Chapter 14- No One Escapes Lupa Mine

Chapter 15- No One Escapes Lupa Mine

"Most men today cannot conceive a freedom that does not involve somebody's slavery"

                                                                                        -W.E.B. Du Bois

East side of the Everfree Forest, Equestria, Wednesday 10th of April, 8:32 am, 2205 AC

While Makers Fire simply stared in disparity at his once great creation as Twilight and her friends searched hopelessly for Jason and Rainbow Dash.

"Ah just don't get it." Applejack said, coming back to the crash sight to voice her frustrations

"Where in Equestria could they have gotten to? Ah mean it's not like they could've got up from that crash." The remnants of the mane six gathered next to the sorry excuse for a Human flying machine.

"I agree it makes no sense." Rarity stated "But we cannot simply give up hope, somewhere Rainbow Dash and Jason are alone and possibly injured and waiting for us to save them." The designer wrapped her hoof around the small yellow Pegasus that was next to her, the ordeal had been hard on Fluttershy.

"So if they couldn't walk away by themselves, maybe they were dragged?" The five mares turned to the ginger smith who was staring at the former plane with a strange intensity.

"What do you mean by that?" Twilight asked.

"Think about it, neither of them could've moved after the crash and even if they could why would they? And think about where we are, the east side of the Everfree Forest. Not exactly the Royal Palace is it? Any manner of creature or even Pony could have grabbed them." The mares exchanged glances and Fluttershy spoke up through her emotion.

"N-none of the critters w-would have hurt t-them." At this, Maker couldn't help but give a small bark of a laugh.

"Don't be so naive, I wouldn't be surprised if some beast made a meal out of them, but the lack of large amounts of blood or signs of actual dragging makes me doubt that explanation, no, something else is going on here." The expressions from the mares were those of angry disbelief, Pinkie Pie, who's normally bouncy hair lay straight against her head ever since the crash, glared at Makers Fire.

"What do you know?" She said aggressively "Your just some washed up Royal Smith, how do we know you didn't rig Jason's flying thing? You were the one helping him build it, how can we trust you?" Twilight looked in astonishment at the pink Earth Pony.

"Pinkie Pie!" She said in surprise, then turned to Maker as he started chuckling.

" 'Suppose you'll just have to trust me then, besides..." The Smithy's smile dropped and he regained his grim expression "I would never do anything to harm Jason, ever." Something in his tone broke through because Pinkie's gaze softened and she nodded.

Whatever was about to be said next was interrupted by a grey angle falling from the sky calling the name of a popular Human toy car franchise.

"Dinky!" Derpy Hooves called before whacking her plot onto the ground with almost enough force to crack the stone.

"Has anyone seen Dinky?" The grey Pegasus said, looking around frantically, her eyes strangely aligned rather than in their normal askew position.

"Derpy?" Twilight asked "What are you doing here?"

"I can't find Dinky anywhere!" The mailmare said in distress "She was support to be home a long time ago! And she's nowhere to be found!" Derpy was clearly panicking and she started as she felt a comforting hoof on her back, the grey mare turned to see the grizzled yet sympathetic face of Makers Fire.

"It's going to be alright lass." He said gently "Why don't you tell us where you last knew your daughter to be?" Derpy had calmed down at his tone and laid out what she knew.

"She left a note, saying that she was crusading with..." The Mailmares eyes widened and fixed on Applejack and then Rarity "With Applebloom and Sweetie Belle! And Scootaloo too!" The mares in question seemed surprised at this news and Maker turned to them.

"Were you aware of this?" He asked, both mares nodded in answer.

"Ah new they where out crusading, but I didn't know they'd be with Dinky."

"I am of the same knowledge, I also don't recall Sweetie Belle telling me exactly where she and her friends were headed."

"Nether did Applebloom."

Maker hummed slightly, absentmindedly stroking Derpy's back as to still comfort her, instead the action only seemed awkward and brought a tinge of red to the mares cheeks.

"Well, where do the CMC usually play around?" He asked, and it was Rarity who answered.

"When crusading? Well they usually explore near or even in the..." The Unicorns eyes widened and her Earth Pony counter-part finished the sentence for her.

