Begging for the Apocalypse

Firelight brightened the hallway and flickered off the walls. He was there. She felt a large hoof press softly on her back. Her hyperventilation redoubled, but only for a moment, as she found his touch more calming than she expected. Her breathing slowed. The pain eased. Her head cleared, but for the moment she focused her thoughts on laying still and moving her lungs.

After regaining her strength for a minute, she crawled out from under his hoof and sat up against the wall a few feet away. He offered her a sanitary cloth from the lab, and she wiped her mouth.

She stared blankly ahead, and there was hushed silence.

He relented of his piercing gaze and stared into space with her.

She whimpered and clutched her belly. She felt so empty, remembering the life she once held. "My baby…why…"

"I…" Dash took a deep breath. She was finally ready to spill. "I got knocked up with some dumb guy. I didn't mean to, it just happened. I didn't want my friends to find out. I mean, then I couldn't go on adventures with them anymore, and I couldn't join the Wonderbolts… so I had them take my baby. They took her here and threw her away like trash."

"It was so easy. Poof, just like that. 'Don't worry, it won't hurt at all." But it hurts now. Why do I feel so bad? It was just a little lump in my belly, and then…" she choked up. "Nothing."

The little neophyte—no, the foal—cried, anxious at being left alone. It was a haunting sound to her suppressed mothering instincts. Yeshua got up and calmed the little one. He wrapped the tiny colt in a cloth, and placed him on a warm spot between two incubators that were still active. He also gave the foal a sip from a spare canister of nutrient formula.

Dash's regret only worsened as she sat alone. She glanced through the doorway of the lab, where she could at least partly see the great being caring for the neglected little pony. Why was I afraid of doing what he's doing? I should have been afraid of ending up like this.

When he returned to her side, she was relieved to be in the warmth of his presence again. Even though she couldn't bring herself to look up at him, it was as if she had missed him.

After a while, he said softly, "I know you miss Scootaloo."

Tears finally welled up in Dash's eyes. She choked on a cough. "You don't understand."

"I miss her too," he added. For an instant she gaped at him, fearing it was some cruel trick, but he was so honest she knew it was true.

There was no more reason to hold back. "Damn it, why did she have to fail me? I just knew she could handle that stupid flight test, fuck, why did she have to do that? What was I supposed to do? I took her under my wing and gave her a chance, shit, why did she—" Dash snorked back mucus, she was really crying now, "Why'd she have to make me love her?"

"Destiny, fuck. She never got her cutie mark. I never told her. It was so obvious, her name is Scootaloo! How could she not know? I never got to see the look on her face when she figured it out. Why'd she have to die before she got it?" Her eyes searched about the cramped hall in vain. "Why didn't I tell her? Why would I do that to her?"

She looked down, defeated. "Why am I such a bad person? This whole place, everybody says it's okay. It's not okay. It's horrible."

"I know who you are." She glanced at him briefly. "I remember where we met now."

"Elements of Harmony…It felt… you're amazing. I've wanted to feel that again ever since," she confessed longingly. "Now I'm… I can't believe they called me Loyalty. When I got my cutie mark, I guess that was you, too."

He nodded.

"Are you the one who made all this?" she started to gesture to their surroundings, but was frustrated that all she had to point to was bleak and tragic. "Not the stupid factory." She thought about the outside world, which seemed to exist in a separate universe. "The rest of it, everything."

Yeshua answered, "I am."

"You made this whole happy world, you put us here, and all we had to do was be generous and kind and stuff, and everything would have worked out," she lamented, exasperated at herself and society. "You gave us so much, and what did we do with it? How did we get here?"

He could give a very long answer, but he summed it up simply. "You fell out of Harmony with me."

"Out of harmony…" Dash shook her head. "We're not even close. We thought THIS is what good is. We can't even recognize you anymore. Even your name sounds weird. Yeshua? Like, it's not even a pony language."

"It is from a pony language, actually, but a very old one," he explained, "and it's not that strange. Most ponies' names are words that tell who they are or what they do. Yeshua means Savior. That is who I am, and what I am here to do."

