Fallout Equestria: The Ashlands Timeline

Date: Tuesday 11/22/2287
POV: Figment
Unicornia

Figment couldn’t be happier to get out of there. It wasn’t easy to pretend his head wasn’t throbbing from having walked through their energy field. Luckily, it didn’t hurt as much as the one in Ramble, or maybe he had just gotten more used to pain.

He also couldn’t deny that he was looking forward to fucking Princess Platinum that night. She was a conniving evil twat, but an incredibly hot conniving evil twat. She was obviously the dominant type, and Figment just loved a female prone to pinning males down. Maybe that explained why he’d taken to Crimson so well.

Though it was odd that she didn’t grab him immediately after the meeting, instead waiting until night. After she pushed up the meeting in anticipation, he expected to be nabbed pretty quickly.

Just being here in disguise was invigorating, though, and Figment wondered if this was how changelings in the old days felt when spying on ponies. He wasn’t sure, but he’d like to think he had an important job here and could glean valuable information for his friends. He wanted to do his best to impress them, especially Crimson.

It turned out there wasn’t much of a walk to the harem chambers, though the method of travel confused Figment at first. The door they went through led not to a hall or another room, but to a small area no bigger than a walk-in closet. There were pseudo-stone walls and a glowing bluish floor and roof, a control panel on one side the only thing breaking the monotony.

It took longer than it should for Figment to realize it was a teleport pod. His escort punched some buttons on the panel with his magic, and the whole room suddenly filled with intense light. Figment was blinded for a moment, but when he blinked it out it appeared that they hadn’t moved at all.

When the door opened again, he realized they were in a completely different closet that looked the same. He wondered how many of these pods there were in the city; it’d certainly make it easy to get around, and also to track everyone’s movements.

Figment didn’t even get a good look inside before Measure coaxed him out of the pod into the chamber beyond. The guard didn’t touch him though, with hoof or magic, as if he didn’t want to, shooing him out instead like a bug, a more appropriate action than he realized.

“Remember, no bucking the other toys until after she’s had you,” Measure warned. “Ask the head colt about the rules. You don’t want to know what happens to the harem colts that disappoint her. Or, more specifically, to their balls.”

With that, Measure closed the door again. There was a burst of light from within, Figment assuming he went back to the throne room. What a nice warning though; for the first time in his life, Figment felt performance anxiety about getting laid, but maybe that’d just help him seem like a virgin.

For the time being though, he turned to get a better look at his surroundings. At the very least it was far more comfortable looking.

Rather than a bunch of sharp corners and ironwork, his area had a plush red carpet with walls and ceiling of smooth marble polished to a shine. The entire room was no less than a hundred hoofsteps squared, spaced out with columns holding up the high vaulted ceiling, lit with chandeliers with soft pink lighting. There were windows along one side, so shiny that he couldn’t see outside them from his current position.

The openness was different from what Figment expected for a harem chamber. He expected something more like dorms, but their entire living space was this room. What’s more, most of the furnishing consisted of large pillows and futons with red and pink shades, a pile of them in the center so they could all sleep in a pile. There were a few tables as well, most of which overflowed with fresh fruit and vegetables, many of which he didn’t recognize, but all looked delicious. A few tables had some kind of meat, some of which was in large slices…about the width of a sea pony’s tail…and a few decorative centerpieces were sea pony heads.

There were doors on the opposite wall, and a few of them were opened. They appeared to be various fetish chambers full of toys and restraints, not unlike Crimson’s own hideaway. The main difference was that most of the restraints were plush and clearly meant for kink rather than actual pain, but nonetheless this seemed like a fun place to be.

Many stallions and colts roamed the main area, ranging in apparent age from newly marked to maybe 20, perhaps three dozen in all. Who knew what their actual ages were, since they all had soul gems embedded in the back of their necks, and Unicornia could likely even make them look like foals again with its tech. Figment wondered if he’d be getting one soon as well. It hadn’t occurred to him, but such a procedure would give him away. There would probably be a ‘breaking in’ period, though, where she decided if he was worth it enough to put one of those in him.

Platinum definitely had diverse tastes. They ranged from large and muscular to lithe boy toys, and everything in between. The only thing they had in common was that they were all unicorns, as if she’d let anything lesser touch her precious pretty prissy princess pussy. Knowingly at least; that’d make bucking her a bit hotter if he got that far.

