My Little Metro: Chapter 9

Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –

The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

And Immortality.

“Yes?” she answered, wrapping her forelegs around me and cuddling her head up under my chin.

Her horn bumped my jaw, but I didn’t mind. We lay together on a hill overlooking the ruins of Stalliongrad. Though we were without our gas masks, each breath I took was full and cool, without any of the awful, lung-tearing pain that usually came from the poisoned air. Overhead boiled an angry, storming sky. Demons swooped back and forth between the lightning bolts, performing feats of aerial acrobatics I’d never seen before.

“Silly,” Starry Gaze said, tracing a circle on my chest with her hoof. “The Sun’s gone forever. She abandoned us long ago. And the Moon died with Canterlot.”

“Never,” she said. “You’re going to die in darkness and shadows. The prophets have no words left, because this is the end of everything.”

I pondered this for a while, letting her lavish her attentions upon me, kissing my cheek and letting her lips brush over the contours of my face. Her breath was wet and warm over my fur. For some reason, I felt her warmth more than I felt the cold of the wind and the snow around us, like it was all in the background.

“Starry Gaze?” I asked. My voice had become slurred, the words heavy and clumsy as she rubbed her body against mine.

“Yes?” she asked, and I noticed she really did have stars in her eyes, and her mane was a lot pinker than I remembered. Her buttery yellow wings swept out and folded us both up in an embrace as cold as death. I put my mouth to her neck, nibbling gently, making her squeak.

“As far as it takes,” the yellow pegasus said with breathless abandon. I pulled back, brushing her lips with mine, eyes half-lidded. She held my face with her hooves, gazing at me with her infinite compassion. Then she let me drop. I fell away, seeing her recede into the shadows, watching me with a far-off, indifferent gaze.

I opened my eyes. All four of my legs were wrapped around a duffel bag in a manner far more intimate than one should be with their supplies. I noticed my mouth was full of one of the straps, and I’d been gnawing on it in my sleep. I spat it out and rolled my tongue around in my mouth, trying to get rid of the dry, velvety taste. In front of me crackled a small fire, over which bubbled a kettle of tea that I didn’t remember either me or Sunny Side preparing.

“Well, well,” Sunny Side said as he appeared directly over me, looking down with a tired grin, “looks like somepony was having a hell of a dream.”

I shoved his face away with my hoof and pushed the duffel bag to the side. I didn’t remember where it came from, nor did I want to know how I’d ended up cuddling it in my sleep. Sunny Side went back to the fire and stoked it gently, scattering ashes about. I didn’t say anything, nor did I want to. The memory of the surface and what had happened there was still terrifyingly fresh. I hadn’t told my friend what really happened to Ray Drop, and he didn’t ask. Just like I didn’t bring up his episode of madness on the surface, and he didn’t turn to me about it. That seemed to be all we needed to say on the subject. It wasn’t as though I bottled it up for the sake of remaining stoic. I simply knew that nothing was going to change what happened. Nothing would reverse the awful finality of that final bite on the trigger, the jolt of a discharging gun that felt stronger and louder than any I’d fired before. It was for the mission, which depended on my survival. But inside, I still felt the sharp prick of guilt, about what I’d done and how I chose to lock it away in my mind like the many memories I pinned to my Wall. I made it a post-it note I’d feel bad about later. And yet they’d been living ponies. Three more lives gone for the sake of my mission. They hadn’t known I didn’t really plan on getting rid of the bandits or breaking any blockades, but they’d died getting us this far regardless.

We were in a large hallway that led towards the platform of the Green Line. The walls were coated in tiles. Some enterprising artist had once tried to make something as droll and drab as a walk in a hall entertaining with pictures of frolicking ponies and magical Princesses, but the overlooked masterpiece was in pieces. Many sections were cracked and fallen, the gaudy mosaic of colors now faded into muted greyness. Far away, wind churned and spun through doors and cracks, swirling down till it echoed through our hall, an empty, hollow noise. And yet in the middle of it I thought I could imagine the buzz of pony conversation, the soft clip-clop of hooves. It wasn’t a big tunnel, just enough to accommodate a large flow of passengers, but it was enough for us to stretch out in. I watched smoke pool under the ceiling and waft gently back towards the surface, still clutching the duffel bag and chewing thoughtfully on the strap. I tried not to think about what I’d been dreaming; the physical pleasure was overshadowed by the confusing words and prophecies.

I sighed and reached out for the tea, taking it off the fire and pouring myself a cup. I still couldn’t recall how it’d gotten there, but I decided it best not to question it. It smelled wonderful, reminding me of home, and it was smooth and gentle going down my throat, washing away my concerns… yes, this was Exiperia level tea.

Tea was such an innocuous thing, and yet it reminded me so much of home I had to take another sip to push down the lump in my throat. The tea would never change at Exiperia, of that I was sure, no matter how many Dark Ones assailed our gates. I’d always have that to look forward to. And yet, in light of recent events even the steaming hot drink couldn’t stave off the chill that settled into my spirit. Good tea was a pleasant, but momentary experience like so many other “small things” in life. Who could bother appreciating the “small things” when I was in a rush to save the life of everypony in my home? The tea didn’t chase off the Dark Ones or the threat they posed, it didn’t stop me from fretting about our route. I took another look around, noticing the shadows the fire cast, noting how deep and dark they were. I could’ve sworn one of them even moved when I looked at it, but I passed it off as my hoof nudging the duffel bag and the excited dancing of the flames. Tea didn’t chase away night terrors like that moving shadow. My gaze kept going until it landed on Sunny Side, who stared towards the Green Line.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted with a sigh. “I thought you were the one with the big mission in mind. And… without Sidewinder…”

“No more about Sidewinder,” I said, sharper than I’d intended. The lanky rust-colored pony had proven all my nasty suspicions and then some, and I didn’t want to waste time thinking about him. I tested my legs, finding my hindquarters had been bandaged and tended to with expert care, though my clothing and flak jacket were even more torn up than ever. I remembered keenly the feel of ghostly teeth ripping into the fabric, pulling, tugging… Sidewinder was the least of my worries now that he’d abandoned us to the mutants and monsters of the Metro.

Instead I felt around in my saddle bags. Hunter’s talisman was still there, but it no longer glowed and buzzed like it did on the surface. I surmised it was some kind of enchantment that reacted when it approached anything made by the Rangers, but it had a remarkably short range. I could wander the tunnels for weeks and never enter that small circle the talisman needed to detect the Ranger base. Then I remembered the strange map that I’d found in Tracer’s hideout and unfolded it, looking it over by the light of the fire while I sipped the tea.

Most maps of the Metro only outlined very dangerous, well known places, such as the radioactive tunnels near Marestra or the locations and movements of the Lunar Republic and their Celestian Monarchy rivals. This map seemed to go into much finer detail. I noticed only now that it’d been drawn, not printed, and to a degree of accuracy that shocked me. In between the stations and the many criss-crossing lines of still usable tunnels, arcane symbols had been scribbled in very small, fine print. Arrows and lines pointed to tunnels and locations I’d never seen or heard about before, added in what I guessed to be Tracer’s blunt, well-organized hoofwriting. The symbols glistened in the firelight, and if I looked close enough, I perceived some of them actually appearing to move around on the paper. My attention was tugged between them, and they seemed to leap off the page in anticipation of my gaze… like they were trying to show me something. Deliberately grab my attention...

Hunter’s talisman buzzed quietly in my saddlebag. I peered closer, losing my sense of time as I pored over the map, trying to glean some kind of clue about where the Ranger base was. I focused my attention on the intersection between Green Line and the Ring, seeing that it’d become crowded with letters and symbols intended for use by the Rangers alone. Something was there, just barely escaping my notice, and it kept slipping in and out of my perception. My mind tightened its grip and the sandy idea crumbled away, but I knew it was still-

I looked up at the same time as Sunny Side, and saw the strange shadow from before move again. That wasn’t the duffel bag’s shadow, but a pony! A pony who’d been sitting right there without either of us noticing? I couldn’t believe it. Sunny Side was just as incredulous and sputtered, pointing a hoof at the stranger.

