The Memory Spill

To recap, nothing much happened after breakfast. We were all moved to from the cafeteria, through a series of rock tunnels and several inclining ramps, to a large cavern with a single a single hole drilled on the ceiling. It acted as a spotlight of sorts, so most avoided it for fear of being noticed by someone hankering for a quick murder. What wasn’t illuminated by the wheel in the sky was by lamps on the sides of the cave. The lamps were illuminating a series of weight lifting stations. From Dumbbells and barbells, to benches and Basketball courts, this room was your one stop shop for getting pumped. On a side note, who knew that Basketball would endure the test of time for so long?

After a minute or so upon arrival, Iron Will made his way to the Barbell and asked me to spot for him. Several ponies decided to stay clear from us, so it created an awkward amount of equipment being unused next to us. I doubted that they were truly afraid, it might’ve been a rule to stay clear of the angry ponies. Upon spacing out, I did notice one pony staring at us. Normally, I wouldn’t mind, but this one had a look about him. A desire that he wore on his face, and his desire was me.

It was difficult to see from afar, but my HUD managed to zoom in and brighten the area to make him more apparent. I took note of his specific look: Pegasus, Baby blue coat, slicked back black hair and soul patch, midnight blue eyes. His cutie mark appeared to be a knife with the tip facing down with a couple stacks of gold coins behind the knife. It was obvious that he was a hitman. I’ll be sure to watch my back in case he shows his ugly mug near me. That's all that really happened for the entire time in the courtyard.

We were only given an hour of courtyard time before forcing us back into the halls and taking us back to the cafeteria again for lunch. It yet again proved to be uneventful. A nice circle of open seats surrounded Iron and I. Iron kept droning on about how he once beat a dragon into submission. I could tell right off the bat that it was either a huge lie or a partial truth, so I zoned out. I noticed the same pony staring at me again. It was starting to become unsettling. What was he planning? And what does he want with me? For the entire hour, I took note of every action he made. When he wasn’t staring, he was talking to his friend who sat across from him. When he wasn’t talking, he was eating. And when he wasn’t eating, he was staring again. He spent the entire lunch period repeating this pattern. I was glad when they finally ordered us back into line and out of the cafeteria. It meant I didn’t have to deal with his leers.

Which brings me to now, resting on my bed and listening to my blue ox friend snore uncontrollably. Iron Will informed (before hopping onto his bunk and passing out) that the guards need an hour to switch shifts, so they had to lock up everyone for at least an hour. It's not terrible to be honest. The only true problem is my friends excessive snoring and even then the snore could easily be drowned out by my suits sound system. But my thoughts were not as easy to escape. Who was that pony? What did he want with me? Judging by his cutie mark, he was a hitman. So did was a potential client, or a target? Most importantly, can I take him in a fight? I may have size and weapon arsenal on my side, but he could be one of those guys that knows how to stop a bullet, or how to use an opponent's body weight to their advantage.

It took some will but I managed to herd my thoughts from that pony to my main plan. I needed to revise my domination manuscript. To be honest, I was only winging it with one goal in mind. If I had a chance to get it organized in my head, things may go as planned without a single hiccup. I know I can't plan a whole lot right now, but I could at least think through this a little more thorough. I sat up in my bed and swung my legs off the mattress. My torso leaned over my waist and my elbows acted as a kickstand on my legs. With myself in a good thinking position, I began to deeply contemplate my plans.

Okay, let’s start with the objective; Freedom without consequence from the outside world. If I was to break out of here just with my weapons alone, there’d be an army on my ass. Whoever runs symphonia would make sure that I was to be silenced. But if I had an army of my own, they’d have to make negotiations. From what the fiery warden told me before, I’ve gathered that if war was declared, the Symphonians wouldn’t stand a chance. And the Symphonian leader wouldn’t risk sending an army to fight mine if it left them vulnerable to an invasion. This meant that they would have no other option but to negotiate. With my goal in mind, the army became an independent variable. There was no way I would succeed without it. Now, I need a few dependent variables.

Hmm. I understand that this prison has different factions. I can’t identify them yet, but I still know they exist. I need the trust of the key personnel in these factions. Earning their trust can be done easily by a series of favors and other deeds for them. I needed to be careful of who I join with first. Certain rivalries between factions could lead to certain dead ends. I’d need an advisor to help me make the harder decisions. One that wasn’t Iron Will. He’s a nice guy and all, but I don’t think he’d be best for helping me make the more important decisions. I’ll add ‘Get Advisor’ onto the to do list.

