Dark Light

“WAKE UP COLT!”

The familiar voice and banging on the door no longer startled the Young unicorn, with a jet black mane and a brilliant grey coat in the small, inescapable room in which he slept and lived. The roomed contained naught but a small stack of hay with a makeshift blanket and a pillow that felt like it was made of concrete. The unicorn got up and walked to a small box on the floor about the size of a cider barrel. In this box was a small set of personal belongings and a few pieces of linen for the ‘bed’.

“GET UP YOU SON OF A WHORSE! YOU’VE GOT WORK TO DO!”

The stallion behind the door was getting impatient, but, then again, he did this every morning, always with a different insult. The anger from the pony behind the door led to the young unicorn colt getting a hoof in his cheek every day, and even though this had happened for years and despite the great strength of the unicorn who received it, the pain was still there, setting his face ablaze. He found that he could get used to the pain, but he could not ignore it. The colt opened the door and braced for impact. Sure enough, his face was in pain as the stallion swung his hoof at it and nearly knocked the small foal over.

The pony behind the hoof had a coat that was a musky shade of purple, and a mane that was rough and uncared for in its grey tinged navy blue colour. “Why the buck I keep you around I’ll never know,” the abusive earth pony said.

“What am I doing today Mr Hard Boss, sir?” the young colt said, hoping to avoid any further abuse.

“You are on clean up duty today. You better do a good job, you don’t want to repeat what happened yesterday, now do you?” the stallion said, looking at the foal sternly, anticipating a response. “DO YOU?” this time he was almost shouting. The colt look up stone faced, so as to hide his emotions. Emotions are the same as weakness, he thought to himself.

“No,”

“No, what?”

“No, Sir,”

“Good. Now, GET TO WORK!” the stallion shouted. The colt immediately obeyed, galloping to his start point for the day.  At his point there was a broom, a mop, a bucket, and a couple of gallons of water. The colt carefully swept the entirety of the area he was told to, later mopping up the blood, vomit and dirt of the floor, nearly vomiting himself. The job was over within a few hours and the colt reported to Boss, who, after inspecting the worried unicorn’s work, smiled and gave the colt a ‘well done’ and rather aggressively ruffled his jet black mane. This was always a good sign. The colt would eat today. Clean up duty was not the unicorn’s strongest point. He was much better at any task that demanded some form of physical exertion. His strength was the one thing he was proud of. The years of forced labour had built it up and usually his duty involved heavy lifting, but he dropped a glass sculpture yesterday so clean up was his punishment, along with the ten minutes of beating.

He felt sorry for the other, what were they called, orphans, they must have not worked as hard. The better Hard Boss thinks you work, the more you get to eat. That was the deal: No work, no food. Four years earlier the colt tried to share his food with a filly who was on weaving duty called Sweet Leaf, as she had only got a spoonful of rice for her meal, but he only ended up getting hit, and Sweet Leaf wasn’t given any food at all for the next few days, which were, needless to say, her last.

This had left the young colt in tears. He hated the establishment. He hated Hard Boss. Above all else though, He hated himself. He blamed himself for what happened to sweet leaf, and he tried to starve himself as punishment, but the he realised that if he died, all memory of sweet leaf would die with him. So he stopped and worked harder than before. The rule was that if you work hard enough, you can earn your freedom, The young colt was trying to obtain such a task, so he could expose the harsh ‘orphanage’ for what it really was. He wanted to tell people about sweet leaf, how she had been rejected and left to die by the people who swore to uphold the law of Equestria, but where in the law did it say that neglecting and killing foals was permitted. Something had to happen, and this young colt, knew what to do.

*************

The grey unicorn colt started to pass word of his plans. Lots of the foals were sceptical, they were young, still only blank flanks and yet he wanted to take over a factory? The colt knew this, but he also knew that he wouldn’t take over the factory.

He would destroy it.

The pain he had felt here was too much, the constant beating, the blood spilt by the machinery and the heartless overseers who showed no remorse. And the death of sweet leaf, that wasn’t the last straw on the camel’s back, that was the ten ton weight that ended it all. He wasn’t doing it for himself, or for the other orphan workers, he was doing it for sweet leaf.

He told everyone what would happen and they reluctantly agreed, and the plan was laid out. Everypony got into their positions, and the young colt, anxious to take over the factory stood in the centre, so as to make it so he could coordinate the attack. As soon as they had got into position, Hard Boss and his cronies entered the room.

“WHAT THE BUCK IS GOING ON HERE? GET BACK TO WORK!” Boss shouted.

The young colt took over.

“Let me tell you about a young filly, barely over the age of eight. Her name was Sweet Leaf. She was a young beautiful filly, had a chance at living the big life, she could have made a difference to Equestria, give it something it didn’t have, but now…” the young colt said, his voice starting to show his affection towards this young filly.  He couldn’t sugar coat it. He had to make it harsh. “…NOW SHE IS DEAD, IN A PIT IN THE DIRT! NEGLECTED AND MISTREATED, SHE STARVED!” The colt showed his anger, and Boss’s facial expression was palpable. “I have dealt with this treatment for long enough. Now it ends.” The colts and fillies around him seemed to be incredibly motivated by this speech, so he started it with one final sentence. “I AM DARK LIGHT AND THIS FACTORY WILL FALL UNDER MY GUIDENCE!” A massive roar came from every foal in the room, and so Dark light gave the signal and the attack began.

Even though he wanted them dead, he gave instructions to capture the overseers. He wasn’t like them. He was merciful, and killing them would only make him sink to their level. He would force them to stand trial. The only problem with the revolution was that none of the foals knew what to expect from the outside world, but, despite this, they were confident that they would find the outside world to be better than the factory. As they exited the factory with some of them carrying the overseers with other ponies so that they could be punished lawfully, the first sight that most of them had was of an angry white alicorn with a flowing translucent rainbow main and tail.

“What in Equestria is going on here?”

Dark light told her everything about the factory, about the revolution, and failed at holding back tears when he spoke of sweet leaf, and how she died due to the neglect that the overseers had given her. He spoke of how none of them had been outside the factory for years and how they had been forced in to labour and worked none stop. He then spoke of the overseers, how they had hit and beaten them and how they killed a filly because somepony tried to give her food, that pony being Dark Light, and as he spoke more and more about what had happened in the past few hours, including how some fillies and colts lost their lives or were badly wounded in the revolution, he noticed tears rolling down the alicorn’s face.

“Where are the overseers?”

The foals that were helping carry the overseers brought them forward, presenting Hard Boss as the leader. “You have committed crimes beyond any other pony in history, you are hereby under arrest and by royal decree you are to be taken to Canterlot prison, and await your trial and punishment. You are likely to all be executed for yo-,”

“Wait!” the interruption startled the alicorn. “They may have done awful things to us, but killing them won’t change that,” the alicorn looked puzzled and gave the grey colt a questioning glance. “They deserve a massive punishment, but don’t spill more blood than what has already been spilled,” The alicorn looked as though she understood.

“As you wish. Then they will not be executed. You surprise me young unicorn, I never expected one so young to understand the concept of mercy. Oh, and you may want to check your flank next time you get the chance,”