“What's it like to know you'd finally won?”

Relief beyond measure. It wasn't happiness or delight I felt. No, that was impossible while chained in a train returning to the centre of those great walls. Fillydelphia was taking us home.

Yet this time we finally had an ace up our tattered sleeves. For the first time in so long we had something that would give us an edge. The mountain had tasked us hard. Aurora's revelations had shaken us, and our losses in that last-ditch defence of her cottage had struck some worse than others. For all our believing that 'this was it,' it was impossible to ignore the massive hurdles we still had to overcome.

“Such as going underground again? Getting into Ministry Station?”

Mhm. Perhaps eventually, but we had higher priorities. Like how we were going to get away from Grindstone. How we were going to find Chirpy, Lilac, and Starshine. How to get Sunny back out of the metro. How to keep ourselves hidden and how to get our stashed supplies from the Mall.

Some of it proved to be easy, yet Fillydelphia wasn't about to let us simply run about without making life difficult.

First, we had to get away from Grindstone and his plans for us. He wanted information, and he was going to use us to get it.

Really, escaping him would happen quickly enough, before they got what they wanted. It's what came after that was the bigger issue. When Fillydelphia was going to show me the depths that ponies might go to escape its pain.

Then of course there was Protégé...

“After all that, you still held some thought toward him? After you'd fought!?”

Look, I...I know it doesn't make any sense! Something in me just didn't want to forget about him! Some part of me still felt more sorry than angry...I knew that he and I weren't finished. What he'd done, he'd done because he was ordered to by his master, and I guess I just kept wishing that...that maybe still, underneath, that I could maybe find the real Protégé. The real pony he could be...

My friends helped me to find myself and escape those mental chains. I was the only one who could truly understand what he was going through. If I could help him in any way, I wanted to.

Not that I didn't still have my suspicions about him. As great forces descended upon Fillydelphia and events from afar began to trickle back he still had his own path to walk, one I couldn't hold him back from.

The world was about to change forever. Fillydelphia was about to become one of the centres of the great power shift and we were all going to be caught up in it. He would have to make his choices.

“I think I know what you mean, but there's something you're avoiding, isn't there?”

I...wha?

“Unity's friend, the one she'd been torn from. That stallion, unable to remember?”

Yeah...

Unity was back with us, safer now. However she had just become one of the most important ponies in Fillydelphia, possessing Aurora's memories of the Nexus and how to shut it down. Shackles would want her as much as he wanted me. Unity was stronger than her quiet ways might have suggested...but it'd take all of us to protect each other now.

I just hoped I could do my part. Up there on that mountain I'd felt more like a pegasus than I ever had before. To trot with my head high, to use my wings in a meaningful way for the first time in my life! I remember on that train, I just...just wished I could pick Unity up and fly us both away from the cliffs! To soar out and find heroes, to return and rescue all my other friends!

Protégé had told me when we first met that I needed to taste freedom to ever be able to feel the surge of need to properly escape...dreaming of flying among those clouds was enough to make me think that if I could ever get off the ground then maybe I'd understand what he meant.

“Murky, you're avoiding the question...Unity's love?”

Oh! S-sorry...

It was something I'd wondered about since I’d first heard her speak of him. Grindstone had lied about him being sent to, uh...the other Unity. However, I had my suspicions by now. Unity was not a mare given to 'needing' others to help her but she clearly had had something taken from her. She was lonely.

In all my time in Fillydelphia...I knew at least one other pony that I'd seen the same feelings in. I knew it would struggle to all fit together. Heck, I barely even believed it really could be possible.

“What? So it was-”

The truth behind Unity would only be the first milestone of our final journey together. One that wouldn't always go as we'd imagined it might.

For now though, we had our escape from Grindstone to achieve. With a little bit of outside help, anyway...

I heard the hooves long before the lock shifted on the door of my cell.

In the darkness, I murmured and shifted, trying to get my eyes away from the door before it’s opening let the glaring yellow light of the Ministry's corridor inside. It hurt to do that, just to shift a body that had only now gotten a chance to just stop for a while. The chains around my hooves clanked as I moved.

The door opened.

“Come. Master Grindstone is gathering you all.”

My reply was only to spasm and cough; a throaty and gurgling noise to match the burning pain in my throat. I needed some medicine. Today. Coming off the mountain had left me needing badly.

“Come!”

The large mare slammed the door’s frame with a baton, giving me quite the encouragement to move my shaking frame and stumble past her into the Ministry of Arcane Science's hallways. The baton prodded my rump, pushing me ahead of her. I was being slowly marched to the supply room I'd once found that memory machine in.

We passed Aurora's office, and I saw Coral Eve strongly walking ahead of me. A turn of her head was met with a sharp word to just keep trotting until we entered our destination.

A storeroom for arcane technology in Aurora's old Ministry building, it was covered in parts and wires across multiple shelves. Marble floors led to sharp columns holding up the walls. Old robots were lined against the walls or broken up into massive piles of components, strewn across the floor.

Yet at the back, that massive machine I'd once seen but only now realised the nature of after hearing Aurora speak on the mountain.

A memory machine with numerous chambers for ponies to lie in, possessing a shining orb at the top. Something for many to share the experience as one. Or...or as others? My head hurt too much to think about how that worked. Some sort of military training thing that had kept this stallion alive?

I saw him right at the front in the central pod. Battered, wounded, and yet lying there motionless. His light red mane fell across his face, covered in matted filth from his time in the field.

Numerous slavers stood before us with a smattering of firearms, hovering or on saddles. Why so many? They were lined to one side of the room, next to the shelf I'd fetched that device from last time I was here. There was still a hole where it should be.

On the other side of the room, I saw the rest of my friends. They had been sent to the back corner, near the machine that I still saw dominating the entire room with that apparently sleeping buck in his pod...

Glimmerlight lay on her side, breathing heavily with her eyes looking directly upward. Her chest was still swathed in crude bandages. Brim stood beside her, leaning on a loudly protesting metal shelf upon the wall. Unity was behind them, along with...

...Protégé.

Red Eye's apprentice caught my eyes. There were a very long few seconds as we both looked at each other. He was still here, he'd been kept captive too.

He gave only a cold stare on an unreadable face. While only five feet away, the gulf between us felt incredibly wide.

“I'd imagine you're all wondering why I want you here, right now.”

An old voice spoke, weary and deep. I turned my head to see the limping and wheezing figure of Grindstone sitting at the back against the wall. He snapped shut a book I immediately recognised as my journal.

He'd been looking at my journal!?

The thought felt insulting, that old crank sitting against the wall flicking through my drawings.

“Quite a fight you all put up. Quite...a...fight...”

He stopped, hacking into his foreleg. I almost felt my lungs contract out of instinctual sympathy.

Almost.

“It's perhaps good you all survived for this purpose. You should be grateful, it was I who convinced Master Shackles to not have all but two of you cast off the cliffside. On that note, I must apologise that the good master is not here in person.”

Grindstone scowled at Protégé directly, his fading beard swinging as his head turned quickly.

“He has a prior appointment at the city headquarters, I'm afraid. Being the only one left to be considered for Stern's heir to Fillydelphia's control. After all, you turned traitor, boy. You fired at official slaver business. Now he's taking your oh-so-controversial spot. Chainlink Shackles is being promoted to third in line of power very soon. The true Master of Fillydelphia is returning to claim his throne.”

Protégé said nothing. He only stared with an intensity that I knew was him not wanting to give them even a hint of reaction.

Coral helped Unity to her hooves, the younger mare looking decidedly shaky. I got a hoof around Glimmerlight to help my sister up. We didn't want to lie on the floor before him.

“The fuck has this to do with anything?” Brimstone cut in, clearly not as patient to learn all this. The big guy was sitting down now, his battered body shaking on the spot. It was very clear they'd at best only stabilised him after Brutus' assault. Brimstone was still hurt badly.

“Information.” Grindstone smiled and hobbled closer to us. “We saw her body. Aurora Star survived the balefire and you all met her. You spoke to her. You learned things from her. We have all we need to set the Memory Nexus into motion after retrieving the orb from you. Yet there are always more things than what we see...modes of operation, details, or associated projects. Things I am most interested in.”

He circled his hoof at that last section, before tapping it lightly.

“To that end we shall use her own creations. This machine, a memory experience simulator for more than one pony, also acts as a standard memory machine. It's where we learned of her in the first place, from the stallion within...he is part of the team who saw what went down on there, in fact from what we believe his team actually came through from the other side. A patrol that found it out there. He's why we know of the portal's other side out on Equestria's frontier.”

Grindstone slowly smiled, a rare expression from him that seemed completely out of place.

“Did you think only 'innocents' could come across messages from the past? We've noticed you all know more than usual, but we've always been ahead thanks to what he saw and knew in the fight to stop the Nexus two hundred years ago. Now we are going to strip the memories of meeting Aurora from you by using it. Wrench them to our possession to learn all she said. At least, we will from Murk and Unity...if you would come forward and rejoin us please? After all, you two are the ponies of the hour once more, are you not?”

Brimstone groaned as he forced his body to move, stumbling forward to block me off with a still bleeding leg. I saw Protégé force his own wounded body between them and Unity quickly.

The slavers backed up, weapons raising. I heard the little clicks of safeties and bolts from those who hadn't been ready to just pull the trigger.

“They aren't going with you.” Coral Eve grit her teeth as she spoke, one black eye squinted shut. The raiders that took her in the cottage battle hadn't been kind. Despite that, her horn lit, a sight that I noticed made every slaver twitch. “Not them, and not my son, whatever you've done with him...”

Grindstone didn't seem even slightly concerned. Simply standing there with slumped shoulders around his thinning body.

“I'm afraid, dear, that you don't have a choice in the matter. Not for them and not for your little colt. He's been returned to where he ought to be.” Grindstone was not intimidated by her snarl. “Now, you two. If you would return yourselves to me for memory processing, please? This way...”

I had to wonder if Coral was going to fly off the handle at that remark about where her son 'should' be.

Brimstone growled, planting his bad leg on the ground and almost seeming to relish the pain of it as he bristled and lowered his head. “If you try to take them, there will be murder in this room, you wee pensioner ass.”

“Please, warlord...if you still bear that title after it was taken by my associate anyway. You are all unarmed. You can barely swing a hoof, let alone stand against a firing line. Either way, you are not wrong.”

Grindstone turned his back and wandered closer to the door, motioning to us.

“Only it won’t be 'murder,' it would be execution. That is the punishment for rebelling, and all of you rebelled. I fully intend to carry it out, right here. Call it Shackles' own recommendation...to do it in front of the runt.”

His eyes found mine.

“He thought it would be a nice beginning to your new life back with us, a reminder to not get close to anypony again once you see them put down before your eyes.”

No...no, I couldn't bear this! I couldn't let this happen!

He raised his hoof. All the guards began grinning, and aiming at my friends. They had all lost comrades to us on the mountain.

Brimstone looked like he was about to charge. Coral's horn flickered. Everyone else seemed to be stood rock still at the numerous barrels pointed our way.

“Grindstone! Don't!” Unity cried out to him. “We'll come! Don't kill them! We'll...”

She looked at me. I nodded back painfully.

“We'll come...”

The donkey shrugged. “They're dying anyway. You're slaves, what have you got as a bargaining chip? Nothing. Continue.”

That line...how many times had I heard that line before something had been taken from me in my life?

“No!” I looked from side to side at my friends, and looked to the barrels ahead of us.

“Out of the way! Come on you two, back to your master.” Grindstone looked more exasperated, how could this just be normal life to these slavers?

There was...

There wasn't any way out we could go.

“Think Murky, think…” I muttered to myself quietly, hearing Grindstone and Brimstone talking and shouting over one another.

I had...no...wait.

I leapt forward, as though going with him. Into the line of fire. They looked at me as I stopped before them and stumbled on the spot from my injuries. Trying to get breath, I took a huge gasp of air and...

“HEEEELP!”

I screamed, deliberately trying to make the most deliberately and whiny scream possible. Every joke about me sounding like a filly, I piled onto it.

“SOMEPONY HELP ME PLEASE, I DON'T WANT TO DIE!”

The slavers actually cringed. My friends too. Unity bit her lip and recoiled a little, Brimstone just looked perplexed. Grindstone turned on the spot with raised eyebrows.

“It's no use crying about it, you runt! You'll-”

“HE'S GOING TO HURT ME! HE'S GOING TO!” I interrupted him, screeching until my throat hurt and I burst into a loud coughing fit that sent me staggering.

“SHUT UP!” Grindstone shouted back at me. “NO-ONE is coming to help you! Just...shut...”

The ground shook as something in the Ministry somewhere exploded very violently.

“...up?”

Grindstone let his voice turn quiet as looked around. The guards joined him, seeing the dust falling from the old ceiling.

Out in the distance came the sounds of screams and rapid gunfire. Slavers could be heard shouting for help, causing the ones in here to look at each other and start crowding toward the door to look.

“Guard the door! If anything comes down that hall you unload into it! You've got enough firepower!”

The sounds were getting closer. The floor was shaking every few seconds now. Detonations rippled through the building until their shockwaves could be felt even in this room.

“What in the blazing hell is that?”

The sounds came closer.

My friends looked as nervous as the guards, looking at me in confusion.

Another explosion, very close.

“Guard that door!” Grindstone screamed as the room rocked. “Don't let anypony through and-”

The door wasn't their issue. The wall exploded inward. Marble and underlying concrete exploded into the room, blasting into the slavers ahead of me like shrapnel. A colossal hole, torn through the shelves, had been ripped into it. A tall and dark shape surged through at high speed, its metallic shape glinting in the light with a bright electronic display at its centre.

Grindstone was already gone, apparently having fled out the very door he’d said to protect. It swung its arm and a bright cascade of energy tore through the two slavers standing that brought their weapons to bear. They exploded into ash, the weapons disintegrating before me.

“THE ALARM OF TRIVIAL WEAKNESS WAS SOUNDED! TO ME, MISS FLUTTERSHY! I AM YOUR GLORIOUS SHIELD OF JUSTICE!”

The voice boomed out into the room as the massive robot spun on its single tire and put itself between me and the rest of the wounded slavers getting up.

Behind me, my friends were...somewhat taken aback, to say the least.

Mister Peace didn't even hesitate as the guards got to their feet. His gatling cannon spoke for him, ripping the remaining slavers into bloody chunks through the clouds of rock dust and ash that filled the room. The roar of the weapon led me to hold onto my ears behind him as the war machine went about his business, laughing hysterically as he did. He gestured at the mess, trying to draw our attention to it.

“BEHOLD THE ART OF WAR. I CALL IT 'PAINTING WITH TRAITORS.' BECAUSE I PAINTED WITH THEM. DO YOU GET IT, MISS FLUTTERSHY? IT IS A JOKE.”

I just stared, slack-jawed as the room crumbled around me and the shouting from outside grew into a panicked scream for 'everyone' to get in here. Mister Peace's screen was showing nothing but the most delighted soldier I could imagine, grinning with childish hope.

“A joke? A show of mirth in the face of thine enemy in order to make a resounding demonstration to them that our lips remain stiff?”

Slowly, Glimmerlight raised her hoof.

“...I get it.”

Mister Peace beamed, his screen switching to a delighted foal.

“MOST EXCELLENT! COME, MISS FLUTTERSHY! CLIMB ABOARD! WE ARE GONE FROM THIS PLACE OF NON-APPRECIATION FOR EXQUISITE FLUTTER-FORM! AWAAAAY!”

I didn't even have time to do more than yelp and quickly scoop up my journal as one of those extendible hands grabbed me, flinging me onto his back. I gripped around what metal I could as he surged outward and hurtled back the way he came. My friends tried to keep up behind as he bore me through Mister Peace-shaped holes all the way through rooms he had overturned in his rush to reach me. I could hear slavers in the corridors outside around the Ministry's indoor balconies that Mister Peace was thankfully avoiding.

We passed a doorway to the old workshop I'd once sneaked through and encountered shots whipping out of it. Mister Peace didn't even hesitate, powering through the doorway and taking the doorframe with him into the room with the small arms fire pinging from his chassis. Cowering on his back, I heard his energy blaster open up on them and toss tables around as they tried to hide from him.

“Stop! Stop!”

A stallion screamed at him, backing into a wall. I felt Mister Peace move as he lifted one of the benches entirely to reveal the slaver.

“I surrender!”

The stallion waved his hooves.

Mister Peace hesitated...then crushed him beneath the workbench with a floor-shaking slam.

“Surrender ACCEPTED.”

Brimstone caught up to us, bearing Glimmer on his back. Her roughly bandaged chest keeping her from running, she now held onto her own protector with a grim face at the pain. Coral and Unity followed them up. To my surprise, I saw Protégé following at the back. He looked very pale, stumbling slower than the others, but was silent and stayed some distance from us.

“Robot, where are you going!?” Brimstone cast his eyes around during the escape. Slavers were moving nearby, I could hear them again. The sounds of terrified slaves from the main room at the centre of the building were clear.

“Standard operating procedure in the event of assassination attempt, Sir Façade of Great Macintosh! We are to remove Ma'am from the premises immediately!”

The big raider stopped and lowered his eyebrows.

“Sir...what...never-fucking-mind. Head to the sewers, nowhere outside is safe but them!”

“Then so it shall be!”

He spun on his wheel, once fully around and then apparently twice for good measure, before surging out into the main spinal corridor of the Ministry, heading toward the same stairs he had gone down once before. Slavers appeared at junctions, but were quick to flee at the mere sight of Mister Peace hurtling toward them faster than any pony could gallop. He wheeled down the stairs, spinning me so hard I had to bite as well as grip to keep myself on him.

