Carbon Copy

     Darkness surrounded him, body aching and unresponsive. Static filled his hearing while his sense of touch was non-existent, probably for better than worse. His body was once again stuck to make things worse. He struggled to sit up, groaning the entire time. It felt like he'd stepped in front of a bullet train. Instead he'd inadvertently opened his eyes to cobwebs of blurs running across his vision, practically rendering him blind and incapacitating him for another period of time. Far above, he could barely make out a handful of yellow pinpricks of light, each moving as if all of them were attached by an invisible frame, pulling all the others in the same way the first moved.

I think my eye has a cracked lens.

     From his view that would make perfect sense, and even more annoying, he had avoided looking in a mirror when he had the opportunity. It was unlike him.

I'm forgetting something.

     That realization forced something uncomfortable on the boy laying in the trash heap: he knew it was a significant part of him that was missing. Something big, but also a work of pride, an accomplishment, lifestyle, and overall a reason to feel like he had worth. He didn't feel like he was worth anything right now, made worse by the fact he had to resort to jumping in a dumpster to escape. He'd never have to do that before.

Let's see, shock is in effect, but I'm handling that well enough. Can't move well with the exception of my left arm and neck. Legs aren't shaking from adrenaline rush, likely broken- no. I'm a machine. There's no chemicals coursing through veins, well oil, but biologically speaking I'm a husk. Now, the room I'm in is narrow with no exits except up. I can't feel anything, but it feels like there's a large amount of small wood pieces and decaying organic materials. So... dumpster or compost bin. I'm leaning on dumpster, well, in. Anyway, let' see about getting out of here.

     His thoughts scattered around, turning from self preservation to escape and survival. Over the course of several hours, where he was able to measure thanks to the lengthening beams of light coming down the wall as the sun rose to its zenith, he pulled himself toward the junction of stone and debris. On his stomach he crawled, leaving a trough of dislodged material in his wake.

Today, I got the privilege of realizing how fucked up life's sense of humor is. Mark the calenders people, January 17th, 2013 is the day Artemis 'Tesla' Hemsworth got stuck in a pit and starved to death a few days later, he glumly thought, pulling himself another few inches towards the wall. When I get there, what am I going to do? Climb one handed upside down for a hundred yards? I couldn't even pull my fat ass up the rope in gym with two good arms.

     As he thought this, he completed his short journey in his half fall half drag locomotion he'd been using with his good arm. Getting to the wall was a plan though, and he knew that there was no way to make it to the top only using a single handhold at a time. If he could use ledges and wedge himself against the walls to rest, then maybe he could make it, but the lack of purchase on the wall discouraged him even further. Despondently he flipped himself into a sitting position against the wall to look at his current condition. Oil was everywhere, and several loose hoses hung from his legs and torso, spilling a slippery fluid into the trash heap.

     Furthermore, his plate-style skin was dented in several places, making the limbs nonfunctional even if he reattached the hoses correctly. The black enamel coating on his feet had been scraped off in large streaks, leaving gleaming silver scratches inside the dents. Reaching back, he flipped the switch to release the mask on his face from the back of his head, watching as black shapes spun before his eyes when the disengaging mechanisms unscrewed from his face. As the screws finally retraced, he felt the mask fall off his face and caught it with his arm, inspecting the damage done.

     Two holes around the cheek bones were where the mask attached to the rest of him, but the rest looked rough to say the least. The right side was mostly intact, but the left side looked like the rest of his limbs: mangled and disfigured.

How far did I fall? I took at least one hell of a hit and I still can move.

     Deciding to leave that unanswered, be began fiddling with the hoses. The ends looked complete, and had some sort of quick attach device to prevent oil leaking too much. He starting piecing it together, giddily, like a child fixing a broken toy. Even though he might have to pry off his skin, he could still move around once he got the hoses reconnected to the hydraulics. If those had leaks, well, he could manage until he figured something else out, and maybe even climb out.

     Wedging himself against the wall, he started pulling at the crinkled metal on his left shoulder first...

