The Last Tears in Tartarus

When Eighty-Three died, he was ready for it. He had no strength to cry, nor desire to. While the streets and alleyways of New Sheol froze around him, Eighty-Three was warm. He lay in a lone gutter, reveling in the scent of a dead world, a smell that he didn't realize he could still savor until the very end came. A part of him was immeasurably thankful, the part of him that could still see the orange light when all else was smog and red steam. Soon enough, tiny, winged shadows rose over Eighty-Three, and his ears intinctually twitched upon hearing a chorus of ravenous hissings sounds. Exhaling peacefully, he shut his eyes and felt somepony's phantom breath on him, like a kiss sending him blissfully into a long slumber.

Eighty-Three's last thought flew him back to four moons ago.

New Sheol stood, as it always did, like a black monolith of industry in the center of the gray and desolate landscape. Perpetual night blanketed the charred, ashen world. Every tree and lake and river was gone, replaced instead by endless stretches of smooth stone that had been vulcanized by a tsunami of underworldly flame ten years prior. The only noticeable detail on the moonlit expanse was a rotting moat of refuse that had collected at the base of New Sheol's support pylons. Piles of bones, leather flanks of skin, and petrified bits of internal organs were constantly being expelled out of hissing vents just a hundred meters above the gray world's surface. Clawing through the debris were ink black creatures with jagged wings and scarlet eyes. They fought and hissed and squabbled over the meatier bits of detritus before the vents opened again and rained a pungent spray of organic sludge across the spectacle, forcing the beastly imps to scatter with a series of banshee shrieks.

As the vents closed, a fine red mist billowed out from their edges. This crimson effluence traveled up the metal struts of the hellish platform, doubling and tripling with the hundreds upon hundreds of meters that the body of New Sheol penetrated the frigid sky. Howling winds blew dust and sediment into the obsidian bulkheads of the city's outer layers. However, the platform stood resolute, built out the same unholy metal that had brought an entire kingdom to its knees. The city's multiple floors of red-glowing factories whirred and steamed with impenetrable machine parts, providing a sick contrast to the dark expanse surrounding the purgatorial metropolis.

It was in the middle of such intestinal industry that Eighty-Three labored, half-a-mile above the scarred surface of the world, surrounded by red mist and madness. The earth pony had been working deep in the metal bowels of New Sheol's west hangars. He and three other slaves dangled from rusted ladders in the center of a vertical shaft, busily welding together a series of black pipes. These tight cylinders led up towards a half-constructed landing pad of criss-crossing metal bulkheads that formed a new portion of the platform city above.

One particular stretch of tubing was being stubborn. Grumbling under his breath, Eighty-Three hung onto a grimy rung with his yellow teeth while he converted his left metal hoof into a blow torch. He felt the heat of searing plasma coursing through his forward prosthetic as he sealed the pipes tight.

It was then that he first heard the arrival of the orcish hovercraft. The entire structure shook violently. One slave shrieked and flailed as he was nearly thrown off his grip. He dangled above an eight-hundred foot drop before gripping back onto the ladder opposite Eighty-Three. Only once Eighty-Three's welding task was finished did he glance straight up at the arriving vessel. It was a dull green thing, its body only barely showing through the metal grating above and the smoldering black sky beyond. Several roaring vertical thrusters carried the cargo ship towards the nearest landing pad adjacent to that stretch of platform being constructed. When the thunder of the craft's approach settled, Eighty-Three could hear the cackling voice of a slave beside him.

“Hey, cheer up, pony!” Twenty-Seven exclaimed. He was a frail, gangly goblin with iron-plated hands and feet. A glowing, mechanical eye whirred in the creature's head as he grinned crookedly. “Maybe it's the fleet of the dead Sun Goddess come to ferry you on to green pastures!”

The other two slaves laughed. Eighty-Three merely exhaled a heavy breath. With his length of pipes sealed, he retracted his left limb back into a mechanical hoof. He then pressed a glowing communicator fused into his neck collar. An electrical charge coursed through his body. Sparks ran through a dense mane of rusted needles growing out the back of his neck as he contacted the company's current supervisor. He gritted his teeth to weather the pain, and soon he could hear the sound of a deep, guttural voice murmuring magically in his ears.

