My Little Xyloto

Tartarus.

The word spun through Apple Bloom’s head.  She couldn’t quite remember what it meant, but it seemed somehow to fit the cruel disaster spread before her.

Angels cleaned up the scene almost faster than she could take it in.  Almost.

She saw splashes of color among the charred bodies of ponies burnt to crisps strewn about the plaza.  The Angels swooped down and grabbed body after black body, carrying them into the sky and toward the Alicorn.

Apple Bloom’s eyes were fixed on one fallen form.  Certainly he used to be red.  The black flesh and shriveled mane should have disgusted her, but all she felt was shock.  Disbelief.  It took two angels to lift his body, pumping their suited wings with all their might.  She watched him rise above the plaza and past the first buildings.

A loud horn sounded.  She finally looked away.

“All citizens of Heaven, please report to your factories.  All citizens of Heaven, please report to your factories.”

She squinted.  No explanation?  No attempt to cover up this scene that she and dozens of others were gawking on their ways to work?

“All citizens of Heaven, please report to your factories.”

The voice seemed harsher now, as did the masked glares of Angels circling the plaza overhead.  And she obeyed.

***

***M***

***X***

***

The factory had never been so dark.  Surely Apple Bloom was not the only worker on her line to have seen the plaza’s carnage.  Questions buzzed through quiet skulls, but nopony said a word.

Apple Bloom was distracted.  Images of her burnt brother flashed across her mind as an added part to her routine.

Snap.  Snap.  Click.  Click.  Macintosh.  Stare at Mylo.

He had seen it.  Certainly.  The way his hooves quivered—she had never seen him shiver before.  There was something so real about it, so terrified.  As she glanced down the line, she realized he was the only pony shivering.

“Don’t you shiver,” she thought.  Or maybe she said it.  Some ponies looked at her, but only for a moment.  Then back to work.  Click.  Snap.  Click.

She suddenly hated the batteries.  She had always hated the batteries, but suddenly she accepted that.  It wasn’t just boredom anymore.  She hated it.

Why had Big Macintosh come into the city without his suit?  Why had all of those ponies subjected themselves to the radiation?  She had never seen the affects of the Alicorn before.  It did more than just kill—it incinerated.

What had driven her dear brother to such a reckless act of rebellion?

The factory bell suddenly tolled.  Apple Bloom gasped and threw her eyes around.  Had the hours already passed?  Where had her mind gone?

She cleared her throat, suddenly very dry, and merged into the line of ponies headed for the exit.  Very close the door, she was suddenly yanked out of line by a supervisor.

“You’ve been selected for cleaning du—”

“Oh, come on!  I cleaned last night!”

The supervisor was quiet.  Apple Bloom could feel the eyes of surprised ponies staring at her from the line.

“The system is random,” the supervisor said.  Apple Bloom couldn’t see his expression, but his voice sounded just as shocked.

She grunted.  “Fine.”  Snatching the mop from the stunned stallion’s hoof, Apple Bloom headed for the back of the factory.  Perhaps she could find a place to hide and nap again.  She felt so tired.

But something caught her eye.  Another pony was selected from the line, a pony she knew despite the baggy white suit.  She knew from his eyes, and the way he tilted his head, and the way he shivered.

“Mylo…”  She beamed behind her mask.  Never had an opportunity like this arose.  In all her years at the factory, never once had she and Mylo gotten cleaning duty together.  Perhaps they could finally talk.  Maybe she could finally get to know him.

She started mopping where she was and watched as Mylo moved to another part of the factory.  Carefully, watchfully, she followed his path with her eyes and made adjustments to her own.  They wove around panels and cleaned along conveyer belts, lessening the space between them aisle after aisle, until suddenly—

“Oof!  Oh, sorry…” Mylo said, lowering his head.  “I didn’t mean to bump into you.  I-I’m… kinda distracted.”

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom said, smoothing down the fabric of her suit along her neck.  “Me, too.”

His blue eyes shot up to meet hers.  “Oh, I know you.”  He grinned.  Somehow she could tell.  “You’re the mare with the accent.”

She giggled.  “Well, from where I’m listenin’, yer the one with the accent.”

