The Final 9by AlcatrazChaptersChapter One: You Are Not AloneChapter 2: The BeastChapter 3: Two's Company...Chapter One: You Are Not AloneIn a depressive, dim, candle-lit room amidst a cluttered desk and surroundings with constant and unrelenting popping, clicking, and banging in the background sat a white, alabaster mare on her haunches levitating a needle and thread. She bought the two items close up to her eye and ruffled her wings with frustration and chronic fatigue. With fierce concentration and forcing her eyes open wider, she managed to insert the tip of the thread through the eye of the needle. She picked up a half-made equine doll from her work desk and a burlap hoof; sewn over at one end, open at the other, stuffing visible with a metal rod centered through the middle of the leg. She held the leg to the front right portion of the underside of the finished doll where more stuffing and another metal rod poked out of the toy's torso. The other three hoofs identical in style; burlap cylinders with a miniature horse shoe attached to the end of each of them, made to look like a pony's leg and hoof. It even had a metal horn attached to its forehead. With a click, the two rods connected and the mare went about sewing the leg into the rest of the body. That out of the way, she picked up a circular device with a cable running out from the base with frayed wires coming out from the plastic casing. She touched the exposed wire to another wire, and the device opened and closed like a camera shutter. "Perfect!" She exclaimed in relief. Her expression became sombre after that. "They showed such promise, but we squandered our hope and trust in them, thinking they had changed." She gave a mournful sigh. "I am sorry it's come to this, but I have no choice left. You must live on, my student. You must lead us to a better place; to rebuild this scorched land. Our world is ending, but life must go on." She picked up the completed burlap doll, taking it over to the other side of the room, side-stepping piles of spellbooks; the likes of which only ever saw the darkness of the underground vaults where all the forbidden books were kept. She placed the doll in a brass skeletal half-sphere; which sat atop a stand. She tied the doll spread-eagled with string so the body of the doll hung in the middle of the half-sphere, its head hung forward; limp, void of any life. At the top of the ring, a brass rod came out at an angle as did two more rods from the bottom third, converging on a smaller concentric ring that had six raised pins sitting in the middle of the plate. She placed a talisman, divided into six segments, each with a different colour into the plate, fitting the six pins. Orange, white, pink, yellow, blue, and purple. She touched her horn to the talisman, and everything faded to black. *An indeterminate period of time later* With a soft thunk, the now-purple doll doll fell from her binds, the last piece of string, cut and frayed from rubbing against the frame of the half-orb from gentle gusts in the wind nudging their way in through the window. One shutter hung loose, and the other creaked to and fro as the wind tormented it. The doll knocked loose the talisman from the socket as she fell to the floor. The talisman rolled noisily along the floor of the dead silent room, the metallic rolling echoing so loud it could have been heard from miles around. It finally came to a clattering stop some ways away from the unicorn doll. The doll lay there, the hind legs stretched out behind her with her right front hoof tucked underneath its torso while the left front leg lay adjacent to the torso. Not a moment later, the two circular devices recessed into its head clicked open and shut repeatedly, almost like it's running a self-diagnostic test to see if everything is working correctly. It pulled its hoof out from underneath itself, using it as a brace against the floor to pick itself up with. Finally standing on all fours, she put the same right hoof to her head to stabilize the swaying head. With a light metal-on-metal clank, it recoiled its hoof in both astonishment, and mild horror. 'What is this?' The doll thought. She turned the leg over and studied it as the shutters in its eyes narrowed to pinpricks. Metal hooves? She tapped her horn with the hoof again. A metal horn too, apparently. She stood up on her hind legs and studied the underside of her body. A large clothes zipper ran from between her front legs all the way down to her hind legs, and the two flaps lay open, revealing the components and wires inside. She fumbled with the zipper, using her hooves to push them aside to see what lay within. It's nothing spectacular; several technicolour wires running between, over, and underneath other components that looked as though they're grafter onto a larger cylindrical device. Sitting on her haunches, the tiny purple burlap toy fumbled with the over-sized metal zipper, of which was emblazoned by a cryptic 'YKK' raising out of the face of the zipper. The metal tab proved to be too over-sized to pull with her hooves, so she gave up and elected to study her surroundings. Before she could, a spark from across the room caught her attention. Eyeing it cautiously, she inched her way over toward the peculiar, half-sphere looking object as it crackled with several different colours. Her eye-shutters clicking as she blinked, she nudged it with her hoof, resulting in a squeaky metallic clank. Nothing happened. She poked it again, but still nothing happened. Sitting on her haunches, she picked up the device between her two metal hooves, turning it over to inspect it. It has six strange symbols on it and six little arms holding each segmented piece to the outer rim of whatever this is. Turning it awkwardly in her already loose grip, it clattered to the floor as a spark of purple electricity erupted from the starburst symbol and struck the metal cone atop her head. The doll collapsed to the rotting wooden floor, wordlessly groaning with a clenched mouth. No, that didn't sound right, did it? She tried opening her mouth to talk, but nothing came out. Her camera-like eyes slowly widened and her fuzzy vision slowly cleared, showing the strange object laying face down as it rocked on its spherical face. Her demeanour transformed to one of curiosity when she saw six circular holes recessed into the underside of the thing. Turning it over, she saw each hole corresponded with one of the six symbols etched into the face of the sphere. A sudden gust of wind caused the shutters over the other side of the dilapidated room to creak and bang against the frame, drawing her attention away from the object. She picked it up, sat back, and dropped it into the opening in her chest. She fumbled with the big zipper pull, eventually leaning forward to grab it in her mouth and pull her head up to partially close it. 'I wish this thing would close all the way...' She thought. Almost like magic, the zipper pull was enveloped by a byzantium glow, and, almost as if it gained a mind of its own, shot up and closed the rest of the gap. She just sat there with a rather perturbed expression; not knowing what to think. 'Did I do that?' Her eyes converged upwards, wanting to look at the metal horn atop her head, but, alas she couldn't. Comically, like a foal would, she trotted around in circles trying to gain a look until one of her legs caught on a stray piece of paper, amongst many, that somehow got strewn over the floor tripping her up, causing her to fall to the flood with a thud. Wordlessly groaning again, she got up and her attention turned to the window again. Curiosity got the better of her, and she idly walked over to the impossibly high shutters, craning her neck ever more as the further she got, the higher her head got. Sighing in defeat, she hung her head with the realization of not being able to reach the window where she currently stood. Her head turned to the right, eyeing a pile of conveniently stacked books and boxes. The books had odd titles with symbols she couldn't make out, although one of the books had markings on the spine that looked like the symbols on the strange device. Sadly, it's wedged between many other books, so taking this particular book out would prove difficult for something of her stature. Reaching the top of the pile, she managed to pull herself up onto the edge of the window sill, being careful the shutter hanging on just by one hinge didn't knock her off. She ducked under it, gaining proper footing on the edge of the window sill. What she saw, shocked her. Ruin. Nothing but pure, total, ruin. Her jaw hung agape like the broken window shutter. In every sense of the word, she was breathless, and not in the good way either. There's something wrong with her voice and it needed to be fixed. The houses; remnants of a town long since burnt down. All that remained were sections of walls, roofs, floors, windows, and splintered, skeletal wooden beams barely holding everything together. The rest of the building's structure lay strewn around the bottom of the floor and the immediate area house, shop, restaurant, cafe, or whatever purpose these ruins were previously used for. Amongst the rubble were carts, bathtubs, ovens, cabinets with broken windows and crockery, and various cloths hanging from jagged pieces of wood sticking out from the buildings at unnatural angles. Angles that made the purple doll cringe. A sudden creaking from somewhere down below made her scan her immediate surroundings for the source. Her eyes darted back and forward trying to locate the source, and they eventually settled upon two moving objects. One looked like a roller skate, and the other a white version of herself pulling the skate on some string. The skate and white doll emerged out from behind a twisted, broken wooden cart. Her hoof shot out and her mouth opened in an attempt to call out, but no sound escaped. 