Short Scraps and Explosions

by shortskirtsandexplosions

End of Ponies - Petra Arc - HHH Edition pt 3

The End of Ponies – by short skirts and explosions

Chapter Twenty-Seven – Somepony Who Earns

It was the smell of her own blood that woke Scootaloo. The filly tried opening her eyes, and only one obeyed her. Through a foggy haze of pain, she found herself surrounded by a gray enclosure of sky marble. The ivory cave was littered with wooden beams and improvised tools, all of which were far too intricately designed to be the work of pony hooves. It was then that Scootaloo remembered the many impish faces that had snarled at her before her world turned to blissful darkness.

With a gasp, Scootaloo jolted forward. She instantly wished she hadn't. Her entire body screamed from the outside in with a million invisible needles. What was more, she was bound. Her upper and lower limbs were tied together, and her waist was firmly strapped to a splintery wooden pole jutting out of the granite floor behind her.

Scootaloo's breaths grew sharper and more desperate as she broke into hyperventilation. She felt like a thick plaster of paint was caking the orange coat on her face and neck. With another flaring of her nostrils, she realized it was her dried blood. A shallow whimper escaped her bruised lips, and it was then that she heard them. Twitching one good ear towards the cavernous “ceiling” of Cloudsdale's ruins, she made out several bickering voices: goblin voices.

Her tormentors—the one called “Matthais” and his many cohorts—had kept her alive, had reduced her to a bruised sack of meat, had captured her as a battered trophy. Now, just beyond the ridge of white marble, the goblins were arguing over her fate. Scootaloo couldn't hear their words, nor did she want to. The extent of their arguments, she imagined, was deciding the most obscene way to end her life.

The goblins blamed her for what happened to Equestria. They hated and reviled her. Strung there like a speared fish in the middle of their camp, Scootaloo couldn't help but hate herself too. She had had so many opportunities, so many chances to survive and make something of her miraculous existence. In the end, she had failed. She deserved every single bruise on her limbs, and she knew it.

Scootaloo closed her eyes, refusing herself the tears she didn't deserve. As her eyelids flung her back into darkness, she saw Sweetie Belle's and Apple Bloom's smiling faces. She saw Pinkie Pie cranking a record player and then frolicking across Sugarcube Corner. She saw sunlight and trees and wagons and flying mailmares.

As the goblin voices came closer, along with their scraping, clawed feet, Scootaloo savored each warm image sailing through her mind, for she knew it could be her last chance.

---

The last pony's scarlet eyes slowly opened. She gazed calmly into a horizon of dark, nebulous clouds while a gust of cold wind blew at her mane. Scootaloo sat atop the Harmony, a bundle of tools strung across her back while she sat in meditation. Distant sounds of rumbling thunder echoed across the heavens. The gray overcast below flash in random places as Scootaloo waited out the latest thunderstorm halfway through her trip to Petra. She exhaled, gently releasing the memories that had been wafting through her thirty-three year-old mind. Even after so many trips back through time, Scootaloo’s head was instantly filled with the cold memories of the wasteland that defined the majority of her years. In a way, she felt lucky, or at least luckier than the filly who had fallen into bad company in the ruins of Cloudsdale. A past drenched in pain made it a lot easier to anticipate a future flavored with the same despair. Scootaloo lived life like she was a cold ghost abandoned in the center of a hall of mirrors, and every reflection was equally pale and lifeless. It made it easier to concentrate on her work.

So, Scootaloo did just that. Squatting down, she produced a wrench from her bag, gripped it in her teeth, and resumed tightening the loose rivets lining the upper hull of her dirigible. The thunder formed a tranquil soundtrack to her somber task.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The stormfront was almost over, but Scootaloo could still afford herself some time to finish long-belated maintenance. Currently, she was in the process of hovering before the outer windshields of the Harmony's upper gondola. With a rag, she cleaned the windows and scrubbed grime and dust from the edges of the copper frames.

Halfway through her task, she gazed in through the wide sheets of glass. Scootaloo paused momentarily, her eyes narrowing. She gripped the hull of the gondola and stopped the beating of her wings.

Inside, awash in the warm yellow light of the vessel's bright boiler, Warden could be seen lying sideways on the hammock. The teenage goblin was wide awake, his aquamarine eyes glazed into a dull turquoise as he stared into the metal-plated interior of the cabin. Scootaloo wondered just how long he had been conscious. His body was so still and his expression so blank that he could just as well have been asleep. Warden’s three good limbs were limp and lifeless, to the point that his branded and infected leg looked far more alive in comparison. For a brief moment, Scootaloo imagined Warden would have been more cheerful if she had left him to die inside the cave outside the M.O.D.D.

Scootaloo knew better; the limpness of Warden's form spoke volumes to her. From beyond the glass of the Harmony's windshield, she bridged the layers between them, and saw his skin turn to orange and his hair shaven to violet stubble. Scootaloo blinked, and the emerald visage of the goblin returned, though she imagined that—for the briefest of seconds—she had found the long-lost sibling to a pony she had once known, but had parted ways with long.

“Oh Spike, what in Celestia’s name is wrong with me?” she murmured to the twilight, her voice muted by the high winds mere seconds after producing the words.

Nostrils flaring, Scootaloo returned to her duties. Producing a new rag, she attacked another length of glass, attacking the last cloud of obscurity between herself and her passenger.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Scootaloo reentered the upper cabin of the Harmony fifteen minutes later, Warden's eyes were closed. She stared at him, and managed the slightest of smirks.

“Wow, I've read a lot about goblins in my day, but obviously not enough, or else I would have known a thing or two about their huge dopamine levels.”

Warden's body didn't stir a single centimeter.

Scootaloo shuffled over to a metal locker, disenchanted the rune locks, opened the cabinet, and put half her tools away. “Now would be a good time to wake up, ya little Wart. The stormfront's clearing up, and we're less than six hours from Petra, judging from my... adequate navigating skills.” She slapped the cabinet shut and locked the magical runes. “You could afford to talk to me a little before we get there, y'know. That way, I can find out just where your parents are and drop you off with them.”

No noise or movement came from the hammock. Scootaloo could just as well have picked up a fossil from the mountainside.

She took a deep breath, rolled her eyes, and trotted over towards a container on her workbench. “Oh well. I guess I'll just enjoy this scrumptious bat-meat jerky on my own.”

Suddenly, Warden was “awake.” With a guilty murmur, he stirred from where he was lying like a dead log on the hammock and sat up straight.

Scootaloo smirked while her back was to him. She opened the container and pulled out three strips of brown, dried meat. “Hmm... For a second there, I couldn't tell where the hammock began and you ended.”

“Mmmm...” He merely grunted, wringing his hands together as he tossed an anxious glance towards the pony—or more specifically towards the meat that the pony was extracting.

“You've got opposable thumbs. That means you should be good at catching things. Here.” She clasped a piece of meat in two teeth, spun, and tossed it his way.

He gasped—as if the “glue stick” was tossing a weapon at him. Nevertheless, he grabbed the edible strip in a pair of jittery hands and examined it closely.

“Don't worry,” Scootaloo droned and slid the stool out from beneath her workbench. “Ponies are all taught at a young age how to carry things in their mouths without drooling on them. I assure you, the meat is cleaner than you are.” She squatted on the stool, bit a chunk out of the bat-meat in her grasp, then stared across the way at him. “Mmmf... So...” She chewed, gulped, and then spoke, “Petra's about—what—twelve levels tall? At least it was last time I checked. On which of those big, hulking platforms does your family live?”

“Mmm... Strut... Strut Twenty.”

Scootaloo paused, her mouth gaping over another bite of meat. She lowered the morsel and squinted at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“My family—the Stock-Bleeders—live on the twentieth strut of Petra.”

“You're telling me that the imp city is twenty platforms tall now?” She blinked. “That's like eight platforms being constructed in the span of a decade!”

“Actually...” Warden's ears drooped as he avoided her gaze and began nibbling on the edge of his strip of meat. “...it's thirty-five platforms the last time I checked.”

Scootaloo fumbled with her lunch for a moment, caught off-guard by his assertion. She clasped it in a pair of numb forelimbs and steadied her shocked lungs. “That... that's friggin' crazy. Heh, well, not too crazy, I guess, now that I think about it. Goblins never know when to quit, huh?” She grinned widely.

Warden didn't. He cradled the meat in his hands like it was the last, precious flame in the Wasteland. Soon, he began nibbling at the blessed morsel.

Scootaloo cleared her throat. “Still, though. That is pretty amazing. For such small creat—erm... beings, imps have a knack for building wickedly cool stuff. Heck, I'm surprised that when I found you in the cave, you came at me with only a rusted crossbow. I half-expected an iron suit of armor with flame-throwers.”

“I don't build things,” Warden murmured with the first show of assertiveness the last pony had witnessed from him. He briefly chewed at the meat, swallowed, and said, “If I'm good at anything, it's—”

“The family business. Right.” Scootaloo took another bite, swallowed, and pointed with her remaining strip of meat. “Still, I'm no expert on imp affairs, but something about that just doesn't sit right with me.”

“I guess it wouldn't,” Warden said quietly.

“Why, cuz I'm a 'glue stick?'”

Warden didn't reply to that.

Scootaloo realized it wasn't wise to press those buttons. So, she pressed a few other buttons instead. “You're just so friggin' young,” she exclaimed. “I imagine your parents must be proud of you and all for your contributions, but it seems a little weird for a pair of grown imps to send their offspring out into the Wasteland to do something they could very easily have done themselves. Unless, they didn't send you alone. Were you by yourself when the harpies attacked your zeppelin?”

“Does it matter?” he mumbled, frowning as he gazed off into a distant bulkhead.

Scootaloo blinked. She briefly juggled the half-strip of meat left in her grasp and sighed. “This place... this world is a lousy place to be left alone in. Sure, it makes strong souls out of the best and worst of us, but it shouldn't have to be. It really shouldn't.” She paused and stared into a blank space in much the same fashion as Warden did. “Especially for those of us who can... afford to not be alone.”

“Is that why you picked me up?” Warden mumbled, suddenly glancing her away. “So you wouldn't be alone?”

She glanced at him and smirked. “Kid, I'm taking you back to Petra so that you won't have to feel like the last goblin. I don't expect you to kiss my hooves or anything, but would it hurt you to recognize a stroke of good fortune when it hits you?”

“I wouldn't know anything about fortune,” Warden muttered. He shifted where he sat, and not so subtly covered the “horseshoe” brand on his left thigh with one of the woolen blankets atop the hammock. “I wouldn't mind being the last goblin. Anything's gotta be better than what I am now.”

Scootaloo opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out. She bit her lips nervously, and when her eyes blinked, she saw an expanse of gray—grand and cavernous—that had once echoed her sobs of pain and loneliness. She had spent years inside the grave of dead ponydom, and she had emerged stronger than she ever could have imagined. Warden had only spent a few brief months in a cave outside a monkey bar, and that was until she had whisked him away to this fate he was experiencing now.

“I... only want what's best for you, kid,” she murmured, though she was uncertain just whom she was trying to placate. There were many things in the Wastelands that could be fated to kill this goblin teenager. She suddenly wondered if she qualified as one. With a shudder, she stood up and tossed a second piece of meat his way. “Catch.”

Warden nearly dropped his first edible strip in the act of catching this new one. He blinked curiously at the pony's generosity.

“I'm not a fan of bat-meat, to be honest,” she said with a weathered smirk. “Besides, I can't eat it and look at your ears at the same time. It makes me feel funny.” Scootaloo trotted towards the front of the cabin. “The stormfront's almost done. Excuse me as I make the pilot's seat warm for the next few hours.”

She was barely reaching the levers and dashboard equipment when she heard a pair of words being tossed her way. They were barely discernible above the hiss of steam pipes around the metal belly of the cabin. So, she spun around and asked, “What was that?”

Warden's back was to her. He sat on the edge of the hammock, his clawed feet dangling as he finished the last of his strips of jerky.

Scootaloo calmly processed the sound he had uttered. She wasn't sure if it was true, or if she was making herself think that it was true, but she processed the two words still echoing off the metal walls of the chamber, and they sounded suspiciously like “Thank you.” She took a deep breath and sat in the pilot's seat. After tightening the harness and switching off the autopilot, she repeated the words in her mind, and they took on a foalish tone, piercing the dark clouds before her just as the Harmony did.

---

The misty wisps shattered in the blue sky over the Equestrian Valley as Rainbow Dash backflipped, veered around, and barreled towards the earth like a twisting beam of prismatic light. Finally, Rainbow Dash soared within earshot, performing a wind-whistling corkscrew with her outstretched wings. She hovered to a stop, brushed back a sweat-slicked mane, and exhaled. “Whewww! How was that last one?!”

“Pretty awesome!” a young Scootaloo shouted. She sat at the crest of a hill, beaming at the sight of Rainbow Dash's latest stunt. At the last second, she hid her enthusiasm behind a wall of wry nonchalance. “But I think the triple-barreled swan dive you did a few minutes ago was a tad bit cooler!”

“Pfft—Any Wonderbolt could do that in their sleep!” The blue pegasus grunted against the wind as she pulled up into a huge loopty-loop, beating at the air with two strong wings. “I'm trying to add flare to my moves! If I angle my wings just right... I might be able to produce a whistling sound to wow a crowd!” She smirked as she dove down into a second twirling motion. “It's just like the E.Z.N.!”

Scootaloo made a face. “The E.Z.N.?”

“Y'know!” Rainbow Dash hovered in front of the cliff-face with a devilish smirk. “The Epic Zoom Noise!” She demonstrated by beating her wings in one fluid motion. Her body shot off in a vaporous blue blur, and the resulting bubble of air that billowed outward from her acceleration nearly rocked Scootaloo off her haunches with a mesmerizing, thunderous boom.

“Woooo-Hahahaha!” Scootaloo grinned widely, her pink mane settling over a beaming grin. “That was sweet! Why don't you start out with that? That would rock the Wonderbolts to their core!”

“Pfft! Some of the best stuff you gotta save for last, kiddo!” Rainbow Dash rocketed back into view just as the waving grass began to settle from her expert air disturbance. “The first rule of stunt flying is learning never to immediately blow your—” She paused in mid-speech, blinking. “Wait, how old are you again?”

“Uhhh...”

“Forget I said anything. Uhhh... Where was I?”

“I think you were trying to work on your corkscrew—”

“No, I mean with Nightmare Moon.”

“H-Huh?” Scootaloo blinked. “I... I thought you were done telling me that story.”

“Pfft! I am never done telling a story of supreme awesomeness!” Rainbow Dash grinned so wide, her teeth were blinding. “Did I mention that me and my friends totally zapped her with a beam of rainbow light?”

“Uh... that sounds kind of fruity.”

“Pfft! Nuts to you! It was wicked cool!” Rainbow Dash did several backflips in mid-air before twirling down like a spinning top. “And I totally claim the rights to it, trademark colors and all. Heh heh heh.” She settled down on one hoof and somersaulted into a proud stance before Scootaloo. “Still, I couldn't have done it without my friends. All tricks have a hitch, you see.”

“You and those other ponies sure do hang around a lot.” Scootaloo smiled, leaning her chin on a pair of crossed hooves as she gazed at the older pony. “I swear, ever since Nightmare Moon appeared, I see you guys together all the time.”

“Yeah? So?” Rainbow's ruby eyes squinted towards her. “Is that a crime?”

Scootaloo blinked nervously. “Erm... No. Not unless you think so...”

“Heh... Nosy little pipsqueak...” Rainbow Dash ruffled Scootaloo's windblown mane, then sat beside her on the top of the hill. Her wings folded over her backside as she gazed down at a stretch of tree-laden fields below the edge of the earthen rise. “I've always been a lone wingpony. It's very easy just to look after yourself. Life is complicated enough without having others to depend on you and jazz.”

“Depend on you?” Scootaloo blinked. “Does this have anything to do with that crazy stuff you were rambling about earlier? The... the Elements of...”

“Harmony?” Rainbow smirked. “'Crazy' certainly is the word for it. There isn't a morning I haven't woken up thinking about how silly my life has been lately.”

“How so?” Scootaloo inquired, her tiny wing-stubs twitching curiously.

Rainbow Dash only smirked more at that. “Truth is, squirt, everypony's favorite lavender bore was the key to pulling Princess Luna free from that nasty, ink-black alicorn on the surface.”

“Twilight Sparkle?”

“Yup. That's the bore, alright,” Rainbow said with a nod. “On the 'endless night' just before the Summer Sun Celebration weeks ago, defeating Nightmare Moon boiled down to using magic.”

“Ugh...” Scootaloo slumped down against the slab of rock. “Magic is so boring.”

“Heh, I know, right?” Rainbow Dash cleared her throat. “Still, it wasn't so bad this time. Cuz I was a part of that magic.”

“You were?”

“How else would we shoot a rainbow beam at a giant black horse goddess of doom?! Turns out we were all... uhhh... ingredients for some enchanted recipe that Twilight Sparkle had just the right spark to cook up. We were all Elements of Harmony. Twilight was the Element of Magic—Duh. Fluttershy was kindness. Strawhead was honesty. That one who sounds like a vampire was generosity...”

“What about you?” Scootaloo perked up, blinking. “What Element were you, Dashie?”

“Nnngh...” Rainbow Dash grunted indifferently and shoved a loose pebble so that it rolled dumbly downhill. After a restless stirring of her sapphire wings, she eventually muttered, “Loyalty.”

Scootaloo squinted. “Loyalty...?”

“Ugh!” Rainbow Dash ran a pair of hooves over her face. “I know... I know! Loyalty is special and all, but couldn't I have been the Element of Explosions or the Element of Lightning Bolts or some other really cool thing like that?!”

“But...” Scootaloo dryly gulped and produced a nervous smile. “It is cool, Rainbow Dash! It means that you're the weather flier that everypony can depend on! It... uh... it means that they can just look up in the sky and know that you'll be around if they ever need you!”

Rainbow gave the little foal a numb glance. “Has anyone told you that you're stiff as nails when you try to make somepony else happy?”

Scootaloo bit her lip and fidgeted, rubbing tiny circles across the soil with her hoof-ends. “Yeah, well, I don't get a lot of practice. I've sort of always been a lone wingpony myself.” She sighed and pouted. “Even if my wings are as useless as tongue depressors.”

“Hey...” Rainbow slapped the filly's ribcage with a flick of her multicolored tail. “Don't ever think of yourself as useless. Not even for a second!”

“But—” Scootaloo looked up.

Rainbow stared her down with a sudden frown. “Not even for a second. You are your own pony, and you are capable of doing so many cool and awesome things. You think I ever got to be such a killer flier by thinking of my wings as if they were utter trash? That's no way to live, squirt. I know that because I've spent my whole life making sure I didn't live that way, and look at what I've become! I can kick dragons in the face and still live to talk about it!”

“You've kicked dragons in the face?”

“Only when they asked for it.”

“Heheheheh...” Scootaloo exhaled gently as a warm breath replaced the brief shyness in her lungs. “I don't understand this whole 'Elements of Harmony' stuff, Rainbow Dash. But, from the way I see it, Twilight and the others are all lucky to have you as such a good, loyal friend—”

As soon as she said this, Rainbow Dash was gone. After Scootaloo's second blink, she felt her entire body being rocked by the gusting winds of the blue pegasus' thunderous departure. She spun her head westward and was just barely able to make out a blazing, sapphiric blur speeding towards the valley below the cliff.

“Uhhh... R-Rainbow Dash?! Hello?!” There was only silence. With a sharp exhale, Scootaloo folded her limbs beneath her. “Hmph... She's right. 'Loyalty' is lame...”

No sooner did she utter this, however, when she suddenly noticed exactly where Rainbow Dash was soaring off to. Far below in the valley, in one tall tree among several dozen more just like it, a tiny earth pony was dangling loosely off of a branch. With a frightened shriek that even Scootaloo could hear across the Plains of Equestria, the helpless pony fell murderously towards the brown earth below.

Scootaloo shot up with a gasp. Her wings twitched instinctually as she watched in terror from afar.

Then, at the very last millisecond, the blue blur reached the tree, and the wide-eyed foal was caught in free-fall. The child dangled safely in the hooves of Rainbow Dash, clinging to her with trembling sensations as the distant pegasus smirked and slowly lowered the young equine to the floor.

Without a second thought, Scootaloo jumped down from the rock slab, kicked her metal tray into a glide, and rolled the long way down the hill to reach the scene.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Your friends here talked you into doing such a crazy thing, huh?”

“Mmmm...” The little foal dug her hoof into the ground as two colorful companions stood nervously behind her, guiltily avoiding the adult pegasus' gaze with their eyes cast towards the muddy earth. “They said that I was a scaredy-cat. They said that since my older brothers are always planting peach trees, that I should be a natural at climbing branches. I've never climbed a tree before in my life...”

Rainbow Dash squinted at her. “And just what gave you the bright idea that you could suddenly know how to do it?” She frowned slightly. “Without having practiced or whatnot?”

