Twilight woke with a gasp and a shudder, face-down on cracked asphalt. The taste of weeds filled her mouth. She spat out a clump of the parched yellow grass that had sprouted from the cracks, but the taste still lingered on her tongue. Her body aching and battered, she sat up and hunched forward. Memories of a golden city where everypony knew who she was and loved her for it danced through her head, fleeting and obscure yet so very vivid and alive. A smile grew on her lips and her heart pounded with joy. She had gone to sleep, but now she was awake again. She could bask in that glorious city once again.
She raised her head and looked across the disused lot, cracked and decayed and worn, and her joy quickly turned to ash. Out there, in the city, autocarriages rumbled down the streets and coughed out noxious fumes. Hovercarriages flew between enormous steel and glass skyscrapers. The air smelled of gasoline and rubber and plastic and the fetid stench of sewers. The grim High Castle stood over the city, and the moon, that eternal moon, was fixed in the same place it had ever been.
Tears brimmed in her eyes, but she was far too weary to cry anymore. She picked herself up and walked out of the abandoned lot, feeling the oppressive weight of the world settle over her yet again. Misery and desperation radiated from the bricks and stones of the city.
It's not fair! she thought.
Now that all these signs and symbols of the city were arrayed against her again, it was so easy to lie to herself about the way of the world. It was just a dream, Twilight. Nothing more.
B-but how could I see those ponies who have been crossing my path all day as my friends? It has to mean something!
You saw them because they were on your mind today, that's all. Nothing more.
As she walked down the sidewalk, she passed two Civil Force soldiers in riot gear beating a bloodied earth pony with truncheons. She could scarcely find it in her to care. This city wasn't worth it. Her head drooped as she walked, and she passed the time watching her shadow.
“Yes, I knew him,” Rarity said, a lump in her throat. “He was my pilot.”
Now he wasn't much of anything. Just a fried mess of hair and skin lying on a gurney. One eye was still open, in the middle of the blistered and bloody ruin of his face. It stared up into the night sky, at the princess's moon. The other eye had been burned away by the searing flash of her hovercarriage igniting around him. A paramedic thankfully pulled a sheet over his body.
“His papers went up in the fire,” the Civil Force soldier asking the questions said. “Do you know his next of kin?”
I don't even remember his name, she thought. “I-I'm sorry, but I can't....Please, call my personnel department in the morning. I'm in a frightful state right now.”
“Of course.”
The soldier mercifully left her alone, to confer with ponies who had 'Bureau of Public Works' on the backs of their navy blue windbreaker jackets, studying the wreckage of the theater. Rarity ignored the buzz of activity and went back to her entourage, where it became obvious from the looks on their faces that, once again, Coco was the only pony who was on the ball. The rest of them just looked shocked and shaken. Sweetie Belle's stream of tears and sobbing hadn't abated in the slightest. Rarity wrapped a foreleg around her and pulled her close, ruffling her mane.
“I've tried to hail a taxi,” Coco said. “But, as I'm sure you can see, ma'am, they're booked solid for right now.”
“We could always walk,” Rarity suggested.
Blueblood looked at her like she was mad. “You can't be serious?”
“You're a pony,” she replied sharply. “You have legs. Use them.”
“A pony of my stature--”
"Most of which is you puffed up with hot air." Rarity had kept on her hatred and revulsion for this cad dammed up tight, but now the dam was broken. “I'm leaving, Blueblood,” she stated. “I'm walking home with my family, and you are not coming with us, and you are especially not sharing my bed tonight, because frankly, your stature doesn't count for nearly as much as you think it does.”
As his face contorted with outrage and confusion, Rarity felt like one of the Galloping Gossips. She took a moment to enjoy in the boggled look in his eyes, then shepherded Sweetie Belle away. She left Blueblood there to think of a retort, which she knew was far beyond him. Coco walked right alongside Rarity, while Filthy Rich and Trotten Pullet trailed along behind them all. They made their way through the crowd, but a hoofful of ponies stepped into their path. General Mace stood at the forefront of his soldiers, stone-faced and sour. He gave her the merest attempt at a smile, then quickly dropped it.
“General Mace,” Rarity said curtly. “Sorry we don't have time to chat, but as you can see my sister is out of her mind with worry, and we need to go home.”
“Well, you're perfectly free to leave.”
Rarity smiled at him. “Thank you.”
But when she tried to walk past him, he reached out with his foreleg to block her way. “I said you're free to leave.” He eyed Coco Pommel, Filthy Rich, and Trotten Pullet. “The dirt-eaters, however, stay here.”
She was far too tired to put up with this. “I'm sorry?”
“Word has it that this revolutionary act was the work of earth ponies, stabbing our great civilization in the back. Revealing the hatred for civilization that festers in their racial soul. A barbaric act like this requires coordination, and so I've ordered all earth ponies at the scene be taken into custody while their loyalty can be assessed by the Midnight Guard. If 'loyalty' is the right word." He sneered. "More like....seeing how well their bestial instincts have been tamed.” While he spoke, several of his soldiers came up behind the group. They stood to either side of the earth ponies, waiting for the general's command.
“Coco Pommel and Filthy Rich have been at my side the entire evening,” Rarity protested. “They had nothing to do with it. And I'm sure you don't think Trotten Pullet managed to help with this, as an entire audience will vouch for her whereabouts.”
Now, he actually did smile, and it was an ugly thing to see. “You see, Miss Rarity, you practically bribed your way through the front door with one of these dirt-eaters, disgracing the good name of this theater in the process.”
“Are you accusing me of--?”
