Never Alone

by New Spark

Revolution is Near

------------------------------Whirlwind------------------------

Manehattan. Towering squares of gray and brown concrete. Looming spires of cold steel and glass, tinted black and blue like the colours of a harsh, starless night, piercing the heavens and casting shadows upon the insignificant creatures of the earth. The rain was pounding hard, filling the streets ankle deep in water. The muddy brown kind tinted gray like everything else was. Except the towering buildings. Their glass and metal only got shinier and more powerful. Their tops were above the cloudline. Downtown Manehattan. More specifically, the Mordor of Equestria. Sounds fun. But in the grays and blacks and browns, there was a strange shining glow. Light golden.

“Princess Celestia?”
“Yes my foal.” Where was that voice coming from? “Worry not where my voice is coming from just listen to it.”
“Um… actually I’d like an explanation.” Whirlwind said.
“Well my foal I can’t show myself in this dream because it’s pretty much a practice you and Cottoncandy must do alone?”
“Cotton?”
Suddenly, the light blue stallion with the beautiful milk chocolate coloured mane fazed into existence beside here.
“Um… oh hi Whirlwind I’m probably having a weird dream right now.”
“More of a stimulation.” Celestia said.
“What the fuck? Who said that?”
“Well, a certain mysteriously-disappeared Princess who’s been going into our dreams for the past few months is here.” Whirlwind replied semi-sarcastically.
“So we’re together?”
“Yep. Apparently this is a simulation for a thing we need to do.”
“What are we doing?”
“From the look of things, fucking shit up in Mordor.”
“No we are not going to ‘fuck shit up’ my little ponies, at least not yet.”
“Then what is this for?”CS asked.
“You have to gather information, about how Equestria decayed. About why. About what will happen next. About the elements that you’re procuring. About what can save our country, return it to it’s former self of peace and love and tolerance and harmony.”
“So… we’re like, doing an investigation?” Whirlwind asked.
“Well, kind of. But you’re also spies. So you’ll have to develop the necessary skills.”
“Ooh that sounds cool. I’ve always wanted spy skills,” CS said enthusiastically.
“You might die so I want you both to think about this very deeply. Do you actually want this? Because if you don’t, you don’t have to.”
“This is Equestria we’re talking about,” Whirlwind started. “A billion ponies whose lives we could be saving. The entire future depends on this. It’s not time to think about if I die or not. But I can’t let Cottoncandy die.”
“It’s okay what do I have to live for anyways. And also, I need to come to make sure you don’t die.”
Whirlwind thought about it a bit. “So it’s a deal. I’ll make sure you don’t die and you make sure I don’t die.”
“Yeah, that sounds great.” Cottoncandy Soldier was, as well, hesitant. But they both wanted to see Equestria be better, to see Harmony reign throughout the world.
“So shall we start?”

The two of them walked through the dirty slurry than some ponies had to live in, and towards the towering mesh of black metal and glass.They were stopped at the entrance of the building, by security guards wearing black vests.
“Why are you two here, may I ask?” The one with the purple mane asked.
“Well, we… um… have an appointment. With Golden Pistol.” Whirlwind said tentatively.
“Why?”
“To… um… discuss business.” CS said.
“What company?”
“We represent … the Enchantress Mane Co?” Whirlwind cringed internally at that name. She knew it was a real company though. You could smell their product five hundred miles away and it was really annoying.
“No.”
“Why not?” Cotton asked.
“You cannot come in.”
“Just tell us why.”
“No.”

Okay, well, that failed.
Oh princess Celestia’s voice rang through the dream. “How about we try that again my little ponies.”

We were back in the beginning of the dream.
“Okay,” Whirlwind said, “we have to think of a way to get through to the guards.”
“This is kind of like a video game,” CS said smiling.
“Yeah, I guess,” Whirlwind smiled, “although when the real thing happens one or both of us could die.”
“If it has to be someone it’ll be me,” Cotton said more grimly.
“Oh you think I’d allow that? Oh hell no. And we should also change topics.”
“Yep. Hmm, what could get us in? Maybe we could dress like employees. Like, the type that can probably go through the whole building without arousing suspicion.”
“That’s a great idea. Now we’d never be able to pass as actual businessmen. I mean, no offense but I’m fourteen and you’re twenty and neither of us look a day older. Not to mention the probably keep good tabs on their actual workers. How about… janitors? They’re low-profile enough that ponies unfortunately never notice them, and they can go anywhere without being questioned.”
“Sounds good, but we’ll need IDs and uniforms.”

They looked around. There were ponies in huge, sleek cars making their commutes, and dirty-looking ponies on foot trying to avoid the rain, and almost everything in between, though nothing remotely close to the private jets that flew past the cloud layer to find their runways on towering roofs. It was… the perfect synopsis to what Equestria had become these days. But anyways, they had to find a way to get one.
“...or…” Whirlwind started, “We could fly up and sneak in through an open window or something.”
“Yeah, but I doubt any window would be big enough for that,” CS said skeptically.
“Well, we could a t least see how the building’s mapped out. And we could see what we need to go in.”
“Yeah, these things are are like, ninety percent glass.’”
“We could just break in then.”
“Not strong enough. And that would also set off a lot of alarms.”
“What if we broke in in the middle of the night when everyone was at home smoking cocaine and fucking hookers. They seriously do that. I read a book about it once.”
“There would still be security guards.”
“Yeah let’s just look around.”

The building was composed of rows and rows of normal-sized offices for the first hundred levels. once you broke the cloud layer, the offices got incredibly large, and over-the-toply furnished in lavish items. But after about fifty floors of that, there was a huge chunk of the building with no windows, with just cold, dead steel.
“They’re hiding something there I just know it.”CS said in a serious tone.
“We’ll find the truth. As Starswirl said, truth always wins.” Whirlwind knew they could win.
“Well, I guess we got an okay outside map of this place, but we need to get in.”
“We need to maybe get ahold of the memories of the ponies who work here.”
Princess Celestia’s voice rang through the dream again, “We can have that arranged. If necessary we could guide you through the memories of everyone that works here to better form a plan.

“That sounds long and tedious, but worth it,” Whirlwind said.

“It’s time to wake up, my foals, the new day is starting,” Celestia cut in.
“Just one question,” CS added, “Where’s Princess Luna?”
“She’s making sure your dreams don’t get hacked. If the ESA knows you have the elements, you’ll disappear in much the same way we did.”
Whirlwind shuddered.

Author's Note:

Arshad's Spark is what brought this title. Listen to the song it's all like "On the edge of revolution. You're my whole life. You have to survive." It's really cool.

Comments

[TwiwnB]

“You might die

I can only give the advice to use the kid-friendly formulation "You might get hurt" for a character like Celestia.

If the ESA

Reference to the NSA I imagine.

Well, this is kinda weird, but okay, why not. Let's the "action" part begin. Even so I thought there wouldn't be one, which would also have been fine.