“We were led?” I asked, and flicked my ears. I didn’t remember being led necessarily, more just… following a feeling… I suddenly began wracking my brain for memory of this pony. It started on the surface, in the snow, just a scant couple hours before. I remembered the horrible, desperate fight on the surface over the body of my friend… that was going to be burned into my memory for a long, long time. I’d keep it with me for years. But suddenly everything was more fragmented. I remembered the strange, dark-clothed pony that came to us and told us to follow them, going down into comfortable darkness, vaguely hearing Sunny Side or somepony suggest we stop and rest. The memory slipped through the cracks in my mind like a dream. But it was certainly this pony.

“No, I was walking along and saw two ponies in need of help. If I really saved you, then you’d have no more problems,” the stranger answered. “Not many things bring me to the forefront, but I perceived you were a special pair. You’re very… noticeable. Like a picture in three dimensions, jumping off the page.”

They tilted their head. It was still covered by the dark-tinted gasmask, so they exaggerated the movement to show their curiosity.

“You know, most ponies aren’t even surprised when they see me again. They just keep talking as if I’d been there all the while…” They fixed their gaze upon me. “You noticed how incongruous I was. You can see more than just the immediate. I think that’s why you’re able to look at the Guide so long… you’re no unicorn, but you’ve definitely got a touch more magic about you than most. You should use that.”

I stared, unable to decide whether this pony was a threat or an ally. Unlike Sidewinder, they’d found us and helped us without any action on our part. They’d offered to help us find a way past the supposedly destroyed Green Line and into the plantations… on the other hoof they were very queer and I wondered if they had some kind of special powers. They might’ve been a unicorn who’d shaved their horn… and I felt my eyelids grow heavy the longer I looked at them. Something was trying to keep me from focusing my mind on their presence. I shivered the more I thought about it. I wondered in a fit of supposition they might’ve been some kind of mass hallucination both me and Sunny Side were experiencing. Honestly, who ran around in almost pure black clothes, hid their face when there was no need, and spoke like they knew things we didn’t?

I noticed quite suddenly how surreal this whole situation was. After escaping a life or death struggle I suddenly found myself here, with good tea, a fire, a duffel bag bursting with… I opened it with my hooves… bursting with food and other supplies! And me without even a memory of when this pony appeared! Who were they and why had they come to us?

“What, are you going to be our new guide? Just like that?” Sunny Side asked. The stranger shrugged.

“You’ve already got a Guide; your friend here just needs to figure out how to read it. Strong magic protects it from unworthy eyes seeing what it really is… it’s a perfectly functional map on its own, but without a key, you won’t see past the enchantments on it, and it’ll never lead you where you really want to go. Of course, with your desirable sight…”

“Who are you?” I asked. My surprise was fading fast, being replaced by annoyance that this pony who’d saved our lives couldn’t even give us the courtesy of an identity.

“Call me nopony, because that’s what I am, though that duffel bag is mine, and I don’t think it appreciated you cuddling it so,” Nopony answered, with a small hint of amusement. I sighed heavily, looking away. Nopony! Great. Nopony followed us, Nopony spoke to us, Nopony had a bag full of food and blankets… this was all far too convenient. The aftertaste of the tea was made bitter by my suspicion, which I knew wasn’t too off base because of Sidewinder’s abandonment.

“Look, we thank you for your help… and we’d be dead right now if not for you,” I said, trying to sound truly grateful. But I’d had enough of mysteries and strange night terrors. I didn’t want a ghost pony following us around on top of everything else. I collected my things and made a great show of getting ready to leave. Where, I didn’t know and didn’t even care at the moment. I just wanted to get away from here, away from the nasty memories of the wrecked surface that clawed at the inside of my mind. Away from this strange pony who’d probably stab us in the back like Sidewinder! “But there’s a lot we have to get done. The eastern plantations are in need of assistance, and, and… and creatures, and the Green Line is destroyed, and we need to go!” I rambled, but I didn’t care. Memories and feelings struggled to be given voice. Ray Drop’s memory pleaded for grieving and regret, my father and Starry Gaze demanded my guilt, Sidewinder pricked me with anger, and the Dark Ones filled me with an awestruck fear. I shoved the lid back down on them all and locked them up tight. I’d deal with them in good time. I needed movement and action to distract me.

“I told you on the surface I know another way,” Nopony responded, gesturing with his hoof. I supposed it was a he, anyway, for the sake of convenience and my sanity. Nopony was a he! And that was final. “If you’d stop pacing and worrying your friend, I could show you.”

I stopped, realizing poor Sunny Side was looking between us both, lost and somewhat confused. I knew the events from a few hours ago must’ve been weighing heavily on his mind, but I didn’t stop to really think about it until now. Sunny Side had nearly gone feather-brained up there. He didn’t need me going crazy too over ghost ponies and directions. And I needed something to keep me going in the face of my fear and my doubt. We both needed a decision.

“Then we will follow you,” I decided. This Guide, which I was sure would show me the Ranger base if I could only break the enchantments (impossible without this “key” Nopony mentioned, or a very strong unicorn), was useless at the present time. I felt jittery and alert, but too much. High strung was a good way of putting it. I checked the locks on my memories and waited for Nopony to get up. He seemed quite content to move at his own slow, leisurely pace, which frustrated me to no end as he slowly picked up the duffel bag and slung it over his shoulders, letting it hang where a saddlebag normally went. The strange pony started down the tunnel and we followed like lost pups. My mind was ever on the mysterious “Guide” and why Nopony had been able to identify it so quickly. Was he a Ranger? I couldn’t see any of the markings that normally indicated he was one. He wasn’t even carrying weapons that I could see, save the tools and knives one might need.

“Remember,” he said, and his voice seemed to be coming from far away even though he was directly ahead, “to stay behind me at all times. If we don’t stay in sight, then you forget I was there, and I can’t guarantee I’d find you again… there are only certain paths in life I am bound to take, and those alone can I walk.”

I did my best to suppress a shudder. I could just pass off this pony as insane, but he’d been able to hide in plain sight by methods I couldn’t explain. Something was very off about this overly helpful pony. Sunny Side, though he still looked worried and unnerved, seemed willing to follow me as long as I followed Nopony. I kept trying to wrap my mind around that; was I really following Nopony? But Sunny Side saw him (her?) too. I decided for now that questioning things wasn’t wise. I didn’t want to look a gift pony in the mouth.

The Green Line was blocked off not far down the tunnel by a huge collapse of debris and dirt, as Sidewinder had said. Perhaps mutants had begun to use it as an entry point and the plantations had had enough. Instead we were led down into a side passage through a rusty old door, into the maze of small hallways and rooms between main lines and stations. We clattered over a catwalk that led over an open sewage pipe, through which still flowed dirty, muddy water. My geiger counter clicked.

Nopony led us to a grate and pulled it back. We clambered down a ladder into darkness. “There is a railcar station not far from here; it was used by the defenders of Heron before they were forced to abandon the entire station.”

“Yes. They were pressed hard by mutants on their northern border and the station has been abandoned… we will bypass Heron and move on to Ponyevskaya. This passage leads to a secondary tunnel we will use to avoid the infested tunnels, and get to the railcar.”

“How do you know Heron has fallen?” I asked, feeling my heart gripped by fear. An entire farm station destroyed didn’t bode well for the food situation in the north. “And why didn’t they send word out? Otzark Bulvard connects to the Hoofsa stations; surely Hoofsa would send help if the plantations were under attack!”

“Not so much,” Nopony answered. “Hoofsa has been determined to be the sole ruler of the Ring since its inception. They desire complete control of trade around the Metro. If other stations must be sacrificed to prove that they are the only ones who can provide for the rest of us, then so be it. You are from a station that has been able to keep out of the wars and politics of the Metro, so you don’t know the lengths ponies go to control one another out here. Hoofsa would sooner let every plantation burn to the ground than help them without a guarantee of subservience afterward.”

I almost gagged at the thought. Hoofsa claimed to be a protector of trade and free flow of goods. I’d heard stories of their power, how they’d fought a war with the New Lunar Republic long ago and won, and managed to push the bandits out of every station from Macinskaya to Elusive. But to hear it so plainly said they’d let the main source of food in the north and most of the Metro be destroyed simply because they couldn’t turn a profit from it?