     Rustic Rune paced back and forth across the barracks in self-imposed silence, fuming at ever letting that machine leave despite her personal opinion of good riddance. Her professional opinion on the other hoof, would never let such a research opportunity slip away despite how annoying the thing was.

     Hooves sore, she flopped into the cot her Uncle Virgil let her have, while he slept peacefully on the floor beside it, twitching intermittently in his sleep, his pale yellow coat gathering dust with each twinge of hoof. Rusty, as her Uncle would call her, lay on her back with her hooves bunched behind her head for a pillow to think.

That inspector was the one who took him, and yet I can't help but feel that something was off about him when he left. Grr, I'll think of it in the morning, she thought, drifting off to the timeless gap between the sleeping and waking hours. Upon her awakening though, she barely remembered the thoughts from last night, instead shuffling downstairs with a yawn to grab some hay and a cup of water for breakfast before starting her day in the recharging station again.

I miss coffee, her sleep deprived brain proclaimed, slowly loosening the cobwebs around her thoughts, the gears slowly coming to speed.

     Levitating the plate onto her back, she plodded over to her work station with her head held low while keeping her thoughts to herself. A stray hoof felt something sharp poke at it as she neared the table before sending a wave of pain up her foreleg. A rusty nail was the culprit of almost making her drop her balanced breakfast, reminding her that the back of her desk was torn apart from that damn machine.

Tesla!

     Acting almost out of instinct, she turned toward the main door that would lead to the street his shack was on. Wait, she'd been ditched by him yesterday, why was she concerned?

Why's this clipboard on my desk?

     Setting own her murky water for the flattened piece of wood, she brought the list closer to her to read before realizing she still needed to put on her glasses. After opening a desk drawer and fishing around inside, she got the pair of cracked spectacles settled onto the bridge of her muzzle. Looking down at the list though, she began waking up faster than what coffee would ever do for her. Shifting her eyes around the room to make sure nopony was looking, she ripped the paper from the top and stuffed in an empty gem leaning container and setting it in lower drawer of her work station. Moving slowly, so as to not attract the relaxed mercenaries' attention, Rune made her way to the back of the room to dispose of the wooden box.

     After getting back to her desk, she distractedly returned to her job. She was going to make sure to get that piece of paper into the right hands as if her life depended on it. Knowing the diamond dogs, this would be more dangerous than mining if they found out.

     Some time later, the stout Matoran began feeling his left arm again and was even able to get some motion out of the elbow and wrist. From what Tesla could feel the mechanism in the shoulder was busted, but the wiring and hydraulics traveling through the joint still worked fine. Moving onto his feet, he found a much simpler devices. A series of springs attached to some pieces of bent metal anchored to two axles rather than the complexities of the arms and, but would take a little tinkering to make the shock absorbing devices hold his weight.

     The thing he was curious about was how his legs were even supposed to be designed. Really, who thought that putting the hip and ankle together would be a good idea, then make the knees bend under tension rather than the hydraulics and motors that controlled every other joint? There was no significant advantages, and his stride was limited to how far he could lift his leg straight before losing his balance.

     Fiddling with a complete set of hands in the dark is hard. Doing it with four fingers between two hands and no opposable thumbs is nearly impossible. Despite his anatomical shortcomings, Tesla was pressed to make it work.

Straighten finger, snag spring, repeat, sung inside his head as he repositioned the springs to accommodate the bent metal from his crash landing. Why haven't I gotten hungry yet and how many hours of sleep am I running off of? Suddenly popped in his head. After all, forgetting to eat for a few days isn't exactly common.

     Leaning against the wall again, he propped himself between the garbage and stone to lever himself into a standing position to test his handiwork. It wasn't anything to look at, but all he really needed was a patch job. Rising to his better foot, he slowly lowered his left leg to the ground to find that it could, in fact, support his weight.

Now, all I need to do it get out of here... There was blackness to his left, and blackness to his right. Right it is.

