We found that the best time for scheming is at the dead of night. Guards are the laziest then, you can do anything at this time. But we scheme, it all we can do without the risk of getting caught later on. Hopefully our schemes go as planed.
The leaders of the various groups have filled the shack, they all sat based on what they do in this prison camp that they call a village. Every group of course has their own letter which then classifies what they do, and as such each group has a different objective for our escape. My group for example, we’re tasked with keeping the attention off of everyone else, I say I do a pretty good job at that.
“Ok, is everyone here?” Thunder Horn asked looking over the room.
“Peach Leaf isn't, she’s been sick lately.” One of the farmers answered.
“Good to know, alright down to business. The floor’s yours Soarin.” Thunder Horn said turning to the one of the only other pegasus here besides Scootaloo and myself. Soarin is one of the three surviving members of the Wonderbolts, that includes both the reserves and the main group. I'm not sure who the other two survivors were, mostly because I wasn't one for stories, and Shorin had a lot of stories to tell.
“Thank you Thunder, alright everypony where are we in the escape plan?” Soarin asked. The leaders began to give their reports one by one, each one saying what they accomplished and what still needs to be done. I was forcing myself to stay in the sitting position during the meeting, to be honest I wasn't listening, I was too busy trying keep myself from passing out from exhaustion. I was brought back to reality when I felt something touch my back. I turned to see what it was, I was surprised to it our resident nurse.
“Nurse Redheart?” I asked quietly, being sure not to disturb the meeting.
“Sorry if I startled you, you looked like you were in quite a bit of pain. So I decided make my way over and patch you up a bit.” She answered. Nurse Redheart is probably one of the nicest ponies here, always making sure the others are in good health and that their injuries are taken care of. She’s also the reason me and Scootaloo made it out of Ponyville alive. That day still haunts my dreams, all the death and destruction reducing Ponyville to nothing then a smoldering ruin. It’s a miracle that anyone made it out of that death trap at all, in fact half of the ponies in this work camp are the survivors of The Ponyville Massacre.
“Thank you, but you didn't.....”
“Meadow do you have anything to add?” Soarin asked.
Guess he heard me talking.
“No sir, I don’t have anything to add.” I answered, not even sure what the others have been talking about.
“Good, now everything seems to be going as planned. If all goes well we’ll be out of by the end of the.....” Soarin was interrupted by a young foal running into the room looking panicked. It was one of group E’s, the Overseer’s personal slave group, also our eyes and ears inside the overseeing building. Infact I knew this foal, we call him Gusty, ones the logging groups found him outside the camp one day. They were surprised to find him to say the least, from what I heard he showed no fear to the guard overseeing the group, it apparently took an hour to convince the guard to not kill him. Almost two years later he became the youngest but most helpful amongst us.
“SIR! We...have..a problem.” Gusty said while catching his breath.
“What’s the problem Gusty?”
“The General of Cruelty is on her way here for an inspection!” Gusty answered trying to keep fear from showing. He has every reason to be afraid though, Cruelty is the most cruel of the six generals, every time she comes to inspect the work camp someone usually ends up dead, most of the time it’s one of us ‘slaves’.
“What! Are you sure?”
“Yes sir, I overheard a messenger deliver the message to the Overseer himself.”
“This isn’t good, if she arrives then we can kiss our freedom good bye. How long do we have before she arrives?” Soarin asked with clear worry on his face, if she got here before we escaped then our plan would be ruined, not to mention a lot of us would end up dead.
“The messenger said she would be arriving any day now.”
“Then we have no choice we have to escape tomorrow.” Soarin said clearly not happy about the news as well as having to shorten the timetable for the escape. Judging by how everyone is reacting, nobody's happy about this troubling news. The various group leaders whispered amongst themselves concerned what this means for the plan, I’m not sure what they’re saying but I can see the fear on their faces. Everyone in the room isn't sure we can pull off this escape plan in a few hours, especially if it took years to plan and prepare.
“What about the sick and injured, most of them won't make the trek.” One of the group leaders said voicing his concern.
“They're no safer here when Cruelty arrives, they have a better chance of surviving if we escape tomorrow.” Soarin said strengthening his argument, and of course he's right. Cruelty takes joy in brutally killing the sick and injured, weather it's one of her soldiers or a slave.
“We don’t have a choice.” I said speaking over everyone else. “ We have to leave tomorrow, but we have to alter the plan for this to go well.”
“What did you have in mind Meadow?” Shorin asked a little uneasy about the idea of changing a plan. He has every right to be, the plan change was needed but at the same time extremely dangerous.
“The only way I see us getting out of this alive is by fighting our way out” The entire room went into an uproar, no one seemed to like my idea, not even Scoots seemed to like the idea that much.
“How is that going to get us out of here alive Meadow? We’re trying to save lives, not lose them.” Thunder Horn said raising his voice above the others. “I say we go about this the way we planned, by sneaking out in between patrols.”
“Do you really think we’ll get out that way? With Cruelty on her way here, I'll be surprised if they let us go to the bathroom without someone in their with us let alone go off by ourselves.” I said fully realizing where this is going.
“How do you suppose we get out of here then, by fighting? And what would we fight with, farm tools and picks, against trained soldiers with actual weapons?”
“Ponies have won battles with less, besides we out number them four to one.” Everyone has quieted down by this point, the only ones talking were me and Thunder.
“Ok that’s enough!” Shorin said stopping our argument from continuing any further. “We’re going to do this as we originally planned, and we're doing it tomorrow. But we’ll be ready to fight if and when it's needed, but until then we’re going to head back to our respective bunks and get some sleep.” Shorin said explaining what we’ll be doing, and judging by the tone of his voice we don't have much of a say in it.
