//------------------------------// // Passible // Story: Prevention // by Mind Matter //------------------------------// --- A stiff silence. Two breaths. “…now for my second-“ “How bad was I?” Eyes towards the voice; an unusually stoic face, giving an even stare. “How bad were you…?” “You said that I was the ‘bad cop’. The one who did mean things to you so that the other ponies who came in would seem nicer.” A nod. “I-I know that I was the one who hurt you really badly, with your ribs and your, your scars, and everything, but I just… I want to know what went on. Not just what I did, but why. I mean, I know that that Pinkie wasn’t really me, and I-I don’t think she was me, and I know that I said I wasn’t worried about it, but I’ve just been thinking about it and thinking about it and I am worried I’m really worried that you’re gonna hate me forever just because of what she did to you so I want to know what she did so I can help like Twilight and-” “Pinkie.” One voice cutting another. “Why were you playing with the roadkill?” “Wh…what?” “The time you walked me and Twilight to Sweet Apple Acres. You were doing… something… with the dead animal on the road just before we met up with you.” “Wh… that? That, that was for Fluttershy!” “For Fluttershy.” “Well, I-I mean, Fluttershy always gets sad whenever one of her animal friends dies, but she gets really worried whenever one of them goes missing, so I said that I would keep an eye out for them, so if I find one that died, I try to bring it to her so we can have a funeral and I can be there to help her be not so sad.” A glance. “She’s telling the truth?” “Oh, um, yes, she is… And I do, really, appreciate the support, Pinkie…” A small shrug. “Anything to help a friend.” A hard sigh. “That’s it, though. You did it to help a friend.” “Y-yeah. Why else would I?” Silence, for several seconds. “Cotton Candy was a necromancer.” A more solid silence, for several more seconds. “No, wait… she didn’t bring things back, per se, so that’s probably not the right word. She was closer to a puppeteer, or a toymaker. She had this, this workshop, or something. I was never actually there, but she took dead animals there– or, by the time I found out about it, anything that was or formerly had been alive – and tear them apart to find out how they ticked. Then, usually, she’d put them together again, with a few extra bits and pieces so that they could be put into poses or wound up and made to walk around like a bloody tinker’s toy. Other times she kept the pieces, based new designs for prosthetics or armour or weapons on them.” A small, mirthless laugh. “And always, always, whenever anypony asked her why, whether they were staring in horror at her work or sc-screaming in agony while she was tearing out their ribs, she gave one response. “‘Anything to help a friend.’” A third silence, for a third length of time. Broken by strangled sobs. “…Broken?” “Hmm?” “C-can I ask why you didn’t bring this up before?” A blink. “I told Path about most of it. Could’ve sworn he sent you the records.” “He did. You didn’t mention Pin-“ a cough “-what, what she said, though.” “It wasn’t exactly important for what I’ve been trying to do. Cotton Candy was one of Dawn’s actual supporters, it makes sense that her excuse for her activities was ‘helping’ the bitch.” “But she wasn’t just trying to help Dawn, was she? She said ‘a friend’, that could mean Fluttershy or Rarity or-“ “No, it couldn’t.” A hoof tapping at a temple. “You might not like me saying this, but you weren’t there. You never saw her, never spoke to her, didn’t spend ten hours a week having her work you over, tear pieces out of you, hook you up to a lightning cloud, take skin from your legs and sew it over burns on your neck, flay the meat off your back and keep you starved until you eat it, then cut you open and make you watch as it moves thro-“ A quick movement. A retch. The sound and smell of vomit. Sobs growing quieter alongside two sets of hoofsteps. A blink and a glance. “Huh. Kinda thought you’d be the first to go, Fluttershy.” A swallow and a shuddering breath. “I… I can handle it. I’ve helped quite a few animals who’ve been in bad shape; I don’t like blood, or, or gore, but I know how to deal with it.” A shrug. “Fair enough… er, that ‘flaying’ one wasn’t me, by the way. I got it ‘easy’; they wanted… they wanted to get me on their side, and in the meantime they wanted information from me. I was never a case where they wanted to see what happened in my leg when they pulled a nerve out from my eye. Doesn’t really matter.” A shaken head. “Back to my point, she never ‘helped’ the others unless Dawn ordered her to or she was already working on something similar. Rainbow got most of her armour and weapon prototypes and special versions of the finished models, Gaia and Lash tested out every damn restraint system and non-lethal torture device she came up with… Rarity only ever asked for one thing, and