Aftersound

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Written by: Oneimare & Geka

Preread and edited by: Jay Tarrant, IAmApe, mikemeiers

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On the verge

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Only once Flower had made a few final tweaks to my body, was I actually ready to go. However, those metal legs would take time getting used to—I kept stumbling, following her and Wire out into the early morning.

The retreat of Luna’s veil revealed even further the stark contrast betwixt the spires, effortlessly rivalling the blooming dawn, and the slums, flickering out like embers. To accentuate that, the looming concrete wall offered refuge to darkness in the blasted landscape of the capital’s outskirts.

Twisted and broken feats of engineering towered from the rotting rust; only a few bulky buildings, pulsing with fiery haze, disrupted the bleak dominion of corrosion. Here and there, barely distinguishable from the metal refuse, little huts nestled, twinkling with pale lights hidden within—dying stars.

Oblivious to my gawking at the utter desolation of the Junkyard—as the girls called it, they had been quietly discussing the best route to Wire’s place.

The dirty and tattered rags serving them as clothing flapped on the teasing breeze, muffling their voices. I wasn’t absolved of garments either—the grimy strips of cloth fashioned into a cloak gave me the distinct look of Clover the Clever.

Whilst my body stood ignorant of the weather, the fillies shivered when said gusts crawled across their back. Still, we shared another reason for wearing them—the oily and stained fabric couldn’t be distinguished from the decaying background.

As their conversation concluded, I approached Flower. Out of many questions to ask, one possessed no plausible theory:

“Why is there a wall?”

The filly glared at the concrete bulwark, grimacing like it personally offended her.

“To keep us here—it’s more of a prison than an industrial zone.”

With that she headed away, into the rusted maze; Wire spared my confused expression a glance and trotted after her. Passing by me, the unicorn supplemented her answer, “The gangs in control get a production target. If we hit it, the TCE sends us food rations. Sometimes.”

No wonder those fillies already had cutie marks—systematic malnourishment had done no favours to their stature. It hadn’t contributed to the girls’ celerity, however, as I was forced to canter to catch up with them.

“That’s… just…” I struggled to find fitting words. “...inequine! Were you two..?”

“Nah, not everypony here is a felon,” Flower threw over her shoulder. “I’ve lived in this hole all my life—my great grandfather was deported to the Edge for being homeless.”

I looked at Wire, a question ready on the tip of my proverbial tongue, but, strangely enough, the filly sped up. Flower shook her head, mouthing, “Don’t.”

Our path winded around mounds of scrap, one of many almost invisible tracks cutting through the rusted iron and tarnished non-ferrous metals. Another sign of the Junkyard being more than just a scrapyard of ridiculous proportion—squalid dwellings muffled themselves into decaying masses.

True to Flower’s words, all of those cabins seemed to be long-abandoned, screaming at the skies with empty windows and broken doors as corrosion slowly swallowed them. And whilst a group of ponies afar off clung to one particularly high burial hill of machinery, tearing it apart like angry ants, we had yet to meet another Edge dweller up close.

The distance couldn’t hide the disturbing affinity those shared with the underfed and dirty girls that would be cripples if not for the clemency of science; withered corpses if not the mercy of their avaricious wardens.

“Who are the ‘TCE’?” left my mouth without thinking.

Wire’s lingering reluctance to engage in conversation with a ‘tinhead’ and the pace dictated by the long-legged unicorn that kept Flower huffing only, left my question to awkwardly hang.

To my sheer surprise, it was the former who finally spoke, though not bothering to turn to me as she pushed forward with grim determination.

“The Transcontinental Company of Equestria—got their name before the Great War, I guess, as nothing else but Canterlot and the Crystal Mines survived it. They own every factory and every shop; even half of the Crown’s police force dances after their whistle.”

Wire’s answer explained as much as it had complicated and nothing matched the five-hundred-year-old memories I possessed.

“So, who rules Canterlot?”

My other inquiry was met with a glare. Thankfully, Flower regained her breath and commented, trotting by my side, “Nopony—it’s a constant fight between the TCE and the Crown, not to mention every other cretin like the purists.”

