Chapter 7: Starlight City (conclusion)
The trip through the gates lasted only a moment; and yet, they’d traveled the length of an entire desert. Three white rings awaited them at the exit of the portal. The rings span around them as they cruised through. Highway paid no attention to the sound of the gate closing behind him. A voice sounded from the artificial horn on his head, “Congratulations, you have reached your destination. Welcome to Starlight city.”
It wasn’t as cold in this city as it was in the last, but the sky was engulfed in a thick and heavy rainstorm. It poured down like crashing ocean waves falling from the sky. Through the rain, the blue glow of the city could be seen below. Not too many people were awake, as the majority of the lights in the homes below had been shut off.
Highway scouted for any building that would let him in, or even give him shelter. The only hope of refuge from the storm appeared to be the tallest and widest building amongst them. It was walled with crystal blue windows, and divided into two major layers. The layers stacked on top of each other, and were identical in everyway except width. The higher segment of the building was much thinner. The sides were not round, but instead resembled an octagon. ‘It’s my only chance,’ he thought to himself. ‘I bet that building would have people in it at any hour.’
The rain weighed him down more than he thought it would. Because of this, he struggled to keep in the air. The exhaustion he felt was now morphing into something of a painful nature; he could not keep airborne much longer. He thought about the unicorn on his back, but couldn’t turn to look. He was now a few feet from the roof of the giant building. His world grew dark for a moment, and then rebounded as his desire to land had finally kicked in. In a final flailing of his mighty wings, the pegasus landed safely on the roof. Crashing down onto the ground with a loud thump, his companion rolled off his back and onto the tiled floor.
Rain filled the cracks in the gray tile as Highway shakily raised his head to check on his friend. Thankfully, he was in decent shape. He had no physical injuries aside from exhaustion, and he’d tired himself out so much that Highway knew he’d be out for hours.
South slowly got up from the ground, even as his wings ached, and spotted a double glass door on the outside wall of the building. ‘There’s the roof entrance. I knew I picked the right place!” he thought with relief.
The storm raged on as he painfully made his way to the double doors. As he got closer, he could see a feint yellow glow inside. To his luck, there were ponies inside to let him in. He was letting out some tears of joy as this notion hit him, but in the rain they didn’t show up. “Just, a, little, bit, further!” he panted.
Inside the building it was the perfectly warm. The glass doors leading to the outside balcony were at the top of the room. Below the upper part of the room stretched rows of black seats sloping downward. It appeared to be a college lecture hall, but it smelled cleaner. In the center bottom of the room, sat a wide and brown desk. On the wall behind that, hung a very wide and green chalkboard. On the chalkboard itself were some diagrams and calculations for a new experimental device. It bared a stunning resemblance to Highway’s present he’d gotten in the mail. Along the bottom few rows of seats sat a group of ponies, strewn about in seemingly random groups. A light gray earthpony with glasses stood before the chalkboard giving a lecture on his newest project. He spoke in a voice not too high and not too low, easily talking through his complex theories as if they were child’s play.
“So if you can see, the electrical energy can be converted through the artificial horn’s design in a way that allows for equal power distribution. This means that any spell the device is programmed to use will be amplified multiple times. Of course, the wiring can be rearranged to fit any desired output.”
“So you can get these things to reproduce any unicorn’s spell hmm?” one of the onlookers said in curiosity.
“Oh yes! Anything you can think of it can do, but there is a minor drawback.”
“And what is that?”
“Right now they are limited to one spell per unit, so they don’t contain the full potential of a unicorn’s magic. Any attempts to make one unit produce more than one spell would require an extra contraption that shifts the wires around to produce a new configurati”- he gasped suddenly. He’d spotted the outline of the injured Highway South making his way closer to the door. “W-who could be visiting at this hour?” he shouted in worry.
The other ponies in the crowd all turned to look at the figure approaching the window. From their perspective, the unknown character appeared ominous and sinister. Who, or whatever it was had huge ruffled and twitching wings, as well as a unicorn’s horn! The creature limped its way closer and closer, until KNOCK KNOCK!
The pony giving the presentation was not going to let this stranger ruin his project’s funding. So he strapped on a pair of robotic wings he’s made for himself, and leapt into the air. The magical and scientific miniature jet turbines roared from the inside. The position of the red flames coming from the jet was thought out, as it did not burn any part of the stallion’s body. The metallic wings were of average size, but divided into three flat parts. They flapped with a creaking of metal against metal, and were extremely noisy.
He nearly landed wrong, and fell on his face near the base of the door. The jet engines cooled to a low hum. “Ow,” he moaned in embarrassment. When he finished rubbing his hurt face, he looked upward to see the doors fly open in a startling slam that echoed throughout the room. Rain poured in from the outside like a flooding river, as the shadowy and dark rain hid the figure’s standing image.
He jumped to his hooves and took a battle stance, daring the unknown pony to attack; the truth was he was not prepared at all, and this just made him look silly. He awkwardly stood there trying to be intimidating, but the figure didn’t move. “Well, aren’t you going to attack me?” he asked the figure.
The figure wobbled there for a second, and then fell into the room; its artificial horn fell from its head. “Help” the pegasus spoke weakly, as it used up the strength it had left. After that it let its head hit the ground with an unforgiving sound.