that was leg braces for Sweetie Belle.” A shrug. “Apparently necromancy doesn’t stop your muscles from turning to dust.” “How would torturing ponies help Dawn, though? There would have been plenty of ways to learn what she learned, through studying or, or non-harmful experimentation; even the information you had, she could have just used spies or traitors! How in Faust’s name did… did what you said help her?” A blink. “…She couldn’t have gotten everything peacefully.” “But th-“ “Twilight.” The other voice cut off. “I… buck, I’m not trying to defend her here. I… I just…” A rough breath, in and out. “Yes, you’re right. She probably could have gotten everything, every piece of information on anatomy and rebel locations and every other fucking excuse she gave for doing what she did, she could have gotten that without the torture. Same for the camps.” Another rough breath. “But she couldn’t have gotten what came with them.” “And what was that?” A grimace. “Control. Dawn started the damned Revolution because she felt like she couldn’t change any of the problems she thought were there. When she got to power, got the ability to actually change things to how she thought they should be… I have to imagine she enjoyed it. The camps were a response to something she couldn’t control – the refugees on the border – and expanded to control the non-pony species’ complaints about them. The experiments were an attempt to expand her control over her subjects, down to their very bodies. The torture… “Dawn saw the Loyalists, and the rest of the rebel groups, for what we were – ponies and other beings who refused to let her control us. The Loyalists were even worse, because we were specifically fighting in the name of the time when she had no control.” A breath. “So when she captured us, she tortured us, to show us that she had the power and we didn’t. She wanted us to think, to know, that she was the one in control, that we could do nothing to stop her. That if she wanted something from us, she would get it, because she controlled us.” Another breath. “Right down to when we were allowed to die.” --- “Come on, come on, Shiny, I know you know this one! You can do it!” Shining couldn’t open his mouth. She was asking for locations, just like always. Bases, suppliers, homes, targets. He wouldn’t tell her, couldn’t tell her. She didn’t like that. She told him so, every time. This time, so did his two broken legs, so did the hot irons digging under his skin wherever the bone broke through – ‘to cauterize and prevent infection’, of course. Shining couldn’t open his mouth. If he did, he’d scream. She shoved the map back into his face, shaking it slightly as if to catch his attention. He managed to slowly turn his eye to her without more tears escaping; the look on her face was one of almost genuine patronizing encouragement. She might have looked like she was hoping he’d succeed if her smile had touched her eyes. She noticed that he was looking at her. Her not-quite-real smile twitched just before she spoke. “No, silly, over here! I’m not the map.” She moved her foreleg, probably to shake the map that Shining couldn’t see anymore. He kept his eye on her, meeting her gaze as much as he could. Every second she looked at him, her smile got weaker, more fake; only eight seconds before she looked away, hiding her face behind a non-existent mane. Eight seconds and she looks away. Shows guilt. Feels bad? All that she’s done, she feels bad for this? Shining counted that as a victory. Relaxed a bit. Too much; his lips fell open, a small whine escaping before he slapped his tongue to the roof of his mouth. She looked up at the sound, noticing his now-bared teeth and forward-facing eye. Her smile returned as she rubbed her eyes, even closer to a real grin than it had been before. “That’s it, Shiny. Just tell me where, anywhere, one place, and we can be done for today.” She shook the map again. He saw straight lines, curved lines, letters, colours. His lips curled inwards, and he felt his jaw unhinge slightly. Enough to send a ball of phlegm and saliva into the parchment above him. The map pulled back again as the mare sighed, and Shining knew he had scant seconds bef- KrgCK A third leg suddenly stopped giving him any signals except for shrieking agony; the stallion bit off the tip of his tongue trying to stop that shriek from leaving his mouth. The mare watched him for a few seconds, her hoof still holding the freshly-broken limb as she put the map before his eye once more. “You aren’t the good guy, Shiny. You’ve hurt too many ponies, caused so much pain-“ she punctuated the word with a sharp pressure on the fracture “-and you keep lying about us. We’re the good guys, we help ponies, we stop the meanies like you from hurting Twilight, a-and Spike, and everypony else. You just make ponies sad, and scared, and angry, and if you just stopped then AJ would come back and everypony would stop fighting