Time had lost its meaning.

Tiberius awoke once more to darkness on all fronts, his body suffused with a dull agony that sapped at his vitality. Images from a half-remembered dream slipped through his mind, at once frighteningly vivid and frustratingly vague.

He had no recollection of how he had come to be locked within the null-chamber. All he could summon from his sub-consciousness was a few fleeting images of his defeat; Sombra's horde marching into the throne room, the sound of weapons clashing as the Celestial Guard engaged, a Daemon of violet fire savaging his flesh, and finally the perverse thrill of desire brought on by the witch's caress before he succumbed to exhaustion. After that there was nothing, only his dreams.

He was stood on a small disk of Megastructure six meters in diameter, a thin walkway connecting the disk to an access bulkhead that sat hidden by the shadows. The air was chill and there was little light in the chamber, save for the gentle heliotrope glow of his aethereal bindings which did little other than illuminate the immediate area. Four rings of the numbing energy secured his hooves to the floor, a further two locked around the base of his wings, forcing him to keep them unfurled to their fullest extent, whilst finally a sheath of the same power clung to his horn, neutralising his innate magical abilities.

For all intents and purposes, he had been rendered impotent.

He couldn't tell how long he'd been here, the null-chamber had been purposely designed to radiate an aura of permanent darkness with the intention of denying the occupant within any way of marking the passage of days. Deep within himself, Tiberius found the concept intimately terrible; the idea of an eternal existence defined by nothing but perpetual shadows causing an instinctual fear in him. The only events that punctuated the monotony being the dreams that awaited him whenever he slipped once more into unconsciousness.

They were different each time, some unintelligibly vast, others minute, confined to his senses. All inspired dread. His most recent had been one of the worst; he had been confined to his disk and rendered blind whilst forced to listen to the cries of his brothers as they were cut down one by one, Sombra's forces baying like Timber Wolves with each victory as the patriarch struggled to break free, to go to the aid of dying. The intimacy of each death, painted out in a canvas of audio stimulation, combined with his lack of sight, had sent his imagination reeling, spitting out terrifying and bloody images of destruction. It had only been at the end, when an unseen assailant had thrust a keening blade through his barrel that Tiberius had been released from his nightmare, though what he awoke to brought him little comfort.

Wisps of cyan energy crawled across his body, slowly reviving and restoring his shattered form. The healing process was the only factor that marked the passage of time, occasionally punctuating the stillness with needles of pain as broken bones were fused back together and desiccated wounds slowly knitted shut. Already much of the worst damage had been reversed. His ribs were once more whole, and he was able to stand with only mild discomfort. His muzzle had also been healed, reinflating like some macabre balloon, though the bruising had yet to die down. Internal stability had been restored and the bleeding staunched, but there was still a long, painful way to go yet.  

"You've returned, my dear."

His ears flicked upright, his body tensing. The voice was feminine, soft and gentle, yet marked with an insidious undercurrent of desire. Though he knew its bearer instantly, his dazed mind took a few seconds before he was able to reply in a hoarse, yet defiant tone.

"Witch..."

From the shadows that blanketed the walkway before him emerged Trixie, Sombra's witch. In the half-light of his bindings Tiberius could only make out the smudged outline of her silhouette about four meters away, petite and delicate, yet some part of him knew that she bore a lascivious grin as she looked upon her prize. The mare stepped forward into the light, confirming his suspicions; her eyes dancing with obvious glee.

"Now, now, my dear. Don't tax yourself with defiance, you're weak enough as it is." Trixie trotted closer, each step a balletic expression of grace. She moved with a sinuous dignity, her flank bobbing lightly with each step, sensual and tantalising. Tiberius felt a twitch run through his body, causing him to hiss as the sudden movement – the first he'd made since he'd passed out in the throne room – caused his partially healed wounds to rip open once more, thin trails of ultramarine fluid seeping from each tear in his skin. The witch's grin seemed to deepen, her tongue wetting her lips as she took a silent inhale, shivering at the scent of blood. She was much shorter than him, so short that he had to lower his head to look her in the eye.

"Why are you here?" Tiberius whispered, his teeth grit as each wound began to burn with a bone deep fire. The shame in his soul was already self-destructive enough, the humility of his failure to execute his duties weighing heavily on his mind; what more could they possibly want from him? Barely a day had he been patriarch and already he had brought shame upon himself, upon the Celestial Guard. What would Shining Armour think of him, what would Cadence? The thought was too much to bare. Trixie smiled at him before taking another step closer, the gap between them barely five feet.

"Your welfare is a priority of mine, as your death would be an... inconvenience to my research. I'm simply here to oversee your healing." Trixie's horn began to glow a bloody scarlet, the heavy amulet around her neck igniting with the same livid hue, casting a dull light over their surroundings. Tiberius felt a wave of invisible force wash over him, probing his body. An agonised groan passed his lips as he felt the force press into his wounds, aggravating the already dominating pain.

