Fallout Equestria: Of Slaves and Sacrifice

Chapter 2:  Stable Slave

“I can’t stand standing still!  Standing still is sooooooooo boring!”

Slavery.

No matter how you look at it, it stays the same.  No matter what form it takes, it’s still slavery.  Although, being a slave to the Crimson Tide would have been much much MUCH worse.  At least here I have shelter, even though it is kind of cold.  Then again, I really liked my freedom, and being stuck in this one place was almost like a nightmare that became real to me.  I liked my freedom of choice, the ability to move, run, and sneak freely.  I had lost everything I had, and had been forced into this predicament, this… locked cage.

This place… it’s so… grey.  No colors to speak of whatsoever.  At least in the wasteland you had more than one color to lay your eyes upon.  Like brown, or light brown, or even dark brown sometimes.  But not here.  The place was like a sad painter’s mural, with no inspiration or feeling put into it.  Just a sad, numb, spiritless, and cold painting with no feeling or life to it.  If I had known exactly where I was, I might have felt better, but I didn’t, not since being tricked by that damn filly and knocked unconscious.  I had no idea how long I had been out, only that I had been standing in this room for what seemed like days.

Whoever had kidnapped me had me hooked up to some sort of device in a small grey room, about the size of those bathrooms you see in ruined business or industrial buildings.  There was a terminal, which I suspected was connected to the machine next to it, on the far side of the room, out of reach.  The device had four shackles gripping my legs just above my hooves, and thick poles were attached between the shackles and also to the ground, keeping me firmly in place.  I could sit down with a struggle, but no lying down as the poles got in the way, and boy was I uncomfortable.  In addition to this restriction of movement, I also had an odd device strapped to my horn, on the base resting on my forehead.  The device was slowly humming and making quick beeping sounds every once in a while, but that was not what was bothering me.  The device was slowly forcing me to cast my magic on the machine in the opposite corner of the room, for what purpose, I did not know.  But it was straining and making me weak, not to mention the pain of the overuse of my magic.  I tried to focus my magic on something else, like the shackles keeping me in place.  Before I was able to fully encompass them in the light blue glow of magic, the spell broke and sent a wave of pain through my head.  I guess casting two spells at once was much harder than I thought.

After a time, I began to resent, hate myself for what I had done.

“Why the fuck did I help that little shit?  Things like this are bound to happen to the good guy eventually…  I’m such a fool!  Damn, I really wish I had my Wild Pegasus right about now…”

I wallowed in self-pity and anger for a while before the door to the room swung open, taking me by surprise.  In stepped an earth pony, who looked like a guard of some sort, with a kind of jumpsuit on and a pistol on his side.  He was holding a thin silver rectangle in his teeth, and after a second of looking at it, I realized there was food on it!  That got my attention faster than the urge to ask him what the fuck was going on.

“Oh, yesyesyesyesyes thank you for the food sir!  Can I call you sir?  Oh boy that looks so good!”  I stammered as he crossed the room over to where I was standing.  He took one look at me before he tossed the tray on the ground and then walked off with pieces of what looked like colorful chips and one fresh looking apple sprawling over the ground.  I tried to reach out and get my teeth on the apple, but it just kept rolling away.  Then I tried to focus on it, but as soon as I managed to wrap it with my magic, it imploded and sent a nasty shockwave of pain through my head.  The guard looked at me with a dirty grin on his face.

“Enjoy, you magic using freak!”  He sneered as he laughed out of the room.  The door shut, and I was alone again.

I sat there, or rather, stood there, for a minute trying to understand what just happened.

“What a dick.  Now I’m gonna starve… and what did he say about me?  That I’m a freak?  What, does he not like unicorns or something?”  I muttered as I tried to focus my magic on the chips nearest me.

After a few tries, I managed to gather them all, but I started to have one killer of a headache, and the device on my horn wasn’t going to give me a rest.  Slowly, I began to eat the flavored color chips, which tasted very stale and boring, but at least they filled me up somewhat.  The only thing left was the apple still sitting in the middle of the room, but with my splitting headache I wasn’t going to attempt that, lest I pass out or hurt myself or my magic.

A few minutes after I had done eating and given up on the apple, the door opened again, and in stepped that little filly that got me in this situation.  She had put on her cloak again, thinking she could hide from me, but I knew exactly who she was.  As she approached, only one word passed through my mind.

“Why?”  I said, trying to say it as sad as possible.  “Why?  Why would you trick me like that?  I was helping you, you know.”

