Chapter One: Flying Without Wings

I suppose I should explain something about the nature of being born into slavery, it’s somewhat different from the more common way of simply being captured and forced into labour. You never learn the concept of choice in the first place. Your life is little more than receiving orders and following demands. Many would like to believe the myth that growing up that sort of harsh environment makes you become a big and tough pony with the willpower to someday overthrow your masters.

Unfortunately, the truth is that it more often stunts your growth, resulting in a physically small and weak pony with no education and little true aspiration. How can a pony who has never known the freedom of the outside world ever know what to want from it? Sure, there might have been strong earth ponies, powerful unicorns, or rare and agile pegasi somewhere that once did as the stories say.

I grew up a runt. The smallest of seven foals born to an unknown father and a weary mother sick with taint poisoning in a camp near Shattered Hoof. Suffice to say, given the way mares were treated in the slave camps, my father was likely one of the harsh figures giving us instructions and beating those who fell behind their quota. At first it was cart hauling, but as the years passed and it became clear I wasn’t going to get any bigger or stronger to meet my master’s expectations, I was instead sold off. My mother had begged and pleaded with them. She had offered anything, including herself, to make them reconsider and keep me there with her. Although the memory is now far gone, I still remember the slavers laughing her off. They told her that they could already have anything they wanted from her. We were slaves. We had no bargaining chips.

I was sold for a measly hundred caps to a rock farmer off the eastern edge of Whitetail Woods. Torn from the hold of my mother, I was immediately dragged into service upon the blank and lifeless duty of shifting rocks in some inane quest for gemstones. With a change in scenery came a change in hardship. While hauling carts and performing physical labour had broken me physically and hurt my body’s development, I was now a lone runt in a slave labour farm full of other delinquents just waiting for a new body at the bottom of the pecking order. They hurt me, bullied me, and stole away my food and minuscule possessions. I had to learn to sneak out and try to steal some back at night… and I wasn’t always successful. I still have the scars of the lash upon my back.

Truly, I wish I could say that this foalhood had taught me to be independent, brave, and determined like the ponies in the legends. But the truth is, it didn’t. Like I said, as a born slave, you do not understand what choice is. You don’t know how to think for yourself unless pushed to the absolute boundaries of physical needs, like food or water. If a slaver asked you to jump, you asked into which radioactive crater.

No free will, no courage to make my own choices, and few dreams of anything more than perhaps a painless death at the end of it all.

If any more proof is needed, just take a look at my flank to see the contract that sealed the deal. My cutie mark bears a looped set of chained manacles, their metal bands open and ready to slam shut about my legs should I ever fall out of line. It appeared the day on which I felt utterly hopeless, serving as a continual reminder of my enslavement.

From the day I received the most hated cutie mark a pony could have, I was locked into the bad hand I’d been dealt. I suffered the work set in front of me from a half-dozen other masters as they passed the unlucky runt around for paltry sums of caps. I was bullied, beaten, starved, and ignored to the point that I even began to forget myself. Each year, everything became a little more blurry as my life became nothing but an endless cycle of work, toil, and deprivation. I didn’t even need to go into the wastes to find the worst it had to offer.

Or so I thought. For one day, my master in Manehattan received an offer he couldn’t refuse. A promising deal arrived from another master far across the wastes who was seeking any slaves he could get his hooves on, and he was shelling out large sums of caps to do so. Once again, I was taken into a convoy of other hopeless ponies and marched to the next place of labour. But this place was unlike the others, for my next destination was Fillydelphia. Serving under Master Red Eye.

Upon my arrival, I discovered a hellcity of nightmare brutality made real. A living, breathing maze of red hot metal, blistering heat, and thick, choking smog. It all surrounded one of the eerie balefire craters, a great depression filled with deathly magical radiation. The scale was beyond anything I had expected, the workloads beyond what anypony could ever hope to withstand, all under an authority that seemed devoted to a fanatical call for ‘Unity.’ Red Eye often spoke at length to us across the speaker systems of how we were aiding in the unity that would save Equestria. To slaves like me, all this ‘Unity’ truly held was the threat of being dragged away to partake in it. Those poor ponies who went wherever that was never did return.

To make matters worse for the slaves, that same authority had no hesitations in weeding out the weak and using them as examples to better encourage us to work hard.

It was too much for me on my own. After a series of horrors, I snapped. The workload broke me and drove me to make a mad dash out of my prison, desperate to escape the forces trying to control us. I don’t remember much about what happened on that haunting night. Just vague memories of running, screaming, and being hunted down. I don’t even remember what I was really looking for. All I knew was that they found me. The heartbreak and pain so great that I scarcely ever remembered what actually happened, like I’d forced it from my mind to stop the hurt it had caused.

The last I remembered was being thrown in with another overseer. I didn’t even know why, and I could barely remember when. As the days wore on into weeks, I’d almost begun to think they’d forgotten about me.

They came to me, and telling me I’d been sentenced die as an example for others when they next held an ‘event.’ This ‘event’, I quickly realised, was going to be the arena of death. The Pit.

So, they left me sitting scared in my pen in Fillydelphia, alone and battered, waiting to die in the morning. That was it. My life. Just a short, tragic story. A life about to end without one chance to live it for myself.

Yet, at what seemed like the end, that one small chance I’d been denied so far was suddenly waiting for me.

Voices. They rang through my mind even as I fruitlessly attempted to sleep in my pen. I couldn’t avoid them no matter where I hid. The disadvantage of being born to a mother sick with taint poisoning was the threat of minor mutation upon birth. In my case, that meant slightly differently sized ears that were a little too sensitive. Sure, it’s a great advantage for eavesdropping, but try having a slave master scream in your face. It’s like shoving a gun barrel in your ear and pulling the trigger. Not content with a stunted growth, no education, and eternal servitude until the day I die, the Goddesses saw fit to give me a mutation, too. It’s part of the reason I always tried to hide from other slaves.

The Fillydelphia FunFarm’s petting zoo performed much the same task it once had two hundred years ago: keeping living things inside for the betterment of others. I pulled my meagre clothing closer to my torso and curled even tighter into the corner of the pigsty. The red haze of Fillydelphia drifted in through the one small entrance designed, presumably, for young pigs.

‘What were young pigs even called?’ I wondered—one more unknown fact tossed onto the pile that had, over life, accumulated in my mind.

“You scared? Frightened to die? Gonna scream? We want to hear you scream tomorrow! Or squeal like a piglet! Yeah, do that!”

Well, that answered that. There were three of them just outside, long-term slaves of Fillydelphia. Each had been dragged in through those gates kicking and screaming as they were welcomed to the pitiful existence that would become the rest of their lives. I regarded them as lucky. They hadn’t been born into it; they had known freedom for a time. They celebrated their small advantage by immediately treating me as some sort of lower class the moment I had been hurled into the same caged area as the unruly trio. I had been at the bottom of the pecking order many times, but this time, it was a true threat. They stole my food, taunted everything I did, and, when angry at the slavers, often used me as a convenient punching bag to let off some steam. Before long, I had taken to hiding in the pigsty of the enclosure, the small entrance too low and narrow to be accessible by anypony bigger than my own small size.

It was cowardice, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t been taught to have any pride or bravery. All I had to do was stay alive until my masters next needed my presence to do work, even if that work was to walk to the arena to… to…

“You’re gonna die, runt! Beaten! Stabbed! Shot! Melted! Bleeding out! Choked!”

…to that, yeah. I hugged myself harder, half wishing that if I clenched tightly enough I could simply disappear into the corner. The sty was stifling hot in the warm air of the city, making it impossible to tuck my head into my own hooves without getting uncomfortable wafts of warm breath every time I exhaled. Sleep was not going to happen, not tonight. Between the taunts, the heat, and my own crippling fear, dreams were the last place I wanted to be.

So instead, I remained still and cowered, clutching my few possessions to my underside and softly crying to myself again. It is somewhat embarrassing to admit, but I cried a lot in life. It was one of the only two ways I could find to release all the pent up emotion I had inside. Many times I had simply toiled away while sobbing openly or fled back to my enclosure so I could hide and let it all out. As anyone could imagine, it had not done any favours for my position as the resident victim for every slave looking to exploit those who were considered weak.

The other way was my one permitted vice in life—the item I clutched to my stomach as though it would somehow save my life.

Under the crimson nightmare and heavy industry of Fillydelphia that had become my home and place of work under Master Red Eye, it had taken on a greater meaning than ever before. I could not read or write; slaves didn’t get taught such things in the wastes, and my mother hadn’t had the time or knowledge to teach me herself. No, instead I drew.

It was the only way I could express myself—to put charcoal or graphite sticks to yellowed paper and let my emotions and feelings dictate what I made. An outpouring of my own personal thoughts on what was troubling me, or what things I secretly wanted. But after entering Fillydelphia, it also held a second purpose. It was my one little anchor against the madness that threatened to drive me to make it all end in the one way we always could. A means with which I might drive back the closing walls of insanity—of abusive slaves, painful workloads, and terrifying masters. When I drew, it let me focus on something else for that brief amount of time. I never looked back at my own drawings much, instead preferring to do more.

The voices continued, beginning to expand on the detail of exactly how some badass stallion or vicious mare would end my life tomorrow. Part of me wanted to shout at them, beg them to go away, and leave me alone. But it hadn’t worked the first time I had pleaded them to let me be. In fact, it had only made things worse.

Instead, I sat up, shaking off the stray rotten straw from my malnourished body with a weakened stagger, and pulled out my journal. Biting the charcoal stick I had stolen from the small stocks we often pulled for work, I began to let myself fall into the trance. Trying to ignore the dirty taste of the stick, I spread out the paper from my journal before me. Charcoal met paper with a long, sweeping arc that grew into a mesh of lines in the vague shape of something… somepony.

“Hey, runt! You crying in there? Come out and let us cheer you up! We’ll give you something to eat… after we’re done digesting it!”

Raucous laughter followed. Ignore it. Ignore it all. Concentrate on the lines, the shapes, and the curves. Half the time I didn’t even know what I was drawing.

“Live life to the full, runt! ’Cause it isn’t like you’ll have it for long! Oh wait, you don’t have any life anyways!”

Ignore it… ignore it. I tried to let my mind focus entirely on drawing. The sound of charcoal on paper and the meditative bliss the process brought. Let my subconscious do the work.

I was weeping still, even as I tossed the charcoal into the corner with a pitiful whine and clutched the drawing close. I blanked out the laughter and the voices. Their taunts washed over me as I slowly held up my art to look at the finished piece.

It held a small pony lying dead in a pit, bleeding from horrendous wounds while the leering face of his killer glared down from above.

Trembling sobs gave way to full-fledged crying as I shut the journal sharply with a hoof and cowered once more in the corner, as the voices came back all too vividly.

I woke to a sharp rapping on the outer casing of the pigsty, sending jolts of shock through me. The sound echoed all the louder through my ears and the confined space. Instinctual responses fired in my brain as I quickly scrambled to my hooves, grabbed my journal, and squeezed out of the hole into the harsh outside world. I hadn’t slept well. Gunfire from someplace nearby had disturbed my sleep multiple times. Probably some stupid pony making a run for it. It wasn’t the first time, either. On my first night, I had witnessed a father torn in half by a huge rifle fired by one of Master Red Eye’s griffons. He had been trying to stop them taking his foal away. A bright red glare forced my eyes shut as I stumbled wearily to my hooves and gazed about me. The world came back into view.

Fillydelphia. The ever-reliable industrial heart of Old Equestria, now the reluctant industrial machine of the wasteland. Around that lethal balefire crater, its factories, forges, and mills rose like shredded, but intact, beacons of potential. Under Master Red Eye’s reign, the slaves here had reactivated many of them or carried out repairs with scavenged scrap brought from the many Stables that pocketed the nearby landscape. After years of renovation, the effect was less of a repaired ruin in some areas and more of a very unmaintained building, if you didn’t look too closely to see the weathering from two hundred years in the wasteland’s weather. Despite the revulsion of my presence here, I found it all genuinely quite impressive.

I knew those factories well. They were where I’d been broken in by tugging overborne carts of twisted scrap and newly manufactured ammunition. Where I had been driven through horrific work environments and made to labour in poisonous fumes that made me gag and choke for days afterwards. I dreaded the condition my lungs must have been in after my short few weeks in this living nightmare.

