The once Princess Twilight Sparkle was woken up by the sound of the Generator. To the machine's constant grinding of gears, the endless hissing of steam it made and the omnipresent rumble of the ground beneath her hoofs.

This had happened a few times, she’d be woken up by the Generator in the middle of the night and she knew that she wasn’t falling back asleep. That stupid, loud, towering hunk of metal that they all worked to feed. That same towering hunk of made Rarity work 14 hours a day in the coal mines, breathing in dust that would destroy her lungs. The towering hunk of metal that needed her to help it run, that stained her forelegs black, that gave her burn scars running up her right foreleg. Twilight could still feel a lance of pain every so often, Fluttershy told her she was lucky to be alive.

But that same towering hunk of metal that was keeping all of them warm in this suffocating cold. The Generator was what powered the city. (if 124 creatures made a city.) It's steam heating the medical posts to treat what sick creatures they could treat. It let Applejack and the rest of the earth ponies grow food, with their magic, to eat so they didn’t starve or eat only meat. The Generator was the only reason they were still alive, without it they would die. It was that scarily simple, if the Generator dies, the city dies, she dies, her Dashie dies, her friends freeze. There was no maybe ifs or buts.

But she knew she wasn’t going to get back to sleep, even snuggled up to a certain rainbow mane pegasus. So she did what the Captain suggested, get to work. However she had to get out of bed without waking up Rainbow or the three other occupants in the small room.

The first one being Spike who slept in the bunk above her. He helped in the cook house, cooking food (or what little of it). As he was too old to go to the small school ( if you could call it a school) that was built for young creatures to stay in during the day.

The second occupant being a sphinx which had surprised her when she first met him, he wasn’t as big as a building like Somnambula described but about the size of the average pony, if a bit smaller. His name was Nansen and he worked with Twilight in maintaining the Generator and researching new technology for the city. His fur was slightly less than dark brown colored. But he didn’t have the headdress that Somnambula had also described; he simply wore a pair of goggles around his neck. He was in his bed sleeping and she wanted to keep it that way.

The Third was a light orange griffin by the name Clockwork. He also worked with Twilight in maintaining the Generator and researching new technology for the city. He slept in the bunk above Nansen.

But before she could worry about those to two she had to get a cyan wing off of her. The alicorn slowly shifted the wing off of her with her own wing. As she did this she felt the biting cold come back making her shiver and want to snuggle back to her cyan colored source heat. But she carried on. She managed to move Dash’s wing back into place and untangle her legs from her marefriend and stood in front of the bed. The alicorn moved the blanket with her hooves to cover Rainbow.

With that done she looked at the room. The room was made of planks of wood and bits of steel as was the rest of the building. It was just big enough to hold two bunk beds with a radiator in between them with the door directly facing the radiator. Twilight walked over to where her coat was hanging and put it on as quietly she could so she didn’t wake anypony. The coat was heavy and thick, it was colored dark brown. It covered almost all of her body except her face, even her horn. It also had two flaps that would let her use her wings if she needed to.

With the coat on she grabbed what looked like a piece of metal in the shape of a 8 with the bottom filled in and the top had some kind of ball of light. It's called a Glow worm, a personal heater and spotlight. It can’t keep you warm in this cold but it could buy you a minute or two of extra warmth, enough to get to an actual heat source or find shelter.

She connected it to a slot on the front of her coat and made sure she was ready by checking her mental checklist twice. Coat check, glow worm check, Tools check. Knife check. Once she was satisfied the lavender mare opened the door to the hallway quickly and quietly left the room and entered into the hall.

She had decided that she was going to check the workplaces and do whatever maintenance she could do, it won’t earn her an extra ration but it would keep her busy and that’s what she wanted.

The hallway was just that, a hallway with doors every so often with a single door at the end that led outside. The alicorn could feel the draft from the door that led outside, and the omnipresent rumble from the Generator.

Walking to the door she once again quickly opened the door and dashed out, closing it quickly as she was hit with a wave of vicious cold. It made her instinctively ruffle her wings under her coat. The roaring sounds of the Generator were all consuming at this point and that made sense as it was right behind her and as she was still facing the door. Twilight turned to face the Generator.

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Twilight didn’t know to describe it, all her years as Princess Celestia‘s personal student. The countless all nighters she spent studying for some big test. She had entire dictionaries memorized, yet she couldn’t find the right words to describe the machine. But lavender alicorn knew how it worked and what it did. That was enough she supposed.

The Generator was an enormous steam-powered furnace/engine, it generated huge amounts of superheated steam and sent it to all the buildings in the city by pipes built into the roads. This machine was the beating heart of the city and one of her jobs was to help it keep beating along. A part of her still had trouble believing it worked without any magic.