The foal jolted, gulping nervously. “I-I didn't want them to think that I was a coward.”

“Yeesh, kid. You're younger than Cloudsdalian snowflakes. Why the heck should you bother with being a coward or not when you're still not old enough to trot straight?” Rainbow Dash smirked as she strolled over and knelt down before the filly. She placed a hoof on her bright shoulder. “It's one thing to be a coward, it's another thing to be stupid. Now, I don't know about your so-called-friends here, but I don't think you're either one of those lame things. It’s okay to use your guts, but don’t be afraid to use your head as well, so long as it doesn’t turn into the shape of an egg... heh heh.”

“But they said that I don't have any guts!” the filly said. She turned to look back at her two shivering companions. “They said that I wouldn't, so long as I didn't take them up on their dare!”

“The only reason they dared you to do something dangerous is because they're too scared stupid to do it themselves.” Rainbow smirked as Scootaloo glided up to the scene behind her, gawking at the situation. “There'll be plenty of times in the future for you guys to climb trees. I suggest you all do it together, as a group, once you've gotten your balance to do it and gotten your strength to bounce back up from a nasty fall. Until then, try not to make each other do things that one pony or another is too afraid to do herself. What's the point in being friends if you can't do fun stuff together—as a group—huh?”

“We're sorry, Rainbow Dash,” one foal said.

“Y-Yeah...” Another joined, gulping. “We didn't want anypony to get hurt! Honest!”

“Then don't try to hurt anypony! That includes your dinky selves!” Rainbow Dash said. “Now gallop back into town, all of you, before I kick your butts! I'm practicing some air stunts for my buddy here, and I don't want anypony but me getting hurt! Heheheh—Ahem. Seriously, scram.”

“Good luck with your cloud tricks, Rainbow Dash!” one exclaimed as the three sauntered off under a fresh curtain of hopeful smiles. “Thanks for the sunny skies!”

“Hey—I only kick away the clouds! It's Princess Celestia who controls the sun! Ehhhh—Who cares. Wait until you get chained to one of Ms. Cheerilee's school desks, then you'll learn all the boring facts of life.” Rainbow Dash chuckled to herself. “Though I wouldn't mind being called a goddess from time to time. I certainly reflect enough frickin' sunlight.” She turned and caught Scootaloo gawking up at her. “Why, hello there, ya little squirt. You sure made it down here fast.”

Scootaloo blinked. Scootaloo gaped. Scootaloo stammered, “You... Y-you totally just saved that little kid!”

“What?” Rainbow Dash pointed aside. “You'd rather I saved the tree instead?”

“No... It's just that... that...”

“Oh, right. Eheheh...” The pegasus rubbed the back of her head with a blue hoof. “I kind of ditched you in the middle of our conversation, didn't I? Sorry, force of habit.”

“Force of h-habit?!”

“I really do see everything. I wouldn't be such a good weather flier if I didn't keep my eyes peeled, y'know.”

“Do you ever stop being awesome?” Scootaloo said, then shuddered, as if rebounding from a sonic boom that just suddenly hit her. “And did you just call me 'your buddy' a moment ago?”

Rainbow Dash merely yawned and marched past her. “Nnngh... goddess, where did this afternoon go? I need to work out the kinks in my aerial maneuvers before the sun goes down. Mind if we continue where we left off, pipsqueak? I'm running on half a tank here and I haven't robbed—er—improvised my way to a bite of apples in days.”

Scootaloo gazed numbly after her. The orange feathers on the edge of her wings fluttered in a rhythm that matched her pulsating heart as she glided after the blue pegasus in a zombified fashion. “Right... I... I guess I can still help you...”

“Good. I only wish the Wonderbolts were as easy to impress as you, ya little chicken nugget.”

“Little chicken nugget...” Scootaloo cooed. “Whatever you say, Rainbow Dash...” The wind whistled in her ears as they ascended the hill once more.

---

Octavia's strings rose to a brief high pitch, then lowered again as the sounds of majestic cello-playing danced around the interior of the gondola. The last pony stared at the blue feather cradled in her brown hooves. The tiny fibers bent and fluttered under her touch. Flaring her nostrils, she sat up straight and glanced at the rest of the cabin. She briefly saw Warden sleeping soundly on the hammock. Next, her gaze tilted until her eyes were absorbed with the wall of the Harmony stretching just above the workbench. The Royal Grand Biv outfit, the golden lyre, the piece of Stalliongrad, the buffalo headdress, and the many novelty fossils of the scavenger's pilfering hung before her in a suddenly worthless array. None of these miraculously preserved memories shone with the same glory as the tiny, downy strand in her gentle grasp.

There was one exception: Suntrot's golden illustration hung in the center of the memorable mosaic. The filly's crayon streaks were jagged and juvenile, but they held more worth and sanctity than all of Princess Celestia's journal pages combined. Scootaloo bit her lip as she gazed deeply at the humble masterpiece. She wondered—in yet another round of somber breaths—if Rainbow Dash had ever kept a memento of hers before the Cataclysm took everything away.

Just then, an alarm buzzed. Raising an eyebrow, Scootaloo swiveled in her seat and stared down at the dashboard directly in front of her. A tiny light was sparkling across the leftmost side of the Harmony's instrument panel.

In swift order, Scootaloo placed the blue feather down into the tiny white container along with its two siblings. She slapped the box shut and placed it in a pocket of her armor before sliding her copper goggles down and switching several levers on the panel. The alarm subsided, having fully warned the dirigible owner of rising levels of electromagnetic current in the vicinity. That only meant one thing: Scootaloo was swiftly approaching a large structure that harnessed electrical energy. From the rising temperature gauge measuring the outside of the aircraft, she judged that there was a huge buildup of steam as well.

This became apparent as she descended through a natural cloudbank, only to be engulfed in a wickedly synthetic cloud of black smog. The recently cleaned windows were briefly covered in soot. Cursing under her breath, Scootaloo flicked her hoof across a switch. Four jets of hot, pressurized water sprayed over the sloping dashboard of the gondola's exterior, clearing the view for the pilot to see beyond the bow.

What loomed before the scavenger's sight was a gigantic valley of watery lake beds and barren rock, pock-marked in innumerable places with deep pits and dipping valleys. These were once the spacious and emerald fields of the Equestrian Northern Plains. She could still remember the bright, sunlit vistas that had stretched before her, full of rivers and ponds that had glittered in the afternoon glow. Every grassy knoll had been flanked by luscious fruit trees and sporadic beds of clover. Above all of that, casting a prismatic glow across the rolling landscape, had been the enormous and awe-inspiring sight of Cloudsdale, floating high in the troposphere, a crossroads for all life and all purveyors of it.

Now, the sky was filled with a black smog formed by dozens upon dozens of steam stacks jutting high into the air, coalescing with all of their combined pollutants to form an opaque ceiling that blocked out any hint of twilight, so that the once-sunny valley was now a sunken and saturated landscape shrouded in endless, pitch-black night.

This section of the Wasteland would have been utterly dark, absolutely devoid of luminance, if it weren't for one enormous structure that was ironically responsible for the blackening to begin with. In the middle of a jet black cloud of desolation, Petra stretched skyward like a great golden flower, and it lit up the dead world as though it was the last breath of fire to ever linger in a cold and infinite abyss. At the same time, it was the author of its own foggy veil, for its spokes upon spokes of smoke stacks endlessly billowed steam and smog into the atmosphere above the golden super-structure, filling the air of the Wasteland—and even the cramped interior of the Harmony itself—with a constant, high-pitched whistle.

Petra was only incidentally deserving of the right to be called a “city.” Scootaloo had heard many Wastelanders speak of Petra. She had read in Equestrian history books about ancient goblin cities that in some ways resembled Petra. Nearly ten years ago, entirely by accident, the last pony almost flew the Harmony straight into the heights of Petra. Soaring towards it now, even at a slow speed, the last pony realized that she had underestimated its majesty.

Even from several kilometers away, the body of Petra was enormous. The goblin construct was an epic, vertical metropolis segmented into smaller, far more complicated parts. What surprised her the most was just how organic and accidental the entire engineering marvel was. There was a beautiful ugliness to it, an asymmetrical assortment of large, circular, horizontal platforms built along the body of a winding cylindrical stalk that jaggedly spiraled its way skyward.

The central stem of Petra flickered from within, billowing red plumes of flame every few hundred meters up the gigantic trunk of iron and steel as it wove its haphazard way towards the veiled cosmos above. Scootaloo judged that most of the factories and foundries of goblin industry were housed up and down the vertical beam's interior. At the very base of the stem—where the immense, cylindrical stalk met the lifeless and sterile rock of the earth—thousands upon thousands of perpetually self-consuming oil fires vomited smoke across the Wasteland’s surface, marking where the refuse of the goblin metropolis' population fell to the bosom of the world and burned.

Beyond this pool of soot and grime located at Petra's foundation, a solid ring of tiny buildings formed a separate community all on its own. A circular assortment of shanty towns had been constructed in the shadow of the majestic city structure itself. From up high, Scootaloo could make out hollow warehouses, metal silos, concrete blocks, and thousands upon thousands of dilapidated huts affixed with rusted aluminum roofs. The tiny, squirming dots of countless imp bodies filled the gravel alleys lying between the decrepit buildings and lean-to “apartments,” so that Scootaloo briefly wondered if more goblins lived in Petra or in the shadow thereof.

Gazing up towards the superstructure once again, Scootaloo observed the platforms of Petra in greater detail. For their amazingly spacious grandeur, it was a time-consuming procedure to actually count them. When she had flown by the sight of Petra ten years ago, she could have sworn she had witnessed no more than ten platforms. Now, as Warden had indeed conveyed, there had to have been over thirty. Seeing it was a different matter than believing the teenager's words. It boggled Scootaloo's mind that creatures of any size—much less goblins—could have erected even a fraction of that many structures in such a small span of time.

The discs were huge, at least three hundred meters across and almost just as wide, and all of them brimmed with buildings, alleyways, balconies, courtyards, upper levels, lower levels, support struts, extensions, and electrical generators. Scootaloo remembered the gigantic moonrock that housed Ponymonium, beneath which she had scavenged what remained of Pinkie Pie's skeleton. It suddenly occurred to her to imagine each of these discs as an equivalent to a one hundred meter tall cut-out of such an epically large structure, and yet the goblins had built dozens of them—all out of iron and steel, reinforced with copper and brass—and they stretched out in a spiraling formation along the jagged stem of the city's central core, so that Petra resembled a giant, dead tree clustered from top to bottom with enormous, glowing leaves.

This ridiculous feat of tumorous engineering stretched no less than two kilometers into the sky, making its peak higher than any other point in Equestria, save for the abandoned heights of Griffon Mount. The only thing keeping Petra from piercing the clouds was the simple fact that the only clouds around that portion of the Wasteland consisted of the smoggy miasma that the city had produced with its numerous smoke stacks and steam jets billowing black soot into the sky. The structure was ablaze—burning like a Hearth's Warming Tree in the center of a great, ghastly nothingness—with every single one of its horizontal platforms shimmering with white electricity and golden lanternlight.

Hovering about the plethora of gigantic discs was a thin, luminescent swarm of dozens upon dozens of industrial and merchant airships hovering from one vertical destination to another between the city's “branches.” Beneath the glowing stalk of a city, at ground level, the Wasteland was also alive with lights and stirring commotion. As majestic as Petra was, it was merely an offshoot of an endless industrial project transpiring several kilometers to the west of it. Immense concrete platforms stretched between the goblin city and a spacious mining operation. Across these platforms, monorail trains ran on steam, delivering hundreds upon thousands of kilograms of white matter: sky marble.

Scootaloo tilted her gaze and glanced towards the west. It was then that she saw what she had truly flown there for: it wasn't Petra, it was Cloudsdale... or at least what was left of Cloudsdale.

When the pegasus city in the sky collapsed from the wake of the Cataclysm, the resulting impact had smashed a gigantic hole into the face of the world. Scootaloo, of course, knew this very well. What she hadn't witnessed—but had only heard about in passing—was that for the twenty-five years that had followed the Cataclysm, the goblins had been salvaging the sky marble of Cloudsdale from the ruins... and to this very day they hadn't stopped.

It would appear that a quarter of a century was not enough time to pilfer the entire grave of Cloudsdale of all it had to offer the imps of the Wasteland. Even from a distance, the pilot of the Harmony could make out droves upon droves of tiny half-ling shapes, clambering over the sunken wreckage like ants, hoisting what remained of the ivory buildings onto cranes and carts. The salvaged materials were then loaded onto trains equipped with steam engines that dragged the cargo all the way to the factories of Petra's inner stem. There, Scootaloo imagined, the goblins had engineered a way to break down the structure of sky marble into its lesser components. From this, they were somehow able to extract compressed steam and sell it to the various needy factions of the Wasteland. The end result was the imps being paid ungodly amounts of silver strips which made the perpetual construction of Petra possible.

Scootaloo felt a weight encompassing her heart. It wasn't so much that the pegasus' soul was affected by the sight of Cloudsdale being reduced to a mere steam reserve. Rather, Scootaloo realized that she was bound to be a complete and total alien to this place. Petra was immense, grand, and rightfully intimidating. The city was also young—about ten years younger than her—and Scootaloo knew a thing or two about being surrounded by hot-headed children of the Wasteland equipped with even a smidgen of power. If the last pony had a hard enough time being accepted in places like the M.O.D.D., she was bound to be absolutely crucified here.

Gently, she flew the body of the Harmony high above the grand pits of Cloudsdale. The ruins burned in a dozen dark places with torchlight as thousands of goblin workers milled about, hammering and blasting away at the rock to uncover more and more pockets of pure sky marble. A lump formed in the mare's throat as she adjusted her goggles and peered into the depths of the place for a sign—any familiar landmark—that her young and tortured memories could have pointed out to her aged self.

With so many parts of Cloudsdale being penetrated, pilfered, and pulled apart before her goggled eyes, the last pony couldn't help but wonder—with a reborn spirit of helplessness—if there was still any chance of finding what she was looking for in one piece. What if there was nothing left of Rainbow Dash?

Nervously, the last pony slapped her hoof over a few levers and steadied the Harmony into a hover directly above the edge of the pits. Unbuckling the harness of her pilot's seat, she dashed across the cabin to her workbench and opened a tray. A dragon tooth glinted in the light from the vessel's boiler. Scootaloo lifted it by the blue string and cradled the object in her hoof. Shuffling over to the space between her cockpit and the wide-stretching windshield, she clasped the tooth to herself and gazed into the remains of Cloudsdale. The shuffling goblins, infernal machinery, and sea of lit torches blurred before her vision... until she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and allowed the tooth to speak to her.

It was with enormous felicity that Scootaloo felt herself being pulled inward, as if gravity was threatening to swallow her at one thousand kilometers per hour. Every ghostly tug of g-force was yanking her towards one destination and one destination alone: the center of the pits.

Scootaloo's eyes reopened, and when they did, they were misty. She smiled painfully to herself and hugged the dragon's tooth so hard that it might shatter into calcified bits. Rainbow Dash's remains were still there. They were in one piece.

She took a deep breath, her voice almost squeaking. After so many months of working on the experiment with Spike, Scootaloo found more and more reasons to be amazed... and joyful. Even in the darkest pits of the Wasteland, there was suddenly opportunity in her life. And where there was opportunity, there was beauty.

Suddenly, the container of green flame on the workbench rattled loosely. At first, Scootaloo didn't understand why, until the entire gondola of the Harmony began to shake as well. The same buzzing alarm from earlier reignited, only now it was an ear-splitting scream. Scootaloo gasped and flashed her dashboard a goggled look. Every instrument panel was flickering madly, indicating an incoming object or projectile. Breathless, she ran over to the left of the cockpit and gazed through a porthole along the side of the airship.

Just as she looked out, three green shapes rocketed straight past the Harmony. With bright gusts of steam, a trio of hovercrafts soared upwards and encircled the last pony's vessel in a tight, threatening formation. The resulting turbulence of the hovercrafts' proximity shook every square centimeter of the dirigible. Scootaloo grit her teeth, struggling to keep her balance. Octavia's strings scratched and skipped as the record player rocked precariously on the edge of its shelf.

“Friggin' A!” she exclaimed, rushing over to the cockpit and attempting to steady the vessel with a strong grip on the instrument panel and its adjoining levers. She heard a rattling noise intensifying behind her. She flashed a glance over her twitching wings.

The elongated glass jar of pure emerald dragonflame was rolling straight off the workbench's edge. Scootaloo hissed through her teeth and shot her body back up. In a single breath, she backflipped out of the cockpit, flapped her wings, and flew upside down towards the workbench.

The glass jar of flame fell towards the bulkhead of the cabin floor below. “Nnngh!” Scootaloo caught the container in two jittery hooves. She landed on her spine with a grunt as the zeppelin's rocking and swaying came to a gradual stop. “H-holy haystacks...” She blinked under her goggles, then frowned. Angrily, she kipped up to her hooves, shoved the glass container safely into the netting of her swaying hammock beside Warden, and marched straight towards her communicator system.

In timely fashion, a loud voice was projected towards the Harmony. Amidst the settling chaos, Scootaloo was at a loss to discern what was being broadcasted. Just as she roared the communicator to life—the tesla coils flanking the device sparkling brightly—she unlatched a porthole and flung it open. Above the noise of boiling steam and distant mining equipment, the speakers fashioned to the circling hovercraft squawked in sudden clarity: “You have trespassed this airspace, sky traveler. Identity yourself.”

“I'm pissed off!” Scootaloo barked into the cone of her communicator, broadcasting her grunting voice across the heavens. “Who are you?”

“On behalf of the Outer Aerial Gremlin Defense Initiative, you must remove yourself from this airspace. If you have business in the city, make a landing in Strut Fifteen, Level Beta of Grand Petra. For now, redirect your aircraft from these premises or you shall be fired upon.”

“Why just that strut?! And why are you circling me like winged jackals, ya psychopaths?!” Scootaloo angrily spat, eyeing the three hovercrafts in close proximity to her ship. The smoggy wind whipped in through the tiny porthole, pelting her already tense and angry expression. “I'm only here to conduct business. Think you can afford to give me some friggin' space?!”

The loud voice merely repeated itself without emotion. “...Make a landing in Strut Fifteen, Level Beta of Grand Petra. For now, redirect your aircraft from these premises or you shall be fired upon.” Upon closer examination, Scootaloo saw finer and finer details of her sudden “hosts.” All three of vessels were open platforms with copper railings and powered by bulbous, brass tanks full of compressed steam. The hissing machines fed hot air to several thrusters rigged to the bottom of the rusted contraptions like hollow, jagged teeth. Inside each of these vessels were five to six creatures, and each of them had a steam-powered, double-barreled, semi-automatic rifle fixed on the last pony's airship. None of them moved a single centimeter, and yet the voice repeated itself. “If you have business in the city, make a landing in Strut Fifteen, Level Beta of Grand Petra.”

Scootaloo's face twisted. She murmured aside from her communicator's cone. “Just who are these freaks anyways? They sound like a broken record.”

“They're gremlins.”

Scootaloo flashed a look over her shoulder.

Warden was sitting up straight on the edge of the hammock. He was fully awake, but upon Scootaloo's sudden glance, he winced slightly. “They... They usually don't speak any language but their own. They're broadcasting a recorded message provided to them by the higher goblin clans they work for. It's typical of the O.A.G.D.I.”

Scootaloo blinked at him, then glanced once more at the pilots of the three hovercrafts. Their frames were too tiny to belong to the typical goblins that she was familiar with, and their heads were much larger in proportion to their torsos. What was more, there was little to no visible portion of their craniums exposed. All eyes were obscured with thick black visors, and all mouths were encompassed by brass breathing masks that gave their voices a metallic ring as they murmured unintelligibly to each other and further cocked the shiny rifles in their grasp.

“They usually don't give an aircraft more than three chances to comply with their orders,” Warden droned, his ears twitching with a supressed sign of fear. “They really will fire on you.”

“Like heck, they will.” Scootaloo muttered, then swiveled the communicator's cone back to her lips. “Look!” her voice echoed across the Wasteland air outside. “I don't need to conduct business inside of Petra. I only need to get inside Cloudsda—inside the pits. Surely there's an overseer or a mining supervisor I can speak with and offer a deal—”

“...Redirect your aircraft from these premises or you shall be fired upon.”

“They will too,” Warden said with a jaded voice. “While goblins like building things, gremlins enjoy blowing stuff up, especially if they can do it from the air.”

Scootaloo took a deep breath, her nostrils flaring. She cast one last glance down at the deep, torchlit pits of Cloudsdale. Her ears drooped briefly as she closed her eyes, took a defeated breath, and finally grunted: “Fine. Fine!” She opened her eyes and frowned as she spoke into the communicator. “I'm friggin' going. Try and point those guns of yours at a creature without the good sense to cooperate for a change.”

