Fateless

Applebloom woke up.

The blankets of her bed were not around her, and she could feel the cold nipping through her fur.

It was dark even though she knew she had her eyes open she could not see, there was something over her head, she tried to bring a hoof up to pull it off but both her hooves had been tied together. Raising both up to her head she yanked at the bag but it was tied securely around her neck.

She heard hoofsteps and the rattling of cart wheels, there was a noise of wind flapping through some sort of fabric, she felt the gentle bobbing of a cart over the land as it moved she assumed down a road somewhere. But where were they going, what was she doing in this cart, her mind felt slow and foggy, she could feel the memories but they were eluding her for now.

She squirmed around trying to loosen the ropes that bound her hooves and found herself bumping into another object. She pressed against it with her hooves and found it to be another pony.

Applebloom recoiled from the contact, the pony on the other hand, from what she could hear, didn’t move at all. She felt around again and found another, and another pony all similarly tied up and bagged. She scooted back to where she thought she had started out and tried to remember, and then it all came back to her.

She cried.

“Are… are you ok?” a soft feminine voice spoke off to her right and Applebloom turned her head in the direction.

She remained silent, listening for a while to the wind and hoofsteps of the ponies pulling the cart, had she been hearing things?

“Is… is anyone else awake?” the soft voice spoke again.

“Hello? whos there?” Applebloom responded hesitantly.

“My… my names Boomer,” Boomer replied.

“your not…. One of them are you?” Applebloom asked a sudden hostile tone taking hold of her voice.

“Oh… no no, I was wondering the same about you when you woke up but then well… um then you started crying.”

“Oh…. My names Applebloom” she said slightly embarassed that Boomer had heard her.

A long silence followed the two mares having nothing to talk about, being tied up and having a bag over your head really wasn’t a situation which small talk was common in. Applebloom was the first to break the silence.

“where are you? Maybe we can help eachother get free.”

“Im… I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, someone was struggling earlier and they came back and knocked him out.”

As if on que the cart stopped and Applebloom heard hoofsteps and armor clinking as somepony moved towards the back of the cart. She heard a flap being opened and the noise of the wind increased, so they were in a covered wagon she rationalized.

A voice from the front, and outside the wagon, called over the wind towards the pony now looking in the back,“What are ya  doin Lance, we still got one more to get before we head to Sol.”

A voice from where Applebloom had heard the flap open responded gruffly “I thought I heard one of these buggers waking up “ Applebloom could almost feel his gaze pass over her as she lay as still as possible. “we don’t want any of them causing trouble before we arrive now do we?”

The voice from in front yelled back, “well make it quick man im freezing my tail off. God damn fucking mountains who the hell would live all the way up here.”

“yeah yeah keep your pants on Gate” Lance said, Applebloom heard the flap close and let out her breath.

Suddenly the flap burst open and she heard lance yell, “RAHHHHHHH!”

Applebloom tensed up but did not cry out in surprise, Boomer on the other hand, at least she assumed it was Boomer, let out a squeak.

“Gotcha” She heard a loud thud and felt a vibration through the wall of the cart on her side.

She heard the flap close and heard Lances footsteps return to the front of the cart. After a few moments the cart began to move again and the noise of icy wind blowing through the flaps was once again the only noise she could hear.

A voice drifted from the front of the cart it was Lance “So who the hell are we looking for up here?”

“A pegasus grey coat black and white hair, shouldn’t be to hard to spot with all this fucking snow.”

“Are you sure we already have eight in the back, and my legs are killing me, I don’t think I have ever seen this many appearing before.”

“The commander seemed pretty pleased with the news.”

“More fodder for the – wait you see that?”

There cart stopped and she heard the two ponies unhitch themselves from the cart.

“Is that him?” she heard Lance inquire.

“Who the fuck else would be up here”

“well lets get him!”

“Wait… we don’t want him to run, neither of us have wings and I don’t want to return to the commander without one.”

“Well whats the plan then.”

Applebloom heard the hoofsteps in snow as the to ponies moved away from the cart their voices becoming indistinguishable from the flapping of the cloth cover. They were going to get another one, someone else was about to end up in this cart. She made up her mind and opened her mouth.