But she didn’t dare approach it, not at 5:00 in the morning. Because if anycreature saw her in the middle of the night. They might think she’s trying to damage the one thing that kept them alive in this cold.

So the alicorn went to the 2nd place on her list to check the medical posts. Maybe she’d find Fluttershy there working on somepony. It would nice to talk to somepony.

The medical post was to the right of the housing district. The city was laid out in concentric rings facing the generator. From the Generator at each 90 degree interval was a different district, the one she came from was housing. To the right of housing was medical. To the left of housing was the mess hall, cook house, fighting arena and the pub where Pinkie Pie worked. Behind that was the hot house where Applejack worked on growing food using her earth pony magic. Next to the hot house was the hunters’ hut where a group of workers would go out and hunt for food.

Then directly across from the housing district was the workshops where she worked on researching new technology for the city. Then behind the workshops was the Beacon.

The Beacon was a grey balloon with a large spotlight and radio wave receiver attached to it. Which was connected to a tether that in turn connected to the ground. It acted as a lighthouse guiding groups of creatures to the city and was a way to communicate to the scouts out in the Frostland.

The Frostland was everything outside the crater as The City itself sat in a large crater with a small ramp carved out of dirt and snow that led out of the crater in a southward direction it was behind the housing district.

Twilight got to the medical post and started her inspection. The bluish whitish tent looked fine from the outside so she stuck her head in the tent to see how many patients there were. Five full beds with various creatures in them. With a sleeping Fluttershy in the far corner. Twilight didn’t dare walk into the tent out of fear of waking Fluttershy.

Sighing the alicorn turned and started to head towards the mess hall. Fluttershy had taken up a job as a nurse for the city. The once-Princess almost never saw the butter yellow pegasus anymore, she was always busy. The list of injuries one could get was staggering, with the most common being hypothermia. She herself had been gravely injured by the blasted Generator ten days ago.

The memory was a bit foggy but there were a few monuments that were fresh in her mind. The pain mainly was still fresh in her mind. What she could remember was she’d put down the clipboard she had been holding in her right foreleg For some reason. And when she went to pick it up with said foreleg she accidentally brushed one of the steam pipes that led from the main boiler to the city. The almost molten metal of the steam pipe instantly cooled on her much colder leg and burned its way through her jacket. All she could remember after that was screaming in pain and immediately falling unconscious from said pain, leg still bonded to the steam pipe. Lucky for her both Rainbow and Clockwork had been close by and saw it happen if they hadn’t...

A shiver went down her back at that thought, the answer was easy she’d be dead. Thankfully She’d awoken in the medical post the next morning to a RD style hug attack while she yelled “I told you so.” and Fluttershy looking surprised to see her awake so soon. Fluttershy told her the ramifications of her injury. She would, for the rest of her eternal life have a 5 inch long 1 inch wide shard of metal running down her leg and some nasty burn scars to boot.

But what hurt her the most was what Rainbow told her that night. “Twi didn’t let you make me immortal so you could die and have me do all the work.” Rainbow wore a goofy smile when she had said that. But the tears stains on her face told her more accurately how Rainbow felt. She’d done the same thing Rainbow that Cadence had done to her brother, gave up a part of her alicorn magic and transferred it into Rainbow Dash so they could live, forever together, as Cadence put it. It was, to her, one of the best decisions she had ever made. But it meant nothing if one of them died, they weren’t unkillable, just biologically immortal.

That's why she begged Dash not to volunteer to go out into the frostland and find resources, refugees and what not. It was very dangerous out in the frostland and they had learned that first hoof during their journey to the city. Thankfully she had managed to convince Dashie to be a courier in the city, running papers, messages and other special materials from work place to work place.

Shaking herself from her thoughts as she reached the mess hall and started her routine checks. The mess hall was, for all intents and purposes a long wooden box with the same green coloring all buildings related to food had.

Twilight entered the building. In the food box (as Applejack put it) was three lines of tables that went from the front of the room to the back of the room. There were lamps spaced out evenly connected to the ceiling. She walked to the back of the room. There was a door at the back of the room that led to the cook house.

She wasn’t allowed to go in there, only the cooks were. Her stomach chose this moment to remind her how hungry she was. She desperately wanted to get something to eat, to just go in and get something. A locked door couldn’t stop her and she knew it.

