Sins of a Shadow

by SilverFlare11

Chapter 2-One Way Ticket

Silver sat in the boxcar of the train, grimacing at the pain shooting through his body. With every bump of the rails a new wave of agony shot through him. He looked down at his right rear leg, which was splayed out before him; it was bent at a horrible angle and he knew immediately that it was badly broken. He quickly took measures to try and fix it temporarily until he found proper medical aid; he smashed a wooden crate beside him, taking two timbers of nearly equal size from it. He then took off his hoodie and tore the sleeves off of it with his teeth.

I mean, yeah, I’ve broken bones before. But it wasn’t EVER a leg. Usually it was just a rib or my nose, but this was new to me. I’d seen it before though, and I knew how to splint a busted leg.

There was just one part I always dreaded doing every time I’d done it before; bending it back into the right place.
Silver took his two front hooves and grabbed his broken leg with them, inhaling sharply at the pain that shot through it from the contact. He then quickly jerked his hooves, crying out in agony as the leg cracked and bent back into place. He twisted it a bit, making sure it was in the proper position, but this also caused him great discomfort. Finally, he splinted the leg; he placed the two timbers right up against his leg, holding them there with his magical grip while he tied the sleeves of the hoodie around both the timbers and his leg using his magic, stabilizing it the best he could.

“F-Fuck that hurt…,” Silver whimpered.

Yeah. You heard it right. That was painful. I may be a pretty hardcore guy, what with all the stunts I pulled to get out of Canterlot; the road battle, the chase, punching a Royal Guard right in the muzzle and then jumping two stories just to have a roof break and cause me to fall the other two stories…

But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel pain. I mean, for Celestia’s sake, nopony is immune to pain, whether it’s emotional or physical. I feel both, every single day, emotional a lot more so because of the guilt I have… But I’ll save that explanation for another time.
Silver finally leaned back against the crate he was sitting against once more, feeling less pain but enough to still be very prominent. He grimaced and slowly shifted, tearing what was left of his hoodie into several smaller pieces in case he needed to tie off the splint a few more times. He then closed his eyes and tried to relax; after all, he had escaped the police once more. He had absolutely nothing to worry about now except for a new car when he reached wherever the train was going. From there, he’d do what he did best; he’d improvise.

My only thoughts at the moment were jumbled, fuzzy messes. The pain I was feeling was completely screwing with my head and I couldn’t think straight. The only thought that I could fully muster was that I had gotten away.

That and the thought that I REALLY needed a new car soon, since the 400R was sitting upside down in the middle of Canterlot.
Suddenly, the train slowed rapidly, throwing Silver forward. He landed on the floor roughly, sending a shockwave of pain through his body once more. He then felt the train jolt to a stop.

“F-Fucking Celestia…,” Silver moaned out in agony, lying on the floor of the boxcar in a crumpled mess. He heard hoofsteps outside the car, and he opened his eyes slightly only to shut them almost all the way once more as the door of the boxcar opened and bright light streamed in from outside.

“Alright, you get out of there!” he heard a voice yell. He only groaned in pain and frustration; he’d been seen by somepony as he’d jumped onto the train. “Get up, ya little shit!!!”

“Ugh… I can’t, genius…,” Silver groaned, picking his head up. “My leg’s busted…”

“I don’t care ‘bout your leg,” the pony said. Silver finally got a good look at who the pony was; he was a simple earth pony stallion, slightly smaller than Silver himself but much more muscular. While Silver did have muscle tone, he had very little actual bulk.

“Well, if ya want me out of the boxcar, come help me up at least, you stupid fuck,” Silver retorted. “Can’t walk right and I’m in a hell of a lot of pain, thank you very much.” The pony snorted.

“Not gonna help you up,” the pony snapped.

“Then what are you gonna do to get me out of here?” Silver replied. “Huh?” The pony angrily sighed.

“Alright, alright, I’ll help you up,” the pony spat, climbing into the boxcar and getting down beside Silver. Silver reached a hoof up, and the other pony grabbed it, helping Silver to his hooves with a grunt. Silver grimaced at the pain he felt as he stood up, and he took all the weight off of his rear leg, and he limped forward awkwardly until he stepped out of the train car, practically falling onto the ground before catching himself as the other pony also exited the boxcar.

“Little help walking, too?” Silver asked the pony. The pony sighed and allowed Silver to hold onto him as they made their way to the front of the train, reaching the engine. Silver looked up at the engineer, and immediately he became uneasy.

The pony he was looking at was easily much larger than him, both in size and muscle bulk. He was a deep blue earth pony stallion with a brown mane and tail, around 20 years of age and he adorned a western style fedora. He looked down at Silver and the pony who was assisting him in walking, and Silver could also see that the engineer was wearing glasses.

