“What's it like to look back on how far you'd come?”

You know, I guess I'd never even thought about it that way. Barb's death was something of an end to one of the larger parts of my new life in Fillydelphia. Since I had made that first fateful escape attempt, he had been there in the background and somewhat involved in almost every facet of my struggles since.

But it's more than that, isn't it? This was the first time I'd ever really done something that mattered. That really changed everything. Sure there had been helping Protégé to get the sani-sanitoo...

“Sanitiser.”

Yeah, that. But that was almost all just a test, a ploy by him to get me to think outside the box and try making choices for myself. But taking on Barb was an event. Something big that I was involved with which ended in our success.

Well, if you could call it a success. We'd lost many innocent ponies in the battle, along with one who had been fast becoming somepony we'd expected to stick with us. We were all injured. Protégé was seriously hurt and taken from us into the machine of Red Eye's city. We might have stopped Barb, but it had all just been part of a greater plan by somepony else...The Master. He wasn't officially in command, but he was chosen to oversee the repairs. Protégé's efforts to bring down Barb were likely the only thing that had stopped his absolute success. Even so, if Protégé didn't return to service soon.

S-sorry, I'm getting off the question, aren't I?

“Huh? Oh, look, don't worry about it, we're not in any rush. We're going to be around one another a long time now, remember? Plenty of opportunity to go at your own pace.”

Yeah, true...ok, I'll try.

So, I suppose that it's more than just since I tried to escape. It goes all the way back to when I first remember struggling to pull a sled weighed down with rocks near Shattered Hoof. That little skinny-legged colt with the mismatching ears, straining to move it even one inch. He'd never have thought he'd someday wrestle a raider chieftain atop a platform in a thunderstorm to save innocent ponies fighting for their lives below. He didn't see anything but just a future full of toil and sweat till eventually it all ended.

But now I was involved in the secret planning of a grand escape from the most inescapable slave fortress in the wastes. I had others around me, ponies who I had earned the trust and friendship of, ending over a decade of loneliness. Every good pony I had met had changed me, helped me move one step closer to true freedom of the mind. Really, it's their success more than mine. To think how short a time it had been, how much I'd been through, culminating on the battle against Barb's raiders. It's easy to forget, well, just how many of those small steps I'd taken amidst the mad rush.

But the game had changed. As much as we'd done our part, the true winner in the end had been The Master. His ambition, it...just terrifying. So much hate and sadistic will in one pony.

The stakes were growing, the need for escape becoming ever more important. That we had to just keep bounding forward, doing every little thing we could to swing the odds back in our favour. Every scrap of food, every drop of water, and every trinket, tool or tactic we could gather had to be taken in.

But as I said, even though I'd come so far so soon, there were still some things that I had to go back to. Some ponies that had been there in the very beginning. Before any of this, before even the Stable Dweller. Somepony who was still out there in Fillydelphia that mattered deeply to me and deserved escape. Somepony who didn't even know I was still alive.

But it all hinged on one fact. If Protégé didn't return to power soon, anypony I tried to help might simply end up being led into the clutches of The Master in the same way I was. I had to just trust he'd be alright. That the pony I had only just begun to see as a pony had not been taken from me forever.

It was still raining.

In this long neglected wing of Heart and Hooves Hospital, the windows had gone completely without repair since they were blown in by the Balefire megaspell. Allowing the rain to continue its foul lashing and spraying from a dark sky, and cast a chill wind through the empty frames. Alone in my hospital bed, I curled up with the meagre blanket and tried to keep as much of the cold away as possible.

At least the storm had passed over. I'd heard the slavers on guard inside the hospital saying that the rain should go soon as well. But until then I was stuck here, one of the last to leave. Glimmerlight and Brimstone had been returned to the Mall long ago, their less serious wounds 'permitting' them to return to work sooner. Given what Brimstone had endured, that thought was awe inspiring. He’d healed far faster than even Weathervane had predicted with the healing potions’ magic.

I, however, had the privilege of getting to rest a while longer.

I'd been waking up multiple times screaming, leaving me hazy and heavy-eyed when awake. The pain of the wound when I tossed or turned only skewing my nightmares to remind me of the sick puncturing feeling that I'd had now felt twice. I’d heard others say you were meant to get used to hardship and become weathered to it. If only. I just felt more scared of knives than ever. The sick looks of that raider or Barb as they let the weapon plunge into my flesh simply left me a shivering wreck now. Weathervane had called it 'psychological scarring', a wound that persists in pain even if the body has entirely healed. Something that could easily flare up when in fear of the initial attack happening again. Likely another thing to live with throughout my life.

But after the fear and adrenaline, my body was beginning to 'remember' the other ailments. My eye infection was worse, itching and making my right eye swell all the more. Blackened rings surrounded them still from the torture Barb's raiders had given me after running from Slit, leaving my face sore and aching. My nose felt blocked, no doubt having caught something in the storm and due to my immunity to illness being so low, which made it all the harder to have to breathe through my mouth. This was never easy, given the raspy burning that I got in my throat from overuse. Weathervane had dropped off my one remaining RadAway with a promise to try and find more spare, but the stocks were being carefully monitored now. I was trying to let it last till I really needed it. As such, more than once I'd endured the spasm-inducing coughing fits while recovering. Clutching a thin pillow to my empty stomach, I'd simply squeezed it as tightly as I could, trying to put all the pain and fear of radiation and taint away, trying to forget about the clock that was slowly ticking down the seconds of my life.

It hadn't worked too well. I needed out of this city.

The wind blew in again from the craterside window, lifting the tails of my blanket until I could clamp it down and roll up, but I lost my page in my journal. I'd been drawing, gently easing the lines out upon parchment to uphold a promise and attempt to distract myself. This wasn't going to be just another picture though. This had to matter. Caduceus...he had barely gotten to know us, but in even just a short, almost criminally forgettable time, he had proven himself a brave and kind buck. Now I'd never know his quirks, likes, or thoughts on various things. Never get to go to him for help or do him a favour like friends did. But he'd risked himself for us in the hope of being our friend. In the end, he deserved that place in our hearts.

I hoofed the pages back against the wind, coming to the growing piece of art that I knew he had to be in. Myself and Glimmerlight were upon it already, me in the bottom middle left, her just across from me to the right of the middle. It brought a little grin to my face, seeing the extravagant and beaming face I'd drawn her with, cheekily lowering her eyebrows in that look only she could really do. I decided to place him beside her, where he'd have wanted to be. Just to her left and slightly behind her with that gentlecolt-like polite stance and warm smile he'd had.

Struggling to remember, I let my subconscious do the work for me, gently swishing the charcoal in little tight curves for his body as I imagined it would have been had he not been stuck here. Bold flicks, like those confident little motions he would exude to me, formed his mane. Big and fluffy, not trodden down from months without cleaning. In honour of his dedication, I gave his saddlebag the symbol of Fluttershy's medical teams. Were they a Ministry again? My memory wasn't too great on that.

But his eyes...the moment I finished them, the charcoal dipped in my mouth. Seeing that happy look from the paper, knowing the this drawing would be the only way I'd ever truly see him again forever, that felt harsh. Glimmerlight could bring up memories, but those were hers, not mine. Even if she extracted some of my own for me, it was still just the past. What lay before me in my style was the end.

Another blast of wind scattered the pages again, making me mutter in annoyance when the charcoal got messed up on a correction of his mane. Leaning down to correct it, the page only flew up in my face, flicking madly back to earlier images. I almost froze as I saw one of my first pictures I could remember, one of the mare. I'd drawn her as reality showed her that time, with that long mane, ruined and straggled into a mess by slavery, the cut tail and hard worked body. She was looking up at the Wall, as though wishing to leave herself. If only I could get to her. I'd spent less than ten minutes around her, never knowing her name or anything. I hadn't even seen her cutie mark. I couldn't just leave her behind, could I? In such a short time, she had helped change my life. She had stood up to The Master for me. I dearly hoped she was still safe, somewhere out there.

Whistling, the wind once again threw the page over, ruining the moment of reflection.

“Oh f...f...fairycakes.” I slammed the journal shut. Sitting alone in this room while the healing magic slowly finalised its work wasn't doing me any favours. I felt lonely, miserable in the wet weather, and with only my own worried thoughts to really keep me company. As strange as it felt to a pony like me, who not long ago would have simply hidden and cried, I wanted somepony around. Anypony, just to feel a little safer. Even just a little trot through the corridors where others were might help better than dwelling in misery.

I wrapped the blanket loosely around my body, and carefully hopped off the bed. Keeping the hoof of my injured leg off the ground, I hobbled out of the ward; part of the blanket dragging behind me on the floor. Upon stepping into into the busy corridors I saw ponies cantering to and fro on errands for chems, medicine or to find somepony who knew a certain spell. I stuck to the sides, avoiding any rush or hurrying doctor. I could hear the rasping voice of Weathervane far off, clearly fighting to save somepony's life. The hospital was dark, the unreliable lighting and magic power inside having gone offline from the storm earlier. Candles were lit or curtains pulled back to let the little light Fillydelphia had back in. Right now, it all just felt like the deepest, harshest hole in the world that I was stuck in, surrounded by all the others who now cried or moaned in pain from its tortures. Nothing but one little hurt pony wrapped in a once white blanket, limping past the horrors.

Backing into a room to avoid a stretcher bearing a lifeless and scrawny mare past, I saw the nurse from, when I had last visited. She glanced at me, nodding briefly, before sadly continuing to carry the body around back. I'd smelled smoke earlier. A proper burial wasn't something any slave could expect. Already, no doubt Caduceus had been-

“Murky?”

I squeaked, jumping on the spot and stumbling against the doorframe. Spinning to inside the room, there were three beds. Two had bucks out cold, while the third contained a mare sitting up and looking at me. Coral Eve.

Her horn seemed to carry an irregular magical haze in the gloom, an unhealthy pale version of the full light I'd seen it carry before. Seeing my glance, she raised a tired looking wasted hoof to it, rubbing her own horn gently.

“Old case of horn rot years ago, dear. The wastes isn't without its own diseases compared to Fillydelphia. Been unreliable and prone to sporadic power surges since. Hey, you don't need to stand in the doorway. Come closer, it's alright.”

She patted the rather too large bed beside her, leading me to obey and wander forward. She definitely had a somewhat maternal tone to her, probably because I was a lot younger. Hopping up, she grabbed my good hoof to help me sit in my blanket beside her.

“Now, how're you doing?” Her voice was tender, mature, and pleasant; a far cry from the bitter mare I'd seen in the Mall. Was this what she was normally like?

I held my shoulder.

“It's sore. Doctor Weathervane says it shouldn't hurt since he healed it, but it still hurts...be-because my mind thinks it should.”

“Yeah, I've heard of that. You’ve been stabbed there before, dear?” Her hoof carefully moved the blanket aside to look at my shoulder, seeing the healed cut when I lifted the bandage up. It bore a tender red line, but otherwise was fine now.

A little bit of my coat had yet to regrow from where Weathervane had been doing his work. After glancing at it myself, I nodded, and motioned to the underside of my shoulder.

“One of Barb's raiders outside the Stable. Just pinned me down and...”

The feelings washed over me all again. I tried to look away, instead looking toward the rainfall outside the (surprisingly intact) window in this room. Even so, the thought of that lashing shower out there made me shiver. My skin still tingled from the exposure while playing Barb’s sick games. It was nothing more than a constant battle now that the adrenaline was over. A battle to not remember the spinning revolver and nerve-crushing tension on each dead click.

In a word, I felt simply traumatised. Part of me doubted I'd ever be truly able to 'get over' the twisted experience Barb put me through.

Much to my surprise, I felt Coral's hoof pass over me, tucking the blanket back around me. I guessed she had on account of mel still shaking so much. The older mare tried to smile, but just sighed instead.

“You shouldn't have been caught up in that. Not you. I've raised a colt, Murky. I know that look of innocence when I see it. That's why I forgave you for that day in here when we first saw one another. I could see the look my son once had when I caught him trying to steal medicine off a trader, to help an injury one of his little friends had. The look of somepony who doesn't deserve to be in such a place.”

Regardless, I still felt guilty, but I sensed an opportunity. She clearly didn't mind me individually. Perhaps if it came from me.

“We're all trying to get out, Coral. We're gathering what we can, we've got a plan, and Glimmer really wants you and your son to come with us. She doesn't care how you see her, but she just wants to save you.”

The mood swung, Coral's face screwing up as she fought to control her emotions and clearly short temper.

“That mare doesn't see anything past short-term satisfaction. A stiff drink, a quick rut or a splendidly overenthusiastic plan that'll end up hurting us all by the end of this. Look at how her working with Barb turned out, hm? He told us how you three were involved. Now I don't blame you. I know he'd have done it anyway, but she still agreed to it, believed in it. She never truly thinks about the consequences of her actions. She doesn't know how to commit, how to choose and stick to something. Give it a few days. She'll try something else with this 'plan', hell she's already wanting it to go from you three, to including swiping a colt from under Red Eye's nose and getting him and I out too?”

Coral snorted, tossing her ponytailed and braided mane, before wincing. Apparently some muscles along her back remaining injured.

“She's smart, brave and yes, even caring. But Glimmerlight isn't somepony you want to ever rely on for too long. It'll come down and hurt you in the end.”

The question was far too simple. It felt almost wrong to ask, but I couldn't stop it. The query had been burning in my head for too long.

“Coral, what did she do?”

Her pale grey face glanced back at me, as though trying to spot if this were some sort of ploy. I quickly spoke again.

“I won't tell her. I don't think she wants to find out like that anyway. I promise?” My voice died away as I spoke, but Coral Eve only sighed, shifting her weight to lie on her side.

“You know we're both from Creaky Hollow village. Middle of nowhere, a little spot that had just enough to sustain a small population. Safe, secluded; about as good as you can get out in the wastes if you don't have the caps to live in the big towns. We had our occasional problems with the wildlife, but we lived in relative peace. Never so much as had seen a raider if you'd been born there. Sometimes we took ponies in if they had something to offer. Glimmerlight did.”

The generator and other technical aspects. That I remembered from her projected memory.

“But she outed us, gave up where we were to Brimstone Blitz's clan. They'd been crawling around the dead forest we were in, so we just kept our heads down and covered any trails leading back. But it was no good. They came in the night. With fire and blade they sacked Creaky Hollow just like they'd done to the small resettlement in Ponyville. Turned out she'd snuck out in the night to meet one of them, led them right back to our village.”

“No!”

“I watched our elder get cut down as she pleaded with them. Saw friends and ponies I considered my family torn apart. Some of us fought back, maybe held off their vanguard for a few minutes. But then he arrived. The Dragon, your 'Brim’. They fought like they were possessed the moment he was around, tore anyone who resisted down and put them to horrible deaths. The rest of us? Sold to Red Eye.”

Coral sniffed sharply, just keeping a hard glare on my shocked face.

“She got what she deserved. They turned on her the moment they had what they wanted. Look at what just happened in the Mall. There's your proof of what I'm saying. If she feels she needs something, Glimmer won't think about the consequences. The only silver lining to it was the third betrayal, when Red Eye took in the raiders as well after trapping them in a minefield with snipers and alicorns. Serves them all right to be here.”

There were no words, none at all. But...I knew with all my heart that Glimmerlight wouldn't do that. There had to be a reason, there had to be! I curled up, resting my chin on my front hooves through the blanket. Really, I wasn't sure if I felt comforted by Coral's hoof stroking the back of my neck as though to calm me down.

“Look, maybe...maybe she's right and being in here's made her want to change or face up to her past, Murky. But her rash thinking has already helped one more raider hurt ponies again, and I'll bet she'll be back at the Mall right now stripping out the worst bits from her mind.”

Coral hesitated, then looked guilty, as though feeling bad for offloading so much on me. She gently squeezed around my shoulders.

“You can always come to me, I saw you fighting to save us, Murk. You're a good pony. But just be careful around Glimmerlight. You don't deserve to be hurt any more than you clearly already have been from Barb.”

It wasn't really helping. Glimmerlight was the best thing that had kept me going and staying happy. My big sister best friend forever. She'd been the first pony since I was a colt to hug me, one who had made me able to smile and laugh with her and helped make me more confident. To think that she'd...no, even if it were exactly how Coral said, that wasn't who she was now. I was sure of it.

“Murk!? Murk, where the bloody hell did you scamper off to?”

Weathervane's rasping tone shouted down the corridor, before his head poked in the door and saw us.

“There you are. They saw that eternal fucking rain's starting to let up out there. You're good enough to head back now, Mall's only on light duties, so they tell me you should be fine. Now come on, we'll need this room soon, so get back to your ward. We've got an accident from the FunFarm coming in within the hour. One of the old scaffolds fell. I told them they needed that ass-backward design tightened up two hundred and fifteen fucking years ago when I took Sundial there as a colt. I guess they didn't think this far ahead, but still. Tight-wadded cockwaffles.”

The ghoul wandered off, ranting and raving to anypony nearby that seemed willing to listen.

Biting my lip and trying to force down the feelings from even hearing the poor ghoul mention his son's name, I turned back to Coral and reluctantly pulled myself out of the blanket. I saw her eyes stare at my wings, bound up from Weathervane's attention. Clearly, the unicorn wasn't too used to the fact that I was a pegasus yet.

“S-sorry. I'll be careful, but I trust her, I really do. She's saved my life more than once, Coral. I wouldn't have been able to do what I did in there without her. She wants to make things better for you, so...will you come with us?”

It felt almost childish. To 'make up' for all this. But Coral Eve's eyes only remained hard, before losing the anger and just being replaced with exhaustion. She slumped back into the bed.

“Glimmerlight's actions put me, my son, and many of my friends in here, Murk. I'm sorry, but she's going to have to accept that I can't simply let that slide by easily or forgive her by words alone.”

I saw her wipe an eye.

“To have her be around the very pony I saw behead my friend. The one who dragged poor Jotter Note out and just pulled her head off, with her screaming, right in front of me. I'm surrounded by ponies that hurt me, betrayed me or punish me, Murky. I don't have a life any more.”

Her front hooves curled up her own blanket, clutching it as though it were a small foal inside it, almost out of habit.

“I was a mother. I had friends and family and a son and...a best friend. I had safety, and a peaceful life before I came here but now I...I don't have any of that. Now, I'm only surrounded by pain and bad memories. Everypony's been taken from me, even my best friend. Even my son.”

Not for the first time, I found myself at a complete loss as to what to do, what to say, or how to act in this circumstance. I'd seen the bitter and angry side of Coral but here, amidst the rain and darkness of a covered Fillydelphia, in the wake of barely getting away with our lives, I was seeing the pain that drove such a temper.

“I gave up on hope a long time ago, Murky. There's nothing left for me out there. My son is in here. He's all I care about seeing, my little boy...so I'm sorry if I don't seem more eager about you and Glimmer gathering an escape attempt. Especially with that raider. I want nothing to do with that beast.”

Standing beside the bed, I hopped up on my front hooves, pushing one forward to rest on hers. It was all I could really offer, a little show that, well...I felt sorry for her. A few tears dripped from my eyes. Coral glanced down at my hoof, before forcing a smile on her pained face, albeit a thin one, and rested her other front hoof above mine.

“Thank you, Murky. Please, don't feel shy to come by and say hello sometimes, alright? I'd like that. And...and when you see Glimmer, I...tell her, um...”

She seemed to sigh again, clenching my hoof tightly.

“Tell her that for all that's happened, I-I'm thankful for what she did there in the Mall. To help us. I can't forgive her, not yet, but it's...it's a step.”

“I will.”

“Thank you.”

I left the room slowly, dragging my blanket around me to make the journey back to my cold and lonely own ward. Casting one last look across to her, I just saw a forced small smile toward me. With a timid wave, I trotted into the corridor, feeling more than a little wretched as it began to hit home that virtually every slave in here would have a similar story.

