Highway South and the Dark Industry

Chapters

Chapter 1: First Big Job
Chapter 2: Sweet Celestia!
Chapter 3: Fuel to the Flame
Chapter 4: Worse than Corrupution
Chapter 5: Duel at the Factory
Chapter 6: The Highway South
Chapter 7: Starlight City

Chapter 1: First Big Job

The day was warm and the sun shining, not too warm and not too cold. It was approximately two in the afternoon, and a young pegasus had just finished his lunch. He’d been out of work for a while now, side jobs here and there to keep food on the table. His name was Highway South, a dark orange tone for his body and nearly white sky-blue mane. His hair in particular wasn’t combed too often, or even at all. In human years he would be about nineteen. He gave a long sigh as he exited the corner diner and out into the cold gray streets.

Out over the horizon was the Great Factory, an engineering and production achievement all on its own. From what he knew, it had the highest output of goods in the entire world. It had by far the most and best employees from the area working under it. Their products were top of the line, and the average salary per worker was quite high. Almost everyone wanted to work there, except for the “crazies.”

The streets were cold and bland but full of texture. The streets had been used so much that it were as if an artist had carefully crafted individual stones to tell a story. The buildings were standard around the factory; tall, three story apartments with not much class. The red in the bricks had faded a bit, and some owners had repainted theirs to make it not look like a total trash heap. Most of the people in the area seemed content with their lives, but why wouldn’t they be? For most, this is all they’ve ever known. So having a decent paying job and never leaving was standard.

Most citizens were so content that they didn’t even bat an eye toward the huge smoke stacks of the factory for a minute and think, maybe this is a bad thing? Never, that’s where a lot of their incomes came from.

‘It’s time,’ the young pegasus thought to himself now staring at the huge smoke stacks on the horizon. Today he was going to be interviewed for a job at the factory, and he was not going to fail. He was tired of small projects; he wanted to do more with his time. He wanted more; more money, more living, more exploration and most importantly more freedom.

You could say he was the dreamer type, but in a place like this who wouldn’t be?

He made his way down the street to the factory paying no attention to anyone around him until he got closer to the factory. A massive amount of ponies were going to the factory today, enough to occupy the entire street. “Oh come on!” he said in disgust. Cracking his neck, he stretched his wings out wide. “I have an interview to get to, and this isn’t going to stop me.” He leaped forward and was lifted by the strength of his wings. The air was rushing past him and there was nothing in his way. “Looks like its clear skies today!”

The ponies below mumbled and grumbled over the pegasus now flying over them. After all, they have to wait in line. “Boo!” one of them shouted kiddingly. This encouraged more shouts and mockeries, until the whole crowd had joined in.
As a result South shouted, “Oh come on! Are you really going to be upset over this?”

In a window high above the crowd there stood a very ornate unicorn, dressed in an expensive looking suit and wearing a monocle. He was stark white and had a combed back golden mane. He stood rather peacefully as he watched the antics unfold outside.

“Do you suppose that’s the stallion we have coming in for an interview today?” he said in a very sophisticated voice.
A dark and deep voice answered from behind, “That would be him.” The noise outside grew steadily louder. The deep voice spoke again, “I want you to handle this one, I have to check on production.”

“Of course sir,” the white stallion replied.

Highway finally reached the gate in front of the factory and was confronted by a pegasus bouncer. “You there!” he spoke in a stern voice, “what business do you have with the factory?”
Ruffling through his bag he was carrying South replied with, “I have a job interview today at two-thirty in the afternoon.”

“Oh really? What position?”

“You know, the standard laborer.”

“Oh…” he seemed to cut out suddenly. “Are you sure you want to do that? It’s good pay but, it’s awfully boring.”

“It’s alright, I need money right now so I’ll be fine with it.”

“If you say so.”

He pulled the temporary I.D. out of his bag and showed it to the guard. “Alright, good luck!”

“Thanks!”

He flew past the bouncer and into the factory grounds. The first thing noticeable is the two large rectangular buildings out front. They’re separated by a decently spaced gap. In between them is a double door leading into both of the buildings. ‘I guess that’s where I’m headed.’ He thought now flying a little slower. The buildings were intimidating after all, over forty stories tall and pitch black; except for the windows.

Upon arriving at the doors, he landed on the ground. Raising one hoof, he pushed the tall door open. It made a slight creaking noise and opened easily. Inside the room was nothing but white walls and a few plants here and there. In the far right hand corner of the room was a receptionist desk with two ponies occupying its domain.

‘They’ll know where I need to go.’ He walked over to the desk and confronted the one on the right. She was dark gray and a bit old. She was organizing papers on the desk when he decided to speak.

“Achoo!” he pretended to sneeze to get her attention. Dropping one of the many papers she let out a surprised noise.
She had a Brooklyn accent when she spoke, “Well, hello there. I didn’t see you.” Her coworker laughed, it seems this happens often.

“Sorry about that, I’m here for an interview. You know where I’m supposed to go?”

Recomposing herself, “Yeah, go through these doors and take a right. Follow the hallway until you reach the stairs; there is room for pegasus to fly over there as well. Go to the sixth floor, and the room is…uuhhh.” Looking down to her papers in search of the meeting room, “Ah! Room 669.”

“Thank you ma’am,” he replied in satisfaction. Turning to exit through the door the mare interjected, “Oh, good luck sir.” Highway turned quickly back and gave a nod before exiting.

These hallways were completely different; instead of white walls with plants, they were smooth black and had statues of famous employees. As Highway walked down the hall he tried to make out what the statues had labeled on them. The only thing mentionable on them was an engraving that said, “Distinguished Employee.”

“Hmm…” he mumbled to himself. It were as if the specific deeds that made the employees stand out were not to actually be documented. Their secrets kept only to those who knew them. Needless to say, it gave the hallway a darker and more isolated feeling; the empty stares of the statues watching you as you walked helped.

‘This place certainly seems different from the rest of the city,’ he thought flying up the section of the stairs made specifically for pegasi. Strangely, the area was quiet. One would think that having the largest production facility in the world would make some sound.

He arrived on the sixth floor and panned his vision left to right to check the numbers. “Alright, so I gotta go left,” he said to himself being a little more nervous than he was a minute ago. The pressure was rising, and questions filled a portion of his mind. ‘Can I actually get this job? Should I’ve applied somewhere else?’ He reached the door labeled 669. It stared him down, polished, heavy, important, and crystal black. ‘Maybe I should just go…’

A sophisticated voice came from behind the door, “You can come in.” He knew Highway was there, and the sudden voice made him jump. He gulped, and pushed the heavy door open.

There on the other side of the room sat a very rich looking pony staring him down with relaxed eyes. The room, like the hallway, was black. It was obnoxiously long and high for a simple little desk at the end of it. “You can come a little closer you know?” the unicorn asked slightly amused.

“Heh, of course,” he answered in a very embarrassed fashion.

He trotted his way over to the desk guiltily. Arriving in front in an unnecessarily and awkward time. A single chair was on his side of the desk. He flew up over the chair and landed perfectly on top of it. Now the unicorn’s eyes were staring at a much more intense range, and the wall behind him was entirely made of glass. Combine that with the setting sun’s rays in the background and you have quite the sight.

Highway noticed a golden folder on the desk, on it was his job application. “So, you’re applying for the average laborer hmm?” he spoke slower than before.

“Yes sir.”

“Well, let’s get you tested first.”

“Umm tested?”

“To see if you qualify for the average worker of course.”

“I thought we were just going to talk.”

“Well there’ll be plenty of talking but first of all, can you lift these?” He pressed a button underneath his desk, and the room made a large humming sound. The sound of steam being released came from behind him, and he turned startled. The walls opened and huge contraptions of steel and glass moved endlessly around each other, until finally stopping in a huge white box the width of the room, with silver stairs leading up to it.
Highway turned back to the stallion in the chair to see him with the same relaxed expression on his face. “What is that?” he asked desperately.

“That is the test cube. Go on, I’ll be right behind you.”

They both got out of their chairs and walked over to the stairs. “I-Is this safe?” South asked nervously.
“Of course it is!” he shouted back. “Otherwise we wouldn’t use it.”

They made their way up the stairs and stopped at the top. The cube had no roof so that they could drop down inside, the walls of the makeshift room were about half as tall as the actual room’s. Yet, the only thing awaiting them inside was an empty white room. “That’s it? I thought there’d be…more…” he said in disappointment.
The unicorn leapt down to the bottom and turned back, “There’s more to this than you think.”

“If you say so.” He said gliding down to the floor.

“By the way, my name’s Impound. I’m the second in command of the company.” He walked over to the left side of the room, then stomped on one of the floor tiles. The floor in front of him opened up, and another platform rose out of it. On it, rested a set of weights. Turning back to Highway he commanded, “Lift these weights.”

Looking at them uncertainly he replied, “I’ll give it a go.”

Walking over to the weights the tension grew. Like a weed that was slowly impairing all of his movements. ‘All right, just gotta lift these weights.’ Navigating his way under the harness that was holding the weights together, he breathed a little heavier. Taking a deep breath he lifted with all his might, but to no avail. He glanced quickly over to Impound, who was simply watching quietly. He took a quick break, and then tried again and again. Every attempt got more ridiculous, and he was wearing himself out as a direct result.

Impound suddenly spoke during one of his intermissions, “You know, you can use your wings right?” The event seemed to stop for a moment as the realization hit him.

‘Now he tells me!’ His huge wings opened faster than ever before, and he began flapping vigorously. Almost immediately he left the ground, soaring into the air like it was nothing. He flew nearly to the ceiling before stopping. Impound’s jaw dropped for a moment before shutting it in realization of what he was doing.
“Well,” he said breathlessly, “I think you’ve accomplished that task with flying colors.”

“I did!” he shouted in joy.

“Yes, now get down here for the second task.”

“Alright!”

South’s mark was an intricate wing to represent his special talent. He had always had bigger wings than average. Not to the point where they didn’t look like they belong, but somewhere close. The wings didn’t mean he was faster, just that he had more power behind them. He could outmaneuver other pegasi, and he was the first by far to fly in his school; two years to be exact.

He landed smoothly onto the ground without any sign of strain. A click was heard, and the next test was unveiled. A board stretching halfway to the ceiling appeared from the wall. On it were nine different screens. They each had something completely different on them. One screen had numbers, another a letter, an address, one a silhouette of a pony’s face, and other miscellaneous things.

“Now, I’m going to flip these images around and you’re going to tell me what they are alright?” This test was going to be difficult, what should he memorize? There’s no way he could remember all of it!

‘Think come on think!’ he stared at the board for the little time he had. Until finally in frustration, ‘FORGET THIS! I’m just remembering the hardest ones!’ Another moment, then the images all flipped around so that the backs of the monitors were visible.

“Now, speak.” Impound said in a very direct tone. A few moments passed, it seemed as though the pegasus was getting his mind ready. In partial curiosity and impatience he raised one eyebrow. “Did you not remember anything?”

‘Ok, just go for it, if you’re wrong…if you’re wrong…WHATEVER!’ He stomped one hoof in defiance. “The numbers in the upper left corner were three/thirteen/twelve. The address on the one in the middle is five sixteen Steel Rock Boulevard, room twelve.” A smile ran across Impound’s face. “Also, I believe the silhouette was mayor of The District of Quarry, but I’m not sire.” He closed his eyes thinking he’d said it all wrong. There was also the fact that he hadn’t memorized all nine pictures. “I’m not hired am I?” he whimpered sadly.

“Well, I appear to have good news and bad news.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes.”

“The bad news is that you’re not getting hired for the job.”

“It’s alright, I know I’m not the best-“

“You’re getting hired for a different job.”

“I…WHAT?”

“Indeed it is a special job, not many ponies get offered the position.”

“SERIOUSLY!?”

“Yes, seriously. Now some of the information is classified, and we’ve been needing another employee lately, you just happen to fit the job description perfectly.”

Highway’s mind was racing, this time with complete optimism. What kind of job could it be? This was way better than he expected in the first place. Would he be a secret agent; undercover from the law and the people around him, not that anyone knew who he was in the first place. Still, he decided, being undercover would be cool.

“So what do I do?”

“Now, you have to accept the job before I give you any more information.”

In extreme delight, and some blind stupidity, he said, “I accept your job request! I will not let you down sir!”

“Good! Now you’re official job title will be ‘Delivery Overseer.” However, this is in truth only part of you’re job.”

“A delivery overseer? That’s my new job?”

“I can assure you it will be more than that.” He said in a warning like tone. “You will fly to the rim of the city and check all deliveries going in and out.”

“Seems simple enough…why do not many people get offered the position?”

“I was about to explain.” Pausing a moment for dramatic effect, he seemed a little disturbed by the sudden interruption. “Ahem, you must not talk directly with any of the workers delivering the packages.”

“Why?”

“You need not get distracted by petty commoners. Besides, you’ll be managing a lot of things anyway. You can trust me on that.”

In a way that last comment was an insult to Highway, but at the same time a compliment. He was a commoner in Dimsville. However, the way he didn’t include him in the same category of commoner meant that he considered him higher class.

“Fine, but how much does this job pay?”

“Around five hundred thousand bits a year,” or about three hundred thousand dollars a year in human currency.

This time Highway’s jaw dropped, and he stood there stunned. That was more money than he’d ever made in his life. Now puzzled, he questioned, “Where does all this money come from? The city’s poor but this factory’s making tons of money. We don’t even have anything around here worth that much! Do we?” he asked in a ponderous voice.

Impound laughed a little then replied with, “Oh we have some of the best resources in the world.” His tone was dark and sinister.

His response didn’t cause immediate worry, but it was already bugging him in a way. His imagination was starting to get the best of him. ‘No, he’s just talking about special stones or something. That’s what the Quarry District’s famous for.’ He had to reassure himself with this thought, or risk getting fired for asking a stupid question. After all, this was the most pay he’d ever gotten anywhere.

“Well,” said Impound giving off a slight sigh, “you should get to work immediately. Now go fly off, the workers there will give you more information.”

The happiness of having a good job radiated from him, as if it had its own force. ‘I’ll get right on it sir!”

“Good, I’ll see you later. Good day.”

With that the meeting was over. One final stomp from the unicorn lowered the walls of the cube. The room was looking unnecessarily long again. “Since you’re now specially employed you can use the sky exit.” His horn glowed with magical power and a loud click was heard. A decent amount of glass was seen sinking into the floor; the window opened like an automatic door. “You’ll also need this,” once again using magic, he floated a card over to South. It had yellow and black stripes covering most of it. In huge white writing it said, “Sky Clearance Card.”

“That card will give you full access to the skies above the factory.”

Highway put the card in his pack using his teeth, then trotted over to the exit. “Hey, one more thing before I go.”

“Yes?”

“Why the super expensive test machine?”

Without even hesitating, “We get a lot of job offers here, as you would imagine, so to speed the process up we built a super expensive machine. Also, because we can.” He gave a brief laugh at this, nodded, and took off.
The wind was flowing through his mane once again as he jumped clear out the window, and into the open sky. The relief of getting the job filled his heart, and he was happy as could be; even humming a little tune as he flew. He looked down as he glided over the factory’s roofs; there were some windows he could look through in the ceiling. In one, a few ponies were taking a break from their work and getting ready to go home. In another, the receptionists could be seen organizing their papers.
It was getting late in the day, the sun’s rays were now a deep red. Opposite the sun was night, visible from the sky was both night and day.
A whizzing sound was heard over and over again. Each time it got louder, until lights of all different colors were circling him so that he couldn’t move. Trapped in mid-air, he could do nothing but hover. The whizzing sounded more like a storm, until the lights decided to come to a halt directly in front of him. Five pegasus wearing black armor floated, moving only to flap their wings. Their faces and manes were completely covered in the armor, giving them the appearance of soldiers.
One spoke out in a sort of censored, robotic voice, “Halt! Present a pass or legitimate identification.” Started, Highway took a moment to comply with the request. ‘They must be talking about that pass.’ He reached into his bag, and pulled out the pass. The one who spoke came closer to inspect the pass. “It seems you have a legitimate pass, we’ve never seen you before. Are you new?”
“Actually, yes. I just got hired today,” he said cautiously.
“Sorry to bother you.”
“It’s alright, but who are you guys?”

