Author's Notes:

Google Docs Link should you want it.

Special thanks to my editor, EverfreePony, and my main pre-reader and basically-co-author, SnakeEye

Caged

I stared blankly at my homework. Ponish sucked. Literature sucked. Writing about literature sucked even more. How was it that a bookworm like me hated the theory behind books so much?

I wondered how the other foals managed. Mother always told me they were beneath me—that’s why I couldn’t play with them. As the overstallion’s filly, I was expected to outperform everypony else.

I was smart. I didn’t feel like it, but if Mother said so, then it had to be true. Unlike the other foals in Stable 4, I was destined for greatness. I’d originally had the school teacher come give me lessons, but Mother decided it wasn’t necessary, that I was fine without him.

If I—a smart pony—struggled with my curriculum, then that meant other foals struggled even more. I found comfort in that thought. Maybe even happiness. Whatever it was, it improved my life significantly.

I realised that I needed a break from my homework. Desperately. Knowing both my parents were occupied with their jobs, using my telekinesis, I pushed my desk till it hit the wall under the vent and grabbed my slippers—hey helped muffle the sound of hoofsteps on the thin metal. I floated my office chair up onto the desk as I climbed on it, then unscrewed the vent cover’s loose screws with my magic and pulled the sheet of metal out.

I telekinetically held the office chair in place and used it to climb into the shaft, wincing as I accidentally applied pressure to my bruises. They weren’t that recent, so they didn’t hurt unless I touched them, but they clearly hadn’t healed yet. Once inside, I moved the furniture back into place and slid the metal cover back into the duct, keeping the screws on my side. Somepony could accidentally dislodge it if they hit this wall hard enough, but it was my only option.

I couldn’t get them back in, but I could at least hide them, mostly on the off-chance that I ever got caught outside my parents’ quarters. If I was able to have them to believe I was let out by someone—instead of sneaking out by myself—I’d be able to shift some of the blame off me. And, more importantly, be able to keep my passage into the rest of the stable secret.

Standing at full height in the vent, I started walking towards the intersection, my slippers muffling my already soft steps.

Of course, the plan was to never get caught. But I couldn’t live without a plan B. Too many things could go wrong, in theory. I knew they would never happen, however. My parents took their jobs way too seriously to skip their shifts. On top of that, no one else used the vents to move around, and only maintenance ponies ever opened them.

Stumbling onto one of my mother’s underlings with their heads up in the ducts was actually one of the risks with higher chance of happening. Thankfully, my PipBuck was able to help me minimise that risk. One of the more interesting features of the sleek white device around my right forehoof was its EFS—Eyes Forward Sparkle. It showed all moving things in a certain range as white bars in my vision. The main downside was that I never knew what storey they were on. Another disadvantage was that it also showed cleaning robots.

Without any particular destination in mind, I turned right.

As far as I knew, most ponies didn’t really use their EFS. In a densely populated stable such as 4, it wasn’t very helpful, as the interface was way too cluttered. For me, however, it had become a mandatory survival tool. I’d learned that if a pony was close-by, then their bar would move faster when I walked past it. I had been using this knowledge to check corners where I thought somepony could be. This had saved me from being caught a handful of times. Most of the time, though, it just slowed me down. However, given that I couldn’t allow myself to get caught, being overly cautious was the better option.

I wandered around for half a dozen minutes before one of the white bars on my EFS started moving quicker than all others. Since there was no intersection here, I assumed it was either inside a room, or on a different floor entirely. The latter was much likelier than the former, given that all ponies living in this area worked B-shift—which was now. I approached the grate and carefully peeked over.

To my surprise, I spotted Midnight Sonata through an open door down in the hallway. Focused on her work, she didn’t notice me. She was a dark blue filly a couple of years younger than me. Unlike me, she already had her cutie mark—a grey treble clef surrounded by a crescent moon and stars.

Fillies like her, I remembered hearing Mother say, were what happened when you didn’t get as lucky as me. Her family couldn’t afford education past the most basic knowledge, and so she had to pick up a job around the stable at a young age. In her case, it was cleaning ponies’ quarters.

That was one of the worst paying jobs around the stable, as only ponies who couldn’t afford a cleaning robot hired them.

Given her cutie mark, she likely would have made a good musician, maybe great, even. Too bad that future was crossed off for her now.

For some reason, seeing her never filled me with the same glee I usually felt when I saw somepony worse off than me. For some reason, whenever I saw her, I couldn’t help but imagine myself in her situation. Maybe it was because she shared part of my name. Whatever the cause may be, I didn’t like seeing her. I decided to move along.

But my thoughts wouldn’t leave her topic alone. I wondered how her name had matched so well with the cutie mark she’d ended up getting. Maybe her parents were musicians and knew she would grow up to become one as well. Well, given that she was poor, her parents were likely mediocre musicians at best.

