Chapter one: Welcome to Rapture
It was already dark and a good number of passengers on the aircraft were already asleep. Pepper Jack fiddled with the package he had taken as his carry on. The blue paper sparkled even in the dim overhead light and a bright oversized bow sat neatly on top. It reminded Jack of wrapped gifts given on Hearths warming eve. His mother had gone overboard like she always did he was sure. The tag was written in her hoof writing, To Jack, With love, Would you kindly not open until and then a random string of numbers.
Jack put the box down again, why even write it like that? Tartarus, if he couldn’t open it till then why send it with him and not send it by Pegasus. He whinnied and tried again to get a few minutes of rest before reaching their destination. Maybe if he had been born a Pegasus like his father, he wouldn’t have to take the balloon home every time he wanted to see his folks. Finally, with that his eyes closed, and he drifted off.
Jack awoke to the sounds of fire and the screech of metal. His nostrils were full of smoke and his eyes burned. He frantically looked around only to find himself surrounded by water. What had happened, where were they, where was land? These questions swam in his head until the earsplitting screech of the ships hull sinking below the depths snapped him out of it. Every muscle in his body screamed but he did not notice. The only thing he could do was push and not get swept under with the wreckage.
Pepper Jack closed his eyes as he felt himself begin to fall below the water, heavy and tired he begged Celestia, “please, please let me make it” His head fell under again as he struggled to stay afloat.
He looked up and saw the blinding light of the lighthouse, right in front of him in the middle of the freaking ocean was a lighthouse. If he had died and this was heaven, but that thought was soon cut off by the feeling of hard ground under his hooves. “Thank the fucking Princesses” He turned and looked back out at the wreckage as it slowly slipped beneath the waves.
He turned back and trotted toward the beckoning light ahead. Safety was just a few feet away.
The heavy, gilded doors swung open almost before he touched them. The whole place had seemed like a long-forgotten secret just waiting for Pepper Jack to find, but that couldn’t be possible, could it. Jack shook his head at the notion. There was no way. He had crashed here in a terrible accident; this was just pure dumb luck. He walked further and let the large doors close behind him.
Suddenly, the room lit up with what looked like electric lights. Odd, he thought, most ponies just used magical lamps not the semi dangerous electrical ones. Statues of earth ponies lined the spiral staircase and a moth-eaten banner spanned the whole room. “No magic, no princesses, only ponies” Above the banner was a bronze likeness of a stallion. How old was this place? He walked forward, moved by curiosity.
Jack soon found a weird little contraption, an underwater train perhaps. The object had a row of seats and a lever in the middle to make it work. On one side of the devise was an old radio on the other a large window. What in the world could this be? He cautiously stepped inside, not like he was being pulled, but almost gently lead. Jack carefully pushed the lever and the door closed behind him with gentle creaking. As quickly as the lights had come on before, Pepper Jack now found himself surrounded by darkness.
The sphere sank quickly, almost knocking Jack off his hooves, more pony statues raced by as he watched out the little window. He felt his heartbeat faster as the metal ball sank lower and lower into the frigid depths. 16, 17, 18 Fathoms. Deeper and deeper he fell watching markers pass by telling him exactly how far he had fallen. His ears began to ache, but the pain disappeared when the window suddenly shut, and an ad played from a projector somewhere in the contraption.
“Incinerate.” Said the ad as a lovely earth pony mare showed off a fiery hoof. Next to her stood a young stallion puffing away at a freshly lit cigarette. Her smile seemed to suggest a lot more then friendship between the two.
A deep red earth pony with a brown mane and tail came on the screen next. Fire in his eyes that matched the young filly’s hoof from before, yet he sat, relaxed. A cigarette and glass of whiskey accompanied him. “I am Arcadia Reigns” a strong voice said “I have a question for you. Is a pony not entitled to the sweat of his brow? No says the pony in Manehattan, it belongs to the unfortunate. No says the pony in Canterlot, it belongs to the princesses, No says the pony in Ponyville it belongs to every pony. Well I rejected all of them. I chose something different. I chose Rapture.
A huge underwater metropolis spanned before Pepper Jack’s eyes. Spiraling “skyscrapers” that could put the tallest buildings in Manehattan to shame. Bright glowing neon lights shown in the briny depths. Wildlife swam by, giant whales like the ones in museums Jack had seen as a colt now only a horseshoe away. Turtles and schools of little fish danced by like in some under sea ballet. And the colors, more than he had ever seen before! Pepper Jack hadn’t even noticed his mouth had been open in awe and he had been leaning on the window like a schoolcolt on a field trip till a voice came on the radio
The metal ball had reached the end of its track as Pepper Jack inched toward the radio. The voice came again, clear as if the pony attached to it stood right next to him. “Would you kindly pick up that there radio” The voice asked, not quite demanding. Pepper reached for it as a mare’s shriek filled the room his ball had stopped in. Jack froze as a deformed creature came toward the metal sphere. He wasn’t sure if the thing could get to him but he sure as Tartarus didn’t want to find out.