To my elation, I saw my fleece still had the thin and light battle saddle strapped to it, albeit devoid of actual weaponry, back at my own bed. Weathervane must have dropped them off when he was trying to find me. Gently, I hobbled to the window and stared out at Fillydelphia. Two floors up in the hospital, I had a view of an absolutely hellish landscape, a skyline being drowned under the rain that was only slowly beginning to lighten off. I pulled the blanket tighter as the wind whipped through the empty window pane.

As such, I didn't even hear Weathervane enter over the sound of so many ponies outside.

“You're back here? Good, get into your things, Murk. It's time for you to go.”

The order weighed heavy on me. To have to leave this place of rest. I wasn't in any mood for more bad news. I just wanted to go and think after meeting poor Coral.

But I couldn't not ask.

“D-Doctor, is there any word on Protégé?” I played with my fleece in my hooves nervously.

He seemed to bite his rotting lips briefly, exhaling for a long time. Then he just shook his head and stamped forward, his magic pulling the blanket from around me.

“Everything I've heard down the line's not been good, kid. Poison, magical damage, nerve cluster severance, slit windpipe. You name it, it's pretty much happened. That slippery raider bastard knew his work like a Celestia-damned surgeon. Now come on, get into your fleece.”

I silently offered up a prayer for his recovery to Celestia, and Luna as well to see him through the nights. But the doctor's insistence was unnerving me. Surely they didn't need this place that urgently? Weathervane seemed to pace on the spot, as though eager to get going, before glancing out the window.

“I didn't call you back here for no reason, Murk. You need to be on your way, before he comes looking for you.”

“H-he?”

Weathervane's eyes closed, amidst a gurgling raspy sigh. He led me away from the window, quickly as though in a hurry, directing me toward the bed as his magic firmly slammed the ward door shut. Sitting beside the bed as though about to doctor for me again, the old ghoul just dropped his file on the surface before leaning on a hoof.

“You were with young Caduceus in there. He spoke highly of you and your friends. Naïve little boy, far as I was concerned, but he had talent. Kind of buck I used to have a dozen of in the old Ministry. Now he's gone, and fuck me if I don't feel it in what remains of my heart. Paternal instinct or some shit, I don't know.”

He was stroking his stringy beard, before glancing across to me.

“You were with him when he died, Murk. Glimmerlight told me about how you'd stepped up to help them at the last moment. Now it isn't my place to blame her for what Caduceus wanted to do or not. But she said you and Caduceus stuck together through most of the fighting.”

Well, technically that was true. It was mostly him pulling me along or keeping me in cover.

“So I guess, as a means of thanks, I feel I ought to tell you the hard truth here ahead of time.”

Weathervane seemed unwilling to meet my face. I shifted forward on the bed, trying to get his attention back.

“H-hard truth? Who do you mean by 'he?' N-not...”

The ghoul finally turned back, groaning and seeming rather internally angry. His eyes kept glancing to the door.

“I'm sorry, Murk. It goes against everything I am as a doctor to knowingly send somepony to harm. But since you've been here, Chainlink Shackles has assumed command of the Mall and its entire stock.”

I bit my lip, feeling a chill shoot down my spine.

“...including you.”

Weathervane's magic caught me before I fell off the bed, my limbs locking up and growing stiff under the pain of the drop. I'd imagined it, worried about it, had nightmares about it. But here was the confirmation that I'd dreaded since I saw that ambitious looking sick grin come across The Master's face after the battle. Feeling myself being held upright and slowly pushed to sit again, I let my head fall into my hooves. Those chains around my heart, upon my flank, embedded in my very soul felt like they were tightening ever more.

“The jury is out on Protégé back at Red Eye's headquarters, where they're keeping him in an unstable condition. Trying to decide if he's fit to continue after all of this. But until then, it's Shackles' call, and he's making the most of his time already. We've had reports already coming back from his work teams repairing the Mall. He's changing things, adding mesh fencing, digging isolation pits...turning it into a real nightmare.”

Oh Goddesses. Glimmer and Brimstone were already there.

“But he made it very clear to me last time I went to check the wounded. He wanted you back the moment you could walk or he'd come collect you himself soon once the rain stopped.”

He had me. He really had me now. I could tell it was hurting Weathervane to tell me this, but it was a warning. I felt him trot over, pulling bandages around my wings tightly, enough to make me squirm and squeak in pain. Any crying I had was cut off by his attentions and muttering. The damp bandages held firmly around my restored feathers.

“These are soaked in an old potion type we used to give pegasi with muscle problems in their wings. It's part of the first few stages to trying to see if you've not permanently lost movement in them.”

Oh! I turned my head to look at one, as though expecting to try to move it any instant, but I felt Weathervane's clipboard tap me on the head.

“Don't go bloody trying! Let the medicine do its work and stay off of them if you can! No fucking rolling, no fucking falling, and most fucking definitely no fucking squeezing around! The ligaments on your bones still need a lot of work, but if this medicine does its job after being a hundred years out of date...well, maybe it'll help reduce the pain in your muscles. Can't promise anything, of course. They won't flap, but we'll see. Now get your damned fleece on, the weather's easing off, you don't have long to get going.”

He was already throwing my sodden fleece to me. I hopped and struggled to get myself into it as fast as possible, feeling my body ache from the movements. It was still disgustingly damp and thick from soaked up rainwater, making me shiver and groan from the horrible feeling.

“Please, is there any way I can get away?! H-he'll...”

“I don't think you heard me, Murk.” Weathervane's voice was stern, gurgling away in his ruined throat. “I said you don't have long to get going.”

Outside, I could hear slavers wandering past the door before I caught Weathervane's milky eyes. Oh, that...that's what he meant...

But another sound broke through the thin wooden walls in this older part of the hospital. The sound of the main door being thrown open, coinciding almost freakishly with a roll of thunder from far in the distance away from Fillydelphia. Hopping to my hooves, both Weathervane and I stared at the ward's door, located almost right above the main entrance.

“You! The nurse, yes, you! Where's the little pegasus?”

“Who? Um...y-you mean-”

“The only wretched winged pony in the city! Number. Seven. Take me to him!”

“Yes! Yes, sorry! I will!”

Slowly backing away toward the window, I caught myself filled with terror. He was here! Oh Goddesses, I could hear his hooves on the wooden flooring! Could I do this? Defying The Master, at least until Protégé was back to keep myself safe? If he caught me...

The sound of Fillydelphia's balefire siren wailing amidst my last attempt to evade him was still too fresh. The feeling of pursuit brimmed with terror and a lack of real confidence in myself. All the same, what choice did I have? I couldn't let him get me. I couldn't.

He'd almost broken me forever in under an hour before. He'd brought a strong mare like Sunny Days to terror. I couldn't last till Protégé got back, not under him.

Weathervane spun to me, shoving my saddlebag over me.

“Come on, kid! They won't dare take him somewhere else, we've got to fucking move!”

I had to get going. He was right. This was my only chance to stay away from The Master. Grabbing everything I could, finishing putting on my fleece and strapping on the saddlebag, throwing my journal and goggles into the bag quickly, I hopped from the bed and almost fell from my shoulder aching terribly on the spot.

The Master’s heavy tread thumped within the creaky building.

“Hurry, you cretin! You think I have all day? Take me to my property.”

His hooves were coming upstairs! Pulled up by Weathervane, we moved into the corridor. The stairs were on the right, a large shadow forming around them. Quickly, Weathervane pushed me to go back down the corridor out of the ward. I couldn't move like him. Limping, feeling my leg seize up and the cuts across my back sting under the damp fleece, I trailed badly. One large cough sent me staggering. Weathervane moved back to try and pull me, but every heaving step felt slow. I...I couldn't properly stand.

“Come on, Murky!” He rasped, “I told you, it’s psychosomatic! It’s just in your head, your leg works fine!”

I wasn't going to make it. I could hear him coming up! I ahd to do something, our line away had been cut.

Dropping, I tugged myself behind a filing cabinet in the hallway, pressing my back to it before The Master entered the ward’s corridor. I could barely fit behind it, and waved Weathervane away.

“T-this is his ward, Master.”

The door was slammed open again. I heard Weathervane trot into the ward three doors down. The Master would surely know to come to him if seen, so the Doctor wisely stayed hidden.

“Rest's over, Number Seven! Time to come play.”

The horrid waiting that followed was punctuated only by a wretched silence. The Master was brutal, loud, and imposing. But when he was silent. Slowly, I only heard the growing, bubbling, and throaty scowl under his breath. He was in the room. I had a chance! Moving as quiet as I could, using everything I knew to stay unheard, I began to creep toward where Weathervane waited. If he came out now...

“Heard me coming, eh? Oh, I know you can hear me, Number Seven! You can't run forever, not from me! Now come out, your Master demands you come out!”

The words slapped across my mind, a life of instinctive response kicking in that led me to stop on the spot. The everlasting chain and the born slaver for the born slave. He was my rightful Master by birth and...and...

Weathervane grabbed me, dragging me with all his magical might down the corridor, a flare of his horn dulling much of the pain. I almost skidded my hooves before reality caught up. The Master's spell of mental trickery broken, I began to panic and run after the doctor. No time to sneak!

“I HEAR you!”

The horrid thumping of those massive hooves pervaded the crunch of the nurse being knocked aside. The chase was on! We tore down the wards, the sound of dragging chains and bellowed commands following in our wake. Weathervane threw a supply door open with his magic, pulling me inside and locking the door behind us.

“Come on! There's a back stairwell to the lower operating room below! Fuck sake he's determined...but no more. I'm not letting one more fucking pony get taken by him if I can help it!”

We were halfway down the thin stairwell when the door was smashed asunder. The ponies within the operating theatre were already in the middle of something, prompting many complaints and curses as their senior surgeon and myself galloped past. I fought to not let the edges of my vision blur from terrified and panicked tears, simply following Weathervane. Bursting out into the main corridor, he led me to a back supply room for the bedsheets. Knocking open the window, Weathervane began throwing piles of musty bedding out of it and down the large drop into the courtyard. We could hear The Master screaming and demanding the ponies tell him where we'd gone. I doubted they'd lie. Pushing me to the window, Weathervane knelt down, looking me eye to eye.

“Find who you can to help. Keep away till Protégé's back and this cuntknuckle's gone. I'll leave my basement open if you ever need me. Stay low, kid.”

Hope was falling, but there was one little thing to hold onto for now. Weathervane was foul, rude, aggressive, and lacking in pleasant nature, but he'd done nothing but help since the day I'd met him. Even after everything he'd gone through over two hundred years of hell, after everypony he'd lost. A little spirit of goodwill emerged in me, potentially the last for a while. I hopped to all fours, facing him and trying to put on a smile, my mane flopping over my face.

“Th-thank you! For everything, I mean-you're...I mean, I really appreciate all you've done for me!”

A little look in his eye stood out to me, like he'd been shocked ever so briefly. Curious, I tilted my head. The doctor just shook his head and then nodded it toward the window.

“Nothing. Just a little deja fuckin'vu. Now scram, son. Stay off those wings and keep away from any trouble. Just hope your best that Protégé will be back soon. Stay safe till then.”

Even as I clambered onto the windowsill and saw the looming drop, I glanced back at him. I could see a small photo clipped to the top of his patient records clamped to his decaying uniform.

Clearly Coral wasn't alone with that kind of pain.

“Number Seven! You know it's pointless!”

“Go!” Weathervane pushed me.

Yelping, I fell, tumbling the twenty feet until feeling the breathtaking slap of the mattresses under me. Saved by the cushioned landing, and fighting to try and gallop off the bouncy surface, I flopped my way to the gravel. I heard the sound of a doorway being thrown open above me.

“What are you fucking doing here? Have you no respect for a hos-”

The sound of somepony being smacked across the face hard echoed from the room. I galloped away, running through the hospital gates. Diving into the nearest old crater, I curled up, ignoring even the small puddle that stung and burned my coat.

“You can't run forever, Number Seven! You know who is meant to own you! It's all you're meant for! I'll find you! Oh, I'll find you!”

I whimpered, covering my ears, but bellowing from the window, knowing I was out here, close by but having escaped for now. But he knew...

“Leaving your friends with me now, eh? What a proud pony you must be, galloping off and leaving them! You'll be begging me to take you in someday, Number Seven! BEGGING!”

Crying loudly, sticking to the shadows, I simply ran away. Scared, guilty, and unable to even deny it, I just ran, alone, into the growing darkness of a storm-tossed Fillydelphia, The Master's cackling laughter at my back.

The area around me, although within a hundred feet of the refinery I'd worked so many days in, felt like an entirely different city.

Trotting on three legs, hobbling my way slowly on tired muscles, I stuck to the shadows as best I could in the darker areas of Fillydelphia, sweating and praying that I didn't hear the shout behind me. I needed somewhere quiet to go to ground.

The storm had passed, but the thick black clouds seemed to dominate the sky, leaving Fillydelphia in an almost perpetual night. I passed factories pulsing internally with an orange glow, pits that cast light around their mesh tops, and saw the burning barrels around where the guards stood in their roosts.

What now? I had ran into the night, but soon the hunt would be on. I needed somewhere to go.

No, not somewhere to go. Somepony to go to. Loneliness began to eat at me, the same I'd felt every time I'd been separated and left to fend on my own. But I had no-one. They were trapped, all of them within The Master's clutches. Guilt churned in my stomach, even though I knew they would want me to do this.

The area was deserted, likely due to the threat of continued rain, leaving me alone in a small park amongst blackened, long-dead trees. Shadows stretched like crooked fingers across the ground, enveloping and twisting upon the irregular breezes. I didn't want to linger in this strange, darkened side of Fillydelphia too long. Barb was gone, but the shadows still seemed to promise vengeance. The horrid wonder if I'd even killed the right Barb still taunted me. He'd cheated death at least twice before my eyes.

Hooves quaking, I picked up the pace, clattering back onto old roads that would, if I followed it, lead me back behind the pegasus airport I'd visited so long ago in a quest for my journal. I'd been alone then as well.

Eventually, feeling my shoulder aching, I stopped and dropped into hiding behind a series of large rubbish tips. I felt tired, but I couldn’t stay here. The slavers would be looking for me. I was now a runaway trapped inside the Walls! I needed some place to stay! To be able to sleep, and to find food! Even in my hiding spot here, I could hear slavers galloping in the distance. Slavers always ran around, but how was I to know what they'd be hunting for? Was it me? Would every slaver know my face? Would slaves be offered a reward to turn me in?

Kneeling down, I did the only thing I knew I could to wish for help. Taking off my weighty saddlebag and calmly sitting my journal safely atop it, I gently set my front hooves before me. Lowering my head to them, I simply asked Luna for aid in this dark night, sniffing and having to repeat words lost as my voice began to heave amongst tears. To seek the strength from above that I could stand this rampantly lonely path I'd been set until Protégé was well again.

“Please. I just need somepony.”

The wind picked up, just like in the hospital. Following a squeak of shock from me, the journal blew open, flickering madly from beginning to end. Reaching out a hoof, I stamped it down, stopping the pages, only to find the one pony I did have left staring back.

The mare, smiling so kindly off the page. The first pony I'd met in here who had been nice to me. Who had been there even before Littlepip. She was still out there. I didn't even remember doing this picture! Likely from my maddened rush of drawings from just before the Pit. At a loss for all direction or hope, about to be hunted by the entire city if they had to, I had been shown the one pony I could go to!

Picking up my materials, I immediately made tracks toward the place this had all began.

I had to return to the FunFarm, hopefully before The Master figured it out too.

There was a horrible suspicion in my mind that I wasn't the first one to think of it.

It took some degree of courage. I knew the way, the exact place to go to, and even remembered who to look for. But to actually take step after step and return to where it had all started held enough emotion for me that as I came closer, my mind ran with conflicting fears and apprehension.

To go back to the place I'd spent the most time in during my stay here. Whiplash had been the first I really remembered being around. Before that it had just become a blur. I didn't even remember where I’d been before that. Only that eventually I ended up in the pigsty so quickly that it had shocked me to wake up there after my first night under him.

I took the only route I remembered to that side of Fillydelphia. The same one The Master had dragged me down in humiliation after my grand failure. Trotting it in reverse, sticking in the darkness by the side of the better lit main roads, it felt painfully lonely. There were others, there always were. But compared to the crowds that had galloped from their places of rest, work, or defence to watch a pegasus be displayed as a prisoner, the few huddled groups still around made it feel empty. Clustered around burning barrels in the ruins of mills and shops, slaves shivered in the wind, or stared with lost and hopeless eyes at anypony passing by. A mare followed me with a deathly gaze, one eye long lost to a large and clearly infected scald across her face and muzzle. Whimpering and tearing my eyes away, I maintained my advance across Fillydelphia to find my destination. Not once while travelling this city did I ever fail to be stunned by the sheer scale of the suffering in here.

It was easy to believe. I was part of it.

The FunFarm was not particularly difficult to locate once in the area I recognised. Even at night, I spotted certain signs or buildings to guide me. I passed the last workshop the mare had been chained to, where she had stood up to The Master. Wicked Slit's factory loomed on the next street over, smoke belching from the one hastily patched chimney to join the thick black clouds above. After that it was easy. The road I had walked a hundred times to and from the places of work felt all too achingly familiar under my hooves. Even that one guard on the gantry above that ran from factory to housing where slavers stayed seemed to watch me as he always had. Staring at him, I almost blundered into an advancing caged wagon carrying a dozen ponies looking terrified beyond measure. Newly acquired ponies about to learn what it was to become slaves.

I tried to look neutral, not to look in a hurry or guilty of anything. I dearly hoped they hadn’t been informed to look for me yet.

But then I was past, the guard turning away, and there it was. The giant barn, the helter-skelter's multi coloured top, a wrecked rollercoaster...the landmarks stood out above the houses as a clear direction. Soon enough, I found myself at the busy main entrance to the fenced FunFarm. Looking in from the main road, my eyes couldn't help but spot the Petting Zoo den near the entrance over the scrap wall. I wouldn't have to head there. If Noose or Lemon saw me I doubted they would welcome me all too well.

That thought was odd. I'd faced down a raider chieftain, why did they still scare me? Why was that feeling still in my breast and making my heart pump faster?

The answer, it seemed, was familiarity. I could feel my body falling into the same routines, the same consistent obedience. Even as I trotted forward, I found myself headed for the barrier gateway that made it easier to go right to the Petting Zoo, even though I had to head the other way.

Of course...it was still there. The one mocking imagery that had repeatedly unnerved me that sat near the mirror I had once gazed at the ruin of my own body in. The waving form of Pinkie Pie was still going. Still noisily creaking that arm to wave its endless goodbye at anypony passing by the front of the FunFarm.

Shivering at the odd standee, I pushed into the FunFarm. This place had grown since I was last here, with slaves now taking cover under most of the carnival stands in groups of four or five. A wealth of accents gave rise to the very clear notion that Red Eye's reach was indeed expanding. But I had only one objective. I knew where she resided, and where I would find her. I even still knew the shifts for the FunFarm dens off by heart, back when I'd never dared miss a single one. The bumper plough den would be in a rest period right now.

Unable to stop myself, after testing my hoof on the ground and finding the confidence to use my shoulder again, I began to move at a canter toward it. Passing the Hall of Mirrors where I had once prepared my daring escape, I simply tunnel visioned myself to find her. Yet as I passed the Hall, a faint sound of crying began to eek into my ears from it. Some slave had run off to cry. I knew the feeling.

Trying my hoof on the ground a little more, I found that my shoulder didn't hurt that much now if I really thought about who I was going to see! Just remember, psy...cocoloco-ian scars, or whatever the fancy word he'd used was! Up ahead, the sheltered area began to appear. A simple shallow pit covered by a wooden roof lined with mesh. To think she'd been this close the whole time I'd been in the Petting Zoo!

Cantering up, I stuck to the side and ducked behind the game stands lining the wall toward the den. Sticking to shadows, passing by the half sleeping overseer was no problem provided I stick behind the stands, close to the outer wall of the FunFarm. I didn't dare allow anypony else to see me right now. With trepidation, I leaned forward, poking my head around. Oh please let her be here!