But then, how come I didn’t inherit my parents’ special talents? I’d tried music. Singing, playing a few different instruments, composing… And nothing caught my attention. I just wasn’t music-y. Or artsy. Or anything else that required creativity.

Mother’s special talent, on the other hoof, was something I was much more interested in. Understanding machines and fixing them had felt like a fun puzzle or game. I’d even learned some spells from her books. I knew how to polish pieces using only my magic, and I’d even managed to conjure a pencil from my desk. The spell was normally meant for other tools, like screwdrivers or hammers, but I didn’t have any of those on hoof. It worked like a hyper-specialised teleportation spell. You could only use it on simple tools whose exact location you knew. It also had a fairly unimpressive effective range; more than twenty meters between you and your tool, and it wouldn’t work.

Unfortunately for me, neither the spells nor machines were apparently interesting enough to net me a cutie mark. Mother told me that if by my next birthday I still didn’t have a cutie mark, I would take an aptitude test. Those were usually meant for less wealthy citizens who had to start working early in their lives. Not as early as poor Midnight, but still much earlier than I’d ever have to.

I turned another corner. I’d come here to clear my thoughts, not muddy them further. I needed to see adults struggling. Deciding to watch some maintenance ponies at their work, I made my way to the vertical tunnels near the centre of the stable. On my EFS, I could see that a flurry of white bars were near me, but as I peeked into the hallway below, I couldn’t see anypony or robot. This wasn’t very surprising to me, as I was right above the stable’s atrium

Every time I went to the upper levels, I was grateful for the thoughtfulness of the ponies who’d designed this stable. At most vertical sections, a ladder could be found, likely put there in order to help maintenance ponies get at the electronics inside.

I slowly climbed the ladder, careful as to avoid making any noise. I emerged into the large primary vent. In each direction I found a grate that could expose me if I crossed over it recklessly. Because I was still above the atrium, my EFS was nigh useless, and I had to inspect the corridor below by myself. Still careful, I peeked over the grate to my right and noticed two ponies below. One was approaching the other, and they made eye contact. Deeming it safe, I kept watching.

I spotted one of the stable technicians working on… something in the wall. I recognised him: Crescent Hammer. I knew all the ponies working under Mother. Mostly out of curiosity.

Of course, only a few of them knew me. I was never allowed out of my family’s quarters, after all.

The second buck I didn’t recognise, however. He was a large grey unicorn wearing security barding.

“Hey, Crescent.”

“Hey yourself, Steel Horn. Can’t chat for long today, have lots of work.”

“More than usual?”

“Yeah. The overstallion came to me directly. Was hardcore miffed, claimed I wasn’t working fast enough. I can’t help it though, I work as fast as I can.”

“Fuck dude, that sucks. What even is so pressing?”

“Dunno, he just wants me to install manual overrides in each of the doors, even up here. Shit dude, I shouldn’t be telling you about this. You didn’t hear that from me. Hell, you didn’t hear it at all.”

“I mean, sure thing, bro, but is it that secret?”

“He told me to not tell anypony about it. He was very hush-hush about it, so maybe his wife doesn’t even know, especially since usually she’d be giving me orders.” The buck sighed. “To be honest, I’d much rather have Brass yell at me than him. She’s much gentler and much more reasonable with her demands. If she yells at me, I know it’s my fault.”

“Yeah I getcha, bro. Between the two of us, I feel like she’s also much more competent than him. Almost feel like she shoulda become overmare when they got married,” Steel Horn whispered, looking around cautiously.

“I think she’s just way too dedicated to her job. She likes being head of maintenance too much to step down and take over the more boring bureaucratic stuff.”

“Could be. But I’d wager the megalomaniac just didn’t accept to marry her unless she promised him he could have the post.”

“I kinda miss the old overmare to be honest,” Crescent Hammer admitted.

“Me too, but after her wife died it was only a matter of time before someone else amassed more money than her.”

Not aching to be reminded of my father, I’d left in the middle of their conversation, but had still heard it echoing until I was back on the residential storey. Lately, complaints about my father were more and more common. He’d also been more violent towards me than usual. I’d never bothered figuring out the details. I always avoided thinking or hearing of him.

I continued my walk in a big circle around the stable, hoping to eavesdrop on an interesting conversation, one that didn’t involve my father. No such luck for me, and after a half hour I’d finally grown bored enough to go back to writing my essay.

As I turned into the vent that led to my room however, I was petrified. I could hear mutters and loud thuds coming from my room. I flattened my body against the floor of the duct, hoping to remain unseen.

“Where the fuck is this little cunt?” my father said, apparently trying hard to keep his voice low.

