Chapter 5: Here Comes the Pain

I awoke to the sound of cheers and celebration in the Sweetsprings Saloon. I looked around and saw that there were a few of the townsponies resting in cots like mine, bandaged, but looking happy. Further on in the room, I noticed that some of the resting ponies had been hoofcuffed to their cots. I tried to sit up and get a better look, but felt the gentle hoof of Dr. Greensleeves on my chest, nudging me back down. “Whoah there,” he said, “Just take it easy now. You’ve got some internal injuries I’m not quite done treating. I was hoping you’d be out a little longer.”

I saw the familiar blue-green glow of his magic at my side, and felt poking and nudging in places I really had never felt before, inside, and decided I really didn’t need to know more than that. I could only wonder why it didn’t hurt. I shrugged, laid back again and waited for him to finish like a good little patient.

It wasn’t long before he patted my side and I had a look and saw the stitched area scabbing over and turning into a thin scar. “All done,” the doc said. “Don’t go getting yourself slammed around by any more overpowered unicorns and you should be fine.”

I smirked. “I’ll see what I can do about that, Doc. No promises.”

Dr. Greensleeves looked as though he wanted to say something more serious, but he was interrupted by Apple Blossom calling out as she saw me sitting up. “Our General awakens!” This brought about another round of hoofstomping and cheers of “General Six!” I grumbled, even though I felt like I was being ungrateful for their adulation. I hadn’t even really done anything in the battle except get my flank handed to me by some magical monstrosity. Frostwraith. Some disturbed part of me was thinking about those words. He said he’d be back. How? There was nothing left of him now… generally ponies don’t recover from being dusted by magical beam weapons.

Blossom danced through the crowd toward me with a large frothy mug of apple cider that she thrust into my hooves. I took a sip, and smiled as the taste, astringent from the alcohol but still sweet and deliciously appley, tickled my tongue.

I got to my hooves, feeling the incision the Doc had made in my side stitching itself back together under the influence of the last healing shot he’s given me, leaving nothing behind, no evidence that any trauma had happened except the memory. Wondering where Sapphire had gotten off to, I started to look around, past the revelers, most of whom had joined in a sing-along of “Keep A’ Knockin’ (But You Can’t Come In)” that I couldn’t help but giggle at. Beyond them, though, I noticed a few bandaged ponies who’d been hoofcuffed and bound to their cots. “What’s their deal?” I asked, nodding toward them.

“P.O.W.s, basically,” Blossom replied. Greensleeves nodded along. “Survivors who surrendered to us. We’ve treated their wounds, but we aren’t really sure what to do with them.”

Apple Blossom chimed in again, “I say we give them a few days’ worth of food and water and send them on their way. But some of these folk believe that if we do that, they’ll just turn around and attack us again. Or go join up with their gang and bring another war party this way.”

The doctor nodded. “But, if we just kill them, I expect that’d just make us murderers too. I mean, killing a pony in a fight where he’s threatening your life is one thing, but to just kill them now when they’re down and defenseless… Just don’t seem right.”

I nodded a little, and then Blossom chimed in, “That’s why we want you to cast the deciding vote. I mean, being war prisoners, what’s done with them is your call anyway, right, General?”

I hadn’t liked being called Six, but having this title of General put on my head, even jokingly, really wasn’t sitting right. I balked. “You can’t be serious. Me? I don’t even live here…”

Apple Blossom grinned even wider. “About that,” she said, hoofing me a parchment scroll, as well as a small purse that my Pip-Buck registered as containing 200 caps. “Technically, ya do.” I unrolled it, temporarily ignoring the set of keys that slid from it and onto the floor with a quiet jingle, and read in a low voice, “Title deed and property…what?!”

The bar matron and mayor (part-time) of Sweetsprings patted my shoulder. “We don’t have enough in the treasury to pay you anything near what I’d call making this worth your time, so I was hoping you’d accept this instead. It’s a nice old house on the hill below the gas station, there’s a beautiful view of the town from there, sits on a good half-acre of land with a nice big garden area, most of the fundamental repairs have already been done but you’ll probably want to redecorate.”

Flabbergasted, I fumbled for words. “Ah… you’re… what? You’re… giving me a house?”