I saw the slaves lying upon pathetically thin rugs on the concrete floor, perhaps a couple dozen at most. Carefully, I scrutinised each one, not knowing how she might have changed since. Every boil-infested and half-choking slave I cast my eye across held no resemblance, a buck there, a mare too tall afterwards. Disappointment after disappointment. A group were mingled at the back, talking quietly in the far corner, leaving me unable to see them all. Well, one thing for it.

I advanced, slipping into the slave den as though I was one of them and limping (all too realistically) between those suffering nightmares in their sleep. Worry began to cross my mind. If the overseer woke up, I might end up trapped as one of his crew, simply for The Master to come pick me up.

Taking a sharp breath, I spotted someone. A cream mare! She looked up as I passed, but under the oil that stained her mane I saw a bright green. Backing away, apologising for staring profusely, I set another slave off swearing madly when I tripped over his slumbering form.

“Shit! Watch it, pal!”

“I'm sorry! I'm so-no, no!”

Despite my waving hooves, I was bucked off him, landing just short of the far group and clutching my shoulder. Okay... that was definitely real pain that time. Why was it always my poor shoulders and hooves? The group turned to me, revealing two ponies that had been hidden to my sight. The view of a light-orange mane grabbed my eyes, forcing me to stagger up. The wide, gentle, and hurt eyes stared from behind a mask of burns that had torn the features from their face.

Oh please no...

“Hey-uh-buddy, you alright? Never seen-uh, you before.”

It was a stallion. The burns were so severe that I hadn't been able to tell by facial features alone. That meant she wasn't here.

But if she wasn't here that meant she'd been moved or somepony had got here first.

I remembered the ponies I'd heard running quickly by me.

“We often will meet people only briefly, know so little about them and never know the truth. Fleeting glimpses and random luck to bring two ponies together, never to meet again.”

Some of the last words she'd said to me after saving my life in this very FunFarm from that very rollercoaster were of how unlikely we were to ever meet again. The nameless mare, the first kind face I'd ever seen in Fillydelphia.

Gone...

Dropping into a small heap upon the floor of the Bumper Plough pit, I just curled up, feeling unable to avoid simply falling back into my old familiar emotional reaction I'd spent weeks in this very FunFarm doing. That same feeling of helpless loss and inability to change something that my masters had done, exuded through a few sobbing tears. Even as other slaves scoffed or offered confused queries, I just ignored them before eventually galloping off past the bewildered overseer, my eyes tightly closed.

She wasn’t here.

I was still alone.

I'd hidden in an old food tent, ducking behind the counter until the moment had passed, simply staring at her picture before me, feeling like a piece of my newfound heart had simply been lost. A certain hope, just gone. I'd run away from my Master, seeking to avoid him for as long as possible within Fillydelphia until Protégé could protect me again. I'd had one pony that mattered I could go to! One pony I could take with me and hide with together! Once Protégé was around we could join him to keep her safe too!

But no...even as I drifted from the food tent, drained and feeling my hopes crushed, I just aimlessly wandered. Not wanting to just give up and retreat to whatever dark hole I could find to make my home, I kept trying to pretend that maybe she was just on an odd shift! Maybe she'd be back soon? Passing the helter-skelter, where I had learned to laugh and imagine better days, I eventually began to slowly and vaguely return to the gates; my eyes still wet. Even so, I took the long way, trotting in the slim hope she would return any minute.

Every mare I passed my eyes darted to, uncaring if they felt weirded out by me staring carefully for any familiar sign. Who was I kidding, I didn't know her name or even her cutie mark! I'd never looked or hadn't remembered. Even my drawings were just blank. With Glimmerlight, Brimstone, and soon to be even Coral out of reach; with the loss of Protégé and with the failure of my trip, I felt desperately lonely. The thought of going back to being on my own to deal with all of Fillydelphia's problems in a constant running battle to avoid everypony terrified me beyond compare.

Every so often I would spy a certain mane or hear a chime of a voice, prompting me to gallop backwards and try to find her. I even crept near the Petting Zoo once, before quickly departing the moment I heard Whiplash's commands start up. He wouldn't let a sighting of me go unknown.

I had travelled here for one reason and one reason only. To meet her. I couldn't just leave. I needed this to be true! She couldn't be gone! Not after Caduceus had just been taken like he was! Not somepony else! It wasn't fair! From place to place, den to den, and all the way from the ice rink in the Pit to the House of Mirrors beside me now, nothing but constant heartbreak as I began to gradually realise that Fillydelphia had claimed another victim.

The scream caught me so off guard that I felt myself join in.

Frozen on the spot in shock, I quickly pieced together the location of the sound; from the place of crying earlier.

The Hall of Mirrors.

But it had been a female scream! What if some slavers were trying to...oh dear. Somepony must have found that poor pony in there trying to hide! I felt my hooves wanting to flee, but in the wake of what I had been through, what I had seen other ponies give their lives to do, I could not run in shame, not now. That and one little hope still pervaded in my mind.

I couldn't fight. Even after Barb I knew I couldn't. But if I could maybe distract them and let somepony get away it would be enough. It had to be.

Steeling my heart and hopping into the main entrance, I found myself immediately surrounded by fractured shards of glass displaying twisted and broken sights of myself. Wooden ponies, carved to be like Pinkie Pie, giggled on the walls. The paint was peeling from her face, leaving a horrific, almost clown-like look.. I trotted quietly on, advancing into the darkness that swelled within the abandoned building. Hearing loud crying, gasping, and a fading whimper; I began to highly regret not having Rarity's Grace any longer. What if I was too late? What had the attacker done? I had to speak, I reasoned, I had to startle them to stopping, then creep around them.

“H-hello?”

The whimpering ceased on the spot. Instead, I heard somepony breathing quietly, trying to stay quiet. Hooves began to fall as quietly as they could. They were trying to ambush me as well! Just hold on, whoever you are.

Around me, my reflected self expanded or shrunk to skeletal sizes (more than usual) while I crept across the broken glass that surrounded my hooves. The darkness seemed to warp with the strange mirrored surfaces everywhere, giving the distinctly odd feeling I'd found when Barb had stalked me.

What if a Shade had escaped? It might be one of them! I could still hear the crying near the centre, the hooves having stopped. Soon after, the crying stopped the moment my hoof scuffed a shard, making a small tinkle. I imagined a knife being held to their throat. No, they couldn't! I was going to help them. If I couldn't get the mare back I was going to help somepony! Be it her or not!

Emerging to the one spot I had once sat and prepared for the bravest act I had ever made in my life until then, I now couldn't even dare poke my head around. Instead, pulling my little mirror on a stick out, I lay it gently around to use the wall mirrors and try to spot any movements in the shadows.

Nothing. Nothing in the main room at all.

What had I gotten into? They weren't in the centre. That meant they were creeping around the corridors somewhere, hidden behind a mask of reflections. Stepping gently back, I turned to face out, moving past a wall of mirrors and-

The shape of a pony in shadows came directly at me from behind. I screamed, high-pitched and shocked as I kicked up glass in my rush to run from the shadowy figure. A great cry pierced my ears as I saw it suddenly move too. Charging backward, another pony ran directly at me. Immediately, we both skidded to a halt and dove to the left in perfect sync. Stopping to try and spot them again, I simply felt dizzy amongst this maze. Suddenly, another scrawny figure galloped across three surfaces around me, their hooves sounding from somewhere completely different.

I moved again, squealing in shock as that pony from before re-appeared beside me and dove away at the same moment I did. Which was the attacker? Wait, which was my reflection? Confusion and fear drove me to simply buck the glass until it broke and put my back to it. That other figure zipped past once more, a ghost shown only in the mirrors about me, leading me to head in the other direction to avoid whoever it was hunting me.

Galloping, I ran-

Directly into them behind me. Colliding heads, we both fell over. My vision whirled, seeing stars as my scar ached at the collision. Falling, I even felt shards of glass nip at my side through the thick fleece. But the pony dropped atop me, prompting me to thrash when their hooves pushed and struggled to pin me. Rolling end over end, we fell back into the main room before throwing one another apart. They weren't very strong, I realised! They had to be another-

-slave.

Eyes adjusting to the darkness quickly, I caught the whirling sight of somepony staggering backwards and tripping into the broken mirrors of a far wall, holding their head while they got up.

While she got up.

A dirty mane whipping round to reveal her eyes locked around at me, squinting to see me in the darkness.

“Who-who's there!? Who is that!? Leave me alone!”

It was her!

Oil-stained and ash-marked, I still recognised the long mane, light-orange and tinged with faint red streaks above a cream coat that had been soiled and dirtied by a life of slavery. Her golden-hazel eyes were wide, filled with terror, staring across the room without blinking from where she now leaned against the wall.

“It's alright! It's-it's me...”

Feeling my mouth gape and my heart both freeze and lift at the same time, with nerves and a desire of absolute elation and relief, I stepped out of the shadows that I had blended in with. Across the room, amongst mirrors that threw our reflections onto both floor and walls amongst the shards, I saw her simply stare in disbelief.

“Murky?”

A few hesitant trots and rubbing of eyelids took place, both of us almost unwilling to believe in the good fortune of another meeting, of us finally finding one another again after so long. After both believing the other had been gone for good.

Five seconds felt like five days in Fillydelphia, for how long it took our minds to catch up and realise.

Before we both simply ran forward, staggering and desperate for mutual comfort amongst the darkness, falling into one another's thankful and relieved embrace.

As much as I would have wanted to simply hold this moment and lose track of all the pain and nightmares the outside world held, we split soon after. Moreso for I could feel her shivers. She was terrified of something. Settling back, the mare gathered herself, holding a hoof across her opposite front leg.

“Are we safe? I heard you scream and-and I thought somepony was-”

“No, no I'm alone. Murky, I-what are you doing here? I thought you were...I mean I heard about the riot in the Mall and executions and...”

She stopped, wiping away the long mane from her face. The mare had shrunk since I last saw her, starvation beginning to set in as it did with everypony in here. We were just two weakened ponies together now.

“I got away from The Master. I had to find you, let you know I'm still here and-and to get you out of here. He'll be coming soon! I had to know you're still safe.”

She smiled, apparently out of relief, reaching forward to take one of my hooves, as though seeking physical proof that it was indeed me before her. It quickly occurred to me that everything I'd learned about sneaking about to stay safe could frighten somepony who saw my vague shape creeping around. She must have seen my reflection too and run from it. In a weird way, it was almost funny. We'd both been scared of the others reflection. Now, settled with her proof, the mare sighed.

“It's so simple to say and easy to understate but, I'm so glad you're alive. Why are-what did you-oh, sorry I'm...”

Flustered was the word. Even without me saying anything she shivered, drawn and pale while her eyes kept glancing to the sides at the mirrors. Looking around, I moved closer and held her hoof. She'd helped me enough, I wasn't going to let this be one-sided any longer. She looked like absolute hell, her eyes drawn from lack of sleep and overwork. But more than any they had that same look I'd seen in a mirror so many times. The one I gave when I had been shocked or frightened more than normal.

“What happened to scare you? I heard you crying earlier I think, then a scream and just galloped in and I thought somepony had caught somepony else or something.”

The mare felt quiet, eyes looking to the floor. We were absolutely alone in the empty halls, my ears would hear anypony on this messy floor. What had scared her?

“I come in here sometimes to get away sometimes, just to avoid the others who steal my food. I can't stop them so I just stay away from the fighting by creeping off here to let it out sometimes. Or to think about, well, you know. How I’m going to go about finding him”

It was clear who she meant, her lover. I even saw the sad look in her eyes that told all. She still hadn't been reunited with her special somepony, the one who meant so much to her.

“I'm sorry.”

“They told me I'd see him again, Murky. The slave master who organised those of us being sent to the Pit even told me he'd make sure he was sent back to me afterwards! But...but that's not what scared me. I came in here to get away and I think I bumped one of the mirrors and...”

I'd never seen her this unsteady. She had always been so gentle and carefully held. But I followed her eyes to the side and felt a cold stab through my heart.

She was looking directly at the mirror that I had long tried to forget. The one that my tired and terrified mind had once seen something other than myself in. Hidden in here, preparing to make my escape, I had touched the same mirror she undoubtedly had now. It had shown me my own image as a little colt, wings outstretched and looking with naïve eyes yet to be burdened by the life he would lead.

“That mirror, Murky! That mirror! It shows us at our worst! Something unnatural that gets into your very soul; I can feel it! I saw myself with him, only he wasn't there.”

The mare turned, a brief flare of a temper arising to scowl at the dark glass. Slowly, she began to trot toward it.

“It was just me, acting as though I had somepony I dearly cared about right beside me without any image of them there at all! Leaving me with just the horrid realisation that after so long in this city it's all starting to blur together! I‘ve forgotten so much, Murky, like they're just beating it out of my mind through illness, starvation and-and just being locked into the same thing day after day after day!”

Stamping a hoof on each repeated term, she finally raised up, smacking a hoof against the mirror hard. The fragile looking glass shimmered but remained solid, knocking the mare back a foot. Gasping, like she'd just come up from drowning in cold water, her eyes returned to it, seeing herself standing to one side. While I didn't know if she saw something I didn't, the space to her left was utterly empty, as though somepony else could have been standing with her.

“But it's starting to do that to my memories of him as well, Murky. It's like everything I know about him is just fading and blurring before my eyes! What he looked like or his name, like my memories are just falling apart and getting harder to remember!”

Standing off to the side, I saw her face in the mirror, lines down her face where the tears had moved through the ash below her eyes. Her eyes were lit with anger, frustration, and outright heartbreak. Heedless of the cursed mirror, staring right at it, pacing on the spot, the mare continued letting out all the pain and anguish Fillydelphia had brought to her. One hoof on the frame, her face came to within inches of the surface, glaring as though in hatred at her own mirrored image.

“What have they done to me, Murky? Is it the work in here? Or has somepony taken my only memories of the buck I loved and made it so I don't know it? Have I just forgotten? The mare I saw in that thing wasn't who I am anymore, maybe a long time ago. Why can't I just have him back? Why can't I remember!?”

Almost resting her face on the mirror, I saw her shoulders quake. One mare, alone with her reflection, one she had apparently shared with somepony else dear to her long ago. Goddesses, how long had she been in Fillydelphia?

Meek and nervous, I stood nearby, out of the gaze of that mirror. But seeing her like this, every instinct led me to wander forward, trotting up, out of the shadows, to be by her left hand side and place a hoof on her shoulder before looking at ourselves in the mirror. Myself as the wasted slave in a threadbare fleece with a light utility saddle; and her, clad only in a thin short rag, beside me. Two slaves reflected upon the reality of themselves. We'd both been hurt, but at least I could understand what she saw. The mirror had shown the same thing for me. A pony I no longer was.

“Y-you're not alone. I'm still here. I know what it's like. I don't remember my mother. They made me forget her too, long ago.”

I was shocked internally, to admit that to somepony I'd known so briefly. But it was the mare. Somehow I just knew she needed to hear it. Glancing to one another, we simply moved closer again, hugging lightly until she could stem her tears. Before, I had felt cared for by her. Now after knowing what friendship really was, I knew I had to care in return, give my share of comfort.

Share and care...okay, you win this round, Pinkie.

But I had not come here without reason. The Master knew about her, understood she was a way to force my hoof. We had to go, escape into the night together, and hide until somepony better was back in charge! I couldn't leave her to be just another victim in The Master's rampage to find me. Stepping back, I drew myself up, finding her not actually more than an inch or two taller than myself.

“Look, I've found other ponies, good ponies. I'm so sorry I failed and scared you but...”

I looked from side to side, before returning, conspiratorially to her tearstained face, placing a hardened look as best I could on mine.

“We're getting out of here. We have a plan! There's a nicer master. He'll take better care of all of us until we can do it! I want you to come with me. Please. I can't leave you behind. I don't think I'd be able to escape to safety and know you're still in here, but we need to get you away from the FunFarm. You. You and I. We'll go hide in the ruins!”

She seemed stunned, looking at me as though she was seeing an entirely new pony than the terrified wretch she'd met not so long ago, being dragged by The Master through the streets. But she still shook her head.

“I can't. Not without him. We were both going to escape, or neither of us was. That's what we said to one another. I'm so sorry, Murky. I need to learn who he was, and why I feel like he meant so much to me. He was strong, and dedicated to finding freedom before I lost him. We always looked out for one another, stole food together, or shared the punishments. I can't abandon him. I know you're trying but-”

“Then...” I felt awful interrupting her, trying to fight down that she had done the one thing I had been unable to less than an hour ago. “Then, we'll go get him first!”

The mare just blinked, silently repeating my words as though confused by the very meaning of them. I stood my ground, trying to keep what courage I had been lent by proving myself against Barb from faltering. I'd run through an underground ghoul bunker, two Ministries and a Stable. I could do this...right?

“The big Fun Barn, the slaver headquarters. It's got all the details of slaves involved in stuff like the Pit, right? It has to! They're still repairing it since the Stable Dweller wrecked a whole bunch of it so we...we get in and find out where he is! And...”

Another thought crossed my mind. Her buck wasn't the only pony we could look for in there. One more I knew myself was inside.

“...and somepony that matters to me is inside there too, badly hurt. I need to see him.”

“Another slave?”

I paused for a second, before nodding.

“Yes...yes he is. We can go together and find them both, then escape! Wait for a better time and get back to the others, and get ready to break out of Fillydelphia!”

Lightly stomping a hoof on the floor, carefully avoiding the glass, I felt the saddle's mouthpiece whip out rather by accident. My eyes glanced down at it, before retracting it slowly. Well, didn't that just ruin the grandeur of the moment.

But the mare seemed to not care for it. She simply stood before me. Finally, that wonderfully caring and kind smile drifted across her features, if a little weak. The hope returned to her expression.

“I don't know where you came from, Murky, but I'm so glad I met you. Remember what I said? That good attracts good in places of great evil? Well, you met me when you were at your worst and now here you are when I was in despair. They say that's harmony at its greatest; that there'll always be a friend willing to help you, no matter how dark it seems. Are-are we really going to try and do this?”

I had asked myself the same question a thousand times since I had first met her, in regards to everything. But here, now, back at the start with the mare that I hadn't stopped thinking about in some way to meet again. I knew I wouldn't abandon her to her plight. We were going to go in, find her lover, find Protégé to let him know that I was avoiding Shackles, and then see if he had anypony he knew who could help us. Yes! I had a direction again. A goal to chase after until we could get back on track! Oh yes, we were doing this...

“Yes...I guess we are...oh and-”

She glanced back at me properly, rather than just through the mirror's reflection.

“T-thank you. It's been so hard and I've been so scared since I saw you. Below the ground in the dark or having my dreams crushed but you helped me be able to do any of it. Things you said stayed with me. So, thank you.”

She smiled gently, clearly trying to force her own fears back.

“It's not been easy for me either, Murky. I don't think I could have kept going on my own if you taking a run at that wall hadn't inspired me to want to show that same courage. The little brave pegasus who risked it all for just one impossible chance. But we're back together now, ready to help each other. Each the other’s little light in the darkness right now, huh? Filly doesn’t feel natural under this storm. It’s like some dreamworld. A nightmare. Sometimes I just get this feeling like this city has something very wrong with it at its core.”

That was true. Times had changed now. Amidst my new threat to stay away from the Mall as much as I could, the entire city suddenly felt lethal. For a second, the idea of going right into the lion's den simply felt insane. But both of us needed something in there, something bad. Without Protégé's protection, I was done for in the long term. Without closure on those she had lost, I doubted she would last much longer either.

“Y-yeah, it is. I think we should go, before anypony else comes looking. I'm not meant to be here, The Master wants me back.”

“Oh, Murky. I'm so sorry. So yes, let's get moving and get this done. We'll properly catch up when we're all together and safe.”

She began to move toward the exit, but I hesitated, casting one more look at the mirror as though expecting to see something else within it. But I only saw the mare trotting away from me. She was limping, clearly nursing some strain or wound, but despite all the terror knowing of the monster that would come pursuing me, knowing she was here with me just helped settle me enough to not break down again. I tried to smile, managing a thin grimace as I saw her briefly stop to look at another mirror.

