Fallout: Equestria - Murky Number Seven

by FuzzyVeeVee

The Apprentice's Downfall

    “What was it like to fly for the first time?”

    Sometimes, I really wish I was a pony that knew lots of fancy words to say it in a better way.

    “Don't worry, just try.  I'm sure it'll come to you.”

    It...it was just a completely new feeling.  Like my mind didn't even accept that what I saw was reality.  Lots of ponies say something really incredible feels like a dream but...well, that actually did.  Maybe it was all the air rushing into my mouth making me dizzy, but everything just felt so fantastical and full of happiness to even be up there.

    It felt like freedom.

    Like, um, like I could go in any direction I willed!  Nopony could tell me otherwise because nopony else was there!  Nothing but me, the crisp winds, and the choice to go wherever I wanted. You see, on the ground there's streets and walls blocking you, but up there it's all empty.  Just a boundless expanse. Flying is like the ultimate freedom, and at last, I had finally known how much of a massive rush that feeling could be.

    Sure, we all wanted out, but my friends had all once lived free.  They knew what that was like from memory. Now I joined them in knowing.  I understood what drove them to seek an escape without needing the same helpful shove that I did.

    “Fantastical?  Boundless expanse?  Hah, you're more poetic than you think you are, Murky.  Must be the artist in you. You tell it almost fairytale-like, really.”

    It is?

    “Your first taste of freedom, to save your first friend.  Both these things discovered in the same day. How could that not be something magical?”
   
    Oh...yeah.  Unity.

    As much as flying was a delight to my mind, I really was still reeling from that one.  I felt so stupid, so ignorant to not have known how important she was to me when I first met her.  Or...met her again. It was confusing.

    I didn't feel a sudden rush of attachment.  There wasn't any sudden mental snap and glorious remembering of every moment, nor a returning emotional outburst between us.  Our memories had been desperately stripped by our own actions and they remained so. Just because we knew what had happened didn't mean we remembered the feelings as normal ponies would.  That made things a little more difficult to explain and to comprehend.

    We were friends.  Yet it was like being told by life itself that we were supposed to be deeper friends than we'd ever thought or known without feeling anything different in the present.  Imagine somepony told you to just ‘like someone more’ right out of the blue.  That's what it felt like.

    Were we still the same ponies as back then?  We'd both changed so much over time. My first flight alone spoke volumes of that.  Now we were left together after landing with a moment for me to try and explain this all to her.

    I'm sorry, I'm stammering at random here. It's just so confusing.

    “Take your time.”

    Unity had said she loved her buck from before.  Had we really been more than friends? Was it just something below the surface that had gone unspoken before, and only came to mind because her subconscious was all that remembered anything?  Had it all been misinterpreted in the memory removal and there was nothing more?

    I'd learned what it was to fly and be free. But learning to deal with a lost part of my life in the blur of Fillydelphia's nightmares would take a little longer.  At the very least, it was a positive and happy thing. We were reunited. I had to tell myself to keep focusing on the upbeat side of it. We knew the truth.

    No matter what confusion it caused us, whatever came at the end or whatever we were before, I cared for her and I knew she did for me.  A burden had been lifted, and while I was still in shock, I couldn't deny a certain part of me that had longed for somepony for so long suddenly felt contented.  A weight on my shoulders I now recognised as the responsibility I'd felt every time I was near her. I knew she felt the same way. Unity had dragged me out of danger just as many times.

    Now we'd just have to focus on getting out of the city.  We'd sworn 'together or not at all' once before, even if I hadn’t known it.

    Well, we were together again.

    “So that was another big check off the list then, huh?  Unity's issue sorted. Supplies found. Sunny was back with you.  You had the orb to activate Ministry Station. Just the foals to go, isn't it?  This is one long tale you've told. Surely this is it. This is where it starts to end.”

    Yes. It is, but not exactly in one sweeping motion. We still had to find a way into the Station again.  We could risk the outer metro and the asylum, but nopony really wanted to use that route again.  Not with foals and such a large group. It was at the centre of a nexus of conspiracy though-

    “Told you, poetic.”

    I, um, s-sure?  Whatever, I knew there had to be other ways.  Glimmer knew too and was working on it when she could.  There were complications to come, some huge. Yet even before they happened there was one big issue. That was Protégé.

    He'd gone back to Red Eye's regime in an attempt to stop the madness that was unfolding in every slave den and work pit.  An enemy was descending, and before the next day was out I would see them with my own eyes. Terrible news was due to arrive just before them, and Shackles' play for power was accelerating with every hour to take advantage of it.

    Protégé was alone amongst all that. One pony trying to stand against a city that was, without its great leader, now beginning to change for the worse.  They'd labelled him a traitor, he had enemies at every level. He had no proof, and nopony to help him from within.

    He was being more idealistic than he would care to admit, to even dare walk into that lion's den.  I desperately wanted him to come with us. I wanted to show him the same thing he'd told me to find for myself.  Help him find his freedom! As far as I could see, he was a slave to the core and he needed my help. I just needed to talk to him.  Get through and let him realise that he could say it. He could ask to come with us and I would let him.

    “You wanted to help the stallion who'd fought you on a mountain, shot at you, and tried to stop your only chance to escape?”

    Only because he'd been ordered to! He was still trapped in the same way I had spent years!

    Now his orders and the ideals he felt he had to adhere to were dragging him back into a slave city that was ready to pounce on him in his moment of weakness.  He was already set to answer for things he'd done with the best intentions, but they weren't going to let that be all.  They wanted to throw him down and destroy him before all others. Celestia help me, I felt sorry for him!  I wanted to help him find a better life more fitting of who he was inside.

    Yet this day, after he strode back to Fillydelphia's authority in the face of things ready to crush his dreams and harm him in ways perhaps only I could understand, he would have to do something he'd never had to do in his life before.

    Make a choice.

    Unity and I scampered across the street as the large fuel wagon convoy passed, sticking to the cover of the foul tasting dust it kicked up from the road.  I had to hold my breath as the hot particles tickled at my throat and nose. It mixed with the smog in the air. It was thick in this part of Fillydelphia, drifting heavy in the air from the surrounding refineries and radiation engine outlets.  The buzzing hum of intense power at work filled the air with an unsettling vibration that shimmered in the heat around us, offering background noise to make our escape. As Unity and I rolled off the tarmac into the ditch at the opposite side, I had to hold my mouth to the inside of a leg to stifle a harsh cough.

    The ground was such a very filthy place. Nothing like up there.  My eyes found themselves wandering toward the cloud cover, searching for any little hole away from the clammy ambience of the ground.

    “Murky, in here!” Unity hissed from nearby as she gently pressed open a loose wooden door to an abandoned security gate station.  One side of it had been charred to a near pitch and gleaming black.

    Keeping low to the ground to evade the watchful eyes on the creaking walkways above, I followed the cream mare inside before bucking the metal rimmed door closed behind me.

    It had taken us over an hour to get out of the refinery we'd landed in.  Over an hour of hiding in rank waste rooms, sneaking behind thick smoke clouds, and squeezing through tiny holes of the surrounding walls.  Now we were moving through the plant's outer areas to try and rejoin the main thoroughfare of Fillydelphia where we could hopefully locate a sewer line to reunite with the others.  For now though, we had to stop. Until the shift change the roads were too barren to use, and frankly, we were exhausted and sore after the landing. (Yes, landing. I was going to call it as such and that was final, even if Unity disagreed.)

    Inside, I was surprised to find the lights still active on the upper floor.  After we trotted upstairs, we found a long broken window overlooking the roads in and out of the refinery above a panel long stripped of its circuitry.  I presumed they'd once been for alarm buttons and gate switches, yet now there only existed an empty hole where the controls had once been. While musty and humid, it was a good hiding place.  We could see over the fences into the pathways outside while being able to bunker down in and rest for a while. Stripping the worn and only slightly moth-eaten cushions from the guard chairs gave us something to sit on too.

    Finally, for the first time since we'd landed, the pair of us fell back against the wall and closed our eyes.  We didn't speak, instead just taking a moment to get our breath back after the mad rush of activity in the last couple hours.

    Outside, I could hear bands of Red Eye's soldiers marching past, their hooves sending a slight shiver through the ground.  By the sounds of what they were saying, they'd been collecting fuel for flamethrowers and fire traps. If I peeked over the edge, I could see a thick mass of the clumsy Pinkie balloons as the city's reserves launched to keep a wary eye on the skies around Filly.  Even in the distance, the Wall's high walkways at the top looked more crowded than usual. There was a fever of activity starting up in the city.

    As I sat back down, I found Unity looking at the empty orb from the mountain.  It glittered, sending sparkles of magical light around its core, and even seeming to drift off it in Unity's magic.  The red glow of her telekinesis set the orb twinkling with various other colours too. It never seemed to settle on one colour, always just 'off white' with some shades I couldn't bring my eyes to focus on.  It never settled on one solid shade, always drifting between the colours of the rainbow with a white crystal tinge. Unity's wide eyes gleamed as they reflected the non-specific colours, before turning to me.

    “What did you see?”

    “War.” I muttered quietly, despite knowing I had no experience to state what that was or wasn't, “Protégé told me about it. The Enclave is coming.”

    “The nation of pegasi?” Unity seemed disbelieving.  “They're just legends. Myths.”

    “Well, I'm here, so pegasi have to exist,” I pushed a smile onto my face, “After all, I did just take off and land.  That sort of proves we can really fly. What's so hard about believing they live up there to get away from all this?”

    Unity snorted in laughter.  “Land? No, Murky, we crashed.”

    “That was completely a landing!” I protested with an outstretched hoof.

    “Well then I'd hate to see you crashing.” She stuck her tongue out.  “You crashed.”

    The nerve of her!  Just cos I fell on my back screaming after she'd had to save us from really crashing didn't mean it was a...a crash. Maybe a heavy landing.  Yes, that was it! Murky logic wins again!

    Unity laid back against the wall again with a chuckle. She must have seen the insulted look on my face.  I'd show her a landing someday, prove I could. But till then, I figured I'd rest off the cra-heavy landing.  I settled down beside her, head on the stone wall as I tried to tune out the sounds of army leaders' shouting to their troops and the distant crack of firing ranges all around the city.

    Sharing brief moments of humour with a friend in this city.  It almost felt out of place after everything I'd come to think of it.  Orders, pain, humiliation, and crying. This was a world away despite being in the exact same place.  Friends really did make all the difference. I didn't want to lose this.

    It was then that I realised I still had to tell Unity about what Glimmer had discovered.

    Suddenly, the fear and worry settled in.  Peeking an eye open, I saw Unity lying with her head resting on the edge of the security station's dashboard, seemingly sleeping.  Only her eye suddenly opening reminded me she-

    I pulled my head away.  Instantly trying to 'unlook' at her, trying to appear as though I'd just been searching all around the whole room.

    “What is it? Did you hear something?” She asked quietly, clearly tensing up as she brushed a lock of her wavy mane from an eye.

    “No, no. Just...no, nothing.”

    A voice inside was screaming, 'Just tell her!' It pushed my mouth to open and say something, put my trust in Unity being the good pony she was, to not think I was insane, yet it simply felt dry and thick, unable to form proper words.  What if she thought I was trying to exploit it? No, I had proof on me, and back with Glimmer. Then why not wait till then? Yes, wait. Give myself time to think on it and-

    “Murky, what's wrong?  You're sweating. I know you well enough to know when you're worried.”

    She got up, shifting her cushion closer and gently turning my face toward hers.  It was hard to really look at her. I knew this mare more than I...well, knew her.  Or did I?  Why didn't I feel like I knew her more then?  I was still seeing the mystery mare I'd met for the first time just before the Pit.  My mind knew the truth but it didn't feel any different.

    Of course, I didn't remember.  Knowing the truth and remembering those days were two very separate things.

    Instead, I tried smiling.  Immediately, I saw her expression soften as I shook my head and lay back against the wall, trying to think of what to say.  Quaking, my chest tightened in worry, the thick mass inside me thumping and burning as I felt my windpipe tighten. Turning away, I coughed harshly, my lungs surging in pain as my bone-dry throat clenched.

    “Murky?” Unity's hoof rested on my back.

    Waving a hoof behind myself at her, I shook my head. I was okay.  I had RadAway back at the pumping station. I'd been in a reprieve with access to RadAway lately, but I knew how quickly these tainted lungs could turn nasty.  The mountain had proven that. I was still badly sick, merely treating the symptoms, not the ever-growing disease inside. I would be out of here soon, get proper help somehow. I'd beat this.  So long as I didn't have to stay in here.

    “Just a-a lot of things going on, worried for what's going to happen. Excited that I...”

    “That you flew.” She broke into a wide smile as her hoof wrapped around mine and helped me back up.  “I couldn't believe my eyes up there. Seeing you sweep in on the winds, wings spread and those goggles on like a real pegasus.  I can't tell you how happy I am for you.”

    Unity's hoof came down on top of her other one, squeezing mine between the two.  I did the same, until we both broke down in a fit of excited giggles, mine fighting to not choke and splutter again.  Talking over one another, the moment finally settled in.

    “I-I just...it was incredible!”

    “Up that high!”

    “When we went between those smoke stacks?”

    “And soaring so fast in a dive!”

    Really, I couldn't help but laugh.  The emotions from those minutes in the air were still surging too strongly, and for the first time since coming down, they really returned in full.  I'd been too concentrated on escaping the refinery to really think about it.

    Now however, I felt the shivers returning.  The great big grin of excitement and unbridled joy.  I'd felt free. Oh so free, like I could do anything.

    Like I could...do anything.

    If I could do that, I could tell her this.

    I got up, twisting around to sit in front of Unity.  My wings flapped out a little, stretching as I moved away from the wall.  The pain in them as the sore muscles worked actually felt good. A satisfying ache of post-exercise success.  I swallowed deeply, biting my lip, before me she sat upright and looked a little confused. She was asking questions inside her head. Why had I moved away a little?  Why was I looking nervous and happy at the same time? Why was I gripping her hooves tighter? I could read her face like a book.

    “Unity...I...it's...”

    I felt like my lip was about to draw blood.

    “...me.”

    Her eyes betrayed the confusion immediately.  Oh right, no subject, didn't say what I was.  I wanted to pull away, frantically make an excuse up.

    “The one y-you're looking for, it's really confusing and sorry, I didn't mean to just say it but I didn't know how and...it's me and I don't even know because I didn't know and I want to try to tell you but I don't know and...”

    I took a breath, screwing my eyes shut in anxiety and praying I did everything right.  So I did my best, and told it to her face, trying not to let my voice break as I said the words.

    “I'm the buck you were looking for...and you were the mare I'd been dreaming of trying to find.”

    Unity didn't say anything, her eyes just widened, almost in denial or finding it too absurd. So I quickly spoke again, explaining the rest.

    I wasn’t the greatest type to talk about it. Really, I just stammered, blushed, and backtracked my way through it.  I told different bits in the wrong order, and showed her my journal long before it should have been relevant to explaining things.  I had to fight to stop myself from letting a few tears slip out as I felt it all well up inside me.

    Yet through it all, she just listened.  A look of shock and confusion maybe, but she never interrupted or accused me of anything.  It took me a few minutes before I figured out why. Unity was in the same boat as I was. She trusted me more than her heart knew.  If I'd heard this from her, I might have reacted the same way.

    Only as things reached the end, only as I told her my full name did I see the worry set into her eyes.  She knew the initials on that love lock. She knew I couldn't read well to have known back then.

    She trusted that I wouldn't lie to her.

    Then there was the horrid silence.  The moment after I realised I had no more to say and stopped speaking.  We just stared at one another. Unity was shivering on the spot, holding herself up against the wall to stay steady.  I just sat still, one hoof wrapped over the other and almost bleeding from the lip at biting it in nervousness.

    “I...” Unity started to speak, before faltering and shaking her head, “I just-sorry I can't...I...”

    What was I meant to say?  I really didn't know. My mouth opened a few times, my hoof tried to move and gesture, but I just fell short every time.

    Suddenly, she shook her head hard.  “I just...I need some air, I need air!”

    Unity got up and galloped past me, half-limping after the crash, as she headed for the stairs to the roof.  Her head was down, her magic still carrying my journal with her after I'd hoofed it to her. Briefly, I saw her face look wet, two trails seeping through the dirt and filth any slave in Fillydelphia had.  Hooves clattering on the creaky wood, she disappeared upstairs before I could even raise my courage to say or move at all.

    “Unity!  Unity, wait!”
   
    The roof was visible from the outside!  We were higher up! Likely out of sight, but it was a risk!  I got up and hastily followed her. I could feel the aches setting in as I started on the stairs, my back between my wings especially.  Tripping twice, I more fell onto the roof than stepped. It was surrounded by a high parapet for armed guards to watch from, easing my worries a little about being seen.  Looking frantically around, I spotted Unity with her back against the lip, breathing hard with her hooves covering her face. She was crying.

    Suddenly, I felt very guilty indeed.

    “What is wrong with this forsaken city!?” Unity spluttered to herself, her head shaking into her hooves.  “How can things like this j-just happen?  Why does it have to?  I just wish I could have stayed in Friendship City that day, not gone out and gotten taken away!  If I'd stayed in I'd still be with my family and not all this, doing things I don't understand! This is just...my life is...I don't even know anymore!”

    The journal lay open by her side, showing the same image I had first seen.  I wish I felt like the same pony that was cuddled up to her in that drawing, but I wasn't.

    Slowly, I approached.  Partly to not rush her, but also because I needed time to think of what to say.  My own eyes felt swollen and sore, and my breath ragged. Eventually, I just sat nearby.

    “I'm sorry, Unity.” I spoke quietly, not looking at her. “Sorry that...that this all had to happen.  Fillydelphia is...”

    Is evil?  A nightmare?  A blight on this world to cause horrors within that forever hurt you deeper than simple pain and hunger ever could?  What other place could have caused such a thing to happen? To put two ponies in this position?

    I didn't even finish the sentence.  Instead I just watched as she got up and paced indecisively in circles.  She was avoiding looking at me, instead just letting her eyes look across the hell of Fillydelphia on all sides.  The crude refinery, the glow of the crater, the restraint of the closest wall from life outside, the jagged mountain peak above it.

    Slavery and memory.  The two things Fillydelphia had been hurting ponies with since long before the balefire, and for centuries after it; only growing more foul with every generation nestled within its cruel heart.  We were no different, merely the latest ponies to have fallen prey to it.

    I put my head down, feeling something trickling down my cheek, and I felt all too young and meek again.  Like I was about to just break down like I used to.

    “Murky?” Unity's voice was quiet.  Her hooves ceased moving. Her face turned to me, red and wet across her cheeks.  “Who are we?”

    I forced myself to my hooves.  I couldn't sit and look for sympathy here. We were both in this.

    “I don't remember.” I spoke quietly, not quite looking eye-to-eye with her.  “I know who. I just don't remember that time after I was brought here.”

    It hurt me to look at her.  For the first time I saw her not as a fellow slave, but as the pony she should be.  Just a young learner from Friendship City who got pulled away from her life and cast into this pit.  The filth that covered her body was wrong. Her mane that should have looked wonderful was bedraggled and twisted.  I could see who she could be.  A bright, optimistic, and wonderfully heartfelt pony with a beautiful talent for friendship through memory.  Somepony I would look to and know I wanted to be around them like I did all the others. She was-

    A few breaths shuddered through me as I looked more directly at her.  “B-but I know one thing? I know who you are.”

    I swallowed.

“You're my friend.  No matter w-what.”
   
    I raised a hoof as I said it. A small gesture, but one I saw her eyes follow as I lightly placed it over my heart.

    “And I want us to both get out of here.  Forever.”

    I couldn't really hold it in any longer. I let my own sobbing take hold as I looked away and covered my eyes with my raised hoof.

    For a moment, I thought Unity was about to collapse in emotion, but instead she cantered and then almost leapt forward.  Her hooves squeezed me tightly, as did mine to her. Both of us had been about ready to lose it without somepony else there.  Even within the hot metal stench of the production quarter, the warmth of a friend is something entirely different.

    Atop that rooftop, in the middle of slavery, even as the horn for the shift change sounded and the processions of ponies trapped in here with us began to march to the rhythm of forced industry, we simply held each other tightly.  Muzzle to shoulder on both sides. There was no individual comforting. It was mutual. Not loving, just an act of caring. One little island of peace.

    “Murky...I don't know what's happening.  I don't know what we are. Who we really are, other than what we know.  I don't care about the past and if whatever we were before ever happens again.”

    Her voice sounded frail, but at least she could put words together.  Something far beyond me at this moment.

    “All I know is you're my friend too a-and we'll...we'll figure it out.  Together.”

    I sniffed and squeezed tighter.

    “Together, or not at all.”

    There were perhaps very few ponies in Equestrian history quite as glad as the two of us to see a sewer pumping station in all its filthy glory.  After a couple hours making slow progress over the entire city, we wearily trotted through the rancid gunk coating the tunnel floor into that familiar area of our hideout with borrowed clothes around our mouths to block out the smell.

    There'd been a couple close calls as we made our way over roads, with how thick the city was with activity. It was as much a blessing as a curse.  It meant more processions of filthy and hobbling slaves we could blend in with, but it also meant more slavers. They were on edge, red-eyed gas masks peering down at everypony they saw from platforms above the roads.  The tension in the air was thick, driven on by the presence of fully-armed soldiers waiting at many corners with shining, new weapons mismatching against their individually unique and scavenged barding. Some of my older routes to sneak through weren't available anymore, as Red Eye's army was taking over abandoned buildings to construct anti-air batteries on their rooftops.  Quad barrels or long, thick cannons protruded from edges, all angled toward the main gate.

    End result, we were physically tired, mentally frustrated, and emotionally exhausted by the time we made our way through it.  I just wanted to collapse and let my mind shut down for a while. Yet at the very least, the journey had given us something to focus on other than the awkward glances and half-sentences to one another.  Friends or not, this wasn't easy.

    Regardless, I couldn't help but feel relief at the first face we met in the tunnels outside the station.

    “Hey, kids!”

    Nonchalant, Glimmer looked up and smiled from the platform above us, just beside the stairwell leading to it and our hideaway.  That effortless and confident smirk was just enough to help me feel more at ease. Big sis was here, that meant it'd all be fine.

    I sped up a little, trotting up the stairs to meet her embrace, hugging tightly into her shoulder.  I actually squeaked when she crushed me in return.

    “I'm so proud of you, lil'bro.  I watched you from that crane. Saw you soar.”

    “It-ack!” I was cut short as the wind went out from my lungs again.  Coughing and gagging, I backed off as Glimmer let me go and gave me a thick slap on the back.  I went rigid as my sore wing muscles jerked and sent my wings jerking around stiffly.

    “It was incredible.  Just relieved you two are okay, I couldn't see where you landed.”

    Unity followed me up, coming alongside my sis and I with a small grin.

    “Well, actually-”

    I cut in. “We landed near the-”

    “-we crashed off the-”

    She and I found ourselves looking at each other with narrowed eyes.  Off to the side, I could hear Glimmer's unrestrained howl of laughter.

    “Oh, you two are too much, sometimes.” Glimmer wiped her eyes before fixing me with a look.  Its meaning was clear.

    Have you told her yet?

    Hesitantly, I made a couple of tiny nods.

    “Quite the couple, so I hear.” She teased carefully, looking over at Unity before slowly pulling her in for a hug of her own.  “I know this must be hard. I'm here for you too, okay?”

    “Hugs like this do kinda help.” Unity joked, before making a small sniff and squeezing my sister tighter, “We talked it out a bit.”

    “And?  How do you two feel?”

    Glimmer sat down between us, a leg over each of our shoulders to hug both of us in to her sides. With Glimmer there, somepony more mature and confident than both of us, things felt a little more stable to talk, so we took a moment to stumble and stammer over what we'd discussed on that building's roof.  

    “Well, we decided that we wanted to, um...” I stammered, before Unity finished for me.

    “We wanted to figure it out together.  As the friends we became again.”

    Glimmerlight squeezed both of us tightly.  I could have sworn I heard her go 'Aww.'

