The City Must Survive

Sunset Shimmer was leaving the mess hall when the clock hit 8:00 and the loudest sound she will probably ever hear shook the City once again.

BWWWRRRMMM!!!!

Followed by the words “The work shift starts.” Said by some creature.

The sound was made by the Generator. If Sunset had to describe the noise the Generator made everyday at 8:00 and 18:00 she’d say that it sounded like a low rumbling mechanical fog horn. The sound made her heart vibrate in her chest each time as the sound roared through the city letting all creatures know that work was to be started.

And with work started the city came to life. As Sunset made her way to her job she watched as the skyline that the Generator mostly dominated with the huge amount of smoke it released blocking the sun in some places in the city. Quickly became accompanied by the smaller smoke of workplaces that were waking up to provide the resources that the city needed to survive.

Creatures that Sunset had never seen before coming to the city, left their bunkhouses to go to their assigned jobs. Sunset herself was returning to her workplace which was located next to the Beacon.

The amber mare worked as the radio communicator between the city and the two scout teams exploring the Frostland. Her job was not as labor intensive as Rarity’s or Starlight’s but was just as important. She had to do hourly check ins with both scout teams making sure they hadn’t fallen through ice or something of that nature. She was also responsible for mapping out the Frostland using what information the scouts gave her.

As Sunset moved along the road that circled the Generator she saw the lower part of the Beacon’s tether come out of hiding from behind the Generator’s smoke plume. Sunset’s eyes followed the tether up far into the sky, all the way to the balloon that sat alone high above the crater the city sat swaying in the icy wind. The balloon was the only reason Sunset and the rest of Twilight’s group had found the city in the Frostland. Its bright light ended up guiding them to this frozen city.

Sunset weaved her way between two workshops that stood side by side facing the Generator and saw her workplace. It was a small wood and metal box no bigger than three meters by four meters, was one floor tall and had a slightly angled orange roof, a shed basically.

Around the shed was a framework of steel that anchored the Beacon’s tether to the ground and her shed. Parts of the framework moved which had confused Sunset at first till she was told by Nansen the movement acted as a counterweight to the balloon keeping it in relatively the same spot.

But there was a pony outside her shed, the lavender fur gave it away at a glance. The amber mare sighed. She knew this conversation was going to have to happen, that didn’t mean she’d like it.

Sunset had bottled up her anger during the trip to the city and a few days ago had exploded in anger at some small comment Twilight said about the human world. That led to her saying some things that she regretted and her throwing a punch at Twilight which she really regretted. As Rainbow had kicked the amber mare in the lower jaw when she went for the strike.

As Sunset approached Twilight spoke up “Sunset I’m sorry about-“ Sunset held up a hoof telling the alicorn to be quiet. Which she did, thankfully. “You have nothing to be sorry about Twilight. When I came through the portal to see if human technology could help, nobo-pony expected it to be a one way trip.” Sunset could still clearly hear the sound of the mirror portal shattering. Sunset knew what Twilight would say next, so she beat the alicorn to the punch.

“And that’s not your fault I got trapped here because you asked for help, it was my choice to step through that damn portal. But honestly it’s neither of our faults, if anything it’s Celestia’s for not listening.” Sunset knew Celestia was arrogant but the amber mare could understand somewhat why Celestia wouldn’t believe Twilight.

When Sunset left for the human world all those years ago, she, like Celestia, still believed that the magic resistant theory was wrong. The theory stated that object’s slowly become more magic resistant each time the same spell would be cast on said object.

The effect took a long time to manifest, by some estimates hundreds thousands repeated spells. The effect was thought to be sudden, as it wouldn’t take more magic to cast the same spell, until a tipping point where you could no longer cast the spell on the object. Sunset believed it to be wrong but once Twilight showed her first hand-er-hoof the effect was real, she went to help. But by then it was too late.

Sunset lowered her hoof and made her way to the door that led into the shed saying
“Twilight could we just forget that argument ever happened please, I said and did some really stupid stuff, and I’m sorry about all of it.” The alicorn nodded “That would probably be for the best.”