     Using his right arm and, for lack of a better term, hand, he traced the wall to keep a frame of reference to any possible handholds he might need for the climb up. There were two or three he found, but nothing within arms reach beyond that. After the fourth time he managed to reach a second handhold, but the stone broke before he could get a decent grip, sending him plummeting back into the trash. Staring up at the fading lights above, he lashed out in anger at anything he could get his hands on. Nothing was fair. He had no options, and there was nothing he could do to escape. Pushing away the trash near him, he heard several cracks of glass and wood before settling down enough to lie still.

I'm going to leave. I'm going to find that bastard, and I'm going to make his life hell, he thought, smiling at the thought of revenge. Even if it didn't do any good, he'd still feel better knowing he had the deciding blow. Raising his hand above his chest, he blocked out the light above, only to feel a sudden lurch and the sensation of falling again.

Son of a bitc-

     As with every civilization, there is the underlying problem of the homeless and hungry. Now, one could argue that didn't happen in Equestria, but, as it was, the situation was situated in Gem Fido rather than its southern neighbor. Below the streets of Vorpal were numerous shoots leading to deep pits that solved the trash problem the city would have inevitably faced. Some people's trash are other persons' treasures though, and the same could be said for the old mines that were used to deepen the trash pits when needed. Therefore it wouldn't come as a surprise to those that a small suburb of the city had sprung up beneath the surface, carving out a niche for repurposing the materials thrown away by their 'betters' on the surface.

     Most of the families living beneath Vorpal were those of guards and slave keepers, seeing that the farmers had to have a way to keep check of the sun in order to best work the fields. One family in particular was sifting through the more dangerous section of the tunnel where there had been numerous cave ins from the trash in the pit next to the old mine, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Guard Dog was among those working the beginning of the trash heap, working with his younger daughter who'd insisted on coming along. Some said that living below the surface would make a dog weak, others said differently. The undeniable fact that could be agreed upon was that the guards were among the hardiest and most resourceful dogs in the city, second only to the Alpha.

     "Daddy, do hears that?"

     The senior member of the pair of scavengers paused waist high in the waste, ears flickering back and forth in an attempt to catch the slightest groan from the trash heap. Faintly, he could make out a steady crunching sound that felt like it was coming from above them as well as from within the trash heap, dampened by years of guarding miners. Could someone have burrowed into there? It would only make sense, it would offer better pickings to trade for back in the cave system they called home. His daughter always seemed to have especially sensitive hearing, warning him of three previous cave ins. Knowing the danger, he turned back, deciding to start a project to dig to the surface of the trash in the pit tomorrow.

     A tumbling sound caught his ear as he reached his daughter, Rose. There was only time to react as Guard Dog picked his daughter up by the scruff of her neck and tossed her down the hallway before the rest of the garbage slide could overtake them. As it was, his action was not needed when a shower of debris tumbled down the slope behind him, depositing a large metal thing next to him. He might have shrieked in surprise when the metal starting moving, seemingly unaccustomed to the gem lantern that hung from the low ceiling. Wait, he knew this thing, it was what that lantern griffin uncovered a week ago.

     The thing groaned in annoyance, easing its way into a sitting position. Stepping back and inhaling the stale air, the elder diamond dog moved to protect his daughter from the potential danger. He knew not how it had gotten back to the mines, but was not going to risk a curse being sent his way.

     Tesla recoiled at the sight of the dull light when he opened his eyes, reminded of how much his eyesight had been reduced. The unfamiliar web of cracks reacquainted itself with the introduction of a massive headache. "Ow, good God that hurts. Someone hand me a towel, would you? I can hear you moving around," he said, his outstrected arm pointed at the diamond dog extracting himself from the pile of broken wood and disposed food. Tin cans were galore, seen nearly everywhere and mostly rusted beyond use.