“I cannot thank you enough for returning, Ma'am! I worried you might lose your taste for combat for another two hundred years! Many were the dreams of crushing zebrakind by your side in my slumber until your choral wailing woke me.”

“Um...you're welcome? Please...watch out for my friends...”

“I like them. The red one has a look of devastation in his eye that appeals to my violence-craving subroutines. Yet the one of pink hair enjoys my sense of humour! She is most agreeable! Do...do you think it could ever work out, Ma'am?”

What.

My heavily armed and warmongering chariot didn't explain any further, but powered his way into the cargo depot as before. I could see the smashed container he'd been hiding in since last time (why exit through the side when he could have just opened the door?) lying amongst a series of broken bodies that had likely been on guard duty when he emerged. A crater lay at the centre of the room in the concrete flooring.

Digging his hands into the great door, Mister Peace began to heave, forcing them open until the familiar red light of Fillydelphia crept through them. Behind us, I heard galloping hooves and saw the rest of our party rejoin us after catching up. Behind them, a door started to move.

“Mister Peace!”

He threw the door fully open for my friends and spun on the spot, shoulder compartment popping open to send a missile roaring toward the door. The sound of ponies screaming from behind it followed the sharp crack of the warhead's detonation, still going once my hearing returned. Dizzied, I almost fell off him were it not for him holding me on himself.

“Lead on to the sewers! I shall not abandon you this time, Ma'am!”

He streaked out into the courtyard, spraying fire at the two guard towers overlooking the Ministry and sending one of them crashing entirely to the ground as its wooden supports splintered. Slaves ran for cover as much as slavers did. Those who stood and fired were soon atomised on the spot.

“The path of glory is opened! Miss Fluttershy, hold on tight, we shall remove you from this place! TALLY-HO!”

Yet Mister Peace wasn't slowing down. He was headed right for the wall of the Ministry's slave grounds!

“Um...uh, Peace!” I gritted my teeth, he was only speeding up.

“WALL! YOU OPPOSE ME! HOW DARE YOU!”

Both shoulders opened, firing a barrage of missiles ahead of him into the offending concrete structure. Impact after impact sent shockwaves through my bones and made every injury ache. Mister Peace rushed straight into the smoke and carried past where a section of the wall had once stood. A wagon filled with scrap metal swerved out of our way and overturned on the road outside, two slavers falling off it to the floor. I felt a bump as Mister Peace ran something over.

He turned back to cover my friends, all four primary weapons spraying fire into the Ministry as the guards got their act together and came in force. One arm went to the sky at a passing griffon that veered off and away as fast as her wings could carry. He was our cover, the shock and awe of brutal surprise as our wounded bodies limped and staggered their way through the breach.

Finally, they had all gotten to safety, leaving me clutching onto his back. The slavers were all fleeing. I knew they could overwhelm Mister Peace in numbers, but the war robot had caught them off guard. They wouldn't follow us just yet. We had time to hide and recover as we planned our next move.

Before he sped off into the city ruins with us to hide, Mister Peace turned back to his greatest foe and pointed at the rubble of the wall.

“Let that be a lesson, nemesis of foul stone! Thou does not oppose the passage of a Ministry Mare and her dashing bodyguard! I'll let you off this time.”

He went a few feet more and stopped once more, shaking a metallic hand.

“THIS TIME!”

The wet brickwork of the sewers was cold against my back as I sat and tried to concentrate on getting rid of the headache caused by all the gunfire and shockwaves my poor ears had endured during our escape. Unfortunately, it wasn't willing to listen to reason, and, if anything, pounded harder out of spite.

We'd found an old underground pumping station. Enormous curved pipes dominated an opening behind a gate with a gantry over it, but up some stairs to the side and over that gantry we had discovered a couple of mossy and wet rooms out of the way. They were dismal, but had least gotten us out of the tunnels. Those giant pipes we had passed while trotting over the top of the gate were silent. If I’d had to guess, they were part of the main sewage lines that had once been used for diverting flow in floods.

It looked as though it was unused even in old Equestria.

But up here in the rooms beside them, we were at least isolated and safe. Just what we needed to stay out of the way for now and to get us out of trotting through almost solidified waste.

Mister Peace had carried me rather against my will. The looks of envy I'd gotten from the others were enough to make me almost want to jump down to avoid the awkward silence while we searched. Voices travelled far in those tunnels and we couldn't ignore the idea that slavers had predicted we'd head underground.

To my amazement, we'd actually stumbled across some familiar side passages that had symbols of the inner metro across them. We'd marked one as our emergency exit from here to go to ground in those more expansive tunnels if need be.

Until then, we rested. All of us were still injured from the mountain and exhausted from the trip up the mountain and our imprisonment. We had no supplies, no weapons, no medical supplies, and no food. Lying back and getting some shut eye was the only thing we could really do in the silent darkness, only hearing the occasional whirring of Mister Peace patrolling the tunnels around us. It had taken some explaining to get him to stop shouting at radroaches about being infiltrators and waking us up every ten minutes.

Only I hadn't been able to sleep. The headache didn't help, but I was just filled with too many thoughts right now. Too much adrenaline at what we'd been through these past few days and too much underlying excitement over where we were now.

We'd gotten away. We had stopped them getting the orb.

Hanging by a thread or not, we would be in the best position we'd ever been to enact an escape, once we'd gathered everypony and collected the things we'd left around for just this purpose. We even had Mister Peace to help us. Even...

My eyes found the sleeping form of Protégé well away from us all, out on the station's lip overlooking the pumps themselves.

I didn't even know what to make of him right now. He'd just stayed silent, trailing behind us out of need to survive. Nopony had talked to him. Yet right now I didn't want to think about it. Too heavy, too confusing, and too painful.

Flicking my journal closed, I tried to get away from the two ponies I'd been looking at on the same page, wondering intently. Lacking my PipBuck to try and bring up a message and even any charcoal to sketch, I instead took to spending the time scrawling on the walls with a sharp and soft stone.

That helped. The headache began to filter away as I let my mind drift to what I was doing. Gentle scrapes filling the air as I found myself drawing...well, myself. Escaping with all my friends here, wings spread to soar up high.

In the darkness, I briefly turned back look at my wings, and gently flapped the one on my right. The movement was stiff and restricted, but it was a satisfying pain. The feathers at the end could somewhat spread out, tingling as I remembered them being caught by the wind on the mountain. How I'd...I'd soared on it for a few seconds, held aloft by my own body. I tried to stretch them both out, to remember that feeling. My eyes widened as I managed to get them both to crudely ‘flap’ in sync.

Behind it, I caught the glint of somepony's open eye staring at me.

Glimmer had been lying awake, too, watching me draw and now flap about like an incompetent.

I pulled the wings back in from embarrassment, shrinking my neck in.

She just smiled at me, before leaning back against Brim's shoulder and closing her eyes again.

“All right everypony! Gather around!”

Glimmerlight took centre stage, waving the rest of us toward the centre of the dank room. According to Mister Peace, it was sunrise.

I'd had to promise the others I'd get him to never play that trumpet sound ever again.

Brimstone shifted over, trotting on three legs. He was clearly the most hurt out of all of us, unsuitable for combat. Looking older than ever, he virtually collapsed into a sitting position, his wounds having clotted over during the night. By Celestia, he was tough to heal like he did and stay alive, but it had still put him beyond use to us right now.

He'd reset his own leg bone last night with a crack that had sent me into quakes, but his injuries went far further. The scar tissue from the bar mine in the arena that wreathed across his shoulder, front leg, and across his face around his missing eye had bruised up in a sickening way, after Brutus had identified the weak flesh. Thick pink lines overlaid his older scars where wounds had been closed by the slavers' healing to keep him alive.

I sat beside him, feeling his good leg tap my head in an gentle motion. In other words, like a frying pan to the skull. All the same, I appreciated that the big guy had some mirth left in him. Unity sat to my right, then Coral, arcing round that we could be in a circle meeting Glimmer at the other side of Brim. Mister Peace stood behind us, watching the tunnel outside.

Everypony looked tired, but determined. Coral still nursed her eye and Glimmer was clearly hurting from her bandaged chest. Unity was the least injured of us, yet her large eyes had a far-away look. After that thing with Aurora, she didn't seem quite the same. I kept seeing her muttering quietly, and looking confused as to what she’d just spoken. She’d assured me that all was fine, but she’d had no time to settle and comprehend all the memories she’d been given since the mountain until now.

Protégé hadn't joined us. Last I'd seen, he had wandered out into the tunnels somewhere.

Glimmerlight looked around us, and spoke.

“Thanks to Murky's quick thinking up there, this hasn't turned into a disaster. They don't have the orb, but until we can steal back our things, then neither do we. So we're all in agreement, this is the time to try?”

We all knew what she meant. Escape.

We were going to plan this, we were really going to plan this.

“We've got a lot of work to do. Aurora Star gave up everything she had to allow us one shot at this. That portal in Ministry Station is our goal. We're going to get everypony together, collect all the supplies we need and then get down there as one. This is where it starts, where we're going to work out how, what, and where.”

She produced an old notepad she'd found on the wall of the pumping station and held up a pencil in her magic.

“Let the ideas flow, huns and hunks. Anything and everything.”

I spoke first.

“We've got to get everypony together. Sunny should be waiting in the metro. Chirpy's back at the hotel...”

Coral Eve took a surprisingly logical approach to this, keeping her emotions in check. “We do need to get Lilac and that other filly you mentioned, what was her name?”

“Starshine Melody.” The little ghoul had become friends with Lilac from their shared experiences. We couldn’t split them up.

Glimmer noted their names down.

“There's...um...” Unity spoke up, before almost looking embarrassed to have spoken into the silence as Glimmer wrote.

Thankfully, my sister was quick to leap on the moment.

“Yeah, that's likely the hardest thing right now, I'm sorry. Listen, once I've got my strength up and run an orb to make sure everything's working as it should with my magic, we'll take a look and see if I can't bring anything out your forgotten memories, all right? We'll do it before we go anywhere.”

That gave Unity a little comfort. She smiled and nodded, before sharing an eager glance with me.

I knew Glimmer wouldn't let her down.

“For now though, you're right. We do need to solve that mystery first. Try to think, Unity. When did you last see him? What were your last thoughts?”

Unity shrunk a little, hooves shuffling together. Very quickly, I was beginning to think she wasn't too comfortable speaking to groups at all, more than just apprehension. I could relate.

“That...that place we just were. The Ministry, Aurora’s Ministry building...it's all a blur and...and hard to keep in mind. But I remember being there with him. Then...then the FunFarm at the bumper cars where I was alone. Everything between that is hazy. Grindstone knew about him though, when Murky and I were at the FunBarn. Even if he had been lying, the Ministry is Grindstone's den. He had to know who it is. I know he was sent to the Pit, but I didn't see him anywhere when I was waiting to be sent in...”

I listened, then suddenly felt startled by her last words. Woah woah woah. Hang on a second! She'd been in the Pit too? Sentenced to it?

Unity hadn't told that to me before.

I could relate, of course, I didn't like talking about that day either. The fear and the stress of knowing what had been coming still gave me shivers. But still, she’d only ever talked of being ‘at’ the Pit, not ‘in’ the Pit!

“Ministry Station?” Coral leaned forward, sniffed and glanced at the floor. “Perhaps even Chainlink Shackles' little den in the metro. I'm sorry, my dear.”

I saw the look pass Unity's face about that place. We all knew its effects or could imagine what went on under Shackles' direct rule.

After all, I'd gotten a few days’ taste of it once. I felt my hoof lightly brush around my neck, feeling the dry skin. It took some degree of effort to not shake and force those days deep into my mind.

Hang on a minute, didn't I know a stallion who'd once told me he knew the inside of the Ministry? Somepony who'd known enough to know about a salitoony machine he'd sent me for...

It was no secret to me who I was going to have to ask some deep questions to rather soon.

“All well and good talking of who and when,” Brimstone grunted and shifted on the spot, “we need food. Tools. Weapons. What's the fucking point of heading into the wastes to get mown down by the first chancy bastards we meet? It's hardly a paradise out there. That stuff's got to have high priority if even one pony gets out. Grindstone said that Equestrian soldier in the pod came through the portal from the other end, so that'll be out on the frontiers of Equestria's borders. Could be fifty miles from anywhere, could be five hundred. We can't count on being near to civilization.”

“We've got stuff stashed near the mall. You did that right, Murky?” Glimmer turned to me.

“Um, yeah? There's a couple things like the routes and metro material we got from Protégé's office before the riot. A few supplies, the food's probably gone off, but I think the water might still be fine? Also, I know how to get in through the vents to maybe steal some stuff from the armoury.”

The pencil scribbled hastily.

“Hearts and Hooves Hospital.” Coral added to the collection of things. “Doctor Weathervane would help us for sure. We should go there first, we can't do anything like we are right now.”

Glimmer stopped. “Would he join us?”

There was a brief silence as water dripped. I could hear the faint sounds of Mister Peace's internals whirring and the quiet tap of Protégé's hooves somewhere up the tunnel as he came back.

“I don't think so,” I offered with a shrug. “He always says his job is in Fillydelphia, where ponies need him.”

Glimmer looked disappointed, scribbling something out. “Well, we can get supplies from him anyway, at the very least some healing for ourselves. If we can get near our old cell's back door, I've got some filtering kit and scratchbuilt batteries.”

“I know good places to get things from!” I felt more eager, leaning in to try and read the list, but my sister's writing was almost worse than my own. “Back when I tried to escape on my own, I could get fabric from the mills and...and borrowed things from slavers.”

That set it going. Everypony had ideas. For rope, for water, a radio, light, and all manner of tools to help see us through any obstacles in the outer metro. For now, no one wanted to confront the issue of going through that nightmare place again.

I remembered how I'd trembled with enthusiasm while gathering things long ago for my first escape attempt. This felt like that ten times over.

Unity sat in thought, staring away from all of us before suddenly speaking. “We're ignoring the biggest thing.”

Everypony stopped and looked at her, making the introverted mare recoil slightly.

“The orb?”

That...was a point. We had to get our own things back. My PipBuck, my Littlepip statuette from Unity, that shining green memory orb of my birthday party, my charcoal...

“The ass doesn't know it's what it is.” Brimstone tapped the ground with his hoof. “Far as they know, it's just some slave's random shit in that bag.”

“Hey!” Glimmer wrinkled her nose and put hooves on her hips.

The big pony couldn't hide his twisted grin. “Same goes for the rest of our stuff. The wee one's PipBuck for instance. Would he keep that? Pretty useless to him like it is, but we need it for the maps.”

“He'd likely send it on the daily sorting wagon to the logistics hub after the third shift to get rid of anything not immediately relevant to his operations in the Ministry worker hub. Grindstone was always pedantic in that fashion.”

The voice was quiet and thin, coming from just near the door. All of us turned in surprise to see Protégé sitting against the frame, not really looking at us at all.

“And why would you be offering a hint?” Coral's voice was more accusing than I'd expected. After everything she'd seen from him lately, it was hardly surprising.

Protégé turned back and looked as us all. I saw his weary eyes linger in surprise when he saw Unity looking back.

“If you're going to be ambushing that wagon anyway, which you'll have to if you want what's in it before it gets to more heavily guarded areas, then I'd wish my eyepiece back.” He sniffed and spoke louder. “That was a gift to me, one I won't suffer them to possess.”

With that he got up and left again. He'd said his piece.

More than anything, I watched Unity looking at the doorway after he'd left for a good number of seconds.

“He's very lonely. There’s empty air around him...”

She spoke very quietly, before looking surprised at me having heard it.

“It's...it's like I can't feel as much of his presence,” she explained softly to me, “I look at ponies, I feel their memory. Like I told you before? Feel all the signatures of their friends, those they've been near. I look at you and I feel Glimmerlight and Brim almost as strongly as yourself. I could never tell all that so specifically, but it's been scarily clear ever since Aurora...”

Unity let the sentence falter and stared back at the doorway.

“Yet with him I don't see anything else...”

I don't quite know why I got up and followed Protégé.

Perhaps it was curiosity. Perhaps it was a feeling that at some point this had to happen.

He was overlooking the motionless sludge of the closed sewage section we were in, standing just beside the railing that surrounded the station's raised balcony to observe the pumping valves below that were long rusted shut. By now, we'd all gotten past the stench.

Protégé didn't look around as I trotted out and stood almost opposite him to look in the same direction, a good ten feet apart. Behind us, my friends continued their frantic planning and chattering over what we'd need to go out and get, working out who would fetch what.

We simply stood like that for a few minutes, both finding interesting cracks in the brickwork ahead of us to occupy the time as neither said the first words. I could feel my body aching, my throat pinched and wheezing from his choking and my skull still thumping from the lump he'd put there when he hit me with a terminal.

Out the corner of my eye, I could see all the same on him. The bruises covering his side where I'd slammed into. His throat scars from Barb looking angry and swollen at my strike there.

“I don't blame you for what you did.”

His voice broke the silence. It was quiet, but curt and steady. Clearly, he'd been thinking on exactly how to word it, putting the sudden worry of replying with the right thing on time to my side.

“I...um...” I started, lacking the same preparation he’d had.

“You had every reason. A mission behind you. Friends counting on you. I cannot hold accusation against that.”

This all took me off guard. I turned more properly and faced the weary unicorn.

“So...what now?” I asked it quietly.

We'd been at odds up there. Opposing sides clashed together. We'd fought, really properly fought. Injured one another. Tried to choke, to harm...to shoot. I took a short breath, and spoke again.

“Are you going to fight us?” The question had to be asked. “Try and take the orb?”

He didn't reply, before I saw his expression falter. He turned away quickly from me, lifting a hoof to his eyes. It dawned on me there was something he didn't want me to see. Yet then his voice came out, quietly and emotionally. Fractured.

