Return: Tales of the Lost

by Dustchu

Tales of the Lost VII: City of Steel II

I honestly could not believe it, Lee told us this city only got worse from here on out, which... didn't seem possible, and yet, I could see how it was going to be more... scary looking. The rubble and completely destroyed road stayed the same, but it was the people, places and things among the rubble that was the different. The humans were all scary looking, some of them donning paint on their faces and bodies, openly fighting each other with their fists. Me, Scoots and Sweets watched as two humans fought each other, faces bloodied and blood flowing.

I gasped, they were going to end up hurting each other silly! Heck, they already were! "Hey, stop it!" I cried, galloping over to them to try and stop them. but it only got me thrown to the side.

"Fuck off you piece of shit!" The human yelled at me, eyes bloodshot and body covered in bruises. the other took advantage and grabbed him, and they both resumed fighting. Over what, I didn't even know.

Sweetie and Scootaloo looked ready to help me stop this, but Lee had grabbed the three of us and took us away, jogging away from the scene before taking us into an alleyway. Our hind legs bounced against Lee's own as he ran, jogging into an alleyway before he set us down and sighed, shaking his head as he pinched his nose. "Guys, what the hell?" He asked, and I folded my ears back. I recognized his tone, it was the same tone that Applejack used whenever I did something wrong or stupid... mostly stupid.

"This isn't right." Sweetie told him, shaking slightly, and I knew why. We'd never seen this much fighting before, I could still hear people fighting, firing guns, throwing punches, it scared her... it scared me. "Everypony shouldn't be f-fighting..."

Lee sighed, his look softening as he knelt down. "Look, kid... I know it ain't right, but this is how the world is... its how this city is." Lee told her, looking out behind her as a small shop was set afire making the three of us look back in shock, backing up until we ended up hitting Lee's legs. "This won't be stopping kids... so I suggest getting used to it." With that, the man stood up and continued down the alleyway, and we followed him. Sweetie Belle chancing one last look behind us at the fighting before following, sticking close to me.

The alleyways, it seemed, were less destructive then the streets and buildings. All around us, I could see the tall buildings, massive and extremely unstable towers of steel and glass just waiting to fall over on top of us. Some of the buildings had smoke coming out of them, and i didn't know if those were from campfires, or if somepony had started a fire to hurt somepony... or worse. Some kind of firebreathing monster, I didn't know what kind of creatures humans had to deal with, but I'm sure they weren't... all bad, least I hope so.

I didn't know what was going on in Sweetie and Scootaloo's minds, after the human fight we tried to stop... it broke my heart, and I knew for a fact that Fluttershy couldn't handle this, she'd be trying to stop everypony from fighting... but would it do any good? I knew she had her Stare, but could that power work against so many humans who are out for one another?

I doubted it... somehow...

Maybe... a few minutes had passed since we entered that alleyway and left those humans to fight for whatever reason, we followed close behind Lee, and I could tell what he said earlier was true, the city was indeed getting worse from this point on. I could hear it in the air around us, the gunfire, the explosions and screams of fighting humans. It was like a warzone, and we were right in the middle of it. Lee had held up his firearm, keeping it tight to his shoulder as he led us to... to where ever it was he was taking us to. I didn't know what it was he needed however, maybe he needed a new gun?

We kept moving through the alleyway as gunfire rang out in just about every corner, I heard glass shatter, people scream, and it was scaring me. I didn't like this place, I didn't like this world, and I just wanted to be back home with Rarity, Mom and Dad. But instead, I was stuck in a world filled with weird creatures called humans, who destroyed their own world over something silly, and killed billions. And even after they destroyed their world... they kept fighting and fighting. I didn't know if the entire world was like this, but this city was like that and it... it made me sad.

"Alright," Lee knelt down by the end of the alleway, and I could see people in the streets, suspicious looking people. We stopped by Lee, crouching low near him as he kept his eyes peeled. "We're getting closer, so stick close to me and don't wander off... we're headed into some nasty territory."

