Title:           Revised. Hope I'm on the right track
Author:          Anonymous
Pastebin link:   http://pastebin.com/TSasEAcZ
First Edit:      Friday 9th of August 2013 06:32:51 AM CDT
Last Edit:       Friday 9th of August 2013 06:32:51 AM CDT

        "Hey, wake up. It's morning," said a warm, but slightly rough voice. "I'm heading to work, so I need you to get up, and get some breakfast."
        My eyes started to adjust to the room, and the grey and white blur in front of me returned to familiar shape of my older brother. His coat was a dull, light, grey, and his mane was lifeless white, and kept short. Kind of unfitting colors for somepony like him. If anything were to describe him, it wouldn't be dull and lifeless. "I don't want to get up," I told him.
        "You have to," he responded.
        "I'm just going to go back to sleep anyways."
        "No!" he exclaimed, "I need you to be ready to grab the gun in case somepony comes here."
        "It doesn't matter; the gun is out of bullets anyways." I retorted as I closed my eyes rolling back into my bed.
        "What? Since when?"
        "Since yesterday. A radigator came, and I had to scare it off."
        "What the hell? Why didn't you tell me this, Moonlight?" My brother's agitation was rising.
        I pulled the sheets over my head to hide myself. "I don't know. I didn't think it was necessary."
        "I don't care what the fuck you thought, I told you that if that gun ever ran out of bullets, that you would tell me as soon as you could. Remember?"
        "Yeah..."
        "Alright, now get up and get something to eat. Since I can't be sure of your safety here, you're coming with me to work." I rolled over to look at him. His eyebrows were raised as if he were daring me to challenge his authority. I took a deep breath and threw the covers off of myself and got out of bed. I walked past my brother and kept from making eye contact with him. "And make sure you get a big breakfast, too. You won't be able to snack throughout the day."
        "Okay," I muttered. "Hey, Smoke?"
        "Yeah, sis?"
        "I'm sorry for not telling you."
        "It's okay, sis."
        I walked into the kitchen, at least glad to know I'd be able to have a bowl of my favorite cereal that I hadn't had in a long time. I poured my bowl, and set the bowl on the plate, and organized the silverware beside my food, trying to make it my meal look as neat as possible. Smoke sat beside me, and gave me a look followed by a chuckle, then went back to gnawing  on an apple he had gotten from the cupboard.
        My brother and I had finished our breakfasts, and were off to the slaver camp. It was a nice to get out again, even if it had rained the previous night. Most of the walk for me was spent looking at my reflection in the water, questioning why Luna gave me a dark blue coat that looked like hers, and playing a game where I'd dance around the puddles while trying my best to not touch the water. Smoke thought he'd have a laugh by nudging me into the water when I lost my balance for a moment. I got him back by accidently losing and seeing how big of a splash I could make onto him.
        We could finally see the camp off in the distance. "Alright, sis. Cut it out. We're getting near the camp, and I can't have you acting like that."
        "Why not?" I asked.
        "Just because, okay?"
        "Okay." There was a brief moment of silence, then a thought came to mind, "Am I going to help you with your work?"
        "Probably not. I don't think you're ready for this kind of work."
        "But I can help keep watch of the servants. It can't be that hard." I said to him.
        "Well, I'm not taking watch today. We got a new captive in, and he might be able to tell us where more ponies are." he responded.
        "So then what are you going to do with him?" I asked.
        We were finally approaching the gates of the camp, "I'm just going to have an adult talk with him." The gate to the camp was tall and wide chain link fence covered from top to bottom with barbed wire. The wall that surrounded the camp was made of busses and smashed cars, some of which stacked three high. The wall too, had barbed wire, but just around the top. There was a pony making a patrol on what I assumed was a board walk just behind the wall, making sure to occasionally bring out a pair of binoculars to check for anything suspicious off in the distance. There was a guard standing outside the gate with what looked like an assault rifle strapped to his side. He was much larger than Smoke, and was quite intimidating with his dark brown coat and mane, and scar across his cheek. I guess that's why he was put out front.
        "Hey, who's the squirt, and why ain't she got a collar?" he asked looking at my brother.
        "She's my sister. She's coming with me today."
        "So this is Little Luna, huh?" he started leaning towards me with an eerie smile creeping across his face.
        My brother got in between me and the guard, "Back off. She isn't for sale, and even if she was, it wouldn't be to you."
        "Whatever. Just go on through." The guard put his hoof in his mouth and whistled, and almost immediately a pony came to the gate and started fiddling with a lock that was hooked around the latch, then the gate opened. We walked past the guard and into the camp.