He flew back over to the other pegasi, “We are the Neon Bolts; guards of the factory, and watchers of the skies. We make sure no unauthorized ponies get into the factory. Although we’re mostly active at this time through the night.”

“Wow, so you’re like the night guard, huh?”

“Pretty much kid. Make sure you always have that pass or we can’t let you through. Also,” he moved a little closer, “stay on our good side.”

This did not make Highway comfortable; in fact he just about flew away right there. These pegasi were scary. Just by looking at them you could tell they were strong, but their skill at flying made them even more dangerous. All five of them could literally fly circles around you, at the same time. Bottom line, don’t mess with the Neon Bolts.

“We sincerely hope to recognize you next time, and that this doesn’t happen again. You’re free to go.”
“Thanks…” he said automatically in fear.
In a burst of light they all disappeared. So fast that he couldn’t even tell where they went; and what was with that light anyway? Was it coming from their armor, or did they have some kind of spell on them; again, unimportant questions for the time. He flew off to his house, where he decided he’d stay for the night then depart early in the morning.

Back in the office of Impound, a secret discussion was taking place.

“So,” a deep voice started, “how’d it go?” In the darkness of the night a large shadowy figure occupied most of the room. With its glowing green eyes and two glistening fangs sticking out of the corners of its hidden mouth, the creature sat patiently for an answer.

“It went well sir, but I had a hard time keeping a straight face.” The familiar sophisticated voice spoke.

“Oh? Do tell.”

“He isn’t suspicious, but he’s definitely observant in the right places. During the tests he remembered the date, address, and even recognized the silhouette.” He took a swig of tea he had on the desk. “You don’t need to recognize the silhouette to pass the test, only know where it is. He’s obviously never worked for any part of the factory before that requires resource gathering.” He took another sip of tea, this time longer. “Which means that he’s more observant than most, and could catch on if he speaks to anypony delivering packages from out of town.”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit risky leaving him close by the delivery workers?”

“Look!” he shouted sternly, “if he gets out of line in any way, shape or form, I’ll call him up and tell him his job’s on the line.”

“So you’re going to monitor him? Interesting. He’s that observant is he?”

“More than any others we’ve had. I suspect that if I’d put him in the standard job he would’ve figured it out and escaped before we could’ve done anything.”

“Well in that case should we just, you know, end him? It would be fun, we haven’t done something like that in a while.”

After taking another sip of tea he replied casually, “I admit it would be amusing, but then we’d have the whole fiasco of dealing with the police…again.”

A wide grin crossed the dark, monstrous beast’s face, “I’m the Spirit of Derailment and Loss. If I can’t lead them so far off track that, at the very least, they end themselves, then no one else can.”
“True,” he laid back in his chair, “then I guess it’s your call.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, as the mind of a monster put its devious thoughts to use.

“I’ve decided,”

“Oh?”

“To end him.”

“Marvelous,” he spoke pretending to be amused before drinking more of his tea. “So how’re we going to go about doing it?”

“In a couple of days he’ll get a call to come in for an urgent message that needs to be delivered in person. He already believes he’s on some classified job title, so he’ll buy it. When he arrives we’ll give him a tour of the factory; the real factory, as a parting gift. While on tour, we’ll have one of the Neon Bolts posted. At the end of the tour, he flies in and we have a little landing accident.”

Impound finishes his tea with a final swish, and the cup dings against the desk as he puts it down. “Solid, but it must be done perfectly. If he escapes-“

“He won’t!”

The shout echoed throughout the room as if the world was in shock of his powerful voice.

“Well then, I guess I’ll be seeing you?”

The beast stood up and, using one of his sharp claws, poked a hidden button on the wall. The entire wall opened up with a low rattling of moving parts. It walked out, and down the hallway to the left. Every step it took was heavy and loud.

Then wall shut back up in reverse as it opened, closing with a bang that echoed as loud as his yell.

Impound swiveled around in his chair and stared out into the night. “And some ponies tell me they have scary bosses…”

Chapter 2: Sweet Celestia!

The air outside the rundown apartment was cool. A thick fog had rolled in overnight, but only those now awake were aware of it. A light in the second floor of the corner apartment turned on; the glow shown in the fog like a lantern through a dark forest. The silhouette of a pegasus waking up in the morning blanketed out some of the light from the window.

As suddenly as it had come, it was gone. Hoovesteps were heard down the main flight of stairs in the apartment. They echoed and creaked over and over, finally reaching a stop at the door. Through the opening door came the very excited Highway South. He wasn’t the least bit tired, and he had seemed to awaken before any of the other ponies.

‘Today’s the day,’ he thought to himself as he gazed into the fog. Its presence had lessened over the course of his time awakening. The first light of morning was peaking its way over the horizon, just in time for him to take first flight.

Over the buildings he flew, below the old town seemed not as dark as it had before. The area gave off a vibe of being ancient ruins. As far as you could see there was the cool, gray-blue city.

What would become of this new job, he wondered. Just what does lie on the edge of the city? As he traveled his mind continued to overflow with these thoughts.

The cool air was gradually becoming warmer, until it reached a temperature slightly more comfortable. The sun rose higher in the sky as a few hours passed, and the beating of his wings steadily grew more relaxed. His speed was decreasing, but that didn’t mean he was going much slower. After all, the huge size of his wings allowed him to glide far longer than other pegasi. Soon the skies above the city were filled with others; going to their usual jobs about the day. It was now about ten o’clock.

“Man, how far away is the edge of the city? Feels like I’ve been flying forever.” After a few more beats of his wings a sign of hope came into view. “There it is!” he shouted to himself in enjoyment. The buildings suddenly cut off from the horizon. Behind them was a humongous golden field, more commonly known as a desert. He’d never seen a desert before so he flew faster. His curiosity was reaching an all-time high.

Positioned around the city in a mathematically correct way, were towers stretching just a few inches below his altitude. They stretched around the city’s circular edge like sentries on guard. Their presence was a bit disturbing. Why would they be needed? There was no war going on, it was peaceful around the area.

Below one of the towers was a large rectangular building, pitch black on the outside. ‘That looks like a good place to start looking.’ He dove at the ground until he was just above the tallest building’s roof; then gently glided down. Landing at the front of the building, he trotted over and went inside.

This was nothing like the factory it was comfortable in here. The walls were freshly painted tan, some flowers were in vases along the edges of the room, and there was even enough chairs to sit around twenty ponies. The receptionist’s desk only housed one pony, this time he was older and more rough looking. He appeared to have razor stubble, and had a hard hat next to him on the desk. “And you are?” he asked before looking away from his television.

“I’m Highway South, and I’m look-“

The stallion quickly turned around to inspect the new person in his office. “You’re Highway South? Pleasure to meet ya boss.” He sat up from his chair in recognition of the new authority.

“Uhh…so I’m in the right place?”

“Yes you are. We’ll start you off easy until you get used to the new working environment. Here, let me take you to your office.”

The desk flipped open to make way for someone getting through. “I’m Bricks, Stone Bricks, but you can call me whatever you want sir.”

“Its fine…Bricks.”

“Follow me sir.”

He opened the door against the back wall that said, “Employees Only,” and they both walked through. There was a dimly lit hallway behind it, and it seemed more like its purpose was only to divide the standard area from the working area. The next door swung open, inside was a huge loading dock. Crates were stacked to the ceiling in some places, and there were unicorns everywhere using their magic to lift things not usually possible. Most of the crates being lifted were bigger than the guys lifting them. The wall on the right hand side of the factory was missing, instead the sun’s white morning rays came through. This provided a lot of natural light. There was a raised platform that snaked along the other side of the building so that you could get around without actually going inside the working area. That is where they were standing.

“Wow, this is amazing!” South said in awe.

“Yep, these are the loading docks for the out of city transport. You’re area is on the other side.”

They walked along the outside path for quite a while before reaching another door. As they came up to it Highway noticed that there was another, much larger steel door separating this place and the next. It sat along the same wall as the current door and couldn’t be opened without magic; mostly because it was huge and made of steel.

“Right this way, he said opening the final door.

They entered a sort of, control room encased by glass. There was no desk, only an angled control panel filled with a few buttons and levers. Outside of the glass was a miniaturized version of the dock, very miniaturized. Only a few wooden crates occupied the floor. There was no opening for natural light, which seemed odd at first. “Why no light?” asked South.

“Oh that? That’s because this is the special delivery part of the building. See the number painted over there?” He motioned over to the opposite wall, “that three means you’re in section three. We chose this as the location of your office due to the proximity to special deliveries, the things demanding the most attention around here. Also, to be secure, we have no windows…sorry ‘bout that.”

Highway stood there for a moment and wondered if that was the longest possible way to answer a question. Then Brick showed him how to use all the controls in the “desk,” and left.

He picked up the delivery schedule, which had been left on the floor, then began reading it. He mumbled a little while reading, “ten-thirty delivery, apples…eleven o’clock special delivery from Princess Celestia.” After reading that last one he stopped. ‘Princess who?’ he wondered in slight shock.

With a cold grinding sound the huge door opened to his right, scaring him into staring as it opened. The light from the outside temporarily blinded him as a figure walked in with a small box. A golden sun decorated the box that was floating in the air. His eyes adjusted to the light. A dark red stallion with blond hair was carrying the box. He was wearing a yellow hardhat, and was somewhat happy. He walked over to the front of the other boxes and dropped it there. In the top right corner it read, “From Celestia.”

‘That Celestia character again, I’ve never heard of her.’ He looked back to the smiling stallion now walking slowly away. ‘Maybe he knows.’ He thought looking down to his schedule. ‘Well, I don’t have any more deliveries for a few hours. Maybe I should go talk to him.’ He walked over to the corner of his new space and went to open the door. The image of Impound telling him not to talk to the workers appeared in his mind. He hesitated and thought about it, ‘I don’t need to get involved with the commoners.’ Highway looked back up to the red stallion, now smiling and waving at him. He sighed, ‘how am I not supposed to go talk to him now?’

He pushed the door open and walked up to him. “Hey there! Is there something wrong?” he said in a lighthearted voice.

“Well no, but it says that the package you delivered is from a Princess Celestia.”

“Oh yeah! That was a special package. I honestly can’t believe I got to deliver it!”

“Um, yeah that’s great but”-

“I mean, how often d you get to deliver a package from the princess of the sun!”

Stunned by the implications he paused, and then spoke, “The sun?”

“Yeah, its great isn’t it?” he said with a sort of rub it in tone.

“So, who is she?”

His happy expression disappeared, his eyes widened and his jaw dropped. His expression then turned back to normal, “Oh I get it, nice one.”

With a not amused face he replied, “No really, who is she?”

“Alright joke’s over, everyones’ heard of Celestia.” He thought to himself for a minute, “I mean, how could you not hear of Celestia?”

“I’ve lived in this city my whole life and no one’s even mentioned her. Now you come in for a delivery, for a few minutes, and tell me she’s famous?”

“Pretty much!”

They stopped and stared at each other in confusion. The sound of boxes being moved filled the air. One worker even stopped for a minute to see what was up.

Highway spoke in a very controlled manner, “Do you have anywhere in particular you’re supposed to be?”

“No, not really why?”

“I must continue this conversation, I need to know more. Could you come into my office for a while?”

“Sure! I just can’t believe you don’t know the Princess.”
They walked into the office and began talking. Minutes passed, then hours. He told Highway all about the summer sun celebration and how she was the one responsible for raising the sun. How the ponies that lived outside the city called the world Equestria. He talked about Canterlot, and all the rich ponies that lived there. He talked about the Princess’s sister, Luna, and how she had become the wicked Nightmare Moon.

The conversations stretched on all day, during which the deliveries were made on time and in one piece. It was indeed peaceful around the building for a long time. Around five o’clock the day was over. The ending buzzer sounded, and all the ponies in the building began packing their things. The sunset had come back into view, as radiant as yesterday.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to cut it short for today,” the red stallion said.

“That’s alright,” replied Highway as he accepted the truth. “OH! By the way, what was your name?” In all the talking, he’d forgotten to ask his name.

“I’m Commune, what’s yours?”

“Highway,” he said proudly, “Highway South.”

“Hmm? That’s a strange name. Why’d your parents name you that?”

South’s heart sank, as bad memories filled his mind. “I-I couldn’t tell you that.”

“Why?”

“…I named myself.”

It took him a minute to realize what he was trying to tell him. Then his face changed to show that he’d gotten the message. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked”-

“No its fine, do you want to know the full story?”

“Actually, how long is it?”

“Not long, but you gotta stay awake.”

“Alright, let’s just go outside.”

The building had mostly shut down by this point. Cool air rushed past them as they walked along the back platform. A great door shut on the other side of the room, a sign that the place was about to be locked down. The lights shut off row by row behind them, the last shutting off right as they left the room. Arriving outside as Brick was leaving. “Good night boss.” He said shutting the door.

The only two remaining people were he and Commune. He looked over to him and said, “Can you, you know,” he said slightly embarrassed, “do that teleportation spell?” A teleportation spell was something only unicorns could do; as it was of a magical nature, and extremely difficult to do.
“Yep! ‘Course I can. You don’t just deliver special packages for a princes and not be good at magic.”

“Sorry, it’s just that most unicorns I know can’t do that.”

“It’s fine, but where to teleport to?”

Their eyes scouted along the rooftops to find a suitable location for a conversation. “How about, that one!”

“The tallest building eh? Alright, I can do this.” Commune turned to him for a moment, “You can go on ahead, I need a minute.”

He nodded and flew up, hovered for minute, and then landed. A flash and a magical swoosh later, the unicorn appeared.

“Told ya I just needed a minute,” he said speaking in an overconfident manner.

“Whatever dude.”

“So what’s up?”

“Duh, the sky!”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Well then, what could you have meant?”

“Never mind, you really don’t get out much do you?”

The truth was inevitable, “No, no I don’t; but I want to.”

Relaxing a bit from the jokes, Commune asked, “So what did happen to you’re parents, and why the name?”

He took a deep breath, “Well, you see, I never knew my parents. All I remembered was me in an orphanage. It was dark and cold, much like the rest of the city. The kids were fed if nothing else. I grew up there, always wanting out, always wanting to know my parents.”

“Wow man, that’s intense,” he spoke while chewing a bite of his sandwich.

“Wha-where did you get that from? I’m trying to tell you a dramatic life story and you’re eating?”

“Hey,” he said still chewing, “It’s not like I’m listening any less, and anyway its time for dinner.”

Sighing dramatically he pressed onwards with the story. “When I was sixteen I moved out. There was no law against it. Trying to find work was hard, but I had powerful wings. Using them I could do deliveries and small chores around town to make money. However, it was always hard to find work. The people around here were just always depressed and not wanting any help. It was as if their happiness had just been sucked out of them. I only ate when I needed to, and sometimes I couldn’t eat at all.” He paused for a quick moment in thought. “Up ‘till this point my life’s been pretty bad. So I’ve dreamt of leaving the city to go anywhere else. Not because of a thought that maybe something else is better out there, but because I just want to fly and have fun. There’s nothing fun in Dimsville. Props to the most accurately named city in,” he took a moment to think before he spoke, “all of Equestria.”

He was now standing looking at the sunset, Commune looked at him in wonder. “You said all you want to do is fly and have fun right?”

“Yeah, it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. It’s just that, well, it’s kinda hard to fly on an empty stomach.”

Taking another bite of his sandwich, “I see what ya mean. You know, you could come back to Ponyville with me.”

“WHAT!?”

“Yeah, they have a delivery service there; and if that didn’t work you could just help take care of the weather.”

“Take care of the weather!”

“Yeah, like all pegasi do.”

‘All pegasi take care of the weather in Ponyville?’ he looked up to the clouds. “Nopony in all of Dimsville takes care of the weather! When did this happen?” He got a little more in his face about the issue.

