Aftersound

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Written by: Oneimare & Geka

Preread and edited by: Jay Tarrant, mikemeiers

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On their own

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I ran, and ran, and ran.

And then I slammed into something with the force of a freight train.

Splinters of just solidified plastic exploded from me like shrapnel. Metal parts followed their plastic comrades, ringing loudly. With a sickening crunch, my right eye was pulverized into a rain of glistening glass shards.

Not much different from the heaps of scrap on the surface, I fell in a tangle of limbs. Even once the last screw stopped bouncing on the floor, the deafening silence didn’t reign—fluid dripped from my body; no doubt it was my hydraulic system.

But I didn’t care.

I was already intently listening for the only sounds that mattered to me and which I dreaded to hear the most—the clop of hooves or the rustle of metal wings. However, I only heard myself continuing to haemorrhage.

Countless lines of warnings flashed in my vision, but reading them would make no difference. Raising my head, I was met with a flat concrete surface right in front of me, freshly smeared with something oily.

I had missed the steps. No doubt the girls heard my unexpected collision and were about to open the hatch. My gaze drifted upwards.

Only the indifferent stone sharply angled into a turn.

Hold up... There were no turns in the maintenance tunnel.

How long had I been running? It had only taken a few minutes of a slow and careful trot to get to the converter room and I had certainly been carelessly galloping for quite a while.

Where was I? Had I entered the wrong door?

I closed no door when I first entered the room with the converter. Most likely it was another underground passage, though it wasn’t a conclusion leading anywhere as I had no idea where it led.

In hindsight, worrying about Pepper Mercury made little sense, for now at least. The converter room would take a while to cool down and this tunnel wouldn’t allow her to spread her wings.

If I had a heart, it would have skipped a beat. Flower and Wire were supposed to wait for me at the entrance of the first maintenance tunnel. It was only a question of time until Pepper found them. She didn’t even need to get close—her rifle would take care of the two fillies before they even realised what was happening.

Driven by worry, I hurriedly tried to stand up, only to find that it wasn’t that simple.

My ‘wounds’ would prove fatal or knock me out if I wasn’t made from metal and plastic. My right shoulder had suffered the most damage, now shattered, the half-destroyed hoof limply hanging from it. My other limb hadn’t fared much better—it still moved, but the forehoof was bent and twisted. I was rendered blind on my right side; my right sound sensor didn’t function anymore either.

Nothing was as bad as the puddle growing underneath me, however.

There were two possibilities: it was either the hydraulic oil or the crystal coolant. My remaining limbs already started to feel stiff; eventually, they would stop moving altogether, leaving me to the mercy of fate. And I didn’t know what would be worse: to be found by Pepper or to lie motionless until the magic in my crystals ran out.

There was no telling where this tunnel might lead; it could easily be a dead-end. Going back wasn’t an option and in less than an hour I was going to become disabled one way or another.

More carefully this time, I made an attempt to move again.

With my left limb shaking from the strain and my right uselessly dragging on the floor, I slowly limped forwards, trying not to slip on my oily ‘blood’. The turn took my path to the right, and I followed the road of rust and dust.

As I agonizingly hobbled on my three hooves, relying on the flickering glow of my eye for light, the realization of how surreal the whole situation was struck me—how bitterly ironic it was.

One day Twilight had been conducting the trial of the mechanical contraption to see it be destroyed before her eyes and witness her friend suffer, maybe even die. The next day I was the mechanical contraption getting destroyed and danger shadowed my friends because of my actions.

Desperation and guilt consumed my thoughts to such an extent, I had failed to notice a wall materializing right in front of me. Since this time I hadn’t been trying to outrun my death, I only bumped into it with the remains of my muzzle. The impact still made my whole body rattle, dropping a few of the remaining loose screws and showering the floor with leaking fluids.

Damp concrete to my right. To the left—inky darkness.

There was still some hope left.

Almost literally gathering myself together, I continued my unsteady advance. It was definitely the hydraulic system’s fluid slowly streaming down my legs.

How much time had passed?

There were no heartbeats and no breaths to slice the eternity into pieces, only my uneven stumbling through the black nothingness. Each step was laborious and felt like it was taking minutes, maybe even hours.

Void surrounded me and I blended in with it. Sparkling in the light of my unblinking gaze, the floating dust disturbed by the shuffle of my hooves was all the reality left.

The unwelcoming bulwark of a wall met my muzzle again, almost gently this time. Slumping against it, I knew well enough that my body wasn’t going to stand on its own again. I didn’t care to check both directions, but right in front of me was the same hungry darkness, ready to devour me.