“You are surprised, don’t be,” Nopony told me. “I have studied ponies all my life. I think it is natural they desire control and security. Though that desire has been blown up to exaggerated proportions here… You have crafted a semblance of civilization and order down here, but deep down, I think you can all feel it. The brokenness. The wrongness. The knowledge that the world is very much out of your control… ponies hate that. They hate it because they fear it, and they fear it because it is unknowable. There is a legend that speaks of a place far to the south, known as the Everfree Forest. It existed in the time of the old world, outside of a small town called Ponyville. Do you know why it was called Everfree? Because like the surface now, it was totally out of pony hooves then. Monsters lurked there. The trees and clouds moved and grew and died all on their own. It was never touched by ponies, save for the brave and the foolish, and was one of the most well known landmarks of old Equestria.”

“I remember,” I said, thinking back to my Wall. “I have pictures. It… looked… better… than what we have now.”

“Any good green forest is better than radioactive ice and snow, I agree,” said Nopony. “But the point is ponies were afraid of it. They wouldn’t touch it and they wouldn’t go near it if they had a choice, because they saw such anarchy and danger as unnatural. But what did they care? They had all of Equestria to roam and live in peace. But now Equestria is gone. And now the world is Everfree. And so we are afraid, and we do desperate, terrible, awful things when we are afraid. Hoofsa, the Monarchy, the Republic, Bucklyn… you two. You’ve done strange and terrible things to get here. And you are driven by fear. Wherever you are going, your fear is pushing you on.”

Sunny Side hung his head and sighed. I looked at him with pity. My hoof touched my light charger and pumped it. Just to make sure. The area we traveled in was pitch black, and I knew if we took our eyes off Nopony for just a moment, he’d vanish into thin air like Sidewinder. I began to seriously ponder the merits of what our one-time ally had said about earth magic and how it helped him to scurry about and blend in. Had this strange pony unlocked the secrets too, and used them to stay hidden?

“If we weren’t afraid, we’d be foolish,” I said quietly. “We’d just stand there and let the danger destroy us.”

“I’m not talking about being afraid of mutants. That simple drive to preserve oneself is always going to be there, and it’s saved my life more than once. I mean real, soul-crushing fear. The primal kind that reaches into a part of your mind you barely even touch. The fear of the Everfree Forest, and all that it implies… that is the fear that is destroying us.”

“How do you know so much about this?” Sunny Side asked. “You some kind of seer?”

I turned to look at him. Seers were usually just tricksters and hustlers looking to make a quick bullet. He shrugged.

“I heard stories, you know. Usually they were unicorns, of course… ponies that could look into the future and use their magic to divine secrets from our hearts!”

“Well, no. But every station claims to have one that I know of… they never show them off. Just say they have them.”

“That is because the real ones know to stay hidden and never let their talents be known. A pony who truly has such power comes to one of two conclusions: that they must take responsibility and only allow themselves to use those powers for something greater than themselves, or they become greedy and selfish, manipulating those around them.”

“So they’re real?” Sunny Side asked, hopping forward like a colt at story time.

“Many things are real that I hoped were not, and many things do not exist that I wish did,” Nopony answered. Sunny Side fell back a few steps, looking sullen and dissatisfied. This Nopony seemed intent on making everything they said seem grand and mysterious, but I still had my lingering doubts.

And then we came to a certain door in a certain part of the back tunnels. There wasn’t anything special about the door. It was just a simple metal door in a simple concrete wall. The room we were in was just a simple, empty square. An abandoned drake’s nest was in one corner. But something made my ears perk up and twitch and my mane bristle. Perhaps the charm that had been set on the wall near the door was what did it. The charm itself also appeared simple and innocuous. Nothing more than a little circle of twisted metal and rebar, with a small sprite-light set in the middle. I felt a tingle as I approached it.

“Please keep the lights on while we are here,” Nopony said, passing over my question. “This particular tunnel has not been used in a long time, and I doubt the plantations have sent guardponies this far north to scout out their extra tunnels.”

“But you said this tunnel will help us avoid the mutants,” Sunny Side pointed out.

“Yes. It will help us avoid the mutants,” Nopony answered, and I felt a chill swim down my spine. He pushed open the door and peered up and down the tunnel.

“Please keep your lights on at all times,” he repeated quietly, though I didn’t know who he thought would overhear us. “It seems to have grown worse than the last time I passed through it.” He turned to me, and I could very vaguely discern the shape and brightness of his eyes beneath his gasmask. “Do consult your Guide. It will help us here, I think.”

I quickly pulled it out, feeling strangely determined to heed his advice. How did he know whether this tunnel had gotten ‘worse’ without even looking inside? The Guide didn’t give me much to go on while I pored over it in the dark, though I did get that strange swimming feeling from before. The symbols remained mostly unknown to me, but I could clearly see that this particular tunnel had… nothing wrong with it.

“Hmm?” Nopony shook his head as he looked down at the Guide. “No, my friend! Can’t you see? This here?” He pointed at the line we occupied, the secondary tunnel that stretched out from behind Heron and curled back towards the Ponyevskaya-Compass line. “It’s marked clearly as dangerous!”

I looked at the Guide. The small tunnel we were in had no markings, and nothing on it that I could see that made it particularly imposing. We just had this pony’s word and the strange chill in my spine to go on. I showed it to Sunny Side.

“Makes about as much sense as an explosion in a tile factory,” he said after a cursory glance, being even more lost than I was.

Nopony looked agitated, stomping a hoof. “Are you willing to see or not? Bah, never mind! It might show itself in due time. Just stay close to me, at my back, and keep the lights on at all times.”

He led us into the tunnel. It was a dark and lonely place, clearly having never seen use, or even felt the steps of ponies, for many years. Cobwebs hung in thick clumps from the ceiling, and radioactive mushrooms sprouted from various damp patches on the ground. The wires were withered and exposed, the pipes rusted and failing.

We wandered through the deserted corridor, saying nothing to each other. I and Sunny Side stayed at Nopony’s back like he instructed, and I kept my light on him at all times, though my eyes followed the faint spot of Sunny Side’s headlamp tracing the long, dilapidated snakes of wire and pipeline. The walls had been punctured by the roots of alien trees from the city above in some places, and dirt had piled up and over the tracks where they had. The twisting, gnarled roots appeared to me to be the appendages of some long lost creature forgotten by time, sending its tendrils through the Metro in a slow, eternal search for something only it could sense down deep in the earth. Our hoofsteps echoed through the silent hall yet nothing and nopony called out an alarm, no mutant growled that we’d intruded on their turf. There were no bodies here, no spent bullet casings or any sign that any life came through here at all. The floor was empty; the walls were bare, save for the undulating trunks of twisted trees.

Sunny Side and I kept giving each other sidelong glances, as if to reassure one another that we were still there. The darkness here, apart from our headlights, was total. Everywhere those thin white beams didn’t reach there could have been anything, or nothing. I remembered Sidewinder’s story about the unicorn who vanished into nothingness, and stories of hapless Stalkers who’d dared to break the rules and also slipped out of all reality. And the darkness seemed to creep into my mind, darkening my already bleak thoughts, crushing the weak hope that’d been dying ever since we’d been abandoned on the surface. It seemed the darkness was a presence in itself, surrounding us, yet there was never anything there. Nothing but the dank, horrible silence that filled my senses and roared against my eardrums. I knew it was nothing but night terrors, the instinctual imagination of ponies who need to know what’s there, but I could barely stop the fear gnawing at my insides and the darkness was overpowering. Something was wrong with the way it seemed to cloud around us as a thick body instead of just a lack of light. It teased us, dodging away from our thin little lights and returning the moment we glanced away, hovering over our shoulders and poking our backsides, looming overhead at the front. The chill grew worse until I began shivering in my boots, and Nopony turned to look at me. I could’ve sworn that somehow that dark, blank gaze was self-satisfied.

“Ah, you don’t see it, but you can still feel it!” he whispered. “That’s good. You have a rare talent my friend, and I think I should like to see you live to use it.”

“Why’s Lockbox get all the special ghost-sensing powers?” Sunny Side mumbled as we continued on into the darkness of the tunnel. “First the anomaly and now this with the haunted tunnel…”

“I don’t have any powers, all right?” I blurted out, frustrated. Couldn’t they feel how wrong this place was?! Why were talking in such level tones when the dark itself was coming to get us? “I don’t know how I felt the anomaly coming, I just did! Fuck it, we aren’t even supposed to be here! I’m not supposed to be here! We’re just three crazy ponies in this sick fucking tunnel with no idea where they’re going or what’s ahead!”