“Murky Number Seven! Explain to me right fucking now why you are not already on your way to your place of work!”

I blinked as my eyes adjusted, turning and immediately lowering my head to the ground in subservience to the unicorn slaver before me, just as I had been conditioned to do. The stallion didn’t care for it. A savage and stinging blow to my cheek laid me out as one of his front hooves connected with my face. I sat on the ground, two feet away, nursing a loose tooth and an aching jaw. I felt the unconscious instinct to cry as I cradled my head, but in the dry, warm smog of Fillydelphia, my eyes were spent and could not muster the effort after last night. But a place of work? What place of work? Didn’t this slaver know I was scheduled to die in a few hours?

“I…” my voice was weak and hoarse, owing to little water and copious heat from the forges, “I am to attend the Pit later on this… this morning, Master. I’m sorry. I thought you’d kno—”

His hoof connected with my skull a second time, putting me right back on my rump again. Pain flared through my face as I felt my body giving in to the hulking slaver’s strikes. Terror shot through me at the threat of further beating. I glanced up at him with one eye from beneath my hoof as I felt blood trickling from the edge of my lip. I must have bitten my own tongue.

“I don’t give Celestia’s right flank if you’re heading off to die in that Pit. What makes you think that it gets you off work until the time comes?” he stated bluntly, arching his neck and pressing his face against mine. “Red Eye brought you here to work; now get your tiny rump in gear and get to work!”

The unwashed stench of his breath made me gag. But he was right, what choice did I have to not obey a command, even if I was trying to fight the unbridled terror wrenching my gut at the thought of soon being sent to my death. He was my Master; I was the slave. Without a word, I nodded profusely and got to my hooves as I glanced upwards at him.

My current Master (below Red Eye, of course) was a dull blue stallion with a filthy cyan mane. He had introduced himself at first as having the name Whiplash. Well, it certainly fitted him, owed to the long coil by his side. He had a talent with it, something many slaves in the FunFarm Petting Zoo pens would attest to, myself included.

Looking into those yellowed eyes gave me all the incentive I needed to quickly turn and gallop off across the petting zoo. Slaves were often not kept under shackle and chain in Fillydelphia, nor in locked pens for the simple reason of… well, where could we run to? Master Red Eye’s part of Fillydelphia was surrounded by a colossal wall intended to keep us in more than keep anypony out. As such, slaves were often trusted to run to where they needed to be. If they were not spotted in the right places at the right time then, well, it depended on how lucky you were if the slaver who caught you was in a good mood or not.

As I crossed away from my pigsty home, I got a glance at that wall in the distance and reflected on its defences pointing outwards. Who in their right mind would be so stupid as to attack Fillydelphia? If the wall wasn’t bad enough, there was the chemical moat that had made me sick on my way in, the energised fences powered by some magical spark generator hidden behind the wall, and the towering guard posts lined with members of Master Red Eye’s army. Oh, and the not-so-ignorable hideous pony-head shaped hot air balloons that eternally gazed down upon us from on high with a pink pony’s freakishly large eyes. The same pony who was strewn on every FunFarm sign, ride entrance, building, and advertisement. That same ridiculous grin and poofy, curled pink hair that was out of place with everything else in Fillydelphia.

I exited the farm, glad that my tormentors had been sent to their own places of labour before I had been woken. After last night, the last thing I wanted was to face them again before I was sent to the Pit. Inwardly, I hoped their workplace was someplace dangerous, and that I might never see them again even if I were allowed to live for more than a few more hours. Perhaps the Parasprite Pits, or off to investigate a Stable death trap. I had never volunteered for such things; the big griffon who greeted my shipment coming in had told us we could earn our freedom through them. However, I was too afraid to risk death seeking something I wasn’t supposed to have anyways.

Passing the entrance to the FunFarm, I paused briefly. Beside the entrance there sat a rusted, yet still operating, mockup of the pink pony. She stood on three legs, the fourth a separate piece of metal attached to a small motor. The arm waved, traversing back and forth.

Two hundred years, just waving. It hadn’t ever stopped and nopony ever bothered to make it. Now it remained as nothing more than an old courtesy, one that never ceased waving out onto the road toward, ironically enough, the nearby Wall of Fillydelphia. Its face had always creeped me out. Instead of the normally huge mad grin, it simply held a sort of content and well meaning smile.

Contained next to it, however, was the reason I normally stopped here every time I left the FunFarm. To her right, there say a large mirror, pointed at anypony who would be standing in queue to enter the amusement park. I couldn’t imagine what it could possibly be used for other than making queues seem longer.

I moved in front of it. My form was thinner than normal. It was a shaped mirror. How novel. I reached out to wipe dust from the surface for a clearer look.

That scrawny, wasted figure… was myself after almost a month in Fillydelphia. Great Celestia, I had never been anything but smaller than normal and possessing thinner limbs, but this was horrifying. I could see my ribs if I lifted up my clothing!

Giving myself a once-over revealed nothing more than the ruin that was my body now. Dirty and dark blonde lanky mane? Check. Filthy, dull green coat with patches of hair beginning to clump? Check. Rad-sores on my left foreleg and my muzzle? Check. Slightly longer right ear? Thin haired tail? Cutie mark bearing those gnashing manacles? Check, check, and check. Just your humble and pitifully weak earth pony here, minus the things earth ponies are often known for. Not shown? The painful wrenching of my stomach crying out for sustenance, and the fuzzy-headed fevers that spoke of building radiation poisoning in my blood from the foul air and workplaces.

Even without the Pit, I began to rate my chances at survival for another month very low anyway.

I raised a hoof to my face, dabbing my damp eyes at the soul-crushing sight of my own body being so irreparably hurt. I wanted nothing more than to collapse off my weary hooves and curl up on the ground, but long-conditioned instincts propelled me to continue. I had work to do, even if I didn’t want to do it anymore.

Turning from the mirror, I set a pace toward the armour manufacturing facilities. Road signs were useless to me, my inability to read rendering them defunct. Briefly, I wondered if they still even meant the right things these days as I stared at the tall, rectangular sheet of metal on stands just outside the FunFarm. It was bent away from the crater, clearly having been jostled by the missile when it struck Fillydelphia, and had never truly been fixed. The words on it were undecipherable to me, nothing but a mixture of dots and lines that held secrets I would never understand. Words were not my thing. Shape and form was more my area of understanding, to sketch and shade in those quiet moments between shifts. However, there were three words that I knew, three words that I often wondered about.

My name. Like some sort of sick joke to poke fun at somepony when he’s already down. The not-so-lucky one. That said, the exact circumstances surrounding my name were a little unknown to me, although you could logically piece together some of it. I was not an only child. My mother had been the possession of a few Masters in her time, and had the attentions of various slavers too. I had been the seventh foal she gave birth to. I had no confirmation that this was the exact reasoning, nor did I like to think of it as the true one, for it pointed at my caring mother as someone devoid of imagination and life to the point she would number her own children. As such, I wondered if I had just picked it up from a Master while too young to know differently. As for ‘Murky’… well, you only needed to look at the colour of my mane and coat for that one. A particularly loathsome slave I had once worked alongside in Manehattan told me that it was because my mother hadn’t truly cared for me at birth, because I was an unintentional child, hence the sick joke of a name.

I knew her better. That wasn’t true. I’d felt the proof of her love to know that.

Briefly, I paused in the road. It struck me suddenly that tomorrow, my own mother wouldn’t even know I was dead.

I galloped the rest of the way to the factory in tears, as I sought only the familiar lonely toil of a slave’s life to help me forget that terrible, aching thought.

The armour factory loomed over the motionless and ruined hovels surrounding it, the same hovels where I presumed workers had once stayed to be close to their site of work. The run to the site had long exhausted the emotional hurt I had brought on myself. Instinct and conditioning forced it to the back of my mind as I stepped past the thick metal gates, feeling my lungs already burning from the exertion of arriving at all.

As I galloped past old workers quarters, I briefly wondered what it was like back then, before the megaspells, when ponies had the choice of what they wanted in life, with nopony telling them what their day was to include. I pictured a young mare, turning away from her cutie mark’s proclamation of being a sculptor to instead sculpt only as a hobby, while pursuing what she wanted, to run a little shop. How did anyone choose what they truly wanted? When given everything, how did one know which route to take? What crusade would anypony undertake to find the thing that they truly wanted?

Sometimes, I wondered if being instructed was not perhaps so bad compared to that insurmountable choice. Yet, looking into the red-hot forge ahead of me, the scorching warmth already washing over me at this distance, I wondered just who would choose to work in a place like this.

The factory office had been converted into the resident slave master’s hub of activity. As I approached, surrounded by scalded and dire-faced ponies slaving away on the metal presses and molten vats, I could see her up above. Wicked Slit, a unicorn mare bearing just as wicked a blade that hovered alongside her. When not around her, some of the slaves made occasional jokes as to her name. The one slave who rebelled and told it to her face had lasted three unthinkable days regretting it, and since then most had fallen silent on the matter. Right now, her hooves rested on the railing, her horn magically enhancing the volume of her voice over the din as the blade floated casually to and fro beside her.

“You lot! No! You lot! Get up off the damned floor! You wanting to be dumped in the vats? Because it’s all you’re good for if you just lie around!”

I turned, seeing three ponies, two male earth ponies and a female unicorn, all collapsed on the floor. They had scorch marks on their hooves, no doubt from grabbing scalding hot metal by accident. That meant they’d been working in the refuse yard. Some of that stuff stayed hot for hours without showing it. I’d once stepped on one myself. All were clearly suffering from a lack of water and too much heat. As I watched, under the factory master’s barked orders, a couple of slavers began hauling them off. The slaves were too weak to even fight back. For their sake, I hoped the master was not intending to hold up to her sick promise. Only then did I notice her eyes watching me, foolishly standing alone with no work to do.

Bobbing my head to show understanding, I quickly headed for the skeletal metal stairs rising above the shop floor of the armour facilities. As I climbed, the view let me fully grasp the weight of Master Red Eye’s intentions. There were hundreds of ponies in this place alone, and this was only one factory. Sparks flew from heated metal as it was machined into place and cut upon conveyors. The sound of whirring cogs and the scream of tortured metal as it was warped and forced into new angles assaulted my eardrums. I had once asked for earplugs. Wicked Slit had asked if I’d prefer them cut off instead.

Steam rose and enveloped walkways that were thick with guards bearing long rifles and gas masks. Oh, how I envied those masks, or any relief from the poisonous air.

A few even wore battle saddles. I envied them, too. Call it a silly wish, but I’d always wanted one of those things even if I had no use for it. Something about the mechanisms and artful measure of weights and machinery lit a wishful appreciation in the artistic side of my mind. Perhaps one of those lighter ones that I could wear and hang things on would fit best. Briefly, as I trotted through the master’s open doorway, I wondered if I might be able to get one in my last few seconds of life inside the Pit. That’d be nice.

The darker (and larger) part of my brain immediately reminded me that it wouldn’t be so nice if it meant getting beaten to death for the amusement of a sick crowd.

Choking back a reaction, I clattered over the lethally haphazard catwalks toward Wicked Slit’s door.

Inside, the office was marred with old furniture around a rotted wooden desk bearing one of the indecipherable terminals. I hated those things whirring away with hidden secrets, like something put on Equestria just to spite my illiteracy. Wicked Slit sat behind it, holding a cigarette magically in front of her mouth as she typed up, presumably, a report on the three slaves that needed replacing. Around her sat various scraps of her life: cigarette stubs and packs, a couple of half empty bottles of Sparkle Cola, and her prized possession, a wickedly curved knife that permanently stood upright with the blade embedded in the wood. Her desk was covered in the pockmarks made by the tip from each day. Not as many as were left on her slaves, the popular saying went. Once, she had slit my back just enough to make the wagon harness rub it all day. Wicked Slit had a fiendish imagination with that blade.

Right now she didn’t even look at me as she spoke in a surprisingly polite voice, belying her ruthless attitude.

“Do you know, Murky Number Seven, how many slaves we lose on a daily basis?”

I shook my head. Frankly it wasn’t something I cared to think about; all I knew was that it was no small number. (About to be one less, my mind oh-so-joyfully reminded me.) Every few days a slave in my enclosure just… wouldn’t wake up. Toxic air was a major killer; smog in the lungs and infections forming within every small wound were lethal, too.