“Report, Number Eighty-Three.”

“Lower Strut Beta is fused, Overseer,” Eighty-Three replied. Bright embers spat sporadically out of his skull as he hung there in the depths of New Sheol. “It is ready for circulation.”

“Affirmative,” the voice rattled like a jar of pebbles in his skull. “Initiating test ventilation in T-Minus five... four... three...”

Eighty-Three split the ends of his forelimbs into tri-fold prongs. He hung tightly to the metal ladder and carefully eyed the pipe he had just fused. His breath came out in frosted vapors as he waited with anticipation. Soon, the air heated up as a hot gust of red steam was pumped through the metal tubes. There was a crimson aura shimmering all around him, but not a single cloud of mist escaped the cylindrical material.

“Number Eighty-Three, any sign of leakage?”

He replied, “Negative, Overseer. I confirm structural integrity for Lower Strut Beta.”

“Understood. Your task is complete. Ascend to Platform Twenty.”

The sparks burning in the back of Eighty-Three's neck died. With a whir of his metal legs, he climbed his way up the ladder, much to the groaning envy of the slaves still working beneath him.

“Awwww... Damn his horse luck!” Twenty-Seven spat and waved a wrench in consternation. “If you earn more strips than me again this week, I swear, I'll find you and feed you to Leviathan's parasites myself!”

“Typical of you to be jealous of pony filth,” another goblin said, grinning.

“Oh hush—Whoah!” Twenty-Seven almost fell off the ladder. The other two slaves laughed at him and continued with their work.

In the meantime, Eighty-Three ascended the top of the vertical chamber. He winced, struggling to pull himself onto the black bulkheads atop the metal pit. As soon as he had even footing, there was a miserable popping sound.

He fell flat on his muzzle. A shot of pain flew through his cranium, but it was nothing compared to the throbbing agony in his joints. Once more, his metal prosthetics had slipped loose from their grimy sockets. He could feel the sparks singeing his shaved flesh from where the servos struggled wildly to reconnect. He heard chuckling voices. Several orcs and ogres had paused in their multiple welding tasks to laugh at his misfortune. Not a single one came over to assist him. He didn't expect any better.

After much struggle, Eighty-Three pulled himself onto even ground. He found a loose rivet on the floor and bit onto it with his teeth. Clenching his eyes shut, he coiled the muscles remaining in his natural torso, flexed, and popped all four limbs back into place at once. A shot of electricity bolted through him, illuminating his metal mane, and then his body hung numbly in the receding waves of pain. After a few panting breaths, he limped up into a standing position, spat the nut out, and walked across the cold construction site on whirring, rusted feet.

The black lattice work of the landing pad's support structure was strobing in various places from grimy creatures enmeshed in the throes of hard labor. Several grunts of pain echoed in the distance as random orcs and trolls wrestled with their stubborn equipment. Eighty-Three marched fluidly through all of this, not stopping until he was standing before a large, fat ogre who was carving a series of statistical supports across a band of tanned leather.

“Number Eighty-Three, reporting, Overseer Globflint,” the half-pony hoarsely said.

“Hmmph...” The Overseer merely grunted. The ogre was rotund, to say the least, with several strips of leather stitched in a spiraling pattern around his torso in order to contain the bulging fat. Half of his face was disfigured, and his left leg had been replaced by a piston with rusted springs. Upon Eighty-Three's arrival, Overseer Globflint continued carving more figures into the sheet of flesh, summarizing the day's progresses and failures. “High Incubus Paimon entrusts me with the good maintenance of this company,” he muttered. “What do I say to him when I find that all of my slaves are no good maggot bags, save for one conspicuously diligent pony?”

Eighty-Three stared down at the soot covered floor. A gust of red steam billowed to his left, illuminating the dark stains of the place in a crimson light. “I wouldn't rightly know, Overseer.”