Feeling terribly about the thought of attacking such a creature, the earthpony slowly backed away as his stomach turned. He covered his mouth with his hoof to stop his initial scream, then moved it hastily to make way for his next sentence. “G-get medical help…IMMEDIATELY!” he shouted down to the ponies in the chairs. All but two ponies left to fulfill this request. He stared down; giving a horrified look at the device that had fallen from its head. He had been the designer and personal tester of the device, and had intended it as a gift to the sky alicorn’s only son. Now it lay worn and used as if it had just been through the field test of its life, drained of all but the little battery life it still clung to. ‘If this is who I think it is,’ his mind didn’t even want to finish the thought. It refused to accept that this was indeed the sky alicorn’s son. For if he was here, in this shape, what has been happening to the kingdom?
Out in the distance, he could see the silhouette of another pony lying on the roof. He’d only noticed it as a flash of lightning tore through the sky. By now, the two audience members who had stayed behind with them had made their way to the top of the stairs, and by the earthpony’s side. “I’m glad you’re here! See out on the roof? I need one of you to go out and help him! NOW!” The unicorn wearing a lab coat rushed out to get him.
A bunch of ponies wearing medical hats made their way through the bottom doors with a stretcher. The leader of the brigade stopped next to the earthpony. “Oh sweet Celestia! Is that the prince!?” the leader shouted. “It’s a good thing we were here tonight eh Expert? Wouldn’t want the prince of New Harmony to die off before he got to rule right?”
Expert was staring out to the injured pony in the rain in deep thought. “You’re gonna need another stretcher.”
The next morning, a very disturbed monster made his way out of the pit of anger he’d fallen into. He was up all night pacing the floor of his chamber. Off track was getting up to date information on the progress of the prince’s escape in real time, up until they’d lost him. Impound cautiously walked up to his furious master, still bruised and burned from yesterday’s battle. “Master,” Impound said in his voice, “I believe the prince’s escape is a major drawback to the overall plan, and we should try our best to”-
“SILENCE YOU IDIOT!” Off Track screamed into the all but empty room. “This is no drawback,” he tried to assure himself, “this is merely progress. Yessss, that’s what it is! Muahahahahahaha!” he laughed in near full hatred.
Then Impound figured out what his master was planning, “No, you’re not planning on using”-
“Oh, but I am! I’m going to enjoy this.”
The monster stomped his way out of his chair and over to the left wall. Touching one of his claws to a button not reachable to the average being, the wall began to open up. Steam and gears turned as it opened in several different sections; obviously, this was his personal door. Once the gears had stopped turning and the steam let out one final gust, he made his way outside. Impound ran quickly to keep up with the giant.
The sun had made its way in the sky, and as this was the desert, its heat was of something intense. Any frost that had formed on the buildings overnight was already melted. The time was around ten o’clock.
“M-master, you can’t seriously be thinking of using-that’s not even a last resort! Do you intend to crush another capitol?”
“Yes, actually I do.” He stopped outside one of the tallest buildings in the factory, inspecting it in nostalgia. “Ah, my beauty, you will see more destruction.”
Opening another wall door, they walked inside. It looked something like the inside of an old boat dock, with hooks and chains hanging from the ceiling. The only difference was the lack of water for the boat, or any indent in the ground where water would be. The whole area was level, and covered in rusty brown steel; there were even occasional bolts littered about.
Off Track walked closer to the center of the room as chains and hooks rattled against him. Impound now looked worriedly at his master, as he had seen the destruction of this method before, and did not want to see it again. As the beast walked smiling at the darkness, he turned his attention to one hook in particular. “Ah! There is.”
His claw reached up and pulled the chained hook down to the ground. This set off a chain reaction that caused the floor to shake. A large portion of the floor opened up, and a slight glow emanated from below. Rising out of the ground fast enough to be seen as a blur, was a machine that appeared to have the basic shape of an apartment. In fact, while it was still rising, you would mistake it to be an apartment just based on size and shape. Unfortunately for the world, this was not the case. When the thing settled, it was clearly seen to be a strain. It had the same texture to it as the floor, only it was not rusted. On it were many small moving parts, some spinning more rapidly than others. When it had finally settled, it was clearly distinguishable as a giant train.
“Perfect as always isn’t she Impound?”
“Sure…master.” He had terrible memories with this train. Indeed, it was the train that’d torn down the capital of New Harmony all those years ago, and the same machine that had ended the lives of the last two rulers.
“That didn’t sound really enthusiastic if you ask me. Now, why don’t you try again? Hmm?”
The stallion clearly did not want to complement the machine of ultimate destruction, but he had no choice. “The Dark Train looks perfect as always master! We’d better get a move on.”
“Right you are. Now get on board.”
They boarded the train and started its engines; it seemed to come to life, and make its existence known to the world with a loud blow of its horn. Off Track snapped his fingers and the walls of the building around them sank into the ground. The train itself was on a turntable, and it spun to face the direction of the Starlight city. A loud gust of smoke shot out of the smoke stacks in the front cart, and the train began its terrible rampage.
The tracks were forming themselves in front of the train’s wheels in way that they appeared from flames. Off Track laughed insanely, yet controllably, as the train smashed through his own factory’s walls. Building after building was destroyed, then wall after wall was demolished, with little to no resistance. A segment of the Iron Gate surrounding the factory was destroyed on his exit, and then through the city he went. Ponies everywhere ran for their lives at the sight of the five-story death machine rolling through the city. Somehow, there were minimal injuries. Every half mile, a new train car would be added to the train, appearing in a burst of flames. This continued up until he crashed though the outside wall.
As the train made its way out over the horizon, its own length rivaled that of the city. It was now free of any building s hindering its progress. The shadow of the train stretched across the desert for what seemed like an eternity. As it traveled, engines at full power.
“Celestia, you will pay for this. That I swear to you.” He was sitting in the conductor’s sear, and looking out in the direction of the next city to conquer. “It’s time I took full advantage of that little mistake of yours.”
End of Prequel