PART I: BABS SEED – 1 ~ In Places We Wake
The Broken Boundary
A Story By Tramping Pony
Part 1
Babs Seed
1 ~ In Places We Wake
They called Manehattan a city where dreams come true. She had never understood that sentence, even though it had been her parents who had first told it to her when they had settled down here. In her memories their smiles lingered on, as if they were carved in stone and preserved for all eternity. Yet, that was everything she could associate with that. Maybe, when she had first stepped through the school gates, she may have believed in it to be true, but not today. Today, clouds obscured the sky and rain fell heavy upon her coat.
Of the two saddlebags she had carried with her this morning, only one remained. The filly held the straps with her teeth, feeling the edges of where Dust Silk had cut them. One day she’d fight back, Babs Seed promised herself, but today was not the time. Still, every step felt like it had more weight to it, and with every passing moment, every step forward, she thought more and more about how her parents would react. Would they call the school? Get Dust and the others banned from school grounds?
She hoped not. Dust had told her what she’d do to her if Babs told anypony. Sometimes, one just had to swallow their pride and endure, she figured. One day though, one day she would pay that damn pegasus back and make her cry. It was a vile thought, but her father often said that if somepony pushed her, she should just punch them in the face. Whether he had been serious or not had been up to debate in their household, but ultimately he was right. Babs had friends now at her back, so maybe they could take Dust on.
Apart from a few ponies, cowering beneath their umbrellas, and a few taxis, carrying all those who didn’t want to stand in the rain, the streets were desolate. All around her stood the buildings, their windows closed, their colorful walls bleak without the sun’s light shining on them. How a city with so many ponies could be so empty remained a mystery to her, but one she didn’t intend to solve now. In fact, she was a bit happy that nopony could see her miserable self walking on the pavement. Harboring dark thoughts like she did was hardly any good, but she knew she was close. Soon she would fight back.
The tiniest of smiles formed on her face as she realized that, though the thought of returning home dampened her spirits as much as the rain dampened her body. Maybe I should take a detour, she thought.
The filly stopped for a second, pondering what she could do, but the constant drumming of the rain made her only think of going to their hideout. It took but a mere second more and the filly decided that hurrying to that place would be best, and so she turned her sad little steps into her quickest gallop, running by the main road. Once every few meters she found a large puddle, and, drenched as she was, jumped right into it. She observed how large the splashes were, even though once a gentlecolt grabbed her out of the air mid-flight and lectured her about the importance of elegance befitting a lady.
A few jumps later she ended up splattering the water all over some other unicorn pony who was walking by. It was a skinny, young mare with eyes deader than those of a fish in a lake doused in chemicals for several years. As Babs Seed apologized she took note of the greasy and faded reddish-blonde mane and the coat that could be likened to decaying plaster on a drywall. What caught her attention the most however, was the pony’s dull reaction to both being splattered and the apology.
In the end, all she offered was a, “Hm …” and then some more mumbling as she walked on. Babs stared at her for a second longer, finding that the downtrodden pony looked like she was walking to her execution. She honestly hoped that wasn’t what was happening.
She quickly forgot about that event however as she moved along and after a few minutes, found the old bakery. It actually was an old diner, with broken windows and a missing door leading into its bowels. It was called the old bakery, because rumour had it that in this very place there once stood a bakery, and nopony remembered the actual name of the diner. To her, however, it was Hideout Number Two.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders had three hideouts total. Number One was an old wooden shack behind Babs’ own home, and Number Three had been Pomegranate’s secret. It was just something they had in case they couldn’t use the others. But even if the shack might break down one day, the old bakery remained a ruin in an ever-changing city. Babs honestly doubted that it would ever disappear.
Stepping into it, she found her feet on the dry floor. The ceiling lay crumbled upon the kitchen, and the front had been vandalized to the point where everypony thought it served as some kind of gang-hideout. The grafittis indicated as much, but whatever gang said to ‘tak bak Manehattan from da intrudaz!’ must’ve read that line after spraying it across the seats and decided to never go back here again. What sort of pony would proclaim a train wreck like that sentence their own?
Inhospitable as it was, this was the entrance to their hideout. Babs went past the grafittis and over the parts of the broken ceiling, careful not to step on any new shards of glass. Every time she put her hoof down she hoped that nothing lay there, and every time she walked this path she understood one thing more and more. Most branches of the Apple Family lived on the far frontiers, away from the cities. Having seen Ponyville once, she had to admit, in situations like this, she would’ve loved to stay there too.