She started to leave the mess hall before she got tempted by the idea of eating food. It wouldn’t be that hard to just break down the door and grab something to eat, even grass, it would just take- Twilight flinched at her own thoughts. How could she think that. She was a Princess dammit, she shouldn’t be having these thoughts. Her stomach decided to once again remind her that she hadn’t eaten much more than thin soup since her group arrived at the city two weeks ago. During the trip she had eaten basically nothing once the supplies ran out as no pony had been expecting the trip to take two months. Even with the shortcut that was crossing a frozen ocean.

The trip.. She quickly shut down that line of thought down. It was the best choice she had at the time, she was happy with the choice she made. But it had cost her and everypony else pretty much everything.

As she exited the hall her right hoof landed on some ice and slipped sending her sprawling to the ground. Her face smacked into the frozen ground facing the Generator. Her right foreleg telling her just how much it didn’t like hitting the ground. “Really! You have to be fucking kidding me!” She shouted in frustration as she picked herself back up off the ground. The alicorn did a once over on herself checking if everything was ok. She had no rips in her coat. No new pain, just the pain in her right foreleg. She was fine all things considered.

Huffing Twilight chose her next target as the hothouse but before she could start heading in that direction. She saw a light coming from the pub to her left. To her this was Strange as the pub didn’t open till 18:00 and that wasn’t till a long time from now.
A flash of worry went through her, maybe some creature broke in! With that thought she rushed over to the pub and opened the door.

Twilight entered the Pub and was surprised to see the Pink Party pony herself behind the counter. Pinkie looked like her usual Pinkie self but with the addition of a simple brown vest on. She was polishing a glass with her tongue bit between her lips in a look of intense focus.

As Twilight's boots hit the wooden floor Pinkie looked over to the alicorn. Her face gaining a smile at recognizing her friend then it gained an impish twist. “Hiya Twilight you're up early. Does Dashie know?“ Twilight froze for a second then shook her head with a light blush on her face, as she took off her jack and put it on the rack to her right.

No longer worried that some creature broke in as Pinkie worked the pub. The Captain put her here to help raise morale, from what she knew. The alicorn chose to answer with a question of her own. “I could say the same thing. You're also up early Pinkie.” Twilight replied as she sat on one of the stools directly across from Pinkie.

“So why are you up early Pinkie?” Twilight asked, as she wanted to steer the conversation away from what the pink pony implied. “That’s easy, cause the Captain asked me to.” This surprised Twilight the Captain was ever much a follow the rules type of pon-er-dragon. “The Captain asked you to be up this early? Why?”

“He said he wanted to get a drink without being mobbed.” Twilight looked down at the table, she could understand that as a Princess. She also didn’t like being mobbed by ponies when she was trying to get work done or trying to get some time to herself. He was undoubtedly under a lot of stress trying to run this City.

“Hey Twilight since you're here do you want something to drink?” Pinkie asked. The alicorn thought for a moment then nodded her head at the party pony. “You know what Pinkie sure, give me the lightest drink you got. Something that won’t affect me for too long. Can you do that?” Normally Twilight would never drink unless it was at one of Pinkie’s parties and even then she had very little. There were a few notable exceptions, a certain wedding (that changelings interrupted) comes to mind.

“Silly Twilight of course I can, anything for my friends. You still have all of your drink tickets anyway.” Pinkie answered in her usual chipper tone, as she leaned under the counter and started moving bottles with her hooves to find the right one for her friend. She found the nondescript bottle, and grabbed it with a chipper “Found it” and put it on the counter.

She then turned around and grabbed a glass and set it next to the bottle. She then poured the liquid into the glass and gave it to the alicorn. “Thanks Pinkie,” Twilight said with a small smile of gratitude on her face. “No problem” The party pony replied.

Twilight was about to instinctively pick up the glass with her magic. But she stopped herself before she ended up hurting herself. She turned to look at the thermostat on the wall to her right. It read -10 Celsius. So it was warm enough to use her magic freely.It had recently (recently being a month ago) started to get so cold that unicorn magic wouldn’t work. It would just fizzle out into nothing. Earth pony magic still worked ,thank Luna, so they could grow food much faster than normal. Pegasus magic still worked as well but flying in this cold would freeze the wings of any pony who tried to fly too high.

So with the all clear she levitated the glass and took a drink. “It feels good to be able to use my magic” She sighed happily as a minuscule smile formed on her face. She was magic defined after all. Not being able to use her special talent hurt her quite a bit. Well in actuality she could use some, it just hurt a lot. Being an alicorn probably had something to do with it she figured. The alicorn chose to lay her laid head on the counter closing her eyes, enjoying the warmth of the room.

