Gilded Vengeance

by DenyTheWitch

Chapter 2

This time I was woken up, again, by an icy blast of water, and again, pain lanced up from my new markings because of it. So as I yelped myself awake, feeling both the icy cold and the burning pain, I was reminded again of the events yesterday. I gently ran my hand over my leg, wincing as I felt the markings, it didn't hurt so much anymore though, at the very least it was now bearable.

I heard some more clopping of hooves as I looked up to see Blue opening my cage before she grabbed me in her magic. "Time to go, no funny business now, you hear me?" Now if it weren't for the shock prod she held in her magic, I would have been tempted to try something, probably ending with me pinned by magic again, but God, did I want to gut her. However the added incentive of said shock prod left me to growling at her as she carried me out to the end of the carriage before plonking me down if from of what looked like a door.

There Sandstorm sat watch with another shock prod while Blue and the Pegasus rounded up more humans from different cages then plonking them down with me, they did this for a while longer till there were about fourteen humans total all sitting down with me. Then they took out a long chain with a bunch of steel collars attached before clasping the collars on all us humans. Some of the humans, myself included, struggled a bit as they put the collars on, but in the end it was pointless, but I suppose I already knew that.

Anyway after the collars were all attached, the doors to the outside were opened rather suddenly, temporary blinding me, and probably some other humans as we all baked away from the blinding light. Sandstorm was having none of that though, snarling out, "get moving," to us before using the shock prod on one of the feral humans. Now the problem here is that steel is a great conductor for electricity, and as we were all connected by steel chains and collars, all of us felt the shock. I clutched my chest as the electric current went through me, fortunately I was near the front and I think the shock was near the back, or maybe I'd just gotten more used to it, whatever the reason, it didn't hurt nearly as much as the first time, so I recovered quickly.

Not quick enough for Blue though, she tugged on the front of the chain, dragging me and a few other humans forwards so that we fell flat on our faces. "Hurry UP!" We scrambled back onto our feet as we were then led forwards off the train carriage, and I finally saw the outside properly for the first time in weeks. We had stopped at a proper train station, would you believe it, and in comparison to the dark train carriage, this place was almost painfully colourful. The station was a mix of creamy whites, and greyish greens, and even a bunch of Great big clocks, and the architecture reminded me of those old train stations in New York, the ones in the movies, I think, never been there myself, as for the ponies, well the ponies, where do I begin, there were so many. They were in just about every colour you could imagine, blue, red, yellow, white, pink, everything, and most of them seemed to be wearing some sort of clothes, although it seemed very mix-match, some had full jackets and tuxedoes, some wore just collars or scarfs, there were hats too, and some of the ponies even carried cameras.

Many of the ponies stopped to look at us as we were shepherded out of the train towards the exit, but most of them ignored us, and, looking around I saw that there were humans here too, carrying bags or even just following the ponies on leashes. In fact, every single human in the station that wasn't in our little chain gang was on a leash being dragged around by on stuck up pony or another. I could only really steal glances at them as we were pushed out into the daylight, the city itself, was strange. It looked a bit like one of those old cities you see in films and documentaries, the ones set in the 1930's-40's, a mix of glass and concrete, with lots of fancy arching buildings all around the place, all in the same style, If it weren't for all the ponies I could have sworn I had been transported into 1930's New York. As we turned off and began walking along the path towards what looked like a lake, I was struck by even more similarities, the roads were filled with carriages that seemed to share a style with those really old cars, only pulled by other ponies, wonder how much the got paid for that, and there were hot dog stands, selling carrots instead of sausages, that was just weird, pizza stores, again, no meat, and loads of fancy looking hotels.

Most ponies gave our group a wide berth, but otherwise ignored us, some would point and murmur to each other, but otherwise we were left alone as we walked down the street towards the harbours of this city. The ponies who were herding us would only occasionally shove us forwards and would sometimes walk up to each other have short talks, but the walk pretty much was made in silence. So as we continued down I was able to think about my current situation for a bit, the brands on my legs still stung, but otherwise they seemed to stop hurting, so that was a plus, and from all that had happened it looked like I was getting sold here, but I just had to wonder, to who?