    “Then you both made the right choice.  Now, you two know what I'm like. I'll joke, I'll tease, but I'll not ever push either of you for real, okay?  Just take it easy, there is no need to rush any of this. Be who you are now, not what you feel you might have been then.  There's no pressure for anything, right?”

    We both nodded.  Glimmer was right.  Honestly, it just felt odd.  If I was honest with myself, I had spent years kind of wanting somepony special for me.  I'd felt envious of Unity for having someone when I was still alone. Yet now I didn't feel any urge to grab hold of any chance.

    Was it awkward timing, the confusing situation, or had I just matured a little?

    Again, if I admitted my real feelings to myself, I did like Unity.  She was quiet and thoughtful, easy for a nervous pony like me to talk to, and had a slightly offbeat way of thinking that I found very interesting.  Perhaps after all this I just felt exhausted at the thought of two ponies being forced together by fate rather than by a genuine, evolving connection.  After all, wasn't that what relationships were?

    That was, assuming we really had been anything before.  I presumed that's what we were trying to figure out.

    Glimmer let go of us both, sweeping to her hooves with a musical hum.  “Now, let's get inside, kids. Listen, I've told the others. They're good ponies, they'll all support you, but I've asked them to give you a little space on the issue.  You two do what you need to, but don't hesitate to come to us if you need somepony to talk to.”

    “We won't.” Unity had to bite back a little sniff.

    “Thanks, sis.” I added.

    Glimmer saluted and spun away to trot her way back inside.

    “I'm still totally reserving the right to find a stallion for Murky, though!” She shouted over her shoulder as she turned into the doorway and disappeared.

    Unity blinked on the spot, confused, before turning and giving me a quick once over, looking half-way between smirking and confused.  “Is there something I should know?”

    I was already cradling my head in my hooves.

    “Yes. That my sister is evil.”

    The others welcomed us with quite significant relief and excitement.  Coral held us both tightly, as I felt Brimstone's give me a wink and a prod with a smile.  I could tell when he was showing a little respect for something I'd done. (Hang on, was a wink a blink for him now?  Nevermind.)

    Mister Peace, as ever, was about as subtle as a balefire missile in his appreciation for our safe return.  It took us both some minutes to convince him to put us down from his shoulders again. Even Sunny offered Unity a smack on the back and praise for her daring leap onto the wagon.

    I felt myself turn around in the middle of it all, hunting for somepony else.  Somepony who wasn't there. My heart sunk a little more than I realised it would, before I was dragged back by Coral into another tight squeeze and asked to tell the story of what had happened up there.  (It was my story to tell, so I told the correct version about how we got back on the ground.)

    Surrounding us were the supplies we had stolen.  It made me realise just how close we were. We had enough food to last us a few weeks in the wasteland if we accounted for Sunny and Brimstone's hunting skills.  Enough medical supplies to keep us going, most especially my sickness. We had weapons, ammunition, and tools. We had maps of Equestria, camping utilities, and even pop-up tents.  All of this was in the middle of being arranged into several saddlebags and thick cargo hoists that Brimstone and Mister Peace would carry. We had Sunny with us again. We had discovered the truth for Unity.  Glimmerlight had all she needed to look for alternate routes into Ministry Station, and even if she failed, we had an alternative one, albeit at great danger.

    All that remained now on our group's plans was to solve the issue of the foals.  They had been taken back to the Alpha-Omega Hotel by Grindstone's own word. He was a silver-tongued liar through and through, but I saw no reason to doubt that he had here.  Kidnapping foals would be too obvious, even for them. Chirpy Sum, Lilac Rose, and Starshine Melody were coming with us and now awaited our rescue from one of the most heavily guarded buildings in Fillydelphia.

    Thankfully, it wasn't up to us to break in.

    I pointed my hoof at the hotel on a map of Fillydelphia while the group looked on.  Everypony knew where it was, but it made me feel important to do it. I knew the foals best, having met all three, so this was my little call to make

    “Starshine Melody broke out once, that's how she got caught by the ghouls in the crater and taken to that underground base place.  She knows how to get a foal out of the hotel and, as far as we know, Red Eye's assistants in there never figured out how. Chirpy Sum also got out to sneak onto the train with us. He's permitted to leave for study under slavers.”

    I felt my wings clench back. Everypony was looking at me saying this.  I bit my lip and swallowed, trying to force myself to keep talking. I knew sneaking, this could work!

    Catching Glimmer's eye, I saw her smile a little.  The sight made me take a breath and calm down a little.  

‘Believe in your sis’, Murky.’ I told myself, and continued.

    “When I got Lilac Rose into the hotel and later met her, I told her and Starshine to watch out for a note in the way that she got out last time.  A drainpipe has a hole near it on the fence. If I leave them a note there, then they can sneak out themselves to meet us down the, uh...”

    I struggled to remember, tapping my head.

    “The...the old servant's staircase!  Yes! So we can just wait in a hiding spot till we see them!  They'll never even know they disappeared until it's too late.”

    Oh yes, feel proud, Murky.  You just detailed a plan!  I felt myself stand a little straighter up.  Like a pegasus, yeah!

    “Well, someone's happy with his idea.” Coral smirked and patted me on the head before looking at the map where I'd been pointing.

    I lowered my eyebrows.  Aww, c'mon, ruining my moment here with all this patting.
   
    “We aren't leaving without them.” Coral's words brokered no argument.  “If we're going to pick them up, we'll need to take some things to keep them warm outside the hotel.  Fillydelphia's hot but the winds can be bad for foals. We'll need three ponies in case we have to gallop off and carry them. I'll be going with you.”

    I nodded.  There was no way I wasn't.  Starshine hadn't met anypony but Brim or I, and the big stallion was hardly the master of stealth.

    “I'd love to come get that little rascal,” Glimmer spoke as she waved some metro and city maps in her magic, “but I've got to find us a way down.  Got a theory about that place you mentioned though, Murky. That crater base where the ghouls were. But I’d rather us find a shorter, safer route. There has to be one.  I'll fill you all in later if it pans out. I'll be busy though, can't go.”

    “I'll come with you.” Unity stood up.  “I'm good with kids. My first job was minding the nursery at Friendship City, and your son already knows me.”

    Sunny rolled her eyes, and looked rather relieved.

    “Glad you stepped up, can't stand the little bastards. Give me a dog any day.”

    “Why, Sunny...” Coral raised an eyebrow as she began to pick up for blankets and warm clothes for the foals, “not the maternal type?”

    Sunny leaned back on the wall and rolled her eyes at the older mare with a shake of her head, blowing smoke from a cigarette she'd somehow acquired on our looting.  “You've got time though, no need to rush there. Shift change isn't for an hour by my estimate, and forget moving before that.”

    I agreed with Sunny.  We'd just come in from outside, and Fillydelphia was getting worryingly bare on the streets with so many slavers around by the time Unity and I had reached a sewer opening.  Going back out would be unwise.

    To that end, we used the time packing up what we could.  Weapons were stripped and maintained by Sunny, while Glimmer put her efforts to mapwork.  Coral and I sewed repairs on the fabric we'd gotten, as well as strengthening and waterproofing our bags.  We'd pass them over to Brimstone and Unity who would stuff them full.

    I did have to admit, it was pretty funny seeing the small mare and the massive raider sharing the task in silence.  They were both as happy with quiet work as the other was.

    The tasks didn't last forever though, giving way to a short meal of canned fruit (I might have actually made a stiff little flap of my wings in joy at the taste after a lifetime of gruel, oatmeal, and stale bread!) and a moment to rest before heading back out.  I sat and drew, bringing the imagery of Brim and Unity to life in my journal with the newly reacquired charcoal sticks.

    “Hey, lil'bro?” Glimmer dropped in beside me with a thump, maps held in her telekinesis, but immediately leaning over to watch what I was drawing.  “You know, you always draw her mane like it wasn't dirty.”

    “Cuth it thoodn't be.” I muttered around the charcoal before taking it out, “I draw your mane pretty as well.”

    “Eye for the manes, eh?” She prodded my side and leaned in.  “What about ponytails?”

    I giggled and nodded, I could entertain her.  “Ponytails look really nice. I like them a lot to dr-.”

    Her laugh was louder than I had anticipated.  What had she made me...who did I know with a ponyta-

    “Oh.” I sighed and rolled my eyes.

    “Too easy,” Glimmer shook her head, “now listen.  We've got a little time left before you head out and, uh...”

    Her voice died a little, as she motioned me through to a side room of the pumping station.  A little confused, I got up and trotted after her, leaving the journal behind me in the main room.  Leaving those working behind us, we went to the back room. It was dark, but the driest area where we would often use to sleep if we had a moment spare down here.  Numerous woollen rugs and blankets were laid out, everypony had their own little space.

    Glimmerlight settled on her lime green blanket and turned to me as she drew across her bag of orbs.  Unity was keeping the special orb safe on her. Given what she'd done to get it, I couldn't blame her.

    “Murky, I think this is the one where it happens.”

    Her magic held up a memory orb.  Deep blue, shifting and shimmering just below its glasslike surface.

    “It's the last main piece of my memory from back then.  I wanted to use it when you were away but I...well...”

    I gulped, “You wanted me here?”

    In the dark, I could just see my sister nod slightly.  If I didn't have pretty good night vision, I likely would have missed it.

    “It's not that I'm scared and need you here, Murky.  Just that you've helped me with this. YYou've seen everything, and you've never judged me.  It helps justify myself having somepony I trust here to do it with me. Gets it out in the open.  So, would you go this one more step?”

    I didn't hesitate.  “Always, sis’.”

    Her hoof ruffled my mane, before I felt her kiss my forehead and lean close.  “Knew I could count on you. I don't know what's going to happen in this. The village is attacked and we're taken for slavery but I...I don't know what it involves or how it goes down.  Bringing Diamond home caused it, I know that now, but I have to see it to prove to Coral that I'm not who I was then. That I can face the past.”

    I took the memory orb in my hooves, feeling the magical tingle on my body.  The light from it offered just enough to see Glimmer's face in a pale blue haze.

    “Coral still cares for you, Glimmer. You've proven it in the present. You might argue occasionally like really bad relatives, and I know she holds grudges for a long time, but she knows you're doing this and she wouldn't let you put yourself through this if it contained anything too much to handle feeling.  Not something that would hurt you today.”

    Glimmer sat silently for a few seconds, clearly thinking deeply on that.  I'd only ever heard or seen hints of her worries about that time. While it might be painful to watch through this, I had a feeling it'd help let her finally know.  To beat what had once become a hurtful coping mechanism for her.  I trusted Coral wouldn't have let her go through with it had it been anything too traumatic on a personal level.

    “Well then...” Glimmer took a deep breath before just shaking her head and grabbing the orb, “screw it, let's just do it and I can put this away for good.”

    Her horn lit and I felt everything drop away around me.

    Glimmer didn't waste any time on returning to the village.  Carrying the heavily injured Diamond between them, she and Coral threw open the door to what I presumed was the hut they held any meetings in; a taller building of thickly woven dry branches and packed earth.

    “Madam Beau!  Madam Beau!” Coral galloped ahead, past the rows of benches and toward a door behind a frayed flag as Glimmerlight hoisted Diamond onto a central wooden table supported by piled stones.

    Her hooves grasped at Diamond's cheeks, peering close to see if there was any life left in his eyes.  I (She) could see a faint movement of his pupils, confused and scared.

    “Hold on. Just hold on, Diamond. We've got potions!  We'll save you! Hold on, please just hold on!”

    Her rapid breathing betrayed a panic.  Looking up at the sound of two ponies returning quickly, I saw Coral Eve and the elderly mare I'd once seen as the village's leader.

    She shuffled with haste, if not speed, carrying an old medical pack on her side.  Coming alongside Diamond, she began immediately digging for something in it.

    “I do not know why you bring an outsider here, Glimmerlight.  We shall deal with that afterwards, but I won't watch a pony die in my village before me.  Wrap this around the barrel of his torso, quickly!”

    A thick dressing was shoved into Glimmer's hooves.  I could feel her shaking as she set to work, physically hauling with her limbs and lifting with telekinesis to turn Rough Diamond.  Coral Eve helped her, both their hooves becoming matted with slick, warm blood from the deep stomach wound.

    “What happened to him?” Madam Beau spoke firmly with her creaky voice, not once stopping her work to gradually pour the potion down an unresponsive Diamond's throat.

    “Raiders.” Coral spoke the single word curtly, before having to hold down Diamond's kicking legs.  “Out in the woods nearby. We killed the ones that attacked him, but there's never just a few on their own.”

    “There can be, Miss Eve, if we are beyond lucky.  Hold him down! He's going into shock!”

    Diamond's limbs were shaking so hard it was actually causing him worse pain.  Glimmerlight smothered him in her telekinesis, and Coral leaned her weight over his bottom half.  It made Glimmer's job difficult. I could feel the complexity of the magic to hold him down while also working with her hooves on a tricky task to tie a dressing around their patient.  I couldn't explain it in words. I was no unicorn, I just felt the difficulty.

    “Madam,” Glimmerlight didn't look up as she spoke, “will that potion work?”

    “Gutshot. Not really meant to take anything by mouth, but potions work a little differently.  Not as though we have much choice, young lady.”

    They worked together, holding him still, feeding him the full potion bit by bit and keeping the dressing tightly secure around the wound.  Blood seeped around it, gradually slowing over time. Diamond's breathing began to settle as he lay back into the Madam's hooves. He was very pale.

    “Now, Glimmerlight,” Madam Beau looked up, “did anypony follow you?”

    “No, we didn't see anyone.”

    “Did anypony see you leave with him?”

    “I...”

    “Why were they this close?  How would they know? Why would somepony on the run come this far out?”

    I could feel Glimmer's eyes turning wet under the tone of interrogation.  Coral Eve remained silent and stern, watching from across the table.

    “Glimmerlight, you know our rules. If anypony were to-”

    She was cut off by a rasping and distant call from the outside, far off.

    A drifting blare of a crooked and out-of-tune horn crept in over the village from the surrounding forest.  A chill ran down Glimmer's back as it repeated, closer this time. A warbling and uncertain note that hung in the air each time it sounded, harsh and cutting.

    The three mares looked at one another in silence as it was followed by the not-so-distant howl of rough pony voices.  Animalistic and feral.

    Then came the sound of hooves upon the ground.  Many hooves.

    Coral Eve moved immediately, galloping to the hall doors and blasting them open with a harsh spark of her horn.  A blood red sunset cast its light across her and into the village hall, as though coming from the forest itself; spreading across all the ground.  Dust could be seen rising from shaking trees by the passing of something out there. Something coming closer.

    Slowly, Coral's head turned from the sight, open-mouthed and clearly afraid.

    “Madam...Madam get everypony inside!  NOW!”

    The howl turned into a roar as the ice broke, and the stampede from far off began to close in.  Raider cries were unmistakeable. Even I could feel the sensation, that of 'It'll always happen to some other village.'

    Now it was happening here.  To her home.

    Madam Beau turned back into the hall and pulled a switch on the wall.  Outside, I saw the glaring white flash of the town's perimeter lights spring into action.  In the same motion, she frantically pulled a rope that set a bell on top of the hall clanging madly.

    Glimmer turned her head away from their leader to gallop toward Coral and the door.  Her magic snatched up Diamond's heavy rifle from the ground, and loaded it from his own bags.

    “Where is Chirpy!?” Coral shouted from beside her as two stallions ran toward the hall entrance carrying four foals between them.  The youngsters were pale white and confused, scared but not understanding the true weight of the terror approaching.

    “Last saw him at your house!  He might be hiding!”

    That was enough direction for Coral Eve. She ran out into the growing madness that was the panicking village.  Ponies pushed and screamed at one another to move. The worry was obvious on all their faces, they couldn't fight an attack off.  Not a hope in hell.

    “Coral, wait!” Glimmerlight shouted after the mare, before running outside too.  She cast a look behind her at the prone form of Diamond on the table as she went, before everything became quickly too manic to see into the hall with so many ponies pushing into its thicker walls.  Ponies bore grim faces, filled with distant eyes of denial.

    She ran across the warm gravel after her friend in the direction of Coral's home, breathing hard.  Behind her, there was the small pop pop pop of flares being fired from the forest by the raiders.  Three red lights erupted in the sky, casting a flickering crimson haze over everything below, damaging what reassurance the bright lamps meant to ward off timberwolves were doing.

    “Coral!  Coral!”

    Her words went unheard as she watched a blue tail vanish into her home, leaving Glimmer amongst the few remaining ponies outside.  Two mares were seen dragging leather armour onto themselves, while a young buck struggled with a hunting rifle. Hardly a force against-

    A great roar emerged from behind her. Glimmer stopped and turned, her face twisting into a look of horror.

    The raiders broke the treeline.  A wave of huge hounds bounded forth, rough-haired and lean.  Foamy spit dripped from their gnashing jaws as they surged around the buildings and threw themselves at any ponies they could meet.  The screaming began in earnest. Ponies were caught between their homes and the hall, and dragged to the ground amongst a frenzy of teeth and savage barks.

    Behind them came their handlers, just as crazed as their canines.  They carried nets and hooks, backed up by crossbows and old target rifles.  Painted coats stood out with white and dull yellow designs below their armour.  Some wore nothing and simply charged with the hounds, insane ponies who leapt and bit alongside their pets.  After that, the swarm of armoured raiders with higher quality guns could be seen cheering and whooping when they cleared the forest and found their prize.  They carried flaming torches that stood out under the shadow of the trees. In the glow of the flares above, they were like creatures from the depths of a fiery pit.

    They had sought to get everypony inside to ward off a gang. They’d been wrong.

    This was an army, and Glimmerlight stood virtually alone in front of it.  Nopony was trying to help any other now. Fear had taken the village and they scattered toward the forest.

    From behind the hall, a raider wielding a trident stopped and turned, yellowed eyes spotting her.  For a few seconds, my sister was frozen in front of his howl and his eager charge.

Her rifle took a long time to move, before finally snapping up and barking its own report into the air.  The recoil was heavy, bucking madly against her magic grip. The raider snapped backward, the round punching him head over hooves, and leaving them writhing on the ground in circles, braying like a stuck brahmin.

    To her side, the two mares both fired and shot down a raider before he could throw a burning stick onto the town hall.  Their resistance didn't go unnoticed, for one of them jerked and fell amongst their cry of ‘Got one!’, a raider's bullet punching through her light armour with ease.  She didn't make a sound, until the shock wore off and she began to wail in pain from the ground. Helpless as the rest.

    Glimmerlight started moving again, aiming for Coral's home even while her magic struggled with the heavy bolt.  Some huts were already burning, raiders flowed through the gaps between them, silhouetted in the flames of their rampage.  Ponies fled from some of their homes as they caught fire, right into the nets and powerful blows of their attackers.

    She ran past ponies struggling with raiders.  The bigger villagers wrestled in the mud and gravel with raiders jingling from their number of piercings.  Diamond's rifle fired again to knock one from the roof of her own hut. Then again at a hound that ran near Coral's house and missed.  She kept running. Running and shouting as her home was torn down around her. I wasn't a master strategist, but I could see they had no hope.  They were massively outnumbered and the raiders were hardened and brutal. Already the town was becoming an inferno. Out of the corner of her eyes, Glimmerlight could see ponies that fled for the forest being pulled down by raiders that seemed to leap from the shadows of the trees.

    Creaky Hollow was already a ruin, scant minutes into the attack.  Behind her, there was a bestial roar. A quick glance saw a rather familiar and massive horned beast on two legs act like a battering ram on the hall's main door.

    It splintered into tinder, before he and the raiders swept inside to the Madam and those who had sought refuge.

    I'd seen raiders. I'd even fought them and met some of their worst individuals.  But the scale and ferocity of a full raider attack, of the Bloodletters in their prime, working as one; it terrified me through time itself.

    Glimmerlight finally caught up to Coral at her home, yet as she approached, the wall exploded outwards, with two hounds hurtled along with it.  My sister was thrown from her hooves as debris flew past her face, her vision whirling. Coughing, she pushed herself up.

    Through the hole, Coral Eve clutched Chirpy protectively, her horn flickering like a beacon in the firelight.  The two beasts that had gotten inside lay shattered upon the ground, their bones snapped like brittle twigs.

    “The hall's gone!” Glimmerlight screamed it at her friend as she staggered over the wreckage of a once cosy home, “They got in!  They're killing or taking everypony!”

    Those words must have hurt to ever have to say.  Behind her, I knew she could hear the events she was alluding to.  The sounds of foals and their parents begging and crying out from within the building.  Its bell still rang again and again.

    Coral moved beside Glimmer and stared at it with tears in her eyes.  Her hooves held Chirpy tightly to her chest. She spoke fiercely and accusingly.

    “You did this.”

    “I didn't! H-he wasn't...”

    Coral Eve's horn sparked violently, before I felt a wave of pain crash through Glimmer's body.  Everything became a dark blur as she was thrown backwards across the ground to in front of her own burning hut.  Her eyes saw it when she gasped and held her chest, lingering on her home as it cracked and fell into itself with a spray of little embers.  Her jaw slowly dropped open as the little Hearthswarming lights she'd put up exploded and sparked one by one. Her home after trying to escape a life of servitude to the Rangers...gone.

    Only then did her eyes move back to Coral.

    The unicorn simply stared at Glimmer.  I could see the Coral I had first met. Bitter, angry, unable to fix things and letting it all bubble over in deep-set rage.  Coral didn't even turn her head to look at the huge raider she sent hurtling head first into a wall with a sickening crack of bone on stone, her eyes remaining fixed on Glimmerlight's through the pain this use of her broken magic was causing her.

    Slowly, her mouth moved.  Inaudible as Glimmer gasped and tried to stand.  The words, however, were clear.

    “You.  Did. This.”

    With that, she disappeared behind a cloud of smoke drifting from a hut between them.  I knew she didn't get away, but it hardly made it any less upsetting to see. Coral Eve leaving Glimmer to try and save her son alone.

    My sister simply lay there, eyes stinging from tears and smoke.

    The growl was the only warning Glimmer got.  Something barrelled into her, sending another shock of pain through her body as she was thrown onto her back and launched upon by a filthy, wet-smelling mass of writhing muscle.  A snapping canine jaw went for her neck. Screaming in frustration and anger, Glimmer didn't even hesitate to punch it directly in the muzzle and give herself time to get the rifle between her and that mouth.  The hound's paws lashed at her, drawing blood as it leapt upon her. Pinned down, Glimmer could only jam the weapon into the beast's mouth to stop it closing around her flesh and kick at it with her hind legs.

    Straining, clenching her teeth, she fought it from the ground with a desperate strength.  I felt her magic activate and rack the bolt that was inside the hound's mouth. The motion caught its flesh in the mechanism, making it whine and pull back.  It gave her a little space, not enough to escape. The hound spat out the ejected round and rushed forward, its weight slammed down on her from behind, pinning her.  A low growl began rumbling in its chest, leading to the bark that would come before its rush forward to-

    The weight lifted off her completely.  Glimmer could still hear it snarling, before falling silent as though on command.

    Slowly, she tried to rise, reaching her rifle.

    A fierce grip of magic snatched her around the neck and dragged her back.  I felt the choking pain grip tight and cause her to gag as her entire body was lifted from the ground and turned to face a mangy, white-coated unicorn.  A manic grin stretching from ear to ear met her around a crazed fringe of all bright colours in existence, one eye twitching in place to its side. Wildcard.

    He stood above her, holding Glimmer's struggling body in his magic with his personal hound gnashing and wanting to get at her.  Reaching down, he patted his pet before leering at my sister through a face lacking that same cruel scar I'd seen in the present day.

    “Come along, Glim-Glim.”

    Glimmer's eyes widened, the obvious question.

    “Oh, I know who you are.  We're going to be the best of friends, aren't we?  We can screeeeam together!  ARRRRRGGHHH!  Eh?”

    His screaming face was shoved into ours.  I wanted to move her limbs for her, do anything, but I had to sit and endure, feeling the throat tighten and tighten.

    “Aww. Well, come on then!”
   
    His magic loosened, sending her crumbling to the ground, before a rope attached to a meat hook dragged her away by wrapping around her upper body, the metal claw worryingly close to her chest.

