Aftersound

==============================

Written by: Oneimare & Geka

Preread and edited by: Jay Tarrant, mikemeiers

==============================

From the frypan

==============================

Our procession followed not the roundabout path from the extensive knowledge of the two little fillies, but a more direct route chosen by the steel-winged pegasus.

As we trotted down the road, much wider and straighter than any from before, huts with signs of life appeared; though, we had yet to meet any denizens. Only the occasional movement of dark silhouettes behind the soot-stained windows served as the proof of their existence.

Judging by the glances Tin Flower and Wire kept exchanging and stealing at our saviour, she might as well have been our captor.

Just like the girls, the young pegasus, barely old enough to be a mare, appeared to be smaller than she should be at her age. Her green coat resembled a military uniform, faded olive and dirty. A mop of ungroomed dull red mane stood in stark contrast to her eyes—deep pools of verdant; enmity aimed at nopony in particular simmered in them.

Without a word, she rocketed into the sky with a loud metallic clang, leaving a cloud of dust to billow. The fillies coughed on the floating rust and Flower spoke to me through her fit of hacking:

“She usually doesn’t point her gun at ponies, but we should be fine.”

The pegasus hovered in the air, peering in the distance. Her silent rifle seemed always ready to be used, if not eager.

“But who is she?”

“Pepper Mercury—Dross Rain’s daughter.” Catching my somewhat exasperated look, Flower hurried to add, “Um, he’s sorta our unofficial leader.”

She turned to Wire, expecting the unicorn to supplement her, but the filly busied herself with dusting off, sending puffs of rust in Flower’s direction.

“Do you want a fucking slap?”

Wire only smirked.

However, her eye widened in horror when the dirty filly shook herself like a dog, making her jump away from the eddy with a shriek.

The fillies instantly ceased their commotion as Pepper Mercury descended.

“We should hurry.” She glanced over her shoulder, squinting. “It looks like all of Grime’s assholes are retreating to the food storage.”

The pegasus briskly trotted away, but after only a few steps stopped to give me a critical and somewhat amused glance. Though, she addressed the fillies:

“You know, all the blood looks cool and stuff, but you better clean it up. A tinhead walking around covered in pony sauce is gonna make folks extra nervous.”

Whilst I had wiped my muzzle of the bone shards and other, no less gruesome remains, my lack of skin, and thus my sense of touch, let me forget about the gore still clinging to me.

Flower approached me and sullenly started to knock off the pieces and smear blood all over me. Wire, mumbling, “Why do I have to do this?” joined her friend, helping with telekinesis from a safe distance.

Fresh hoofprints marked the road when we got even deeper into the heart of the Junkyard. Even the scrap changed—no longer overgrown with rust, it lay in some semblance of order. Soon, a huge concrete building pushed it out of my sight, anyway.

The bulk of the Maretin furnace loomed over us, surrounded by a halo of haze and spewing salvos of melted slag into the air. Through the building’s exposed skeleton of metal beams swaying kilns blazed with steel, dripping liquid sun on the cinder and dross of the floor. Besmirched ponies ceaselessly and unflinchingly danced under the rains of sinter, dexterously dodging the shifting mechanic innards. Such intrepidity came with a price—metal limbs boldly reflected the merciless fires of the indifferent smelter. Though, the gleaming prosthetics only made these soot-painted slaves belong to that place as if they had exchanged their flesh for the steel blessing of the forge to become one with the iron-digesting giant.

By its entrance a few workponies rested from the exhausting labour in the foundry’s fire-blighted bowels. Glistening with sweat, most smoked cigarettes, silently yet curiously following our procession with tired eyes.

One of them, an unremarkable mare, lazily intercepted us. Cracking her neck she called, slurring her words:

“Whazzup? Who’re these kids? And...” She squinted at me and in the blink of an eye, all her ease was gone. “You can’t be serious.”

“Send for my father, tell him to come home,” Pepper answered curtly.

Then she met the mare’s eyes and her lips twisted into a strange predatory smile. The worker mirrored her odd expression, grinning balefully.

“Finally,” she muttered under her breath and faced her colleagues, sharply whistling.

Pepper shot her another look, receiving an almost imperceptible nod in reply, and turned to leave, motioning us to follow, ominously rustling with her metal wing.

It took us only a few minutes to reach Pepper’s dwelling—a shack as miserable as any other at the Junkyard.

Without missing a beat, the pegasus entered her home, leaving the door open as an invitation.

The indented floor did the otherwise cramped single room a favour as it created enough space for two tenants; even though I had yet to meet Dross Rain, it was easy to tell which half belonged to him, and which—his daughter.