"The Everfree Forest." The farmer stated, Makers Fire nodded.

"Yes, and now I've spoken to Scootaloo before, who is it that she admires the most?" It was Twilight who answered this time.

"Rainbow Dash of course."

"And it just so happens that said Pegasus was involved in the crash, a crash that could be seen from most of Ponyville and especially the Everfree Forest."

"So what your saying is..." The purple Unicorn began.

"What I'm saying is, whatever has Jason and Ms. Dash, most likely has Dinky and the others as well." This got a lot of exchanged looks from the mares assembled.

"That's sound logic Mr. Fire." Twilight said "But there's still no evidence to support the idea that Jason and the others have been taken at all." Makers Fire shook his head.

"On the contrary, there is." The Smithy pointed his hoof to a patch of soft dirt, where emblazoned in the ground was a single paw print.

"Diamond Dogs." Maker growled "Slavers, thieves, mercenaries, and brutes. I thought we drove them back to the hills" the red Stallion turned back to the mares assembled.

"I think it's time we get the Royal Guard involved."

                                                                          ~~*~~

Lupa Mine, Containment Cell 42

Flashes of colour that covered the entire spectrum, these colours were swirled together in great miasma's of rainbow. The Rainbow split into the six different lines of colour, each line arranged itself in a uniform fashion that lead into the distance, the separate lines where eventually devoured by a great black maw of oblivion.

These colours took shape, growing hands, feet, and heads. They walked together in a progressive line forward with their heads down, men, women, and children all marched to their eventual doom while vultures of white and blue circled overhead, occasionally swooping down to impale a colour with their horns.

A blade, sharp and gleaming like a sliver of moonlight, it cut through the Rainbows, splitting them open, blood spirted forth and the beams of colour screamed in agony...

Jason opened his eyes, his vision focusing and re-focusing on the stone ceiling if the cave he found himself in. His back no longer hurt, that was good, but it felt like a heavy piece of dead flesh was latched on to him, one that lacked nerves, like it was a giant callous.

Suddenly the grey of the ceiling was replaced by more lovely colours, all the colours of the rainbow flashed in front of him along with a light sky blue and a lovely magenta eyes.

"Good morning Rainbow Dash" Jason said, attempting to raise his head off the ground, his effort was proven futile though when the rainbow pony wrapped her hooves around his neck and squeezed him hard, pushing Jason's head back down.

"You're okay..." Dash nearly sobbed into his shoulder, despite the situation, Jason couldn't help but grin a little bit.

"Of course I am." He said, patting her signature mane, said mane was as rough as ever but was also matted together with dirt and sweat, the mares fur seemed to be in a similar state, Jason's grin disappeared and was replaced by a look of concern.

The Human untangled the Equine from himself and held her away from him at half arms length.

"The question is... Are you alright?" Jason asked, searching the Pegasi's face.

"Yes, I'm fine." Lies, but Jason decided not to press the matter. The two lapsed into silence for a moment, semi-awkwardly staring at each other, it became more awkward when they realized that Rainbow Dash was lying on top of Jason.

Quick as a flash and with a touch of red to her cheeks, the rainbow pony bolted off of Jason and sat next to him instead, Jason sat up slowly, trying to avoid the violent thumping in the head that he had experienced the previous day (It had been a day right?) and while he succeeded in doing so, the apparent heavy-feeling of his head told the Human that if he exerted himself too much the thumps would return.

Dash cleared her throat "So, do you have any idea where we are?" Jason shrugged.

"Sort of, one of the dogs called it 'Lupa Mine' so I'm guessing this is a slave mining operation." At his words Rainbow lowered her ears and a look of helplessness took over her eyes.

"Hey." The Human said, lifting Dash's chin up with his hand "We're going to be fine okay? Our friends are looking for us right now and they will find us." Jason felt a splinter of doubt at those last words, the slave's voice from earlier still echoed in his head.

'Better to accept the unchangeable reality, than to give yourself a false hope of a better one.'

Jason mentally shook off the brain ghosts as Rainbow was speaking again.