    The village had fallen in but a couple of minutes.  It had never been a battle, simply a massacre of rending and exultant looting.  Glimmerlight was dragged breathlessly to the front of the hall where ponies were being led or dragged out.  Many were badly injured. Foals were being thrown in wicker cages, and slung over the bigger raiders' backs.  Their crying and screaming was haunting, young voices that you just never wanted to hear in such a situation. All around them, the village burned to the ground as the sun began to go down and bring darkness to the remote area.  The air felt thick with heat and smoke, all too familiar to the reality we were in outside the orb.

    “Release the foals at once!  Let them go! They're nothing to you!”

    The creaky voice of Madam Beau met Glimmer's ears as she tried to force herself out of a raider's grip.  She flung herself at Wildcard, reaching out to him.

    “Have you no thought for the young?” she pleaded, falling to her knees.  “Even if you take us, let them-”

    Wildcard's machete flashed in the red light.  A stream of blood followed it, before the Madam's headless body fell to the floor.

    Many villagers, Glimmer included, called out to her.  Many shouted her name. Wildcard, however, just stood and held his hooves to his head in pain, shaking it madly.

    “Shut up, shut up, shut up, SHUUUUT UUUUP!” He shrieked at them all, overpowering their voices.  “When will you all just fucking LEARN!?”

    He paused, breathing hard on the spot.  Slowly, he coughed and waved a hoof to the raiders.

    “Nah...nah. Lapsed, I'm cool, it's all cool. We're all veeeery cool, right, right?  Just a mistake, I'll make it up to you all. Now, go have fun kids.”

    The raiders knew the signal. They streamed into the remains of the village or back into the forest to chase anypony who'd run.  A mad dash for the prizes. It left Wildcard and just a couple other raiders waiting with their couple dozen prisoners in the light of the fires.  Some of it was spreading to the dry forest itself.

    After what he'd done though, nopony wanted to dare say anything to a twitching pony in their midst.  I found Glimmer looking at the others nearby, spotting that minotaur stomping around the raiders and slapping those who found anything he wanted.  What I now knew as Wildcard's hunters (who would become his gladiators in Fillydelphia) prowled around with as much shivering and foaming at the mouth as their leader.

    “Glim-Glim!  Come here, Glim-Glim!”

    I felt the fear run through her as Glimmer turned her eyes back toward Wildcard.  He was advancing on her as he waved to the other two ponies with him. He stared into her eyes. Past them. It gave me a horrid feeling as he looked deeply at her. No, he wasn't looking at her...

    No, no, just my imagination, it had to be.

    “I've got a gift for yoooou!  A little truth. That's what you wanted, right?”

    “What are you? Who are you?” Glimmerlight spoke with a raspy voice.  Her clenched throat and the smoke made it hard to speak up.

    Wildcard grinned and narrowed his eyes, a worrying glint of him actually staying consistent appearing in them.

    “How I found this playhouse, little cutie.” He patted her head.  “Let me introduce you again.”

    He turned her head to the side by force.  She tried to resist but simply hadn't the strength.

    Ahead of her, the two raider's dumped Rough Diamond in the dirt beside Wildcard.  He leaned down and sniffed at the earth pony's mane, taking a deep whiff of it with a big smile.

    “Such a good smelling...not-totally-a-raider kind, hmm?  He couldn't drink, y'know? He never ever ever came to any of my three birthdays!  I even told him!  Not one of us, no, but that's fine. He does his job, I do mine, the order of the universe, right?”

    Glimmerlight didn't look at him.  Her eyes were fixed on Diamond. He was awake, slowly stirring in pain as he fought to figure out what was happening.

    “No...he-he said...”

    “He said a lot of things, Glimmy.” Wildcard whispered far too close in her ear, “Bet he told you about wanting to pack up and leave the 'traders' too. Always a good one for the more cautious that.  He really is gooood.”

    Glimmer sat still as the embers of the burning hall were blown past the three of them.  I could only imagine what she was feeling right now.

    “I'm sorry.”

    The breathy voice came from in front of her.  It was Diamond. With a cry of pain, he pushed himself upward between the two raiders.  His eyes stayed put on Wildcard and Glimmer, but I spotted the sickening sight of blood dripping from his stomach wound again.

    “Glimmer, I'm so sorry.” His voice was thin, his accent weak under it.

    “You did?” Glimmer barely said it above a whisper.

    “He did.” Wildcard hissed and giggled, hopping back between the two and glancing each way expectantly, “I do so love a little drama, go on!  Make some blame! Burning village theatre!”

    Rough Diamond looked at Wildcard with a sudden rage.

    “Why do you keep me alive? You want me gone to make room for Bonecrusher!  You don't think I'm a proper raider, not deserving of the Big Four, and you're right!”

    He stepped forward and stumbled, nearly falling completely.

    “This time, I did want out. You tried to have me killed.” 

His eyes fixed Wildcard accusingly, before he spun his head to Glimmer.

“Why would I lie now?  They've won. There's no need for a charade.  I lied, at first maybe, but I thought I could use the hidden village here to get away!  I wanted out of all this when I couldn't convince Brim to-”

    “Liar liar, pants on fire!” Wildcard chimed.  “Big guy getting soft and bringing you in as one of the four doesn't mean you're one of us, or that you could ever leave!  You don't leave the Bloodletters.  You enjoy the fun or you get ripped and-”

    “SHUT UP!” Diamond snarled, barely taking his eyes off of my sister. “Glimmer!  I'm so sorry I led them here. I didn't know where else to go...I-I did my job even when I tried to get away from it...”

    Glimmer stepped forward a little.  I couldn't feel if she believed him or not, whether she felt upset for him.  In the middle of all this, everything was too confused in her body language to know.  At least, until she spoke.

    “I...I believe you. I saw them trying to kill you!” Her words grew in strength as they went.  “I knew that made no sense if it was a ruse!”

    She brought a hoof out to support Diamond where he stood.  I felt his rough coat on her own, matted with blood and sticky, yet she didn't shirk back from helping him.

    “Glimmer, look at me...look at me.” His voice was quiet, dropping to a whisper.

    “Diamond?”

    “Run.”

    I could feel her having to fight reacting too obviously.

    “No, don’t,  you-”

    “Pink dream. I'm going to do this for you.  You gave me a gift. The bullet. That magic-enhanced bullet.  Never used it, because it meant more to me than just a good bit of ammo.  You showed me that there was another life I could have had, one my birth took away.  One where ponies were nice. Knowing...knowing that at the end I had someone who would have accepted me, that's enough.”

    Glimmerlight was shaking her head.  “Diamond, don't do this. We'll find a way, you don't have to-”

    Wildcard began to stomp forward like a petulant child.  “Speak up! I wanna hear!”

    “I wanted out, but I couldn't get out.  This life wouldn't let me get past its walls.  If you can't get out...go to Br-Brimstone! I know it sounds insane, but he’s starting to change! I've seen it!  I tried to bring it out in him! I just hope I'm right about him, but he might be your only hope. So, please, take the only apology I can truly manage...and run!”

    He cried out in pain.  The motion tore at his stomach wound, but he spun on the spot to bite, draw, and sink a hidden knife into Wildcard's face so deep I heard it clink against his skull, the raider leader howling in pain.  Diamond's legs bucked out at the two raiders either side of him, before he shoved Glimmer away. I felt his hooves impact on her side hard, spurring Glimmer to take off.

    “Go!  Go, Glimmer!  RUN!”

    Raiders looked up as they heard the shouting.  Most of them seemed more surprised than anything, yet Glimmer's frantic vision noticed a dozen break off and chase her.  Skidding in the dirt, she turned and fled to the forest, looking back for Diamond.

    She was just in time to see Wildcard, his face looking carved in half, tug the stallion in with his meat hook and bring the two machete's down hard.  There was no scream.

    Even through the orb, I felt Glimmerlight's heart sink.

    Slowly, that wrecked face turned to her.  It bubbled blood as he roared across the clearing she was sprinting away from him over.  Each word gurgled through a wound, howling after her.

    “HAVE YOU FIGURED IT OUT YET?  I ASKED IF YOU KNEW WHY YOU HATE ME!  SEE YOU WHEN YOU WAKE UP!”

    His psychotic laughter echoed and bounced around the valley after her as Glimmer powered her legs to an effort that could only be drawn from emotion and desperation combined.  The raiders and their hounds followed her down the forest path as she fled. Fled for nowhere, anywhere but here.

    The black branches reached down like claws, the darkness falling around her as she aimed for the thickest parts of the woods, only to find that escape would not be possible.  Not possible at all.

    Through the forest, the main force of raiders was coming.  They surrounded her by the sheer width of their line, the biggest and most heavily armoured ones she'd ever seen spreading around to box her in.  Many wore parts of Ranger armour as vambraces or helmets. Giants of ponies. Most of them older than the young maniacs that had raided the village, all of them clearly weathered veterans. The hardened core of the Bloodletters.  They didn't run. They didn't need to. They simply plodded on thick, boney hooves to surround my sister. She stopped as they parted to let their leader through to face this one stray escapee.

    Heavily armoured behind slabs of metal and a dragon shaped mask, taller than anypony else and shaking the ground with his steps; the Great Warlord Brimstone Blitz gazed down at the terrified and shivering mare like a small child.  The mask showed two beady eyes behind it, old and weathered as they stared into hers without a word. The greatest of raiders in this band regarded the cowering, bloodied and dirty mare before him without a word.

    Behind her, Wildcard's hunters entered the clearing, catching up.  They exulted, charged forward, screaming that they had found her.

    They stopped at the sight of their leader, who made four precise steps around Glimmerlight, keeping his eyes on her.  Those four steps were enough to put him between her and them.

    “Bring the villagers to the wagons.  Unharmed and untouched. They will go to the city.”

    Glimmerlight kept watching the massive pony, twisting her head, before she saw one of those dinner plate-sized hooves reach out.

    Before everything fell away into the void.

    The bleak darkness of Fillydelphia's underground felt all too small to wake up to.  With my eyes struggling to adjust, I felt around for Glimmerlight, finding her stirring body as she too got up.

    I expected to have to perhaps hug into her or find her upset.  Yet as I blinked my eyes and got a clearer view, I only saw her move away and stand up away from my reaching hooves.

    Glimmerlight wasn't showing much on her face.  She simply looked up and around her, before I realised she was taking in the world as a whole down here, probably thinking about the city above us.  Her eyes were wet, but not crying. I'd never seen her look so stoic and yet emotional all at once.

    “He wanted out.”

    Her voice was quiet.  Soft but tinged with a solemn note, yet it built.  I felt her frustration and rage bubbling below the surface of my normally cheery sister.

    “He was trapped and wanted to be free, Murky.  Wildcard had him murdered for petty raider advancement, chased him toward our village and butchering it!  He killed a pony trying to be better. He killed Madam Beau! He was the one. He is the one who did this!  Fucking Wildcard.  If I get a chance to pull the trigger on that psychotic's head, I swear...I'll avenge them all.”

    I began to trot over to her, before stopping as she turned directly to me.

    Her growing anger stopped, as she sighed and kept calm.

    “I was to blame, yes.  Yet now I know that I did the right thing, helping somepony find the same thing we're trying to do now.  Escape. The blood of the village lies on Wildcard's hooves. He is the one who needs brought to terms now for Creaky Hollow to rest easy.  Rough Diamond. I'm sorry I forgot that you were a good pony at the end. Thank you for what you did for me.”
   
    “Sis...”

    Her hoof patted my shoulder, before absentmindedly ruffling my mane without really looking at me.

    “Thanks, Murky.  That's the last orb I'll need to see.  The last sight to the truth. It isn't what I thought, for better or worse.  But I did what I promised, even if it hurt.”

    She paused at the doorway.

    “I just need some time to think now. I should get back to work, and plan what I'm going to say to Coral...and on how I'm going to end that multicoloured bastard if he comes for us again.”

    “If, um, if I can help-” I bit my lip, sitting down on the blankets again.

    Glimmerlight looked at me for a few seconds before nodding.  As she left, I saw the real feeling inside from how she moved and felt. Not a tragedy, nor a relief.  Nothing but a bittersweet victory.

    Fillydelphia was unusually quiet.

    We had moved out with the shift change, using the period of activity to leave the sewers and start moving toward the Alpha-Omega Hotel.  Yet after getting past the industrial sectors was done, the air seemed to deaden to the point even my ears heard only distant noises. We weren't too close to the factories, yet even these outlying areas approaching the FunFarm usually had processions, riotous slaver activity, and construction going on.  It occurred to me that anypony not essential had been transferred to the more distant arms factories or to preparing the Wall.

    The city was not silent, but felt more like it was holding its breath.

    Coral, Unity, and myself had moved through the same ruined buildings we'd once used to get Lilac to the hotel safely.  I knew the route, knew the hiding places, and after a little observation, had seen only a few slavers in the area. Most were clustered around fire barrels inside the husks of slave pen huts, speaking in hushed whispers.  A couple moved between the buildings, heading to or from their daily tasks. Some had slaves in tow carrying their possessions, while others slept as best they could. Most slaves picked at the meagre slop they had been fed, an all too familiar taste coming to my mouth at the rank 'food' I'd had to eat all these months, if not all my life.

    There was a curious lack of griffons in the sky. Likely, they were all flying further out from the city on patrol.  Despite that, we had to take cover inside one of the smaller and unused hotels as a Pinkie Balloon's bloated mass lurched overhead.  I could hear the soft burn of its flame igniting to gain height before it drifted away toward the army camps.

    “I think I prefer this to last time.” Coral peered around the edge of a blown-out window, looking toward the lit windows of the Alpha-Omega Hotel.

    Squeezing in beside her, I mentally charted out the route we could take.  Some organised piles of cleared-up rubble would make good cover until we reached the next of the hotel buildings.  They hadn't survived as well as the Alpha-Omega, but they had enough structure left for hiding in. This must have been some old holiday goer street near the FunFarm, for I could see numerous hotels, gift stores and cafés around, punctuated with ticket stalls advertising the Farm itself. The large building behind the lines of money traps, I realised, was the same I had zip-lined Lilac from last time. If push came to shove, I knew I could reach the hotel with my saddle from there.

    The three of us edged from cover to cover.  I would go first, followed by Unity, and then Coral afterwards.  The slavers weren't really paying any attention at all, their eyes staring into the fires, so I felt somewhat more confident to hurry things up.  The faster we got there, the less chance we had of another group coming back and blocking us off.  

The hotel we'd chosen to overlook our target was empty and half-collapsed, made up of three floors.  After checking each of the rooms, we finally settled on the ground floor nearest the perimeter fence, inside what used to be a common room.

    We blocked off every door, set up a few hiding places with blankets, and checked our escape routes.  We'd have to stay here until we next saw Starshine come out to check her secret hole. That could be hours for all we knew, if not an entire day.  The group back at the sewer knew to give us time, so we didn't leave anything to chance. This had to be our little hidey hole under the nose of the most important building in the city.

    Which made me wonder why I didn't see anywhere close to the amount of guards I had last time. Stern really was pulling them off for defence duty, it seemed.  Inside the fence was empty as always, but there had been far more soldiers last time patrolling the outside. Or was that just because Shackles had set a trap for us?

    Either was possible. He knew we wouldn’t leave Chirpy. But with any luck, he didn’t know the foals could get out, as opposed to us going in.

    After Coral composed the note, and I had sneakily placed it under the fence where Starshine knew to check, we settled down in the uncomfortable ruin to watch and wait.

    We took turns being the one to keep an eye on the Alpha-Omega Hotel itself.  The other two would stay out of sight and rest or eat as they needed to. Coral Eve and I would sew together, with her teaching me how to do more than just a basic practical stitch on one of the blankets. On my turns watching, I could hear Unity asking about Coral's son, quietly chuckling at the stories.  Glancing over my shoulder, I could see Unity idly carving a broken chair leg into the figure of a pony: Chirpy Sum.

    When it came to my turn to rest with Unity, we looked through my journal.  All of it.

    “Uh, this is, um, how I first saw Coral Eve.  Sick in a hospital bed. She can't take proper RadAway, you see.”

    Unity nodded, turning the page.  “Brimstone and your sister? She looks sick too.”

    “Y-yeah, she was in the same condition when I found her.  Brimstone was watching over her. I think she was the one that made him, y'know, be better?”

    Recent sights made me question if the big raider's transformation hadn't begun earlier, long before Fillydelphia. Somehow, I doubted he'd like to be asked about it.

    We didn't really go in any order.  Sometimes we'd flick forward to recent things for a bit of casual conversation about them. Other times we'd dare to delve into the ones from times neither of us could remember.  Doing so, I found images I never knew I'd drawn. Only having her there let me find the courage to look at drawings I'd long been terrified of seeing. Some were shockingly unskilled compared to my work now, but I could see my talent's work in them.  The same style, the same hidden emotions in imagery that only I could truly spot for myself.

    The truth was anything but dreary though, if a little melancholic, as Unity lifted a page in her magic to find one of herself, sitting lonely and away from the other slaves.  She paused to look more carefully, speaking quietly.

    “That's me. I mean, that is me.  Away from the crowd, trying to just pretend I was somewhere else.  Think this was how you found me, like those other pictures?”

    “How do you know you didn't find me?” I countered, “You did the second time when I'd fallen...and the third time...and the fourth.”

    Gee, come to think of it, she'd had to drag me out of a lot of trouble.

    Unity shrugged, looking up at the ceiling and pushing her wavy mane from her eyes.  “That was different. I've helped ponies in here before, stood up for a couple, but I felt this...this urge to rush in and help you that time.  Like I didn't even think about it. I never even thought about it.  Now I know why that was. I knew you.”

    She smiled, a touch of that pure innocence in her eyes.

    “It's quite beautiful when you think about it.  Friendship found a way through all the adversity of a world trying to make us forget each other.”

    “Y-yeah.” I might have blushed a little. I just didn't know what to say.  Unity was poetic and flowing when she got like that in a way I'd never be.  It always left me so dumbfounded on what to say back.

    “Now, what's this?”

    She flicked all the way forward to more recent images.

    “W-wait!” I reached forward, trying to get my hoof in before her magic.  The page turned to the mare from the Roamer Inn on my birthday who'd asked me to draw her in a somewhat, uh, sultry fashion.  I tried to turn the page, but Unity's magic lightly tugged back.

    “Aww, c'mon!  Let me see!” She laughed, nudging my shoulder.  “Felt like drawing more of that stuff, huh?”

    “S-she asked me!  She really did!” I felt my voice go squeaky, this was the truth!  “C-Coral! You were there! Tell her!”

    Coral Eve turned her head slightly from the window and grinned.  “Sorry, my dear. I'd already left by then. What raucous things the rest of you got up to aren't my concern.”

    Groaning, I felt my wings and ears both slump down at the incessant giggling beside me, as Unity continued to flick on through.

    From places to friends, to battlesaddles.  Old images of the two of us together for comfort, to new pictures of what I believed my mother looked like.  Drawings of the wasteland areas I remembered, of broken chains, mares, and flying. We shared the journey. Quietly, we laughed together, confided in feelings of the more depressing imageries, and even once leaned against one another in a fashion similar to that of the old pictures when a majestic sketch of Aurora Star in her prime was turned to.  I'd done that one mere hours before...with little stars of black charcoal twinkling around her. We went right back to the start. Many pages had us individually. Then laughing, alone or together. I saw Mister Peace in one of them, looming over a tiny pony that was too smudged to make out as either of us.

    Yet one image hadn't come up yet.  The most important one of them all.  After seeing all this, spending this time with a renewed friendship, I couldn't ignore it any longer.  I (politely) pulled the journal from her magic and started flicking through pages rapidly till I found it.  One she'd seen recently too. My ongoing greatest work.

    My friends.

    “Murky?”

“After all this, how can I not?  You're one of us, you always were.” I looked up and smiled at her, seeing a little blush on her cheeks.

    Then I set to work.

    There had been a space on the left of me ever since I drew it.  Had that been deliberate without even realising it? Everypony else had been to my right.  Glimmer then Caduceus, Chirpy in front of them, his mother's hoof on his back. Behind them loomed Brimstone.  Yet to my left there had been empty space. It was time to set that right.

    I pulled the charcoal from my pocket and leaned down.  So softly, I let a thin edge weave and drift. Nothing heavy, not like Coral's strong and defined lines, or Glimmer's wild and varied arcs of charcoal.  These touches were wispy, short, and light, never letting the charcoal touch the paper for more than a second, and with every line curving into the next.  Gradually, they built up, forming a smooth contour. This wasn't drawing. It didn't feel like it. This was a shape I knew well. One I'd done since the moment I'd come to this city and been helped back on my hooves during my very first shift.

    The nib drifted and twisted back, refining the outlines of a pony.  Adjusting the leg shape, pulling it inward, scaling it all down to just slightly taller than myself.  Rapid bursts of sketching for wavy lines around the head. Hundreds of individual touches for every strand getting thinner and thinner toward the edges as a mane was crafted around two large and bright eyes.  Then, finally, I allowed the lines to draw.  Following the masses of guidelines that formed the exact shape I wanted, that of quiet grace using fragile-looking thin lines. No, not fragile. Gentle.

    There, beside me, I drew Unity.  Finishing with her eyes and that soft smile to bring her to life on the paper with the rest of us.  Just to my left, and close. Close enough to make up for lost time.

    Shivering a little, I drew back from the page.  The entire thing had felt so natural. No mantra, no thought.  Just a smooth memory on paper. Unity took the drawing in her magic, smiling as she glanced at it.

    “I'm still struggling to get over all this, what we are.  I think I need some time before we really go over it all, but seeing this helps a lot.  Knowing that you consider me enough of a friend, regardless of what's happened, that you’d put me on here with the others.  Thank you.”

    She'd asked me to draw her when I got out, to not forget.  We weren't out yet, but this was that one. Through a lot of time, pain, and strife from that moment in the FunFarm to now, I'd kept my promise.  For a brief moment, I just looked over at her, watching somepony enjoy my work. Her eyes glanced sidewards, seeing me looking. I-

    Across from us, I could see Coral Eve turn and briefly pause as she looked at us.  However, she took a breath and nodded toward the Hotel.

    “I think you two better come over here.”

    “I don't see anything.”

    My eyes scanned around the hotel's grounds, fence, and wall.  There was no movement, nopony hiding that I could hear, and all the lights were on inside as usual.  The hotel's thick walls and carved granite pillars that had seen it through the balefire surrounded still windows with no motion behind them.

    “Coral, what is it? There's nothing there,” Unity whispered as she peered out the window to either side.

    Coral Eve nodded.  “That's exactly it.  There's nothing. We've been watching this for hours now and there's not been a single patrol.  We've not heard a single foal shout, nor seen a single movement in those lit windows at any time.  It's like the hotel is dead.”

    That was a point.  Now that I thought about it, the last time I had been here I'd smelled the warm food from the kitchens.  Yet there was nothing but the burning stench of Fillydelphia meeting my nostrils, giving rise to a filly-pitched sneeze as I took too hard a sniff.

    It wasn't hard to see the growing concern and frustration on Coral's face.  Her son and a foal she'd promised to adopt as her own were supposedly in there, but now it seemed utterly empty.  Even the kitchen ventilation pipes gave off no steam into the warm air, not even a wavy bit of heat.

    Something was wrong. Something was deeply wrong.  I could taste it in the air.

    “Do we wait?” Unity asked it to both of us, but her eyes were on the hotel's windows.  “We've not given it the whole time yet.”

    “If something is wrong in there, then waiting might put us further behind it.” Coral rubbed her chin.

    Squinting, I peered at the little depression in the earth that marked where Starshine had squeezed through on her escape long ago.  Our note sat hidden in it, a hole just big enough for a foal or somepony only a little bigger than a foal to squeeze through.

    Oh, why did this always have to happen?  It never ended perfectly.

    “I'll go take a look. Alone.”

    The other two looked back at me.

    “More than one is too easy to spot!  That place doesn't have a lot of shadowy areas.  I'll just poke my head in! See if anypony is inside. Maybe they're all just clustered in one room to be safe with this attack coming? The basement?  If I see the foals I can bring them out too. I'll be real quiet!”

