Twenty two years.
Twenty two long years she has been stuck on Earth, far away from her home of Equestria and many friends. If only that... she has not only been stuck on this planet. She was stuck below it.
All the way down In Moscow's poorly lit underground system of rapid mass transport. Most often referred to simply as Metro... The Metro. For there was nothing else.
Nothing else beyond the dim depths of Metro. Well, nothing that was worthwhile or didn't want to rip your throat out and turn your insides outside like a gross meat sock. She tried many times... ended with hypothermia four separate times, bitten and depressurized six times and almost bled out once. Which is an achievement for an Alicorn.
Fortunately, once again she had a lead on a possible way out.
All for naught... once again.
Alyosha was dead.
Heh... he always hated the popular diminutive.
She couldn't know for sure what fate befell him, but judging by the massive spiders infesting his remote hideout and the severed finger with a ring she found in one of the webs... she didn't think he bit it off himself. Jewelry was not common among the denizens of The Metro, so there was no mistaking it. The metal depiction of a snake eating itself was the very same that belonged to him. Ouroboros... ironic...
”Rest easy, Алексей,” Luna said, putting down her AK-74 and collecting the ring from the finger with utmost esteem, readying to place it on the leather strip she carried on her neck. Not batting an eye as leather stopped repulsing her decades ago, she removed the thin and heavy thing slowly, all too aware of how the metallic clangs and plastic clicks of what she carried echoed in the silence of the dark tunnels, the many mementos weighting her down more than all the gear and weapons she carried ever did.
Not even close.
It never got any easier. Placing the ring on the strip next to many others like it, she– it was... way too many. "We are dying out, one by one..."
Huh.
"We", Luna thought. She didn't know when she stopped differentiating between ponies and humans but it must have been somewhere along losing her first friend and the 17th one. There were no races in the Metro, only those who survive. Granted, there weren't many ponies left in the Metro, but it's not like there were many of them on the day IT happened. Only a scant few diplomats assigned to her, some guards of hers and theirs, some trainees of human warfare, their families... and only those in the Metro at the time, like she, had survived. Maybe a hundred.. hundred twenty maximum.
It felt... like her fault. Like she had led them here personally and trapped them within the reinforced concrete walls of the seemingly endless tunnels. She knew it was not the case. All of them were volunteers, wanting to explore the new world and help but... it was hard not to think so when she met all of twenty three of her own species out of seventy something rumored... in twenty years.
Well, twenty-three and a half ponies.
...She didn't want to talk about it. Bad memories best buried deep lest she goes mad once again and she's doubtful the denizens of Metro would appreciate or survive another coming of Nightmare Moon. Like there weren't enough problems.
Also, apparently, that's how ponies referred to that day nowadays. IT. Humans were way sturdier, more realistic and full of brutal honesty. They called it as it was. The Apocalypse from their religious text of the Bible, simply end days, she even heard Ragnarök from the old human myths mentioned once or twice. Ponies cling to hope, rejected the very concept of sunder, the thought of someday returning home.. to Equestria.. was the fuel they ran on.
Luna sustained herself on different kind of bread & butter these days. She had to find her... but she digresses, first things first.
As the ring of a once friend now rested securely where it should, it was a time for a prayer.
Setting her guns aside against the wall of a dim service tunnel so as to not offend none Divine nor undead, Luna stripped her backpack down and set it against the cold and crumbling metal wall, with only her clothes remaining... and a knife. Anyone would understand.
How ironic it was.
A being some misguided humans considered a demigod or an outright reincarnation of their savior before the war happened, now kneeling down to pray on her own. Luna wasn't very religious, but... it has grown on her through the years. Humans had some evidence. Albeit, it was just some scant few manuscripts and clay tablets mentioning someone indirectly, but it was something. Certainly more than some myths and stories their world religions had and after all the things she saw in The Metro... maybe Heaven and Hell really did exist... or existed. Once, before they were destroyed in the heat of atomic fire.
”Hello Father,” She said fondly. ”Once again, I come with but simple request..”
She never bothered to learn all the dry formulae, no matter which religion it belonged to. The way she looked at it, if God really existed, he wanted to be praised. Not revered. Like a child and a parent, respected, not blindly idolized.
God wants fans, not groupies.
”I– I know I often come not giving much in return. But Aly didn't deserve to be stuck down here. He didn't-”
A foul screech reverberated in Luna's sensitive Pony ears before the blow landed and maybe it was the very thing that saved her. Turning around her center of mass like a woodscrew, the flashlight was awake before she even made a full turn, washing the jumping offender with a wave of deadly light. Of course, the photons from her flashlight would not kill the spider-scorpion hybrid in an instant. As such, it was rendered to bits by a beam of magic not a second later, its chitinous parts bouncing off the tunnel's walls a few times.