Regardless, she’d taken the cream of the crop as her harem. It was a veritable smorgasbord of attractive males. Figment would have been jumping them at random had he not already been warned not to.

They all looked at the new entry, looking surprised, so it seemed they hadn’t been warned. Even the ones engaged in various sexy activities with one another paused to look at him. He assumed they were all in one big area because Platinum wanted to maximize their ‘interactions’ with one another. Straight mares did favor seeing that kind of thing between stallions.

“Ah, uh… hillos,” he sheepishly waved a hoof.

It was hard not to notice that all their best bits were erect, even the calmest looking ones. Since Figment didn’t think himself that sexy, he assumed it was magic or something in the food that kept them that way. Either way, it was impossible for Figment not to do the same.

One of them, a lithe yellow unicorn with a flowing pink mane, approached him first. He was one of the older looking ones there and had an unsubtle cutie mark of a female sex symbol pinning down a male one. He smiled, and given that he was the only one there with a jeweled collar, Figment assumed him to be the ‘leader’. What did it even mean to be the leader of a harem?

“Hey there, new guy,” the unicorn said playfully. “Never know when we’re getting someone new, You are a new guy right? Don’t normally get new ones older than newly-marked, but who am I to complain?”

So they didn’t know he was coming, but it seemed that this was typical. Interesting that Platinum didn’t keep the other harem boys more informed, or at least the head one.

“Oh um,” Figment blushed and tried not to grin too widely. “Yeah, I’m new, name’s Steel Anvil.”

“I’m Soulful Love, but you can call me Soul.” the pony winked. “I hope you like topping other stallions because you are delicious. You might end up as head harem colt if you’re not careful. You had the Mistress yet?”

“Oh goodness,” Figment blushed and smiled. “Thanks, I don’t think there’s a single stallion in here I wouldn't top or bottom for. I haven’t had the Mistress yet though. So I guess we can’t pounce each other yet… too bad huh?”

“Yea, too bad,” chuckled Soul. “Anyway, I assume she went over the rules with you?”

“Uh, no, actually,” Figment chuckled awkwardly.

“Seriously?” Soul raised one eyebrow. “Given who you favor, I assume you’re an impulse buy then? Wait, don’t answer that. Nothing wrong with it anyway, and the rules are pretty simple.”

“I’d be happy to um… do what’s required,” said Figment. He grinned wider, because the looks he got from the other stallions said they’d be happy to do him when required to.

“Mainly do what she says,” said Soul. “We’re only allowed to buck the Mistress and each other. You must flirt with others in public to keep up her image, but never get caught actually doing anything with them. Follow her instructions explicitly and show enthusiasm, especially when outsiders are looking. She has more leeway for fresh blood at least, since she prefers to cycle out the old-timers who’ve been around a few decades.

“Oh, and don’t ask about one another’s background. We’re just objects to her and she likes us to view each other like that too.” He smirked. “She calls this room her ‘dildo cabinet’, that’s basically all we are, but that’s not the worst thing when you’re a stylish dildo in a body like that, right?”

“R-really?” Figment asked, his smile waning and his excitement cooling just a little. He did like to chat with partners, so he’d hate not to. “Oh but um, yeah, not so bad.”

“Really,” said Soul, taking on a momentary serious expression. “Don’t step out of line, seriously. Last month, Wet Dream was caught having sex with a guard and got life, not soul, recycled right in front of all of us. The former harem leader got demoted for not stopping him. They were both expelled, which pretty much guarantees they’ll be outcasts on the outside.”

“S-she really did that?” Figment gasped quietly. “Or a guard did it?”

“The guard he’d had sex with did it, then I never saw them again after that so not sure what other punishment they got,” Soul looked sick, and added hurriedly. “Not that that’s a bad thing! Her desire is our pleasure!”

Here was a stallion that regretted his life choices. Or had he even had a choice? In spite of the smile on his face, Figment could sense a hint of deep self-loathing beneath it.

“I-I’ll keep that in mind,” Figment nodded slowly. There went his boner. This whole situation was quickly draining his confidence.

“Hey, no worries, right?” Soul smiled and patted Figment’s shoulder. But Soul probably couldn’t relax when any harem member’s small mistake could lead to horrible things. “Let’s go out to the balcony. The view of Irascent is amazing from up here near the top of the palace.”