“Leaving aside their racial loyalty, maybe these dirt-eaters are innocent of this particular betrayal. If so, the Guard will get the truth out of them. They're very persuasive.” Not caring that Coco and Rich were standing five feet away, he proclaimed, “But in my experience, if you don't keep a firm hoof on the reins, earth ponies go wayward. They work their way into your good graces with flattery, then when you indulge them, they exploit you for all you're worth. In your case, that's quite a lot, if you don't mind me saying so.”
“I do mind you saying so. And they would never 'exploit' me. I treat my staff very well.”
“Perhaps that's the problem, Miss Rarity. Treat them too highly, they'll start thinking they're more than they are. Let them run free, their work ethic degenerates and brings down all we build.” He nodded at the carnage on the street. “But if you are firm and harsh, they will never forget what they are. They will never raise their hoof to their worldly masters. How you treat your dirt-eaters from this point on, Miss Rarity, may decide the history of our city. So you should think long and hard about what you want to say to me the next time our paths cross, because it would be very easy for me to raise a security concern with the High Castle and make your ability to do business very, very difficult.” To his soldiers he said, “Take them away.”
Rarity whirled around and stared at Coco, Filthy Rich, and Trotten Pullet as the Civil Force soldiers grabbed them and started hustling them away, towards a waiting paddy wagon. Through the open rear doors, she saw a dozen earth ponies already crammed into the back, shivering in the chains that kept them bound to the seats.
“I'll make this right,” she promised them. “I swear I will.”
“Don't worry about us, ma'am,” Coco called. “We'll be alright.”
Trotten Pullet flashed her a smile, but it was a weak and feeble thing. Filthy Rich was too terrified to do anything but whimper. The soldiers dragged the three earth ponies to the paddy wagon, roughly lifted them up and shoved them in, and cuffed them. Trotten Pullet met Rarity's eyes again, right before the doors closed, and again Rarity felt that sliver of invisible empathetic connection bridging them, until the doors slammed shut. Rarity was powerless to help her wards. A soldier gestured at the driver, who drove the paddy wagon down the street, moving slowly as the crowd parted for it.
“Well, Sweetie,” she said. “I guess we're walking home.”
She set off down the street, her weeping sister at her side and her pegasus bodyguard following close behind. She paused a moment to look over the line of half-opened bodybags beings inspected by the Civil Force. Although they had probably died in two different places, it was some small comfort to Rarity to see that the blue mare with the wispy white hair finally got to lay next to her beloved Blockbuster.
She thought my dress would help her, Rarity thought. But my dresses can't help anypony, not in any way that counts. Nor, it seems, can my money, although for a few hours I entertained that delusion. So. What can I do, then?
She moved on. As always, paparazzi flocked at the edge of the police cordon. Her lip curled in disgust. Vultures looking for carrion, they were, a surging tide of scavengers beating each other out for who could snap the most provocative and lucrative photos. Who could make the biggest payday feeding off the misery of others, so mares like Upper Crust could swallow it down hungrily and ask for seconds, to feel better about herself. Supply and demand. All these ponies, so desperate to claw their way to the top. Which, paradoxically, made them the lowest equinity had to offer.
“Rarity!” “Did Blueblood die?!” “How loud was the explosion?!” “Who died?!” "Where were you when it happened?" "Did anypony die?"
Her bodyguard cleared a path through the wall of ponies. Rarity girded herself, and then pressed her sister close to her side and plunged into the flock of vultures, shielding her eyes against the flashbulbs exploding in her face.
When Twilight reached her conapt building, the flight of stairs seemed a mountain after her very long day, and as she trudged up them, not once did she get the feeling she was converging with anything. Finally she was at her front door, after what felt like a million years since she'd last passed through it. Through the empty and silent apartment she went, to her bed. She laid down and tried to drift off to sleep, hoping she would see that beautiful city again in her dreams, but sleep would not come. She tossed and turned as the seconds ticked away, first under the blanket and then on top of it, but her eyes refused to stay closed. They burned, but they would not extinguish themselves. Even a brief fit of sobbing did nothing to help her sleep. Eventually, she just lay on her back with her eyes fixed on the ceiling.
Only one place is supposed to look as beautiful as that city: the World to Come. Was I....on the verge of death? Is that why I went there?
You didn't 'go' anywhere. It was just a dream, brought about by trauma and probably a concussion.
Am I a good pony? Will the World to Come wait for me when I die?
You are a good pony. You've done whatever your city asked of you, haven't you?
I'm just doing whatever gets me food, shelter, money, employment. I don't know who I am. How can I know if I'm a good pony?
But in the World to Come, she knew who she was. Her other self was already there, waiting to explain. This cold and violent land held nothing for Twilight Sparkle anymore. It was just something that got in the way of her happiness. She couldn't stand another second wallowing in the cruelty and pain and misery, not while that golden city was waiting for her. So she got off the bed, shoved the door to her conapt open, and went to the stairwell again.
The words still rang in Hammer's ear: “Ah hope the Shadowbolts get ya.”
The sound of sirens echoed across the city, each one a shrill accusation directed at him. He trudged through the back alleys of the city, hooves scraping the ground, wondering if there was some sort of spirit of irony watching over ponykind. It watched them play their little games, as if the world was its own private stage, giving it a helping hoof every once in a while, steering these ponies into doing stupid things like accidentally blowing up the only family they had left.
What he had done to annoy it?
This is ridiculous, he thought, cold and numb from his long walk of despair. It's like the kind of tragedy you'd find in the playhouses I just blew up. I tried to strike at the hegemony and instead killed my only sister. It's too ironic to be real.
