Outcasts

by Dr. Rainbro Dash

Chapter Three: North Bismane

Outcasts: Chapter 3

"If there is one thing that we can infer from the recent North Bismane disaster it is this: Alicorns are inherently evil, and if we allow them to have liberty they will use their evil sun magics to subjugate us!” -President Valentine, 10 years ago

“I need to pee,” Marigold squeaked behind me...

The sun was finally setting behind the cloud cover after a long and boring day of travelling in Apple Gizmo’s red ‘luxury’ tank, aka the “Dragonslayer”. The inside of the vehicle had enough room for six ponies, and sported comfortable red furnishings illuminated by sunlight through a sky window above. There was even a fridge.

“Hey!” Marigold screamed and put her snout to Gizmo’s ear as he steered, “I said I need to make yellow sand!”

“Mother bucker! There’s a potty hole in the back; don’t yell at me when I’m driving!” Gizmo retorted, “besides, sand doesn’t turn yellow when you piss in it.”

Marigold leered at the seat with a face full of absolute disdain. “I’m not using that, I’m a full-grown mare, not an aminal! I need some privacy.”

Gizmo groaned and stopped the tank, letting Marigold off. A brief silence ensued.

“Rapture, why’d you forgive me so easily after trying to kill you?” Gizmo queried.

Oh, great. He just had to bring that up again. Though I could understand his perplexity, forgiving someone for that so easily was a bit peculiar...

“Well, I guess I’ve just hardened my composure...”

“That’s not composure, that’s just a false sense of security. You work with ponies who you have nothing to use against, and you know nothing about. One can tell from just the way you walk that you’re fresh meat, easily used as a tool.” Gizmo jerked his head back and faced me again with a snout-gun. “That naivety will get you killed out here.”

My reflex would’ve been to try and cop the gun in half with my wing, but my reflex to that reflex was to hold myself back because he was a friend. I realised that from this he had made his point when he arched an almost cocky grin.

“Point taken, but if you expect me to act the role of a pompous zealot like Valentine, you can pull that trigger now.”

Gizmo tossed the gun aside. “Please don’t. Just be prepared for anyone to betray you, at any time... If a fool like Valentine could capture you so easily, what could a clever pony like me do? Out here, nobody is innocent-not even Marigold has clean hooves.”

Now just what did that mean? Before I could ask, I heard a chilling scream from outside. I quickly scrambled out of the Dragonslayer and into the air to see Marigold wrestling with a large snouted, green-brown and stubby bipedal creature with a daisy growing from its head. Gizmo yelled something about trolls being weak to fire as I felt a bullet zip past my face. The troll’s head burst into flames and it quickly perished as Marigold broke free.

“That was the meanest flower I’ve ever seen!” Marigold huffed.

“Get back in the tank before more of them dig out!” Gizmo demanded. We started towards the tank but it was too late. Dozens of hairy green arms tore the ground open all around us, and some had already dug holes under the tank to bury the wheels. I saw Ruddy wriggle out of Marigold’s mane with a warface on before turning green from the stink and burying himself back in.

Before I could move, huge chunks of rock were being hurled at me and I lost my balance. I landed on top of a troll with a mushroom head and was unpleasantly surprised to find that trolls smelled a lot like rotten cheese and onions. All I could think of when slashing its head open vertically was how hard it would be to get the stench out of my feathers later. I leapt for the next one but was grabbed by the hind leg. It was still alive, until Gizmo shot it through the chest with an incendiary round anyway. I decapitated another, but another troll stuck its head back on and it got up. I took to the air again to catch my breath.

“How the heck am I supposed to kill these things!?” I shouted, disgruntled. Marigold was using pyromancy magic to pick the trolls off while Gizmo was sniping hordes of them. I was useless.

“Catch!” Gizmo ordered. I caught a metallic black wingband with a nozzle protruding from a cylinder canister labelled ‘WARNING: BUCKIN’ HOT’. I landed on the Dragonslayer and slipped the band on my left wing. It clicked and a red light turned on.