“Except, the Crown cares only about the brothels,” Wire venomously spat. “Fucking whores swimming in luxury while we’re left to rot!”

Flower stole a wary glance at her fuming friend and added quietly, almost conspiratorially whispering to me, “I’ve heard they occasionally send the Royal Guard for something else, but since there are never any witnesses left…” She trailed off, uncertain. “Has to be something super important—they don’t even deal with Pink Butterflies, and those crazies blew up one of the Thunderspires.”

“But, the Crown, who are they?”

The grimy filly only shrugged.

The girls’ haste, aggravated by broken terrain, rendered them disinclined to a further conversation. However, my body, unfettered by struggles of flesh, graciously allowed me to indulge in deep thought.

Twenty-four years presented considerable baggage and in the scant time I had been awake, only a fraction of those memories had resurfaced in my mind. Flower and Wire helped to recall particular bits of knowledge, yet those recollections answered with acute disturbance and offered no help in understanding the world I’d been brought into.

The war with Sombra—had we won? For this didn’t look like a country of victors.

One certain vague memory suggested only two Princesses be alive, yet everything else implied the opposite.

That posed another difficulty—not everything I had inherited from Twilight Sparkle readily answered my summons. Some parts of her recollections had been buried deep, yet promised little good were I to unearth them.

Plagued by seemingly infinite questions, I overestimated my freedom to ignore the treacherous ground and stumbled.

However, regaining my balance, I promptly froze on the spot—amidst the mouldering mountains of iron a metal skeleton of gargantuan proportions coiled.

Without missing a beat, the fillies entered a cavity formed within the ribs of the macabre remains. It took me long seconds to realise—these weren’t the bones of a mechanical sea-serpent, but a rusted and severely deformed frame belonging to some sort of train.

“You coming?” Flower’s voice called from the enormous shell.

“Ah… yes.”

It wasn’t as spacious inside as I expected; albeit nothing but wreckage, it still looked more modern and advanced than any train. Strangely enough, its interior seemed to be ruined by some deliberate destructive force rather than the merciless passage of time. Despite its obvious artificial nature, I couldn’t shake off the sheer influence that monumental corpse imposed on me.

Meekly shadowing Flower, I dared to ask, “What is… was this?”

“One of the underground trains.”

A city so big, it demanded a railroad to alleviate its traversal; so cramped, the rails had to be hidden beneath the surface. Marvelling at the size of the train, twice that of what was used back in my days, I couldn’t help but mutter:

“I’d love to witness it…”

“Sorry—Pink Butterflies made sure it doesn’t exist anymore. I mean, the tunnels which haven’t collapsed are still there.”

The empty womb of the destroyed train carried us to a cart starkly different from others—impassable due to torn apart complex machinery.

Pointing at it, Flower noted, “There is a rumour that none of the engines had their power cores inside when their remains were brought to the surface. It’s a big deal, those things were huge crystals, some of the biggest around.”

Wire waited for us at the last wagon when we finally emerged from the derelict train, impatience written all over her expression. As soon as we reached her, she practically bolted away, heading to a dim orange light not so far away.

However, Flower didn’t hurry to match the speed of the filly—the ground wasn’t as stringent betwixt us and the modest shack. Using that as an opportunity to learn more, I eagerly asked her:

“What makes the purists pure?”

“The ponies who don’t use any of these”—she wagged her metal hoof— “the purists think it makes them better than everypony else. The Transference Paradox is a thing, alright, but they also claim unicorns are a superior race.” As we caught up with Wire, she raised her voice. “We all know that’s bullshit—earth ponies rule, right, Wire?”

“Go fuck yourself,” the unicorn barked over her shoulder and picked up her pace to get away from her snorting with laughter friend.

I decided to omit the fact of myself being a unicorn once and shook my head as another snippet of my knowledge was summoned.

“Sounds like the tribalism of old.”

“Huh? The filly perked up. “What’s tribadism? I heard that by a brothel once…”

Distracted by another mention of brothels and how the existence of such establishments reflected on the state of culture, I absentmindedly commented, “Have you never heard a story about the origins of Equestria? It is a story every parent tells to their foals...”