“I didn’t hear you,” she intoned. The words carried an underlying threat. Of course, she wasn’t looking at me to see my shake of the head.

“I… I don’t know, Master,” I replied, stammering. My voice sounded so small beside hers.

“I’m a mare, Murk.” She still didn’t even turn from her work on the terminal.

“I… I mean, I don’t know, um… Ma’am?” I tried instead. Funny, most female slavers preferred master as well. I presumed she had some trouble with her stallion peers to gain the same level of respect in an environment given to masculine ego and shows of strength. If anything, it made her seem all the more lethal as I risked a glance and saw the puckered scars across her face, including a crack running up her horn. Casting magic must have been agonising for her. It spoke volumes of her willpower.

She sat up, looking directly at me. I had forgotten something… to say it at the end too, perhaps?

“I mean, I don’t know, is it Ma’am, Ma’am?” I muttered, trying not to look her in the eye. Or perhaps she was one of those more militant types from Master Red Eye’s army? They liked it at the beginning as well. I tried once with that one too.

Her left eye twitched dangerously as she shoved the heavy terminal away with her magic and leaned over the desk at me. Suddenly, I had some very nasty imaginative thoughts about that knife and varying parts of my body.

“Do you think you’re being funny, Murk? Or clever?” she intoned dangerously, the knife pulling itself out of the wood without a sound. That thing was hellishly sharp.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to risk anything else. Why had I gotten so chatty anyways? Perhaps the knowledge that I was about to have my throat torn out and left to painfully bleed to death had made me careless. My imagination became a very imminent reality as the knife flew over and rested against my throat.

My squeak of terror stifled itself as I dared not move my throat in the slightest, but I felt the sweat of fear running down the back of my neck as its oddly cold surface rested on my skin, ready to pull to the side if she decided to just get rid of me for back-talking her.

“The truth is, Murk,” she began again, “Too many. And do you know why?” She didn’t give me a chance to reply. “Lack of effort. Red Eye expects every one of you to do their utmost best. You have listened to his broadcasts?”

I could hardly avoid them. Every night they echoed around my pen, blasting speeches of a greater future, of our sacrifice being for the good of our descendants and the survival of Equestria into better days. I had often heard slaves arguing, some claiming that perhaps he was right, and if they just put their backs into it they might somehow save themselves too. Others… well, others defied him. Quietly of course, but they would happily curse his name into the ground all while grovelling for forgiveness if any of those fanatical griffons heard them. Me? I didn’t really think either way. One way or another, my purpose was to serve. If it was Master Red Eye that commanded me to do this, I’d do it. What else was there for me to do?

“Red Eye expects much of you slaves and of us slavers, Murk. And examples like those three down there are not good enough. It’s enough to make me want to just start shooting every slave I see for insulting our great leader.”

“Given you were ten minutes late, do you know how much you have delayed Red Eye’s plans? Care to take a guess?” She grinned sweetly, finally looking at me. Sweet Celestia, she was actually so angry she was smiling. Shouting I could deal with. I’d been shouted at all my life. Painful on the ears as it was, at least you knew someone who shouted wasn’t about to do something unpredictable. Well, it wasn’t my place to argue back, time to take a guess.

Apparently, that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Her hoof slammed on the desk, sending splinters of the rotten wood spraying everywhere. She leaned over it toward me, her knife moving away. Instinct kicked in; I bowed my head down and knelt my front legs.

“Ten minutes!?” Her voice echoed with magical power. I squeaked in pain as the noise assaulted my ears. “Try an hour, Murk!”

Huh? As I lay there, hooves covering my ears, I struggled to grasp just where this magical number had come from.

“One hour! You being late by ten minutes cost one trip with the scrap wagons to the ammunition factory where the smaller scrap would be needed! Now because they lack that extra cart, they will have to run an additional cycle of the pressing machine. This, as you can imagine, takes additional resources that they will now need to order in from the resource silos. I have, in front of me, a particularly poorly spelled message of swearing, sent from the slave master in the old Ironshod factories wondering just what I am doing wrong here. Tell me, Murk, if you are beginning to grasp the weight of you not pulling yours around here,” she bellowed, teeth clenching between each sentence, “Well?”

“I… yes,” I began, my words feeling like a whisper against a wasteland storm. “I understand my mistake. I am sorry for—”

“Don’t be sorry,” she speared right into my sentence. “Be better! That cart needs to be taken now, along with a dozen others. Everything has to act like a well-oiled machine in this city if we are to achieve our great leader’s dream! I want to see at least seven more deliveries by the end of the next hour. Or so help me, I will personally ensure you will not want to return here tomorrow.”

“I won’t be anyways, Ma’am,” I spoke up, finding at least some solace in that I would be escaping her after the next few hours. Her eyebrows rose with disdainful fury at the interruption, “I’m to attend the Pit later this morning.”

I couldn’t resist it. She’d made my life a nightmare for the past week working under her supervision. I still bore a burn on my neck where she had put out her cigarette on me; her method of trying to show me that the molten metal sparks wouldn’t hurt as much as defying her. The bullying last night had worn on my mind. The knowledge of death being so close anyway drew a certain carelessness to my words. Instinct led me to merely mutter them under my breath rather than blurt them out loudly.

“So… so I presume you will have to find a fourth slave as well after I’m gone, Ma’am.”

“Ex-CUSE me, Murk?” Her voice drew enough of a picture of what would happen if I had said that any louder. “Care to repeat that?”

I prayed to the Goddesses that she had only thought I had just not spoken loud enough. She must have seen my lips moving, of course. Instinct was currently bucking my brain hard for saying that to the mare whom had been threatening my windpipe with a blade a few seconds ago.

“I said, um… Ma’am,” my voice was shakier than before, the imminent threat of that wicked curved knife all too clear as it slowly and methodically began to stab the desk in perfect beats. “That… I should probably… um…”

She had advanced towards me, trotting right up to glare me in the face. Oh Goddesses, not the face again, it still hurt from Whiplash.

She did not seem impressed, backing me up right against the doorway before turning away from me. “Then why are you still here, Murk?”

That was my cue. Any slave would recognise a lifeline when they were thrown one. However, as I got up to my hooves and made to turn to the door, warning bells rang in my mind. Wicked Slit didn’t throw lifelines. She severed them. I tried to dive for the door as I caught her movement from the corner of my eye. Too slow. Her full buck catapulted me through the doorway with a cry of shock and pain as my ribs, half bruised already, screamed in agony. I lay against the catwalk’s dangerously open edge (seriously, who designed these things?) clutching my chest as I looked up to see the door telekinetically slam in my face.

With a sigh, I let my head hit the metal plating once more in relief as I tried to convince my aching body to get up.

Perhaps it says something about slavery that, in my last day upon Equestria, I used that time being whipped while pulling a cart laden down with sets of heavily armoured barding between a factory floor and the Ironshod Firearms depot on the far side of Fillydelphia.

It was approaching late in the day by the time that the slaver had finally, mercifully, detached me from the rusted and chaffing harness and sent me on my way ‘home’ to the FunFarm… happily reminding me that I was going to make his bets very easy later on.

The moment the harness was released my legs gave out. What little strength I had to carry half the trips of most ponies had worn me out completely to the point that if I had ever entertained thoughts of actually fighting, I might have wanted to complain about how this was unfair.

I staggered from the colossal factory through one of the delivery doors. Along the edge of the storage flats were rows of non-functional and long rusted pegasus sky-wagons for hauling cargo from Filly all the way to… well, wherever in Equestria it was needed. I pictured strong, free pegasi swooping to and fro with huge weights upon their wagons, carrying them as though they weighed nothing more than a feather, and to be met happily as they made deliveries of, well, absolutely everything. It was hard to imagine, for it required pegasi to be anything other than universally loathed by the wasteland I had seen. “Scummy sky dwellers” was the popular name to my last Master as he drunkenly ranted about how they keep it all for themselves and how he couldn’t wait for them to come down to the wastes so he could give them a piece of his mind.

The wastes, at least in my experience, hated pegasi. I certainly hadn’t heard of any living down here in my lifetime. Probably for the best, given how they might be treated.

Pulling my jerkin a little tighter, I cast a glance about me. Various slaves were trudging their way back towards the FunFarm, clearly seeking a chance to rest their hooves before the slavers worked out where to send them next. A typical day in Filly; perhaps an hour of sleep, a little slop of oatmeal watered down (only usually with water), and almost every other hour dedicated to the work or travel between said work. I could always recognise a slave that has been here more than a few months. They looked a sorry sight, even by my standards.

They were known as the ‘veterans’ of Fillydelphia. Boils and scabs of infected and savage wounds from Master Red Eye’s workers, machines, and even other slaves coated them. Most had tried to tie off wounds with scraps of fabric while others just bled openly as they limped and shuffled across the broken landscape of the city.

My eyes traversed further, meeting the wary glances of various guards on the tall catwalks that arched between the ruins. This one, like many, acted as a barracks for slavers and soldiers, sheltered from the elements. One of the masked figures re-angled to point his battle saddle at me and made a jerking motion with his head. ‘Move along.’ I didn’t dare hesitate for him to ask again.

I fell in step with the rest of the trotting slaves, just another little cog in the machine, albeit one about to be cast out. The crush became tighter as they filed through the manufacture site gates, making me bump flanks with other ponies on both sides. The smell was almost enough to make me dry heave on the spot as I witnessed their dirt and blood rub off on my own jerkin and flanks, smearing over my cutie mark. I shuddered, trying to block it out by closing my eyes and trotting on. It’s not like I could get any dirtier anyway… right?

It was a mistake. My hoof caught a rock as I felt my balance stolen from me, and I fell headlong under the mass of slaves who were beginning to pick up speed. A gunshot sounded as they were given incentive to hurry and let the next group through. Panic shot through me as I felt myself dragged down under their hooves (along with a few other unfortunates) and trapped underneath a stampeding rush of filthy slaves. I screamed, I begged them to stop, to let me up. None heard me as hooves cracked against my sides and face. Pain threatened to overwhelm me from the ceaseless crush, and it was hard to breathe from all the dust kicked up. Claustrophobia fought with pain for my attention as both swarmed through my mind. I tried to pull myself through it all and away before anypony—

With a fierce intensity, pain flared from the joint as it was wrenched far past the limits of its movements. I am sure that my cry of pain was audible above the entire crowd as I felt hooves grasp around me and pull me out from under the mass of slaves, dragging my dead limb with me.

Dumped on one of the rocky piles on either side of the road, I lay back and took a deep breath, feeling the air rush to my lungs away from the dust before coughing heavily as my lungs rebelled from their infections. A noise beside me pricked up my ears, and I pulled back in fear.

“Whoa there. You alright?” A mare’s voice. I spun to look, yelping in pain as my leg reminded me that it still wanted my attention, too.

A young unicorn was half-crouched beside me, hoof extended. She had a gentle, creamy yellow coat and a long, two-tone mane of light orange and hazy red streaks. Her mane was, like every slave’s, filthy and bedraggled. I got the sense that she might have had her tail as long as her mane, but the end was frayed, likely cut down. Indeed, her entire look would have been vibrant had she not been dulled and battered by slavery. She wore an alien look, one I didn’t properly understand until memory reminded me that it was a face of concern. The last time I’d seen that was on my mother.

Internally, I forced myself to not break down again in front of my temporary saviour and willed myself to speak.

“I… I guess so.” I hesitantly stammered, voice low. Social skills were not among my chief abilities. I could hardly believe myself. ‘I guess so?’ While I was sitting here with a possibly broken front right leg, a loose tooth from two blows to the face earlier, bruised ribs from Wicked Slit, lash scars on my back, sick, infected, probably dying of radiation, and about to assuredly die in under an hour? Yeah, really ‘okay,’ Murky.

She didn’t seem to believe me, either, leaning forward to gently help me to my hooves before some guards spotted us. Closing my eyes, I gritted my teeth as I tried to move the injured leg. With a grunt of pain, I bent the joint as normal. It wasn’t broken. Badly sprained, but the joint was still intact. I let out a sigh of relief before staggering and promptly falling over once again with a soft ‘thud.’ I got the impression that I should probably lie down just a little bit longer.

