“What...what is it like to be his slave?”

My greatest fear. To be trapped forever. It was finally coming true.

The collar snapped shut and with it, so did many of my hopes and dreams. The weight around my neck only drew the slave in my mind to the fore. He had me. His. His own. But I just...I couldn't think about anything other than how I'd managed to hurt one of my friends the moment that she'd needed me to be there for her most. Hearing Glimmerlight tell me to just...go. That wracked my heart in ways no slaver ever could.

Very quickly, everything was beginning to fall away from me. Every step after that one glorious moment of feeling like I'd done something by ending Barb's riot had only led me farther and farther away from the ponies I knew and loved. With them leaving, being taken from me, or turning out to...to not be what I thought they were.

That's all I could think of, amidst all of my screaming and begging, I could only feel the pain of losing the friendships I'd worked and suffered so hard to attain. All the toil, constant running, and desperate attempts to survive had been taking their toll. By the time he found me, I was already weak with a lack of proper rest and ripe for him to...to...

Sorry...I...I just need a minute...

“It's alright, sorry. You probably don't want to—”

No! I...I want to, I'm just...scared. I said before how scared I am of him, the way he's always there in my life in some way or another.

But this was it. I was now his...his...

“Slave?”

Yes.

Just a wretched trophy, the born slave, the crippled pegasus, the pony with a set of shackles as his cutie mark. The ultimate symbol to all those around him of what I represented, to all his peers of why he was the real slaver and a reminder to all ponies in Fillydelphia of just how they were trapped. That even those with wings were grounded and held deep within the bowels of the fiery industry. You couldn't escape Fillydelphia. Never ever could. Not unless you were already outside the Wall, or some sort of legendary figure like Littlepip.

Of course...the idea of legends was fast fading from my mind, held only by a tenuous belief, one born of hope.

I had fallen so far. Bereft of friends and weak of body, he saw the momentary weakness and pounced. He knew it wouldn't take much, that he only needed to push a little, get into my head and start to mould me back into what I had once been. I didn't want it, the idea of the chains snapping shut once again and casting me into the never ending blur of true slavery makes my heart beat and my head pound...it always does. I was about to be thrown through his world, subject to his whims and fancies and little more than a living toy with which he could sate his appetite for control and power over all others around him. But...I was so vulnerable...crying out for a purpose and a direction that...that I...

“...no...you didn't.”

I started to believe him.

“I...”

I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry, but this is the truth of it! You ask what it's like under him? Well this is the reality! The darkest days, as I said. He wouldn't let my life be anything but controlled.

But there was one little hope in my mind. Just...just one direction that mattered. The one thing I would not let him take from my dreams. Glimmerlight. I needed to...to get to her, say whatever I needed to and...and just do something to make it all fine again! I didn't know how. I hadn’t known what it was like to lose somepony until the day before then with Caduceus and even then...much as it hurts to say, I hadn't really 'known' him. I just had to try.

That's...that's all that I had to go on.

“But, what about your escape? Didn't you want to escape? That driving force? Surely you didn't forget about...”

He...he told me to...

“...oh no...”

My neck was jerked, the bones of my neck along my spine jumped and felt like the gaps were separating far further than they should have as the collar tugged hard enough to pull me from all four hooves.

“Keep up!”

Choking out a strangled gasp, my front hooves pawed helplessly at the thick metal as it pulled again...

“I said KEEP UP, SLAVE!”

The chain jolted, biting upward into my neck and cutting off my windpipe. Thrashing, fighting to get my hooves under me, he gave me no quarter to think. Pulling me again and again, dragging me, pull by pull, down the corridors against all my efforts.

He would stride ahead, stomping his way through the Mall and yank the chain every time my weakened body fell behind. My head swam with terror, both for Glimmerlight and myself. We'd been in circles multiple times as he toured the Mall, observing the slaves. My only breaks were when he'd stopped to punish somepony else. Gradually, bit by bit, it had all become a blur. A couple desperate steps...followed always by that tug of my collar. My neck was already reddened and sore, bruising badly and becoming ever more painful to simply have on. Sores blistered over around where it hung.

There was no purpose to it other than the continual reminder of who I was and to demonstrate to everypony else that he had me. The entire time, I simply watched for Glimmer when I could, desperate to at least be able to shout two words, the two words I knew I had to say...

“Keep up!”

I was moving quickly, but only choked as I was pulled onto my face again, before being dragged another twenty feet for falling. My Master was just a giant blurry form to my oxygen starved and dizzied perception now. Occasionally I'd just see those light green eyes staring and try to get back up.

How...how long were we going to go on? I couldn't...I...I couldn't cope with...

“Keep UP!”

The chain tugged, my neck whiplashed and pulled me to my hooves to begin another circuit...carried along for no reason other than to remind me of my place.

“Inside, Number Seven! Go!”

“W-what's in— ARRGH!”

I cried from being picked up by the chain and hurled through a door. I hit something hard and wooden, collapsing upside down onto my head. My fleece caught on something and tore, the saddlebag landing beneath me as I rolled to the side and scampered backward into a desk before curling up, trying to pull the collar away from my rapidly worsening throat.

It was his office. I...I'd seen this before! My eyes spotted the ventilation duct above I'd once spied Barb and My Master from. The same heavy desk that I'd landed on...the same low and filthy bed...but now I could see more. Filing cabinets, taken from other places, were now ranked along the sides. Another two doors went away from the old office, leading to two private interview rooms, I guessed. A metal grated and heavily locked cage cupboard bore the weapons I had seen him use now and again. The walls were of rotted old wood and peeling wallpaper while I saw chains hanging from sharp hooks alongside a mass of items. All entrapment, all to restrict and prevent somepony moving in some way. The corners bore simple refuse and old clothing. This was as far from the calm library of Protégé as I could ever be...

But my eyes quickly turned back to him as I scrambled away from the desk, breathing hard and fast as I scampered for the back of the room...pressing myself into a little ball in the corner to be as far away from him as possible.

My Master strode into his own office. He was wearing a grin of absolute satisfaction as he advanced to the centre and kept his eyes trained at me. Chains swung from around his neck, attached to me. A thick whip hung from his armour. Slowly, with delight, he closed the door behind us.

Filling my vision in the smaller office, he advanced on those giant hooves until his bulk covered the meagre green lamp in the corner. Then he...he just stood there...watching as I shivered and felt more and more afraid as the length went on. For minutes or...was it an hour? How did time work here? I didn't know! He just kept staring and making me afraid every time he took a breath that he might speak or do something to me. Oh Goddesses help me!

“I'll let you off for forgetting the word 'Master' this once, Number Seven. Finally...oh, finally...you're right here.”

The words slid from his mouth like creeping touches to my skin, making me whine and plea under my breath as he began to move forward. With a retch of my aching throat, I was pulled upward, his hoof wrapping around the chains to lift me up before him right off the ground. I struggled in the air, my hooves holding the collar to lift my neck up from it to...to be able to breathe! He...he was hanging me with my own collar! My hind legs kicked out fruitlessly off the floor, seeing little silver spots in my vision before I closed my eyes.

“You've defied me...ran from me...tried to keep other ponies from me. Oh you will be sorry for this, slave. Oh...you will. Eventually.”

He dropped me. I fell at his hooves, coughing and spluttering before just curling up at his hooves, gasping and retching. The reality of it all was sinking in. Please...somepony be there! Brimstone could come back or...or Protégé could turn up at the door or...or anypony please!

“Look at your Master when he is talking, Number Seven!”

A hoof swung backward and caught me across the face, throwing me back into the wall as My Master advanced. I felt my cheek bleed, and I obeyed. My eyes shot upward to gaze upon him...and I felt sick at the mere sight.

“Well...it may come as a surprise to you, Number Seven. But I don't torture ponies...”

...h-huh?

“Surprised?”

I nodded, then squeaked, remembering. “Yes, Master!”

“No...no...I don't torture ponies. I'm a slaver, Number Seven. I only punish them. Now that we finally have a little, heh, private time...knowing you're mine. So we can get along with making you into what you're meant to be. Wouldn't you like to finally find your destiny? Accepting your punishment like a good little pony and coming back home where you know your place, eh? Don't you want to feel the comfort of knowing who you are again?”

He moved around the desk, his eyes never leaving me. Soaked by my own tears, I kept moving away, until I found myself pressed up against the bed.

“I...want to be free, Master...” My voice felt tiny, a shrill whisper against his commanding tone.

“So selfish. Want doesn't get, Number Seven. Oh no...this is your destiny right here!” His hoof thundered onto the desk, making it shake terribly. “By my side! My little pet! Don't you like that?”

“Please just let me—”

“BE QUIET, SLAVE!” The chain tugged hard, and my scream was cut short by the pressure on my neck. Trying to turn over, a gigantic hoof pressed down across my chest and belly, forcing me onto my back as his face leered down from above and slowly grew closer with every word. His other hoof slapped against one of my cutie marks, demeaning and invasive upon my body and hard enough that I cried out every time. “THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE!”

My ears burned, the bellowing inches from my face. I couldn't close my eyes, feeling my chest crushed under his weight. I shivered at the horrid sensation of spittle dripping or being spat over my face. The stench of rancid sweat and rotten breath wafted over me. But his face softened, losing its anger. Eventually, he even eased off my chest.

Harsh and then backing off for a few seconds. I was being toyed with.

“Perhaps we just need to find the best way for you to realise it, little Number Seven. You've drifted from your place in life. You've let the raider and the whore fill your brain with ideas you were never meant for. Let some little mare out there give you hope that was always going to be crushed. Perhaps we should let you see what life I can give you...”

He raised up, allowing me to once again retreat away. I could feel something dripping near the pain on my neck. A stray tear? Spit? Blood!?

My Master wandered back to his desk, his hoof touching objects across it idly, before his eyes snapped back.

“Did I say you could lie down, slave?”

“No, Master!” I actually cried in pain as I pushed injured limbs under me, driven past pain by obedience to stand up rock still.

“Better...now, as I was saying, Number Seven. You probably think I'm going to torture you, be some sadistic slaver that hurts you every day for his own sick amusement. But you'd be wrong. Your punishment will come eventually. For now, you are going to begin your time as my personal slave.”

My mind was hurting. Well, my skull was hurting, but it pretty much meant the same thing. What kind of trick was this? I had expected the water torture again...or...or to be sent to his mines. Or worse. But I could barely think straight. My vision kept hazing, my fears for Glimmerlight still aching away in my head alongside the gut clenching terror that I was locked to My Master.

“Nooo...no. As I said, Number Seven, I'm not a torturer. I just...” He paused, before cackling and sneering at me, staring down from his massive height. “...command. I only punish those who don't follow. Everypony is a slave, Number Seven, some just don't know it yet. So you will follow what I say. Now, admit what you are, and perhaps we might lessen your punishment for disobeying me and running away.”

It hurt more than I could ever imagine to let the words come out, but I had no choice here.

“A...a slave, Master...”

Crack! I stumbled and screamed, the wooden floor chipping as the whip struck it. How did he use it so fast!?

“You are not ANYPONY'S slave! WHAT ARE YOU?”

“Your slave! Your...your slave, Master! Your...” I felt the tears keep rolling down my cheeks, the bitter words coming out as hatefully as if I were throwing up. “...slave.”

My Master's smile only increased...his chest swelling as he heard the reference to ownership. I wanted to be sick. The feel of a whip cracking had thrown me back in line, making me say what I'd thought for a moment was true. I was so scared that my teeth ached from being pressed together.

“Then it is time you began to act it. You are mine now. You will follow me, be my personal slave. You will keep your collar on at all times! You will remain in my office. You will sleep here when I tell you that you may. You will only eat what I give you. Your life is mine now. But at some point, you-REMAIN STILL!”

I bolted upright from where I had been dizzily swaying, standing almost to attention.

“So first, you're going to perform a task for me while I finish the rounds for the day. I didn't expect you to so kindly return to me, Number Seven, so you've interrupted my schedule. Get over here.”

Trembling, I started to—

“NOW!”

I galloped forward, stopping short of the desk, shivering and sore. The chain jangled no matter when I moved. Literally every movement of my own was reminding me that I was attached to him. That thought alone turned my stomach.

What he had for me was completely beyond anything I could have predicted, of all the horrible imagined pains, it defied every one of them.

“I want you to organise this room, Number Seven. Before I come back, I want everything back somewhere that makes sense. All the spare ammo on the ground sorted, the chains stacked on their rings, and the papers organised on the desk. You will clean for me and you will do it promptly. We'll break you in softly, eh? Hehe...”

“I...I understand, Master...” The words stammered out weakly, caught by the pressure around my throat. It was a constant fight to not pull at it even while I stared, confused at the, well, easy task.

My Master leered down, before his hoof settled on my head. Gently running over an ear and curving across my scar down to my cheek, he lifted my head.

“You're where you should be, slave. Where you were always meant to be. Fillydelphia was always to be the climax of your life, where you would finally find your true Master. You can rest now. Relax and know you've found your true role in life. You’ve made it home.”

The other hoof came up, grasping my other cheek and squeezing as his face leaned forward, pressing his forehead against mine. My body twitched. I wanted to struggle, but those eyes just stared and stared, holding me still.

“Now we're finally together, whether by blood or by destiny, you're where you always were meant to be. Just like when I found this city, I found where I was meant to be. We're bonded, you and I. You've turned out just how I always wished a pony would while I grew up. A little pony to own for myself, the one I wanted when I took her.”

Tears were beginning to drop from my eyes. How...how dare he talk of that! The words alone stung and disgusted me. I didn't remember her but...but...

I...just wanted to cry alone. It wasn't true, I just couldn't face the thought of it. It wasn't true. I wasn't his!

His rancid breath washed over my face and made me oh-so-glad for my blocked nose. I just breathed shortly and sharply, not daring to speak out of turn to My Master. Finally, he leaned back, removing the chain from his armour and locking it to a thick hoop welded to a plate on the floor.

“Now...I'll leave you to your duty.”

Chuckling, almost muttering a little tune to himself, he turned to the door before drawing a sealed box, from which he took a deep bowl. Immediately, I was hit with a waft of steam and a small wash of heat.

A smell hit my nostrils...even through the mucus blocking them I could detect it. A warm smell...rich and thick and fruity and...real food...

My Master pushed it toward me, right up to my hooves.

“I will return in under an hour. Get this task done.”

There was no other response. “Yes, Master!”

“Good...”

With that, he turned, his massive bulk a poor fit for his own room as he blew out the lamp, sidled through the doorway, and slammed it behind him. The room fell into darkness and remained still. I heard at least three locks on the outside slam shut...and I was left alone in my collar...chained to the room itself. My ears heard him move away, stomping down the creaky floors to the stairwell and descending.

I waited only till I could not hear him before I leapt to the one providence. It killed me to obey him to eat when he told me to...but I couldn't turn it down.

Only, I had to. To eat was to put myself in danger.

Even as I lifted the bowl up, even as I smelled its wonderful contents and felt the radiating heat, I knew I had to refuse. It was a trap. He hadn’t told me to eat it. He was just the sort to omit that on purpose.

Briefly, I was tempted anyway. I was starving. My stomach felt shrunk, and growled eagerly. My mind raced, could I take a lashing just to get food? Was it worth it? The thought lingered, feeling more and more alluring, until I placed the bowl exactly where it had been left.

That quaking thought of having to consider such drastic measures to merely eat let a lot of my situation really sink in.

The smell would haunt me all the while. A torture even in avoiding his ploy. I moved as far as I could from it. Technically, I should have started my work right away, but I just couldn't. Not...not after so much in so short a time. Gently lifting the heavy chain, almost as thick as one of my skeletal little legs itself, I just sighed and curled up on the spot, hearing the dull clanking of metal every time I moved. The entire situation was driving me to keep closing and opening my eyes in a desperate attempt to find that this nightmare wasn't real. I didn't want to do it...to do his work and fall into his world. Any minute now I'd wake up again. I'd scream and fall out of bed beside...beside Glimmer! She'd hug me and we'd feel better because we were...together...

...Glimmer...

Already, I missed her. Not like before...now I missed the knowledge that she'd be waiting with a tight hug and a teasy joke to make me smile through a blush. I missed the reassurance she brought to my life and the reminders of how we were all going to escape! I missed the knowledge that, no matter how bad it got, no matter what pain I endured, she'd always be there at the end.

I missed the feeling of being on the brink of freedom...

I missed my sister even more...

My eyes were already streaming before I even realised it. I didn't even fully understand what had happened. I kept playing the argument over and over in my mind. I'd tried to reassure her that Littlepip was good and that we'd all figure out this was just a mistake.

The chain clanked and dragged below my hooves as I pulled myself over to the first pile of cloth to sort out, fold, and place, well, somewhere. Part of me wondered why I'd been allowed to keep my PipBuck, saddle, and other possessions, but such things were trivial. Even if I could have fired my grapple to the airduct, I was still chained and collared to the floor with no method of breaking such thick locks and metal rings. Shivering in disgust, I began to pile and sort the warm, musty clothes and rags. I could already see tiny things crawling over them as I lifted them, making me whimper even as I shook them off.

My mind kept revolving about everything, finally settling on trying to think about the confrontation with Glimmer to get away from thinking about My Master. I had to figure out what to say first. I just wanted her to be happy and...and to feel better about things. Like she’d made me feel better when I told of how I’d lost my own moth—

That's when it finally made sense.

Pausing, I groaned and felt like a complete idiot. In my own frustration and desperation to have an idol, I'd been trying to calm her over Littlepip when she'd just lost friends and family! When I had mentioned my mother, she had hugged me and comforted me about my own grief. Guilt shot through me.

Glimmerlight had just likely lost everypony outside these walls that she'd ever known to go back to. It wasn’t impossible they’d escaped, but it hardly mattered. Glimmer was only days out from losing Caduceus, and now this. Coral Eve's story was coming back to me. She too had lost her hope because everypony she knew or loved was either dead or now enslaved.

I threw my grief, guilt, and pain into the efforts, seeking anything to keep my mind off of losing my best friend ever because I'd been so...so stupid and out of touch with how normal ponies who aren't born damned slaves work! The chain in my hooves was thrown upward with force, bouncing from the wall and dropping. Again and again I threw it, screaming and shouting my anger and feelings at it. Exhausting myself, letting it all out, I eventually fell back against the wall and held my head.

