Chapter 1: From Steel to Lead and Friends
Everything was the same as always, the shitty state of this place I have to toil away at from sunrise to sunset. The air is full of the fury of the average Joe as always. The one who leads us is a corrupt figure whom I hesitate to even acknowledge as a Stallion. He is making us work and work for the sake of it and the thighs of all of us are filled with held up blood from the silicon ejected by worn-down machines with flickering neon lights behind as sparks flew around. Astatine from over in the other wing has deep scars all over his face from the machines breaking and flinging parts all over the room.
I took a moment to catch my breath, despite knowing it would probably get myself beaten just for one breath. Breathing as lightly as possible I hastily grabbed a few scraps of metal from the capacitor production line that we all sought and desired as if they were the most holy artifacts in the kingdom. Lunch breaks are non-existent. Some desperate ponies resorted to eating from the bins for any scrap of artificial lemon skin. Just a few minuscule mistakes would lead to the sun not coming out for you. Neon purple lights came through piercing the window to land on my mane with the clock in the distance acting as a Geiger counter, nought to radiation, but to death. Gradually, it increased our chances of being returned to the prior state of existence before being Birthed in this broken nation with every tick.
I have a note written by a Stallion named Coutour, an old friend of mine written frantically on a napkin and hidden between the pistons of the machines, he said of his experience in the hospital for a simple bandage. “When a Mare, Stallion, Foal or Filly is in the hospital floor, main concern ya face turns from disease tae homicide at the hands of those “Doctors” who claim to be doing what's best for ya. All em fucked up crooks do it in turns tae turn the innocent into husks. It has happened all too much to those I know, and it'll happen to all who stand here if we refuse tae fight back.” I vividly recall him speaking of those who had been there for longer than he was. He said they looked like decomposing corpses who had already been feasted on by a feral tiger yet still breathing despite being in horrid shape. In spite of that, the only thing the doctors would ever do is promise treatment or money for participating in the company's experimental implants and brain chips, While leaving those who refused to die. Not to mention the Flies buzzing around the corpses which were hastily chucked under the floorboards by shady operatives or make them get a tracker implanted in their head if they defy the overwhelming, fatefully cruel odds of recovering naturally after several weeks of being stuck there with the taunting sounds of doctors. tae be honest, death was the most preferable option.
I got this detestable monotonous job because of my affiliation with the revolutionaries. They demanded me to get in the factory and tell them what conditions those beastly creatures put our exhausted, tortured bodies through. One singular mistake and my head is lifted off my shoulders in cold blood. Every single time a guard passed by, berating us for not working, or whatever other horrible things they came up with, their cold breath passed over my shoulder and laid a shiver down my spine. Imagining the cold steel gun lying there, pointing at my head as if the afterlife had a gate run by demons.
The final bolt was placed right as the clock struck 2AM. Almost every pony rushed to the worker accommodation on the floor above once we had been standing along a narrow pathway for seemingly hours. We sat there as the chief of production sat there mocking us as he read out our daily production totals. Only me and my best friend who has known me since I was a filly decided to leave the factory for a few hours to go get some drinks.
Stepping out into the frost filled air of the city of lost dreams, Baltimare, Equestria. The city covered as high as the eye can see with explicit advertisements. Pistons whirring all around in sync and the neon lights of the slums flickered in unison with the heartbeat of the city. Those Stallions and their Marefriends at the top of the skyscrapers lived in luxury, their apartment walls covered in more diamonds than an entire nation just a few years ago. Several puddles of water with streaks of a sickly orange vomit running through the torn ground blasted with craters of decay near the factory.
I trekked my way across the heart of dreams to make my way to Alluria, The busiest bar of Baltimare. Some of the ponies sat there for hours drifting away like ghouls into their own world. Along the way I saw many drifting away in the slums below the bridge as if they were slumping into a lifelong fever. Coming towards Alluria heading down the Victorian backstreet of old I found the aquamarine blue door to the inside.
The door swung open with a heavy click, with techno music from the bar coming through a blown out speaker. Right as I trotted my way through, a metronome on my shoulder came from the side. I turned around to the electrical box coated in a neon green haze to see a familiar face standing in front of me, Aria. Aria is the leader of the resistance organization against Princess Trinity “Hello there. It's me, Aria again. Leader of the Equestrian Revolutionaries. I have heard much of your exploits.” She said with a face of dry excitement. “Please, Take a seat, make yourself comfortable.” She extended with her usual voice. She was never a very talkative mare, but she could battle a bear a mile away as a dog.
The antiquated tablecloth was covered in stains from those long dead. The table slanted and the legs were barely holding up despite the rot and the surface was a pale dead moon. On the top of the tablecloth on the other side where Aria sat eagerly getting ready for this meeting she'd apparently set up was an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts and a superfluous smell of vape smoke. The chairs had old cushioning compressed by the weight of a million mares into iron.
I took a seat down on the seat, and cautiously anticipated Aria’s message. My hooves rocked the table side to side as she spoke her first words.
“While she got ready, I simply stated “Names Gamma. Your aria and-” She had cut me off swiftly and decisively, occupying the entire room with her presence.
“Hello Gamma. As you know the campaign against Princess Trinity has come to a fucking stalemate again. I need ya to fucking assassinate as many of those working for her as ya can. I don't care however the fuck you do it, choke em, shoot em, stab em, just do it and take the phones. I've heard much of your exploits, impress me. And don't disappoint.” I sat there and listened attentively while sipping a glass of vodka. “Go on. Ya better not fuck it up, its the last gun we have until we can seize sector B.” She said with a seriousness utterly incomparable, and the emotion in her eye of pure anger mixed with desire.