“Huh.”  He looked at the ceiling.  “Yeah, I guess that’s true.  You must have grown up with ponies who talked… exactly like…”

He trailed off.  Something changed in his stance.  He was stiffer.

“Uh… Mylo?”

He looked at her again.  “You know my name?”

She nodded.  “Yeah.  Don’t ask me how; honestly I can’t remember how I learned it.  Yer station’s just a few down from me across the belt.”  She shrugged.  “Anyway, it’s unique.  Hard t’ferget a name like Mylo.”

“Oh.  Well, thanks.”  He chuckled.  It was flighty, but real.  “And, uh… what’s your name?”

“Apple Bloom,” she said.  She finally said.

“Wow, that’s beautiful.”  As soon as he said it, his body tensed again.  “Oh, dear… you’re Macintosh’s sister, aren’t you?”

Apple Bloom’s stomach flipped.  She took a step back and knocked over her mop.  “H-how do you—”

“We’re friends,” Mylo said.  “He’s such a good stallion.”

She gulped.  “Was.”

Mylo tilted his head.  “What?”

“He was a good stallion,” she said.  A knot formed in her throat.  “This mornin’ I saw him in the…”

Mylo lifted a hoof.  “Did they burn him?”

Apple Bloom’s tears came from nowhere, yet it seemed the reservoir behind them was of infinite expanse.  Her front legs buckled, and Mylo was there to catch her as she fell.  Then she cried from her eyes—amber eyes—in such a way that Mylo’s shoulder would have soaked were it not for two white suits in the way.

“Oh, Apple Bloom,” Mylo choked.  His voice was so close.  “I’m so, so sorry.”

“It ain’t yer fault,” she squeezed out.  “He went out without his suit.”

Mylo grabbed her by the shoulders and leaned back.  “What?  Is that what you think happened?”

She sniffled.  “Huh?”

“Apple Bloom, no!”  He lifted her chin.  “Your brother is a hero.  These suits don’t do anything but hide us.  There is no radiation.  He was fighting for freedom, and the Angels burned him.”

She gurgled.  “Wh-what?  How do you know that?”

He leaned closer.  “Because that’s what makes sense.  We both knew him.  He wouldn’t have done anything to hurt himself, or to hurt you.  He was trying to save us all.  He along with all the ponies you saw out there.  Oh, I’m so sorry you had to see it.”

Apple Bloom didn’t know what to say.  “Did you see it, too?”

“Yes.  Yes, I saw it.”  Mylo sat on his haunches.  “Every one of those ponies is a hero.  They are going to change things.  They didn’t die for nothing.”

A little laugh escaped Apple Bloom’s aching lungs.  “You really believe that?”

“Of course I do.”  Mylo took a deep breath.  “Thing are going to change soon, Apple Bloom.  Life won’t be colorless forever.”

She gasped.  “You know what color is?”

He was quiet.  “Do you?”

“Yes!”  She stepped closer.  “Oh, Mylo, I miss it!  I miss color.  The only color I see these days are myself in my room and yer eyes.”

“What colors are you?” he asked.

“Yellow,” she said, touching her chest.  Then, with her hoof on her head, she said “And red.”

He smiled and touched his own chest.  "I'm yellow, too!  So you're like Macintosh but... backward.”

She laughed.  “Well, kinda.  We all had similar color schemes in the family.”

“Wow.  I wonder if…”  He sighed.  “I hope to remember my family someday.”

“Hope.”  She snorted.  “I don’t have hope no more.”

“Oh, don’t say that.  Please, never say that.  There is always hope.”

She barely smiled.  “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“How do you stay so optimistic?”

Mylo glanced around.  Seeing no one, he began to tap his hoof against the ground and whispered to her, “You want to know how I have hope?”

She nodded.

And he began to sing.

“I turn the music up, I got my records on,

I shut the world outside until the lights come on.

Maybe the streets alight, maybe the trees are gone,

But I feel my heart start beating to my favorite song.

And all the kids they dance, all the kids all night,

Until Monday morning feels another life!

I turn the music up, I’m on a roll this time,

And heaven is in sight.”