“You’re lucky you weren’t killed under there,” the mare continued to speak, nursing my leg briefly before sitting back, her gaze passing over me. From the look on her face, it was clear that, even though she was trapped in here too, she considered me a particularly weak-looking pony, “Now come on, we need to get going, I can’t be late or—”

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” I muttered with my eyes averted; talking too much wasn’t my place. I half-expected a slaver to come around and beat me for talking at all. Testing my weight on a limb, I stood. As I did, my saddlebags revealed themselves to have been torn in the stampede. My sketchbook journal tumbled out onto the ground before the mare. Blinking, she looked down, nosing it open with her… well, nose. She was probably too tired to use magic right now. I made a move to retrieve it, only pausing as I noticed she was actually looking, not laughing or trying to steal it. Instead I just waited, feeling oddly full of apprehension as she flicked through a couple of pages while I trotted to and fro, trying to work the movement back into my foreleg joint.

I didn’t even yelp in pain as to not disturb her oddly peaceful-looking investigation. Not more than twice anyways. Certainly no more than four. Perhaps six if squeaks counted.

“This is… pretty interesting stuff,” she commented, eyes not leaving a picture I’d drawn of the Fillydelphia gates. My first sight of this city. She flicked some more before smirking and stifling a laugh, “Seems you have a liking for mares, though.”

She looked up to me and grinned. I blushed and fell back a little, rubbing my head with a hoof as I tried to think of an excuse. Truth is, well… perhaps I did sometimes find my subconscious drawing out a particularly nice-looking mare I might have seen, worked beside, or just one I wished I could meet. I’d always intended to add clothes. Honest.

I stepped in, albeit painfully, closing the journal with a hoof. That stuff was still private, no matter what strange spell of peace she seemed to exude to make me not grab it from her the moment it fell. I just blushed as she giggled slightly at the act, seemingly not offended before standing to her hooves herself.

“I… I’m sorry,” I began, trying to keep my voice steady above embarrassment, “I should go…”

She just nodded, apparently understanding before knocking a tangled knot of hair behind her ear with a hoof.

“Alright then, off you go before we get caught,” the mare bit her lip and her eyes fell on the sketchbook again resting at my side, “I really do envy that: the ability to draw whatever you want, whenever you want. It’s like an escape, isn’t it?”

What? An escape? What on Equestria was she talking about? Drawing was just… automatic. I couldn’t choose what to draw…

The mare was turning to go. She trotted away towards the opposite entrance of the FunFarm, clearly a resident of another enclosure, possibly the Bumper Plow-Pit. I wanted to say something to try and make up some excuse for some of the pictures or to ask what she meant by drawing what I wanted. But she was already too far away, and I dreaded shouting with slavers around us with their ever-watchful eyes. They were all too eager to come down hard on any dissent, or broken rules.

And why I had a sudden urge to draw her, not like the pictures she had seen, but as what I saw. A strangely at-ease slave.

The thought struck my mind. Just one last sketch before I headed off to the Pit. What were they going to do? Sentence me to death? Justification in mind, I quickly (figuratively speaking) made for the petting zoo and my hidey hole in the pigsty. Caught by the odd feeling, I looked back once or twice at the mare heading off.

Across the floor of the pigsty, I had scattered picture after picture. From the moment I pulled myself through the small gap, hounded by the taunts and pursuits of my ‘fellow’ slaves, I had retrieved the charcoal and set to work.

I didn’t think. I didn’t consider. I just drew. As ever, allowing my subconscious to take over, to draw what came to my mind first. Soon my journal had a good few new entries. I had struck past last night’s picture as fast as I could to add more and see what they would bring.

One page… ten minutes work… Wicked Slit’s knife with her eyes gazing from behind.

Another page… five minutes work… myself and the cart with darkened lines to add the weight.

Page after page, filled with imagery of my time here. Even in my drawings I couldn’t escape it. I had wanted a picture of her, before I forgot her face. But it just wouldn’t come out, like a machine in Filly’s foundries working to the same pattern I found my sketching fell into patterns I could not control. Once, a rare slave that actually conversed with me had asked why I never chose what I drew. How could I? Choice was not mine to have by birth.

But now I wondered, at the end now with nothing else to live for, no work to be done any more, what if I… chose… to draw something nice?

That wondrous hope in the mare’s voice as she said that drawing could, in itself, be an escape rung in my mind.

I took another page, leafed the parchment over and gripped the dirty charcoal loosely in my mouth. Perhaps if I drew some random lines then made what I wanted from it? Maybe that would work? Trembling, each sweep of the charcoal didn’t seem to add anything. How could this ever work? I didn’t have the mindset or the belief to ever think for myself. All I was doing was a… a…

With gusto, my charcoal flew on to the paper. An instinct I barely remembered having kicked in. Artistic form. The shape of the world around me. Specific memories in my head. They brought images to bear. Images like curling up next to my mother, stealing from my master back on the rock farm, running away to hide in Fillydelphia, mouthing off under my breath at Slit, and sitting aside somepony rifling through my journal without any fear or apprehension. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I drew for myself.

I jolted back from the paper, breathing hard, as I dared to let my eyes descend upon what I beheld before me.

Just me. Just that small pony staring back at me from the bottom left of the page, not even filling the space I could have, like he was waiting on somepony else to fill the gaps beside him with something else. He… he was smiling. My hoof went to my mouth. When had I last smiled? I honestly couldn’t remember. But here it was, my sketch’s lips curled upwards in a joyful, playful laugh that I wish I could have heard for real.

I ignored it… this was more important. I threw the page over and grabbed the charcoal again. Lines into curves… curves into shapes… shapes into—

“Life is over, runt! We can see them coming to chain you all up and drag you there!”

Charcoal flew, I drew faster than I ever had before. I was in control of this! Not them! I could control what I drew! The form came to be… the mare! She was looking curious, staring off the page at me as though trying to work out why I had drawn her.

“Murky Number Seven you are ordered to the Pit! Come out, be chained, and let’s get going so we can all win some caps on you!”

The voice of the enclosure master! Oh Goddesses, no! I had just learned how to do this, yet I could feel my legs trying to pull myself on conditioned instinct to obey. I tried to reach the paper once again. One more! I could do one more and just be late out. The charcoal snapped at the tip from how hard I was pressing. The drawing went messy, but it didn’t matter. Stains of tears were appearing on it. Choking back the feelings stirring within, even at such a simple, silly thing, I found this moment interrupted. There was a harsh rap of a hoof on the pigsty.

There was a crunching sound followed by the sound of somepony hitting the ground hard.

“I didn’t ask you for your opinion! Guards, tear this damn thing apart and get him out here!”

Oh, Luna help me. I felt the sty shake and buckle under their savage hoof blows on either side. The drawing was only just taking shape, I knew what it was! It was… it was…

The roof snapped off. Smog and dust seethed in from the outside world as a silhouetted gas mask glared in and spotted me frantically scribbling. I squealed as I felt a second slaver grab my jerkin in his teeth and effortlessly lift me, whining in pain as my bruised ribs protested at the sharp movement. I pulled down with all my meagre weight. One… more… line…

“No! Please…” I begged them as I felt the charcoal fall into my mouth, “I have to see her! Once more!”

With a great tug, I was yanked through the splintered wall of the pigsty and thrown on the ground, weeping in a heap. I spat out the foul charcoal and reached out for my journal as two guards magically hog tied me with chains before dragging me away. The journal had fallen open on its side, visible to me as I was pulled off, writhing and screaming through tears to be reunited with it. The picture I had so desperately tried to finish stared directly back at at me, tugging at my heart and stirring emotions long dead.

I lay against the wall of the Pit’s slave confinement area, feeling the cold concrete seeping its chilly touch through my torn jerkin. It was dark, with the only light being that coming in from the Pit itself. A thick gate sat at the front of the area… the only thing that separated me from death now. Not that I could think too much about the gate. I was much too busy screwing my wet eyes closed and cowering in the back corner with my hooves struggling to cover my suffering ears.

The crowd were like a sonic blast of pain. Their screams and bloodthirsty bellows echoed down into the enclosed gateway. Their hoof stomps in freaky unison felt like a slap around the head each time.

The massive noise subsided, ebbing from an assault on my senses to being ‘merely’ uncomfortable, as I heard the announcer start talking up the crowd. It was that big griffon, whatever her name was. Her words whipped them up into a frenzy. I could picture them salivating, eagerly sharing the stories of the little buck whom they would all get to watch being torn horribly apart. Opening my eyes, I looked around, shivering.

At the front stood Numbers One and Two. Fillydelphia Pit matches apparently involved two teams of six ponies. You fought one on one. The winner remained to fight in the next battle. The black gate was my ‘team.’ Numbers One and Two seemed to know one another, red mare and dull yellow stallion respectively. They looked tough, but then, everypony looked tough compared to me. Even that little unicorn mare who was Number Three looked like she could buck me senseless with that metal… thing on her foreleg. Number Four was nothing special. Some blue stallion.

I was Number Five. The one to die after those four got killed off. It would happen. I had seen Pit fighter ponies before in Fillydelphia. They were hard as nails, and known for their ruthless attitudes. Most were fighting for their lives and their freedom, but many of them had found a sick career in it, and revelled in the howling of the crowd as they took apart their opponents as—

Once again I found the corner, squeezing myself into it as tightly as I could and praying that the other ponies on this team wouldn’t hear my sobs. Unfortunately, luck was never quite on my side as I sensed a hulking movement from beside me. Number Six.

He had a significantly deep, heavy, and mature stallion’s voice, one that trembled with the threat of painful volume if he ever wanted to raise it.

I hadn’t expected what he said, though. Through terrified, tear-filled eyes, I looked up at Number Six.

Looming in the darkness at the back of the black gate pen, Number Six filled the entire portion he took residence in. He was kneeling down on all fours and was still taller than me. A huge, muscular earth pony with a dark red coat and crimson mane looked down at me. I could barely even tell where the thick muscle-ridden back separated from his neck! Any slaver was a foal compared to this stallion.

An ugly scar-coated face stared back at me, one eye completely bloodshot and one ear missing entirely. Dyed tribal markings coated his body in black swirls designed to look like, well, anything painful. I saw barbed wire rings on his forelegs, angular designs around his bloodshot eye, and gang symbols upon his sides. Almost a third of his body was covered in them. Puckered scars intertwined with the markings. When he moved even slightly, the huge mass of muscle contained in his body became all the more obvious. But those eyes, they were wild, and filled with the promise of absolute violence. They scared me to the point of backing away from him.

His face followed me as I crossed the darkened area, trying to get away from him. I glanced behind me, One and Two were staring out at the expanse of the Pit, Four seemed to be explaining something to Three, but nopony was paying us any attention. I squeaked in terror. I didn’t like being left alone with this massive, half-feral earth pony. He just sat there, staring at me trotting away from him. With a deep sigh, he looked toward the gate.

Startled from my fear, I was rather officially confused now. I tilted my head towards him even while backing my rump right up against the wall, and didn’t dare raise my voice above that of a hushed whisper.

“I’m sorry you’ve ended up here with me,” he continued, shifting to his hooves.

By the sweet Goddesses he was huge! Add to that, none of it seemed to be anything but corded muscle.

“Aye. I’m sorry, because I cannot protect you.” his voice hit a low note, an odd ring of sadness surrounding the bestial imagery he evoked in his accent and appearance, “You don’t deserve this. Not like some of the rest of us do.”

“Let the games begin…” I heard the huge stallion mutter as he trotted up beside me, eyes narrowed. Suddenly, although I knew I wouldn’t be around to see it, I felt pity for whatever poor mare or stallion ended up going hoof to hoof with him.

I stood behind Three and Four as I watched whom I now knew to be called ‘Blood’ go out first into the arena and swiftly be torn down. I had to physically stuff a hoof in my mouth to stop myself from howling in fear as I shrank back, knelt down, and tried to blot out the cries of the crowd as their patience was finally rewarded. Beside me, Number Six stared down at me with those wasteland-worn eyes before looking up, as though judging the opposition. I could hear him whispering something to himself, but with so much ambient noise, even I couldn’t make it out.

Number Two stepped forward as the gate opened. The announcer cried his name as I saw him clearly go looking for revenge on the one who had killed his companion. His name, I thought, was Daffodil.

