Chapter one; slate wiped clean
Null, that word meant a lot to me when I first left the stable. It was what they'd let me take with me, it was the length of time is been expected to survive out here, most importantly, it was the only name they'd ever given me. There was only one thing that drove me back then, and that was getting away, not from the stable I resented for me failing it and resented for allowing me to, it was from the bodies.
The amber light spun as if it meant to mock me. It refused to function before the stable blast seal finished putting itself back in place, relieving the strain on the faulty wiring and finally providing enough power for them to flicker to life only once the corpses before me were my only path. It was difficult to tell how long they'd been there, the lack of either movement or moisture in the air had mummified them, their bodies shrunken to the point I couldn't tell any differences between them. I mean, I originally thought they were rocks, that why my qualms about what I stood on didn't start till then
It took me a while to muster up the courage to step over the first body, i tried moving, but I could hear it crack. It took so long to get the confidence to move, and even then, I moved like I was afraid they'd get up, moving them aside with my hoof so that I could walk on the ground. I still heard cracks and crunches as I moved them aside, and their fur was gone, only leaving soon the same color and texture as the stone I intended to walk on. The worst part was how some had limbs bending the wrong ways, and my hoof sank into what had once been a brain, but now felt more like a powder, thankfully they were so mummified the internals would go unrecognized without the context, I unfortunately had that context. I didn't see all of them, and by the time I reached the other side, shares of bone had sunk into my hooves, and some looked like they intended to stay. The hundreds of bodies eventually thinning enough for me to stop moving them out of my way, which allowed me to take in the fact that the stable exited into a stone cavern.
A large tube with other pipes and cables surrounding it ran along the wall around a bend I didn't notice taking to what I assume was a connection to the stable, what with the fact that I recognized the text and symbols on some of the cables and pipes. Seeing as it most likely led to some end of the cavern, I followed it, ignoring the other turns I could be taking, as well as the smaller pipes running down those turns, and I came to the wall it met.
Another spinning amber light spun above a steel door not to far from where the pipe met the wall, already partially open with a lock that was obviously kicked open, the lock still extended but bent way too far out of place to be useful. Taking another look, I realized the spinning amber light was a consistent feature of, did it even deserve to be called a tunnel? The floor was even from at least her on, the walls were rough though, I mean there were stalactites on the ceiling.
The door separated the stable entrance from what could only be described as a warehouse of filing cabinets, a desk at the end of each row, I'd pushed through and found myself once again surrounded by concrete. This time however, the concrete housed shelves instead of ponies, the door I entered from sat at the end of a long wall with another door opposite it. The shelves themselves amounted to ten rows between the doors, but almost forty deep in both ways, and were stocked with a vast amount of filing cabinets but with clear space for more.
I had a terrible start to my exile, but this was helping soften the blow, after all, every pony out there would be surprised if you showed them thousands of something they've never even seen one of. Everything in the stable was digital, of a pip-buck couldn't record it, a terminal could, and we had an abundance of both on top of the servers to back them up. Checking the words on the papers strewn about the desks surfaces, opening their drawers, all I found was paperwork, pens, and what looked like library lists. Deciding to ignore what was more than I had time to sort through, I headed straight to the door opposite the one I entered, and found myself in a hall that ran the length of the warehouse. It had an elevator at one end, something only shown in the background of textbooks in the stable, getting closer, the screen imbedded next to it showed that it's been locked down due to excessive radiation at the destination.
The other end had yet another door, this one was made out of wood, and didn't feel like it fit with the metal doors and pipes I'd passed up till now. Going through the door revealed why, it was a library, not like the stable one though, instead of being square, this one was circular with a spiral staircase. A chandelier broke my view of the other side of the room, which was divided by shelves upon shelves full of books, the only break in shelving was for the door I entered through and the central staircase going to a lower floor of the same design, all surrounding a chandelier of those fluorescent tubes reoriented to make columns of light going down the center of the spiral staircase.
A simple experiment proved the library to be even more full than I expected, even the shelves were fancier, having valves that moved them along tracks that interrupted the carpet when spun, separating them from even more shelves full of books, also revealing that the wall behind these moving shelves had even more shelves of books, allowing the absurd amount of books it had. I browsed the titles, some were from the stable, but most were new to me. I leaned over the low book shelves surrounding the spiral staircase, holding a support pillar just to be sure I didn't fall off as I faced the six other floors of library. I was pretty sure the chandelier went all the way down and connected to the circular table on the bottom floor. I went down the staircase, learning on the next floor that each floor the exact same layout as the next until I reached the lowest.