She laid a metal rifle down on the table with a heavy bang, causing the crippled table to finally give in. The gun barreled around the briefcase inside like Celestia's gemstones in a chest. The flame from Aria’s cigar lit up the corner in rusted air and the crowd sat there emotionless, oblivious to all but drinking themselves to the grave while pistons roared.
“Yes Ma'am.” Proclaimed towards her and I grabbed the nightmare moon bearing rifle covered in dark purple, looked around me for a brief moment before starting to stand up and tuck the chair in as a matter of politeness towards my superior.
I took myself down to the bar, searching for those with any sign of working for the regime. The dead, breathing corpses on the tattered stools with teeth protruding out their mouth and their eyes emotionless as they asked for another drink.
Their clothes were torn up by a beast from a novel. The cries of the desperate homeless mares and fillies made outside Alluria were drowned out by the cries of those who sacrificed blood and flesh in the hope for change. Eventually I found a Stallion wearing the badge of a government official. This was my chance to unleash hell upon those who dragged us through it and back.
I sat there waiting for the bartender to go into the back, the impatience of those addicted turned from dissatisfaction to rage. The air around them had twisted their breath turned into poison gas from within with the stench making its way up the ramp.
Everyone was looking the other way. I grabbed my knife, switched the blade and crouched towards my foe in the corner overrun by spider webs. I immediately started hacking his throat open and choking him as much as I could. A tsunami of red began flooding out onto my hooves, the same blood of the fallen defenders of the city who merely fought for freedom. His cries for help were drowned out by the footsteps of those running away in fear and the pistons clanging against the metal all around I seen the vertebrae inside of his neck and grabbed them out, yanking his head backwards.
Once it was done, and their clock of life ran dry, I dragged the body to the table like in the morgue and hauled it on top. I began to rummage around their corpse to find their phone. A few seconds later I found it and hastily shoved it inside my pocket as Aria said. I ran outside and scaled the roof by going down the alleyway and hopping from a torn window ledge to whatever was in reach. I lifted myself up over the old entrance from the attic ready to ambush Any potential reinforcements in a shower of lead.
The cold moon shined down upon our fallen land, our claim to fame and pride torn away by greed. The nearly blocked out stars never lie. It's a clock for how long we have left. It's a reflection of ourselves. The steel ladder behind me is as frosty as the deceased. We had deceived ourselves into our position of misery and oppression at the hands of those in power- BANG!
There was a thrash that shook the tattered buildings walls, interrupting my oasis of reflection and daydream. The door had been kicked down and I hurried down to the floor above where they stood. Five more stallions had just thrashed the makeshift building into an empty cavern, no regard for the innocent mares and stallions who called this place their home on the higher floors, all they wanted was me dead and they'd neverget their homes back. I waited for them to start climbing the steel ladder and my rifle pointing just out of sight towards their heads. Their shoes made of steel rocked the ancient ladder and the shouting ran through the air like a hideous mass yelling at its foe.
They began their ascent upwards and I readied my finger on the trigger a few seconds later their head intersected with the sights of my gun and I pulled the trigger. The bullet flew right through his lifeless eye. Much like himself being blind to what the people he worked for put us through. His brain was split in twain by the bullet exploding inside his skull and the recoil thrusted me into the window.
Blood drenched his comrades and stained the rotted wood floor into rusted over red. One of them hurried away in fear and the other two kept charging towards me like ravenous beasts. They ran around the room, I shoved both into the corner with the heft of my gun and rang out one more shot, going through both their heads and spewing blood down over the entrance and flowing outside. I climbed back up the building from outside and grabbed my blade and saw the final pony searching in vain for me. I clenched my blade tightly and jumped down onto his back tearing up his throat and flesh as he staggered to the ground in a daze.
I hastily hopped away from the building, overlooking them with my silenced sniper rifle ready to take out any of those fools who think they were criminals and send them off to Celestia knows where. I sat atop a tower overlooking the horizon, all twisted metal sprawling its strands overlooking the slums while glass pyramids adorn the walls like tiles.
Stallions with snipers looked down from above over the city ready to kill anyone who dares bring justice to those who made life worse for us.
After the job was done and all the phones were in my hooves, I took off to my apartment in the middle of the city slums. The smoke from the mechanics above flowed down into the narrow paths with a blackened sky distorted by a thousand years of inaction. I kept walking down while nervously looking in front and behind with a sniper on my back. But alas, no pony came. As my nerves eased I saw broken ponies crying on the side, completely losing all sense of hope for change. The neon lights flickered in a fading pattern through the smoke. And a lone mare playing on a ruined guitar with broken songs trying to sing through the pain of the strings lost.
“Hellooooooo! Spare change anypony? Celestia save us!” The homeless pony laying on the side of the street yelled out to the abyss while coughing from all the pollutants that graced the air. I stopped next to her and gave her a few coins. I took a brief moment to sit next to her. She was surprised but happy.
“Listen, I know this place is a fucking shithole, I'm going to get the old Baltimare back. With my life if necessary.” I said towards the orange and blue mare while comforting her with a gentle hug.
Her eyes glowed with hope, a pair of tiny old rejuvenated lanterns. I gave her a little hug before I set off again. She told me that name was Sapphire; Saphire Shine. She had a lovely cerulean blue mane and a neon orange coat. I took note of her phone number and set off on my way, with a new friend in hoof.
