//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 - Welcome to Hell 
// Story: Celestia Trigger 
// by Thadius0 
//------------------------------//

	The first thing that I saw was that I was now in a room made of metal.  There was a door in the back, but no visible doorknob on it anywhere.  Looking around showed me that it appeared to be roughly the same dimensions as the room I'd been in not too long ago.  And then I noticed the rust and age and wear on everything.  As though whoever owned this place...couldn't be bothered or simply wasn't around to take care of it anymore.  A sinking feeling started to coalesce in my gut at that notion...

I carefully made my way up the stairs and out of the metallic house to find my worse nightmare had come true.

The city of Trottingham had been upgraded, but also destroyed.  Everything that was standing appeared to be made of metal, and there was a huge, glass-like dome that had been put in place some time prior.  However, it was riddled with holes and appeared to be so very, very destroyed.  Even then, though, I didn't jump to conclusions.  Not even seeing the constant cloud cover made me think of the most obvious reason.

I slowly made my way down the street, taking note of how the city had expanded and grown in however far the Gate had taken me.  It was pretty much a done deal that I'd been brought forward at this point, so I decided to extrapolate on what, besides the thing I would not think of, could possibly have done this, in multiple senses of the word.  First I wondered what could possess the ponies to build such marvels, and then I wondered what could have destroyed them.

I had just reached the edge of the city, where the dome met the ground, when I finally saw life.  Thin, ragged, and downright filthy life, but life all the same.  It was a pony, and when it saw me, it gave a gasp and ran into the service area for the dome before slamming the door shut.

I walked over to the door and knocked a few times, not really expecting an answer.  I got one, though.

"Go away!  No monsters allowed!"

I sighed at that and moved my mouth close to the crack of the door.  "I'm not a monster!"

There was silence for a moment before the pony responded.  "Yeah right!  That's exactly what a monster would say!"

I grinned; my friends and myself had gotten into several such arguments.  "And what would something that's not a monster say?"

Silence reigned for a good ten seconds before I got a response.  "Um...I dunno.  I didn't know monsters could talk."

"If you don't know what something that wasn't a monster would say to gain entry," I pressed, "then how do you know that I'm not saying it right now in all my not-monster-ness?"

I swear I heard the brain of the pony rebooting as it considered what I was saying seriously.  "My brain hurts," I heard moaned out from the other side of the door.

"And how about my feelings?" I countered.  "C'mon, it's freezing out here."  It was, actually.  Even through my clothes, I felt the chill in the air.  "And I don't have a coat of fur like ponies.  I really, really need to come in."

Silence was once more the master of the area before the door slowly ground open.  "All right," the pony said, "You can come in, but I've got my eye on you."

Walking in and taking in the pony revealed that it was an Earth Pony, or at the very least not a Unicorn, somewhere between a filly and a mare.  Her coat was a dirty orange, and she was wearing filthy, tattered robes over much of her body.  Seeing as how I not only saw no wings, but no bulges for the wings, I felt a little more confident that the pony wasn't a Pegasus.  Her mane was short and spiky and very green, and her tail was long and unkempt.  What was very interesting was that she didn't have a mark on her flank, at least, as far as I could see.

As I was taking in her, she was taking in me, and she snorted when we caught each others' eyes again.  "Well," she said, "You're right.  You're not a monster, or if you are, you're not a usual monster."

"I'd like to think I'm as unusual as possible," I fired back.  "Though if you'd like my name, I'll tell you I go by Crono."

The mare blinked a few times before shrugging.  "I'm called Copper, when others bother to call me a name at all.  C'mon, I'll show you to the rest of the ponies."





The rest of the ponies, as it turned out, barely numbered a dozen, and none of them responded to my prodding, either verbal or physical.  They'd mostly gathered around a large, pod-shaped device.  I walked up to it and stuck my head in, noticing that the interior seemed to glow a slight green.  "Um.  What's this?"

Copper shrugged.  "We call 'em Energizers.  They can restore your body, but they can't fill your stomach.  Run off some sort of Magi-tech.  Last bits of magic left in the world, really."

I declined to go inside, but turned to the mare and shrugged.  "Okay, so...what is this place?  When am I?"

The mare blinked at that but shrugged.  "You're in Trott Dome.  As for when, who knows?  It's the end of the world.  Robots and mutants run rampant around here."

I sighed at that.  Something had happened, and I would need to find out what.  "Any records in this place?"

Copper shrugged.  "Who knows?  Robots roam through a good bit of the dome.  They let us be here, but we can't get at anything.  No controls, no records, no food."