I almost felt guilty, but I couldn't exactly not wonder how she might have looked had she not been in here. I could almost see it, past the tangled mane that would have been long and wavy, seeing past the shrunken stomach, or to mentally remove those red shackle marks and the filth of living in this city from her body. I wondered just how bright the cream, orange and red that made up her coat and mane might be. Trying to picture it made me wonder just how I could have looked had I not been trapped in slavery all my life...

But then my eyes caught something else, just as she turned, I saw it. I witnessed her cutie mark.

Three basic shapes, three golden yellow ponies. An earth pony, a unicorn...and a pegasus.

“W-wait!” I stammered out, turning to canter after her, stretching my hoof forward as the mare made to leave the building. We had planning to do, but the question couldn't wait any longer. I built all my courage, wondered for too long. Now that I saw her mark, the trio of ponies there as one image, I couldn't lose the chance this time. 'The Mare' wouldn't escape unknown this time.

Seeing those golden eyes turn around, raising an eyebrow in confusion, I stopped; shuffling a hoof and trying to fight the embarrassment that I even had to ask.

“What, um, what's your name? We never got a chance to...”

“Oh? Didn't I say?” She seemed shocked, that gentle and warm look passing through the hurt body of a poor slave to remind me of how she could look. Not awaiting a response other than a dull shake of my head, she smiled and gathered herself. Then, she spoke one word. One simple word that suddenly made so much sense between how she had been so important in my life and the imagery of her cutie mark. Of how she hadn't discriminated or hated me because I had wings, of how she saw such harmony filled potential in ponies as one great whole.

That one word...one beautiful word.

Unity.

Her name...was Unity.

The moment we exited the Hall of Mirrors, my heart nearly stopped on the spot.

“Gone!? What do you mean, gone?”

I didn't even look. I simply grabbed Unity and dragged her as fast as I could over the road and back into the food court opposite. There were dozens of tents, stalls, wagons, and small buildings crammed around one large eating area. The benched area had been turned into one of the worst slave dens in the FunFarm, utterly exposed to the elements. But beside it, amongst the slew of small food dispensaries, was a veritable maze of hiding spots I had used before.

“Murky? What is it-oh no!”

Poking our heads around, I could clearly see her overseer quivering in fear below the massive form of The Master. He was surrounded by half a dozen of his loyalists, twisted-looking slavers of all shapes and sizes. Stomping his hoof upon the tarmac, The Master leaned right over the slaver.

“So you're saying that you let a little pegasus come in and take her? Is that right?”

“No, no! I didn't!”

“So then you're saying you didn't let them. So you failed at your job, eh? It's one way or the other.”

“She sometimes goes off! Old...Old Grizzly gets her jobs! Please, I don't know where she is right now!”

I could feel Unity's hoof tightening around my own, the immediacy of my warning clearly sinking in that The Master was after her as a link to me.

“Then I guess I better go pay him a visit. You stay here. I'll be back once I've decided what your punishment shall be.”

“Please! I...”

“Quiet! A slaver who allows his stock to run wild and knows about it does not deserve to be a slaver at all! Report to the Mall tonight. Bring four of your stock that you...hehe...don't mind missing. Maybe I'll even let you have a chance to not become one yourself”

“Y-yes...Master...”

Seeing him turning, we dove backwards, hiding behind the food tent, clutching one another as The Master stomped not five feet from us. Suddenly, he stopped. Biting my lip, I just held my head down, feeling Unity quiver in fear just as much as I. The Master sniffed, before growling. Oh Goddesses, could he smell me?

“Hmph...stinking FunFarm. Land of the hopeless. Get the griffons to look for those two. They're now officially runaways. Just make sure they're brought to me.”

Allowing him time to put some distance between us and them, we hid and only moved when things had gone silent, finally daring to even breathe out. The hunt was on, but I hoped that our journey toward the FunBarn would be the last place The Master would expect.

Unity had proven apt at staying low and quiet, as any slave smaller or weaker than the average no doubt did. Sticking close, she followed me silently. All the way I found myself looking back, not because I lost track of her, but simply to remind me that she was there. That I had found her in time. It almost felt strange, knowing her name. 'The Mare' had been such a figure of my wishes and dreams to meet the mysterious pony again, but to now know her on a name-to-name basis felt almost bizarre. Sort of how it had felt to learn the Stable Dweller's name from Protégé.

“So, how are we going to get in anyway, Murky? This is Red Eye's fortress after all. Not exactly open for visitors.”

Stopping short of a main bypass toward the FunFarm's children’s area, I hid behind a cardboard cutout of a giant toothless alligator and cast my eyes to the Barn. Still under repair, I saw ponies hanging from some sections on utility saddles similar to my own (In my mind it was still a battle saddle. No matter what anypony told me!) with grapple hooks and tools, mid-construction. I highly doubted they'd be getting slavers to do that. Maybe there was a way in.

Once again, Littlepip's rampant destruction of Fillydelphia in her grand escape to the wastes was about to aid me. I just hoped news of a runaway slave wouldn't be sent to the FunBarn yet.

“They're taking slaves in to repair it with tool saddles. I've got one. Maybe we can just pose as workers once we get by the guards and sneak off?”

“Sounds like a plan. Safer to try it than just barging in, right?”

I nodded, feeling a little better. Just knowing she was safe and still alive made it all just feel...worth it. Unable to really know what to say to the unexpected compliment, I nodded to the far side of the road, leading us to begin trotting onwards again. Crawling beneath a wooden fence, we entered a section I'd once heard the others call 'Foal Land.'

Masses of mouldy stuffed ponies and animals had fallen from overhanging wires or been burned into twisted hunks of nylon. This area was deserted. Slavers never came inside here past the outskirts like that one before. It was too small to do anything with and long stripped bare of worthwhile materials. 'Foal Land' had simply been left to rot. Beyond it, the colossal rollercoaster rose above the children's play areas. Glancing back, Unity seemed to stop and gather an idea in her head.

“Hey! I just thought. I've been doing some jobs on the side for a slave master, the one that monster mentioned? Old Grizzly! Getting him stuff from the factories, running errands, that sort of thing. It's still slavery but, well I sometimes get a few perks for it. A healing potion for my ribs, extra food, stuff like that. I was hoping to save up enough offers to maybe get a transfer to someplace better than the FunFarm. It was Grizzly who promised to get us back together after the Pit. He's got an office in there!”

We stopped. I turned to her suddenly, looking around and perking my ears up.

“If he has a terminal or something, he'll have records. He seems like that sort of slaver. I think I heard him complaining once that they didn't get him an office in the more protected areas. We may not have to go too deep.”

It felt wonderful to be impressed and reassured by the information she could provide. A sense of teamwork began to emerge as we continued trotting. She seemed to have let the hope get to her, that we could indeed find him.

“Funny how little things like that just matter, huh?” She grinned to me. “So I guess it's not all been a waste of time. Maybe that's how you have to think about it in places like this. That everything still matters. Hah. Sorry, I know I'm bad for running off on little rambling tangents when I talk...”

It took me a second to catch up with that she was apologising for talking to me. The thought surprised me/

“It's, well, okay. I kinda like them. I wish I was good with words too.”

“And I wish I was as good with artwork as you are. Done anything nice lately?”

I caught that look in her eye below the nicer question. I'd seen it on Glimmerlight's face occasionally. Unity knew precisely what artwork she had asked about. I simply blushed, my ears drooping and my eyes taking a great interest in an immolated figure of a cow beside an old play park instead. She giggled a little, her eyes lying on my Fluttershy saddlebag as though hoping to see it. I wished we had time. Gathering a little courage, thinking of how Glimmerlight would want me to be more self confident, I turned back to face her rather than just avoiding her eyes like even more of a coward than I already was.

“Yeah. Yeah I guess so-um, nice stuff too!” Oh why did I say it like that? “Lots of things that mean a lot to me. I just draw whatever I feel...like what I choose on the spot. I don't really think about it ahead of time.”

“You draw from the heart, escaping to your own little world of creation. That's just lovely. If we get a moment, can I have a look? Share in the dreams?”

“Um, sure? I mean, most of it's like that. Some is-uh, just poses or, um, something a friend asked for and-”

Her laugh cut me off, shaking her head. “Hey, come on, don't worry about it. I didn't laugh at you when we first met, did I? It's not something we see in the wasteland often. Any creation at all is good. You're a wonderful little artist, Murky. Don't forget that. Please?”

'Artist.' I'd honestly never thought about that title before. I just drew, just sketched what came to mind and didn't think about what looked good or not. It was bringing to life the thoughts and emotions of my mind, like a kind of therapy and outlet that wasn't simply crying. But artists were like ponies who knew how to make good art, weren't they? I couldn't do those amazing pictures. I didn't even know how to colour!

“I'll try, Unity. I'll try, I guess?”

Seemingly amused by my modesty, she winked.

“It's all we can ever do, Murky. Huh, hey, look!”

She pointed a hoof. Up ahead, past the end of Foal Land was the rollercoaster. Much of it had been stripped down now, used for metal in the factories after the structure had been made unsteady, and half-destroyed by rocket launcher fire during Littlepip's escape. For a second, I was curious about what Unity saw, before she began to canter ahead, looking not at the coaster itself, but toward a small area of benches below it. An old picnic area, I guessed, for ponies not brave enough to go on the rollercoaster. (Ponies like me, then.) They were kept away from the underside of the ride by a chainlink fence, beside a large map of the FunFarm and a long broken statue of Pinkie Pie. Even with the limbs missing and eyes showing no pupils in the cast brass, I found even more reason to keep my own glances away from it.

But beside it, next to a plaque, I noticed dozens...no, hundreds of little items attached to the fences. What in Equestria were they?

Unity galloped up to them, casting her eyes around. Trotting up beside her, I finally saw what it was as I wandered down the line of the fence.

Locks. Padlocks, with every one of them attached into the fence’s chain mesh around where the plaque stood. A couple of containers were below, still filled with open padlocks. One of them had spilled around the foot of the fence. Yet my eyes were drawn to the locks on the fence themselves, closed in such thick patterns that I couldn't even see through in places. Every one of them bore scratchings upon their surfaces, often with little love hearts or sketches of cutie marks. Many of them on the fence had pink ribbons or the rotted remains of flowers attached to them. I saw one with a pair of dogtags.

“What in Equestria's name are these?” I breathed the words quietly, looking at the padlocks. They just kept going. All shapes and sizes, colours and designs.

“Lovelocks, Murky. Like the plaque says...”

She cleared her throat.

“In honour of Hearts and Hooves Day, for those ponies lucky enough to have that one special somepony in their lives, the one they may rest in harmony with until the end. The one they would never break the bond with, never leave behind, and trust in forever. Have our metalworker engrave your names to lock forever upon the fence.”

As she spoke, I lifted a few with my hoof. Sure enough, upon them were scribbled words. Some engraved, others in faded pen. Some were just scratched on. Unity looked up, following me down the fence. Hundreds of couples, all lost to history. I remembered the Memorial Wall in the Stable, filled with memories. But here lay proof positive of the caring that had permeated Equestria a long time ago.

“Ponies in the old days declared their love to the ones they wouldn't ever part with by placing a lock up here, Murky. A symbol that even the balefire couldn’t bring it down. They say that the tradition started just after some event showed just how strong the power of love could really be when things were at their darkest.”

Across the ground, there lay not one padlock that had fallen from the fence itself. Not one that had lost its meaning. Standing before such a sight, backlit by the fires underneath the roller coaster and the dull smog of a storm ridden Fillydelphia ravaged by an event so long ago, I saw one thing that had not been broken by any effort of the wasteland.

“Love amongst the darkness, I like to think they're still together up there, Murky. Some slaves even do it today.”

Stopping, her hoof rested upon one padlock. Dirty, rusted, and with merely scratched words, she glanced down and sighed.

“Just his initials, see?” Sadly, she held it toward me.

I bit my lip and nodded, as though pretending I understood the letters. She and her buckfriend had done this old tradition even now with the hope that no matter what happened to them, they'd be together through it all. I didn't dare sully the moment with the whole 'I can't read' speech.

“The day we put this on. I remember that, Murky. That was when we made the promise. We were escaping, together, or not at all. We locked it as one.”

I could clearly see her fighting back some tears, but her horn sparkled a lush red and drew something from her ragged barding. A small length of thin pipe with a stamped end and what looked like a bobby pin.

“We aren't any more. Until I see him, remember everything about him, I don't deserve this. Once we get him, Murky, we'll come back here, relock it anew from whatever Red Eye's done to him.”

Twisting the metal rod and the pin into the lock, I heard it ping, before the hook sprang out. Unity left it on the fence, swaying lightly on the locking hook.

“I swear, if it turns out to be old Grindstone that's taken him...I always did hear he wanted him back since he got transferred out.” She sighed, resting her head on the fence. Her voice was very quiet. “Wherever they've trapped you, I’ll find you.”

She finally looked away from the lock, her long mane hiding her face when she lowered her head. Master Grindstone? Somehow, it almost felt likely. That donkey was in cahoots with The Master. But outside of their horrid betrayal of Protégé, something I could never hope to prove or kick up any fuss about, I could only feel the aching inevitability that they were up to something else in whatever great game the slavers had going. For now, the most I could understand to do was trot over and simply be there.

Turning, one half of Unity’s face became visible from below her mane, looking ever so vulnerable and strained. She seemed to take at least a little comfort by somepony else being there, for I saw the side of her mouth raise.

“Y-you know, Murky, I can see you're a little nervous but...this'd be a real good time to give a mare a hug...”

I didn’t need telling twice. Without hesitating, I slid forward to gently hold her. Feeling her lean against my own neck, I even dared to offer a firmer hold, squeezing her tightly against me. Sniffing, Unity seemed to quake a little. I felt her breathing quicken for a few seconds, before slowly calming down and gripping me back.

“Sorry you have to see me like this, Murky. You've got your own problems and mine are-”

“I-important!” The word stammered out my mouth, the first one I could quickly think of. Quickly, I rushed to try and think of others. Yeah, okay...words, here we go. “We're all getting out. Me and Glimmerlight, Brim and Coral...her son...we've all got little odd things we need sorted and help out each other for! I want you and your friend to come with us too. So I want to help you because you're nice and really helped me and-and, uh...”

I hesitated, before the words began spilling out on instinct, not really thinking about them in my haste.

“And when we're out we can all make a little village together and just be all out of the way, free to do what we want. You two can come with us. We'll all help you find him! Just like one, um, big happy family?”

For a second, I wasn't sure if the slight jerking convulsions I felt from her shoulders and head were from crying or laughter. But she leaned back, wiping her eyes and smiling. Was it both?

“I wish I had your imagination, Murky. Thanks. I don't know what somepony's done to him, or me if this isn't just Fillydelphia messing with my head about him, but I'm going to find out. I never even got to see him before the Pit. It's been so long since we were properly together. He was always talking about escape plans and stuff to me to get my input. We tried once, but that didn't go too well. If we can find one another again, we'll put everything we learned to helping your escape plan, Murky.”

My escape plan? I figured it'd be best to let her stay hopeful and not say that it was more Glimmer's idea. She was the effective leader of our little group anyway. But another couple's information was a valuable asset, something we couldn't ignore for the eventual attempt.

“Sounds, um, good. Let's go get him?”

Glimmerlight made big emotional mission decisions sound so easy to come up with. A trait I obviously hadn't been born with. But it seemed to at least do the job for Unity, who nodded and stood alongside me for the final trek to the Barn.

“Yes, let’s.” She glanced at me once more. “I still remember what I told you the last time we met, when that nasty slaver had you in a collar. That you'd find what kept you going. To hold out until we could run into one another again. I said we'd come and help you, but now it's you coming to my aid. You sure found your courage, Murky.”

“Y-yeah, but not in me. It's...I found it in wanting to help those I cared about more than anything.”

“...like me?” She sounded surprised.

The question set my mind racing. I’d said it to Glimmer before just fine, but having just met Unity, saying that the answer was yes felt awkward.

Nervously, I nodded, slightly blushing. “Y-yeah. Like you.”

I gulped, and quickly continued.

“You changed my life. I drew the first thing I chose for myself because you said I could.”

Unity’s eyes widened, her mouth opening, but no reply forthcoming. As we moved down the line of padlocks on the fence, she looked away as though processing that, before giving me a rather bashful look.

“Wow, I didn’t expect that. It really is the strangest little meetings of random chance that matter sometimes, isn’t it?. The oddest things you say that somepony takes in a manner you never expected. I hadn't known that meant so much to you. From the look on your face, I don't think you expected what you did running for the Wall to mean as much to me either. I'd been ready to give up until I saw somepony willing to go that crazy distance. So let’s do this together, Murky. Prove to each other, and everypony else that there's still hope left. We'll go find out where he is and get you to your friend at the same time.”

We shared a little glance at the end of the fence, after the last padlock had passed. A little mutual matching of eyes and a nod, before we both galloped off toward the Barn.

The main fortress was still a little away, safe behind multiple layers of security. It was so much bigger than I'd ever imagined, so much more imposing up close. To think, Red Eye could be in there right now. What if we ran into him?

After dropping into a trench that had been dug out for underground wiring, we crouched low and watched the patrols ahead of us. I let my eyes drift around past them, observing the newly added wall that surrounded the Fun Barn ever since the riots. Security was tight. Absolutely no way to 'sneak past' in the normal ways, and no overhanging material to jump from like the Ministry. The rollercoaster had been cut away from where it had once passed through the Barn, as though deliberately for that express purpose. There were a few gates, mostly for messengers and higher ranked members of Red Eye's inner circles. Others were for wagons that carried various supplies or spoils of war to the more advanced facilities Red Eye had built up inside. Those wagons were trundling along a newly cleared path that drifted between the rollercoaster's scaffolds.

That might work.

“Come on, Unity!” I took off, moving into the underside of the rollercoaster, an area filled with higher mounds of wreckage and piles of dull red scrap. Ruined coaster cars lay here and there, one of which I pulled us below.

“What are you-oooh...”

She seemed to get it the moment we saw one of the carts move inside the gates. We just had to wait for another one, then sneak into the back under the tarps that covered them! Even better, no chances of being stuck in a box this time!

Taking cover under the upturned coaster car to wait, we pulled some wooden beams across to keep us hidden. There were patrols around here, masked soldiers that were not slavers. Many of them recruited from the tougher gangs of the wastes to be given purpose and better equipment. Already I could see and hear a few groups nearer the walls, but our little hidey hole was almost undetectable. All the same, we would have to wait for another wagon we could use.

To pass the time and avoid our nerves shredding under the oppression and fear, I passed my journal to Unity. She glanced across it, taking in the new images I had done since. She seemed stunned to know that I'd drawn her and almost gave us away with a loud squeak of happiness.

“Oh that's wonderful! Thank you, Murky!”

“Oh, um, you’re welcome! The one I promised though, we'll do it when we're out of here, okay? First picture I draw when we go.” I smiled, feeling a little more confident. “Maybe you could even pose for it because we'll both be there!”

Only about two seconds after I spoke did I realise what that could be misconstrued as.

“I mean like, uh, like nicely! Not, um...”

She turned the page and nodded her head at it.

“Not like her, you mean?” Unity slyly grinned like we had the first time she'd looked at it. I glanced at the drawing.

“Yeah! Yeah, not like that!”

“Mm...this one's really well done. Very realistic. Boy, Murky, you must have had your eye on her for a while, huh?”

My voicebox temporarily stopped working, producing only a strangled squeak of embarrassment, accompanied by a blush I was afraid would give us away by glow alone.

She just chuckled lightly. “Oh sorry, I'm terrible sometimes. I’m just making fun. But really, all the other ponies in here, your friends and...family?”

