Zephyr's Job Interviewby KnackermanChaptersOff To The Salt MinesA Job Well Done Is It's Own RewardShow TimeZephyr Punches OutEpilogueOff To The Salt MinesLife was hard. That was the one thing that Zephyr Breeze new with an unshakable certainty. Oh sure, things had been easy for his mother who mostly spent time in her garden, and his father who had managed to get a job for life at the Weather Factory up until the day he had retired. Now both his parents were living the sweet life, work and worry free, reaping the benefits of retirement and living out their golden years. But their son, Zephyr? He had no such like. It just wasn't fair. As near as Zephyr could tell, his parents had essentially been set for life from a young age, where as poor Zephyr was forced to live at with them while he had worked tirelessly to get his degree in Mane Therapy. While it was true that if anypony asked he'd tell them he was living with his parents to keep them company, afraid that they would get lonely in their retirement, but he knew in his heart of hearts that his parents had each other. Despite Rainbow Dash's obvious crush on him (for why else would she hang out with his older sister so much?) Zephyr was all on his own, unless you counted his student loans that seemed to follow him where ever he went. Zephyr didn't have anyone, or anywhere to live, so it made perfect sense for him to mooch off of... er, live with his folks until he got on his own hooves. It just seemed so unfair to him that he was actually expected to get on his own hooves. His parents woukdn't have to work for the rest of their lives. How was that fair? Why couldn't that be Zephyr? Why couldn't he have that? Unlike his father, factory work didn't appeal to him. Zephyr Breeze was an artist, and he knew that some day his very name would be synonymous with high art. But how was he ever supposed to get started building toward the fame and fortune that was rightfully his if he had to work all the time? His big sister Fluttershy clearly had it all figured out. Her passion had been her animals ever since she was little, and she somehow managed to get into the position of running an animal shelter in Ponyville. It seemed ponies actually paid her to look after animals, which is something Zephyr knew his sister would do for free, unasked! It had been a little push from her, and Rainbow Dash of course, that had helped Zephyr get his Mane Therapy Degree in the first place. Sadly he was finding out just how worthless that degree was. It seemed there were Mane Therapists from here to Manehatten that had more on the job experience or, Zephyr thought darkly, more likely better connections than the artistically inclined pegasus. But, the more he thought about it, he had some pretty good contacts himself that he could exploit...er, depend on. His big sister was friends with some of the most famous ponies in Equestria, including a Princess! If they couldn't get him some cushy government job where all he had to do was sit around and drink coffee, then he very much doubted anyone could. It was worth a shot. So after fifteen minutes of trial and error, he got his mother to write a letter to Fluttershy on his behalf and trot down to the post office to mail it for him. It was an exhausting endeavor, so Zephyr decided to take a nap until he got a reply. And the reply came quickly. The very next day Zephyr was sitting in Fluttershy's cottage, in the little nook where his big sis liked to have breakfast. Though they were actually having brunch, Zephyr was blurry eyed and irritable from having to get up before noon. Those mid-day naps meant he had a tendency to stay up until dawn before going to sleep for the 'evening'. That was how all the cool ponies in Mane-Therapy school had lived their lives, so that had to be the right way of doing things, right? Zephyr had no idea how other ponies could just waste so much time sleeping during the actual night. Fluttershy had anticipated his drowsiness and had made coffee for him to have with his toast. Sadly, since he only drank coffee made from Saddle-Arabian coffee beans, Zephyr had to politely decline his sisters inferior fair by taking a big gulp and spraying the swill all over her kitchen floor. Honestly, he was doing her a favor, as he was convinced that the dreck she thought passed for coffee wasn't fit for consumption by pony-kind. As Fluttershy busied herself cleaning up the spilled coffee, and put on the kettle to make tea instead, Zephyr put aside Fluttershy's grave faux pas and decided to instead ask her the thousand dollar question. "So sis, what kind of job have you got lined up for your baby brother?" he asked, "Royal taste tester for Princess Twilight? Personal assistant to Mayor Mare? Or perhaps a job as the personal masseuse for Rainbow Dash? That mare seems a little uptight. I bet a nice rub down from the old Zeph would be just the thing to put her mind at ease and melt all her troubles away." Zephyr allowed a rather goofy grin to spread across his face as he imagined that possibility. "Well, no Zephyr," Admitted Fluttershy, "I'm sorry to say that I asked all of my friends as you requested and none of them have a job that would suit your... particular set of skills," Fluttershy rummaged around in her pantry, looking for the infuser for the loose leaf tea she was making. "After what happened last time, I'm afraid Twilight dismissed the idea out of hoof. She said she wouldn't even consider using you in one of her experiments. I asked Rarity too, if she wanted any help making dresses. She said if she wanted Opal to 'help' her again, she'd just ask her directly." A sour look crossed the yellow pegasi's face as she remembered the conversation. "What, so none of your friends were willing to help me find a job?" asked Zephyr, astonished. "Not even Rainbow Dash?" Fluttershy just shook her head, "I asked Rainbow Dash if there were any openings at the Rainbow Factory or even as a roadie for the Wonderbolts and she said there was just no way. I asked Pinkie Pie if she needed help making cupcakes, and she said she had all the help she could ever need between Applebloom and Scootaloo. I even asked Cheerilee if she would like some help with her gardening, but she said she'd rather take care of the weeding herself. I'm afraid there just aren't many job openings for a pony with a degree in Mane Therapy." At last she found what she was looking for and carefully measured the leaves into the infuser, before lowering it into the steaming kettle and taking it off of the oven burner to steep. "Then what the heck am I doing here!?" Zephyr pounded the tiny breakfast table, then quickly covered his mouth when he saw the shocked look on his sisters face. "Pardon my Prench, but why call me all the way to Ponyville just to tell me all of your friends shot me down?" His sister gave him a knowing smile, "Well that's because when I was asking Applejack if she could use a hand around Sweet Apple Acres, (the answer was no by the way,)" Zephyr didn't even bother to try and hide his look of relief. "She mentioned a place that sounded just perfect for you! Very short hours, but it pays a ton of bits, much more than even Rainbow Dash makes as a Wonderbolt. The best part is it's not far from here, so if it works out you could room here like we planned for you to do when you moved out of Mom and Dad's place last time." "Oh wow sis, really? That does sound great," Zephyr narrowed his eyes, "What's the catch?" Fluttershy's grin faltered as she removed the infuser and poured Zephyr a cup of tea, "Catch? Why would there be a catch?" She also brought in honey, a tray of sugar cubes, and a few slices of lemon. Zephyr proceeded to empty both the honey pot and the sugarcube tray into his tea cup, and discretely throw away the lemon wedges by chilucking them over his shoulder at Angel Bunny. "In my experience, Fluttershy," he replied as he took a huge slurp of the thick tea and made a face before shaking the last grains of sugar into his cup,"If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is." A look of relief crossed Fluttershy's face,"Oh is that all? Well then I guess there is one catch. You'll have to go for a job interview this afternoon. Which is why you're hear by the way, since I thought you might have a hard time arriving on time if you had to travel all the way from Mom and Dad's house to get there." She slid a piece of paper across the kitchen table. Zephyr could see that there was an address written in shaky writing. He'd seen this before. This was what you usually got when an earth pony tried to write something down using their mouth. "I'd go with you, but I have some errands that I have to run, so we can meet up for dinner after you're done." "I dunno Fluttershy, I've never really been to a job interview before. Aren't you supposed to wear a fancy suit and tie or something like that? I mean, are they going to want me to fill out an application, because the Zeph has tons of experience, just not many references so..." Zephyr let his shoulders slump, a classic calculated move to get the maximum amount of sympathy. "I'm just not sure I can deal with this on my own. Are you sure you can't put off your errands to come with me and help your little bro out?" It didn't have the effect Zephyr was expecting. Fluttershy's smile just seemed to grow wider and she had this dreamy look in her eyes. "Don't worry Zephyr. All you have to do is be yourself and everything will work out. You'll see." Despite his pleading, whining cajoling, begging, imploring beseeching, and fervent entreaties, Zephyr Breeze just couldn't convince Fluttershy to do the interview for him. Even when he at last broke down and reminded her that she would likely be better able to secure him a job if his employers didn't actually meet him first, she stood steadfast and just gave him her enigmatic smile and inane reassurances that it would all work out. She kept on smiling as he finished his tea and wished him a fond fair well as he left her cottage. He had to give one thing to his big sis, though. She was right to have him come to her house before heading off for his interview. He had plenty of time to figure out where he was going and more than enough time to get there that afternoon. So much time, in fact, that he decided to go into town instead and do a little shopping to help settle his nerves. He grabbed a hayburger a little after the town clock tower struck noon, and some new jewel encrusted scrunchies to tie back his hair. He put it all on dear old dads credit because, after all, he was unemployed. He was sure that his folks would understand that a pony had to eat and look his best for a job interview. They'd understand, even if his tastes were a little pricey. However, Zephyr spent so much time picking out the very best looking scrunchies that the time just got away from him. The sun was already sliding its way slowly towards the horizon before he realized that he was going to be late for his interview. He wasn't just going to be late actually. He was already late! By several hours. Zephyr panicked. If he met up with Fluttershy's for dinner as they had planned, sure he'd get a free meal, but then she'd ask how the interview went. The interview he'd never gone to! Maybe it would be best to just pretend he'd forgotten the whole thing and head back to Mom and Pops and lay low for a few days until all this blew over? In the past his sister would have just let him be, even going so far as to pretend that nothing had ever happened, but he had a bad feeling that if he tried to pull the old 'I forgot card' it wouldn't play out that way for him this time. His sister had really put herself out there to try and find him the perfect job, and just blowing it all off would be a good way to make sure she might never help him out again. Zephyr was not the type of pegasus to burn bridges if he could keep from it, especially with ponies that he could reliably borrow bits from. But, the more he thought about it, there was another way to play this. Fluttershy said that his interview was scheduled for the afternoon. Well it was still afternoon, technically, so if anyone complained about him showing up late he'd just tell them it was their own fault for not being more clear about the time. Once he had them on the back hoof like that, the interview would be a breeze! This was perfect! The Zeph had done it again! This was not perfect. The road that lead to Zephyr's destination was long and winding, and it extended far outside of the Ponyville city limits. It took him past farmland and out into the boondocks, far away from anything the pegaus could remotely recognize as signs of civilization. As he'd flown, he'd managed to save himself a little bit of time by skipping over some more particularly meandering twists and turns, and more than a few crossroads and bends, but the drawback of this had been that he was now not entirely sure if he was on the right road or not anymore. He'd been forced to land to try and make heads or tails of the street signs. The last sign he had passed had more than a few of its letters worn off, so it could have said 'Badger', or 'Granger', or possibly even 'Danger'. He didn't like the sound of that last possibility, but then, as the light of day was fading, he was having a hard time reading the slip of paper Fluttershy had given him. It seemed his destination was in a far corner of Ponyville at the edge of the Everfree Forest. As he forged ahead, the trees grew up around the path he was on, robbing him of even the waning light of the setting sun. It was with a palpable sense of relief that Zephyr finally came across what looked like a large warehouse. This had to be the place! There wasn't anything else around for miles! As he walked down the dusty road, that lead through a gate set in a rusty chain link fence, that sense of relief began to fade. Everything here was so old and broken down. A wagon that had gone to termites and rot moldered in one corner of the yard. The few windows in the edifice had been boarded up with thick planks of wood. A sharp, acrid scent seemed to haunt the arid air. Even surrounded by the trees of the nearby forest, it seemed like everything living had shunned the gravel yard, save for a few stunted thorn bushes and what Zephyr could have sworn were tumble weeds. Everything was so dried out and wasted away, It was almost as if Zephyr had wandered into a small slice of desert, an anti-oasis surrounded by trees. Indeed, the tall chain link fences that surrounded the entire place were so old that they were leaning inward, forming a rough cage that the nearby trees had over grown in a broad dome. The warehouse itself was stained by rain and time, bleached white by the shafts of sunlight that had managed to make it passed the thick forest canopy. Everything had a look of abandonment. A broken down sign on the front of the building, missing several letters, proudly proclaimed 'We_com_ T_ Th_ __acker_ard!_!" It looked like the wooden letters that remained had once been painted a bright red, but most of that paint had long since peeled off revealing the rotten wood beneath. If there's any work to be had here, Zephyr thought, it must be a demolition job. Zephyr absolutely despised manual labor. It was always so rough on ones hooves and was absolute murder on your mane. If that was what this was all about, maybe it would be better to just turn around and leave right now? Even as the thought passed through Zephyr's head, the sound of wheels screeching to a halt behind him made him jump. Two of the most massive Earth Pony stallions Zephyr had ever seen unhitched themselves from a wagon that looked just barely in better repair than the other one that was rotting away in the gravel he'd passed on his way inside. The first of the two stallions lumbered towards Zephyr. A dark green brute, his mane was a shock of acid yellow that formed a wispy mohawk that curled down his spine to the nape of his neck. The lower half of his face was hidden behind what looked like a tight black gas mask with a lopsided grin painted over the breathing filter on the front. It wrapped around the sides of mask, giving the black leather a joviality that wasn't shared by the rest of its owners looming frame. His bright orange eyes glared harshly down on Zephyr. The pegsus felt instincts he never knew he had suddenly leap to attention and scream 'Fly! Fly like you have never flown before!' Unfortunately the second stallion closed the gate with a rusty squeak, and Zephyr heard the unmistakable rattle of chains and the heart-sinking 'snap' of a padlock locking home. That job done, the other hulking pony turned back towards his fellow. His face was hidden by an even more elaborate mask, which looked as if it had been stitched together from scraps of old leather. Zephyr realized with a wave of dread that the shock of blue mane that crested the stallions forehead was not his own, but rather hair that had grown from a patch of leather that had been painstakingly sewn into the rest of the mask. The rest of his mane was a scraggly orange that stuck out in clumps here and there, though the rest of his coat was a bright red. He joined the first stallion in staring Zephyr down. Bandits! Zephyr thought loudly, I've ended up cornered by a pair of bandits! Zephyr smiled nervously, hoping that his terror didn't show on his face. His eyes darted around the yard, looking for another possible exit. His senses were in overdrive, and he realized he could suddenly notice little details he hadn't before. How every scrap of wood was so rotten and warped from such long disuse that it shouldn't be able to stand in a strong breeze, let alone stand as any sort of place of business. How the two stallions looked as if they could snap a pony like him in half without exerting any real kind of effort. How the bundle in the back of their wagon seemed to rhythmically rise and fall, and squirm every now and then as if there was something living wrapped up in those sheets of tarpaulin and rope. But the most salient point he realized, as his eyes began to tear up from just how terrified he was, had to be the fact that long spools of razor ribbon had been strewn in and amongst the tree limbs that stretched over the warehouse. A pegasus's first instincts when they were in trouble was almost always to try and fly away. If Zephyr so much as jumped too high, he'd shred himself into a million pieces, and that was if he was lucky enough to keep from tangling himself up in the viciously sharp metal wire. It was the only metal in the place that looked shiny and new. At least he wouldn't have to worry about needing tetanus shots if he somehow managed to pull through in one piece. Before he could try his luck, however, the stallion in the gas mask bellowed "PA!" in a voice that cut through the dusty air. "We're back! And y'all got company!" A door set in the side of the warehouse opened with such force that it smashed into the side of the wall it was set in, rocking the entire edifice as though it had been caught in a sudden gale. The dark mouth of the doorway yawned like some feral monsters open maw, the fetid air from within drifting out and curling Zephyr's nose hairs. A third massive pony, though this one not quiet as large as the first two, stomped into the yard. Like the others, he too wore a mask, though his was ivory... It looked as though it had been carved from thick bone, and was absolutely smooth save for a few eye and breathing holes. Leather straps held it in place, wrapping around the back of his head, and through his wild pink mane. The rest of his body was pink as well, though he wore a tattered green overcoat despite it being the middle of summer and hot as Tartarus even under the shade of the many interlocking tree boughs. Zephyr's eyes widened as the newcomer drew closer. Every inch of him from his mane to his tail, all the way down to his hooves, was flecked by bright red stains. And he was coming right for Zephyr. He loomed over Zephyr, not saying a word. He was surrounded! He stopped looking at Zephyr, and instead addressed the pair of stallions. "Well don't just stand there gawking! Get inside! We been waitin' on you two to get back since lunch time. Where have y'all been Nuke!?" "We-we was jus' doin' what ya asked us to Pa. Honest," said the hulking green stallion, 'Nuke' apparently, "Bubba jus' wanted ta stop and get some more twine for his arts and crafts. We woulda been back on time if it weren't for that." "Is that true Bubba?" the red stained stallion asked the towering pony in the leather mask. 'Bubba' cringed as if he had been whipped and shook his head. He actually seemed to be afraid of the pony they called 'Pa'. "Oh, so Nuke is lyin' then." Bubba shook his head again and tried to put himself between Pa and Nuke, as if he was trying to protect his brother. "So which is it, are you lyin' or is he lyin'?" Bubba raised his hoof and started striking himself in the head. "Quit that. Quit that! Ah've told you to cut that out when we have company!" Both of the stallions seemed to shrink in size and shiver under the glare of the newcomer. "Ah'll deal with the pair of you later. Just get yer rears inside and get that wagon unloaded! We lost enough time waitin' on you two!" The ponies that Zephyr found so intimidating before scrambled to obey 'Pa', hitching themselves back up to the wagon and pulling it back behind the old warehouse in a cloud of dust. Just like that it was just Zephyr and 'Pa' in the yard. Somehow he didn't feel any safer. He cleared his throat, about to speak, but suddenly realized he had no idea what to say. 