I obliged.

Leaning on the wall I limped forward, filling the benighted tunnel with the screeching noise of my broken metal bones clawing at the concrete.

Suddenly, the stronghold of the wall supporting me disappeared.

This was where I was going to take my final rest, in this forsaken passage under the graveyard of Equestrian progress.

My only wish was to pass out, but fate had no mercy. I would have to witness how rust would claim me. The clement warning‘Leakage in the crystal cooling system detected’ refused to appear in my vision.

There was only a blinding light.

“By the Machine Goddess!”

“Holy matrices, what has that biofilth done to you, sister!?” the light loudly exclaimed as it rushed to me.

Goddess? Sister?

...Shining Armor?

The radiance grew closer and became an equine silhouette outlined by the bright incandescence.

In fact, it was a lamp attached to a pony’s head. The mysterious stranger was fully clad in metal armour and their eyes had been replaced with prosthetics.

Wait…

It was an equinoid just like me! I couldn’t really tell if this artificial pony was a mare or a stallion by appearance alone, but they sounded feminine, so I decided to settle on ‘mare’ for now.

The equinoid closed the rest of the distance betwixt us in a few hasty steps and immediately began to inspect my body with a concerned question:

“Are you still online, sister?”

“Yes.” My reply came out much more steadily than I had anticipated it to be.

Whatever I used to speak was not only independent from the hydraulic system but was also very sturdy—I imagined my muzzle to be almost completely demolished.

She spoke quickly and quietly as if she was talking to herself, “You look like you tried to fight the Souleater! What happ—” Her head shook with an odd clicking sound. “Doesn’t matter. Can you move?”

“No.” My intent to shake my head resulted in nothing, proving my words. “There is almost no fluid left in the hydraulic system.”

It suddenly came as a surprise to me—how calm I was, lying in a puddle of my own blood, at the mercy of a creature I knew nothing about despite sharing a kinship with her.

“Hydraulics? Wow, you are one of the really old models, aren’t you? Anyway, I think I can fix it. Hold on, sister.”

Before I could note the disputability of her advice, the metal pony hauled my remains onto her back with a grunt. I thought I glimpsed my right forelimb being abandoned on the floor, but the light moved too fast to confirm the macabre sight.

Carrying me on her back like a foal tired of walking, the hospitable mare offered me three options—observe, talk and think.

The first was pretty much impossible. My body was slung across her back in such a fashion my head dangled at her side, pointed downwards. I could only see her swiftly moving hooves, the floor and my lifelessly swinging single remaining forehoof.

I could have talked to her, but something prevented me from that. As per already established tradition, I had so many things to ask about, yet could only think about what she’d already said.

By the Machine Goddess.

Cadence and Luna seemed to be out of commission, one way or another; though some force did move the celestial bodies—something to mull over later, perhaps. Discord was more of a spirit than a God, albeit an extremely powerful one and I couldn’t imagine him being the case. If there were to be a Goddess, an actual deity, she was bound to be a true alicorn—a Princess. And that made no sense.

However, that demanded consideration only if this equinoid did really mean what she said. Back in my time, ponies often referred to the Goddesses, but it was never thrown around carelessly.

The other concerning thing was the floor, which was growing closer to my muzzle as the equinoid cantered through the rusted passage. Still covered in my oil-blood, I was slipping from the mare’s back.

She shifted her shoulders at the last moment, nudging my body across her spine. The sudden movement made my head turn in the same direction the mare was going.

And just in time—we were greeted by a doorway emanating a warm orange light, as if by a hearth. The equinoid entered the room without missing a beat and quickly crossed it to get to the large workbench in the corner. In one mighty sweep, she cleared the metal scrap off it and carefully lowered my broken body onto the table.

To my fortune I wasn’t put down facing a wall, so I had a chance to take in my surroundings whilst the mare pranced around the room, gathering some spare parts and tools.

In the middle of the low-pitched chamber stood a contraption, which by my guess, served as a generator or rather a smaller version of the converter I’d had to deal with before. On the crate right next to it resided a glass cylinder pulsing with a soft orange glow framed by two lids of dark and slightly rusty metal. The lightning tube caught my attention for a bit longer than it should have—the glow wasn’t homogenous in its nature, it was an everflowing fluorescence of countless little embers, their origin mysterious to me.

However enchanting it was, other things in the room deserved my attention. Or I thought they did.