“Irascent?” Figment tilted his head.

“Didn’t you know?” Soul asked. “You might not realize if you teleported here, but we’re actually above Irascent. I’ll show you.”

Figment thought better than to ask again since Soul seemed to think that was something he should know. Instead he just nodded as Soul turned to walk towards the wall with the windows. He led Figment to a glass door which led out onto a marble balcony, decorated much the same as the inside, complete with a few harem colts boning one another over the balcony’s edge.

But the first thing to draw Figment’s attention left him too stunned to care about much else. Now that they were outside, he could see the expanse of Unicornia before them, the massive dome over their heads. In the center of the dome though, far off in the center of the city, was a large ball of what looked like solar plasma, itself as large as a small town, spreading light over the sparkling city beneath. Indeed, they were slightly above it at their current location.

Figment couldn’t look at it for long due to its brightness, so turned down to look at the rest of the city. The building they were in loomed over the rest of it like a bright cloud of power, second only to the bright Irascent above the city. They must have been impossibly high up for a building, high above the bright towers and spires of the rest of the city. If Figment didn’t already know better, he’d call it a utopia.

One thing gave away the true nature of the city. Figment saw what was likely once the ‘Statue of Friendship’ from old Manehattan, which he’d seen in photos. It’d been redesigned to look like Princess Platinum, with matching statues of an earth and pegasus ponies kneeling at her hooves, perhaps other historical figures.

“Amazing isn’t it?” sighed Soul. “You know, Mistress is strict, but she really has a right to be. It's her genius that will rid the world of lesser creatures.”

“Um, right,” Figment nodded nervously. “She is pretty amazing. I’ve um, never understood how Irascent was made though.”

“Didn’t they find that intact database in Canterlot?” said Soul. “They replicated part of the system that snatched solar plasma, but instead of using it to blow up a city, it just gathers it.”

“Why gather it?” Figment wasn’t sure how clued in he should be pretending to be.

“Huh?” Soul looked at him and tilted his head. “Oh wait, are you an outsider-… not that I’m asking about your background or anything! But um, the basic idea is that Irascent took enough plasma from the Sun that it will burn out. We have ways to duplicate the plasma now that we have a bit, so once the rest of the world freezes, we can just slowly repower it, then move out and repopulate the world with purebred unicorns.”

“That’s… wait what?” Figment stared at Soul. “But what about all the settlements out there?”

“Yeah it’s too bad about the unicorns not in Unicornia,” sighed Soul. It was probably a good thing for Figment that he misinterpreted the statement. “But it can’t be helped, right? The whole world will be better off in the long run.”

“Unicorns, right,” Figment caught himself. “Too bad.”

“I guess you don’t know about Queen’s Boys either, huh,” Soul mused. “Favoring who you do, you’ll definitely get to appear on it.”

“I’m a little afraid to ask…” Figment admitted.

“No, it’s just a reality TV show,” said Soul. “About us, the royal harem. We mostly just screw each other or do comedy skits on it, but it’s fun. Pretty much everyone watches it.”

“Right,” Figment wondered if the watching was compulsory, either literal or implied. “You know, I’m feeling a little… intense. Do you mind if I spend some time thinking?”

“Oh uh, sure,” Soul nodded, patting Figments bottom. “I’m going to get a bite to eat. Come in when you’re ready. I’ll make sure the other guys know not to touch you yet. You'll probably get your collar too later tonight when she uses you.”

“Sure,” Figment looked off the balcony again into the city. “Though um, one thing first...”

“Yeah?” Soul asked.

“They captured a… a piss breather outside when they brought me in,” Figment said. “They were going to have him tortured for information or something. Any idea where that is going to happen?”

“What, you wanted to watch or something?” Soul looked disturbed, but looked frightened when he realized he showed that. “Nothing wrong with that of course. Prison is fifty floors down, but you can use the teleporters to get there. Mistress doesn’t mind us going anywhere in the palace, and I’ll let the royal guard know where to find you when they come to fetch you. Just… you know… don’t get into trouble. Don’t let anyone touch you, not even by accident. Remember, I’m supposed to be the head colt now so it’s my head too if you screw up.”

“No worries,” Figment chuckled awkwardly.