'Hi, I seem to be exactly in the wrong place at the wrong time, will you please let me go?' didn't seem like it was likely to get him anywhere. And 'If you don't let me go, ponies will come looking for me. You'll never get away with it!' rang hollow too. Zephyr realized that if he never showed up again, both Fluttershy and his parents would probably just assume that he had flaked out and found somepony else to live off of. Neither his retired parents nor his globe trotting sister were likely to spare any time trying to find him. With a fresh wave of dread, he realized they'd probably even feel relieved not to have to put up with him anymore. Pa saved him the trouble of having to come up with anything to say by muttering, "Kids..." and spitting into the dust, "Sorry about those two. Ah'm afraid what they have in muscle they sort of lost in brains. They got no social graces what-so-ever and have no idea how to properly treat company. Why don't ya follow me and Ah'll give ya the grand tour before we get started?" Zephyr finally found his voice, and managed to squeak out, "Yes sir, I-i mean no sir, I think there's been a terrible misunderstanding. I was looking for a," the pegasus pulled out the piece of paper his sister had given him, but found he was sweating so much that the letters had smeared to illegibility. "A different place than this, I'm sure." "Ain't no misunderstandin'. Ah'll admit you're arriving here a might later than we expected, but you were expected all the same," replied the masked pony confidently, and much more clearly than you would expect considering. "Still, seems to have worked out for the best since my boys were so late getting back from running their little errands. It'll take them a bit to get everything set up. That should give us plenty of time to show you around and give you an idea of how things work before we get to it. Just follow me and we'll get you squared away." The stallion stepped back through the door into the warehouse, and was lost in the darkness. Zephyr didn't know what to do. There was no way he could escape without the key that the one named 'Bubba' had, but he knew for sure that whatever work they did here, he didn't want any part of it. Maybe they weren't bandits, and this was a legitimate operation, but Zephyr highly doubted it. For one thing, what was with them all wearing masks? And for another, what exactly had their errands been if it involved bringing something squirming back, wrapped up in ropes and under a thick tarp? Should he chance the trees after all and the razor ribbon that bound the limbs together? Or maybe he should try to dig his way under the fence? Before he could decide on a plan of action, a voice bellowed from the darkness, "Well are ya coming in or not!? Don't just leave the door swinging open! Were ya raised in a barn or something!?" He jumped several feet into the air, and quickly followed 'Pa' into the darkness. Zephyr had to face facts. He wasn't the most athletic pony, and even the thought of pain turned his stomach. He'd just have to play along until he could find another way out, or find a way to steal the key to his freedom. The door slammed shut on its own behind him, causing Zephyr to jump. He found himself standing in absolute darkness. Sure Zeph, follow the masked strangers into the creepy old, dark building, where no pony can hear you scream. Great plan! But he would just have to chance it. A Job Well Done Is It's Own RewardIt took Zephyr's eyes some time to adjust to the gloom inside. He found himself standing alone in what looked like a waiting room. Chairs with peeling laminate revealed the yellowing stuffing that had long since spilled out on the floor here and there. The ceiling was thick with what Zephyr hoped were cobwebs. The only light was the fluorescent glow of a bulb that was clearly on its last legs behind what looked to be a reception desk. The bulb tinkled and sizzled, giving a harsh buzz as it flared brighter and faded in a flickering strobe. If Zephyr didn't know better, he would have thought he'd stumbled into an abandoned waiting room for a doctor or dentist. Stacks of moldering magazines, their covers too old and worn to properly be made out in the fitful light, were spread haphazardly across low tables and the floor. There was a large brown water stain on the ceiling, and more than one hole that exposed the rotting timbers of the rafters above. Shattered pieces of the tile below these holes made Zephyr's eyes nervously dart between the floor and the ceiling as he walked through the room. He tried his best not to slip on the rotting magazines, but he also kept a wary eye out to make sure a falling tile didn't shatter itself against his skull. There was no sign of 'Pa'. Zephyr wasn't sure that was a good thing. He'd rather have the masked pony where he could see him. At the end of a hall were a pair of plastic double doors that were swinging gently as if they had just been passed through. Zephyr didn't want to stay here, alone in the dark, so he made his way down the hall being careful to avoid not just the magazines but the puddles of brown liquid that had pooled here and there in the hallway. As he reached the reception desk, the fluorescent light at last gave out with an audible 'pop', plunging the room into absolute darkness. The only light now was a fiery glow that came from the double doors, and Zephyr hastened his steps towards the exit. As he drew closer, however, he heard something that made him freeze in his tracks. What was it? He strained his ears, but he thought he heard... singing. It was high and cheerful, like a song you'd expect to hear a pair of filly's singing on the playground as they skipped rope. Only it was breathy and soft, barely more than a whisper, but absolutely the last thing you'd want to hear in a place like this. Zephyr felt a chill run down his spine. He couldn't tell where the singing was coming from. Feeling a bead of cold sweat trickle down his forehead, Zephyr slowly turned to the darkened waiting room he had just passed through. It was too dark to see much of anything, but the darkness didn't seem to be as populated with the ghosts of dead fillies as Zephyr's imagination had suggested. If the singing wasn't coming from the waiting room, was it coming from some where ahead then? Truly, it seemed to be all around him now, enveloping him in an aura of sickly sweet sound and the smell of damp and decay. He couldn't make out the words, but each verse seemed to be punctuated by peels of girlish laughter. The ghoulish sound made Zephyr's blood run cold. He turned back towards the door at the end of the hall, but that was all he could bring himself to do. He couldn't move. It was as if the song had stuck his hooves to the floor. His heart raced, and a part of him whispered frantically that this was exactly the effect that the song was meant to have! The double doors exploded open and a monstrously fanged shape was silhouetted against the hellish light beyond, crouched low to pounce! Without warning, it leaped up and screamed "Trick or Treat!" and laughed dementedly as Zephyr collapsed into a whimpering heap, covering his head with his hooves. Zephyr expected to be gobbled up at any moment, but when he didn't feel sharp teeth tearing into his hide, he dared open one eye and look up at his attacker. She was just a little thing, a filly barely older than five or six years old if he had to make a bet. Her eyes were pink and blue swirls, and her hair was a rats nest of red and black curls. Her face was hidden behind a delicate china mask that was broken around her muzzle, allowing a manic grin to show through. It was the jagged parts of the mask that had given the illusion of sharp fangs. She wore a dress that looked like it had been made from old bags and candy wrappers, and she capered and twirled around in it as if she were a professional ballerina. "Candy!" thundered the familiar scolding voice of 'Pa' as his shadow fell across the filly from the open doors. "Candy you go play yer tricks somewhere else! This fella here is our guest!" Zephyr was actually relieved when the older masked pony stomped through the door frame. 'Candy', for her part, only giggled and danced on... Twirling around Zephyr's prostrate form as if she didn't have a care in the world. "Go on! Get on out of here! Go terrorize your brothers if you must, ya little heathen! You'd best skedaddle a'fore Ah take it in mah mind ta break your backside with mah bare hooves!" Candy laughed and sang, "Nightmare Night, what a fright, give me something sweet to bite!" into Zephyr's ear, before she danced off into the gloom. she disappeared as quickly as she had arrived... Laughing all the while. "Ingrates all of ya! Ah raised you better than this!" Pa howled after his daughter. He bent down and picked Zephyr up with one hoof and dusted him off. "Ah am so sorry about that mister. Candy there is the apple of mah eye, but she's an unholy terror when she has a mind to be. Ah swear she must take after her mothers side of the family. Do you know she ain't taken off that costume of hers since last Nightmare Night? Ah don't even get what she's supposed to be. Some kind of ballerina, fairy princess, monster or something. Ah love her to pieces, but sometimes she just takes things too far." He paused for a moment, before adding, "And don't even get me started on her table manners. Eats like a full grown horse, but it's a miracle if any of the food makes it into her mouth. And a sweet tooth? Ah has to fight her, literally fight her to get her to eat properly instead of snacking morning, noon, and night!" "Th-that was your daughter?" stammered Zephyr, dazed and still trembling in shock. "Why, yes sir, that's what Ah said. Kind of slow, ain't ya boy?" replied Pa, not unkindly. Zephyr suspected that there was a grin, much like his daughters somewhere behind that mask. Zephyr realized that Pa reminded him of a used wagon salesman that used to live down the street from his parents. He had exactly that same kind of bombastic personality and tendency to to hold long and meandering one sided conversations. If Zephyr wasn't careful, he'd find himself overwhelmed by the endless torrent of muffled words that spilled from behind the stallions mask. "Though Ah wasn't planning on introducing you to the whole Knacker clan like this. That comes later! Though Ah hardly see the point to it now." Pa shook his head morosely. "Eh well, lets get on. The factory is in this way. Mind yer step though. We're in the middle of a little bit of renovatin' and Ah'd just kick mahself if'n ya were to come all this way and wound up hurtijn' yerself, accidental like." Zephyr got a hold of himself and followed the verbose Pa Knacker through the double doors and into a cavernous room that was much better lit. The fiery glow Zephyr had noticed earlier seemed to emanate from several furnaces that belched flames and smoke into the air. That was frightening enough, but about the room several massive vats had been arrayed, that sat atop them spat and hissed. In one nearby vat a thick white bubble ballooned into the air, before popping and letting loose a noxious chemical scent that made Zephyr almost retch. Indeed, a wave of heat and stench washed over and through him, and he felt as if he would pass out. "Ugh. What are you cooking in here? It smells awful!" Zephyr gagged, coughing. "Smells awful? Oh the smell, right!" exclaimed Pa, as if he hadn't noticed the foul stink. "You get used to it after awhile. But that's what the masks are for. Ah don't know if ya noticed, but we all wear them here for the work. Why, Ah've been wearing this mask so long it's like it's become a part of me. Ah probably don't even need the thing anymore, but Ah wouldn't dream of showin' up ta work without it. Force of habit Ah guess." Pa handed Zephyr a cloth mask, "Here ya go son, you just take this here and put it on." The mask was nowhere near as elaborate as the one that the members of the 'Knacker' family seemed to wear, though Zephyr was privately thankful of that. It was newer, and a lot cleaner too. It smelled as if it might even have been laundered in the last century! If it resembled anything, it was a surgeons mask, and as soon as Zephyr tied it on he was grateful for it. Tying it in place around his muzzle, it did seem to help drown out the reeking stench, though it didn't do anything for the heat. His eyes watered a little, but he managed to keep from crying. "So, what exactly is all of this?" he finally asked once he could breath again. "This here? This is the glue room," Pa replied, practically beaming. "We keeps it bubbling and brewing all day and all night, turning the waste of Equestria into somethin' useful! We're big on that around here. Reduce, reuse, recycle; all that green energy and environmental stability business. The Knacker clan moto is 'Waste Not, Want Not' and we live by it! Why we been in business since before the foundin' of Ponyville," the stallion wittered on. "Used to do work way back in the days when the Castle of the Pony Sisters was still the castle of the pony sisters. Course this place has fallen down and been rebuilt a time or two since then. Honestly it's about time we tear the place down and rebuild it again. But Ah'm sure you know how it is, lad your age, raising a family and trying to hold down a job. Makes it hard to find the time to do everythin' that needs doing. That's why Ah'm so glad ya came out here son! Saves us a lot of time and effort goin' out and lookin' for somepony, let me tell ya!" Zephyr had mostly tuned the old earth pony out. So they made glue here, huh? Well, maybe they weren't a group of cut throat bandits after all. He had no idea what all went into the process, but it couldn't be too hard to learn. It looked like the vats pretty much minded themselves, and he could see how one connected to another, and all lead to an assembly line where bottles slid along a conveyor belt to be filled by an overhead nozzle. There was even a little machine that screwed on the lids of the pots of glue, plastered on a sticker of a smiling cow, and loaded several jars at a time into a nearby box. The worst he might have to do would be to move a few pallets of the stuff, or maybe keep the furnaces fed, but he didn't doubt he could dupe one of Pa Knacker's sons into doing most of the heavy lifting for him. If they were as dumb as Pa seemed to think they were, it would be a breeze. A Zephyr Breeze! "So you're looking for someone to work in here then?" he asked. "In here? And put Luda May out of a job?" Pa asked, almost offended. As he said this, Zephyr saw a huge unicorn mare in a cloth mask and a hair net moving from vat to vat with a large wooden spoon. She'd give the contents a stir in each bubbling receptacle before moving on. Zephyr could have sworn she actually licked the spoon once or twice, though the fat mare never actually removed her mask. "Nah, she's got things pretty much sorted out in here. Ah'd have to hire somepony just to train somepony else to take over from Luda May, all the things she knows. It'll be like losin' a member of the family when she finally decides to retire, but the greater loss will be all the tips and tricks she knows but will never tell another soul. A lot of that stuff ya just can't teach. Just comes with on the job experience. No sir, we're good in this department. Come on though, no point hanging around here all day. Don't want to give Luda May a chance to start getting ideas about a young buck like you. Lets head into the next room." Zephyr followed, though he stole a glance back at Luda May. The over sized mare gave him a seductive wink, so he quickened his step and followed swiftly after Pa. They came to a 'door' made out of semi-opaque PVC strips that divided the heat of the glue room from a much cooler but no less foul smelling room. It was a strange mixture of chemical scents that seeped through the thin material between Zephyr's nose and the air in the room, and he gagged afresh as he had to adjust to the new and strange scents. It was like something part way between the salty scent of the sea and the acrid stench of cat piss. There seemed to be a lot more activity in this room, and more vats, though only a few of these seemed to be heated. There were also barrels of what looked like white sand. Several average sized ponies scuttled to and fro, each wearing a full gas mask with respirator much like Zephyr had seen Nuke wearing outside. "This here is the tannery. Might want to be careful in here as there are more than a few harsh chemicals that get used in the tanning process," warned Pa. Zephyr took a step back from the harsh smelling liquid he had been inspecting. "Here's where we take skins and turn them into that soft, comfortable leather for your chairs, or the sturdy binding of magic books. Ah'm a well read fellow, if Ah do say so mahself, and there ain't nothing quiet like the feel of that soft leather in your hoofs And that smell! Fresh parchment and ink are heavenly unto themselves, but with that rich tang of fresh crushed leather? There just ain't nothin' quite like it. Though, to be honest, even Ah'm surprised it comes out like that given a wiff of this place." Squinting his eyes in the smokey gloom, Zephyr could see large sheets of 'skin' being stretch on drying racks as they were moved from the soaking vats. It seemed that the barrels of sand were actually some kind of salt, probably some means of preserving the skins, and they would be soaked in water before being stretched out to dry. The other ponies in this room busied themselves taking the skins from one vat to another, immersing them with rubber sleeves over their hooves so as not to touch the liquids directly. Zephyr's flesh crawled just thinking about what all the harsh chemicals in the air were doing to his own skin, not to mention his delicate mane. As a certified graduate of Mane Therapy School, just being in a room like this made Zephyr want to run screaming for the hills. That alone would have been enough to put him off any job prospects in the tannery, but he didn't even want to consider where all the 'skins' had come from. Like most ponies, Zephyr was and always had been a strict vegetarian. While he didn't share his sisters love of animals, and he wasn't so naive as to think that leather just grew on trees, the idea of handling dead animal hides all day held no appeal for him. It took all his will power to ask with an audible gulp "So I suppose it's here that you're a little short on ponies?" Pa didn't respond to the question at first, instead cocking his head to one side, before looking around the room. "What exactly gives ya that idea boy? Ah mean we can always use an extra set of hooves, sure, but as ya can see we got two full shifts and a third shift keeping this place hopping twenty four hours a day. Why, we got more ponies than we have work for them to do as it is! Ah really only keep this many around for when we get bulk orders. Never know when the Sofa and Quill store in Ponyville will put in an emergency rush order. Or heck, even them fancy ponies up in Canterlot!" Here Pa leaned in conspiratorially and whispered into Zephyr's ear. "Between you and me, son, Ah don't judge them fancy ponies for what they get up to in their spare time, but it involves a lot of black leather. A bit of information to squirrel away for a rainy day, I say. Never know when knowing something like that about a customer might come in handy." He raised his voice before adding, "Not that we're anything but discrete here! Let it never be said that the Knacker family doesn't know how to keep a skeleton or two safely in the closet!" Pa laughed uproariously at what must have been a private joke, because Zephyr sure didn't see what was so funny. He was relieved to find out that they wouldn't be needing him to work in this room, but he was put off by the fact that something like this went on here in the first place. No matter how good the job they actually wanted him to do turned out to pay, nor how easy it was, he wouldn't want to set hoof in here again if he could keep from it. This whole process just gave him the creeps, even if the harsh chemicals weren't involved, he wouldn't want anything to do with it. "So, where to next?" he asked, trying to move things along. "Right, right! Gotta keep the mind on the task in front of ya. You've got a keen mind for business there son. Right this way... oh but first," Pa walked over to a rack of coats. No coat looked exactly like the other, though all were splattered with irregular red stains. The larger stallion proffered one to Zephyr, and when he hesitated to put it on, Pa helped him get it on anyways mistaking his reluctance for ignorance on how to don such a garment. "It's a might cold in the next room, and it can get a bit messy. Sorry we ain't got any coats with wing slits. We mostly employee earth ponies and the occasional unicorn, so there's never been much point in ruining a good coat by putting a pair of slits up the back. Ah reckon it's a bit uncomfortable, but you'll be even more uncomfortable if ya was to go on without it, mark mah words!" Saying that, Pa led the way through another set of PVC curtains. This time the temperature dropped sharply, before they moved through a second, and third set of PVC curtains. The second was covered with frost, while the third one they passed through was actually encrusted with ice, the PVC itself frozen solid. The cold of the next massive room they entered would have been enough to steal Zephyr's breath away, but his eyes grew wide at what he saw, smelled, and, to his regret, tasted. The air was thick with the scent of blood. Indeed, as Zephyr watched in horror, it sprayed from several machines that hung over his head. The droplets splattering his already stained coat and the mask he wore, soaking through the fibers of his thin mask and into his uncovered mane. High above, the whirring sound of saw blades whined low as bits and pieces of meat fell through a grate in the roof and into a vat below. Though the vat was heated red hot, Zephyr couldn't feel any warmth in the freezing room. From there, the meat sluiced through a series of tubes and onto a conveyor belt that passed beneath several serrated grinding gears. It was these that sent up the obscene gush of blood, causing a steady rain of viscera. The meat slid on and into waiting ovens, that cooked the meat at high heat as it passed through. After that it fell into another large vat that had whirring blades that chopped and ground up the flesh even more, sending up a cloud of greasy moist droplets. Further down the production line, Zephyr could see ponies of all shapes and sizes that were each wearing masks and coats much like Pa's, working and shaping the meat. They were blending it with other ingredients, cooking it, tinning it, or bagging the final product. Everything was done with a precision and care that left Zephyr speechless. "And finally we have the pet food processing plant," announced Pa, wrapping Zephyr in a side hug as his other hoof sweeped over the room. "Our pride and joy! We keep it nice and cold in here to keep any nasty bacteria from growing. We wouldn't want our meat to make any critters that eat it sick. We take a lot of pride here at the Knacker Yard, especially in the quality and care we put into every bite of our pet food, be it kibble or them fancy tinned feasts. Ah imagine ya got the impression from how old and run down this place looks on the outside that we don't actually fool around with keeping up high standards, but we don't mess around when it comes to the merit of our meat! Yahave to use prime meat, and nothin' less! You should just ask yer sister Fluttershy. She's one of our best customers!" "F-Fluttershy knows about this place?" asked Zephyr, disbelief in his voice. How could Fluttershy even know about a place like this, let alone condone what went on here? The very idea made Zephyr's spirit curl up inside itself. Up until now he'd been harboring hope that this had all been some kind of mistake. But if Pa Knacker considered Fluttershy one of his best customers, and he knew she was his sister, then that meant... That meant maybe she really did expect him to work here in this mechanized hell. "Why sure! What do you think all of those carnivorous critters she keeps eat? She's not gonna butcher her own meat in a shed somewhere, or something silly like that," said the stallion, his face scrunching up beneath his mask. "Why, that'd just be unsanitary. Nah son, ya gotta have places like this if yer gonna keep dogs and cats in peek condition, let alone more exotic critters like baby alligators, birds of prey, and bears. Ah can see by the shade of green yer face is turnin' that our work here has turned yer stomach a bit, but rest assured, what we do here is necessary! We got plenty of pony folk who count on us to do our best, and we ain't about to let them down if we can keep from it! No sir!" This was all too much for Zephyr to take in. The sound of bones grinding, flesh ripping and tearing, the sizzle and spit of roasting meat. And everypony here seemed to be okay with it. It was just a job to them. More than that, the pony standing next to him actually took pride in all of this. If Zephyr had any doubts before, then there was no question now. There was no way he could work here, no matter how much money they were offering, or how good the hours. "I'm sorry but, I just can't see myself working here. I don't care that Fluttershy is one of your best customers, or that what you do here is necessary. I could never do this, even if my sister did put in a good word for me." Pa just looked at him without saying a word. For the first time, Zephyr really looked the larger stallion in the eyes. He noticed that the right socket was completely empty. The ruined hole where an eye should be looked blankly back at Zephyr, unseeing, and only barely seen. Only the left eye, a tiny crimson point that seemed to glow in the glare of the factory lights, stared back frighteningly from the gloom shrouded depths behind his blood splattered mask. Pa started to laugh. It wasn't a friendly laugh. "You? Haha! You thought that I! Hahahah! You thought that I wanted you to work here!?" He sputtered, his laughter carrying on for some time. Zephyr thought he was going to fall into the bloody slurry on the floor. The chilling temperatures had caused all the flecks of blood to freeze and turn into a kind of reddish-black snow that clung to the sides of the machines and the tiled floor. Pa Knacker put one hoof out and steadied himself against one of his bloody machines. He shook so hard with laughter that more of the scarlet slop started to shower down from above. "Oh my, ain't that a trip! Nah son, Ah'd never dream of given you a job! Whoo! Ya gotta warn me a'fore ya make a joke like that boy. Ah ain't as spry as Ah used ta be. Liable to give me a heart attack carryin' on like that!" With a final harsh bark of laughter, he seemed to regain his composure. He wiped a bloody tear from his one good eye, before he said, "Come on then. The boys have probably got everything set up by now. Let me show ya why yer really here!" Show TimeZephyr wasn't sure if he should be relieved or terrified. It was true that he didn't want to work here, so finding out Pa had no intention of employing him should have been good news. But then why was he out here? Why had Fluttershy lied to him about this being a job interview? Or was it she that had been lied to by the Knacker family? While Zephyr would have liked answers to these questions, more than anything he wanted to take off this bloodstained mask and the itchy coat and fly away as far and fast as possible. Only he still had no idea where Bubba was or what had happened to the keys to the front gate. He had to settle for two out of three, and leave his mask and coat on a coat hanger as they left the pet food processing room. What had been the point of trapping him here? Why had Pa insisted on showing him around the Knackeryard, as the talkative pony had called it? The more he tried to wrap his head around what was going on, the more Zephyr just wanted to curl up into a ball and go to sleep and hope that when he woke up that this was all just a very bad dream. Pa lead Zephyr up a set of winding stairs, into a maze of catwalks and pipes that had been hidden in the high ceiling of the facility. Thick cobwebs were illuminated by fly specked lights, or at least the ones that weren't burnt out. Steam hissed from the rusted pipes as brown water seemed to drip from everywhere. The pet food room might have been somewhat clean under the freezing conditions they kept it in, but this place was still so unsanitary that it made Zephyr wish he could take off his hooves and give them a nice long soak in a tub of alcohol. Making his way across the rusted metal catwalks didn't do anything to make this feeling lessen, and by the time Pa lead him through an iron door into some kind of control room, Zephyr was just happy to be out of the wet guts of the facility and back in something that looked at least somewhat like an actual room. Nuke and Bubba had