Sunset pulled out a key with her hoof and awkwardly opened the door as she didn’t have hands or magic, a fact she hated. As she went inside she added “Good luck.” Twilight replied with “Yea you too.”

Sunset entered the room, the door clanking closed behind her. She was alone, again. The amber mare sighed then took a second to look around the room. To her left was her wooden bed that was up against the far wall. At the hoof of the bed was an orange bag that held all of the things she brought from the human world to try to help Twilight. To her immediate left was a small plank built into the wall that acted as a table. It had a few papers on it but nothing else.

The important side of the room was the right side.

There was a table that ran the entire length of the wall as it was built into said wall with metal supports going from the floor to the bottom of the table. The reason for this was all the radio equipment sat on the table.

The equipment was big and bulky taking up most of the room’s right side. Boxes with dials of all different shapes and in rows each with their own purpose. Gauges with a little needles moving around constantly. If somepony had told Sunset it was really old stuff from the human world. She would have believed that pony easily.

Finally in the middle on the far wall was a map that covered said wall. With the room’s radiator underneath. Sunset took off her jacket and boots, then put the clothes next to the radiator hoping to warm them up. She looked at the map.

The map held the general shape of the Frostland. The city sat in the center with a bright red metal pin marking the city and the crater it was located, with the words “Site 14 New Kingston”stamped on the pin. To the mare’s still mild amusement the red pin was engraved to resemble the Generator.

Going south from the city marker was land and glacier that slowly led to the frozen ocean that she had crossed over to get to the city. There was a pin on the right of where the land met the frozen ocean. Attached to the pin was a piece of paper with the words “Frozen Port” writen on it. Going north from the city led to unexplored tundra.

But going east or west led to a few pins. West had a few notable ones like the orange pin with “Site 28 New Brunswick” stamped on it. Site 28 was built at the base of a small mountain and was supposed to be another city with its own Generator. But no activity had been seen in the three weeks the City had been occupied. So that's why a blue pin with “Scout unit 1” written on it had an arrow pointing to Site 28 at its base.

The Scout unit should make it to the site by 13:00 today as they were basically at the site. Sunset knew the Captain himself would be joining her for that report so she wouldn’t be completely alone today. Which was nice.

There were other places of note to the west, like the massive army crate the scouts had found. Over half of the guns and ammo were ruined by the cold, but the five hundred pounds of TNT the crate held were fine. The scout unit couldn’t carry the, once again, five hundred pounds of TNT back so then left it for later recovery. But they took the guns because of course they did. The fact that so many explosives were just laying around worried Sunset. As who would leave that many explosives in the middle of Frostland even if they were mining grade and not weapons grade explosives.

Looking east on the map the biggest thing that stood out was a canyon named Claw’s Cut that led to the frozen ocean. But other than that it also had a few notable pins, in particular another orange pin near the end of the canyon with “Site 8 Winterhome”. Another Blue pin with “Scout Unit 2” was headed to a bridge that crossed the Claw’s Cut hoping to use it as a shortcut to get to Winterhome. They should arrive in an hour or so.

So about an hour till anything important happened, great. Sunset hated that about her job, her job was slow most of the time with bits of excitement every once and awhile. It didn’t help that she was basically alone these past seven days since she got assigned to work the radio full time after the original operator died.

After Sunset finally learned having friends was a good thing. She was having a good life even if she was in the wrong world. But now she was in a literal frozen apocalypse. She had lost almost everything, hell she couldn’t even use magic.

She was just a ‘less good earth pony’ as the captain said and Sunset agreed with the dragon a hundred percent. He wasn’t being mean when he said it was just an unfortunate fact, unicorns were weaker then pegasi and earth ponies. Unicorns couldn’t use magic as it was too cold most of the time. She-

Sunset’s inner rant was interrupted by some creature knocking at her door. “Wa-one sec.” Sunset had no clue as to who it was, it wasn’t the Captain as it was way too early. Twilight or her friends? No, all of them were busy. Sunset walked over and opened the door quickly trying to let the visitor in without letting too much cold air get into her workplace and living quarters.