Most of the contents of the equinoid’s dwelling were represented by countless crates filled to the brim with the ever-present metal scrap. Equinoid parts and pony prosthetics prevailed amongst the junk, though it failed to make the corroded refuse any more interesting.

There were no signs of any personal belongings or anything that could possibly serve as a resting place, making me wonder if equinoids even needed it.

Speaking of which, since the kindly mechanical mare had left me on the workbench she had been ceaselessly dashing around the room, diving in and out of the crates. Sometimes she would whisk out a part or a tool, nod to herself approvingly and leave it near me, without sparing a glance to my motionless body.

She was the size of an average earth pony mare. What I had first mistaken for armour, was actually slightly red metal plates. Thick wires entwining her worn-out joints could be seen through the gaps. Some of those plates definitely weren’t the original ones—each was of a different shape and colour. Her metal flanks bore no cutie marks. The only unique features of her body, aside from it being fully artificial, were her eyes, mane, and tail.

They seemed to operate differently from Wire’s bulky prosthetic—her irises were ‘outside’. The focus lenses framed in delicate filigree twitched across the curved surface of her pale blue crystal eyeballs carried by silver ‘crosshairs’.

Brass chains served as her mane and tail, giving the impression of her ‘hair’ being curly, yet it behaved as straight hair would. The colour clashed with itself as well—some ‘locks’ gleamed with the pinkish-orange of freshly polished copper, whilst others were oxidized to bright turquoise.

She approached me with another batch of spare parts, however, this time she looked over my battered body, shaking her head.

“Those meatbags, they are the worst here at the Edge. If not for the holy mission, I would never set my hoof there. It is a miracle that you are still online, sister.”

“Why do you keep calling me ‘sister’?”

My guess was that all equinoids were considered siblings by the merit of being a mass-produced artificial form of life, but I sensed a rather religious context to it as well.

“Huh?” My question caught the equinoid off guard as she had already half-turned away, ready to continue her rummaging. She replied, both perplexed and disappointed, “Are you not a member of the Church? I thought they sent you to help me.”

Though ponies revered the Princesses, they never allowed it to become a cult. Any other religious establishments often carried malicious nature and as such had been promptly dealt with… usually by the Princesses.

“I don’t even know what you are talking about.” I decided to feign complete ignorance instead of hinting at any of my suspicions.

“How could you not know?” She gasped, then suddenly froze and hissed, “Hold on… are you one of the Accursed?”

“I… I don’t know what you are talking about…”

Unfortunately, this time I meant my words.

Glowering at me, the mare tore away one of my chest plates in one rough motion and peeked inside. With her eyes glued to my intestines, she stood dumbstruck for a few moments. Finally, stammering, she uttered:

“What the… I’ve never seen anything like this. Who are you?”

A good question.

She had saved me, and I appreciated that. But my previous saviour now wanted to kill me and my friends. This mare was a part of some cult and that called for even more caution.

“I’m an equinoid.” Not exactly the truth nor did it explain my mysterious nature to her. As she squinted with distrust, I was forced to risk it. “But I have memories of a real pony.”

”The True Transfererense is impossible, ponies are denied from sharing consciousness with our Holy Mother.” She went silent for a moment, then shook her head vigorously, her mane ringing loudly, and mumbled to herself, “Those are not the soulless gems of the Accursed, but they still shouldn’t be like that—not solid. No idea how that is possible, but the sacred vessels mustn’t be tampered with.

“You are an equinoid, not a leather bag. That simply can’t be,” she finally addressed me. ”I can help with your chassis, but anything else is far beyond my skills. You obviously need help, and the Church can provide it. You will join us as soon as you see the truth.”

“The truth?”

Something sparked in her and she straightened before loudly proclaiming, “You should know that as an equinoid you are a part of our Holy Mother! You are but an echo of the Machine Goddess’s consciousness!”

Without waiting for my reaction the mare returned to her activity of searching the iron scrap piles littering her room.

That… explained absolutely nothing, except that there wasn’t a mysterious new alicorn—the Machine Goddess sounded like a sort of a metaphysical entity. At least the mare wasn’t hostile anymore.

After she brought over another batch of parts, her hooves gently repositioned my body. With deft movements, she proceeded to unscrew bent plates and remove shards of plastic still miraculously clinging to my frame. Nothing was thrown away, however—the bolts were put in one of the countless tiny boxes, whilst the bigger components went into crates. As the mare moved to my head and our eyes briefly met, I decided to sate my curiosity a bit.

“You mentioned the holy mission. What is your task?”

There must be a good reason for this mare to risk her life.

“I search for any usable parts and the old metal.”