and Twilight could be happy again!” Another jab at the break, and the map shook. “Just tell me somewhere, anywhere that you know the Loyalists are. Just one place. Prove that Twilight can still trust her big brother.” Anywhere. Anywhere and we’re done. Just one place. Twilight trust me? Shining blinked. His jaw seemed to unlock. He felt his teeth open, his tongue fall, air moving up from his lungs and out with some indeterminate sounds attached. Shining wasn’t sure what those sounds were, what words they made, but it was enough for the pink mare to pull the map away, to pull the irons out. Shining heard hoofsteps away, the door open and shut. Hoofsteps towards him. His legs slowly went numb. “Bloody fucking-“ the voice descended into indecipherable growls and guttural noises. Shining felt his eye fall over, finding a familiar, grimacing face. The doctor seemed to notice the movement, meeting Shining’s gaze evenly. “Hold still, Captain, you damned foal.” Shelter shifted his eyes as raised his hoof to push the other stallion’s head back whatever miniscule amount it had moved. Shining felt himself pulled down as his legs were presumably splinted. He felt his mouth open again, but this time he actually understood what came out. “You’re… helping me?” The doctor gave him a quick glance before giving a rough sigh. “Yes. I am.” “You’re a traitor.” “No, I’m a doctor. ” “Y… you work for her- “ “Just like I worked for Celestia. You know, Captain, kind of a funny thing, ponies get injured regardless of whose bloody plot sits in the chair upstairs. Fucking fancy that.” “Why?” Dr. Shelter blinked, his horn cutting out as he turned to face Shining with a mixed visage of anger and confusion. “Why help me?” Shining clarified. The doctor’s eyes narrowed. “…because you’re injured? ” “I’m an enemy.” “You’re a patient. My patient, in fact, and because I give a fuck about what I swore to do as a doctor, and because I couldn’t give less of a fuck if you want to kill me for it, I do not give any of a fuck as to who you are. ” His horn glowed again, and Shining felt sensation return to his legs, minus the feeling of shattered bone stabbing through muscle and skin. He glanced down, shifting his visible leg to verify its continued existence before putting his eyes back on the doctor. “Only as to how I can fix you. Captain.” Shelter didn’t speak to Shining for a length of time afterwards, not that the injured stallion prompted him. There was the occasional tug as the doctor replaced a bandage or restitched a wound, but the restrained stallion was otherwise left alone with his thoughts; something that he found to be both relieving and terrifying. “What did I say?” Shining asked, after several minutes of deliberation. Shelter glanced at him, holding the other stallion’s leg by hoof as his magic probed a formerly-bandaged cut. “What?” “Ah, I, uh, asked, about… what I said to… to her.” Cotton Candy. Thalia. Element of Laughter. Pinkie Pie. “Oh. I’m not sure. Only listened because I needed to know when she was done fucking your legs over.” “She didn’t tell you?” “Nope. I’m just the pony keeping everypony here alive; they don’t let me know much and won’t let me work on non-pony patients. Fucking-” The doctor sighed. “I think you said… some kind of ‘town’ or ‘ton’. Not Trotown, started with a C or a K.” The name jumped back into Shining’s mind, and the floor fell out of his stomach. “Cowton? I said there was a base at Cowton?” “That was it. Never heard of the place myself, must be a fucking backwater; perfect place for rebels to hide out.” Shelter shrugged before he noticed Shining’s face. “Ah, fuck, it was important, wasn’t it?” Shining blinked, his eye turning slowly towards the other pony. “…Important. Yes. It was very important…” Shelter took a breath, holding it before letting it out in a sigh. “Faust, Captain, I-“ The doctor stopped as Shining began to howl with laughter. “Ten... eleven… tw-rgh-elve…” She had Shining count. Five inches of razor wire, slid into a wound and snaked around beneath his skin for fifteen seconds before being torn out. Repeated fifty times. Cowton had been munitions storage. A rather important hideout, with one of the largest constant Loyalist garrisons aside from the Everfree and Vanhoover. If it had ever been found out, the Loyalists would have lost eighty percent of their capacity to develop professional explosives. Base expansion would slow to a crawl. Bombings would cease. The Shadowbolts would lose their martyrs, the Loyalists would lose the most dedicatedly anti-Dawn allies they had. Of course, it would have been entirely cleared out once Shining was captured, its stock and garrison moved to one of the hideouts that Applejack had arranged so as to ensure that he couldn’t betray the location. Anypony breaching the locked and barred doors would find nothing more than a large, empty cave underneath an unassuming warehouse. Within a few seconds, they would