Gulping to regain the power of speech, glad she'd moved away from one of my more, well, personal pictures, I saw she was on the one of myself, Glimmer, and Caduceus. For once, we began to properly talk in hushed voices any time I could confirm there were no ponies nearby. Ten minutes or so passed, within which I took a great delight in explaining who Glimmerlight was (‘My big sister best friend forever since two days after meeting her!’) or took a comfort in feeling a gentle nuzzle from Unity against my cheek while I told her of Caduceus' loss.

“I'm so sorry to hear that. He sounded really nice.”

Sniffing sharply, I wiped my eyes with a filthy hoof, just trying to keep myself from tearing up in front of her. Instead, I just felt her lean over slightly, sharing a tender little closeness. I hadn't been able to let it out with anypony yet, so I found a sense of immense thankfulness growing that Unity was willing to offer comfort. I hadn't realised how deeply he'd really settled in before it happened, the momentum of having friends stitching his presence into my soul in such a short time, only to have it ripped out. Somehow, feeling somepony else that I didn't know as well as Glimmer be the one to offer such a close and caring physical expression helped some of that emotion to finally come out.

Finally, like a spring suddenly snapping, I felt myself lean toward her myself, sniffling with my eyes closed and permitting her to be the one comforting me this time in a moment of rising emotion. Even these mere minutes we'd spent were like all the hurt we'd gone through separately were just being shared with the one pony we'd both met before any of it really started.

Wagons still failed to appear, so we shared stories, such as my trip to the Stable and the hoof-bitingly close run for freedom. Or me hearing of her surprisingly heroic little tales to steal items from Slit's very office! Things she had been hoarding from other overseers that had more of a care of their charges. She laughed as she heard about where my goggles came from and revealed a whetstone used for sharpening a knife in her own barding. My own story, it seemed, was not the only one of a slave trying to find their way to survive by aiding those that trapped them.

Suddenly, my ears pricked up. Unity dropped her sentence midway as she saw stark terror upon my face. I’d heard something very specific. We pressed low, and I listened to the sound every slave feared from above. The sound of wings, larger than a griffon, beating against the thick and heavy air.

Monsters. The purple, blue, and green ponies soared through the air toward our goal building. Alicorns. Red Eye's personal bodyguards and most lethal servants. I could hear my own teeth chattering from fear at their passing. They said they could read minds. If they thought we were up to anything, then we were done for! Even that one minute it took the six of them to pass was pregnant with my imagined outcomes of them dropping to rip the cart away and do whatever it was they did. Even fewer had seen them fight, but the legends were, well, legendary amongst slaves.

Watching them land upon the roof, I ducked back in, sighing. Ineeded to talk. Anything to distract myself from the fear. I had a thousand questions I wanted to ask Unity that had been building in my mind, but with a quick glance to her cutie mark, I knew the first on my list. With a mark like that, so grand, so much better than my own cursed flank.

“U-Unity? What's your special talent?” I tried to not make it look like I'd been staring. Oh please don't think I was staring!

She glanced back from staring up at the passing beasts above, drawing away the rags to show the three types of ponies again, before smiling sadly.

“Sort of a strange one. I guess you could say I bring ponies together.”

“That sounds nice.”

I saw her smile a little at that, before looking away wistfully.

I wanted to ask in what way, to find out what she meant, but Unity instead quickly glanced toward the edge of the road running under the rollercoaster. My eyes followed and widened; a cart was approaching! Alone too, as luck would have it. Perfect!

Stuffing my sketchbook into my saddlebag and readying up, I slipped my goggles down out of sheer habit for 'go time' and held myself ready. The cart's clattering iron reinforced wheels bounced and chipped off the harsh, unsteady concrete ground, carrying enough weight that to end up trapped beneath it would be a death sentence of a rather messy fashion. Nodding to Unity, we shared a quick glance before diving toward it the moment the cart passed by. The one weary slave pulling it didn't even turn his head away from the commands of 'faster!' to see us.

I went first, galloping low and quiet to get behind it. The back of the cart didn't have any cover, too high as well! Damn!

We were caught in the open behind it, a few heart-stopping seconds without cover. Already, I could see a trio of black-clad guards beginning another arc across the rollercoaster patrol route! In a panic, I pointed a hoof at the underside. We could hold onto the bottom and drop off when inside! Galloping after it again, hearing the beat of wings once more to set my heart pounding from whatever stopping it'd been doing, I scurried under, grabbing hold of the supports to haul myself onto, upside down. Unity was right behind me! Just running under and-

“HEY! You there, the mare! Stop right there!”

A guard's voice cut through the air from toward the walls into the FunBarn. I almost shrieked at the thought. Unity had been spotted before she'd got in! I waved at her, encouraging her to duck under or drop off myself to run! But she reached forward, keeping up just long enough to tap my mouth shut with a hoof and shoot me a serious look, before dropping back out.

“Sorry! Sorry I just dropped something under the cart and-”

Hooves clattered into view, a baton slapping down across her face. I saw Unity fall, and felt the wagon stop on the spot at the commotion. All I could see were the pairs of hooves from guards, surrounding her where she lay. Her cheek was bleeding, one eye closed with pain. The other caught my own eyes only briefly before she was dragged up. I could see the look on her face, the will for me to stay hidden. Groaning, Unity was picked to her hooves and pulled around the side.

“Dropped something my flank! Trying to sneak around to get some good shit to sell on the slave market, huh? Well that's just what we call a big offence around here! What were you after, our smokes?”

“N-nothing! I was-”

“Shut up, you'll answer to the big wigs inside. You wanted to see the FunBarn? Well you'll get to see its cell! Take her in. We'll get her overseer over later to send her to the sprite pits or something. Move, bitch!”

The mare's baton swung, catching Unity's rump with a humiliating smacking sound to force her to trot onward toward the FunBarn beside the very wagon I now hid alone in. My feelings were wrenching at my heart to see her being marched away, pulled from me again!

No...I'd just met her, led her into danger! This had been my idea, to help Unity get her buck and get back to Protégé with her where she might be safer with his advice and understanding! It was all falling apart before we'd even started. I just wished I had the courage to...

She'd been the one who told me I'd find it. Unity had stood up the The Master once. If she could do that, then it was worth the risk! Anything was better than knowing she was just rotting away and starving to death in the FunFarn. All this time, I'd been running away, protecting myself. I had just proven I could go to help others, but even then with major backup and help.

This was my test before me, a friend being taken to evil ends and knowing that I had to help her.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You have to dare.

As the wagon began rolling again, I clung tighter. After all this, everything I'd been through, I wasn't letting her get away this time! I was going to get her out, come rain or shine! Hang on, Unity.

As if to just dare me on, the clouds immediately cast their hissing rain down once more.

Finally, I let my tired hooves drop from the cart after ten minutes of agonising cramps and struggles to ensure nopony was in the area of the courtyard within the FunBarn's interior areas. Spittle from the lashing rain kicked up under the lip of the wagon, scathing my exposed coat. Now, however, I dropped into the mud, feeling the wool in my already damp fleece cake itself in wet slimy muck. Trying to keep my wings from slapping the ground, heeding Weathervane's instructions that they had to remain safe, I immediately darted out from under the wagon toward the nearest set of covered scaffolds. Squeezing behind it, I got my first good look at Red Eye's headquarters. My infected eye itched terribly, but I dared not remove my goggles to scratch with so much of this hissing rain springing off the ground. The Mall suddenly felt so inviting with that sofa we had under shelter.

Not much of the Barn was really visible through the rain. The storm was kicking up once again, restricting vision and making sure you couldn't open your eyes too wide for fear of them being burned by the toxic downpour. Some ponies in gas masks and full-body barding moved unfettered, but most had galloped back into the main building to wait out the torrential rain. The interior behind the wall was as rough as any place in Fillydelphia, really. Outside the doors it was simply a low stretch of ground that contained much of the materials to come and go. I saw heavy lead-laden wagons being dragged in as fast as they could, tugging through sodding mud, kicked up from old garden earth. They were filled with radioactive materials, some even glowing, for whatever mad science they were pulling in here. We all heard the rumours, but honestly, it was beyond my intelligence to remember what it all meant.

Unity was still visible, flanked by two guards in thick, black and red combat barding. I could see her trying not to glance toward the wagon I'd just left, feeling a surge of pride at her bravery to still think of me. I'd have been blubbering on the ground in her position. All the same, I could see her posture failing as the rain lashed across her, no doubt causing a hot burning sensation all down her face, neck, and back. Out of the Barn stepped a griffon, seemingly not caring for the rain under her thick coat of feathers. The massive armour didn't seem to hurt either.

“This the squirt you lot caught?”

“Please, I was-”

“Shut up!”

Gasping, I saw Unity struck across her already bleeding cheek, crying out and dropping to the floor. Magic pulled her up.

“Yes, Ma'am. She-”

“Get her inside. Cells are empty. You'll give that fatass jailor something to actually do for a change. She the one they're looking for?”

“Dunno, Ma'am. We were going to-”

“Then do it! I don't need to know what you're doing, only results!”

Even I could point out a thousand flaws with that logic. Wicked Slit would probably burst a blood vessel. But horribly, I saw Unity trooped away from me; forced, shoved, and slapped with a baton into the central section of the FunBarn before I had to duck back down behind the scaffolds. They knew. The Master had gotten the word out. I needed to get her out of that prison before he came to collect!

Right. Time to go, before my courage failed me from thinking about this madness for too long! Under this darkness, Luna lend me your blessing to remain unseen, please!

They trooped into a larger warehouse that had been built out of the huge ground floors of the barn. Heck, barn wasn't the right word, this place was huge! It was built around multiple levels all the way from the ground to the decimated higher sections the rollercoaster used to have pass through. Really, it towered, rather than sat where it was, deceptively large and more akin to a Ministry than a theme park prop building. The ground floor extended in every direction, with stairs even leading down underground. Who knew theme parks had such large basements? Whatever was really inside there was only disguised as a barn, for I could see concrete walls inside through the open warehouse doors lined with metal supports. Old buckets contained masses of those sprite-bots, long ruined. Up high, through the mist, I could see the lights on the roof still there. I could clearly see why it seemed appropriate for setting up a headquarters in. It had presence beyond compare. The barn that watched you forever.

The rain was seriously beginning to burn my hooves from standing still in puddles. I was already pacing on the spot, murmuring in pain. Intent to go soon, watching for a break in the guard's patrols, I hopped out and ran quietly alongside a wagon being noisily tugged by two slaves into the warehouse to keep them from spotting me. Gritting my teeth and fighting the urge to whinny as I felt my brow, neck, and rump sting from the rain, I ducked away the moment we passed under the cavernous doorways that Red Eye had demolished from the Barn walls. There was so much more cover inside, watched only by a few quartermasters and their entourages. Clearly, the idea of somepony penetrating in here hadn't much applied. After all, who would really want to come in here anyway?

The area was massive, filled with mechanical devices and enough conveyors that I began to wonder if it was a hidden factory. But most of it remained defunct, still bearing loads that hadn't fallen when the bombs shut down everything. But it was the contents that caught my eye while I ducked and rolled under a thick pallet.

The machines were pink. Upon them lay presents of all shapes and sizes, clad in shiny or colourful paper and wrapped with thick bows. Items like small foal's scooters and bouncy balls went in one end of a machine, and on the other they came out wrapped. Like one giant processing line for gifts. Old rusted carts lay ready to be loaded on the far side before the main doors to the Barn's production area. I presumed those doors had rusted shut, hence the alternate ones cut into the wooden construction.

The presents weren't alone, however. Other machines, still pink and splattered with yellow and light blue spirals of paint, seemed to have a dozen workers clambering over them. From their conveyors I saw piles of sprite-bots, lying non-operational upon the floor or in crates. Geez, what was this weird place?

But in the middle of it all, amongst the suspended walkways, the one sight atop the machines almost gave me a heart attack on the spot. A colossal pink sphere filling my vision, that grin stretching all around it with massive eyes that stared down upon me. A giant Pinkie Pie head decoration. Easily ten to twelve times the size of a pony in height, it sat as an eternal watcher upon the factory, cast from iron and riveted together. Honestly, was there anywhere in Equestria somepony could go without her just being...there?

“Hey! Flimsy Pack! Get that lot in out of the rain for now! We can't move the talismans until it's clear. That rain burns the stuff up!”

Perking up at the sound of many hooves beginning to rush for the doorways, I knew I had to move. This place was about to get a lot more crowded. Keeping near to the sides, I kept low, crawling beneath scaffold shelves and around-

I gasped, hearing hooves very suddenly just a few feet in front of me.

Stopping on the spot, I pulled back, hopped up, and dragged myself into a small and empty present box, right before a pony's head peered down from the corner where I'd almost crawled out right in front of him. Curled up tightly, I just shivered, waiting for him to pass, hearing him right beside the present box.

“Huh...coulda' sworn I heard somepony.”

The present was knocked. Oh no. He was climbing up to have a look in!

“Ah, shit!” I heard him slip on the wet floor, half-tripping on his hind legs to bump into the present. It wouldn't have fallen, but I threw my weight to make it fall, before tumbling out on the opposite side of the shelving unit and scampering down the line of boxes before he peered over.

“Damn it. Hey, somepony get some slaves with mops over here soon enough, eh?”

He trotted off, and I finally took another breath. Following the line of conveyors, I moved for the back of the room, where numerous doors led further into the Barn. For once, a little luck aided me as the guards were distracted keeping the slaves tugging materials inside in line. As such, slipping into the building further was as simple as biding my time and then darting past them.

Beyond was a serried rank of doors on one side of the corridor, with the other beating open plan offices crammed with terminals. Many ponies sat at them, clip-clopping away upon their keyboards. Behind the small internal fence that separated them from the corridor, I carefully nuzzled my way through, briefly diving into one of the doors to dodge a guard cantering toward the warehouse. Edging the door open, I began to feel a sense of pride grow in me. That I really could start to do this whole sneaky thing well! In the past, I'd always failed dismally, but here I really was managing it, and without even the screw ups of the Ministry of Arcane whatever-it-was!

There were a few more guards coming, so I ducked back again, closing myself inside the small room and digging out my PipBuck to activate its light. As much as I loved wearing it, the little broken machine really was too much of an attention magnet. But under the light green hue, I found the cupboard a rather perplexing little place.

Party supplies surrounded me, as did posters of balloons, leaping Pinkies (yes, plural...how!?), and cardboard boxes of absolute junk. This had to be the storage areas for the party production line in the Barn's side building! Hearing a great many ponies outside, I began to dig through them to spend the time until I could move again. Mostly party hats, balloons and-oooh...

Firecrackers!

Having to strain to not grin, I began pulling a row of them into my saddlebag. Sooner or later, I had a feeling they would come in handy as a distraction or, at worst, something to add to our growing escape-kit pile.

Alright, maybe I put in a few party hats too. A buck could dream, right?

The slavers outside weren't moving for some time it seemed. Their chatter was all complaints about the rain, length of shifts, or the price of ale at the Roamer. Crossed over behind them were the dozens of ponies working at terminals, likely doing all the grunt work to organise such a wasteland superpower as Fillydelphia. Gently pulling open another box, I found it filled with lots of little bottles of black dust. Lifting one out, staring carefully at the door as I heard somepony lean against it, I pulled my PipBuck closer to get a look.

It held words. Oh why did it have to be words? Spinning it around, to my delight I saw it had a little picture of a pony looking like she was blowing her nose really hard. Somepony was laughing behind her. Ooh! Medicine for ponies with colds! Feeling my own nose almost entirely blocked, I grinned, struggling with the foal-lock to pull it open in my teeth. Popping the top, I glanced down into it, praying I'd get the dosage right and taking as big a sniff as I could in order to try and gauge the flavour. The black dust drifted around the tip, light and moving even by the currents of my nose. Before I knew it, a small cluster of it was floating before me. This, uh, would help me?

Instead, I just felt my nose tingle...and itch...then itch badly...before I felt muscles quiver.

Before I even knew what was happening, splitting pain wracked through my face and black eyes all the way to my wicked scar as I convulsed and sneezed.

It was a high pitched sneeze, a squeaking with a shrill little snort alongside it. My body almost jumped under it. Eyes watering, clutching my pain and moaning, I heard the last thing I wanted.

“...somepony just sneeze in the cupboard?”

The slavers had heard me! There wasn't a way out! I had to find a place to hide, quickly! Then I could...I-

Sneezed. Again. Trying to ignore the throbbing pain all across my eyes and up the swollen red line that went up to my left ear, I staggered into the wall, attempting to hold my nose shut with my front hooves.

“I swear I heard somepony! Get it open! Sounded like a little filly or somethin'.”

Oh come on!

Eyes watering from the sneezes, feeling another one building, I simply threw myself behind the door and tried not to scream in pain when it crushed me against the wall. Light streamed into the room, while I did my best to fumble for the PipBuck light.

“See? Nopony. Told you to lay off the damned Dash, mate. Now c'mon. Boss won't appreciate it if we're late back from break. If we take the shortcut through the prison we'll get there in time.”

Flattened into the tiny space, my eyes widened. The prison! I had to follow them! The moment the door was loosened off, I simply stuffed the PipBuck and black dust powder stuff into my saddlebag, and poked my head around the moment I heard them depart. Two bucks, almost identical brothers it seemed, were trotting away. Still fighting the urge to cough or sneeze, I quickly slipped out after them, keeping low enough that the terminal ponies wouldn't see me. I didn't envy their job, having to just sit and type.

Following them was not especially difficult; there were thankfully few others around who were already travelling. Under the black sky, there was little indoors illumination in non-critical areas, so the FunBarn's interior was a stark contrast of hazed light and thick shadow. Unlike much of the buildings I'd been in, this one was much more open plan, with us crossing a large room that could look up to the next floor entirely via a large mezzanine. Above one side lay a massive window that let in what little light Fillydelphia possessed. It reminded me of the real barn back at the rock farm, only much much bigger and filled to the brim with an inventory of expensive looking items amidst a cube farm of desk areas and research tables. Upon the wide windowed side rooms, I saw ponies bubbling up chems or handling radioactive materials. In others, the hum of spark technology was prevalent, machinery in guarded labs or rooms doing jobs I couldn't comprehend. A full bank of screens showed various areas of Fillydelphia and even the wasteland, with three workers sitting watching them intently. Hearing the couple I was tailing, one of the observers turned to the door, making me duck across quickly. Really, this entire hub was just a huge and busy network of varied experiments and technologies. No wonder Red Eye kept it all so close.

What really worried me was the way that many of the research sections were hoisting weapons together.

Part of me felt tempted to find a way to smash or steal some of it. Maybe it would help out Littlepip! But I couldn't risk drawing attention, so I contented myself with stealing somepony's sandwich out of a small fridge beneath their desk while they were away.

For all the interest and potential though, this place was a nightmare of direction. Rooms went into the next at seemingly random intervals, as though a maniac designed it. Entire walls had been cut down by Red Eye's workers to expand working areas, and I could see holes in the roof above the main atrium where slaves hung on grapplehooks to bridge the gaps and repair it. I keenly remembered the sight of a gigantic shielded monster tearing through this place. Everything seemed to have been cobbled back together in a mish mash of placement since that epic demolishing operation that had gone on in the middle of the Pit Riot.

Altogether, if it weren't for these two being kindly oblivious, I'd have been lost long ago. The walls held poster after poster of Pinkie Pie while the furniture often had brightly painted design all over what would otherwise have been dull. The effect was something like a zany pony rushing through the place with ten tins of paint and no real forward artistic plan. Thankfully, it made it fairly easy to creep alongside the many desks and office dividers. The only real worry was anypony on the balconies above, but with the rain falling upon them, nopony was willing to cross below the gaps.

“Eh, mate, wait a 'mo. I gotta' check on the intel. Boss wanted an update, remember?”

Feeling my heart skip, I hopped backward, pushing myself into one of the open topped cube offices and squeezing so tightly behind a filing cabinet that one of my wings jerked and hurt. Biting my own lip to stifle the pained yelp, I heard them trot back my way and move into the room with all the monitors. I settled down to wait again, trying to briefly master the art of telepathy to apologise to Weathervane for breaking his instructions about my wings. I willed them to just move on, Unity needed me!