'Note to self: Remember you can't talk.' She anxiously tapped her hooves on the spot—as if tap dancing, disappointed she might not reach the other individual in time. She turned her head over her shoulder, glancing over to the door that hung ajar from across the room from her position. Her gaze darted back and forward from it, and the individual idly trudging in the opposite direction from the sentient doll. If she had a voice, she would have audibly given a frustrated groan. The purple doll jumped off of the window ledge, skillfully landing on all fours before launching herself over to the door, galloping through it and down a flight of stairs. She reached the bottom, but the creaking the other creature was producing sounded very very weak. She tuned her ears to the source of the noise, and ran off in its direction. She had to stop periodically to make sure she's running in the right direction of the creaking; the pounding of her tiny hooves obscuring the sound. She darted in and out of houses, avoiding sharp and pointy objects that would easily tear at the burlap fabric she's made out of. Eventually the creaking of what she correctly assumed to be the skate being pulled by the other doll became clearer as she peeked out from behind a ludicrously over-sized, discarded tin can. She poked her head out too far, and accidentally nudged the can. As a result, making it give off a metallic pitter-patter against the dirt ground. "Who's there?" Came the soft-spoken voice. The purple doll inched her head forward slowly, bringing the front half of her head into view. "It's OK, I'm a friend," added the white doll. With all due apprehension, the purple doll stepped into full view. The white one gasped, taken aback by the sight of the purple one. To the purple doll, the white one looked rather peculiar. She had some sort of contraption sitting atop her head, the frame of which included a coil of wire holding one half of a spectacle's eyepiece on a hinge, currently folded up. The white one pushed it down, and started inspecting the purple one over in silence, only giving a short 'Hmm...' now and then. When she moved to the purple doll's back, she gasped rather loudly. "It's you!" She exclaimed gleefully. "We always knew we would find you!" The purple one glanced over to her back, only now just noticing that the starburst symbol from the talisman painted onto her back. She then brought a hoof up and tapped it against her throat, opening her mouth and shaking her head. "What's the matter, can't you speak?" The white one undid the rope she'd been using to pull the skate from around her midsection. While the purple one is made of sewn burlap, the white one looked like it's made of patches of white leather tied together with string up the underside of the torso; knotted just under her chin to resemble a bow. She too, had a horn. The white one turned her back, propping herself up on the edge of the skate and started fishing around in the hole cut in the side for something among the pile of junk she carried in it. After some time and clinking of objects being pushed around, she finally pulled out something, exclaiming; "Wahaa!" Her expression softened to a somewhat motherly one. She took it in her magical aura, and floated it over to the purple doll. "Could you mind if I installed this into you?" She asked, rather calmly. The purple one sat on her haunches for the Nth time that day. The white one parted the over-sized zipper teeth by pulling down on the equally over-sized metal tab until it came down half way. The object she pulled from the makeshift cart resembled a speaker. A very small miniature speaker. It wouldn't have been the size of a pea. Dome-shaped, it had a black wire mesh with black foam underneath. The wire mesh holding the foam down set into a silver-coloured metal ring that held everything together. From the bottom came four wires. The white one parted the zipper flaps and levitated the device into the purple one, sticking in her hoof too and fumbling around. "This land was poisoned, having all the magic sucked dry from it. But, if you know where to look, you can always find a spark of life." With a shove of her hoof the device clicked into place and a glow washed over the purple doll as she sucked in a breath of air. "Go on, try talking," the white one coaxed. "..ht ...y ...am..." It stuttered; the device clearly not installed correctly. "Oh, pardon me, I do believe I got some wires crossed!" The leather-bound doll apologetically exclaimed. She put her hoof back into the insides of the purple one and configured the wires again. "...hat my ...ame" The burlap doll stuttered again. "Oh my, today doesn't seem to be my day." She put her hoof back into her newly found friend, but only momentarily. A little sparking noise could be heard, and she withdrew her hoof again. "Try that, darling." "What is my name?" The purple one finally asked. "You really don't know?" The purple one simply shook her head. "My dear Twilight, it's me, Rarity! Don't you remember anything at all? Come, it's time I took you somewhere safe." Chapter 2: The BeastThe duo started walking; weaving a path through the sharp pieces of wood, bricks, what's left of the thatched roofing, and whatever else could pull their stitches apart. "What... Happened here?" Asked Twilight, gawking at the surroundings with a mixture of wonder and horror. "What could have caused damage like this?" Rarity's expression turned sour; her little leather nose scrunching up. "I don't know, dear, nor do I want to know. I just want things to grow anew. Too bad we don't have the Talisman." "The what?" "It's round and has six symbols on it. Pinkamena is constantly drawing it, but it's probably long since lost and destroyed." The purple doll stopped in her tracks, as gears turned in her mind; both metaphorically and literally, her expression becoming blank as she pictured the peculiar device she had stored within her. "You alright there, darling?" Asked a concerned Rarity. "Six symbols..." Twilight began. "They wouldn't happen to have one your diamonds, and my starburst on them, would they?" Rarity's shutter-eyes widened to a ludicrous size, as wide as the lenses would allow. "You're not saying..." Before Rarity could finish her sentence, Twilight's head ducked to look under her midsection, using her magic to pull the zipper half way down, letting the Talisman drop to the dusty ground with a sharp plink. "NO!" Rarity hoarsely gasped. "You found it!?" "I found it when I... Woke up? That's one way of putting it." Rarity took the talisman in her aura and inspected it closely, turning it over and scrutinizing all the little details. Off in the distance there came an ominous clatter, the sound of a tin can or something metallic in origin being knocked against one of the innumerable piles of rubble or stones. Rarity's head snapped sideways in the direction of the noise, and Twilight Just casually followed Rarity's line of sight. "More of us?" Asked Twilight. "The rest of us... Are back at the hideout..." She stammered, fear obvious in her tone. Her head darted around, spying an empty spray can of some description with a large hole in the side, the nozzle fallen off and the nipple with it; the label long since rusted away from the oxidation on the surface of the can. "Get in the can!" Rarity harshly whispered, rapidly ushering Twilight in the direction of the can. Without a word, Twilight galloped into the can and plastered herself against the inside of it. Peeking out the hole slightly, she observed Rarity whom had pulled out a short spear from her cart that resembled a doctor's scalpel, the blade and handle thoroughly coated with tetanus-laden rust. Luckily for Rarity she can't get tetanus poisoning. She saw Rarity with the scalpel-spear in her aura