He reached a small sewer maintenance shed nestled between a deli and an apartment building, checked to make sure he was in the clear, and unlocked the chain-link fence with a ring of keys - a memento from his days as head of the Midnight Guard - and then locked it behind himself. In the corner, a grate was laid over the entrance to the sewers. He pulled it aside and climbed down the steep metal stairs, stifling the uncomfortable sensation he was descending into Tartarus, where the myths said only the most cruel monsters were sent to be imprisoned. If anything, the stench would surely mark this as a den of caged monsters. When he lowered the grate behind himself, the pale rays of moonlight were swallowed up by the dark, now very nearly absolute. He picked up an electric lantern hanging on the wall and flicked the switch to turn the feeble light on. He held the lantern up in one fetlock and walked through the sewer on three legs, his boots sinking into the raw sewage with a wet squelch.
Oh, how he wished he still had his horn.
When he was recovering from the explosion, the doctor he had recruited to the cause said he might be able to save it, even though it was too damaged to ever regain its full power. But no, he had ordered it cut off. All the better to sell the illusion that he was dead. To sell his new life as Hammer, by cutting away the ties that bound him to the old one.
Like Twilight, he thought.
He sighed and pressed on into the darkness. The overpowering stench and the heavy darkness hung around him like a weight around his neck. His penance. The city's penance. As his eyes lingered on the shroud of shadow ahead, his tortured mind superimposed the photos on it, like it was celluloid. Those mangled, black-and-white striped corpses, their lips curled up in chemically-induced smiles. Piles of them. The laughing troops, posing for the camera. Alive with the thrill of vindication after slogging through the jungles for years. Seeing the enemies who had hurt them and wounded them lying lifeless in the dirt. He vomited the first time he saw the photos, some two years ago, after requesting them from the army. Or maybe it was three years, now. Saw the pony race in all its capriciousness, and watched as the carefully maintained garden of half-truths he had cultivated to make his life look pleasant wither and die.
The first thing he did was secretly leak the photos. But the outrage he hoped to inspire never materialized, outside of ponies like Big MacIntosh and his circle. Earth ponies who already knew what the situation was, even if they were too weak-kneed to do anything meaningful about it. So then Hammer had started recruiting. He had been a consummate intelligence officer, and he easily recruited a new network of agents, only this one was intended to destroy the hegemony instead of save it. Running his real agents on the Guards's books, hidden inside his cover networks....foal's play. All the while, working to subtly subvert the High Castle. Doing things like letting that Rockafilly racket pass through his censorship division, or secretly funding and collaborating with the eccentric Fancy Pants and protecting his gallery from being investigated too thoroughly. Everything had been going too smoothly, he had thought afterwards. Something was bound to come along and throw a wrench into the works.
The bomb in his hovercarriage had taken him by surprise, to be sure. But once the shock wore off it didn't take much work to slip into the guise of Hammer. He had already been running the Earth Pony Liberation Front as a shell organization for his agent network. So he had just changed the front, the fake, into the real thing. And then he could continue fighting the Empire of the Moon, this cradled city and its cradled hegemony. All of them ran around like their lives mattered, while silently consenting to wholesale slaughter. The whole of the Empire was a machine, a factory assembly line designed to slaughter the rest of the world and fatten the unicorns running it. Like him. The stallion he had been once, blissfully unaware of his role in the machine. Tricked into thinking he was doing good. That he was a good pony at heart.
What a filthy lie.
I'm so sorry, Twilight, he thought. I should have told you. Tried to convince you to join us. Then, you wouldn't have....
Hammer arrived at the base of the stairs, into slanted rays of moonlight coming through another grate. Up above was the earth pony ghetto. Home, for him now. But before he could climb the metal stairs, he heard a shuffling in the shadows. He raised his hind leg, ready to lash out and protect himself if he had to. A shadow moved in the shadows, and it almost lost its head. In the nick of time, Hammer saw it was only Caballeron, his mane messy and his coat covered with a sheen of sweat.
“Do not go up there,” he said, his eyes bright with terror. “It is a bloodbath.”
Hammer's heartbeat quickened. “What happened?”
“It was the Shadowbolts! I had just met your--"
"Shut up!" Hammer shouted. He waved Caballeron to follow him deeper into the sewers. "Just in case they're listening."
"I was on my way back to the hideout when I saw them raiding the building," Caballeron said. "I hightailed it out of there very, very quickly, mon frere, and watched from a distance. They dragged out some of the others. Thoroughbred, he was one. Serf Supper. I came here to warn anypony coming back."
Hammer pounded his hoof on a rusted water pump. The thud reverberated dully in its hollow innards. It happened too quick for them to have investigated the bombing, so they already had their eye on us. They knew all along. I can feel it. Getting the bomb there was too easy. We played right into their hooves and did whatever dirty work they wanted. At the realization, he collapsed against the wall and sank down to the dirty floor. Twilight died for nothing.
If this was a musical, Twilight thought during her ascent up the stairwell, or if it was a book, or a radio serial, I could just stand up and announce that this world is so very wrong. And everypony would listen to me and realize that I, and I alone, was right. I could get through to the ponies of this world. Tell them about a better way. Lead them into the light.
Because the author wrote them that way.
But this isn't a book. This is real life, and it's messy and nopony can ever agree on anything. So we go to theater halls or we sit in front of our radios and for a little while we go off to another world where the author is the only voice speaking. To delude ourselves into thinking that somepony is at the reins in the real world. That everypony is following the same set of values. To forget that we can't control anything about our own lives. Hah. We're pathetic! We use fiction as a salve, because we've been so burned by this world and the other ponies in it.
She shoved the door to the roof open. But there is always one choice that we do have. Always.
Twilight approached the little stone ledge of the parapet and looked over the edge. It was a long way down to the street. She climbed atop the parapet. The wind streamed her mare out behind her head. She prepared herself for the voyage to the World to Come, as there was nothing for her in this one anymore. No family, no friends, no love. But out there, beyond the crude fabric of this disgusting and mundane world pressing in around her, she saw the sun shining through the seams. The source of all light.
I wonder if my brother is waiting for me on the other side?