Next up is how I would arm my army. I can’t make plans on escape until I have an advisor to co plan with, so this is the next most important detail. I noticed that you were allowed to wear armor and use weapons in the arena, but they don’t let the inmates keep the equipment. There has to be an armory nearby where I can steal weapons for my soldiers. I should be able to locate it tonight, seeing as how I will be fighting every night from now on. If worst comes to worse, and I have no source of weapons from the armory, I can always dip into my current weapon supplies. The Armory was fit to hold one of almost every weapon for every Shadow Marine in service. That’s over one hundred thousand weapons. Ten thousand of them are melee. It should be easy to make them temporary weapons. Plus, I can take them away from my men in case there is threat of mutiny.

The final thing I need to sort out is how I can get the unicorns to use their magic and how to get the pegasi to fly again. It doesn’t take a genius to know that only the unicorns can do magic, but it took a keener look to notice why the inmates weren't using it. I never noticed until lunch today that all the unicorns had weird gold braces around their horns. And that the pegasi had gold rings around the bases of their wings. I thought it was just a gang apparel that I wasnt aware about. Hell, Iron has one sticking out of his nose. But then I started to notice that anyone who wasn't a regular pony had these gold bands on them. It’s clear that they inhibit use of magic and cripple to pegasi’s flying ability. I’d need to find a way to get them off if I wanted them to be fully effective.

That was just about everything I could go over for now. I decided I might as well catch some Z’s as well. After a quick check of my HUD clock, I noticed that I only managed to kill five minutes with my scheming. There was nothing else to do for now. My legs swung back onto the mattress, and my head dropped to the pillow under it. My eyes shut and began to wander off into that dark abyss of slumber.

****

My dreams were halted by the realization of need to be awake. It was an odd feeling, like fighting to keep yourself from slipping into a coma. But, I was strong, and managed to pull myself from my nighttime hallucinations. My eyes trouged open, and revealed that my cell door was open. I guess Iron failed to inform me that it was time. A yawn escaped my throat, and my I sat up in bed. This action was followed by a quick stretch and an incredible urge to wipe the eye crust from my tear ducts. Alas, that urge will never be satisfied. My body rose from its resting area and scanned the room. Indeed, Iron had left me to go do god knows what. I should worry too much, but he's quite a talker. He might say something he might regret.

The clock on my suit revealed it to be 3pm. I slept for an hour longer than expected. Damn. I could've been using this time to be making an appearance for myself. Oh well, better late then never. I strode out of my cell and onto the circular walkway that my cell was connected to. I placed my hands on the railing and place most of my body weight on the metal bars holding me. The entire block still appeared the same, dark cloud in the center, flood lights on the cells circumferencing the cloud. A quick thermal scan showed that the number of pegasi in the cloud had almost tripled. It seemed unnecessary to have that many guards on watch, but then again they must've had trouble with less guards.

It was odd, thermal scans also showed that almost everyone on my level was gone. Moved to a different level. Everyone, except for the blob five cells away from me. To my right was a pony, moving towards my general direction. I turned off my thermal to get a better look at the suspect.

Of course, it was the baby blue pegasi. Bastard. He probably paid off the entire block in cigs, pixies sticks, or whatever's contraband to get us alone on this level. Come to think about it, the pegasi guards did seem to ignore my presence. Maybe it was their job to just accept it. If that was true, why did they go after the two colts when I first showed up.

Now is not the time for conspiracy. That blue son of a bitch is getting closer. I need to get him in a cell. If the guards notice my gun, they might get angry. I released the guard railings and began to casually stroll away from him. I kept a slow pace, my advisory decided to speed up slightly. The sounds of hooves striking the ground became more rapid. I responded by turning left into some other ponies cell. I quickly hid around the small space of a wall that the room provided. If this fool was stupid enough to follow me, then it would spell doom for me.

As sure as the sky was blue, his ugly mug stuck itself into to the cell followed by the rest of him. Fool. "Hey, where'd ya go? I just wanna talk." He asked as he checked under the bed. This guy was not fantastic at hide and go seek. But his tone of voice seemed to check out with what I expected. He sounded like a no funny business Vegas style gangster. The one with a slight monotone, but managed to always inflect the impression of annoyance. Doesn't really matter now, he was about to be mine.