in a battle-ready stance, her ears perking and twitching every which way, her eyes narrowing on any source of noise her ears picked up. She had the junk-laden roller skate to her back so nothing could creep up on her. It unfortunately did nothing for what came next. Rarity must have heard something; her expression and overall demeanour and posture softened. Her head turned around to her left, giving Twilight a look at the abstract horror written all over Rarity's face. Just then, something leapt over the cart. It looked like a haphazardly thrown-together, half-completed version of either Twilight, or Rarity. Black and green, its legs and hooves hooves were made of stitched together leather that had since become tattered, dirty, and torn over the decades, revealing the metal bones underneath that made up its 'skeleton'. The torso didn't have any covering, so Twilight could see what is consisted of. Bones... Bones off of who-knows what, riveted and screwed to a metal spine that pivoted to allow sufficient movement. A few smaller bones made up the rib cage, but only one of the hip joints has a bone socketed into the metal pelvis. The head... Oh no... The head is the skull of a cat! The skull had a hole in its forehead, which a jagged and twisted metal spike poked through. Loosely hanging around its neck is a cracked leather collar, the purple colour it once had long since faded. The peculiar thing about the collar draped around the metal spine was that it had four little blue baubles set into the leather, and in the middle of the four baubles was a flower of some description. Twilight couldn't really tell if it's a flower or not, she's just guessing. Sprouting from the creatures back were needle-like bones webbed with a myriad of fabrics, tattered, strewn with holes. Twilight doubted it could even fly. Rarity turned to face the beast, dropping the makeshift weapon as her aura faltered out of sheer terror. It opened its skeletal maw, roaring in Rarity's face as it picked her up in its mouth, tossing her against the side of the skate/wagon. The force of having Rarity thrown into it shook half its contents all over the ground, including the Talisman. Out of all the things than clattered to the ground, for some reason the beast's attention immediately focused on the Talismasn. The beast's gaze turned from the Talisman, to Rarity. Twilight couldn't tell what is was, but for some reason the creature's demeanour gave off the expression of looking at Rarity with a smug 'You know what's coming next', grin. Slowly, its head turned away from Rarity as it lifted its hoof, and needle-like fingers extended from inside the leg, picking up the Talisman and popping it into the socket of what could have easily been the owners tag. Twilight recoiled, leaning back against the inside of the can, inadvertently making it 'clink' against one of the many pebbles or stoned peppering the ground. Breathing heavily, she heard a soft grumbling, presumably coming from the beast. It grew louder and louder, and Twilight's breathing got heavier and heavier. Almost for a second, the grumbling stopped. Then, after a split second of pointless relief a sickly green light shining from one of the eye sockets followed by the hoof-turned-needle appendage shot into the opening of the can, and began digging around. The five spindly phalanges wormed their way further towards Twilight, whom had shuffled her way to the back of the can. Twilight pulled her head away from the claws, as far back as the concave end of the can would allow. DING!, DING!, DING! 'What is that!? Was the only thought that ran through Twilight's mind. That, and the prospect of getting mauled by a robot made out of an amalgam of bone and metal was certainly prevalent. The can rocked to the side, the creature withdrew its appendage as the needle phalanges retracted back into its foreleg. Then came a voice. "Over here, you ruffian!" The beast gave an annoyed growl as the last of its leg pulled from the hole in the can. Twilight heard it take three steps before a loud thunk echoed through Twilight's ears. She noticed a slightly smaller hole she had been too scared to see initially, so she exited through it with all due haste and clambered over a few bricks, crouching down behind and peering over the top of it. Twilight saw that the beast had Rarity in it mouth, a couple of its teeth puncturing Rarity's white leather. With a final, frail scream that could shatter glass—if there weren't any windows that were already broken—it carried her off into the distance. Twilight raised a hoof and screamed out after her new friend, but her words fell on non-existent ears, ears that would have belonged to and flesh-and-blood creature. Twilight followed the path of the beast as it galloped off. As her gaze followed it, she saw a huge, twisted and bent, black spire with veins of green radiating out from between the plating covering the building in the background, raising out of the poisoned land. The hoof that Twilight hadn't raised, slipped on the loose stones that she stood on and the brick she leaned against slipped, trapping her hoof. She pulled and pulled at her leg, using the other to push the brick off with what force she could manage. Finally, with the strongest tug the tiny doll could muster, she managed to pull her leg free, but fell backwards, tearing the stitching in her left joint where it connected to her torso. She tried standing up, but she couldn't put weight on it. If she tried, she would fall down. Getting up; standing on three legs with her injured leg dragging underneath her, Twilight hobbled along on three legs out from behind the pile of bricks and rubble. She would take two steps forward with her hind legs, push off with her one good front leg, throwing it forward as she dragged the useless leg along under her. Where she's going, she didn't know. Twilight only knew she had to get to safety. She started back towards the house that she woke up in. It wasn't too far away, she reasoned. Not even half way there, she gave into fatigue and collapsed on the ground, the resulting thump raising a small dust cloud around her form. She rolled onto her back, using her good foreleg to pull the other one up onto her torso, cradling it gingerly. ~~~***~~~ An unknown distance away, a dirty glass lens followed the form of Twilight. Whomever was looking through the lens slid the next lens into place, increasing the magnification on the device. It saw Twilight collapse, and as she did, another lens slid into place, clearly seeing Twilight cradling her leg from the torn joint. From behind the telescope came a yellow face with pink hair and one eye; the other eye long since lost. A piece of dirty brown leather replaced it. She put a hoof up to her mouth contemplating her next move as her eye darted around. She put her eye back up to the telescope, looking back down at Twilight. Her choice made, she galloped off through the tarpaulin hanging down over the door leading out to the telescope. Chapter 3: Two's Company...The sound of metal on metal clinking echoed through Twilight's ears. While unconscious, the noise echoed through her mind as she struggled to wake herself up. When she did however, her vision was nothing but hazy to begin with, but it began to clear momentarily as she blinked, looking up at the source of the irritating noise. Various implements ranging from screwdrivers, knives, and surgical tongs hung listlessly above Twilight. Her gaze was averted when a pair of scissors invaded her field of view. On instinct alone, she brought her left hoof around and knocked the scissors away from the presumed attacker. 'Hang on...' Twilight thought. 'My leg was broken before!' "I'm sorry!" Came a frightened squeak. "I just fixed your leg, please don't hurt me!" Twilight rolled her leg in its place, and noticed the pink stitching holding the tear together, then her gaze turned to the scissors sticking out of the floor. "What... Happened?" She glanced around the rest of the room, noticing she lay upon a roller skate—turned bed with a bundled up rag at the rear of the skate that acted as a makeshift pillow. The rest of the room was relatively bare, with the implements hanging above her head, the room lit by three glowing Christmas lights that hung idly from the bundle of remaining broken ones, and more tools hung on walls by nails or hooks. She also saw spools of thread and packets of sewing needles, and half-moon suture needles. "I, uhm, found you out in The Emptiness..." "Ugh..." Twilight groaned. "Who are you, and where am I?" "I'm Fluttershy, and I brought you to our hideout." Fluttershy brought the scissors back up and pointed them back in Twilight's Direction. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you." Twilight recoiled back as Fluttershy opened the sharp implement and used it to snip off the stray thread hanging from her shoulder. "There you go, all better now," she said with a proud grin. Fluttershy turned and hung the over-sized scissors on a nail jutting out from the wall. "If Rarity were here, she'd've done a better job. She likes fixing things like that." "Rarity?" Quizzed Twilight. Fluttershy only gave a brief "Mmhmm." "She was with me!" Fluttershy's gaze shot to Twilight, and she said incredulously; "Where!? Out in The Emptiness?" Fluttershy got abruptly cut off by a voice coming out of thin air. "Art thou keeping secrets from us!?" The dirty curtain across the room parted and an azure blue mare came walking through, her head held high as she looked down her nose at Twilight and Fluttershy. "I, uhm, pardon me; Princess, I was coming to tell you..." The blue mare strode past Fluttershy, lightly bumping her. "What is this?" She questioned, pulling Twilight to her knees to get a look at the mark upon her back. "She was in The emptiness, Princess..." "WHAT!?" The Princess roared. "You foal, you will lead the beast straight to us!" "The beast!" Proclaimed Twilight. "That's what took Rarity! If we hurry we can save her—" "NO!" Asserted the Blue One, firmly stomping her hoof and glaring at Twilight.. "We have rules for a reason!" Several large thumps could be heard growing eerily louder; until they stopped just outside the cloth hanging down over the entrance of the little room. The Blue One turned to smirk at Fluttershy and Twilight as the tip of a large butchers knife poked through the centre, moving up the curtain and pushing it aside as a hulking, orange, patchwork behemoth proudly strode into the room. It dug the tip of the knife-turned-sword into the wood of the floor, leaning on it nonchalantly. "Problems?" It asked? "Quite the opposite, Applejack. I was just telling our new guests how things work around here." "But Rarity!" Protested Twilight, Fluttershy's remaining eye looking to the ground with a depressive sadness. Twilight stole a quick glance at the mare's face before turning away. 'How did that happen...? "We can't just leave her out there!" "Rarity say wut now?" Boomed the patchwork behemoth. Rather than carefully being stitched from several pieces of fabric like Rarity's white leather—or burlap like Fluttershy and Twilight; Applejack looked as though she had been made out of leftover cut-outs ans scrap pieces from a foals crafts table from school. The Princess, however, didn't look as though she had any stitches anywhere. Rather, she looked as though her form had been crafted out of a seamless piece of blue-dyed leather; complete with signature tiara and necklace; which doubled as a clip for a cape of sorts that hung over her back. "The White One ran off into The Emptiness," muttered Luna, almost in passing, as if she didn't care. "SHE SAVED ME!" Roared Twilight, earning stunned glances from present company. "We owe her a rescue!" The Blue Princess did nothing but gave Twilight a flat, deadpanned expression, almost as if she's contemplating on how to appropriately deal with a subordinate that committed a crime against royalty in the time long since past. "Our new guest seems... Confused." She began with an underlying authoritative, almost sinister tone. "We need to instill clarity in them." She turned to leave, her cape falling over her left side revealing her wings underneath. "Shall we?" The Princess turned and left out through the draped cloth. Applejack pulled the knife-turned-sword from the wood, and slung it onto her back where, with a resonant clank, stuck onto a magnet strapped to her back, of which also had one half of a pair of scissors. Fluttershy hurried past Applejack, darting through the cloth as Twilight and Applejack locked glances. The hulking orange mare suddenly jerked forward, intentionally making Twilight stagger back. Applejack only smirked and followed after Twilight. On exiting the room, Twilight's gaze turned upward as she craned her head high trying to take in all of the cavernous space of her surroundings. She heard a metallic grinding and periodic sparking noise, and her vision turned towards the source; a craft of some kind had crashed through the ceiling and roof. She noticed something attached to the end of the craft; it looked like a miniature desk fan that kept idly rotating with several cables protruding from the internal mechanism. Twilight gathered that everyone here had somehow tapped into the craft to run their lights and other things off of it. "Move!" Barked Applejack, shoving the Purple One forward. "You're slowing us down." Twilight didn't realize her stupor had slowed her down, so she hurried forward with everyone else and into the metal basket everyone was already in. The Orange One pulled the front closed, and began to turn a handle at the back of the bucket that began to raise them up. Now she could get a proper, panoramic view of the building. Unlike the rest of the buildings in the Emptiness, This one seemed relatively intact save for the gaping hole in the roof which loosely held the strange craft. As they rose, she saw more of the building's interior. Various supporting beans had fallen from their intended positions as structural support and now lay against others barely doing their job. The bucket came to an abrupt stop and the Blue One Unceremoniously kicked open the half-door, walking through it and towards another burlap cloth that hung over a door. The Princess moved it aside and went in, followed by Fluttershy, Twilight, then Applejack. The room had a beam of sunlight shining through the window that housed a dead clock, which cast a shadow of the face of the clock on the floor, complete with its dead hands. The rest of the room had a myriad of junk laying pushed up against the walls of the room—or what would seem like junk upon Twilight's initial gaze. She wrote off the clutter as just general untidiness. The Princess stopped at the end of the shadow-negative of the clock, and put a reassuring hoof on Twilight's shoulder, opening her mouth to speak. "When we woke in this world, it was chaos. Ponies and Changelings attacked each other with magic, balefire, and metal monsters. The Changelings built metal machines that doubled as doppelgangers; only these were as big as the Ponyville Town hall, and just as long. Those machines burned the land, destroyed our houses and homes. Not to mention they managed to destroy Canterlot too. "I'm not sure which of us was the first to wake, but I found The Pink One and The Yellow One after I woke. Shortly after, we found a Polychromatic individual, as well as the White One and two twins of reverse colour schemes. In the midst of the war raging outside, we managed to stay together and make our way here; to the building we now call home." "How did the land get like this? If it was just a war, then where is everyone?" Those last four words rolled out of Twilight's mouth with a sad emphasis. "I do not know myself," Replied The Blue One. "But on a related note, the Polychromatic One and myself had a clash of views and left, taking the reverse-colour twins with her. I've not seen the three of them since, and I am unsure of their whereabouts. All that aside, we do what we can to get by; Largely keeping ourselves hidden from The Beast." "Where are the rest of you?" "Pinkamena is behind the curtain behind us doing whatever it is she does, Applejack is, well... you know, Fluttershy is with us, and the rest—" "Are missing," Twilight said, matter-of-factly. "Where did The Beast come from, and what does it want with us?" The Princess just snorted at Twilight's comment. "I do not know. We waited for the war to end, and now we wait for The Beast to stop hunting us too." She walks over to a torn calender with the top most section ripped out, leaving the numbers 1 through 14 on it. He horn lit up, and the '2' square dissolved in fire, leaving 1, 5, 6, 8, and 9. "How can you write them off that easily because they're missing? "Tis hard, Twilight Sparkle. We yearn for their return, but we cannot risk The Beast finding us, or our sanctuary." "Then why was Rarity out there, then? Tell me that, Princess." "We sent her out to bring back supplies. Looks like we got more than we bargained for. She's lost to us, now." "But she isn't lost!" Pleaded Twilight. "We can rescue her and the others if only yo—" "NO!" Roared The Princess, huffing rapidly from the fury in her tone. "I've told you that we cannot afford to lose any more!" Her gaze shot past Twilight, to Fluttershy. "Take the new guest to the watchtower—and out of my sight. Keep an eye out for The Beast, and alert me if you see it." Not saying a word, Fluttershy galloped passed a stunned Twilight and pulled her along and back out to the bucket elevator. She nudged Twilight inside, closed the door, and started turning the lever. The bucket began to ascend the tower, and Twilight just waited to see what is at the top.