apparently been waiting for them for some time. They stood to attention as Pa came into the room, scattering cards to some kind of game that they had been playing and acting as if they hadn't been doing any such thing. Pa just shook his head, and then Candy jumped out at him and yelled 'Boo!' at the top of her lungs. Pa just ruffled her curly mane and gave a little chuckle. "Well son, ya've already met most of the family, but Ah'd be remiss if Ah didn't give ya the formal introductions. Candy-Mare here you've already met, and these two idjits are Nuke and Bubba from the yard. Most folks just call ole Bubba 'Leather Head' on account he likes to do arts and crafts with the scraps from the tannery, but Ah won't stand for that kind of talk myself. Mama ain't with us no more Ah'm sorry to say..." The entire Knacker clan looked down at their hooves sadly. Zephyr wasn't sure what was expected of him, so he just said "I'm sorry to hear that. It must be rough losing a loved one like that." He must have said something wrong, because all three of Pa's kids gave him a funny look. "We ain't lost her," said Nuke. "We know exactly where she is." He nodded behind Zephyr, and the pegasus turned to look over his shoulder. She must have been beautiful once. Her mane was still long and beautiful, auburn brown. As a Mane Therapist, Zephyr could appreciate the work that must have gone into making it so rich and glossy. Even in this dim light it still shown with all the colors of autumn, crimson and gold and burnt orange laced beautifully through the rich earthy brown. It was a shame that the rest of her was so shriveled and worn. There had been some effort made to hold her together, thick black cord had been used to stitch together places where she was rotting apart. Her skin looked a lot like those on the tanning rack. Yellowed, stretched, and thin, to the point that her bones showed through plainly beneath. Ponies didn't often wear cloths, but in this state she seemed truly naked. Zephyr wanted desperately to find a blanket to cover her up... To try and keep her bones warm given her skin was no longer up to the task and obviously failing her in that regard. It was funny how Zephyr's mind worked so hard at keeping him from acknolwedging the obvious... The fact that he was looking at the preserved corpse of a mare. Mama Knacker. "She was always the flighty sort," began Pa Knacker, gravely, his voice choked with emotion. "Loved to travel, Mama did. But accidents happen to you on the road," said Pa, quietly "And then sometimes you happen to accidents. But what could Ah do? Ah can't raise these kids all by mahself. And little Candy wasn't even a year old. Kids need to have their mama." He paused and then he gave a little chuckle. "Course she ain't much for conversation anymore, but at least she kept her looks!" He laughed at his own black humor, and Zephyr fought dueling emotions to strangle him for his disrespect towards the dead and to just run away. Sadly, the moment of indecision and the distraction of the horror that was Mama Knacker's preserved corpse allowed Bubba and Nuke to move in to either side of him. For such big ponies, they moved deceptively quickly and quietly. It was like one moment they were standing with their Pa, and the next they were sternly, but gently, guiding him towards the darkened observation window on the other side of the long control room. "Dis is the best part of da tour," Confided Nuke, giving Zephyr an uncomfortable squeeze. "These demonstrations are very popular!" "I don't know why you brought me here," Zephyr said, squirming ineffectually to break the brothers grip. "I don't know what you're planning to do, but I swear to you I won't tell another soul about all of this if you just let me go." He was crying now. This was all far too much for him. "Not about the meat, or the skins, or the glue, or even about your... Your Ma. I mean none of that matters to me! I'm a Mane Care Therapist! I mean, it's an important job, but who would even believe me?" "He sure talks funny Pa," said Nuke Knacker, giving Zephyr another squeeze around the shoulders, his muscles slithering over the bone as if it were a python that gripped Zephyr and not a pony. "What's he talkin' about?" "Don't you worry none, he's just operating under a bit of a misunderstandin'. We gotta make things clear for him. That's what this entire exercise is about," explained Pa in a knowing voice, despite Zephyr crying and pleading otherwise. "You boys just make sure he keeps his eyes on the stage! It's time for the show!" Candy squealed and hopped up on her brother Bubba's shoulder so she could have a better look herself. It seemed whatever was about to happen, the Knacker siblings were all excited about it. With that, Pa Knacker flicked a large switch, and light flooded the room beyond the observation window. There was a long conveyor belt that ended in a wide grate on one end. Complex machinery hung from the ceiling, and despite the blood stains all of it looked well oiled and maintained. In fact it was the most state of the art looking machinery in the facility, and looked extremely out of place among all the leaking pipes and dangling cobwebs. As Zephyr watched, the conveyor belt began to slowly move and a pony, a unicorn in fact, passed through a black curtain on the opposite end of the room. It looked as if he was somehow shackled to the conveyor belt, his neck in some kind of yoke that held him upright and his legs out straight in blood stained manacles. Zephyr had a sick sinking feeling in his gut that he knew exactly what was about to happen. Pa Knacker flipped a switch and the conveyor belt paused, "Now, here we have us a fella by the name of Snails. Ah tell ya true, Ah don't know if that's the name his mama gave him or if it's just a cruel nickname he picked up in his colthood, but this fella here is well known fer bein' slow. So slow in fact, that all he's particularly good at is raisin' snails! Horrible, snotty pests that eat up a garden quicker than ya'd think given how sluggish they crawl, but a rare delicacy among certain highfalutin unicorns in foreign parts." Pa popped a few vertebrae in his neck before his hooves began to fly over the control board. He kept talking as he worked. "Now, If he was born a pegasus, he would've failed his flight exam and ended up as one or two pigments of a rainbow. If he was born in Canterlot, he would've likely spent his time as a research specimen in that school for 'Gifted Unicorn's' they have up there. Since he was born in Ponyville, it's a wonder his number never came up, but that particular lottery doesn't always pay out that way. That's why our bonny boy Snails here ended up being sent our way." "Why are you doing this?" asked Zephyr. "Why are you making me watch this? Just let me go. I never saw any of this. I don't know you ponies. I don't know him either! I've never met a pony named Snails!" If Pa Knacker heard him, he ignored him as he continued his spiel, "There are some folk that it don't matter how much schoolin' you give em, they are always goin' to be useless. Oh sure, you could just give them a job doin' anythin', but they'd never apply themselves. They'd never learn. They'd never live up to societies expectations. In times long past, we fought wars and gave folks like this a purpose. Colts like Nuke and Snails here would go off to war, and they'd do their duty and due diligence, and who knows? Maybe it would be Snails that would come back, injured but alive, and my boy Nuke would be rotting in a field somewhere far from hearth and home," Pa Knacker choked up a bit as he said this. It seemed the thought made him emotional. "But we live in an era of peace. Even Yakyakistan is friends with Equestria for a Thousand Moons! Oh there's still monsters and menaces out in the wilds, Mama Knacker found that out the hard way, but this entire generation is remarkably sheltered. Ya got nothin' to die for, and nothin' to live for, so you just waste your time. No, worse, you waste society's time and resources just by existin'. As if just being alive is enough to justify yer existence. As if the world somehow owes you, and not the other way around!" The conveyor belt jerked back into motion. Snails struggled feebly, but it seemed like he had difficulty moving. "Why doesn't he just use his magic to free himself!?" Zephyr Breeze howled, struggling in Bubba and Nuke's grip. "Why doesn't he just teleport away!?" There was a cruel laugh from Pa Knacker as he turned and glared at Zephyr with one eye, glowing with a fiendish scarlet light. "Are you thick boy, or have you just not been payin' attention!? If Snails here had been born in Prance, maybe he could've had a life as a Snail farmer or somethin', but he would've never been the brightest bulb on the Hearths Warming tree! Oh no, not this one! The boy don't know any of that fancy magic, and even if he did, well..." The Knackerman laughed again, his children joining him with fiendish glee. "Lets just say he might find it hard to think straight at the moment..." "You drugged him," Zephyr said, as the penny dropped. "You drugged him and now you're going to murder him." "We done no such thing!" screamed Nuke. The stallion grabbed one of Zephyr's wings and twisted it viciously. Zephyr didn't hear the snap, so much as he felt it as the delicate bones shattered. Zephyr howled in agony as Nuke bellowed again, "No such thing!" "No such thing! No such thing!" chanted Candy along with her big brother, Bubba grunting excitedly in the closest approximation of speech he was capable of. "Easy there Nuke, don't go gettin' ahead of yerself. He still don't understand. If he passes out now, he won't learn nothin' and then this will all have been a huge waste of time," crooned Pa calmly. Nuke let go of the Zephyr's wing, and the ruined appendage dangled by its tendons from Zephyr's back. The pain had gone from blinding to merely agonizing, yet the pegasus was in no mood to be grateful to his captors. He glared sullenly at the head of the Knacker clan. "Nuke's right though. We didn't drug the poor boy and we ain't about ta kill him. We're Knackermen, not murderers. Heck, that's what the machines are for! Besides, the boy was dead before he ever came into our care. No hope, no prospects for his future. All that's left for him is one last service, one last repayment for the debt he owes society by bein' born." Pa flipped a few more switches, and the first set of articulated mechanical arms dropped down from the ceiling and into place in front of Snails. Despite the drugs coursing through his system, the colt struggled as the conveyor belt brought him closer. It was the arm that swung in at the last moment next to his head that actually killed him. A high pressure bolt shot out of a hydraulic armature, smashing through the side of Snail's skull and ejected a spray of grey matter onto the observation glass. "No!" screamed Zephyr as pieces of Snails brain slid slowly down the glass. "It's important that they don't see it coming," said Pa conversationally, "Otherwise it would be cruel. Ya see Zephyr we're a great many things, but we try not to be cruel. We don't want to actually hurt ponies, or take advantage of them. We always aim to treat folks fairly, even when they've been unfair to others. And if you're worried about that unicorn through the glass there, he ain't quite dead. At least not yet. It's important to keep everything fresh for as long as possible, so we leave the parts of the brain that do the living intact. We just blew out the bits responsible for the thinking and the feeling. We wouldn't want him feeling what comes next." The conveyor belt moved on, and the yoke that held Snails lifted him up so that his hooves dangled loosely. Four arms reached out and clamped over each hoof. The familiar sound of whirring and grinding blades came to Zephyr's ears as the machinery chipped away at the colt's hooves, breaking them into small chunks that fell into a gap in the conveyor belt, just over the vats in the glue room. A fifth arm dropped down at head height and covered Snails' horn, and began to grind that up as well. Dust from the grinding machinery engulfed Snails in an orange cloud. The unicorn didn't react at first, but he screamed instinctively as the machinery began to eat into the delicate nerve endings sheathed beneath the hooves and horn. It was a wretched, animal scream, high and keening. Even if Snails couldn't really 'feel' what was happening anymore, his body could. The armatures retracted, the yoke opened freeing Snails, and the unicorn fell into a bloody crumpled heap on the conveyor belt. The ends of his legs looked like they had been gnawed off, while his horn was completely gone save for a bloody bony nub on his forehead. Snails looked around blankly as his legs twitched, tears streaming from his eyes and snot from his nose as he whimpered pathetically. "Next up, we get to the gory part," said Pa, Candy immediately lighting up as he said this. "Make sure he keeps his eyes open kids, even if ya have to pry them open." Bubba raised Zephyr's head, and Candy peeled back his eyelids with her tiny hooves. The articulated arms that dangled over Snails prostrate form each had long, thin blades or hooks on the end of them. They moved in a blur as they did their swift work, slicing and tugging skin away from flesh. There was surprisingly very little blood as the machine peeled back snails hide, taking most of it in one piece. Zephyr felt his meager breakfast rise into his throat as first one leg, and then another was degloved. The skin tubes that were peeled from the unicorn's legs flopped against the conveyor belt with a wet, dull slap that was audible even in the observation room. Snails screamed rythmically, quietly as the knives peeled the skin from his back. The last of his flesh for the machine to remove was on his face, and Bubba jumped up and down gleefully as the hooks and knives did their work. The machinery sliced through cheek and gum, sliced up around the eye sockets and the ragged wound where the unicorn's horn used to be. The flesh tore away somewhat messily, but it seemed Bubba had the makings of a new mask for his collection. The colt's muscles and sinew lay exposed now, and his bloody teeth clenched in pain. If Zephyr thought Mama Knacker had looked nude, it was nothing compared to poor Snails. He curled into a fetal position, tucking his ruined forelimbs up against his chest. He looked as if he was shivering the sudden cold of having his skin taken away, but it was more likely he had gone into shock. "You're monsters!" Zephyr cried. "You're all monsters!" "Easy does it there son, we're almost done here," said Pa with something approaching genuine tenderness. The machines secreted the scraps of pony hide away for later processing in the tannery. Snails continued his doomed journey down the disassembly line, and all Pa Knacker did was kick up his hooves on the console as he flipped the last of the switches to send Snails on his way. The arms that moved into position now had much larger, serrated blades. Some were merely cleavers, but others were thin boning knives, and still others were circular saws designed for but a single purpose; To slice through meat as quickly and cleanly as possible. Thankfully the process started at snails head, severing his spine before cracking open his skull and scooping out what grey matter remained. The blades then moved over the rest of the carcass, popping bone from flesh, splitting open the ribs, and spilling the colt's steaming innards onto the conveyor belt quickly and relatively cleanly. The slimy, slithering intestines were minced and diced along with the muscle and fat, until all was an indistinguishable crimson and pink jumble. The spray of crimson juices that washed over the conveyor belt from this process drained into waiting receptacles that had been set up for just that purpose. After all, the Knacker clan motto was 'Waste Not, Want Not' and they likely had a use for even this run off from their grizzly work. Maybe they sold it by the barrel to the local hospital for transfusions? Or perhaps it was just boiled down into the gravy for the 'fancy tinned feasts' that Opalescence so enjoyed? Maybe the demented clan of butchers drank the steaming gore themselves? Who knew? Zephyr stared blank eyed as the chunks of what had once been Snails sluiced through the grate at the end of the conveyor belt, destined for the long process of being turned into pet food. He imagined his big sister feeding that goofy bear Harry a tin of Snails. For some reason, then and there, he found the idea comical. He started to laugh. It was quiet at first, but it rose quickly. Zephyr laughed and laughed, and the Knacker clan joined in! The family of killers weren't wearing their masks anymore. In fact, Zephyr realized, what he had taken to be masks were actually their true faces. As they ripped their faces off, there wasn't anything underneath at all! Just bloody holes where faces should be, laughing and gurgling, and spraying blood everywhere. The entire room began to stretch and peel away, revealing the wet meat of the Knackeryard that bled and pulsed beneath. No wonder the building hadn't fallen down! It was a living thing, hunched over on itself but hungry for pony flesh. And Zephyr had walked into its hungry maw willingly! It was all just too funny! "Oh sure, now the tea kicks in." grumbled Pa Knacker. "Ah told that mare that it worked better if you put it in coffee, but no, she went and had to put it in tea cause this foal here was picky about where his coffee beans come from! What a shit show!" "It's okay Pa," said Nuke, trying to calm his father down. "It'll probably be better this way any how." "Oh shut up," roared the head of the Knacker clan, "It's you and your idiot brothers fault we're so far behind schedule anyways! I was supposed to be entering our latest batch of pet food into the County Fair tomorrow! Ten years running we've won the Blue Ribbon, and now that's all in jeopardy because you lard asses had to take an extra long break for arts and crafts! I swear if you foals keep this up, when I join yer Mama in the Sweet Here After, Ah'm gonna leave the Knackeryard to Candy!" Candy seemed to like this idea very much, as she hopped up and down excitedly on Zephyr's back. He didn't mind. His mind was too far gone to mind anything at the moment., even when her hoof stomped down on his broken wing. "Get that stinking homeless bum out of here before he starts drooling all over yer Mama's nice clean floor!" growled Pa, "And get him ready! We got one more show to put on tonight and Ah'll be damned if we're going to be late for that too!" Zephyr Punches OutZephyr was alone when his senses started to return. He couldn't see anything. For a terrifying moment he thought that maybe it was because he was blind. The terrifying visions he'd had before, born of the horror that he had been forced to witness, had left him under the delusion that he had clawed out his own eyes. It hadn't helped then, as he could still see the ragged flesh and throbbing veins of the organic facility... Of the Knackeryard revealed for what it truly was beneath its facade of artificial decay. The steaming, gut grinding monstrosity that it truly was and always had been. In those visions the Knacker clan had just been it's blood spilling servants, twisted beasts of exposed meat and bone that worked tirelessly to keep the beast fed. But as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Zephyr could make out a sliver of light some distance in front of him. The light gave him a flicker of hope, that was immediately quashed as he tried to move towards it. He couldn't move. His hooves were shackled firmly in place, and a heavy yoke across his back held him in place so that he couldn't so much as bend down to inspect them. He tried flapping his wings, forgetting that one had been bent and broken by the thuggish Nuke. The pain lanced through his sore back and he stifled the urge to scream. Her didn't want anyone to know he was awake. He needed all the time he could get to try and figure out a way to escape. Sadly, from where he was standing, it didn't look like Zephyr was going anywhere. His mind raced. Should he try calling for help? Who could possibly hear him? Even if he did, wouldn't he just be more likely to attract the attention of the Knacker clan or the workers below? Chances are they'd just take measures to silence him then. It was likely that everypony that worked in the facility was in on the Knacker family's scam, murdering ponies and profiting off of their corpses right along side the masked maniacs that ran this place. It was a wonder that such horror existed in Equestria at all, but the more Zephyr thought about it, the more it made a sick kind of sense. He'd never seen a graveyard in Ponyville. They existed in the older cities like Manehatten and Canterlot, usually as catacombs or an undercroft in some forgotten part of the city. But though there were occasional funerals, it was rare to see an actual cemetery. What happened to all those dead bodies? Maybe it wasn't just the Knackers. Maybe old Pa Knacker was telling the truth and there was an entire system set up, not just to weed out ponies like Snails who were a drag on society, but that also took the bodies of the recently dead and... Reduced, Reused, and Recycled them. Suddenly the world seemed like a very thin, candy colored coating over a deep, dark pit filled with the dead. Was all of Equestrian society built on the bones of the deceased? Were they, literally, the glue that held society together? He wouldn't have believed it if you had told him about all of this, even a few hours ago... But seeing the cold precision of it, the casual indifference to life and death that the Knackers seemed to have... It gave Zephyr pause. He'd never imagined that there was anything more important in the world than himself. Oh sure there were Princesses and the magic of friendship, and titanic struggles between the forces of good and evil, but none of that mattered on a day to day basis. Largely, such matters seemed to resolve themselves, or happen to other ponies. What was important... What had been important to Zephyr were long naps, redecorating, and to always work smarter not harder... Which usually meant finding somepony else to do the work for him. Now though, now he felt like he had the chance to really do something. Despite what Pa Knacker had said there was no way that Fluttershy, or any pony else for that matter, could truly know what horrible things went on in this old ramshackle warehouse. Zephyr had to find a way to escape, if for no other reason to tell everypony, anypony who would listen about the horrible things that had happened here! There were bound to be ponies that would believe him and help him shut this place down. And if there were other places like it in Equestria, he'd find them and do the same. So what if it meant a world without glue, leather, and convenient pet food? He was sure there were other ways of obtaining such things, or products that were close enough to them as made no difference. Besides, what did that really matter when weighed against the life of even a single pony? A single colt like Snails. Or even a stallion like Zephyr. He knew he was delirious. He knew that Snails fate was likely soon to be his own. He'd seen too much. He didn't know why Pa Knacker had seen fit to show him his entire operation, but Zypher knew he had seen too much. But who cared about all of that? He couldn't move! He tried to raise his voice as the panic and hysteria overtook him, but all that came out was a harsh whisper. Whatever had been in those drugs that the Knacker's had slipped him, they hadn't just stolen away his consciousness but his voice as well. He hung his head low in the dark, awaiting the inevitable. He didn't have to wait long. The conveyor belt kicked into motion, and Zephyr was jerked forward against his will. The sliver of light ahead of him resolved into the gap between a set of black curtains. As Zephyr passed through it, he blinked, trying to see where he was despite the fact that the feeling of intense mortal dread in the pit of his stomach told him he was exactly where he had expected to be. The machinery of the killing stage, the disassembly line, gleamed brightly in the flood lights above. Zephyr could still see flecks of Snails blood still dripping from the mechanical armatures arrayed before him. Apparently he hadn't been out of it for long. "Hi Zephyr," came a familiar voice. Zephyr Breeze didn't want to believe it. He couldn't believe it. But as he turned his eyes towards the observation room he didn't see just the Knacker Clan standing there, but his sister as well. Fluttershy stood with his mother and father. All three looked uncomfortable, but none of them looked as if they had been harmed. "Are you feeling okay?" Zephyr realized his sister was speaking through a microphone that amplified her usually soft, demure voice. The whine and pop of the speakers just barely concealed the concern in her voice, "They haven't treated you too roughly I hope?" "Now Miss Fluttershy, ya know that the drugs ya gave him has him senseless. He can no more understand what yer sayin' than if ya was speakin' in tongues." said the voice of Pa Knacker, syrupy with friendliness and put on concern. Zephyr