    Coral and Unity shared a look.  I could see the concern about this idea on both their faces, but after a moment they nodded.

    “Don't take risks.  You don't want to be messing about with the Alpha-Omega, dear.” Coral set a hoof on my shoulder to talk seriously. “Red Eye won't let anypony go who trespasses.”

    “I won't be long.  I got a look inside it before with Protégé. I know my way in it.  I can always glide off from the roof, right?”

    My smile brought something of a small grin to Unity's face, yet I could tell she was serious.

    “Maybe you can try actually landing this time.  Be careful.”

    I collected my things, mostly just my saddle, grapple, and Rarity's Grace.  The PipBuck was tied to my hoof and my goggles set on my forehead.  After a brief glance to the surrounding area, I crept out through the window and crawled my way to the fence and Starshine's hole, feverishly trying to remind myself why I had decided to do this.

    The servant's door was, much to my relief, open.  Trotting my way across the inside of the perimeter fence had sent every hair on the back of my neck upright with worry.  If anypony saw me there wouldn't even be a shouted warning. I was in truly forbidden territory now, more than ever before.  I was treading upon Red Eye's core values by being here as a slave, and I'd heard of the punishments that had awaited those who had trespassed before.

    Trying to ensure the old oak door didn't squeak on its hinges, I opened it slowly. Just enough to squeeze inside through the gap.  Within it lay a tiny staff room with a time stamper on the wall for employees starting their day, and a line of hooks bearing identical green jackets.  Past them was a set of dark stairs leading upwards into the building.

    Cautiously, I trotted in and reached out to the door, pulling it behind me.  Through the gap, I saw Unity and Coral watching me, before I shut it entirely.  The click sounded deafening, but I couldn't leave any trace to follow me by.

    The stairwell was made of roughly hewn wood, clearly not an area for guests to see if they allowed such base construction.  It was just for the use of servants entering at the start of their work day, it seemed. Squinting in the sudden darkness, I took my time on the steps and tested each one with a hoof first.  A few squeaked, leading me to do awkward stretches and half hops to bypass them. I'd learned that trick long ago on the rock farm when I had to steal food. My master there had deliberately kept a few loose.  Thankfully, there was no guard dog here listening for it as there had been then.

    At least, I hoped not.

    The stairs curved round an exceptionally tight corner, even for me.  The edges of my saddle scraped and rubbed at the warped walls, raising a thin smell of old polish.  Goddesses knew how normal ponies were supposed to do this for getting to work!

    Mercifully, I could see a crack of light beneath a door at the top.  Sitting and listening, I could hear absolutely nothing beyond. No voices and no hooves.  Certainly no young ponies.

    A swell of nervousness began to settle in.  Something felt very wrong in here.

    Strangely, the door's pull handle was in the centre of the door, not to one side.  Why would you do that? Some sort of equality for left-hoofed ponies? Regardless, I felt it swing the normal way as I cracked it open just a smidgen and pressed my face to the gap.

    Pressing my head against the door, I poked an eye through and squinted hard at the flare of light.  Bright, powered lamps and hanging glass gemlights glared at full power to illuminate the entire lavish hallway that lay outside.  I could see the familiar design of carved wall rims and the thick, patterned carpet that I'd felt beneath my hooves last time. Tables with plastic flowers sat at intervals near stained glass-paned doors.  A set of windows were further down, looking inside the building on some unknown room. I couldn't tell at this angle, but I could remember the dining room or canteen had those types of windows. Beside them there was some sort of black mess on the floor, scattered and spread around.

    More to the point, it was completely deserted.  The worrying emptiness in my gut began to clench harder.  I had to go in further. I had to know.

    My teeth clenched. I pressed open the door and poked my head through properly.  Looking down the other direction I still saw nothing, only the hazy windows to the outside world, not clear but smoky to block out the horrors just outside the building.  Gulping, I stepped more fully out and closed the door behind me. I didn't even have a shadow. The light was so complete on all sides, leaving me feeling terribly exposed.

    Hooves close together, I meekly ambled my way along the hallway toward the interior windows.  I passed familiar doors to the old guest rooms that I now knew were used for the foals' bedrooms.  Each had drawings and (unreadable to me) nameplates with crayon or stencilled letters on the outside, but none of them had any sounds of occupants inside.  Daring to peek in, I saw bunk beds with untidy blankets and covers on them. Some had fallen off entirely across the lines of soft toys and train sets that sat on the floor.  The second was much the same, yet I could see in every single one of them the covers to their beds were thrown off onto the floor.

    The third had a bunk bed entirely knocked over, and a smashed hoof mirror.  This wasn't just untidy nature, it was too chaotic. Something had happened here for sure.  Backing out the foal's room, I went back to the main hallway and cantered further down at a faster rate.  The temptation to run out, to tell them and look for new information was clawing at me, dragging me back to the door, but I had to know.  If something had gone wrong in the internal struggles to involve the foals.

    Oh Celestia, protect their little hearts.

    The silence was, in its own way, deafening.  I had hypersensitive hearing (Protégé had taught me that term!) and even I couldn't hear anything in here.  My own almost silent steps clipped much more loudly than I would expect in such a lush and soft carpet below them out of a lack of anything else to hear.  I kept worrying somepony would pick them up with how out of place my presence seemed. Every few steps, I would spin and look over my shoulder with a gasp, but see nothing other than the length of hotel hallway I'd just walked down.  I hadn't gone far, just ten feet from the door I'd come in, yet every moment I expected somepony to wander out into the corridor.

    I came to the mess on the floor, that as I got closer I found to be one of the false plants that had tumbled...no. Been shattered across the floor.  Its pot had been smashed, dropping fake chunks of plastic soil everywhere.  It lay just across from the interior windows looking in on what I now saw was the dining hall.

    One of the windows was smashed.

    A cold fear started to overtake my body.  I felt my muscles start to gear up to bolt off.  The glass lay near my hooves, invisible with how clear it had been till I got closer.  Following it, I saw it lead toward the plant, where a bullet hole had been made in the wooden wall behind the jar.  Something had shot from inside the windows out here. Below me, I could see the soil was trailing in hoofprints away from where I'd come from.  Somepony running from a gun.

    I hopped up to the broken window and looked inside.  Yes, this was the dining room, only looking from the opposite side as when I'd visited last time.  I could see the door where I'd been standing, drooling behind at the sights and smells of this place on the far side.  Inside there were lines of white wooden tables near to several knocked over stools and cushions scattered everywhere. Meals lay half-eaten, some spilled on the floor.  Pottery had smashed and I could see some fabric sacks scattered around that were quite out of place in here. I knew them. They were mass produced here for the slavers. Not something you’d ever get inside here.

    Gunfire, some sort of mass panic, clearly. The bedrooms having been ransacked made horrible sense now.  Someone or something had gotten inside the Alpha-Omega before we had.  Oh, let the foals be okay, they had to be hiding silently somewhere, right?  Foals weren't dumb! They'd be okay! They would be! Fillydelphia couldn't be that cruel.

    Carefully, I pulled myself up and through the window into the canteen.  Small tinkles of broken glass knocked away by my hard hooves made me twitch and stare around, but no other noise followed.  Alone, in this most precious of Red Eye's buildings; it was driving my wits to the breaking point. My eyes hurt and I had to blink as I realised they'd been going dry from staying fixed open so long.  My heart thudded and my tainted lungs spasmed with my faster breathing, until I gulped greedily at my RadAway to prevent a coughing fit.

    There was very little glass on this side. The gunshot had gone outward.  I trotted between the benches and poked my head into the kitchen. Among the clearly newly-made appliances and cookers lay massive pots of stone cold soup and stew.  Poking my hoof in and tasting it revealed a clammy taste of something that had been sitting unattended. It was cold. Whatever had happened wasn’t too recent. And I’d have heard that gunshot I’d found, had it happened while we’d been waiting just outside.

We’d missed whatever it was. With worry clenching at my heart, I decided to go back outside and-

    The moment I wandered back into the canteen proper, I saw a shadow at the doorway.

    It moved quickly, yanking the door open with a flare of magic on the handle.  I dove back in the kitchen, my hooves skittering on the slippery clean tiles as I yanked open the first cupboard I saw and pushed myself inside it, trying not to make too much noise on the pots and pans I was squeezed in around.  Why was I doing this? It had seen me! Why else would it move quickly!?

    Somepony galloped across the canteen, coming this way.  I heard their hooves on the tiles. Heard a couple of cupboards opened.

    What choice did I have anyway?  There was nowhere to properly hide quickly in this bright place.

    Instead, I got myself ready.  The moment they opened it, I'd rush into them and make a break for it.

    The cupboard next to me opened.  I heard them trotting closer. I braced myself.

    “It's all right!  Nopony's going to hurt you, little one. Come out.  It's just me! I just want to know what happened here!  Are you okay!?”

    As the cupboard opened, I didn't move.  The concerned voice had struck me by surprise, so much so that I didn’t run, and pretty much just fell out the hiding spot instead. I looked upward at him while upside-down, with a forced 'I'm innocent!' smile on my face as the clatter of pottery tumbled out around me and over his hooves.

    His face was a mask of surprise.

    “Murk!?” Protégé blurted.

   
    He half-shoved and half-helped me onto one of the benches outside, keeping me ahead of him and pushing me along with his magic.

    “I'm going to give you five seconds to tell me exactly why you're...no, never mind.  I know why you're here and it ends this instant!  You will not drag these foals into the insanity you seek!  What have you done!?”

    I waved my hooves frantically, leaning back as he leaned over me.

    “This wasn't us!  I just found all this!  Why are you here then?  What's going on?” I didn't much feel like getting into the same argument all over again.  “There's bullet holes and it's all empty and torn up!

    Protégé stopped on the spot, trotting away from me briefly.  He wore one of his scholar shirts and had his mane tied in a ponytail again, but nothing else.

    “I received a note from an anonymous source.  Somepony who had seen Shackles' plans for themselves, possibly List Seeker.  They spoke of something about to happen at the Alpha-Omega Hotel. I came to see what it was, to warn them. Only to find this.”

    He waved his hoof around. I could see the anger in his eyes as he began to trot to the other side and investigate the way I'd come from.

    “No. No they'll just be hiding!  Downstairs or-” I started.

    “I've been there! I can't find any of them, they're just gone!  I don't even know what happened to the guards and teachers! The foals all know to get quickly to one side of the building and try to lock themselves in, though. I was on my way there now, there's still hope. But what was that you said?  You saw bullet holes?”

    “Y-yes!” I hopped off the seat, pointing over to it and guiding Protégé to look through the window.

    His expression turned hard at the sight.

    “Don't get out of my sight, Murk.  I will chase you if you try. Regardless of our feelings right now and going separate paths, I might need your help if the worst has happened.  I just hope that we shan't come to oppose one another this time if we find them.”

    I coughed.  “You mean, less shooting each other?”

    “Hopefully so.”

    “Hopefully!?”

    Ignoring my pouted exclamation, he spent some time examining the impact, looking at where it must have been fired from.  After a few moments, his magic lit and lifted several objects from the other side of the room. Brass casings; six of them.

    “Magnum rounds.  Six of them in one spot. This was a revolver reloading here.”

    He froze for a moment, his eyes shooting open with fear.

    “Protégé?  Protégé what is it?”

    “There's only one hole, so the other five shots from this weren't done in here.”

    A look of horror shot across his face.

    “This wasn't just a raid. This was a shooting...oh no.”

    Protégé took off toward the door, dropping the rounds as he went in a frantic rush that dropped all dignity in his haste.

    “Protégé!  Protégé!”

    I galloped after him as he rounded out into the same hallway we'd once visited before, near the main stairs.  He turned left, running down the other side of windows, toward the classrooms.

    “Where are you going!?” I screamed after him.

    “The place they go!  The place of safety! It's a sealed room!  They have to be there! They have to be!”

    Struggling to keep up, I galloped through the empty corridors.  On the wall, there was a streak of blood that had smeared for a good ten metres before disappearing inside a door.  Protégé stopped briefly, opening the door to reveal a young teacher, not much older than him. His skull had been shattered open across the far wall, a dripping star of red fluid staining the polished wood behind a shocked-looking and pale face.

    There had been killings in this place of foals.

    We couldn't stop.  I felt the same drive, the same panic rising.  I didn't want to think about what we might find where we were going.  They had to be there! They had to be safe! More bullet holes, more broken windows, and a door that had been bucked clean off its hinges into a foal's bedroom stood out along this area.

    Protégé uttered a denial before he turned and barged through the main oaken double door to the classroom itself...

    ...to be met with the sight of a massacre.

    Guards and teachers lay together.  Massive exit wounds had gouted dark blood across the lush carpet.  One mare lay beneath her desk, huddled up with a rigid scream of terror still on her face, rigidly clutching her stomach.  Another had fallen with her hoof still stuck in the far door's latch. Two stallions clung to one another in the corner, riddled with holes.  The blackboard was streaked in red, impacts having shattered its brittle surface. A dozen ponies in all, cut down without mercy. None had any weapons on them.

    This hadn't been a scene of a firefight. It was the scene of an execution.

    Protégé and I stood at the verge of it, horrified.  The smell gushed from the room, filling my nostrils with the sickly odour of death, enough to make me feel light-headed.  My whole body shook, and my stomach turned. I had to turn and leave to throw up on the carpet outside, gagging as the foul taste stirred my throat into a heavy, wracking cough.  Behind me, I could hear Protégé try to find words, but only producing a pained moan as he staggered forward.

    Spitting acidic bile, I tried to move in again, and saw the broken desks and exploded cushions of the foals' area.

    “Murk. This is-I...I...” Protégé clutched a hoof to his mouth as he moved through the room, looking through the back.  As he pushed the doors open, it gave sight to the missing ponies from elsewhere. The cook, two of the guards, and a doctor had been cut down in the playroom.  A place of joy, turned into a charnel pit. They had all retreated here to get away.

    The guards lay unarmed.. The only weapon I could see was beside me.  A scoped magnum revolver lay empty, its drum poking out to the side in a sticky pool of cold gore.  Six shiny brass casings lay around it.

    I knew that revolver by sight.

    Protégé turned back to me, somewhere between desperation and horror as he saw the revolver held gently in my hooves.

    “That's...that's mine.” Protégé uttered, “That means it was him. Shackles took my weapon. How...why I-I...”

    He opened his mouth and screamed upwards, clawing at his mane with his hooves as he turned this way and that, uprooting desks and pulling aside curtains to reveal the hiding ponies who had bled out in pain here.  He checked their threads and eyes, trying in vain to find a survivor amongst the workers. There were none.

    I was gasping, trying not to hyperventilate as it sunk in to me as well.  I'd never hated the non-slaver workers in Fillydelphia. Many of them weren't bad ponies.  To see them cut down, the fear frozen on their cold faces.  They had only taught foals, not whipped us. Yet now the innocence that had still resided in here had been shattered by Fillydelphia's most brutal slaver.

    “Why?  Why would they attack here!?” Protégé outright screamed ahead of me, throwing over a desk in anger, even as his cheeks were wet with tears.  Yet he kept moving toward the back of the playroom, toward two huge doors sealed with massive handles. Gunshots had struck at its locks, but failed to penetrate them.

    “Why?” Protégé repeated over and over again, “How could this happen?  There are guards! Where were they all? Please all be in here safe, don't, oh please don't. They couldn't have been-”

    My ears twitched.  I heard movement. Close movement, from someone who must have been unmoving to avoid detection, before the reinforced double doors of the foal's panic room slammed open as a heavy stomping and a rattle of metal broke into the area.

    There were no foals.  Only one massive earth pony stallion.

    “Couldn't have been in my service?  As ever, you are a naïve fool, upstart.”

    Chainlink Shackles stood before both of us, armed with his blunt-nosed shotgun hanging around his neck.  His beady eyes twitched toward me, a slow grin spreading across his mangy face, before he surged forward and struck Protégé harshly, sending him hurtling back into me.  Gagging in pain as his weight crashed into my chest and crumpled me to the ground, I found myself staring upward at the hanging lights.

    “With a little luck on the side too.  Welcome back to me, Number Seven.”

    I couldn't help a whine of fear as I started trying to squeeze out and get toward the door.  He was right here, right before me, but had a gun. I couldn't flee.

    “You won't find Fillydelphia standing for this, Shackles!” Protégé hissed toward the massive slaver, pulling himself off me, “The foals are sacred to this place!  You have attacked our very core! You've-”

    “Become its saviour, traitor.” Shackles cut him off with another savage backhoofed slap, moving forward till he was looming over me instead.  His hooves squelched through the blood-soaked carpet under his bulk.

    Protégé fell again, face down but turning as he pushed himself up to his knees.  “Saviour? You are no such thing! You-”

    “Saved the foals.” Shackles sneered. “Got them out of the building, after a rogue slaver continued his rebellion by trying to assassinate the next generation of ponies.  The same one who tried to kill a higher rank multiple times on a mountain excursion. That would be you.”

    His hoof pointed toward me, still holding Protégé's revolver.

    “Your weapon, slave!  Manufactured in this city, identifiable as yours.  Ballistics will match the rounds. We are a weapons industry after all, we have the experts.  Dozens of slavers saw you on the peak in your sabotage attempt.  You were seen with the escaped slaves at the Ministry of Arcane Science.  This revolver was stolen back during your ambush-”

    “No it wasn't!” I shouted out, trying not to sound too squeaky, but I baulked the moment Shackles glared over at me, killing my protest on the spot with his presence.  Within just five feet, he was a towering monstrosity of filth and power..

    “-stolen back, and used to commit an atrocity in here.  Thankfully, I was here to stop you with my cohorts, moving the foals somewhere safer and secret till we have ended this war and rooted out the traitors like you!”

    His deception laid bare, there was a moment of quiet for him to drink in the look of shock on Protégé's face.  The unicorn looked over to me, his eyes focused on the revolver, then around to the ponies cut down by his weapon.

    I felt sick again.  The foals.  The foals had been taken by Chainlink Shackles!  No. No, no, NO!  That couldn't be true!

    Every horror I'd been through, every fear I felt when I saw him moving that hoof closer to me, every memory of the whips, the collar, the mental torture, and humiliation; imagining that on to every one of the foals under him.  No. No...

    “Where are they, Shackles!?” Protégé shouted up at our attacker, before hissing more quietly. “I see it now, you sent that note.”

    “Not so clever now, are you, eh?  You expect I'll say?” Shackles chuckled, keeping his shotgun ready as he almost lovingly stroked a hoof around Protégé's jawline, “What you going to think when they trial you? Punish you? Maybe you'll get to be mine again, eh?”

    Protégé was seething with anger, his teeth visible and clenched.

    “This will never pass. I've done nothing but help the foals!”

    That thick, dirty laugh rumbled out from my old master.  His hoof moved up, patting Protégé's face, drawing both of us together.  My hooves felt rooted down. Every instinct said run, but every bit of sense knew he would happily gun me down.  He'd once talked about that shotgun being loaded with something he called ‘pegasi shot’, to not kill. It was to stop his slaves escaping by ravaging them with tiny pellets, like it had once done to Sunny.

    And he seemed completely confident.

    “And yet who, little upstart, will believe you now?”

    His hoof drew back, grabbing a collar that hung on a chain around his neck.  Lunging forward with a laugh, he sent it dropping down toward Protégé's neck.

    “Now both of you get to come with me. Your 'friends' will come to try and get you, Number Seven.  Only they won't be able to. You'll get to watch me break their pride one by one through you. It'll be a fitting way to punish you for defying me.  Yet first...”

    The collar crept closer to Protégé.

    “I have an old slave to reclaim.”

    It stopped in mid-air, surrounded by a red magic field.

    Protégé looked up, tears welling in his eyes as his horn strained and glowed brightly.  He shoved me to the side, making me stumble away over a chair. Tumbling, I looked back up to see Protégé staring down the gigantic earth pony from below, the collar held tight in telekinesis.

    “I'm not coming with you. I escaped you before.”

    Shackles growled, his hoof raising.

    “You insolent worm!  Remember your place!”

    The hoof descended, yet Protégé didn't let it land.

    “You will not own me again!”

    The collar surged upward and struck Shackles across the face in a harsh blow, making the massive earth pony stumble and stagger off to the side.  Roaring his anger, Shackles threw a hoof in a backward motion, lashing out at Protégé, only to miss as the small pony ducked below it, turned, and bucked Shackles in the throat.

    For a moment, I found myself spellbound as I heard Shackles gag and retch.  The second swipe from him, however, came powering through like a freight train, as Shackles thundered into Protégé's skull with a left-hoofed swing even as he choked on the strike to his throat.  The young pony was sent flying off his hooves, tumbling through the air to crash through a foal's desk with a cry of pain.

    I saw the shotgun swing up.

    “Protégé!  Watch out!”

    The words tumbled from my mouth.  My hoof twitched, sending the mouthpiece of my saddle snapping out before I bit on it three times.  Each time sending a shot from Rarity's Grace across the room into the unmissable target of Chainlink Shackles.

    They didn't even slow him down as the tiny rounds buried into his skin.  One even deflected from a buckle. But it did get his attention away from Protégé.

    He didn't even lose his grin as he began to turn his head and trot toward me, a second collar trailing on the ground behind him that dropped from a hook on his torso.  Two thin trails of blood went down his side from my shots. He wasn't even affected, the tiny rounds meant nothing to his size.

    “Attacking your Master, Number Seven. Such gall and insolence, COME HERE!”

    Screaming as he picked up the pace, I ran to one side to avoid his bulky charge before diving away from a huge hoof reaching for me.  Terror surged through my veins.  Chainlink Shackles was trying to attack me!  Memories of him lashing my back and crushing me below his hoof repeated over and over in my head.  He was trying to hurt me again! Scrambling, I crawled forward, trying to get up. I felt the huge dinner plate-sized hooves grab at me.

    Protégé shouted across the room.

    “Where are the foals, Shackles!?  Stern will never allow anything to happen to them!”

    Behind me, the shotgun around Shackle's neck twisted in a red magic field, trying to aim upwards at himself.  Protégé charged from the side of my vision, lowering his horn as he attempted to impale the slaver's neck, only to be smashed aside by a shoulder.  Protégé landed hard, rolling away from Shackle's brutal stamp on the ground.

    “Oh, they're quite safe, slave.” Another missed stamp  “Ready to become the new generation as I intend.”

    We were fighting. I was fighting Chainlink Shackles.  The thought just wouldn't leave me, yet I couldn't leave Protégé to it alone.  He wanted to take the foals. He wanted to use the memory on them!  He was going to make a whole generation of ponies like I had been!

    The thought. It...it just made me so angry!

    Changing trigger, I steeled myself and fired from the floor, sending the grapple hook out to grab the shotgun and keep it from aiming at my comrade.  Pulling on it dragged its muzzle away before it fired. The loud retort sent a shooting pain through my head in the enclosed room as I heard it smash a window somewhere off to the side.  Suddenly I was being dragged, pulled on the wire toward Shackles as his hooves wound around it.

    “Murk!”

    Protégé shouted from behind the slaver, hurling a chair at his head.  It impacted hard across Shackle's jawline and staggered him.  Protégé's magic tore the shotgun from around Shackle's neck in the brief space he got.  He tried to take it for himself, but it flew toward me as my grapple hook retracted, bouncing and rolling away into the next room.

    “You...little worm!  You think you can hurt me?  You are no slaver! You never were!”

    Undeterred by the attacks, Shackles turned and hurled the chair back at Protégé using that unreal strength, impacting on the unicorn's side and sending him falling into a corner.

    He lay still.

    Fear was settling in hard.  Protégé was down. I was alone with Shackles.  Putting aside the sickening feeling of the slick red stains below me, I attempted to get away, slipping and pulling myself as best I could.  I could hear the stomping behind me.

    “All alone once more.”

    He sung it, no doubt grinning at his sing-song tone that dripped with sick delight.  Whining, I limped faster before an almost casual strike knocked me on my side.

    “All alone where he belongs.”

    I tried to get up, before a hoof landed on my chest hard.

    “Oh no, you do not slide away, Number Seven.”