Luna's magic was not lost to her that fateful day. There was a reason why she was the mercenary to go to when anyone in the Metro needed the job done. As the last parts of the spider creature fell still, Luna waited for a few seconds more as the foul creatures most often hunted in swarms.
...
Silence.
Hmm. It seemed she got them all before, this one a simple straggler.
...
Fuck.
Fuck. Why was it always like this? Shit.
”Блядь!” Luna shouted in anger. ”Вокзальная шлюха!” She pumped the generator of her crank flashlight to the maximum and continued foreign obscenities as the light of her gear seared the remains of the light-sensitive spider to a crisp, the smell akin to burnt hair filling her nostrils. She tortured her flashlight close to a point it gave out, the battery dying after going full power for a few minutes straight with Luna herself dropping to her knees once more. Though this time panting with anger and pure resentment.
It... it would seem twenty years of nothing but this took its toll, finally catching up to her. She was sturdy but not indestructible, far from it. Poor Alyosha was just the last straw.
...
She can't go on like this.
Seventeen– Eighteen, she corrected herself, eighteen good friends. Close beings who none will replace lost to the monsters be them beast or intelligent, a few lost to the paranormal and poorly understood. Not magic, she tried. Just... there.
She remembered the last time she felt like this.
After... just after IT happened and they were stuck in a metro wagon bereft of power near The Red Square, people panicking left and right... Luna will remember it thousands of years from now if she survives that long. There was an officer out of duty with them, not that Luna knew it at the time... after two minutes passed and none of his four cellphone calls were answered, he knew. He knew and was prepared to rip the band-aid right away, like a true former military grunt. Yet, as his last resort he looked to her of all people. Clearly he knew who she was and had some hope that she would prove him wrong, that she had some ethereal knowledge from the higher ups not reachable by him. After seeing her confusion and apprehension, he knew for sure.
”Russia is no more,” it slipped out of him out loud, a few heads in the train car turning his way. ”We're on our own.”
Luna will never forget it. The resolute yet dejected and defeated tone of the man, holding only by the last thread of military discipline. He probably spent decades in the military and now most of his life went up into smoke in an instant. The silence that followed, no one speaking a word. At this very moment she lost the title of a Princess forevermore, although scant few still called her that till this day out of respect, be them human or pony.
No, she didn't lose it because of his informal way of address. She lost it because she was undeserving.
Once she understood what he meant, deciphering the intricacies of human speech, she went and snapped right then and there. Hello, darkness her old friend. What decades of neglect back home could not do, a simple sentence did. Just because it meant untold hundreds of millions just perished. Just like that.
Nightmare Moon was back for a second time.
As she stood there in a wagon full of people knocked out by a powerful magical sleep spell, Nightmare Moon looked around. She thought and she did think a lot. She and Luna talked, battled and twisted, making a one pony mime show out of themselves in their fight for domination.
An hour later Luna suddenly heard a voice. The army man from before looked at her and said- ”What do we do, девочка?”
She was back. She didn't remember how her fight with Nightmare ended or how did everyone got back up, just that she was suddenly back in control.
He actually spoke proper English to her, sans the last word. Maybe he thought she didn't understand Russian, maybe it was stress, or maybe he was just polite. No matter. He called her a girl in a display of rare familiarity, not a princess, yet still referring to her for instruction. Establishing a chain of command. Not caring if she was a part of the Russian military structure or not, just looking out for the civilians around him in the way he thought best.
A true patriot.
She led seventy two people out of that train on that day. There were sixty four of them by the nightfall... or what their wristwatches said was one. Major Sukholski among them. That's what he introduced himself as, professional just a bit till the very end.
He did not leave the tunnel.
She took his pair of name tags as her first memento. Gennadiy Sukholski, born 1982, the plaques said.
Luna remembered someone shook her out of a trance, while she still stared at the two oblong pieces of metal. He was thirty one. Looked... way older. She held him as he died, his blood staining her dark blue coat for months to come... she hoped he died with a thought of his duty done, entrusting the people to her... and she hoped him not too disappointed when only so much of them lived through it.
He became number one out of eighteen.
A first friend in this world, made in seconds despite her already being two years in here.
Lost... within an hour. Poor Genya... he did not deserve it.
None of them did.
Then the people went and made a mockery out of his noble sacrifice in the line of duty. His and countless others. They squabbled and argued, reverted to fights for food and water. When those were not a most immediate need anymore, they found they differed on ideology and how Metro should be run from now on. Then about the money and luxuries like heating or preserved candied sweets.