“Though, if you were looking for places to hangout,” Soulful suggested. “A better choice is her personal royal museum. They just added the legendary Ice Pick, the first automated miner to successfully bring back ore from the old zebra lands. Took them six tries before they sent one that made it back… sorry, I like old tech.”

Soulful probably assumed as a new resident, their amazing technology would interest him, and it did. Given the zebra lands were now too cold for life, an automated miner that could get there and back without malfunction was impressive. Soulful had wondered how they got their supply of crystals for their soul recyclers, since to make new ones they’d need crystals only obtainable by mining in long-dead lands. It was worrying that Unicornia wasn’t as limited by staying in their city as many assumed.

“Automagic mining is a pretty amazing concept,” admitted Figment. “What about the Crystal Mountains? They’d have some stuff even the old Zebra Kingdom doesn’t.”

“Nah, we haven’t gotten them there,” sighed Soulful. “But someday, right? They do have a section at the museum about blockheads though. I think it’s in the lesser races section near Novo’s shattered pearl.”

“Skyla stops them I guess?” asked Figment. He recognized Novo’s pearl as the thing sea ponies used to use to switch back to hippogriffs. The shards probably worked again now that the radiation wore off too, yet it was out of their reach in a museum. No wonder they were so peeved at Unicornia.

“What?” Soulful shook his head, chuckling as if the idea was preposterous. “Our PCB protects us from that blockhead’s mind games, but the areas we really need to get to are too cold to send living units, and the sheer amount of crystal in the mountains makes it hard to get signals to automagic units there.”

“Ah, that’s interesting,” Figment nodded, though he wondered if that was true. If Skyla had stopped them, the citizens would probably be fed propaganda that it was some other reason. “Uh, I also meant to ask. I uh… don’t have a soul gem and...”

“Oh um, no more details please,” Soul chuckled awkwardly. “But if you came from somewhere that doesn’t have them, you’re on a probationary period to make sure you haven’t been tainted by lesser races. If it turns out you haven’t, it might be a month before you get one so...”

“Don’t die before then, got it,” chuckled Figment, but inside breathed a sigh of relief that he had at least a month before something that would certainly give him away. He should be out by then, right? Right?

Figment knew he shouldn’t, but after taking a moment to scarf down some of the delicious fruit, he went back to the teleport pod. He took a deep breath as he went back inside,

The panel wasn’t too complicated. It was mostly just a typing pad where he could look up the name of a destination. As he typed in ‘prison’, he hoped Soul hadn’t gotten weird ideas about Figment being a sadist, but it beat realizing that he pitied their current captive. Figment felt less and less enthusiastic to be part of this.

There was a bright flash of light as he moved, so he opened the door up again to see where he’d ended up.

It reminded him a great deal of the inside of Crimson’s book. It wasn’t one big room like the harem room though, more a long dark hallway. Each area in the castle seemed to have a different theme, and this one was ‘dark medieval dungeon’. It was poorly lit, floored with jagged stone, and smelled like a raider den, unwashed filth not entirely masking the smell of urine. On each side of the hall were iron doors, no doubt each leading to different chambers.

There were a pair of royal guards standing there at the gate, who turned to look at the new arrival. They both stared at him for a few long moments as if wondering what he was doing here.

“Oh look, the Princess’s new dildo,” one said, her voice the only indication of what she was beneath the armor. It seemed the guards were more well-informed than the harem colts. “Are you even broken in yet?”

“Ah, um, no,” Figment laughed awkwardly. “But they brought in a fish at the same time I arrived, and they said he was going to be questioned so...”

“Oh and you’re a freak, I get it,” nodded the other guard, a stallion. “Sure, go have a look to get riled up for your ‘big date’ tonight, if that’s what it takes you lucky little horse-apple.”

“Room 47,” the mare nodded towards the hall. “Enjoy, but remember none of us are allowed to touch you.”

“Oh um, I understand,” Figment tried to look calm to give them the impression that their assumptions were correct.

Figment tried not to look too wilted, faking an excited smile as he trotted past and down the hall, the two guards taking a step back to be sure they didn’t accidentally lay a hoof on him. He thought he heard a few mutters between them that involved the words ‘bucking creepy’.

In truth, he was freaked out far more than them, and he wasn’t even sure why he came here. He supposed he mainly just wanted to prove how useful he was to a certain someone. Maybe if he listened in on the interrogation, he’d get information that could be useful to his own as well.