either be blown to pieces when the bombs around the door and cave exploded, or crushed as the roof of the cave and the warehouse above it fell in on top of them. Shining couldn’t help but smile when she told him the casualties. She didn’t like that. “Now do you see why what you did was bad?” she asked, stepping back as she wiped the blood from her hooves. Shining figured his coherence was due to either elation at having gotten as many killed as he had or the fact that he was still high off the painkillers Shelter had snuck in. He was fairly certain that he should have been in more pain than he was. “Run it…gahgh… by me again. Maybe… the pain’s made my head clearer. Or the blood loss.” The mare glared, but she still repeated what she’d said as she unraveled the wire. “You lied. You said there was a base at Cowton. There wasn’t.” She took a breath, one hoof pressing to the gauze and tape on the side of her face. “B-because there wasn’t, because you lied, Lady Dawn wasted time and effort a-and ponies to shut down what she thought was a dangerous rebel hideout. Time and effort and ponies that could have been spent doing good, not…” “There was a base, though.” Shining grinned as her glare intensified. “Just not anymore, by the time you heard about it.” “It was a lie!” The mare shouted, her screaming-foal’s voice pounding through his skull. “You lied, and Lady Dawn sent a bunch of guardsponies down to try to get rid of the base you lied about and those guardsponies all g-got hurt o-o-or-“ she cut off in a rather overdramatic sob, only to keep speaking moments later. “I don’t like doing this, Shiny. I’m supposed to be helping ponies. Keeping them from getting hurt. Letting them walk again. Making them laugh. Even you, I’ve tried and tried and tried over and over and over to show you how bad and wrong and bad being a Loyalist is, to show you how good me and Rainbow and Rarity and Fluttershy and your sister are, but you… you… you stupid meanies just keep messing everything up…” The mare sniffled, and Shining could see her blur shake out of the corner of his eye. “You… because you lied, the ponies in that town saw what happened, and now they’re scared that we can’t help them, that we can’t stop you from hurting them. Because you lied, we have a bunch of ponies who got really hurt, some who can’t use magic anymore, some who can’t walk or talk or eat anymore because of you! Fifty ponies died because you hate us for no good reason!” “No good reason?” Shining growled, his eye shifting to the mare, his voice cutting out at spots as small, pained sounds escaped. “Celestia isn’t a good reason? The zebras aren’t a good reason? My wife isn’t a good reason?!?” “Twilight wasn’t trying to hurt her! If, if you, if she hadn’t tried to hurt Twilight… i-it was an accident!” “I wasn’t trying to hurt Maud.” Shining deliberately echoed the mare, gaining a savage grin as he saw something shatter behind her eyes. “I-if you, if she hadn’t jumped in front of that bolt for you… it was an accident.” The stallion took a breath. The mare bared her teeth. “But I bet you still cry over her every Faust-damned night, don’t you?” There was silence. Shining was somewhat surprised by this. He’d expected violence, screams, curses and damning words. Instead she sat there, eyes wide, open-mouthed, curled mane stuck to her head with sweat, blood leaking from beneath the bandage covering her cheek. She stood slowly, taking the three steps to him in a deliberate, paced manner. When his eye managed to focus on her again, she’d closed her jaw and was giving him an almost curious look. “Twilight told me that I only had to be mean to you until you stopped being a Loyalist, that, that I could stop hurting you, that I could start being nice and happy and try to make you laugh like I wanted to do. That we could be friends, like she and I wanted to be with you.” The mare raised her hoof, placing it on his barrel. She moved it slightly, ear twitching as he groaned in pain. “But you know something, Shiny?” The stallion didn’t respond. He locked his jaw shut again; he knew she was going to do something, and he knew it was going to hurt. She gave him a grin, moving her hoof down his barrel, resting at the bottom of his ribcage. “I think you might be the first pony ever that I don’t want to be friends with.” He saw her move before he felt it, an inequinely fast jab that pulled away before the sound of his rib snapping reached his ears. Before he could so much as clench his jaw she’d brought the hoof back, this time further up, pressing and pressing and pressing until the sharp edge of bone pierced through his hide. Her hoof moved once more, faster than he could see, suddenly simply there on the exposed rib and- Then she pulled back, and there was the familiar sound of bone being ripped free from flesh. Shining dimly noticed that he’d never actually felt the sensation that went along with the sound. Then Shining screamed.