Both of them didn’t breathe a word for a time after that. Oppressive silence fell on us again. The silence was so pervasive my mind began to exaggerate whatever sounds I heard, and I found myself very thankful that I wasn’t alone. Even if the sound was a mutant howling our death, I began to grow desperate to hear something, anything. Every hoofstep, every puff of our breath was a salve on my burning ears. I had to hear, I had to see, otherwise my companions might disappear and the darkness would swallow me up. I watched Sunny Side and Nopony closely, the former seeming as terrified as I was, his eyes darting here and there, his breathing deep and even in a desperate attempt to stay calm. Nopony took this suffocating darkness the best of us, taking calm, measured steps. Were it not for the tell-tale sucking sound of air going in and out through a filter, I’d never even know he was breathing.

I froze. Something… something just tickled the very edge of my consciousness. A vague thought, a notion, a tremor that sent the whole of my high-strung senses quivering with anticipation, like a spider senses a twitch in its web. Except even though I was the spider, I was blind and deaf too, and I knew it wasn’t a harmless fly that pricked my web. I stood still, coiled, ready… only then did I notice Nopony stopped moving exactly when I did.

“That!” I said. I barely even knew how to describe to myself what it was, how could I tell the others!

“Hush,” Nopony soothed, and kept walking. Sunny Side took it as a dismissal of my alarm and shook his head.

“Lockbox, come on, stop imagining things, we’re under enough stress as it is,” he said, louder than he should have. I wanted to slap him. I knew what I felt… didn’t I?

I began to match Nopony’s steps as I continued on, wondering if the way he walked let him hear the dangers of the Metro. Had he been right about the Guide? Was I just a blind, deaf and dumb spider at the center of his tangled web, feeling only nudges and ripples of the truth? Or was I just letting my imagination run away with me? Celestia, where is your light when we need it… where is Luna, who rules the darkness and keeps ponies safe as they travel through the shadows that belong to her? Dead, dead and gone! Nothing but creeping things and mutants rule the night now, and the daylight hides itself from us… curse this darkness.

And there it was again. I’d been watching Nopony closely, and this time I was certain that he stopped the moment that strange feeling swept over us again.

“You heard it!” I blurted out, desperate for some support this time, some affirmation I wasn’t just going insane. “You heard it didn’t you?!”

“Just keep shining your light if you give a fuck about your life!” Nopony hissed back at me. Sunny Side gulped and huddled closer to me, throwing his light this way and that.

“Hallucinations,” he said quietly. “Lockbox, you don’t feel the way you did when the anomaly came-”

“Fuck you, all right? What are you, deaf?” I snapped without meaning to. The darkness clouded my thoughts, pressing in on all sides. Something rumbled in the deep shadows, traveling down the pipes. I heard one of them shake in its moorings.

“Okay… that I noticed,” Sunny Side said, his wings sprouting from his sides. I put out a hoof to keep him steady. I wasn’t going to lose him to that particular insanity again.

“Keep moving!” Nopony warned us, and I heard his voice as it came from far, far away… he seemed to be much further along the tunnel than us. Or was he? It took me only five steps to catch up again. Or was it ten? The distance seemed to stretch out before my eyes. The spot of light on the wall of the tunnel from my headlamp seemed to be further away than before.

“Lockbox, what… what the hell is…” Sunny Side swayed on his hooves and staggered, but I was there to catch him. I pointed my Mule backwards, into the dark, waiting for something to come at us. But nothing did.

“Do not listen to the pipes,” Nopony exclaimed, beside me suddenly. “They sing only sad songs.” He propped his head against Sunny Side’s shoulder and helped pull him along. I watched the darkness closing in around us. Wait a minute. It was actually closing in! The darkness… the shadows… I could see them creeping around us, moving like they had some kind of awful intelligence all their own. Wherever I shined my light they retreated, but… somehow even when the light wasn’t there, I could see it. Feel it. I felt tiny claws pricking my hide through my barding, felt fingers rasping through my mane. I shook them off and struggled to keep moving.

I told myself that the earth was with me. But when I tried to summon the magic, something felt wrong. It was far away. Everything felt so far away. I even felt myself begin to slip away from my own body, as if my mind was slowly crawling out of my skin. I felt nothing but cold slush beneath my hooves. Earth magic couldn’t help me against this.

“What the fuck is going on!” I cried, but no answer came. I began to stagger as I went, beginning to hyperventilate. My body shivered and I felt queasy.

“Something’s happening,” I mumbled, feeling like I was walking through a thick sludge. I looked down and saw that I was indeed walking through thick sludge. How… disgusting. Where’d it come from, anyway? Was that an eyeball floating in there?

“What’s happening is you’re not concentrating on your survival!” Nopony’s shout dragged me back to reality. The dark pony had somehow come right up next to us, and in the grip of near hysteria I must not have noticed. In an instant the sludge felt less like blood and body parts and more like normal sewage. The darkness was ordinary lack of light, and I no longer felt the terror of something dark and scary pursuing us. “If you can’t keep a level head on your shoulders then I swear I will leave you here! Quit panicking.”

I turned and looked at his blank, black visor. So dark and empty like the darkness around us. But it didn’t crawl over his face and leap out to get me… in fact, nothing did. I shined my light behind us, certain to find some horrible creature loping along to devour us. My light pierced the infinite gloom and showed me darkness there, and nothing more. I looked ahead again, my heart still racing. Nothing was there. Absolutely nothing. I didn’t know if I’d truly been hallucinating or something awful had just nearly taken our lives. All I was certain of was Sunny Side slowly coming to, having definitely been under some kind of ill effect to make him almost pass out. Yet he’d still walked with us, as though in a daze…

“You did,” I answered. “Or… we did. We are. Let’s just keep walking.”

I wasn’t sure how much longer we ‘just kept walking.’ The tunnel’s bleakness stretched on and on, and I wondered if we weren’t caught in some of vicious anomaly that looped our paths over and over again. I couldn’t tell if any of what I saw was something I’d passed before. The same looking bundles of wires and pipes stretched interminably, while the sludge beneath our hooves remained still and cold and stagnant. All I knew was that the strange feeling that’d nearly overwhelmed me before was gone, for now, but something still didn’t feel right. My stomach still felt nauseous, exactly like when we’d faced the anomaly, and the darkness was still extremely unnvering.

“It is what it is,” he said. “These tunnels are full of death… ponies who crowded them in the final days of the War, desperately seeking shelter from the bombs. Trains that crashed when the city fell, and the countless others who died in the tunnels in the years after. Each and every tunnel now has had at least one pony die in them, not even counting the Diamond Dogs that scrabble at the edge of our society. I have been studying the phenomena that inhabit these tunnels. What you just experienced could’ve been anything, but I would say it was the voices of the dead.”

“Pshaw!” Sunny Side gasped, and I could tell he was frightened. “Anomalies and psychic mutants I can take, but ghosts?”

“They are all around us, even when we don’t feel them,” Nopony answered quietly. His low, distorted voice echoed eerily through the tunnel, seeming to rebound and come back to us, and we heard the echo instead of his actual voice. “The poor souls trapped here have nowhere to go. This plane is still finite… one day our world will end, you see… but they are still souls that cannot be destroyed, nor can they move on. Their torment will last forever, so long as this world remains dead and broken. It would seem their supplications do not reach the afterlife, if the afterlife does still exist. Their voices instead echo through the pipes and the tunnels, you see… I have heard them more than once.”

“Why do you believe the War happened?” I asked, believing the question to be very important for some reason.

“Ignorance,” he said. “Ignorance of the world’s true nature, of the true nature of ourselves… we’d forgotten who and what we were. The Princesses were ignorant of what their real duty was, or they’d chosen to forget.”

“What do you think happened to them?” I wondered. The questions came unbidden, and they at least helped keep my mind off the creeping darkness all around us.

“… I do not like to think of such things,” Nopony answered. “But I think the answer we can all settle on is that they are no longer here to help us. I would say it is very likely they are both dead, or at the least their influence no longer ripples through the world as it once did.”

“Do you think we’re all that’s left on the earth?” Sunny Side asked. “That we really are the last city?”

“Who can say?” Nopony answered. “It certainly isn’t something I think about. The Metro is all we have. All we know. And even that is now under threat.”