Figment went down the long hallway, counting down the door numbers on his way. He was very glad none of the other doors were opened. Given the smell, he wasn’t sure if they cleaned these things out very well when finished. And why were there so many?

He found the proper door and knocked on the steel surface. The knock echoed down the hall and a moment later it opened up. A bulky dark blue stallion with a puke green mane and yellow eyes glared out at him.

“What the?” he asked. “Well you’re not who I expected from a knock.”

“Oh um yes, I’m a… new dildo,” Figment explained.

“I assume you know the rules then,” the stallion said under his breath. “Come on in, just don’t get near me. I don’t want to get my dick chopped off for touching Her Majesty’s toy on accident.”

The door creaked loudly as it opened and Figment headed inside. As he had a look around, he realized this wasn’t actually as bad as Crimson’s book world. It was worse.

Granted the equipment, chains, and bondage furniture were much the same, but they were largely rickety and covered with rust and blood in various states of freshness. Not being imaginary wasn’t an excuse for the lack of sanitation, since Unicornia easily had tech that could clean it automagically. Figment assumed they went out of their way not to clean it to disrespect or horrify their victims into talking quickly.

Sea Blitz was chained down on one table with his forelegs strapped above his head and tail chained to the other end of the table. They hadn’t started to really dig in, so he was still whole, but his skin looked flaky and dry, shivering as if the lack of seawater from his suit was getting to him quickly. Speaking of his suit, it lay on another table nearby. It was cleaner than the other tables and had wheels, so Figment assumed it had been rolled in here. Figment wasn’t sure why it was here, but perhaps it was just as a way to taunt the victim more.

It became too much far faster than Figment expected. Without another word, he turned to leave, galloping back towards the teleport pod.

“Why’d you show up if you were squeamish?” the torturer chuckled as he rushed out.

Figment had been through a lot. He’d lived under Trinity’s influence, been tortured by Midnight, and apparently became Crimson’s fiancee, so why did this bother him so much? Perhaps because they were going to torment Sea Blitz for information without even recognizing what they were doing was evil; even Crimson and Midnight were that self-aware at least..

“Already done?” asked the guard mare at the front as Figment passed towards the teleporter. “Better not be that fast with the Princess.”

“No uh,” Figment jumped at the voice, then paused. “Didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

A moment later, Figment realized he had stopped and they were staring at him. He just couldn’t get out of his head what was about to happen to Sea Blitz. This was all so wrong; there had to be something he could do. Anything.

“So um,” Figment’s voice quivered. “Is um.. Her Majesty likely to come here? I think she um mentioned… she might sometimes come in to play with the um… prisoners? Cause she said she might um… with the fish?”

That line of questioning was dangerous, and he knew it. He felt extra bad because if this bucked up, poor Soulful would suffer too, but with this place that was bound to happen eventually anyway.

“What?” the mare asked, then got quieter. “Dude, quiet. I know most of the dildos realize, but don’t dare speak about it to anyone else! If you tell someone that shouldn’t know that she bucks lesser races, even as part of tormenting them, you don’t even want to think about what she’d do to you.”

“Oh uh, sorry,” Figment whispered. “I won’t mention it again.”

With that he turned and walked into the teleport pod, but he didn’t hit the console immediately. Was he really thinking about doing this?

Figment hadn’t teleported on his own in a while, and charging his horn immediately caused a splitting headache, but he clenched his teeth and bore it. He hit the panel to teleport back to the harem chamber, but in the delay before it activated, he teleported with his own magic out of the chamber and around the first corner of the hall in the torture wing where the guards couldn’t see him. All the guards would see was a flash of light from the outside as the pod activated.

He gave it what he thought was around ten minutes, to distance his ‘departure’ from the ‘arrival’. As he did, he could hear bits of conversation from the guards around the corner.

“Kind of a stupid weakness to have, if you ask me,” the stallion was saying. “Sonic weapons? Really?”

“It’s not like anyone knows to use one,” said the mare. “Besides, it’d only open a small hole, and who would even have one?”

Hole in what, Figment wondered. The shield?

“Wouldn’t put it past that freak on the radio, Songsmith,” the stallion chuckled.