For several long, painful seconds the inspection continued, the force travelling the length of his body before retracting, taking the chance to perform one final stab into his wounds before it was gone, the worst of the pain with it. "You're doing well, much better than earlier." The bloody aura that surrounded the Pre-Equine dissolved, the shadows creeping forwards once more to reclaim what the light had taken. "I must admit, when they brought you in I was so very terrified that you would die."

"You've been... here... before?" Tiberius panted, wincing as residual bolts of pain twitched inside him.

"Oh, my dear, I never left your side. I've been watching, guiding your healing myself." With a flourish of her mane the witch closed the gap between them, raising one hoof to gently cup his bruised cheek. "Why else would your muzzle be in such a good condition? I wouldn't want any harm to come to such a beautiful specimen as yourself." The mare leaned in, planting a faint kiss upon his other cheek.

When the mare had placed her hoof upon his cheek, Tiberius had felt a disturbingly numbing sensation radiate from the point of contact, much like the effect the bindings generated yet stronger. However, when the mares lips ghosted across his skin he felt what little strength he had flow from his body. An electric flicker shot from the mares lips, tingling his cheek before sending a shiver run up his spine, causing his wings to twitch in perverse delight.

As in the throne room, the physical contact send a flurry of lewd thoughts and desires running through the patriarchs mind, conjuring images of a nature Tiberius had never experienced, but knew were of an intensely sexual nature; Trixie bent forward with her tail raised and core exposed. Himself mounting her, pushing the submissive mare to the ground as he rutted her. The mares cheeks flushed with an intense blush, panting and moaning in the sweetest cadence.          

Trixie pulled back, and the images vanished.

The patriarch was breathing hard, shallow gulps of air, wincing as the internal bruising in his barrel flared with each snort There was a heat beneath his skin, something raw and instinctual and as alien to him as the sensation of soil beneath his hooves. He closed his eyes, shaking his head loose from the mares hoof as he suppressed the images, forced them away to a place where they couldn't come back. A harsh blush stained his cheeks, stronger than roses.

"Oh my..." Trixie mused, giggling lightly to herself. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say someone was getting excited..."

"W-what black magic is this?" Tiberius managed, forcing the words from his mouth. The heat beneath his coat refused to die, perpetuating from one second to the next incessantly. He shook his head, heedless of the way the movement caused his bruising to flare, he had a much more pressing concern to deal with.

"Magic?" Trixie giggled once more, her cornflower tail slowly shifting left and right, rippling like liquid. "Tiberius, my dear, you don't know the half of it." Raising both hooves, Trixie seized Tiberius by both cheeks, forcing him to look her in the eye once more. "What you feel is simply your own instincts. True, I may have augmented their intensity, but in principle they remain your own impulses. What you're feeling is desire, patriarch, the lust that a stallion feels for a mare."

"Get the hell away from me."

"Hmm," Trixie mused thoughtfully, her eyes gazing into his before, without prior warning, she leaned in and kissed him. Tiberius didn't have time to react though even if he did he would still have been too weak to pull away from the mares surprisingly strong grip. Her lips met his, and once more he felt his vitality being sapped away. Trixie's lips were soft and gentle, their skin supple as velvet. For a few moments she held him in her embrace before deepening the kiss, her lips parting as her tongue pressed forward, with Tiberius being too weak to resist. Their appendages mingled, and flush of sensory stimulation rushing through the alicorn's mind.

Trixie tasted sweet, deliciously so. The air about her was pervaded with a thick, musky perfume, the scent of an excited mare. With each breath he took, Tiberius felt the scent diffuse into him, and felt his body respond in kind. From somewhere inside him, somewhere deep and primordial, a place of instinctual reaction, came an overwhelming drive to push back; to rise up, match, and then dominate the mare at her own game. It was this stallions instinct that made Tiberius push back against the kiss, his own tongue fighting hers, attempting to overcome and suppress even as she slipped from his grip.

Trixie giggled to herself, the motion translating into a faint vibration on her tongue. For a few moments longer she let the colt in her grasp play his game, letting him attempt to gain the upper hoof, before pulling away. Tiberius followed after her, leaning forwards a few inches before his restraints brought him to a sharp halt, briefly glowing a deep scarlet as they punished their charge for violating the area of confinement. With half-lidded eyes, Trixie watched the animal instinct within Tiberius rage for a second longer, driving him onwards, before the patriarchs more rational self reasserted its control and suppressed the urges. Her tail flicked from side to side in excitement, fanning the scent of her arousal.