I charged towards him, he managed to throw his head towards my direction. This enabled me to land an uppercut which forced the top part of his body into the air. My forearm met with his neck, and pushed against it until I had him pinned against his wall. Funny, I'd expect a pony to be heavier that this. It felt like I was holding a child in air. Don't get me wrong, standing on his hind legs, he was just a few inches shorter than me, but I guess he was just not as muscular as other ponies. His attempts of speaking morphed into gasps for air and struggling grunts. I was in power, I was truly the master of my fate.

"I...am not..(cough) you're enemy..."

I am now extremely confused. My arm let up enough on his throat to allow him to breath, but not enough to let him go. What would he want with me if he didn't want to kill me?

"You're not?"

"No? Then why are you here?"

"Business proposal, just let me down first!"

"How do I know you won't try anything once I let you go?"

"I saw what you can do in the lunch room. If I wanted you dead, I would need a group of ten or more."

Fair enough. My arm let up on his throat, which allowed him to slide down to the ground. My new friend rose from the ground and dusted himself and then raised his hoof towards me.

"Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Shady, Shady Deal. You must be Anthony."

"You'd be correct."

"I'll have you know it's impolite to refuse shaking hooves in a business deal" He explained as his hoof wavered slightly in air. You’d think a race of horses would have something more...well equine to show business than something so human. I pushed this thought out of my mind and shook his hoof in response. The feeling of a hoof was much different than horses from my time. There was no bone, only a soft and squishy hunk of muscle at the bottom. Our limbs detached from each other and we looked each other square in the eyes. I decided to speak up first.

“What do you want from me?”

“Can you please move, I would be more comfortable in the corner.” He asked with almost a hinting tone of voice. I did as he pleased and moved. He then trotted into his little corner and began nipping under his wing. From his wing, he retrieved a box of cigarettes. From the box, came a cigarette which he placed in his mouth. The box was placed back under his wing.

“With all those gadgets, I assume you have a light. Hook me up, big fella.” He commanded. He was right, I do have a light for him. The black fog engulfed my hand, leaving behind two pipes (one was a gas pipe, the other was the ignition pipe which had a torch flame burning at the end) and several rings which connected my fingers to the weapon with strings attached to the rings and the gas pipe. It was primarily used as an intimidation weapon. We’d often recruit third world fighters for our cause by convincing the locals that our soldiers could produce magical flames from our hands.

My hand moved the torch flame to his cigarette and successfully lit it. Funny, if I moved my fingers upwards, I wouldn't have to worry about whatever this guys plans are. I could just kill him here, and go on my merry way. But, that would be stupid. Even if he was here to kill me, it wouldn't be hard to stop him. Hell, I just had him pinned against the wall. The Baby blue pegasi took a puff, and exhaled the smoke upwards.

“Sorry bout the random request. The guards don’t like it when ponies smoke.
And they can’t enter a cell without physical evidence. They can’t see my ciggy, they can’t do anything about it.”

“Won’t they see the smoke?”

“It’s a little difficult to see smoke when you’re residing in smoke yourself. That black cloud they hide in makes it harder to see clouds of any other variety.”

“Good to know that the inmates are free to poison their lungs with Tobacco. It’s shit like that that killed my Unc-” I was cut off by a very amusing question.

“The hell’s Tobacco?”

“Isn’t that what you’re smoking?”

“Do you know what a cigarette is? It’s highly condensed sugar that can be smoked. The taste of sugar releases dopamine in the brain and helps calm the mind. When I heard you were foreign, I didn’t know you were that foreign.” I was dumbfounded. I struggled to not laugh as hard as possible. They had candy cigarettes that actually affected their mind! This world is like a little kid version of mine. I bet their alcohol is just fruit punch and apple cider. Is their meth is just sour candy? Do I have to be over twenty one to drink root beer?! If I ever get this suit off, I bet I could win more drinking competitions than anyone else could in the history of ponies!

“Never mind. You’re here for business. So what business do you want from me?” My new acquaintance took a deep puff, and began his request.

“You caused quite a stir this morning. You made a lot of enemies with that little publicity stunt.”

“Enemies?”

“The first three you killed were muscle for Zetito’s gang, so the Zebra’s now have it out for you. Then, you managed to get three other ponies beheaded. Crimson Rage was the right hand man to Flame War, so that means the Fire Starters gang wants you Kebab-ed. Silver Hammer was the son of Maxwell Steedison, leader of the Laborers gang. No one gave two shits about Dark Moon’s death.”
“I knew I’d be making enemies by doing so, but I have their attention, don’t I?”