“All right boyo’, I don’t know who you are, and you don’t know who I am, but I’m not going to question lady luck and I aim to keep you alive and kicking. I’m Globetrotter and I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine, got it.” Jack nodded as if the pony from the little box could see him. Who knows what could happen down here?
The creature attacked the ball again, digging; were those claws? Into the metal hull. “Celestia, help me” Jack curled into the back of the ball as the scratching subsided again. “You need to keep moving forward, I swear I won’t leave you hanging just trust me. Take a deep breathe and step out of the bathysphere” Globetrotter’s voice came across the radio again. Jack shivered but did as he was told, what else could he do?
Pepper Jack carefully stepped out of the sphere and felt something soft and wet under his hooves. Given the ordeal he had just gone through and the warm sickening squish he knew he didn’t want to look and see what, or more likely who, he had just stepped in. He closed his eyes for a second took a deep breath and pushed forward into this ever-waking nightmare. “If I get out of here, I have some words for princess Luna”
Globetrotter came on the radio again “Pull her out of hiding and I’ll take care of her for ya’ again you just have to trust me’” Jack’s eyes widened and he felt his pulse all the way though to his ears. He swallowed and ran out of there as fast and loudly as his hooves could carry him. He didn’t want to check to see if she fell for the bait, but he could hear her, so he figured she had. Her voice echoed in his head, crackled and labored. Every piece of fur on his body stood on edge as she got closer to him. “please, Mr. Globetrotter, know what you are doing” He thought.
“Gotcha now bitch” Globetrotter all but squealed in delight. Suddenly a bright light shown on the mare if you could still call her that. Most of her mane and tail were gone and growths came off her in random places. What had once been a lovely shade of pink fur was falling out and matted with what Jack was sure wasn’t strawberry jelly. And long curved metal hooks came out of her front hooves. He swallowed back bile as he watched her try to climb up the wall as a small robot sentry on a helicopter shot at her. She screamed one last time and fell to the ground. Wet gurgling erupted from the thing until she was completely quiet. A pool of brown goo spread out around her.
And with that Jack now had a very empty stomach, the previous contents of which were now all over the once red carpet of the hallway. Little colored spots clouded his vision as he stumbled forward. His head was heavy, and the room was spinning. Jack thought he was going to faint but somehow, he continued to move forward. Globetrotter came on the radio again, this was going to be a constant thing thought Jack, but honestly, he welcomed it, better that then trekking it alone.
“Would you kindly find a crowbar, a wrench, something to protect yourself at least a little. Can’t have you dying to one of those things, now can we?” Jack looked around, “Something to protect myself with? Where the hay would I find something like that” He trotted along a little further to see a hole in one of the walls and there on the ground between the crumbling plaster and rebar was a bright red monkey wrench. Jack snorted, “Of fucking course”
He bent over and grabbed the wrench in his teeth. “Welp this will work if I never have to talk, or eat, or open anything.” He thought to himself. “I didn’t exactly walk in here with a bag… or clothes with pockets.” He sat the wrench back down and looked about a little more. “Maybe if there was a wrench there could be a tool belt nearby? Saddlebags? Rope? It didn’t take him long to find an old leather tool belt. It wasn’t perfect but a lot better then nothing. He grabbed the wrench again and shoved it in one of the several tool loops. “At least I don’t think finding things will be particularly difficult, small blessings I guess.”
Jack continued forward, once more. Moving was better than just standing still. Celestia knew when more of those things would come back and find him. He could feel his skin crawl at just the thought of the body he left behind.
He started up the stairs to what looked like a parlor, cups and empty bottles littered the tables broken glass and plaster littered the floor. Well, if he wanted a drink he might be waiting a bit, and Luna knows he could use one right now. A voice came from elsewhere in the room and it didn’t sound like Globetrotter. “Crap these things just have to be everywhere don’t they?” Jack grabbed the wrench off his belt and quietly stepped behind the counter. A withered body with those same growths, hunched over broken bottles and cups like he was looking for something.
Jack didn’t wait for the guy to turn around, He raised the wrench and brought it down hard, right on the back of the other pony’s skull. After three more hits the pony’s legs had stopped twitching and a pool of red had reached Pepper Jack’s hooves. Jack found what the thing had been looking for and a couple dollars. Maybe he had been wrong about getting that drink as he pulled a bottle of wine from behind the counter.