was confused for a moment, and then he realized that the Knackerman was lying! Zephyr had been out of it before, but he was in full possession of his senses now. The drugs had just stiffened his muscles, including his vocal cords. He tried desperately to cry out, to shake himself, to show any indication that he could hear his sisters voice, but his body held him trapped more firmly than even the manacles that bound him. "Anything you say now is for your benefit, not his. Say yer peace and then we'll have this sad business behind us." Fluttershy took a deep breath. "Zephyr, I'll always love you. And I'll always remember you as my baby brother. But this has gone on for far too long. Every time you start to move ahead on your own, you immediately fall back on Mom and Dad for support. Or if they've had enough of you, you try to live off of me or even Rainbow Dash instead! Mom and Dad aren't going to be around forever, and if i'm being honest, neither am I. The life of a protector of Harmony in Equestria is a dangerous one, and... Well, I just can't bear to think of how you would end up without us, without your family." Fluttershy paused, tears in her eyes. "Seeing you living out in the middle of nowhere, with no food, no shelter, and no friends; it was just far too cruel. In those conditions, I just know you'd end up starving to death, or dying of thirst, or getting eaten by some wild animal or monster. I couldn't bear to think of you meeting such a miserable and lonely end. And since that seems to be the life you're destined to lead, I thought it would be better if we just skipped all that and moved straight to the... to the inevitable." Fluttershy broke down, bawling. She buried her head into Nuke's huge chest and the massive stallion stroked her mane with one hoof to try and calm her down. Zephyr was dumbstruck by his sisters words. She really was the pony behind all of this? She'd planned to.. what? Have him put down like a dog!? Like some mangy animal? He knew that his sister had a somewhat low opinion of how he acted and how he chose to live, but he never thought that she would consider killing him over it! This had to be a mistake! The Knacker clan had to be tricking her! They had to be! "There, there darlin'," said Pa Knacker, his words still dripping with feigned concern. "This won't be the first time you've brought in someone for us to put down. Ah know it's different, bein' your brother and all, instead of one of her yer pets... But Ah'm sure he'll be in a much better place when it's all over. Ma, Pa, either of you care to say a few words?" Zephyr could barely hold his head up as he watched his father tentatively step up to the microphone. "I confess, I didn't know there was a facility like this outside of Cloudsdale," Mr. Shy began. "It's actually a lot more state of the art than the one we took your grandfather to when it was time for him to be... Put out to pasture. I want you to know son, that we've always loved you, despite what a huge disappointment you've been to your mother and I. We wouldn't have chosen this for you, but when your sister explained how you had wound up living in the forest like some kind of savage, well... We really hoped that your Mane Therapy degree would make it so we never had to worry about it coming to that again. When you couldn't find a job after graduation, we wanted to give you as much time as possible, to give you every opportunity to do something with yourself. But as time wore on, you slid back into your old habits. You stopped trying and started expecting everypony else to help you, to do your work, to take care of you," His fathers lower lip began to tremble. "We will miss our little colt, but the way things have been going lately, this may be for the best." He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Zephyr had never known that his father felt this way. His parents had been disappointed with him? They thought this would be better for him? None of that made any sense! His mother was the next to speak. He couldn't help but notice that, unlike his sister, his mothers eyes were perfectly dry behind her thick glasses. "Zephyr, honey, there's no point in lying to you now. I always expected you to end up in a position like this. I didn't know if it would be prison or some kind of wacky new age cult, but since you were little you were always willful. You never listened to me or your father. Maybe we were too lenient with you, and maybe we could have been firmer with you. But it didn't seem to matter what we did, you always did your own thing, and always seemed to think that you knew better than us. That you knew exactly how the world worked and the rest of us were just chumps for not seeing things the way you did!" Mrs. Shy paused, her voice thick with emotion. "I'm glad. I'm glad that you will finally make a real contribution to society. That your life will be worth something! That it will have meaning! I thought for so long now that I should have had that abortion and donated your body to science, but your father talked me out of it. He always wanted a son, even though we both regretted that decision from almost the moment you were born." Now, at the very end, his mother did shed a tear. "Goodbye Zephyr. That's all I wanted to say." It seemed like that was it for his eulogy. It had been much shorter, and far more dismal than Zephyr had expected. They'd barely mentioned his Mane Therapy degree at all. Zephyr hung his head as low as the yoke that held him would allow. He wasn't struggling anymore. Hearing his mother say how she wished he'd been aborted kind of took the fight out of him. The conveyor belt kicked back into motion, and he decided he'd just close his eyes and wait for it all to be over. In a few moments his brains would be sprayed across the room. That would be the closest he'd get to any kind of a rebuttal to his families words. But as the pneumatic hammer swung down on its armature, there was a thin hiss instead of the powerful expulsion of air he'd been expecting. Zephyr raised his head and looked around, confused. Apparently the microphone had been left on because he heard Pa Knacker swear, "Uh, ahem, sorry about that folks just some ah... technical difficulties." He heard Pa Knacker whispering furiously to Bubba, and he saw the big leather masked oaf hit himself repeatedly in the forehead before his Pa grabbed his hoof and made him stop. Something had gone wrong. The conveyor belt chugged on, and Zephyr realized that he was still conscious. Had Pa Knacker lied again, or had something really gone unexpectedly awry? Zephyr didn't have much time to contemplate this as he felt his hooves leave the conveyor belt. As he dangled from the yoke that held him, several metallic arms clamped onto his hooves, and the high pitched whine of the grinding mechanisms in each metal clamp whirred to life. He could feel the vibrations as they juddered up his legs, and smell the scent of his hooves being pulverized. At first it just felt like a deep hooficure, but as the metal ground his hooves down to nubs he could feel the blades biting into more and more sensitive tissue. He smelled the blood before he felt the pain, but he at last found his voice as he let out an ear piercing scream! The sharp metal teeth had shattered his hooves and were grinding the soft tissue and bone beneath the hard exterior. It felt like each of his limbs had been shoved into a blender, and somepony had hit 'frappe'. He screamed out, over and over again, jerking back and forth, desperately trying to pull the tattered remnants of his legs free. "I thought you said he wouldn't feel anything!?" screamed Fluttershy, accusingly. "I thought you said the process was painless!?" "Well, it would be, normally," Pa Knacker said with a nervous laugh. "Only my boy here forgot to change out the CO2 cartridge on the pneumatic hammer. Ah'm afraid even the drugs ya gave him can't keep him from feelin' what's happening to him now." "Well then stop it!" commanded Mr. Shy firmly. "Stop this whole thing right now! We should have never agreed to this, even if the bits would wipe out Zephyr's student loans!" "I would sir, honest I would, but the process is automated. Once it starts it would be cruel to stop it," Pa Knacker tapped on the glass. "Your boy isn't ever going to be able to walk again. Do you really want him to live like that, even for a few moments?" "We don't care about that right now!" cried Fluttershy. "Just stop the machines!" "Fine!" exploded the Knackerman with honest rage, before mollifying his tone. "Fine, Ah'll do what Ah can." Zephyr could barely hear any of this over the whirring machines and his own agonized screams. His pain brought the cries unbidden from his own throat, until at last the armatures retracted, and the yoke around his neck opened. He fell into a crumpled heap, much as Snails had done earlier. But it wasn't over for him. The conveyor belt continued to move him forward. He could see the sharp blades of the skinning armatures falling into place. He whimpered quietly, knowing that his brief reprieve would be very short lived. He closed his eyes tight, not wanting to see what was about to happen. But then a miracle occurred! The conveyor belt stopped! More than that, the entire facility seemed to lose power all at once. As the machines whined down, the killing floor was plunged into a lightless void. Zephyr tried feebly to move... To shift himself off of the belt. He tried to use his one good wing, but found that it was trapped beneath him while the wing that Nuke had injured earlier was only capable of a few painful, spasmodic flaps. He struggled even so, inching his way to the edge of the platform, doing his best to suppress his cries of pain as he tried vainly to push himself forward on the shattered remains of his hooves. To the pegasi's horror, the lights flickered back on. Pa Knacker loomed over him, his single red eye glowing brightly with malevolence. "We got good news and bad news boy. The bad news is I had to shut off the main power because mah boys screwed up. We'd have to reset the entire line, and that could take all night to sort out." He paused long enough to lean in, the next words a warm whisper in Zephyr's ear. "Now the good news. We ain't gonna bother with none of that! We're goin' to do things the traditional way, the old Knacker family way. Yes sir, you are in for a treat!" Before Zephyr could react, he felt the conveyor belt dip down. He looked up, and saw Candy posed like a dancer with a claw hammer clenched tight in her teeth. "Ah hope ya don't mind, but it's traditional to let the youngest have the first swing at knockin' ya out. Candy's a might small, so it might take her a few tries. Just be patient and it'll be 'POW!' lights out before you know it!" Candy skipped and pranced on her hoof tips, leaping back and forth on the conveyor belt. Her eyes never left Zephyr, and he found himself mesmerized by the gleaming metal of the claw hammer as Candy drew closer, dipping and twirling all the while. The manic grin that wrapped around the hammers wooden handle was so intense, he half thought she might bite right through it. There was no such luck as she drew closer. And closer. Until she crouched down low and jumped high into the air... And Pa Knacker smashed in the back of his head with one mighty swing of a sledge hammer from behind. As Zephyr lost consciousness again, he thought he heard the old Knackerman laugh in a jolly voice, "It's important that he don't see it coming! Otherwise it would be cruel!" Zephyr dreamed. He was a colt again. It was bitterly cold outside. The weather ponies had whipped up an awful blizzard for some reason. He could see fat snow flakes whirling by the window outside, an almost solid sheet of white as the wind howled. He was huddled beneath a blanket. For some reason, he knew that he couldn't get off of the couch he was on. If he set one hoof on the floor, he'd freeze in an instant, so he just huddled into a tight ball and hoped that his parents or big sister would be home soon to light a fire in the hearth and chase the chill out of the house. He hoped that would happen soon, because for some reason, his blanket was unraveling. He could feel the icy bite of the cold room sinking deep into his skin. The cold was so intense that the pain of it made him cry out. As Zephyr Breeze came back to his senses, it took a moment for the pegasus to realize what was really happening to him. The hulking pony known as Bubba was leaning over him. He was moving the pegasi's body back and forth. For all the larger stallions strength, he was surprisingly gentle with Zephyr. The injured pegasus felt like he was being rocked to sleep. It was only when the semi-conscious pony got a good look at the apparatus that was affixed to the end of Bubba's hoof that he realized what was really being done to him. The array of knives and hooks jutting from the glove must have been sharp indeed. They slid into Zephyr's skin delicately, and the rocking motion was to help guide the blades down the length of one of his legs with all the gentleness of a lovers caress. Bubba really was an artist, and he had an air of deep concentration as he worked on his latest canvas. Zephyr tried to struggle, tried to scream, but it was no use. His muscles were still stiff from whatever drugs his sister had slipped him, and even if that were not the case his limbs were too badly mutilated to be of much use. Besides, the deranged earth pony pinned him firmly down as his blades did their work. A hook slid under the skin just at the nape of Zephyr's neck, and slowly began to tear away the skin from his back. Bubba's blades danced back and forth, back and forth, separating the outer layer of flesh from the muscle beneath. It felt hot and cold at the same time, but the pain that lanced through Zephyr as his nerve endings were laid bare made his eyes roll into the back of his head. It was over more quickly than Zephyr had expected. Bubba must have been busy as he had lain unconscious, as his hide was ripped from him all in one bloody piece with an organic tearing sound and a wet slap as it was laid out on the conveyor belt. Except, that is, for the skin on his head. For the first time, he really felt the cold bite of the knife as it slipped in just beneath his left ear, tracing a circle before it slipped down and through the flesh of his cheek. He could feel the tip of the blade as it scraped across his teeth and down across the bone of his chin. Then Bubba started on the other ear, taking his time, doing his best to cut slowly and evenly. It was less the pain, as the knives were extremely sharp, and more the horror of what was happening to him that made Zephyr nearly pass out again. He could feel the hooks slip under his scalp, and the blades begin their long sawing motion as Bubba began to peel the flesh from his skull from the back to the front, like a cheap latex Nightmare night mask. Zephyr realized he wasn't just being skinned alive, but scalped as well. As his mane was lifted free from his head in a single piece of, Zephyr felt a terrible pang of sadness. He'd never need to worry about his own proper mane care ever again. There was a truly frightful moment as he felt the blades work down across his handsome brow, and cut deep beneath his eye lids. Zephyr thought for sure the sharp hooks or the busy knives would sink into his eyeballs, but Bubba was nothing if not a professional. With a kind of grunting laughter, the last shred of connective tissue was sliced away, and Zephyr's face was lifted free. Zephyr looked up at Bubba, holding his grizzly trophy aloft. It had been such a handsome face. Zephyr missed it already. Removing his bladed work glove, Bubba held the face outstretched against the overhead lights. Fresh blood still dripped from Zephyr's face, but the semi-translucent skin almost seemed to glow against the harsh glare from above. Bubba peeled his old mask off of his face. Zephyr had the briefest glimpse of the idiot smile and the deformed features beneath. It was like looking at the face of a foal that had somehow outgrown nearly every other pony the pegasus had ever met, but still maintained the simple mind that found wonder in everything it saw. As Bubba draped the bloody remains of Zephyr's face across his own bald head, pushing the bloody skin up around his own wide smile and beady eyes, the pegasus couldn't help but grudgingly acknowledge the improvement. As sick and terrifying as it was, Zephyr's face could even make a brute like Bubba look handsome. It was then that Zephyr realized, if he was having such absurd thoughts in the face of such grizzly horror, he must be dying from blood loss. Already the pain that had burned all over his body was fading into a warm numbness. He couldn't even feel the chill of the factory air anymore. He certainly didn't feel it when Nuke drug his body to the next station along the conveyor belt like he was a rag doll. Nuke was certainly not as gentle as his brother, as the large pony seemed to enjoy inflicting as much damage as possible. He set about ripping the bones out of Zephyr's legs with nothing but his bare hooves and a long boning knife. Zephyr could feel that at least, as the bones popped and cracked, slipping out of their warm sheath of muscle. It was such a bizarre feeling having his bones shucked from his limbs. They felt like wet, nerveless noodles, flailing about as Nuke did his gruesome work. After that was done, he wrenched off both of Zephyr's wings in a single motion, finishing the job he had started earlier. That would've made the pegasus howl if he still had the energy to do so. The only comfort Zephyr had was that, surely, it would all be over soon. No one could live through something like this for long. "Still with us boy?" came the unwelcome voice of Pa Knacker in the bloody stub of what used to be Zephyr's ear. "Ya shoulda said somethin'! Ah woulda' given ya another wack with the old sledge hammer, if I knew ya was awake for this. Well, since yer lucid, how bout it? Any last words?" "Sss...sister," Zephyr managed to hiss through his lipless teeth. "Fffatherrr...Mmotherrr..." he moaned. "Sorry son. Ah'm afraid yer family have themselves some mighty weak stomachs. Oh, they'd take the money for yer worthless carcass, but they wouldn't stick around to see how things would end. They high tailed it out of here some time ago. Ah reckon we'll be hearing some complaints from them in the fullness of time, but for right now it's just you and the lovin' embrace of the Knacker family," confided Pa tenderly. "So don't be afraid to say what ya really feel. There ain't no one here who's feelin's ya might hurt. Believe me we've heard it all, from the darkest curses to the sweetest pleas. Heck, if it's a good one, we even write it down! Got a whole book full of last wrods, so you just go ahead and let her rip!" "Ffffuck...yyou..." "Not exactly original there son, but Ah've heard worse last words. At least it's short and to the point. Says everythin' that really needs to be said in a situation like this. But now, Ah think, Ah got somethin' Ah want to say to you..." Pa Knacker did something next that Zephyr didn't expect. He reached behind his head, and unbuckled his mask. As he pulled it away, Zephyr would have cringed backwards if he could. What leered down at him was a skull as skinless as his own must be. The raw red muscle was a mass of puffy scars and ragged flesh. One eye socket was hollow, as he had suspected, but the other held a miserable blood shot excuse for an eye that glared down lidlessly. Teeth that had been filed down to sharp points lined a permanent grin that dripped from blood from cracked lips. A long prehensile tongue snaked slowly out, lapping up the crimson flow and wetting the dried out muscle tissue. "That's right boy," the Knackerman hissed. "You take a good long look. Ah ain't never done anything to another pony that Ah ain't been willin' to do ta mahself. All that pain, all that sufferin' yer feelin'? That's fleetin' boy. That don't matter none. It's all in yer mind." Zephyr wanted to argue, but the light was fading from his eyes. He could barely hear Pa Knacker's voice as a thin hiss as he droned on. "A hard days work for a fair days wage. That was all you had to do. Even then, if ya failed, so what? At least ya would have tried. At least ya wouldn't have been a disappointment to yer family. At least you could have had somethin' you could point to ta back up all that false bravado and sense of entitlement! But ya couldn't even do that! Pay attention boy, we ain't through yet!" Zephyr barely felt the shock of Pa Knacker's hoof as it bounced off of his exposed teeth, but it was enough to bring him back from the edge of death. "Ah want ya ta know, before we grind yer worthless carcass into dog food, that there was never any malfunction. Those drugs we gave yer sister to slip you? They were never meant to take your senses away. And that pneumatic hammer was never gonna give ya the quick and easy way out we give to most every pony else! No boy, when we heard the grief you was putting one of our best customers through... Not just her, but her Ma and Pa? Well, my kids and Ah, we just couldn't wait to get our hooves on you! We wanted you to be conscious for every minute of it. That's why yer sorry tail woke up after I beaned ya with mah hammer. If Ah wanted ya snuffed out like a light, ya would be. But that ain't what we want, right kids?" "No Pa," Bubba, Nuke, and Candy chorused dutifully. Zephyr realized that they were all gathered around his splayed form now. Bubba had put his work gloves back on, only this time the knives were far longer, serrated, and clearly designed for chopping and boning rather than slicing. Nuke, for his part, wasn't taking any half measures and was supporting a chainsaw on the end of one beefy hoof. Even Candy held a massive cleaver, almost as big as herself, clenched tight in her sharp little teeth. Pa Knacker shouldered his sledge hammer across his broad back, and Zephyr noticed that one side had been filed down into the sharp wedge of a cruel ax. "No boy, we want you to experience everything we have to offer from beginning to end. That's why we gave our 'guest' the grand tour of the Knackeryard. That's why we showed you what would happen to ya after yer dead and gone. It wouldn't have meant anything to ya if we just wheeled you into a dark room and blew yer brains out in one go. Oh no son, you see," and here Pa Knacker grinned truly diabolically. "Sometimes ya gotta be cruel, to be kind. To see real justice done in this world. So, with that said... we finally come to the end. Time to punch out boys! Lets finish up." Pa Knacker dropped his mask back into place over his hideous visage, and then he and his children closed in on Zephyr from all sides. The pegasus didn't even care anymore. He didn't know exactly when, but he had resigned himself to death. As the roar of the chainsaw and the chop of the blades sliced into him, the pain didn't even matter anymore. Pa Knacker was right... It was fleeting. It was all in his head. No one wanted him or needed him. No one relied on him. He'd made sure of that by how he had lived. But he had finally gotten what he wanted. Someone else was doing all the work for him. Someone else was making the decision he hadn't had the guts to make for himself. Life was hard. That was the one thing that Zephyr Breeze new with an unshakable certainty. Life was hard. And then you died. Epilogue"Hey Fluttershy! Why the long face?" asked Rainbow Dash as she hovered a few inches over her friend. Tank, Dash's pet tortoise, hovered a few inches away as well, a magic powered whirly-gig device allowing him to keep up with his master. It was their weekly get together with all of the girls and their pets in the park. Applejack was playing fetch with Winona, while Rarity was busy brushing Opalescence's long fur. Pinkie Pie was teaching Gummy a new dance, though it was hard to tell whether her endeavor was meeting with any success. Whether he copied her moves or not, the pink party pony would glue a gold star on some part of the baby alligator's scaly body as a reward. Twilight Sparkle was actually taking a break with Owlowiscious perched on her back as she flipped through the pages of huge leather bound book. Fluttershy didn't know how to answer Rainbow Dash. She'd been depressed for weeks. That wasn't unusual for her, necessarily, but this time at least she had a fairly good idea of why. The problem was, she couldn't tell anypony, not even her best friend. "It's... nothing," Fluttershy said, turning away from her friend and towards Angel Bunny who was glaring at her from not far away. The tiny rabbit was thumping his foot, a classic sign of his impatience. Fluttershy had almost forgot. It was feeding time. As she set out six bowls, she retrieved a bag of 'Knacker Brand High Quality Pet Food' - 'Now With Added Flavor'. She looked at the adorable face of a smiling puppy on the side of the bag. As she started to pour the bite sized pieces of kibble, Fluttershy started to cry. All her friends gathered around, concerned for her, trying to ask what was wrong. But she just kept pouring out the pet food, overfilling each of the bowls, and emptying the bag on the ground. She stood there, crying, empty bag clenched tight in her teeth. But she could never say what was wrong. All she could do was watch her friends pets happily eating as she wept.