“They killed them, Murk...” I saw him quiver on the spot. “Old Grizzly was one of my mentors...an ally, somepony I could seek advice from. I had to watch him be executed.”

He sat down, head lowered. His mane was filthy and bedraggled, hanging down by his side and covering his face.

“Ragini stayed there because of me, loyal to me. Not to some contract. They believed in me...believed in what I was trying to do, what Master Red Eye asked me to do. And they died in front of me.”

“I'm sorry...”

Their deaths had struck us as a shock. As a terrifying sight. Yet only now did I realise how deeply it had hit Protégé emotionally. He'd been left alone in Fillydelphia now. Red Eye was far away, Grizzly and Ragini were dead, and Shackles was only on the rise.

There was another long pause.

“Protégé...you can still-”

“Murk, don't.”

His voice seemed almost more pleading than I'd ever expected to hear.

“I feel all the guilt for what happened up there. For them and, as much as you probably don't believe me, for what happened between us. So please, don't try to exploit this. Not now.”

“I'm...I'm just trying to say you don't have to be without choice. I've betrayed your trust in the past too, remember?”

There was a pause, his quick reprimand cut short, and he looked away.

“That is true, Murk. Only it wasn't to throw my dreams under a wagon like I just tried to do to yours. I just-”

“I know what it's like being where you are. How you felt. It's no different.”

He stopped and waved a hoof, a clear sign of 'no more.'

“I need to work out a lot of things. I'm not ignoring you, Murk. Don't think I've not taken note of everything lately that I've realised about myself.”

I looked around and sat down. I had no immediate answer, and we once again fell into an awkward silence. After ten seconds or so, I could bear it no longer.

“So, what are you going to do?”

He finally looked back at me and sighed. I could see how close he was to emotionally letting it go right now. I felt almost uncomfortable to be witness to it.

“This can still be stopped. I have to go to Stern. Tell her all that has happened. Surely, we can both agree that Shackles has to be revealed as a traitor? I must go back.”

Brimstone's voice cut in as solidly as a rock slamming through a quiet library.

“No. You won't.”

We both quickly looked up to see the raider limping through the door, having to duck as he went. His gaze was fixed on Protégé.

“Shackles and Grindstone will have every slaver in their pay out looking for us right now. They'll have raised the alarm about a group of breakaways. They know we came into the ruins. You leaving could compromise us if they see where you come from. For now, you're not going anywhere, kid.”

Towering over both of us, he showed no real expression other than a blunt assurance of what he said.

Protégé scowled slightly, looking up.

“If you want to remove me from the equation then just do it. Don't beat about the bush if you think I'm a threat after what I did!”

Brimstone stood and listened, not moving as Protégé spoke.

“I betrayed you all up there. Almost cost you what you wanted, and for the love of Equestria I wish I could have avoided it. But that's who I am...it's what I am. He ordered me, I had no choice.”

He turned and leaned on the railing.

“If I've lost all trust you perhaps had in me, then that's what it is. The things I've done aren't things I'm always proud of. Up there, that was one of them. I know you feel I'll never be different, whether you think of me as just another monster or not, there is no reason to give me a second chance from where you stand right now.”

I stood aside, almost afraid for what either of them might do. Yet I saw Brimstone only snort and lower his head.

“If I believed there wasn't any reason, you'd be floating downstream right now. You're right, I don't trust you, but I think you've forgotten just who you're talking to about second chances.”

With that, the old warlord turned and trotted his huge tattooed and scarred figure away from the two of us.

In that moment, I felt suddenly proud of him.

“Yo, lil'bro.”

Glimmerlight cantered out of the station to find me. Despite the marked bandages, she somehow held a spring in her step and a mad grin as she saw me. After the awkward talk with Protégé not too long ago, it was quite refreshing to see her delighted face even in this dark and dripping underground hidey-hole.

I'd meant to ask him what I had to, but after that, I just couldn't bring myself to broach the subject. How was anypony meant to start that? To just...say?

After all, as far as I was concerned, there were threads connecting. Locations too coincidental. Too many little emotive hints.

“Finally happening, huh? How you feeling?”

I smiled back, trying to stand up straighter. “It's...incredible. I didn't think we'd get this fa-”

“Oh piss off with that, Murky. Of course you did or you'd never have made it.” She ruffled my mane, laughing as she spoke. “Now you get to have the fun part. Seeing everything we gather pile up and get ourselves all geared out to do this. Brim's taking the lead on timing, raiding is his thing after all. I think his plan is to get that machine of yours to hold up the supply wagon coming out the Ministry at noon. He's pretty cool, gotta admit.”

“He likes you.” I giggled and prodded her side.

“Who doesn't?” Glimmer didn't miss a beat as she tossed out her mane like a magazine model, despite it being sodden wet and coated in dirt from the escape. “If he thinks you're a mare then I must be radiating enough feminine sexiness to him to cross all borders into the technological world.”

That made me laugh. It felt good to just let some mirth go. This should be a happy moment, as things started to come together in our little planning lair.

“Hey, Murky. About last night...”

Glimmer turned and sat beside me, I saw her eyes looking at my sides. At the wings that had flared out without realising when I'd laughed. Those things would take some getting used to. They were making me express things without meaning to.

Her hoof lightly traced the line of my right wing. “I saw you flapping about. Even on the mountain, I saw you use them to steer yourself while swinging. They getting any stronger?”

“A...a bit. I can move them pretty freely now.”

As if to prove my point, I shifted them in a circle, tipping the ends of them before splaying them out.

“It still hurts a bit. I just don't have the muscles to really flap them.”

Sighing, I sat down and rubbed a hoof over the point they joined my body.

“Up on the peak I...I kinda 'glided' on the wind for a bit though. They can support me in the air, I'm just...just really nervous about them for trying that again. They didn't hold me up. The wind pushed me down, which was kinda what I wanted to stop Protégé, but I'd never have stayed in the air if I'd needed to.”

My sister sat with a hoof on her chin, how I'd often see her look at a troublesome piece of tech before. Deep in thought as her eyes scrutinised my feathers.

“Well...I'm no flight expert, Murky. They didn't teach us the mechanics of flight, if anything you know more than I do from how it feels on your body. Now, if you want me to tell you how to flare them out to attract attention...”

I waved my hooves. “No! No no...that's quite all right!”

Her hoof nudged my head as she chuckled, looking away briefly. Her eyes seemed to fall on the long tunnel outside the station, dropping away from our raised platform where we sat. A huge concrete pathway ran alongside the sewage away from the pumps, about fifteen feet down. Then she turned back to me with a curious look.

“Why don't we try it out?”

“Wha?”

“You've got a perch up here, I'll go down there and be ready to catch you with my magic so you won't hurt yourself. Dive off, give it a shot! Let's work out what's going wrong.”

She didn't give me a chance to reply, trotting off to the stairs and making her way down into the tunnel.

I looked from side to side, at my wings, at the doorway to where Coral (curiously enough) was working well with Brim to plan things. I saw Unity glance briefly at me before I stared back at the tunnel.

“Come on, Murky! Give it a shot!” Glimmer's voice travelled down the tunnels as she shouted to me and waved her hooves with her horn lit. “Nothing to it!”

Trotting up to the edge, I felt my knees shaking a little bit. That...that was hard concrete down there and I was pretty banged up already.

“I'm not sure...”

“Course you are! Just gallop up and take a jump! Live a little!”

I really wasn't sure. I really wasn't. Snow below me or my grapplegun to catch me was one thing, but for all my trust in Glimmer I just felt very nervous about this. She was one to take the risks, to just say 'fudge it' and take a leap without thinking. I wasn't. I really...really...

“They told you that you couldn’t, Murky! Prove them wrong!”

That did it.

I nodded firmly to her, sniffed hard and cantered back a little from the edge. The roof was high in here. I had room, I had landing space. I'd taken falls before. It'd hurt like hell but...

I was overthinking this. Less worry, more dare!

“Come on, lil'bro!”

A couple of heads poked out of the room as I galloped. I passed Unity and Coral. Mister Peace trundled out of a tunnel, attracted by the noise.

My hooves tapped sharply on the ground as I pushed the pain to the back of my mind and made something of an awkward dash forward on aching legs. I felt my wings spread out a little as they caught the rush of the air beside me, the feathers each parting and flickering up. The feeling of being so light that they could lift me came back to mind. My heart pounded hard, trepidation powering the adrenaline.

Then I leapt.

My front hooves stretched out, as though trying to catch a non-existent ledge ahead of me. I felt gravity take over and drop my weight down below the level of the worryingly high ledge I'd left. Everything felt so fast all of a sudden as my stomach lurched and I dropped. Fast.

Yelping, thrashing in the air, my body stretched out and forced those wings as far as they would go! Come on! Come on!

A sense of weightlessness flowed across me. Like all the weight pulling me had gone. I thought it was Glimmer's magic, but suddenly I wasn't just going down.

I was going forward.

The still air brushed against my face as I felt my descent being slowed and directed at a diagonal. Swerving out over the sewage, I got a nosefull of foul stenches before leaning away from it. Leaning sent me wavering back toward the concrete.

“That's it! That's it!”

Coral's voice rung out behind me and I felt a smile burst onto my face. It was like on the mountain, but I'd chosen it! I leaned again and felt myself glide a little further, only about ten feet off the ground. Each time I banked, letting my wings dip, I lost some speed and some height, but if I just went straight then I stayed almost level. Almost.

It was wonderful...the feeling of being aloft, held away from the dull ground for but a few seconds. I kept wavering and wobbling as I went over Glimmer's head and down the tunnel a bit, rolling back and forth as my wings jittered.

I could actually kinda do this!

Only, there was a problem. As I glided in circles, I was losing height rapidly. I had no real speed left and before I knew it, my momentum ran out. I dropped like a stone.

“Catchmecatchmecatchmeee-oh.”

I'd stopped. Her magic had, as promised, halted my plummet before I went into the sewage.

Legs trying to gallop in mid air, I calmed down as she drifted me back across to the stone walkway.

“Woah! That was awesome! I told you! You can do it!”

Standing upright, I felt very uneasy on my hooves. Almost ready to fall over. I had to fall back on my rump to stay upright as I looked side to side at my sore and shivering wings.

I...could. I could.

Glimmer hugged me tightly and I laughed as I gripped her back a little too hard. Her yelp of pain was enough warning for me to back off a little and meekly apologise. Coral and Unity galloped down, while Mister Peace trundled through the slurry to us.

“Miss Fluttershy has demonstrated graceful form! I applaud this development of events! Shall I conduct a twenty-one gun salute to mark this auspicious occasion?”

“NO!”

The three mares around me looked at him and shouted hurriedly at once as the screen turned to that of a celebrating pony. Yet they were smiling, as was I. Even Peace seemed to see the humour in it and saluted me instead.

“If I may, Ma'am. You collapsed due to a lack of upward thrust. Pegasus soldiers are trained to maintain thrust to avoid losing speed and falling from the air, upward motion from flapping wings is the key!”

The four of us were almost surprised to hear analysis from the security robot. I guess it made sense, he saw things differently from us. Read things by numbers and forces.

“F-flapping...?” I looked back at my wings, trying to do just that. They just limply flopped about. I could hold them steady and strong, but not in motion.

Coral patted my back. “Don't worry, my dear. You've made an important step to learn some confidence in yourself. Something you could do with a little of.”

That was true...but I couldn't get my mind off of it.

I couldn't go upwards without flapping. Was there any other way? Like using a grapplegun to pull myself back up higher? No, it would kill all the momentum by just pulling me in one direction.

If only I knew how to keep myself in the air longer without dropping after running out of lift. For all the support my friends gave, that fact bit hard. I'd never truly fly. With no way to keep or build altitude I was always destined to just come down right away.

Still, it was something.

Flying was hard, but it almost felt like I understood the feeling of it in a way I couldn't explain the mechanics of.

I'd been told that before, long ago when I'd first met Brim. Maybe he'd been right. Maybe the answers were all in me like a natural instinct.

Speaking of the big pony himself, Brimstone wandered out of the doorway now above us.

“Schedule's sorted. Get in and we'll get this underway'.”

It never ceased to surprise me how thick the air was down here in the metro.

I had to breathe hard to keep the air going into my lungs with how stuffy and heavy the ambience was around here as I crept alongside the rusty rails that I knew led to Shackles' hidden slave pen. The sucking sound I made on each intake provided an unsettling and discomforting feel to these quiet tunnels.

We'd decided that Sunny had to come first. Fetching her was comparatively easy, needing no overground movement and gaining an extra set of hooves to help us put the remainder of the plan together.

The downside, I had to go alone. One pony was all that'd be able to properly sneak around in these bare tunnels.

My ears twitched as I heard something fall up ahead. A thunk of rock on metal. Slipping to the side, I pressed myself in behind a fuse box and fell still, my eyes peering through the cluster of rubber wires beneath it to try and penetrate the darkness.

Nothing. But that didn't mean there wasn't something about to come. Better to wait, be aware, be sure.

The fact that I kinda wanted a rest, too, had nothing to do with pausing. Nope. Not at all.

The others weren't being idle while I was doing this. Coral was headed to Hearts and Hooves Hospital while using the sewers to get close. It had taken some convincing to get Mister Peace to guide her through that unexplored maze instead of accompanying me. Eventually I had to tell him that I was attending a 'mares only' meeting to get him to drop the issue.

I could still hear Glimmerlight's chortling behind me as I'd sighed and said that. She was having too much fun with this whole 'Fluttershy' business.

Really, I just hoped she got some RadAway. I'd already had one coughing fit in the sewers and the sound was loud enough to travel huge distances. Everything felt thick and foul tasting in my mouth down here. If Coral didn't get some on this trip, it'd have to become a very sudden priority for my ongoing health.

Unity had waited with Glimmer as the pair began looking into her mind. My sis’ had said they'd need to do a few 'known' memories first to get a feel for it, dragging them out into orbs before revisiting them check what was found. Then they'd begin to work backwards, slowly finding what they needed. When I'd left, they'd been sat in the corner with Glimmer's horn glowing brightly. Set around them I'd seen numerous cream coloured shining orbs, Unity's memories into empty orbs they'd scavenged from the empty houses above us.

In the meantime, I was to check with Sunny about if there were any stallions down here that might fit the bill. Theories or not, I wasn't going to ignore any possible hint to help her.

Up ahead, I heard hooves trotting in the dark, too far away to see. There wasn't much ambient light down here and sounds carried far. Holding my breath, I watched for any shifts or movements. Inwardly, I was relieved that I heard hooves. That meant pony. Something I could understand. Inner metro or not, knowing what lurked in the levels below this one still made my skin crawl with the knowledge of being separated only by a layer of rock.

The moment that thought came to mind, I felt the urge to turn and flee. Dark tunnels were too recent, too close and familiar. They were down there. What if they'd escaped in the station? What if they got into the inner metro with all the slavers were doing?

No more sounds came after a few fearful minutes. Trying not to whimper, I started moving again.

Finding the metro camp wouldn't be impossible. The sound of so many ponies would carry, and the inner metro was just a big ring anyway. Eventually, I'd come across it if I just kept moving this way and following the tracks. A brief thought about where I was in comparison to the above ground stations had let me figure out which direction to go in to not encounter the slave lair first before I found the workers.

Who ever said I was stupid? I'd been quite proud of thinking of that.

Another sound. Somepony coughing. I turned and quietly cantered back to the same fuse box. No way to assume there was another one further up to use. Take your time...no risks...

It didn't take long before a tall mare wandered past me, humming gently on her trip. Some sort of tunnel watch patrol? One way or another, she didn't spot me, passing right by my still form huddled in the darkness. After she left, I took the opportunity to canter on a bit faster than before.

Thankfully, I began to recognise some telltale signs before long. An old train car looked all too familiar from when Protégé and I had come down here. That passageway I'd quickly gone past a couple minutes ago must have been the one with the entrance to the outer metro in it then.

Ignoring the cold wash of fear, I pressed onward. Before long, I could hear the sounds of pickaxes and shovels ringing through the tunnels, growing from a background hubbub into individual strikes and grunts of exertion. For the third time now, I sneaked my way into Shackles' underground mining camp.

The few lanterns hung from the ceiling illuminated the gruesome sight. Wasted ponies still toiled in exactly the same spots that looked as though they'd only gone about two feet since last time. The tunnel looked wider, but for how much effort had gone in, the entire thing just felt utterly pointless. I knew of machines above ground that could have done that in a day.

I found the same hiding spot Protégé and myself had once used, before settling down to watch for Sunny. Covered in old stuffy rags behind a pile of wasted tools, I knew I wouldn't be spotted. My eyes traced across the lines mere feet from me, their stink wafting down the tunnel, a cocktail of blood, sweat, filth, and sickness. The stallion closest to me was hobbling on three legs as he swung his pickaxe. I could see the bandaged stump, left to fester and rot. It was tainted a horrid gangrenous green but his face didn't show any pain. Just a tired blankness.

My empty stomach turned at the thought and I let my eyes drift elsewhere.

It was a struggle to not think too hard about this. I knew it would kill all my hope and strength if I even let my mind begin to imagine how many ponies were having their lives corrupted and withered away down here. Instead I just focused on Sunny, looking for a sandy coloured pony. I saw one on the opposite wall, shovelling away the mined chunks, but it was a stallion. He weakly stumbled between the walls, clearly new to this place. He still looked terrified, lacking the same weary blankness of the others.

As I observed, I noticed that Weathervane's friends weren't around as they normally were. In fact, none of the ghouls were. Had they all been moved? Or...

I threw that thought from my head. Clearly she wasn't here. Great, I'd have to check the other tunnels.

Wrapping myself in the rags (It had worked last time) I trotted in. The slaves wouldn't bother me if I just acted like them, it was just the slavers I had to watch for.