I wished I could go back...go back and say it all differently. Littlepip meant so much to me, but I hadn't realised how it would feel to lose something I'd never had. My home.

Glimmer was going through something I couldn't possibly imagine right now, and I'd just completely ignored it.

Was...was this it then? Was this how it ended? All of us driven apart?

No, she wouldn't just...leave me, would she? They wouldn't go on their plan without me...

I summoned up all the courage I could to throw that feeling away. I wasn't going to stay here! I was scared, alone in a dark room and being kept like some sick pet, but step one was...was to find Glimmerlight. Find my sister, and...and somehow make it all better to get her back! I wasn't the same pony My Master had found in the FunFarm so long ago. I wouldn’t just lie down and accept it this time! There were still some routes to get back in the saddle.

No. This was a...a set back.

I'd get out...

I turned back to the room filled with filthy and untidy objects. I'd been tasked to clean all of this up, but I knew my life wouldn't stay like this. The thought of being his forever simply enough to make me want to curl up, cry and do nothing until I simply died.

I’d make this work somehow.

I had to...

Even through the thick concrete walls and multiple floors above me, I could still hear the roar of thunder and the washing drone of the rain. Whatever storm was blanketing Fillydelphia was still more than present, shaking the very foundations of the Mall as it renewed itself in fury, casting its wrath down upon the darkened city. If I listened very carefully I could almost believe I heard the hissing as the water struck the forge fires surrounding the Mall. Trapped in a small room within darkness, I felt like it was all just crushing in from every side, with the cold seeping through the stone.

I couldn't simply remain still, though. My task was finished fairly quickly as I directed my rekindled heart into staying active. I'd often been instructed to do such menial work in the past, and compared to what I'd seen My Master's other slaves doing, I'd happily clean up his filthy office. I couldn't read his papers on the desk, but I had looked for patterns in their formats and gathered them together in a rough order before stacking them in little piles. I'd, with some degree of disgust, straightened out his bed and hung any stinking clothing in the cupboard he kept at the back. Out of curiosity, I'd tried the two doors, but both had been kept locked. At the time, it had only seemed like something less for me to actually clean.

To and fro, clanking my way on that chain across the floor again and again. Muttering ideas on how to apologise to her. The words felt difficult. Not to say sorry, but how to make it mean the right things. Every time I found one idea, I lost the others or they no longer made sense. I wished somepony was here to help me with them...

Caduceus would likely have known. He'd been a smart pony.

In desperation, I pulled out my journal to try and...and do anything. For long minutes, I trembled and hopelessly attempted to make even a vague pony shape. But it just wasn't happening. Every leg was too long, every eye mismatched with the other one. Problems that just wouldn't go away. A feral ghoul would have looked more like a normal pony...let alone who I really wanted to draw.

It...it just wasn't happening. So it was true then...I'd lost the one little talent I’d always sought refuge in. In a sudden rage, I threw the journal closed and stuffed it deep into my saddlebag before turning my back on it. At...at least I could still cry to let it out...

The thought to try the radio came to me, but I didn't even get to my PipBuck before the fear of what I might hear began to ring in my mind. What if it was Tenpony Tower next? Or Friendship City? What if I heard news that a slave camp near Shattered Hoof had been slaughtered by the Stable Dweller with...with all ponies dead?

A thick stomping began to echo around the hallways. My ears twitched gently at the sound before shivers began to roll through me. There was only one place he could be coming...

I'd finished the work well on time, not even realising how long I'd spent rubbing a cloth over everything with numb, bleach-stained hooves. The shock of finding how easily I'd slipped into the blurry routine of slavery was like a bucket of cold water being dropped over me. But now I only had to wait, hope, pray, and fear for what came next. The thick clank of heavy locks thudded in through the door. Reasserting myself, I fixed up a crease at the end of his bed, hid away everything I'd been using, and painfully galloped to the middle of the room to stand upright and ready like every good slave should when his Master approaches. The feeling of having to do so sickened me. My own body lay in ruin from my throat, sickness, weariness, and bleeding cheek...yet his office was now tidy and clean.

At least I could still consciously know I hated it. That was something. If I were to survive what was...oh Goddesses...what was coming, I'd need every little thing I could to hold onto in my head.

Light flooded the room amongst an ear-splitting creak of the oak door’s old metal hinges. I lowered my head and bowed slightly as I saw the massive shape in the corridor light.

My Master walked in. I fought down the urge to shiver, as he immediately locked the door behind him. It was a silent little conflict against the crawling I felt under my skin, not helped by his eyes swinging back to me. As he passed around me, I didn't dare move my head. I heard him fuss over his desk...smooth a hoof on his bed...check the cupboards and rattle the jars I'd used to sort the spare shotgun shells he'd left lying around. Please...please be satisfied...please be okay with it, Master...

The trotting carried on behind me, moving close enough that I could almost feel him against me. Screwing my eyes shut against his uncomfortable closeness, I just stifled the growing whimper in my throat.

“I see you haven't forgotten how to do basic slave work, Number Seven.” The words were low, almost muttered and carrying a quietly stern tone, “You work well with my things. Hmm, almost like you were meant to be doing this, eh?”

My Master finished his tour of the room, coming to stand before me. I'd wanted to protest that last sentence...tell him that I'd never be a slave again. But the instinctive slave in my mind knew far better what I was supposed to say...

“I...tried my best, Master...”

“Mm...that you did. Good...good.”

His eyes travelled back to me, before passing to something on the floor.

“Then...” his voice took a terrifying drop in tone, “...would you explain to me why you disobeyed me already?”

A cold stab of fear shot through my spine. I staggered back, hearing the chain clatter around.

“I...I didn't! I did it all as you asked, Master! I— ARGH!”

He had grabbed the chain, wrapping it around a hoof and dragging me toward him, before simply hurling me into the far wall. Screaming, I slapped against it, cracking the plaster and falling to the ground in a shower of paint flakes and dust. Seconds later, something was thrown across the room, impacting on my hooves as they covered my face before I felt myself lifted and pushed against the wall by my chest. My Master's face glowered closely.

The thrown item was lifted in his other hoof...held before my eyes. The...the stew bowl...

“I provided you with a warm meal, and you ignored it like the little rebel you are! Wasted food, Number Seven!”

My mind rebelled as the sudden realisation sank home. He...he hadn't! He'd just put it near me...he hadn't...oh...oh no...no no no!

“N-no....Maste—” I was cut off, again by a scream as the bowl crashed over my head hard enough to crack it and spill its lukewarm contents over me. My left forehead, from my eye to my ear along the swollen scar, ached and stung under the impact. Dizzied, I slumped against his hoof with my vision reeling.

“Insolance!” His words were almost making me go deaf already, my ears unable to handle the close volume. “You ignored it to try and insult me, Number Seven!”

I tried to squeak my apologies, every thin leg struggling against his one gigantic hoof that seemed to cover my entire torso. But he was having none of it.

The stark truth was becoming clear. Whether I’d taken it or not, the result would have been the same. There was no right answer here with this monster.

“Stand up, slave...”

I weakly strove to obey, clutching my now bleeding forehead. Wearily, I opened my eyes to look at him.

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Master...”

“Silence. It isn't up to you to be sorry. Do you not remember what I told you? I don't torture. I simply punish those slaves who do not know their place. The ones who have drifted from their role in life. How many times do I need to repeat this to you, Number Seven?”

His voice wasn't shouting. It was those times he scared me the most. When he simply trotted back and forth around the room, speaking as though in deep thought.

His eyes finally settled on me, regarding everything.

“These...'things' you carry around. Gifts...toys of a spirit you do not truly own and clothing that hides your shame beneath it. Remove them. Strip. You disobeyed...now I need to remind you of some things.”

I bit my lip, suddenly breathing a lot faster. But I felt my hoof moving to the clasp of my saddlebag...steadily shivering over the fastening.

“Too slow, Number Seven! I said STRIP! You do not own those things.”

Squeaking with terror, I felt myself obeying, sniffling as I dropped my saddlebag and pulled my goggles from my head. Struggling and shivering, falling to my side, I tugged my fleece and attached saddle over my head, revealing my bandaged wings and feeling horribly vulnerable and exposed. But the sight as I brought my head out only gave rise to a sudden shock of tears and begging.

My Master had unfastened his heavy whip...letting it uncoil onto the floor.

“Throw it all behind you, slave...”

My quaking hooves just crept over my face. The shouted repeat of the command made me do it.

“Now turn around.”

I could barely stand, hearing the drip of tears off the floor as my hearing seemed to become more perceptive from sheer instinct and fear. I could feel the sweat rolling over me.

“Turn. Around.”

I almost fell, shivering on the spot with my eyes clenched shut as I slowly rotated.

“Please...”

“Silence. You earned this, Number Seven...the moment you thought you had a will to make your own choice. I control your life. You will obey, even if you feel you won't. But you'll learn over time...”

I heard the hiss of the whip being drawn back. I closed my eyes tightly.

“You'll learn...”

I didn't dare open my eyes.

My Master had a meeting soon, one I was to attend with him. I had time to do things. But I didn't dare open my eyes.

He had opened one of the doors of his office to reveal a cell. The walls thick and lined with sharp edged metal plates and mouldy tile. The floorboards were gone, revealing nothing but ruined concrete that resembled hewn rock. The moment I'd been thrown in there to wait and 'think about my place in life'...I hadn't dared open my eyes.

I simply lay, feeling my back and rump swell and swell with growing pain. Feeling the dull throb of pain growing to a searing burn that twisted and surged all across my skin. Feeling the dread helplessness all over again of being ordered to stand still and take it...no matter how much I'd shrieked and begged. I wanted to see the damage...it felt like my back's skin had been flayed clean from my body as I felt trickles of blood flow beneath the swollen lines and thin slitted cracks where my skin had split. At least I could ignore one command. I could still cry. My one hidden rebellion. But I didn't dare open my eyes.

The door had slammed shut and left me to 'think about my place in life,' alone in a soundproofed cell with nought but the cold stone and the hot pain to feel. No ambient light to see by. I'd curled up, seeking to take comfort by hugging myself into as little a ball as I could, but the movement had opened every wound in my back. The scream as I’d felt that had echoed in the tiny space. This cell was so small that I...I dared not open my eyes.

I couldn't see...couldn't hear...couldn't go anywhere.

So, I had retreated inside. Closed my eyes and tried to remember the things I liked. But all I could remember was stroke after stroke after stroke. Each one feeling different. Every single time giving rise to a snapshot of my past flickering in my minds eye. Of rock farms and cart pulling. Of punishments and long shifts. Of obedience through fear and acceptance through hopelessness. I had retreated inside to try and escape it to the past and remember the gentle world I'd seen so little of and bring all my friends and heroes into with me. To open my eyes...to see the truth...

I couldn't handle that.

So I dared not open my eyes.

I simply dared to dream.

The Mall had changed. Being dragged out and chained to My Master once more, I had been led around at his heel with my head low. But I had glimpsed at the stripping down of what had once been Protégé's work.

Now it was simply becoming the same nightmare I had seen elsewhere already.

My Master tugged me to keep up, something I was quickly learning was more like an exhausting half-gallop than a simple canter. Half tripping over my own hooves, I was taken upstairs for his final checks before leaving. Every little step was renewing my back’s pain.

“You will remember your lesson for hours...days, perhaps, slave.” He had told me that as we'd left the room and I had begun whimpering in pain.

The corridors had been tunnelled out in places now, knocked down to create a maze of additional routes through offices and store rooms. Whether it was more efficient or simply more to My Master's preference was unknown. But I saw slaves toiling away under gunpoint to hammer out the brickwork and thick concrete while others dragged in metal boxes full of tools and disassembled workbenches. What was he planning here?

The slaves and slavers all turned to look at me. They looked at me...my wings...my scars...my collar. Some laughed. Some grinned. Some just looked glad it wasn't them.

None showed any form of pity. Either they didn't care or they didn't dare.

Eventually, after many sets of stairs, we emerged onto the main balcony I had once been thrown from in the plaza. Oh...how it had changed. My Master permitted me to gaze over the edge and see what had been started.

The Plaza balconies were blocked by sheets of rusted chicken wire now, razor wire running around the edges to dissuade anyone attempting to pry it off. Each shop cell was being converted into a true prison. Thicker bars were being welded in and the doors kept locked as I saw the slaves being led back into the Mall. In small groups, they were assigned cells and shut in tightly. Others were being dragged out, often looking dead on their feet. I saw whips slash across necks, backs, and rumps of those who were slow in dragging themselves up...only reminding me of my own burning wounds. My knees felt weak enough to want to fall from the searing feeling...but I couldn't...if I did, he'd only whip me more.

Behind the fountain lurked a new item...a small incinerator. Thick, bulky, and with four small gates to the furnace inside, ponies were throwing scraps of wood into it. I was almost sick on the spot as I saw a small commotion around a cell turn into the guards simply throwing a corpse into it. She just hadn't woken up.

The smoke carried upward, belching through the hole in the ceiling that had been covered over with a cage again. But I could already see the smog collecting on the upper levels where slaves covered their mouths with cloth and lay in coughing heaps. Craters, bullet holes, and battle damage still ravaged the area, but the worst craters in the floor had been dug out and turned into more of the curious confinement cells covered by cages or sheet metal.

Even as I watched, I saw one buck dragged across the ground, thrashing in panic before being hurled into one. Immediately after they slammed the lid shut, I heard a squealing shriek and a horridly high pitched wail beside the panicked sound of hooves fighting to scramble up a sheer rock surface. My skin crawled at the sound.

“Now you see a true bastion of slavery, Number Seven.” My Master grabbed my head, keeping my eyes forward. “The slavers command! The slaves obey! The disobedient are punished! This is how things should be run. Doesn't this look familiar? Feel like somewhere you know so very well?”

I hated his questions. They were cruel and obvious in their intent. He knew that I hated it...but if I denied it he'd...he'd do things…

The will to shout at how sick he was in the head was overwhelming. I’d once thought he was simply monstrous in his overbearing nature, but now I knew he was not sane. His methods were changing, this wasn’t even slavery as I’d seen it. There was no end goal here. It was just control, and nothing but that.

But instead, I simply nodded. “Y-yes...Master.”

“Mm...feels like home. Welcome to your new life.” He paused, then grinned. “Hehe...look who it is. Recognise anypony?”

He wrenched my head enough that I cried out and would have fallen but for him holding me as the movement tugged every bleeding lash upon my back. My eyes were pointed down into the plaza. Blinking and trying to focus, I felt a sudden shock and will to leap into it pass through me.

Glimmer!

She was being roughly handled by a slaver, dragged in alongside three soot stained slaves. They were pressed toward her old cell, now newly locked over. But I could see she barely put up any real resistance, allowing herself to be led and tossed around with a lot less of the spirit I'd once known from my friend. I could see her hooves were frayed and sore from some form of physical labour and her back bore the dull marks of heavy weight pulling. But something else was becoming apparent. Her cheeks were flushed and her movements...dizzy. Like some sort of fever...

“Yes...your once friend. We've had her working all those proper shifts she missed after the weakling only gave her work repairing technology. She's been cast to proper work now, carting materials from the crater teams to the radiation engine Red Eye uses.”

Radiation!? Then that meant it...it was a radfever! Poisoning! My Master must have seen the look on my face, for he just crudely cackled and patted me on the head with a hoof.

“Don't worry...if she learns to work hard and becomes sick enough we might give her a little RadAway...just to keep her working and not taking the easy way out. Nopony escapes their duty until they've worked themselves for all they possibly can.”

Panic was rising in my mind. I could see clearer and clearer than in the hours since I'd last seen her. Something had started to affect her badly. It must have been intense! She needed help but...but she couldn't take RadAway! It'd kill her!

I...I had to...do what? What could I do? I was even more trapped than her...

I wasn't given the chance to even shout to her. The collar pulled tight, choking any words from my throat before I could even gasp a breath to make a noise and dragging me to lie against My Master's leg. Unable to speak up, I saw her pink mane and dull red robes disappear into the old shop before her gate was slammed shut.

“P-p-please...Master...let me say so—”

His leg I was pulled against kicked out, knocking me on my side a good five feet away before the chain caught and stopped my slide just short of the edge. Again, I felt the raw skin on my throat tug and sting.

“You don't get to ask for things. Now...we have a meeting to attend at the Ministry of Arcane Science. Get up!”

Quickly, I obeyed, keeping my head low.

“Better...now, we—”

“Master! Master!”

A thin, nasally voice cut through, one I recognised all too well as his assistant. That scrawny thin pony that seemed to take care of any general paperwork and message carrying for My Master. Daring to lift my eyelids up a little, I saw him approach quickly and abase himself even faster, rather out of breath.

“I have somewhere to be, Wormtail. This had better be good...”

“I...phew...I bring news from...from Red Eye himself! He wants to speak with y-you, Master.”

There was a brief silence. It became clear that My Master had taken that as rather important news indeed. I could understand entirely. Master Red Eye was, well, The Master of Fillydelphia. Everypony reported to him.

“Hmm...it seems he has received my request then if he wants to see me. Very well! Wormtail, run ahead and inform him I shall not be long. The ass will have to wait. Now...”

I quickly lowered my gaze as I saw My Master turn back to me.

“We can't have a pegasus snivelling around our great leader now, can we? Not his sort of thing...”

“N-no, Master...”

The chain pulled hard, jerking my head back as I fell to the ground, muzzle and chest first. It was followed by a half kick with his front hoof hard enough to drive the wind from me.

“I didn't ask you! Learn your place and when to speak, Number Seven! Now...we need to find someplace for you...”

Curling up, choking, and trying to suck air in, I heard his assistant laugh in that shrill, demeaning tone. He shut up at a quick glance. My Master turned, unhooking the chain.

“You there!” He shouted to a passing slaver. “Take this slave to the Plaza until I return. Make sure he's not in with the Ranger. Somewhere far back, out of sight.”

“Yes, Master!”

The chain was passed. It was almost a relief. I could keep up with this slaver on my shaky legs as I was led to the stairs once more. Behind me, My Master kept glaring until I was out of sight. I...I had to use what time I had, find Glimmer and...and try to get her RadPurge from Weathervane!

