“So let me get this straight…” Josho marched furiously down a narrow metal plateau, passing underneath dormant machinery. Dust fell as shells exploded high above on the surface. Below his thundering hooves, sheer drops into utter blackness loomed on both the left and the right. “The Ledomaritans… and the Xonans both simultaneously captured the whole bunch of you, slapped anti-magic condoms onto your heads, and tossed you down this oversized garbage disposal?”
“It does not happen… er…” A Xonan fumbled for words. “How do you say… simul of the taneously.”
“It’s been happening over a long period of time,” a Ledomaritan explained as he and a group of ponies closely followed Josho. “For instance, I was captured about four weeks ago. Most of the nurses? About two months. The field soldiers have pretty much been tossed down here at random. We’ve survived by scrimping off of whatever rations we had on ourselves when it happened. As for the first ponies tossed down here… well…”
Josho came to a scuffling stop, twirling around to squint at the stallion. “Well, what?”
“They… th-they all starved off.” He gulped. “Or so we could determine from the bodies that we found.”
“None of us are officers, though,” a nurse said. “Only enlisted personnel and field workers seem to end up down here.”
“So the Prime Enforcers and Admirals are spared the pit-toss,” Josho grumbled. “Lovely.”
“Or…” A soldier shifted uncomfortably. “They’re sent somewhere worse.”
Josho stared at him. He turned and looked over at a group of Xonans. “And what about you guys? Is every tattooed one of y’all a grunt?”
Several glanced nervously at a warrior in the middle, murmuring to him.
“Raajana draan!” he hissed, waving his forelimb at the chattering group. “Ledomulien nessu threnna craym!” He cleared his throat and looked Josho in the eyes. “It is Second Born,” he said, pointing at himself. “So is only two or three more of the children blessed by Nagu’n.” He shook his head. “But most is Third Born. Servants and peons of battle, yes. Most scared. Most confusingly.”
“I just don’t get it…” Josho’s brow furrowed. “Seclorum’s been hold up in this place forever. He’s been holding off the Xonan advancement, but I figured that the Ledomaritans were on the losing end. They’ve been borrowing recruits by the bucketload while the tattooed freaks just sit on their flanks and launch fireballs at his base.” He winced slightly and waved a hoof at the Xonans. “No offense.”
“Dreit. Is understandingly…”
“What I mean is…” Josho paced dangerously close to the edge of his metal platform as he spoke aloud. “...it just makes my head wanna go kersplodey. I’ve always known Secchy to be a stubborn stallion. Just moments ago, I’ve witnessed him at his most insane. Now I find out he’s being a traitor to his own Confederacy?! It’s just not like him!”
“He’s betrayed all of us to the weapons of the Xonans,” a stallion said, frowning. “I don’t care how well you know him, but he’s no longer on our side! Not since he decided to systematically destroy our defenses from the inside out by conspiring with the Xonans to make this into a death trap!”
Josho swiveled to face the tattooed warriors again. “You reckon this is true?”
The Xonans glared the Ledomaritans’ way, but remained calm, albeit shifty. “It has said this before: the children of Xon do not make deals with hordes most unblessed. Would be unforgivable sin in the eyes of Nagu’n. The Second Born who tossed it in here are betrayers to the song.”
“And yet, here you are!” a soldier said in an accusatory tone. “It’s because Seclorum is a Xonan spy! You child mutilators knew too much! That’s why you were thrown down here! To protect some horrible lie!”
The warrior snapped back at him. “It would do best to not make accusingly the demons here! Or else it may want its head replaced with its water maker!”
The growling stallions rushed each other.
“Whoah whoah whoah whoah!” Josho stood between them, holding the two factions back with his heavy-set limbs. “Let’s not go all ‘Rumble in the Grandfather Clock’ here! Look, we’re all in a crappy bind. Regardless of who we think means what in this Spark-forsaken war, the truth is that we’re suffering casualties on both sides.” He faced both groups as they reluctantly but calmly parted ways. “Xonans were tossed down here just the same as Ledomaritans. Now… what if Seclorum ain’t exactly on the Xonans’ side? What if he and a few choice Xonans just like my bastard of a friend are in fact in sick, moist cahooters with one another?”
The ponies murmured in nervous commotion as more shells thundered overhead.
“Why?” a nurse asked, looking concerned. “Do you know something that we don’t?”
“It has been above more recent than the other ponies,” the Xonan Second Born said.
“Look, I’ve been places recently. As a result, I’ve gotten a ear in on stuff that most ponies haven’t even heard about,” Josho said in a lower tone. “For instance, Seclorum has been making shady dealings with a certain pony long before he ever decided to toss his own flesh and blood around. I’m speaking of Madame Nightshade.”
“Nightshade?” A young soldier’s face scrunched up. “As in Nightshade Industries?”
