Fallout Equestria: Redemption
Author: Cooperdawg
Chapter 16 – Unfamiliar Battlegrounds
“When you get knocked down, the hardest thing to do is to stand back up.”

Regret. That was the one thing that stuck in my mind when I woke the next morning. Regret at how I had misled so many ponies into thinking I was something I wasn’t. Regret at fooling myself into believing that fighting back was something that we were capable of doing. And mostly, regret at making so many believe that we could make a difference in the world.

I had been shown, beyond any doubt, that I was weak. Maybe not in body, otherwise I would have been killed long ago, and maybe not in mind, since I had fought off that creature in my mind for so long without letting it get the best of me. No, where I was truly weak was in spirit. One setback, one loss, and I became a broken shell of who I thought I was. I tried to believe that I was somepony tough, someone others had to be careful with. Now, I was learning how wrong I was.

Power was a relative thing. Out there, in the wasteland, I had held power because of my skill with a gun and the loyalty of my friends. But in here, I was nothing. I had no weapons, and the only ally I had was a blind zebra that still didn’t understand her place in the world. The ones with power were the ones that could easily kill us without any sort of repercussion. After all, slaves died all the time. What was one more?

“All right, maggots, on your hooves!” A slaver ordered from the door, unlocking it and swinging it open.

For a brief moment, I thought about staying where I was, and letting the slavers finally bring the farce that was my life to an end. As the other slaves shuffled out around me, I very nearly followed through with that plan, but something stopped me.

I forced myself to my hooves with a sigh. As bad as things were for me, my one motivation for everything I had done in life was to survive. It wasn’t in me to just give up like that.

I filed outside, slipping into line with the rest of the slaves. Yaari took her usual place beside me, and I could tell by her stance and the set of her jaw that she was angry. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why.

The slavers took stock of us, as they always did, making sure we were all there. It didn’t take long. It never did. As soon as they were finished, I slid into the file of ponies heading for the factory. Nopony had told me that I was doing a different job, so it was my assumption that I was working the smelter again. The lack of slavers yelling at me to go somewhere else only confirmed my belief.

Hemlock was already there by the time I arrived, pulling on his saddle bags in preparation to go collect the first load of scrap to be melted down. He shot me a hate-filled glare, but said nothing as he finished settling the bags on his back, then made his way down the passageway where the scrap pile was.

While he was gone, it was my job to go and collect the extra molds I would need to replace any broken ones. I needed to be quick, because there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he would start without me, then blame anything that went wrong on me. And anything that went wrong here would draw Scythe’s attention.

The day passed quickly with the repetition of the work. It was hard, but it wasn’t dangerous, not like a lot of the other jobs around here. The heat was harsh and uncomfortable, but the adjustments the maintenance mare had made lowered the rate at which the molds broke down, so I only had to replace about one in ten now, as opposed to the one in five I was doing the last time I’d been here. That small difference made it possible for me to avoid the heat for a longer period of time, enough so that by the time Hemlock needed to go collect more scrap, I didn’t even need one of the two healing potions I had.

My forelegs hurt from the heat, and I could feel blisters starting to form, but the pain was nothing compared to some of the injuries I had suffered. I shuddered slightly at the memory of a blunt axe crushing the barding on my back and making the armored scales bite into my flesh.

I shook my head to clear the memory out of my mind. I needed to be focused on the here and now. I had made the choice to survive, and that was exactly what I was going to do. I may be weak, and I may be worthless, but I was still a pony in my own right. That was reason enough to want to survive.

While I had the short break, I collected the broken molds and brought them to where they would be repaired for the next day. When I returned, I was surprised to see a pony wedged inside a panel on the side of the machine.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, galloping over and yanking the pony out. I couldn’t suppress a cry of surprise when the pony turned out to be the maintenance mare that had repaired the machine.

“Hey! A little warning would be nice!” she snapped, glaring at me while she lifted herself from the dirt and brushed herself off, “And to answer your question, I’m here making sure everything is working properly. That, and I needed to give you something, since you obviously haven’t followed my advice and found yourself a vest.” She reached into her saddlebags and pulled out something that looked vaguely like a heavily used pile of rags, then held it out to me.

It turned out to be a threadbare vest with a few outside pockets and one hidden on the inside. The dust and grime of the wasteland had turned it into a dirty brown color, leaving me no way of figuring out what color it had been originally.

I studied it critically for a few moments before shrugging and pulling it on. It wasn’t a perfect fit and hung loosely from my shoulders, but it would serve its purpose.

“Thanks,” I muttered, making my way to the conveyor and setting down the few new molds that I had picked up.

“I didn’t do it for you. I did it so you’d have something to use to carry those potions.”

Her comment made me stop short. She was still willing to help me, even if it was for her own selfish purpose. Even if she didn’t believe I would succeed, she was willing to risk herself in order to help me.

“Tell me honestly: do you think I can succeed?” I asked, looking back at the mare who was watching me with a questioning expression. It was the first time since Sythe had raped me that I had any thought towards still trying to get free.

“It doesn’t really matter what I think, does it? You’re still going to try regardless. If you want my personal opinion, I think you’re going to get yourself killed. Nopony stands up to Eulogy and gets away with it.”

“You’re probably right,” I muttered, falling silent for a few moments. Why had I thought I could succeed? In a place this large and this established, so many ponies had probably attempted to escape in the past, and I fully believed Eulogy when he told me that nopony had succeeded.

“Gah, why the hell did I think I could do this!” I exclaimed, kicking the molds and sending them scattering across the floor. The sudden movement awoke a multitude of aches and pains in my already sore body, but the outburst of emotion felt like it opened a dam somewhere inside me. Rage filled me, and I had the urge to run down the passages of this place until I stood before Scythe again. Except this time, I wouldn’t be the one being beaten down.

But none of that rage could change the truth. Any fight I put up would be hopeless. A pony like Scythe, I could probably beat. At the end of the day, he was just a brute, an enforcer. The real evil was Eulogy himself. So long as he was in charge, every possible attempt I would make at escaping would be met with defeat.

“What are you talking about?” the mare demanded, “You’re the one that insisted you could win. You’re the one that insisted Eulogy could be beaten. Why the sudden change of heart?”

“Because he’s stronger than any of us think! Look at me! Out there, in the wasteland, I was somepony. In here, I’m just another damn slave. I can’t fight, because if I try, a dozen different enforcers will just beat me to within an inch of my life. It’s dangerous to even think for myself.”

“Then you need to find a way to become stronger. Look, I’m not blind, and I’ve seen you with that zebra. It’s obvious the two of you know each other. Whatever it is that’s gotten into you hasn’t affected her, but she doesn’t have half the attitude or ability you do. If you abandon her, she’s going to get herself in trouble. And I’m going to be honest as well: before you walked into my shop asking for help, I thought that my life was over. But you saying that you could best Eulogy made me think that it just might be possible. That’s something no slave inside these walls has truly believed in a long time.”

I snorted in disbelief. “I’ve seen too much cruelty out there to put any stakes into hopes or beliefs. You think the slaves here have it bad? At least you get a meal and something to drink every day. I’ve seen first-hoof what the raiders out there are willing to do to others, and it isn’t something I would wish on my worst enemy.”

“It can’t be much worse than what Scythe did to you,” the mare snapped, “And I don’t care about how sorry you feel for yourself. You’re just another slave that he abused. In that regard, you’re nopony special. But suit yourself. My offer still stands. And Evergreen, keep this in mind: will you be able to live with yourself if something bad happens to that zebra because you felt too sorry for yourself to fight back?”

I watched in shocked silence as the mare turned her back on me and marched down the passageway and out of sight. I wanted to say something in return, something about how I at least survived what Scythe did to me, but I couldn’t make the words come. By the time I had finally worked up the nerve to speak, she was already gone.