The visitor passed by her quickly entering the room. Sunset closed the door and turned to identify her surprise visitor. It was an orange griffin so had to be Clockwork as she didn’t know of any other griffins with orange feathers in the city. “Good morning Sunset, sorry to intrude but I wanted some creature to talk to.” He looked around the room with his green eyes. “Cozy.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the company. But shouldn’t you be working on research or something like that?” Sunset asked as she moved over to her bed and sat on it.

“Yes I am supposed to be in the workshop. However I am out of ideas so here I am.” The griffin took off his jacket and other bits of winter protection. “Is it fine that I heat up my stuff with the radiator.” The griffin asked.

“Go for it.” She replied. Sunset had talked to Clockwork before once or twice. He was an Arcadian, like the Captain. By what she remembered from the last time she talked to the orange griffin was that he was a bit scatterbrained. As he would jump from topic to topic without warming.

“Thank you.” Clockwork put the clothing where he said he would and sat next to the amber mare.

Sunset broke the silence before it could last more than a second. “So why talk to me of all ponies?”

“That’s easy, Twilight spoke about you and her at one point, traveling to another world and that they were more technologically advanced in some ways.”

The griffin pointed to the red Generator pin with a claw. “Some ways not as advanced, it infuriates me a tad that Twilight still doesn’t think Automatons are physically possible. It’s not like it was my job to build and maintain them or anything.” The griffin muttered the last part while waving his claws in an annoyed fashion.

“Automatons?” Sunset asked curious about the word and the fact Twilight didn’t think they were possible. Clockwork looked at her and waved a claw dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. As I doubt I will ever see one again and we definitely don’t have the materials to make them or the blueprints.” The griffin looked around the room randomly, ending on the orange bag.

”Annnnnyways I was wondering if I could pilfer some ideas from that other world.” The orange griffin said hoping he could get some form of inspiration. Sunset sighed “Sorry but while I know how to use their technology I have little to no clue how it actually works. I have bits and pieces at most.” Clockwork sighed “Drat.”

Sunset watched the griffin get up and walk up to his jacket. But instead of putting it on and leaving her alone. He pulled out a pencil and a notebook that looked like it had been through hell.

He turned to look at her “I have this feeling you are just a bit lonely considering you sit in this shed nearly twenty four hours a day alone. So I might as well brainstorm here and give you some company. If that’s ok with you?”

Sunset was more than ok with that.

—-

Both creatures were startled by the sound of the radio

“Good morning city. This is scout unit two and you will not believe what we found.” The voice of a stallion said through the radio.

Sunset responded while Clockwork listened in. “Morning Clovis. So-“

A metallic whine blasted over the radio followed by a stomp. While the unicorn covered her ears at the sound, while Clockwork shouted in joy “Clovis you better not be messing with us. Did you really find an Automaton in the middle of the Frostland?”

Sunset decided to take a back seat in the conversation.

“Yes we did the latest model as well. The guy is in great condition as well, not a dent on his hull. Although We can’t find his handler, the poor thing was left out to sweep snow off of this bridge.” Clovis said.

“You better be sending it to the city.” Clockwork demanded with a smile.

“Planed on it. The thing can replace an entire workforce. Although it’s convenient that you're here as we have no idea how to do that.” Clovis admitted with a chuckle.

“Ok ok you're going to have to access it’s hull first.” The griffin was actually bouncing in place like Pinkie would.

“Guessed as much but how? It’s all the way up there.”

The griffin let out a groan “Does no creature else know how to operate an Automaton or is it just me?”

“I’m honestly sure you are the only one who can in the city Clockwork. That’s probably why you were assigned to New Kingston in the first place.” Clovis answered.

“Ah good thing I’m not dead then. So there should be a leg with the number four on it, find it, then pull the lever.”

The Sound of Clovis repeating the instructions to some creature could be heard. A few seconds later the sounds of hissing could be heard. “Done next?

Clockwork continued instructioning Clovis on how to send the Automaton to the city.

The griffin then put on his jacket saying “I have to let the Captain know about this sorry Sunset.” With that he was gone.

She was back to being alone. Again.