Trixie found herself impressed, none of her specimens had ever exhibited such mental fortitude before.

On the other side, Tiberius felt a mixture of anger and shame swirl through his gut. What he had done was incomprehensible to his mind, the strength of the desire he'd felt completely overwhelming. These sensations were so alien to him, so strange and surreal. Never in his whole existence had such an animalistic fervour gripped him as it had just done. By ancient tradition every member the Celestial Guard was celibate, so as to better focus on their duty as the primary guardians of the royalty of Canterlot. There were some exceptions of course, Shining Armour had been bound to princess Cadence for over seven thousand years; nowhere in any of the royal edicts was it stated that the Celestial Guard were forbidden from pursuing more secular interests.

But for Tiberius, life and duty had always been synonymous. The product of selective breeding, his mother had been one of the most beautiful and elegant creatures to ever grace the face of Equestria, he'd been informed, whilst his father had served in the Celestial Guard for thousands of years. Tiberius had never known either of them, and never would; they would always be unknown ghosts to him, faint recollections of blurred forms at the back of his mind. Perhaps his father had been amongst the fallen, another of the corpses that had littered the throne room, bearing in his heart silent pride for the son he could never openly accept.

Now he would never know.  

Coming from such pedigree gene-stock as he did, Tiberius was the ideal warrior, gifted by heritage with strength and endurance, and raised to wield such abilities with instinctual skill and unyielding fortitude. Though it was clear that even armed with such gifts he had been no match for Sombra. Coming from such a background and charged with such duties, Tiberius had never even considered the concept of bonding with a mare, much less breeding one. To the patriarch life had revolved around the execution of orders and upholding the honour of the Celestial Guard. Only once, as a colt, had a mare ever caught his eye, but that had been so many years ago, and the memory of her had begun to decay; all he could recall of her was the scent of roses.

And now, this mare was dragging to the forefront of his mind the very instincts he had suppressed within himself. The heat under his coat had condensed into an inner sheen of molten fire, buried just beneath his coat and at complete odds with the pervasive chill of the null-chamber. Blood pumped through his body, his senses heightening. He was enveloped by the alluring fragrance of the mare before him, painfully aware of the particulates as they filtered into his system, pushing his dominant drive to yet further heights. He snorted, his breath steaming before his very eyes. Across from him, barely a few inches from his muzzle, Trixie monitored him with half-lidded orbs of violet, enticing and seductive.

One hoof still cupped his cheek.

"Tell me, Tiberius, do you know why I saved your life?"

"Ha!" Tiberius managed weakly. The embrace he had just shared with the mare had left him vulnerable, as if her very touch could sap the vitality from his soul. Even forming a reply was becoming difficult; he lacked the strength to push it from his lungs, and his mounting desire throw a haze up on his mind, making the formulation of any response a challenge. "Saved... my life? This isn't existence, being trapped in a... null-chamber for the rest of eternity." Trixie smiled warmly, completely at odds with the deviant glimmer in her eyes.

"Oh, resistance, so few of my specimens have ever put up a fight. Something tells me that you and I shall become much acquainted with each other, but for now humour a little filly, my dear. So tell me: do you know why I saved your life?"

"No."

A flush rising on her cheeks, Trixie leaned into Tiberius until her breath was tickling his ear, a few millimetres distant. "I saved you... because I wanted you." She closed the gap, taking the nip of his ear into her mouth and nibbling delicately on the soft flesh. Tiberius felt his legs weaken, and it was only the threat of punishment from his bindings that prevented him from collapsing to the ground. Instead, a hoarse, breathy moan leaked from his mouth, silent and submissive in comparison to his earlier aggression. "The moment I saw you, I knew I had to have you. It was the sight of you, so strong and beautiful, clad in gold; like an Angel of Faust." Trixie bit hard, Tiberius gasping from the sudden sensation, becoming aware of the unsettling fact that her teeth were unnaturally sharp.

The wound was minor, but deep enough for a small trail of ultramarine fluid to leak out. Moaning with delight Trixie began to suckle on the wound, her tongue lapping at the thin trail of blood. Tiberius breath caught in his throat; if what he'd felt earlier had been alien to him, what he was experiencing now was absolutely perverse. With each lick of Trixie soft, wet tongue, a thin needle of pain ran from his ear causing him to wince. Ordinarily he'd think nothing of it, but in conjunction with Trixie's physical contact each needle translated itself from a wincing pain to a deep twitch of pleasure. Once more a hoarse groan passed his lips, which only saved to spur the mare on.

"W-why..." he managed as Trixie took another bite into his ear, the trail of blood thickening slightly. "Why me?"

