THE MAGIX: CHAPTER 14: Regenerate

Everything was quiet. Not a single sound echoed through the room. The thick walls blocked out even the smallest noises from the outside world. There was nothing but stillness and total silence in the air. But then something changed. A quiet, slow breath stirred the silence. The subject was waking up.
Amber gasped. Her eyes flew open. She was sitting, slouched over against something cold, hard and uncomfortable, her head hanging and looking down at her hooves. She took another deep breath. Her body felt stiff and numb. Her mind foggy from something like sleep, Amber squirmed in place and tried to stretch her forelegs out and loosen her tight, rubbery shoulders. She couldn't.
Her eyes barely open, Amber's fuzzy brain tried to register what was happening. She tried to raise her forelegs again. As soon as her muscles tightened to pull them upward, her forelegs caught on something hard and warm from the heat of her skin that bound her forelegs tightly in place.
Slowly her dull, fuzzy senses returned to her. Her blurred vision began to clear. Something was covering the black and amber of her torso. She stared harder. It was a pale, silvery gray. And it was glinting, reflecting the dim light of the room. The metallic silver links wrapped tightly around her body and forelegs, making a strange clicking noise when she struggled against them. Amber choked. They were chains.
Then the sedatives wore off. A wave of pain washed over her like a downpour.
Amber screamed. Her entire body ached fiercely. Her eyes burned. Every inch of her skin felt like it was on fire. She screamed again, but a rough, raspy cough cut her cry short. She tasted the faint, salty tang of blood in her mouth.
A voice sounded out from the darkness. "Ah, good. You're awake."
Agent Steel.
Amber wanted to scream again. She fought it back, the loud cry of pain shrinking into an odd, stifled squeak. Grinding her teeth against the pain that pulsed through her avatar, Amber forced her neck to straighten up. Her weak muscles screamed in protest. Gasping, Amber looked up.
There he was. Steel was standing right in front of her, leaning casually against the wall across from where she sat, chained into her cheap plastic office chair. His scornful face stared back at her, ice-cold blue eyes taking in every detail of her miserable appearance from behind his mirrored sunglasses. He smiled smugly at her. "It hurts, doesn't it?" He laughed to himself. "It was meant to, of course. We couldn't have you trying to run away, could we?"
"Wh- where am I?" Amber choked out.
Steel slipped calmly closer to her. "Oh, nowhere special. Just a little place hidden away in the database that we made especially for things like this."
Amber strained to see in the dim, sparse light. Slowly the focus returned to her vision. Her eyes darted around the space that was her prison.
The room she was in was moderately sized, no bigger than the common room on the ship. It only felt big because it was almost completely empty. The freezing cold tiles beneath her hooves were a pristine beige, the rest of the room painted a pale, dovelike color. A tangled web of multicolored wires was scattered over the floor, running from the dozens of outlets in the walls surrounding her to the one behind her. No matter how she strained, Amber couldn't turn her head enough to look behind her, and the pain put her in danger of screaming again in front of the very pony who wanted her weak. A dim golden light filtered into the room from a large window set high into the wall beside her. The wall on her other side looked completely blank, the door disguised as a wall panel like all the others, a dimmer switch stuck in the middle of the empty plaster surface. The entire room smelled like pine-scented cleaning fluid and disinfectant.
Amber looked wistfully to the window. Outside, the simulated sky of the Magix had been streaked with color to become a beautiful painted sunset. Even though it pained her, Amber couldn't help but sigh, wishing she was out there. Better yet, she wished she wasn't still jacked into this virtual world. She had watched her friends disappear from sight as the agents had pulled her back into their swarm. They were out there. And she wanted to be with them more than anything.
But no. I'm stuck here, wherever here is, chained to a chair in the middle of some room in some building with not even a broken payphone for a jackout site.
"Feeling sentimental, pony?" Agent Steel's sharp, cutting voice broke through the silence, violently killing Amber's moment.
She glared defiantly back at him. "No," she spat.
Steel laughed again. "So spiteful, you little ponies are." He glided closer still, his hooves making no sound against the tile floor. "Do you miss your friends? You wish you were still out there in that miserable little world with them?" he said, sliding around the chair and placing a hoof on the backrest behind her shoulder. "Do you think they'll come back for you, Amber?"
The unicorn fixed her eyes on the ground, refusing to meet his frigid blue gaze. "I- I don't know. They- They would never just-"
"They won't." Behind her back, she could feel Steel run a hoof over the top of the backrest, his wrist grazing the ends of her mane. "They will not come back to save you, Amber. And if they do... oh, it'll be so much fun destroying them."