Chapter One: You Are Not AloneIn a depressive, dim, candle-lit room amidst a cluttered desk and surroundings with constant and unrelenting popping, clicking, and banging in the background sat a white, alabaster mare on her haunches levitating a needle and thread. She bought the two items close up to her eye and ruffled her wings with frustration and chronic fatigue. With fierce concentration and forcing her eyes open wider, she managed to insert the tip of the thread through the eye of the needle. She picked up a half-made equine doll from her work desk and a burlap hoof; sewn over at one end, open at the other, stuffing visible with a metal rod centered through the middle of the leg. She held the leg to the front right portion of the underside of the finished doll where more stuffing and another metal rod poked out of the toy's torso. The other three hoofs identical in style; burlap cylinders with a miniature horse shoe attached to the end of each of them, made to look like a pony's leg and hoof. It even had a metal horn attached to its forehead. With a click, the two rods connected and the mare went about sewing the leg into the rest of the body. That out of the way, she picked up a circular device with a cable running out from the base with frayed wires coming out from the plastic casing. She touched the exposed wire to another wire, and the device opened and closed like a camera shutter. "Perfect!" She exclaimed in relief. Her expression became sombre after that. "They showed such promise, but we squandered our hope and trust in them, thinking they had changed." She gave a mournful sigh. "I am sorry it's come to this, but I have no choice left. You must live on, my student. You must lead us to a better place; to rebuild this scorched land. Our world is ending, but life must go on." She picked up the completed burlap doll, taking it over to the other side of the room, side-stepping piles of spellbooks; the likes of which only ever saw the darkness of the underground vaults where all the forbidden books were kept. She placed the doll in a brass skeletal half-sphere; which sat atop a stand. She tied the doll spread-eagled with string so the body of the doll hung in the middle of the half-sphere, its head hung forward; limp, void of any life. At the top of the ring, a brass rod came out at an angle as did two more rods from the bottom third, converging on a smaller concentric ring that had six raised pins sitting in the middle of the plate. She placed a talisman, divided into six segments, each with a different colour into the plate, fitting the six pins. Orange, white, pink, yellow, blue, and purple. She touched her horn to the talisman, and everything faded to black. *An indeterminate period of time later* With a soft thunk, the now-purple doll doll fell from her binds, the last piece of string, cut and frayed from rubbing against the frame of the half-orb from gentle gusts in the wind nudging their way in through the window. One shutter hung loose, and the other creaked to and fro as the wind tormented it. The doll knocked loose the talisman from the socket as she fell to the floor. The talisman rolled noisily along the floor of the dead silent room, the metallic rolling echoing so loud it could have been heard from miles around. It finally came to a clattering stop some ways away from the unicorn doll. The doll lay there, the hind legs stretched out behind her with her right front hoof tucked underneath its torso while the left front leg lay adjacent to the torso. Not a moment later, the two circular devices recessed into its head clicked open and shut repeatedly, almost like it's running a self-diagnostic test to see if everything is working correctly. It pulled its hoof out from underneath itself, using it as a brace against the floor to pick itself up with. Finally standing on all fours, she put the same right hoof to her head to stabilize the swaying head. With a light metal-on-metal clank, it recoiled its hoof in both astonishment, and mild horror. 'What is this?' The doll thought. She turned the leg over and studied it as the shutters in its eyes narrowed to pinpricks. Metal hooves? She tapped her horn with the hoof again. A metal horn too, apparently. She stood up on her hind legs and studied the underside of her body. A large clothes zipper ran from between her front legs all the way down to her hind legs, and the two flaps lay open, revealing the components and wires inside. She fumbled with the zipper, using her hooves to push them aside to see what lay within. It's nothing spectacular; several technicolour wires running between, over, and underneath other components that looked as though they're grafter onto a larger cylindrical device. Sitting on her haunches, the tiny purple burlap toy fumbled with the over-sized metal zipper, of which was emblazoned by a cryptic 'YKK' raising out of the face of the zipper. The metal tab proved to be too over-sized to pull with her hooves, so she gave up and elected to study her surroundings. Before she could, a spark from across the room caught her attention. Eyeing it cautiously, she inched her way over toward the peculiar, half-sphere looking object as it crackled with several different colours. Her eye-shutters clicking as she blinked, she nudged it with her hoof, resulting in a squeaky metallic clank. Nothing happened. She poked it again, but still nothing happened. Sitting on her haunches, she picked up the device between her two metal hooves, turning it over to inspect it. It has six strange symbols on it and six little arms holding each segmented piece to the outer rim of whatever this is. Turning it awkwardly in her already loose grip, it clattered to the floor as a spark of purple electricity erupted from the starburst symbol and struck the metal cone atop her head. The doll collapsed to the rotting wooden floor, wordlessly groaning with a clenched mouth. No, that didn't sound right, did it? She tried opening her mouth to talk, but nothing came out. Her camera-like eyes slowly widened and her fuzzy vision slowly cleared, showing the strange object laying face down as it rocked on its spherical face. Her demeanour transformed to one of curiosity when she saw six circular holes recessed into the underside of the thing. Turning it over, she saw each hole corresponded with one of the six symbols etched into the face of the sphere. A sudden gust of wind caused the shutters over the other side of the dilapidated room to creak and bang against the frame, drawing her attention away from the object. She picked it up, sat back, and dropped it into the opening in her chest. She fumbled with the big zipper pull, eventually leaning forward to grab it in her mouth and pull her head up to partially close it. 'I wish this thing would close all the way...' She thought. Almost like magic, the zipper pull was enveloped by a byzantium glow, and, almost as if it gained a mind of its own, shot up and closed the rest of the gap. She just sat there with a rather perturbed expression; not knowing what to think. 'Did I do that?' Her eyes converged upwards, wanting to look at the metal horn atop her head, but, alas she couldn't. Comically, like a foal would, she trotted around in circles trying to gain a look until one of her legs caught on a stray piece of paper, amongst many, that somehow got strewn over the floor tripping her up, causing her to fall to the flood with a thud. Wordlessly groaning again, she got up and her attention turned to the window again. Curiosity got the better of her, and she idly walked over to the impossibly high shutters, craning her neck ever more as the further she got, the higher her head got. Sighing in defeat, she hung her head with the realization of not being able to reach the window where she currently stood. Her head turned to the right, eyeing a pile of conveniently stacked books and boxes. The books had odd titles with symbols she couldn't make out, although one of the books had markings on the spine that looked like the symbols on the strange device. Sadly, it's wedged between many other books, so taking this particular book out would prove difficult for something of her stature. Reaching the top of the pile, she managed to pull herself up onto the edge of the window sill, being careful the shutter hanging on just by one hinge didn't knock her off. She ducked under it, gaining proper footing on the edge of the window sill. What she saw, shocked her. Ruin. Nothing but pure, total, ruin. Her jaw hung agape like the broken window shutter. In every sense of the word, she was breathless, and not in the good way either. There's something wrong with her voice and it needed to be fixed. The houses; remnants of a town long since burnt down. All that remained were sections of walls, roofs, floors, windows, and splintered, skeletal wooden beams barely holding everything together. The rest of the building's structure lay strewn around the bottom of the floor and the immediate area house, shop, restaurant, cafe, or whatever purpose these ruins were previously used for. Amongst the rubble were carts, bathtubs, ovens, cabinets with broken windows and crockery, and various cloths hanging from jagged pieces of wood sticking out from the buildings at unnatural angles. Angles that made the purple doll cringe. A sudden creaking from somewhere down below made her scan her immediate surroundings for the source. Her eyes darted back and forward trying to locate the source, and they eventually settled upon two moving objects. One looked like a roller skate, and the other a white version of herself pulling the skate on some string. The skate and white doll emerged out from behind a twisted, broken wooden cart. Her hoof shot out and her mouth opened in an attempt to call out, but no sound escaped. 