On the bottom most floor I saw two things, a door on the entrance side of the room, and that the chandelier really did go all the way down to the table, where the steel cables it consisted of pierced the wood of a circular table with three evenly spaced terminals on it. As you could with the stable library, I tried to search it for a book on the terminals, but all of them needed clearance, specifically a ministry of image training officer's credentials. The chandelier reminded me of the control rods of the stable's nuclear reactor, a sight I only saw in an effort to aquire my cutie mark. So, with nothing but the books, I let my momentum carry me through the next door, wooden and situated exactly so you could walk from it onto the staircase just like it's counterpart six stories above.
The next room felt... Off. It had nothing but desks, support pillars had been surrounded by desks in an effort to seize one more in, and the tiles were drawn into different groups, like a bunch of gerrymandered voting districts. It was a massive office that almost looked like an exaggeration used to describe how monotonous office work was. Pillars pierced the array of desks at even internals, two wide and six back, and unlike the other rooms, this one looked used, chairs out of their places, some outright knocked over, lots of books lay on the desks next to computer terminals, opened to various pages, and no two desks had the same book. The desks with the flags were the exceptions, holding a copy of every book in the group they sat, except this time segments of their text had been highlighted, and situated near the center of these groups with a full sized standing equestrian flag, i approached one and saw the terminal already past the lock screen.
The terminal had only two files on it, a corrupted file that only retained it's title; list of recruits, and a still intact file; morale speech for the recruits. The speech had parenthesis before it that said to remember not to get loud enough for another recruiter to steal it. 'do you find it confusing, are you lost, does it overwhelmed your senses? Well, did you know the ranks of the ministry of awesome are a direct reverse of ours? What about how the ministry of morale doesn't even have differences between ranks? If any of that confuses you, you'd best learn to deal with how we've arranged you first, cause it's only the beginning. Besides, if you're confused, the zebras definitely will be too.'
Looking again, the number of desks was the same in every group, and although some flags were very close to a desk from another group, there was always at least one desk that belonged to the flag between them. It was confusing, but I didn't see how it had anything to do with zebras, or the ministries the recruiter had mentioned. Checking more of the terminals, I found another unlocked terminal, this one had it's own group all to itself, no flags or other desks. On it was a single file labeled instructions for the day, it started with; 'to determine group, flip coin and roll d-twenty, once group is full, simply roll again for next applicant until only one group is left, at which point no rolling is needed. Repeat at end of every hour.'
I no longer wanted to check the terminals, my mind was reeling and it had nothing to grab onto to stabilize itself yet. I continued on, passing even more desks, until I reached the wall furthest from my point of entry, to my left were the bathrooms, to my right was an unmarked metal door, and in front of me, was a large door that could fit a vehicle through it, had hinges the size of my hoof, and had a locking method similar to the stable blast seal. It was a much bulkier door with deadbolts the size of a foal running into the ceiling and floor, it was the type you'd assume would be at least two inches thick. Considering how the terminal next to the giant door had a cable running into the wall next to it and a hole for the data transfer cord of a pip-buck, meaning I didn't have the tools to open it, I ignored it. That door was either where the things that were very important or the rest of the world would be, both of which I was going to leave as my last experience in this place.
The smaller door had no lock, and entering revealed why, inside was a small hall leading to two doors, each marked with the same symbols displayed on the mares and stallions rooms in the stable. I looked at my hooves, and went to the stallions restroom, they still had shards of bone embedded in them, and a different colored light than the amber ones in the tunnel made the blood I was leaking and the almost sand colored powder coating my wounds even more evident. I grabbed a coffee cup one of the flag desks had carelessly left out before entering, not dancing the idea of either stocking my hind leg into the sinks of the much less enticing but more easily accessible sources of water. The water ran, and like the rest of the facility, there was power, but I had a sneaking suspicion the giant tube connecting the stable to this place did something about that.
First the cup, them my legs, using the now free of ancient coffee cup top get the sinks water to my hind legs. Next up was picking the bones out, the big ones were easy, as were the ones that had caused bleeding, but now wet and without clear evidence, the others continued to bug me but never got removed. For a second, I contemplated just calling a unicorn over, and then I remembered that I was alone now. I'd have to get used to doing things like this, after all, I didn't have a horn for precision work or wings for work that's higher than usual, I don't think I even had the normal strength of an earth pony.