“Where’d ya find him?” the engineer asked the other pony; Silver immediately picked up on a heavy country accent.

“He was hiding in one of the boxcars,” the other pony replied. “What should I do with him?” The engineer looked at Silver and noticed his beaten and bloody state.

“What in the hay did ya do to yurself thar, pardner?” the engineer asked Silver. Silver remained silent. “Ya don’t talk much, do ya?” Silver shook his head.

“I talk just fine,” Silver spoke. “I’m just in a lot of pain right now, and the last thing I want is for you guys to leave me out here… in my condition, I wouldn’t even live to see tomorrow.” The engineer looked at Silver with slight concern in his eyes before looking back to the other pony.

“Take him to the sleeper car,” the engineer said. “Give him the last bed on the left, bottom bunk. I’ll talk to him there and then decide what to do.”

“But-“ the other pony started, but the engineer cut him off.

“No buts,” the engineer said. “Ya do as I say or yu’re fired.” The other pony groaned. “And don’t complain no more, either. ‘Less ya wanna shovel more coal.”

“Thank you…,” Silver said to the engineer, relieved.

“Oh, ya shouldn’t thank me yet,” the engineer replied. “I can throw ya off this train whenever I feel like it.” Silver gulped, and the other pony, who Silver now knew as the coal pony, grinned evilly.

“Alright, c’mon,” the coal pony said to Silver as he assisted him in walking to the passenger car. Some ponies were now looking out the windows, poking their heads out to see what was holding up their trip. As soon as they saw Silver, some of them cringed at his injured state and pulled their heads back into the car, while others gawked at him in awe, wondering what had happened to him. The coal pony aided Silver as they entered the first passenger car, and they walked through the car slowly, ponies moving out of their way they best they could. “We’ve got an injured pony here, everypony,” the coal pony said. “C’mon, make some room, let us get past…” They eventually made their way through the first car and into the second one, and finally left the second one and entered the sleeping car. Silver looked at the sleeping compartments; there were four in the middle that were actual rooms, and the rest were just bunk beds with drapes that could be drawn so nopony could see inside.

“He said last bunk on the left, right?” Silver asked to confirm.

“Yeah, he did,” the coal pony replied. “Now get your plot over there.” Silver started limping towards the bed on his own, but the coal pony stopped him. “Wait.” He looked down at the carpeting of the car, and Silver did the same, noticing that it was becoming stained red with something that was still dripping onto it.

That’s when Silver realized that it was his own blood. He looked to his left side where the carpet was mostly stained and saw a large gash in his torso that was seeping the crimson fluid. He immediately felt weaker when he saw it, and he nearly fell over, the coal pony being the only thing that stopped him.

“S-Shit…,” Silver whimpered, feeling incredibly woozy.

“Can’t stand the sight of blood?” the coal pony asked, snickering.

“I’m f-fine with it…,” Silver replied weakly, slowly making his way towards the bunk. “I just c-can’t believe I’m bleeding t-that badly…”

“I’ll get Swift to bring some bandages when he comes to talk to you,” the coal pony said. “You may have been a stowaway and you might be sassy and annoying as hell, but nopony deserves to have that kind of a slice in their flesh getting infected or bleeding to death.” Silver reached the bed and lay himself down on it, lying on his right side so as to keep the blood on the sheets to a minimum.

“Who’s Swift?” Silver asked the coal pony as he began to leave the sleeper car.

“He’s the engineer that you talked to,” the coal pony replied. He then walked out of the car, leaving Silver on his own.

Really, the sight of blood doesn’t make me weak. It was the gash that really threw me. It just made me realize how injured I really was; I was losing blood like crazy, and it was fairly obvious that if I didn’t get treatment soon that I’d bleed out, and the idea of dying after living through three disastrous car wrecks, being shot at, street fights, a jump off a roof only to crash through another roof, being hit by cars and so many other things, was NOT an idea that I liked at all. But honestly, I don’t think anypony ever wants to die by ANY means…

I digress. Honestly, for once in my long, hard life… I felt fear. Very strong fear. I had never felt fear like this in my entire life; not even back on the streets of Manehattan… on the night that the… “incident” took place…

I felt the train jerk as it started moving again, jolting me a tiny bit in my bed. The jolt racked my body with pain, and I groaned as the train settled into motion, slowly chugging away back on its course. I heard the door to the sleeper car open and shut quietly at the other end of the car, and I knew somepony had entered; I awaited them to speak to find out who it was.
“So,” the pony who had entered said; Silver could immediately tell by the heavy country drawl behind the word that it was Swift, the engineer. “Coal tells me ya busted yurself up purty bad. From what I saw up at the engine, ya are, but he said yu’re even worse than either of us realized.” Silver heard Swift’s hooves softly clatter against the carpeted floor as the blue stallion walked to the bunk where Silver lay, sitting down beside the bunk and looking at the silver unicorn before him, his eyes focusing mainly on the large, red gash in Silver’s side. “What’d ya even do to yurself, pardner?”