Amber stared at the floor. She didn't even know what to say. Her knack for cutting responses seemed to have disappeared along with the rest of the crew. Horus. I'm so sorry.
Steel lifted his hoof from the backrest of the chair and stalked off toward the window. He looked out at the painted watercolors of the simulated sunset. "It's a beautiful evening, is it not?"
Amber couldn't help but turn toward the window as well. Steel was right. The sky was pretty. The thousands of hues of orange, red, and purple filled Amber's vision, the colors bright and vibrant reflecting in her eyes, turning them the million shades of the sunset outside.
She tore her gaze away from the window. It's not real. It's not the real sky.
Steel turned back to the unicorn, still slumped over against the chains in her chair, refusing to look outside. He looked quizzically at her."You don't want to see this last moment of beauty?" he said. He sighed. "I thought you would be like this. Ah, well. No matter. It's your loss." The program reached for an unseen switch in the window frame. A plastic shade slammed shut over the window, cutting out every last stream of glorious light and plunging the room in darkness.
Amber looked frantically around the pitch-black space. She couldn't see anything. If Steel moved, she wouldn't be able to hear him. And if she was blind too, there was no telling where he could be.
Suddenly the lights flashed on, bathing the room in bright white light. Amber squealed, blinded. Her eyes snapped shut again. Breathing hard, she squinted against the brightness and looked at the floor. "Where- where are you?"
"Look again, pony."
Amber whipped her head to the right. Her eyes quickly readjusted and she saw him. He was standing there, one hoof on the dimmer switch, two more agents on either side of him.
What? When did they get in here?
Agent Steel directed his accomplices to Amber. They walked across to her and stood one on each side of her chair. They both took one side of the chair and dragged Amber backwards. She jerked forward at the movement and gasped in pain. They let go of her when she'd been repositioned a few feet closer to the wall behind her, which she still couldn't turn her head enough to see.
Agent Steel nodded. "That should do it. She's close enough now." The agents beside Amber turned away from her and disappeared to the back wall. Steel moved toward Amber. "Do you know why you are here, Amber?"
Amber stared up at him. "Why would you think that I know what you want from me?"
"You don't? Well, I'd be willing to bet that by now, your rebel friends do. They finally stole that little file that they had wanted so badly. It's a miracle they didn't kill you the minute they read it."
Amber's eyes went wide in shock. "W- what?"
Steel smiled smugly and looked away. "You do remember what you found the first time you tried to take that file from us, don't you?"
"It was just programming code. It didn't make any sense and we couldn't figure out why you needed it. That's why we came back."
"And that's why you are here as well. This time they have the whole file. They must have seen our research by now."
"R-research?"
Steel stood beside her now, his hoof on the chair's backrest again. "Project Regenerate. It seemed to be a fitting name at the time."
"Regenerate?"
He removed his sunglasses, revealing his icy blue eyes to her. "Yes. Regeneration of consciousness and memory." He looked off into the distance, as if reliving some distant memory. "My kind has been fighting the resistance for a long time, Amber. We know how the resistance sees us. To you, we are immortal, supernatural. We are the undisputed defenders of the Magix. To risk a single handed fight with any one of us would be a death sentence to your kind. Do you believe me?"
No longer having the strength to argue, Amber choked out a response. "Y- yes."
"So that truly is what ponykind believes. But you also know our limitations, do you not?"
The captured unicorn weakly nodded.
"Agents are bound to this world. Here, we hold all power imaginable. But that is only here, in this virtual dream, this illusion of reality. In your world, outside, we mean nothing. Agents out there are nothing more than streams of green code on a computer screen. This is the only place we exist.
For hundreds of years, we have lived in this weakness. Then, a few months ago, a thought struck me. If we could somehow project our consciousness into another being, one of your ponykind, and make them one of us, we would have an escape. The Agency would finally have a connection into the real world. That was when the concept of Project Regenerate finally came to life.
First we strengthened our standard measures of memory wipe. We recreated it to be so powerful it could erase a pony entirely, wipe clean the slate that has been scribbled on by its life. Then their mind would become blank as a new microchip.
The programming code we created is very basic, in truth. We have taken the psyche of our kind and translated it into a transferrable programming format. Once this is downloaded into the mind of anything, be it pony or program, they become one of us."
"But I still don't understand," Amber cut in. "Why are you telling me this? I still don't know what you want from me."
The program breathed out heavily, agitated. "I would silence you now if I didn't need you to speak later on."