Advertisements were placed around the walls and even above with lasers firing up strands of sky with neon lights for advertising. Garbage was strewn across the path, to the side of me, in front and behind. The alleys to the side were as wide as one pony, yet fit two. A strong smell dropped down from above only getting stronger through the alleys. Makeshift buildings made from torn up shipping containers and structures surrounded the alleys with a veil of darkness and hardly enough air to breathe. Helicopters flew high above transporting those who tried to make a stand to an end behind steel bars and dungeons. Even worse is being one of the tortured souls laid to die in a oubliette where futile screams ravaged the buildings like ghosts.
At long last I came to the alleyway my tattered apartment was in and there was a series of incoherent screams coming from near my home. Assuming it was next door I busted open the door to the apartment. Before I could even take a breath I had been pushed to the cold ground next to the rusted metal railing by a Stallion in police attire. After a few unintelligible words from his colleagues, one of them in a bright purple coat and green mane threw a pistol at him. He pointed it directly at my head threatening to finish me off if I made any form of resistance.
Rage flooded through my hooves and I punched it out of his hoof and rolled myself away. I stood up and stunned the Stallion who pinned me down by stomping on him and I grabbed the rifle from my back. The purple reflection shone the moon with a purple tint upon him. I aimed the gun directly at his eye and fired out of anger. The other three stood in front of me readying their guns. I picked up their fallen friend's skull and threw it at them as those eyes rolled back into his decapitated skull and brain and nerves severed in half and arteries disconnected.
I jumped around the corner for cover while the enemy pursued me by running through the corridor while I shot those two watching them die in an instant. Eventually only one remained standing in the room standing infront of my bed and the cabinet with a fan ontop of it.
I hopped into his sights, I rang out one more shot to the head and he fell to the ground barely clinging onto the last fragments of life. Right before he succumbed, one last shot came from him. It hit my hoof and my blood was dripping out onto him. The last of my bullets hit him through the eye, right through the brain he fell down onto the floor. Angered from the shot hitting me I charged towards the corpse and stomped his head as hard as i coule as hard as I could.
Rage fuelled me as his skull collapsed into a thousand pieces and I dragged each of the fresh corpses into a well used dumpster outside after ripping off the steel armor for my own gain which revealed the torn skin underneath which I had to peel away to unstuck the armour from the sweat that had glued it to their bodies. I was prepared and ready to use my new armour and equipment so I could bring stealth to my guerilla campaign to free the city and the country which got robbed from us.
I came back in from the paralyzing cold air outside and barricaded the door using whatever I could find lying around; boxes, crates, anything really. I wrapped myself in a well used blanket and turned on the good old television. And there was Alluria! The stand I made against those who I despised the most in this world of the lost and fanatical had broken through.
My wave of excitement was supplemented for a brief moment by undertones of what arsenal they would use to retaliate against me. After a few seconds of quiet contemplation where the fans roared in the background and the colors blasted from a panel of light I began to open my mouth, ready to whisper a few simple words to myself.
“This is precisely what I must do, it is my destiny to help my people and bring justice back, unfettered by propaganda and the desires of those pulling the strings. This is my destiny.” I said with emotion flowing through me as I clenched my hooves and lifted them up to my face while stomping on a propaganda poster outside.
With myself being satisfied at the realization I stood up and looked out the window. Cold air and the sulfur smell came blasting through. For the first time in months, the moon broke through the thickened smoke and sky.
The desperate stayed outside shivering away again and again and those hooked on the drugs in our food and were forced to have stumbled aimlessly around the alleys making groans like a broken machine or wailing around. There is hardly anything left for us here, taken away by others with greed while we're burdened with mortality and having to stay in our lives, there's nothing alright here. There's nothing to lose by giving our lives to resist their tyranny.
The city kept breathing through the night while pistons roared in the distance. The armor of those who died at my hand lay there in the corner with the blood slowly drying up like rust next to the drawers and shelves which were filled to the brim with knives and tools. I felt the life being pulled out and being siphoned into those up at the top, totally at their service with no accountability or justice brought due to the corrupt Alicorns.
I took myself to the bed and wrapped up the wound in a bandage after cleaning the wound with whatever I had. It was still painful to apply pressure or touch it, but for now at least it was fine. I wrapped back up in velvet blankets and cuddled into a pillow. Light and electricity had not worked for days and the power was redirected to the ones in the glass monoliths. I shut my eyes and fell down into a deep sleep on my mattress and the cold air breathed through the curtains onto my face and the steel floor and stitched together amalgamated walls. And together me and the blankets fell into darkness and sleep.
Chapter 2: Now Broadcasting... Fire!
I woke up in a cold sweat from a nightmare that ended in a grizzly end and a visceral canvas of pony parts. A shaft of light was pelting my eye through a bullet hole in the wall. A figure came through the window, unrecognized to my sleep filled eyes. Her voice pierced through the air into my ears, it was Sapphire once again! She lay her hoof on my shoulder and said with a smile widening across her face.
“Sooooo... I remembered ya from earlier. I seen some police pony about to kill ya in your sleep so I decided bashed the fuckers skull in with a pipe.” Sapphire said while laying a hoof on my shoulder and a smile across her face.
“Wow, that's some mighty impressive improvisation skills ya got there!” I said in response while my jaw hit the ground agape but with intrigue and desire to form a companionship. She then continued what she was saying in an even more excited tone as the wind brushed her mane.
“Oh! And remember when ya you wanted to save the city from these twisted fuckers, follow me, I might be able to help with that.” she made sure to say confidently while spinning the pipe on her hoof.
I immediately drifted back, crawling out the window and nodded in agreement. I yelled “Hold it! I got something for ya first.” through the window that she was closest to while searching through my room.
