In the name of Progress
“Get your stinkin’ paws off me, you damn dirty apes!”
The monkey guards pulled Applejack into the overseer’s office, having tied her up with up with a bridal and bit in her mouth. A bespectacled primate behind the desk stood up, straightening his business suit and tie before walking over to where the security guards struggled with the red pony.
“It’s all right, I can see she is secured now.” The older monkey assured his blue suited security officers. “You may return to your rounds, and let me know of any other intruders that happen to wander into my factory.”
“As you wish, Dr. Strangehate!” The gizmonks saluted in unison, before walking back out the door.
“You’ll have to forgive my subordinates, they can be rather zealous at their tasks.” The doctor told her, removing the bit from her moth. “I trust you are uninjured, my dear?”
“Not as injured as your going to be, you damned little hairball!” The older mare angrily spat. “Who are you, and what the hell are you doing in Equestria?!?”
“Wow, rather blunt and to the point, aren’t we?“ The simian adjusted his glasses. “Who I am is Doctor Amadeus T. Strangehate, scientist extraordinaire for the great Gizmonk civilization. And what I’m doing here, is your own Princess Luna invited my associates and I to Equestria.”
“What? You filthy liar!” AJ protested, pulling against her restraints. “The princess would never-”
“Oh, but she did! She invited us in to help revitalize your nation's economy! To help your dear ponies to leap into the future, while your stubborn muzzles are stuck so far into the past." He tapped his fingers together. "Of course, she doesn't know how we've been collecting the Ponyville ponies to be used as a resource."
"But... how can you do that?" A horrified Applejack asked, trying to hold back her tears. "How can you justify murdering these ponies, and polluting Ponyville and the surrounding area with the slime from your factory?"
"You mean these pathetic mutative degenerates living in the remains of an abandoned amusement park?" The simian asked, looking at the small heart in AJ's right eye. "The toxic side effects of the magic dome over the Ponyville region has caused any number of deformities to appear in their population. You only lived among them a short time, and your already are showing the same deformities that plague the town's equine population."
"But... how can you justify the killing of intelligent ponies?" The red mare asked, trying to restrain herself from leaping over the desk, and stomping the little primate into paste. "Does life really mean so little to you and your employees?"
"Oh, my dear Applejack, you are so wonderfully rustic and Naive." The gizmonk smiled. "The world has changed a great deal since you and your little friends traveled across the landscape, spreading your outdated message of friendship to your fellow ponies."
"What?!? You knew?!" The old mare asked in shock. "But how did-"
"My fellow Gizmonks and I are not stupid, Miss Jack. Our sources told us of your return to Equestria." Doctor Strangehate walked over, and snapped a switch on a monitor. "And the Equestria you have returned to is a very different place than you remembered it. Here, have a look if you don't believe me."
The mare gazed upon the view screen, and as the primate fiddled with a dial, she saw depressing images and events flash across the screen. She saw housing developments grow and spiral out into the countryside around Manehatten and Fillydelphia, as ancient forests were cut down and cleared away. In Baltimare , she saw farmland bulldozed over to build smog-spewing factories that filled both land and sky with filth. And in Hoofington, Applejack witnessed unicorn's losing jobs they had worked with magic, to computerized machines. It horrified the red earth pony to see such careless destruction of her home and culture.
"I-I can't believe it!" The mare said in shock, tears filling her eyes. "How could they just throw away tradition like that?"
"Unlike your woefully misguided generation, Miss Applejack, the modern pony lives not by the law of friendship, but by the law of supply and demand." The monkey replied gleefully, wringing his hands as he gloated. "All they care about now is competing to get ahead, and building fortunes is more important that building relationships with members of their own kind."
"NO! No no no no no no!" AJ wailed, refusing to believe the simian monster standing in front of her. "Friendship is in a pony's blood and soul! We would die with out it!"
"Maybe in Twilight Sparkle's time friendship was magic, but in the here and now a pony's special talent is a commodity to be bought and sold! Was it not one of your own mares, Diamond Tiara, who turned your beloved Ponyville from a town into a living amusement park solely for the acquisition of wealth?" The gizmonk gloated triumphantly, staring the mare straight in the eye. "The ponies of Equestria are tearing up their own natural resources, and sucking the land dry like parasitic leeches hungry for blood!"
He snarled at the ancient mare in contempt. "Once, your kind looked down on the rest of us, scorning the other races for our greed and materialism. Well, who's the monster now, pony? Who's leaving their poor to starve in the alleyways of Canterlot while the rich play?" He turned away from his captive audience. "Well, now the horseshoe is on the other hoof, isn't it?"
Applejack only glared at him in silence for several minutes, before asking. "What about my friends and me? And what about Ponyville?"
"After enough pollution and our pony hunters wipe out the population of Ponyville, we'll convince the Princess to tear down the dome and expand our factory onto the demolished Ponyville and Unicornia." Dr. Strangehate glared at her. "You I plan to dissect, to see if we can extract whatever it is that keeps you eternally young, and bottle it for sale. As to your friends, they are about to join the other mutated ponies we've captured in the glue vats, to be melted down into product."
AJ's eyes went wide, and she started to jump over the desk at the monkey doctor. But he quickly hit a button on his desk, and mechanical clamps quickly rose up, and clasped onto her hooves, holding the picnic planner fast.
"Well, my dear ex-harmony bearer, it appears that you won't be victorious this time." The cold-hearted primate told her. "Have any last words you want me to deliver to equine posterity, whatever form that may take?"
"You listen to me, you little poo-flinging primate!" The mare snarled, struggling against her restraints. "I swear by Celestia herself that I'm gonna break outta these stinking hoofcuffs. And when I do, I'll bury you, your technology and your stupid progress under the glue encased ruins of this damned factory!"
...
Elsewhere in the factory, the scar covered Waterfire began to come back to consciousness. Her eyes flickering open, the bruised mare was slow in returning to consciousness, a result of the torture the gizmonks had given her and Minty with their shock sticks. As the mare's eyes slowly began to adjust to the bright factory lights, she found herself in one of the pony cages hanging from the factory ceiling.
"Minty? Applejack?" The dirty mare called out, her first concern for her friends. "Where are you girls?"
"Waterfire, help me!" The green mare wailed hysterically, from a cage farther up the line. "I don't wanna be turned into glue!"
It was then that the underground mare noticed that the factory line was moving again, dropping ponies into the globby mess once more. And it was then, to their horror, that Waterfire noticed that Minty was only a few minutes away from being dropped...