Off To The Salt MinesLife was hard. That was the one thing that Zephyr Breeze new with an unshakable certainty. Oh sure, things had been easy for his mother who mostly spent time in her garden, and his father who had managed to get a job for life at the Weather Factory up until the day he had retired. Now both his parents were living the sweet life, work and worry free, reaping the benefits of retirement and living out their golden years. But their son, Zephyr? He had no such like. It just wasn't fair. As near as Zephyr could tell, his parents had essentially been set for life from a young age, where as poor Zephyr was forced to live at with them while he had worked tirelessly to get his degree in Mane Therapy. While it was true that if anypony asked he'd tell them he was living with his parents to keep them company, afraid that they would get lonely in their retirement, but he knew in his heart of hearts that his parents had each other. Despite Rainbow Dash's obvious crush on him (for why else would she hang out with his older sister so much?) Zephyr was all on his own, unless you counted his student loans that seemed to follow him where ever he went. Zephyr didn't have anyone, or anywhere to live, so it made perfect sense for him to mooch off of... er, live with his folks until he got on his own hooves. It just seemed so unfair to him that he was actually expected to get on his own hooves. His parents woukdn't have to work for the rest of their lives. How was that fair? Why couldn't that be Zephyr? Why couldn't he have that? Unlike his father, factory work didn't appeal to him. Zephyr Breeze was an artist, and he knew that some day his very name would be synonymous with high art. But how was he ever supposed to get started building toward the fame and fortune that was rightfully his if he had to work all the time? His big sister Fluttershy clearly had it all figured out. Her passion had been her animals ever since she was little, and she somehow managed to get into the position of running an animal shelter in Ponyville. It seemed ponies actually paid her to look after animals, which is something Zephyr knew his sister would do for free, unasked! It had been a little push from her, and Rainbow Dash of course, that had helped Zephyr get his Mane Therapy Degree in the first place. Sadly he was finding out just how worthless that degree was. It seemed there were Mane Therapists from here to Manehatten that had more on the job experience or, Zephyr thought darkly, more likely better connections than the artistically inclined pegasus. But, the more he thought about it, he had some pretty good contacts himself that he could exploit...er, depend on. His big sister was friends with some of the most famous ponies in Equestria, including a Princess! If they couldn't get him some cushy government job where all he had to do was sit around and drink coffee, then he very much doubted anyone could. It was worth a shot. So after fifteen minutes of trial and error, he got his mother to write a letter to Fluttershy on his behalf and trot down to the post office to mail it for him. It was an exhausting endeavor, so Zephyr decided to take a nap until he got a reply. And the reply came quickly. The very next day Zephyr was sitting in Fluttershy's cottage, in the little nook where his big sis liked to have breakfast. Though they were actually having brunch, Zephyr was blurry eyed and irritable from having to get up before noon. Those mid-day naps meant he had a tendency to stay up until dawn before going to sleep for the 'evening'. That was how all the cool ponies in Mane-Therapy school had lived their lives, so that had to be the right way of doing things, right? Zephyr had no idea how other ponies could just waste so much time sleeping during the actual night. Fluttershy had anticipated his drowsiness and had made coffee for him to have with his toast. Sadly, since he only drank coffee made from Saddle-Arabian coffee beans, Zephyr had to politely decline his sisters inferior fair by taking a big gulp and spraying the swill all over her kitchen floor. Honestly, he was doing her a favor, as he was convinced that the dreck she thought passed for coffee wasn't fit for consumption by pony-kind. As Fluttershy busied herself cleaning up the spilled coffee, and put on the kettle to make tea instead, Zephyr put aside Fluttershy's grave faux pas and decided to instead ask her the thousand dollar question. "So sis, what kind of job have you got lined up for your baby brother?" he asked, "Royal taste tester for Princess Twilight? Personal assistant to Mayor Mare? Or perhaps a job as the personal masseuse for Rainbow Dash? That mare seems a little uptight. I bet a nice rub down from the old Zeph would be just the thing to put her mind at ease and melt all her troubles away." Zephyr allowed a rather goofy grin to spread across his face as he imagined that possibility. "Well, no Zephyr," Admitted Fluttershy, "I'm sorry to say that I asked all of my friends as you requested and none of them have a job that would suit your... particular set of skills," Fluttershy rummaged around in her pantry, looking for the infuser for the loose leaf tea she was making. "After what happened last time, I'm afraid Twilight dismissed the idea out of hoof. She said she wouldn't even consider using you in one of her experiments. I asked Rarity too, if she wanted any help making dresses. She said if she wanted Opal to 'help' her again, she'd just ask her directly." A sour look crossed the yellow pegasi's face as she remembered the conversation. "What, so none of your friends were willing to help me find a job?" asked Zephyr, astonished. "Not even Rainbow Dash?" Fluttershy just shook her head, "I asked Rainbow Dash if there were any openings at the Rainbow Factory or even as a roadie for the Wonderbolts and she said there was just no way. I asked Pinkie Pie if she needed help making cupcakes, and she said she had all the help she could ever need between Applebloom and Scootaloo. I even asked Cheerilee if she would like some help with her gardening, but she said she'd rather take care of the weeding herself. I'm afraid there just aren't many job openings for a pony with a degree in Mane Therapy." At last she found what she was looking for and carefully measured the leaves into the infuser, before lowering it into the steaming kettle and taking it off of the oven burner to steep. "Then what the heck am I doing here!?" Zephyr pounded the tiny breakfast table, then quickly covered his mouth when he saw the shocked look on his sisters face. "Pardon my Prench, but why call me all the way to Ponyville just to tell me all of your friends shot me down?" His sister gave him a knowing smile, "Well that's because when I was asking Applejack if she could use a hand around Sweet Apple Acres, (the answer was no by the way,)" Zephyr didn't even bother to try and hide his look of relief. "She mentioned a place that sounded just perfect for you! Very short hours, but it pays a ton of bits, much more than even Rainbow Dash makes as a Wonderbolt. The best part is it's not far from here, so if it works out you could room here like we planned for you to do when you moved out of Mom and Dad's place last time." "Oh wow sis, really? That does sound great," Zephyr narrowed his eyes, "What's the catch?" Fluttershy's grin faltered as she removed the infuser and poured Zephyr a cup of tea, "Catch? Why would there be a catch?" She also brought in honey, a tray of sugar cubes, and a few slices of lemon. Zephyr proceeded to empty both the honey pot and the sugarcube tray into his tea cup, and discretely throw away the lemon wedges by chilucking them over his shoulder at Angel Bunny. "In my experience, Fluttershy," he replied as he took a huge slurp of the thick tea and made a face before shaking the last grains of sugar into his cup,"If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is." A look of relief crossed Fluttershy's face,"Oh is that all? Well then I guess there is one catch. You'll have to go for a job interview this afternoon. Which is why you're hear by the way, since I thought you might have a hard time arriving on time if you had to travel all the way from Mom and Dad's house to get there." She slid a piece of paper across the kitchen table. Zephyr could see that there was an address written in shaky writing. He'd seen this before. This was what you usually got when an earth pony tried to write something down using their mouth. "I'd go with you, but I have some errands that I have to run, so we can meet up for dinner after you're done." "I dunno Fluttershy, I've never really been to a job interview before. Aren't you supposed to wear a fancy suit and tie or something like that? I mean, are they going to want me to fill out an application, because the Zeph has tons of experience, just not many references so..." Zephyr let his shoulders slump, a classic calculated move to get the maximum amount of sympathy. "I'm just not sure I can deal with this on my own. Are you sure you can't put off your errands to come with me and help your little bro out?" It didn't have the effect Zephyr was expecting. Fluttershy's smile just seemed to grow wider and she had this dreamy look in her eyes. "Don't worry Zephyr. All you have to do is be yourself and everything will work out. You'll see." Despite his pleading, whining cajoling, begging, imploring beseeching, and fervent entreaties, Zephyr Breeze just couldn't convince Fluttershy to do the interview for him. Even when he at last broke down and reminded her that she would likely be better able to secure him a job if his employers didn't actually meet him first, she stood steadfast and just gave him her enigmatic smile and inane reassurances that it would all work out. She kept on smiling as he finished his tea and wished him a fond fair well as he left her cottage. He had to give one thing to his big sis, though. She was right to have him come to her house before heading off for his interview. He had plenty of time to figure out where he was going and more than enough time to get there that afternoon. So much time, in fact, that he decided to go into town instead and do a little shopping to help settle his nerves. He grabbed a hayburger a little after the town clock tower struck noon, and some new jewel encrusted scrunchies to tie back his hair. He put it all on dear old dads credit because, after all, he was unemployed. He was sure that his folks would understand that a pony had to eat and look his best for a job interview. They'd understand, even if his tastes were a little pricey. However, Zephyr spent so much time picking out the very best looking scrunchies that the time just got away from him. The sun was already sliding its way slowly towards the horizon before he realized that he was going to be late for his interview. He wasn't just going to be late actually. He was already late! By several hours. Zephyr panicked. If he met up with Fluttershy's for dinner as they had planned, sure he'd get a free meal, but then she'd ask how the interview went. The interview he'd never gone to! Maybe it would be best to just pretend he'd forgotten the whole thing and head back to Mom and Pops and lay low for a few days until all this blew over? In the past his sister would have just let him be, even going so far as to pretend that nothing had ever happened, but he had a bad feeling that if he tried to pull the old 'I forgot card' it wouldn't play out that way for him this time. His sister had really put herself out there to try and find him the perfect job, and just blowing it all off would be a good way to make sure she might never help him out again. Zephyr was not the type of pegasus to burn bridges if he could keep from it, especially with ponies that he could reliably borrow bits from. But, the more he thought about it, there was another way to play this. Fluttershy said that his interview was scheduled for the afternoon. Well it was still afternoon, technically, so if anyone complained about him showing up late he'd just tell them it was their own fault for not being more clear about the time. Once he had them on the back hoof like that, the interview would be a breeze! This was perfect! The Zeph had done it again! This was not perfect. The road that lead to Zephyr's destination was long and winding, and it extended far outside of the Ponyville city limits. It took him past farmland and out into the boondocks, far away from anything the pegaus could remotely recognize as signs of civilization. As he'd flown, he'd managed to save himself a little bit of time by skipping over some more particularly meandering twists and turns, and more than a few crossroads and bends, but the drawback of this had been that he was now not entirely sure if he was on the right road or not anymore. He'd been forced to land to try and make heads or tails of the street signs. The last sign he had passed had more than a few of its letters worn off, so it could have said 'Badger', or 'Granger', or possibly even 'Danger'. He didn't like the sound of that last possibility, but then, as the light of day was fading, he was having a hard time reading the slip of paper Fluttershy had given him. It seemed his destination was in a far corner of Ponyville at the edge of the Everfree Forest. As he forged ahead, the trees grew up around the path he was on, robbing him of even the waning light of the setting sun. It was with a palpable sense of relief that Zephyr finally came across what looked like a large warehouse. This had to be the place! There wasn't anything else around for miles! As he walked down the dusty road, that lead through a gate set in a rusty chain link fence, that sense of relief began to fade. Everything here was so old and broken down. A wagon that had gone to termites and rot moldered in one corner of the yard. The few windows in the edifice had been boarded up with thick planks of wood. A sharp, acrid scent seemed to haunt the arid air. Even surrounded by the trees of the nearby forest, it seemed like everything living had shunned the gravel yard, save for a few stunted thorn bushes and what Zephyr could have sworn were tumble weeds. Everything was so dried out and wasted away, It was almost as if Zephyr had wandered into a small slice of desert, an anti-oasis surrounded by trees. Indeed, the tall chain link fences that surrounded the entire place were so old that they were leaning inward, forming a rough cage that the nearby trees had over grown in a broad dome. The warehouse itself was stained by rain and time, bleached white by the shafts of sunlight that had managed to make it passed the thick forest canopy. Everything had a look of abandonment. A broken down sign on the front of the building, missing several letters, proudly proclaimed 'We_com_ T_ Th_ __acker_ard!_!" It looked like the wooden letters that remained had once been painted a bright red, but most of that paint had long since peeled off revealing the rotten wood beneath. If there's any work to be had here, Zephyr thought, it must be a demolition job. Zephyr absolutely despised manual labor. It was always so rough on ones hooves and was absolute murder on your mane. If that was what this was all about, maybe it would be better to just turn around and leave right now? Even as the thought passed through Zephyr's head, the sound of wheels screeching to a halt behind him made him jump. Two of the most massive Earth Pony stallions Zephyr had ever seen unhitched themselves from a wagon that looked just barely in better repair than the other one that was rotting away in the gravel he'd passed on his way inside. The first of the two stallions lumbered towards Zephyr. A dark green brute, his mane was a shock of acid yellow that formed a wispy mohawk that curled down his spine to the nape of his neck. The lower half of his face was hidden behind what looked like a tight black gas mask with a lopsided grin painted over the breathing filter on the front. It wrapped around the sides of mask, giving the black leather a joviality that wasn't shared by the rest of its owners looming frame. His bright orange eyes glared harshly down on Zephyr. The pegsus felt instincts he never knew he had suddenly leap to attention and scream 'Fly! Fly like you have never flown before!' Unfortunately the second stallion closed the gate with a rusty squeak, and Zephyr heard the unmistakable rattle of chains and the heart-sinking 'snap' of a padlock locking home. That job done, the other hulking pony turned back towards his fellow. His face was hidden by an even more elaborate mask, which looked as if it had been stitched together from scraps of old leather. Zephyr realized with a wave of dread that the shock of blue mane that crested the stallions forehead was not his own, but rather hair that had grown from a patch of leather that had been painstakingly sewn into the rest of the mask. The rest of his mane was a scraggly orange that stuck out in clumps here and there, though the rest of his coat was a bright red. He joined the first stallion in staring Zephyr down. Bandits! Zephyr thought loudly, I've ended up cornered by a pair of bandits! Zephyr smiled nervously, hoping that his terror didn't show on his face. His eyes darted around the yard, looking for another possible exit. His senses were in overdrive, and he realized he could suddenly notice little details he hadn't before. How every scrap of wood was so rotten and warped from such long disuse that it shouldn't be able to stand in a strong breeze, let alone stand as any sort of place of business. How the two stallions looked as if they could snap a pony like him in half without exerting any real kind of effort. How the bundle in the back of their wagon seemed to rhythmically rise and fall, and squirm every now and then as if there was something living wrapped up in those sheets of tarpaulin and rope. But the most salient point he realized, as his eyes began to tear up from just how terrified he was, had to be the fact that long spools of razor ribbon had been strewn in and amongst the tree limbs that stretched over the warehouse. A pegasus's first instincts when they were in trouble was almost always to try and fly away. If Zephyr so much as jumped too high, he'd shred himself into a million pieces, and that was if he was lucky enough to keep from tangling himself up in the viciously sharp metal wire. It was the only metal in the place that looked shiny and new. At least he wouldn't have to worry about needing tetanus shots if he somehow managed to pull through in one piece. Before he could try his luck, however, the stallion in the gas mask bellowed "PA!" in a voice that cut through the dusty air. "We're back! And y'all got company!" A door set in the side of the warehouse opened with such force that it smashed into the side of the wall it was set in, rocking the entire edifice as though it had been caught in a sudden gale. The dark mouth of the doorway yawned like some feral monsters open maw, the fetid air from within drifting out and curling Zephyr's nose hairs. A third massive pony, though this one not quiet as large as the first two, stomped into the yard. Like the others, he too wore a mask, though his was ivory... It looked as though it had been carved from thick bone, and was absolutely smooth save for a few eye and breathing holes. Leather straps held it in place, wrapping around the back of his head, and through his wild pink mane. The rest of his body was pink as well, though he wore a tattered green overcoat despite it being the middle of summer and hot as Tartarus even under the shade of the many interlocking tree boughs. Zephyr's eyes widened as the newcomer drew closer. Every inch of him from his mane to his tail, all the way down to his hooves, was flecked by bright red stains. And he was coming right for Zephyr. He loomed over Zephyr, not saying a word. He was surrounded! He stopped looking at Zephyr, and instead addressed the pair of stallions. "Well don't just stand there gawking! Get inside! We been waitin' on you two to get back since lunch time. Where have y'all been Nuke!?" "We-we was jus' doin' what ya asked us to Pa. Honest," said the hulking green stallion, 'Nuke' apparently, "Bubba jus' wanted ta stop and get some more twine for his arts and crafts. We woulda been back on time if it weren't for that." "Is that true Bubba?" the red stained stallion asked the towering pony in the leather mask. 'Bubba' cringed as if he had been whipped and shook his head. He actually seemed to be afraid of the pony they called 'Pa'. "Oh, so Nuke is lyin' then." Bubba shook his head again and tried to put himself between Pa and Nuke, as if he was trying to protect his brother. "So which is it, are you lyin' or is he lyin'?" Bubba raised his hoof and started striking himself in the head. "Quit that. Quit that! Ah've told you to cut that out when we have company!" Both of the stallions seemed to shrink in size and shiver under the glare of the newcomer. "Ah'll deal with the pair of you later. Just get yer rears inside and get that wagon unloaded! We lost enough time waitin' on you two!" The ponies that Zephyr found so intimidating before scrambled to obey 'Pa', hitching themselves back up to the wagon and pulling it back behind the old warehouse in a cloud of dust. Just like that it was just Zephyr and 'Pa' in the yard. Somehow he didn't feel any safer. He cleared his throat, about to speak, but suddenly realized he had no idea what to say. 'Hi, I seem to be exactly in the wrong place at the wrong time, will you please let me go?' didn't seem like it was likely to get him anywhere. And 'If you don't let me go, ponies will come looking for me. You'll never get away with it!' rang hollow too. Zephyr realized that if he never showed up again, both Fluttershy and his parents would probably just assume that he had flaked out and found somepony else to live off of. Neither his retired parents nor his globe trotting sister were likely to spare any time trying to find him. With a fresh wave of dread, he realized they'd probably even feel relieved not to have to put up with him anymore. Pa saved him the trouble of having to come up with anything to say by muttering, "Kids..." and spitting into the dust, "Sorry about those two. Ah'm afraid what they have in muscle they sort of lost in brains. They got no social graces what-so-ever and have no idea how to properly treat company. Why don't ya follow me and Ah'll give ya the grand tour before we get started?" Zephyr finally found his voice, and managed to squeak out, "Yes sir, I-i mean no sir, I think there's been a terrible misunderstanding. I was looking for a," the pegasus pulled out the piece of paper his sister had given him, but found he was sweating so much that the letters had smeared to illegibility. "A different place than this, I'm sure." "Ain't no misunderstandin'. Ah'll admit you're arriving here a might later than we expected, but you were expected all the same," replied the masked pony confidently, and much more clearly than you would expect considering. "Still, seems to have worked out for the best since my boys were so late getting back from running their little errands. It'll take them a bit to get everything set up. That should give us plenty of time to show you around and give you an idea of how things work before we get to it. Just follow me and we'll get you squared away." The stallion stepped back through the door into the warehouse, and was lost in the darkness. Zephyr didn't know what to do. There was no way he could escape without the key that the one named 'Bubba' had, but he knew for sure that whatever work they did here, he didn't want any part of it. Maybe they weren't bandits, and this was a legitimate operation, but Zephyr highly doubted it. For one thing, what was with them all wearing masks? And for another, what exactly had their errands been if it involved bringing something squirming back, wrapped up in ropes and under a thick tarp? Should he chance the trees after all and the razor ribbon that bound the limbs together? Or maybe he should try to dig his way under the fence? Before he could decide on a plan of action, a voice bellowed from the darkness, "Well are ya coming in or not!? Don't just leave the door swinging open! Were ya raised in a barn or something!?" He jumped several feet into the air, and quickly followed 'Pa' into the darkness. Zephyr had to face facts. He wasn't the most athletic pony, and even the thought of pain turned his stomach. He'd just have to play along until he could find another way out, or find a way to steal the key to his freedom. The door slammed shut on its own behind him, causing Zephyr to jump. He found himself standing in absolute darkness. Sure Zeph, follow the masked strangers into the creepy old, dark building, where no pony can hear you scream. Great plan! But he would just have to chance it.