“No time to put the safety gear on, just keep flying and you won’t get burned,” Gizmo instructed as he shot a troll attacking the Dragonslayer.

I swooped down and fire spewed from the canister as I gained speed. Four trolls were engulfed in fierce flames as I cut them apart. It was just a matter of time before we could finish them all now, unless the stench of burning troll flesh killed us. Then the ground started to shake and the remaining trolls cheered with coarse voices.

“Here comes the den mother!” I saw Gizmo climb into the Dragonslayer to man the cannon, Marigold joined me in the sky.

“Den mother is another word for the big cheese, right?” Marigold asked me. I shrugged, not knowing exactly what to expect-other than something big.

A fist the size of a pony clawed through the dry earth and the huge troll pulled itself up to the surface, crushing a couple of trolls beneath its foot as it stood. It bellowed an ear-splitting battle cry as it swung its arm at Marigold and me, forcing us to narrowly dodge by splitting up. Gizmo aimed and fired at the creature’s head, blowing the upper half off and leaving a flaming open neck and jaw.

“Wow, I was expecting more of a fight,” I choked. The remaining trolls began panicking and tried to tunnel to safety. Marigold shot a magical torrent of fire from her horn and the trolls were all charred black in the raging inferno. “A bit harsh, don’t you think?” I glanced at Marigold as I slipped the fire band off.

“They would’ve just hurt somepony else if we let them go,” she justified.

Apple Gizmo trotted off the tank and let out a flustered sigh. “I guess we’ll have to dig the wheels back up... Who ever heard of trolls out in the badlands, anyway? Geez.” Marigold and I landed beside him. “Or you could use your magic to lift it out of the earth?” He looked to Marigold hopefully.

“I can’t use telekeleckis.” Marigold frowned, “Sorry.”

“This might take a while then, you two outta get comfortable-there’s only one shovel.” Gizmo started digging under the wheels. I thought about trying to use my wing Acriter to loosen the earth but decided against it, my wings were tattered and bloody and I didn’t want to wear them out too much.

Marigold slumped over and fell asleep, snoring loudly. I asked Gizmo about the fire band he’d given me and learned that he invented it especially for pegasus soldiers who expected trolls. Eventually, I decided to fly up and take a nap on the clouds.

I dreamed of home.

<<-------------------------------------------------->>

Though it was hard to tell what time it was under the thick cloud cover, I knew when the sun had risen after my slumber. We had fought the trolls late into the night, and we departed again in the morning after Gizmo finished having his turn at a nap.

A few hours passed travelling in the Dragonslayer and I spotted a cloud whiter than the rest - it was another laputa city.

“It’s North Bismane,” Gizmo identified. Marigold jumped at the name and her eyes dilated, but she then settled back down in her seat.

“I’m not going up,” she spoke defiantly.

“I didn’t think you’d want to,” Gizmo responded.

And then they were silent. I was bewildered, did Gizmo know something about her that I didn’t or something? I decided to save the question for when I was alone with one of them.

We came to a rough and abrupt stop. I opened my mouth to ask why but was interrupted by a shrieking roar. Outside the tank I could see what looked like a dragon automaton, similar to the pony version I’d encountered before.

“What is it now!?” Gizmo moaned as he fired the main cannon. The shell had no visible effect.

The machine opened its mouth, Gizmo set the tank in full reverse, firing the main cannon again to help pick up speed. The dragon looked like it was taking a moment to process what’d happened before it leapt at us - its claws were gripping the tank before an explosion of sound caught up with it and hit us.

“Shit! It broke the sound barrier!” Gizmo screamed. The Dragonslayer’s roof was slowly being crushed by the machine’s grip.