I spent the rest of the work day lost in my own thoughts. A lot of what I had come to believe still had a lot of weight, but the maintenance mare’s words were sticking with me. How different was my experience than any other pony I had ever come across? How different was my experience from Sparks, the mare I had saved from some raiders not too long after getting kicked out of my own gang? No matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise, I had to admit that the mare had a point.

But that didn’t mean I could just shake the thought that I had been deluding myself. I had thought that I was invincible, that since I was fighting for something greater that I was somehow immune to the horrors that the wasteland was simply waiting to visit on us. It was now painfully obvious to me that I had been wrong, and truthfully, the fact had been staring me in the face for so long. After all, wasn’t my capture of Suture so long ago just about the same thing that was happening to me now?

The bell signifying the end of the workday rang suddenly, jarring me out of my reverie and back to the present. Somehow, I had managed to make it through the entire day without incurring any sort of serious injury or the attention of the taskmasters. Maybe my new approach to this was actually working.

Maybe I can use this to free myself. The thought was sudden, yet quiet. Just a few hours ago, it wouldn’t have occurred to me at all. I shook my head, driving it from my thoughts, still convinced that fighting wouldn’t accomplish anything. Survival was the only thing I could care about. All the same, I slid the two healing potions off the table and tucked them into the hidden pockets of my vest when Hemlock’s back was turned. It was surprising how snugly they fit, and as I moved around to test my movement with them on me, I found, to my amazement, that unless I really started jumping around, they wouldn’t move much. Whoever had put this vest together really knew what they were doing.

I felt no hesitation at hiding away both potions. I still had a few blisters on my forelegs, but nothing I needed a healing potion for. Tomorrow would be a different story, but then I would most likely only need one.

I couldn’t explain why I was stowing them away, but I knew it was with the intent to give to the maintenance mare. The only explanation I could give myself was that it was in the interest of protecting myself from the shock collar.

I trotted after Hemlock back to the slave pens, where we were swiftly shepherded back into our cage. The slavers here were nothing if not efficient. As I made my way into the pen, I noticed a new train of slaves being led into the camp. Like every other train of slaves, they appeared downtrodden and defeated. Most were bleeding from several wounds and were already emaciated from the lack of food.

Watching them, I felt a pang of guilt deep in my chest, a reminder of all the slave groups I had stopped before I wound up here myself. Even now, knowing that I was nopony special, I felt like I needed to try to help them somehow, but the thick metal bars and the slavers between me and them told me how hopeless that attempt would be. All I would accomplish would be getting myself killed.

The maintenance mare found me while I was lying in a corner of the pen, nursing my meager meal of centuries-old snack food and the irradiated muck the slavers considered water.

“You look different, like something finally breathed a little more life back into you,” she mused as she pushed her way past some of the other slaves to reach me.

“I’ve been thinking a lot,” I answered, taking a small bite of a snack cake. Eating it slower seemed to make it more filling, “And you had a point. I’m not different from anypony else. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s probably impossible to actually get out of here, though.”

“So you’re going to steal back that hope you gave some of us, then?” she asked me, taking a seat next to me and dropping her own meal in the dust before her.

“What do you mean, some of us?” I demanded, turning my head to glare at her, “Did you tell others what I wanted to do?”

“Of course,” she answered with a shrug, “There are a few ponies here that I’m willing to trust. If you’re smart, you’ll do the same. They made the same arguments I did, but stopped when I told them how serious you seemed. Are you telling me now that you’re taking all of that back?”

“Answer me this: How am I supposed to accomplish anything if every single one of my movements is watched so closely that I don’t have a single moment to myself? They have control over every small part of our lives in here, and I need time and space if I’m ever going to do something!”

“But you do want to?”

“Of course I fucking want to! Do you think I want to be a slave?” I snapped, “But these fuckers have shown me that I am nothing special. One fucking mistake, made in order to save my life, and I was reduced to nothing more than a sniveling coward.”

“Then it seems to me you’ve already made a step in the right direction,” the mare added with a smirk, “This morning, it seemed like you didn’t want to do anything if it put your survival at risk.”

“I still won’t,” I growled, “My life is all I have left. That bastard Eulogy took everything else from me.”

“But you’re willing to say you want more. Seems to me like all you need is to realize that some things are worth dying for.”

“Oh yeah? What’s so worthwhile for you?” I snapped. At this point, I just wanted the mare to go away and leave me alone. This conversation wasn’t accomplishing anything except pissing me off.

“Seeing Eulogy lose. I’d die if some of the other slaves here got to see him taken down a peg. Hell, I’d worship the pony that got the news of his failure out to the rest of the wasteland. When ponies realize someone can be beaten, that’s when they rally to you. If you get out of here, you’ll have that proof.”

She took the last bite of her meal, then stood up and started to walk away, not even looking back at me.

“Wait!” I called after her, standing and reaching out a hoof.

She paused and looked over her shoulder at me. “What? I don’t have a lot of time to spare for ponies that are willing to just lie here and wait for death.”

I quickly looked around, but our little corner of the pen seemed to be more or less ignored. All the same, I shifted my stance somewhat to guard what I was doing from any prying eyes. “Take these,” I whispered, reaching into my vest and pulling out the two potions, “I’ll have another one for you tomorrow.”

She stared at me for a few moments, as if debating whether or not to accept the potions. Her hard glare didn’t let up for a second, peeling away the façade I was so desperately trying to keep up. In the end, practicality won, as nopony would ever be insane enough to turn down a freely offered healing potion, slave or not.

“Don’t let me down,” she snapped, sliding the potions into her own vest before marching away.

Left alone for the night, there was little more I could do except think. About what the maintenance mare had told me, about what I thought of myself, and, most importantly, what I was going to do. The mare had made me realize that being raped was nothing special out here, and while I knew that fact from a logical point of view, I had made the mistake of thinking that I was somepony special, that terrible things would always happen to others, and never to myself.

Unfortunately, all the soul searching in Equestria wasn’t enough to make me feel like I could still win. But on the other hoof, I would never win if I didn’t start to fight. It was certainly a problem unlike any other I had ever faced. For now, at least, my only course was to wait and prepare. I needed eight more healing potions. That was when I have to truly decide what I wanted.
_________________________________ ______________________________

It took me only two weeks to collect the potions I had promised the maintenance mare. As soon as I handed her the last, she told me to let her know when I wanted her to disable my collar entirely. It had been two days since then, and I was no closer to deciding what I wanted.

Some days, I just wanted to break into one of the slaver areas and kill as many as possible before they finally overpowered me, but I knew that was going to be a total waste of energy. Other days, that depression that had settled over me after Scythe had raped me returned in full force, and it was all I could do to drag myself to my hooves in the morning.

I knew what choice I had to make; the struggle was in finally committing myself. I needed to get out of here, but I didn’t have a clue how I was going to do it. I’d spend a few sleepless nights wondering at everything I’d seen. During the days, I paid careful attention to my surroundings: where security was tightest, and where the slavers seemed to relax a bit more. Most of all, I looked for places that would give me an advantage against the slavers. I needed things that would distract them, scare them off, or at the very least confuse them. Without some sort of advantage, I was never going to get out, and worst of all, I was never going to be able to do it alone.

Unfortunately, Yaari was refusing to speak to me. For whatever reason, she was still holding a grudge from when I had told her off shortly after returning from the infirmary so long ago. It frightened me. The maintenance mare’s warning that she would get herself into trouble still echoed in my ears, and I was scared she was going to get herself hurt.

The day started like any other, with me being roused by the loud bells that rang every morning, like clockwork, forcing us to our hooves for another brush with death. The nearly three weeks I had spent within these walls had transformed me. Where I had once been well-built, I was now wiry and emaciated. I found myself becoming short of breath very easily, and I always seemed to have something in the back of my throat that no amount of coughing would dislodge.

As with every other day, we filed out of the pen to be counted before being sent off to our work places. Since my arrival, I had seen a dozen ponies arrive to join us, all to replace others that had died. The newest of these was a young Earth pony buck who hadn’t quite been broken by the journey to the Mill. I gave him a week to survive if he kept his attitude up.