A Job Well Done Is It's Own RewardIt took Zephyr's eyes some time to adjust to the gloom inside. He found himself standing alone in what looked like a waiting room. Chairs with peeling laminate revealed the yellowing stuffing that had long since spilled out on the floor here and there. The ceiling was thick with what Zephyr hoped were cobwebs. The only light was the fluorescent glow of a bulb that was clearly on its last legs behind what looked to be a reception desk. The bulb tinkled and sizzled, giving a harsh buzz as it flared brighter and faded in a flickering strobe. If Zephyr didn't know better, he would have thought he'd stumbled into an abandoned waiting room for a doctor or dentist. Stacks of moldering magazines, their covers too old and worn to properly be made out in the fitful light, were spread haphazardly across low tables and the floor. There was a large brown water stain on the ceiling, and more than one hole that exposed the rotting timbers of the rafters above. Shattered pieces of the tile below these holes made Zephyr's eyes nervously dart between the floor and the ceiling as he walked through the room. He tried his best not to slip on the rotting magazines, but he also kept a wary eye out to make sure a falling tile didn't shatter itself against his skull. There was no sign of 'Pa'. Zephyr wasn't sure that was a good thing. He'd rather have the masked pony where he could see him. At the end of a hall were a pair of plastic double doors that were swinging gently as if they had just been passed through. Zephyr didn't want to stay here, alone in the dark, so he made his way down the hall being careful to avoid not just the magazines but the puddles of brown liquid that had pooled here and there in the hallway. As he reached the reception desk, the fluorescent light at last gave out with an audible 'pop', plunging the room into absolute darkness. The only light now was a fiery glow that came from the double doors, and Zephyr hastened his steps towards the exit. As he drew closer, however, he heard something that made him freeze in his tracks. What was it? He strained his ears, but he thought he heard... singing. It was high and cheerful, like a song you'd expect to hear a pair of filly's singing on the playground as they skipped rope. Only it was breathy and soft, barely more than a whisper, but absolutely the last thing you'd want to hear in a place like this. Zephyr felt a chill run down his spine. He couldn't tell where the singing was coming from. Feeling a bead of cold sweat trickle down his forehead, Zephyr slowly turned to the darkened waiting room he had just passed through. It was too dark to see much of anything, but the darkness didn't seem to be as populated with the ghosts of dead fillies as Zephyr's imagination had suggested. If the singing wasn't coming from the waiting room, was it coming from some where ahead then? Truly, it seemed to be all around him now, enveloping him in an aura of sickly sweet sound and the smell of damp and decay. He couldn't make out the words, but each verse seemed to be punctuated by peels of girlish laughter. The ghoulish sound made Zephyr's blood run cold. He turned back towards the door at the end of the hall, but that was all he could bring himself to do. He couldn't move. It was as if the song had stuck his hooves to the floor. His heart raced, and a part of him whispered frantically that this was exactly the effect that the song was meant to have! The double doors exploded open and a monstrously fanged shape was silhouetted against the hellish light beyond, crouched low to pounce! Without warning, it leaped up and screamed "Trick or Treat!" and laughed dementedly as Zephyr collapsed into a whimpering heap, covering his head with his hooves. Zephyr expected to be gobbled up at any moment, but when he didn't feel sharp teeth tearing into his hide, he dared open one eye and look up at his attacker. She was just a little thing, a filly barely older than five or six years old if he had to make a bet. Her eyes were pink and blue swirls, and her hair was a rats nest of red and black curls. Her face was hidden behind a delicate china mask that was broken around her muzzle, allowing a manic grin to show through. It was the jagged parts of the mask that had given the illusion of sharp fangs. She wore a dress that looked like it had been made from old bags and candy wrappers, and she capered and twirled around in it as if she were a professional ballerina. "Candy!" thundered the familiar scolding voice of 'Pa' as his shadow fell across the filly from the open doors. "Candy you go play yer tricks somewhere else! This fella here is our guest!" Zephyr was actually relieved when the older masked pony stomped through the door frame. 'Candy', for her part, only giggled and danced on... Twirling around Zephyr's prostrate form as if she didn't have a care in the world. "Go on! Get on out of here! Go terrorize your brothers if you must, ya little heathen! You'd best skedaddle a'fore Ah take it in mah mind ta break your backside with mah bare hooves!" Candy laughed and sang, "Nightmare Night, what a fright, give me something sweet to bite!" into Zephyr's ear, before she danced off into the gloom. she disappeared as quickly as she had arrived... Laughing all the while. "Ingrates all of ya! Ah raised you better than this!" Pa howled after his daughter. He bent down and picked Zephyr up with one hoof and dusted him off. "Ah am so sorry about that mister. Candy there is the apple of mah eye, but she's an unholy terror when she has a mind to be. Ah swear she must take after her mothers side of the family. Do you know she ain't taken off that costume of hers since last Nightmare Night? Ah don't even get what she's supposed to be. Some kind of ballerina, fairy princess, monster or something. Ah love her to pieces, but sometimes she just takes things too far." He paused for a moment, before adding, "And don't even get me started on her table manners. Eats like a full grown horse, but it's a miracle if any of the food makes it into her mouth. And a sweet tooth? Ah has to fight her, literally fight her to get her to eat properly instead of snacking morning, noon, and night!" "Th-that was your daughter?" stammered Zephyr, dazed and still trembling in shock. "Why, yes sir, that's what Ah said. Kind of slow, ain't ya boy?" replied Pa, not unkindly. Zephyr suspected that there was a grin, much like his daughters somewhere behind that mask. Zephyr realized that Pa reminded him of a used wagon salesman that used to live down the street from his parents. He had exactly that same kind of bombastic personality and tendency to to hold long and meandering one sided conversations. If Zephyr wasn't careful, he'd find himself overwhelmed by the endless torrent of muffled words that spilled from behind the stallions mask. "Though Ah wasn't planning on introducing you to the whole Knacker clan like this. That comes later! Though Ah hardly see the point to it now." Pa shook his head morosely. "Eh well, lets get on. The factory is in this way. Mind yer step though. We're in the middle of a little bit of renovatin' and Ah'd just kick mahself if'n ya were to come all this way and wound up hurtijn' yerself, accidental like." Zephyr got a hold of himself and followed the verbose Pa Knacker through the double doors and into a cavernous room that was much better lit. The fiery glow Zephyr had noticed earlier seemed to emanate from several furnaces that belched flames and smoke into the air. That was frightening enough, but about the room several massive vats had been arrayed, that sat atop them spat and hissed. In one nearby vat a thick white bubble ballooned into the air, before popping and letting loose a noxious chemical scent that made Zephyr almost retch. Indeed, a wave of heat and stench washed over and through him, and he felt as if he would pass out. "Ugh. What are you cooking in here? It smells awful!" Zephyr gagged, coughing. "Smells awful? Oh the smell, right!" exclaimed Pa, as if he hadn't noticed the foul stink. "You get used to it after awhile. But that's what the masks are for. Ah don't know if ya noticed, but we all wear them here for the work. Why, Ah've been wearing this mask so long it's like it's become a part of me. Ah probably don't even need the thing anymore, but Ah wouldn't dream of showin' up ta work without it. Force of habit Ah guess." Pa handed Zephyr a cloth mask, "Here ya go son, you just take this here and put it on." The mask was nowhere near as elaborate as the one that the members of the 'Knacker' family seemed to wear, though Zephyr was privately thankful of that. It was newer, and a lot cleaner too. It smelled as if it might even have been laundered in the last century! If it resembled anything, it was a surgeons mask, and as soon as Zephyr tied it on he was grateful for it. Tying it in place around his muzzle, it did seem to help drown out the reeking stench, though it didn't do anything for the heat. His eyes watered a little, but he managed to keep from crying. "So, what exactly is all of this?" he finally asked once he could breath again. "This here? This is the glue room," Pa replied, practically beaming. "We keeps it bubbling and brewing all day and all night, turning the waste of Equestria into somethin' useful! We're big on that around here. Reduce, reuse, recycle; all that green energy and environmental stability business. The Knacker clan moto is 'Waste Not, Want Not' and we live by it! Why we been in business since before the foundin' of Ponyville," the stallion wittered on. "Used to do work way back in the days when the Castle of the Pony Sisters was still the castle of the pony sisters. Course this place has fallen down and been rebuilt a time or two since then. Honestly it's about time we tear the place down and rebuild it again. But Ah'm sure you know how it is, lad your age, raising a family and trying to hold down a job. Makes it hard to find the time to do everythin' that needs doing. That's why Ah'm so glad ya came out here son! Saves us a lot of time and effort goin' out and lookin' for somepony, let me tell ya!" Zephyr had mostly tuned the old earth pony out. So they made glue here, huh? Well, maybe they weren't a group of cut throat bandits after all. He had no idea what all went into the process, but it couldn't be too hard to learn. It looked like the vats pretty much minded themselves, and he could see how one connected to another, and all lead to an assembly line where bottles slid along a conveyor belt to be filled by an overhead nozzle. There was even a little machine that screwed on the lids of the pots of glue, plastered on a sticker of a smiling cow, and loaded several jars at a time into a nearby box. The worst he might have to do would be to move a few pallets of the stuff, or maybe keep the furnaces fed, but he didn't doubt he could dupe one of Pa Knacker's sons into doing most of the heavy lifting for him. If they were as dumb as Pa seemed to think they were, it would be a breeze. A Zephyr Breeze! "So you're looking for someone to work in here then?" he asked. "In here? And put Luda May out of a job?" Pa asked, almost offended. As he said this, Zephyr saw a huge unicorn mare in a cloth mask and a hair net moving from vat to vat with a large wooden spoon. She'd give the contents a stir in each bubbling receptacle before moving on. Zephyr could have sworn she actually licked the spoon once or twice, though the fat mare never actually removed her mask. "Nah, she's got things pretty much sorted out in here. Ah'd have to hire somepony just to train somepony else to take over from Luda May, all the things she knows. It'll be like losin' a member of the family when she finally decides to retire, but the greater loss will be all the tips and tricks she knows but will never tell another soul. A lot of that stuff ya just can't teach. Just comes with on the job experience. No sir, we're good in this department. Come on though, no point hanging around here all day. Don't want to give Luda May a chance to start getting ideas about a young buck like you. Lets head into the next room." Zephyr followed, though he stole a glance back at Luda May. The over sized mare gave him a seductive wink, so he quickened his step and followed swiftly after Pa. They came to a 'door' made out of semi-opaque PVC strips that divided the heat of the glue room from a much cooler but no less foul smelling room. It was a strange mixture of chemical scents that seeped through the thin material between Zephyr's nose and the air in the room, and he gagged afresh as he had to adjust to the new and strange scents. It was like something part way between the salty scent of the sea and the acrid stench of cat piss. There seemed to be a lot more activity in this room, and more vats, though only a few of these seemed to be heated. There were also barrels of what looked like white sand. Several average sized ponies scuttled to and fro, each wearing a full gas mask with respirator much like Zephyr had seen Nuke wearing outside. "This here is the tannery. Might want to be careful in here as there are more than a few harsh chemicals that get used in the tanning process," warned Pa. Zephyr took a step back from the harsh smelling liquid he had been inspecting. "Here's where we take skins and turn them into that soft, comfortable leather for your chairs, or the sturdy binding of magic books. Ah'm a well read fellow, if Ah do say so mahself, and there ain't nothing quiet like the feel of that soft leather in your hoofs And that smell! Fresh parchment and ink are heavenly unto themselves, but with that rich tang of fresh crushed leather? There just ain't nothin' quite like it. Though, to be honest, even Ah'm surprised it comes out like that given a wiff of this place." Squinting his eyes in the smokey gloom, Zephyr could see large sheets of 'skin' being stretch on drying racks as they were moved from the soaking vats. It seemed that the barrels of sand were actually some kind of salt, probably some means of preserving the skins, and they would be soaked in water before being stretched out to dry. The other ponies in this room busied themselves taking the skins from one vat to another, immersing them with rubber sleeves over their hooves so as not to touch the liquids directly. Zephyr's flesh crawled just thinking about what all the harsh chemicals in the air were doing to his own skin, not to mention his delicate mane. As a certified graduate of Mane Therapy School, just being in a room like this made Zephyr want to run screaming for the hills. That alone would have been enough to put him off any job prospects in the tannery, but he didn't even want to consider where all the 'skins' had come from. Like most ponies, Zephyr was and always had been a strict vegetarian. While he didn't share his sisters love of animals, and he wasn't so naive as to think that leather just grew on trees, the idea of handling dead animal hides all day held no appeal for him. It took all his will power to ask with an audible gulp "So I suppose it's here that you're a little short on ponies?" Pa didn't respond to the question at first, instead cocking his head to one side, before looking around the room. "What exactly gives ya that idea boy? Ah mean we can always use an extra set of hooves, sure, but as ya can see we got two full shifts and a third shift keeping this place hopping twenty four hours a day. Why, we got more ponies than we have work for them to do as it is! Ah really only keep this many around for when we get bulk orders. Never know when the Sofa and Quill store in Ponyville will put in an emergency rush order. Or heck, even them fancy ponies up in Canterlot!" Here Pa leaned in conspiratorially and whispered into Zephyr's ear. "Between you and me, son, Ah don't judge them fancy ponies for what they get up to in their spare time, but it involves a lot of black leather. A bit of information to squirrel away for a rainy day, I say. Never know when knowing something like that about a customer might come in handy." He raised his voice before adding, "Not that we're anything but discrete here! Let it never be said that the Knacker family doesn't know how to keep a skeleton or two safely in the closet!" Pa laughed uproariously at what must have been a private joke, because Zephyr sure didn't see what was so funny. He was relieved to find out that they wouldn't be needing him to work in this room, but he was put off by the fact that something like this went on here in the first place. No matter how good the job they actually wanted him to do turned out to pay, nor how easy it was, he wouldn't want to set hoof in here again if he could keep from it. This whole process just gave him the creeps, even if the harsh chemicals weren't involved, he wouldn't want anything to do with it. "So, where to next?" he asked, trying to move things along. "Right, right! Gotta keep the mind on the task in front of ya. You've got a keen mind for business there son. Right this way... oh but first," Pa walked over to a rack of coats. No coat looked exactly like the other, though all were splattered with irregular red stains. The larger stallion proffered one to Zephyr, and when he hesitated to put it on, Pa helped him get it on anyways mistaking his reluctance for ignorance on how to don such a garment. "It's a might cold in the next room, and it can get a bit messy. Sorry we ain't got any coats with wing slits. We mostly employee earth ponies and the occasional unicorn, so there's never been much point in ruining a good coat by putting a pair of slits up the back. Ah reckon it's a bit uncomfortable, but you'll be even more uncomfortable if ya was to go on without it, mark mah words!" Saying that, Pa led the way through another set of PVC curtains. This time the temperature dropped sharply, before they moved through a second, and third set of PVC curtains. The second was covered with frost, while the third one they passed through was actually encrusted with ice, the PVC itself frozen solid. The cold of the next massive room they entered would have been enough to steal Zephyr's breath away, but his eyes grew wide at what he saw, smelled, and, to his regret, tasted. The air was thick with the scent of blood. Indeed, as Zephyr watched in horror, it sprayed from several machines that hung over his head. The droplets splattering his already stained coat and the mask he wore, soaking through the fibers of his thin mask and into his uncovered mane. High above, the whirring sound of saw blades whined low as bits and pieces of meat fell through a grate in the roof and into a vat below. Though the vat was heated red hot, Zephyr couldn't feel any warmth in the freezing room. From there, the meat sluiced through a series of tubes and onto a conveyor belt that passed beneath several serrated grinding gears. It was these that sent up the obscene gush of blood, causing a steady rain of viscera. The meat slid on and into waiting ovens, that cooked the meat at high heat as it passed through. After that it fell into another large vat that had whirring blades that chopped and ground up the flesh even more, sending up a cloud of greasy moist droplets. Further down the production line, Zephyr could see ponies of all shapes and sizes that were each wearing masks and coats much like Pa's, working and shaping the meat. They were blending it with other ingredients, cooking it, tinning it, or bagging the final product. Everything was done with a precision and care that left Zephyr speechless. "And finally we have the pet food processing plant," announced Pa, wrapping Zephyr in a side hug as his other hoof sweeped over the room. "Our pride and joy! We keep it nice and cold in here to keep any nasty bacteria from growing. We wouldn't want our meat to make any critters that eat it sick. We take a lot of pride here at the Knacker Yard, especially in the quality and care we put into every bite of our pet food, be it kibble or them fancy tinned feasts. Ah imagine ya got the impression from how old and run down this place looks on the outside that we don't actually fool around with keeping up high standards, but we don't mess around when it comes to the merit of our meat! Yahave to use prime meat, and nothin' less! You should just ask yer sister Fluttershy. She's one of our best customers!" "F-Fluttershy knows about this place?" asked Zephyr, disbelief in his voice. How could Fluttershy even know about a place like this, let alone condone what went on here? The very idea made Zephyr's spirit curl up inside itself. Up until now he'd been harboring hope that this had all been some kind of mistake. But if Pa Knacker considered Fluttershy one of his best customers, and he knew she was his sister, then that meant... That meant maybe she really did expect him to work here in this mechanized hell. "Why sure! What do you think all of those carnivorous critters she keeps eat? She's not gonna butcher her own meat in a shed somewhere, or something silly like that," said the stallion, his face scrunching up beneath his mask. "Why, that'd just be unsanitary. Nah son, ya gotta have places like this if yer gonna keep dogs and cats in peek condition, let alone more exotic critters like baby alligators, birds of prey, and bears. Ah can see by the shade of green yer face is turnin' that our work here has turned yer stomach a bit, but rest assured, what we do here is necessary! We got plenty of pony folk who count on us to do our best, and we ain't about to let them down if we can keep from it! No sir!" This was all too much for Zephyr to take in. The sound of bones grinding, flesh ripping and tearing, the sizzle and spit of roasting meat. And everypony here seemed to be okay with it. It was just a job to them. More than that, the pony standing next to him actually took pride in all of this. If Zephyr had any doubts before, then there was no question now. There was no way he could work here, no matter how much money they were offering, or how good the hours. "I'm sorry but, I just can't see myself working here. I don't care that Fluttershy is one of your best customers, or that what you do here is necessary. I could never do this, even if my sister did put in a good word for me." Pa just looked at him without saying a word. For the first time, Zephyr really looked the larger stallion in the eyes. He noticed that the right socket was completely empty. The ruined hole where an eye should be looked blankly back at Zephyr, unseeing, and only barely seen. Only the left eye, a tiny crimson point that seemed to glow in the glare of the factory lights, stared back frighteningly from the gloom shrouded depths behind his blood splattered mask. Pa started to laugh. It wasn't a friendly laugh. "You? Haha! You thought that I! Hahahah! You thought that I wanted you to work here!?" He sputtered, his laughter carrying on for some time. Zephyr thought he was going to fall into the bloody slurry on the floor. The chilling temperatures had caused all the flecks of blood to freeze and turn into a kind of reddish-black snow that clung to the sides of the machines and the tiled floor. Pa Knacker put one hoof out and steadied himself against one of his bloody machines. He shook so hard with laughter that more of the scarlet slop started to shower down from above. "Oh my, ain't that a trip! Nah son, Ah'd never dream of given you a job! Whoo! Ya gotta warn me a'fore ya make a joke like that boy. Ah ain't as spry as Ah used ta be. Liable to give me a heart attack carryin' on like that!" With a final harsh bark of laughter, he seemed to regain his composure. He wiped a bloody tear from his one good eye, before he said, "Come on then. The boys have probably got everything set up by now. Let me show ya why yer really here!"