Scootaloo slapped the porthole shut, stomped over to her cockpit, and slumped angrily into the seat. With a tight grip on the levers, she pivoted the Harmony about and flew it eastward, following the path of the monorail train tracks, heading directly towards the glowing, golden body of Petra.

“At least I got them off my friggin' flank,” Scootaloo muttered.

“Not quite,” Warden said. He was suddenly on his feet, limping over and leaning precariously against Scootaloo's cockpit seat from behind. “If you look towards the port and starboard side, you'll see that we're being escorted.”

“Escorted?” Scootaloo glanced out the edges of the wide windshields. Sure enough, two of the green hovercraft were keeping an even pace with the Harmony, following its trip eastward to the imp city. “Oh, perfect. What next? Are we going to hold hands and hooves?”

“They're just doing their job,” Warden said dully, his four-fingered grasp clutching to the edge of the seat as he supported his frail weight against it. “For all they know, you could be a harpy pirate in disguise, or a rogue dirigible dog.”

“Why? Have they had crazy creatures drive zeppelins full of explosives into the mines before?”

“Stranger things have happened,” Warden uttered with a nod. “It's taken a lot of years and work, but this city is something we goblins are very proud of. We really go all the way to protect it.”

“Guess one couldn't blame you,” Scootaloo said. “Now, did they say Strut Fifteen?”

“Yes,” Warden nodded. “Also, Level Beta.”

“What's 'Level Beta' mean?”

“Most if not all struts of Petra are divided into three floors, Ceti, Beta, and Alpha—from top to bottom. 'Level Beta' refers to the middle strut.” He pointed a green finger. “If you look, there's a hangar located in the middle of the Fifteenth Platform. That's where they want us to go—” His aquamarine eyes widened as his limp leg fell out from under him and he plunged forward.

Scootaloo stuck a hoof out and caught Warden before he could get a face full of floor. She leaned him back upright and re-gripped the levers of the Harmony. “Well,” she said, managing a slight smirk. “Somebody certainly got a bit talkative. Thanks for the pointers, Wart.”

“I... didn't want to get shot down by a bunch of gremlins.”

“Thinking of your own safety.” Scootaloo nodded. “That's perfectly healthy.”

“For what it's worth,” he muttered, then blinked awkwardly at the last pony. “Don't you have guns of your own?”

Scootaloo tapped her brown skull with a free hoof. “I'd rather use the ammo in here first.” She took a deep breath. “However, on account of my temper, sometimes I backfire and my heart gets loaded into the chamber instead. Sorry you had to witness that.”

Scootaloo's smile faded; it was already a fragile thing. “For lack of a detailed explanation, the answer is 'yes.'”

“You must want something in those mines very, very badly.”

Scootaloo nodded, her eyes briefly unfocusing from the golden destination ahead. “I suppose you could say that.”

“Is it sky marble?”

She almost chuckled at that. “Oh, no. No, I've had more than my fill of that in life. You goblins can have all the sky marble you could ever want, for all I care. Though, I still can't figure out for the life of me how you get steam out of the aged crap.”

“Don't you know?”

“Know what?”

“How to... uhm... get steam out of it?” Warden fumbled for words, nervously eyeing Scootaloo's bound wings as the last pony piloted the Harmony. “Didn't your kind build the stuff? After all, you're... you're...”

“What, a 'sky-stealer?'”

Warden bit his lip.

Scootaloo ascended the zeppelin so that it evened with the middle of the Fifteenth Strut that was gradually looming ahead. “The proper term, Wart, is 'pegasus.'”

“P-pegasus...” he repeated.

“You can have all the fun with plural and possessive forms of the noun on your own,” Scootaloo grunted. “Not that it matters. All I've ever known is that I'm happy to have wings. Being a unicorn or earth pony always seemed dull as nails to me.”

“You... you mean that there are more than one type of glue st—Erm...” Warden winced visibly.

Scootaloo glanced at him with a slight shade of amusement. “Why shouldn't there be? I learned about gremlins today, didn’t I?”

Warden blinked at that. He merely turned and gazed out the windshield as the golden glow of Petra washed over his features and Scootaloo's in turn.

The last pony spoke up. “Listen, Wart.” She pulled at a chain-link handle and slowed the forward movement of the vessel. She reveled in seeing the two gremlin hovercraft disengaging from the sides of the Harmony as the ship slowly approached the black hollow of the hangar ahead. “I anticipated that I might be having to do something like this. I certainly didn't look forward to the prospect of parking in your lovely city, but now I know it's something that I have to deal with. And like most crap that I run into in the Wasteland, I'm going to have to take things cautiously—one hoofstep at a time.”

Yellow lights began strobing at the Harmony's approach. Scootaloo slowed the vessel even further as the hangar came closer and closer. She could spot several other aircraft parked within, as well as the bodies of multiple creatures hustling about their vehicles.

“I guess what I'm trying to get at is that I'm still totally going to get you to your parents, but it won't be right away. This place—you see—it's more than likely a very... very...” She took a deep breath, her brown coat briefly twitching, as if reeling from bruises that were two and a half decades old. “...very dangerous environment for an equine such as me. I don't think I even need to explain to you why.”

Warden said nothing.

The airship entered the hangar. The golden glow of the city was drowned out by a deep red light illuminating the garage's cavernous interior. There was a set of mooring rigs hanging from the ceiling rafters above. Scootaloo aimed towards it, gracefully sliding her dirigible alongside a stretch of silver platforms to the starboard side.

“I've done this sort of thing before,” she murmured as she slowed the Harmony to a complete stop. She flipped several levers and hopped out of her cockpit, marching over towards the valves that controlled the port and starboard grappling arms. After anchoring the airship in place, she trotted across the cabin, grabbed the green fire from the hammock, and approached one of the metal cabinets while Warden watched. “I need to go out, scout around, get a good feel for the place, and figure a way to... to get into the pits.” She sighed, pausing briefly before the metal cabinet. She turned and glanced towards Warden and braved a thin smile. “Once I've done all that, and I figure out how to do it safely, then will I take you to your parents. There's no use in protecting you if I can't protect myself, ya feel me?”

“Why?” Warden asked.

“H'jem.” The rune over the locker stopped glowing. After depositing the green flame safely inside, Scootaloo grabbed an extra layer of armor, a leather cowl, a saddlebag, and her copper rifle. “Because it just wouldn't make sense for an 'abominable glue stick' to be your only means of getting back to your family. If I can find a way to keep below the imps' radar in this place—”

“No, what I mean is...” Warden hobbled a few steps and leaned against the shelf that the record player was on. He looked forlornly at her. “Why are you doing all of this for me?”

Scootaloo was halfway through donning her armor. She paused, then glanced over at him. “Because, when I was your age, and I was stuck in the Wasteland, I would have given everything to have somepony... to have somebody help me.”

As she resumed collecting her things, Warden fidgeted and walked over to the hammock again. “I thought ponies always lived in herds. Why'd they leave you all alone?”

Scootaloo was reaching for the locker's doors. She took a deep breath at those words and reached in to grab a pair of runestones. She shut the doors. “W'nyhhm.” They locked magically in place. Adjusting the bracelet of glowing horns on her left limb, she then trotted over to the cockpit and slid the two runestones into a pair of electrically-wired notches shaped perfectly to accept them. “Some of us have no choice but to be alone, Wart. Let's just leave it at that.”

“But—”

“Take a look at this, if you will,” she murmured. Once she had the two runes in place, she stepped back and spoke firmly into her bracelet. “Y'mnym!” The wires around the notches lit up along with the runes. Soon, a bright purple glow illuminated the edges of the entire cockpit. Whistling, Scootaloo caught Warden's attention, then tossed an empty soup can his way. “I know your left leg's busted and jazz, but certainly you've got a good pitching arm.”

“Uhhh... what?”

She gestured towards the cockpit. “Toss the can at my instrument panel.”

“What for?”

“Humor me, if you will.”

Warden blinked. Shifting his weight on his right leg, he tensed his upper body and flung the can at the pilot's seat with all his might. What resulted was a splash of bright purple light as a sphere of energy solidified around the cockpit, flickered violently, and disappeared with a haze of sparks.

“Daah!” Warden shrieked, falling back so that he was draped awkwardly across the swinging hammock.

Scootaloo calmly turned towards him and muttered, “All things considered, Wart, you're my guest. But I'm also not stupid. If you try to take control of this ship while I'm off getting a look at the city, you'll regret it.” She picked up the can and lifted it, revealing the edges of it that were hotly smoking from contact with the runestone shield. “Imagine this as your skin. It'd be the same if you came into contact with the exit to this craft after I'm gone. I really, really wouldn't try getting out if I were you.”

“You're... you're leaving me here?” He blinked.

“Just for a few hours, tops,” Scootaloo said, sliding the armored cap over her head and sliding her ears into place. Lastly, she slipped on her saddlebag and slid her compacted copper rifle into the holster across her back. “Please, don't think of this place like a prison. You know where the food is, if you're feeling famished. There's a full canteen of water on the bench across from you, in case you're thirsty. Downstairs, there's a large metal pot in the corner for when you... well... when you feel like taking care of other things.”

“You... uhm...” Warden was suddenly nervous. His glistening eyes once again mirrored the aquamarine orbs that had shaken in front of Scootaloo in a dark cave far away. “You sure that this is such a good idea, pony? I mean, I've spent my entire life in this city, and... and the way we imps feel about... about 'sky stealers...'”

“Heh...” Scootaloo smirked and began her descent down the revolving staircase. “I'm touched that you'd show some concern. Trust me, I've dealt with worse.”

“I... I dunno...” Warden's fingers curled pensively with the netting of the hammock. “It's a big city, and you're just one... pegasus.”

“I’m always ‘just one pegasus,’ Wart. Besides, I said I'd only be gone for two or three hours, didn't I? And maybe when I return I'll have bought some more dried meat for you to shove down your gullet. So quit fretting!” She finished with a smirk.

“I’m not fretting,” Warden murmured, curling back up on the hammock with her back to him. “I... I just want to see my parents again. That’s all.”

Scootaloo blinked, staring at his figure from beyond the brass bars of the revolving staircase she was descending. Finally wrenching her gaze from him, she remembered the smell of Clousdalian steam. For a brief moment, she thought she couldn’t possibly be more nauseated. When she descended to the hangar level and opened the aperture entrance to the Harmony, she was graced with the smoggy breath of Petra, and she soon realized she was wrong.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The air about the place was rancid. Scootaloo couldn't tell if it was the exhaust being pumped out of the multiple aircraft, or if it was the sheer smell of the pilots swarming about their parked dirigibles. The hangar swam with multiplicitous noises: dozens of blowtorches putting the finishing touches on hull platings, multiple creatures squabbling over the exchange of spare parts, squawking foul flying overhead like scavengers above carrion, and hydraulic machinery assisting in the repair of random vehicles.

Scootaloo wasted no time with sight-seeing. As soon as she was outside the Harmony, she turned to face the aircraft and kept her voice low as she murmured into the ring of horns around her limb. “H'jnor. W'nyhhm.” The cats-eye aperture slid shut and the outer forcefield covered the bow of the Harmony with a purple glow. Scootaloo exhaled, and suddenly was aware of an immense silence drowning the crowded hangar behind her. Turning around, she blinked curiously beneath her goggles.

Beyond the purple haze of her runeshield, a heterogenous crowd of Wasteland creatures was standing perfectly still, frozen in the middle of whatever tasks the sentient things were doing, staring steadily at the last pony after the two lunar words she had just uttered. Scootaloo saw dirigible dogs, monkeys, even a squawking bird or two. However, she did not see a single goblin—or gremlin for that matter. Her brow furrowed above her goggles as she realized that the entire hangar was being rented out entirely by non-imps, and suddenly it made sense why the gremlins had escorted her here. She wondered briefly if they even knew that she was a pony.

Scootaloo was not one to waste a moment, no matter how bad it smelled. Rather than absorb the attention that was being tossed warily her way, she ignored the many sets of eyes and flew up to the far corners of her ship, speaking into several spots along the hull where even more runes were hidden. For precarious situations such as this, it was helpful to have extra slabs of lunar rock stashed away to bolster the shields of her parked dirigible. It was not something Scootaloo resorted to often, as it was typically an annoying, ten minute ritual to switch the entire assortment of runic barriers on and off. However, with so many different creatures populating this tight enclosure, she didn't want to risk any single one of them exploiting an opportunity to get inside the Harmony. There was no telling what they might do to Warden.

Scootaloo slumped briefly by the time she reached the topmost portion of her dirigible. She ran a hoof over her cowled head in a brief stupor. Had she really thought about her imp passenger before worrying over the bottle of green flame locked inside the cabinet?

She didn't have much time to contemplate this when a feathery creature flapped down and landed on top of the balloon beside her with a loud shriek. Scootaloo glanced over to see a white-back vulture seated two meters away, glaring at her. She groaned and murmured to herself before preparing to switch on the last runestone's shield. “Just what this place needs, something to devour all the pests.”

“Pay up, glue stick,” the buzzard suddenly spoke.

Scootaloo's head lifted up. After a blank moment of contemplation, she glanced over at the suddenly sentient fowl. “I beg your pardon?”

The buzzard hissed at her. He waved a wrench in his razor-sharp talons and gestured with his featherless head towards a brightly-lit alcove hanging above the entire hangar, at the end of a complex branch of metal catwalks. “You wanna use this hangar, pony? Then you gotta pay up. The boss is waiting upstairs. If you don't have the silver, he'll have us cut you loose.”

Scootaloo observed several more buzzards—ugly brethren to this creature—who were flying all across the upper spaces of the hangar, delivering messages and supplies to the various pilots parking their aircraft within. She finally understood that there was a system at work here, and it occurred to her just who the “garage attendants” were.

“Alright then. I'll go see your boss.” Scootaloo nodded as the one buzzard grunted and flew away. “And then I'll promptly brush up on my Equestrian ornithology. W'nyhhm.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“You've gotta be kiddingggggg us!” a diamond dog's unmistakable, raspy voice could be heard from several meters along the catwalk as Scootaloo slowly approached the hangar manager's alcove. “We barely spent twelve hours in this patheticcccccc troll turd of a city, and still you're forcingggggg us to pay the full two hundred stripsssss?!”

A voice squawked back in bitter retort, “More like eighteen hours. And yes, you mutts gotta pay, or else my buddies and I will strip your zeppelin to pieces and toss the whole stinkin' lot of you to the... well, to us, really.”

“Thissssss is robbery! We'd never would have parked in this lousy hangar if we knew justttttt how poor business is in this town!” As Scootaloo rounded the corner and entered the claustrophobic alcove, she saw one of three surly canines staring down an unenthused, molting vulture wearing a pith helmet. “My brotherssssss and I spent hours just trying to find a goblin clan willinggggg to do trade. Half of the imps turned us away! The other half were—well—missingggg! Just what is this?! Did a good chunkkkkk of Petra's family businesses fall off the face of the Wasteland in the last five years?!”

“Tchh. What do I look like?!” the vulture growled, his round helmet dangling atop his bald crown. “I'm as much an outbleeder in this town as you are. The only thing I know about goblins is that their eyeballs are tasty. The dead ones, that is. I don't pay the imp market any heed. All that matters to me is that Wasteland pilots are still usin' this hangar to come and pay visits to the little scamps. Besides, just what is it to you? Dang stupid dogs of the Wasteland should have a backup plan before they go about barkin' up a giant golden tree made out of metal! Ha!”

“Nnnngh! Stupid buzzarddddddd! Screw you and your little garage full of bird poop! I swear, my brothers and I would have had better luckkkkk flying through the artillery bombardment of the Valley of Jewels to do business!”

“Okay, two things. One—” The vulture's blood-red eyes flared from beneath the edge of his pith helmet as he roared in the three dogs' faces. “I'm not a god-forsaken buzzard, you marble-mouthed yahoos! For another, even remotely suggestin' that you plan to do business with the ogres of the Valley of Jewels is liable to make you dead meat in a goblin city like this. Heh, not that I mind. Your bellies are lookin' full of sinewy goodness.” He gave a mischievous wink while licking the edge of his beak.

If that was an outrageous attempt to usher the angry dogs away, it worked. “Let's go, boysssss,” their leader grunted. He tossed two bars onto a tray beside an instrument panel where the vulture was sitting. He then hobbled away on all fours with his two bristly-haired companions in tow. They brushed past Scootaloo and made for the stairwell leading from the catwalk towards their grimy little airship docked below. “Let's go someplace where the only creaturessssss who talk don't possess a semi-automatic defense system.”

The vulture “cupped” a pair of featherly limbs about his beak and called after them. “This creature's defense system can still plug several holes into you if you so much as think of pissin' on his loadin' dock on the way out!”

“Go stick your beakkkkk into a light socket, ya turkey!” one of them howled back.

“Tchh. Friggin' dogs.” The vulture spun in his swivel chair and flipped a switch over a control panel marked with the canines' docking station. The light switched from red to green, indicating vacancy. “I only wish they were as fragrant as they were predictable.”

Scootaloo cleared her throat. “Excuse me...”

“Yeah, yeah. One minute.” The vulture waved a feather, frowned, and yanked a bendable microphone towards his beak. He shouted while glaring out the open window of the alcove towards the wide hangar below. “Hey! You! Yes you!” Two blinking vultures glanced up at him as his voice crackled menacingly over the hangar's speaker system. “Why are you standin' around like a pair of castrated ostriches?! Dock Twelve is unloadin'! You gotta degrease the moorin' clamps before another bunch of patrons takes the dogs' place! Move your tail feathers!”

“I'd really like to discuss payment for the first thirty-six hours worth of using this facility,” Scootaloo spoke.

The vulture ignored her. “And some bird go start a search party for those lousy lemurs parked in Dock Nine! They're twenty hours overdue in payment, and I'm tired of their cargo stinkin' up the place!” He switched the intercom off and grumbled to himself. “Tchh. I friggin' know they're smugglin' hydra lymph glands. They wouldn't deserve to call themselves 'lemurs' if they didn't.”

“Ahem. Look, can I pay for Dock Seven yet or not?”

“Yeesh, princess! A little patience, huh?” The vulture swiveled to face her, smirking. “What do you think you are, a sky stealin' pony?! You suddenly own the world?—Hello!” He jolted back in his seat at the sight of her. Tilting the edge of his pith helmet up, he blinked his bright red eyes and and smiled. “Heh, no friggin' way. Now I've seen everything.”

“I must be your life's ambition,” Scootaloo muttered. “How many strips for the first day?”

“First?” He cocked his bald head to the side. “The one pony who shows up in Petra ever, and you're plannin' on stayin' a while?”

“That depends if I have better or worse luck than those dogs you just gave the third degree.” She pointed out the window. “Dock Seven is where I'm moored. Do I need to register or...?”

“Heh, wow.” He raised his helmet with one wing and “scratched” his rash-covered skull with the stems of his other wing's feathers. “You actually talk. Where I come from, legends have it that horses only talked by clompin' their hooves in some hidden code.”

Scootaloo's nostrils flared. “I assure you, I can talk. As a matter of fact, I seem to stay on topic a lot better than sentient, carrion-eating fowl.”

“Love ya too, princess.” The vulture spun a full three-sixty in his chair and came back with a clipboard flung towards her. “Write your name and your ship's name there. Heheheheh...” He leaned forward with interest. “Boy, I can't wait to see this.”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. She gripped a greasy pen with her teeth, ignored his chuckles, and enscribed the requested info. Once done, she spat the pen out and slid it back into the clipboard's clasp. “Now, before I toss this back at you, I'd really—really like to know the means of payment, Mister...”

“Kevin,” the vulture said.

Scootaloo blinked at him. “...Kevin.”

“Yuh huh.”

“Uhmm...”

“What?” The vulture glared from under his helmet. “You wanna start somethin'?”

“Erm... No. I just...” Scootaloo sighed long and hard. “Payment?”

“Mmmm...” Kevin fiddled with a white ruff of feathers at the base of his leathery neck. “Four hundred strips.”

Scootaloo stared at him lethargically. “Four hundred?”

“I do believe I said that. What, do ponies have a hard time countin' too? I don't know if I can sit back and wait for you to clomp your hooves four hundred times.”

Scootaloo glanced over her shoulder as the dogs' airship left Dock Twelve. She looked back at her molting proprietor. “Funny how you charged them half as much for the same period of time.”

“Tch. And just how do you know rate I was chargin' them?”

“I'm not an idiot,” Scootaloo grunted. “And if you want me to count the number of times I've had creatures try to screw me over, then I'm more than willing to clomp it against your hollow skull.”

“Hmmm.” Kevin smirked. “Well, princess, if you're no idiot, then surely you can expect just why I'd have to charge a 'sky stealer' more than the average rate in the heart of goblin country.” He flipped a switch next to his microphone. The ceiling of the hangar opened in four places, and several hanging gun turrets lowered, glistening in the red light. A few pilots below stopped what they were doing to glance up with nervousness. “What I provide here at Kevin's Nest is more than just a place to rest your big bright balloon. I provide security. This is the one place in all of Petra where outbleeders can park their stuff without fear of goblin interference. What's more, my defense system keeps all of the creatures of different skin, scales, and feathers in line. So what if it takes a chunk out of your saddlebag? You're a pony. That makes you a bigger liability than the random, piss-stupid dirigible dog. And if you don't like my rates, so be it. Take off and try to find another place to park. I dare you.”