Apple Blossom continued with a nod. “Now I know you’ll be out of town for a while, what with your business in New Pegas and all, so I’ve arranged for somepony to clean and take care of the grounds for you, no cost to you of course. But I want you to know that whatever else may happen to you down the road, you’ll always have a home here in Sweetsprings.”

Home. There was that word again. One of those words that immediately stung deep in my chest and made the tears well in my eyes. I wanted to go home. I wanted it so much it hurt, even though I didn’t know where it was. My real home, with my parents and my family and my fillyhood friends. I wanted my mother to hug me and hold me and tell me everything would be okay. Had I even had such ponies in my life? I must have, everypony did… But I couldn’t remember any of them. I tried to remember, tried with all my might just to recall one single face.

But there was nothing.

Emptiness.

Loneliness.

In the midst of this celebration, I felt more alone than I ever had in the entire week of my new life.

The feeling of Apple Blossom’s forelegs around me drew me back toward reality. Doctor Greensleeves had moved in closer too, and I saw the concerned looks on their faces. I hadn’t even realized I’d been crying, but now I felt the wetness on my cheeks and the stuffiness in my nose.

“Are you okay, sugarcube?” Blossom gently asked.

“Y-yeah, sure,” I lied. I wasn’t okay. If okay was a spot on a map somewhere I was at the point it was furthest from. “I just… need some air,” I added, and Apple Blossom backed off a little, glancing toward the doctor. For his part, Greensleeves was just watching me. I knew that for as much as he cared, and as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t understand. Nopony could. I paused to pick up the scroll and keys and put them in my bag. “Thanks for this,” I said, “And… my vote’s with Apple Blossom.” I then trotted out the door, quickly closing it behind me.

I sat on the porch and just sighed. Next to me was Old Withers’ rocking chair, now looking so forlorn without him in it. Left alone with my thoughts, I reflected on those stats I saw in my Pip-Buck. I was lucky, I’d realized. These ponies had healed me, helped me, accepted me, and now they were treating me like one of their own, even though we’d met only half a week before. So why did the thought of it make me feel so miserably lonely?

In the middle of the sandy dirt road, some ponies had built a large bonfire, and its flames were now roaring and licking up to the sky. It added a touch of light and warmth to the cool moonless night. I would have even called it festive, if not for the bucks standing around it. They were watching the fire, tending it, and then every so often, they’d heft the corpse of one of the War Bucks between two of them, and heave it into the flames which crackled as the fire hungrily consumed it. The breeze was blowing most of the smoke away, but still the heavy scents of burning hair and roasting meat clung to the air, making me slightly nauseous.

Among the ponies working, I spotted both Little Maverick and Sapphire Sparkle, as between the pair of them they tossed another body from the pile onto the fire. Sapphire had stuck Ghost and Specter to his flanks with packing tape in lieu of holsters, and I winced a little, imagining how much it was going to hurt to take them off later. But I realized I needed this distraction. So, ignoring the scent, I made my way over to them.

“Hey, Midnight,” Sapphire said as he saw me approach, which drew a confused look from the green pegasus.

“Hey,” I said gently, my voice still a bit shaky. “How come y’all aren’t, y’know… partyin’? I mean, this victory’s as much yours as it is mine.”

Sapphire wrinkled his little nose, which seemed so adorable. “Eh, it smells like a hospital in there.” That reasoning seemed just a little odd given what I would assess as a much worse smell out here. “Also, I never was much of a drinker,” he added.

Maverick nodded, chiming in, “Myself neither. And… well, somepony’s gotta clean this up.”

I nodded, then looked to the little blue unicorn, waiting for him and Maverick to finish tossing another bundle on the fire. I tipped my head, curious, “So, any thoughts on where you’ll be headed now that this business is all settled?”

He gave a little shake of his head and sighed. “I spent too much time in that garage being too scared to know what to do. Now… now I feel like I can breathe enough to think about that. But I need some time… and I can’t exactly go back to living in Apple Blossom’s storage closet now.”

I couldn’t help but smile, having just been handed the perfect solution. “Well, it just so happens that yours truly is now the proud owner of a home right here in Sweetsprings,” I said, tapping a hoof to my chest, “and might be generous enough to lend some living space to a new friend.”

Sapphire Sparkle’s jaw hung open for a moment. I couldn’t tell which part he was more surprised by. Finally, he asked, “You… you sure? I mean we just met this morning. And, you know, I am still a jailbird.”