Show TimeZephyr wasn't sure if he should be relieved or terrified. It was true that he didn't want to work here, so finding out Pa had no intention of employing him should have been good news. But then why was he out here? Why had Fluttershy lied to him about this being a job interview? Or was it she that had been lied to by the Knacker family? While Zephyr would have liked answers to these questions, more than anything he wanted to take off this bloodstained mask and the itchy coat and fly away as far and fast as possible. Only he still had no idea where Bubba was or what had happened to the keys to the front gate. He had to settle for two out of three, and leave his mask and coat on a coat hanger as they left the pet food processing room. What had been the point of trapping him here? Why had Pa insisted on showing him around the Knackeryard, as the talkative pony had called it? The more he tried to wrap his head around what was going on, the more Zephyr just wanted to curl up into a ball and go to sleep and hope that when he woke up that this was all just a very bad dream. Pa lead Zephyr up a set of winding stairs, into a maze of catwalks and pipes that had been hidden in the high ceiling of the facility. Thick cobwebs were illuminated by fly specked lights, or at least the ones that weren't burnt out. Steam hissed from the rusted pipes as brown water seemed to drip from everywhere. The pet food room might have been somewhat clean under the freezing conditions they kept it in, but this place was still so unsanitary that it made Zephyr wish he could take off his hooves and give them a nice long soak in a tub of alcohol. Making his way across the rusted metal catwalks didn't do anything to make this feeling lessen, and by the time Pa lead him through an iron door into some kind of control room, Zephyr was just happy to be out of the wet guts of the facility and back in something that looked at least somewhat like an actual room. Nuke and Bubba had apparently been waiting for them for some time. They stood to attention as Pa came into the room, scattering cards to some kind of game that they had been playing and acting as if they hadn't been doing any such thing. Pa just shook his head, and then Candy jumped out at him and yelled 'Boo!' at the top of her lungs. Pa just ruffled her curly mane and gave a little chuckle. "Well son, ya've already met most of the family, but Ah'd be remiss if Ah didn't give ya the formal introductions. Candy-Mare here you've already met, and these two idjits are Nuke and Bubba from the yard. Most folks just call ole Bubba 'Leather Head' on account he likes to do arts and crafts with the scraps from the tannery, but Ah won't stand for that kind of talk myself. Mama ain't with us no more Ah'm sorry to say..." The entire Knacker clan looked down at their hooves sadly. Zephyr wasn't sure what was expected of him, so he just said "I'm sorry to hear that. It must be rough losing a loved one like that." He must have said something wrong, because all three of Pa's kids gave him a funny look. "We ain't lost her," said Nuke. "We know exactly where she is." He nodded behind Zephyr, and the pegasus turned to look over his shoulder. She must have been beautiful once. Her mane was still long and beautiful, auburn brown. As a Mane Therapist, Zephyr could appreciate the work that must have gone into making it so rich and glossy. Even in this dim light it still shown with all the colors of autumn, crimson and gold and burnt orange laced beautifully through the rich earthy brown. It was a shame that the rest of her was so shriveled and worn. There had been some effort made to hold her together, thick black cord had been used to stitch together places where she was rotting apart. Her skin looked a lot like those on the tanning rack. Yellowed, stretched, and thin, to the point that her bones showed through plainly beneath. Ponies didn't often wear cloths, but in this state she seemed truly naked. Zephyr wanted desperately to find a blanket to cover her up... To try and keep her bones warm given her skin was no longer up to the task and obviously failing her in that regard. It was funny how Zephyr's mind worked so hard at keeping him from acknolwedging the obvious... The fact that he was looking at the preserved corpse of a mare. Mama Knacker. "She was always the flighty sort," began Pa Knacker, gravely, his voice choked with emotion. "Loved to travel, Mama did. But accidents happen to you on the road," said Pa, quietly "And then sometimes you happen to accidents. But what could Ah do? Ah can't raise these kids all by mahself. And little Candy wasn't even a year old. Kids need to have their mama." He paused and then he gave a little chuckle. "Course she ain't much for conversation anymore, but at least she kept her looks!" He laughed at his own black humor, and Zephyr fought dueling emotions to strangle him for his disrespect towards the dead and to just run away. Sadly, the moment of indecision and the distraction of the horror that was Mama Knacker's preserved corpse allowed Bubba and Nuke to move in to either side of him. For such big ponies, they moved deceptively quickly and quietly. It was like one moment they were standing with their Pa, and the next they were sternly, but gently, guiding him towards the darkened observation window on the other side of the long control room. "Dis is the best part of da tour," Confided Nuke, giving Zephyr an uncomfortable squeeze. "These demonstrations are very popular!" "I don't know why you brought me here," Zephyr said, squirming ineffectually to break the brothers grip. "I don't know what you're planning to do, but I swear to you I won't tell another soul about all of this if you just let me go." He was crying now. This was all far too much for him. "Not about the meat, or the skins, or the glue, or even about your... Your Ma. I mean none of that matters to me! I'm a Mane Care Therapist! I mean, it's an important job, but who would even believe me?" "He sure talks funny Pa," said Nuke Knacker, giving Zephyr another squeeze around the shoulders, his muscles slithering over the bone as if it were a python that gripped Zephyr and not a pony. "What's he talkin' about?" "Don't you worry none, he's just operating under a bit of a misunderstandin'. We gotta make things clear for him. That's what this entire exercise is about," explained Pa in a knowing voice, despite Zephyr crying and pleading otherwise. "You boys just make sure he keeps his eyes on the stage! It's time for the show!" Candy squealed and hopped up on her brother Bubba's shoulder so she could have a better look herself. It seemed whatever was about to happen, the Knacker siblings were all excited about it. With that, Pa Knacker flicked a large switch, and light flooded the room beyond the observation window. There was a long conveyor belt that ended in a wide grate on one end. Complex machinery hung from the ceiling, and despite the blood stains all of it looked well oiled and maintained. In fact it was the most state of the art looking machinery in the facility, and looked extremely out of place among all the leaking pipes and dangling cobwebs. As Zephyr watched, the conveyor belt began to slowly move and a pony, a unicorn in fact, passed through a black curtain on the opposite end of the room. It looked as if he was somehow shackled to the conveyor belt, his neck in some kind of yoke that held him upright and his legs out straight in blood stained manacles. Zephyr had a sick sinking feeling in his gut that he knew exactly what was about to happen. Pa Knacker flipped a switch and the conveyor belt paused, "Now, here we have us a fella by the name of Snails. Ah tell ya true, Ah don't know if that's the name his mama gave him or if it's just a cruel nickname he picked up in his colthood, but this fella here is well known fer bein' slow. So slow in fact, that all he's particularly good at is raisin' snails! Horrible, snotty pests that eat up a garden quicker than ya'd think given how sluggish they crawl, but a rare delicacy among certain highfalutin unicorns in foreign parts." Pa popped a few vertebrae in his neck before his hooves began to fly over the control board. He kept talking as he worked. "Now, If he was born a pegasus, he would've failed his flight exam and ended up as one or two pigments of a rainbow. If he was born in Canterlot, he would've likely spent his time as a research specimen in that school for 'Gifted Unicorn's' they have up there. Since he was born in Ponyville, it's a wonder his number never came up, but that particular lottery doesn't always pay out that way. That's why our bonny boy Snails here ended up being sent our way." "Why are you doing this?" asked Zephyr. "Why are you making me watch this? Just let me go. I never saw any of this. I don't know you ponies. I don't know him either! I've never met a pony named Snails!" If Pa Knacker heard him, he ignored him as he continued his spiel, "There are some folk that it don't matter how much schoolin' you give em, they are always goin' to be useless. Oh sure, you could just give them a job doin' anythin', but they'd never apply themselves. They'd never learn. They'd never live up to societies expectations. In times long past, we fought wars and gave folks like this a purpose. Colts like Nuke and Snails here would go off to war, and they'd do their duty and due diligence, and who knows? Maybe it would be Snails that would come back, injured but alive, and my boy Nuke would be rotting in a field somewhere far from hearth and home," Pa Knacker choked up a bit as he said this. It seemed the thought made him emotional. "But we live in an era of peace. Even Yakyakistan is friends with Equestria for a Thousand Moons! Oh there's still monsters and menaces out in the wilds, Mama Knacker found that out the hard way, but this entire generation is remarkably sheltered. Ya got nothin' to die for, and nothin' to live for, so you just waste your time. No, worse, you waste society's time and resources just by existin'. As if just being alive is enough to justify yer existence. As if the world somehow owes you, and not the other way around!" The conveyor belt jerked back into motion. Snails struggled feebly, but it seemed like he had difficulty moving. "Why doesn't he just use his magic to free himself!?" Zephyr Breeze howled, struggling in Bubba and Nuke's grip. "Why doesn't he just teleport away!?" There was a cruel laugh from Pa Knacker as he turned and glared at Zephyr with one eye, glowing with a fiendish scarlet light. "Are you thick boy, or have you just not been payin' attention!? If Snails here had been born in Prance, maybe he could've had a life as a Snail farmer or somethin', but he would've never been the brightest bulb on the Hearths Warming tree! Oh no, not this one! The boy don't know any of that fancy magic, and even if he did, well..." The Knackerman laughed again, his children joining him with fiendish glee. "Lets just say he might find it hard to think straight at the moment..." "You drugged him," Zephyr said, as the penny dropped. "You drugged him and now you're going to murder him." "We done no such thing!" screamed Nuke. The stallion grabbed one of Zephyr's wings and twisted it viciously. Zephyr didn't hear the snap, so much as he felt it as the delicate bones shattered. Zephyr howled in agony as Nuke bellowed again, "No such thing!" "No such thing! No such thing!" chanted Candy along with her big brother, Bubba grunting excitedly in the closest approximation of speech he was capable of. "Easy there Nuke, don't go gettin' ahead of yerself. He still don't understand. If he passes out now, he won't learn nothin' and then this will all have been a huge waste of time," crooned Pa calmly. Nuke let go of the Zephyr's wing, and the ruined appendage dangled by its tendons from Zephyr's back. The pain had gone from blinding to merely agonizing, yet the pegasus was in no mood to be grateful to his captors. He glared sullenly at the head of the Knacker clan. "Nuke's right though. We didn't drug the poor boy and we ain't about ta kill him. We're Knackermen, not murderers. Heck, that's what the machines are for! Besides, the boy was dead before he ever came into our care. No hope, no prospects for his future. All that's left for him is one last service, one last repayment for the debt he owes society by bein' born." Pa flipped a few more switches, and the first set of articulated mechanical arms dropped down from the ceiling and into place in front of Snails. Despite the drugs coursing through his system, the colt struggled as the conveyor belt brought him closer. It was the arm that swung in at the last moment next to his head that actually killed him. A high pressure bolt shot out of a hydraulic armature, smashing through the side of Snail's skull and ejected a spray of grey matter onto the observation glass. "No!" screamed Zephyr as pieces of Snails brain slid slowly down the glass. "It's important that they don't see it coming," said Pa conversationally, "Otherwise it would be cruel. Ya see Zephyr we're a great many things, but we try not to be cruel. We don't want to actually hurt ponies, or take advantage of them. We always aim to treat folks fairly, even when they've been unfair to others. And if you're worried about that unicorn through the glass there, he ain't quite dead. At least not yet. It's important to keep everything fresh for as long as possible, so we leave the parts of the brain that do the living intact. We just blew out the bits responsible for the thinking and the feeling. We wouldn't want him feeling what comes next." The conveyor belt moved on, and the yoke that held Snails lifted him up so that his hooves dangled loosely. Four arms reached out and clamped over each hoof. The familiar sound of whirring and grinding blades came to Zephyr's ears as the machinery chipped away at the colt's hooves, breaking them into small chunks that fell into a gap in the conveyor belt, just over the vats in the glue room. A fifth arm dropped down at head height and covered Snails' horn, and began to grind that up as well. Dust from the grinding machinery engulfed Snails in an orange cloud. The unicorn didn't react at first, but he screamed instinctively as the machinery began to eat into the delicate nerve endings sheathed beneath the hooves and horn. It was a wretched, animal scream, high and keening. Even if Snails couldn't really 'feel' what was happening anymore, his body could. The armatures retracted, the yoke opened freeing Snails, and the unicorn fell into a bloody crumpled heap on the conveyor belt. The ends of his legs looked like they had been gnawed off, while his horn was completely gone save for a bloody bony nub on his forehead. Snails looked around blankly as his legs twitched, tears streaming from his eyes and snot from his nose as he whimpered pathetically. "Next up, we get to the gory part," said Pa, Candy immediately lighting up as he said this. "Make sure he keeps his eyes open kids, even if ya have to pry them open." Bubba raised Zephyr's head, and Candy peeled back his eyelids with her tiny hooves. The articulated arms that dangled over Snails prostrate form each had long, thin blades or hooks on the end of them. They moved in a blur as they did their swift work, slicing and tugging skin away from flesh. There was surprisingly very little blood as the machine peeled back snails hide, taking most of it in one piece. Zephyr felt his meager breakfast rise into his throat as first one leg, and then another was degloved. The skin tubes that were peeled from the unicorn's legs flopped against the conveyor belt with a wet, dull slap that was audible even in the observation room. Snails screamed rythmically, quietly as the knives peeled the skin from his back. The last of his flesh for the machine to remove was on his face, and Bubba jumped up and down gleefully as the hooks and knives did their work. The machinery sliced through cheek and gum, sliced up around the eye sockets and the ragged wound where the unicorn's horn used to be. The flesh tore away somewhat messily, but it seemed Bubba had the makings of a new mask for his collection. The colt's muscles and sinew lay exposed now, and his bloody teeth clenched in pain. If Zephyr thought Mama Knacker had looked nude, it was nothing compared to poor Snails. He curled into a fetal position, tucking his ruined forelimbs up against his chest. He looked as if he was shivering the sudden cold of having his skin taken away, but it was more likely he had gone into shock. "You're monsters!" Zephyr cried. "You're all monsters!" "Easy does it there son, we're almost done here," said Pa with something approaching genuine tenderness. The machines secreted the scraps of pony hide away for later processing in the tannery. Snails continued his doomed journey down the disassembly line, and all Pa Knacker did was kick up his hooves on the console as he flipped the last of the switches to send Snails on his way. The arms that moved into position now had much larger, serrated blades. Some were merely cleavers, but others were thin boning knives, and still others were circular saws designed for but a single purpose; To slice through meat as quickly and cleanly as possible. Thankfully the process started at snails head, severing his spine before cracking open his skull and scooping out what grey matter remained. The blades then moved over the rest of the carcass, popping bone from flesh, splitting open the ribs, and spilling the colt's steaming innards onto the conveyor belt quickly and relatively cleanly. The slimy, slithering intestines were minced and diced along with the muscle and fat, until all was an indistinguishable crimson and pink jumble. The spray of crimson juices that washed over the conveyor belt from this process drained into waiting receptacles that had been set up for just that purpose. After all, the Knacker clan motto was 'Waste Not, Want Not' and they likely had a use for even this run off from their grizzly work. Maybe they sold it by the barrel to the local hospital for transfusions? Or perhaps it was just boiled down into the gravy for the 'fancy tinned feasts' that Opalescence so enjoyed? Maybe the demented clan of butchers drank the steaming gore themselves? Who knew? Zephyr stared blank eyed as the chunks of what had once been Snails sluiced through the grate at the end of the conveyor belt, destined for the long process of being turned into pet food. He imagined his big sister feeding that goofy bear Harry a tin of Snails. For some reason, then and there, he found the idea comical. He started to laugh. It was quiet at first, but it rose quickly. Zephyr laughed and laughed, and the Knacker clan joined in! The family of killers weren't wearing their masks anymore. In fact, Zephyr realized, what he had taken to be masks were actually their true faces. As they ripped their faces off, there wasn't anything underneath at all! Just bloody holes where faces should be, laughing and gurgling, and spraying blood everywhere. The entire room began to stretch and peel away, revealing the wet meat of the Knackeryard that bled and pulsed beneath. No wonder the building hadn't fallen down! It was a living thing, hunched over on itself but hungry for pony flesh. And Zephyr had walked into its hungry maw willingly! It was all just too funny! "Oh sure, now the tea kicks in." grumbled Pa Knacker. "Ah told that mare that it worked better if you put it in coffee, but no, she went and had to put it in tea cause this foal here was picky about where his coffee beans come from! What a shit show!" "It's okay Pa," said Nuke, trying to calm his father down. "It'll probably be better this way any how." "Oh shut up," roared the head of the Knacker clan, "It's you and your idiot brothers fault we're so far behind schedule anyways! I was supposed to be entering our latest batch of pet food into the County Fair tomorrow! Ten years running we've won the Blue Ribbon, and now that's all in jeopardy because you lard asses had to take an extra long break for arts and crafts! I swear if you foals keep this up, when I join yer Mama in the Sweet Here After, Ah'm gonna leave the Knackeryard to Candy!" Candy seemed to like this idea very much, as she hopped up and down excitedly on Zephyr's back. He didn't mind. His mind was too far gone to mind anything at the moment., even when her hoof stomped down on his broken wing. "Get that stinking homeless bum out of here before he starts drooling all over yer Mama's nice clean floor!" growled Pa, "And get him ready! We got one more show to put on tonight and Ah'll be damned if we're going to be late for that too!"
Zephyr Punches OutZephyr was alone when his senses started to return. He couldn't see anything. For a terrifying moment he thought that maybe it was because he was blind. The terrifying visions he'd had before, born of the horror that he had been forced to witness, had left him under the delusion that he had clawed out his own eyes. It hadn't helped then, as he could still see the ragged flesh and throbbing veins of the organic facility... Of the Knackeryard revealed for what it truly was beneath its facade of artificial decay. The steaming, gut grinding monstrosity that it truly was and always had been. In those visions the Knacker clan had just been it's blood spilling servants, twisted beasts of exposed meat and bone that worked tirelessly to keep the beast fed. But as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Zephyr could make out a sliver of light some distance in front of him. The light gave him a flicker of hope, that was immediately quashed as he tried to move towards it. He couldn't move. His hooves were shackled firmly in place, and a heavy yoke across his back held him in place so that he couldn't so much as bend down to inspect them. He tried flapping his wings, forgetting that one had been bent and broken by the thuggish Nuke. The pain lanced through his sore back and he stifled the urge to scream. Her didn't want anyone to know he was awake. He needed all the time he could get to try and figure out a way to escape. Sadly, from where he was standing, it didn't look like Zephyr was going anywhere. His mind raced. Should he try calling for help? Who could possibly hear him? Even if he did, wouldn't he just be more likely to attract the attention of the Knacker clan or the workers below? Chances are they'd just take measures to silence him then. It was likely that everypony that worked in the facility was in on the Knacker family's scam, murdering ponies and profiting off of their corpses right along side the masked maniacs that ran this place. It was a wonder that such horror existed in Equestria at all, but the more Zephyr thought about it, the more it made a sick kind of sense. He'd never seen a graveyard in Ponyville. They existed in the older cities like Manehatten and Canterlot, usually as catacombs or an undercroft in some forgotten part of the city. But though there were occasional funerals, it was rare to see an actual cemetery. What happened to all those dead bodies? Maybe it wasn't just the Knackers. Maybe old Pa Knacker was telling the truth and there was an entire system set up, not just to weed out ponies like Snails who were a drag on society, but that also took the bodies of the recently dead and... Reduced, Reused, and Recycled them. Suddenly the world seemed like a very thin, candy colored coating over a deep, dark pit filled with the dead. Was all of Equestrian society built on the bones of the deceased? Were they, literally, the glue that held society together? He wouldn't have believed it if you had told him about all of this, even a few hours ago... But seeing the cold precision of it, the casual indifference to life and death that the Knackers seemed to have... It gave Zephyr pause. He'd never imagined that there was anything more important in the world than himself. Oh sure there were Princesses and the magic of friendship, and titanic struggles between the forces of good and evil, but none of that mattered on a day to day basis. Largely, such matters seemed to resolve themselves, or happen to other ponies. What was important... What had been important to Zephyr were long naps, redecorating, and to always work smarter not harder... Which usually meant finding somepony else to do the work for him. Now though, now he felt like he had the chance to really do something. Despite what Pa Knacker had said there was no way that Fluttershy, or any pony else for that matter, could truly know what horrible things went on in this old ramshackle warehouse. Zephyr had to find a way to escape, if for no other reason to tell everypony, anypony who would listen about the horrible things that had happened here! There were bound to be ponies that would believe him and help him shut this place down. And if there were other places like it in Equestria, he'd find them and do the same. So what if it meant a world without glue, leather, and convenient pet food? He was sure there were other ways of obtaining such things, or products that were close enough to them as made no difference. Besides, what did that really matter when weighed against the life of even a single pony? A single colt like Snails. Or even a stallion like Zephyr. He knew he was delirious. He knew that Snails fate was likely soon to be his own. He'd seen too much. He didn't know why Pa Knacker had seen fit to show him his entire operation, but Zypher knew he had seen too much. But who cared about all of that? He couldn't move! He tried to raise his voice as the panic and hysteria overtook him, but all that came out was a harsh whisper. Whatever had been in those drugs that the Knacker's had slipped him, they hadn't just stolen away his consciousness but his voice as well. He hung his head low in the dark, awaiting the inevitable. He didn't have to wait long. The conveyor belt kicked into motion, and Zephyr was jerked forward against his will. The sliver of light ahead of him resolved into the gap between a set of black curtains. As Zephyr passed through it, he blinked, trying to see where he was despite the fact that the feeling of intense mortal dread in the pit of his stomach told him he was exactly where he had expected to be. The machinery of the killing stage, the disassembly line, gleamed brightly in the flood lights above. Zephyr could still see flecks of Snails blood still dripping from the mechanical armatures arrayed before him. Apparently he hadn't been out of it for long. "Hi Zephyr," came a familiar voice. Zephyr Breeze didn't want to believe it. He couldn't believe it. But as he turned his eyes towards the observation room he didn't see just the Knacker Clan standing there, but his sister as well. Fluttershy stood with his mother and father. All three looked uncomfortable, but none of them looked as if they had been harmed. "Are you feeling okay?" Zephyr realized his sister was speaking through a microphone that amplified her usually soft, demure voice. The whine and pop of the speakers just barely concealed the concern in her voice, "They haven't treated you too roughly I hope?" "Now Miss Fluttershy, ya know that the drugs ya gave him has him senseless. He can no more understand what yer sayin' than if ya was speakin' in tongues." said the voice of Pa Knacker, syrupy with friendliness and put on concern. Zephyr was confused for a moment, and then he realized that the