Retreating from the bleeding ear, Trixie took a moment to like her lips, wiping them clean of any staining fluid. Smirking with half-lidded eyes, she began to slowly circle Tiberius, her tail brushing against his muzzle as she passed, filling his senses with the thick musk of her desire. Circling round to beneath his wings, Trixie inspected the feathered pinion, her hoofs running across the downy feathers. "Once, there was a little filly who lived on a little farm, a farm far, far away at the base of a great city. That filly had few cares in life, save for her friends and her loving family." Trixie reached up, her hoof brushing against the feathers.

"And as the years passed that filly grew from a cute little foal into a budding young mare. She was the prettiest filly in her village, and all the colts would line up to watch her as she walked by. Then, one day, as that little filly was trotting home after a day out in the village, she passed a stallion on the road. A drunk stallion." Something about Trixie's demeanour changed, nothing physical; her ministrations on her captives wings retained their soft, petting embrace. But her voice... her voice seemed darker, haunted.

"The stallion knew who the filly was, and how she was the prettiest filly in the village. So, knowing there was nopony about to stop him, he grabbed the filly by her mane and dragged her into one of the fields. The filly struggled and cried and pleaded for the stallion to let go, but he kept dragging her until they were so far from the road and the village and the filly's farm that no one would be able to hear them. And then, he raped the pretty filly."

With a sudden, manic strength, Trixie gripped a feather in her hoof and tore it free, causing Tiberius to grunt sharply. Instinctually he tried to retract the wing, but his binding's wouldn't allow such a movement, and the null-chamber filled with a harsh scream and scarlet light as they punished the recalcitrant pony.

"He was much too big and heavy for the filly to kick off, and there was nothing she could do as he pushed her into the dirt and violated her. The filly screamed and cried but the stallion didn't listen, he just kept fucking her. In. Out. In. Out." Each word was punctuated by the faint ripping of another feather being pulled free, followed by a much louder scream; the two ponies bathed in bloody light.

"The filly felt so helpless, and had never been hurt so before , it felt like the stallion was ripping her apart. So she cried and cried until suddenly the stallion grunted, and quick as that it was all over. The filly felt something hot and sticky fill her up, and as the stallion climbed off her she felt it leak out of her, staining her beautiful body. The stallion stayed long enough to threaten the filly to never tell anyone, or he would come back and hurt her again. And the little filly promised not to through all her tears, before falling to the ground and crying some more."

"She cried and cried, and felt so scared and hurt that she never wanted to ever see another pony ever again. So she ran as far and fast as her young legs would carry her, until she reached a huge forest, and then she kept running. Things chased her, and monsters howled, but the filly never stopped, not until she reached an old castle deep in the forest, nothing more than broken towers and crumbled stone. Inside the filly went, wandering through old and decayed halls, followed by the castles ghosts, until she found a huge chamber with a chest inside."

"The chest was big an old, and on top of it was a warning to never open it. But the filly was young, and the chest seemed to old, so she opened it up and found inside a necklace. The filly had never worn jewellery before, her family were farmers and didn't have expensive things, and so she put it on, and the necklace made her feel pretty again. But the necklace did more than that, the necklace spoke to her, comforted her, and showed her why the stallion did what he had. That was when the filly learnt the weakness of colts and stallions, and how easy it was to bend and break them to her will, so that she would never have to feel helpless again."      

Trixie circled round to Tiberius' other wing, the previous object of her affections now ragged and worn, feathers covering the disk beneath it. "But that wasn't all the necklace taught the little filly. It reached into her soul, and saw the pain of what the stallion had done inside her; how she was pained to her core, and that's when it taught her the most valuable lesson of all..." Trixie reached up and began plucking feathers once more, though this time using a different technique. Unlike before, where she had ripped and torn the feathers loose with a savage violence, this time she prised each feather loose, pulling and teasing with disturbing delicacy; Tiberius was caught on a knife edge. Each feather plucked sent a twitch through his wing, triggering the reaction to retract it, but this time each pluck came slowly with surgical precision; enough to bear yet still painful.

He was forced to keep his wing held out as the mare worked, or else retract it and face discipline from his bindings.

Regardless, Trixie carried on. "The necklace showed the filly how pain and pleasure were so intertwined, how intrinsically linked they were, how at their greatest extremes there was no boundary between agony and ecstasy. Of course such a lesson couldn't simply be taught, and the necklace subjected the filly to sensations beyond endurance. But as the sun rose the next day, that very same foal left the castle. No longer a sweet and innocent filly, but a mare of instinct and passion." Plucking another feather, Trixie twirled the item in her hooves before taking in her magic. engulfed in a scarlet aura, the feather whisked through the air to beneath Tiberius' barrel, where it traced a trail of phantom sensation down his skin, causing the patriarch to shiver.