“Nothing,” Silver replied.

“Not buyin’ that,” Swift said, taking a cloth from the first aid kit he’d brought with him and soaking it with disinfectant. “Somethin’ or someone did this to ya.”

“The only way I can put it is I was running from a bunch of ponies...,” Silver answered. He then recoiled and yelped in pain as Swift began rubbing the cloth against the wound in his side. “OW!!! Dammit, that burns like hell…”

“’Course it does,” Swift said. “Now who all were ya runnin’ from? Must’ve been somepony bad if they did this to ya…”

“I can’t tell you who I was running from…,” Silver replied, gritting his teeth at the pain burning in his side. “If I do, you’ll throw me off this train for sure…”

“Just tell me,” Swift said, putting the now bloodstained cloth aside and picking up a roll of bandages in the kit. “Can’t be much worse than anythin’ else I’ve heard from other railroad ponies.”

“Wanna bet on that?” Silver replied, chuckling softly, though there was pain behind it. “You haven’t met me yet.”

“Just tell me, city slicker,” Swift said, beginning to apply the bandages.

“I was running from the Canterlot police and the Guard,” Silver answered quickly. Swift stopped everything he was doing and stared at Silver.

“Ya mean to tell me that ya outran the entire Royal Guard and the Canterlot Police?” Swift asked.

“Don’t forget the Equestrian Federal Police Department,” Silver added. “They’ve been chasing me longer than the guard and the Canterlot cops.” He chuckled slightly. “And longer than the Manehattan cops, Baltimare cops, and Fillydelphia cops… Lost them all a long time ago. Been running for a long time.”

Swift could barely believe his ears. This pony couldn’t have been much more than 17 years old. And yet he’d been able to outrun the police forces of Manehattan, Fillydelphia, Baltimare, Canterlot, the entirety of the Equestrian Federal Police, AND the Equestrian Royal Guard? He had to have been on the run for something horrible, or else he was running for no good reason, or he was lying.

“Wha…,” Swift started, but Silver cut him off, moving his right hoof in a dismissive manner.

“I’m assuming you want to know why I’m running, and why I’ve been on the run for the better part of three years,” Silver said, taking the words right from Swift’s mouth. “Well, let me start listing things that I’ve done that would be good reasons. I’m a street racer, I illegally import cars and car parts, I’ve boosted cars, been a wheelpony for several jobs that other ponies I know have needed a driver to pull off, I’m affiliated with the black market in Canterlot and Fillydelphia… Need I say more?”

Needless to say, Swift’s jaw was practically on the floor. So many thoughts were flying through his mind, the most of which being a lot of disbelief and astonishment.

“But… but why were ya doin’ those thangs?” Swift asked as he slowly resumed putting the bandages on Silver. “I wouldn’t guess yu’re much more than ‘bout seventeen, maybe eighteen years old…”

“That main reason of why I did those things, I can’t tell you…,” Silver replied, sighing. “If I did, you’d throw me off of this train in a second, or call the cops and have them come and pick me up when you get to wherever it is this train is going. Yeah, no dice. I’ve lived through too much shit, run away from too many cops and wrecked too many cars to just lay down the fight.”

“Whaddya mean, the main reason?” Swift asked, finishing applying the first layer of bandages and starting to apply the second layer as a support.

“Can’t tell you,” Silver replied. “I already said that. But I can tell you this much; I don’t wanna do what I have to do in order to survive. But going straight and getting into anything legal would get me arrested in less than five minutes. So I’ve gotta stay on the other side of the law.”

“Well, with what yu’ve told me yu’ve done, I’d say yu’re facin’ at least thirty to life behind bars if ya get caught,” Swift said, applying the final bandages and placing the rest of them to the side. “Now lemme see yur leg.” Silver slowly turned himself over, grimacing as he did so until he was lying on his back. Swift stood and looked over Silver’s leg carefully. “Well, looks like ya did all ya could with that… how bad do ya think ya broke it?”

“At least in three places…,” Silver replied. “It was at some angles it shouldn’t have been when I hopped on this train and I bent it all back into place…” Swift winced at the thought.

“Just thinkin’ ‘bout that makes my leg hurt,” Swift commented. Silver chuckled softly.