Closer to the gate now, I got a better look outside. The Pit itself was an old ice rink sheathed in a giant cage and drained till only the concrete remained. It was filled with pressure plates and blood stains both old and new, many of which drained away from Blood herself. Some of it was splattered across her opponent, Sin… Sin something. I had missed his name from covering my ears against the painful roar of the crowd.

Once again, I witnessed death. Daffodil’s opponent stood no chance. He’d tried standing on a pressure plate, only to release a bucketload of mines from above. Daffodil, despite his strong frame, swiftly dodged the deafening shockwave before delivering a hideously brutal death. One after another, I all too clearly heard the snaps.

I felt my legs go weak. Great heaves in my throat became choking sobs as my eyes flooded with tears and terror overtook me. I ran to the back of the slave area were the door was, where we had been brought in. I had to get out! I didn’t want to die! As I approached it, the two guards assigned to supervise us, along with the third slaver who had slapped these numbers on our flanks, were waiting. With a laughing shove, the trio hurled me right back into the black gate area once again.

I curled up. More sickeningly wet cracks came from the arena, each in turn with a roar from the crowd.

I tried to tune that griffon out. Each round brought this one step closer to me. Blood was down. Daffodil wouldn’t last five more fights and the two ponies in front of me were… well, they weren’t Number Six. I didn’t rate them enduring this to keep me out of it.

That behemoth of a pony still stood as silently as ever, just staring into the arena from beside me. Briefly, I tried to repress my terrified thoughts, trying to concentrate on the artistic side of his dyed coat and its designs.

“Okay…” I muttered, trying to breathe. “There’s barbed wire… sharp edges…”

Shivering and trying to fight my imagination showing such thoughts of a drawn out end to me. I instead took a look at the other two ponies.

Number Four wasn’t anything special, just another slave from Fillydelphia. I wondered what he had done to deserve this.

Number Three, though. It wasn’t often I saw ponies with whom I could stand eye to eye. Well, I could have done, were she not facing away from me, watching as Daffodil finished pounding the corpse of his opponent. Briefly my eyes glanced to that thing on her right foreleg. Some sort of bulky device. Recognition flickered in my mind. Hadn’t Master Red Eye worn one of them?

Momentarily, curiosity overcame fear as I gazed all the more. I couldn’t see her cutie mark. The number sticker covered one side. Shifting quietly to the other, I noticed what it was.

Another of those devices, right there on her flank. What did that signify? Skill with them? Given that I had no idea what they were, I realised any guessing was a bit pointless. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be deadly. The slavers wouldn’t have left it on her otherwise. No chances that I wasn’t going in.

A moment of recognition hit me as I realised I was craning my head to stare at her flank to see said cutie mark. Out the corner of my eyes, I saw Number Six glancing down at me with a raised eyebrow. With a start, I shrank back, averting my eyes. Why did everypony assume that about me? I wasn’t looking there. I didn’t stare at mares like that.

It felt stupid to be embarrassed about that. Now of all times. But it provided a moment of distraction.

Number Six just seemed to chuckle quietly, making a sound like rocks scraping together. Yet, he cut it short and fell into indomitable silence. He stared back into the arena with renewed interest and narrowed his eyes. I followed his gaze into the concrete pit.

Even I had heard of her. The most terrifying pit fighter in Fillydelphia. Exotic, lethal, and utterly without mercy, they said. Nopony could hope to bring her down. A veteran of four events and a current crowd favourite known to coldly murder any pony that dared stand in her way. Truth be told, I hadn’t seen her before myself. I didn’t know anything about her fighting style or capabilities. I didn’t need to. Any zebra lethal enough to gain that reputation had to be dangerous.

I couldn’t help it, I cowered, using Number Three to block my view as I huddled closer to the floor and shivered. This just wasn’t fair…

Even on the floor, I could still see past Three’s legs through the grill of the gate. The zebra… what was her name? Ze… Zen? I couldn’t hear anything over the ambience of the crowd shrieking at events before them.

Hunched up, I felt the stifling heat and still, stuffy air all the more. I felt uncomfortable and helpless, trapped within this hellish place. An ambience to suit the carnage currently being wrecked in the Pit.

I saw the combatants fight. I screwed my eyes shut as I saw Daffodil send the zebra to the ground. I winced as she returned the favour. Even above the crowd, I could hear the savage hoof strikes on one another.

Daffodil was brutal and resourceful, and the zebra, lithe and deadly. I saw a mine kicked into the air and whimpered to myself as the savage detonation assaulted my senses.

It certainly wasn’t for Daffodil. Even as I watched, the zebra gained the upper hand. Speed beat power. Murderous precision triumphed over savagery. With one hideous crunch, I heard his neck break.

My mind raced, even as the stands exploded in delight at the killing. One more of ‘ours’ down, and it was my turn. I hadn’t lived a good life. Just a slave, a dirty and downtrodden slave with no freedom and no dreams of his own. As I watched Number Three bravely walk forward to her own death, I finally and completely broke down as the gate creaked shut.

Emotion welled up, fear mixed with bitterness that I had never even been given a chance! Life seemed fit to just screw me over at every opportunity! All shame was thrown away as I did what I did best. Cried. I cried more than I ever had, even more than the day my mother was taken from me, because now everything was about to be taken from me.

I didn’t want that! I didn’t want to go through the pain! I… I was afraid of what they would do to me. The weight of that simple realisation was impossible to grasp. I emotionally spilled over.

Number’s Four and Six stared at me as I pressed against the gate whimpering, quaking violently, and trying not to look as I heard Number Three being brutalised and beaten to death even worse than Daff was.

A spark as bright as a flare erupted from the Pit, catching my half-closed eyes like a beacon and throwing up dust from the Pit’s concrete into my face. A hissing roar sound of magic being ignited droned from the arena. Hyperventilating still, I shifted and fell backwards, covering my eyes with my hooves before slowly glancing through them, struggling to see directly into the light.

An aura of unicorn power streamed from the centre, enveloping the zebra entirely. Every barrel that hung above the pressure plates clanged open in unison. The green chemical flew from them, barely even touching the ground before being caught up in a swirling net of immense telekinetic magic. My jaw hung open, and my eyes were unblinking as I witnessed the foul liquid spray beautifully in all directions, coating the cage and blocking all vision into it. I had seen unicorn magic plenty of times, but never like this! Leaning on the cage door, I stared into the Pit with wonder.

I hadn’t even blinked as it landed either side of me. Luck, it seemed, allowed me to sit undisturbed before this miracle.

Amongst the drifting dust of the telekinesis spell, her horn bursting with overglow, Number Three ascended to the air above, taking with her the zebra that had so badly wounded her. A nimbus of magic surrounded them both as she flew directly upwards and away from all the blood… all the death and pain… away from slavery and to her glorious escape. Such courage in the sight of Red Eye himself! I could hear the bloodthirsty crowd bellowing in protest and shock; the griffons opened fire in vain, their bullets missing her at every turn like fate and destiny themselves guided that little mare unharmed. An angel blessed by the Goddesses, a lightbringer whose ray of hope speared through the darkness and lit a fire in my heart.

I felt myself fall back stupidly, my mouth hanging open as I witnessed the spectacle unfurl, my face cast in its light. I must have been silhouetted against the gate, a small figure in the presence of a legend.

Defying gravity so boldly, she disappeared into the searing dust and out of my vision but for a steadily fading glow. To cast off the shackles of slavery and escape. The thought struck my mind as ridiculous, but here it was! The myths were true! A great unicorn of powerful magic escaping from her masters to live a free life!

As I watched that wondrous scene flow away in the dust through the rapidly fading chemical goo barrier, I felt myself smile. I had never felt joy like that before. It felt invigorating. It felt… good.

My mind struggled to grasp the concept, to identify it and take hold of the urge. Even as I heard the rush of the slavers into the gate area to secure us and the bellowing of the griffons to trap the breakout before it left the FunFarm, I had the first true inkling of something. A wish of my own.

I wanted to feel that again. Feel how I had when I had drawn. Feel how I had when I saw this. To feel my mouth smile. To feel excitement and passion.

The slavers burst in from behind us. Two guards and the third who’d slapped that sticker on my flank moved to keep us down. I barely heard them. I simply sat with my eyes trained on the roof of the cage. The goo had run its course, and the dust had begun to settle. All that remained above was a small opening, a previously padlocked hatch in the ceiling of the cage hung open, swaying in the aftermath.

I could still hear gunfire, explosions, and all sorts of noises as the crowd stampeded out of the arena. A slaver’s hoof dragging me away from the gate by my jerkin was the first thing to waken me from my dreams.

“I said to get on the damn ground, slave,” the slaver’s voice betrayed his nerves.

With a twist of his body, I was hurled to the ground. I heard shackles being drawn by the slaver’s unicorn companion as they moved toward me. Only as they pulled me around and let me see out the doors at the back of the gate area did I realise why they were so shaken.

Behind the door leading to the gate I heard the sounds of rebellion. Slaves were crying out, rioting amongst the ferocious events unfolding. They had been shown that Red Eye could be defied. One slaver was watching the door, telling me that perhaps the slaves outside were not being beaten down as easily as the slavers would have liked.

The biggest pony I had laid eyes on in my life seemed to me to be a slow and deliberate stallion. I had imagined that an attack from him would be like a boulder rolling slowly across the ground. Deliberate and implacable. Oh, how wrong I as.

He moved like a boulder alright, but one tumbling madly down a cliffside. The slaver didn’t even stand a chance when the colossal weight of Number Six barrelled into him, one giant hoof ploughing the slaver’s head into the concrete wall with enough force to make a sickening crunch.

The slaver currently straddling me looked up, eyes wide, as he witnessed his comrades murdered in an instant before him. The third slaver turned from finishing his shackles on Number Four, as well, both matching the cold stare of Number Six.

“You…” the slaver’s voice quivered, “…you stay right there! S-Stay…”

“Funny. I was going to tell you the same thing,” muttered Number Six before launching himself at the two. I curled up as I felt his size thunder over me. A series of panicked screams and dull thumps echoed as the pair were set upon by the giant. I risked opening my eyes.

I saw Number Six moving like a blur, thick limbs lashing out wildly. He bucked one slaver against the wall so hard that their skull rebounded with a crack. He spun himself around, diving and grappling with his second opponent, even as the slaver attempted to draw a baton with his mouth. With a grunt and a heave, the slaver was hurled roughly into the gate, clean over my head, and landed in a heap with his colleague. The pair clutched themselves, groaning in pain.

Even as they attempted to stand, the first nursing his rapidly bleeding head, Number Six was on them. His forehead collided with the first target, the sound like two rock’s colliding. The slaver dropped, unconscious. Number Six reached out, dragging the second one over and began beating their head off the wall. A sudden, damp-sounding crack signalled his end, and his agonised cries promptly ceased.

Almost as an afterthought, wiping the sweat from his brow, Number Six raised a hoof and stamped it sharply on the unconscious buck’s neck with enough force to… to…

I had seen ponies beaten all their lives, but this was different. Slavers beat to intimidate. This pony had simply been killing them. In the carnage, the stallion had taken three slavers apart in less than a minute with nothing other than sheer power and ferocity. Brute force at its most simple, without even a thought.

No, that wasn’t right. Even as I watched him now, his eyes flicked to and fro. He was thinking. He was older than I’d guessed, his face bearing the look of one who had been through all this before. There was something calculated about his expression, as he watched and listened. He was observant and clearly experienced. Suddenly, why he had been paying such close attention to the arena and its combatants earlier made sense to me.

Part of me wondered how he would have fared against that zebra. Agility and precision against deliberate fury and power, until I remembered I would have been dead before I knew the outcome. I wasn’t sure which scared me more, although looking at those mismatched and bloodshot eyes turning to glare at me, I reached a decision pretty quickly.

“D-Don’t kill me, too!” I shrieked at him, backing away toward the gate, eventually pressing my back against it to stay away from the huge earth pony. “I’ll stay quiet! Please…”

He simply trod over to me, staring down. By the Goddesses, his face was streaked with the blood of the slavers he had killed, the lines dripping off his muzzle oddly following the contours of his dyed coat markings. His face sunk to look me in the eyes. I found I couldn’t even blink as I met his gaze. That one bloodshot eye of his seemed to twitch, before he drew himself back, grabbed my jerkin in his mouth, and swung me to my hooves.