I wanted to try and help somehow, but I was too afraid to move. My thoughts were full of doubt - could I hurt it? Could I even leave this tank without getting instantly killed by something I can hardly even follow with my eyes? My vision was getting dark around the edges and my heart felt like it would burst if this didn’t end soon. Things were already hopeless, but my precognition showed me a vision of a different creature. A golden horse as tall as a house - it had eight legs from which lightning bolted each time it moved.

I heard the dragon hop off of the roof and saw it land in front of the tank, it also sensed the new presence. Energy began to gather in the machine’s ‘mouth’ as it prepared some sort of attack before the golden horse I’d envisioned appeared in place of the dragon, which was crushed under hoof. The Dragonslayer rocked as the machine was obliterated by the golden horse’s magic before it leapt east out of sight on a bolt of lightning.

“Buck it! I’m going crazy!” Gizmo yelled and facehoofed repeatedly. Marigold turned green and vomited out a window. I lied on my back and hyperventilated for a few moments before managing to regain most of my composure.

“Hah, I just noticed we have a sunroof.”

<<-------------------------------------------------->>

The Dragonslayer needed more repairs and fuel so Apple Gizmo and I went to North Bismane to look for them. Thankfully the ponies there seemed less hostile than the other laputa city I went to, and Gizmo was flown up on a platform raised by pegasi teens for a small fee. They recognised him as he’d sold defensive wares there before so we didn’t have our bags checked after a quick magic scan by a tool that Gizmo claimed to have invented himself for detecting ‘changelings’... North Bismane looked much alike its northern counterpart, but without the huge military fortress. They also apparently had more of a concern with changelings here because...

“...What’s a changeling?” I questioned, suddenly realising I didn’t even know what I was thinking about.

“You really don’t know much, huh?” Gizmo larked, "they’re like pony-horse hybrids that can magically transform their appearance into anypony they wish, and they feed on the innocent love of ponies,” Gizmo answered mystically.

“They... feed on love? Isn’t that kind of gross though?” I pondered aloud.

“Now you’re starting to sound like Marigold! Geez, my life has really gone downhill, travelling with a couple of senseless mares.” Now that he’d reminded me...

“You’ve talked like you know something about Marigold before, how do you know her?”

Gizmo grumbled in protest; “this is the worst time and place to discuss that. Let’s just say she bares somewhat of a resemblance to a filly who... may have slaughtered half of this town’s population at some point ten years ago?”

“WHAT!?” I yelped obtrusively, causing many a towns-ponies to stare at me unpleasantly. I sealed my lips and blushed; they all eventually lost interest and went back to their daily chores. I felt a surge of anger at Gizmo for suggesting such a thing, but I kept my voice down to a whisper.

“Marigold is too sweet, they probably just laid the blame on her for being an alicorn.”

“In any case, these ponies think its her fault. It’s best she lay low and we make our business here quick, for her sake.” I nodded, no argument there. “You can explore the place yourself a little before we meet up, my errands shouldn’t take long.”

I decided to take him up on that. Walking around the town I was still unnerved by the presence of earth on the clouds and non-pegasi. There were many posters depicting the burning alicorn emblem; it seemed that Valentine had some control here as well. With the ponies here blaming Marigold for their tragedy, it was really no surprise that the citizens would hate alicorns. I eventually came upon a series of burned down buildings that were gated off with a sign that claimed the property was bought by Valentine as a monument declaring the evil nature of alicorns.

“Ponies come here everyday and mourn the loss of their late family, many of the young will head further north to join President Valentine’s cause.” I turned to see an emerald green middle-aged stallion with a single, battered wing at his side. He looked solemnly at one of the abandoned homes and spoke to me with a poignant voice, “did you know that despite how large this ruined area of the town is with its dozen ruined housings, that it is still only a third of what was actually destroyed? Over one hundred ponies, half of our population died on that day ten years ago. After my wife was killed, my son went to join Valentine’s army.”

I didn’t want to interrupt his mourning, so I held back my curiosity about the actual attack. I felt bad for him though, losing his family so quickly... I missed Euphorian terribly, even though it had only been a few days since I left him and Equestria.