I may have lost her friendship, but I wasn't going to watch her lose her life!

Just...how?

The Plaza was even worse up close. The sickly stench of decay slapped through even my choking cold. I was led across the clattering metal that now covered some craters, pulled between slaves who worked themselves to the (sometimes literal) bone on pulling the enormous pulleys for lifting giant rock debris through the roof. Every one of the covered confinement pits was a source of either a crying whine or dull defeated moaning. Despite morbid curiosity, I still couldn't see into them. I could only smell a horrid rot seeping through each.

Quickly, I really began to hate my cold...it only seemed to let the bad smells through.

But my eyes could only keep going back to a certain cage...praying to myself I'd see somepony there.

There wasn't. As such, I was simply led, whimpering and limping behind my allotted slaver toward the back of the Plaza. The area where the last confrontation between the griffons and raiders had taken place was chewed up, but I could still see gruesome stains on the floor and pillars.

“Eh, this'll do. In here, runt!”

The chain was removed from my collar before a half buck punted me through the doorway into the darkness of an old store front. Curling on the ground, I heard the door slam shut behind me and solidly lock, leaving me to the darkness. Already, I heard slaves shifting around, but I just moved back to the bars. I was still bleeding from my back...tired, scared, and sore...but I just wanted to crane my neck through and look for any sign of Glimmerlight. Even just another glance to...to maybe catch her eye...

But the bars were too close...pressing my face against them, I slumped down, miserable. Everything was just coming apart...

Behind me, I picked out the sounds of hooves approaching. A couple of foul-looking earth pony bucks were coming up behind me. Turning my back to the bars, I saw one grin.

“Look who it is...”

“Yeah...remember us, kid?”

I really didn't. Whinnying as my back scraped on the ground, I pulled my pained body away from them.

“Don't remember seeing us lying around under Barb's raiders? Don't remember the sounds of flaying skin?”

He advanced into the light from the plaza entrance. To my horror, I saw that one flank was just a red, angry scar of muscle and barely healed flesh.

“We saw you helping them raiders to begin with. You helped put us all in that!”

“Just your luck you're with us now, eh, little wings? Grab him!”

They lunged. Back to the side wall, I just screamed as they charged forward.

A feeling of overpressure in the air raced through my ears, before an eruption of force and a sound like a thunderclap slammed across the entire cell. A solid wave of telekinetic power blasted the two bucks away as easily as leaves caught in a hurricane. Crouching low amongst the small cloud of kicked up dust or pebbles, my mane whipped as I felt the forces unleashed tear at me and my exposed back. The slaves cried out, before being silencing by the bone crushing slam of their impacts on the bars. Aside from a white blue flare...it had been entirely unseen, like the wind or an invisible tidal wave.

“Get away from him, you two! Shoo!”

Amongst the fading rumble, I overheard a female voice that I knew! Opening my eyes, I saw the bucks lying in a dizzied, sore, and groaning heap near the wall bars, slowly trying to crawl away while holding their heads. Turning, the sparking light of a faulty-looking horn had rushed up beside me.

“C-Coral?”

“Ssh...Murk, come in here. Ignore those louts.”

Her hoof carefully wrapped around my neck as we limped together into the darkness. With my eyes beginning to adjust, I saw it was an old confectionery shop with dozens of spilled (and unfortunately empty...damn) sweetie jars. She led me past the counter, into the back. A glowing gemlamp, like many slaves had managed to purchase from the likes of Sooty Morass, lit the tiny hovel of a room. The store room beyond had collapsed, remaining inaccessible. Coral showed me to a thin mattress on the floor beside the gentle blue glow of the lamp and softly pressed me to lie on it.

“Don't worry about that pair. They won't dare do anything to you with me around. They know I'd blast them through the bars if they ever got on my bad-ow!”

Her horn sparked, flickering like a spark circuit. I saw fizzles of energy drip from it as her hoof rested against the side, breathing heavily until it calmed down.

“Are...are you alright?”

“I'm...fine, nothing I’ve not been used to for years, now settle. Shh...”

Her hoof gently pressed on the back of my head, stroking my mane gently as I saw her eyes flow with horror to my back. It almost sounded out of place, to hear such a colourful curse surge from her mouth with disgust while she lifted the lamp over to get a closer look.

“That monster...”

I could only nod, resting my head in my forehooves. Lying still, it gave me more time to really remember just how much I could feel the demeaning scars upon my back reminding me of...of those few minutes under his punishment...

“It...hurts...”

“I know it does, my dear. Ssh...lay still. I'll do what I can.”

Coral Eve produced a small bucket from the corner, making me begin to wonder if this was a cleaning cupboard. Water sloshed in it as she soaked a cloth and began to gently clean me. Such a moment...feeling a motherly touch from somepony who really was one. Even if she wasn't mine, even if it stung and hurt, having somepony to just wipe away the blood and grime that the lashes had left upon me was enough to give me a moment’s respite. Hearing her soft coos, feeling the firm yet gentle strokes of a wet cloth and feeling the hurt flow off me under the thin light was gradually soothing my frayed nerves. If I looked up, I could see her long mane of white and black, tinged with blue. It was crudely tied into two braids and a long ponytail as though desperate to remember how she used to look. Her thin grey coat was smeared and scarred like any other slave now.

“I'm so sorry he got you, Murky. I really was hoping you'd gotten away. I...I wish I could do something to stop him taking you again...you poor thing. Nopony deserves what he gives out.”

I didn't reply, other than to lean my head to her side for some slight measure of comfort. After a few moments of squirming and whining, she gently cleaned the lash wounds and refitted my wing bandages with all the skill of hoof an earth pony might have. It felt relatable, I’d walked that journey once too.

“Th-thank you...by the way...”

“It's alright, my dear. I told you before. I know an innocent young buck in need when I see one. If I...if I can't care for my own, it would be wrong of me to ignore you.”

I lifted my head. “Can I come back here, if I'm allowed?”

“Of course! You've more than earned that, Murky, with all you've done to help me. Although, I would have thought you'd go to, well...Glimmer.”

There was an awkward silence.

Eventually, it was broken by the soft sounds of me fighting to choke back all the emotions as I finally let it all out to somepony about what had happened. The first caring ear since then was all it took to get me to talk as openly as I could. To my surprised, she didn’t raise any objection given her past with Glimmer as she let me get it all out of my system. Instead, she simply held me.

Feeling the crushing guilt, I told her about our argument...about what had happened to cause it. About Littlepip and about what The Master had been doing. Coral Eve listened quietly before leaning her head atop mine.

“Listen, Murky...it doesn't matter about me and Glimmerlight. You need help too and I...I trust that she'll be good to you, too. She's proven that much to me, even if she and I are, well, a long way from seeing eye to eye...”

I looked up to her face, twitching slightly as I heard some guards canter past, slapping batons along the cages. Coral seemed genuine. Glimmerlight's assertion of who really was the true forgiver between them rung in my head over and over...

“So, I want you to know you can always come back to me, alright? Any good ponies need to stick together in here. That and, well...I could do with somepony around sometimes as well...”

She brushed her eye with a hoof before looking back at me. I just nodded, unsure of what I could say. But seeing Coral smile at least a little...that was the first true moment of relief I'd had all day.

“I'll...I'll try. But I don't know what he wants with me...and I don't know if...if I can go back to Glimmerlight. She probably hates me now, and she's sick and—”

“She's what?” Coral blurted it out, before pausing, biting her lip and reasserted herself. “She's sick now?”

I nodded, a little perplexed at how suddenly emotional her response had been toward someone she 'hated.'

“R-r-radiation sickness l-like before...like you. They're going to give her RadAway to keep her working, but she can't take it, and I'm s-scared for her because I...”

I fell out of her grasp back onto the mattress, holding my eyes.

“I don't want her to die...even if she doesn't ever want to see me again, I don’t want that.”

“I wouldn't want her to die either...”

There was an odd silence, before I looked up at Coral once more. I knew that was the case, but the way she said it had been different. This was not bitter ambivalence, there was a mournful worry in her voice now.

“No matter how I feel, nopony deserves to be in this prison city or to die the horrible lingering end that it provides. Look, if...if you want to know something—she won't hate you. I don't think she really can. You should have seen the arguments we used to have. If...if you talk to her...or make a gesture to just show that you're, well...sorry. Maybe a drawing?”

Sighing, I just shook my head. I had no journal on me. I had nothing but the bandages upon my wings and the collar around my neck.

“Well, I've got a piece of paper here if you want it...”

Coral shifted in the darkness, producing a single slip of paper bearing masses of tables and figures on one side, lots of small ticks in a grid covered it. But one side was almost deliciously white and untouched.

I sat and stared, shivering at the burning of my back and the heady fever I had...as I saw one chance. Just one.

One drawing to help save a friendship and...and show her what she meant to me and how sorry I was.

My mouth trembled. Could I draw again? I...I'd failed so much and...and just not done anything! It all came out wrong and terrible!

But I had to.

“Alright, slaver! Bring the pegasus to me!”

The voice cut the air with as much finesse as a sledgehammer, making me sit up straight with a shock. No time to think or worry, I turned to Coral Eve.

“I...sorry I don't have time to say but...but I'll do it! Th-thank you and...and Glimmer was working to remember...”

The look on Coral's face, just for a moment, gave me a little hope. That soft relief of somepony hearing about a promise being upheld.

“If...if I can save her, somehow, I want to keep helping her to...to remember and we, um, we can all come together to get out of here? Please say yes...I...”

I shivered.

“I don't think I can last under him. I'm so scared, Coral...”

“Where is he?”

“Right here, Master!”

Coral looked back to me. “Yes you can. I’ve seen what you can do already. If you feel the courage to do it...then do it. Do what you need to, Murky.”

I heard the cage start to be rattled at, felt my forehead, back, and throat ache as I put my two tiny front hooves to Coral's chest.

“I'll try...and I will...I mean, spend time with you too. She really wants to help you...so do I...but please I need t-to...ask...before they take me! C-can you write something for me on this? I don't know how...”

“Yes, of course, hun. But hurry! What do you need?”

Less than a minute later, they got the rusty door open, throwing it to the side and entering to reattach my chain and drag me away.

Once again was at the mercy of My Master as he reattached the chain to his armour. He tugged me hard, whimsically noting my cleaner back and taking a sick pleasure in the way I trotted obediently alongside him. My head remained low.

But as we passed a certain shop cell...I saw her. Lying upon the floor, flushed and panting for breath from aching limbs...she had pulled herself from the stuffy back to take what breeze she could coming in from the skylight.

Our eyes didn't meet. I didn't even know if I saw them closing because she was avoiding me or not. But I had the last ditch effort of paper. I had it tucked into my bandages.

I had the words. I was three words stronger...

The plaza door was opened, and I was forced through, even as I saw Glimmer's head slump to the ground amidst a wracking cough. Leafshine was bent over her, shaking Glimmer by the shoulders and whispering into her ear.

To save her life and to save our friendship, my only spot of hope now, no matter what it cost me from My Master. For Glimmer. For Coral. For all of us...

I just prayed that I could dodge the repercussions.

Fillydelphia glowered in the dark. The streets toward our destination began to bustle again after a brief reprieve from the storm. Stumbling, limping, and sniffling from a running nose I followed My Master, feeling the light drizzle of hot and damp air stinging my exposed back.

One thing became clear very quickly. This was not the way to the Ministry of Magic, whatever it was. Picking up that my nervous trotting required a harsh drag every few seconds, My Master looked down at me. I cringed back, my eyes darting to all the ponies looking upon My Master and his pet dejectedly being dragged alongside.

“Our meeting is now in the old central factory, where the Ministry of Wartime Technology considered their hub. Thanks to the delay from our 'leader,' we had to move the venue.” My Master turned as he trotted, staring at me eye to eye.

“You will remain silent unless spoken to. These are important figures, Number Seven. You will obey them if asked anything. You will be the meeting's servant. They will require drinks in the factory’s heat. You are not permitted to take any unless I instruct you this time. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master!” I almost shouted it, nodding fervently through clenched teeth. The pain in my back was terrible. every time it shifted from a step only making it worse.

“Good! Now hurry up...”

Our pace increased. I could swear it was deliberate, as the added effort on my torso was making my cuts open and close repeatedly. If it hadn't been for Coral, I worried that they might have become infected already. Who knew what My Master would have made me do for some medicine?

The journey was not long, thankfully. However, I began to notice that we were moving closer toward the crater than I had expected. Its baleful glow emanated over the rooftops and between alleyways in the thick misty dark. Part of me felt glad...it meant I was nearer to Hearts and Hooves Hospital, my only hope for RadPurge. Could I do this? Could I mount an escape from the chains during the meeting and somehow escape to make a desperate run of RadPurge to Glimmer? Could I even get away again afterwards?

Not to mention at some point find more RadAway. Amongst all the pain, I hadn't even noticed that my throat was feeling...tight. Not from the collar's chaffing, either. Had I gone through radiation without knowing? Had it been from the metro? What if it was just a worsening condition like before? This was too early since my last RadAway. The worry began to strike me...did My Master know what I needed to survive? What would he hold me to for it? Oh Goddesses, please in your great generosity provide...

“Here we are, Number Seven...”

The chain was pulled, briefly dragging me along to stand beside him. Before us lay the largest factory in the entire city. I had sometimes seen it in the distance, spotting the sheer scale of the wide manufactory itself. Aside from coolant towers, it was not particularly tall, but it must have covered at least ten blocks worth of the city behind thick walls and containing immense yards of old military technology. No wonder Red Eye had taken such an immediate interest here...

Before us lay the metal gates, made of metal fence and thick bars, they lay open to allow the slave workers in and out under the watch of two enclosed guard towers with griffon snipers. The wall wasn't fully intact. Being this close to the crater, much of it had collapsed and even one of the immense shop floors toward the craterside wing had seen its roof tumble inward. Like the other hubs, it had resisted the balefire well...even if the structure had been seared and blackened. Above the primary central headquarters, I saw an immense symbol of an apple, hanging on metal cords rather precariously.

The guards let us through, glancing and chuckling as I was led on beside My Master. One of them mockingly barked once we'd passed, and I felt my temper rise with embarrassment.

Inside the gates, I began to get a sense of the scale of this manufactory's produce. On every side of me lay ranks of old sky chariots, armoured and streamlined. There were protected wagons with long supply beds and strange V-shaped underhulls. Rotor-driven aircraft, driven by pedals and containing side seats for ponies alongside empty pintle-mounts lay derelict. Ponies were moving between them all, examining the carcasses of the war machines and checking things off or taking notes. No doubt trying to see which ones from the vast arsenal were repairable or better as use for parts on the other frames. Dozens...maybe even well over a hundred ponies were slaving away with auto axes, shearing the salvageable elements from the more ruined platforms under strict guard. I saw one struck with the hard wooden butt of an ancient hunting shotgun for merely even looking away from his station of work. Others were prying the head off of a massive tracked sentinel robot, one of a dozen lined under cloth-covers beside serried ranks of robot ponies with bulbous heads and empty weapon mounts.

This was Equestria's primary industrial base for its armies...

Our advance took us through a cleared route toward the main entrance, a huge set of steps leading to about a dozen doorways all lines up beside one another, all of which went into the same greeting hall. That alone gave a concept of how many ponies had once entered and left this place at once. If Red Eye could get even a portion of this working...

Very quickly, I gained a whole new respect for the capabilities of his army. The creepy hot air balloons and transport wagons were only to be the beginning. I didn't want to imagine the amount of time, sweat, and lives it had taken (or would take) to get this colossal place operational again and producing the replacement parts for the fields of war machines. But if it did...Red Eye would have access to the full military and industrial might of the Equestrian inventory.

My eyes were so concentrated on the military technology that I almost tripped upon the stairs leading up to the way in. Passing through the doors led to an enormous and open planned reception, high and wide with at least eight separate terminal stations at the large oval desk in its centre. Above me, a balcony ran all the way around three sides with two stairways leading up to it on either side of the reception desk. A rather skinny looking unicorn stallion with an almost zebra-like contrast of white coat and black mane was keeping two dozen workers under control there as they tapped away on the reactivated terminals, with wires running all over the floor. No doubt they were the control hub for this place, a necessity to keep track of the immense capabilities.

“S-sir...I've finished cataloguing the Whirligig reports for the south field, it's not much better than the north one, sir. Without ball bearings, they can't—”

“I know why they can't, just get it archived and add it to the part list for when they repair the aviation manufacturing hall. Hey! Hey you, what's taking so damn long on the weapon locker counts?”

“N-nothing, sir! Just the ponies who come to take them for the army aren't telling us how many they've taken...”

“Bloody plank-headed grunts...make your best guess, most of its in crap condition anyway. They'll be back within the hour once they realise the receivers are ready to fall apart. Tell them they'll just have to wait for them to be repaired or go ask the Ironshod outlet in the west wing for new produce. Oh! Master Shackles, I do say hello!”

My Master simply grunted, placing a hoof on the desk. I was left to meekly look up at it from the rubble strewn floor. After a second of wondering why there was so much coloured glass at my hooves, I looked up to see a massive stained glass window of a Steel Ranger that had blown inward by the bombs. My Master tapped the counter a few times.

“Keep your politeness to yourself. Where is Grindstone?”

“You mean Master Gri—”

“Do you think I care for your formalities?”

The overseer went pale...even through his bone white coat...simply shaking his head. “H-he's in...in the old meeting room...central Ministry research h-hall...just off the place Ironshod used to use to—”

“I know the way. Now be quiet and send a runner along to tell him I'm here.”

Gulping, I saw him wave to one of the slaves, who (rather intelligently) just nodded and left, having listened in without needing to ask for clarification. My Master began to pull me toward the stairs, without so much as a word to the overseer.

The inside was unthinkably complex and massive. I saw multiple doors almost as large as Stable gates and about as thick laying open and revealing everything from massive chariot construction halls to paper stuffed archives. Each door bore a separate symbol. One an apple...another a sword and cogs. Very quickly, it became apparent that this facility had been rented out or bought in sections by varying companies to act as a unified production front...even if they still kept to themselves for their secrets. No wonder the Ministry had chosen to come here. Now, who was their Ministry Mare again? The...the rainbow one? She'd looked angry and warlike enough...