        Once we had stepped through, I couldn't help but notice that the place was much larger than glances from the outside had made it appear. I looked around and saw workers with tools reinforcing the insides of the wall with metal sheets like that of which made up my home, and using metal girders to act as braces against the wall. Just as I had suspected, there was a boardwalk just behind the wall, that the workers were toiling under. I felt a little bad for them. I know they were just workers, but most of them looked severely malnourished and exhausted.
        "This is why I hate my coat." I said to my brother.
        "What do you mean? You have a very pretty coat, and that's not easy to find out here.
        "I know. It's just that ponies always make the remark about me looking like Luna. I mean, how the hell do they know what she looks like? And on top of that, he called me 'LITTLE Luna' You know how much I hate that."
        "Well, you're going to have to get over that," he said, "That's what you look like, and those are the remarks ponies are going to make. It doesn't help that you are a unicorn. All you need are the wings and the mane of a starry night."
        "Thank Celestia I don't have them."
        "Lighten up, sis. I'm just teasing you."
        "Fine."
        As I followed Smoke around the camp, he tried telling me everything about the place. The "grand tour" he called it. "And this is where the slaver ponies sleep." He pointed his hoof towards a very long building with many doors and windows on it. There was a sign reading 'motel' out in front of it. "And here's the diner where we grab food if any of the slavers get hungry." The was a small pre-war restaurant with windows surrounded all but the backside of it. Dead neon lights wrapped the entire place. I'm sure it was quite the sight back in the day. "Hey, while we're here, want a drink? It's getting pretty hot outside, and with the rain, the air's a little bit more stuffy than usual."
        A drink did sound nice, but after seeing the kinds of ponies inside the diner, I decided that I could go on for a little bit longer. "No thanks. I'm good," I never realized how much humidity affects the mane. I felt it getting out of place, and white strands were starting to fall in front of my face and blowing them out of the way worked a full five seconds before they decided that being in the position of obscuring my vision was a more preferable place to be in.
        As we continued walking, I could see the cages that held the workers, and I could get a better look at them. They were inside a tall chain link fence, like that of the front gate, except it didn't have all the barbed wire. In fact, it didn't have any barbed wire at all. All of the workers had collars around them. Collars that were big enough that it prevented them from bending their necks. I couldn't help but make eye contact with a little colt, not even old enough to have his cutie mark yet, that had a light blue main and tail that matched his eyes, and yellow coat, not a bright yellow, but a soft yellow. He had patches of dirt all over his coat.
        A rough looking mare stood outside the fence. Her mane was brown and scraggly, and a teal coat. She grabbed my brother's attention, "If you're looking for the captive He's tied up in the auto-body shop. I think you're going to have fun with this one."
        "Is that so?" he responded.
        My brother and I finally approached the auto-body shop, which looked like a large garage. My brother grabbed the handle with his magic and threw the door up. Inside was an orange pony with a red mane and tail. Large cuts were made across his face along with a bruise around his right eye that had made it swollen shut, and his ribs were bruised to the point that hints of purple skin were showing through his coat.
        He looked up at Smoke, and the eye that wasn't swollen had gotten large at the sight of him, "Oh fuck. It's you!"
        "Hey, buddy. Long time, no see. Moonlight, shut the door." I looked up at the handle, and used my telekinesis to bring it down. The slamming brought an echo throughout the whole garage. After that, the world fell silent for me.
        For a few moments, I went deaf to the outside world, all I could hear was my heart racing. I looked around the garage. Windows were up high to let light in, and all sorts of tools of torture lined the walls, even a couple pistols were there. My brother was walking around the captive whose legs were tied to  the floor. He only had enough slack in the rope to take a couple steps in any direction, but that was all. I was brought back to focus when my brother began to talk to the captive. "I told you we'd catch up to you and your little group. I wasn't there to do it, but I knew somepony would catch up, but you didn't think so. After that bridge broke, you just laughed and laughed. What was it that you said to us again? 'Fuck you, assholes. You'll never catch us.' At least that's pretty close to what you said." Smoke took a few more steps around the captive. "So I hear that you have knowledge on the whereabouts of more ponies. Is that right?"
        "No. I was just traveling with my family, and you have us already." the captive said with despair in his voice.
        "Oh really? I hear you're one of those stable ponies, and that there are more of you down there. What about that little doodad on your foreleg? Can that tell me where the rest of them are?" My brother pointed down at the ponies left foreleg, to which there was a little device attached.
        "No. It can only tell you where you are; not where anypony else is at."
        "Oh, like a little map? Can it do anything else?"
        "Yeah. It can manage supplies, give you status on health, help administer medication, and other stuff."
        "Wow. That sounds neat. I think I might want that."
        "You can't get it off. You don't have the right tools."