Metal pinions and other spare parts dominated the mess strewn all around, save for an army cot and a workbench; blueprints hung from the walls. Whilst, maps and lists covered the opposite side of the room, claiming every surface.

“How deep are we in trouble, Pep?” Flower broke the awkward silence.

Pepper’s face grew dark and her tone was grave. “Be prepared to spend the next few years in an iso-cube, Flower.”

All the colour instantly drained from Flower’s face; her eyes went wide and her jaw dropped.

“Told you,” Wire quietly and unenthusiastically commented.

Despite the horrible news, the pegasus trembled, corners of her mouth twitching, until she exploded in fits of laughter so boisterous, they brought her to the floor.

She squeezed out, wheezing, “You… Pff-hah… You should‘ve seen…. your face!”

“Haha. Nice joke,” Flower deadpanned. As Pepper hadn’t bothered to react, she added, “Thanks for helping us, anyway.”

“Yes, thank you,” I chimed in as the one who should be the most grateful.

My words brought Pepper’s chortling to an abrupt stop and she stared at me, her brows on her forehead and mouth agape.

“It can even talk?”

“Actually, her name is Twilight—”

The door burst open, slamming the thin metal wall with the rattling crack of thunder. A pegasus stallion stood in the doorway, growling furiously.

“Have you lost your mind!? What are you going to do when he comes for us?” His blazing eyes found me. “And what is this? Explain yourselves this instant!”

Dross Rain sported almost the same coat as his daughter or rather; it was her who inherited dull olive, albeit of a bit lighter tone than her father’s. His mane was a darker version of Pepper’s, brownish, with a shimmer of silver at the temples. Only his eyes differed completely—steel grey with a subtle bluish tint, matching the tubes coming in and out of his body in several places and a segmented pipe that replaced his larynx.

“Grime is not coming for us,” Pepper retorted, studying her hoof. “He’s crapping himself at the food warehouse right now.”

“Are you high on the stripes’ chems? He’s going to murder us and then nopony in this sector’ll get food rations for months!” Dross Rain barked, stomping his hoof.

“Nah, we round up our forces and get rid of him.”

“The turrets are going to slay us all before we get to the doors of the food storage. Is that your genius master plan?”

Pepper nodded in my direction.

“You’re forgetting something.”

“What does this rust bucket have to do with anything?” Dross Rain put a hoof over his eyes with a deep sigh. “Don’t tell me you killed over a tinhead...”

“It—”

Flower corrected her with an offended glare, “She… ”

“Whatever. This ‘rust bucket’ is our best hope of getting rid of that fat fuck.”

What?

“Do you remember that old maintenance tunnel to the generator room?”

Pepper Mercury pointed at the wall; a red line stood bright across one of the maps.

The older pegasus sighed again, “The magic radiation there is way too high, even with a suit nopony can survi…”

Dross Rain’s words trailed off as his eyes fell on me.

Oh.

Pepper smirked.

Her father’s frown eased as thoughts and calculations raced in his mind until he finally proclaimed, “That might work.”

Needless to say, my enthusiasm about that plan was non-existent—magic radiation so deadly would certainly damage my body, even though made of plastic and metal; nor was there any telling what it could do to my crystals.

Flower beat me to it, however.

“She can’t do it!”

“Huh? Why?” The older pegasus squinted at the filly. “And who… Tin Flower, right? I remember—you helped Curie with her wings.”

“Yup. I made her and she has a problem with the hydraulic pump.”

She jabbed Wire with her elbow and the unicorn hastily added, “Yeah, she barely walks.”

Dross Rain glanced at his daughter for any explanation, but she only shrugged. After giving Flower a long look he said, “You know it’s prohibited to create equinoids, don’t you? We don’t have time for this right now, but we will have to talk later, Flower. Right now take it to Scuff Gear.”

Both of the pegasi took wing when we exited the shack and having no reason to dally, Flower and Wire dismally trudged in a different direction.

As we were left alone I all but jumped at the fillies.“What’s happening? What do they want from me?”

Without turning to me, Flower glumly explained, “They want you to disable the defences of the food storage where Orange Grime made his stronghold.”

“Can’t say I’m against their plan,” Wire commented, earning a glare from her friend; ignoring it, she added in a firm voice, “We aren’t making it through the winter with how many rations we get now.”

“I know. But I don’t want Twilight to get hurt… well, damaged.”

Abruptly stopping, Flower gazed longingly at the wall and muttered, “The tunnel entrances are unguarded...”

The unicorn blotted the distant view with her scowling muzzle.