"Ah thought we already were in nasty territory." Apple Bloom asked him, prompting me to give him a look that asked the same thing. This part of the city was pretty bad, and it just kept getting worse?

What was the worst part of this city? Was a question lingering in my mind.

"Ehh... the city has... different levels of danger, it just keeps getting worse kids." He told us, before standing up and moving out into the street, we galloped close behind him. The other humans around us looked at he three of us funny, and I wondered why, was it cause we were ponies? Or really colorful? Looking around, I didn't see anything that had any color, everything was dirty, broken... burnmed away. I bet the city looked very pretty years ago, before... before the war.

The street ahead of us was filled with debris, a bunch of those broken down human vehicles that were stripped of their parts, wheels and everything else, except the frame and a few other parts. I saw a few humans lurking around nearby, all of them wearing jumpsuits as they stripped several parts from the human vehicle. I didn't know why they were doing that, maybe they needed the parts for something? Or they were trying to fix up something with them, or maybe even sell them, again I didn't know. Maybe Apple Bloom can get Lee to teach us some things, mostly about how things work aside from guns.

After a time, we ended up at a large looking building, a hotel of some sort that was missing half of the top floor, I could tell because it was currently laying in the street in a pile of smashed rubble that effectively blocked off the road, preventing anypony from heading that way unless you climbed over it. I saw a few humans standing outside, armed with rifles and wearing armor, heavy looking armor that made me scared. They looked scary, is this where Lee wanted to go? If so, why?

I got my answer, when he walked up to one of the guards, and I managed to hear him ask, "Is Mikhial in?" The guard seemed to be thinking, before another turned to Lee.

"Who may I say, is asking?" The other one asked.

"Lee's asking, I need some help." Lee responded, as Apple Bloom and Scootaloo turned to me.

I felt AB stand next to me, and she gave me a curious look. "You alright Sweets?"

Turning to give her my own curious look, I asked, "Y-yeah... why?" I was alright, I mean... I didn't feel sick or... or bad or anything, maybe a little sad because of what was going on but...

Bloom nodded, sitting down and saying, "Ah just wanted ta make sure, considerin' what all's going on an' all." She told me as Scootaloo sat down on my other side, tiny wings fluttering slightly.

"Are any of us alright?" Scootaloo questioned, making me look at her.

"What do ya mean?" Bloom wondered with a raised eyebrow, tilting her head as her bow leaned off to the side. I noted how dirty it looked, now that I thought about it, all of us were pretty dirty, its been nearly three... four days, I think since we last bathed.

"I mean... look at this place." Scootaloo told us, gesturing to the city around us.

Me and Bloom took a look around, the city was pretty bad, buildings were falling apart, some of them were on fire, and others were just leaning in a way that made me wonder how long it would be before they completely fell apart and crushed whoever was unlucky enough to be under them at the time. The smog over the city was thick, thick to the point where it blocked out the sun and the sky for miles all around, the smoke came from the many fires and whatever those huge smioke pillers were.

Jeez, how did these people live?

"Its filled with so much... bad stuff," Scootaloo told us, looking around with a scared gaze, you could tell from the look in her eyes. Wide, twitchy... "So many of those humans want to do things to us, didn't you see them looking at us when we were walking by?"

Bloom nodded her head, and I followed shortly after. "Y-yeah I did... I'm trying not to think about it, Scootaloo." I told her, in truth, I was scared out of my mind about why they were looking at us so funny. Talking about doing things to us, or even eating us! It scared me to think that at any possible moment, we could be snatched up and taken somewhere before getting eaten... or worse.

"I can't help but think about it." Scootaloo told us, fear in her voice. I frowned, feeling bad for my friend, so I scooted over to her and put my arm around her in a hug.