     "Daddy?" Rose called out from her hiding place behind a boulder, poking her perked ears from her hiding place as the rest of her youthful face followed. Unlike most pups her age, her fur was unnaturally light. It wasn't white, but rather a soft tan that she'd gotten from her mother's side of the family along with her large brown eyes. The only thing she seemed to have inherited from her father were her pricked ears, making for a very adorable daughter that often caught the eye of the other pups, sometimes for bullying and other times out of kindness or attraction.

     Even with the loss of the majority of the sight, the otherworldly teen could still make out where the sound had come from. With that, he set forward, trying to pull himself from the trash only to find his lower half was caught. "Uh, little help here? I'm not going to hurt you," he said, turning more towards the guard than the daughter. Not sensing any movement to help him, he started digging around his feet, muttering curses beneath his breath and missing the dexterity of his old body more and more, even if this one had saved his life.

     "If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself. Go figure," stated Tesla annoyingly, a bit miffed that he had to dig his way to freedom once again, but not wanting to reveal the bottled anger that threatened to burst from the depth of his personality. After all, yelling like a crazed man doesn't get you far in life most of the time.

     A quick scampering of claws on the stone floor alerted him to the approach of the child, letting him make out some fuzzy features before returning to his work. The light blob that he could make out was approaching slowly, easily distinguishable from the contrasting grey rock the area seemed to be made out of. A little jiggling was rewarded with the end of the wood showing its splintered face, allowing for a small hop that sent the Matoran tumbling down to the stone floor, prostrated at the paws of the guard's daughter.

     "Get away from her!" bellowed Rose's father, his silence shattered as he saw the ball of metal approach his daughter. His wade through the trash turned into a bound, arriving to protect his daughter from harm.

     Tesla had different plans though. That last tumble had once again forced his foot to stop working, and his left arm wasn't feeling so great either. Static filled his hearing again, and he could barely make out the world around him because of his shattered lenses. Even worse, he felt vulnerable, more vulnerable than he'd been in his entire life. It was one thing to have a broken bone, but a completely different thing to watch as your body betrayed you, senses scrambled and limbs all but broken.

     Something grabbed his left arm, yanking the tubing apart again and spilling oil everywhere. His motion changed from lurching to reeling before Tesla found himself sent back into the garbage pile. The lopsided nature he now felt might have been the first trigger in telling him something was wrong, but Rose's shriek was the thing that sealed the deal. Glancing at the noise, his eyes drifted to the bipedal dog that was returning to face him, his right fist wrapped around Tesla's arm, hanging limply with amber oil dripping from the socket that attached to the shoulder. Looking down, the canine threw the limb back on the ground as if a large spider had landed on his hand unexpectedly, putting more distance between him and the contraption he'd found.

     "Come on! I just fixed that!" Came the garbled reply as the machine extracted itself from the garbage once again, obviously compensating for the lack of the limb. "Do you think- Hey, I think I know you."

     The thing before Guard Dog made his hackles rise. It was unnatural, but spoke like a pony. Ponies were to be enslaved, senses dulled. Work dulled the senses, made them harder to fine tune. The mines were the hardest place to work, and would dull his senses the fastest. Thoughts relating to how to contain the thing before him bounced around the guard's head, giving Tesla the opportunity to finish his thoughts.

     "Yeah, you're the guy form the mines. Something about getting a promotion if I remember right," Tesla finished, inspecting the detached arm, letting a low whistle when he looked at the back of the shoulder through the webbed glass in his eyes, creating multiple facets to see through. The back of the arm had most of the metal caved in, leading Tesla to start speculating. He'd hit at an oblique angle, so far as he could figure from the shape of the dent, sending him into a tumble where he'd gotten most of the other damage. "Damn. I don't think elbow grease is going to fix this," he said, starting to move his hand toward his other shoulder before realizing he couldn't hold the arm and make the repair at the same time. "Uh, little help?"