“You won’t make it—either Pepper or Rain would spot you from the sky.” Wire sounded more desperate than angry. “And just think of what happens if you do manage to escape! Orange Grime will come after us… our families. Flower, please…”

Not only to their surprise but also to my own, I broke the uneasy silence.

“It’s fine. I’ll do it.”

Whilst Flower gave me an anguished look, Wire muttered, relieved, “Thanks, I guess.”

We entered a sort of plaza—a little square circled by a few small concrete buildings interspersed by the signature cabins of scrap metal. The remains of a fence crowned with rusted barbed wire gave me an inkling of that place once being some facility, likely of a military kind.

An almost faded red cross marked one of the buildings, but our destination was the next edifice—a low bulky structure; ‘Prosthetics workshop’ crudely painted in char above its entrance.

Banging on it, Flower shouted:

“Hey, Scuff, you there?”

A croaking yell answered her, followed by an insufferable racket as if somepony was wading through a sea of empty tin cans.

“Did ya come again to beg for them ol’ spares?” presumably Scuff Gear rambled hoarsely from inside, “I ain’t givin’ ya shit fer your stupid equinoid!”

The door then opened and a stallion practically fell out.

That earth pony seemed to have avoided showering or even being outside in the rain for all his life; judging by the length of his beard, it had lasted for quite a while. Just like in the case of Flower, his natural colour was a complete mystery; only the elder’s bald head and wrinkled muzzle betrayed his age. Surprisingly, despite being a prosthetics mechanic, Scuff didn’t have any, however, an exoskeleton shyly poked out of his filthy tatters.

Scuff’s discoloured gaze travelled betwixt the fillies and finally stopped at me.

“Smack mah ass and call me an ass… ya did it, I cannae believe my ol’ eyes,”

His ‘ol’ eyes’ had much more sharpness than I expected from a stallion sounding like somepony at the sunset of their mind, though.

Flower gleamed with pride, puffing her chest.

“Told you—I can do it.”

Rolling her eyes, Wire wryly commented, “And now we’re neck-deep in shit.”

“Huh? Whatcha mean, Geode?” Spitting on his hooves and rubbing them together, Scuff crept towards her, smiling toothless. “By the bye, lemme take a look at your eye...”

The terrified unicorn hastily retreated from the outstretched blackened limbs, pattering, “Um… Ah... my neck! Yeah, I need my neck to be checked! Hurts like a bitch.”

She then ran into that marked with a cross building—likely a local hospital.

“Now that the hornhead is gone, let us dirt ponies have a real talk,” Scuff cackled and motioned into his workshop before disappearing inside.

I followed morosely; though I wasn’t supposed to have a working horn in the first place, at every mention of it, Twilight’s memories echoed with a deep sense of loss.

Scuff’s appearance suggested his place to be even messier than that of Flower’s, but it was the opposite.

Orderly shelves and racks clung to the walls, labelled boxes carefully stacked upon them. The workbench, clean of any mess, eagerly waited for anypony to begin working at it. Even the rust seemed to have shown mercy on Scuff’s shed.

Two things stood out, however.

A filthy mattress in the corner that could only be described as a rat nest and a large metal table right in the middle of the room. With knives, saws and drills swinging above, it appeared to be quite rusted, but then it dawned on me—this place was next to a medical station for a reason.

Slumping at the surgery table, Scuff addressed Flower whilst nodding at me.

“Ya look like you hadta fight for yer equinoid.”

“Actually, I did.”

The elder raised his bushy brow.

“Long story short, we tried to make it to Canterlot to get some fake IDs for Twilight when Orange Grime’s fucks caught us and almost killed her; Pepper shot one of them dead and now plans to use Twilight to turn off the food storage turrets to get rid of him for good,” the filly said the whole phrase in one breath.

Scuff’s expression remained unreadable throughout the whole explanation and as Flower had been recovering her breath, he lethargically opened his mouth and licked a mushroom out of his beard. Chewing on it, he shifted his eyes to the filly.

“Who the fuck is Twilight?”

“Me.”

The stallion’s chapped lips instantly dissolved into a wide grin, slobbered mushroom falling out, forgotten. To Flowers’s surprise, he grabbed her and squeezed in a tight hug.

“Daaamn!” Firmly holding the thrashing, yet smiling, filly, the old mechanic gave her a noogie. “Ya’ve even got them matrices!”

“Yeah, about that…” Flower limpened in the stallion’s hooves, her face darkening. “It’s not exactly what it seems.”

“Whatcha mean?”

“Anyway, I couldn’t find an intact hydraulic pump, so she has only, like, half of the working pressure and Peps wants her in the maintenance tunnels yesterday. Can you help?” she inquired, avoiding eye contact.

“Maybe.” Scuff squinted at the filly but didn’t press the issue. “I need to take a look inside first.”