With a smile on her lips, Twilight closed her eyes and prepared to jump.
'In case you get bored', the note had said. At the moment, for Rarity nothing could be truer. She was bored of Blueblood, bored of General Mace and his boorish ilk, bored of this whole city and the ponies in it. She craved something different, something exciting, something that would make a difference. And so, she came to the Stable, which wasn't all that far from the Chariot, and stood in the glow of the tacky flickering neon sign that spelled out its name in a looping cursive font. Her bodyguard looked at her quizzically, but she told him to take Sweetie Belle back to the penthouse.
"I'll be along soon," she lied.
She looked around the street. A few paparazzi had trailed after her and were busily snapping photos, but most of the parasites had made the assuredly agonizing decision to stay at the Chariot and snap pictures of the massacre instead of chasing after a socialite who might actually threaten to have pony failings every once in a while. Her value had temporarily taken a dive, and her place in the public interest was supplanted by a scene of bloody carnage. She wasn't sure if she should be disgusted or pleased, or both.
She pushed the door open, walked up a very shabby-looking staircase with exposed cinder clocks painted a sickly off-white, and entered a wide open gallery space, presently empty, that looked like an unfurnished loft. Tastefully tasteless pieces hung on the walls. Just the sort of thing the Midnight Guard might raise an eyebrow about, but nothing patently illegal or immoral. She took in the stark, unfinished decor briefly, but it wasn't the art she had come here for.
At the far end of the floor, Fancy Pants turned towards her. "Rarity, my dear," he said from across the length of the gallery, sounding pleasantly surprised. "So glad to see you're not injured. It was just dreadful what happened."
She trudged across the floor towards him. "Something even more dreadful just happened. The Civil Force arrested every earth pony at the theater for interrogation."
The saffron stallion who had accompanied Fancy Pants to the theater shared a look with him, said, "I'll spread the word," and then took off into the back room.
Rarity was left alone with Fancy Pants. She pulled the copy of Ploughshare out of her dress and waved it at him. "Well," she said, feeling empty and drained of emotion, "I'm bored now."
He grinned at that, which made the ends of his handlebar mustache lift up. "My dear Rarity, I have a saying: boredom is counter-revolutionary. Step into my parlour." He gave her a theatrical bow and gestured for her to step into the back room of the gallery.
Rarity went inside without a single look back.
It was the weeping that gave Twilight pause. At first, she thought it was just the wind, but the longer she listened the more she knew she was wrong. There was somepony else on the roof, and he or she was weeping. Yeah, the world will do that to you, she thought wryly. She hopped down from the parapet and scanned the roof, until she noticed a shaking figure in the shadows all the way on the other side of the building, making a pitiful whimper into the night. Twilight cautiously padded over, and when she rounded an air conditioning unit she saw a gray pegasus sprawled out on the ground, getting her blonde mane all dirty.
“Are you....alright?” Twilight asked.
The pegasus lifted her head up, seemed to think it over for a bit, then ponderously shook her head.
Twilight thought, She's a bit slow on the uptake. She asked, “What's wrong?”
The pegasus swayed from side to side, gesturing emphatically and almost violently with her hooves. “I was flying home from work, and I bought this big box of muffins, but I opened it to eat one while I flew, and the whole box fell and now I can't find it!” She wailed, “I always lose everything. I'm so stupid! That's why they all say I'll never be a good pegasus who goes to the World to Come!”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Twilight whispered, “it's alright. Don't cry.” She looked over the rooftop and almost immediately spotted the box atop the stairway booth. She ignited her horn and magically levitated the box over. “Here it is. See? Everything's alright.”
The pegasus gasped in surprise and pulled the box close, almost like she was hugging it. She cried out, “You found it!”
Twilight shrugged. “Sometimes you need to look up, every once in a while.”
The pegasus opened the box and held a muffin out. “Want one?”
Taken by surprise, Twilight blurted out, “Sure.”
Together, she and the pegasus sat down and ate their muffins in silence. Twilight looked at the happy pegasus and felt that tingling electric current run inside her again. That feeling that pervaded the other Canterlot, which they called the Magic of Friendship, It was still there. Even under the weight of this cold and cruel world, the magic was still there. Ready to be brought back to life. Maybe it had been trying to bring itself back to life for a thousand years. Guiding the course of events as best it could. How else to explain how she could keep crossing paths with the ponies she was friends with in this other world? The seeds of the other world could be buried in this one. Or maybe vice versa, she couldn't say. It was late, and she was tired, but for the first time she felt a sense of hope for the future.
If I can show ponies this....magic of friendship, instead of just lecturing them about it, then maybe....maybe they'll know that it's right and that it's real.
“I have to go now,” the gray pegasus said, finishing off her muffin and standing up. “But thanks for finding my muffins!”
Twilight smiled. “You're welcome.”
She took to wing and waved at Twilight as she soared away into the night.
I had that vision for a reason, Twilight thought with certainty. And it wasn't to throw myself off a roof. She picked herself off the ground and started dusting herself off. She was in the middle of doing that when she realized what she had to do next.
“....reports are still coming in, but obviously this is, uh, quite a tragedy for our city, and our way of life. We're about to, uh, go live to the scene, where we have word the Shadowbolts are preparing a statement for the public.”
In the dark, tears rolled down Scootaloo's muzzle. She hadn't moved an inch since the emergency broadcast had interrupted regular programming. From the speaker grille, transmitting live from the Chariot, she heard a clamoring crowd under the reporter's voice. All she could do was listen in horror.
“It's pure chaos here, as you can imagine, but, ah....oh, here comes Colonel Dash, of the Shadowbolts, and it looks like she's about to address the press.”