I went back through the window again, putting the shades in a tranquil effortless flutter aided by the dark wind blowing past the stack of homes and glass spires of the city. I grabbed the bloodstained police armor from last night. I wiped off the splattered bones and muscles and lifted it onto sapphire delicately. A shock drifted down her spine as the frosted steel grazed her shoulder emblazoned in fur.
“Stay here, I need to grab a few things before we set off if that's okay.” I said, trying to sugarcoat it out of fear of annoying my new companion.
“Ya, Of course! Take all the time you need my friend, it's the least I can do for you.” She said while patiently waiting on a ledge, slowly making her way to the top of the old metal stairs.
I tapped my hooves on the table while looking through the window. I spread my hooves around the table to find the scattered shotgun shells strewn around. After a few seconds of whirling my hooves around the wooden counter I picked up a few shells and a shotgun and placed them in my battle saddle. I grabbed the rifle that Aria gave me and put that in my saddle too just for good measure.
She stepped back through the window to see what I was up to. I recoiled back, succumbing to a realization that had been overshadowed by the last days.
“What about my work in the factory?” I said for my safety as the tension suppressed by the excitement let out its gas for a few seconds.
“Ahhh don't worry about em fuckers, I broke enough shit in there with a bomb and a few cut throats. you should be fine for a while. I stole a few machines em shitheads had too! Ya all good for me to sell em off?” She said happily after finally making her way to the edge of the stairs and hopping over the railing and then tapping on it gently.
A wave of relief came over me upon realizing this. The nightmarish factory had finally been gone, eviscerated from the planet with a bright orange flash. A liberating feel washed over me that I had never felt before, an admiration for sapphire and everything she has done. I closed my eyes and walked to Sapphire and hugged her in a gentle warm embrace. We both smiled at each other for a few moments before we both gripped each other and pretended like nothing had happened.
“Of course you can sell them, keep 'em for yourself.” I said, thankful to her service and commitment to me. I stuck my hoof out to her and she stuck it out in return.
“Even though the factory I worked in may be gone, we must bring justice for all those who died in there, and make sure that such a terrible network of places never be allowed to exist again. The flames were a symbol of a new emerging wonder, and the embers shall be the last of hate and corruption.” I said with all of the conviction and the might that I was able to muster, with a passion that I hadn't used since I was a filly. She nodded her head in agreement while a tear of a new beginning ran down my face and I continued rummaging around the corner of the cupboard
“We can bring an end to this tyranny, this whole fucking cycle of shit.” Sapphire said while bolstering up her confidence and tossing a company propaganda poster off the railing.
I paced around the room for a few seconds in a circle while tapping random things and humming a simple tune, making sure I didn't forget anything.
“Alright! I'm ready to head out there!” I said with an excited voice mixed with the curiosity of a child. I quickly grabbed the pistol under my pillow and gave it to her on the way out of the cracked opening to the torn up city. Sapphire lowered her usually loud voice with a thankful tone.
“Oh and once again, thank ya for what happened did the other day, it's the first and only time I've gotten a fragment of fucking hope in this wasteland of dreams overrun with danger and parasitic, detestable companies, you are an oasis in a desert more vast than the Sahara at high noon. Thank you.” Sapphire said while spinning her pistol and a smile ran down her face that I hadnt seen in a decade.
A blush blew up over my cheeks like a bomb “Y-your welcome” I said with a shocked stuttering voice. It was like a wave of warmth blew over my shoulders. She began to go ahead and lead ahead to wherever the hell she was taking me.
We were walking down a quiet backstreet with an alley. The curtains drawn on every house and the raindrops from smoke-mixed monsoon dripped down on an old pipe atop garbage piles and mounds.
“We will be headin’ down to the beach. None of us remember blue water like how it used to be though. Maybe if our fight succeeds, land and river will be OURS!” Sapphire said with a grit and determination that I hadnt heard since the stalemate with the Equestrian Revolutionaries and the Trinity started Three hundred and eighteen days ago.
My mouth was laid open agape in pure shock and I responded with all of the conviction I could muster “We can free our city together with the Equestrian Revolutionaries, we will never fall!” My tone fell back down towards the ground “also the ocean used to be blue? Really?!” I then tripped over a garbage bag. Out of annoyance I kicked the bag down the alleyway with needles alongside and then looked back at sapphire with an awkward expression.
A quiet yelp came out of one of the bags that were there before I kicked one in there. It clearly came from some desperate creature. Sapphire and I both locked eyes for a few brief moments and came to the conclusion that we should go down the alley and see whatever the hay is going on down there. We walked down there tapping our hooves on the stone ground lightly.
“Lets fucking go! If its dangerous we died with fucking honor unlike all those bitches!” said sapphire boldly while raising her hoof to the sky. Despite that we continued walking down before a green noxious gas flooded our faces. Breathing became harder with every step as we walked further in. The gas blasted and grazed my purple coat and yellow tail, blocking sapphire from the gas as much as I. There was a small doorway to the side of us.
“Should we go in, sapphire? I'm not too sure myself” I said with a face of neutrality covering up all of my fear. She agreed to my idea enthusiastically despite my hesitation.
Sapphire's steel armor helped us to kick down the door. We began to sit on the cold step and coughed for a few minutes while leaning forward with a questionable posture.
“I warned ya Sapphire.” I said while coughing profusely and raising a hoof to my mouth to try and lessen the noise I made, hoping that the ponies here would just be confused if they heard us.