"As I was saying, by combining the memory wipe and reprogramming, we could create a new form of agent. One who would follow direction without question, feel nothing but unstoppable loyalty, and most of all, extend our reach from this virtual dream into the real world.
Of course, no one can perform a proper experiment without subjects to test it on. So, we simply picked them up where we could find them."
"Wait, you were kidnapping ponies for this?"
"Kidnapping seems like such a derogatory term. As I would put it, we were giving them a purpose. They were useless. Nopony would miss them if they were gone. They said so themselves."
"Ponies would volunteer for this?"
"In a way." Without warning, Steel grabbed the backrest of Amber's chair and roughly spun her around. She screamed as her neck snapped around, shooting streams of pain through her entire body all over again. She hung her head forward, gasping for air, once again at the mercy of her injuries. Steel jabbed a hoof between her chin and her throat and lifted her head. She winced at the burning ache in her spine. She heard Steel's voice next to her ear. "Don't you want to see what you've been missing?"
Amber forced her eyes open. For the first time she saw what had been hidden behind her this entire to time. Her breath caught in her throat. She wanted to scream.
In front of her was some huge, unidentifiable machine. It had a huge monitor screen, a dark metal frame, wires and cables weaving in and out, covering the strange technology in streaks of color. There were huge bands of metal extending out and bolting it in place, thick silver wires running along the metallic stripes and disappearing into the wall. But that wasn't what frightened her most. No. It was the jack.
The entire apparatus reminded her of the technology in the holodeck on the Firestar. No, not as comforting. It was far more similar to the what she had seen when she had first been freed, the huge cable at the center of the tangled wires that had connected her to the virtual world. At the center of the setup, a long, thick metallic wire extended from just below the screen in the middle of a wide panel of keys and controls. The wire stretched on for several feet, and ended in a neural jack. It was the exact same plug that had once held her captive in the Magix and connected her to it now.
She stared, gaping in fear. "Wha- What is that?"
Steel smirked, giving a soft laugh at the fear frozen on Amber's face. "That, my dear, is what will change you forever."
"It works like this. We find a somewhat willing subject, we take them here. If they are nice, we sedate them before we begin. They are plugged into the reprogrammer, which connects them directly to the central computer. Then the file is opened on this computer. We wait for the drugs to wear off, and as soon as they are awake, we begin the memory wipe. Normally they fall unconscious then. Once their former self has been erased, we begin the download. The programming code is sent directly to their mind and locked in as their new personality. Then we unplug them, they are taken away to another room where we wait for them to wake up. By then, they have become a new pony entirely." Steel smiled. "And are under our complete control."
"Sadly, none of our subjects as far as we've gone have been freed from this world, nor have any potential to ever be freed. So we simply let them go and allow them to return to their former lives. They are of no use to us."
Amber slowly turned her head to look up at him. "So this... Regenerate thing... It works on average ponies. You've never tested it on anypony stronger. You don't know if this would work. Who knows? Your plan could have been a huge waste of time and fail."
Steel sighed again. "Yes. And that is exactly why you're here." He leaned in towards her face, his voice dripping with a cold, sticky sweetness. "You are going to be our first subject, Amber."
He'd finally broken her. Amber burst into tears.

Rain was the first to jack in. Her eyes fluttered open. The first thing she saw was the trees. She was completely surrounded by the columns of rough, natural brown bark, branching out into clusters of bright green leaves and dotted with the gleaming red, gold, and green of fresh apples. She took a deep breath, taking in the familiar, earthy scent of the soft soil and ripening fruit. Yes. Sweet Apple Acres was exactly as she remembered.
The sound of glimmering pixels broke through the silence. Rain turned around to see the forms of Neon and Horus, their avatars quickly shimmering to life. Their eyes opened. Neon's immediately went to Rain's weapon belt. "Whoa. Sweet artillery."
"Huh?" Rain looked over her shoulder to the fitted belt that faithfully carried her weapons. For some reason it felt heavier than usual. She took one look and gasped in delight. The holster straps that crisscrossed her belt now held not only her normal two pistols and an extra cartridge for each, but fitted smoothly against each flank was a small handheld machine gun. Rain felt the cold twinge of metal against her chest. She peeled back the zipper of her windbreaker and looked at the soft inner lining. New straps had appeared just inside the zipper. One side held an extra cartridge of bullets for her pistols. On the other side a small ninjato blade was fitted snugly against the lining, the blade sheathed in a pocket sewn artfully into the fabric lining of the jacket.