“I’d give anything to get Heaven outta my sight,” Apple Bloom said.

“No, no, not this Heaven,” Mylo said.  He pointed up.  “Paradise.”

Apple Bloom’s breath left her as Mylo’s voice sang on.

“I turn the music up, I got my records on.

From underneath the rubble sing a rebel song.

Don’t wanna see another generation drop;

I’d rather be a comma than a full stop.

Maybe I’m in the black, maybe I’m on my knees,

Maybe I’m in the gap between the two trapezes

But my heart is beating and my pulses start

Cathedrals in my heart.”

As he sang, he took Apple Bloom by the hoof and led her out of the factory.  They left the mops where they were.

“We’ll get in trouble, Mylo!” Apple Bloom said, but she was laughing.

“As we saw this light,

I swear you emerge blinking into

To tell me it’s all right.

As we soar walls!

Every siren is a symphony

And every tear’s a waterfall,

It’s a waterfall!”

He led her through streets and dove into alleyways.  He heard the music guiding him.  Perhaps she heard it, too.

They passed colorful images painted on the walls.  Apple Bloom was so excited to see color that she tried to stop them and go back, but Mylo pressed on.  Suddenly they reached a crack low in the wall and stopped.  Mylo reached into his suit and pulled out a key of some kind.  When he clicked it into a place, a disembodied voice said, “Passcode?”

Mylo ranted off a string of strange poetry that didn’t make sense to Apple Bloom, but it worked.  A door opened, and after crawling through a strange cavern she felt the unmistakable tingle of magic.  They teleported, and Apple Bloom found herself in a spacious room full of books, instruments, paintings, and even a kitchen.

“Mylo!” she breathed.

He tore off his mask.

“MYLO!” a dozen or more voices shouted.  Apple Bloom only got a brief look at his light yellow coat, dark purple mane, and ice blue eyes before he disappeared below a sea of hugs.  Ponies without their suits came pouring out from behind the counter and among the bookshelves to tackle, touch, and hold Mylo as if they hadn’t seen him in years.

“I told you he was all right!” a blue stallion crowed from the center of the crowd.  Somehow he seemed familiar to Apple Bloom.

“Charlie, this is Apple Bloom,” Mylo said as the crowd divided enough for him to see her.  “She’s Macintosh’s sister.”

A gasp went through the crowd and several ponies moved to hug and console her.  Some of their faces were so familiar it pained Apple Bloom not to tie a name to them.  She was shocked to notice horns on many of their heads.

“What is this place?” Apple Bloom asked, accepting a hug from a mint green unicorn with golden eyes.

***

***M***

***X***

***

“We call it Neverland,” Lyra said, folding Apple Bloom’s suit into a square and placing it in a drawer behind the kitchen counter.  “We’re the Lost Boys.  Your brother helped found it.”

“Lost Boys?  But there’re quite a few girls among ya, ain’t there?”

Lyra laughed.  “It’s a reference to J. M. Brayie’s Peter Pan.  Never mind that.  Are you holding up all right?”

“I’m a bit confused,” Apple Bloom said, running a hoof over her thick red locks.  “And it’s hard for me to believe my brother’s gone, and even moreso that he used to stay here without tellin’ me nothin’ about it.”

“That was probably to protect you,” Lyra said.  “You saw what happened.”

“Only the aftermath.”  She shuddered.  “How did you survive?”

“I ran when Noteworthy said to run.”  Lyra frowned.  “I expected it all to go much differently.  We all did.”

“Noteworthy.”  Apple Bloom grinned.  “Hey, I reckon I do remember him.  Didn’t he sing with my big brother and Rarity in some fancy quartet?”

“Haha!  No, that was his big brother.  But I’m sure you saw Noteworthy around town.”  Lyra stroked Apple Bloom’s mane as the younger mare stared at Mylo and several other ponies whispering seriously around a table by the books.  “How much do you remember of Ponyville, Apple Bloom?”

“Less and less every day,” she admitted.  “It scares me.”

“You have a strong mind to remember everything you do.”

