Trula Angelique "True Cause" [Unicorn] [Complete] [Updated]

My name is Trula Angelique.

All I have to do is sit here and wait. Just for a few hours. That's what she said as she sprayed that mist into my mouth that made me cough. Momma was going to bring me candy back from the wastes, I just had to be a good little filly and wait here on this ole welcome mat. The wavy steal behind me at least had a pretty picture, looked like one of my drawings in the dirt with two winged ponies circling each other around two circles! Wait. Was she back yet? No. She just left, I can still hear her laughing. Happy to bring me candy! I can't wait. It's so hard to wait here. I want to move! Everything here feels and looks so awesome! Can't see in the dark. Can't hear Momma anymore. Oh no! Did she get lost?! How long has she been gone? Did the raiders get her? My lungs burn. I can't sit still anymore but I really want that candy so bad! I can just turn around. Stare at this painting. It's all wrong. No water to make mud and make it right. Just scratch the paint off. Hooves can do that!

The lines are almost right but the blood's getting everywhere and ruining everything! Why does the metal blee- Hoofsteps! "Momma!" My lungs hurt so bad but I'm so excited. "Momma I didn't move! Not much just right here!" Everything's starting to spin, my legs are all wobbly. My nose hurts when they give, hit the dirt, suck in a mouth of dirt and start coughing. The hooves are right next to me! Just grab hold tight, Momma makes it all right! "M-mom-ma? Did you find th-" I can't ask if I'm coughing so much! "The candy? Momma?" She's not saying anything, and her hooves are spinning. No, everything is.

I am five years old.

My lungs hurt so bad it's hard not to cry, but the old buck won't talk to me while I'm crying, he walks out of the room every time he sees my tears and hears me cry for Momma but it's hard to keep crying about it. My eyes hurt. I keep waking up in the same dark room with no light except for when the door opens. The bed is... comfortable. Wet, from all the crying and drooling in my sleep, I'm almost afraid to get off of it but it doesn't matter, I already left the spot I was supposed to stay in, I won't be getting candy and Momma's so disappointed that she isn't even coming back, I don't deserve either of them, why didn't I listen?

The old buck still won't talk to me because I keep crying but I don't even want to anymore. He keeps bringing food... Momma never fed me like this. It's weird not feeling hungry. Sometimes I don't eat it and he just takes it away the next time he comes in. I can't even really get a good look at him, he smells awful though. I have to have been here for at least a year. I've cried so hard and slept so much it must've been a year, was it my birthday? Was it night or day? I just didn't know. Momma left because I moved.

For the first time he's spoken to me today. Tonight?

"What is your name?" The voice sent shivers down my mane and dragged me from the dreams I wasn't having. It was gravelly, hoarse, wet. Now that I could see his silhouette against the light he must've been dirty, needed a bath. He looked scraggly, a little bony, his Momma must not feed him well either.

"T-Trula Angelique." I said, "Did Momma say goodbye?" Biting back the tears, I was desperate to talk to somepony at this point.

"They rarely do, Trula." he said, trotting slowly closer, "You've got a new family though. You're almost ready to see them."

New family? I hadn't even been paying attention but now that he mentioned it I could hear others, a few colts laughing at something along with a filly or two, the sounds of something clacking together, there were definitely others here, more than just the two of them. "Why can't I see them now?" I asked, biting down hard on the inside of my cheek as my eyes welled up, he was going to leave me in here again. I knew it. There he goes. Again nothing but the darkness of this room. This time it made me mad, I was so ready, he'd talked to me! Why couldn't I go see them!? Why did Momma have to hate me so much!? I screamed. I screamed too long and loud that my voice broke and stopped working. Everything was quiet after that, no more laughing. They'd heard me, they'll come to him and ask what's wrong! I screamed one last time before my voice went quiet again and I started coughing. Beating the walls and the bed with my hoofs, ramming against where the door was, even cutting my shoulder on the rusty handle but I was so mad. It felt like I'd been there for years already!

There were seven of us.

"What do you mean you don't know what the sisters were like? Are you some kinda dumb pony?" The others giggled madly at me, for how dumb I was. I didn't know though, momma never really said anything about it.