Scootaloo's ears perked up when the Colonel's voice came over the airwaves. That brave pegasus, Scootaloo thought, her heart twisting in her chest. The Colonel struggled to sound unemotional, but Scootaloo could hear the disgust and outrage in her voice all the same. She's wondering why the dirt-eaters would do this to us, too!
“Of course we're still looking examining events, but our current evidence indicates the explosives were an industrial-strength demolition compound. About fifty pounds of it were loaded into a wagon parked in front of the Chariot theater and timed to explode at the end of the show. So far, sixteen civilians perished in the blast, with another twenty-six wounded. Our most promising lead points to earth pony separatists looking to rekindle the Winter Rising as the culprits.”
The whole world spun around Scootaloo. She clenched her jaw when the words 'Winter Rising' hit her ears.
“Stay home and stay safe, if you can,” the Colonel continued. “If you have to go out, bring anything suspicious you see to the attention of the nearest Civil Force soldier right away. With any luck, we'll apprehend the culprits before another tragedy like this one happens.”
Scootaloo jumped to her hooves and paced along the confines of her room. She shut off the radio before it could bring her any more miserable new. The Winter Rising! One wasn't enough for those dumb earth ponies? They just had to do it again, over and over. They would never stop, ever. Not until they took away everything good and just in the world. She breathed heavily and sweated even more heavily, but the air was stifling. She couldn't catch her breath no matter how hard she tried. This room was too small for her. She stormed out of it, went right to her front door, and shoved it open.
“Scootaloo?” a voice asked from the living room. “Where--?”
She let the door swing shut before her father could finish. Her foster father. She didn't have a father anymore because of the Winter Rising. They had taken her parents away from her.
She went down the stairwell and shoved her way through the front door, enjoying the feeling of the breeze caressing her coat. She could almost imagine the tragedy hadn't happened. That the terrible blow hadn't been struck. But it didn't last; once her ears became familiar with the wind, she picked out the distant sound of sirens. In her sprawling imagination, she pictured herself having stayed by Colonel Dash's side. She had seen the one clue everypony else had missed, the one thing that stopped it before it had happened. Spied the evil earth ponies skulking through the darkness, had leaped into their path and stopped their dastardly deed before the final blow had been struck. And then Colonel Dash had congratulated her, told her how brave and amazing she was, how Scootaloo was a true pegasus....
The clop of hooves on concrete brought Scootaloo back to the real world. Down the street, a familiar gray colt trudged along the sidewalk. He had a brown paper grocery bag balanced on his back. That degenerate, Rumble. He kept walking along towards the building, staring down at his shadow on the ground, until he came to Scootaloo's hooves and looked up in surprise. His eyes widened when he saw her.
“Rumble,” she said.
“S-scootaloo. I-I didn't d-do nothing.”
She looked out over the park, and the city beyond. “I wanted to apologize,” she said. She looked at him again. “I'm sorry about before.”
He tilted his head. “Y-y-you are?”
“Yeah.” She walked past him, down the sidewalk. “I have something for you. To show you how sorry I am.”
He took a hesitant step backwards. “You do?”
“Absolutely.” She stopped at the alleyway and smiled, gesturing down the dark passage. “It's right in there.” When he didn't move, she said, “Well, come on.”
Rumble edged closer and peered into the alleyway, but he stayed well away from it. Coward, she thought.
“It's in the back,” she said. “Keep going.”
He stared up at her, he watering eyes wide, his body shivering. “I really need to get these groceries back to m-my mom.”
“Rumble, I'm trying to say I'm sorry,” she said, sounding hurt. “Are you going to be rude and mean and not let me do that?”
Reluctantly, he padded into the alleyway, peering at each and every shadow, until he reached the dead end. In a tiny voice, he asked, “W-w-where is it?”
“Right here.” She was at his tail, and she twisted around, raised her hind leg, and kicked him square in the head. He dropped like a stone, the bag of groceries spilling everywhere onto the stained and broken concrete. She walked over at a leisurely pace until she towered above the pathetic colt, shuddering on the ground.
“I thought you wanted to say you were sorry!” he wailed.
“I am,” she sneered. “I'm sorry I didn't do this sooner.”
She straddled him and started punching him in the face with her forehoof, battering his feeble little skull until blood ran from his split lip, eyebrow, cheekbone. He cried out, but she ignored the degenerate moaning and kept pummeling him. A real pegasus would fight back. Each blow was a relief to her agitated heart. It felt good to get the tension out of her body, stop the ache that spanned her chest, to do something, instead of nothing. How could she show him any mercy after what his kind had done to her city?
“You stabbed your race in the back,” she sneered, punching him harder. “You betrayed us all.”
He shrieked like a newborn foal, throwing up his forelimbs to fend her off. But she knocked them aside and kept striking him. He wriggled around, trying get out of her grasp like a worm. A disgusting worm. She wrestled with him, making an effort to pin him down, but he was surprisingly agile. Because pegasi were supposed to be agile. Maybe he was more like a pegasus than she was after all. The thought burned her mind to cinders. Screaming wordlessly to drown out his shrieks, she snatched up a loose bit of paving stone in her fetlock and brought it down on his head with all the force she could muster. Once and twice it fell, but on the third time his head snapped back and collided with the ground. There was a dull thump, a wet crunch. Suddenly, Rumble fell silent and went limp.
She got off of him and stared down at his slack-jawed and eerily peaceful face. “Get up,” she said, wiping the sweat off her brow. She kicked him in the side after he didn't respond. “I said, 'Get up!'”
Her kick had rolled him over. His limp limbs flopped to the concrete and his head sagged on his shoulders. He still didn't move. Blood poured from a wide gash on his skull, through which she could see bone glistening red in the dim moonlight. She took a step backwards, her mind reeling at the sight of the body.