“Hey, egghead. Any signals back from the outer elements yet?”

A younger voice, female and nasal, pipped up. “Please, I told you not to call me that!”

“Fits ya. Now I asked a question, we ain't got long.”

“Fine, fine. Scouts got back earlier, dropped off a report but...eh, nothing huge to be honest. The Cathedral prep is coming along as the big guy predicted. That slave caravan we lost is confirmed to have been raiders, and there was a brief tussle at the Manehattan blockade force. The alicorns...um, 'took care' of it, was all he'd say. I think that one's late, though. Scout got delayed en route from sickness. Anything else Stern wants to know before you go get roasted?”

“Urgh. Yeah, she still ain't in a good mood after that fuck up at the Mall. She's either swearing about it happening at all or screaming about headaches from somepony dropping on her head.”

Oops.

The stallion scratched his mane. “Talking of which, forgot to say. I'd stay away from taking anything to the main office for a few hours. The higher ranks are going to be starting their jury on what to do about the Mall. Old Grizzly said he'd take charge until Protégé's back on his hooves, but Grindstone's having none of it. Wants the little guy out of there completely, saying he isn't fit to lead. Expect it to explode in there.”

“Duly noted. I won't trot near it. Isn't it Red Eye's call though? It was his student.”

Oddly, her voice sounded a little more monotone that I'd have expected from the agreement to not get too close. I wondered why her voice changed, even as the stallion replied.

“All the more reason. You think Red Eye wants to look as though he's playing favourites? Nah, Red Eye might elect to have him retake power eventually, but for now the kid's on his own. Or rather, in Grizzly's hooves, given he's still in medical. Just keep away from all that, egghead. Too much politics for you or me and way too much danger of making big time enemies. Now, you got the list of factions we're looking into next for Stern? I really want to get there before the debate starts.”

“Yeah, sure. Not much. We've scared off most of them or have deals already, but tell her she can look at the Gun Gallop Crew or Spark Suitors to see if they've got any good kit worth buying out. The Appleloosa train track remains unrepaired, but that ghoul's still doing her flying delivery. The Golden Cap Caravans are making moves lately too if we need to see about local transport. Want my advice though? We should just stick to our own supply lines. The ghoul wants nothing to do with us and the wasteland's like a ticking time bomb out there.”

The stallion grumbled. I heard him shake out his mane.

“Well, that’s why I'm here and not out on the excursions. Thanks, egghead. Now keep your head down.”

“Not difficult in here...”

Only now remembering to open my mouth and let go of my lip, I gently peered around to see the pair of stallions leave. Exiting the atrium, they began to speed up, cantering downstairs. Simply praying they would assume my galloping sounds were somepony unimportant (most ponies had that by simply looking at me), I sped up after them, passing behind 'egghead's' chair without her so much as looking up.

But even as I followed the pair into the door, I cast a look back around the doorframe. Alongside several miserable looking ponies beside her on desks, I could see she was silently crying into her keyboard, chained to a thick weight upon the floor.

Below ground in the FunBarn was anything but fun.

Behind a set of thick doors designed like Canterlot castle gates (I'd seen pictures, I could know stuff too!) the light had drastically lowered, giving rise to the sheer opposite of above ground.

Dingy corridors that were higher than they were wide, lined with thin doorways of cast metal and bearing only a single low vision slit. Padlocks held many shut, while others lay slightly ajar. Allowing the pair time to get ahead, I gently pushed one open, before immediately darting away, breathing heavily.

A nightmare. They held...a nightmare. Just unlit black concrete rooms bearing a single wooden chair with straps. A sheer physical manifestation of my innermost fears of being trapped forever. The whiplash of design was still reeling in my mind, scaring me and driving my heartrate up to the point I almost felt like I was hyperventilating. What was this place?

The hellish thoughts in my mind only grew when I heard some ponies moaning or crying inside some of the locked cells.

Tip-tapping my way across the cobblestone floor toward the three way junction that the stallions had gone left at, I peered around to see them approach another such junction again. The undecorated and unmarked design down here was becoming all the more painfully monotone. One went to go right, until pulled left.

“Hey! I thought we were gonna go see the new one in the cells?”

“We don't have time for you to sit and stare at her rump, you weirdo. I'm not going into Stern's office alone! No, you're coming with me.”

“Aww, I heard she was a good one.”

“Oh shut up, she'll still be here.”

The hell she will. Almost surprising myself with the inner determination (And cursing? I didn't actually say it, Celestia, honest! Honest!), I crept down after them the moment they departed left, before heading right. The rooms grew larger, sitting open. But they were not unlit, spewing small drifts of multicoloured light out of each doorway. Unable to contain my curiosity, I peeked in.

I had to bring Glimmerlight here.

Memory orbs. Hundreds of memory orbs! Of all colours imaginable, they lined the metal shelves that had been bolted into the very stone of the walls. Many were flickering on the floor, having fallen and become damaged. Could orbs be broken? Were they just bad extracts? There were so many.

Standing among them, I couldn't but feel more than a little apprehensive. Amongst this dungeon, such a sight only filled me with dread. Everything I had seen of memory left me confused on just what ponies should be playing with. Aurora Star and Twilight seemed to see a lot of good in them, but then I had seen the effect they'd had on Glimmer's life, and Unity's, depending on what had happened. It didn't take a smart pony to work out these were not willingly extracted.

Very quickly, the purpose of the chairs became very real indeed. A chill rolled from my neck to my hind legs, imagining the reality. Strapped in pitch black, being nothing but a resource of information that gradually lost more and more of yourself as it was torn out, forgetting ponies you knew and having no outside input to restore it!

I simply ran my eyes over each row of the orbs, the idea that in many cases, these might be all that remained of those ponies came to light.

“Whoever you all are, I'm so sorry,” I whispered to myself.

“Bastards! Where's mah damn food!?”

Jumping on the spot, skittering around on my bad leg and tripping over various orbs, I staggered to the door, casting my head down the corridor. A light shone from one of the larger doors from where that shout had come from. Cautiously, I approached and used my mirror to take a quick peek without putting my head in a visible position.

My heart leapt. The cells!

Within, there were two large caged sections of a room, the rest made up of one huge desk and two cabinets. It was filthy. Mold grotted around the edges of tiles that made up both floor and walls, while a rank stench emerged that suddenly left me very glad for my cold. But it was the slaver inside that drew my eyes more. While Brimstone was tall, thick, and muscular; and The Master was wide and heavily built, this pony was simply overweight, a real rarity to the wastes. He lounged upon a large cushion, clad in rotten looking canvas with a foul yellow coat. In the corners, I saw bones and dozens of filthy bowls piled up, sticking out from a mount of pre-war packaging.

Very quickly, I realised he was the source of the stink.

But all my attention was drawn away the moment I panned over the cells. Huddled at the back of one, as far from the jailer as she could possibly be, I saw her! Unity! Yet as I stared in wonder at having found the cream coloured unicorn, I realised there wasn't any way I could sneak in, and I doubted this obese pony was going to get up to check too many things outside.

“OI! Little bastards, are ya there? You're late by twenty seconds!”

He slammed a hoof on the desk, making an array of random trinkets or sweetie tins hop up or fall off. Behind me, I heard the pitter patter of tiny hooves and a duller stumbling of thicker set hooves on the stone flooring, accompanied by a panicked breathing.

“I'm-phew-I'm coming, sir!”

“Yeah! We're on our way!”

I knew those voices. Recognition was pinging in my mind. But anypony seeing me hiding here would be bad. I began to creep back to the memory orb room to hide, just hoping I'd reach it before they did.

“Don't drop it, Pike! Watch out!”

“You watch out!”

“You!”

Pike? Pike and Cosh? The ponies that had given me trouble in the air terminal were in the FunBarn? Some of the few ponies I'd ever caught out through speech?

I had an idea.

I didn't hide. Instead, I ran toward them as fast as I could. Rounding the corner of the three way junction, I went twenty feet away from them on the third corridor, before running back as though approaching the area for the first time when they appeared. The lanky form of Pike with his vomit-coloured coat and dull orange mane alongside the stubbier shape of Cosh almost ran directly into me. They had plates balanced on their heads and backs, moving as quickly as they dared in rather haphazard fashion. I didn't even let them speak first.

“Hey! Hey!”

“Woah, it's the pega-”

I cut him off, rushing forward and pressing my front hooves to their chests.

“He changed the order! It's, uh, less!”

“You don't work for him! Stop trying to steal food! Hah! Thought you'd steal some from us? Haha, hey Pike, he thought he could steal some!”

“Shut up, Cosh! Get out of our way, shorty!”

Pike knocked me against the side of the tunnels with a hoof. After all I'd been through, I was almost surprised when the hit made me squirm inside at being thrown around. But I jumped forward, trying to get near the plates.

“No, no! Please, he told me to change it! That he wants me to take this and-”

“Get off, pegasus! Our boss still wants you! We'll tell him you're here!”

We were fighting in the small corridor...well, pushing and shoving mostly. We were all pretty small in some way, giving rise to perhaps the most pathetic scuffle in Equestrian history. Eventually, however, Cosh butted me on the side of the head, knocking me to the floor. I covered my head while they hoofed my body a few times.

“Little rat! You wait there. I want that shiny thing you had last time back!”

They galloped on, accompanied by another roar from the jailer about being late. Shivering, clutching my aching scar with one hoof, I slid the empty sneezing powder pot back into my saddlebag.

Oh, the fun was about to begin.

“You get away from me!”

The voice made me cringe, hearing Unity shout at whichever pony it was that had moved toward her cell. Watching carefully on my mirror, I held the next closest door open, ready to leap inside should anypony move for a quick exit. Pike and Cosh I could simply see looking at Unity like she was some sort of tourist attraction, while the jailer was pulling his bulk up to the desk, ready to eat.

Yet even as I peered in, I saw Pike’s extended hoof snap back as Unity’s magic hurled a stool at the bars.

“Huh! She's feisty!”

“Reeeeal feisty!”

“Shut up, the pair of you.” The jailer snapped at them. “I didn't borrow your services from that braided idiot for your wits! She's my prisoner until Shackles gets here. No touching.”

Her magic swung up the stool again as she backed away from the bars, out of their reach again.

“Like I’d let one of you two near me.”

The Jailer cackled.

“Try telling Shackles that.”

A sick feeling shot through my stomach at the look upon her face, leading Pike and Cosh to snort with shrill laughter. Grinning at her, licking his lips, the jailer dug into his meal. I held my breath.

I had expected to wait for a few minutes, but apparently, the entire pot had more immediate effects.

The desk rattled, hopping as his hooves flailed and rose to his mouth. Choking, gasping and coughing, the jailer roared aloud, sucking in air and gurgling, attempting to wipe his tongue with a yellowed sheet of his clothing.

“Blurrrgh! Ya...yain...FUCKIN THRO-YAAARGH!”

The desk rocketed up and flipped, sending food and tabletop items flying. I saw Unity’s eyes go wide in surprise, while Pike and Cosh moved closer, seeming to hug one another while their temporary master stomped and flailed to and fro, gagging and panting. Sneezing madly, his voice reaching higher pitches to more the powder burned the inside of his throat. I saw his eyes lock on them.

“Ya...YA TWO!”

“Run, Pike!”

“Way ahead of ya!”

I dove into the waiting doorway as they clattered out. Mere seconds later, a wobbling and rippling obese jailer staggered out after them, screaming from the powder in his throat, swearing loudly and chasing them off down the hallways. The moment he had passed, I dove into the jail, and ran up to Unity's cell. She gasped and hurried up to the bars, pocketing a small bronze object.

“Murky? You came down here?”

“The M-Master is coming, we need to get you out!”

I glanced down at the lock, finding it to have a keyhole. Perfect!

“Can you pick it?”

“Yes! They took my lockpick rod, but I still have a bobby pin from my mane! Can you find anything in here to work with it?”

In the distance, I could still hear the jailer shouting. Damn it, he hadn't gone far! I had to search quickly.

I took to the mess the jailer had left behind, tearing out drawers and looting the cabinets. The jailer's voice was becoming louder again. He was coming back! Throwing open the second cabinet, I found a small cupboard filled with tools. Some of them were reddened. Stifling the sick realisation, I began digging through them, feeling the panic rise. Hammer? No. Spanner? No. Screwdriver? Damn it, no! A power drill? Just sick...

“There's nothing!”

“Keep looking! Try his desk, maybe he has spare keys!”

Vaulting over the fallen desk, I started hunting through the mass of fallen items, tossing them aside. Heavy hoof treading accompanied by mass swearing and spluttering was echoing back down the tunnels already. We had to go now if we wanted to avoid him seeing us! I hoped he was further away and this place was just playing tricks on my ears.

“Come on, Murk!” Unity hissed, her eyes watching the doorway. “If there’s nothing there, just go...”

“Not again.” I muttered, striving to not let my mind get clouded by worry for my friends, before my hooves found a little tin box and opened it. Four labelled keys looked up at me. “I got them!”

“Good! It's cell two, get the one for cell two! Hurry, Murky, I can hear him coming!”

A loud belch and sudden sneeze came seconds apart from outside. I looked down at the keys to grab the second along and threw it to Unity, who caught it in her magic. After a brief attempt, she raised it up.

“...Murky, this says cell three on it! How did you mess that up?”

She didn't sound angry, just bewildered and strained from worry about us being caught. My mouth gaped as I looked down. They hadn't been in order? Screwing my eyes shut, I just slid the entire box to her.

“I...I can't read, okay? I'm sorry...”

Unity even took a half second to just stare with wide eyes, before her shoulders sank. But her eyes rolled as her voice deadpanned.

“My hero...”

Looking down, evading my embarrassed blush, she whipped up the key, twisting it around in the lock and trying to force it in. I stood nearby, pacing in worry.

“Stupid...stupid fucking slaves. Damned pepper on a damned radroach stew? Oh they'll pa-OH!”

His hooves stopped on the spot, not too far from the cell area, and his deep voice rose in shock, as though surprised by something.

Another voice cut through the quiet of the cellar areas.

“I suggest you care less about your meal and more about why you're not at your post, lackey.”

The Master. All sound other than that voice ceased. Oh...oh no, he was here! I spun to Unity, trying to help her with the lock.

“Murky, what-”

“We have to go! We have to go now!”

The jailer's thick tread was joined by that inevitably terrifying stomping. He must have come down the other passage! Wiggling the key through the rusted gate, I gave it one large shove to finally jam it in. Together, her magic and my weak strength, we tried to force the large lock around. To my horror, I felt the key bending, but we couldn't stop now!

A sudden ping was followed by the tink of metal on the floor.

I staggered back, mouth open as I saw the snapped key. But Unity stared at it, closed her eyes and strained. Seeing the deep red aura around the remains of the key, she shivered with the effort to turn it in her magic, before it finally clicked. Together, we struggled to pull the rusty gate open and be properly reunited.

“Come on!” I moved to pull her out, but Unity turned back, grabbing that little object. What was it? A shaped piece of metal? She simply tossed it into her rags, not giving me a chance to see it properly.

“Okay, done, now we go!”

Leaning forward, pulling her quickly, we galloped together out of the jail and down the corridor, charging around a corner the moment I heard The Master and one hell of an unfortunate jailer return. The odd thought that with all this nick of time running, I'd not actually seen The Master since Barb's death in the Mall. I'd always been too afraid to look back.

Forever chasing me. Something I couldn't ever look back because I dared not out of terror.

Terror of seeing what could close around my neck once again.

To that end, we didn't wait, we didn't judge. We simply galloped as fast as our tired bodies would carry us until we found stairs upwards. Hearing nothing behind us other than a spine-chilling roar of anger.

Doubling up to shove aside the thick dungeon doors, we found ourselves back in the atrium. Immediately, we ducked into the side of the room and began heading to avoid this main nexus of activity. Ponies were moving between the cubes or dragging small carts to the experimental areas and chemistry labs, giving us few exits. Most of the other doorways were blocked by old rubble, I guessed from the balefire or the riot destruction.

I felt Unity tugging me. There was one hole left, where a door had once stood at the opposite end from the large broken window. A thousand shards of glass still seemed to be embedded into the walls surrounding it. Amongst this mess of a central hub, it was only one more oddity. Perhaps a little recklessly, we galloped across the floor, trying to blend in like two ponies rushing to work. In a minute or so, I knew The Master would come tearing up after us and raise the alarm. If we wanted to find Old Grizzly's office, we had to move quickly, very quickly.

I just prayed we could somehow find Protégé amongst all of this.

Hopping through the hole, raising a few complaints from the slaves trying to work on picking out all the glass with tongs, we found a stairwell that had clearly only just been repaired from almost nothing. Even one more level up, it began to feel like this entire section had been repaired in a way that did not reflect the original style. Under all the patchwork, I could see a peeling pink wallpaper.

“Do you know the way to his office?”

“No! But I know where the higher rank offices are. We'll just look for the name on the door!”

Galloping out onto a floor, we shared a look, before Unity bit her lip and turned back to look ahead.

“...ok. I'll look for the name on the door.”

Emerging onto a more traditional corridor with more of that horrible pink hue decorating it, Unity began to look at each door in turn. Behind us, I heard a great commotion going up in the main rebuilt atrium research labs. Clearly, The Master had emerged from the dungeon. Perhaps we could-

I heard trotting. Darting forward, I almost tackled Unity through the door she was checking, for us to land in a heap beyond it. Clamping a hoof to her mouth to avoid any sound of surprise, I gently let her go as another pony cantered past.

No. Not another pony. Grindstone. The old donkey was pushing his way down the corridor, grumbling and hissing with anger to himself. Remembering the stallion's warning, I figured that council jury chamber was about to get very heated once he arrived. Behind him trotted a young mare, desperately trying to get his attention.

“But, Master Grindstone! The machine can't be repaired if it becomes strained. We can't risk-”

“It was designed by Aurora Star herself, known for memory technology that functioned in great stress. You will carry out the orders! Now leave me alone, the hearing is in five minutes.”

“I'm so sorry, but we can't! If we try to extract the memories too quickly, the pony you’re inside could expire and-”

“One wretched life matters nothing to me! You think I care about that buck any longer? Now that that ridiculous robot is gone, you can do what you want with the machine, can't you? He knows where it is. That’s the only bit of information that matters, everything else we can find down there. Now get away from me! This hearing is crucial. If I get it the way I want, that little buck will be back with the slaves, where he belongs.”

“Y-yes ,master.”

They passed down the same rickety stairwell we'd came up. I pressed against the doorway, listening carefully while nervously chewing my lip. Good luck, Protégé.

Unity shifted up to me.

“Somepony that matters to you? If they're on Grindstone's bad side then I'm on their side.” Unity had stood up again, moving back to the door herself. “What's his name? What did he mean about 'back' to the slaves?”

I only hesitated for a second, before mentally bucking myself for being so paranoid these days. It was Unity, of course I could tell her.

“...his name is Protégé. My master.”

“What?”

Turning quickly, I lifted my hooves to her shoulders. “But he used to be a slave, like us! He's a good pony underneath, really! Just...converted.”

Looking away, I dropped back down to all four hooves and glanced around as a means of trying to change the subject. But amongst the empty wall safes and a discarded cloak upon the floor there was nothing to give me the opportunity. Instead, I just sighed.

“But I swear, I sometimes see who he really is. It's like he just feels lonely and lost inside. Like he's been searching for somepony else without even realising it beneath what Red Eye's done to how he sees things. Somepony who understands or sees more to life. He was really hurt and I wanted to find him, tell him where I was going!”

To my surprise, she seemed to react a lot less than I'd expected, taking my words at face value to just smile and pat my (uninjured) shoulder.

“Then we'll go find him if we can, Murky. I trust you. Now, I think Grizzly's office is just down this corridor. We'll get there, then judge where we are, okay?”

“Right.”

The corridor was empty again. No doubt all these higher ranks who deserved offices were moving off to the hearing on Protégé's future. I let Unity lead, checking each name plate in turn. Below us, there was rampant shouting and rushing around. I simply hoped they didn't presume our escape route to be deeper into this beehive of slavers.

