Birds of a Feather

The morning came slowly, Stern found herself unable to sleep with this strife despite her long-standing exhaustion. She alternated between laying awake in bed and staring out over Fillydelphia. Was this really the only way? Stern wanted to put her trust in Red Eye's plans, but she was more than just conflicted with things now. There had to be a peaceful way to go about this, right? Stern's indecision turned to anger as she turned to face her desk and dig out the old photo. The ecstatic younger version of herself stared back, taunting her with the joyful naivety of someone who hadn't yet been crushed and warped by circumstance. The young medic wouldn't have left Murky to die, but she also had no idea that the Goddess wanted to end all life as it was known. The young medic also hadn't been eased into the horrors of the city and told it was all for the greater good.

"Fuck you." Stern set the photo back in the desk, done letting her past taunt her. Stern cradled her head in her talons, seated at her desk. This was the closest she got to sleep until the light of day returned to vaguely illuminate Fillydelphia through the horrid smog and cloud cover. Her tired eyes gazed out the window, dreading the day to come. She'd chosen this path and it was time to take it. One final plea went out to any of those still watching over the world for something, anything, to divert her from this path. At the door to her office, Stern took a deep breath and pushed the medic back down into the darkness. Her headache was back as she stepped out to brief her crew on the week's scheduling in regards to the day off Red Eye had given the slaves.

"So we're not getting the day off too?" a relatively new griffon asks, Kaz or Kazzy was his name, Stern couldn't recall. She glared at him, causing the griffon to recoil.

"No days off for the guards, if we aren't there to shoot at them the Steel Rangers will attempt to break through. I assume they have spies in the city who will report if there's a noticeable lack of guard presence." Stern uses a cold and dry tone to address those with lower rank. It was entirely business, unlike the angry shouts she gave to keep slavers in line.

Two dark gray griffons stared uncomfortably at the scheduling board, they could easily be mistaken for twins if it weren't for the fact the female stood a head taller and carried a nasty scar across her face. The male spoke up, turning to face Stern as other Talons dismissed themselves. "The pit? I-I hate watching them fight down there. Can we trade with Kaz for patrol?"

"Grow a pair and stick with Grim, Somber." Stern growled, motioning to the larger female griffon who leaned her weight from side to side uneasily. "Keep her actually working and not writing in that stupid notebook." Grim frowned at that.

The Somber nodded, heading off reluctantly with Grim. Stern took a good look at the schedule board once more Somber and Grim would be the only ones at the pit besides her. Surely she could find a green raider and maybe get Somber to swap them out. Maybe bribe a couple slavers to make it happen?

5am, the event begun this afternoon, which gave her several precious hours to work with. Stern got to work organizing her plan, in a paper list she'd have to burn for security's sake. Tons of logistical factors swam through her mind, she needed to locate the slavers who would be guarding the pit, bribe them or threaten them, get Somber in on the plan without letting him know anything. Finally, she needed to find a replacement, willing or not.

She needed chems, slavers and raiders alike loved chems. All this needed to be done precisely and quickly. The slave market would be the easiest way to intercept contraband... And she wasn't able to do it herself because she had to follow her own rules. Technically, she didn't know about the 'underground' slave market, or else she'd have to formally shut it down. So she needed to find a slave that would be able to act as a medium first, which required a slaver to be briefly out-of-service.

She needed another look at Murky in order to find a suitable replacement, while she was there she could announce a random drug search which would most definitely cause Whiplash to go hide his stash and maybe use that as leverage to get the services of an errand pony for the morning. Then she needed to send them in with something to trade for a few hits of Med-X, and a good bit of Buck. Or she could confiscate Whiplash's stash and hope he had what she needed. From there she needed to find a replacement for Murky and hide them until a bit before the match, send Somber in with the chemmed-up raider to bribe the guard and actually make the swap. Just in case Somber failed, she needed one final back-up plan. A distraction she could use as a reason to shut the event down if she saw Murky enter the pit, she also needed to find a few troublemakers to keep on call, maybe use Grim to signal them.

She couldn't be there to do it herself since she needed to be visible with Red Eye, and he wasn't worried enough about Littlepip to approve a plan like this where she could slip Murky out as well.