Moving along the right wall, I stuck to the inner side of the metro's slow curve, keeping me out of sight of anypony in the tunnel as much as possible. My eyes traced every new group of slaves I came to. The ones tugging the laden rock wagons attached to the old rails. The ones working the walls or the piles. Even the ones who lay on the ground, resting at their workplaces by the wall. The sound of a whip sent me scurrying toward the mined rock itself, acting like I was one of them.

“Get up! Rest ended ten minutes ago! Get! Up!”

The whip snapped again. There was no scream.

“Ah, shit. You two, load them.”

Behind me, I heard the shuffling of slaves lifting the corpse onto the wagon. Just another pony who'd gone to sleep and hadn't woken up. About the best anypony could hope for in slavery: to just silently pass away from exhaustion after closing your eyes. It horrified me to think I'd once prayed to the Goddesses to allow me such a death.

My head was beginning to hurt down here. The echoing sounds of over a hundred pickaxes and hammers reverberated in my skull, clanging like an automatic weapon's chatter. Unending. The smell was making me nauseous too, as I noticed the pony beside me was foaming at the mouth and reeking of infection.

Thankfully, with the sound of the wagon moving on, I could fall back out and keep moving. A few slaves turned and looked at me, apparently concerned for the little slave who was moving when he shouldn’t be. Maybe some of them recognised I was new? None of them said anything, though. They had bigger things to worry about than risking drawing attention. All the same, their dead eyes were unsettling to see turning and following me as I crept down the tunnels.

“Keep up, you slags! Come on!”

A slaver came right towards me. He was already looking this way, trotting out quickly from a second tunnel. Oh no, I couldn't dive in now, he'd see that! I just had to keep trotting, keep my wings hidden and try to look like I belonged.

“Git mining!”

A cane cracked, before a stallion squealed at it slapping across his rump.

“Not so back-talky now, hm?”

It hit again and I heard him scream a second time. I kept trotting, shivering as I closed on him. I couldn't divert or change direction, he'd know.

The cane descended again and the stallion fell against the wall, screeching as I saw the slaver was targeting an already badly infected cut over his cutie mark. He whimpered, holding his head against the rockface.

The slaver cackled to himself as he moved on from the poor pony. He was the kind Shackles attracted, the type of pony that just loved power over others. To make the proud into the humiliated.

It took all my courage to stay the course. Just keep trotting. I was just going to a shift change, moving slowly but steadily to where I'd been told to. That was all. I was supposed to be trotting.

I saw the slaver's eyes fix on me. He'd spotted me coming.

“You!”

Oh no.

“Where you goin'?”

I stopped, looking up briefly before breaking eye contact just as fast. Same way any slave would.

“M-moving t-to where I was tol-”

The cane cracked the ground beside me.

“Well I'm in charge here and I say you're needed on wall three. Go.”

This was bad. This was very bad. I didn't know where wall three was. If I turned in the wrong direction, he'd know.

I lifted a hoof, I just had to pick and hope.

My step hesitated. Wait, couldn't I figure it out? Would...would wall three be closer to the pen? So the way I was going? Or...or was the way I'd come from the furthest on bits and thus clearly the older ones?

“What the fuck are you waiting for!?”

I squeaked, before gulping and letting my hoof fall, moving to the side around him to buy a few seconds.

It...it had to be closer to the way in I'd once seen. The proper metro station entrance Shackles had made his lair in. If I was wrong...

I began to trot that way.

I got three steps before I heard the swish of air as my only warning before I felt the stinging cane whip across my rump. Shrieking out, I fell forward and curled up, trying to crawl a little to just get away. I'd picked wrong!

“Get moving. Shit, when Shackles gets back on top we won't have uppity runts like you looking at us in the eye again...”

The slaver continued on his way.

I took a few seconds to pant and breathe. The backs of my thighs felt on fire from the strike and I had to clench my teeth to not let out any more sound as I got up and trotted onwards.

I hadn't gone much further before a hoof grabbed me and pulled me toward the wall.

My squeak of surprise was muffled by a sandy coloured hoof over my mouth. I felt myself being pressed into the small space between somepony and the rock before a pickaxe started to strike above my head as the pony kept up the work after pulling me in.

“Lucky guess.”

Sunny Days looked blankly down at me.

Relief flooded through me as I stared up at her from lying on my back.

“S-Sunny! I was looking for you.”

She hesitated, her eyes carrying to either side of the tunnel. Up ahead I could see the point where it broke into two before approaching the slave pen itself in the station. That entrance to a still unseen operation of Shackle's.

“Is it time?”

I nodded. “Yes. I...I came to get you. We're getting together. We've got a plan!”

Her hoof went to her lips. I could see her face was battered and filthy, but her fitness seemed to have seen her through the few days down here. The shrunken belly was obvious though. They hadn't been fed...

“Can you hear any coming?”

I closed my eyes and listened around, before shaking my head. I couldn't be sure with all this noise, but I didn't hear any hooves trotting closer. Just slavers shouting from further in or out to either side.

“Then let's go.”

She swung the pickaxe up, seemingly aiming it down at me. I gasped as it descended, whirling right down over me, past me and slamming into the chain by her hoof that held her to the procession of slaves. With a metallic clank, the length broke to leave just the hoofcuff around her leg.

Sunny didn't hesitate. She flung the pickaxe over her back, hooking it onto a strap before staggering back and away from the mining wall. Her strength faltered and I saw her almost fall. I didn't know how long they'd kept her here, but Sunny hadn't done much other than stand and swing for some time. Her hooves seemed ill-coordinated.

I went to her side, helping to steady the weary mare. Sunny was a strong earth pony for sure, but a time down here would crush anyone. There was no pride or 'tough' resistance to this sort of environment. Even the best were slowly worn down into shells of who they were. Just like any slavery, only heavily accelerated by Shackles' mind numbing work to break slaves in faster.

Laying her hoof around my back, we began to trot back the way I'd come. I only hoped that slaver had gone down the far tunnels and left the curve into the main circle line open. We hobbled past all the others, still thrashing away. Some noticed Sunny breaking the chain and watched us from behind. Many looked pleading but were too scared to raise their voices. A couple of hooves reached out slowly after us.

It took a lot of effort to not think too hard about what they were thinking.

I couldn't take everypony...

We made it to the side room that the ghouls had once been in. I helped Sunny up to the door and pressed it open. It'd give her a moment to get her bearings before we made the longer journey.

I sat beside the door, peering through a crack while she rested. Sunny had to get her muscles moving again after hours (or longer) of the same repetitive motion. She needed a time to get her strength before we risked any sort of real escape.

“Gotta admit...glad you came when you did.”

She tried to smile, but just rolled her head back onto the wall, taking a few deep breaths.

“We weren't going to leave you...we come back for our friends.”

I knew I was trying to sound more comforting, but Sunny just waved a hoof and almost laughed. Despite that, I spotted a small wince before she said anything. Right as I'd mentioned 'friends.'

“Ah don't overdo it...I don't really know your friends yet, do I? Just glad I got somepony on the outside to finally get away from that. You can count on me to help your cause, lil'Murky. If you can get me a shot at that big bastard that killed Cayenne I'll be even happier...”

That was a nice thought, but Shackles still felt so immortal to me. Every time he cheated death, got back up after a horrendous beatdown or gained more and more power in this city, it only reinforced my belief that he could not be killed.

There were some things I had to check first though.

“Um, down here...or in the Station or...or the den. Are there any...special slaves? Individuals?”

“What do you mean?”

I shuffled my hooves nervously. “Like...um...a young stallion maybe? Kept specifically in some place?”

“I've been through almost every room, Murky. Seen a few mares or some of the older stallions being kept as 'assistants' to the slavers, but no young ones.”

Well that was that. My own theories were elsewhere anyway, but at least that was one potential thing checked off the list.

“Well, uh, Sunny...did you see any ghouls while you were here, then? There was a group in here once. Really old ones...really hurt.”

Her eyes opened again. “The old guard?”

“Old what?”

“We called them the old guard, cos they've been slaves since the very start of Shackles' reign in here. Medical crew and security, right?”

“Yes, yes that's them! Doctor Weathervane's last friends...”

“The doc? Heard of him, never met him. They're his, eh?”

I nodded fiercely, turning away from the door to stand in front of her. “Where are they? I'd...I'd like to get them out too if I can.”

Sunny was quiet for a moment and I felt my heart sink. They'd been falling apart last time I saw them.

“Murky...”

“Please, don't say they're-”

She interrupted sharply. “I don't know. They got 'promoted.' In here that means they got taken to the sealed rooms in that there den of his. Ponies get taken there every so often. None come back. Lotsa' rumours about that place behind those doors. Having seen the metro station downstairs we met in before...I don't want to imagine the kind of fucked up shit being done. Some say it's teams to try and fight those things. Others say memory experiments or even just being made into a sadistic slaver's plaything.”

I hung my head a little. Right in the core of it all...we'd never get them back now. I knew the kinds of experiments the zebras had done now, the idea of what would happen if those were being tested again by slavers who didn't understand what they were messing with...

“Sorry, Murky. Those who get promoted are beyond our reach, no matter how hard their friends try.”

Her face looked solemn all of a sudden. I got a bad feeling.

“Sunny...were...”

She stood up again, taking a sharp breath.

“You know why I stayed last time. You aren't the only pony who found friends among the slaves. We promised to stick together so none of us had to die alone.”

Sunny opened the door and glanced outside, before taking a step out. She took two spades lying against the wall in addition to her pickaxe.

“Only...somepony's gotta be the last one alive.”

The pumping station was filling with more activity.

Coral had returned with medical supplies generously gifted by Weathervane once he'd heard we were all still alive. She'd laid out healing potions of hospital grade potency, fresher bandages, RadAway to store for the journey along with syringes of Med-X. (MedYes!) Everypony took what they needed; nopony tried to overdo it. Brimstone almost had to be forced to take a significant share, his combat skills were necessary, and even after it we knew he'd be weak for some time. Downing potions like mugs of ale, he sat back and impatiently waited as his flesh bound and repaired the damage Brutus had done. The shock to his system, however, could only heal with time.

Feeling my own aches and pains fade was a relief, along with the foul orange gunk that was RadAway allowing me to breathe deeper again. I spent a few minutes coughing and feeling dizzy as the oxygen went to my brain. The others shared amongst themselves, healing Coral's eye and Glimmer's chest. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Unity take some to Protégé outside and spend a little while trying to talk to him.

Watching the two of them felt awkward...he kept looking unsure around her. Every so often he'd dodge a question she asked about his past or veer away from talking about anyone he ever knew before us.

Yet they got on fairly well. Probably about books.

I felt my mind slowly piecing more ideas together. I'd seen his looks, the fact he was always looking like he missed someone...the fact that he'd once been a slave too and-

It just...it felt so crazy. It felt impossible.

All I could think was...why? It occurred that I didn't know how long she'd been in here, and likely neither did she with her memory affected like it was. That was what got me thinking most.

Why the memory removal?

Had she-

Sunny rapped my back with a hoof, shaking me out of my thoughts. She was just finishing off her second potion, after insisting she'd be fine with food more than anything.

“Seems you lot have a pretty darn neat operation set up here. We've got the mining tools, a big blasty robot, about six healing potions left alongside three rolls of bandages and a bunch of Med-X...why I'm downright feeling the urge to hoard all over again, just like scavenging outside.”

“That's the plan!” Glimmerlight was organising our stuff with Coral, laying the pickaxe and two shovels against the wall after wrapping the potions. “We've got places to hit, all at the same time after splitting up. Feeling up to helping?”

“Try and stop me. I want to take anything from these slaving bastards.”

Glimmerlight turned and grinned with delight at Sunny. “Sounding like a gal after my own heart. Say, question...your name? Sunny Days, right? In a wasteland with no real sun, how'd that come about?”

The weathered earth pony smirked and waved a hoof. “Ah, it's nuthin'. 'Days' is just a popular name out where I come from. So what's on the list needing done?”

Brimstone glanced down at Glimmer's lists alongside his own scrawling. (I really wished I'd gotten to see him try writing)

“First up is the things we can do easily before anypony starts to realise we're doing anything and tightens security. Murk and Glim will collect our stashes, with Murk getting inside the Mall to the armoury. Hopefully Blunderbuck might even help you if possible. Robot?”

“Yessir!”

“Watch them as they go, wait for them in case they need to come galloping back.”

“Allow them to lead the enemy unto devastation at my hands! I approve of this methodology! I shall set a tea party for pursuers. By tea party I mean surprise. By surprise I mean death.”

Brimstone looked almost blank with complete befuddlement, staring out the corner of his eye at the giant machine thumping one metallic hand into the other.

“Some days I honestly feel raiding made more sense...” He shook his head. “Much as I hate the fucking idea, I'm too big and well known to go any real distance, so I'll take a stroll in the ruins with Sunny and see if we can knock over anyone trying to find us and take their stuff. Maybe see if we can poke our heads in and see if the way to the hotel and Ministry's exit road is clear. Coral and Unity? You know the Mill?”

Unity nodded, before pushing herself to speak up after Brimstone failed to see her. She was on his blindside.

“Mhm...I had a work a couple shifts there. Being, y'know...undersized.”

Coral stroked her back. “Nothing 'undersized' about you, my dear. You're just fine with who you are.”

Glimmerlight grinned. “Exactly! See? Murky's nodding, he agrees that you look good.”

I...wait what!? Had I been? I looked side to side rapidly, before just blushing. Oh dear.

There was a deep sigh from, beside us.

“If we can concentrate on us getting the fuck out?” Brimstone was clearly trying not to snarl. “Murk, Glim? Get going with the bot to the Mall. Coral and Unity, see if you can get materials to sew some bedrolls from the mill. Hit anything of opportunity you can, all of you. All good?”

Everypony nodded.

“Right. Sunny, let's go. Everypony else make it happen then meet back and we'll head out to new places after that. Let's fleece 'em dry.”

One of the most satisfying days of my life began.

I'd always had to steal to make my way in life, it was partly why I was still here. Theft and sneaking around had become something of a little trick of mine to evade all the harm I could, and it had served us well. You could say it was my reason for being in the group, their little thief below the real leaders and fighters like Glimmer and Brimstone.

Now I was being told I had to steal everything I could.

Glimmer and I got out of the sewers a short gallop from the Mall and made our way toward it. Sticking to the blasted shopfronts that lined most of the streets surrounding the huge building, we leapt from ditch to wall to window, using any hideaway we could.

We found the first stash just behind the building, where I'd once left a set of boltcutters after my race to get RadPurge to Glimmerlight.

Unfortunately, they were on the other side of the Mall's perimeter fence...the fence that I'd once got over by tying linen around those same cutters to use like a grappling hook and rope. Only now, I was stuck on this side with no solution.

“Hmm...this is a problem.” I muttered and plopped down on my rump to think, hoof on my chin while Glimmer watched behind us and moved up.

The linen was still there. If I stood on Glimmer's back and jumped, maybe I could make it? Or...or I could glide over from that powerbox on top of the sheds nearby? Or-

Glimmer trotted past me, lifted the boltcutters over with her magic then used them to cut through the fence in about twenty seconds, before grinning at me.

“Was there a problem?”

I gaped. Why hadn't I thought of...back then when I'd been in danger I could have just...

They were bolt cutters and I'd used them like a...instead...

I groaned and held a hoof on my face.

“Not a word, sis’.” I muttered and trotted past her as she presented the hole like a magician over their impossible trick.

“I didn't say anything.” She singsonged with a smug grin.

“Just don't.”

“I didn't say anything...Mister 'Shortcut.'” She lowered her voice, teasing with the name.

I groaned and rolled my eyes, ducking through the hole and cantering up to the back of the Mall. Seeing it again was pretty strange, this place had been the centre of my life for some time in Fillydelphia now and yet even a few days away felt like I'd left it behind. Its imposing height and width still stood out, crafted from those thickset stones carved into shapes of supporting columns topped by sheet metal.

There was a different air to it though. This was Shackles' domain now. The slaves inside likely had it worse than ever.

Yet apparently, the rear was still unguarded. We quickly made our way toward our old cell's doorway to find the second stash. Glimmer had left some of her old trinkets from that pile she had inside somewhere around here.

It didn't take her long to find it and we started loading up.

Spark batteries, crudely realigned to eek out what power they still had sat glowing beneath a tarp while the filter she'd once used during the repairs to collect and purify rainwater was dumped in a sack. I flung it over my back while Glimmerlight used her magic to nab every scrap of wiring and arcane technology she'd left into a bag tied out of the tarp itself.

Behind us, we heard a clatter of rock.

Her magic brought up a thick stone from the rubble on the ground, holding it ready to hurl at whatever we saw.

Instead we just saw a radroach crawling out of a half covered drainage outlet. Covered in yellow filth, it skittered around in the waste before finding something to chew on. I turned away in disgust.

“Jumpy, lil'bro?”

“Y-yeah...we're exposed out here.”

Glimmer let the rock down and grabbed the last couple of charge talismans.

“Well, we both know no one patrols here. You get into the vents for the armoury, I'll head for the third stash with the metro maps we stole. Coral and I stored a lot more of our stuff there before we got sent to the mines too.”

I gulped. The vents were no longer threatened by the ghoul; I knew he'd fallen into one of the gaps, but the thought of having to pass over him still made me uneasy. Quite frankly, I needed a few more minutes to gather my courage.

“Um...s-sis?”

“Bro?”

I tapped my hooves together.

“About...um, Unity? You're finding out who she once knew, right?”