“Well, since years ago.”

“YEARS!”

“Yeah you could’ve come with us.”

Highway’s mind was officially blown, too many questions to process at once. He pretty much fell over, and then laid there on the ground for a good minute. The sunset was close to disappearing behind the factory in the distance. From being upside down, he had been given a much-needed alternative perspective. From this angle, it looked as if the sun was trying to rise in the sky, only to be blocked out by the darkness of the city, and most importantly, the factory. This new realization relaxed him for some reason. Instead of it decimating his life, it was almost as if he’d known it all along.

“Commune,” he said in a quiet voice.

“Yes?”

“Has my entire life been a lie?”

Thinking for a moment, “I’d say for the most part, yes. However, I wouldn’t say it was completely wasted.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because, you have you’re cutie mark don’t you?”

“Well, yeah.”

“The thing that even some fully grown ponies don’t have. You know what you want to do, and what you’re special talent is.”

“I thought everypony gets theirs when they’re young?”

“Not everypony,” his facial expression showed that there was a specific group he was thinking about.

Highway sighed, “You know the reason I called myself Highway South?”

“You wanted to get away from the city?”

“That, and I have one memory of a piece of paper from, I think, maybe, when I was a baby?”

The chewing stopped, he was finally done with his sandwich.

“I remember it clearly, it read ‘The Highway South.’ I’m pretty sure it was something from my parents. I also remember that below it was a bunch of shapes and colors. It could’ve been a map.”

“A map? Maybe you’re parents were map makers?”

“I don’t know, but that’s all I remember anyway. So I named myself after it.”

“Interesting, I wonder what it was.”

They watched as the sun finally made its way behind the factory. They’d have to continue talking tomorrow.

“I have to head back to my apartment,” Commune said.

“It’s alright,” he stared off into the darkness, “I’ll just stay up here tonight.”

The unicorn got up off the ground and stretched. Loosely shaking one hoof he said, “I’ll see ya tomorrow then. Good Night!” and with that, he teleported out of sight.

His eyes slowly closed, and he fell fast asleep after that. His dreams were filled with that of freedom in the sky, with nothing to hold him back. He dreamed of a group of six ponies in a small town in the countryside. They laughed and played together for hours. Also, it was very warm there, that’s probably because he was currently freezing his tail off sleeping on top of a roof; not important. In his dream he also met a pegasus with a rainbow colored mane, and they raced across the sky.

Chapter 3: Fuel to the Flame

During the dream with the rainbow haired mare, they’d decided to race towards the sun. It grew brighter and brighter, until he could barely see. “Hey,” he said partially laughing, “don’t go so fast! I can’t see anything.” The mare turned her head back to him, and through the blinding light he could make out a light smile. She waved, as if to say, “see you soon,” and then disappeared into the sun. In desperation he reached his hoof out to try and speed up, but it did nothing. All that remained was light.

Suddenly, the world around him spun. He couldn’t tell which way was up. Finally closing his eyes to the light, gravity took hold beneath his stomach. Opening his eyes to the real sun, he realized that it was the rising of it that woke him up.

He felt slightly embarrassed that he was in the exact position he was in before he woke up; wings outstretched and all. Then a frightening thought came to him, ‘What if the sun hadn’t come up?’ Would he have flown over the side of the building? It wouldn’t have been so bad, as long as he didn’t hit anything, right?

His wings relaxed and drooped back down at his side. His hoof was now on the ground as well, instead of being carelessly shoved out in front of him.

‘Should I quit my new job? If I do, I’ll give up the only thing that was graciously given to me. On the other hoof, if I leave, I could get away from a city that’s too depressing to even comprehend.’ Highway stood up, slowly, and walked over to the side of the building. Below were workhorses and poor horses occupying the streets. Some beggars on the side, but most of the people looked unhappy. The streets seemed more beaten then usual today, and the building more tired. What was going on? Was he just now noticing the scale of unhappiness after his entire life? I guess when its all you ever know, its all you ever think about. Now that he’d been experienced to a more lively and cheerful idea of life, any notions before now had almost evaporated. He felt renewed, as if the days before didn’t matter at all!

He could breathe better, see better, and it felt more natural. ‘What have I been doing?’ he thought in disgust. Now his mind filled with anger. Why hasn’t anypony around here heard of Celestia? Why has there been almost no talk of the outside world?

The only mentions before now were of the small town where most of the factories’ products are delivered. On top of that there wasn’t even that much information regarding the town in particular. Only that they bought almost all of the factories’ good because they “needed them.” Now what could a small town in the middle of a desert need so much of? Whatever it was Highway was determined to find out.

With a focused mind and body he turned back to his new work building and flew down to it. With much luck, he saw Brick by the entrance just strolling in. It was time for him to start setting things up for the day.

Highway landing suddenly behind him with a huge sound from his wings that made even the Stone jump in fright. “Whoa! You scared me there! I thought you were an, uh, assassin or some’ in. You’re here early aren’t you boss?”

“I guess you could say that, kinda got woken up by the sun,” he gloated cheerfully.

“Heh, you pegasi are all so strange. Sleepin’ on roofs and such.”

“What can I say, I got bored.”

“Well you can come on in with me if ya so desire. There’s not much to look at though.”

“What? You think I’m here to inspect you?”

“No, well, maybe a little.”

“Don’t think too much on it, I just wanna get a head start on the day. That’s all.”

As they walked inside, the morning light filled the room. Brick walked over to the desk and unlocked the entrance. Before he walked in, he unlocked the entrance to the back. “Almost forgot sir, sorry ‘bout that.”

“It’s fine…really.”

Highway made his way to the storage room and, while walking by, inspected the gigantic crates for some sign of their contents. The only clue he got was a slight twinkling from a crack in the side of one. That wasn’t enough to determine much. Only that the contents were perhaps shiny.

Rushing into his desk, he searched for the list of deliveries. Looking all up and down the list he searched for any sign of the contents. The fact remained that there was none; and then the appearance of a sign. A warning for the deliverers, “Fragile, contains glass and liquid.”

“Aha!” he exclaimed in satisfaction. Finally, something!

‘Could they be delivering water to the town?’ he thought being merciful to the factory. Peeking his head around the corner and out his door, he checked again for the magnitude of the supply. ‘No way!’ The crates alone were about three ponies high and two wide. Five to six were stacked on top of each other, in over forty rows. This set wasn’t even delivered yet, and they were going to all be re-supplied by the end of the day. He was convinced there was no way one town needed that much water daily.

Going to sit back down, he remembered the box with Princess Celestia’s delivery. Looking over to it, he wondered about its contents. It wasn’t liquid, but what was it? He looked back down to the schedule to see when it was supposed to be delivered to its destination. Under the special delivery section it read, “To be delivered a day after arrival. To: Highway South.”

This startled him so much he almost fell off his chair. Now breathing heavy, he quickly glanced at the box. ‘This whole time the package was to me?’ It sat there in the darkness, as if it were patiently waiting to be opened. He couldn’t help but run out and inspect it closer. Ferociously, he grabbed the string looped around it and pulled it into the center of the floor. Panting, the excitement in his heart built almost to breaking point. He was going to tear the thing open in order to find out what it was. Biting down on the string, this time harder, it snapped in two; leaving the box to ravage for its royal contents. Tearing open the top a few bits of packaging foam flew loose.

“Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!” A sound came ringing from his office. His head lifted away from the box in surprise. ‘What is that?’ he thought, having never heard a sound like it before. It seemed as though his package would have to wait.

The sound grew louder as he made his way into the office, and there on the far left of the desk was an illuminated button. It flashed to the beat of the noise in perfect synchronicity, until finally stopping as the button was pressed. “Well, that was strange.” Speaking aloud to the button.

“There you are Highway, I thought I wouldn’t get through.” A sophisticated, and slightly frustrated, voice came out of the button; which was now glowing with magical energy.

“Impound!? Is that you? How’d you manage this? What’s going on?”
“What, the fact that we’re talking from so far away? Oh that’s just a silly little spell I whipped up to stay in touch with our employees. You should feel lucky though, it takes quite a while to set up so only the highest up get them for personal use.”

Still in shock that this was going on, Highway managed a response, “I, appreciate the work, sir. Thank you.”

“No problem at all. Now, getting to business.”

The golden box seemed to stare at him mercilessly. He found himself shifting his eyes toward it. He felt guilty a partially torn apart box was just sitting out on the floor, and he’d done it. ‘Of all the times this could’ve happened.’

“-Added to the fact that you now have all this new responsibility, you must feel over worked, am I correct?” The unicorn had been talking to thin air this whole time, unaware that the recipient of the message wasn’t receiving.
“Are you there? You’re there right?”

Snapping out of it he thought of random things to say, “What, yeah of ‘course I’m here. Why wouldn’t I be…here? Heh, heh.”

“Highway.”

“Yes.”

“I get the feeling you aren’t listening to me.”

“Sorry Impound, its just that I got this suspicious looking package yesterday and I was inspecting it.”

“Oh were you? Sorry to interrupt, but why’s it suspicious?”

“It’s from a pony named Princess Celestia.” A sound came though the device that resembled a crashing thud, then a shuffling of papers. “Until yesterday I’ve never even heard of her, have you?”

“Umm,” it seemed as if he was searching for an answer, “yes, in fact I have.”

“Why has nopony ever mentioned her to me?”

“Because, it wasn’t necessary?”

“Is there any chance I can see you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow! Actually,” he paused, “yes you can.”

“Good, I have quite a few questions for you. Since I’m now the manager of all deliveries, I feel like I’m inclined to know exactly what I’m delivering.”

There was a deafly silence over the device for a minute, as if a death sentence had just been given out.

“Well,” Impound said sounding more serious, “you are the new manager of deliveries after all, swing by the factory tomorrow sometime after two.”

“I’ll be there,” he said firmly.

With a dark and murderous tone he gave one final word, “Good.”

The magical aura surrounding the device disappeared, and the room was silent once again. Highway was satisfied with the conversation, he felt that all of his questions would be answered tomorrow.

The clouds over the factory loomed ominously, as if they were ready to strike. The amount of clouds looming was greater than normal. It appeared that it was about to rain. The scent in the atmosphere grew of a liquid filled with salt, as a shadow from one of the super massive clouds covered the office of Impound in its dark glory.

Inside the office rested the white unicorn, now overshadowed by the cloud. His white, pristine fur coat seemed to reveal another side of him. For underneath the act he gives while talking to Highway, lays a cruel and dark personality. If not for the fact that he had to put up the act to ensure Highway’s demise, he wouldn’t even show it in the first place. A long shadow occupied the majority of the room, emanating from his desk for he was truly, a monster.

The black magical phone rang on his desk with a sinister touch. It was made of a thick metal, so the sound given off was not cheerful in any way. Using his magic, he picked up the phone and held it to his ear. A voice like that of a soldier came from its depths. “This is tower 214, we have an escapee. He’s running from the city, what should we do sir?”

“What! How’d you let him get out?”

“It seems like it was an organized event sir. A hole is blown in the city’s wall.”

A twisted smile crawled its way up the unicorn’s face. “Kill him.” Speaking with a slight dark laugh in his voice, the order had been given. He waited excitedly for the event to take place. Then, BOOM, a shot rang out from the phone. Its static echo made it seem all too real, at least, for a sane creature to not react in horror.
The voice of the soldier came through the phone again. “He’s finished, that is all.” As the phone was lowered back onto its stand, Impound’s smile grew wider.

A dark laugh finally made its full appearance from the cave that was his soul. Rain began to fall outside for a few seconds. The droplets’ numbers multiplied, until it was a partial storm outside. “Silly ponies, no one leaves this city. The outside world is too good for you to realize.”

He pushed a button on the keypad and picked up the phone once more. The lower humming of the dial tone came from the speaker. This time a machine-like voice answered the call. “What do you want boss?”

“I need you to handle something, a very special pegasus has a package from Princess Celestia sitting in his delivery room. I need you to take care of it for me.”

“No problem boss, we will leave immediately.”

“Good, and while you’re at it, bring me the messenger of the package.”

He hung up the phone again, and the clouds were letting up they’re storm outside. Impound got out of his chair and walked over to the window. An orange and a green bolt of light were seen flying from the left side of the factory to the right, and then out over the horizon.

The devious unicorn was left to his own thoughts. ‘You will not get away, young unknowing prince. I fear the contents of that package; it may be your only hope.’ He turned and walked back to his chair. ‘Even with the amnesia spell in the atmosphere, you can still remember so much, but how? You were an Alicorn born without a horn; you have no magic to stop the spell. I will have your head, messenger of freedom.’

After the device had turned off, Highway ran quickly back to the box. A thought crossed his mind that hadn’t occurred to him during the conversation. He tilted his head sideways in wonder, ‘Should I have told him that that package was addressed to me?’ His eyes looked down to the box, ‘Nah, it’ll be fine.’

A tear here and a tear there, then tears everywhere. Against an excited pony, the box didn’t stand a chance. He wound up for the final blow, and then jumped up into the air to grab hold of the top. He dived into the ground, using only his legs to stop him as he tore practically the entire front off of the box. Foam beans went everywhere, a mess he would soon have to pick up.

“Got it!” he said letting go of the section that his teeth had bitten into. Inside was a scroll with a golden seal on it, and some kind of peculiar looking device. “Huh, now what could this be?” He dragged the item out of the shredded box and into the open. It appeared to be a unicorn’s horn, about, but not quite, the same color as him. It had two sets of three wires going from it to a holding device of some sort. The wires were red on top, green in the middle, and blue below the others. The holding device looked somewhat like a clamp, except it was golden and engraved with some weird swirly art design. At first he thought it was actually the horn of a unicorn that’d been cut off, but when looking closely at it, it shined a bit like glistening metal. When he lowered his head close to the thing, his head got this weird tingly feeling. It caused him to back away more than once while inspecting the item.

“Hmmmmm….” his eyes narrowed taking one final look until moving on to see if there was anything else in the box. He rustled through the foam beans near the bottom until he felt something clunky and smooth. He pulled a pair of brown goggles out from underneath the pile, and dragged them over near the device. They seemed like pretty standard flight goggles, but the lenses were a different color. They were a deep, yet clear, blue. Lifting them up with his hoof, he noticed that they were a little heavier than the average but still not heavy enough to be a true nuisance.

Another beeping noise came from the office again. “Now, really?” this time his voice was genuinely annoyed. He flew into the office and stomped on the button. “Yes, who is it?”

“Umm, I have someone here to see you. His name is Commune, have you heard of him?” Brick spoke over the microphone with a hint of nervousness.

“Yes I have, send him in.”

“If you say so…”

A click, and then silence again. South made his way to the door, waiting there for several minutes before hearing a knock. “Knock, knock, knock,” the door banged as his guest arrived. “Hey there! Strange weather today huh?” he walked in the room while talking, “Its been sun showers everywhere today. It must be one of those days.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Commune gasped suddenly. “You opened the box! Do you know-“

“Yes I know who it’s addressed to, it was addressed to me.”

He let out a relieved breath, “Oh that’s good, I thought you just ravaged somepony else’s package and I was about to go crazy on you.”

“Whatever.”

As if nothing had just taken place, Commune looked over to the contents of the box. “Whoa! What is that?”

“You know, I don’t really know. The package came with a letter but I didn’t read-“

“It’s fine, I’ll go read it for you! I really wanna know what that thing is!”

He ran excitedly to the items, and lifted the scroll with his magic while Highway caught up. “Wow, the golden seal,” he said carefully peeling it off. The rest fell open easily after that, and while he read the letter, Highway continued to mess with that strange tingly sensation he got when nearing the device.

“Ahem, dear Highway South, please accept these two gifts to you. As I’ve been told, you have been called one of the better flyers in the area. For you’re talent, and protection, I give you the Crystal Flight Goggles. They’ve been custom made with magical protection. They protect against any kind of magical attacks with ease, and are guaranteed to deflect at least one of every kind of spell. On the more probable chance that you aren’t facing down any enemies, they will easily deflect any kind of projectile. Sounds like you got yourself a very special pair of goggles their Highway.”

