Metro: Canterlot Line

As he stepped out of his home stations barricaded doors he received no tearful farewell from anypony, no parting gifts or wishes of a safe journey. He was instead left with the creaking of the creaking gates as they closed behind him, he still had no light and was forced to follow the dimly lit pathway that led to the Canterlot High Estate station where all of the ‘rich ponies’ lived, of course nopony was actually rich in the metro. Mainly because of the fact bits had been forged almost perfectly to the point where anyponies so called fortune could consist of forged bits, of course the sudden burst of bits into the economy caused prices to skyrocket. Small time stalls and family businesses were either shut down or bought out because of bigger, more well known businesses wanting to expand their influence.

The tunnel ahead seemed fairly quiet and Sprocket could hear his own steps over the sound of everything else. As the sound echoed off of the empty walls the time passed slower than ever, with no music or nopony in a caravan to chat to or sing along with travelling the metro became a morale hurting event for anypony that attempted it, and Sprocket wasn’t an exception. Sprocket wasn’t very sociable because of his home station, nopony stayed for more than five minutes unless they were guards – in which case they would keep entirely to themselves until their shifts ended and they returned home – or farmers (who also kept to themselves). Life on the bordering stations were always boring, but living their gives you a view on what life is like in other far away stations. Refugees had flooded through Sprocket’s home station a few weeks back, a flood at the Manehatten Central station caused thousands of residents to either drown or flee their homes. It was heart breaking to see them walk through the stations, sometimes with families and children and other times just children, trying to grow up fast due to the loss of parents or family. One had really gotten to sprocket, a young filly who he only had a small conversation with

“ My parents died during the floods” the filly had explained “My uncle lives in Canterlot Market so I have to move there so I can live with somepony” the filly wore no expression when explaining his parents deaths but Sprocket could tell that on the inside he was completely devastated.

The dim lightning down the tunnel began to stop as Sprocket reached the half way point between his home station and Canterlot High Estate, he would know when Canterlot High Estate was before him because he would be blinded by the spotlights mounted upon the barricades used to keep the horrors of the dark away. Staying alert as possible as Sprocket wandered into the darkness he became paranoid of every little noise, wind through the tunnels was known to cause mysterious sounds and others had claimed to have seen the ghosts of deceased citizens wandering the tunnels. He began to slow down because there had been rumours of thieves hiding in the darkness waiting for single ponies to wander through the tunnel, although he felt he had an advantage with no light but the fact he still produced noise was enough to give away his position to even the most incompetent of thieves and bandits. The sudden sound of a cart making its way down the track shocked Sprocket into hiding behind what seemed to be a chunk of rubble from the roof of the tunnel, and surely enough the tunnel was full of light as a cart inched its way along the tracks. Inside the cart were 4 bandits with flashlights and rifles at the ready, pulling his rifle from the strap on his rucksack Sprocket took aim at the spotlight attached to the front of the cart ready to run as soon as he did so. He fired the shot and the tunnel was plunged into darkness, Sprocket hopped over the rubble and into a maintenance room near the cart closing the door as the flashlights turned on.

The bandits began to yell to one another as they searched the metro tunnel, pushing the door of the maintenance room open enough to put the barrel of the rifle through Sprocket took aim at one of the bandits, taking a moment to look out for any other bandits he fired sending the bandit to the floor and smashing his torch. The other bandits quickly spotted the rifle pointing from the door

“Over there!” Exclaimed the pony who seemed to be the leader, a few shots being fired as he yelled this, Sprocket was lucky enough to have side stepped to a wall for cover as the shots had been fired. Remaining pressed against the wall in darkness he pointed his gun in the direction of the door waiting for the first to walk through so he could shoot and kill quickly. The door slowly opened and light flooded into the room as a pony walked in and immediately Sprocket fired sending the bandit to the ground.  He crawled to the doorway and spotted the leader still in the cart, probably preparing to escape and survive another day at the expense of his men. Aiming directly at his head Sprocket fired and he dropped onto the cold steel floor of the cart. There was no sign of the 4th pony and the tunnel was dark so Sprocket assumed that the last bandit had fled. This was ideal for him, the cart was still useable and there was now an open source of ammunition and filters which would last Sprocket at least 2 stations worth of travel.

Taking the bullets and filters off of the corpses he stepped onto the cart and began to manually operate it, sending him down the track at a satisfying speed.

Sprocket had provided enough power to be able to sit down in the dark on his cart to reload his weapon and allow himself a moment of peace as the warm, irradiated tunnel air blew through his mane. The sound of the tracks underneath the cart was sort of relaxing as well the only downside being that he was in the dark, but at least now he had filters.

Filters, he just remembered to check the filter timing on his watch. 5 minutes, at this speed he would reach the Canterlot High Estate in at least 3 minutes and decided to wait until the timer had only one minute remaining to replace his filter which would be more than enough time to do so.

He faintly recalled packing a lighter as well, which could well be a reliable source of light in the tunnel so reaching into his rucksack he pulled out the small, rusted lighter and lit it. Looking around the cart he found a simple lamp with a candle still in a useable state.