But what remained behind the kitchen was all worth it. The diner possessed a stairway that led down to the cellar, the one part of the building that had withstood the test of time. Thing was, it was hidden right below roof tiles, metal beams and a few pipes. The only way to still access the stairs was by crawling through one of the latter. Of the crusaders, only Pomegranate fitted through perfectly, while both Liberty Belle and Babs herself often found themselves thinking that they could get stuck every time they crawled through that damn thing.
This time, too, Babs found herself crawling through this pipe, pushing the bag forward with her muzzle, and felt like it was closing in on her with every move. Rainwater had made it wet too, but Babs Seed had already expected that, and reached the stairs without much ado. What she hadn’t expected was to find a light beyond the gate to their hideout. Was one of her friends already here?
Babs took her luggage up again, moving downwards and towards the door. On the other side was the one place that had remained mostly untouched by whatever had befallen the rest of the old bakery. An office, complete with some chairs, a table, a variety of cabinets and the biggest, most comfortable armchair Babs had ever seated herself on. It was pure luck that nopony but them had found this place until now, and once they had gotten a lantern down here, they had immediately made it their home. Said lantern stood on the table, burning with a tiny light, keeping the dark all around at bay. A good thing too, since, despite her age, Babs was still really uneasy when it came to places without light.
She found a pony sitting across the room, by the table, on the armchair. Babs immediately took notice of who it was. This earth pony filly had a deep red mane and a pale brown coat. Her brown eyes remained on a sheet of paper before her, and she scribbled on it with a pen she kept in her mouth. Liberty Belle, self-designated number two of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, was a welcome sight on this rainy day.
“Hey,” Babs said, giving a smile. The other filly looked up.
“You didn’t get hit by lightning …” she said in an unamused tone, before breaking into a smile on her own. “Well, maybe next time.”
Babs rolled her eyes, “You can have the leadership without killing me, you know?”
“What? No, no, that would be too easy. Give me a bit of a challenge first.”
Babs moved across the room, the darkness remaining there, always in the corner of her eye, like it was waiting for something, watching. That she was still afraid of something like that was a bit embarrassing, but Babs got around it by trying to look brave and continued the conversation as if nothing else was going on.
“So, anything funny happen on your side?” She asked the other earth pony.
“Nope, just doing homework, and still no cutie mark. You sure we shouldn’t try robbing a bank? We could find out our special talents, and show everypony who’s the boss in town!” Liberty smashed her hoof on the table as she said that and her smile was a bit too enthusiastic for it to be a joke.
Still, Babs seated herself on one of the other chairs they had pulled to the table and threw the bag on it. “I don’t want a special talent as dark as that. We could try picking flowers,” she said, thinking of how she’d look with a floral wreath in her mane. That brought a better smile to her face.
“You know, with your appearance, I’m always surprised what a big softy you are,” Liberty said, twisting her mouth in distaste. “Remember when I joined you? I thought you’d be this really tough beat-em-all up kind of pony. Yet, here you are, apparently having your saddlebag wrecked by a pony one grade below you.”
Babs looked at the thing, the bad feeling returning. “I’m no good in a fight, and she knows that,” she said.
“And you’re clumsy, and run home crying every time something bad happens, and you can’t go to sleep with somepony holding your hoof, right?”
“No!” Babs shouted immediately.
“Maybe you’re tougher than you think then, maybe even as much as you look.”
With that, her fellow Cutie Mark Crusader turned her attention back to her paper, leaving Babs silent. A few months ago she had been sent to Ponyville by her parents, after the bullying had gotten out of hand far too much. She had spent most of her time within the four walls of her home, with nothing to do. She had tried to play the tough pony there, so she wouldn’t get hurt, but had learned a valuable lesson from it, hadn’t she? Her eyes went up to look at Liberty Belle.
They called Manehattan a city where dreams could come true. Maybe she could really fight back, maybe even starting tomorrow.
“Would you help me getting back at Dust?”
Liberty drew another line with her pencil, before she put it down and pushed the paper over to Babs Seed. She took one look at it, there in the light of a single lantern. It took her a moment before she even realized that it wasn’t actually homework, but rather a plan. She looked up to Liberty Belle, and the tiny earth pony with the red mane gave her a smile befitting a comic book villain.