I killed him, she thought, stunned. He went out like....like a candle. The most staggering thought was how frighteningly easy it was. How fragile the equine body could be.
Had anypony seen? She looked all around, but the alley was empty and the windows either dark or curtained. She ran away from the body, because they might see it without understanding how dangerous Rumble had been. How he was destroying the city. They might only see a dead pegasus. Not a dead degenerate.
Who were they to judge her, though? She was a Shadowbolt, guardian of the city. They didn't have the right.
Nevertheless, she climbed the steps into her building and went back inside.
Apple Bloom had been with her Granny Smith, and it was happy and beautiful, but an excited buzz that came up through the floorboards from the living room stirred her from her sleep. Nestled in her warm blanket, she felt no great desire to move from her spot, but a few snippets of converstaion caught her ear. “--Shadowbolts say--” one pony said. “--blame Hammer--” another added. “--hegemony will come down on us, and hard--” a third explained. And then, through her window, she heard more voices. The whole ghetto was waking up, it seemed, so she might as well see what all the fuss was about. She sat up in bed and threw the covers back. A sinking sensation came over her when she remembered her granny was dead, and the urge to cry gripped her yet again. But she pushed it away, suddenly very interested in what the voices were going on about. She crossed her room to the window and threw it open. Outside, ponies stood on their doorsteps and leaned out of their windows, just like her.
They listened to the stallion running down the street and yelling at the top of his lungs. “Hammer kicked it off!” he shouted. “Revolution's starting! We're taking the city! Yee-haw!”
Some of the ponies looked giddy, while others were obviously displeased with this turn of events. Most of them, however, just looked confused. Struggling to catch up with whatever was happening, they either went back into their homes or drew together in the street to talk to each other. Apple Bloom shut the window and went downstairs, where she found her brother and some of his folks gathered in the kitchen, standing in the empty space where the table used to be. She had arrived in the middle of a lull in the conversation, where all the ponies present gave each other long and wary looks and the tension hung thick in the air.
“This is going ta escalate, and right quick,” Big Mac finally said.
“You got that right,” somepony else added. “We all on the precipice here.”
Sleepily, Apple Bloom asked, “What's goin' on?”
“Nuthin' ya need ta worry 'bout,” her brother drawled from the other side of the room. “Jes' some discussing we need ta do. Ya go right on back upstairs and back ta sleep.”
But Apple Bloom refused to be pushed around like a foal. She stepped forward and asked, “Are we rising up?”
“We ain't,” Big Mac said, scowling. "Ah ain't got a clue who's been putting funny ideas in yer head--"
She snarled, “Don't ya'll brush me off like that! I wanna know what's going on!”
“Foals,” somepony muttered.
“If we rise up, they'll just beat us back down again,” a tired-sounding pony said. “That's the way it goes.”
But her brother was maddeningly silent, all the way across the kitchen. Silent and watching her. It was driving her mad, so mad she couldn't take it anymore. Her whole body shaking with fury, she shouted at him, “You may have forgot what they did ta mah Granny Smith, but Ah sure didn't!”
She wheeled around and galloped out the front door, willing and eager to do her part for the cause.
Rumble had made his own fate. If there was anything in the world Scootaloo was sure of, it was that. If he had been stronger, if he had been a true pegasus, if he hadn't been complicit in this new Winter Rising brewing on the horizon, then he would have been....
Murdered, Scootaloo. And you killed him.
He deserved it! she thought savagely.
She raised a hoof to open her front door when she noticed the blood dripping from her hooves. Horrified, she looked back and saw the hallway covered with bloody hoofprints leading right to her door. No! she thought, squeezing her eyes shut to drive out the thoughts, those terrible thoughts that stung like knives. When she opened her eyes again, the hoofprints were gone. The carpet was unsullied, and so were her hooves. With a sigh of relief she pulled the handle down, opened the door, and entered her apartment.
“Scootaloo?” her foster mother asked from the dining room table, voice fraught with worry.
Scootaloo snapped, “What?”
“Where did you storm off to?”
“I just needed some air.”
“Haven't you heard the news on the radio? There was an attack. You need to stay inside until the Shadowbolts sort everything out.”
Did you forget? I am a Shadowbolt, and I sorted everything out.
But she only said, “Fine,” to her foster mother, and then went back into her room. Her uniform and beret, laying on her desk, caught her eye. She went to it and stared at the black fabric and the golden braiding. It wasn't just the fabric, it was what it meant: security. Being a hero. Stopping the bad guys. She laid a hoof on it, but again her hoof came away bloody. Rearing back, she jumped away from the uniform as blood started oozing from its seams and dripping all over her carpet. She galloped into her tiny bathroom, turned the faucet on, and frantically washed the blood off her hooves. But there wasn't any blood there. She was perfectly clean after all.
She felt like she was going crazy. Which of these two worlds was real: the bloody one or the clean one?
But when she looked at her reflection, the blood was still all over her hooves. Unreachable, untouchable, unwashable. Taunting her from afar. Enraged, she turned and kicked the mirror so hard it shattered and pieces rained down everywhere. Some of them pierced her pastern, right above the hoof. She screamed in pain, helpless to stop the blood pouring out of her cuts. She had made the bloody world into reality while trying to stop it. Her mother rushed in, took one look at the crying Scootaloo curled up on the floor, and scooped her up. Thoroughly disgusted with herself, Scootaloo was keenly aware of what a stupid foal she must look like.
“I-I slipped,” she lied. “I slipped and tried to grab hold of something, but the mirror broke.”
“It's alright,” her mother said, stroking her mane. “You're alright. I'll make you feel all better.”
Despite how much she prided herself on being a Shadowbolt, the offer was surprisingly reassuring to Scootaloo. Letting somepony else take care of her for a little while sounded fantastic. For the moment, she didn't feel quite so old as she imagined herself. Through the windowpane, though, she heard a mare start to wail. It was a terrible sound that pierced the soul, full of the agony of the world, and it was coming from the alley down below.