She trotted up in front of me and sat down to face me, then took off her cloak, revealing the same outfit the guard was wearing earlier.  As I opened my mouth to ask why again, she got this look of worry on her face.

“I’m sorry, mister unicorn, but I had to.  We had everything going so well down here until the power generator over there stopped working.  We needed to find some way to get it working again, but then the Overmare had found that thing on your head, and told us to find a strong unicorn with powerful magic, but to make sure we didn’t go too far out, but then I found you, and…”  The little filly spewed the words out like a waterfall.

I interrupted her and asked, “Whoa whoa whoa, slow down there kid.  What do you mean ‘down here’?  What err, who’s the Overmare?  And why did you need to wear that cloak if you have a uniform just like the others here?”

She looked at me with the most confused look I had ever seen.  “Down here?  What do you mean?  This is a Stable, Stable 37 to be exact, and my home.  Haven’t you ever heard of a Stable before?”

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After a long and confusing conversation, I managed to finally understand what was going on:  I was in Stable 37, I was being forced to run a machine, and that this filly was surprisingly nice and understanding despite having done what she did.  After she explained what a Stable was and who the Overmare was, she trotted over to the apple I had failed to grab, picked it up, and brought it over to me for me to eat.  Needless to say, I was very thankful.  But now that all the technical terms and information were out of the way, I decided to poke more into just what was going on, and exactly who this little filly was.

“So,” I began, “What is your name, little filly?”

She looked up at me and smiled, “How about you tell me your name first, and then I’ll tell you mine.”

I just chuckled, “Hmm, sure why not.  My name is Vanilla Moonlight.”

She kind of lit up at that answer, like a name was supposed to be pretty or something.  “That’s a pretty and nice name!  Okay, I’ll tell you mine.  My name is Morning Breeze, although most of my friends call me Breezy, so you can just call me Breezy too!”

Morning Breeze huh?  I had to admit, that was kinda cute for a name.  Maybe I’m just used to hearing names like Crusher, or Bloody Spear, or some other nasty names like that.

“So, are we going to ask questions like this all day, or are you going to leave me?”  I asked as she trotted in a circle in front of me.

Eventually she said, “Yeah sure, just make it quick, cause my dad nor any other guard ponies know I’m down here.”

She then walked up real close to my face and whispered, “I’m actually not supposed to be down here, fillies aren’t allowed to go past the first basement level.”

I paused for a moment and thought about the pony that had whacked me in the head.  That must have been her dad.  Then I had to ask the question, “So, your dad is a part of the guard ponies down here then?”

She looked at me with enthusiasm as she beamed, “He’s not just a guard!  He’s the head of security down here in the Stable!  The only pony that has more authority than him is the Overmare!”  She squeaked.  If I could have put a hoof over my ears at that instant, I would have.  That squeak was both the cutest and most deadly thing I had ever heard.

“Now it’s my turn!”  Breezy said as she bounced around the room.  Clearly, she was having much more fun than I was.  “You’re the first unicorn I’ve ever seen!”  She suddenly got very serious.  “You don’t seem very evil… why is that?  In all my books and the stories the older ponies tell me, the unicorns are super bad ponies that only hurt and kill others.  So why are you different?”

This question caught me off guard, but then again, it also made sense.  The security pony earlier had treated me like garbage just because I was a unicorn, and not just because I was the slave.  So I had to keep all my other questions at the back of my mind for now, as I asked, “What do you mean?  Sure, there are all kinds of bad ponies out there, but just because you are a unicorn doesn’t mean you’re evil.  Same goes for earth ponies and pegasi…”  At the word pegasi, she stood up and unzipped her uniform and slipped it off, showing me that yes, she did indeed have wings.

After she did so, her demeanor changed from happy and perky to sad.  She was acting like she had done a bad thing, and then told me something I didn’t see coming.

“I have to hide being a Pegasus, because one of the most important rules in Stable 37 is that no non-earth pony is allowed to live here.  My dad says that I must hide this from all the other ponies in the Stable, because if they found out they might tell on me, and that would be the end of me…”

I swallowed as I thought about what that meant before asking, “End?  What do you mean?  Like they’d kick you out or something?”  As I waited for the answer, she began trembling, like she was really scared of her secret.  She quickly put her uniform back on then stared me right in the eyes.

“You won’t tell anypony, will you?  Please don’t tell anypony!  I’ll get killed if you do!  Anypony that is born in this Stable must be an earth pony, cause if they are a unicorn or a pegasus, they are killed right on the spot!”

Now there was seriously something wrong with that!  What kind of awful ponies would do that?  Okay, raiders, slavers, bandits, and addicts aside.  Killing an innocent new born just because it isn’t an earth pony?  What the fuck?  But then that begged yet another question.