“Liberty, did you expect me getting beat up again?”
“I joined the crusaders, so we’re friends. Anypony who messes with my friends will become a stepping stone for me finding my special talent,” she answered and for a moment Babs couldn’t do much else but wonder.
What kind of cutie mark is she expecting to get?
2 ~ Full Of Life
2 ~ Full Of Life
If Babs had to be honest, she hadn’t expected a scheme like this, even from a pony like Liberty Belle. The plan was more of a sketch, with badly drawn stick-figures substituting ponies and a mouth-writing that had to be every teacher’s bane. It was her luck that Liberty loved to sketch out everything she planned, so by this point, Babs knew exactly what was going on between the lines.
“You want us to actually kidnap a pony and threaten her into submission?” she asked deadpan, not really believing the words coming out of her mouth.
Weren’t they supposed to have fun crusading for their cutie marks? Wasn’t that the purpose of this group? Honestly, Babs had always thought Liberty an odd one, a bit on the evil side too, but there were jokes and then there was this. Just hitting Dust once would be enough, she thought.
“That’s why I’m calling you a softy. If you want a bully to stop, the best way is to scare them into not touching you again. And the best way to do that is to pretend we’re the mafia,” Liberty explained sagely, but Babs could only contort her face in disbelief.
“Your logic. It makes no sense,” she said, shaking her head slightly.
“Oh come on, we just need to get the armchair to that place where Miss Firefly makes her fireworks and that’ll be it for preparations. We blindfold your bully, carry her there, and then you sit in the chair, and we undo the blindfold and then you turn around in the chair, saying, “I’ve been expecting you,” and she’ll be like, “Ah, Babs Seed. My old nemesis. I did not expect to see you again,” and you can totally stroke a cat while sitting there.”
Liberty Belle nearly jumped out of the seat and on the table as she raved on about her plan. Flinging her arms about as she pretended to play both parts, clearly enjoying it far more than Babs Seed herself did.
“Belle,” she said, “we can’t get the chair out of here. Then, there’s this slight problem that I don’t want to deal with Firefly, because she. Is. Scary. Pomegranate’s parents even forbade her to go.”
A pout formed on Liberty Belle’s lips. “Well, the chair I can get, but really, does being a wuss run in your family’s blood? Are you telling me it’s destiny’s thread that ensures that generation after generation a bully is provided for every new foal?” She threw her arms into the air and smashed her hooves on the table again. “I’m only trying to help, you know, not– not–”
Tears appeared in her eyes and her lips quivered dramatically, as she looked at her friend the same way a starving puppy did when it was expecting food from its owner. Yet the only reaction she managed to provoke from Babs was her blowing the same strand of hair out of her eyes that always fell back.
“No,” she stated calmly. Liberty, once you got to know her, wasn’t all that adorable, and Babs was far too savvy to understand that this was just a ploy to get her to accept this ridiculous plan.
Her friend continued with her thing for a few more moments, but decided that she wouldn’t get a gratifying reaction from Babs and just retreated back into her armchair, crossing her arms and huffing, irritation blatant in her voice.
Babs Seed herself looked at the plan again. She didn’t really know what was worse, that they’d have to try to kidnap Dust or that they would have to go to Firefly’s shop for this. That pegasus was known all around the city for preparing the fireworks for every new year. The celebration of a year passing was a northern tradition, and considered almost as important as Hearth’s Warming Eve, so having a grandiose firework was really important. Firefly did the best ones in all of Equestria.
But she wasn’t a fun-loving, out-going mare, but a shut-in who despised pony’s visiting her shop over the year and did nothing all day but lounge around her house, rarely looking out at the window, silently cursing the world outside. Babs had heard the stories of why she remained hidden. Some said she roamed the streets at night, grabbing foals that hadn’t gone to sleep past their bed-time. Others spoke of her as a criminal who hid away so that the police wouldn’t find her. Even more said that she was a changeling, a vile creature lusting after pony’s lust and affection, feeding off it from her own place at home.
There were more explanations for why Firefly acted the way she did, but none of them sounded light. Babs had enough trouble in her life, so she made a point keeping any dangerous looking ponies out of it. She felt herself shaking just when she thought about meeting Firefly. Well, I won’t now.