     Rustic Rune was doing some of her finest work to date, easily letting the stress helping her work habits. Any thoughts besides the paper taped to the bottom of her desk would get shot down, letting her body work tirelessly on the gem lanterns before her. She needed spell books, a commodity declined there for obvious reasons. There were to ways to get into the city, and she couldn't fly out, her months of piecing together details about the city were coming together. If there were gates on the surface, their entrances were small and concealed. The lack of wide roads supported the idea, leaving the underground train station the easiest way to escape.

     Reaching back to the pile of gems, she pulled another one, pushing her magic into the core of the crystal. Her stress finally gave out, sending more magic than needed into the quartz crystal. She hadn't made a mistake like that before, maybe it would- BOOM!

     A pile of dust filled the room before the chaos unfolded. Like when the lights go out in Vegas, the workers jumped the tables in order to get a chance at the closest mercenary, taking everypony by surprise. Mere moments passed before the mercenaries were bound in rope and magic canceling rings placed on their horns. Another moment and her Uncle Virgil had hogtied one mercenary while his neighbor did the same to the one on the other side of the door. There was very little in the way of cacophony when the revolt occurred, a large scraping of chairs before the sound of armored meatbags hitting the floor.

     "Ha! Good job Rusty! I knew you'd do it sooner or later," exclaimed her Uncle Virgil, beaming from his seat on the back of a mercenary, the latter bound and gagged with his horn secured. His niece simply looked onward, completely confused about the entire arrangement. Nopony had told her anything, much less given her detailed plans as for how to ambush the mercenaries. "Now, I know you're confused, but I'll explain on the way down."

Way down?

     Before she could wondering, the workers had pulled the gem bins from under the stairs, revealing an impressive tunnel that looked to have been carved over the course of several years and allowing the workers to start filing out of the workshop. "I know, pretty, isn't it? We're lucky old what's-his-face looked under them for spare gems. We retrofitted it with some support beams stolen from the carts, and widened it for two at a time to fit once they got past the hole, not to mention getting the dirt and stone carted off. Ugh, I'm glad I caught the tail end of that. Why just last week, before you got here mind you, we-"

     "Uncle Virgil," Rune interrupted, "Why were you waiting for me? I didn't even know about the plan."

     "Oh, hohoho. That's easy," he said before signaling her to go ahead of him before he clambered down into the tunnel, "Everypony who works here has done it at east once. It was a matter of time. Now, run up ahead a little ways, I need to grab a few things." With a wave of his horn, the bound mercenaries were dragged toward the hole, each struggling to loosen their bonds. One by one each one fell into the burrow, laying clumsily across each other. At last, the light yellow unicorn tugged on the partially filled gem containers, pulling the back above the hole and camouflaging their escape route.

     Rustic Rune waited patiently for her uncle to catch up, a wide grin on his face. "Make's you feel like Daring Doo, doesn't it?"

     "You read those?" She asked, scoffing at his taste in literature.

     "You don't?" He responded incredulously, "They're based off of true stories you know. For a scavenger like you, that's surprising."

     She paused as he trotted ahead, thinking the subject over. Reading, now what was so important that- "The list!" She shouted, her voice muffled by the packed dirt in this section of the unofficial mine. Turning, she raced back, nearly hitting her head on several occasions, and even nicking her horn on an outcrop of stone that the lanterns hadn't properly lit. Once she was back at the top, the orange mare peered out from the gap between the floor and gm containers. To her dismay there were two sets of diamond dogs scouring the room, all of them shocked to see the complete lack of workers. Near the center of the room, a letter lay in an empty cleaning set in her desk. From her viewpoint, she could make out the corner of it, small cracks adorning the corners of the cedar box. It was about that time her uncle caught up, his rasping breath alerting her to his presence.

     "What are you doing?" He hissed, his generally joyful mood replaced with a deep concern. Instead of responding though, she lit her horn inadvertently sending a wave of muddled orange light shining across the floor. The aura wrapped around the box, letting the young mare retrieve the article she was looking for, but she hadn't been paying attention to the guards.

     "What that?" A stout pug asked, pointing at the light coming from beneath the holding bins. His mouth salivated at the sight of all the food before him, attesting to his weight and love of life's riches. He always stole a gem or two from the delivery dog that picked it up, splitting them with a best friend once he was back in the mines.