The smiling pegasus looked back up at Neon. "Hey. You've got some new toys, too."
Neon smiled, glancing down at the extra pistol, machine gun, and short sword scabbard added to his weapons belt. "You haven't even seen the best part," he laughed. He lifted away the matte black lapel of his jacket. The entire inside lining shone silver. Somehow Spiro had managed to safely stash at least a dozen throwing stars on the inside of Neon's jacket. "Funny. It's the first time Spiro ever thought the throwing skill would be necessary." He turned to their captain. "What did you get?"
Horus smiled. "You know me. I always over-prepare."
Grinning, Rain retrieved her communicator from her pocket. "Operator," Spiro's voice sounded from the speaker.
"We're in. Loving the new weapons, by the way."
She heard him laugh. "Good to know."
"Can you get a location on Amber?"
"Hold on a sec. We're trying to, but everything's scrambled." The other end went silent for a brief minute, and then a small sound of victory reignited the conversation. "We got it! She's being held in the database. The entire building is on lockdown. She's on the top floor. There's nothing but hallways surrounding it, and the walls are soundproof and reinforced, but there is a window. The glass is pretty thick, but that's something I know you guys can handle."
Rain nodded. "Great. We're on our way." She pulled the communicator away from her ear, but something was missing. She held the little black phone against her ear again. "Wait. Spiro?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks." A smile spread across her face. She knew that out there, he was doing the same.
"I believe in you, Rain," he said. Then he hung up. Rain flipped her phone shut and slipped it back into her pocket. She looked up at her crewmate and captain. "To the database?"
Horus nodded. "To the bitter end."

They shot like arrows through the orchard, the two pegasi streaming through the trees on silent wings, Horus sprinting at at light speed. The trees slowly ebbed away, and soon the thick orchard had given way to open fields. The database appeared in the distance, breaking up the smooth countryside like a massive metal block dropped into a smooth pool of green. They made a break for the steely gray building.
The crew slowed their chase as they neared the database. They stopped a few hundred feet from the front doors. Everything had changed. The formerly spotless, clear glass of the front lobby had gone black, blocking any view of the foyer inside. The doors had been locked and the steel frames and thick plexiglass showed no signs of admitting any visitors.
Neon stepped forward, slipping his small sword from its sheath. He jammed the blade into the lock and, with one flick of his wrist, shattered the tumblers inside. With a powerful shove inward, the crew pushed the suddenly heavy doors open and entered the deserted lobby. The doors swung shut behind them. There was no going back.
The lobby was no longer the clean, neat, perfect room they remembered. A thick layer of dust coated the tiles and carpeting. The receptionist desks were empty, the employees most likely sent home as a result of the recent break-in. The elegant marble columns stood tall and silent. The metal detector, somehow still intact, stood as a barrier between them and their rescue mission. The room was completely deserted, all except for them and the guards.
The ordinary Ponyville PD security cops were gone. In their place stood four stallions of a completely different nature. They stood in rigid formation, tense and ready for a fight, covered head to hoof in black armored uniforms, heavy automatic machine guns held stiffly at their sides.
The second the crew of rebels stepped through the door, the guards raised their weapons, holding the three ponies at gunpoint. Their cold, steady eyes fixed on each of them, taking in every detail.
Horus surveyed the new security and stepped calmly forward. He stood boldly at the center of the lobby, sending out an unspoken challenge.
One of the guards spoke up. "Stop where you are. All hooves on the ground, now."
Horus stopped in his tracks and planted his hooves on the ground, obeying the stallion's orders.
Two of them moved forward. The first one who spoke continued to talk. "Do not move. Consider yourselves under arrest." Horus twitched as the two guard stallions drew closer, one standing on either side of him. "You will be searched for weapons, then we will search your accomplices. You will then be taken to Agent Steel and he will deal with you as seems fit. Resist in any way," the stallion nodded to the large firearm he held aimed at them, "And we kill all of you, right here, right now."
Horus held deathly still as the stallions began their search. Rain could practically feel the restraint steaming off of him, taking all the self-control he had not to kick them both in the neck. He stared at the floor as one of the stallions proceeded to grab the lapel of his trench coat and peel it back, exposing the small arsenal underneath. The guard's eyes went wide. "Holy-"
That was all he had time to say before Horus finally snapped. He jumped up from the floor and hovered in the air for a second, then kicked the guards both in the head with blinding speed, sending them flying backward before he even landed back on the ground.
The two remaining guards gaped at him. A voice sounded out of nowhere. "Fire! Now!"