He threw something that I could only assume to be my chair, against a wall. I gulped in fear. Then regretted doing that. Did he hear that?

“How the fuck did she even get out of here?”

I could hear it in his tone. He was seething with rage. Madder than he’d ever been. More furious than I’d ever experienced him.

And worst of all, it was with me. I was used to him venting his frustration with other things on me, but I’d never been the direct cause for his anger. I couldn’t go in there. I wouldn’t come back out alive.

As if reading my mind, he half-muttered, half-screamed, “I’ll fucking kill her.”

It took every last drop of my self-control not to bolt the other way as fast as my legs could carry me. Instead, I slowly pushed myself backwards. I didn’t stand up until every last brain cell was convinced there was no way he could see me.

Even as I turned around, and knew I’d put reasonable distance between him and me, it still took me a considerable amount of effort to not start running.

It was only when I was near the center of the stable that my thinking deviated from pure fear. I needed to stay hidden until father’s next shift. Maybe longer. Until his mood calmed. So potentially forever. No, don’t be a fatalist, Iron.

Which meant I needed some money to buy food and drinks from the vending machines. With some luck, I could steal enough bits for a couple of months from father’s vault. Opening the safe wouldn’t be hard; I knew the combination—535738. However, I would have to return when he wasn’t there. The overstallion worked B-shift, so I would need to wait about twenty hours until he left our quarters.

However, hiding was my priority. From my experiments with my PipBuck, I knew you could track one if you had its tag. I didn’t know whether my father had my tag, but I was not going to bet my life he didn’t. “Always hope for the best, but expect the worst,” Mother’s voice echoed in my mind.

This meant I needed to steal tools from the PipBuck technician’s office. I glanced down at my left foreleg. The white casing looked fragile enough to be broken if bucked by an average adult. Unfortunately for me, I was not an average adult. Truth be told, I was significantly weaker than the average filly.

Even if I did manage to break it, there was no guarantee the tracking functionality would stop working. I needed to get the entire thing off my leg if I wanted to be completely sure I wouldn’t be tracked.

I decided to head towards the PipBuck technician’s quarters. She was one of the few ponies who knew how to read their EFS, and thus had almost noticed me on more than one occasion. Because of this, I had learned her daily routine. She worked C-shift, and stayed in her quarters that entire time. I presumed she slept during A-shift, and so the only time I needed to be careful of her was during B-shift. Although even then, the reclusive mare sometimes stayed in her quarters. In normal time, that was beneficial to me. Now, however, I was hoping she was out doing… whatever it was that she did.

I turned corner after corner until I arrived near my destination. A hoofful of bars appeared on my EFS in the direction of her room. Only one, however, moved fast enough to be inside her room. I cursed my luck, but decided to take the risk, and approached the shaft entering her room. I cursed my luck again, as I spotted her, reading a book at her desk with tools sprawled out all around it. One of those had to be the one I needed.

It would only be a matter of time before she’d move and notice the immobile, close-by bar on her EFS. With any luck, she’d think I was on a different floor. My luck, however, was not worth counting on, especially when dealing with one of the sharper adults in the stable.

This meant I needed to wait at least twelve hours, possibly more, until she went to bed. Plan A was to hope to Celestia I was sneaky enough to rummage through her tools while she was asleep. Plan B was to wait until B-shift and until she left for breakfast. On its own, plan A was infinitely riskier than plan B. However, since plan B involved more waiting, i.e. more time during which I could get caught, I couldn’t determine which had the better odds.

In either case, I needed to hide for half a day and hope that wasn’t enough time to be found, and I was not improving my chances by staying in the proximity of the EFS-goddess. So I turned around and left.

Since I was back to looking in the direction of the atrium, my vision was full of white bars, and the cluttered interface reminded me of something. That something was the stable’s fourth storey. It was deep in maintenance territory, and not a place I usually visited. Part of the reason was that it was simply scary up there. The lights were even darker than the third floor’s, and an ominous hum could be heard throughout it. More relevantly, however, my PipBuck’s EFS always went haywire there. I’d guessed that the stable’s talismans somehow hampered with the spell matrix of my PipBuck.

That was good. That meant that the tracking spell built into it was likely also going to face interference up there. This meant I had more time, and it also meant the risks of plan B were mitigated. Of course, I wasn’t sure I couldn’t be found up there, but the probability seemed low enough to be worth a try.

Tomorrow B-shift, I would first steal a couple hundred bits from my father’s safe—not that he would miss them. Then, I would wait by the technician’s room, identify which bar was hers, safely wait until she went to the atrium, borrow her tools, and live forever ever after on the fourth floor. What could possibly go wrong? No! Bad brain! Cancel that thought right now!