A sense of dread washed over me as I immediately regretted my words.

Flower might as well have dropped an anvil on me instead of the look she shot.

Before I could try and fix this horrible situation, I all but slammed into Red Wire.

“Shit! Look where you are going, would you? Or did that criminal put bar-code scanners for your eyes?” She steadied herself with a huff and said, “Wait here.”

Wire galloped away to her family’s dwelling, whilst I stood petrified, not able to bring myself to even look at Flower.

“Don’t sweat it, Twilight,” she muttered then added in a harder voice, “It is a common thing here.”

The filly then trotted to the nearest remains of some machinery, leaving me to follow. I found her slumped in a half-rotten seat, forlornly gazing at Wire’s house.

Made of a fuel cistern, it even had glass in a window frame, though soot-stained to the point I could barely see the little unicorn’s silhouette inside moving occasionally.

“It’s either accidents or terrorist attacks.” Flower shifted sullenly, the glow from the hut reflecting in her wavering eyes. She nodded towards it. “Her actual name is Geode Gleam. She defused one of their bombs once, earning her the nickname after that—Red Wire.”

“I’m so sorry…” was all I could squeeze out of myself.

“Sometimes it feels like I’m luckier than her—first her family was deported from Canterlot, then the explosion took her eye and both her mother’s. A year later she lost her brother to that winter. When Hollow Druse—her sister—was forced to work at the smelters to get more food rations, she got her hind legs burned off.”

This time I had no words.

However, as the uneasy minutes passed by, Flower’s sorrow faded away, ceding to some sort of calculating look that wandered across various scrap. My shock lessened as well, enough for my curiosity to take hold once more.

“Why is her mother blind?” Flower gave me an unimpressed look and I clarified, “Wire has an artificial eye, why couldn’t her mother get a prosthetic as well?”

“Roche Dust already had a few prosthetics. One more, especially so deeply integrated, would have caused the Transference Paradox,” Flower explained in a grievous tone. “She shielded Wire from the shrapnel with her body, so she needs more than a pair of new eyes to get back to work anyway.”

As if on cue, the scarlet-maned unicorn exited her house, scanning the Junkyard with her glowing eye, searching for us.

Flower waved her hoof whilst whispering to me, “Oh, by the way, you probably shouldn’t call her Geode Gleam.”

I opened my mouth to ask for elaboration, but Wire was too close already; I had a few guesses, anyway.

True to her word, she’d brought the ‘hazmats’—two large rolls precariously balanced on her back. In addition, she had a canteen swinging from her mouth along with another, smaller, bundle.

Upon reaching us, her unsteady magic unfurled the oily paper, revealing a thick tuft of thin fungi. Dividing it, she offered half to Flower.

“Big sis got shrooms from the stripes yesterday. Want some?”

“Are these like that one time?” Flower squinted at the offer, sniffing the mushrooms with visible mistrust. “I don’t want to feel all funny and have weird dreams again.”

“Nah, the stripes just gave her the wrong ones that time.” Wire’s telekinesis also shakily floated the canteen towards Flower. “Fresh from the filters.”

Flower finally finished examining the mushrooms, grabbed both them and the flask, taking a sip as she grumbled, “I miss mould, too bad it all died last winter. That stuff was tasty at least…”

“It tasted like dirt,” Wire retorted with a roll of her eyes and dug into her share of slimy fungi.

Whilst the girls silently munched on their miserable meals, I awkwardly stared at them until a thought occurred to me:

“Do I need to eat or… be charged?”

The idea of a cable being plugged into me somehow sounded distinctly unappealing.

Since Flower had been too preoccupied with devouring her share of food to answer, Wire accepted the responsibility with a sigh.

“Equinoids don’t eat. And I don’t think your power cores have to be charged anytime soon—they are brimming with magic.” She shook her head in wonder and brought the canteen to her lips. “Whoever enchanted them was a helluva sorcerer.”

All I could do was hang my hornless head.

The rest lasted only as long as it took the fillies to finish their food and we continued our journey across the burial site of machines.

