyes from the dazing blow. This place was-no! No, not now! I shook him, trying to get him off me.

    “Protégé, fight it back!  You're confused! Please! Your gun's right there!  Argh!”

    I'd tried to force myself toward it, but my chest was in dire pain.  I hoped it hadn't reopened the wound. There was nopony to help me down here!

    “Right, c'mere!” The mare stomped over, that chain swinging up and around, making a lethal hum in the air!

    I could only look up, seeing those glinting eyes awaiting her revenge and adding a couple more to her roster.  I could do nothing but just watch. Every second lasted a minute as the chain slowly descended.

    Slowly, in just as excruciating slow motion, I saw the form of another rise up behind her.  That fiery mane over an earthy yellow coat. I saw her bared teeth and sheer determination burning in her eyes.  Sunny Days rose up from behind the slaver, launching onto her back with her own chained hooves twisting around the slaver’s neck.

    The moment Sunny had a grip, she pulled hard and crossed her hooves, wrapping her hind legs around the massive slaver's thick neck.  I lay open-mouthed in wonder.

    I began to hear properly again as Sunny's dire cry of rage struck past the slaver's roar of anger.  The blue mare fell back, staggering as her windpipe was crushed, throwing herself against walls to try and loosen the mare upon her back!  Yet Sunny held on tight, grimmly locking on a death grip, her eyes mad with fury. Weeks of rage and pent-up frustration exploded forth on the slaver that had held her, as she saw, finally, a chance to unleash all of it on her!

    “Remember when you choked me, bitch?  How d'you like it!?”

    The slaver gurgled, eyes turning from rage to panic as she found herself suffocating.

    “Going to watch you black out just like that slaver who tried to have his way with me! You ever wonder where your little crony went, eh? You're getting the same!”

    She tumbled to the side, trying to slam Sunny off the floor, but even under the crushing impact, she held firm, digging in her rear hooves and pulling so hard that the chains actually began to break the slaver’s skin!  They writhed together on the floor, screaming and gasping. Even below the injuries that covered her body, I saw that Sunny was not weak. Those muscles were still strong as ever!

    The slaver's hooves began to twitch and waggle more than kick, her movements slowing.  After a long and slowing battle, she slowly died before my eyes in a horrible and panicked fashion, twitching and choking even after her eyes had rolled back into her head.

    Then there was silence.

    The slaves didn't seem to know what to do.  Most of them cowered from us and stayed safe near the wall, awaiting another master to come fetch them.  A few came up behind Sunny, asking if she was okay, no doubt companions she had survived with. They all looked stronger than the others, more alive in their eyes.

    But my eyes weren't for them. I could only look at my saviour.  Sunny Days stood shakily, exhausted and still venting some anger with little bucks to ensure the slaver was dead.

    “Been waiting a long time to do that. Always told myself I was saving it for when I knew I was going to die anyway.”

    She spat on the corpse, before finally turning back to me.  I managed to get myself up, pained and limping, to move over to stand before her.

    “S-Sunny, I...I'm so glad I-I mean I'm sorry and...or I came to, you can...”

    I didn't even know where to start.  There were too many things. I held myself against the wall, taking deep breaths just as she was, and instead settled on something simpler.

    “Thank you.”

    “Yer welcome, Murky.” She managed a grin through split, dry lips.  “Just surprised to see you here. I never knew if you survived that hole I dropped you into.  Figured you'd prefer that than let big nasty catch you.”

    That little grin.  Oh, that grin. Such a relief!  I'd witnessed her hurt, afraid, and dragged into the worst of Fillydelphia, but here she was still managing to smile.  Very quickly, I realised what the bright sunny face on her flanks really meant. No doubt that attitude had kept her alive.

    There were so many questions I had for her, so many things to tell her.

    Yet with the groan behind us, I knew they would have to wait.  We both turned, finding Protégé sitting up, his back against the cold tiled walls and looking around as though absolutely unsure of where he was.  Slowly, I advanced and held out a hoof.

    “P-Protégé?”

    His eyes snapped around to me, breathing hard and looking almost afraid of me.

    “Where is he?” His voice was weak, higher-pitched than normal, like it was about to break with emotion.

    I bit my lip, hearing Sunny and a couple of her friends trot up behind.  I waved them back, he needed room.

    “Protégé it's...” I couldn't believe I had to say this.  “It's okay. It's just me!  Um, Murky!”

    “My...my Master, he's...he's down here, he'll be looking I...I should get back to work and...”

    I shifted forward again, placing a hoof on each shoulder.

    “C-calm down!”

    There was advice I never thought I'd be the one giving.

    “Look at us. You were just hit on the head, b-breathe or, um...”

    Sunny knelt beside me.  “Listen to me,” She began, “Just hear our voices, it's all right. This place does that. Concentrate. You're fine.  Breathe slowly and calmly. In...”

    I saw him follow her instructions, breathing in deeply. Clearly, this wasn’t her first time reciting them.

    “...and out.”

    A slow exhale.

    She repeated it a few times.  I saw the colour returning to his face, his eyes becoming sharper, looking around.  He made a sharp twitch, his hoof almost pushing us away.

    “Space!  Please! I just need a little...”

    I gave him it, the unicorn trotting off to get his revolver and reasserting his eyepiece upon his head.  The moment it was back on, I heard him sigh almost in relief.

    “Protégé, you were saying-”

    “I wasn't saying anything.  A-a concussion.” He snapped back over his shoulder at me, not even looking fully round.  “I just hit my head.”

    “We can't ignore this, Protégé, you're-”

    “Fine!” He made to stomp a hoof, before seemingly thinking better.  “I'm...fine. Nothing's wrong. Just-just hit my head and...l-let's go.”

    He began trotting ahead, leaving me with Sunny and the rest of the slaves.  I looked to her.

    “We have friends. We're getting them out of their cells. We may have a way out!”

    Sunny nodded, not taking her eyes off Protégé.  “All right, I'll help you. Come on, I'll explain on the way. I'm sure you have questions.”

    She turned to her friends, explaining for them to stick with the group, to hide the body and get back to their cells before it was found.  The cover story was that Protégé and I had killed her, given we weren't meant to be here anyway. I hoped it'd hold.

    Then we took off, just Sunny and I to follow Protégé as he waited up ahead.  Watching him trot I saw him constantly looking around, often stopping to hold a hoof to his face.  He would seem to breath deeply before trotting on, his pace slower than his usual confident stride.

Instead it looked, if anything, like how I’d used to trot.

Meekly.

    “This place, it does things to ponies.”

    Sunny moved beside me as we made our way through the lower tunnels of the metro. We were going up stairs, moving out of what looked like engineer’s routes back to the pedestrian levels. Most corners bore some slaves in hypnotic-like motions, working away at their tasks.

    The tunnel itself was held up by recurring archways, each bearing carved stone of the Ministry symbols, gleaming with gemlights.  Aside from our whispering and the background hush of slaves, everything was silent. I half expected Shackles to appear. This is when he would. He usually did.

    “I've seen them, my friend Glimmer, she's...”

    “Fallen?” Sunny's face sunk a little.  “I'm sorry, Murky.”

    “Wh-what does it?”

    She took a long breath, holding her head up.  “We don't know. But there's something deep in here, we never get to see it. It’s all behind this big security door, somewhere a few corridors along from the main lab. I've been near that door before, Murk.  Huge, engraved with some sort of symbol. There's...there's something pulsing in there. Something that does all this, I just know it.”