<--------<Star Shine>-------->

Star Shine huffed as he pushed his way towards the Manehatten docks, past the massive crowds of pedestrians, thoughts running wild in his head. Just yesterday he had received a message from Midnight, that his special human delivery, the one he had ordered EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO! Was finally ready, but she wouldn't deliver it to his home, nooo, instead, he had to walk all the way to Manehatten harbour to pick up his late delivery, when he could be doing his research instead! But if this worked, he would never have to waste time in this sort of errand again, so despite himself he had left his isolated tower and come all the way to Manehatten, but now the city seemed intent on reminding him why he didn't stay in cities in the first place.

The traffic was a nightmare, ponies were walking all over the place and on the roads there seemed to pass one coach every second! Right now he was waiting at the side of the road for a break in traffic big enough for him to cross, and judging by the crowd, or lack thereof, he had just missed one such gap. Tapping his hoof impatiently, he had to wait for a full minute to cross the road, grumbling as he went by. Star Shine liked to consider himself a pony who was always on time, never late, never dawdling, but it seemed like today he would be just that, LATE! Star Shine continued to grumble to himself as he walked along, on the bright side he only needed to be there before they left, which, unless he somehow managed to spend two hours walking down five blocks, he should manage, still, Star Shine, late, it put him in a sour mood.

<-----------<Jacob>----------->

You have got to be kidding me, seriously, just when I thought nothing else could surprise me, this comes up, and its not a scary surprise, its just stupid. We have reached the harbour and for a while now I had lost interest in the water, aside from a few ferries it was just empty water, but then I saw it. In the middle of this great big spot of water there was a small island, and on that island, the dumbest thing I had ever seen, it was the statue of Liberty, but with a pony instead of a human, granted he wouldn't expect a statue of a human in this world, but why was there even a statue of liberty here? What was it for? I seriously doubt I'd ever get some answers, but, god, it was frustrating seeing that, frustrating and stupid.

Anyway ignoring that strange statue, it seemed like we had finally arrived at our destination, we were in a small market area, but this small market seemed to sell only humans. There were ponies on stands shouting "look at this human!"
"Isn't this human strong?"
"How much for this one of a kind northern human?" You know, usual marketing. We moved over to one such stand, where we were shoved into a large cage at the back which was clearly built to hold more humans than this, in which our collars were removed and the cage locked behind us. As the ponies started setting up their own stand we were left to our own devices, the feral humans seemed to mill around a bit, not really knowing what to do, some tugged on the bars a bit while others just sat down. Me, I just sat down in the far corner, wanting to put as much distance between me and them as possible.

Now that I wasn't preoccupied with pain or shock, and now that I could see these humans properly, I began to understand a bit more about what they had said about me. These feral humans were much smaller than most people I'd ever seen, in fact I stood almost a full head taller than some of them, and if that were anything to base it by, then sure, I'd probably might be a bit stronger than some of them. But what struck me as odd was just how overwhelmingly dumb they seemed, they had pretty large skulls for their bodies, which should really make them just a little bit dumber than a regular human, but eh, what do I know, I quit human biology after multiple failures.

Eventually Blue seemed happy with her set up and, after scanning the crowd for a bit she gave the go ahead to Sandstorm. Sandstorm opened up the cage and grabbed the closest human in his magic, sticking a single collar and chain on it before dragging it out to the stand, waving the shock prod menacingly at the other humans. Then Blue went about the same kind of thing all the other speakers had been doing, eventually a small crowd of ponies had gathered and after Blue finally shut up, she asked for bidders and multiple hooves shot up. The whole thing reminded me of an auction, with ponies one-upping the prices of their fellow ponies one at a time until one pony's claim went uncontested, she walked up to sandstorm, passing him a bag of bits before she then happily took the human by its chain and trotted off. Sandstorm then took another human out in the same fashion and the whole thing started again.

I just sat there as the humans were sold off one by one, watching and listening. From what I could tell their currency was based on small gold coins called bits, and they threw the occasional gem in there, although they didn't seem to be worth that much here, and there were just so many gems. And I noticed that nearly all of these ponies appeared to be normal, with no horn or wings, I would hazard a guess and say that unicorns and Pegasus were the more rare types of ponies. Also I missed this on the way here, but when I looked up I saw the sky had large numbers of pegasi flying around, not as many as these normal ponies, but still, more than I had seen of any unicorns. so yeah, in terms of numbers the rarest ponies were unicorns, then pegasi, the normal ponies.