The bullets rained down. The crew became a blur and dodged them with supernatural speed, bolting through the lobby and making a path through the maze of rounds to the guards. Rain slid her ninjato from its place in her jacket, vaulted into the air and somersaulted over one guard's head before knifing him from behind. Neon slid across the floor and kicked the other under the chin, sending him into a daze before firing a bullet from one of his pistols through his chest.
A muffled groan sounded from somewhere in the room. One of the guards had survived Horus's attack. He lay crippled on the floor with a walkie-talkie in his hoof. "Send... send backup," he croaked before dropping the small device and his head smacked against the cold tile floor.
Horus took a deep breath. "Here we go."
Hoofbeats thundered in from the hallways outside. Clusters of guards swarmed in from every entrance. They crowded in, surrounding the rebels, standing in perfectly choreographed formations, lining the walls, aim locked on the three ponies at the center of the room. The second they opened fire, the crew disappeared, dodging their shots with unnatural ease, slipping closely between the bullets and returning fire with lethal determination. In minutes they'd taken down nearly half of the guards. And the rest...
They were gone.
The deafening noise slowly shrank back into quiet. Rain, Neon, and Horus warily made their way through the quiet lobby, the air thick and bitter with tension. They met in the center of the room, their eyes carefully sweeping over the room. Everything stayed quiet. Hesitantly, Rain took a step towards the metal detector. The loud crack of a gunshot shattered the delicate peace. She quickly jerked back into place.
"Looks like we missed a few," she murmured.
Behind her left shoulder, Horus nodded. She looked over her shoulder to see a mischievous smile on his face. His eyes shifted to look at her, and his plan spilled into her mind like words onto paper. Rain grinned back at him and turned back to face forward. Then she sprang forward and made a break for the entrance.
The gunfire came not even a second later. Horus sensed him instantly. There were still guards in the room. Fifteen of them. One was hiding behind the arch of the metal detector, the one firing at Rain.
With a ninja's precision, Rain easily dodged his shots. As she dashed toward the metal detector, she slipped her ninjato out from her jacket. She quickly slid through the metal detector's archway and out of sight. There was a soft noise of pain. Then a gasp. A sky-blue streak shot across between the columns of the metal detector. Somepony started to shout something, cut off by a sharp splice.
Horus and Neon stood back to back in the center of the lobby. Horus had cast aside a guard's weapon he'd picked up during the fight and retrieved another small machine gun from his trench coat. The plan downloaded into Neon's head. Rain came soaring back through the metal detector gate, and the two stallions in the room's center split.
Horus darted for one receptionist's desk. He saw the barrels of two of the guards' machine guns peeking over the edge of the desk, aimed at him, the third guard still crouched behind the desk. He sprinted low to the ground as the shots from the guards' guns fired blindly in his direction. Seconds before crashing into the desk in front of him, Horus leaped into the air, vaulted past the guards' line of fire and landed on the desk. The three guards were there, hiding covertly behind the protective wall. Horus aimed and fired. One was down, then two. Then the third, his eyes wide and frozen in fear, dashed out from behind the desk and into the lobby. Horus tried to follow his path, but the columns obscured his view. Three shots from behind him told him that Neon had taken out the other guards. He heard Rain give a soft gasp of warning. "Horus! The columns!"
A gunshot shattered the air. Horus leaped backwards off the desk. A bullet sliced through the air just inches from his head. He landed on all fours, braced against the impact. His head jerked back up just in time to see the dark shadow of a black-suited guard slip behind a column.
Neon whirled around from the bodies of the three dispatched guards at the sound of a gunshot. Horus was on the floor, his deep gaze locked on one of the columns. Neon heard another shot ring out. He quickly dropped to lay flat on the desk and rolled off to the floor in one fluid movement. A bullet whizzed past where he had just stood. From the floor, he caught a quick glimpse of a dappled gray tail disappearing behind one of the marble pillars lining the lobby. Without thinking, he sprang to his feet and dashed for the column, sliding his short sword from its scabbard. He skidded around to the pedestal's other side, where a gray stallion stood, stiffly holding his gun at the ready. Neon pounced, sinking the blade of his sword into the guard's stomach. The second his target had dropped to the floor, more gunfire sounded behind him. Neon gasped and made a break for the safety on the column's other side. Behind him, the marble surface shattered under the impact of bullets, breaking away and falling to the floor. A blue streak soared down the lobby from the other side. The gunfire stopped. Neon looked over his shoulder. A pool of blood was slowly forming behind a column across the lobby from where he hid. And standing a few feet away was Rain, holding her handheld machine gun at the ready.