    “My friends told me that it makes ponies like this.”

    Sunny looked grim for a second.

    “It does. I've been down here for some time now.  I've seen the patterns. The symptoms, the dreams, and all the strange things.  The ambience in here is like it's out of the past, Murky. I sometimes hear ponies talking around the corner who aren't there.  They talk about the war. You'll see somepony in the corner of your eye at the end of the corridor, but when you turn they're gone.”

    She shivered.

    “It goes for those who are vulnerable, plays on their mind and hurts them, making them into automatons.  My friends and I, we stuck together. Kept ourselves going, stole things from the slavers to survive and shared between us all.  They never caught us, no matter how much Shackles wants his 'little thief.' He probably thinks I stole those keys you have. We've lost some along the way. There's maybe only half of us left now.”

    With a glance up, she looked across those working at a table. The ponies were making an eerie similar laugh, one that stopped at the same time, as though coordinated.

    “It goes for slaves because we're hurt, Murky.  We're suffering and being told to only listen and never speak.  To do this and follow orders. We hear things, things to make you want to do jobs.  Eventually you just...fall. Broken slaves are the worst, the ones who see nothing other than master and slave.”

    I felt my lip quiver, my eyes turning to Protégé striding ahead of it now, determined as though driving himself forward by anger.

    Glimmer though...it must have been her memory orb addiction that did it.  Made her vulnerable, open to its indoctrination!

    “Sunny...I'm hurt. Protégé's falling to it, a-and my friends are locked up. I need your help.”

    “I already said I would, Murky.”

    She smiled down to me.  I couldn't help but say it again.

    “Before, I'm sorry I brought you here and...what you went through.  I heard you were sent to the Stable. I saw you in the Ministry! I'm sorry I got you sent here.”

    I felt her hoof pat my shoulders.

    “It's all right.  You didn't mean for this.  I'm still here.” She took a deep breath.  “They wanted me broken, so I gave them what they wanted.  Oh, they heard me beg, plead, and say 'Yes, Master' so many times; but every time I let it build inside, telling myself, 'this is just for now.' When the time came, I knew I wanted to snap out of it.  If I'd rebelled all day, they'd have killed me by now.”

    Simple, practical survival.  I guess a hardened wastelander like herself really knew how to do it.

    “We are here.” Protégé announced ahead of us, speaking bluntly.  Ahead of him, I could hear the main lab still, Shackles’ voice rising above the rest and making me falter back.

    “The portal room will be stripped by the end of the month, Run About!  Your excuses are false!”

    I heard the slaver squeak his affirmation back, before running off.  Poking my head out, I could see him still standing there, watching them all.  Seeing him suddenly turn, I pulled back drastically.

    That had been too fast.  Did he know? What if he knew?  What if he was just waiting!?

    Thankfully, Sunny had no such requirement.  She trotted out as though simply going to the cells.  With a brief glance, I heard her whisper.

    “Go!”

    We moved out, and I felt that one heartstopping moment of fear, as we ran into the lab, over to the portal room corridor, and into the cells. I could see Shackles moving away on the opposite side. I didn't stop, almost tripping over the oblivious slaves around us, as the pain beneath my bandages flared up and drove me to hustled limping. I pulled the keys out as we arrived.  Protégé hung back near the door, keeping a wary eye out on the way we’d came with his E.F.S.

    “Murk!” Coral galloped across, seeing me struggling with the keys in my shaking hooves.  “Good job, my dear. Well done.”

    It took a minute of hunting, but I finally found the right one and threw the door open, falling into her waiting hooves.  Brimstone surged to his hooves, bending the cage door further open on its rusting hinges, and cracked his neck out, making the scar tissue up one side of his neck warp in horrid ways.

    “Glimmer.” He spoke simply, as though there was no other possible course of action.

    I couldn't disagree. Helping Coral to her weakened hooves, she limped out of the cell where Sunny quickly took over in aiding her along.

    “She-she went into that big door, Brim!” I moved across to him, the big pony's eyes focussed on the exit back to the portal room corridor behind us.  “Sunny, i-is there any way to turn people back from it?”

    Sunny cast a little glance to Protégé, before shaking her head.  “I'm sorry, Murky. We’ve never seen-”

    “There has to be!”

    I'd forgotten the hollow feeling in my rush to stay alive and the hunt for the keys, I didn't need reminding now that she was nothing but a shell!  I refused to believe it!

    “Maybe...maybe if she saw me and-”

    “Murky!” Sunny cut me off.  “I'm so sorry, but I've had friends who have died for one another in here, just like you I'd imagine.  We could never get through to them. There was no way to make them see! They just...keep working.”

    “Lost or not, she isn't staying here.” Brimstone began moving toward the door, leaving me standing between them all.

    “She isn't lost!”

    I was whining, I knew, but I didn't want to believe it!  Glimmerlight couldn't be just gone like that! She was...she was her. Always the one to make a joke...to...to...

    No, I'd have to try!  I had to! She was in there, I knew it!

    Sunny helped Coral toward the door where Brimstone was peeking out.

    “The slaving fuck's gone.  We can get in.”

    Protégé glanced behind us, seeing the other slaves still in their cages.  They lay on their sides or padded uselessly at the walls. None of them seemed sane. None of them even noticed us.

    “Should we not help them?”

    “They are lost, slaver.” Brimstone didn't even look back.  “They wouldn't follow us and even if we wanted to take them, we can't carry them all.”

    That was that, it seemed.  Nopony dared to suggest that we take time away from getting Glimmer in front of him right now.  I could hear the intensity beneath his words, just waiting for a chance to explode after being locked up and no doubt worried for her.  Protégé bowed his head, still looking breathless and weak, and dropped the subject immediately.

    Then we moved.

    We didn't go like a swift group of experts.  Most of us were limping, and all of us exhausted.  The voices in the background of this place were beginning to filter in, unintelligible and distant.  This wouldn't help us at all here. We had to get out soon.

    The huge door lay before us, and I held the elaborate key in my hoof.

    A door to nothing, yet a way out.

    Were it not for Unity and the foals still being out there, I might have been excited, but this was not the time for contemplating escape.  This was the time for saving my sister!

    Hoofing the card forward, I shoved it into the slot and heard a series of clicking sounds.  They gave way to a hiss of gas and clanking metal struts inside the thick metal. Gradually, slowly, shaking the material as it went, the door began to slide apart.  Intricate metal plates swept away from one another and the emblems rolled to the side, revealing the inner room's contents.

    I had been used to my expectations being let down. Not so this time.

    It opened to a room lit by humming lights attached to a generator in the corner.  Three banks of terminals lined each side of the large chamber, and I could already sense the hum of power within.

    Yet at the back, as the doors parted, there lay the way the zebras had entered and exited Fillydelphia so easily.  Their pathway in.

    Beneath a huge shard of a purple gemstone, surrounded by a cage of shining metal and flickering with bands of light that sparkled and gleamed, there lay a platform.  Even I, in all my illiterate lack of education, could tell what this was.

    A portal. They'd used a portal to get into Fillydelphia!

    Suddenly, the scale of what the zebras had been capable of was far beyond what I had ever thought.  My companions clearly thought the same thing I did. Who wouldn't think it?

    That being, 'did it still work?'

    Ahead of us, I saw a pink mane bob upwards, and Glimmer’s face look up from working below the gantry of the portal's platform. It slowly turned to show a rictus grin below lifeless eyes.