“Platnum’s perfection, dude, shush,” The mare swore as if panicked. “We shouldn’t talk about listening to outside radio here. We’ll end up in the prison instead of guarding it!”

Even the few bits Figment heard gave him some interesting information. First, the citizens weren’t supposed to listen to outside radio sources, which implied the ones not authorized to go outside had been told lies about who was outside or what they were doing.

Second, the fact that a royal dungeon guard was breaking the rule probably meant that it wasn’t a society of obedient citizens. Aside from that, it seemed they may not be exactly happy with their duty here. It was a relief that perhaps most of the population weren’t sociopaths,and Figment couldn’t help but wonder what kind of underground movements they might have. If only he had a better way to look.

His head had barely recovered, but he bore more agony to teleport back into the pod. The changeling took a deep breath, then hit the panel again. He hit the option for ‘audience chamber’, but teleported out again before it activated, straining to teleport right back in after. His head was swimming at this point, but he barely had any time to recover enough to walk out of there without looking openly dizzy.

He concentrated one last time, shifting his entire form into that of Princess Platinum. He hoped he got her accurate, even taking into account what he saw her wearing in the throne room. He really hoped the guards would buy this.

From what he knew of teleportation magi-tech like this, which wasn’t much, it wasn’t one directional. When the contents of the pod teleported to the other location, the contents at the other location also teleported back, probably with some failsafe in case the other pod was currently occupied. That meant that the guards outside would only see the flash from within and the display panel on the outside registering a teleport between the audience chamber and here. He hoped?

Figment steadied himself, opening the door back into the torture wing. The guards turned to see who it was, then quickly bowed low when they saw the princess. It probably never even occurred to them that it wasn’t her, since no one could get in without being species-checked.

“Your Majesty,” they said together and remained bowed.

While he hadn’t had much time to think of how she’d handle this, Figment figured her as the aloof type. So he just hmmphed and strutted past the guards into the chambers beyond. With their helmets, it was impossible to know if they bought it.

He breathed heavily as he trotted to the room that Sea Blitz was in, then took a deep breath to steady himself before putting a hoof to the door, but then paused. Would she knock? No, she’d never touch a hoof to such a nasty door. Instead, he just swung the door open with telekinesis, which itself was enough to make his head sting.

The tormentor was heating up a metal rod as Sea Blitz shivered there on the table, already covered in marks from being beaten. The sea pony breathed rapidly and his eyes darted about as if drugged.

The stallion nearly dropped the rod when the door opened without warning, then quickly bowed when he saw who it appeared to be.

“Your Majesty,” the torturer said, true admiration in his voice. “I am honored you have come to witness my skills. I have been perfecting several new techniques.”

“I will take this one for my own purposes,” ‘Platinum’ announced simply. “Place him back within his armor and I will take the entirety.”

“In the armor?” the stallion quirked an eyebrow. “Ah, I fear I just injected him with adrenaline to increase his ability to feel pain. If we put him in the suit, he’ll be able to activate it.”

Actually that was perfect, though Figment felt terrible at how much he was frightening the victim. Sea Blitz’ face was streaked with tears as he looked at Platinum as if she were Queen of Tartarus.

“Urrgh,” Platinum groaned, figuring she wouldn’t take even a reasonable point like that well. “Very well, I’ll take them both separately.”

The torturer looked a little unsure as he unlatched Sea Blitz from the table, but kept his forelegs tied above his head.

Figment couldn’t stay for very long and keep up the facade with the intense pain throbbing right through the previous numbness. Picking up Sea Blitz and rolling the armor table out of the room with her magic took all his energy, and he could only hope they mistook his shivering for desire instead of agony. She shut the door behind her, then flopped Sea Blitz into the armor and began pushing it down the stone path.

“You think you’ll break me, you bitch, I’ll...” Sea Blitz trailed off as he was put in his armor. “What? You did hear him when he said I could activate this right?”

“Shhh,” Figment said, shifting his voice enough to make it clear he wasn’t who he said he was. “Holding you in the air is exhausting, and I’ll never get you out of here if I have to keep that up, so please cooperate and don’t struggle yet. You can’t blast your way out from here, so let me get you somewhere else.”

“Uh, right,” Sea Blitz seemed to calm, though he couldn’t stop the heavy breathing, clearly confused.