I really wanted the big door to be last, so first, I Walked to the unmarked door, it turned out to just be a janitors closet, complete with mop and bucket. Then I went all the way back to the warehouse to search for more doors, none, and I decided against revisiting the hall of mummified corpses, and I tried to keep the momentum going. Not wanting or even able to open the big door, I let my curiosity win me over, after all, no pony was here any more, and other than files and books, it was the last thing to look through. Most importantly no pony would come, and I'd never gotten to see it, the stallions room was different than it was in the stable, but I figured I'd reverse engineer it using the stallions room as an example. Of course, I only thought that before I noticed the desk and terminal placed in front of the door to the mares room.
The terminal powered on easily enough, though it had no password screen or files, only a preset text displaying. The desk has nothing special in it, except that it perfectly stopped the handle to the mares room from moving. The terminal's text read; "ponies have a tendency to get violent, and truth be told ponies are nasty to each other. For example, a day ago, I discovered the father of my child and my best friend had both abandoned me alongside almost seventy civilians in maritime fort Solstice....
"This is first lieutenant Cherry Champion, assigned to be major general gallant rampart's assistant alongside Captain gilded monsoon, and I hereby announce my formal recommendation of immediate dishonorable discharge of all soldiers mentioned above. on two accounts of breaking the soldier's creed and two counts of inappropriate workplace relationships. for any deeper explanation, you advanced warning bastards will have to ask the pony behind these barricades first, then may attempt to contact me at my parents."
I sat there for a while, my brain was on overload, I couldn't comprehend it, there was an advanced warning? The ponies who got that warning left their comrade? I knew that general, the over mare sang his praises, he died without any children, but then this said his child was just outside the stable when it closed and he abandoned them and their mother? Then I felt my spine tingle and my fur stand up on end, those bodies in front of the blast seal, I didn't want to think about it, but I couldn't stop. If history had played out differently, my ancestors could've been in those bodies, or if the war had escalated later, even I might've been in that pile of bodies.
Not only that, these ponies were abandoned by their own government, the complete opposite of what the stable history books said, but it was a member of the equestrian government that had admitted it, fuck, she'd been abandoned too. When my mind has stopped for long enough to process any of that, what I processed was that the text said a deeper explanation part behind the barricaded door. Without even considering that the bodies before the stable blast seal had arrived at the same time as the pony behind the barricade, I pushed the desk aside and almost threw the door open. It was only to find a restroom I couldn't hope to reverse engineer, and a corpse lying in the center of the room, and then the corpse moved
It was similar to the other bodies, only when it heard the door open, it made a noise that seemed impossible to comfortably make and got up, the body itself became more horrid the more I saw it, the flooded restroom had submerged the half of it, and caused boating, while the other half cracked and snapped, shedding flakes of mummified skin off. It's eyes shined in the mares room it had obviously rampaged in, especially when compared to the stallions room, fluorescent lights shattered or hanging from the wires that powered them and stall doors ripped partially or completely off of their hinges, the mirrors had also been shattered, and on top of the glass being everywhere, a loose wire was sparking into the only sink that hadn't been ripped off the pipes that supplied it. It's voice felt simultaneously gurgled and screeched, like some bird was being drowned in a vat of acid, and it kept screaming, first as it attacked the least destroyed mirror, ripping more of its flesh off in the process, them as it attacked a wall so cracked it had obviously been working on it before.
Then it stopped and turned, only for me to realize in the most shuddering horror I've felt to date, that I had shown up on the E.F.S. of its pip-buck, the screen cracked in places and dents I didn't think were possible to give to something as sturdy as a pip-buck, especially with where and how deep they were. I stared in disbelief, my mind racing, and the first instinct I reacted to was to take a step back. That's when it pounced, without warning and a version of the sound it made when getting up that sounded angry, it used a strength absurd for a corpse to leap towards me, I tried to slam the door shut, but it slammed it back open, the force sending the terminal into the ground and one of the drawers flying towards me. I hadn't seen this type of thing before, I was terrified, for fucks sakes, the corpse had a Celestia damned horn, it was a unicorn with more strength than the stable's local strong mare. My fight or flight response was delayed for just long enough, and it took that opening to pounce again, this time hitting its mark, I tried to block, but... I don't know if I did.