I headed upwards, and spent the rest of B-shift walking around the vents and making mental notes on which rooms I could sleep in in the future. I mostly needed a room with easy vent access. Ideally it needed to be quiet, and be rarely accessed by ponies.

I stumbled upon a couple of locked rooms with a control terminal next to them. Those unfortunately also had a security grate locking off the vents that led inside them. Damn those Stable-Tec ponies and their thoughtfulness.

I suspected my father’s credentials could open any of those rooms, and regretted not having paid attention when I’d seen him type them.

As C-shift came around, I decided I’d spend the night in a vent. The pair of rooms I’d found in the corner of the stable seemed fine and ticked all my boxes, but I couldn’t tell how often a pony would make their way into them. They certainly seemed unused, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Besides, I remembered that I couldn’t unscrew the vent covers without a screwdriver. I was angry at myself for overlooking such a detail, but it was easily fixed, if I stole a small screwdriver from… anywhere maintenance related, really, I could open any shaft entrance from the inside.

I lay down in a corner of the duct, since that’s where I was least likely to get blown away in case the fans started spinning full throttle. Normally, I went to bed around the middle of C-shift. I’d tried going to sleep at the end of B-shift, but when my father came home angry, he’d wake me up and hit me. The worst was when he beat me with his—Nope, nope, nope, nope, not thinking about that now. Buzz off, brain. My tail and hindquarters itched. I shook my head, trying to shake off the thought, then closed my eyes.

Luckily for me, all the excitement from the day seemed to have taken a toll on me, and now that I started to relax, I could feel how tired I really was. Maybe things will be better tomorrow. Maybe I’m not actually in any danger...

I woke up on a hard surface, with a soft voice calling me. I’d fallen out of bed again, hadn’t I? Too sleepy, I didn’t bother getting back into bed.

The voice, however, insisted.

“Iron Sonata,” a mare called softly.

Couldn’t it wait? I was a little filly, still growing. I needed my sleep.

“Come on, wake up,” the voice said again.

I groaned. This simple physical act shook my whole brain awake, and I very suddenly remembered where I was, and why I was there. Oh. Oh. Ponyfeathers.

My eyes shot open, and I saw a lifted ventilation grate, with a mare’s head poking through. All the other parts of my brain woke up at the same moment as I shrieked and got to my hooves.

Bad Idea. I hit my head hard on the ceiling, and saw the mare’s expression quickly turn to shock and concern, while my own vision rapidly filled with black.

I woke up in a small room, on a soft—oh so soft—bed. This time, I had more time to process my surroundings. I could hear a muffled conversation coming from the vent above me. I remembered what had happened earlier. I recalled the mare’s face and realised that I knew her. She’d been a filly just a few months ago. No, longer. It had been almost a year since I’d last seen her, and her name was Candy Cane.

Well, by that I meant she had only recently started working in security. Before that, I’d seen her in the school quarters. She was also one of the few ponies in 4 I’d actually talked to. Her mother was head of security, and she had visited our quarters quite often, sometimes even bringing her daughter along. She and I had played together a lot, but her stays at our quarters had grown increasingly rare with time. I think I missed her…

I turned my attention in front of me, where I found a glass of water that I happily downed in a few gulps, before looking around the room again. I didn’t know personal quarters enough to figure out whose this was based on looks alone—I was always too cautious to look inside a pony’s personal space if I could help it—but I could imagine this was her living space.

I glanced at the door. Behind it were two white bars. Wanting to confirm the proximity, I bobbed my head left to right. This proved to be a mistake, as pain shot through my entire head, culminating at the back of it. I closed my eyes and waited until the pain subsided. With my eyes closed, I noticed I could hear a conversation, presumably held by the two bars behind the door. I decided to listen in and focused.

“So you’re confirming my suspicion; those bruises are not recent, correct?” one voice asked.

“At least half a week old, yes,” the other voice replied. She sounded older and more mature. “I’m also pretty certain your other hunch was also correct, and that she’s been raped, given the position of some of those bruises.”

Great, a word I didn’t know. My brain itched for a dictionary. Unfortunately for me, however, Candy Cane did not own one.

“What. The. Fuck,” the first voice said again. “Who would do such a thing?”

“Beats me. You’re the security mare, I’m just a doctor. But from what you’ve told me, the overstallion doesn’t sound very innocent. Maybe this will be the final blow we needed to exile that useless bastard. If only his wife wasn’t head of maintenance…”

The security mare gasped. “Iodine, don’t you care about the filly at all?”

The older mare chuckled. “Not nearly as much as you, clearly. Look, Candy, there’s more important things than the well-being of one filly. And the overstallion’s incompetence is causing a whole lot of them.”

“You callous bitch… Fine, have it your way. Let’s get rid of the overstallion. But know I’m only doing this for Iron Sonata.”