"I killed the stallion who raped me," Trixie stated bluntly, plucking away yet another feather. "I found him in a small cottage on a farm not too far from that of my family. All I had to do was wait until he went to sleep before I made my entrance. I bound him with my magic before I woke him up. The look that passed over his face, as if he'd seen a ghost. He was so pathetic when I cut him, crying like a foal as I slit his arteries and let him bleed out. That didn't stop him from engorging when I took his cock into my mouth though. The last thing he ever felt was my climax clenching around it, even as I drove the knife in my hooves through his heart." Another feather was plucked, Tiberius groaning as he felt a small part of his being torn away from him. Trixie was heedless.

"He was my first specimen, but he wasn't the last."    

"You... you monster... abomination..." Tiberius forced through grit teeth. His right wing, the first recipient of Trixie's affections, felt sore and brutalised, ultramarine blood dripping like rain from between ruffled, damaged feathers. He'd shed before, grooming was a daily ritual, but this was different from the slight itch he always felt when preening, this was bone deep, as if each feather removed was a discard piece of his soul. His left wing was not faring any better. Here the pain was more focussed, targeted at specific points along the pinion with clinical methodology. Trixie hummed appreciatively at the comment, plucking one final feather before slipping beneath his barrel and standing beneath his body, the tip of her horn poking at his flesh. She was so small that she was able to stand at full height beneath him without any discomfort, though it was quite the opposite for Tiberius, who grunted faintly as the unicorns fluted appendage nicked at his skin.

"After I was done, I thought the same of myself, my dear. When I climbed off that pathetic excuse of a stallion I couldn't believe what kind of suffering I had wrought with my own two hooves. The sickness I felt for my own existence was so wretched I even considered ending my own life. But as I held the blade against my throat I realised that, deep down in my soul, I had enjoyed making him suffer." The sheath around Tiberius' horn suddenly clenched around the ivory protrusion, forcing him to bend his neck until his head was nearly pressed against the floor. Trixie's muzzle came along side his, the mare nuzzling him in a perverse reflection of an affectionate embrace.

"You see, my dear, in this life there is only one difference between all ponies in Equestria, whether they are dominant or submissive. Many, yourself included, fail to see it, blinded as they are by concepts of equality and co-existence. It seems as if they actively go out of their way to prevent facing the truth, swearing oaths of fraternity and commemorating each other's acts, as if by sharing in mass exultation they ensure that none are superior. But the truth of the world still bleeds through; what the conscious cannot accept the sub-conscious will always act upon. Dominance and submission is intrinsic to existence, whether in a form as simple as a stallion taking a mare, or as complex as the formation of government. My lord Sombra understands this; he knows that the strong govern the weak by birth-right, it is simply a law of nature. Even you are a submissive, my dear. Dedicating your life to the service of your princess, throwing aside your own desires and hopes to accommodate those of one who is above you."

Purring to herself, Trixie stretched her body, her rump raised in the air and pressing against Tiberius's leg as she pushed her fore-legs forward. Tiberius could feel the heat radiating from between her hind-legs, invasively diffusing into his body. Trixie moaned appreciatively, wiggling her rump against him.

"It is this universal mandate that drive's me, Tiberius. It is what makes me the creature I am. That is why I saved your life, my dear, because I am a creature of impulse and passion, driven by my urges and the need to act upon them, and in you I have found the perfect specimen. One who is strong enough both mentally and physically to bear my affections, yet blessed with a natural disposition for submission. I trust that I will find you a most pleasing playmate."

Trixie pressed harder against Tiberius, bleeding warmth. The null-chamber seemed to have become even colder than before, the chill biting at his now exposed wings, nipping at the sensitive flesh beneath. In comparison Trixie's body was a furnace, radiating heat and vitality. Tiberius found himself breathing hard, his heart hammering in his barrel. Though he fought against what the mare was saying, tried to disregard the implication of her words, a small part of him understood the mare's perspective, and, most disturbingly, it agreed with her. The mare's ministrations hadn't eased the confusion in his mind; the splintering needles of pain in his ear, the soreness of his wings of his wings, both combined with the mare's touch and the burning heat he felt from between her legs, translating his bodies impulses into phantom undercurrents of masochistic pleasure. The pain in his ear a delightful lance that made him twitch, whilst the bone-deep ache in his wings caused a near-imperceptible moan to emanate from his lips.

Trixie smiled.

"Good, you're learning already." Emerging from beneath Tiberius, Trixie planted one parting kiss upon his muzzle. "In time I will teach you many secrets of the body, the many different ways in which to impart pain and pleasure and derive ecstasy from both. Until then rest, my dear, the path to true enlightenment is an difficult one, and you will require all your strength if you are to endure." Turning away, Trixie let her silken tail whisk across her captives muzzle, raising slightly as she departed to give him brief, tantalising glimpses of her core. Disappearing into the shadows, she spoke but once more as the exhausted and confused alicorn behind her succumbed to his dreams.