“This one!”

Unity tapped a door emblazoned with three balloons. (Ones somepony had once tried to chisel off, it seemed.) Not hesitating, she simply shoved her way inside. Casting one more look back down the corridor, half-expecting The Master to be waiting, I trotted inside and closed the door. The sound of dozens of ponies beginning to gallop around was growing. We didn't have much longer. Turning back to the office I...woah...

This was no normal office. Tall and with a balcony that blew in hot stormy air, it indeed had a large pink desk and a chair, but that was where the 'normal' stopped. The walls were covered in small pigeonhole boxes, bearing hundreds...no, thousands, of letters. Large sacks had been tossed in a corner as part of a futile attempt to tidy up. Now they simply overflowed, dropping even more thin pink letters everywhere. Below my hooves was a thick carpet, also pink, that was strangely comfortable to stomp on. An odd brass tube seemed to run into the pigeon holes with wires connecting it to a terminal on the wall, for whatever use I couldn't even fathom. It had little highlights of...yup, pink.

Oh yeah. This room sure was pink.

Somehow, I didn't even need to read the little plaque upon the desk marked with three balloons to know who this office belonged to. Already I could feel eyes watching me from somewhere. Together, we wandered into one of Pinkie's rooms, finding both our pairs of eyes fixated on the letters.

“What are these?” I looked closely at one as Unity raised it with her magic.

“Well, not like anypony's going to shout at us for taking a little peek, huh?” Carefully, she began unfolding it. But what was it anyway? It didn't escape my ever active imagination that all these were meant for somepony who had died, though.

But each of them bore the same stamp alongside a wax seal of the Ministry itself. The stamp was shaped like a cake.

“It's a birthday card.” Unity whispered quietly, raising the little white slip from the envelope. “Says, hmm. ’Hi, Pearly Swirl! Happy super-duper twirly twirl Birthday! You didn't think your old pal Pinkie would forget it, did you? Enjoy the gift and make this the bestest day ever until the next bestest day ever next year too! Signed, The Pinkiest of Pink Ponies, Pinkie Pie! PS. don't go near any doors today. Take it from your bestest friend Pinkie!’”

Finishing the short letter, we both just looked up, probably even more confused than before she'd read it.

“Uh, that was...”

“Weird?”

“Yeah, weird.”

“Definitely weird.”

“Absolutely weird.”

She gently placed it upon the desk, immediately cantering over to the (pink) table's (also pink) terminal on the desk and seating herself upon the (again, pink) chair. I just ran my eyes along the walls, finding a giant map of Equestria. Lines from Fillydelphia were drawn to every settlement. Trade routes.

I had no idea if this was the most endearing or terrifying thing I'd ever seen. No, surely my imagination was playing tricks on me. She couldn't have known the birthday of everypony in Equestria! It made no sense! There wasn't any automation or space for a large workforce. Just maybe a couple helpers and the mare herself. How was this possible?

Watching everypony...FOREVER.

Absent-mindedly needing some air, I wandered to the balcony and glanced out. From here, you could see the entire roller coaster on this side of the FunBarn. Below us lay the much longer and lower section of the Barn where I had seen all the machines creating presents. To my horror, I saw the guards rushing to cover every single exit around the wall.

“Unity, we need to go soon.”

“In a second. He said he keeps lists of all their names on here for ponies who go on special assignments or get sent to the Pit. I will find him, Murky. He needs my help! This could be the only link I have! Okay, okay, there we go! I'm in! Let's see...'Pony Database!'”

She kept typing away, furiously hammering the keys with her hooves, lacking Glimmer's natural duality of magic and physical interaction, but making it all up in determination.

“It doesn't search by initials! One second, I'll put my name in, see if anything comes up! There...we...go!”

A rush of air blew past us with a small thwip. The sound caught both our attentions, as the tube attached to the wall of letters sent a small envelope firing out of it to land upon the middle of the floor. Sharing glances, I moved to pick it up, while I saw Unity look back at the screen and scowl. The expression didn't seem to suit her.

“It's got info on him alright! I can see the request against my name that Grizzly put in that someone be sent back with me to the same assignment after the Pit! But it's got no name-wait!”

She almost hammered the keypads into submission with her hooves in excitement.

“There's something saying about a transfer to another role for Red Eye's empire after the Pit; they took him somewhere else in Fillydelphia but-but no record of where or with who!”

“Anything else?”

“NO!”

Her head lay in her hooves, staring at the insultingly bareboned descriptions on the screen.

“I was so close...I thought I had him! Murky, what happened to him? Was somepony giving me false memories? Was he not really in the Pit? I just don't know anymore! I just. Don't. Know!”

Her front hooves slammed on the keypad of the terminal with each word, before she slumped over it, sobbing through her own frustrated anger. That flattened dirty mane fell either side of her head. But then she stopped, as though realising something.

“Wait. Grindstone was talking about a buck back there...do you think he could have slipped him off there? I used to be with Grindstone, one of his stock. How am I meant to know what to pursue?” She quaked, holding back a scream of frustration. “Why does this world have to do this to us all?”

Picking up the envelop in my mouth, I dropped it on the desk before moving beside her.

“Maybe this?”

“Murky, that's just some stupid thing Pinkie used to do.”

“But it came out when you put in your name so...”

“Look, Murky, I-huh?” She had looked up to knock down the idea, but I saw her eyes simply stare at the seal. “M-Murky...?”

“What? What is it?” I leaned over, but the words were absolutely unreadable in the same writing style I had seen Pinkie use on the other letters. But Unity's face was one of abject shock, of a mixture between wonder and stark fear. “What does it say?”

Her mouth quivered, before she spoke slowly, gulping and forcing the words out.

“It's...it's addressed to-”

She took a breath.

“...to us.”

'To,

Murky and Unity.

So super super sorry that this letter took sooooo long to arrive, but when I knew I had to send it, I was just like 'Aaaaaaaaah!' for at least a minute! I mean, can you imagine?

I'm really really sorry that it missed your last few birthdays, Unity. That's why I want to make my gift to you really special! I just want to tell you that you don't need to panic. It's all going to be fine! I hate to say it, but there's a hard road to go first, before you see the buck you once knew. I wish I could just tell you, but I don’t really know all the itty-bitty details. This isn’t like one of Twilight’s crazy organised experiments, y’know! I’m sure you’ll work it out together. You're a smart pony. Smart ponies always figure things out! Except me. But then, I can't figure me out either! How crazy is that!?

Just trust me, Unity, it’ll be alright. Together, or not at all, right?

Hey, Murky-Murk? You're what set off my Pinkie Sense so bad that I spilled somepony's sarsaparilla! I mean, a pony who never had a birthday party in his life? I will not, as Ministry Mare of Morale, let this happen! But it's a few days till your birthday yet, Murky. Be patient, okay?

Oh, and Murky? Listen very carefully to your Auntie Pinkie. Don't. Worry. When the time comes to make a choice, whether to leap or not, you'll know what to do.

I'll be watching out for you two, from wherever I am.

With hugs, (Give each other one for me! Hehe!)

Pinkie Pie!

PS – I'd leave the office right now if I were you.

Unity let the letter droop after finishing her read through.

Speechless...utterly, utterly speechless.

My mind didn't actually even know where to begin with the process of figuring out what I'd just heard.

“I'll see him again?” Unity spoke gently, lowering the letter back to the desk, her eyes still wet. But then her teeth gritted, with a smile that only somepony with their mind set on the daring could make. “Yes. Yes she's right, I will. I don't care how long the journey is, Murky, or how hard it is. I'll trot it if I have to. Whatever Grindstone's done to him!”

“There might be something. I was in Grindstone's place before. That machine he mentioned, it had a buck in it. I don't know him and some robot said he was there for a lot longer than recently. He was in some uniform. But maybe that has something to do with it? Maybe it's him!”

She was quivering on the spot, resting her hooves upon the desk. But her took my hoof, holding it tightly and nodding.

“Yes. I...I hope so. We'll get in there someday, Murky. If you're right, maybe that is him! Grindstone was always hunting us when he could, like that other beast that's after you.”

We had something to go on and I knew I had an ally in the Ministry. It was decided. We had another objective after all this.

Yet I couldn’t ignore that else I’d heard when she read it. My mind was reeling from a message to me. A birthday? What choice to make was Pinkie talking about?

They were details for later. Right now, I did the only thing I knew I could do immediately and gave Pinkie her only request. I hugged Unity amidst her shaken thoughts. Her hooves wrapped around me tightly enough that I felt my wings ache. We were both scared witless, not even trying to comprehend the truth of what we'd just found or how or why. But all I could think about were those eyes that seemed to follow me everywhere and the dungeon below. Was I right to trust a two hundred year dead pony with a dungeon?

A crash sounded through the hallway. The sound of a door being bucked in.

“Check every damned room. They have to be up here!”

Jolted back to the harsh reality of Fillydelphia from the voices of the past, our faces swivelled to the doorway. I could hear slavers smashing open every office door and storming the rooms. They were coming! Grabbing our things, Unity and I galloped back to the door, peering out to see a half dozen slavers armed with rifles barge into a room six doors down.

“Go now!” I hissed, before we moved into the corridor, moving away from the way we'd come up. Side by side, we sprinted for all our combined worth to reach the next corner.

“There they are! There they are!”

The shout behind us was followed by an ear-splitting crack from a rifle. The wall to my left splintered. A warning shot, no doubt. But there was no stopping me now. Unity and I had our ponies to find, the ones that mattered to us.

Another shot came much closer. I screamed as it tore through my saddlebag. My journal! Oh please be okay, please be okay!

We turned a corner, three shots slamming into the wall behind us, to see the balcony over the research areas up ahead. No going that way! Instead, we turned down a side corridor through a massive steel door.

“Look, Murky! That sign says 'Medical!' This way!”

Those chasing us were gaining, but passing through into the medical wing, our combined strength was just enough to shove the thick door shut and spin the lock. Pre-war ponies may not have known anything about safety railings, but they sure could make a big doorway! On the other side, I heard many attempts to spin the lock, before we pulled a pipe from the wall and jammed the doorway.

Now to hope there was another way out. But instead I just heard Unity shriek.

“Murky, you're bleeding! You've been shot!”

My hooves stumbled in terror. I was? But I hadn't felt it! Unity pushed me to the ground, her hooves becoming slick with...

...with orange liquid.

Unfortunately, that brought even greater fear. Dread realisation emerged as I began pulling open the saddlebag.

“No, no, no, NO!” I simply panicked, tussling around in the mass of stuff I'd acquired over time. I felt a sticky liquid as I drew out the one remaining RadAway sachet I had. It was leaking badly.

“NO!”

“Murky, what's wrong!?”

I didn't even answer, just trying to press the liquid back in, but hooves weren't meant for such a role. Crying, hyperventilating, and feeling my lungs flare up as though sensing the only lifeline I had left being drained away, I instead just crammed it toward my mouth, downing every bit of it that I could. I didn't have to take it for another twelve hours. It felt like such a waste, to be throwing away something I'd need. Clutching the empty packet, the realisation settled in.

I was dry of RadAway.

“I need it to live! My lungs they, uh, they get real bad and I don't understand it but the doctors say they can't fix it! They can't fix it, Unity! I cough and get blood and...oh Goddesses help me. I'm going to die in a day if I can't get more!”

Unity's face bore a mask of horror, before steeling herself.

“I didn't know, but Murky, we need to get out of here first. We're going to medical, we'll try and steal some! But we have to get moving!”

Allowing myself to be led, my limbs shaking in fear, I couldn't help but remember every time I'd been through this hell. In the air terminal, in the crater, in the pits, and in the Ministry. The one thing that I couldn't get rid of that lurked within my chest, eating away at my life. Through a mask of tears, I followed Unity. Yes. Yes, medical, we'd get some and-

Medical was heavily guarded. Very heavily guarded.

The corridor opened out onto a selection of small rooms, each walled by thick glass. Beds lay among them, sometimes with an unconscious slaver on them. But at the end I could see griffons surrounding a large door. Past that there were crowds of ponies. Unity and I ducked low, staying underneath the lowest height of the windows and moving around parts of the room the griffons couldn't see through too.

The ponies were arguing, one donkey too. I heard Grindstone's deep and rough voice.

“The boy is an embarrassment, garnering nothing but advancement through his association with our leader! It's bad enough that we be dragged down here by Master Grizzly to have to be doing this under some stuffy bureaucratic means to be in Protégé's presence, but to have any capability he has held up as good for Fillydelphia? Absolutely not!”

Many ponies cheered and roared their support. Another voice, stern and wise, barked back.

“You accuse our leader of permitting anypony to hold rank without proving themselves? Protégé spent two years proving himself to Red Eye and took on the responsibilities only after Red Eye's personal approval! In his duty, he has carried out numerous-”

“He failed, Grizzly! Did you not see the Stable débâcle? He let Steel Rangers destroy most of the workforce until Stern had to rescue them!”

I felt a personal objection and unthinkably frustrating well of emotion at that. That mad donkey had set that damn ambush up himself!

“Not only that, but he then proceeds to fail to control his own slaves, resulting in a riot that killed over twenty slavers and over forty slaves! It was his warmongering attitude to launch an all-out assault, with no tactics and without even attempting diplomatic negotiations that almost got him killed!”

The urge to scream and rant in response was almost overwhelming at the sheer gall of Grindstone to say such things as truth! Protégé hadn't done that! But hearing the amount of ponies hollering and agreeing made my painfully grind my remaining teeth to bite down the anger. I had to find Protégé in here.

The medical station held several windows in the far wall that looked in more secure rooms. It seemed likely they might be there. But to get there, I'd have to cross the primary 'path' through the centre. The griffons couldn't not see me then.

Sitting back, sweating, still afraid for my own health, I took a second to breathe and try to figure something out.

“You have no proof for any of those claims, Grindstone!” I heard Old Grizzly, the one voice shouting back for Protégé, speak up again. “You have yet to hear his side of the story!”

The donkey’s voice was weaker in reply, but firm and authorative.

“Chainlink Shackles has offered a witness' viewpoint. Many others who say it back him up, including Quartermaster Mosin. They report that Protégé ignored any advice in an apparent effort to attempt to impress Red Eye. He is not worthy to lead! He should be cast from our ranks! Thrown back into the pits!”

Another pony, rough voiced.

“I say we just let him die! I lost friends in that fuck up he caused! He deserves punishment! Shackles is the hero, trying to calm it, but then Protégé went and caused another mess up with friendly fire on the griffons!”

“Yeah!”

“Punishment!”

The urge to just run up and give a ‘witness viewpoint’ of my own was tempered only by the natural fear I had of Grindstone. Unity, having been sitting so quietly that I almost lost track of her, lay a hoof over mine, calming me. She spoke quietly, gently.

“Politics, Murky. They want him out. Old Grizzly's honest, he won’t give up. But we can't change what’s going on over there. I'm sorry.”

“I know...j-just...he did so much! Gave so much of himself, saved my life so many times and put his life on the line to help slaves, and this is what happens! They make him into the fall pony. It's not fair!”

She patted my hoof. I knew she was right. Giving me a second to take a deep breath, she nodded to the opposite side of the room.

“Come on. We should get moving. We need to cross here anyway. When you dumped your bag, were those firecrackers I saw?”

Oh? Ooooh...

That improved my mood a little. I couldn't speak out on this horridly biased version of events, but I could interrupt them! Tearing them out, I ripped the ignition strip from the top of the line and passed them to Unity. Holding them in her magic, she threw them to a far corner of the medical chambers. I covered my ears.

But nothing happened.

“...did it fail? When's it going to-”

It went off. A mad burst of noise and fire cracking off in rapid succession. Like a gun on fully automatic, they sparked and blasted around the corner of one operating theatre. Clutching my ears, gritting my teeth, I tried to watch as the griffons immediately bounded forward, flanking around the room to check out the commotion. I heard the higher ranked masters scatter, some dropping to the ground. To my delight, even a few cries of fear. The moment the griffons soared past us, Unity and I ran into the next chamber of this wing and started pushing the next security door shut behind us.

We got it half way, when I saw Grindstone stagger forward and cast one beady eye at us. I saw his eyes go wide at the sight of me, like a surprise at seeing such a slave here.

“You...”

“Push, Murky!” Unity screamed, throwing her weight against the door as Grindstone called the griffons and charged the doorway.

“You trespassers! Thieves! Guards, get over here!”

The door slammed shut. Repeating the same trick, Unity jammed the wheel and dragged me further in.

“You've got a few minutes! I'll look for a way out, you find him!”

She took off, running into the facility while I began cantering around each window. The door shook from gunfire rattling against it, seeming to bulge in places. I could hear the zap and crackle of energy weaponry too. Knocking aside chairs and skittering about on the slippery tiled floor, I hopped up to the windows of every enclosed area and side room, checking for my master. Most were empty, a couple bore incredibly confused and sick slavers who merely let their eyes wander at all the noise. One had clearly been at the receiving end of an auto-axe, displaying a grisly sight indeed.

But then my sight fell to one side room at the far end, secured by a whole separate door and with a thick window looking in. Slowly, tentatively, I trotted forward and hopped up.

The fight to not explode into tears on the spot was one of the toughest I had ever faced.

He lay upon the bed, his shoulders, chest, and throat swamped in blooded gauze. Tubes ran into his nose and mouth, needles were inserted upon his left foreleg, and a machine in the corner fed liquids down the tubing in a watchful vigil. It marked his life by a small picture of a pony that flashed red around the neck area.

Protégé lay unconscious. They hadn't even covered him. His cutie mark was still before me, carrying with it his dreams and hopes, under the Red Eye or not. Every wound, whip scar, and burn on his body from years of slavery made it all too easy to see why they hated him. He wasn't one of them, not truly. He never could be in their eyes, yet for all his life it was what he wanted. To work beside his idol.

Hadn't I wished so often for the same? To travel with Littlepip and aspire to her goals?

Leaning on the glass, noticing it steam up from my breath, hearing the growing thumping on the door, I knew that he was in danger. They wanted to execute him or punish him! I had to get him out of here, get him safe with Unity and I! We could prepare together! Go back for Glimmer, Brim, and Coral, her son, and even Sunny! We'd all get out!

I galloped to the door, tugging on the same wheel lock the barrier between me and the griffons now had. Wrapping my hooves around, I tugged.

Two explosions rocked the room, the security door behind me bulging in the middle. Dust fell from the ceiling and instruments scattered. Patients cried out in fear. I simply pulled, dropping my pitiful weight on the wheel to try and force it to just MOVE!

A horrible creaking behind me gave rise to a new sound of ponies shouting. They'd made a small hole! Come on! COME ON! I couldn't let them take him! I couldn't!

My muscles strained, my tiny little strength causing me to cry in sheer anger at everything about being born a slave! From being here, here at all to even the horrible weakness of body it left you with! Even Protégé, better fed and trained, was still a little smaller than most ponies. But my light-boned body only made it worse.

“Come on! Come on, move, door! MOVE!”

A further explosion rocked the door, blasting air through a hole it was creating at the side.

Unity returned and ran over to me.

“Murky, we're out of time!”

“HE'S HERE! I have to get him!”

To her credit she, without even looking in the room, trusted and tugged with me. The wheel moved slightly, grinding around from whoever had locked it so tight! But two weak slaves just...we couldn't...

“It's jammed! Murky, we can't get this! They'll be in here within seconds!”

Another explosion rocked the door, making bolts fly out.

“I'm not leaving him! They...they're going to hurt him!”

The door rattled on its frame, before yet another detonation set it leaning inward..

“Almost! Get them! Two more hits!”

Unity looked around at it, before turning back to me.

“I'm sorry, Murky! I'm so so sorry! But you can't help him if you're dead!”

She tugged at me, but I only screamed and dove back at the door. Remembering every time he'd leapt in for me, begged me to let him help me, guarded me with his own body and fought in my defence! I couldn’t turn away now!