He finished this with a grin. Scootaloo returned with a groan. Defeated, she tossed the clipboard his way.

“Fine. But I don't want you pulling any crap like raising the four hundred strips by the end of the initial period.”

“Hey! I'm a dirty eater, but a clean businessman. A deal's a deal...” He glanced down at the clipboard. “... Miss Scoota—snkkkkt—Oh for real? God dang it, that's too cute.”

“Are you done?” Scootaloo glared.

“Ahem.” Kevin tilted his beak up with a bright smirk. “Have you started?”

Scootaloo knew a cue when she was being given one. Quietly, she reached into a pocket of her armor, grabbed four bars, and tossed the silver pieces of metal the vulture's way.

“See? That wasn't so hard!” Kevin added her payment to the dogs' pile and winked. He slapped the console and the machine guns retracted back into the ceiling of Kevin's Nest. “I guess it's like they always say in legends: 'You can lead a horse to water, but—'”

“If you so much as finish that phrase, I'm shoving that helmet of yours into your stomach,” Scootaloo grunted. “And it won't go down the tube you expect it to.”

“Hahaha!—Voice of a princess, temper of a psychopath! Just my kind of girl! Only, y'know, you're not dead.” He cleared his throat and flipped a switch over Dock Seven, indicating it was no longer vacant. “Go on about your business—whatever it is. I'd wish you luck, but it hardly works on outbleeders.”

“Okay, I have to ask,” Scootaloo mumbled, her eyes squinting at him. “Just what is an 'outbleeder?'”

“You're an outbleeder,” Kevin grunted, pointing with his wing feathers. “I'm an outbleeder. Dogs and raccoons and lemurs and all the glorious marsupials in between are outbleeders. So long as your blood isn't imp's blood—”

“Yeah, I think I get it,” Scootaloo said with a nod, glancing out the window of the alcove. “At the risk of having to pay more, I was wondering if you could give me some information before I hoof it to the streets beyond.”

“You're the first patron in weeks who hasn't smelled bad.” Kevin leaned back in his chair and propped his talons up. “First tidbit is on the house. Shoot.”

“A gremlin escort seemed pretty angry that I hovered too close to the mines over Cloudsd—” She rolled her eyes at herself. “...too close to the steam mines. I don't actually need to conduct business here in the city. I need to get something from the pits.”

“Tchh. Like what? Steam? Just get that from one of the family businesses, princess.”

“It isn't steam. It's... It's complicated.” Scootaloo gulped. “I need to find a way to be allowed into the mines, personally.”

“Heh. Good luck with that. I hear goblins want outbleeders inside the mines like they want a second rectum.”

“Apparently it's enough for them to threaten shooting zeppelins out of the sky,” Scootaloo thought aloud. She looked at Kevin. “Any idea which goblin clans run the mines?”

“To what purpose?”

“I'd like to talk to a few of them,” Scootaloo said. “I might be able to strike a deal.”

“Ha! A pony striking a deal with goblins!” Kevin picked the metal helmet off his head and fanned his smirking face with it. “You'd have better luck fartin' into the sky and birthin' a new Sun! Hahahaha!”

Scootaloo fidgeted where she stood.

“Ahem.” Kevin leaned forward in the chair. “Tell you what, princess. I really, really don't pay much attention to imp politics. It's an ugly sort of business, even for a vulture like me. I've learned not to get involved with what these sociopathic half-lings do to one another in this giant metal antenna they call 'home.' There's nothing to be had but a bunch of backstabbing, slave-trading, and flinging wrenches at stuff to make them tick.”

“You don't say...”

“Oh, I do. All I know is that the imps have this elitist thing that's been going on for friggin' centuries, and the families at the top of the ladder are the only ones worth talkin' to in the grand scheme of things.”

“Do these families have names?”

“Tchh... Seriously? You're gonna make my head work that hard?” The vulture plopped the pith helmet back onto his bald head and rolled his red eyes back. “Nnnngh... 'Amber Blood,' 'Star Blood,' 'Geist Blood,' 'Wind Blood'... I hear those friggin' names thrown around like yesterday's STDs, if you feel me. I don't know the difference between them all, but I figure that those are the names that matter the most. If any imp's gonna be in charge of the minin' operations, it's probably from one of those clans. Start there somewhere, and work your way down—assumin' you still have your pretty head on your shoulders, princess. Heheh...”

“Duly noted,” Scootaloo exhaled, then swiveled to leave.

“That's just it?” Kevin sat straight up, squinting curiously at her. “You're goin' to march into that big, glowy, clockwork mess of a town and just start askin' around?”

“Not like I have any other choice, and I'm already shoveling four hundred strips into your beak.” She glanced back briefly. “Why waste the time?”

“Heh. Somewhere beneath all that tanned leather, princess, I suspect you've grown a pair... and then a pair on that pair!” He smirked. “I'm guessin' you've run into goblins before?”

Scootaloo's nostrils flared. She swiftly exited the alcove, making for a metal elevator located at the end of the catwalk beyond. “You could say that,” she muttered under her breath.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Scootaloo sat on her haunches in the middle of the elevator car. She stared down at the metal bulkheads as the slowly ascending platform rattled beneath her. The further she rose into the dense flesh of Petra, the more the steam intensified in the air around her. The goggles over her eyes fogged briefly as she greeted an oceanic cacophony of thousands upon thousands of grinding cogwheels, gears, pistons, levers, and belts. The mechanized womb of Petra was about to swallow the pegasus up in all its hissing, infernal glory.

She couldn't help but shudder. Scootaloo's coat hair was standing on end, even beneath all of the insulating armor enshrouding her figure. The steam had a haunting chill to it, like the cold breath of a gray, sepulcher place where she once had laid her bruised, blood-stained head. The noise increased to a deafening degree, so that she realized she was being drowned in the heartbeat of Petra... in the essence of goblins... the product of creatures who hated ponykind.

She felt the first hint of a shiver and mentally cursed herself. Closing her eyes, she swallowed hard and reached a hoof blindly beneath a length of armor. When she pulled the hoof out, it was holding the small, ivory box. She opened it—as well as her eyes, in time to see the three fluttering blue feathers.

After a brief pause in reflection, she reached a hoof into a pocket of her saddlebag and brought out the enchanted dragon tooth. Using her teeth, she snapped the blue string loose and dropped the tooth into the ivory box. She then tied the string to one of the feathers... and promptly strung the feather around one of her ears before tucking it back into the leather cowl fitted tightly over her head. The pony took a deep breath. Feeling the silken, sapphire fibers of the feather against her ear brought magnificent comfort to her.

When the elevator platform finally stopped and the doors creaked open—casting a blinding, golden light across her figure—she lost all hesitance and marched courageously into the noise. Her breaths were solid, firm, and resolute.

---

Scootaloo was hyperventilating even before waking up. As soon as the foal's violet eyes opened, she regretted it. The blood-stained filly flinched back against the wooden stake to which she was bound. Nothing she could do would hide her from the glare of the imp standing before her.

Matthais' eyes glinted in the twilight pouring down through the ruptured ceiling of the Cloudsdalian ruins. He marched icily towards Scootaloo, squatting his pale self before the tightly encumbered nine-year-old. He rolled four metal gauntleted fingers, one after another, as he stared disdainfully into the shivering pony's soul.

After an interminable space in time, punctuated only by the sound of his clattering fingers, the black-haired imp finally spoke, “Are you scared, pony?” His white nostrils flared. “Answer me while you still have a voice box to spare.”

Scootaloo gulped. Her eyes twitched. She was in the clubhouse, helping Sweetie Belle with a map of Ponyville. They didn't have anything green to draw with, so they combined two crayons of blue and yellow to make the trees of their hometown. Scootaloo's eyes twitched again, and Matthais returned, his glare harder than ever.

“Y-Yes...” She whimpered. “I'm scared.”

Matthais inhaled her words as if they were a fragrance. He returned just as breathily, “I'm glad.” Suddenly, with cold precision, he held his gauntlet-covered hand in front of her face. Making sure he had her full attention, he pulled the metal off his limb. When he finished, she couldn't help but wince. The digits to his fingers were unnaturally thin, mangled, bent awkwardly at the joints. “Do you see this hand? You do know what a 'hand' is, right, pony?”

Scootaloo gulped and nodded between shivers. Her back had a long, raw rash from where her coat had perpetually made contact with the wooden stake strapped behind her. That didn't stop her from painfully squirming into it after each prolonged second of staring into this strange imp's angry face.

“My hand wasn't always like this,” Matthais murmured. He stared at the disfigurement, pivoting the twice-pale limb before his eyes. “I used to be a master engineer. I dug gemstones out of the northern slopes of Mount Ogreton and fashioned them into bullets. My father and I—we alone defended my village from Timberwolf attacks. We built a thriving goblin village in the middle of the wilderness, where not even ogres could find us. We had prosperity, enough to manifest Petra...” His nostrils flared. “That is... until a storm hit our village seven years ago, and tossed the forest all over our homes.”

Matthais took a deep breath and slid the gauntlet back on. As he made a metal fist, his face tensed up.

He said, “The storm that hit us was no accident. Because, no, storms in this part of the world were never mistakes of happenstance. They were controlled, guided—even. And was it nature that controlled the weather, like it was supposed to?” He slowly shook his head. “No. It was sky-stealing glue sticks like you. You want to know how I found this out, pony?” He pivoted his glare to once more envelope Scootaloo's tiny, shivering form. “There were horses—flying horses—rummaging through the village months after the storm hit. They were worried about the damage to the forest. The forest... and there they stood, trotting their dirty hooves over the ashes of everyone I knew and loved. Including my father...” His breath pulled in sharply, but he weathered it with a sneer. “Who had more than just his hand injured. Half the bones in his body had been broken, and do you know what I did? I pleaded with the winged ponies. I begged... like a slave does. And so they treated me like a slave. They ignored me, ignored my battered body, ignored my father's corpse... and took off for their floating city in the sky, and they took a few 'mementos' with them.”

Scootaloo opened her mouth, startled to discover how dry it was. “I'm... I'm v-very sorry to hear that, Mister.”

Matthais' eyes dilated upon hearing that. He blinked at her, and what came out of him next was more chilling than any seething hiss or snarl. “Heheheheheh..” His lips curved, but it was as sweet as arsenic. “Oh, how sweet. Once a pony, always a pony. The entire world goes dim, and who do I find in the middle of it all? The village idiot of horses who can't even tell me what her kind did wrong.” He raised something rusted and slender in Scootaloo's face. “Do you know what this is?”

The object was too close to Scootaloo's bruised face for her to focus on it. She merely gulped and shook her head.

“Of course you wouldn't. Ponies never know anything about sharp objects. Just ask any creature who's suffered from the flames of every war that ponies have ever started since the dawn of time.” With a metallic ringing noise, Matthais unsheathed what turned out to be a thin dagger from its rusted, yellow scabbard. A breath escaped Scootaloo's lips as he raised the glinting piece of sharp metal above her trembling head. “This...” He hissed once more in an icy breath. “...once belonged to my father. He used it to skin wild animals and provide sustenance to his children, including me. It was one of the 'mementos' that the winged ponies took with them after trouncing across my flattened village...” He lingered, his face twitching and his lips growing tight before he next spat out, “And I found it in the ruins of this Petra-forsaken city just two days ago.”

Scootaloo's trembles doubled. Her eyes shut. Applejack was offering her three crimson, juicy apples. Somewhere, a camp fire crackled. Her eyes reopened, and Matthais was leaning into her, pressing the blade tightly against her whimpering throat.

“In this city!” He snarled, his pale eyes fluctuating a shade above his alabaster skin. “Where we came to find a few measly things to survive, and then a piece of the moon that you glue sticks were supposed to be in charge of fell on top of us and tossed us down here! I watched long-time friends die under heaps of rubble before my eyes. I watched all of our priceless supplies get thrown clear across the ravine. We came to this city for resources, and now we are trapped inside this pathetic pit of ashes. And what do I find? A piece of my dead father's legacy, the final insult that ponies have to give me, a last nail in the unfair coffin that is life. And you're telling me—you have the gall to tell me that you don't even know what a dagger is when you see one? Is that why your sky-hogging kind stole it along with everything else that goblins like me have ever sought to earn in this world?!”

“Mmmf... Please...” Scootaloo trembled in his grip. Her vision turned glossy. The pale light of Clousdale refracted, and Rainbow Dash briefly barrel-rolled through the miasma. Her lashes fluttered. Tears rolled down her cheeks, breaking up some of the caked blood with their moisture. “I-I don't know what happened. I'm sorry. Please... I'm so sorry. J-Just don't hurt me anymore, I-I beg you...”

“Hmmm... you would beg, wouldn't you?” Matthais's eyes narrowed. He released his grip of her, lowering the dagger from her neck. Scootaloo panted nervously as he paced back and forth before her bound figure, repeatedly palming the rusted blade in his grasp. “That's funny, because ponies were never slaves, at least not in my time... nor in my father's. As every goblin knows, what a pony wanted—she took. I mean, why not? You had the entire world; you even had the moon. You didn't have to earn it—not like we had to earn everything. So what stopped you from throwing everything away with the Dimming? You had it all, and now you would fall so short as to beg for something?”

Matthais' pacing briefly stopped. The pale goblin turned the knife over before his eyes, playing with the light that reflected off of it.

“Tell me, pony,” he murmured, his voice dancing with the ethereal fog of the gray, sundered world. “Would you beg for this dagger?”

Scootaloo shivered. The muscles above her bound limbs tightened fearfully. “I... I...”

“Well?” Matthais murmured. “Do you want the dagger or not, glue stick? Yes or no?”

Scootaloo gulped. She stopped hyperventilating just long enough to firmly utter, “No. No, I don't want it. I don't want the dagger.”

Matthais took a deep breath, turning the blade over until he saw her orange reflection in it. “Mmmm...” He tongued the inside of his cheek. “How humble. How sweet.” He swallowed hard and clicked his tongue against his teeth. “But it's not your dagger, pony. You didn't earn it. My father did, and it's mine. And it so happens that I'm feeling generous today.”

Not a second later, he swiveled to face her, took two bold strides, and plunged the dagger hilt-deep into Scootaloo's right flank.

The air filled with a howling noise. The moment she registered the blood trickling over her hoof, she realized the scream belonged to her. She writhed against the wooden stake, almost to the breaking point, as rivers of pain swam up her spine and exploded in her throat—producing wailing scream after wailing scream. Before she could let out all of her agony, a fierce metal hand gripped over her muzzle, clamping her jaw shut and forcing her to emit tiny, spitting noises as tears bathed her spasming face muscles.

Matthais was leaning over and breathing into her bright, horrified eyes. “If you beg like a slave... then so be it. I shall treat you like a slave. And that...” He pointed with his free hand at the offensive blade embedded in her quivering thigh. “...is my branding. You are no longer ruler of the sky, pony. From now on, you'll be our work horse. And then when the day comes that you serve better use to this world as a corpse, I'll remove this 'brand' from your leg and administer it to your throat.” He released her and spat into her face just as her mouth opened to yelp once more. “I only wish my father received as much mercy as I'm about to give you now, glue stick.”

He slammed the full weight of the gauntlet across Scootaloo's face, ending the pain... for she fell immediately unconscious.

---

“Is something wrong with your ears, glue stick?!”

Scootaloo stared silently, her goggled eyes cold and deadpan.

“Huh?!” A goblin frowned up at her in the middle of one of the many lofty, metallic alleyways of Petra. “I said, did you hear me, glue stick?!” He hung off a flickering, copper lamppost and pointed a blunt dagger at her armored flank. “You'd better watch your step! I am Blink of Sea Blood! I'm the head of local security around this strut! Either you pay the toll or all my Sea-Bleeder brothers will come and rip your eyeballs out!”

The last pony slowly nodded. With a brown hoof, she reached up and pulled the edge of her leather cowl below her mouth. “I wasn't aware that I had to pay a toll to walk these streets. This is certainly news to me, Mister... what was your name again?”

The bat-eared half-ling sneered, hopped down from the lamppost, and marched towards her while juggling the blade threateningly. “You friggin' deaf or something, oats-for-breath? I said my name is Blink of Sea Blood and—” The goblin's eyes bulged as an armored forelimb yanked him down by the neck and slammed him cheek-first against the perforated metal platform beneath them both. “Ooof!”

“How nice.” Scootaloo said and clopped a hoof down in front of his twitching nose. “Now allow me to tell you my name.” She rotated her horseshoe. A shiny, copper blade flashed in front of his gasping face. “I am Scootaloo, the last pony, and I'm going to rip your tongue out and eat it for dinner if you don't put it to better use than lying.”

“L-L-Lying...?!” the imp stammered, pinned down by her merciless weight.

“Mmmmhmmm...” She leaned forward and whispered towards his twitching ears “You see, I've met goblins before. If you really did belong to a clan of 'Sea Bleeders' or what-have-you, then you'd be wearing a banner around your upper body to indicate that. I see nothing on your chest, arms, or shoulders, which leads me to think that you're just a cowardly, homeless beggar who thinks he can intimidate visiting merchants into coughing up a few dozen strips as soon as you flash your pathetic little butter knife in their faces.” Her goggles glinted in the lantern-light as she tilted her gaze up, spotting several distant pedestrians who were staring indifferently at the altercation. “Judging by the absolute droves of thugs rushing up to assist their 'doomed brother' as we speak, I'm guessing I've made a proper assessment of your worthlessness.”

“Please... Please...” The imp suddenly whimpered, shivering under her grasp as the pony's sharp blade danced near his reddened cheek. “I-I'm sorry! Please don't—”

“Don't what? Skin you alive and feed you to the trolls of the Wasteland?” Scootloo droned. “Because that's what all 'glue sticks' do, right? Isn't that what you've been taught?”

“I...” He gulped and trembled. “I-I don't know...”

“The first honest thing you've said in your life, I'm willing to bet.” She effortlessly hoisted the goblin straight up to his feet.

He gasped as he was flung up against the metal lamppost. The goblin's petite body flinched under the flat of the horseshoe being pressed against his chest as Scootaloo leaned towards him with a frowning face.

“How about this? I'll give you an opportunity to be of use to me.” Her nostrils flared as her goggles reflected twin, panicked expressions. “I need to get inside the mining operation. You know...” Her voice took on a droning lethargy as she continued, “The giant quarry where all of the goblins are harvesting sky marble. Specifically, I need to get to a spot that's two kilometers from the western cliff-face and half-a-kilometer from the southern slopes.”

“The...” He bit his lip and nervously smiled. “The central p-pits are under control of multiple families from the upper platforms.”

“But who mainly?” Scootaloo's brow furrowed over her goggles. “I need a name.”

The goblin sputtered, nervously eying the distant imps who weren't even trying to pull this aggressive equine off of him. “Geist Blood! The Geist-Bleeders have been running everything as of late! If you want to get into their area of operations, you have to t-take it up with their clan leader.”

Scootaloo hesitated, her coat on edge. For some reason she couldn't explain, that particular name had a scent of familiarity to it. She felt the silken kiss of Rainbow Dash's feather against her ear and regained her composure. “Hmm... I see...” She nodded slowly, then pressed her weight firmer against him. “Just where can I find this leader of the Geist Blood clan?”

“Strut Twenty-Five!” he exclaimed. “Level Alpha! Look for the goblins with black wrist-bands on their wrists and blackened ash strips on their doors! That's the m-mark of the Geist Blood clan!” the imp said, then winced, expecting a vicious pummeling to punctuate the exchange.

Instead, Scootaloo hummed thoughtfully. “Hmmm. Strut Twenty-Five. Sounds like an awful long trek for a stranger like me to take.” Her voice briefly hissed into him, “How do I know you're not just trying to get rid of me!”

“I'm telling the truth! I-I swear!” He shivered and teetered on the precipice of fainting. “D-Don't gut me, glue stick! I beg you!”

At those last words, Scootaloo lost all menace. Her nostrils flared, and in a frustrated breath, she immediately released her pressure.

“Nngh!” The goblin fell on his backside, shaking a few mental cobwebs loose. He was surprised to find a pair of metal objects falling into his lap. Blinking, he cradled the two silver strips and gazed at them, his jaw dropping open. “T-Two strips...?” He glanced up, dumbstruck. “Th-That's more than I've had in a week...”

“You assisted me, didn’t you?” Scootaloo slipped her mask back on and gave him a lasting glance over her armored shoulder. “Maybe, from now on, you will consider helping visitors instead of pointing sharp things at them. Perhaps you'll even win the respect of a clan and not be homeless anymore.”

“What...” The goblin gulped and gazed in awe after her. “Who are you?”