“Why would a princess from a kingdom go out of her way for something like this? Does it even make sense? I’m not complaining, but still.”

“There’s more, here listen. The second thing that should be included in the package is a new kind of technology from the technical university in your neighboring city. They’ve been making progress on creating magic generators. This is one specifically for your use. It has been tested, once. If you feel like it’s too risky to try again I don’t blame you. Apparently you just put it on your head and a spell keeps it in place. It is a teleportation device, much like unicorns with advanced training can use. The only difference is that this one teleports much greater distances. According to the university professor who designed it, you should be able to jump straight from the edge of you city all the way across the desert. I’ll admit, I’m kinda jealous of the device right now. Even though I have three others in the vault. Anyway, I hope this message gets to you. The last few didn’t appear to get through. I haven’t seen your parents in a while. Wait what?”

Highway stood straight up in shock, she knew his parents? “Did you just say my parents?” he said in a breathless voice.

“Yeah, that’s what it says, but you told me you didn’t even know your parents.”

“I didn’t! So how does she?”

“You’re asking me, really?”

“Just continue reading.”

“Fine,” he cleared his throat; “If I don’t hear from you for a few days after this message is supposed to be delivered I’ll send a guard to investigate if you’re okay. It’s been so many years since I’ve visited, I really do apologize. There’s just been to many things going on, you’re parents must know how it is; managing a kingdom can be overly time consuming. Hope to see you soon, Celestia.”

He and Highway were left in shock after reading the letter. “If everything she wrote was true, that would mean that you’re royalty…” he spoke in an almost inaudible tone, he was still in shock. “How did you end up on the streets?” he asked.

Highway just sat there in disbelief, the implications of this was too great to take in at once. He could swear he heard someone talking but it just didn’t matter to him. “Hey there, you hear me?” said the voice so far away. “Hey, are you feeling alright? You don’t look so good.” Now that he mentioned it, he did feel a bit lightheaded.

A memory of him in his house came to him. The room felt warm, and the walls were golden. An Alicorn came in through the doorway, while he was sitting on the floor, much younger. She was almost white, with a yellowish tint to her. Her hair flow through the air like nothing he’d ever seen before, yet apparently he had. It was metallic silver, but it still came off as being lighter than air. Her wings were massive, even bigger than his, and the horn on her head was far taller than other unicorns. She spoke to him in an angelic and light voice. “Now, don’t you worry about being born without the horn, its alright.” He’d just taken notice to the fact that his vision was blurred out with tears, and he could hear a whimpering childish voice. For some reason, he was crying. “It’s not you’re fault, it’s mine. I decided to marry a pegasus, so you’ll have the greatest wings anywhere. That’s nothing to be upset about, is it?” The whimpering voice died down into sniffles, until it faded to nothing but. “As long as I am your mother, you will have some kind of magical ability.”
The childish voice spoke lightly, “really?”

“Yes, really. Other ponies will be jealous, you’ll probably have my psychic ability.”

“Mommy, what’s psychic?”

The memory collapsed, and he fell to the ground with a thud; it hurt. “Whoa there, are you ok?” a familiar voice cried out in concern. He barely opened his eyes to see Commune standing over him completely freaked out.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why, did something happen?” he tried to play it off, but he didn’t understand what’d just happened.

“Are you kidding? You just lit up and levitated there for a minute! You don’t even have any magic! How’d you do that?”

Sighing, he slowly got back up off the ground. “Actually,” he said speaking in slight pain, “I think I do have some magic in me.”

“What?” the freaked out unicorn said.

“I think, ow, that my mother was an Alicorn.”

“SERIOUSLY!” he yelled exasperatedly.

“Yeah, and because of it I think I might be visiting Impound a bit earlier than planned.”

“Who?”

“My boss at the factory, he wanted to see me tomorrow, but I think I’ll just go today after this.”

“W-Well, then I’m coming too.”

“Are you sure?”

“Y-Yeah, I’ve got absolutely nothing more important to do right now.”

“Alright, but we’ll go after lunch. I’m starving right now.”

“Agreed, I’m just gonna pack up this horn thing.”

He walked into his office and put on his carrying bag. When he came back out, Commune lifted the device carefully into the bag. Then he put the goggles on Highway’s head after asking. He closed the bag so that it was secure, and they went out to the front desk. As they passed by Brick they waved and Highway told him they were going on lunch break. After that they left.

The restaurant chosen was a bit run down, but neither of them had much money. They ate out in the openness of the outside tables where they talked for a little while about exactly how they were going to confront Impound. Their sandwiches came out about ten minutes in their conversation.

The skies above them were cloudy, but amongst them two objects stood out; an orange and green streak of light. They flew over the city faster than anything else. They flew without looking down, and therefore missing the two ponies they were looking for eating outside. They zoomed over the restaurant, their goal was set, and they had their mission.

They slammed into the ground outside the delivery station, causing a shocked expression from the ponies around them. Who could blame them; it wasn’t everyday something that fast and powerful sounding crashed down near you. The Neon Bolts had arrived.

They walked sternly and quickly into the building. The stunned Brick just stared for a moment. “What do you want?” he asked them fearfully.

“We need to find a package, and we’re looking for the one who delivered it as well.”

“L-Look, you can go talk to my boss in the back,” he was now slightly cowering. Then the thought hit him, his boss was on lunch break. Which meant that he’d have to take care of the Bolts. “Heh, heh, heh, I just remembered he’s on lunch break, I guess I can try to help you.”

“Very well,” the Neon Bolt replied with an almost robotic sound.

When he took them to the back they found the box from Celestia that had been torn to pieces, and its contents missing. “Who did this?” the Neon Bolt yelled.

“I guess the boss did-“ he got pinned to the wall by one of them.

“Do you know where he went for lunch?” he said speaking in an interrogation-like manner.

“Actually, he didn’t say.”

They let him down from the wall and disappeared in a flash of light. At first he’d thought they had teleported away, but then he saw the door swinging open and shut. They had flown out; they were just really fast. The wind from their trail swooshed loudly, like a strong gust from a hurricane. A few papers in the room flew about wildly until settling on the ground. Brick just lay there, unable to move.

They were taking their final bites of their sandwiches outside the restaurant when they heard a slam near the office. Highway turned to his friend in concern. “Did, you hear, that?” he said slowly.

“Umm, how could you not?”

“It’s just alarming that’s all, you think we should go check it out?”

Almost choking on the last bite, a revelation came to Highway. He looked over by the office to see two ponies in black armor walking toward him. ‘The Neon Bolts,’ he knew that they had to get out of there. These ponies were very bad, he just now happened to realize how bad.

Standing up from his chair quickly, panicking a bit, “U-Umm look we should really get going. Like now!”

“What, what’s the problem?”

Highway was breathing a bit heavier, and almost started to sweat. He hadn’t considered the Neon Bolts. ‘Were they possibly assassins? That’s ridicul’- stopping his mind mid thought, he knew that anything was possible at this point.
“I think you have some ponies looking for you,” he said motioning his head toward the Bolts. The unicorn turned to see them walking angrily down the street. Even though their faces were covered in cold metal, their actions showed that they were ticked.

“Oh my…”said Commune in a concerned manner.

“Now, as I was saying, we really should go.”

“Right behind ya.”

South pointed his hoof to the top of one of the buildings, indicating where they would meet, and then flew around the back of the alley. Taking advantage of his out of sight positioning, he flew to the top of the restaurant, and along the roofs to the building. As the Bolts got closer, the air grew in intensity.
Commune was still standing at the table of the restaurant. ‘Come on, focus now, that building over there!’ He was putting all his being into the teleportation spell. A robotic voice came from behind him, “Hey! Stop or I’ll-“

A red flash filled his vision, and then in front of him stood Highway. He stumbled a bit, trying to hide the fact that he was shaking. “That was too close!” he said panicked.

“Hey, its alright. They didn’t catch you did they?”

“No but,” he stopped and looked angrily at Highway, “You’re just lucky I’m good with magic ok!”

“Right,” Highway said looking out in the direction of the factory. The sun had just begun going down in the sky, and the factory had begun to regain its dark image on the horizon. They would begin their long journey to the factory immediately, but Highway felt like his friend had something to talk about. Something he wouldn’t tell without it being an accident. “Hey, there’s no way you could keep up with me while talking right?”

Lowering his head in shame, Commune replied sarcastically, “No there isn’t. I mean, unless you carried me!”

“Oh really?”

“Real- why are you smiling like that?”

‘What a perfect opportunity,’ he thought to himself. “That can be arranged…”

“Oh no, OH NO! I am not riding on the back of a pegasus, a million flipping miles in the air. It’s just not going to happen.” Highway only continued to smile.

A few minutes later, seen soaring over the city was a pegasus with a little more baggage than even the baggage wanted! “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE DOING THIS! DARN YOU’RE OVERSIZED WINGS!”

“Will you be quiet? I’m trying to not let you fall off.” He had been squirming around constantly for the past couple of hours while screaming and complaining like an idiot.
“Unicorns are not meant to fly!” adding this to his quickly growing list of complaints to the natural order.

Sighing, Highway tried peacefully tried to get him to relax, “Look, maybe you’re not meant to fly, but would you just SHUT UP!”

“I will do no such thing!” He began complaining while simultaneously mumbling. At the very least, he’d stopped squirming. “You know what?” he shouted suddenly breaking from the mumbling. “This trip isn’t even worth looking for the elements of prosperity.”

‘The what?’ he thought. “What did you just say?”

“The Elements of Prosperity, that’s what I said!”

“I thought you said they were the Elements of Harmony?”

“I did.”

“So, what are the Elements of Prosperity?”

“You’re seriously asking me this now? As we’re hurling across the sky at Celestia knows how fast, being at an unnatural height above the ground?”

“Yep.”

“You know what, I’ll tell you if we fly lower to the ground. Possibly to a height where I might survive the fall on impact.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” At the very least, his objective had been completed. He’d gotten him to talk about these new elements.

He lowered his altitude to something more manageable for the poor pony. “Now that you’re safe, what are the elements of prosperity?” This question caused an air of mystery, not suited for high speed flying. The gate of the factory was now visible in the horizon; its black iron bars and ornate design could be seen for miles. He lowered his speed to a glide, and focused more on the talking.

“Well,” Commune said, “they’re a mythical group of devices that bring prosperity to its land.”

“So, they have range? Like, they can’t go beyond a certain point?”

“Yes and no.”

Highway became a bit disgruntled. “So, how yes?”

“Yes because they only work under certain conditions. If those conditions are not met, they do not work, and carry no range whatsoever.”

“Alright, but are these conditions hard to meet?”

“Yes.”

“How hard are they to meet?”

“You might laugh, and I don’t blame you. Most ponies don’t believe the elements exist. They only believe in the elements of harmony, mostly because it’s written in their history.”

This got Highway even more curious, he’d heard the tale of harmony from Commune himself. So a story not in their official texts intrigued him more.

“Actually, most ponies think I’m a tiny bit crazy because of what I believe in.”

“Heh, that’s’ fine. I don’t think anyone around here would believe anything I do right now. It’s one of those, you have to see it to believe it sort of things.”

The conversation stopped, they had arrived. They were both thinking the same thing. ‘This is not something that should be happening. A major problem has infested this city, and I have a feeling it lies just beyond these gates.’

The factory had nearly taken on its sunset lighting; only an hour or more to go. They walked closer to the gate, and started to bang their hooves against it. The sound was of thick, cold, steel. Up in the window, a pony was startled by the sound. He hastily made his way over to the sound, only to discover a familiar pegasus and one very unauthorized unicorn.

High atop the ground, in the dark and giant window, a creepily dark smile appeared on a pony’s face. The light of the sun along with the tint of the window, made it impossible to see into. The two ponies on the ground had no idea what they were about to discover.

Chapter 4: Worse than Corrupution

Chapter 4: Worse than Corruption

The gates creaked open, like the mouth of a monster about to devour its prey. A sophisticated voice played over the loudspeaker, “How are you doing? I was expecting you sometime tomorrow, but I see you’ve gone out of your way to visit me today.”

Highway and Commune just stood there outside the gate, feeling a rush of anger throughout them. They knew that he was the one in charge of the factory, and the one who they’d be talking to very soon.

“Come on inside you two, you wouldn’t want the resident guards to mistake you for an enemy.” As he spoke, they looked to the tops of the factory’s many roofs. Sitting posted along the corners of the roofs, were four of the six Neon Bolts. They stared down from their posts without any hint of emotion. It was as if their masks were the iron sights of a rifle, and their targets were happily standing still.

One dug his hoof at the steel below him, showering sparks below and peeling off the “caution” themed paint of the platform. This was definitely a warning; they’d better start moving.

There was no going back now they had to go forward. Step by heavy step, they made their way into the factory. While getting closer, Highway was getting a very different feeling from before. The walls were scratched and appeared aged; the once magnificent and powerful looking metal was more rickety and uneven.

Had he simply not noticed what shape the factory was in? It seemed all right on the inside; the place was clean and new from top to bottom. Was it simply because he flew too fast through the doors the first time? Maybe it was because he didn’t know what he did now.

“Ah, “ Highway suddenly let out, “it’s that tingling from the device again, but now it’s getting stronger.”

“The tingling? That’s still happening?”

“Well, it had died down for a bit, but now it’s freaking out. How am I even supposed to keep a straight face?”

When they were finally out of the view of the Bolts, they stopped as Commune noticed something strange about his friend’s forehead. “Umm, Highway.”

The feeling appeared to be really bugging him. He leaned against the nearby wall for support, “Yeah, what is it?”

“I-I think you’re head’s glowing.”

The spot on Highway’s forehead where a unicorn’s horn would grow glowed a light orange. It was clear to him what this meant, a psychic message, more specifically, a psychic warning. His mother, or what he now believed to be his mother, was looking peacefully at him in his mind’s eye. ‘Mother?’ he thought. She nodded at him, her hair still flowing through the now invisible wind. In a flash of light, six stones appeared before her. On them were inscriptions of six different symbols. He looked to them, one by one, and each time he looked to the next they glowed in a nonexistent light. The first was of a palm tree, the second a spiral, the third was an object shaped something like his teleportation device, the fourth was of a triple note, the fifth looked like three unicorn horns pointing out from a center, and the last looked something like a crown. Behind his mother, a silhouette of the factory appeared with a red sunset behind it. She stepped out of the way and pointed to the factory. The stones all flew close to one another, then flew into the image. An iron gate emerged from the ground in front of the image. He looked into his mother’s eyes; she was trying to show him where the elements of prosperity were, and that they were real. He heard a voice from outside his vision.
“Are you even awake? Talk to me please!” the voice pleaded.
The last thing he saw before it collapsed was two, giant, white wings stretching over the factory. They glowed brighter than everything else, and with a mighty stroke from them he awoke.
“Highway! Are you having one of those things again? Come on wake”-
“Just relax!” he shouted as Commune backed up in fear. “Oh, sorry to scare you, I just…”
“No, it’s fine. I was being a little over reactive.”
“What do you think we’ll find in here?”
“Nothing good probably, but we’ll have to see.”
They walked inside to the familiar white room, making their way over to the desk. The secretary attempted to give him directions again. “Impound wants to see you, he’s upstairs on the”-
This time, Highway interjected, “It’s fine, I know where his office is.”
She stopped and stared for a moment, then resumed her paperwork, “Fine, have a good day.”
They entered the dark hallway and traveled to the staircase. As they walked, their surroundings were beginning to look suspicious. “Um, Highway. Is this really what the inside of the factory looks like?”
“Yes, unfortunately.” The statues on either side of the hall gave them evil looks. The staircase looked like a skeleton itself, with its bare steel rods and connectors exposed. They gazed up into the winding path, wondering how a place like this could escape everyone’s notice.
“Why did I ever want to work in such a horrible place?” Highway said confused.
As he finished his sentence, Commune let out a cough. He seemed suddenly sick on his feet, and was slowly losing his balance. “I don’t know, the air in here is very disgusting.” He coughed again two more times.
“What are you talking about? There’s nothing wrong with the air.”
“You seriously don’t smell that? It’s like smoke, I’ve noticed it ever since we walked in.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I didn’t know it would get this bad. The closer we get to this guy’s office, the worse it gets. It just seems to be getting worse fast.”
“You know, you could just leave. You don’t have to continue if its that bad.”
Commune raised his head, “No, I want to know what’s going on around here too. And I’m not going to let some made up smoke stop me.” His horn lit up, and a transparent red aura surrounded him. It sparkled a bit at first, and then stopped.
“What is that?” Highway asked in awe.
“It’s a protection spell, it stops the effects of other spells on the user. If there’s any dark spells on this factory, it should protect me from them; or just slow down the effects dramatically.”
“Nice,” he hesitated, “but I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Maybe you’re immune to it. Possibly the fact that, oh I don’t know, you’re mother was an Alicorn?”
“Hmm,” he said while rubbing his chin, “you know what, it probably does have something to do with that!”
“You think?” he said sarcastically.
“Maybe.”
“I’ll just meet you at the top, ok?”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
Highway flew to the top of the stairs as Commune teleported in just after he arrived. “So, which way is his office?” Commune asked.
“Aaaah, gentlecolts. It seems you have arrived. How’re you doing?” From around the corner came Impound, he’d clearly left his office to personally meet them. “Would you like a tour of the factory then?”
The two gentlecolts stood briefly in shock that he had actually come to them. “Uhh, yes, we would.” Highway responded.