"Don't worry Scoots," I told her reassuringly, giving her a tiny smile. Even though I was also scared, somepony had to keep up my friends' spirits, might as well be me. "I'm s-sure nothing bad is going to happen, we just gotta keep our spirits up! I'm sure everypony back home is trying to find us, so don't worry!" I told her, and Scootaloo gave me a weak nod in reply.

"You're right, I'm just..." She lowered her ears, "I'm scared..."

I rubbed her back a little as AB came over to us. "Ah know... cause Ah'm scared to..."

"Same." I agreed with Bloom, as Lee's voice called over to us.

"Alright, come on and follow me, and don't. touch. anything." He warned us, and we all nodded, with my mostly wondering why we couldn't touch anything. STeeling ourselves, we trotted after Lee, all the while being watched by the humans as we entered the building.

Now I know why he said not to touch anything.

The interior of the hotel was relatively cleaner then the city, and The Tower where Dusty lived, the carpet was sweeped clean of debris, the walls, while torn and dirty were intact and the holes boarded up, the doors leading into other rooms were fixed up to a degree, boarded up or blocked off entirely. I saw a few old paintings hanging on the walls, depicting oceans, grassy fields with... Saddle Aribian horses? A few others of cities, and some were too faded for me to really see anything on them

Bloom and Scoots were walking on either side of me, as we followed behind Lee who led us deeper into the building. The whole time I couldn't help but feel like we were being watched, but a look around showed nothing was watching us. So I have no idea what it was, maybe I was just being paranoid?

Eventually we came to a large set of doors, both looked like they were made of thick steel, and I could see two... weird things in front of the doors on either side near the wall. They were pretty big looking, colored black with a weird looking glowing red dot on the front of it, with a protrusion on the front of it that looked like a weird laser rifle with wires leading up to the 'eye', various wires were attached to it from behind and it stood on a platform and seemed to swivel. Both of the things perked up and aimed at us, making me back away with my friends.

"Yo! Mikhial! Its me Lee! Open up you russian arse!" Lee yelled, as the machines whirred to life, guns aimed at us as their eyes glared bright red.

"Lee, what are those!" Bloom questioned as she stood next to me and Scootaloo, I didn't know what they were exactly, but I knew they were weapons.

Lee ignored Bloom's question however, instead waiting patiently until a sudden voice spoke up. "Ahhhh, Lee my friend! How are you doing?"

"Just let me in you old bastard."

"Touchy," A click was heard, followed by the weird weapons powering down and the doors slowly opening up. "Come on in my friend!" They slid to the side, and Lee beckoned us to follow him, which we did, despite the machines almost killing us. Yeah they didn't do anything except aim at us, but it was enough! The three of us entered into the room, and we were pretty surprised, I half expected the room to be something else... like a clean room with another human in it, maybe decorated with a few things...

I didn't expect it to be filled with artillery.

All around us, were shelves, tables and gunracks filled with weaponry, tons of it! Half of the guns I saw in that book of Bloom's were all in this room just about, I saw heavy looking rifles, energy type weaponry, knives, hammers, spears and even a few swords and shorter looking blades. I saw some bigger stuff, that I doubted a pony could even use, like miniguns, plasma casters, laser rifles and gatling lasers, rocket launchers and grenader launchers. I saw all of these weapons lying everywhere, I even saw a few that were too big to fit on a table and were instead setting on the floor, big guns that looked way too big to even carry~

This human seemed to like his weapons.

Infront of us, I could see a large row of shelves and tables displaying all kinds of shiny looking weapons, machine guns, energy weapons, handguns, all kinds of shiny looking weapons. But at the end of the row was what drew our attention the most, the shining lights and the weird throne really was... uh, hard to ignore. Sitting in a large 'throne' made out of ammo boxes and crates, was a man, a large one at that. He wore menacing looking armor, which was a bunch of scrap metal built into heavy looking armor. His entire body was encased in it, making him look more like a steel giant then a human.