A long hallway stretched before us, crossing a skybridge between two of the immense warehouse-like buildings. Windows had shattered on every side, giving rise to an ash filled wind that blew my mane wildly and stung my eyes and back. If My Master cared for the annoyance...he showed no sign, simply dragging me along over the thick and musty red carpet toward a huge set of double doors. Battle saddled guards flanked each side of it, giving rise to a pang of sadness...thinking of my own personal one from Blunderbuck languishing in a corner of My Master's office so far away...along with everything else that meant anything to me.

“Master! They are awaiting you inside!”

“Good...once I am through and the runner is gone, close the doors. We are not to be disturbed.”

“Yes, Master!”

Clearly everypony knew to stay on his safer side. I really had to drill that back into me. Call your Master by his title. Always...always always always...

Inside, I was taken through a set of offices and meeting rooms behind toughened glass. I could see various stairways that led to a machine shop right below us. Up here, though, things were quieter. The terminals were all destroyed by the shrapnel that must have blown in from the windows I could see facing the crater. Almost teasingly...I could see Hearts and Hooves Hospital, its half ruined shape silhouetted against the crater's evil hue. At one side, I spied a little canteen for them to take breaks in. Even from here, I could smell the rot and stale stench over its foul-looking surfaces.

To my curiosity, I saw many of the desks had cutie marks carved into the polished wood of their construction. A set of pears...two screwdrivers...three intercrossing cogs...a sundial...

Wait.

The chain locked as I fell behind, drawing a choke and a reprimanding tug to keep moving. But my eyes just stayed fixated on it. In a far corner, near the windows overlooking the machine floor below. He...he had worked here, that I knew! It had to be! Two inactive terminals rested beside one another, connected to a single keyboard. His chair had been knocked over, falling against a long looted looking filing cabinet. Behind him on the wall, I could see papers and posters bearing schematics and rough sketches of metal ponies (or Ranger armour?) and dozens of individual parts far beyond my knowledge. But upon his desk I could see all manner of little things...amongst the tools there were photo frames and small dead plants with musty looking ribbons attached. Gifts...

I dared only imagine what was in the photo frames. I wanted to go over...to look, to see what Skydancer had looked like. He had to have her on it! I...I could draw them together!

But My Master would never have let me...the crushing disappointment as I was inexorably motioned onward felt like I'd turned hollow.

One more detail caught my eye though...just as I was passing. Between each wall he was near, a kind of ribbon surrounded his work desk at chest height. Pink...decorated with little faces of Ministry Mare Pinkie Pie looking rather stern and holding up a hoof to bar entry.

I wasn't given much opportunity to ponder it; the chain tugged with am impatient snort, and once again my attention was forced forward. But ahead of us...the usual desk farms and tables gave way to something much grander.

Another set of stairs rose toward a much more secure looking doorway. It lay open at the top. But before it, embedded into the wide stairwell itself, was a thick stone plinth wrapped in plaques and metal borders. Atop it...stood a Steel Ranger. I squeaked, falling in behind My Master. Only after hearing his amused cackle did it become clearer...it was just an inactive set of the armour propped up as a statue. If it had ever been operational. Whatever metal they used to build the armour had stood the test of time well. It gleamed. A more heroic and shining set of armour compared to the flame-streaked and battle-scarred metal gods of war I'd once seen in terrifying action outside the Walls. The symbol of the Ministry rested upon its flank while no weapons rested by its side.

An eternal guardian to the Ministry's secrets within the hub...but one that had stood idle whilst a mad-pony had looted it all. Crimson and gold-trimmed carpets led up the stairs to a very...official...looking brass and wood high doorway bearing four more of the guards. Without a word, they simply nodded and opened them as we moved around the Ranger statue.

“Aaah...Chainlink Shackles, so you join us!”

The familiar voice rumbled from the interior of the primary meeting room. Deep and heavily bass toned, Master Grindstone trotted to meet us at the door. Like an indomitable presence, shaking the very floor, his twisted cybernetic monster of a minotaur bodyguard lumbered along behind him leaving marks on the carpet. It sauntered like some sort of primate I'd seen in picture books, its bionic hand and immense crusher claw resting on the floor before its feet. Upon sighting me, it snorted and let out a sudden, short roar.

Only the chain stopped me in my flight of the room entirely, snapping at its full length until my body flew out under my head entirely, dropping me on my back with a dull thump. I'd almost gotten as far as the nearby canteen to hide in.

“The runner did mention you brought your...pet. I see you finally caught up with him.” Grindstone glanced past My Master, watching me as I shakily got back to my hooves and meekly hid behind a desk...before I was simply pulled out and toward the boardroom once again.

“A pony can't outrun their purpose and destiny, Grindstone. He's mine now. Where I go, he goes. In this case...he's to be our little refreshment servant. Aren't you, cutie pie?”

“Y-yes, Master...” I tried to speak without letting the revulsion at that name get the better of me. Grindstone just continued to stare at me, before waving his gigantic minotaur guard back to the side of the room and stood aside for us to enter. Behind us...the guards locked the door.

The lights were low, the windows boarded over, and the walls clearly thick. This was no doubt to be a private meeting. Grindstone continued to stare at me, before snorting. Without reason, he slapped one of his almost elderly hooves across my face. Pain stung at my already sore cheeks. I began to wonder if my eyes would ever be allowed to heal from their blackening.

“That's for ever defying me, runt. Nothing compared to what Shackles does, I'll bet. But you ran from me too when you fled with that mare, Unity.”

He lifted his hoof again, before snorting and turning away. I winced, finding a little spike of hate for this donkey emerging as he dared mention Unity's name.

“At least I know good old Shackles will give you the treatment in punishment enough without me having to lift my old body now. Don't dare bother me or I'll have Big Brutus here relieve you of those wings permanently.”

The bodyguard, hearing its name, stomped on the spot enough to garner everypony else's attention. But it remained loyal and stood still in the corner, like the Ranger monument outside...silent and vigilant. My Master began to move me across the room. Around me I saw several dark slaver figures...each of them rough and wicked looking. That particular rough style Grindstone and My Master shared that led me to wonder if they were all from the 'old days' of Fillydelphia, as well. Trotting on his wooden peg-hoof, I recognised the scruffy and disgruntled figure of Mister Mosin at the far end too. Remembering his allegiance with My Master in the riots...it only made sense he was here too.

“Well, well, well...it would be ye, laddie...”

Oh no...

Maybe not all from back in the long past then...

True to the unmistakable accent, turning my head revealed Sooty Morass coming out from the small side kitchen I was likely to be sent to work in. The grin between his braided mane gave way to a hoof around my shoulders.

“Seems ye've gotten yersel' in another little pickle, haven't ye lad? Going down while I only go up. Isn't that just precious? Doing well with the illness, are we?”

I didn't reply. I just kept my head down and tried to ignore the foul pony. At least, I tried, before my Master's hoof forced me to the floor, holding me down while he leaned to my ear.

“I told you! You will obey if asked by anypony in here! Now OBEY!”

Spittle flew across my face amidst my frantic nodding and cries of 'Yes, Master!' Shivering, hating every second of being made to look so belittled in front of Sooty. He was clearly enjoying watching me squirm...please...this, this was just demeaning...

“I...I'm not doing well, sir. It's a constant fight to get the RadAway I need to stay alive and...and I think it's getting worse. My sickness is...is accelerating...sir.”

“Oooh...'sir,' eh? I think I like hearing that from ye, laddie. Shackles sure has ye broken in well. Well, come talk to me afterwards, always room in me new trade for a little squealing whinnier amongst me clients. I'm sure we could work somethin' out for me stocks...if your Master permits it.”

What? What trade did he mean aga...

My mind finally caught up. The look of abject dread and shame was enough to make Sooty cackle, ruffle my mane and trot on past, happily lording up his new found power. Was...was he a full on slaver now? Or just a position of power with dirt on enough ponies to ensure a business trade within the city? I swallowed deeply...fighting to keep my imagination from going too far in its fear.

Sweating, I just tried to keep to the side of the room. Now that my eyesight was adjusting and the ponies were beginning to take their seats, I could see what we had.

My Master, of course, towered above everypony else bar the minotaur. Opposite him sat the old figure of Grindstone, clearly a symbol of authority. Sooty Morass sat off to the far end, likely one of their newest members to this little...club, while Mosin was fairly close to the middle, near My Master. He spotted me with his one eye and made something between a snort and a sigh of exasperation. Another five ponies were sat various around them, two stallions and three mares of a mix between earth pony and unicorn. All of them at least once regarded my curious looks with a snarl or fierce look until I glanced away. But one thing was clear...they were all short of word and very considered. I could see the intelligence in their eyes, for all the hate and brutality they exuded. My Master was among his kind here...experienced and savvy kinds of twisted. No wonder Sooty had found a home with them...

Along those lines, those glances I got suddenly made a lot more sense. I could see each and every one of them working out just how they would punish me in their mind...

In a bit of a worry...I slunk off into the kitchen, the smile from My Master making it all too clear that I was supposed to anyway. They began to talk...simple greetings, reports on things I didn't fully understand.

Wandering inside, I found a somewhat cleaner-looking kitchen designed for catering groups providing for long meetings. But before anything else...another pony caught my eye, standing and eating what seemed to be raw meat at the far end. Much younger than the rest, but still a fully grown stallion. A unicorn, dirty white of coat and one of the most muscular looking unicorns I'd ever seen. His mane was a ruin, almost ghoul-like, and caked with the remains of a dozen dark shades of all coloured hues, dye no doubt. A horrid scar ran across his snout, around and across his mouth like some form of bladed weapon had sank into it before. More deep wounds decorated his balding head alongside the multi-coloured remnants of his mane, giving rise to a huge question of why he was still alive. His eyes were of two colours...red and hazel while he bore piercings through his ears, nose, mouth, eyelids, and even just through his skin in general. My stomach churned as I saw they weren't metal...they were bone.

He was a raider...

He also saw me staring. Those eyes spun to face me...wide and with massive pupils, they looked at me almost disbelievingly to think that I was looking at him. The quake of severe drug damage in his system was all too obvious, yet he exuded a presence somewhere between uncertainty and unnatural authority. His whole body jittered for a few moments, before he spoke.

“You looking to me?”

Oh Goddesses...I had to reply, My Master's rules...

“I...j-just seeing who was—”

“Ah! Ah! I asked if you looking to me? You seein' somethin,' eh? Seeing something here? Something about me?”

He began advancing, his voice sharp and speaking far too whimsically and fast. What, to any other pony, might have sounded like ignorant bullying threats emerged as an unsettling detachment from reason. As he turned, I saw his cutie mark. A hook, like one an old master of mine had used to hunt riverlife. My chain kept me moving too far away when he moved close by. Already I could see he carried a large machete across either side of his torso along with a coil of rope.

“N-no! I didn't—”

“Thinkin' something about me? Out with it? You got something AGAINST me, huh? All starin'? Ah dun like that! Ah dun like people staring, cause they don't see the real truth, right? So I make em not able to see, how 'bout that? Yeah...how 'bout we do that?”

His magic, a sickly yellow, drew from his side the very hook I'd seen on his flank, attached to the rope.

“I'm sorry! I...I didn't mean to—”

His hoof slammed into a cupboard door, those thick muscles of his snapping the thick wood in one strike. He wasn't anywhere near the size of Brimstone...but this raider towered above me all the same with more build than any raider I'd seen in Barb's gang.

“I said. Stop. Looking at me! You think I'm crazy? Huh, that's it? Think something about me makes me worse?”

“I—”

I didn't even get the chance to finish my sentence. He leapt forward at me suddenly with a keen howl. I fell backward, hollering out loud as he landed atop me and drew back the thin hook to-

...laugh?

“Hehehehaaaahaha! Oooh...oh you...hehe, I'm just fuckin' with you. You see it, right? You see you should be scared and...hah...I like the scream. Screaming's good, right? ARRRRRGGHHH! See? Good to scream...tells you that you're alive! Hehehe...c'mon! Laugh! Not gonna laugh, it's funny right? Laugh!”

Chuckling, he wandered back off me, the smile doing strange things with his scar to twist his face in a particularly mad way. The more I looked...the more I saw simply no sanity in those mismatched eyes. Suddenly, he snarled, fierce and hateful.

“You not gonna laugh with me!? C'mon little pony, laugh! Lets laugh together! Laugh!”

Squeaking...I tried to...

“Heh...hehe?” I was backed against the kitchen counter. “Hahaha? Yeah...um...funny? Haha?”

He looked at me, the smile suddenly disappearing from his face into a kind of bewilderment again. A low danger in his eyes...

“...you laughin' at me?”

“Ha...huh? I...”

“I said, you laughin' at me? You was just laughin', was that at me!?” He advanced forward, the hook drawn again. I backed away, finding myself in a corner...the chain tugging tightly through to the next room at its maximum pull.

The raider snarled, fierce anger appearing upon his wild face. His hoof stabbed at my chest, lifting my head up to face him.

“I...don't like ponies laughing at me...why was you laughing at me there?” The eyes blinked, the pupils wide and mad. “That's it...yer fuckin' getting' it, laughin' at me like something's wrong? I don't even like the way you're looking at me...like you're better than me? Thinkin' yer fuckin' better!”

The large hook rose, I closed my eyes, begging loudly as it began to move for my mouth. I felt the tip reaching inside for my tongue.

“Leave him be, Wildcard. The runt doesn't know you. He doesn't die.”

I felt him pause...daring to open my eyes to find it mere inches away. The mad raider was looking over his shoulder at the doorway. My Master stood there. His words had seemed calm...but they carried a lot of weight. 'Wildcard' seemed to pause...then smile. He helped me up with a little pat to the cheek.

“Aw...I was just playin,' it's no worry. I'm chill, no worries, big guy I'm chill. Chilled. We're cool.”

Wildcard affixed his hook again to his hard leather armour. My eyes tried to avoid his as he trotted out. He paused briefly at the door, looking over at me and grinning with only half his mouth. The other half twisted into a sick frown with the scar.

“We cool, little kiddo? Yeah, we cool...gonna play sometime, eh? Get some of my boys together...make a night of it! Haha! They'll love ya, ha!”

He left to the main room, before suddenly firing his head around the doorway with a scream. I scrambled backward, falling and shrieking as he laughed and wandered off.

My Master jangled the chain to get my attention, glowering at the doorway.

“I wouldn't disturb Wildcard, Number Seven. Chieftain or slave now...heh...he's a lethal weapon of ours to point and let go. We don't want you getting strung up if he gets in the mood. You wouldn't know him, of course. Although, your 'friend' Brimstone would. One of his 'Big Four' so they say. Still leads the raiders that joined the Pit...trains them, slaughters the weak and toughens the best with cutting and beatings. Hehe...so mad nopony ever challenged him for any sort of leadership.”

He paused, looking back out as I heard Wildcard muttering and chuckling in equal amounts. Then he turned back to me, his eyes low.

“You didn't really think Barb was the only pony with a position of authority in his Clan who liked the idea of working with us to get back at their traitorous leader? To take on their 'betrayer,' as much as Barb wanted to?”

“No, Master...”

“Good. So let that sink in a little. Just think what Barb was like and then remember Wildcard held the same position of power. Strong as any big earth pony and lethal skill with that horn’s magic, too. Natural born killer. He may not seem it, oooh I know...but he fought Brimstone over and over for leadership.”

For anypony to even consider voluntarily attacking Brimstone spoke volumes. My Master stomped more fully into the kitchen.

“Now...you'll find your things here. Put together drinks, whatever you find and serve the meeting as you are called. You will obey them. You will not speak at any point during our meeting and you will say nothing outside these walls. I trust you won't...Number Seven. After all...just remember who owns your friend's life now. We've got Wildcard in the same way we had Barb—to make good on paybacks if you squeal. I promise, his methods may not be as efficient, but they are somewhat more...unique...than Barb's were...hehe.”

The chain was removed from his plated armour, instead affixed to a pipe on the wall coming from an old boiler right beside the door, allowing me to access both rooms. Making some of the tiles shimmy below him from their loose cement, he stomped out. Quickly, I found myself left alone.

My heart was still beating fast from Wildcard. That pony was...was terrifying. He had the build of an earth pony with the magic of a unicorn and his...his mind and the way he acted...

Very quickly, I began to worry about exactly what he might do next, which I suspected was entirely the point. What might he have done had My Master not been here? What had he done to ponies in the past? Barb would always be a very...personal...fear and memory. But I hadn't expected another of Brim's old gang to be so close to my life so soon. I didn't want him near me. I didn't want anything to do with somepony so...so off the deep end of the wasteland's insanity. If...if he was anything like Barb was, I...

I returned to the corner, curling up immediately on the cold floor, collapsing and trying to make myself cry a little to let it out. I could have sworn it was harder...

It hadn't just been Wildcard that had been affecting me. My lungs were starting to feel swollen and ineffectual. Every breath came with a little wheeze. It really was getting worse to advance this fast...

At...at least I had some time. Groaning, whimpering slightly at the touch on my wings, I drew the slot of paper bearing those three important words out along with a stick of charcoal.

Taking a deep breath, wheezing and sore...trying to ignore the arguing and harsh discussions next door...I began to create the most important drawing in my life.

“Number Seven! Get through here!”

I almost tripped over my own hooves. Chain rattling, I dove across to where I'd left the tray. As the time had passed, everything had been split between fearful entrances to the room bearing trays of the water I'd found inside a walk in fridge and desperate slow sketching whenever I could. As fast as I could, I threw the drinks upon it. A mix of water, Sparkle Cola, and a few heady mixes of alcohol I'd located all went on together. I had fast learned how to carry it upon my back...through great pain. The cold tray rubbed and ground at my whip wounds, leading to my time around the table delivering their drinks to be little more than a continual fight to not make a sound.

Seething as I placed their next round of refreshments upon it, I trotted in and struggled to carefully move around their table and get their attention without speaking a word.

Grindstone was speaking at the moment, his eyes only briefly acknowledging me before making it very clear I was to ignore him. A few clips around the ear had educated me very quickly in reading their moods.

“From what I can gather, you're proceeding as you should. I expect you all to—”

“You should not expect anything of me, Grindstone...” My Master growled across the table, the cutting tone making me very happy I was considered somewhat invisible to the assembled ponies. “Do not pretend to think that just because you are in the position to organise things means you hold authority. Just remember who ruled these camps before Red Eye...”