“A good answer,” Globflint said. “The best slave is one who refuses to think, even when asked to.” He finished carving a figure and reached for a grimy controller with a metal hand. “Let's see, that makes it two moons of solid work. You've fulfilled your quota for the time being, Eighty-Three. I hereby grant you twelve hours of leave.” He clicked the remote.

A light flashed from red to green in Eighty-Three's neck collar. The pony took a deep breath and bowed. “Much appreciated, Overseer Globflint.”

“The only thing I appreciate is how swiftly you circulate red steam to the new expansions,” the ogre replied. He dropped the remote back onto a rusted tray besides scraps of bone from half-eaten meat. “The orc hovercraft that just arrived is only docking with our Company because that naga shipment of infernal slade departed two hours ago. We need this new landing pad fully constructed if we ever expect to ensure High Incubus Paimon's profit. Always remember, 'fealty means labor...'”

Eighty-Three knew when it was his cue to speak. “'And labor means freedom,'” he dutifully finished.

“Still,” the Overseer's nostrils flared as he chuckled inwardly. “A pony like you is a novelty, these days. Fealty simply means you expend energy by choice, now doesn't it?”

Eighty-Three said nothing. He just stood there, silent, his metal legs anchored to the platform.

Globflint resumed scratching more figures into the dead sheets. After half-a-minute, he grumbled, “Is there any particular reason why you're still here?”

“I mean no disrespect, Overseer, and I am most grateful for my leave. But since it has been two moons, and I've had my first time to visit the surface in weeks, I wonder if you would be so gracious as to allow me the freedom of transferring my strips early.”

“Transferring your strips?” Globflint cast a pale eye in Eighty-Three's direction. “You mean you wish to be paid,” he said flatly.

Eighty-Three stirred with sudden pensiveness.

“Speak up, you pile of horse rubbish!” The Overseer's voice rose dangerously. His metal fingers lingered on a crimson button to his remote. “Is this what you insolently demand?”

“I do not demand, for I cannot demand,” Eighty-Three said in monotone. “I merely ask for the Overseer's grace, if he would see fit to treat his servant as a servant or his rubbish as rubbish.”

“Hmmm...” The Overseer stared sideways at the pony. “Audacious, but honest. It's a strange comfort to me that when Tartarus burst through the gates, the only thing Grand Lord Babellyon's army didn't consume was the equine weakness for telling the truth.” Globflint spun in his seat, then reached into a metal drawer and pulled out several small pieces of leather. He compared them to flesh-colored sheets in a bone-bound book. After shuffling a few more in his grubby hands, he finally tossed a numbered pair before the pony. “There. Forty strips. That's as much as Paimon Company can afford to give you so early.”

Once again, Eighty-Three bowed respectfully. “Much thanks and appreciation, Overseer.”

“But your leave is now ten hours instead of twelve,” the Overseer said with a frown. “The moment you complain, your limbs will be turned off. Do not forget that I am merciful, for Paimon is merciful. The lengths of our grace equal the height of your suspension from suffering.”

“Yes, Overseer.” Eighty-Three took the numerically marked leather strips and backtrotted with a lasting bow. “You are wise and merciful, Overseer.”

“Do not forget it, pony.” Globflint swiveled back to his sheets and resumed carving into the dead flesh. “Your kind is pathetically lucky to have one of the Company's legs, much less four.”

Eighty-Three did not respond. He marched firmly up the ramp leading towards the surface streets. Gusts of red steam billowed on either side of him as he passed by shuffling slave workers, scurrying rats, and emaciated trolls lying in refuse and reaching out for alms. A deep crimson glow bathed his flesh and metal features, illuminating the decade-old scarves of orcish daggers that hid any hint of a cutie mark on his flanks. Finally, with a wave of frosted air that betrayed his haggard breaths to the vaporous winds, he emerged onto the streets of New Sheol.