“I know, I know, But at least we didn't die right, given the state of this shithole city, that's the most you can ask for!” She said while continuing to cough, bracing her head on her arm, elbow on her knee. Based on the color of the gas, we both considered ourselves lucky. In front of us was a spiral staircase and a pair of gas masks sat atop a mound of black industrial bags filled to the brim with garbage. We had spent all our lives at the mercy of those who held a gas mask while holding our faces towards a cloud of chlorine.
I took a moment and turned around to face Sapphire and said when the water droplet fell on my head in perfect cue and coughed one last time before shuffling back up and sitting back up in my usual posture.
“Before today, we were making a last stand against Trinity that was almost crushed by her affiliates, with endless bits and resources. Things changed today. Now, we can fight back with terror and dedication to a cause! Strike their pride and rip them of their hopes! Bring back Equestria!” I shouted with a passionate fever for the cause.
“For Equestria!” We both chanted with all our might and a passionate fever for change that had been removed from all of our lives for such a long time with our guns hitting the stairs behind us and the noise making its way up to whoever was there as a muffled cheerful sound.
My thoughts and past had all been lit up with hope and fire and sapphire cheered with all her might as her armor clinked together. After a few seconds we regained our composers and put on our newly found gas masks. There was already a filter inside of them. I turned side to side, getting accustomed to the green haze that the mask gave.
“This is fucking weird! It fits perfectly though. It's a miracle!” Sapphire Proclaimed. A rumble from above the moldy ground rocked our hooves. And we turned round and upwards to see the light above blinding us and the lights being dimmed by a pony coming down the stairs leading to a strange creaking noise from above putting us on edge.
A Stallion clothed in armor made from Glasmare steel marched down the stairs. Each hoof striking the ground with an incomparable force; it was as if the long dead King Sombra who Conquered Equestria and the mighty Changeling Lands had been embodied in this Stallion.
I swallowed my fear as my throat ran dry, I lunged forward to grab him as he came around the final corner. I held my breath as me and him slammed on the ground, with his head colliding with the concrete edge. A muffled, stifled groan came from inside the armor as I picked myself up and grabbed him from behind.
“Sapphire! Grab the fucking pipe! Crush this freaks skull!” I said, trying to make as little noise as I could while frantically trying to get her to understand my lip movements. I punched him once more in the head to ensure he remained deadlocked in this daze.
I spun around and threw the helmet off his head as sapphire readied her metal pipe ready to swing. I tightened my grip and took a tiny step back to prevent his body falling on me. She let out a scream as the radio played classical in the background and smashed the metal pipe into the stallion's brain. She whipped out her pistol and shot him in the skull Thirteen more times just to make sure that he was dead.
The pistol wasn't silenced at all. I heard the parts scraping off each other inside, not to mention the noise blasting through the stale air propelled by a ceiling fan, the next floor creaked as I assumed that they had crouched down in the corners of the rooms.
His hooves twitched as the final nerve signals ran through his body as the stallion's skin was stretched out over the stairs with tiny thin streaks of muscle poking out from underneath the flaps and blood dripped down from the guardrail onto the garbage bags like rain drops as it died the industrial beige ground red. Shards of skull clattered on the ground like pulled out teeth hitting the stone ground in a torture chamber. Their veins spewed outward the salted blood onto the ground through a dent in the head and the bullet wounds as the skin slowly started to lose its color.
After a few seconds of waiting and taking in the primal sight of our prey I began thoroughly scavenging the stallion's body. The blood leaking like a drip-feed through the barely visible parts of his armor moistened the clanging of the armor while I tore it off him to put it onto my own body. Tearing it off exposed the massive gaping dents and blood trickling down the neck and chest. It definitely wasn't a perfect fit, the cavity for the nose was far too big, but it was good enough with a bit of bending into shape with all of my strength. I handed Sapphire the sub machine gun that he was carrying inside of his saddle and also tore out all of the cybernetics I could out and also took his phone and a lone grenade which I put into my saddle.
Sapphire was taking as much of the blood as she could with her hooves and syringes, in the hope that she could use it to heal any wounds either of us had down the line while holding the syringe with one hoof while trying to lift the slider up with her mouth to lean against the wall.
“Interesting armor here.. I've never seen anything like it, but then again, I lived on the streets for so… so long.” Sapphire said, piercing the quiet silence during the examination of our body.
“Should we go explore this place or go find whatever was in those bags from earlier?” I said quietly with a flat tone of voice, trying to figure out what we should do next while not alerting anyone nearby, as I had a suspicion on what was through or in the walls.
“Let's go explore first and shoot some assholes. We will deal with whatever that fucking creature was later” She said reassuringly with a completely flat face other than a small smirk at first after the euphoria of winning a fight.
As such we chose to step over the corpse and make our way up the lifeless staircase, only decorated by the blood of the stallion. And the yellow light above and vibrant purple lights breathing in from a window at the top of the building. The stairs were paper thin, so much so that with every single step my hooves went over the ledge. Each step felt like the step was about to cave in and send up plummeting to the floor next to where we killed the stallion. Sapphire trotted alongside me. As we got closer and closer, the familiar sound of a propaganda radio station run by Trinity herself was playing in the background. Rage boiled in my face for a few moments before sapphire comforted me for a few moments.
We finally made our way up to the top of the stairs, I pulled my Luna-skinned rifle out of my saddle, and handed Sapphire some munitions I had left over. The room was a contrast to the staircase, decorated in neon lights and wires hanging down from roofs. The room was split into two parts with a doorway connecting them.