"Greetings Lee!" The man, speaking in a strange accent as he greeted Lee, as if they were old friends. His voice was odd sounding, as if it were coming from a speaker system inside his helmet. "It is good to see you in one piece!"

"Yeah yeah, good to see you to you giant piece of shit." Lee cackled, as Mikhial joined in, Bloom, Scoots and myself looking a bit shocked by their language.

After a bit of laughing, Mikhial turned to us, and the room fell silent. "Lee, what... is this?" He asked, his armored gaze peering at us, his voice thoughtful and confused.

"They're... uh... my companions, trying to help them out a bit." Lee responded, as Forrest hovered behind us.

"Pre-war equines suffering from radiation is what they are!" Forrest yelled from behind us.

"R-radiation?" I asked, what was that? Were we sick! I could tell my friends were just as worried, if their faces were anything to go by.

"They're not suffering from radiation you bucket of bolts... I don't think, anyway!" Lee quickly said, turning his attention back to Mikhial and getting himself back on track. "I need your help with something."

Mikhial turned away to look at Lee... but I could still feel his gaze lingering on the three of us. "And what would that be friend?"

"I need information," Lee told him, sighing through his nose. "I heard something about a man named Havoc poking around the city asking about... things... I want to know who he is, do you know?"

Mikhial sighed heavily, tapping an armored finger against his helmet. "I have never heard of this man before, but I have heard of people talking of a man trying to find something within the city." The large man told Lee, as me and the girls listened in. I wonder what someone wanted to find in this city, was there some kind of secret hidden in it somewhere?

I wonder if we could get our cutie marks in finding lost treasure?

Cutie Mark Crusader Lost Treasure Hunters! I beamed, smiling a little bit as Lee nodded his head.

"That might be him... any chance you heard where he might be?" Lee wondered, crossing his arms.

"No, I am afraid not my friend, but you may ask... The Dark One, if you wish, if he is still in the Tunnel." Mikhial had a warning tone about him, which also sounded a little worried.

The Dark One? The Tunnel? I shook my head, they had too many weird names for things, all these Lost Spirits, mysterious people and all these strange things in the city. Its so hard to keep track of it all, this entire world was filled with mystery and strange ways. I wondered if there was magic somewhere in this world, I know Lee said there was not any... but I bet that somewhere... there was.

"Shit... well, thanks Mikhial, I'll bring a bottle of Vodka or something next time I stop by." Lee told him, turning around and beckoning for us to follow.

However.

"One moment Lee..." Mikhial told our human friend, halting him as he stepped down from his throne, each heavy metallic thud of his boots sending light shockwaves through the floor.

Lee rose an eyebrow, and asked, "Yeah?"

What the giant said... shocked me a little. "I wish to speak with this one alone." He said, pointing a metal finger at me.

W-what! I stepped back a little, why did he want to speak with me? I didn't know anything, I wasn't important! I turned to look at Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, both giving me looks that said they didn't know what was going on either.

Lee, thankfully came to my rescue. "Hold up, why?"

The giant turned towards him, adopting a hurt tone of voice as he said, "What, do you not trust poor old Mikhial moy drug?"

Lee just blinked his eyes slowly, and my friends stood by my side protectively. "Not with your track record."

Mikhial just laughed, patting his belly armor. "You can trust me, Lee, I only wish to talk to the cute little pony." He said, making me blush.

I wasn't cute.

Lee just sighed however, "Fine fine fine, just... don't do anything that'll make me punch you in the scrotum." He warned the giant, before walking off. Bloom and Scotaloo stayed by my side, looking up at Mikhial.

"Do we have ta leave?" Bloom asked him, to which he gave a nod.

"It will only be a for a moment little one." The man told her, his tone soft and gentle as opposed to the loud one from before.

Bloom bit her lip, and I could tell she was having trouble with leaving me behind. I gave her a few moments to think, before I spoke, "He s-seems nice enough, I'm sure I'll be okay... so don't worry." I told them, smiling as Bloom hesitantly returned it.