I reflexively leaned away from him—not with these dirty hooves.

Seeing my hesitation, he motioned, “Twilight ya say? C’mere.”

I reluctantly approached Scuff—I did need help, after all.

The old stallion fished out a screwdriver from the depths of his clothes-rags and disappeared from my vision as he went for my right side—no matter how far I craned my neck, it was impossible to see what he was doing.

“Been ages since I’ve seen an equinoid…” Scuff murmured. Something fell on the floor—screws. “I’ll be damned… legit Princesses’ Age gems. Where did ya git them, Flower?”

The filly rubbed the back of her head as the stallion’s question had a hint of accusation to it. “In the city and, yeah, she says her name is Twilight Sparkle and that she is a scientist from five hundred years ago…”

“Ya know what, I can fix her hydraulics pump, but I need a spare one from storage. Fetch ‘em from the shed, eh?”

Flower saluted with her steel hoof and darted outside.

As soon as she left, Scuff approached the shelves and a moment later returned with… a hydraulic pump. At least, the memories of the RCRC suggested that.

And then he spoke, staring me in the eyes, his voice devoid of any accent:

“You are not an equinoid, are you?”

“I… I don’t know.”

Scuff squinted at me and before I had a chance to explain, dove to my side again.

> WARNING! Unauthorized access detected. Please contact a TCE Equinoid Support Station. REMINDER: Modification of TCE property is a criminal offence

My limbs turned unresponsive and with a loud clunk something fell on the floor—my old hydraulic pump. A full minute passed in silence, save for the illegible curses and clicking noises of my insides, until the stallion’s gruff voice rattled at my ea… my sound sensor.

“I once worked with a Former One. She needed a blackhoof who wouldn’t ask questions.”

Leaving me paralyzed, he departed for the racks once more to come back and spit out coils of colourful tubes.

“Called herself the Magician,” Scuff continued matter-of-factly; melancholy slipped into his tone. “What an amazing mare she was—a body of pure arcanium... If I close my eyes I still can see that shiny bu—magic; every time she cast a spell—a show to remember for the rest of your life.

“Heard a lot of stories of the past, about how things were.”

Something hummed inside of me and my body regained movement. I shifted to face the old mechanic and express my gratitude, but wasn’t let to as he met my eyes and uttered:

“The Magician spoke very highly of you, Twilight Sparkle—one of the greatest heroes and scientists she’d ever had a chance to meet.”

I gaped at Scuff. Somewhere in Canterlot, there was a pony—somebody—who knew Twilight Sparkle. However, there was a nuance…

“I have her memories, but I am not Twilight.”

Scuff grimaced, rolling his eyes, and barked, “Choose one, unless you have somepony else’s mind.”

“I’m sorry?”

“We are our memories.” The stallion poked my chest. “If you have Twilight Sparkle’s then you’re her.”

I glared at him—it was easy for that coot to spew threadbare aphorisms, for he knew nothing of my struggle. He hadn’t woken up hours ago as an automaton that had been self-aware only because a dead pony’s life echoed in it… her… me.

“I didn’t create those memories—they don’t belong to me,” came my hot retort. “If I were to read somepony’s memoirs, that wouldn’t make me that pony.”

Scuff only grinned gleefully, shaking his head.

“Yet your first example is about books, which you loved some much.”

“That doesn’t change anything,” I snapped.

“Yeah.” He chuckled. “It doesn’t change your identity, indeed, Twilight Sparkle.”

My glare only hardened, but I fumed silently. One thing wasn’t changing for sure—the old stallion’s mind; trying to prove my point would shed no light on my predicament, anyway.

However, Scuff still might be helpful, besides offering his expertise in mechanics.

That pony, the ‘Former One’—who was she? Could she be… Moon Dancer? Regardless, the Magician ought to understand that I wasn’t Twilight Sparkle. She might even know how to help me...

“I should find the Magician…” I murmured in unawareness.

A clamour, so thunderous it rattled the walls, made our heads whip around; Flower’s vicious profanity echoed it.

Then Scuff turned back to me, his eyes burned with a grim ultimatum.

“The instant you help Mercury, she’ll get rid of you and the girls.” He paused and pointed his hoof at me, almost accusingly. “When her gang attacks, you grab the girls and get the fuck out of the Edge. But don’t stop at the Canterlot—it doesn’t have much time left.”

I bristled, rebuffing the elder, “And where am I supposed to take them?”

“Stalliongrad,” the stallion stated calmly, yet firmly.

“Isn’t Canterlot the last city? The girls told me—”

“Listen, the Magician told me herself: one of her friends, another mare from her time, left for it. You know what they say—Stalliongrad never surrenders.”