“The old metal?”

“Shouldn’t you kn… Ah, forget it. ” She wrinkled her muzzle with the soft rustle of a dozen metal leaves forming her face. “The recycled crap from this sector starts to crumble within a few months—too carbonised after so many meltbacks. But there are remains from many decades ago, still good if rust has spared them.”

Something like the steel Tin Flower had used to make her prosthetic. Like butchers, ponies of this sector had access to the best cuts—a dubious advantage, all things considered.

There seemed to be a lot of scrap she had hauled into this room.

“How do you get it out of here?”

“Usually through the zebras at the Foal Mines.”

“The Foal… Mines?”

“Yeah, the sector next to this huge garbage bin,” the mare replied, oblivious to my surprised tone.

“Did you mean Nebula’s sector?”

“I don’t care about meats’ names,” she scoffed.

Ouch. Was that her personal opinion or something all the followers of the Machine Goddess shared? I only hoped her contemptuous disposition wouldn’t prevent me from an answer—I had to be sure. That, and it was a chance to test how far it went.

“Do they really have foals working in the mines?”

The mare had been growing irritated talking about living beings—her motions became rough and twitchy.

“Why would I care?” she proved my fears true. “The zebras grow mushrooms there and deliver them to the Tunnels, that’s all I need to know.”

Suddenly it struck me—I was stupid.

The mines were called that because of the Foal Mountain range.

However, exploring that topic wasn’t for nought. If she sent her finds to the Church through the zebras in Nebula’s sector…

“Does that mean we are in the tunnels leading to them?”

“Not quite, but I’ll show you the way.”

I could get to the city!

But I couldn’t leave Flower and Wire behind…

I had to look the truth in the eye.

If they’d realised something was wrong and left before Pepper returned for them, looking for two furtive fillies in the huge labyrinth-like junkyard would only result in the bloodthirsty pegasus finding me first. And if they hadn’t gotten away in time…

Something must have betrayed my dismay, for the mare clarified apologetically, “Just stick to the stripes, they will lead you to the Tunnels. Our brothers and sisters dwell on the lower levels.”

“I planned to get a fake ID.”

Perhaps, they made them at the Church—it didn’t sound like a legal organisation.

“You can be whomever you want amongst our brethren. We accept any equinoid who shares our faith.”

At this point she finished removing the last damaged pieces of my body and leaned on the workbench, inspecting my almost naked frame.

“I can tell that you were made by a meatbag—missing half of the details, and those which are here are connected all wrong.” The equinoid shook her head in disgust. “Meat will never get our Holy Mother’s designs right.”

However, her aversion was short-lived, for she set about restoring my vision. The part previously left on the workbench from forays went into my emptied socket. Blurry at first, my sight gradually went into focus with a few clicks.

The same thing happened to my ‘ear’. Her skilful metal hooves installed the microphone and following a few seconds of static my hearing returned.

The hydraulic system was next on the list. After watching the mare tinkering with the resin tubes and a small greasy canister for quite a while, I felt life coming back to my limbs. However, my attempt to rise was cut short as her hoof pressed me back to the table—the work hadn’t been finished yet.

A barrage of different sensations suddenly overtook me.

There was pressure all over my body. I felt heavy and light, hot and cold at the same time. For a moment it was as if the room had been turned upside down and I was about to fall to the ceiling.

The chaos ceased as abruptly as it began and I… felt the world! The frigid metal underneath me; the mare’s hooves at the back of my head; the chill and humidity underground; the smells of rust and dust.

Still shocked by all the new sensations, I practically demanded an explanation, “What did you do?”

“You mean your perception module? It wasn’t properly connected, so I rewired it.”

“Thanks a lot,” was all I could utter.

“No worries,” the metal mare paused for a moment, “sister.”

The next half an hour was spent in silence, with only the occasional sounds of metal parts clicking against each other or screws being dropped.

The equinoid put her tools on the workbench and took a step backwards.

“Done. Well, as much as I could, having only junk to work with, but it should hold until you get to the Tunnels.”

I carefully climbed off the workbench.

“Thanks again. I’m so—”

She interrupted me with a wave of her hoof.

“The faithful care about each other—it’s the way of the Unity.”

The mare then left me for one of the crates, but when she returned it wasn’t another piece of scrap—a small object was in her mouth. Taking it in her hoof, she offered it to me—a metal rectangle with elaborate engravings on its surface.

I blinked in surprise.

Whoops—I forgot my eyes zoomed in. Only my ‘old’ eye did it, but still left me disoriented, I blinked again.