Figment rolled it quickly down the hall, pushing it with his hooves until he got to the corner. He couldn’t muster enough magic to both push the cart and carry Sea Blitz at this point, so continued pushing it with his hooves as he picked the sea pony up. If he hadn’t thought to shift away his tear ducts when he turned to Platinum, there would be no way he’d have kept up the facade.

When he finally got them all into the teleport pod, Figment finally collapsed from exhaustion, letting Blitz lay limp in his armor.

“What’s going on?” Sea Blitz asked. “Why are you helping?”

“Because I feel for you, okay?” Figment sighed. “Both our species were almost wiped out in the war, but unlike us… you didn’t deserve it at all. It’s the least I can do to keep one of you safe.”

“A changeling?” Sea Blitz caught on. “Not one of Trinity’s, or you wouldn’t be saving me.”

“No,” panted Figment, giving himself a few moments to recover before shifting back into Steel Anvil. “Look I don’t have time to explain. Where do I teleport to so you can escape?” He didn’t even know if there was such a place; he really hadn’t thought this through.

Figment used his hooves to tug the binds from Blitz’ hooves, and the sea pony quickly put them into the slots before activating the armor fully. The front closed up, though the occupant groaned when encased in the dried out armor. That couldn’t have been comfortable when it didn’t have water in it.

“I… is this a trick?” Blitz asked. “You’re wanting to know if we have a secret way out of the city… for me to lead you to it. They have changelings here, I heard them talking about the ones they farm for parts!”

“Damn it!” Figment shook his head, shivering and knowing that might be his fate if he was caught. “Do you really think their livestock would even be allowed to help them? Look, I’m part of the New Canterlot Republic, and one of the things we are doing is… trying to atone for the sins of the past. If that means helping sea ponies that want to kill us, then that’s what we’ll do!”

Sea Blitz stared at Figment as if he were speaking Old Ponish. He may as well have told him that fish live in the sky, and he took a moment to form a response. Figment knew he was projecting his own wishes into an organization that didn’t actually share them, but he needed Blitz to understand if this wasn’t to be for nothing. He had already started to realize that it probably would be.

“I’m not sure,” said Blitz finally, uncertainty still in his voice. “But since the shield is made to keep others out, not in, I can probably teleport out from a few high locations like the palace roof, out the top of the shield, then slide down the edge since it’s solid and opaque. One side is flush with the bay, so I should be able to land in the water when I fall.”

Without another word, Figment typed in ‘roof’ to the teleportation pod terminal. Thank goodness there was only one choice that sounded right: palace roof. He hit the activation button.

Heading there was the easiest part of his rather quickly thought of plan, but he hoped the guards weren’t looking at the panel to see where they went. Sea Blitz didn’t even have to leave the pod. Once they were there, his suit buzzed as if he was able to activate its systems to teleport.

“I’ll let my friends know,” Sea Blitz sighed. “But don’t count on a sudden truce.”

“I… respect you either way,” Figment shifted a hoof as he tried to sift through what he was doing in his own mind.

Sea Blitz looked thoughtful for a moment, then pulled a small device free from inside the collar of his suit, offering it to Figment. Figment reluctantly took hold of it.

“It’s the tracker for my suit,” explained Blitz. “You won’t be able to find us with it, but we can scan for it and see if you come close to us.”

“Will they really talk to us that easily?” asked Figment. Sea ponies weren’t known for diplomacy.

“No,” Blitz chuckled a bit darkly. “But maybe I can work something out so they’ll be willing to at least discuss, just give it a week or three before you try. By the deep, they might let me go meet you hoping I get killed after losing my whole team like this…”

That didn’t sound like much of an assurance. Figment looked down at the device, about a quarter the size of his hoof. It looked sealed and was probably waterproof, so Figment put it in his muzzle and strained to gulp it down. He couldn’t think of any other way to hide it, and he could shift it out later. He then nodded to Blitz and belched, flushing a bit.

“Right…” Blitz sounded unsure, but closed his helmet up, activating his teleport and vanishing in a flash after a few moments.

While he hoped Blitz made it out, Figment had calmed enough to realize exactly how impossible it was for him not to be found out. Damn it. He belatedly realized that he should have asked if Sea Blitz could teleport them both out together.

He wished Mercury had made him that suicide pill. There was nothing left to do but accept his fate.