I tilted my head and sniffed. Did Nopony know about the Dark Ones? Or was he just talking in generalities about the mutants and the other factions? I felt as though my thoughts were like this tunnel: endless, dark, and without any answers.

We all trotted towards it, eager to be out of this strange deathtrap. It was a tiny, almost pitiful parasprite-light that hung over another of those circular charms, which decorated a rusty old door. One of the many bundles of pipelines that threaded their way through this horrid tunnel came to a stop at the door, curving into the wall and disappearing on its strange, unseen journey. I noticed that one of the pipes had burst open at one of the valves, and gaped obscenely at us through a jagged maw.

Nopony approached it and put an ear to the opening, and then nodded with satisfaction.

“Yes,” he said, and pushed open the door. “It’s as I feared. We should go, now. There is nothing we can do for them.”

“Them?” I asked. “The dead? But there was nothing in this tunnel. Just… fear. We saw no ghosts.”

“Precisely,” Nopony answered, holding the door for Sunny Side as he all but leaped through, eyes wide and eager to be away from this surreal place. “There is nothing in this tunnel.”

I looked further down, past the doorway where we’d stopped. I pumped my light up to maximum brightness, and saw the faint beam disappear down into the tunnel’s depths. If this was just a secondary tunnel, I realized it was an extraordinarily long one.

“Yes,” Nopony answered. “In normal construction, this tunnel would have joined its brothers by now.”

“I have no idea,” he said at last. “I have never gathered the courage to go further than this doorway.”

I felt a chill as Nopony stepped away, leaving me alone. I stared at the opening in the pipeline, wondering what he’d heard. I was still monumentally confused about whether this tunnel was truly dangerous or not… and I resolved to find out for myself. If Nopony said I could hear and see things that nopony else could, then why not?

Without giving fear time to halt my legs, I stepped up to the opening and boldly thrust my ear towards it.

I felt almost cheated, even regretful as I stepped away again, my ears still tingling, waiting, desperate to hear something, anything… anything to confirm mine and Nopony’s suspicions. I almost wanted there to be a horrible thing, just so it would remove this awful tension, this... emptiness.

It didn’t answer me. Its hole continued to gape, dull and dark as it would be for all time, with nopony around to even hear the quiet. I took one last look up and down the empty tunnel filled with nothingness and silence. I wasn’t afraid anymore… just lonely, and very, very sad. What Nopony said was true.

“Ah, shit!” Sunny Side yelped, jumping at a drake that leaped from behind a crate, sending an empty can falling as it went. I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wanted to grab every moment of normalcy ever since the journey in that strange tunnel, but I knew that poor Sunny Side was still very high strung. I wondered how he was handling this journey, and his moment of insanity on the surface. Still, he hadn’t come to me about it, so I wondered if it needed discussing at all.

We were nearing the railcart station that would take us all the way into Ponyesvkaya. Nopony had said nothing ever since we left the haunted tunnel, and I didn’t press him for more information. He seemed distracted, perhaps focused on finding the way out. We traveled in pitch blackness once again, winding through tiny side corridors and passing by small, forgotten rooms inhabited only by radioactive mushrooms, and the occasional skeleton or two. We found only one dead pony, a unicorn, their body long since rotted away and their bones scattered by scavengers. Judging by the hole in his skull, he’d done himself in. I found the pistol not far away, with still six bullets left in the magazine.

Nopony asked to look at my Guide only once more, and seemed satisfied with what he saw.

“Look, you see?” he asked, pointing at it again. “There is our mode of transportation... it is marked clearly enough that even you can see it.”

Ever since the tunnel had proven to be empty and devoid of the danger the Guide had promised Nopony, I was skeptical of the Guide’s powers. But this time, the signal seemed to reach me much quicker than before. Hunter’s talisman buzzed, and I saw a small mark on the map, written as a tiny magical rune. I was shocked and overjoyed when I found out what it meant:

“Stay here, you two. I will scout the rest of the way and make sure the railcar is even still there...”

That left me to pore over the map to see if more of its secrets would reveal themselves to me. deduced that somehow, the talisman Hunter gave me was altering my perception in some way, using magic to help me decipher the secrets of the Rangers. But why me? Why now? Was it supposed to do that, or was I just caught in some incredibly lucky malfunction? And why hadn’t Sunny Side noticed any of it, whenever the talisman flared up to guide me? I thought back on what Nopony said about the voices of the dead, and the spiritual side of me almost wanted to believe that Hunter was speaking to me from beyond the grave with his talisman. But that was rubbish, because I didn’t even know if he was dead. Perhaps it was some kind of Ranger secret they would divulge when I finally found them...

I was distracted by the sound of weeping nearby. Fretful it was a ghost I raised both my light and my gun. It was Sunny Side, his face buried in his forelegs. I was frozen, uncertain what to do.

“I’m sorry, Lockbox,” he blurted out. I tilted my head, and my heart softened just a bit.

“Sorry? What for?” I asked. “You’ve been nothing but a good friend and constant companion.”

“No, no...” he moaned. “No. The surface. I almost left you. I almost... I almost....”

I gave him a moment to catch his breath as he dropped into inconsolable, gasping coughs and sobs.

“I almost destroyed myself,” he whispered. “I didn’t even know what came over me. I barely even remember it. I just remember the sky... it was so close... I felt I could smell it, Lockbox! Smell the sun and the fresh air beyond the clouds!”

“You know there is no fresh air left up there. Even beyond the clouds,” I whispered. He nodded brokenly.

“I know. I know... but the point is I wasn’t a strong pony. Like I’d told Ray Drop. I joined the militia because I thought I could actually do something for my station. Make my parents proud. Be somepony that Starry Gaze would...”

He trailed off. I gave him an encouraging nod, hoping my silence was understanding instead of guilt-inducing. He needed to say these things.

“Gosh, I miss her,” he whispered. “She had kind words for almost everypony, you know? Not just you. She just wants to be happy, like the rest of us. I joined the militia to help ponies, you know? But I almost died... I almost killed myself because...”

He trailed off again, hiding his face. “I wanted to do it, Lockbox! I wanted to just... fly away. Leave it all behind. My head was full of all these crazy, crazy thoughts, and I knew they were crazy but I wanted to do them anyway!”

“Well, that’s why they call it feather-brained,” I said with a shrug. I stood up and went to sit next to him. “Sunny Side, I am not very good with words. But I can tell you this. I don’t blame you for what happened. You shouldn’t blame yourself either. This world is hard on all of us. Stronger ponies than us die every day. Moments of weakness... they just happen. You know I’ve had many on this trip. But the point is you are my friend, and I am yours. As long as that never changes, then I think we will be all right.”

I touched his shoulder with my hoof. “We’ve taken care of each other so far. I don’t plan on changing that.”

Sunny Side nodded quietly. I don’t think I helped as much as I wanted to, but his grief seemed to pass.

“Thank you, Lockbox,” he murmured. “You... you are a good pony. And I am glad we’re friends... sometimes I think that’s all we ponies have left.”

I almost told him the truth about Ray Drop right then. Almost. But it remained locked away, like so many other things.

Nopony came to fetch us a few minutes later, and we piled onto the railcart he showed us to. It was a cobbled together vehicle, crafted by Metro ponies and rickety to the point of being unsafe. The engine sputtered as Nopony literally kicked it to life, and a single sprite-light hung at the front. No fancy electrical headlights for this car. I noticed the driver seat was an old wooden chair with a dumpy cushion wrapped in tacky flower pattern cloth. It was faded and ugly, and creaked as Nopony sat on it. As the cart trundled forward, bouncing and jerking, I gulped and grasped the railcar’s thin, scrap metal sideplates tight, as it to keep them from wobbling off.

Naturally, Sunny Side elected to fly overhead, until he almost bonked into a low-hanging pipe. He dropped down next to me after that. We traveled in complete silence, listening to the clack of the wheels on the rails, and the worrisome coughs of the engine. It reminded me of home, and all our improvised, scratch-made comforts, and so I didn’t disturbed the silence. I just looked forward and enjoyed the ride. It was a small, well-deserved time of peace and quiet.

I was surprised when Nopony spoke up. I’d all but forgotten he was there in the last few minutes. His own brand of magic at work, I supposed.