    I wriggled, before he leaned.  Some of his huge weight crushed down, as I felt my ribs flare in agony, felt them shift.  I screamed, batting his leg with my tiny hooves.

    “Isn't this familiar, little slave?  Disobedience means punishment! You think you've been heroic and brave, staying away and accomplishing things? Do you really think you'll escape?”

    He pressed down, as I threw my head back, unable to stop a squeal of pain coming forth.

    “I-argh!”

    “You think you've been special, Number Seven.  Just because you merely glided for a while, so I hear.  Because you have friends? Because you've not been in chains for a few days?”

    His face leaned down, yellowed teeth and sweaty mane dropping to fill my vision. I tried to block it away with my front hooves.

    “You think that puts you closer to escaping?  Well let me tell you something, Number Seven...”

    His face crept in uncomfortably close while his hoof kept me pinned.  His lips slid in beside my ear, within an inch. His smell was overpowering, it made me want to gag. I was covered by his hoof, his mane; trapped in such closeness to the foul slaver as he whispered.

    “You're no record holder. Others got closer, much closer to escape than you have.  One even got seventy miles away from Fillydelphia in the old days before the Wall.  Got married. Had a kid, all just before I caught up to him. He lived ten months thinking he was free.  I dragged him from his bed right in front of his family, dragged him screaming all the way home, where he lived another eighteen years in my service.  You see, there's nothing special about you, Number Seven. Nothing I haven't seen a dozen times before. He got so far for nothing, and you're still here with ME!”

    I cried out as his last word screamed into my ear, dizzying me.  The weight on my chest disappeared, before I rolled on my side and held my sore ears and head.  Yelping as I felt his hoof bat me onto my back, the terrifying feeling of one of my wings being dragged out from my body and spread onto the floor set me wriggling madly.  No! Of all things, my wings!

    “These made you think you were something more?  A foal's belief. Perhaps you need to be reminded.  Broken back in the way you first were!”

    One of his back hooves landed on my back, crushing me to the floor.  One of his front hooves pulled my wing right out. I screamed.

    Glancing over my back, I saw his other hoof lift up, ready to stamp.  A whole host of horrible feelings from the past raced through me. I could feel the cold floor like an anvil, see the same fury in his eyes.  The same intent! I couldn't help it, I begged. I wailed for him to stop, but that hoof only stopped rising and surged down like a hammer.

    Protégé's voice screamed as he launched on to Shackle's neck.  Gripping around him, forcing the slaver away from me by the momentum of his charge.  I saw him drive a broken leg of a chair into Shackles' side, hurling a solid metal typewriter into the slaver's face with magic at the same time.  The slaver roared, tossing the smaller pony around as he tried to get him off.

    Protégé was fighting back.  I couldn't just leave him.

    I could fight Shackles.
   
    Struggling to get my breath, I stood up, grabbed the fallen chair leg in my mouth, and rushed in, drawing it back to swing across the slaver's face!  He'd wanted to break my wings! The wings I'd only just learned to love!

    I swung with all of that pent up hurt and anger.

    The impact hurt my teeth as the wood snapped on contact. He was still distracted by Protégé, so I turned and tried to buck at him but even connecting with the attack sent me bouncing off him.

Stumbling over, I dropped onto my face and rolled back up to meet his bulk surging toward me! With a simple barge of his body, I was knocked clean over the table, sending it clattering atop the bodies in here. 

He twisted enough to drag Protégé off him, roaring at me the whole time.  I had to ignore the words, ignore the orders. I knew what freedom was, I couldn't look back now!

    I knew he was big, but in the context of having him actually furious and throwing his weight at me, Shackles was massive.  Every swing of a hoof sent me scurrying away.  His furious eyes promised retribution and punishment for every second I defied him as I dodged and ran away from his chase around the room, hopping over a table and diving under the next one to stay away from that huge weight.  Protégé was all that kept me going, as he tried to use his magic to hurl items and attack the slaver alongside me. Having an ally, somepony brave enough to fight this monster, was what I needed to find the courage to keep doing this.

    My grapple hook would hit him in the face every time I got some room.  Protégé ducked and weaved, throwing himself away from those haymaker-like sweeps of Shackles' hooves.  My hook cracked off Shackle's temple, drawing blood from the impact and giving Protégé the space to get out of the corner Shackles had backed him into, sending a whole filing cabinet collapsing onto the huge pony.  The heavy item knocked the slaver's pack on the floor, where its leather buckle snapped.

The tinkling of metal announced its contents scattering all over the floor.  I saw the magnum rounds he'd used with Protégé's revolver roll and bounce through the blood. Shackles shook his head, groaning and scowling. The hit had dizzied him!  There was my chance!

    Grabbing a shard of sharp metal from a broken school desk, I galloped forward and hurled myself off a desk to try and land atop him. I'd stab down and-

    His rear hoof came up and bucked.

    The huge shape flying toward me being the last thing I saw, I passed out from the impact for a good few seconds.  Knocked cleanly unconscious, as pain flared through my head to push me into the black void.

    Awaking, scant seconds later, to a splitting headache, I found myself lying against a wall outside the classroom.  

Somewhere on my back I could feel a sharp pain and wet blood.  Around me lay shards of glass from the window I'd been sent flying through.  My forehead was swelling into a thick lump where he'd even just glanced it with his buck. Even blinking sent a shot of pain to the very core of my head.  If that had hit me directly, I'd likely just have had my neck broken on the whiplash alone.

    The adrenaline was wearing off, the rush to fight ebbing away.  He was so strong. It was like fighting Brimstone as a normal pony.  His weight, his surprising speed on a bulky torso, his sheer power.

    I could hear his roars and Protégé's thinner cry from inside the room as my consciousness dipped in and out.  My eyelids felt heavy. Thumps passed through the floor in time with Shackles' movements, waking me up every time.  Eventually, hissing in pain, I staggered up in time for the heavy retort of a revolver to send a sharp whip of pain streaking through my head all over again.

    Wearily, I pulled myself up to the interior window and looked back in.

    They were gone.  From the opposite side of the building I heard gunshots.  First the brutal roar of a shotgun, then the heavy snap of Protégé's revolver.  On shaky legs, I staggered and somewhat galloped toward the area, before the sounds began to move downstairs.

    “How long can you avoid coming back to me, my old slave!”

    Three shots from Protégé's revolver answered him, followed only by Shackles' laughter.  The sound reverberated around the Alpha-Omega Hotel, as I started to find the chaos of their moving gunfight on my route.  Holes were torn out of old paintings, and parts of the carpet exploded upward from buckshot. I turned into the stairwell, frantically trying to reload Rarity's Grace on the way and fighting the temptation to lie down and close my eyes.

    “You will not hurt the foals!  I will not let them come to harm!”

    “They aren't yours, upstart. They never were!  Slaves don't own anything!”

    I burst into the main hallway just in time to see Protégé rush out the main doors to the streets of Fillydelphia.  He was hurt, one side of his cheek swollen and bleeding. While he hurried, I could see him pushing through pain. Skidding to a halt, I saw him point the revolver.  Shackles was in clear view near the gate! The open ground of the hotel's exterior held no cover until the far away buildings of the next street over! He had him!

    “Stand down! You are surrounded!”

    A griffon's voice shrieked through the air, and multiple large figures dropped from the sky, their long rifles aimed directly at Protégé.

    Sneaking forward, I poked my head through a window to look outside. The moment I saw what had happened, I recoiled in dismay.

    Other griffons hung in the air, weapons pointed cleanly at Protégé.  He was surrounded by at least a dozen other ponies that were now advancing from the ground.  All were armed. Most were soldiers, not slavers. Yet he stood with his revolver pointed firmly at Chainlink Shackles.  Two spotlights were centred on Protégé, watching him. At least a dozen ponies and griffons were repeatedly calling for him to throw down his weapon.

    The big slaver stood in the perimeter fence gate, grinning and leering at the small unicorn before him.  Masses of rifles were pointed at Red Eye's apprentice.

    The revolver shook in the air.  I could tell Protégé wanted to pull that trigger.  He had Shackles dead to rights, the gun was powerful enough to shatter anypony's skull.  I heard the slaver speak, just loudly enough for Protégé to hear.

    “I know you want to.  Go on. The eternal chain keeps on moving with or without me. There's others who'd do it.  So go on. Come on upstart, colt cuddler, slave!  Throw away everything to end me. Won't it make Fillydelphia so much better?  Will it?”

    I could see Protégé's teeth clench as the griffon shouted again to him.

    “Throw down the gun, Protégé!  You are accused of traitorous acts, we will hear your side in trial!”

    “Come on upstart. What are you waiting for?  Think of all the ways I hurt you, made you beg back in the day. Or all the ways I hurt the runt to break him.”

    Protégé’s face tightened. I saw the magic around his revolver grow stronger.

    “Put!  It! Down!”

    Shackles kept his head high.

    “Revenge for all of it.  Give it all up to kill me, worth it?”

    There was a moment of silence.  It might have been a couple seconds, but it felt so much more.  I wanted to run out, to tell the truth, but they'd never believe a lowly slave.  I couldn't help him. I just had to watch this happen.

    His eyes were wet, and his teeth clenched.  I could see how much he wanted to.  He was being blamed for hurting the very thing he believed in.  He could end the tyrant of Fillydelphia right now!

    Gradually, his whole body shaking, Protégé dispelled his magic, and the revolver clattered to the ground.

    Chainlink Shackles only smiled, and let a low chuckle rumble through him.  He watched as the griffons descended and chained Protégé. He enjoyed the sight.  Standing there all triumphant, as though he was the one in the 'right.'

    The sight made me sick to see.

    Then he cast his eyes to the Hotel and me, and I had to flee.

    I didn't have a choice. He'd have come for me.

    I fled through the hotel to the servant's entrance, passing over bloodied floors even as Protégé was no doubt led away in chains past a mocking Chainlink Shackles.  I heard ponies behind me begin to filter into the hotel to find the devastation from Protégé's own weapon he'd been caught carrying in his magic. Feeling my muscles seize up and joints ache, I fell into doorframes and tripped on stairs during my hurried retreat.  My head still felt dizzy, the lump throbbing.

    It was a tiring effort to reach the servant's doorway.  Galloping out, crawling under the fence, and diving into the ruins, I simply fell to the ground upon reaching Unity and Coral.  Exhausted and stammering, I began desperately trying to tell them what had happened. The loss of the foals, the proximity I'd come to that evil slaver again, the framing of Protégé, the massacre in the hotel.

    The fact that Chainlink Shackles had played us and won.

    I winced, squeaking as the wet towel was held against my stinging forehead.

    “There we go.” Unity whispered, pulling one of my own hooves up to hold the cloth myself, “Just let me get this potion open.”

    “Thanks. I can d-do it myself, though.” I murmured, before inwardly biting my tongue at maybe sounding ungrateful. Really, I was just disappointed and worried.

    “Then humour me.” She smiled, albeit thinnly, popping the cork of the potion with her magic before taking over holding the towel again.

    My hooves free, I drank the tingling magic liquid.  Slowly, I felt the pain subside. The hot lances of pain firing through my skull every time I moved it died down to a dull thumping.  “Um, thanks.”

    “No problem.” Unity seemed a little hesitant to smile any more, before putting the empty potion away, trotting back inside the pumping station to do so.  Sitting back, she sighed and lowered her head.

    We'd returned to the sewers a few minutes ago.  The news did not take well amongst the others, Coral least of all.  She had ranted and raved, repeatedly asserting the atrocity that such a tactic by Shackles was.  I'd never heard her curse before until now. In fact, her vengeful mood had scared Glimmer completely out of talking to her regarding the orb.

    I didn't blame her.  Coral's anger was not something approached lightly at this moment.  Even Brimstone had kept his distance.

    The foals were likely somewhere beyond our reach now, kept hidden by the most dangerous of slavers.  It was clear to us all that they were probably in the metro slave den, but that didn't help them feel any less distant or ease the worries of what they might be going through right now.  Of what he might do to them. We'd never gotten into that lair of Shackles' before, and if possible, we wanted to have avoided it forever. A world entirely devoted to just him and his madness was something I wanted to stay far away from.  Yet with the foals in danger, it was feeling like a very worrying reality that we'd have to attempt to get in there.

    Only, it lay beyond the reach of our abilities.  I'd seen how heavy the guard was down there personally.  Even with Mister Peace, Brimstone, and Coral at her best we couldn't penetrate such a fortified underground place.  Not that it had stopped her from trying to suggest it compared to considering them beyond saving. Eventually, she had accepted none of us were even thinking of that.

    Unity returned, sitting beside me.  Part of me couldn't miss the fact that we instinctively sat a few feet away from one another.  There was still an awkward air, despite our friendship.

    “Your sister was saying she's closing in on a way in, you know?  I tried to ask more, but she's just got her nose in those maps. Something about the crater?  A hidden base? She wasn't very talkative, for once. Like she's really sad about something right now.”

    I sighed and leaned back.  Honestly, my mind was elsewhere too.  I kept seeing Protégé being led away and feeling a horrible fear creep over me.  He'd already lost his precious Mall, then much of his reputation, then his friends and allies.  Now he could lose so much more.

    “Murky?”

    Snapping up, I yelped as the back of my skull hit the wall harder than I expected.

    “Yow!  Um, oh, sorry. Yes, the crater place...thing.”

    I certainly remembered it.  That and seeing it go deeper, the tunnel the ghouls had chased me from long ago had went somewhere yet unexplored for sure.  Given Magister Heartcare's connection to the zebras, it seemed likely that the chamber I'd been trapped in might be linked to the outer metro and Ministry Station.  From what I'd heard from the others though, the issue was where it actually met the trainlines. Running into the outer metro with no knowledge of where we were was suicide of the most horrible sort.  Those ancient tunnels were not meant for ponies any more.

    “You sure you don't need to rest it off?”

    It occurred to me that I was still sitting in the middle of a conversation. My mind was everywhere, even with Unity right beside me.  Shaking my head (and quickly regretting the dizziness as the potion did its work) I tried to force a smile back at her. It failed.

    “No, no.  I'm just, um, worried.”

    He was being marched away in chains. No aid forthcoming from any slaver.  They could do anything to him now! I couldn't just-no. I had to know for sure what was going on, but I knew the others wouldn't agree to me going out.

    “In fact I-” I coughed into my hoof, getting up and pulling my saddle back on.  “I think I'm just going to get some fresh air.”

    “Murky, we're in Fillydelphia. There isn't any fresh air. Outside is thicker with chemicals than in here.”

    I turned, surprised.  I'd never heard Unity pull a deadpan comment before.  I met her with eyelids lowered and a thoroughly disbelieving face.

    She had a serious look to her face, I wasn’t fooling her.

    “You're going to hunt for him, aren't you?  After what you saw.”

    Slowly, I nodded, and my hooves shifting meekly together as I lowered my head.

    “Want some company?”

    That took me by surprise, but it wasn't possible. 

“I'll, uh, I'll be okay, thanks.  I won't take any risks, promise.”

    I tried to smile, but the look of disappointment on her face hit me hard.  Feeling guilty, I made to explain how I needed the grapple and gliding to get where I was intending to go, but she spoke first.

    “Murky, I know we have our moments of bonding and friendship, but things are still a bit, y'know...”

    “Awkward?” I offered, hesitantly.  It was right, for every warm shared time there were countless little 'glance across the room nervously' moments as we each had our own thoughts about the truth.

    Unity nodded, quietly sighing and looking to the side, her thick mane hiding her face from this angle.  “I don't, um, I don’t make you uncomfortable, do I?”

    A thousand words at once tried to explode through my mouth.  Instead I simply produced something more akin to 'ablurgghh'.

    Eventually I corrected myself.  “No. No. It's just like, um...”

    She finished for me.

    “You look over and wonder what kind of friend you see or not?  If it's the same pony you knew in a time you forgot?”

    I just gulped and nodded.  It was about the best either of us could vocalise it.  Unfortunately, her slightly unsure look at the reply didn't fill me with confidence.

    “Be careful out there, Murky.  I'll let them all know.”

    She briefly embraced me.  There was a moment that I felt her move, similar to when she'd kissed my cheek weeks ago near the FunBarn. Only this time, she paused a few inches before contact. After a few seconds, she pulled away, as though reconsidering it.  Letting go of me, she trotted back to the pumping station with soft and slow steps.

    As I left, I had the distinct impression I'd done something wrong.

    Outside, I had to try and push down my worries.

    Unity was safe down here with the others, but Protégé was not.  The foals were in lethal danger, yes, but I couldn't do anything about them right now until my friends figured something out.  Protégé, however, was perhaps reachable. He had done a lot wrong to me over the time I'd known him, yet I felt wrong abandoning him to all this alone.

    It was because of that feeling that I moved to the rooftops of factories and buildings to approach the FunFarm once more.  With the grapplegun on my saddle and even a few short (and wonderfully confidence boosting) glides from roof to roof, I didn't find it difficult to traverse Fillydelphia.  There were enough scrap-built covers from the acidic rain and heavy industrial vents to hide from the balloons and griffons after all. Moving like this felt invigorating, free of the same boundaries I was used to.

    Eventually, I crossed into the old amusement park.  Soaring over its fence and firing my grapple to the top of the helter-skelter.  It was an old hiding place and one I felt intensely comfortable in. Even better, it was close by to the FunBarn itself, close enough that I could see and hear the commotion going on outside.

    Amongst the grounds strewn with raw metals and lumber, a large group of ponies had gathered.  Consisting of mostly slavers, they clustered in the FunBarn's outer area near the gate. Keen guards were posted in newly raised watchtowers at each corner of the Barn, while I could see slaves crawling all over the Barn welding metal plates of armour to its walls, giving it the impression of a metallic tortoise.  The gathering of slavers was as much directing the workers as it was discussing their own things. They were preparing the headquarters for battle, that much was obvious. The slaves involved had been worked to the bone, many of them looking little more than skeletons as they tiredly hammered away to bend metal around support struts.

    Below them, slavers and guards came and went in rapid succession from the main group.  I recognised many of them from the time I'd spent at Protégé's side within that building; Red Eye's higher ranks.  The organisers, generals, and master slavers. Several griffons loomed in the crowd, fully armed and holding rifles ready around the unmistakable form of Stern herself.  Her rifle alone speared above the rest to end in that thick lump of metal that was its barrel end. Big Brutus was visible, standing stoically behind Grindstone with cybernetics humming and hissing as they flexed and pivoted.  Upon his cubed artificial shoulder, I could see the symbol of a dragon crossed out to proclaim his victory on the mountain.

    With a little careful peering, I saw List Seeker in there too, then Mister Mosin and Wicked Slit.  Some clean-uniformed unicorns stood talking to Stern, bright red with golden bands on their shoulders.  Diplomats for Red Eye? One was shaking his head despairingly, as though bringing bad news. I tried to pick out what he was saying from my place of hiding.  I could hear the voice. Perhaps if he'd been the only one talking I might have figured it out, but with everypony blabbering at once, it was impossible.

    That was set to change.  With a great shriek, Stern caught the attention of every pony and griffon in the area.  I clamped my hooves over my ears. Even the slaves all stopped for a second. Stern stopped, lowering her head and looking around as she claimed the moment as hers to speak by force of authority.

    “We have received word that the survivors of the Cathedral will be returning shortly.  You will all prepare supplies and aid to integrate them into the defence of Fillydelphia immediately upon their arrival.  Red Eye's great city will take the advantage of every griffon, pony, weapon, and shred of ammo it can for the coming battle!”

    A murmur passed around.  This was not the best of news. Apparently Red Eye had lost at the Cathedral?  Was this Enclave really that strong?  The thought boggled me. Red Eye was the power in the wasteland!  I remembered hearing about rivals being bought out or stomped under.  He had paid many times my price to get me, and considered it cheap. Nopony messed with him on a large scale!  Yet the Enclave had beaten him?

    “I have assigned you all a Talon representative who will bring my instructions to your appointed zones via air.  You will follow them to the letter. Fillydelphia will not fall. Do not share this information, it needs only be followed.  These pegasi are known to be able to intercept radio signals. Those of you in the factories have designated delivery sites. All of the Pit combatants are to be released into the fighting arm.  Volunteer forces will be assigned to the rooftop defences. I want hourly reports from every sector via Talon dispatch flight, is everyone understood?”

    There was a chorus of shouts and stamps.

    “For our great leader.  For Red Eye. For Unity.”

    “We will sacrifice!” came the reply from the assembled ponies.  Some more zealous than others.

    Stern nodded firmly, beating a clenched talon off her breastplate before leaning toward the elderly donkey standing near her.  “There shall be no dissent now. We must act as one. Those who dare to do so will be harshly brought down upon after our inevitable victory.  Grindstone, you say that one alleged traitor has been uncovered that you brought to my attention.”

    “Indeed, Ma'am.” Grindstone coughed, waving to an aid, who turned and ran into the FunBarn.  His hoof wobbled to touch the ground again, as he spurned the help of a young buck carrying Grindstone's belongings now for him.

    “Then bring them forth. An example will be made in this moment, while all are gathered.”

    I knew exactly who they were talking about.  Creeping forward, I peered further out of the helter-skelter at the events below through a snapped hole in its red and white, rotted wood.  Ponies were stamping, outraged and shouting in the crowd as they heard of such a thing. Wicked Slit in particular held a foul look, repulsed that such a thing could exist.  They were fanatical.

    There, from the FunBarn, I saw Chainlink Shackles emerge at the head of a security column.  Walking proudly and taller than I'd ever imagined the big slaver being able to do, he led them through the crowd toward the clearing in front of Stern.  Behind him, manacled around all four hooves and reduced to awkward stumbling, was Protégé, surrounded by four of Shackles' own slavers bearing electric prods and the hardwood sticks slavers loved so much to swipe across a chest or a rump.

    Protégé tried to walk with his head high, but short steps and heavy chain made it difficult.  No doubt this was Shackles' exact plan. The huge slave master strode into the centre of the clearing, grinning as he nodded to Stern and turned to face his prisoner hobbling after him.  At his motioning, the guards threw Protégé into the centre of it all, causing him to stumble and fall into the dirt. I couldn't see too clearly, but I wondered how badly they'd mistreated him.  I knew what being alone with Shackles was like, the way he broke you down, worked at the chinks in your pride to lever open a gap to exploit.

    Red Eye's apprentice’s presence lit a wave of reaction however.  They all knew who he was. Some were clearly shocked, but many saw it as a chance to let their rage come out at somepony they'd often see as 'favoured' above them by their leader.  Howls and insults filled the air, before Stern's rifle butt rapped upon her wooden platform and drove them to silence.

    “Chainlink Shackles, Grindstone. You are aware of who you accuse?”

    “Oh, absolutely.  The one none of us would have expected, eh?” Shackles didn't take his eyes off Protégé as he spoke.

    It almost lit a fire of hope in me as I saw Stern glance down with confusion, perhaps even disbelief.  Protégé stared right back at her, an intense look in his eyes.

    “Stern!  This is nothing but a grab for power by-argh!”

    Shackles struck him over the face.

    “Silence!  The accused does not speak!”

    Protégé fell again, gritting his teeth and trying to get himself back up on his hooves.

    Stern rubbed a talon on her beak, scrutinising the scene before holding her claws out.  All those assembled fell silent.

    “This is Protégé.  Once slave master and now logistics manager of the primary district.  He stands under accusation by Masters Chainlink Shackles and Grindstone of traitorous acts.  They claim evidence to his crimes!”

    The crowd jeered, shouting their support for the two slavers.  I wanted to scream out against such things, they were setting him up!  At the very least, I could see List Seeker remaining silent.

    Stern's rifle thumped again for quiet.  “He has offered loyal service and learning under Red Eye for years, as such I request to hear of this evidence and from those you claim witnessed it.  I shall stand as adjudicator as Master Grindstone offers prosecution on this alleged turncoat. I shall hear your side with those in attendance as those to bear witness to justice.  Protégé, young one, you may be granted one to speak for you, if any wills it?”

    Stern looked to the crowd, scanning it.  Many slavers shook their head.

    Protégé I saw looked only to one, List Seeker.  Their eyes met. I could see the pleading in Protégé's face, the silent willing for any help at all here.