In one of them was the monotonous humming of a server room. An old Nixie tube countdown sat atop it with green, red and yellow lights surrounding the server racks. The metal was disjointed and bent in several places, the walls were all rusted over, with a tiny hatch leading up onto the antenna tower on the roof above. There was a tiny desk over in the corner with a rats nest of wires coming out from a computer, peering behind the servers. There was an array of broadcasting equipment mounted securely to the walls. Warning signs plastered the walls and a massive broadcasting rule book lay on the desk for the Baltimare Radio Service. I grabbed it and put it carefully into my saddle, as I noticed signs bearing the same name plastered on the walls, rage began to boil, hoping I could give the manual to the revolutionaries and learn their secrets.
After a few seconds I trotted my way through the other room, looking over each of my shoulders and around every broken corner of drywall, even peering through the holes in the walls, preparing for an ambush. But there was no pony there. This room was covered in desks with the same walls as the other room. Warning signs and bodies were stacked up in the corner. Sapphire gazed down on them as she followed my trail.
“What the hay is that?! What is this place!” She yelled sarcastically while she pretended her breathing sped up and face turned to a reddened panic as she took a step back around the corner, though clearly being sarcastically scared and far more scared about knowing there was a battle waiting for us here.
“The… the blood is still warm, must have killed all their own men when we arrived. We must kill those freaks..” I said with a shiver of fear running down my spine. The desks were carbon copies of each other, down to the placement of the pencils and notebooks, ancient gum was dangling from the underside with some of the outlines clearly being torn off in a haste.
We paced around the room for a few moments before a quiet shuffle of some pony leaning up against the thin walls on the other side, with a tiny reverberating noise being the output. I grabbed my saddlebag and searched around it for a simple ball-peen hammer to pierce a hole in the wall, like a witless cybernetic brain from forty years ago looking for any form of intelligence in it.
Me and Sapphire's stomachs had not eaten anything in 2 days. Emptiness lurked over every movement, becoming more and more sluggish each minute. I flipped the hammer around and smashed in the rusted over wall of the first room. I made a second, slightly larger hole to the left of it for sapphire as well.
“Saph, put the barrel of the gun in the hole and cut em down. They have no honor, and neither shall we. Shower them in ammunition through the eye, skull, throat and heart… I hope we don't get hit though..” I whispered, trying to keep my voice down to keep them from hearing again, not knowing if they had heard our search or our earlier conversation.
“Very well, if they flee down that corner, I'll widen the hole and jump through, given my smaller size than you, then I'll run after them and batter them shits with a hammer as they beg for mercy!” She replied in the same held back quiet tone and a smirk came down on her face as she lifted her gun up with one had and flipped her hammer in the other non-dominant hand.
“Woah, Saph! That's a pretty violent way of dealing with them, but I LOVE it!” I told her excitedly. A happy smile flew across her face knowing I liked her methods. I fidgeted with the glass mug on the table for about two seconds before we heard the trotting away of one pony's hooves hitting the ground through the wall and changed our stance, ready to fight.
Upon hearing that, we opened fire upon the room. Me and sapphire both lifted our head up and forward to the wall, trying to test if we heard any stifled groans of death through the walls. After a few seconds of angling our guns to the left and right and back again, a symphony of groans began to be heard. Thumping rocked the ground as their bodies hit the floor, smoke began making its way out the barrel of my gun as the friction turned the metal to molten lava.
“Got four of them down, Gamma. I threw a glass mug I found on the ground at one of em and they're unconscious. How many did you get?” Saph shouted to me while pounding the wall with a hammer to keep the enemy on their toes while we talk while smirking to them through the wall after a few seconds of eye contact.
I yelled back over the gunfire and the noises through the metal. “I got seven down, been spraying them with bullets! They haven't landed a hit on me yet!” I made sure to say while masked by the sound of Sapphire's hammer and pounded my fist once it stopped and she continued to shoot the guns through the cavity.
The moon finally fell down, making it through the only window in the first room. It hit the lunar insignia, bouncing off it and guiding my hooves to the final pony, cowering in the corner as he watched his comrades fall. I couldn't angle my gun through to reach the lone pony standing. I tossed the grenade towards the wall and shouted for Sapphire to move away.
A massive bang echoed through the rooms and the bright orange flash blew through the royal purple neon lights. Shards of metal in the shape of asbestos crystal slices the rubber wires and tipped the servers over in the room beside. Me and Saph both ran through the area and found the last remaining pony running down into a janitor's closet down a ramp with purple lighting the way down as fraying from the servers was heard behind the thin metal wall was barely audible.
We went down the ramp and the final pony stayed unarmed down in the corner. I grabbed my pistol from my saddlebag and wedged it between my teeth. Sapphire ran towards the unconscious Stallion she threw the hammer at and smashed his skull while taunting them. I stared down at the cowardly mare, a lab coat covering her beige mane and bright red body underneath. I shot her in the leg to prevent her from escaping while smirking at her tears.
“Saph don't kill her yet!” I messaged her on my phone while speeding up my typing as she started to lift her machete. trying to prevent the captives death, I typed even faster and stuck out a hoof onto her shoulder knowing the mare could be useful for intel and how trigger happy sapphire is with her weapons.
“Why should I not kill this freak?” She responded inquisitively wondering why I'd ask such a demand with a slight frown forming down her face with her eyes completely dead.
“We're using her for intel. Knock this bitch out and we'll leave her here chained to the ceiling with no food or water with video and microphone audio until she gives in.” I told her while leaning against the wall with my hooves crossed.
I never knew that I was able to type so fast, my hoof whipped across the phone screen and my heart pounded through my flesh.
“Celestia, I need a bite to eat right NOW!” Saph shouted at me while her body growled desperately for input and whined for food and energy that was deprived from her for the last few days.