The sky above was shrouded by smog-ridden night. A forest of tall smokestacks stretched like black throats into the air, funneling endless clouds of ash into the deathly expanse. Darting loudly through the atmosphere on loud thrusters were errant waves of airships armed from wing-to-wing with ghastly weaponry. Where there wasn't the rumbling thunder of industry to be heard, shrieks echoed in shrill bursts as wild gargoyles leapt from rooftop to rooftop, fighting for the ragged scraps of dead birds and other raw meat.

Eighty-Three wasted no time. He trotted briskly down the center street of the demonic city. Every building was a black heap of metal piled on top of identical compartments, so that the entire urbanscape resembled a rusted heap of iron-wrought coffins stacked together. Interwoven through this obsidian network of bulkheads was a complex web of thin pipes, glowing scarlet as they channeled red steam—the bloodline of Tartarus—all throughout New Sheol.

The massive grandeur of the city wasn't the most ominous thing. Shuffling through the streets were half-living creatures, orcs and goblins and ogres who had seen their fair share of carnage, and most of them the losers of such scuffles. They carried themselves on crooked, improvised prosthetics. Leather bandages and barbed-wire stitches held their haggard skin together as they gave into drink and hissed at one another. Those too weak to stand soon found themselves pounced upon by larger and bigger creatures. Thugs spilled the streets and gutters with blood, running away with leather slips while their victims sobbed their way into a slow death at the mouths of vermin.

To the left, Eighty-Three heard a loud series of roars. He glanced down through the bars of a metal great to see a circular arena lit by torches. A pair of captured timber-wolves were being forced at taser-point to fight with one another. In the stands above them, throngs of blood-thirsty orcs waved their leather strips and cheered the monstrosities into murdering one another other.

There was a shrieking sound to his right. Eighty-Three glanced through his peripheral vision to see a pair of goblins being pummeled to the ground and curb-stopped. They yelled and screamed for help, and yet no creature came to their aid as three large ogres hungrily dragged them behind a pile of garbage and unsheathed long blades to do something horrific just beyond Eighty-Three's vantage point.

A trio of small bodies slammed into Eighty-Three. He struggled on whirring metal limbs to keep his balance. As it turned out, three gargoyles had bumped into him. They were fighting over the the lower half of a dog, its purple entrails staining the street as demons hissed and stabbed at one another with their wing-joints. One of the gargoyle's heads suddenly exploded. The street cleared as an angry orc butcher charged out of his slaughterhouse with a boomstick and chased the two imps off.

“What in Beelzebub's name is that?” Croaked a guttural voice from a nearby storefront. In a city of horrors, built by horrors, Eighty-Three knew that an outburst of disbelief could only be directed at him. He became aware of two troll pilots—outsiders—leaning against a wall and eying the earth pony as he limped down the street. “By the Styxx, can you believe that they put legs on that thing?”

“It's a waste of strips, if you ask me.”

“I told you New Sheol is a total dump. We were better off in the Golgoth highlands. At least there they weren't desperate enough to turn filth into labor units.”

“Hey. Do you think that after they're done sending him places, they turn his collar off and ride him around the red steam generators?”

“Hahahaha! Ohhhh—Burn me, Lilith, that's rich!”

Eighty-Three held his breath tight. Finally, after marching through a swarm of flies gathered around a decaying beggar's body, Eighty-Three reached his destination. It was a metal stand, guarded by tall orcs brandishing razor-sharp pole-axes. A series of nether runes atop the establishment read “Bank of New Sheol – Paimon Company.” Several creatures were standing in a solid line by the time Eighty-Three got there.

Just like him, the various slaves bore metal collars around their throats. All of the neck-pieces were lit green, all except for one trembling troll's. Right before Eighty-Three's eyes, the poor wretch's collar switched to red, then shorted out completely. As the light went out, the troll's metal arms went limp from the shoulders down. He panicked, his breath coming out in rancid vapors as he tried to break out of the crowd, only for one of the brutish guards to reach out and yank him by the neck. The troll dangled helplessly in the guard's grasp. Upon close inspection of the dead light on the troll's collar, the guard grunted and ripped the laborer's prosethetics out of their grimy sockets. After collecting Company property, the guard tossed the troll—shrieking—into a gutter south-wind of the decaying beggar. Desperate, he squirmed his way towards the far side of the street with thrashing legs, only to be overtaken by a swarm of hungry gargoyles that bit and pecked at his shrieking face.