"No!" I shouted back, "I know lots of stuff! Just more useful than-than... about your stupid sisters!" I retorted but they just laughed more, some of them pointing at me with their hooves, there were six others in total, another two unicorns like myself and four earth ponies, only one other a filly like me and she was laughing with them, I didn't really care though, it didn't even register really what they looked like.

"Nothing's more important than Princess Celestia and Princess Luna!" One of them took a threatening step closer, the larger brown earth pony with a dull red mane. This time it wasn't funny.

"Maybe if you're some kinda snot nosed prissy pon-" Never got to finish that last word, think that might've cost me a tooth too. I didn't even know somepony could buck that fast and hard! My world was spinning again, an awful copper taste was filling my mouth and I could feel it dribbling out over my cheek as somepony's magic lifted my head and there was that earth pony ag-

Please not this room again...

My name is Trula Angelique, and I am ten years old.

"Celestia protects."

"Luna defends." The seven of us said in unison with our heads bowed in reverence.

"Today is the day that we believe the physical forms of the Sister's fell to the hate of the world around them, having given us one last chance that we threw in their faces. Still their last act was to support each other and save the sinful ponies around them in hopes that one day they might be able to return." The bat winged ghoul before us red from a book that looked to be older than him, the pages threatened with each turn that they might crumble to dust.

I've been here for five years now, first learning to grow up, every time I cried Father put me in that room to let me thrash and flail. I hated that room, it was everything bad in the world. Except for us. Then when I learned not to cry when the others made fun of me Father began to teach me with the others and I learned about Luna and Celestia. He taught us how to fight, the seven of us. Catering to each of our skills, some of the other ponies were amazing at hoof to hoof combat, some were good with bombs, and one of the unicorns I swear would set me on fire just by looking at me.... I wish I could do that. I seemed to be good with a gun but Father kept them locked up most of the time, along with the things that go boom.

"In remembrance of our sins the seven of you will sacrifice something of yourselves. You are old enough to begin understanding this." he said, we all looked at each other now, just for a moment before looking back down, bowing her heads so that we couldn't see the crude statues of the princesses built of rusted plate and spun wire, scrap metal really. It was an affront to their beauty but Father had said that we were not worthy to see what they truly were. This is what we had to settle.

"Each of you will forget your last names. Give them unto the Sisters that they might see your devotions in your small sacrifice and so that you might understand that in the future, they will ask for nothing, but you will give them more. Trula, Garnet, come and sing that we may begin today's training." Myself and the other mare obediently rose to our hooves and approached either side of Father, never looking at him or anypony else before we turned to face our tiny congregation, our family.

Singing in unison we praised the rising sun with our hymn, Garnet's voice was beautiful, I almost wished he would let me stop so we could sit and listen to her. Father taught us that her voice didn't matter though, it was the devotion that we all had to the sisters that made her voice just as lovely as mine. It was hard to remember while she sang though, it was harder not to look. She had a gorgeous coat of brilliant red with a white mane, her eyes were dark, purple really but so dark they looked just black. Everypony here had an eye for Garnet. Maybe one day she'd have an eye for me too. Father said that this was not for me, that she was not for any of us. Listen to Father.

As the song ended we both went quietly to take our seats on the flattened pillows and keep our gazes down away from the ghoul and the statues. "Garnet, you will train with Tank today. Hoof to hoof, the foal that's still standing at the end of the day will eat." Of course she would, never me. "Whisper, you will train with Trula behind the chapel, I will give you both guns and ammo, keep track of your times today." he said, the stipulation was the same, the best got to eat at the end of the day. "Splash, Silver, Erinyes, the three of you will be training with me outside the fence. Bring whatever explosives you wish." I never understood exactly what they did but they -always- trained together.

My name is Trula, I am twelve years old.

I've never seen tank cry before but now we all had, and still were. He wasn't taken to that awful dark room but instead we all watched, out of hoof's reach. Today he'd gotten his cutie mark, a hoof in the middle of broken stone. He was so happy, so thrilled, we were all jealous but not now. Father scolded him viciously for his pride, struck him, his nose was bleeding and one of his front teeth chipped, the pillow stained red from the blood that flowed from the massive split in his lip. Garnet stood beside me, shoulder to shoulder with myself and Erinyes, the three of us mares naturally had a certain bond together. The other three bucks with us formed a semi-circle around the crying Tank.