She was there when the red disease gripped the Russian nation once again just in under a century.
She was there when the self appointed Führer made his first speech, sweeping hundreds with his passionate rhetoric. Making the nation become the very thing it fought against decades ago.
Deep in the tunnels, she saw things no one should see. Ever.
...
Riga.
Riga is the closest. A few unknown and forgotten tunnels shown to her once upon a time and she would be there.
Well, at Prospekt truly, but she's not about to get drunk in Hanza territory. No, first to Prospekt and from there it's a short trip to Riga, provided Hanza doesn't decide to shoot her at first sighting. After she rejected their "honorary citizenship" some few years back it would seem they took it as an indication for "Free Luna Season" each time they did not employ her outright.
Well, Prospekt Mira it was.
Though Rizhskaya always made her feel depressed... well, more than usual, it had a nice little bar where no one asked too many questions and let her drink in peace.
Alright.
Go to Riga, get drunk. Sober up, then rest for a day or two. After that... the rumors of the "Dark Ones" is all she had as of now, now that... now that her friend was dead. No other leads or interesting things happening. For the last few years she followed rumors and hunches, sometimes getting closer to ger goal, sometimes further.
Her goal... right....
Celestia. Literal continents and oceans away, yet.. her sister must be alive... She must be. For if not, then– what is Luna there for?
She will stop at nothing to see her once again. Be it to hug her in happiness... or bury her in remorse.
By God, she will die on that hill.
Author's Note
Yeah. Yeah... I know.
Another story started with none previous updated consistently and that makes like, what... seven as of now? I'm all good for ideas, not for implementing them... shut up.
Also, someone else released a Metro story barely a month earlier and he had it done way better than I ever could, when I supposedly had the same idea months before but was too lazy to write?
Bullshit, I tell you. Coincidences.
In reality, each of my stories has like three to six chapters written already, but I constantly find some grammatical errors and obsess over it sounding good. What's good in my sick head might not be necessarily dandy in reality and proper English.
Also, I played through Metro series like four times. I have all books, read them multiple times. I FEEL PREPEARED. Probably not enough but shit if i know.
Fimfiction pasted the name as - Алексей - how dare fimfiction mangle his name! Seriously, some fonts just don't have the right symbols. Some do. If you think "Yep, that's russian" - well... good! If you worry about grammar, blame it on the font and change it till it works. I can't even paste the right characters because it changes with each font. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
Dictionary:
- ”Вокзальная шлюха!” - Mmm. Harder to explain, but basically Luna called the spider a train station whore. That's a thing.
- Блядь - The wide known blyat. Suka. Like a whore, but different.
Hmm.
Hmm... Hm Hm.
A quiet yet sincere clap was all the praise Luna needed, as little over two dozen hands and a pair of hooves made their pleasure known from the depths of the dimly lit hole in the expanse of the station. She always played the old piano once at Riga's quaint little bar. Well, always before she got utterly shitfaced drunk on the only alcohol available.
The slight discount if she did play wasn't unwelcome.
Ugh...
A musical prodigy from birth or not, she really should start drinking after playing. Her poor head... and she wasn't even done. Mm mm mm, mushroom grown on excrement then turned into dubious distillate. Delicious.
”Vlad!...” She said a bit too loud, catching herself within a moment and griping the wooden bar with all the strength afforded to her before she tumbled to the floor. ”Another!... p-lease....” The bar proprietor she ousted as Vladimir made a face full of doubt. He knew the blue menace all too well... not that she wouldn't pay, no... he knew her as much, she would pay within a day, just- ”So help me all above God or Faust, give me that liquid numb-shroom or... or I won't play!... Anymore!”
She was the one who offered, but... that would be a hit to his business.
”Alright, alright. Don't get your horn in a twist more than it needs to be. Here you go ponyo.” The proprietor of the establishment slid a cup full of the vile stuff her way, hoping she wouldn't get too rowdy... again. Have you ever tried to restrain a magical horse convinced that shadows were out to get her? No? Thought so.
*Scoff* Please. What did he know?
What did anyone know.
All of them knew nothing... How could they? Try to live to a few thousand or so and survive through three apocalypses or so, two small ones and one major, and then... then... Ugh... well. Now all she had was some rumors of some new mutants a few stations from here. Marvelous. The culmination of her vast career, both princess and mercenary.
Damn... I really should cut back...
If not for the soothing sounds of the piano her mood would be even worse. She already had to discretely refuse a courtesan, as she did NOT need their services and- and that guy at the bar scant two meters from her, the one in the beanie, the shifty-looking guy.