"I can't wait to get started."

≤ΘΘΘ≥

The barricade was little more than a palisade fence some two meters tall that circled the base of Canterlot, more used to delineate the boundary between the city and the surrounding farming communities rather than to actually provide any defence. On the inner side of the wall was a large mound of packed soil that allowed the guards to patrol along the ramparts, whilst each thick stake of timber had been sharpened into a crude, splintered point. Dotted along the length of the wall were several large gates, set at major junction points to provide optimum access to the city for arriving caravans of supplies. It was on the approach to one of these gates that Twilight found herself.

"So how does this work?" she asked as she watched Dash pull out a hoofful of folded and dog-eared papers from one of the inner pockets of her thick jacket. The cyan pegasus grunted in response, the cigarette in her mouth bobbing up and down as she fumbled to close her jacket back up again, lest she flash some unsuspecting passer-by or, Faust forbid, one the guards the numerous weapons she was carrying.

"We turn up, I show the guards our papers, you keep your fucking mouth shut, and then we're outta this shit-hole," Rainbow Dash replied, her wing flicking irritably at one of the innumerable flies that inhabited the shanty-town that was Ponyville. In the dark of the previous night Twilight had believed that the settlement was in rough shape, but in the sharp, breaching light of the noon sun she saw that her previous judgement had been a great understatement.

Above them, the rickety buildings and sagging tenant blocks had leant so close together that only a thin bar of light roughly a meter in width could push through, leaves the outer extremities of the street and the recessed doorways to the buildings swathed in shadow. More than once a half-caught flicker of motion at the corner of her eye and the faint, indiscernible outline of a blurred silhouette had caused her to twitch, though Dash never so much as batted an eye. It was only after she'd been spooked for the tenth time that morning that the pegasus deemed to comment.

"Calm the fuck down, Cutter. You want every low-life and two-bit mugger in this town to swarm us?" As ever the mares tone was nonchalant, bored even. Twilight turned to her companion to find that Dash was watching her with a faint expression of amusement.

"I think somepony's following us," she whispered, turning her head to look behind them. Once more she could make out little beyond the faint bar of sunlight that traced back along their path until the street veered abruptly to the left a few dozen meters back, blocking off anything else. Twilight wasn't exactly scared, the events of the preceding night had somewhat dulled her fear of dying, especially given how she had been chased by not only one, but two mutilated agents of the Celestial Levels across two zone boundaries, been shot at, engaged in a high speed car chase, a train shoot out, come face to face with a genuine alicorn killer, and forced to take an elevator with a half-dozen carts loaded with frozen corpses before crossing one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in Ponyville to collapse in a bed that felt like it had been made out of razorwire.

No, Twilight wasn't scared at all. But she still didn't fancy being knifed to death in some squalid back-alley for the few bits she kept in her saddlebags.    

"Of course somepony's following us, this is Ponyville! What the hell were you expecting? Bright sunny skies with ponies skipping and hugging whilst little foals go running around looking for their cutie marks? Cutter, this place is the lowest of the low, I've seen wasteland communities that are safer than Ponyville. Here you can get murdered for walkin' down the wrong side of the street!" Dash chuckled at the slight paling of Twilight's face. "So yeah, somepony's following us and probably waiting for the right time to strike, but you've got no need to worry."

"And why's that?" Twilight asked dryly.

"Because you're with me, retard. Nopony in this town fucks with Rainbow Dash!" The pegasus grinned broadly, chuckling to herself. "Except for this one mare I know in Cherry-Tree, she can fuck with me any time."

Twilight sighed.

Briefly, the tight enclosure of the street broadened out into a wide, open field of dirt and grass clods roughly a hundred meters wide. Here and there dotting the waste were small warehouses and storage bays, surrounded by busy traders and work teams loading up out-bound carts for the next leg of their journey, where-ever they were going. The road there were travelling on, little more than a trail of compact dirt about ten meters in diameter, threaded through the commotion up to the opposing gate, just visible through the tumult. The sudden surge in noise and activity compared to the hushed darkness of Ponyville's streets caused Twilight to falter for a moment, the sensory overload forcing her to come to a halt and take a few seconds to process it all.

Rainbow Dash continued on regardless.  

Trotting to catch back up, Twilight distractedly managed to keep pace, her eye caught by the bustling goings on of the depot. To their left stood a storage yard, a small central office in the centre of large expanse of earth, enclosed by a rickety fence. The yard was filled with stacks of crates and barrels covered by waterproof tarps to keep the worst of the weather away from the goods. Standing at the door was a work-team taking a brief rest from their labours, whilst from inside came voices raised in a heated argument over what sounded like commission rates. To their right was another work-lot, this time filled with an assortment of carts in varying states of repair, to one side of the enclosure were a group of sheds, each filled with a cart and repair team working away. Compared to the poverty-ridden lethargy of the settlement, this expanse seemed impossible industrialised .