“RUN!!” She screamed at the top of her lungs “RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!”

“FUCK!” she heard Gate yell.

“Hes taking off! After him!”

Applebloom heard the sound of armor clanking as the two ponies set off across the snow. Once again the only noise Applebloom could hear was the cloth in the wind. Minutes passed, she wondered if the pegasus had taken her warning or merely taken off out of curiosity, she hoped that he had run.

The clanking of armor returned to her ears as the two ponies approached the cart again.

“Damnit, I thought you had taken care of them Lance!”

“I did! I slammed her head into the wall and she was out like a light it has to be another one!”

Applebloom heard their armor walk by the cart and around to the back, She heard the wind grow louder as the flap was opened.

“Alright which one of you fucks yelled!” Lance screamed into the back.

Applebloom lay their silently, praying that they did not investigate any further. She felt the cart shift as one of the ponies got into the cart and she heard another thud and felt the cart shake again.

“Hey! Hey! What the fuck do you think your doing?” she heard Gate yell.

“Double checking” another thud.

“Lance stop if they arrive brain dead it will be both our asses in the hole” another thud this time closer to Applebloom.

“Do you think I fucking care, we lost one! Were going to get hole time anyway.” A loud thud sounded right next to her right ear.

“Lance seriously man lets not make it any worse than it has to be!”

Applebloom felt two hooves around her head and closed her eyes. suddenly the bag was ripped of her head, she resisted the urge to open her eyes. She could feel Lance’s hot breath on her face, it smelled awful.

“Fine,” His voice was even more loud and gruff without the bag on her head, his hooves released her head and she fell back down onto the floor of the cart “but if I hear a single damn noise from back there im going to crack all their skulls.”

“Fine, fine now can we please the the hell out of these mountains?”

The cart shook as Lance made his way to the back and exited, the flap closed again and the sound of armor moving was once again heard passing by the side of the cart. She heard them hitch themselves in and the cart began to move again.

Applebloom opened her eyes, Lance had forgotten to put the bag back onto her head and she finally got a look at her surroundings, She was in a covered cart as she suspected with multiple other ponies strewn around.

There were seven other including herself, only four others had their bags removed also, Two of them were unicorns, one female with long soft yellow hair and a light blue coat, the other was a stallion with a dark blue coat and his mane was a lighter blue color. The other two bagless ponies were earth ponies, one of them, a mare, had a dark brown mane and a orange coat that reminder her of her sister, it sent a fresh wave of greif through her.

Then she saw it, the orange mares cutie mark, it couldn’t be. There on the mares flank were three black circles all connected by thin black lines, Applebloom looked to the other ponies in the cart and saw the mark repeated on their flanks too.

Questions filled her mind, this was impossible cutie marks were supposed to be different, she had never heard of a pony having a identical cutie mark. What did these marks even mean?

One of the bagged ponies across from her stirred slightly and let out a moan, it was a yellow pony with a bright green tail. Applebloom froze, listening for the two guard ponies. The cart continued moving however, the two ponies pulling were wrapped up talking about who hated the cold more

Applebloom scooted closer to the pony.

“Are you awake?” she whispered.

The pony in question, stirred sleightly again, letting out another quiet moan. Applebloom reached over and gave the pony a small shake. The bagged pony suddenly sat up straigter and let out a gasp.

Applebloom quickly threw her front hooves on the bag where she hoped the ponies mouth was. Hearing a muffled exlamation she was pleased to find she had guessed right.

“I’m going to let go, and you have to be quiet,” she said the next words a little louder making sure the pony could hear her. “otherwise they are going to come back here and there will be trouble for both of us.”

All she received from the bagged pony was silence. Taking a deep breath she closed her eyes and removed her hooves from the ponies mouth placing her tied limbs back on the floor. Silence. The pony was sitting absolutly still as if waiting for her to make the first move.

“My names Appleboom,” She whispered.

The pony merely sat perfectly still, giving no inclination as to weather or not they had heard her. She waited a few moments, remembering how distraught she had been when she awoke.

“Whats your name?” She asked after wating a minute.