"This is not a day of pride." Father said, "None of us deserve our cutie marks, we are monsters, terrible creatures scrambling beneath the shadow of the sisters in hopes of their attention like rotten children." He said calmly, stepping between us and Tank, but careful to avoid the horrible brand that now covered both of his flanks, permanently scarring and obscuring his cutie mark. But not enough that we couldn't tell what it was. A reminder that he had something he didn't deserve. The brand was large 'X' right over the center. We all wanted to cry with him. We all hated Father that day.

"Tank's cutie mark shows his strength and passion for a skill that thankfully will be useful for the Sisters in bringing about their return, cleansing the land of the awful ponies that sin and hurt each other. But none of us are worthy of the gifts the Sisters give us. By chance his special skill is an asset to our cause but he mustn't forget that we are monsters. We are not ponies." We looked up at him, almost in disbelief but what he'd said was true, we'd been learning this for so long but... he never said this. "This will be the fate of everypony here." he told us simply, "For now though, we will watch him endure the punishment of his sin." the old bat pony ghoul said as he moved to join the semi-circle between myself and Garnet, the contact ended, nopony touched the other anymore, we all stood apart, watching quietly as Tank wailed, we heard him scream for his mother... what a crybaby.

My name is Trula, I am thirteen years old.

By now we all had our cutie marks, we all had our shame. Every one of us had been seen crying on that same bed from the pain and shame and loneliness we felt after Father branded us. We all had been embarrassed, cried for our mothers, begged for the sister's to forgive us, begged for father not to burn it off. All of that? That was nothing compared to what happened. Father finally had let me train with Garnet. The guns were under lock again. This same exact bed where we'd all shed our tears for the mutilation of our cutie marks despite seeing it happen to one pony after another. Today one of us was about to die. A training exercise.

Today Father had seen fit to take Garnet and I outside the fence into a nearby suburb that was abandoned, for the most part anyways. The two of us were to follow a path that he'd outlined for us and shoot at targets that he'd set up along the way, mostly just old pots or sheet metal targets marked with paint. At the end of the course there was going to be a live target. Garnet and I were just about as good with guns as each other. Being unicorns it simply made the fine manipulation easier for us to pick up though one of the other earth ponies seemed to be quickly catching up to us after discovering rifles. I was just happy to finally get to spend some time with her, to show her what I'd learned and see if she would look my way. I really wanted that.

Anyways, the sound of our small arms fire was almost in sync, we seemed to move and find targets in our separate paths. I assumed the difference was probably just having different courses, targets at different places. That had to have been it after all since our paths couldn't have been mirrored, it's not as though Father built this place. I paused at the last corner though, out of breath from running, trying to make sure that my time would be fast so Garnet would be impressed with me. The sound of the pistol reloading, the chambered round and clicking slide. The live target was supposed to be right around the corner, I didn't know if it would be tied up or leashed, maybe it was another pony with a gun or a blade. Father was not above truly threatening us so I had to be prepared, as soon as the slide clicked forward again I moved.

I've always been the fastest pony. It was a pony, a unicorn, reloading. She was too slow. Before her knees had even bent I was almost on my belly in case she somehow fired back, the gun levitated just above my body, two spent shells falling. One missed, right past her neck, the other hit just inside of her shoulder. The leg, baring her weight, crumpled and she went forward, crying out in shock. I was already moving again, almost on top of her and now her gun was floating beside me under my spell. I was first, I'd won. Garnet would be impressed. If she wasn't trying to stop the bleeding with her hoof, her face ground into the dirt and sucking for desperate breath.

"FATHER!" I screamed! The guns fell around me as I dropped low, trying to lift her up off of the fallen shoulder and onto the other side and pushing her hoof away to almost stand on the wound, "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry Garnet!" I said over and over again as fast as I could, "FATHER!" I shrieked again, why wasn't he here yet!? Father could fly and Garnet was bleeding out!

She coughed, her teeth were staining pink and her lips were darkening from that candy red to a more frightening deep crimson. The slug must've fragmented and hit a lung. Every breath she took sounded like she was sucking through a puddle of water. "S-sit up!" I tried, I didn't know how to fix this, Father didn't teach us much medicine. But lying down had to be spreading it out right Maybe if it all pooled at the bottom. As I tried to lift her up his shadow fell over us. She hit the ground with me this time and my spine felt like a boulder had fallen on it. Father had landed on me and bucked me away, just out of reach of my crying Garnet. But he wasn't helping her.