She didn't like his face. You know what, in fact, she ought to-
”..without him we wouldn't be here. To Artyom!”
”To Artyom!” Luna shouted in earnest and downed her cup till she saw the bottom. Wait- the liquid was clear, she always saw the bottom. Also, to who? To... wait- who's Artyom? She turned her head to- oh God.. Do not turn head, like at all. All that would do is- ah there it was. Floor... her old nemesis. Hello floor. Fuck you, daft bastard.
Ugh. She was hoisted up. Who did that? Did she want to beat them up? Put them up... maybe... Wait, the knife was somewhere in here. Umm... how did she grab that without fingers again?
”We appreciate the... patronage, Princess.” The last word a practiced sneer more than anything. ”Yet the Chief would like to keep the station out of the Hanza's sight. So you need to go. Or at least keep yourself quiet.” The body holding her up said as if he didn't want to be here. He didn't.
No. She did not want to beat them up. Well... she did but she shouldn't.
”Mmm... I'll pay you back once I'm here yet again. Expect me Vlad,” Luna threw into the general direction of her friend while being dragged out of the bar by a pair of guards. Strong lads. She weighed, what, four times as much as them combined... or fourteen.. ffffff-ive? Well, at least two.
”Mhm. Just have the bullets,” was all the proprietor of the business had to say. He wasn't about to interfere in anything... whatever she got herself into this time. Doubly so if it involved station authorities.
”Please... Vlad... Влади́мир...” A circle in the air for flair. ”Magazines for days.”
”Magazines for days?” Disbelief ensue.
”Magazines for days!”
”Alright Lady,” One of the guards dragging Luna through the dingy station started, many cubby-sized wooden dwellings passing by her heavily blurred vision. ”The only reason you're not in a ditch as far as I'm concerned, is because Chief said not to.” Huh. So considerate. ”So you land with the whores. Pray they don't throw you out.”
”Mmm... Murgle.”
”W-what?”
”'Dunno. He's red.”
”Alright, we're done here.”
...
Ow. It would seem she was thrown. Like a... like a sack of... what were those small funny tubers humans were so fond of? ... Ah, potatoes, yes. No dirt, would sprout anyway. Marvelous creature of God. Praise be. Bless.
”Upsy-daisy, darling.” A completely new voice said, picking Luna up from the not-quite-ditch she was left in.
”I'm up. Imup.”
”I know sweetheart. I'm still holding onto you.”
Wait... Luna knew those soft hands smelling of twenty years old expired moisturizer. ”Nikki? Nikki, my flower?” She looked up, yet for the love of her, the most she could make out was some blurred grays and reds... she's half sure the red was lipstick. The other half said the red was shotgun shells.
Why would prostitutes have shotgun shells?
Ah yes. Pigs. Logical.
”Yes, it's me you big lug,” The big blur said to Luna. ”Bed?”
Mmm, a tempting proposition. But no. No bed for the wicked. Especially if she took that bed from someone else. ”Nah. Nah. Put me in a chair, I will be good in hald- half an hour. Alicorn.” She tried to explain as if her biology made sense to anyone beside her.
”Right. Kitchen?”
”Yah. I lost smell half an hour ago anyway.”
She was carried and she could swear there was more than a pair of hands on her. Ah yes, she did weigh more than an average human could carry. Mmm, okay, more hands now. At least... three. ”...You're not scamming people anymore Flower, are you?”
The murky female looked quite guilty despite having a line for a mouth and eyes where... well, somewhere.
”We- 've- we talked about this Nikki...” A quick thought. ”Don't.”
”Oh, like you know how that feels. When even selling your body is not enough anymore.” The resigned resentment flowing from the sparingly dressed female was almost palatable, yet it came to a stop very quickly.
Luna was scary when she glared.
”Do not tell me how it feels. Though I am not proud of it, I too have sold both my body and soul in order to survive. Thousands of years before you were even born.” The expression darkened significantly making the former Princess look even more menacing as she spoke her next, most horrible sentence. ”The difference is, I did it for a loaf of bread. One to be shared.”
”I'm... sorry. I didn't know.”
The scary expression was gone just as quick as it came and now a quiet whisper was all it took. ”There's no one alive who does... don't worry about it. Old times.”
The rest of the short journey was spent in silence, Nikki not in the mood to vex the night princess anymore. She might be a simple girl, but she knew when to let go. Especially when someone said something so personal.
”Here,” Luna felt she was suddenly sitting, on a... ugh, a chair. Those were not designed for a pony body. A bar stool, that's easy. A full-blown chair with a backrest? Get out. ”Do not wander out, stay here till sober. Get it?”