    Yet List Seeker only lowered his head and looked away, looking sick to his stomach.  Too afraid to stand up here, likely worried for the slaves he cared for too. Before him, Protégé let his shoulders slump.

    “Very well, you shall speak for yourself.” Stern turned to Grindstone, lowering her eyes.  “We are at the brink of war, Grindstone. This will not be drawn out or given to break periods.  Make your case now or do not make it at all.”

    Grindstone nodded serenely and began to trot forward into the clearing.  The crowd fell silent for the old slaver as he moved toward Protégé and began to circle him.  Coughing, he cleared his throat first.

    “By now, you may have all heard of the unsettling events at the Alpha-Omega Hotel.”

    The crowd roared their displeasure. Stern only nodded.

    “We have at least twelve ponies and griffons of the inner wall security who will testify that this subject was found at the Hotel, wielding the weapon he is known to carry, the weapon used in the killing of twenty members of foal-care staff!”

    Protégé whipped round, held back by the chains but forcing his head toward the donkey.

    “Those are lies!  I found Chainlink Shackles over the corpses of those who protect the children!  My weapon was stolen!”

    “And yet who do you have to back up your side of the story?” Grindstone rolled it off his tongue as he closed in, coming almost muzzle-to-muzzle with Protégé, “Chainlink Shackles is the one who has saved our precious foals from your attempts to undermine us!  You deny that he could reveal the foals in safety? You deny that he could prove they were evacuated and have been kept unharmed?”

    “I do.  Stern, if you would permit us to an investigation of-”

    Stern shook her head.  “I have seen the foals myself the moment they were evacuated to the FunBarn while security handled apprehending those at the scene.  Shackles' aid Wormtail brought a message from his master that requested to move them underground for safety in the coming war, to which I agreed.  Grindstone's motion stands.”

    “They are lying to you, Stern!  They-”

    Grindstone swept in front of Protégé, cutting him off.  “You have attempted to lie in trial! It is not us with countless witnesses who need to answer to you!  I have witnesses!  They are all here!”

    He threw a hoof around himself.  The slavers liked that one, they clamoured and stamped their approval.  Indeed I recognised many of them from the mountain or the wagon ambush. I was feeling frustrated beyond measure, this was all lies and slander against him!  He was a good pony! Why wouldn't the others listen!? This wasn't a fair process!

    “You attacked the Alpha-Omega Hotel alone!”

    “I did not!”

    “You attempted assassination upon the mountain expedition mere days ago where dozens of slavers saw you firing upon their friends in service of slaves!”

    “Under Master Red Eye's orders!”

    “That same slave group that has gone rogue was seen stealing from the very convoy that held the weapon we found in your magic at the Hotel!  You were seen with their war machine! You have been enamoured with ponies from that group ever since you petitioned us to allow you to own the pegasus!  You are a turncoat and a traitor!”

    “I AM NO TRAITOR!” Protégé screamed at him, trying to push forward, his eyes locked on Stern, “I have done nothing but serve Master Red Eye!  He was afraid of this! Afraid of this very thing happening, Stern!”

    That got her attention, appealing to her loyalty.  Protégé took a deep breath, moving around Grindstone.  I saw Chainlink Shackles' grin dip slightly.

    “The assassination of Master Grizzly and of my associate Ragini is proof here!  They had flawless records! In Grizzly's case decades of service, yet in Ragini's case she was a sister to your faction!  A Talon! They were murdered by Shackles' group on that mountain top, the expedition that Master Red Eye bid us infiltrate to root out corruption at the very heart of Fillydelphia!  He had the raider Wildcard end her life!”

    Stern's gaze turned harsh.  This was a dangerous game Protégé was playing. I knew well how intense the Talons' feelings were for their own.  To attempt to use Ragini's death for this was playing with serious fire. Yet Protégé met her gaze right on.

    “There are those who can see the reality!  That's why they were killed! They murdered a Talon in cold blood to prevent you hearing about their lust for control of this city!  She was family to you, a comrade to me! She died in utmost service to the one her duty told her to protect. You knew her, Stern, and she fought beside me up there.  Would she have turned traitor if what they say is true?  Would a Talon turn against you?”

    Silence.

    Stern did not move.  Her fierce gaze never left the small unicorn before her.  I could see her talons gripping the rifle so hard that it was shivering.

    “Ragini...would not have turned.  She was sister to us all.”

    “Then you kn-”

    “Silence.” Stern interrupted him, “If you claim this, then what proof do I have that you did not betray the Talon I tasked to protect your life. In the face of everything else, that is what I see is the most likely story here.  That you killed my sworn sister! You kill one of us, you hurt all of us!”

    Stern was seething, her wings snapping harshly behind her.

    “I seek to bring her killer to justice!  I have grieved for her!”

    “Then explain your lack of appearance to her funeral!” Stern bitterly roared, almost looking like she wanted to leap off the platform.  “Shackles returned her body to us with full honours after the desecration the slaves and their raider met out to her corpse.”

    No we hadn’t!  Brim didn't touch her!  We’d fought with her!  How dare he claim that!

    All those protests and more rung in my head over and over.

    “Chainlink Shackles presided over her cremation.  He spoke of her courage in trying to help his and our vision by attempting to put a stop to the rogue slaves, but now I see the truth is worse than I had thought.  You were scheduled to be on trial for things other than the Hotel shooting already, out of suspicion.  With confirmed witnesses of you attacking and murdering Fillydelphia's ponies, why should I believe this one element alone?  Especially from an ex-slave.”

    Protégé was quiet.  I could see his mouth opening a little, trying to find the words, trying to think of anything.  The temptation to glide down there and shout my support of him was overwhelming, but they would never believe me.

    They'd never treat any slave's opinion as anything.  That thought hurt deeply to my stance in this city.

    “You see?” Grindstone turned, smugly grinning to his supporters, “He is without evidence, without witnesses, and incapable of defending himself.  Loyal though he may have been, it seems his existence as a slave elevated has clouded his mind and confused him into supporting a dissident cell's cause!  Caused him to attempt to kill the spirit of Fillydelphia's young on the eve of war!”

    “NO!” Protégé outright screamed it. I could see the absolute pain on his face, standing in the city he had dreamed of restoring, being accused of tearing it down.  “There are those who know! Those who have seen this insurrection among Fillydelphia's ranks! Blunderbuck, Mosin's assistant!”

    “Pizdet!  He is fool!”

    Protégé turned and shifted across. I saw him moving to List Seeker, speaking directly to him, quieter.

    “You...you know of the blackmails, please. Speak out!  We can stop this!  Please! You want to protect your workers!  Then help me!”

    In the crowd, I saw List Seeker only offer a sad look.  He just stood and shook on the spot, before silently shaking his head.

    Dismayed, Protégé backed away into the centre again.  He pointed at the huge slaver as best he could with his chained legs.

    “Shackles is wanting his power back!  He was our enemy once!  Master Red Eye fought this city from him at great cost and now he is only one rank from ruling this place once again!  Can't any of you see this is an obvious powerplay? You all know the games and politics! You saw the vote! You would all elect him?  The pony who made this a place of terror and darkness? The one we had to rebuild this place from!?”

    They laughed at him, Wicked Slit's voice shrieking above it, “I think somepony is jealous!”

    The crowd jeered.

    “Just because he's not the teacher's pet!”

    “Not a real slaver!”

    “Never earned anything!”

    “I saw him slipping food to slaves he liked best!  Medicine too! Only certain ones!”

    “He shot my fucking brother on the mountain!”

    The insults and accusations spun around the circle of the trial.  The slaves up above watched it. Some were grinning, a couple looked upset.  I recognised the latter ones from the Mall when Protégé had been in control.

    “Listen to yourselves!” Protégé hollered at them, “Just listen!  We were here to build something greater! Something more like Equestria deserves!”

    His voice broke on the last word.  The crowd quietened down. The passion in his voice was unmistakable.  Impossible to fake. Yet he sounded desperate, as he clearly saw himself on the brink of losing the only thing he had left.  His dreams.

    “To restore Equestria, ushering in a new era away from the wasteland!  We weren't just slavers, we were sacrificing for a new world! We achieved that through his direction, his plans, and the toil of the work...of slaves.  How many have suffered here? How much will it be for nothing if Fillydelphia becomes the city of darkness that it once was again? Look at all we created. Master Red Eye gave us purpose!  I have done nothing but serve!  Nothing!”

    The sound of a rifle butt rapping on wood filled the air.  Slowly, Protégé turned back to Stern.

    The huge griffon was looking very grim.  To her right stood Chainlink Shackles, atop the platform with her now.

    “Nothing,” Stern began, “is precisely what you have now to make me believe anything but the advice of dozens of ponies, griffons, and the words of elected superiors of yours.  Chainlink Shackles has shown exemplary service since abdicating to Red Eye years ago. Once I thought you might show the same over time. I trusted Red Eye's opinion to once vote for you, young pony. I now see that in his absence you have revealed your true colours.”

    My hooves tightened on the ledge of the helter-skelter.

    “You are found guilty by trial.  You are stripped of all rank and your status among us considered invalid.  Red Eye would be very disappointed in you for disgracing his trust in you.”

    Protégé's expression utterly sank.

    “Even aside from your other crimes the punishment for assaulting the Hotel is simple death, normally via arena combat.  However, in the absence of time for such an event...”

    Her talon's blurred, pulling the rifle from her side.  I clumsily tried to get my wings and saddle ready. I had to try, I-

    Her rifle was stopped half way down to aiming at Protégé.  Shackles' hoof had met it.

    Stern gazed at her second in command sideways, clearly spotting the small smile on the huge pony's face as he stared at Protégé.

    “With your permission, Stern, we need every bit of aid this city can get right now.  Every bit of time. Every bullet...”

    His smile turned to that grin.  That lustful and controlling power fantasy I saw in his eyes at the opportunity to rule over another.  He'd always looked at me like that.

    “...every slave.”

    Protégé remained on the spot, but I could see the twitch go through him and the slight movement in his hind legs as one of them shifted backwards.

    “Stern, please listen to me, I-”

    “Silence!” She shouted harshly at him, not turning her head from Shackles.  “He's yours. Assign him to the Mall. Perhaps he'll learn something being in his old cell.  Protégé, you are hereby rescinded from your status as a member of Red Eye's city. You will return all equipment given and your personal possessions will be auctioned.”

    He staggered backward, sitting down as his legs clearly went weak from the crippling realisation.

    “Furthermore, in shame of what you have done, there will be no allowance for access to the three methods for freedom.  Not by six Pit victories, not by crater work, and not by two years of hard service. If you wish to serve as you say, you will do so as the foundation of our work.  That is your punishment for betraying he who gave you purpose.”

    “Master...I didn't...” Protégé's voice was so quiet, I barely heard it.

    “This meeting and trial is over.”

    Her rifle butt struck the floor once more, announcing an end as the final humiliation was set home.

    The slavers cheered at the resolution, supporting their leader.  I saw Protégé at the centre of this maddened sham of a fair trial.  His head fell low, as the dispersing witnesses cast their real thoughts about him aloud.  I saw some slaves applaud, those that knew him stayed very silent and turned back to their work.

    I simply watched from the helter-skelter, hooves over my mouth and tears in my eyes as the FunBarn emptied, and Protégé was left behind with only a few others.  Those that guarded him and one malicious figure who now began to stride down from the platform to claim his prize. Chainlink Shackles advanced on the slave who had once escaped him long ago.

    The glee in Shackles' eyes was obvious as he dropped the collar around the immobile unicorn's neck and bent down.  Protégé didn't move as it clamped shut, seemingly at a loss of spirits, but his nose wrinkled as Shackles' sweaty and horrid bulk drew close.

    “It's the same thing I tell every slave who thinks they're going to escape soon, little upstart.  Same as I told you back then.”

    Protégé looked up at him, trying to keep a reaction from his face.

    “They aren't as special as they think they are.  Even if it takes years, I always get them back in the end.  You can't break the eternal chain. Welcome home, eh?”

    I couldn't do anything but watch and shiver, trying to fight the guilty sense of selfishness for feeling terrified for myself at his words.  He'd said that to me too.

    Protégé gagged as the chain was tugged hard, yanking him from his hooves.  I saw the sight that my friends once had of me, of seeing somepony you care about humiliatingly dragged behind their Master on a chain.

    Gathering myself, wiping my tears, I stood up and got ready to follow them.

    I needed a chance, just one chance.

    They moved through the same route he had once taken me.  The wide primary roads of Fillydelphia that would lead any visitor from the main gate past Wicked Slit's factory and deeper into the city toward the Mall.  He was parading his new prize, taking long side routes and sticking in the open. Even now he had come back around from the 'tour' of one district, and was passing by the parasprite pits nearby to the main gate again.

    It hurt me to watch Protégé having to amble along, falling every time the chain was pulled.  My route was far off to the side as I stuck to the cover of the buildings, leaving me unable to get close enough to attempt anything.  Could Rarity's Grace penetrate a chain?  Could I sneak up and detach it from Shackles?

    Taking a breath, I sprinted through the office I was hiding on and leapt from the window into the next building along.  Skittering on my hooves, I almost fell through a gaping hole at its centre, hurriedly grasping a nearby pillar to avoid the splintered edges of the drop. The floors in here had collapsed from above me to the very ground below.

    “Hey!  Look who's back where he belongs!”

    The shouts had continued the entire way.  Protégé had no shortage of enemies among the slavers.  Some just looked confused while others turned their backs on the whole ordeal.  Shackles paid them no mind, instead simply lavishing in this moment.

    “You remember this, slave?  How many years ago, when you first came here?”

    He didn't turn around to look at Protégé, who simply trotted with his head held low, the chain to his collar dragging through the dusty road.

    “Oh, don't worry about trying to look like you don't care. We'll have you back to the same whimpering slave you once were quite soon, hehe.  I've got time.”

    The chain whipped hard, catching the unicorn's chin and whipping his head up by force.  Briefly, I saw his pained look. He was understandably terrified, but mostly just looked lost.

    “That's the look I know.  Now-”

    “They're here!”

    The shout went out from across the street.  I poked my head through the nearest window and looked down to see a small group of Red Eye's soldiers galloping out the bottom floor of this very building.  One of them was faltering under the weight of a huge wind-up radio set on his back as he moved.

    “Patrols have seen them!  The survivors were followed!  They're coming! They're here!  Look!  LOOK!”

    They rushed past, before gaining a small following of other ponies.  Other slavers downed their tools and followed. A group became a crowd.  A crowd became a horde. The entire block was shaking from running ponies.  Even slaves joined it as they all ran for higher ground to try and see something.  What in Equestria was going on? Who was here? I couldn't see anything with how high the factories in this district were.

    Fillydelphia was coming alive.  The breath was exhaled in a sudden surge of energy and action.  I saw soldiers rushing to stations, numerous balloons changed direction in the air.  Below me, even Chainlink Shackles stopped and began to trot backwards with Protégé in tow.  Griffons took off, massive guns mounted on rooftops swivelled. A momentum picked up on all sides of me as ponies shoved and clamoured for the best vantage points.

    It couldn't be.

    I began to gallop around the massive hole through the centre of this building until I was at the opposite side.  In the distance, I heard Fillydelphia's balefire sirens began to wail, its deathly howl picking up volume and sending shivers down my back as one alarm after another joined the chorus of nerve-shredding sounds that drifted across each district.  Voices and shouting were coming in from all over the city to my ears, like everypony in it was talking at once. The ground shook at the crowds outside the building.

    Aiming up, I fired the grapple to the rooftop through the hole and immediately pulled the trigger to winch myself up.  Dragged out over the hole, I felt the saddle take my weight, sending me soaring upwards. I bit hard, making the mechanics whirr and hum with the sound of wire being dragged in too quickly past floor after floor.  Up above me, the blood red clouds broiled and flickered as they grew closer, until I launched out of the hole, hurtling past the point the hook had stuck by a good ten feet, propelling me into the air above the office building.  Legs flailing, I fell forward and downward toward the rooftop, only just getting my wings out in time to soften the landing.

    Yes. Landing.

    Picking myself up, I coughed out the dust from where I'd skidded and looked up in the direction of Fillydelphia's main gate.  I stood atop a tall building, legs wide as I ran out onto a stray girder poking out from the side of the building for some extra height and truly saw what approached the city.

    Beyond the Wall, in the skies above, they were here.

    I thought they were clouds, but truly they were not.  They were formed from clouds.  Two gigantic fortresses hanging in the air as they seemed to slowly shift toward Fillydelphia from far off like moving mountains.  Castles in the sky.  

The longer I looked, the more the scale began to settle home about their true mass.  I saw the twinkling lights of windows and the all too obvious shape of siege weaponry bristling on shaped mounts.  Their shadows on the ground below covered the mountainsides forming the valley outside Fillydelphia, casting the land into further darkness by their presence.  How could anything in the wasteland stand against such titans of war?

    Around them I saw smaller vessels.  More streamlined, surging forward on the winds to guard their colossal vessels.  They moved far faster than anything that size had any right to, and I watched as one suddenly pulled upward and shot into the sky, above the clouds.  Between them, I could see chariot-sized vehicles moving in formation, surrounded by tiny dots. I watched them spin and veer with perfect control, inches from their co-fliers.  Groups of individual flyers that took off and landed from the huge floating citadels.

    An army of pegasi.  I could barely believe it, after so many years alone, and yet the sight filled me with nothing but terror for the powers that were about to clash in this corner of the world.

    The Enclave had come for Fillydelphia.

    “Get the gate closed behind them!  Move it! Pass the word up! Get them all in!  NOW, NOW!”

    Tearing my eyes down from the giants of the clouds, I saw an overseer race onto his balcony below me and scream at those on the ground.  Casting my eyes across, I saw what he meant. The open grounds beyond Fillydelphia's main entrance were in chaos, and the cracked concrete surfaces that once had been a site for wagons to park was filled with commotion.  

Through the gate streamed a convoy of battered wagons and limping ponies.  Most were wounded, some carried on stretchers or mounted on trailers. They were soldiers, primarily, the survivors of the Cathedral who had come back alive from Red Eye's last battle against the Enclave.  I'd heard about how well equipped they had been, with armour bypassing rounds and even rumours of some massive ally alongside the alicorns, but they had been laid low. What chance did we have?

    Teams of medical ponies rushed forth.  I saw Doctor Weathervane and his own trained healers among them/ He raced to those who were falling the moment they got through the closing gates.  Many of them bore fresh wounds. Clearly the Enclave had been hounding them the entire way.

    Across the walls, an arsenal of weapons began to point out toward the sky, but the Enclave seemed in no hurry to continue the pursuit.  Their smaller ships would veer closer, sometimes even drawing fire that rippled across the wall in bright flares, but the ships would whisk away on the winds before any impacts were made at this extreme distance.  The missiles and huge anti-air rounds instead collapsed into the suburban outskirts of the city, devastating already ruined buildings with dull thumps, taking a few seconds to reach my ears. I couldn't see the impacts, but I heard crumbling architecture and saw the smoke billow up from beyond the Wall.

    Even I could see what was going on. The Enclave were testing Fillydelphia's range in preparation for later.

    “RETURN TO YOUR MASTER, SLAVE!”

    I froze at the words, yet I realised they were aimed elsewhere.  Letting my eyes fall in the direction of the sound, I saw their unmistakable source on the ground.  Much as I felt guilty for it, I was relieved they hadn't been meant for my ears.

    Below me, I saw the form of Chainlink Shackles ramming his way through the crowd, hurling ponies aside as he chased after Protégé.  My heart leapt, he'd gotten away!

    Up ahead, the black unicorn ducked and dived between ponies, trailing his chain behind him with his magic.  He must have unclipped it when Shackles was distracted!

    Immediately, I turned and ran off the girder, back onto the roof, and tore over an unused walkway between the two buildings.  I cantered past two guards who were far too busy looking elsewhere in my efforts to try and keep up with Protégé. Once he made a break for the buildings and cover, I could swoop down and get him away!

    That wasn't what he was doing.  Not at all. 

He wasn't trying to get away to the buildings, he was trying to get toward the survivors.

    Even at this distance, I heard his impassioned cry.

    “Master Red Eye!  Master Red Eye!”

    He ran from group to group, staying ahead of Chainlink Shackles as the slaver closed in.  Other guards began to circle around.

    “Where are you!?”

    He was trying to find the one pony who could prove his side of the story.
   
    My gallop subsided to a trot as I stumbled to a hiding spot overlooking the square inside the main gate, and watched as he fled from each slaver, desperately sprinting around asking anypony he saw as they made their way in.  Tired soldiers and some scientists looked at him. Some shook their heads before he would move on.

    “Where is he?  Tell me where he is!  TELL ME!”

    His hooves grabbed a high ranking soldier, shaking the pony before he was knocked off.  Slowly, the procession of Cathedral refugees began to move by. Protégé watched them group by group, but they lacked Fillydelphia's leader.  He became more frantic, more hysterical, and demanded it of anypony who would look his way as the back of the column neared.

    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chainlink Shackles stop.  He saw what was going on.

    He was letting Protégé try.  He knew something.

    It didn't take me long to realise what it was. To figure out why Shackles was happy to let this continue. To stand there with his filthy grin, and watch as Protégé continued his anguished search among the wounded.  

    Red Eye's apprentice didn't stop crying out.  I watched as he threw open the doors to closed medical wagons and stood among the slowest movers. The final ones through the gate before its thick doors heaved shut, cutting off the outside world that had clearly taken something from him.

    I saw Protégé standing slumped as those last ponies moved by him, asking them with a quiet voice, one I couldn't hear.  I saw light glint from his cheeks, before the entire procession moved by at last. The final pony merely patted Protégé on the shoulder before shaking her head and moving on.

    In our travels, I had sometimes seen Protégé at his weakest.  I'd seen him scared, upset, or in terrible pain. But this, as the pony who had given him what he believed to be his only purpose was taken from him, was something else.

    It hurt me to hear that mournful cry, as the reality hit home.

    I couldn't help him.  He was much too surrounded and in far too open an area.  Instead I was stranded, only able to watch as he collapsed, his head falling onto his grounded front hooves.

    The disgust flowed through me as I saw Shackles advance at the moment Protégé was most vulnerable, to gloat quietly, in words I could easily guess at.  To drive it home as he pulled the unicorn up with his hooves and reattached the chain.

    The sight of Protégé obeying was simply the worst part of it all.

    I had to return to my friends. I had no choice.  With the Enclave present, I could only flee before Fillydelphia's rooftops turned into a lethal zone of readied troops.

    There was nothing I could do. Not now.

    My friends were debating the plan. Again.

    “If the wee foals are in the metro station, we could get them on our way there.”

    “If we know the way there at all,” Coral chimed in, “and if they're kept in the inner metro we're without a hope on our own!  Shackles' own slaver den is separate from Ministry Station down there, even though they're joined by tunnels. We will not leave without them by risking it all to an assumption they aren't in the section we can't fight into!”

    “Aye, we won't.”

    Brimstone Blitz spoke simply, but with great power.  He sat towering above them all, regaining some of his old strength as his wounds gradually healed.

    “But until we know where they are or not, it's a right bastard to know what to do, Coral.  Perhaps getting an inside-pony somehow.”

    “And how long will that take?” Sunny's voice piped up from across the room.  “Who the hell would want to go into that place anyway? Hey, Glim-gal, you know where we're going yet?”

    From the back of the room, my sister wiped her brow and stood up, holding up a map with charcoal scrawled over it.  She had a thin smile on her face. It seemed distinctly underwhelming compared to her usual expression.

    “You bet.  Finally managed to work out what part of the tunnels the crater corresponds to.  It's not exactly close to where the station is, but hell, it might even be what used to be Aurora and the zebras' main route to it compared to the long one we took before, given what Brim said about indoctrinated ghouls down there last time.  Only thing is, I don't know the conditions of the tunnels on that side. And the way into the station itself will be blocked.”

    “We planned for that. Peace and I'll handle it.” Brimstone added.

    “So we get in there and hope it's less defended on the inside.” Sunny shrugged and tapped her rifle. “We could spend forever trying to be clever here, and get nowhere.”