'Note to self: Remember you can't talk.' She anxiously tapped her hooves on the spot—as if tap dancing, disappointed she might not reach the other individual in time. She turned her head over her shoulder, glancing over to the door that hung ajar from across the room from her position. Her gaze darted back and forward from it, and the individual idly trudging in the opposite direction from the sentient doll. If she had a voice, she would have audibly given a frustrated groan. The purple doll jumped off of the window ledge, skillfully landing on all fours before launching herself over to the door, galloping through it and down a flight of stairs. She reached the bottom, but the creaking the other creature was producing sounded very very weak. She tuned her ears to the source of the noise, and ran off in its direction. She had to stop periodically to make sure she's running in the right direction of the creaking; the pounding of her tiny hooves obscuring the sound. She darted in and out of houses, avoiding sharp and pointy objects that would easily tear at the burlap fabric she's made out of. Eventually the creaking of what she correctly assumed to be the skate being pulled by the other doll became clearer as she peeked out from behind a ludicrously over-sized, discarded tin can. She poked her head out too far, and accidentally nudged the can. As a result, making it give off a metallic pitter-patter against the dirt ground. "Who's there?" Came the soft-spoken voice. The purple doll inched her head forward slowly, bringing the front half of her head into view. "It's OK, I'm a friend," added the white doll. With all due apprehension, the purple doll stepped into full view. The white one gasped, taken aback by the sight of the purple one. To the purple doll, the white one looked rather peculiar. She had some sort of contraption sitting atop her head, the frame of which included a coil of wire holding one half of a spectacle's eyepiece on a hinge, currently folded up. The white one pushed it down, and started inspecting the purple one over in silence, only giving a short 'Hmm...' now and then. When she moved to the purple doll's back, she gasped rather loudly. "It's you!" She exclaimed gleefully. "We always knew we would find you!" The purple one glanced over to her back, only now just noticing that the starburst symbol from the talisman painted onto her back. She then brought a hoof up and tapped it against her throat, opening her mouth and shaking her head. "What's the matter, can't you speak?" The white one undid the rope she'd been using to pull the skate from around her midsection. While the purple one is made of sewn burlap, the white one looked like it's made of patches of white leather tied together with string up the underside of the torso; knotted just under her chin to resemble a bow. She too, had a horn. The white one turned her back, propping herself up on the edge of the skate and started fishing around in the hole cut in the side for something among the pile of junk she carried in it. After some time and clinking of objects being pushed around, she finally pulled out something, exclaiming; "Wahaa!" Her expression softened to a somewhat motherly one. She took it in her magical aura, and floated it over to the purple doll. "Could you mind if I installed this into you?" She asked, rather calmly. The purple one sat on her haunches for the Nth time that day. The white one parted the over-sized zipper teeth by pulling down on the equally over-sized metal tab until it came down half way. The object she pulled from the makeshift cart resembled a speaker. A very small miniature speaker. It wouldn't have been the size of a pea. Dome-shaped, it had a black wire mesh with black foam underneath. The wire mesh holding the foam down set into a silver-coloured metal ring that held everything together. From the bottom came four wires. The white one parted the zipper flaps and levitated the device into the purple one, sticking in her hoof too and fumbling around. "This land was poisoned, having all the magic sucked dry from it. But, if you know where to look, you can always find a spark of life." With a shove of her hoof the device clicked into place and a glow washed over the purple doll as she sucked in a breath of air. "Go on, try talking," the white one coaxed. "..ht ...y ...am..." It stuttered; the device clearly not installed correctly. "Oh, pardon me, I do believe I got some wires crossed!" The leather-bound doll apologetically exclaimed. She put her hoof back into the insides of the purple one and configured the wires again. "...hat my ...ame" The burlap doll stuttered again. "Oh my, today doesn't seem to be my day." She put her hoof back into her newly found friend, but only momentarily. A little sparking noise could be heard, and she withdrew her hoof again. "Try that, darling." "What is my name?" The purple one finally asked. "You really don't know?" The purple one simply shook her head. "My dear Twilight, it's me, Rarity! Don't you remember anything at all? Come, it's time I took you somewhere safe."
Chapter 2: The BeastThe duo started walking; weaving a path through the sharp pieces of wood, bricks, what's left of the thatched roofing, and whatever else could pull their stitches apart. "What... Happened here?" Asked Twilight, gawking at the surroundings with a mixture of wonder and horror. "What could have caused damage like this?" Rarity's expression turned sour; her little leather nose scrunching up. "I don't know, dear, nor do I want to know. I just want things to grow anew. Too bad we don't have the Talisman." "The what?" "It's round and has six symbols on it. Pinkamena is constantly drawing it, but it's probably long since lost and destroyed." The purple doll stopped in her tracks, as gears turned in her mind; both metaphorically and literally, her expression becoming blank as she pictured the peculiar device she had stored within her. "You alright there, darling?" Asked a concerned Rarity. "Six symbols..." Twilight began. "They wouldn't happen to have one your diamonds, and my starburst on them, would they?" Rarity's shutter-eyes widened to a ludicrous size, as wide as the lenses would allow. "You're not saying..." Before Rarity could finish her sentence, Twilight's head ducked to look under her midsection, using her magic to pull the zipper half way down, letting the Talisman drop to the dusty ground with a sharp plink. "NO!" Rarity hoarsely gasped. "You found it!?" "I found it when I... Woke up? That's one way of putting it." Rarity took the talisman in her aura and inspected it closely, turning it over and scrutinizing all the little details. Off in the distance there came an ominous clatter, the sound of a tin can or something metallic in origin being knocked against one of the innumerable piles of rubble or stones. Rarity's head snapped sideways in the direction of the noise, and Twilight Just casually followed Rarity's line of sight. "More of us?" Asked Twilight. "The rest of us... Are back at the hideout..." She stammered, fear obvious in her tone. Her head darted around, spying an empty spray can of some description with a large hole in the side, the nozzle fallen off and the nipple with it; the label long since rusted away from the oxidation on the surface of the can. "Get in the can!" Rarity harshly whispered, rapidly ushering Twilight in the direction of the can. Without a word, Twilight galloped into the can and plastered herself against the inside of it. Peeking out the hole slightly, she observed Rarity whom had pulled out a short spear from her cart that resembled a doctor's scalpel, the blade and handle thoroughly coated with tetanus-laden rust. Luckily for Rarity she can't get tetanus poisoning. She saw Rarity with the scalpel-spear in her aura in a battle-ready stance, her ears perking and twitching