    “Oh, hello!  Do you have the parts I need?  I could use them very soon. This machine won't work like it used to anymore, but we could still use it to power some other rooms.  Wouldn't that be nice? It would be bright.”

    “Yes!” Another slave chimed in.  “It would. So much easier to see!”

    “Oh yes.” Glimmer replied to her.  “Then it would be comfortable to stay here.”

    “I'd like that.”

    “Me too.”

    “Haha.”

    I was standing in front of our group, the first into the room.  I knew how many things should have been racing through my mind. All the theories and possibilities we'd just unearthed in this room!  Wishes and dreams should have sparked me to think about what it could do for us.

    Yet, confronted by what this place had done to my sister, I couldn’t bring myself to think of anything but her. Even when we had argued, I had never felt like this. So helpless, so at a loss to comprehend my own love of a friendship that was now at threat, if not already gone.

    Those behind me said nothing.  They simply watched me trot forward.

    “Glimmer...”

    “Can you pass me that spanner?  Thank you.”

    She didn't even look up, simply ducking her head back in to tighten something.

    “Glimmerlight!  Sis!” I felt my words go into a higher pitch, fears of being caught fell away. I just needed time. Time to get through to her.  Please...

    I cantered up to her, shaking her shoulder.  Those eyes looked up at me. No, they looked past me, barely even recognising my presence.

    “Oh, hello there.  How are you?”

    “Glimmer, it's me!  It's-it's Murky! Y-your lil'bro!”

    She simply sat and stared, wordless, then she laughed.  A dry and humourless expression.

    “It's nice here, isn't it?  Do you like it? I've got a lot of work to do, but maybe I can see you-”

    “Glimmer, it's me!” I grabbed her shoulders, leaning closer.  I could feel my eyes becoming damp, my body shaking as the fear grew.  I shook her, I actually shook her as I tried to get her to just focus on me!

    “R-remember?  We were going to escape together!  How we've fought and-and saved each other?  You taught me so much!”

    The thing that I was shaking merely looked confused, even a little scared.  It didn't know what was going on. It tried to smile.

    “Do you need a drink?  You seem rather tired, perhaps-”

    “IT'S ME!  PLEASE!” I screamed into her face, feeling my eyes well up and tears stream down my cheeks.  “We've done so many things! Why don't you recognise me!? Glimmer, you're in there! I...I know it!  Wake up, h-hear me! Please, Glimmer, please!  I need you!”

    I had to wipe my face with a hoof, and my words got caught up in a massive, quaking sob.

    “I don't want to lose you, Glimmer. So...so if you can even hear a bit of me, fight it!  Fight it and come back!  I know you can! I KNOW YOU CAN!”

    Her eyes just stared.  Her mouth formed a sudden 'oh' look.

    “Y-yes!  That's it!  See me!  Remember how you made me all embarrassed?  How you'd joke about s-stallions or something?  O-or how you'd try and make me giggle, even when I was sad, because you wanted so bad to see me smile?”

    She just blinked, seemingly focussed on me, confused and looking more than a little 'off.' The world was just me and her!  I could do this! I had to!

    “Every time I was at my lowest, you came back to me, Glimmer!  I...I want to help you! We'll get by this, we always get by things!  You and me, sis! You and me!  R-remember how you told me that when we got out you'd show me places and we'd travel?  How we dreamed together? H-how you'd laugh with my drawings? So...”

    I spluttered, tears dripped to the grind, my hooves rested on her chest.

    “SO COME BACK TO ME!  I KNOW YOU CAN!”

    I didn't dare look up.

    I didn't once dare even consider any other possibility.

    Then finally, I heard her speak.

    “You...”

    She took a breath.

    “You want to help?  That would be nice if you could.”

    'Glimmer' smiled wider. Her eyes weren’t even looking directly at me any more. Crushed, I fell back.

    “I just...no...G-Glimmer...if only I'd been here I...I could have stopped you using those orbs and…”

    I fell to my haunches, hanging my head, my hooves dropping off her.  Behind me, I heard the others shifting uncomfortably. Brimstone’s heavy tread approached from behind me.

    “We don't have time.  We have to go now. Sunny, was that your name?  Is there any other way out of here?”

    Protégé's voice kicked up, quiet and thin.  “We came in through the asylum, but I doubt the main doors are accessible anymore.

    “There's a way out through the asylum?  You came in through its reception, right?” Sunny responded to him.  Protégé must have nodded. I didn't hear him respond. “There's one other way. Brings you onto the upper levels.  I can take you to it.”

    “Fine.  Sunny, get Murky and take him ahead to wherever this is. We'll follow behind, and I'll carry Glim out.  We have to leave now. We have no time for this.”

    I was just sitting in a little heap.  My mane hung over my eyes, hiding the lost face before me.  She simply returned to work, talking idly about the temperature with the other workers who had never even ceased their tasks.  She ignored me.

    I felt Sunny's hooves around me.  “Come on, Murky. We have to go, you have to-”

    “NO!” I screamed, throwing my hooves around.  I didn't care about the pain as I struggled to throw her off me.

    “Murky, I'm sorry! She's-”

    “No she isn't!” I fought her, struggling like some desperate foal. “She's my friend!  I can...I can!”

    Slowly, I felt myself being pulled farther from her.  Like I was being dragged away. Too many times, had I been torn away from ponies that I loved!  Thrashing, squealing, and kicking Sunny off me, I galloped back and threw myself onto Glimmerlight. My hooves crushed around her, and I buried my face to her chest.

    “She can come back!  She can! They might have something down here!  I can fix this! I...I can...I...”

    It all came out, even as I heard her aloof voice ask if I needed somepony to help me find something, it all just came out in one line, screamed through all the tears and pain.

    “I just want my sister back!”

    None of them dared even touch me in that moment, as I did nothing but wail into her chest, not even letting her move away to work despite all of her dead words.  They hurt more than any wound, harsher even than her telling me not to call her 'sister' long ago. That was still her.

    Now I'd lost her...

    It felt impossible to accept. Impossible to let go. I realised what I’d lost, and what I’d never have any more. All I had now were memories.

    Just...memories…

    My eyes sprung open, and I felt myself gasp, nearly hyperventilating. I let go of her, and began digging through my saddlebag.  She couldn't hear me telling her who she was. But there was one last chance, one last hope!

    This place had come after her when she had been vulnerable, afraid of bad memories. But I could fight fire with fire! I could fight memories of a cruel past with memories of a glorious present!  

My friends behind were getting anxious, but I ignored them. Protégé even pulled at my foreleg, but I swept him away, and pulled out the bright, glowing, light-green orb that Glimmerlight had given to me! A present of my very first birthday.

Tentatively, afraid for if I was even right, I turned back to her.

    “H-here!  Glimmer, can you hold this for me please?”

    “Oh, of course!  I do like to be of help to other ponies.  Don't you?”

    Her magic caught the orb, and I immediately pushed it through the air to her horn, wishing and praying for anything to help her.

    I heard her gasp, and then the world fell away.

    I didn’t know why it was different.  I knew memory orbs were supposed to take as long as their original length, and this was a very long one.  Hours long, a whole evening. It was a stupid idea. It would trap me and Glimmer within it until we were caught.  But I wasn't thinking.  Nothing mattered to me except finding some way to help her.

    Maybe it was something she did, I never asked her.  Maybe something deep down, but the orb passed so much faster.  Whirling into my own memories and showing her, from my tiny perspective, what it was like to have a big sister look down at you and smile like there was nothing wrong in the world.