“Eh,” I shrugged flippantly. “If the Marshals come by, just tell them you’re not home.” I was grinning now, enjoying the shocked look on Sapphire’s face. Maverick, too, was looking at me like I was crazy. I tossed a key to the little blue unicorn and turned, still looking at him over my shoulder. “You should grab yourself something more nutritious to eat from the garage too. And I think there’s some proper holsters for those in that case we left there. In fact, grab the case for me too, would ya?”

Talking to Sapphire had been a great boost for my mood. Walking back to the Saloon, I realized just how well things had gone today. I’d found a couple of great weapons, made some new friends, become a local hero, and found myself a home. It wasn’t the home I’d wanted; not the one I was looking for, but it was a home. A place to belong. A place to keep my stuff. And maybe even a friend or two. That was a pretty good start, I reckoned.

The only thing I hadn’t managed to accomplish today was making it back to the caravan before sundown. But there was nothing I could do about that now. Being a new moon night it was too dark to fly safely, and even if I could I’d never find the hidden caravan by starlight alone. And walking would take far longer than it’d be worth. Cherry Bomb would understand, I was sure, if I kept her waiting just a little longer. In the interest of safety, of course. It certainly had nothing at all to do with the half a mug of cider I had left waiting for me in the Saloon, with the promise of more to come. I walked into the Saloon again to the sound of more cheers and let myself be fully swept up in the revelry.

Morning came all too quickly with the uncomfortable feeling of sunlight streaming into my eyes. I shielded them with a hoof as I opened them and blinked. My mouth was dry, my body stiff and sore as I slowly rose from where I’d been sleeping and took a look at the surroundings. It seemed that I, as many of the partygoers from last night, had been allowed to pass out on the floor of the saloon. Or, in my case, half on the floor, and half on the cot I’d been treated on the previous evening.

Apple Blossom trotted over to me to help me up, and then hoofed me a glass full of something that looked just awful and smelled even worse. It was goopy and mostly grey but also had bits of things of all kinds of colors swirled into it. A raw egg floated on top as the frosting on this cupcake of antideliciousness.

“Ugh, what the hell is this? I asked, feeling the non-contents of my empty stomach threatening to come up anyway just from looking at this.

“Granny Gala’s World Famous Patented Hangover Cure!” Apple Blossom announced in a voice whose tone and timbre made my head throb. And she was smiling the most punchable smile I’d ever seen on a pony. Clearly she was enjoying tormenting me here. And how had she escaped this, anyway? I knew she’d had as much or more to drink as the rest of us! I winced, and then made the mistake of looking at the sludge in my glass again. I tasted bile as my stomach tried to preemptively reject the drink. Blossom looked at me pointedly. “Now I don’t wanna hear no fussin’. Don’t ask what’s in it, just slug it on back.” She grinned a touch, adding, “It’s better if you just swallow it all in one gulp, but if you’re looking for an experience you’ll never forget, try chewing it.” She winked and trotted off, leaving me alone with my punishment. I was certain that’s what it was. In my drunkenness I had clearly said or done something that offended her greatly and this was her method of exacting her vengeance. Well, no sense delaying it any longer. Bottoms up!

Oh, dear Luna. I now know the pain of your thousand-year exile, having experienced it all in a single drink. Despite my best efforts I could not avoid tasting it. And the taste was infinitely worse than the look and smell combined. It was like drinking a paste of ground glass, chili powder, battery acid and soap, with lighter fluid as a binder. And just so one didn’t forget this was a wasteland drink, it included the distinctly foul rancid orange taste of Rad-Away as well. The egg was just there to serve as a lubricant, I was sure. But even after I was done swallowing it didn’t go away, leaving me with its lingering aftertaste of bubblegum, bacon and camphor oil, with just a classy hint of lemon zest.

My body was absolutely certain that the idiot piloting it had just tried to poison herself, and reacted accordingly. Yet no matter how violently my esophagus tried to eject the offending material, it just sank right down into my stomach and sat there, leaving me feeling as though I’d just swallowed a brick. I sat there for a long moment just trying to lick what I could swear were grains of sand out from between my teeth, and then noticed Apple Blossom was going around to everyone and feeding them the same thing. And getting about the same reaction I’d had to it, which just made her grin even more and bounce along on her hooves. I just had to smile as well. It was pretty funny when it was happening to somepony else.