    “Then what about the foals?  I can maybe get us there but we still don't know if-”

    “Everypony, we're going in circles here.” Unity raised her voice to the group, an unusual enough sound that it caught their attention.  “We're all trying to plan the big thing. Why not take a moment to plan how to locate the foals first, and how to deal with the fact we'll have maybe dozens of them on our hooves. We can't just take three and leave the others down there, can we?  What would we be to sacrifice that for an escape?”

    I had just returned, but they hadn't seen me.  Hiding in the shadows of the doorway, I leaned against the cold metal and listened to Unity speak.

    “We aren't just escaping slavery. We're escaping evil, we're trying to break free from the nightmare that this city has become, from what started with Aurora before even the balefire.  Leaving somepony behind we could save, I don't think that's who we are. I know you didn't intend that, but we don't want to be caught with it by accident. That's what happened to Miss Star so long ago when it all got out of control. We must step back, look at this, and find a way to know. Not let excitement drive us to being predictable.  They've outsmarted us every time, why wouldn't they do it now? If we play their game, we lose. So let's play our own, how we want things to be.”

    That quietened them.

    Unity was right, we couldn't leave those behind that we could save, if given the opportunity.  We'd never get everypony, but to walk away from those in need went against every lesson I and the others had learned.  Friendship and caring had pulled us this far, pulled us through all these nightmares.

    And now we had to use that friendship we’d forged to pull others out of theirs.

    “Protégé.”

    They turned at the sound of my voice, as I strode back in.  I baulked, it hadn't occurred that they wouldn't hear my hooves.

    “We're going to get Protégé.”

    Coral Eve's eyes turned harsh.  “Murky, my dear, he has made it clear he does not want to come.”

    “I don't care!” I felt myself tremble as I dismissed an older pony's point.  “It went bad. Real bad. They framed him, called him a traitor! He's...”

    I took a breath.

    “He's been given to Shackles as a slave, now that Red Eye is dead.”

    There was a silence.

    The pony that had enslaved us all, who had led Fillydelphia into what it was to ruin our lives, was now gone.  That voice we'd all heard a thousand times on the loudspeakers would speak no longer.
   
    “Fillydelphia is going to be led by Stern and Chainlink Shackles now.” I continued, quietly, “Stern's a battle leader, she'll no doubt leave Shackles to run the industry and slaves until it's over.  He'll have full command to do as he wishes, and if Stern dies in battle, it won't ever end.”

    I took a shallow breath, feeling very small in this mouldy cave below the city.

    “Chainlink Shackles will control a slave city again.”

    Coral Eve let her mouth gasp silently open.  Brimstone glowered in thinly veiled rage.

    “That's why we need to get Protégé.” I paused, and took a breath. “He would help get the foals, I know he would; no matter what he decides for himself.”

    Coral didn't move her eyes off me, but I saw them soften.  Appealing to her son and the other children no doubt helped.  Almost as though she had forgotten her criticism, she nodded.

    “You think he might know something we don't about Fillydelphia, or how to get the foals?” Coral gestured with a hoof. “So where is he then?”

    “And do you think he'll, y'know, stay?” Glimmer chimed in from behind.

    “The Mall!  It's easy to get in there!  I can get in and speak to him, but I don't know what he'll say.  He really believes this place could be better. I know you may not, but he does.  He'll help but after that he might stay, even though it sounds stupid. It's a...born slave thing.  We get attached to ideas.”

    I felt oddly embarrassed, talking about that.  Like it was some sort of racial stereotype.

    “No matter what he does after, I'll need all of you to get him out again, though.  He might be our only chance to figure something out, so we'll have to be ready to be, um...”

    “Proper bloody violent?” Brimstone offered for me with a wry smirk.

    “...yeah, that.” I gulped, meekly ending the sentence.

    “Then what are we waiting for?” The whirring of Mister Peace joining us from the sewer tunnels shifted in behind me.  “A classic case of storm the castle, get the stallion for Miss Fluttershy here, and if possible, install complimentary organic ventilation for the bad guys.”

    Glimmerlight snorted.  She bumped the side of Peace's newly repaired chassis with a hoof.

    “You seem eager.”

    “These overgrown crickets in tunnels offer not the satisfaction for my compulsions, my dear.”

    A cigarette was thrown down and stomped out from the corner.

    “I didn't hear anyone else coming up with a better plan of our own.  Least this is something, so grab your shit and let’s rock.” Sunny Days flipped her new lever action up on a hoof, catching it in her mouth.  “Timesh washtin!”

    Mister Peace’s screen displayed a goofily content stallion.

    “Protecting Miss Fluttershy while surrounded by fighting mares who share in my enthusiasm.  Truly, my life is a good one.”

    It was decided.  Rest was over, the next stage of our plan had to go into action right away.  The heavy saddlebags were left in the dry back room on top of old staff tables with only the required weapons and tools carried on our backs.  It took a little while, we hadn't been planning to need any more trips here, but this was worth it. Any information on that area underground or who might be bought out could be helpful.

    “I'll try and sneak in to him. Can the rest of you get into the old cell through the door?” I asked to them as I struggled with one of Brimstone's tool bags.

    “I'm sure Peace and Brim can get the jammed door open.  Just give us the shout if you need us, Murky. With or without Protégé.” Glimmerlight ruffled my mane.  “We'll be ready.”

    We moved out as one group.  Somehow, this time I found myself at the head of the group to move through the tunnels toward the Mall.  I cantered ahead, eyes fixed only on the way to go.

    Protégé. Please, let me get through to you this time.  Don't let this become your life again.

    I heard the crack of the whip before I even left the ventilation shaft.

    Stopping on the spot, I felt immediately sweaty; my back crawling with unsettling feelings.  The sound was too familiar, and too painful. Memories of standing unclothed and alone in his room as he lashed it across my bare back were still too fresh.  Especially so, as I was now exiting into that very same office.

    Yet as I finally pushed myself to drop out of the duct into the Mall's upper floors, I could only too well feel the fear of that same whip flaying once again.  Dark stains against the corners told where I had bled.

    Poking an eye through a crack in the room's door, I heard it again.  A hiss of pain followed the sudden snap of leather. My stomach turned as I crawled out and began to move toward the sound, keeping low against the cold stone walls of the Mall.  That noise would lead me to who I wanted, and the knowledge that it did filled me with disgust.

    That direction took me to the balcony overlooking the slave pens in the Mall’s plaza.  My old home.

    I stood alone upon the platform that I had once been bucked off of, looking down onto the slabbed floor and multi-levelled shopping centre.  The fountain, long broken now, still vaguely stood after hasty repairs while the walkways were now finished, connecting all areas of the upper levels to one another.  Shop fronts held scared and weak slaves, as sick and as frail as we were on the run. Immediately, I had to suppress the urge to cough. The smell in here was sweet and foul, attacking my nostrils with its noxious scent.

    They had gathered at the shop exits for they had something to see, something to watch.  I came upon the sick theatre of Shackles' intentions laid bare. Nobody in the entire hall spoke, a silent audience of fear from all sides around the show.

    Slowly, my attention fell to the ground itself, past the punishment pits and hanging cages where slaves would be locked for disobeying.  My eyes trailed to where slavers and slaves alike watched what was happening. Mister Mosin stood beside a distraught-looking Blunderbuck, while Wormtail trotted to and fro, watching with a smug grin from all angles.

    Shackles' whip blurred through the air, and drew a light spray of blood when it connected. Its target, the young, red-maned unicorn, was chained by his front hooves to a pole; in clear view of the plaza’s occupants.

    Protégé gasped in pain, clenching his teeth and falling forward, slipping from the wooden pole to hold himself up on one hoof only.  His back was already bruised and swollen, he last hit having only now broken skin. He tried to stand, before it struck again with a meaty slap that echoed around the halls and set him to seethe and growl, trying to deaden the pain. To keep it in as he rested his head on the base of the pole.

    “It's no use trying to bear it, slave.”

    The crack of the whip filled the air.

    Protégé cried out, before exhaling sharply, trying to cull himself, closing his eyes tightly.

    “You know I'll keep going.”

    That same, wicked sound snapped out, the blur descending again.

    I saw all too clearly the splitting of the skin, before he yelled in pain, gasping between stammering breaths.

    It fell once more, the quick snap throwing its target forward.

    “You have years to answer for!  Now you will! Before all those you tricked into thinking you were free!  You are nothing now but mine, you can stop resisting now. As soon as you do it will stop!”

    He paused, before a wholly more savage blow fell, the crack so loud that its deeper, wetter sound echoed.

    I saw his head go back, crying out in pain.  His whole body shifted in muscle spasms, trying to instinctively get away from the pain.  My eyes spotted Wormtail closing in, leering from beside Shackles as he drew back and struck again and again.  Each time weakening Protégé's pain resistance a bit more. Each time eroding his strength as the blood trickled around his back.  I could see tears in his eyes, unable to hold them back before two more lashes descended. The second one striking home hard. Hard enough to surge past what he could stand.

    The look on Chainlink Shackles' face was naught but satisfaction at the loud and pained shriek.

    I'd been there. I knew how badly it hurt, and I wiped my eyes, wishing that my understanding mattered.  The fact that anyone would eventually be driven past their point of endurance until they were screaming, no matter how strong they were, was not the point.  Shackles was trying to attack his pride, and the confidence he had gained when he had gotten away from him. Trying to force him to fall so much further.

    As each one landed, drawing those screams again and again, I had to turn away and hold my ears closed.  It was too much. There was nothing I could do for him. I simply waited until it was over.

    Finally, mercifully, once the slavers had their satisfaction from his agonised wails, I heard no more strikes.  Only a low and weary moan of pain.

    “You!  Get this wretch a potion. He must be able to work his shift tonight.”

    Chainlink Shackles stepped forward, moving around Protégé where he lay on the ground, breathing hard.  One large hoof lifted the unicorn's chin.

    “Now listen here, slave. You've got work to do.  You'll go to your old office and you will put everything there into crates to be sold off.  You'll do it yourself, to remember with every item why slaves don't own shit, eh?  Go.”

    Protégé sipped the magical potion eagerly, eyes locked on Shackles as he did.  Cautiously, he nodded, before trying to limp away. It took three attempts to move properly, seething and gasping as his back muscles moved.

    “HALT!”

    He stopped, turning back to the massive slaver who was simply looking around to every assembled associate and slave around.

    “What do slaves say?”

    Protégé didn't speak, he just stared with red eyes.  I could see the disgust on his face, the pain and fear.  He didn't want to say it. I pleaded silently with him, just say it and get out of there!

    “Go on.”

    Slowly, I saw him take a breath, shivering and hating every letter.

    “Yes...master.”

    “Louder.”

    Protégé grimaced, turning away with his eyes closed.

    “Yes, master!”

    The words were weak in his tortured state, but they were enough for Shackles to wave at him to leave.  One slaver joined him as guard, but I saw Wormtail grin at Protégé as he went by. It occurred to me that the slimy little assistant was wearing Protégé's eyepiece.

    “Not such a brave one now are you, huh?  What would Red Eye think to have heard you squeal like that. Guess you'll be taking orders from me too now!”

    Protégé clearly tried to ignore him, but a warning glance from Shackles was all it took.

    “Yes...Master Wormtail.”

    “That's right.”

    At last, that was it.  Protégé was led out toward his office.  Everyone began to disperse, several slavers clustering around Shackles.

    “Mosin, have you and your assistant collect the required equipment to defend the station.  We will not let those winged rats in, should it come to it. Do you understand?”

    “Yes, master!” Mosin replied sharply, clicking his wooden hoof on the ground.

    “Then move.”

    Both Mosin and Blunderbuck hurried away, before Shackles began to amble toward the exit.  I noticed now he still moved with a limp. It seemed that Shackles had not fully healed from Brimstone’s attack.  It was a good enough memory to let me not break down after what I'd just seen.

    “The rest of you, get the chosen slaves ready for transport to the metro tunnels!  I'm going there now to prepare for their arrival. Do NOT be late. Bring them before the Enclave attack, Wormtail will organise it here.  GO!”

    That was my cue.  I began to gallop off toward Protégé's office.

    It hadn't been hard to distract the guard.  Repeatedly bucking a steel door around the corner until the annoyance drove him to investigate, I looped around via the corridors and approached the door before he returned.

    How many times, so long ago, had I approached this heavy carved door as a slave?  As somepony called to his master to report or to answer? Its flaking wood stood imposing as ever, hard to the touch and heavy when I began to slowly pull on it.  I had to resist the urge to knock.

    Behind it, I half-expected to see Protégé at his desk, with his eyepiece on and scanning across documents and letters.  To see him with numerous books floating around, looking up with that worryingly genuine smile to greet the slave he had called.  It made me meek to fully open and trot through with that image in mind. Of days when things were better for him and worse for me, not now.

    Yet within, there was no such thing.

    There was nopony at the desk.  The books had been scattered, not in the 'messy but somewhat organised via the floor' way as before, but left open on their spines or torn into heaps.  The window at the back was cracked, letting in a small breeze of thick and warm air. Muddy hooves had been treading around on the old musty carpet. If I looked down, I could see a small trail of bloody drips leading toward the desk.

    Tentatively moving, my hooves making little sound on the soft floor, I saw that Protégé's side rooms were open, their beds stripped clean.  Nopony was present in them. Instead, I simply heard a short breath and sniff. Several in succession, alongside gentle sobbing coming from up ahead, behind the desk.

    Part of me felt invasive to approach, to trot up and move around that thick desk after what I'd seen happen over today.  The silence felt impossible to break, to announce I was here and suddenly impose myself upon this.

    I swallowed my doubts and moved around the desk.

    “P-Protégé?”

    He looked up sharply, as I found him hunched over, sitting inside the space the missing chair would normally push into, as though it was a hiding space.  His front hooves were curled around his rear ones as he sat with his head resting on the wood, cheeks thoroughly wet and eyes sore. Up close, I could see the treatment he'd undergone.  Bruises, cuts, and lumps all over, held back only by the healing potion they'd given him to keep his servitude from ending. The small part of his back I could see was a ragged mess.

    The moment he saw me, he almost looked ready to bolt. He gasped and rubbed his eyes.

    “Murky?”

    The name caught me off guard. He'd only ever called me 'Murk' before.

    His face betrayed the shock of me appearing here of all places.

    “You shouldn't be around. H-he'll come to check on me, somepony will. Go before he gets you too!”

    I simply shook my head, biting my lip as I moved closer and sat down with my back to the desk, and looked ahead out of the window to the clouds above.

    “I came for you.” The words were clumsy, stilted even as I said them.  I tried to look at him, but his eyes avoided mine, instead looking at the ruined floor beneath us.  He showed no reaction to my words, but merely shook his head.

    “He's gone, Murky. He's not coming back.” He shook again as the words stammered out, a hoof going to his brow as his eyes screwed tightly shut.  “I went t-to the gate a-and...”

    “I know, Protégé.”

    He turned to look at me, surprised.

    “I saw it all.” My lip quivered, as I slowly reached out and placed a hoof on his shoulder.  “I was watching you. I'm...I'm so sorry.”

    Red Eye, a pony who'd made my already ruined life even worse.  Yet in this case, I knew the issue was deeper down. Red Eye wasn't simply a bad pony in this moment, he was a comfort, a meaning to somepony who'd never known it.  I'd once believed, still believed, in a hero who I discovered to my shock was not without her flaws. We'd each chosen one pony to help us out of being born into slavery. It was a matter of a constant in our lives being broken. I'd been through that.

    Here, Protégé was experiencing the very same thing.

    “I don't know what to do, now.  He's gone!  He gave me so much, so much!” A fresh wave of anguish poured over him, as his teeth clenched and he leaned his head back onto the desk, seemingly ignoring my hoof.  “I-I tried to do what he said. Tried to help Fillydelphia and now I've...I've lost.  It's all gone! They took everything from me.”

    “Not every-”

    “Yes!  Everything!” he turned back to me, red eyes sore and dripping, “my rank, and the position I went through hell for two years to earn!  I worked my way to a better place and they took it away! My allies, my friends the wo...the slaves I tried to help are his. I'm his.  He's going to keep hurting me until he's taken all the pride I tried to give myself!  Now Master Red Eye's been taken too. He was like the father I never knew, Murky.”

    I looked away in shame, trying to avoid staring as he let out the emotion, coughing and having to wipe his eyes again.  I remembered the pony I'd first met long ago. This was not the same Protégé, but I had a sense this was the real pony beneath. The pony who'd once been dragged into Fillydelphia, and thrown in a cell.

    A pony hurt so terribly by slavery.

    “I...I'm sorry.” 

What else could I say?

    “They think I'm a traitor. They're going to break me, Murky. Break me in front of everypony that I tried to be better for!  It...it...” he moaned, a hoof reaching around to his back, gasping through his words. “...it hurt so much.”

    His mind still had to be whirling in pain and horror. Close up, I could see his back now.  Even after the potion it was carved up. He would bear scars for certain, even with magic. Pink streaks of re-knitted flesh stood out over the blood-stained coat.

    I couldn't bear to see it.  Without a word, I drew the bandages from my saddlebag and sat behind him.  Protégé didn't protest as I began to wrap it around his torso, although he winced as they lay upon the swollen lines or reopened cuts, continuing to weep.  It occurred to me how much he trusted my presence that he would not try to hide his feelings now.

    There wasn't anything said for a long time.  I felt him jump and heard him gasp in pain every time the bandages lay across any open wounds.  Every so often, I would see him look up, as though wishing or hoping for something to come to mind that would make this all better.  I knew that look, every slave did it now and again. Just imagining something correcting all this for them, before the crippling realisation settled in again.

    At least I could give him this.  A fellow slave looking out for another by tending to their wounds.  Reminding them that they weren't alone. I reached around his torso to wind the bandages and tie them up, seeing over his shoulder that he was sitting more still, with his eyes closed.

    “Th-thank you...”

    “I want to help, Protégé.” As deftly as I could manage, I pulled another line around his chest to try and hold it in place.

    “It doesn't matter. I'm his again.  You don't get away. I thought this place could change; Master Red Eye s-showed me.  I thought this city could be good! That I could stop as much pain in it. That we could, agh...restore the wasteland!” Protégé spoke more solidly, as he dried his eyes with a loose bit of cloth I hoofed him.

    “I know.”

    “But now it's ruined!  It's been ruined!” he almost shouted, “Chainlink Shackles has destroyed it!  He's taken the foals a-and gotten rid of the good ponies, and now he's going to undo it all!  They're hurting without reason. It's not a sacrifice anymore. Murky, when I was there, he was suggesting to Stern to use slaves as living shields against the Enclave!”

    He turned, seeing the look of abject horror on my face.  How could they consider that?

    Protégé let his head hang, as though in shame.

    “Fillydelphia is turning back into what it was long ago.  It's not the same city I once believed in, not the same one that grew and recovered.  I once thought we'd actually make it! That I might s-see a good Equestria. I had it all planned, Murky!  All of it! Wh-what I was going to do and w-where...”

    His magic lit, as something floated across from the floor.  It was that old photograph of Equestria before the megaspells, cracked and faded.  He held it in front of my face as I smoothed out his bandages with careful strokes.

    Taking it in my hooves, I stared at it closely.  A quiet town of wood and yellowed rooftops. Bright green grass and blue sky contrasted beautifully around the centre building.  A thick tree. Tall, and possessing strong branches that filtered out to the sides. But I saw windows in it, a balcony to one side and a door on the front; somepony had turned a tree into a home. To its left, I saw a sign with an open book.

    A library.

    “I always sat in here and told myself, when we restore Equestria, I was going to live there.  Right there.” Protégé's chin quivered a little as he took the photo from me, “When we had made everything right again, I'd find it. Just like it is in the photo w-with real grass, and an open sky for the sun!  A-and the tree would have had leaves just like this, not brown and dead ones.”

    I felt for him, I really did.  Dozens of times I had heard his swearing to help Equestria, but only now did I truly see the gulf that lay between his wishes and reality.

    “It'll n-never happen now. Murky, these slavers are of the old wasteland.  A different generation to you and I. They will turn Fillydelphia into an abyss of suffering and fire under the excuse of needing to fight a war. It’s exactly what happened to Equestria. No doubt Shackles has his assassination efforts ready for Stern. I've lost.”

    His tone turned quiet.

“I have failed Murky, and I am afraid. I thought I'd escaped, but I never had.”

    Slowly, he turned back to me, meeting my own rapidly wetting eyes with his.  His hooves grabbed me by the sides of my shoulders, his words solid and intense.

    “I think that's why I took interest in trying to know you.  You were always stronger than I because you had friends who believed in you.  I think I hoped that maybe you'd help me, even if I didn't realise it. Help me see I wasn't free.  I wasn't the one teaching you.

    His eyes were deep, and honest.

“I’d hoped you would teach me.”

    “Protégé...”

    With a shake of his head, he cut me off.

    “Now I'm just lost and laid bare for all to see all that I am. Stuck back where I was, and feeling what I knew I felt of you this whole time. That I was not generous to you...I was envious of you, Murky.”

He screwed up his eyes.

“For so long I just wanted to say it. And I just don't know what to do now. Other than, well...I don’t know if I should. Or if I could. Murky, please. I wanted to...to ask you something and...”

    There was another long silence as he let the sentence drift off.  We sat close together. Every so often he would turn to me, then away again.  Protégé was clearly thinking of something, his mouth opened and closed a few times.

    Eventually, he turned and began speaking softly, little more than a timid whisper.  The words were hesitant, almost fearful.

    “Murky, can...can I come with you?” His still face cracked, looking away as I saw another tear drip to the floor.  “I want to be free...”

    There was nothing more to say.  In the red light of the window, I leaned forward and pulled him into a tight embrace, pushing my head into his neck with his into mine.  I felt him grab my torso in return, letting the last of his pain out after this day from hell and the fall of everything he thought he had.  I felt myself sniff and quake at finally, after so long, hearing those words from him.

    We had met as master and slave. Now we would try for a better life as equals.

    Some minutes passed.  We needed them. He needed them.  Somepony to trust and hold onto during his grief and pain.  I always had others for it; Glimmer, Unity, Coral, and even Brimstone behind that quiet mountain of a presence.  This might have been the first time he'd ever experienced having somepony to just hold, and be grateful for their presence.

    Eventually, with as calm a breath as he could, Protégé sat back up and attempted a smile.  It was stilted, forced. The thought was what counted though. I offered my best in return.

    “I thank you, Murky; you did not have to come for me.  I don't know what I can say. Everything that's happened, things I've done that I...I wish I'd done differently.”

    I just shook my head.  “I might be the only one to understand. The others are waiting, but I can fit you through the shafts. We'll get out without them knowing.”

    Protégé glanced around and through the window.  Below us, we could see the first group of slaves leaving under guard from the Mall for goodness knew what purpose.  I saw the disgust on his face.
   
    “He wants to hurt them.  As he brought me here in chains, he told me that there are things to do.  Things he wants both of us for, Unity too. I fear he will be trying things. Indulging sick curiosity into that place's technology where no eyes can see.  I have witnessed too many ponies disappear into that hole without emerging again.”

    “S-Sunny said the same. We need to get in there.  The foals-”

    “I know, Murky.” Protégé rapped the windowsill with a hoof, quietly angered as much as saddened. “It burns me that I cannot save more, but I am just one small pony. If anything, I've been made to feel even more tiny today.  What can just one good soul do against the forces at play here now?”

    Gulping, I moved behind him, slightly to one side.  Through the window, the dominating presence of the Enclave in the sky was all too clear.  Weapons were tracking one another across a kilometre of sky, probably even in range. Just nopony wanted to be the first to truly pull the trigger on it yet.  Fillydelphia felt ready to explode in a heartbeat.

    “You aren't alone. Not now.  You always told me what ponies could do when they worked together, Protégé!  That's what you dreamed of, and I don't think that was all Red Eye talking.”

    His head lowered, a still bruised eye closing.  “I dreamed of ponies coming together out of will, Murky. Out of love and willingness to try for something better.  They never did. Red Eye convinced me this had to be done, I always wished that we didn't have to. Now it terrifies me to hope for that future, because I do not know where Red Eye's teachings end and where my own thoughts begin.”

    Something felt off, before I clicked to what it was. I pushed up beside him, looking him dead in the eye.