You're old enough, Scootaloo thought.
As soon as Apple Bloom entered the bazaar, the first thing that stuck her was the revolution rock Octavia and the Kelpies were playing. A large crowd had gathered around the band, drawn by the allure of the defiant musical protest. All Apple Bloom's questions disappeared as she listened to the fiery mare sing: “This is the sensation that's causing a riot! Run out and tell your folks they got to gather round! Don't let them tell you you got to be quiet! Can't make a revolution without making some sound!”
This place they had reclaimed from the hegemony was the closest thing to a community they had. So many other ponies had had the same idea as her, to come here to find out what was going on. Once, her brother had explained to her that throughout history the village market was where ponies congregated. The lifeblood of civilization was where the fruits of production intersected. It was the same here in the ghetto as well, with all these ponies listening to the music. Just like the record she bought a few short hours ago, this music was also a product, sort of. A work of art. Only this was given away for free, and that spirit of giving made it all the more precious to Apple Bloom. It made her want to give Octavia something in return for this gift.
It made Apple Bloom want to give her the revolution she sung about.
The band launched into an extended bridge, laying into their instruments with inspired passion. Octavia swayed to the music, her eyes uplifted to the ceiling, losing herself in the joy of the moment. Apple Bloom let that song of freedom be her backing track. But only for a moment. She had come here for a reason, and so she tugged the sleeve of the mare next to her.
“What's all this goin' on tonight?”
“The Liberation Front, they did it. They finally did it.” The mare grinned. “That Hammer, he went and blew up a theater. Dozens of dead unicorns, I heard. Oh, I bet it was glorious. They're saying this is the start.”
“Start of what?”
“The dawn.”
“Ah can't hardly wait,” Apple Bloom admitted.
Somepony ran through the crowd and leaped onto the stage, waving his arms for the band to stop playing. Some of the audience booed him, but the band seemed to recognize him and they abruptly stopped playing. He turned to the audience, his face flushed and distraught.
“It's the wings! They're right outside.”
The crowd surged towards the exit and struggled to file through the door all at once. Apple Bloom, by virtue of her small size, easily slipped under the other ponies and was one of the first ones out on the street. She could only stare in horror as Civil Force APCs slowly rolled down the street, sending spotlights sweeping out over the faces of the crowd. Pegasus ponies in riot gear with hoofcannons slung over their backs trooped alongside the enormous wheels in perfect lockstep.
A voice from a loudspeaker mounted on one of the APCs called: “On the authority vested in him by the Eternal Marshal of the Empire, Princess Luna, General Praetor Mace has issued Proclamation 1081. The city of Canterlot is now under a state of emergency. Return to your homes immediately. A curfew is now in effect for all earth ponies. Public gatherings of three or more who are unrelated by blood are outlawed permanently. All non-residential structures in this sector will cease operations until their loyalty is assessed.”
Apple Bloom stole glances at the sullen silence of the crowd. The angry and defiant flames in their eyes. The clenching of their jaws and the violent twitches of their legs. Every time we get a leg up, she thought, the unicorns and the pegasi take it away from us.
“Return to your homes immediately,” the voice repeated, “or, under the authority of Proclamation 1081, you will be arrested.”
The blinding spotlight swept over them again, so bright it washed out Apple Bloom's vision. She waited until it flew past, then stooped down and picked up a loose paving stone. This here's fer ya, Octavia, she thought. This is yer revolution, right here. Aiming it carefully, she tossed the stone right into the head of a soldier. It rang hollowly against the mare's helmet and made her stagger and fall to her knees, while the other troops spun around and shouldered their hoofcannons. The APC ground to a halt and its spotlight swept over the crowd again. The soldier got to her hooves, shook her head, and stomped over to the crowd around Apple Bloom.
“Who threw that?” the brute screamed. “I said, who threw that?”
But the crowd said nothing. They only stared back in defiance, and Apple Bloom was the most defiant of them all. At least, she thought she was, but maybe that was the stallion who had the misfortune to chuckle at the soldier. In that last moment of silence, his chortling was all that Apple Bloom heard. Then things started to happen very fast, so fast she couldn't keep up with it all. The brutal pegasus, breathing heavy, lunged into the crowd and dragged him out into the street, beating his head with a truncheon. "Arrest all of them," she screamed. "We'll torture it out of them!" But the other earth ponies, terrified at being rounded up and tortured, either fought back or broke and bolted away.
Some of them grabbed the earth pony with the bloody head and pulled him back into the crowd, and others dragged the soldier down to the ground and started beating her. More pegasi rushed forward to help her, but the crowd as a whole, as angry as they were, rushed forward as well and met them. Suddenly everypony clashed with somepony else, struggling in the street, beating each other bloody. It was all too much too quickly for Apple Bloom, who backed away from the sudden tidal wave of violence.
“We're under attack!” a pegasus cried as they all fell back to the APCs.
The earth ponies rushed forward, intent on killing the pegasus ponies and ripping apart the APCs. But before they could reach the armor-plated tanks, the cannon barrels unleashed cracks of thunder and flashes of flame, and the soldiers fired their hoofcannons into the crowd, again and again, blowing innocent earth ponies apart in sprays of blood and bone. “Oh!” Apple Bloom screamed in horror as she watched ponies she knew fall to the ground, splattered with their own blood. The crowd screamed along with her as they retreated from the cannon fire. Apple Bloom didn't look back as she ran from the tempest, away from the pain and the agony.
“Cease fire!” a frantic voice yelled in the distance. “Right now! Uh, return to your homes, dirt-eaters! That's an order!”