    It all flickered past, like I was blinking again and again and seeing something different every time.  From trotting out across Fillydelphia toward the Roamer's inner-wall extension and seeing her bouncing before me, to seeing them all sat around that table with a ridiculous set up of balloons and little hats.  From us laughing at Brim sitting with that silly get up, looking like he wanted to be somewhere else, all the way to her cuddling me and setting a mug of alcohol before me. She laughed, I laughed back. Whizzing shots of faces and jokes kept flying past.  I floated between them, a limbo of my own life.

    I saw her getting very quickly drunk!  How she grinned and hugged a lot, how she teased and flirted shamelessly with those around her.  I saw my gifts from her, she must have seen the little engraving she had done on my PipBuck! We shared stories, I laughed because of how she gave me confidence.  Please, Glimmer, see how you changed me. How you made me better.

    That iconic image to me...of me and my sister dancing upon a table, like there wasn't a care in the world, and we were free.  Ponies cheering and stamping around us as music blared and gave life to a place that so often took it.  The sights of us stumbling and singing at the top of our lungs even while griffons and slavers wandered past with their weapons and whips.

    No, you didn't make me better. You made me the pony I am.  You saw it the moment you met me. You saw what so few other ponies had.  You didn't see a slave, you saw a little pony who wanted to be cheeky and funny!  You saw one who wanted to enjoy life with friends, not one who ran away and cried.

    You saw me for who I was, and you did everything in your power to make me realise it.

    Please, Glimmer, see. See and remember what you did for me!  Who you are! This is you, my big sister best friend forever!

    Forever doesn't end now!  We're going to get out!  We've found something that could help. The door to the outside!  We're going to escape and travel the wastes! You're going to show me Tenpony Tower, and we'll go hunt my mother to free her!  We can even stay together, stay safe, and have fun for the rest of our lives, the siblings who chose each other as brother and sister!

    Remember me, Glimmer!  Remember that little buck who cuddled up to you after you gave him the best birthday ever and let that show you who you are...

    ...because he's never going to forget you.  Not ever...

    Please...

    I was lying down when I awoke.  Cold tile below my body cast a cutting chill through me and reminded me all too harshly of where I still was.  To go from being in a warm memory of happier times to being stuck in the outer metro, within a labyrinth of nightmares and unseen threats, was not easy.  I simply curled up tight to the pony across from me and longed to go back there again.

    “Easy, Murky. Don't worry...”

    My ears perked up as I heard that form speak and feel it wrap thin hooves around me.  With a gasp, I opened my eyes and hoped beyond measure.

    There was that smile, gently looking back to me.  Please...was it truly her?

    “S-sis?” The words felt so quiet, so hard to say.  “Please...tell me it's you...”

    There was nothing but her and I.  No sound, nothing but this close little moment.  Gradually, to the joy of my heart, I saw her smile grow far past what it had been.  I saw eyes gleam and spring to life, and her face lit up like the sunrise did in my dreams.

    “You’d better believe it!  You always did wake up after me from orbs.”

    She grabbed me, holding me tight to her chest with my head over her shoulder.

    “I knew my lil'bro wouldn't give up on me, Murky.  I could see you the whole time. It's like being trapped in a body you can't control.  I was screaming, crying that I couldn't just reach out and grab you! To be trapped in the cage of my own flesh for the rest of my life, it scared me so much! Thank you, Murky.  Thank you.”

    She was shivering, so much so I worried that she might be in some way hurt and not herself.  What if she wasn't quite the Glimmer I knew once the adrenaline wore down?

    She got up, pulling me to my hooves.

    “Now come on, let's get to the others and get out of this place.  I've been two days working beside the second best mare flank you've ever seen and not even able to have a little date with rosie hooves to let it out!  By all the mad gods of the wasteland, I am in dire need of a drink! All they had was lukewarm water!”

    Scratch that. She was fine.

We'd need to have a talk later, work it all out.  Yet for now, this was all I needed to hear. I laughed. I actually laughed and dared to let my heart rise again.

    “So who's first?  Leafshine?”

    “Pfft, who do you think?”

    I wanted to think of all the other mares I could name or mention.  I wanted to spend time joking, but this wasn't the place.

    “Really...thank you.”

    Glimmer shifted closer to ruffle my mane again, before almost falling against me.  A hazy look came over her eyes, a dizziness as I sensed another wave of unsettling ambience pass through the area.

    “My head's aching worse than after my eighteenth birthday. Feeling weak.”

    “We need to get you out of here.”

    We both turned to wherever we were. It wasn't the portal chamber.  Brimstone and the others had carried us elsewhere and now clustered near the door.  Only Brimstone remained by us, standing watchful during our recovery. He hadn't said anything, but I saw his nod to Glimmer.  I knew the big guy enough by now to tell when he was genuinely relieved.

    Coral lay against a barrel in the corner of the dark room, getting her breath back.  Sunny and Protégé were keeping watch outside. I saw Sunny looking over almost in disbelief.

    “You actually did it, Murky. I...I didn't even know-”

    “Memory magic did this.” Glimmerlight cut in, trotting forward a little unsteadily.  “I can feel it in the air. I know memory magic well enough to recognise this is the work of a master.  Whatever happened to cause this...this effect in the area, it had its origins in memory magic.  It attacks the subconscious, I think. It's the same thing as a memory orb, just less directed and more widespread.”

    That sure made sense.  Even waking now, I could still sense that great well of power surging through the facility every few seconds.

    All the same, I could hear its whispers and flowing air going through my mind, like I could always remember it before it even said anything.

    At the door, I saw Protégé groan, looking behind him sharply. Most of the others shook their heads harshly to clear it.

    “I don't know what caused it,” Glimmerlight continued, “but the things they're doing here, I got a good look at them while they had me working.  Even if I couldn't control my own willpower, I still learned.  That portal, it's inactive.  It'll never work the way it did ever again.  There was a schematic or something I must have skimmed. It was all a blur.”

    Brimstone lay a hoof carefully on her shoulder.

    “Think, Glim.  That room could be our way out of Fillydelphia.”

    “I know!  It's broken for sure.  Used to be able to take ponies and whoever else in and out every few minutes!  But...”

    Everyone looked up, that one word standing out.

    “But maybe it could do one more, if this place were fully running again and if somepony did a little jury rigging and if you had a good half an hour to work on it!  That's without even considering that you have to know the coordinates of where to go to and none were ever left behind, let alone what kind of input it requires. Presumably they did it all from...heh...memory.  Appropriate, I know.”

    She shook her head slowly.

    “Look, even if we ever got a chance like that, it's unpowered.  Not been active in centuries. Since the zebras, probably. It isn't our way out, but this place has other routes to the outer metro we could use to get outside the walls and-”

    “As much as I am willing to listen to you all talk of escape from my Master while in the very same room as me, I cannot help but feel you would be better served talking of all this outside Ministry Station and the outer metro line?”

    Protégé moved back into the room.  I couldn't help but agree. I had questions and all sorts of things to say to Glimmer and the others, but we had to go.  We wouldn't stay undiscovered for-

    “It must have been that big bloody raider!  Choked her right out and then he disappears with his own cell mates?”

    I almost yelped, quickly shouting to the others for silence and pulling the door to this dark store room closed.  Multiple ponies went running by us, the sound of slides being pulled and magazines being loaded all too clear to me.

    “Where are we?”

    Sunny slid up beside me, poking out after them.  “Not far from the portal room, about two hundred metres from the nearest way to the asylum.  I can lead you all there, if you're that damned insane as to go out there again!”