Knackerman was lying! Zephyr had been out of it before, but he was in full possession of his senses now. The drugs had just stiffened his muscles, including his vocal cords. He tried desperately to cry out, to shake himself, to show any indication that he could hear his sisters voice, but his body held him trapped more firmly than even the manacles that bound him. "Anything you say now is for your benefit, not his. Say yer peace and then we'll have this sad business behind us." Fluttershy took a deep breath. "Zephyr, I'll always love you. And I'll always remember you as my baby brother. But this has gone on for far too long. Every time you start to move ahead on your own, you immediately fall back on Mom and Dad for support. Or if they've had enough of you, you try to live off of me or even Rainbow Dash instead! Mom and Dad aren't going to be around forever, and if i'm being honest, neither am I. The life of a protector of Harmony in Equestria is a dangerous one, and... Well, I just can't bear to think of how you would end up without us, without your family." Fluttershy paused, tears in her eyes. "Seeing you living out in the middle of nowhere, with no food, no shelter, and no friends; it was just far too cruel. In those conditions, I just know you'd end up starving to death, or dying of thirst, or getting eaten by some wild animal or monster. I couldn't bear to think of you meeting such a miserable and lonely end. And since that seems to be the life you're destined to lead, I thought it would be better if we just skipped all that and moved straight to the... to the inevitable." Fluttershy broke down, bawling. She buried her head into Nuke's huge chest and the massive stallion stroked her mane with one hoof to try and calm her down. Zephyr was dumbstruck by his sisters words. She really was the pony behind all of this? She'd planned to.. what? Have him put down like a dog!? Like some mangy animal? He knew that his sister had a somewhat low opinion of how he acted and how he chose to live, but he never thought that she would consider killing him over it! This had to be a mistake! The Knacker clan had to be tricking her! They had to be! "There, there darlin'," said Pa Knacker, his words still dripping with feigned concern. "This won't be the first time you've brought in someone for us to put down. Ah know it's different, bein' your brother and all, instead of one of her yer pets... But Ah'm sure he'll be in a much better place when it's all over. Ma, Pa, either of you care to say a few words?" Zephyr could barely hold his head up as he watched his father tentatively step up to the microphone. "I confess, I didn't know there was a facility like this outside of Cloudsdale," Mr. Shy began. "It's actually a lot more state of the art than the one we took your grandfather to when it was time for him to be... Put out to pasture. I want you to know son, that we've always loved you, despite what a huge disappointment you've been to your mother and I. We wouldn't have chosen this for you, but when your sister explained how you had wound up living in the forest like some kind of savage, well... We really hoped that your Mane Therapy degree would make it so we never had to worry about it coming to that again. When you couldn't find a job after graduation, we wanted to give you as much time as possible, to give you every opportunity to do something with yourself. But as time wore on, you slid back into your old habits. You stopped trying and started expecting everypony else to help you, to do your work, to take care of you," His fathers lower lip began to tremble. "We will miss our little colt, but the way things have been going lately, this may be for the best." He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Zephyr had never known that his father felt this way. His parents had been disappointed with him? They thought this would be better for him? None of that made any sense! His mother was the next to speak. He couldn't help but notice that, unlike his sister, his mothers eyes were perfectly dry behind her thick glasses. "Zephyr, honey, there's no point in lying to you now. I always expected you to end up in a position like this. I didn't know if it would be prison or some kind of wacky new age cult, but since you were little you were always willful. You never listened to me or your father. Maybe we were too lenient with you, and maybe we could have been firmer with you. But it didn't seem to matter what we did, you always did your own thing, and always seemed to think that you knew better than us. That you knew exactly how the world worked and the rest of us were just chumps for not seeing things the way you did!" Mrs. Shy paused, her voice thick with emotion. "I'm glad. I'm glad that you will finally make a real contribution to society. That your life will be worth something! That it will have meaning! I thought for so long now that I should have had that abortion and donated your body to science, but your father talked me out of it. He always wanted a son, even though we both regretted that decision from almost the moment you were born." Now, at the very end, his mother did shed a tear. "Goodbye Zephyr. That's all I wanted to say." It seemed like that was it for his eulogy. It had been much shorter, and far more dismal than Zephyr had expected. They'd barely mentioned his Mane Therapy degree at all. Zephyr hung his head as low as the yoke that held him would allow. He wasn't struggling anymore. Hearing his mother say how she wished he'd been aborted kind of took the fight out of him. The conveyor belt kicked back into motion, and he decided he'd just close his eyes and wait for it all to be over. In a few moments his brains would be sprayed across the room. That would be the closest he'd get to any kind of a rebuttal to his families words. But as the pneumatic hammer swung down on its armature, there was a thin hiss instead of the powerful expulsion of air he'd been expecting. Zephyr raised his head and looked around, confused. Apparently the microphone had been left on because he heard Pa Knacker swear, "Uh, ahem, sorry about that folks just some ah... technical difficulties." He heard Pa Knacker whispering furiously to Bubba, and he saw the big leather masked oaf hit himself repeatedly in the forehead before his Pa grabbed his hoof and made him stop. Something had gone wrong. The conveyor belt chugged on, and Zephyr realized that he was still conscious. Had Pa Knacker lied again, or had something really gone unexpectedly awry? Zephyr didn't have much time to contemplate this as he felt his hooves leave the conveyor belt. As he dangled from the yoke that held him, several metallic arms clamped onto his hooves, and the high pitched whine of the grinding mechanisms in each metal clamp whirred to life. He could feel the vibrations as they juddered up his legs, and smell the scent of his hooves being pulverized. At first it just felt like a deep hooficure, but as the metal ground his hooves down to nubs he could feel the blades biting into more and more sensitive tissue. He smelled the blood before he felt the pain, but he at last found his voice as he let out an ear piercing scream! The sharp metal teeth had shattered his hooves and were grinding the soft tissue and bone beneath the hard exterior. It felt like each of his limbs had been shoved into a blender, and somepony had hit 'frappe'. He screamed out, over and over again, jerking back and forth, desperately trying to pull the tattered remnants of his legs free. "I thought you said he wouldn't feel anything!?" screamed Fluttershy, accusingly. "I thought you said the process was painless!?" "Well, it would be, normally," Pa Knacker said with a nervous laugh. "Only my boy here forgot to change out the CO2 cartridge on the pneumatic hammer. Ah'm afraid even the drugs ya gave him can't keep him from feelin' what's happening to him now." "Well then stop it!" commanded Mr. Shy firmly. "Stop this whole thing right now! We should have never agreed to this, even if the bits would wipe out Zephyr's student loans!" "I would sir, honest I would, but the process is automated. Once it starts it would be cruel to stop it," Pa Knacker tapped on the glass. "Your boy isn't ever going to be able to walk again. Do you really want him to live like that, even for a few moments?" "We don't care about that right now!" cried Fluttershy. "Just stop the machines!" "Fine!" exploded the Knackerman with honest rage, before mollifying his tone. "Fine, Ah'll do what Ah can." Zephyr could barely hear any of this over the whirring machines and his own agonized screams. His pain brought the cries unbidden from his own throat, until at last the armatures retracted, and the yoke around his neck opened. He fell into a crumpled heap, much as Snails had done earlier. But it wasn't over for him. The conveyor belt continued to move him forward. He could see the sharp blades of the skinning armatures falling into place. He whimpered quietly, knowing that his brief reprieve would be very short lived. He closed his eyes tight, not wanting to see what was about to happen. But then a miracle occurred! The conveyor belt stopped! More than that, the entire facility seemed to lose power all at once. As the machines whined down, the killing floor was plunged into a lightless void. Zephyr tried feebly to move... To shift himself off of the belt. He tried to use his one good wing, but found that it was trapped beneath him while the wing that Nuke had injured earlier was only capable of a few painful, spasmodic flaps. He struggled even so, inching his way to the edge of the platform, doing his best to suppress his cries of pain as he tried vainly to push himself forward on the shattered remains of his hooves. To the pegasi's horror, the lights flickered back on. Pa Knacker loomed over him, his single red eye glowing brightly with malevolence. "We got good news and bad news boy. The bad news is I had to shut off the main power because mah boys screwed up. We'd have to reset the entire line, and that could take all night to sort out." He paused long enough to lean in, the next words a warm whisper in Zephyr's ear. "Now the good news. We ain't gonna bother with none of that! We're goin' to do things the traditional way, the old Knacker family way. Yes sir, you are in for a treat!" Before Zephyr could react, he felt the conveyor belt dip down. He looked up, and saw Candy posed like a dancer with a claw hammer clenched tight in her teeth. "Ah hope ya don't mind, but it's traditional to let the youngest have the first swing at knockin' ya out. Candy's a might small, so it might take her a few tries. Just be patient and it'll be 'POW!' lights out before you know it!" Candy skipped and pranced on her hoof tips, leaping back and forth on the conveyor belt. Her eyes never left Zephyr, and he found himself mesmerized by the gleaming metal of the claw hammer as Candy drew closer, dipping and twirling all the while. The manic grin that wrapped around the hammers wooden handle was so intense, he half thought she might bite right through it. There was no such luck as she drew closer. And closer. Until she crouched down low and jumped high into the air... And Pa Knacker smashed in the back of his head with one mighty swing of a sledge hammer from behind. As Zephyr lost consciousness again, he thought he heard the old Knackerman laugh in a jolly voice, "It's important that he don't see it coming! Otherwise it would be cruel!" Zephyr dreamed. He was a colt again. It was bitterly cold outside. The weather ponies had whipped up an awful blizzard for some reason. He could see fat snow flakes whirling by the window outside, an almost solid sheet of white as the wind howled. He was huddled beneath a blanket. For some reason, he knew that he couldn't get off of the couch he was on. If he set one hoof on the floor, he'd freeze in an instant, so he just huddled into a tight ball and hoped that his parents or big sister would be home soon to light a fire in the hearth and chase the chill out of the house. He hoped that would happen soon, because for some reason, his blanket was unraveling. He could feel the icy bite of the cold room sinking deep into his skin. The cold was so intense that the pain of it made him cry out. As Zephyr Breeze came back to his senses, it took a moment for the pegasus to realize what was really happening to him. The hulking pony known as Bubba was leaning over him. He was moving the pegasi's body back and forth. For all the larger stallions strength, he was surprisingly gentle with Zephyr. The injured pegasus felt like he was being rocked to sleep. It was only when the semi-conscious pony got a good look at the apparatus that was affixed to the end of Bubba's hoof that he realized what was really being done to him. The array of knives and hooks jutting from the glove must have been sharp indeed. They slid into Zephyr's skin delicately, and the rocking motion was to help guide the blades down the length of one of his legs with all the gentleness of a lovers caress. Bubba really was an artist, and he had an air of deep concentration as he worked on his latest canvas. Zephyr tried to struggle, tried to scream, but it was no use. His muscles were still stiff from whatever drugs his sister had slipped him, and even if that were not the case his limbs were too badly mutilated to be of much use. Besides, the deranged earth pony pinned him firmly down as his blades did their work. A hook slid under the skin just at the nape of Zephyr's neck, and slowly began to tear away the skin from his back. Bubba's blades danced back and forth, back and forth, separating the outer layer of flesh from the muscle beneath. It felt hot and cold at the same time, but the pain that lanced through Zephyr as his nerve endings were laid bare made his eyes roll into the back of his head. It was over more quickly than Zephyr had expected. Bubba must have been busy as he had lain unconscious, as his hide was ripped from him all in one bloody piece with an organic tearing sound and a wet slap as it was laid out on the conveyor belt. Except, that is, for the skin on his head. For the first time, he really felt the cold bite of the knife as it slipped in just beneath his left ear, tracing a circle before it slipped down and through the flesh of his cheek. He could feel the tip of the blade as it scraped across his teeth and down across the bone of his chin. Then Bubba started on the other ear, taking his time, doing his best to cut slowly and evenly. It was less the pain, as the knives were extremely sharp, and more the horror of what was happening to him that made Zephyr nearly pass out again. He could feel the hooks slip under his scalp, and the blades begin their long sawing motion as Bubba began to peel the flesh from his skull from the back to the front, like a cheap latex Nightmare night mask. Zephyr realized he wasn't just being skinned alive, but scalped as well. As his mane was lifted free from his head in a single piece of, Zephyr felt a terrible pang of sadness. He'd never need to worry about his own proper mane care ever again. There was a truly frightful moment as he felt the blades work down across his handsome brow, and cut deep beneath his eye lids. Zephyr thought for sure the sharp hooks or the busy knives would sink into his eyeballs, but Bubba was nothing if not a professional. With a kind of grunting laughter, the last shred of connective tissue was sliced away, and Zephyr's face was lifted free. Zephyr looked up at Bubba, holding his grizzly trophy aloft. It had been such a handsome face. Zephyr missed it already. Removing his bladed work glove, Bubba held the face outstretched against the overhead lights. Fresh blood still dripped from Zephyr's face, but the semi-translucent skin almost seemed to glow against the harsh glare from above. Bubba peeled his old mask off of his face. Zephyr had the briefest glimpse of the idiot smile and the deformed features beneath. It was like looking at the face of a foal that had somehow outgrown nearly every other pony the pegasus had ever met, but still maintained the simple mind that found wonder in everything it saw. As Bubba draped the bloody remains of Zephyr's face across his own bald head, pushing the bloody skin up around his own wide smile and beady eyes, the pegasus couldn't help but grudgingly acknowledge the improvement. As sick and terrifying as it was, Zephyr's face could even make a brute like Bubba look handsome. It was then that Zephyr realized, if he was having such absurd thoughts in the face of such grizzly horror, he must be dying from blood loss. Already the pain that had burned all over his body was fading into a warm numbness. He couldn't even feel the chill of the factory air anymore. He certainly didn't feel it when Nuke drug his body to the next station along the conveyor belt like he was a rag doll. Nuke was certainly not as gentle as his brother, as the large pony seemed to enjoy inflicting as much damage as possible. He set about ripping the bones out of Zephyr's legs with nothing but his bare hooves and a long boning knife. Zephyr could feel that at least, as the bones popped and cracked, slipping out of their warm sheath of muscle. It was such a bizarre feeling having his bones shucked from his limbs. They felt like wet, nerveless noodles, flailing about as Nuke did his gruesome work. After that was done, he wrenched off both of Zephyr's wings in a single motion, finishing the job he had started earlier. That would've made the pegasus howl if he still had the energy to do so. The only comfort Zephyr had was that, surely, it would all be over soon. No one could live through something like this for long. "Still with us boy?" came the unwelcome voice of Pa Knacker in the bloody stub of what used to be Zephyr's ear. "Ya shoulda said somethin'! Ah woulda' given ya another wack with the old sledge hammer, if I knew ya was awake for this. Well, since yer lucid, how bout it? Any last words?" "Sss...sister," Zephyr managed to hiss through his lipless teeth. "Fffatherrr...Mmotherrr..." he moaned. "Sorry son. Ah'm afraid yer family have themselves some mighty weak stomachs. Oh, they'd take the money for yer worthless carcass, but they wouldn't stick around to see how things would end. They high tailed it out of here some time ago. Ah reckon we'll be hearing some complaints from them in the fullness of time, but for right now it's just you and the lovin' embrace of the Knacker family," confided Pa tenderly. "So don't be afraid to say what ya really feel. There ain't no one here who's feelin's ya might hurt. Believe me we've heard it all, from the darkest curses to the sweetest pleas. Heck, if it's a good one, we even write it down! Got a whole book full of last wrods, so you just go ahead and let her rip!" "Ffffuck...yyou..." "Not exactly original there son, but Ah've heard worse last words. At least it's short and to the point. Says everythin' that really needs to be said in a situation like this. But now, Ah think, Ah got somethin' Ah want to say to you..." Pa Knacker did something next that Zephyr didn't expect. He reached behind his head, and unbuckled his mask. As he pulled it away, Zephyr would have cringed backwards if he could. What leered down at him was a skull as skinless as his own must be. The raw red muscle was a mass of puffy scars and ragged flesh. One eye socket was hollow, as he had suspected, but the other held a miserable blood shot excuse for an eye that glared down lidlessly. Teeth that had been filed down to sharp points lined a permanent grin that dripped from blood from cracked lips. A long prehensile tongue snaked slowly out, lapping up the crimson flow and wetting the dried out muscle tissue. "That's right boy," the Knackerman hissed. "You take a good long look. Ah ain't never done anything to another pony that Ah ain't been willin' to do ta mahself. All that pain, all that sufferin' yer feelin'? That's fleetin' boy. That don't matter none. It's all in yer mind." Zephyr wanted to argue, but the light was fading from his eyes. He could barely hear Pa Knacker's voice as a thin hiss as he droned on. "A hard days work for a fair days wage. That was all you had to do. Even then, if ya failed, so what? At least ya would have tried. At least ya wouldn't have been a disappointment to yer family. At least you could have had somethin' you could point to ta back up all that false bravado and sense of entitlement! But ya couldn't even do that! Pay attention boy, we ain't through yet!" Zephyr barely felt the shock of Pa Knacker's hoof as it bounced off of his exposed teeth, but it was enough to bring him back from the edge of death. "Ah want ya ta know, before we grind yer worthless carcass into dog food, that there was never any malfunction. Those drugs we gave yer sister to slip you? They were never meant to take your senses away. And that pneumatic hammer was never gonna give ya the quick and easy way out we give to most every pony else! No boy, when we heard the grief you was putting one of our best customers through... Not just her, but her Ma and Pa? Well, my kids and Ah, we just couldn't wait to get our hooves on you! We wanted you to be conscious for every minute of it. That's why yer sorry tail woke up after I beaned ya with mah hammer. If Ah wanted ya snuffed out like a light, ya would be. But that ain't what we want, right kids?" "No Pa," Bubba, Nuke, and Candy chorused dutifully. Zephyr realized that they were all gathered around his splayed form now. Bubba had put his work gloves back on, only this time the knives were far longer, serrated, and clearly designed for chopping and boning rather than slicing. Nuke, for his part, wasn't taking any half measures and was supporting a chainsaw on the end of one beefy hoof. Even Candy held a massive cleaver, almost as big as herself, clenched tight in her sharp little teeth. Pa Knacker shouldered his sledge hammer across his broad back, and Zephyr noticed that one side had been filed down into the sharp wedge of a cruel ax. "No boy, we want you to experience everything we have to offer from beginning to end. That's why we gave our 'guest' the grand tour of the Knackeryard. That's why we showed you what would happen to ya after yer dead and gone. It wouldn't have meant anything to ya if we just wheeled you into a dark room and blew yer brains out in one go. Oh no son, you see," and here Pa Knacker grinned truly diabolically. "Sometimes ya gotta be cruel, to be kind. To see real justice done in this world. So, with that said... we finally come to the end. Time to punch out boys! Lets finish up." Pa Knacker dropped his mask back into place over his hideous visage, and then he and his children closed in on Zephyr from all sides. The pegasus didn't even care anymore. He didn't know exactly when, but he had resigned himself to death. As the roar of the chainsaw and the chop of the blades sliced into him, the pain didn't even matter anymore. Pa Knacker was right... It was fleeting. It was all in his head. No one wanted him or needed him. No one relied on him. He'd made sure of that by how he had lived. But he had finally gotten what he wanted. Someone else was doing all the work for him. Someone else was making the decision he hadn't had the guts to make for himself. Life was hard. That was the one thing that Zephyr Breeze new with an unshakable certainty. Life was hard. And then you died.
Epilogue"Hey Fluttershy! Why the long face?" asked Rainbow Dash as she hovered a few inches over her friend. Tank, Dash's pet tortoise, hovered a few inches away as well, a magic powered whirly-gig device allowing him to keep up with his master. It was their weekly get together with all of the girls and their pets in the park. Applejack was playing fetch with Winona, while Rarity was busy brushing Opalescence's long fur. Pinkie Pie was teaching Gummy a new dance, though it was hard to tell whether her endeavor was meeting with any success. Whether he copied her moves or not, the pink party pony would glue a gold star on some part of the baby alligator's scaly body as a reward. Twilight Sparkle was actually taking a break with Owlowiscious perched on her back as she flipped through the pages of huge leather bound book. Fluttershy didn't know how to answer Rainbow Dash. She'd been depressed for weeks. That wasn't unusual for her, necessarily, but this time at least she had a fairly good idea of why. The problem was, she couldn't tell anypony, not even her best friend. "It's... nothing," Fluttershy said, turning away from her friend and towards Angel Bunny who was glaring at her from not far away. The tiny rabbit was thumping his foot, a classic sign of his impatience. Fluttershy had almost forgot. It was feeding time. As she set out six bowls, she retrieved a bag of 'Knacker Brand High Quality Pet Food' - 'Now With Added Flavor'. She looked at the adorable face of a smiling puppy on the side of the bag. As she started to pour the bite sized pieces of kibble, Fluttershy started to cry. All her friends gathered around, concerned for her, trying to ask what was wrong. But she just kept pouring out the pet food, overfilling each of the bowls, and emptying the bag on the ground. She stood there, crying, empty bag clenched tight in her teeth. But she could never say what was wrong. All she could do was watch her friends pets happily eating as she wept.