Highway looked over to the other unicorn in hidden anger, “Why’s he here again?” Then he gave Highway a disgusted look, as if to say ‘I told you not to talk to commoners.’

It took him a second to muster up the courage to respond, “B-Because he’s my friend, and we both want to know more about this whole situation.”

“What situation?” he asked in a very direct manner.

Highway almost cowered away in fear, and then he remembered what he’d discovered while he was away. The anger nearly overflowed, he let only a piece of it out. “The situation is that nopony around here’s ever heard of Celestia! On top of that, I think you know something about my parents, and to top it all off I want to know what exactly this factory produces in such abundance. While this one little town in the middle of the desert is the only known recipient of said product.” He took a deep breath, and tried to calm down.

“Well,” Impound said completely surprised that he’s been so direct with it, “I suppose I can answer all your questions soon enough.” He turned and began walking down the hallway, “Come with me and I’ll show you what you want to see.”

They’d known there was something off about the whole situation from the beginning, but this just seemed too easy. ‘What was he really planning?’ they wondered.

After making their way down the hallway, they arrived at a glass door. Impound raised his hoof to the switch, and pressed it. With a click and swoosh, the door opened. They trotted along a steel bridge suspended above one of the factories’ many working environments. On either side of the bridge was glass, angled so that it stretched to the ceiling; wider at the top then bottom. The floor below the bridge was a grayish metal, everywhere sat ponies in cubicle-like environments; each appeared to be working on something different. The room itself was humongous, it was at least forty stories wide and tall; they just happened to be walking along a bridge with the ceiling of that room directly above them. Commune was making his way across the bridge in the dead center, he was afraid of heights as Highway had discovered, and didn’t want to look down. There were a few skylights in the ceiling; though none of them along the bridge’s path. Suddenly, Impound began his tour using his voice, “Down below us are the workers who use their magic to fill out paperwork for the factory. They do this to meet the suppliers’ demands, and to keep the factory within regulations. It is quite the workload, as you can imagine.”

“Of ‘course.” Replied Highway.

“They also work on establishing trade routes with other cities, like that one out by the sea. Oh I forget the name, what was it? No matter, I could always ask one of them down there anyway.”

“So tell me, why is this bridge here anyway?” asked Highway.

“The bridge itself is for my personal use, but I can’t help if someone else uses it. It’s mostly so I can check to see if they’re still working down there.”

“I see, but why is this factory by far the most successful? In fact, I don’t see any other factories around here.”

“Simple,” he said amused, “we designed it that way.”

Highway stopped in his tracks, “You, you did what?”

“Don’t act all surprised, there’s plenty more where that came from.”

“Do you mean, that no other production facility ever had a chance?”

“Yes, exactly. We produce the most valuable resource there is. Come, I’ll show you more in the next room.”

He began walking again as the next door opened. They arrived at the second point on the bridge. This room was equally as large as the last, the major difference being the huge machine taking up half the space. Impound continued his tour, “If you look to your left you’ll see the machine used for production of the storage devices.” Glass molds were arriving at the top of the machine and going in, out the other side came gigantic glass containers; oval in shape. They were about as big as the crates Highway had seen at the delivery building, but they were still empty.
The crimson light of the setting sun came bursting through the ceiling lights, it was about time for the sun to set. “Don’t worry about it getting late, I will finish the tour for you.”
“When do the containers get filled, and with what?” Highway asked.
“We’ll get to that soon just be patient. Now,” below them to their right was a twisting and turning assembly line, along it was around a hundred ponies, each assembling a different part of the container, “this is where we have the majority of our workers work. Since assembling them one at a time can be intricately difficult, we’ve installed a production line. Each one of them puts just one piece of the container together.” Down below, the glass containers could be seen having some major modifications to them. There was a steel plate that was wrapped around the glass, then a bunch of switches and buttons. More and more things were added to them until you could barely see the glass shining out from the center. The assembly line ran into the next room with the finished product.
“Seriously, WHAT DO YOU MAKE HERE?” shouted Highway.
“Come through this next door and I’ll show you.”
“Finally!”
They walked casually into the next room, and then he saw them. This room was much darker than the rest; a blue glow came from the left side of the room; where Highway was now staring. An hourglass shaped device ran from the top of the room to the bottom. Blue electrical shocks ran down from the top, and out the bottom came orange. In the center of the hourglass was an open section surrounded by glass. Behind the glass were six stones, like the ones in his vision from earlier. All of them carried the marks from the vision as well. “This is our secret to success. Feel free to bask in its glory.” As strange as it was, the mere sight of it was admittedly glorious. The crackling sound emanating from the electricity was enough to knock over just about anypony who was unprepared for it. Also the fact that it was so bright that it was the only thing illuminating the room.
Highway was still too in shock to respond, so his friend took over. Now that he wasn’t too high up, he completely took over the conversation. “So, what does it do? To me,” he said trying to be nice, “they look like the Elements of Prosperity. Now maybe that’s because I’m just seeing it wrong or,” he continued to make excuses until he was finally given an answer.
“No no no, don’t sell yourself short.” Impound spoke proudly, “those rocks in there are the Elements of Prosperity.”
Shocked, Commune ran to the window to get a better look. “You know what, I think you’re right,” he paused in worry, “but how did you get them?”
“Easy, they were left unguarded.” Both Commune and Highway dropped their jaws in shock. “After the rulers of this land fell, there was nothing to hold us back from getting them. I will admit, the magic seal on the box took ages to crack.”

Highway barely had any wind in his voice, “How…why, why did I never hear about this? When did these rulers fall, and to whom?”

He simply ignored him and continued his speech, “Did you know that the elements need wielders to be used properly? Otherwise they might not work at all.”

Commune broke in, “The Elements of Prosperity are supposed to be used for a prosperous land, and contain huge amounts of power.”

This time Impound listened, “Yes that is correct.”

“There’s only one thing wrong with you’re plan.”

“Go on, what is it?”

“They don’t work without the wielders, how is that even possible?”

“Hahahaha, that’s where you’re wrong.” Now Commune was getting a bad feeling about the factory more so than he’d ever had. “About twenty years ago the Elements of Prosperity had their wielders, and were being used properly. The only catch was that they all had to be together for the effects to take place. Back then I was in charge of the biggest prison in the city; it used to have a terrible name. What was it, New Harmony? Ah yes,” he suddenly became very angry, “WHAT A HORRIBLE NAME!”

This was all happening as the two friends were walking cautiously behind their tour guide into the final room. It seemed as though all their suspicions were right about, pretty much everything! “Why is that a bad name?” interjected Commune. “It sounds better than Dimsville, right?”

“WRONG!” They stopped following him for a second, and then resumed. His sudden outburst had sincerely scared them; he was now showing his true colors. “I worked at that prison day and night, and there seemed to be nothing in the city but lies! The crime in the city wasn’t harmonious! The majority of New Harmony was all right, but when there was crime its effects were terrifying. Whenever it got out of control, the elements would just get together and fire off another wave of ‘prosperity,’ and everything would appear to go back to normal. Then I thought of something.” The final door opened, and a red glow came from the inside. “These whole ideas of harmony and prosperity are ridiculous. I’ve spent most of my life making sure the city could prosper properly, and people continue to do terrible things. I had already learned my lessons, I knew that crime was bad, and I would do everything to stop it. It hurts the citizens and can even extend its reach to other lands. The citizens weren’t learning their lessons; again and again they were thrown into jail, only to be let out sometime in the future. I finally decided to do something about it.”

They entered the final room. The bridge turned into downward stairs leading all the way to the ground, where the stairs began the glass stretching to the ceiling ceased. On the other side of the room sat an enormous chair; approximately two stories height. Highway thought he could make out something sitting in the chair, but most of it and the other side of the room was covered in complete darkness. The part that wasn’t covered shined crimson red due to the large skylights in the room. As Highway looked up, he could see the cold mask of a Neon Bolt stare blankly at him from one of those skylights.

They began making their way down the stairs as the mood grew darker. “I figured that since nopony would ever learn their lesson, I’d just take advantage of their stupidity. The next week, I got a call from my boss; the one I work for now. He said he could give me what I want, so I accepted. The day after, the wielders of the elements were killed. Amongst the white and pristine streets of the perfect city, the stench of the dead ponies filled the peoples’ noses. Blood ran through the streets that day, and it was more perfect than the entire city!” He gave a little laugh, “There was nothing they could’ve done, and they all fell before they could reach the elements. The only thing left to remove were the rulers themselves. Without their elements to protect them, my master finished them in their own castle; and then toppled it.”

Highway knew what was going on now; he didn’t even care about what the factory produced. If he was indeed the son of those rulers, then he was talking to an associate of the person who killed his parents! He didn’t even know his parents were murdered in the first place! One thing was for sure; he was going to make Impound regret spilling the beans on his little tour. “So,” he said trying to act completely calm, “there’s nothing left of the castle?”

“Funny you should ask, we’re standing in the last remnants of that very castle!” he said excitedly. “You see the throne over there?” he motioned his head to the giant chair. “We did have to replace the throne itself, but it’s like owning a trophy I suppose. We just had to keep the throne room.”

“You never finished telling about how you got the elements to work without the wielders.” Commune interrupted again, but the answer, Highway felt, was worth listening to.

“Oh yes, I’d nearly forgotten. My master is not pony, he’s much more than that.” He paused for a moment, “Commune.”

“Y-Yes?”

“Since you’re from the outside world, I suppose you know the story about Discord. Am I correct?”

“You sure are.” He turned to Highway, he hadn’t told him the story of Discord. He figured now would be the greatest time if ever. “He was the spirit of Chaos who attempted to throw the world into chaos. Succeeding briefly before the elements of harmony intervened to stop him. His head was of a horse, but the rest of his body was composed of different creatures. Most notably, he had a dragon’s tail. To be honest, I didn’t think Discord was a bad guy. I just think he just had some issues with his life that hadn’t been sorted out.”

Impound stopped briefly on the stairs, holding up the two ponies behind him as well. “That’s a very good observation you have there, probably the best I’ve ever heard.”

“Oh yeah, and why’s that?” replied Commune.

“Because,” he paused for dramatic effect, “Discord’s father is the one in charge of this factory.”

“W-What!? You’re boss is Discord’s dad!? That’s impossible!”

“What? You didn’t think he’d have a father?”

“No, I, well YES BUT”-

“You didn’t think he could still be roaming Equestria, did you?”

“KIND OF! I assumed because there were no problems where I come from, that there wasn’t something that evil still alive! Where is he anyway?”

A booming and deep voice came from behind the veil of the dark side of the room. “Now who said I was evil?” Everyone except Impound jumped in fear. Gigantic red eyes peered out from the shadow, within them were two sets of other irises; they circled one another all the way throughout the eye. As he moved from the darkness, the shadows appeared to shift underneath and between each other. Two feet landed on the ground with a rumble as he stood up from the chair. He slowly made his way out from the shadow, one of his arms now swung outward towards them. Then a sound of thunder, they were nearly blinded by the sight. The beast itself was at least two stories tall, he had a face similar to his son’s but without the beard. He was long and slender, almost like a snake. He was dark gray in color, and his arms and legs were along his body like that of a lizard. The only major difference was that they were positioned so that he could stand upright, and that his hands were large claws. He was wearing an old fashioned brown suit and top hat, fashioned to his figure. He wore no monocle but he might as well have, he gave off a classy and rich vibe. Behind him rose two huge mechanical wings. Much like the stairs they looked somewhat like a skeleton; with the shape being accomplished as the steel rods hang exposed. The thunderous sound was of these wings lighting up with the same orange electricity that came from beneath the hourglass machine. The light itself was so bright that it lit up the entire back wall as the room shook. “Well, I suppose I could be called evil. I can’t help it,” he said sarcastically, “it’s in my nature.” He let out a loud dark laugh. If there was a problem in the city of Dimsville, they had just found it. “Now, I presume that you had a question about what the factory really produces. Didn’t you?”

He just stuttered in fear, “I-I-I-I g-guess I-I d-did, heh heh.”

“No,” Highway yelled bravely, “I did!”

The monster examined him for a moment before speaking, “You did, did you?” He began to fall from his height in Highway’s direction as if he were losing balance. Then quickly fell down so that the air rushed past them like the gust of a hurricane. The monster’s face was now directly in front of Highway’s. “Well you annoying bug, let me tell you how and why.” He backed his head up to its usual height, and then began circling the room as he spoke. “I am Discord’s father, Off Track. I can make people’s lives go astray whenever I please. Ruin is what I am. Whenever something goes too well, that’s not related to me, I can’t stand it. Prosperity is intolerable. I am the only one allowed to prosper, why should anyone else? Does that sound selfish to you?”
Highway made a very upset face, and felt a little sick to his stomach. This guy was insane, and he was Discord’s father? His son probably wanted chaos because he wouldn’t have to deal with his father’s abilities ruining his life. As far as he could tell, this Discord character seemed to be able to deal with Off Track’s abilities as much as the elements of prosperity.
“Well too bad! For my actions I’ve been named the spirit of derailment and loss. However, the only one who should still know I even exist should be Celestia. After all, she was the one who forged the Elements of Prosperity. She feared that not even harmony itself would be enough to keep the world at peace, that just going a little off track from the original way would lead to the end of prosperity. Harmony would be intact, it would just be a disharmony, and it would be nearly irreversible at that. For at the time, there was no such thing as the Elements of Prosperity. So nothing could stop this problem if it occurred. The elements stayed out of use for a long time, so long in fact, that several hundred years would pass before they were even needed. As the spirit of derailment, I have the ability to do just what Celestia feared.” His voice grew darker; “I can suck the happiness right out of you, and leave you as nothing but a hopeless pile of junk. The energy given off can be used in a positive way; it can even be given back to the pony it was taken from. The problem is that I cannot use it for my purposes in this state. Not unless its power could be reversed.” He stopped circling in front of them and raised his wings higher. “The orange power is the result. By infusing prosperous energy with my own and then sending it back through the Elements of Prosperity, I can produce this negative power. I spread it everywhere, causing all the citizens in the city to feel terrible about their lives, while simultaneously preventing any chance of happiness to accommodate their days. Any time I get bored, I ship off actual positive energy to some town in the middle of the desert that doesn’t even exist!”

“You monster,” whispered Highway to himself.

“What was that? I though you said something.” Silence befell the them. “Good. Now, I think its about time we wrapped this up.”

“What?”