“C’mon, pipsqueak.” He grunted the words quickly, heading for the door. “Tag along and maybe you’ll get out of this alive.”

The back area of the Pit was in absolute chaos. Even just outside the door out of the gate area, I witnessed slavers lashing and threatening slaves with whips, guns, and battle saddles. The slaves were not going quietly; even as I crept out of the door in Number Six’s shadow, I saw one slaver pulled down by four weakened labourers. They’d floored him with a magically hurled sledgehammer. Gunshots rang out every few seconds, causing scattered yells to break out, and waves of fleeing slaves to rush down the hallways.

Number Six didn’t appear fazed. He glanced around, before picking a direction and galloping off. I struggled to keep up with his long and determined stride. Diving to one side or the other, my gallop was nervous and unbalanced. What was I doing!? The slaver had told me to stay put! The little slave in my head screamed at me to stop, that my masters would not appreciate this.

Weapons strewn on the ground, liberated from a small armoury, were being snatched up by anypony that could reach them. Slaves unable to grab one in time were arming themselves with tools and the occasional bits of furniture. I saw them trying to break into what I knew was the armoury where all the Pit’s more lethal weapons, like firearms and magical auto axes, were kept. My senses were assaulted by screams, explosions, and the heavy scents of gunpowder and sweat. I slipped in a few puddles that I was sure were not water, and tried not to think too hard about what it really had been.

Ahead, a slave and an overseer of the Pit came tumbling out of a doorway amongst a fiery glow. Even as they savagely wrestled on the ground, I saw scraps of paper and smoke billowing out from the blazing room behind them. I held my breath and pushed through the haze, before tripping over a corpse hidden amongst the dark cloud. It was such a sudden shock that I still felt my legs trying to run even, as the world rotated by ninety degrees.

My lower jaw slapped against the ground with a painful rattle, jamming my teeth together. That loose tooth from this morning reminded me of its presence with an uncomfortable little shimmy in its socket. Wincing and bringing a hoof to my mouth, I glanced around before immediately feeling the urge to just stop.

I saw slavers regaining control here. ‘Normality’ was being restored as more and more slaves were beaten, shackled, or simply shot. Before my eyes I saw many of them murdered even though they had already surrendered. Perhaps it was best if I just lay down, let them shackle me, and not take any chances.

But no, something wouldn’t let me. Something fragile but powerful compelled me to keep moving, like a distant, desperate, wanting voice from within that I’d never noticed before. The feeling in my heart was still too strong, the bonds were heavy on my conditioned mind, but I had now been shown it was possible to stand up from all this. I turned and galloped after Number Six once again, seeing that he had ploughed ahead without waiting at all. Several slavers had tried to get in his way; their mangled forms now lay in his wake.

He was up ahead, diving down a side corridor. For a second I wondered why, before I heard the clatter of griffon talons on the floor around the next bend. Silently thanking my ears, for once in my life, I dove into the double doors of the corridor after Number Six. To my great surprise he was right beside them, slamming them shut the moment I was through.

I fell against the wall, my sides aching and, well, everything else aching, too. A sick and beaten little pony like me couldn’t run too well.

Behind us, the griffons ran past, their talons making an all-too-obvious clatter. Given a chance to breathe, I looked up (and up some more…) at Number Six.

“Why not?” A deadpan reply. “You’re not one of them. Y’don’t have the killer instinct in your eyes. I know a place where you’ll be safe… well, safer, than you probably are in whatever pit they have you. Tag along if you want, kid.”

“But I won’t slow down. If you fall behind, you’re getting left. I have to—”

He stopped, his eyes glancing away down the hall before returning to me. Somehow, I got the impression he was only covering for having said more than he wanted. All the same, I nodded. Perhaps what he had was a little rebel outpost in the train tunnels of Fillydelphia! A way to get in and find other ponies to escape with, all of us together!

Only, there was one monumental obstacle to overcome. Going with him meant defying my master, if I wanted to escape to wherever this stallion wanted me to go.

Thoughts clashed in my head as I watched the stallion creep forward, warily glancing around him with that same pragmatic look as before.

I was a slave! What was I doing with all these thoughts in my head of escape, freedom, and dreams? Even my cutie mark was a set of manacles. I wasn’t supposed to be away from this!

But try as I might, that imagery of the little unicorn mare showing such defiance and escaping to the sky just would not go away. The freedom she’d had in the air! To be able to fly…

Taking a deep breath, I turned, pulling my jerkin a little tighter around me, before trotting after Number Six. If I wanted out then I guessed I would have to follow him and show that I was willing. And show myself that I could break these chains.

Briefly, I wondered if a cutie mark could change. That would be nice. Perhaps a sketchbook on my flank… or a bird flying free…

We began moving again, passing staff offices of the ice rink and pausing only to check doorways. In truth, the back area wasn’t particularly big. However, ruined walls and collapsed ceilings made much of it more like a dilapidated labyrinth. Truth be told, I was not feeling particularly safe. Even if I managed to get rid of the terror that my companion struck in me every time I saw him, there was a greater concern in my mind. It was the fear of Whiplash, my master, appearing and dragging me back to receive punishment for my defiance.

I blinked on reflex at his voice and didn’t reply. Somehow, I had an imaginative vision of Number Six turning and breaking me in two for disrupting his own escape. Whatever drove him, it was intense. I wondered what his name was, only now thinking to even bother checking his cutie mark.

His massive body bore the mark of a battle-scarred and rusted shield splattered with blood on either side. It made sense, I thought. He certainly was battle-scarred himself. His dyed coat bearing those sharp tribal symbols were matched only by the twisted wounds he carried. My mind wondered on the shield’s significance before settling on the obvious. He was certainly as tough as one to survive all that.

I saw blood spattered across his sides, some of it his own. Running down his body, it mixed with the crimson stains upon his cutie mark, making the battered and bloodied shield seem darkly fitting. I found myself wanting to draw that mark upon his sides and felt a pang of loss at my journal being left behind at the FunFarm. It was probably being used as bedding by some other slave by now.

Even with that unicorn saving my life, I doubted I would see that picture of my mother ever again, now.

Once again, I felt little tears forming in my eyes. Sometimes I really wished I didn’t cry so much in front of others, but it was like an unstoppable and instinctive reaction.

I almost walked directly into Number Six without thinking. He had stopped, staring at the doors in front of us.

One was a standard office door, the other a fire escape to the outside. A temporary leap of hope came to my mind as I imagined us sneaking out and escaping under cover of the madness I could still hear outside. Yet, reality came crashing home. To the side of the doorway lay the clunky form of one of those damned terminals beside it, a locked symbol displaying on its half cracked screen.

The colourful swearing of my companion under his breath as he checked didn’t seem to imply he knew what to do with them either.

“Locked. Why are they always locked? Ridiculous pieces of intellectual—”

While reeling off a few words I had never even heard, we backtracked. We passed offices and locker rooms, but could find no other way out. Most had been welded over. Minutes passed, and I could hear shouts nearby starting to pick up. They were searching the building.

Eventually, my companion vented his frustration by bucking the wall with one leg beside him, the strike offering up a sharp crack as the plaster broke under his hoof.

My hurting ears had heard something from behind a closed office door. Motioning to Number Six (I really needed to ask his name…), I pointed with a hoof toward the office. With a narrowing of his brow, he turned and bucked the door open.

“Out! Now!” he roared, diving into the room as I heard a scream of surprise and shock.

Dragged by his tail, a worker for Red Eye was pulled out of his hiding spot and dumped into a chair.

“Right! And why might you be hiding? You know something?” he said, voice heavy but low and full of savage intent. He clearly just wanted this over with. I got the sense he didn’t enjoy waiting around in the middle of what was soon to become a war zone if the riots escalated.

“No! No, I don’t know nothin’!” The worker, I presumed some sort of admin assistant, screamed in the stallion’s face.

“So, you know the password to the terminal then,” continued Number Six, speaking factually in a low tone with a lethal-looking grimace.

“You just told me.” He winked at the smaller pony. It was not a comforting expression.

“Oh…” the buck looked around, then back to the big slave holding him, “…shit.”

Number Six immediately turned him around and bodily dragged him back the way we came.

Awkwardly ignoring the pony’s pleas to me to get the huge stallion to stop, I followed them all the way back to the terminal. I felt just as surprised as Number Six’s captive, I hadn’t spotted that simple ploy, either. Clearly, he wasn’t stupid. All the same, I couldn’t help but be afraid. He had that look in his eyes that I had seen before, when he’d pounced the slavers back in the black gate.

This wasn’t a slaver he was holding, though. For all I knew, he might just be a promoted slave.

“I’ll gut you if you don’t do it now,” countered Six, “or perhaps I’ll just start skelping your head off the wall until you do.”

Number Six paused, and then lowered his eyes, bringing himself onto the slaver’s level.

There was a loud, echoing clang as the buck’s head slammed into the metal wall near the terminal, leaving a painful looking dent.

“The password!” roared Six into his ear. I winced, holding my own ears and backing off as far as I could. I didn’t like how this was going.

“Fuck you, slave! Red Eye has things he could do to me you never could! I’m too… too scared of him to worry about you!”

“Shit…shit…” he seemed to pass out until Six batted him across the face with a hoof. I didn’t like this at all. This wasn’t persuasion or defence, this was outright torture.

Despite what he said to me, I did not feel reassured by this stallion one little bit. There was something unrestricted about him. Like he chose to ignore all barriers of morality. If it hadn’t been for his words earlier, I would have probably just ran.

However, he was making progress. The worker’s survival instinct had seemed to kick in, now begging for his life.

“Now, wasn’t that simple?” uttered Six, his gravelly voice not showing a hint of emotion while he turned and unlocked both the terminal and then the door. It clicked as the bolt retracted. With a satisfied snort, he turned to the worker.

I saw murder in his eyes. He didn’t want anypony left alive to inform the slavers of who had broken out.

The worker clambered, crying in pain as he tried to drag himself away as Number Six snarled and dove for him.

I managed to close my eyes in time as his hooves flew for the worker’s neck. But even holding my ears didn’t deaden the cries for mercy that were cut short by an agonised squeal.

Crowds of slaves poured from the stadium’s doors in desperate surges. I saw slaves being crushed under the writhing mass of dirty bodies surging in all directions as two different crowds collided; they fell screaming as they were trampled to death. Amongst it all, slavers galloped to and fro, pointing guns and screaming to round workers up. Many slaves made a break for it before being shot down, their cries standing out above the overall ambience of panic and disorder. Even here, a few feet from the side entrance, I was almost bowled over by terrified ponies trying to escape the lashes or attempting to reach their own enclosures.

How could anypony move through this? It was simply madness. We stood apart from it all beside the large garbage containers kept at the back of the stadium.

But above the crowds, in the FunFarm still, even more was happening. The FunFarm rollercoaster had somehow become active. The carts hurled around the tracks at breakneck speed. I witnessed guards opening fire on it. Was there a pony on that thing? And why were they firing at it with a—

I felt Number Six grab me roughly by the jerkin and hurl me behind the garbage bins before diving in beside me. The rocket intended to destroy the rollercoaster had missed, and instead arced on an unclear trajectory, before curling down and shooting out of the sky to slam amidst a crowd just in front of us. The concussive wave was a half-second of total noise before a ringing deafness consumed everything. My body shaken, I felt earth and wet mud splattering down around me even while holding my head to the ground. Shivering so badly I felt I might just fall over, I peered up and opened my eyes before closing them right away.

I felt the enormous stallion move. He was heading away already. Forcing my eyes open, I began to limp after him, my sprained joint aching on every step. With a start, I noticed my jerkin had been half pulled from my body by the stallion’s rough handling. I staggered as hastily I reset it around me properly before following as best I could. I couldn’t avoid looking to the side, seeing the horrific aftermath of the missile strike on the crowd—a small crater surrounded by mutilated bodies and slaves torn up by shrapnel. No doubt they would simply be left to die, for nopony was coming to their aid. Instead, everyone ran in panic, fearing another missile any second.

Guilty feelings reminded me that I was hardly stopping either. Terror clenched my gut like a vice as I struggled to see the stallion ahead. He stood a head above anypony else in the area, but with my size, fighting through a crowd was next to impossible. I had to keep moving; any second another missile might land or a slaver might open fire on the crowd. I had seen a couple doing just that earlier.