“While I agree with your enthusiasm, we might need more evidence than simply this. We need the filly’s testimony.”

“You’re right, I’ll talk to her. Then I’ll talk to mom and get this done. Do I have your permission to show others the recording of our conversation?”

“Of course. Anything to get rid of the useless pile of trash that dares call itself our overstallion. I knew we shouldn’t have trusted a male to take that role.”

After a presumably awkward silence, the older mare added, “Ugh nevermind, I’m going back to work.”

A dozen seconds later, the door opened, and in walked Candy Cane, the pinkest and softest pony in the stable. I almost couldn’t believe I’d been scared of her a couple of hours prior. I’d spent enough time with her when I was younger that I still remembered her appearance exactly. And, like me, she was a mare that would help lead the stable in the future.

When I said she was the pinkest, I meant it. Her hide was a lavender pink, matching the pink of her striped mane almost exactly. The other colour in her mane was a pinkish white, very close in shade to my own coat. It was long enough to reach her shoulders, and fluffy enough to conceal her horn most of the time. Even her eyes followed the pattern, as they were a rich shade of pink, riding the boundary to purple. Her cutie mark was a syringe crossed with a candy cane, the latter’s base wrapped by a brown cloth. I still hadn’t asked her why she didn’t work in medical with a mark like that.

Despite her relatively young age, the mare seemed adult in every single way. I could tell she’d adapted to working life very quickly, and even though she exuded the competence of an adult, her eyes were still those of my kind friend.

“Iron, you’re awake,” she said, relief audible in her tone. Candy Cane had been the only pony I’d ever told I disliked being called Sonata, and I was grateful she avoided the name.

“Y-yeah. You scared me earlier.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I was trying so hard to wake you gently and failed miserably.”

“It’s… fine. Head still hurts, though.”

She winced, guilt spreading across her face.

“How did you even find me?” I said, forcefully changing the topic. “Please don’t say PipBuck tag.”

“Nope, your tag was entirely missing. The overstallion talked to me in private during my shift. Said you’d been kidnapped, which sounded like a lie. Since I couldn’t locate your PipBuck, I went to ask Brass Shine about that.” She took a moment to breathe.

“She told me interference could block the signal, and that this likely meant you were in one of the upper floors. She did say to look in the vents, too. She also confirmed to me that you hadn’t been kidnapped, but that I should keep that to myself.” She paused and looked at me solemnly, then continued. Wait, so Mother knew I was sneaking out through the vents? “Then, I combed the fourth floor. Given how much more my PipBuck seemed to hate it there than on the third, I decided it was more likely you’d have chosen that floor.”

“So, now are you gonna drag me back to my father?” I knew the answer to that, but I didn’t like admitting to eavesdropping.

“Maybe. Answer me this first, and please be honest. Who gave you those bruises?” She knew, I knew that she knew. But was I at risk by telling her? What would happen if I denounced him now? Would he get into trouble? Would he just avoid it and then punish me?

Noticing my look—I really needed to get better at hiding my thoughts—Candy added, “I’ll make sure he gets punished. That is, if he’s the one who gave you those bruises.”

I sighed. I knew I was taking a huge risk, but it wasn’t much compared to what he’d do to me if I let this opportunity pass up. “Y-yeah. It was my father… He gave me those bruises…” I muttered, looking at the ground and hoping that somehow being quiet would minimise the risk.

“Thank you, Iron. I’ll make this right, I promise. You just wait here.”

After she left, I waited for several hours, quickly growing bored. She may have been kind, but she didn’t have any books in her quarters. I checked my PipBuck. It was B-shift again. Five hours and fifty-three minutes had gone by since the pink security mare had left me alone, and I needed a walk.

I stared at the vent in her room. The odds of the screws on that being loose were pretty low, but I tried my telekinesis anyway. As I suspected, they stayed tightly put as my magic pushed on them.

I went back to being bored.

But fifteen minutes later, the boredom got the best of me, and I was back at it. This time, I was standing on her desk, looking closely at the screw, and focusing my push on the angles where a screwdriver would normally push.

I’d never attempted something as precise with my telekinesis, but I had time to waste. My headache wasn’t making it easy, but the idea of going back to boredom kept me motivated. I redoubled my focus, and, after a long while, the screw budged. It had taken every last bit of my focus, but I’d managed. The rest of the screw was easy in comparison.

My head was slightly hurting from the prolonged concentration, and I decided to take a break to breathe. It wasn’t like I was in a hurry. I just wanted to escape from the boredom.

Said boredom only needed a few minutes to settle back in, and before I knew it, I was fidgeting another screw with my magic. This time, I had the trick to it, and the screw came out much quicker. Next screw even quicker, and the last wasn’t even a challenge.