After ten minutes or so, once my stomach stopped trying to expel the nastiness I’d swallowed and just accepted its fate, I had to admit that I was feeling pretty good. Still, I vastly preferred Cherry Bomb’s much simpler formula. Slightly minty coffee was so much better than… whatever the hell that was. And I still felt like it’d be a long time before I could eat or drink anything.

Seeing no point in delaying any longer, I said my goodbyes to my new friends and neighbors, trading hugs with a few and hoofbumping others before I grabbed my bags, slung Phantasm over my shoulder, and headed out the door of the Saloon. Taking a deep breath of the still somewhat cool morning air, I spread my wings and took flight, following the path of the northern highway.

Something wasn’t feeling right, though. I felt heavy, like I was dragging something. I shifted and wiggled, trying to identify the source of the disturbance, and finally looked underneath myself to find a terrified cobalt blue form clinging desperately to my tail.

I landed gently on the pavement and turned, nosing at my little passenger. Sapphire Sparkle immediately jumped to his hooves, quickly smoothed his mane and took a deep breath, then cleared his throat as he looked to me, trying to pretend that that hadn’t just happened.

“What are you doing,” I asked, amused and just a touch puzzled by his actions.

“Coming with you,” he replied as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. I suppose that in a sense, it was. Sapphire then looked up at me with an admonishing frown “But I have to ask, were you really about to leave without saying goodbye? Talk about rude!”

I sheepishly rubbed the back of my head with a hoof, giving an uncomfortable smile. He had a point there. Lamely, I fumbled for some excuse. “I uh… figured I’d be back before you had a chance to miss me?”

Sapphire wasn’t buying it. He sat on his haunches and crossed his forelegs over his chest, pointedly looking away from me. “Well, if this is the kind of friend you are, maybe I shouldn’t come with you.”

Ugh. He was right, yes, but he was also laying on the guilt trip a little thick. But in my present state, I couldn’t fight it. I sank to the ground with a regretful moan, covering my face with my hooves. “I’m sorry, Sapphire, really.”

He strutted around me, his nose still in the air, and then suddenly I felt him hop onto my back. With his hooves snugged around my body, the little unicorn leaned forward, and touched my cheek with a little kiss that made me blush good and hot. “Apology accepted,” he said in a sweet little murr. “Now let’s go.”

Small and light as he was, I found I could carry Sapphire without much difficulty once he was properly positioned. We were in the air and and well underway again before I even realized how cleverly he’d dodged the question of whether I’d let him accompany me. Whether I’d even wanted him to. Pretty slick, I had to admit. But in truth, I was happy he’d wanted to come. Of all the things I presently was lacking in my life, a friend was the thing I’d needed most.

As the road wheeled way underneath us, I turned my head back and saw him there, all smiles as he surveyed the landscape from a perspective that was entirely new to him, even though I felt the nervous shivers in his legs as he clung tightly to me.

“So, just out of curiosity, what made you decide to come with me, anyway?” I asked, having to raise my voice a bit to be heard over the rushing wind. “I mean, you don’t even know where we’re headed, right?”

He replied with a casual little shrug, or as much of one as he could make in that position. “Dunno, honestly,” he replied. “Just... felt something. Something inside me that said, “Follow that pony. She needs you.” Can’t say that’s ever happened before, being needed.” He gave a chuckle, but I felt the sadness behind it as he added, “Usually ponies either just want a fuck or want me to fuck off.”

His pain stung me as though it were my own. I wanted to hug him just then, but I couldn’t. I sighed, and settled for words, speaking as gently as I could in the wind. “Well, I’m glad you’re here.”

Sapphire grinned slightly in response. “Me too,” he said with a touch of mischief. “This is the only way to travel.” Raising himself up just a little on my back, I saw him point a hoof out toward the horizon, attempting a heroic pose. “Now onward, my epic mount!”

I snorted. “I’ll show you an epic mount!!” I said in a mirthful tone, and then pushed my wings hard, giving us an extra burst of speed that made the little unicorn yelp and cling tight against my back once more.