Stern cast her eyes up to the sky once more, she had a feeling that her prayer had been heard by someone and they'd given her that idea. Stern's plan, when written down, didn't look much like a list but a tree of 'if this then go to this step instead'. Sometimes she hated constantly making contingency plans for anything and everything, this was not one of those times. She grabbed three issues of Wingboner magazine from the contraband locker and stuffed them into her armor, then took off after Somber and Grim, prepped with a deal for each of them.

"Hey! You two!" Stern calls out, gaining on the two griffons as they headed towards the pit, "I need you to do me a favor, both of you." Stern held a new amiability as she addressed them.

Not that they could really refuse, Somber spoke for the both of them, "What do you need?"

"I need to make today exciting for Red Eye, he's in the city and he'll be watching the pit event today. Perfect chance to show him that the Talons don't need any budget cuts." Stern danced around the truth, playing a second angle of the same story, one her Talons would understand. "I need Grim to round up a couple troublemakers and give them front-row seats. If I give the signal, Grim passes it down to start a little riot and show Red Eye that our security may need a little extra pay for their work. Somber, you and I are going to be packing the pit's teams for a little more excitement. I need Red Eye watching the pit, not us." They both looked uneasy until Stern reminded them that they'd be first in line to have their contracts cancelled if Red Eye cut the security budget.

"Get a move on, Grim. Get three to ten of the ex-raiders and get them here early with some free booze from the contraband locker. Somber, you head down to the airport and get me Med-X and Buck. Leave the doctor alone, Sooty Moraas has the real product. If he gives you any trouble, ask him if he knows what a gelding is."

"What's all the chems for?" Somber asks, Grim heading off without so much as a peep.

"Buck will make for a better fighter, Med-X will convince the guard to let us make a substitution. Get going, Somber. You have until 11am." Stern taps her talon against a nonexistent watch on her wrist. The griffon takes off towards the airport, leaving Stern confident she could find a replacement for Murky.

5:25am, Stern sometimes outdid herself. Landing on the roof of the petting zoo, Stern slipped in silently and moved along the outer wall until she came across an attached shed where she estimated the enclosure was from the inside. A small portion of the eave was rotted away, allowing Stern to peer into the dark enclosure.

She couldn't see anything, but she could feel a small amount of warmth and the gentle sound of breathing from inside. Stern held up a gemstone light, tapping it a few times to get the emitter to illuminate. It dimly lit the little enclosure, showing the tiny pony curled into a ball in the corner.

Small, dirty green coat, dirty blonde mane, and a little vest of some kind. He woke up with a startled shout, "W-wait no!"

Stern hissed quietly, "Do you want to wake up the whole damn city? Let me get a look at you."

Murky stood, backed against the opposite side of the enclosure to Stern's annoyance. "Come closer."

He took a half-step, prompting Stern to just squeeze her frame through the little opening, surprising herself at how small an opening she could get through.

"Wh-what do you want? The pit isn't starting yet, I'm not hiding from it!"

"Keep your voice down. Let me get a description of you written down."

Murky didn't speak, he just stood in the corner looking confused as ever.

"I'm gonna see if I can find a replacement to go into the pit for you." Stern says, writing down a vague description of Murky on a scrap of paper.

"Why me?" Murky asks, eyes misty from the casual talk of his imminent death.

Stern thought about just why she was doing any of this, she'd been Stern as Fillydelphia knew her for almost ten years but suddenly she was feeling guilty? What had changed? Stern knew the answer stood in her complete inability to push away the voice of her younger self now. "You asked me to save you yesterday. I'm going to protect you." Stern quieted herself, crawling back through the opening.

Murky sat in utter confusion as the griffon from yesterday left, "... Thank you." he wasn't sure of what her purposes were, but if it meant getting him out of the pit he wouldn't question it.

Murky was left in the dark of his hidey hole to wonder if his desperation made him dream of something improbable. The early morning hours were dark as Fillydelphia always was, but there was still time for some sleep, right? Whiplash's angry shouting and a hoof beating on the wall of the enclosure told Murky that the slaver had plans for him to endure one final shift.