Hemlock and I barely spoke any more. Our communication was usually limited to the occasional grunt in response to a barked order from the other. We spent the day focused on our work, maintaining civility towards each other only because a fight would draw the attention of the slavers; something we both wanted to avoid.

But that was where the day ceased being like any other. As the sky was dimming with the coming night, we heard several loud noises, like the collapse of a wooden frame and the sound of metal clanging against metal, coming from the slavers’ recreational area. These sounds were followed by the quick staccato of gunfire, and then a silence so profound I thought for a moment that all noise had been drained from the world.

“What the hell was that?” Hemlock demanded, turning to glare at me.

“Don’t ask me! I had nothing to do with it!” I snapped back.

“Don’t give me that shit. I’ve seen you and that maintenance mare talking. I’d be willing to bet that you caused that!”

“I’ve been here the whole day! How could I have possibly caused that! Besides, they were shooting at something. It could hardly be me!”

Hemlock fell silent for a few moments before replying. “Either way, something isn’t right here.”

Only a few minutes later, a slaver armed with an assault rifle appeared by our smelter. “To the courtyard, slaves. Eulogy’s orders,” he growled, motioning with the rifle barrel for us to start moving.

We did as ordered, as much as out of our own desire to see what was happening as the order to do so. When we finally reached the courtyard, I felt my heart leap into my throat. Lying in the center of the courtyard, beyond a loose ring of slaves, was the shape of a zebra. It could only be Yaari. Standing beside her was Eulogy, in his usual spotless clothing, this time in the form of a neatly pressed, black pre-war business suit. The tie he was wearing with it was blood-red, something I don’t think was done unconsciously. The only difference in his dress from the last time I had seen him was in the pistol holstered at his side.

As we came closer, I could see that the stones under Yaari were stained red, the result of multiple gunshot wounds to her legs and flanks. Thankfully, none of the injuries appeared to be too serious, and she should recover fully with medical attention.

I forced my way to the front of the circle, only ten feet way from where Yaari was lying. Her chest was still rising and falling as she breathed, which gave me a little comfort in the fact that she was still alive.

Eulogy had a cruel grimace on his face, the kind that made me believe that he wanted somepony to try something, simply so that he’d have the excuse to kill them. It was not the kind of expression that belonged to a sane pony.

Beyond the circle, smoke was still rising from the slaver’s rec area. The bar, and the wooden awning over it, had collapsed. I found myself hoping that a few slavers had been crushed underneath it.

“Now that you all are here, I can finally begin!” Eulogy announced, surveying all of us. “The only reason I called you all here from your tasks is to remind you of a simple fact: you exist at my mercy, and any action taken against me will be met with severe consequences.

This sad excuse of a zebra decided it would be wise to fight me, and she chose to do so by destroying something of mine. It seems that you all have forgotten that disobeying me is an unforgivable crime. I will remind you all of the consequences for defying me.

Faster than I could shout in protest, faster than I could act, faster even than I could think, Eulogy pulled his pistol and leveled it at Yaari’s head.

“This is the price of disobedience.” The echo of the pistol shot ingrained itself into my memory, burying itself so deep into my mind that I knew I would hear it every time I closed my eyes.

There was a lesson I learned many years ago, way back when I first joined the raider gang in the mountains south of Metro. The lesson was simple: Shock is often all you need to force a pony into action. The shock of something hitting a pony in the face is often enough to snap them back to reality, and was something I had used against Suture in Stable 60, when we had been under attack by feral ghouls.

That gunshot felt like a hard slap to my face. Watching Yaari’s body jerk as the bullet passed through her skull, spraying blood, bone, and bits of brain across the stones of the courtyard felt like a kick to the stomach.

This was the exact definition of shock, and by all the deeds ever done by the Princesses above, did it make me want to act. I had felt anger before, and rage was an emotion I was all too familiar with, but never before had I felt the need to physically tear a pony apart with my bare hooves.

Yaari and I had had our differences, but she had supported me and helped me where no other would, and that was a mark of a far greater personality than most ponies these days possessed. To see it snuffed out so casually, as a lesson to others, awakened a rage in me that I never thought I possessed.

But even more importantly, that gunshot changed something. With that one simple act, Eulogy had forced me into the position where fighting for my freedom was no longer a choice. It was now a demand.

Blood slowly flowed over the rough stone of the courtyard towards the circle of slaves. For me, it carried an accusation. It told me that this was the result of my inaction, but it also spurred me into realizing that I needed to snap myself back to the reality of the world. There were still ponies out there that were depending on me. Even if I didn’t want to, I owed it to them, if only to avenge Yaari’s death.

We were all led back to our pen and locked up for the night. I tracked down the maintenance mare, finding her in a corner with a few other ponies that I didn’t know.

“We need to talk. Now,” I demanded.

She looked up at me, shocked. After a few moments, she gave the slightest nod and followed me outside.

“I’m sorry, Evergreen. If I had known-,” she started, but I cut her off.

“I don’t want to hear it. Yaari got herself killed by being stupid. While that doesn’t mean I don’t care, it does mean that I can’t just sit on my ass any more. I need you to disable my collar. I’m leaving, tomorrow.”

“I can’t do it here! All the tools are in my workstation. You’ll have to find a reason to visit me there. But… you have a plan?”

“Not yet,” I admitted, “But I’ll think of something. I always have. Be ready for me tomorrow. I’ll be there as soon as I can find an excuse.”

I left her before she had a chance to respond. As I had said, I had to think of something.

The next morning found me still awake, lying in my small corner of the pen. Surprisingly, I wasn’t tired. My rage was keeping me fueled with energy, and my desire to kill was an incredible source of motivation to stay up, planning.

I had the skeleton of an idea for how to get out. All I needed now was a little bit of help, and I knew just who to ask.

Throughout the morning ritual, I behaved like nothing was out of the ordinary. Even after I reached the smelter with Hemlock, I did nothing to make him think anything had changed.

All the other slaves were noticeably more skittish today, though. Unsurprising, giving what had happened yesterday. As hardened as these slaves were to death, it still had to be a shock to see one of their own gunned down in cold blood before them.

But there was another advantage for me. With all the other slaves being so much more careful, the slavers wouldn’t be expecting any of us to try anything. In a way, Yaari’s death gave me the perfect opportunity to escape.

I waited until midday before I acted. When a damaged mold came through the smelter, I replaced it as I normally would, but instead of placing the damaged one off to the side as I normally would, I wedged it into the tracks of the conveyor belt, throwing it off course and bringing the entire things to a grinding halt.

“The fuck was that!” Hemlock shouted from his vantage point above me.

“No clue, but it looks like the belt was damaged,” I shouted back, “Shut the machine down! I’ll go down to maintenance and get somepony there to come up here to take a look.”

Before he could answer, I pocketed one of my healing potions and started trotting down the pathway towards the maintenance areas.

As I approached, the two guards that were stationed there stepped forward to stop me.

“What the hell are you doing here, slave?” one of them, a buff Earth pony buck armed with a sleek black pistil growled at me.

“Our machinery was damaged. I came down here to find somepony to fix it for us,” I answered quickly.

“Oh? And why should we care if a couple of you get punished for letting the machinery break?” the other asked. She was a unicorn, with a filthy peach hide. Strapped to her simple leather barding was a hunting rifle.

“Well, I was going to use this to pay one of them to fix it, but I suppose I could give it to you to let me in,” I offered, pulling out the healing potion from my vest.

I was gambling on the fact that I knew they had to pay for their potions. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be above taking from me. If they were, I was done for.

“Hmph. Fine, just make it quick,” the Earth pony grunted, swiping the potion from my hooves and returning to his table. The mare glared at me for a few more seconds, but retreated as well.

I hurried past them into the small office the maintenance ponies used. The mare was at her bench, working on some set of electronics whose purpose I couldn’t identify.