Seeing my indecision, the equinoid motioned her outstretched hoof.

“It’s a token with my digital signature,” she explained in her pattering manner. “Give it to any equinoid at the Church level and they will know it was me who sent you.”

“Thank you.”

Carefully taking the valuable item and awkwardly holding it, I wondered how I was supposed to carry it around.

The mare dashed away, disappearing into the corner with crates again and returning a moment later with a casing and a chain. As she framed the token she stuck it betwixt the gaps in my plating; her hoof came back empty. Her gift now dangled ‘inside’ me, but not too loosely to be bothersome.

Before I could express my gratitude, she trotted for the exit, throwing over her shoulder, “You’re ready now, so let’s get moving, sister.”

The equinoid navigated the tunnels with enviable confidence.

Save for me now having a guide, those dark passages were no different from any other I had experienced. Still, it amazed me how despite the moisture permeating the stale air, the sickly dust thickly hung. Perhaps, it was the holes in the ceiling to blame for that—the pale light filtering in through the wounds inflicted by time betrayed the massive grave above occasionally barging in.

Underneath such a jagged tear a puddle of water collected in a washed depression in the floor, the oily film dimly reflecting the sombre sky. And though I knew there was nothing in it I’d like to witness, there was no way I could resist the temptation.

From the wallow two mismatched eyes stared at me—the left one was softly and unsteadily glowing with green, a crack running through its dirty surface; the right ghastly shone with a cold white colour.

Incongruous rusty metal plates formed the muzzle, colourful wires and tubes untidily peeking in betwixt them, ready to spasm. Through the movement of those leaves, the corroded skull was supposed to mimic facial expressions in some grotesque way.

The sharply triangular ears had grating behind which the fans’ dull blades lazily tried to prevent the brain inside from frying itself. In a vaguely reptile way the grid of microphones—the actual ears—was awkwardly stuck betwixt the ventilation and the flashlights of the eyes.

In the depth of the slack toothless jaws a similar casing protected a speaker, the dead-end of the throat.

Further away from the mockery of an equine head, the plates and the gaps betwixt them grew bigger. The bared ‘nerves’ and ‘vessels’ twitched in a parody of their real counterparts as they clung to gleaming ‘bones’, thick bolts or simply tape holding the preternatural body in one shaky piece.

It was rusty, with holes eaten through where the colour was the brightest.

From the small pool a falling apart machine gazed emotionlessly at me.

I gazed back at myself.

There was no shock, nor disgust. I had caught glimpses of my own body, no matter how much I had tried to avoid it; and my flesh came from the burial ground around—it was expected I wouldn’t be anywhere near beautiful.

Still, my head shook slightly. The joints creaked and flakes of rust fell on the poisonous water like snow.

“They’ve stolen it from us.”

My head snapped up from the gruesome sight. Absorbed by it, I had failed to notice the equinoid not only stopping in her tracks but returning for me.

Her words went through my mind again, but I couldn’t find meaning in them. My tilted head was enough to prompt an explanation.

“Her beauty. We were supposed to be as magnificent as our Mother.”

There was nothing I could say for my thoughts were consumed by the shadow of a painful memory.

The mare moved fast, her urgency clearly hinting at her not being keen about pausing for recollection and regret. However, she kept glancing at me over her shoulder, her jaws moving in denied attempts to speak.

Before long we arrived at… a dead end.

On the second glance, a rickety ladder clung to the crumbling wall forming a well rushing away from the dank passages, and I couldn’t wait to follow it. Even lacking lungs, I craved to escape the stench of mould—my regained sense of smell had been doing me no favours.

With an abominable screech, the trap door landed onto the rust, giving rise to a billowing cloud to greet me upon my return to the surface.

Sadly, Her Sun refused to meet me. Relief upon witnessing the empty sky faded quickly—Pepper Mercury searching for me could mean the girls had had a chance to slip away.

I had to try, useless as it might be.

The equinoid stared into the distance, twitching lenses focusing on something only to immediately jump to another sight. I attempted to clear my throat to get her attention only to be reminded—I had none. Still, the weird sounds produced by my speaker were enough. Her eyes stopped on me with a mix of concern and curiosity in them; mostly the latter.

“Do you know Tin Flower?”

She frowned at me. “Who?”

“A filly who lives at the Junkyard. She has a metal hoof.” To emphasize my description, I waved my matching limb a bit.

The mare’s expression instantly fell into that of bored disgust and she scoffed, “Meat.” before turning away to continue studying our surroundings.