She trotted away, down an alleyway full of goblins who stared suspiciously at the filly.

“Somepony who earns,” she muttered.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Walls of golden light flashed down Scootaloo's armored figure. Quietly, she rode a swaying elevator car up a towering spindle of aluminum towards the twenty-fifth strut built from the base of Petra. The rising metal platform rattled around her like a cage as she gazed straight up. The giant, golden discs of the imp city’s districts loomed above, piercing the black smog with a vibrant, platinum glow.

Taking a deep breath, Scootaloo glanced down. Beyond her hooves, she could see through the metallic spiderweb platform that formed the “floor” of the elevator car. She was able to spot the smog-laden surface of the Wasteland over a thousand meters below. The entire bottom half of Petra loomed between her and ground level. Scootaloo flexed her wings over her leather armor. She imagined that if the elevator's platform was to suddenly snap apart, she would have to catch a good wind in order to soar out of danger. She wondered briefly just how many goblins were less lucky in those regards, or if they had built the city with safety in mind from the get-go.

There was a snickering sound. Scootaloo glanced aside.

She was sharing the elevator car with three goblin workers. They each wore green collars around their necks, like long emerald scarves. The fellow clan members murmured among each other, secretively, casting the pegasus several smirking glances.

Scootaloo's nostrils flared. She leaned back against the side of the car and watched as the hulking shape of Strut Twenty-Five loomed within view above them. A heterogeneous sea of lantern-lights, steam boilers, oil fires, and sparkling tesla coils came into focus.

“Ahem...”

The filly glanced lethargically at her fellow passengers.

“A long way from your stables, hmm?” The tallest of the goblins smirked up at her under a glinting pair of work goggles. “Does the pony come here to sell manure?”

The last pony stared blankly back at him. “What? And outshine your line of work?”

The other two goblins poked at their talkative companion and laughed. He fidgeted where he stood before smirking awkwardly. There was a loud hissing noise of compressed hydraulics as the rattling elevator came to a stop. The door flew open with a clatter, and the three goblins scurried out, snickering and chattering in a noisy cloud. A slumped Scootaloo marched after them, making her lonely way through the middle streets of Strut Twenty-Five, Level Beta.

Here, the streets were crowded, positively drenched in imp life. Scootaloo imagined the Geist-Bleeders to be a very important clan, in that their districts were filled to the brim with merchants, craftsmakers, traders, and even peddlers of food. If fate could somehow take the open market of pre-Cataclysm Ponyville, replace every pony with a goblin, and bathe it with soot and grime, such could have poetically described Strut Twenty-Five.

This stretch of an analogy ended the very moment Scootaloo found herself having to step over a bloodstained patch of metal sidewalk. Her brow furrowed as she glanced around the streetcorners of the rusted district, spotting random bulkheads splotched with the tell-tale signs of ancient scuffles, all of them having achieved a juicy end. The distant sounds of angry shouts and steam pistol shots added to the foreboding ambiance of the crowded latticework as Scootaloo shuffled along.

Level Beta was a claustrophobic thing, a thin sandwich of a horizontal space squished between two separate and identical floors. Everything about the place was a hollow web of porous metal. Glancing down, Scootaloo saw straight through the bulkheads to witness the paths and buildings of the district directly beneath her. Looking up, the last pony spotted the topmost level of Strut Twenty-Five and the many soles of pedestrian feet shuffling immediately above. She figured that every circular platform of Petra was built in this same, highly revealing way. The goblins had very little to hide in their city of industry. The only opaque things in the neighborhood were the iron factories and aluminum houses that randomly dotted the platforms, but even those buildings spared enough windows for wandering eyes to peer through.

Still, Petra was a machine first and a dwelling place second. Every shop, every saloon, every blacksmith, every foundry, and every office was really just an offshoot to a giant contraption that never stopped expanding for a second. As Scootaloo trotted along, she gazed about and spotted random clusters of goblins huddled around welding tools, applying the finishing touches to new metallic structures that would never truly be finished. There was no end to construction, so long as the imps lived and breathed; there was no end to Petra.

Through the latticed walls of metal webbing, endless clusters of rotating gears and pumping pistons filled the rattling metropolis with a constant, mechanical heartbeat. Millions upon millions of kilometers of pipe snaked around every nook and cranny, pumping steam relentlessly through the circulatory system of the two-kilometer high structure. If Petra was alive, Scootaloo was navigating its lungs, and those rusted tubes were filled with a smoggy breath that didn't know when to quit. Occasional vents of steam billowed through the platforms and walls of the place to bathe the last pony in a warm mist, constantly reminding her that she was just a trotting infection in the middle of an alien organism of metal.

Scootaloo hardly needed the city's mechanisms to remind her of this. Every set of goblin eyes followed her for the full length of time it took the last pony to wander down a metal-plated street, only to experience the same hard-edged scrutiny upon the next rusted block of suspended urbanscape. She gazed back at every single one of the imps, meeting their goggled gazes with that of her own. If what she had read about impkind was correct, her best chance at avoiding the harassment of goblins was to bestow upon them the same distaste that was being tossed her way. She only wished she had known that when she was much younger. Books eventually taught her how to avoid pain; experience showed her how to deal with it. Some way or another, she would always have to deal with it.

Goblins were short, razor-clawed, thick-skinned creatures. However, they were hardly monstrosities. For the first time, Scootaloo saw tiny imp children. They gazed down at her innocently from the upper stories of rusted shanty houses, their bright eyes reflecting the gold lantern-light of Strut Twenty-Five around them. Young goblin teenagers huddled around street corners, staring at the last pony with as much curiosity as disgust, too shocked to toss anything insulting her way. For a brief moment, the pegasus wondered if perhaps she had very little to worry about in Petra after all.

Then she found clusters of miners. These goblins loitered around smoldering forges, murmuring amidst each other before their shifts came. Then they would descend to the lower struts to take a train ride to the Cloudsdalian ruins and face the labor ahead of them. In the meantime, however, they stopped whatever it was that they were chatting about in order to stare fixedly at the last pony, their razor-sharp jaws locked into jeering smirks as they murmured and spoke hushed, offensive things behind her flank. One danced out into the open street and charaded a “prancing” motion, all the while braying forth a melodramatic whinnie. His cohorts laughed loudly, their voices ringing against the metal walls full of gears and steam vents.

Scootaloo sighed hard through her nostrils. She glanced aside, spotting a full line of workers—all wearing matching purple eyepatches as a clan sign. These scarred, one-eyed goblins gave the last pony a lasting glare that could set snow on fire. For a moment, she imagined that if there were no other goblin clans present, these half-lings in particular would have little hesitation gutting her right there and then, out in the open.

As she passed more buildings, Scootaloo became aware of a repeating pattern. Every other street corner had the same poster plastered against the metallic surface of the structure. It was the illustration of four shadowy silhouettes, all goblin. In bright, bold letters was the word “Desperadoes,” and the text that followed proclaimed, “Wanted for disturbance of the peace, unlawful disruption of inter-family commerce, theft and desecration of property, and violence committed against the following clans.” After a prolonged list of names, one of which was Strut Twenty-Five's very own “Geist Blood,” Scootaloo saw the reward for the Desperadoes' capture listed at eighty thousand strips.

She couldn't help but feel stunned by that. The bounty for these shadowy miscreants was over five times the amount that Pitt had paid her for three priceless banana plants. Whoever these Desperadoes were, they were obviously annoying enough to force the higher goblin families to pay out their eyeballs. The last pony had experienced hatred and intolerance from creatures of the Wasteland most of her life. Aside from the Mountain Ogres and Fire Ogres, it never occurred to her that communities—such as goblins—would have internal conflict. The Wasteland was such a fragile place to live a life. It seemed absurd to allow a society to collapse in on itself, in any respect. Perhaps, at least, that explained the large amount to which the families were willing to pay to get these unlawful rogues captured.

Still, she had to wonder: “desecration of property?” Scootaloo turned away from the posters and looked at the far side of the street. She saw, for the first time, several goblins in heavy labor, being monitored by leather-armored overseers. The sweating, malnourished imps were carrying large loads of equipment from one side of the lofty district to another. What was more, they each wore a distinctive pair of articles on their ankles. Scootaloo instantly realized that they were shackles.

Her brow furrowed. Slavery: it was as real here as it was in the Valley of Jewels. Scootaloo had encountered slaves before in various parts of the Wasteland. Dirigible Dogs were no strangers to forcing several smaller species to perform the less-than-luxurious tasks on their airships. Ogres never stopped imposing hard labor on whatever sentient bipeds they could get their grubby hands on. Even the way Pitt treated his brothers was horrible. But this, the systematic nature in which the imps were forcing solid trains of their own flesh and blood to carry out grunt work across Strut Twenty-Five: it was something Scootaloo hadn't anticipated, at least in its high numbers. If she had to count, nearly one in every ten goblins she saw was wearing shackles. She couldn't tell which outnumbered which—the number of slaves in that district, or the number of “Desperadoes” posters. On top of that, she couldn't tell which nauseated her more.

She turned to look ahead when something harshly bumped into her side. She teetered briefly on her hooves, expertly absorbing the brunt of the blow through her thick leather armor. Scootaloo glanced over her shoulder in time to see a line of goblin miners marching the opposite way down the street. One imp towards the back of the procession chuckled, rubbing a jutting elbow.

“Whoops! By Dimming’s blight, did I just run into a side of meat?” he uttered.

“Before the next stormfront, I think it will be!” a companion chirped. “Roasted at that!”

“Hahahaha!”

“Heheheh... Who the heck would eat broiled glue? Heheheh...”

Scootaloo didn't have time to frown at them when a splash of horrible, smelly liquid drenched her left flank. She glanced aside in time to see a mother goblin standing upon the threshold of a household with an empty lavatory tray in her grasp.

“Watch where you trot, pony. You might not like what you step in,” she muttered, her glare betraying the fact that the drenching was hardly an accident. She shuffled back into the house, closing the rusted aluminum door and blocking out the curious gaze of two tiny children within.

The last pony blinked. She glanced down at her two left hooves, watching as the offensive yellow liquid oozed down her limbs and dripped grotesquely through the porous grate to the streets below her. Flaring her nostrils through the offending stench, she marched forward, undaunted... at least until her front right hoof nearly tripped on something.

With a metal clank, Scootaloo realized that her forward horseshoe had slid loose again. Cursing briefly to herself, she picked the curved metal object up in her teeth and glanced about for an empty spot to sit. She decided on a lonely street corner ahead of her and shuffled over towards it, squatting down low so as to have full access to her right forelimb. Muttering to herself, she worked on the laborious task of attaching the infernal article to her hoof. Secretly she wished she had visited Bruce for a little bit longer and bought some new shoe pieces. In a world full of dead ponies, finding a good farrier was next to impossible.

She was interrupted in the middle of this thought by a chunk of dull sky marble ricocheting severely off her leather cowl. The last pony barely moved, though the impact caught her attention nonetheless. Gazing across the street, she saw a gaggle of young adult goblins frowning at her, their reddened ears wobbling as they hurled insults along with their rocks.

“Glue stick! Go back to the Wasteland where you belong!”

“Yeah! Roll into a ditch somewhere and choke on hay, you dang sky-stealer!”

“Sky-stealing glue stick!” One youth twirled his whole body in the effort of flinging an ivory pebble her way. “This isn't your steam anymore!”

Scootaloo effortlessly dodged the thrown rock. Without looking, she pulled a yellow-painted runestone out of her pocket and slid it halfway across the street with an errant hoof. “H'rhnum,” she mumbled.

In a purple haze of light, the rune etched across the moonrock faded, and a batch of chemicals inside mixed together. Soon, a series of bright, golden sparks exploded at the twitching feet of the startled youths. The goblins shrieked and scampered nervously away from the brilliant, frightening, but altogether harmless flare. Watching from the upper balcony of a rusted metal saloon, a half-dozen gray-haired imps chuckled and raised drinks in a mock toast. They scoffed at Scootaloo between sips, murmuring illicitly to one another while casting sly glances the pegasus’ way. A few meters away, half-a-dozen shackled imps milled about, waiting for their next task. Hungry and cold, they didn't so much as look up at the commotion.

The last pony fiddled and fiddled with her horseshoe, suddenly overwhelmed by the noises and sounds of that rusted cage of a city district. Before her, a ramp rose towards Alpha Level above, but Scootaloo suddenly didn't know if she had the strength to get up from her lonely spot. As the clanking and rattling of gears filled her ears, she closed her eyes, sighing long and hard. Everything around her was moving, but she couldn't catch up with it all. Inside the Harmony, Warden was by himself, likely fiddling with Epona-knows-what. Obscured by the depths of Cloudsdale, Rainbow Dash's remains were decaying, unchecked. Scootaloo—the occasional avatar of Entropa—was helpless to outrace time, and it didn't help that she was in the imp city equivalent of a lion's den.

“This is not your world,” Scootaloo murmured hoarsely, as if desperate to summon a copper-coated pegasus to the surface of her real, frail body. “So there's no reason to linger. Just friggin' get it over with already.”

Suddenly, the horseshoe slapped back onto the hoof as if by magic. Scootaloo stood up and marched straight for the nearest ramp. She barely noticed a commotion as several pairs of scampering feet rattled desperately across the metal webbing of Alpha Level above.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She was an athletic goblin, easily half of Scootaloo's age. Lithe, blue muscles carried her breathless body—bounding—down an alleway, past overturned garbage, and through a thin corridor of Alpha Level leading into a scrambled mesh of countless metal pipes. Dark purple braids of hair danced in the steam of a venting cylinder as the goblinette spun about and desperately motioned towards herself.

That very moment, two older goblins poked their heads out from a thin space between aluminum lean-to’s on the opposite end of the street. Both were male—one with long, dark hair and an even darker visor obscuring his eyes. The other was a taller imp with brown bangs poking out from underneath a jet-black fedora. At the female imp's signal, both shadowy figures briskly escorted a group of frightened, emaciated goblins across the street. The panicked cluster of imps numbered no less than two dozen, and they followed the footsteps of their two nimble guides as they were swiftly ushered into the maze-like forest of metal pipes.

“Think you can move any faster?!” the young goblinette hissed as her two companions came within pointed earshot. “The dang Geist-Bleeders are onto us! Ryst will be here any second with her goons!”

“I'd be insulted if they didn't send Ryst after our hides.” The one with the hat managed a brief smirk as he and his shaded companion rushed the last of the frightened imps into the maze of metal tubes. “This is our biggest bust yet. We'll be in deep troll crap if we don't get these folks to safety—” One of the imps tripped. He sneered. “Aw shoot!”

“Watch where you're shoving them!” The girl goblin was already kneeling down to lend the fumbling half-ling a hand. “For all we know, they've barely eaten a bite of food in weeks!” Swiftly, she disentangled a metal shackle on the clumsy imp's ankle from a nearby valve. The imp limped off to join his companions. All of them bore the evidence of sundered bindings on their lower limbs. “Blessed Petra, there's so many of them. We should have cleared Strut Twenty-Five by now!”

“Murk knows an escape route through the abandoned mantenance shafts of the inner stalk,” the brown-haired goblin said with a smirk, then glanced aside at his companion. “Ain't that right, Murk?”

The visor-wearing imp merely whistled and signaled with a sword gripped in his metal left hand.

The female raised an eyebrow. “What's he going on about now, Bard?”

“Uhm...” Bard scratched his scalp beneath his hat. “We seem to be missin’ some.” He gulped and glanced at the girl. “Ain't you the one who's supposed to be keepin’ a headcount?”

“Oh crap!” She hissed and mentally scanned the shivering cluster of imps in the trio's group. Her pale blue ears drooped when she realized they were short. “Seven. We're missing seven.”

“Son of an ogre!” Bard seethed. He and the girl glanced every which way. The many half-lings huddled with them began to murmur and whine in fright, until Murk silenced them with a chilling wave of his arm. Finally, Bard craned his neck and pointed across the street. “Over yonder!”

The girl pressed herself to the edge of the alleyway and peered out. Her eyes dilated upon the sight of seven shivering slaves. They stared at her helplessly—adults and children clinging to each other in rags. The goblinette gnashed her teeth and mouthed a few desperate words while signaling them to run towards her. They were anchored into place by sheer terror. Far too many seconds passed, and just as the separated group was about to rush out—that immediate section of street between them clamored with angry voices and pattering goblin feet. Several half-lings with black wrist-bands rushed back and forth. In a sudden panic, the seven stragglers split into two groups and fled towards opposite ends of Alpha Level.

“No!” the girl gasped. Her purple braids billowed like a cape as she prepared to dash out into the alleyway after them. “Come back! Don't go that way—” She was silenced by a brown hand clasping around her mouth from behind. “Mmmmf!” Her sapphire eyes bulged as she was pulled back into the shadow of the pipes. She struggled against the muscular arms wrapped around her, until her twitching gaze was hoisted around to stare into a pair of dull, ruby eyes.

A tall, brown-skinned goblin with long scarlet hair held the girl in place. She pulled down a red veil that had been obscuring her features. The imp bore tight lines of an aged face tempered by time. “Shhhh...” She calmly raised a slender finger before her lips before gripping the girl's shoulder. “Keep your head on your neck, Rai. Don't let it fly off without thinking. The Wasteland never forgives.”

“But Vaughan!” Rai nearly hyperventilated, pointing a finger out into the urban mess. “I screwed up! I lost seven from the group!”

“They lost themselves, Rai. I was watching from afar as I came to the rendezvous,” Vaughan said. Her voice was deep and meditative, like a dark bell lifted from the bottom of a black ocean. Between the jaded tone in her eyes and the liquid movement of her lips, a shadow of sincere emotion bled through to soothe Rai's jittery muscles. “You gave them every possible signal to follow you. Sometimes, a slave panics first and thinks second.”

“We gotta go after them!” Rai whispered, glancing forlornly at the nearby streets filling with more and more racket. “Before Ryst and the other Geist-Bleeders get to them!” Rai made to charge out again.

Vaughan held her tightly in place. Her white bandanna billowed from the nearby steam above them as she peered down at her subordinate. “And if you expose our position, we'll sacrifice seventeen lives in the attempt to salvage seven. Tell me, what is the sense in that?”

“But... but...”

Vaughan calmly turned over her shoulder. “Bard. Is Murk close to finding his miracle passage?”

As she spoke, the goblin in shades was already ripping loose a square panel from a metal wall with his sword, exposing a thin, shadowed corridor leading into the heart of Petra.

Bard turned and smirked at Vaughan. “I reckon he already has, V.”

“Then, quickly, the two of you go on and escort these imps to the base of the city,” Vaughan calmly commanded. “We'll follow close on your heels. If there's no sign of us, don't waste any time waiting. Worst comes to worst, we'll rendezvous at Undersmoke in twelve hours.”

“Yes ma'am.” Bard tipped the edge of his hat and motioned towards Murk. “You heard the boss, buddy. Let's make like the wind.” He and the other goblin smoothly guided the nervous slaves into the corridor and dashed along with them, closing the panel behind.

Once Vaughan and Rai were alone, the older goblinette guided her companion towards an adjoining corridor of rusted aluminum. “We'll do what we can for the other seven, Rai, but not at the risk of exposing ourselves. Remember what I always taught you...”

Rai was struggling to breathe firmly above her guilty shudders. “'Life is not life without loss...'”

“'But there is still room for triumph,'” Vaughan finished. She broke into a faster pace, careful not to break her stealthy gait for one second. Each clawed toe that touched the ground was like a weightless sweep of feathers as she led her apprentice through the intestines of Alpha Level. “We've already given freedom to seventeen destitute goblins. That makes today a triumph in my book. Now... let's see if we can add to that.” She raised the red veil back over her mouth and bounded forward, grabbing onto a metal bar and flinging herself upwards onto a lofty stretch of metal roof. Rai was close behind, a warm shadow to her icy mentor.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Four of the panicked slaves were running briskly through the streets, their sanity stretched as thin as their breaths. A sea of murmuring goblin workers, merchants, and citizens parted ways as the stumbling quartet sprinted madly down the center of Strut Twenty-Five's Alpha Level. The faster they pushed themselves, the louder an echo of pursuing limbs resonated off the metal walls of the shops and smithies blurring past them.

Among the group, an old, matronly goblin was tugging a tiny child with yellow-streaked hair after her. The little girl's bright green eyes brimmed with tears as she tried to keep up with her parent. Matching shackles on their raw ankles rattled as they bounded over the metal latticework.

The commotion of the goblins reached a fever pitch. All eyes were locked on the four runaways. Suddenly, the multiple pedestrians flinched. Before the panicked imps could figure out why, the furthest member of the group ran into something around the next street corner. He gazed up and gasped as a dark-haired goblin with black wrist bands smirked wide and aimed a rifle into his face. The slave stumbled back onto his rear, shuffling backwards.

The second runaway panicked and dashed towards the side, only to be slapped upside the skull by a fistful of brass knuckles. A bald goblin with black wrist bands marched towards him, seething, as the bloodied slave tumbled to the ground beside his companion.