“Oh, you most certainly do. But not the good attention. You’re becoming a thorn in their side, the will stop at nothing to end you in a second. Dont think that suit will keep you safe. Some guards informed Flame and Maxwell that Itchy managed to plant his blade straight through your gut.”

“But I survived that. Any wound they deal, I can just heal from.”

“Have you ever heard the term ‘If it bleeds, you can kill it’? Well, you are most definitely mortal by those rules.”

“Why are you telling me this? You still haven’t explained why you’re here.”

“I’m here because Maxwell called in a favor. To end you. I say, give him the real favor and watch you get slaughtered in the arena tonight.”

“I knew you were a hitman. I just knew it.”

“Oh? Is my jaw supposed to hit the floor? Anyone with eyes can tell it from my cutie mark.”

“Okay! Okay. You dont have to be so vicious. Now, why am I going to get ‘slaughtered’?”

“You will be going up against Whisper. She’s a unicorn who uses her ghost like appearance and spells to slay her opponents. No pony has ever even touched her on the battle field. And you’re guns won’t work. She’s been known to catch up to three bullets at the same time. A lot of ciggies are riding on you to lose. If you manage to live, you’d actually be considered a decent contender to bet on.”

“Duly noted. Why are you telling me this? You could’ve just let me fight and die without the heads up.”

“For one main reason. Maxwell is an honest boss who pays for hard work. That’s why his gang is called the Laborers. Because ‘They labor away for an honest pay to make other ponies go away’. But you have potential to be better than Maxwell.”

“What does that mean?”

“You ask a lot of questions. Lucky for you, I have answers.” He provided as another puff of smoke bellowed from his mouth.

“On your first day, you’ve managed to piss off two of the biggest gangs in the prison while turning the prison’s personal bitch into a fighting soldier.”

“Turning Iron into a fighter again was easy. I just had to BS a story and tell him he was stronger than that.”

“You did more for him than that. Iron wasn’t truly changed until you personally got the ponies who bitchified him and had him behead them. That takes balls. Way more balls than what Maxwell will ever have.”

“So what you’re saying is you want to work with me?”

“I know you’re intentions. You want your own gang of ponies to order around. And I can tell that if you had your own gang, I’d be safer under your command than Maxwells. And I have good reasons to believe that. For one, if Maxwell and you got in a fight, you’d definitely win. Second, you don't have any inhibitors on you. Meaning you’d be the most powerful fighter during meal times. Finally, Maxwell is a dick. A stern father that only wants the best from his laborers. If you kill somepony and he thinks they suffered, then he puts you on his naughty list. I don’t think a guy who murdered his teacher, his girlfriend, and a judge with a hammer should be in the right for moral decisions.”

“If he doesn’t want his victims to suffer, why am I going to go fight his toughest fighter?”

“Because that was his only son. The guy is emotionally destroyed. He wants you to feel the same pain he felt this morning.”

“I’m afraid his pain is going to continue.”

“That’s what I like to hear. So, consider me an advisor. As an advisor, I’ll keep you from doing stupid shit. I’ll also help you recruit ponies to join your cause. I know a good hunk of Maxwell’s laborers who are also sick of his shit, so you’ll have some fifty ponies working for you.”

“It’s better than what I have now. You have yourself a deal.”

“Glad to hear it. Now, if I’m gonna be convincing ponies to work for you, I need to know your intentions.”

“I think they’ll follow me once they hear my goal.”

“Alright, what’s your plan?”

*****

We had moved from the cell I cornered him to my cell. If I was to be discussing business, I might as well do it without the original residents walking in on our discussion. Shady was kept a deep stare after I had told him my plan.

“Wow…”

“I know it’s not perfect but…”

“Lemme, tell you something. That plan was cancerous. From this point on, I make the plans.”

“Fair enough.” It hurt to hear my intelligence in question. My plan wasnt that bad! But he knew what he was doing.

“Even though your plan was insulting to even hear, your goal was solid. A lot of ponies here are itchin to see sunlight again. And to grant them freedom, would be a Solaire send. All they need is somepony to lead them there.”

“Why haven’t they risen before?”

“We tried once. Celestia managed to organize an army to fight us off. That’s when the guards were replaced by Equestrian soldiers. The guards present originally came from Equestria. It’s going to be hard to organize enough inmates to escape the grasps of one thousand highly trained Equestrian soldiers.”

“I understand. But I’m willing to do whatever it takes. So, what’s the first step?

“Winning tonight’s fight would be a great start, agreed?