That was just the bit of good news she needed to tell herself. There was no need getting worried about stuff that wouldn’t happen, but they still had to think of a way to put all this bullying to a halt. She lifted her head and her mouth formed a start for a word, which one she quickly forgot as she spotted the lantern burning silently on the table and the chair empty.
“Liberty?” She asked a bit annoyed, but no answer came. All that was here was complete silence.
Babs frown lowered, as she turned on her chair, looking around. All she could see was darkness, yet what she could spot wasn’t important. Instead, the filly perked her ears, hoping to make a sound out. There was a lot of stuff lying around the office, so if Liberty made so much as a move, Babs Seed would be sure to hear it. Why she had hidden away, Babs did not get, but–
As she turned on her chair she spotted something, moving in the corner of her eye, though she couldn’t make out what it was. A claw? A pony? She took notice of its movements but that wasn’t really what got to her. There was lots of noisy stuff lying all around; broken metal, cans, trash, anything, but something was moving and it did not make a sound. Quickly she finished turning around herself, making to spot it, but as she did all she found was the lantern on the table, flickering. In the distance it probably still rained but all that rabble and the remaining walls silenced the noise..
“Liberty?” Babs asked once more, a bit more careful, but making sure not to sound scared.
This time, the movement didn’t appear in the corner of her eye. It happened in the spot where light and shadow met, melted into one, where it was impossible to spot a thing like the one she saw. A claw extended from the shadows and into them, a black hand with twisted fingers that was no different from its surroundings, and yet its very existence seemed to scratch at the fabric of her sanity. Babs felt as if it was touching her forehead, slowly tipping against the skin, trying to dig deeper, down to her skull and through her brain, ending her life just a moment later.
But that moment never happened, before it another quick movement came from below the table, launching upwards and making a loud noise, like a hammer hitting the table, just before the shout came.
“Boo!”
With a scream, Babs fell backwards, and Liberty Belle broke down laughing.
As she was lying on her back, her breaths came like a machine gun and her heart raced while sweat ran down her forehead. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, the manic laughter of her friend filling the hall. Babs proceeded to wipe the sweat off and yelled, “Dammit, Liberty!”
Her voice shook more than she wanted it to and she felt her eyes growing wet. Babs managed to fight the tears back fairly quickly, since she was used to that already.
“Oh sweet Celestia, your face,” Liberty managed to say before she broke down in another fit. “You’re scared of everything, aren’t you?”
Babs took a moment to stand up, but none to answer, “Am not.”
“Oh, but I know you do, that’s why you still–”
Babs threw her arms up, “No. You’re not going to say it,” she warned Liberty.
“I won’t say it if you admit that you’re scared of everything.”
“I’m not scared of everything,” Babs intoned, now stomping her hoof on the ground.
“Really? Well, how about you prove it, scaredy baby.”
“Yeah, sure.” Babs looked at Liberty, who was only smiling at her.
After a moment passed she realized that she had just gotten dared, and atop of everything else, she didn’t want her pride to be hurt by one of her friends. No, she would stand her ground. Her father was the baddest flank in Manehattan, and so she would finish Liberty’s belief of her being scared. Yes, yes, definitely.
And so another moment passed with them just staring at each other and the adrenaline slowly vanishing from Babs system, as she realized another fairly important factor if this dare was going to be a thing. “How?”
“Simple enough. We take the trolley up to the edge of the town.”
“Okay.”
“And there we’ll go into Firefly’s shop and you buy some fireworks from her.”
Babs Seed barely managed to force a smile. “Yeah, let’s do that,” she said and added in her thoughts, She’s seen right through me! I’ve never been to the edge of town alone, and I won’t even be back in time for dinner. Why did I accept this? Why?
She followed that up with internal screaming.
Liberty Belle was quick to blow the lantern out. “Come on, we need to make it before closing time,” she said, laughing. “And maybe we should also hurry up, don’t want you get too scared in the darkness.”
“Ha ha, very funny,” Babs snarked before she grabbed her bag from the table and both of them went out of the dark, strangely close by each other’s side.
Nonetheless, Babs thought nothing more of the scare. The rest of the sweat would get washed off in the rain, and so the filly didn’t bother looking at it. And so the drops of blood that she had wiped off her forehead would go unnoticed and she never looked at that spot again, where the boundary between light and dark remained and a shadow watched them walk up the stairs again.
