The Star Archives: Trial's of the Wastelands

The day was dark, very dark, and storms could be heard. There was the sound of thunder in the distance. Lapis frowned, watching the sky through a window that was tinted with a pinkish haze that he could not figure out where it was coming from. He tried the door, only to find it locked. He kept looking for a way out of this room, but found all the other entrances locked. Suddenly, through the cell door, he saw the same pink haze that was outside, creeping through the hallway towards the room he was in. he gulped, backing up against the wall near the window. He wasn't sure what this stuff was, but judging by the screams outside, it wasn’t anything good. Soon enough, wisps of it went through the bars, seeming to melt them and twist them into something unrecognizable from the sturdy cell door mere minutes ago. The pinkish smoke, seeming to sense his fear, reached for him. As the cloud brushed against him, a horrible sinking feeling hit his gut, along with an intense burning pain. Lapis opened his mouth, and screamed.

Lapis shot awake, sitting straight up in his bed. He was coated in sweat, his blankets twisted, and his mane matted. He gulped, his throat seemingly parched, and looked around the room. Noting that it was not a jail cell, he sighed in relief. “Oh thank the gods… It was only a dream,” he muttered to himself as he got up for the morning, noting the time. He had a busy day today, having to meet a certain pony to discuss the potential expansion of his gem mines. He got ready for the day, trying to push the idea of his nightmare out of his mind. It was a great day today! He should enjoy it! Lapis chuckled to himself, and stepped out of his hotel room, walking down the hall, and to the entrance of the hotel he was staying at. He blinked, his eyes adjusting to the brightness of outside, with the gleaming flawless buildings, and the Palace. The birds were chirping, the city was already up and bustling, and Lapis smiled, walking through the town towards the designated meeting point. It was actually at a Café. Strange place to have it, but he agreed nonetheless.

Lapis sat there, sipping a cup of coffee, and reading a newspaper, while waiting for the representative he was supposed to meet. They were late, which was quite unlike them, as they had met before and they had always been on time. Still, instances happen, so he didn’t mind. He had the newspaper held out, flipping through the pages, when somepony sat down in front of him. He looked up, relieved to see his representative, but frowned when he saw a mare standing next to them, frowning at him. “Umm… Jade? Who is this? I thought you were going to be coming alone.” Lapis spoke, his voice soft and quiet, but confused as well. “Well, Mr. Star, I was going to come alone, but this mare from the Ministry of Morale wanted to come along for reasons she would not disclose to me.” Jade spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, staring at the table. Lapis let out a sigh, waving a hoof as he brought up a cup of tea to his lips with his magic, taking a sip. “Mmmm, fine, fine. Let’s get this over with then. Now, as I’m sure the Ministry, and you, Jade, know. I am wishing to increase the number of the mines that I have open. This would involve opening new mines, and allow us to further increase the amount of gemstones we could use for talismans or for weapons, if you so wish.”

The negotiations went on for a few hours, but no progress was made, and lapis sighed, pulling out a pocket watch and checking the time. “I am sorry Jade, but it would appear that we have made no progress today. Maybe we could try again tomorrow?” Jade nodded, and they agreed to meet at the same place tomorrow. Lapis watched her go, and went back to reading, then frowned as he realized that the Ministry of Morale mare had sat down in Jade’s spot. “Mr. Star. Now that she is gone, we can get down to business. Might I ask, for both myself, and the Ministry, what are you doing?” Lapis chuckled, setting his newspaper down as he had picked it up again, and frowned slightly. “OK, I’ll bite. I have no idea what this is about.” Lapis frowned more, not exactly sure where this was going, and straightened in his chair.

“Oh, Mr. Star. We aren’t fools. We know that you have been hiring Zebras to work in your mines. Although we do applaud your ability to this from us for this long, we do see all. Your actions are inexcusable, and you have broken laws that we thought you, of all ponies, would never break. But we have been wrong now and then.” Lapis, during this, had gone pale, all color seeming to drain from his face, and he scowled once she had finished, and spoke in a hushed tone. “Did you honestly expect me, to just up and ignore them? Are you insane?! Many of them were starving, weak, without homes or shelter! This is often the only way many of them will survive!”