Apple Bloom tried to outrun the crowd, but she couldn't outrun all the images in her head, taunting her. All those ponies falling down dead, because of her. Because of one little rock she threw. Their spilled blood was all over her hooves, too.
No! she thought viciously. It was all their fault! If'n they hadn't been all a'comin' round here with tanks and guns, then it never would've happened. Or so she told herself, but the memories of the bloodshed were stubborn and did not leave her head easily.
"Gotcha!"
With a flap of his wings, the pegasus swooped down and snatched her off the ground. She thrashed and struggled, but his forelegs were strong and they didn't yield. Before long, she was high up in the sky, so dizzyingly high she thought she might faint. He shook his forelegs, as if he meant to let her go, and Apple Bloom screamed and clutched tight. He just laughed at that, laughed and laughed, and she didn't dare think bad of him, in case he really did let go. Eventually, he swooped back down to the ground where the APCs had stopped. The bloody and broken bodies still covered the ground, lying in a spreading pool of blood. Apple Bloom retched and vomited from twenty feet up. Her tongue tasted acid and her throat burned as it sprayed all over the street.
Then pegasus dropped her from five feet, and the asphalt slapped her belly. All the air went out of her. It was all she could do to roll over onto her back and curl leg legs close to her body.
"There's the little dirt-eater who started all this," the pegasus who had abducted her said. "She's the one who threw the rock."
The soldier she had hit scowled and stomped over, her bloody truncheon in her hooves, but her commanding officer held her back. "Let it go, Lieutenant. We take her to the Guard for processing, like all the others."
As they picked her up and hauled her into an idling paddy wagon, with two dozen other earth ponies stuffed into the back, she thought, Ah guess Big Mac was right after all.
That did escalate mighty quick.
From her bed in the recovery ward, the pegasus with the bandaged wings stared out the window on the far wall. All around her, other victims of the bombing who were hurt much worse moaned and sobbed, their faces covered with bandages, their coats burned and their skin bleeding, their expensive dresses and suits cut to pieces by the doctors. But the pale yellow pegasus looked relatively unhurt. She just sat there calmly and stared, lost in thought, at the glowing city outside, awash in neon lights and flashing billboards.
This was the closest hospital to the Chariot, and Twilight had taken a gamble coming here, but she was glad to see it had paid off. But now that she was here, she couldn't think of a single thing to say. Not a word. It was all so strange to her. How could she put into words the enormous gratitude, and the weight of the debt, that she owed to this pegasus? She had never been very close to other ponies, besides her brother. What did ponies with friends say when they were with each other? This was all so alien to her it made her want to scream; her books hadn't prepared her for this. In books, the author could control everything the ponies in a conversation felt and did. But this, the real world....it was all so chaotic and random. What if the pegasus despised her for her injuries? Or for the way she had acted earlier?
So Twilight had hung back by the door to the admitting area, watching the pegasus and saying nothing. On her way in, she had lied and said she was family. None of the staff bothered with her; they were too busy dealing with the wounded ponies.
What finally moved her was the memory of the electric flow of the magic of friendship coursing through her body. It was a nice feeling, and Twilight very much wanted to feel it again.
When she stepped forward, Twilight mumbled, "Umm...."
The pegasus looked her way and blinked, stunned into silence.
"I just wanted to say....thanks," Twilight said, feeling foalish and self-conscious. "F-for saving my life."
"Oh." The pegasus chewed her lip, then averted her eyes. "Y-you're welcome."
And just like that, silence descended over the two of them again. A stifling silence that choked Twilight's breath and wore her to pieces. In a desperate bid to keep the silence at bay, she stepped forward and said, "Are-are you hurt? I mean, obviously you are, but....are you alright?"
"Y-yes." The pegasus lapsed into silence once more. Then she mumbled something that sounded like 'Fayton', and then became possessed of a sudden courage, enough to raise her head at any rate. She looked Twilight in the eyes and said, a little bolder, "I'm fine, thanks for asking."
"That's....that's good." Twilight, you idiot, she said. This wasn't turning out how she expected, but she wasn't sure if it was her fault or not. The pegasus seemed to be waiting for Twilight to say something, but she didn't know what. "Well, I'm glad to hear it. So....I guess I'll go then. Now that I know you're safe."
"Alright."
Was it just Twilight's imagination, or did the pegasus sound sad?
As Twilight turned to go, some of the staff wheeled the moaning stallion in the next bed away, and in the quiet Twilight heard a very familiar voice coming from a radio on the bedtable next to the pegasus. So familiar it made her stop in her tracks to listen. "....in the end, we're all just a bunch of lost and lonely souls, crying out in the night," Thorny Bends said. "Looking for....what? We never know until we find it."
"Uh, I know what I'm looking for, Thorn," Freepony Young said. "A way off of this show."
"There is no getting off of this show, Free. We're all stuck here together, clinging to each other for companionship, so we might as well make the most of it. Read any good books lately?"
Twilight turned back to the pegasus lying in the recovery ward bed. "Is that....Thorny Bends?"
The pegasus cocked her head and pursed her lips. "Do you....like Thorny Bends and her Lovely Friends?"
"I love Thorny Bends," Twilight gushed. "I've never heard a radio program like it. It always feels like--"
"--like she's your best friend," the pegasus finished, "and she's always on the same page as you."
"Yes, exactly," Twilight announced, feeling a smile sprout on her face. And there it was, that spark of electricity coming to life inside Twilight. The magic of friendship. And she could tell, from the gleam that lit up the pegasus's eyes, that she felt it too. Twilight held out her foreleg and said, "I'm Twilight."
The pegasus stared at the outstretched hoof for a moment, then reached out and shook it. "Fluttershy."
Twilight magically dragged an unused chair close and sat down on it. "Did you tune in that one time when Thorny said....?"