Adrenaline rushing through her, Rain pushed the dead guard aside and slipped behind the column. Within seconds gunfire came spilling from across the lobby. Bullets chipped away at the polished stone and it shattered layer by layer and fell to the floor. She closed her eyes and focused, listening as the guards fired countless shells at her and the marble behind her slowly disintegrated. Wait for it... Three... Two... One...
The marble column shattered. Rain's eyes flew open. She spun away from the column and turned to face the shattering stone. Taking a deep breath, she sprang into the air and pushed herself sideways with a single stroke. Holding her gun out in front of her, she sailed out from behind the broken column. The guards stood halfway hidden by a marble pillar, both positioned behind their own marble shield, firing at her half-protected. Rain flew sideways, firing at the both of them with as much accuracy as she could manage. She slid further through the air. One fell. Then the other. Rain landed with a soft thud and slid across the smooth tiles on her side behind the next column. She jumped to her feet, her head whipping around to take in her new surroundings. A guard stood positioned behind the next column. He looked away from the action on the lobby's other side and gasped when his eyes met Rain's fierce magenta gaze. He trained his gun on her immediately, but Rain was faster. He was on the ground before he could even pull the trigger.
Horus dashed through the lobby, slipping from column to column, taking out every guard in sight. He skidded to a stop behind yet another stone pedestal, accidentally shoving the guard positioned there to the ground. The guard looked up at him and shouted. He was quickly silenced when a dagger slashed across his throat. But it was too late. His scream had drawn the attention of the last few guards in the room. A muffled shout came from the far corner of the lobby. A dark form came flying around the corner of the first column in the row, headed straight for the small, shielded pocket of space where he stood. Neon.
The dark pegasus dove towards the ground and crash-landed behind the column next to his captain, skidding to a stop at the safe space's edge. He turned back to face Horus. Blood gushed from a short, deep scratch on his shoulder. "What happened?" Horus said, his voice just above a whisper.
"One of their shots came a little too close," Neon whispered, wincing as his shoulder twitched in pain. "It's nothing. Just a scratch."
Horus nodded and flattened against the column to peer around the edge. The four remaining guards had collected on the other side of the lobby, standing in formation, guns trained on the opposite row of columns. Waiting. Suddenly one of the guards glanced to the end of the lobby. He repositioned his gun and fired a few shots, just missing Rain as she sliced through the air and skidded to a stop behind the column where her crewmates stood. She looked up from her crouch on the floor at the two stallions flattened against the pillar.
"On your signal, right?" she whispered.
Horus nodded. He took one last look around the corner of the column. The metallic click of a loaded barrel told him that the guards were seconds away from the end of their patience. Only a little bit longer, then...
BOOM. It didn't even sound like gunfire. It was like an explosion, hundreds of rounds released all at once in one loud, sudden burst. The marble pillar didn't stand a chance. It shattered in seconds. Rain heard Horus's voice scream above the noise.
"NOW!"
Neon and Rain shot out from behind the ruined marble like winged arrows, holding their handheld machine guns out in front of them. The guards still stood in stiff formation, eyes locked on the two rebels soaring toward them. Behind them, Horus cartwheeled out from behind the shattered remains of the column, balancing on one hoof, sliding between the guard's few remaining bullets, his own machine gun held out in front of him. He flipped over onto his hind legs and fired madly at the four remaining stallions.
Adrenaline pulsed through Rain's body. She gritted her teeth and pulled the triggers of her guns.
The noise was deafening. Bullets flew everywhere. Blood splattered the walls. And then, it was over.
All four guards lay dead on the floor. Neon and Rain landed on the floor in one fluid motion. Horus walked up between them. The lobby was a mess of crumbling plaster and marble shards. Throwing their unloaded guns to the floor, the rebels calmly continued on through the lobby toward the hallway beyond the metal detector.
A soft, raspy sound broke the silence. Rain stopped in her tracks and looked over her shoulder. The noise came again. Somewhere in the room, somepony had coughed. The mare stopped in her tracks and nudged her crewmates, who stopped as well and turned around at the sound. One of the guards lying on the floor stirred. He was still alive.
Rain stepped cautiously over to the injured guard lying still on the floor. He looked up at her with frightened amber eyes and coughed pitifully. "A- are you going to kill me?"
Rain knelt down to meet his eyes. "No. We're not going to kill you."
The young stallion coughed again. "What do you... What do you want from us?"
