Breakfast in the pit was a sad, pathetic affair. Discarded scraps of hayfries and other foods were poured into the grate above, raining into the middle of the chamber below, where hungry ponies fought each other tooth and hoof for. null sat back and watched passively, not bothering to move, until the frenzy died down with the disappearance of the last of the pathetic morsels.
Fed as much as they would be, the ponies settled back, a bit more alert for the calories and exercise, but bored now with nothing to pay attention to.
"I am going to win the next promotion battle," null stated, without inflection. He didn't shout, but it was loud enough for everypony in the small place to hear clearly, without question.
"What did you say?" one of the pegasi asked accusingly. He had done well in the last match, but ultimately failed. And he had done well at the contest over breakfast as well.
"I am going to win the next promotion battle," null repeated exactly.
One of the unicorns shook his head quietly, while the angry pegasus charged the disguised, dead changeling. null sidestepped easily, spinning around to land a kick on the pegasus' back as he passed, adding to his momentum and bouncing him off a wall painfully before a second, downward kick redirected him into the floor. Winded, the pegasus lay still for the moment, recovering.
"After my victory, the Itinerant King and his followers will rescue all who are in this pit and set you free. I recommend using that opportunity to join the Itinerant Kingdom. If you chose not to, I recommend leaving Manehattan," null explained without emotion.
"Why do you want to win so much?" a unicorn mare asked. "Why become one of their soldiers?"
"Then I will know the location of their soldiers," null explained.
There was silence for a moment.
"You're full of it," the downed pegasus accused, climbing to his hooves. "Just trying to throw us off our game with some stupid mind games."
"I am going to win the next promotion battle," null repeated. "If you fight hard, you may increase the length and degree of your suffering." After a moment he added, "perhaps if you do not, your pride will suffer." A shrug would have been very appropriate at that moment, but was not forthcoming.
"There's something off about him," a pegasus mare pointed out. "Like some kind of zombie or golem or something."
"Obviously," the unicorn stallion agreed. "Have any of you heard of this 'Itinerant King' he mentioned."
"Only some legend among the farmfolk," an earth pony mare pointed out. "Supposedly he rescues seasonal workers from, well, things like this." She gestured broadly. "Never heard of him doing any good for city folk though. Anypony's guess if he's even real."
Several ponies looked to null expectantly, but he merely stood there passively, blinking every 15 seconds exactly, but otherwise motionless.
"You can fight the golem if you want," the unicorn stallion said to the beaten pegasus. "It'll make his victory more convincing for our captors."
When lunch came, the struggle for food was a lot tamer than usual, with everypony glancing at the 'golem' before taking their share of the slop. A few squabbles left some with a bit more or less, but they weren't wasting their energy fighting over it anymore. A little hope had gone a long way.
"I'm going to win," the pegasus stallion pointed out, with more bravado than confidence. null looked at him blankly, while everypony else ignored him, causing him to slink off to a corner and glower angrily.
The earth pony mare sidled up to null's side. "Are you really with the Itinerant King?" she asked him quietly.
null nodded, and they sat in silence a moment. "I'm going to join him too then," she said after a moment.
"You don't know anything about him. He could be just as bad," the unicorn mare pointed out.
"He couldn't be, or he wouldn't have sent somepony to rescue us," the earth pony countered.
"That still remains to be proven," said the unicorn stallion. "Why not simply rescue us all now?"
The murmured among themselves in uncertainly, while null stood by.
"So here's the choice," Wind Chaser said to the unicorn mare she had pinned down, hoof painfully pressed against her horn to keep her from using it. "You can join us, do whatever my King says, and enjoy all the benefits and downsides of living the Itinerant lifestyle. Or you can sit here and deal with the withdrawal symptoms from your stupid mistake all on your own."
"That's... that's it? I thought you were going to kill me or something," the mare said worriedly. "But can't I have a little more first?"
"NO! Bad mare," the hoofstrike hammered the point home without any lasting damage. "If you do join, we have ways to mitigate the effects, but they're not something we can share with outsiders. So... your choice?"
"Buck you. I don't need to join your little club," the unicorn relied.
"That's fine. Just stay here for now then, okay?" Wind replied, before a flash of green fire revealed her true form. The mare beneath her squeaked out in surprised and a bit of disgust, but no fear. She was quite uncomfortable with the process and Wind exuded a sticky slime onto each of her ankles, pinning her to her own bed, however.
"Why are you even doing this? What are you going to do?" she demanded.
"'You' are going to go rescue some ponies your drug dealers have foalnapped," Wind answered as she assumed the unicorn's likeness, cutie mark and all. She even copied the little black flecks of crystal growing from her snout.