Our laughter died quickly as we came close enough to see the grouping of rocks where I’d left the caravan. Black smoke was rising from the center of that grouping, more than any campfire should make. My eyes widened as I recognized the smell of burned flesh that came with the smoke. It was the same smell as last night, with the pyre. We circled over the camp once, Sapphire was silent and still as I whispered under my breath. “No… No, no, no…”

We landed in the center of a blasted landscape, the rocky sand stained black with soot. Everything had been torn apart, the entire campsite laid waste. The wagon had been overturned, its contents spilled randomly across the landscape, its pack brahmin messily slaughtered. Sapphire Sparkle leapt from my back as I began to desperately search the ruin of the camp for any sign of life. But it was all around me. The burned and skeletal remains of ponies. Of one with a tiny set of bones nestled to its belly. I looked away immediately but the image was already there, burned into my mind, indelible and unavoidable.

The cobalt blue unicorn stood there in the center of it all, silent and solemn, his face a tight mask of grief as he tried not to break down like I was beginning to. “I’ve seen this before,” he murmured. I looked at him questioningly, my eyes full of tears and stinging smoke. “This is Wraith’s work. Just like in the prison.” He shook his head sadly. “Just like then. Midnight, I’m so sorry.”

“How?!” I asked incredulously, desperately. “He’s dead! I saw him die!”

Sapphire just gave me the saddest look. “This is why those who follow him call him The Immortal.” He shook his head again. “You can’t kill him. And believe me lots have tried. I’ve seen ‘em try. The moment you think he’s gone; the moment you think you’re safe - there he is again, with a knife in your belly or his magic around your throat.”

I stumbled back in blind horror, and tripped over a mangled mound of flesh that had once been a pony named Cherry Bomb, now recognizable only by the tatters of a leather jacket and a pair of exploding cherries on her flank. A pony whom I’d thought of as a friend. The first one I’d had in this new life. And now she was gone. The realization of it weighed on me, pushing me to my knees, grinding me into the blackened dirt.

“I did this,” I whimpered, dazed, collapsing under the weight of my guilt. “I should have been here… I was supposed to protect them!” It was true. I had been hired as a caravan guard. Guard the caravan. That was my one job. And I’d abandoned it to go play hero in Sweetsprings. Left these ponies to die while I drank and sang stupid songs after the battle there.

Sapphire’s hooves were on my shoulders, his eyes trying to catch mine even as I shied away from his gaze. “No, no, no,” he admonished. “Do not go down this road, Midnight.” He pushed his nose right up to mine so that I couldn’t avoid those steel grey eyes of his. “This was Frostwraith. Him alone. Not you, not me, not anypony else.”

I protested weakly but he shook his head. “You know what he did to you during the battle in Sweetsprings. If you’d been here when he showed up, you’dve just been killed right along with them. Instead you were there where you were needed more. There’s a whole town full of ponies who still have their homes and their families and their lives because of you. So do not go drowning yourself in guilt over this. I won’t let you.”

I whimpered, too full of grief and pain to argue at this point. In my head, I knew he was right. I’d had no reason to think the War Bucks even knew about the caravan, or that Cherry couldn’t handle anything that happened while I was gone. But in my heart, what he said was just worthless platitudes intended to make me feel better. And I didn’t deserve to feel better. I’d had my victory, and Cherry and the trader couple and their unborn foal had borne the cost. They’d been right about me after all. I’d doomed them just as surely as they knew I would.

I wanted to fly just then. Leave Sapphire there, tell him he would be safer getting as far away from me as he could. But I couldn’t. Selfish as it might have been, the pain of being alone outweighed my fear for the little unicorn’s safety and well-being.

Sapphire nudged me again, seeing that my mind was starting to wander toward that dark place again. “You know why he did this, don’t you?” the unicorn asked, one of his hooves stroking my cheek. I shook my head. “To hurt you,” he explained. “Because he knows that you’re exactly the type to blame yourself, and beat yourself up over this until the cows come home. Because he knows you care. Because you’re a good pony.” He shook me gently as he said in a firmer tone, “Don’t. Let. Him. Win.”

The little unicorn hugged me then, and quietly slid up onto my back once more. “We should go,” he said. “It’ll be dark soon. We need to find a place to rest.” Looking around at the destruction, he added, “Away from here. This… isn’t good for either of us.”

That woke me up a bit. As concerned as I had been with the blood of these travelers staining my own hooves, I hadn’t even stopped to think how my friend must have been feeling. He had mentioned seeing this kind of thing before. I imagined probably quite a bit, likely up close and as it happened, given Frostwraith’s nature. In all likelihood, he’d been threatened with it himself on numerous occasions. I remembered a recurring line from the tales of my personal heroine. “It’s not always about you, Blackjack.”