     Rustic Rune started, losing control of her magic for a second, making a nearby desk wobble by accident. The other diamond dogs took notice of the activity, their backs turned while the unicorn slid the small box under the crates before letting out a sigh of relief.

     "Hear that?" The pug asked the others before sniffing the air, the dark area around his face fraught with wrinkles. "I smell ponies." Surprisingly, that was the longest complete sentence he'd made that week, a fact that the other dogs paid no attention to, but something the pug took a small amount of pride in. "Pull back gems, need see under crates."

     The creaking sound above meant one thing: if the dogs found the hole the entire escape plan would be ruined. In a fit of panic, Rustic Rune sent a spark of magic into the container above her head. She tried pushing her uncle down the mine, only for him to pull her frantically back down the shaft, practically sending her tumbling down the dirt slope. He followed right behind her as an event similar to a redneck Fourth of July celebration took place behind them, sending the two propelled forward with uncanny speed.

     Meanwhile, at the bottom of the escape route, the other unicorns were gathered around, discussing what to do next.

     "...and that's how we can get out of here with a decent amount of supplies. Any questions?"

     "Yeah, where's Virgil?"

     The group was met with a gust of hot air, followed by two fleshy globules flopping into the cavern.

     "Ah, Virgil. How nice of you to join us. Now we can discuss the plan, again, thanks."

     The yellow unicorn opened his mouth to say something, but found himself interrupted as the scorched armor of a bound mercenary flew into his side. Of course, the mercenary's gag had come undone, letting loose a torrent of swearing that echoed dully around the rocky cavity.

     "Alright, for the last time, here's the plan," continued the unicorn in charge, his shadowy silhouette betrayed by his deep blue eyes as he knocked the hired guard unconscious.

     Tesla trudged behind the two diamond dogs ahead of him, feeling his feet groan in protest with every step. He'd lost a spring in the garbage pile, forcing him to wedge a broken piece of wood between his heel and ankle to allow him to keep walking. Sort of like a splint, can't say I'm mad that I came up with this. Then again, this is still probably a dream, although I don't remember having anything spicy before falling asleep. Come to think of it, I don't even remember going to bed.

     The machinated being was so lost in his thoughts he nearly ran into the back of the guard leading the way back to civilization. That would have ended up a very similar situation to how he'd gotten down the pit, and he didn't want to deal with any more repairs.

     "Nearly there," the gruff voice said, no concealing traits to conserve the anger the dog obviously showed. His walking was rigid, but his body acted as a wall between Tesla and his daughter. "Rose, go back home. I know you can get there from here."

     "Ok daddy," was all she said. Her eyes avoiding looking at her father, somewhat downtrodden at having to leave her father, but tired from her exploration of the mines her father took her to for supplies. On his back was a woven basket carrying broken pieces of lumber needed to repair her bed and some other furniture around the den.

     Further down the tunnel, Guard Dog dragged Tesla down the hall, directing him to the mine he was found. The pair traveled back to the mine, to the boarded up cavern that he'd been discovered in. Tesla's feeble attempts soon stopped, his arms too short to reach the hand clasped around the scruff of his neck. Even if he could reach, his left should would likely give out again. His metallic body was tossed to the side of the entrance like a sag of potatoes, shearing the wooden board in two and leaving him to lurch violently to the side when he landed.

     Two wooded planks were torn from the mouth of the tunnel, splitting around the nails that held them against the walls. The aging guard looked back to find the thing trying to crawl away before he took him up by the scruff of the neck again, walking back to the uncovered safety hazard midst the din of clanging metal tools on rocks.

     "Why?" Was the only question loosed from the dented face of the machine, his eyes nearly blind and limbs loosing strength.

     "You're unnatural. Metal doesn't live, demon."

     In that moment, the machine felt the weight of his situation press back down on him. Always an outcast, no matter the place.