“You think we’re going to tell you about everything and then just let you skip away happily? If so I’m afraid you haven’t been listening properly, or even at all! It’s a shame really, the prince of the city of freedom will tragically meet his end by my minions. I should’ve planned better, I wanted to be the one to finish you.”

“You know who I am?”

“I’ve known since the first time you walked into my factory, how could I forget the baby’s face?”

The feelings of anger and sadness finally were peaking inside of Highway; he couldn’t hold back much longer, but what could he do? Off Track was a dangerous beast over ten times his size, and his unicorn assistant was standing right next to him; no doubt having learned a few deadly spells from his master.

One of the skylights creaked open, and Highway could hear someone talking. “I hope you enjoyed the tour.”

“Highway look out, move!” came a pleading voice.
His vision was becoming distorted. Colors meshed together, until the only thing in focus was behind him. He turned and looked up to the skylight, where the light appeared to be coming straight to him and was a bright white. The Neon Bolt who’d been perched on the roof was flying right at him, if he collided there’s be no way he would survive. ‘Unless,’ he thought quickly, ‘I used the goggles. Would it work? Celestia said that they could deflect at least one of any kind of magical attack.’ He observed the green light that was surrounding the Neon Bolt. ‘That light they have around them, I bet that’s some kind of spell. Would the goggles’- there was no more time to think. At the last moment he lowered his head so that the collision would be right atop his goggles. All he could do was hope.

Chapter 5: Duel at the Factory

Chapter 5: Duel at the Factory (finale part 1)

An explosion of blue and green burst outward from the collision of the two forces. The colors burned like fire, each trying to devour the other. The ground cracked, and the booming crash showered debris everywhere. The room was almost immediately plunged into a cloud of smoke and ash. It held there, suspended in mid air as if being held by a puppeteer.

The soiled cloud deprived everyone nearby of their vision, as the sound rang in their ears. Through the mess of the air, the armored pegasus flew backward from the impact zone; knocked unconscious from the force. Impound was charging recklessly through the smoke, for he knew that there was a chance that Highway was still alive. He would waste no time in assuring the half-alicorn’s demise. There, lying quite limply on the ground was Highway South.

His eyes slowly opened, then shut again. They repeated this motion several times, as his consciousness slowly crawled its way back inside his body. Shards of glass from his goggles were just now making their position known after being thrown violently into the air. Both of the goggles had huge portions missing, only the pieces closest to the outside edge were still attached. His wings flapped once in a much-delayed reaction to the blast; his mind paid no attention. His eyes opened in pure adrenaline and horror, only to discover that the event was over. He leapt to his feet, and began checking himself for injuries. Up down, forward back, everywhere he looked he seemed unharmed. He let out a sigh of relief, and took a moment to breathe.

He could hear hoovesteps behind the veil of debris; he had no idea who it could be. He didn’t even know if the Neon Bolt was all right. It could be anyone or anything. The shadow of a figure ran at him, as if it was chasing him. Then all of the sudden it turned away from his direction, while still moving hastily. It stopped close enough to him so that he could make out its location. It lowered its head down to the ground as if inspecting something. Then a sophisticated and disturbing voice howled through the cloud. “Oh Highway are you dead yet? I don’t see your charred remains sitting here in the crater, it seems you have escaped fate by sheer luck!”

South looked down to his hooves inspecting the ground. To his surprise, there was no crater beneath him. He hadn’t even noticed himself move back a few feet from the collision zone. It’s a good thing he had though. If he hadn’t, Impound would’ve probably just found him there; ready to finish him off.

He didn’t know what to do. If he went looking for his friend, there was a chance he’d run into one of the other Neon Bolts. Before he could even finish worrying about that possibility, another set of hoovesteps was heard running from behind him. They too passed by him, nearly discovering his location. Unfortunately, whoever it was ran straight for Impound. Stopping directly on the opposite side of the crater, the figure inspected Impound. He let out a cry, it were as if his heart had been crushed. “Where is he? You’d better tell me where he is you backstabber!” Highway immediately recognized the voice as Commune’s.

“You’re making demands against me? Don’t be ridiculous! Right now he’s probably dead.”

“No he’s not! He can’t be…he can’t…”

“What’s the matter, gonna cry?”

“I’ll destroy you,” he whispered under his tears. “I may not know much about offensive spells, but you’re not getting away!”

Impound only continued mocking the already broken unicorn. He knew that what he was about to say probably wasn’t true, as he himself couldn’t confirm it, but he continued onward for amusement. “You see this ash falling from the ceiling? That probably you’re friend’s heart, falling gracefully down like the weak and ignorant pony he was.” There was a touch of insanity in his voice.

“LIAR!” The shout was accompanied by a red burst of fire. The shot illuminated the shadowy figures enough so that Highway could see them both standing there. They were both covered in dirt and concrete, and they also had streaks of anger in their eyes. The fire missed Impound and flew by his head.

“What? Something wrong? Did something happen? Maybe you should tell me about your problems, I am a good psychiatrist you know. I can help you get over your distraught emotions and make you forget he even existed. Does that sound alright?” Another three bursts burned through the air, this time searing a piece of the white unicorn’s hair. “I can even make you forget that the city is in this state, then I won’t have to kill you too. Does that sound al”- a burst of fire hit him square in the face; blowing his monocle clean off.

“NEVER! I’m reporting you to Princess Celestia for crimes against EVERYONE and EVERYTHING, YOU MONSTER!”

Impound’s reared his burned face in pure hatred before saying anything. “Looks like I’ll get too kill three ponies today. What a momentous occasion.” His horn glowed silver, and iron chains flew from the ground, wrapping themselves mercilessly around Commune. He tried to struggle, but nothing worked. The chains only grew tighter if he tried to move, and it was quickly becoming unbearable. The jail master relaxed a bit and walked casually over to the chained pony. “Now this is going to be satisfying! To be honest, I could just let you stand there and choke yourself.” He had arrived in front of Commune, “but what fun would that be?”

“Ah! No! HIGHWAY!” He was in pain and almost morally defeated.

“Let me just help the process along.” Impound stomped his back hooves against the chained stallion’s side. He fell slightly over as the iron began to tear through his fur coat. “See? This is much faster!”

Commune could hear his heart beating, but he noticed something strange about it. Instead of getting weaker, it was beating faster and harder. ‘No, if I don’t get out of this the lives of thousands of people will continue to be miserable, possibly for an eternity!’ The memories of his friend entered his mind, and as they did, a tear ran down his face. He opened one of his struggling eyes to see the proud unicorn standing there, feeling accomplished for his dark actions. Commune closed his eye, as the strength to keep it open had been lost. ‘This is for you buddy.’

Commune’s horn lit up and blinded the unsuspecting master standing in front of him. Impound let out a cry, alarmed by the sudden flash. When he opened his eyes again the chained stallion was gone. The chains fell quickly to the ground, tightening and grinding the floor as if it were the chains’ next victim. He looked left tot right, desperately searching for where he’d gone. Then he looked to the ceiling; it was already too late.

A crimson flare of heat was hurling toward him. Impound let out one last bit of criticism to his doom. “I never knew that a unicorn could teleport so quickly, and under such horrific conditions.”

The giant flare slammed into the ground, directly into Impound. Sparks flew from the area, and solely from the heat that was being given off. A smaller crater than the other was left in the ground. The victim of the attack blacked out from the impact, but was by no stretch dead. Commune stood over him for a good minute catching his breath. A good portion of the debris was opened up from the blast. This meant that Highway could now clearly see his friend standing there, victorious over the enemy.

He then carefully made his way away from the pony, then was astounded to see Highway standing there on the edge of the smoke; watching. “You’re, you’re alive? Ha! I knew it! Did you see the whole thing?” His serious mood had practically flown out the window and made its way out to the moon. “How did I do? You’re constantly stressing of my teleportation spell gave me the experience needed to use it quickly! You saved my life!”

“Uhh, no problem.” He was amazed to see him so happy, and even more amazed by what he had just witnessed. ‘How much about the outside world don’t I know?’ he thought. ‘Do friends always care this much for each other out there?’

“I have to tell you, I feel bad for the guy. I think the stress of working in that depressing job finally broke him, and I think Off Track’s influence helped as well. Once we find the new wielders of the elements of prosperity we can fix this whole mess. It probably works a bit like the elements of harmony right? As soon as we get them working again everything will go back to normal.”

South shook his head to snap himself out of his trance. “Right,” the beating of Off Track’s huge wings was heard blowing away the smoke, “but how’re we going to even get out of here in the first place?” The gusts of wind were quickly dissipating the thick atmosphere, and their cover was about to be blown.

“We need to grab the elements of prosperity right?”

“Yeah,” they were speaking quite hastily now, as the concern that they would run out of time seeped in more and more every second.

“I’ll go get them, and meet you on the roof of this building ok?”

“But-you-how-there’s no way!”

Commune relaxed a bit more, “Look, it’s alright; I can get them. You just focus on not dying in the meantime.”

He looked at him as if they might not see each other again. He was sincerely worried about their safety. “Just hurry ok!”

The smoke was finally cleared, and Off Track was ticked. “HOW DID YOU SURVIVE?” he roared.

Commune flashed out of the room, and had begun his mission; now the time was right for him to begin his.

With a roar, Off Track swiped his mighty claws at the prince, missing by mere inches. The pegasus took flight in a manner that allowed him to dodge the blades; practically leaping a good twenty feet in the air. With another beat of his wings he soared ever higher, as the whistling of slashing blades echoed below. He had no time to think about the danger; he simply had to move. The pegasus flew through the open glass where the Neon Bolt had crashed though, landing on the roof to see four more staring him down in a face off.

Just as the world had disappeared a moment before he’d teleported, it came back. Commune had successfully teleported inside the hourglass machine room. A few scientists and engineers were standing around, appearing to be curious about the noises coming from the room next door. After a moment of listening for any new sounds they turned their attention to the new pony in the room; all of them staring in amazement at what they saw. None of them even moved a muscle to try and stop him; they could tell by the bruises and scrapes that any attempt to do so would result in an immediate fight, and he was definitely going to put up one heck of a fight. Only one scientist moved in his way momentarily, and while doing so, he began cowering in fear. Walking up to the scientist in boredom and mercy, Commune picked up the frightened pony with his magic and left him off to his side unharmed. He then proceeded to walk by without giving even the inclination that he was thinking about the scientist.

He arrived at the base of the machine. Its orange thunder sounded like a quiet storm. A surge of its power ran through him as he approached. It scared him so bad that he jumped back in horror. It felt instantly like his life was going down hill, becoming depressing and lonely. He got the feeling nopony cared for him, and its sadness was overwhelming.

He shook it off, as it was the only thing he could do. He tried to imagine how much of this stuff was currently flowing through Off Track himself, let alone his wings, but couldn’t fathom it. ‘No wonder his son went insane. How could anypony deal with this kind of negative power all the time? That spirit is one heck of a bad flank.’

The same scientist who tried to block his path now walked up beside him. He looked into the injured stallion’s eyes with a kind of compassion that was not to be expected from anyone in the city. For some reason, this scientist could tell that he needed to help Commune.

Commune felt his legs give way for a moment before being caught by the scientist. He struggled to help him up, and didn’t stop until Commune was standing on his own. “You need those stones up there don’t you?” the scientist said in a light and helping voice.

Commune only nodded his head in agreement with this statement. “C-Can you deactivate the machine for me?”

“Of course I can, I work here.” He walked over the right wall, the one nearest to the machine. On the wall was a control panel, probably for monitoring its different energy levels. He pulled a few levers and then turned his head back to Commune. He gave him a look of, “You’d better know what you’re doing.” He struggled to push the final button on the console, but managed to do so.

The machine’s electrical power shut off, and the room became very dark. After a few seconds of being in the dark, the emergency lights powered on. The rumbling of a generator was heard and felt somewhere beneath the ground. The room was now filled with the white glow of the emergency lights. The most notable ones were of those directly below the elements. They lit the elements up in such a way that you could mistake them for a centerpiece at a museum.

Commune mustered up his strength for a minute, then in a flash teleported inside the humming machine. Above him were two slowly spinning blades; they were still slowing down from the power outage. He took a few steps forward, making his way over the elements. He tapped one with his hoof and knocked it over slightly. He looked back out over the room to see the group of employees standing in awe. From beyond the glass he must’ve looked quite impressive.

Flashing back out of the machine, with the elements landing below him, he looked around for something to carry them in. The one scientist who’d been helping him had already thought of that, and was waiting next to him with a bag in his mouth. The bag was thick and rectangular in shape, and it seemed to carry weight. It wasn’t the best thing to move a bunch of heavy rock around with, but what other option did he have?

He took the bag out from the pony’s teeth with his magic, and placed it on the ground next to him. One by one, he loaded the elements into the bag. When he was done with that he put that bag on his back and gave one final look to the workers. “Thank you,” he said gratefully.

The scientist nodded, and gave a smile. “You’re welcome.”

Outside the factory the air had grown cold. As the pegasi on the roof maintained their stare-off, their breath became visible before of them. The sun had all but set in the sky. Along the rooftops of the many factory buildings, a light mist had begun to form. The mist was illuminated by the spinning blue lights of the alarm system; which signaled that there had been a fire. The lights were everywhere, and if that wasn’t enough, a few searchlights began scanning the skies for the ones trying to escape. A long siren let out its cry against the dark world, and in that instant all four pegasus took flight.

‘All I need to do is distract them for a little while, and then, and THEN…’ Highway’s mind couldn’t find another answer. The burning sound of the Neon Bolts’ magic coming steadily closer was the only thing on his mind. Flying in a straight path wasn’t the best of options, as they had a higher top speed; and would surely catch him soon. He had a thought, ‘Did they have good maneuverability?’ Looking down to the many buildings and smoke stacks below, he thought, ‘Well I’d better hope so.’

He veered downward as fast as he could turn, his goggles nearly falling off his face. The Neon Bolts appeared to be having trouble following him, as their sound appeared to have trailed off a bit. He would have been happy, if not for the fact that they were still following him. He weaved in and out of the smoke stacks. Occasionally he flew around low buildings; hiding himself beneath the thick black smoke erupting from the towers’ cores.

The longer he flew, the more paranoid he became; he began to interpret any sound close to him as the beating of the enemy’s wings. It was driving him crazy, and he still didn’t know if Commune had arrived on the roof yet. He had to fly up and check; otherwise they could spot him before he did.

He used the side of one of the smoke stacks as a makeshift ramp, and flew close to and up the side of it. He noticed the dark color of the tower was painted on in a way that allowed for purposeful and swift peeling. ‘Looks like even the paint in this place is made to go to waste.’ He barreled through the black smoke at the top of the tower, nearly hitting the red Bolt as he flew by. As the Neon Bolts turned around, Highway gazed over to the roof above Off Track’s room; or should he say, his parents’ room?

A red flash appeared near the broken skylight, and Commune stumbled out from the light. Judging by his stumbling, he was either hurt or carrying the elements. Highway had no time to waste. He made a run for his friend, even as his attackers were rapidly catching up.

Commune looked around desperately for his friend, he was nowhere to be seen. ‘Where could he be?’ he thought in panic.

“HEEEEEEY!”

Commune looked for the source of the voice.

“I’M OVER HERE! UP YOU MORON, UP!”

He looked again for the voice, this time checking the skies above. Sure enough, there was Highway; flying faster than he’d ever thought he could. Behind him four lights, appearing to be brightly colored missiles, were chasing him from behind.

“YOU GOT ANY DEFLECTOR SHIELDS OR SOMETHING?” he shouted, as he got closer to Commune.

Insulted by Highway’s demand, he almost forgot the situation entirely. “Is that some kind of joke? You just assume that because I’m a unicorn I can create a shield from thin air!?” Regrettably, he was right. Commune did know a spell that was something like a “deflector shield.” Although it wasn’t entirely the same; he wasn’t even sure if it would work. “Alright, I do have something like that!” he said frustrated. “Just fly right above my head ok?”

“YOU GOT IT PAL!”