She turned her head as I got closer, but showed no sort of reaction on seeing me. “Problem with the smelter again?” she asked me. She glanced over at one of the other ponies in the office: a pale blue unicorn buck who I recognized as being a new slave.

“Yeah. The belt was thrown out of whack,” I answered, picking up on her hint, “We need it up and running as soon as possible.”

Come with me to the stock room then. I’ll need your help to carry the tools I need,” she said, picking up the electronics she was working on and walking past me and down a short hallway to a small storeroom. It was filled with crates and boxes. The few I could see that were open were filled with electrical components, scrap metal, and various kinds of tools and technology. Everything a skilled pony would need to fix anything.

“We only have a couple minutes to do this,” she said quickly once we were alone, “so hold still and try not to take deep breaths.”

I heard the sound of something being attached to my collar, just under my right ear, then a brief electric shock coursed through my body, making me gasp in pain.

“Fuck! What the hell was that?” I snapped, turning my head to glare at the mare.

“Side effect of the device. I need it to mask the signal from your collar if I don’t want it to blow up in my face while I do this. Now turn your damn head and let me work.”

A few moments later, I could feel the collar shifting against my neck, the spikes on its inside scraping painfully against my throat as it moved. After almost a minute of this, I heard a click, and I was free.

The maintenance mare let out a gasp of shock. “By the Princesses,” she breathed.

“What is it?” I demanded, the burst of joy at no longer having that damn thing around my neck stifled.

“Your throat… I’ve never seen anything that bad.”

“It’s just a few cuts. They’ll heal in time. Do what you need to do.”

“Right, give me a minute,” she answered quietly. Two minutes of tense silence followed, with only the occasional sound of metal scraping on metal or a small spark. Finally, she spoke again.

“Okay, it’s all done. It’s nothing more than a piece of metal now.” There was a pregnant pause. “If your deception is going to work, I’m going to need to put it back on.”

For a few moments, I considered telling her to leave it off. After all, if everything went as I hoped it would, I would be free. If I failed, it wouldn’t matter if I had it on or not. I’d be dead either way.

Unfortunately for me, my idea required fooling the slavers into thinking I was still under their control.

“Do it,” I growled, gritting my teeth against the pain I knew was about to come. As ready as I thought I was, the pain of those spikes digging back into my throat was much more intense than I had been prepared for. My vision very nearly blacked out for a few moments, and I found myself gasping for breath.

“You all right?” she asked me, a note of genuine concern in her voice.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” I gasped, forcing myself to bring my breathing back under control, “Listen, I need your help with one other thing.”

“What’s that?” The concern had now been replaced with wariness.

“You know that big neon sign over Eulogy’s place?” I asked. When she nodded, I continued, “If you could get to the control center for that stuff and overload it once you’re finished with the smelter, it will give me the distraction I need.”

“You have a plan then?”

“I wouldn’t call it a plan,” I mused with a grin, “but it’s certainly something.”

“You don’t have a plan, and you want to rope me into this?” she accused with a harsh glare.

“I figured that coming up with a plan would simply give them the opportunity to figure out that I was planning something. This way, it’s entirely unexpected. I just need the distraction to keep them from looking to closely,” I answered. I moved my head around a bit, trying to settle the collar back into place, but those brief minutes it had been off had made my entire body adjust to thinking it wasn’t coming back. Now it felt like the first time I had worn it again, except with the added pain of open wounds.

The mare shook her head at me. “You’re insane.”

“So you’re not going to help me?” I asked, a hard edge creeping into my voice.

“I didn’t say that. I said you were insane. In that case, you might just be crazy enough for this to work. But we’ve wasted enough time as it is. If I’m going to fix whatever you did to that smelter, we need to leave now.”

When we stepped out of the maintenance area, my spirits were significantly lifted. My rage was still there, simmering just beneath the surface, but now I was acting. The simple truth that I was doing something made the whole world seem clearer. All those questions that had been swirling around in my head had disappeared, and while I expected some of them to return in time, for now, I could focus, and that meant I could win my freedom.

When we reached the smelter, Hemlock was leaning against it, his eyes closed. Without it running, it wasn’t surprising that he didn’t have anything else to do.

“Wake up!” I snapped, shoving him aside to make space for the maintenance mare.

“What the fuck was that for?!” He was glaring at me from where he had stumbled, his eyes almost glowing with hatred.

“You were in the way, and she needs to get in there to fix this thing,” I retorted, “So just stay over there, out of the way.”

“You could have been a little more gentle,” he grumbled, “It’s hard enough to get decent sleep around here.”

I didn’t bother responding, but turned my attention to the mare, who was already checking the conveyor. “Well? How quickly can you get it running?”

She didn’t answer for a few moments as she inspected the damage. “Well, nothing seems too badly out of place. It shouldn’t take me too long to get it working again. Just give me a few minutes.”

While she worked, the tension in our small work area grew steadily thicker. I simply couldn’t shake the feeling that Hemlock knew something was up. The seconds dragged on into minutes, and with each passing moment, I became more sure of the fact that I would have to make sure that Hemlock wouldn’t tell anypony what I was up to once I was out of his sight.

I tried to occupy myself by pacing around the area, but all that did was draw the perverted male’s attention.

“Nervous about something, Evergreen?” he sneered, his voice taking on the tone he usually reserved for the more timid slave mares.

“I just want this thing to get fixed as quickly as possible. I don’t really relish the thought of us drawing Scythe’s attention,” I lied quickly. In all honesty, it was only a half-lie. I was terrified that our delay would make the slaver notice something.

“Relax. So long as we hit the quota, he won’t have anything to say to any of us.”

“There, all done!” the maintenance mare announced, breaking into our conversation, “So long as you don’t push this thing too hard, it should hold up for quite a while.” She started back for the passage towards the service areas, but not before pausing to give me a knowing look. I was going to have to move quickly.

Once she disappeared, I climbed up the scaffolding after Hemlock. “I’m going to run down to the salvage drop-off for a fresh batch of scrap. It looks like we’re running low.”

“That’s my job, Evergreen. If we’re running low, I’ll take care of it,” he answered shortly.

“You already do so much, Hemlock. I’m offering to help you out here,” I insisted. Both of us were now standing at the top of the scaffold, with the red maw of the smelter just past Hemlock.

“Why the hell would you want to help me?” he demanded, rounding on me, a suspicious glare twisting his features into an ugly caricature of what they should have been, “What the hell are you up to?”

I realized in that moment that nothing I could say was going to convince this buck to let me go. Silence reigned between us for several moments as I weighed my choices, but every trail of thought led to the same place: it was too much of a risk to let him live.

With a sigh, I decided to tell him the truth. “I’m getting out of here, Hemlock. You’re only chance at living right now is to just let me go and hold your tongue. If you try to stop me, I will kill you. I’ve done it before, and I am more than capable of doing it again.”

He stared at me in shocked silence, his jaw silently opening and closing as he struggled to find something to say. “Are you out of your fucking mind?!” he finally shouted, “You’re going to get us both killed! No! I’m not going to let you fucking do this! I’m not going to let you risk my life just cause you’re little friend got herself killed!”

“I already told you, Hemlock. If you try to stop me, you’re dead! So either you let me do what I want, or I kill you right here and now. It’s that fucking simple!” I shouted back, finally letting some small portion of the rage churning inside of me out.

A faintly familiar icy feeling was building in my chest. It had been so long that I had nearly forgotten it, but now that it had returned, I remembered exactly where I knew it from. It reminded me of long, wet days in a small camp to the south of Grovedale, nestled in the mountains, well out of the way of any common trails. It conjured images of cruelty, both needless and justified, as well as acts of pure sadism. It was the exact same thing I had felt every single day for more years than I cared to remember, while ponies died at my command, and cruelties committed by my wish.

So this is what it’s going to take, I thought to myself, with only a small amount of resignation. I need to revert back to what I despised about myself if I want to stand a chance of getting out of here.

