Metropolis

Metropolis

by Kirb Hysteria

Chapter One

Prologue

The sun rose over Equestria at precisely 9:00 in the morning. As that happened, ponies everywhere awoke and began their day. Some would stay in their homes and eat breakfast, others would get out immediately after waking up and go to eat at the nearest restaurants, and still others had already woken up before the sun rose and were working to get their businesses ready for the day.

In Canterlot Castle, the capitol building of Equestria, Princess Celestia, having just finished her royal duty of raising the sun, sat on her throne, with her two royal guards sitting on either side of her. She sipped her tea as a servant approached her and knelt just before coming to tell her the morning's announcements.

"Good morning," Celestia said to her servant. "What news do you have for the morning?"

"Well, Your Highness," said the servant, "according to the weather control groups at Cloudsdale, everything is looking fine for the weather! There will be a few clouds here and there, but not a drop of rain, especially with that huge storm two days ago."

"Good," said Celestia, smiling. She always liked it when the skies were free, because then her sun would not be covered. "And how about the stocks?"

"Ah, yes," said the servant, pulling out a chart. "Let's see... all seems to be doing well in the Manehattan Stock Exchange today. Las Pegasus is doing well financially, and so is Fillydelphia. Stalliongrad could be doing better, but in their defense they haven't been doing so well ever since they tried to implement communism..."

He looked through the lists. "Aha! According to these lists, the city of Metropolis is hitting an all-time high!"

At the name of the city, Celestia's smile turned upside down.

"Metropolis?" said the princess.

"Yes! And according to my charts, it has become the most financially successful city over the month! Hay, it could even become the new capital! Watch out, Celestia, Canterlot might have some competition!"

Celestia slowly turned her head away and put her hoof to her chin, contemplating this. "That's enough."

The servant looked worried, not as much for the princess as for his job. "Are you okay, Your Highness? Did I say something wrong?"

"No, no," said Celestia, rubbing her temples with her hooves. "It was nothing you said, I know you were just joking around. You may be dismissed."

"Okay."

As the servant left the room, Celestia turned to her guards. "I need to leave to go talk with my sister."

...

Princess Luna had finished her duties of lowering the moon and had taken off her crown and shoes and was about ready to go to sleep for the day when she heard a knock on the door.

"Thou mayst come in as thou pleases," said Luna, still having not fully adjusted to the modern Equestria-speak. The door opened with the glow of unicorn magic around it and Princess Celestia stepped inside. "Tia!" Luna exclaimed, always happy to talk to her sister. "Good evening to you!"

"Good morning, you mean," said Celestia with a smile. "It may be evening to you, but it's still no later than 10 in the morning for the rest of Equestria."

"'Tis correct, I suppose. Why hast thou come to speak with us?"

"Well, Luna, I'll just get to the point. I'm troubled."

"Troubled? Why so?"

The sun princess gripped her tea cup with her magic. "It's about Metropolis."

"Metropolis? I have not heard of this?"

"Oh, right. I almost forgot you were on the moon for a thousand years. I guess you have a lot to catch up on."

"Tell me! We enjoy a good bedtime story."

"Okay." Celestia cleared her throat, for she had a lot to explain to her sister. "As you know, Equestria has many cities in its provinces."

"Yes," said Luna. "I have visited a few of them in the two years I have been back."

"Well," the sun princess replied, "there is a city to the north known as Metropolis."

"Metropolis?" asked Luna, rubbing her chin. "We have never heard of such a city."

"It is a fairly new city, created about twenty or so years before you arrived back to Equestria. Anyway, this city was created, designed, funded, and led by a unicorn named Windsor. A brilliant mind, Windsor and his best friend Static Charge planned to make a city that would launch Equestria into the future with its technology."

"Go on." The moon princess was interested now.

"As a colt, Windsor had gone to my School of Gifted Unicorns. He and Static were always interested in technology. I, of course, supported him all the way. When they graduated, they wanted to take Equestria to 'the next level', and that was when Windsor created the idea of Metropolis, the futuristic city.

"It took a lot of work and planning between the two of them. Windsor had the idea, Static had the designs. They designed a city with numerous buildings, streets, and lots of various technological advances. The two of them even designed a monstrous looming capitol building over the city, known as Metropolis Tower."

"Why, that sounds absolutely marvelous!" interrupted Luna. "So why are you so troubled, sister?"

"Well," continued Celestia, "it was not long before they came to me for advice on their plans for construction. From one look at their blueprints I could tell they would need a lot of ponies to build, and a lot of ponies to work the machines. Windsor and Static recruited thousands of ponies from everywhere in Equestria. Most of those they had recruited were poor, uneducated ponies, but Windsor told them that their children would be given education and that they would work under better hours than any other jobs they had had before.

"In about five years, the city was opened to the public. Immediately ponies started gathering into the city, eager to see the progressive new machinery. But no sooner had it opened than Windsor had broken his promise to the workers. The workers' shifts were each ten hours long, with only ten-hour breaks in between for nourishment and sleep. With more people in the city than they had predicted, the amount of work the workers had to do doubled twice the size of their original predictions.

"Their children are usually lucky if they're given mediocre education--usually they get none at all--and quite often they are told that their only purpose in life is to work the machines that run the city. Many of them don't get their cutie marks, and even if they do, they are all forced to do the same jobs, special talent or not. Furthermore, the workers are never allowed to come up on to the surface, due to the increasing crowd of rich ponies there. From the pictures, Metropolis looks like a great place to live, but when you go there and see the horrible conditions the workers have to put up with it chills your bones to the very marrow."

"Wow," said Luna, with her once smiling face now looking seemingly unhappy. "Hast thou tried to communicate with the leaders about this?"

"I have written many letters to Windsor," Celestia said, "but he never responds. And Static, whom I fear has grown mad, tells me that he is no longer in contact with Windsor."

"Oh." Luna could not fully comprehend the hopelessness of the situation.

As Celestia turned to leave, Luna called to her, "Actually, Tia, will you bring us a cup of tea? We do not think that we can go to sleep after such a tale as that."

...

Author's note: Here it is! The first chapter of my "Metropolis" fanfic.

Please note that this fanfiction is based loosely on Fritz Lang's 1927 German sci-fi film of the same name.

Also, special thanks to The Dagwood Brony (Daegan Hamilton) for revising this before I submitted it.