“Do you know the history of this place? I could tell you’re not from around here by the way you walk,” the stallion asked me, sounding a little more cheerful.

But.... was it really so easy to tell I’m different from the way I walk!? What the hell, I couldn’t tell a difference with anypony else here.

“I don’t really know much about these parts, since I’m just passing through,” I answered a bit worriedly.

“I won’t ask where you’re from, though some young ponies might care, it makes no difference where you’re from to me.” It was obvious that he knew I was Equestrian, probably knew before I even said anything. “I’ll tell you a little about us: both New Canterlot and North Bismane have close ancestry with South Bismane. As you probably know, South Bismane is just on the border of the badlands. The green grasslands and mountains you can find in Paardenvolk, the country that South Bismane is just in, are truly beautiful. However, the country is also a haven for all sorts of monsters who wish to gorge on us ponies. The constant monster attacks - when having to watch your family and neighbors getting torn limb from limb and feasted upon by ferocious trolls or dragons or worse is a common sight, a pony will either adapt and become ferocious themselves, or become meek and too afraid of losing more to go on.

“Highwind Tail, a pegasus and then retired warrior of South Bismane ventured into the badlands and found this abandoned laputa cloud eighty years ago. The ponies of South Bismane were forced to make a decision: stay loyal to their country and remain in their prosperous yet battle-stricken town or live a more peaceful life here, abandoning whomever stayed behind to defend Paardenvolk’s holy site at South Bismane. Half of the ponies left, and built a town here. But with so many warriors gone, South Bismane was quickly overrun by monsters and most of the original residents that stayed were killed - though it has now recovered somewhat as ponies moved in to reoccupy the border and temple there. The North Bismane residents are now banished from entering Paardenvolk, and if we want anything other than that which we can grow here, we must rely on the occasional merchant from the south.

“Now as for our own personal history, another laputa city was discovered eleven years ago by Valentine and termed ‘New Canterlot’. Valentine preached here about the evil alicorns that enslave and prey upon the good ponies whom they hate and envy. Though there was already a generally negative attitude on the subject of alicorns, they are ponies that for the most part existed only in myths and tales of faraway places for us, so not many heeded his words until the incident ten years ago. Valentine now has a formidable army and has waged war with the Chaidamu alliance of the far east, and declared Equestria his future enemy as both have alicorn leaders,” he finished.

“Thank you, for the story. Your history is very interesting.”

“It was my pleasure. You can call me Northwind Tail, by the way.”

“Huh? Are you the founder’s son or something?”

“I am, my brother is the mayor of this town - but I’m not anything special. Just an old stallion waiting for his son to return home.” He had that solemn look again... How long had we spent talking?

“I should go, my friend might be waiting for me. Oh! and my name’s Rapture. I... I’m sure your son will come to his senses, good luck!” I waved and flew off looking for Gizmo.

I was pleased to see that there was still some happiness in the town as I spotted a group of foals playing with newborn pups. A young mare cheerily buying a bag of candy, a stallion painting a home for an old married couple. These were things worth fighting to protect. I was beginning to see a little bit of hope for this place.

I found Gizmo holding a bucket of fuel from his mouth and carrying saddle bags full of mixed carrots, lettuce, hay, oats, firearms and black chunks of metal which stained the fresh vegetables with globs of dirty oil. It was disgusting - a clear safety hazard! I contemplated putting the fire band on, but decided a good ole’ fashioned pegasus smackdown would do. I grinned deviously and prepared to charge, but he saw me first and glared at me emotionlessly. It was so awkward I decided to just land softly beside him.

“Is that all you needed?” I questioned.

“Mfmm.” He started walking, I followed. In that moment, it was quiet and peaceful.

In the next, gunshots could be heard from all over the town. I saw a pony clad in black and red full-body armor cut a shocked mare in half with a slim and jagged black sword. The armor also had orange eyepieces, the only part of the actual pony visible was his black tail.