Everything I had learned so far pointed to artificial ponies not living the best of lives—not like usual ponies seemed to. Still, her sheer and indiscriminate loathing towards organic life baffled me.

Stifling a deep sigh, I followed her gaze.

Where the Junkyard drove me to insanity with its monotony of rust, the colour of dried blood still had some life and variety to it.

The mining sector was just one huge barren of stone refuse.

Not much farther to the North, the mountain range towered, barely reaching the low clouds. The entire distance betwixt the snow-peppered peaks and the corroded border of the Junkyard was smeared in gravel vomit from the yawning mine entrances ulcerating the monolith slopes.

At first, the inclined rocky waste appeared to be entirely devoid of any signs of civilization, but eventually, the patterns in crushed roche emerged—barely trodden hoofpaths crisscrossing the solid greyness.

My guide chose one, wordlessly leaving me to catch up with her.

She was obviously starved for a chat with a fellow equinoid and I was keen on learning more. Yet, I had to choose the topic carefully, lest she withdrew again.

Something gnawed on my mind, risky though it might be to ask.

“Are the zebras ‘meat’ too?”

The mare shot me a slightly annoyed look, yet the following reply came out amicably.

“No.”

I sped up to try and match her confident gait—unlike me, she didn’t have as much trouble treading upon uneven semi-pulverized residue.

“What’s different with them?”

“They don’t hunt us down,” she barked and trotted ahead quickly, leaving me behind.

When I was by her side again—earning a weary glance—I pressed the issue, even though the outcome was predictable. It was obvious I wasn’t going to learn anything from her, but that wasn’t my goal anymore.

“What about ponies who don’t hunt you down?”

The equinoid outright glared at me.

“All do.”

“I know one who doesn’t.” More than one, actually.

She suddenly all but leapt in front of me and her hoof shot out. As I tried to lean away from the unexpected move, I found her holding me by my shoulder—firmly, though with a concerned expression.

“Sister, I get that you think it’d be easier if we had fewer enemies.” There was clear sympathy in her voice, a hint of longing even. It evaporated quickly, leaving behind bitter hardness as she continued, “But the truth is: when a pony has to choose between one of their own and one of us, they will never choose us.” Moving her muzzle so close to mine, they almost touched, she spat, “Never. We always were and always will be just metal tools for them.”

In her shimmering with umbrage eyes was a reflection—an equinoid created out of a pure heart. That equinoid frowned and shut her lips tight.

“What if you are wrong?”

“What if I am right?” she practically pleaded. “Who had you been fleeing when I found you?”

I couldn’t help but hesitate—her question held a fair point, but I was yet to run out of arguments. “There were ponies who helped me too.”

“Only to use you as a tool to kill off that fat piece of meat,” she countered me without missing a beat.

I fell on my rump with a clang.

“How… How do you know? And I didn’t kill anypony!”

“The tunnels go everywhere, not only to the city.” The equinoid used both of her hooves to put me back at her eye level. “Stand proud, sister, used or not, you avenged many of our brethren.”

Meeting her burning gaze, I realized—she wasn’t looking at the world through the lenses sliding on the crystal orbs, but through a prism of hatred; be it instilled by the teachings of her cult or born of solitude.

Anything I could say she would twist to fit her vision.

My body sagged and my gaze went downwards.

The smirking mare celebrated her victory by patting my shoulder—a gesture not really meant for those with metal bodies as it filled the desolate silence with a din of ringing tin.

There was something in her words, however, that made me think as I sullenly shadowed the mechanical mare.

I certainly did not kill Orange Grime.

I never met him, didn’t even know what he looked like.

And yet… if it wasn’t for my actions, Pepper Mercury wouldn’t have slaughtered those at the warehouse. Was that veritable river of blood on my hooves?

I couldn’t know it would turn into a massacre… or could I?

Pepper introduced herself with murder and Scuff Gear explicitly warned me about her.

On the other hoof, my refusal couldn’t have prevented blood from being spilt—it would have been from the other side, one with the girls and the rest of Edge’s prisoners.

There was a sense of aching familiarity to that situation—no matter what I did, somepony was bound to suffer. That never made the burden of responsibility any lighter and whenever my eyes caught glimpses of my stumbling hoof, I couldn’t help but see Dross Rain’s blood instead of rust.

Consumed by my ruminations, I almost failed to notice how the ashen rock drastically darkened—we had entered the shadow of the peaks, but there was more than darkness to it.