Josho nodded. “The one and ugly.” He pointed up at the mouth of the ravine high above. “She struck a deal with him to maintain dominance of this battlefield just so he’d be in the right place to defend this spot once she returned with a magical artifact that she had found here ages ago, but now restored to its original condition.”
“What kind of magical artifact?”
“Oh, uh, a book.”
“What kind of a book?”
“A magical book about faerie farting--Look, I don’t know how to mumbo all the jumbo!” Josho frowned. “Just understand that Seclorum and Nightshade got it into their thick heads that they had to go all ‘paranormal archaeologist’ on this place, and that was the reason for Seclorum wanting to keep this place under his hoof.”
“If that’s even remotely true…” Spoke a soldier. “...then what would the Xonans possibly desire from it?”
“I didn’t get here by pure accident,” Josho muttered, straightening his mane in futility. “Believe it or not, I only have my own stupidity and bad intuition to blame on the fact that I’m standing here and smelling up a Dunce Ex Machina with a bunch of starving ponies. Truth is, I got information from a very reliable source that the Xonans have captured the Lightning Bearer and were heading towards this spot to destroy the machinery and everything above it!”
Several gasps lit the air. “The Lightning Bearer?!”
“Fortis’ ship g-got captured?!”
“No way!”
“Suck it up, my little ponies,” Josho grumbled. “It’s truer than donkey algebra. We’re all screwed with a ten-foot drill. I had hoped to warn Seclorum about it so that he could meet the attack head-on, but then he threw me here.”
“But wouldn’t he be destroyed too?” a nurse stammered. “And the Xonans here for that matter?”
“Heh… wouldn’t put it past a tattoo horse to sacrifice himself for bloody glory.”
Suddenly, one of the Xonans seized Josho’s foreleg. “The waiting! It is who that brings this wrath upon it all?”
Josho blinked at him. “Uhhhh… some crazy Princess broad. ‘Princess Laissez Faire’ or whatcrap.”
“Lasairfion…” The warrior then gritted his teeth. The coat hairs along his tattoos rose on end while the lackeys around him hissed all in filthy accord. “Drenduun ratta kulien trentte, Bak’Nagu’n!”
Every Xonan spat on the ground at once.
The Ledomaritans glanced awkwardly at one another.
“What… is it tattooed mating season or something?” Josho muttered.
“Nothing of sorting!” The Xonan exclaimed with a frown. “Only that Lasairfion brings a blight upon itself. It has corrupted the bowers of the Sacred Hold, and now it corrupts this… ‘Lightning of the Bearer.’”
“I… don’t think I read you.”
The Xonan’s ears drooped as he defeatedly muttered, “It has been exiled, and yet it has many fools who cling to it. It seeks a birthright that does not belong to it. None could predict; none could prevent. Now there is nationing size family of lost children in its hornbeam. Xon weeps daily.”
“You… wait a damn second…” Josho leaned forward, gawking. “Xona’s in a civil war?!”
“War most bloody. Hardly civil. But it calls it as it calls it.” The Xonan’s jaw tightened into an iron-wrought frown. “Much necks sliced in the name of a false Nagu’n. Only those in the lost Hold believe the song to be true. Now…” He sighed. “Now it fears it comes to kill us all.”
The machine world hung in dead silence.
“This is way smellier than I could have imagined,” Josho muttered. “If I had known any of this…” He gritted his teeth. “Friggin’ A… if my friends had known about this!” He clutched his skull and groaned. “I’d never have ‘ported here in the first place! Grgggh!”
A soldier blinked at him. “You’re a master of teleportation?”
“Yes, I’m master of the interspatial bait and switch.” He pointed at the cap on his horn. “But it’s not worth a hill of crap with this thing tying my leylines into a knot!”
“You’re certain you can’t jump your way out of here!”
“I dunno, cupcake. You certain you can’t float your mane back into a widow’s peak?”
The stallion merely sighed, trotting away in defeat.
“Please don’t be hard on ponies like him,” a nurse said in a chiding tone. “He’s just as desperate and fearful as the rest of us. All of us are simply waiting for… f-for time to run its course down here. We were hoping you might bring with you some answers.”
“Sorry, lady. All I’ve brought was a load of fat and regret.” He slumped on haunches, silent. Then, after a few seconds, he tapped his chin in thought. “Only… I’m certainly tied down to something.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well… My horn may not be exactly useless…” He smirked to himself. “Hmmmm…” He reached up and tapped on the metal cap, thinking aloud. “After all, even a dead antennae--if tall enough--can be seen by the trained eye.”
Silence.
“Could… could you care to elaborate on that--?”
“Oh go choke on your own metaphors!” Josho spat. “Shhhhh! I’m trying to have a friggin’ epiphany here!”