“I haven’t been to Ponyevskaya in some time, so I am uncertain what the current situation is,” he said. “But I can tell you the plantations have always been an unfriendly lot. They know how important they are, and being important means they are almost always under threat. They are reclusive and only communicate through their supply caravans... they jealously guard their unicorns from Hoofsa, and the Guild of Magic hates them because they are good at magic, yet won’t share their trade secrets. Very family oriented lot, the farmers are.”

“I’ve also been thinking about you boys’ journey. You don’t work for Bucklyn, do you?”

We froze and went silent, perhaps the exact wrong thing to do if you want to hide something.

“I thought so,” said Nopony. “The plantations aren’t your final destination. You’ve got something much bigger in mind.”

“Tell me. Wherever it is you are going... is it where you truly hope to end up? Or is it the only path you think is available?”

The entrance to Ponyevskaya was a forbidding place. We stopped at the old north section of the station, which had been mostly abandoned. We’d deliberately tripped several magical alarms coming in, which was unavoidable and we didn’t want to give the defenders a surprise anyway. We’d be greeted with guns, but it was worth it for not being shot up on sight by surprised guards. The railcart was left behind at the hundred meter mark, though I took the sprite-light and held it in front of me, praying that it’d be enough to identify us as ponies and not mutants. Many magical traps were indiscriminate, and I didn’t know how thoroughly they’d enchanted their northern borders since Heron had been destroyed. We also traveled without passports, and would likely have to bluff our way inside. It was times like this I sorely missed the presence of a unicorn... my mind went back to Starry Gaze. She’d certainly be able to read the glyphs and let them know we weren’t a threat.

The tracks split into two around a large central island. Swooping arches and pillars gave the area a semblance of dignity and importance, but as trains no longer ran through here, it had been converted into a fortress. We stopped just in front of a formidable network of metal spikes rammed into the ground along with other obstacles, and called out.

I saw a light flare up farther down on the island. Both tracks had been almost completely walled off by barricades and makeshift gates, with the raised island in the middle acting as the base of a squat guard tower. A spotlight swung its light towards us, and a loud, gruff voice answered us.

We came forward and hopped up onto the island until we looked directly up into the guard tower. From beneath the gunner’s nest a thin rope bridge swung down, and several ponies pointed or floated guns directly towards us. I was the first up the little bridge and was immediately blocked by a big, tough earth pony with a welder’s mask acting as a helmet. He was a lean, muscular fellow with a mean squint in his eyes.

“We want to go through,” I said. “We’re here to scout out the situation on Bucklyn’s authority.”

“Fuck them,” the earth pony growled. “You came from the north, that used to be Heron.”

“We used an alternate entrance on the surface because of the bandits in the tunnels east of here,” I explained. “There was no other way.”

“Though you didn’t make it easier blowing up the Green Line like you did,” Sunny Side interjected.

“Well we don’t believe you, and we don’t give two shits if you were boss enough for the surface! You’ve got no papers you’re from Bucklyn, and to hell with Bucklyn anyway. They weren’t there for us when the bandits and mutants came! So you’re only two travelers wanting to get into our station. That’s five cartridges for the two of you and another three each for bringing in weapons.”

“Half a magazine to get into the gate!” Sunny Side objected behind me. “On whose authority?”

“Ours, you featherbrained pissant,” the earth pony grumbled, and jabbed his weapon towards us. All of his fellows seemed equally surly and unfriendly. “Pegasi aren’t too common in these parts. You better keep your head down.”

I felt a sudden urge to shoot this puffed up guardpony, leeching off travelers while stations all around us suffered. A sudden indignant rage welled up inside me, that familiar anger at being called useless or being forced to accept what others side. My mission was noble and just, and this pony only cared about lining his pockets.

“And just to make sure you aren’t bandits we should confiscate your things as well. Ain’t that right?” the guard said, and turned his head just to the side to speak to his fellows.

I seized my chance, driven by anger. Leaping forward I shoved myself into arm’s reach of the other earth pony, imagining myself to be a great hill that was tumbling down. My chest collided with his with a meaty thump, and his eyes widened along with my own as I felt myself dig into the ground, push upwards... and lift. We were both on our hind legs with my head jammed up under his chin, chest to chest, and I quickly slapped my Mule down to the ready position so the barrel pushed painfully into his neck.

I heard the clamor of ponies yelling and Sunny Side barking something angrily, but I didn’t care. I’d been through too much for one ugly bastard of a guard to extort me. My family was in danger, my whole station was in danger, and I couldn’t be delayed by something like this. I didn’t give a bit about this pony or his family, which my anger extended to. They must have all been mean and ugly like him to produce such an unfriendly creature. I was sick of things not going my way, and apparently my earth magic had agreed with me, giving me the strength to lift this jerk almost clean off the ground.

“So, then,” I whispered heatedly into the fur of his neck, working the trigger into my mouth. “You don’t think we’re boss enough? Well I have a whole magazine here for your toll, and I think it’s going right into your brains...”

The earth pony seemed rather unmoved, or tried to be. He sniffed disdainfully. “So what, kid? You gonna shoot me? Forfeit your life? What’ve you got that’s so damn important?”

“Lockbox, they’re just bullets! For Luna’s sake!” Sunny Side gasped behind me.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to yell at them and point them down the tunnel I’d just come, at the dark secrets that threatened to swallow us all up. Of course they were just bullets, that was the point! There were so many more important things to know about! The Dark Ones were coming, and I found I didn’t care if they wiped this entire station off the map purely because of this one grouchy guard pony. Just the thought of his smug little squint being victorious over me was almost too much to handle. Didn’t they know? Didn’t they see how terrible they were being to us and each other? I’d been manipulated and left for dead, led three ponies to their deaths, been abandoned and had my life threatened more times than I could count in the space of a few days, and I had to bow down to this stupid, insignificant-

But wasn’t I the one who thought all ponies were significant? I blinked rapidly as I suddenly seemed to realize what I was doing. I shoot this pony, threaten his life and then what? I get...

I get nothing. I let out an audible sigh as I remembered a beautiful smile framed in yellow and pink, strong cyan eyes staring me down in disappointment.

Regardless, I still held the gun to the other pony’s chin, if only because he refused to be intimidated and I refused to back down after threatening him. I wasn’t about to be the weak one in this confrontation.

“I don’t think all this violence is necessary,” said a familiar voice. Everypony turned to look at Nopony, showing no reaction on their faces to him suddenly appearing next to me and my hostage. As if he’d been there the whole time. As if he was a trusted member of the station... then I realized I didn’t remember him coming with us into the station at all. Had he even been driving the railcart? Just what strange magic did this pony exert on us all?

“Surely we can work out a compromise,” he said, and fixed me with a stare through his gasmask. I grunted with anger and pushed the barrel of my gun up under the other pony’s chin a little more, satisfied to at last see his eyes widen a bit in fear. That’s what I wanted to see. I’d gotten what I wanted. I’d gladly pay a toll now.

“... Four,” the earth pony growled. I nudged him with my Mule’s barrel again and he gasped. “Fine, fine, fucking three!”

I gently lowered my weapon and stepped back. The guard looked like he wanted to knock my block off, and I felt glad to oblige him to a fight, but then Nopony stepped forward again. I felt a noticeable change in the air. A shift in momentum towards the dark-clothed pony, like an invisible change in some sort of tide. The guard pony actually lowered his eyes and mumbled something noncommittal as I fished out nine cartridges for their ridiculous toll, jamming it into one of his saddlebags. Nopony dropped off a tin of canned food.

“For emotional injuries,” he explained, and all three of us passed the miserable little group of guards, who’d only gotten half of what they’d wanted. I didn’t care. I managed to exert a little authority, which was saying something in the Metro. I tried to feel satisfied and proud I’d at last showed some spine for myself. Instead I felt nothing except a little queasy from the adrenaline rush.

The back of the guard tower led back down onto the twin tracks which disappeared into Ponyevskaya, which had the fortune of being quite spacious due to extra construction of tunnels and side passages. The plantations were sprawling places, with several layers to them. Most of this space, I presumed, was taken up by the plantations, where they tended specialized magical crops and the few livestock animals that were still with us. The entire operation hung continuously on a knife’s edge, as the slightest disturbance could ruin whole harvests due to bad soil, radiation leaks, lack of water, too little care, too much care, the wrong or right treatments and magical spells being delivered at the wrong or right times. Say what I would about the friendliness of their guards, the farmers took their work seriously and had managed to deliver for many years, and their important place in the northern tunnels was appreciated. Most of what they grew was mushrooms and the strange new plants that could flourish underground. Milk was at a premium everywhere all the time, because in these four (well, now three) stations the only known population of cows remained.