"Yeah I know, it's just... How does something like this not get noticed? How are these guys just allowed to enslave Ponies? I mean there was at least a hundred Ponies in the shaft they put me in! And there could be more! How does the Princesses not know?"

"You'd be surprised what can go under the nose of authority, they must have been at this for years, slowly accumulating slaves generation after generation, taking Ponies from separate towns or those who are caught travelling alone."

"Still.. You would think that somepony would notice something suspicious, I mean these are Diamond Dogs we're talking about here, they ain't criminal masterminds."

"Maybe they're smarter than we give them credit for?" Jason said with a shrug. The two captives lapsed into silence, but a less awkward one, eventually Rainbow Dash shifted closer to Jason and they leaned on one another, lending comfort and support without words being spoken.

It wasn't long before the sound of padded feet on stone and the jingling of keys could be heard, the captives looked up at the cage door and saw the silhouette of three dogs at the door, it swung open at the scarred canine leader and his lackey's from before stepped in.

"Come on Pony-friends." He rasped "It's time for speech-making."

                                                              ~~*~~

Jason and Rainbow Dash were filed out of their cell and into the tunnel, there they joined the long line of of slaves being directed down the shaft to gods-know-where. Ahead of them, Jason spotted the nameless slave from earlier I little ways in front of him, the Dogs growled and barked at them, shoving random Ponies around and cracking their whips threateningly, they were shepherded down the tunnel and eventually into a large chamber.

The chamber was lite with torches that lined the walls, around several more tunnels could be seen some of which were spewing out slaves just like the one Jason and Rainbow Dash had come from. On the far side of the chamber a natural stone rise could be seen, like a watchtower or stage, Jason could see the Dog leader take his position up there, looking down at his slave labour. Next to him, stuck into the ground was a large, siege-style, heavy-ballistae, the weapon was fully loaded and ready to fire, it was manned by three Diamond Dogs who swung it's sights across the crowd of slaves, threatening them with the fear of being shot.

The chamber quickly filled with the unwilling labourers of Lupa Mine, still keeping to their individual lines, Jason felt a tap on his leg and looked down to see Rainbow Dash pointing to something on the far left side of the chamber with a look of discuss, anger, and horror, and the Human adopted this look when he saw the atrocity.

Children, fillies, colts of all stages of adolescence being marched into the chamber with the rest of the slaves, like the rest of them they looked hurt, downtrodden, and malnourished. Jason felt the searing sensation of hot anger boiling in his chest and head, but it when cold in fear when his eyes scanned the crowd of children and spotted a certain trio of fillies.

"Is that..." He began.

"It's the CMC.." Rainbow Dash confirmed "Scootaloo..." The fillies hadn't noticed them yet and there was no way to reach them through the crowd or the guards, Jason turned his gaze to the canine on the stone stage, who looked down upon them as if superior to those who he forced into his service, the Dogs eyes found Jason's and they shared a little moment of anger, rage, and contentment before it was interrupted by a rather odd sound.

Said sound gave the impression that it came from a gigantic bat of some sort, it shouldn't have been a hug surprise to Jason when that's exactly what flew into the chamber.

It was long, grey, and skeletal. It's skin was stretched tight over its wings and body and it's eyes were a blood red, the monster of a bat screeched again and flew over to the stone stage, landing next to the Dog leader, who proceeded to scratch the monstrosity behind one of its long ears.

"A-a Dire Bat?" Rainbow Dash spluttered "Fluttershy said those where extremely rare, almost extinct and could only be found in the Badlands outside of Equestria..." Jason studied the bat for another moment or two before it seemed the leader of the 101 Dalmatians was about to speak.

"Hello Pony-Friends! It's good to see that not much of you Slave-Ponies have died recently! Our last death was some stallion who got a whipping one too many times, but it's been a month since incident!" The Doggy cackled a bit "But enough of that, it is time for Work-Stuff! Group 1 is in Shaft 62 now, Group 2 is for Shaft 46, Group 3 is in Shaft 33, and finally Group 4m the Pony-Kid group is in the Sorting-Place, have fun, work hard, and obey Dog-Masters!" And with that the canine guards corralled the enslaved sheep-substitutes into their respective shafts, Jason's group headed down a tunnel marked with a sodden sign that had a messy '46' painted on it, the slaves shuffled down the tunnel and came to a smaller chamber similar to the one Jason had woken up in originally.