I was strangely accepting of the realization. After so long trying to make up for my choices, after these last weeks of trying to make up for all the evils I had committed, I was surprised at how easily I was willing to turn back to those thoughts. I still didn’t want to kill him, not if he gave me a choice otherwise, but in that moment, I knew I wouldn’t shy away from it.

“You really think you can kill me, Evergreen? After how easily Scythe took you apart?” His mouth split in a crooked grin, “You really have a problem with delusions, don’t you?”

He was choosing death.

So be it.

I didn’t say anything in return. Any more words would be a waste. We were both set in our paths. All that was left was to decide which one of us would be able to continue. I launched myself forward, tackling him and crossing my forelegs over his neck in a headlock above the slave collar. I squeezed as hard as I could, managing to cut off his breath before he could let out a scream.

He fought me viciously, kicking at my head and sides, but his advantage of strength was countered by my leverage, skill, and position, and all of his efforts were ultimately futile. Ever so gradually, his protests slowed, and then finally stopped. I held on for another minute, making sure he wasn’t simply faking it.

When I finally let him go, his body slid limply from my grasp. His chest was no longer moving, and his eyes had taken on a glassy, distant stare. I took all of this in with a sense of detachment. His death was simply a necessity, and I would probably do worse before I was finally free.

I pushed his body to the edge of the scaffold until his legs were dangling over the smelter. “You got exactly what you asked for, you fucking asshole,” I growled before shoving him over. The smelter accepted his body with a loud hiss. To my ears, it sounded like it approved of the offer.

Now there was no turning back. Hemlock was dead, my collar was disabled, and in a few minutes, there was going to be a massive electrical overload that was going to draw the attention of most of the Mill. No matter what happened, I was set on this course.

I wasted no time in galloping down the passage I saw him take every time he went to collect fresh scrap. If I was lucky, the salvage team would be on its way to drop off a fresh load of scrap shortly. My plan was to use the distraction of the electrical overload to slip into their ranks and get outside the walls that way. One slaver was no threat to me. Not anymore.

The pathways steadily became more familiar the closer I got to the drop-off. Before I realized it, I was running down a hall that I clearly remembered from my brief work as a salvage collector.

My mind was so set on my course that I didn’t notice the shape of a large, fit pony come into view.

“What the hell are you doing out here, maggot!” The voice hit me like a hammer, making me scramble to a halt mid-stride. An icy dagger of fear threatened to make all of my rage drain away, but the memory of what had happened to Yaari, not to mention myself, kept that flame burning.

Ever so slowly, I turned to face him, the slaver I had feared to face for the last weeks, the one whose presence dominated my nightmares. Scythe.

“We need more scrap for the smelter. Hemlock sent me to collect it,” I answered swiftly adopting the stance and look I knew he expected to see from his slaves.

“Did he? Now why would he do that, when I very clearly assigned him to that job, and not you?” he asked me, taking a few steps towards me.

I instinctively backed away, keeping the moderate distance between us. “Sounds like something you should ask him. I’m just doing as I’m told.”

“No, you aren’t. Hemlock wouldn’t dare cross me. But you… you would, I think. That striped bitch was close to you, I think. You want revenge, don’t you?”

I took another few steps back. Maybe I had underestimated this massive slaver. If he knew that I had been friends with Yaari, he was much more observant than I thought, and that did not bode well. I already knew exactly how strong he was, and while I believed it was possible for me to beat him, it wasn’t something I wanted to put to the test.

Something in the way I moved, or the way I looked, must have tipped him off, because his expression changed from one of concern to one of surprise and anger. “No. You don’t want revenge. You’re trying to escape!”

“This doesn’t fucking concern you, Scythe. Just turn around and go back the way you came,” I growled, instantly doing away with the frightened slave farce, lowering my stance and glaring at him with as much hatred as I could muster.

“You are! Nopony escapes from the Mill! Didn’t you see that! That idiot stripe tried, and all it did was get her killed. Now it looks like I need to do the same to you,” he sneered, his voice taking on a threatening tone while his features stretched into a sadistic smile. He reached down and pulled his whip from his barding, “I think we need to have another lesson in discipline.”

“Just fucking try it. You don’t stand a chance against me, Scythe. Not anymore.”

He laughed. It was a sound completely devoid of any sort of humor or joy. It was the kind of sound that came from a psychopath after he cornered his most recent victim. “You haven’t got a clue what I’m capable of, maggot. You didn’t even see half of what I can do the last time we had this discussion.”

“That goes for both of us,” I growled, then darted forward.

He lashed out with the whip, I jumped to the side at the last second, letting it snap against the ground. Still, it had come far too close than I would have liked. The long weeks of malnourishment were really taking their roll on my body, making it more difficult to do something as simple as dodging. Instead of charging straight at him, which he obviously expected, I started circling around him. We would last out with the whip every few seconds, and every time I barely managed to get out of the way.

Fatigue quickly started to set in and I could feel my legs getting tired. In a fight of endurance, I didn’t stand a chance. He was healthy, while I hadn’t eaten a full meal in weeks. I continued to dart around him, staying just a few inches ahead of the whip. That’s when I saw it. On the other side of his barding, nestled against a foreleg, was a knife. If I could get close enough, and could get my mouth around its hilt, I would have a weapon.

His advantage was his strength. Mine was my speed, but the combination of fatigue and his whip were enough to almost take away whatever slim advantage that speed had. But I still had my rage. All it would take was a risk.

Scythe was becoming increasingly frustrated, the whip lashes coming at faster and faster intervals. His anger was making him predictable, and I was able to read his movements and avoid the attacks before he had even swung. I waited a few more seconds, taking a few steps towards him before jumping back again, trying to make him angrier, trying to make him slip up.

And then he did. In a fit of rage, he over-reached, sending the whip wide off to my left. I took the opportunity and charged, lowering my head and ramming into him with my shoulder before he could recover. He stumbled back, not losing his footing, but at this range, the whip was useless.

I struck again, hitting him in the head with a forehoof. His head snapped to the side with the blow, moving the whip away from me, and briefly exposing his left side, where the knife was. I stepped to the side and attacked again, rearing up and driving both hooves into where his shoulder connected to his neck, but he was ready for this one. He moved with the attack, giving himself just enough space to bring the whip back into play.

With a swing of his head, the whip lashed towards me. I twisted, shouting in pain as the barbs ripped through the back of my vest as if it wasn’t even there and cut into the flesh on my back. It was painful, but it didn’t take me out of the fight.

Before he could pull the whip back, I turned towards him, wrenching the whip to the side and forcing his head to twist. He tried to pull back, but I lashed out with a hoof, not at him, but at the whip still trailing over me. I quickly wrapped it once around my hoof and pulled. As I had hoped, he wasn’t able to keep his grip on it and the whip was torn from his mouth,

I took a step forward and hit him with my whip-wrapped hoof, drawing blood along his face and neck where I hit. His cry of pain made the agony in my back and on my hoof worth it.

My only hope was to keep attacking, not giving the bastard a chance to recover and strike back. I had a weapon now. Despite the pain, it would have to be enough.

I landed blow after blow on Scythe’s head and neck, drawing fresh blood with every single attack, but somehow, he remained standing. When I swung again, one of his hooves came up, stopping me short, and he turned his head to look at me. The sadistic smile had returned.

“My turn.” His head came down, slamming against mine, sending me stumbling back as stars exploded in my vision.

I tried to ready myself for another blow to the head, but instead, I felt my legs get swept out from under me. I landed hard enough to knock the wind from my lungs, and before I could recover, a kick struck me in the gut, making me retch. Another kick landed, but I wrapped myself around this one, holding on to Scythe’s leg so he couldn’t pull back again, and rolled into him.

At first, his leg resisted the movement, but then something gave, and with a pained scream Scythe collapsed on top of me. I released his leg and pushed myself up, forcing him up and off of me.

He stayed down behind me as I scrambled to my hooves, wheezing as I tried to recover my breath. When I turned to face him, he was struggling to stand, but I had dislocated his left shoulder. Not a crippling injury, but severe enough that it gave me a distinct advantage.