Lastly, the mother clutched her yellow-haired child, hyperventilated, and spun to run down a nearby alleyway—only to face a solid line of armed goblins, all bearing the identical wristbands of Geist Blood. The child shrieked, and the mother imp did her best to stifle the little girl's outburst.

All four foiled escapees shrunk and huddled against each other as the circle of gun-toting half-lings zeroed in on them in the middle of the street. A brief commotion rushed through the crowd in one last hushed wave before the bald Geist-Bleeder stood in front of the shivering cluster and grunted towards his dark-haired companion. “We shouldn't have hurried like we did, Darper. Look at those twigs for legs—they wouldn't have made it two struts before passing out. Ugh... Stupid Desperadoes must have yanked them out of the bottom of Fredden's barrel.”

“Got that right, Otto.” Darper smirked and lifted the chin of one slave with the end of his steam rifle's barrel. “At this point, I swear—they're only trying to piss us off. Kind of sad, really.”

“You know that there have to be more running around,” Otto muttered.

“One thing at a time.” Darper spat into the ground. Keeping his sharp eyes on the four slaves, he tilted his head up and shouted towards the air above Alpha Level. “Hey, Lady Ryst! Over here! We got four of 'em!” He slapped his steam rifle, forcing a sharp shudder to jump through all four kneeling imps at once. “Their shackles are severed. Looks like the work of a steam-sword, just like the last dozen occasions.”

“Hmmm... It never ceases to amaze me,” a female voice droned. Otto and several other Geist-Bleeders stepped aside to make room for a slender goblin with green hair and thin eyes. Cracking her bony knuckles, the superior imp leaned against Darper's frame and sighed down at the sight of the shivering quartet. “Everytime the Desperadoes punch a hole in our business, they leave more and more vermin spilling out. One wonders if they're getting desperate or stupid.”

“Perhaps both?”

“Shut up, Darper. You smell bad.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Ryst scratched her nose and strolled her lanky form forward so that she paced menacingly around the helpless runaways. “Hmmmm... yes.” She squinted down at the ankles of the imps and the severed shackles dangling off of them. “Definitely the work of a burning blade, judging from the singe marks. I very seriously doubt that some imp is actually attempting to copy the Desperadoes, unless of course he thinks that by stealing slaves and turning himself in, he'd be earning a share of the bounty.”

Otto, Darper, and a handful of other riflers chuckled. Ryst glared at them. They swiftly silenced their laughter. Coughing, Ryst scratched her nose again and continued circling the quartet. “Surely, I am not speaking to a ghost town!” Her voice rose higher and higher, causing the many nearby pedestrians of Strut Twenty-Five's Alpha Level to twitch. “There are goblins here who see this stupidity, day in and day out, and don't do a single thing to stop the madness! Am I right or wrong?!”

The voice of Lady Ryst rang off the nearby bulkheads as Scootaloo trotted up the ramp from below. The last pony was briefly surprised to find a thick crowd of goblins blocking her path. For once, she was not the center of attention, and that was an alarming thing. Curious, she adjusted the dial of her goggles and easily peered over the heads of the multiple imps in attendance of what turned out to be a very disturbing scene.

“Not that I'm complaining, mind you.” Ryst's voice fell again as she sniffled, fought a phantom allergy from a kilometer away, and exhaled with a shuddering breath, as if this entire situation was somehow taxing to her. “The prime bleeder of Geist Blood pays me handsomely to round up the filth that's left behind from failed manifests of Petra.” She shuffled to a stop and pointed a clawed hand towards the four slaves under rifle-point. “But tell me, what profit is there when my hired imps and I are the only ones willing to get our elbows dirty?! Chaotic vagabonds like the Desperadoes tear Geist-Blood's property apart, and yet you all stand aside and do nothing! Is this not our city?! Is this not our one and only symbol of glory in the shadow of the Dimming?! Is there a single one of you who isn't as sick as I am to see the elite crumble away and the garbage pile up?! Someday—I'm warning you—no less than half of you goblins shall allow your laziness to catch up with your lives, and you'll be the one answering to steam bolts when instead you could be answering to silver!”

There was a suddenly a hissing voice. “Praise Petra. I would rather be a slave to monsters than an enslaver of children.”

Everybody within earshot winced. Scootaloo was included in the grand jolt of twitching muscles. Silence permeated the metallic, steam-hissing town square, until Ryst pivoted her head to glare at the author of that last outburst.

The mother imp glared up at her, hugging her yellow-haired daughter to her side. The slave's eyes were like burning coals, hot and resolute. The goblin child shivered, but the mother made no move as Lady Ryst icily loomed over her.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Vaughan landed on the edge of a shadowed balcony. Not a second later, Rai dropped down beside her. Both goblins looked out onto the scene from up high.

At the sight of Ryst marching slowly towards the mother imp below, Rai gasped and reached immediately towards a weapon holstered at her side.

Swiftly, Vaughan shot a hand back and held Rai's limb still. Rai murmured in protest, but Vaughan silenced her with a sharp hiss. She then whispered, “There're too many. There's no way to get at the four without being seen.”

“But... B-But...!”

“I'm sorry, Rai,” Vaughan murmured, lowering the veil from her mouth and watching with a stone cold glint in her eyes. “We’re too late.”

Beside her, Rai fumbled with her soot-stained fingers. She bit at her lip as she watched the scene below.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ryst knelt before the mother and child, quiet as a snowbank. She scratched her chin and aimed her thin eyes at the older imp. “A 'slave to monsters'... hmm... but of course.” She reached a hand over and gently stroked the child's yellow-streaked hair.

The mother frowned, her eyes glaring daggers. All the while, the shadows of many steam rifles hung over her features. She made no attempt to bat Ryst's hand away.

The little imp shuddered in fright as Ryst's bony fingers threaded through her bangs and then cupped her cheek. “Tell me,” Ryst murmured. “What greater monster is there... than a mother who's just abandoned her child?”

The child's eyes twitched in fear. The mother's face was contorted with confusion, until she paled in sudden and unspeakable horror.

By that time, Ryst had stood up. She paced past Darper, but not without murmuring towards him. “Now. Send the rogues a message.”

Darper cocked his steam rifle and shoved the barrel in the girl's frightened face. After half-a-second, he smirked, pivoted his aim, and pointed it between the mother's eyes instead.

The steam discharge reflected in a platinum burst off Scootaloo's goggles. Her ears barely twitched under her cowl with the thunder that followed. When the noise cleared, the wails of the imp child were filling the street of Alpha Level.

“Mama! M-Mama!” The young thing howled, her yellow-streaked hair bathed in crimson curds. She shook and yanked at and curled into the limp figure beside her, burying her sobbing face into what was left of the goblin's upper body. “Mnnngnhhaaaa-haaaaa!”

Expelling a smoking steam cartridge onto the ground beside her, Darper marched firmly, cocked his rifle again, and waved it high above his pointed ears while shouting, “Desperadoes!”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“When you steal the property of Geist-Blood, or of any of the families, you taint it! You blemish it! It becomes garbage, thanks to you!” Darper's voice bellowed far and wide, blindly reaching the bodies of Vaughan and Rai on the balcony above. “If you see it fit to treat that which is not yours as garbage, then we shall as well! No-bleeders who can't earn the fluid in their veins don't deserve your pity! Your quest is as noble as a broken machine!”

Rai's eyes were wide, spasming. She held a pair of hands over her gaping mouth as her ears twitched with every one of Darper's words.

Vaughan, in the meantime, stood coolly, glaring into the bloodied circle around which Lady Ryst and her lackeys were gathered.

Darper continued shouting into the noisy air of Strut Twenty-Five. “A broken machine is a detriment to Petra, as you are! Each and every one of you! If you care about our City, if you care about goblin glory in the faceless desolation of the Dimming...”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“...then stop being cowards and show yourselves!” Darper growled, his eyes glaring towards the lengths and heights of the district. “Bring an end to your pathetic games and allow us to manifest Petra, in the way we were destined to—the most elite and righteous of bleeders! Geist Blood is the heart of this imp city! And any goblin who opposes Geist Blood opposes the glory of Petra! For the last time, show yourselves! Stop this insufferable crusade! Or else we swear, by Dimming's blight, we'll make sure the next slaves you try stealing will desire death in place of your pathetic clutches!”

“Please, Darper,” Ryst muttered, rubbing her temples as the shrieking of the yellow-haired imp continued in the background. “The more you're poetic, the more you smell.”

“Lady Ryst, I'm only trying to—”

“Goblins of narrow minds have narrow ears,” Ryst grumbled. “If they haven't paid heed to your loud sermon by now, then they won't ever... even if you shoot twenty more idiots by the next stormfront.” She scratched behind her ear and sighed. “Send your fellow imps into the alleys. There should be more slaves running about. If the spilling of blood didn't frighten the rogues, it most certainly tossed panic into the legs of those they're corralling.”

“Right. Whatever you say, Lady Ryst.” Darper glanced across at Otto and whistled towards the slaves.

Otto grabbed the child by her leg, yanking her away from the bleeding body she was reaching and sobbing for. He tossed her into the muscled grip of another imp who dragged her—along with the other two flabbergasted runaways—towards a dark, rusted building at the far end of Alpha Level's main street. As the remaining Geist-Bleeders fanned out, Darper remained behind with Ryst. He glanced down at the crimson juices still pooling out of the headless goblinette and whistled loudly.

“Whew.” He smirked. “Funny how the stupider they are, the juicier, y'know?”

“You have the mind of a vulture, Darper.”

“A vulture couldn't handle a rifle as well as I could.”

“The best of us don't have to.” Ryst motioned and led Darper towards the far end of the street as they joined the search. Behind them, the thick crowd of Strut Twenty-Five's pedestrians dissipated, slowly shuffling away from the bloody corpse in the middle of the metal road.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Up above, the red-headed goblin took a deep breath. She slowly pivoted towards the shivering youngster beside her. “Rai...”

“Vaughan, it's all my fault,” Rai was already whimpering. Tears welled up in her sapphire eyes as she stumbled back against a rusted railing of the balcony and murmured into her eight fingers. “If I had kept a better eye on the imps we freed...” She hiccuped and choked on a sob. “If I-I had only been paying attention, like you always do...”

“Rai, listen to me...”

“I-I killed her! Sh-she's dead because of me and the others... th-the others...”

“Shhh... Rai... Be silent, or else you might give away our position.” Vaughan embraced the young goblin, holding her tight to her chest and muffling her mournful breaths. “There's nothing either of us could have done. Shhhh. Listen to me. The only mistake one makes in this world is being alive.” She forced Rai to look up at her and strongly cupped her cheeks, absorbing her into her ruby gaze. “There is evil, and there is suffering, and you, Rai, are doing nothing but your best to keep a few lucky goblins from suffering the worst of it. The moment you blame yourself for the inevitable perils of this world, you lose focus... you lose strength. Now, there are still three other slaves unaccounted for. I need you to be strong for me, so that together we might find them before Ryst and her murderous companions do. Can you do that for me?”

Rai bit her lip, still grimacing as the tears streaked down her blue face.

Vaughan's red eyes narrowed like chiseled gemstones. “Can you?”

Rai sniffled, but ultimately nodded her head. “Y-Yes. Yes... I-I think I can...”

“That's a start.” Vaughan wiped the youth’s cheek dry with a finger, and then smiled. Her expression was a graceful, ethereal thing, like an extinct moon... or at least a soul who was old enough to remember it. “When we meet up with Murk and Bard again, I promise you with all of my might, we will not be alone.” She hugged Rai close one last time, exorcising the last sad bout of shivers from the goblinette's body. As she did so, she looked past the edge of the balcony and into the dissipating crowd.

Suddenly, Vaughan's eyes narrowed.

There were goblins milling about, imps taking random strolls, merchants and miners crossing paths. But one figure was different from the rest of them—marching towards the heart of Petra, where the capitol building of Geist-Blood sat in the shadow of the city's cylindrical stalk. The figure was silent, graceful, and somber as a shadow. What was more, the figure was an equine.

Vaughan's lips parted, and her brown brow furrowed... as if something deep inside her was expelling a ghost from ages untold.

“I'm not alone.”

Rai glanced up, her eyes finally dry. “Huh? What was that, V?”

“Ahem.” Vaughan parted ways with Rai and slid her red veil back up over her lips. “We're not alone. Ryst's group is everywhere.” She gestured with a last-second command. “Split up. Let's find the other three before it's too late.” Both goblins dashed off in opposite directions.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Scootaloo rounded a street corner. She could see a long stretch of metal road leading up towards a tall, black building where the thickest cluster yet of Geist Blood imps was gathered. The district was drowning in black wristbands, and there was nowhere else to go if Scootaloo wanted to dive into a dark abyss of another sort, where a rainbow lay hidden.

Two breaths and four trots towards her goal, Scootaloo came to a slow stop. She lingered beneath a lamppost, her body caught in a flickering spotlight of gold, as if under examination by all of Petra.

She momentarily raised her goggles and rubbed the space between her eyes. But each time she closed her lids, she saw a tiny creature with yellow-streaked hair sobbing and tugging at something that wouldn't move. Her ears rang with the wailing voice, and something in her heart briefly twitched at the contemplation of it all.

She hated herself for it, with an anger that she didn't realize was there until a cold snarl escaped her lips. “Just imps... just half-lings...” She grumbled. Her mind swam with the programmed snapshots of the Wasteland's detritus: of roaches hiding in the stems of giant mushrooms, of pale and bulbous troll flesh bathed in ash, of cougar meat floating in a bubbling cauldron. “This place would have just eaten me alive. It would have...”

Then her eyelids twitched, and her mind reeled from it—as if being swept over by a rainbow in the deep depths of yesteryear. All she could see was the yellow streaked hair, and in a foal's tear-stained blink they both refused to wake up no matter how much she tugged at them in bed one golden morning.

“Just a friggin' imp,” the last pony repeated forcefully, though by the time her eyes opened, she could barely see straight. Wasn't Warden “just an imp?”

She forced herself into a heavy march, shoveling away the last vestiges of sour thoughts wafting up to her mind. Soon, she was approaching the front gates of what turned out to be a four-story tall manor built out of black steel on the very top of Alpha Level. A sea of glaring eyes parted ways, and soon she realized just how deep she was. Goblins stood in droves on either side of her. Whatever random, murmuring conversations they were engaged in came to a drastic halt, drowning out the steamy air of the street as her clopping hooves resonated louder and louder in their place.

Scootaloo paid the intimidating stares of the imps no mind. After the filth and blood she had just witnessed, showing fear was like showing a hole in her armor. Audaciously, she marched straight up to the steep steps leading into the manor entrance. She saw two bright, white strips of ashen stone hanging on either side of the iron doors. Halfway down the strips, a black stain had marked the pale material. She at first thought that it was a symbol of Geist-Blood, but the two strips hardly matched the patterns on the many goblins' identical wristbands. The closer she approached the entrance, she came to realize that the black stains on the strips were splashes of liquid. But not just any liquid...

“Glue stick!” A frowning goblin in black shades was suddenly growling into her face from the entrance above. “What in the Dimming's blight is the meaning of this intrusion?! Has one of the other families pulled a joke on us?!” Several rifle-toting thugs murmured in low, menacing tones as the Geist Blood representative, flanked by two bodyguards, marched down the steps to interrupt Scootaloo's path. “Is it enough that we have to deal with no-bleeder filth and the Petra-forsaken Desperadoes—now we have a sky stealer insulting the very platform of our most righteous prime-bleeder?!”

“Much obliged,” Scootaloo droned with a nod of her cowled head. “Now allow me to introduce myself. I am Scootaloo. I arrived at Kevin's Nest just two hours ago.” The many goblins around her broke into a commotion at her vocal audacity. Nevertheless, she didn't waste a second in stating her purpose. “I'm here to conduct business with the clan leader of Geist Blood, who—if I understand correctly—manages most of the operations of the central steam pits west of Petra.”

“He also happens to be a goblin, you rancid sack of manure!” The imp frowned, adjusted his shades, and clenched his four-fingered fists on either side of him. “Our prime-bleeder is old and wise. He's been through too much in this dastardly Wasteland already without having to be pestered by a phantom of the past like you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some loose merchandise on the run—”

“So I've noticed,” Scootaloo cooly said. “He must have so many slaves that murdering one of them in the middle of the street is of little loss to him. That strikes me as a goblin with a lot of silver. Perhaps he would be interested in gathering more.”

The nearby bodyguards murmured. The imp in the center glared down at her, his shades glinting in nearby lantern-light. “And just how many strips is a wayward pony suggesting she might offer him?”

“Not enough on me at the moment that would be worth shooting a hole in my head to retrieve,” Scootaloo insisted. “I came here to discuss a proposition with your boss, not to die.”

“What do you think, Fredden?” one of the nearby goblins murmured to the supervisor. “She may be a sky stealer, but you know how much the boss hates it when we turn down opportunities.”

“The Star-Bleeders have been earning a lot of profit as of late,” another whispered. “We need as many prospects as we can take advantage of.”

“I know... I know...” Fredden scratched his chin as his eyes narrowed behind his shades. “But... must it come in such disgusting packages?”

“Dealing with out-bleeders has its advantages. You know this, Fredden. Remember the dirigible dogs of the Northern Heights? They gave you safe passage to—”

“Shh!” Fredden hissed, then muttered a few harsh words to his subordinate.

Scootaloo exhaled long and hard, waiting for the imps to finish squabbling with one another.

Finally, Fredden brushed his companions aside and took two more steps down the front entrance, glaring at Scootaloo from above. “No deal, pony. I'm the right-hand to Geist's prime-bleeder, and I'd say you're nothing but a galloping bucket of wasted time. Now get lost—”

“Fredden, if I'm not mistaken, I'm the right-hand to our wise and righteous leader,” uttered a voice from the side. Every goblin turned to witness a tall, golden-haired goblin with green eyes shuffling up towards the awkward scene. “And you,” he uttered with a soft smirk, “Are more akin to a left-foot than a left-hand. Now, what is the meaning of all this commotion?”

“Rosen?!” Fredden frowned. “Where in the Dimming have you been?! I have slaves running amok, and Lady Ryst is turning the hunt into a circus act—as usual!”

“I was there when Lady Ryst caught up with the boss' lost product, Fredden,” Rosen firmly said. “You should have realized when you hired her that she had a fetish for blowing holes into things. That's hardly a profitable investment. I don't know how our prime-bleeder tolerates her.”

“About as much as our leader tolerates absent supervisors,” Fredden said, casting an accusatory glare. “Shouldn't you be off conducting negotiations with Wind Blood on Strut Twelve?”

“And miss an opportunity of a lifetime right here?” Rosen winked and marched up towards Scootaloo. “So, ma'am. You're a pony, I gather.”

“Last time I checked,” Scootaloo droned.

“Do forgive my curiosity. It's been a long time since I've seen one up close,” Rosen stated, running a clawed hand through his golden bangs, straightening them. “The oldest of us are the most privileged of goblins, to be able to remember such bright things before the Dimming.”

“I've never taken much stock in brightness,” Scootaloo murmured. “It's the colors that have meant the most.”

“Of that, I wouldn't know,” Rosen remarked with a nod. His green eyes were thin, curious, and calm. “What could an equine like you need so badly that it's worth trotting deep into the heart of Petra's wealthiest clan to acquire?”

“Geist Blood is merely a means to an end,” Scootaloo said. “What I wish to acquire is from the pits.”

“Sky marble?”

“Something I left behind.”

Rosen chuckled, his bright teeth showing. “My little pony, you have left a great deal of things behind. This imp city wouldn't be here today if that wasn't the case.”

“I've noticed that,” Scootaloo said, avoiding his gaze as she lost her eyes among the rivets of the grim architecture around them. “Not all the silver in the world can buy it all back, no matter how much of it has been dirtied by goblin hands.”

“Then why bother with a proposition to begin with?”

“Because there is something there—something priceless...” She paused briefly, swallowed, and said, “Priceless to me, and I left it there after the Catac... after the Dimming.”

“You... were in the collapsed cloud city after the Dimming?” Rosen blinked. “Personally?”

“And I would very much like to go there and get it back. I'm searching for nothing else.” She stared at him again. “Say what you want about what ponies may or may not have 'stolen' in the past. I'm only concerned with what I've ever set my own hooves to.”

Rosen nodded thoughtfully. “The Wasteland has taken so much. There are few left who truly own things and even fewer who know that they do.”

Scootaloo's eyes narrowed at that. She hadn't expected a goblin to think on her level, not for a million stormfronts.

Rosen cleared his throat and smirked Fredden's way. “I'll alert the prime Geist-Bleeder. He's got a soul here who would like to conduct business. It would be a shame to turn down a potential opportunity.”

“R-Rosen?!” Fredden made an ugly face. “Now way in the Dimming is he going to see this glue stick!”

“Shouldn't that be up to him to decide and not you?” Rosen stifled a chuckle and walked halfway up the steps. “I'll take the fall for this if there is indeed one with my name on it. Fear not, Fredden. It's out of your hands.” He turned and gestured towards Scootaloo.