I levitated the cover off and climbed inside. I didn’t bother closing the vent behind me, because I was planning on being back before Candy anyway.

Of course, this meant staying around her quarters as I went on my walk. I decided to seek out ponies and maybe catch some gossip or news of any kind. A few minutes later, I found a pair walking down the hallway.

“I’m telling you, I saw them lead him out of the stable.”

“No like, I believe you, but it’s still so shocking. He wasn’t very good at his job, but I didn’t think they’d just… impeach him like that…” I cursed my PipBuck for not having a dictionary.

“I dunno, maybe they’ll give us more reason later. It’s not every day that they just throw out the overmare. Or overstallion, I guess.”

So they had already exiled my father? I needed to check that for myself. Or find Candy Cane and ask her. I determined that the best place to check was my family’s quarters. Even if he was still in the stable, he was likely not in our quarters during B-shift, and maybe I’d find a clue.

I made my way there. If my father was really gone, I had no real reason to stay in the vents. But I didn’t wanna risk it. Besides, I’d likely catch weird looks, since nopony knew me. Right as I arrived, the speakers sounded, and a voice said:

“Everypony with a job, please make your way to the atrium. We will be making an important announcement.”

Didn’t concern me. I ignored it. I checked around the small pseudo-apartment, but nopony was home. That had to be a good sign.

I spotted a small cassette on the living room table. I recognised it as something my PipBuck could read, so I inserted it into the slot at the front of the device. My father’s voice started playing:

“Sonata, you need to do something for me. I’m currently being escorted out of the stable. Brass Shine has also left, and she took the money with her. I’m just worried she didn’t take a gun with her, and I fear we need one to survive out there. You need to sneak into the armoury, and take some gun and ammunition. You might be able to still use my password to get into it. If not, you’ll need to improvise. My username is concerto, and my password is ConcertoTheGreat, the c, t, and g capitals and the rest small. I need to go now, and you need to do this.” His voice sounded stressed, as he spoke quietly but fast.

Mother was out there as well? I didn’t know what to think. The rational part of my brain told me to just let them rot. The less rational part of my brain was yelling at me for even considering that. They were my parents, and I had to help them. Besides, I would get beaten if I didn’t help.

I went into his room and opened his vault, looking for confirmation. Just as he’d said, it was completely empty. This meant Mother had left as well. If I stayed here, I’d be all alone. How was this ‘making this right’?”

I trotted over to my mum’s room, and found a couple of screwdrivers on her desk. I picked up the smallest, as it seemed to be the only one that seemed to be able to fit through the grates covering the vents.

Screwdriver in my mouth, I walked back to my room and climbed back into the vent and went to the ground floor, and headed towards the security quarters. Luckily for me, the area seemed empty. That, however, was where my luck ended. As expected, the only way into the armoury was through the front door, as the vent itself was closed off by a metal grate with no screws attached. I probably could open that grate by removing the screws holding it in place. But to access those, I likely would have to disassemble the whole duct around it.

I needed to get down into the room below me and use the door. This meant I had to do the incredibly tedious task of opening this vent… Or did I? I spotted another duct entrance on the other side of the room, and levitated my screwdriver over, and struggled to insert the cross into the screw. At this distance, any telekinesis needed to be significantly more precise.

I focused my magic on the tool, four meters away. As I concentrated further, my red magic enveloped it entirely, and I applied torque.

My magic fizzled as I lost focus, and the utensil fell a few centimetres until I caught it. I tried again, and failed. The cycle continued for another three attempts, until my spell failed so spectacularly that my head burst in a bout of pain, and the screwdriver fell to the floor. I didn’t know telekinesis could fail like that.

I took a deep breath and made another attempt. I managed to firmly grab the screwdriver and press it into the cross, and started turning. The screw sat calmly, seemingly unaffected by the torque I was exerting on it.

I redoubled my efforts, and my horn flared brightly, illuminating the dim duct shaft in angry crimson. The screw budged, then came out completely, before falling to the ground. I couldn’t imagine how hard it would have been to do this without a screwdriver… I think that screw would have been a pain regardless of how close I am to it.

My head throbbed, but that didn’t stop me. I turned my attention to the screw right above that one. Unlike the first one, this one didn’t pose any challenge whatsoever.

The third screw proved challenging again. My magic fizzled twice, but third time proved to be the charm, as I managed to pull it out with just a single push.

The last screw showed similarly low resistance as the second one.

With the cover loose, I walked around the room, and entered it from the side of the open conduit. I’d already lost enough time opening the cover, so I didn’t move anything to walk out. I exited the vent, and attempted to levitate myself on my way down.