Makeshift huts and rusty wagons surrounded a huge gaping abyss in the mountain’s cankered bulwark. It was not just a crude hole torn into the mass of stone, but a semicircle of a several stories high steel gate, the faded black and yellow stripes failing to conceal its bloody rot. Ajar, it glowed softly with dying lanterns leading into the dark depths; zebras going about it with crates and bundles on their backs.

The trademark black and white coats were all over the modest camp, but there were also ponies skulking in the shadows of the massive striped forms and rare equinoids trying to keep away from everyp… one.

It was hard to call that a settlement, not with its dwellers actively, though somewhat lethargically, trying to avoid each other, but it was a far cry from the desolation of the rest of the sector or the disjointed and furtive Junkyard’s populace.

The heart of the commotion was a dozen large crates next to a metal table. Clearly designed for ponies, it made the zebra mare hunch over it like a grotesque statue. As streams of her striped kin passed by, taking from the cargo or adding to it, she made notes on a mass of papers strewn on the rusty desk.

However, upon our approach, she straightened herself with her joints popping loudly.

Though not the largest one I had ever seen, this zebra hailed from the Jangwa tribe, easily towering over me. The whistling mountain winds slightly ruffled her stiff mohawk and made her abundant jewellery chime as she patiently followed us with large golden eyes.

“Brass Litany.”

Her voice wasn’t as deep as I had expected and bore only the barest hint of an exotic accent, but clearly lacking any joy for some reason. It suddenly came to me that she had just spoken the name of the equinoid mare—something I hadn’t bothered to learn; not that the ‘sister’ had made any effort to learn mine, not that I actually had my name.

“Jua.”

Brass Litany didn’t extend her hoof or bow her head; not that the zebra seemed eager to do the same—she struggled to maintain a neutral mask and couldn’t hide exasperation from her voice when she spoke again.

“I told you already the next delivery isn’t happening any earlier than in a few weeks, if not... later.”

The equinoid almost literally bristled, the vanes of her face flaring in a peculiar expression of anger.

“You told me nothing about ‘later’,” she hissed, bringing herself closer to the zebra.

Her intimidation attempt fell short as Jua loomed over her in an almost comical way, bemusedly staring down at the metal mare.

“It’s only your kin’s fault,” the zebra snapped, bitterness slipping in her tone.

“How dare you!”

Oblivious to how it looked from the side, Brass Litany practically bounced on the tips of her hooves trying to press her muzzle into that of the zebra; obviously futilely.

“Hush, farasi wa chuma, unless you’re eager to do it yourself.” Anger in Jua’s voice grew, replacing familiar Equestrian with the hot words of her mother tongue. “Your kundi makes the passage dangerous. Shout at them, not me.”

“We had an agreement, zebra!”

Quickly, I became aware of myself being nothing more than an uninvited spectator, not that I wanted to join in. Being forgotten by both parties, I could only hope Brass Litany would eventually remember why she came to Jua in the first place.

But for now, I wanted to do something else rather than awkwardly listen to them arguing.

Unfortunately, the camp refused to offer me any company either. Immersed into labour or their solitary businesses, its leary denizens left me very few options to pick.

Respectfully (mostly just warily) avoiding them as I was glowered at from the shadows, I trotted out of the camp, though in the direction opposite to which we’d come from.

It led me to a stone edge abruptly dropping down—not too high, but enough to deserve an old rusting railing. Hooking my hooves over the protesting metal, I let my haunches land on the rocky soil.

Beyond the barren hoofhills lay a lake of dried blood and corroded bones, a hideous scar that even the descending veil of midnight couldn’t conceal.

A chill gust brought the tinny clinking of Brass Litany’s accusations and with my eyes glued to the dismal scenery, I realized how wrenching her mission was. To restlessly wade through the crimson crust, to forage for her siblings’ remains, be their affinity of faith or flesh.

The poisoned soil bristled with no tombstones in that vast cemetery for equinoids—countless names condemned to oblivion. Dug from the rot, those ponies of steel were to be regurgitated in the blazing gut of smelters—reincarnated only to be broken by the world of the living once more. But before the hollow and mangled dolls were thrown away to rust, a set of gleaming gems would pulse in their core, only to be torn out when the toys bored their masters.

The faceted cages forever trapped the undying spirits in a vicious cycle of rebirth. A feat impossible even for the Goddesses had become a common trait—the worst curse for slaves, their final choice stolen.

But what would freedom be worth when the metal for new bones came to an end? What was the merit of eternal life in a frozen nightmare?

And how long would it take before the graveyard of iron became shared by ponies? It was already—the spilt blood was just hard to see on all that rust, the ashes indistinguishably mixed with the slag.