Eighty-Three absorbed himself into the thick crowd of waiting servants. He kept his eyes forward. None of them looked at him, and he didn't bother gazing their way either. Over time, his ears twitched, for he heard a series of chuckling, healthy voices. Momentarily curious, he turned and gazed behind his blank flanks.

Several tall, muscular orcs and ogres were marching down the street. Eighty-Three realized that they must have been the crew of the hovercraft that had just landed at his company's pad. These outsiders brandished guns, daggers, axes, and various other well-polished weaponry. What was more, they had the trophies of war hanging from their necks. The one in the front—most likely the leader of the pack—wore a tunic of hydra flesh, and about his neck their hung the teeth of at least twenty-different species. Even from a long distance, it took Eighty-Three barely half-a-minute to recognize the molars of zebras, mules, and other equines densely populating the leader's necklace.

Suddenly, the tallest orc froze... and frowned. It was then that Eighty-Three realized that they had made eye contact. The glare that followed was positively chilling.

“Step up, runt.”

Eighty-Three jumped. He turned around and realized that the line had disappeared in front of him. Several creatures angrily shoved him forward. On whirring legs, he stumbled into the bank teller. Concentrating, he converted his lower limbs into tripods and leaned his forward body upwards like a biped. He then placed the leather strips onto the counter with metal fingers.

“State your designation,” grunted the troll behind the counter, a scar-faced female with gray dreadlocks. Upon seeing the face of the only pony in New Sheol, her mouth tightened, as if struggling to hold her lunch in.

“Number Eighty-Three of Paimon Company, Group Alpha.”

She grabbed the leather pieces, counted them emotionlessly, and punched a series of keys into a loud, oily machine. “Forty strips.” She pulled a lever and a metal sheet slid under a presser beside her, ready for engraving. “Emancipation, Resupply, or Augmentation?”

“None of the above,” Eighty-Three firmly stated. Those in back of the line stirred curiously as he spoke forth, “Power Battery Decommissioning.”

She glanced curiously at him. She must have been new to this wing of New Sheol. If Eighty-Three wasn't assertive, there was the awful chance that she might disregard his request, and he'd not have a chance to pay up for another two moons.

“It's under my file,” he said. “I lay claim to five units, two of which are retired.”

“Hrmmm... One moment.” She reached up to a compartment at the top of her window and pulled down a sheet of flesh. Her eyes scanned down the leather inscriptions until she found a matrix of data. “Paimon Company – Alpha – Eighty Three – Indentured Servant – Equine,” her voice droned each bit of data as she read it aloud. “Says here you have full claim to Units Forty-Nine, Seventy-Two, One Hundred and Five, One Hundred and Twenty-Three, and Two Hundred and Four of the Central New Sheol Battery Supply.”

“Yes, in accordance with Paimon Company Article Eleven,” Eighty-Three said, nodding. “But Units Seventy-Two and One Hundred and Five have been decommissioned already. I would like to pay twenty strips towards the decommissioning of Forty-Nine and twenty strips towards Two Hundred and Four, likewise.”

The troll glanced at the sheet, at him, and then at the sheet once more. Her greasy nostrils flared indignantly. “Very well.” She flung the sheet back up into its sheathe, grabbed his strips, hammered the numbers into the machine, and punched the figures into the metal plate. After the plate was sliced free, she tossed it lazily towards him. “Strips issued. Battery Units Forty-Nine and Two Hundred and Four have a remaining total balance of four hundred strips until complete decommissioning. Battery Unit One Hundred and Twenty-Three: eight hundred strips.”

“Understood.” Eighty-Three nodded, took the plate in his teeth, and limped away swiftly so that the impatient line could take his spot. Once out in the street, he paused to open a leather pouch hanging along his left side just between the two metal joints. He dropped the plate in, but not without pausing to see two rusted tags that had been lying inside the bag already. Two numbers—stained with blood and excrement—spoke to him: “72” and “105.” They were merely figures, statistics, but in a dark world of soot and grime, they were the most beautiful things he had ever looked at.