After a moment of silence Pinkie spoke up. “So how's Rainbow Dash doing? You see her every night right? I still can't believe you’re marefriends. I bet Dashie gets all snuggly at night too, you two must look so cute all snuggled toget—“

“Pinkie! Please don’t talk about it.” Pinkie’s spiel was interrupted by Twilight. “Why not?” Pinkie then let out a loud gasp. “Is it because you two broke up and you are all like, I never want to see you again!”

“What! No why would you think that?” The alicorn questioned, almost offended by Pinkie's claim. “You said you didn’t want to talk about it so I thought that meant you and Dash aren’t talking. Then I thought-“

Twilight interrupted Pinkie “No it’s because I feel bad talking about it. I feel like I’m bragging by being in-“ A Pink hoof was shoved into her mouth interrupting her. Twilight looked up that Pinkie. The pink mare looked Twilight right in the eyes. Her face was that rare serious face Pinkie made when she was in fact, serious. “Do not apologize for being happy. Not now, not in this stupid, stupid cold, not after all that has happened. Ok” Pinkie’s mane had slightly deflated and she wore a saddened expression.

The pink mare lowered her hoof from Twilight’s mouth. “We need every bit of happiness we can get right now. After what happened to Apple Bloom and Granny’s death. You and Rainbow are happy together, that means at least some of my friends are happy.” The party pony was now clearly sad. She then shook her head and put a somewhat forced smile on her face. “You know what the saddest thing of all is?”

Twilight chose to play along, she had a feeling she knew what the mare was going to say. “And what’s that Pinkie?” “I haven’t made a cake in two months. Two month without creamy frosting. Two mouths without…” As Pinkie started to rant about the lack of baking cakes.

Twilight heard the door to the pub open. “Ah, Princess Twilight. I’m surprised you're here.” At the sound of the draconic voice that had entered the pub, Twilight knew instantly who it was. “Captain Ellis how are you this morning?” Twilight replied as she turned to face the dragon in question.

He was twice as tall as her with orange-yellowish scales. He also had red eyes. Not evil eyes like Sombra, they held a more happy shade to them. But also held a strong sense of authority to them as well. He had a pair of silver horns pointing backwards from his head. He also wore a large coat like every creature else in the city.

On his back was a weapon that she had only heard rumors about till she reached the city. It was called a ‘rifle’ or a gun for the more general term. It was a long brown stick with a metal tube that had a hole at the end of it. She knew how to operate such a weapon thanks to Rainbow being issued one. As the Captain worried creatures may take out their grievances or anger on the messenger hence her being given a rifle. It was attached to her left side and operated with a mouth tigger. A design made just for equines like Rainbow.

The dragon walked over to the and sat one seat apart from the princess such that she was on his right. He set down a book to his left on a seat. “Fine all things accounted for. Eight more sick yesterday and one death yesterday,” Twilight tensed was she worried it was one of her friends. “Who was it?” The dragon replied shrugging “Some dragon.” Twilight relaxed at the fact it was some creature she didn’t know.

The Captain looked at the party pony that was still currently talking about the lack of baking cake. “Pinkie you got what I requested?” Pinkie snapped from her cake tirade and looked at Ellis. ”Of course Cap. Let me get it for you.” Pinkie leaned down under the counter once again and picked out a blue bottle, poured its contents into a glass and gave it to Ellis.”Thanks Pinkie.“

The pink mare bounced out a door behind the counter, going to do who knows what. “I’ll be in the back if you need me.” She said in a sing-song voice. After taking a drink of said drink. The Captain turned to look at Twilight. “So I made a new law for the sick. Can I get your opinion about it?” The orange dragon asked.

“Sure but why my opinion? You rule the city.” Twilight asked. “Because you have also ruled over creatures-er ponies.” Ellis replied giving Twilight a look of confusion. Twilight scoffed at that “Sure but when it mattered no pony listened.”

This remark by the princess peaked the dragons curiosity. “I didn’t get the chance to learn what was going down in Equestria before the world froze over. All I know is that Celestia didn’t listen to the warnings.” Twilight huffed a sigh that held a bit of resentment.

“What happened was I came to the same conclusion your country did, that the sun would become magic resistant. Such that no amount of magic could move it, and the sun would go back to its original position which is farther away from the planet.” Ellis raised an eyebrow at this “Wait wouldn’t moving the sun farther away gravitationally screw with everything else in the system.” Twilight shook her head “No and the best way to explain it is to say alicorn magic and move on.” Twilight said with an apologetic smile. The Captain rolled his eyes while setting down his glass. “You ponies and your magic, I like my physics.” Twilight shrugged indifferently.

Ellis thought for a moment as he took another drink. “So basically the planet orbited the center of the system but the point of light was closer.” Ellis guessed trying to understand. Twilight thought for a second then said “Eh not quite but close enough.”