Scootaloo glanced back, nodded, and began trotting up the steps. She was barely at Rosen's side when the golden-haired imp's voice sounded out again.

“Leave it.”

Scootaloo scuffled to a stop, blinking. “Leave what?”

“Your rifle,” Rosen stated without looking. He examined the edges of his claws and murmured, “It's a retracted, copper ensemble holstered at the top of your saddlebag.” He glanced cooly at her. “If you are to step one hoof into this building, I must ask you to remove it.”

“I'd much rather remove my spinal column,” Scootaloo grunted in indignance.

“Move so much as another meter against Geist Blood's wishes, and I assure you, that can be arranged.” Rosen smirked proudly. “Please, Miss—Scootaloo, was it? I've gone out on a limb to allow you to see my boss. It is only... honorable that you pay me the same respect.”

Scootaloo stared back at the goblin. Something thundered in the deep pockets of her ears. At first, it sounded like blood rushing to her head. Then it ever so briefly resembled the wailing sobs of a stabbed young foal. Somewhere beneath it all, she reached deep and dredged up enough courage to comply. Using her pink tail hairs, she effortlessly slid the copper rifle out from her bag and tossed it at the nearest bodyguard. The imp gasped—more surprised at the dexterity of her tail than the sudden weapon rattling in his clawed hands. He held the thing up close, blinking at the custom-built device.

“There's... no trigger to it...”

“Only when there has to be,” Scootaloo said. She followed Rosen past the white strips and into the manor of Geist Blood while a worrisome Fredden took up the rear.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Scootaloo was no more than two rooms deep into the clan house of Geist Blood, and already she felt like she was in another building. The floor was polished. The walls were immaculate. The lanterns arranged along the ceiling were clean and well-oiled. The grime, rust, and smells of the street were utterly missing inside this place. It was as if a tiny piece of the pre-Cataclysmic world was sliced out of the past and dropped in the middle of an industrial nightmare. If it wasn't for the feel of her leather armor and the brown coat on her legs, Scootaloo's blinking eyes could have convinced her that she had just performed an inexplicable time-jump to someplace in the Third Age.

Rosen strode calmly ahead of her. Fredden shuffled to the side, casting several glares from under his dark shades. Scootaloo paid them both little heed, for suddenly her eyes were locked to the walls—or more appropriately, the numerous objects that she found strung up along the walls.

There were artifacts here, slices of the past that rivaled the preciousness and fragility of her tiny shrine above her workbench inside the Harmony. There were shields, spears, chariot wheels, signposts, guild crests, and rows upon rows of unblemished horseshoes.

A pulse built up in her heart when she realized that these weren't just any artifacts. These were mementos, and they all had a common place of origin: Cloudsdale. With a shuddering sensation, Scootaloo wondered who could possibly have owned this place, to possess so many ghostly relics of the past that haunted her with each glance.

A pair of double doors creaked wide, and Rosen was already speaking. “Prime Geist-Bleeder, so sorry to disturb your duties, but you have someone here who would like to discuss a business proposition.” Rosen's charming demeanor clashed with the numerous waves of trepidation wafting through Scootaloo suddenly. Nevertheless, he stepped back and gestured towards a space between her and a metal office desk as a pale goblin stood up, marching with authority towards the arriving equine.

Scootaloo's fears were confirmed the soonest that the leader of Geist Blood stepped into the lantern-light. She raised her goggles above her eyes and maintained her composure the best that she could. A combination of her stiff leather cowl and Rainbow Dash's feather kept her ears from foalishly drooping.

“Well...” the pale elder remarked, his pale eyes glimmering under an alabaster frown as he walked up to the sight of Scootaloo. A white strip much like the ones outside his door dangled from a necklace around his neck, sporting the same splash of black stains. “If this certainly isn't the highlight of my week, I don't know what is.” His voice was the only part of him that wasn't old, that still danced around Scootaloo's ears like a tiny blade.

---

He marched towards her and plunged it into her orange flank.

Scootaloo screamed. Scootaloo bled.

Cloudsdale swallowed her agony as he leaned over and leered into her twitching vision.

---

Scootaloo shuddered, sweating briefly before regaining an even breath.

Matthais saw the fear in her eyes. Somehow, he always could. His pale eyes narrowed as he tilted his head aside, a thin curtain of black strands dangling from his balding crown. He stroked his chin thoughtfully with a metal gauntlet over his aged fingers. “Have... we met, pony?”

Fredden jolted at that, his shades rattling. “Boss? You've talked to ponies before?”

“Of course I have, you inane child.” He brushed past Fredden as he paced around a stock-still Scootaloo. “It sickens me what little attention you imps pay to the past. There's a reason that the wealthiest prime-bleeders are also the oldest. We know why manifesting Petra is important. We know that there was a time when it was a struggle to build so much as a steam generator, something dwarfed by the mesmerizing feats of today.” He stopped and glared icily into Scootaloo's peripheral. “We've had to earn the glory we have now.”

Scootaloo was silent. She avoided his gaze.

Rosen said nothing. He watched with silent curiosity, his green eyes dashing back and forth between the reunion of bitter souls.

Matthais leaned even further. His breath was even, cool, as calm as his teeth were sharp as he smiled and said, “Yes. Yes, it is you. Your coat is different, and so are your eyes. But it's you. I see the Wasteland has taken your colors over your years.”

Scootaloo gulped. When she spoke, her voice was only half as firm as she meant for it to be. “It wasn't all the Wasteland.”

It took Matthais a few seconds, but he smiled at that.

Suddenly, Rosen's voice spoke up. “I brought her here because she wishes to acquire something from the pits.”

Scootaloo glanced at Rosen.

“Does she now?” Matthais remarked, pacing past the Cloudsdalian mementos hanging along the wall. “I don't see how that could be. After all...” He glanced over at the last pony. “You did leave with all of your limbs intact, did you not?”

“I was only in your 'company' for one stormfront, maybe two,” Scootaloo muttered, not looking at him. “The rest of the time, I was on my own and we rarely crossed paths.” Her voice briefly had a vicious edge. “How could you possibly know what I possessed or didn't possess down there?”

“Better yet, how could I possibly care?” He fingered the edge of a Cloudsdalian chariot wheel for signs of dust. “We gave you plenty of opportunities to be helped, and you refused them all, pony.”

It was then that Scootaloo finally looked at him. The glare was venomous, but her voice was calm. “It wasn't you who offered to help me and we both know it.”

Matthais stared calmly back at her.

After a space in time, Fredden stupidly barked, “You two were in the pits... together?”

Rosen's eyes wandered across the ceiling.

“Fredden...” Matthais paced over and slapped a hand on the subordinate's shoulder. “Make yourself useful, and perform a daily check of the slave pens. The accursed Desperadoes are wearing at my patience—I don't need you doing the same.”

Fredden's mouth dropped in disbelief. He glanced at Rosen, frowned, and marched off with a furious scuffle of his heels. Once he was gone, Matthais turned around and stared at Scootaloo once again.

“For the first time in my long life,” he said, “I wish my father was alive again. If he could witness this moment... this very second, it would be worth more than all that Geist Blood has accomplished in the spirit of Petra these last two-and-a-half decades.” He shuffled slowly towards her. “Nearly a quarter of a century has passed, and what have you done for yourself, pony? Look at you. You are nothing but a relic—much like the treasures that I keep here—and unlike those trophies, you have gathered more dust than any of the lower civilizations that the sky-stealers toppled in their millennia of hoarding the Sun and Moon. How does it feel, pony, to be the foolish appendix to the calamitous accident that your entire race was—?”

“Twelve hundred strips.”

“I beg your pardon?” Matthais craned his pointed ear towards her.

She stared emotionlessly at him. “Twelve hundred strips, and all I ask is a single trip to the pits, and I'll be out of your ears forever.”

“Snkkkt-Hahahaha!” Matthais grinned wide, his sharp teeth glinting in the lantern-light. “You actually... actually think we're in a place to still discuss services and payment? There was a time, pony, when I could have tossed you into a deep, black ravine like the battered little bird that you were, and even then you had more of a right to talk business than you do now.”

“If I remember correctly, you never had the right to talk business when we first met.” Scootaloo's eyes narrowed on his frame. “No matter how powerful you may be now, you started as a lackey. Not even your blood belonged to you.”

The grin on Matthais' face slowly left him. The strip dangling around his neck appeared to pale as it fell within the shadow of his drooping chin, until the black stains blended into the darkness... like a body at the bottom of a deathly, gray cavern.

Rosen gazed with interest at both characters, quietly observing.

“I... earned my blood, pony,” Matthais said in a low, ominous voice. He clenched his metal fingers tightly behind his back, maintaining his composure. “And in all the stormfronts since, I have manifested Petra where others failed... including those so foolish as to think that there was room for compassion in the Wasteland.”

“Compassion was merely something you failed at,” Scootaloo retorted. “You could have been the product of imps greater than you, but you dashed those chances.” Her gaze fell briefly. “You always... always had an issue with loyalty.”

“Fetters are fetters,” Matthais replied. “I've cast loose what kept me oppressed, and I've consequently blossomed in a dim world. Can you say the same?” He strolled a few steps toward her, and his lips curved slightly. “The way I see it, pony, when we parted ways... we were on even terms.”

“Were we, now?”

“We are both alive, are we not? That's worth something—at least, that's the only thing you can pretend to believe in, yes?” He folded his arms and leaned back against the doorframe to his office. “Believe it or not, I would very much like to keep things so balanced.”

Scootaloo merely raised an eyebrow. She waited for Matthais to deliver.

He did. “You will leave my home with your life intact,” he said. “And, consequently...” He grinned wide as he spoke, “I promise you, glue stick, you will never, ever enter those pits again. Not in this putrid lifetime, or the next, or in all the ages left for this shattered world to run its course. You can ask around town. You can try to proposition out-bleeder mercenaries. You can even invite an entire army of ogres—but so long as Petra is manifested over the rubble of your pathetic cloud city, you will not place a single hoof into its many crevices.”

The last pony's nostrils flared above a tight frown.

“Do you doubt me?”

“Hardly,” she grunted.

“Good. I am Matthais of Geist Blood,” he hissed. “I am the wealthiest clan leader in this imp city. I am the steaming heart of Petra.” He pointed a metal finger at her, his digits clinking with one another. “I want you to remember that, as you leave my city, as you return to the endless graves of your loved ones that you are too stubborn to drop yourself in, as you live out the rest of your pathetic years pretending to be worth something in this dim world.” He clenched his metal gauntlet into a fist and all but spat at her. “The most you will ever be is a mere pleasantry of the past, something I was once amused with in the belly of the world, as I peeled the skin off a tiny little foal and showed her what belonged to goblins, and what belonged to the cesspool of yesteryear.”

Scootaloo exhaled long and hard. The air had suddenly grown sterile, as if the ashes of the Wasteland had somehow found their way in.

“Sir...” Rosen bravely spoke up. “She has strips to give us, and we've lost many slaves as of late...”

“It is not about strips, Rosen!” Matthais barked. “I know you were around before the Dimming, but you can't possibly understand, like I understand. She will not be allowed around the pits. No amount of bars can change that.” He then swallowed and added, “Unless...”

Scootaloo couldn't help it. She seized the moment with a sharp breath. “Unless what?”

Matthais turned to look at her. His grin was like a sea of knives, inviting Scootaloo in for a swim. “Get down on your haunches before me... and beg.”

The silence that filled the room mimicked death. Scootaloo merely stared back at Matthais. Without speaking, she slid the copper goggles back over her eyes, turned around, and marched towards the exit. A cold wave of chuckles raised the coat hairs beneath her leather armor, and she broke into a canter, all but bursting through the doors to the street beyond as the bodyguards struggled to keep up.

“Take a mental note if you can, Rosen.” Matthais stood up straight, clicked his metal fingers, and winked at his subordinate. “The world never stops dying. We are the inheritors of coins in a land full of coffins.” He gave an errant wave and walked back into his office. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I have more digging to do.”

Rosen watched after his boss, until the double-doors closed. He then cast a cool, thoughtful glance towards the front of the manor.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A Geist-Bleeder thug limply held the retracted copper rifle out. Scootaloo viciously snatched it, flung it into her saddlebag, and marched firmly towards the far end of the street. Goblins murmured and chuckled on either side of the last pony's swift trot. She kept her goggled gaze on the metal floor beneath her, or else she might be tempted to kick the nearest imp's face in.

A series of clawed feet sounded off behind her. Rosen was suddenly there in a brisk walk to keep with her pace. “Evidently, my boss does not desire to do business.”

“Evidently, your boss is full of crap,” Scootaloo grumbled.

“I must abide by his decision, pony. Yes, the pits are off-limits to you, but that doesn't mean you can't conduct any other sort of business in this town—”

“This is the most pathetic pitch for silver I've ever witnessed,” she said, not bothering to bless him with a glance as she marched straight ahead. “And I've dabbled with monkeys. That's saying something.”

“I only mean to convey that you are obviously in need of something, and there are still plenty of opportunities to earn your keep,” Rosen said, dashing forward to walk backwards while facing her. “I know that a life in the Wasteland must make you pretty desperate—”

“You know nothing!” Scootaloo stopped in her tracks to snarl directly at him. “You think you're familiar with the imp you work for, but you couldn't possibly understand anything, not like I do.” She pointed towards a distant line of shackled imps, all lacking the colored banners of Petra clans. “Matthais is a coward and a sadist. Over the past two decades, he's built an entire empire through slavery. A lifestyle crafted out of misery will only lead to a legacy tainted by the same shades of suffering.” She sneered in his face. “The day you realize that is the day you'll wish he had ostracized you, instead of me.”

Scootaloo bumped into Rosen's shoulder on the way towards the next metal street. Rosen watched her leave from where he stood, blinking curiously. His pointed ears pricked to the sounds of mournful slaves across the street, and the random bursts of steam rifles from an unseen distance. The world of goblins was nothing but noise since the day the Sun and Moon disappeared, and from the drooping of his ears it looked as though it was the first time he took notice of its volume.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Scootaloo soon found herself marching into a shadowed alcove junctioning off from the main street. She wasn't there for a detour. It just happened to be the first dark and secluded spot she could find.

Once there, she collapsed, resting her haunches against a wall and deflating her entire body with a heavy sigh. She reached a hoof up and raised her goggles before rubbing her clenched eyelids and fighting a series of shakes.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get Matthais' leering grin out of her mind. She peeled layers and layers off of the image, and the first thing she could salvage from underneath was an imp with yellow-streaked hair bathed in her mother's blood. Scootaloo was tired. She was always tired. It was moments like these when she couldn't tell where her pity ended and her anger began, but lately it all had become jumbled, sprinkled with spices from her jumps to the past.

Spike was right. She had been tucking herself into a comfort zone. Marching through streets built by goblins was a bitter wake-up call. Suddenly, a cruise across the sea beyond Dream Valley seemed utterly superfluous, no matter how many stars she may have charted from the experience. Neither was there any merit to be had in a parade through Stalliongrad or an awkward dinner date in Appleloosa. Scootaloo was the avatar of Goddess Entropa, and she had been spending all of Spike's green flame on vacations.

Scootaloo took a deep breath and tilted her head up, gazing towards the dead sky. Her sight was interrupted by several metal discs looming between Alpha Level and the golden, glowing summit of Petra. Beyond that, smog and steam obscured even the twilight, so that she found herself buried beneath an alien part of the Wasteland too dark to bear witness to the shades of yesterday, no matter how much she tried collecting fossils to prove that she wasn't insane, and that colors once existed.

Matthais was a rich goblin who surrounded himself with mementos from a civilization so wasted that in his deranged mind he probably fancied that he had conquered ponies. He allowed the wounds of the past to govern his actions, so that goblins around him suffered and would continue to suffer. Scootaloo may have been hurt to have run into such a creature as him... twice. However, she could solace herself with the fact that she believed in more than him, and could become a better soul because of it.

She could... so long as she didn't waste time. She stood again and reached her hoof up to drag the goggles back over her eyes. As she did so, her hoof brushed with the edges of her brow. She paused, then dug the limb further so that she felt her ear underneath the leather cowl. The feathery strands of Rainbow Dash kissed her coat, and she once again remembered what it meant to chase something, no matter how impossible the goal. So long as she held onto that, she had something that Matthais never had, no matter how much silver blocked the path.

Fluttershy's corpse was being guarded by an Ursa Major. Pinkie Pie had been buried by a piece of Ponymonium. The only reason Rainbow Dash's remains were waiting for Scootaloo was because they would still be found... somehow. Scootaloo had to keep moving. She was too loyal to stand in one place.

And she was also too loyal to forget that—regardless of the legitimacy of Matthais' threats—she still had another reason to be there in Petra. Gazing around, Scootaloo realized that the alcove she was in opened up to a narrow line of shops, forming a humble bazaar of goblin storefronts that stretched across the middle of Strut Twenty-Five's Alpha Level. She trotted leisurely down the narrow commercial district, avoiding the shocked faces of half-ling males and females on either side of her, until she stumbled upon the hanging sign of a textiles shop located at a dead end.

Marching through a curtain of dangling, bead-like screws, she was greeted with a rustic aroma of burning moonrock. She heard the whirring of machines as several aged imps worked on weaving and sewing various fabrics together. An imp strolled up to a metal counter and prepared to smile at her latest client.

“Petra's fortune to you. How can I be of—” The imp instantly froze, a shocked expression blanching across her face. It was with fright—and not disgust—that she gulped and leaned briefly away from the undeniable equine inside her store. Several of the machines were silenced in the back as multiple imps craned to get a good look. “Uhm... H-how can I help... h-help...”

Scootaloo was suddenly calm. For the first time since she had arrived in the imp city, a goblin had looked her in the face without attempting to be menacing. She was almost surprised when the smile came to her lips. “Hello. I would like to have some clothes made.”

“Uhm... Of course!” the imp murmured sheepishly. Two children peered in from the rear of the establishment, presumably the goblinette's children. She stood protectively in front of them and absorbed the last pony's goggled gaze. “But... B-But I'm afraid we don't tailor outfits to fit sky stea—erm... that is... I-I mean...”

Scootaloo raised a hoof and gently rested it on the counter. “It's not for me. It's for a goblin.”

The imp blinked. “Oh.” She took a brave step towards the counter and flipped open a notebook. “Well... uhm... our rates start at fifteen bars and vary based on design...”

“Nothing extraordinary. A pair of shorts—or ‘trunks,’ as bipeds are apt to call them. Dark material, preferably.”

“Okay. We can do that, though... uhm... not all goblins wear pants like—”

“You don't need to explain it to me, ma'am,” Scootaloo said in a polite voice. “And, if you must know, ponies hardly wore clothes at all.”

The imp didn't know quite what to say to that, but something in the statement drained a good half of the tension from the room. She let loose a nervous chuckle and pretended to be writing measurements in the notebook beneath her. “So... Wh-What size should be the shorts be?”

Scootaloo glanced briefly at the two children behind the shopkeeper's shoulders. She pointed. “To fit someone slightly bigger than the older one there.” Scootaloo then glanced directly at the goblinette. “Shorts for a teenage male.”

---

Two hours later, in another part of the district, a door burst open to a storage warehouse. A crimson glow filled the room from a shoulder-mounted lantern attached to Darper's vest. Glaring, the imp swept the aim of his silver steam rifle left and right as he examined all corners of the dark, abandoned interior.

Otto drifted in with a pistol in his grasp. His bald crown glinted from the red glow of Darper's lantern as he glanced across the many rows of shelves. “Oh, for blight's sake! Not here neither?”

“What does it friggin' look like?” Darper grunted, his nostrils flaring as he hung his rifle by his side. “Just like the previous block.”

“Those three morons have to be hiding around here somewhere.”

“Jee, Otto, does Matthais pay you to state the obvious?” Darper jabbed a finger behind his back. “Go and report to Ryst.”

“Mmmff... Whatever.” The stout goblin strolled back through the door and shouted into the alleyway. “This place is empty too, Lady Ryst. I'm beginning to think that we lost them.”

“I haven't lost anybody,” Ryst's voice said between sniffing breaths. “Nor have you, Otto. Darper's led us on another wild goose chase as usual.”

“Heh... Yeah!” Otto chuckled in a deep, bass voice. “If only his brain was as sharp as his aim, huh?”

Darper fumed. Frowning, the dark-haired imp grabbed a metal box from a nearby shelf. “I'll show you sharp.” He tossed it into the middle of the warehouse so that it made a striking, rattling noise against the floor. “Grenade!” he shouted.

Suddenly, there was a scraping of three pairs of feet. A trio of shadows darted out of hiding from behind a stack of boxes and made for a rear door.

“Nnnnngh!” Darper's eyes throbbed as he slid after them, knelt, and fired a wild volley. Several steambolts sliced the air, ineffectively bouncing off the doorframe as the breathless slaves scampered desperately into the next street beyond the warehouse.