I'll be honest with you, I could put anything here, because the combination of adrenaline, fear, and genuine expectation that I'd die made me act more out of instinct, and I can't remember how I won, it's all black. I don't remember the fight, but I remember this feeling of terror turning to rage, at what I don't know, maybe it was at the stable exiling me, maybe it was something repressed from deeper in my childhood, but it came out there. The rage faded, and my memory goes from black to hazy, I remember my movements, I was slamming something into the ground, again, and again.
Then I realized I was crying, and my rage dispersed almost entirely, and the haze over my memories disappeared. I was holding the drawer that got flung at me, gripping it so tightly in my hooves that I'd drawn blood. My hooves ached of over exception, and the corner of the drawer had been dented almost flat. A powdered white dust last where the tile I'd stick used to be, floating in the strange greenish liquid flowing from what used to be the corpse's neck.
I dropped the drawer, it was covered in the same liquid, as were my hooves. I scrambled off of the corpse, my body screaming from every spot I could tell but didn't remember it hitting me in. I hit the wall, sick on my ass, without the strength or will to get up, my tears now blurring my vision so badly that I couldn't see the thing I'd killed. I killed it, it was trying to kill me, but I killed it. Was I any better than it? Would I have to do the same thing again, would I have to do it to a pony that looked like me? Would I even care about it after a while, how long would it take, and what would I be like then?
I'd lived, but this thing, it came here with the other corpses, but it still moved, and something so unnatural could only be the work of the radiation, which I'd only face more of if I left. But there was no food here, and I didn't have any weapons if another one appeared, and worse yet, was that even this encounter had left me bleeding on my chest, stomach, and fore-hooves without medicine.
I kept sobbing, not just because I felt I'd murdered something, but because it brought everything else up. It brought how I was treated in the stable up, how no one stood up for me but my dad, how when he said to at least send him with me, the over mare used it as an example of their fates being distorted by my new presence and arrested him so he couldn't interfere with my exile. Most importantly, I'll never forget the relief they all showed, even my own mom. What was I doing out here, why was I trying to survive, when I didn't have anything to survive for?
I remember staring at it, it was dead, I was sure of it now, but I couldn't shake off how I thought it was supposed to already be dead. My trance was only broken when I heard a familiar warning sound, it was a pip-buck, and I saw it glowing on the body's left fore-hoof. I undid the strap securing it and checked the warning first, and I had to scramble away from the thing I'd smashed the head of. The pip-buck had played an alert about low health, meaning the pip-buck thought that that thing was still alive.
There was no longer any care of if there were more out there, being locked in a cage with something I'd already failed to kill once terrified me. I hastily barricaded the door to the hall the body lay in with three desks, and then ran to the door I was leaving for last. No handle, no obvious buttons, only a terminal with a connection for a pip-buck and a keyboard for password entry, only the keys were in a language different to equestrian. So I chanced it and just plugged the thing's pip-buck in, the cord for this particular pip-buck on the opposite side of the stable standard versions. The screen lit up and gave me three options, initiate lockdown wasn't what I was looking for, neither was the option to activate the Alexandria protocols, there it was, release locks and open door.
Eight very audible releases later, the door swung open at a constant and slow pace, revealing bit by bit that it had been twice as thick as the stable's blast seal, and once fully open, I saw six bolts I hadn't heard or seen as well as the four I'd heard but couldn't see. The six slid into holes in the massive steel frame, while the final four shared their method of locking with the four on the other side. I found a terminal outside the offices that when plugged in allowed me to close the door, and when the four outside dead bolts entered their places, I finally relaxed, and collapsed into tears again.
I hated it, all of it, being put here where anything could happen, being away from my home, my family, I hated being stuck without my jumpsuit, I hated almost every aspect of being exiled from my stable, and I hated that I couldn't do anything about it the most. You see, my stable had a heavy emphasis on cutie marks, they almost worshipped them, and having had my eighteenth birthday, I was still without it. They were scared of that, they though my lack of a destiny might destroy any semblance of theirs. That included most of my family, my brothers didn't step up, my mother actively distanced herself, my father was the only one who tried preventing my exile, and they arrested him for it. Putting personal gain above the well being of the stable they said.
