Aftersound

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Written by: Oneimare & Geka

Preread and edited by: Jay Tarrant, IAmApe

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Where it all began

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After half an hour Trixie produced that disgusting leather-bound book from under her cloak and opened it to reveal a ‘map’—a scribble sprawling across two yellowed pages and made by a foal with their hind hoof.

She had trouble using it herself, as she often stopped, consulted the incomprehensible drawing and we would backtrack; me giving her a hard look, her smiling sheepishly.

The dull normalcy of the ‘regular’ Tunnels and the sheer boredom of passing over the same place a few times just because somepony hadn’t bothered to work on their calligraphy in five hundred years roused my curiosity from slumber.

“What about your friend? Are you going to ignore Fotia Koraki?”

Perhaps, I’d even accompany her—as a chance to postpone ‘meeting’ with whatever Luna had become and also to acquaint myself with another Former One.

“Eh.” Trixie grimaced. “Fotia and I are more colleagues than friends, and she’s old again, so it may all be her imagination.”

“Again?”

“She’s a half-pony, half-phoenix.” My eyes went moon-sized. “Don’t ask, I have no idea and she has never told me. Anyway, Fotia grows old and then bursts into flames becoming a filly. But before it finally happens, she gives everypony an aneurysm for about a decade. It could be an urgent tea party for all I know.”

Despite Trixie’s troubles navigating the Tunnels, we did make some progress.

Our surroundings changed from the dirty maintenance passageways turned sordid dwellings into simply long-abandoned corridors. We ceased stumbling into other travellers, and the amount of litter dropped to nothing, abdicating the throne of an eyesore to abundant rust and dust.

The familiar structure of narrow ducts gave way to tall and wide passages, meant for heavy machinery and train carts—assumptions made upon witnessing the remnants of rails. Though, nothing of value remained—only forgotten corroded tools or a few loose wires hanging from the walls and ceiling.

Eventually, we came to a large and thick, slightly ajar sealing door.

Once again I watched Trixie refuse to use magic, pressing her shoulder to push against the unrelenting metal. As I joined her, the door groaned on ancient hinges and gave up a gap wide enough for us to squeeze through into a deep ravine.

The gash of rock high above us barely let the light of grey sky filter through, trickling down the steep stone, once precisely cut, now crumbling and mossbegrown. The cold winds forlornly howled, carrying the scent of damp stone—moisture glistened on every surface.

The gorge led us into the base of an enormous quarry.

Despite the obscured Sun, the sloped slant-carved wall still shone like bleached bone, thanks to the weak drizzle. The water gathered into countless tiny streams murmuring until they converged at the bottom of the open pit. Above the still and unnaturally dark water, a cloud of dense ominous fog roiled, misty tendrils poking out and retracting.

Potholes and clefts of the horizontal ramparts threatened to catch my hooves every single step, slowing down the already excruciatingly slow ascent. The deteriorated stone still bore the grooves meant for rails and in some places they still lingered—twisted and bent, nothing but corrosion through and through.

The deformed carcasses of heavy machinery bled into the moor below, painting the walls with long streaks of rust. They shared the reason for abandonment by being warped and mutilated beyond salvage, partially entombed under the fallen rocks.

The quarry walls suffered not only from erosion, but bore marks of more powerful destruction—chunks torn out, leaving deep scars on the cliffs.

“What happened to this place?”

Trixie took her time to answer, regarding the ravaged mine with a thoughtful gaze.

“The TCE established a mining operation here at the same time the Pink Butterflies changed their methods.”

“They are the rebels who fight the Crown, aren’t they?” My mind made a few connections. “Fluttershy was the one who got exiled.”

She scowled. “It started as a peaceful protest, but by the end of her life the gryphon exiles joined the cause and things took a nasty turn.”

“Exiles? I’m not sure I follow.” My muzzle scrunched. “Did they revolt, too?”

Giving me a wary glance, she spoke, “Rarity decreed a huge sale of tech to Griffonstone. Half of the Empire immediately used those weapons to wage a war with the dragons; the rest, the older gryphons, saw it as ‘dishonourable’ and started a civil war—which they lost. The survivors joined Fluttershy’s pro-ecological movement and then took control of it.”

Fighting back the desire to curse Rarity and her genius decisions, I instead went for a more troubling question, “And they’re still let to terrorise the city because..?”

“The Pink Butterflies claimed the Castle of the Royal Sisters and you know better than me that it’s a nigh-invincible fortress,” Trixie grumbled with another grimace. “And before anypony knew, they’d amassed enough power to make any victory against them pyrrhic.”

After what felt like hours, we climbed over the crumbling rim of the massive pit, coming to an old road overgrown with scarce shrubbery and winding betwixt two tall barren hills covered in gravel and yellowish-brown dust.