I asked Breezy in a worried tone, “So what am I still doing here?  Shouldn’t I be dead if they hate non-earth ponies so much?”

“Because they… we need you to run this power machine.  It powers almost everything here in the stable.  Without it, we would be forced into the outside, and both you and I know how bad it is out there.  We wouldn’t last a week!”

“And that must mean that your dad has been keeping your wings a secret too then?  If they know what you are at birth, how did you manage to live?”

“Because there was an ‘accident’ and the doctor didn’t get to look at me properly before my dad took me into our room…”

We could have continued the conversation much, much longer, but we heard hoofsteps outside the door and the same security pony as before came in with a bottle of water, which I assumed was for me.  He took one look at Breezy and just nodded to the door and said, “You know you’re not supposed to be down here Morning Breeze.  You don’t have free reign everywhere, even if you are Plaster’s daughter.”  Breezy nodded but didn’t say anything, and picked up her cloak before she ran out the door.

I had so many things to ask and get answers for, but it seems as though everypony except Breezy had some irrational fear or hatred, or both, of me.  The security pony threw the bottle of water at me, hitting me in the cheek.

“I thought you might catch that one!  My bad.”  The buck just laughed again as he exited the room.

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Four days had passed since I was taken prisoner, or at least I thought it was four days.  The device on my horn continued to sap my magic and my strength even when it was nighttime, according to the Stable ponies anyway.  Even as I tried to sleep, standing up mind you, the device just kept on using my magic against my will.  What little sleep I got was fevered and nightmarish with the constant headache I had and the uncomfortable feeling of standing for days at a time.

The only company I had was the guard pony that came in to give me my food and water, and Breezy, who had snuck in and out of the room behind the guards back.  She was very clever for a filly, managing to sneak in snacks and things for me to keep myself entertained.  A few books and magazines were the only things she had brought to me, but that was better than nothing.

“UGH, I am so BORED!”  I sighed as I shifted my weight around to try and get comfortable.  As I said this, the door opened and Breezy came in with a bag around her neck.

She skipped over to me and sat the bag down in front of me then said, “Well, it’s a good thing I came here then!  I managed to get some things together for you to do, and I thought we could talk for a little while too.”  She dumped the bag of contents out onto the floor, and began to sort them out.  There were a few things that would keep me occupied that she brought along, including some dice, a deck of cards, a book that looked like it was for fillies, and a toy sky wagon.

“What would you like to do first, Vanilla?”  She asked as she sorted out the items before me.

I looked at what was provided and said, “Well, how about the cards?  Do you know how to play Rummy?”

“Yeah sure!  Me and my dad play it sometimes when he’s not on guard duty.”  She put the other items in the bag and began to shuffle the cards on the floor all in a pile.  I was kind of confused at the way she shuffled, but it made sense as I thought about it.  She doesn’t have magic after all, so what other way was there to do it?  After a time, she gathered up the cards and dealt them out between us.

I tried to levitate all my cards in front of me, but the pain in my head prevented me from that.  Instead, I just picked on card up at a time and looked at it, then set it down and picked up the next one.  Two 4s, one a spade and the other a heart, a 6 and an 8 of clubs, and a queen of diamonds was my hand.  I decided to be the nice pony and let Breezy go first.

“Okay!  Here I go!”  Breezy said as she picked up her first card from the deck.  She lit up like a lantern, and put down three cards in front of her.

“6, 7, 8!  And I get to discard a card too!  Hmm, I think I don’t want this one!”  She said as she tossed down a king of diamonds.  “Your turn!”

I picked up a card with my magic and looked at it quick, a 10 of hearts, and then tossed it away into the pile.  “Nothing.  Your turn.”

“Aww, maybe you’ll get a better one next time.”  She squeaked as she picked up another card from the deck.

“Oh yea, a 9!  I’ll just add that to my 6 7 8, and then I’ll get rid of this one!”  She chimed as she tossed a jack of clubs into the pile.  “I’ve only got one more card, so I think I’m gonna win!”

I smirked as I slowly drew another card.  “It’s not over till it’s over.”  I said as I looked at my draw.  A 5 of diamonds was the pick, and so I tossed one of the 4s into the pile.

“Nothing again?  That’s too bad.”  She said as she drew a card.  “Aww man!  I can’t use this!”  she complained as she threw the card onto the pile.  It was a 7 of hearts, and so I got this big grin on my face as I took it up with my magic.