“That is not our problem. Our problem is with zebra sympathizers. Which, in this case, would be you. So, shall we do this the easy way, or the hard way?” Lapis scowled, standing up. “I do not have to answer to a bunch of corrupt, heartless imbeciles who ignore the fact that the ones I hire were once proud citizens of Equestria! You stripped that from them, just like everything else you held dear! I bet you never thought about why the issues with attacks within our borders were so often. It’s because you decided to destroy any relationships the current Zebras in our lands had with this country! Now, if you will excuse me, I think I will be going. I still have a job to do, despite what you think.”

As he got up to leave, the Mare calmly drew a strange sort of air pistol, similar to one a colt would use for fun, and shot lapis with it in the flank as he was walking away. Lapis felt a small prick, and frowned, looking back to his flank, noticing a now empty syringe sticking out of it, and he gasped, trying to run, but merely slipped, falling onto his face, and he groaned. While he tried to get back up, the mare, ignoring the looks she received, walked over to him, glaring down at him. “You’ll be out cold in a minute or so. That was an enhanced form of Med-X. It’s too strong for practical use on the battlefield, but perfect for stopping unruly ponies, or runners…” Lapis groaned. It was becoming hard to see, or hear anything, and he stared up at the Ministry representative. “I…. will see you in Tartarus…” He slumped over, everything going black.

When lapis next awoke, he was in hoof shackles, and had a magic inhibitor on his horn, along with being in a jail cell very similar to the one in his dream. He groaned, muttering to himself, as he sat up slowly. “Ugh. Well, this is going fantastic, Lapis… You just had to talk to her, didn’t you?” Nobody was around him, and the place seemed to be deserted. “Strange, nopony is around... Why would they leave a ‘war criminal’ unguarded?” Lapis frowned, walking towards the door way, when he heard a strange thundering. The floor under him shaking, and dust raining down on him, and he coughed, and trotted towards the window. When he got there, he saw flames engulfing some buildings, along with a shield beginning to engulf the city’s border, with what looked to be like missiles slamming into the shield. He gulped, backing away from the window, shuddering. “So… that would explain the lack of guards. Now I just need to get out of here.”

Lapis began by seeing if he had anything in the room with him, and frowned when he found nothing but a metal cot that was firmly secured to the wall. He scowled, thinking, and then tried to get the magic inhibitor off of his horn, growling when it wouldn’t come off. He kept struggling, yelping when he heard a crack and felt a flash of pain. The Inhibitor was in tight enough to actually crack his horn. “Well. I’m not getting out using magic. Maybe somepony will come along and let me out, considering it appears to be the End Times outside.” He sat down, looking around the room. Now comes the boring part of waiting…, He thought.

Just as he began to actually get bored, the room darkened suddenly. Lapis frowned, getting up and going to the window, and looked up at the sky, noting that clouds that hadn’t been there before, were now sitting low in the sky. “Interesting… why would the Pegasi close up the sky? One of their cities must have been hit... No, I don’t believe it. The princess’s probably had the sky closed so that missiles might miss their targets.” Lapis sighed, muttering to himself, and went to work on the shackles, managing to slip them off with surprising ease. “Well. That’ll be useful. Now to get the inhibitor off.” Lapis began to struggle with it, but had no luck.

Lapis heard screams, and went to window. Outside, he could see a strange pink mist beginning to flow out into the streets. “Well, just when I thought this day couldn’t get any worse, now my dreams are coming into reality. Shit. Well, I should have just stayed in bed this morning.” Lapis watched out the window as the sky opened up, lightning crackling and lighting up the sky as missiles continued to slam into the shield. Eventually, as it seemed inevitable, the mist started to creep down the hall. He proceeded to wait into it had destroyed the door, and was reaching for him, when he charged headlong into the mist, intent on running out into the street where it shouldn’t be nearly as concentrated. He gasped, yelling in pain as he kept running, the only thing he could compare this to, was when a cave in, in one of his mines, had broken his leg. And this felt at least ten times worse! It did not matter to him though, he wanted to be free.