One of the guards addressed them "Get to work Slave-Things, grab a pick and start swinging." The Ponies and one Human grabbed picks and made there way into the shaft, Jason signalled Rainbow Dash to keep close to him as he followed close behind a familiar slave.

They entered the shaft and without another word the slaves began hitting away at the stone wall, Jason told Rainbow to do the same and she grumpily complied. Jason shifted closer to the Slave and swung his pick at the wall, but keeping his attention on the Slave.

"Hey..." He began "I'm sorry about earlier." The Slave grunted in response and Jason continued.

"It's just that.. I didn't know how this place worked or anything really, plus I had just been kidnapped so I wasn't in the best of moods." The Slave spike this time.

"Well now you know, so you best shut your trap and work like your suppose to."

"Well the thing is... I don't actually know all that much, and that might get me into trouble later on, mind if I ask a few questions?.... Just to prevent a situation like that again." The Slave didn't answer immediately, he swung his pick two more times before sighing.

"I suppose that's fine..." He said, Jason grinned.

"Good, now..." He said "First question; what can you get in trouble for?"

"That's pretty obvious, you know laziness, but there's also, resisting, speaking without being spoken to, not meeting the quota, looking at the guards funny, brawling, and finally insulting the guards." Jason committed all of these to memory and moved on to his next question, still swinging his pick.

"Alright, second question; what's with that bat thing that flew in earlier?"

"What about it? It's the Slave Masters pet, he let's the thing fly around and occasionally grab

one of the slaves for food, other than that it don't do much but I know the Dogs love threatening us with the thing, if you try to go somewhere you can't that bat will be on you faster than a Dog on a dead slave."

"....Okay then, tell me about the 'Slave Master' what's with him?"

"The Master? Well we don't see him much, only in speeches like before and when he wants to vent some anger on us."

"Interesting, but what about-"

"Hey you! Pony-Friend Thing!"  Jason turned to see a guard pointing at him and pushing through the slightly crowded tunnel and grabbed the Human by his upper arm.

"Dog-Leader wants to see you." He grunted from under his helmet "Drop pick, come with Diamond Dog" the canine tugged at Jason's arm, his immediate reaction was to whack that dog in the face but he managed to calm himself.

"Of course." The Human said neutrally, dropping his pick and half hoping that it would land on the guards foot... Paw... Thing, but it didn't and the Dog guided him along by his wrist, Jason managed to lock eyes with Rainbow Dash before turning a corner, giving a weak wave of comfort before she was lost from sight.

The Dog guided Jason down the tunnel, eventually coming to a rise in the ground that told Jason they were headed closer to the surface. He came to the top of the incline and they immediately took a left, turning into a short tunnel that lead to a cell-looking room that was well lit by torches.

The Guard opened the door and threw Jason inside, the Human stumbling inside and the canine closing the door behind them and glaring down at him, Jason barely had time to look up and see the scarred grinning face of his old friend Snippy the Extremely Demented Dog before he barked.

"Grab him!" Like a good pet the guard grabbed Jason and hauled him to a kneeling position on front of the Slave Master.

"Your going to feel how much pain you gave Slave Master, Pony-Friend-Thing." He said sinisterly "We're going to break you we are, you will be my slave like all the other Pony-Friends." The Dog threw a punch into Jason's stomach, knocking the air out of him and making him gasp for breath. The canine followed up with a blow to the temple which sent the Humans head pumping and his vision swimming, the world dissolved into a flurry of blows that not only inflicted damage but reopened wounds, his back began burning again and his head was being boiled, his vision flashed with every hit and slowly the Human was being consumed by the blackness of unconsciousness.

As he was consumed yet again by the Void, a voice rang out calling his name. It was one he thought he never hear again and almost cried at the sound.

"Mom.." Jason slurred, before he once again was consumed by the darkness.