As I lay the cards out in front of me, she got a surprised look on her face as I said, “Straight!”  I discarded my other 4, my last card, and calmly said ,”I win, wanna go again?”

She looked at me with squinted eyes as she smiled.  “You lucky pony, Vanilla!  Next time you won’t be so lucky!”

After a few hands of rummy, I had won all but one of them.  I could see that Breezy was getting frustrated, so I asked her if she wanted to stop.

“Yeah we can stop.  I never lose that many games to dad.  You are one lucky pony Vanilla!”

“I don’t feel very lucky…”  I said as I looked around the grey room.

It took her a moment to realize what she had said before she apologized.  “Uh, sorry about that.  I didn’t mean to make you sad about your position here.”

She rubbed her leg and looked uncomfortable and awkward, so I piped up and told her, “Hey now, don’t worry about it.  I’m stuck here and there is nothing I can do about it.  Just dealing with what I’ve got here, even though you were the one that got me into this situation in the first place.”

Breezy raised her voice and complained, “Yeah but… you don’t deserve to be in this place all stuck like this!  I should have waited longer and found another unicorn who was bad, and not good like you…”

I shook my head as I said to her, “You only did what your father told you to do.  It was for the good of the stable, right?  You had to help out since this is your home and all.  And besides, if you went after another unicorn who knows what they would have done?  They could have been a raider and just killed you on the spot for fun, or a slaver that would drag you away from your family and friends, never to be seen again.  The wasteland is not a place that just gives things up.  It takes things much more often.”

She looked even more awkward as I continued, “This doesn’t mean I don’t hate this place for what it has done to me.  If I could destroy this place I would.”  This brought a sadness into her eyes as she began to tear up.

“I’m sorry Vanilla!  I really am!  I just didn’t want to live in the dark, or be forced to live outside or…”  I stopped her mid apology as I shifted around to try and get more comfortable, “It’s not your fault Breezy.  You are just a filly, you didn’t know any better, and even if you did, you were thinking about the other ponies here in this place.  You only did what you thought was right, and I can’t stay mad at you for that.  I forgive you.”

The sound of the power machine continued to hum as the only sound in the room for a good few minutes as Breezy absorbed what I had said to her.  In my mind, I knew she was not at fault, so I had to forgive her.  You can’t blame things on kids that only do what they are told, because they don’t know any different.

After a short time, Breezy gathered her things back into the bag she had brought and slung the bag around her neck.  “This isn’t right.”  She said as she began to trot towards the door and out of the room.  “I’m going to try and fix this and right my wrong, even if you do forgive me, Vanilla.  You did me a favor by accepting me, the real me, wings and all.  I’m going to return that favor, just you wait.”

As Breezy walked out to door and left me alone, I got this feeling that you only get when you have a relationship with someone.  That feeling in your chest that kind of hurts, and kind of doesn’t.  That feeling that something bad is going to happen, and that you should do something about it.  But it was worse for me, because there wasn’t anything I could do.  Breezy could be making a huge mistake and there was nothing I was going to be able to do to stop her.

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After days and days of the constant use of my magic, my health had begun to deteriorate faster and faster.  The small amounts of food I was receiving were not enough to keep up with how much energy my horn was using against my will.  I had gotten little sleep as even during the night they needed some energy to keep the place running, and even when they didn’t, they had two guards to watch me as I slept, in case I tried anything funny.  Like I could!  If I tried using even the most basic of my combat spells I would double over in agony with the severe strain on my magic.

I had begun to lose weight at a considerable pace, and that didn’t help out my morale any.  And that wasn’t even the worst part.  The only times I had things to do were when Breezy had come to visit.  During the rest of my time, boredom clawed at my already aching mind, as if my head didn’t already have enough to deal with.  At this point, I didn’t even feel like taking a sip of that sweet Wild Pegasus.  All I wanted to do was sleep for a year, maybe two, and go outside and shoot something, preferably the ponies keeping me here.  The only thing that was keeping me going was the compassionate and caring Breezy.

As time went on, I got more and more information out of Breezy, and we were beginning to become close, which was odd, considering the way we met.  Most ponies wouldn’t be so forgiving.  I had rubbed off on her enough, I thought, that she was beginning to really see me as not a unicorn, but a pony just like her, and that made her happy.  The way she was rubbing off on me was a different story.  She had the brightest outlook on everything, besides her Stable’s ridiculous rules, and this was helping my mood to change for the better.  She was very concerning, and the times she would bring me a snack or a book to read showed how much she really cared.  Over time, she had convinced her dad to let her come down here and entertain me; it was for my morale she had told him.  It’s not like I could stop doing what they wanted though.  The device on my horn was still churning away, and I realized that I had been casting a magic spell constantly for oh, I don’t know, two weeks?  I was barely able to talk to or listen to Breezy when she came to talk to me in the last couple of days.  This morning, when she came down however, she had the brightest look on her face, like the whole world had suddenly become a bright and shiny place.  I tried hard to smile as she came in with the security buck that always brought me my food (he hasn’t changed at all, by the way.  He’s still a dick.).

