No real excuses here really, got delayed a bit because of Men of War: Assault Squad russian spec-ops-elite-scavenger-infantry artillery wars with Rinahrific, Everfree RP shenanigans, and a whole bunch of other fun non anything related stuff.
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This story bit isn't all that interesting tbh, I say that its from Zebio's perspective, but I didn't go much into it, instead its mostly things happening to other ponies seen from his point of view (kinda), this is entirely out of laziness and lack of sleep and has nothing to do with there not being potential.
Zebio if anyone, is one of the characters with the most potential with him being opposed to Lycaeon but still co-ruling Pineapple as an adviser to Replica/second in command along with Lycaeon. Imagine the two as her left and right hooves, or the angels sitting on her shoulders wearing robes and halos of varying shades of gray.
Roughly 4.5k words, so it's still pretty decently long despite my laziness, hope you enjoy it.
Day 5
POV Zebio Lizard
Early morning.
Zebio got up from his rough sleeping place on the stone floor of their little "dormitory" (a room with a single bed and smooth floors), first thing he did was glance over at his love.
That night Replica had slept in the dorm bed, all bunched up as usual with her diabolical pests, the sprite-bots.
They occupied much of the bed with their size and antennas, but Replica didn't seem to mind, in fact she seemed very peaceful.
Zebio checked his PipBuck, yep, the sprite-bots would surely wake up soon and begin their annoying polka music morning routine as they had done every morning since their arrival, looking over the others who slept on the floor he felt a sensation of pity for them but shrugged it off and went off towards the food storage.
They were pretty much out of drinks, and the food was limited to mostly salted meat and dimple cups, he settled for some chicken and a mug of water for breakfast and brought it all down to the mess hall where he found Coldnar sitting all by himself staring at his PipBuck.
"Coldnar, was it? Up this early?" Zebio asked.
"Couldn't sleep." the young colt replied.
He hadn't spoken to Zebio before, he didn't ever care to ask about his name.
The boy seemed awfully detached for some reason, something was bothering him.
"Something a matter?" Zebio wondered as he set his food down and went up to the boy.
He saw that Coldnar was checking the local map which extended to a rough 1km radius around the PipBuck, it didn't display the landscape or anything, you'd need to have map data installed to see features on the map, but it was by default able to identify friendly tags, that is, ponies with other PipBucks active.
Coldnar's map showed 3 blips, 3 ponies.
Focus Bastionclean, Coast Twilightlantern and Leaf Blueleaf. All marked yellow as 'traders'.
Their tags were blinking, signifying that their current status was unknown.
"How far out are they..."
"805 meters."
Zebio had to sit down and think about what impact the three unknown traders would have on Pineapple.
He was pretty sure that he was the only pony in that hole who even thought about what was best for them, it's not that he doubted Replica's ability to lead or anything, it's just that he didn't consider her to be that much of a forward thinker, and if Replica wasn't going to think ahead then at least Zebio would.
He knew for a fact that if he told Replica, or the others, about the traders they would surely want to go to the surface to investigate, and 805 meters was way too far off should they stumble across ghouls and be forced to run back to safety, somepony would likely die, especially if they got any strange ideas of trying to haul the traders goods inside should they be dead on discovery.
Pokon, one of the new arrivals, had been especially strong about not leaving ponies behind, but Zebio had figured Pokon out for the kind of pony who would never leave anypony behind even if it meant putting other ponies at risk, it was a foolish way of thinking and Zebio had since long known that sometimes somepony has to be left behind to ensure the safety of the group, as hard as that decision was.
He tapped his hoof on the stone table.
"Hmm..."
Coldnar grew tired of staring at his PipBuck, he sighed deeply and looked away from it.
"Hey kid." Zebio called.
"I have a name you know."
"Coldnar. Does anypony else know about them?"
"Just you and me. Why?"
"I'm thinking... it would be best to... not tell anypony about them..."
Coldnar stared coldly at the stallion, it was as if he had said something unspeakable and absolutely unimaginable.
"Let's face it, between you and me, those traders are dead..."
"Maybe, we can't know for sure."
"How long have you been staring at the map?"
"Um..."
Coldnar checked the time on his PipBuck.
"S-six hours and ten minutes..."
"And have they moved at all during this time?"
"No..."
"They are definitely dead then."
Coldnar was quiet for a while, he was thinking.
"...you are concerned about the others wanting to send a search party, and that they might stumble across more of those... things, aren't you?"
Pretty smart kid.
"Yeah. I hope you understand my concern..."