We came into the main body of the station. The tracks we followed went under huge iron doors, then split further until the island between them became a sort of station unto itself, a large open area crowded by ramshackle living spaces constructed over market stalls. Two train cars had been laid on top of each other on one set of tracks and glowed with activity. Ponies bustled back and forth, all of them looking dour and harassed. To the left and right of the great hall, which extended across both tracks and the island, were wide staircases that led into other areas of Ponyevskaya where it seemed the farms must be. The entire area was lit by magic, with only a smattering of electric lamps and lightbulbs. I also smelt the faint scent of kerosene.

I saw a cow being led gently by a harness through the crowd, a unicorn holding it with her magic. The cow looked dull and dumb, and looked neither left nor right.

“The destruction laid down by the War affected minds as well as bodies,” Nopony said quietly, though I didn’t see where he was speaking from. “Cows once could talk and think like us. But the ones on the surface were changed by the radiation and war spells before they could be brought down... they are no longer sentient creatures like they once were.”

“How sad,” Sunny Side whispered. I turned away and noticed all the dark glares we were getting. Outsiders weren’t welcome here. Family oriented ponies. Selfish, I thought. I wanted to find out what was going on and get out of here as soon as possible.

“We should keep heading south, to Compass and Percherovskaya, and then Otzark Bulvard,” I said. “Perhaps there we can get a message to Bucklyn.” If I still felt like delivering it. I sighed heavily. We kept going back and forth, all around... never closer to Ponyopolis. I resolved not to be distracted again. I had to keep moving... if all these stations were going to keep asking for help and snubbing me when I risked my life, then I’d just have to stop thinking of helping them until my mission was over.

“Guards are following us,” I heard Nopony’s voice in my ear. “Or, well, you. They will probably be wanting to interview you or take you to the mayor.”

“They should come to us,” I said with sniff. “We’re the ones who risked our necks getting here.”

I took another look and saw that most of the ponies seemed high strung, or bored. They were under siege from mutants and bandits and probably had nothing to look forward to but the next daily grind, performing their everyday duties until the next assault came. I knew if mutants had been tenacious enough to force Heron to be abandoned, they’d be coming for Ponyevskaya next. I heard the soft mumble of conversation from above; the ramshackle construction continued overhead, covering the roof here, meaning ponies lived right on top of each other. It reminded me in some ways of Exiperia, just more open. The same tightly drawn, anxious faces were here, the same concerns. Yet we thought so differently from one another, and just a few minutes before I’d wished this whole station would die just so my mission could be a little easier.

“It’s not going to be easy getting through the other stations,” Sunny Side warned. “Not if they aren’t expecting or wanting visitors from Bucklyn. Or if they even believe that we’re from there.”

“We will have to proceed with caution,” Nopony warned. “Clearly these ponies are very worried, though I would be too if an entire station nearby has been annihilated.”

“I know what to do!” Sunny Side said, rearing up. I looked at him in surprise... then saw where he was looking. An earth pony was cooking soup and mushrooms nearby in large metal drums, stirring them with a bored expression. Sunny Side was regarding the steaming food with naked desire. I punched his shoulder.

“What?” he asked after he noticed the stare I gave him. “We haven’t eaten since we were on the surface, and tea doesn’t really fill you up...”

“As long as you are here, you might as well have real food,” Nopony suggested. “My supplies are only palatable in emergencies.”

“I suppose you have a point,” I muttered, and headed to the food vendor with him.

The earth pony noticed us approaching and quickly backed away from his stall. He looked back and forth as if trying to signal some kind of intervention, but he stayed still when all the other ponies kept ignoring us, carting crops and dirt and manure between the two large stairwells.

“Just a couple bowls of soup, that’s all,” Sunny Side asked. “We’ll pay. And, um... some soggyweed if you have it.”

“It’s for Ponyevskaya ponies only,” the cook grumbled. “I don’t deal with foreigners.”

I wasn’t willing to give up more cartridges to these selfish cheapskates, but I pulled out my store regardless. The sight of a full magazine made the cook’s eyes widen.

“Three each,” I said, noting the sign put the price at two bullets for a bowl. I was going to be bankrupt before I even got back to the Ring, but I had to admit I might be in a better mood after a full stomach. The cook regarded me nastily even then.

“One extra for your winged friend. He might cause trouble. You know how they are.”

“I know you’re about to give me that food for free, just because I said so, if you don’t agree to my price,” I whispered quietly. “Now food, and don’t insult my friend again.”

The cook looked positively murderous, though for the sake of getting whatever cartridges he could he quickly spooned out two bowls for us both, but did not get Sunny Side’s coveted soggyweed.

“Don’t even tell ponies I did that,” he whispered, glancing about furtively. “Now go away!”

Sunny Side began slurping at the goopy, lumpy mess before he even took a step away, clutching his bowl in both hooves. I grabbed the handle on the bowl with my teeth, went to the nearest abandoned corner in between two buildings and sat down. We ate in uncomfortable silence, noting the way all the other ponies, mostly earth and unicorn ponies, ignored us pointedly. Such large stations, yet so insular... it was a wonder the plantations weren’t a faction unto themselves, with how much they seemed to be willing only to deal with “local” ponies.

One snatch of conversation from two passing ponies, hauling bags of feed and underground seeds, caught my attention as we ate.

“Did you hear? Two guardponies... vanished in the western auxiliary tunnels! Just like that poor farmer.”

“I’m telling you, it’s the mutants! They found a way past the blockade and there’s probably some dropbears or something set up where our patrols can’t find them!”

“But it’s always in the places you least expect. And there’s no sign of them anywhere! Just some blood and bullet holes. Somepony is-”

I looked their way, and the two conversing earth ponies saw me looking and walked away with a glare.

“Something is going on here besides bandits and mutants,” I delcared. “There’s no reason for them to be so unfriendly.”

“Is there?” Nopony asked. “There’s a lot to be unfriendly about, the fact that you are foreigners notwithstanding. These ponies are frightened and feel abandoned by those who claimed to be their protectors. The plantations have always been reclusive. And for whatever reason, pegasi are generally unwelcome here... they believe if one doesn’t ”

“Exiperia is facing far worse,” I grumbled. “And we don’t extort ponies and threaten them.”

It was only then I noticed that cook hadn’t even reacted to our dark-clothed friend’s presence. He hadn’t even looked his way or offered him a bowl to. Another chill ran through me, like when I finally realized what the true nature of the haunted tunnel was. Who actually saw this pony? Why us? What strange influence did he exert over other ponies? And was he somehow influencing me and Sunny Side?

“Why do you wear your mask all the time? The air here is perfectly good,” Sunny Side asked him out of the blue. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I leaned forward, eager to hear the explanation for his bizarre behaviors. Nopony, if he was taken off guard, didn’t show it. He just waved it off in a gesture I was certain showed amusement.

“Oh, young colt, it’s simple! My lungs aren’t what they used to be, and I find it far easier to breathe filtered air rather than have to force air we all know is contaminated down my throat all the time. Smoke and other toxic materials are in the air all around us... your lungs are still young and strong, but one of these days you will feel it. Perhaps in a less acute way than I; I am very sensitive you see. And, please, I know what your next question will be. I am very used to running on little food, but I do take off my mask to eat.”

Sunny Side and I exchanged glances. It was a valid reason, but still struck me as strange. I decided to drop the issue as did Sunny Side.

“So how are we going to get information if these ponies are so unfriendly?” I wondered aloud.

“I thought you’d know that one,” Sunny Side said with a strange smile. “You’re the one who’s been all for pushing on. Ponyevksaya is far north, and the bandits are to the south. There’s nothing we can do about the mutants, so we head south for Otzark Bulvard... get closer to the problem and maybe we’ll find a solution.”

“Or a way to push on through,” I mumbled, and turned to Nopony. “Is there any way you can get us past the other stations entirely? I don’t want to face these roadblocks and glorified toll booths more than once.”