        "I don't?" my brother jumped on top of the stallion, bringing him to the ground, "Moonlight, get the axe."
        The stallion gasped and started trying to vigorously shake Smoke off of him. "NO! NO NO NO! PLEASE NO! I'M BEGGING YOU, DON'T DO THIS TO ME, PLEASE!"
        "Nope. I've made up my mind." Smoke turned to me, "Sis, get the axe!"
        I looked frantically, "uh, this one?"
        "No, the one with the flat edge. Not the one with all the little points."
        "Uh, is it this one?" I levitated the tool to him hoping I was following is directions correctly.
        "Yeah, that's it!"
        The stallion began to cry heavily, "P-please, no...I'll do anything."
        "Anything?"
        "Yes. ANYTHING! Just please don't hurt me!"
        "Then tell me where your little group is!"
        The stallions running nose was getting in the way of his speech, "I d-don't know. I told you. I just rode with my family, and you already have us." The pony sniffled.
        "Well, then I got no choice." the stallion looked up to see my brother levitate the axe. He began to shake vigorously again.
        "NO! CELESTIA, NO. PLE-E-EASE!" once he realized he didn't have the strength to continue, he tried moving his foreleg around.
        "Hold still, you!"
        "Please, don't do this!"
        "Moonlight, get over here!" I ran over to him without saying a word, "hold his leg still for me." I sat hesitantly thinking about what to do, then I used my magic to tighten the rope, "There we go," as the axe came down, I closed my eyes and turned away. I heard a blood curdling scream. Then, as the screaming stopped, I heard the sound of metal hitting something. "Oh, quit your crying. I didn't even do anything to you." I opened my eyes and saw the axe not buried in the stallions leg, but struck against the ground. The stallion was acting like he was trying to say something, but seemed to be having trouble between the sobbing and the shock of the situation. "Come on. I'm just fucking with you. It's just common sense to everypony that you're worth more with all your legs still attached."
        As my brother was putting the axe back up, the pony finally caught his breath, "You're a fucking psychopath."
        "Yeah, but at least I'm going to be walking out of here alive."
        "What?"
        And as if in one smooth motion, my brother levitated pistol off the wall, pointed at the stallion's head, and pulled the trigger. He didn't even have time to start crying again. I tried to close my eyes, but the image was already burned in my mind. In what seemed like forever, my brother unloaded the pistol's magazine to check it, put it back in, then put the whole thing right back on the wall. My whole body was running cold at this point. "Open the door," magic started to emit from my brother's horn as he began to lift the body. "Hey, sis?"
        I looked up at him, "Yeah?"
        "You going to open the door?"
        "Yeah..." I grabbed the handle with my teeth, and slowly lifted up the door. Smoke began to walk outside with the stallion dragging across the ground beside him.
        Smoke took a few steps forward then turned around to me, "You coming?" I hadn't realized that I was still standing inside the garage without having moved a muscle after opening the door.
        "Yeah."
        I followed him along the dirt path, me staring at the ground. He eventually stopped walking and I bumped into him. When I looked up, I saw that we were at the cages that held the servants. Smoke cleared his throat to speak to the crowd, "This is what happens when you don't cooperate," he held up the body. The group filled with gasps of terror.
        "Dad!" came a cry from just a little colt.
        "Holy shit!" the voice came from the mare guarding the cages. Her sentences were being broken up by small bits of laughter. "What the hell did you do to him?"
        "Eh, just the usual treatment," the body was thrown up against the fence holding the workers. "He's lucky too. This almost cost him a hoof and a leg."
        "HA! You use the saw?"
        "Nope. The axe."
        "Eh, not my choice, but still nice. Hey, who's this?"
        "Oh, her? It's my little sister."
        "Little Luna?"
        "Yeah..." I interrupted.
        "Hey, look. My sis and I probably have to get going."
        "Gotcha. Have a good one." Smoke and I started to walk back to the front gate. I could hear the cries of the little colt, and what I presumed to be his mother. This went on for a while before the cries became a distant noise that was silenced by the authoritative guard yelling "I said 'shut the fuck up'" followed by two gunshots.
        I looked up to Smoke, "What was the stallion's name?"
        "I don't know."
        "You killed him."
        "Yeah?" he asked as if avoiding the point I was trying to make.
        "Nothing."
        "Look. Sometimes you just have to do things so the rest of the world goes on the way it's supposed to. I mean, if I hadn't done that, who knows what could have happened. The slaves could have tried to escape. Then what? We'd have nothing to trade."
        "But you killed him." He let out a huge breath through his nostrils without saying a single word back to me. The whole walk home was in complete silence. Both of us spent that whole walk looking at reflections.