After a meditative breath, Eighty-Three tightened the bag shut, turned around, and promptly tripped over an outstretched, battle-scarred leg.

“Ooof!” He fell hard to the ground, wincing.

Several tall creatures laughed and spat on him. He felt cold shadows lingering over his figure and heard the metallic sound of metal blades dangling against one other.

“What's this? A prancing pony trying to earn his hooves in Tartarus?” The orc leader of the bunch loomed over him, grinning with a severe under-bite. “I swear, my stomach would be growling if I hadn't killed hundreds just like him in my sleep.”

Eighty-Three winced. He struggled to gain control over his creaking joints. The flesh around his prosthetic sockets strained and bled as he pulled himself back onto his metal legs.

“Look at how he squirms! It's been ten years, and still they can't handle the pain!” The head orc's cohorts laughed and guffawed as he paced around the quadruped. “You gotta take what the world gives you now, horse filth! You locked us up for centuries in the dark dungeon of the world like we were trash, and now look at you! What's the matter? Work load getting a little too tough, slave?”

“Hahahah! Hey! Where's an apple? Somebody feed her an apple! That's what they like, isn't it?”

“You idiot! Can't you see?! It's a guy!”

“Not much of one from where I'm looking!”

“Hahaha! Like you can tell! What prissy little manure machines!”

“Hah hah hah!”

Eighty-Three didn't look at them. He finally got control of his legs. The joints snapped into place as he stood up solidly and marched off.

“Hey!” The orc leader laughed. He stretched his arms out and rattled his bone trophies in the crimson glow of red steam vents. “Where you galloping off to? I just wanna have a talk, cutie! I'm sure you've got several hilarious tales to tell of the old world, that is until we frickin' razed it to ash! Hahah!”

Eighty-Three was fuming. He heard the cold rattle of the numbered tags in his bag. Perhaps that was what set him off, what briefly stripped him of sanity as he grumbled back without looking. “You only wished it was your world to begin with.”

The group of orcs and ogres became dead quiet, all save for their leader. His seething breath came out of him like a locomotive. There was a ringing sound of slicing metal, then several bounding thumps, immediately followed by his leathery foot slamming down across Eighty-Three's spine.

“Augh!” He fell to the metal street, only to have the side of his face pressed mercilessly against a length of blood-stained bulkheads. Eighty-Three winced in pain as the orc leaned down towards him, running the cold edge of an electrified eviscerater against the nape of his collared neck.

“You listen to me and you listen to me good!” The leader snarled. His eyes lit up bloodily like the red steam all around them. “I've crapped out filth that smells better than you! You are nothing! Not even maggots would like to taste you! That goes for every pathetic equine that came before! You don't believe me? My father was there, you insignificant cockroach! He was there in the heart of your crumbling empire when Grand Lord Babellyon beat your feeble Queen into bloody submission! I myself have touched the very blade that cut out her heart! I've been to the podium where her hollow carcass was put on display for my brothers and sisters to piss on! Your Sun Goddess is dead, your land is strip bare, and everything now bows to the glory and horror of Tartarus! So what's stopping me from slicing you to meaty bits right now and teaching you what your pancreas tastes like?!”

“Because he belongs to Paimon Company!” shouted a booming voice. Eighty-Three weakly glanced up to see the large figure of Overseer Globflint waddling down the street. The heavy-set ogre leaned on his metal peg under pale lamplight. The avenue cleared of nervous bodies behind him. “And it would not make your trade manager happy to know that you caused New Sheol property loss by playing pretend-soldier upon immediately making port.”

The orc sneered and aimed his eviscerater at the ogre from afar. “Back off, ya mangy slob! I'm teaching this horse some respect! He shouldn't even be allowed to walk! Lilith burn me, I have a good mind to shove these cruddy legs of his right up your—!”