His hoof was too busy holding me down. I was furious. He was heavy.

"We do not show monsters kindness." He said calmly over my enraged screams and struggles as he held me down almost effortlessly. Even my attempts to bring the pistols around to shoot him were futile. The guns knocked out of my grasp by his wingspan the moment I tried. "The sisters will show us their kindness when we pass. Until then we endure our sins for a greater purpose." he said, starting to grind down on my shoulder as I continued to scream, his weight was enormous compared to a small filly's. Especially one as small as me.

"GARNET!" I screamed out, "GA-" stars. The world wobbled and tilted with me on it. My jaw felt like it'd come unhinged. Father had struck me for my insolence.

"Stop screaming, you've done nothing wrong." he told me as I gasped, trying to recover and floundering beneath the crushing weight on my body and my own disorientation from his heavy hooves. "In fact you've performed marvelously, a little bit slower than I'd hoped but otherwise very well." That awful ghoul's voice. I barely heard it over the other filly's growing whines and sobs. "But we do not show monsters kindness."

By the time things had calmed down my lip had been split, the side of my face was swelling and I could barely see out of my left eye because of that. Bruises and bloody hoofmarks marred my side and head and mane. We do not show monsters kindness. No monsters can give kindness. Monsters do not deserve kindness. Garnet was a monster. Father was a monster. I had become a monster. Tank was a monster. Erinyes was a Monster. Splash was a monster. Whisper was a monster. Silver was a monster. As monsters we knew the fate of a monster and I was to carry her to it. Father would have it no other way. Father was a monster.

I carried her with my magic back, she cried and wailed, choked on her own blood. We do not show kindness to a monster. I don't know how long he'd beaten me but when I finally stopped trying to help her I was almost too tired to care that I was a monster. I couldn't help but want to gallop away every time she coughed. Father walked beside me though and gave me the strength to stay calm as she struggled to live a little bit longer.

Today one of us was about to die. We all knew it. Only Whisper and Erinyes had come out of it unscathed. Tank was almost as bruised and swollen as I was. Splash favored his front left leg. Silver's muzzle was caked in drying blood like mine. Garnet hardly moved as we all watched with father in silence, some of us with swollen eyes, tears barely held but we dared not let them fall. We do not show monsters kindness. Garnet was a monster. A monster was dying today and the only reason that we were there was to bear witness to the work of the Sister's monsters. We stayed and stared as she begged us for help, struggling against her bindings, as she cursed us and pleaded in the same gurgling breath. We said nothing. I offered no more apologies. I hurt far too bad to give kindness to a monster.

After Garnet died we all ate in silence. Father kept close watch as he would from this point on. The old ghoul with those dead, drying eyes of his made sure that we didn't mourn for a monster. When we finished, we all went to our separate beds and slept. Father burned her that night. We were never allowed to speak of her again.

My name is Trula, I am fourteen years old. There are six of us.

"The sisters have blessed us." It's been a year since we last saw a monster's last breath. The world was a better place without another monster like us in it. "Though the sun and the moon hide from our eyes behind that veil of clouds the sisters have given us another day to prepare ponies for their return. Today the six of you have found another milestone. You've all achieved and sacrificed in the process defining your roles in their plan." We've been training since we were just tiny fillies and colts, by now we had found what we were good at and forsaken it. Sacrificed out talents to develop ourselves for the Sisters.

"Celestia Protects." Said father.

"Luna Defends." We replied in unison, staring at the worn ground.

"By the sun's light." Father continued.

"We strike for the Sister's." we returned.

"By the moon's silver cast." Father pushed.

"We cleanse the filth." We gave.

"Under the gaze of the goddesses." He said as he looked up.

"We wither and die." We resigned.

"Blessed be the sons and daughters." Father spoke with us.

"We are not the only monsters in the waste that serve the sisters. Not by their own design but they work to our goal. Some of these monsters we allow to do their work despite their sins because of the goal that they aim to achieve. For example Red Eye and his growing labor of slaves commits himself to wither beneath the gaze of the sisters so that others may come to know Kindness, Laughter, Honesty, Loyalty, and Magic together in a better world one day." As father spoke we listened. His word of the Sisters had brought us all from abandoned fillies and colts with no purpose in the world to monsters with divine purpose. "These monsters must be examined closely, watched and calculated. Sometimes a monster does terrible things to bring the light at the end of an awful tunnel. Sometimes a wicked pony masquerades as a beast with true purpose. The wicked must be cleansed. Celestia protects."