With the sun already starting to sink past the horizon, I took to the air and flew in a randomly-chosen direction. One was as good as any just now. We flew in silence for a time, not paying attention to what was below us. In the air, everything below felt so small and insignificant. Sapphire was resting his head against the back of my neck, and I felt him shaking, twitching against me. Perhaps weeping in my place because I could not. Perhaps taking the moment to let down his brave facade when he thought I couldn’t see. Letting himself be the scared, meek pony I’d met in that gas station garage.

I had shed no tears for my friend, poor Cherry Bomb. I’d known her all of two days, but we’d spent nearly half my life together. The part of life I could remember, at least. Amnesia puts strange perspectives on things like time and relationships. But scene of the camp’s ruin had been more than my heart could bear. The pain, sadness, guilt and shame had piled up on me at once, overwhelming my ability to feel and leaving me in empty numbness. All I could feel now was the miserable ache in my body starting to grow. The shakiness in my limbs. The burning in my wing, and the white-hot lance through my head.

I needed a shot of Med-X, perhaps more than I was willing to admit. But I couldn’t let my friend see me. Surely he’d suspect I was addicted too, just as Cherry had, and I was already too emotionally exhausted to go through trying to explain that I wasn’t. I just needed it sometimes, why couldn’t ponies understand?

I landed us on a flat, circular clearing that lay on top of a mesa, overlooking what looked like a few rows of tract houses, likely decayed and damaged to the point of being uninhabitable. I nudged Sapphire off my back and he stood there, looking around. There was nothing much to see atop the plateau we stood on, just a few boulders and some scrub brush growing in the sand.

“Huh? Why’re we stopping here?” the cobalt blue pony asked, while rubbing at his eye with a foreleg.

“Pee break,” I answered simply, and trotted off behind a grouping of rocks.

Once I was out of sight and taking care of the official business, I dug one of my trembling hooves into my bag for one of the precious injectors I’d managed to nab from the collection of things taken from the War Bucks’ bodies after the battle, opened the cover, and jabbed its needle tip into my flank.

I tensed a moment from the sting, and then breathed a long, relieved sigh as the chem did its work. The pain in my body was gone, and the heaviness had been lifted from my heart along with it, leaving only sweet pleasure in its place. Suddenly the world was bright and beautiful, and so was I. Nothing could hurt me while my chemical lover held me safe in his embrace.

I took a deep breath, and trotted out from behind my rock, to be joined by Sapphire Sparkle a moment later. I nudged him and asked, “Everything come out all right?” He groaned, obviously not in the mood for jokes.

Just then, I heard a chime sound from my Pip-Buck, a tone I hadn’t heard it make before. I lifted my foreleg to look at it and saw that the usual status display on the screen had changed to a simple, flashing message on a blank background: “ACCESS GRANTED”. I scrunched my face in confusion. “Access to what?” I muttered, and then watched as yellow safety railings started to pop up in a circle all around us. A klaxon started to sound, and the rumble and whirr of heavy machinery shook the ground beneath us.

Sapphire backed himself into my side, pressing close as he nervously glanced around. “Midnight? What’s going on? What did you do?”

I shrugged lightly, my little grin never fading. “I didn’t touch nuthin’.”

More machinery clicked into place, and our flooring started to lower itself into the ground, bit by bit. Metal walls started to rise higher and higher around us; within seconds they were too high to jump or climb and kept growing higher as the plate beneath us continued to descend, deeper and deeper into the earth.

Sapphire whimpered in fear, once again becoming the timid little pony he’d been when I first met him. I furled a protective wing around him, and that seemed to calm him, if only a little. “I don’t like this,” he said in a low, trembling voice. “We should go.”

“It’s only an elevator,” I chuckled, my excitement creeping into my voice. “I want to see where this goes.” An idea came to me then, a kind of compromise. “Look, how about you get up on my back again and I’ll carry you, so at the first sign of trouble I can zap us outta here quicker’n a jackrabbit on Dash.”

He looked up at me strangely before climbing up. “Are you okay, Midnight?” he asked in concern. “You seem… different.”

There was a flash of panic there for a moment. He’d caught me. He knew something was up. But I played it off with a soft nod. “Yeah, I’m fine.” I lied. I was better than fine. I was feeling fucking phenomenal just now, and there was about nothing was going to change that.