The ulcerated landscape of the abandoned mines unrolled before my eyes. Quarries, quarries, quarries—the greed had not spared a single patch of the granitic ground. Dumps of rock refuse stood sentinel over the wounds in the soil.

The pockmarked plateau rose into the Rambling Rock Ridge itself—relatively low peaks not far to my right. And ponydom’s hunger for ore hadn’t absolved them either—black and empty maws of mine entrances dehisced, demanding to feed them workforce and machinery.

To the east, the mangled scenery ended with the silver stripe of a small river and the weak green of fields, where the stone gave way to the pastoral landscapes of Equestria. Though, it didn’t look the same—discoloured and withering.

Behind me, a patchy grey wall loomed over the ravaged terrain and beyond it sprawled Canterlot in all its hideous glory.

Gangrenous rusted suburbs decayed in the cold glow of neon indifferent to the atrocities happening under the circuits of countless artificial suns. Pitch-black clouds spasmodically hugged the gleaming pegasus’ devices, bleeding electric life into the streets with ceaseless discharges of lightning in their bosoms. The city blocks, sombre and decrepit, bristled with dully glistening towers trying to match the brilliant skyscrapers of the Inner City.

The bright shine of Canterlot’s rotten heart jeered at the miserable life of the rest, the Sky Palace, the tallest and proudest standing above it all. So perfect, so clean—a true city of the future, yet a testament of corruption, not of progress.

“How could we have fallen so low?”

The question left my lips by itself and, though I expected no answer to it, Trixie shifted uneasily by my side.

“I was there when the Great War ended,” she quietly uttered, staring at the horizon. “I watched with my very eyes how Shining Armor severed King Sombra’s head with his sword.” She paused to glance at me. “Valour, wasn’t it?”

“The sword Princess Celestia gifted him when he became the captain of the Royal Guard. But what does that have to do with this?”

Trixie fell silent for a few long minutes until she whispered:

“Because I think King Sombra won in the end.”

I regarded her with a disgusted look before hissing, “A bold thing to say, considering what it cost. Have you no shame in spitting on the graves of those who paid that price?”

Yet she met my accusation calmly, though without any defiance.

“The only weapon King Sombra ever used was fear and when the soldiers left the bloodied battlefields, they carried it home in their hearts. He has taught Equestria to truly fear, to dread tomorrow; and that terror has been passed over generations and still permeates their breaths, every last one.”

Like dried rivulets, old and neglected roads converged into one single river flowing through a pass cut through the jagged peaks of the Rambling Rock Ridge.

Grit murmured soundly under our hooves as we moved rapidly and purposely—the Sun neared the end of its journey across the sky and navigating either cliffs or the Junkyard’s maze would offer an unproductive at best, if not outright risky, endeavour.

The hours passed and the crags ceded to the already darkening clouds looming sullenly over the red sea of metal. The drizzling rain couldn’t decide if it wanted to be mist or to dew the twisted remains.

When we entered the forest of continuously bleeding bones, Trixie abruptly stopped and gave me an intent look.

She was waiting for me to guide her to Tin Flower.

I deliberately avoided looking at her—the moment our eyes met she would know. Unfortunately, she didn’t even need that to guess.

“Twilight,” she said, my name followed by a deep sigh, “please, tell me you know where to look for this filly.”

I slowly turned to Trixie and bashfully smiled.

She groaned and tugged with her hoof at her mask-face. It followed the limb like rubber, revealing the wire net beneath. She released the metal and it splashed back at her skull, sending droplets in every direction—they fell back to the wobbling surface midflight.

The best I could do was to narrow the search area to about a quarter of the sector, but considering how seamlessly Flower’s dwelling blended into the corroded landscape, it was an exercise in futility nevertheless.

A sudden idea visited my mind. “We can try to find Scuff Gear.”

Trixie lit up like a Hearth’s Warming tree.

“Scuffy! I thought he hadn’t survived that fight…” She trailed off with a goofy grin, then gathered herself. “Where can we find him? I still owe him for the last job.”

“He’s… not far from the smelter..?” I mumbled, wrecking my mind.

All the excitement drained from Trixie’s face as her hoof pointed across the Junkyard at the half a dozen plumes of smoke rising from distant faint spots of glow.

I gave up with a groan. “What do you suggest then?”

“We still have a couple of hours, so we can try to look for your friend by ourselves. If we don’t find her, we’ll wait out the night and go by each smelter the next day.”

I circled yet another pile of discarded metal plates, girders and pipes, so ancient they grew into each other, trying to find out if I had led us to a dead-end or if we could proceed further with our wandering. Turning back, I found myself muzzle to muzzle with Trixie who sadly shook her head upon my questioning look, then pointed up.