“Here’s your breakfast, freak.”  He sneered as he tossed an apple my way, this time overthrowing me by a foot and hitting the wall beside me.  “Oops, I had better work on my aim for next time, huh?”

He giggled as he turned to go outside the door, then looked at Breezy and said, “Better hurry, kid.  Today’s your big day here in the stable.  I wouldn’t want to miss it if I were you.”  After he left us be, Breezy ran up to me and gave me a big hug.  That was unexpected.

“I’m so happy right now Vanilla!  So happy!  And do you know why?  Go ahead, take a guess.  Give up?  Okay I’ll tell you.  Here it goes…”  She said with heart melting enthusiasm before taking a deep breath.  I was not prepared for how loud she was going to yell at me.  “Vanilla, I GOT MY CUTIE MARK!!!!!!!  It’s so AWESOME!!!  Want to see it?”

Before I could open my mouth, she had stripped out of her uniform and spun around to show me her flank.  There, in the light of the grey room, was her cutie mark, which consisted of a few blades of grass gently wafting in the breeze, as shown by four thin, wavy light purple lines.

“Isn’t it just the greatest thing ever?!  I’m going to have my cute-cenera today!  It’s going to be the most bestest time… and all of my friends are coming, and it gonna be the greatest!  We’re going to play pin the tail on the donkey, and eat cake, and…”

As she was boasting, she looked at me and how bad of a shape I was in.  I was panting hard and sweating so bad my mane was stuck to my neck.  She looked somewhat embarrassed as she realized what she had said before muttering, “Well, almost all of my friends…”  She came up and gave me a hug, then told me, “I’ll bring you back a piece of my cake later tonight, along with a special present I’ve been saving just for you, okay?  Hang in there, Vanilla… I’ll see you in a few, alright?”  Her expression was enough to get me to smile back at her as best as I could, but I was in no condition to speak properly.

As she waved goodbye and stepped out of the door, I realized what she had just said to me.  Wow, was I really that far gone that I couldn’t even think straight?  I don’t know how much more of this I can take, I said to myself, before going back to that realization.  She had said that not all her friends could come; she really thought of me as a friend?  How wonderful, someone who can be there when I bite the dust from exhaustion…

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A few hours had passed since we had last talked, and I had hoped that she would make it here before I passed out and never woke up again.  I began to vomit uncontrollably, shaking ravaged my already weak body, and I collapsed backward in a painful twisting motion that sent shocks through all my legs as I could no longer stand.  As I lied there, weak and pitiful, I began to think just what kind of cycle my inevitable and lame death would bring about.  Would the ponies of Stable 37 go out and find another unicorn to abuse?  What if they couldn’t find one, or were too afraid to go too far away from their home?  What if they managed to go far enough to Jackknife and kidnapped one of the unicorns living there in peace?  Of course the ponies there would fight back, and both sides would end up killing each other and leaving only death in their wake.

I could not let that come to pass, but I also could do nothing about the current predicament I was in.  I was too weak to move, let alone run, even if I didn’t have these damn shackles on.  I started to realize that I was going to let everypony that had known me down.  The Jackknife townsfolk, my long gone but hopefully still watching over me mother, and even Breezy, who for the first time had a friend whom she really felt connected to.  Sure she had other friends, but she had to keep a terrible secret from them, unlike me who she could share everything with.  Tears began to form in my eyes as my body started to spasm once again.  No Vanilla, keep these tears back, you can’t let Breezy see you in such a sad state, especially on such a happy day for her.  Just hold on for a few more hours… let her give you that slice of cake, even though you’ll just throw it up… and that present she wants to give you… take it with a smile…

Every moment until Breezy showed up was one big blur.  I think I had passed out from the exhaustion, but the next thing I knew her concerned face was standing over mine.

“Oh good, you’re ok!  I thought you might be done for.”  She said as she sat down next to me and held the piece of cake in her hooves.  It did look pretty tasty, but there was no way I was eating that without getting sick again.  That’s when I realized that Breezy had something on her leg that wasn’t there before.  I had seen one on the guard that had given me my food.  It looked like one of those computer terminal things that are scattered throughout the wasteland, only a much smaller, more compact version.