    “We have no real choice.” Coral Eve finally stood up and limped over.  “Shackles' den is impassable, and there is no other way out of Ministry Station.”

    “Very well...”

    I gulped hard, sharing a look at Protégé.  I could see the same shiver in his body as I felt in mine.  The others hadn't been out there. They didn't know...

    We waited another minute, with me in front beside Sunny to listen for anypony coming, then we made a break for it.  Our store room emerged into the same primary chamber of the Station, those immense pillars and arches above us with dozens of other slaves moving around.  Sticking to the sides, we moved only when most of the slavers seemed distracted, using the massive columns for cover, them being so big even Brimstone could take a few seconds behind one before moving.

    Sunny was amazing.  A born survivor, she took to sneaking alongside me like a radroach to a sewer and helped guide the others up by using my observations as her decision maker.  We made a good team, really. Before long, we got to the same raised staircase Protégé and I had emerged from originally.

    “There's a good chance they'll see us going in, Murky.  They've got guards above and likely down there too. Your big friend could take them, but the word will go out.”

    “Oh...oh dear.”

    I peeked out and saw the rifles swinging from above.  They were watching the main concourse for anything untoward.

    “That Warlord cannot hide his bulk so easily!  Find him!”

    Falling against Sunny when that booming voice echoed out into the archway hall, I felt my body turn rigid. Chainlink Shackles surged forth from the opposite door.

    “Search the platforms!  Get those slaves for the mountain expedition out of here!”

    Behind me, I saw every pony with us have the same thought, that they were going to block us.  We had to go, and it had to be fast and hard. No sneaking if we wanted to get there before them now.

    They wouldn't follow us into the Asylum, would they?

    Curiously, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sunny slipping a hood from her rags up over her face.  I didn't have time to ask though.

    “We need to go, now.  Brimstone Blitz?” Sunny looked to him.  “Can you lead the way? Down the stairs to the left then on the far end of the platform. Door’s locked down there.”

    “Not for long.” Brimstone snarled and rose fully to his hooves.  “Just keep up. Don't stop moving!”

    Glimmer nodded. So did Coral.  The pair of them were supporting one another as we went, one weak physically and the other still suffering from the ambience in here.  I kept seeing her make the same twitches as Protégé.

    “GO!”

    Brimstone surged forth from the pillars, charging directly for the three slavers blocking the way down!  We galloped out after him even as Shackles' voice roared for the slavers and any slaves to stop us!

    I saw Brim go past a ticket machine, pause for only a second, and rip it from its mountings on the tiled floor.  With a great heave, the machine flew fifteen feet and crushed the slavers guarding the way. The enormous projectile bounced off the floor, rolling end over end down the stairwell to the platform tunnels. He didn't hesitate, rushing right after it, and sending one guard flying a full ten feet. The slaver’s high-pitched scream echoed off the walls as he followed where the machine had gone.

    Two of them ran up on our left.  I heard Coral cry out, before a thick snap of pressure that sent my mane flying into my eyes exploded in the air around us, and knocked them into one of the huge pillars with a sickening crunch.  Whipping her head to the other side, her horn flared and sparked. I felt the backlash of telekinetic power fly sharply over me, as the receptionist’s desk spun off the ground as though kicked by a dragon. Its heavy weight slammed down atop group of guards getting to their hooves in shock.  One managed to dodged to the side. and Sunny tackled him quickly, stamping a hoof into his groin hard. I heard others run from our path, fleeing from Brimstone!

    We were clear!

    “Down!  Down! To the left!”

    We hit the stairs. I looked behind us and saw two dozen slavers gunning for us.

    Then I saw something else.

    Somepony else.

    There was a large group of them, chained and waiting for the 'mountain expedition' at Shackles’ order.  They were being marched out. But who I saw made me want to believe my eyes were tricking me in this strange place. Somepony amongst them being led right at the front. I saw her cream body, and orange mane streaked in red.

    Unity.

    It made me hesitate. Lost in seeing her golden-hazel eyes looking this was, I didn't even give the bullets smashing the enamel tiles on the floor around me a second thought. There she was, staring at the chase and witnessing a little dirty green pony looking right back to her.  I could have sworn I saw her mouth move, saying my name. They had her chained and kept apart from all the other slaves. Why? Why her more than the others?

    “Murky! Come on!”

    I didn't even know who it was that grabbed me, but gunfire whizzed above my head as I was pulled away.

    Ahead of us, I saw some poor guard come to see what the commotion was, and rather unfortunately discover that the common was called Brimstone Blitz. His soon flattened body lay groaning when I passed him.

Unity! Unity was up there!  She was still in Fillydelphia!

    We ran left, making our way through the low curved tunnels to the opposite platform from the one we had come in from.  I simply kept thinking of what I’d seen! Of her! She had been unmistakeable! It was my very first friend in Fillydelphia.

    She would be on that mountain.  We were going there.

    I had a chance to get her!

    My mind was snapped back to the present, being huddled ahead of my friends and helped along forced me to put that away for now. If we wanted to save her, then we had to get out alive first!

    “That door, there!  There!” Sunny pointed hurriedly.

    A huge steel door sat partially ajar before us, slaves working around it not even noticing us as we ran inside and into the dank service corridor.  Coral yanked it shut behind us. Stepping back, her horn flaring dangerously, she stumbled and was caught by Glimmerlight. Sunny threw a mop through the handles of the door, and we kept going, with Glimmer supporting her old, bitter friend.

    There were huddles of slaves in here, mostly all working on the ground in their blank ways, trying to vain to clean a floor that never really could be. They weren't even paying attention to us.

    I dared to feel a sense of success. The slavers wouldn't catch us now before we found the way out, not with a barred door behind us.

    Before us, a massive boarded-up door had been placed into the wall, bearing the same design as the one from the asylum's reception.  Just how intermingled were these two places? 

Brimstone began to smash the boards, not even giving thought to what lay beyond.

    “Murk!” Protégé shouted to me, “Give me your PipBuck!”

    I didn't even hesitate, tossing it to him while he played with his eyepiece.

    “You went through here once. Your PipBuck will have mapped it out. I can lead us with my eyepiece.  Listen, all of you!”

    They turned to him, and I saw the slaver genuinely look taken aback. Almost scared that their attention was on him alone.  Only Brim kept up work on the door.

    “Mu-Murk and I came through here.  There is something in this place. Something that we do not know and which I'm sure you have all heard at least once in that Station.  We must move quickly, but cautiously. If you smell mint...”

    “...run.” Sunny finished for him.

    “Yes.  Do not stop.  We have a tram on the bottom floor through a hole that can, I hope, outrun them.”

    “You hope?” Glimmer almost choked.

    Protégé didn't even respond to her, connecting a wire to his eyepiece from my PipBuck and hooking it to his clothing.

    “Just...keep moving.  Don't look back. These things are not natural. They hide from E.F.S.”
   
    The last board fell from the door with an almighty crash.  Then another smash made us aware of slavers outside the door behind us.  It buckled in, the mop beginning to splinter.

    “Let's go!” Brimstone shouted loudly, pulling the rusted door open.  “And close it behind us, lest every slave in here die from a breach. Those things want this place.”

    We were a group of ponies fighting for good. We were rescuers. Heroes, even, if somepony wanted to be dramatic.  But that didn't mean that we went without hesitation. The musty smell erupted from the darkness ahead. Even Brimstone himself took a second to consider before leading the way in.  Then Coral, then Protégé, and lastly Glimmerlight with a glance to me. I motioned for Sunny to go first.