We had run out of daylight.

“Where are we—”

A roar silenced my question as not high above us ominous silhouettes rocketed tearing the air with powerful turbines; smaller pieces of scrap rattled in their thunderous wake.

I didn’t need to ask who it was and where the Royal Guard could possibly be heading.

Coincidence is a lazy word for lazy ponies.

Trixie met my eyes, mirroring my concerned expression and gave me a shallow nod before darting off; wasting not a moment I leapt after her.

The endless obstacles posed by the Junkyard impeded our gallop, even as Trixie’s bursts of inky magic cut the rusted scrap and my body ploughed through the fragile rot.

Yet, we didn’t need to keep at it for long—once again the Royal Guard announced its presence by sound—hoarse commanding bellows answered by shrill yelps belonging to Flower and Delight.

Trixie tore into a clearing and I barely managed to avoid crashing into her as she suddenly froze to the spot.

A dozen helmets of painfully familiar armours glared at us with dark visors—all but one. That guard wore a somewhat different, more lithe suit with two large cannons mounted on their shoulders.

Their barrels pointed straight at Tin Flower, who stood defiantly before the towering figure, ears pressed back. Delight cowered beside her, shivering Wire hid under her dirty wing.

“WHERE IS THAT EQUINOID?!” roared the Royal Guard, taking a step forward, guns pressing into the filly.

It wasn’t the sight of impending disaster that made my eyes wide—I recognised the voice that was supposed to be silenced forever.

The guard sharply turned their head and our eyes met.

The glowing neon purple of a machine and the brilliant dark rose of a pony.

“T-t-twilight?” Rainbow Dash rasped.

Enchanted, she staggered towards me, Flower and her entourage instantly forgotten.

I stared at her, as young as I remembered—not even a single wrinkle.

The other guards, just as uncertainly, closed on Trixie and me, swivelling their conical helmets at their commander in apparent confusion.

With a resounding twang of assaulted metal and a quiet pop, one of the armour-clad figures slumped to the ground in a heap of lifeless limbs.

It took me a mere heartbeat to realise what—whose—weapon had enough power to do such an impossible deed silently. The exact moment I came to that horrible conclusion, the world exploded.

Gunshots pealed, accompanied by the blinding flashes of fire, lighting up the furious muzzles of ponies who otherwise would have been unseen amongst the scrap. Upon a mound of garbage a pegasus stood, wind tearing at her hood as she grinned maniacally, barking the order to kill the Crown’s dogs, over and over, each time choosing different, but still murderous words.

However, only Pepper’s gun had enough power to penetrate the fabled armours.

The Royal Guard didn’t even flinch—they had been already moving even before their comrade hit the ground. Dash gave me a last inscrutable glance and metal plates slid over her visor. The guns on her shoulder came to life with an eerie glow as she dove into the fray.

I still stood dumbstruck, but it lasted only a few seconds—a stray, or maybe not, shot impacted with my shoulder, sending me stumbling.

My frantic gaze searched not for cover, but those who couldn’t afford to take a bullet.

Flower, Wire and Delight crouched behind the overturned rusty plate.

Almost tripping over my hooves, I madly dashed to them, catching a few more shots on the way.

“Are you alright!?” I exclaimed as soon as I all but fell on them.

Whilst the pale fillies seemed to bear no injuries, Delight nursed her wing, wincing and grimacing. Yet she pushed me away as I tried to take a closer look.

“I’ll be fine—it’s nothing,” she muttered over the din of gunfire pelting the plate covering us. “I was just grazed by a stray bullet.”

I gave her a long hard stare which she endured unwaveringly, but there was nothing else I could do until the shooting stopped.

Ducked, we listened to it, the clamour growing louder as a whine of overheating crystal joined the battle, light flashing colourfully from beyond the cover.

Wire was the first to break the strained ‘silence’.

“Twilight,” she began in her trademark grouchy tone, “when did you become friends with the Royal Guard?”

“Their commander is Rainbow Dash—somepony Twilight… I know.”

“Isn’t she supposed to be dead?” Flower incredulously commented as she clung to my side.

Wire continued to demand answers from me. “And that equinoid who came with you?”

“Trixie Lulamoon, a Former One—the Magician.”

As if on cue, the magic tapestry around us spasmed.

A sound, like a sheet of fabric being slowly torn, filled the air and blood-curdling screams followed it. The girls whipped their heads at the battlefield, peeking from the sides of our cover; Wire rubbed her horn, wincing.

An obsidian tendril of thick boiling vapour lashed at the metal scrap and ponies. Any flesh it touched rapidly withered, leaving desiccated husks to fall apart into ashen flakes, carried away by the wailing gusts of unnatural wind.