“Little sleepy,” I added, “I just needed to process some things, ‘m good now.” But that was the biggest lie of all. There was no processing going on. The chem had simply taken all the hurt and sadness and any other negative thing I was feeling, and stuffed them all into a little closet where I didn’t have to look at them. And just then, I was fine with that. My past was gone. The future was an unknown that might not even exist for me. All there was was the present. And in the present, I was doing great. Sapphire still seemed dubious but he said nothing more.

The elevator finally reached its destination, descending into a platform blocked by safety grating. I looked up a moment, and saw only darkness apart from a small circle of sky that was rapidly darkening and filling with stars. The cyan-painted safety grating opened, and what we saw was a simple underground chamber lit by hanging fluorescent lights. The platform was metal grating with cyan edges and yellow safety rails all around. There was a simple console here for summoning the elevator, and a bridge that crossed over the sandy floor of the cavern, a bit unnecessarily in my opinion. One or two electrical cables had been left dangling from the ceiling, out of reach from the bridge.

The bridge led to a sight that made us both gasp in unison. A huge, heavy steel door in the shape of a giant cogwheel was set into the far wall. In its center a number had been carved, and filled in with primary yellow paint: 113.

I approached in awe. I’d never seen the inside of a Stable before, at least for all I knew, and this promised to be an exciting, interesting experience. From my reading I knew that Stables were sometimes treasure troves of old tech, and occasionally oases where ponies tried to keep Equestria of the past alive. Most often, though, Stables were deathtraps where sick social experiments had been carried out upon the residents who by this time had either fled or perished, leaving the empty fortresses to be used as nests for raiders or worse things.

Sapphire seemed to know this too, as he fidgeted nervously on my back. Still entranced by the possibilities, curiosity pushed me forward. I reached out and touched my hoof to that giant door. Once again the klaxons sounded, accompanied by yellow warning lights that began to rotate at the four corners of the plate into which the door had been set. Heavy machinery came to life with whirrs and clanks, and a hiss of pressurized air being released as the door pulled itself back from my hoof. It slid back nearly half the length of a pony’s body, then was rolled off to the left side, leaving the cogwheel shaped entryway open.

My friend tried to pull me back with his hooves. “Whoah, whoah, whoah, that’s a Stable. Do you know what’s in there?”

I held out my wings, drawing the shape of a rainbow in the air before me with their tips. “Riches beyond the dreams of avarice,” I said in a tone full of promise and hope. “Lost technologies that can be used to better the lives of not just ourselves but all of ponykind. Or a little pocket of pony civilization that’s lived out of contact with the outside world for nearly 250 years!”

Sapphire’s response was short and skeptical. “Um, ok. Number 1: No. Number 2: The Steel Rangers already picked most of the Stables clean a long time ago. And 3: If that’s the case then they certainly won’t want us here, bringing in our filthy outsider influences. It’s far more likely that we’re going to find something nasty in there that wants to kill us. Or keep us alive and lay its eggs in our stomachs so that its larvae can feed on our still writhing bodies…”

I cringed and shuddered, feeling my skin crawling for a moment. Okay, body horror, not cool when I’m high. “Ugh, where do you come up with that stuff,” I asked, trotting more cautiously into the reception chamber. Inside, the grating was replaced with rubber mats that squished comfortably underhoof delineating a path that went along the blue tiled floor past some crates and into a hallway to one side with what looked like decontamination equipment. Left of that hallway, however was a door. I drew a little closer, and just as I was about to touch the button to its side, the door slid on its own.

The door rose quickly with its hydraulic hiss, and suddenly I was looking into a pair of mismatched eyes that held such fury as would cow Frostwraith himself. I really needed to start paying more attention to EFS. Sapphire and I gasped in surprise. The owner of those eyes did not. Instead, they reacted instantly, taking advantage of my bewildered moment to whirl around in a lilac-colored blur and buck me into next week with a pair of metal hooves. Wait… metal?

Author's Note

Some of this I feel is some of my best writing. Also my most emotional - Midnight's longing for home had me in tears as I wrote it.

I'm really not satisfied with this end for Cherry Bomb, I will likely end up redoing that part entirely... This seemed like the most natural progression but I'm trying to think of a better way that might give her room to survive and become part of the main cast.