"I wont tell anypony then... but you do realize that all they would have to do is check their local map, right?"
"I know. But I am hoping that if they do I'll get the chance to explain it to them that they are dead and not worth risking their lives for."
Coldnar nodded.
"We'll just have to see what happens then..."
Coldnar got up and left, Zebio wasn't sure where he was going, he hadn't been with Replica and Lojack the day before when they had talked with Coldnar, but he knew that he had apparently been appointed to be their chief medical officer, he probably had some other task to attend to while they set up a hospital for him.
He began to eat his lousy breakfast alone.
Not even five minutes had passed when both Replica and Corai came into the mess hall, Corai was floating a plate of chicken and a cup of water while Replica was carrying a tray with a plate of salted brahmin meat and a cruder mug filled with water designed for earth pony use.
The two mares sat down next to Zebio who was just about to finish his own meal.
"Good morning." he said to the two.
"Morning..." Replica muttered.
The two mares were giving each other uneasy looks, Zebio wondered why but didn't comment on it.
Things seemed pretty tense between the two, did something happen between the two mares during the night?
"I had the strangest dream tonight..." Corai said eventually.
"Did you now..." Replica answered.
"Yeah... I dream that... you... sold me to... actually, nevermind, it's silly..."
"No, do tell me."
"Eh... it's stupid, you'd never do that."
"I'd never do what?"
"In my dream, you sold me to a gang of raiders because you got angry about something and they..." Corai shivered.
"I see..." she took a sip of water from her mug.
"I also had a strange dream involving you tonight."
"You... did?"
"Yeah. I dreamt that you were destroying a bunch of sprite-bots and that I was watching you do it from a security camera, and every time you killed one you laughed and said some mean upsetting comment about it to me over the radio. It was horrible, some of the sprite-bots had voice modulators, they screamed and called for help, some called me mommy and everything. I wanted to run out and stop you but the room I was in had no doors..."
"Huh..."
"Yeah..."
That certainly was an interesting exchange, Zebio thought.
Neither of them would ever do anything like that, they were both sweet and kind mares and the best of friends, Replica would never have sold her best friend off to raiders just like Corai would never have destroyed Replica's sprite-bots.
Everypony knew that Replica loved her sprite-bots, judging by how affectionate she was about them Zebio assumed that she almost viewed them as if they were her own children, that Corai, of all ponies, would go out of her way to destroy them was an amusing thought that made Zebio chuckle out loud.
The two mares stared at him.
"What's so funny?" Replica wondered.
"Your dreams. They don't sound like anything the two of you would do."
The two mares glared at each other again, they didn't seem so sure of that.
"Did I... really destroy your sprite-bots in your dream?" Corai asked, just to break the awkward silent glaring.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Well, if it helps, I'm sorry..."
"You're sorry? For something that happened in a dream I had?"
"I'd never do something like that, I know how much you love those little fellas."
"Heh, I know Corai, but it was just a dream, don't worry about it...", she took a bite from her brahmin meat and smiled.
"I guess I should apologize too then, for selling you to raiders..." she laughed weakly but Corai didn't see the fun in it, she just threw Replica a very cold glare.
"Sorry, sorry..."
Replica chewed on some of her meat, but the look on her face showed that she was having a hard time just letting it go.
"But did I seriously sell you to raiders?"
Corai looked up from her own meal.
"Y-yeah, you did..."
"Wow... I... That's..." she didn't know what to say, she was at a lack of words.
"What did they even do to you?"
Corai blushed and looked away from her friend.
"I-I'd rather not say."
"Oh. OH. Oh no. That's horrible!"
"P-please, lets just not talk about it."
"Oh, of course, sorry." she looked back down at her own diminishing portion, as she did she glanced briefly at Zebio's tray, which was empty, and had been for some time now.
The realization that Zebio had stayed just to eavesdrop on the two mares made Replica angry.
"Zebio! Don't you have somewhere to be?" she scolded.
He cleared his throat.
"Hm, maybe I do. See you later hun."
That last addition only made her angrier, but before she could say anything else Zebio had already gotten up and left.
The entire morning was spent finishing construction on their surface entrance and hitching the large cog shaped doors and ramps to the levers in Replica's office, those who couldn't help doing that were busied by smoothing what hadn't already been smoothed, this was a job that took way less time than expected, Lycaeon had really thought everypony well on how to properly smooth rock walls, floors and ceilings, so they had extra time to tidy up the tunnels and rooms in the soil layers as well, the tunnels above now looked more like a nice dirt home than a rough animal den.