“What?! What?!” Otto gasped.

Ryst stuck her thin neck in. “Darper? Did you have an argument with the far wall of this room?”

“I discovered the runaways!” Darper dashed for the far end of the warehouse, reloading the steam cartridges into his rifle. “I scared them off with my bullets!”

“You sure it wasn't with your smell?”

“Nnnghh—Just come on!” Darper kicked the pock-marked door open and ran down the street. He was followed by the blurring figures of Lady Ryst, Otto, and several more Geist-Bleeders.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Three panting goblins limped their way through a crowded street. Goblins immediately ran towards the flanking storefronts, knowing what was going to come next. Sure enough, no less than ten seconds after the trio had surged by, Lady Ryst's squad was on the chase. The black-braceleted imps shouted commands to one another, splitting up into three groups as they sought to surround the alleyway down which the targets had fled.

High above, on an overlooking rooftop, a silent shadow stopped crouching. Rai's sapphire eyes—dried of tears—focused squarely on where Ryst's group was headed. Tilting her gaze towards the adjacent rooftops, she spied an alternate route and leaped into action in a desperate attempt to outrun them.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

An exhausted slave collapsed against a wall, her claws incidentally shredding a “Desperadoes” wanted poster as she fell to the ground. One of her two companions—a child—struggled to lift her back to her feet until the tallest one lent his arms and carried her back into an awkard jog.

“Come on... just... just a little further...” the tall runaway murmured between heaving breaths as his friends leaned against him. “There's... there's a hiding spot... a h-hiding spot down... down here...”

“You mean here?!” the child whimpered, gazing at the narrow bazaar of storefronts surrounding them claustrophobically. “There's no way out! Only the way we came in!”

“Tr-trust me... th-there's gotta...”

“We're dead meat! We're dead meat ever since we g-got split up from the others—”

“We can't just stop! We gotta... keep moving...” The tall one heaved and all but dragged his companions down the alleyway. “We gotta... gotta...” His eyes widened.

“A dead end...” one of them murmured as the three suddenly stood before a wall of rusted aluminum in front of a pair of shops. They were cornered, and the echoes of Ryst's mob were increasing in volume. “Oh blessed Petra, we're done.”

“There... there has to be...”

“It's over. They're gonna find us!”

“Shut up! Lemme just think!” The tall one started pacing, but he could barely stand straight from the dizziness of malnourishment. His shackles dangled and jingled loosely from his ankles. “Just... just need to find... Need to find—”

He would have said more, only he ran into a flank of leather armor and promptly fell to the ground. The other two slaves huddled around him to help him up, only to gasp at the sight of what they were cornered with.

Scootaloo's goggles reflected their horrified faces. She stood at the entrance to the textiles shop, her saddlebags thicker from housing several freshly-sewn clothes. The last pony stared down at the three imps with a silence that persisted for far longer than was sane.

The runaways bit their lips, trembled, and gazed down the far end of the narrow alleyway. The bazaar lit up with a crimson glow as Darper's growling voice sounded from around the distant corner.

Scootaloo gazed towards the red light as well. Slowly, she stared back at the three slaves. Her face tensed, and she proceeded to flash several looks around the urban environment directly around them. Just then, she froze—her goggles locked onto a patch of off-color metal just beneath the trio. Silently, she trotted forward and tapped her hoof into their legs.

They instantly scuffled away from her with a mix of fear and obedience. For the last half-a-minute, they had been seated on a hinged panel of some sorts. Forcing a blade out from her right horseshoe, Scootaloo bent over and stuck the metal dagger into the crease between the floor and the panel.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Two floors up, Rai jumped to a crouching position. She cursed inwardly, for a porous metal grate was blocking her path to the thin alleyway below where she knew the three slaves had fled. Rai rummaged through her belt and produced a thick metal wrench. With a flick of her wrist, she produced a tiny buzz-saw and began cutting her way through the fence with a tiny shower of sparks.

Behind her, a body landed without a sound. She strolled up, knelt, and very gently planted her finger on the younger one’'s shoulder. “Rai...”

The young imp gasped, the buzz-saw jolting briefly in her gasp. Quickly, though, she relaxed at the sound of the shadow's voice and resumed her work. “I found them, Vaughan. They're down below.”

“Yes, and I need to concentrate,” Rai murmured as she sliced through one metal branch and proceeded to make a larger hole with the saw. “I just might be able to beat Lady Ryst to them.”

Suddenly, Vaughan was narrowing her green eyes on a sight below them. She tugged on the back of Rai's vest. “Rai. Stop.”

“Wh-What?!” Rai gasped incredulously.

“Turn your wrench off.”

She did so, but protested, “But Vaughan! They're right below! I don't want any more innocent blood on my—”

“Shhh.” Vaughan lowered herself and her apprentice so that they were lying face-forward and staring down through the grate at the bazaar below. “Look...”

Rai's sapphire eyes narrowed curiously. Below them, an equine figure was opening a panel of metal and gesturing towards it with a hoof. Jittery, but thankful, the three imps immediately darted down into a mantenance chamber just beneath the street and crawled off towards the obscure plumbing of Strut Twenty-Five.

“What.... what is that?” Rai made a face.

“A pony,” Vaughan breathed.

Rai looked at her in shock. “A pony?! That's crazy talk! They're all dead!”

Vaughan's lips curved slightly. “Your father's always believed they weren't.”

Something about that brought a frown to Rai's face. “My father believes in a lot of things.”

“For good reason. He lived in an age of brightness and blessing.” Vaughan pointed. “Look now. I think we've just been blessed ourselves...”

Rai watched in wonder as the last of the slaves disappeared and...

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Scootaloo slammed the panel shut. The sounds of Ryst's gang were within spit's distance. Scootaloo cast the far end of the alleyway one look. Coolly, she reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a tiny ivory rune. She slapped the lunar material over the lid of the metal panel and uttered, “H'rhnum.”

With a spark of bright white light, the moonrock burned out and melted, fusing the panel to the rest of the street with only an ashen sneeze of white to show that it had ever been tampered with. By the time Darper and his companions rushed onto the scene, she was already trotting leisurely towards the far end of the bazaar. The slave-hunting Geist-Bleeders paused to blink awkwardly, a pony being the last thing they had ever expected to see there.

Scootaloo should have said nothing, but this had not been a very pleasant day. “Careful where you point those,” she said, brushing awfully close past the silver rifles in the goblins' possession.

Ryst sniffed. She scratched her nose and glanced numbly at Otto and Darper in turn. Darper's brow was furrowed. As the pony trotted away, he shuffled to the very end of the street and peered all around, even glancing into a shopfront or two. There were no slaves, no targets whatsoever.

“They... got away again?” Otto made a face, his ears drooping on either side of his bald-head. He clapped his brass knuckles together and thought aloud, “Desperadoes must have trained them really well behind our backs.”

“It's a waste of our time,” Ryst huffed. “It always is. Congratulations, Darper. I think you should consult Matthais for a career change. 'Exercise instructor' comes to mind, considering how much you make us run for nothing.”

Darper was panting at this point. He glanced left, right, up... and finally down. His eyes squinted. He saw a white, powdery burn on the edge of a metal panel. His jaw tightened as a furious snarl escaped through his mouth, “Like the blight, I am.” He turned and ran briskly down the alleyway. Shrugging, Otto and his cohorts jogged after him while Ryst—sighing—followed in a gangly stride.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Scootaloo was halfway to the ramps leading to the lower levels of Strut Twenty-Five, and the elevator car that would take her back to Kevin's Nest, when the shadow of Darper ran out into the middle of the street behind her and shouted.

“Hey!” he spat. “Glue stick!”

Scootaloo said nothing. She kept trotting slowly as if it was a warm, summer afternoon in the Third Age.

Darper merely snarled. He raised his steam rifle, loudly cocked it, and aimed it at her flank from afar. “I said—hey! Glue stick!” Several goblins ran out of the street for the umpteenth time that day as Lady Ryst's group gathered beside Darper. “Are you deaf?!”

As the entire street cleared around her, Scootaloo came to a stop. She sighed, then lethargically turned around to stare at the impish rifler. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I can hear. I can hear well enough to know when I'm being insulted. Now, if that was something I wasn't used to, then I might pay attention to whatever it is you have to say to me.”

“You've got some nerve, ya stinkin' sky stealer!” Darper's frown loaded his words like steam cartridges. He was already squinting one eye over the sight of his rifle while the pony fearlessly looked back. “Don't play the idiot! I know what you did back there!”

A thin hand grasped the edge of Darper's barrel and lowered it. “Hmmm... Darper, Darper, Darper...” Ryst murmured into his pointed ear. “Do we have a problem with four legs here? I do not think she is on the menu for Matthais today—”

“Don't worry, Miss Ryst,” he gently pushed her aside. “I'll take care of this.” He pumped a lever on his steam rifle. An intimidating cloud of mist wafted up from the heated weapon, summoning an uncomfortable murmur from the many goblins in the background. “Do you not see the signs all across town, glue stick?! Do you not know that it is a crime—a highly unlawful crime to mess with the merchandise of the local families?!”

“Then perhaps you should speak with someone who's messed with the merchandise of local families,” Scootaloo said back.

“I'm talking to you, ya big bag of vomit!” Darper growled, the veins around his eyes pulsing. “You're long overdue for a tranquilizer shot, glue stick—straight through your flippin' brain stem!” He held the rifle high in the glistening lanternlight. “Now tell us what you did with those goblin slaves in the alleyway—!”

“I don't care about slaves,” Scootaloo said, icily. Her goggles coldly reflected the image of Darper from afar. The longer she spoke, the more stealthily she tensed her muscles underneath her leather armor. In a single flinch, she could have her copper rifle aimed straight back at him. Regardless, she stayed put. “I don't care about goblins. I don't care about gremlins, and I don't care about you. I only want to return to my airship, and you're bothering me.”

“You can take your airship and suck it!” Darper's frown had become a searing thing at this point. “You picked the wrong day to flash your flank around Geist Blood territory.” He wrapped a clawed finger around the trigger, and aimed it at the pegasus' snout...

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Above the scene, a metal crossbeam shadowed Vaughan and Rai as they both shuffled up to a stop and peered over the loft's edge. Vaughan immediately leaned forward and took in the scene with a fiery gaze. She reached into a pack hanging off her shoulders.

“I don't get it, V!” Rai was panting from the rooftop sprint there. She barely managed to keep her voice below a whisper amidst her trembles. “Shouldn't we be finding a way to meet the slaves in the maintenance chamber?

“They're safe,” Vaughan murmured. She slapped together what looked to be two sharp polearms. Upon joining, they converted into a long-barrel steam rifle. “The pony made sure of that.” She slapped a magazine of steambolts into the chamber, cocked the weapon, and aimed down at the street. “Now we must make sure of her.”

Rai's face contorted in confusion. “V-Vaughan... I thought we weren't supposed to give away our position.” She gulped. “What are you doing with the rifle?”

“Do not worry. We have a safe avenue of escape from this position. We will come out of this just fine,” Vaughan murmured while squinting down the sight trained on Darper's skull. “Now it's her turn.”

“But... but why?!” Rai frowned. “She's just a glue stick—”

“She's a pony, child. And that's something more valuable than ten years' worth of rescued slaves, much less our meager four months'.”

“I...” Rai slumped down beside her, breathing nervously. “I-I just don't get it.”

“Shhh...” Vaughan's finger rested over the trigger. “Just trust me, Rai.”

Rai was silent, gazing at the scene unfolding below.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Scootaloo stared solidly down Darper's gun barrel from afar. Even if she did suspect that this would somehow end in her bloody demise, she wasn't about to face death cringing. After all, death was something she had come to respect... and then to pity. Darper was lowlier to her than mud. She stood her ground.

Darper took several breaths, then held on, steadying the rifle as his finger curled over the trigger. Just then, a gangly wrist clamped onto the rifler's upper arm.

“My little Darper, let four legs go.”

The dark-haired thug blinked wide. He glanced over to gawk at his leader. “L-Lady Ryst?”

“Doesn't Matthais pay us to hunt slaves? Hmmm?” Ryst sniffled and casually hung her thin arms down past her dual pistol holsters. “Killing horses is something legendary, and is worth putting off until a bounty healthier than our annoying rogues' is attached to the feat, yes?” She motioned towards Scootaloo. “She's from the Wasteland, Darper. No matter how angry you think you are, odds are she has been—and can be—far angrier than you. Let it go.”

“But... but...” Darper's breath came out in pitiful spits. “This filthy glue stick is sticking her flank in our business! I just know it! The slaves—!”

“Darper Darper Darper...” Ryst shut her green eyes and sighed. “Don't make me sick Otto up your butt. I highly doubt that he could very easily come back out.”

Darper frowned, fumed, but ultimately hung his silver rifle harmlessly by his side. “So is this it?! Matthais bends over for the first pony that struts through his neighborhood?!”

“I know our prime-bleeder more than you ever could. He's had his share of ponies. It's best that you avoided your own.”

“Best advice I've heard all day,” Scootaloo said, forcing Darper to blink at her. She turned and marched away. “I suggest you spend your time blowing holes in defenseless slaves' heads like a good imp,” she said. She couldn't help it; she monotonously added, “Like a good coward.”

Darper's eyes twitched as if a wire had sparked in his skull. Otto was oblivious, but Ryst saw it.

“Let it go—” Ryst said, planting her hand atop Darper's shoulder.

However, the imp was already snarling. In one motion, he shrugged his leader's claws off of him and aimed the long barrel of the steam rifle straight at Scootaloo's leather-clad spine. “I'll show you a coward, you oats-huffing piece of filth—”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Up above, Rai was gasping.

Vaughan's finger was pressed to the trigger. At the last moment, she stopped, blinked, and lowered her rifle instead.

“Behind your flank!” she bravely shouted from the shadows.

Rai flinched at the unexpected outburst.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Scootaloo also flinched, but in a completely different way. Her joints jolted, and without a second thought, the pegasus dashed to her right.

Darper fired. A gust of steam flew towards the metal rafters above as a red hot bolt soared out from the long barrel of his gun.

The searing projectile disappeared into the top of Scootaloo's cowl and miraculously came out just above the ear where Rainbow's feather fluttered. In the molasses motion of a single lurching second, Scootaloo had bucked her body sideways and flung her copper rifle free. Several gaping imps watched as the metal device spun like a top in the air, only to be clutched in the hooking fibres of an expert, pink tail sliding out from underneath the pony's armor. At the end of that breathless second, time resumed in a maddening gust of hot air. Scootaloo's tail twirled the rifle in a blur, extending it. With a magazine full of glowing runestones, the last pony flung the stretched weapon into her front hooves as she spun about in a sideways lurch, shouting: “H'rhnum!”

The manabullet from her rifle flew true. It burned a clean path through the street. Every goblin watched with muted awe as the magical projectile soared violently down the barrel of Darper's very own rifle, exploding from inside the metal stock with a burst of purple fury.

The resulting pop knocked Darper back, so that he rocked briefly on his own heels. Blinking, the dazed goblin glanced down to see his weapon scattered about his toes in a sea of smoldering shrapnel. Also, his hands were gone.

“Ah... Ahhhh!” He shrieked, his eyes as wide as saucers. He fell to his knees and stared in horror at the two bloody stubs his arms had become. “Aaaaah-Aughhhhh!”

Scootaloo watched with a deadpan expression. She calmly cocked her rifle, spitting the worn, smoking rune out from her magazine. The murmuring goblins alongside the street struggled to hold their lunch as Darper's wails filled the rusted lengths of the platform.

“Nnngh—Haughh!” Darper shuffled pathetically on his knees, shoving a wincing Otto aside to plead up at the green-haired goblinette. He sobbed and waved his bloody stumps in front of her. “Miss Ryst! Miss Ryst! Nnnngh—In the name of Petra, call one of Matthais' medics! Help me, pl-please!”

Ryst rolled her eyes. With a groaning sigh, she unholstered a pistol, twirled it to a stop against Darper's forehead, and pulled the trigger.

Scootaloo blinked, choosing to stare at the ground as the echo of the discharge wore off.

At the end of the resulting thunder, Darper's wails were no more. Ryst stood above him, wiping a splatter of red off her knee. “Well, at least he doesn't smell so bad anymore.” She glanced over at Scootaloo through a squinting eye and pointed with her pistol. “I like you, four legs. Well, that is, I like you more than the the pathetic blowhard whose brains I just spilled all over my toes. Are you here to trade or to do some honest-to-Dimming dirty work?”

“That depends.” Scootaloo leaned on her rifle and gazed at the tall goblinette with green hair. “Dirty work appears to be a relative concept around Petra.”

“Hmmm... yes. Well, if you ever fancy yourself some slave-hunting, I think your hooves could earn themselves some silver. I... uh...” She side-stepped from the bloody mess of a body beside her. “I seem to have some openings as of late.”

“Thank you for the consideration,” Scootaloo uttered. “You won't be getting any of mine.”

“Hmmph... suit yourself, four legs.” Ryst scratched her nose. She then bent over and salvaged what remained of the steam rifle's metal stock from a fresh pool of blood before tossing it into a dazed Otto's arms. “Come along, Otto. You're the new Darper now. Try not to smell as bad as he did, hmmm?” With a nervous gaggle of black-braceleted Geist-Bleeders in tow, Miss Ryst marched off towards the next order of business.

The goblin crowd nervously dissipated, their eyes lingering on the last pony as she quietly retracted the copper rifle and slid it back into its leathery holster across her spine. She was about to walk back down the ramp to rejoin Warden in the Harmony several platforms below, when she paused. Not caring what imps were watching from streetside, she reached up and pulled the cowl from over her head. Scootaloo's pink mane fell free, blowing majestically in a gust of high Wasteland winds. She raised the brown article to her eyes and fiddled with the earpiece, marveling at the twin holes that had formed from the steambolt passing through her headpiece, missing her skin by less than a centimeter.

With a shuddering breath, she gazed up towards the metal rafters of Strut Twenty-Five, looking for the source of the voice that had cried out to warn her... to save her. Finding nothing, she felt the flutter of the blue feather in the free wind. She reached up and softly graced the sapphire strands with her hoof, her numb expression awash in thought.

Comments

[RoboRed]

Well, here's where it gets really different. No longer is it just “Kaizo restructured with a twist”. This chapter is almost entirely new scenes, aside from some recycled stuff and flashbacks in the beginning. The Ponyville flashback obviously serves to compare Rainbow Dash helping others, like Scootaloo did to help Warden. Speaking of whom, no massive changes in Warden yet. His background is fleshed out a little more. Not sure if his family is actually alive in this version, though.

This version of Petra is a lot more soulless, machine-like, and gritty compared to the one in the Kaizo draft. There's less emphasis on the bustling goblin life and more focus on how it functions and the security teams. (those vultures running the dock are an interesting bunch) Overall, it seems the story's not as lively as Kaizo, but on the other hand...

He marched towards her and plunged it into her orange flank.
        Scootaloo screamed.  Scootaloo bled.
        Cloudsdale swallowed her agony as he leaned over and leered into her twitching vision.

I rather like the darker turn that this is taking.

Slavery. If there's ever a way to bring out drama and dark, it's slavery. Then were have a bunch of character changed. Devo/Hex Blood no longer exists. Matthias does, but now he's an evil bastard with a chip on his shoulder for ponykind. In addition, he heads “Geist Blood”, which owns the mines, and leaves Scootaloo with no way in right now. I think Devo's position has been replaced with Rosen. He seems to share the same qualities such as the gentle demeanor, and being old enough to have been around before the Cataclysm. He also sympathizes with Scootaloo's plight, and is the only one to do so.

Then there's the Desperadoes. Interesting group – one that I look forward to Scootaloo interacting with. Seems that Raimony's been recast as a member of the group as “Rai”. She makes for a good active hero. Also, I kinda have the feeling she might be related to Rosen...

Rai looked at her in shock.  “A pony?!  That's crazy talk!  They're all dead!”
        Vaughan's lips curved slightly.  “Your father's always believed they weren't.”
        Something about that brought a frown to Rai's face.  “My father believes in a lot of things.”
        “For good reason.  He lived in an age of brightness and blessing.”  Vaughan pointed.  “Look now.  I think we've just been blessed ourselves...”

Ryst...not sure if that naga is still Ryst, especially considering Vaughan's reaction upon seeing her:

Vaughan's lips parted, and her brown brow furrowed... as if something deep inside her was expelling a ghost from ages untold.
        “I'm not alone.”

On one hand, you said Razzar would be different, and more fleshed out as a sister figure to Scootaloo as a last survivor. You never said whether or not she would still be evil. Right now, there's nothing to tie her as such. Also, the distinctive speech pattern she once had is nowhere to be seen.

One more thing of note, it looks like this version of Scoots is sticking a lot more to the values she learned. Bit of a plus there.

Shame...next chapter is the last one that was made for the HHH draft, and I doubt there will be too much more development compared to the Kaizo draft...Oh well, such is life.