Above, a wing of griffons soared over toward the rollercoaster, and I heard an immense crash from the building that housed Red Eye’s operations in Fillydelphia, the FunFarm’s giant barn. Smoke billowed from one side as I saw Red Eye’s forces moving to congregate on it. Had the coaster cars crashed into it?

My attentions were brought back to the ground, drawn to a group of ponies rushing across the edge of the crowd. I saw three of them fall, their flailing hooves causing a dozen more of the panicked slaves to trip and fall over the wounded. There wasn’t any order; some even tried to back to the stadium. I dove, ducked, and weaved my way as best I could through the frantic obstacle course of flailing hooves and bodies. All it would take is one stray hoof, and I’d be helpless on the floor.

My instinct kicked in. I faltered, hooves trying to stop, but the crowd swept me on. The air was filled with screams, shrieks, and angry cries of bitter ponies trying to push their own way through. A young stallion nearby clutched a lifeless mare, wailing and crying over her, the young pony trampled to death. I saw two slaves begin fighting over who bumped who on purpose, hooves flying as they collapsed to the ground together. All around me, terrified ponies ignored the commands across the PA system. I wondered if they had even heard it. Perhaps only I could.

Battle saddles unleashed a torrent of firepower from the walkways above. Miniguns roared, huge anti-material rifles boomed, and magical weapons lent their own unique and disturbing zaps to the volley. Griffon handheld weapons joined the cacophony of weapon sounds as they picked out individual targets from above.

Only now did I realise what had been happening. The slave crowd I had ended up in was headed for the main gate. It may have been accidental, I would bet most didn’t know where they were going in the mad rush, but I saw what Red Eye’s forces had figured was going on. To their eyes, the slaves were making a break for it, and they intended to punish it with enough blood to quell any rebellion.

Briefly, it occurred to me that the majority of these slaves were not the ones whom had actually rebelled beneath the ice rink.

The front ranks of the riot were torn asunder. Ponies fell in droves with the fusillade of gunfire ripping into them. I could not see it directly, being too far back, but I heard the horrible sound of bullets tearing through flesh and the unsettling flares of ponies being atomised or melted by magical energy weapons.

Yells turning to shrieks, the crowd swung to a halt and tried to double back. Those turning met the rest coming behind them in a collision that broke bones and bloodied muzzles. The sound was shocking, bodies slamming into one another over and over, slaves terrified of what we had run from and others terrified of what was stopping them.

Trapped between gunfire, ploughing collisions, and panic, I didn’t know what to do. My instincts said, ‘Go to your enclosure,’ but my heart said ‘Keep going! Escape!’

Fear, emotion, and adrenaline coursed through me. I had never felt like this before. Emotion was not something I often knew outside of crying. But now with so much of it at once, I was overwhelmed. Eyes streaming in confusion and panic, I hesitated and froze.

I fell in the crowd and was thrown to and fro by it. I was knocked to the side by a large mare fighting her way back through the masses, and then squeezed between two others as they both fell. Somepony screamed in my ear. A stallion slammed into us all and tripped. I couldn’t see anything but grimy, rushing bodies. I was trapped amongst sweat and noise, unable to get away. I tumbled and dove, trying to avoid being crushed. I didn’t know what to do!

My eyes blinked open, wiping my tears before shrieking and scrambling to the side to avoid a pony crashing to the floor near me, stone dead from a bullet to the forehead. Ahead, off to the side of the crowd, was Number Six.

He wasn’t waiting, but he had shouted to me as he ran off down a side street that led deeper into Fillydelphia. Many other ponies were also pushed to escape that way off the main road. I could see gunshots trying to take them down as they ran off the side of the main gate road. Clearly Red Eye wanted to herd us together.

One followed the stallion into whatever place he was headed for. But to get to him, I would have to charge through an area pock marked with bullets and sizzling with magical energy. A few ponies had made it through without harm… but not all.

The other was to stay here. Already, I could feel the crowd quieting and beginning to falter under the brutal tactics of the slavers. I would, perhaps, be safe enough until led back to my enclosure.

“You have made such great strides with each passing day. Did I not reward such effort with the promise of a day of rest by the break of dawn today? Yes, and hear me, know that I am not given to breaking my promises to your generous efforts. This day shall remain yours. But this trivial panic will serve none. Not you. Not me. Not the Unity that we all dream of attaining. But most of all, not the children that we strive to take to a better place with the great effort that we, together, have made. I ask of you all, would the future ascension of a safe and secure Equestria be the result of panic and disorder? Was chaos itself not the hell that we, long ago, escaped from? Remember your potential, fellow Equestrians, remember your sacrifices and remember the generosity that we all must show.”

I couldn’t move. His voice. My Master. The one who paid for me. The one who owned me.

“And it is thus that I must ask you to return, to go peacefully to your places of rest for now. My attendants will inform everypony of when we may return to the day of rest and joy that has been promised. We have all given so much together. I swear to you, it will not be long. Now go, return with order befitting a better Equestria and let no more blood be shed this day.”

Even as I felt my heart screaming at me to remember what the Pit had shown me, I obeyed.

His words were backed up by reinforcements arriving. Entire squads of slavers were being called in from all over the city to surround and break up the crowds. Efficient as they were harsh, they began sending groups of slaves in directed funnels towards enclosures. I presumed that they would be sorted later on. For now, Master Red Eye only wanted them safe and docile.

The offer of no punishment if one ceased now was a strong one to terrified slaves.

My mind screamed at me that this was wrong, and yet… I ignored it. I had to return to my enclosure.

In the background of the slavers ending the riots, I saw Number Six look back, before disappearing down the street. He had survived.

I stood still as slavers ran down the lines, directing us one way and another. I don’t know how long I stood there, looking at my hooves with tears still dripping from my eyes. I simply awaited my turn.

The last was me. The slaver loomed over me (who didn’t?) with a whip magically floating beside him. I couldn’t help but keep my eyes trained on the serrated and bloodied edge of the whip itself. With obedience, I lowered my head.

“You go back to the FunFarm, slave!” he shouted over the murmurs and whimpers around us from a mass of slaves simply standing and feeling sorry for themselves. Corpses still littered the ground around us from the rows of slaves that had been gunned down earlier. I began to see the reasoning. It had been a simply practical solution to kill some in order to prevent an ongoing riot that would kill so many more in the long term.

Kill some to shock more into listening, then offer them a ceasefire. It was as efficient as it was heartless.

It wasn’t my place to question. I was only ever the cog in the machine. In my thoughts, I didn’t realise how much of a rush the slaver was in until I saw the whip raise.

The building which I had seen the rollercoaster crash into erupted into flame. Its roof blew upwards. The heavy wood that made up the barn splintered like twigs. Something colossal rose from it, sending shards of wood and brick flying in all directions from a glowing sphere of magical power.

It rose slowly, gradually gaining height among the swirling smoke cascading around it. Unlike in the Pit, this didn’t give me a feeling of hope and inspiration. Instead, it terrified me to the core.

I didn’t wait to see what it exactly was, but I could only imagine it was due to the mare’s escape. Whatever she had done, her presence had awoken some enormous powers in Fillydelphia that were struggling to keep hold of her. Silently, inside, I imagined (hoped?) that none of it would be enough.

Gasping, my heart thumping hard, I heard myself shriek at the sight. Shutting out the sounds, I darted to the side while the slaver was distracted, dragging my eyes away from the massive monstrosity on top of the FunFarm. Dodging through startled ponies, I made for the petting zoo. I could just hide in a corner until all this blew over!

Debris rained down from on high, thrown upon us by the conflict above. Ponies began running again, slavers among them. Only this time the panic was in all directions as they sought not to flee Fillydelphia or to get back to their areas but to simply evade the scrap crashing down from above. Huge lengths of jagged wood splintered and speared into the ground, along with hunks of metal clasping from the FunBarn’s roof.

From the stadium to here, my mind was only beginning to catch up with the consistent onrush of activity all around me. Others scattered, but I dove into an old, decrepit stuffed toy stall by the side of the FunFarm roads to take shelter.

Once inside, I simply shut my eyes, held my ears, and waited. Whatever forces were being unleashed out there, they were far too big for me.

A second, even greater, detonation set off a minor earthquake across the FunFarm. Hooves clattered past my hiding spot, but I stayed put. I simply hid and prayed that none of it would affect me, even as a dust cloud washed over the stall and blew the roof clean off.

All the while, my mind fought with itself between the terrified slave who wanted the predictable routine to come back, and the newly found hope that burned for something more.

Hope lost. I realised that I had faltered back there. When given the choice between becoming a free stallion and obeying my master, I had chosen to obey.

Under the chaos erupting around me, I wrestled with that fact. I thought of it all, from the optimism I had felt, to the terrified obedience I had just displayed. From the sight of that little mare, to the horrors happening feet away from me.

Lost and confused, I realised I simply I didn’t know what was happening any more.

I didn’t know how long I had hid. Perhaps it had been a few minutes. Maybe an hour. The stuffy sky and the red haze of Fillydelphia did not offer much perspective on the time of day. But when I finally crawled out, choking on dust and aching with exertion… it was quiet.

The FunFarm and the road outside it was littered in the aftermath. Stalls had been overturned and fences torn down by those seeking to escape the crush. A fire barrel had been knocked over, and its coals still burned on the ground. Even as I watched, an exhausted guard tossed sand over them.

The crowds had dispersed for the most part. I still saw some slaves clustering in ditches beside the roads or under what shelter they could. Some were grouping up to nurse wounds, but most were just huddling together for support. Occasional corpses still littered the FunFarm’s pathways and the street outside. About a hundred metres away, I saw slaves being tasked with clearing the mass of bodies from the road.

No slavers were nearby. The majority were, no doubt, busy with the recovery efforts and wrangling up a few stragglers. Plus, Master Red Eye himself had said that this was still a day of rest for us. He rarely lied about that. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had ordered the slavers to ease off for a bit.

Yet, even as I turned in a full circle, I saw no sign of Whiplash. I saw no griffons shooting at me. No giant stallion urging me to break the rules and follow him. No… no unicorn mare inspiring me to shake off my chains…

The peace wasn’t to last long. My day had one last horror to inflict. One final challenge to overcome.

As I made my way back to the petting zoo, intent on searching for my journal, I saw them.

I did as I always did. I put my head down, tried to ignore them, and headed for the pigsty.

I heard them trot up behind me before turning to meet them. I could sense this wasn’t going to end well at all. I had no place to hide anymore, and there were no overseers around to stop them. I felt my sprained leg prematurely ache at the, no doubt, large amount of running to be involved soon.

The trio were filthy. Covered in grime, wounds, and dust from the massive crush earlier. I could only guess they wanted to take their anger out on somepony, and I had just wandered in right on time. There were two stallions and a mare. All were earth ponies; not exactly burly, but giants in comparison to me. I could swear they were related or something, for each of them had the same dirt-brown coat with only their manes to tell them apart. Black, dirty yellow, and crude green for the mare. Each wore the ruined scraps of rags they called clothing. I was sure that they were simply for the intimidation factor of ripped fabric about their bodies.

Their cutie marks were, in turn, a plank of wood with a nail through it, three small rocks (he threw similar sizes at me… a lot), and the mare’s was a lasso. She had once proven that talent by binding me in rope and hanging me from the fence until Whiplash found me, after (of course) her brothers-in-harm had used me as their piñata.

They were despicable ponies, but they had never been truly deadly. At best just an aggravation, and at worst, a torturous presence that brought more hurt into an already miserable life.

“So… we was thinkin’.” The mare spat on the ground. “You was meant to die in that Pit, right?”

“And you didn’t, somehow.” The black maned buck quickly finished for her, while slowly circling around me. They had dangerous looks in their eyes, and I began to feel the fear creep down my back. Their voices were different. Now they were rebellious and full of menace, not the whiny posturing of before. I backed away, trying to keep all three in my sight.

“I… I was let out… because of what happened,” I muttered, my head low. I didn’t want to look them in the face. “And… and I got told to return here. I just want to go to sleep. I won’t disturb y— Argh!”

While I had been speaking, the first stallion rushed me from behind and shoved me harshly.