There was only one ramp left to build and connect before the surface entrance was wholly built, and it was Lojack's job, as the only pony with any knowledge in architecture whatsoever (a talent that was discovered entirely at random over an evening meal two days ago) to make the right measurements and instruct the newbie mason, Corai, on how to do it.
But Lojack kept going elsewhere and was always found trailing off to help Lycaeon smooth walls whenever she wasn't just loafing about the mess hall.
Zebio stood right by the edge of the wide pit that they were supposed to cover with Lojack's ramp.
Everything was there, the building materials, neccesary tools, even cogs and mechanisms needed for it's connection to the lever downstairs were there, everything had been prepared and everypony were just waiting for Lojack.
But the paper Lojack had rolled out on a flat rock beside the pit was blank, or mostly blank, all she had done was draw a stupidly elaborate scribble of a smiling unicorn stallion in the top right corner of it.
He heard hoof steps making their way down the tunnel, he turned around to see if Lojack was finally showing up but saw that it was just Replica coming to check up on the project.
As soon as she saw that Zebio was all alone there she became furious.
"Lojack better have made that goddamned schematic now or I swear to Lu-" she glanced at the paper, "Noooo, why look at that, she HASN'T drawn the fucking schematic!"
"Replica, calm down-" Zebio tried.
"Calm down!? We NEED this damn thing built or we'll be stuck down here while the more unfortunate ponies sent by those fucknuts over at Lemon will be stuck on the other side, with the ghouls!" she lowered her head towards the blank paper with the scribble.
"What the f... what the fuck is this?!"
"Just something Lojack must have scribbled."
"Ooooh wait, I see what this is, this explains everything." Replica said slowly, "Fucking Lojack!"
"What? I don't-"
But before Zebio could finish his sentence Replica stormed off back through the circular frames.
"Replica wait!" but she just ignored him and rounded the corner down the corridor.
Where was she going?
Zebio looked at the little drawing again, more in detail this time, something about it had made Replica realize something, but what?
What about it had perked her attention?
It was a scribble of a pony, a stallion. And it was an unicorn.
The unicorn was smiling...
Was it just a random scribble or was it somepony in particular?
Who had Lojack been talking to recently?
Zebio struggled to try and figure it out, it was really simple, Lojack was a mare that kept mostly to herself, so it shouldn't be that hard to see.
She had interrupted her work to...
Oh. That's right... to go help Lycaeon with his work.
Of course it would be him, that nay-saying jackass, he who followed Replica's every whim, even when she had stupid ideas and opinions.
Replica had probably stormed off to find Lycaeon, who Lojack was probably with again.
He galloped off down the corridor and down to the main levels, where the rooms and mess hall were.
Surprisingly he found Lojack and Lycaeon before Replica did, what was she? An idiot? Didn't she know about the local map feature of her PipBuck?
The two were working alongside Corai and Splint on a rough wall segment.
Lojack was giggling to something Lycaeon had said, she seemed unusually feminine in her manners, it was not quite the creepy icy psychotic mare Zebio had seen before.
"There you are." Zebio called to the two, everypony present turned to look at him but instantly shifted their attention to something behind him.
"THERE YOU ARE!!" Replica shouted from down the corridor behind Zebio.
She positively looked enraged, she was letting Lojack's insubordination get to her more than it should have.
She stormed up to Lojack and Lycaeon.
"And just what the hell do you think you are doing?!" she barked at Lojack.
"Who? Me?" Lojack wondered, she was clearly pretending not to know what she was on about.
"Yes, you! You need to finish drawing the damn schematic so we can finish the entrance project!"
"Hmpf, why don't you do it yourself if it's that important to you." Lojack turned back around casually to continue her work on the wall.
"DON'T YOU FUCKING TURN AWAY FROM ME WHEN I AM TALKING TO YOU, MISSY!"
Lojack stopped and dropped her crude tool then she turned to Replica and took a couple of decisive steps forward, stopping a mere meter away from her, she gave her a hard intimidating glare.
"What did you call me?" she said slowly in the most nonchalant and noncaring tone she could fashion.
"You have one job, one fucking job, and that's it. The entrance project is vital to us and to anypony coming in from the surface, we need it and that means that we need you to do what you are goddamn asked to do. Is that clear?"
She took another step forward, her face was only inches away from Replica's.
"Oh yeah? And what are you going to do about it?"
Replica puffed her cheeks, she stayed like that for a long minute, everypony stared intently at the two tense mares wondering who would submit, the kind, but emotionally unstable overmare, or the psychotic butcher.