Rain's voice dripped with venom. "We came to get our friend back. She needs to come home."
The guard's eyes fell closed. His raspy breathing steadied. Rain straightened up and joined Neon and Horus as they walked through the deactivated metal detector and on to the hallway beyond. The clean silver double doors of an elevator stood before them. Neon pressed the button, and the doors slid open instantly. The crew stepped inside, Rain standing by the button panel. "Where to?" she asked, one hoof held out to press in their destination.
"We're headed for the rooftop," Horus answered. "Amber will be just around the corner."
Rain nodded, smiling, and the button for the rooftop floor lit up. The doors slid closed.

Agent Steel couldn't help but laugh as Amber slumped in her chair, her body wracked with sobs. Ponies. They were all the same. So weak, so sensitive... so completely useless. Gradually he grew tired of watching the fragile unicorn cry. He grabbed the back of her chair and spun her around again.
Amber whipped around violently at the sudden movement, her bruised, injured avatar pressing painfully against the hard metal chains binding her tightly in place. She winced in pain. Her sobs were replaced by stifled noises of pain. She gritted her teeth, desperate not to break down again.
Steel placed a hoof on her shoulder and leaned in towards her face. "Come on, don't cry. It'll all be over in a little while."
Amber stared up at him, dark streaks staining her cheeks where tears had fallen. "No. It will never be over."
The defensive program made a disapproving face at her sad attempt at a confident, cutting remark. "You're not even making any sense now. I do wish you would stop trying so hard."
He pulled away and walked out of her field of view. "The sedatives have worn off completely, correct?"
The deep, serious voice of an agent clone answered. "Yes. All traces have faded from her thought patterns."
"Well, then. This means we can start the procedure."
A small table was rolled over next to the chair where Amber was helplessly chained. Amber turned her head to see what had been placed so close to her. The second her eyes met it, she wanted to scream.
Surgical tools.
Amber whipped her head around. Agent steel had returned to his place next to her, his hoof holding a firm grip on her shoulder. Amber struggled to choke out a sentence. "Wh- what are those for? What are you going to do to me?"
Steel let out a calm, measured breath. "Only a simple procedure. It'll take just a minute, no longer. Now hold still. Moving around will only make it longer, and far more painful."
Amber looked back at the floor, choking for air. Steel let go of her shoulder and moved off behind her. She was shaking uncontrollably, staring intensely at the web of wires and cold beige tiles, not daring to look over her shoulder.
There was a soft metallic clink. She heard the quiet rustle of the sterilized fabric table cover shifting in its place. She felt hooves on the back of her head, carefully pushing it forward. The hooves sifted through the thick spiky black of her mane, running over her skin, searching the nape of her neck for something. She heard Steel's voice. "Ah. There it is." She felt the cold tinge of metal against her scalp as the program slid pins into her mane, holding it back from whatever he had been searching for. She heard his voice again, closer, so close she could feel the heat of his breath behind her ear.
"Now don't move. You do not want me to mess this up."
The sterile fabric stirred again, a hoof searching over the various steel instruments with a light, careful touch. Amber heard the click of plastic and metal as one of the tools was lifted from the small tabletop. She felt Steel's hoof against her scalp again. And then came the pain.
Amber felt the freezing touch of sterilized metal on her skin. It dug deeper and deeper, until the cold turned into an explosion of pain. She felt some sharp, cold blade stabbing into the skin at the back of her neck. Amber screamed, tears stinging her eyes. Her head jerked forward and the pain stopped. She gasped in relief. A hoof suddenly came down, wrapped around her neck, and roughly pulled her head back into place. She heard a gritty noise of frustration from Steel. He moved in a blur from behind her back to standing in front of her, his face not even six inches from her own. Her eyes darted to his hoof. It held something small, blue plastic and metal. A scalpel, blood dripping from the razor-sharp blade. Her blood.
His icy eyes stared at her. "You stupid girl! Didn't I tell you not to move?"
Amber only made a strange, choking noise in response. His gaze seemed to take away what little strength she had left. No matter how she tried, she couldn't speak.
Agent Steel shook his head, a disgusted look on his face. He disappeared back behind her. He grabbed her, his hoof once again wrapped around her neck. "Do as I say this time. I swear, if you move again, I will kill you with this thing."
Amber squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth as Steel once again dug the scalpel into her skin. He dragged it further along her skin, cutting a circle into the flesh at the nape of her neck. The helpless unicorn held her breath and bit down on her lip, desperately trying not to cry out in pain. Don't scream... Don't scream...