Before he had a chance to recover, I charged him again, landing a kick to his injured leg that sent him reeling, then another to his head. Finally finding my chance, I darted in for the knife, using my body to keep him from grabbing me. Scythe made a half-hearted attempt to stop me, but I had managed to position myself so he couldn’t get a solid blow.

The knife slid easily from its sheath, and I backed away, holding it in front of me. Scythe was glaring at me, murder in his eyes. I stood my ground, waiting. He finally managed to drag himself to his hooves, his broken leg held up off the ground.

“I’m going to gut you, maggot,” he spat at me, spraying spittle mixed with blood from a broken tooth everywhere.

“Not this time Scythe. This time, I win.” I strode forward, not in a charge, but in a casual approach. I had beaten him, and I knew it. There was no way he’d be able to beat me now, not with a broken leg.

“Do you really think you’re going to get away with this? You’re not the first one to try and escape! Eulogy has stopped them all, and he will stop you!”

“Too bad he doesn’t know what I’m trying,” I answered as I circled around to his injured side. My opening was right… there!

I darted in, striking Scythe in the side with the knife, ripping open a large cut in his side. He howled in pain and fell, blood flowing freely from the wound.

“And this… this is revenge,” I growled. I kicked him in the head, enough to daze him and let me attack without threat of him fighting back. Then I buried the knife up to the hilt in his throat and twisted. Blood started gushing from the terrible wound, and his protests were cut off as he started to drown in his own gore. For the first time, I saw his eyes fill with something other than rage. For the first time, I saw one of these damned slavers show fear.

I turned around and left him. Bastards like him didn’t deserve mercy, and I would certainly not be the one to show it, not anymore. The knife I left wedged in his throat would preserve his suffering for as long as possible, a thought I drew no small amount of pleasure from. I had learned something in these last few days. I learned that being cruel and malicious was no way to live, but neither was trying to live every day without hurting somepony. The only real way to survive was to be hard, but forgiving. I would still sacrifice myself for my friends, but anypony that got in my way would soon learn that I was not about to show mercy, simply because I didn’t want to hurt them. Death was a simple fact, and everypony had the opportunity to avoid it in a fight. If they chose to attack me, then I would be more than happy to fight back.

I had to move quickly. With all the noise our fight had caused, somepony had surely heard. If I could make it to the scrap area quickly, and the maintenance mare came through with the distraction, I might still be able to get away before somepony came looking.

To my good fortune, there were a lot of ponies milling around the scrap heap when I arrived. It looked like a group of slaves had just returned from the crater and were depositing their loads into the pile.

As I approached them, a sound unlike any other I had ever heard tore through the Mill. It started off like a low whine, just at the edge of hearing, but became steadily louder until something popped loudly, followed by the sound of glass shattering. The sound could only mean one thing: maintenance mare had come through for me and overloaded the electrical system to Eulogy’s sign.

The slaves dropping off their scrap were looking around in surprise, trying to find the source of the noise, but soon turned their attention back to the job at hand. Delaying too long was an excuse to get whipped, but they had delayed long enough to allow me to slip into their ranks unnoticed.

I followed them through the corridors and out into the main courtyard. Slavers were gathering by the gate into the slaver’s area, watching Eulogy’s building with expressions of shock. The bright neon sign had practically exploded and was now burning multicolored flames. In the confusion, nopony noticed that the slaves filing through the gates had an extra member.

We arrived at the shack at the edge of the crater, where the same dirty slaver that had been in charge of the group on my first day as a slave was waiting.

“Took you maggots long enough! Get in there and get back to work!” he shouted.

I started by walking along with the other slaves, but stepped out of line as we passed the slaver.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing slave? Wait a minute… You’re not supposed to be here!”

“Nope,” I agreed with a smile, then lunged at him. He tried to pull a pistol from his barding, but he was too slow. I collided with him and wrapped my hooves around his neck, twisting to get his mouth away from the weapon, then swept his legs out from under him.

We landed heavily on the ground, with me on top. I used my Pipbuck as a weapon, bringing it down on his head, again and again, until I felt something give. When I finally stopped, he lay motionless, his skull smashed in, and his features almost unrecognizable.

I pushed myself to my hooves before I started going through his barding. The pistol was a simple 9mm, a weak weapon against any serious enemy, but good enough for my purposes. It felt good to have a weapon again.

When I finally turned my attention back to the others, they were all staring at me in shock, jaws open wide.

“What did you just do?” one of them, a young unicorn mare, asked, “We’re going to get in so much trouble.”

“I just secured my freedom,” I answered. The rest of you need to lie low and out of sight. Help is coming, I promise.”

With that, I turned and ran, out into the Wasteland. It was the first time in months I was able to truly stretch myself out, and while my legs hurt from the exertion, I was very nearly smiling. My plan had worked. I was free.

A gunshot rang throughout the wasteland, but there was nothing to show where it had come from, or where it was aimed. There was no doubt in my mind that I was the target. My escape been too easy, and I knew it. Now the pursuit was on. It was me against Celestia knew how many slavers. They had every advantage, but I had my determination to survive.

By now, they had probably figured out that my collar was disabled, but I had enough of a head start that they shouldn’t be able to easily catch me. They were simply taking potshots, hoping to get lucky. I just needed a little more time, and I could lose myself in the hills outside of the mill. If I was lucky, I’d be able to make my way into the mountains, and from there, I could make my way back to Grovedale, and then Metro.

I put on another burst of speed. Every atom of my body was screaming at me to stop, and my lungs were burning as I wheezed for breath, but I did not let my pace slow. I needed every small advantage I could get, and that meant maintaining as much of my lead as possible.

Every so often, I’d see a red bar appear in my E.F.S., but it would just as soon disappear. Whether or not they were ponies, mole rats, or something else entirely never crossed my mind. I simply kept running.

A fresh flurry of gunshots peppered the ground around me as I finally rounded the turn in the trail that took me behind a hillside, and so broke the slavers line of sight. I finally allowed my pace to slow, but only enough for me to be able to see where I was placing my hooves. A misstep here could easily result in a twisted ankle, and then I could kiss my hopes for escape goodbye.

A few minutes later, I was finally in the hill country itself, where the rolling plain gave way to rocky crags and desolate hillsides. I left the trail at the first opportunity, trusting in the map on my Pipbuck to get me where I wanted to go, and set off deeper into the hills. After a time, I started to hear shouts, but they were faint and indistinct. In all truth, they were probably echoes from the slavers that had finally entered the hills after me.

With each passing minute, I felt more secure. I was still in grave danger, but I had put some distance between myself and them, and none of them had a Pipbuck they could use to track me. All the same, I started taking extra careful steps. Instead of taking what looked like the easiest path, I chose the hardest. It was easily one of the most difficult days of travel I’d ever suffered, but it was unlikely that the slavers had any clue which direction I had taken.

Somehow, I kept myself moving for the entire day. I had managed to make it through the hill country and up into the lower peaks of the mountain range. It was probably the farthest any escaping slave had ever made it.

It wasn’t until the sky was beginning to darken with the setting sun that I started looking for somewhere to rest. I finally settled on a small crevice in a mountainside that would shield me from sight from almost any direction, while also providing a little protection from the weather.

Thankfully, the rain had picked up from a steady drizzle to a deluge, dampening any sounds and making it difficult to see any distance, not to mention the fact that it would erase any trace of my passing. With luck, the slavers wouldn’t be able to find me.

I made myself as comfortable as possible as I settled down to wait out the night. My expectation was to remain alert all night, listening for any sound, but the run had taken more out of me than I thought, and I was soon drifting off to sleep.

The sound of shifting rock woke me some time later. I was instantly awake, ears perked for any other sound. What I heard might have been hoofsteps just outside my crevice, but I couldn’t be sure. It wasn’t until I heard a familiar voice that I realized how much danger I was in.