Glimmerlight looked a bit confused, before we sat back behind a pillar of the Mall's outer building. “Of course, hun. I did promise her, use this magic of mine for some good. It felt familiar though...not fragmented like a traumatic memory loss. It felt clean, magically, I mean. Definitely taken out into an orb somewhere, but unicorns who can do that aren't common, Murky. I don't know any other ponies in Filly other than me who can.”

Following that only made my head hurt. So unless there was some pony neither of us knew, it had to be...

I really didn't know how to approach this. Should I just say what I was thinking or...or hint it? I felt my eyes fixating too much on the eerie light of the crater behind the Mall.

“It's just...I really want her to be happy and...and she said that she wouldn't leave without him. They'd promised. But what if he doesn't want to leave?”

Glimmerlight opened her mouth, before closing it again and looking down at me. “What do you mean? Why wouldn't he? Murky, this is Fillydelphia, we all want out of here. It's ruined all of our lives. Did you find some sort of hint about him while you were away from us?”

“No...no...I was just, y'know, wondering.” I tried to shrug it off and stood up. “She kinda means a lot to me, is all. I just don't want it to hurt her if it's...not what she thinks it is. Cos it's been so long with no answers and...I just worry I guess.”

She gave me a very strange look, as though studying my every facial expression. Eventually her face softened and she shook her head.

“Don't worry about it, Murky. What happens happens, either way it's better to know. Trust me on that one. Forgetting things isn't the way to do it. I learned the hard way, I won't let her go the same direction. Just wait and see, it'll all be fine, I'm sure of it.”

I hesitantly nodded, smiling. Glimmer telling me something would be okay was always enough to make me put something to the back of my mind.

“Now go on, shoo! You've got to get me some bang-bangs!”

Snorting with laugher, I turned and galloped off to the vents. Yes...there was thievery to be done.

“Blunderbuck, you blyadischa! Rifle is not to be corrupted by your fairy dreams!”

“But it looked so nice and-”

“Otebis!”

The sound of something hitting somepony hard echoed through the halls. I saw Blunderbuck staggering away after crying out in pain. He held the back of his head, before a wooden hoof struck him again.

“Come with me, assistant! Move! Is long past time I got to Wall to oversee war preparations, and all I see is this messing about like child!”

“Sorry! Sorry!”

I really felt bad for the poor buck. Mosin was not a well-mannered boss to work for. Watching them both go, I really wished I had gotten the chance to speak to the slaver assistant who'd joined us for good times on my birthday. I was sure I could have convinced him to come...

Perhaps later. For now, I had the armoury all to myself after sneaking by the guards further out. Wouldn't they ever learn?

It was almost enough to make me want to hum a tune of happiness as I wandered past the thick metal doors and stood surrounded by the cages of weaponry.

I was alone in here.

It was all mine to take...

Anything I could get.

Anything.

Any.

Thing.

I could almost feel myself salivating before I dove in amongst it.

The huge bag I'd nabbed from Shackles' office came with me, one I'd remembered he had that was big enough to store everything but a long rifle in. Dumping it in the centre of the floor, I ran off to the cages and yanked each of them open in turn. Ammo crates had their tops torn off.

I tossed five pistols of varying sizes into the bag, along with three magazines for each. A heavyset shotgun went in next as I dragged it in my teeth from its wall mount, both of its barrels glinting from recent polishing. After a bit of hunting around Blunderbuck's workdesk, I found red boxes of shells lying stacked in a deep drawer and started tossing them across the room in beside the shotgun.

You could toss ammo right? (I figured so, if it went off from tossing why would anypony need guns? Flawless logic!)

Glimmer would want something accurate, so I galloped around the back and found the lines of rifles lined vertically. Some were bolt action, others seemed to be automatic. (Why did they call it that anyway? You still had to pull the trigger...) I pulled a long bolt action from the stands, feeling its recently polished wood in my front legs as I scooted it across to the back and tucked it in. A lever action followed it from the same rack, I'd once seen Sunny carry something similar.

I ran around the armoury quickly, unsure of when anypony might come in. I was gleeful, shovelling an entire box of cleaning kits into the sack before following it up with two small cans of oil. Some tools followed, before I started looking for the rifle rounds. A locked cabinet denied me access to a set of mines, but I found three loose grenades on Mosin's desk to tuck into the bag's side pocket.

Behind me, I heard ponies talking. I couldn't wait too long, somepony would come back eventually. Slavers left their weapons in here a lot of the time, and I knew they were regular about it.

A metal filing cabinet opened to reveal a tangled mess of harnesses and straps. I didn't have time to sort this, so I just drew out what I could and tied up the loose long-arms with them to hold them all steady in the bag.

Then my eyes fell upon it.

That massive set of armour at the back of the room still loomed and watched over everything I was taking. Yet again, I found myself unable to avoid spending a few moments staring at it. This monolithic knight of steel, an early Ranger design. Less advanced but still tall and carrying the pride and iconography of Equestria upon its chest and shoulder plates.

I'd once been chased by Rangers, yet looking upon this one now with the time to wander around it I began to get a sense of what they perhaps once were to ponies. A symbol of strength and hope.

An icon of the future, not the past.

“Hey, mate! Did Mosin go out yet? Shackles sent a runner asking where the bloody hell he is.”

“Yeah, yeah...he just left. Taking half our fucking staff too, Stern's got anypony not needed here on the walls right now or helping organise the army camps outside the city.”

“Fuck...this really happening?”

The voices rang out from the corridor outside. Shaken from my thoughts, I poked my head around to see vague shadows moving from around the bend outside the room.

Okay, okay...maybe I didn't have time now.

“There's chatter on the radios though. Shackles getting a lot of bigger jobs for the preparations. Lots of ponies saying he's already won that vote shit they do. They say he's coming back to power...”

“Fuck me man, I dunno if I even wanna work here if that happens. Bring Red back quick, I say. Least we got Stern.”

Every few days, I'd had nightmares of such a reality. Of him in power. I couldn't believe I was thinking it but...please bring Red Eye back, Goddesses. Anything but him.

I threw my all my efforts into taking what I could. A tube shaped quietener that was lying spare by the edge of the desk, the much sought rifle rounds that were in a small cage below where I'd found the guns themselves, two long range telescope thingys to attach to the tops of weapons and a shortened carbine lying under a pile of magazines. I threw a bunch of them in too, hoping one of them at least matched the weapon.

Zipping up the bag, I went to start slinging it around me and quickly realised this wasn't going to work.

“Urk...heavy!”

I gasped the word as I was forced to stop trying to lift it and instead wore the bag's looped handles like a harness. Dropping into the straining routine of wagon pulling all over again, I slowly pulled the heavy bag out of the armoury along the floor.

“I heard the scouts said they're definitely coming this way, mate. Rumour is that old Red's got it bad over in Everfree too. We lost contact a while ago.”

“Shit...”

My ears pricked at hearing this.

Something had happened over at Everfree with Red Eye's operations? Something was coming this way? Some force to break everyone out of this place? Oh, my wishes were taking off...

Unfortunately. This bag wasn't.

There was a vent in the next room over I could use to get away from them, drag it all the way back to Glimmerlight where she would help me. I just had to get there...ten feet down the corridor of hoping they wouldn't turn into it toward the armoury.

Five feet...

Three...

“Go tell that runner to carry back word, though. Mosin left just now. Want a tip mate, tell him to arrive before Mosin does to say he's on his way.”

“Pfft, fuck no. It's Thistle Tip.”

The first guard burst into laughter.

“In that case, tell him to take his time, that guy's a complete wanker. Anyhow, see you later. Gonna go nick a slot of Mosin's drink while he's gone.”

I heard one leave, but the other one was coming this way. Struggling and skittering my hooves on the floor as loudly as I dared, I heaved it into the room and started trying to lift the bag into the vent.

I heard the guard approaching. Just don't look in...just don't look in...

The bag slipped mostly in. Standing on my hind hooves, I started to shove it inside. There was a small slope in the vent behind the wall, so I could get it moving quickly once I got inside myself. Just had to...to lift my legs up and-

“What the fu-HEY!”

I actually screamed in shock as I heard the voice behind me. The guard had looked right in at me. They weren't allowed to do that!

A wiry brown slaver with a whip looped around his neck stood in the doorway.

“It's you! The fucking runt! Shackles' told us to look for you! C'mere!”

I shoved and the bag slid fully into the vent, but I had no time to get in myself. If I moved quickly, he'd grab me! I turned and pressed my back against it...I just needed five seconds more...

“I...I'm just...”

“You're just coming with me, you little shit. You any idea how much we need to put up with the boss rambling about you? Fucking obsessed!”

Sweat dripped down my brow. I didn't have time to turn and go...I...

I looked behind him.

“Oh! Thank goodness, Brim! Help!”

The slaver's eyes went wide.

“Brim? Brimstone? The...oh shit!”

He spun to face the empty doorway behind him as I took the few seconds that gave me to turn and hop up inside the vent, pushing the bag ahead of me.

“Wait...you little sneaky fucker! COME HERE!”

Hooves grasped in after me, making me very glad he wasn't a unicorn as I bucked out at them in return until I was far enough in. Wiry or not, he couldn't follow me in here. He ran off, shouting to all the others.

The journey was exhausting in the darkness, navigating from memory and by the foul screams of the ghoul trapped in these vents near to the exit. Pushing the bag and stopping to rest, Pushing. Resting. Pushing. I had to stop sometimes as ponies were heard below me. I could hear them watching vent exits, but I knew they didn't know about the one to the old janitor's room where the ghoul once had been.

It was there I finally let it drop out and found Glimmer waiting for me in the cobwebbed old office.

“Murky!” She galloped over and helped me out with the heavy bag. “Geez, by Equestria are you kitting us out or building a damn army!?”

She already had a thick set of straps made from the janitor's old bedding to carry the third stash worth of items, between us both we got down the back stairs of the Mall and back through the fence toward the sewers and the safety of Mister Peace.

Stashes and weapons?

Check.

Our first real haul was a complete success.

After unzipping the bag, we drew the weapons out and placed them along the wall. Pistols lay on an old table somepony had acquired, ammo was counted and organised into proper magazines. The long rifles were stripped and checked by Glimmer and Sunny. Mister Peace seemed very interested in them, providing an almost incessant commentary on their histories and development times.

Along with that, everything else was laid out. The metro plans were taped to the stone walls and studied, Red Eye's patrols outside the wall were mapped beside them and overlaid with the tunnel systems, just in case we had to make a run for it there. While the portal was our goal, the idea that we might have to make a break for it in some other way through the outer metro on our original plan wasn't forgotten.

The remaining medical supplies were carefully wrapped and kept safe. Coral got her gemlight lantern lit to provide us with a pale blue haze to work in. Unity and I sorted the mining tools against the wall. Spades, a pickaxe, boltcutters, and a couple slabs of long wood to prop anything up were cleaned and kept from rust. Afterwards, Coral and I set to sewing new saddlebags with the stolen linen and wool in a quiet corner while the others worked with Glimmer to make spark battery flares or improvised disruptor grenades of the like I'd seen her create before.

The old forge gloves converted into waterflasks were set near the sewer exit to catch any rain, hooked up to Glimmer's filter. Any on the ground was too contaminated for the filter to handle, it seemed. Sunny laid out the slaver's clothing she'd stolen. She and Brim had managed to 'deal' with two slavers wandering in the ruins. I hadn't asked in what way, but they brought back a two way radio they'd possessed and had also taken their clothes.

The idea was to have Sunny disguise herself and camp out near the Ministry with the radio, ready to warn us the moment the wagons appeared. Glimmer carried the other hoofset latched to her barely recognisable Initiate robes.

We had a few hours yet till the third shift ending and the time of our ambush on the wagon exiting the Ministry. In that time, we had just one more big thing to do.

Raid a logistics warehouse.

The warehouses were the most stocked places in Fillydelphia. From there, the food was stored, the tools were kept in racks, survival equipment was held on shelf after shelf and anything with no real purpose just lay in wait. Even better, some of them were lightly guarded. Most of the focus was on protecting medical supplies, weapons, and high technology. Just enough guards to scare off desperate and hungry slaves, but I'd broken in there before while on the run. I knew the ways past.

It was near the FunFarm, just a couple hundred metres from a sewer exit and across the street from Wicked Slit's factory. You could almost call it my old stomping ground from before...well, all of this started on that day of the Pit. I knew every little street around there, every ditch and hiding spot. As such, the decision was made to take a small team to raid that place and leave the rest on standby for attacking the wagons, just in case things got set off early.

Glimmer, Mister Peace, and myself would go for the warehouse. The robot would be handier with us there, as the back alleys could get him to the warehouse without an issue, and we'd desperately need his support if anything went awry. Coral, Sunny, Brim, and Unity would remain near the Ministry. Now that we had weapons, there wouldn't be as much need for Peace to handle things there, and the last thing we needed was him attracting attention with his firepower if the ambush needed a couple warning shots.

Much as I trusted Peace to protect me, I didn't trust him to 'hold fire' when others were getting to shoot instead.

If all went right, we'd be back to join the ambush a good half hour before it was due. In the event of anything going ahead of schedule, Glimmer had the radio to let Sunny contact us and warn those of us not around to make haste back.

All in all, it felt pretty well planned.

Leading up to leaving, I spent the time making a mental count of everything we had. I was just killing time, really. My skill was in acquiring things, not in doing anything with them once the sewing was done. It was, however, very satisfying to mentally tally it all up and grin happily at all the things we'd gotten together. I wanted to add to the pile, make it larger. The thief side of me was being spoiled rotten today. It was enough to make me trot on the spot with glee.

At least, until somepony saw me. Then I just sort of shuffled away blushing.

Glimmer and Unity continued their own work. Almost all the orbs had been used up by now, lying in a neat line nearby to them, all glinting with a soothing cream colour. Both of them looked quite worn out, Unity in particular. I could imagine why; a slave's memories are not the happiest ones, reliving them to try and look back was something we all tried to avoid. Concentrate on the present, don't let your mind be taken up by the routine when you realise how automated your life has become.

Yet as I watched them, something changed.

Glimmer's horn glowed brighter while Unity jumped on the spot. A loud gasp and twitch of motion shot through her like she'd been thrown into cold water.

“Oh...I...I...”

“Shh, it's okay!” Glimmer stroked the back of her mane, holding Unity close in a gentle embrace. “We're out, we're out. It's okay...”

“What was that?” Unity's voice was thin, struggling between deep breaths. “It...it was like falling through ice, like something j-just snapped...”

“We've found where your memory ends, hun...” Glimmer spoke gently. “It's normal to react that way, it's unknown territory for you. It's a shock to the system, I'm sorry...do you want to-”

Unity's head shook. For a moment, I could have sworn I saw the same determined look from Aurora on her face. “No! If that's it...I want to get it done, to see!”

She sat up straight, taking a slow breath as I saw the gentle mare I better knew returning to her calm and quiet demeanour.

“We're so close.”

Glimmer seemed to take a second to decide, before slowly shifting in to sit beside Unity and cradling a hoof around her shoulders. “Then you have to relax, don't get agitated. You won't immediately see what it is until I drag it out into an orb. Then we can see. Hopefully we'll get you an image of him, so we'll know who we're looking for, all right? Now, this could be...unusual, unsettling even. Having your memory pulled can feel like you're dreaming of it, but without knowing it yourself this could be weird.”

“I'm willing, if this is what I have to do. I trust you.”

A soft smile came over my sister's face as her horn started to glow. Gradually, she leaned closer and softly nuzzled the smaller mare. Affectionate as ever, she squeezed Unity with her shouldered hoof and whispered.

“Let your breath out...like you're trying to sleep. It makes it easier.”

“O...okay...”

I watched as they proceeded, trying not to feel weird as I just stared at the two mares. Unity was almost snuggled up to my sister for comfort during what was clearly a discomforting process. If anything, I felt proud of Glimmerlight. Seeing her using her talent in a truly helpful way and offer her very loving personality to relax someone during it felt...right. I'd have to sketch the two of them like this someday; it was such a nice sight.

At least, until I saw Unity's expression change as though having a nightmare.

She shifted, her hind legs twitching and her whole face clenching. I heard a couple of suppressed whimpers while seeing her whole body squirm a little, as though trying to wake up from not even being asleep.

Glimmer's horn glowed brighter, clearly digging deeper as I began to see an orb lighting up. It flickered lightly, like a flame struggling to catch before growing slowly into a bright hue like the others beside it. The process went on for a few minutes, Glimmer's azure blue magic lighting the pumping station and attracting the attention of the others.

Before finally, with a snap of ceasing magic, it finished. The orb gleamed brighter like a little star, before settling into a steady glow.

Glimmer and Unity both opened their eyes at the same time, looking up. My sister seemed fine, if a little...wigged out. Something had surprised her. Strangely, I saw her quickly lift the orb away behind her back.

Why?

Unity looked confused, searching the room with her eyes for a few seconds before settling on me.

“Did...did it work?”

All I could do was shrug a little and look to my sister for an explanation.

“Sort of...” Glimmer muttered and got up onto her hooves, “I...phew...I didn't really see it too clearly, but I got something for sure.”

Unity's face lit up, driving her dizzy self to her hooves in excitement.

“We did? You did it!? Can we look? I have to know!”

“Patience, hun.” Glimmer was acting calm, Unity might not have seen it. I did. “A removed memory is never truly gone. We just broke through it into your real memory. Give...give me a few hours to recover, this isn't easy. Then we'll draw it into an orb properly. It didn't really carry properly this time, wasted orb...”

“Oh...” Unity couldn't have looked more disappointed.

“Come on, you've got a chance to rest while we go to this warehouse, get your head down. That wasn't easy.”

Unity let her eyes look around the place, clearly impatient and downtrodden at having to wait longer. “Okay...thanks, Glimmerlight.”

She passed me on her way to where Coral had organised the blankets into a makeshift sleeping roll. We met each other's eyes on the way.