At my expression, she giggled and said with a matter-of-factly tone in her voice, “This is a Pip-Buck!  Everypony gets one on their cute-cenera.  They are these cool little computers that go on your leg, and once it’s activated, this little genius will do almost everything for you!  It has a sorting tool that organizes your stuff that you carry around, a radio wave detector so that you can listen to radio broadcasts, and even this cool program called S.A.T.S. that when activated, helps you aim your weapons better!”

“Cool…” I muttered.

“Oh yeah, one more thing, it’s part of your present… a hacking tool.”

When she said that word, I perked up at the implication of what that meant.

“Yeah, I can just go over to a computer terminal like this one,” She pointed at the terminal on the wall next to the power machine, “or something similar and just input the right password and bam!  I can get just what I want!”  She then walked over to the terminal and started to go to work.

I tried to get to my hooves as I moaned, “Does that mean what I think it means?”

Breezy smiled the most honest of smiles.  “Yes”

“I’m going to set you free, and help you escape.  Of course doing this will brand me a traitor, and everypony here will try and hurt me or worse, and so, I’ve decided to come with you.”

“W-What?  No, no you can’t do that, it’s too dangerous and…”

“Yes Vanilla, I’m coming with you whether you like it or not.  I will have nowhere safe to go once this is over, and besides, safety in numbers and all that, right?”  Breezy had a very stern look on her face which I guess meant that she wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“Unfortunately, I was unable to find your belongings, so you will have to just leave empty handed.”

I was totally ok with that.  I mean heck, this little filly had just become my best friend and bad-ass rule breaker in one.  I was going to live to see another grey sky, to feel the wind run through my mane, and to taste freedom once again!  It had only been two weeks since I lost that freedom, but it had felt like an eternity, and then some.

With a soft click, the shackles came apart and I slowly stepped out of them, glad I still remembered how to walk.  The thing on my horn ceased to hum and I broke it off with a quick smack of my hoof, and the machine started to shut down.  I walked over to Breezy, who had just finished with the terminal, and picked her up in my hooves and gave her the biggest hug I could muster.

“OH-oh-okay Vanilla, you’re welcome!  Don’t crush me until we get out of here okay?”

I quickly felt my face turn red as I dropped her and we both started for the door.  When the door opened it led into what was a hallway with the same dull grey color as the room I was just in.

“Okay Vanilla, just stick close to me and we should be ok.  The power should cut out soon.  We will use the darkness for cover and sneak out of here before they even know we’ve gone.”  She then pointed to the left and began to trot in that direction.  The hallway was somewhat long, with two doors on either side, which had the words maintenance, supply, armory, and wares above the door frames.  As we walked down the hallway, the lights began to go out one by one, slowly shrouding the hall with darkness.

When we got to the end of the hallway, there were stairs that led upward ending with another door.  Breezy ran up the stairs and stopped at the door, taking out her Pip-Buck and connecting it to the small case by the door.  I had to guess that the power had left the doors and now they were stuck shut, but Breezy managed to open it with a few button presses.  After she was done, we walked into a big rectangular room with a big semi-circle dome as the ceiling.  There were two catwalks up above, and there were a total of six doors on this level, and I assumed there were more up where the catwalks were.  At this point, the lights in this room were flickering or going out altogether.

Breezy motioned for me to follow her along the right side of the room keeping close to the walls.  I heard some shuffling inside the rooms next to us and upstairs as a feminine voice came over the speakers.  I was surprised that they had power, but then again maybe they had some kind of back-up power to use.

“Attention all Stable 37 residents.  This is your Overmare, Peanut, speaking.  I have issued a level red security breach.  All security guards must do their rounds as designated by their superiors.  All residents must stay in the rooms you are in.  Any ponies that are in the hallways or other non-room areas must stay where you are and wait for security to come and relocate you to a safe area.  Please do not panic and follow the orders given to you.”

As the Overmare spoke, the last of the lights went out in the big room we were in, and I couldn’t see a damn thing.  I felt something brush up against me, but it was just Breezy telling me where to go next.

“I know this place like the bottom of my hoof.”  She whispered as she guided me through the room alongside the right wall and to a door on the opposite side.  “Even in the dark, I know where everything is.  Come, this door will lead up to the main level and past the Overmare’s office.  After we pass that, it’s a straight shot to the room where the Stable door is located.”

We quickly made our way across the room and to the door that blocked our way upstairs.  Breezy again hooked up her Pip-Buck to the door case and after about 30 seconds she had the door open again.  As we began to go up the stairs, we heard voices behind us.