Lapis burst from the Jail doors, coughing up Pink Cloud and blood. The streets were slowly beginning to fill with it, and he groaned, continuing to cough, as he tried to get to the edge of town, making slow but steady time. Eventually, he managed to get ahead of the cloud, though not by much. “Ugh. Whatever this stuff is, whoever made it should rot in Tartarus. Though, it was probably Zebra’s so… it doesn’t seem too b~” Lapis had begun to walk off, only to find himself unable to move. He looked down at his hooves, to find his own hooves fused with the cement. It looked both like he had hooves, and that he had been made from cement from the hoof down. It was strange, feeling what he felt. He could mostly feel the grainy feeling of the cement mixed with his hooves. Lapis, now irritated, growled and pulled on his hooves. When he got nowhere, he sighed, looking around and almost screamed when he saw that the cloud was getting steadily closer. He gasped, and began to forcefully tug and pull on his hooves out of the cement. He heard cracking, and was suddenly flung forward. There was a loud cracking sound, a “Plink!” sound, and lapis felt a flash of burning pain, but that was dulled then suddenly intensified as the cloud began to brush against him, and he ran off again, the loud sound of cement on cement echoing as he kept running. He laughed, soon reaching the edge of the city, and all of a sudden slammed into something right where an empty road should be. He groaned, falling onto his back, but got up quickly, shaking his head. “What the…?”

What stood in front of him was a shimmering wall, and he groaned. “That’s right! They set up a shield… but why won’t it let things out? If that means that it won’t let me out... Please! No! You have to let me out! I didn’t get this far to be stopped by a shield!” Lapis began to beat his hooves on the shield, hoping, praying, that it would open. Even when the Cloud surrounded him, choking him, blinding him, and the pressure began to build, popping his eardrums and making it impossible to see.

Lapis collapsed against the shield, going limp, but just as he had given up, and was going to walk into the choking Cloud, the shield suddenly vaporized with a bang. Lapis stared, dumbfounded, before suddenly rushing through, cloud wisps clinging to him as he kept running, and cloud began to fall to the ground in wet pink drops as it began to rain. First the rain came in a drizzle, then a steady pour. Lapis kept running, till he was well past the city outskirts and was now in a rural area.

Lapis groaned. He had ended up in a house for the night, having broken into it. Nobody was inside, and he had managed to get lucky and find a Healing potion to at least fix his lungs so he wasn’t hacking up blood all the time. After drinking it down, he sighed, looking through the house. There were some pictures on the walls, of some happy ponies. He smiled. “Caring family… that’s good. They will need all the help they can get now.” He sighed, sadly, and then blinked, freezing up. Ruby! Lapis gulped, tempted to run out, but then realized they were days away, across the country almost. They wouldn’t be able to see him for several days at least, because of travel times. He might as well get some rest. Lapis sighed, walking around in the house until he found the bedroom, and then crashed on the bed, falling asleep almost instantly.

When Lapis woke up, it was still dark outside. There was a bit of light coming through the windows, but the thick dark grey clouds hanging in the air, and it was raining slightly. Lapis groaned, getting up, and going into the bathroom. He turned on the water, splashing his face, and then looked into the mirror. What he saw made him gasp. What he had not noticed, when he got up, was that most of his mane had fallen out, and his skin was showing in patches as his coat of fur was coming off in tufts. What was most surprising to him, however, was that his horn was missing. “That must have come off while I was running from the Cloud… huh. W-well, nothing that can be done about it. I guess I have to get used to it.” Lapis muttered to himself as he washed his face again, washing a surprising amount of hair down the drain. He noticed his hooves kept scratching him, and he finally looked directly at them, having been avoiding this moment for a long time.

The cement had fused with his hooves. His normally black hooves, now having a grey splotch coloring to them, chunks of cement stuck from his hooves, some sharp. They could be useful weapons in a fight. He scratched at them. They itched, and he sighed. “Well, just even more things I’m going to have to get used to… I hope my hair comes back.” He said softly, and then began to make a plan, and went through the house, gathering items he would need in some saddlebags he found that fit him. Food, Water, and a shotgun he found that he almost blew his head off with, because the previous owner left it loaded. But now he knew how to fire it. He grabbed it, and all the ammo he could carry, and put the weapon in a holster that was slung over his shoulder. “Ugh. I really, really hope that I will not have to use this. But who knows what people are like. It’s the end of the world…” Lapis sighed, then unlocked the door, then stepped out into the rain, determined to make it to Manehatten, to see his family.