I wanted to, no, needed to distract myself, so I took to sifting through the pip-buck. The body I'd been attacked by had once been a pony named bubblegum blast, she had suffered from just enough radiation poisoning to be deadly, her special stats were low in strength, endurance, agility, and luck, but her charisma, perception, and intelligence all almost topped the charts. Her status ailments included some horrifying effects, like internal bleeding, something called ghoulification, and brain hemorrhaging.
The radio and note tabs were both empty, but the quests tab had one single quest, it read 'why not listen to the holotape?' And there it was, the only item in the inventory, a holotape titled 'play me'. I pressed play, and listened to the mare's voice that flowed out of the pip-buck's speakers. "Hello, I assume you to either be the two bastards I've heard about or someone Cherry's revenge doesn't deserve to fall upon". A fit of coughing that coincided with the worrying sound of liquids hitting the floor at a high speed interrupted her, "seeing as you're listening to my pip-buck, I'm probably dead, as I can feel the radiation sapping my strength. I almost feel worse that there isn't any radiation in here, at least with strong radiation, I would've died with less of this pain."
Her voice seemed to already be straining, her breathes quick and shaky, "I wont help whoever you are find Cherry, although I'm happy to say I could, as I know where she'll be heading. instead, I'll give you something useless to those who abandoned Cherry, how to get out of here, the exit is currently locked, and my pip-buck has a copy of the password. Just plug it into the terminal nearest the door that looks like it protects a bank vault, and the password will read automatically, allowing you to access the terminal and leave. Of course, if you deserve Cherry's revenge, you'll be very unhappy to know that Cherry's formal recommendation of your dishonorable discharge was broadcast not only into your stable, but the direct line of communication this facility holds with the equestrian center for internal affairs of the western coast."
Another coughing fit over came her, and it seemed to have strained her breath even more than it already had been. "You know, I don't deserve Cherry's trust, I could've easily betrayed her. But you know, she's a true patriot, Cherry said the movies we'd put out had burrowed themselves into her. It made an impression of the perfect soldier that kept her hopeful," her breathing evened and I could almost hear her emotions boiling over.
I most certainly heard how her teeth were clenched together in what I could only assume was rage as she spoke, "we made her the way she was, we made her trust her superiors with her entire being, and you took advantage of it, so I'm telling you something right now, I'll earn that beautiful mare's trust. In the name of the ministry of image, under decree number four hundred and sixty eight, I am declaring your act of comrade abandonment treasonous. As of this moment," her breathing weakened, and her rage only slightly followed suit, "both major general Gallant Rampart, and captain Gilded Monsoon are stripped of both rank and citizenship."
Her breathing was almost weak enough to draw pity out of me despite our fierce battle only a short while ago, and I found myself hoping that something I already knew to be true would be proven false. "They are to be shot on sight for desertion of their duties..." Was the last thing said on the recording, and it followed with an audible sliding, then a thump as she stopped breathing and hit the floor. The recording didn't stop though, it kept going, recording the steady clicking of the Geiger counter, and I found tears falling as my distraction drew even more of my repressed emotions out.
Then I almost threw the pip-buck, ad the same sound she'd made right before attacking me had come out of it. It made me check the door I'd closed and all my muscles tensed in anticipation of another fight. Then I heard the mares room being destroyed, half the thuds being louder thanks to the recording instrument being responsible for the weight behind them. She was screaming in that uncomfortable sounding voice as well, it was as if she was screaming through a layer of liquid, and with horror I realized that she probably was, and that I knew it wasn't the water. The recording ended suddenly, and a close inspection of the indents of the case revealed a deep impression left on the button you pressed to stop recording audio.
She said many things, and I wanted to find out more about the mare she wanted to earn the trust of, but most of all, I wanted to know what our history really was. I had been lied to, every pony I knew had been, and I wanted to know why. Cherry said all these ponies were from maritime fort Solstice, although I hardly trusted them anymore, the textbooks of the stable said soldiers of Equestria usually lived on base.
I didn't have anything else to do, and I figured I'd either find food along the way or something better to do, so I secured the pip-buck and headed away from the facility's entrance, only just now realizing a light shone at the end of this massive concrete tunnel I found myself trotting through.
Author's Note
New quest; goodbye to a world: find out what happened to lieutenant Cherry champion
Footnote: Level Up.
New Perk: seeing red – You deal a greater amount of melee damage. You gain 50% more damage than others would using the same melee weapons, including your own hooves and improvised weapons, at lower levels this perk hazes memories of event after being provoked, this haze disappears after level ten.