The alicorn continued talking but with a bit more resentment. “But when I went to Celestia, she said I was overreacting. That everything would be fine.” Anger filled her voice, had being her personal student meant nothing? Had her and her friends saving Equestria multiple times meant nothing? Didn’t being a princess earn her some trust, she guested not. “The only ones that agreed with my conclusion were my friends and some of Ponyville. And in one month what I predicted started happening, it got colder sooner without pegasus intervention.” Ellis could start to see rage fill her eyes, with a quick swipe of a claw he proceeded to lift his glass off the table.

“Even after that most ponies still didn’t believe me. Like seriously! Could they not see what was in front of their faces! They mocked me and called me crazy! That I didn’t know what i was talking about! I was the princess’s personal student for shit sake! They told me that I was the Princess of Friendship and THATS! ALL! I! FUCKING! AM!”

The furious alicorn slammed her left hoof into the counter. It broke through the countertop sending wood flying around her and the orange dragon, while also sending her drink flying to the ground smashing the glass. Twilight was panting with her wings flared out, anger still behind her eyes. After a second she looked down at where her hoof had broken though the counter, eyes widening. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to -“

“Feeling better?” The dragon said, cutting her off before she could start panicking. She looked at him funnily, then took a second to think. Twilight had to admit she was feeling much better, maybe it was the alcohol she reasoned. She lifted her hoof off the countertop.

“But what about-”

“I’ll just say there was a bar fight overnight, no creature will know or care” Ellis answered, took a drink then continued on. “From what I know every creature needs to let out their anger. That’s why I had the fighting Arena built in the first place. I know your friend Applejack goes there almost daily. So it must be doing something for her.”

He took a second then shouted. “Hey Pinkie there was a bar fight last night! ok?” An audible giggle could be heard for the back room then a replay of “Okie Doki Loki” was heard from the back room. Twilight couldn’t help but laugh at that, of course Pinkie would have her back. “So as I said could I have your opinion on the new medical law?” Asked the Captain. Twilight nodded as she cleaned up the wood mess she had made with her magic.

“Excellent. So the medical posts have been filling up again to the point of overflowing. So I designed a building to put the overflow who are waiting to be treated and a place to put Amputees. It's a Care house basically. While a patient is in the care house they will eat a ⅓ ration.” He said while giving Twilight the notes. Twilight took the notes in her magic, levitating them in front of her. The purple mare took a moment to read it over. “Do the amputees have a choice about being moved here?”

“No they do not.” The Captain said in a voice that left no room for argument. “Hmm I recommend you increase the ration to ½.” Twilight suggested. “Why?” The dragon questioned. “Because we eat very little as it is and it is easier to accept eating half then one third of a ration.” Twilight answered.

“Fair enough. I will take it in to consideration. Thank you for the input Twilight.” He took back the notes. Then took a sip of his drink. After a few moments Ellis pulled back his right sleeve exposing a watch. “Extended shifts start soon you’d better go back to the rainbow interloper, that’s in the wrong bunk house by the way” The Captain gave her a look that simply said don’t bother, I already know. Twilight wilted under the gaze.

“How’d you know?” Twilight asked, she thought she had been sneaky about it. Rainbow was supposed to be in a different bunk house. But Rainbow snuck in one night and Twilight didn’t complain. She craved company as working in The City didn’t leave much time for her to talk to her friends. So when Rainbow kept sneaking in Twilight helped cover her tracks tho it didn’t seem to matter.

The dragon chuckled. “One, she always starts and ends her routes at your bunkhouse. Two you two are an item. And Three” The dragon reached towards Twilight’s mane and pulled out a cyan feather from said mane. “This feather.” He finished with a smug look on his face.

Twilight’s face had the look of a foal who had been caught putting her hoof in the cookie jar. The dragon chuckled. “Next time just tell me or write a note to me. If anything you two sleeping together conserves heat and makes it less likely that either of you will complain about it being too cold. Just don’t try to sneak something by me again. You’re not that good at it.”

Twilight at this point was blushing heavily. “You should probably go wake up the rainbow interloper so she can start her routes” The alicorn regained her composure and nodded. “That’d probably be for the best.” She said as she got off the seat and put her clothes on. “Oh and buy the way it’s getting colder today, -50 says the weather team.” Twilight simply sighed and walked out the door.

The City’s discontent 57/100

Hope in the City 32/100

Author's Note

So here we go a new story. Tell me what you think in the comments, if you’d be so kind.

And to those who read A Third Front Has Opened Up, this story will not slow updates.