"The foundry, go. Wicked Slit will release you to go to the pit after." he says, hesitating to lash Murky as he quickly got beyond the leather's reach.

If Murky had been dreaming, then he'd spent his final hours being whipped and pulling heavily loaded carts of armored barding to and from the foundry to be, he assumed, reinforced with more metal as the return trips were agonizing.

Without so much as a break, a dark grey griffon arrived at the foundry to retrieve Murky halfway through a trip to the factory with a cart of near-immovable mass. The griffon began arguing with Wicked Slit, their voices drowning out through the sound of machinery and distance itself.

Murky's heart skipped a beat as Wicked conceded the shouting match and pointed in his direction. The sting of a whip bounced across his flank, the slaver urging Murky to keep pulling. The griffon approached, meeting Murky far from halfway. He wasn't the strange griffon from this morning or the one from yesterday. Come to think of it, he'd been so focused on eating yesterday and the pit today, he hardly remembered the griffon's looks.

"Murky Number Seven?" the griffon asks, an unsure male with just a single stripe of rank on his armor.

The slaver speaks first, laughing at Murky's clear anxiety, "Yeah, that's him all right."

"You're to report in at the pit. Come with me." the griffon closes in, beginning to pull Murky from the harness.

"Hey, hold on a minute." the slaver drops his whip and gets off of the cart, "He's gotta finish this trip first."

The griffon shrugs, "You do it." and takes off into the skies with the green pony.

Murky wasn't sure if begging would even help, aside from what felt like a fever dream this morning, griffons never interacted with the slaves except to hunt down the runaways.

"They wanted to make sure you were there early." the griffon says, looking forward as Murky was pulled through the sky and given a horrifying view of the world he'd known from above, to gaze down upon so much suffering at once was unthinkable before this. No wonder the griffons and slavers in the catwalks were so desensitized.

The pit, a horrifying hole in the ground dug into the remains of an ice skating rink or sports court of some kind, grew exponentially in size as they approached. Tiny at first, then seeming to swallow them whole as the griffon glided through the open roof of it.

The stadium seating was empty now, save for a few raiders having a small party together in one of the front rows.

Murky was lead through the empty halls unseen to the stadium-goers and promptly pushed into a small, dark closet.

"You keep quiet in there. Not. A. Peep. You hear me?" the griffon growls. Murky backed into the corner and nodded. He shut the door, leaving Murky in the pitch blackness of the janitorial closet.

Like any reasonable pony, he never dared go into the pit. Was this how they treated the pit fighters? Locking them in a cramped dark room until it was time to fight to the death? The little pony curled up and cried himself to sleep to just get it all over with. He wasn't sure how long he'd been asleep, the closet was hot and stuffy from his own meager body heat when he woke up to the noise of cheering ponies and shouts over the loudspeakers.

Scariest of all, the door ahead of him opened to reveal the griffon from before. "Come on." he says, pulling Murky to his hooves and walking him a short distance away to a gate guarded by a slaver. Beyond the first gate was a small area with a bench, another gate, then... Murky could see the area itself, filling him with fear.

The guard affixed a cover to Murky's flank reading a single number. It wasn't 1, he knew at least that digit. Murky was given his place om the bench, sitting the fifth furthest from the second gate. Ahead of him, two raiders, a tiny mare, and an unremarkable stallion who seemed to be full of expositional dialogue. The tiny mare had a computer of some kind on her foreleg, a pipbuck maybe. Murky closed his eyes as the roar of the stadium picked up and the first matches went as painfully as one could imagine ponies fighting to the death in acidic, tainted goo.

With each passing duel, Murky stepped closer to his death. The zebra would certainly kill the little mare, the stallion, then him. Maybe not the big guy in the back though.

The gate behind him unlocked and the dark griffon opened it. The guard groaned happily with a needle in his neck, leaning against the wall for support. The griffon had a raider by the neck who was almost literally frothing at the mouth. "Come on, here's your stand-in." the griffon says, not having to tell Murky twice as he slipped out of the waiting area and gave his flag to the stout, dirty green raider whose excited shouts could barely be distinguished from an animalistic warcry.