A loud crunch announced the door's top joint breaking from the wall. Unity whirled me around, pinning me against the window and pushing her muzzle almost right against mine.

“MURKY! I know what you're feeling! I...I know it too! Someone I care for is out there somewhere too and Equestria knows how much I want to help him too! I want to search here for more information, to call out Grindstone and know for real if that's what it is! But the ponies we care about won't be helped by us getting killed!”

The metal groaned. They were bending the door inward! Staring right into her crying eyes, I realised what I hadn't even thought. She'd come here for the same reason as I. She was having to leave without him too. Deep in those hazel eyes, I recognised my own pain. We'd failed, but that didn't mean we had to give up.

“Y-you're right.”

Unity dropped back from me.

“Then come on, I found a way out! Fillydelphia wins today, Murky, but all the old stories from Old Equestria say ponies had to face the darkness before the dawn too. We'll have another chance. They won’t do it right away if they’ve got him hooked up like this. We can try again.”

She turned, leading the way. I hesitated only just for a second, turning to look back through the glass. Smoke was billowing in from the door now, whirling around this chamber. I simply gazed in at my master, at the only other born slave I'd ever known to share the pain with.

He opened one eye.

My gut wrenched. The first sight he'd seen of me, and I had to run into the smoke.

“I'm sorry...” I muttered, backing away. That one eye, tired and in pain, seemed to quiver. “I'm sorry! And...thank you.”

I hoped, somehow, through that clearly soundproof glass, that he understood before I turned and ran to catch up.

We made it a good thirty feet down a side passage away from the medical wing before the door busted in. I heard it crash down, followed by the scathing sound of talons on tiles. Unity led the way, bringing us out to a section of unrepaired roofing. Scaffolds lay around us with many tools, all open to the sky. Unity quickly spun back to me, rushing over and starting to tug at my fleece.

“What are you doing!?” I was still reeling with emotion, but this genuinely caught me off guard.

“Helping you get your wings free! They'll spot us if we go too far, but if you can just fly us over the little wall here we can make a run for it!”

My face flushed. Feeling rather hollow, I gently brushed her off and looked away, screwing my eyes shut.

“I never told you but...I can't fly. My wings are broken.”

Letting my eyes creak open a little, the look she gave me could only be described as absolute heartbreak, before she galloped up to nuzzle close for a second.

“Oh Murky...I'm so sorry, it's like if I lost my horn or something I wouldn't know what to do! But what do we do then!? That was my plan!”

Behind us, I could hear them approaching our dead end. Casting my eyes around, I spotted what could be our only way out. Near the tools, I located one of the utility saddle grapple launchers.

“Help me get this on my saddle!”

It took a few tense seconds of work, but Blunderbuck had done his work well. It was as easy as slotting on the tool, tightening the gear and hooking it up to the wires! Suitably equipped, I flexed my front hoof, springing the mouthpiece out. Trotting up to the edge, I cast my eye around, spotting the rungs of the rollercoaster above us. Below us lay the same wide factory level of the Barn I'd seen on my way in.

“Hold tight, Unity! I-I have no idea what I'm doing!”

“Aren't you reassuring. Well...geronimo?”

She fed her hooves around me, hugging tightly. Gripping the mouthpiece, squinting through the rain, I aimed for the rollercoaster and bit down.

My body jerked backward from the pneumatic force of the grapple rocketing from the launcher. Trailing a thin wire from the canister, I saw it, by some miracle, wrap around a rung of the rollercoaster. Well, now or, never!

“Y'know, Murky, about that whole geronimo thing? I really don't feel quite as confident about that as I first said it!”

“Neither do I!”

Someone shouted from behind us.

“There they are! Get them!”

I didn't even look back. I simply jumped forward. We both screamed and simply fell, plummeting off the side of the Barn, before the wire went taut! My entire torso twisted, making me cough loudly and cry out in pain, before I felt our weights being swung like a pendulum low over the roof of the factory segment. Picking up speed, an insane sense of adrenaline and surging motion blasted through my senses. Almost crazily, I felt my mouth widen into a mad smile. We...we were doing it! We were-

The hook came loose and pinged out of its target.

...falling! I felt the hook drop loose from the coaster, my eyes catching a brief glimpse of that rusty structure breaking under our weight. Barely feet from the factory, soaring through the burning rain and incoming fire from above, we hit the new corrugated roof and bounced, rolling over one another along the soft metal like a mad two-pony-shaped bowling ball. My body flared in pain, my wings screaming in agony before we finally came to a stop upon a clear plastic skylight. Breathing hard, eyes wide, hooves locked around one another in sheer panic. I didn't even move when the grapple zipped back in and returned to the launcher by my side.

“W-w-wow...”

“T-that w-was s-some ride...”

It wasn't over. To our combined screaming, the roof gave way beneath our weight, dropping us into the factory, right into the view of about forty slavers below. After a bone crunching landing on hard metal, they all stared up at us on our unstable platform of...

….huh? Up at us?

Getting a sense of my bearings, feeling my balance lurch beneath me and my body ache, I realised that we had landed on the giant Pinkie head I'd seen. Soon after that, I also realised that it now was beginning to topple very dangerously.

“Hey, that's those runaways! Get down from there!”

The slavers surrounded us while we got up, struggling to keep our balance.

“Uh...Murky, I think this is going to go!”

My life had been punctuated by moments of rebellious insanity in here. It seemed I was about to add another one. Looking down at the almost spherical shape of Pinkie's head, only one idea came to mind.

“Lean forward!” I didn't wait for her, pushing us both forward and feeling the unsteady massive ball beneath us lean.

“I said get off! GET OFF or we'll just gun ya down! Bosses want ya alive!”

They had us utterly encircled, weapons pointed. I just hoped for the element of surprise. With a creak and a moan of twisting metal, Pinkie Pie's head broke loose. Unity and I screamed, back-pedaling madly to stay atop the rolling metal ball as it fell the ten feet to the floor and delivered the headbutt of the millennium to one poor slaver who didn't get out the way fast enough.

Slowly, it began to build speed. The dull rumbling offset by the sudden bump and jerk every time Pinkie's muzzle hit the ground and made the entire thing hop like a mad bouncy ball.

My hooves quaked from the unsteady mad ride, like some crazy circus act as Pinkie's head rolled forward, gaining speed on the smooth floor and beginning to thunder across the factory with us atop it. Turning, we had to gallop for all we were worth in the opposite direction to not be pulled under it!

“This was your idea!?” Unity shrieked, panting and powering her hooves as fast as she could.

“It’s all I could think of!”

Looking over my shoulder, gasping for breath, I saw slavers and even slaves scattering in all directions from the oncoming pink ball of devastation. Boxes were crushed, machines knocked aside, and shelves toppled. But at the end of it, we were approaching the main closed doorway. The one normally too rusted to open.

Well, we were going to help Red Eye in one way at least.

Behind a rending crash of thin metal, the entire door was torn from its hinges, propelling us back into the outside. Churning through the earth, our transport threw waves of pooled water to either side behind it. Almost immediately, the rain lashed upon Pinkie's head, picking up mud and dampening the surface. Our hooves skidded, slipped, and fell. In desperation, we dived to the side, freefalling once more before landing in the thick mud.

“Urgh! Get up! Get up, Murky! The way's clear! Come on!”

Groaning, I tried to roll to my hooves, finding my body complaining all the more. Unity was pulling me, hissing through her teeth at the burning rain on her back. Around us, slavers were galloping and slipping about, but the gate was clear! The guards had fled the ball that now careened out into the FunFarm! We could go. We could-

Around us, shimmering in the darkness, a colossal shield slammed down into the ground ten metres to either side. The rain ceased when it enclosed us, trapping us in one green hue. Staggering to a halt, I spun and shrieked. Just outside the shield, one of those beasts knelt.

A green alicorn! Its horn was glowing and sparking brightly, projecting the thick magic shield that had trapped us.

And that was that. The slavers closed in, surrounding us and ending the escape about as suddenly as it had begun.

Behind us, I heard one final crash as Pinkie's head rolled over and sat atop a rather recognisable looking den. I heard one familiar overseer's voice echo across the storm.

“OH FOR FUCKS SAKE!” Screamed Whiplash.

We waited together. Pressed against each other's side for support, we simply waited as slaver after slaver surrounded us back inside the factory. Weapons were loaded and aimed, and we were the centre of a dozen furious glances. Griffons watched from the rafters, all awaiting a master to come and judge us. One slaver was staggering around, groaning after being run over by the Pinkie head.

“Sorry, Unity...I-I didn't want you to be-”

“Shh...it's alright, Murky. I chose to come. We might still be alright, look!”

She pointed with a hoof toward the door that came from the main building, where a somewhat shaggy looking pony approached. A monotone colouring upon his mane and coat was tinged with light and dark grey, almost covering his eyes. He moved with a certain poise and harsh eyes that seemed to widen upon seeing us. Raising one unshorn hoof, he waved the guards to lower their weapons.

“Unity. I had dreaded it was you. What are you doing!? I told you to stay out of trouble for now!”

This had to be Old Grizzly. Wiping my soaking wet brow, I squinted my eyes to get a better look at him. A tightly worn jerkin covered his thick, earth pony body, loaded with small pockets that held extra magazines for a long barrelled pistol strapped onto his hoof.

“The pony I’m trying to find! I told you I wanted to know out about him, but you've been lying to me when you said there was nothing! You knew he was-”

“Silence!” Old Grizzly cut her off, his voice leaving the calm and wise demeanour to remind me that yes, he was still a slave master. “You are still the slave here, Unity! You will mind your tone to me. This is unacceptable. Many slavers are calling for you both to be thrown at Hive's teams until you're just eaten alive! I've half a mind to agree, with all the damage you've done in here! I cannot prevent a true punishment from arising here!”

I felt Unity quiver. That wasn't good. Old Grizzly certainly still seemed more intense than Protégé.

“But I saw the records! He was taken somewhere when you said he'd be brought back to me! Why!?”

I presumed she felt it best to not blame Grindstone in the presence of so many potential allies of the donkey. Old Grizzly's eyebrows raised, before sighing and wiping a hoof across his brow.

“I have told you all I knew, Unity. I placed the request for him to be returned to you after the Pit, which I believe he did survive. I never saw the name, but the request referenced the buck you were sentenced with before. Past that I do not know! Fillydelphia is a complex machine, sometimes ponies fall through the cracks.”

“But it said he was carted off somewhere!”

“Standard procedure for most ponies...” I saw him eye me. “...after the Pit. To not let blood fuelled maniacs go axe-crazy on their cellmates. Past that I do not know, Unity. They were told to-”

“Oh, I can answer that one...”

The third voice, deep and hateful, rumbled across the factory floor. Half limping, pulling his old body along, Master Grindstone moved at the front of a dozen huge and imposing slavers. They all bore symbols of power or clear higher rank, but Grindstone was their figurehead, shuffling along to Old Grizzly. I felt Unity shake with anger, her eyes locking onto the old mule.

“Really, you're all fools for not spotting it. Makes an old vet like me fearful for the dejected upcoming generations in here! Haven't any of you figured it out yet?”

Unity and I exchanged glances. I saw that she looked to Grindstone with sheer hatred. She'd mentioned him before. Had she spent time under him? The donkey looked at us both, scowling at me in particular. Meekly, I averted my eyes. Old Grizzly huffed, turning to his fellow slaver.

“If you have some revelation, do share, Grindstone. I've had enough of listening to your poisonous words today.”

“You idiot ponies. Her name! The transfer, stated that this 'buck', by sentencing, was to be returned to her. To Unity. To be sent to Unity.”

Against me, I felt Unity shiver, no doubt a shot of horror going right down her spine. Taking a few seconds longer to get it, I twisted to look at her. Unity's face was drawn, pale, and devoid of that warmth she normally possessed.

I caught her before the stagger led her to fall. My friend simple stood limply, staring at Old Grizzly. The big slaver seemed morose, Grindstone's harsh words finally settling in as to the reality of what had happened.

“You...you approved that, didn't you!?” Grizzly snarled at the donkey.

“What does it matter? I just did a little checking up behind you after seeing you get a little too close to the labour. Had a look for who this request was actually talking about. Just doesn't take a half-intelligent being to figure it out when you look at the logs! Some idiot just looked, saw your dumb demand, and took it at face value! Best place for them. We needed more back then anyway. She’s just a slave, so why care anyway?”

“You watch your tongue, Grindstone.”

“Oh, do give it up. I'm much too old to be sneered at. Now, deal with your rogue slave, get her to the pits, and get back to your workplace.”

“No!”

Everypony turned. Unity had shouted the one word with such conviction that even Grindstone's head moved with surprise. She looked at me, remarkably holding back tears. Holding her head high, Unity looked at the slavers.

“I'm not going to the pits.”

Grindstone grumbled, talking as though to a child.

“I'm afraid you are, slave. You don't get a say in-”

“Because I choose to go to Unity!”

An audible gasp passed around, mine included. Pulling her around, I tried to get her attention, whispering.

“No! Nopony comes back from there! I'm sorry he was sent but you don't have to g-”

“No...Murky...” She gently moved my hooves away, only now allowing small tears to form. “I do...”

She fixed me with a sad look.

“Together, or not at all. I promised him that. At least this way, whatever Unity really is, I’ll have a...a chance. We'll face it as one. It's what Pinkie told us. A hard road, but that I'd find him at the end of it.”

“This isn't right. I just found you!”

Unity shivered, trying to catch herself, before leaning forward to embrace me gently.

“You helped me so much, Murky. Got me this far, but it's all right. If it were your friends, you’d do it too, wouldn’t you? You’re a brave buck, and I'm sorry to leave you, but stay by those that matter to you, alright? I know that Protégé will need you before the end too. Thank you, Murky.”

Letting go slightly, I felt her lean in and lightly kiss me on the cheek, before we nuzzled slightly. I couldn't prevent myself from crying, feeling like I was losing her forever. Nopony...nopony survived coming back from Unity.

“Oh, one thing.”

Unity backed off, digging into her ragged barding. Finally, she drew out a small object, a brass item. It was the one I'd seen in the prison cell, a small statuette of a little pony carved from metals and small pieces of scrap. A tiny unicorn, held aloft by her own magic and bearing a PipBuck on her right hoof.

“I told you my special talent was bringing ponies together, Murky. This is how I do it. I can read a pony’s unique magical signature, we all have one, and we’re all different. It’s what makes the magic of friendship so strong between ponies. I can imbue small objects, s-so somepony holding it can feel like the other pony is still there with them, j-just a little.”

She sniffed, and wiped her eyes.

“I made this one and imbued it with my own signature, hoping I'd see you again. I know what she means to you, Murky, about the hope she gave you. Well...you gave me the same today. So please, take it; so we’ll never be completely apart now, even if the worst happens.”

Gently, she let it drift to my hooves, before tucking it away in my saddlebag for me. I saw it to have a few words along the base, unreadable. I didn't dare spoil the moment to ask.

“Th-thank you.”

“Thank you, Murky...just remember. The friendship between us all is what keeps us going, okay? It’s what’ll let me help him, and it’s what’ll keep you going with your friends. Stay strong, Murky...keep inspiring others, okay?”

She backed away, moving toward Old Grizzly. Every step wrenched my heart, seeing her move all the further away. The one beautiful mare, for all the hurt slavery had done to her, giving herself up to the darkest secret of Fillydelphia in pursuit of one pony she’d promised to not leave without. Somepony she couldn't even remember.

The tragedy of her bravery struck me hard, almost too hard as I saw Old Grizzly nod.

“The next shipment to Unity isn't for some time. You'll be waiting in containment till then. I'll...I'll try and see if there's anypony over there who's been asking for you.”

“Thank you, Grizzly.”

My tears dripped onto the ground as I saw her led away by two guards, back into the FunBarn. Most of the masters left, Grindstone casting me a harsh look before moving back inside too. Silence reigned around the factory. Even the slavers were stunned at her volunteering. Soon, I saw Old Grizzly turn back, but not directly look at me, speaking quietly.

“You're Protégé's little helper, aren't you?”

“Y-yes, master...”

His eyes glanced down through that thick mane. He seemed so much older, watching one of the slaves he somewhat cared for leave. Probably as old as Brimstone.

“You saw what happened in the Mall. He'll need ponies like you. Stay low and get going. I can protect him from punishment for now, Red Eye wouldn't allow it, but he will not be returning to power. They decided...damn, that decided that Chainlink Shackles is now the permanent master of the Mall.”

“Oh no...”

“I know, Murk. I know. He offends me as much he did your now previous master. I was Protégé's tutor to the ways of our work here, the things Red Eye doesn't directly teach himself, like maintaining workforces and shift patterns. I would prefer it if you were not near Shackles, Murk. That pony. He's more than just a nasty basket case of sadism, much, much more. Believe me, he is entirely sane. One of the old timers that held power in Fillydelphia before Red Eye came along. Do not trifle with him, Murk. I don't want you to get involved in the madness of a pony forged in the fires of what this nightmare city used to be.”

My mind reeled and filled with horror in equal amounts. The Master was a constant. A singular constant in my life now that he had become almost predictable and terrifying in his sheer weight of presence. But to know that there was more in there, a life when Fillydelphia was not as ordered, for all the modern horrors.

“So I'm going to let you go.”

“H-huh!?”

“Be wary. I heard Grindstone sending somepony to fetch him, knowing you were here. So go. Run.” His voice lowered. “Stay safe. I may need your witness account when Red Eye is told of this by Protégé upon his recovery. You've become suddenly very important in a great game of politics and intrigue, Murk. I need you to disappear for now. So play along.”

Shivering, fearing Shackles would stomp out the door at any moment from wherever he was hunting, I nodded.

“Right…” He took a breath, increasing the volume of his voice. “Now get going, you stupid slave! Hive's waiting! MOVE!”

I shrieked. Turning, I skittered, tripped, and fell in my blind hurt and sadness to leave Unity with them. Finding my hooves, I galloped. It hurt my aching body, but I simply galloped and did not slow down.

Choking, retching, in pain and exhausted, I finally collapsed in the first safe place I could think of.

Foal Land. Hidden amongst the old stuffed toys, I fell to my side and hoarsely took in what air I could.

But my eyes still moved, and they found one thing nearby. Upon a chainlink fence, sitting amongst a thousand others of its type, only detached, separated, without union.

Pulling myself over, I gently reached out and clicked Unity's lovelock back together once again, before collapsing at the bottom of the fence.

Hours later, I dropped into my hiding hole amongst the residential areas of Fillydelphia, a basement long abandoned. Hiding in the dark, fearing every hoofstep and wingbeat above, I simply curled up, clutching the Littlepip Statuette. Somehow, just by holding it, I felt better, like Unity's calming influence was crossed with the strength of my beloved legend.

Somehow, someway, I wasn't going to let them have her. The impossible escape in my mind was a quickly growing list, to escape, to free Sunny from The Master...

And now to bring two ponies dear to one another back from the brink of Unity itself.

But I was alone. Without weapons other than a grappling hook on my saddle. Without food bar one solitary sandwich. No RadAway to speak of and only twenty four hours to live in a city that desperately sought to ruin me in every way possible.

I needed help, I needed strength. Holding the statuette close, I drew my PipBuck and curled up around it, switching on to the DJ's news slot. Let his tales of Littlepip bring me to bravery, as always!

“Good evening, wasteland...

If there's one job that a DJ can often learn to get a little bit feisty about, it's repeating stuff now and again in the times when we have no new information. It gets a little boring sometimes to have to repeat tales that I know all of you ponies have heard time and time again.

But sometimes...just sometimes, the truth of the matter is those stories that no DJ wants to keep repeating just have to be done for the benefit of those who miss other slots. So it is with great regret that I tell those of you who missed it, the news from the town of Arbu...”

Footnote: Perk Attained!

Mad Gallop – Without any concentration for shooting back, you can put more emphasis on just staying hard to target by diving around! (Now if only you could outrun them too...) While galloping, enemies suffer a penalty to hit you with ranged weaponry outside their own natural perception range.

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