    “I think I know who's thinking now. You didn't say a very important word.”

    He went silent, thinking through all he'd said.  I could see the moment that the cap dropped in his mind.

    No Master.

    In the way so many had done for me, I rested my hooves on his shoulders gently.

    “Protégé, you wanted ponies to come together, well we have!  Just maybe not how you dreamed of but...it's something. We're just trying for each other and the ones we can help, like you.  We're not struggling to restore Equestria. We're not trying to change the world.  ”

    I moved away, looking over his desk and lifting the photograph of the library.

    “We rose up and fought hard because we wanted to be free.  Look how much has happened, how close we're getting!  We had something to fight for, something that we could passionately believe in.  It's the very first thing I ever truly thought for myself.  If it could work for me, it can work for others trapped in here!  Yourself included.”

    My saddlebag was pulled open as I paused to pull something out and reverently hoof over to Protégé.  A weapon that I'd stolen from the armoury in my raid. A magnificently crafted revolver, a new build from Fillydelphia's factories.  It was made of solid forged metal and brass, embossed with the flag of Equestria on its side within a polished wood grip. One of Blunderbuck's side projects.

    “Equestria isn't green fields and blue skies any more.  But equally, Equestria isn't factories and weapons, it's not printing books and forcing foals to learn.  To us, Equestria is freedom.  That's something we'll fight together for.  That's what made us lift up from the cells. Equestria is what's behind that wall, or what lies in reaching tomorrow alive.  It's the friend by your side, and it's the brief smile they can give you throughout all the hardship.”

    My eyes narrowed as I softened my voice.

    “Equestria is whatever we want, when we have nothing else to hope for.”

    Catching it with surprise, Protégé's eyes glanced over it with astonishment, a hoof tracing the grip's design.  The same as his own cutie mark before slavery had taken its meaning from him.

    “Equestria...is hope.  It's what ponies want in these bleak times we live in.”

    Hearing me, his hooves cradled the weapon, and his eyes carried a sudden clarity. He began to speak, starting uncertain, but growing in strength.

    “They wouldn't follow us for what we told them they should have, but they would follow for what they want.”

    Suddenly, his hooves clenched onto it, checking for ammunition with a sudden and startling determination.  For the first time in my life around him, I saw Protégé as a free pony, coming to a decision of his own. A fire lit in his eyes, tempered by a shivering, nervous excitement.

    “The foals are in danger.  Slaves are being taken, ponies are being hurt for no reason.  I will not follow him any longer, the dream I had is broken. A childish wish cast onto the winds.  Yet even with this I find myself afraid. Murky, I don't see a road ahead of me.”

    “Because you're the one to choose now.” I stepped forward.  “Every time I saw you fighting for what you wanted I saw the pony you could be.  You're not weak inside, Protégé! M-maybe just in some ways, but we're all like that, nopony's perfect.  You care, you're so passionate about what you feel is right.  Use that. Choose a path.”

    Protégé mulled over each of my words.  Eventually I heard him mutter one.

    “Choose...”

    The revolver turned in his hooves again as he looked back out the window.

    “Then I choose...that I will not slink away alone.  You came to find me, to ask me to come with you, but I know the foals are on your mind, as they are on mine.  There is more to do. Yet we cannot do it alone, for I do not have the answer you might seek. There is no easy way into that den, with its single way in.  With help, however, we can.  With the support of others.  Murky, if we wish to find them, we shall have to raise the stakes!”

    He seemed gripped by a sudden drive, words gaining strength as he spoke them and brought everything into clarity for himself as much as anyone.  Then, to my surprise, he began to trot forward, grabbing one of his spare sets of armour from the corner and throwing it on even as he headed to the door.  The revolver lifted in his magic.

    “They seek to end the next generation. I will not permit a legacy I shared in as an accomplice of evil to regress into a darker past once again.  There are those needing saved and kept away from Fillydelphia's grasp. If we need help to get the foals, then they are who we shall seek out.”

    His head turned briefly as he shook off the ponytail clasp and tore the symbol of Red Eye from his armour.

    “One pony can make a difference.  I intend to. If Red Eye was right about one thing through all that he taught me, he was right about that. Murky, after all this, I cannot say in words how much you allowing me to come with you and your friends means.  How long I've wanted to ask you. Yet think, there are other ponies waiting for somepony to give them that chance that you gave me. We shall seek their help!”

    “Wait, wait!  Protégé!” I ran after him. This had accelerated far beyond me.  All the pain was boiled up in him, a slave ready to push back.  Protégé was back in control of himself, only this time completely. 

“What do you mean find others?  What are you going to do?”

    The door was thrown open from his telekinesis, hard enough that it knocked the guard clean out as he strode into the corridor.  Out limped Protégé, gritting his teeth against the pain of moving again and walking on still shaky hooves. He stopped briefly, looking back at me.  His eyes betrayed a sense of need, a calling as he briefly looked to his own cutie mark.

    “I'm going to light a fire of hope in the darkness.”

    The cage door into the slave pens was hurled open.  Stepping boldly forward, Protégé emerged with the revolver floating meaningfully beside him, and advanced directly toward the middle of the massive shop area.  Dozens of slaves turned at the slamming metal and the dressed figure of a pony they'd seen scream before them return. Ten or so slavers, all of Shackles' group, began to look around too, jerking up from corralling the slaves into their pens.  They began to trot forward at the sight, immediately closing in to assert power.

    “You!”

    Wormtail turned and began to run forward.  His hooves stumbled and shook as he pointed one leg with a grimace and a shriek, trying to intercept Protégé.

    “You, slave!  I remind you that you follow me! Now get back to your office and keep-”

    Protégé shot him in the head without breaking stride or even glancing to the side.

    The ferocious report of the new revolver echoed around the chamber multiple times, as he reached the centre and looked around him at the slavers, raising the revolver to the closest one.  A dozen slavers surrounded him, yet he held it firm.

    “Oi!  He slotted the Master's guy!”

    “The fuck!?”

    Protégé took a deep breath, meeting the eyes of the slaves first as he slowly turned, addressing them loudly and clearly.  The slaves seemed confused. They'd seen him in agony not too long ago, yet now he stood here strong and passionate.

    “To any and all slavers here, leave now.  I will give you this one chance.”

    They laughed, many of them pointing their weapons at him.  “Give us one reason! Just cos you found a weapon, little shrieker!”

    “You aren't a big boy now!  Throw it down before we rip you in half!”

    Protégé merely smirked, turning his head upward and to the side.  His eyes caught mine, as he nodded.

    “I had thought you might not. Perhaps some persuasion?”

    From my hiding place on the upper floor, I breathed in and stuck a hoof in my mouth. Forcing my sore throat through it, I blew a piercing whistle.

    On each level, from areas the slavers were not, came my friends.  Glimmerlight and Sunny on the upper levels, their weapons trained on the slavers with a little smirk on both their faces.  Coral Eve, her horn blazing, appeared behind three of them, Unity with her. Brimstone Blitz wandered his way out from our old cell, towering over the five quite suddenly terrified slavers who’d stood outside it.

    I dropped right down to the other side of the mall, the wire humming loudly as I switched triggers to flip out Rarity's Grace at a slaver.  He reacted in shock at me dangling suddenly beside him, dropping his weapon.  I waved hello.

    The slavers were surrounded, caught off guard.  A few of them spun weapons to face Brim, to face me or Glimmer. They looked horrified.  Two kept them pointed at Protégé, trying to advance closer and assert power over him. They were the big ones, the old slaver veterans.

    “I'll ask you again. Leave.” Protégé's voice was clipped and short, “You are a skeleton crew while the others are away. You couldn't take all of us, and I know there's few left in the building!”

    “This...this is just a fucking standoff!  We could kill some of you too! You ain't got shit, we outgun ya!”

    There was a slow rumbling from our old cell, before the bars were bent aside to make room for the last member of our party to roll in.  The slavers slowly let their jaws drop at the mechanical sight that trundled in with a proud display of old world weapon tech. Mister Peace saluted to them and put on a winking face to his monitor.

    “I would heartily disagree, my good fellows.”

    As one, the slavers dropped their weapons.  One even squeaked.

    The mood was growing.  I could feel the excitement in the air surrounding events beginning to flow and surge through my veins.

    The slavers were gathered on the bottom floor.  Their weapons were taken and piled in a cell as Protégé approached them as a group.  Around us, the slaves were perplexed. Some were scared, but many of them came out their cells, approaching the familiar faces of us.  Most just looked in disbelief at what they were seeing. Mister Peace had been sent to round up any guards in the nearby security room who were now marched out to join their fellows.

    Protégé looked up at their tall, gangly leader.  “Fetch your comrades on the way out and get out.  The mistreatment in this place has finished.”

    “Fuck you!” The slaver snarled.

    Protégé just made a tired sigh. “Truly, you have the most eloquent of arguments.”

    Some of the slaves behind us snickered, but most just seemed afraid of the sudden change in the air here.  Protégé turned to them.

“They will control you no longer.  You are not their slaves, you are not my slaves.  You have seen me cry in pain; you saw that I am no different from any of you.  My pride was broken before you, and now I bring humility to make amends. I am not anypony with authority, but one acting on his own will to do what is needed to bring this suffering to an end.”

    That got their attention.  Skeletal, sick, and injured ponies began to cluster.  The balconies were full and the walkways swayed under the weight of curious stallions and mares.  Bigger ponies approached, one mare already looked ready to lay into the slavers now that they were unarmed.  Heads poked out, limbs wearily limped to see what was happening. We were at the centre of over fifty ponies staring.

    “What in the everloving ohooiet' is going on down here!  Where is slaves for transport?  I demand answer!”

    Mister Mosin came storming through the cage door, Blunderbuck in tow.  He shoved past the slavers, before stopping sharply as he saw us in front of the slaves.

    “Chyort voz'mi!” His eyes went wide.  “This will bring you kill!  You will die! Traitor!”

    Protégé advanced forward, pressing his forehead nearly against Mosin's.  “I believe I just gave my last warning. This is no longer slaver-controlled territory in here.”

    The old pony clattered backward on his wooden hoof.  “You will regret it! You hold us to guns and demand we leave?  Stern will flay you! I will tell her. I will tell Shackles!  He will come for you and he will make you beg for him to show mercy!  Assistant?”

    Blunderbuck looked from us to his master, stumbling over before having a full bag of tools hurled into his face.  He yelped, catching them in his hooves, but the weight slapped into his jawline and made him stagger back to his knees.

    “Come!  We go to inform them of rebellion at gunpoint!  Come on!  Hurry, incompetent idiot!  Fool! Get up!”

    He clipped Blunderbuck over the head with his wooden hoof.  The young, sprightly pony yelped, falling backwards with a bruise already formed.  On the floor, he started trying to pick up his ordered load, his eyes looking up.  

They slowly found us, and moved over until he was looking at Protégé. His old leader only offered a calm demeanour.

    “Come on!” Mosin snapped. “Hurry assistant!  Stupid youngster, get over here this instant!”

    Blunderbuck turned and threw the tools right back at Mosin.

    “Oh shut up!  You dishonest, old, tree-legged, unappreciative arsehole!”

    The old armoury pony was knocked back, his face far past anger into sheer surprise.

    Glimmer's grin could have lit up the night as Blunderbuck turned and marched over to our side, leaving behind the bewildered slaver.  He briefly stopped as though to ask Protégé if it was okay, before his old master simply shook his hoof thankfully.  I felt proud of Blunderbuck, that had been a long time coming.

    “I think that's a way of saying...get the fuck out.  Cos there's a lot more of us than there are of you.” Brimstone grinned down at them and started to move forward.  I saw a lot of ponies started to follow. Marching forward. I grinned, joining them , the smallest pony doing so.  A large group of slaves closing down on their old masters, some bearing makeshift clubs and bars of metal in their mouths.

    The slavers fled.  The sight was satisfying beyond measure.  Slavers were running scared from this building from the slaves.  The chains had been broken in the Mall.  Today, I stood in the presence of something very special happening in Fillydelphia.

    Left behind from those who chased them right out, we turned back to the slaves.  Once the slavers had gone, there was an expectant tension. I could see it on their faces.  'What now?' We had a building to ourselves, or soon to be once Peace had finished his sweep.  Here in this area, we were free ponies.

    “Any who wish to leave, to not risk it, can go now.” Protégé indicated the door.  “I will force nopony to face what might come, for this is only going to get more dangerous.  I offer you not an instruction, but a choice.”

    “Why should we stay?  What are you even going to do?” A voice from the back cried out.

    “I...”

    Protégé took a breath, the stoic nature of his face the only thing to hold him in serious stead.  Then he spoke, raising his voice, projecting it into every corner of the Mall's main arena as he clambered up onto the lip of the fountain.  Visible to all above and below.

    “...am going to attempt to free you, all of you, and anyone else who will come.”

    He spun, taking them all in as they grouped around, us as well.  Protégé trotted lightly in a circle across the fountain wall, speaking sometimes to one, then another.

    “Some of you may be afraid, some of you may have plans of your own, yet I only ask for you to choose now.  Today, I was laid low. I was humiliated. I had my brow beaten before you and was stripped of everything I had.  Or I thought I had. To admit this in public, is perhaps the final step. I was nothing but a slave to them, held in silk chains perhaps, but now I see the truth.  I admit my wrongs. I do not ask for forgiveness from any of you, only a moment to be listened to. For I intend to free as many slaves from Fillydelphia as I can, under the cover of the war with the Enclave.”

    That got their attention.  Ponies moved in closer.  I saw them talking to one another.  I shared excited looks with Glimmer and Brimstone.  The slaves we had spent so many days around in here were getting worked up over this.  Discussion was going out. Above us, Protégé continued.

    “We will work together, as one!  As ponies!  I will not lead you, but I will provide for you.  The skills we all have can be put to use. We have technicians, fighters, thieves, cooks, and organisers.  We could soon get medical specialists. We have enough to defend us here, and then to make a coordinated breakout when the slavers are busy fighting for their own lives outside, but only if we all pool our resources.  With any luck, we would be a low priority for Stern so long as we leave her forces mostly alone.”

    He stopped, looking at me.

    “And with extra help, we can achieve things we could not do alone in tiny groups, such as reuniting many of you with your loved ones. With your sons and daughters that were stripped from you!  I bring this woeful news to you, that this day Chainlink Shackles has taken your children for experimentation in the dark beneath Fillydelphia! You, there!”

    He pointed through the crowd to a bewildered lime-green mare.

    “Miss Huckle Belt!  When your child was born, they took her before you could even name her!  Even now, she resides with the rest of the foals in Shackles' grip! You, Mister and Mrs Brick?  You had twins when you were brought here, just toddlers? They are still alive too, they always asked about you! Coral Eve...”

    Beside me, Coral nodded slowly, and Protégé smiled at her.  The news of the foals had hit them hard. Some were furious. Already two fathers were crying, worried.  They clenched their teeth through the tears.

    “We can fight. We can win them back and take them home.  Please, decide now if you wish to stay or not. We have much work to do and not much time, but look around you! We have a fortified building, we have an armoury, and we have supplies with some powerful assets, such as a war robot, and several combat veterans!  We can do this!”

    His hoof struck the marble rim of the fountain sharply.  A couple of ponies shouted their willingness. The parents, mostly, but also their own friends who knew the hardships of those who had lost foals.  Protégé didn't let up, he spoke to them in particular, before aiming at the quieter ones.

    “We shall take this moment. We shall not lie in squalor alone waiting for the end any more!  We shall stand up for ourselves. I was one of you, and I forgot that.  Now I will help you fight! For yourselves!  For the lives denied to you by days, months, or years in this hell hole!  For all those we have lost in this nightmare since it began! For our children!”

    Some of the ponies actually lifted their hooves and roared their support.  I found I was one of them. I shouted my throat hoarse, leaping onto Glimmer's back to feel taller.  Delight raced through me, the ponies that had laid silent and hopeless were being given a path they could take.  A chance to fight and make their own destiny, not to simply wait for the inevitable day when they keel over in a factory!

    “Then choose!  Let us decide our fates by our own hooves!”

    One last epic cheer.

    And in the end, few left.  Those who stayed were mostly made up of parents and those that had only needed a push to make a bid for freedom.  Some were unsure, but preferring anything to lying down and dying of sickness or cruelty. They wanted to control their own fates, to whatever end.  They came together and wanted to hear exactly what he had planned.

    Protégé, owing to his education, was a natural coordinator.  He sent out parties, always asking, to find and eject any remaining slavers from the building.  Some volunteered to watch the perimeter. Others begged him for the critical supplies they had previously been denied.  He got some of the other volunteers like Blunderbuck to get the food out from their storage areas. Right now, the task was to secure the Mall and find out exactly what we had.

    Soon, he came to us.  He looked somewhat embarrassed, even while shivering on a high of adrenaline by the initial buzz of what he had set in motion.  He called out to three slaves if they could check the roof access. Two more were already bringing out their own secret stash to put onto the growing piles of supplies.  Protégé finally reached my friends and I, as he smiled at me.

    “An idea, Murky. It needs only to be ignited for it to grow itself slowly over time.  Just like the one you set in my mind with your talk of freedom long ago. Yet now, to all of you, I need your help to...well, I apologise.” He winced. “My words assumed you would join me in this course of action.  However, I can help you find your-”

    “Kid, shut up.  We're in.”

    Brimstone Blitz spoke for all of us.  Protégé caught me grinning, I'd explained it to them when I went to get them for the ambush.  The chance to get help in reclaiming the foals was enough to convince us. Everything we had planned worked just fine in this. There was nothing stopping us from still taking the portal out of here the moment we could.  Getting Chirpy, Lilac, and Starshine back was the hard bit. What Protégé had started would help us beyond what we could ever have imagined. A large group of ponies we could make the effort with, and bring joy to the returning parents as we did so.

    “I...I cannot possibly thank you enough.” Protégé actually laughed.  “Yet I must ask you for your assistance. To lead them, to organise them, and get everything set out to keep this building safe.  We'll go over the plan later, but for now there are things that must be said aloud to more than just the Mall. Murky, Glimmer, I shall need your help to truly set this alight.  Or rather, your PipBuck and technical expertise.”

    I looked down at my PipBuck, while my sister seemed curious.  “What are you planning?”

    “There is something grand we must do, the last step of this.  To bring it to the people of Fillydelphia. All of them.”

    He galloped off toward the cage door and the main stairwell.  Looking at each other, we all followed. Up floor after floor, all the way to the roof.  Past us ran ponies carrying weapons, food, and tools to block up doorways.

    I felt a mounting excitement as we climbed nearer.  What did he mean? Bringing the word to all of Fillydelphia?  Was he really going to call out to the whole city as Red Eye had done?  How? I couldn't put the question to him before bursting out onto the top of the Mall.  The masses of pipes, vents, and cage fences that dotted its top led to a tall aerial near the front edge that overlooked the city.

    “There is a wireless PA system across Fillydelphia.  The Mall houses one of its transmitters. Glimmerlight, could you connect Murky's PipBuck and its microphone to it?”

    “In my sleep. I thought this would be hard.”

    The two of them walked to the edge where the transmitter was located.  I hopped up onto a ventilation duct, seeing the vista of a city prepared for war before me, and feeling the warm and slow wind drifting over my face and spread wings.  The sky was lighting up in a brilliant orange behind the distant Enclave ships that were spreading out to surround the city. Above us, cloudships streaked overhead, leaving intense sound in their wake that shook the building below us.  They were too fast for the guns of Fillydelphia to catch them as they banked around pillars of smoke and rocketed off again.

    The red glow of Fillydelphia was stronger than ever, as the forges all lit for supplies.  A vast population of slaves spreading out in all directions, the setting of what I thought would be the end of my life.  Instead, it had become the start of my true one.

    “Okay!  PipBuck!” Glimmerlight reached behind herself, until I threw her the device.  She grabbed and connected it with wires before handing it to Protégé.

    “Can you keep them from overriding my signal?  Does this stretch far enough? The Enclave must hear it.”

    “Just shut up and do yer talky talky thing.” She winked at him.  “Aaaaaand....three, two...”

    She slapped him on the back.  At least, from my viewpoint, I hoped it was his back.

    Protégé took up the PipBuck in his magic and strode forward to the edge.  He cast one look at me, mouthing a couple of words first.

    Thank.  You.

    I smiled warmly back.

    Then he turned, and took a breath.  We all stood behind him as he sent his message to the masses, broadcasting loud and clear to every slave, slaver, and Enclave soldier near Fillydelphia.  Already below us, I could see slavers shouting and pointing at the building. Not at us on top, but as the shock of what we'd done was spreading and settling in to every slaver and guard around the Mall.

    Such local surprises were about to go a whole lot wider, as Protégé let loose his words upon the entire city at once.

    “Fillydelphia. Look up from your tools and the burdens of servitude.  Look up high and pull yourself from the toil. I speak to all who would listen.  Some of you will know my voice, others will know me by my name. Protégé, previously of Red Eye's slavers.  Some of you may trust me, others may not, but I am not the same pony that was known to you before. So hear my voice and judge for yourselves.  To those that we see in the sky, the denizens of the clouds, I ask only that you maintain this signal.”

    “I speak not to slaves and slavers.  I speak to ponies. I speak to anypony ever hurt by Fillydelphia, who is trapped here.  You, are not, alone. The rigours of war approach us all. Fire will rain from the skies and we will lose many good ponies in the coming days.  We are afraid. I am afraid. Yet there is a haven. A place where ponies can come to take shelter during this. The Harmony Mall will be a safe zone, where those of us unwilling to fight this war have come to be saved.  We have food, we have medical supplies, and we can keep you safe! The more who come, the better chance we will have!”

    I felt beside myself as I heard his voice become powerful and dripping with idealism.  The scholar I had known, putting to work the study and presence he had learned, now powered by the force of his care and dreams for others.

    Behind me, I heard Glimmer swear, before laughing as she unplugged and swapped some wires.  “Nice try, amateurs. Can't put him off air that easily.”

    “And thus I ask any of you, alone or in groups.  Come to us, help to protect others together! To seek shelter, and eventually, to be free in the aftermath.  To those in the skies above, this signal location, the Mall, will not fire upon you! And to those who would oppose this choice of ponies to have safety and freedom, we will fight you if you come, but we will not attack you first.  We shall be neutral, uninvolved if at all possible. This is not our war.”

    There was a pause, as I saw his face harden.  He poured impact and a thundering tone into his words in what came next.

    “As such, as of this exact moment, in the pursuit of freedom from chains and the protection of life itself, the Harmony Mall hereby declares its independence from Fillydelphia!”

    That line echoed across the city.  He paused, that one would have to sink in.  I felt chills down my spine. I was in the presence of potential history here.  Behind me, the others moved up, some ponies joined us too.  All watched him.

    Below us all, I could see ponies looking up.  Slavers were confused, slaves meekly wondering if they could truly believe it.  I saw at least one of the cloudships slow down near to us. The Enclave were listening.

    “Slip your bonds, break your chains. The Wall held us in, but now there is a place to go.  A building where you might find a chance to be free. It will be hard. They will no doubt strike back at us, but we will resist them if we only are willing to try!  We truly are better together, better united as ponies from all places in this stand against the eternal chain. This is your choice, ponies of Fillydelphia. The choice I give to you, the choice you have been denied all your lives within these walls.”

    He slowly turned to us.  We stood together, supporting him, united at last ahead of the struggle to come.  Brimstone having fought for redemption, Glimmer through her past, Coral to be reunited, Sunny to pull herself from the fires in here.  Yet in my will for freedom, with the wonder that now was the time in my mind, I found myself holding Unity's hoof and she smiled sideways at me.  Slavery, war, the Enclave, and fire and death about to strike home, we united whom we could.

    Pain and loss had led us both to this moment, starting from our very first hopeless days as slaves. Now there were plans and means to assault the very chains that had held us here and sought to break us apart. This was the moment that it would all come down to.

    The endgame. The Battle of Fillydelphia.

    Before us, on the parapet, Protégé's chin was wavering. He took one last shallow breath.

    “To those poor souls who would be listening, good luck in the days to come. Let us go forth together, so that we might all, at last...go home.”