“Brilliant...” Muttered Sprocket, opening the lamp and lighting the candle, everything was a little bit brighter now and he could at least see his hoof in front of his face. Taking a moment to double check the timer he resumed manually operating the cart when he began to hear strange noises from the tunnel. At first he passed them off as just the wind but then he realised that it couldn’t be because it sounded like the heavy breathing of a wary pony. Looking over the edges of the cart he didn’t see anything that could possibly be producing such a noise, could he be hearing things? After all that was a long term effect of living in the metro, paranoia and usually many suffered from a lack of sunlight however the sun was emulated using the high powered metro lights powered by the hard working unicorns of Canterlot Power Station.

So finally Sprocket decided to pass the noises off as nothing more than his mane rubbing against the side of his gas mask, taking a seat back to where he was he pulled his rifle closer to him still suspiciously surveying the scene as noises continued to get louder. Suddenly something dripped onto Sprocket’s head, he sighed and prayed to Celestia it wasn’t what he thought it was.

Hesitantly and slowly looking up hoping it wasn’t what he thought it was Sprocket’s fears became true.

On the roof, following above the cart was a mutant. An utterly disgusting looking creature, a pony which had been completely mutated to the point where they were just simply referred to as ‘Mutant’ and this one looked extremely hungry. Of course the complete mutation had caused them to change their eating habits to that of the flesh of other ponies, calmly reaching for his rifle Sprocket stared the beast in its eyes.

Much to his dismay Sprocket’s rifle was not where he left it, and to be honest with himself he was entirely expecting it considering that mutants never travelled alone. So it looked like he’d have to fight the mutants with his bare hooves, this wasn’t going to end well.

Landing a hit on the mutant after many failed swings Sprocket allowed half a second to realise that this trivial fight would probably be the death of him. The first mutant had gone down easily, but the second seemed to be impossible to lay a hoof on and annoyingly enough this one had his rifle and he prayed to Celestia that there wasn’t a third.

The mutant stumbled into the lantern sending it falling to the rail below and smashing it instantly, now he was in complete darkness. Desperately searching the floor for anything flammable he could use as a torch to fend off the mutant he found what felt to be a flare, picking it up and frantically searching his backpack for the lighter he managed to light the ‘flare’ after what seemed to be an eternity.

But of course with Sprocket’s luck it was a stick of dynamite, with a long fuse though. So it wasn’t entirely bad, giving a deep sigh he turned to the mutant who was just about to land an almost fatal blow on Sprocket he managed grab the bolt action rifle from the mutants hoof. Falling to the floor as this happened the mutant turned and looked at the light source, unknowing that it was a stick of dynamite, within an instant Sprocket had a surge of adrenaline run through him.  Smashing the stock of the bolt action rifle into the mutants face he punched the mutant off the back of the cart using the stick of dynamite sending him flying into the tracks below as the fuse began to run out. Cocking his bolt action rifle and taking aim Sprocket decided to use the only one liner he had been taught

“See you in Tartarus” he uttered, pulling the trigger and shooting the dynamite. The tunnel behind him became engulfed in flame as the roof and walls collapsed in onto the mutant. And within that brief moment the entire tunnel lit up and Sprocket spotted a small, almost entirely used up, candle on the front of the cart. So quickly memorising it’s position and walking up with the lighter Sprocket was able to successfully light the small candle and sit back again with his rifle. Which now was in desperate need in some kind of repair, the stock had been dented and the barrel had been partially damaged where the mutant had held it. Besides that though, there was nothing wrong with it and it was in a usable state for now but Sprocket doubted he would be able to get through the entire metro with a weapon such as a broken bolt action. In the distance he saw the lights of the Canterlot High Estate and the polished and decorated barricade doors. Which came as quite the surprise to Sprocket according to the books he had read and what he had learnt the station barricades were usually never decorated to give an intimidation factor to the mutants and any rogue ponies wanting to steal from or kill innocent civilians, as the door approached Sprockets cart came to a forced stop and he stepped out of it.

The guards approached him

“Halt! What does a bandit want with this town?” Demanded the guard

“Bandit? Oh, you must be getting that assumption from the cart I arrived in” Replied Sprocket “I happened to have killed the bandit squad that was in control of that particular cart and decided to commandeer it to arrive here faster”

“How can I believe such a story? I need evidence” Sternly stated the guard, gesturing to the body of the bandit in the cart the guard was taken back

“If that isn’t evidence I don’t know what is” Continued Sprocket “Now may I enter? I only need to pass through, I’m on my way to Canterlot Gardens by request of the princess” that was always a way to get around, flaunting a royal invitation was pretty much immunity to any type of crime or ban in the entire metro. Despite lives being changed, everypony wanted to meet royalty or get word to royalty of their existence and that was why royal invitations and royalty were immunity to such heinous acts.

“Y-you may enter” stuttered the guard, shocked by the dead body and stunned by the royal invitation.

And the station door creaked open and the high powered station lights flooded into the dark and lifeless tunnel which had now been blocked because of Sprockets actions. Thinking back, it probably wasn’t his best idea.