Commune took a stance, stretching all four of his legs in an equal distance from the each other. He closed his eyes as his horn glowed; he would only get one shot. All of his focus was now on this one spell. In truth, the spell was designed to keep desert winds at bay as travelers crossed the scorching sands. As long as he used it at full power, it should deflect the incoming ponies.

His ears picked up the sound of Highway as he flew closer, and closer; it also helped that he was screaming like a banshee. “Aaaaaaaaahhhh!” Highway yelled as he flew over his buddy. It was time, ‘NOW!’

From his horn shot three, red ribbon-like strands of magic, forming a drill shaped pattern as they swirled in circles around an invisible axis. The spell itself was about five times bigger than the pony who was using it, and as a result it clearly strained his mind while using it. With a painful grunt, Commune started the drill’s spin at near full power; creating a miniature hurricane around the outside. Before the Bolts had time to react, they all slammed head first into the powerful gusts of wind. Two bounced far over the top and hit separate towers, one was driven into the ground with a painful noise, and the last flew off to the left and crashed through a window. As the wind died down, Highway circled back around in amazement of the unicorn’s power.

“Tha-That was amazing! I think I’m beginning to understand why Celestia picked you personally to deliver her packages.”

The exhausted stallion gave a satisfactory thought to this, and then turned to Highway. “Thanks, but we’re still not out of this.” Another siren let out its cry as they both looked quickly toward the sound. “Highway, I’m going to have to meet you outside the gate.”

“What-again?” he replied in disbelief. “But what if you don’t”- he stopped suddenly, thinking about what he was about to say; and felt really stupid for it.

Commune raised his eyebrow and gave a glancing look to the two, armored killing machines now stuck head first inside the steel towers behind him. At this point, South was pretty sure his friend could take care of himself.

“Now, as I was saying, I’ll meet you outside the gates alright?”

“Yeah, it’s fine…but if I don’t make it”-

“You will make it. If we could make it this far, we definitely can make it all the way.”

Highway drooped his head as he thought about it for a moment, and then looked back up to him. “Let’s do this! We are going to make it out of this city aren’t we?”

With a smile on his face, Commune replied, “Yes,” he gave a chuckle, “yes we are.”

In a red flash he disappeared; this time Highway wouldn’t worry about his friend. Now he could focus on defeating the Neon Bolts. He was sure that with all that armor on, at least one was still conscious.

Sure enough, the one who had crash-landed on the roof in front of him got up off the ground. Even through his mask, he could tell that this pony was seething like a furnace to take revenge. He scraped his hoof against the ground in controlled anger, as sparks flew beneath him; his black armor looked strangely more intimidating than before. He lit up red, as this was the same one that had tried to finish him in the first place. The two pegasi were staring each other down, both injured and quickly becoming exhausted, until finally, the Neon Bolt charged.

It was so fast that South barely had time to move, the enemy’s charge had his full fury inside of it; or rather it was his full fury. In the last moments before impact, Highway flapped his wings so hard that they nearly tore off! Leaping up three stories in under a second is hard to imagine, but even doing so, the heat from the Bolt’s spell still singed the tips of his wings and feet. The charge led the armored pegasus through a metal wall; this time, he wouldn’t get up for some time.

Highway shouted in joy, “Yeah! Whoohoo! How do you like that you sick jerks!” He’d defeated a Neon Bolt in a simple game of chicken, why wouldn’t he celebrate?

Just then a searchlight’s beam nearly hit him, and it reminded him all too suddenly of the danger he was in. Gasping as the beam passed, he flew up and over the buildings; making his way to the factory entrance in the cooling breeze.

Chapter 6: The Highway South

Chapter 6: The Highway South (finale part 2)

As the sirens roared over the city, it was clear that no one would get any sleep that night. Now the whole city was up and running with searchlights. The skies were a dangerous place to be.

About ten minutes later, Highway arrived at the entrance. When he landed, he immediately looked right and left for Commune. Strangely, he was nowhere to be seen. He yelled in as quiet a way as possible, as to not alert the guards to his presence. “Heeeey! Commune! Are you around here? Its me, Highway!”

Out from behind a dumpster staggered the exhausted unicorn. “Ssshhh! What the hay man? Keep it down!”

“Sorry…”

They both walked over to the dirty side of an apartment building. The smell was only tolerable because of them being too exhausted to care. “So, what’s the game plan?” asked Commune.

“Well, considering our options,” he paused.

“Yeah?”

“I think we’re gonna have to use the long range teleportation device.”

“Oh hay no! Didn’t the princess say that its only been tested once with a live pony?”

“Yeah but, do we have any other options?”

Commune pondered the thought of trying to escape the city by means of simply going for it. Every scenario he put through his mind didn’t end too well. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure that there were some snipers on the towers surrounding the city. “I guess we don’t have any other options,” he admitted sadly.

“Great, but I still have to figure out how it works.”

“You don’t know how it works!?”

“No, but I think I can figure it out.” Highway happily looked upon the device as he grabbed it out of his bag. Putting it on the ground, he laid it so the part that was supposed to attach to his head was facing up. “It can’t be that hard to use right?” He focused on the thought of not getting it to work right out of fear, ‘what if it’s not that simple?’ No, he had no time for worried thoughts. ‘This was the time to not be second-guessing your decisions,’ he told himself sternly. He lowered his head onto the device, the three power chords on each side brushed up against his forehead and tickling him a little. The tingling sensation in his head reached an all time high. The cushioned piece of golden metal touched his forehead, right where a unicorn’s horn would be. Instantly he felt it stick to his head, and it wasn’t coming off anytime soon. The sensation quickly dissipated as soon as the device was attached. He raised his head back up to see Commune looking at him in awe. “What? Does it look good?”

His jaw was dropped, “You look better than an Alicorn,” he said quietly. “The artificial horn does so much to your looks! The way the gold shines through at the base is impressive enough, but on top of that the gold itself is engraved with its own unique pattern. THAT IS SO AWESOME!”

“Umm, thanks?”

“DUDE! Does it have like, a high-tech heads up display?” he said perhaps a little over excitedly.

“No, no it doesn’t.”

“Are you sure?”

He tilted his head left and right in an attempt to trigger something, meanwhile Commune just stared bright eyed at the glorious contraption. “I’m absolutely sure that it doesn’t have anything like that.”

“Ok, if you say so…but is there anything at all”-

“I’m pretty sure all it does is teleport.” Not knowing the true extent of the device’s power, he stopped to correct himself while moving his eyes up to look at it. “Pretty sure.”

Just as he thought about it, a voice spoke to him inside his head. “Hello new user, would you like to teleport to a destination?” The voice was of a slightly computerized mare.

The shock of hearing this clear voice inside his head made him jump. “What the!? Who are you?” he said flustered.

The voice repeated the last part of the sentence. “Would you like to teleport to a destination?”

After giving it a moment, he believed he’d figured out how it worked. “Yes, could you take me to the city just south of Dimsville?”

“Scanning, one moment please.” An electric humming noise was ringing in his head.

“Hey Highway, are you feeling alright?” Commune interjected worriedly.

“No I’m fine rea”-
The voice played over his own as he tried to finish. “Subject Dimsville does not exist in any known record, please choose another destination.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t exist? Of course it does!” He spoke in a mocking tone, “I’m standing right in the middle of it. Do you under-stand?”
“Dimsville does not exist, please select another destination.”
At this repeated message, Highway facehoofed. Shortly after the pain sat in from his own stupidity of hitting himself in the face with his hoof, he remembered that no one on the outside of the city even knows what had happened. With this realization, he knew what to say for his new destination. “Teleport to the city directly south of New Harmony.”
“Calculating coordinates please wait.” The electrical sound began again.
“Highway, is that machine talking to you?” asked Commune nervously.

“Actually, it is if you can believe it.”

“Oh I believe it! I can use magic, remember?”

“I see you’re point…”

“Destination selected, please begin rapid acceleration.” The device finished calculating…whatever it was that it was calculating, and now appeared fully operational.

“Rapid acceleration?” Highway asked, “Doesn’t that mean I need to start flying again?”

“Whatever you must do to achieve recommended speeds,” the device responded.

Commune jumped in again, “Wait, we have to fly? Doesn’t that mean…”

Highway turned to look at his friend in an amused manner; he knew that Commune was going to have to sit on his back again while airborne. “Oh yes…”

“Oh no…”

A minute later, and his pal was panicking on his back, trying desperately not to scream. The only noise was of his mumbling.

“Seriously? We could be spotted and shot down at any moment, and you’re more afraid of the heights?”

“Mmm hmm!”

Highway sighed, then continued to fly in the direction of the city’s edge. ‘So,’ he thought to the machine, ‘how fast do I need to be going?’

“You need to be going at least mach one for the gates to be deployed, then maintain that speed upon impact.”

He nearly dropped the flailing unicorn as he realized how fast it was; the speed of sound. How was he going to accomplish that with this guy on his back?

The device continued to give out instructions. “Another note, you must fly horizontally into the gates. Entering vertically will result in disintegration in collision with the unforgiving ground. Please remember.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” he screamed without thinking.

“Do what?” Commune asked.

At the end of Highway’s sentence, a searchlight loomed dangerously close to them as they flew by. “Phew, that was just a little too”-

Another searchlight’s beam swung through the air, landing square on them; and there was no escape. They both lost their breath and stared off blankly into the sky, what were they to do now? A bell went off at the searchlight that had spotted them. Quickly, other searchlights flew in their direction; all of them landed directly on their target. The light nearly blinded them if they looked down, so they had no choice but to look upward. Things were unraveling faster than either of them had anticipated, what else could go wrong right?

Out of the corners of their eyes they saw an orange and blue light speeding at them, one on the right and one on the left. ‘That’s right!’ Highway suddenly remembered, ‘the two Neon Bolts that tried to track them down still hadn’t come back from their search. How could I’ve forgotten?’ they looked like shining stars, slowly getting brighter and brighter. They would have to get away before they collided with the Bolts, and that wasn’t much time to work with.

Ponies in the streets awoken from the sirens looked to the sky to see what was taking place. They watched in awe, as none of them could fathom what was taking place. More and more scrambled to get a better view of the event.

As the frigid air rushed past Highway, it was clear that he was nowhere near mach one. Was there any real chance to escape? “come on-come on-come on Highway! Move faster! I can tell that you’re not flying fast enough to do whatever it is this machine wants!”

“SHUT UP I KNOW! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GO ANY FASTER?’

Due to the searchlights giving away their position, the Bolts continued to adjust their trajectory in order to arrive at their targets sooner. If only they could destroy them.

“Highway, I’ve got an idea.”

“WHAT?”

“I’m going to try and take out the lights ok?”

“DO WHATEVER YOU WANT!”

Commune turned around on his back so that he was facing the opposite direction. He directed his gaze into the light of a searchlight. It temporarily blinded him as he shut his shut his eyes in pain. Trying desperately to recover, he became extremely enraged. He growled and began firing off large bursts of flame. They were random to say the least, but in the process he did manage to destroy a few of the lights. Every shot he fired lurched Highway in the opposite direction; speeding him up, but causing him to fly in anything but a straight line.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Highway screamed.

“I do-ho-on’t know!” he sobbed

The newfound thrust caught Highway by extreme surprise, and he nearly crashed into a building as a result. “Holy hay!” he shouted as he pulled away from the building at the last moment.

The crazed pegasus roared through the streets; anyone on the ground or in the buildings nearby was massively startled by the sudden fly-by. The citizens in the windows of the buildings were paralyzed with fear, but impressed by his expertly executed pull out of his falling spin.

“Sorry, I won’t do that again!” Commune tried to apologize.

“No, its fine,” he said calmly.

“Uhh, what?”

“Keep doing that!”

“Wha-why?”

The device was reading out his speed as he flew, to assist him in reaching the proper velocity. For once, that wasn’t a bad idea. “Your current speed is mach zero point five and decreasing,” the device said to him.

“It’s fine! Just fire your spell directly behind me alright?”
Commune figured where he was going with this, and agreed that it just might work. “Yes sir!”
A machine gun’s worth of bursting flame lit up the sky, showering a large portion of the city in a red and flashing glow. As he speculated, they were gaining speed.

“You current speed is mach zero point seven,” the computer told him as he concentrated on flying in straight line.

“Keep going!” Highway shouted. It was clear to him that all this using of magic was putting quite the strain on his friend’s mind. He was sweating, and his flames became shorter and less frequent.

“Your current speed is mach zero point eight.”

“Not good enough!” Highway shouted in disgust.

“Your current speed is still mach zero point eight and decreasing,” the computer said in order to correct itself.

“DID YOU SAY AND DECREAS”- he didn’t even have the breath to complain about the speed change. ‘What the hay are we gonna do?’ The chill in the air was getting to him; patches of his fur coat had icicles forming on them. He was fighting off the urge to shiver and get warm again. He couldn’t keep this up much longer.

The once star-like lights of the Neon Bolts glow had grown into something like a mini sun. Time was about to run out, he tried not to admit the truth to himself. Looking to both of the Neon Bolts, he could tell that they were less than a minute from reaching him. He looked back to his friend trying desperately to continue firing his shots off, but to no avail.

“Your current speed is mach zero point five,” the machine said peacefully to him.

Commune exhaustedly fired off the last of his shots. “I-BOOM, will not-BOOM, give up-BOOM, that easily!” He angled his head for one final shot, and then let out the biggest flame yet; it covered over sixty houses in its length alone. After that he just breathed heavily, unable to use another spell. It took a moment for him to admit defeat, but he did. “Buddy, I was glad,” he breathed heavier, “to have at least helped you change your mind about the world. It really is a tragedy that these people will never know anything but this horrible city.” He went silent for a time too uncomfortable to bear.

“Commune? Commune y-you awake?” There was no response, and he could feel him fall onto his head in need of rest. He could still feel the unicorn breathing, but he was unconscious for now.

The Neon Bolts were about ten seconds away from impact. His terrible life was flashing before his eyes; from the memory of the paper labeled “The Highway South,” up to his job at the factory. Then, it was as if his memory changed. It was suddenly filled with thoughts of Celestia and the dream he had the night after meeting Commune. It was a much happier memory, and the sight of his new friend smiling filled his mind for a moment. Something was different, as the ice-cold air rushed past him as he flew; he suddenly began to feel very warm. Walking into his mental image was his mother, and Commune seemed like he was conscious in the memory. Then a thought hit him, this was no memory; it was a psychic transmission.

Commune moved out of the way to let his mother through, and while doing so gave a slight bow. The Alicorn began to speak to Highway, and the vision was becoming too real. He suddenly took in a breath of air, and to his surprise it was warm. He looked down to his feet to see and feel himself standing on the ground. He moved his feet up and down to double check, as this was an entirely new type of experience. His mother began to speak in her angelic voice, as her silver hair blew in the wind. “My son, I have a message for you.” As she spoke the entire city changed before his eyes. The sun was quickly rising and falling in the background, but her glow gave the area they were standing around a constant light source. The buildings were slowly becoming newer looking, pieces of rubble were flying from the ground to the missing pieces of the apartments. The factory was directly behind him, but he didn’t look at it. “I have been betrayed by the creature known as Off Track, as you must already know. I had to wait for the perfect time to let you know, as even with my abilities I am limited in communication with you. Your life is not over it is only just beginning. You’re time before now was never supposed to happen, and I am sorry for that. How I wish I had raised you myself, but my own ignorance was my downfall; I will make sure you do not make the same mistake.” She motioned to Commune, who was standing over to the side. “Show him inside please.”

He kneeled before her in a very polite manner, “Of course Princess.” He then trotted over to him, and motioned him to follow. They turned around to view the factory, but there was no factory to be seen. In its place stood the most beautiful palace he’d ever seen; for a moment there, he thought he was going to pony heaven. Commune saw the look on his face and tried quickly to explain. “No, it’s not what you think. You’re not dead, and neither am I. Your mom is just an incredible Alicorn. She’s created a whole dimension just to show you something; you should be overjoyed!”