“You okay?” I had to ask, it only felt right.

To my surprise, Unity smiled. “Yeah, I am. Just eager, I'm sure you understand. Good luck out there.”

“Thanks.”

We shared a little hug, just to let her know I was worried for her. Or just to comfort her? Or was it for her to comfort me that she was fine?

Oh, to be socially experienced...

As she left, I heard Glimmerlight approaching behind me.

“Ready to go, lil'bro? We should have left by now.”

“Y-yeah...hey, um, sis?”

Glimmer arrived beside me and looked down, raising an eyebrow. She still looked in deep thought.

“Hmm?”

I stared at her for a few seconds in the quiet dark, the only sounds being the mutters of Sunny fitting herself into the slaver's clothing and Mister Peace rolling by outside. Glimmer's newly sewn saddlebag was weighted a little with that orb in it. I could see it.

“Murky?” she asked, prompting me again.

“N-nothing...” I looked away, not knowing how to ask so close to Unity anyway.

If I had to guess, Glimmer had seen what I expected she would and didn't want to drop the bombshell right now. Perhaps that was the right thing. Waiting for a moment to quietly explain everything? Maybe I'd get a chance to ask when we left?

For now though, I just felt her hoof ruffle my mane.

“Nuthin's apparently what's going on in that cranium of yours right now, forgetting your own question. C'mon, let's get out of here and go rob shit.”

She trotted forward, grabbing a few extra bags and jokingly making a big deal out of the weight, before making a pouty look to Mister Peace.

“Oh! Right away, Ma'am! A true gentleman soldier of Equestria does not suffer a pony to struggle without his assistance! Especially not one of such grace and class.”

Coral mockingly blew a raspberry with a roll of her eyes on hearing that, not even turning her head to look.

I grabbed my own bags, slinging the weapon sack over my back as well. After a moment, I picked up my journal as well for safekeeping, before finding it lifted away from me by Glimmer's magic.

“Here...uh, I'll take it for you, keep it safe out of any deep sewage. Longer legs and all, y'know?”

Feeling a little put out for a second, if not confused, I slowly nodded and cantered to the exit into the sewers. “Uh...s-sure?”

“Just for safekeeping.”

“Okay...”

As I left, not getting a chance to ask any further, I found myself confronted by Protégé. He stood with weary eyes at the exit, a couple of Coral's stitched bags around the barrel of his torso.

“I'm coming with you.”

Behind me, I heard Brimstone stand up. The sound was quite obvious. Yet I kept my eyes on the slaver before me.

“Something is...odd, about Fillydelphia. The things Unity told me from going up there, the things I saw while outside since coming out of the Ministry. I must get a proper look, figure out what's happening. Why the hospital was stocking up so much, why you've all encountered light security.”

I'd heard guards saying that. Something about a force coming? About Red Eye?

I hadn't dared tell Protégé what I'd heard though.

“You're going to be fine helping us steal from Red Eye then?”

Protégé met my question with sharp eyes. You don't pull the trigger on somepony and look at them easily the next day without some sort of awkward feelings.

“I won't be stealing anything, just accompanying you. You won't let me go alone, and I don't want to stay here. If you want rid of me, I'll simply leave for the FunBarn the moment you're done. I'll be out of your mane.”

For some reason, the others stayed silent. Was this my decision?

Really, turning him down made no sense; he was correct.

“Well, um...okay?”

“Thank you, Murk. Now, shall we proceed?”

With that, we did. He remained behind us the whole way, trotting without a word.

I knew Protégé by now. His lack of speech wasn't because he was unwilling to talk to us.

It was because he didn't know what to say to us in any casual manner anymore, after all that had happened.

The trudge through the sewers was quiet. Each of us all seemed to have our thoughts in mind.

Glimmer was clearly trying to process what she'd seen and put into that orb. I had my suspicions that I knew what, but on account of who was with us, I dared not bring up the subject.

At the very least, I knew she had the proof with us. It was going to come to light. Today. Unity deserved it.

Protégé meanwhile was almost unnoticeable behind us, had it not been for my hearing tracking his movements. He was so very quiet, deep in thought.

Mister Peace occasionally hummed to himself, taking the lead to scout in his own inimitable way. By that, I meant that it involved leaping around most corners with the cry of 'AHA!' Aside from a few startled radroaches, there was nothing to sate his wishes, and he would glumly reset his missile launchers again, before moving on.

Eventually, judging by the huge grates we passed, I could tell we were in the FunFarm's area of Fillydelphia. I recognised the way out I'd once used to escape those pursuing me from the same warehouse. I smelled the burning in the air spike up from the heavy industry that polluted Fillydelphia. The drifting smog collecting down here made me gag and my throat burn enough that I pulled a bag around my mouth to try and breathe through.

Oh such a familiar stench...

Mister Peace took a hold of the chosen grate and set his hydraulic arms moving. The rusted metal was like putty in his hands, snapping and bending so easily that I wondered how weak the bars really were. A quick test of my own strength gave me nothing but sore muscles and a gentle pat on the head.

“Do not concern yourself, Miss Fluttershy. Allow me to conduct matters of physical strength against the enemies of your trotting direction.”

His arm ripped the last bar off, before his screen turned to the face of a dress uniformed soldier on ceremony. He gestured me through.

I was getting a little tired of that happening today, actually.

My hooves sunk into the soft mud and sewage outside as I made my way to the embankment and dryer soil. Glimmerlight followed me through, scooting up on her belly to the edge of the ditch to look alongside me.

“Nice navigating, Ma'am.” She teased me with a grin.

“Oh, not you, too...”

Behind us, Mister Peace let Protégé through, before promptly tearing the entire grate off in one fell swoop for his own bulk to fit past. Why hadn't he just...oh forget it.

The area out here was in the back roads of the housing I'd once used to hide in near the FunFarm. I could see the connecting road that would lead into the factories or deeper into the FunFarm itself. That meant the warehouse was down this rarely used street. Most slavers and wagons would use the larger repaired road that ran concurrent to the FunFarm's borders. Briefly, I remembered spending time hiding from the gang in a sewer outlet in that road long ago...

In other words, we were free to move even with Mister Peace, who would remain outside and wait for us.

However, as we moved up, I looked to the side at a nearby factory surrounded by a broken wall. The glow of molten metal came from within while wagons filled with scrap metal were being tugged into it by weary slaves. I could feel the heat from here, an angry warmth of prickly pain on the body.

Wicked Slit's factory.

“Um, hang on a second, everypony...”

Glimmer and Protégé looked to me in surprise.

“What is it?”

“I need to get something, I'll only be a minute!”

Glimmerlight saw me looking at the factory and shrugged. “You sure?”

“Yeah! Yeah!” I tried to smile it off. “It'll, um, help with my gliding practice!”

That seemed to give her reason to let me go and I cantered off, dropping into a sneaky crawl before I got near to the factory.

It didn't take long before I saw the others spot me coming galloping at full speed back out of the factory across the ground back to our hiding spot.

Glimmer got up, seeing me just whizz past her.

“Murky!?”

“RUN!”

They followed me without asking more. I could feel the item I'd lifted dangling between my teeth.

From behind us, a figure stormed out of the factory. Frazzled mane over a body so tense it looked about ready to have a neurotic breakdown any second. A curved knife waved in the air as she glanced around with twitching eyes.

“WHERE'D THAT LITTLE BASTARD RUNT GO? WHO SAW HIM!? I KNOW IT WAS HIM! I FUCKING KNOW IT! THIEVING MY FUCKING GOGGLES AGAIN! ARGH!”

Yup. Satisfying day.

Getting in without my grapplegun was a little tougher than before. In the past, I'd climbed up the fire escape and used my saddle to zip up to a higher open window above me. This time, we had to use something of a 'pony staircase' to get there. With me hopping off of Glimmer's back to grab the ledge, then reaching down to help Protégé do the same. Glimmer, being taller, was able to hop up far enough for both of us to grab her hooves and pull her in.

Mister Peace waited below near a door. If needed, he could tear that thing off and rush in at a moment's notice to provide us both a way out and some cover. Elsewise, he was hidden on this unguarded side.

We were getting pretty good at this whole 'working together' business.

Of course, there were more secrets I was keen to see very soon. Ones that could define the next few events in our escape from the filthy sewer into the last part of our plan. Right now, we had things to do.

The inside of the warehouse was simple. One gigantic open floor filled with tall shelves in lines. They were vaguely organised into groups, with all sorts of goodies just lying out for any slaver's needs. Or in this case, ours. Where we stood now was a raised platform overlooking the warehouse floor with an office beside us. Its windows gazed across Fillydelphia's skyline to the great fortifications surrounding it. Red Eye clearly didn't trust slavers around the food alone. The guards only ever remained on guard at the entrance, with occasional patrols inside. It had been one of them that caught me last time.

“Murky, head over the far side, you're quietest! I'll plunder this line here.” Glimmerlight kept a hushed voice as she handed me some of the bags. “You know what to grab, right? Survival things, food...anything to keep us going in or out. Let's not push our luck. Fifteen minutes at most. Agreed?”

“You'll have at least thirty, we're on a shift time,” Protégé spoke quietly, looking toward the office, “The random patrols only take place in the logistics hubs when slaves might be out and about.”

With that he trotted into the office, staring out of the window. I thought it was to look forlorn, but then I saw he was actually glaring around and trying to read the activity in the sky and streets. As he'd said, he wanted a look at Fillydelphia.

“Let's get going!” Glimmerlight hurried down the stairs, shuffling her hooves quickly to hop the last banister and drop onto the concrete floor.

I tried to do one better and leapt from the second flight, wings spread. The momentum carried me through the air for all of a few feet, and I felt my wings catch the air to help soften the fall!

Yet before ten feet had gone by I simply fell. Landing sharply on the concrete, I felt my knees ache in protest at the steep drop.

No lift. I had no way to get lift under my wings. Curse these broken things...

Shaking the thought from my head, I sprinted across the warehouse, ducking my short height below the shelves and through gaps to reach the other side faster. Already I could see Glimmerlight grabbing things in her magic to toss into her saddlebags on the opposite side.

Reaching my target, I started to canter alongside the shelves, eyes peeled. It really was like a supermarket where everything was free.

My hooves grabbed a few things as I hopped up to whisk them off their labelled piles. A bag of cotton tinder, a flint and steel set, a compass in case my PipBuck shorted out...

All of them were dropped into my saddlebags quickly. As I snatched up a large rolled map of Equestria, I spotted my sister again through the shelves. She was trotting carefully down the lines, whisking small bottles of tepid looking water with her magic, taking my journal out to make room for them. I saw her casually flicking through it as she went, smiling occasionally. I could imagine what ones.

“Urgh, she would look at those drawings.” I rubbed my forehead. It never felt any less embarrassing. Was now really the time to look in it?

Shaking my head, I hurried along the shelves. A can opener disappeared from its pile. Two metal cooking tins went in with it, placed either side of the map to not clatter when I moved. I followed it up with some heating blocks that could burn even in the rain. I'd once enviously watched a slaver use them during a storm from my leaky pig sty.

Everything I grabbed would be ours. Everything would help a bit more. I felt eager and confident. It drove me to want every little thing. My hooves landed on a plastic rainshield for the map, a set of hoof warmers for Chirpy and then found themselves grasping for the food section as I galloped down toward its piled boxes.

Behind me, I could still see Protégé up in that office.

Alone.

If I could finish up and fill my bags here right now, I might get five minutes free to go and speak to him.

See if I could get anything out of him about this. About her.

To that end, I might have rushed a little. I reached around an entire shelf of mixed tinned goods and just swept a dozen of them at once into my bag, feeling the weight drop on that side of my body. Oh, that scoop felt good. I followed it up with dried and vacuum packed strips of processed hay. How they made that last two centuries, I'd never know, but apparently they were still edible. Even better, they were thin and light. I upturned a whole box to fill in the gaps between the tins. Glimmerlight had briefly set my journal aside, pulling a trolley over to load a full box of oat cereal containers onto it. Of course, we had Mister Peace to carry more for us!

I could just imagine trying all these. Real food! Food that could be warm! Sugary! I'd always wanted to try sugar. The thought made me quiver as I cheekily tossed a few foil wrapped chocolate bars in after spending a few seconds trying to decide if blue ones would taste better than red ones. Eventually I settled on blue. (In my mind, red was a bad colour, blue was like the sky!)

“Just a few for me to enjoy!” I giggled like a foal, running amok in here.

Soon though, the hoarding was filling my bags. I'd taken some dried mash powder to slip into the remaining gaps and pressed some dry pasta under my saddle's straps, but this was as much as I could feasibly carry myself, knowing I'd have to help with other things too. As such, trying to quench my disappointment at all the yummy things I hadn't room for or couldn't reach, I made my way back down the warehouse toward the office.

All joking aside, this was a serious thing. I had big questions for him.

I was going to confront him on the subject of Unity. No way out.

She deserved this. I'd heard it enough times from a voice I'd come to trust. The truth had to be known.

No matter how bad it might hurt.

Each step of that staircase made me rethink what to say. I was rehearsing lines in my head over and over. How to word it? How to say it? What tone? I tried to think what he might say back, how I'd counter any dismissals.

Yet I kept trotting and eventually, I saw that bare office bathed in the red light of Fillydelphia, glowing over my now ex-master as he stood watching the city.

“Protégé.”

Simple. Basic. Just greet him first.

“Murk.” He nodded without looking. “You're done?”

“I have everything, yeah. I just came to, uh...”

My voice stumbled, leaving a gap after speaking. Thankfully, Protégé picked up where I left off.

“I understand. Things are awkward after what we tried to do to each other. I still don't know how to quite think on it. Perhaps that's why I'm distracting myself from coming to terms with fighting a pony I never wanted to hurt, just because of life throwing us on opposing sides...”

I could have sniped at that with comments about the living conditions, but this wasn't the time.

“Well, um...what have you seen?”

Stepping up beside him to look out, I saw a hive of activity from this vantage point. Protégé was right, something was different. Around the base of the wall, I could see campfires. Thousands of campfires. An army was set in here, far more than just the small camp I'd once crawled through. The skies were filled with Pinkie Balloons and veering formations of griffons.

“Preparations. It's as I thought...”

Below on the street, a column of ponies with newly created arms and armour cantered past.

“Fillydelphia is preparing for war. The Enclave must have started to move against us; Red Eye always knew this might happen. It goes against all expected timeframes, however.”

“E-Enclave?” I was just coming to grips with what I knew, but weren't they just a small, almost mythical outpost of pegasi up there? “They're really as strong as...as they say?”

“More than you know, Murk. And more than I've seen. You won't be the only pegasus in Fillydelphia soon enough, only you're the one who won't be trying to burn us to glass. I can only hope we have the power to resist them. Once Master Red Eye completes his task, we shall stand a better chance with the Cathedral's reinforcements.”

Finally, he turned to me, pushing his mane behind his ears as best he could. He'd found a bit of string to retie his ponytail, but it wasn't keeping it all in.

“This will be a time of woe and hardship, Murk. Whatever you are trying with your friends, I can only hope that if you succeed, it will be before this comes to pass. We have seen many battles together by now, but true war is unlike any of those small skirmishes. Death, loss, and undoing of what progress so many have died for will assuredly happen. It will be when all ponies in here must cast aside their prejudice and band together against the storm. To hold close those they consider dear to them...”

That last line, I'd been given a way in. Awkward or not, I leapt on it.

I didn't turn my head. I simply spoke. A clear sentence, spoken level and simply with no accusation or worry.

“So why don't you?”

He went silent.

I was afraid he was simply going to leave, or suddenly shout. He just looked at me with those thoughtful eyes.

“What are you talking about?”

I couldn't back away now. I couldn't let it slip.

“You know who I mean.”

Protégé looked uncomfortable, his hooves shifted in the same way mine often did. His face steeled as he gathered his words carefully.

“Murk...I appreciate you and your friends for what you've done for me, but I...I am not what you all think I am. Yes, having you by my side has kept me alive. Yes, I am grateful, even perhaps happy, that I had somepony to share the journey thus far with who understood me as deeply as you do. But-”

My hooves raised as I almost wished I had a griffon's talons to tear at my mane in frustration. Stomping them down, I interrupted him.

“Not us! We're happy for you too and all you did to try and...and make this easier, even if some of us haven't forgiven you, that isn't the point!”

I had to stop myself from seething. But the summoned up the will to just say it directly.

“Why don't you tell her?”

“Murk, what are you-”

“Why don't you tell her!?”

I shouted it at him, far too loud than I should have. Any worry of others hearing all the way across the warehouse was cast off. I advanced, shifting closer.

“From the moment we saved her from Grindstone and Shackles, you've been glancing her way! I've seen how she looks at you too, like somepony who recognises how lost and lonely you are in this city! You've been like that ever since I met you! Always looking for company, the company you wanted from me because you had nopony else! We were always together, because of how much you craved somepony else who understood who you are and yes, we had that...that bond! But there's another isn't there? Her! You know who I mean!”

He backed away from me. “Murk, I-”

“Just look at both of you! Interests in books, wanting quieter moments to discuss with one pony. Both of you feeling lost in this place. You were once a slave here. In Grindstone's Ministry before Shackles was promoted out of being his overseer, yes? You knew the inside of there as well as I did, you knew about the sanisiso-”

“Sanitiser” Protégé curtly added.

“WHATEVER IT'S CALLED!” I was in no mood for corrections. “You knew that Ministry like the back of your hoof to guide me in! That's where Unity also was, getting it now? You were both there. Tell me, were you at the Pit where Littlepip escaped?”

Protégé almost looked worried, but I couldn't tell in what way.