Their got their answers when Replica, with one very quick motion, leaned in and bit Lojack by her left ear, pulling her head down.
"Ow! Ow! OW! OWOWOW!" Lojack yammered.
"You aer goin' to fingish you're job, an' thad's final." Replica said with Lojack's ear clenched in her teeth.
"OW, OW! PLEASE STOP! IT HURTS!"
Replica ignored Lojack's pleas and pulled her down the corridor like that, it was no longer as much forcing Lojack to come with her as it was a display of power and intimidation, she wanted to show everypony that she was a fair leader that could be harsh when somepony got out of line.
Zebio was fascinated, it invoked a feeling of respect he didn't have for Replica before.
After the two mares rounded the corner down the corridor Zebio turned towards the ponies present, they were all looking to him for answers, their look of utter surprise was evident.
"What was that?" Splint asked, "Was that really Replica?"
"OUR Replica?" Corai added.
Zebio smiled at them.
"Yes, yes it was." he said proudly, then he simply turned and left.
Much happened between early lunch - 3-4PM.
Lojack finished her schematic in five minutes under the watchful icy supervision of Replica, nopony was there to see it but Lojack came back with a bandaged ear muttering that 'the bitch' had stood there unmoving while keeping her eyes on her until Lojack finished the schematic.
The schematic itself was so great that barely took Corai any effort at all to figure it out and carve out a nice little ramp for the gap, work on linking the ramp and the remaining doors was quick and within an hour the entrance project was finally completed, not even five days after they had settled in, the miners took but a split second to dig out the dirt wall to the surface, as it turned out the wall had been very thin, the ghouls could literally have poked a hole in the wall and killed them all if they had known about it (which fortunately they didn't).
A little memorial hall was built adjacent to the mess hall, it was there that they would respectfully raise small shrines and memorial slabs for the ponies lost in Pineapple, be it residents who would end up in accidents (should any happen) or travelers who'd fall to the ghouls or other monstrosities on the surface, it was the best they could do with the surface being unsafe, some ponies felt that it was undignified to just leave the fallen to rot up there, but they understood that it wasn't worth risking their lives for.
Shortly after the first memorial was crafted Replica discovered the three merchants on the surface by looking at her local PipBuck map (after Zebio had stupidly explained that she had a feature like that, despite wanting to keep the merchants secret), Replica herself came to the conclusion that they were certainly dead after Coldnar mentioned that he had kept an eye on them during the night, she knew that they weren't worth risking their lives for but insisted that they at least carved memorials for them to at least honor their names.
Five ponies had fallen in five days.
Heather Meadowapple, Wheat Wiltcouple, Focus Bastionclean, Coast Twilightlantern and Leaf Blueleaf.
All good ponies (probably) who had died due to the utter incompetence of the Lemon leadership.
The residents of Pineapple were offered an hour to mourn the fallen ponies, an offer that only Pokon, his wife and some of the newest arrivals took up, even Maklak showed up for about fifteen minutes, he stopped for a few minutes per memorial slab or shrine but didn't seem especially touched about it.
During the hour Replica stood over the ponies in there watching them like a hawk to make absolutely sure that they were there to pay their respects and *nothing else*.
Farms were expanded, a room with 9 dimple cup farm plots was dug out with two more being prepared as well, each which would feature 9 plots of 2 different crops for added variety to the ponies of Pineapple's crappy diet.
Last thing that was done during the early afternoon was the digging and construction of a measly little triage area that would serve as a temporary hospital for Coldnar.
They didn't have any advanced medical equipment, but at least the room was smooth, clean and featured three cabinets and three footlockers to keep what little they had to offer him for now.
With no beds to spare they had to raise a loom and process some of the tough and thick synth-reed leaves into plant strings to be sown into cloth, a job Coldnar volonuteered to do because his mother (his real mother) had apparently taught him a little about weaving at a very young age, having worked in the Lemon clothesmaking industry, namely the plant threshing and weaving department.
The cloth generated from his efforts were used to cover large rock slabs which were placed in the ramshackle hospital and used as rough beds, it would have to make do for now.
Towards the end of the early afternoon Replica retired into her office with Maklak who had a number of so called 'urgent' concerns to discuss with her.
The two were in there for two and a half hours and after they were done Replica dragged herself to bed and respectfully asked everypony not to disturb her for a while.
Naturally Zebio went to check on her.
He knocked on her door.
"Go away, talk to Zebio or Lycaeon if you need something." the muffled response of a tired Replica was heard from inside the room.
"I would, but it would look pretty funny if I talked to myself like that." Zebio answered.