Everyone left the room as they came in, leaving me and Scootaloo alone in our bunk for a few moments as we wait for the rest of our group. Thunder Horn returned shortly with the rest of our group, nothing was said for the rest of the night. Everyone knew what was about to happen, and they knew what needed tobe done.
Applebloom looked around confused, if anyone here didn't know what they needed to do it would’ve been her. After all, she’s originally from one of the farming groups and got transferred to my group.
“Hey Applebloom” I said drawing her attention. She looked over to me curious in what I wanted her for. I gestured for her to come over to where I was sitting, she slowly made her way over clearly unsure what to think. “I'm assuming you don't know what to do tomorrow, am I right?” I asked her.
“Well yeah, I didn't even know we had an escape plan.” She answered searching the back of her head with her hoof. That's when I took notice to her hat, it was a regular tan cowboy hat. It made sense for to wear it during farming, if the sun ever shined.
“Really? That's weird, the leaders were supposed to tell everyone in their group.” I said still focused on the hat.
“Well the others didn't like me that much due to the fact ma sister is one of the six generals that made all this happen.” She said catching me a little off guard.
“Wait really?”
"Yes in fact this was her hat, before she got corrupted and all.” Applebloom said with sadness in her voice, she looked at her sister’s hat with a look of sadness and remembrance.
“Hey don't worry, I'm sure there's a way to bring her back.” I lied, as far as anyone's concerned the corrupted have long been dead. “Anyways I called you over to let you know that you have a place in my group tomorrow. Just come find me and I'll make sure you and the others get out.”
“Thank you, you and Sweetie Belle have been nicer then the others have been so far.”
“Hey anytime, now go get some sleep. We got a busy day tomorrow.” I said laying down on the bunk, she seemed to like that idea and her way to an empty bunk.
It was yet another restless sleep, the same nightmare of when this all happened visited me yet again. I have so often I'm not really scared by it anymore, but a new face I’ve never notice before was there. She was running away like the other towns ponies, but she wasn't with the group that went with Red Heart. I looked over to Applebloom she seems to of had the same dream, but yet it must be different due to the look on her face.
She looked panicked but yet extremely sad, I know that face very well. Scootaloo would wake up with that face every night, she didn't take Rainbow Dash’s corruption well. Even to the point she’ll give anyone a dirty look for just mentioning her old idol. I took a look around the rest of room, the others are gathering their things but not for work.
“What’s going on? Why is everyone gathering the supplies we gathered?” I asked Thunder Horn as he walked past me to presumingly wake up Scootaloo.
“There's been a change of plans, we’re leaving right now.” He said kicking Scoots’ bed. “So gather everything you need and get your team ready, you're leaving with the first group.”
“Why are we leaving now instead of tonight, what’s going on?” I asked frantically trying to figure what's going on. Just then a male pegasus wearing heavy looking royal guard armor walked thru the door.
“Is everyone ready? Because we need to go now!” The mysterious pegasus said in a commanding way.
“Yes Captain, we’re all good to go, are your men ready to escort us out?” Thunder responded as if the Pegasus was his commanding officer.
“Ok everypony let's get going, my men can't hold them off forever.” The captain said as he charged out the door. We begin to follow behind him as best we could, Scootaloo and Applebloom did there best to help me along. Sweetie Belle stayed close by as well, she’s the closest thing my group has to a nurse, it help that she received some training from Red Heart a couple years back.
Pain raced through my body as we grow closer to the wall that surrounds our “town”. As we grew closer the more I was able to make out a hole in the wall. I could hear the sounds of battle grow louder behind us as well, I glanced back for a moment only to see actual corrupted soldiers fight who I can only assume to be rebellion soldiers. I look further back to see the embodiment of torture and pain herself. Her piercing red eyes stared us down, her long hair flowed down with a smoky wisp to it moving around her outstretched wings, just like the rest of her have a dark and smoky appearance to it.
“Cruelty!” I couldn't help but yell out, the others looked back as well only to quicken their pace into a full sprint for the wall. We started to lag behind, Scootaloo was struggling to keep me going and Applebloom stayed behind to help push us along. I could see Sweetie Belle in front us trying to get too far behind the others or to far ahead from us.
“Scootaloo get out of here.” I told her as I began to carry myself
“What! I'm not leaving you!” She said almost shocked that I even thought about it.
“You’ve been here long enough, it’s time that you go live the life you were meant to have.”
“I won't be able to, not until the sun comes back. None of us will.” She was right. We grew closer to the wall, by this time the fight was right behind us and a few of the Rebellion soldiers broke off from the fight to ensure we make it. One in particular took over for Scootaloo and Applebloom, a female Pegasus wearing a lighter version of the royal guard armor. She had Sapphire blue eyes and white fur, she was a beautiful as freshly fallen snow in an untouched field.
“Thank you miss...” I started hoping to get a name.
“Winter, you may call me Winter.” She said. Her voice was as beautiful as she looked, she had slight Trottingham accent which made her sound distinguished in a way. Before I could ask her anymore questions an explosion went off behind me, I glanced to to see the wall behind me vaguely covered by smoke.
I don't even remember reaching the wall let alone going through it.
“Excuse me Sargent?” One the soldiers asked who I can only assume to be Winter.
“Yes what is it private?” Winter asked in response.
“The Captain want to talk to you.”
“Very well, will you be fine on your own?” She said turning her attention to me.
“Yeah I have a few friends to help me out if needed.” With that she flew off with the soldier close behind, the rest of us began to move forward following behind our rescuers to who knows where.