Sunset

He had no idea how long they were moving, how many days he had been away from Ponyville. All he knew was they were farther and farther away from their home. Mountains, hills, plains, snow, and darkness they passed and no one in the little-blackened cart knew where they were going. Some cryed, some screamed for help, some banged their head on the walls of the cart, angry and confused. Brownie Button sat in the back, not saying a word, watching out a little knothole in one of the walls. All he could tell was that days were passing, and they were further and further from Ponyville.

On this particular day, Brownie found himself feeling very faint and tired. He had stayed awake all those nights, not even getting a wink of sleep. But that gave him an idea. He scooted over to a shaking orange coated, white-maned stallion, whose name was Orangesicle.

“Hey… Orange! Psst! Orange!” Brownie said, poking the shaking stallion with his hoof.

“W-wha?” Orangesicle said, looking at Brownie with a sad look in his eyes. Brownie smiled tiredly and said to the stallion.

“I have… a way… to save you all…” Brownie said, feeling faint.

Soon, Brownie had formulated a plan between all the ponies in the cart, and they were ready to execute it. Brownie layer down, and let a little spittle run down his untrimmed beard. He closed his eyes and went limp. Then, Orangesicle yelled up at the ponies pulling the cart.

“Dude! This guy dead! He’s limp! He’s dead! He’s stinkin’ up the place!” Orangesicle called out through a little window in the front of the cart. The ponies pulling the cart pulled over, and Brownie and the other nine ponies in the cart heard the hoofsteps of a pony coming to open up the cart.

“Get ready,” Brownie whispered, and the rest of the ponies pulled themselves into a stance, holding wooden shanks they made from the sides of the cart.

A soldier opened up the back, and nine of the ponies in the cart burst out, running in a group to Ponyville as fast as they could. Brownie Button gave them a spell of strength so that they would be able to run for miles on miles.

But as Brownie Button was trying to sneak out of the cart, one of the soldier ponies pushed him to the ground, and started shouting into his ears:

“Oh, so you're trying to escape too, aren’t yah? Well, you aren’t getting anywhere. You’re staying with us and going to the slave camps, you pathetic little mare.” The soldier smacked Brownie around, bruising and bloodying him. All Brownie was able to do was protect his abdomen from the punches and kicks. Soon, after all the beating, Brownie, alongside a couple new colts and stallions were put in the cart, and the soldiers kept going to their destination, which was in the Rocking Pony Mountains.

Soon, the cart stopped after a rocky climb, and the back door was opened up. Brownie looked out and saw the horror of it all. Ponies were being beaten by other ponies, and many ponies cryed out in pain and fear. The darkness of the sky seemed even darker now, and the mountains cast an evil shadow on the slave camp. Brownie looked at it all, horrified and scared. Then, he felt a rope tightened on his neck and felt himself getting tugged out of the cart and into the middle of the camp by a masked, armored soldier. He looked around and saw the other ponies that were in the cart were being dragged into the middle alongside Brownie.

The ponies around Brownie were nervously murmuring, pale and scared. Then, a taller unicorn trotted up to them and stood up on a box in front of the group of terrified ponies. The pony had a dark blue coat, with a light green mane, matted with dust and mane-gel.

“Hello, ponies…” The Stallion said, looking down at the disheveled ponies with piercing green eyes, “May I be the first to say, Welcome to the Dark Skies Slave Camp.”

“Where are we!?” A little grey colt cryed out, grasping the leg of a maroon stallion.

“Well, you’re in the middle of nowhere little colt.” the stallion said with a booming laugh. He paused, then said, “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Crystal Mud, the pony running this entire camp.” He said proudly.

“Where are the mares?” Brownie Button asked hesitantly.

“This is an all-stallion camp,” Crystal Mud said, with a smirk, “There are no mare camps. They are just taken to the Crystal Empire, and well, you know.” he said, with a wink.

“You little piece of filthy-” Brownie lunged at Crystal Mud, but was pulled back by the stallion at the end of his rope, and Brownie dropped to the ground in a heep.

Crystal Mud hopped off his box and trotted up to Brownie. He put his face up to Brownies and smirked.

“You’re sure a fiesty one. I’ll have you sent to the mines here, then you can use all the energy up.” He paused, and said, “ I can break any stallion, and that means, I can break you.”

“You won't get away with this.” Brownie panted, as he was being held to the ground, “Goldie Sugar will come for me. I know that.”

“We’ll see about that.” Crystal Mud said with an evil smile as he used his purple-tinted magic to pull out a tranquilizer gun from the box, and shot Brownie with it in the thigh.

He trotted away, leaving the soldier stallions to bring the slave ponies to their hut homes.

Crystal Mud found himself in a little canvas hut, trotting up to some weird cauldron looking idem. He grabbed a green fizzy potion from the ground and broke open the bottle into the cauldron. A cloud of green and black smoke filled the canvas tent. Crystal Mud bowed down.

The smoke shaped into a stallion, that looked down at Crystal Mud with a glare in his green and red, smoking eyes.

“What is it, Mud?” King Sombra asked, with a hint of annoyance in his eyes. Crystal Mud covered, then spoke up, softly.

“I believe there may be an obstacle I might need to deal with.” Crystal said, still keeping himself to the ground.

“And that is?” King Sombra asked with a hint of annoyance and irritation in his shady voice.

With a frown, Crystal Mud said:

“A… Goldie Sugar…”