“Yes, I was. Murk, stop-”

“Unity told me that her closest friend, more than just a friend to her, was sent to the Pit, but she couldn't see him and couldn't ever remember! She never saw him down there...because he wasn't a competing pony!”

He went silent, stepping back as I shifted forward again, pushing my head up as high as it could go.

“You're keeping that poor, worried, and wonderful mare in fear! You're doing it knowing full well who she is to you. Every time she got hurt or threatened, you were always the first to leap to defend her. So I want to know, now. Why are you hurting her by hiding who you are to her? She doesn't deserve this and if you're treating her like this then you don't deserve her!”

“MURK! What are you talking about!?” He let down his intelligent look, shouting it back and shoving me away from him to stand properly again.

“Stop hurting Unity and just tell her who you are!”

My voice felt frail as my vocal chords clung and tightened. I coughed harshly, stumbling. Protégé moved to catch me before I pushed him away, circling around one another.

“Both of you! Stop! Stop this!”

Glimmerlight's voice carried above us both as she raced into the office. Putting herself between us. Standing with her legs wide and firm, she sent us back with her magic, keeping me from wanting to hit him all over again! Why wasn't he telling her? Why was he denying it?

“Sis’! It's him! He's who we're looking for!”

“Murk, I assure you, I-”

“Liar!”

Azure blue magic threw both of us apart.

“Murky, stop!”

Glimmer's voice took me by surprise, as she suddenly turned and faced me, leaving Protégé behind her. I made to protest, raising my little hoof to speak up, but she got the word in first.

“You're wrong, lil'bro! You're so utterly, totally wrong...”

Then I saw it in her eyes. She was scared. Shivering and unsure of what was happening.

“I...I didn't believe what I saw. I had to make sure, but I think...I think I know who it is...”

The next three seconds as she gulped and got her breath back felt like my slow lifetime all over again. What was I meant to think? What was she saying? Why would she be worried to know?

Her lip quivering, struggling for words, Glimmer spoke again.

“I didn't think it possible. Look...”

My heart skipped more than one beat as I felt everything go still, her magic floating something forward and opening it.

My journal.

Pages flickered, going back from what I'd done on the mountain in Aurora's cabin. Back...back past my birthday...back past the lowest ebb of my life and back further to my time in the Mall, and then further. Back to my first drawings before the Pit, and the pages kept turning. Pages I'd never wanted to look back to. From before the Pit. From the time of my life I'd sworn never to look back on! I wanted to turn away!

Lines, curves, shapes...

Sketchier, rougher, lacking in the life I knew I could do now. Like they were done by someone with no idea of the creative freedom I'd attained, or who was still working at it. The turning stopped on one of them. An environment, the Ministry of Arcane Science’s main interior. I'd recognise it anywhere.

Huddled in the middle were two ponies I knew, together.

Unity...and myself.

Drawn before I had ever met her.

I staggered back, nearly falling over the office's desk. I felt my breathing heighten.

“Sis’...sis’ what's going on?” I pleaded, feeling my whole body shake.

Parts of my mind were trying to tell me things. I shut them out, terrified.

“Murky, calm down, we can figure this out. Calm. Down.”

Glimmer started advancing, a hoof gently settling with each word. Behind her, Protégé looked very concerned. Yet I fell away from both of them again, knocking over a paper basket in my haste.

“What's happening!? That isn't...it can't...”

“Murky, breathe! What do you remember?”

Limping away, I fell to my rump, hooves either side of my head. Things...things were lighting up inside, things I didn't want to know. It was too sudden, too unsettling. It was impossible, but there was proof of it right in front of my eyes.

“I don't...know, I...no, no it can’t...”

My journal's image kept flickering again and again in my mind. That sight. She and I, huddled together in fear, seeking comfort. I couldn't remember anything of the sort! That couldn't be true!

The feeling of how we'd huddled together in Aurora's cottage felt fresh.

Familiar.

No! I refused to think this was true! Why was Glimmer tricking me? But I knew she wouldn't. I didn't understand. My head hurt.

Running alongside her to escape felt so familiar, didn't it? Working together?

Dreams were faded, hadn't I often dreamed of that sort of thing? Of running beside another? But that was just dreams! It was just imagination! I'd wanted somepony to be there with! Companionship! It wasn't-

“Together...”

Four other words, I'd heard four other words after it, muffled, distant.

I wanted to cry, I wanted to rock and whine and ignore everything. I wanted to run and hide.

A mare reaching out to you.

I felt a hoof land on my shoulder.

“Murky, it's okay...” Glimmer's voice was soft, but distant. “We'll figure it-”

Out.

I shot to my hooves. I knew how to check if this was all true. Pushing past her, I galloped for the window out onto the fire escape. Leaping high, I grabbed the ledge and flung myself over it before running down the stairs onto the streets of Fillydelphia.

As I left, I only vaguely heard Glimmerlight shouting for me in a blind panic, before crying to Protégé and Peace to take the supplies as she tried moving her sore body in pursuit.

I didn't even think about what slavers could see me. I simply galloped onto the main road, the route I knew by instinct, and headed in the direction of the FunFarm. My hooves sharply impacted with the tarmac at high speed, driving me forward. Tears were in my eyes, and my head thudded and whirled painfully. Like something had sparked that shouldn't have. It was like ice was shattering, and plunging my realisations into freezing waters to wake up.

Like breaking through a forgotten memory's barrier, Glimmer had told Unity that’s what it felt like.

No...

I didn't remember anything of Fillydelphia from before I'd been sentenced to the Pit, because something bad had happened that I wanted to forget. I’d told myself that from the very start.

Slaves turned and watched the little pegasus whisk past them. Their handlers seemed more surprised than anything that they just stared. Griffons above watched with interest at this fast moving pony through all the shift change crowds.

We'd both looked back at each other after we first met outside Slit's factory, like we'd recognised each other.

Thoughts shot through my mind, connecting with chilling realisations. My hooves were sore, my knees were tired, yet I kept galloping. I rounded a corner at an angle, and leapt a small wall to miss a checkpoint.

She'd known I was a slave all my life before I'd ever actually told her.

The mud and dirt made me skid sideways while turning before I stumbled onto the next pathway and kept running, hearing Glimmerlight shouting behind me. Yet I could not stop. My eyes were wide, seeing things I could now remember like daydreams.

My first master in here had been Grindstone. He had mentioned Unity by name the first time he saw us together.

It was like my coma from Wildcard's attack all over again. Remembering memories from times gone by.

On my first shift under Grindstone, a kind mare had picked me up when I fell.

I could see the FunFarm's helter-skelter a block away.

Whiplash had said he didn't know who dropped me off with him. I'd just woken up there.

A slaver shouted, wondering where I was going. I completely ignored him. My lungs were burning from running through the thick fogs of chemical smoke, yet I powered out of it and made a break for the FunFarm's entrance. I could see that Pinkie standee waving toward the west still as I tore past it.

When I'd visited the Ministry for Protégé, I'd run around without needing the map, I'd known where I was going like I'd been there before.

I gasped as a sharp pain darted through my skull. Worry, stress, emotion and confusion turning a headache into something worse. I staggered in the FunFarm's entrance, trying to clear my eyes.

In Aurora's office, the memory machine had been surrounded by green and cream memory orbs on the floor. When I'd left, I'd thought to myself that I wanted to come back and 'remember more...'

I passed by the hall of mirrors.

I'd seen myself behind her. In that magic mirror It had shown us the truth, just like it had shown me with my wings.

I followed the route we'd taken, aiming for the rollercoaster.

Mister Peace had said the last time that he had seen me was while escorting 'you and your friend away from the Ministry after visiting Miss Star's office…’

I could see the mesh fence ahead. See the locks covering it, all clasped to the wire with names carved upon them. Hundreds of them, scattered around, the love-locks of Old and New Equestria all together.

She'd asked me if 'Murky' was the only part of my name...she didn't know about the rest of it...

I fell, exhausted. Clambering, struggling as I approached the one I knew the location of too well for my sanity's liking. Reaching out, my hooves clutched it. My simple mind trying to use my newfound literacy to read it. To figure out every letter with a growing well of indecipherable emotion.

Just his initials, like she'd said.

Two names inside the symbol of Celestia's sun, separated by a small heart.

Unity

M.N.S.

Pinkie's letter was in my mind. Fresh, every word clear.

'To,

Murky and Unity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pinkie Pie!’

She had said it right then, right to the both of us together.

You have to discover it for yourselves.

My sister found me, hunched against the fence and staring at the love-lock.

I couldn't even think. I just couldn't. It was too much.

All I could do was just stare at it. Reading it over and over.

I couldn't remember anything of it; only piece together the evidence that was flying toward me the more I thought about it. All surrounding this image before me, and the image in my journal.

“Murky...”

Glimmer's brash voice was tuned back to a weak whisper. She trotted carefully through the waste and discoloured mud of Fillydelphia toward me, and sat down. Just the two of us in this foul place beneath a sky of smog, alone with this.

I didn't know what to do. All I could do was lean into her body as she leaned forward and embraced me very tightly.

“We'll solve this, Murky. I promise you. Memory is what I do...”

“I'm so confused...I-I-I don't...”

“Murky, ssh...”

Glimmer leaned back, taking me by the shoulders.

“Whatever has happened, this isn't the end of anything. Murky, this is good. I've always wondered what happened in that journal, always wanted to take a look, but never did because I respect you, Murky. For all of who I am, I won't ever pry, but I had to know. I'm so sorry for lying, but I had to make sure this was what I thought it was.”

She wiped a tear from my eye with a cleaner part of her hoof.

“I saw it in her memory. I have the orb to show her. To show both of you.”

I shuddered, looking upward at the sky.

“A-Aurora's machine, we used it to...”

“I know, I saw...”

Glimmer looked at the love-lock, the small smile on her face almost surprised me. I didn't understand, why? Just...just why would we do that?

My sister helped to put it in words. She’d seen the memories. She knew it all.

“You both tried to escape together, and you were both sentenced for the Pit for it, Murky. It was a punishment that put you both on opposite teams.”

I remembered the Pit. They did that. I remembered seeing two friends forced to fight to the death. Glimmer was right.

“Two ponies who'd become friends in that Ministry, amongst a living hell; a beautiful, beautiful friendship. You wiped your memories of one another. You used Aurora's machine in her office.”

She was crying. The thought of it terribly upsetting my sister.

“Actually erasing the love you shared to avoid knowing who you both were. To prevent the pain if it came down to you two being told to kill one another in that horrible place...”

Mister Peace coughed.

“Which is where I stepped in.”

We both sat up sharply. The robotic voice spoke louder than anything we'd said as Mister Peace slowly trundled through the quagmire to us, with Protégé mounted on his back and towing a trolley of supplies.

Blinking, I looked up at the huge machine.

“M-Mister Peace? What happened?”

His voice quietened, almost to normal levels.

“Miss Fluttershy, I told you when we last met that I had escorted you and your friend from Aurora's office. Upon hearing of your mission for me, I could not deny its importance. A tragic tale for the operas of great Canterlot, it is so...”

His screen flickered to a soldier with dress uniform on, captured in a still expression of mourning, probably meant for use at soldier's funerals.

“It was not my place to know what you two did, only that I was to carry your unconscious selves to separate areas of this city, before returning to my vigilant post.”

“Why didn't you say anything?” I almost begged him, holding out a hoof that he (as best a war machine could) graciously took in both his metal hands.

“You both ordered me. The most hurtful order I have ever carried out. To never tell either of you of the identity of the other, unless you somehow knew it yourself, like now. Such a thing could have undone everything. I will never pretend to know why you both did this. It wasn't my place to question. I simply saw you both so hurt and afraid...”

For a second, Mister Peace almost looked...upset.

“...I wanted to help.”

Something about the way he said that. He wanted to help. Not just following orders.

Protégé had moved around everything, before he took a look at the love-lock for himself. I heard him mutter in disbelief.

“Murk, I am so very sorry.”

His hoof rested on my shoulder, firmly giving a little shake.

Then things were quiet.

Nopony knew what to say any more.

After but a few seconds, however, it was broken. Glimmer's radio crackled into life, fizzing as a signal fought its way through. Just as she got it dug out, Sunny's voice came through, garbled, but intelligible.

“They're already moving! Way early! If we don't move now, we're gonna miss it, big Brim's already on the move with Coral to block them off, get your hineys over here as fast as you can, folks! We're having to start without you! Hang on...wait, I-shit!”

A gunshot sounded loud and clear through the radio, before everything went to static.

Mister Peace lurched back on his singe axis and seemed to shake out every weapon he had.

“The call of allies in need of munitions based assistance has rung out! Shall we bring to them the glory of reinforcements and become heroes, Miss Fluttershy?”

The others had turned to listen, I hadn't. I couldn't get it out my head.

Unity...how many times we'd been around one another. My first friend in Filly, even if I hadn't known it.

How could I say anything? That I was...

Was I supposed to feel different? It was just so...so sudden…

Then I heard a resolved, and firm voice ring out.

“We need to get over there, now.”

It was my voice.

I had realised what mattered. I could see my friends over there, fighting for their lives if things had gone badly as it sounded!

“You heard him! Mount up!” Glimmerlight jumped to her hooves as she shouted.

Mister Peace grabbed each of us in turn, pulling us on to his back. Glimmerlight pulled a pistol from her bag, passing a second to Protégé.

“Hold on, little ponies! Interception protocols activating, speed limiter...disabled.”

He leaned forward and I felt the vibrations as his wheel started spinning at a high rate in the mud, digging himself deep before it found the hard earth below. My stomach lurched as he tore off through the FunFarm, streaking past a very surprised Whiplash as he skidded out of the gate and surged off down the main roads.

“TALLY HOOOO!”

Behind him as he left, I saw the love-lock swing in place from the rumbling, before coming to a halt amongst the others, its proud declaration facing forward once more.

Fillydelphia flew by faster than I'd ever imagined it could. The wind tore at me, sending my wings flaring out behind me from the air catching them. My lips wobbled if I opened my mouth, as I tried to cling on as best I could while Peace veered, leaned and rocketed down the primary lanes too fast for anypony to really get a gauge on what they'd just seen. We were causing some commotion. I could see slavers running to tell their superiors what had just rolled by at high speed. We had to help them and get out of here quickly before Fillydelphia organised a response.

Soon, I heard gunshots nearby.

“Wondrous battle detected to the south, Miss Fluttershy! Shall we greet them?”

“YES!”

I recognised this street! Feeling my entire body flung to the side as he turned a ninety degree angle, my eyes spotted the ambush up ahead. Slavers were running toward or away around us, depending on their armament. Nopony without a gun wanted to be near a firefight.

Up ahead, several wagons were laid out, some of them pulled by griffons. Hang on, why? Without an answer, my heart sank. A griffon in danger would bring the rest quickly. They cared for their own and-

“Watch out, Ma’am!”

Peace changed direction rapidly as a shot rebounded off his thick shoulder plate. Slavers were clustered around the wagons, firing at us or into the ruins by the side, near the Ministry. I could see others from the opposite side of the street joining them. Not much fire was coming back from where we'd intended to be, where our friends were stationed just below a huge crane that had somehow survived the balefire.

Our ambush had been ambushed!

They’d predicted we'd try for our old kit!

Mister Peace drove straight into thick of it. He curved his path, sending a missile with a surging gout of flame toward the ruins on our right. Streaking like a firework, it detonated inside a top floor window, blowing the whole floor out in an explosion of rubble that shattered out onto the tarmac.

Making a short hop off the ground over a hump in the road to avoid the falling debris, Mister Peace leaned tightly to one side, carrying us past the wagons themselves. Two griffons lay with broken necks. Brimstone's work?

Bullets chewed into the ground behind them. The cracks of gunfire banging into my ears only after each vicious ping lit up the ground behind or around Mister Peace. Another shot spanked off his middle torso.

“Attain cover! I shall engage them!”

He reversed into the ruins that our friends were in, allowing us a chance to dismount and scurry the supplies into cover before hunkering down ourselves. The incoming fire was met with a deafening boom of an anti-machine rifle. From the skies above.

Mister Peace rocked, a portion of his top plating shearing off entirely, exposing the robotics beneath. His right weapon arm rose to the sky, before his gatling cannon shot and lit up the sky with red hot firepower that chased and cut down the heavily armed griffons.

Glimmer and I fled for cover. Pistols were useless here, the slavers had much more power to go on. We had to find our friends, see what they had to use with them! We couldn't just leave Peace to do it alone!

Soon, we stumbled across Sunny crouching down in the top floor of a half collapsed home overlooking the firefight in the street. She had a clear view of the houses at the far side and was sending out shots with her lever action, hoof working it after every shot like a natural before ducking down.

“Glad ta see ya!” she shouted down to us, before huddling more into cover as something firing a rapid burst chewed into the window ledge where she had just seconds ago rested her rifle. “The bastards were waiting! The buildings over there were full of em, maybe a dozen or so plus the half dozen we shot out on the carts! Had griffons pulling, shoulda fucking known when I saw them! Griffons never pull.”

“Where're the others?” I screamed up to her, before having to repeat myself after being drowned out by Mister Peace's energy weapon unleashing its devastation across the opposite houses.

“Further up! Alleyway between us and them though! Don't even try to cross it. Coral did and almost lost her head to that big automatic they-”

Another whooping bang signalled a second of Peace's missiles firing and impacting with a second noise soon after.

Sunny took a quick glance as the crumbling home across the street lost an entire room.

“Hot damn. Well, they used to have one.”

“Do we have the stuff?” Glimmerlight took up position opposite Sunny, doing what she could to keep the ponies behind the wagons trapped in the road pinned down with her small pistol.

“Nope. Sorry, couldn't get out, too much fire! Not enough time to hunt before they hit us. Might have to try again, there'll be more coming.”