“Where the fuck could she have gone? Eulogy is going to throw a fit if we don’t find her,” the pony was muttering. I hadn’t heard Volt’s voice in a while, but it wasn’t a voice I forgot easily, especially after what she had forced me to do. I still remembered that buck she had murdered on the day I had first arrived at the Mill, after offering him a chance at salvation if I tried to save his life.

Ever so carefully, I shifted myself around and crawled as silently as possible out of the crevice. I followed the sound of the voice and finally caught sight of the still-green bar on my E.F.S.

“She can’t have gone too far. For fuck’s sake, she’s a Princesses-damned slave! How the hell did she even manage to kill Scythe?”

I approached carefully, keeping an eye on my E.F.S., but it looked like Volt was the only pony out here. As I neared the ridge that separated us, I pulled out my pistol. It was old, rusty, and in terrible condition, but it would do the job I needed.

“Pipbuck broken?” I called out, stepping over the ridge and trotting towards her, pistol held ready, “Any idiot with one would have been able to find me with their E.F.S.”

She turned on the spot to face me, her expression shifting to one of shock. “Big mistake, bitch. You’re dead now.” She lifted her Pipbuck and hit a button on it.

Her expression slowly changed to one of confusion when I didn’t react. “That’s not going to work this time, Volt. This time, I’m the one in control. You don’t have any fancy remotes or electronics to knock me out anymore. And for the record, I do not intend to get captured again.”

“Good, because our orders are to kill!” the slaver snapped as she levitated out her weapon, a wicked looking black pistol.

I slipped into S.A.T.S., relishing the chance to finally use the system again, and took my time analyzing the situation. My Pipbuck was telling me that her weapon was an upgraded .45 repeating pistol, a nasty enough weapon on its own. It was certainly not something I wanted to get hit by, but it would also serve as a valuable replacement to the shitty 9mm I had.

More importantly, the system confirmed that Volt was alone, which meant that killing her would gain me an even more significant lead, not to mention my own revenge. I lined up my first shot to hit her in her left foreleg, the one with the holster for her pistol. The second shot I aimed at her other leg. After another few moments of double-checking my accuracy, I activated the systems.

The 9mm fired, and I very nearly got a high from the familiar feeling of recoil against my jaw. Both shots flew true, knocking the slaver down with a cry of pain. Her pistol went flying to clatter a few dozen yards down the mountainside. I’d collect it once I was done with Volt.

“All of you slavers are weak,” I growled, advancing on the bleeding mare. As with Scythe, her face was completely devoid of any sign of anger or superiority. All that was left was fear. “You think you have power over us, but the second one of us stands up, you go running in terror. Scythe thought he held me under his control, but look how far that got him. Do you want to know the best part though? He was easy to kill.”

Volt was now trying to back away from me, scrabbling against the ground with her hindlegs, dragging the useless forelimbs after her. I fired another round, hitting her in her left hindleg, eliciting another shriek of pain.

“You’re fucking insane! I thought you were supposed to be some sort of Heroine out here! Since when do heroes fucking torture ponies!” she screamed, but it was a scream of pain.

“I never gave myself that title. That was Shooting Star. Truth is: I’m just a pony willing to do whatever’s necessary to get the life I want. Unfortunately for ponies like you, that includes getting rid of all the self-important fucks that think it’s okay to go around destroying the lives of others. As for me torturing you, I’m only doing it to give you a taste of what you’ve been doing to others for so many years.”

“Look, Evergreen, I can be reasonable! I’ll go back to Eulogy and tell him we lost the trail! He won’t be happy, but you’ll be able to get away!”

Just like every other useless sack of shit: she turned to begging when she knew I intended to kill her.

“No, Volt, you aren’t reasonable. You’re a sick, twisted mare that enjoys watching other ponies writhe in pain. Besides, killing you gives me a greater lead on your friends anyway.”

“Come on, you don’t mean that! How does killing me possibly help you!”

“It helps me by letting me possibly forgive myself for letting you kill that buck. If I kill you, how many ponies’ lives will be avenged? It’s the least I can do for them!”

Her eyes widened in sheer terror and she redoubled her efforts to try to get away from me. I strode forward again and stepped down hard on her one uninjured leg.

She tried to pull out from under me, but the bullet wounds had sapped her of her strength. Throughout the entire struggle, she didn’t once turn her head from me, a fact for which I was happy. I wanted her to see a slave kill her. I lifted the pistol and settled the barrel against her forehead, right at the base of her horn.

“This is for all of them,” I whispered, then pulled the trigger.

Blood sprayed my face as Volt went limp beneath me. I spat the 9mm out and started stripping her body.

Her saddlebags were filled with various junk that I dumped beside her body. Most of it was food and water, with a few random pieces of less useful scrap. Her ammunition I found stored in a series of straps in her vest along her right foreleg. In the end, I filled the saddlebags with all of her ammunition, food, water, and the few medical supplies she had, except for a single dose of Med-X that I injected to ease my sore muscles.

With the drug coursing through my veins granting me a second wind, I descended the mountainside in search of Volt’s weapon, which I finally found nestled amongst a pile of rocks. It had survived the fall with only a few scratches marring the finish. I took a few minutes to check the slide and ammo feed, but found nothing out of the ordinary. Overall, it was an impressive weapon. It would serve until I got back to civilization where I could restock my personal armory.

I slid the weapon into the holster I had lifted off Volt, then set off into the mountains. A quick study of my map revealed that I was only a couple of days travel outside of Grovedale. Sure, Just Law had banned me from the town, but I hoped that even he would make an exception for a pony escaping from slavery. If nothing else, at least I would be familiar with the land.

The going was rough, especially since I still hadn’t fully recovered from my flight just a few hours before. My one advantage was that it seemed like the slavers had spread themselves out thinly, which meant they had no clue where I was, or in what direction I was going. Throughout the entire day, I didn’t spot a single shred of evidence that I was still being followed, but I was not going to believe I was safe until I was reunited with my friends.

The only close call came when I was finally nearing a familiar part of the mountains, near where my old raider camp had been. A red bar appeared on my E.F.S., so I hid myself in a small cluster of boulders, keeping the rock between me and the bar. There was nothing to tell me if it belonged to a pony, manticore, or something even angrier, but the simple fact that it was hostile was enough of a reason for me to stay as far from it as possible.

After twenty minutes of tense silence, the bar disappeared. I spent the next hour keeping as low a profile as possible while I traveled. The E.F.S. was an impressive and useful piece of technology, but a pony’s ears could reach farther than it could. If that bar had belonged to something else with even better hearing, I most definitely did not want to draw its attention.

I had vowed never to return to that raider camp. It held so many terrible memories of times when I had despised everything about life, memories that were ingrained in the very bedrock of the mountains, but I had never considered at the time that I would be escaping slavery along this route. The sad truth was that it was the best shelter for miles in any direction.

The outer gate was still stuck open when I arrived a few hours later. That meant one of two things. Either the place had remained abandoned for the last weeks, or whoever was living here now hadn’t been able to get the motor working again. My E.F.S. was blank, but I never relied exclusively on technology.

It took me nearly an hour to explore the camp in its entirety, and the only evidence I found that anypony had been here were a few empty Dash canisters scattered on the floor in Heart Attack’s old shack. At least a small group of junkies was better than an entire band of raiders.

Finally convinced that the camp was empty, I settled down in my old RV. Even after all this time, I was surprised at how comfortable I felt lying down on those old, familiar pallets. After the last two days of running, sleep claimed me within minutes of lying down.

I woke early the next morning. A survey of the camp revealed nothing threatening. It was starting to look like I had actually slipped the net and was going to make it out, but that didn’t mean I was going to let down my guard. Grovedale was only a few hours away from the camp, but the last stretch was through completely open territory.

The day started out easily, without anything in sight that was even the slightest bit threatening. By the time I was in the lower foothills, I was traveling in the open, not even trying to hide myself. And that was where I made my mistake.