“Here, have this weird candy bar I stole from one of the police officers recently, wait outside for me. and I'll get ya there. Oh, and while you're at it, go have a look at whatever the fuck was in that bag.” I told her, almost accidentally typing it. and only then grabbed it out of my pocket and stuck a hoof out and placed it in her pocket. I grabbed all of the equipment out of my saddle and used a pair of metal spikes through his sides to hold him in place as I bolted the rusted over metal cuff pieces around his hooves.
After a few moments I went down the ramp and back down that bland staircase, passing by the now cold corpse of the stallion from earlier. I looked through the doorway and took a few seconds to conceptualize what I had just seen.
A cat with its face covered in a miniature gas mask. She had a white and black spotted furry coat. Sapphire insisted that we took her with us and lifted her up to show me while it purred gently.
“Pleeease can we take her?!” She pleaded with me while holding her in her arms. I begrudgingly agreed with her. “I'm naming her Cadance! Shes so fucking adorable!” Sapphire declared with a mighty conviction with her dialated pupils and ruffled her fur with her other hoof."
“Alright, sure, whatever. You can take her if ya want, but don't let her bite me please. I don't like dogs that much… Anyways, I am desperate for a bite to eat too!” I said begrudgingly with a smile on my face knowing that I was finally about to get the food I hadnt had this morning.
“Yeah sure, let's go, I know a great place, I know I was going to explain my plan down at the beach but I'd rather explain over a juicy hayburger.” Sapphire said towards me while petting Cadance's head delicately while smiling and looking at Cadance for a few seconds then switching focus to me.
We set off and marched together, with sapphire continuing to hold Cadance in her arms. The water continued to trickle down and smoke from the towers above blocked out the sun. The rain was pouring down with puddles following the trodden path with mud dissolving in each puddle. Neon lights became a more frequent sight as we turned through the twisted narrow alleys to the outskirts of downtown where needles outnumbered ponies.
Continuing through the alleys, A building in downtown had gone up in flames as told by the vast outcry of screams and smoke going up into the mutually grey plane above. We hurried down our steps, eagerly awaiting to see if a major corporation had finally met the wrath of nature that it fought so hard to suppress. The tide was beginning to turn.
We dashed on through the slum like streets, hopping over mounds of garbage and dirt. Sprinted past windows with sight inside blocked by food scraps. We turned round the corner with dust from the ground launching off our hooves. Cadance was still being carried on sapphire's back as she took a nap.
The heat washed over us as we looked to the inferno in front of us. The building was overwhelmed by fire with no hope of saving it. Firefighters tried to use their hose atop their vehicles but to no avail.
By a stroke of luck, the food place was opposite to the tower, allowing us to watch its glass shards burn up and fall to the ground while we ate. Sapphire and I walked behind the crowd who had gathered to watch the fire and went towards the food place
“This place is called Red Ocean, it's amazing! Ya need to try it more you know! Their chips are so good compared to everything else here.” She said while walking backwards to face me while going to her seat in such a way I couldnt see her assumedly cheerful face.
The table was old and dated, with a railway green paint that was being chipped off to show the rust underneath. The chairs were rather squeaky but still in relatively good shape comparatively. The restaurant sat under a small canopy dangling from a building on one side and thin metal poles on the other. Peering into the cookware from our table through the gaps between the tills revealed all of it made through amalgamations of steel.
“Alright so, the Palace Trinity lives in is heavily guarded, we cannie ever get through. Lets get rid of the company bigwigs first then we can deal with trinity, after that though, we cant any noise. Retreat back to the countryside, we won't be hunted there. The Palace is also in Canterlot, it'll take a few days to get there by train.” She said while placing a series of maps that covered the circular table and pointing to the significant points and the problems.
“Alright, sounds good I responded, by the looks of it the first one is sorted for us. I just hope we don't get shot on the way in. Also, take the map back to my place.” I said while trying to keep my face happy with a tiny sweat drop rolling down my face. "Im sure we can do this" I said while keeping my face confident and trying to suppress the red in reality I knew how risky the plan was but I knew I had to go along with it. And stomach my fear of death that seemed to be non-existent for sapphire. The robotic waiter came along to us and gave us the food sapphire always gets.
“How did you get that so fast?” I asked sapphire, slightly chuckling a little bit while still contemplating over the plan, hoping the question would take my mind off it.
“I just ordered it on my phone while waiting for ya to come back after I found cadance.” She responded with a lovely smile and then laying a hoof on the corner while Cadance was sitting on the floor underneath the table drinking some of the water sapphire gave her.
The food was somewhat rancid, but a big upgrade from the usual and what some in the city would eat. Some resorted to eating cement, tree bark from the minuscule parks or soft grey stones or pebbles. The building burned up while our rancid hayburger lay in our hooves. My phone erupted in messages about the fire. The building belonged to the Lunar Corporation For Government Protection, Its a company that gets significant funding from Trinity and her confidants.
“I've heard all these stories about that building, much about that heinous corporation that deserved to burn up in flames. Glad to finally see all those bribes and murdering scum fall, burn, and learn what it's like for all us” Sapphire said to me while trying to restrain her glee from finally having a meal as she remembered those who had died because of them.
I took a deep breath knowing what I was about to say to sapphire while the two of us took another bite and I took a quick sip of my water.
“I… once had a family member, my father, just after I was born, he was protesting against Trinity. They found our home and killed him in my sleep. I was sitting in a tiny crib next to his bed, I heard the machete slicing the veins and arteries in his through and the skin flapping on the top of the chest with the wind. I tried to cry but my mouth was covered and suffocated by the hooves of one of their hired murderers.” I collapsed onto my legs, with a few tears running down as I remembered that day, with a newly found sense of justice coming to me as I watched them burn up in orange flames and inferno.