She was right. I could see on the skyline the images of Pinkie Balloons beginning to waft toward us alongside wings of griffons. Those balloon riders carried heavy weaponry, even Peace wouldn't stand up to them all if he didn't hit them first. Even then, the griffons...

Even as I spoke, the slavers seemed to realise this. Some of them rushed out of the buildings into the street, unloading a mass of firepower on Peace. The big robot was actually forced into cover, cursing their (presumably made up) names loudly as much as cackling about the unfair odds. The slavers got near to the wagons, seeking to protect them.

“Any idea which one?” Glimmer leaned out and snap shot twice at a slaver, making him squeal and run back to the buildings. Return fire made both of us duck. A round whipped in, hit the decaying roof, rebounded right down past me, and buried itself into the soft wooden floor.

“Front one! Front one!” Sunny swung her lever action out, racking it as she went before putting one though the side of the middle wagon. A scream of pain came from behind it as the powerful round penetrated completely.

A follow up from Mister Peace tore the wagon asunder, sending the rest scurrying around. Up above, three anti-machine rifles unloaded toward him, forcing the machine to go into an evasive circling in the street, before turning back and opening up on the agile griffons. They dove gracefully in the air, separating to make smaller targets than one group.

“Just like Shackles said! Split up, take them!”

The griffon's voice was shocked, they hadn't expected Mister Peace. Yet it betrayed a horrible reality.

Shackles was still there, pre-empting everything I did. He had control of griffon squadrons now...Grindstone had been right, Shackles was on the rise of the ranks again.

That brought a horribly worrying thought. The higher he got, the more resources he had to stop us. Already I could see more slavers at the end of the road, rearmed and approaching again.

This was getting out of hand. We had to retreat.

“Peace! Cover us getting into the sewer!” I shouted, knowing he'd hear my voice.

He obeyed, surging through fire, using his body to cover our side as we moved toward the alley and-

Oh no...

I saw the street. With Peace busy protecting us, the last griffon had gotten back in the saddle of the front wagon. The one with our things.

It was taking off.

I'd forgotten that's why griffons sometimes went on wagons. They could fly materials around Filly if they were needed. A single slaver had gotten in the back wagon, providing the griffon cover to get off the ground.

I'd already given up on getting it for now, but that wasn't what made my heart sink. As the wagon lifted off the ground, passing by the buildings on this side, I saw a pony rush and leap through a window.

Unity.

Diving from an upper floor, she landed on the wagon, tackling the slaver in an effort to try and force the entire thing down. Was she crazy!?

As I watched, the wagon kept going, lifting higher...higher...out of all of our reaches. I could see my friends rushing to the sewers behind me. Sunny leapt down as an energy weapon sparked and set the dry timber into an instant flame that started to spread around the house.

We could escape.

Yet...Unity...

I tried to shout to everypony, but Brim, Coral and Sunny were out of reach. Only Glimmer and Protégé were still close enough, behind a desperately firing Mister Peace, trying to hold half a growing mass of guards by himself. He was making them reluctant to push in here.

No...no.

Beyond the flames burning in the house, I could see the wagon lifting up, like the hot fire sending scraps of paper floating on its heat off into the sky. I was watching her carried away in her brave attempt to rescue our only chance amongst this madness.

After all this I just...I just...

There was a moment, right then and there...that I felt something click.

My eyes refocused, watching the flames. Watching the paper. Anything light above it would rise...

It would lift...

A trembling came through me.

Looking upwards, I saw the construct right above this area...the crane.

With that, I made my decision...and galloped in the opposite direction.

Behind me, I heard Protégé and Glimmer shout to me. I simply took off, barging through the flimsy rotten wood surrounding the crane base. The shallow stairs ran in a spiral to raise up and toward the top, where operators would climb to work. Tall and thin, it led out to a huge crossbeam that loomed above me.

“Murky!? What are you doing? We have to get away and try to find where that wagon comes down!”

I stopped, glanced at them and just shook my head...

“We won't...”

I galloped off up the stairs. With a cry, Protégé leapt forward, chasing me up.

Round and round I climbed. The vertigo hitting me was intense as I saw the rooftops fall away, as I felt the wind make the crane sway and creak below me. Yet I didn't let myself stop. No, now was different.

The wind began to pick up as I went higher. The heat of the city ebbing away.

After all that had happened, had been revealed, I wasn't going to let Fillydelphia beat me again. Not this time. Not for her. She had saved me in so many ways and was still trying to save us by getting that orb.

I couldn't abandon her, not knowing what I knew now.

I came to the top, near the cab. A rusted platform that led past a set of controls to the huge beam. The moment I came to a stop, I felt Protégé leap on me from behind. Not an attack, but making sure I didn't move any further.

“Murk, stop! What are you thinking of doing!?”

Turning, I got my distance, casting him possibly the most mature expression I think I'd...well...ever made.

“I'm not letting this happen.”

The look on his face turned from worry to...to a more personal concern. He shifted closer, speaking very precisely and quickly.

“Listen, Murk...you're right!” He spoke quickly, a hoof on my shoulder, another on his chest. “I have been lost...so let me do this for you. Come with me! Act as my assistant again, we can get in and find her my way! Don't think I don't realise what you're planning...please, don't test this...”

I stared at him, before letting my head turn slowly. The wagon was moving slowly, swaying as something disturbed it...I could see it banking around. Below us came the sounds of fighting dying down...they hadn't seen us come up here. The others had escaped. Mister Peace was escorting them back into the sewers.

My gaze turned back to Protégé.

“You would do that?” I spoke while shaking my head. “You would fall right back into the same routine...just to try and make things right...”

“Murk, it's the safe way! The right way...”

“You want to go back to the way everything was. What are you even going to do!?”

I tried to move away from him, but his hoof held me back, I fought it, a brief struggle. Eventually, he let me go.

“You're going to kill yourself, Murk! YES! I'm going to go back to it! I have to! I have to try and stop all this! To help M-”

“Your master?” I interrupted. “And that makes you happy?”

“Murk, listen to me...”

“No...” I didn't shout it. There was a brief pause, up so high. The wind howled between us. “I know...you mean well. I know you have your things, but I can't do that anymore. Not after knowing what I know. After going through what I have and all it's cost me. I'm not going to play by the rules of Fillydelphia any longer.”

That shiver had returned. Again.

I realised what it was.

Anticipation.

“Murk...”

“Come with us, Protégé. Stick with Glimmer, she'll get you away. We can get out of here.”

I laid a hoof on either of his shoulders.

“Together.”

I couldn't delay longer, but I had to ask him. Yet as I looked in his eyes I only saw fear, before he shook his head and slowly pushed my hooves away.

“I'm sorry...” I felt unbearably sad for him. All I'd wanted to hear was him say he'd drop all this madness. Yet I couldn't force him. “If that's what you choose then, I hope it's what you want in the end. This place will only bring evil. It's all it's ever done, just breaking down good intentions.”

Behind him, the sound of hooves on metal gave way to an exhausted Glimmer joining us. She saw me standing there, near where the beam of the crane would go out. Saw the wind catching me and making my wings flutter.

She knew what was going through my mind.

As Protégé slowly stepped back, I turned and strode up onto the beam itself, snapping my goggles down.

My sister looked up at me, seeing me standing above them both.

“You're standing tall at last, lil'bro...”

She smiled sweetly. Her face hardened a little, around a grin.

Glimmerlight trusted me. She believed in me.

“Go get her.”

I took a deep breath, before sweeping around on my hooves, facing away from them toward the beam.

There, I felt a rush of clarity.

Limits...walls...chains...

They'd always been there.

Now before me I saw something else.

Open sky.

I could choose. I could go and do this.

Trembling, I closed my eyes briefly, I could remember her letter. Only now did I know what it meant. The true meaning this time.

“When the time comes to make a choice, whether to leap or not...you'll know what to do.”

I did.

Galloping forward, I ran down the beam of the crane. Passing out above Fillydelphia at such a height that it all felt so small. Ponies were like specks below between the numerous smoke stacks. I could almost see above the Wall itself. The whole city sprawled in every direction.

So I ran. I ran and ran, speeding up as I surged forward. I felt the wind pick up. My wings flared to either side as I saw the end of the beam approaching. Spreading their feathers and feeling every prick and twist of the air. A natural feeling, a pegasus feeling. For the first time in my life I felt like what I was!

I could do this.

I could do this!

I leapt.

My heart in my mouth, I left the edge of the beam into the open sky.

My wings caught the air, as I felt every bastion of safety disappear and leave me to the mercy of the winds. My eyes were locked on the wagon, a few hundred metres away. I swept forward, letting the air rush by me as my momentum carried me forward, gliding in a downward arc. The world began to move beneath me, the ground shifting faster and faster as the air tore at every part of me and swept past my wings in a shockingly firm way. I realised my legs were tucked in neatly, in a way I'd never thought about. Instinct had driven it!

I was so high up. Every inch of me was shaking with the clenched horror of how far from the safe ground I was. Shivering as much in fear as elation and wonder. The winds were so strong up here. The temperature so much colder. The feeling of isolation so great. Just me and the sky.

Elation and terror hurtled through my heart as I sped downward, angling toward the ground as I picked up speed more and more! Piercing through a pillar of smoke, I felt my wings aching with the strain being put on them. My height was lowering, my speed increasing tremendously, but I was still so high! The ground was so far away, making me breathe rapidly every time I thought about the distance I was flying over the city that had defined my life. Surging on my wings as they carried me forward until I was going faster than even Peace had been through Fillydelphia with street after street I'd have trudged through disappearing one after the other.

Yet always losing height.

But this time, before me, I saw my goal. My inspired plan.

Between me and the wagon that was arcing in the air across this part of the city there lay a massive funnel above the smelting pits. I could see the air shimmering, thick with heat.

I was the paper. it was the fire.

The moment my flightpath broke the edge of the funnel, I felt my wings yank me upwards in the rising warm air! Under my body as well, the burning heat prickled and stung my skin, but the adrenaline set me to cry in excitement as I felt myself lift!

LIFT!

With a growing roar of passing air in my ear, I soared upwards! My whole body angling toward the skies as I gained altitude and hurtled back upwards again! The rush it gave me was beyond anything. Beyond any drawing, any theft. I felt a sheer pleasure as the rising heat sent me flying out toward the wagon. I swept past a Pinkie balloon and its grinning face to see the full vista of the city below.

From up here, I could see it all. The rows and rows of ruined buildings punctuated by industry pulling out before me. The red and grey streaks of concrete and metal rising and falling with the glint of flames through it like staring into the coals of a campfire. A moment of cold clarity shot through me at where I was, away from the furnace below. How terrible and yet beautiful it felt to a pony who'd never flown before...

Within this mighty vista, flying below me, was the wagon.

I could see Unity in the back of it! She was grappling with the slaver, trying to hit him with something! The griffon in front was banking to either side. Squinting my eyes as I fought to concentrate and stay level, I tried to read where they'd go and let myself bank to the side. The motion tipped me over, throwing my balance off as the whole world inverted and I spiralled twice to the side before catching myself. I was at least going in the same direction as the wagon now, I just had to get closer!

My wings were so very sore, not used to this sort of use out of nowhere, but I felt elated enough to ignore it as I pursued the mare who'd helped me get through this city from the very start. Pulling my wings in; I dove and sent myself hurtling toward them. I saw the wagon turn, bringing it toward me! In it, I saw Unity's eyes go wide for a moment.

She'd seen me.

Seen me flying.

A sudden rush of air hit me from below. I'd stumbled over another chimney where the hot air blasted me off course. Crying out, breathing hard, I tried to correct myself, feeling very out of control for all the wonder of this first flight. Everything felt imbalanced, every hard surface felt like a potential death and the worry over getting down was plaguing my every thought. Only getting to the wagon was keeping me from freaking out in worry by now.

The wagon was slowly turning to the left, toward the abandoned quarter of the city. I could see Unity and the slaver's fight in the back were throwing off the griffon's flightpath with the rocking and sudden shifts in weight. I tried to turn that way, more softly letting myself spin to the side, before I felt a more controlled turn go with me.

Yes...yes, this I how to do it!

Suddenly, I was above the wagon again. The second jet of heat had pushed me way above it. I was headed in the same direction, but the griffon could change direction more fluidly ahead of me. I was approaching it too fast! The wagon was coming up too rapidly! I was too wide! I was going to miss it!

The griffon suddenly changed course. I saw the slaver suddenly snap back as Unity cracked him in the head with something. The weight of an unconscious pony falling onto the side sent the whole wagon twisting beyond what the griffon could correct. It sharply banked to the right again as I saw Unity grasping for a hold to avoid being thrown out.

I didn't have a choice. I hurled myself in that direction, spinning right around once in a stomach upsetting aerial tumble, almost feeling my wings lose their posture.

Then I saw the truth: I was going to miss. I had turned too sharply, I was going to fly past it and I'd never be able to turn well enough to get it again. I was so close! A moment of clarity as I saw Unity in the back, shouting something I couldn't hear over the rush of the wind to me. She had the saddlebags in her hooves.

She jumped.

The brief moment of realising that Unity was secretly insane was quickly overridden by the will to toss out my hooves and try to grab her.

There was a moment, a picture still moment, as she was diving from the out of control wagon, one hoof outstretched toward me and the other clutching the precious bag as I stretched to reach her from my flightpath. A moment where we both saw the fear on each other's faces.

Then I felt the warmth of another grasp hold of my hoof.

The weight tore me from the sky.

Unity was a small unicorn, but her extra body weight swung down and made me drop vertically. I spun, pulling her in toward my belly as I used my spin to wrap ourselves around one another. I heard us both screaming.

I couldn't see anything as we tumbled over and over, falling toward the ground from the air, from red to black over and over. My wings kept getting thrown out of position! I didn't know how to place them to recover from a falling spin!

I decided to just let go of my thoughts. Let instinct carry me. It had carried me this far.

Clutching Unity in tight, I tried to settle my panicked movements, and spread my wings with a cry of pain. The wind roared into them, and I held them as steady as I could. My body was being spun diagonally downward. I still had some forward momentum...I had to use it!

Throwing myself in the opposite direction of my spin, I felt something rebalance as the wind snatched us. We were still falling, but the glide was arcing out, becoming shallower and faster the further we went on.

“Can you land!?” Unity shouted into my ear, unnecessarily loud.

“I...I...you jumped! You jumped!”

“NOT THE ISSUE!” Unity broke all her quiet personality to scream it as we hurtled across Fillydelphia's skyline. The tops of the hard buildings were getting worryingly close. We passed between two smoke stacks.

I tried to spot any sort of rising heat! Anything to get some height again! There were some, but I couldn't resist the speed we were moving at to turn into them, not with a passenger. If I tried too hard the winds and air around me felt like they'd throw me out of control into the ground.

“Move left! MOVE LEFT!” Unity shouted again and I did as she asked, trying to curve us left as we almost collided with a scaffold structure. Slavers looked up in abject shock at what just soared past them.

Unity was doing something below me, trying to pull something out. I felt something poke my belly, something metal and hooked. I couldn't turn my head that far down to look, only hold on to her as she prepared whatever it was. I-WOAH!

I felt a sudden surge as we hit a wall of hot air. Burning pits below us cast a stench through my nostrils even as the heated air angled me upwards. I tried to spread out, with my wings wide, aiming to use it like a thicker bit of air to slow down. Briefly, the worry occurred that if I went too slow, we'd simply fall out the sky! Fast or slow? Where was the right amount? I didn’t know!

“Get near to something, Murky! Now!”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the tall square chimney of the refinery. I used the brief reprieve of height to arc toward it. I must have travelled halfway across Fillydelphia.

The building got closer...the ground got nearer...

“Unity...?”

There was no more heat around to get back up.

“Unity!”

Below me, I felt a sudden whoosh of air as something flew away. I saw my grapplegun's hook fire out and embed into the chimney.

After a few moments, the rope was pulled taut. I felt my momentum simply end. It took all the strength I had to hold on to Unity as she did the same around me. We both screamed like foals as we wound around the chimney again and again. The rough surface came closer, and I felt the metal of my saddle strike off it. A bright orange spark flew over it. We skidded off the wall a few times, knocking us around and around, but slowing us until I felt my back hit the wall and slide down it, slowly letting out the rope.

Close enough to the ground, it slipped from her grasp...and we fell.

The old wooden roof of an abandoned hut shattered below us, before I felt myself almost knocked entirely out by the final landing.

Then, under falling shards of wood and the heavy thumping of two hearts squeezed together, all was still.

Flying...

I'd...been flying...

I could feel somepony beside me, groaning and turning under one of my hooves.

My dizzied thoughts slowly collected, finding us lying in a dark hut, staring up at the clouds.

Wood fell around us slowly. Dust rose. The pain settled into my whole body.

The roar of the air was gone. The exhilaration replaced by a quickly dying high of fear, satisfaction and panic. My chest was thumping.

Yet all I could do was laugh.

I laughed loud. I laughed long. Of happiness. Of success. Even as I felt Unity quickly pull her bruised body over to me in worry, I simply laughed. I thrust my sore hooves to the air.

“You told me what I needed! You told me! To taste freedom!”

The very first thing Protégé had ever told me to get. Up there, able to go anywhere, do my own thing, make the choice to leap! I'd done it! Felt what it was like! To be truly at my own mercy, soaring free on the winds of the world! I...I knew! I knew!

I punched the air again and again, before simply grabbing Unity and squeezing her tight. I felt her return the favour.

“Murky...I...wow...”

“I tasted it! Freedom!”

I screamed it to the sky, an elation, a revelation like no other!

“I know what it feels like!”

Next Chapter: The Apprentice's Downfall Estimated time remaining: 15 Hours, 36 Minutes