A gunshot tore through the wasteland. I jumped in surprise, twisting around, searching for the source of the noise. I spotted it in the distance behind me. Standing atop a hill was a shape that looked vaguely pony-like. While I watched, I saw a flash from the silhouette, followed by another gunshot. The bullet hit the ground thirty yards short of me, but that left no doubt in my mind that I was the target.

I turned on the spot and started sprinting. I was such a fucking idiot! Grovedale was still a good distance away, and now the slavers were on my trail again. I needed a fucking miracle if I was going to get out of this mess alive.

Fear is a hell of a motivator. I don’t think there has ever been a time in my life when I have run faster. All I could consciously think was that to slow down would mean to die, and that was not something I was going to let happen. Every so often, I would throw a glance over my shoulder, and every time I did, the number of slavers seemed to increase, and the distance between us shrunk a little.

Time telescoped, and as the minutes passes by in seconds, I finally spied the walls of Grovedale emerge ahead of me.

“Help me! They’re trying to kill me!” I shouted, as loud as I possibly could.

I could see movement on top of the walls as somepony responded to my shouts. As I drew closer, I recognized the guard-mare that had nearly shot me when I dragged Suture here to save her life.

The mare lifted her rifle. All I could to was to continue running, and pray to anything that would listen that she chose to shoot the slavers.

There was a flash from the wall, and the sound of the rifleshot echoed loudly in my ears. Only the fact that I heard the sound at all told me that I wasn’t the target. As I neared the gate, I slowed my pace and turned to face the slavers, drawing my pistol as I did.

Multiple ponies on the wall had now opened fire, and slavers were falling quickly as they scrambled to a halt. A few of them to potshots at me, but the bullets flew wide. After a few seconds, they had given up on any attempt to chase me down and were fleeing in the other direction, back towards the mountains.

The silence that fell over the wasteland was deafening. I didn’t know what to do, or where to look. Finally, after so long, I was free, and I was safe. I sat down heavily, simply staring out after the fleeing slavers. The bodies of their fellows lay where they had fallen, their blood mixing with the mud churned up in the rain. The sight seemed surreal and left me speechless.

“What the fuck was all o’ that! And who the hell led ‘em here!” Just Law’s voice shouted from the wall above me.

“Slavers,” I answered after several moments, finally finding my breath again, “And they were after me.”

“Stay right there! Ah’m coming down,” he announced. From his tone, I could tell he didn’t recognize. In all honesty, I probably wouldn’t recognize my own reflection either.

The gate opened and Just Law sauntered out, flanked by a pair of guards. “Who in the hell are you? Ah don’t appreciate ponies leading armed slavers to mah gates!” he demanded, coming to a stop only a few steps away from me.

I forced myself to my hooves and turned to face him. “I know I’ve been through hell, Just Law, but I didn’t think I looked that bad,” I said with a tired grin.

He glared at me for a few seconds, then his angry expression slowly changed into one of shock. “By Luna’s shining ass, is that you, Evergreen? What the fuck happened to you? How’d you end up here? Ah thought you were staying around Metro?”

“To answer the first two questions: yes, it’s me. And they happened to me,” I tossed my head in the direction of the dead slavers. “I fucked up a few weeks ago up in Seaddle and trusted someone I shouldn’t have. Bastard betrayed me to slavers, and I’ve spent the last month biding my time to escape. Finally got my chance a couple days ago. I’ve been on the run ever since.”

“Ah think ah need a little more detail than that, Evergreen. If you remember, ah told you ah don’t really want you back here.”

I sighed heavily and lowered my gaze to the ground. As I did, I was reminded of the collar around my neck. I looked up again, and fixed my gaze on Just Law. “Would I be wearing one of these if I was lying to you, Just Law?” I lifted my head slightly to give him a look at the blood I knew was flowing from the collar. “Look, you can put me under house arrest again for all I care. All I want right now is to be able to lie down somewhere that I know is safe and to be able to eat a meal and actually feel satiated again. It feels like it’s been years since I last ate. In return, I’ll tell you everything. I just need to rest, then I’ll be on my way up to Metro. If my friends listened to me, they’ll be there.”

Just Law watched me for a few seconds, and I could tell from his expression that he was horrified by the state of my neck. After several minutes of silence, his expression finally softened. “Ah’ll not let it be said that Grovedale don’t look out for ponies in need. You’re a pony that managed to escape from the Mill, a feat that has never been achieved before. The least ah can do is patch you up. Come inside, I’ll get a tech to get that collar off you, and our doctor will patch you up. I’ll hold on to your weapon, but you’re welcome to stay at the infirmary until you’re well enough to move on.”

I smiled at the grizzled buck, the first genuine smile I had given in weeks. It felt good to feel safe again. I followed him inside the town, all the way to the infirmary. He left me there while he went in search of one of the town’s technically savvy ponies. The doctor patched up most of my other wounds while he was gone, though there was still a lot of work to be done by the time he returned.

The tech cautiously approached me, eyeing the collar nervously. “Are you sure this thing is disabled?” he asked me.

“Absolutely. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have a head,” I answered dryly, “The locking mechanism should be fairly easy to undo as well. A friend in the Mill opened it up for me so she could disable everything. Now if you don’t mind, I would really like to be rid of this thing.”

The tech glared at me briefly, but proceeded to work on the collar. Only a few seconds later, it popped off, and I took a full breath of free air. Everypony else in the room took in a gasping breath.

“How the hell are you even conscious?” the doctor demanded, instantly stepping forward and starting to treat the wounds on my neck, “This is far more than simple puncture wounds! Are these electrical burns?”

“Yes, they are. That collar had a shocking mechanism in it for the slavers to control me. Thing fucking hurt.”

Just Law shook his head. “Ah can’t believe they did this to ya, Evergreen. Look, just get better, all right. We’ll talk once you recover. I insist that you take a couple days here to rest. Doc, make sure she gets everything she needs, food and clean water included.”

“Will do, Law,” the doctor answered with a curt nod, “Now you just settle down and let me work. This is going to take a while.

True to the doctor’s claims, it took nearly an hour and a half for every one of my injuries to be properly bound and treated, but by the end of it, I actually felt like a real pony again. Once she was finished, the doctor left without a word, but returned a few minutes later with a plate of real food and a bottle of clear water.

“Eat up, but take it slow. Don’t want to shock your system. I’ll check in on you when you’re finished.” She disappeared outside again after setting the tray down in front of me.

It was, without a doubt, the greatest meal I had ever eaten. I had to exercise a lot of restraint to keep myself from eating it all in a few bites, but the simple meal made me feel better than all of the medical treatment combined.

While I ate, I decided that it was finally a good time to tune into Shooting Star’s radio station again. It took me only a few seconds to dial in the radio station, and the music was a soothing supplement to my meal.

The show came on a short time later, and I couldn’t have been happier with what I heard.

“Helloooo, Seaddle! This is your resident, and might I add, one-and-only, star DJ, Shooting Star! For once in these last harrowing weeks, I finally have good news. I got good word that the Mill, that miserable center for slavery nestled near the western coast, has been buzzing like a radroach hive all day. Word is, somepony has made an escape. I am already doing everything I can to figure out who managed to finally slip through that net of villainy, and when I find them, I promise you all, everything will be done to protect them so they can spread word of what happens in that wretched place! That’s all I have for you tonight, so stay safe out there!”

That damned blue Pegasus would be beside himself when he figured out it was me that managed to get out.

Level Up!
Perk Gained – Survival Instincts – Your survival of a terrible ordeal has left you with better instincts of avoiding danger, as well as a permanent increase to pain tolerance.
Skill Note – Unarmed: 50

{Here it is, after a six month hiatus. I apologize deeply for the massive delay, but life had other things in mind for me for the early part of this year. The good news is I finally found the spark and motivation for writing again, and am finally working consistently again! Thanks go to MUCKSTER for sticking with me through my delays and understanding that I had more important shit going on in my life for a while! Hopefully, you can all forgive me for the delay and rejoin Evergreen and her adventures (or attempts to survive). Cheers!}