Nopony regarded me with an inscrutable look, and Sunny Side actually looked a little nauseous. I glanced between them and tossed a hoof. “I promised Bucklyn I’d get information back to them about what’s going on. I didn’t promise we’d actually solve any of their problems.”

“Indeed. Perhaps a wise attitude to take if you’re in such a hurry,” Nopony murmured, rubbing his chin. “More and more you tell me you are on a mission you consider supremely important. Somewhere deeper into the Metro... there are only a few places there worth going.”

I felt my mane bristle aggressively. “I don’t remember saying I’d tell you anything.”

“I never asked about it. You’re the one who assumed I was prying,” Nopony said, pointing a hoof, which somehow only made me more annoyed. “But as you say, you’re in a hurry, and I think the only way to bypass the other stations is to crawl through the secondary tunnels... there just so happens to be one that goes from Compass around to the Ring, coming out near Otzark Bulvard. But it is a dangerous tunnel and has perhaps been sealed off to prevent the bandits from invading here. Look at your Guide, but make sure nopony sees it!”

I turned to the wall and took out the Guide. Sunny Side looked over my shoulder. Sure enough there was a thin line that connected Compass and Otzark Bulvard, which I presumed had been taken over by bandits by now. There was a little symbol that glowed to the west of Compass, a little south of Ponyevskaya. It hovered near the secondary tunnel, so I pointed it out to Nopony.

Nopony stared long and quiet at the symbol I pointed to, and then turned to me. My ears twitched, wondering if I’d said something wrong. I’d read the Guide and got it wrong and now Nopony was going to tell me how stupid I was.

“... No,” he said, and his voice was soft and not at all condescending. “No, that is not a symbol for danger at all. My friend, it is the old Equestrian symbol for safety.”

My mind reeled. Something about that word... ‘safe’... sparked a rush of memories, and I noticed with a gasp that Hunter’s talisman was buzzing again. Bucklyn reporting the loss of Rangers... finding a Ranger hiding spot on the surface... my mission... rumors of a Ranger base near the farms... western auxiliary passages... something sparked within me. I knew what that symbol really meant. At last I had a clue where to really look!

But before I could stand up, a group of guards descended on us, led by a stocky, bright, snowy blue earth mare with a caramel brown mane run through with white highlights, dressed in tough soldier’s barding. Combined with her fierce, aquamarine eyes, she looked like she’d fit in well on the frontline of a Monarchy assault squad, and her little posse of guards looked equally dangerous. But instead of an obscuring helmet, she wore a wide brimmed, high crowned hat. Her voluminous, and I had to admit, attractively well kept mane flowed out from under it. I found myself intrigued because of that hat, having a single picture of old Appleloosa that showed ponies that wore such hats before the War. It must’ve been some family heirloom.

“So’m Ah gonna have ta’ choke ya’ll with my lasso o’ truth, or are ya gonna admit ta’ bein’ spies straight up?”

“You don’t wanna get choked by the lasso o’ truth,” growled the guard next to her. It was such an absurd thing to say I wondered if they were joking to put us at ease, but the glares did not abate.

“You know... this is the second station that’s accused us of being spies right off the bat,” Sunny Side grumbled, flattening his ears. “Are they just that big a problem in the Metro?”

I wanted to look to Nopony for advice, but he didn’t seem all that talkative. And anyway, I figured telling the truth in this particular situation was for the best. I didn’t want my lies piling up as high as my doubts.

“We’re from Bucklyn,” I said. “Not that your guards at the gate believed us. We’re here to figure out how to deal with the bandit situation to the south.”

“Oh?” the mare scoffed. “Listen up little ‘shroom. Since Ah’m a polite pony, Ah’ll introduce myself. The name’s Snowglobe. Proud daughter a’ Ponyevskaya, captain of the Ponies of the Underground, premier guard team in the Metro, an’ half the reason you get food in your belly. Ah got mutants runnin’ down our throats from the north an’ bandits bumpin’ flanks with us to the south. Ah got politics, a serial killer an’ who knows what else goin’ on in mah station. Everypony from here to Perch’ is scared stiff an’ not in any condition to do anything ‘cept huddle down an’ defend their own! Ah don’t need two little salt licks like yerselves runnin’ around causin’ trouble if you’re all the help Bucklyn kin be arsed to send!”

I stood up and matched her glare, feeling satisfied that I was in fact a little taller than her. “They have problems of their own,” I said. “If there’s so much trouble involved in keeping us here then show us a quick way south and we’ll be out of your manes.”

“Ho, no! Ah ain’t takin’ no chances with, uh... what ch’all call it, Abacus?”

“Uncertain variables,” the guard to her right patiently explained. The mare nodded once.

“Right! What he said. You two might as well be spies given all that’s been goin’ down! Why, Ah should buck ya’ll right back where you came from! But seein’ as we’re such hospitable ponies,” she hissed, “Ah’ve been given the go ahead to send ya’ll back to Perch, an’ you can make your own way from there. Right now!”

“Under guard and at gunpoint?” I muttered. “Not the most hospitable way to treat ponies sent at risk of their own lives to help you. We were forced to travel across the surface and lost good ponies getting here!”

“An’ we’re losin’ good ponies who just wander off down a dark hall on their own!” Snowglobe shot back, shoving her face into mine until our noses scrunched together. Was this her idea of coercion? Just shout as loud as she could to cow us into submission? I was getting more put off by the second.

“Now ya’ll gimme any more lip an’ Ah’ll see to it you spend the rest o’ yer days cozied up in our jail cells till all this is sorted out! We don’t take kindly to strangers pokin’ their noses into our stations. Bucklyn’s so high an’ mighty, but it never lifted a hoof to help us until it was too late! An’ now they can’t even keep up communications so they send two little errand boys who rough up my guardponies, bribe my cooks, and insult my dead ponies by tellin’ me my methods are too rough! We got this all sorted out without outside interference. So ya’ll scoot your little behinds on outta here.”

“And what are we supposed to do when we get to Otzark?” Sunny Side asked. “Ask the bandits to pretty please let us through your deadly blockade?”

“Never hurts to try,” Snowglobe sniffed, finally getting out of my face. “Now come on. Ah can’t waste good guard ponies guardin’ you two forever. Sooner you’re outta our manes-”

“We aren’t going that way. I want to know what this business is in the western passages.”

Snowglobe raised a severe eyebrow. Clearly, I had gone straight from ‘slightly more than pond scum’ to ‘actively loathed and despised’ on her list.

“Because I am here to do a job. I want to see it done. Bucklyn must know what’s going on.”

“Ah think it best if you just clear on outta here, stranger,” she murmured. “This is a volatile situation. We need only ourselves, an’ ponies that can handle danger.”

“Try me,” I muttered, matching her steely gaze. “I just want to take a look. That’s all.”

“There’s an unhinged killer runnin’ loose in those tunnels,” Snowglobe explained. “Ya’ll sure you can handle a stone-cold murderer?”

I remembered the horrors I’d faced so far. The creatures I’d killed and the ponies too. The Ranger base was somewhere in those passages, hidden away, and I needed to find it. This time, it was me that stepped up close to Snowglobe, looking down her snout and straight into her eyes, close enough that our forelocks brushed. She didn’t blink or pull back, but she didn’t snap at me either.

“This is the Metro. Stone-cold murderers are a dime a dozen,” I said quietly. “And I’ve killed far worse than that.”

And then she burst out laughing. There was an awkward moment where I thought she was going to shoot us both, but she calmed down quickly enough.

“All right... all right, don’t get all saddlesore. Ah c’n tell you got balls, pal. So we’ll let you have yer little look-see. But straight after it’s mah show again, an’ you’re leavin’.”

“Come on, might as well get this over with... not that we’ll find anythin’. Bastard never strikes ponies in groups. Abacus! Rawhide! Get your rears in gear an’ give this little colt an’ his featherbrain friend a crash course in ‘shuttin’ up an’ doin’ as we say.’”

Sunny Side stepped up close to me as she stalked off to do whatever she needed to do.

“We’re never going to lose them,” he murmured. “And something doesn’t feel right. She agreed too easily.”

“I agree,” I replied. “But she’s letting us get closer to where we need to go. For now we will play along. But we get what we need to know... and go.”

My Little Metro

by redsquirrel456

Chapter 9