"I-if you say so..." Bloom gave me a quick hug, as did Scootaloo before they both slowly trotted off, leaving me behind with the giant Mikhial.

I gulped, as I turned back to him, looking up at the human, he was massive up close, standing at least seven feet tall, if not eight. His armor only made him more intimidating, scary looking, his boot was big enough that if he wanted to... he could crush me. His hands were equally as huge, the man himself... Giant. And it only made me wonder why he wanted to talk to me.

"So, little filly... where are you from?" He asked me finally, after several seconds of tense silence.

I felt surprised from that question, but cleared my throat as my eyes looked around, before saying, "I-I'm from Equestria, I l-live with my sister in Ponyville." I told him, and he nodded his head. Why did he want to know about me? I wasn't anything special.

"In Ponville you say?" Mikhial murmured, he looked like he was thinking deeply about something. "Interesting..."

"What?" I asked him, tilting my head. Now that I thought about it, he didn't seem as bad as I first thought... he was actually quite nice.

"It is nothing little one." Mikhial told me as he stood up "You know what, I have gift for you little filly!" Mikhial told me, making me look up at the metal giant, wondering what he meant. The man lumbered over to the table near his throne, looking through the many weapons he had laying out on display. I just sat down on the floor as Scootaloo and Bloom were with Lee by the exit, waiting for me to arrive so we could leave. I wasn't sure what Mikhial was doing, but I decided to wait, after all I didn't want to seem rude to the rather nice if intimidating russian giant. Eventually after a bit of searching, Mikhial pulled something out of the pile of weapons, before lumbering over to me and kneeling down, holding out the object.

It was a knife, one with a very sharp blade. my horn lit up a little as I gently took it from his massive hand, holding it up. "Uhh... t-thank you?" I said, smiling nervously, why was he giving me a knife?

"It is gift! For being cute guest, it even folds up for easy carry." He told me, taking the knife and doing a deft little trick with his gloved hand, folded it before giving it back to me.

That was pretty neat actually.

"Um... I-I'm not ungrateful or anything, but why are you giving me this?" I wondered, holding up the folded knife.

Mikhial sighed gently, and said only one thing.

Something that was going to stick with me for the rest of my life.

"You will need it for the coming days, little filly."

We had waited for... maybe an hour before Sweetie came trotting out, and to my surprise I saw her levitating a knife with her. When we asked her, she said Mikhial gave it to her as a gift for... being a cute guest. Me and Scootaloo had a little laugh at her expense, but accepted it before moving on, Lee said something about that, saying MIkhial doesn't give out weapons like that to anyone. His exact words.

"He doesn't do that for just anyone, he must think you're special if he gave you that freely."

That seemed to shock Sweetie, as she kept it close to her. Lee said he'd make her something to carry it in, once we got back to The Tower that is. So, after that we started making our way through the city once more. I wasn't sure where we were headed however, I have a feeling we were headed for whatever the Tunnel was, if I had to wager a guess, it was underground... maybe even a part of the city itself, if I had to guess again. I bet I was right to.

But we were not headed towards wherever the Tunnel was, instead we were headed back down the path we took headed from the Tower. Taking a few different paths, but I could see we were headed back to it.

"We headed back to th' Tower?" I asked Lee, trotting next to the human with Sweetie and Scoots behind me.

"Yep, The Tunnel isn't a place for kids," Lee admitted as Forrest hovered nearby.

"Not a place for robots either." Forrest grumbled.

"I heard that!" Lee narrowed his eyes at the bot, making the three of us laugh a little bit as we continued down the road.

A sigh escaped me as we left, the intense and horrible atmosphere lifted for a brief second before it came crashing back down on us again. The laugh and funny moment helped, but it didn't help enough to make us forget the one simple fact that we were stuck in a hostile world, where at any given moment we could be killed, and eaten by some crazy group of humans. But so far, we had met three friendly humans, Lee, Dusty and Mikhial. A strange human General, a Bullet Guru and a Metal Giant.