Pepper Jack popped the cork and sat on the ground, back against the counter. A dim pink glow from upstairs caught his attention. The gentle electric hum grew as he approached a vending machine. “What in Equestria?” Pretty glass jars filled with a weird red liquid teetered uneasily in the machine and one was laying right outside almost glowing. Jack reached out to touch the strange bottle. After turning it over a few times, he realized that the bottle didn’t open, instead he found that they come with an old, exceptionally large needle.
“No” He said out loud to nopony. “There is no way in Tartarus I am using this. “
Screams and voices came from somewhere below him. “Fuck, when in Rome” Jack closed his eyes and tried to steady himself while shoving the needle into his shoulder, right before his left leg. “Woah there, keep it calm” came the familiar voice over the radio but Jack almost didn’t register it at all. Immediately his sight went foggy and the air in front of him began to ripple and warp. Jack tried to keep himself upright but found himself falling over the bronze banister onto the floor below. Then everything went black.
His senses slowly came back as he heard hooves moving quickly away from him, then a loud clanking. He couldn’t begin to place the noise until he saw it. Everything was still fuzzy, but he could make out the thing. A huge metal creature, almost like a pony but with huge everything. Large metal tubes caged the area where the head should have been, but instead a metal helmet with several lights sat on its huge shoulders. Where the things right leg should have been was a comically large industrial drill and that was only the front. His back held a giant tank that would shatter the back of any earth pony Jack could think of. He wanted to get up and run from this thing until he heard the sweet sing song-y voice of a filly.
Or at least what was once a filly. The sweet girl skipped up to the monster happily. Her fur, whatever color it had been was now a steely, sickly gray, her mane almost jet black with faded pink bows tied at the ends of two pig tails. Her tail was held up in the same kind of bow and a faded yellow and pink daisy cutie mark smiled back at him. Her poor body was covered in scars and her hooves were caked in, well the same thing everything else in this Celestia forgotten place was. In her mouth she carried the longest needle thing Jack had ever seen. The tip had to have reached past her knees when she carried it aloft.
But nothing prepared him for her eyes. They had no pupil, no iris, no white, just holes of pale golden light shining through this filly’s head. Actual light that shined and cast shadows of her face. Like balls of twinkling star light where her eyes should be. Pepper Jack would have screamed if he hadn’t been scared into silence. No sound left his lips, and for a moment he thought no sound ever would again as the world faded back to black.
“Are you alright? Can you hear me Boyo?” Globetrotter’s voice echoed in Jack’s ears. He tried getting to his hooves while the world around him continued to spin. His head throbbed as if he had spent months drunk and the hangover had finally caught up with him. “That first time is a kick in the arse, but hey, have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a unicorn? Float things in front of you or grab stuff off a shelf with your mind? It truly is a freeing feeling.”
Pepper Jack turned back toward the bar he had been drinking at earlier and stared at the bottle he left on the counter. He had never really known much about the way unicorns used magic, but it couldn’t be that hard if even the youngest fillies and colts could float their toys around right? He tried to picture the bottle where he wanted it and to his surprise it appeared in the air before him. “I could get used to this” He thought.
He didn’t have much time to reveal in his newfound powers as Globetrotter came back across the radio. “I’ve gotten you this far and I will do my best to keep you alive like I promised, but I need you. My wife and foal are stuck here, just like us. This forgotten hole is no place for a mare and child and that is where you come in. Please sir, would you kindly help me save my family? “
Pepper Jack nodded, if that was what it took to get out of this nightmare alive then so be it. Anything to go home, to feel actual ground under his hooves and look up and see the sky. “Fine, I’ll help. You just need to tell me where to go.” The voice came back overjoyed. “Thank you! Oh, Boyo you’ve made me the happiest stallion alive. We need to get to the fisheries, but this place has been on lock down and old Arcadia isn’t the biggest fan of newcomers. You best head through medical and use the emergency elevator. But first there is the issue of that door. I bet if you thought hard enough you could float it out of there.”
Jack went to the large door at the front of the room. The solid bronze bulkhead separated him from the medical pavilion, and that door wasn’t going to budge without a fight. He reared up and strained at the thought of the door off its hinges. He focused hard like he had on the bottle and heard the metal whine. He braced himself again, most of his weight on his hind legs and concentrated on the image in his head. The door began to bend and fold in on itself as though being crushed under an invisible hoof. One last try had the door finally clang to the floor. Pepper Jack slumped back exhausted. He did it, the barrier laid in front of him, busted and useless. He smiled for the first time since coming to Rapture.
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