”Do I look like-”
If looks could kill... Well, they can, just not in the human world... probably.
”'aight, I'm not gonna head out.”
”Glad we're in agreement.” Nikki gave a nod to the woman cooking, the two in cahoots to keep Luna here till she was ready. ”See you in the morning.” She already saw Luna's mouth opening and she would have none of that. ”In the morning.”
”Alright, alright...” Luna could take a hint. ”We get it. Shall comply.”
”Glad to hear that. See 'ya.”
Yeah. See... God, Luna wished she could see. As of now everything was just two blobs and a dash of color.
...
She's not sleeping! She's not. She wasn't. Resting one's eyes is not considered sleeping... in certain cultures. Why, Gryphons considered siesta a mandatory activity while-
”...and you can get me to Dry?”
”Kid, I need to get to Dry. Tell you what, once we're there I'll give you my Kalash. I won't need it once there anyway. So, how about it?”
Hmm.
Hmm. Hmm.
It was the kid from the bar. Artyom, was it? The one anomalies don't touch? Maybe, maybe not. Not entirely impossible, not likely either. The other was the sleazer. The beanie guy. And the kid wasn't the smartest too, he seemed to buy the story.
...
It seemed the rumor about humanoid mutants would have to wait, as she had a new mission. Luna was really fortunate. Her chair was in the back, so no one would see the stupidity that was about to ensue.
”Cook, your finest gutter swill please.”
The cook wasn't supposed to do that, but... bullets are bullets. Also, judge Luna all you want but doing stupid without any kind of drink would be just... uh.. stupid. The regular kind.
”Flower, I'm about to do something incredibly stupid.”
Oh. It would seem she teleported... Kind of a dumb and risky move while inebriated. Good thing she didn't teleport only her front half.
Once was enough for an eternity. Bless Alicorn constitution and Starswirl's ability.
Throwing Luna out of her musings, Nikki spoke, but only after calming herself down from a near teleportation induced heart attack. ”How stupid?”
”Royal stupid....”
Sigh. Here they went again. ”Here are the bullets,” Nikki said while bringing out a small case full of jingling small instant deaths from the near wooden cubby.
”240?” Luna asked, needing to be completely sure. Also, it seemed teleporting while drunk cured blurriness somewhat... huh... cool.
”All 240,” The woman confirmed, handing over all the bullets with dubious certainty.
”Right.” Time to pay up. ”Here be two magazines.” Luna declared as two full AK-47 magazines floated out of her backpack, darker than normal in the dim candlelight of the dingy alley.
Nikki saw it a mile away. They were genuine.
”Luna, I can't...”
”Take it, take it,” None of that now. She will take the military bullets whether she likes it or not. ” ...what is it, seventy? At most?” Wait, how much did a magazine hold- nevermind. ”I know better, I helped develop this economy decades ago, shut up. Take it. Earned, not stolen, no?”
”...Alright.” In this profession one had to know when to admit defeat. ”...Just don't die. Whatever you end up doing. Please.”
A big heart buried all the way down under all those scars.
”I'll try not to.”
Now. Time to follow the two curious fools before they-
Wait.
A cap was unscrewed most shrewdly in the darkness of the station and not a drop of precious dumb juice spilled while she quenched her thirst by the dimly lit dwellings... screwing it back on was a tad harder. Dammit.
”Hold on, where did you get tha-”
Ah, that's better. As she was saying, better get going before the pair gets too distant to follow. Where were they going anyway? Besides Dry. Ah. She shall see. All shall be revealed.... though a sip would reveal a little bit more. She was rather sure of that... like... twenty nine percent sure.
...
Well, alright. She wasn't sure at all.... but another sip couldn't hurt her chances.
Right?
Author's Note
Terribly sorry for the delay darlings, but unfortunately I have fallen ill and was sick for the last three weeks, 105.8 degrees fever, coughing up blood and all...
Flu season in eastern Europe is no joke.
...well, not actualy flu, 'cause I tested myself and it wasn't that. But whatever it was, the little bitch lost and it shan't laugh microscopically at me anymore.
On a related note, morphine for pain and cough mixed with Ketoprofenum for fever? I do NOT recommend... or maybe I do, I don't know what you like. Suffice to say, flew high as a kite despite having more holes than Swiss cheese.
You get the picture.
Regardless, chapter few weeks late but still here in the end. Eat up.
A little sneak peek into my writing process. When I wrote that "little over two dozen hands" clapped, I asked myself. How many people were in that bar in the game?
So I went and counted. Even the courtesan that was on screen for like two seconds.
Yes, I am THAT kind of retarded.