Just as my mind was reaching that conclusion I heard a shout from the crowd, which is saying something considering how loud this place was. "MIDNIGHT!" Blue looked up at this, although I couldn't tell if she was responding to the shout or just annoyed at the interruption, and as I followed her gaze I saw a Silver coated, grey maned unicorn with a rather grouchy face shoving its way through the crowd, earning it numerous glares from the other ponies. "Midnight! Get down here right now, I need to talk to you." Blue smiled at this, so I'll just assume her name is Midnight, and isn't that a strange name, I mean, who names their child after a time of day, what's next, a pony named Twilight? "Sure thing Star Shine, just meet me by the cage, oh and take your time would you, I won't have you disturbing my customers." The unicorn, Star Shine, seemed to grumble at this but he did slow down and walk slowly towards the cage while Midnight turned around and after a quick word with Silver Sight, headed down to meet him while Sight took over the auctioning.

As they headed over hear I got up and shuffled slowly over to the cage entrance, eventually I was close enough to listen in on the conversation. "...teen months Midnight, eighteen! I'd actually thought you'd forgotten about this order a long time ago, what was with the hold up?" Well Mr Shine seemed angry, and that order, that's a long time to wait for something.
"Relax Shine, I just couldn't find a human to fit the bill for what you wanted until now, none of them where smart enough." Shine just grumbled at this for a moment before he shot a suspicious glare at Midnight, "if that's the case then how do I know that this human really is smart enough?" Midnight just groaned at this.
"Look, Silver Sight ran the tests, this is one of the smartest humans ever seen according to him, and I can get you the test results if you're really that paranoid." Shine just continued to glare.
"You do that." Midnight let out a huff of exasperation before whirling around and walking up to sight who had just sold the ninth human when she reached him.

Meanwhile Shine looked at the cage, searching before his eyes fell on me, or, more specifically, my new markings. Then it clicked for me, so this was the guy I was supposed to be sold to, huh. As we just stared at each other for a bit, Silver Sight came up to Shine with his clipboard he had used when testing me before having a hushed discussion while once again, Midnight took over Auctioning. As they were discussing my test scores I saw that this Star Shine had a marking on his flank, in fact, it was the same marking I now had on my legs, a five pointed star with those lines coming out from it that you use in drawings to show light is coming from something, only his had colour, a much darker silver than his coat, with an outline too. Then another thought struck me, if this is the guy I've been branded for, then he was definitely the one who ordered it, so he's the reason for my brand new scars, all of a sudden, I'm starting to hate this guy.

Anyway after a bit of conversation Shine seemed satisfied and gave a nod to Sight, who walked back up to Midnight where the two once again switched places, Midnight came back, where Shine pulled out two bags of coin from, somewhere, I'm not quite sure where, and Midnight took it with a cheerful smile. Then she turned to me and pulled a collar and chain from, somewhere, before her smile became that creepy sinister one again, it made my insides shudder. The cage was opened and I again, found myself with a brand new collar and leash, wonderful.

She then passed the chain leash on to Shine who was quick to turn around and walk off, dragging me with him as we headed into the big city of ponies, the crowd parting to allow him to pass. I threw a glance backwards to see Midnight waving me off, before I shuddered, yup, I'm glad I'm not seeing her again, I almost fell over though as my glance had slowed me down and Shine gave my leash a hard tug. I scrambled back up to follow him, rubbing what little of my neck that wasn't under iron, before picking up my pace, lets see what this guy waited eighteen months for then, and hope he doesn't have any particularly painful plans for me, I threw a glance down at my brands, well, not any more painful plans.

Comments

[Half-a-Yolk]

Please, ensure that dialogue from several people aren't in the same paragraph.

[Trumpet222]

This is really good. At first i thought "oh no another dumb, dry, and boing human story" but this great. KEEP GOINGGGG

[Cheerileeapplebloom]

Yay a new chapter. This is the best spin off I have read and can't wait for a new chapter.