    Then she held up her hoof.

    “I'm staying.”

    “Wh-what!?” I stood up straighter, ignoring the crack from the mop in the door behind us.  Ignoring even Shackles. “But you can't!”

    Sunny was already removing her hooded fabric and throwing it through the door.

    “My friends are here, Murky.  A good dozen of them. Why do you think I sent them back to their cell?  There's too many to get out through here. How many can fit on a tram? I know the kind he means. They can fit maybe five or six at most.  I won't abandon my friends, Murk.”

    She stroked my mane a little.

    “Just like you didn't.”

    “But...but...” I wanted to convince her.

    “Murk, listen. We need each other to get by. I cannot leave them behind, just like you couldn't for yours!  We are on a switch shift. Every second day we are in the inner metro mines. Look for us there when the time for your plan comes.  Then...we will join you.”

    The doors almost smashed entirely inward behind us.  I was shaking so much. I heard my friends hissing from within, afraid of disturbing what was in there.

    Sunny moved to the huddle of slaves, simply blending into them as another mare in the crowd.

    “Go Murky. We'll make it.  You came this far for your friends.” That smile showed utmost trust.  “I know you'll make it happen for all of us. Now go, Murky. Hurry!”

    I didn't want to.  I really didn't want to!  Yet I could see she had made her choice.  I backed off to the door.

    “Sunny?” I squeaked it out.
   
    “Murky?”

    “When...” I gulped.  “When we get out of here, I'll get you a new d-doll...to say sorry.”

    There was a little half-second of silence between us, before she smiled and looked back to her 'work.'

    “I'll hold you to it, little guy.”

    Behind us, the door burst open, two slavers wielding a fire extinguisher as a ram crashed through and fell forward as the others surged in.  Behind them all, I caught a glimpse of Shackles snarling at us.

    He’d seen me.  The snarl had turned to a grin. He turned, throwing and shoving the slaves behind him into Ministry Station again, I saw Sunny slip by, leaving the slavers standing between the two doors, before Brimstone slammed the one in front of me shut. It didn’t have a lock on this side, but it was heavy, and hard to push. We’d get a head start.

    Behind it, I heard Shackles cry out.

    “Into the asylum!  Get them!”

    “But...”

    “Move!”

    I backed away from the door. There were the sounds of a scuffle, of orders given and slavers screaming. Then I heard the first set of doors behind this one slam shut.

    “Let us in!  LET US IN!”

    “This door doesn't open again till I hear that runt squeal for it!  Better get moving fast, eh? We wouldn't want these others here to take your jobs if you don't come back now, would we?  Don't think I haven't seen you all taking more than your share from the supply rooms. Get me that runt! He’s mine!”

    He was locking in the slavers with us, they were trapped between the two sets of doors!  I just...I couldn't believe him! He’d always been sadistic, but this was madness, even for him!

The desperate cries of those trapped in his sudden game turned into a furious effort to get this door open and get us.  They didn't have Brimstone's strength but already I saw it beginning to jar open.

    Turning to my friends, I found us at the back of an old staff lounge.  A couple of terminals sat on desks for recreational use, coffee tables surrounded by chairs lay nearly overturned hot water containers, and the entire ceiling had fallen in.  I could see right up into the next floor!

    Protégé looked from side to side, his revolver perpetually out even while he studied my PipBuck like a map and compared it to his E.F.S.

    “We're about two hundred and fifty metres from the hole, I think!”

    The door behind us was slammed into again.

    “Protégé, hurry up!  Which way!?” Glimmerlight was casting fearful glances around.

    “It's...it's...”

    In the distance, I was sure I heard a crash of metal and glass.

    “P-Protégé!”

    “To our left, down a couple floors!  This way!”

    He took off, moving at the gallop.  We had to get away from this door before it attracted them all with angry slavers shouting and slamming!

    The wrecked doors of the staff lounge moved out to some of the same offices we had passed in our frenzied rush out of here, but I still couldn't piece which way to go.

    “Ahead!  Ahead!”

    Ahead of us, I could have sworn I heard something in the distance.

    “No, right!” I hissed out loud, pulling at his sleeve.

    We swung about just as the doors in the room we had left burst open.  The offices led to an area with reinforced glass surrounding a pathway to a lift shaft.  I couldn't help but notice that the glass had been warped and twisted apart by something.  I stepped on huge chunks of it as I scrambled after them. The warm air in here felt dense. It choked my stomach, mixing with my fear and leaving me short of breath.

We could hear slavers shifting into the rooms behind us, a lot of them.

    “Where did they go!?”

    “Fuck knows. Just get them before Shackles keeps us in! He’s lost it! Never seen him like this!”

    I spun around, trying to recognise anything, but this wasn’t an area we’d passed. This was some sort of waiting area.
   
    “Can we get down the lift shaft!?” Glimmerlight rushed over to take a look at it.  “Shit!”

    Running up after her, I saw that it plunged for six floors, much farther than I had ever imagined for this place!  A dark mist crawled and seemed to pulse below before it passed out of sight. 

    Something had moved down there. Fast.

    “No, no!  This way!” Protégé pulled a desk to the side, shifting through an almost hidden door that somepony had tried to blockade once.  “Keep quiet.”

    He hissed the last line, completely ignoring that he himself had shouted just before.  Behind us, the slavers were rushing with a determination I'd never heard from them before!

    Protégé led us into a wrecked series of rooms with foul green flooring and surgical tables set near various devices and wires.  I hoped these were simply for examination, but the stains of blood didn't give me much hope.

    “What kind of asylum is this?” Glimmer muttered as she passed around sections of bone on the top of one bed.

    At the far end, there were several glass doors.  Beyond them, I could see railings.

    Wait, railings!  The balconies!

    Protégé seemed to realise just as I did and we made a break for them.  We were moving too fast to be silent now. The slavers were the least of our worries!

    “Hey, hey I heard them over there!”

    “This way!  HURRY!”

    I was breathing hard, ears straining over every little sound I heard, but then...

    Distant...

    Simple...

    Sharp...

    A distance, echoing beeping.

    A wash of cold ran right through me. They were coming. They'd heard us all, they'd heard the slavers!  They were coming!

    Brimstone ran out to the balcony again, looking around.  He spun, seeing the huge floors around him with the ranks and ranks of thick, sealed containment areas.

    The electronic sound was growing, like some warning signal of its approach. It never grew faster, only louder.

    Behind me, I heard the slavers shout out.

    “Hey, what was that? I heard them! Down there!”

    They’d meant us!

    “Murky, come on!” Glimmer waved to me, pulling me out to the balcony floors, but out here, I saw them all hear it too.

    That beeping, that tone, grew into an alarm like volume.

    “G-Glimmer.” I fell against her, my stomach in so much pain from running, and looked up at her.  “They're here...”

    Behind us, two slavers ran into the same room we’d been in.

    “They're over there!  This way, everypony! MOVE!”

    Then it came. That horrible, unthinkable shriek.

    It filled the asylum, reverberating off walls and echoing around corridors. It rose to the very top of the levels, passing back and forth. After its fading howl, there was a silence.

    The slavers and ourselves merely looked at one another.  I could see the dread in their eyes as much as they could see it in mine.

    Behind the slavers, I heard sudden gunshots.  Rapid fire. I heard screams and saw slavers fleeing toward the two in sight.  They looked around in shock, running with them. Two more ran our way, with us as their last concern!