At some point, a hill rose above us, and unable to walk around it, we were forced to scale the slope of corroded metal. Whilst the girls seemed to have their own way to conquer the rotting peak, nimbly hopping from one angled girder to another with annoyed huffs, I simply trotted up feeling somewhat guilty of my tireless body.

Waiting for them to catch up, I stood above the red alien landscape, letting the wind tear at my ‘clothes’ as I let my gaze wander.

To my right, the snow-laden summits cut above the extensive landfill and it took me a few tries to recognize the mutilated faces of the Foal Mountains.

The sight forced me to blink, and, adding to my surprise, my vision zoomed in with a soft click. Another bat of my eyes reverted the picture. Somewhat reluctantly I indulged in my newfound ability, returning my attention to the Foal Mountains ridge

Yawning mine entrances generously pock-marked the short peaks, rusted machinery and shacks trailing down from the pitch-black maws like caked blood, glittering with occasional smoking fires.

Opposite to the desecrated mountain corpse the Junkyard abruptly ended with steep canyons of a colossal scale—what was left of the Rambling Rock Ridge.

Whilst it seemed to share its dedication to mining with Nebula’s sector, not a single piece of huge equipment remained intact. Not a single speck of light or a pillar of smoke betrayed life in that scar on Equestrian land. The only movement was the sloping of the thick unnatural fog at that artificial trough.

To my sheer amazement, the dark outline of the Everfree Forest hung over the desolate crevice, absolutely the same as I… as Twilight remembered it. The sombre and menacing thicket stood where a whole sector of the Edge could have been as no technology managed to purge the taint that gave birth to this nefarious place.

Breathless and glaring at me, Flower and Wire interrupted by gawking and as they recovered their breath, we left the hill.

The scenery gradually changed.

Piles of scrap flattened out offering a free path upon a distinctly orange, from an abundance of iron oxide, ground. It was only a guess, but the outskirts of the Junkyard were old enough for the waste metal to rot into nought, leaving only the most stubborn of remains to defiantly poke from the rust.

Though I couldn’t feel the wind, the air whistled in the metal pipes, playing eerie tones through corroded holes. Every gust tore bloody flakes from the ancient scrap, and they danced around us as if wondering why we dared to disturb this ossuary of decaying iron bones.

And whilst this grim place left me distinctly uncomfortable, I hadn’t been having as much trouble as the girls. Hiding their muzzle behind cloth masks, they squinted through the dust flung at them. Sometimes, the stronger blows of wind even threatened to kick the lightweight fillies from their hooves.

After passing another unremarkable pile of junk, they abruptly stopped to take shelter in the remains of some kind of machine hull.

Unrolling the protective gear, Wire addressed her friend doing the same, “Will Twilight be alright without the suit?”

Once brightly coloured, the rubbered cloth was now faded and worn. It looked vaguely familiar—we had departments at the RCRC where ponies spent day after day clad in chemical protection, studying toxic substances.

Flower gave me a critical look before putting her gas mask on.

“She should be alright. But let’s do it quickly, it’s all itchy inside and smells of unicorns.”

Needless to say, being adult-sized, the suits awkwardly sagged from the fillies, though they didn’t seem to be bothered by it.

“Hey!”

Flower dashed outside past her with a snort.

Following her with Wire, we came to another pile of scrap iron, beyond which lay a vast expanse of desolate land—the Dump.

A barren desert occasionally gleamed with rainbow stains of oil and chemicals amongst charred dirt. Half-melted ducts opened here and there into the waste, lazily belching caustic sludge. The scattered dark slag and steaming vomit of distant factories poisoned the once fertile soil of Equestria to the point that the air above it had turned toxic.

Even war wasn’t capable of doing this.

The fillies instantly rushed to some sort of pillar pulsing with bright light through the torrents of dust.

Surprisingly, the decay spared this strange construction and the storm subdued in its vicinity. The contraption had a rather simple design—a tangle of metal girders serving as a pedestal for a large crystal emanating a steady heartbeat of magic.

“What is this thing?”

“Arcana Noxiae’s beacon,” Wire stated.

She then pointed into the distance, where identical lights blinked tragically.