I wondered who else we would meet? Assuming they were friendly of course.

I didn't get to think of anything else...

When I suddenly felt myself falling.

"WHAAAAAAAAA!" I screamed, what happened!

"Apple Bloom!" My friends screamed as I fell down, down what, I didn't know.

I could see the road above me disappearing as I ended up hitting an incline and started rolling down sharp pieces of rubble that cut into my flanks and back legs and hooves. I cried out from each bit of pain that I felt, eventually rolling down until I hit a pile or rubble, rocks and metallic bits of junk as I heard Lee's voice above yelling at me, I couldn't make out what he was saying though, as I was too busy hurting. My whole body burned, and it wasn't even over yet.

The pile of rubble I was on fell apart, and I started falling down again, sliding down another hill, I screamed again as the darkness around me was illuminated only by a a few weird lights. I passed by hissing pipes, rushing water and other things, I could hear loud explosions happening all around me, and I had to cover my head as everything started to fall apart. Things poked into me, sharp pieces of metal and steel, rocks and wires, and other things before I finally hit the bottom, hard, landing on my side at the bottom of the hill before rolling into something that made a thunk noise.

I couldn't stop the tears from falling, everything hurt worse then I could have imagined. I could feel something warm sticking to my coat, and when I opened my eyes to look, I saw my arm was bleeding, and blood was sticking to my coat. I whimpered, the cut was pretty deep, and it burned worse then that time I sprained my hoof back home. Moving my head to look around, I saw I was in some kind of... area where a bunch of tunnels went off in different directions. It was huge to, bigger then I thought anything underground would be, all of these tunnels were big, and I could see water rushing down them and pooling around the area I was in.

From what I could tell, this was a massive platform, behind me was a great deal of rubble leading up to the street level above. I had fallen underground, into what I guess was a sewer system of some sort. I didn't know much about sewers, heck I didn't know anything about em. But I did know that these tunnels, while over two hundred years old, still worked to some degree, and was filled with a faint but still disgusting smell that lingered in the air.

I could see there were holes above, that showed the street above, heck, I could see in the distance, down one tunnel, that the road fell through and created a way back up. Maybe I could get back up using it?

*Bzzzzzt*

That would have to wait, as I heard a buzzing noise behind me. Eyes wide, I struggled to turn my head, and there, lying in some rubble I saw something... Something round and broken, I didn't know what it was though. It was round, had some antenna on it and some broken bits lying around it, and it was colored a pale white color, with faded blue lines on it in an artistic and jagged zig zag pattern and was covered in bullet holes. On the front, I saw a flickering blue light, struggling to remain lit.

I gasped, what was this thing? Whatever it was, it was broken to pieces, and the noises it was making, made me feel sad. The light continued to flicker on and off, sparks flying off of it as the light seemed to focus on me. It was pretty dark down here, but only just barely, and this thing seemed to have a light on it. I struggled to stand up, my hoof and body hurting but I forced myself to stay upright. I limped over to the thing, and poked it, it made another noise but did nothing except shine its light a little brighter.

Maybe I can use this to find my way out.

Kneeling down, I managed to pick it up, the round thing weighing just a little bit more then Sweetie Belle, before I get it onto my back. It almost rolled off, but I was able to keep it steady. But only barely, I had to look around for a bit before I ended up finding some rope like stuff while old it managed to work out pretty well in keeping the thing from falling off my back. Thankfully I had it keep on my back in a way that kept its light shining a little bit forward, helping me see.

Taking a deep breath, I started limping forward until I found a path that led down one of the tunnels. A rusty looking metal bridge, that was barely hanging on by the supports. "Okay... let's find a way out." I told myself and the thing on my back, before limping down the metallic bridge, it groaning and squeaking with every step.

Hopefully I would find a way out...