He expected guards to be waiting for him back at the harem chamber, but it seemed pretty normal there. After giving himself time to relax, he returned there and found it much as he’d left it. Soul even approached as he left the teleportation pod, but wasn’t smiling as he had before.

“The Princess hasn’t called for you yet,” said Soul. “But I guess you knew that… uh… eh he...”

Something was wrong, just not the wrong Figment expected. Soul acted differently than before. Whereas he’d been nothing but friendly to Figment before, now he looked terrified. He was sweating and stayed a few steps further away from Figment than before.

“Oh uh, good?” Figment tried to pretend not to notice.

“She did send you a… gift though,” Soul stammered awkwardly, as if that wasn’t something normally done beforehoof. “It’s uh… food… really good food! Uh… you should feel honored or something. Come over here and have a bite to eat.”

“Right, of course,” Figment smiled and nodded, but frowned when Soul offered him the plate and took another step back. “I mean, I ate before so…”

“Please,” Soul insisted, holding the plate closer. “It’s just a little bit, and believe me, you don’t want to refuse her gifts.”

It was definitely a bad idea, but what else could he do? Avoiding this wouldn’t do any good other than getting Soul punished. Figment smiled, and began snacking on the small yellow cherries in the bowl. They were quite good, and at first he thought everything would be fine.

Then he felt suddenly drowsy and realized that it was not.

Figment couldn’t have been more surprised to wake up on comfortable bedding instead of chains. It took awhile for him to pry his eyes open, but when he did, he found himself on a cushion, still in the harem chambers. Soulful sat next to him, though it looked like the other boys were notably avoiding him. He and Soulful were the only two in that corner of the chamber.

“Ah, you’re okay, good,” Soulful waved, but he jerked a little when Figment sat up, as if he might expect a sudden attack.

“W-what happened?” Figment made the obvious assumption, but didn’t want to blurt it out when there was a fraction of chance that it wasn’t that. Still, he felt fine, aside from an odd stinging in his right eye.

“You passed out while eating, I was really worried,” Soulful said, his voice a bit monotone, like a bad actor carefully following a script. “I called the doctors and they checked you out, then brought you back here, but… it’s not good news.”

“W-what’s the news?” Figment tensed up.

“Seems like you have some kind of a problem in your head,” Soulful tapped his front hooves together. “Like a clot, or a tumor, or… I’m not sure I understood, but Princess Platinum demands her dildos be in perfect health.”

“A-am I going to be executed?” Figment wouldn’t be surprised if that was the punishment for not being in perfect health in Platinum’s presence.

“Ah, no,” Soulful shook his head. “Which is good for me, too.” He took a deep breath and looked around, as if worried someone else might have heard him slip up and complain, then continued quietly. “I… made a case for keeping you alive. Platinum will send you back as inferior stock, but stick to the rest of her deal with your friends. In return, she’ll expect you to um… let us know if their plans are counter to Unicornian interests.”

“Oh…” Figment was happy to leave, but looked down and sighed as if disappointed. “Guess I won’t get to fuck her… huh…”

“Sorry,” Soulful nodded. “You really should use the word ‘buck’ when you’re prete-… nevermind. You’ll be returned to walking distance from Discordia, probably before your friends even get back there. And uh, honestly… you came out ahead. Trust me.”

“Soulful?” Figment sighed. It was more than obvious that there was more to this. “You’re a… bad actor.”

“I really am,” Soulful whispered back, whimpering as if he might start crying. “Look just… please don’t tell anyone about Irascent. I… told her you never saw it, because I was afraid of what she’d do to me if she knew.”

“I… see…” Figment glanced around himself to confirm no one had gotten closer. It was obvious that this wasn’t an innocent release, but he still couldn’t be sure exactly how much they knew.

“I saved your life, even knowing,” begged Soulful, tears starting to form. “I know your kind is evil, but please consider saving my life in return? I don’t want to get expelled too… you don’t know how horrible it usually is for those that get expelled from the harem. So please don’t tell anyone about Irascent, it’s not like your friends can stop it anyway.”

“I swear,” sighed Figment. “And we’re not as evil as you think, or else I wouldn’t have risked my life to save a sea pony because it was the right thing to do. After all, he wants to kill us as much as he wants to kill you.”

“I… didn’t think of that,” Soulful admitted, then dried his eyes and nodded slowly. “Come on, I’ll guide you to the escort.”