“I’ll bet,” Silver said. He then looked up at Swift. “So what’re you gonna do with me? Throw me off the train, call the cops and have me arrested, or let me go?”

“Well… I really don’t know,” Swift replied. “Ya don’t seem like a bad pony. ‘Sides, yu’re way too young to be on yur own like ya are.”

“I’ve managed since I was fifteen,” Silver shot back. “I might look too young on the outside, but I’ve seen things and done things that nopony should ever have to experience.”

“I can imagine,” Swift said. “Thar’s just one thang I don’t understand. Where’s yur family?”

The mention of the word “family” made Silver’s eyes instantly tear up with sadness. Swift saw this and immediately knew he’d touched upon a sensitive topic.

“My family… I don’t even know if they’re alive…,” Silver said. “Last I saw of them was that night three years ago, right before I went out to get some money for us… They were finally starting to be happy again. And then I disappeared… they didn’t hear from me for months before I got up the guts to call them, tell them I was okay.”

“Dang… I’m sorry, pardner…,” Swift said, feeling sympathetic for Silver.

“’S alright… I just miss ‘em, y’know?” Silver said. “Especially Blizzard… But anyway, after that call… that was the last time I talked to them, because that was the first time the cops caught up with me because they’d monitored the call, and that was in Fillydelphia. They got an ID positive for the voice, ID’d my car and plates, found out where I was hiding and then closed in… but they didn’t get me. They got the car, but not me. Because nopony will ever be able to catch Silver Xenon Flare. I’m too damn tricky. I’m too good of a driver and tuner. I know every city I’ve ever been in like the back of my hoof; I know spots where they’ll never find me.” He looked Swift directly in the eyes, tears of anger and sadness filling them. “And you’re not gonna just hoof me over to the ponies I’ve been running from for three years because of something that I didn’t even do.”

“What’re ya even talkin’ ‘bout?” Swift asked. “What is this that yu’re talkin’ ‘bout, somethin’ ya didn’t do?”

“Like I said earlier, I can’t tell you. All that I can tell you is that if you looked through old newspapers and whatnot to find any trace of my name, you’d know in a matter of minutes. But you do that and find out, and you’ll never see me again because I’ll be gone. Hell, after this train stops, I’m gone. A shadow. You’ll never see me again.”

“Not true. And that’s ‘cause yu’re comin’ with me. Stayin’ at my place.” Silver looked at Swift strangely.

“You can’t be serious, right?”

“Dead serious, pardner. I ain’t lettin’ nopony get ya ‘til I know ya for myself.” Swift smirked. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. The name’s Gearheart. Swift Gearheart.” He stuck out his hoof. Silver looked at it for a moment before looking at Swift and smirking.

“Silver Flare. Don’t forget it; you’re gonna want to remember me if you ever meet me on the streets.”

His silver hoof then knocked against Swift’s own blue hoof.

Author's Note:

This chapter marks the introduction of the character Swift Gearheart; as such, I cannot take credit for him being my OC as he is NOT my OC. He is my friend David Gullett's OC and you can check out his stories with Swift on his deviantART page at http://thebandicootbrony.deviantart.com/

Thanks for reading! :D

Comments

[Neutral Boy]

Looks like a good story to read so far and I kind of like it. Just trying to figure out if the ponies are anthro or most likely more human, but with a tail, ears, wings, horns, and feet or hooves. Wonder if Twilight and her friends will be able to help out Silver Flare while he stays in Ponyville. It could be a yes cause it looks like Rainbow Dash is going to have race or battle with Silver together. Could be going on a date or more than that and he'll have a hard time running from Pinkie Pie in a later chapter, that would be hilarious to see. Great story so far and keep up the good work!

[SilverFlare11]

6917145 Hey hey, thanks for reading it! :D To clarify for you, no, the ponies are not anthro, as I personally am not a big fan of anthro. Generally I've always written my stories with regular ponies, but of course, aspects of the real world are much more apparent in my stories. And you can be very sure that the Mane 6 will work their way into the story! XD And thanks again, I shall! :D

[Neutral Boy]

6917309 Ah! That would've explain it and your welcome. Still could of bit confused me since there could have been any tags in other stories that would mention ponies still the same, anthro, or being real humans anyway. Well then, back into the story, I do suspect that another side of the party will be playing out in the later chapter. This is going to be a crazy adventure, romance, comedy, drama, thriller, sad, dark, gore, and more to enjoy I got to see!

[SilverFlare11]

6917434 Haha, yeah, it gets exciting! :) If you'd like to read a couple of pre-released chapters, you can check them out on my DeviantART page at http://thenfspkmnbrony11.deviantart.com/
Thanks again for reading, and brony on! :D
~Silver