The soldier closed the distance between us quickly and I jumped back to narrowly avoid being decapitated by his sword. Gizmo dropped what he was carrying and equipped a snout-rifle. The soldier swung at me again but I ducked under his sword to cut his neck open, it was the first pony I’d ever killed. Gizmo shot two less-armored soldiers who were sniping civilians. He had remarkably good aim.

“Rapture, let’s get out of here, there are too many!” Gizmo shouted as he scanned for more enemies.

“I’m not leaving all these ponies to die, besides, how could you know how many there are!?” Gizmo shot another one, and I leapt between another swordspony and a unicorn stallion, burning the soldier with my fire band and finishing her with my Acriter.

“What, do you honestly think we could fight off an entire invading force? If you want to help these ponies, then we need to get help from South Bismane - though that’s also a long shot, they might have the fighting power to help at least!”

“I don’t care if I can’t beat them all, these ponies have suffered enough out here!” Gizmo shot a swordspony who’d snuck behind me through the eye.

“Everypony suffers, this town has a formidable militia as well - I’d know ‘cuz I’ve supplied them for the last few years of my life! You’ve gotta fend fer yourself out here!” A bullet shot off the tip of my left ear, Gizmo shot the sniper who did it. “What about Marigold? She’s in danger too, you think she wants to fight to save these ponies? They’re clearly done her wrong, a filly grew up here and ended up slaughtering half of the residents!”

Marigold... what if she was in trouble? I took off clutching Gizmo between my hooves, flying low and somehow managing to leave the cloud without getting hit. We landed at the Dragonslayer to find enemy soldier body parts scattered around the area outside the tank, Marigold was standing amongst them with a fierce face and smoking horn, I didn’t need to worry about her. Her expression lit up when she saw us.

“You’re finally here, let’s go!” Marigold hopped in the tank, followed by Gizmo.

“You two go, I’m stay-” A near-deafening explosion went off above the cloud and pieces of flaming debris rained from the sky around a mushroom cloud. A charred dead colt I recognised from the group of foals I saw playing before was among the debris that fell around me. He didn’t even have his cutie mark yet. Stunned, I felt Marigold pulling me into the tank by the tail.

“They blew themselves up... to stop the invaders,” Gizmo uttered gloomily, and drove south.

<<-------------------------------------------------->>

“Damn, we’re low on fuel, but we should just baaarely make it,” Gizmo broke the silence that’d last for at least six hours.

Marigold was taking a nap. Though she seemed troubled before, I think she was somewhat relieved that we’d moved on at the same time. I wished I could sleep. The death of all those ponies was nagging at my conscious, it was terrible. Even Gizmo wasn’t completely himself.

“Hey, Gizmo?” My voice came out sounding more dreary than I’d meant it to.

“What’s up?” I caught a hint of concernment in his voice.

“Who were those ponies who attacked Bismane?”

“From the stories I’ve heard of the Chaidamu, I’d say it was them. If they attacked North Bismane, then they’ve either sacked New Canterlot already or plan to. Valentine has had skirmishes with them before, but I don’t think they’ve ever taken him seriously.”

“Didn’t they know that Valentine didn’t control that town? Why would they attack them!?” I was getting flustered. Gizmo sighed.

“Because that’s how war works, everyone is involved. North Bismane was an asset to Valentine, so the Chaidamu attacked.” Another silence ensued, this time lasting only a few minutes. “Look! See that? South Bismane is on the horizon.”

I could see the peaks of mountains dotting the horizon, and between them all was a white tower that reached the clouds. The dark cloud cover disappeared to make way for a warm blue sky as if it was cut with a knife, I was correct to imagine that the arid dirt and sands made way for green grass and beautiful flowers as well. It resembled Equestria, but there was also something about it that made my stomach churn. Looking at that horizon, I had a foreboding feeling that the entire country was screwed up. For ponies to want to run to the badlands from there, I guessed there’d have to be something wrong.