I pulled out a candle and a magic match before lighting the former with the latter.  The eyes of Copper widened at the sight of magic and light being pulled out in this desolate age, and I smiled at the sight.  Apparently, something could break their shell of pessimism.  With my left hand holding the candle, I put the match away and pulled on the handle of my katana.  It glinted crimson in the candlelight, and I recognized that particular shade.  I smirked and looked around, noticing a set of stairs nearby with a sign that, while worn, still had the letters MAIN on the left half of it.  Figuring it was part of the word maintenance, I turned and walked towards them.  Once I was at the stairs, I paused and looked over my shoulder.

"You coming?"

Copper seemed to struggle with the idea for a minute before nodding and following.  "Just so we're clear.  If I die, I'm haunting you, and if you die, I'm running."

"Let's try not to die then, eh?" I quipped.





Not dying was becoming a chore.  The robots were all vaguely pony-shaped but, thankfully, had no wings or horns.  They were, however, capable of delivering one hell of a punch.  Stamped on each one, in raised metal, were the letters MD-05.  And every time I took one down with a quick slice of my Crimson Katana, there would be another one about ten feet away, who'd heard the noise.

I'd barely taken one out the first time before being forced to flee back upstairs and use the Energizer.  I then noticed that I was able to do progressively more and more.  I was learning the basics of swordplay by beating up robots in the basement of this Trott Dome.

And despite the lack of food, I enjoyed the learning experience.  Time, however, began to blur.  It was an endless task of go down stairs, bash robots until I can hardly move anymore, and then go up to the Energizer to restore myself before starting the cycle anew.  Copper, on the other hand, had shown some interest in the scraps of the robots, and pulled out a wrench from within her tattered robes.  Occasionally, I would see her dragging a robotic body upstairs before proceeding to take it apart.

"What are you doing?" she asked one day.  "You know they won't stop."

"Yeah?  Well neither will I.  There has to be a finite number of the things, and when they run out, I'll finally be able to see what's down there.  And what about you?  What are you up to?"

She shrugged before proceeding to unscrew something from the latest robot head that she'd dragged upstairs.  "Learning.  Mom's mom was a mechanic, or so she said.  Passed on what she could to me.  I don't remember all of it, but it's coming back."

It eventually came to pass that when I went downstairs, there were no robots to attack me.  I kept my blade at the ready and looked around, expecting anything to come at me from the shadows.  And while something did come at me from the shadows, it wasn't from the direction I'd thought it would be, nor was it what I thought it would be.

The clip-clop of hooves came down the stairs after me and I turned to see Copper wearing a sort of metallic harness and helmet.  Atop the harness was something that looked like a flamethrower, with controls that extended in front of Copper's mouth.  The helmet had a set of goggles with green lenses in them.  I tilted my head at her, and she kept looking around, expecting something but getting nothing.  "Did you...beat up all the robots?"

I looked around as well and noticed a distinct lack of anything coming at me.  By now there was typically at least one greeter.  "I...maybe?  Funny what being persistent will do.  Why'd you come down here?  I thought you didn't much care for my antics."

She looked down at the ground at that before sighing.  "Yeah...I don't care.  I don't see the point."

And then she looked up at me and glared.  "But you're the best damn thing to have happened in Trott Dome for as long as anyone can remember.  And I'll be damned if I let you go off and get yourself killed before I understand you and why you do the things you do."

I smiled and crouched before setting one hand on her withers.  "Because I have hope.  I remember a time when this wasn't the state of the world.  When the sky was clear, and ponies roamed the streets.  When robots didn't attack ponies."

Copper's mouth gaped slightly at that.  "How?  How can you remember those sorts of things?"

I pulled the Gate Key out and waved it at her.  "Time traveler."

She blinked a few times before actually smiling.  "That's perfect!  All you have to do is go back and fix the problem!"

I shook my head and stuck the Gate Key back in my waistband before securing it.  "Not that easy.  First I need to know what and when the problem happened.  As well, I'm stuck to very specific times.  Unless I find a way to refine my traveling powers, then I'm stuck to very specific points in time and space that I can travel between.  Without a Gate that leads directly to the problem, when and wherever it happened, then I might end up being powerless."

Copper slumped a bit at that, and I lifted her head so that we were looking at each other again.  "But that doesn't mean I'll give up."

She blinked at that and tilted her head.  "What?  Why not?"

I stood up and turned to look down a hallway.  I had no idea if this was the right hallway to be going down, but most of my robotic opponents had come from this hall.  "Because if I don't try, and you don't try, then nothing will get done, will it?"

There was silence for a moment before Copper snorted.  "That 'hope' stuff sounds potent.  Maybe I should give it a try."