Murky then watched as the mare with the pipbuck entered the ring. It all happened so fast... The zebra's head rotated around and the little mare escaped, floating herself up through an opening at the top of the pit's chainlink ceiling.

It was then that chaos broke loose across the pit. The huge pony who had been last in line bulldozed through the unlocked gate, shoving the griffon into the wall, unconscious.

He had been pulled at the last minute. That griffon wasn't a fevered dream! Murky's heart lit up for just a moment at the prospect of having someone looking out for him! This was short-lived, however, as Murky now found himself in the middle of a slave riot. Gunshots and angry shouts rang out outside as the slavers fought to regain control of the drunken, frenzied masses. Murky ran, he needed to be far from here before the riots ended or broke into a full rebellion.

Somber didn't return, this left Stern on the second branch of her contingency plan - Grim. Stern watched over her shoulder as Red Eye looked down to the pit, Littlepip was entering. Up against that zebra, Stern felt she knew the outcome of this. Then, the unthinkable happened.

Following the chaos after Littlepip's escape, the slavers and Talons alike fought to maintain order. This time though, Stern could feel the crowd's excitement, like she was part of the riot. She almost rooted for the slaves.

"Ignore the riots. Make sure the stabledweller does not leave Fillydelphia." Red Eye's voice pulled Stern back to reality as she took off over the crowds in pursuit of the little gray unicorn.

Impressive as Littlepip's skills in evasion were, they were no match for someone who built a career out of chasing runaways. Seriously, good job making a stairway out of pie tins. By the time some of the slavers were able to land a few close pot shots near Littlepip, Stern realized she needed to bring the mare in alive.

She pulled from her armor's side her bullwhip and tucked her wings in, diving in behind Littlepip without a sound. The whip lashed outward and tangled itself in Littlepip's hindlegs, causing her to faceplant into the dirt. Stern leapt on top of the mare and grabbed her horn before she could make use of her telekinesis.

As quickly as her escape began, it was over. Red Eye was going to speak in private with Littlepip about his plan to defeat the Goddess. Such details were kept secret, even from Stern, for the sake of hiding it from the Goddess. "We'll let you in on it when the time is right, I promise. Take care of the riots." Red Eye said.

The riots were quelled after several hours and many bullets fired. The final push at the main gate was repelled and the slaves were forced back into the city despite Stern's subconscious desire to open the gate. As evening pressed on, another thought came to Stern, Murky.

She thought she'd seen him among the crowds, but remained forever unsure if a scenario had played out where he'd been close to escaping only to be sent back by Stern herself. The shame was almost too much for her to try and find him again. He was most likely at the petting zoo.

Again Stern questioned herself, she'd been doing heinous things for years! Why did she suddenly start to care now?! There was once a time not too long ago where the sight of a useless and weak pony like Murky filled Stern with anger, why did she feel a need to protect him of all ponies?! Why did she want to just throw open the gates and let everyone go free? Why was it suddenly so hard to just trust in Red Eye's plans?

En route to the petting zoo, Stern noticed a semi-colorful flash in one of the ruined buildings and diverted her flight path.

The ancient wooden floors cried out as she slipped through the broken window and looked around the remains of what was once an apartment. Her eyes came across a glowing pink bottle. Sparkle Cola Rad.

It was hardly the miraculous, magical thing she'd been hoping for after catching a glimpse. She put it into her sidebag and began to snoop around the apartment, finding nothing too interesting.

Stern found a few utilities bills, some coffee cups, and an old magazine about urban gardening she kept. There was no hidden safe with bullets and bottlecaps, who would even do that?

Stern found in the small bedroom, sitting atop a vanity with a truly hideous wig, a statuette of the yellow and pink pony. Upon reading the inscription, 'Be Kind' Stern quickly stashed it in her bag, she didn't need this, but she wanted to have it. The strange feelings that have been following her everywhere haven't stopped. Red Eye would be busy with Littlepip, Stern needed to see Murky again, and she didn't understand why.

Stern took off out through the window of the apartment and focused in on the petting zoo in the distance.