The Invasion

Breeze and I were in shock, and I’m sure that I wasn’t the only one hiding behind the rock who felt ridiculously inane. We should have known better…we should have seen through his traitorous lies. But, we didn’t, and now we were trapped. Cutthroat knew we were there, and Bass had been the source of his knowledge. Neither of us saw it coming, but we definitely saw our lives flashing before our eyes. It seemed like everything was over, and we would never be able to return to our families or friends ever again. In a moment, I saw Breeze being tortured and cut to pieces by Cutthroat’s sharp sword before he turned it on me.

“What do we do?!” I whispered harshly.

She breathed out and crept closer to the rock. “We do what we came to do.”

“But we can’t do that now!” I pointed out in another harsh expulsion of whispered breath, “Cutthroat’s gonna have sentries and guards all over the place!”

“But we have a numerical advantage,” she said, “and before you go nuts, let me explain. There are two of us, and a lot of them. That means we can be sneaky.”

“Oh, I get it,” I said as my mind returned to its equilibrium, “we can dart about like rats in a maze.”

“Exactly.”

“Oh, we should also leave fake clues pointing them in the wrong direction,” I said, “that way, we can toss them off our trail and get the mares out.”

“Good thinking,” she said, “now, come on. There’s no time to waste!”

With those words, we snuck out from our hiding spot and kept to the shadows along the prison wall. I silently thanked Twilight that the sun was in the perfect spot. Thanks to Breeze’s striped pattern and my darker fur, we were able to keep out of sight. When we came to a brighter spot, we simply waited for the guards to turn another direction, and dashed across into the shadows again. It was a good plan, and every now and then, we turned over a bucket or lacerated a bush in order to leave a false trail. Slowly…painfully slowly…we made our way to the main door into the cell area.

By this point, all my friends had been returned to their living quarters, if you could call it that. When a guard opened the gate, we snuck forward and slipped inside unnoticed. Hiding behind a nearby stack of boxes, we were able to observe the cells and their surroundings. I nearly retched again, it was so terrible. The stench was unbearable, and it became apparent that the mares were living in their own waste. I watched as two guards trotted into a cell where two unknown mares resided. Once inside, one pinned a mare against the wall and raped her while the other mercilessly beat the second mare. I couldn’t bear to watch, so I closed my eyes and held myself against the boxes.

“Believe it or not, that’s being rewarded,” Breeze said, “you don’t wanna know what punishments are like around here.”

“How could anypony treat somepony else with such cruelty?” I asked in disbelief, “I mean…how?”

“There’s evil in the world, Trundle,” Breeze said, “and that’s never gonna change. All we can do is stop it when we can, and right now, we have that opportunity. Those poor mares in there, trying to survive this hell, are desperately counting on us. They may not realize it, but they are. Now, let’s go cell by cell and break our friends out.”

“Friends?” I asked, “but, you don’t even know them.”

“Your Princess is very wise,” she said, “I’ve read some things about her, and one of them is that somepony in need is your friend, no matter what. I’d say that applies here.”

I nodded and, as soon as the guards left, we trotted forward. I was knocking myself for doubting friendship in such a way, but I didn’t have much time to do so. We arrived at the cell where the two mares had been beaten and tortured. They looked at me with sad eyes, wondering what they had done to deserve such treatment. I gagged as I looked at their cell floor, coated in a thick layer of feces, urine, and all manner of bodily fluids. Then, I looked back at them. Their poor coats were ragged and knotted, and their manes had lost every ounce of luster they once possessed. They were covered with bruises and injuries, and one had even had a hoof split wide open.

“Please…help us,” one of them begged weakly, “I…don’t know how…much longer…”

“Sh…” Breeze said, “we’re here to help you.”

At this point, the mares were so delighted to have help that they didn’t question Breeze’s loyalty to the cause. She trotted to a nearby table and slowly opened a drawer. Fishing out a key, she then trotted across the passageway to where another door awaited. She unlocked this door and was faced with a wall of keys. Using a careful hoof, she pried the key to their cell out and unlocked the door. The mares had tears in their eyes as they unabashedly hugged Breeze for all they were worth and thanked her over and over again.

“It’s no trouble,” she said, “now, we need your help to free everypony else in here. Together, we’ll stop Cutthroat and end his evil tyranny over both the zebras and you.”

The mares nodded, and soon enough, we had four more cells open. Each mare that came out looked poorer than the last, and I had to continually stop myself from vomiting at their cell floors. They truly were living in a world of horror, never knowing when someone was going to hurt them. I didn’t know how long Twilight and I had been unconscious in our own cell back at the castle, so I couldn’t imagine the length of time that this hell had been operational. As more and more mares joined us, my anger grew. I wanted Cutthroat’s neck in my hooves. I wanted to flay this evildoer who would dare attack our happy home and make such trivial sport of the mares within it.

Soon, I told myself, I will kill Cutthroat, if it’s the last thing I do.