Sapphire got up from her chair, shaking the table a bit. She walked over to my chair and lay a hoof on my back, trying to comfort me.
“Its okay my friend, you cant change the past but, together we can stop this from ever happening again. They took your fathers eyes, they no longer deserve their fucking eyes.” Sapphire said while leaning in towards me with a warm embrace as Cadance sat down at my hooves trying to be gentle.
“I know but, its difficult to not look back on the past sometimes but, If you're wanting to help me get my revenge against those fucking deplorable ass wipers, I'm happy for you to come along. Let's get to bed after we finish watching the fire. It's the start of a new beginning after all." I responded while tears started to form and my eyes closed up, blocking my peripheral vision and only being able to see the corner of sapphire. eventually I managed to stop the tears and comfort myself down by listening to the music the Red Ocean had playing in the background.
I was watching the flames unravel as sapphire leaned onto my shoulder watching the fire unravel. As the fire traveled up it left a husk behind, held together by chance while those murderers left at the top were forced to leap off the top floors down while crowds cheered for their demise. The people gathered downtown chanted for the end to their reign of terror over our land.
“Sapphire, I know that we were gonna go to back to the home now, but I just received the signal that our captive has dropped the info. But finish what you were saying.” I whispered into sapphire's ear while smiling and chuckling a bit watching the captive squirm around.
“Okay then, who's our next piece of shit stain to target?” Sapphire said back to me while waving a hoof telling me she understood what I was saying.
“We're looking for a pony named Moonlight. She's one of the higher ups and runs the Baltimare Metro. Take her out and we can cause enough disarray to find a new target.” I responded confidently to Sapphire's question while flipping my phone over and placing it in my pocket.
“Also let's head back and kill the captive.” Me and sapphire both said in unison. We both ran down to sector B through the alleyways from earlier, this time they were even more abandoned and empty than before, as all the crowds had been drawn to the bright inferno just behind us. And the gunshots of the police rang out far in the distance. The screams and begging of the desperate rang out as we ran down to the radio station.
Once we ran back in, the faces of the dead had completely changed appearance, all the color drained away. We marched back up the stairs and readied our small pistols and reloaded them. We readied them aiming them upwards, ready to hit their eyes. Lights out in a single shot running through the steel of our pistols. Me and sapphire looked at each other and made our way up the ramp again. This time, all of the bodies had painted it a lovely rose red.
The light left above our captive shined through his dying corpse and his blood dripped down the sides of the metal spikes.
“Pl…please spare me you murderers…” the captive said, begging for his life as his pupils dilated to the point of the eye being hidden behind it.
“Awww didn't ya help Trinity kill thousands more. Let's face it, nobody owes you a life. Let alone that useless pair of eyes ya have.” Sapphire said to the captives face while laughing and then punched him directly in the face, causing red to come down his desperate face. Sapphire and I readied our guns and shoved them into the captives eye sockets.
“Saph, when I get to 3, fire. 1… ” Sapphire had prematurely fired her gun slightly early and i kept saying the numbers, with my brain not processing it in time and too overwhelmed with cheer about finishing the day to lose focus for a few seconds.
“Slightly early, Saph.” I said in a slightly fed up voiced but also with a face of excitement to see her enthusiasm to our cause.
“Sorry! I just wanted that fucking scum out of my sights” she yelled with a apologetic tone while continuing to pull the trigger over and over again and slicing his chest open by shooting it once and tearing through the flesh.
His blood blew out of the cavern, terminating at the start of the ramp and his eyes rolled back into his head and we pulled out the anemic corpse and put it on the ground before running out of the radio station and stealing all the expensive electronics we could. We ran out with our saddle bags filled to the brim, bulging outwards with government electronics made of steel. It weighed down our running, and we had to walk our way down the depressed streets.
We walked down together, with each step becoming a tedious crawl closer to our home. The paths were crumbling with potholes in the foot paths. Along the sides were rubbish and old cigarettes turned into char, rain was pouring down as we tried our best to speed up. We had to stay underneath the thin canopies and old pipes of other buildings to keep our electronics safe.
After half an hour, we finally made our way up the spiral metal staircase cobbled together from various steel parts. We opened the door and blocked out all the windows with the blinds which clacked together. Light couldn't penetrate our safe house as I locked the doors.
“What do ya say Saph, shall we go to bed now and have a look at what we've got in the morning?” I told her in a normal voice that I hadn't gotten to use in many hours due to all of the conflicts and skirmishes we found ourselves in.
“Sounds good to me, I need a nap.” She said to me after taking a sip of water from a glass and a relieved sigh of being able to relax came down to her after taking her sip, I saw the tension visibly leave her despite her best attempts to hide it.
I jumped into the bed and shuffled next to the wall to give sapphire space to sleep next to me. Sapphire rolled into the bed next to me as I grabbed the blanket and lifted it over both of us. I wrapped my hooves around her and had some quiet ambient music for both of us to drift away to, covering over the muffled sounds of the city like a tapestry of ruined stones and corrupted ideals.
I lied down and allowed my body to be drifted away by the relaxing audible sensations of the world that once existed before the corporations and trinity stole it from us. My eyes fell down as I slowly lost consciousness alongside sapphire, tomorrow would be a big day. Delving into that Metro was a bold move, but necessary one. Guards at every turn and stop. for right now though, it's time for a rest, a rest together.
“Good night, Saph.” Were my final yawned words as I lost the last drop of consciousness and fell asleep onto the soft springy mattress before my eyes.