“None of ya business,” Came the blunt reply, he sounded like one of the many ponies she had met when going into Manehatten with her sister. “Ya gonna take this bag off my head?”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Applebloom said. She was amazed with how calm this pony was.

“Where the hell am I?”

“I don’t know”

“Where are we going?”

“I.. I don’t know”

“Great I’ve been kidnaped with Captain Oblivious.”

Applebloom almost wanted to knock him out again herself.

“How long have we been moving?”

“I’m sorry I really don’t know, I only woke up myself a few minutes ago.”

“Damn…”

Silence once again fell over the cart. Applebloom was once again the pony to break it.

“Just out of curiousity, why do you want to know?”

“Isn’t it obvious? So when I escape from these bastards I have a general idea how far I have to go untill Manehatten.”

So she was once again proved correct in her assumptions, the stallion was infact from Manehatten. She looked around at all the other ponies, she didn’t recognize any of the bagless ones from Ponyville. So where did they come from? How long had they been travelling to this Sol place that Gate had mentioned.

“Hey, Applebloom I got a plan,” the stallion said. “you get the guys pulling the cart to come back here and ill surprise them, they’ll never see it coming!” the stallion let out a soft chuckle.

Applebloom stared at the bagged head of the pony. “Seriously?” she said quietly.

“yeah, seriously im a tough guy, these dudes are just some hired thugs from a rival gang probably trying to ransom me off for some money to my friends.”

“Seriously??” was all Applebloom could say.

“hey if you don’t do it I will,” the stallion took in a deep breath.

Applebloom lunged across the cart and jammed her hooves back where she had last time. A muffled yelling was all that came out from behind her hoof. The cart slowed for a second, but continued moving .

Applebloom was furious “did you not hear what I said earlier! They were smashing heads back here before you woke up, do you WANT your brain turned to scrambled eggs?” she hissed at him.

Suddenly the flap opened and one of the ponies looked in, he was a skinny pony, underneath the armor she could see a black coat and violet eyes, the helmet hid his man. He stared at Applebloom who had her hoof firmly jammed into the center of one of the bagged ponies faces. A slow grin formed on his face.

“hey Lance stop the cart,” The pony she now determined was Gate “you were right we got two back here, why don’t you come and do your thing?”

Gate retreated from the flap the cart stopped and where gate had popped through another stallion appeared. Lance was the exact opposite of Gate, he was almost as large as Big Mac, his tan body clamering through the flap followed by his dark brown shaggy tail. He grined, his crooked teeth showing underneath wild dark blue eyes.

“well well, you must be the screamer,” he put a hoof on either side of her head and smiled his crooked smile again, and brought his face close to hers. “you’re not going to enjoy this… but I will”

Applebloom felt her head jerk to the side with alarming speed, her body was lifted off the floor and she made contact with the side of the cart. She slid down the side and Lance stepped over a pony and stood above her.

“You shoulda just stayed asleep.”

He raised his hoof up over her head, she closed her eyes, she felt it slam into the side of her head and once again she felt the blackness take a hold of her mind.

“Sweed Celestia… what the hell did you do to them?” a voice rang out, Applebloom was slowly drifting back to reality, as if someone was yanking her out from unconciousness. “this one was almost impossible to wake up.”

She heard Lances voice, “I dunno sometimes I don’t know the extent of my own strength.”

Applebloom cracked open her eyes, she was lying on her side in the mud. She was against a wall in what appeared to be a massive courtyard, tall black stone walls about twenty feet high enclosed it. There was a large closed gate on the opposite side and doors dotted the side walls. She looked up and around outside the walls she could see similar black stone towers rising above the walls behind them a large rectengular keep rose. They must be in a fortress of some kind.

The courtyard was barren, except for three ponies, Lance, and a purple unicorn were standing infront of her. Behind them near the center of the courtyard was a massive being, she had to close her eyes and open them again to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. A massive brown stallion with electric blue hair stood next to a bonfire, his legs and front hoves were covered in long scars, he was removing what looked like small pieces of metal from large black bags. Then throwing what he didn’t take out into a large bonfire that was next to him. She stared at him, suddenly the giant looked up and made eye contact with her, she looked away quickly.