I pressed my lips together with a squick of metal.

Stalliongrad called itself the City of The Unbroken, whilst others—the City of Traitors. An impenetrable fortress carved into the frozen cliffs of Luna Bay, first to pledge loyalty to Nightmare Moon; they stood for her even after she was banished. A decade-long siege later, She had to recognise its autonomy.

Denying Scuff was hard—Stalliongrad ponies were just too stubborn to die.

The elder’s stubbornness, however, had its limits—as he grasped my shoulders with his shaking hooves, his expression fell into despair and he mumbled:

“I don’t want Flower and Wire to slowly perish here… You’ll never find a filly who can make an equinoid… Who’d dare… And she can’t even properly read.” He mirthlessly chuckled. “Geode Gleam can be just as much a barbed wire as she can be Red Wire, but she deserves all of her names.”

Scuff carefully nudged me to the door.

“You might not believe you’re Twilight Sparkle, but I believe you have it in yourself to do what she would.”

Obviously, the entrance to the maintenance tunnel couldn’t be expected to have glowing signs pointing at it, but I imagined something more than just a miniature corroded hatch blending in with the dirt. How many such unassuming entrances could we have passed today already?

It was Pepper, who twitching impatiently, her ears flicking at gun reports in the distance, had led us to it. The combined effort of two dejected fillies swung the mouth in the rust open; the foul depths coughed a cloud of dust flakes.

The pegasus unceremoniously poked me with the barrel of her gun, prompting my descent.

“You know what to do, metalware,” she added for good measure.

Her deadly weapon stifled by glare—I wasn’t TCE property, but still a thing in the eyes of so many; even those who suffered the whip of their masters, mirrored the heartless motion.

Flower tugged at my ‘clothing’.

“Please, be careful. When you’re finished, head right back—we’re going to wait here.” Making sure Pepper was too distracted with the shouts far off, she whispered, “Then we’re going to the city. Together.”

Glancing warily at Pepper—Scuff’s warning echoed in my mind—I nodded to the filly and decided not to test the pegasus’ rapidly waning patience further.

The steep stairs dissolved in the pitch black after a few steps.

The moment the menacing murk readily swallowed me, I realised something on my muzzle emitted a steady glow, strong enough to see just a bit more than outlines.

The tunnel offered as much as could be expected from a utility passage betwixt a place of purely technical designation and a hatch... in the middle of nowhere. Abnormally huge flakes of dust might have been outstanding, but not after all that dirt, rust and grime reigning on the surface.

A rectangle of dim light carved itself out of the darkness.

Beyond it a simple contraption of a network of wires, coils and, most importantly—crystals served as the source of radiance. Smaller gems—fuses—only faintly winked, whilst the heart of the power transformer emanated bright irradiance. On its coruscating surface, the jagged line of a crack sparkled angrily. Metal parts of the transformer glowed with orange incandescence.

Charred bones scattered around the power converter.

That wasn’t dust in the passage.

As I stared at the death-dispensing device, something fell by me with a wet plop.

Whipping my head in confusion, I discovered one of my sides lacking a plastic protection plate—it had just melted off my body! It wouldn’t take me long to begin to glow myself.

My left lens sharply plinked and a horizontal split distorted my vision.

The sudden motion made a few more drops of plastic fall to the floor as I dashed for what looked like a master switch; its paint had burned away. Fortunately, there was no resistance, and with a keening whine the transformer’s crystals winked out one by one.

Loud curses reached my hearing, then screams of panic and gunshots.

The complete darkness, combined with my impaired sight led me to half-blindly wander, wasting precious time.

There must be a door connecting this room to the main building. Cracking it open to let in some light became my course of action before I could give it proper thought.

As I reached for the doorknob, a coil of cable caught my hoof and, instead of setting the door ajar, I widely threw it open.

Blood was everywhere, so much of it. Mangled corpses lay strewn on the floor, their weapons broken and armour shattered. Even as I watched, bodies kept falling in puddles of crimson with meaty thuds and bubbling shrieks.

Pepper Mercury, her beaming face smeared in blood and steel wings dripping with the scarlet, was viciously beating a stallion with her bare hooves. His limbs and wings broken, the feathers soaked in blood lying amongst his teeth...

…Dross Rain.

Pepper glanced up and our eyes met.

She instantly reached for the gun dropped beside her.

As I whirled to the blackness of the converter room, an inequine roar followed a bullet bounced from the transformer.

The light from the main room was just enough to see another entrance. I bolted to it, not even bothering to open the door, half-falling into the tunnel in a shower of splinters.

And then I ran.

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.