"Zebio?" she called.
"Yes."
"Come in, the door is open."
He went inside the room and closed the door behind him.
Replica was laying tired on her bed, she held a foreleg over her eyes and looked exasperated.
"Something wrong?" he asked her.
She groaned.
He mimicked her groan.
"Oh my... sounds serious. What happened?"
"Maklak."
"Maklak?"
"Maklak."
"What about Maklak?"
"Where to begin..." she sat up on her bed and placed herself in a sitting, almost fetal position, leaning against the wall and positioning her rear legs on the bed proper.
"One thing at a time."
"Let's just say that... he is a soldier with opinions, actually, calling them opinions would be an understatement."
"How so?"
"You know of the gourmets in the upper Lemon castes? The pompous bastards living in the nicer areas of the lower stable? The food critics?"
"Yeah..."
"Yeah, well, he is basically like those, but worse, and a soldier. Everything he said was more like concentrated acid criticism than suggestions and opinions."
Zebio sighed.
"What did he say?"
"Basically, he told me that everything I did was wrong and criticized me for not having done a bunch of crap we had no time for. I'd very much rather not go into a specific detail of his frustrating monologue because it was essentially just two and a half arduous hours of him calling me out on every tiny insignificant error I supposedly made since we left Lemon."
"I see. Do you want me to talk to him?"
"Talk to him about what?"
"Tell him to tone it down? Show you some respect?"
"What for? He is entitled to his own opinions, no matter how harshly he delivers them. It is his right as a member of Pineapple to voice himself and his concerns to me. I just wish he wouldn't have been such an asshole about it..."
"Okay, so what in particular did he tell you? I mean, did you have something in mind after hearing him out for us to work with or what? I am okay with you laying about in here for the rest of the day if you'd like, you are the boss after all... but if you got new projects and orders it'd be nice if we had them now so we have something to do."
"Oh I was going to get up in a few moments and give everypony their new orders and directions, but now that you mention it I'd much rather stay in here for a while longer." she laid back down on her bed and rested her head on her pillow, she looked up at the ceiling and began talking again. "As acid as Maklak was he did come with a few good points."
"Such as?" Zebio said impatiently, if she was going to skip work then at least she could be decent enough to get to the point and give him her directives.
"Much of what he said pertained to the military, of which we basically have none-"
"We have Splint and PSI, don't we?"
"They are hardly a military. But anyways, he requested training rooms to be built, he gave me various suggestions on how to organize training schedules, squads, supplies, and so forth. He told me that he was a fantastic shot with a rifle and that he wanted to be our military commander (which I denied obviously because PSI has that honor), I offered him a position as the squad leader of our riflepony squad-"
"Riflepony squad? We have a riflepony squad?"
"Oh not yet we don't. Maklak suggested it and I thought it was a good idea."
"Okay..."
"Well, I wont stall you for long, he said a lot of crap, much of which I'd do better just relaying on my own. But if you would be so kind to have our friends started on building two training rooms, one firing range with pits on either side of the target dummies, and-"
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Pits on the sides of the target dummies?"
"Mak says it will improve effectiveness by allowing ponies to pick non-dented BB pellets while still allowing constant operation."
"You are going to have them train with BB guns?"
"Why, of course. It's not like we have GUNS or anything."
"So archery range, uh, also new rooms for future arrivals, and... thats pretty much it I guess."
"That's it?"
"Yeah, I'll get all the military detail worked out with PSI and Splint later. You just worry about setting the barrack's and extra rooms up."
"How many extra rooms?"
"For now? I think twentyish should do."
"That all?"
She hummed.
He turned to leave.
"Wait." she turned to look at him, leaning herself on one elbow (or foreleg knee, whichever you prefer).
"What is it?"
"Thank you Zebio."
"For what?"
"For everything, for being there for me, for helping me run Pineapple. I am glad to have you by my side."
"Yeah... don't mention it... here to help..."
'Idiot, if I wasn't here you'd have doomed everyone on the first day' Zebio thought for himself.
He left and went to give everypony their new orders, work resumed and continued at a rapid pace all the way until about 9PM, evening at which point everypony called it a day and went to dinner.
During the evening they had dug out two training rooms and one firing range, the training rooms were furnished with one weapon rack and one armor stand each and the firing range had five training dummies built in them, with small pits on either side.
Maklak complained during the evening meal about how the military hadn't been set up or anything, but Replica came into the mess hall and reassured him that it would be dealt with the following day among many other things.
So endeth the fifth day of Pineapple.