“I heard a door open.  Let’s go check it out.”  I heard a buck say as the sound of trotting got closer to the bottom of the stairs.  We quickly ran up the stairs, and then made a quick right into another hallway that was longer than the last one.  There were a few points in the hall that were indented for things like garbage cans and water fountains and… wait, water fountains?  Oh man, finally some refreshment!  I quickened my pace until we came up upon one, then Breezy hid underneath the fountain and motioned for me to do the same.  But I was too thirsty and needed this to treat some of my weakness.  I took a few long gulps of the fresh water until Breezy grabbed my leg and pulled me under the fountain as well.

“Shhhhhh, stay still and silent until those two guards pass us.”

Just as Breezy said, the two guards we had following us trotted into the hallway and paused for a moment.  One of the guards motioned for them to separate and cover both ends of the hallway.  The other guard went the opposite direction of us, while the one that motioned was coming right at us.  I held my breath as best I could and stayed still, even though my body protested because I had already been still for two weeks.  The guard eventually got within spitting distance before stopping and looking around.  He then let out a sigh and kept walking in the direction we were supposed to go.  Once he got about halfway between us and the far door, he turned around and sat down.  He then started to talk into a speaker that was attached to his shoulder, saying, “Plaster, this is Kickstart reporting in.  The Overmare hallway is clear and there is no sign of the escapee.  Returning back down to the lower atrium with Drake and continuing the search.”  He then stood up and trotted back past us and met up with the other guard, and they proceeded back down the way they came.

“Now’s our chance Vanilla.  The way out is just down this way.  Come on!”  Breezy said softly as she crawled out from under where we were hiding.  I managed to get to my legs with difficulty and followed her closely.

For the third time, Breezy hacked the door in a matter of seconds and forced it to open.  Inside the room was a few crates and boxes, a computer terminal next to some short stairs, and a small room that was open on the right side.  The thing that impressed me the most, however, was the giant steel gear-like door that was dominating the far side of the room.  It had a large number 37 painted in yellow in the middle.

“This is it, the Stable 37 entrance.  All I have to do is press this button and it will open without a fight.  Be prepared to run though, because it will make a horribly loud screeching sound when it opens, and all the guards will be on us like foals on candy.”  Breezy pointed at the giant door and said, “Get ready to run.  I’m pressing the button in 3… 2… 1…”

The giant gear shaped door hissed and whined as it came inward towards me, slowed down and stopped, then began to rotate to the right.  That’s when the loud screeching sound started.  Before the door was even halfway open, Breezy had run through it and then yelled back at me, “Now!  Come on Vanilla, this is our chance!”  I trotted at a somewhat fast pace past the door and out into a small cave.  The cave was cold and damp smelling, so I guessed it was sometime during the late evening or early nighttime.

“You gotta be faster than that!  The guards will be on top of us in just a few seconds and then it will be all over!”  Breezy yelled and the door finally came to a loud stop.  Breezy ran up to the entrance of the cave and the motioned for me to hurry and catch up.  I ran as fast as my aching legs could carry me, and managed to get to where she was standing.  My aches and pains were excruciating, but I steeled myself against the pain and sat down before checking out my surroundings.

Breezy ran out a few steps onto the hill in which Stable 37 was hidden, and then stopped and looked around like she was scouting the area.  I caught up to her and panted, “Which way do we… go now?”  She looked up at me and then pointed in the northeastern direction, towards some trees down at the bottom of the hill.

“There is a river behind those trees.  We gotta get there before the guards catch us in the open.”  She said as she began to run out towards the tree line.  She had only taken a few steps when the sound of a shotgun loading sounded behind me.  I turned around to see an off-white buck with a brown mane standing just a few feet away from me with a security uniform on.

“Breezy!  Not another step!  You have a hell of a lot to say for yourself, little filly.”  The low gruff voice of the buck yelled.  I looked to see Breezy frozen in place as she looked slowly around to where we were standing.  “I told you that talking and being nice to this unicorn scum was going to end up getting you in big trouble.”

“Dad?!  Oh no… Please listen to me!”  Breezy began to protest as she ran up to stand beside me.  “This unicorn is good!  He’s not evil like the ponies in the stories!  He’s just like me, different!”  Breezy whined as she took off her Stable 37 uniform, revealing her wings.