"Impressive, isn't it," Rainbow Dash said from up front, veering to the side to allow a large wagon laden with timber logs to trundle past, drawn by a team of six burly stallions. "Most of Ponyville relies on the depot's for employment, either that or the sludge factories around the sewer outlets. Pony's from all over Equestria come here to trade their wares. Most of them are just from the farms and villages just outside the city, but a few of them will be from some faraway place. There might even be a few traders from Manehatten walking about, you never know."

"So how come we've got to leave the city before I can hook up with the traders Joe mentioned?" Twilight asked, dodging a porter who rudely jostled past here. It seemed that unlike in Geartown, where Dash had been able to part the crowd with a look, no one in the depot was even aware of their existence, going about their tasks with single-minded efficiency forcing the mares to duck and weave their way through an ever shifting maze of loud cries and sweating bodies.

"Because this is obviously the first place those Post-Equine fucks would send an agent if they were looking for someone who's trying to get out of the city. Come on, Cutter, you're smart. If Joe's gone through all the effort he has to set up your escape he's not going to fuck up at the last minute. Caravans leave from Ponyville every day, so it stands to reason that if someone wanted to leave this is where they'd come. Nobody would stop to think that someone who wanted to hook up with some traders would leave the city by hoof."  

"But what if the Celestial Levels calculated for that?"

"No extraction is easy, I'll be the first to admit that most of my job is just blind luck. Maybe one day fortune will prove to be the fickle bitch she is and give up on me, but she's done me well so far."

"Thanks, I feel so much better."

"Don't mention it."

Dodging another work team, the mares pushed their way through the crowd to reach the gate. One of the multiple entrances into the city, the palisade defence was flanked on either side by two tall watch-posts also constructed of timber. Compared to the hustle and bustle of the depot the area surrounding the gate was calm and well ordered, a small queue of carts and wagons lining up on either side to be let in. Guards dressed in the golden livery of Canterlot patrolled, ensuring compliance with the law and monitoring the flow of traffic. As each cart pulled up to the gate, the work-team hauling it had to stop and each pull out a small slip of paper, which one of the guards would inspect and clear whilst another checked on the cargo the wagon was carrying.

A smaller side gate was in use for the pedestrian traffic, currently unused. Though it wasn't uncommon for ponies to walk into the city, the majority of farming communities in the agricultural belt surrounding Canterlot were far enough away to ensure that such an excursion was always an undertaking, and never something performed lightly. Through the open gate came a soft breeze, not a chilling as the one that had blown across Ponyville the night before. As they arrived at the pedestrian gate a guard imposed himself between the two mares and the portal, his eyes fixed inquisitively upon them.

"Papers?" he asked in the soft, lilting tone that seemed to be the primary accent for ponies living around the base of the city. Dash passed the wad of folded documents she'd taken out earlier, standing in silence. The guard unfolded the paper, pocketing the two bits he found nestled inside without batting an eye. As he scanned the documents Twilight noted that he seemed to be a bit scrawny for a guard, his armour seemed to hang off him, and his helmet was so loose that it had been fixed into place with an impromptu buckle made of string. His only armament was a spear, as was that of the other guards, one of whom eyed the two mares from atop the palisade mound.

Briefly Twilight questioned the need for such security around the base of the city, even if it was only a formality. In its whole history Canterlot had never faced an external threat from beyond its borders; the great city of Equine kind had always been paramount in its strength. Nothing had ever emerged from beyond the borders of the Everfree, even the communities that tended to the fields lived in idyllic safety. But even as these thoughts turned in her mind Shining Armour's warning came back to her. Things were changing in Canterlot, the next great realignment was coming, and the potential ramifications of such an event would have lasting consequences for the whole of Equestria, not just Canterlot.

The mare looked back to the guard, who was now flicking to another paper. Had the colt ever used the weapon he carried? Furthermore did he even know how to use it? Perhaps the guard himself had never even considered such a thing, or even the whole of contingent. The weapons and armour they wore were ceremonial, simply a part of the job. There'd never been any need to know how to wield their weapons, how to act in formation; the chances of ever needing to were nigh-on zero. But perhaps if Shining Armour was right, and the world really was only a step away from plunging into chaos, what would happen then?

When the time came, would the defences of Canterlot hold?