every which way, her eyes narrowing on any source of noise her ears picked up. She had the junk-laden roller skate to her back so nothing could creep up on her. It unfortunately did nothing for what came next. Rarity must have heard something; her expression and overall demeanour and posture softened. Her head turned around to her left, giving Twilight a look at the abstract horror written all over Rarity's face. Just then, something leapt over the cart. It looked like a haphazardly thrown-together, half-completed version of either Twilight, or Rarity. Black and green, its legs and hooves hooves were made of stitched together leather that had since become tattered, dirty, and torn over the decades, revealing the metal bones underneath that made up its 'skeleton'. The torso didn't have any covering, so Twilight could see what is consisted of. Bones... Bones off of who-knows what, riveted and screwed to a metal spine that pivoted to allow sufficient movement. A few smaller bones made up the rib cage, but only one of the hip joints has a bone socketed into the metal pelvis. The head... Oh no... The head is the skull of a cat! The skull had a hole in its forehead, which a jagged and twisted metal spike poked through. Loosely hanging around its neck is a cracked leather collar, the purple colour it once had long since faded. The peculiar thing about the collar draped around the metal spine was that it had four little blue baubles set into the leather, and in the middle of the four baubles was a flower of some description. Twilight couldn't really tell if it's a flower or not, she's just guessing. Sprouting from the creatures back were needle-like bones webbed with a myriad of fabrics, tattered, strewn with holes. Twilight doubted it could even fly. Rarity turned to face the beast, dropping the makeshift weapon as her aura faltered out of sheer terror. It opened its skeletal maw, roaring in Rarity's face as it picked her up in its mouth, tossing her against the side of the skate/wagon. The force of having Rarity thrown into it shook half its contents all over the ground, including the Talisman. Out of all the things than clattered to the ground, for some reason the beast's attention immediately focused on the Talismasn. The beast's gaze turned from the Talisman, to Rarity. Twilight couldn't tell what is was, but for some reason the creature's demeanour gave off the expression of looking at Rarity with a smug 'You know what's coming next', grin. Slowly, its head turned away from Rarity as it lifted its hoof, and needle-like fingers extended from inside the leg, picking up the Talisman and popping it into the socket of what could have easily been the owners tag. Twilight recoiled, leaning back against the inside of the can, inadvertently making it 'clink' against one of the many pebbles or stoned peppering the ground. Breathing heavily, she heard a soft grumbling, presumably coming from the beast. It grew louder and louder, and Twilight's breathing got heavier and heavier. Almost for a second, the grumbling stopped. Then, after a split second of pointless relief a sickly green light shining from one of the eye sockets followed by the hoof-turned-needle appendage shot into the opening of the can, and began digging around. The five spindly phalanges wormed their way further towards Twilight, whom had shuffled her way to the back of the can. Twilight pulled her head away from the claws, as far back as the concave end of the can would allow. DING!, DING!, DING! 'What is that!? Was the only thought that ran through Twilight's mind. That, and the prospect of getting mauled by a robot made out of an amalgam of bone and metal was certainly prevalent. The can rocked to the side, the creature withdrew its appendage as the needle phalanges retracted back into its foreleg. Then came a voice. "Over here, you ruffian!" The beast gave an annoyed growl as the last of its leg pulled from the hole in the can. Twilight heard it take three steps before a loud thunk echoed through Twilight's ears. She noticed a slightly smaller hole she had been too scared to see initially, so she exited through it with all due haste and clambered over a few bricks, crouching down behind and peering over the top of it. Twilight saw that the beast had Rarity in it mouth, a couple of its teeth puncturing Rarity's white leather. With a final, frail scream that could shatter glass—if there weren't any windows that were already broken—it carried her off into the distance. Twilight raised a hoof and screamed out after her new friend, but her words fell on non-existent ears, ears that would have belonged to and flesh-and-blood creature. Twilight followed the path of the beast as it galloped off. As her gaze followed it, she saw a huge, twisted and bent, black spire with veins of green radiating out from between the plating covering the building in the background, raising out of the poisoned land. The hoof that Twilight hadn't raised, slipped on the loose stones that she stood on and the brick she leaned against slipped, trapping her hoof. She pulled and pulled at her leg, using the other to push the brick off with what force she could manage. Finally, with the strongest tug the tiny doll could muster, she managed to pull her leg free, but fell backwards, tearing the stitching in her left joint where it connected to her torso. She tried standing up, but she couldn't put weight on it. If she tried, she would fall down. Getting up; standing on three legs with her injured leg dragging underneath her, Twilight hobbled along on three legs out from behind the pile of bricks and rubble. She would take two steps forward with her hind legs, push off with her one good front leg, throwing it forward as she dragged the useless leg along under her. Where she's going, she didn't know. Twilight only knew she had to get to safety. She started back towards the house that she woke up in. It wasn't too far away, she reasoned. Not even half way there, she gave into fatigue and collapsed on the ground, the resulting thump raising a small dust cloud around her form. She rolled onto her back, using her good foreleg to pull the other one up onto her torso, cradling it gingerly. ~~~***~~~ An unknown distance away, a dirty glass lens followed the form of Twilight. Whomever was looking through the lens slid the next lens into place, increasing the magnification on the device. It saw Twilight collapse, and as she did, another lens slid into place, clearly seeing Twilight cradling her leg from the torn joint. From behind the telescope came a yellow face with pink hair and one eye; the other eye long since lost. A piece of dirty brown leather replaced it. She put a hoof up to her mouth contemplating her next move as her eye darted around. She put her eye back up to the telescope, looking back down at Twilight. Her choice made, she galloped off through the tarpaulin hanging down over the door leading out to the telescope.
Chapter 3: Two's Company...The sound of metal on metal clinking echoed through Twilight's ears. While unconscious, the noise echoed through her mind as she struggled to wake herself up. When she did however, her vision was nothing but hazy to begin with, but it began to clear momentarily as she blinked, looking up at the source of the irritating noise. Various implements ranging from screwdrivers, knives, and surgical tongs hung listlessly above Twilight. Her gaze was averted when a pair of scissors invaded her field of view. On instinct alone, she brought her left hoof around and knocked the scissors away from the presumed attacker. 'Hang on...' Twilight thought. 'My leg was broken before!' "I'm sorry!" Came a frightened squeak. "I just fixed your leg, please don't hurt me!" Twilight rolled her leg in its place, and noticed the pink stitching holding the tear together, then her gaze turned to the scissors sticking out of the floor. "What... Happened?" She glanced around the rest of the room, noticing she lay upon a roller skate—turned bed with a bundled up rag at the rear of the skate that acted as a makeshift pillow. The rest of the room was relatively bare, with the implements hanging above her head, the room lit by three glowing Christmas lights that hung idly from the bundle of remaining broken ones, and more tools hung on walls by nails or hooks. She also saw spools of thread and packets of sewing needles, and half-moon suture needles. "I, uhm, found you out in The Emptiness..." "Ugh..." Twilight groaned. "Who are you, and where am I?" "I'm Fluttershy, and I brought you to our hideout." Fluttershy brought the scissors back up and pointed them back in Twilight's Direction. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you." Twilight recoiled back as Fluttershy opened the sharp implement and used it to snip off the stray thread hanging from her shoulder. "There you go, all better now," she said with a proud grin. Fluttershy turned and hung the over-sized scissors on a nail jutting out from the wall. "If Rarity were here, she'd've done a better job. She likes fixing things like that." "Rarity?" Quizzed Twilight. Fluttershy only gave a brief "Mmhmm." "She was with me!" Fluttershy's gaze shot to Twilight, and she said incredulously; "Where!? Out in The Emptiness?" Fluttershy got abruptly cut off by a voice coming out of thin air. "Art thou keeping secrets from us!?" The dirty curtain across the room parted and an azure blue mare came walking through, her head held high as she looked down her nose at Twilight and Fluttershy. "I, uhm, pardon me; Princess, I was coming to tell you..." The blue mare strode past Fluttershy, lightly bumping her. "What is this?" She questioned, pulling Twilight to her knees to get a look at the mark upon her back. "She was in The emptiness, Princess..." "WHAT!?" The Princess roared. "You foal, you will lead the beast straight to us!" "The beast!" Proclaimed Twilight. "That's what took Rarity! If we hurry we can save her—" "NO!" Asserted the Blue One, firmly stomping her hoof and glaring at Twilight.. "We have rules for a reason!" Several large thumps could be heard growing eerily louder; until they stopped just outside the cloth hanging down over the entrance of the little room. The Blue One turned to smirk at Fluttershy and Twilight as the tip of a large butchers knife poked through the centre, moving up the curtain and pushing it aside as a hulking, orange, patchwork behemoth proudly strode into the room. It dug the tip of the knife-turned-sword into the wood of the floor, leaning on it nonchalantly. "Problems?" It asked? "Quite the opposite, Applejack. I was just telling our new guests how things work around here." "But Rarity!" Protested Twilight, Fluttershy's remaining eye looking to the ground with a depressive sadness. Twilight stole a quick glance at the mare's face before turning away. 'How did that happen...? "We can't just leave her out there!" "Rarity say wut now?" Boomed the patchwork behemoth. Rather than carefully being stitched from several pieces of fabric like Rarity's white leather—or burlap like Fluttershy and Twilight; Applejack looked as though she had been made out of leftover cut-outs ans scrap pieces from a foals crafts table from school. The Princess, however, didn't look as though she had any stitches anywhere. Rather, she looked as though her form had been crafted out of a seamless piece of blue-dyed leather; complete with signature tiara and necklace; which doubled as a clip for a cape of sorts that hung over her back. "The White One ran off into The Emptiness," muttered Luna, almost in passing, as if she didn't care. "SHE SAVED ME!" Roared Twilight, earning stunned glances from present company. "We owe her a rescue!" The Blue Princess did nothing but gave Twilight a flat, deadpanned expression, almost as if she's contemplating on how to appropriately deal with a subordinate that committed a crime against royalty in the time long since past. "Our new guest seems... Confused." She began with an underlying authoritative, almost sinister tone. "We need to instill clarity in them." She turned to leave, her cape falling over her left side revealing her wings underneath. "Shall we?" The Princess turned and left out through the draped cloth. Applejack pulled the knife-turned-sword from the wood, and slung it onto her back where, with a resonant clank, stuck onto a magnet strapped to her back, of which also had one half of a pair of scissors. Fluttershy hurried past Applejack, darting through the cloth as Twilight and Applejack locked glances. The hulking orange mare suddenly jerked forward, intentionally making Twilight stagger back. Applejack only smirked and followed after Twilight. On exiting the room, Twilight's gaze turned upward as she craned her head high trying to take in all of the cavernous space of her surroundings. She heard a metallic grinding and periodic sparking noise, and her vision turned towards the source; a craft of some kind had crashed through the ceiling and roof. She noticed something attached to the end of the craft; it looked like a miniature desk fan that kept idly rotating with several cables protruding from the internal mechanism. Twilight gathered that everyone here had somehow tapped into the craft to run their lights and other things off of it. "Move!" Barked Applejack, shoving the Purple One forward. "You're slowing us down." Twilight didn't realize her stupor had slowed her down, so she hurried forward with everyone else and into the metal basket everyone was already in. The Orange One pulled the front closed, and began to turn a handle at the back of the bucket that began to raise them up. Now she could get a proper, panoramic view of the building. Unlike the rest of the buildings in the Emptiness, This one seemed relatively intact save for the gaping hole in the roof which loosely held the strange craft. As they rose, she saw more of the building's interior. Various supporting beans had fallen from their intended positions as structural support and now lay against others barely doing their job. The bucket came to an abrupt stop and the Blue One Unceremoniously kicked open the half-door, walking through it and towards another burlap cloth that hung over a door. The Princess moved it aside and went in, followed by Fluttershy, Twilight, then Applejack. The room had a beam of sunlight shining through the window that housed a dead clock, which cast a shadow of the face of the clock on the floor, complete with its dead hands. The rest of the room had a myriad of junk laying pushed up against the walls of the room—or what would seem like junk upon Twilight's initial gaze. She wrote off the clutter as just general untidiness. The Princess stopped at the end of the shadow-negative of the clock, and put a reassuring hoof on Twilight's shoulder, opening her mouth to speak. "When we woke in this world, it was chaos. Ponies and Changelings attacked each other with magic, balefire, and metal monsters. The Changelings built metal machines that doubled as doppelgangers; only these were as big as the Ponyville Town hall, and just as long. Those machines burned the land, destroyed our houses and homes. Not to mention they managed to destroy Canterlot too. "I'm not sure which of us was the first to wake, but I found The Pink One and The Yellow One after I woke. Shortly after, we found a Polychromatic individual, as well as the White One and two twins of reverse colour schemes. In the midst of the war raging outside, we managed to stay together and make our way here; to the building we now call home." "How did the land get like this? If it was just a war, then where is everyone?" Those last four words rolled out of Twilight's mouth with a sad emphasis. "I do not know myself," Replied The Blue One. "But on a related note, the Polychromatic One and myself had a clash of views and left, taking the reverse-colour twins with her. I've not seen the three of them since, and I am unsure of their whereabouts. All that aside, we do what we can to get by; Largely keeping ourselves hidden from The Beast." "Where are the rest of you?" "Pinkamena is behind the curtain behind us doing whatever it is she does, Applejack is, well... you know, Fluttershy is with us, and the rest—" "Are missing," Twilight said, matter-of-factly. "Where did The Beast come from, and what does it want with us?" The Princess just snorted at Twilight's comment. "I do not know. We waited for the war to end, and now we wait for The Beast to stop hunting us too." She walks over to a torn calender with the top most section ripped out, leaving the numbers 1 through 14 on it. He horn lit up, and the '2' square dissolved in fire, leaving 1, 5, 6, 8, and 9. "How can you write them off that easily because they're missing? "Tis hard, Twilight Sparkle. We yearn for their return, but we cannot risk The Beast finding us, or our sanctuary." "Then why was Rarity out there, then? Tell me that, Princess." "We sent her out to bring back supplies. Looks like we got more than we bargained for. She's lost to us, now." "But she isn't lost!" Pleaded Twilight. "We can rescue her and the others if only yo—" "NO!" Roared The Princess, huffing rapidly from the fury in her tone. "I've told you that we cannot afford to lose any more!" Her gaze shot past Twilight, to Fluttershy. "Take the new guest to the watchtower—and out of my sight. Keep an eye out for The Beast, and alert me if you see it." Not saying a word, Fluttershy galloped passed a stunned Twilight and pulled her along and back out to the bucket elevator. She nudged Twilight inside, closed the door, and started turning the lever. The bucket began to ascend the tower, and Twilight just waited to see what is at the top.