The buck just looked disgusted by the sight as he kept the shotgun pointed at me.  “I am your father, head of security Plaster, and I tried to teach you right.  I sacrificed a lot of things just to keep your secret.  Do you know how hard it was to keep having a pegasus as a daughter a secret?  If the Overmare found out about what I did, I would be exiled from 37 or worse!  I have done so much for you and this is how you repay me?  By betraying me and helping this shit stain of a pony run free?”

“Please dad, I know you can find another way to fix the stable!  You’re a very smart pony and you could do this without having to torture innocent ponies like Vanilla…”

“Innocent?  Look at what this scum has done to you Morning Breeze!  He’s corrupted you to work for him with some kind of dark magic!”

I let a snicker slip out at that one.  I couldn’t believe what this pony was saying.  These Stable ponies really were superstitious, or crazy, or both.  I tried to inform Plaster by saying, “There is no such thing as mind-control magic, and even if there was I couldn’t use it with that thing on my head sapping my magic.”  He got a couple steps closer while keeping the shotgun pointed at me.

“Shut it, you freak!  Now Morning Breeze, put your uniform back on and follow me into 37, and we can forget that this ever even happened…”

Breezy got a look a fury in her eyes as she yelled, “No, dad!  I’m not following your stupid rules anymore!  I’ve felt trapped in that uniform ever since I can remember, and now that I have this feeling of freedom I don’t want to go back!  I realized what a terrible thing I had done when we stuck Vanilla in shackles and forced him to live as a slave.  This is not how it is meant to be!  You’ve tried to make me into something that I’m not my whole life, and now I’m taking matters into my own hooves!”  Breezy flapped her wings and then actually managed to lift herself of the ground and began to hover in the air beside me.

“If that is the way it’s going to be, I have no other choice!”  Plaster yelled as he pointed his shotgun right at his own daughter!  Breezy got a look of horror as she screamed out loud.  In the same moment that Plaster pulled the trigger, I pushed Breezy out of the way and we both fell to the ground.  Fresh pain seared in my left hind leg as a couple of the buckshot pieces buried themselves into me.

The buck looked confused for a second, and then muttered, “Why would you do that?  She’s just a pawn that you are forcing to do bad things with now.  She isn’t my daughter anymore…”  He then pointed the shotgun back at her before saying, “Yes, Morning Breeze, this is how it was meant to be…”  Before he managed to pull the trigger again, I wrapped my magic around the shotgun and tore it away from his grip.  The pain in my head was unbearable as I threw the shotgun down the side of the hill before slowly standing up and looking him straight in the eyes.

“You would kill your own daughter just to keep a secret as trivial as being a pegasus?  What the fuck is wrong with you?”  I fumed as I struggled to stay standing with the weakness and the new pain I had just received.  Then I noticed the canteen around his neck.  I focused my magic on the canteen and tore it away from his as well, breaking the strap in the process.

“W-What are you doing with that?”  Plaster said as he backed off a few steps.  I took out all of the water with my magic, the pain screaming in my ears as a couple more guards showed up behind Plaster.  I surrounded Breezy and myself with a semi-circle of water and cast the freeze spell on it, turning it into a floating shield.

“Let’s go Breezy!”  I yelled as I began to run down to the tree line.  Breezy got up immediately and ran next to me as we rushed down the hillside.  A few seconds later gunfire peppered the shield I had made, and since it wasn’t a whole lot of water to begin with, it started to fall apart.  We just kept running as the guard ponies yelled things like “Stop them!” and “They won’t get away!”

As we came upon the tree line, I saw the banks of the river Breezy had mentioned slowly getting closer.  I picked up the pace as more and more gunfire could be heard from behind me, the occasional bullet hitting the ground or a tree next to us.  Once we got to the river, I focused as hard as I could on the water before me.  I almost blacked out from the pain this brought, but I just pressed on and told myself that there would be time for rest later.

“What are you doing?”  Breezy asked as she looked in awe of what I was doing.

“Making our ticket out of here!  Now once I finish jump in and I’ll follow you!”

After about 30 seconds I had managed to make a small lifeboat-like craft of ice on the water, and immediately Breezy jumped inside.  I staggered on my hooves as I stumbled into the craft and pushed it out onto the river.  The river carried us towards the west as the gunfire continued, some shots just missing us by inches.

After a few minutes the gunfire ceased and the Stable 37 ponies were no longer chasing us.  After I had made sure that it was safe, I asked Breezy, “Will… will you take care of us?  I’m going to … pass… out…”

“Vanilla?  Vanilla!”  Breezy yelled as the world backed away from me and I fell into darkness.

Footnote: Level up

New Perk:  Sleep Tight:  Whenever you sleep for at least 8 hours, you gain a slight boost to your physical and magic prowess for that day.