“I haven’t been in Heaven quite as long as most,” she said.  “When the Major started takin’ over, Big Mac and I escaped back to—”

“Fillies and gentlecolts, can I have your attention?”  Noteworthy trotted to the center of the room where all the Lost Boys could see him.  “I’d first like to welcome Apple Bloom, sister of the heroic Macintosh.  May he and all our fallen brothers and sisters rest well, and may they not die in vain.”

Apple Bloom’s throat seemed to swell as several ponies voiced their agreement.

“We have suffered a great loss,” Noteworthy continued.  “The citizens of Heaven were not ready.  They did not rise with us.  Major Minus sent her Angels and we were no match for their weaponry.”  He cleared his throat and blinked away a frightened tear.  “But we must not consider this an ultimate failure.  We must learn from this and adjust our methods of rebellion.  We must send a message to the Major that cannot be misunderstood.”

“So you might hurt me bad,” Mylo shouted, rearing up on his hind legs, “but still I will raise the flag!”

The Lost Boys cheered.  Apple Bloom relished the chills along her spine.  Something in Mylo’s sincerity made those simple words as magical as any unicorn spell.

Noteworthy continued his speech.  Apple Bloom caught something about a face for the resistance, a direct competitor to the Major’s persona.  But she was too fixed on Mylo—his every excited reaction to Noteworthy’s speech—to really take it what their leader was saying.  Seeing him like this only deepened the unexplainable love she felt for the young stallion.  She hoped that one day, somehow, Mylo might look at her the way he was looking at Noteworthy.

A louder cheer from the Lost Boys snapped her out of her trance and she joined them in a round of hoof-stomping before Noteworthy left his place centerstage.  They all scurried to their own points of business then and Apple Bloom wondered if she had missed something important.  She hurried across the room to where Noteworthy was talking with Mylo.

Noteworthy turned as she approached.  “My dear,” he said, hugging her around the neck, “I’m so sorry for your loss.  Please let us know if there’s anything we can do to help you understand.”

“Thank you, Noteworthy,” she said.

The stallion twitched and scuffed the ground.  “It’s, uh, Charlie.  Charlie Brown.”

She tilted her head.  “It is?  But Lyra called ya—”

He growled.  “Ugh, Lyra!  Well, that used to be my name, but now I’m Charlie Brown.  Right, Mylo?”

He grinned in Mylo’s direction and received a hearty “Right!”

Apple Bloom smiled, too.  “Well, Mister Brown, how exactly am I gonna get home tonight?”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that,” Charlie said.  “Mylo told me about how you two just ditched the factory.  You’re probably wanted ponies by now.  You’ll stay here with us tonight until we can find a way to… fix this.”

“Fix what?”

“Fix everything.  Fix you.”  Charlie smiled.  “Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones, and we will try to fix you.”

Apple Bloom could only sigh happily at that.  “You’ve got a peculiar way o’ speakin’, y’know that?”

“Call me an artist.”  He pointed to a twisting staircase behind the bookshelves.  “Anyway, if you go all the way down those stairs you’ll find a special room nopony’s using.  You and Mylo can stay there tonight.”

Mylo’s neck straightened and Apple Bloom nearly lost her balance.  “Mylo and me?  Together?”

Charlie grinned.  “Yeah.  Will that be all right?”

Apple Bloom scanned Mylo’s face with wide eyes.  “Uhhh… I mean, I’m okay with it, as long as… y’know, if Mylo’s not…”

“Oh, it’s fine with me.”  Mylo let out a crackly giggle.  “Yeah, we’ll just… get to know each other.”

Charlie nodded slowly.  “Goooood.”  He clicked his tongue and winked at Mylo, then hurried off to the kitchen.  “I’m going to have a word with Lyra… again.”

Apple Bloom bit her lip.  “Well… I’m kinda tired from all this, to be honest, so… I think I’ll head down and see what we’ve got to work with.”

“I’ll come with you,” Mylo said, moving to her side.  “Charlie was right.  It would be nice to… get to know you.”  He gasped.  “Oh, you have to tell me!  How did you already know about color?”

Apple Bloom blushed as they made their way to the stairwell.  “Oh, it’s just… I ain’t been in Heaven for long.”