"Luna Defends."

"However without the divine guidance that was once so easy we must find time to discern for ourselves what ponies are vermin and what ponies have become purposed monsters that will see the sister's returned to us." Not once did we look up as he spoke to us. "Each of you will have to make this choice for yourselves in the future, with or without the rest of us." By now other colts and fillies had been abandoned, not as many as us but they were in front of us. Listening wide eyed and curious, for some they were generally interested, others were happy just to have a guiding figure. Regardless, Father would show them they were monsters as well.

"Under the silver cast tonight we will cleanse a tiny portion of our world's filth. A small band of raiders has decided to start encroaching upon our hallowed grounds." Briefly we looked up toward Father, shocked almost, the foals gasping, some of them bursting into frightened whines. A stern look from Father had our gazes returned to the dirt. "The six of you will prove to the Sisters that you're the monsters needed to force change upon this wasteland. The armory will be open for whatever weapons you see fit to take but only one may be taken by each of you." He said and then stomped a hoof, "By the silver cast." he said.

"We cleanse the filth." we stood and left, walking into the night, intent on our task with whispers to the Sisters, prayers for our success. As it turns out we did so unnecessarily, the opposition was a joke. We thanked the Sisters for our strength.

I am a monster, fifteen years alive; there are still six of us.

"We wither and die." We resigned again.

"Blessed be the sons and daughters." And lifted with Father.

We were not allowed to associate with the new colts and fillies anymore, they were taught separate from us. Though most of our teaching was completed, we could all read and write well, we now knew enough basic medicinal skills to sustain ourselves against small injuries and wounds but nothing special. We'd all had time in the wastes to learn how to survive on our own. Many nights we've gone out to cleanse the filth. On some days we struck the enemies of the sister's with Father's help. Too much time had been invested to let one of us die carelessly now after all. We no longer had names as we'd given them to the Sister's after spilling the blood of our first wicked ponies. We were not friends, monsters had no friends. We did not often work together as things went on but when we did it was because we knew the circumstance was too much for one of us to handle. Father had taught us to call upon each other when there was no other choice, but otherwise monsters had no friends.

"You are all becoming something to be feared, there's still a great deal to travel down this road however. Remember that." Father spoke as we listened silently as always, we rarely openly spoke. In fact the only one allowed to was the monster who used to be Erinyes, but not to us. Only to Father. She was gorgeous though... She now sang for all of us when it was called upon, we didn't recall what colors she was though, so many times her mane and fur had been died we doubted she even knew. She was our one link to the outside world, our honey scented butterfly the bait the wicked and lure the innocent into helping us monsters.

Father was to give us two more gifts tonight, the first was another brand. The same that was on the gates that I’d tried so long ago, when I was stupid and foolish, to scrape off the front gates with my bare hooves while high on Dash. A circle made of the Sisters with the sun and moon between them, it fit almost elegantly with the simple Xs that ruined our cutie marks the first time, now even more obscure, the open book on my flank stung with a new burn that I was proud of instead of ashamed. The Sisters would bear witness to all of my sins until my death. I could only hope she would understand and forgive me. If not... I was just a monster anyways.

My name is True Cause, I am sixteen years old.

On the last of our days with Father we were given new names. Father made certain that we didn't hear, except for Divinity. Erinyes. She was the one monster we were supposed to be able to contact. She would act as a hub for anything that required more than one of us at a time. Each of us was given a direction to go in and a name of the city ahead of us, a basic set of armor if we wished and a weapon of our choice, three magazines worth of ammunition. The exception to this was again Divinity. She travelled with Tank and bore with her dresses and perfumes, an abundance of caps.

A nine millimeter pistol was to be my travelling partner along with a slightly stylized if worn set of leather barding that was riddled with patches and unpatched bullet holes, hardened plates of the leather here and there, a long winter cloak, and enough food for the next two days and a small canteen of water. I was headed north first, toward Ponyville as my first stop. From there... only my judgment of the Sister's will would guide my hooves.