    “FUCKING MOVE!” Brimstone shoved us, getting us galloping around the balcony.  “Boy! WHERE?”

    Protégé had been staring, until shoved to go. He looked hurriedly at the map. “This way!  Stairs!”

    Glimmer wrinkled her nose as she smelled something, and I saw her eyes snap wide with shock.  Then it hit me too, a scent. A rank stench flowing into the area. Sweet and tingling in my nostrils, it made me forget about all threat of the slavers, even as they spread all throughout the facility, galloping and firing in all directions.

    Then I heard it, something on the floor beneath us, rushing far faster than any pony could move. Not galloping, just the sounds of it rushing through the air and any objects in its path. It was right below us! I had to stifle my scream. It was going for the stairs ahead of us!

    “NO!  NO, BACK!  BACK! PLEASE!” I tugged at them, before I saw Protégé doing the same. It was on his E.F.S!  We turned and rushed backward again, sprinting along the balcony and running past two slavers, bone white with fear.  They just ignored us and sprinted past.

    “This way!  This way!” Protégé leapt through window with a cry of pain. Following suit, we landed in a room filled with memory machines. Skeletons strapped into them screamed in silent, eternal pain. Rows and rows of them. Racing between their empty stares, I felt my breathing grow rapid at the sights. What had happened to them!?

The smell was getting stronger and the beeping still grew, coming from the areas we had passed.  I heard gunshots again. Howls and blood thirsty cries punctuated the silence between each crack of a weapon.

    Behind us, I heard the one chasing us reach the top of the stairs. The slavers were still in that corridor. They had to be!

    “Oh fuck, what is that!? WHAT IS THAT!?”

    “Help!  HELP!”

    I wailed as the low moan and wet, throaty noises grew to a keening roar.  I heard it rush forward. I heard them shoot. Flesh ripped, their voices squealed high, and I heard harsh slavers become pleading foals. Bone snapped, and their wails mixed with a frenzied snarling.  We could only run, hearing the two slavers continue to cry out, their torment not ending quickly.

    Then ahead of us, I heard the beeping come closer!  It was just through the wall! It-

    The wall exploded inwards.  I saw something come flying through the plasterboard amongst a cloud of dust and try to reach us! Never had I ever heard Coral genuinely cry out in terror before until now!  Brimstone grabbed her, pulling her onwards! We were past it before I even got to see what it was!  

    Emerging onto the balcony again, further down this time, the screams in the air were taking over.  On all floors, slavers could be heard being hunted down. I saw one rush across the mezzanine a floor up from us on the balcony, firing behind him.  He was crying. Below me, I saw a shape whip past between two corridors, just a blur of motion, like a rip in the air, that I couldn't even focus on!  That had been one of them, oh Goddesses save me!  They were down there too!  And we had to go straight to them!

    I tried not to notice the pool of blood where those two slavers had been on the opposite side.  Whatever caught them was gone. I heard it shrieking back through the corridor we'd emerged from, the one with the surgical beds.

    “Up ahead!  The other stairs!” Protégé pointed, before crying out and opening fire.  Brimstone threw Glimmer behind him and took up a readiness to fight. Ahead of us, a slaver begged from the ground, hit in the knee by Protégé's bullet.

    “Please! Please!”

    I saw the look in Protégé's eyes. He had fired before even knowing. Surely they didn't care about us anymore!  Right behind the slaver, I saw a door buckle inward. He held up his hooves!

    “No!  No!  Take me with you!  Help me! HELP ME!”

    He was too far to reach. Brimstone forced us onward, his cold mind taking the lead.  We leapt onto the stairs and started to descend. We made it down a flight before his screams for help grew louder, and then went silent.  The smell became overpowering, making me dizzy. The slavers were dying, their screams becoming shorter as fewer remained. Yet the things slaughtering us only continued.

    Somepony unloaded an entire magazine a few floors up.  The floor ahead of us was streaked with fresh blood. I saw Protégé slip on it, having to grab the railing for balance. I who grabbed him, pulling him onward. Even I remembered the way now!  This was near the canteen we’d come in from, just one floor up from it!

    Then I heard something on the stairs behind us.  I screamed, my own voice joining the chorus of the asylum, its dark past seeming all too alive.  Hearing me, they all ran.  We ran as a group to the next level.  A slaver went streaking by ahead of us, and we heard the thing behind us coming roaring down from the level we’d just left, even as we rushed across the mezzanine to the opposite corner’s set of stairs.

    It was right there behind us.

    I couldn’t dare look back.

    The surreal howls got close. I heard a sound like ripping paper, that grew into a warped shriek behind me.

    Don't look back!

    “Run!  RUN!” Glimmerlight screamed it, clearly in as much panic as the rest of us.  It was coming for us, right behind us! We all fell into the next stairwell, Coral's magic slamming the fire doors shut behind us.  Protégé leapt up, snatching the locks shut as Brimstone held it closed. I saw Protégé fumble with the latches, and gasp, hesitating for half a second, even as he pushed the last crack in the door shut and dropped the bar...and then he backed off, stumbling.

    He'd seen through that crack.  His eyes had gone wide and his face turned pale.

    He'd seen one.

    From up above us, I could hear many of them They were everywhere!  Brimstone grabbed the stunned Protégé, tossing him ahead of us with such a brutal scream of 'KEEP FUCKING NAVIGATING' that I could have sworn Protégé responded with 'Yes, Sir!' The doors were already buckling behind us. I cried out as the wood splintered onto me.

    Reaching the bottom, and we could see the canteen ahead!  I felt a strength flow into me. We were almost there! The tram was waiting!

    “You...you won't get me!  You won't get me! Argh!”

    To our left, within the huge open balcony area, I saw a slaver try to throw himself from the top level!  He was trying to kill himself to avoid them.

    He cried out as he fell, before squealing in horror as something darted out from a lower balcony, snatched him, and whipped him back in again so fast that he disappeared in a blur and a fading cry. Hollow pops and wet sounds splattered from where he’d been dragged, as his scream rose into a hideously contorted note.

    We hit the canteen just as the last gunshots fell silent. A chilling howl sounding in the air as those things realised they had only one source of prey left now.  Foul mold hit the bottom of my hooves in the canteen, but I simply kept moving! So close. So close!

    Through the canteen, through the double doors, turning right into the hole, the maintenance room. The tram!

    It lay right there!  Every one of us leapt onto it, wounds a secondary consideration to getting the hell out of here.  Behind us, I heard something scrambling nearer.  Glimmer grabbed Protégé's revolver to cover it while he started the metro-wagon up!

    “Come on!”

    I heard the tables of the canteen being crashed aside as something rushed through the canteen like a hurricane!

    “Come on!”

    I heard it coming through the doors into the corridor!

    “COME ON!”

    The wagon spluttered, kicked into life, and detached its brakes!  The engine roared into life as the lights flared on! With a jolt, it began to surge forward and immediately stalled on the spot, the lights dying!

    “NO!” I screamed, my voice sounding cracked and whiny.

    “Fuck this thing!” The foulest words I'd ever heard from Protégé, born of sheer desperation came even as he cranked it again and tried to build the pressure to start the engine!

    It was coming through the maintenance room! The smell of mint was washing over us.

    Glimmerlight shoved past us to the control panel, taking over from Protégé.  Her magic tore at the circuitry and something sparked twice! The engine kicked in, and the tram roared away.  I simply covered my ears and held onto Coral tightly! The tunnels moved by, a nightmarish chase to be away from whatever was hunting us!