"Why?" Dash asked. That sounded so hopeful, but she had already given up. I don't feel like there's anything left of me to save, she mused. Oh right, I'm sure he's not talking about me. "You said you miss Scootaloo. How did you know her? I mean, we're so small, we're nothing. We're here and we're gone, like neophytes. Why do you even care?"

"I am a father to the fatherless, the bridegroom of widows. The way you feel about your child, and Scootaloo, all the pain and the anger," he said, with a choke in his voice. "Every foal and filly that comes into this place is like my own child. It's just my nature."

Dash finally worked up the courage to ask the obvious. "These kids here. You're here to save them from us, aren't you?"

He nodded solemnly once again.

She had known from the beginning that he must have the power to destroy them all, if he wished. It had been in the back of her mind since she saw him. Now she knew for a fact what she had feared. It was revenge, no, justice, that brought him here. But now she realized that it was out of love, and she couldn't help but take his side.

"I know we're not saving the world." It stung to admit it, but it gave Dash so much clarity. "We're the villains, aren't we. I've seen some really bad villains, but none of them did anything like this. I'm not a villain, I'm a monster. Save the world from us."

"I will," he told her certainly.

"So what are you gonna do?" For once, she wasn't afraid of what he would do. Maybe she was ready to just accept his decision. "Are you gonna turn everypony who works here into rainbows? Restore some kind of karma balance?"

The compassion somehow coexisted with the anger in his eyes. He shook his head. "That would make sense. But no."

"What, is it because you're all soft on me? You should do it," she said, weary from the burdens she had been carrying for so long. "I don't want to go on anymore."

"I want you to," he said.

"Please. This is hell, when I'm not here it's the nightmares." She just wanted everything to stop, but she didn't know what death would be like.Surely it can't be worse. "I guess I'm going to the bad place when I die, right?"

"That's the way it usually works. The bad guys are punished and the good guys live happily ever after. But I don't want to do that to you."

She squinted through tears. Why wouldn't he just finish her? It wasn't fair. "Just zap me out of existence or something. I don't care."

"It's not just them. You were also like a daughter to me." There was a lot of care, and a lot of hurt in his voice. "Even if you aren't loyal any more, even after all you've done, I still care about you."

"Why? I got rid of my daughter. Maybe you should too." If the roles were reversed, Dash couldn't imagine letting someone like her off the hook. "Make it quick, or make it hurt, I don't care. You can hug me and kiss me first if you have to but please kill me. This is all such a mistake. I'm a mistake."

"You know," Yeshua revealed, "your mom was in a tough time when she had you. She was afraid she made a mistake, and she almost got rid of you."

"Really?" It was hard to picture, like it was an alien concept to her childhood memories. Her mom always seemed so kind and supportive. All things considered, her upbringing was pretty good, so she never pictured it being that big a deal. But she had always thought it was odd how close her birthday was to her parents' anniversary.

She did the simple math.So… Mom was already pregnant at the wedding. They probably got married BECAUSE she was pregnant. She couldn't remember her mom ever talking about the plans she had before, but she must have had them. And they were pretty poor in the early years. Dash would have felt very grateful, and found it all very heartwarming, if it hadn't ended up in such a dark place. "She should have just gotten rid of me. Look what I am now."

"When I made this world, I could feel all the pain and heartache it would have. I almost scrapped it and started over," the great being related.

"Why on earth didn't you?" she asked, confounded.

"The same reason your mother kept you," he explained. "Because you're worth it."

"Really?" she said, wiping a tear. It felt really good to hear, but she was too confused to receive his acceptance. "How am I worth it? I don't get it."

"It'll make sense one day, but it doesn't have to make sense to you." He simply said, "You're worth it to me."

She couldn't argue with that, but she couldn't see herself as part of a happy ending. But maybe, the last hope she had held onto, could be realized. Maybe she would live to see her real wish fulfilled. She spoke insistently, almost begging, "Please just get rid of all this. Please. I hate that machine. I hate it so much. You don't know how many times I've wanted to blow it up. Promise me there won't be anything left of this place."

"It will be done," he vowed. "But first there's something I must do. Will you help me? I want you to be the manager, just a little bit longer."