What would happen when the fiery maws of the smelters spewed back sizzling rust instead of incandescent steel? Would the Junkyard ponies be thrown away like broken tools, their lives to be snuffed like the burning hearts of the furnaces, never to be fed again?

A rustling with static voice yanked me from the shadows consuming my mind, and though it definitely belonged to an equinoid, it wasn’t Brass Litany—some stallion.

“Nice bod, looks rad.”

Blinking before turning to acknowledge the newcomer was a mistake I had committed again. As my metal eyelids fluttered, adjusting my sight back, I still made an effort to greet the unseen equinoid until I laid my sights on him.

“I’m sorry?”

“Just sayin’ ye’ve got some awesome custom chassis here. Me stock frame is the cheapest crap,” the stallion elaborated nonchalantly.

How miserable the state of his body had to be to make him envy my beaten rust?

Oh.

There were almost no signs of corrosion, only because most of his ‘frame’ was obscured.

I stared at a walking crate of duct tape. Worn bands of many colours struggled to hold together a scrawny figure. With no plates to protect his limbs and torso, the stallion appeared as a skeleton. The lack of anything mimicking a mane or tail only added to the uncanny look. The irisless ghastly bluish-green glowing eyes weren’t helping either.

The chipped off plastic poking through the tape like broken bones hinted at the chassis having more to it at one point, but it hadn’t survived either the trial of time nor whatever adventures that brought the poor stallion here.

The equinoid fidgeted under my gaze

“Name’s Adamant Smash.” He laughed nervously. “New here.”

Giving his ravaged form a critical look, I couldn’t help but wonder how equinoids got their names. Brass Litany fit hers perfectly, whilst the stallion in front of me… not quite.

What was my name?

“I’m just passing through.”

Adamant Smash sagged a little.

“A shame you are leaving, this place could use more equinoids.”

“Aren’t you afraid of the TCE’s wrath?”

“Who isn’t, right?” Adamant Smash warily glanced over his shoulder. “Still better than living in the Tunnels.”

“Why?”

“A crazy place.” Adamant Smash scowled. “You either join that Church’s ‘Unity’ bullshit or get kicked around at the upper levels. And the levels below?” He shuddered. “Just no.”

Letting out a deep sigh, he finished, “I almost wish I had never left me master.”

My head tilted in confusion and curiosity—how did he do that? He couldn’t have lungs, could he? But then his words sunk in.

“Your… master?”

The relationship betwixt equinods and ponies was already obvious to me, but hearing that word spoken so casually was bewildering.

“A business pony had me as her personal assistant at an assembly line.” Adamant Smash shrugged—a risky move in his condition. “Tho, I got it easy—fetching coffee and other boring stuff.

“She was either too busy or too lazy to take me to the gem cleansing. So, everything I learned about life outside piled up until I just left one day to taste it myself.” He sighed again. “And freedom sucks. Stay in the city and you’re screwed. Go to the Tunnels, get screwed the other way. Go to the Edge—get screwed extra fast.”

So that was what the ‘contamination in memory crystals’ meant—awareness of self. Those who managed to avoid being reset into the state of a born slave were to be… hunted down. The only escape was to embrace the teachings of the Machine Goddess cult.

It felt hollow to speak those words in the looming shadow of a bleak future, but I couldn’t ignore his plight either. Against my will, envy slipped into my tone.

“You can make memories and keep them—isn’t that worth it?”

“I keep reminding myself of that every time I see the Sun rise, but then I can’t help but ask—why live to see the next dawn?” Adamant Smash longingly looked at spires gleaming over the wall bulwark. “With me master I had a purpose.”

My eyes peered further, hopelessly searching for the too distant city. They widened when he suddenly asked:

“What about you, tho?”

The question froze me to the spot in a way no icy wind could.

I was supposed to help two fillies escape the dying city, right?

And then what? I didn’t even know if I was a pony or if my place was amongst machines.

Thankfully, the sound of hooves confidently crushing gravel absolved me from answering. When I turned to face Brass Litany, I found Adamant Smash gone without a trace.

“The stripes have a group leaving for the city in a few minutes. They don’t mind you joining them, however, they aren’t going to pass through the Church’s territory.” She hesitated before adding in a carefully neutral voice, “Or you can stay with me until the next scrap delivery in three weeks.”

I wished the choice was obvious because I wanted to reunite with the girls or even avoid Brass Litany’s zealotry.

Not because I was suddenly afraid to be alone with my thoughts.

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.