With a loud hum, the Overseer's left arm split open to expose a sparkling scimitar that tripled the size of the orc's blade. His pale eyes danced with tiny bolts of electricity. “Do your best, boy,” he calmly grunted. “At least now your comrades will see how your father's strength died the day he gorged on the Queen of Ponies.”

The orc jerked where he stood. He heard his cohorts snickering. His body shook furiously. With a sigh, he let go of Eighty-Three, stood up straight, and sheathed his blade. “Come on, runts,” he grunted and motioned his clique along with him as he shuffled down the dirty street. “We can kill pony filth any other day. Let's see what the local rum tastes like.” With a cloud of trailing laughs and guffaws, the cretin was gone.

Globflint tiredly exhaled. He retracted his arm back into a metal wrist, shifted his enormous weight on his piston leg, and shuffled over to Eighty-Three. “When I granted you leave, slave, this was not what I meant.”

Eighty-Three stood up, wobbling. “I am most sorry, Overseer—”

The ogre's engorged knuckles slammed violently across the pony's face.

Eighty-Three flew against the metal wall of a building. Before he could slump to the ground, he had the Overseer's meaty wrist clamped around his collar.

“You are not sorry!” Globflint snarled into the slave's face. “You are nothing! You are a number, a grunt, a cog in the machine! Until you earn enough strips to emancipate yourself—which, by the Styxx, I can't even comprehend why you haven't done so by now—you belong to High Incubus Paimon, and you belong to me! If it wasn't for my intervention, no one would have seen fit to attach any tools to you whatsoever, and instead you would be screaming in agony along with the rest of your piss-stained brethren! I will not have you getting the ire of our customers up, or Lilith help me I will tear those limbs of yours off, return them to Paimon Company stock, and sell what's left of your writhing carcass to the Power Department! Do I make myself clear?”

“Scrkkk... cl-clearly, Overseer...”

The ogre hissed his rancid breath into Eighty-Three's face. “Am I merciful? Say it!”

Just before Eighty-Three's eyes rolled back in their sockets, he caught sight of a bright figure flying overhead. The odd sight jolted a spark of energy down his metal mane, and he hissed, “You are... m-most merciful... Overseer...” He gulped and wheezed, “'Fealty means labor and labor means freedom.'”

Globflint dropped him hard onto the metal sidewalk. “Well said.” He brushed his flesh and metal hands off. “Ever since the hovercraft landed, our communication array has been malfunctioning. I came here personally to round up you and the rest of the servants. I'm afraid your leave must come to an end, pony. The hovercraft has a shipment of batteries, and they must be hauled off the ship and into storage immediately. While the main crew is visiting the warehouses and inns of New Sheol, their laborers have been ordered to provide their services. We need every limb empowered by Paimon Company to assist them. That means you.”

Eighty-Three nodded, gulped, and rubbed his neck with a metal hoof. “Y-yes, Overseer. I shall return to the hangars swiftly.”

“Do not let me find you tarrying. Your pathetic sun is long gone, pony. Tartarus has no time for the likes of you to waste.” He swiveled on his peg leg and hobbled back the way he came.

“Yes, Overseer,” Eighty-Three murmured. But as he stood up, he daringly paused to glance up at the sky. He saw the usual smog and jets of industrial smoke. For several seconds, he squinted, hoping to spot what was so colorful, what had sparked him from the inside. He was about to give up when he finally saw it. On a burst of jet fuel, a living figure was rocketing towards the hangars from the center of the city platform, hauling a supply net full of tools to assist in the upcoming labor. The figure's outline was startling, for all four of his limbs dangled below his torso. That's when Eighty-Three realized that it was a quadruped.

Then something happened that startled him. The figure stopped in mid-air, hovering. A bright green eye and a glowing red eye gazed his way. The creature had half-a-skull of titanium and silver wings full of whirring gears and thruster engines. But there was no denying what it was.

Eighty-Three stirred uncomfortably where he stood. The only thing more shocking than the sight of the pegasus was the sight of the pegasus staring back at him, without ceasing. Snapping his metal joints straight, Eighty-Three forced himself to look away as he marched back towards the hangar, and another stretch of work without sleep or rest.