Finishing his inspection, the guard refolded the papers and gave them back to Dash, who swiftly pocketed them before another official came over and realised they were cheap forgeries she'd bought with some spare change earlier that day. Twilight knew the whole act had been a sham, the stallion had been prepared to let them pass the moment he'd received his cut, but smiled sweetly anyway when he stepped to the side, allowing them passage. "Everythin' checks out, ya'll have a good day now and travel safe."

"Cheers," Dash replied, sparing him a nod before she stepped past. Twilight followed after her, pushing her glasses further up the bridge of her muzzle as the guard looked her way.

And then she had left Canterlot, it was as simple as that.

Beyond the palisade the breeze blew a little stronger, bringing with it the scents of wild-flowers, apple trees, and the faint rustling of wheat fields. The fields and pastures of the agricultural belt stretched for a full five leagues before reaching the border of the Everfree Forest, a riot of gold, green, and vibrant autumn red. Here and there were small farming communities, their buildings to small that the only way to pin-point their exact location was by the thin plumes of smoke rising from their chimneys. This was the breadbasket of Canterlot, an enormous ring of fertile land that had for generations fed the last city of Equine-kind.

The dirt road stretched on ahead of them, its path as straight as an arrows flight. Produce grew right up to the verge, hemming them in with walls of gold. The serenity of the place struck the unicorn as profoundly different to anything she'd ever experienced before. All her life Twilight had lived in a world of neon lights, growling cars, and screeching commuter trains. There were no parks up in Neon Heights, no open expanses that even came close to enormity of what lay before her. It suddenly hit her that, for the first time in her life, she was actually walking on the face of Equestria, not an artificial layer of concrete, but the soil of the world itself. She lifted a hoof, staring with awe at the granules of dirt that fell from it. Why it had taken her so long to realise she couldn't fathom, but now it was unlikely this was an experience she would ever be capable of forgetting.

"Cutter! Get your rump over here!" Rainbow Dash called back to her, the pegasus already some distance ahead of her.

Cantering back to her side, Twilight found herself distracted by almost everything around her. This world was so different from hers, so... organic. The way the wheat stalks rippled and bent in the breeze struck her as beautifully hypnotic, and as they continued on down the road she found herself falling behind more than once. Eventually, Dash chuckled openly. "Eeyup, I remember the first time I came out here too. Way, way back when I was a little filly, my mum used to bring me out here for flying lessons with some other foals from one of the villages. Man, those  were the days. Fasted in the group I was, zipping everywhere. I even won a few junior trophies too. Than some filly the next village over went missing and this guy turned up dead in his home. Really weird to, if I'm remembering it right he was raped whilst he was being killed. Mum didn't really bring me out here much after that."

That knocked Twilight from her reverie, the mare shaking her head to dislodge the unsettling image Rainbow Dash had placed there. Finally succeeding a few seconds than was comfortable she returned her attention to the road, and in turn her ultimate destination. "So now what? How far are you taking me before we reach the meeting point with Joe's traders?" Privately, Twilight hoped that there was still some way to go before she and Dash parted company. She hadn't known the mare for more than a day, and Dash was an expressed xenophobe, but Twilight still found herself somewhat attached to the pegasus. Perhaps it was Dash's brash confidence, or her gung-ho attitude to life, but Twilight felt like she was in good hooves when she was with the pegasus. Perhaps Joe had been right, and Twilight was now fairly certain of it herself; Dash really was the best extractor in the business.

"We've still got a fair way to go before we split up, no need to worry about that, Cutter." Dash raised a hoof, pointing just slightly to the left of the road. "We follow this road for about four leagues until we reach a village called Appaloosa where we'll be stopping for the night. The place is run by a stallion called Braeburn, he's Macintosh's cousin, and he'll give us a place to rest up. After that all we've gotta do it get through the Everfree and head through the Outzone just a little further before we reach the meeting point. Should take us another three days, two if we put the pace on. Oh, and don't ask me how the two are related; the apple family tree's got branches all over Equestria."

Three days.

That was all that was left between now and the true beginning of Twilight's journey into the unknown. Objectively, seventy two hours was still a long period of time, but inside the mare knew that the days would be sure to fly by. Already she had experienced so much that over the past nine years she wouldn't even have dreamt in her most ludicrous fantasies, and yet the clock was still ticking, winding down tick by tock towards her inevitable departure with unstoppable finality. What would it be like, she wondered, to see Canterlot, her home for both the past nine years and unknown life in the Levels, slowly disappearing over the horizon? What would it be like to walk in the red wasteland of the Outzone, to feel the gales of that bleak world whipping through her mane? There was so much about the world she had yet to experience, so many places to be visited and sights that had yet to be seen.

And yet, for all that she had been through, and all that she had yet to face, Twilight found that, deep in her soul, she was not afraid.

She was more ready than ever.

Next Chapter: X: Welcome to Appaloosa. Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 58 Minutes