Flower climbed on my back to get a better view. Fur and cloth brushed against my front hooves—Wire’s slightly mismatched eyes met my curious gaze.

“Don’t you have any normal friends?” she grumbled; yet her face shone with pure fascination.

Trixie’s spell effectively ended the skirmish—its survivors fled; strangely the Guards joined them. Standing by her fallen soldier, Rainbow bellowed vile obscenities at her retreating subordinates, promising in explicit detail the amount of punishment they were about to receive for the disobedience and desertion.

The whip-like cloud of inky roiling mist circled the entire clearing and returned into the completely still form of Trixie’s body. She loudly gasped for air and came to life.

Frowning, I watched as she walked in a peculiar mechanical manner towards Rainbow, ignoring her rage, and joined the vigil, staring at the unmoving armour with a shell-shocked expression.

The girls looked at me worryingly—it clearly wasn’t over.

I passed the massacre on my way to Trixie and Rainbow and couldn’t help but feel grim satisfaction upon witnessing Pepper Mercury’s corpse.

Her wings, once gleaming and majestic, now stuck out to the sky, outstretched and perforated by powerful blasts. The hoof-sized holes in the prosthetics dripped molten steel and glowed with a dull orange—small solar eclipses against the dusk.

When I came closer to the centre of the clearing, my eyes fell on the armour of the dead Royal Guard.

The design had undergone a few minor changes, becoming less bulky—as Rainbow had wanted. I still recognised more than half of the runes on the black arcanium plates.

The bullet seemed to have gone straight through the chest leaving a ragged hole on the exit which now gaped towards the mournful, rapidly darkening sky.

I halted in my tracks.

The trickle of life from the mortal wound had almost stopped. It dripped from the angled plate and gathered onto the ground.

Into a puddle of yellowish-green ichor.

Of course.

Of course.

I whipped my head to Rainbow and my horn ignited—my magic wouldn’t leave a dent on that armour, I had personally made sure of that many years ago. Yet I refused to go down without a fight—not this time; at least I’d bide enough time for the girls to escape.

“Chill, Twilight,” Not-Rainbow said with an exasperated groan, “I’m not one of them.”

“That’s exactly what a changeling would say,” I hissed.

The plates protecting the visor were gone and a pair of annoyed, very realistically mimicked eyes peered back at me.

“Alright, fine!” She sat and threw its hooves in the air. “Remember that party when you and I were the only ponies left awake and you mistook Rarity’s white ass for Celestia’s?” My resolve momentarily faltered as I stared at her in disbelief. “And you were so drunk you tried to seduce her even though she had passed out?”

Rainbow had promised to carry that memory to the grave, yet I hesitated to open my hooves wide for an embrace. When the changelings couldn’t replace ponies, they controlled them.

“Trixie!” I barked at the responseless mare, “Would you lend me a horn with dispelling hypnosis?”

“She isn’t under any,” Trixie droned in a lifeless tone. “And I wouldn’t be able to help anyway.”

I glared at her first—not that she seemed to notice, then at Rainbow, for a long time.

“Then why do you serve the enemy?” I said through my teeth.

Rainbow turned away from me to forlornly glance at the distant silhouette of the sky-piercing palace.

“It was the only right choice.”

“If Queen Chrysalis hadn’t murdered Princess Celestia none of that would have happened!” I roared at her. “And now you work for the Swarm to further undo her legacy!”

She tensed in response, shooting me an angry look, then slumped.

“We can’t know,” Rainbow whispered, absolutely defeated.

I snarled, ready to try and scream some more sense in her, but she spoke first.

“Twilight, when they brought me back from the coma a hundred years after the Great War and that ‘Rarity’s granddaughter’ started to speak, I knew she was shitting me—I didn’t need to be Applejack for that. They realised pretty fast that I wasn’t dumb enough to buy their lies, so they just showed me the city.”

She turned to Canterlot again, silently watching the dark scenery, then practically sobbed, so pained her voice sounded:

“Just a century had passed and we had already forgotten how horrible the war was because... it was on the streets. Ponies killing ponies left and right, equinoids flaying fillies alive in the daylight, warlocks on the loose, gangs turning entire districts into battlefields.”

When Rainbow met my eyes again, hers brimmed with grim determination.

“I could die, fighting my way through the small army of changelings; maybe I even had a chance of making it into the city, where nopony I once knew was left.” She paused. “Or I could bite the bullet and join Queen Chrysalis and help her to save what was left of Equestria—believe me or not, it was what she was trying to do.

“My loyalty still lies with Equestria—with ponies. And I’m going to do anything to help them, even if that means serving the enemy.”

I let the magic fade away from my horn.

Author's Note

Special thanks to Jay Tarrant.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this story so far.

If you notice any mistakes sneaked in through the editing, let me know.

Stay awesome.