I only managed to slow my fall a little, but enough to be able to land on my four hooves. Still, I’d been dangerously close to falling flat on my face. What was it with me and making poor decisions lately?

I walked to the terminal, clicked it on, and it greeted me with “Stable-Tec terminal. Please issue your stable_4 username and password.” I entered my father’s credentials. The terminal gave me three options. “Unlock door”, “Unlock maintenance vent”, and “Exit”. I selected the first, and heard a hiss from the door. I clicked the second option, and then logged out of the terminal. Once inside the armoury, I used the terminal inside to close the door behind me.

The shelves were full to the brim with guns. Some long, some short, some wide, some thin. They were marvels of mechanical engineering. So many moving parts, so many screws. Guns were seriously cool…

Snapping out of my awe, I decided to pick up a few and look at them closer. I didn’t know which to pick, so instead I opted for two guns. One short, light one—fairly certain it was a “pistol”. And a longer, wider, and much heavier one. I didn’t know what it was. I levitated up the pistol and inspected it in detail. A cylinder placed in the centre of the weapon protruded from both sides. At the back, a spring-loaded mechanism could be found. It seemed to be made to hit the back of the gun, like some sort of hammer. Two small levers were also on the left side, as well as text that read “Model 6520”. One of the lever-switches was set to “Safe”, whatever that meant, and the other didn’t have any labelling. I pressed the trigger, and watched as the little hammer cranked back, and then rapidly snapped into place. I loved this thing.

I put the gun down, and as much as I wanted to inspect the bigger gun, I forced myself to look around the room for ammunition, and found boxes full of bullets on the left shelf. No matter how hard I looked, none of the bullets seemed to fit into the pistol. I got lucky with the bigger gun, and found some cylinders that fit into the opening on the bottom.

The large hole at the bottom of the pistol seemed made to hold… Something bigger. Maybe something that could itself hold bullets? I looked around the room once more, this time not even knowing what I was looking for. I noticed something I recognised as barding, but none of it would fit me, and I wouldn’t be able to carry it out for my father. Next to the armour, I saw a strange arrangement of straps. It seemed made to hold weapons. I put it on and adjusted the straps.

I checked my PipBuck, curious to see if that was enough to change the “Inventory” tab’s content. To my delight, it did. It simply read “Military weapon harness”. That was progress, as it had always otherwise been empty. Glad to finally get it out of my mouth, I put the screwdriver into my left pocket.

Finally, I found some other metal objects, seemingly made to fit into guns. I compared the metal… things with the whole at the bottom of the gun. Finally, I found one that fit into the pistol. I figured it would be a good idea to have two of them.

I rummaged around for bullets that could fit in it, then filled both of them and took twenty spare bullets and placed them in the right pouch on my harness. Full of bullets, the two… things —I really needed to figure out what they were called—were much heavier than originally. I inserted one into the pistol, making the unlabelled lever click, then I strapped the other bullet-holder to my harness.

I checked my PipBuck. Maybe it would somehow give me a better name than “bullet-holder” for them. The screen’s white letters informed me that the pistol was in fact a 10 millimetre pistol, and that I had a “spare magazine” full of 10 millimetre bullets. So that’s what it was. A magazine.

After strapping my 10-mil to my side, I filled my left pouch with twenty cylinders, and strapped the big gun to my back.

I checked my PipBuck again. The big gun was apparently a “shotgun”. Aren’t they all guns that shoot, though? The cylinders were referred to as “buckshot shell, 20 gauge”.

Having decided I had everything I needed, I used the workbench to my right as a stepping stone, knocking a book off it. Then I clumsily struggled to climb up the shelf, and in front of the vent. This close, the screws holding the cover would pose not even the slightest challenge, so I decided to unscrew them using only telekinesis. I was getting good at this.

I found myself in the ventilation system again, and looked down to pick up the cover. Instead, the book I’d knocked down previously caught my attention. ‘The Mechanical Marvels of Firearms’ read the cover, illustrated with one of the weapons. It couldn’t hurt to have resources to understand the things I’d picked up, could it? I put the book into my left pouch, and before I could feel uncomfortable from the weight imbalance, I felt it shift, and noticed my ammunition had moved to my right pouch. Right, probably my PipBuck. I think I remember something about an inventory organising spell. Convenient.

Next, I needed to get to the stable door. Reaching the door would not be an issue, and neither would opening it be. I had the overstallion’s credentials, after all. My issue was getting out of the vent. I didn’t know if the exit room had two vents opposing each other like the security quarters had. And even if it did, there was no guarantee they’d be as close as the vents here. And even if the vents were close-by enough, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to pull it off again. The extra distance made it extra difficult.

I considered my options. I could just walk there. Buuuut I was armed from hoof to toe, and I’d likely catch too much attention, and end up stuck. Security was close enough to the exit that making a run for it wouldn’t be impossible. But I still didn’t like my odds.