Wandering past Mosin, I felt him pick a bottle of clear liquid for himself and swig it, carefully watching the confrontation. Grindstone sat silent, before raising a hoof.

“What I was saying...was that I expect good things as a prediction, Shackles.” Grindstone continued rather diplomatically. “Your authority is and always has been recognised. None of us would be where we are but for your work. Now...I do have to report that, while Ministry Station has yet to be located, my slavers did unveil plans that it may not have been the Ministry's only outlet for research...”

“You're jokin’? You mean that there ‘nother right below our hooves and we ne’er knew?” One of the mares had leaned forward, swatting at me as I'd moved close by. SHe had a strange accent, one that clipped and rolled on words as though she was fighting to be understandable. Almost tripping over the chain, I fell back against Mosin who cursed in his own tongue and batted me away with a clip to the ear. I'd only barely kept the tray level...

“No.” Grindstone lowered his eyes. “Not beneath us. Above us. In the mountains outside Fillydelphia, atop their snowy peaks where Red Eye began his mining operations months ago. The Ministry moved a great deal of researchers up there on short notice. Including, I may add, many of Aurora Star's chief leads on the memory projects. That alone warrants that we must pursue this as a critical element. But we cannot simply go up as a small team...that would...arouse suspicion.”

My Master nodded, casting a careful eye to me as I wandered past. Shivering, I kept my head low. The only noise I made was the soft jingle of my chain. Looking up, I had to bite my whimper short as I saw Wildcard beckoning me over. Before him rested the remains of a dozen drinks already. Trembling, I began to trot forward, nervously passing beneath the heavily breathing minotaur. Those beady red blinking eyes focussed like a target lock on me as I heard My Master begin speaking once again.

“You propose we use our newly found slaves to create a mining force of our own?”

“Indeed...the reports back were not very successful without proper mining kit. If we found anyone with mining experience in our combined ranks, we could create a task group to offer as an experienced alternative. That would get us up there.”

The moment I came near Wildcard, he lifted the entire tray with his magic...before offering me a bottle of stronger looking alcohol. Sudden panic shot through me as I saw My Master looking. I...I wasn't to take any of it without his permission. But if I turned down Wildcard, what might he do? Shivering, I shook my head...

Sooty chuckled, his first sounds in the meeting so far. “Aye...I'm sure I could acquire a few wee bits of tools for them, help sell the appearance, y'know? Yer all filling me coffers with caps from the clients ye bring in anyway, so I can tab ye for them and you won't be out a profit.”

“Good.” Grindstone watched their newcomer warily. “Mosin, arm some of them. The mountains are not without their dangers.”

“Shall be no issue. Old shipment of arctic qualified rifles were found year ago. Only need to prevent pizdets of an assistant fucking with poor things till they resemble Hearth's Warming tree. On menya zaebal...”

I felt a brief prod on my muzzle. Turning back, I saw the bottle, again, offered from Wildcard. He wore a somewhat disgusted look...as though amazed somepony would refuse an offer. I just shook my head again...backing off. P-perhaps if I just turned and went back to the kitchen I would—

“Eh! Don't you turn your fucking back on me!”

I couldn't help it, I squeaked and spun around at his voice above the discussion in the room, just in time to catch the bottle with my face. Spluttering and moaning as I clutched my muzzle, I heard the uproar of protests at the interruption. Very quickly, I felt myself lifted.

“I told you, Number Seven! Don't disturb anypony and don't make a sound! Now get in there and shut up!”

I was hurled, passing through the door and impacting on the hard kitchen floor until I slid to the far end. Even before I had stopped, through my aching nose, I shouted out.

“I'm sorry, Master! I'm s-so—”

“Shut up! A slave should be invisible until they are needed! Do not bother us again! I'll deal with you later for this.”

My mind rebelled...but it had been Wildcard and...and he had...

Oh...what was the point. I was just the one who got blamed anyway...

Pulling myself back to my drawing, choking on the heated, metal-tasting bile in my throat, I picked up the charcoal once again. It hadn't been going well. I was being slow...careful...not moving on until I had made sure each bit looked perfect! But at this rate it would take me days to finish what I needed to do...

Carefully, I settled the charcoal stick to the paper, holding back tears as best I could to not stain it. A slow arc...somepony's neck...round it off and...and make it thicker for the back. Yes. Yes that worked...

I could still hear them talking. I wanted to just draw, but I kept hearing those names too many times to avoid listening...

“Aurora Star,” Grindstone continued, “we have now concluded, had more than a few 'personal projects' going on. Things that received no funding but which she continued with herself. I suspect that many of these may have illegally laundered funds and elements of proper funded projects to aid her. Her record of interviews from Ministry Mare Twilight Sparkle after her funding was cut is, suffice to say, rather long. If you're wondering why this matters to us...the reason is simply this. If Ministry Station didn't have enough of a presence to have its records on file in the Ministry proper...why did she go to so much effort to acquire it and then just use it for nothing but storage?”

A stallion, gruff voiced, spoke up. “We know this, Master Grindstone...because the Ministry was keeping something pretty damn secret down there...”

DIstracted by their conversation, I felt distracted. In a lapse of concentration, I gasped as I felt my charcoal rub a little too hard. Panicked, I carefully rubbed out a part of their back on my paper, hers would have been thinner than that! Oh come on...I couldn't have too many smudges. Maybe...maybe if I worked on him instead. I moved to the other side, where more incomplete bits of pony sat apart.

“Yes...yes you are right. But my theory is now this. Aurora Star personally dealt with it all, and I have never found a single record check by Twilight Sparkle of it. Ever. From what we can gather, she was particularly keen on these checks for Ministry Mare approval, so anything lacking them gives a high indication of it being something outwith the publicised projects. Nor did I find any audit checks even by her own Ministry.”

My Master's voice rumbled across the table. “You think that even the Ministry staff believed it was simply storage...other than Aurora Star herself? That she was making one of her own projects down there?”

“Believe? No...it's too obvious. She'd never have gotten away with it. Do I suspect it may be linked to that something we're searching for though? Perhaps. Fillydelphia was full of more holes than the primary hub of the Ministry of Morale here may have ever admitted. It was too industrial...too bustling and active and everchanging for them to keep up with. Just look at the reports of technology selling and we know the zebras were taking refugees away from shelters to the metro. If you wanted me to say one thing...it would be that I'm beginning to wonder how she got the resources for these 'personal' projects she sent into that supposed storage area. Now...I shan't theorise more lest we move off in an incorrect direction. Concentrate on the Ministry Station and on preparing a mountain slave force for now.”

“Aye.”

“Yes, Master.”

I sat for a second. I couldn't have missed them referring to Sundial's activities there...nor the refugees situation I'd occasionally heard ponies from the past mentioning. It had become long obvious that there was some sort of power play going on to gain favour in Red Eye's...well...eye. One they didn't want other slavers knowing about to share the gains with. One they were seeking to uncover the past to hunt for. I began to wonder just how much of this was really interconnected...hadn't I heard something about disappearing Wartime workers too?

Below me, however, 'connection' was just what was finally beginning to happen. Delight surged through my weary mind as I saw a pony's face staring back at me from the paper. One that...that smiled.

I could do this!

Thoughts of the past drifted from my mind as I heard them start discussing logistics. Yes...that gave me time to concentrate...I...I had to do this! It had to mean what I felt! Show what I meant...

I stopped...breathing out, trying to relax. I felt the vision of my drawing enter my mind, felt the pain fade away. I was alone without any danger...just...draw.

I drew...lines...

The lines...they weren't perfect but...they began to curve...and...

Became shapes to link the others I had done together...

I was drawing faster, all the voices and arguments over who did what nothing but the same background noises I'd drawn through a hundred times in my life. Thick swipes for a ragged mane...a gently breezy curve for a tail...a little imagination and picturing the past to round out that body a little...

The shapes...gradually, beautifully...they came to life.

The charcoal clattered from my mouth, rolling across the paper and falling between two tiles on the floor. Softly, I lifted the paper before me...

It...

It was awful.

I knew fine well what my own skills were capable of, but every out of proportion leg or twist of spine that made no sense was all there before my eyes! Why wasn't she looking at him when she should have been? Why were his legs too long?

Clamping my eyes shut...I almost tore it up then and there...why...couldn't...I just...draw!?

But I couldn't. It had been my one effort. It had to be enough! I just didn't have any other choice now!

That anger slowly began to build in me. The frustration and hatred of the news that had turned me into this talentless mewling nopony. That I would have to give this to her as an apology and it was ALL WRONG and looked horrible...she'd hate it...

But I had no other choice...

I had my apology at last. Now I...I just had to get out of here somehow before their meeting ended. This would be my best chance, alone in a kitchen and unsupervised. Slowly, I tucked the drawing back into my wing's now filthy bandages. Standing up, I realised how weak I was beginning to feel. But if...I could just get this and a gift of RadPurge to her I'd...I'd feel better.

Taking a breath, I turned to the kitchen to find my way free of these chains. To find my way back to my friend.

Problem one. My only way out is locked in the occupied room.

Problem two. I am chained to a pipe on the wall.

Problem three. I am beside a large group of incredibly dangerous ponies.

Add to that...limited time. It was no wonder why my searching of the kitchen was as frantic and panicked as it was stealthy and careful. Each cupboard being opened was slow and methodical, offering only the occasional rustle of a chain to convince anypony listening that I was merely shifting about in discomfort. As soon as a door was open, I would cast my eyes madly around to hunt for anything. Pots and pans, old degraded cardboard boxes of now blue cereal, and even tubs of bleach and cleaning fluids, the smell of which wafted out enough to make my eyes water. Nothing of any use!

Next door, Mosin and Sooty were engaged in an accent heavy argument over the exact procurement of parts for his armoury. Amongst the raging words and the occasional bellows of other ponies for them to quiet down, I dragged a stool over to clamber up on and get onto the worktop. They must have been unicorns in here...for I could see cupboards no pony could ever have hoped to normally reach. Pulling them open, I found lengths of tubing, replacement lightbulbs and bags of nuts and nails. Argh! Come on, was there nothing in here?

Moving around, I started even lightly tapping the wall to look for any hollow spots. I dreaded the idea of falling down another wall cavity...but at this rate I might have to. Tap tap. Tap tap. Tap tap—

Tunk.

I froze on the spot, the hollow metallic noise far louder than I expected . The speech had quietened down, and I could hear My Master beginning to outline who should send what slaves. To my horror, I heard the name of 'Leafshine' mentioned as one of the 'volunteers.' Glimmerlight wouldn't like that...oh dear.

But I couldn't help that right now. It was obvious their meeting was beginning to start rounding up all the remaining details. I didn't have long! Pulling away the masses of stacked trays from the wall, I stared in amazement at what I saw had languished behind them.

Like a small elevator, just big enough to fit trays of food or a large pot...some sort of transport to another preparation area on a lower level! Beside it, my heart leapt as I saw the light was still on. It would work! Problem one, solved! Almost too easy, really. I mentally kicked myself for not looking earlier. Was I getting that slow in the head? My fever certainly was picking up amongst the groupings of hurt I had from My Master's 'punishments.'

Now...problem two was going to be a lot harder...

“Are in agreement?”

“Aye!”

“Indeed so...”

“Seems fine to me.”

“Good, any last elements?”

They were wrapping up! I'd hoped to get a larger head start, but now it would be a rush just to get out at all! Stumbling back along the worktop, I once again began digging into the cupboards. I tried my best on the slippery surface from my occasional spillages earlier, hoofing it carefully over plates and glasses. Hopping up on my hind legs, sweating profusely, I began to rummage once again. At first, I felt delight as I saw a set of boltcutters...but they would be far too loud. Nopony would miss the distinctive sound they'd make! All the same, I took them out and lay them upon the worktop., Maybe they could-

My back hoof hit a plate and slipped...

My hooves spinning, I felt plate after plate slip off with it, along with some glasses and pots. I went with them, my vision spinning as I dropped wildly off the worktop to thud on my rump upon the floor. My entire backside and torso flared in piercing agony as the punishment from earlier wracked my body, giving rise to a loud squeal and moan. Pots kept falling around me...again and again. It was a miracle I hadn't landed on any broken shards.

My skin crawled however at the single sound I heard...of a chair scraping back and somepony approaching. I just curled up under the mass of broken items and shivered as I heard him enter.

“I...have given you very simple instructions...Number Seven...”

Oh no...please please please no...

“I asked you to stay still and to stay quiet! You are the most useless slave I have ever seen! What part of your orders did you not UNDERSTAND?”

“I...I got scared, Master! I...I thought I saw a radroach and...I tried to climb up the—”

“SHUT UP!”

My Master glared down at me from the doorway. I knew that look. It was a promise. An unspoken declaration.

“Be silent, Number Seven. I expect you to be ready to explain all your insolence after this. I have numerous overseers who require shift work made up, any more of this, and I will see to it that you carry out them all tomorrow. Understood?”

As he turned, I whimpered. After what I was planning, I would likely have to go through that anyway. That had been too close. He was distracted by the meeting, not given the time to carry out his normal punishments.

I had to get out of here...before he warped my mind any more. I had to. I couldn't dare cry, so I threw all the anger into my body and drove myself to my hooves. I had to move before I was pushed down any further. Every punishment I felt breaking me more into my subconscious slavery. Their discussion had been broken. I had a...a little time to drag myself out of here...away from him...

I dragged the stool over again, pulling myself up to the cupboard. There had been a screwdriver up there...there had to be if there were nails. It stood to reason! Silently, I reached in and fished around until I felt my mouth bite on a handle. Yes! A screwdriver! Just what I needed! I wasted no time in hopping down, having to stifle a loud cry at the jerking movement along my back and rump, before sneaking over to the pipe. Nearby to the door, I couldn't make a single sound as I began to work the screwdriver in my mouth...feeling that every annoying loose tooth ache. I cursed it in my mind...always aching whenever I was feeling controlled like some nervous twitch to tell me when...when somepony had control of me!

Carefully...carefully...I slotted it into the first screw holding the segment of pipe to the wall and began to turn. There were four screws. If I could get them off I'd be free! I'd just take the boltcutters with me and cut the chain on my collar's end someplace else when I could. Blinking...feeling fuzzy inside, I got to work.

“Master Shackles, before we go, do you have any estimate on the time to find the Ministry Station in your den?”

The screw was rusty. I strained, feeling sweat running down my brow and stinging my eyes...

“Hmph...we've done fifty percent of the rough area. If the room containing the records of it hadn't been destroyed...”

“We can't fix that now. How long do you think?”

It began to move...my tongue swirled skillfully, around and around, poking into the handle's concave end to wind the screw slowly out...

“Two weeks at most. If we can get more slaves, especially ghouls, it'll go faster. They work quicker...less affected by any radiation pockets. The ones I've got have been working down there for months constant. They're a bit...heh...droopy.”

“You'll get them. Anything else?”

C'mon! The first screw just kept coming and coming. How long was it!? I could hear them ending!

“No...I think that's us...”

There! The screw dropped, the tiny noise I suspected only I had heard. Breathing fast, struggling to keep a grip on the screwdriver, I moved to the second one in a rush.

“Very well then. We'll meet again in a few days to see where we stand for the trip to the mountain mines. Good day to you all.”

No no no! I was only on the second of them! Twisting madly, feeling a headache break in and my throat clam up in a dizzy spell, I slipped and dropped the screwdriver completely. NO! Damn my...my disease, it was making me dizzy. Fighting down the coughs, I began scrambling around and got it into my mouth along with a clump of lint it had fallen into from the floor. Retching, I just went back to work. I couldn't hope to not be spotted now! I could hear them all moving out. Wildcard giggled at the 'boring' meeting ending. By the sound of it, he was prancing out of the door.

“Master Shackles, a moment...”

“Yes, Grindstone?”

“Our leader's prodigy...what of him? He survives, yet he knows of your betrayal at the Mall.”

My ears listened out, but I was having a lot of trouble with the second screw. The screwdriver wasn't fitting properly. Come ON!

“Heh...don't worry about him. Or the griffon for that matter. He won't be waking up anytime soon, and she's bound by contract not to interfere in the political matters of her employers. If he does wake up...hehe...we'll have him dealt with more...hmm, permanently. He has no real support against the word of those he would accuse anyway. Now, I must return to the Mall. I have a slave to discipline...”

The second screw was wiggling around, far longer than the first. I just tugged at it with my teeth, panic driving me to rip at it until it finally popped out.

“Very well...but I would appreciate it if you had any spares, you might send them to the Ministry? I do need some aid in searching through all the things recovered from the Stable if you have anypony with experience.”

“Yes, yes...”

I had no time for the others, shaking so much I could barely see. My hooves reached out and tried to gently bend the pipe outward through its rusted joints so I could slip the loop of chain off. I could hear My Master pacing...he would be coming any second! My hooves strained...my mouth gripping the chain fought to not drop it...the heat in my chest only grew. What was wrong with me? My...my disease hasn't gotten worse this fast since the crater!

I heard metal strike the floor.

I blinked, staring at the pipe for a second before I realised what had happened...I was free...the loop of chain in my mouth. I didn't waste any time. I could hear My Master coming, so grabbing the boltcutters I simply threw myself up and into the elevator...hoofing the control panel's biggest button before tugging every part of the chain in with me. I heard his bellow for what the noise was...before I turned and saw him while I was squeezing into the tiny crawlspace. Behind me, I heard a clank of grinding chains and the smell of dust burning from an engine long abandoned. Come on...come on!

“What...get out of there, slave!”

I began to wriggle around, trying to dislodge whatever brakes were still holding it up, screaming as I saw him charge for me. Whether I was going to obey or not...gravity had other ideas. With a jerk and a creak of torsion wire, the tiny box I'd crawled into dropped. Bit by bit, shuddering and falling before jarring to a halt every few feet, I lost sight of him in a cramped black void. I saw the canteen on Sundial's floor pass by...but it just kept going! I heard screams and bellows for the guards...for the other Masters. My back screamed in agony, as did I in a more literal sense. The chain rattled madly and raked against me as I fell gradually before finally dropping and impacting upon the bottom floor. I didn't waste time...pulling myself free to find a darkly lit worker rest area and desperately tried to combat the maddened coughing fit that all the dust kicked up in my face had started.