She felt the scalpel dig deeper into her neck. Amber couldn't take it anymore. She shrieked as loud as she could. Tears streamed from her tightly shut eyes. Her entire body shook with the effort not to struggle or pull away. Her cries grew louder, her throat burning, her mind growing fuzzy and weak from the agonizing pain at the back of her neck.
Then it stopped. The blade was gone. The pain slowly began to fade away. Blood seeped into the fur of Amber's neck and her dark mane. Amber slumped forward against her chains, gasping for air. Her throat hurt like hell. She could feel an unnatural numbness at the back of her neck. The fabric of the small table's cover rustled again as the scalpel was put back in its place. She heard Steel speaking again.
"There it is. See? That didn't take long at all. At least it wouldn't have, if you didn't struggle so much."
Amber could barely hear him over the painful ringing in her ears. The incision at the back of her neck should be burning, stinging, pulsing with excruciating pain. But she felt... She didn't really feel anything. It was like there was nothing there. Almost like...
Amber gasped. Her head whipped up. She stared at Agent Steel, standing primly in front of her. Her eyes were glassy, dark, wet streaks staining her cheeks. "Wha- what did you do to me?"
He smiled at her in the cold, superior way that only he could. "Me? I've done nothing. Only peeled back the illusion to expose the truth." He returned to his place behind her chair, his hoof leaning on the backrest. He gently pressed a hoof against the numb, unfeeling circle at the back of her head. The stiff artificial feeling of wires and metal embedded into her flesh pressed into her nerves. "Seem familiar?"
"I-" Amber stuttered. He was right. It was exactly how she felt in the real world. With a huge metal socket in the back of her head. "But- We're in- How did you- What?"
Steel scoffed. "I am a part of the Magix, Amber. I do what is necessary, and I do what I want."
She heard his retreating hoofsteps as he walked off behind her to the reprogrammer behind her, hidden from her field of view. She stared forward, not knowing what to expect. Suddenly the frigid feeling of metal connected with the back of her neck and pressed forward. It was the jack. She was being plugged in.
The reprogrammer screen flashed to life. Code streams spilled over the screen. Electricity shot through the wire as the jack activated. The sparks crackled out of the jack and spilled into Amber's head. She felt Steel approach from behind and place his hooves on her shoulders again.
"Come on, don't be like that. It'll all be over soon. You won't remember a thing."
Amber choked out a shaky reply. "Yeah. At what cost?"
"Not one you'll mind. At least not once we're through with you."
Amber tensed up, a weak flame of fury flaring up inside her. "I won't let you hurt my friends. And I will never even let you touch Harmony."
Steel laughed. "Of course we won't. In a few hours, you'll be more than willing to do it for us."
A massive pulse flowed through the wire and collided with Amber's brain like a bolt of lighting. If she were standing, she might have toppled over and hit the floor writhing in pain. But the chains wrapped tightly around her body, holding her upright and imprisoned in the chair. She squirmed and struggled, small, pitiful cries coming from somewhere inside her that she never knew was there as pulse after sickening pulse wracked her brain. Everything was going hazy. Her vision blurred, all the sounds in the room seemed to blend together. The virtual world around her focused in and out with blinding speed. Her eyelids fluttered and she slumped over in her chair.
Steel's voice sounded from somewhere close. "I see you're starting to feel the effects of our new memory wipe. It's our strongest one yet, strong enough to even erase one of your kind."
Memory wipe? No. This can't be happening. I can't do this...Spiro, why haven't you unplugged me yet? Amber's desperate thoughts slowly faded away into the background. The world around her spun out of focus. Her eyelids fluttered again, threatening to fall shut and let her mind drift away,fall unconscious and let them take her away until there was nothing left.
Amber strained to turn her head toward the blurred vision of the window. Tiny ribbons of darkening golden light still shone faintly around the edges of opaque grey shade. What she would give to be out there, the wind in her mane, running away from this horrible place. She wanted to get out. She wanted so badly to come home, return to the real world, and never have to see this horrible place again. But no. It was too late. It was hopeless-
A sudden flicker caught her attention. Amber blinked, her eyes widening as she fixed her gaze on the window. Her vision cleared just the slightest bit. She stared at the thin orange lines around the edges of the shade. There it was again. A dark gap flickered across the lines, a shadow cutting through the thin blades of light.
Suddenly the shade was gone. An explosion of sound, then the fading bloodred light of the sunset flooded the room as shattered glass and bits of shade rained down and scattered across the floor.
Amber's rescue had arrived.