"They'll kill me," the true unicorn alleged, still with no fear. She did make a modest try at freeing herself from her bonds.
"Maybe, but if all goes well they'll already be dead," Wind pointed out before pausing. She sighed deeply. "When did that start seeming okay?... we have got to stop getting involved in such dark dealings."
"So you're just going to leave me here?" the stuck mare asked.
"The goo will get more brittle as it dries, you can break yourself out eventually," Wind said dismissively as she walked away.
Wind Chaser stormed into the warehouse, stomping her way straight toward the two bored looking guards within. "More. Give me more, now," she demanded, seething in her unicorn role. Her horn glowed with power in warning.
"Oh, ho, ho. I didn't think this one would be ripe just yet, but here she is," said an earth pony mare. "Did you bring your bits, honey?"
"Don't 'honey' me," Wind Chaser demanded. "I'm not afraid of you. Give me what I want, or I'll make you fear me."
Painful as it was, Wind Chaser soon got what she wanted. [I really need to find a new path in life, one that doesn't keep me seeking out savage beatings. At least nopony tried to rape me this time.]
"Hey, down there. Guess what time it is? Promotion time! Now who wants to get out of that hole and make room for the newcomer?" the mare asked, tauntingly.
The pegasus in the pit quickly tried to scramble to his hooves, but found his chin struck before he could finish righting himself, the force of null's blow knocking his forehead into the wall. He was down in moments, before the fight could really get started. The rest of the fight was just for show, the other ponies making like they were fighting while really looking for an excuse to play dead. The guards above groused a bit at the lack of brutality of it, but dutifully recovered null from the pit before shoving Wind Chaser in.
"Oof, this one's heavy," one of the guards complained. "We obviously fed you lot too much," he joked.
"Congratulations on the promotion!" another said, slapping null on the withers. "Come on, let me show you to your new, much better life!"
"The Itinerant King is going to save us," the earth pony mare told the newcomer.
Wind Chaser smiled at her a moment, before a moment of sadness washed over her, remembering the fate of a previous pony who had made such claims, before smiling again. "That's what I'm here for. You said you were interesting in joining?"
"How did you? You? But you're a mare," the pony objected, confused.
"Never said I was the king," Wind Chaser pointed out. "You can't expect the king to perform every rescue in person, can you? He has subjects for that. Anypony here wants to become one... well, just stick around after we get out of here, and I'll help you through the process. But first..."
A wave of green fire revealed the changeling for what she was momentarily, before she took on the guise of a pegasus herself. Taking flight, she got up to the door in the grating above and flipped upside down, magnetically adhering herself in place while she touched a hoof to the lock and closed her eyes, focusing.
"Was that a changeling?" the unicorn mare questioned.
"This itinerant king has quite the cast of characters working for him," the unicorn stallion concluded. "One wonders if he even has a use for ordinary ponies."
"In this life, ponies don't stay 'ordinary' all that long," Wind Chaser pointed out, as she swung open the grate door.
"I thought the Itinerant King was the mortal enemy of changelings," the earth pony mare pointed out.
"Only the bad ones," Wind Chaser explained. "And only if they stay that way. Those who are willing to risk their lives to save the innocent are always welcome to join. Especially those whose lives are, shall we say, in need of repair." She reached a hoof down and nopony had to wonder what she meant. The earth pony mare raised a hoof to meet her and was soon flipped up onto the top of the grating.
"What about him?" asked a pegasus mare, pointing out the truly unconscious pegasus stallion.
"Pass him up," Wind Chaser pointed out, dangling impossibly from her hind hooves. "He's getting out too. Stubborn males get rescued too."
Half the pit had been emptied when the sound of tires squeeling alerted them to an oncoming truck. The drug dealers, seeing what was going on as they returned to the warehouse, decided to use the vehicle as a projectile.
"Get the others out fast!" Wind Chaser demanded, and a pegasus dove back for another pony, while unicorn horns lifted others through the hole. Wind Chaser herself drew heavily on everything the kingdom had to offer, quickly doing her best dragon impersonation. Seeing what they were going to crash into, the drug dealers slammed on the gas pedal, hoping to get even more speed and force to strike the enlarged changeling. But she had no intention of being hit. Claws dug into the edges of the grate over the pit and she pulled it up quickly, just before the truck could reach.
They had no time to change course or brake, as the truck fell ten feet into the pit below, quickly exploding in true cinematic flair and removing all question of the drivers' fate.
Wind Chaser reverted to her true form, spent and panting, with blood using from multiple shrapnel wounds where her fake dragon scales had failed to live up to the reputation of the real thing. The earth pony mare tossed the bleeding changeling onto her back, then found a blanket the guards had used to toss over her and hide her from view.
"Come on," the earth pony mare said. "We're free."