Tables and empty chairs lay strewn in a much larger area with multiple fridges and windows looking right out to the shop floor! This was my only chance. I hoped they didn't know what floor I'd gone to, as I heard their hooves clattering away upstairs. Somewhere, somepony let out a whistle to alert others. I wanted to run...but first I had to get these chains off. Drawing the boltcutters as close as I dared to my neck, I leaned my entire weight upon the handles, feeling them close...bend...groan...cut, and then finally...

With a clunk, the chain broke. I fell over them, the sudden cut as they snapped a joint made me fall onto my front. I coughed as my stomach hit the ground, and when I got up I saw blood. I just hoped that was from my cheek wound...but the metallic tang in my throat told otherwise. The scant lights above seemed to glare terribly in my eyes...before I blinked and tried to reassert myself. Had...had that whole kitchen been radioactive? No time to think...I...I had to go...

Staggering, limping, and whimpering on every step of my back hooves, I fled into the shop floor, carrying the boltcutters in my mouth. (They'd be handy for our escape!) Above me, I heard the thunder of hooves on catwalks. I didn't dare look, instead diving between rows of automated workbenches bearing unfinished and blank shoulder plates of Ranger armour. They seemed strange without their decoration and symbols. But my eye was drawn to the far end, where I could see the dull red haze of Fillydelphia's exterior through a gigantic door. A way out!

Around me, across the catwalks, a half dozen slavers began to filter down, the ones who had been closest to the abandoned shop floor responded to the call to search. Three of them, masked guards, carried firearms...the others holding wrenches or bats in their telekinesis. I shrank into the shadows below an old lathe as I saw them immediately head to cut off the exit and stand guard. Above...the sounds of larger ponies, the masters...they would come here soon and clear it bit by bit until they found me!

I looked around to gauge my options, seeing monorails above my head that would carry large slabs of metal to cutting machines on an automated track system. The offices Sundial had worked in looked down upon this place where they had once manufactured the armour, but so much of it seemed ruined with the irreplaceable precision tools destroyed by times long gone by. Hoof-making workbenches filled the far side near large cages of materials. Generators were behind still sparking fences on the other side. In the middle with me, underneath the offices, were the toolstations. Lathes...drills...cabinets...this place was a veritable maze that must have been a nexus of activity back in the day.

Plenty of hiding spots...just not many ways out.

“The shaft went down again! He'll be on the shop floor! Get down now!”

Grindstone's voice was followed by a deafening roar. With horror, I realised they'd set the minotaur on my tail. Fear led to adrenaline. With a quick glance around me, I made a decision and just hoped that it wouldn't backfire like so many of my plans. I wished I had a smart pony like Glimmer or Protégé to tell me what the best idea was...somepony to just tell me what to do so I could follow and do what they—

...said. My mind stalled a little, before I shook my head and grabbed a bag of nails. This had to work.

Behind me, the brutal sound of a double door being ripped off its hinges by something far stronger than even Brimstone Blitz himself was enough of a motivation to get moving.

Breathing was getting more difficult, but I managed to take one big breath before I leapt out into clear view, turned, saw the slavers...and screamed in fear.

All six of them turned immediately, spotting me emerge into the primary path through the manufactory. They started galloping before even shouting.

“That's him! Go! GO!”

“Stay there, little guy!”

Skittering on the smooth stone floor, I turned and galloped for all my worth back the way I had emerged into a small maze of high powered band-saws and lathes. They each had huge, clear perspex cubes surrounding them for safety, creating a very regimented and cramped area to run through. Weaving left and right around them...an almost inefficient route away from them...I came to the far end and turned back...freezing on the spot with my limbs locked as I saw them galloping madly up the main route. A scoped carbine was pointed directly at me.

“That's it! Stay right there! Don't move or I'll— ARGH! ARRRGGGH!”

“FUUUUCK!”

“The hell is-YARGH!”

The six of them collapsed, rolling and screaming as they'd ran directly over my little minefield of spilled nails. Their heavy heads had made them all roll nicely to have the point right in the air, just one more example of the ponies of old not thinking designs through very well. This was probably the same company that didn't think safety rails were a good thing.

I cringed a little as I saw them fall and spike their sides through the leather armour...not to mention the ones embedded in their hooves. Weapons fells to the floor as their concentration broke and telekinesis stopped working. Turning, I ran, picking up the boltcutters from where I'd left them.

“What the hell was that? Where are you all, you blithering idiots?” Grindstone's voice cut down from above. Glancing upward, I saw him standing at the edge of a catwalk with no railings (I knew it!) and pointing a hoof to somepony I couldn't see. But I could sure hear their hooves on the floor.

Along with some rather...bigger...hooves. Galloping back to the main concourse, I headed right for the huge exit. Outside lay the ranks of old vehicles, I could lose them in there! Two shots whized above my head, too high to be anything but warning shots...but the sound still made my heart skip a beat. I stumbled, looking behind me to see a dozen ponies, including the minotaur at the back and My Master leading the way. They were all coming for me.

“I command you to stop, slave!”

Come on, Murky...prove it...prove you can still defy them.

“Stop right THERE, Number Seven!”

Glimmer was waiting, as was Sunny and Unity, and Brimstone and Coral Eve. I had so much work to do still, and if I lost Glimmer, so much of it would fall apart.

“Your Master demands you STOP!”

I couldn't stop now...dare, Murky, DARE! DARE TO DEFY AND RUN!

Crying out in sheer effort, I pushed my skeletal legs as hard as they would go, tearing out to the exterior. The heat and humidity trapped below the stormclouds hit me like a wet cloth to the face. My hooves sunk into the soft, yellowed gravel and kicked it up behind me in little spurts as I made my beeline. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw everypony else gradually catching up me, their longer legs powering them along faster than my own galloping. My lungs seared, my throat burned...I couldn't keep this pace up. I...I had to lose them somehow!

My route went right between two large weapons with massive barrels pointed to the sky. Ducking between and through the harnesses of the cannons, I navigated and pushed myself further into the crudely organised mass of war machines. A feeling all too similar to the first time I had run at the Wall came over me. If...if I failed, the consequences would be dire. But I wouldn't let him be My Master! He wasn't mine! Not My Master...not my f-fa...

The words died in my mind as I tripped, landing in the harsh gravel. Hearing them tear the reigns aside for their larger bodies to fit through. The sound of that dread cyborg abomination assaulted my ears, as I heard it tear at the vehicles and throw entire wagons aside, roaring like some mythical titan.

Slipping and sliding along the gravel, I rushed for the closest wall, hoping they'd be delayed long enough to let me get a proper head start this time! Slipping underneath a sky chariot, I pulled myself to the opposite side, confident no one else would fit through there.

“Where did he go?”

Yes!

“His tracks in the gravel, there! Move, you imbeciles!”

No!

I curved right...then left...then right again. But every time I heard their hooves closing in on the same turns! They were following the soft indents in the gravel I was leaving! Ahead of me, a winding group of more chariots blown away from their original ordered ranks formed a straight run for the wall. A large puddle had formed in the crater around where it had once stood, now a curved breach upon the manufactory's old defences. I could just—

But...no...no I couldn't...

“Follow the tracks! Get him!”

There was no way I could outrun them. I was beginning to flag, my hooves sliding and making huge marks in the gravel. I couldn't...couldn't get the oxygen. I was using too much energy just to keep breathing.

I stopped, leaning against a large ammo crate. Hyperventilating, my head twisted back and forth till my sweaty and straggled mane drooped and flew. I began pacing on the spot, my hooves coming down into the same indents of the gravel each time in sheer panic and-

Ah...aha...

I drew breath, steeling myself as much as I could (sort of a bendy copper at most) as the air drew over my throat, feeling like I was swallowing glass. Sprinting forward, I stomped all over the ground in one big line until I reached the puddle...then began trotting backwards, keeping my hooves carefully inside the imprints I'd just made. I'd...I'd go back to that ammo box and hide, hopefully they'd think I had kept running on! Nerves fraying...feeling like they'd come around the corner any second...I had to balance speed with precision. My vision wavered, pants becoming coughs. Whimpering and whinnying between them, I kept hesitantly stepping backwards.

“He's just around here! Go, go! The tracks you idiots, the tracks!” A slaver was screaming, I couldn't hear the minotaur. It couldn't fit through here. Had they called it off? Where were My Master's stomps? I didn't want to look backwards. I didn't want to turn around and see...and see...

Nothing. He wasn't there, my heart tightened as I began pulling myself up and into the ammo box, checking to make sure none of my false tracks had shown my backward motion. No sooner had I pulled myself in did I hear slavers charge past. I couldn't close the lid. I hadn't had time. I just had to pray they didn't look in.

“Up ahead, he tried to use the puddle! Go, over the wall!” One of the mares screeched, before hooves throwing up the filthy water became all too obvious.

“Spread out! Check all the buildings!”

I gently lowered myself down...my breaths came in ragged gasps. In the distance, I heard Grindstone shouting for his bodyguard to follow. Closer by, I heard—

Stomping. Oh...oh no...he was coming around the corner, slowly...like he knew. I lay still, trying not to shiver and rustle the metal box atop inert shells for the massive barrelled wagons. My eyes were fixed on the opening. My Master would move up to it. Any second, his head would just look in.

I heard him stop...listening. Every skill, ever little shred of talent I'd come to cherish to stay hidden, I put into action. Holding my breath, tensing my chest to prevent coughing, hugging myself to not shake so much...

He trotted on...oh thank you Goddesses...you haven't forgotten me after all.

I'd escaped pursuit, if briefly...but now I had a greater task to achieve. RadPurge. Glimmerlight. Hearts and Hooves. The hospital would be easy. I knew a half dozen ways to sneak into it now, but the Mall would be more difficult. With our shop cell’s door undoubtedly closed off by now, and no way through the plaza’s main entrance, I’d have to get creative.Thankfully, I knew one other way...

I'd just have to push myself to my limits and return somewhere it had terrified me to get away from, though.

Hold on Glimmerlight, just a little while longer. Please be alive. Please. Our escape will come yet, even if you don't want me around after it.

Just...just as soon as I had a moment to catch my breath...

Flowerpot was screaming the entire basement down at my intrusion. I galloped as fast as my rapidly weakening body could carry me, virtually falling into Weathervane's office and knocking his wheeled stretcher across the room amidst a fall from a wracking cough. The room spun and I fell, crying out.

“Weathervane! Doctor Weathervane!”

The basement was, other than the pus choked howls of Doctor Flowerpot, absolutely silent. The dim lights the ghoul used were out. He had to have been on a shift. Left alone amongst the grim jars and confusingly arranged test tubes and apparatus, I knocked the stretcher even further from me with a bark of frustration.

“Oh come ON!” Baring my teeth, I limped around. I'd have to find it for myself. If he even had any.

It was becoming a little worrying how many times I found myself trotting along worktops. In this case, I had to carefully avoid the little bubbling flames hung below steaming jars. I could have sworn I saw something...fleshy...in one. There was plenty of the fluid he used to make more supplies for the, drastically in need, hospital, but I had no idea how to mix them! Syringes of Med-Yes were kept in a heavily locked cabinet like I'd seen in the Ministry of Arcane Whatssits. I wished I could reach one of them for my back, it was draining my stamina far faster than normal as movement became a continual pain. I'd get used to it...before an odd movement would simply flare it up all over again.

The centre worktable was empty, other than the memory projection orb of Twilight Sparkle. I hoped it had helped him.

But I was getting nowhere!

Doctor Flowerpot offered his help. Unfortunately, his help amounted to a throaty roar through the wall with a slam that made the shelves shake.

“Oh...just...just be quiet you stupid...f-f-f...” I felt so much frustration build up, ready to explode verbally, “...fingerpuppet!”

Yeah, that'd tell him!

Almost to my amazement, Flowerpot went back to a gentle growling. It occurred to me how strangely routine his noises in the locked room had become over my time spent dying or healing in this place. But amongst the horrors and pain, I found a chance to sigh and try to smile again. Hah! Weathervane wasn't the only one who could swear up a storm!

Taking what chance I could, I hopped back to the ground to search his desk instead. I told myself to keep smiling, like I had one with Glimmerlight. I forced a grin onto my face, feeling my cheek sting as the movement shifted the cut from earlier. I tried to ignore it, push away the fact that I was feeling shivery, even though my body and face were warm. Just...smile. I had to keep telling myself, ‘You're going to get her back...so smile, Murky.’

With a sudden noise in the quiet room, something clattered to the floor the door behind me.

I leapt into the air, squeaking and spinning to face the door. I screamed, seeing two light green eyes staring back at me from the darkness. Falling backward against Weathervane's desk, I raised my hooves.

“No! NO! Master...please, let me get it to...to...”

In the door, bulbous and bobbing through the air, I saw one of those weird Sprite-Bots staring in at me, two little green lights blinking on its carapace. It glanced to the side at the mop it had knocked over with a careless wing flutter, before seeming to look surprised that I'd spotted it. Without a sound, it turned and fluttered off, leaving me standing rather surprised with that smile still plastered on my face. It had been from trying to cheer myself up, and then of relief that it hadn’t been anything more malicious. My mind wanted to ask the obvious question. What in the Goddesses’ names had it been doing down here!? I made to follow it, to bark a question, but it had already disappeared into the radioactive basement. Presumably, it had just gotten lost down here. I didn't imagine going there any more than I absolutely had to would really help.

Besides, I was on a schedule and for a second I'd...I'd thought...no. Just put him out of your mind. Turning back to his desk, I began rifling through the drawers, feeling only slightly guilty. (He got to ruffle my feathers, only fair.) Theory books, one of those freezing cold things doctors held to your chest, various quills...

I tugged open the first drawer on the other side, finding it empty. I moved to the lowly humming fridge at the back. I'd only seen him store confusing looking things in here before, or bottles. Not any RadAway from his previous huge stash. But the freezing air was a wash of pure delight against the musty air down here. Pity that my body was shivering from fever too much to enjoy it for long...

But there, between two beakers. The dull grey sachet...

A single RadPurge...like he'd been saving it. That thought alone made me hesitate. What if this was like last time and somepony else needed it? No, that time I'd known. This time I...I only had one confirmed pony needing it, I couldn't risk not taking it! Without much hesitation, I bit the cold edge and turned to grab a bag from the hooks where Weathervane's spare medical coats hung. Finding one in my size took a little work, but I eventually settled on a foal's medical drapes tied into a little bag and tied around me with some linen. Gritting my teeth as I pulled it tight over my back and slid the boltcutters through to stop me needing to carry the filthy metal things in my mouth, I knew I'd have to spend time apologising later. I hoped he would understand...Weathervane had a hair trigger, but he did care so much for everypony.

I passed the desk again on my way out, stopping only briefly to see the photoframes. But then I turned, finding there was more than the one I'd seen.

A healthy Weathervane...with a tiny looking Sundial, short stubby legs and puppydog-like eyes sparkling with gentle wonder as his father held him up to feed a monkey on a tree. The little Sundial, grinning wildly, held a hoof to the monkey's head as it fed from some dried fruit in his other hoof. So caring...careful of hoof and focused on it...

Just like his father was with his patients, the similarities between the two, even from stallion to colt, were so striking. From the eyes, their build, and even the soft way they each held the thing they cared for in their hooves...

Biting my lip...finding the oddly difficult impulse to cry wavering at its peak, I couldn't help but feel an intense...longing in my heart. I had to go. I had to move. But for a second, I couldn't deny the sudden feeling.

The stallion that came to mind wasn't mine and it didn't make full sense and...and I knew he wouldn't think it too b-but...I...

Finally, a couple of tears dripped from my eyes.

I really missed having Brimstone around...

Three slavers marched somepony past in chains, dragging them hard enough that their shackled up hooves could barely stride fast or long enough to keep up. Behind them, two griffons swished through the low embankment surrounding the old park near the Mall at high speed, blowing up arcs of ash and dust behind them. Aside from them...it was almost clear.

Almost.

I'd been approaching the Mall from the side of the Ministry of Arcane Sanitis-thingys. The giant high rise that had collapsed across the park formed a colossal barrier, driving me to head through some old gardens of once impressive manors that had bordered the park itself. All their once impressive metal railings had been taken to the forges, leaving their gardens strangely borderless. After seeing few griffons soar over though, I’d taken to hiding within an oddly intact kennel, where I’d since waited as a work party moved into the park to continue digging at the rubble from the high rise.. A missing plank in kennel’s rear let me watch the few guards that stood over scavengers, and wait for a moment of free space to gallop through...

I'd just seen it.

Shaking my head to clear the fuzziness, fighting temptation to just take a sip of the RadPurge to see myself a little better, I moved out. Dropping into the embankment to avoid their glances, I pushed onward toward the Mall itself by winding through the sturdy manors until out of sight. I no longer had my grapplegun saddle, but on the way I had dreamt up a little plan to get over the Mall’s fence. Rough living in Fillydelphia over the months had given me a certain appreciation for finding uses for what few items I could muster...

As I dropped to a canter, feeling the stress of a full gallop quickly depleting my stamina, I took a second to catch my breath and let the warm dizziness pass. My chest felt immeasurably tight. I could feel a second pulse like...like something else was throbbing right in there. It made me sick to think of that growth on my lungs pulsating and slowly choking the life out of me. That was it...first...first thing after Glimmer was...RadAway. I'd go and raid somewhere or...something...

Slapping a hoof to my face to snap myself back to reality, my staggering stopped. I found I'd wandered, sore, miserable, and sick to almost fall against the slope of the embankment of the park’s outermost border. Looking around to check nopony still saw me, I saw the Ministry in the background. Aurora Star's office window was all too easy to spot. Part of me almost wished I'd had more time in there...thinking of Mister Peace sitting alone...

Maybe I could sneak in after this and try to help him out? He'd keep me safe if I could find someplace for both of us...

After another twenty minutes of fast rushes and painfully slow crawling around convoys, the Mall was finally visible ahead. Tired, fighting a headache, and worried for just how long I had with the accelerating disease, I wandered around to the back, finding an unguarded stretch of the low, but razorwired, wall. Unpacking my boltcutters and the linen sling, I opened the cutters to their full length and wedged a stone between the scissor handles to make sure they couldn't close. With the boltcutters spread at a right angle, I tied the linen around the centrepoint. A makeshift grappling hook...