She turned her attention to the purple unicorn and Lance. The unicorns horn was glowing, and Applebloom felt thought process speeding up and the pain in her head slowly subsided. She studied the unicorn taking note that her cutie mark was also three black circles with lines connecting them. She looked down the wall to her left, the rest of the ponies from the cart were all there. They had been lined up along the wall their back right legs chained to it, she felt a shackle around her own back leg.

“there you go,” the purple unicorn said, she turned back to Lance who was standing behind her glaring down at Applebloom. “that’s the last of them go tell the lieutenant that they’re awake.”

Lance mumbled something about rank, but turned and headed to one of the doors on the side wall still grumbling.

“listen up ponies,” the purple unicorn said, when Lance had walked through the door, adressing the group, “the Lieutenant is going to come in and explain whats going to happen, you are all to listen and not, I repeat NOT talk back. I might know a thing or two about medicine but I cant anything to serious, so its best to keep him in a good mood.”

“Where the fuck are we!” the same pony applebloom had talked to last on the cart blurted out, after seeing Lance leave he had resumed his tough persona.

The unicorn walke up to him and looked him in the eyes very seriously. “I know your type, and im warning you, for your own good you’ll shut the hell up and wait for the lieutenant to get here.”

The yellow pony looked her in the eyes not flinching at all, but he didn’t open his mouth to retort.

“that’s better now you’ll all sit here and wait for the lieutenant,” she eyed the yellow stallion one more time. “quietly.”

With that the purple unicorn turned and walked towards one of  the door on the side wall, she turned and looked back giving the yellow stallion another hard look before heading through the door. The ponies were alone in the courtyard with, the giant pony who was still standing next to the fire, he had stopped going through the bags and was watching them with light red eyes.

Applebloom took the time to look around the courtyard again this time taking time to notice more than the general things. Off on the right wall she could see training dummies lined up. There were arrows sticking out of them along with plenty of burn marks on them.

Closer down the wall near where they were lined up there was a large square pit of sand. it looked as though it had recently been raked because the sand was perfectly flat with little lines going through it.

On the left wall was a large rack with training weapons, they must be in some sort of training ground area.

She brought her eyes back to the center where the monsterous pony was still standing looking at them. He was easily one and a half times the size of her brother, she only assumed this beause he was halfway across the courtyard but looked as larg as any of the ponies standing next to her. She looked up into the stallions face and quickly looked away when their eyes locked again.

One of the doors on the left wall suddenly burst open and a white unicorn stallion came trotting through, his armor was the same black as the guards that she had seen last night and, the ones that pulled her cart, it covered his cutie mark. The trimming on his armor was a dark green not the red from the guard ponies, or the gold color from the pony she had met when she was taken. She shuddered at the memory.

The white pony walked towards them and cleared his throat, his voice was smooth, there was a air of superiority that was carried with it.

“This-“ he waved a hoof around to the walls and towers “is Sol. None of you have probably ever heard of it, and for good reason too.” He paused and walked down the line of ponies in front of him.

“My name is Lieutenant Check and I am in charge here at Sol, I serve under Commander Steel Gaze, many of you may have met him when you were… acquired. Sol has been here since the dawn of ponies, it was the first settlement that Celestia established, it was also the first to be forgotten. Under her rule we lived a harsh and strained existance, she knew our kind would not last long in this land. So she sought out a new safe haven for our kind. In order to do this though many creatures had to be displaced, many races removed from their homes. Our fearless leader Celestia cast them out into the Reach.” He pointed his hoof over towards the gate.

He paused and looked at the ponies in front of him. He looked each one of them over before turning around facing towards the fire.

“Can any of you tell me WHY you are here?”

The ponies against the wall looked back and forth between each other, Applebloom continued to look at the back of the white pony’s head. When the silence had stretched on for more then ten seconds Check turned and faced the ponies again.

“You can speak, this isnt a prison you know,” He let out a harsh laugh.

“Because you’re an asshole and abducted us,” the yellow pony from the cart spoke up.

The lieutenant’s face went stone hard at hearing these words and he walked infront of the yellow stallion. He looked at him for a few moments before smiling.

“It’s nice to see we have a jokester! You remind me of someone…” he put a hoof to his chin and stood thinking for a moment before he smiled again “ah! Yes that’s it! One moment.”