“I-I-I just don’t know what’s gong on.” Highway said confused. “We were just about to be obliterated before you showed up!”

“Yeah, but let’s try not to think about that ok?”

He sighed, “fine…”

The palace was so huge that it stretched into the clouds. There was a magnificent purple and gold sunset off to the right of the palace, and a cloud seemed to be wrapping its way around the top of the building. It was tall and regal looking, with golden caps on the castle-like points. It was thick in width, with only one tall tower branching out from the right side. Most of it was a pearl textured stone, skillfully crafted in humongous shapes. Even though it was thick in diameter, it curved in on itself; so that a pegasus could slide down its side and leap off the end. The slopes were in reverse near the tops of the castle. Huge semi-rectangular holes were cut into the castle itself; they were easily over a hundred stories high. Inside the building, at the base of where the holes were cut, was a very large platform that circled the entire upper floor. A hole in the circular floor was even more massive than the holes that were on the outside walls of the building. On the ground floor was the throne that Off Track had replaced. It was ornate beyond belief; with a crimson red seat, and gold engraved detail upon it, it was definitely the most detailed small object in the castle. The palace appeared to be a pegasus paradise!

“You see that my son, that’s where you lived when you were an infant.” His mother almost scared him, as he was admiring the magnificence of the castle. “Did you know that this city used to only contain pegasus ponies? I suspect that many of the citizens nowadays have forgotten all about that. It’s a real shame too.”

The world shifted for a moment, the ground shook and the buildings spilled into each other. In another moment it was over, and they were all standing inside the palace. In the center of the room was a large colored plan for a bridge uniting two cities together. “You see my son, that paper you saw all those years ago, was this.”

Highway’s heart was filled with butterflies, he got a brief case of the chills, and then sadness filled the remainder of what anypony was allowed to feel at once. The paper lying there on the ground made more sense to him than anything before. He fell down to the ground, landing slowly on his knees.

“Back then, our city was long divided from the rest of Equestria. Only the greatest fliers in the world lived here, for they were the only ones who could make the trip across the desert and survive. Since pegasi have the power to control the weather, we made it rain in the desert, and created a habitable area to thrive in. We were among the few kingdoms that could not only control the weather, but skilled with agriculture too. It was peaceful here, don’t let the words of that liar Impound fool you. His new master had manipulated him; let me tell you the truth. He was among the three unicorns in the city, and like he said, I put him in charge of the jail. He has a kind heart, its just that its been twisted. The sight of anyone going to jail hurt him on an emotional level, to the point where he asked to quit several times. With the manipulation taking control, he began to detest freedom, until it grew into pure hatred. I represented the skies, and the skies to me represent freedom itself. Yet, even in my last moments, Impound couldn’t finish me off. His kind spirit fought ferociously against the monster’s influence, and he would’ve walked away if not for intervention. Off Track showed himself to Impound for the first time, as he dealt the final blow.”

“This…this…” Highway had no words to describe how he felt, only tears. On the paper below him sat the design of the bridge, and at the top it read, “The Highway South.”

“You are now the messenger of freedom, take flight in the open skies, and chart a path for others to follow. I’m afraid my time with you is up.”

“No, not yet! I still have some questions! What about the Neon Bolts?”

“They were the greatest fliers in the sky, but what really made them different was their ability to use magic. Not much magic, but enough to do some amazing things. It breaks my heart that they had to be the ones to kill the original bearers of the elements.”

The world began to fall apart piece by piece, “Don’t leave, no!”

“I have no choice, any more time spent here, and you won’t have enough time to evade the Neon Bolts charge.”

“It doesn’t matter! I’m not going to survive that anyway!”

“Yes you will, I’ve passed on some of my flight magic to you. All you need is the will to fly higher.”

“BUT”- and then it was over. By the time he’d spoken, there was nothing but darkness around him.

Instant shock hit him; he was suddenly freezing to death and back in the horrid environment he started in. He gazed into the darkness out in front of him, and imagined the sky he’d just seen in his vision. Within an instant, his wings were filled with the strength of twenty pegasi. The sky felt small, and all his troubles as nothing. He let his desire to fly higher set in and relax him; now nothing could stand in his way. His mother was right, he did have a power given to him, and he was going to use it.
His wings lit up in a white glow, and then his whole body. In one flap, the buildings disappeared in a blur. He thought he heard the sound of two unidentified flying ponies crash behind him, but paid no attention.
“Y-you’re c-current s-speed is m-mach t-twenty, c-cleared f-for g-gate o-opening.” The computer tried to continue functioning at this speed, but was seriously struggling. The only thing keeping any of them in one piece was a crude magic shield that apparently came with Highway’s new ability. Inside the shield, the effect of higher speeds was reduced to almost nothing.
The artificial horn finally lit up with a high-pitched sound, and fired off three white rings of slightly decreasing size. As they spun in circles, a white light appeared in the center. A moment later, the light became incredibly bright, and Highway could see different colors of the rainbow peeking through the sheet of white.
“Destination confirmed, prepare for trans”- before the machine could even finish its thought, they flew into the gateway and became enveloped in its nothingness.

Chapter 7: Starlight City

Chapter 7: Starlight City (conclusion)

The trip through the gates lasted only a moment; and yet, they’d traveled the length of an entire desert. Three white rings awaited them at the exit of the portal. The rings span around them as they cruised through. Highway paid no attention to the sound of the gate closing behind him. A voice sounded from the artificial horn on his head, “Congratulations, you have reached your destination. Welcome to Starlight city.”

It wasn’t as cold in this city as it was in the last, but the sky was engulfed in a thick and heavy rainstorm. It poured down like crashing ocean waves falling from the sky. Through the rain, the blue glow of the city could be seen below. Not too many people were awake, as the majority of the lights in the homes below had been shut off.
Highway scouted for any building that would let him in, or even give him shelter. The only hope of refuge from the storm appeared to be the tallest and widest building amongst them. It was walled with crystal blue windows, and divided into two major layers. The layers stacked on top of each other, and were identical in everyway except width. The higher segment of the building was much thinner. The sides were not round, but instead resembled an octagon. ‘It’s my only chance,’ he thought to himself. ‘I bet that building would have people in it at any hour.’

The rain weighed him down more than he thought it would. Because of this, he struggled to keep in the air. The exhaustion he felt was now morphing into something of a painful nature; he could not keep airborne much longer. He thought about the unicorn on his back, but couldn’t turn to look. He was now a few feet from the roof of the giant building. His world grew dark for a moment, and then rebounded as his desire to land had finally kicked in. In a final flailing of his mighty wings, the pegasus landed safely on the roof. Crashing down onto the ground with a loud thump, his companion rolled off his back and onto the tiled floor.
Rain filled the cracks in the gray tile as Highway shakily raised his head to check on his friend. Thankfully, he was in decent shape. He had no physical injuries aside from exhaustion, and he’d tired himself out so much that Highway knew he’d be out for hours.
South slowly got up from the ground, even as his wings ached, and spotted a double glass door on the outside wall of the building. ‘There’s the roof entrance. I knew I picked the right place!” he thought with relief.

The storm raged on as he painfully made his way to the double doors. As he got closer, he could see a feint yellow glow inside. To his luck, there were ponies inside to let him in. He was letting out some tears of joy as this notion hit him, but in the rain they didn’t show up. “Just, a, little, bit, further!” he panted.

Inside the building it was the perfectly warm. The glass doors leading to the outside balcony were at the top of the room. Below the upper part of the room stretched rows of black seats sloping downward. It appeared to be a college lecture hall, but it smelled cleaner. In the center bottom of the room, sat a wide and brown desk. On the wall behind that, hung a very wide and green chalkboard. On the chalkboard itself were some diagrams and calculations for a new experimental device. It bared a stunning resemblance to Highway’s present he’d gotten in the mail. Along the bottom few rows of seats sat a group of ponies, strewn about in seemingly random groups. A light gray earthpony with glasses stood before the chalkboard giving a lecture on his newest project. He spoke in a voice not too high and not too low, easily talking through his complex theories as if they were child’s play.

“So if you can see, the electrical energy can be converted through the artificial horn’s design in a way that allows for equal power distribution. This means that any spell the device is programmed to use will be amplified multiple times. Of course, the wiring can be rearranged to fit any desired output.”

“So you can get these things to reproduce any unicorn’s spell hmm?” one of the onlookers said in curiosity.

“Oh yes! Anything you can think of it can do, but there is a minor drawback.”

“And what is that?”

“Right now they are limited to one spell per unit, so they don’t contain the full potential of a unicorn’s magic. Any attempts to make one unit produce more than one spell would require an extra contraption that shifts the wires around to produce a new configurati”- he gasped suddenly. He’d spotted the outline of the injured Highway South making his way closer to the door. “W-who could be visiting at this hour?” he shouted in worry.

The other ponies in the crowd all turned to look at the figure approaching the window. From their perspective, the unknown character appeared ominous and sinister. Who, or whatever it was had huge ruffled and twitching wings, as well as a unicorn’s horn! The creature limped its way closer and closer, until KNOCK KNOCK!

The pony giving the presentation was not going to let this stranger ruin his project’s funding. So he strapped on a pair of robotic wings he’s made for himself, and leapt into the air. The magical and scientific miniature jet turbines roared from the inside. The position of the red flames coming from the jet was thought out, as it did not burn any part of the stallion’s body. The metallic wings were of average size, but divided into three flat parts. They flapped with a creaking of metal against metal, and were extremely noisy.

He nearly landed wrong, and fell on his face near the base of the door. The jet engines cooled to a low hum. “Ow,” he moaned in embarrassment. When he finished rubbing his hurt face, he looked upward to see the doors fly open in a startling slam that echoed throughout the room. Rain poured in from the outside like a flooding river, as the shadowy and dark rain hid the figure’s standing image.
He jumped to his hooves and took a battle stance, daring the unknown pony to attack; the truth was he was not prepared at all, and this just made him look silly. He awkwardly stood there trying to be intimidating, but the figure didn’t move. “Well, aren’t you going to attack me?” he asked the figure.

The figure wobbled there for a second, and then fell into the room; its artificial horn fell from its head. “Help” the pegasus spoke weakly, as it used up the strength it had left. After that it let its head hit the ground with an unforgiving sound.

Feeling terribly about the thought of attacking such a creature, the earthpony slowly backed away as his stomach turned. He covered his mouth with his hoof to stop his initial scream, then moved it hastily to make way for his next sentence. “G-get medical help…IMMEDIATELY!” he shouted down to the ponies in the chairs. All but two ponies left to fulfill this request. He stared down; giving a horrified look at the device that had fallen from its head. He had been the designer and personal tester of the device, and had intended it as a gift to the sky alicorn’s only son. Now it lay worn and used as if it had just been through the field test of its life, drained of all but the little battery life it still clung to. ‘If this is who I think it is,’ his mind didn’t even want to finish the thought. It refused to accept that this was indeed the sky alicorn’s son. For if he was here, in this shape, what has been happening to the kingdom?

Out in the distance, he could see the silhouette of another pony lying on the roof. He’d only noticed it as a flash of lightning tore through the sky. By now, the two audience members who had stayed behind with them had made their way to the top of the stairs, and by the earthpony’s side. “I’m glad you’re here! See out on the roof? I need one of you to go out and help him! NOW!” The unicorn wearing a lab coat rushed out to get him.

A bunch of ponies wearing medical hats made their way through the bottom doors with a stretcher. The leader of the brigade stopped next to the earthpony. “Oh sweet Celestia! Is that the prince!?” the leader shouted. “It’s a good thing we were here tonight eh Expert? Wouldn’t want the prince of New Harmony to die off before he got to rule right?”

Expert was staring out to the injured pony in the rain in deep thought. “You’re gonna need another stretcher.”

The next morning, a very disturbed monster made his way out of the pit of anger he’d fallen into. He was up all night pacing the floor of his chamber. Off track was getting up to date information on the progress of the prince’s escape in real time, up until they’d lost him. Impound cautiously walked up to his furious master, still bruised and burned from yesterday’s battle. “Master,” Impound said in his voice, “I believe the prince’s escape is a major drawback to the overall plan, and we should try our best to”-

“SILENCE YOU IDIOT!” Off Track screamed into the all but empty room. “This is no drawback,” he tried to assure himself, “this is merely progress. Yessss, that’s what it is! Muahahahahahaha!” he laughed in near full hatred.

Then Impound figured out what his master was planning, “No, you’re not planning on using”-

“Oh, but I am! I’m going to enjoy this.”

The monster stomped his way out of his chair and over to the left wall. Touching one of his claws to a button not reachable to the average being, the wall began to open up. Steam and gears turned as it opened in several different sections; obviously, this was his personal door. Once the gears had stopped turning and the steam let out one final gust, he made his way outside. Impound ran quickly to keep up with the giant.

The sun had made its way in the sky, and as this was the desert, its heat was of something intense. Any frost that had formed on the buildings overnight was already melted. The time was around ten o’clock.

“M-master, you can’t seriously be thinking of using-that’s not even a last resort! Do you intend to crush another capitol?”

“Yes, actually I do.” He stopped outside one of the tallest buildings in the factory, inspecting it in nostalgia. “Ah, my beauty, you will see more destruction.”

Opening another wall door, they walked inside. It looked something like the inside of an old boat dock, with hooks and chains hanging from the ceiling. The only difference was the lack of water for the boat, or any indent in the ground where water would be. The whole area was level, and covered in rusty brown steel; there were even occasional bolts littered about.

Off Track walked closer to the center of the room as chains and hooks rattled against him. Impound now looked worriedly at his master, as he had seen the destruction of this method before, and did not want to see it again. As the beast walked smiling at the darkness, he turned his attention to one hook in particular. “Ah! There is.”

His claw reached up and pulled the chained hook down to the ground. This set off a chain reaction that caused the floor to shake. A large portion of the floor opened up, and a slight glow emanated from below. Rising out of the ground fast enough to be seen as a blur, was a machine that appeared to have the basic shape of an apartment. In fact, while it was still rising, you would mistake it to be an apartment just based on size and shape. Unfortunately for the world, this was not the case. When the thing settled, it was clearly seen to be a strain. It had the same texture to it as the floor, only it was not rusted. On it were many small moving parts, some spinning more rapidly than others. When it had finally settled, it was clearly distinguishable as a giant train.

“Perfect as always isn’t she Impound?”

“Sure…master.” He had terrible memories with this train. Indeed, it was the train that’d torn down the capital of New Harmony all those years ago, and the same machine that had ended the lives of the last two rulers.

“That didn’t sound really enthusiastic if you ask me. Now, why don’t you try again? Hmm?”

The stallion clearly did not want to complement the machine of ultimate destruction, but he had no choice. “The Dark Train looks perfect as always master! We’d better get a move on.”

“Right you are. Now get on board.”

They boarded the train and started its engines; it seemed to come to life, and make its existence known to the world with a loud blow of its horn. Off Track snapped his fingers and the walls of the building around them sank into the ground. The train itself was on a turntable, and it spun to face the direction of the Starlight city. A loud gust of smoke shot out of the smoke stacks in the front cart, and the train began its terrible rampage.

The tracks were forming themselves in front of the train’s wheels in way that they appeared from flames. Off Track laughed insanely, yet controllably, as the train smashed through his own factory’s walls. Building after building was destroyed, then wall after wall was demolished, with little to no resistance. A segment of the Iron Gate surrounding the factory was destroyed on his exit, and then through the city he went. Ponies everywhere ran for their lives at the sight of the five-story death machine rolling through the city. Somehow, there were minimal injuries. Every half mile, a new train car would be added to the train, appearing in a burst of flames. This continued up until he crashed though the outside wall.

As the train made its way out over the horizon, its own length rivaled that of the city. It was now free of any building s hindering its progress. The shadow of the train stretched across the desert for what seemed like an eternity. As it traveled, engines at full power.

“Celestia, you will pay for this. That I swear to you.” He was sitting in the conductor’s sear, and looking out in the direction of the next city to conquer. “It’s time I took full advantage of that little mistake of yours.”

End of Prequel