I took the boltcutters in my mouth and hurled them toward the top. It took many tries, my accuracy being as horrendous as ever...not helped by the times I spent tripping or spending a minute at a time hacking up dark stains upon the rocks. I just had to hold out a short time longer. Just a little more!

It caught! The angle of the cutters handle slipped through the mesh fencing, catching and forming a rough little linen rope to the top of the fence. Using my teeth, wrapping my hooves around the linen and all the strength I could muster I began to pull myself up it. I could hear slavers nearby...but I couldn't turn my head. Just...just don't look here! Nearing the top, I wound the linen around my hooves tightly and began to use my mouth to push the linen all over the barbed wire to let me roll over the top and drop down. If I hadn't been feeling as fevered as I was and enduring the burn and ache from every joint or the dull ache along my back, I might have felt proud of myself. At the top, I dragged the boltcutters clear with my teeth and tossed them back the way I’d came. My throw landed them into the dark crevice between a couple of old sheds. They would just weigh me down, and there were numerous ways out again. I’d rather have them someplace I could repeat this if necessary. Finally, I dropped down.

My ears pricked up. If I focused my hearing, I could make out the sound of hooves wading through the thick, goopy mud the storm had left. The slavers were coming around the corner of the building. Picking up the RadPurge and cutters, I wasted no time in rushing forward and hiding behind the Mall's old power boxes near the wall, shimmying myself into the small gap. Sure enough, a couple of mares trotted by, exchanging hushed conversion on their clearly boring shift. Lucky for some.

Stopping to pull at my collar, I could feel the red marks and sores below it already forming. They stung to touch, chafing against the collar when I moved. I needed to get this done quickly, before all the sickness kicked in bad.

Now to get in.

I'd been deliberately ignoring this part. Meekly, tripoding my way forward with one hoof clutched to my painfully convulsing chest, I wandered past where Flippy Bit had met his untimely door-related demise and unsteadily made my way to the fire escape, feeling ready to faint at any moment.

There was just one way in I knew...

Three...two...one and a...a half...one and a qu-qu-quarter...one...a bit less than one...

Forget it...GO!

I heaved and pulled the stiff doorway open, throwing myself inside before I had time to think about the mind numbingly stupid thing I'd just done. The dusty room's musk blew into my face, made me squint my eyes, and blew outward into the city as I simply galloped inside and for the vent before it woke up!

I slipped and stumbled over the masses of used food packets and cans upon the floor, that small vent all too promising in my vision. I didn't dare even look...but I heard it. Like an exhale of dead air, dry and throaty...building to a distended mouth's horrid howl...

I leapt for the vent, my hind legs kicking madly as I tried to pull myself up and into it. With a look over my shoulder, I saw the ghoul janitor throw its body around to get its rotten legs below it, scrambling and pulling its ruined body toward me from beside the door where it had lain to rest since my last departure. I screamed, screamed, and screamed again as I failed to lift my own weight. C-come on! Couldn't I even do a single pull up!?

My leg found a box to the side of the vent that I could use for some support. Pushing up with a hind hoof, I tugged myself into the vent even as I felt it gnash at my tail. Still crying out with every short, stammered breath, I kept dragging myself with my forelegs until I was clean away from the entrance and crawling deeper into the vent.

Behind me, the gnashing sound of the ghoul’s mouth was all too audible as it leapt toward the vent entrance, snapping in again and again. It only got more frenziedly the further I pulled myself back with its rotten hooves clawing and thumping away at the lip. The sight over my shoulder made me freeze on the spot...before the coughing fit finally came.

I matched its spasm-like movements, convulsing as pain racked every side of my body and blew small wisps of blood. My vision whirled, and I felt myself falling. I didn’t feel the impact.

Dizzy, hearing distance noises and feeling a pounding in my skull, I opened my eyes to realise I had blacked out for a few seconds. H-how...I...I wasn't in radiation!

Slowly, not helped by the howling of the beast screaming in at me, the nausea passed. Breathless and sweat stained, I shivered and felt even my abused back and rump simmer down in comparison. I just needed a second...

A horrible sound. One of the most, in context, terrifying ones I'd ever heard began to make itself known. That of the duct thumping a lot closer. Wide eyed, I curled around to look into the darkness...and shrieked. My Master was staring right in at me...reaching...clawing and stretching to pull me back to him! Curling up, I closed my eyes. But an unbidden command forced me to open and look again.

Somehow, I didn't even know how, the ghoul had gotten into the duct and was slithering...gasping and howling for me, pulling itself through the cramped confines toward me. What...oh Goddesses! What was wrong with me!?

“NO! GO BACK!” I'd screamed out of fear, nothing else. It didn’t listen. My hooves kicked into action, pulling myself back and away much slower than I'd have liked. Desperately, I began pulling and frantically crawling backward away from it. Gurgling, the janitor didn't give up the chase, keeping pace with the sickened, weak pony it so desperately wanted. I reached a two-way junction before panicking. Which way had I come the first time? What...oh Goddesses what if there was a dead end!? But I had no luxury of time. I just picked instinctually and kept crawling. I glanced back to find the horrible hanging jaw and the distended tongue swinging and swaying mere feet from my hooves. The beast tugged itself ever closer, its eyes glowing a hideous green. How was it moving so fast!? This was a nightmare!

I was so intent on the ghoul that I nearly dropped into the same pitfall I had last time. My rump almost disappeared below me before I caught myself and tugged my frail body over the hole of the downward plunging duct. Twisting painfully, dragging my back against the wall, I saw the ghoul move closer. It stretched out to grab me and clambered past the gap. Why couldn't it be stupid and just fall in!? I lashed out with a hoof as its own neared my leg, cracking its already broken nose. I kicked again and again, watching it lose balance and struggle.

One more bucking kick, normally reserved for the nether regions, made it slip. The howl of hungry rage as it descended into the darkness below made me shiver. That had nearly been me...

I wanted another minute to pant and recover, but I didn't have time. Not to mention that the screaming of the trapped ghoul was only making me feel worse. Clambering on, I knew I had at least one more ordeal before I finally...finally got to Glimmer. Feeling my wing, wincing to the touch, I at least knew my drawing was there...pathetic and insultingly bad as I knew it was, it was all I had.

I was, however, pausing now.

I knew this hole. The grate through which I could drop...I knew it, because I could still see my blood spilled upon the same floor I had cleaned.

His office. My prison.

He wasn't home. But I knew my luck. If my cutie mark and its foul destiny willed it, he'd be ready to come out of the wall or something the moment I dropped down there.

Already, throughout the Mall I could hear screams and shouts. The horrid thing was I couldn't tell the difference between the slavers taking orders to watch out for me and the slavers taking advantage of the slaves they now had under their absolute will in My Master's foul version of this place. It all just...meshed together, a chorus of Fillydelphia. But at least my route would avoid them for all but the absolute last moments.

Carefully, I dropped down. The landing...could have been more careful. Although I landed on his bed, the shock through my legs buckled my back, splitting the clotted blood on my back all over again. Crying out, I dropped to my side upon the bloodied floor, only adding to it all the more. My voice grew hoarse. I croaked painfully as I pressed a hoof behind me and held a scrap of linen torn from his bed against the wound. I could feel how...bumpy...my back seemed. The feeling revolted me, almost enough to make the rushing fever and running nose feel inconsequential.

There was a moment of silence as I bit my sore lip and listened carefully. I expected it any second...the sound that would imply he was approaching. It always happened. This had been too easy thus far. (If I forgot the ghoul, which I was very keen to.) But there was nothing. Standing weak, with my lashed back and rump, bleeding cheek, swollen brow, and a headcold with my sickness getting worse every few minutes...I just had to keep pushing. All my things were still here, to which I gratefully pulled my fleece and saddle on. It stung...but the soft material just made me feel better to cover up my wings again. Nopony had to see them...I'd been lucky thus far with them on show. Everything else I hid in my saddlebag, slipping the boltcutters through the fastenings of my battle saddle opposite the grappling hook.

I touched Unity's statuette of Littlepip for luck, seeking any form of belief I could hold on to. I wasn't going to waste time and...and...

Before I knew what I was doing, I found myself fixing his bed after I had landed on it. Afterwards, I would tell myself it was to try and cover my tracks. But even I knew there were no illusions who would have taken my things.

As I shot the hook back into the ducts again, I screwed up my eyes and tried to pretend I'd just made a mistake about that...to pretend it hadn't been for the...the other reason.

Last bit...last bit and I was gone. 'You've come this far, Murky', I told myself. Just a...little...further...

This part was not going to be easy.

The plaza was heaving. Slaves were being brought in, vast quantities of them. I wondered if their 'Mountain Task Group' was gathering here before their request was put in...for as I stared out of the air duct Brimstone had lifted me into days ago, I could see no real way through.

A column was being marched past my hiding spot, upstairs toward the higher levels. Many of them carried that sooty looking residue, as though they'd been working in the rest of Fillydelphia's mines before being brought here. My Master was really calling in all his favours over the slavers to amass so many. Already, I dreaded how many were being sent to the unending underground hell of the metro. Behind them, I saw cages filled with more ponies than I'd ever seen in this place, no doubt to impress upon Red Eye that they could resume more important missions. I could only guess to get the choicest loot for their little 'group' before any other slaver. They really were making a big move...getting rid of Protégé through false info leaks and betrayals had only been the beginning...

Red Eye's potential for a greater military force had astounded me. But now I found myself in stark astonishment at the sheer ambition My Master was clearly holding to seek favour from Red Eye for power...

Glimmer's shop cell was in the main ground floor. If I dropped out now, I only had to go down half a flight of stairs, get to the bars, pass my apology through...say...say whatever needed said...and go. Straight back. Once in the ducts I'd be safe...er.

But there was only one way through here...I'd have to try and blend in.

Because that had always worked out in the past...

Awaiting the column to consist entirely of slaves and not slavers...or at least till the procession blocked sight, I hopped out of the duct and walked morosely downstairs with my head hung like all the others. Some of the slaves looked up at me...but simply seeing another little pony who had been battered around, they didn't pay me any heed. Thank the Goddesses I'd thought to get my fleece on!

“Hey, watch it, runt!” A hoof shoved me against the wall, staggering on my exhausted legs, I slipped down and covered my head. The movement felt far too natural. Sadly...that sort of thing was fairly common in my life. But it let me creep away faster with a valid reason to do so, cantering down the rest of the stairs into the main plaza. It had changed even more in the few hours. Scrap-built scaffolding had formed bridges from one balcony to another on the higher levels, which were gated on either side and held long rifle armed unicorns who swept their barrel around far too readily. The incinerator had really got going, belching its smoke in thick clouds to the wired cage roof while I could see slaves being forced to work away on stone chipping, sewing or other small tasks even in their rest periods.

The bustle gave me a good shot to stay hidden. Falling in amongst a group beside an elderly earth pony (How had they ended up in here?) I matched their pace as it slid along the wall, passing shop cell after shop cell. The heat in here from that incinerator wasn't helping my dizziness. Twice, I stumbled. More times, I coughed. But I swallowed the bitter air and kept going. So...close...

“You all! Halt!”

My hooves froze. It was My Master's assistant, what was he called? Wormtail? I saw him march across the ground, before turning to an entirely different group. I was about to feel a little happier until I saw who was with him. Wildcard. My Master was obviously moving him into a role that Barb had once had until he likely had become too much of a threat. At least you would see (or hear) Wildcard coming. Even now, he was whistling as though nothing in the world was wrong around him. What was that tune? Four short whistles then a long one? The same again...then four long ones.

Forcing myself to ignore it...I made the last short hop and pressed my face to the bars.

“Glimmer!”

My hopes fell. There was nothing...nopony. The cell door sat open, not needed while they had been taken to a shift. My heart felt like it had been...been crushed. Sliding down the bars, I lay on the floor before it for a few seconds. No...she...she should have been here! I needed this! She needed this!

Slowly, I drew out my package for her, wrapped in linen. Wishing I could sob, I brought out my drawing carefully and slid the edge into a fold of linen. She...she would find it...she'd know it was from me...

Wandering inside the cell, I moved into the back and set it down on her side of the couch. She'd find it. I stared for a long time at the drawing...just hoping she'd come in behind me and be surprised...but I only heard more cries of those thrown into the yet unknown pits outside. The door out back had been blocked up. I just held the picture and stared...

It was meant to be Glimmerlight and...and Brimstone and Coral and...and what I remembered Coral's son to be like from the memory. Caduceus too...Leafshine like she'd asked me and...and even what I imagined her parents were like. Strong and tough Steel Rangers but still caring for their daughter.

But I'd messed up so much...her mother and father were in the wrong jobs, I'd done her father as the paladin and her mother as the scribe. Caduceus' little glasses looked weird and messed up his eyes. Brimstone was freakishly huge, even more than he should be. None of them scaled right...I could see curves wrong or...or how I'd made Coral's son look too fat and...and...

The three words stared up at me. Those three words I'd hoped would mean it.

'I'm sorry, sis...'

They had once been an apology for...for not realising and saying the wrong things.

Now they were simply an apology for making everyone she ever loved look stupid on this drawing.

I turned and left.

I still wished I could cry again.

Trotting back out, I made to sneak back to the duct and slink off into the night. I'd try and hang around the Mall and see if I could spot her looking any healthier. But with such a pathetic apology, she'd likely not care to see me. Even after what Coral Eve said.

Depression was hitting hard, but even it wasn't enough to stop all the burst of adrenaline I felt at who I saw the moment I left the shop cell. A new wave of slaves had been brought in; all of them thin and hungry. They were sat around the fountain, waiting to be told where to go. I spotted the fiery and earthy two-tone mane immediately. Sunny was among them. Part of My Master’s stock, I had figured I’d keep bumping into her while I was around him too.

The decision was reached in my head before my hooves even started moving. I didn't head for the duct. No, I went forward, weaving around the confinement pits. There was a silver lining to all this confused running! I could turn this into something good! Hope flared up in my heart, I could check one thing off my grand objectives!

“Sunny!” I whispered as loud as I dared. She was staring at me, but didn't reply immediately. Her mouth gaped, moved and finally seemed to break through into speech again.

“M-Murk? Why are you...”

I couldn't stop myself, I hugged her.

“L-listen, I'm not meant to be here, but we can go! Me and you. Like we planned!”

“Go where...?”

My eyes were starting to cast around. We didn't have the time to discuss it, already I could see Wormtail and Wildcard coming far too close for comfort. Was that raider being a bodyguard or just enjoying the sights from that mad half twisted smirk? I lightly tugged her arm, almost feeling sick at how quickly she’d gotten so thin. I'd been born to it, and my friends I’d met after they’d been in there, but she'd been a healthy wasteland veteran not too long ago.

“Out of here! Hide! Escape! Come on, we can sneak out in the ducts now you're so, uh, so thin...”

She might have made a little joke about that, I was trying to give her reason to quip or snap at me a little. But the almost blank look she gave me simply broke my heart for the poor mare. I really wanted to give Doc Minstrel a good square buck between the legs for leading her to this, had he still lived.

“O...okay...” Her voice was soft, before she gritted her teeth. “I need out. Need to get...get my gun and...and shoot that...that...”

Yes! That was the attitude! I nodded furiously, before wincing in pain and confusion at the world blurring before my eyes. “Follow me, we'll go get your gun, Sunny.”

I hoped I could find one. But that wasn't important. What was important was how she reacted, standing up warily beside me. Cautiously, we began to retrace my steps as a sense of growing momentum began to overtake me. We would do this! With somepony else I could talk to, we could find a way to help the others too. I'd be taking Sunny away from My Master too. We would both be defying him! We sped up, trotting around a group of slaves being pulled from their shop cell. I kept my grapple gun facing away from any slaver, direly hoping they wouldn’t see it.

“Everypony halt!”

Wormtail's annoyingly nasal voice snailed out and was noticed only through how downright insipid it was compared to having any real power. It took everypony a few seconds to obey, compared to the freeze frame on life My Master could pull off with a shout. I sensed Sunny stopping behind me. Turning, I shared a look with the dusty coloured mare. Only now that I got a chance to look, her brow now bore the horrid scar of a lash wound, much like my back. I could only imagine who from.

“We're one short! One shooort! That's one less for you idiots! Where are they?”

Oh shit! I permitted myself to blaspheme in my own mind as the stunned look we shared made it all too obvious who he meant.

“Come on! Oooown up! Where are they? I know numbers and I know how to count! This is...this is highly dis-satisfactory!”

Was he serious? I could even see a slaver slap his gas mask with a hoof above us. Wormtail began to move around the middle group, asking them who had gone. We didn't have much of a chance.

I glanced to either side of the plaza. The duct was only about twenty feet away, but if we moved we'd be spotted. If we didn't we would be too.

Only one way. Dare.

“Sunny...y-you ready?”

“I'd rather be shot than continue this, Murk...” Her voice sounded so fragile now, like she was terrified of having been brought to that point.

Staring into each others worn and red tinged eyes, we turned and galloped for the duct.

“THERE THEY ARE!” The new bridge guards had us in a second, screaming out to the rest.

My legs ached, I could see Sunny tearing up at a pain in her leg as she fought to push forward. We dashed around slaves, leapt over those lying down and Sunny even barged a slaver out of the way!

Ten feet! Just up the stairs now!

“Block them in! BLOCK THEM!” Wormtail screeched over the commotion. The slavers above held fire, likely from the mass of targets their Master wanted kept alive too well. But ahead of us, we almost ran directly into a block of heavily armoured slavers rushing to guard the stairwell. The duct was blocked!

To my credit, my panic was now only five seconds long instead of ten. Reaching out to grab Sunny, I pointed to the opposite and unguarded stairwell. One slaver leapt a pack of slaves with his back hoof catching one in the face to stop us. Yelling in pain from the action, I dived to half slide and half roll underneath him. Sunny took advantage of his stumbling over me to shove him into a mass of weary looking bucks who'd grouped together. The slaves simply stared in astonishment.

Reaching the stairs, we found even more slavers rushing down. Screeching to a halt, surrounded, I looked up and again while trying not to keel over and give up. But my eyes found the balconies.