Yelping, I was barrelled over into the mud, right in front of where the pigsty used to be. I hit the ground hard, letting out a little whine as my injuries flared all the more from the fresh impact. Behind me, the three gathered together, grinning wickedly.

“So we was then thinkin’,” she continued, apparently the de facto leader for today, “if you died now? Nopony would ever notice or care, right? Could just blame it on the riots earlier before that big sphere thing blew up atop the FunFarm! Might start clawing some respect back among the others in here.”

They wanted to go up the pecking order. They wanted to be seen as the dangerous ones.

I swivelled on the ground, twisting to look at them. Why couldn’t I just be left in peace to slave away? Why never just left alone? All I wanted was to be left alone!

The fear from before returned, only now this wasn’t the arena of my nightmares. This was reality. Three ponies wanted to kill me and were going to do so.

This just wasn’t fair! I had chosen to avoid dying to stay with Master Red Eye, and now they wanted to kill me! This just… wasn’t…

“FAIR!” I screamed, my thoughts exploding into reality. The surprise on their faces made them pause in their approach. Any other pony, that stallion maybe, might have seen an opportunity to attack, to hit them first. But I wasn’t like that.

They didn’t take long to recover at all, for even as I slipped and staggered out of the mud toward the exit of the petting zoo, I heard the clatter of their hooves behind me. This felt familiar, and I fell into the instincts of a runt who had grown up avoiding the ‘bigger siblings’ of the world. The slaves at the rock farm had chased me through the field because my lack of work had earned them all punishment. From that I had learned that I couldn’t outrun other ponies because of their longer strides.

Instead. I tried weaving, diving over bits of fence, and ducking under stall doors to stay ahead of them as the chase broke out into the FunFarm. Other slaves and the occasional busy slaver glanced at it, seeing three larger ponies chasing after a little runt that was scampering about with tears in his eyes. My size let me dive into areas they couldn’t. I saw an area between a Funhouse (“Where you can keep smiling forever!”) and a merchandise stand ahead of me. I’d spotted it long before for just this purpose! A thin alleyway!

If I could get through, perhaps I could escape! I could go find Number Six again, take up his offer, and escape these ponies forever!

A stallion’s voice rang out shockingly close behind, turning my head I saw him approach, running low and catching up horrifyingly fast. Crying out in fear, I ran into the space of the alley… and got stuck.

Even my malnourished body was just a little too thick. I got jammed by my hips; my head and front legs held in the air as the back half of my body scrambled fiercely on the ground to try and push myself through. I could sense them galloping closer, hear their screams of triumph. I couldn’t budge!

I panicked. My hind legs could barely reach the ground. I felt myself pushed an inch forward. I had a few seconds at most! I couldn’t even look back to see them, the gap was so thin. Claustrophobic feelings rang in my head as I shook and felt myself jam all the more tightly in place.

I felt hooves grab my rump, strength more than my own began to pull me back out of the gap. Incoherently shouting, I didn’t even know what I was saying as I lashed out in fear at the assailant from behind. With a sharp crack, I felt my back right hoof connect with something, the impact shoving me forward into the gap far enough to pop into a wider section of the alleyway.

Twisting around, I saw the black haired stallion lying on the ground, nursing a bleeding muzzle, before looking up at me with wild fury in his eyes. His companions had split off, clearly running around.

Beyond the alleyway there was a small fence. The few seconds it took me to find a box (Celestia send my small height to the damned moon!) gave them an opportunity to catch up, only just missing me as I dove out of the FunFarm into—

Actually, I didn’t even know where I was going. I’d never actually come through here.

I screamed and fell off the ten foot gap where the ground of the FunFarm dropped off into its sloped back areas. Rolling and scraping down a rocky embankment, I floundered toward a muddy refuse pit filled with piles of old scrapped rides from the park.

Crashing into the ground at a high speed, I felt my entire ribcage buckle from the impact. I lay still. Struggling to breathe, my lungs wheezing, I felt the burns on my body from the mudslide down the slope sear in pain.

Annoyingly, that pink pony’s mantra to ‘look before you make that hop, skip, and jump!’ from the recorded play park speakers back within the park seemed like all too good advice right now. Oh, how I detested that happy-go-lucky voice…

I staggered to my hooves, glancing around, before falling again in the same spot. The ground here was slippery and hard to get a grip on. Even to a pony with perfectly fit muscles and good balance, of which I had neither, it might have been difficult.

Hearing the second stallion’s distinctive accent, I turned to witness them sliding down the same embankment with greater care than my haphazard fall.

I didn’t even have time to move before he charged directly into me, sending me sliding back across the mud into a pile of scrap. The unbalanced heap came roaring down around me, distracting the bullies as they slid their way across the mud, dodging random appliances and hunks of metal from rollercoasters. It all clattered off the main pile with a sound like an ironmonger’s forge being demolished. I felt a slab of metal slap me across the back of the head, knocking me face down in front of them.

“Well, well, well…” the mare was out of breath as she reached down and plucked a broken, sharp-looking pipe from the scrap with her mouth. “Geff we get to haf fun nao.”

I just lifted my weary hooves in front of me. I could run and fight no more. The exertion and mental exhaustion of today had taken its toll. My body simply could not bring itself to move with any urgency.

“Please…” I begged with them. “Please, don’t! I… whatever you want…”

“Ever since Blood and Daff took over the pens, we’ve been itching, runt. Now they’re gone, and we’re gonna move in. Start clawing back some rep!” The black haired stallion snorted, stamping his hoof, clearly intent on using just them. “And after that little buck you gave me, I’ve half a mind to return the favour tenfold.”

I gulped. These ponies weren’t just bullies, they were gangers. Stripped of their freedom to do as they wished, their claws had been neutered, so to speak.

I closed my eyes, not even crying anymore. Perhaps I just knew that my time was up, after all.

Yet, the scuffle of hooves rushing in to beat me into the dirt was not what I heard. Instead, a rush of air overhead grew to a great, bestial roar of fire and wind. From the background it rose up, a sound approaching fast, growing rapidly until it erupted into a howl that echoed off buildings.

I dared to open my eyes before shutting them quickly again. The entire area was cast in a sickly green! Above us, roaring through the sky, was something flying, its massive size glowing so brightly that it was like a miniature, radioactive sun in the air!

Only this one was massive! It soared above us, the mere sight terrifying the gangers into staggering backwards. With a sound like a roaring furnace, it descended, and passed right over our heads. The heat emanating from it made me squeal in discomfort, and I saw my attackers simply flee to escape the heat.

Only the mud caking me allowed me to bear the conflagration that now arched toward a building top in Filly. One surrounded by multiple pink pony face balloons.

Earlier had not been the end of today’s events. Something was going on up there, and I could guess who it related to.

Even as I lay there and watched, no doubt along with every other slave and slaver in Fillydelphia, I was in awe as the massive beast stood atop the building. I couldn’t see what it was facing, but somehow my heart just… knew.

I was nought but an onlooker. Gaping, I watched the phoenix curve from balloon to balloon, igniting them with scorching green balefire. I couldn’t help a little satisfied grin as I saw at least a few of that pink pony’s leering faces go down in flames, never to immortally stare at me again.

It had come from nowhere. But not for me. I was just the witness, just as I had been to the mare’s escape and the colossal beast atop the FunFarm. I could not know the context, or connection between them, but I knew was that it was something else.

The phoenix had long gone. The commotion on the building, whatever it was, now finished. I knew in my heart that the mare was now gone, escaped to the outside. With allies like that huge radioactive beast, how could she not?

But now, I just sat in the mud. What else could I do? I couldn’t go back to the petting zoo until I knew I would be protected from those gang ponies. And I couldn’t strike out alone. The guards were ready to shoot on sight.

So instead, I just wandered the refuse slowly, limping and trying to make sense of the day. My mind was at war once again. Part of me wanted to avoid all this and just go back to the life my cutie mark told me I should have. A life of slavery.

But the other half, mostly from the heart, could not forget that mysterious mare who had defied Red Eye in such a brazen fashion. To escape to lead your own life… how could I not want that, too?

I couldn’t make sense of the emotion. From the mare in the Pit, to the mare who had looked at my sketchbook. From the gang trying to kill me, to Number Six murdering ponies and helping me escape with him. I realised I didn’t even know any of their names. I thought back to drawing my own pictures. To wailing as I saw my mother in my own charcoal rendition. A whole day of coincidence, luck, discovery, delight, pain, and miracles. How could I, a slave who’d never dared to think for himself until today, make sense of any of this?

I bucked a scrapheap in frustration, clanging my hooves off a heavy section of metal, an old strut of a long scrapped ride. It didn’t move as much as I’d hoped, sending me collapsing forward into the mud.

Mounting emotion welled up, and I screamed, before clambering up and bucking the same metal strut again, and again, and again. Every strike feeling exhausting, but the worry and anger overflowing until I finally gave it one last strike.

With a creak, it tipped back, and took most of the pile with it. Squealing, I dove away, floundering in the mud to escape the six foot tall pile as it dropped and rolled away down the slope.

Not more scrap, but the skeleton of a pony that had been half buried in the mud below the broken ride parts. The blackened bones clattered out, knocking against my legs even as I back-pedalled furiously and fell on my rump again. Staring with wide eyes, I saw it was covered in rags. It was all badly burned, most likely from the megaspells.

It wasn’t the first time I had seen a skeleton. I had lived in the wastes most of my life. But something about finding remains from those old days never felt right to me. Hoof over my heart, I tried to avert my eyes.

Around its foreleg lay what, at first, appeared to be scrap metal, but then I recognised it.

Before me lay a devastated and wrecked version of one of those devices. With shaking hooves, I gingerly tugged it off the skeleton’s leg and studied it, turning it over and over. The lock that kept it attached to a leg was broken. In fact it wasn’t even there at all. The screen was cracked, and some buttons were missing entirely. On the inside, I saw exposed electronics and magic crystals that were shattered, their remains falling out even as I picked it up.

Curiosity overcame fear, and my excitement grew at what this could hold. I started prodding at the machine, hoofing the buttons and turning dials. I even started fiddling with the wires, but to no avail. The most I could get from it was a sort of white noise when I hit one button that lasted until I hit it again. I couldn’t get anything to work on it, and I couldn’t even read the words written below the buttons, anyway!

With a cry of annoyance, I threw down the hunk of scrap. The same button depressed again by the impact, and began filling the air with white noise. Something about it had just been too much to bear. All this happening to me. All I’d been through. It only took one little disappointment in some little device to tip it all over the edge!

I had only had a few hours since learning that there was more to life! I didn’t even know what I was thinking, let alone what to do! I was stuck in a muddy junkyard, and trying to pretend there was some way out of this!

How was I meant to make sense of all of this? Mysterious mares and stallions? Learning to draw for my own? Being within death’s reach twice in one day?

I was beaten, bruised, scared, bleeding, sick, and probably going to die within a month, still. They might even come back for me again! And just as I had begun to understand that maybe, just maybe there was something more waiting for me, this stupid device up and refused to tell me anything! I needed something! Needed anything to make sense of it all! For just one moment, I’d thought fate had thrown me a bone, when I’d thought I had found something that meant anything! Something to tell me what I was doing!

I screamed in bitter frustration and kicked the device away from me with a great cry of rage.

I galloped over, weary and sore, shouting at the device as though it were the cause of all this.

“I’m just a slave! I don’t have any freedom! I don’t have any dreams! What am I meant to do? Just tell me!”

I collapsed, my head resting against it. I felt a dial twist, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. I cried into the mud, exhausted and scared. It was all going to go back to the way it was before, wasn’t it? I’d missed my chance.

“I… I need someone to help me… anyone, please. Just someone to show me the way…”

The dial twisted one tick more, and the white noise stopped. In its place came a comforting voice…

“—ello Wastelanders! This is, of course, your friendly little light in the those crazy ol’ Equestrian Wastelands day in and out, DJ-Pon-Three! I’m here with, you guessed it, that thing that used to give us all the blues. Yup! It’s the news! And let me tell you, little ponies, do I have some good stuff for you today following the activities of everypony’s favourite Stable Dweller out in the blasted pit of Fillydelphia…”

Footnote: Perk Attained!

Lucky Break! – Whatever has changed for you, it has been for the better. Perhaps you have been working on a sixth sense or maybe you found a lucky charm.

You gain +1 to your LUCK statistic.