What if I combined approaches, though? I could bring my guns to a vent near the door, then walk through the halls to the vent, and open it from the outside and levitate out my things.

That sounded like a solid backup plan. I made my way to the exit, following my PipBuck’s map. As I’d feared, there was only one vent, and it was high up the ground. While I suspected I could eventually unlock the vent from inside with enough fiddling, this was much higher up than before, and I was not going to jump down such a height. Maybe a cleaning closet would be a better place to stash my things? I wondered. Making my way through the vents I found one, where I unstrapped my harness, leaving it near the edge of the duct grate, so that nopony on the floor inside the closet would see it.

I walked back to security, and noticed the halls were exceptionally empty. Right, they were all called to the atrium. Maybe I didn’t even need to take this back-and-forth route. I exited the vent in armoury after checking nopony was in the meetings room.

The way back to the exit was still as empty, and the vast majority of white bars were in the direction of the atrium, confirming my theory. Better safe than sorry, I suppose.

I arrived at the cleaning closet, and made sure nopony was around. I climbed the shelves, careful not to lose my balance. I unscrewed the vent cover where I’d previously left my harness, and levitated it out of the duct and down onto the stable floor. I followed suit, almost falling flat on my face. Back on the ground, I untangled the straps and put it on.

My exit from the stable was about as unceremonial as you could get. I unlocked the terminal, opened the door, and stepped out. The door closed behind me with a clang as I walked into the dimly lit cave on the other side.

“Sonata? Is that you?” My father’s voice resounded in the large empty space. A few moments later, he stepped into view, then approached me.

“Thank Celestia, you brought guns. I’ve been out here for an hour, and I haven’t seen a sign of your mother! I think we were tricked, especially since they immediately changed the password after I walked out.” That’s odd, his password worked for me. “At least you’re loyal to me. You wouldn’t betray me like her.” What is he talking about? Didn’t she leave with him? “Give me the guns, now. Also, we don’t have much food so we’re gonna have to ration.”

Still caught up in thought, I didn’t react immediately. “Sonata, you little bitch, listen when I talk to you!” he screamed in a tone I knew too well. Even though he was still a few metres away, I closed my eyes and shrunk away, as if trying to sink into the floor. He was about to hit me. I had to do as he said, maybe then I wouldn’t be hurt as bad.

But wait, do I really? The thought hit me hard. I had a gun. He was no longer the strongest. He couldn’t hit me if I hit him first. And hard.

I opened my eyes and observed as my loaded pistol floated out besides me, enveloped by the angry red glow of my magic. My father’s eyes immediately turned from anger to fear, then he started running at me.

With shockingly little hesitation, I aimed in his general direction and pulled the trigger. And… Nothing. The pistol just clicked harmlessly. The stallion’s face turned to joy as he laughed at my predicament.

How can this be? I’m sure I loaded the bullets right. My mind flashed to the inspection session I’d had in the armoury, and the little pin set to “safe”. Of course, a safety mechanism! My telekinesis clicked it on the other notch. Those things are dangerous, of course they have a safety!

Concerto’s eyes went wide in terror and understanding. He clearly hadn’t been expecting me to understand what a safety switch was. I aimed at his head again, delighting in the horror on his face. Was this what he felt every time he hit me? If so then I could forgive him; this was godly.

I stared at him, enjoying the moment as long as I could. Then, his face showed confusion instead, then slowly started to relax. “You ruined it!” I screamed at him, then pulled the trigger.

The pistol roared delightfully, and I felt the recoil along with the clicking of the internal mechanisms of the gun in my telekinesis. Guns are so cool…

I observed in fascination as red fluid with chunks of his brain flew out behind him, splattering on the cave floor.

For how long had I been repressing those thoughts? I’d been beaten so many times that I’d learned to completely tune out any thought of ever standing up to him.

Just like that, my biggest tormentor was dead. I was immediately filled with regrets. I shouldn’t have killed him right away! Shot his legs or torso, maybe…

I also felt a weird tingling near my hind quarters. Curious, I turned my head, and immediately noticed it. A long-barreled gun like I’d seen in the armoury, but with wings holding it afloat, adorned my hips. I also noticed a few red stars floating around the wings.

I had my cutie mark!

Footnote:

Perk Refreshed – Telekinetic Precision: You’ve got a steady horn on your head for fine manipulation using your telekinesis.

New "Perk" – Sadistic: Some ponies like knitting, others like playing chess. You? You enjoy hurting ponies. Possibly only a subset of ponies, possibly all ponies. Whatever the case, you’re a psycho in the making! You deal slightly increased damage to everypony you like hurting, but how long can you keep your impulses under control?