“Sunny, grab hold!”

She stared at me for a second, before doing as I said. “I really hope you know what you're doing, Murk!”

“So do I...” I murmured, hopping up to point toward the balcony, flipping out my mouthpiece and firing the hook to catch on the scaffold bridge. Biting hard upon the trigger as soon as I saw it wrap around, the tension strength almost surprised me as both our wasted bodies flew upward, tugging hard on my back.

I couldn't scream, I had to keep my mouth shut on the trigger! Together, we flew up above the slavers and wound quickly onto the bridge. One slaver above tried to catch us, but just received Sunny’s desperately swung hoof in his face for his troubles. Sunny held him down while I clambered over the edge and got untangled from the scaffold with panicked hooves; then we galloped on.

We'd run to where I'd fought Barb near the roof and use my grapple to pull us out through the hole! That cage wire couldn't be too tough and I wanted to bet that Barb's knife was still up there from stabbing Protégé to cut with! Glancing back, I saw slavers fighting through the slaves to chase us with clubs, whips and (making me shiver) chains. Briefly, I saw Wildcard running up the opposite stairs we'd tried for. Well...all right then, whatever floats his boat...

We passed a cart of pipes for constructing the scaffold bridges, one that we spun and, as one, bucked down the stairs. An almighty clatter that assaulted even my ears rung out as dozens of heavy pipes thundered into the chasing slavers. We went higher, entering that darker stage of the enclosed stairwell. Behind us, I could hear more of the slavers beginning to cluster on the balcony and be shouted at to give chase. But the pipes had slowed them, hurt them. Every single item we found, either Sunny or I turned to hurl at the individual pursuers. The door was just up ahead, but a faster unicorn tossed the projectiles out the way with his magic and began to catch up with us, charging up the stairs. Squeaking as he went for me I pulled my mouthpiece trigger again to fire the hook into his chest before retracting it. The projectile blew him off his hooves to crash into two more behind him. I glanced at my grapplegun as it retracted.

“W-wow...gotta remember that idea...”

I felt Sunny pulling me as we pelted into the darkened room, she slammed the door shut before we worked together, our frail bodies offering just enough to push a work cabinet in front of it.

“What's the plan, Murk? You do have a plan?”

“Y-yes...kinda. Make s-sure it stays shut, I need to hunt around.”

Hearing the slavers beating on it harshly, I turned back to the nightmarish generator room. It still haunted me, being chased by somepony in the dark and hearing Protégé scream in pain like that.

Now, to find that damn knife! It had to be here some—

“Surprise, everybody!”

I ran directly into a hoof. My head stayed where it was as my body kept running beneath it, bending me back to twist over and collapse to the ground with a bloody nose. Another stomped down into my gut, driving what little air I could manage right out of me along with a spray of misty blood. Through my darkening vision, I saw a multicoloured mane and mismatched eyes erupt from behind a generator and surge right toward Sunny.

The mare spun, instincts no slavery could kill driving her into the counterattack from a life on the harsh roads of Equestria. Her hooves flew out, but were simply batted aside like any childs before one of Wildcard's front hooves slapped across her face, throwing her to the ground. He began kicking lightly at her.

“Get up! C'mooon! Get up! Get up get up get up! Come on, gimme a good performance! Be a star, get up and fight!”

I saw her in danger. I'd handled Barb. I could push myself to help a friend from this nutjob! Lifting at least my front half up, I bit hard on the mouthpiece, firing the hook directly for him. Feeling the jolt of firing, the hook soared forward like a long range punch...before curving away in a glow of magic. Wildcard's horn sparked, my own hook soaring around to come right back at me, spin around and around to wrap up my legs, lift up, and drop me on my back...hogtied. Gasping in the pain of the drop, I fell to the side and saw him just laughing.

“Unicorn brawlers, huh? Pretty fun things. See, somepony told me a unicorn couldn't be that, so I tore his throat out with my horn. Then I realised that was a pretty bad move, couldn't tell me he was wrong, you see?”

His magic surged, flaring brightly with that vomit yellow colour to slam me into the generator before arcing across to grab Sunny's backward double buck by her hooves and lift them from the floor. His own counter buck spun and slammed into her chest. I heard something crack, but I couldn't even scream myself as the impact to my head only felt heavier and more painful.

I didn't even see the end of the fight. I passed out far too early, the last sight of a unicorn combining his telekinesis and earth pony like brawling into one hurricane of brutality. The powerful demonstration making me realise that it'd be a long while before I was truly free of Brimstone's past still hurting the present.

Consciousness brought only a deathly feeling.

Even before my vision came back...I could feel my throat gurgling and full. My chest was convulsing like I'd swallowed a parasprite. A windpipe that seared and burned inside me along with a head that felt like it had been split open. I was cold...shivering. Everything felt wet...I'd been stripped again...

Sunny...I...had to go get...

My limbs felt restricted...they couldn't move far from below me. Was that...mud? Damp? Stinging...the rain? Where...where was...

“Wakey wakey, Number Seven...”

No...no...don't be awake! Faint, faint Murky! Fall into the black and just don't wake up!

“I said...wake up!”

A hoof hooked around my forehead, tugging it up and back. There was no hiding it as I groaned loudly at the rather large swelling on my forehead being handled roughly. I didn't want to open my eyes...but I had no choice. The groaning turned to a horrid cough...I was...was very sick...like before in the crater. I could feel it bubbling in my throat...feel the loss of breath and heady fever taking grip. I...I didn't have long...

My Master was staring down at me. From underneath a sheltered umbrella upon a stand in the ground, he was backlit by the flare of sheet lightning above us every few seconds. But those green eyes...they were never-ending.

“There we go...”

“Pl...please...”

He grunted, dropping my head to flop back down into the mud, my mane lying soaked around me.

“Don't even start, slave. Now before I begin to say anything, I advise you look around you...”

Almost not wanting to...I did look around, moaning from a stiff neck and the dizziness from just looking. There was...

Nothing.

We were alone. I didn't even recognise this place. A large expanse of barren wastes in a clearing between abandoned buildings. Thick mud gooped beneath me and him, water slid off the nearby rooftops like waterfalls. The umbrella was keeping it from falling, but already there were many large puddles formed around us...some of which seeped underneath me and stung horribly. But to my horror...I saw that I was chained to the ground by every limb and once again attached by the collar to My Master.

Even with just shifting my weight, the pressure of the collar gave rise to a horrid spontaneous amount of choking and coughing when my chest spasmed. Eyes rolling over, curling up as best I could from being staked down...I whined and cried for help from my sickness...I cried for Weathervane. I needed...needed RadAway...now!

Then I saw it...right beside him. Right within my reach was an orange sachet. Still hacking and dry heaving, I began to pull myself toward it, please, Master I needed it!

Chuckling, his hoof slowly pushed it back out of the way...out of my reach.

“Oh no...disobedient slaves don't get treats, Number Seven...”

“I...” My sentence was cut short by another cough. “I...I need it, M-Master...to liiive, please...”

My head was grabbed, forced to look up at him.

“You disobey me! You run from me! You try to take another of my slaves and now you say you want more? Are you so greedy, Number Seven? She was sent to the metro for her punishment. You are here as your punishment! My punishment of you...and oh...you will not be getting away so easily this time! NOW BE QUIET AND LISTEN!”

Holding my ears, shivering and whining as he bellowed into them, I was cowed into shrinking back from the needed medicine. I heard My Master chuckle at the submissive reaction, before patting me on the head.

“I figured you might try something like this, Number Seven...I figured. It's why I offered a little insurance policy...”

“W-Wildcard, Master?”

He sneered. “Oh...oh no, he was useful, yes. But in the end you would never have gotten far. You must be wondering why you kept slowing down...getting sick...always worse and worse despite your own medicine. Well...that was my assurance that you need me. A RadAway a day...the doctor's told me. Easy to find for a determined pony. But a three RadAways a day? Oh...much much harder...”

“Th-three...Master?” I wanted to cry, feeling my chest rise and fall and swell and hurt and...and... “Wh-what have you d-done to me...?”

That sick cackle and sneer, my head was lifted, before I felt his hoof tapping something.

My collar.

“It's a wonder of what you can find in an old contaminated prison right beside the crater, Number Seven. A collar irradiated enough to keep slowly killing you...over and over and never ceasing its work to end your life. Not enough to harm those around you but just enough to make that growth of yours much worse...hehehe. Just enough that you need somepony who can get anything he requires to keep his favourite little slave alive...”

I wanted to be...to be sick. Not just from the disease but...

My hooves touched the collar, trying to pull it off. My eyes stung...I felt hollow inside. All...all this time he'd been...been making it worse. He'd locked me into a killing collar! I fell to the side, screwing up my eyes and trying to cry as best I could...but I only spluttered and spat. I could subconsciously imagine it...magical radiation particles eating away at me...slipping into my throat every second. The red sores and rashes all around my throat made so much more painful sense now...

Oh...Goddesses please...somepony! Lift me out of here...I didn't want this anymore! Please!

“Please...Master I...I'm dying...now! Please, can I...” The words felt foul in my mouth, but already my vision was fading. I didn't have a choice. “Please...can you...you give me some RadAway...”

That mocking chuckle made every inch of me crawl in disgust. I felt him pat my head again, like I was some sort of little child.

“Oh we will...we shall ensure you will be kept alive so long as you obey. But first there is your punishment for all you've done, my boy.”

My mind rebelled. Do not call me that.

“I told you, I'm not a torturer, Number Seven. I don't sadistically harm ponies for my amusement. Control them? Oh yes...I do love my little subjects...but I don't aim to hurt them. Many just...heh...can't handle the job. No...your punishment is not to be harmed.”

My body kept shifting, convulsing and tugging against the bars which he'd chained my limbs to. Then why...why outside and chained into the mud so alone? But then I saw his eyes narrow, before reaching into his own armour's pockets to pull something out and drop it before me.

My journal.

“Oh no...you won't be punished with whips or beatings, slave. I am a merciful Master sometimes...I only ask that you do one thing.”

He leaned down, those yellowed rotting teeth inches from my face and staring intently at me as I writhed in the mud, caked and soaked amongst it.

“You will draw me.”

The journal was pushed forward. I recoiled, trying to force myself away from it. No! NO! Drawing was...was my only real freedom! NO! I wouldn't...I couldn't!

“Please...Master, s-something else...I'll do more shifts!” I turned, begging to him and trying to ignore that knowing smile that he had me in a figurative corner.

The wind blew the sheet rain in under his shelter, soaking me from the side all over again and stinging my wounds badly. But he only kept smiling.

“No...you will draw.”

“I can't anymo—”

The thunder rolled above me, but as quickly as it went...he was on me. Screaming, I felt the rain wash over me as I was pushed out from under the shelter into the torrent of lightly burning rain upon my back. Thrown side to side, roughly handled and aggressively controlled, I was pressed to the ground...a brown muddle went before my eyes...before my head was pushed forcefully into it. Mud sloshed across my face, blocking all air as the liquid flowed into my nose and mouth. I flailed, panicking and trying to move. But his hoof stamped down...pressing my face into the water as it bubbled and splashed around me. I...I couldn't breathe! Mud went down my throat...I coughed and swallowed the dirty water...I...he was drowning me! Smothering my face to—

Air! The pressure released, I choked and spat, falling to the side. Groaning and hacking up wads of wet mud...I felt myself sink slightly as the rain kept pouring down into the recess I'd made in my frantic kicking. My entire body was quaking...all too ready to expire. Then I saw the journal slide before me again...that umbrella following it.

“You will draw or you will die, Number Seven! This is your punishment! To prove to me that you are willing to be my slave! That you submit to your life here by using your freedom to choose this drawing...to complete me in your life!”

His behemoth like stature flared and silhouetted in the lightning. I could see his giant weight actually sunk a little into the mud. My chains slid and turned brown under it all as I just looked up and tried to shake my head.

“But...I...I lost the ability. I can't draw any more...”

He didn't even reply. I just felt him reach for my head and move toward the puddle again. Screaming, I wasn't even given a chance to close my mouth before my face was splashed into it again. It lasted longer, all thoughts blurring into a vague nothing...my thinking slowing and turning more to almost hallucinogenic colours and silver shapes that spun and twinkled even through closed eyes.

Then suddenly...the sky. I hadn't even realised he had pulled me out from the torture again (Damn whatever he said about it!) and laid me on my back. Again...the journal was pressed near.

I couldn't take another drowning...I actually couldn't. I could feel my life hanging by one fraying thread...awaiting the unconsciousness before I would drown not of mud but of my own blood that even now I could feel clogging my lungs from the swelling taint growth. Shivering...I looked from my chains...to my journal...to My Master...to the sky and to my own cutie mark.

I thought of all the others. What would they will me to do? To do this? But I had to live...for them. Please...please let me...let me see past this...

Slowly, I reached for the provided charcoal and moved to a clean page...

“Good, Number Seven...”

Ignore him! I shook...the charcoal rolling against my loose tooth before I gently bent down and...and began to...

...draw.

L-l-lines...corrupted lines I never wanted to do became...they became c-c-curves and...

They grew bigger, stronger. Outlines taking more prominent priority and then whisping inward with quick flicks. I had to pick up the charcoal as I kept coughing...but always came back to it...feeling his hoof stroking almost lovingly over my mane.

Curves grew and joined up to...to make the next bit...the same mantra, the ongoing routine I'd always held and used. The one that had been broken now came back. They became shapes...

The little details flushed, glaring up at me. My eyes burned with the effort to cry...but his orders somehow stopped me doing so. Terror flowed through me. For my life...for my freedom and will to be my own pony. I didn't want to do this! But the mud trickling from my face and mane that dripped over the paper only reminded me of what awaited...as if drowning in my own blood wasn't bad enough.

The shapes they...horribly...slowly and maliciously...

They came to life.

I sat back, shaking more than any point in my life as I saw My Master examine it. My breath was shallow...fast...please, I've done what you want, give me the RadAway please!

The journal was lifted...and I could see what my own subconscious had done.

I'd drawn. Properly and with all the old talent I had...but now used only for drawing the things I was commanded. Was...was that it? I had lost my own freedom of mind? That I could only draw what I was told?

For before me...I saw My Master upon my own journal. Now immortalised and carved in my mind's eye. Huge, authoritative, and a presence beyond scale upon my life. He stood protectively there, grinning that grin. His eyes all too familiar and his own scar identical to...to...

The pony I'd shown eternally attached to him...

My Master stood protectively above me...his one large hoof wrapped over the little slave I'd drawn, keeping him close. The way a father would do for his...s-s-...

...son.

I didn't say a word. Neither did My Master. He simply looked to the drawing...before grinning...turning to a large smile. Slowly, he hoofed across the RadAway that I took and bit away the seal of to hold my life in the balance. It'd take a few minutes to work...I still felt weak as I felt him stroking my mane while I drunk.

“There, there...now you're learning...let's go back home, shall we? Your time has only just begun Number Seven...you have yet to begin true slavery under me. But I'll be nice before you start...I'll even let you into the plaza where you can tell your friends, because you've done so...well...”

The chains were released...all but two. The one around my neck and...

...and the one around my soul.

Coral Eve tried her best. She really did. But as we lay together in her cell, I just couldn't do much but cling to her and shiver. In her motherly embrace, she cooed and softly whispered, sensing a buck in need even if he wasn't a child anymore. She had cleaned me of the mud, helping to wash away some of the physical stains and help my back.

But after I had told her, I think even she knew that it would take a lot more than a little hug to really help how I was feeling.

My ear twitched...I'd heard something. A little tap upon the bars. Not like the batons like somepony might knock on a door.

I looked up, attracting Coral Eve's attention.

“What is it?” Her voice betrayed worry for the two of us, having found ourselves in a mutual state of simply needing anypony else who could be there for them.

I didn't speak...I simply got up and began to trot out the room. Her two cellmates glared at me...but wisely kept their distance. Coral Eve held some real fear factor over them. But my eyes only saw what awaited.

Near the bars, I could see a small package with a sheet of paper sticking out of it. I trotted carefully over...slowly unpacking it to find two bottles of water and a little of the preserved soup from long ago. With baited breath, I opened up the paper...I recognised it...I knew it...

The drawing of...of all of us. Terrible as ever and bearing all the mistakes. She'd...she'd returned it...

But it held something new.

Amongst it all, between her and Brimstone, in somepony else’s style of rough scratchings more used to diagrams than real drawing...I saw...myself. I had been added to it all right beside her. I felt my eyes go wide...surprise...

Below it were two words I couldn't read, below the three I had on it.

Coral came out behind me, looking over my shoulder in surprise, a hoof resting carefully on my neck.

“W-what does it s-say?” I stammered...

“It says—” but she stopped. Looking up.

Before us, emerging from the shadows of the plaza...weary...hungry looking and barely recovered from sickness. She wore her torn red robes, her pink mane fallen around her head and before sullen eyes that already held tears.

“It says...'me too,' Murky.”

My hooves shook, dropping the drawing to push forward as we met at the bars, nuzzling and reaching through in the best approximation of a hug we could manage.

“I'm so sorry!” I squeaked, finally feeling relieved tears begin to fall from my eyes. Finally. “For...for it all and...and sorry the picture was so bad! I got it all wrong and I hoped and...”

Her hoof touched my mouth, stopping me. Her tired but oh-so-trying to be happy eyes glared to mine with the best smile she could manage.

“Murky, dear...I don't care how good or bad you think it was. I care that you did it. That you took the time to do this for me. That's all that matters...”

Behind me, I felt Coral move up to be beside both of us...animosity briefly forgotten for this one moment at least. Glimmerlight looked to her.

“Thank you, Coral...for taking care of him.”

Coral Eve merely nodded, her hoof resting on me as I held my friend.

We had a lot to talk about...to work out. Things wouldn’t be perfect immediately between us all and...and I knew I definitely wasn't the same. I'd lost so much to the world around me. I knew I'd been knocked back...devoid of what my friends had given me and my growing personality.

But for now...I had a sister again. The family I had chosen for myself.

Perk lost...

Confidence Boost – Something has damaged your belief in yourself. Your friends may be there...but you can't help feeling that you've lost something inside that may very well take time to get back. The dark days are upon you...ones you'll need your friends all the more to help you get by. You have lost one point of charisma.

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