    It shrieked, sensing us moving away!  My wide eyes stared at the exit to the maintenance room even as we finally began to pick up enough speed to outrun them.

    Then my blood turned to ice. Just as we turned the corner, I saw a shape emerge at blistering speed from the room, shrouded in the thick underground mist, indistinct in the harsh but ineffective light of the wagon's beams.

    There in the dark, I saw only two faint, but burning white glows hanging in the air, like eyes boring into me. The shape around them was indistinct, like blurry charcoal in the mists, as though I couldn’t focus directly on it. Soon, the brickwork covered it as we passed around a bend, and it was gone, forever passing into my dreams for the rest of my life.

    It howled even as it saw us moving away on the back of the wagon.  A howl that chased us and reverberated down every tunnel and passageway.  A call that was returned as others rushed through the tunnels. I saw blurred motion surging down long hallways and heard echoes all around us.

    I hadn't even seen its real shape, yet I felt locked up. Frozen in terror even as I fell back into the wagon. I cried the rest of the way to the inner metro and had to be pulled out of the cart as we hurried through the security door, set it to close behind us, and then locked the control panel shut tightly. A couple minutes after we’d arrived and began the climb back to the inner metro, I heard it far below, pounding and shaking the door. Only when we reached the inner metro tunnels themselves, did I finally hear it fade.

    With my brief glances to the rest of my friends, I knew wasn't the only one terribly shaken.  Brimstone kept an eye out ahead of us, instead, leaving Protégé to sit and rest, his own wounds aching terribly.

    From the look on his face, from what had happened to him in there, I could see that he had been given more of a shock than any of us, one that only I could truly relate to.

    I just hoped it might help him see the truth.

    The journey back out passed in a blur.  None of us really spoke. I simply trotted beside my sister, trying to be there for her when the adrenaline that was keeping us moving wore off.  The others plodded quietly, heeding my directions to avoid slavers. We took the abandoned shaft back up, carefully and gradually. 

Protégé came up last of all, as he stood and stared down the tunnels, listening to the sounds of the slaves changing shifts once again in Shackles’ mines.

    Returning to him, I saw his eyes glued to the darkness, beyond which I knew that dozens were suffering down here.  I didn't dare say a single word. I could see the frown clearly enough.

    Eventually, he pulled the door to the shaft shut behind us, refusing to speak as we ascended on my grapple hook.

    Truth be told, I barely even recognised the danger of the last part of our escape. Fillydelphia’s streets didn't feel like anything anymore.

Not after what we’d discovered, and seen, down there.

    It was much, much later.

    It had taken the better part of a day for us to rest.  To be hidden in the attic of Protégé's logistics centre, our new little place to catch some sleep, food, and whatever medicine Protégé could scrounge up.

    I'd even used the time to 'acquire' some more odds and ends from his stores.

    However, our mission couldn't wait, and before too long had passed, he had come to us with Ragini by his side and simply announced that we were leaving.  Taking us out, he led us across Fillydelphia to some place I had never been.

    An old station, connected to the Wall of Fillydelphia itself.  Upon its colossal lines, I saw immense train wagons sitting ready.  Ponies were loading crates of supplies onto it or even boarding it themselves.

    This was to be our transport to the mountain.  To become stowaways upon Shackles' own supply train.  Their expedition had left hours before. We would slide in right under their noses.

    Apparently, they were sealed from the outside before departure, with only slavers possessing the means to open the wagons again to prevent slaves inside escaping.  Not that the route it took would warrant a slave wanting to escape.  High cliffs, murderous Hellhound lands, and irradiated snow surrounded the trainline.

    We had guns, medical kits, and, much to my delight, Protégé even somehow had gotten Blunderbuck to deliver a package to me.

    Rarity's Grace.

    Brimstone Blitz moved on, carrying something Protégé had acquired for him.  The remnants of his armour, minus the helmet. He had been silent, eyeing any slaver with more suspicion than normal and sitting protectively close to Glimmerlight whenever possible.

    Coral Eve had surprised me by coming. This wasn't her fight, by her own words.  Yet, as we had packed to go, she had simply trotted with us. When I asked, she simply said that it was better than waiting.

    Briefly, I had wondered if she perhaps bore a little more hope as a result of all this.  I dearly wished that was the reason.

    Glimmerlight moved on beside me, wearing one of the thick fur coats I had ‘acquired’ to resist the apparently freezing temperatures and snow that would be up there.  We shared a nod. Her and I had a lot to talk about on the way there...amongst other things that needed dealing with.  We weren't going to go into this with unresolved issues between us.

    Ragini came along.  Protégé had told her she didn't have to, but the griffon had simply turned up anyway,  gun in tote, citing her duty to Protégé. Revenge, I guessed, still bubbled deep in her heart against Shackles.

    However, there was one surprise had been who waited for us.  The big form of Old Grizzly lumbered near us. Protégé had pleaded with him, saying that it was too dangerous. Yet, the slaver had remarked that it was too important, and that we needed all the help we could get.  Protégé couldn't disagree.

    My 'owner' himself, however, Protégé...

    Since we had emerged, he had fallen silent.  Speaking in hushed tones and avoiding eye contact, the slaver had taken to his books any time that nothing was required of him.  In the few times we had spoken since the outer metro, he had given curt answers that were nothing like the genial 'talks' we used to have.  He seemed ashamed, afraid...even embarrassed of himself; and given what he had been feeling in Ministry station, I could imagine all too well why.

    Myself?

    The past days had been an arduous task.  I had run for my life, confronted friends and enemies, seen faces of the past before me, and found new discoveries about Fillydelphia that I had never known existed.  I could sense this all beginning to come closer, more connected.

    Just as Sundial had said, all the pieces, none of the solutions.

    Yet, I still felt like just that little pony who looked up at that Wall and wished to make something of himself. A dreamer.  I was just the pony who got caught up. I wasn't anypony special. Not really.  Yet, now that I was embarking as part of this proper mission that could decide my future, I began to remember that this was about me.  My journey to freedom. It had simply grown from the days of being an unknowing little rebel running at a wall.

    Above me, that snowy peak shrouded in clouds rose above the Wall's height, right on the range that bordered this city. That was the place that mattered now.  I had received just one more message from Sundial on our way out of the metro.

    He had been transferred to the mountain lab.

    Good luck, Sundial. I'll stick with you, even if nopony else in your time ever did.

    Packing away my PipBuck, I joined my sister, hopping up onto the train.  She grinned, and I tried to smile back.

    “Let's do this, eh lil'bro?  You told me yourself...we're going to get out. Let's go get the knowledge to make it happen! Go and find a way to make that portal sing.”

    Forcing a grin and a nod, I settled down beside her as I heard the engine spool up.

    Forget the knowledge, forget whatever Aurora did.  I had a new task now that meant more to me than anything inside that place.  Something I had been yearning to have a chance at for so long now.

    To find and to get back the first friend I'd ever had.

    Unity was up on that mountain.  This was the moment. I would find her, and bring her to the safety of our group. Show her that she wasn't alone.

    If I had to march alone into the very home of Chainlink Shackles, Grindstone, and Wildcard, I would, because I wasn't going to let her be pulled away again.

    Not this time.

    Footnote: Perk Attained!

    Midnight PipBuck Reader – You sure are a cheeky one, using your PipBuck light to read when you should be sleeping.  Wait, you can't read that well? Never mind, I'm sure you'll find the ability to have your PipBuck light on with less chance of others spotting it a handy talent to have.