The lieutenant turned and walked towards the middle of the courtyard and stopped next to the giant pony and the black bags. The lieutenant barked something to the giant pony and the giant moved over to the bags. Taking one down off the pile and placing it in front of Check.

The lieutenant opened it and rummaged through it for a few seconds seeming to struggle with something inside it. Finally managing to get it free he lifted it in his magic and began to walk back over. From what Applebloom could tell it was just a dented old piece of metal.

The lieutenant closed the distance between them and dropped the metal in front of the yellow stallion and Applebloom got a good look at it. It was a Helmet, but it was like no helmet she had seen before, it had three blades on it one that crested over the head and two on the side, one of the side blades was bent at a strange angle and the helmet had some dents and even a few holes in it. Appleboom could see what she only guessed was blood on the helmet around the holes.

The yellow stallion looked at the helmet “The fuck is this?”

The lieutenant laughed again, “why this belonged to who you remind me so fondly of, as you can see” he gestured back towards the black bags “he wont be needing it anymore, as he will soon be becoming a pile of ash. So I thought I would give it to you! Seeing as new armor is hard to come by.”

The yellow pony’s eyes widened as he look down at the battered helmet in the mud before him. “your fucking joki-“ he never got to finish his sentence as the helmet was lifted by the lieutenants magic and the back of it rammed against the side of his head.

The lieutenants voice took on a new angry tone “Listen here, we already established you’re the jokester here. From now on I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth unless I ask for it, otherwise a more dangerous part of this helmet might become close friends with your face.”

The yellow stallion still rubbing his face shrank back a few inches, nodding his head furiously.

“Good…” the lieutenant closed his eyes and recomposed himself, he opened his eyes and smiled. “Now to answer my own question, you are here because you fit no where else. You see when Celestia moved us to her new utopia we still fought amongst eachother, we squabbled over jobs and titles, ponies became upset because they just didn’t know what to do with their lives, so our glorious leader gave us cutie marks.”

The lieutenant’s horn lit up again, the yellow stallion shrunk back again. However this time the magic surrounded his armor and it was lifted off him momentarily, revealing his cutie mark to be a sun much like Celestias with a Sword in front of it. He placed the armor back on himself and continued talking.

“You ponies however…. Do not fit, you are sad miserable creatures that could not find your fate, so… fate had forced itself upon you. If you cannot join the glorious society that Celestia has created for us, you will sacrifice your life to serve and defend it. You are here to become one of the Fateless, a pony that could not find a place. You might as well accept this news because you cannot change it, fate has spoken.”

The lieutenant walked back down the line towards Appleblooms end before stopping to continue his speech again.

“You will train, you will learn, and you will serve. If you step out of line you will be disciplined, depending on the infraction the punishments vary in severity, We will not hesitate to kill someone who tries to retaliate.” He paused a moment to let those words sink in. “in Six months time you will be grouped together into squads consiting of three earth ponies two pegasus and one unicorn, you will then be lead by a senior officer to your place of service where for the rest of your life you will defend our glorious Celestias land and the ponies that reside in it.”

With that last sentence guards emerged from the doors on top of the walls and took positions at the parapets.

The lieutenant turned and looked at the ponies standing against the walls, he lit up his horn and Applebloom felt the shackle around her leg release and fall to the ground.

“You will spend tonight in the courtyard,” He looked up at two of the guard ponies on top of the gate wall and nodded, suddenly the gate started to creak open. “The gate will be left open, if you do not feel you belong here, and you feel that fate itself is wrong… feel free to run” He paused. “However, if you do run, know that we will find you, and we will kill you.” He stared at the ponies with a cold gaze, before suddenly he smiled again walking over to one of the doors on the side wall he had come out of.

“Well with that I bid you goodnight, you might want to stay close to the fire” he gestured over to the large bonfire in the middle which the giant pony had resumed throwing the black body bags onto again. “it tends to get a little chilly at night.” And with that he walked through the door.

Applebloom looked over towards the fire, The giant pony had just thrown the last of the bags onto the fire and had turned around and was staring at the group of ponies. They all huddled closer together… this was going to be a long night.