Seeing my confused look, Flower picked up after the unicorn, “They protect the city from the cold in winter.”

“Except when they don’t,” Wire yelled over the drone of the dust storm. “The shield went down once—I will never forget the howl of the wind back then; it sounded like it was alive… and wanted all of us dead.”

Whilst I was left wondering about the necessity of delving into the perilous domain of the Dump, our presence there didn’t extend for long—after a few more mysterious beacons, we dove back into the familiar rust of the Junkyard.

We seemed to emerge near to the border betwixt the sectors as the bloodied with rotting metal ground seamlessly faded into the coarse gravel stretching to the hoofhills of the Foal Mountains.

The fillies took cover inside the remains of another ancient and half-decayed machine to take off their environmental suits. With the gear once again carried on their back, they sat down for a momentary respite.

Looking in the direction of Canterlot, its tall buildings visible even from here, Wire commented, “If we keep this pace, we will make it to the Outer City before dark.”

“And why do you little shits need to go to the city, huh?” a deep voice asked from behind the nearest pile of scrap.

A burly unicorn stallion revealed himself as its owner a moment later.

Two just as large earth ponies accompanied him, metal and muscle bulging menacingly under their tight armours; their steel black breastplates bore a messy orange smear across—orange grime.

The brute’s telekinesis brought a stubby pistol from the belt across his shoulder and pointed it at me.

“A custom made socket-fucker!” He yelled at the fillies. “If the police find out, the whole sector is going to eat shit because of you two degenerates!”

I stood paralyzed, my eyes jumping betwixt the thugs and the girls, having no idea what to do—they seemed lost themselves.

“Grab these dipshits, we are taking them to Orange Grime,” the unicorn barked to his mates over his shoulder.

Whilst Flower succumbed to her fate with only a glare, Wire put up a furious resistance.

“Leggo, you asshole!” she shouted in desperation, kicking and biting.

Holding the filly by the neck with steel forelegs so hard the plates on his limbs dug into her skin, the stallion loudly whispered into Wire’s ear with a vile smirk. “If you can’t keep your pretty mouth shut, I have something to fill it with.”

All the colour drained from Wire’s face and she instantly went limp in the iron grip of the thug, tears flowing from her eye.

“What about the tinhead?” The stallion with the metal forelegs nodded in my direction.

Flower tensed in the clutches of the steel-jaw mare.

The unicorn lazily shifted his grim gaze to me and racked the bolt of his gun with a thunderous snap.

Flower screamed, jerked violently and freed herself from the grasp, trying to dash to me. Without even looking in her direction, the unicorn thug punched her in the jaw, sending the filly tumbling.

She landed heavily on her side, conscious but stunned; trying to stand up, she fell back to the ground. The little mechanic’s teeth clenched, and her tears mixed with blood from the bruise on her cheek.

Scoffing, the huge stallion turned to me and pointed the gun at my face.

I might still have doubts about being Twilight Sparkle, about who or what I was—but I did want to be.

I couldn’t even close my eyes, but only wait for the flower of death to blossom from the pitch-black hollowness of the gun barrel’s abyss.

Something whistled sharply by my ear and the unicorn’s head exploded, his skull’s contents painting my world crimson.

Even before their leader’s decapitated body thumped to the ground, the other two thugs scattered, wildly cursing.

I rushed to Flower, still sprawled on the ground, and at the same time, a hooded figure moved from behind one of the scrap piles.

The first thing that caught my eye was a pair of polished metal wings, half-hidden by rags. Actually, the second—I tensed as my gaze fell on a long coil-covered gun barrel affixed to a simple saddle.

Whilst her appearance froze me midway to the injured filly, the girls relaxed, if only somewhat—clear concern dominated their expressions.

“Hey, Peps,” Flower nervously greeted the newcomer, rising unsteadily.

Without saying a word or offering a single glance, ‘Peps’ flapped her wings; rust and dirt rising as she took off. She leapt to the headless body of my almost-executioner and swiftly picked up the fallen gun, shoving it under one of her metal wings.

The pegasus then pointed her strange weapon at us and ordered in a calm voice:

“Y’all are coming with me.”

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.